Pilots and Prototypes

Isaiah 49:6

1 PILOTS AND PROTOTYPES

1.1 New Inventors

You’ve heard of pilot schemes or prototypes

where something is launched to see how it works before a pattern is made?

We’ve seen on “The New Inventors” inventions that have gone through prototypes.

Sometimes a pilot scheme may involve people.

It means more to us when we think of a pilot boarding a large ship to guide it into port.

One nervous captain asked the pilot.

“Do you know where the reefs are?”

“Not exactly”, confessed the pilot,

“But I do know where they’re not.”

Here at the beginning of 2011, it’s good timing to talk about prototypes and pilots.

1.2 Experience is a Pilot (Ps 40:3)

The lectionary readings this morning speak to us about prototypes and pilot schemes.

The composer of Psalm 40 sings to us from v3,

“He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God,

Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord”

Just one person experiencing God can be a pilot for others.

We worship together so that like coals in a fire we warm one another and keep one another alive.

Our very worship here this morning becomes a prototype for the world around us.

2 A LIGHT TO THE NATIONS (Isa 49:6)

2.1 Further than a flat earth

The reading from Isaiah re-inforces this.It goes further in 49:6.

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Israel.

I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Mind you, they thought the earth was flat at the time, but we know what is meant.

In fact, now we know that the earth is round, there’s no stopping, and therefore no excuse for stopping.

2.2 Experience is contagious

The servant is not to be just a pilot to raise up the tribes of Israel then in exile in lonely Babylon, somewhere in what is now southern Iraq.

No, it was going to be contagious.

The very fact that the servant would inspire his people would mean that the people once inspired would inspire the world.

We are in the season of Epiphany where the good news of great joy experienced in Bethlehem

is to be made known to inspire the world as we find it in 2011.

So, how are we going to do it?

3 ANNOUNCING THE PROTOYPE

3.1 The Great Pilot (John 1:29-34)

What happens to the babe of Bethlehem?

He grows up to be our great pilot, the prototype for all humanity.

The words put into the mouth of John the Baptist announces him as this great pilot,

our prototype as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” who gives the world a new lease of life.

Jesus is not just some other good bloke.He breaks the previous mould and becomes a pilot for us then and now.He undergoes baptism by water so that he may baptise with spirit.

He sets out before us as pilot and prototype so that we may follow in his footsteps throughout 2011 and forevermore.

3.2 The Disciple Magnet (John 1:35-42)

This becomes his active intention. This prototype, this pilot, becomes a magnet attracting disciples. This is the whole point.

He invites them and us to come and see, then follow him.

What is the point of a pilot if there is none to follow?

What is the point of a prototype if that is the end of it?

4 THE CHURCH

4.1 The Church enriched (1 Cor 1-9)

Paul continues this theme to the church in Corinth.

Those who follow Jesus, then and now, keeping affirming at worship together and in service outside that we are warmed by this great pilot and prototype of all humanity.

Paul writes about the church:

“being enriched in him” (1:5),

“not lacking in any spiritual gift” (1:7), and

that we shall be sustained to the end (1:8).

4.2 Refreshing the world

We are a fire never meant to go out but to catch others alight.We are in 2011, a fresh new year in the season of Epiphany.

The world is tired and needs refreshing with the prototype who is our great pilot.

Our task as the church in 2011 is to refresh the world with the hope we keep finding in Jesus who keeps refreshing us, and who sends us from here to refresh the world.

AMEN

Share Christmas!

I shall miss the Chasers from the ABC (Australia). Not all their stunts came off, of course, but there were a few classic masterpieces that I shall remember for their insight.

Once they gate crashed an AGM of one of those banks and made an appeal for its CEO to hire an unemployed bank worker. One of the Chasers read out the salary rate required, assessing that it would only cost this CEO his lunch- money. I think the CEO squirmed all the way back to his stockbroker.

Nothing infuriates us more than greed, and there is plenty of it about to get infuriated about. A group of billionaires was once interviewed and they were asked what they looked forward to in life. Their reply was simple and unanimous, “More!” Nothing scares us more than those who can never get enough, because we know that a lot of others are going to have to pay for it.

I do not have to relate to you the images of poverty brought to us from too many parts of the world. Your TV has the same channels as mine. Basic necessities for life are wanting for too many while we are embarrassed by choice and instant access. “What do we want?” “More!” “When do we want it?” “Now!” That sense of entitlement is growing whatever it costs others, and it does cost.

Advent is the time when we remind ourselves of the coming of Jesus and his new world order. I cannot find an instance where what Jesus wanted cost anyone else but himself. People who came to him were uplifted, often literally. He healed, he restored, he resurrected. Whoever approached Jesus benefited. Our own lives become enriched because his spirit comes to us. We become freed from the addiction to aggregate what we can. His spirit enables us to reach out to others so they are lifted up. We are lifted up when we act to lift others up, even as we know Jesus lifts us up. Eat your heart out, Gordon Gecko of “Wall Street”!

This is why the Christmas Bowl keeps working. During Advent we hear the stories of the way it does work, of how Jesus, through us, keeps uplifting those around the world who have experienced so little hope in their surroundings. We are not pouring endless resources down a bottomless pit. We are kick-starting others into possibilities for them to get going for themselves, just as Jesus himself kept kick-starting so many into life.

The lepers were made clean, the blind could see, a hand up was literally given to those on their sick-beds. We may not get to do anything so spectacular, but a little girl who is enabled to read, a family enabled to earn their own living, a village given access to clean water, and those who live in fear given hope, are a few examples of a hand-up that we have given and can continue to give.

Jesus’ coming is something we can still become excited about. We know his entry into human affairs keeps giving human beings that jump-start in life. There is more impacting to go, and we who have been impacted by him, now pass on that impact wherever we can.

That baby in the manger grew to give up more than his lunch-money to make this happen. That is why we don’t keep Christmas. No, we share Christmas. May the peace of this Christmas sustain and enrich you and yours well into the New Year.

The Word Made Flesh

(Sermon preached on Sunday 2nd January 2011 at North Ryde Community Church).

Still in the Christmas Season

Today is the 9th day of Christmas, and, if your true love is sending you 9 drummers drumming, it will be a noisy day for you.

Nevertheless, it is still the Christmas season. We can still recall the stories and infancy of Jesus, given to the world as the Christ for all time.

We can still celebrate the wonder of this incarnation as we stand at the threshold of the new year of 2011 with all the challenges and opportunities that it will bring.

In John 1:10, we read the version from John’s Gospel, the Word made flesh, or, as Charles Wesley put it, “Our God contracted to a span Incomprehensibly made man.”

“Incomprehensibly” is the word, particularly in this holiday season when even our brains are likely to go on holiday as well.

We’re having a well-earned break and you want us to get our minds around the Word becoming flesh for us.

The story of Pinocchio - My most influential religious film

Let’s not feel guilty about it. It has taken over 2000 years and the human cranium is still having some difficulty coming to grips with it.

This is why I have found the story of Pinocchio so useful. Some of us saw the film when we were small children. I would say it became one of the most influential films in my childhood.

When I am asked what was the most influential religious film I’ve seen, I raise eyebrows for replying, “Pinocchio”.

The condition for true humanity (Jn 1:10)

It is the story of Geppetto the woodcarver who carved a wooden puppet he named Pinocchio.

This lonely old bachelor carved him in the form of a son he’d wished he had and yearned that this puppet could be a real boy, free from strings and enabled to become truly human.

Geppetto gets his wish from the blue fairy but with the condition that Pinocchio can behave as a real human with all the humane qualities of humanity.

We start to see what it means for God’s Word to become flesh, and again the challenge is for this expression to behave as a real human with all the humane qualities of humanity.

Pilgrim’s Progress

The baby Jesus grew up to be a trailblazer for us, but Pinocchio becomes so much like us stumbling along the way. He becomes like the pilgrim in John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”. I found that book a bid hard and formidable to read, and way above my head.

Pinocchio? He was a child like me, and he was called to be a pilgrim to go on his journey towards true humanity.

Pinocchio is easily distracted by smooth talk to follow the line of least resistance.

A nose for truth (Jn 8:32)

Remember when we were children and we were told when we told a whopper that our nose was growing and growing and soon a little bird would come and build a nest on the end?

We’d get into all kinds of trouble trying to get around the truth. But here again, Jesus tells us through John’s Gospel (8:32), “You will know the truth and the truth will free you.”

Making asses of ourselves

Remember when our antics were described as making an ass of ourselves and how we could be exploited through our unwise decisions?

That is the point of becoming human of rising above those instincts that can trap into mere animal existence.

We see Pinocchio about to become trapped.

Pinocchio Made Flesh - Buried in Monstro (Mt 12:40; Jn 15:13)

Geppetto risks his life to rescue him and is swallowed by Monstro the whale.

Pinocchio, in turn, risks his own life to rescue the man he’d known as creator and father and, like him, ends up in Monstro.

Here, we remember the words from Jesus, this time from Matthew’s Gospel (12:40), “For as Jonah was 3 days and nights in the belly of the whale, so will the son of man be three days and nights in the heart of the earth.”

This refers to the ultimate self-sacrifice this Word made flesh would make, his crucifixion and resurrection, echoed back in John’s Gospel (15:13), “Greater love has no one that anyone should lay life down for friends.”

In the story, Pinocchio becomes entitled to become a living human being because he turns his back on making an ass of himself, or a puppet to others, and gives himself for the life of another.

Also sent (Jn 20:21b)

This is where the story of Pinocchio leads us back into John’s Gospel. The Word became flesh and came and stayed with us. He put his self-interest aside for every human being. So far, we know this.

But where does this take us in this new year of 2011 still within this season of Christmas?

Again, we find the context within John’s Gospel (20:21b), this time towards its end as Jesus breathes upon his disciples. “As the Father sent me, I also send you.”

As God sent Jesus to be truly human, so Jesus breathes upon us to be truly human that all may experience what it means to be truly human.

Jiminy Cricket

It is no coincidence, that Pinocchio was supplied with a companion, named Jiminy Cricket, to be his conscience and his guide.

An earlier film, “The Wizard of Oz” has Dorothy exclaiming, “Gee, gosh, jiminy cricket” as part of the expressions overheard from pious adults disguising their impiety.

The initials “JC” give it all away, don’t they?

This year we have the spirit of Jesus Christ as our constant companion and guide so that the decisions we make, together and personally, reflect the true humanity that has been presented to us through the Word made flesh.

AMEN