Suse

2023-11-22T15:20:00.001+11:00

Clarrie was eccentric. As young and naive as I was, I knew that Clarrie, the viticulturist, was eccentric. Likeable; amiable; quirky. But eccentric. I was a stenographer in the Department of Agriculture in Mudgee, eons ago.

Clarrie’s whimsical personality first became apparent when he’d pop his head, with its untidy mop of hair, into the cramped space of the general office and say `I’d like to dictate some letters please Susan.’

Off I’d go, my standard-issue departmental steno pad and a couple of sharpened pencils in hand, into his Office and we’d face each other across his untidy desk.

Clarrie was unmarried, and his age was an enigma to me. He wasn’t old, but neither was he as young as my 22 years. He dressed old; Trousers; never jeans. Trousers with pockets. Trousers not elegant in style or cut, but not scruffy. Smart… ish but practical. Cool mornings would see him attend the Office in a knitted vest; an old-fashioned Fair Isle one. And in summer, he wore long baggy shorts and long socks with lace-up shoes. But when I tell you the socks were often draped around his ankles, you can see that sartorial elegance was not his strong point. He always wore the `uniform’ of educated Ag blokes of the day – blue oxford shirts with buttoned, pleated breast pockets and little slots for pens; like the shirts coppers wear but without the shoulder badge. In some blokes, these shirts were almost…. alluringly attractive. But Clarrie couldn’t pull it off.

I would look at him expectantly, pencil poised, waiting. He’d clear his throat and give me the name of the person to whom the letter would go. So far, so good. Moments of silence followed. `Dear Sir’, he managed at last. My pencil made the appropriate tiny squiggle. He would launch into a preliminary sentence, and my pencil moved in perfect tandem. `No, that’s not right. Cross that out.’ He’d begin again and another sentence would emerge. Outside I could hear the faint thrum of traffic; the other office lady in the adjacent office was clacking away on her mechanical typewriter. The clock on his wall seemed loud, all of a sudden. `Ahh’ Clarrie seemed to have lost his train of thought.

I remember his appearance because I seemed to spend inordinate amounts of time looking at him, waiting, waiting. I had ample time to take in his choice of tie; a light green and brown check woven affair, with a fringed end. His vest; did his mum knit them for him? His bespectacled eyes (grey) would glance into mine vaguely as he struggled to get on with his task. There were lots of false starts and `No, that’s not right.’ My pencil spent much time crossing out whole lines of squiggles.

His office was little more than a large cubicle, with opaque glass on 2 walls; one facing the entrance passage-way of the building and the other facing the general office. Copious piles of paper resided on filing cabinets and on his desk, in hopeful expectation of his attention. Posters of grapes and wine were haphazardly decorous on the walls.

Finally, it often became apparent to me what he was trying to say, and I would venture a suggestion. `Perhaps you could just put a few notes down, and I will draft out a letter for you?’ After all, I’d topped the Tech Classes in English hadn’t I!? I could compose a simple letter, for goodness sake. It would save all the crossing out and staring at his inelegant clothing, surely.

He would never succumb to my suggestion and we’d spend several more gruelling minutes at our shared task, until, at last… Eureka! The letter was born! I have always been a too-passive person, especially when I was that young, and I never questioned the reason for this behaviour. I took him at face value – he couldn’t seem to put sentences together. It didn’t occur to me that someone with a degree in Viticultural Science should know how to compose sentences.

I’ve taken shorthand for a lot of blokes over the years (until we all became redundant) and some of them were egos, compelled to drone their bulky and inefficient waffle over their steepled fingers, because it gave them a sense of power over the subordinate `girl’ tasked with hanging on his every word. Some were beautifully efficient and I had to use all my 120 wpm to keep up! Clarrie wasn’t either of these.

The best was an old gent; an Agronomist, who was delightfully, politely old-school. He’d come up through the Depression and the war years, with his genuine, deeply-held Catholic faith intact. He was the salt of the earth; always treated me with the greatest respect, though I was just a slip of a girl. The cadence of his gentle, benevolent humour would fall with father-like simplicity and wholesome encouragement on my under-confident self. He referred to blokes as `coves’. That’s a word I’ve never heard used since. He always seemed to be writing about molybdenum levels! (I need to look up the spelling… after all the times I’ve typed it!)

I once accompanied Clarrie out on a field trip, collecting samples of grapevine rust or something. That’s another story…,

2023-11-19T15:12:00.002+11:00

🚴Cycling is big in Wagga, and we’ve got a shiny new Velodrome to prove it.

I got coffee recently at the French Bakery. Oooh la la the pastries are good! It’s a tiny shop and there’s always a queue like you used to get in the bank at 4pm on a Friday. So, I’m standing on my `distance’ spot, waiting to give my unvarying order; a half-strength flat white… I wonder should I live on the edge one day and try a half-strength cappuccino? I stood behind a gentleman wearing lycra, and had the time and the inclination, to ponder his attire.

He was late 30’s maybe; tall and wiry, with a pleasant, even-featured face. Short, dark, curly hair, cut stylishly and modern, but not like those shaved-sides-of-the-head, and long-on-the-top, styles. I was trying to guess his occupation. It’s a little game I play sometimes to pass the time in queues.

I was concluding that the gent in front of me was someone in the financial world. He wasn’t particularly muscular, but I bet he was into cycling in a big way. Either that, or he was just starting out and he wanted to look the part. His lycra attire ended about half way down his calf, and on his pedal extremities, were soft, foot-hugging trainers. His socks were iridescent pink. Psychedelic pink, with little green cacti all over them. He’d pulled them up straight, and between the end of them and the start of his lycra suit, were thin, white legs with very black sparsely-apportioned hairs. Surely if he was serious about cycling, he’d shave them to cut wind-resistance. Or don’t they do that anymore?

The suit also had silicone padding on the trouser-seat. Most effective, I’m sure, in avoiding blisters on his bottom. But the view from the back was a little…. curious. I imagined it would be like wearing a full nappy…

He had a gentle persona. I admired his embracing of such a worthwhile hobby which made him look just a little ridiculous when he was naked of his treadley. I admired his confidence to wear such an outfit in public. But he didn’t look out of place in a coffee shop, because as I said, cycling is big in Wagga, and coffee and cycling go together like Jeeves and Wooster; like Elizabeth and Mr Darcy; like eggs and bacon. No, he wasn’t going to get stared-at in a coffee place.

But imagine if he’d accidentally been whisked (or perhaps pedalled) into the TARDIS and was transported back to the 1950’s. He and his lairy socks would be laughed backwards out of the chrome and laminated cafes of the time. No coffee; no lycra. And men didn’t ride bikes. They played footy and ate pies. They wouldn’t have been seen dead in a French bakery.

2023-11-19T11:41:00.000+11:00

Beans; a conflicted tale

I bought beans yesterday because they looked lovely and fresh. They were $13.99/kilo though! Oh well, nice bean salad I thought as I selected a handful.

But when I went to scan my purchases at the self-serve checkout machine, there was no picture on the touch screen button for the beans. It listed them on the docket but it added zero to the tally.

So over I go to the young lady waiting to assist and explained the problem. I’m afraid she was a ‘Madam Imperious’ in training. These older Superior Ladies often worked in Doctors’ Surgeries and would look down their noses at me when I presented myself at the Reception desk. I’d be dismissed to the waiting room with a judgmental sniff. But then, I was a single parent and weren’t they still the dregs of Society in the 90s? That’s when I learned in real life time what was like to live as an obvious Indigenous person. I’m not indigenous, but it was the same kind of thing - judged and dismissed by some inner prejudice of the other.

But back to the beans. This young lady had a bit of an attitude, I thought. Not rude in any obvious way but I could almost hear her thinking ‘silly old lady doesn’t know how to scan a few groceries’. She came over to the newly installed contraption, sitting there smug in its ‘I don’t need a human’ shininess. She voided the incorrect entry, then asked me, in short sharp words, ‘What are they?’

‘Beans,’ I say. I hope my astonishment didn’t show. I know someone that young couldn’t be expected to know every fruit and veg in the shop, but beans? Aren’t they a pretty common vegetable? Is the Pope a Catholic? Is a bean green? They were ordinary old beans; not broad beans, or exotic runner beans, or those really long ones; snake beans.

‘How much are they?’ was her next question. She looks down on me with her squinty eyes (I’m sorry, they were squinty) and her very black, very fake false eyelashes. You could hang a hat on those things!

‘$13.99 a kilo’ I say.

She trots off to check. If I’ve been honest enough to tell you it didn’t scan a price, surely I wouldn’t lie about the price. Especially at $13.99/kilo. But all good, I’m glad she’s checking.

When she comes back, she flicks her all-powerful staff card at the machine’s screen. Her lovely young finger taps the screen nimbly and soon the amount is totted up.

But this old gal has spent a lifetime and then some, watching every penny and I vaguely think ‘That seems a lot’. I’ve only got about 6 items. But you know, the cost of everything has rocketed lately, so off I go with my one measly bag of groceries.

But once outside, I look at the docket. She’s charged me the whole $13.99 for a handful of beans. Maybe 150 grams worth. Did Jack have this much trouble with his beans? Oh. No. Different type of beans.

Back inside I go and show her the docket. She looks at me imperiously (that ‘Madam Imperious’ training is coming in handy). ‘Yes, that’s right. They’re $13.99.’ She’s walking to the bean aisle. ‘See.’ She points to the beans.

‘Yes, I explain, ‘but that’s for a kilo of beans. A kilo of beans would be a whole big box of beans.’ She’s walking quickly back to the checkout and I’m tottering along beside her like a toddler keeping up with a grumpy mum.

‘A whole kilo of beans would … well, weigh a kilo. I try and explain but I don’t think she’s listening. She doesn’t reply so I’m thinking she doesn’t get it, or the penny’s dropped and she doesn’t want to admit she’s got it wrong.

At last a Supervisor came over and sorted the whole thing out. I felt for the young woman. Perhaps she was new and I didn’t want to embarrass her by being a smart alec. And she did apologise, right at the end of the encounter. It was a bit of a weak effort, and I could have executed a much better apology but then…. I’m not a Madam-Imperious-in-training.

2023-11-19T11:32:00.001+11:00

A Whimsical Interlude

“My house needs cleaning,” sighed the old lady. “Who will do it for me?”

“Not I,” said the fly. “I’m incubating my babies ready for summer. You can never have too many babies in summer.”

“Well, who?” the old lady looked disapprovingly at the scattered sheets of paper cluttering the dining table and the dust collecting under the TV.

“Not I,” said the bumble bee. “Too busy! Too busy! Flowers to visit, honey to gather! A bumble bee's work is never done.”

“Just like housework,” muttered the old lady. “Who will do it then?”

“Not I,” said the old dog, sleeping under the table. He opened one eye, then said irritably, “The very idea! You know I haven’t got opposable thumbs, woman. Get your Significant Other to do it.”

“I haven’t got a Significant Other. You should know that by now, you foolish dog. Surely it’s your turn. I always have to do it!” But the old dog was asleep again.

`Who’s going to tidy my house then?”

Just then, two fairies flitted in and chorused together “We’re the housework fairies. We’ll do it!”

The old lady boggled at the two ephemeral figures in front of her.

The taller, older fairy said “First we must negotiate a contract. We don’t work for free, you know.”

`Oh no! Of course, I must pay you.” But the old lady’s heart was downcast at these words, for she was not wealthy. But she only said, “What would you be requiring? For the cleaning. How much?”

“We don’t do windows. That’s a different Union altogether. We don’t do cobwebs; we don't empty cat litter trays.” The fairy looked indignant.” Nasty, smelly things. We don't! We won't! And we don't do under the fridge.”

Who bothers doing that? thought the old woman.

“We don't like dog hair,” the bigger fairy looked at the dog and scowled. “That will be extra.”

`Right,” said the old woman. `What else?”

`The oven will be extra, of course.” We charge two huge dahlias and must be allowed to choose them ourselves,” said the tall fairy. The younger fairy nodded solemnly.

“Dahlias?” The old woman’s face became creased with confusion.

“Yes, that’s right. And the dog hair,” she scowled again at the old dog, “will be a big bunch of roses, no thorns if you have them.”

`I do, as a matter of fact,” said the old woman, then stopped and shook her head in puzzlement. `You mean I must pay you …. in flowers?”

`Of course in flowers!” The older fairy was incredulous. `What did you think you’d pay us with? Chook manure? Do we look like garden gnomes?”

Now the smaller, younger fairy spoke for the first time with a voice that was whimsical and melodious. “Payment in flowers, payment with flowers. All sorts of flowers.” The old woman noticed that her hair, which curled and floated around her head, was wreathed in blooms.

A little more negotiation took place and finally, the fairies and the old lady were happy. She could hear them singing as they dusted and polished and cleaned.

Sometime later, she awoke with a start from her seat under the gnarled old apple tree. The dog roused himself from his place under her chair. “Goodness me, what a funny dream I had.” She looked down at him. “And I’m afraid you didn’t cover yourself with glory, old dog. Most uncooperative, you were.” His tail fanned briefly. The afternoon was drawing in and she got up from her seat. Several blossoms had pattered down on her. She brushed them off and they both went inside.

Fairies indeed! she thought to herself as she poured her tea and sat down. You silly old woman. No such thing as fairies and certainly not housework fairies. She frowned. Although I don't remember clearing away all those papers….

2022-09-21T15:32:00.000+10:00

After the fire

(the first line was written by Kenneth Slessor)

A bird sang in the jaws of night

Its crooning voice was low and sweet.

I listened, crouching, small and still,

And peered through new encircling leaves.

The smoky, sombre haze was still

In cleared arena dim and dark,

It hung in softly shadowed poise,

And hid the constant, friendly moon.

I looked upon the smoke-hazed orb.

Sequestered in my hide of leaves

Until a whispered wind arose

And all around was blessed with light.

The bird flew down to circled gleam

A gentle light from high above,

Fell softly on the silvered wings;

Its plumage borrowed from the stars.

Susan Starr ©©©

2022-09-06T07:44:00.001+10:00

Everything takes time. The sun doesn’t just instantly appear in the sky every morning. It makes its way slowly to our horizon (we actually make our way to it, but let’s not get bogged down with Science). It heralds its coming by the first faint glow of colour, low in the sky. Then it peeps out shyly; just the arc of its great orb showing, like a hiding child peeping up from behind a lounge chair.

It rises relentlessly, gradually, until the full measure of its brilliance shines on all of us from it’s lofty perch in space.

Our lives take time to establish too. It takes time for us to become who we really are and its always a fraught journey. Through the shallows of callow youth we splash our mistakes and gather our joys. We wade to deeper waters. Wide, unknown; exciting and treacherous where sometimes unavoidable currents take us to places we didn’t plan.

If we’re lucky, we find a shore bedecked with happy, fruitful relationships and successful ambitions. It all takes time, and if we are always honest with ourselves, we find out who we really are and why we plotted our course in the way we did.

The flotsam of our mistakes wash up regularly on the shores. Some are driftwood and float off again. Some are great logs of regret and disappointment which never leave.

And overall, is God, whether we acknowledge Him or not. For some of us, He is the anchor in sunny climes. He is the rock in our storm-washed shore. He is the One who will bring our journey to an end. One day the sun will set on all our lives.

In each of us who are called; who have chosen; a growing part of us longs for that Day when the trump shall sound and we will step on to that Other Shore where we will be restored to all our potential; all our failings healed; all our hurts becalmed. We live in this fallen world ever battling our flawed human nature with the other nature; the divine one. We tire of carrying the battle within. Today Lord, we surrender to your Holy Spirit, who can change us, slowly, like the rising sun, from glory to glory, until we are fit for heaven.

2022-08-27T21:12:00.002+10:00

`I’ll have a half-strength flat white..’ I leaned over towards the glass fronted counter and pointed. `… and a piece of that luscious-looking carrot cake please’. Thus my day at the Coolamon Art Show had begun. The coffee, I have to say, from The Little Rustic Pantry, in the aforementioned town, was the best I’ve tasted for ages; barring the cup my son-in-law makes, in his you-beaut machine.

I sat outside on the verandah and literally soaked up the sun. I could actually feel the back of my neck getting quite warm. I didn’t care. It’s been so long since we had a full-blare sunny day, that I was determined to extract some Vitamin D from its radiance.

Then, I stepped next door to the Art Show. For a tiny community, the standard is pretty good. I gazed at a close-up painting of the face of a cow; of a tiny girl taking a photo of a cockatoo; pastoral scenes of impressive quality, and some with a bit too much of the amateur’s brush. Doesn’t matter. It’s important to have a go and give reign to your creative talent.

Then, I wandered down the main street, noseying about. I entered a very posh-looking ladies’ clothing shop where exquisite garments hung on stylish racks suspended from the ceiling. Their price-tags made my eyes water! It was a tasteful, softly-lighted space decorated in lovely pastel colours. Stylish. Elegant. Expensive. There was no music, I noticed and loved the quiet. It was staffed by an attractive young woman; tall and slim and wearing a lovely dress of soft pinks and greens. She also wore the pinkest lipstick I’d seen since the 60’s (must be back in fashion), and lashes which could have batted for England, they were so long. I admired her courage, however, opening such a shop in a small rural town. I think she might need to stock a few more items for older ladies. Like me.

The other side of the street sported an Op Shop. The two ladies were just closing, but beckoned me in. It was a tiny shop and I was sifting through the DVD’s when a man squeezed past me to the mens’ clothing out the back. He brought out a jacket, the better to see it in the light from the window. He told the two ladies he was looking for 70’s retro stuff. They were very helpful and showed him a jacket of a peculiar stripy pattern (see photo). `It’s very well made,’ said the chattier of the two. I had already noticed that the stripes on the shoulders didn’t match up, but didn’t say anything. During this tete-a-tete over clothing, it transpired he knew his labels. `Ahh, I think I’ll stick to this one.’ he said, indicating the one in his hands. `It’s a `brand name’ and been made in England.’ He had driven his beautifully restored vintage Dodge, up from South West Victoria somewhere. I’m thinking Daylesford or somewhere like that. The ladies and I trouped out to look at his magnificent set of wheels. Several acres of gleaming vehicle stood at the kerb. It was a huge American convertible with left-hand drive, leather seats and a boot which could fit a big red Kangaroo in it, and leave room for his mate, the Emu (Americans call it an Eee-moo). Hilarious!

On down the street I wandered. I bought a plant from a little-old-lady craft shop… you know, the ones which sell crocheted toilet roll holders with dolls at the top, and washers with crocheted edges. Lots of balls of wool, but all acrylic. I don’t buy acrylic, so I guess that makes me a wool snob. But ladies of my Mum’s generation love acrylic wool.

Then, I motored out to Ganmain. It’s a little town 15 minutes west and it has a two coffee shops, a lovely home-wares shop, and a quaint little bookshop. Really. I could have spent an hour in it. It was housed in the old Post Office and it had a big and varied range of books (including Christian ones!) and little spots where you could sit and read. I bought a dear little Japanese Imari vase. That sounds knowledgeable, but… I don’t know what that is. I bought it because I do use vases and because it’s pretty. I also bought a book called `Enigma’ by Robert Harris. There’s a movie of the same name. Want me to tell you what Enigma was? No. I’m thinking, I’ll be lucky if you’ve read this far, so I won’t.

I thought I better get home, so headed back through the paddocks of canola. Yellow betwixt paddocks of the bright green of emerging wheat or oats or lucerne. Roadsides bright with flowering wattle. Truly, Australia is a land of green and gold out here.

2022-08-13T16:56:00.002+10:00

When I found my way to the wool aisle in Spotlight, (In Australia), two older ladies were huddled over the display of knitting needles on offer.

`That’s a 10 there’ said the younger one; a short, dumply little woman with a round, pleasant face.

`I need a 10 and a 12.’ The older lady’s finger wavered between the 3’s and the 3.25’s. Or would it be that one, do you think?’ she looked over at her friend, her finger now gravitating to the 3.5. The needles were all lined up neatly behind each other on the display.

I understood their predicament immediately. If you’re older than about 50, you grew up knitting with needles measured in the Imperial gauge. Then, we went metric and needles were measured in millimetres. Soo… 3.5mm etc. The US have a different sizing again, just to add to the confusion.

The older lady was thin, with a slightly crouched frame and tightly permed hair. `It’s confusing, isn’t it’ I ventured.

`I need a size 10 for the basque and a size 12 for the rest. I’m knitting a jacket for a new-born babe.’ I could picture the old pattern, probably English, possibly from the 50’s or 60’s or even older, comprising lacy jacket, booties, shawl and bonnet, in a pretty lacy pattern. My mother knitted them for my kids, but never in the impossibly thin wool which was like knitting with cobwebs. I admired the dear old lady’s determination, but then I bet she was knitting when Hitler was invading Poland; and when our troops marched off to Korea to fight in snow and gave our wool industry a boost (think about it). I bet she was still knitting as she watched the moon landing and through Tricky Dickie’s crimes and cover-ups; through the Berlin wall coming down. On and on through the decades until now.

`If you buy the wrong ones, I’m sure they’ll exchange.’ I offered helpfully.

`Oh no dear, we’re from Young.’

`Oh,’ says I, smiling, thinking of their journey down here. I bet they take a thermos then possibly treat themselves to lunch in a cosy café, like my friend and I do when we set out on a jolly jaunt to another town.

The two turned back to the task in hand, still prevaricating over which size was right.

`How about I google it?’

The pleasantly plump lady hesitated and I turned away, thinking perhaps they were sick of me interfering. But she looked over at me and said `Are you going to google it?’

I had it in a twinkling; the table showing the equivalent needles in millimetres, converted from the Imperial.

I finally left them to it and wandered about in the next aisle over where I got into a conversation with another lady, about losing loved ones and anxiety and depression…. and God. She introduced the subject, after she told me her brother had died 4 years before. `I’m not religious,’ she said to me, `but I believe there’s Someone up there.’ These conversations are always negotiated carefully on my part, lest I intrude too far into someone’s private beliefs and cause offence. I would absolutely hate to brow-beat someone about this subject, so I just let her talk. But I did tell her eventually, that God was my rock.

Into the fires

2018-01-08T19:29:00.002+11:00

The reading this morning was from the Old Testament; the book of Daniel; the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (I thought it was Abendigo when I was a kid).

It’s one of the best stories in the OT Bible (for those “unversed” in the Bible, the Old Testament is the “Jewish” bit (especially the first 5 books where God sets down the rules he makes for His people). In all honesty, I struggle with a lot of the stuff it contains; the bits about God going before and helping the Israelites plunder and enslave other nations, for example. I guess that’s why we need the New Covenant of the forgiveness and sacrifice of Christ contained in the New Testament (this is the Christian bit of the Bible).

The OT also has themes, over and over, of penitence and forgiveness and reconciliation. It also has stories of God’s immeasurable power and intent to stick up for the little bloke; the oppressed; the disempowered; the put-upon.

The story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego is one such a story. Daniel Chapter 3. It tells of these 3 men, who would not bow down to worship the golden calf, fashioned by human hands, and as ordered by the king of the land, Nebuchadnezzar. Instead, they declare their intention to be thrown into the fiery furnace and die, rather than denounce their faith in Yahweh; the great I AM; the God of Abraham; the Alpha and the Omega. So, they get thrown into the furnace.

As I read it this morning, I thought again of Rev Whorley (pronounced Whirley). He was the Methodist Minister at Forbes, NSW, in Australia, in the 50’s when I was a little girl. He would come to Eugowra to preach in the little Presbyterian Church on the banks of the Mandagery Creek (running a banker in recent days).

He was a little man; mild in character and gentle in nature. He was a man of the people, woven from common cloth. He was a bit funny-looking as I remember, but Oh, he had found his vocation: he had a genuine, fervent faith.

He took Scripture at Eugowra Central School and I’m sure he told this story because my memory of him arose from the page as I read it this morning. I’m pretty sure, too, it was covered in the Salvation Army Home for Girls at Canowindra. What a happy place it was for me; child-sized Sunday School chairs painted all different pastel colours; little basket to take up the collection (“hear the pennies dropping; listen as they fall…); a sense of open, airy space in the big room, with shiny lino and big windows.

These all impacted my life, in a mainly positive way. They set me on a faith journey which I’m still following to-day. I wonder what I’d be like now if I had never heard this most profound of gospels, passed on by these kindly, gentle people?

Back to our 3 saints: The story has it that when the 3 are thrown into the furnace, God (in the form of Jesus) enters the furnace with them and they are seen; the 4 figures, walking around unburned, unconsumed, as God protects them. I have not doubt God could do this; I also know He often doesn’t intervene and many Christians over the millennia have died, rather than deny their faith.

One thing I do know and understand deep into my very soul, is that when we go through our own fires in life, whether they be the death of a loved one, or illness or relationship conflict, or whatever else ails the human soul, God will be there, figuratively, in the fire, with those who invite Him to be there with them. The same God who got into the furnace with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, is the same God who said ”Lo! I am with you always, even to the end of the age”.

In an increasingly unstable and scary world, the one who promises “I will never leave you or forsake you”, is becoming increasingly meaningful, not just to me, but surely, to the rest of the world.

The winsomeness of passion

2017-07-15T07:38:00.001+10:00

5. LThe Winsomeness of Passion

One of the things I enjoy most as the varied tide of humanity streams through my life, is the particular colour, people who are passionate about something, bring. It might be gardening, or golf, or good grief, it might be football!

Let me share with you a gentleman of my acquaintance who has enriched my life with the expression of his particular fixation. The name has been changed to protect the innocent. I’ve called him Bill.

Bill is a man who calls a spade a spade. Some might say he is bombastic; his firmly-held opinions are delivered with force and finality. But this barge-like manner is tempered by a deeply ingrained cheerfulness and goodwill. I prefer to call his personality robust.

This rather large personality is housed in a short, rotund little physique, which has a very round face, black hair and glasses. When Bill smiles, it makes beguiling dimples in his rosy cheeks. Bill is rather fond of his homemade brew (another of his passions), which gives him a large tummy, or, as my father called it, a “brewer’s goitre”. Over this are stretched cute, black braces, the better to hold up his pants.

Bill’s passion is pigeon racing. I find myself, after the service one Sunday morning, standing next to him in the queue for morning tea. So, there we are shuffling towards the morning tea table. “How are your pigeons going Bill” I ask. Bill’s response is immediate. (His language occasionally veers away from the straight and narrow of the ladies-coffee-morning standard, and sets foot in the boys-at-the-pub-on-a-Saturday-arvo level) “Well bugger me if I didn’t loose one to a hawk yesterdee”. This is delivered at full forte volume and those around blink and turn their heads, as they are also bombarded with this disappointing news. “No sooner out of the box, she was, and a blanky hawk came from no-where and got ‘er”. “What a shame” says I, all concern and nodding sympathy. With a little more gentle inquiry from me, his voice takes on a more instructional tone. He shifts his weight on to both his feet, spacing them slightly apart as he does so. His hands come out of his pockets and he folds them across his body, head slightly dropped, he becomes the tutor, the teacher, the expert caught up in a subject he loves. “You’ve got you’re racing stock, then you’ve got your breeding cocks and broody hens. Then I’ve got a few youngsters still getting used to flying with the mob” (shouldn’t that be ‘flock’, but I didn’t say it!). His little black eyes, inscribed with intensity, bore into mine as he launches into the finer points on housing, diet, breeding and of course, racing. I am as much transfixed by his passion for it, as I am by the actual facts.

After a while, I asked him how many birds he had, thinking of perhaps a dozen or so at the most.

“I’ve got about 500 at the moment”, he says.

I was astounded. “Good grief, that many!”

“But where do you put them all?” I asked with a touch of amazement. He lives on a corner block in town, and I couldn’t see how his back yard would be much bigger than a cricket pitch.

“Well, I’ve got double tiers of cages.....”

His unique sense of humour also displays this bombastic quality. Bill is never content with a little twitter or a giggle. Not for him the polite, gentle chuckle. When he finds something funny, and he frequently does, he twinkles up at me over his glasses, his face splits into an endearing grin (he also has a dieresis) , then he applies himself to a sonorous, booming belly laugh, during which his tummy shakes gently.

He has a round, man-in-the moon sort of face; it's honest and ingenuous. His eyes twinkled with pleasure as he told me about his birds, but this is nothing compared to when he talks about his home brew! He can give you the low down on the best brands for different flavour or keeping quality. His knowledge about ingredients, bottling techniques, storage time, is extensive. He can tell you which brand most tastes like Victoria Bitter…. And that’s something I was dying to know. His laundry is full of the paraphernalia of home brewing, and he loves it. Once, at a Parish Council meeting, we were discussing the family camp and Anne was giving a run down on the facilities of the venue. Bill asks, with just a hint of anxiety, “What are the refrigeration facilities like Anne?” “Oh, quite adequate” she replies breezily. “Oh good” says Bill, relieved, “because… you know” (his voice takes on quite a wistful quality) “I was thinking about how I’d get the home brew chilled”.

But you know, for all his rampaging, bombastic personality, I cannot find it in my heart to censor him. He is an unfailingly honest man in every way. No pretense; no shuttered secrets or veiled malice. There is nothing snide or sneaky about Bill. What you see is what he is. And goodness knows, the world needs more of that.

In conclusion then, what a joy it is for me to run across these people. Could I encourage you to keep an eye out for them too. Look with fresh eyes on the people of your circle. You might just find an enriching and delightful example of all the complex, eccentric, wonderful tapestry which is essence of the common man.

d of all being, I give you my all;
if I should disown you, I'd stumble and fall;
but, sworn in your service your word I'll obey,
and walk in your freedom to the end of the way

How do we recognise Jesus?

2017-05-29T12:19:00.000+10:00

Luke 24:13-35. The familiar story of the walk to Emmaus. When it comes to the events surrounding the resurrection of Jesus, the gospel writers record very few of his appearances. In fact, Mark records none at all.

Luke's gospel is a summary account of the women's visit to the tomb, followed by Peter's visit, Jesus appearance with the disciples in the upper room at which he provides evidence that he is actually alive, opens their minds to the scriptures and then commissions them, and finally they all go off to Bethany for the ascension.

In the middle of this summary account we have a detailed account of the Emmaus walk. What then do we have in the story? We have two disciples, not apostles, just ordinary followers of Jesus, like you and me. When Jesus walks with them they don't recognize him, and when they do recognize him, after he breaks the bread, he disappears! How very odd!.

Why didn’t the disciples recognise him? Were they kept from recognising him? Was there something about his resurrected body that made him unidentifiable? The stories tell us that he was appearing in locked rooms and vanishing before the disciples’ eyes. Clearly, there was something different about Jesus’ flesh and blood. Does the fact that the disciples did not recognize Jesus point to the nature of the revelation of God? Could it be that God does not always make himself known to us in ways we think he will?

On the way to Emmaus those sad, deflated disciples mistook their Lord for a stranger, someone who wasn’t of their country. How did they make such a mistake? Maybe because he seemed to know nothing of what had happened recently. Who knows?

Is it something to do with the mystery of God. Can we only really recognise Christ when he reveals himself to us? Could it be, that he waits until the time is right. They were grieving when they encounter Jesus on the road. They were expecting Him to be the leader of the Jews; they thought He was a political leader, a charismatic victor who would overthrow the Romans. Instead, he died an ignominious criminal’s death. He was gone, and they were shattered. I know one thing; if he’d come in pomp and splendour, they may have kept on believing, mistakenly, that He was a mere earthly figure. They may never have grasped that he was the Messiah, the Saviour, the one whose death suddenly made sense, as he explained the scripture and the prophesies to them. If he had come to them bedecked with jewels and trappings of an earthly King, the penny never would have dropped.

Did they fail to recognise him because they were looking for someone else; a political King. They lost an intellectual Jesus… he wasn’t who they thought he was, so they were downcast when he was taken away. But when they finally realized He was the Messiah, their faith was transferred from a head knowledge of Christ, which was all out of whack, to a heart knowledge of who he really was, and what he had done for them and for us. They learned to see and hear with their souls.

Then he begins to expound the scriptures to them. He says to them vse 25 “How foolish you are and how slow to believe the prophets. He tells them the Messiah had to suffer these things. And then he explains all the intricacies and the fulfilling of the Scripture; probably from the line of David and Isaiah through to John the Baptist. So they’ve had the testimony of the women and then Jesus himself tells them “the Messiah will rise on the 3^rd day”. They themselves have already told him at the start of the journey that “it’s now 3 days since he was killed. Nope. Still nothing. They still don’t recognise him. The lights are on, but nobody’s home. You can imagine if it was one of us, by now, we’d have a very smug look on our faces and we’d be saying “Hello, it’s me. I told you so!”

But he just keeps on, walking with them, patiently explaining to them. I think he’s like this with us. We live out our lives, so close sometimes to opportunities to see so much more of the Spirit things, the really important things, but we can’t quite see them. We always see through a glass darkly; we’re so taken up with earthly things – what holiday we’re going to take, what we’re going to cook for tea – what on earth is that silly driver going to do next! And all the while, the Risen Saviour walks beside us.

And that’s OK really; if we were living in terrible circumstances, where day after day we had to throw ourselves on the power of God for strength to get through it, even the most stoic amongst us would long for a change to a more comfortable existence.

He came silently, gently. There were no recriminations. He didn’t say “well a fine lot of disciples and followers you turned out to be!”. He came to ordinary people – on the road – where they were. But they didn’t recognise him. Why didn’t they recognise him? Was his body so different? I think they were immersed in their own blindness. They had failed to really grasp his mission and purpose when he was alive, and they weren’t expecting him to rise from the dead, even though he had told them, and explained the scriptures to them.

We don’t see Jesus because we are looking for someone else. We look for him as the one to solve all our problems and answer our prayers in the way we think , we don’t always see him as the tortured, dying Jesus who walks with us all the time.

Was it because he appeared as an alien? Apparently the Greek word used to describe the appearance of Jesus in this passage is paroikos, which can be variously translated as stranger, exile or alien.

He came as an outsider to the disciples on the road, and sometimes he appears to us in this guise too. He comes in the form of an alien; an outsider; an unlovely one and an undeserving one. We don’t always recognise him in this form. American singer/songwriter Paul Simon’s wrote a song called “Trailways Bus”. It tells the story of a Spanish boy, riding silent and scared, on the bus to America from Mexico to what he hopes will be a more prosperous life. It describes the countryside the bus passes through….over the crest of the mountains, the moon begins it’s climb and he wakes to find he’s in rolling farmland…the farmer and his wife sleep and he wonders what their life must be like. A couple with a young baby….the bus is heading into Washington DC, and his heart is racing with the urge to freedom. The father motionless as a stone; a shepherd resting with this flock; the trailways bus is turning west.. Dallas via little rock. He’s leaving his family who mourn for him but he has to find a way to help them live. The border patrol outside of Tucson boards the bus… “any aliens here? You better check with us. How about you son? You look like you got Spanish blood. You mind yourself, you understand?” The boy says in his head “Yes, I am an alien from Mars; I come to earth from outer space and if I travelled my whole life through, you guys would still be on my case”.

On the walk to Emmaus, Jesus is first recognized as an alien. Jesus was always an alien; someone not accepted by his own; he is a true child of Israel; living in exile was in his blood, so to speak. His ancestors -- Abraham, Jacob, Jeremiah -- all lived as aliens at one time or another. He was present when the world was created, yet was a stranger to his own people when he came to live in that world. It seems fitting somehow that when he came back to life after the crucifixion, he would still seem like an alien. He is not bound by one country or culture – he is available to all people. Perhaps this is why he comes in such an “un-Jewish” guise; an alien who was never really at home on earth.

Do WE sometimes not recognise him? Is he just the one-dimensional cardboard Jesus we think about sometimes when we come to church or do we walk with him daily as we journey through our lives?

He’s sometimes comes to us in a guise we don’t expect; as a tiny helpless baby; as a tortured criminal; as the Risen Victor, yet walking in the humble apparel of the ordinary man; a paradox - with the knowledge of all things in his head; the power of the whole universe at his fingertips; but empathy with the grief of the common man. Perhaps this is the real essence of the presence of Christ. He walks with us even when we don’t realize it; even when we don’t listen to Him.

I’m sure you are all aware of John F Kennedy, the second son of Joe and Rose Kennedy, who became the US President in 1961. But JFK was not his father’s first choice for a son in politics. We have perhaps forgotten Joe Kennedy and his story is as tragic as is his younger brother. The V-3 “supergun” was meant to win the war for Germany. In 1943, for the first time since World War II began, Hitler was on the back foot. Allied bombs were devastating German cities and the Fuhrer was rattled. His proposed V-3 cannon would be the biggest gun the world had seen.

The V-3 was built in a truly enormous bunker buried deep in a chalk hill in northern France. Millions of tonnes of rock were excavated by hand and among the workers were hundreds of slave labourers. In its original conception, 25 barrels were to point at London – about 100 miles away – delivering up to one bomb per minute and to create an environment of fear that would turn the course of the war back in Hitler’s favour.

American Engineers were working on a secret “drone” mission to destroy the V-3. Joe Kennedy Junior was piloting a B-24 Liberator on August 12 1944. He and co-pilot Wilford Willy were supposed to take the plane up to cruising altitude, arm the drone bomb, set the correct course and bail out. The drone would then carry on and drop it’s bomb on the launch pad of the huge German rocket. But an electronics officer named Earl Olsen had discovered that there was an error in the arming mechanism; a small solenoid in the contraption was faulty and would burn out too quickly, setting the bomb off prematurely. He tried to tell his superiors of the terrible outcome but was not listened too. The man in charge of the mission was the top Engineer; the big brass. He failed to listen to the younger man of much lower rank. Olsen even ran to the airfield and begged Joe Kennedy not to take off, but Joe didn’t listen either. Olsen was right; there was a fault in the arming mechanism and so, completely without warning, the bomb exploded over Blythburgh in Suffolk only 20 minutes after the ‘plane had taken off. Kennedy and Willy were killed and their bodies never found.

We can be like this; Jesus tries to tell us of the power which can be ours; a road-less-travelled way of living; a path of blessing and enrichment, with Him at the helm of our lives. But we don’t listen; we are too caught up in other things. We don’t recognise what He’s telling us.

How then, DO we recognise him? How did the disciples recognise him? He explained the scriptures to them. The word made sense, because he came as “The Word” to them. He came to them as the word-became-flesh, not as a political King. He does the same with us. It is one of the ministries of the risen Christ to open scripture to us. When the scriptures become meaningful for us, it is because the risen Christ has met us in that word, has engaged with us through Scripture, through our life’s journey via the Holy Spirit. I’m not asking for a show of hands, but I wonder how many of us actually read the Bible, at home, every day?

The disciples were downcast and low. It was then, in the midst of their weakness that the risen Christ became real to them. This is absolutely at the heart of an authentic life in Christ. He will always walk with us; it might be at some hour of crisis, or at the behest of some awful news, or illness, or an anxious time; the fog of the mundane clears away and the Christ walks with us, in the midst of our grief or bewilderment. He explains the Scriptures to us; he expounds the word to us, because He himself IS the word. He always wants us to enter a deeper recognition of Him but He will never intrude; He will never make us give him his proper recognition as the Lord of All. (pause) He never imposes where he isn’t wanted. He waits until the time is right as he did with Cleopas and his friends.

The bible says that when we help the most unlovely, the lowest, dirtiest, poorest scrap of humanity, we are helping Him. There’s a pattern of Him appearing as something so unlike what we expect. If He knocks on the door of our hearts as the delightful rich host who showers us with honour and gifts, it would be too easy to follow Him and we’d be led away by the glitter of the world. A Jesus like this would be a fake Jesus. I believe this is at the heart of why His earthly appearances were in such humble guises.

This Jesus is so much more than the political hero the disciples thought he was. This Jesus shares not just the gift of his immortality with us, but his presence with us on our journey to get there as well. Listen for His still small voice; hear it through our own personal reading of the Bible. Amen.

Lord of Safe Harbours

2016-09-06T09:56:00.001+10:00

It’s a very familiar story, the one where Christ goes to sleep in the boat in the midst of a terrible storm. (Mk. 4:38) It is evening and the disciples are in the boat with Jesus. They are crossing the Sea of Galilee when a great storm arises. The boat is beaten by the wind and the waves; it is filling with water and ready to sink. All the while, Jesus is asleep in the stern untroubled by the storm, indifferent to their peril and unperturbed by their fear. We wonder why this story was included in the Bible, because it shows Jesus in almost an uncaring way. But I think it’s a little deeper than that: There are two significant things we could notice about the story.

One is the nature of the call. Let us go to the other side, he says, in the boat. He calls them, off the solid land onto the storm-prone sea, at evening. And he calls them to go to the other side, as though there is a purpose. There are many images in this narrative about what following Jesus might mean. He calls them out of their comfort zone, into peril, to an unknown place, for an unknown purpose.

And then he goes to sleep. That’s the second significant thing.

Apparently, the Sea of Galilee is prone to these storms, because it’s shallow, is below sea level and is surrounded by hills, which act as a funnel, through which the wind whips up storms. These storms are more likely to occur at twilight, because of the cool night air blowing down onto the relatively heated surface of the water.

Why did he do this at such a precarious time? He must have had some idea that the storm would blow up. Why was the storm permitted to arise in the first place? He knew about all the mechanisms of nature (because he was there at its creation). Did he do this on purpose? It doesn’t seem to equate with a loving, caring Shepherd. Yet, he did seem to call them knowingly into perilous possibilities. Humanly, we might even ask “If he really loved them, why would he put them at risk?”. We believe that God loves each of us. The Bible says he holds our tears in a bottle; that he knows us completely – he knows us by name; he will provide for our needs. But when storms strike, it’s sometimes hard to reconcile what we believe about God in our heads, with the emotional and practical reality of our existence.

In his book, A Restless Faith, Keith Mascord explains his journey to come to peace with this enigma. He tells of a terrible accident what prompted him to search outside his Moore-College trained, fundamentalist faith. He was a Minister in the Sydney Anglican tradition at Wee Waa, and during his time there, one of his churchmen, a farmer, backed over his little toddler son and killed him, then 11 months later, his daughter was killed in a car accident, because she wasn’t wearing her seat belt. The reason she wasn’t wearing her seat belt, was because she’d had a previous accident and would have been killed, if she’d been wearing her belt. Keith Mascord questioned his fundamentalist faith, in the face of the unimaginable suffering of these parents, and pondered all the whys and the hows of God letting this happen. He eventually came to re-evaluate his faith, from a very black-and-white Sunday school understanding of God, to one which embraced much more of the mystery of God, and a less rigid explanation of the suffering in the world. When we consider the personal tragedies that people face every day and the global crises that plague our world, we may also wonder if Jesus is asleep on the job. The cries of the disciples are our cries too: "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

The verses in Job have wisdom to add here. Job was a man who seemed to be picked on by God; it was as though God took bets with the devil over Job. The devil said “I bet I can do this or that terrible thing to Job, and he will abandon his faith in you”. And God said “you’re on”. And when the terrible things happened, Job felt abandoned by God, just like the disciples in the boat. Yet, in the end Job came to realize that he was just part of a bigger picture… he was not the Centre of the Universe and he had no right to tell God what to do. This seems harsh to us. It is harsh, but there is great victory and strength in it too. When confronted by his Creator, Job, in spite of everything that has happened to him, grasps the greatness, the mystery, the goodness and the inscrutable wisdom of God. He learns about God’s sovereign grasp on our world. In the midst of his suffering, Job declares, "I know that my Redeemer lives and at the last he will stand upon the earth...then from my flesh I shall see God." (Job 19:25). Job has found his way home the hard way--through the path of being reduced to nothing but his bare skin and wretched bones...he is raised by God's spirit to the soaring conviction that no matter what happens to him, he belongs to God, and God will bring him to the divine presence in glory” We too, discover that when our Universe collapses, there is still God. We are humbled to discover that we are not the Centre of God’s universe; at the same time, we experience the mercy and peace of the Christ who is willing to become like us and get into the boat with us.

It’s the involvement of God with us that is the great overcoming mystery. Not the head knowledge; not the doctrine, but the absolute certainty of knowing God is there. And sometimes, we only really understand that fact, when the great billows rise and the wind howls. This is the wisdom of the Storm story. This is why Jesus calls them out in the boat, at evening.. He knows what storms will blow up in our lives and still bids US follow him into the boat. Otherwise, we’d stand alone, marooned on the rocky shore of our lifeless head knowledge. The sleet of life’s storms would still rain down on us, but if we never venture into the thrashing water, we will never experience the real Jesus; the overcoming One; the one who, even asleep, still knows the storm rages. He wakes to our call. Every time.

Perhaps that’s why the story is told the way it is – because we know Jesus even sleeping, is still with us, so the sleeping bit is like a metaphor which represents our interpretation of what we feel when he doesn’t stir and answer all our why questions and answer our prayers in the way we want.

The mystery and the blessing of the storms of our lives are all mixed in together. It feels messy to us. Life is messy, complicated, unexplained. The blessing we finally learn from our wave tossed journeys, are the blessedness of the presence and therefore the peace of Jesus, even while the tumult rages.

It can be unwise to directly link God’s caring of us, with our circumstances. I have a friend on Facebook, who has had a pretty comfortable life. And I know, we can’t always see behind closed doors, but in the overview of life she’s got a lot to be thankful for… stable marriage, plenty of money, healthy kids, grandkids, a job she loves. Sometimes her posting to Facebook will be filled with exclamation marks and big smiley faces…. Things like “I love my life. God is so good”. Or, “flying out to Paris today, our God is wonderful!” There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s giving God the credit for our many blessings. But if we only count the good circumstances of our life as proof of God’s favour and love for us, then when the storm comes, we may want to abandon the faith life altogether. A head knowledge faith, can be a fair weather faith.

The truth is that we live in a world which is defined at times by injury, loss, illness and death. We all face our own storms and this story tells us, not so much why they happen – I’m not sure we can ever know that – but about how we can behave in the midst of them. Of course, the disciples were afraid. We also are afraid when terrible things happen. And I think, it’s OK to cry to God, as the disciples did “Don’t you care?” Maybe that’s why this story records their reaction. It’s like God is reaching down the years, saying to us “it’s OK to ask me why, or even why not”. But in the end, Jesus is the voice of calm, and he calls us to trust him over our fears.

Can we cultivate so firm and deep a trust in the wisdom and sovereignty of Christ that we do not fear following Him into the boat at evening, to go to the other side? The paradox is that until we step into the boat and until the storm arises, our faith can never be that firm or that deep. When we are in the thrashing unsafe boat and realize that He is still in control, our faith in His ability to either calm the storm, or calm our spirits, becomes rock solid.

Finally, can I share a lovely image of this seaside encounter with Jesus. In his book Letter to a Man in a Fire Reynolds Price tells of an elderly lady who wrote to him about her experience of seeing Jesus more clearly. She was facing her own “storm,” as she was going through exhausting medical tests in preparation for surgery. One day an image came to her mind’s eye. "I went out along the Galilee shore and came to a crowd gathered around a man, and I stood on the outskirts intending to listen. But he looked over the crowd at me and then said, 'What do you want?' And I said, 'Could you send someone to come with me and help me stand up after the tests because I can't manage alone?' He [Jesus] thought for a moment and then said, 'How would it be if I came?'" (Letter to a Man in a Fire, 30-31)

“How would it be if I came?" This is precisely what God has done in Jesus Christ. God has come to us in our suffering and pain, in our struggle to be human, in our fear and anxiety, and in our doubt and uncertainty. Jesus put off deity and put on humanity. He became one of us--one with us--one for us.”

He bids us follow him into the boat, without revealing where the other side might be – without giving us a travel plan or sea sickness pills or life jackets. He calls us to follow knowing full well that the journey will involve setbacks and storms. But we have to get into the boat with him, before He calms the storm or hands out the life jackets. Sometimes, indeed, he waits until the storm is strongest before he acts. If we waited until all was prepared and ready and known we might never go. And risk being stranded on the shore for all eternity.

Lord of safe harbours. We know we are forgiven for all manner of our frailty You are the same today as you were when you bid the waves and winds to cease in the midst of the storm at Galilee. You understand our fearfulness; you speak the same words of peace to us. You hold the mystery to all which befalls us; you always know the measure of our endurance and faith, and will always command the storm to cease, before we plunge beneath the waves. We know that all things are under your control. You can calm the storms we face; you can give us peace while the storm rages. Blessed by your name O God.

The Lord's Prayer

2016-07-29T19:03:00.001+10:00

“Teach us to pray; the Lord’s prayer”. These are my thoughts on what the verses from Luke mean to me; it’s how I’ve applied these precepts in my own life.

* The opening sentence is “Our father in heaven; hallowed by your name”. It’s like in a nutshell of who God is: We have on the one hand the invitation to see God as a very personal God who is like a father, and on the other, the Jehovah God to whom all things owe adoration and worship, and who reigns in heaven which is the beginning and end of all creation. “Hallowed” means “all holiness belongs to you”. . Some people struggle with the image of a Father God, because their earthly father was a very flawed character, We can feel compassion for those whose fathers were strict and severe, or violent or abusive, or feckless or work-shy; Nevertheless, we can at least relate on an intellectual level, to the ideal of a loving parent who has our best interests at heart, and who will always be interested in our lives; who will forgive us no matter what, who provides for us and looks out for us..” Our father” speaks of relationship; of being able to talk to God in our own language, confident that He is listening. So we are invited to be in relationship with the One to whom all sacredness and power belongs. And it seems that this prayer teaches us how to get our priorities right. To start with acknowledging who God is and what He deserves from us, is a good beginning.

* The next bit is “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. This has absolutely nothing to do with our idea of earthly Kingdoms. I confess, I’ve recited this bit since I was a child, not really seeing it’s significance, or knowing what it really meant. But after my son died, it became more meaningful. My son was a young policeman, and when we gathered at Wesley for his funeral; as we walked up the aisle we could see that the church was absolutely packed; everybody squashed into the pews, and the little slide out seats too, and outside, and in the vestry. As we bowed our head for the first prayer, I began to have a sort of mental picture of that packed church and I could see lots of slender soft ribbons floating down onto the heads of many of the people. In later days, as I pondered and prayed over Ben’s death and where God was in all of it, I could still see the ribbons descending. And I began to pray that whatever purpose God had in allowing Ben to die, that it would begin to be put into place on earth; I began to pray, that in relation to Ben’s death, God’s will would be done on earth as it already was in heaven. God’s will was done in heaven; Ben was with him; God had counted Ben’s days; He’s counted all our days and he has the final word on what happens to us.. Now I prayed that this will and purpose would be done on earth too, for all those people on whom the ribbons settled. I felt that in this one way at least, Ben’s death would help someone else find peace with God, as he himself had found. Perhaps this is fanciful to you; the silly imagination of a grieving mother. Maybe. But this I know; God’s will is a fact; a force; a divine energy; the divine intellect and purpose in the shadow of which we can only stand in mystified awe. I could never say that it was God’s will for Ben to die, but "in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28). Ben was called home to God according to God’s purpose and I have to believe it works for good in the big picture. Jehovah and parent God, may your will be done for us, on earth, as it already has been done in heaven.

* Now we come to the petitionary part of the prayer; “give us this day our daily bread” This is the only part of the prayer which is for our physical provision. Or is it? I’m sure it means we should be asking for the bread of physical life. Notice that we are instructed to ask only for what we need today, on a daily basis, not for our sustenance and health in the days to come. Tricky, very tricky. It goes against our inclination doesn’t it? We want to know that we will be secure with food and money, long into the future. I don’t think many of us have any idea at all of what it would be like not knowing where our next meal was coming from. But for the people of Jesus’ day, this was a real prayer, prayed for their survival.. And we are to ask for others too “give us”, not “give me”. And when we ask for bread, we probably should be mindful of all those who grow it and cook it and transport it, and especially those who are dying for the want of it.

This idea of a providential God, supplying everything we need and looking out for us, is a bit of a two edged sword and is never simple. God is not a Father Christmas giving us what we think we want or even need. We can’t say “God is good since he saves our children; and we DO say this “God must have been looking after him or her because they walked out of the wreckage unscathed”. But where does that leave people like me, whose child was not saved? Why was Peter freed from his prison cell by an angel, but Stephen was stoned to death? Why was John the Baptist allowed to be killed at the whim of a silly girl? We believe in God’s providence when we get what we want, and we must also trust that providence when He allows things to happen which we don’t want. If I’m going to believe in a God who is absolutely good and always has my best interests at heart, then when Ben died, I couldn’t turn away and declare that God isn’t a loving Father. This is mysterious stuff which we won’t understand until we get to heaven. It’s all mixed up with our free will, and God’s absolute will, but at the end of the day, we are still the child, with the burdens and cares of our lives, coming to God’s door, saying “Give to me what I need and I’ll trust you for what that is; let your will be done for me and all that happens to me”. In the face of the death of my son, this is all I could offer God.

Could these verses about bread also mean, that we should be asking for God’s very heart to be shared with us; the bread of Life; the Spirit. After all, the rest of these verses go on to speak of the Holy Spirit, and God’s delight and desire to share his personhood with us, through the Holy Spirit. (down in vs 11-13 where he says that as earthy fathers know how to give good gifts, so the Father longs to give us the Holy Spirit)

* And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. We accept and embrace God’s forgiveness of us, but we aren’t always so energetic about forgiving others who have wronged us. It can be very hard to forgive people and our capacity to forgive is probably linked to how much they have hurt us. Sometimes it can take a long time to forgive and it takes much prayer. Maybe this is why we are instructed to pray in this manner; so that God can change us from resentful, ungodly people, into forgiving, Christ-centred people. Prayer is not designed to change or persuade God; it is designed by God to change us! Prayer is a spiritual discipline through which we are formed into disciples of Jesus Christ. And a surprising shortcut to forgiving people is to pray for them.

When my son had been dead for less than a year, I encountered a woman who took every opportunity to establish a pecking order, with me as the peckee. She could have done me a good turn but she did me a bad one; she could have shown compassion but she showed me veiled malice instead. In her defence, the things she said and did were petty, small-minded and if I’d been in a normal emotional state I could have flicked them off before they took hold. But I was in a very dark place, with a great wound on my heart and soul. It went on for months and as I drove home one rainy winter night, after another bad encounter with her, at a meeting during which I was not permitted to speak, I thought that I didn’t really want to be in the world any more. But after a few more months and with a skerrick more emotional strength, another way of escape presented itself. I began to pray for this lady. I prayed for God to bless her; I prayed that my attitude to her would change. I prayed for God to love her and for me to love her the way He did. We can’t change how others treat us but we can change how we respond. She had added to my burden of brokenness. But prayer began to change the way I saw her and it allowed me to withdraw from the arena. Her bossy pettiness began to fall on my deliberately-deafened ears. I yielded her up to God and if that meant she always had the last word and the victory in the pecking order, then my reward was a healing emotional state. She began to seem like a little girl, always trying to prove how much she deserved praise and approval. I began to see her with more compassion and understanding. Prayer did that. I’m sorry to be sharing something which is so personal, but I discovered that this praying for those who hurt us, actually works.

* The next bit of this prayer is “And lead us not into temptation”. It’s no surprise that we are told to ask God not to lead us into temptation. We could spend a month of sermons on this one. Do not bring us to the time of trial. Nobody wants trial. God knows how frail we are; he knows we have need of confession. - We all of us have inclinations to wander to a particular area of sin; for some it might simply be eating too much, or gossiping, or any type of natural appetite for which the human race is so prone to distort and adulterate. Temptation never strikes when we are strong and have the ramparts of our souls in place. The evil one knows our weaknesses as well as the Christ does and he waits ‘til we are made vulnerable by any type of life circumstance through which he can fire an evil dart. But with much praying and the help of the Spirit, we can overcome any temptation. We have Christ’s example in that too.

* We move on to the verses 6 to 13 and they are really about persistence; the man who keeps knocking on his neighbour’s door, the verses about seeking and finding, asking and receiving.

In his classic book, The Meaning of Prayer, the great preacher, Harry Emerson Fosdick, puts it this way: Some things God cannot give to a person until he or she has prepared and proved his or her spirit by persistent prayer. Such praying cleans the house, cleanses the windows, hangs the curtains, sets the table, opens the door, until God says, "Lo! The House is ready. Now may the guest come in."

The Rev. Dr. Charles Reeb, pastor of United Methodist in St. Petersburg, Florida, has expressed this attitude very succinctly: “When we ask long enough, seek hard enough, knock loud enough, and pray persistently enough, something happens on the inside of us. The discipline of prayer begins to awaken us to the Holy Spirit inside of us, and our motives and desires begin to change”.

It’s been said (Peter Annet) that those who pray persistently are like sailors who have cast anchor on a rock. As they pull on the anchor, they think they are pulling the rock to themselves, but they are really pulling themselves to the rock.

This is what persistent prayer does. Especially, if God’s answer to us, is eventually “no”. It pulls us closer to the rock of God’s divinity. . And in that continual coming, God changes us; in that persistent coming, we are changed into what God wants for us. In that constant coming, He shares his Holy Spirit with us. When our temporal needs are foremost in our minds, it might seem that this isn’t what we need. But it IS all we need in the whole of our life’s journey, and is what is at the heart of this passage. Teach us to pray Lord? Yes, he teaches us to pray, but it’s not an easy learning; we are often on a different wavelength, with different values and different ideas of what we need. Yet, as we move closer to God in prayer, we may not always get what we ask for; instead, from the wisdom of God, we get what we need. We get what God wants for us, for our spiritual and eternal good. We find that as we move closer to our Rock, we begin to desire what God desires, so that what we ask for, knock for, and seek after becomes what God so desperately wants to give us. Then the truth of Jesus' words come to life so that what we pray for we truly receive. This is the secret of how to pray. In the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit. Amen

When God does nothing

2016-06-21T09:02:00.001+10:00

There is an awful story in the Gospel of Mark which relates the death of John the Baptist. It is a very confronting story. It’s confronting, because of the pictures it gives us of betrayal, debauchery, revenge, hatred, and death. We have this terrible picture of Herod and his family, taking their revenge on John, because he dared to speak out against their moral discrepancy. It’s confronting because Jesus appears to do nothing to intervene.

This is the story of one of the greatest juxtapositions in the whole bible: The Herald of the Lord sacrificed for the whims of a deceitful woman and her spineless husband. It is a story of the risks we take when we choose to follow Christ.

John, the cousin of Jesus; the one whose voice in the wilderness, foretold of his coming. Jesus’ ministry starts after John is arrested. While John is in prison, Jesus is about and about preaching and healing. Let’s press the rewind button a little bit, and go back to before John’s death.

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?"

John is in prison, no doubt anticipating his own execution. And he hears what Jesus is doing, and sends the disciples to ask Jesus this question. “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?". After his own glorious ministry, as the prophet appointed to proclaim the Christ’s coming, he is plagued by doubts, it seems. What has happened to the glorious vision of Isaiah, where the eyes of the blind are opened, the ears of the deaf are unstopped, the lame leap and the tongue of the dumb sings for joy? It must seem to John, that having foretold these things, he wasn’t going to be around to see it. Instead, he’s captured and held on the whim of a woman with whom he had gone into battle on many occasions over moral issues. It’s the old story of a good man to whom bad things happen.

Then we have Herod. Let’s look at him, his family for a minute. According to most scholars, the Herod that is spoken of in this reading is a son of Herod the Great, a cruel and hated despot who oversaw the entire Palestinian region. When Herod the Great died (in 4 B.C.); Rome split his region into four areas and placed the Northwest area of Galilee under the rule of his son, Herod Antipas.

If Herod the Great was a maniacal, violent despot, then Antipas the son, was the cowering survivor who outlived his father. A brief study of his character reveals that he maintained his position not with strength but by connivance and manipulation. We know this because of his hesitation to have John executed immediately when John first insulted his wife. He’s scheming for the way out of his predicament so he comes out of it unscathed. The historian, Josephus, tells how he won his seat by sniveling before Rome and later lost it in like manner. He’s an amoral “yes man”, whose first concern is always his own position of power and comfort. Scripture tells us that he stole his half-brother’s wife (she was also his cousin) and appeased her by sinking to her frivolous whims while also lusting for his stepdaughter (who was also his niece). He is a sleazy man. He, the manipulator, is also manipulated by his wife. He is weakness personified.

This is the man, who so abused his authority against the daring, devoted John the Baptist by ordering his beheading. This is the picture we have of the strutting weakling Antipas, who was responsible for Christ’s death too. He scorned and mocked and thought he would have the last word.

All of this background is very interesting and helpful, but we might ask, “why was it included?” Why does the death of John include all this detail about Herod and his family? Why do the preceding chapters tell us of John’s question to Jesus from the gloom of his prison cell? Where’s the good news in all this?

There is always the danger in religious circles to think that if you’re on God’s Team then everything will be great. You’ll be healthy, wealthy, and wise. God will heal every disease and conquer every foe. Well…not if you’re John the Baptist. If you’re John you’ll be the victim of a little slip of a girl, her scheming mother, an ineffectual puppet ruler, and your head will be served on a platter.

The sobering reality is that even the very best of us can be victim to the very worst, and sometimes even to the very worst in other people. How many have heard of Clunes Mathison? He was born at Stanley, near Beechworth, in 1883. His parents, had six children, but only Clunes reached the age of 10; moreover, when he was 12 his father, too, died of illness. The close experience of sickness and suffering influenced the young Mathison and he went on to be a brilliant doctor. When the first world war came, he served as the 5^th Battalion’s Doctor on 25^th April 1915 at Gallipoli. He survived the landing, and went from there to Helles where he set up a medical post in a creek bed. After the 5^th charged towards, Krithia, Mathison returned on May 9 to the aid post he had established in a creek bed. He was getting dressed during the afternoon, when a Turkish bullet fired from far away fell to earth and struck him on the head. He died 9 days later. He’d survived the hideous Gallipoli landing but was struck down by a freak bullet. Not only did Australia loose a good man, but also a brilliant Doctor. He was only 34. But I can’t help but think of his Mum. She lost all her children, except this one; she lost her husband and then her only remaining child marches off to war and is killed by a stray bullet, way behind the battle front. Life is not always fair. This story is confronting because it tears at the fabric of our belief that God will intervene, fix, heal, save. But he didn’t save Clunes Mathison, or his mother from the crushing grief of multiple losses. And he didn’t save John the Baptist. That’s why it’s such a confronting story.

But, these fates aren’t what define us, for even though we suffer and are cut down, we are still God’s. It’s why we need to keep our lives aligned with the plumb line of our walk with the risen Christ, because sometimes, that’s the only thing that makes any sense.

John’s story challenges us to live with hope in the face of disappointment and the ending of our hopes and dreams. Is our fidelity to God only valid when everything turns out the way we want it to? How do we understand this story in the light of all the promises God made about hope and joy and the desert blooming, and the afflicted being healed? Can we step outside the boundaries of our own expectations and let God write his own will and expectations on our hearts? The truths is, that God’s hope in us, actually becomes stronger, the less hopeful our circumstances are; he himself becomes our hope, our strength; we look beyond the things of this life, to a greater hope in the life to come. And in doing this, we begin to live now, with hope and integrity, even when we are in our own particular prison, whatever that might be.

When the imprisoned John the Baptist queried whether Jesus was the promised Messiah or not - Jesus replied by pointing John to the transformation which was occurring in people's lives. How God's love for the world was being revealed through the way Jesus touched people's lives with healing, compassion, justice and love. So, in a way, John must have realized that his task was done. He had foretold of such a One, and his prophesy had been fulfilled. So take heart, because even our suffering, our acceptance of it and our trust in God through it, is how we discover that God is present in all our circumstances; whether they be joyous ones like, say, the birth of a baby, or terrible ones, like John’s life sentence. God is the God of both situations. The abundance of happy things, is no more a sign of God’s presence than the desolation; the constant is God. We tend to measure God’s presence in any situation by our sense of well-being, and fail to recognise that God is just as present with us in the dungeon, as he is on the mountain top.

Sometimes, like the story of Clunes Mathieson, the very worst happens. It’s then we can experience the presence of God. And let’s remember, it’s not over until the resurrection. The story of whatever has happened to us here, is not finished until God welcomes, recognises and renews us, on that Resurrection morning.

Why are we waiting?

2016-02-07T12:30:00.000+11:00

"Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?"

The account of the death of John the Baptist in Matthew 11, makes for gruesome reading. John, sitting in prison, no doubt anticipating his own execution, hears what Jesus is doing, and sends his disciples to ask. How sad. How sad that, having given his life to the task of preparing the way for the Messiah, having said to Jesus at his (Jesus’) baptism, "It is you who should be baptizing me," having seen and done all this, John is finally plagued with uncertainty as he watches the Messiah fulfill his ministry. He just cannot be sure that this is what God intended the Messiah to be and do

The Bible also contains the well known stories of Mary’s rejoicing when she realizes she will be the mother of the Saviour of all mankind.

Both of these people are waiting; Mary is waiting in the way all pregnant women wait; my daughter is pregnant at the moment and she and her husband are starting to prepare for the baby’s birth. I too, await with eager longing to see this little new life. We wonder whether it will be a girl or a boy; we wonder what the baby will look like; what sort of person will it be? But in Mary’s case, she is also waiting for the restoration of her reputation and for the fulfilment of God’s prophesy to her, because although she knows she is pregnant by the holy spirit, we can imagine that perhaps the people in her world found this very hard to believe, and would have been quick to condemn her has promiscuous - a very harsh judgement with terrible consequences, in Mary's culture. People would undoubtedly have been very unkind to her. She must have spent some anxious times when it became apparent she was not married but was pregnant, and even after the birth, Joseph married her of course, but down the years, she must have borne the taunts of people who never really believed that the child she bore was not just the child of a human father.

She waits as he grows, to see what sort of man he will become. She waits to see evidence of his divinity, she waits while he begins his ministry. She must have worried about him. She must have wondered where his destiny would take him.; indeed the bible says “she pondered these things in her heart”. She waited and watched and wondered. And finally, she waited at the foot of the cross for him to die.

Waiting is often very difficult. Waiting even on worldly things can be a frustrating business. How often have we fretted about how long we’ve had to wait in the supermarket queue? In reality, it’s never more than a few minutes. And just as an aside, I always use this time to pray for the people around me. It’s my way of turning something with potential for frustration, into something much more pleasant and positive.

Waiting on test results is often very difficult. In most cases, we find waiting difficult.

Waiting on God is also difficult. What does God say to us about waiting? He has, after all, been telling his people to wait, for thousands of years, from when he told Abraham he would be the heir of thousands of people of God, and impelled Abraham to wait until he brought this about, to this story in the new testament of Mary and her waiting for the Saviour to be born.

In John's case too, he must have wondered why Jesus didn't come to the prison and save him. He was his cousin and the messenger to Christ's coming.

We might spare a thought for John’s parents. They must have also waited a very lonely and anxious vigil, to hear news of his death. They would be hoping for his release, but really, I think they knew in their hearts, this would not happen.

We too, in our waiting, hope for the best outcome; we want the test results to be good; we want our child to be healed; we want our financial worries to be over.

But life isn’t like that; sometimes the worst happens. God doesn't always rescue us. We see that from the death of John the Baptist. But just as we must walk out into the dark to see the stars, sometimes we have to experience terrible darkness in our lives, in order to see the stars of God's presence in our lives. It’s then we can experience the presence of God. Our anxious waiting can give birth to a new understanding of the peace of the Christ child.

Whether we are waiting, like John, alone, with the threat of something dreadful over our heads, or like Elizabeth, expecting a child who will become the messenger of the Messiah, or like Mary, expecting the fulfilment of God’s promise to her, we can always wait, with the hope and peace of God in our hearts.

Sustain us, Father, with the power of your love on our journey to meet the One who is coming; strengthen our weak hands, make firm our feeble knees, and open blind eyes to the dawning of your kingdom; that our hearts may rejoice with joy and singing as we behold the majesty of our God. We ask this through your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen ( Prayer was written by Rev David Beswick, Uniting Church website)

Job found treasure

2015-11-05T20:39:00.000+11:00

Job

42 Then Job replied to the Lord:

²“I know that you can do all things;
    no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
³You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
    Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
    things too wonderful for me to know.

⁴“You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
    I will question you,
    and you shall answer me.’
⁵My ears had heard of you
    but now my eyes have seen you.
⁶Therefore I despise myself

and repent in dust and ashes.”....
¹⁰After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. ¹¹All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.

¹²The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. ¹³And he also had seven sons and three daughters.

I am acquainted with a youngish man who is a well-known face on my local news. Recently his job was made redundant and he now has to find another job. This could be very stressful, especially when he has a young family and a mortgage. When I talked to him briefly about this – asking him how he was getting on finding a new position, he was very positive and upbeat. “I’m sure God has a plan” he said.

The very next day, I was speaking to another acquaintance, a freshly minted teacher, in her first school. When I asked how she was going, during the course of the conversation, she said something like “Oh well, if I stuff up teaching these kids, I’m sure God still has a plan for them”. I think she was trying to say that even though she might be making mistakes in her first year out, God would be able to override that.

And then just through the week, another Christian and I chatted about retirement, Super funds, the stock market, and his circumstances, and he also said “I’m sure God has a plan”.

These quirky coincidences set me to thinking about what Christians believe about the plans of God. Does God have a plan for our lives? And does God still have a plan when we “stuff up”, as my young friend so inelegantly put it? How does the plan work when someone else does something to us which causes profound and long-lasting impact? Where is God’s plan when everything goes wrong?

Let’s have a look at these few verses in Job.

Then Job replied to the Lord:

“I know that you can do all things;
no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

Job says these words to God, not at the beginning of the story when everything is right with the world, but at the end of his terrible journey of suffering. A daring interpretation of the context would suggest that God’s hand, if not causing the suffering, allowed it to happen.

The book of Job is played out against the fact that the devil makes a wager with God. At the beginning of the book, the devil says to God “I bet if I take away all his good fortune, he’ll abandon you”. And God says “You’re on”. God consenting to such a wager is, in itself, hard to fathom. The book goes on to speak of Job’s terrible plight, his discourse with God and with his friends. But in this final chapter, after all his tantrums, he says to God “I spoke of things I didn’t know or understand; my ears have heard you now and my eyes have seen you. Speak and I will listen”. We might interpret that as Job saying “I’ve been an ignorant man on these matters and tried to tell you, Almighty God, what to do and how to rule the world. I’m sorry for my arrogant presumption” Job has been on a very difficult spiritual journey; a journey to spiritual honesty.

That’s the overview, but I wanted to explore the idea of “no plan of God’s can be thwarted”.

God does indeed have a purpose for our lives, but it’s not usually the one we imagine. Our ideas of perfect plans are tied to earthly outcomes, to bottom lines; to comfortable lifestyles.

God’s ultimate plan is the one where He sends His own son to die for us, so that when we stand on that other shore, we can cross into God’s country; into the presence of God, unblemished and blameless by what we’ve managed to mess up on earth.

This amazing purpose of God did not involve everything falling into place in a favourable and comfortable set of circumstances.

It involved humiliation, violence, hardship, malevolence and ultimately not just physical death but spiritual death – a trip to Hades itself - for our sakes.

God always has a plan but they are always geared to the spiritual values, rather than our earthly ones.

Does He then involve himself in our daily lives and decisions? - who we marry, what job we do, what house we buy; how safe we stay?

I honestly don’t know. If you’ve had a long and happy marriage, you might say “Oh yes, God planned it all”. It was God’s doing.

But if, like me, you were damaged by an abusive, unfaithful spouse, then you may wonder what God was doing when he allowed that person to walk into your life.

If you’ve spent a long and illustrious career in a job you loved doing, then I’m sure you will be first to say that God’s plan came to fruition for you. But if your job has been back-breaking toil, with not much financial remuneration, and time spent in a caustic workplace, amongst ferocious workmates who bullied you, then where is God’s plan in all that?

We live in a free and prosperous country, but I wonder what Syrian Christians think about the plan of God for them?

But even here in our fortunate country, our lives are all flawed; things frequently don’t work out the way we think they should. This was Job’s experience too; He did not reap the harvest he should have had, for a life lived with integrity. He got, instead, what he didn’t deserve.

I’ve puzzled over these things during the course of my own dark days, and I have concluded that God always has a plan for our spiritual well-being. And just as He used the terrible happenings in the life of Jesus, for his plan of Salvation, so He can use the terrible things in our lives too, to bring healing to our souls. That is a paradox isn’t it?; that terrible things, which should bring us undone, can just as surely bring us closer to God. And when we are closer to god, we are actually healthier spiritually.

The betrayal of Jesus by Judas was a terrible thing, yet it was all woven into the plan of Christ’s death; the Roman soldiers were the means of delivering the death of Christ. Pilate also played His part. These were all heinous things, but they were allowed by God because they were part of His plan for our redemption.

His glorious plan was achieved – the conquering of spiritual death was achieved through suffering and everything going wrong.

So it can be for us, if we have the good sense to keep following the Christ through all the brokenness and messy circumstances of our lives. We too can be triumphant over even the things which impact us profoundly, even though they are terrible things. I find that very comforting.

Some of you may remember the chorus “Something Wonderful”. It goes “something wonderful; something good. All my confusion, you understood. All I had to offer you was brokenness and strife, but you made something beautiful with my life.

When I sing that at home though, I always change the middle line into “all you had to offer me was brokenness and strife”. Because sometimes that’s what it seems like, when everything goes wrong. God seems to offer us strife and then abandons us to it. This is exactly what Christ felt when he hung on the cross. You’ll remember he said “My God, why have you forsaken me?”

This was how Job felt too.

Chapter 19: "He has blocked my way so I cannot pass;
he has shrouded my paths in darkness.
⁹He has stripped me of my honour
and removed the crown from my head.
¹⁰He tears me down on every side till I am gone;
he uproots my hope like a tree.
¹¹His anger burns against me;
he counts me among his enemies.

Chapter 13:24: Why do you hide your face
and consider me your enemy?

And consider these verses from the Psalms:

I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.

My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, 'Where is your God?' "

And this from Paul in 2 Corinthians 1: 8-9: "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters,^[a] about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself." Paul, the great Apostle despaired of life itself.

The bible is full of verses about the Saints of God grappling with the awful stuff, and wondering how it fits in with the idea of a loving, providential Father God.

We don’t want the strife – we want it all to be rosy. Anthony Warlow, Australian Tenor with a glorious voice, starred in a Musical a few years ago, called “Jekyll and Hyde”. Not sure it was very long-lived, but it had a song in it called “This is my moment”, and it part, it goes :

"Every endeavour,
I have made - ever -
Is coming into play,
Is here and now - today!

This is the moment,
This is the time,
When the momentum and the moment
Are in rhyme!"

But sometimes, nothing is in rhyme; the stars don’t line up, the Universe isn’t in harmony….. it all goes wrong… and we want a plan B.

I’m afraid there is often no Plan B. Awful stuff happens.

Why does God allow the awful stuff? If we read Job, I’m not sure we should ask that; God is God; it’s not up to us to tell Him what He can and can’t do.

I know one thing though – God is still in control in the terrible stuff, just like He was when He allowed Judas to betray Jesus and when he allowed the devil to make bets on Job’s life. He works within the terrible stuff. He can always bring good out of bad. Romans 8: 28 “All things work together for God for those who love Him and are called according to his purpose”. He can always offer us spiritual sight. He can always give us gladness for mourning, even in the face of tragedy. And ultimately He will always give us strength to endure.

It may take a while; it may take some soul searching and honest conversation with God. But He’s never been averse to that. If we go back to the book of Job, we see that Job really gives God an earful – he really has a go at God, but in the end God doesn’t reproach him for that. After all, God realizes it’s an honest tirade and part of the journey of Job’s grief. God rebukes the self-righteous friends who are untouched by tragedy but have so much know-it-all advice to give the suffering Job.

Ultimately, God says to Job “I am God and it’s not up to you to make the plans. I created you; you can’t dictate my purposes”.

Job’s heart and soul are big and he repents of his railing and ranting at God. He admits he is not God and that he spoke of things he didn’t understand. The relationship between himself and God is restored, because Job remains in touch with God; and is humble before God; and is honest with God. Job finds peace.

The hope in this message is tangible. This can be our experience too, in whatever tragedy or failure has occurred in our lives.

And there is a peace, finally, after all our conversations with God and our anger and our cries of “it’s not fair”. .. when we have hurled our accusations and puzzlement and raw grief at God; in the end, we find He is not angry with us for that.

But He IS God and who are we in the end to question what He does or allows? This is how Job coped; this is how he processed his grief and his affliction. There is no plan B where God intervenes. God’s plan is always to be present with us and to bring triumph out of tragedy; to bring eternal spiritual values to the disquiet of our suffering; to bring us finally to acceptance of what’s happened and to bring peace to our sorrowing heads.

His plan is always to be present with us no matter what happens and to make us more like himself.

So we come to the final chapter of the book of Job and find that God restores his fortune.

That’s actually not the good bit and I’ll tell you why. The good bit is the journey Job has taken to spiritual wholeness and a deeper understanding of God. Job emerged stronger and wiser and humbler than he was before.

And if you are tempted to think that isn’t the good bit, let me tell you of a little story I heard on Radio National the other day. The topic was poker machines. Poker machine revenue accounts for 10% of state income in NSW. Australians lose 12 billion a year on the pokies. In a club in Fairfield, of the 39 million revenue this club makes, 37 million of it comes from poker machines. The machines are geared for the player to lose. They are designed to let you win little amounts, so you keep playing and they can be played with credit cards. The venues have no clocks, so you lose track of time.

So a lady was interviewed as part of this programme. She began playing them after her son took his own life. She explained that the appeal was the hypnotic soothing state playing the machines induced in her. She was grief-stricken and floundering and this became her escape and her coping mechanism. I’m sure none of us would judge her for that.

But she became addicted. This was a well- educated, well-incomed woman, who had something terrible happen in her life, and all she had were the pokies. She eventually kicked the habit, but was then overtaken by alcohol abuse. She finally found the strength, with some professional intervention, to kick both things.

But not everyone has the resources to see a health professional every week… and they lose everything. They become irrevocably broken.

How much better it would have been if she had cried and raged at God, in her grief, as Job did. Indeed, as some of us have.

Job’s way of coping was much to be preferred and that’s why I say that the end, where Job found peace and healing, after his very honest interaction with God, is the good bit.

God’s plan is always to keep us from falling. I cannot tell you why God chose to take bets on Job’s life; I cannot tell you why he doesn’t have a Plan B. I cannot tell you why he allows terrible things or why He sometimes seems to abandon us or is silent in the face of our suffering.

But I can tell you that God’s plan IS always to keep us from falling.

And it’s not over, ‘til it’s over. The mystery of our redemptive suffering will one day be explained on that heavenly shore, by the Risen Lord who has kept an account of all our tossings, who holds our tears in his bottle and who has written our names in His book of Life.

I’d like to conclude with those lovely verses from the book of Jude, vs 24-25:

²⁴Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

²⁵To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Lessons about intercessory prayer, from the book of Job.

2015-10-21T21:33:00.000+11:00

A little while ago, I attended an “Art for the Soul” retreat at St Clements, at Galong (in NSW, Australia). It’s run by one of the Nuns up there. It was a very refreshing experience. I found that I was the only little Protestant amongst a whole pond full of Catholics. That didn’t bother me. During the course of one of the sessions, this lovely Nun said to me “Catholics always concentrate on suffering; we often look at our faith through a perspective of suffering; we have the cross with Jesus on it whereas Protestants have the empty cross, with it's connotations of hope for the resurrection”. As she was speaking, I thought that we Protestants have been the other way round; we tend to look at our faith from a resurrection perspective. And that’s a good thing, but sometimes I think we don’t allow room for lamentation in our worship. We have both Job and Bartimaeus in our readings this morning, and they were both well acquainted with lamentation.

So it might be that we will find the whole book of Job a bit confronting. Our reading today comes from the very last chapter; the “good” one where Job is recompensed for all his suffering. We are tempted to think that’s all there is to it, but I’m convinced there is such a wealth of wisdom in the book of Job, and I have to thank a sermon from that long-ago preacher Charles Spurgeon for drawing my attention to verse 8; the one in which God says “My servant Job will pray for you and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly.

So, it’s actually intercessory prayer I want us to think about this morning. What brought Job to the point of praying for his friends, when he himself was so desperate and despairing? I want to observe some points about intercession for others and then some ideas of who we should pray for.

The book of Job is played out against the fact that the devil makes a wager with God. The devil says “I bet if you take away all his good fortune and he’ll curse you”. And God sys “You’re on”. God consenting to such a wager is, in itself, hard to fathom. The book goes on to speak of Job’s terrible plight, his discourse with God and with his friends. But in this final chapter, he says to God “I spoke of things I didn’t know or understand; my ears have heard you now and my eyes have seen you. Speak and I will listen”. We might interpret that as Job saying “I’ve been an ignorant prat on these matters and tried to tell you, Almighty God, what to do and how to rule the world. I’m sorry for my arrogant presumption” Job has been on a very difficult spiritual journey. So really, in our readings today, we have blind Bartimaeus in the gospel receiving physical sight, and we have Job, receiving spiritual sight.

But look at verse 10 “after Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before”. Now it would be very dangerous to assume from this that “oh well, I’m in trouble, I’ll pray for my friends and God will intervene”. I don’t think that’s how it is at all. It doesn’t mean that if we pray for others, God will make fortune smile on us. In the context of Job, it seemed more like a sign that God had called off the wager. The King James Version of Verse 10 says “And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends”.

God brought good from bad, even though Job was ruined without reason. God was in control and always had a plan in mind. God always knew the end from the beginning and everything in between. I believe a lot of the wisdom and sense in this story hinges on Job’s journey to spiritual humility, and of gaining a different vision of who God is, despite our ideas of what’s fair and what’s unfair. It’s also about making sure we are not like Job’s friends; about whom God says “they have not spoken of me what is right, like my servant Job has”; a flaky lot of hypocrites and religious posturers, they were. Know everything; know nothing; that’s them.

It’s Job’s prayer which stops God from dealing with them according to their folly. That’s a very powerful outcome of all Job’s distress. And it’s the trouble and resultant refining of Job’s already upright character which ensures that this power will be put to good use. That’s a long way to answering why God allowed the sorrows in the 1^st place So, if we follow Job’s example, we will pray for those who sleight and misunderstand us.

To be an intercessor, we need to realize a few things:

1. Intercessional prayers, in the light of the book of Job, seem to work better if we have been though trials. We are fitted for God’s purpose through trials. It’s no mistake that Job could pray for his friends even after his own life had been decimated. Job knew what suffering felt like; knew in the end that he had been a touch arrogant. Through our own grief, we develop the ability to walk in the shoes of others who are grieving. It gives us compassion and empathy and it’s from this storehouse we can then pray for others and really petition God’s heart.

2. Intercession for others is a spiritual journey not a means to an end. Job’s suffering took him on a journey of self-discovery and an awareness of God in a very personal way. When we travel thus, close to a suffering so great, we can’t do it without depending on God, we get to know our place in God’s world; we discover there are things we cannot control; we realize how much more there is to life than just what we plan and want for ourselves. We are so vulnerable, so helpless, so wretched we no longer have control over these forces of pain and we lean on the very heart of God to give us strength. We are, if we allow it, brought close to God’s character; the very divinity of God; we transcend our suffering and begin to see others the way God sees them. We put off ourselves and rely on God. When self takes a back seat in this way, we surpass our suffering and God’s spirit himself mingles himself with our spirit and we are transformed to be more like him. Jesus himself intercedes for others - and we too, from our nobler, ego-reduced viewpoint, want to pray for them too.

3. Notice God doesn’t punish Job even though he has questioned and despaired. His is an honest response to anguish and God is not displeased by that. His dialogue of despair with God, is part of the journey. We must conclude from this that when we cry out to God with honest questions, this is not a bad thing – it’s when God is there with us, even though, at the time He might seem silent. After all, we are still speaking to God – we are still in relationship with God. Something happens in that calm candle flame of our own spirit, when, in the midst of grief or bewilderment, God’s spirit begins to burn with our own. It’s a very sacred, mystical transference of the divine nature.

4. Intercession requires grace; the experience of God’s grace to us, which we use to intercede for others. We see them as flawed like us, and loved by God, like us. Mercy and compassion are the big sisters of intercession.

5. It’s a sign of spiritual health and healing, and victory in spite of trouble. If we are finally at peace enough with what God has allowed for us, we can embrace praying for others. We have travelled a long way in our efforts to grapple with awful circumstances and are still trusting God. Strength and power are ours when we pray from this vantage point. This leads me to my next point:

6. There is power in our prayers. Prayers of righteous people can change things. These verses in Hebrews 12 spring to mind: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it”. There is something amazing which happens when a righteous saint of God, who has stood firm through trial, then prays for others. . The prayer of the righteous doesn’t mean we have to be perfectly good. It means we need to walk in the light of Christ’s spirit which will tell us where we err and prompt us to confess it to Him. It’s our confession and reliance on Him by faith which makes us righteous, not our outward behaviour

7. There is Christ’s example, and even from the cross he prayed “Father forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing”. We have to ask in the name of the High Priest Jesus, who once for all sacrificed for us, as in Hebrews reading. We have to have a relationship with Him, the great Redeemer. And because he suffered, he is our greatest example of the power of intercessory prayer.

Who then should we pray for? Praying for people who get on our nerves is hard; praying for those who have sleighted us but without intent or malice is harder; praying for people who have gone out of their way to mistreat or hurt is just because they can, is very difficult indeed. We can pray for:

1 For those lost to the gospel. They are all around us. We can use the nightly news to pray for those who are so in need of the redemptive power of God, not just for their personal salvation, but for the enrichment of our society too.

2 We can pray Our friends who are proud of their religiousness; those who are insensitive, haughty. Those who have wronged us. How do we pray for people like this? How did Job do it? I’ll tell you how I do it. I say to God “I don’t feel like praying for this person, but because you require it, I will”. To be sure, it’s a very wooden, uninvolved prayer at first. But when we pray in this way over time, gradually we ourselves are changed and we find we can actually pray for those who have wronged us, with forgiveness and goodwill in our hearts.

3 Our friends who are ill, or sorely tried, dispirited, or who are battling temptation. Apparently, Internet porn is the fastest growing industry on the worldwide web. If we know people, even Christians, who are trapped in this, our prayers of intercession could be the means of setting them free.

4 The wider community. We are out in the world every day; we can intercede for people in our own circle of friends and workmates; we can intercede for people in the most dire and degraded situations. We can pray as we see them from our cars or in the street, or on the news. We can petition God’s heart on their behalf and He can set in place, the means to answer those prayers.

5 We can pray for very evil people; people who have gone beyond just selfishness – people who use others for their own gratuitous power. Organised crime, violent dictators, and malevolent military forces. Our prayers can break forces of evil and summon the angel host to rescue others.

6 And finally, we can pray that what we give in financial ways to help others will be multiplied millions of times, so that all can be fed.

So, if you feel yourself in the dark vale of trouble or affliction this morning, take heart, because God always has a plan, and will always bring us through, with the tree of our soul laden with much fruit. Some of that bounty will be the ability to intercede on behalf of others and know that God hears and answers our prayers. Amen.

A loaf of bread, the walrus said....

2015-08-18T06:10:00.000+10:00

John 6:51-58 New International Version (NIV)

⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

⁵²Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

⁵³Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁵⁵For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. ⁵⁶Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

I’m going to start my blog with a stanza from a poem. You may even be familiar with it:

A loaf of bread,' the Walrus said,

Is what we chiefly need:

Pepper and vinegar besides

Are very good indeed —

Now if you're ready, Oysters dear,

We can begin to feed.'

This is a poem about a Walrus and the Carpenter who lure the young oysters out onto the beach and then feed on them. Oysters and pepper and vinegar…. And feeding on bread. It’s by Lewis Carroll, from his book “Through the Looking-Glass”.

Our reading today is about Jesus telling his disciples that he is the living Bread from heaven and that anyone who feeds on this bread will live forever. There are some edgy verses in there, especially vs 53 “⁵³Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you

The Jews find the idea of eating the flesh of Jesus a bit hard to understand. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat” they ask.

This passage has been debated down the centuries and it would take a better scholar than me to explain the deep theological reasons for this. And I’m not going to try

What we’re going to think about this morning is what it might mean to us when we see Jesus as the bread of life, in a symbolic sense.

I think it could be fair to say, that we are now a feasting nation; I would go so far as to say we are the party nation. We love to eat, drink and party. Everything about our life seems to revolve around food. Flick through any of the TV channels and there are literally dozens of programmes about food – preparing it, eating it, travelling to other places to find and cook it; reality TV shows about cooking it in competition with others; there are restaurant guides; diet guides, scientific facts about what the next super food is. There are magazines devoted to food; books, blogs, social media pages and of course advertising. I’ve even seen instructions on how to crochet food – cute little crocheted patty cakes and the like! Even unrelated things like lipsticks are created in food-like colours… cheeky chocolate; paint colours are called things like pale avocado. And there are more varieties of bread than you can throw a scone at!

As a society, we are absolutely crazy about food.

It’s no accident that Jesus uses so much imagery about Himself and His Kingdom and relates it to living, growing plants and processes in the world (I am the true vine; the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed etc). He did that because it was something people could relate to, because they were directly connected to growing food to eat, to keep them alive.

But I don’t think the people of Jesus day could ever comprehend or understand our absolute addiction to and worship of food. For a start, they would never be able to imagine the reality of so MUCH food. I heard on sbs the other day that there are now more people dying from too much food, than from not having enough. And I wonder what God thinks about that?

It’s harder for us western Christians to understand the significance of Jesus being the living bread for our souls (and therefore essential for our spiritual health), because we are far less dependent of bread for our physical sustenance, than were the people of Jesus’ day.

How then, are we to appreciate these verses about Jesus being the very stuff of life, in every way, when we can take food so much for granted? How can we cleanse our minds a little and get back to the basic idea of bread? How do we do that?

To try and re-engage with bread as a Godly life-force purely in our own strength is to put the cart before the horse. No! We need some spiritual power to get us back into the right attitude to bread.

Let’s try to remember three things:

Firstly, we have the verses in John which tell us that Jesus is this bread and he has laid down his life for us. . The bread we eat during Communion are symbols of Christ’s body and blood given in exchange for every awful thing we’ve ever said; every unclean thought we’ve ever had; every lie we’ve ever told; every prejudice; every wrong attitude. In fact everything about us which is unholy and imperfect is covered by Christ’s death on the cross. Bread, and His body are connected forever as the sacrifice and the symbols of that sacrifice.

Secondly, the spiritual bread is from heaven. We’re told that in verse 51. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. We have all the divine nature of heaven available to us, spiritual strength; holiness, renewal, purity; to be nourished and fed by the indwelling Spirit-bread of Jesus is to have access to all the heavenly virtues. He can overcome any temptation (even the temptation to eat too much). And more, he is the ongoing, ever-renewing source of spiritual energy and strength whenever I turn my life over to His control. He dwells and abides with us, as bread for our souls. He’s food for now (on earth) and food to go (to heaven).

We have a portal into the dwelling place of the eternal spirit which was present at the creation of all things. I believe, like all the theologically uneducated people before me, that on a simple spiritual level, Jesus is the Bread of Life in all senses; He encompasses every type of Life there is; earthly and heavenly. The bread is Creator Life; is physical life; is spiritual awakening. All of these are aspects of Jesus, who was there when God called the world into being.

We need not do it in our own strength. He can constantly renew and nourish our hearts and spirits. He can change us here and now, from glory to glory, until at last, when we see Him face to face, it will be the ever so gently passing from our world to His, in the twinkling of an eye. That leads us to the third point… the forever bit.

We have the promise that whoever eats this bread will live forever. We have His promise that when we physically die, we go to be where He is. Vs 58 says “This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

But how do we really feed on the Bread of Life, and claim this eternal inheritance? Do we just come and take communion once a month? Is that what these verses mean? I don’t think that would quite cut it.

We have to invite the living, dynamic Christ into our hearts and lives on a daily basis, to be able to eat the real bread of His life and His divinity and His Spirit. We have to really understand and believe and acknowledge the sacrifice Jesus made for us. And we have to remain and abide in Christ. That’s the whole crux of the matter. The bread of Life gave himself for us and if we don’t live and believe on that daily, we may as well paste a picture of a slice of bread on our heads.

We do need to come regularly and take communion together. But the eating of the bread and wine are symbols. They are just the outward appearance of what should be going on inside our hearts. We have the outward symbols and we have the inner bread which is baked in heaven. If we physically eat the symbols, without searching for and abiding in the living risen Christ, we die to God, even while we are alive physically.

We have to take a few minutes every day to read the Bible, privately, at home. Some of us have perhaps gotten out of this habit.

We should talk to God. Some of us set aside a time every day and read the Bible and talk to God. I’m sure you’ve discovered long ago, what works for you. I can’t read the Bible at night because I end up falling asleep; I can’t pray at a set time every day; it’s too regimented and contrived. I just pray through the day, as I think of things.

I lived for years near the coast, at a little place called Tinonee, near Taree on the Mid North Coast.

Another resident of this village was a Christian man of Scottish descent. He was the epitome of the Scottish personality (or the way we think of Scottish people being). He was rather a dour man but with a very dry, and sometimes cutting sense of humour. He did not suffer fools gladly. He was also extremely careful, not just with his money, but with his worldly goods as well. He was recycling long before it was the norm. Pause….And he was a bit eccentric.

I would often encounter him on my way to and from work on the road from Tinonee to Taree. He rode a very economical 250cc motorbike. It rains a lot more on the coast than it does here and when it rained, this man was nothing if not inventive; I would see him riding his motorbike carefully along the road, with his raincoat on…. And to stop his gloves getting wet, he would wear bread bags on his hands. I’m not joking nor jesting, he wore bread bags on his hands (demonstrate) to keep his hands dry. He would insert his gloved hands into the bags and secure them at the wrist and off he’d go. He didn’t care that it looked a bit silly. He was a very practical gent and I’m sure it was perfectly natural to re-use the bread bags as little raincoats for his gloves.

But what if he just took the bread out of the bag and threw it away? What if he didn’t actually eat the bread before using the bread bags as glove covers?

So my point is that unless we take the Lord Jesus into our hearts and lives, we will be like my Scottish friend; we will be just wearing the bread bags without eating the bread.

Ephesians 3:14-21. Stepping stones to the wide, deep love of God

2015-07-27T22:18:00.000+10:00

¹⁴For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵from whom every family^[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

This passage in Ephesians reminds me of a stepping stone journey into God’s love. Like this picture (show graphic). We are going to venture, metaphorically, across that stream.

The first step is kneeling before God the Father. “For this reason, I kneel before the Father” To kneel means we acknowledge God’s sovereignty over us. We submit to God’s authority and are obedient to His precepts and values. This is the crux of the passage.....

It’s about surrender. Surrender also engenders confession; we tell God the things we’ve done or thought, which are not pleasing to him, and in that surrender and confession, there begins in us a direct connection to God (rather like when our mobile phones show full bars of signal strength. This surrender opens our souls to God and we are now stepping onto the next step:

When we are surrendered to God, He is able to share His strength and power with us. This is an inner strength; almost a paradox isn’t it? That something which seems weak (the eyes of the world see surrender as being weak), great strength comes.

It’s about what goes on on the inside of us – anyone can feel close to God when everything’s going well. In fact, we might be beguiled into thinking that this is God’s favour to us and we don’t need to be surrendered to Him. Sometimes too much sun makes a desert. But when things are not going well, surrendering all to God is still a wise course because God’s power can overcome anything; the love of God can flow, like healing balm on our bowed heads when we kneel before God, acknowledge his sovereignty, and give thanks in all things. If we can do this, the power of God to us, is refined and enlivened.

We’re ready to step to our next stone now; the power of Christ to dwell in us. We can have the very personality of God living in us through the Spirit who will always point us to God. We are really becoming immovable now because with the indwelling Christ, comes the power for our souls to be rooted and established in love (this is a lovely big wide stone we have stepped on to). We are established (grounded, secure). There are lovely verses in Psalms and Proverbs which talk about our feet being put on higher ground – on a wide and secure place. I love that term embedded and grounded; Being grounded means that we are solid, immovable, unable to be washed from the rock of our faith, by any wave of circumstance. Does anyone remember Pam Ayres. She writes humourous poems; one of her most well-known was perhaps “I wish I’d looked after me teeth”. They are all delivered with the lovely burr of her native Berkshire accent. But when I read these verses in Ephesians, I thought of another of her poems….I am Clamp the Mighty Limpet. Let me read it to you… just the first few lines:

I am Clamp, the mighty limpet; I am solid, I am stuck

I am welded to the rock-face with my superhuman suck

I live along the water line and in the dreary caves

I am Clamp the Mighty Limpet; I am Ruler of the Waves!

What care I for (stupid) shingle; for the dragging of the tide,

with my unrelenting sucker and my granite underside?

This is what being rooted and grounded is like. We become like Clamp the Mighty Limpet because we are stuck by love to the rock of God, no matter what waves of adversity wash over us.

Notice the surrendering comes before the faith and the indwelling Christ. I think that’s where the Atheists get it so wrong. They try and prove the existence of God; they don’t get it that God dwells in us; it’s about experiencing God, not proving Him first. True faith is an experience. Yes, we have to know the Bible and the gospel but if we want to know the love of God for ourselves we have to know Jesus, as a living Spirit in our hearts. We can know the Bible from cover to cover – that’s knowledge, but these verses tell us that God’s love surpasses knowledge.

From that big stone of Christ indwelling us, we are finally able to step onto the next one and can grasp with others how wide and deep is the love of Christ.

Deep enough to forgive whatever we may have done;

Vast enough to enable us to forgive those who have wronged us

High enough for us to be able to love the unlovely and to be accepting of those who are very different to us, or whose views differ vastly from ours;

Long enough to overcome any temptation;

Wide enough to have victory, joy and inspiration under the most trying of circumstances. And we are filled with the full measure of God’s riches.

What are the riches of God? We could spend a month of Sundays thinking about this, and I’ll leave that for another day. Suffice to say that God’s riches have nothing to do with worldly possessions, so we can’t expect to ask God to win Lotto. They are spiritual assets; the full measure of divine attributes, passed on to us, changing us from glory to glory, from a God who delights in making us holy.

And finally, we have these lovely concluding verses:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever”

You see, it’s all about God power – his power in us can do much more than we think or imagine. It’s all about power…..

And it’s all about surrender….

It starts with the first step onto that stone of submission to our heavenly Father God, who then waits for us to invite the Christ to dwell in us, which is really the beginning of the journey to us knowing the wide, deep, grace and mercy of the love of God

Let me close in prayer:

Lord of all, at whose behest the quiet stars and steadfast moon hang in their appointed spaces and who has bequeathed to us the beauty and bounty of the earth; God of the unfathomed universe and King of the Angel host, we acknowledge that you are Lord of all things; Sovereign Being.

But you are also the God who loves us with the full measure of your Being. We turn to you and ask you to come afresh to our hearts and there begin the fire of healing love to burn; there begin to be Lord of our hearts, Shepherd of our lives, Guardian of our souls and keeper of our heavenly treasure.. Amen.

What is God's grace like?

2015-07-17T21:42:00.000+10:00

I went to the farm today - in Henty, NSW, Australia. The countryside is quite beautiful at the moment. The seeds Timmy planted have been beguiled by the recent rain, into sending their tender green shoots up above ground. It turns the whole countryside into parkland.

My grandson and I went out for a walk; he in his paddock-basher pram and me with my trusty gumboots. I looked out prospective picnic spots under the grand old pepper trees, within sight of the house. There are lots of low-slung limbs for climbing too. There are spots to build a fire and burn a snag; all the better to eat it, with bread and sausage sauce. And then there are the potential cubby-house spots! Oh! The whole place is full of them!

We went down by the creek, where there are also copious picnic spots; we perused the dam and I gave my 18mth-old grandson a gentle reminder never to go there unless a big person was with him. Dams are dangerous places for kids, but also hold lots of possibilities, later, when he’s bigger, to go yabbying and chuck rocks in the water, and go tadpole gathering.

We meandered on, and the little bloke's chubby finger pointed out “tactor”, and “shee”…We finally turned down towards the gate and his little head had dropped and he was asleep. That’s when I began to pray. I asked God to be gracious to a lovely man who is waging a terrible battle with a tumour, at the moment. Even as I prayed, I had to leave room for the thought that he may not win the battle in the way we often think, when we pray such a prayer.

I realized afresh, that God’s grace is not always about our health or comfort or prosperity. If we think about God in those terms; only believing in Him when we are healthy and comfortable and prosperous, then if calamity strikes, our relationship with God also breaks down and we disconnect ourselves from the very grace and power which can allow us to overcome that which we battle. If that happens, we are bereft indeed.

God’s grace is always about our spiritual health. In this day and age, we rarely think about our spiritual health; we aren’t concerned any more (like medieval people were) about what will happen to us after we die. But it’s much more than that too; God’s grace is always about giving us strength and integrity, so we can live our lives here and now, with richness and compassion and dignity. It even allows us to pass on that grace to others, though we are in the midst of our own fiercest battles.

A story of a man who was a long way from home, during the Depression in Australia

2015-07-11T17:05:00.002+10:00

This is one of my Dad's stories. He spent most of his life at Eugowra in the Central West of NSW in Australia. He left school when he was 13 to save the farm from foreclosure during the Depression, so his Education was a bit scant, but he had a flair for stories....

"This epic concerns and American Negro; who appeared in Eugowra out of the blue, as it’s said. He was a big man; His name was Harry Esperance, and he'd come from the Deep South in America. If you want proof of his name, have a look in the Presbyterian Church in Eugowra. His name is on one of the chairs near the altar.

He was a decided asset to our little village because he set up his living quarters in what had been the picture theatre; what was the Imperial theatre. Built in 1927, it was no sooner completed than it was burnt to the ground. Then rebuilt. A supermarket now occupies what was the Imperial theatre. The old open air picture show building ultimately became the shire depot - after black Harry was laid to rest in the local cemetery.

Black Harry got busy to set up a market garden on the block I once owned. On North St. The house on that block was destroyed by a flood on 18^th May 1950. That date I vividly remember. More of that later; it’s a tale all to itself. Harry got going on the open ground between that house and the old open air pictures premises. He had two green thumbs; the vegetables fairly streamed of that land. People went to him to buy. What Harry got up to was to haul his produce around the district in a covered wagonette. Which, same, today are exhibits in rural museums. It is a four wheel conveyance, usually hauled by a half draught horse. In a pair of shanks. Like on a sulky. Sometimes two horses did the haulage. In which case the wagonette was equipped with a pole; with a horse each side if it. The upper part of it was covered by a canopy, made from heavy canvas, held in shape by a frame of wood. The front part had a bench seat on it, that would seat two. The canvas canopy projected out over that seat. I can vividly remember that wagonette coming into Prospect, apparently with no driver in it. Until it got fairly near. Then a bit of white would be visible. Harry’s teeth showing in a grin like a split in a chaff bag. He, at a distance, was totally invisible against the dark interior of that covered-in conveyance. And, to borrow a line from that old southern, when he arrived he was welcomed hearty. He didn’t get chicken and wine; he got tea and cakes. And sold a lot of what he had for sale. Vegetables.

The annual visit of the circus duly came around. We missed Harry; until the populace started to take their seats. We soon found Black Harry. At that time, the travelling circus shows had their own brass band. No such thing as “canned” music then. Circus hands were expected to be able to ‘double in brass’, as well as set up the Big Top. A lot of them could. Harry was going for his life on a big brass band instrument, half his size. Playing the paying guests to their seats. Even now, every time I hear the Destiny waltz, I can see Black Harry putting his very soul into that beautiful old waltz. Likewise, The Missouri waltz brings back memories of that man. He never told us about his ability to play those instruments. What we did find out about that man was that he’d been a seaman in the American merchant marine. Also had been a circus hand who could double in brass. Hence his appearance in that circus band. The reason he settled in our little village was his age. He was too old to be a seaman. And the rough life of a circus hand was then beyond him. Because, then, in the depression, there was no such thing as social service. So Harry got himself 224 miles away from the water front. To become a very useful member of our little bush community. We eventually forgot his coal black skin. He was very much respected. And in due course was buried in our cemetery."

John 16:13-15; thoughts on the Holy Spirit.

2015-06-27T16:55:00.001+10:00

There is so much to say about the Holy Spirit, let me just think about 2: firstly, the Spirit will always point us to the Father and the Son. Also, the Spirit will lead us to the truth about God.

These are the words of Jesus:

16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

16:14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

16:15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

The Spirit declares the very heart of the Father to us. As the verses in John say, “all that the father has is mine and I will declare it to you.

The Spirit actually shares God’s very divinity with us. I’m wondering who is your favourite actor? I’m a bit of a generation behind my baby boomer peers I think, because I’m a big fan of Jimmy Stewart and Glenn Ford…. Meryl Streep is also a favourite. Imagine if your favourite actor called you up every week just for a chat; just to get to know you and vise versa; be a bit hard for Jimmy and Glenn because they are now in that great movie set in the sky…… But the idea of God with us, is us getting to know God; God sharing his very self with us. In a nutshell, the Holy Spirit is God’s personality. He is the means by which we become like God in character. He’s the essence of holiness. This is sanctification – becoming holy. We become more and more like God’s character, through the resident, gentle personality of the spirit’. The HS imparts God’s divine persona to us through the fruit of the Spirit – love joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.

The fruit are all personality and character traits. When the HS lives in us, all these lovely things become part of our personalities too. I find this astonishing! These attributes transcend our circumstances and remain with us no matter what happens throughout our lives.

I have a pen pal in England. She lives in Market Deeping in Lincolnshire in the East Midlands of the UK. She told me once of a visit she made to Ely Cathedral. This is a huge worship space in Cambridgeshire some 163m long and 21 m wide. It’s called the “ship of the fens” because it stands so tall in the surrounding flat countryside.

My friend’s visit occurred on a day when a huge storm hit. The wind was wild, driving the rain sideways. She battled her way from the car to the Cathedral as the elements crashed and raged.

But, she said that once she was inside the Cathedral, up in the main part, all was still. There was a single candle, up on the altar and it burned without a flicker. I want you to imagine now that you are walking into this huge building. (picture). You are not part of a tourist or worshiping group; you are alone, and you’ve had a blazing row with someone in your family.

As you approach the Cathedral, it stands like a great monolith; grey and lofty amongst it’s surroundings.

You walk inside, your body has been buffeted by the elements; the distress of the argument is still fresh and the drive through the terrible weather has left you stressed and frazzled. But as you walk up the nave, the great sense of space and stillness enclose about you and you feel your anxiety subside a little. It seems like time itself knows a different, less frantic pace inside this vaulted cavern. You look up into the roof space and let your eyes adjust to the different light there. You look up at each stained glass window in turn; the light is transformed through this aged glass, to a muted, gentle candescence, not so much less significant, as changed and more impressive somehow. Outside, you know the storm is still throwing itself at this ancient place but the candle on the altar burns serene and untroubled by it.

You walk to a seat on the outside aisle. You sit there, your heart still pounding, but your agitation powerless and feeble now, defeated by the atmosphere of the place; absorbed and muffled. You can feel it held at bay, like a raised fist held back by some unseen hand. You sit there, suspended serenely now in the repose of this place. The candles burn without a flicker; there is just the silence and the now-calm rhythm of your own breathing.

This is what living with the supremacy of the Holy Spirit is like.

Sometimes our journey takes us through sunny countryside with gentle meanderings and peaceful stopovers; sometimes we encounter terrible storms where thunder and lightning shatter our senses and driving wind and rain knock us off course. The HS is like this Cathedral space; it encloses us and it keeps us centred on God; stilled and grounded in the fiercest of our life’s storms, so that the inner candle of our soul still burns clear and unflinching. God is the constant in all our changes – an absolutely unbroken, immovable, unquenchable Being. So, it doesn’t matter what storms we encounter, we can be kept secure in love, joy, peace patience, kindness goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

So, if we think of these attributes being with us in our darkest moments, we will still have love even when people treat us badly, and we can respond with love, the way the Bible teaches; when we face some kind of temptation, we have access, through the Spirit to self-control so we can stay away from those evils which might tempt our appetites. When we suffer terrible loss, we can still have joy, even in the face of tragedy because the divinity of God’s personality can transcend our earthly experiences. We can have peace in the face of worry; patience in times of illness, etc. Astonishing. We worship an astonishing God, who shares the truth about himself with us.

Windmills and other stuff

2015-05-14T22:33:00.001+10:00

I did Pastoral Care at my local hospital recently. There is a team of us, almost exclusively Christian people, from most of the mainstream churches, who visit people in hospital, from a list compiled by the Hospital Chaplain. The patients must first have consented to a visit, when they filled out the admission paperwork. I always come away feeling glad to have mingled with all sorts of people.

Some are very ill, like the little girl receiving Chemo; some are ill from lifestyle choices; some are in for “repairs”, and some are just sick from various ailments, like the man who said he had gout. He told me he was going home that day and suggested that I might like to take care of him at home. Hmmm… the thought of doing what he had in mind, with a 200 kg sleaze was strangely unappealing. And I wanted to say, as Julia Roberts did, sarcastically, to the book thief who tries to chat her up in the movie Notting Hill. “thanks… but ….. No”. Instead, I remained doggedly polite and told him that unfortunately I could only offer pastoral care.

One couple sat by their child’s bedside with a sort of closed detachment and it wasn't because their child was very ill – he was about to be discharged. I got the feeling this was their usual state. They were neither hostile nor pleased. They were absolutely unsmiling and the woman gave one-syllable answers to my polite attempts at conversation. When I said I was part of the Pastoral Care team, I don’t think they knew what that was. They were, what would be described in the middle class world as “rough”, from a low income area, and the woman in particular, seemed to have a sort of brutish nonchalance about her.

I am still very much learning how to enter only as far into someone’s personal arena, as they are comfortable with. I never want to intrude or push them to a place they don’t want to go. I am learning how to gently stand on the barrier of their world and wait to be trusted enough to be allowed a step further. So I stayed outside their wariness and moved on. I got the impression that this brief encounter with someone whose outlook on life held a large cavern of spiritual awareness, was as close a spiritual encounter as they had ever had. Perhaps for a brief moment the breath of God wafted near; for them I think it was a completely unknown arena – they lived their lives completely on the physical plane – and it doesn’t do to make them step into that other place, unless invited.

Another old gent told me he had, among other things, mended windmills for a living. He was, in fact, what’s known as “a jack of all trades” and I always have a sneaking respect for people like this. I loved the thought of such a practical and wind-powered (yay!) mechanism being expertly repaired, out in the stubbled paddocks with the still, hot breath of the bush all around; the caw of the crows and the bleat of the sheep, the only sounds. Sometimes the paddocks would flaunt the exquisite green of newly emerged grain crops , and sometimes the clack and rattle of the giant harvester would be tracking it’s way through wheat and canola. I know I’m romanticising it – it would actually have been very hard work, climbing up and down the windmill and working with metal which would be so cold in winter and so hot in summer. But I’m sure there were times he would stop and just absorb the stillness; I know I would.

And at the end of my visiting, I got a coffee at a nearby coffee place; it's well frequented by all the surrounding medical community, and I was bemused by the variety of people jostling for space in the tiny café – the young nurse in navy pants and top getting coffees for a few others on the ward; the huddle of Very Important Young Doctors, their stethoscope badges of recognition slung casually around their necks.

And the group of about 6 young tradies from the new hospital work-site, all getting their smoko food. As I walked out they had adjourned to a table outside where they joked and jostled like school kids – well… they were, after all, not much more than that. It would never have happened even a few years ago – this mixing of so very different work groups – tradies and doctors sharing the same eatery. Love that.

As I took my coffee away, I ran into a lady from my church, and her husband, who were seated outside. She is a very regular attender but he never comes and I hadn't met him before. After a few minutes my friend mentioned that she wouldn't be at church on Sunday because she had was having a health issue. He quipped “I’m sure God won’t mind”. I’m also sure He won’t mind. Her husband added that some people who go to church are not very nice people. I had to agree with him there too. (And I couldn't help noticing how quickly the conversation took a spiritual turn, even though I’d not initiated it; so different from the other couple who had looked at me with such a blank and disengaged stare).

Some of the nastiest, most cowardly people I've ever met have been regular churchgoers. It could be the reason that most people don’t go anymore – because some time in the past they have been bruised by just such a person. Shame, that.

I try and focus on the nice ones – and they are by far and away still in the majority – the ones who have allowed the indwelling Christ to sweeten their souls and give them a love which shows itself in how they treat others.

I leave the other kind to God, hoping one day the penny will drop and they will realize Christianity is never so lifeless as when it’s just a set of rules and “bible-based head knowledge”. People who live like that can never have their characters refined and sweetened because they have never connected their souls to the living Christ. It’s about releasing all we are to the mercy and grace of God, through Christ and the Holy Spirit, so we grow more and more like him; rich with the same love and grace.

Lamentations 3:22

2015-03-12T20:41:00.003+11:00

I talked recently with a woman I’d worked with previously, but whom I hadn't seen for years since I’d left the Institution we both worked for. She still worked there and was interested in what I’d been doing since leaving (as was I interested to hear from her).

She knew I’d been bullied at this place, and she knew my son had died in the middle of it all.

She was very compassionate and really listened to my sad tale of how I’d had to resign because

I couldn't go back to such a workplace, with the added burden of grief I was carrying.

Still, she entreated me “But you should have fought back Susan; you should have stood up for yourself”.

But I knew I couldn't. I knew it at the time, and I know it now.

As we talked though, I became conscious of really wanting to leave the angst of the bullying, behind. There was so much anxiety at the time; so much resentment of the injustice of it.

But I really felt that, not only did I not want to go back there now, in my head, but that my heart (at least as far as the bullying was concerned) was healed and I could no longer “feel” the anger, helplessness anxiety and betrayal which I’d faced, alone, back then.

I was conscious of wanting to leave it where it rested – in the past. There was no grudge carefully nursed; no path of bitterness wreaking havoc through my peace of mind.

I think God has healed me. He truly does enable us to overcome our circumstances.

God can really transform us with His love and compassion – as long as we keep giving over the rubbish stuff to Him. ‘Consumed” is a terrible word when it’s applied to those negative reactions which threaten our spiritual and emotional well-being – you can’t be close to God when you are consumed by anger or bitterness or self-pity. When these things hold power over you, God presence is subsumed by them.

But having said that, if you've been hurt or wronged very badly by someone, you can’t just put it away, without working through what happened and what you feel. Those powerfully tenacious emotions like anger and rancour don’t give up without a fight!

But they have to be dealt with or they fester and grow. Pretending you don’t feel them doesn't disable them either.

But God, through His transforming presence and mercy, can take them from our struggling, burdened souls and we are not consumed by them. We keep giving them up to His redemptive power and He keeps tempering them, dissolving them until their power over us is gone.

Rather, the negative destructive forces are themselves transformed in us, by God’s astonishing power to work evil things to our good, and the very circumstances and hurts which threaten to consume us, give us empathy for others who have been similarly hurt and diminished. Not only that, but this grace enables us to pray for those who have hurt us, and when this point is reached, God’s power is set to work to redeem and heal the other also.

God’s power knows no bounds when it is released by our obedient application of His precepts in our lives, even in the face of pain and suffering.

This promise of grace holds us in dignified and ever-renewing strength – that of allowing God to heal and transform us, so that we are never consumed by anything which happens to us in this life.

Amazing.

a sermon on Isaiah 58:9b-14

2014-10-23T20:14:00.000+11:00

The book of Isaiah is a fascinating text. Like the view from the top of The Rock, it’s best taken as a whole vista, not just little snippets of verses out of context. The basic theme of Isaiah is one of falling away from God and taking up idols; of threat of judgement, of offered redemption, and of the blessings which will flow from acceptance of God’s mercy. It’s a picture of God never turning his back on his people even though they grieve his heart with their sin. The whole book is a pointer to the coming of Jesus and his offer of redemption for us at the cross. There’s this pattern of demolition and reconstruction; of judgment and salvation. Then in the last chapters of the book, there’s a hopeful picture of the new Jerusalem which has resonance with heaven for us.

Now, when I said that the book is best taken whole, I was just showing off, so you’d know that I did actually have a scant knowledge of the book, and I want to actually just speak on a one verse which jumped out at me when I read it. Verse 11 says this: “And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail”.

I watched a documentary recently about a young Canadian man, Robert Bogucki who went on a journey into the Great Sandy Desert to try and find God. (Incidentally, the Great Sandy Desert is the one in north west Western Australia, inland from Broome. It’s roughly the same size as Japan, and it’s surrounded by other deserts). He wanted to fast in the wilderness, like Jesus. He set out on a bicycle with a few belongings and a bible. But as he got further and further into the desert, the bike was useless in the unrelenting landscape and he discarded it and continued on foot. Eventually, of courses, he became lost and in grave peril. When his bike and belongings were found, a search was launched using police and aboriginal trackers. But he wasn’t found. His father eventually came over here with his own search team and found his son, alive, but only just. He’d been 6 weeks without food and 12 days without water and had lost 30 kilos. The documentary describes how he kept finding water in the most inhospitable of places; he would dig into the sand to find water seeping up, or he would follow birds which led to waterholes, and he was able to survive.

Most of us would not seek God in such an extreme manner. But all of us encounter times of adversity when we seem to be in a spiritual desert. We’ve all had times when God seems far away and nothing we do seems to bring Him closer. We’ve all had times when the circumstances of our lives are difficult and hard to live through. But take heart, these times are essential to us finding God, in a way we never could, if all our time was spent in watered and fertile comfort. Just as Robert found water in the driest place on earth, not only can we find God, but we can be as these verses in Isaiah describe; like a watered garden; strong, resilient, satisfied, contented, a spring whose waters do not fail. We can be like this, because this is what Jesus becomes to us in times of adversity.

How can this be? Let’s look at the preceding verses. There’s a kind of spiritual physics here; when you do this, there is a certain outcome. The whole chapter is a discourse on what true fasting is. It’s not just going without food; it’s looking after those less fortunate; it’s relieving those who are oppressed; it’s giving food to the hungry. When we do these things, we are promised God’s favour. Listen to these lovely verses again; “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him … Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard. Then you shall call and the Lord will answer. If you pour yourself out for the hungry then shall your light rise in the darkness”. This is not just a set of rules though. You do this, and you get what you want; you follow the rules and God blesses you. These things are not just a set of rules and regulations; they are God’s precepts. So I think this says that even in the midst of our own trouble, when we continue to live according to God’s precepts, we find God. Our living this way, becomes a seeking of God and he will never let us go unsatisfied. Rather, he uses these difficult times, to weed out the dross of our lives; There is a saying from Arabia; “too much sun makes a desert”. It’s true. If our lives were all comfort and ease, our souls would become cluttered with worldly stuff. As life still thrives against the odds in desert places, so God’s life becomes a source of refreshment and vitality and streams in dry places, when we continue to trust him. He becomes a lifeline, like water found in a dry creek bed. In the natural world, creatures adapt to living in the desert. One of the inhabitants of the desert, is a tiny lizard, which can survive when the temperature on the sand reaches well over 50 degrees C. It does so by lifting it’s body up away from the burning sand so that it’s vital organs are kept cooler. So, in parched difficult times, the stuff we don’t need (like resentment anger and selfishness) are dropped (with God’s help). In times of difficulty, for example, when someone faces a life threatening illness or loses a loved one, the importance of say, getting back at someone for some slight, seems less important than it did before; we simply don’t have the energy for it anymore because we see how petty it is. We can move past it more easily, because in the face of our own, or a loved one’s impending death, it simply isn’t important any more. The harsh light of desert experience can shine a refining light into our hearts.

There is so much imagery in the Bible about trees. I won’t mention them all, but one of one of my favourites is from Psalm 1, vse 3…. Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord; he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields it’s fruit in its season and it’s leaf does not wither. There is a season for everything going well; but there comes a time to most people when things perplex and trouble us. Whatever our circumstances, when we keep our lives anchored in God’s word and in seeking him, then we are like the image of this tree. We won’t wither and we’ll bear fruit when it’s time. When I first moved into my present house, there was a lovely standard weeping cherry in the amongst a garden with other plants, but over the ensuing years of drought, it didn’t really do well. As each season passed, more and more of it died off. Thinking I would do it a favour, I installed the polypipe dripper system in the whole garden. It seemed to make no difference and I finally decided I’d pull it out and plant another one.

The older I get, the more I think that adversity and suffering are God’s hand as much as when everything is going well, and as much as the physical and fiscal things he gives us. He is the Lord God, and he doesn’t just go around mopping up after the evil one’s schemes. He is always sovereign.

It’s in the desert where our true relationship with God is formed. And Like Robert in the Great Sandy, we become focussed on the really important things which ensure our spiritual survival. I think this is the answer to the great “why” of bad stuff happening to us. Have you been through a hard rocky experience lately? Take heart, God is at the centre of adversity; he may not have brought it, but he has allowed it; God made the great Sandy Desert as well as the mighty Murrumbidgee and he has promised us his presence whether we are in the drought of the one, or the watered places of the other (I must say here how lovely it is to see the Bidgee with lots of water between it’s banks at the moment; haven’t seen that for a while).

We can become so strong spiritually when we endure the desert of adversity or pain, or uncertainty or suffering. We can become spiritually “well watered”, even though our outward circumstances seem to be the opposite. Be aware though, that this may not become evident at the time. When we are stuck in the parched places, the watered garden seems a long way off.

And the lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places.

Let’s just get back to the book of Isaiah for a moment. It’s set in the time of the exile of the Israelites from their promised land; God warns them to stop rebelling and repent; he uses their enemies Assyria to chastise them; then He uses Babylon to take them out of their land; they are refugees. Then God uses Cyrus of Persia to set them free and take them home. We can see how God uses their adverse circumstances and their rebellion to bring about their eventual spiritual good; he brings them back into the fold of his favour. He never lets them stay in their desert of disobedience but always has their spiritual well-being in mind. And so it is with us. He uses all the times of our lives to bring us closer to him. And that’s a good thing, even if at the time, it seems so difficult to live through.

Amen