Sunday morning worship: Majoring on the Minors, wk7 - Haggai & Zechariah

READINGS/
Haggai; Zechariah 1:1-6, 16-17; 8:1-12 and 9:9-10

SERMON/

‘Rebuilding your broken world’: 

Haggai and Zechariah, God’s encouragers

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.

A friend and I have an ongoing joke. One of the things we like doing when we manage to grab time together is just hanging out:
you know - having a pizza, solving world peace, and then, seeing if there’s a movie on the telly
or some such. Inevitably one or the other of us will pick up the ‘doofer’ – or whatever you call it in your own home – and start flicking through the channels.

The problem is, we have quite different taste when it comes to movies.
Then it depends what mood we’re in:
do we really want to watch that important, yet very earnest and worthy film,
or do we want something lighter?
Can we cope with the bloodthirstiness of an action film,
or do we want something gentler?
Comedy?
Musical?
Eventually, all avenues are gone through and we turn to a tv programme
that tends to be on at any given time –
so the joke is, that when all else fails,
you can always depend on ‘Grand Designs’.
I confess to being a bit of a fan.
While there are a whole host of new home designs that are planned and built,
it’s the projects that deal with restoration that grab my attention:
from 16th century tithe barns,
Victorian life-boat sheds,
to underground water containers,
to ancient, crumbling small castles...
it’s amazing to see the imagination and ingenuity put into each of these
restoration and rebuilding projects.
And, while at the beginning of the project there’s a lot of rubble and debris,
and often various difficulties along the way,
for the most part, the end result is usually stunning.

Our readings this morning find us in Jerusalem in the year 520 BC...
Around 70 years before this, the Babylonians had
defeated the Southern Kingdom of Judah,
destroyed Jerusalem and the temple,
and taken away into captivity large numbers of the population:
the ruling elite, the professional classes, artists, musicians, and artisans.
All were taken to Babylon.
But Babylon eventually fell to the Persian Empire,
and, their leader, Cyrus the Great, released the captives –
or, at least, those who were by now mostly descended from the original captives.
Eventually they make their way back to Jerusalem...

I wonder what it would have felt like?
Initially, perhaps relief and joy:
they are no longer captives, but free.
Perhaps a sense of hopefulness:
they can go home –
although for most of them, the only home they’ve ever known
is the might and majesty of the largest city in the then-known world, Babylon.
Off they travel, back to the land of their fathers and mothers.
42 360 of them.
As mile upon dusty mile is travelled, what are their dreams, their expectations?
When they finally arrive, they have to watch how they go:
they find themselves walking through rubble and debris –
the signs of a conquering army and its destruction of the city all around them.
As they pick their way through the remains of the shattered city,
I wonder if any of it is familiar to those who were young when taken away,
and who, by now, are very elderly?

The great city is a ruin, although, in some places, those who were left behind,
and others who have moved into the area,
have made their homes among the wreckage.
They live there, just getting on with it.
They watch as the exiles return – resenting these new intruders.
There may be trouble.
As the exiles look around at the ruined city, and remember the grandeur of Babylon,
how many were thinking that they’d rather go back?
How many felt helpless and overwhelmed?
But things could change.
The ruins could be cleared.
It didn’t have to stay this way...
And so they begin:
they make shelters,
begin to lay the foundations for the temple.
At some point, however, what with hostile neighbours to contend with
and wanting to get themselves sorted, the plan to fix the temple comes to a halt.
Years pass.
And into the ruins of this once great city come Haggai and Zechariah.
They’ve got a word from God.

Haggai is the first prophet to minister to God’s people after their exile.
For a period of 16 weeks he proclaims God’s message.
Essentially it boils down to this:
‘okay, you’ve come back.
You’ve begun to settle.
You’ve made homes for yourselves,
begun to plant crops,
to tend vines,
to restore the olive groves.
You’ve sorted out the live-stock.
In fact, you’ve been so focused upon yourselves
that you’ve forgotten to look at the bigger picture.
Now you’ve got all these things,
you’re discovering that you’re not quite satisfied.
Life’s not just about meeting the physical needs:
you are my people...
that empty, niggling, unsatisfied part
is because you’ve forgotten the spiritual needs.
You’ve forgotten me in the midst of all of the other stuff.
You’re not going to feel whole, 
fully restored as a people,
until you put me into the picture.’

And so, God, through Haggai, calls upon the people to rebuild the temple:
a symbol of God’s presence with them.
The physical presence of the building acting as an encouragement to them –
reminding them of who they are and who they belong to.
They are the people who were chosen,
they were the people who God rescued from slavery,
they are people of the promise,
in relationship with the Maker of all things and the restorer of all.
God doesn’t need a house –
but God knows that the building will be a symbol of the relationship
between him and them.
Visible confirmation
that God is with them every step of the way,
that God is with them even in the broken, ruined places,
and that God will be there with them,
cheering them on,
loving them,
telling them how great they are,
and that, yes, they can do this...
that they will prosper again.

Zechariah, too, talks of restoration:
rebuilding the temple, and restoring the relationship between God and his people.
God says:
‘I care!’
‘I’m involved!’
‘I’m in this mess with you!’
The broken city will be rebuilt,
a broken people will be restored.
There’s lovely encouragement within the vision of Zechariah,
‘old men and old women will come back...
sit on benches on the streets, share stories,
move around safely with their canes.’
This, in the context of so much previous conflict, that many didn’t make it to old age.
But here we have the restored Jerusalem as
‘a good city to grow old in.’
It’s not just a good place for the elderly:
boys and girls will fill parks, will play and laugh...
the restored Jerusalem is shown as
‘a good city to grow up in.’
And more encouragement:
if the present situation looks overwhelming,
when you keep seeing all the many challenges and problems,
and you don’t have enough people,
and it’s all feeling just a wee bit too much...
God says:
‘Is anything too much for me?’
And the answer is ‘no.’
God will bless his people,
they and the city will be restored from out of the ruins.
All that has been broken will be healed, made whole...
And, in God’s right time,
he will raise up a new kind of king –
not a proud, war-like, arrogant king but one who is humble –
who rides the donkey, not the war-horse...
who will bring restoration and peace
not only to Jerusalem and her people,
but will restore wholeness and well-being and peace to the whole world.
God’s grand design goes beyond just a temple being restored:
we’re talking nothing less than everything.
The exiles listen to Haggai and to Zechariah:
the temple is rebuilt,
the worshipping life of the community can now more fully take place –
a symbol of the restored relationship between God and his people.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes, as I look around me,
it feels as if so many things are broken:
governments are in chaos; [c.f. scenes from HofC Tues evening: PM's statement]
the rule of law seems on shaky ground;
the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than it ever was;
general human decency and compassion seem to have taken a bit of a beating...
almost as if there’s an undercurrent willing us to tear everything down,
to tear one another apart.
A broken world...
where the basic foundations have crumbled.
That’s the wider situation.

And what of the Church?
I wonder, how many of us feel it’s broken?
Once there seemed to be a golden age:
pews were filled,
there were children and young people everywhere...
And all we can see now are empty spaces,
the wider church shrinking,
going into survival mode,
telling stories of the good old days,
or hunkering down with the thought:
‘as long as it sees me out’
and not quite prepared to make the radical changes needed
to see that it’s fit for purpose in these current days,
or to look ahead to the future.
Sometimes, it can feel like we’re standing in the ruins of the temple...

And then, how many of us just feel broken –
feeling as if our own life is in tatters,
feeling that we’re walking in our own ruins?
To this broken world,
to this broken church,
into our broken lives...
God says:
‘I care!’
‘I’m involved!’
‘I’m in this mess with you!’
Just as God reminded his exiled people in Jerusalem
that he loved them,
that he was with them,
and that they would be restored,
so God reminds his modern day followers that same message:
the God of the Ages is with us.
If we feel that the present situation looks overwhelming,
if we can only see the challenges and problems,
if it’s all feeling just a wee bit too much...
God says:
‘Is anything too much for me?’
And the answer is ‘no.’
God will bless his people:
the world,
the church,
each one of us...
will be restored from out of the ruins.
All that has been broken will be healed, made whole.
And, God has raised up that new king spoken of so long ago to the returned exiles:
that king rode a donkey into Jerusalem –
to shouts of acclamation and waving of palms.
The birth, the life, the death, and the resurrection of that king
meant restoration for us all,
and that, in him, we have become living stones –
a new kind of temple not made out of rock, but of flesh and blood;
God’s grand design created and made in love
and called to be a sign and symbol among the ruins -
of ongoing restoration,
of the building of God’s kingdom,
built upon the foundation of God’s love,
a place where the broken are mended, restored, and given new life.

As we look around at our world,
at the church
at our lives –
nothing is impossible for God to restore,
for we worship the God of the grand design
who, from out of brokenness, creates beauty.
It is that same God who calls us to be a community of restoration -
of rebuilding:
the world,
the church,
and broken hearts and lives.
God says:
‘I care!’
‘I’m involved!’
‘I’m in this mess with you!’
And calls us to care enough to get involved in the mess with him.
Without God, nothing is possible.
With God, nothing is impossible.
Our sign and symbol is Jesus.
And we do that great work he calls us to
in and through the power of God’s Spirit.
Walking with God, and with one another –
encouraged by each other –
we build a place where it is good to grow old,
and good to grow up:
where all feel safe,
where all can play,
where all are restored
for all live in the knowledge of the power
of God’s love. Amen.

Sunday morning worship: Majoring on the Minors - Habakkuk, the patient prophet

READING: Habakkuk 1, 2, and 3

A wee reflection as if from Habukkuk's point of view: 'Climbing';
a story - rewritten but keeping to the spirit of the one told by Saki: 'Falling';
and a sermon: 'Three questions'...
helped us to discover more about God's message through his prophet Habakkuk.

Here, below, the sermon

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.

‘Are you listening?’
‘Will you save me?’
‘Will you deal with all this bad stuff?’

Three questions.
Age-old questions.
Questions that people of faith have asked God down through many a generation.
Questions that cut right to the heart of faith:
of the nature of God – the One in whom we place our faith;
of the nature of faith itself;
and, of how we live as people of faith.
These questions,
asked by Habakkuk the prophet toward the end of the 7th century
are questions still pertinent to us, sitting right here, and right now.

If we make time and space for them,
if we sit with them awhile,
if we wait on God and tune in and turn up our spiritual antennae,
the Minor Prophets –
these obscure books, generally neglected at the back of the Old Testament...
do have something to say to us still.
We just need a little patience
and patience is the key word
when it comes to unlocking the message of God through his prophet, Habakkuk.
Our man, Habakkuk, and his oracle,his prophetic message,
is a little different to the other chaps we’ve so far encountered.
In the main, all of the other prophets have proclaimed God’s message to an audience –
the kingdoms of the north and south: Israel and Judah.
Here, Habakkuk is doing something a little bit different.
Where our other prophets were preaching, Habakkuk’s a praying prophet:
what we’ve heard from him is a prayer –
a conversation with God,
a conversation where he asks God those big three questions.

You see, Habakkuk’s been looking around.
Like our other prophets
he’s seen the corruption and misuse of power;
he’s seen the nation rotting from within and without;
he’s seen the bad guys crushing the good guys way too many times...
And he’s upset.
He looks around and what he feels he doesn’t see
is God doing anything at all about it.

And so, right from the very beginning of his message, he wastes no time:
there’s no wee biographical introduction –
no ‘the son of whoever, who was the son of so and so,
during the time of the King What’s-his-name’.
Habakkuk gets immediately to the point:
‘How long, O Lord, must I call out for help, but you do not listen?’
...Are you listening?
‘Or cry out ‘Violence!’ but you do not save?’
...Will you save me?
And a little later on:
‘Why do you tolerate the treacherous..
Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?’
... ‘Will you deal with all this bad stuff?’
He is distressed.
His heart belongs to God,
his life’s aim is to follow in God’s ways,
his task is to point to God
so that the people of God continue in God’s ways....
Why?
Because in faith, Habakkuk understands that to follow in God’s ways,
to place your trust in God,
is to not only make your own private world
a better, more ordered, more content place,
but it makes the world itself a better place.
Fulness of life, a life worth living.
He is distressed
because people aren’t listening,
aren’t following in God’s ways,
and individual lives,
the life of the nation
and the life of the world
- it's all going from bad to worse.
He watches the mess people make of their lives and of the world around them
and begins to wonder:
if the people aren’t listening,
is God?
Because, it really doesn’t feel like it.
He is distressed –
he has some major issues with God:
‘Are you listening?’ he asks.
And having got that off his chest,
he takes a deep breath and takes up his post as God’s watchman:
a watcher on the wall looking out for signs of God,
even though he feels God is off having more fun elsewhere.
Habakkuk leans into his faith,
tries to get past this hopeless feeling,
and gets back to his job at hand...
Faith involves patience –
this is what we learn from Habakkuk.

What we also learn is that,
even though it may feel that God is not listening,
or that God is not at work in the world,
God’s own nature –
as the One who loves the world –
is why God can’t do anything else
BUT listen,
but be involved and active.
But you need to look at the world through the lens of faith.

Habakkuk is distressed.
Habakkuk is frustrated.
Habakkuk throws out the questions:
‘Are you listening?’
‘Will you save me – the nation – the world?’
‘Will you sort the bad stuff?’
And God comes right back at him and says
in no uncertain terms:
‘Yes. Write this down.’
And the message is this:
‘Be patient.’

Then you get a very interesting thing happening as God
continues to answer Habakkuk’s questions –
especially on the matter of staying silent,
of tolerating the wicked...
letting them ‘get away’ with their wickedness.
God points to the behaviour of those who are doing wrong
and says ‘watch closely’
and shows Habakkuk an age-old truth:
that God doesn’t have to do that much –
you reap what you sow.
Whether your entire focus is trying to get one up on your neighbour,
as in the case of Mrs Packletide,
or whether you’re hell-bent on grabbing power,
at some point,
the obsession will cause you to overreach yourself
and you’ll find yourself falling.
For the most part, God doesn’t have to do overmuch in the case of the wicked:
generally, they sow the seeds of their own destruction.
Or, to use that other old expression:
‘live by the sword, die by the sword.’

God’s answer to Habakkuk is to be patient.
It’s to keep watching, to keep waiting.
But waiting isn’t necessarily a passive thing –
to wait is an act of faith,
believing that God hears,
that God will do something,
that God is playing the long game
and in God’s good time
all will finally be ordered
in God’s good way.
To wait, in faith, is an active thing:
we trust in the vision of the future
that God shows us,
and, as God’s people,
we invest our own lives in working towards that future –
climbing up our watchtowers to see what’s happening in the world
and to hear God speaking...
and also climbing back down to be in the world
to be God’s messengers both in word and in action.
I’ve said it before,
I’ll say it again:
one person can make a difference.

A year ago, a lone 15 year old girl decided to go on strike from school.
She sat, by herself, against the wall of her country’s Parliament,
with a placard with a message about climate change.
Nobody knew her name then.
A year ago.
Now, unless you’ve been living in space, everyone’s heard of her:
Greta Thunberg.
And on Friday she made her protest again in New York,
except this time, millions of people around the world decided to join her
as she proclaimed her message.
Sure, there was the thorny matter of trying not to create a bigger carbon fooprint
than she needed, to get to New York, but she made it work in the end.

As God’s people, we have a message to proclaim.
And as we proclaim it,
we have to deal with the thorny issue of working out how to live this odd life of faith.
What is faith?
The reformer, Martin Luther said that:
‘Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, 
so sure and certain that the believer would stake his or her life on it.’
It’s ‘a divine work in us which changes us and makes us to be born anew of God.’
Faith is daring to believe that the God of the universe
does hear us when we pray, just as Habakkuk prayed.
Faith is daring to believe that God will save:
us, our nation, the world...
Faith is daring to believe that, when it comes to the wicked,
God has that one covered as well.
And faith dares to believe that,
as we go about our everyday lives, our everyday work,
just as Habakkuk did,
that God uses us in the big and in the small
to change the world.

Habakkuk asked three questions of Gd:
‘Are you listening?’
‘Will you save me?’
‘Will you deal with all this bad stuff?’
I think those questions can be flipped
and asked of us:
‘Are we listening... to God?’
‘Will we save others... as God has surely rescued us?’
‘Will we deal with all this bad stuff – working alongside God,
inspired by God’s vision of the world?’
Amen.

Sunday morning worship - Majoring on the Minors: Zephaniah and the God who sings

READINGS: Zeph 1:1-18 and 3:1-20

SERMON/ ‘Because you’re worth it’
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’m sure you’ve seen it on the telly:
The camera is looking at someone who has their back to us.
While we can’t see their face,
we can see their beautiful, long, lush, and shiny hair –
hair so shiny that the light is fairly bouncing off it.
There’s a move of the neck and with it,
the hair flicks, rippling wonderfully, wondrously across the screen:
such perfect, fabulous hair.
The person turns to camera, holds up a plastic bottle and says:
‘Beautiful hair?
L’oreal.
... Because you’re worth it.’

'Because you’re worth it.'
It’s a great tag-line a tag-line that someone like Zephaniah
would be rather pleased with as he ponders God’s dealings with his people.
But let’s start at the beginning.

At the start of our service this morning, I mentioned in passing that Zephaniah’s
message might just be a little more upbeat than some of the previous prophets
we’ve been spending time with.
‘Thank heavens,’ I hear you all say.
Amos was all about justice;
Hosea was all about faithfulness –
and as part of getting God’s message across to the people,
Hosea married a woman who, for whatever reason,
found it hard to remain faithful to her man.
Micah was a man on a mercy mission.
All of the prophets so far having incredibly important themes and messages...
big stuff, but, gosh, it’s.... been... hard... work:
it’s not an easy thing to spend time with prophets –
in the main, they’re pretty full-on kind of people.
Into our prophetic mix, today, we meet Zephaniah:
and Zephaniah’s all about joy –
all about the God who sings,
the God who rejoices over us.
Shiny, happy Zephaniah –
except his book doesn’t exactly start out in a shiny, happy kind of way:
you have to work a little at it, but, keep going, because in the end,
it’s worth it,
it’s awesome.

By now, those of you who’ve managed to be here over the weeks
we’ve been looking at the Minor Prophets,
might be getting a sense that within our books of Minor Prophets,
there’s a wee bit of a common pattern, and, you’d be right.
First, we get a little intro about our prophet.
So, today, in the beginning of the book of Zephaniah, we find out a wee bit
about his ancestry - it’s a bit like the bible meets the show ‘Who do you think you are?’
We find out that Zephaniah is the son of Cushi.
His Grandpa is a chap called Gedaliah...
we get back as far as his great-great grandfather.
We also find out that Zephaniah is living in the time of King Josiah of Judah...
so, he’s a southerner.
And where Amos and pals were mostly living in the 8th century,
Zephaniah is more a 7th century kind of boy.
All of that biographical stuff, just from the very first verse.

How does the rest of the pattern go?
We get into the message itself:
generally finding out what terrible things the people have done,
and how far they’ve strayed from God.
If you like, think of this as the:
‘Okay folks, here’s the thing...’ section.
Then we usually have potential punishment:
with our 8th Century prophets, it’s the Assyrians waiting in the background,
ready to make life difficult –
basically they’ll act us a wake-up call to God’s people –
as a wee nudge to turn back to him.
This is what I call the ‘here’s what’s going to happen to you lot’ section.
And then, we have last part of the formula:
God saying, ‘actually, here’s the thing, while you do deserve to be punished,
I can’t find it in my heart to hurt you, let’s work something out.’
The initial call for the people to repent
ends up with God having a change of heart:
they’ll suffer for a bit, but, he’ll spare them –
it will all work out in the end.
And this last is the:
‘hey folks, although you really, really mess with my head, I really, really love you,’ section.
So, that’s the basic pattern of a prophetic book.
And, Zephaniah’s not that different.
If you read the opening chapters and even up to half-way
through the final chapter,it’s pretty horrific.
God’s had enough and says:
‘that’s it, no more, I’m going to destroy it all.’
Except this time, it won’t be the Assyrians, it’ll be the Babylonians:
seems no matter what the period in history,
whether it’s the Iron Age or the current age,
there’ll always be some hungry for power dictator or empire
ready to swallow up those more vulnerable in the world.

As you work your way through Zephaniah,
there’s list upon list of grievances that God has against the
various peoples of the world.
Remember:
this is supposed to be the shiny happy prophet...
And oddly, having got past all of the grief that God has expressed –
because, actually that’s what’s been happening:
God’s been singing a lament...
in the last half of the very last chapter of Zephaniah,
suddenly, it’s as if the sun comes out and everything is bathed in light.
God has sung through his disappointment,
has sung some very angry ‘I’m going to burn the whole place down’ songs,
and come back to a place of love –
remembered his people,
remembered their flaws,
remembered that they are imperfect
and also remembers that perfection is a process:
these are his people,
created in his image,
and they’ll get it wrong time and time again,
and God will be with them every step of the way, no matter what –
because that’s what love looks like...
it doesn’t wait until perfect has arrived, it wades in:
into all the sorry mess,
and tries to clear a path through,
to point the way,
to say
‘I’ll take your pain,
I’ll bear your punishment,
I’ll delight in you,
I’ll comfort you when it all gets too much,
I’ll sing love songs to you.’
Suddenly, in the last section of Zephaniah,
the radiance of God’s love is dazzling:
is full of hope and promise –
there’s no room for despair,
for God’s love song will lift the people out of it,
will inspire them to see themselves as God sees them –
as intricately crafted beings created by God in love,
and made in God’s own image.
And if you haven’t worked it out yet,
Zephaniah’s message isn’t just to God’s people in the 7th century –
it to God’s people now:
us.

God’s love song of rejoicing calls for a response –
and within Zephaniah, it’s an answering cry of rejoicing:
as God sings a song of joy and love to us,
so we sing a song of joy and love to God.
Zephaniah reminds us that what we find at the heart of worship –
what worship is all about
is our response to God’s song of love to us.
We may have to wade through some tough stuff so that we can get to the place
where we hear the song of restoration, and rejoicing,
where we discover anew God’s love for us,
but the journey is always worth it.
God’s in the restoration business because God loves.
God’s in the business of rejoicing, again, because God loves.
That’s Zephaniah’s message:
that to respond to God in love,
and to choose to rejoice in God,
are the very blocks on which
we should build our lives.

It’s interesting to me that, often, this last chapter of Zephaniah is one
that comes around generally in the season of Advent –
that season of watching and preparing for Christmas.
There’s a great poem written by Madeleine L’Engle, and I make no apologies at all
for the fact that this is a Nativity reflection.
It’s called ‘First Coming’:

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine.

He did not wait till hearts were pure.
In joy he came to a tarnished world
of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!...

God, the great singer of love songs to us,
sings the greatest song of love there is,
in sending us Jesus...
there are words of love,
and there is the one true Word of love.
God sent Jesus,
because...
in God's eyes,
we’re worth it. Amen.

Annual Church Coffee Morning a fun raiser and a fund-raiser

It's back - and all are welcome!

Come along to Roberton Village Hall and

join us for our annual coffee morning -

glorious home baking,

great company,

good blethers...

what's not to like?

See you tomorrow!

Sunday morning worship: Majoring on the Minors wk4 - Micah, on mercy

This morning we welcomed members of the Guild and marked the beginning of a new session by dedicating the year ahead, and remembering the many projects supported by the Guild.

We continued with our series on the Minor Prophets
and this week, spent time with the prophet Micah.
Rather than one sermon, there were several reflections across the service...

READINGS: Micah 1:1-2 and 5:1-5; and Micah 6:1-8; 7:14-20

REFLECTION 1/ 'Meet MICAH: an introduction'
As we move into our time of listening to God’s word,
we’ll be hearing from the book of the prophet Micah –
set in the mid 8th century before Christ. So, a very brief introduction.
Underpinning all of the books of the prophets is power:
what is power,
who has power,
how is power used,
and what are the effects of how that power is used?
There’s an interplay between how people understand and use power,
and how God understands and uses power –
and for the most part, there’s quite a difference in understanding and use.
Often, the work of the prophets is to speak truth to earthly power.
And we see this underlying theme at work within the Book of Micah.

Micah was a contemporary of Amos and Hosea –
both of whom God called to work in the northern kingdom of Israel
and whose task was to urge the people there to turn back to God.
The people of the north had fallen far below what God required
when it came to living as God’s people:
the rich elite grew wealthier and wealthier off the backs of the poor,
they had corrupted the legal system so that judges and officials
could be bought with a bribe;
everything was set up in such a way that most of the population
bore the brunt of the ruling elite’s ongoing greed and misuse of power.
Added to that, as we saw from Hosea, they were unfaithful to God:
decided that other gods might be more fun,
might give them what they wanted...
might even give them more power.

Micah was called by God to work in the southern kingdom of Judah.
He lived 25 miles south-west of Jerusalem:
a man from the country who God sent to work in the city.
Reading his words, you can see that the southern kingdom
was going the same way as the northern:
the rot was setting in,
and Micah was sent to Jerusalem,
the seat of power in the southern kingdom,
to warn the people – especially those in power –
to turn their hearts to God and change their ways.

As you read the book, you find the way it’s set out is a wee bit
like being in the midst of a court room:
God arguing his case against the people...
the people making their case against God.

Micah’s name means ‘who is like God’
and, as the people are confronted with this prophet of God,
whenever they see him,
whenever they hear his name,
the great question quite literally facing them is:
‘who is like God?’
And the answer...
is no-one.
Toward the end of the book,
there is another big question:
‘what does the Lord require?’

REFLECTION 2/ ‘A "powerful" tale’
Let me tell you wee story...
from another world, and from another time.

The great lords ruled the world, protecting it with their power.
They were seen as wise, as benevolent.
Surely, the very least the peoples of the world could do
was to bring offerings,
to pay tribute by way of thanking the lords and by way of caring for them –
providing the bounty of the land
to ensure that the lords kept up their strength,
retained their powers.
Caring and giving offerings to their lords meant that, in turn,
the peoples of the world would continue to remain under their kindly protection.

But the people had been sold a lie.
Far from protecting them, the lords had come to their world
on a quest to preserve and protect themselves.
They had taken the real power that had protected the world,
and hidden it deep within the foundations of their mighty castle.
This power –
a great crystal which was the life-force of the world –
had been harnessed by the lords so that they could feed upon
its lifegiving energy
and so cheat death itself.

However, as the years drew on,
it seemed that the more the lords drained life from the crystal,
the less life there was –
for them, and for the world.
Even as the lords felt their powers waning,
beyond the walls of the castle, the world itself was beginning to wither and decay.
The lords, desperate to be immortal,
through cruel experimentation,
discovered that if they drained the life out of the people
and fed it back into the crystal,
they could extract and drink the pure life-essence of the people,
and in doing so,
retain their strength,
their power,
and their lives.

When the time came for the different villages and peoples of that world
to make their offerings,
a new request came from the lords:
to provide seven volunteers from each village to come and work at the castle.
As weeks went by, odd stories began to surface.
The people began to hear of strange happenings in the castle;
whispered rumours of those who entered the gates never being seen again.

To cover up their deception the lords told more tales –
span a web of lies that seemed credible and yet, somehow, didn’t quite ring true.
Craftily explaining the strange disappearances away,
the cunning lords continued to act the part of benevolent rulers
even as they drained the very life from their people.
But in time, the lie was uncovered:
instead of merciful and kindly lords who ruled justly, and who protected them,
the people discovered that they needed to protect themselves from their lords,
or perish utterly.
With all pretence now gone,
the arrogant lords began to systematically round up the peoples of the world,
and congratulate themselves for their cleverness -
‘Who is like us?’ they would proclaim from their palace,
‘The peoples bow before us and comply, and those who resist are crushed like gnats.’
And a darkness and fear fell upon the land and its peoples...

It’s a tale of power,
of selfishness, cruelty, and greed;
a tale of rulers who would do everything
to ensure that their needs were met whatever the cost.
In their desperate quest to cheat death and to stay at the top,
they would sacrifice the people of that world
and the very world itself until nothing remained.
They would do it through deception, and false news at first,
and show their true selves at the last through cruelty and brutality.
They wielded their power unjustly,
without mercy,
and with supreme arrogance...
and the consequences were disastrous....

REFLECTION 3/ 'Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God'
The story we heard before our hymn, is essentially the prequel to
the story told in the movie ‘The Dark Crystal’,
but, it could easily be the story of the rulers and peoples of the
northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah...
and perhaps it even serves as a cautionary tale for our own times.
As the prophets watched those in power,
so too, as God’s people, we must watch those in power carefully;
scrutinise their words and actions,
and read between the lines of news reports.
And having done so,
ask ourselves,
our communities,
and those in power:
how is power being used?
Who is benefitting?

Prophets like Amos, Hosea, and Micah
show us what both good and bad governance looks like.
And power used to serve its own ends,
power used without consequence or mercy
never ends well for those who are the most vulnerable in society.
In this, the words of Mahatma Gandhi are as fresh now,
as they were when he uttered them, that:
‘the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.’

Micah reminds us of what the Lord requires,
of how we should use our own power,
of how we should live our lives,
of how the community of God’s people should live...
of the ideal community
that is pointed to by God through the prophets,
and through his Son,
namely the kingdom of God.
‘What does the Lord require?
To do justice, 
to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with our God.’ 

Justice, without mercy, is vengeance, retribution:
eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth stuff.
If we only followed pure justice,
eventually the world would be completely full of blind and toothless people.
Justice without humility –
without a sense of ‘there but for the grace of God go I’
is about ego:
a wee power trip,
and even taking pleasure in bringing someone down.
In God’s kingdom,
the proper use of power is found in the way that it weaves
both justice and mercy together;
justice, with mercy,
extends a hand and raises people up;
justice, with mercy,
demonstrates a letting go of ego:
to walk humbly means to have the imagination
and the ability to walk in another’s shoes –
empathy.

As Amos explored justice,
so Micah examines mercy,
but what is mercy?
We hear the word bandied about time and time again throughout the Bible.
Mercy was famously defined by Shakespeare in his ‘Merchant of Venice’,
the verse that begins with:
‘The quality of mercy is not strained...’
Shakespeare sees the power of mercy,
and the use of mercy when in power:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.’
He goes on to say that,
as mercy is an attribute of God,
so a ruler who exercises mercy with power
is then modelling the power
in the right way,
in God’s way.

Yet the quality of mercy,
and the exercise of it,
is not just confined to those who rule nations.
We, each in our own way have power –
in the way we make choices:
in the way we see others around us,
in the manner in which we act toward others
who may be more vulnerable than ourselves.
So, as a community –
one way we exercise our mercy as God’s people in this small corner of the kingdom –
is through practical projects such as our food bank initiative.
I have personal experience from this very week that our small efforts
truly did help one of our neighbours.
I can’t say more than that, but know, please know, that your mercy,
shown in supporting our food bank,
made a difference this week within this very parish.
We may not rule over nations, but we have our small spheres of influence.
When we think:
‘how can I, one wee person, make a difference in a world so full of need?’
remember the words of Anita Roddick:
'If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.'

As God has shown mercy to us,
redeemed us, loved us,
called us to be his people,
and called us to speak truth to power...
how might we show mercy and love to others?
How will we choose to use the power we have?
What choices will we make?
How will both the qualities of mercy and justice combine
as we navigate our life of faith
and try to do what the Lord requires?
And...
‘What does the Lord require?
To do justice, 
to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with our God.’ 
Amen.

Annual Church Coffee Morning: a fun raiser and a fund-raiser

It's back - and all are welcome!

Come along to Roberton Village Hall and

join us for our annual coffee morning -

glorious home baking,

great company,

good blethers...

what's not to like?

See you there!

Annual Church Coffee Morning: a fun raiser and a fund-raiser

It's back - and all are welcome!

Come along to Roberton Village Hall and

join us for our annual coffee morning -

glorious home baking,

great company,

good blethers...

what's not to like?

See you there!

News and events wk beg. 2 Sept

The Clydesdale Food Bank box is back over the Sundays of September.
A note from Food Bank:
We are low on all the basics- 
dry pasta and rice, tins of soup, beans, spaghetti, carrots, peas, sweetcorn, hot and cold meat meals, pasta meals, fruit, custard, rice, jars of sauce for pasta and rice, instant noodles and savoury pasta and rice, cooking oil, salt, tea, coffee, sugar and biscuits, toiletries and cleaning materials.
Thanks for your generous support of this community project.

Sun 8 Sept:
9am: Prayer group meets this week. All welcome to come along.
Don’t forget to place any prayer requests into the striped box in the vestibule.
10.30am: Morning worship and Guild Dedication
6.30pm: Music & Meditation service at Holy Trinity Chapel, Lamington.
Reintroducing this more contemplative style of worship now that the works
on the Chapel are nearly complete.
In a busy, noisy world, join us as we make space for some quiet reflection...

Sat 14 Sept., 10.30-12pm: ANNUAL CHURCH COFFEE MORNING in Roberton Village Hall.
Make sure to put this great event into your diary, and to tell everyone you know!
If you’d be willing to help via:
providing baking, jams/etc, items for the tombola, be helping hands on the day,
please do let members of the Social Committee know – they’d be delighted to hear from you.
Contact: Janet Telfer 01864 504265

Centenary Poppies Project:
last year we marked the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI by creating a large knitted poppy display.
Nikki would like to gather a small band of volunteers to help detach the poppies
from the display – over a cuppa either a morning or afternoon.
The Centenary poppies will then be available for purchase via donation [min. £1]
and all monies raised will be given to both Help for Heroes and Poppy Scotland.
UPDATE: WE WILL BE MEETING THURS 10.30am in the Church Hall
[there'll be cake!!]

Minister’s day off this week: Monday

Sunday morning worship: Majoring on the Minors wk 3/ Hosea and the loving heart of God

This morning we're in week 3 of our series on the Minor Prophets.
Our prophet today is Hosea, working in the mid 8th century BCE - a contemporary of Amos...
We also shared in the sacrament of Communion together.

READING: Hosea 1:1-11; 6:1-11 and Hosea 11:1-11; 14:1-9

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.

Just for a wee bit of fun, I want to play you all a piece of music –
and basically, you get a chance to ‘name that tune!’
       [music & fade...]

So, who can name that tune?
[the Flamingos with ‘I only have eyes for you’]

If ever a book in the Bible were to have a theme song,
I suspect that the theme tune for the Book of Hosea theme tune might just be this one.
While there are a number of strange things said – and done – in this book,
the overarching message is of God’s faithful love.
Just as the admiring lover in the song, so in Hosea, God only has eyes for his people.
Nothing can distract God from that love,
nothing can dissuade God from loving them;
no matter what the people do,
no matter how short their attention span,
or no matter how badly they behave,
God will still love them.
It doesn’t mean God won’t get angry, or hurt, as we hear from the text,
but God will never let anything get in the way of his love for his people.
And to show that, God sets the prophet Hosea a very particular task:
to not only proclaim the message of God’s love verbally,
but to proclaim it visually.
Hosea must live his life in a way that demonstrates God’s message.
His own life will be like a parable in action that shows the message of
that unfailing love of God.

Now, on occasion in the Bible, other prophets are asked to do particular
actions by way of proclaiming God’s message.
For three years, Isaiah spends his time walking about barefoot and naked...
to demonstrate that the Assyrians would strip away everything that
belonged to God’s people,
and that they’d be marched away from their land naked and in chains.
The prophet, Micah, also spent some time doing this – for the same reason.
...Possibly it’s helpful that the climate is mostly hot...
Meanwhile, Jeremiah wears a wooden yoke –
this is to symbolise the yoke of captivity that Judah will wear when Babylon has conquered it.
Ezekiel – well, he does a whole lot of really weird stuff:
he cuts his beard with a sword.
I mean, a razor’s tricky enough, but to use a sword is pretty edgy.
He shaves off his bead and divides it into thirds.
One third of his beard is set on fire;
he scatters another third around the city and stabs it with the sword – as you do;
and the final third he casts into the wind.
Or, another example from Ezekiel:
he draws a picture of Jerusalem under siege on a clay tablet.
He then gets an iron pan and puts it between him and the drawing,
and spends 390 days on his side just lying opposite the drawing.
When the 390 days have passed, he basically rolls over and spends
another 390 days just lying there –
not the most exciting of messages to watch, I suspect.

And what of Hosea?
Hosea shows God’s love in two ways:
as the faithful husband,
and as the loving father.
First, Hosea is called by God to get married.
On the surface, that doesn’t seem too difficult a task but the marriage is to demonstrate
the unfaithfulness of the people of God towards their God.
The woman that Hosea marries is ...
well, let’s just say she’s not like the lover in our song earlier,
she’s not the kind of person who’d only have eyes for her husband:
she likes to keep her options open,
to hang out with other guys.

Just as Gomer, Hosea’s wife, will chase after other men,
so, God is saying that the people of Israel chase after other gods:
the love of God is not felt to be enough – they want more,
even though their God is the One who is able to supply all their needs.
Maybe they don’t like to feel like they’re keeping all their spiritual eggs in just one basket?
For the person wanting good harvests, sure, pray to the God of Israel,
but hey, there are all these other fertility godsvto pray to – Baal and company:
don’t just place your bets on the one god, right?
'Actually,' says God, ‘wrong. You’re like Gomer, unfaithful.’
At some point, Gomer leaves Hosea.
She 'belongs' to another man.
To demonstrate God’s faithfulness, Hosea pays a price to bring her back and reconciles with her.
Here, we see God’s desire to reconcile with his people:
yes, they will turn away but God’s constant love will cause them to turn back.
So, in a nutshell, in the first part of the book:
God calls Hosea to marry Gomer,
and to keep on loving her,
to never give up on her,
and in so doing,
to show to God’s people that this is like God’s love.

Later in the book – especially seen in chapter 11,
is the other demonstration of what God’s love is like:
we see the father heart of God.
Hosea, as father to his children, knows them –
has been there with them since birth,
has taught them to walk,
nurtured them,
championed them,
held them in the dark reaches of the night when they’ve cried out in fright;
has guarded and guided them.
As Hosea has been a loving father to his children, so God is loving father to his people.
Having brought them out of slavery in Egypt,
God has adopted them as his own,
has looked after them
and given them a chance at a new life –
and not because of anything they’ve done:
God just chooses to love them.
It’s not a reward for good behaviour, it’s just pure, undeserved grace.
And throughout Israel’s history,
God, as any loving father, will go to the uttermost lengths to take care of them.

And what about us?
What can we take away from this prophet from the 8th century before Christ?
Hosea teaches us about the constancy of God.
Just as God only had eyes for his people in the 8th Century BC,
so God continues to only have eyes for his people in the 21st Century.
We may find ourselves distracted:
by gadgets,
by money,
by weather or work worries,
by all sorts of things that we think we need to make our lives better, more meaningful.
We may find ourselves chasing after gods of our own making to fulfil our needs,
or even to hedge our bets like the people of Israel.
But we don’t need to;
God’s love is all we will ever need:
our anchor and our safe harbour in any storm.
In a time of deep unrest in our nation,
in a time when even our very democracy looks to be in question,
when the whole world as we know it seems to be shaky
and everything we’ve thought of as reliable is sinking,
the message here in Hosea is to turn your eyes back to God –
who only has eyes for you,
who is the constant in the midst of the change that’s all around us;
who calls us to come back and to make our home with him.
It’s a message about One who is faithful,
One who has loved us since time began and who will love us for the whole of eternity,
and, who, in and through his Son,
invites us to sit at the banqueting table as honoured guests and friends,
and to share in the great feast of love:
a feast brought to us at a great price,
paid for in a stunningly sacrificial act of love on a cross
on a hill
long ago and far away...
not because of anything that we, ourselves have done,
but because we are God’s people,
and because he is our God.
Amen.