by Barry Pollard
[When there are five Sundays in a month it is the custom of Tairua Anglican Church to run a Sunday worship service entirely different from usual practice, which means, essentially, anything novel (and appropriate) is possible – as per the most recent Sunday, 30th July – Editor’s note]
Despite the catchy title, there was no clandestine showing of the Clint Eastwood movie. We’ll give you a promotion poster to compensate:
The Anglican lectionary readings for the day were from Genesis 29, Romans 8 and Matthew 13, and each of these revealed an aspect of expectation, congruent with the theme.
The Genesis reading is the story of Jacob’s agreement to work for Laban for seven years in anticipation of marrying Laban’s beautiful daughter, Rachel. The deal goes south when Laban tricks Jacob, by substituting his first-born daughter Leah for Rachel on the wedding night. To resolve the predicament, Jacob agrees to work for Laban for a further seven years to get Rachel as well! But, a story where hopeful expectation turns bad!
The Romans reading tells of our right standing with God through Jesus, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, given to us “to lead us into all truth.” We are told that nothing now can separate us from God because, “No one will condemn us, for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honour at God’s right hand, pleading for us”. That surely is an extremely good and hopeful expectation!
The Gospel reading for the day was simply Matthew 13:33: “Jesus also used this illustration: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.'”
The unravelling of the parable was provided by Dr Brant Pitre, a Catholic theologian, who explained that yeast was regarded as unclean by the Jews; hence the focus on unleavened bread at the time of their religious festivals. He emphasised how the small amount of yeast spread through the huge amount of flour is a great analogy of how sin invades the world. And it was in Dr Pitre’s telling of how the dough was usually covered and put aside to rise in the dark that we had a revelation that this parable parallels the way in which Jesus dealt with sin. He took all of our sin at the Cross and lay for three days in a dark tomb before emerging, risen and clean! Surely another example of extremely good and hopeful expectation!
So, having given good and bad examples of expectations, Canon J John, an Anglican educator and evangelist, provided the “ugly”! One of J John’s video clips, entitled “Miraculous Expectations” was shown.
In it, J John tells the story of the mother explaining to her daughter that she is pregnant. She tells the little girl that after the pain of labour and the birth she can expect a new baby brother or sister at Christmas. Nature takes its course and the home is full of joyful celebration at Christmas with the arrival of the new sibling.
The next year, as Christmas is approaching, the mum asks her daughter what present she would like for Christmas. The child answers, “If it isn’t too painful Mummy, could I have a pony?”
Expectations, eh?!
stfrancischurchtairuanz 