Sermon for Sunday 19th February - Epiphany 7 - Ordinary time7

 Sermon for Sunday 19^th February, 2012

Epiphany 7 / Ordinary 7

Isaiah 43:18-25

Psalm 41

2 Corinthians 1:18-22

Mark 2:1-12

LINK TO RECORDING OF THE SERMON

 

I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
   and I will not remember your sins. Is 43:25

God who is the source of all Life – who is Love in his very being – does something utterly extraordinary – something which I think should give us all pause before we say that we know what love is. In Love he inextricably binds himself to a people – he commits himself to them by unbreakable bonds. He promises Never to let them go.

God is the Centre of Everything, Everything comes from Him and to Him Everything must return. God is Love. God is Light, in Him there is no darkness at all and when he takes on flesh for our sake, it is to banish the darkness, for the glory of His Name, that Love may Triumph

When I think of this Love of God, this convenant love, I am reminded of human marriage. I have to say straight away that I am comparing the Great Perfect Love of God with the far lesser, highly imperfect and at times invisible love in a human marriage – but I will deal with the Ideal (if the reality always falls short of this) 

In the Church of England liturgy the words used are these ‘I . . . take you to be my wife’, ‘I . . . take you to be my husband’. As I frequently told couples whom I was preparing for marriage – there is no ‘I will if you will’ – for you are entering into a Covenant relationship, which is the purest form of Love – a commitment to the other which is not dependent upon the Other. God’s Love is not dependent on us, He Is Love. In other words in marriage a couple you enter into a Covenant expression of Love, a Love that expresses how God love us. And of course this metaphor of marriage is used by St Paul when he is talking of the relationship between Christ and His Church.

This Love of God for His people is the theme that runs through the whole of the Old Testament and in some respects comes to its zenith, its peak in these latter chapters of the prophet Isaiah. Here God is rhetorically arguing with his unfaithful people – reminding them of their sins, of their unfaithfulness – but over and over again saying he will do something extraordinary in response – he will save them, he will protect them, he will be a life giver to them

¹⁸ Do not remember the former things,
   or consider the things of old.
¹⁹ I am about to do a new thing;
   now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
   and rivers in the desert.
²⁰ The wild animals will honour me,
   the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
   rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
²¹   the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my praise.

 - These words of the love of God revealed in a time in the History of his people when they were being taken into Exile because they had abandoned the God who had Committed himself to them, Given himself to them, taken them to himself in Covenant Love . When, to use other prophetic language with its roots in marriage, they had been unfaithful – in the midst of this he declares - I am going to do something new – I am going to make life giving waters flow.

Then he re-iterates the argument

²² you did not call upon me, O Jacob;
   but you have been weary of me, O Israel!
²³ You have not brought me your sheep for burnt-offerings,
   or honoured me with your sacrifices.
I have not burdened you with offerings,
   or wearied you with frankincense.
 ^{. . .}
But you have burdened me with your sins;
   you have wearied me with your iniquities. 

I have not been a burden to you, but you have been a burden to me. I have not wearied you, but you have wearied me . . .

BUT your unfaithfulness will not be the last word

²⁵ I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

 - I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

Your unfaithfulness will not have the last word – My Love will – My foregiveness. God had bound himelf utterly to this people – they were His burden – he carried them – He was known as The God of Israel – if you like He was known as their National God – His identity was tied up with theirs – and so was His character - and Israel, the people of this God had besmirched themselves and so had taken God’s name with them into the mud.     

       

            So what does he do?? Does He cast them off?? NO! Rather he Refuses to let their Word be the Last Word – he will overcome Even Unfaithfulness, the Covenant may have meant little to Israel – but it meant everything to the God who makes Promises – He has made a Covenant – He has bound himself to these people and thus His name is being dragged through the mud? What will he do?? He will make their sins Whiter than snow!! – though they are scarlet – he will blot out their transgressions for His Names sake – He will not stoop down to their level of unfaithfulness – no He will restore them and Life them Up!!!

It is Breathtaking. To Israel’s No – he Thunders His Triumphant YES – and so one comes in whom All God’s Covenant Promises are held – In whom All His Promises are YES!! Which begins to explain what to some might be a strange puzzle in the gospel reading.

Here is Jesus – in this tightly packed house – barely room to breathe and some people bring their paralyzed friend to him – presumably to heal him?? The text is silent. So determined are they to get him to Jesus they go onto the roof and knock a hole in it. And lower him down in front of Him.

And here we see how Different is our reading of this text from those of the time of Jesus – What does Jesus do? He forgives him his sins – and his critics are thinking Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone? And we may be thinking – Hang on a minute!! He’s paralysed – can’t you see?? Why not do That First and forgive the sins later? Surely the Priority is healing him?? – and in this regard it is Very worth noting the following – Jesus heals the man to prove the point about forgiveness. Do you see??

He forgives the man. Then the scribes accuse him of blasphemy – THEN to show that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins he heals the man of his paralysis – to show that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins – Which is it easier to say ‘Son our sins are forgiven you’ Or take up your mat and walk??? Which is most important???

We look out on a world where there is So So much wrong – I used to get JWs coming to my door – I don’t know if they do the same here in NZ but in England they always began by saying- aren’t things in a terrible mess – and we LOOK OUT and have to agree with them – and so we see people with sickness – we see wars  - we see famines – we see all sorts of things. And we think that there are all these problems out there and we’re busy saying – look Here Jesus – all this forgiveness of sins stuff is . . . well of course its important but what about the Real problems . . . except the real problems all stem from sin which we do Not see because we’re all too busy looking out there. The problems are Symptoms – the root dis - ease is sin.

God is Love – he creates the world in Love, through Love, for Love – the Universe is if you like a cathedral of Love – Love holding it all together – its trellises  - its buttresses – its foundations and beautiful windows are Love -  and Sin takes a wrecking ball and smashes it up. If we go around that all that is wrong in the world today is down to sin, we might be thought idiotic – but if God is Love and Everything is an expression of Love – in other words the hard physical matter of our existence is in fact that Energy emanating from the Life of God that we call Love – then before any true healing can begin – those bonds have got to be restored. That is what holds everything together. Just what seems like a minor matter for the religiously minded becomes of literally Fundamental importance. And we might know this surely for ourselves for what is the pain we know like the pain of broken relationships – it is literally as if the fabric of our Lives is torn apart – it is that the fabric of creation is rent – love is torn.

Jesus – the Lamb of God from before all eternity offers himself to atone for the sins of the world. What is God’s Solution to the demolition of Love? More Love – Indestructable Love declared in Glory on Easter Morn and the Way for all who have found new life in Him. What he does for the paralysed man in forgiving him his sins, he literally embodies on the cross. 

Remember last week – this faith of our is bodily and material? God who is Love takes on flesh. Jesus embodies Love and forgiveness on the cross and so the New Creation begins to spring to birth  - one which we are called to step into. This New Life of Christ is one we are all called as Christians to participate in. The Scribes are right – only God can forgive sins – but we are joined to him to become one with Him and thus enter into he work he is doing as Christ was himself one with the Father and only did what he saw the father doing. Forgiving and then healing.

This last couple of weeks I have referred to Peter and John and the healing of the lame man outside the Temple. I suggested that there was something missing in a church that could no longer say ‘Silver and Gold have I none,’ nor could it say ‘In the name of Jesus of Nazareth get up and walk’ – well if that seems to hard – which is easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven you’, or ‘take up your mat and walk?’ We are given a simpler yet more Foundational starter. Peter and John having discovered the power of this love which refuses to be overcome even by death enter into this Life being renewed by forgiveness and so in that Life, in the Life of the Risen Christ, the Embodiment of the New Creation they engage in the works that that forgiveness, that restoration of the bonds of Love makes possible.

Forgiveness is the way in which the true ordering of the world is made new, that Love is restored and that Love is the healing of Everything.

Sermon for The Third Sunday in Advent - The Year of the Lord's favour

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent 2011

Isaiah 61:1-4; 8-11

1 Thess 5:16-24

Luke 1:46-55

The Year of the Lord’s Favour

“All those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all those who humble themselves will be exalted” Luke 18.14

Well I’m not one for taking liberties with the Lectionary as I think that it gives us a broad and varied diet through the year and prevents me spending most of the year focusing on my favourite texts and themes – but today I’ve chosen to change the gospel reading which was to have been a further reading about John the Baptist and substitute the Canticle set which is the Magnificat – for today the third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete Sunday, a Latin word which means Rejoice!! And Rejoicing is a Theme that comes through very powerfully in these familiar words of Mary – Of course the theme isn’t entirely lost in the other readings – the prophet Isaiah exults ‘I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my whole being shall exult in my God!’ And again St Paul 1 Thess 5:16 – a reasonably easy memory verse – Rejoice Always!! – But rejoicing is the continual note of these verses – My soul magnifies the Lord, and my Spirit rejoices in God my Saviour

But what, we may ask is this rejoicing all about? Well of course the coming of the Saviour is in full view here – but what does this mean you may well ask? Why Rejoice over the coming of Jesus? And here it is Very helpful to look at Mary’s song – and it is worth noting at the outset that it is the last in a long and distinguished line of Songs of triumphant women – from Mirjam, who rejoices that ‘Horse and Rider have been thrown into the sea’ at the catastrophe which befalls the Egyptians – to Deborah who rejoices with Barak over the defeat of the Canaanites – to Hannah, the mother of Samuel  - who rejoices that God has vindicated her against her husbands other wife Peninah by giving her a child. And if we are half awake we will notice that they are all declaring God’s salvation in terms familiar to the prophet Isaiah – declaring ‘The Year of the Lord’s favour, the day of vengeance of our God’. All of these women rejoicing in the overthrow of God’s enemies, and if that doesn’t scramble your gender study presuppositions, I don’t know what will J

And the theme comes to its culmination in these familiar words of Mary in the Magnificat. Our perception of these words may perhaps be clouded by the glories of sung settings at Evensong, or rather we might view them through Rose tinted spectacles – Revolution!! doesn’t seem a suitable theme for such gentilities – or indeed our vision may be distorted by a perception of Mary as ‘Meek and mild’. Given all of this undue cosy familarity - we may well miss the plain fact that she is Rejoicing over the Great Reversals  – ‘He has cast down the mighty from their seat, and has exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away’ – This is the announcement of ‘the Year of the Lord’s favour – the day of vengeance of our God’ Salvation and Judgement going hand in hand. Good news for the humble and poor, bad news for the mighty and rich. And lest we think Mary is over egging it – listen to these words of Jesus himself from a few chapters later in the gospel Then he looked up at his disciples and said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  – then he goes on ‘But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. He says ‘Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled ‘Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Jesus, the one who sits down in the synagogue in Nazareth and opens the scroll of the prophet Isaiah at these very words – The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon be – to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

Now we may well be asking – ‘How come the Year of the LORD’s favour, is also the day of vengeance of our God’. Well to answer that we have to understand what is the Year of the LORD”s favour?? I wonder if anyone knows what other name The Year of the LORD’s favour goes by – the year when Good News will be proclaimed to the oppressed and the captives will go free?

It is The Year of Jubilee – Jesus announces The ancient Law of the Year of Jubilee. Jubillee is based on a very simple set of ideas. When Israel was given the Land it was told most clearly, the land is the LORD’s – it is not yours – you are being given it to live in but it is not yours. Echoing Psalm 24 – the Earth belongs to the LORD! Every family was given its own patch of fertile ground – every family sat under their own fig tree to use a prophetic image which had its roots in this ancient Law.

            Now what happens in human communities over a period of time is this, some do well and grow richer, others do not and grow poorer – because at the outset everyone has ENOUGH, then to put it another way some got more than ENOUGH – they then accumulated the land of others (or the means of production to put it in another vein), but not only the land of others. Because these folk who hadn’t done so well had to sell their land to survive, they did even worse and so in the end they sold themselves, they offered to work for their keep (or they became wage slaves). And that my friends was contrary to God’s purposes and intentions for his people where every family would sit under its own fig tree.

            SO, recognizing that, the Israelites were given the Law of Jubilee – that in the Fiftieth Year ( a Sabbath of Sabbaths ) – all land was to be redistributed to those to whom it had originally given and anyone in slavery, or put another way, forced to work for others in order to keep themselves alive, had to be released (Actually this release was to be enacted in the seventh year). Except of course as far as we know, it had never been enacted . . .

            after all there you are, you’ve done well for yourself over the years and built a neat and tidy pile and you have become and influential voice in the neighbourhood. Then the Tradition says – ‘it all has to go back to its original place –you’ve accumulated land (or wealth) , it has to go back – you’ve accumulated workers – they have to be set free to enjoy the land you are returning to them . . .’ You might well say – “To Hell with the tradition!!’ is it Any surprise that this Clear Command of God was Ignored . . . and this then goes on and on and on and on and on, from generation to generation – so is it any surprise at all that at the end of it all when the coming of the LORD’s anointed is announced, the humble poor Rejoice!! At last!!  We may well say that Jesus doesn’t use the phrase ‘The day of Vengeance of our God’ – but to announce the year of the LORD’s favour is going to be bad news for those who do not want to respond. The rich will be sent empty away – the hungry will be filled with Good things.

            This Jubilee theme runs all through Luke’s gospel and perhaps most starkly in the story of the rich man and Lazarus – where Jesus tells us Abraham tells the Rich man – child, remember that during your lifetime, you received your good things – woe to you who are rich now, for you have received your consolation. Encatment of Jubilee

Now of course times have changed greatly in some respects since that time and one thing I am not about to do is to suggest how we go about transforming the World Economic Order to inaugurate Jubilee – because I do not think that that is what we as the people of God are called to. We don’t need to be told that the worlds economic order is fundamentally and literally Diabolically unjust, or at least I hope we don’t – we live in an age of on the one hand unparalleled luxury for many and on the other desperate poverty for many many more. In the time of the people of God in the Land of Israel people sold themselves into slavery to their neighbours – we live in an age when more people than ever before in the history of the world are in slavery and we have No Idea of who these people are.

            Unike in the time of Israel, this is hidden from us – we are blinded to Reality. In the time of the Old Testament, you bought the land and eventually the labour of your neighbour (“who is my neighbour?” is a Jubilee Question) – in other words it was as plain as the nose on your face that if I had more, my neighbour had less. We live in a complex world economic order where that Fact of Life is very very cleverly hidden. Most of us are not in the slightest aware that we accumulate at the expense of others,, but in the same way that those who did well didn’t want Jubilee, so now many many people would rather not face the facts. And it is not just the poor who are oppressed  - the earth itself suffers the same. The LAND itself has been taken into Slavery – It has no Rest, not even a Sabbath, let alone a Jubilee. The land is submitted to whips as harsh as those of the Egyptian slave drivers.

            Every year since 1970 the population of the world has used up more natural resources annually than can be renewed – this year we went through our allotment of resources by September 27^th. If you’ve ever been tired because you haven’t had enough rest but you have to go on working harder and harder and harder, going more and more into sleep and energy deficit, you will have some feeling for this.

            But we have devised cruel and sophisticated myths to hide all this from our eyes. In the same way we have sustained the myth of riches for all by the use of Economic credit – we have sustained the myth of never ending resources by suggesting we might have environmental credit. Carbon Emissions trading is such a highly sophisticated example of thie. And because of these myths it is all too easy to think we can try and act in what we might call the public sphere, without looking closer to home  - to try and fix the system without realizing that we are too blind to do that, indeed that is precisely what God’s enemies desire, for that does not threaten how things are one jot – with all due respect to Occupy protestors and the rest. In this time of Advent, preparing for the Coming of the LORD we need to come closer to home, to ask, what does The Year of the Lords favour mean for us

For indeed the Lord will come and will not be silent – God will not wait for ever.

For it is for us, the people of God, this year of Jubilee – we are called to embody it so that the judgment of the world might be revealed – the World has already been judged at the Cross, the Judgment of Christ on our world economic order is a present reality – we are called to embody the year of the Lord’s favour and so reveal that judgement, that people may respond – and Response is what it is all about. When Salvation was revealed in Jesus Christ – there were those who responded like Zacchaeus.

When Jesus comes to Zachaues – Luke tells us - Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; Zacheus emobied the Salvation that Jesus brought and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’ ⁹Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.’ We’ll keep the significance of the Son of Abraham for another time – but note that Zachaeus’ response was to enact Jubilee – half my possessions I will give to the poor.

He knew he had been blessed by the Presence of Christ and responded by becoming Blessing - He knew he had been blessed by the Presence of Christ and responded by becoming Blessing .  As the Law of Jubilee was needed for those who would not respond to the blessing of God – so under Grace we embody it – those who Know they are Blessed become blessing, that in the words of old – there may be no poor amongst you – That was supposed to be the Economic rebuke of the People of God to those amongst whom they lived and Luke continues in the book of Acts to show this being worked out in the early church – indeed the dramatic events of Acts 5 are as much down to a denial of Jubilee as they are to deceit.

A few weeks ago we were phenomenally blessed by the fair, no? I said at the time, that this blessing was not for us. At Vestry the other night I described how God’s blessing of his world worked, that those who are blessed become themselves like Zachaeus, blessing. The Sin of the world is to accumulate not only the blessing God gives us but that of others as well and the world stands under judgement for that. We the people of God recognize that all we have – all we have comes from Him and is for the Blessing of the nations. I described that idea of blessing for two reasons. Firstly because we had been blessed yet more – by a large bequest and because of Vestry’s response to the needs of Brockville community church. Please read your notice sheet in this regard and respond. The Wonderful thing in my mind is this, that we decided as a Vestry to give a double tithe from the fair income – we had already agreed to 1/10^th for Christchurch, but it was proposed that we give a second to Brockville, our near neighbours a wonderful work happening on our doorstep. It was only After this had been decided that we heard form out Treasurer of the bequest.

Folks, this is a start –a good start, but only a start – our brothers and sisters near and far have many needs, we have been tremendously blessed both corporately as a church and also as individual members of it. Christ announces and embodies the Year of the Lord’s favour – it is our Vocation to Live into that, blessed as we are, and so to reveal to the world it’s true Lord – one who lifts up the humble and fills the hungry with Good things

Amen

Sermon for Advent Sunday

 ADVENT SUNDAY 2011

ISAIAH 64:1-9

-

MK 13:24-37

What are you looking for? John 1:38

One of the most intriguing, perplexing, at times Wonderful but usually downright exasperating things about human beings is that for all we are meant to be set apart from other creatures by the size of our brains and our power of rational thought – we are precisely not.

For example – I KNOW that a healthy diet and exercise will make me feel better – I KNOW not only that fatty and sugary foods are bad for me, that excess carbohydrate makes me feel bloated and uncomfortable. Not only do I know these things are true, with my background in life sciences as well as Physics, I know precisely why they are  true, BUT do I ever say ‘NO!’ to a piece of home baked chocolate cake or manage to avoid that late night bread and honey treat? No, I don’t. If I ever drop dead from a heart attack, my last thought may well be, ‘I can’t say I didn’t see that one coming!’

Or take my love affair with my Kindle. Now I know that it is cleverly designed to interact with my deep seated book buying compulsion and thus progressively empty my bank account. I know that – ‘in under a minute’ - from the comfort of my own chair I can be reading a book carefully suggested to me by a computer programme devoted entirely to finding books I am likely to buy. The Calorie free alternative to Chocolate fudge cake!! But does this knowledge stop me compulsively buying books? NO! Does it reveal a Life not controlled by rational impulses? You bet!

Well after that insight about myself what follows may just be a simple case of projection, but I see the same irrational behaviour all around me. From the economy to the environment – we live in an age where we are better informed than ever about precisely why what we are doing is No Good! The World’s Economic order based on the ludicrous suggestion of infinite Credit has finally come to its logical conclusion and No one could really say ‘Well we didn’t see that one coming!’ – The Worlds leaders meet again very soon once more to say ‘Something must be done!’ about the rapidly advancing global climate catastrophe – but forgive me if I sound more than a little hopeless regarding the outcome, especially when we are caught by our need to further expand our economies . . .

You see, for all our rationality ( and I think we must admit that animals behave far more rationally than humans ) we fail to understand the human condition if we ignore the fact that it is not our rationality which controls us. As my daughter put it on her recent facebook status “Reason is in slavery to the desires of our hearts”.

Put another way, our Desires or our Longings are what guide and direct our lives – our restless hearts are much more evident in the lives we leads than our supposed rationality.

Of course this can be neatly covered up. We may lead what to the outsider look incredibly orderly rational lives. I know for years I did in many respects – until I was ordained!! Now I know that in some people’s eye’s seeking ordination is in itself a sign of a kind of madness – but what completely threw me was how ‘out of control’ my life became when I started my life as a Priest. And it came to me that this was for a very obvious reason, that by and large from the age of 5, first as a school pupil, then a university student, then as a school teacher – my life was ordered by bells, by timetables. I wasn’t free to do what I wanted and I believed that I was highly Rational and organized in my being, but actually it was my Bine that was being organized, by timetables and bells. And this showed itself especially in my struggle to pray. When I’d been a school teacher, I had to leave home each morning at 6.30 so I got up at 5 to pray. It was the only time I could, so I did. And then once ordained, well I had all the time in the day to pray – and it became a real struggle. I knew I Should be praying, but I discovered that in my heart of hearts I didn’t really want to, other things seemed ot be more important.

I remember talking with my spiritual director about this and how I just wanted to go and live in a monastery and so have my prayer directed by bells – and she fairly firmly reminded me that as I was married with children that that wasn’t an option!!  - and indeed, that  it was better for me to face the desire of my heart, my lack of desire for God rather than kid myself as I had been all along to that point.

When Jesus started his ministry and folk started to follow him, he asked them the most pertinent question of all – What are you looking for? What is the desire of your heart? What are you looking for? What in your heart of hearts do you Really want??

            So on this Advent Sunday I think it is worth asking that question. Confronted as we are with this Shockingly Powerful image from the Gospel ‘But in those days, . . . , the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory. Is this what we are looking for, what in our heart of hearts we really want?? Because Advent is about looking precisely for this – the consummation of all things – crying with the Prophet Isaiah – Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down so that the mountains would quake at your presence— as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil—to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! Waiting for this – as the prophet goes on - From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.

Advent is a time of Waiting – of waiting on God, of waiting for God – and at first like the prophet we all say – Yes – Of course I want this Life of God to break out into the world – but Advent is a Long time to wait – longer than ever this year – four whole weeks – and we are offered disciplines for these special times – disciplines which help us to wait, but which also Test the reality of our desire for Him. Everyone has a leaflet suggesting ways in which we might Wait on God this Advent – particularly Waiting on God as we begin to discern together where God may wish to take us as a church. And it is worth taking up a discipline with which we are not comfortable. We may spend much time in prayer – good – then perhaps a little fasting might be in order, or one of the other suggestions. Why? Because it is God’s desire we are seeking, not our own and we all too easily confuse the two. That is why I suggest meeting with someone you do not know very well and sharing together about what you think God may wish for our church, because then you may well discover that what you thought was God was really YOU – as Another voice is given space.

You see what happens? This is a Reality Check. After affirming confidently that God works for those who wait for him, it becomes clear that he waiting reveals a different reality. The prophet goes on - You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed. We waited for you – but our waiting revealed we didn’t want to wait – we didn’t desire your heart above all  - our waiting revealed the state of our hearts, we didn’t Wait, we sinned – the prophet goes on We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. The Waiting reveals the true longing of our heart and it is Not for God – He goes on There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.

The prophet realizes that that cry of his heart ‘Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down so that the mountains would quake at your presence’ was untrue. The reality is ‘there is no one who calls on your name’.  These next four weeks I am asking the church to join me in the work I have been doing since I arrived, to seek God’s heart for the future of the church here. Might I suggest that at the beginning you take a few minutes as I have done, to write down what you think that is. And then through Advent, use one or more of the exercises I have suggested to Wait on God. Take time. So often churches do exercises like this and everyone writes down what They would like to see – but as God’s children, it’s not about Us – its about what He desires for us – and if at the end of Advent, All we have achieved is to come to the realization that we don’t want what God wants, whatever it may be, but that in reality we want what we want and we honestly face up to that, then we will have made a GREAT stride forward. If we follow the prophet through this passage in Isaiah 64 as far as Verse 7 and declare ‘There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you’, at least we will be living in reality and not deceiving ourselves – we will have seen the reality of our own hearts, and that is a Good Thing – BUT . . . HOW do we respond to this apprehension that in our heart of hearts we do not want what God wants but what we want???

There are two possible responses – despair – look at the state of my heart, what hope is there?? Or the Great theme of Advent – Yes There is Hope – in God alone. The prophet realizing that his own hearts desires have led him Far Far astray puts himself into God’s hands Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.
Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity for ever. Now consider, we are all your people.

We are all the work of your hand, We are the clay, you are the potter – You are the potter – we are clay in your hands.

I very recently put myself in the hands of another – I’d been having trouble right up high in my neck and my head – so I went to see Chris Soul – I had a massage as he went to work on what can only be described as the Dry and lumpy clay of my muscles – but the fascinating thing for me was how he focused on my feet – that getting my legs and my back and my neck straightened out  - he had to start with my feet – he had to go to work on the root of the problem – start from the base up.

            Christ the coming one goes to work on us from the root of our problems – if we wait on Him, wait For Him. It may well be that like the massage it is pretty painful – but I put myself in Chris’s hands because I knew there was a problem that needed sorting out and I trusted him.

In the end – the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. When I was being interviewed for this post I asked the nominators – what do you think God wants to do amongst you –and received some encouraging replies – what I didn’t ask was the most important follow up – because I couldn’t ask this without taking time to listen carefully to my own response – which is  - If that Is what God wants, Is it what You want?? What are we looking for?

This Advent, let us wait on Him, allow Him to speak to our hearts and so work on them and transform them that when He Comes to dwell among us our hearts may not be afraid, but full of Heavenly Joy at his appearing. So that we may declare in truth with the prophet – Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down so that the mountains would quake at your presence!!

Amen