Mustardseed Talks 2019

It is difficult to compare a Pharisee with a tax collector in any unbiased manner. They are both characters who are loaded with meaning in their context. One is the very representation of righteousness and the other the ikon of sin and betrayal. However, Jesus (as is his custom) has this capacity to reinterpret these two figures in a very different manner. Rather than simply reinforcing the predominant stereotypes, Jesus goes right to the heart of the matter. It is not how the community views a person that determines how God views them. It is the honesty with which a person sees themselves that opens the way for a good relationship with God. How honest with yourself are you when you stand before God?

What do you hope for? How deep does your hope go? What actions are you taking toward the realisation of your hope? Are there actions that flow from you almost beyond your own deliberations because your hope is so strong? Can you imagine the power of a hope that overcomes the lulling pull of simply giving up in the face of frustration and disappointment? A hope so strong within you, that you cannot help but keep giving yourself to that hope until it finds a way through to fulfilment. This is the power of kingdom hope. It is not about getting what we want. It is about giving ourselves to the much larger purpose and finding ourselves in the kingdom.

In a day of fragile self-esteem and uncertain identity, we have become loath to speak of people using the category of sin. Paul shows no hesitation in that regard - least of all in reference to himself! He claims top spot among sinners. Paul does so to make clear that there is no one beyond the reach of the grace of God. If even he, the chief of sinners, can become the recipient of this life-altering divine love, then there is no one who can possibly be outside God’s reach. In the perfect patience of God’s eternal view, the end game is the inclusion of every last person who is willing to join in the life of the kingdom of God.

Most of the choices we make in life are not binary. Life is full of nuance and alternate options. Yet, there are key moments when the choice before us represents a choice between self-interest or self-giving. We can stay with the established supports and comforts that we have grown accustomed to. Or we can follow the way of Christ - that continually calls us beyond these bounds. This is a crucially important decision. A decision that sets the course of a person’s life. It is not one that should be made half heartedly or with inadequate consideration. Neither is it a decision that should be avoided simply because it seems too hard to make. In life, something will have a primary hold on us. We can find our security in the default ways of our world. Or we can decide there is more life to found in following the way of Jesus and being held in the security of God’s way of self-giving love. What are you choosing?

If Jesus came to our church and healed someone, I don’t think the first thing we would react to would be whether he did it at the right time in the service. This tells us something of the difference between the religious environment we live in, and the one that existed in first century Palestine. Why were the religious authorities of that time so caught up with keeping their own rules? And why was Jesus so unconcerned (at times) by the thought of transgressing them? What are the rules about and what purpose are they meant to serve anyway?

There is something about the Good News of Jesus that is profoundly subversive to the status quo. In allowing himself to be lynched by his community, Jesus focuses a penetrating light on the systems of justice, judgement and righteousness. It becomes inescapably clear that when humans pronounce judgement (claiming it to be the justice of God no less!) it might just as easily be the arbitrary victimisation of the innocent! What happens to the pillars of society when that which we have self-assuredly believed to be absolute is revealed to be arbitrary? If what has passed for our knowledge of good and evil ends in the murder of God, what are we to do instead? And what are the consequences of this leaven of the Gospel in every society it touches?

This little prayer might be one of the best known in all of history. It is not surprising. Jesus offers it as a model when his disciples specifically ask for his help. What does this prayer model for us? What are the areas Jesus felt were most important in prayer?

Everyone likes to get the good part, right? We will take everything from a free upgrade to first class to the choices bit of the Sunday roast. But what if we have been mistaken about what the good part is?! What if our desire has been so shaped by what everyone else around us is desiring, that we have never worked out for ourselves what is genuinely good? Jesus’ encounter with Martha and Mary as a guest in their home reveals how easily we can adopt the assumptions of our culture and miss out on the really good part.

Casting out demons sounds a bit like a carnival sideshow act these days. Yet, the level of deep internal torment in the lives of many in our community suggests there is an ongoing need for deliverance. The Spirit world has no doubt regarding the authority of Jesus. Grace, truth and peace always trump judgement, lies and torment. When Jesus delivers the man tormented by the legion of demons this is no play acting. There is a move from one realm of power to another. The man moves into Jesus’ realm - and the demons lose their power over him. The same dynamic remain true and operable today. Worship Jesus and all other claims on your allegiance will fall away.

Discipleship has always been challenging. We are prone to attempt to take the call to follow Jesus on our own terms. This is the very thing Jesus rules out in the sayings we are considering today. Here we have a series of encounters with people who appear to have very reasonable excuses for why they cannot drop everything and follow Jesus. Jesus’ direct challenge in response to each of these objections reveals the stark nature of his call. This is not about adding a religious veneer to your established life-style and priorities. This call goes fair against the grain and challenges us to consider what is, for us, most important.

Each year, at the festival of Pentecost, we celebrate the coming of the Spirit upon the ragtag band of Jesus followers who would be formed into the church. It is understandable that the inexplicable phenomena that took place as part of the event often takes our attention. The wind, the tongues of fire and unusual languages were all intended to communicate important aspects of what was taking place. Anticipating the Spirit’s arrival, Jesus speaks of this coming as the arrival of an advocate - The Spirit of Truth. The work of revealing truth is perhaps the singular task of the Spirit - the truth of Jesus and the truth of each of us as well!

The story of the Good Samaritan has long been heralded as the example of how to care. But it begs the question whether this is an example we take seriously - any more than Jesus original audience would have. When Jesus first told this story, every character performed true to form except the Samaritan. The Samaritan, by contrast, behaved in a manner that was simply unbelievable! What do we make of this unbelievable tale? Is it simply a nice folksy story about how life would be better if people were more kind to each other? Or does it whisper something more of the true nature of God’s kingdom and how we might encounter it in our own lives?!

What is it with Jesus and lambs? How did this fluffy, gentle creature become so central to Jesus’ teaching and eternal identity? There is something about the non-threatening gentleness of the lamb, even in the midst of the kill-or-be-killed ways of our world, that speaks of the eternal nature of God’s kingdom ways. Uncompromising gentleness is a stark contrast next to the intrinsic viciousness of how our world does its business. The power of the gentleness is in where its confidence is placed. This is not confidence in brute force or dominance. Gentleness is the lived assurance that God’s ways will prevail in the end. Gentleness is a sign that the kingdom is among us.

When a promise is made, we are wise to consider the past form of the one making the promise. Have they been true to their word, and is what they promised in keeping with what we have observed of their character. When God promises (through Isaiah) that something new is coming, we can be assured by God’s consistent faithfulness to past promises made. Also, God has consistently done hitherto unimagined things among his people. Making humanity central to the creation story was new. Calling Abraham out to an unknown land was new. Making a covenant with the people was new. Isaiah indicates God is again about to do something beyond the imagining of the people. Yet we know a good deal of the character of our God. It may be new (and thus unknown), but we can be sure it will be good - better than we could imagine!

The story of the Prodigal Son has become known as a yarn about a wayward child and a very gracious parent. There is much more going on in this outrageous narrative that Jesus wove for his eager audience. The behaviours of each of the characters reveal something important. Together they suggest a way of being together that is barely comprehensible to our worldly understanding. A way in which the things we simply assume to be the most important are virtually passed over... And that which we almost dare not hope to be possible, is revealed to be true. Yes. God loves us that much. Can you believe it?!

For the fledgling church, struggling to find its place in a political culture determined to snuff it out, there were deep questions about where the adventure of following Christ was likely to take them. The Revelation of John seeks to offer some clarity and hope in response to that wondering. Throughout its dramatic visions there is recognition of the challenging realities the people of faith were facing. Yet, the vision also holds unswervingly to the lordship of Christ and the ultimate fruition of God’s kingdom. This talk explores a little more what that looks like.

In his high priestly prayer of intercession on behalf of his disciples, Jesus asks his Father for those things which would be essential for them. Oneness is an intriguing inclusion. Presumably Jesus, with his insight into human nature, would have known just how challenging being one would prove to be for his followers. Setting aside the splintering of the church into uncountable denominations, it is difficult enough for a single congregation to be one. Yet the disciples being one is a key and powerful testimony to the truth of who Jesus is. It is also a persuasive pointer to the salvation of the world.

This talk is part 2 of a 3 part series on the Revelation. There is an inevitable tension between the world’s way and the way of Christ. We feel it in our personal lives (see Romans 7). It can also manifest as a societal tension. Established power easily becomes threatened by the alternate frame of power and meaning that the way of Christ represents. Not the threat of being overthrown by brute force. It is the threat that love and truth pose to deception and intimidation. Any attempt to stamp out this threat makes the existing fragile power more transparent. The more force is applied… the more those in power reveal their ultimate powerlessness in the face of the eternal kingdom. The way of Christ stands through and beyond time. There are seasons of tribulation. Yet, the way of Christ prevails.

After the ructions that took place with Jesus crucifixion and the preaching of his resurrection, John (the writer of the book of The Revelation) was exiled on the island of Patmos. It would seem this was an entirely sensible thing for the authorities to do (from a Roman imperial perspective). The Revelation is a profoundly subversive text that dares to indicate an entirely alternate structure of power and meaning. For us today, as people shaped by centuries of Christian infused Western culture, the starkness of the challenge to assumed structures of meaning and power may not be obvious. Think about it for a moment... According to The Revelation, the greatest expression of power and authority in all of creation is a lamb! Seriously!?!

Isaiah looked over the horizon of his day and glimpsed a new day when life would be so different to the ways he was experiencing that the only way he could describe it was as a ‘new heavens and a new earth’! The seemingly fruitless struggle that characterised so much of his people’s history would come to a close. Something altogether new was to be created - not by the people themselves - but by the hand of the one who watches over and created them in the first place. The tenor and flavour of this new creation would be as different from the existing experience of life as chalk is to cheese. Rather than fear as the central organizing dynamic of communal life, there would be rejoicing and gladness. Isaiah could not have known that what he was glimpsing... what he was hoping for... was the way of Jesus of Nazareth. The way of self-giving that goes beyond death and on into resurrection life!