Reflection National Lockdown Saturday 03 October 2020

Job 42:1-6, 12-17                   Psalm 119:169-176                Luke 10:17-24

Good day dear friends

After all his struggling with suffering and faith and the appearing absence of God, the story ends with Job getting it all back and in abundance. The ending almost seems to undo everything the book has tried to convey, or at least that’s often what’s done with it by the reader. Why do we bother with the struggle of the servant of God, Job, if it doesn’t really matter and if we can just skip to the fairy-tale ending? This approach brings dishonour to the reality of the struggle of both Job’s and ours.  How then can we use this chapter to great effect if not to just glory in its nice ending?  There are two possibilities.

The “change” in Job

In the final chapter we find Job neither questioning God in a hostile way nor uttering resigned sounding pietisms.  He admits that he was wrong and acknowledges that he had not known God, that he had “heard of” God, but never truly “seen” God.  While it may be true that suffering and struggle will open one’s eyes, and that one may well view the world, life, relationships, spirituality and faith differently because of it, I don’t think this is mainly what makes the change in Job.  For Job, the change comes when God speaks to him.  Having confronted God Job is now answered, and so he is changed. God sees Jobs discourse as right, it is accepted not rejected and God challenged Job. This is a lesson learned; complaint, allegation and doubt are all authentic expressions because they are expressed in relationship with God and bring about change. 

“Things too wonderful for me”

Part of Job’s repentance is that he is speaking of things he does not understand.  Job may understand “wonders” to mean the wonders of creation, lightning, rains, drought, heavenly bodies and the care of all creatures great and small.  These certainly are wonders, and are used to demonstrate the many ways in which Job is ignorant of God’s working. Depending on one’s perspective the works that God performed in Egypt could be taken as either plague, or wonder and so too, could be the events of Job’s life. His story is defined mainly by God’s wonders, and wonder at and about God.  It is God who is, finally, at work in creation and in the life of Job that centres the answer given to Jobs complaint.  It is God, perceivably present or absent that Job desperately seeks and wants to get to know in the end. In our own struggles and complaints we are to focus on the wonders of God to not just “see” or “hear” about God, but to have an authentic experience of Hid mercy and love.

The psalmist desired grace and strength to lift up his prayers, and wants to  know more of God  and more of what is expected of him to shed his guilt and sense of unworthiness. He wants to present his prayers to God as something on offer from God to him and therefore made God’s word the rule of his discourse and engagement with God. The psalmist discovered that his efforts were insufficient; that there was no one out there capable to help him and he therefore made his appeal to his creator and redeemer. He believed that salvation can only be found in God and therefor he prays for help to achieve this.  The psalmist is flinging his lot at the mercy of God and commits to subject himself to God’s judgements, decrees and providences in the hope of being found and rescued from his sense of loss. He looks back at his life and lost estate with shame and appeal to the tender care of the shepherd who purchased him for the gift of eternal life.  The author wants to be sought, found, turned (transformed), tried and his heart cleansed by God. We have learned nothing, if we have not learned to praise God. Do our hearts, cleansed in Christ’s blood; make these prayers, resolutions and confessions our own? Is God’s word the standard of our faith, and the law of our practice? Do we use it as pleas with Christ for what we need?

Jesus had sent 72 disciples who now return from their mission and give an account of it. The proof of the success of their mission is due to the understanding of the pre-eminence and power of the name of Jesus in regard to the power of evil. The evil forces have been weakened and demons have submitted to the power of the name of Jesus. This does not mean that being protected by God through a relationship with Him always places us in an advantageous situation in the face of the wicked forces. The power of Jesus is what makes us experience success in regard to the devil’s power and it protects us.  As Christians we are called to obstruct and be an obstacle to the power of Satan on earth to be assured of victory in spite of our own challenges. We can participate in gaining victory in the communion of love with Christ even though we may be tried by suffering and death.  The kindness of the Father is shown: the success of the word of grace in the mission of the seventy two, seen as the plan of the Father and in the communion in the resurrection of the Son, begins with this revelation of the generosity of the Father. The mission becomes a place for the revelation of God’s will in human time and space. This experience is communicated by Luke in the context of prayer and shows on one side the reaction in heaven: “I bless you Father”, (v. 21) and that on earth (vv. 23-24).

In the prayer that Jesus addresses to the Father, the word “exults” expresses the Messianic joy and proclaims the goodness of the Father. The evidence hereto is found in the little ones, the poor and the valueless who have accepted the word communicated by those sent and gained access to the relationship between the Divine Persons of the Trinity. The wise and the learned are pleased by their intellectual and theological competence that precludes them from entering into the vigour of salvation given by Jesus. The teaching that Luke intends to communicate to believers and the church can be fused as follows: Humility opens to faith. The abundance of one’s reassurance of forgiveness stands directly in relation to God’s goodness. The prayer of Jesus has its effects on all those who accept this and allow themselves to be embraced by the goodness of the Father.

The mission to take the life of God to others implies a lifestyle that is poor and humble. Is your life soaked by the life of God, by the Word of grace that comes from Jesus? Do you have trust in God’s call and in his power that asks to be manifested through simplicity, poverty and humility?

Let us pray:

May our loving Creator and Giver of all good gifts, bless our parish, strengthen our faith, and grant us the spirit of Christian Stewardship so we may give generously of our time, talent, and treasure to spread Your Kingdom here in our parish. For this, we pray to the Lord. Amen.

Friday, 2^nd October 2020

Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, Philantropist,1885 

Collect

Gracious Lord you have built up your Church through the love and devotion of your saints :help us to follow in the steps of your servant Anthony and fill our hearts with love for you and others for your sake; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Eucharist Readings:

Job 38:1,12-21;40:1-5                  Psalm 139:1-18                 Luke 10:13-16

Mention of those who might reject Jesus leads naturally to the mention of those who had already done so. These words may or may not have been spoken on the same occasion, but they suit the theme of judgment.

Woe is not a call for vengeance, but an expression of deep regret, ’Alas’. The mention of the towns Chorazin and Bethsaida, implies that we know little about His ministry in these towns, but that Jesus did many mighty works there. These words show that He had worked extensively in both places and that He had done miracles there. Indeed, the mighty works He did had been of such character that they would have produced repentance in Tyre and Sidon. Those cities were situated on the coast to the north of Galilee. They were great commercial centers but had sinned grievously and had been the object of God’s appeal through the prophets and His judgment. Yet these cities would be better off in the judgment of Chorazin and Bethsaida. So serious is it to reject the Son of God.

Capernaum was the city where much of Jesus’ ministry had been exercised. So much was He there that it could be called His own city (Mt 9:1). It had seen miracles and heard teaching, but it remained largely unmoved. Evidently the citizens of Capernaum thought well of themselves and spoke in terms of being exalted to heaven, but this was not to be the fate of their city. It would be brought down to Hades. (Is 14:13-15). Clearly heaven and Hades are here used for the height of glory and the depth of ruin. Today the deserted site of Capernaum bears its expressive, silent testimony to his prophesy.

Jesus on several occasions spoke words like this little saying (Mt 10:40; Jn 13:20). Luke puts it here because of its general appropriateness and not to indicate that it was necessarily spoken at this time. It emphasizes the importance of the messengers Jesus sent out. When He authorizes a person to speak, that person speaks with authority. The person who hears, hears Jesus and the person who rejects the messenger, rejects the Lord. This puts a great responsibility on all who hear the message and what we do with the message. It does not stop there, the person who rejects Jesus, rejects also in that act, Him who sent Him. Jesus’ messengers then go forth with the fullest accreditation and their message is to be taken with full seriousness.

It is a terrible thing to reject God’s invitation. There is a sense in which every promise of God that a person has ever heard can become his condemnation. If a person receives these promises they are his/her greatest glory, but each one that a person rejected will some day be a witness against them.

READING AND REFLECTIONS FOR THURSDAY 1 OCTOBER 2020

Remigius, Bishop and Missionary to the Franks, 530

There had been Christians in what we call France since at least the second century; but much of the Church life there had been destroyed by the invasion of Franks and other Germanic tribes from beyond the boundaries of the Roman Empire.  Remigius is remembered because he baptised the Christian Church in the lands Clovis had occupied.

                                                                                                (Saints and Seasons – ACSA)

The Collect :

God our Creator

You called us out of darkness

into your marvellous light

and you gave us your servant Remigius

to shine as a light in the world:

shine in our hearts

and enable us to proclaim your love:

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

Job 19: 21 – 27          Psalm 27 : 9 – 17         Luke 10: 1 – 12

In the Gospel reading this morning Jesus commissions and gives his disciples instructions for how they are to carry out their ministry.

Firstly,  we look at the significance of the number seventy and its symbolism to the Jews.

(a) It was the number of the elders who were chosen to help Moses with the task of leading and directing the people in the wilderness  (Numbers 11:16-17; Numbers 11:24-25).

(b) It was the number of the Sanhedrin, the supreme council of the Jews.

(c) It was held to be the number of nations in the world at that time. Luke held a universalist view, and it may well be that he was thinking of the day when every nation in the world would know and love his Lord.

Jesus commissions the seventy, to a two-fold task – to speak in his name and to act with his authority.

The disciple should not to be entangled in the clutter of the material things of this world; one should travel light. How easy it is to get entangled in the complexities of this life, carrying with us the baggage of the past that can weigh us down and blind us to the beauty of where God calls us and needs us to be.  Dr Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784), remarked grimly, “These are the things which make it difficult to die.” Earth must never blot out heaven.

The disciples were sent out and needed to be focussed on the task at hand;  “do not greet anyone along the way” verse 4 (b).  This takes us back to Elisha’s instruction to Gehazi in 2 Kings 4:29. This is not an instruction to be rude, disrespectful or bad mannered; rather it speaks to us about remaining focussed on where or what the task is and where it may lead us. Too often we linger on the trivial things of life (majoring in minors) and allow them to side-track us, while there is greater work to be done and much to be addressed.

We are also called to be disciples of the Good News working in various areas and aspects of life.  As God sends us out into the world, we are not become part of the world, but rather remain humble in all the works that we are called to do.  The work to which we are called, is not for what we can gain out of it, (recognition, prestige etc.) but rather, what we can offer freely to others, expecting nothing in return.  As we go out, our dependency is not on ourselves but on God.

God shares his word with us and  commissions us to speak it boldly and plainly to others.

Do the people we encounter recognise us as Christs disciples?

Let us Pray :

 Gracious God,
Your Son, Jesus Christ,
invites all people to follow him
and become his disciples.

Touch our hearts, enlighten our minds,
and stir our spirit.

Amen

Reflection National Lockdown Wednesday 30 September 2020

Job 9:1-16         Psalm 88:10-15          Luke 9:57-62

Collect: Jerome, Priest and Teacher of the faith

God our Father, you enlightened your church by the teaching of your servant Jerome:

enrich it with your heavenly grace and raise up faithful witnesses who by their life and teaching may proclaim the truth of your salvation:

through Jesus Christ our Lord.        Amen.

Good day dear friends

In this and the following chapter we have Job’s answer to Bildad’s address, wherein he speaks admirably of God, unpretentiously of himself, and passionately of his troubles; but not one word by way of consideration upon his friends, or their heartlessness to him, nor in direct reply to what Bildad had said. He sensibly keeps to the facts of the cause, and makes no observations about the speaker or seeks to reprimand him. In this chapter we have,

1. The doctrine of God’s justice lay down (v. 2).
2. The proof of it, from his wisdom, and power, and sovereign dominion (v. 3-13).

III. The application of it, in which, he condemns himself, as not able to contend with God either in law or battle.

In this answer Job declared that he never doubted the justice of God, when he repudiated himself to be a pretender as proof that man can never be considered to be just in his dealings as God is. He pleaded guilty to multiple sins and paints a gloomy picture of his worthless state and undeserving nature to be met with mercy and grace by God. Job is poetic and dramatic in his description of his spiritual condition and could find no justification for grace in any of his thoughts, words, and actions and believed therefore that he deserved worse than his present sufferings. In the mention of the wisdom and power of God, he forgets his complaints and it loses any significance in the presence of divine mercy. Jobs struggle bears witness to the fact that God acts with the kind of power which no creature can comprehend nor resist. This renders us unfit to judge of God’s actions, because we know not what he does, or what he plans. Those who think they have strength to help others will not be able to help themselves.

This psalm is a lament, one of the most depressed of all the psalms; and it does not conclude, as usual with the least indication of comfort or joy, but, from beginning to end, it is sorrow and distress. It is also not on account of the people and or church that the psalmist here complains, but in his personal capacity about his troubled mind and the woe impressed upon his spirit by his physical pain and his recalling his sins and fear of the wrath of God. The psalm is considered a penitential psalm and is meant to turn the fear of the penitent into positive action in seeking to be in the right relationship with God. The psalmist argues with God about his existent disgraceful condition he was in and compared himself to the dead unable to declare God’s faithfulness, justice and loving kindness.  The psalmist felt lost in his pain and unable to receive God’s favour in comfort and unable to offer God any form of praise or reverence. His experience and words should however not be seen as despair, disbelieve or distrust, as if God cannot offer help or bring about resurrection, but rather a desperate cry for a swift response to his requests.

His resolve is to continue in prayer because his deliverance was delayed (v. 13). The author resolves to seek God early in the morning in silence and solitude, with a lively spirit, before the cares and business of the day or his sorrowful thoughts causes distraction. III. He sets down what he will say to God in prayer as:

1. He will humbly reason with God concerning the dismal distressed condition he was in and God’s perceived absence in it (v. 14)
2. He will humbly repeat the same complaints he had before until God show mercy on him and presents the following as his main grievance namely: (1.) That God was a terror to him: “I suffer thy terrors, v. 15.” The psalmist had constant fearsome worries of the wrath of God against him for his sins and the consequences he may suffer as a result of that wrath. He lived in constant fear and trepidation of falling into the hands of God and be punished for his sins and being on the receiving end of God’s anger. This terror experienced by the psalmist and Job comes as a sign that even those designed for God’s favour will suffer some form of terror before deliverance and that none is  granted indemnity from it. Though our prayers may not be answered immediately, we must not cease to pray, for God’s vision is for a chosen time and will be fulfilled. God delays the answer to try our patience and perseverance in prayer.

In today’s Gospel the long and hard journey of Jesus continues from the periphery of Galilee to the capital city. Leaving Galilee, Jesus enters Samaria and continues toward Jerusalem.  Jesus was often misunderstood and, abandoned by followers because of the demands he made on their lives. Jesus called Peter, James and John and three others presented themselves to Hi as followers and He wanted them to understand that there are requirements or conditions for being able to be His disciples.

Jesus requested the man who offered himself to follow regardless of the costs to strip him of everything he may value in live. He would own nothing and would have no place to call home.

To the second He, Jesus says “Leave the dead to bury their dead; your duty is to go and spread the news of the Kingdom of God”.  Do not be absorbed with your current situation; rather cast your view to the future and the developments that may accompany your new life received. He is warned not to look at the past as if there is something to be gained but to build a future in relationship with Jesus and fellow disciples. It is a call to “detachment from sin” and remorse.

The third one of the three new disciples was asked to break the bonds of family unity. This also means to break the patriotic bonds of race and the masculine family structure. Jesus is more demanding than the Elijah, who allowed Elisha to greet and take leave of his parents.  

These are three fundamental requirements for those who want to be the disciples of Jesus: (a) to abandon material goods, (b) not to be attached to things of the past (c) to break away from the family bonds. What is asked is to know how to re-integrate everything (material goods, personal life and family life) in a new way around the new alliance, which is Jesus and the Good News of God which He has brought to us.

Jesus lived and was aware of what He was asking of His followers with His decision to go to Jerusalem, the revelation of His plan, His journey and the exodus or crossing to a new live. The exodus assumes the dedication of one’s life for the brothers and the course and hence the instruction and discourse between Jesus and the new disciples.  This is the exodus, the crossing, the undertaking of which the communities should be aware, if they are to carry on Jesus’ mission.

If asked to compare each one of these three requirements with your life. How would you fare?  What sort of challenges does your decision to follow Jesus present you with?

Tuesday, 29th September 2020

ST MICHAELS AND ALL ANGELS

Michael is mentioned four times in the Bible, either as aiding Israel against her enemies or disputing with the devil. These passages have led Christians to see Michael, who is always pictured with a sword in his hand, as the protector of the Church and the patron of soldiers. Today’s festival is a thankful acknowledgement that, while the Christian warfare is not only against human foes, but against cosmic powers, against the authorities and potentates of this dark world’(Ephesians 6:12), yet we also have fighting with us the angels and the archangels and all the company of heaven; and, as in the past, so today their power is strong to defend, for they come from the throne of God.

Collect

Lord God of hosts you created the angels to worship and serve you: grant that as they inspire us in our worship they may also strengthen us in our fight against evil; through Jesus Christ our Lord  Amen.

Eucharist Readings:

Job 35:1-7         Psalm 148:1-6         Revelations 12:7 -12         Matthew 18:1-10

Already by this stage in his ministry Jesus had formed a distinct group of followers and had spoken of building ‘his church’. In such a group there was great potential for good, in mutual care and concern, but also for evil, if relationships broke down. The sayings collected in this discourse focus on this theme. They are as relevant to local church life today as they were among Jesus’ Galilean companions.

Any human society is concerned to establish a proper ‘pecking order’, and the gospels record several disputes among the disciples on this subject. Over against all conventional ideas of status and importance Jesus offered the model of the little child. The point was not any supposedly childish qualities of innocence or unselfishness but the status of the child at the bottom of the pecking order, subject to grown-up authority, dependent and powerless. To accept this lower rank (humble himself) is to be great, and to treat the least prominent as the most important is to echo the attitude of Jesus. Such an attitude is not natural, it involves a radical change.

We are responsible for our own spiritual health but also for that of our fellow-disciples, and a quick drowning would be more merciful than the fate deserved by one who hinders one of these little ones. This last phrase refers not primarily to children but to disciples in general, who have just been likened to little children. To recognize one another as little ones, and therefore as vulnerable, is to accept our pastoral responsibility for each other.

There are many lovely characteristics of a child. The power of wonder, the power of forgiveness and to forget, not to hold grudge, the humility and the trust of a child. We must remember the Jews used the world child in a double sense. They used it literally of the young child, but regularly a teacher’s disciples were called his sons or children. Therefore, a child also means a beginner in the faith, one who has just begun to believe, one who is not yet mature and established in  the faith, one who has just begun on the right way and who may very easily be deflected from it. In this passage very often, the child means both the young child and the beginner on the Christian way.

Jesus says that whoever receives one such little child in His name receives himself. To receive the child can mean to receive a person who has this childlike quality of humility. It can also mean simply to welcome the child, give them love, care and the teaching which they require to make them into good people. To help a child to live well and to know God better is to help Jesus Christ. This phrase can also have another and wonderful meaning. It can mean to see Christ in the child.

To satisfy the physical needs of a child, to wash their clothes, bind the cuts, soothe the bruises, and cook the meals may often seem a very unromantic task, but there is no one in this world who helps Jesus Christ more than the teacher of a little child. All such will find a glory in the grey, if in the child they sometimes glimpse none other than Jesus himself.

READINGS AND REFLECTIONS FOR MONDAY 28 SEPTEMBER 2020

Job 1: 6 – 22            Psalm 17 : 1 – 7           Luke 9: 46 – 50

The Collect :

God of our salvation,

we falter before the demands of your word:

pour out your mercy on us

that we may turn from our sinfulness

and walk the path of self-emptying love

made known to us in Jesus Christ:

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and forever.

Amen 

The gospel starts out with the rumblings of discontent as the disciples argue : “An argument arose among the disciples about which of them was the greatest.” What  makes matters even worse ,is that Jesus has just told the disciples that when he enters into Jerusalem, which they are approaching, he will be handed over to the authorities and will be killed. 

How the disciples missed the point! He confides in them that he is about to lose his life and their concern is who’s number 1!   And still worse there are three such incidents in the gospel of Luke (as well as in Matthew and Mark), where Jesus confides in them about his demise and three times the disciples grossly misunderstand him. 

What must Jesus have thought? His disciples, his chosen ones, the ones he called to follow him, those who were with him through His long ministry in Galilee – could not hold on to the message he gave to them.  They want to know who is the greatest among them. 

Jesus doesn’t blast out at them in anger. He simply dramatizes the incongruity of their actions by taking a child and placing it by his side: “whoever receives this child in my name receives me . . . for the one who is least among all of you is the one who is the greatest.” 

The child represented the “least” because they had nothing to offer to anyone.  Their worth was simply in the fact that they were, not that they had any power or influence. 

Receiving a child, like the young one Jesus introduces in the reading, is to receive Him, and further to that, is to receive “the One who sent me (God).”   The disciples are to be like that child, and in that way to determine who is the “greatest” among them. 

What a paradox. It is the exact opposite of what the disciples and what the world has us think and believe:  to be the greatest is to have and to exercise influence and power.  Jesus’ way is neither the way of the disciples or of the world.  Jesus’ path is the path of humility, the way of being less, yet offering more.  Jesus way is to a live  a life of service. 

Humility, is far from “putting ourselves down,”  or “being trampled on”,  as people may be inclined to interpret, it is the recognition of the joy that is inherent in our status as Jesus’ followers. The “joy” is not from what I or the disciples do or accomplish, but from the simple fact that we are intimately connected with Jesus and his journey. 

The disciples finally did understand, but it took the pain of the cross of Jesus to bring that understanding to them. Just as the cross scattered them (remember Peter’s denial), so the resurrection gathered them together in the person of Jesus. That would be their strength – the death and the resurrection of Jesus – and that would make all the difference in the world for them.  That is what makes all the difference in the world for us . 

Let us Pray :

Lord, thank you for calling us as you called your disciples and then for inviting us into your most vibrant life of service. 

Amen