Mark 12:18-27, 1 Cor 15:35-44

One of the hardest things we face in our lives is that at some point we have to say goodbye. At some point we have to call it quits and take a new journey into the unknown of what lies beyond. One of the realities that hasn’t changed all through the ages is that mortality rates for every living creature including ourselves has remained at 100%. No amount of research and scientific discovery has managed to budge this figure.

One of the surprising things is that in a world where we seem keen to break every taboo in terms of what we talk about and what we parade in the media, death remains something we hide from. Our society seems to keep hoping that death will somehow remain over the horizon. I simply want to make the assertion that a healthy view of death helps us live healthy lives. John Calvin the great reformer used to say take a walk in a cemetery at least once a week – it’s good for the soul. Dying shouldn’t be discussed in hushed tones, but should be a reality we accept. A healthy view of dying us will enhance our living and often will help us die well, and our religion should help us find this life and confidence in the face of death. God’s Spirit proclaims a message of hope not fear. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” Paul said, “has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”

I wonder what he meant by set you free from the law of death. I think it’s something like this: The Spirit of Jesus, or what we know as the Holy Spirit will move within us to help us face death with hope, not fear, with a deep confidence not anxiety. Jesus has walked through death and come out the other side. It is not a full stop.
It is also not a removal to some far off place called heaven where we wander around in white robes and playing golf all day. Being set free means simply trusting God that all will be well.

The Spirit whispers…
Death is a part of life. Dying is how things are supposed to be. There are deaths that happen far too soon and in ways that God does not desire. There is tragedy in life and I don’t think of us can fully understand why. But dying is part of living and in the end we have to step aside and let someone else have a turn. In the natural order of things we wear out and we have to let go and let another generation take over. As leaves on the tree we do our bit to bring life to the tree but in the end we have to let go and drop to the earth to let new buds burst forth with new leaves. This is how life works.

The Spirit whispers…
Death is a mystery. What actually happens in death remains mystery. Jesus spoke of resurrection and evidenced this in his own life. The Sadducees tried to rubbish Jesus on this point. They were a group of Jewish intellectuals who were strict about keeping the laws and following scripture. They had no place for people who talked about a new fangled idea called resurrection. Read your scriptures they would say and a careful reading of much of the Old Testament would indeed back them up. So who would you be married to in the afterlife they questioned Jesus if you had multiple wives. Good practical question but as Jesus answers it’s not as straightforward as that. What follows isn’t continuation of what is. He simply says our forefathers in the faith like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive in God. It’s an interesting answer because Jesus refuses to give a clear picture of how or what death entails, other than to say we are gathered into God’s eternal life.

Paul picks up this mystery in his letter to the Corinthians. He claims we simply have no way of knowing exactly what lies ahead because it’s like entering another dimension of this world. He uses the analogy of the seed dying. You plant a seed and next thing you see the seed changed into a plant. You could never guess what that transformation looks like by looking at the seed. The resurrection life is quite different and yet it is closely linked to what went before. Our creeds talk of Jesus’ resurrection as a physical resurrection – his continuing life is still intimately linked to this earth and is not about some removed far off heaven.

I expect there will be some awareness of reunion with our loved ones. When I am with dying people I often hear stories of loved ones visiting or waiting but our individuality is different when we die into God. I have a hunch that dying is a bit like being gathered up by a giant wave of warmth and love. I like the images contained in our faith of being called home or returning to the source, but don’t ask me to explain these images in every last detail. They are metaphorical images. The deepest things in life are all about metaphorical images.

The Spirit whispers…..
Death involves judgment. In recent years we have reports from people who have died and been resuscitated again. Often these people talk of travelling down some sort of tunnel and becoming aware of a wonderful light and warmth and love. A welcoming home. But they will often talk of their life being reviewed before them and of judging their own lives in the presence of love. I am aware that some say all this is simply chemical interaction in the brain but I don’t think it’s that simple. Jesus too talked of judgment and in our heritage that has taken the form of images of being cast into hell. I sat with someone dying a while ago who was clearly uncomfortable about dying. I think they contemplated the possibility that they were somehow not good enough to be welcomed into God’s arms. Like all of us they knew they could have done better. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and like most of us there were things in their life they were not proud of. Would they get the thumbs up or the thumbs down? Hell pictured this way is an unhelpful image. I lived in Jerusalem for a few months and one day took a walk to hell. I need to explain. There was (actually there still is) a rubbish dump on the outskirts of Jerusalem called Gehenna where there was a constant fire burning and wild animals ran around gnashing teeth. Gehenna in our English bibles is called hell. It was a rubbish dump. It is a good thing for us to let stuff go from our lives. The failure to use our gifts well, the fears that have imprisoned us, the relationships that have gone bad. I believe in death there will be a chuck out of stuff in our lives to be forgotten and cast on the rubbish heap. This purifying fire may surprise us with some bitter truths. But I think there will be some other surprises. Many who think of themselves as nothing special, and I look out and see a whole host of you here, will discover that all those deeds of kindness, the moments when you put others first are remembered and celebrated by God.

God’s judgment is not a matter of punishment or an instrument of torture but is a restoring judgment. People who have had near death experiences and experienced the judgment of their lives invariably have new energy to live more meaningful lives. Judgment motivates and reminds us that the choices we make matter. The choices we make have consequences and the tradition of talking about judgment in death should energise us to discover what is of real value in our mission of loving and healing God’s world. It is to encourage us to use our wealth to make others rich, not to hoard it, to use our power to encourage others not to pull them down, to give of ourselves to enhancing the gift of life in ourselves in others and in all the earth.
So dying… We die into God. We will enter into a goodness so good, a richness so rich, a holiness so holy, a mercy and love so strong and true that all of our pride, lust, greed, resentment and fear will instantly be melted out of us. We will at that moment understand how deep is God’s love.

We die into God and this future is described by another image in our scriptures, and that is the image of a great banquet around God’s table of joy. It is an image of acceptance, feasting, communion, equality, aliveness, festivity. Trust God and know those who have gone before us, and every one of us will discover a love that will not let you go when our turn comes to cross the great divide..

Dugald Wilson 11 Nov 2018

Was there something that stood out for you in the address today?

Talk with a friend about your experiences and your fears about death. Talk together about what you think happens at death and what images surrounding death are important for you…..

What have you been taught about God’s judgment. Do you think of judgment as punishment or as purification?

Imagine God as a wonderful warm presence of love that holds all those who go before us and rest in that presence.

Gen 2:18-25 Mark 10:2-9    7 October 2018

A Sunday School attendee was asked, ‘what does God say about marriage?’ The boy thought about this for a moment and then responded with Jesus’ words from the cross: “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” I guess that’s true for most of us who have entered this sacred relationship. We may not know what we were doing, but surveys tell us that we do have some idea of what we want. For women it’s affection, conversation, honesty and openness, financial support, and family commitment. For men the list is different – for us it’s sex, recreational companionship, an attractive spouse, domestic support, and finally admiration. I should point out these were American surveys so it’s probably different here! But with such different expectations its little wonder that marriage is fraught with difficulties and challenges.

Marriage is a fundamental relationship in our scriptures. In the creation story from Genesis 2:18-25 we have a statement that ‘it is not good for the Adam or earthchild to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for the earthchild’. The state of loneliness is the one thing in creation that is not good, for it seems humans are created to live in relationship. I should also point out the word for helper sometimes is thought of as someone inferior who serves. This is not so. Later on in our scriptures in Deuteronomy 33:29, God is described using the same word. God is our helper. Essentially the term means providing something that is lacking in the other. Human beings it seems are not complete and whole by themselves but are created to live in relationship with others. In partnership and community there is a blossoming of life. What our scriptures say is that we are communal beings and we are at our best when we commit to communal relationships.

A key building block for communal relationship is marriage. The uniqueness of this relationship is spelt out in two ways. “Therefore a man (or person) leaves his (her) mother and father and clings to his wife (another), and they become one flesh.” (Gen 3:24) Firstly there is a marital leaving. There is a disengaging from the family that brought us up and gave us our beginning to launch a new unit of life. This message of letting go for us has to do with the leaving a childlike state of dependency and taking responsibility as an adult to shape new life. Young people of today need to hear this as they cling to the security of parents, and modern parents need to hear this as they build dependent relationships with their children. Around us birds are building and inhabiting nests but very shortly the nests will be abandoned as parents literally kick the young ones out into the world to sink or swim. The second message is about marital union which is something far more than the intimacy of sexual encounter. It involves everyday skills of friendship, listening, appreciating, encouraging. It is why good friendships often lead to secure and satisfying marriages. At the heart of becoming one flesh is the hard work of love. Many couples seem to work on the assumption that marital intimacy just happens. We talk of falling in love.

One of my favourite authors Dr Scott Peck in his excellent book, “The Road Less Travelled” says a couple of things that stick with me. The first is that people who fall in love eventually fall out of love and that’s when real love begins to take root. When the rosy coloured spectacles come off and we see one another in the real light of day with warts and wrinkles and still commit to seeking the welfare and growth of another – that’s real love. He also says that the opposite of love is not hate but is laziness. Love is essentially hard work as we commit to the growth and well being of another, but it’s very very easy to slip into lazy patterns and routines in our relationships that treat our partners as part of the furniture. The opposite of love is laziness. We no longer see the special-ness and sacredness in another, and we take the other people in our lives, or ourselves, for granted. We forget to affirm, appreciate, and communicate worth and value. It is a wonderful thing to switch off our ego and self centredness, to dull down our ‘what can I get out of this’, and focus wholly on helping another grow and blossom. It is a good thing to take a moment to reflect in our relationships how I might be a better lover, how I might encourage the life in another, what can I do to grow aliveness in another….or again even within yourself. This is the work that is at the center of marriage and at the center of family.

Words work well for some but for others images are important so I want to encourage you with an image. This is a picture of a sculpture sculptured by the French artist Auguste Rodin in 1908 called originally the Ark of the Covenant, but renamed by Rodin rather interestingly the Cathedral. I think the great interior space of a gothic cathedral is encapsulated in the space between the hands. If you look closely you’ll notice the hands are both right hands. There are two people involved here. The hands are about to clasp. It is the space between them that intrigues me, and speaks of the work of love and marriage. It is a sacred and mysterious space. The two hands are nurturing something awesome together. A marriage isn’t just about a practical arrangement of living together, or about fulfilling one another’s needs, but it is participating in a new dream, nurturing a new sacred space through which something mysterious and awesome, God breathed, emerges. A good question to ask for those of us who live in the gift of marriage is, “what are we nurturing in our relationship, and how are we serving the sacred presence of love through which the world will be healed?”

I want to remind you of Jesus’ words… that two become one flesh. They are no longer two distinct individuals but are melded somehow into a new form which I think is a sign of the interconnectedness that was at the heart of Jesus’ vision of a new earth. Deep relationship in its many forms is what Jesus is talking about here. People transcending their ego driven lives to see sacredness and value in another. We are part of a culture that is possibly the most individualistic self seeking culture of all time and in that culture it’s no wonder marriage is a disaster. Community is a disaster, caring for creation is a disaster, but loneliness and anxiety are winners. We have neglected the importance of relationship and instead promoted the ideal of getting for self. What can I get out of the relationship is the question we ask rather than what can I give and how can I serve. What will fulfil my needs as opposed to how can I create sacred space, a cathedral.

We now see the consequences of these ideas in a record high number of failed marriages with huge costs on the partners who have to deal with the failure in so many ways, the cost to the children, and to society as a whole. Before those with marriages intact sit smugly back however, I observe many marriages that are so called “intact” because they have lasted the distance are far from ideal. Lasting the distance isn’t anything to be proud of if the dream of God and the life giving sacrificial love has gone from the relationship. Jesus as we know had much to say about skin deep appearances. Some of you know the painful reality of facing up to a relationship that has failed and taking steps to move on. I salute your courage! Jesus is someone who believes in the second chance. All of us fail in life, and all of us are surrounded by the deep love of God which does not give up on us. Working out balances between ideals and realities is never easy.

I want to end with another image – simple story of encouragement. Robert Salzer is a surgeon who has written of some of his experiences. In this story he visits a young woman after surgery to her face. He writes:
I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth has been severed. I had followed with religious fervour the curve of her flesh, I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumour in her cheek, I had cut the little nerve. Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening light, isolated from me, private. Who are they I ask myself, he and his wrymouth I have made, who gaze at each other? The young woman speaks. “Will my mouth always be like this?” she asks. “Yes”, I say, “it will. It is because the nerve was cut.” She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles. “I like it”, he says. “It is kind of cute.” All at once I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works.

I wonder why such a story evokes awe and a deep sense of this is what life is about. Rodin might have said if he were a witness to this encounter…. Cathedral.  Some might say sacrament – an action in which God is present.
May there be God filled moments in your relationships and in your marriages.

Dugald Wilson 7 October 2018

Luke 6: 12-19 A Tool For Disciples

Jesus’s big plan to renew the earth revolved around disciples. It’s not a term we seem to use much these days, but you and I are disciples. We are followers of Jesus. We are people who are trying to live the Jesus way in 2018. Dallas Willard defined discipleship this way: “Discipleship is learning from Jesus how to live like Jesus.” This is exactly what we see the twelve disciples doing in the gospels. By being with Jesus, they learned from Jesus how to think, act, and live like he did. That’s what communion is all about – we take Jesus into our beings that he might transform our lives and draw the best out of our lives. The twelve disciples watched Jesus, imitated Jesus, and invited others to imitate Jesus by imitating them. That started a movement that spread around the world

There may be many different pictures of what discipleship might look like but one helpful tool is what I call the discipleship triangle. This helps us remember there are three key dimensions to the Jesus life style.
UP

IN                                           OUT

Dimension 1: Up – Jesus connected with God. For Jesus there was a presence that was bigger than him in the world and through practices like prayer, worship, meditation and stillness he connected with this presence. In the synagogue, in the quiet of the hills, in the traditions of his faith, in allowing the stories of scripture to speak, in conversations with others Jesus connected, listened deeply, intentionally allowed his life to be shaped by this presence we call God. Disciples all through the ages have followed suit and found practices that enhanced this connecting with god we call the UP dimension in their lives. Model always have limitations and one here is that the UP may be looking deeply within!

Dimension 2: In— Jesus spent time very intentionally with a small group. He gathered others around him. They knew one another, served one another, and loved one another. They engaged together like family. They helped one another to an amazing degree that we struggle to understand in our individualized western world but this community aspect of discipleship has always been important. There’s a little quote I think is really important. Jesus left no written documents behind rather he left a community of ‘nobody’ human beings. This community of nobodies was to be salt to flavor the whole and yeast in the bread. They were to be an example, a light on a hill in the way they cared, learned, encouraged, and made a difference. Paul talked often of the community being like a body where different parts have different skills but working together we are to give witness to a new way of living.

Dimension 3: Out- Jesus was a man with a mission. That mission was to bring a new earth into being. He healed the sick, touched the lepers and engaged with outsiders, he fed the hungry, and opened blind eyes and deaf ears. He talked of a love that accepted and valued all of life. He said he was here to proclaim the Kingdom of God on earth, inviting people to engage with the living God and join the new movement to transform life on this planet. The revolution and transformation goes on as we modern disciples engage with Jesus in our own time and context and seek to bring true life into being.
Up-In–and-Out was the way Jesus lived with his disciples. As present day followers we are called to have those same dimensions in our lives. If you are like me you’ll probably notice that one or two of these dimensions is stronger. That’s normal because hopefully we are balanced out as part of a community. Serious imbalances though need to be looked at.
And that is also where some people suggest and I agree that actually there is another dimension that is really important, and that is OF. We are actually part of a bigger whole than just our little congregation. We are part of the Alpine Presbytery, and part of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, and part of the reformed group of churches worldwide, and part of all the churches. This OF is actually really important because it anchors us in a tradition and a stream that isn’t just us. Without the OF there would be no scriptures, no songs to sing, no patterns of worship passed on, and no bullets to fire at the terrible Presbytery! On a personal level the OF also encapsulates the reality that our faith has often been passed on and nurtured by others and of course it also encapsulates the call to pass on the faith to others. So our simple triangle might be better pictured as an arrow.
UP (through participating in the life of God)

(as part of the whole body) OF      —————————– OUT (bringing life to the world)

IN (through fellowship in the congregation)

The Of-Up-In-Out arrow helps us be intentional about our call to be a disciple of Jesus. We can use it to evaluate our own walk with Jesus. Do we have all four dimensions in our walk? That’s something for you to ponder.

But this little picture of our life as a disciple isn’t just helpful for individuals. It can also helps us evaluate groups, ministries, and even our congregation. Do our groups and ministries exhibit characteristics of all four dimensions? Healthy church groups are about all four…of/up/in/out…. A balance of all four dimensions will help our groups function as groups that honour God and radiate the presence of Jesus in our context and in our time.
Our Mission Discernment Group has spent some time looking at that and you’ll see in the Annual Report some of our discussion. I need to say we did this as a challenge to ourselves and not as a group telling others what to do. In the end our challenge to ourselves was so what can we do about it, and how can we help groups in our congregation develop a more balanced approach to our activities. One thing we noticed was that many of our groups and activities are not strong in the UP department. They are clearly motivated by a desire to share the gift of love, but Jesus and God are often not acknowledged in any way, and the participation of God in the activity is not openly expressed. We function often as atheists – as if God is absent. We could be just another service club that does good things.
So for example when we looked at our great little foot clinic which is a magnificent outreach activity for seniors who have difficulty cutting their toenails we noted there was some tremendous connecting within the group and with those who come. Compassion flows in abundance and people leave foot clinic not only with toenails clipped but feeling good about life and feeling loved. Wonderful. There is lots of IN and OUT. We also noted there was a collection of foot clinics in Christchurch in all sorts of churches and some linking for purposes of training and support. Some OF. We wondered if we could enhance the UP by maybe offering a short prayer of blessing for each client, or possibly giving them a card with a blessing for them on it.

Our website has IN, UP, and OUT aspects. The UP has recently been strengthened with the addition of sermons. IN could be strengthened by promoting the website as a place for information about what’s on in the congregations life, and both IN/OUT/UP could be strengthened with some small video interviews of members talking about life and faith – maybe some of our members talking about their faith and journey as a disciple of Jesus. You all have amazing stories to share. More OF linkages could be made highlighting the work of the wider church.

I hope you get the picture, and see how this little model might work. The real value is that together we might ask the questions and maybe get our creative juices running. That we might experiment with some ideas to help balance and strengthen the OF/UP/OF/OUT dimensions of what we do together..

In groups we spend time looking at the question: What do you see as the strengths using the UP/IN/OF/OUT model of the groups in our congregation with which you are familiar? Can you suggest ways we might strengthen the dimensions that are weakest? (or even the stronger ones…)

Jesus learned from an early age that we human beings are a little like a car. How it runs depends on who is driving and what juice is in the tank. One of our neighbours recently put diesel in his van instead of petrol. It wasn’t a good move. He did drain most of the diesel out and put petrol back in but the poor old van has been sounding very sick as it drives past our place spluttering and misfiring badly as he tried to burn off the residue of diesel in the system. His van needs petrol to run well.

To get us going well we need to be aware of our inner life and what voices within are fuelling us and driving us. Jesus taught that true and fruitful life would come as we incorporate a process of reflection in our living, and look carefully what we are trying to run on. To do this Jesus found it important to turn off the music and noise in our lives, to stop the activity and spend time alone in solitude. One place he headed frequently was a quiet place where he could turn inward and look inward at what was fuelling his life. Was it ego juice and a desire to promote self and be noticed by others or was it God juice and a higher desire to serve something beyond self.

I wonder if you ever look within and examine what fuel is in your tank. I know I’m better off when I do. Someone challenged me the other day about something I said and I caught myself immediately jumping to the defence of my view. Instead of listening and really hearing what the other person was saying I wanted to tell them I was right and they were wrong. Where did that come from? What was driving that response? Or the other evening I was a little tired and was working at sending some emails and my computer did some things that computers do and I lost something I had been working on. I found myself getting quite angry with a little bit of plastic technology and ….. It really wasn’t that important and my reaction was over the top. But where did that come from. What was driving that? Or I was out my bike and saw a young fellow up ahead on his bike and I thought I can bike faster than him and set about really pumping the legs. Why did I do that? What was driving my actions?

Taking time to look within is an interesting process. Making space to be aware of what is driving your actions and your words is an insightful thing to do. It’s something Jesus encouraged us all to do. One place I know some of do this work of reflection is coming to church Sunday by Sunday.

A place of solitude is where the everyday stuff that keeps us running around in circles doesn’t happen anymore. It’s a place where we no longer mow lawns, cook fancy meals, head off to work, worry about the kids, because in the solitude none of these things matter anymore. There isn’t lots of stimuli, no TV, no streaming music, no internet, no smart phones, and no incoming messages. There is silence, a landscape paired back to bare simplicity, and in this space life can be examined. In such an environment you begin to notice what is happening inside yourself.

Our scriptures tell us that Jesus before he set out on his public ministry spent time in the desert. I think he spent a lot of time in the desert, specifically in the Judean desert an area between the Dead Sea and the city of Jerusalem. It’s not desert like the Sahara full of sand, but is a rocky hilly desert with ravines cut into it by water, the result of sudden downpours. It’s a harsh empty environment, and yet there is life tucked away if you know where to find it. People have always found such places good places to become aware of what is going on within.

There I think Jesus listened and observed what was going on inside. Why did he react to that critical voice with such defensive vehemence? What was that niggling anger or frustration all about? What voices could he encourage that brought life into his being? What happenings in his life brought a deep joy to and peace to him. What demons needed to be faced? What life bringing angels needed to be nurtured? Our forefather John Calvin talked of human beings as being like horses who need a rider and that rider can either be God or the Devil. I don’t see things quite in those terms, but I do see there is a power at work in my life, a self seeking power, a greedy power, a me first power that I call my ego speaking. This voice promises much under the guise of success but ultimately delivers no peace and no deep joy. But in the stillness I am aware of another voice. Some call it the true self, or the God spirit and this voice whispers of other things…. The importance of serving and using your gifts for the common good, the need to listen well, the joy of anchoring your life in what is true and not what is popular, and a grace that sees everything in life is gift. Which one do we feed, and which one do we starve.

Once upon a time, there was a Navajo grandfather, who told his grandson, “Grandson, there are two wolves inside of me. One wolf is, good and altruistic, generous and kind, compassionate, and the other wolf is selfish, mean and greedy, violent and angry. The two wolves are in a constant fight within me.” The grandson, with wide eyes, says, “But which one will win, grandpa?” And the grandfather says, “The one which I feed.”
We come today to feed on Jesus. We come to take his life into ours that we might be transformed as people from the inside out.

I can’t remember a time in my life when Jesus wasn’t influencing my life a feeding me with patterns of behaviour and ways of thinking and seeing. Many of these patterns were mediated by parents who tried to instil a sense of the importance of others, of serving rather than getting, of looking for the best in others, and looking deep within self to determine what was really driving your actions. There were other important people too who I looked up to and saw compassion in action.

But there were other influences too. I remember well long walks home from school through the town belt in Dunedin. These were times of solitude and I learned the importance of silence and the importance of looking within. In stillness you can start to see some of the demons within us all and start to notice how many of our actions are motivated by our ego and the desire to push ahead of others. You need solitude and stillness in your life, a place where you can examine what’s driving things.

And you need the example of Jesus. As I read and re read the stories, and heard his sayings something gripped my heart even as a youngster. His words and actions seemed to speak to me as no other. In those early days I think I was motivated by a desire to get to heaven and I still am. What’s changed is that heaven is no longer out beyond the clouds somewhere, but is here and now. What hasn’t changed is the message that God is a loving accepting God who seeks to shape our lives into something worthwhile. It’s all grounded in a love that will not let us go. It’s not about proving our success but about using what has been gifted to us. It’s not about being better than others but working together for the good of all. It’s not about winning but about loosing something.

Jesus is quite clear, religion that fails to transform hearts, the deep places within, is useless religion. Religion that fails to transform lives is not worth committing time and energy to. Religion that is just about appearances is worthless.
I come to this meal today to feed on Jesus and to be transformed by Jesus. I come to commit to a way of self reflection with Jesus as my guide. I invite you to join me.

Dugald Wilson September 2nd 2018

• What idea from today’s address caught your attention, challenged you, or encouraged you in some way.
• Pick ‘a significant encounter’ you have had in the past few days and reflect on your reactions and words. Honestly reflect on what was behind your responses? Did you seek to increase your prestige and power or to serve God?
• Examine yourself when you feel angry and ask what is driving this…

Irenaeus of Lyon – John 6: 47-58

I want to introduce you to someone who lived some 1900 years ago. Irenaeus the bishop of Lyon. He is one of what we call the early church fathers. These are people who were prominent in the church after the first apostles. He lived between 115 and 200AD we are not actually sure of the exact dates. We do know he was born in what is now Turkey into a Christian family. Not much is known about his early life except that he became a missionary in Lyon, France, not far from the Taize Community of today. When the local bishop was killed in a persecution of Christians, Irenaeus was chosen to fill the position and became the local leader of the Christian community there. These were interesting times as the Christian presence in the Roman Empire was miniscule. Some fascinating research by Rodney Stark tells us that by the year 150AD, the middle of Irenaeus’s life there were maybe 41,000 Christians in the whole Roman Empire. Less than 0.1% of the population were followers of Jesus, a tiny but growing minority. They usually met in one another’s homes, and they were often having fascinating debates about what it meant to be a Christian. At this stage they had no Bible as we know it, and they were very much adventurers in the faith, working out the shape of their faith in Jesus.

One of Irenaeus’ claim to fame was that he and other leaders saw the need to start to gather writings that might define true Christianity. Different groups of Christians were following quite different paths in their Christian journey and there was a growing need to define what this faith was all about. This was partly a reaction to a large and influential group of Christians, led by a fellow called Marcion, They thought the God of the Old Testament was thoroughly bloodthirsty and violent and this didn’t fit at all with the God of Jesus. So they wanted to ditch the whole Old Testament. We don’t know for sure but some scholars suggest the Marcion followers were about half of all Christians at one point and quite a few of you may well say ‘pity they didn’t win the day’. Irenaeus however liked the Old Testament. I don’t think the violence thrilled him, but the very earthy stories of God alive in the lives of very real fallible human beings did. The Greeks had ideas of perfection and being perfect, but the Hebrews and the Old Testament told an earthed story rooted in human experience. People did have failings but it wasn’t perfection that mattered in story after story in these writings. Rather it was trust and faithfulness rooted in real human beings that counted. That’s what God worked with trying to shape a new earth. For Irenaeus ditching the Old Testament was unthinkable. Real human lives were important. He actually penned a statement that was rather startling… the glory of God is the human being fully alive…After all in Jesus Irenaeus said God had chosen to enter human life.

Irenaeus also leapt into an argument about how many gospels of the dozens then in circulation should be included in the writings that were being gathered into what we know as the New Testament. He advanced the creative idea that must be four since there had been four faces in the vision of Ezekiel: a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. Although his logic may appear rather strange to us, there are only four gospels in the New Testament and if you know your symbols you’ll also recognize the signs of the gospel writers – a man for Matthew, a lion for Mark, an ox for Luke, and an eagle for John! That we have four gospels is due some quirky arguments and dear old Irenaeus.

But it’s this quote I want to focus on. the glory of God is the human being fully alive. We see God’s glory in a human being fully alive. Irenaeus was struck by the claim that Jesus was a real human being and yet was alive with God. His favourite festival was Christmas because that celebration the incarnation, God alive in a human being. There was a huge influence of what is called gnostic teaching and practice which focused on the opposite. Some were saying God was to be found by denying our human –ness, our every day-ness, and looking for spirit filled experiences. They wanted to split life into separate physical and spiritual spheres. Some adopted ascetic practices that denied the body as a way to God, and others said it didn’t really matter how you lived in your body because that life didn’t count, and so we have stories of free sexual expression and wild parties. Life in the Spirit and life in the body were two different things. Irenaeus said, ‘no this bodily earthy stuff is infused with the spirit.’ Look for God in all that is created. Honour your bodies, honour the earth, and honour the spirit that lives within these physical realities. The glory of God is the human being fully alive.

Questions raged about whether Jesus was really human, did the resurrection involve the body or was it just a spiritual reality, and was salvation a release from this world or a transformation of this world. The gnostic or dualists who sought to separate body and spirit said Jesus wasn’t really human, the resurrection was a spiritual event, and salvation involved exiting this world. Irenaeus stood on the other side of the fence. Jesus was human, the resurrection involved the body, and salvation was about transformation of this earth we call home. .

You may say what difference does this make. Consider this…many Christians in the United States in particular say don’t get too hung up about caring for the earth because we are going to heaven anyway. If the earth burns up, who cares because we are going to a better place. In fact some would say the sooner the better. Wow, Irenaeus would have something to say about that. But this influence of devaluing the earth and the body also shows in other ways. Many of us fail to take our lives seriously. Too easily we slip into patterns of life that say this is as good as it gets. Is it laziness or is it fear, or is it a lack of faith but we never take the risk of exploring aliveness. We want to be sure we have bases covered, we fear stepping out of the norm, we worry about what others may think, we like to stick with the crowd. Fully alive… well ‘half alive’ is the best we can hope for.

Consider this…Jesus makes it abundantly clear that as we engage with him we will find true life, abundant life, full aliveness. I think that’s what the message in today’s reading about eating flesh and bread is about, finding sustenance, seeing a vision of how to live well, dwelling in each other’s company so something of the life of Jesus enters our very bodies and minds. Eat this bread that I offer, take mylife into your life and you’ll find true aliveness. It’s a bold claim that is at the heart of our celebration of communion (The Lord’s Supper). If you want to be truly alive engaging with Jesus will help.

I want to get specific. Jesus opens our eyes to a journey sharing, adventure sharing God. Yes the God of the Old Testament may appear bloodthirsty, but clearly this was not the God of Jesus. Marcion got that right. So maybe the writers telling us about the Amalekites, men women and children, being slaughtered at God’s command got it wrong. What they got right, however, was the sense of God as a journey sharing, adventure sharing God. A God of the exodus, a God of Abraham and Sarah, a God of Ruth, a God of David. People who took risks. People who saw life as a journey of adventure. People who simply put their trust in God. Our God shares our human journey, our God loves a good adventure, our God takes risks, our God is interested more in a faith-filled journey than in perfection.

Jesus opens our eyes to the gift of yourself. Each of us sacred, valued. Each of us with a part to play. The glory of God is to be found in living your life and being who you are according to Irenaeus. His call to us is not to deny our life but to enter into it more fully. His call to us is to look deeper and discover your soul – your inner calling. You’ll know when you are touching base with this calling because you will feel alive. Keep searching for your deep passions and deep desires and trust that these passions and desires are of God. The life of God within. I need to stress the deep here because we are not talking about the desire for a new car, or an easy life….go deeper. A good practice is to regularly look at your life and ask, ‘when did I really feel alive?’ ‘What was going on?’ ‘Why was I buzzing and feeling so energized?’ Usually when we touch base with our true calling there is a release of energy in our beings because we get in tune with our soul, our deep places, our deep desires.

Jesus opens our eyes to the truth that life is found in linking our lives with others and working to bring new life into the world. Life is found in giving. Life is found in team. Life is found in making a difference together.

“The glory of God is the person fully alive.” Say ‘YES’ to yourself often. Engage with your life – it is a gift of great value. Listen to the inner murmurings. Search for the inner calling, and give yourself with others to making a difference.

“The glory of God is the person fully alive”.
Thank God for Irenaeus!

Dugald Wilson 12th August 2018

Question: What would you do if you had time and money to do anything? ( If we keep asking this question we’ll get a glimpse of inner calling.)