​Psalm 1 The Way of Happiness
Today I would like to do something a little different as I reflect on Psalm 1 under the title: The Path to Happiness.

​1. Psalm 1 begins with the Hebrew word ‘esher’ which means ‘happiness’ or blessedness’.
The first word of the book of psalms is a reminder that the divine intention for us all is that we should live in a state of happiness and blessedness.
We were created for happiness. The desire for happiness is part of our default programming.
When we are not living in a state of happiness, we are falling short of the divine intention for us. It could even be said that not living in a state of happiness is a sin in the truest sense of that word. To sin is to fall short. To live without happiness is to fall short of all that God has placed within us to be.


2. Secondly Psalm 1 points us in the direction that which leads us away from true happiness.
Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.
The psalm uses three phrases in parallel, each phrase seeking to cast meaning on the others:

• the counsel of the wicked
• the way of sinners
• the seat of mockers

“The seat of mockers” can also be translated as the seat of the scornful. In what way does sitting in the seat of mockers or of the scornful lead away from the path of happiness.
The seat of mockers or the scornful is the seat of arrogance, considering oneself higher than others, a law unto oneself and from that place of arrogance and looking down upon others, treating them with contempt. The counsel of the wicked is the counsel of those who would teach the way of gain by criminal or deceptive and false means.
What the Psalmist is saying to us, is that the way of selfish, deceptive arrogance is not a way to true happiness. Instead of helping to connect us with us with others and with life with God, the way of selfish, deceptive arrogance divides us from others, from life and from God, and as such is no path to happiness. It is interesting that the word “diabolical” means literally to throw across, which means to divide. That which causes division, which breaks the unity of the wholeness which God has made is a path that leads away from true happiness.


3. Thirdly, Psalm 1 points us in the direction that leads towards true happiness which it describes as delighting in the law of the Lord, and meditating upon this law day and night.
Before Jesus, a definition of the law of the Lord in the ancient Hebrew scriptures would have referred to the 613 laws of the Old Testament, written laws that Orthodox Jews continue to seek to observe even today in their tiniest detail.
But with the coming of Jesus, Christians were invited to a new understanding of the Law of the Lord, what Paul refers to as the Law of the Spirit of Life (Romans 8:2), not as a list of written commandments, but rather, the law of the spirit which according Paul is summarised as the Law of Love (Romans 13:8-10). Love does no harm to it’s neighbours, therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
For Paul, the written law brings death, but the Law of the Spirit, which is the Law of Love, brings life. The letter kills, but the Spirit brings life as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 3:4-6.
The true path of happiness is therefore to delight in the law of love, the spirit of love, and to meditate on that law of love day and night.

4. Psalm 1 describes what happens when we take delight in the law of love and when we meditate on that law of love night and day…
The Psalmist says we become like trees planted by streams of water, constantly refreshed and given that which is essential for life and growth. One could say that in this psalm, love is compared to a river, which waters us at the roots of our humanity and at the roots of our personalities, helping us to grow into the fullness of all that we can be as human beings.
I get the sense that one of the great delights of a parent is seeing a child growing into all that they can be. We were all made to grow and flourish as human beings. True religion and true spirituality is meant to nurture our growth as human beings, helping us to become all that we can be.
It is just the most wonderful thing in the world to see another human being shine. We were all made to shine, and according to the Psalmist, our ability to shine in life and in this world comes as we take delight in the law of love, the way of love, and as we meditate on that way and law of love night and day.


5. The way of those caught up in the way of the arrogant self and who do not follow and meditate on the way of love, find their life of growth,wholeness and fullness undermined.
In verse 4 “not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.”
A life of emptiness with no real substance, and no real meaning.
A few months ago, there was a documentary series on rich kids who go homeless. We only saw one episode. It was a young man in his 20’s who bought clothes for thousands’s of pounds and who would spend easily 1600 pounds on a night out with his friends. But after 3 nights of living on the street and meeting a homeless man, who spent his days and nights clearing rubbish from the river and recycling cans and bottles that people left lying in the street, this young man reflected on this and admitted that this homeless man was a person of greater substance than any of his friends with all their money. The homeless man was living a life of love, love for the God’s creation, and love for the streets and the city in which he lived.
And so may you recognise that you have been made for happiness. May you discover that happiness as you take delight in the law of God’s love and as you meditate on the way of love day and night. May you become like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, with leaves that do not whither, that as you grow, flourish and blossom, your life may be a life of blessing to others. Amen.

Dear Friends

Welcome again to our online worship service. The order of service is as follows:

1. Welcome, Announcements and Opening Prayer (Video)
2. Hymn - God moves in a mysterious way (YouTube Video with Words)
3. Children's Address (Video)
4. Children's Song: "Peace like a River" (Video)
5. Reading Psalm 102
6. Sermon:  "Thank God for Change".
7. Meditation response - Abide with me - (Audio - Brian playing guitar)
8. Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession.
9. Hymn - Be Thou My Vision  (YouTube Video with Words).
​10. Sermon Text

WELCOME & OPENING PRAYER

HYMN - GOD MOVES IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY

CHILDREN'S ADDRESS

CHILDREN'S SONG

READING: Psalm 102

 SERMON - Thank God for CHange
(Video or Audio Versions available)

AUDIO ONLY - Sermon

Reflection / Meditation on Sermon:
ABIDE WITH ME (Brian on guitar)

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me

PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING AND INTERCESSION

​Thank God for Change. 
Psalm 102

I have recently been watching a documentary series on BBC documenting the dreadful period of witch burnings that swept across Britain, starting around 420 years ago and lasting for a whole century, 100 years!

It is just too barbaric to imagine, innocent women, and men, being tortured until they confessed crimes they could not have committed, and then executed in some of the most horrific ways. And these religious crimes were committed by zealous Protestants who believed that they had left behind the superstitions of Catholicism. It makes me think that if we were transported back 400 years ago, the British culture that we would have experienced would be vastly different from what we call British culture today.  It would quite possibly have been as barbaric and religiously oppressive as the Islamic fundamentalism of the Isis Caliphate today with it’s beheadings also in the name of God. 

Change is not always something that we like or enjoy. When change comes upon us we often resist it. We often long for things to stay the same.  On Facebook recently there was a picture with the words “How I long for some precedented times”.  It is a humorous reflection on how we often cling to things as they are. 

But the truth is, that we live in a world of change.  The ancient Greek Philosopher famously said, “You cannot step into the same river twice”.   Life and the universe is in a state of constant flux.  Buddhist teaching will tell you that one of the great sources of our mental and psychological suffering is our resistance to change, because change and impermanence is one of the fundamental marks of existence. 

When we are faced with the assertion that everything changes and that there is nothing impermanent in this world, we as Christians might ask the question: Does God change? 

Reading, reflecting and meditating on Scripture presents us with some interesting perspectives…
Some passages suggesting that God is unchanging, while others suggest that within God, there is movement and therefore change. 

Firstly, on the one hand we hear the author of Malachi making the assertion that God does not change:  Malachi 3:6 “I am the LORD, and I do not change.”  We hear also the Psalmist in Psalm 102:25-27 “Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end.” And then in Hebrews 13:8 we hear similar assertions about Jesus, “Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, today and forever.” 

In this world of constant change, where as the write of Hebrews puts it, we have no abiding, no permanent city, various authors in the Biblical writings suggests that there is One who does not change, that God is the one constant in the Universe, the still point upon which everything else turns. While everything else changes, God remains constant. 

Secondly, on the other hand, in Scripture, we have other passages that suggest that God does change. In John’s Gospel, Jesus favourite way of speaking of God was with the word pneuma… which can be translated as Spirit, or Breath. In John 3:8 we read these words: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit/Pneuma.” 

In this passage, the Spirit, or the Breath or Wind of God implies movement, a  movement that is even unpredictable, and mysterious. It is probably one of the passages that William Cowper, the great hymn writer, would have drawn on when he wrote the words to the hymn “God’s Spirit moves in a mysterious way.”

And so you have two perspectives across different passages of Scripture that suggest that God is somehow simultaneously both changing and that which is unchanging. 

How might God be simultaneously be described as unchaining, the same yesterday today and forever, and yet at the same time like a Wind that blows wherever it wishes.  That is one of the paradoxes of theological language, a little bit like science. When observed from different perspectives, light behaves as a wave and as particles. Scientists don’t know how to resolve these two observations into one theory. 

So it is with God: God is simultaneously that which remains constant and unchanging, and yet when observed or experienced from a different perspective, God is the breath that breathes and moves through creation.  

It is a reminder that we shouldn't resist change. Change is inevitable. When we resist change we end up suffering.  According to John’s Gospel, change and movement are part of God’s nature as Spirit or Breath.  In that sense, we must thank God for change. Thank God that we don't live in the 1600’s where witches were tortured and burned. Thank God Britain has changed.  Thank God Britain no longer trades in slavery.  Thank God for change. Where would we be without it?

And yet paradoxically, if we are to weather the storms of change around us, because at the moment in 2020 they do feel like storms, we need to discover  the One who is also unchanging, the same yesterday, today and forever, the still point of God’s Presence at the heart of life in which we can find refuge and strength. 

One author on the internet suggests that the changing and unchanging nature of God is resolved when viewed through the lens of love.  God’s love is a movement that causes creation to come into being, that causes life to grow and things to be born. But God’s love, which is always moving, is always constant and unchanging. 

One of my favourite hymns is Abide with me.  Perhaps the saddest thing about the hymn is that we generally only sing it at funerals.  It is a hymn that invites us, in the midst of the raging tempests of this world, to find the one who changest not.  In that sense, it is not a hymn ultimately of sadness, but one of hope, of light that shines through the gloom, of heaven’s morning breaking and the shadows of earth fleeing. 

Abide with me, 
fast falls the eventide; 
The darkness deepens 
Lord, with me abide. 
When other helpers fail, 
and comforts flee, 
help of the helpless, 
O abide with me. 

Swift to its close, 
ebbs out life’s little day. 
Earth’s joys grow dim; 
Its glories pass away; 
change and decay in all around I see. 
O Thou who changest not, abide with me. 

Hold Though Thy cross
before my closing eyes
shine through the gloom
and point me to the skies
heaven’s morning breaks
and earth’s vain shadows flee,
In life, in death
O Lord, abide with me. 

And so, when life’s storms rage around us, may we pause to give thanks for change, because within it, we hear God’s whisper of love that “this too shall pass”.  And at the same time, may we also hear the invitation of the One who changest not, “Abide with me”. 

​Lets Cross Over to the Other Side…
Mark 4:35-41

Over the past three weeks of leave Wendy and I have taken a little time to watch TV shows that we had recorded months ago, that we hadn't had time to watch yet.  

Last week we watched the period drama called Sanditon. It first aired on ITV in August last year.   Watching it last week was particularly interesting in light of the Black Lives Matter protests, issues of the legacy of slavery in Britain, and questions regarding ongoing structural racism in British life and institutions. 

In the story of Sanditon one of the key characters is a young black women called Georgiana who hails from Antigua, a British slave colony, upon whose slave trade and slave plantations, great wealth was injected into Britain helping to make it the powerful nation it became. Georgiana is a wealthy heiress, and her father, who it appears was himself an ex-slave, had somehow turned his own fortunes around after being freed from slavery, and now as a rich man himself, sends his daughter to England in order for her to learn the ways of an English lady and hopefully become part of English high society through marriage and a large dowry.  But Georgiana’s experience of English society is one of prejudice in which she is not truly accepted and often treated with disdain. 

Questions of race and racism are difficult subjects. On the Stephen Nolan show on Tuesday morning, I caught a segment of his show debating levels of racism in Northern Ireland. There were some who completely denied that racism exists in Northern Ireland. There were others who said that racism in Northern Ireland is alive and well. A report put out by amnesty international in 2018 based on  a survey of people in Northern Ireland suggested that 47% of people in Northern Ireland would not accept a Muslim as a close friend or family member, and up to a quarter of all respondents to the survey said that they would not willingly accept someone from an ethnic minority as a colleague at work.

What such a report suggests is that not everyone in Northern Ireland is racist, but a fairly large minority do hold very strongly racial views. 

My own reflections on these matters is that racism is in fact a very natural phenomenon. In saying that, I am not saying that it is a good thing, but it is natural. When considering the history of human development from our days as cave-men and cave-women it could be said that we all come from a racist past.  Psychologically speaking, part of our early human survival strategies and instincts, were to be suspicious of anyone who was different from ourselves. 

It happens across species as well. Jane Goodall talking on Radio 4 a few weeks ago spoke of her early interactions with chimpanzees in the wild and how at first they were extremely suspicious of her. It took weeks if not months to begin a process of breaking down that cross species suspicion and to begin to forge new and positive interactions with them. 

From our instinctual, primitive past, racism comes naturally to humanity. We regard those who are different from us with suspicion, as part of our instinctive desire to protect ourselves from the unknown and from potential harm.  Along with this instinct towards self-protection, is also the tendency to regard those who are different from us as less valuable.  We all do it. It is natural to regard those who are closest to us, our family, our friends, as more valuable than those who we do not know and who are outside our inner circle and those who are different from us. It is part of our conditioning and our early emotional attachments that began from the time of our birth. When human society was ordered primarily by tribes and clans it was natural for people to regard their own tribe or clan as more important and more valuable than people from other tribes and clans.  And when it comes to issues of race and nationality, it is natural that human beings have intellectually regarded people from their own race or nationality as being of more value and more trust-worthy than people of other races and nationalities.  We are conditioned to trust them more because they are more like ourselves.

In this sense, racism is built into each and every one of us. The tendency to value our own race or nationality above others. The tendency to be suspicious of other races and nationalities whose ways of speaking and behaving are different and less predictable than our own. 

It is also quite natural that the way societies are structured have historically reflected these biases within us.  Those who have held power in society have structured society to benefit themselves, their loved ones, their friends and those who are like themselves.  When we consider our primitive past, it is quite natural that these instincts are still a part of us. 

Based on the above analysis, I believe (and this is really my own personal perspective) that no-one in this world can truly claim that they are not racist. We all have been programmed and conditioned with the seeds of racism within us. At the most, I believe that we can call ourselves recovering racists, just as an alcoholic who has lived 5 or 10 or 25 years of sobriety would still speak of themselves as recovering alcoholics, because they recognise that the seeds of alcoholism still lie within them. 

And so rather than claiming to not be racist, which I believe is a dangerous thing to claim, because it cuts me off from being willing to look critically at myself and the way I behave towards people of other races, I would rather, cautiously, refer to myself as a recovering racist. At least I hope that I am on the road to recovery. And the more I can become aware of the racist tendencies and conditioning within me, hopefully, by the grace of God, the more I can consciously seek to treat people of other races with equal dignity and equal value. 

But it is hard, because we carry so much unconscious conditioning within us and we are often most drawn to people who are most like ourselves. 

But why bother some might say?  Why should we even try to value people of other races equally to our own? 

On answer to that question is because it is really the only path to peace in this world.  If we really value peace, then we need to build a world of greater fairness and greater balance. A world that is structured to favour my group and my race is a world that inevitably is structured to disfavour other groups and other races. A world that is not fair, breeds anger, resentment, fear, violence. Over-coming racism in our world is ultimately in our own best interests, because building a world where people are not judged by the colour of their skin, their language or ethnicity, is ultimately the only road to true peace in this world. 

A second answer to that question is that our Christian faith compels us to become aware of the seeds or racism within us. It compels us to become aware of how our societies are biased towards some and not others.  The whole trajectory of Jesus life was a life of breaking down barriers between people or crossing over old boundaries that keep people apart, raising up the lowly and bringing the powerful down from their thrones (Luke 1:52).

In our passage today where Jesus calms the storm, it is a passage about crossing over to the other side. In Mark 4:35 where we read the story, Jesus explicitly says to his disciples… “Let us cross over to the other-side of the lake.”  Who or what was on the other-side of the lake? In the story that follows this episode, we learn that it was the land of the Gerasenes. It was Gentile foreigners who lived on the other-side of the lake.  Crossing over the lake must have been hugely anxiety provoking to the disciples. They had probably never been to the other side before.  The other-side of the lake was a land of foreigners. Would they even be safe when they disembarked on the other-side?  Was the storm that raged in the story perhaps a symbol of the storm that was raging in their own hearts and minds as they began to fear for their own lives.  Is it possible that this is not just a story about overcoming the external forces of nature, but perhaps more specifically a story about overcoming the internal forces of nature, the internal tendencies within each of us that keep us apart from others due to our fears. 

In the story, Jesus invites us to cross over to the other-side. What could it mean for us today?

And then in Ephesians 1:10, we read that Jesus has come to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth. Unity to all things clearly also means unity between all people because in Ephesians 2:14 we read that Jesus, who is our peace, has come to destroy the dividing walls of hostility between people in this world. And lastly for today, in Galatians 3:28 Paul writes, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” At the heart of the message and the way of Jesus is the call, and the invitation to overcome our divisions based on racism and sexism, and we do this Paul says, because on the cross, Jesus came to make peace in our world. The cross shows that work of making peace is costly.

And so, by the Grace of God at work within our hearts, may each of us become aware of the seeds of racism that live within us and which affect the way in which we order our world.  And in becoming aware of those seeds of racism within, may the Mind of Christ that comes to unite all things in heaven and on earth be made manifest within us as we seek to become agents of his love, fairness and peace in the world. Amen. 

Dear Friends

Next week Rev. Moodie will be back from leave and will again be posting services online until Churches are allowed to reopen. 

Today, as with the last two weeks, you are invited to join in the online services of some of our sister churches in the NSPCI clicking on the links below. 

​God's blessings as you worship today. 

Online Services

Services on Facebook

Dear Friends

Today, (as Rev. Moodie  is on leave), we have a few possible online services that you can choose from, by various ministers within the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland. 

The only ones available at the time of posting this blog are the two listed below.

Other services from other ministers will be available from 11:30 and can be accessed either from the NSPCI website homepage (scroll down to "Reflections"), or on the NSPCI Facebook page (see links further below).

Please click on the links below:​

​May God bless you as you worship. 

For further options from the NSPCI Website and Facebook page, please click on the following link: 
​
(Most of these services are only available from 11:30 this morning.)

SERMON TEXT
The Ascension of Christ - Whose Presence Fills the Universe​

Luke 24:50-53 & Ephesians 4:7-10 

On Wednesday it was Ascension Day, 39 days after Easter Sunday.
In the Bible, there are perhaps at least three perspectives (one could possibly say three understandings) of the ascension of Christ.
​
The first is in the book of Luke 24 and Acts 1. Forty Days after Jesus Resurrection, the writer of Luke’s Gospel pictures a scene in which Jesus is standing with his disciples and he begins to rise in in front of their eyes, kind of levitating up into the sky, where he disappears from their sight through the clouds.

It is a concrete pictorial description of something that might in fact be beyond words.

The description in the books of Luke and Acts follows the popular ancient world-view of a three tiered universe where earth was in the middle. Below ground was hades, the place of the dead, and then above the sky, beyond the dome of the sky, or the firmament as the book of Genesis would put it, is the realm of heaven, where God sits on a throne looking down upon us all.

In the books of Luke and Acts then, the author has composed a story to try and enable early Christian believers to picture in their minds how Christ who was now risen, had ascended to God above the sky in the heaven.

But interestingly, John’s Gospel also makes reference to the ascension of Christ, and he doesn't follow the time frame of Luke and Acts. In John’s Gospel, the ascension of Christ happens almost immediately after the Resurrection. You will remember that in John’s Gospel, the risen Christ meets Mary Magdalene in the garden outside the empty tomb. She thinks he is a gardener. He calls her by name, saying “Mary”. In that instant she recognises him, turns towards him and Jesus says to her “Do not hold on to me, for I have to ascend to the Father. God instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Later that same evening, while the disciples are together behind locked doors, Jesus comes and stands amongst them.

The implication in John’s Gospel is that in the interim, Jesus has somehow already ascended to the Father, for a week later, according to John’s Gospel, Thomas can now reach out and touch the hands and side of Jesus.

So we have two texts in the New Testament that both speak of Jesus ascending to the Father, but the timing is different.

Then we come to the book of Ephesians and we discover more references to the ascension of Christ. Early on in Ephesians, the writer, believed by many to be the apostle Paul, refers to Christ being raised from the dead, and being seated at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms, with God placing all things under his feet and making Christ the head of all.

In Chapter 1 of Ephesians, the resurrection of Christ and His ascension are not two distinct events, but rather almost two inter-changeable ideas or perhaps two ways of describing the same thing.

But in Ephesians Chapter 4 the idea of the ascension of Christ takes on an even greater and deeper significance. In chapter 1 Jesus is seated next to the Father in the heavenly realms, but in chapter 4 the ascension of Christ is described in completely different terms. In chapter 4:10 Paul writes “He who descended is the very one who ascended, higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.”

Higher than all the Heavens in order to fill the whole Universe. In Chapter 4:10, the ascension of Christ is a cosmic event. In Ephesians 4:10, the presence of Christ is now cosmically linked to the presence of God.

To speak of God seated on a throne is to use picture language to try and describe something that is indescribable. If God is the highest authority in the universe, then using human picture language, it becomes useful to imagine God on a throne. And if God has somehow made Jesus King, then is becomes equally necessary to describe Jesus as sitting on a throne at the right hand side of God. This is language that is meant to help ordinary human beings like us have some image to grasp onto and hold in our minds. But just so that we don’t try to take that image too literally, and to remind us that it is a metaphor and a picture describing something essentially indescribable, the writer of Ephesians then blows our minds with a cosmic picture where the ascension of Christ means that Christ has gone beyond even the highest heavens in order to fill the whole universe.

And so, if we are to ask the question “Where is Christ?” The author of Ephesians tells us that it is almost like the Presence of Christ has exploded and expanded filling the whole universe. In other words, the ascension of Christ means that, like God, the presence of Christ fills all things, the whole universe.

The life of Christ has become a window and a doorway into encountering the One whose Presence fill’s the whole universe. If according to the writer of Ephesians, Christ’s presence fills all things, and the whole universe, then it could be said that Christ is to be found within every atom, within every neutron, within every electron, and within the tiniest particle or wave energy in the universe.

This is an amazing thing when you begin to think about it. If Christ is Love, then by implication, Christ’s ascension means that Christ’s love fill’s the entire universe.To put it another way, everything is in Christ, and Christ is in everything. This is the language that is used in John’s Gospel where in John 14. It was the lectionary passage. In that passage, Jesus tells the disciples that he is going to the Father. This sounds like the language of ascension. But he also tells them that “I am in the Father and the Father is in me”. And then in verse 20, Jesus expands this idea to tell us that a day will come when we will discover that He is in the Father, but also that we are in him and he is in us. 

It seems that the life of the Spirit is an inside job. To have the eyes of our hearts enlightened, as the writer of Ephesians puts it in Ephesians 1:18 is to have our eyes opened to discover the Presence of God, and the Presence of Christ in all things, filling the entire universe. And according to Ephesians 4:10, when we do that, then we will have truly understood what the Ascension really means. 

Or as the Poet William Blake put it… "To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour."

The Gospel of Thomas is a gospel that was never included in the New Testament. It is a book of sayings of Jesus, quite a number of which appear in the 4 Gospels we have in the Bible, as well as quite a few that do not. Within the Gospel of Thomas there is a wonderful saying of Jesus that expresses the same sense of Ephesians 4:10 which speaks of the presence of God and Christ filling all things:

In Saying 77 Jesus says: “I am the light that is over all. I am the All. The All came forth out of me. And to me the All has come.” “Split a piece of wood – I am there. Lift the stone, and you will find me there.”

And in Saying 113, the disciples ask Jesus, “...The Kingdom, what day will it come?” To which Jesus replies, “...The Kingdom of the Father is spread out across the earth, but people do not see it.”

The ascension of Christ reminds us that the whole universe and the whole of creation is the Temple of God’s Presence. Or another way of putting it that the Universe is the very body of Christ and Christ is the heart or soul of the universe.

And so on this Ascension Sunday, may the eyes of our hearts be enlightened (Eph 1:18), that in their opening, we may come to see the Presence of Christ in everything, so that, using words from Ephesians 1:23 we come to see Christ who is the Fullness of Him who fills all things. Amen.

As a meditation on this perspective on the ascension of Christ, I am now going to invite us to reflect on the words of a beautiful song written by Dean Slater “Have you seen Jesus my Lord” that invites us to see Christ in all of creation.

​ Dear Friends

Greetings again in the Name of Christ as we join online for this act of Sunday worship.

Our order of service is as follows:

1. Welcome, announcements and opening prayer (Video)
2. Hymn - I am so glad (Audio)
3. Children's Song - Wide Wide as the Ocean (Video)
4. Children's video - From Youtube
5. Reading from the Book of Jonah (Video)
6. Sermon (Audio)
7. Prayers of Intercession (Video)
8. Closing Hymn - There's a Wideness in God's Mercy (Brian's tune)
​                               OR Alternative Traditional Tune
9. The Story of Jonah as told by a little girl (Youtube link)
​10. Sermon Text

READING - From the Book of Jonah

Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession

​The Story of Jonah - As Told By a Little Girl (From Youtube)

​SERMON TEXT 
Jonah 1:1-3 ; 3:1-10; 4:1-3
Where is Your Ninevah? 

Just before my trip to South Africa, I had begun to read a book by US author Rev. Michael Dowd entitled “Thank God for Evolution”. In the book he does the work of integrating the Christian faith with an evolutionary perspective on history. 

He believes that evolution rather than being a threat to our faith in God can in fact deepen and enrich our faith. 

Early on in the book he says that the process of evolution in human beings has seen, over time, a general increase in the human hearts capacity for compassion.  In the earliest phases of our human journey, he writes that the boundaries of the human heart were determined by clan. Later these boundaries were expanded to include a tribe made up of a number of clans. Later as humanity developed further the boundaries of the human heart were expanded to include people from various tribes making up a nation. And in more recent history it has seen the ability of human beings to begin to identify a common humanity beyond our national identities. What we are also beginning to see is a growth in fellow feeling across species as well, with human beings having an increasing sense of compassion towards animals with movements against cruelty.  This has not been a completely linear journey. There have clearly been steps forward and steps backward. But this has been the general trajectory over time with the evolutionary growth of humanity. 

And this theme is what the book of Jonah is all about.  Most often when we think of the story of Jonah, the emphasis is on a man being swallowed by a whale, and surviving to tell the tale, a detail in the story that just defies all our modern scientific understanding. And so the story of Jonah for some Christians has become a test of faith of whether you believe such a miracle can happen or not and by implication whether you believe in the Bible or not. 

But what if the Jonah story was never meant to be interpreted in this way at all?

What if the book of Jonah was always meant to be read as a satirical parable challenging it’s first readers to consider the wideness of God’s mercy and compassion for their enemies? What questions would we ask of the story then? And maybe, what questions might the story of Jonah begin to ask of us?

One of the most important questions to ask when interpreting the Bible is the question of context. When was the book of Jonah written? Who were it’s first hearers? What did it mean to them? 

To answer that question scholars say that it would have been written after the Jewish exile in Babylon. 

The people of Israel had returned from exile to the city of Jerusalem. They were listening to the preaching of Ezra and Nehemiah with both Ezra and Nehemiah have taking on a strong stance against anyone who is not a pure Jew. They have forced Jewish men to send away their foreign wives as well as their children born from those wives.  This was a period of harsh narrow nationalism where foreigners were regarded as pagans, falling outside of the embrace of God’s grace and favour. 

In this context, one inspired, prophetic Jewish story-teller tells a story, a satirical parable, to remind the people of Israel that God’s mercy is for all people, not just the Jews or Israelites. 

Just as a newspaper cartoonist uses satire, comedy and exaggeration to make people think deeply about whats going on, so the story of Jonah likewise uses satire and humour to get under the armour of his listeners to challenge them with the wide-embracing love, mercy and compassion of God. 

First of all, the name Jonah is significant, meaning “dove” or “pigeon”.  In the story of Noah and the Ark, the dove symbolised peace on earth because of the olive branch it brought back to the ark to indicate the end of God’s wrath over humankind and his Creation. And so, the book of Jonah opens with God calling Jonah to live up to his name, and to be an instrument of God’s peace and forgiveness, delivering an olive branch so to speak, to the city of Nineveh.

What is the significance of the City of Nineveh?  From a Jewish perspective, the City of Nineveh was an evil city, the capital of the ancient, hated, powerful and ruthless Assyrian Empire.  For the ancient Israelites, the Assyrian Empire had once invaded the Northern Kingdom of Israel and had virtually obliterated 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel, deporting the captives all over their empire and stripping them of their identity. This was a cruel and ruthless empire. In the minds of the Hebrews, this was an ancient enemy, a detested, evil city that they believed deserved God’s judgement and destruction. 

And so God call’s on Jonah, whose name symbolises the end of God’s wrath, to go to the capital city of his people’s ancient enemy to preach to them. 

How does Jonah respond? Jonah runs in the opposite direction. He wants to have nothing to do with what God is calling him to do.   Why does he run in the opposite direction? Because he knows who God is. He says, “I know who you are, you are a God of mercy.  I am not going to be part of a plan where you come to the people of Nineveh and express your mercy through me.”  Jonah is refusing to be used as an instrument of God’s peace and compassion to his people’s ancient enemies.  He is refusing to live up to his own name. 

And so Jonah runs in the opposite direction. Where God calls him to go East to Nineveh, he begins to travel West to Tarshish, a city in ancient Spain. Perhaps the idea of lying on the sunny beaches of Spain appealed to him more than going to the detested city of his ancient enemies.

In the next scene, Jonah is on a boat sailing to Tarshish, and a great storm arises.  Alan Storey says that wherever you have the cold winds of narrow nationalism and exclucivism being met by the warm winds of God’s universal love and compassion, a perfect storm is going to erupt. 

The satire in the story is revealed in the boat, when the pagan sailors, who are supposedly godless and far from God, are depicted down on their knees, praying to God, while Jonah, the one called to be God’s servant is depicted sleeping below deck.  The author of this story is driving home the point that God is a God of all nations and all people, unlike the preaching of Ezra and Nehemiah who  suggested that somehow God was only interested in the true people of Israel. 

Jonah rouses himself from sleep, comes above deck, and as Tim Mackie puts it, he begins to spout forth a whole lot of religious mumbo jumbo about his God being the God who made the heavens and the earth and the oceans. He owns up and  admits that the storm is his fault because he has been disobedient to the God of heaven and earth, but,  rather than turn around and do what God has asked of him, to go and be an instrument of peace to his ancient enemies, Jonah would rather commit suicide, telling the sailors to throw him overboard.  The sailors are reluctant to do so. They don’t want his blood on their hands, but in the end he persuades them and over he goes, into the stormy waters. 

But God has not given up on this disobedient rebellious messenger.  Jonah gets swallowed by a large fish.  Interesting, in the story there is no reference to a whale, just a large fish.  Psychologically speaking, I find this detail of the story interesting. A psychology of the brain will tell you that we all have a reptilian brain, the amygdala, the small central core of our brain that we share with reptiles. It is the part of our brain that is activated by fear and responds with either fight or flight.  In Jonah’s case his response is one of flight. It is quite symbolic. His narrow nationalistic exclusivism, filled with a fundamental fear, has made him psychologically regress. Being swallowed by a fish is symbolic of him being consumed by his reptilian brain. In a complimentary way, Alan Storey suggests that Jonah being swallowed by the fish is symbolic of Jonah becoming swallowed by his narrow minded nationalism. And so in the story, Jonah ends up on the bottom of the ocean in the belly of a great fish. 

Now water in ancient Jewish mythology was often symbolic of chaos and evil.  As Alan Storey suggests, the history of the world reminds us again and again that narrow-minded and narrow-hearted nationalism and hatred will take you into the depths of chaos and evil. It was the story of Nazi Germany and Facist Italy, or Rwanda and it is the story of every nation that has walked down this road.  

But in the all-embracing love and compassion of God, Jonah is not abandoned in these watery depths.  The evolutionary impulse that God has placed in humanity, and all of life, is to grow and expand ourselves. We cannot remain in our places of narrowness and regression forever. 

In the belly of the great fish, Jonah utters a prayer. As Tim Mackie says, Jonah never technically repents, but he does thank God for not abandoning him and promises to obey from this point on. 

And so the fish spits Jonah out onto the shore of Nineveh. God has not given up on Jonah, but neither has God given up on extending his mercy to the people of Nineveh.  There are things we cannot avoid in life, and when we try to avoid life’s challenges, they come back to us. God’s challenge to Jonah in the story comes back to him a second time.

This time Jonah gives in. But a bit like a rebellious teenager, Jonah drags his feet as he walks into Nineveh. And once inside Nineveh, Jonah put’s absolutely no effort into this task given him by God. He preaches the worst sermon ever.  Just five words in the Hebrew text. “Forty days and Nineveh will be over-turned”.  No nice warm introduction. No three point sermon with a rousing conclusion. Just five Hebrew words… Jonah is finally obedient to God, but he gives the bare minimum.  He makes no mention of what Nineveh has done wrong or what they should do in response.  There is no mention of God, and no mention of who is going to over-turn them. 

Jonah gives them the bare-minimum perhaps in the hopes that they will simply ignore him and they will not respond to the invitation of God’s mercy. 

But if Jonah was hoping that nobody would listen to him, he is mistaken. No sooner has he delivered his bare-minimum five word sermon, we read that the whole city of Nineveh is cut to the heart, from the king on his throne, right down to the very bottom of society, everyone dresses in sack-cloth and ashes, even the cows and animals. It is part of the satire of the story, that even the animals repent at the preaching of Jonah.  

In addition, yet again, these evil pagans from Nineveh show themselves to be more responsive and more faithful to God than God’s servant Jonah. 

Jonah in the meanwhile has retreated to a hill over-looking the city where he can sulk. Perhaps  he is watching and waiting in anticipation, still hoping that he is going to see a Sodom and Gomorrah moment where God’s fire and brimstone are rained down upon them. 

And while he is waiting and watching, a strange little sub-plot begins to unfold.  The sun is growing hot, and so the God character in the story makes a vine grow up over Jonah to provide shade for him which makes Jonah very happy.  The next day as this sub-plot unfolds, a worm begins to eat away at the roots of the vine, and the vine dies along with Jonah’s shade. Jonah is in a foul mood. He hold’s God responsible for it all. Jonah is so fuming mad about everything that has happened that he just wants to die. 

God’s response to Jonah begins to pack home the punch of the whole story. God responds saying to Jonah that his priorities are all wrong. He cares more for this plant that has died that a whole city of people whom God loves and cares for. 
 
What's the point of the story? Is it that God can do miraculous things like saving someone by having them swallowed up by a great fish and then spat up on the shore? 

Or is the story meant to be a mirror that we hold up to our own faces?  Challenging our own narrow-heartedness that would regard some people as being outside of God’s grace and mercy irredeemable and only worthy of destruction, when God sees them as God’s children whom God would wish to save.  It is a story that remind us of the wide-embracing love of God, that includes and embraces even our enemies. 

The story leaves us with some questions: Who or what is your Nineveh?  They place or the person, or the people that are your hated enemies that you see as being outside of the embrace of God’s concern and mercy? The people or person that we don't want to extend mercy to? The person or the people that we would rejoice over if they had a downfall, or if they were no-more? What would it mean for you to be an instrument of God’s grace and mercy to your Nineveh? An ex-spouse? A person who betrayed or cheated you in? Another nationality? People of another religion?  Who or what is your Nineveh?  

Lastly, what does it mean for you that in the story, that the God-character continues to love and care for Jonah, despite all his anger, rebelliousness and lack of faithfulness? 

I am the Good Shepherd.
John 10:1-11; Jeremiah 23:1-4 / Ezekiel 34 1-31

As I said before the reading for today, one of the gifts of scripture is that it is rather like a diamond with many sides and facets. Last week I explored certain facets of the text. Today, I would like to look again at the same text and explore it perhaps from a slightly different angle.

In our passage, there are so many rich images, metaphors and figures of speech. It is interesting that the voice of Jesus in the passage actually uses the very phrase “figures of speech”. One could also use the term ‘archetypal’. When I use the term archetypal it refers to an image, metaphor or symbol that somehow gets to the root of our common human experience.

The first image we come across in the passage is in verse 1 is the image of the thief and the robber. Later on we read that the thief or robber comes to rob, kill and destroy. In verses 1-2 the thief or robber tries to deceive and short-cut the system for personal gain, climbing over fences instead of entering through the gate.

In the passage itself, Jesus is referring to the political and religious leaders of Israel. They are the one’s that Jesus is accusing of acting as robbers and thieves. Acting out of deceitful self-interest and personal gain. This accusation of acting deceitfully for purposes of personal gain is one that is not an uncommon accusation to be made against political leaders. It is perhaps less common to hear it being directed at religious leaders. Sometimes, we have overlook some of the self-serving tendencies in political leaders, especially if in the bigger picture we feel that they are acting in our best interest. But somehow religious leaders who act like thieves often in our minds seems less forgivable.

For those of us who are religious leaders, this passage comes as quite a challenge. In what ways do I act in self-interest, deceitfully climbing over fences, taking short-cuts instead of entering openly through the gate.

The truth is that it is not only political and religious leaders who have the ability to be thieves and robbers. It is true for all of us. There is a thief and a robber in each of our hearts that is ever so subtley willing to manipulate things to serve our own purposes and potential gain.

By contrast to the thieves and robbers in this passage, we see the image of the Good Shepherd. This theme of the Good Shepherd is one that goes back to the Old Testament in the writings of the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah. In Ezekiel 34, the prophet laments at the shepherds of Israel, the religious and political leaders, who have acted with no regard for the well-being of the sheep. They have only been concerned about themselves.

The prophet laments: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally….My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.

Where religious and political leaders had become corrupt and self-serving, the hope expressed by Ezekiel and Jeremiah was that God himself would come to be the shepherd of the people of Israel.

The Good Shepherd is one who places the needs of the sheep above selfish ambition, self-aggrandisement and selfish glory. The Good Shepherd in our passage is one who generously and genuinely cares for the sheep under his watch. The Good Shepherd is described as one who knows the sheep by name. This is one who genuinely cares.

Thirdly, in our passage, we have the image of the gate through which the sheep can pass into safety and into green pasture. In our passage, the Good Shepherd is also the Gate for the Sheep, the doorway into health, safety and life.

Fourthly in our passage, we see the important image of listening. The primary job of the sheep in this passage is to listen. It is through listening to the One who cares for them and knows them by name that they are brought to safety, health and life. It is an interesting perspective on the spiritual life, that our primary job is to become deep listeners, learning to listen to the voice of wisdom in our hearts, which is none-other than the voice of the Good Shepherd. It is an interesting question to ask: If you had to listen deeply to the voice of wisdom in your life at this moment, what might the voice of wisdom be saying to you? What is the wise word that you are most needing to hear today? If we as a world had to be listening for the voice of wisdom today, what might we collectively as humanity be hearing at this time.

Lastly, there is the image of a life of fullness and abundance, a life that is so full that it overflows, overflowing with love and joy and kindness towards others. When we begin to listen deeply to the voice of wisdom, the voice of the Good Shepherd within our hearts rather then the voice of the thief or the robber, the promise is a life that overflows. That is one of the potential meanings of the Greek word used in our passage. Life in excess. What does one do when one has excess, the natural thing is to share it with others. A life that overflows towards others.

Last week I was sent a moving story told by a Jewish Rabbi that so beautifully captures many of the themes, metaphors and figures of speech in this passage, the themes of the thief, a good shepherd, a gate that leads to safety, a life that grows through listening, and becomes a life that overflows towards others… It goes like this:

A young man went over to an older man at a wedding. “Do you remember me?” he asked

"I don't remember you, who are you?" said the older man. 

So he introduced himself.

“Ah! You were my student! Third grade, you were my student. Wow, I haven't seen you in so many years, how has your life been, what are you involved in?” said the older man.

“I’m a teacher!” he replied

“Wow! Just like me! What inspired you to become a teacher?”

“What inspired me to become a teacher was you!” the younger man replied.

"How did I inspire you to become a teacher?” the older man asked.

“I saw what an impact you had on me, and I realised what an impact I could have on children, and so I decided to go into education.”

“What kind of an impact did I have on you?” he asked.

“I‘ll remind you,” said the younger man, “but I’m sure you will remember the story.”

“There was this one day, one of my friends got himself a beautiful new wrist watch. His mother or father had bought it for him, and I had dreamt of such a watch and I couldn’t afford one. So I decided to steal his watch. He had it in his pocket. I took his watch. I stole it.

He came into the class and complained to you the teacher that somebody had just stolen his watch.

And so you made an announcement, “Whoever took this boys watch, would you please return it.”

I was too embarrassed and I didn't want to return it, so I didn't return it. So you locked the door, and you said, “I’m going to have to line everybody up, and empty their pockets, in order to get back the watch.”

And that's what you did. And I thought to myself, “This is going to be the most shameful moment of my life.”

And then you said, all you boys, line up at the wall. And I want everybody to have their eyes closed. Everybody’s eyes must be closed. And you went from pocket to pocket, and everybody’s eyes were closed, and then you came to my pocket, you found the watch, and you took it out, and you continued to go through everybody's pockets with their eyes closed. Then you said, “Ok, everybody can open their eyes.”

You gave the watch back to it’s owner and you never ever said a word to me, throughout the entire year. You never mentioned the story, you never mentioned the episode.

And when I thought to myself how you saved my dignity that day, instead of being stereotyped as a thief, and a liar, as a despicable child, you really saved my soul, you saved my dignity. And you never mentioned it to anybody else, not just to the owner, but not even to me. It happened, it was over, I understood the message, and when I looked at that, I saw it and said “Wow, this is what a teacher is, this is what an educator is, this is what I want to do with my life.” And therefore I want into education.

And the older man as he was listening said, “Wow! That’s amazing! That’s a really amazing story.”

And the younger man said, “But don’t you remember? Don’t you remember the story? When you see me, and when you hear my name, I’m sure you must remember the story that I stole the watch and what you did, and that you didn't want to embarrass me and you made everybody stand with their eyes closed, and that I’m that person.

And the older man replied, “Well, actually I don’t know, I wouldn't know that it was you.”

And he said, “But why not, it’s a pretty dramatic story.”

He said, “Because I also closed my eyes.”

Just a few questions to close: Who are the Good Shepherds who have made a difference in your life? Those who have been like a gate for you into safety and into good pasture. Who has inspired your life to be one that overflows with abundance and blessing towards others? If you had to listen to the voice of Wisdom, the Voice of the Good Shepherd within you heart today, what might that voice be saying to you in your life, in your particular circumstances today? Lastly, it is not just the voice of the thief and robber that lives inside us, by God’s grace there is also a good shepherd in each of us. When in your life have you had the joy and privilege of being a good shepherd for someone else like the older teacher in this story who made such an impact on the life and direction of his pupil.