Tuesday 17 December 2019

Sunday Service Marsden Road Uniting Church 15 December 2019


Alan led our worship this morning and challenged us to think about the focus of our Christmas celebrations.
He introduced the topic thus:

Christmas is a funny time. In western countries, at any rate, we have concocted a peculiar and complex web of different traditions, which we cherish as ‘Christmas’”.

He then listed the types of features that pass as part of the Christmas celebrations of many in the Western World:

“gifts under a tree – which is often made of plastic, for goodness’ sake!; there’s a big meal, with a hot fruit pudding – and often much over-indulgence;”

My own family was no different for many years except we did not indulge in expense gifts, choosing instead to guarantee those less well off than ourselves were able to enjoy a pleasant Christmas Day.

Not all my family, then (or now), saw Christmas as the day when we celebrate the hope that the birth of Jesus of Nazareth brought to the world.

However, ironically, as my children grew into adults, without any religious profession, they rejected the over-indulgence in food and gift-giving. So, for many years now, our Christmas Day has been a day for our family to meet and affirm our love and support for each other.

It is quite a simple meal of food which is chosen to see that each of us has something we like and perhaps wouldn’t eat every week. Then a gift for each adult and some little things for the granddaughters . We all take leave of each other still feeling healthy and knowing we are still “glued” together by the love and goodwill shown throughout the day. And all the money saved goes to those who are doing it “tough”.

This year, my husband and I sent a cheque to a country town where people are in deep debt because of the drought and the cheque is being split between the pharmacist and the dentist to help pay for treatment of people who have no means of paying for medical treatment anymore. The thought that a burden is lifted from someone who can’t pay for some essential treatment is the best Christmas present I can think off. And gives hope to those who perhaps thought they been forgotten. I think Jesus would see that as obeying the commandment he gave us to love one another.

I have told the details of our Christmas Day to make the point that most of my family do not profess to be even religious, much less, Christian. But they live in a society which has been influenced and was initially built on Christian principles. They also read and watch the media where Christian ideas are sometimes spread and they have been raised to think of others.

So if a Christian, now or at some other time hadn’t let their light shine, perhaps the society  we live in would not have influenced my family to think the way they do. Perhaps the parents of my granddaughters wouldn’t know that to raise children, parents almost without exception need to sacrifice some or many of their own needs, thereby setting the template for the thinking of those little girls in relation to other people. The words of Jesus of Nazareth is still alive in unexpected places.

Alan went on:

“Amidst it all, as Christians, most of us find time to go to church, either on Christmas Eve or on Christmas morning, or even both. Worship reminds us, in a way that the plastic nativity scene just doesn’t, that Christmas is actually about Jesus. It’s actually about the coming into the world of the saviour, Jesus Christ...Some Christian families seek to remind themselves that the festival is all about Jesus, by setting an empty place at their table. The empty chair is for Jesus...But who is the Jesus we invite to join us at our table... are we ready to meet the real Jesus? Are we ready to welcome him at our table.
 ...We have all had times of doubt and uncertainty. Perhaps those times too were occasioned by dashed expectations and disappointment.” Jesus’s reply (to John the Baptist) is interesting.
“Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.”


(Alan went on to develop his sermon further, but I cannot follow that in the space of this small blog.)

Jesus is not walking around the earth as he was at that time. But all of us who profess to be obeying his commandment are doing the work of his word in some way. The result of obeying Jesus commandments may not be miracles in the conventional sense. However,  the changes that have been wrought in us so that we obey, and as a result people that we have never met are freed from burdens that we know nothing about, are indeed miracles.

Whether Jesus is able to reach out to his children during the Christmas season  largely depends on those of us who know of his enlivening power; those of us who have already responded in whatever human way we can, to the amazingly generous and totally incomprehensible invitation given to us. The thing is, do we recognize miracles when they are happening before our eyes. Do we recognize Jesus acting through his children ....or anyone or anything he chooses?





Wednesday 11 December 2019

Sunday Service Marsden Road Uniting Church December 1st and 8th 2019





Life  at this time of the year puts many demands upon our time. Getting our priorities in order is difficult and trying to see this blog is slotted in divides my loyalties.

This blog serves several purposes. One is to keep people from our congregation who are unable to attend church in the loop, but I also know that it is read further afield and may bring a sense of inclusion to people who have no congregation to which they can belong at all.

However, one responsibility on which I cannot turn my back comes in the persons of two little girls aged 4 and 6, my granddaughters, who crash into me with welcoming hugs. They stayed overnight and needed to be ready to go to Daycare and school the next morning.

Their Grandfather and I couldn’t think about anything else for hours, so much was left undone. But they left us feeling blessed by their love and innocence.

But now I turn my hand to the blog. At the service on 1st December, Joan led the Prayers of the People and that prayer made such an impact on me, I thought I should focus on that rather than do a poor reflection on the services.

Joan’s prayer began with a declaration to our Heavenly Father that we had gathered in anticipation, with joy, of the celebration of the time when Jesus was born and lived among us, “giving His people a glimpse of His Kingdom.”

Jesus did this in two ways: he taught the people of His time what the Kingdom entailed but, more importantly, and with a greater effect, He lived the life of One living in that Kingdom by building it through His example of what a building block of that kingdom would look like.

Joan offered our worship in prayer and hymns, with the hope that in doing so we would be helped by God to live like Jesus every day.

Joan gave thanks for God’s creation and its beauty which feeds our bodies and spirits. Having done so, Joan led us to pray for the church worldwide, and those persecuted for their faith. We may have lost a friend or even a promotion because of our faith but we know nothing of fearing for the safety of our lives because we follow Jesus. And once we respond to God’s call we cannot turn back. Neither can those in unsafe places. We and they cannot betray God or the Truth represented by God’s Being.

Joan asked that we be lifted above our despair in politics and that our dreams of justice and truth be revived along with our passion for good and right. Accordingly, Joan led us to pray that peace triumph and violence lose its power.

We are surrounded by the grieving and the lonely and in the following section of the prayer, Joan, asked that light be brought to all those dark places in our planet. At the time of the prayer, attention was on killing innocents in London and those of our own congregation who were grieving over loss of health and to that was added our heartfelt supplications for those who have lost not only their homes but their livelihoods in the bushfires. Now we have to face the dreadful trauma of the volcanic eruption and the horrible injuries and deaths which have been suffered.

How people can recover from such horror is hard to even think about. Our Father, hold everyone who has been traumatized physically or mentally in your hand.

Advent and Christmas brings families together, sometimes with the most unwanted results. Decades old enmities rise up. Help your people to bring peace at this time so that the focus can be on the celebration of the hope brought by the birth of Jesus.

Joan asked for blessing on the Parramatta Mission and Eastwood Community Aid which each  bring a measure of joy to the poor and lonely. They are among the many groups giving selflessly at this time, showing the Kingdom to the children of God, some of whom have not yet responded to the invitation for wholeness.

Joan asked for forgiveness when we forget to share God’s love with others, preventing them from seeing the Kingdom at work. My prayer is that the Spirit might enter our hearts and minds to remind us that our true task is to glorify God for the Hope and Wholeness offered by Jesus who was born at this time so long ago.

 
Amen! Amen! Amen!