stfrancischurchtairuanz

‘Costly Love’ is his name

by Bruce Gilberd

(Based on Mark 1:29-39, I Cor 9:16-23, and Isa 40:21-31)

I will attempt to address three questions this morning.

What kind of God is God?
What kind of God is my God?
What kind of God is your God?

A student training for the ordained ministry went to see his tutor in theology.
“I can’t go on,” the student said. “I don’t believe in God any more.”
“Tell me,” said the tutor, “about the God you don’t believe in.”
The student explained his current understanding of God – who he thought God is and what he is like.
“Well,” said his tutor, “I don’t believe in that kind of God either.”

In a moment I will invite you to silently consider what noun, verb, adjective best describes how you experience God at present. The possibilities are limitless, and can change over a lifetime. What name or description of God is most meaningful to you today, from your own experience of the Divine, and your reflections, and from your journey of faith?

Who is God to you?

[Silence … 20 secs …]

So, are some of us willing to share our key understandings of the Divine at this time?

[Sharing …]

Today’s readings abound in images, descriptions and names for God:

Isaiah:

Psalm:

Corinthians:
Mark:

the creative
majestic
empowerer
the gracious
healing
Creator
[God is beyond us, yet intimate]
the sender
the compassionate one
healer
and empowerer (through prayer)
purposeful (Jesus ‘must go on to another town’)

All this shows us that whatever our deepest understanding of God is, we can always go still deeper, and go still wider – there is always more of God to experience, receive, name, and share with others …

This raises the question of spiritual growth, of quest, of journey – ever deepening quest into God and into life; and, harvesting meanings from all our day to day experiences, both the seemingly trivial and also the significant experiences and turning points of our lives.

In the twentieth century there was a rather eccentric yet deeply insightful Anglican Bishop of California – James Pike. He wrote a very important book [Doing the Truth] in which he made these two points. The first is that thankfulness is the core trigger for all ethical living – and he stresses truth and costly love as essential for personal holiness and community well-being.
The second is even more relevant to our theme this morning:

what we value most,
to whom or what are we most attached,
what we long for most, and
what we would miss most if taken from us …

that is, in fact, our God! (Whatever else we may say!)
This is quite alarming really!

when we are told our health is the most important
or even family
or things
or lifestyle, and so on …
NO! They are not. They can, in fact, become idols.
A dynamic and developing relationship with the living God is to be top loyalty – then, everything else falls into its right place. Strange that!

So, God is the one we are to love with all our heart, and mind and soul and strength … and our neighbour as ourselves.
Why? Because he has first loved us. That is who God is and what God does – today, in this church, and in this village.

For me, Costly love is his name; Costly love is what he does; Costly love is our calling!
Amen.

Unsinkable Jean Brown

Last blog I mused about having friends. See here. We’re all keen to have friends, but what if there are no friends to be had? And there are many reasons why we might be friendless, alone.

Google has plenty to say about this. As did our friend, Jean Brown.

An internet search shows,

having no friends may be discouraging, but it doesn’t mean you’re fundamentally broken! Our worth isn’t solely determined by our number of friends. Plenty of jerks have large social circles. Plenty of good people have been lonely.
a lack of friends is almost never because our core personality is at fault. It can be due to many things: we’re not knowledgeable about the skills for making friends; we’re shy, socially anxious, or unconfident to pursue friendships; we don’t mind being alone, and so don’t have as much motivation to go out and meet people as someone who constantly craves company; our current situation (eg, we just moved to a new city, our old friends moved away, I work a lot of hours, live in the middle of nowhere); etc. See https://www.succeedsocially.com/nofriendsworries.
you don’t need a good social life to have friends. There’s a lot you can do on your own, which will give you things to talk about and lead you into company with people with similar inclinations.
the term ‘loner’ may have taken on some negative connotations, but it doesn’t mean being one is a bad thing, by any means. See https://bestlifeonline.com/loner-signs/.

Get the drift?

My wife, a rest home staffer, was planning a Scottish ‘event’. As part of her preparation she wrote to a Scottish newspaper, asking for some useful contacts for the event. There was only one reply, from a Jean Brown.

Jean Brown, now deceased, became my wife’s lifelong pen pal! She was a spinster from a small Scottish town, who, we learnt as time went on, had no one she could call a friend. But she proved to be inspirational as an irrepressible loner. She used to describe, with joy and delight, nature documentaries she watched on TV – as if she’d been personally there (in the river with the hippos), often declaring, “Aren’t we so lucky to be able to see these things, without having to go there?” She would go on all-day outings to museums, libraries, parks, beach promenades; studying flowers and birds and maps … and describe them to us in immaculate miniature hand-writing, any mistakes lovingly corrected with tiny bits of paper and rewritten over. And would send us clippings from newspapers and museum brochures and TV guides, and explain to us why these clippings were important to her.

Jean Brown became, for us, the quintessence of a contented friendless person, and taught us just how overrated having friends can be!

If you feel like a loner sometime, take a leaf out of Jean Brown’s playbook.

… with real authority

by Barry Pollard

(Based on Mark 1:21-28, I Cor 13:1-8, and Ps 111)

“The people were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority.”

Mark, in my view, is a gospeller who gets to the bottom of things quickly and doesn’t add any frills. The first chapter begins straight into the ministry of Jesus with our meeting John the Baptist, a direct pointer to the coming Messiah! When Jesus meets John the Baptist amazing things start to happen. At the point of the baptism of Jesus, John the Baptist witnesses the heavens opening and God’s voice proclaiming the authority of His Son!

Last week Pat spoke about the call from Jesus to the disciples and their willing and immediate response. Without any more than a summons – no explanation, no time period, no job description – they just dropped what they were doing and left, following this remarkable man.

And today we have heard that when Jesus began his teaching ministry the audience were amazed at what he had to say and the way he was saying it, recognising that he had a real authority – unlike other teachers! Such an authority that spirits moved at his command.

The man in the synagogue possessed by the evil spirit cried out, “Why are you interfering with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” Isn’t it interesting that the spirit named Jesus? Doesn’t that speak to the authority of our Lord? I have been pondering too the prophetic nature of the words the spirit used: Why are you interfering with us? Jesus certainly came to interfere with us. He came to put us back on the path of righteousness, to restore our relationship with God.

Going on: the spirit declares, “I know who you are – the Holy One of God!” Another authoritative declaration about who Jesus was. And, interestingly, as he did on a number of other occasions in his early ministry, Jesus reprimanded the spirit, commanding silence, as if the truth the spirit was speaking was not ready to be heard.

But the audience was already overcome with amazement! “What sort of new teaching is this?” they asked excitedly. “It has such authority! Even evil spirits obey his orders!” And so the news about Jesus spread quickly throughout the entire region of Galilee.

Amazing! Miraculous! Authoritative!

Authoritative with a difference.

Let’s dwell now upon the Corinthians reading: In working through an issue that the early church was grappling with, Paul states that “we all have knowledge” about issues. And while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church. Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much, if they don’t share their knowledge with love. After all, God recognises the person who loves Him.

I think this is all about disposition. It isn’t so much what we do, it is how we do it. It isn’t so much what we say, it is how we say it. Paul is pointing out that the model, the amazing authoritative model Jesus gave us, is based on love. If our focus is on a loving God, and we are trying to live a life modelled on that of Jesus, then whatever we do will have a good chance of being done in love. Whatever we say will have a good chance of being said in love.

Consider these two situations:

How do you feel when someone tells you information as if it’s gospel-truth, they are the expert, you are the dozo, and that’s all there is to it?

I rail!

On the other hand how do you feel when someone tells you information in a manner that allows you to have input, to question, to feel that you are making sense out of it all?

I love it. That’s one of the reasons I come to this church!

In the first example, I suspect the focus of the knowledgeable one, the giver of the information, is them. In the second, the focus is the receiver of the information that is being shared. The first is done without consideration of its effect. The second is done with consideration of its effect. The first, without love. The second, with love.

Paul, to the Corinthians, concluded his explanation of the detrimental effect this first approach has on others, telling us that sharing this knowledge without a loving delivery could cause major harm to “weak believers”. “But you must be careful so that your freedom [actions and behaviour] does not cause others with a weaker conscience to stumble.” He referred to this as ‘sinning against others’. Verse 12: “And when you sin against other believers by encouraging them to do something they believe is wrong, you are sinning against Christ.”

So, the observers in the synagogue had detected a change in the way the teaching, the sharing of knowledge, was delivered. They recognised that Jesus had a new sort of authority. Nothing like they had experienced before. My understanding of the way the Pharisees and religious leaders behaved puts them very much in the ‘unloving’ model. On the other hand, Jesus, being the very epitome of love, could only teach in love.

I read an interesting thing about love in my devotional the other day. Every Day With Jesus has changed hands, so to speak, this year. Instead of the very sound teachings of Selwyn Hughes forming the bulk of the daily offerings, a new approach has been adopted by the new appointee to the role of writer, and we are now dealing with a shift away from reading Scripture to hearing his version of events and, as a self-confessed introvert who had a weird upbringing, this approach seems to be miles off course for the regular readers who have been clamouring for a return to what we all know and love. Anyway, Micah Jazz reported this from Psychology Today: ‘Love does not come with conditions, stipulations, addenda, or codes. Like the Sun, love radiates independently of our fears and desires’.

This resonated well with the ‘epitome of love’ descriptor.

The love Jesus showed was radiated independently of us. It wasn’t conditional, didn’t come with rules, had no riders attached, and didn’t have to be deciphered. Jesus came loving us. We didn’t have to ask or desire. He came to give himself entirely for our benefit. This is a thing of beauty and wonder. It marks a very special sort of authority indeed.

Biblical commentators say the Gospel of Mark has a focus on the servanthood of Jesus. So His authoritative teaching is another example to us of the way He served others, by making them the focus – how He serves us, making us the focus.

And our Psalm (Ps 111) today reinforces that authority of Jesus:

In verse 3: Everything he does reveals his glory and majesty.

And verse 10: Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true wisdom.
All who obey his commandments will grow in wisdom.

If everything He does reveals his glory and majesty, His teaching style is an example to us. The fact it stood out to those attending the synagogue should be no surprise.

When the Bible refers to the “fear of the Lord”, it means having a deep respect, reverence and awe for God’s power and authority. Rather than causing us to be afraid of God, a proper “fear of the Lord” leads us to love Him.

If we adopt this reverential disposition and follow in his way, then we will get the maximum benefits his Christian life offers. Although Mark doesn’t tell us what Jesus was teaching that day, perhaps this was the point that Jesus was making in the synagogue, by word and action!

I close by repeating the Collect for today: Holy One of God, as healer and teacher of the faith, your words astound, and transform the lives of many. May we teach your word and be bold in our actions, so that your presence will be revealed. For you are alive and reign with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Trust and Obey

by Pat Lee

(Based on Mark 1:14-20)

We’ve all heard the verses of today’s gospel reading before, so the challenge for me was to find something that was different, but at the same time relevant to both the time for which it was written and for us today. I chose a paraphrase of verse twenty as the ‘sentence’, because it was the one that leapt out at me when I read it. This verse refers to James and John and it says he called them “and they followed.” It is similar to verse 18 which says, after Jesus had called Simon and Andrew to follow him and he would make them fish for people, ”And immediately they left their nets and followed him”. They are words of obedience and trust.

One of the writers I read while researching this suggested that these four men may have already met Jesus before this encounter beside the Sea of Galilee. Jesus had probably been in this area many times as Nazareth was within walking distance, but he had not aroused interest before, because his time ‘had not yet come’ for him to start his ministry. They would have seen him as an insignificant carpenter. A few verses in the middle of the first chapter of John’s gospel support this idea, at least for Andrew and Simon:
Andrew and another person had been listening to John the Baptist speaking when Jesus walked by and John exclaimed, ”Look – the Lamb of God!” They started to follow Jesus who asked them why they were following him. They answered, ”Where are you staying?” “Come and see,” Jesus said. “They saw where he was staying and stayed with him until about the tenth hour (or four o’clock).” Andrew then went off to find his brother Simon to tell him that they had found the Messiah. He took Simon to Jesus who looked at him and said, ”You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas, translated as Peter.”

But this does not detract in any way from the significance of today’s gospel reading. As I said before, the verses in Mark speak of obedience and trust. As far as we know, they did not ask any questions, not a single one like, ”Hang on a minute. Where are we going? What are we going to do? How long will we be gone? What should we take with us?” They don’t ask any of these questions. They just get up and go. Notice that they don’t even bring in their nets. They leave everything, including James’s and John’s father, Zebedee. I wonder what he thought about it? They simply obeyed and trusted.

We all know the story of Jonah and how he ended up in the belly of a whale when he disobeyed God. But God gave him a second chance. Doesn’t God often give us a second chance too? He told Jonah to go to Nineveh and proclaim the message that God gave him. Jonah walked through the city of Nineveh for three days proclaiming that in forty days the city would be thrown over. But the people and the king heard his message and turned from their evil ways. Jonah had obeyed God and saved the city of Nineveh.

I was living in Masterton back in 1977 when Jesus called me. At that time I was a member of the Masterton Amateur Theatrical Society (MATS) and was their Wardrobe Mistress as well as a member of the cast. We had a huge wardrobe which was full of all sorts of costumes and period clothes. I hired out clothes for centenaries, fancy dress balls and other functions all over the country. It kept me pretty busy. I also had a husband and three young children, did relief teaching, as well as doing two papers at Massey extramurally, plus I belonged to various committees including the social committee for our society. But apart from my husband and family, Theatre was my main interest. I lived and breathed it you could say.

A few days after making my commitment to follow Jesus, I had an overpowering conviction to leave MATS. I had been totally devoted to it but I wrote my letter of resignation and gave it to my husband to give to the committee at the next meeting. He could not understand my action then, although he did later, but gave it to them. They were totally surprised as well, but what a relief it was for me. I was filled with that wonderful peace, the kind you feel when you obediently do what God asks you to, even though you may not want to. We don’t know, but I have often wondered if Simon, Andrew, James and John felt a similar peace when they obediently left their boats and followed Jesus. And, for those of you who know that I’m back in amateur theatre now, it is with a very different attitude and with the knowledge that I am, because it is not ruling my life any more and it only happened after praying about it first.

The call to follow Jesus and commit to him requires our obedience. Jesus calls us because we have a quality that he sees in us that helps to further his kingdom here on Earth. We are not called because we have some special gift or talent, although that may also be so, but because he sees what we are really like and can do. He calls ordinary people like you and me. Just look at the bunch of men he called first. They were nothing out of the ordinary either, just a bunch of fishermen, tax collectors and so on. But he saw the qualities that were needed for successful discipleship.

These first four men were fishermen. These are some of the qualities that those fishermen had:

diligence. Fishermen are always busy doing something. God needs people who are not afraid to work.
patience. It takes time to find a good school of fish, and it takes time and patience to win others to Christ.
experience. Fishermen have an instinct for going to the right place and dropping their nets at the right time. Catching souls demands similar skills.
perseverance. Fishermen have to go from place to place until fish are found. God wants people who won’t give up when things get tough. Fishermen have to work together, and God’s work demands co-operation.
courage. Fishermen often face danger from storms and other mishaps. It takes courage to reach out of our comfort zone and touch lives in the name of Jesus.
humility. A good fisherman keeps himself out of sight as much as possible. A good soul fisher keeps himself out of the picture as much as possible as well.
faith. Fishermen cannot see the fish and are not sure their nets will enclose them. They have to have faith and trust in their fishing gear. Soul-fishing requires faith and alertness too, or we will fail.

Jesus’s call to the fishermen had two parts. The first part was, ”Come, follow me.” It is interesting to note here that Jesus asked them to follow him. The custom in Jesus’s day was that you went to ask a Rabbi if you could be his disciple, and then he either let you or he didn’t. If he let you become his disciple, then you didn’t follow him, but rather studied under him. However, Jesus was not asking them to study under him, but to actually follow him wherever he went and to learn from him. This was not a call to follow a religion or a set of teachings or a way of life, but a call to follow a person. It is still true today. Christianity is primarily about a person – the person of Jesus Christ. If you take Jesus away, you do not have Christianity.

The second part of the call has to do with the reason why Jesus calls us to follow him. He says, ”… and I will make you fish for people.” Jesus not only wants your loyalty and trust, but he wants to change you. He wants to make you into something you were not before. The call to follow Jesus includes the call to bring other people to God. Jesus came to seek and save the lost, and so if you are following him, you will join him in this important task.

If that’s the call, then what is our response to it? It is the same as the fishermen’s, immediate obedience and trust. This is how we should respond to Jesus. But we don’t always do this. More often than not we take a long time to make the decision, and wonder why we hadn’t done it sooner when we finally get there.

Simon and Andrew left their nets behind. James and John left their nets, they left their boat, they left their family business, and they even left their father in order to follow Jesus. Does Jesus always call us away from our possessions, our occupation or our family? No, but he does call us to follow him without reservation or hesitation, which means we must be willing to leave all those things behind should Jesus so require.

This passage of Jesus calling his disciples is a challenging passage to us this morning. It is meant to be. It is meant to challenge us with the message of God’s kingdom, with the call to discipleship, and your appropriate response. That’s the call. If you are not following Jesus, then who are you following?

Jesus said, ”Come, follow me. And I will make you fish for people.” Jesus calls you to follow him, and in following him you are to bring others along. God’s kingdom is meant to be shared. We need to be wise and looking for opportunities to lead people to him. Is Jesus making you a fisher of people; are you being obedient to his call?

Let us pray: Jesus, you call each of us to follow you. Give us the courage to be obedient to your call, and to trust you for all our needs as we travel on this journey. Help us to persevere and to be patient in the tough times, and not to be afraid to speak to others about you and your love for them. Amen