“THE FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT”

Mothers’ Day this year was significant for those who remembered our mothers now long gone. It is amazing to hear the stories from so many who felt their mothers still with them in spirit guiding or just being there for them in times of uncertainty and challenge.

Looking back, I would say, no matter what our age, we remain influenced and inspired by inner voices from our past representing the people now no longer with us. In an uncertain world with uncertain values and goals, we depend upon those influences to help see us do. It may be simplistic to discuss, “What would Jesus do?” when there are factors in what confronts us completely unknown in his time. Churches have held many councils to try to work out how best to follow the way of Jesus for the time.

That period between Easter Day and Pentecost is the time when the disciples of Jesus Christ accept that Good Friday was not the end of the story but that Jesus remains unconquered despite the worst that could be hurled at him and still can be hurled at his disciples, past and present.

First is the promise that although Jesus has left us in the flesh, we need not feel abandoned. The disciples had felt this on that Good Friday. We feel it today when a chapter in our lives slams shut when a loved one is taken forever from our midst. Where do we go from here? Time and time again, we have heard Jesus’ words about leaving his spirit, coming from God, with whoever loved and followed him, then and now, as a “paraclete”, one who comes alongside and even stays within. As a child remarked when taking Holy Communion, “We take a little piece of Jesus home within us.”

Jesus ascends to the Father, leaving his guarantee to us as his church. How do we know his spirit is alive and well within and among us? Paul wrote about this to the Galatians in chapter five. I won’t quote the verses leading up to verse 22 because I don’t have your mother’s permission to expose you to the bad things that were, and probably still are, got up to in a dreadful world. But these words in verses 22 and 23 have become for me the yardstick by which I measure Christ in me (and see where I have a long way to go).

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law.”

These words returned to me recently when some of us farewelled a quiet and much beloved friend. I had found him the gentlest of men, embodying the fruit of the spirit left behind by Jesus Christ for us to live and show the world that such values are not only possible but so necessary if anything in this world is ever going to work. Our friend has gone but we can take on board the fruit of the Spirit now passed on to us to flourish in us.

This is why Jesus breathed on his first disciples to receive his spirit and those who lived this life of discipleship have left this spirit so that we who are still left may continue to let the fruit of the Spirit continue to flourish (even if I have mixed my metaphors again).

Now through science, we have access to know all about the molecules that came from the Big Bang, recycled through us, then on to eternity. But science steps back when it comes to defining how the fruits of the spirit came about. We know the fruits of the spirit are the ongoing creation by God through Jesus Christ to us and beyond.

When we turn on the news only to hear a further act of evil destroying so many innocent lives in Manchester and elsewhere, it so so easy to give into the fear and hate whipped up by populist demagogues. But Jesus never gave into evil as we well know. Paul describes his nature. The fruits of the spirit are the results of who Jesus was and what he did and these are what have now been passed to us to cherish and in our own time pass onto those who come after us.

Without the fruits of the spirit, nothing ever works. And this world we go out to and live in needs them right now. Go in the Spirit because the Spirit is among and within you!

“IT’S ALL ABOUT JESUS”

          

            Easter holidays are coming and right across Australia plans are underfoot, as they are for any holidays, on the best ways to enjoy a good break from work and school. There’s footy to watch, sailing on the river, camping in the bush, perhaps a tour away from the traffic congestion to somewhere more exotic.

            Australians look forward to holidays. Maybe somewhere along the line some one may pause to ask if anyone knows what the holiday is for. Amongst the shrugs a voice plaintively utters something about chocolate eggs and bunnies so a toast is raised to chocolate bunnies and the show moves on.

            The media don’t help that much. Amongst all the special days in the year, when did you last see or hear Ash Wednesday mentioned? The day before, certainly, but the season of Lent has now been all but forgotten in the public eye.

Conspicuous consumption continues its reign uninterrupted by little known seasons like this.

            Mentioning Lent does not boost sales, the market cries. Closing down for respect for Good Friday is considered a nuisance. Paying penalty rates for working Sundays and any other special day when work has to be done is grizzled about. In all, we are encouraged to forget the reason for the season.

            The culture we now live in today is at pains to airbrush the name of Jesus from society. It is socially taboo to talk about him even to mention him as an historical figure. Certainly, bringing to anyone else’s attention, his self-sacrifice on Good Friday, particularly if others are in the middle of a good time, is being the wettest blanket of all. Try raising the reason for the season this Easter.

            I had an unforgettable experience the first time I walked into Holy Spirit Catholic Church. As soon as I’d come through the doorway, there confronting me was a life-sized, life-coloured crucifix with the bleeding Saviour of this world draped awkwardly from it. In that church there was nowhere else to look. I was left in not the slightest doubt what it was all about.

            It’s easy for even us disciples of Jesus Christ to become so caught up in the business of church and of life itself that we can erase from our minds that it is all about Jesus. Jesus is no narcissist even in an age where narcissism is thrust into our faces almost everywhere we turn and that is the point. Where “fake news”, “alternative facts”, and “disinformation” become fashionable, the idea of self-sacrifice is shoved off the radar even at Easter.

            So, what we are called to do during the rest of Lent coming up to Easter is to ensure that in the living of our lives this time is all about Jesus. Put your head inside the doorway of Holy Spirit Church and get the picture. Everything else is meant to fit behind the one whose kingdom is not pre-occupied in bombing civilians or cornering the global market but rests in the spirit where love, joy, peace, goodness, gentleness, and self-control become currency for now and the future, just as Jesus showed us in spades.

            Yes, it’s all about Jesus and the sooner the world is exposed to this truth the better it will be for the future.

“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!

Christmas letter 2016 - running late, sorry.

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Hope to you this Advent, Peace for Christmas 2016 & a positive 2016

“Arrunga” Uniting

307/334 Kissing Point Road,

ERMINGTON NSW 2115;

cnridings@gmail.com

How are you? Welcome to my soap opera Episode 77

May this Advent and Christmas fill you and those about you with peace.

            This must be for me a briefer epistle. I have travelled much this year but mainly to hospitals in St Leonards to learn new words such as prostatitis, parathyroid, and fistula. I was preparing for the removal of my parathyroid glands when my number on the waiting list for assisted care at our Uniting(care) home was available, so for the 2^nd time in my life I combined moving with surgery, a coincidence not advised. My poor son Andrew undertook the bulk of the downsizing (sniffle), the packing and moving and unpacking here before returning to Brisbane to unpack into his new shared slot in one those human filing cabinets somewhere up there.

            Prior to my move I had several falls requiring scans on both hips and left shoulder, pain in which visits me at many inconvenient times.

            I am on Facebook where I communicate during my peritoneal dialysis, which I perform four times a day before meals and bed. Glad to have you as a friend.

            This will have to do for now. What has your year been like?

                                                                                                                        Shalom !!!

Christopher N Ridings

"CHRIST IN A DANGEROUS WORLD"

       

            Back in 1978 our family were moving from Nedlands to Gosnells. At the same time my doctor whisked me into hospital for a biopsy on my thigh. I came home with a bandaged thigh propped with me on a chair while the home furniture was moved out from around me. I was the last piece of furniture moved to Gosnells and hobbled to the ringing ‘phone. The hospital was ringing me urgently to book me in for surgery for suspected melanoma so back I went for a fortnight.

By the time I was allowed out, Gosnells’ new minister had to conduct worship over a few weeks from a lazy-boy lounge.

            I remembered that little adventure recently. My number came up for a room at Arrunga, our new assisted care home centre in Ermington at the same time a surgeon took to me to remove my parathyroid glands from which I am hopefully recovering. My son flew back from Brisbane where he was moving to a new human filing cabinet and filing work applications. He stayed at the unit while caring for frail father and doing the bulk of clearing my unit putting his life on hold again like he did this time last year. He has fled exhausted back to move his own stuff into his new place.

            The moral of my story so far is to avoid moving and surgery at the same time. I have now done it twice 38 years apart. Between my long surges of self-pity which some of you have had to endure, I thought what has occurred to millions of people around the world this year.

            Millions of people have been desperately on the move fleeing for a chance to survive. Few end up at their preferred destinations. Organisations are unprepared and, dare I say it, unwelcoming, treat the refugees like plagues. Those of us who care have found ourselves challenged by unavailable resources and opposition from those with xenophobia. Our own little moving issues are like packing for holidays compared to the risky upheavals in their life. Fortunately, we can contribute through the Christmas Bowl to help.

           

            Being pursued by physicians and surgeons to spend time in hospitals is like an overseas holiday when we become aware of the brutal bombing of hospitals in Aleppo and other places. We look at our children and then watch the horror of little children rescued from rubble, traumatised by organised terror, often the only survivors of their families. They will need support for years. The Christmas Bowl and Act of Peace can be our conduit by which this support can come.

            We can think of Jesus born of a Middle Eastern family to flee to Egypt from a ruthless ruler and had a taste himself of what so many are going through right now as you read this. Jesus comes to us again this Christmas. We see his face on everyone experiencing and fleeing danger. Remember that when we celebrate this Christmas. May Christmas come to all of you.