Because I have so many calls on my
time at the moment, I need to reflect on the two services in the one blog to
get them covered. Also, as I have been trying to do, I am taking a bit of a
different approach each week, and this week I am reflecting on particular
points of Rev. John’s services.
Rev. John began the Call to
Worship in the September 3 service with:
“Jesus reminds us of one of the
greatest, and most difficult, paradoxes of Christianity: to save your life you
must first lose it. So, we find ourselves, once again surprised by the
limitless and inexplicable nature of God’s love, and we rejoice to stand
together on holy ground.”
Some of us have been fortunate
enough to have walked hand in hand with God since we were small children. However, some
of us have had to face a decision: were we going to follow Jesus or were we
going to keep control of our own lives, setting our own standards and limits,
and making all our decisions based in our own will? It seemed quite a dangerous move to
hand over total control. What if God asked us to do or to be something that
cost us heavily?
So, maybe we tried a compromise.
We would make the decisions about which parts of the God story we would attend
to and which parts we would ignore.
For anyone who did that I will
guarantee that it hasn't turned out well. The internal conflict would be
dreadful.
But, for those of us who decided
that the path we were following wasn’t making us very happy and made the
decision to let God take control of every little thing, the result has been so
surprising.
The sense of freedom is amazing! Who
would have thought being ruled by another, even if it is God, could be
so liberating! And how did that sense of contentment simply settle upon us?
By this world’s reckoning it shouldn't happen: it doesn't make sense.
But that's what it is like. So,
step out and take that chance that some of us had to take. You'll be amazed
too.
This service included the
Eucharist which is an experience, which again, is hard to explain. The
words are carefully chosen and have been refined over time by the Church.
Congregation members conduct themselves very reverently. The service remembers
Jesus’ life, lived for us, proclaiming the truth, and given up, rather then
deny that truth. That is enough to create the special nature of the time which
we share together…but there's
something else; something
that I can only attribute to the Spirit settling on us, entering our hearts and
minds so that we know that God is with us.
In his sermon, Rev. John warned us
about being a stumbling block to others. Is the life we lead a contradiction
to the message we preach? Is the message we preach a simplified one that we
learned as children in Sunday school, which needs to be looked at afresh now
that we are adults?
Are we using bible passages to beat
people over the head, rather than show them God’s
love? Does God call people, who as a result, visit our church, only to be made
feel most unwelcome?
We need to be careful and remember
this is God’s church, not ours. God welcomes everyone and Jesus showed us
that respectability isn't of much account in his Kingdom.
Think about it.
On Sunday September 10, Rev. John’s Opening
Prayer picked up the theme of providing a true witness, saying: “Move
us, O God, that we may fulfill the law of love and be a people who radiate your
light. Touch our hearts, that we may come to love our neighbour as we come to
love ourselves.”
We are well worth loving. God loves
us. Something that is said to show kids the truth of this is: ‘God doesn't
make junk.” There are lovelier and
more sophisticated ways of saying this, but it comes down to the same thing: we
are precious in God’s sight. Once we realise this, we longer need to be in
the business of trying to win. What recognition could we win that would be of
greater worth than being precious in God’s sight? And if we no longer need to
win, we can be gracious to everyone we meet each day. We will be able to see
and openly acknowledge publicly, their worth. We will be able to let them
know that they are precious in God’s sight. And then……
To continue this theme, Rev.
John spoke of the lost sheep. Rev. John asked: Did he (the shepherd) look at its value and say: “Well, that sheep
is not good enough, that sheep doesn't have the right values. I won't bother
trying to find it.”?
In fact, when we think about the
people Jesus reached out to, it wasn't the ones who seemed would be of
advantage to his kingdom. It was the ones who needed him and his
kingdom.
So we should be very careful, that
when a divine invitation has been given to someone, when they feel drawn to
come to church, that we aren't the ones who cause them to turn away in
disappointment.
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