This is a three part sermon which I interspersed with the readings for Covenant Sunday. The aim of this sermon is to give people a better understanding of the biblical concept of 'covenant'. Understanding the concept of 'covenant' also helps to unpack much of the text in the liturgy of the Covenant Service itself. The sermon is written from an Arminian understanding of 'covenant' that I expect 5-point Calvinists probably wouldn't agree with!
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Introduction
This morning, we are observing a traditional Methodist form of worship called the Covenant Service, where we affirm our faith in God and rededicate our lives to God's service.
I suppose it would be quite accurate to say that what we are about to do - those who choose to do so - is like a reaffirmation of our Baptismal vows. The liturgy itself expresses the purpose of this service as 'accepting again our place within the covenant which God has made with us and with all who are called to be Christ's disciples.'
We are often used to hearing the idea that to become a Christian is to 'make a commitment to Christ' and therefore you might not be far wrong in thinking that this service is a renewal of that commitment.
But I expect you've heard it said in Covenant Services from years past that, actually, God made a commitment to us first - in the words of our baptismal service - 'before we even knew anything of it'. Because although the word 'covenant' implies a contracted promise, it also has a rich biblical meaning.
And it's the story of this biblical meaning that I'd like to review this morning.
In order to make that easier, I'd like to expand on each part of the story as we hear it rather than give 'a sermon'. The first part of the story begins in the desert. It is Moses' farewell address to the people of Israel, just before his death and just before the people are to be delivered from their forty-year exile in the desert.
Deuteronomy 29:10-15
Israel are God's chosen people, but it probably doesn't feel like it any more after forty years wandering in the desert. As the story goes, the people cannot enter the promised land until every one of the generation of people who left Egypt has died.
Imagine trying to keep faith in God's good purposes for your people as you wander aimlessly in the desert for forty years. But the ancient Israelites were no better at it than we are and they didn't keep the faith. Even as Moses went up Mount Sinai in order to get the ten commandments - a sign and seal of the contract between God and Israel - the Israelites had already broken their part of the bargain by worshipping a false god.
Yet, God remained faithful and he reestablished the contract with his people.
Now this covenant that has been made between God and the Israelites is not a contract in the usual sense because a contract must normally be made between two equals. Human beings are not able to reach out and establish a bond with God, but God is able to reach out to us. And that is exactly what the old covenant is about: through Israel, the transcendent God intervenes in history to establish a relationship with humanity in human time and in human space.
Of course, the other thing about a covenant - contract - is that it is normally viewed as being null and void when one party does not keep up their end of the bargain. And it did not take the coming of Jesus for God's people to understand that human beings cannot keep God's law.
Jeremiah understands all too well that God's people have not been able to keep the old covenant. He realises that a new covenant between God and humanity is needed....
Jeremiah 31:31-34
And so we have an age-old human problem: Human beings are not able to refrain from sinning. We are not able to keep the Ten Commandments. We are not able to keep up our end of a bargain with God.
What is the solution to be? That human beings keep sinning and that God keeps renewing the contract nonetheless? Jeremiah proposes a different solution: a new covenant.
This is is not a covenant that is based on human beings being able to keep God's law - we already know that won't work. The new covenant is based on the transformation of human hearts: not God's law written on tablets, but God's Spirit written on the hearts of human beings. If human beings are not able to be faithful on their own, then God himself will have to transform the human heart in order that we can be faithful.
For the Christian, this transformation can come only from Jesus. Jesus said that didn't come to do away with the law, but rather that he came to fulfill the law. Jesus fulfilled the law because he himself was the one human being who was able to be 100% faithful to the requirements of the covenant with God. Jesus was able to keep up our end of the bargain and he did it for us, as our substitute and in our place. Jesus' obedience to the Father is accepted as our obedience to the Father and, in Jesus, the covenant between God and humanity is made permanent for all time.
It is through Christ that God's Spirit is written on our hearts and that we can hope for our own transformation. It is through Christ and his life, death and resurrection that God intervenes once again in history - in the new covenant - to establish a relationship with humanity in human time and in human space.
And just as the Jewish people observe Passover to remember God's covenant with them and with all people, So too do we observe the Lord's Supper as a token of God's new covenant with humanity.
The following reading is taken from Mark who sets The Last Supper in the context of the Passover Meal.
Mark 14:22-25
Jesus says in verse 25: 'Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.'
Just as the Passover looks forward to the fulfillment of God's promise to the Jewish people of deliverance from exile and settlement in the Promised Land, so too does the Lord's Supper look forward to what Christians believe is the fulfillment of the promise of God to all people: the Kingdom of God.
A world in which human dignity is real and the presence of God is manifest.
But the Lord's Supper is operating under the rules of engagement - if you will - of the new covenant:
Of the understanding that human beings cannot keep God's law but that Jesus has kept it for us and that he has fulfilled it on our behalf. The Lord's Supper is the feast of the Kingdom of God: the feast to which all people are invited on account of the forgiveness that has been won for us by the cross of Christ. It is not our 'making a commitment' to God that saves us, rather it is God's 'making a commitment' to us through Christ that saves us.
The Covenant Prayer which we are about to make is an acknowledgement of all that God has done for us in Christ. We acknowledge that it is because of God's action that we belong to God. And we acknowledge that we, like the Virgin Mary, are the servants of God and that we do not do God work but, rather, God works through us.
Please take a minute or so to read over The Covenant Prayer. May God bless us as we prepare to make this solemn prayer together.
Showing posts with label Covenant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Covenant. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Sunday 20th April 2008 - Cornerstone of the Temple
The readings for this sermon are based on 1 Peter 2:1-10
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Introduction
1 Peter 2:6 reads ‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’
The first letter of Peter is a letter whose primary intent is to offer to its readers instruction in the Christian life and a vision of what it means to be part of the Church universal. So the image of Jesus as the cornerstone certainly sets out to say something about Jesus, but it also sets out to say something about Jesus in the context of the Church.
Jesus as the Cornerstone
The image of a cornerstone is something that would have been familiar to anyone who had been to Jerusalem in Jesus’ time. The cornerstones that were used by King Herod to rebuild the Jerusalem temple were up to 39 feet long and weighed about 400 tons. So when the disciples exclaim in Mark 13:1, ‘Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!’ the description of these stones as ‘magnificent’ wasn’t an exaggeration. I don’t know about you, but I have trouble imagining what a stone that is 39 feet long could possibly look like. If you think how many stones had gone in to the building of the Temple itself, you begin to get an idea of the magnificence of Herod’s Temple.
And I suspect that the image of buildings and stones and cornerstones into today’s Epistle reading is meant to make its readers think about the Temple in Jerusalem. Because as most of the Gospels tell the story of Jesus, Jesus makes the claim to being the replacement of Temple. The Jerusalem Temple was, for pious Jews, the centre of all creation because God himself was present in the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies was the place where earth and heaven met. And it was the place where the high priest made atonement for the sins of the people of Israel on the Day of Atonement.
The Temple was holy, the Temple Mount was holy and the city of Jerusalem was holy. And Jesus, according to the Early Christians, was a ‘replacement’ for the Temple. Not only the one true and final sacrifice, but our great high priest and, indeed the person in whom heaven and earth met.
So, I’d like to suggest to you that although the metaphor of Jesus as the cornerstone might seem a bit – dare I say it? – wooden – at first glace, I think that if you chip just a little bit deeper, you will find some wonderful and glorious truths laying just below the façade. Truths that are fit for the celebration of the Easter season and which are not just about the basic idea that the person of Jesus is foundational to the Christian faith.
The New Creation
But as I said earlier, the first letter of Peter is a letter whose primary intent is to give instruction in the Christian life and a vision of what it means to be part of the Church universal. So, this vision of Jesus as the cornerstone of the house of God is not just a vision about who Jesus is, but it’s also a vision of who we are and what we are called to be as his disciples.
As the author puts it: as the church, we are ‘a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God’ If Jesus is God’s chosen son, the church is his chosen people. If Jesus is the great and final high priest, the church is a royal priesthood. If Jerusalem is the holy city, the church is a holy nation.
All of the above are images of how the people of Israel saw themselves and now the author of the letter of Peter is extending these attributes to the Church.
Here I need to give the usual warnings against anti-Semitism. We should not see the church as a ‘new dispensation’ where Christians replace the people of Israel as God’s new chosen but exclusive people. Rather it is the revelation that God’s covenant with Noah and Moses and Abraham was never meant to be an exclusive covenant. The covenant was never meant to create categories of people whom God excluded because of who they were. God’s covenant was meant to be for all people of all tribes and nations and backgrounds.
Once we were not a people, but now we are a people. Once we had not received mercy but now we have received mercy.
God’s Good News turned out to be better than anyone could have imagined! His covenant is meant for everyone. His Kingdom, his Temple, his salvation is meant for everyone.
This is Good News for us – the church – and it’s good news for everyone. It’s a glorious picture of who Jesus is and why he came. Jesus is the cornerstone of the New Temple and the New Creation. And the good news is that everyone is invited to be a part of it. God’s purposes are for everyone. The New Creation that God is building is intended for all creation and for all of humankind.
So where does the Church come into all of this? The author of this letter tells us that we are to declare the praises of him who called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light.
It is the mission of the Church to proclaim the Good News of God’s New Creation. It is the mission of the Church to proclaim that the old order has passed away and that the resurrection is the evidence that God is doing a new thing. We are to enlighten the world that God’s salvation is not offered just to a chosen few, but that it is offered to all of humankind – to all people. We are called to enlighten the world that death and destruction do not have the final word but that God is a God of life and creation. We are called to live in such a way that our lives reflect the love of Christ and serve to illuminate The Way in which we are to walk.
Conclusion
It’s my prayer that, as we come as a community to the Lord’s Table this morning [evening], that we may be filled with the love of Christ, our cornerstone and our great high priest. May we each be given a vision of the New Creation and be filled with the hope of the resurrection. Most of all I pray that, along with the rest of the Christian Church, that we will each look to the light of Christ and reflect that light back into the world. Amen
===
Introduction
1 Peter 2:6 reads ‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’
The first letter of Peter is a letter whose primary intent is to offer to its readers instruction in the Christian life and a vision of what it means to be part of the Church universal. So the image of Jesus as the cornerstone certainly sets out to say something about Jesus, but it also sets out to say something about Jesus in the context of the Church.
Jesus as the Cornerstone
The image of a cornerstone is something that would have been familiar to anyone who had been to Jerusalem in Jesus’ time. The cornerstones that were used by King Herod to rebuild the Jerusalem temple were up to 39 feet long and weighed about 400 tons. So when the disciples exclaim in Mark 13:1, ‘Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!’ the description of these stones as ‘magnificent’ wasn’t an exaggeration. I don’t know about you, but I have trouble imagining what a stone that is 39 feet long could possibly look like. If you think how many stones had gone in to the building of the Temple itself, you begin to get an idea of the magnificence of Herod’s Temple.
And I suspect that the image of buildings and stones and cornerstones into today’s Epistle reading is meant to make its readers think about the Temple in Jerusalem. Because as most of the Gospels tell the story of Jesus, Jesus makes the claim to being the replacement of Temple. The Jerusalem Temple was, for pious Jews, the centre of all creation because God himself was present in the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies was the place where earth and heaven met. And it was the place where the high priest made atonement for the sins of the people of Israel on the Day of Atonement.
The Temple was holy, the Temple Mount was holy and the city of Jerusalem was holy. And Jesus, according to the Early Christians, was a ‘replacement’ for the Temple. Not only the one true and final sacrifice, but our great high priest and, indeed the person in whom heaven and earth met.
So, I’d like to suggest to you that although the metaphor of Jesus as the cornerstone might seem a bit – dare I say it? – wooden – at first glace, I think that if you chip just a little bit deeper, you will find some wonderful and glorious truths laying just below the façade. Truths that are fit for the celebration of the Easter season and which are not just about the basic idea that the person of Jesus is foundational to the Christian faith.
The New Creation
But as I said earlier, the first letter of Peter is a letter whose primary intent is to give instruction in the Christian life and a vision of what it means to be part of the Church universal. So, this vision of Jesus as the cornerstone of the house of God is not just a vision about who Jesus is, but it’s also a vision of who we are and what we are called to be as his disciples.
As the author puts it: as the church, we are ‘a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God’ If Jesus is God’s chosen son, the church is his chosen people. If Jesus is the great and final high priest, the church is a royal priesthood. If Jerusalem is the holy city, the church is a holy nation.
All of the above are images of how the people of Israel saw themselves and now the author of the letter of Peter is extending these attributes to the Church.
Here I need to give the usual warnings against anti-Semitism. We should not see the church as a ‘new dispensation’ where Christians replace the people of Israel as God’s new chosen but exclusive people. Rather it is the revelation that God’s covenant with Noah and Moses and Abraham was never meant to be an exclusive covenant. The covenant was never meant to create categories of people whom God excluded because of who they were. God’s covenant was meant to be for all people of all tribes and nations and backgrounds.
Once we were not a people, but now we are a people. Once we had not received mercy but now we have received mercy.
God’s Good News turned out to be better than anyone could have imagined! His covenant is meant for everyone. His Kingdom, his Temple, his salvation is meant for everyone.
This is Good News for us – the church – and it’s good news for everyone. It’s a glorious picture of who Jesus is and why he came. Jesus is the cornerstone of the New Temple and the New Creation. And the good news is that everyone is invited to be a part of it. God’s purposes are for everyone. The New Creation that God is building is intended for all creation and for all of humankind.
So where does the Church come into all of this? The author of this letter tells us that we are to declare the praises of him who called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light.
It is the mission of the Church to proclaim the Good News of God’s New Creation. It is the mission of the Church to proclaim that the old order has passed away and that the resurrection is the evidence that God is doing a new thing. We are to enlighten the world that God’s salvation is not offered just to a chosen few, but that it is offered to all of humankind – to all people. We are called to enlighten the world that death and destruction do not have the final word but that God is a God of life and creation. We are called to live in such a way that our lives reflect the love of Christ and serve to illuminate The Way in which we are to walk.
Conclusion
It’s my prayer that, as we come as a community to the Lord’s Table this morning [evening], that we may be filled with the love of Christ, our cornerstone and our great high priest. May we each be given a vision of the New Creation and be filled with the hope of the resurrection. Most of all I pray that, along with the rest of the Christian Church, that we will each look to the light of Christ and reflect that light back into the world. Amen
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Sunday 23 December 2007 - When We Cannot Save Ourselves
This sermon is for the 4th Sunday of Advent. It's based on the following texts: Isaiah 7:10-17 and Matthew 1:18-25
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Introduction
Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent and this season of repentance and preparation for the birth of Christ is drawing to a close. This year is another year when Christmas day follows on quite quickly from the last Sunday in Advent and so, rather than 4 or even 6 days of final preparation, we plunge headlong from the last week of Advent into Christmas day without a lot of time to think.
The American theologian Walter Brueggemann had this to say about Advent: ‘Advent is being ready for the saving one who will come when we cannot save ourselves.’
In today’s Old and New Testament readings, we hear stories of two people who probably felt very much under siege. One, quite literally.
King Ahaz
The first person was King Ahaz of the Kingdom of Judah. The holy city of Jerusalem was part of the kingdom of Judah and Judah was threatened by her enemies: the Kingdom of Israel was one of these enemies and Syria was another.
The King was worried that his country would be attacked at any moment and he wanted to make an alliance with the kingdom of Assyria in order to strengthen his strategic position. But the prophet Isaiah comes to the king and tells him, basically, ‘Don’t worry, God will protect Jerusalem and, just so you can be sure this is the hand of God, ask for a sign and it will be granted to you.’
Ahaz declines to ask God for a sign and Isaiah tells him, then God will give you this sign anyway: a young woman is going to have a son and she will name him Immanuel – God with Us. Before this boy is about two years old, the age when children begin to have a sense of self, all of your enemies will have ceased to be of any threat.
Basically, Isaiah says to king Ahaz, don’t try to take the matter into your own hands, simply trust in the Lord and within the next two to three years, you will see that your kingdom has remained intact.
I don’t know if they had the saying then, but I imagine king Ahaz might very well have been thinking ‘The Lord helps those who help themselves’. In fact, this may very well have been why he declined to ask for a sign: because he wanted to take matters into his own hands. King Ahaz was not known for being the most pious of Judah’s kings – it was he who introduced the worship of the Baal into the kingdom. King Ahaz probably preferred to take matters into his own hands rather than to trust in God to save his kingdom. He didn’t seem to think that there was much use in trying to find God’s will in his situation; he wanted to save himself.
‘Advent is being ready for the saving one who will come when we cannot save ourselves.’
Joseph of Nazareth
And then, in this morning’s Gospel reading, we have Joseph. Matthew chooses to tell the story of Jesus’ identity and ancestry by having the angel announcing the conception of Jesus to Joseph rather than to Mary. And the angel tells Joseph not to be afraid.
I imagine that Joseph must have been quite afraid actually, and the passage gives us some indication of his dilemma. We are told that Joseph is a man who keeps the Jewish law – he is a ‘righteous’ man. And the law as set out in Deuteronomy is that a betrothed woman who becomes pregnant by another man is to be stoned at the city gate.
The passage also gives us strong evidence that Mary’s stoning would not be acceptable to Joseph, but we can be certain that the requirement to keep the law would have weighed heavily upon him. It was certainly a huge dilemma: the requirement of the law on one hand and the compassion of a good man on the other hand. Which option should Joseph choose? If ever there was a situation where a person could not save themselves, this must be a prime example.
And at the point when it appears that there is no way out of this predicament, an angel of God appears to him and presents him with an utterly preposterous story: That Mary has not been unfaithful and that the baby she is carrying is going to be both Saviour and God With Us – Jesus and Immanuel.
And somehow, by the time the angel leaves, Joseph is at peace and he is ready to stand by Mary as her husband. Joseph was ready. His heart was open and, unlike Ahaz, he was alert to be able to see God working in a new way.
‘Advent is being ready for the saving one who will come when we cannot save ourselves.’
Are we Ready?
So the question for this morning is: Are we ready? Are we ready for the saving one? Are we alert to God’s presence all around us? Do we understand that Immanuel, God with Us, is present in our lives even when we may be having trouble perceiving him?
The thing that I find slightly frustrating about the story of the annunciation to Joseph is that he apparently goes from a fairly intense wilderness experience to complete peace in God’s purposes in just eight short verses. If you take the story at a very literal level, Joseph lays down to bed one night wracked with emotional pain and, by dawn, he is at peace with the very difficult task that God has given him to do.
Most of the time, real life is not that way at all and, coming to a place of peace with the events of our lives is often extremely difficult and takes a lot more than just a few hours between dusk and dawn. When circumstances are difficult for us or for those we love, it can be hard to see God in it and don’t we sometimes wish that an angel would appear and say ‘Fear not’ and make all our anxieties go away?
But this story isn’t meant to be a novel and it’s not meant to spin out the situation so that readers enter into Joseph’s anxiety and struggle in real time. This story is meant to be a narrative about who God is and what his purposes are for humanity and for his creation.
God himself will enter into the world and so the child is to be named Immanuel, God with Us. Secondly, the child will be the saviour of his people and so he will be named Yesuha – Joshua or Jesus. The child’s ancestry will be both human and divine.
Matthew spends the first part of Chapter 1 outlining the genealogy of Joseph and Jesus: a genealogy meant to emphasise that God’s purposes for his creation are to be displayed in his covenant relationship with Israel. God’s character and identity are intrinsically bound up with the people of Israel, with human history, and with God’s physical creation. God’s promise to all of humanity is that God is here and his Spirit is with us.
The Good News of Advent
Walter Brueggemann said: ‘Advent is being ready for the saving one who will come when we cannot save ourselves.’ This is both a call to preparation and, it’s also a promise.
It is a very real part of the human faith experience that there are times when we find it difficult to perceive God’s presence at all, never mind perceiving him as being present all around us.
Like King Ahaz, we might be tempted to think that there is something that we can do to save ourselves, when in reality there is nothing we can do.
Like Joseph prior to the angel’s visit, we may sometimes find ourselves in a state of fear and anxiety.
The Gospel story this morning is not telling us to ‘snap out of it’ and help ourselves. The Gospel story this morning assures us that God has made a promise for Good with humanity and that God has kept his promise in the birth of his Son.
God is here with us. Immanuel, fully present in our humanity. Salvation is here in the birth of Jesus: Salvation from sin and guilt, Salvation from death and destruction, from poverty, sickness and hunger, from despair and hopelessness.
Whether or not we perceive God’s presence, whether or not we feel God’s presence, God’s promise is there and it has been fulfilled in the birth of Jesus.
Conclusion
Conclusion
In a few minutes, we will come to the Lord’s Table where we remember that Jesus promised to be with us whenever we celebrate this sacrament in remembrance of him. As we remember, we use real, physical things – bread and wine – the common foods of our everyday life.
And we remember that the God of Moses brought the people of Israel out of Egypt and that, in Christ, his covenant with humanity has been fulfilled.
As we remember Jesus’ promise to be with us in the Lord’s supper, I pray that our hearts will also be ready to receive the love of God in Christ as he comes to us in the birth of the baby Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man. Amen
===
Introduction
Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent and this season of repentance and preparation for the birth of Christ is drawing to a close. This year is another year when Christmas day follows on quite quickly from the last Sunday in Advent and so, rather than 4 or even 6 days of final preparation, we plunge headlong from the last week of Advent into Christmas day without a lot of time to think.
The American theologian Walter Brueggemann had this to say about Advent: ‘Advent is being ready for the saving one who will come when we cannot save ourselves.’
In today’s Old and New Testament readings, we hear stories of two people who probably felt very much under siege. One, quite literally.
King Ahaz
The first person was King Ahaz of the Kingdom of Judah. The holy city of Jerusalem was part of the kingdom of Judah and Judah was threatened by her enemies: the Kingdom of Israel was one of these enemies and Syria was another.
The King was worried that his country would be attacked at any moment and he wanted to make an alliance with the kingdom of Assyria in order to strengthen his strategic position. But the prophet Isaiah comes to the king and tells him, basically, ‘Don’t worry, God will protect Jerusalem and, just so you can be sure this is the hand of God, ask for a sign and it will be granted to you.’
Ahaz declines to ask God for a sign and Isaiah tells him, then God will give you this sign anyway: a young woman is going to have a son and she will name him Immanuel – God with Us. Before this boy is about two years old, the age when children begin to have a sense of self, all of your enemies will have ceased to be of any threat.
Basically, Isaiah says to king Ahaz, don’t try to take the matter into your own hands, simply trust in the Lord and within the next two to three years, you will see that your kingdom has remained intact.
I don’t know if they had the saying then, but I imagine king Ahaz might very well have been thinking ‘The Lord helps those who help themselves’. In fact, this may very well have been why he declined to ask for a sign: because he wanted to take matters into his own hands. King Ahaz was not known for being the most pious of Judah’s kings – it was he who introduced the worship of the Baal into the kingdom. King Ahaz probably preferred to take matters into his own hands rather than to trust in God to save his kingdom. He didn’t seem to think that there was much use in trying to find God’s will in his situation; he wanted to save himself.
‘Advent is being ready for the saving one who will come when we cannot save ourselves.’
Joseph of Nazareth
And then, in this morning’s Gospel reading, we have Joseph. Matthew chooses to tell the story of Jesus’ identity and ancestry by having the angel announcing the conception of Jesus to Joseph rather than to Mary. And the angel tells Joseph not to be afraid.
I imagine that Joseph must have been quite afraid actually, and the passage gives us some indication of his dilemma. We are told that Joseph is a man who keeps the Jewish law – he is a ‘righteous’ man. And the law as set out in Deuteronomy is that a betrothed woman who becomes pregnant by another man is to be stoned at the city gate.
The passage also gives us strong evidence that Mary’s stoning would not be acceptable to Joseph, but we can be certain that the requirement to keep the law would have weighed heavily upon him. It was certainly a huge dilemma: the requirement of the law on one hand and the compassion of a good man on the other hand. Which option should Joseph choose? If ever there was a situation where a person could not save themselves, this must be a prime example.
And at the point when it appears that there is no way out of this predicament, an angel of God appears to him and presents him with an utterly preposterous story: That Mary has not been unfaithful and that the baby she is carrying is going to be both Saviour and God With Us – Jesus and Immanuel.
And somehow, by the time the angel leaves, Joseph is at peace and he is ready to stand by Mary as her husband. Joseph was ready. His heart was open and, unlike Ahaz, he was alert to be able to see God working in a new way.
‘Advent is being ready for the saving one who will come when we cannot save ourselves.’
Are we Ready?
So the question for this morning is: Are we ready? Are we ready for the saving one? Are we alert to God’s presence all around us? Do we understand that Immanuel, God with Us, is present in our lives even when we may be having trouble perceiving him?
The thing that I find slightly frustrating about the story of the annunciation to Joseph is that he apparently goes from a fairly intense wilderness experience to complete peace in God’s purposes in just eight short verses. If you take the story at a very literal level, Joseph lays down to bed one night wracked with emotional pain and, by dawn, he is at peace with the very difficult task that God has given him to do.
Most of the time, real life is not that way at all and, coming to a place of peace with the events of our lives is often extremely difficult and takes a lot more than just a few hours between dusk and dawn. When circumstances are difficult for us or for those we love, it can be hard to see God in it and don’t we sometimes wish that an angel would appear and say ‘Fear not’ and make all our anxieties go away?
But this story isn’t meant to be a novel and it’s not meant to spin out the situation so that readers enter into Joseph’s anxiety and struggle in real time. This story is meant to be a narrative about who God is and what his purposes are for humanity and for his creation.
God himself will enter into the world and so the child is to be named Immanuel, God with Us. Secondly, the child will be the saviour of his people and so he will be named Yesuha – Joshua or Jesus. The child’s ancestry will be both human and divine.
Matthew spends the first part of Chapter 1 outlining the genealogy of Joseph and Jesus: a genealogy meant to emphasise that God’s purposes for his creation are to be displayed in his covenant relationship with Israel. God’s character and identity are intrinsically bound up with the people of Israel, with human history, and with God’s physical creation. God’s promise to all of humanity is that God is here and his Spirit is with us.
The Good News of Advent
Walter Brueggemann said: ‘Advent is being ready for the saving one who will come when we cannot save ourselves.’ This is both a call to preparation and, it’s also a promise.
It is a very real part of the human faith experience that there are times when we find it difficult to perceive God’s presence at all, never mind perceiving him as being present all around us.
Like King Ahaz, we might be tempted to think that there is something that we can do to save ourselves, when in reality there is nothing we can do.
Like Joseph prior to the angel’s visit, we may sometimes find ourselves in a state of fear and anxiety.
The Gospel story this morning is not telling us to ‘snap out of it’ and help ourselves. The Gospel story this morning assures us that God has made a promise for Good with humanity and that God has kept his promise in the birth of his Son.
God is here with us. Immanuel, fully present in our humanity. Salvation is here in the birth of Jesus: Salvation from sin and guilt, Salvation from death and destruction, from poverty, sickness and hunger, from despair and hopelessness.
Whether or not we perceive God’s presence, whether or not we feel God’s presence, God’s promise is there and it has been fulfilled in the birth of Jesus.
Conclusion
Conclusion
In a few minutes, we will come to the Lord’s Table where we remember that Jesus promised to be with us whenever we celebrate this sacrament in remembrance of him. As we remember, we use real, physical things – bread and wine – the common foods of our everyday life.
And we remember that the God of Moses brought the people of Israel out of Egypt and that, in Christ, his covenant with humanity has been fulfilled.
As we remember Jesus’ promise to be with us in the Lord’s supper, I pray that our hearts will also be ready to receive the love of God in Christ as he comes to us in the birth of the baby Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man. Amen
Saturday, January 06, 2007
7 January 2007 - The Covenant Prayer
The following sermon is based on John Wesley's "Covenant Prayer". The text of the prayer is given below.
I am no longer my own but yours.
Your will, not mine, be done in all things,
wherever you may place me,
in all that I do
and in all that I may endure;
when there is work for me
and when there is none;
when I am troubled
and when I am at peace.
Your will be done
when I am valued
and when I am disregarded;
when I find fulfilment
and when it is lacking;
when I have all things,
and when I have nothing.
I willingly offer
all I have and am
to serve you,
as and where you choose.
Glorious and blessèd God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.
May it be so for ever.
Let this covenant now made on earth
be fulfilled in heaven. Amen.
=====
Introduction
When I was studying in theology college, one of my tutors told us about his experience attending bible college in the United States in the 1970s. The tutor – let’s call him John – had actually decided to study theology as a young man for his first degree. In his second year at university he had the opportunity to go to the United States for a term and study in a US bible college.
John arrived at the US bible college as a life-long British Methodist. He was 19 years old and had never before left the UK. This was his first experience with a foreign country and it was also his first experience with Christianity, American style.
John told us that one of the first things his fellow students asked him was “Have you made a commitment to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?” John said that he was quite surprised by the question, that he thought for a few seconds and then said “Well, the last time I made a commitment to Jesus as my Lord and Saviour was this morning, why do you ask?”
Today we observe “Covenant Sunday” together and I want to explore the idea of what it means for a human being to make a commitment to God in conjunction with the observance of this special Sunday.
The Covenant Prayer is quite a powerful prayer. One might even call it extreme. It is certainly uncompromising. I suspect that it would more than meet the demands of the student who wondered whether my tutor had committed his life to God.
If you wish to do so, turn to page 288 in the Worship Book and look at this prayer with me. I want first to look at the last six lines of the prayer, on page 289.
These lines tell us clearly that we are praying to the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Although the Covenant Prayer does not begin with an address to the Father, Son or Spirit, it does end with the Holy Trinity because it has been assumed from the beginning hat it is the Triune God to whom we are praying.
Now, let’s go back to the very beginning of the prayer – to the boldfaced type – and look at the very first line of the prayer.
This is strong stuff and the prayer jumps right in with a most astonishing commitment: addressing our prayer to the Holy Trinity, we pray, “I am no longer my own but yours.”
I am no longer my own but yours
“I am no longer my own but yours” What, exactly, does this phrase mean?
First of all, I think that it is simply making a statement of truth. Properly speaking from God’s perspective, we are not “our own” in any sense of the word.
When we make our offerings of money here in church we often say to God in prayer that we are giving back to him what he has given to us in the first place. And that is also what we are doing in the first line of the Covenant prayer. God has given each individual here his or her life and in this prayer we are offering that life back to God. But the thing is that we don’t have to.
Although it is true from a “God’s eye perspective”, that our lives are a gift from God and we are held in being by God, God does not say that he will cease to hold us in being if we do not acknowledge that our lives are gifted to us by Him – which is just another way of saying that God is Lord in our life.
Our very lives are a free gift from God and God generously holds us in being for as long as we are to live whether or not we acknowledge God, whether or not we ignore God, whether or not we curse God. God gives us the gift of free will because he wants us to freely turn our lives over to him.
As we know, the Great Commandment is love God and love your neighbour. (I hope you know this by now, because I think I must say it almost every week). As we also know, love is about self-giving.
The only way that a person can love God is to give to back God his or her life, his or her very self. Because the essence of Christian love is the action of self-giving, our love for God can’t be coerced from us, nor can it be pre-programmed into us. God freely gives us our lives and he hopes for our free giving in return.
I don’t know how many of you have seen the film “Bruce Almighty”, a film where the character Bruce is given all of God’s abilities and responsibilities for a short time. Bruce’s one frustration is that he can’t make the woman he loves love him back, even with God’s powers. At one point, Bruce asks God “How do you get someone to love you?” and God chuckles and responds “Welcome to my world!”
God freely gives us our lives, our families and everything that we have. God also gives us the gift of freedom – to choose to acknowledge him and love him in return or to choose to turn our back on him. God hopes that we will respond by giving him our love, by acknowledging him as Lord, as the one who holds us in being.
And in this prayer we begin by doing that very thing. We pray “I am no longer my own, but yours”. Lord, I give up any notion I have of being in charge of my own life and my own soul. I know that without you, I am nothing, and I freely acknowledge this fact to you, to myself and to my Christian brothers and sisters. I give back to you, I intend to give back to you, I hope to give back to you, the very life that you have given me.
Your Will be Done
In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray “your will be done”. In the Covenant Prayer, we also pray “your will be done”.
If you look again on page 288, most of the rest of the prayer after the first line is an elaboration on the sorts of situations where we pray for God’s will to be done in our lives. The list does not make for comfortable reading.
This list is also powerful, extreme and uncompromising. If you look closely I think we can divide this list into two broad categories: when things are going well and when things are not going well. It’s very much like the marriage vow to stick by one’s spouse for better or for worse. What’s effective about this prayer – and also somewhat shocking – are the specific instances listed.
Many of us who consider ourselves committed Christians will want to work for the Kingdom of God. But in this prayer, we are asking for God’s will to be done when there is no Kingdom work for us to do as well as when there is Kingdom work for us to do. This can be very difficult. Sometimes God may say to us “No, this kingdom work is for your brother or sister in Christ to do, it’s not for you.” Or God may say “This work is for the Holy Spirit, not for you.” And we may feel troubled and useless because we think we see an urgent need and we want something to happen. Now!
But this prayer also asks us to pray: “Your will be done when I am valued and when I am disregarded.” The work of the Kingdom ultimately belongs to God and God knows what he is doing. But this can be really hard to trust – I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about. I’m sure we’ve all been there. God calls us to work for his Kingdom, but we always have to keep in mind that it is God who will ultimately usher in the Kingdom, not us and our work.
This can be a delicate and difficult balance to strike. It is a hard thing to be disregarded and it is especially difficult to be disregarded if we think that it is only in “Doing Something” that we can be tools of God.
Conclusion
My tutor’s youthful college friends wanted to know if he acknowledged the Triune God to be his Lord. The Covenant Prayer that we will pray together in just a few minutes acknowledges the Lordship of the Trinity in a fairly dramatic way.
The prayer acknowledges implicitly that all that we have – our family, friends, homes and our very lives – are gifts from God. The prayer acknowledges that none of these things could exist apart from the love and grace of God.
We begin the prayer by offering back to God the greatest gift that he has given us – our selves.
We remember that as our Lord, it is the Triune God who has offered us the possibility of this Covenant. It is he who initiates this Covenant, not us.
The Covenant of God’s faithfulness was offered from the beginning and is testified to in both the Old and the New Testaments. The Covenant was made possible and was brought to fruition by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who died and rose so that we might be reconciled with the Father.
Before we could do anything, God offered us his forgiveness, his love and his grace in order to draw us to him in love. This prayer is an opportunity to respond to God’s offer for forgiveness, love and grace and I hope that each of us will feel able to pray this prayer.
If you have never before responded to God’s offer of forgiveness and love, this service is a good opportunity to do so. If you responded to God’s offer of forgiveness and love many years ago, this service is an opportunity to make that commitment again in the context of Holy Communion.
At the Communion table, we understand in very concrete terms that God has prepared his banquet table for us in advance, before we could do anything. In the company of our brothers and sisters, we will now confess our sins, renew our commitment to God and we will taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen
I am no longer my own but yours.
Your will, not mine, be done in all things,
wherever you may place me,
in all that I do
and in all that I may endure;
when there is work for me
and when there is none;
when I am troubled
and when I am at peace.
Your will be done
when I am valued
and when I am disregarded;
when I find fulfilment
and when it is lacking;
when I have all things,
and when I have nothing.
I willingly offer
all I have and am
to serve you,
as and where you choose.
Glorious and blessèd God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.
May it be so for ever.
Let this covenant now made on earth
be fulfilled in heaven. Amen.
=====
Introduction
When I was studying in theology college, one of my tutors told us about his experience attending bible college in the United States in the 1970s. The tutor – let’s call him John – had actually decided to study theology as a young man for his first degree. In his second year at university he had the opportunity to go to the United States for a term and study in a US bible college.
John arrived at the US bible college as a life-long British Methodist. He was 19 years old and had never before left the UK. This was his first experience with a foreign country and it was also his first experience with Christianity, American style.
John told us that one of the first things his fellow students asked him was “Have you made a commitment to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?” John said that he was quite surprised by the question, that he thought for a few seconds and then said “Well, the last time I made a commitment to Jesus as my Lord and Saviour was this morning, why do you ask?”
Today we observe “Covenant Sunday” together and I want to explore the idea of what it means for a human being to make a commitment to God in conjunction with the observance of this special Sunday.
The Covenant Prayer is quite a powerful prayer. One might even call it extreme. It is certainly uncompromising. I suspect that it would more than meet the demands of the student who wondered whether my tutor had committed his life to God.
If you wish to do so, turn to page 288 in the Worship Book and look at this prayer with me. I want first to look at the last six lines of the prayer, on page 289.
These lines tell us clearly that we are praying to the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Although the Covenant Prayer does not begin with an address to the Father, Son or Spirit, it does end with the Holy Trinity because it has been assumed from the beginning hat it is the Triune God to whom we are praying.
Now, let’s go back to the very beginning of the prayer – to the boldfaced type – and look at the very first line of the prayer.
This is strong stuff and the prayer jumps right in with a most astonishing commitment: addressing our prayer to the Holy Trinity, we pray, “I am no longer my own but yours.”
I am no longer my own but yours
“I am no longer my own but yours” What, exactly, does this phrase mean?
First of all, I think that it is simply making a statement of truth. Properly speaking from God’s perspective, we are not “our own” in any sense of the word.
When we make our offerings of money here in church we often say to God in prayer that we are giving back to him what he has given to us in the first place. And that is also what we are doing in the first line of the Covenant prayer. God has given each individual here his or her life and in this prayer we are offering that life back to God. But the thing is that we don’t have to.
Although it is true from a “God’s eye perspective”, that our lives are a gift from God and we are held in being by God, God does not say that he will cease to hold us in being if we do not acknowledge that our lives are gifted to us by Him – which is just another way of saying that God is Lord in our life.
Our very lives are a free gift from God and God generously holds us in being for as long as we are to live whether or not we acknowledge God, whether or not we ignore God, whether or not we curse God. God gives us the gift of free will because he wants us to freely turn our lives over to him.
As we know, the Great Commandment is love God and love your neighbour. (I hope you know this by now, because I think I must say it almost every week). As we also know, love is about self-giving.
The only way that a person can love God is to give to back God his or her life, his or her very self. Because the essence of Christian love is the action of self-giving, our love for God can’t be coerced from us, nor can it be pre-programmed into us. God freely gives us our lives and he hopes for our free giving in return.
I don’t know how many of you have seen the film “Bruce Almighty”, a film where the character Bruce is given all of God’s abilities and responsibilities for a short time. Bruce’s one frustration is that he can’t make the woman he loves love him back, even with God’s powers. At one point, Bruce asks God “How do you get someone to love you?” and God chuckles and responds “Welcome to my world!”
God freely gives us our lives, our families and everything that we have. God also gives us the gift of freedom – to choose to acknowledge him and love him in return or to choose to turn our back on him. God hopes that we will respond by giving him our love, by acknowledging him as Lord, as the one who holds us in being.
And in this prayer we begin by doing that very thing. We pray “I am no longer my own, but yours”. Lord, I give up any notion I have of being in charge of my own life and my own soul. I know that without you, I am nothing, and I freely acknowledge this fact to you, to myself and to my Christian brothers and sisters. I give back to you, I intend to give back to you, I hope to give back to you, the very life that you have given me.
Your Will be Done
In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray “your will be done”. In the Covenant Prayer, we also pray “your will be done”.
If you look again on page 288, most of the rest of the prayer after the first line is an elaboration on the sorts of situations where we pray for God’s will to be done in our lives. The list does not make for comfortable reading.
This list is also powerful, extreme and uncompromising. If you look closely I think we can divide this list into two broad categories: when things are going well and when things are not going well. It’s very much like the marriage vow to stick by one’s spouse for better or for worse. What’s effective about this prayer – and also somewhat shocking – are the specific instances listed.
Many of us who consider ourselves committed Christians will want to work for the Kingdom of God. But in this prayer, we are asking for God’s will to be done when there is no Kingdom work for us to do as well as when there is Kingdom work for us to do. This can be very difficult. Sometimes God may say to us “No, this kingdom work is for your brother or sister in Christ to do, it’s not for you.” Or God may say “This work is for the Holy Spirit, not for you.” And we may feel troubled and useless because we think we see an urgent need and we want something to happen. Now!
But this prayer also asks us to pray: “Your will be done when I am valued and when I am disregarded.” The work of the Kingdom ultimately belongs to God and God knows what he is doing. But this can be really hard to trust – I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about. I’m sure we’ve all been there. God calls us to work for his Kingdom, but we always have to keep in mind that it is God who will ultimately usher in the Kingdom, not us and our work.
This can be a delicate and difficult balance to strike. It is a hard thing to be disregarded and it is especially difficult to be disregarded if we think that it is only in “Doing Something” that we can be tools of God.
Conclusion
My tutor’s youthful college friends wanted to know if he acknowledged the Triune God to be his Lord. The Covenant Prayer that we will pray together in just a few minutes acknowledges the Lordship of the Trinity in a fairly dramatic way.
The prayer acknowledges implicitly that all that we have – our family, friends, homes and our very lives – are gifts from God. The prayer acknowledges that none of these things could exist apart from the love and grace of God.
We begin the prayer by offering back to God the greatest gift that he has given us – our selves.
We remember that as our Lord, it is the Triune God who has offered us the possibility of this Covenant. It is he who initiates this Covenant, not us.
The Covenant of God’s faithfulness was offered from the beginning and is testified to in both the Old and the New Testaments. The Covenant was made possible and was brought to fruition by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who died and rose so that we might be reconciled with the Father.
Before we could do anything, God offered us his forgiveness, his love and his grace in order to draw us to him in love. This prayer is an opportunity to respond to God’s offer for forgiveness, love and grace and I hope that each of us will feel able to pray this prayer.
If you have never before responded to God’s offer of forgiveness and love, this service is a good opportunity to do so. If you responded to God’s offer of forgiveness and love many years ago, this service is an opportunity to make that commitment again in the context of Holy Communion.
At the Communion table, we understand in very concrete terms that God has prepared his banquet table for us in advance, before we could do anything. In the company of our brothers and sisters, we will now confess our sins, renew our commitment to God and we will taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen
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