B, Christmas 1, New Year's Eve - 1 Peter 1:22-25 "The Word of God"

1 Peter 1:22–25 (ESV) Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,  since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;  for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

In 2023 the Lord God has given, and the Lord God has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21)!   Whatever it is he has given you in 2023, he has given so you look to him and give thanks.  Whatever it is he has taken from you, he has taken from you, so you turn and learn to trust in him.

In 2023 God has given you, his Word!  His Word is given, and the Holy Spirit has moved in you with his Word, to discipline and disciple you, so you abide and remain living with Jesus, the Word made Flesh. 

If you have been faithful to God’s Word, the Holy Spirit brings comfort through the forgiveness of your sin.  If you have fought against being brought to repentance in the Word of God, or you have failed to hear the Word through disobedience, or have used God’s Word to your own glory, the Holy Spirit will let you suffer, to save you and return you to God’s Word, and his one true church.

It is the Holy Spirit’s job to call and gather you, enlighten you in the Word of God, and make you holy by keeping you united with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.  Push against the Holy Spirit from bringing you to Jesus Christ, and you place yourself on sinking sand, and in grave danger of sinning against the giver of faith.

God wants what’s good for you!  He wants to work his goodness for your good.  The Holy Spirit has been sent from God the Father, and God the Son, to bring you to our Father through the Son.  The Holy Spirit does this work by gently walking beside us, like a friend walking with his arm around our shoulder, comforting us as he moves us to the safety of the cross.  But sometimes he needs to walk behind us, giving us a sharp swift kick that might hurt a bit!  But it’s done for our eternal benefit returning us in repentance to the cross and worker of our salvation!

As individuals the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes us holy as God’s one church.  We remain in God’s church when we allow the Holy Spirit to set us apart. 

However, when we, the church of God, set ourselves apart from the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, we place ourselves in corporate danger.  Collectively gathering as one human spirit, we may think we have the Holy Spirit, but end up sitting in authority over the Word of God, judging the Word of God with a human spirit.  In other words, we use our powers and principles, which are our works and will, and not God’s!

Do you think that a loving Heavenly Father, will not seek to return us to him?  God indeed will fight for us, to correct us, and lead us back to Jesus Christ, to the Word made Flesh, so we re-submit to the written Word, from where he gives us light and life!  All prodigal sons and self-righteous sons are called back to our Heavenly Father through “the Son of God”, with his Sonship, worked within, by the Holy Spirit!

Like a fig tree that hasn’t been bearing fruit, we have been allowed to continue as the Lutheran Church in Australia by our heavenly Father.  Faithful pastors have dug around the roots and fertilised the tree of the church with the Word of God.  Some however have chosen to fertilise with a compromised word, leaving out the call to repentance, rather encouraging God’s children to follow their feelings. 

But Jesus says, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.  You will recognize them by their fruits.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”  (Matthew 7:15–16a, 19–20 ESV)

And again he warns “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12:36–37 ESV)

God calls us to return to the Word of God over against the feelings, the opinions, and the words of our hearts.  Our fleeting words will not save us.  Like rotten fruit will be thrown out or a fruitless tree will be taken to with an axe, those who persistently deny God and his Word, dangerously put themselves on the wrong side of God’s Word and his judgement!

If you think there are no ravenous wolves in the LCANZ, you need to wake up to the reality of the world and the church.  Do not accept what any pastor says, just because they are a pastor, me included! 

Submit what every pastor teaches and preaches to the glory test!  What is the glory test?  Does it glorify Jesus Christ eternally, or does the glory go somewhere else, dying before the fullness of time?  Investigate and judge for yourselves with a right judgement, to where the glory is going!

2024 will be a year of chaos for the LCANZ.  Many other churches of Christendom have chosen to walk away from the Word by following the ways of the world.  Modern heresies abound in the denominations of the Reformation, where the Word of God is watered down more and more to accommodate the confusion and chaos of the world.

The light and life, of God’s one true holy apostolic church gathered around Jesus Christ, has been diminished in many denominations, including the Lutheran Church of Australia.  The cult of the LCA has been caught up in the chaos and confusion of the world. 

The powers and principles the church has sought to trust, has moved from God to man, from trusting God and his Word, to seeking popularity and approval from the world, by reading the world into the Word, to make the Word and the LCANZ more accommodating to Australia’s sinful society. 

The LCANZ has realised it cannot discern from the Word of God that women should be ordained.  Yet because the desire is strong, we’re making the same mistakes as others and are stepping away from the Word, to become engaged in wilful mischief, deliberate sin, and self-glorifying righteousness. 

Where God is silent, some have become presumptuously boisterous, actively scoffing, and seeking to shame those who seek to follow the Word of God!  How have we got to a point where the spirit of the world reigns over the Holy Spirit?   Many refuse to repent, but rather travel the way that’s wide, that leads to eternal death!

The chaos that is unfolding in the church, is evident.  God is handing us over to our will, withdrawing and leaving us to our own devices.  Synod in Melbourne in February saw due process and the Word of God held ransom to the procedural direction of a few.  Chaos and confusion reigned, but submission to the Word was fleeting at best!

Rather than God speaking through gathered congregations in synod, a top-down directive occurred.  Where congregations once got together as synod to do what they could not do individually, now a small group of individuals has usurped the authority of the Synod, the Pastor’s Conference, but more importantly God and his Word.  Just like what happened in the Garden of Eden, the authority has been reversed!

It's no surprise that in 2023, a small group, without the authority of the synod, decided to secretly change the call of lecturers at the seminary without their consultation and has decided to sell off the seminary and national office in Adelaide.  In its best light, it’s a poor business decision, at its worse it is the complete mismanagement of God’s gifts to continue supplying confessional Christ centred pastors to feed, forgive, and prepare God’s flock of Lutherans to bear God’s Word in the world. 

2024 will be a year of chaos for the LCANZ as it continues on its path against God and his Word.  While the LCANZ follows the flesh, its glory will fade and fall like that of grass flowers.  “The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” 

Jeremiah talks about good figs and bad figs.  Just as we have taunted God for twenty-three years since the 2000 synod, Jeremiah informs the bad figs, the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, saying, “For twenty-three years, …to this day, the word of the LORD has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened.  You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the LORD persistently sent to you all his servants the prophets… Yet you have not listened to me, declares the LORD, that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm.”  (Jeremiah 25:3-4, 7 ESV)

We might say, “But we have Jesus, we have Jesus!”, just as they said, “We have the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” (Jeremiah 7:4)   But where is that temple of the Lord today?  It’s gone!  It disappeared into the echelons of time.

God calls you to follow his Word, and not the world, as he has done throughout the history of mankind.  We are no different to any other generation.  Moses called Israel to choose life and live!  Jesus calls us to abide in his Word, as branches live in the vine (John 15:1-9).   Paul and the Apostles proclaimed Jesus Christ, so we choose life and live.  Luther also calls us to choose life in the Word of God, and so too do many others. 

They all call us, to not stand over God’s Word for our short-term gain, but rather call us to remain in submission to God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh, and the Holy Spirit who truly works the Word within for our repentance and salvation.  Amen.

B, Christmas Day, The Birth of our Lord - John 1:1-14 Hebrews 1:1-4 "Light and Life"

In the first and third verse of Genesis chapter one, we hear, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”  (Genesis 1:1,3 ESV)

All who hear these words should recognise their similarity when we hear John chapter one. 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”  (John 1:1–4 ESV)

Hebrews chapter one draws from the beginning of Genesis and the Gospel of John, as Christ being the Word of God, speaking the word of God, who created the world. 

From Hebrews chapter one, we hear of Jesus Christ, the Son of God our Father, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.”  (Hebrews 1:3a ESV)

The true light and life of Christmas is Christ Jesus.  In the beginning at creation, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God the Son, not yet human, was the Word not yet made flesh, and he is the light and life of all things - everything.

But the Word of God, the Son of God, who is God, who is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of God’s nature, was enfleshed into a human being, as a man.  Jesus was born, in the incarnation of created human flesh.  God the Son, was born as the Son of Man, born into a world in which God created for fleshy humans to dwell.

The Creator became created.  God became man.  Conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary, the carrier of the Christ.  A fragile human woman, carrying a fragile human baby.  The eternal Son of God came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary and became a human, a baby boy, to be the Son of Man, the servant of humanity!

Jesus came as the light of life for his creation.  “He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.”  (John 1:10 ESV)

Hebrews chapter one does not dwell on the beginning, as does John and Genesis chapters one, but rather picks up the theme of Jesus’ beginning and power, to point us to God’s purpose and destination.  We hear, “After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:3b ESV)

Succinctly and without hesitation the writer of Hebrews, confesses the Son of God, as he who covered sin with his purity and is now seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, which is God the Father.  He did this for his own people, the people of God, and they did not receive him. 

Brighter than the sun, the Word made Flesh, now shone in the darkness of the womb, in the darkness of the stable, amongst the darkness of his very own people.  And despite their darkness, the darkness did not overcome the Light of the World, the Life of the World, the Word made Flesh!

We Christians, ones who are being made holy through this work of God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, joyfully rejoice over the coming of Christ at the first Christmas.  And we eagerly await and willingly confess our sins, to our Father in heaven, through the help of the Holy Spirit, who fills us with patience for Jesus’ second coming.  We endure in the darkness knowing our destination is Jesus the Christ, light and life of the world.

Not so the world.  You will not hear anything about God the Father, or God the Holy Spirit.  And what you hear of Jesus is minimal, at best.  You will not hear that he is the Son of God, or that he is the Christ, the Messiah.  When he is sung about in carols, they’re sung as a sentiment for feeling a certain way at this time of year.

Thanks be to God, Christmas is called Christmas.  The world cannot separate Christ from Christmas no matter how hard they try.  And thanks be to God our Father, he has given us voices to sing carols about Christ, and mouths to proclaim, the name of Christ, as our Messiah and as the Messiah for all people.  Despite Saint Nicolas and his charity being dragged into the harlotry of ho, ho, ho, happy holidays and desperate desires for the latest craving, Jesus Christ is still the true light and life of an ever-darkening world.  

In fact, Jesus’ light shines brighter and brighter as the true messianic gift to humanity, the true salvific servant of man, as the world seeks to dwell in darkness and deception, which is the lie that our commercialised Christmas has become.  Yet the darkness cannot overcome the Christ in Christmas!

Those seeking popularity on television will not tell you who is the Christ in Christmas!  Nor will the singers proclaim who the holy child is, so meek and mild. 

No, they are living the lie that the worldly Christmas has become, as they continue to add deceptive words to deceptive words to keep the lie going.  And we all know what this lie is!  We all participate in the lie, when we entertain the dark spirit of the Christmas lie by putting our faith in our desires for silver and gold – gifts that are gods made with human hands.

As the psalmist says, “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.  They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.  They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.  They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat.  Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.” (Psalm 115:4–8 ESV)

But you and I are being made holy and set apart by the holy Christ Child.  He grew and made purification for your sin!   Jesus Christ is the one true holy gift of God, shining in the brightness of eternity, in the holiness of purity to cover all darkness in you this Christmas! 

This is your gift from God for all eternity to not only dispel the darkness the world has without him, but the darkness you have within.  Jesus Christ is the Word made Flesh who dwells amongst us but also tabernacles within each of us, enlightening us with grace and truth.  Let the Christ be born daily in you, knowing the promise, “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” (John 1:16 ESV)

He is the gift that keeps on giving, from the beginning to the end, through the darkness of death into eternity.  The one true gift that shines into the future and gives hope in a holy destination for you and all humanity who believes in him.

Let the Holy Spirit be the true Spirit of Christmas which can freely give the gift of the Christ of Christmas to all.  Those of you who have been deceived by the darkness into seeing this season as a season of personal pleasure-seeking with its gathering and giving gifts of greed, and that’s all of us, know the gift of forgiveness is for you!

Receive the gift of grace upon grace this Christmas!  The gift of Christ upon Christ!  The gift of God from God, Light from Light, very God of very God, made Man, to serve you, a child of God.

Hear the promise from John chapter one, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:11–13 ESV)

Our right to be children of God is not a human right, but a freedom given to us as the gift of God.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and Christ was the light and life of the world.  At the end Jesus Christ is the gift that leads from darkness into a destination of light and life. 

The Word made Flesh is the gift of light and life for you!  Amen. 

B, Advent 1 - 1 Corinthians 1:3-9, Psalm 80:17-19, Isaiah 64:5-9 "Pots and Moulds"

It’s an ugly mess.  It has no form; it’s a great big pile of brown goo.  It’s sticky and damp; good for nothing it seems.  It’s dirty; perhaps to some it’s even a bit smelly; and if you get it on yourself it can stain.  But someone is looking for exactly this; a useless formless piece to be formed into something that is good and pleasing to the eye.

This someone takes the goo and plonks it on the table.  The table begins to spin, and his hands descend on the formlessness to mould it into something pleasing to the eye; a thing pleasing to the one who turns the tables on something so seemingly useless.

Clay can be troublesome stuff.  It can cause heartache for anyone who comes across it.  When it’s dry it’s like rock and jars the arms of those who try to break it.  But when it’s wet, it’s so sticky, it seems to latch onto anything that touches it, and it won’t let go.  Anyone who wants to use it has their work cut out for them; such is clay in its natural environment.

However, to the potter clay has a use, a very good use.  He knows just what to do to work the goo into something exquisite.  The stickiness is worked with wet hands, so the clay moves and grows into something good.  Its stickiness actually is a quality that keeps the pot adhering to itself.  And when it’s put in the kiln and baked the clay is returned to a state that is rock hard to keep its form so it can be used to hold things, perhaps even water.

But clay being what it is can still be trouble.  As the potter caringly tries to mould it the clay can collapse and become misshaped.  It has to be returned to the lump in which it was originally found, and the potter starts again.  When the clay becomes a pot, its hardness also makes it brittle and if the pot is not treated right it can shatter into a myriad of pieces.  Even if it gets a fine crack, the owner takes to it with a rod reducing it to pieces of potsherd.

When we consider that God is in fact the potter and we are the clay and the pots that he moulds to hold his holy presence we are encouraged to examine ourselves and see the imperfections that cause us and our Heavenly Potter trouble.  Isaiah did exactly that when he lamented over his people Israel.

You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins.

Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all your people. (Isaiah 64:5-9)

Perhaps you have noticed the imperfections and cracks in the shell of your being. You worry that you’re in danger of being dashed to pieces and thrown on the scrapheap of life.  Maybe like Isaiah you see the reality of your hidden human nature — the content of your fragile fatal life — and tremble because you know God sees the sin within. 

So, hiding the sin is fruitless; it still oozes out the cracks.  And even your most honourable and worthy acts can’t exist without containing just a hint of self-centeredness.  So, you know in the depth and core of your being you can do nothing righteous in God’s all-seeing sight. We look in the pot knowing we were moulded and formed to hold something so much better than the pot of filthy rags we have become.

Like the Psalmist we are reduced to see the reality of who we are before God Almighty as we plead…

Restore us, O Lord God Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.  (Psalm 80:19)

The fact of the matter is this: we need to be saved.  Without intervention and restoration, the potter will return and take to the pots with an iron rod and dash us into pieces of potsherd.

Knowing this the Potter sets to work at the wheel yet again and moulds another pot to contain the core of his being.  Just as in the days of old when Solomon used clay moulds to cast precious metals for the temple, Almighty God cast Christ Jesus, his holy and precious Son, into the same fragile clay shell as you and me.  And in this mould was veiled the depth and breadth of God’s complete holiness and generosity. 

This is very good news for us full of cracks and imperfections who know we need restoration so God will look on us favourably.  Our prayer should be the same as that of the Psalmist who also sees he cannot save himself…

Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand, the son of man you have raised up for yourself.  Then we will not turn away from you; revive us, and we will call on your name. (Psalm 80:17-18)

So, God sent his Son; he cast Christ as one of us.  The Son of Man at his right hand, the one on whom God’s hand of blessing rested, was sent, and born a baby, a fragile clay pot, capable of the same failures as you and me.  Yet he did not crack under the pressure that show us for who we are.  He stood the test of time, a fragile pot holding the holiness of God, more precious than any silver or gold. 

But then the Potter took his rod of wrath.  The rod we know we deserve and having his Son raised up, let him be smashed to pieces.  The pot was broken, the mortal mould and holy contents was made to die.  Christ was cast; then Christ was crucified!  God’s hand fell on Christ so the prayer of the Psalmist, together with your prayer, is answered.  You are restored!  We are revived!  God’s face shines on us and we can call on the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.  We can confess our sins, our brokenness to God.  And even more, God wants us to see ourselves and seek him in confession, so he can forgive the guilt of our sins.

Jesus was poured out like water, he was dried out like potsherd, he was cast as Christ but then he was cast out, the outcast.  On the night before he was betrayed and crucified on the cross, he said…

This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. (Luke 22:20)

And so, God’s pot was broken like bread and the cup was lifted up for the forgiveness of your sins.  God has wet his hands in baptism to mould your mortal clay, so you carry what was poured out of the cup of his Son for your salvation.  You now contain the life blood of Christ himself in you, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sins.

So, as we hear from Paul from the beginning of his first letter to the Corinthians, grace and peace has come to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  That God can be thanked for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.   You can trust that in him you have been enriched in every way.

Therefore, know, you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. Also know as you struggle with your fragility, only Christ who continually sends the Holy Spirit through his written word will keep you strong to the end, so you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

And God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.  He won’t let you down, but he will allow you to be poured out and broken so Christ might flow onto others.  But after it is done those who trust his faithfulness will be raised like Christ, to be with Christ, restored and revived, in all the holiness and peace of eternal life, forevermore Amen.

A, Last Sunday of the Church Year Proper 29 - Matthew 25:31-46 "To Be Confessional"

“Jesus is coming!  Look busy!”  These are far from the most theologically sound words to have come from someone’s lips or be written down!

Apparently, these are the words written on the buttocks of the phony conspirator, disguised as the Archbishop of Canterbury, who’s a part of the plot to remove the British monarchy and anoint an imposter to the royal throne.

Does this sound a little farfetched and comical?  That’s because it’s the plot of the comical spoof movie, “Johnny English”.  Rowan Atkinson plays Johnny English, a bumbling idiotic English secret agent, seeking to save Great Britian and the Commonwealth from the evil French megalomaniac, Pascal Sauvage.   Johnny English is no James Bond!

“Jesus is coming!  Look busy!”  As hilarious and as silly as it sounds that an archbishop would have this inked on his backside, the idea of being busy when Jesus returns, is buried and hidden deep within every person’s psyche.

From where does this come?  Every child, every employee, in fact, every person knows, what this is about.  “Quick, quick, mum is coming!  Dad is coming!  The boss is coming!  Stop doing what you’re doing and look busy!”  We’ve all done it; we’ve all caught someone else out, doing it!

This sense of guilt and shame does not have to be taught to anyone!  From the moment we become aware in infancy, we seek to hide what we’re doing from those who are responsible for us and our upbring.  Be it parents or any other authority! 

In the Garden of Eden, the same thing happened.  We hear, “And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.”  (Genesis 3:8 ESV) You can almost hear what Adam and Eve were thinking when God came looking!  “Quick, quick, God is coming, look busy!”

Busy doing what?  Every parent knows the sound of silence, then scampering feet and excited expressions of children trying not to get caught out!  None of us seem to learn that looking busy, makes you look guilty, and trying not to look guilty, just makes you look even more guilty.  I can hear mum saying, “I wasn’t born yesterday!  I didn’t come down in the last shower!”

“Jesus is coming, look busy!”

It’s actually comical we think this way, when like our parents, Jesus already knows who you are and what you’re doing! 

However, the silliness and the hilarity of who we are and what we do has a serious consequence if we continue believing in these foolish and faithless ways!  Jesus will judge the sheep from the goats.  Neither the sheep nor the goats say to Jesus, the King, “When were we busy?” Or “When were we not busy?” Rather the sheep and the goats both say, “When did we see you?”

Jesus has been here the whole time!  What is it he sees?

What is Jesus looking for in us?  What is he seeing buried in the depths of your being?  A sheep or a goat!

The picture of sheep and goats Jesus wants us to see is a picture of passivity verses a picture of  roguish deviousness.  Sheep by nature if left to their own devices will spread out over a field to feed, but when led by a shepherd they flock behind him. 

Goats, like sheep will follow a shepherd.   However, unlike sheep goats are opportunist.  They don’t need a shepherd.   Unlike sheep, goats travel together, they feed together, and they get into trouble together. 

This opportunistic herding instinct in goats, however, works in one’s advantage when yarding young goats.  They all want to be first!   They all race to see what’s in the yard; to beat everyone else to the unknown.  Sheep don’t herd as well, especially lambs!  They need a good dog to keep them together!

But regardless of the passivity of a sheep or the devious desire of a goat, neither knows what the shepherd knows, nor sees what the shepherd sees!

To the surprise of this son of a goat farmer, these days a goat has embedded itself into the modern vernacular in a new way.  To most people when you ask, “What is a goat?”, they will tell you, “It’s an animal that bleats and eats!”  Once, if a person was referred to as being “a goat”, it was not a compliment!  But to teens and young adults a G.O.A.T., is an acronym meaning, “Greatest Of All Time”.

Nevertheless, this new meaning for a two-legged goat, still fits nicely with the opportunistic desire of the four-legged animal to which Jesus refers.

Goats don’t need a shepherd.  Those who strive to be the greatest of all time, usually don’t flock behind a shepherd!   No, rather, one usually sees them out in the lead, herding the desires of those longing to be like the goat to whom they’ve flocked.

But the goat who thinks it is the greatest of all time, is seen by the God Of All Time who “is” the greatest of all time.  He sees, and he will sort the sheep from the goats! 

So, what is the desirable quality Jesus seeks in the sheep?  The sheep know Jesus is coming, but there is neither the need to look busy, nor the need to look bored.  No!  The sheep are not interested in looking anywhere but to Jesus.  They are not interested in a knowledge of goodness, nor a knowledge of evil.  They are concerned about gaining a knowledge of Jesus Christ, the King coming to his kingdom, who has busied himself for all, and won the battle.

His sheep know, knowing him is greater than a knowledge of goodness.  His sheep know he is so good, he bore all evil knowledge, and its deeds on the cross.

When you think “Jesus is coming”, and you act like a goat looking busy, you’ve already missed the mark.  When you think “Jesus is coming”, and you think you have to act like a sheep, you are a goat disguised as a sheep.  You will end up being like a fat sheep who acts like a goat!

When you think “Jesus is coming”, confess to your heart, “I am Jesus’ little lamb!”  

Rather than think, don’t do, but be!  If you think, and you do, then you’re dead!    But you’re already dead to sin, and now you’re alive in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit!  So don’t do!  Be!

Let the Holy Spirit, lead you, in the Word of God, to the Lamb of God, to be with the King of creation!  You are standing under the cross with Jesus, like Jesus, being led like Jesus by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is coming, he is the greatest of all time.  Therefore be!  Because you are!

See Jesus in your enemies, the weak, criminals, the poor, the rejected, all those with whom you do not want to associate!  Then you will see why Jesus has come to you! 

Jesus is coming, he is the greatest of all time, therefore be because you are!

Know you are a redeemed sinner, a sinner being redeemed, and a sinner who will be redeemed! 

The Redeemer is coming, be redeemed!  Because you are redeemed, and he is your Redeemer!

Be a confessor of Christ, a seer of sin, within, without!  Therefore, be a faithful forgiver!  Be a servant of salvation!  You can!  Because Jesus is your Saviour!

St James tells us, “The prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.  And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.  Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”(James 5:15–16 ESV)

On this last Sunday of the Church year, it’s a reminder to us to “come out”, as sinners.  To be what God sees!   But also, to see with the eyes of faith, Jesus in those he wills you to serve!   Let the Holy Spirit lead you, to confess the reality of your full being, as a forgiven sinner, forgiven of true tangible confessable sins, that have lost their deadly power and received lifegiving power at the cross.

In your confession of Christ forgiving you, and your confession of the deeds he has forgiven you, you will stand under those in whom you see Jesus Christ.  And therefore, you will be serving them with Jesus Christ, under whom you stand!

Then, through your being in Christ, the Holy Spirit can lift up, the poor, the lonely, the destitute, and the undesirables to the Lord.  Therefore, confessing your “full” being in Christ!  They will hear what you have received, what you are receiving, and desire to share in what you will receive.  Forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation!

This is the fullness of Jesus Christ who fills all in all.  Amen.

A, Post-Pentecost 25 Proper 28 - Matthew 25:14-30 "Invested Interest"

When Jesus told the parable of the talents, his hearers would have been astounded by the sheer size of what the master had entrusted with his servants before he departed to a foreign land.

These servants were bondslaves.  These three slaves were his property, they were bound to him, to do with whatever he pleased!

So, he invests in each of his workers, what they were capable of working with, and goes away.  We hear, “To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability.  Then he went away.” (Matthew 25:15 ESV)

It pleases the departing master to entrust to his bondsmen, what would have been a large responsibility for them.  He lays a burden of five talents on one, two on another, and one on the third bondsman.

One talent was twenty years of wages for a worker of that day.  So, two talents is forty year’s wages and five is one hundred year’s wages.   The master invests eight talents in these three men; that is one hundred and sixty years of worker’s wages.  That is not to be sniffed at.  The hearers of Jesus’ parable would have been both amazed and overwhelmed by the trust and generosity of the master sizable entrustment invested in these three characters!

Jesus tells the parable about himself.  He is the one going on a journey to a foreign place, so to speak, when he would ascend into heaven after the resurrection, leaving holy talents to manage. 

Although there are three bondsmen, there are two reactions.  To those given the five and two talents, they both willingly receive what the master has given and put the talents to work, both receiving back double.   The first, turning five talents, or one hundred year’s wages, into two hundred year’s wages.  And the second turning forty year’s wages into eighty!

To them the master says exactly the same thing, “Well done, good and faithful servant.  You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much.  Enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:21,23 ESV).

The two get the same accolade and are welcomed into the joy of their master.  This is the pleasure of the master.  Now that the master has returned, they both are endowed with the same benefit and favour. They not only enjoy the spoils of what the master had given, but now they dwell with the master in the fullness of his presence and his pleasure. 

What he had given them to manage was considered by the master as being puny and limited, which would have also made the ears tingle of those who heard Jesus say, “You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much”.

In contrast to the first two servant slaves, the third acts completely different.  In fact, the weight of the parable sits with this fellow’s action and response to his master. 

We might say that he is contrasted by the fact that he received less.  However, what he received although smaller, was still indeed quite a substantial investment given to him.  In the same way as the other two, it pleased the master to consider the burden this slave could bear and bound him accordingly.  Even though the amount was less, the master’s trust was the same as was his expectations.

The third servant saw it differently, and it’s evident in what he did with the talent as well as what he said at the master’s return. 

The parable to this point has been deliberately repetitive, demonstrating that the master graciously entrusted his property to all three, he had fairly considered the abilities of all three, but nevertheless still gave equally what the servants considered much and what he considered little.

The third slave condemns himself with his own words saying, “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed,  so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.  Here, you have what is yours.” (Matthew 25:24–25 ESV)

From where did the third servant get his impression of his master?  Not only was this bondsman ignorant of his master’s true character, the bondsman’s action, or lack thereof, treated the master’s invested interest, entrustment, and faith in his servant’s ability with utter contempt.  

The language Jesus uses of the third slave also differs somewhat, which is not made plain in English.  Most English translations say all three “received” five, two, and one talent, but the Greek stresses Jesus saying he who took possession of the one talent, “still” only held one talent.  The two who had received the five and two talents, had five and two talents only once, which on his return was a thing of the past, whereas the one who held one talent, continued to only hold one talent.

Why would the bond slave bury his master’s entrustment of property?  The answer comes from the master calling the servant, “wicked and slothful”. 

With regard to being wicked, this servant was starved of trust in both the master and what was entrusted to him.  The servant also was found wanting in his own identity as a trusted servant, starving the master of his service.  Not only was he wearisome and hurtful of himself, but the servant was also wearisome and hurtful to his master.

Not only was he wicked, but he was also slothful.  Slothfulness is being slow and hesitant.  This is not cautious and careful, but rather sluggish and slack.  The master reports, “you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.”  (Matthew 25:27 ESV)

We don’t know why, but this third bondsman thought the master’s being was hard, and he was afraid.  Where the first two servants were in awe of the master, the third for some reason thought him to be awful rather than awesome.

Jesus is the master in the parable he tells.  The goods Jesus leaves with us is the very essence of his goodness to us!  How one treats the goods of God is how one treats and considers our God who is good to us.

We are God’s bond servants; we are tied to Jesus Christ.  Like the servants in the parable, we can see our service and our being bound to God and his goodness as good!  Or, like the third servant we can loath God’s goodness, bury his goodness and actively hide what he has given to us.

The interest God has in you, is an invested interest.  He is so interested in you he sent his Son, the Son of God, to invest his goodness in you, to tie you to his resurrection and return, to bind your sin and set you free.

In Jesus Christ you have received an inheritance, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.   And believing in his goodness, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of your inheritance until you acquire possession of it. 

That possession will occur for all who believe, when Jesus our good and gracious master returns.

Be like the two willing servants, who were willing slaves of their master, tied to his goodness, living in freedom from self to serve his interests.  Flee the fear of the other slave who buried and forgot the master’s goodness, becoming enslaved to his own spirit and perception of the master’s gracious gifts!

“By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.”  (2 Timothy 1:14 ESV)

Because you bear the Holy Spirit you are a helpful bondservant of God.  He gives to you according to your ability.  He gives grace upon grace, gift upon gift, good upon good.  He also gives all who believe the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit will enable you too!  God’s good is your good, his goods are your goods, his identity is invested in your identity!

In the joy of the Holy Spirit, see that you have been invested into the enjoyment of your master, Jesus Christ!  Amen.  

A, Post-Pentecost 24 Proper 27 - Matthew 25:1-13 "Expectation"

What do you expect from this day?  We all live with expectations everyday of our lives.  What are expectations and from where do they come?  To where do they lead?  Are your expectations healthy or unhealthy?

Expectations change from person to person, from place to place, and they vary in different times of life throughout the ages.

Our expectation for a meal, a bed in which to sleep tonight, an enjoyable day amongst likeminded folk, seems reasonable to us.  But, for those in war-ravaged places perhaps these expectations would lead to disappointment, resentment, and further hopelessness.  Our expectations might be quite trivial to those whose very existence hangs in the balance! 

The expectations we place on others can differ too.  What you expect of your parents or children changes over time.  Children learn to expect parents to care for them when young, but they expect to escape from their authority when they’re teenagers and young adults!  Likewise, parents expect to care for their children when young, and our mums and dads expect to be cared for, when they grow old!

Expectations are buried in our being from the time we’re born. 

Expectations remember the past, in the present, and furnish one’s future. 

Depending on the culture into which you’re born, will usually dictate the expectations you have of others, and yourself.   What you did and do, dictates what you will do.  Enjoying what you ate encourages what you will seek to eat.  Where you live, who you serve, who serves you, who and what you trust and don’t trust are learnt expectations.

Another word for expectations is wants!  Wants or expectations are fuelled by something deep within each of us.  Examining our inner wants and expectations can tell us a lot about ourselves.  Learning of another person’s wants, or a group’s expectations, can also help us discern much about the person or group.

For example, those who expect the world to continue to evolve into a better and better place, might have an expectation of society learning from its mistakes and not making them again.  There’s an expectation of humanity cycling round and round in an ever-rising series of events towards perfection.  On the other hand, those who expect the universe to one day spiral and explode into a chaotic oblivion will have very different expectations.  Both are expectations, both are not right, but they affect how humanity acts and reacts to events and other people.

So, what or who fuels your expectations?

Are your expectations, or wants, a false god?   Are your expectations premeditated resentments?  Setting yourself up, or others, for hurt and failure?

What do you expect of God?

What does God expect of you?  You might be surprised what God expects of you, written in his Word!

What fuel’s your expectations of God, and your understanding of his expectations of you?  It depends on whether your expectations submit to the Word of God, or you try to make God submit to your expectations and wants!

Ten virgins expect the coming of the bridegroom.  In this parable Jesus says five were wise and five were foolish.  The wise were those who have considered bringing extra fuel for their lamps.  The foolish have not thought things through and don’t have extra oil to fuel their lamps.

Jesus teaches the parable to prepare us for his coming and what we should expect.  So, what is the parable of the ten virgins teaching us to expect about Jesus’ return?

At the end of the parable Jesus says, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Matthew 25:13 ESV)  This sudden surprise is made explicit in the midst of the parable.  All ten virgins are asleep and startled when the cry comes for the bridegroom’s arrival.

Jesus previously says, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”  (Matthew 24:36 ESV)  Not even Jesus knows, only the Father in heaven.  Obviously when Jesus is sent by the Father, he will know, but not beforehand.

Notice that in the parable all the virgins fall asleep, and they cannot lend their oil.  This is so, because when we fall asleep in death, what we believe and trust, is the fuel of our faith, and it’s this light that will expose us as followers of Christ.  What you believe, or what you expect when you die, cannot be changed when Christ returns.

When we think of lamps, we might assume that lamps were used to see the way.  They may have been, if the lamps were rags soaked in oil on sticks, but the parable tends to suggest a lamp that’s not a temporary torch to see the way, but a lamp made of clay with a reservoir to hold the fuel and a wick to draw the fuel and burn a flame.  Much like a candle would burn and produce a small amount of light.

This type of lamp is not for seeing the way, but for being seen.  Virgins walking in the evening moved about with lamps to illuminate their faces, so they could be plainly seen.  Women who moved around hidden within the cloak of darkness, were usually anything but virgins.  The virgins needed the fuel for their lamps, to be seen by the bridegroom on his arrival, not to see the way to the bridegroom. 

One cannot work their way to Jesus.  Just as he came the first time, he will come the second time.  We didn’t find him the first time, and neither will we find him when he returns.  What will be seen of you when he returns?

This is a key part of the parable because if one does not have the good oil, so to speak, when the bridegroom arrives, we cannot expect to bargain our way through the door of eternal life to be with Jesus.

Like the virgins who went to find oil and returned to begged to enter, Jesus also says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:21, 23 ESV)

If we have an expectation that we can change our story on judgement day, Jesus clearly tells us it doesn’t work like that!  The fuel of faith we need when we die, is the fuel of doing God’s will, or what God expects and wants. 

He wants to see us waiting for him, illuminated by his presence, and not the back of us working, or changing, to get the good oil.  He wants to see the radiance and joy of our hopeful expectation in which we will enter the grave and will be woken at his coming.

So, what is this fuel?  The good oil of expectation!  It’s not an idol of our works, or a belief in a false image of God we’ve concocted in our hearts.

What is this fuel of faith that God expects to see in you?   It’s the fuelling trust in God’s Word, looking not to ourselves or finding our way to eternity.  It’s allowing the fire of the Holy Spirit to illuminate Christ’s death for our daily death of self.  This fuel of faith lets him shine his holiness in us.  So, when the Father sees us, our lamp of faith shows Jesus the bridegroom, shining for us, in his resurrection glory.

God expects you to be a sinner!  If he did not expect this, he would not have sent Jesus to be the only sacrifice for sin!  But God also expects you to be an enlightened repentant sinner, who despite knowing your sinfulness, willingly stands in his presence to confess, be forgiven, and forgive as Jesus has forgiven us in his death and resurrection.

Like the wise virgins whose faces are lit up with hope and joy at his coming, our wisdom is not so much about you or me, but about the wisdom of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, working and waking us with the Word of God.

God expects us humans to have doubts and troubles with faith.  Every day you can expect the old human self will seek its resurrection.  That, you can count on without a skerrick of doubt!   This is not a time to forget the oil reserve that is being deposited in you through God’s Word. 

When you have doubts, let the eternal resurrected bridegroom pour his Word into you with the Holy Spirit.  When you doubt, bash on God’s door in prayer for the Holy Spirit to open Godly expectations of his Word in you!  When you pray, trust the Holy Spirit to give you a desire and joy in God’s Word.  When you receive God’s Word as the good oil, expect this oil to be the oil to keep your lamps burning.

God wants your greatest expectation, to be of him. 

He wants your expectation of him alone.  

He expects you, to expect him, to be your God.  Amen.

A, Commemoration of All Saints - 1 John 3:1-3 "It is Finished"

1 John 3:1–3 (ESV) See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

“It is finish!” That is the cry of Jesus on the cross!  It is the joyful confession of those who have gone before us and are now worshipping around the throne of God outside of time!  It is finished!  What is finished?

When something is finished, it implies that at one time it began, it endured, and ended.  When something is finished it also implies something new has begun.

Not so much today, but in past times, there was an institution known as a “finishing school”.  It was a place where well to do families sent their daughters to become ladies.  Grooming and deportment of young girls prepared them to hold themselves appropriately within the social circles they were expected to mix.

One can imagine there would be an opportunity for comedy to occur in seeking to finish a rough diamond of a girl into a prim and proper lady.  Plays and movies like “My Fair Lady, Nanny McPhee, Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Sound of Music, and Pretty Woman, all are stories about such “rough diamonds” being polished with all the drama and comedy one would expect with the transition of a person from one lifestyle to another.

With much drama and comedy, God seeks to finish us as his children.  In fact, the creation in which we live, the bodies in which we breathe, and the society in which we seek to survive, is God’s finishing school.

Like the movies our lives don’t always follow a simple, rags to riches script!  There are many setbacks and deviations in our stories.  Some are God directed, some are from our own misdirection, and then some come about from the deception of others.

The movie, My Fair Lady, is one such movie!  Actress, Audrey Hepburn, plays a poor Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who becomes the centre of a wager by Professor Henry Higgins, that he could make her “well to do” and pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball.

Most known for the phrase made popular by the movie, “the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain!” Eliza practises these words to polish her speech!  And there is comedy when she relapses back to her Cockney ways amongst the dignitary at Ascott racecourse, as she inappropriately calls out, “Come-on Dover, move your bloomin’ a_ _ _ (hind quarters)!”   Eliza proves not to be completely finished, as Higgins had hoped her to be!

This movie comes from a play called Pygmalion.  One can understand, looking at the name, why they changed the name to My Fair Lady.  Similar to the story of Pinocchio, Pygmalion in Greek mythology is where a sculptor falls in love with the female ivory sculpture he has finished, in rejection of the young female prostitutes around him.

We are in God’s finishing school!  He seeks to put to death the deeds of our old sinful nature.  This is an all of “this life” project!  In fact, this life is not really life, rather it is the prelude to the life that God originally intended for us and gives us after the resurrection.

In reality this life is not life, but death!  Where the world puts their trust in this life with the hopeless reality of death to come, those who believe and trust Jesus Christ, exist in this finishing school, having the old self killed off, and finished, waiting patiently in hope of the life to come.  This is life with Jesus Christ, the Almighty Father, the Holy Spirit, the angels, archangels, and the whole company of heaven.

St John sees the whole company of heaven in his revelation as one of the elders tells John just who the company is, clothed in white robes…

 “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.  Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.  They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.  For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:14–17 ESV)

Those who have gone before us, who are in Christ, spur us on!  They urge you on, in the knowledge that they are with Jesus by no effort of their own, but by the great love of our Father in heaven!  They have finished and have been finished in Jesus Christ alone!

When were they finished?  They were finished in baptism, they were finished when Jesus cried out from the cross, “It is finished!”, bowed his head and died.  Their finishing became an unhidden reality in Jesus’ resurrection, in their resurrection, in the resurrection when this life bound by time is finished!

Yet, here we are, still in this existence we call “life”!  But it is a penultimate or second last life!  It is the night before the sun rises on the new eternal day!

It might appear that we are not quite finished!  Like Eliza we fall back into the old ways of our old Adam!  We become sculptors of ourselves, taking the tools out of God’s hands, only to fall in love with the self, or despair of what we cannot create!  What becomes apparent is we cannot finish ourselves!  Or we exist knowing our finish is a sham, trying to fool others, but only fooling the foolish self within!

But despite not being finished in this world, we, like those who have finished their earthly time, are finished too!  How can that be when it seems God has not finished finishing us for eternity?

God has given us the finishing requirement for eternity, and life with him, in our baptism!  When Jesus cried out, “It is finished!”, on the cross, “and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30), he gave up his spirit for you, and me!

Jesus was the perfect sculpture of humanity, incarnate, created, in Mary.  Sent in love by God the Father, who loves you so much, he sent his only beloved Son, so that “right now” we are God’s children, God’s beloved children, even though we only see it through faith in God’s word of promise.

Hear again the promise, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”  (1 John 3:1–3 ESV)

God is no Pygmalion!  He did not keep his Son for himself but sent his beloved Son to conquer death and finish death, for you, his beloved.  Today we remember those who have conquered death in their baptismal death and have now victoriously been raised from the second death.  Let your remembrance of these perfected saints in Christ, spur you on in this earthly finishing school, and heavenly hope in eternal life after resurrection!

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.  In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”  (Hebrews 12:1–4 ESV)

But if you are required to shed you blood, praise God!  He who has been finishing you through the blessedness of repentance and forgiveness of sin is about to welcome you into his eternal presence!

Blessed are the finished, blessed are those being finished, and blessed are those who will be finished, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, they are the children of God.  Amen.