This is the first Sunday of 2008 and it has become our tradition that the Chair preach and set the tone for the new year.
“Do you know where you’re going to?
Do you like the things that life is showing you?
Where are you going to, do you know?” ~ (1976 Diana Ross hit)
As we reflected together on our year past as we did last Sunday, so many of us spoke to give thanks for our church, for our friends here, for our family here, for the acceptance and love we’ve found here, for the reassurance of God’s unconditional love for us, and for God’s faithfulness through the ups and downs of our personal and corporate lives. It was a very heart-warming and encouraging experience for us all.
In the year ahead, I hope we will continue to embrace each other as family, continue to preach God’s love for all and especially for glbt persons, continue to fellowship, share and learn in our cell groups, support and edify each other, continue to praise, worship and pray as a family … but at the same time we must always bear in mind that we’re not just here for the fellowship or the family. In fact, a family group can become so cohesive that it starts operating as a block, and prevent growth. We can become so bonded that new people do not feel welcome, so while we say everyone’s welcome, our actions/attitudes say the reverse. Anyway, that’s subject for another sermon.
This morning I’d like us to heed the warning of the prophet Isaiah, which we just read together in our communion liturgy.
6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
The complaint by the people to God, was that neither their prayer nor fasting has induced Him to act in their favour. Isaiah points out that their fasting remains without effect because amidst their religious practices, they have not acted justly nor compassionately. If they did so, and if we do so, then Isaiah continues in verses 8-9, our light will break forth like the dawn, our healing will quickly appear, our righteousness will go before us, and the glory of the Lord will be our rear guard, we will call, the Lord will answer, we will cry for help and he will say, “Here Am I”.
This is our heritage from the prophets, it is not our agenda, but the agenda that God has for helping those who are the most vulnerable in our community. That was God’s concern from the very beginning. Our calling is to help our church be faithful to its calling. To be the light. Remember our Christmas call -- to be the light,
In the quiet of the night,
We are called to act.
We are called to care.
We are called to share
God sends us to be living faith.
Be the light, be the light
Let the flame that burns inside of you change somebody’s life
Be the light, be the light
You may be the only candle in the night
But you be the light!
If we are to be the light, to be like Jesus and choose his way – we must be prepared to live like He lived -- in tension, often in conflict with the values of our world, we must be prepared to be tested, be tempted to compromise, be tempted to escape, to plead that the cup be taken away from us. We will need to face the same dilemmas and questions Jesus faced. We will be asked to lay down our lives for others, perhaps not in a dramatic physical death, but perhaps bit by bit, day by day.
Throughout the gospels we hear Jesus speaking to us, taking on our flesh, walking our roads, experiencing our emotions – “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12), “Whatever you do for the least of my brothers and sisters, you do for me” (Matt 25:40), “Wash each other’s feet. What I did was to give you an example: as I have done so you must do” (John 13:14-15) and even as his death approached he promised, “Take this and eat .. Drink from it, all of you” (Matt 26:26-27). Let this remind you to give of yourselves for one another.
We must seriously ask ourselves, “Why do we come to church?” Why do you come to church? Because you have needs and you want those needs met. You come because you want a place of belonging, you want to be healed, set free from bondage, you want to be close to God, you want to go to heaven? All of us have these needs. But this must be our mentality: “I want to be healed so I can be an instrument of healing to others. I want to be taught so I can teach, I want to be set free so I might help others from their bondage or addictions, I want to be close to the Lord so I can lead others into His presence, I want to take so I can give”. This is the mark of true discipleship.
After all Jesus said, “Anyone who hears my words and puts them into practice is like the wise man who built a house on rock.” (Matt 7:24) We are asked not just to take his words but to live & act on them in concrete ways, in real situations, in real life. If we make this a habit – then “when the rainy season sets in, when the torrents come and the winds blow and buffet the house. It will not collapse, for it had been solidly set on rock” (V.25)
In contrast, the one who knows the gospel, reads it, proclaims it but does not incarnate it, when times of trial come, under pressure and pain, that person will collapse like the house built on sand. Jesus’ own actions were the source of his credibility. When John the Baptist’s followers asked Jesus if “he is the one who is to come”, Jesus pointed to his actions – “the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear. Jesus stresses that true discipleship lies not in words but in actions for “it is not those who say “Lord, Lord” who will enter the kingdom of heaven but those who do the will of my Father”. Mere talk will not bring us into the kingdom.
Of course, this is all talk from me, and talk is easy. Easier to discuss the beatitudes than to practise them, easier to read the biblical stories of oppressed people than to recognise it in migrant workers, abused wives, the destitute and other marginalized amongst us, easier to preach the gospel than to truly repent and transform, easier to sit comfortably in the our church than to associate with the outcasts, easier to give money to the poor or destitute than to go clean their homes or sit with them. I am guilty. And I am often reluctant. Especially when I know full well that the more involved I get, the more likely I will encounter yet another needy family, yet another mother unable to feed her children, another child who has dropped out of school, gone wayward, -- because I know that when confronted with such, I cannot just turn away.
So I help where I can, often its very little, no laying down of my life as it were. I help often because I feel sorry for those in unfortunate situations, especially innocent children. But is pity compassion? Am I really compassionate? Am I helping just to ease my conscience? Do I deep down seek recognition, praise, reward or gain? I struggle all the time with such questions. If I am honest, then I will admit my helping others is often an expression of my own needs than of God’s call. I can never claim pure motives. However, personally I have come to conclude that it is better to act first nevertheless, but to always remain critical of myself and my motives.
And I tell you though, in spite of not focusing on gain, I have gained through what little service I give. How? My eyes have been opened, my mindset jarred, my attitudes changed, I’ve had to discard cleanliness and order, only to enter unseen before, unthought-of before, messy, chaotic and often seemingly hopeless situations. I have also come to realise there’s a lot I do not understand about life, survival, suffering. There’s a lot I don’t understand about my self – Am I compassionate? Am I genuine in my offer of help? self-understanding, self-awareness -- so difficult to come by, so easily confused with pride, ego. Who am I really? Who am I called to be?
Jean Lee has preached previously on this. I recall her sermon on Jonah, who was too self-centered and preoccupied with his own interests to be concerned for others. He was selfish, angry and dejected, indifferent to the Ninevites’ plight, whom he thought of as godless as they did not worship the true God of the Hebrews. His blind spots were his prejudices, narrow-minded beliefs, false expectations. The storm was a wake-up call for Jonah, and likewise we need to be awoken to our true selves and calling. And as my father said last Sunday, we need to be honest in facing our selves, constantly questioning our attitudes, values & beliefs, our doubts, the choices we make. Only when we know ourselves, our weaknesses, strengths, only when we are in touch with our own inner streams of grace and truth can we have something to offer others. The good news is that Jo is working to mount such a self-reflexivity course for us this year, and it is something we can all look forward too.
But back to how talk is easy, doing is hard. I do realise that you all who are working hardly have the energy to get through each day, let alone have time and energy left for others. But not meaning to gloat or anything, I recall when I use to volunteer tutor at Salvation Army’s Gracehaven, home for kids from broken families or abandoned kids. I was working full-time and had 3 kids but I set aside one evening weekly to do that. I can clearly remember what kept me motivated – the faces of the kids I coached, would light up the minute I walked in (my reward) and the pity/compassion I had for these children when compared with my own 3 lucky children at home.
So truthfully I believe it is not a matter of time or energy, but a matter of attitude and our sense of responsibility. And perhaps we just need some support and encouragement, which we as a faith community can provide. We are surrounded by the company of those who believe and who inspire us to act. At our New Year’s Eve service we pondered on our inter-connectedness, we each enter the community with different gifts, energies, talents, questions, wisdom – we dialogue, we share, we argue, we bless, we pray, we give, we receive and we are completed. As a whole, we are greater and more effective than the sum of our individual parts. We can encourage each other. We can complement one another. With a common purpose we are able to do much.
We have those with talent for singing, teaching, preaching, mentoring, counselling, praying. We have poets and dreamers, workers and administrators, story-tellers and number crunchers, leaders and followers, the collective energies of the present and those who’ve gone before us. We have faithful members who have been involved in all our ministries - their commitment and persistence is a constant inspiration. And others with passion are stepping up to make new ministries of compassion and justice happen…ministries like CHASE & CPR, Safehands, striving to making a real and concrete impact in the lives of those society has forgotten. So we have started the first steps towards reaching outside ourselves, and we must continue to do so this year, with more passion, with greater numbers of volunteers, and with our whole hearts. This is a rock on which our house can be built.
This is where I want to say a word of admiration and appreciation for our ministry leaders and members. We don’t always agree on everything, and this is the way it should be. But our leaders have consistently been willing to look at problems, tackle them and make hard decisions and, when necessary, to take the heat. And sometimes we pay a price for it. Our leaders make important decisions and sometimes we make mistakes, but we have always been willing to move forward. It is better to risk making mistakes than to be paralyzed. So I want to say a special thank you all the ministry leaders for their courage, service and sacrifice this past year – all cell leaders & facilitators, worship leaders, musicians & vocalists & av crew, our stewardship head & stewards, women’s groups leaders, HIV/AIDS ministries CPR & CHASE, our outreach ministries – Safehaven & Safehands, and lastly our pastoral advisor my father and my fellow council members, whom together curiously enough exemplifies the “full continuum of theological perspectives from conservative to liberal” that we describe on our website. A proclamation that is at once a selling point in attracting people as well as a potential push factor for those who choose to leave.
I had promised myself not to talk about our diversity because sometimes I think the diversity or difference mainly occurs within the council, or perhaps just more dramatically among the council members, the rest of the church seem to get by & get along just fine. In fact last Sunday a recent member said to me she was warned of bickering over differences at FCC before she came, but she said she didn’t encounter any, well not yet, so far…
But the truth of the matter is that we are each quite different in our perspectives of the Christian faith. We’re not all evangelical, nor all charismatic, nor all Methodists, nor all theologians, nor all even super religious. And I want to say this is an area of our life together where our foundation may be a little sandy… but an area where we can grow. After all, Jesus took a disparate group of people, invited them to be his disciples, and built them into a community of love, respect and shared commitment. We are the body of Christ, not a business or a corporation. We are a family, and families strengths are built on love, relationship and trust.
So I envisage for the year ahead, that alongside our traditional seasons of the year events and on-going activities, that --
Inside the church,
1) we focus on building authentic relationships with each other not just tolerating our differences but accepting & embracing them
2) we work towards building our own self-understanding, self-awareness so we can be honest and find our true selves, who we are created to be
This will build our health, and what happens to a healthy church? It grows, just like healthy people. So we don’t have to focus on how to grow the church, we just have to focus on our health and growth will be a natural consequence.
Outside the church,
3) we take seriously our responsibility of service to those in need through actions not just words
We will then be taking Jesus seriously and our faith seriously. And we will build FCC into a more-than-one-issue church. And we will build our church on rock.
Prayer –
God of all time
who makes all things new
we bring before you the year now beginning
For life full and good
for opportunities to recognise and take
for love to know and share
we ask of you and thank you
Where we will fall short
forgive us
When we worry over things
free us
As we begin again
and take our first few steps into the future
where nothing is safe and certain
except you,
we ask for the courage of the wise men
who simply followed a star.
We ask for their wisdom
in choosing to pursue the deepest truth
not knowing where they would be led.
In the year to come, God of all time
be our help and our company
Hold our hands as we journey onwards
and may your dream of shalom
where all will be at peace
be our guiding star. Amen.
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