It was about 9.30pm when I left the ministry centre after the Prepared to Go workshop on Thursday (it was good, by the way). The petrol gauge warning light on the car dash was glowing. No problem, I’ll stop in at a petrol station on the way home. How convenient.
If I get a craving any time of the day or night I know there will be somewhere I can find food. I don’t even have to get out of my car! How convenient.
Once upon a time, if I wanted money, I’d go into a bank, wait in line and talk to a real person, maybe have a polite chat and withdraw some cash. But, who wants to wait in line, and who really wants to make polite chit-chat? Thank goodness for ATMs! Remember them? I could go to a machine, punch in a few numbers and be on my way. How convenient. Now, I’ve nearly forgotten what a $20 note looks like as I whip out my smart phone and some electronic magic happens. How convenient.
I could go on . . . shopping without leaving the comfort of my lounge room. Catching up with friends overseas in real time by staring at a screen. Even typing these thoughts and being able to hit the delete button when I make a mistake. How convenient.
But, I wonder sometimes whether we can have too much of a good thing.
“I will make America great again”. That was the promise of a certain US president. What an attractive thing to promise a people hoping for a better future. Simple. Straightforward. Easy to understand. It’s the kind of thing we want to hear from our leaders.
Jesus came to a nation hoping for a better future. The crowds flocked to his rallies. He had them eating out of the palm of his hand. He was the one, they were sure. All he had to do was say the word and they’d be right behind him. All he had to do was make that simple, straightforward promise: “I will make you great again”. Instead, Jesus spoke in riddles about eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
What was he thinking?!
Two students were doing well in their university course; so well, in fact, that when it came to the final exam they went out partying the night before, confident that they would have no trouble. They had a great night, and one thing led to another and they only got home at 5am and ended up sleeping the whole morning. They missed the exam.
All is not lost, they thought. They came up with a plan. They went to their lecturer and explained that they had been visiting a terminally ill friend out of town the night before. On the way home they got a flat tire and discovered they had no spare and no jack. They were stranded and ended up sleeping the night in the car and only made it back home mid-morning. They were very sorry to have missed the exam but could they still sit it that afternoon?
The lecturer thought for a moment and decided that since the students hadn’t had a chance to talk to anyone else about the exam she would allow them to sit the test. That afternoon she sat the two students in separate rooms and gave them each the exam paper. Page one, question one. A simple one for 5 points. “No worries”, each of them thought as they turned the page for question two. It read: “Which tire?” (95 points)
There’s a difference between being smart and being wise.
Ephesians 5:15 – Be careful with how you live, not as unwise people but as wise.
As a new pastor in a new parish you want the first time you lead worship to go well. Actually, it’s more than that, you really want to impress (or, maybe that’s just me?) Anyway, if you were present at my first service here at St John’s last Sunday at 8.30 I think you’d agree things didn’t quite go to plan. Nothing major and nothing that has caused me lasting emotional scarring (you too, I hope). As I think about it now, I think it was God’s way of keeping me humble, reminding me that I can’t control everything and that even when my plans go a little wonky it doesn’t mean God is suddenly hamstrung. No, even when things are less that perfect God still works through us, sometimes even more profoundly.
There’s something of that in Paul’s words to the Christians in Ephesus, I think. “Be imitators of God”, he encourages them. What is it about God that we are to imitate? Well, my ego wants to tell me that because God is perfect I need to be perfect (and didn’t even Jesus say that somewhere?), and being perfect means that everything goes to plan, I don’t make any mistakes and I get to control everything! But, then, it’s all about me. When Paul says ‘Be imitators of God’ he points us to Jesus. Jesus who was as human as we are. So, I like to think that if Jesus did work for a while in Joseph’s carpentry workshop he occasionally cut the timber to the wrong length, and didn’t get the angles right all the time. In other words, he made mistakes! And, things didn’t always go to plan. And, he didn’t think he had to control everything. In fact, he didn’t control everything! But, what he did do, and what he never stopped doing was to love, because that is who God is. And, that’s what Paul encourages us to imitate: the godliness and the humanness of love. Love is not about being right, or getting it right, and certainly not about being in control. Love always seeks the good of the other. There’s a vulnerability to love, a openness, a messiness even. We see that clearly in the way Jesus shows God’s love for us. Jesus shows God’s love – Jesus loves us – so we can be imitators of God.
'Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval. John 6:27
On this day of Installing Pastor John into the community of St John’s, we are witnesses to the Apostle’s account of that day on the grassy slope when the Bread of Life fed them all. We hear of a conversation between Jesus and two of the Twelve. Apparently, this conversation is a test for the two chaps. It also then is a test for us; a test of how we are living as disciples of this Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified and risen Saviour.
Phillip and Andrew are the two. They both can see the absolute impossibility of the call to feed over five thousand people out on those remote grassy slopes late in the day. They respond differently to the impossibility of Jesus’ call to feed the world. One resigns in complete defeat and has nothing else to say or do. One tries to find at least something to keep on working with even as he resigns himself to the fact that the task is still impossible.
Reminds me of being a Christian in a modern secularising community or a church in mission in the same environment. It all seems impossible! Just because it is impossible, and just because we may fail the test Jesus is giving us, does not mean it is all over. There is a middle road and there is continued things to do under the provision and direction of the Saviour.
May you be confirmed in both this day.