“EPIPHANY – WHAT?”

           

            I couldn’t believe it!  No sooner Santa had left the stores, every one seemed to salivate for the hot cross buns (not you, of course). Yeek! What happened to Epiphany and Lent? And Christmas has been commercially truncated. It was supposed to go on for twelve days. Didn’t we sing about diverse things stuck in a pear tree? Didn’t 12 lords come leaping to us sent by our true love on the 12th day? Not that I saw any. All I saw on the 2nd day were not 2 turtle doves but a horde of manic shoppers treading over the door-openers of all the stores in town eager for bargains at the Boxing Day sales.

            And the Wise Men had not yet come. Perhaps that’s why they were wise.

They had not come to worship Santa or the hot cross buns. Timing, people, timing!

            Leaving out Epiphany! Shame! Now that Christmas is well and truly behind us even though contacting my annual list has been much delayed because certain surgeons wanted their cut first. We have ceased wishing people a Happy New Year now that all our resolutions, like giving up procrastination, have been put off for next time, and more than enough disasters have already sadly happened.

            Now that people are in doubt what to wish one another, I’ve taken to greeting everyone, “Happy Epiphany!” only to be stared back at with an awestruck look questioning my deteriorating sanity. Dear, dear, if only they knew about Epiphany they wouldn’t be missing one of the most exciting times of the year.

            Epiphany is the time of making known whom God unwrapped for us at Christmas. Jesus Christ is not just the gift for us but on the label we’ll find written the words, “For you and for the world, especially those who need good news.” How are all those needing good news going to receive good news? Santa’s reindeer or the Wise Men (whichever school you went to) have now departed to feed their camels or reindeer whatever, so we are left holding the great gift of God in our hot little hearts yearning to find the yearning hearts for whom the good news is also meant.

            The Christmas Bowl Appeal should now be on its way not so much in the guise of Santa or the Wise Men but represented in the bucket brigade across the gaps to those who wait for useful stuff that will help them renew their lives this year. Now, that is a resolution worth keeping because it becomes good news for those to whom this all was intended.

By the time Epiphany has finished in a burst of tossed pancakes, you would have then learned that Lent is not the stuff that’s left in a clothes-drier. So, Happy Epiphany!

“THE SHOCK OF LIFE”

  

Yes, I know I missed last issue again. Will my excuse of stopping breathing (temporarily, of course) on 21 Oct 2015 do? I collapsed upon my couch at home early that afternoon and awoke to find 5 pairs of eyes staring intently at me before I was briskly carted off to Royal North Shore Hospital in an ambulance. On the way in, I was told that my son had performed CPR on my by then bruised chest and so enabled my life story to continue. Otherwise I might never have known about the condition of aortic stenosis, often described in medical circles as the silent killer.

Open-heart surgery was prescribed and performed so that the clogged valve could be replaced into my heart by one from an unwittingly generous animal. I can now be identified by a thin red line down the front to match the yellow streak down my back. Three months after hospitilisation, I have been brought home to complete my recovery. My thanks to so many of you for your prayers and kind attention all of which has surely helped my healing process.

I never knew how easily and so quickly and quietly life can end. The difficult bit happens as one experiences the shock of life with the slow and challenging journey to recovery to live the life so graciously extended for me. Innumerable angels in many guises have appeared before me upon whom I have depended to help me recover. Those words, “No man [sic] is an island” thudded back into me, day by day.

We are beginning a new year. Epiphany comes to us in many ways and the best gift the wise men (and women) can bring to us is the wisdom accumulated from the experience of life. There is much stupidity and cruelty within this world so that we are left wondering how on earth we can ever change it. Like a “brand plucked from the burning” (Amos 4:11) – words quoted by Susannah Wesley when her 5 year old son, John, was rescued from the burning rectory at Epworth – we have been given the opportunity to do so and to ensure we leave the spirit behind us to those left to take up the challenge.

Epiphany with Lent about to come brings again to our attention the person of Jesus, hastily delivered from the sword of the soldiers of Herod the Great to put his own life on the line in his own time that we may live lives freed from the greed and violence that destroys so many. Yes, we too can be shocked into life that we may continue to follow Jesus on his journey so that lives may be lived in all fullness.

“LIGHT ON AUSTRALIA DAY”

            S E R M O N CNR1071                               3pp

Epiphany 3a       Mosman 26 Jan 2014, 9.30am

Isaiah 9:1-4; Ps 27:1,4-9; Matt 4:12-23; 1 Cor 1:10-18

Matt 4:16f

1          THE GLARE OF DARKNESS

1.1       Extreme weather

The summer sun has been beating down upon us.

Even with its glaring brightness

there is that sense of darkness upon the face of God’s earth.

The ferocity of bushfires here and in California,

cyclones, hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, and storms,

both natural and man-made disasters bring 21^st darkness for many.

Climate change, or rather climate extremism, has come upon us.

Human involvement has been denied

mainly, I suspect, to escape responsibility for what we do or not do.

Extremes of weather intensify extremes of behaviour expressed socially, politically and religiously.

1.2       Walking and sitting in darkness (Isa 9:2; Matt 4:16)

Before we can appreciate the light

we have to recognise our walking in darkness.

Isaiah writes in 9:2 of people “walking in darkness”.

By the time we come to Matthew 4:16,

they are described as “people who sat in darkness”

Have we arrived at that state where instead of groping through the gloom

we now sit in a form of collective depression

believing that nothing can be done?

2          REPENT!

2.1       The Kingdom of God is at hand (Matt 4:17)

Whether the people walk or sit in darkness they have seen a great light.

The Gospel reminds us again today, as if we need reminding,

that the light coming upon us in this season of Epiphany is Jesus.

John the Baptist has been arrested by Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee,

and Jesus has deliberately moved from Nazareth to Capernaum

further into this territory.

Again he continues the message begun by JB.

“Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand” (Mt 4:17)

2.2       Not for turning?

“Repent” is a dirty word in our 21^st century.

Nobody really likes it.

It really means stop what you are doing because you are going the wrong way and turn about and go a different way.

It has been easy for us to feel irritated when we are driving and our navigator tells us we are heading in the wrong direction.

It means a change in thinking, in feeling, and in doing.

Many admired Margaret Thatcher when she described herself

as “This lady’s not for turning.”

Towards the end she was removed from high office by her colleagues because of her rigidity.

The Iron Lady finished by losing her mind.

3          THE CHURCH COMMUNITY (1 Cor 1:10-18)

3.1       Repenting from exclusivity

Paul effectively calls the church in Corinth to repent.

They had to turn about and change their behaviour towards one another.

The Corinthian church community was less than a decade old

but already it had formed into exclusive groups, based on different cultures and loyalties.

Even today churches all around the world

are known more by exclusive differences rather than by co-operating.

3.2       The light of the world (Matt 5:14)

While Jesus has come to be the light for us

in our present 21^st century darkness,

in our turning around towards him as the light,

we are called ourselves to be that light

as Matthew’s gospel reminds us later in chapter 5:14

 “You are the light of the world.”

4          TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

4.1       Climate extremism

This means that in turning around ourselves,

we are called to be part of the world’s present need to turn around.

We, as the world, have to take responsibility for the climate extremism

coming upon us all over the world.

Human greed is bringing this world undone.

We have altered the world’s climate for the sake of making more money.

4.2       Deliverance with attitude change

I cannot say in all honesty whether we are or are not too late for this world

to be delivered from climate extremism.

Already, movements across the world call for simplistic

and sometimes violent answers to what faces us.

We know from experience that this does not work.

Jesus promises deliverance wherever there is a change of attitude,

and attitude today has been the problem.

4.3       Being just a small candle

We have heard how Jesus calls his disciples to share his risky road with him and to deliver his same message.

We have to face the fact that Jesus knew that,

like the prophets, he would not be heard,

and it is no shame on us that we experience that same rejection.

Nevertheless, the light of Jesus can stay with us

even if we be just a small candle lighting up the darkness

and showing how to turn around.

This is our message for Australia Day 2014.

Let us be the light of Jesus coming into the world.

"A Prophet's Plea"

1          AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN

1.1       Sisyphus of Corinth

There is an ancient Corinthian myth that its first king, Sisyphus,

was punished by the gods by having to roll a massive boulder up a steep hill.

Just before he reached the top, this boulder slipped from his grasp

and bounced all the way down to the bottom

forcing Sisyphus to scamper down the hill to begin all over

again and again and again.

Thus the gods consigned Sisyphus to an eternity

of useless efforts and unending frustration.

1.2       Déjà vu?

Every new year we hope will be different to the last

but it is about this time of January that we begin to feel a bit like Sisyphus

that it’s all going to be the same again and again and again.

We have times during the year when the futility of our best efforts

can seem to overwhelm us.

2          HAS ALL OUR EFFORTS BEEN IN VAIN?

2.1       Preaching for 50 years (Isa 49:3a)

We are pleased to notice that at least one prophet in the Hebrew scriptures, called by God into ministry, felt like this.

We read his words, “But I said, ‘I have laboured in vain,

I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.’” (Isa 49:3a)

This is my 1070^th sermon and I have now been preaching for over 50 years.

(I know what you are thinking.

You are thinking that I should have got to the point by now.)

Over this time

a lot of water has flown under the bridge.

2.2       After the two Johns

When I began two men called John were then influential.

The first was the good Pope John XXIII

who opened the stuffy windows of the Vatican

so that Christians might embrace each other.

The second was John Kennedy who became President during the Cold War

and who over Berlin, Cuba, and Vietnam,

3 times pulled us back from world war.

By the end of 1963 these 2 Johns were gone.

The Vietnam War had begun, dividing the nations, the communities,

the churches, and even families.

Church and Sunday School attendance showed signs of decline.

More and more we seemed to become voices in the wilderness.

And we can’t blame the Beatles for this.

2.3       The call for mercy (Ps 40:11)

Among my generation of those who have ministered through these times

has sometimes come the feeling that the boulders we have heaved to the top have not stayed there.

Like the psalmist in Psalm 40:11, we have cried,

“Do not withhold your mercy from me.

Let your steadfast love and your faithfulness ever preserve me!”

2.4       Reassurance (Isa 49:4b)

The answer comes from the prophet’s cry as he continues,

“Yet surely my right is with the Lord,

and my recompense with my God.” (Isa 49:4b)

3          A LIGHT TO THE NATIONS

3.1       The Spirit at Jesus’ baptism (Jn 1:32f)

This is where the Gospel comes in for us.

Last week, we reflected upon a previous passage of Isaiah

and upon Jesus’ baptism.

Here within this passage from John 1:29-42,

we have John’s particular take on the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist

and what happened afterwards.

JB was himself inspired by witnessing the Spirit descending like a dove

on Jesus and remaining with him. (Jn 1:32)

Even more important, and this is linked only in John’s Gospel,

this event announced that Jesus, himself baptised by the Spirit

would baptise others with that same Spirit. (Jn 1:33)

3.2       The source of our spirit

That’s it!

Immediately afterwards, John’s Gospel tells us

that Jesus becomes a magnet for disciples.

That’s how the spirit worked then and works now.

All of us here can recall how we came to be here in worship.

We each have stories of how we have been inspired by people in our lives, parents, teachers, and other people who have been touched

by the same Spirit that hovered over Jesus

and spread to his first disciples.

In short, we have been and continue to be inspired.

That word “inspired” comes from “spirit” or “breath”.

Thus the disciples followed and were in their turn sent.

If we could trace back to how the people inspired us received their inspiration and if they could, in turn trace their inspiration back,

we would arrive at this very event we commemorated last week.

3.3       Passing on the Spirit (Isa 49:7)

What really matters now

is not so much to focus on the spirit

hovering over Jesus

but on that same spirit that now takes up residence in us.

Recently, we have been experiencing the loss from our midst

those who have inspired us over the years.

Inevitably this leads us to reflect upon the hope that when our own times come we will have passed on the spirit to those who remain.

This, in itself, should give hope as we become part of this relay of the spirit from those who have gone before us to those who come after us.

Then we can take in those words which complete the reading from Isa 49:1-7,

“I will give you as a light to the nations,

that my salvation may reach the ends of the earth.”