Luke 12:35-40 Active Waiting

 

It’s the first Sunday of Advent. Advent leads us into Christmas. It’s about remembering the coming of Jesus as a baby to Mary and Joseph; a child that is completely God and yet completely human, a baby who cries, has dirty diapers, who’s completely helpless. But Advent is also about waiting, not for Christmas and presents, but for Jesus’ return from heaven. The question for this Sunday, as we reflect this year on waiting, is ‘how do we wait?’

Brad Paisley has a music video with Andy Griffith called “Waiting on a Woman,” and the lyrics go like this: “Sittin' on a bench at West Town Mall, He sat down in his overalls and asked me You waitin' on a woman? I nodded yeah and said how 'bout you? He said son since nineteen fifty-two I've been Waitin' on a woman. When I picked her up for our first date, I told her I'd be there at eight and she came down the stairs at eight-thirty. She said “I'm sorry that I took so long Didn't like a thing that I tried on.” But let me tell you son she sure looked pretty. Yeah, she'll take her time, but I don't mind Waitin' on a woman.” There are some things that you don’t mind waiting for because you know it’s going to be worth every moment of waiting. This kind of waiting is filled with anticipation as you sit on the bench waiting.

Jesus describes waiting another way in the parable we’ve just read. This passage is the parable of the servants who are waiting for their master to return. Jesus tells this parable right after telling his followers to not worry or be afraid. It’s important to know the context, there’s no need to worry or be afraid while the master is gone; he’s coming back. The master heads out to go to a wedding. We don’t know whose wedding, where the wedding is, whether it’s in another city or his own, so there’s no clue as to how long he’s going to be gone. He could be gone a day or two or a week or more, it all depends on how close he feels to the couple and what his role in the wedding is. We know Jesus enjoys weddings as his first miracle happens at a wedding where people stayed so long the wine ran out. All this to say that the servants are left to run the household and the master’s business operations until he gets back, whenever that may be.

This isn’t the put your feet up and slack off kind of waiting and then rushing to clean the house when mom and dad get back from vacation; this is the keep working hard and staying ahead of everything so that when the master gets back, there’s no issues or problems for him to have to deal with because the servants did their jobs so well. “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning” is the command. While a servant was working, they would tuck their robes into their belt or sash so they wouldn’t trip over it while they worked; they were ready then to work, travel or fight to protect the master’s property and business.

Part of the servant’s task is to keep watch at the gate so that when the master shows up, the servant’s there to open the door and welcome him home. This is all about honour and respect for the master. At the same time, the master is able to quickly see how well his servants are doing if he can see the lights burning brightly as he arrives home after sunset. This is the master’s first reassurance that his servants are on the ball instead of slacking off. Jesus tells his followers, “It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes.” We get a sense that this is a good master who loves to recognize his servants when they do well.

Then Jesus puts a huge twist into the parable, something totally unexpected, he tells his followers, “Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.” I’ll admit, in all the times I’ve read this parable, I never really clued into what Jesus says here, that after spending time celebrating at the wedding, that as soon as the master gets home, he gets dressed ready for service and serves his servants. This is no normal master. When Matthew and Mark record similar parables, neither of them mentions anything about the master serving the servants, because that normally doesn’t happen. It starts getting you thinking about who this master is, Jesus must have a certain master in mind then.

This is where echoes come in. In Mathew 20:28 and Mark 10:45, Jesus tells his disciples, “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many,” and in John 13, Jesus actually washes his disciples’ feet at the dinner table and them tells them to do as he has done, to be humble servants instead of desiring power. The disciples may not get it here in Luke’s gospel, but as we hear the echoes and follow them in the Bible, we see that the master Jesus is referring to here is himself. This is where the Christmas message comes in, God created us in his image, but that image got twisted by our sin and we need someone to fix that since we’re unable to. Jesus comes to earth and become human to serve us by taking all our sin on himself to the cross so we’re right with God again. After doing that on the cross, Jesus goes back to heaven and sends his Spirit to guide and remind us of what Jesus taught, what he did for us, and what he has called us to do for his kingdom here until he returns again to claim all of creation for his kingdom.

Time and again, we’re reminded to stay alert and busy with Jesus’ kingdom work until he returns. Jesus warns us in Matthew 24:36–41 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” Paul reminds the church in 1 Thessalonians 5:1–6, “Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”

As we read the Bible, we learn waiting is part of the Christian life. God has his own timeline for how things should go in order to accomplish his plan of salvation. As we listen to Jesus in this parable, we’re called to wait patiently for Jesus’ return with eagerness and anticipation. This isn’t a passive waiting, a put up your feet waiting where we expect Jesus to do his work here on earth while he’s in heaven with God and we’re here on earth.

We’re called to watch for where the Holy Spirit is at work. We’re called to make disciples and join the Spirit and grow faithful flourishing communities; to create places where people are able to grow and thrive, no matter their skin colour, their culture, their histories. We’re here to build communities shaped by justice and mercy, to point to the way of Jesus, a way of health and wholeness, a way of peace and coming together instead of building barriers and walls. This means being aware of what is happening in our communities. We know that racism is alive and strong in our communities, we’re learning that addictions are destroying more and more lives, we learned that the murder rate in Alberta is the highest in our country, a sign that there are mental and emotional health issues in our province that are not being addressed. Many of these are things that cannot be tackled by Bethel alone, it takes those whom God has placed a passion in their hearts to gather with others passionate about the same issues, both from within our church and our community, to pool resources, skills and people to build strong communities. Shalom takes hard work, active waiting is not about easy. I’m here to encourage you in the passions God has placed in your hearts, to help you do some of the connecting needed, and to help discover resources.

We work and we watch while we do the work of the kingdom so that when Jesus returns, he’s going to be greeted with joy and celebration, and he’ll find us faithfully doing what he has called us to do in his service while we wait. We don’t mind waiting for Jesus as we join the Spirit in the work of his kingdom.

 

Romans 12:1-8 To Discover Your Gifts and Grow Them

This is the last Sunday in our fall sermon series on ‘Why Church’ and we’re reflecting on our relationship to God and each other as the body of Jesus. Romans 12 seems like a good passage to end the series on as it calls us to live out our faith with each other and not for ourselves. Romans 12 begins the final part of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, the first part of the letter reflects on how sin impacts our lives and how we deserve God’s wrath; there’s no making excuses for our sin. Paul then moves onto God’s faithfulness and how our salvation is found through Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross and how we are now dead to our sin and alive in Jesus. Paul ends this part of his letter with one of the most magnificent statements in the Bible, Romans 8:38–39, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

After a brief digression on Paul’s prayer that the Jews will come to accept Jesus as the Messiah, Paul moves into how we’re to live in response to God’s amazing grace and Jesus’ selfless sacrifice for us. Paul calls us to respond by being a living sacrifice ourselves as our response of worship. I appreciate how the New Living Translation puts it, Romans 12:1–2, “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” The offering has to be your best, without defect, and the only way we can offer ourselves to God as a living holy sacrifice is to first be purified, and the only way that happens is through Jesus. It’s a pretty big thing to commit to!

It's important to read this as Paul intends; the living sacrifice is you plural, a ‘you all.’ This is a message to us together, a message that calls us to be one together, to unity in Jesus, an echo back to Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane just before he carried our sin to the cross. Church is ‘we’, not ‘me’, this is why we need church. This is a corporate call to the entire church to sacrifice itself to God’s purposes and will, to offer all that we do for Jesus, as his body as our worship. It’s lived out, both as church together, and in our individual lives in the community each week as members of the church. Everything we do, whether at home, at school or work, at play or service in the community, is always done as a member of Jesus’ body.

Worship changes us; it helps us see the world with different eyes, eyes focused on seeing the Holy Spirit at work around us so we can say “thank you,” and “wow” and join in. Worship reminds us that we belong to God and we’re to live how Jesus calls us to live, to shape our lives around his will, not our own. This takes humility, a realization that the world does not revolve around us, that we are here to serve and not to be served. Paul calls us to “not think of ourselves more highly than we ought, but to think of ourselves with sober judgement, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of us.” Living with humility in a culture with shows like American Idol and America’s Got Talent where parents and friends allow their children and friends embarrass and humiliate themselves in front of millions of people because they’ve never been brave and kind enough to tell them how horrible they really are. True encouragement is to help them discover the gifts they actually have rather than the gifts they want to have just because it puts them in the spotlight.

In the church, it’s not about me, it’s about us. “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Church we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” When we ask the question, ‘why church,’ one of the answers is because we belong to each other; they have a right to expect our presence and the gifts we bring to the family. We don’t exist on our own, we belong to each other. In the western world, this is almost heresy, it teaches we belong to ourselves. We place the individual over the group. But Jesus and the Bible come out of an eastern world view where the group and family come first. Jesus is our example, he doesn’t stand on his rights as God, he comes to earth as a human and offers himself as a sacrifice for us. Our identity comes from our relationship in Jesus. This is Philippians 2 kind of living, “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.”

As we mentioned last week, there’s so much anger and division today about things like politics, vaccines, and vaccine passports because we are conditioned to think our rights and comfort come first. Our acts of worship help us to “be transformed by the renewing of our minds, not conforming to the pattern of this world.” How we think, live, and understand the world, is shaped by the Holy Spirit. The Christian faith is other focused, as God is. Jesus commands us to “love God with everything you have and are, love your neighbour as yourself,” and because you love God and neighbour, go and make disciples. In times of division and conflict, the church can show the world a different way, a better healthier way based on coming together in humility, finding ways to unity instead of division, encouraging and building each other up as the body of Christ together. Can you imagine a world where everyone is focused on blessing the other person first? This is kingdom of heaven living.

Paul goes on, “We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.” Each of these gifts is given in order to bless others and build them up in a spirit of grace. Paul says the same thing in Ephesians 4, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

Peter echoes this in 1 Peter 4:10 “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” Peter calls us to use our gifts for each other so that those who are watching the church will praise God for how we live and use our gifts, 1 Peter 2:12 “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

The church is a wonderful training ground for discovering our gifts, trying different kinds of serving, learning from both failing and succeeding, being mentored into learning new skills, mentoring others, finding out what interests you and what doesn’t. Being an elder and reading sermons, helping out in the Thunder Bay Community Center were all training grounds for me to experience the call of ministry, while others who served with me discovered gifts for working with kids, for mentoring others, or doing home repairs and cooking.

Why Church? It’s a place where we meet God, live life with others, are mentored and we can mentor others; it’s a place to find belonging and hope, it’s family with all its blessings, warts, and joys, a place where the Holy Spirit shapes and forms us. It gives our community an imperfect and yet beautiful picture of what the kingdom of heaven is like.

 

Ephesians 2:11-22 To Belong and Experience God’s Spirit

 

How many of you have some place where you felt like you don’t belong, or that you were seen as being less than everyone else? We loved living in Quebec for 12 years, but I will admit that there were times when I felt as if I didn’t really belong there because my French was so poor. At times, because my family isn’t old-stock Quebecois, it felt like we were less. Our kids, while we lived in the USA, felt something similar. Growing up in a church where my family often saw things differently from the more prominent families in the church, there were many times when we didn’t always feel like belonged. Sometimes new followers of Jesus will admit that they don’t always feel comfortable in church because they may come from a different background or social status than most of the others in church.

That’s what Paul’s getting at here in his letter to the church in Ephesus. It’s a church filled with mostly Gentiles; non-Jewish people. This is likely a circular letter, meant to be passed on and read in the other churches in the area as well, so Paul’s goal is to help the churches understand better what God’s doing, to give them insight into God’s purposes, and to give them a bigger picture of who God is and what Jesus has done and is doing in their lives. In the verses just before our passage, Paul explains that we’re made alive in Jesus; that through grace we’ve been saved from our sin through the cross of Jesus and have been reconciled with God. Paul’s writing about relationships: our relationship with ourselves and our sin-filled lives, our relationship with God that’s made right through Jesus, and now our relationships with others, especially within the church.

Paul now moves on to the relationships found in the church between the Jews and Gentiles. Paul is talking straight to the Gentiles in these verses, reminding them of who they used in the eyes of the Jews, who they were before they accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. Paul tells them to remember that formerly, before their conversions, they were Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by Jews. Jews, being circumcised, mocked all non-Jews by calling them the “uncircumcised.” There was a huge social and spiritual wall between them.

Paul’s reminding the Gentiles who they are; they’re less than the Jews, God didn’t choose them, God chose Israel as his people. Paul’s calling the Gentiles to remember their story, to remember who they were. Paul now gives a huge “but,” “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Jesus is drawing the Gentiles close, showing that he sees them, hears their cries, cares about them. “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations.” We see the welcoming nature of Jesus in these verses; a desire to bring all his people together. Paul’s using powerful language here, calling Jesus our peace. The Romans were proud of the peace they had brought into the world, an enforced peace at the point of the sword, using torture if needed and harsh punishments, including crucifixion. Jesus brings peace through the cross and sacrifice rather than the sword. Jesus brings a greater peace between God and humanity, and between Jews and Gentiles.

Paul uses the dividing wall of hostility as an example of what this peace looks like. Logos offers a number of possibilities to what Paul’s referring to here, “The wall that separated the inner and outer courts of the temple and prevented Jews and Gentiles from worshiping together. Inscriptions in Greek and Latin warned that Gentiles who disregarded the barrier would suffer the pain of death. Paul could also be talking about the curtain that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple. This curtain was rent at the death of Jesus and is representative of the separation of all humanity from God. A third way of understanding this wall of hostility is the “fence” consisting of detailed commandments and oral interpretations erected around the law by its interpreters to ensure its faithful observation. In reality, the fenced-in law generated hostility between Jews and Gentiles and further divided them, as well as furthering the enmity between God and humanity.” In all these cases, the wall is about separation, about dividing people instead of bringing people together. This helps us understand then why Paul talks about the law being set aside in the flesh of Jesus through his life and death as Israel’s laws were given to them to make them different from the nations around them, to separate them from the Gentiles.

Brian Peterson writes, “By Jesus’ death on the cross, the old cultural markers of worth and status, of being “in” or “out,” have been abolished. Sin’s power to divide the world has come to its end in Christ.” In the Old Testament, the Law divided the Jews from the Gentiles and then at the coming of Jesus, Jesus’ sacrifice bridges that gap and makes the two groups one. What are some of the dividing walls around today? Politics has become a huge wall that separates people from each other. I know of families where differences in who they voted for have become more important than the fact that they’re family. Vaccines and masks are huge dividers between people today, creating anger and frustration, yet we sometimes forget that Jesus brings people together. We need to see the person first, especially if they are fellow followers of Jesus, it’s time to take the anger down and work to know each other more. Anger doesn’t change people or draw  them close, but love and compassion do.

Paul now uses some powerful images to show the people what church looks like to Jesus. He begins with the image of citizenship, that the Gentiles are no longer foreigners and strangers, but with the Jews, they are citizens in God’s kingdom and Jesus is their king. Citizenship in Rome was huge, giving a person certain privileges. I’m proud of being a Canadian. It has nothing to do with who is in power in Ottawa, it has to do with the values I believe Canada stands for. Air Cadets and the Naval Reserve taught me that Canada stands alongside the oppressed, that we fight for justice around the world, we stand for what is right and fight against what is evil. It’s idealistic, I’ll admit, but I still hold to these values as being Canadian and when I travel, I wear a Canadian flag proudly. Being a citizen of heaven is like that. I believe in the values that Jesus calls us to live out, to be salt and light, to care deeply about justice, show mercy, and to walk humbly with God while standing alongside the oppressed, the broken, the struggling, and the hurt as the hands and feet of Jesus to give the world a glimpse of what Jesus’ kingdom is like and to invite them to join us.

Paul goes deeper; he tells the Gentiles that they’re members of God’s family, that they’re also children of God with the Jewish people, that God so loves them that he sent his son Jesus to die for them too. God’s our father and we’re sisters and brothers to each other now, all adopted into the family of God where Jesus is our older brother who protects us and stands up for us. I love this image. I have two adopted sisters and a brother who was never formally adopted, but was with us his entire life and became part of our family. Our family now is a mixture of kids from different mothers and fathers all brought together in our household in a glorious, often chaotic mess, but we’re family, we belong together. Family, the one place you can always go that they can’t kick you out, is a saying I heard a while ago and fits what Paul’s talking about here.

Paul then moves to the image of the church as a building where the Holy Spirit lives with Jesus as the foundation, the cornerstone on which all the other stones find its place. If you take out stones, the building gets weaker, if you take enough out, the building falls. The building needs every brick. It’s the same in church. You belong, no matter how young or old you are, you’re needed because you’re part of the family of God. You belong to Jesus. You are needed and wanted because each of you brings your experience and knowledge of life that’s different from mine and everyone else’s. Each of us can helps each other to know Jesus better. This is why I love youth and children’s ministry; I always get a deeper knowledge of Jesus when I hear them talk about Jesus. Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit, to help you know you belong, to remind you that you have a place and role in Bethel, that you are important just because.

So why church? Because Jesus has designed church as the one place where we experience deep belonging, joined together by the Holy Spirit.

 

Genesis 12:1-3; Matthew 5:13-16 To Change the World Together

Why does the church exist, why do we or Jesus bother with it? A recent study on the North American church tells us that about 25% of those who regularly attended church before the pandemic have no intention of returning. The reasons are varied, but ultimately, they see little value in the church; they don’t see the “Why” of the church. They see the church as too political, of little value to society, and too obsessed with their own agendas which have little to do with making their communities a better place to live. 

The North American church has forgotten its reason for being because it’s strayed away from its roots. So why is the church here? One of the first places to turn to is the story of Abram. Things have not gone well for God’s very good creation since he created Adam and Eve in his own image. With God’s image comes his ability to imagine and create, and Adam and Eve’s descendants use this ability to imagine to control and dominate each other in order to build themselves up and make others and God small and unimportant. Even after God does a reset with the flood, humanity keeps seeking after heaven on their own terms instead of God’s, resulting in God scattering them across the face of the earth and creating new languages and cultures.

Now God changes tactics and begins a new chapter in his plan to redeem creation and restore it to where it’s “very good” again. God chooses one family to bring knowledge of God into the world again, and to bring the promised Messiah. God begins a journey with Abram and his family to change the world, not because Abram is so special, just read his story to realize how messed up Abram was at times, but God chooses Abram to show it’s God who accomplishes his plan of bringing a saviour to the world through ordinary people, and sometimes in spite of the people.

Abram wouldn’t have really understood this, yet he moves forward in faith with little knowledge of what exactly God’s doing, but trusting in the path, opportunities, and situations God places him in to do the best he can with the knowledge of God he has. God promises Abram a place where his family will grow into a great nation, a huge promise to a man who is childless, unable to have any children with his wife Sarai.

God promises to bless Abram and anyone who blesses him, but the important part of God’s speech to Abram is not what he will do for Abram, but what he will do through Abram, “You will be a blessing… and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” God chooses Abram and his descendants to make a difference, and to be a difference in the world by being a blessing and revealing who God is through their lives lived out in faith in God. Being in a different culture and time, being a blessing looked different, and Abram likely understood this a lot differently than we do today, but we see examples of great faith and actions mixed in with his mess-ups; his tithing of his war spoils to King Melchizedek of Salem, his trust in the promise of a son even though he and his wife were way too old to still have children, his pleading to save the righteous people living in Sodom and Gomorrah. There’s his willingness to offer his son as a sacrifice after he had chased his oldest son and his mother off into the wilderness. Abram shows the people around him the power of God in his life, but also that God is a God who desires a relationship with his people. Ultimately, the way Abram’s descendants bless all the nations and change the world is through the coming of Jesus from his family line.

Jesus comes and the world has never been the same since. It’s not just Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins on the cross, echoing back to Abram’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac, but it’s also Jesus’ teaching and modelling on what the kingdom of heaven looks like. Jesus went through the land calling the people to repent and believe in God for the kingdom of heaven is near. Jesus calls us salt and light; this is about who we are and not just about what we do. Salt seasons and brings taste and flavour to food while preserving it; keeping it good just by being salt. Light helps you to see what’s going on around you, it lights the way before you and around you, it offers hope on a dark night when you’re heading home, it chases away the dark just by being light.

When Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth, the light of the world,” he uses the plural you, meaning “you all,” pointing to all his followers, pointing to us today as the church. Jesus is saying that ‘you all,’ the ones who are going to be insulted and persecuted because of me, the ones who are the poor in spirit hungering and thirsting for righteousness, the peacemakers, merciful, pure in spirit and meek are the ones being called the salt and light of the world. We’re being called to be the blessing to the nations and to each other by being who we are as the blessed ones of God. In being these people, we are salt and light, we are being the church and giving the world a glimpse of what the kingdom of heaven looks like.

Salt and light affect their environments. Salt changes the food that it’s in, making it taste better, making certain ingredients stronger. When you bake bread and don’t add salt, it tastes bland, but the bread also doesn’t rise as well because salt also has an impact on the yeast, helping the bread to rise better and be lighter. Salt is also used to preserve food, helping it stay good for a much longer time before it starts to rot. Salt doesn’t change so much as it changes whatever it touches.

Light also changes its environment. Light chases away darkness, showing us the things, we can’t see when there is no light. Light helps us see the path or the road ahead, just try driving at night in the country on a cloudy night with no headlights. Light serves as a beacon to guide us; it can act as a warning like a lighthouse warns ships of dangerous waters. Light brings hope. Jesus adds a snarky comment with both examples, reminding us that unsalty salt is useless, just like a light hidden under a bowl. The question then becomes, how are we salt and light where we are, what might that look like? Soren Kierkegaard, a Christian philosopher writes, “to be a Christian means to be salt and to be willing to be sacrificed,” referring to how salt was sprinkled on many of Israel’s sacrifices as a symbol of purity and making the sacrifice a tasty sacrifice for God. This echoes Paul’s call in Romans 12 to offer our lives to God as a living sacrifice.

Being salt and light first of all is about who we are as individuals and as a church; it’s about how we see and understand who we are. In Jesus’ teaching, being salt and light is in the context of being humble, mourning for the state of the world, meekness, having a hunger and thirst for righteousness because we see the inequity and injustice all around us, being merciful and pure in heart, focused on being who Jesus is calling us to be, and being peacemakers wherever we are. Being salt and light is about the condition of our heart for others, our community, and the world. This leads us to act because of who we are: to season our community by standing up for those being oppressed, those weighed down by the burdens of life, by looking for ways we can be involved as individuals, as families, or with friends to make our community a better place to live where everyone feels they have opportunities to grow and contribute, no matter the colour of their skin, or ethnicity. It means speaking out about the sins of racism, of being aware of how our systems can keep people down, it’s about walking along side those wrestling with addictions, especially at a time like we’re in when opioid deaths are exploding, it means being aware of the sharp increase of domestic violence and homelessness. We do this to give people a glimpse of Jesus and his love for them, a glimpse of what his kingdom looks like, working to bless them with help and safety.

The church is a place where we learn to serve and be encouraged to serve rather than a place to be served, where our eyes are opened to who God is and his heart for the world. We can then become voices for the oppressed, the vulnerable and begin to change the world together. This doesn’t happen through church programs, but by each of us becoming involved as families and individuals in the causes that God opens our eyes and hearts to. This is how we change the world, by being who God is calling us to be as church together.

2 Corinthians 4 To Find Renewal and Hope

This is Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth. Their relationship with each other hasn’t been easy; Paul’s had to hold them accountable in his first letter for some pretty hard things, yet you can hear in this letter Paul’s love for them. He begins this letter by sharing how his suffering, and he’s gone through a ton of suffering, is so that they can find hope and comfort in their own suffering, knowing that he really does understand what they’re going through. This is life wisdom, when you’re hurting, the person who can help you the most is the person who has gone through similar struggles and hurt. In addiction support groups, your sponsor or mentor is someone who’s been addicted just like you are. They get it. 

Our renewed relationship with God is important to Paul. Paul talks about how Moses wore a veil over his face because being in God’s presence made his face shine so brightly, that it hurt the people to look at him. God met face to face with Moses on Mount Sinai, renewing his relationship with his people, leading them into freedom and a new life of hope and restoration with him. This helps us understand what Paul is talking about in our passage this morning, when he mentions that “even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” God’s glory is being revealed in Jesus and the church, but now Satan is blinding the minds of unbelievers so they can’t see who Jesus is as their Lord and saviour.

Paul leads into chapter 4 with this verse, “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” Paul’s talking about how we reflect Jesus’ glory and are being transformed into Jesus’ likeness, becoming more like him with his glory shining brighter in us. This glory comes from the Holy Spirit that now lives in us. This echoes Paul’s first letter to this church where he reminds them that they are God’s temple now, 1 Corinthians 3:16, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” It’s important to read the Bible listening for echoes to other books of the Bible, or even within the same book of the Bible, to help you get a deeper insight into what the author is saying. It also reassures us that we are understanding what the Bible is saying.

This light of the gospel, this light of Jesus shining in us, the light that shines out of darkness, is found in jars of clay. It echoes back to creation when God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light, creating light in the darkness to bring about the conditions for life. The Bible’s creation story goes on to reminds us how God forms us out of the dirt of the ground, like a potter molds clay, and gives us life by breathing his Spirit into Adam. Life and light flow from God and Jesus into us. We’re the shining height of God’s creation, created in his image.

Paul goes to the image of potter and clay, saying that we have this treasure, the gospel of Jesus in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. Because of sin, we have a tendency to make God and Jesus smaller, making ourselves more important, which leads to brokenness and evil gaining a strong foothold in the world and our lives. Our jars of clay are covered with cracks and chips from life from being hard-pressed, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down. Hard-pressed refers to the process of pressing olives for their oil. Wikipedia tells us, traditional olive-presses consisted large millstones used to grind the olives and their pits into a pulp. One stone could weigh up to 400 kilos. The upper milling-stone was turned by a donkey or ox pulling a wooden beam attached to the stone. Then the pulp was collected, kneaded, and then placed in woven baskets stacked one on top of the other. A large stone weight was then placed on top to release the oil from the pulp.

Being hard-pressed can bring out the precious oil in us, but it doesn’t come easily. Perplexed is about not understanding why we’re going through hard stuff while others seem to float comfortably through life; everything they do succeeds while no matter how hard we work or how faithful we are; all we get is hard times. Yet in the hard times we learn deeper trust in God, we grow closer to God, and we learn life wisdom. We know what persecuted is, even though most of us have never experienced it. Yet in persecution we understand better what Jesus went through for us, we understand the power of sin and the amazing grace of God’s glory and presence in our lives in the holy Spirit who comforts us, protects our hearts, and guides us back to Jesus. Struck down reminds us that there are always people who want to see us fail and will work against us, but the Holy Spirit picks us up and gives us the strength and hope we need to move forward. This echoes back to the beginning of the letter where Paul shares how he’s suffered, but recognizes that God is using his cracks and chips in life to bless them.

It’s through the cracks and chips in the clay jars of our lives that the light of Jesus shines through powerfully, creating beautiful patterns of grace and hope for the world to see. This is why Paul tells us of his own struggles at the beginning of this letter. Desmond Tutu, with his daughter Mpho, wrote The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and the World. Tutu tells some of the brutal stories from apartheid and how, through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, perpetrators could tell their stories and victims were able to offer forgiveness. The forgiveness came from knowing Jesus and how Jesus understands the heavy and hard cost of forgiveness. In the Gospel of John, Jesus shows Thomas his scars and invites him to place his hand in the hole in his side. Jesus carries the scars of his suffering for us in his resurrected body do we can be reassured that Jesus knows our suffering and is able to give us new life. It takes deep honesty to tell your story and name the hurt, only then does granting forgiveness becomes possible and you can move forward to renew or release the relationship in which you experienced the hurt. We find the strength and courage to forgive because we walk together as the church; helping each other learn how to forgive; offering encouragement and strength when we’re called to forgive.

I think of the Amish community in Pennsylvania; a gunman killed a number of their children and the families reached out to the gunman’s mother to comfort her as they forgave her son. The light of Jesus burned brightly through their cracks and brokenness for the world to see. They brought hope to many people who were struggling to forgive others in their own circumstances. Many who work hard in non-profits could be working in their own businesses and receiving all kinds of accolades, but instead work quietly among the neediest and least people because their faith tells them this is more important. Their faithfulness often comes from having experienced brokenness and cracks in their life or loved one’s lives. Their light shines brightly. You all have stories of people who have sacrificed to help others, people who have suffered and turned that suffering into blessing others; the light of Jesus shines brightly through their cracks and chips creating beauty out of suffering. Tell the stories!

The light of Jesus shines through us because we are his. We have the death of Jesus in us, the death of our sin through the cross, and we have the life of Jesus in us, renewing us, giving us new life. When your life is filled with brokenness, when the cracks feel too big, Jesus takes those cracks and fills them in, renewing us, even if the scars are still there. The cracks point to hope because we belong to Jesus. As Big Daddy Weave sings, “Jesus makes all things new again,” this is the message we speak and live out in the church together.

Our new life in Jesus leads us into speaking of our hope, “It is written: “I believed; therefore, I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.” The Holy Spirit points us to Jesus and calls us to speak to the hope and life we have in Jesus so that more people can discover that same hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colossians 3:12-17 To Grow and Mature in Your Faith

A friend of mine always told me that growing older just happens, but growing up is optional. We always applied it to ourselves as guys, making a joke that as guys we never really grew up, relying on our wives to do the growing up for us. Jesus encourages us to have a child-like faith, but he really doesn’t want us to remain children in our faith; there’s a difference in having a child-like faith that trusts deeply in God and Jesus, that obeys out of love and trust, and a faith that’s just childish, lazy, and can’t be bothered growing up and becoming mature, able to invest in and teach others about the good new of Jesus.

The writer of the letter of Hebrews talks about this. Hebrews 5:12–14, ^“In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” Paul’s frustrated by a group of people in the church in Corinth who are not growing in their faith, “Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly.” Paul is watching them and he’s frustrated that they are still holding so tightly onto the ways and values of the world instead of embracing the bigger picture of the world found in Jesus.

What does a mature follower of Jesus look like to you? Council was working on this just before Covid and we needed to do a whole of changing and adapting really quick, but we will be returning to finish that work this fall and winter. But you don’t need to wait for us to figure all this stuff out, in your mail-slots and on the welcome desk you will find a personal faith plan for you to reflect on, pray over, and then create for yourselves a faith plan to help you grow in your relationship with God and our church family over the next year by focusing on specific areas of growth in your faith life. Our prayer is that you will share this plan with your elder or pastor to help us in our work of leading Bethel to grow deeper in faith, life, and into our community.

Our passage this morning is found in a part of Paul’s letter to the church in the city of Colossae where he’s encouraging them on how to live, focused on Jesus, where their minds and hearts are oriented on Jesus’ teachings, loves, and values. Paul’s looking back at who they used to be and is now challenging them to be different, to become mature followers of Jesus by putting on Jesus like a new set of clothes. These clothes will help the world to see that they are God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, and living this out for the world to see.

If you’re looking for what a mature follower of Jesus looks like, this is a good place to start. Paul calls us to wear compassion, humility, gentleness, and patience as we live with each other. They say that the clothes make a person. Well, they do give us an image of what we want others to think about who we are, it gives them a glimpse of who we want to be or are. Growing up, I wanted to be an astronaut, or a cowboy, or a detective. My brothers and I made a space helmet, we had cowboy hats and toy guns when we played cowboys, and I remember getting a tin badge one Christmas so I could be a detective. The clothes showed everyone who we were as we played. I have a church robe that I used to wear in the church in Montreal and it showed people that I’m a pastor, now I wear this wooden cross on Sundays instead.

Is being mature always easy? No. Life and people can be hard and cruel, people’s skin has become a lot thinner over the past couple of years. What people in our church and community need and are searching for, are people who are working hard at living compassionate, gentle lives with a spirit of humility; not claiming to know everything about every topic that comes up, but who are patient and kind. In our last pastoral elders meeting, we were talking about needing affirmation and living with compassion for others. This isn’t always easy though, I know there have been times in the past while when I haven’t been as compassionate, gentle, kind or patient as I could have been. My skin too has become thin in some areas and I need to keep turning to Jesus to keep growing in these areas of my heart too.

Growing in these areas of our life and character helps us to bear with each other when stress and conflict happen, and they do happen in every relationship and in every group of people. The more mature we become in our faith and life, the more it drives us to practice forgiveness. Relationships become more precious and important and forgiveness builds strong community and fellowship. It helps us walk through hard times together. As we grow in compassion, kindness, gentleness, and patience, the more we grow in forgiveness. But the reverse is true too, the more we practice forgiveness, the more we grow in compassion, kindness, gentleness and patience.

Forgiveness and grace are strong indicators of a faith that’s growing and maturing. It shows we’re becoming more rooted in Jesus who shows us the strength and power of forgiveness on the cross where he accepts the dying thief’s plea to remember him when Jesus comes into this kingdom, and even more powerfully when Jesus asks God to forgive all the people who have hurt him and put him on the cross. Jesus goes to the cross and takes the punishment for our sin on himself out of his love for us, a love he pours into us through the Holy Spirit, a love that calls for us to pour it out in forgiveness and grace, in compassion and patience to others.

Love is what connects all these virtues that lead to a mature faith. Love of God and neighbour, a love that compels us to share God’s love and the good news of Jesus with our neighbours, co-workers, fellow students and even family as our love wants them to know Jesus and accept him. Love, forgiveness, grace, peace and humility are all amazing virtues, and when they’re lived out together as a church family, it creates a vibrant, energetic church family filled with mature followers of Jesus joyfully sharing the good news of Jesus everywhere they go, living in fellowship together well, encouraging and building each other up naturally, and completely oriented on Jesus. This leads to living lives shaped by gratitude and thankfulness. This is what mature looks like.

But it takes hard work. It means digging into the Bible regularly, letting the message of Jesus soak deep into us, shaping us into who God has created us to be. Mature followers of Jesus live in an atmosphere of worship and praise, constantly open to learning from the Bible in relationship with the Holy Spirit, holding each other accountable, even loving someone deeply enough to tell them when they’re wrong, and walking with them as you follow Jesus together to care for the church, his bride, and growing deeper together.

This may seem easy, but it’s really hard. So many of us find it hard to be told we’re wrong. It can easily lead to anger and bitterness. It’s hard to confess we were wrong, to reflect on what happened and was said, confessing and repenting and working for reconciliation. But when this happens, we know that we’re becoming more mature in our faith, and in our relationship with God and each other. Maturity means we take off our pretend childish clothes and put on the clothes and responsibility of adulthood in the faith. Instead of demanding to be fed, we take on the responsibility of helping to feed others by being a faith guide for them to help them see Jesus in their lives and grow into maturity. One thing I’ve learned from mentors and from mentoring, you know we’re getting more mature when it becomes easier to say, “I’m sorry” and focus on responsibilities over rights.

The Bible and our faith are always Jesus focused and lived out as “we.” Maturity looks like caring about the “we” of the body of Christ over “me.” Maturity looks like serving, sacrifice, doing all we can to build up the body of Christ, working towards peace and unity within the church, because our love for others and God has settled deep in our hearts and lives.