A Pastor’s Legacies

Themes: Sermon

Thomas Brooks (1608-1680) preached this sermon on his last Sunday before being ejected from the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity.
A 400th Birthday tribute to a courageous man of God.

26. Walk by no rule but such as you dare die by and stand by in the great day of Jesus Christ. You may have many ways to prescribed to worship by, but walk by none but such as you dare die by, and stand by, before Jesus Christ. Walk not by a multitude, for who dare stand by that rule when he comes to die?
Make not the example of great men a rule to go by, for who dare die by and stand by this in the great day of account? Do not make any authority that stands in opposition to the authority of Christ a rule to walk by, for who dare stand by this before Jesus Christ?
Ah! sirs, walk by no rule but what you dare die by and stand by at the great day.
Sermons of the Great Ejection, Banner of Truth Trust, 1962 (300th Anniversary Edition)

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The Unheard Word

Themes: On Language, Poetry, Sermon, T.S. Eliot

V
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.
(Ash Wednesday, T.S. Eliot)

“Then Pilate took Jesus and had Him flogged. The soldiers also twisted together a crown of thorns, put it on His head, and threw a purple robe around Him. And they repeatedly came up to Him and said, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and were slapping His face.
Pilate went outside again and said to them, “Look, I’m bringing Him outside to you to let you know I find no grounds for charging Him.”
Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”

When the chief priests and the temple police saw Him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!” Pilate responded, “Take Him and crucify Him yourselves, for I find no grounds for charging Him.”
“We have a law,” the Jews replied to him, “and according to that law He must die, because He made Himself the Son of God.”
When Pilate heard this statement, he was more afraid than ever. He went back into the headquarters and asked Jesus, “Where are You from?” But Jesus did not give him an answer.” (John 19:1-9 HCSB)

Some poems have their own gravitational field that ensures you keep orbiting back at specific times or through certain circumstances. It’s nearly Easter, it’s the time for reading Ash Wednesday.
What I notice this time is that even the poetic density of Eliot’s description can’t comprehend the questions, the cries, and the silence, as the world seeks words with which to bind the Word.

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See Him Coming

Themes: Personal, preaching, Sermon, St Philip's, Sunday

It’s been a long time since I updated this blog with a post about what I have been doing.
(Emm’s also been updating her blog)

So here goes…

Last week was probably the busiest and most stressful week of College for me so far.

The normal workload for College has been just manageable for me in the past few weeks. But last week I got a true picture of what it will often be like. I had an essay due in at the end of the week (today) and was preaching on Sunday (yesterday). The reality is that there will be plenty of weeks where essays and preaching collide.

It feels sometimes that if you keep pushing yourself for long enough then eventually your brain just says ‘no more!’
Even though I new I had more work to do than usual, I found that I managed to do even less. Everytime I sat down to study or practice my languages, I’d find some way to distract myself.
I think that I just needed a mental rest, the motivation to keep pushing hard at the work just wasn’t there.

Being conscious of preaching on Sunday, and not having completely finished my sermon preparation, also meant that whenever I sat down to read for class I felt that I should be using the time for sermon prep. Rather than being able to stick to a study programme, I didn’t have a clear idea of what I needed to be doing and when.

But that’s life, it’s not neat and tidy – packaged into manageable time units. I’ve got it much easier than people who are studying with families and young kids.

Life at College can be difficult, struggling to meet competing demands is never easy. And, as students, we add significantly to the pressure because we really want to be there, and we really want to work hard. There aren’t any slackers at College, everyone is conscious of the fact that we are for the sake of other Christians, and for the service of God.

The danger, probably the most common danger in any area of Christian life, is letting the work obscure our objective – which is to know God better.

Looking back at the week I can see God’s grace toward me.

The essay I was working on was for a subject called Congregational Ministry. I had to read a book called A Little Exercise for Young Theologians by Helmut Thielicke. I found this reading to be really spiritually refreshing. It is a helpful and pastoral little book, originally presented as a seminar to beginning students of theology. It is all about the dangers faced by Theological Students – dangers of losing contact with the body of Christ, of intellectual elitism, and of having a learning that outstrips spiritual maturity.
Thielicke’s tone of voice is so warm and direct that it feels more like having a Grandfatherly chat. It was a blessing for me to read it, and made me aware of some of the things that I am finding challenging. Particularly the need to keep a real and deep personal relationship with God – reading the Bible and praying – and making sure that my spiritual life doesn’t become merely about teaching other people (what Thielicke calls ‘thinking in the 3rd person).

Without any intention on the part of any of the staff at St Philip’s, the passage that I was preaching on at Church was also the subject of our Old Testament Lectures for the week. (Genesis 4-11). This saved me so much time in preparation and John Woodhouse’s lecture even had quite a few hints towards how this section could be applied in a sermon. This was another great blessing from God.
As I prepared for the sermon, I was struck again by the scope of what God is doing in Christ. The world-wide cataclysm in the days of Noah – by which God wiped the earth clean of all the filth with which humanity had stained it – is nothing compared with the act of new creation and cleansing which he accomplished in Christ.

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.” (2Cor 5:17 HCSB)

I’ve been trying to have a good rest over the weekends. This often comes under pressure when we are busy, and particularly when I have to preach. The reality is that if you are going to work hard, you need to rest well (otherwise you do just sit and stare at the wall when you should be learning Hebrew). I don’t work from Friday night through to Saturday night – a genuine Jewish Sabbath! I should stress that this is not out of some theological belief that Christians shouldn’t work on a Saturday/Sunday. I do have views on that but they are more complex (maybe another post sometime )
I need to have a good rest, it is important as a way to love Emma, and it is a practical way to trust God with the future…
especially when you’re preaching on Sunday.

We went to a Friend’s wedding on Saturday with Naomi and Russell (my sister and brother-in-law). The wedding was in Camden (on the southern outskirts of Sydney) and we headed off early and had some lunch together before the ceremony. It was good to spend time with some of the family.

The wedding didn’t run too late and we were back by about 8pm. Emma and I went to bed pretty much straight away – we dragged the mattress out into the loungeroom and slept in front of the air-conditioner. I woke myself up every hour-or-so to listen to the scores in the cricket (Australia vs South Africa in the World Cup). With the extra hour of sleep from the Day-Light Savings change and the early bed time, I had a really good rest. The Cricket only added to my enjoyment.

Church on Sunday went well, I felt that the sermon came together well and was conscious of God’s word speaking. I’m a stuttering mouthpiece but he chooses to speak. This is no claim for my ability (remember Baalam’s Ass?) but I learn even when I’m preaching.

Sunday afternoon Emma and I both were studying – Emma for her Diploma of Biblical Studies exam, me writing my Essay. We went down to Starbucks and studied together there. It was nice to be working together. I finished the essay by the end of the afternoon and decided to go down to St Andrew’s Cathedral to the evening service there (St Philip’s doesn’t have anything in the evening). I have a close friend doing MTS there and it has been a while since we caught up.

One of the highlights of the weekend was singing together at the service. Sometime I get so used to our songs that my brain stops engaging with the words, worse I stop singing the words as prayers to God.

We were singing See Him Coming and it struck me that we were taking part in the great Heavenly Court from Daniel 7. We were among the crowd singing out our praise as “one like a Son of Man” approached the Ancient of Days to receive glory, and honour, and power over all the kingdoms of the earth. That’s the song we were singing – it is the highest expression of that emotion you experience watching your sporting team win. Cheering them on and thinking ‘they’re our boys!’
We were singing: He’s our Man! There he goes, on the clouds of heaven, to receive the crown from the Ancient of Days, and he’s going for us! as our representative! He’s Ours!

God blesses us with those moments, when the stress and frusterations build up and I’ve thoroughly taken my eye of what really matters. (Incidentally, that’s the essence of what Apocalytic Literature is about, I think)
Suddenly you See Him Coming on the Clouds of Glory.
Ah, that’s what reality really looks like…

“I continued watching in the night visions,
and I saw One like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven.
He approached the Ancient of Days and was escorted before Him.
He was given authority to rule, and glory, and a kingdom;
so that those of every people, nation, and language should serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away,
and His kingdom is one that will not be destroyed.”
(Dan 7:13-14 HCSB)

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Sermon Outline: The Vandalised Creation

Themes: Genesis, preaching, Sermon, St Philip's

Following on from my last post. Here’s an outline from my sermon on Sunday.
I not posting this because I think that it’s extra-specially good, but for the sake of sharing ideas, getting feedback, letting people see how I’m going.
As always comments are appreciated.

The Vandalised Creation

Genesis 3-11

Our Stories:
Stories from the News…
Imagine for a moment that we are visited by Aliens, who drop into Starbucks down the road for a coffee and pick up a cheap newspaper…
what would they make of the stories?
What is the story of the world?

Is is basically a happy story, where things get steadily better, the lives of people get easier and more happy, with a few hiccoughs along the way of course.

Is it basically a tragedy? A sorry tale of good intentions gone wrong, great potential snuffed out too young, of the triumph of the ruthless and cunning over the vulnerable and honest?

Depending on which part of the newspaper you’ve been reading, depending on your own life experiences, you could well believe either of these things about our world.

But, What about your story? is your story a good story or a sad story. Do you things are getting better or getting worse?

A story for Israel:
These chapters are a story told by God to a group of people who lived at a time and place far distant from ours.

It’s a story to explain their origins, their relationship with God, their purpose,
and ultimately, how the world got its shape.

The Big question for us is: How does the story told by God to the people of Israel become part of our story? How do we fit into this story from the Bible? How is it part of our story?

Think about that question while we work through this part of the Bible together…

The Story:

a good world…

…gone bad

A world created by God, with order… we read of God seeing his creation and saying “This is very good”. It is a world that conforms to what he intended.

At the heart of this world, there is a garden, and in the garden God created a man and women, to share in his character, and to be his partners in caring for the world he had created.
This was what God intended, this was what he called very good…
but this good world soon went bad…

In the garden was a tree. the one part of God’s creation that was off limits to Adam and Eve. Eve was told by the serpent that if she took some of the fruit of the tree and ate it, she would become like God, knowing Good and Evil. Eve already was like God. He made her, and Adam, in his image. But he had reserved for himself the right to decide what was good and what was evil in his world. As God, the Creator, he is the only one who could properly know what is good and what is evil for his creation. But Adam and Eve, took this right for themselves. They determined good and evil for themselves, and rejected God’s right to decide for them. This is what we call sin.

It broke the world, and it broke the friendship between God and humanity that was at the heart of the world.
We soon see the consequences of this action in the generations of people who came after.
The most terrible for Adam and Eve, must have been what happened to their sons…

Cain and Abel

[I filled this bit in as a narrative overview, i.e. I retold the stories as stories…
One day Cain and Abel came together to offer some of their work to God…

Noah and the Flood

…

The Tower of Babel

Patterns:
It’s hard to tell just from my retelling, but as you read the story there are patterns to what happens…
Sin – speech – mitigation – punishment pattern (repetition)
Spread of sin – spread of grace (development)
Creation – uncreation – recreation

Conclusions:
Well, What kind of story is this story? The story of Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, and the Tower of Babel?

Is it a Sad/Bad Story? about the way that humanity continually makes a mess of God’s good work. God creates, humanity makes it a mess, God’s begins to fix things, he shows friendship and forgiveness, but people still wreak everything in sight. The world is a place of potential unfulfilled, people unloved, creation abused, and God unthanked or acknowledged?

Or is it a Good story? About a God who will not give up on his plan for a good world. Who when ever humanity destroys, he recreates – who shows love and commitment to people, time after time. And who’s love begins to create in people a response, so that some people do turn to God and seek to live in friendship with him.
Is it a good story or a bad story? There is no way to tell just from this section, it could go either way…

But how does this story fit into our world, how does it become part of our story? This is the question I asked you to keep thinking about…
As I was retelling it, you would have noticed that it’s a story about the whole world, which suggests that we must be involved. But how are we involved?

I said that it was originally a story for the ancient people of Israel. It was the story that God told them because it was through that nation that God would send his Son into the world. This story is the beginning of the story about Jesus, it’s the story that makes sense of why he came to the world and what he did.

When Jesus came he had a news-flash from God with the message that God was beginning again. He told people that this new beginning would see God’s original plan fulfilled, and all the graffiti with which humanity had vandalised the face of God’s world would be taken away. And this would be a new beginning for people to.

A new beginning for anyone who was sorry for their old life, with its mistakes, good intentions not carried out, potential unfulfilled, people unloved, a world abused, God unthanked, and unacknoweldged.

The message is this: God is beginning again. Anyone who is willing to trust Jesus enough to follow him with their whole life, will be made able to follow him into God’s new world.

So, this brings us back to one of our original questions: What about your story? If someone was to pick up the newspaper of your life, what would they read? I’m sure it would include good stories, and some sad stories. There would be things that you’d never want read out in public.

But does your story include a New Beginning?

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