EPIPHANY 4 28 Jan - Feb3

SUNDAY 4

Mark 1:21-28.... (Sermon 2: “He speaks with authority”)

1 Corinthians 8: 1-13.... (Sermon 1: “Wise up on love.”

Deuteronomy 18:15-20....

Psalm 111

PREPARATION

By the authority of Christ Jesus we come into this sanctuary.

By the authority of the Gospel we come before the Holy God.

We come to experience that loving awe

which is the beginning of wisdom.

We make time for awe in busy lives,

and discover the inner light of wisdom.

For us there is only One God and Father

from whom streams all creation

and for whom we exist.

Praise God! I will give thanks to God

with my whole heart.

And we have one Master

through whom all things are made new

and for whom we exist.

I will give praise among fellow believers,

I will join with the congregation.

And we have one Holy Spirit,

by whom the church is serviced

and for whom we exist.

Great are the works of our Triune- God!

To be over-awed is the beginning of wisdom.

May our praise go on forever!

PRAYER OF APPROACH

God of flaming truth and burning compassion, give to your people the courage to turn to you with awe yet without craven fear.

You are so great, we are so small. You are so holy, we are so common. You are beautiful, we are shabby. You are sublimely loving, we are creatures of self interest.

As we turn to you, turn to us we pray, and in the light of your Presence let us find our true love and worship. Through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Amen!

CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE

(THEME: VULNERABILITY)

Let us admit how weak we are in times of temptation. Let us pray.

God of justice and mercy, we bring before you our vulnerable lives, praying for that reconditioning grace that can put things right and defend us from all evil.

We are vulnerable to all kinds of foolish ideas and assumptions;

to the pervasive acids of secular pessimism;

to the undercover agents of racist and religious arrogance.

We are vulnerable to the cults of outward show and fashion;

to the downward spiral of opinion-poll ethics;

to the anxieties and fears that riddle our society.

We have been vulnerable to the delusion of modern superiority;

to the contemporary waves of pseudo-scientific myths;

to the cynical voices that would destroy faith at all costs.

Merciful God, your holy Son knew how to deal with those whose vulnerability had been their downfall. Please may his Spirit so deal with us. Rescue us from evil, forgive our many sins, clear our perceptions, toughen our defences, and let the knowledge of our own vulnerability make us more understanding and forgiving of those who sin against us.

Through Christ Jesus our Redeemer.

Amen!

FORGIVENESS

Christ speaks with a note of authority, and grace permeates all his works. Now is the moment to allow that authoritative Word to ¾

erase your infidelities,

cancel your shame,

heal the wounds in your nature,

steady your shaky faith,

and re-invent your holy optimism.

I declare to you: Our sins are forgiven!

Thanks be to God!

PRAYER FOR CHILDREN

Dear God,

although you are so big and wonderful,

help us never to be scared of you.

May your love drive out all fear,

and your kindness make us glad

to trust and love you

all the days of our lives.

Through Jesus and Brother and Lord.

Amen!

PSALM 111

With every atom of my being, I thank you God,

here in the congregation, among people of grace.

Wonderful are all the things you do;

we meditate on them and are enraptured.

Your handiwork displays beauty and splendour,

and your true ways rule all time and space.

Rightly famous are your deeds, mighty God,

your compassion and forgiveness are celebrated.

Believers are provided with the best of food,

the covenant of grace ever encircles us.

What you can do has been made clear to us,

it is a heritage for all the nations.

Your hands, loving God, are reliable and just,

raising sign posts that can never be outdated;

They are set firmly in place from age to age

to guide travellers in goodness and truth.

You have sent a Redeemer to all people,

to seal the new covenant for ever.

Most holy and awesome is your Presence!

To be overwhelmed is the beginning of wisdom.

Those who experience such adoration

will constantly grow in their understanding.

Let everyone praise you, mighty God!

Your praise will extend for ever!

Ó B D Prewer 2002

WORD OF AUTHORITY

Mark 1:22

Where in the world

can we find one word

that’s there for our benefit

not for the speaker?

We search the newspapers

and visit the libraries,

We surf the internet

and question gurus.

Emptiness is all we find,

a sophisticated vacuity

or the vanity of fools

self-infatuated.

Is there no conclusion

to the searching and asking?

Is there no answer

to midnight silence?

Only you, great Soul,

Galilean lover of the lost

whose every word

is soul-valid stuff.

Come then and speak with us,

for we’ve nothing worth saying

but to treasure and echo

your fecund phrases.

Ó B D Prewer 2001

SERMON 1: WISE UP TO LOVE

Psalm 111, verse 10.

1Corinthians 8: verse 1

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT KNOWLEDGE

Does our present spectacular knowledge of this world, and of the laws that appear to govern the way things are, result in improving the quality of life on this planet? Are we becoming better, wiser people? Are we showing an ethical and personal profit from our knowledge?

Has the scientific and technological revolution enhanced relationships and enlarged human happiness? Has our trumpeted progress set loose more kindness, generosity, and compassion, or stimulated a greater hunger for universal justice?

Think about it.

Is a smart culture that can reshape the body, with spectacular surgical make-overs, spiritually superior to a culture that shaped stone implements?

Is the modern man who understands quantum physics a better person than an ancient shepherd who was willing to give his life for his sheep?

Do the eyes fixed on a television screens, drooling over “Australian Idol,” belong to better people than our grandparents who gathered around a piano singing songs?

Is a New Year’s Eve gathering on the Sydney Harbour foreshore watching spectacular fireworks, more sophisticated than an aboriginal tribe gathered around a campfire listening to a song man recite stories of creation myths and human responsibility?

Moreover, what about religion and intellectual progress? Think about the church and its people. The question is discomforting. Have over 150 years of intense Biblical and historical research and analysis and dedicated study, concerning the origins and outcomes of the Jewish/Christian faiths, resulted in wiser and better believers?

Think soberly about it.

Has brilliantly conceived and produced TV religion, commanding large audiences and running multi million dollar budgets, shown a spiritual profit in the community exceeding that of previous generations who were limited to small parish churches and non-conformist chapels?

Have modern hyper-evangelists using the best advertising know-how, backed up by the smoothest musical productions, made giant steps forward? Resourced by cunning insights derived from the science of psychology, so that they press the emotional triggers (like guilt, anxiety, fear) that tend to induce a flurry of reaction. Are the results superior? Is there a lasting outflow of love for God and creation which exceeds that created by the simple efforts of Paul and Barnabus, St Francis and St Clare, John Wesley and William Booth?

What do you reckon?

It seems to me that greater secular and religious ‘know how’ have in no way led to the making of better people.

TURN TO THE SCRIPTURES

Take a look at two texts that appeared in today’s Lectionary readings. The first one has been around almost 3 millennia, the second for 2 millennia.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Psalm 111, verse 10.

Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. ! Corinthians 8: verse 1.

I believe there is sanity in those two old-world texts which can save us from pretentious folly of aping the pretentious post-modern world around us.

What does fear of Lord mean? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom?

Many of those people in Old Testament times were quite literally terrified of God. Some folk still are. You will find religious individuals who get the jitters when they think of God. I find that sad; very sad indeed. I do not believe that craven fear is a healthy emotion, nor is it a legitimate basis for living the Christian life style. Fear is not being faithful to the Gospel of Christ Jesus who taught us to approach God as a child approaches a loving parent.

Recall also that St Paul wrote that the Holy Spirit we have received is not a spirit of slavery, sending us deep into a life of fear, but a spirit of adoption; a spirit of family love.

We do well also to underline a verse in the First Letter of John. He keeps telling us that love is what matters, and then asserts “perfect love casts out fear.”

Please my friends, have no truck with a religion of terror.

But that does not rule out awe. I believe that awe is a precious experience. Awe is a breath-stopping wonderment in the Presence of God’s light and all encompassing love. Awe can still the storms of our turbulent self-interest. It can overwhelm us and bring us to a unique kind of peace.

Awe. God give us awe! Wonderful, humbling awe!

Awe! Like the prophet Isaiah in the temple at Jerusalem, when he envisioned “the Lord high and lifted up;” God’s glory filling the temple. At that moment Isaiah fell on knees and prayed for mercy. “Woe is me. For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Awe! Like Peter in his fishing boat with Jesus, suddenly sensing that in this man from Nazareth resides the Holy Mystery of God. Peter fell down on his knees in the boat and cried: “Lord depart from me, for I am a sinful man.”

Awe. Overwhelmed with awe! Getting on our knees is not a bad place to be. Sensing our human ignorance and twisted nature, as we bow in the Presence of a Holy God, brings us a breath of pure sanity. Being acutely aware of our smallness, compared with the august love, beauty and wisdom of God, that is a first step towards healing our fractured lives.

Where there is holy awe, things fall into perspective. It is the beginning of wisdom.

KNOWLEDGE: ITS GLORY AND ITS LIMITATIONS

What then of knowledge? I am not some kind of troglodyte, despising the accumulated efforts of generations of bold thinkers, researchers, and experimenters. I share a hunger for knowledge, both secular and Christian.

From my childhood I have revelled in knowledge. Becoming one of Christ’s people enhanced and refined my appreciation of knowledge. I don’t see any necessary clash between science and faith. My favourite secular articles & TV documentaries (and books when they are written in simple terms!) are those about new scientific insights and breakthroughs.

The same goes for technology. I am happy to drive a modern automobile, and receive the care of skilled dentists, and I enjoy watching some tennis or football on the TV screen. I gladly use telephones, sit at my PC, and give thanks to God for CT scans and nuclear medicine.

Moreover, I treasure the wealth of the last 150 years of stringent Biblical scholarship. An amazing period of dedicated industry by gifted men and women. New finds in archaeological digs enthral me. I was excited as a puppy when the Nag Hamadi papyrus volumes discovered in Upper Egypt in the late 1940’s, were translated and published, including the Gospel of Thomas.

BUT....BUT..... I know that knowledge does not of itself heal the broken human spirit, or uplift a human being to new levels of generosity and justice. We may be smarter in some ways that our forebears but are we wiser?

I make a simple comparison.

I maternal grandfather, Walter Wheat, worked in a mine a child in England. Never had a days schooling. Taught himself to read from the Bible. Left his homeland and migrated to a small farming community under the shadow of some Tasmanian mountains. He carved a farm out of virgin forests. Built his own cottage, and constructed furniture out of packing cases (a fascination to me as a child! Leather hinges and old cotton reels for door knobs on cupboards.) Although living in near poverty, he raised a family who were loved and respected. He never set foot in a University. He never drove a car, not even a T Model Ford. After settling in rural Tasmania, he never visited other States of Australia; did not even get to visit his own picturesque State capital of Hobart, tucked between the Derwent River and Mt Wellington.

Compared with me, his “knowledge” was limited. I surpassed his in my second year at secondary school.

What is more, his religious studies were limited. He did not receive a theological education as I was privileged to be given. I have been enabled to sample the flavour of Hebrew and Greek; to study various versions of the Scriptures, and ponder erudite commentaries. I have visited the land where Jesus was born, lived and died. I have stood in the Shepherds fields and watched the moon rise over Bethlehem. I have bathed in Lake Galilee, and walked the Way of Sorrows in Jerusalem.

My grandfather had none of that. The Bible was the first and last book he read. And the sometimes obscure King James version at that! Although he tried to read widely, Grandad never had more that 80 books on his shelves, never got to look at one TV documentary on ‘The nature of Space-Time” nor live to see man sent foot on the moon. But he did faithfully teach Sunday school for over 40 years, and was a lay preacher in tiny rural weatherboard chapels for 50 years.

Has my knowledge made me superior to grandfather Walter? Sadly no. Walter’s faith and love and absolute Christian integrity, makes me seem a dunce in the school of Christ.

Knowledge can be a useful servant, but it does not of itself bestow either wisdom or enhance one’s character. What is worse, knowledge can become a megalomaniac monster.

Knowledge puffs up. Love builds up.

Grandfather was in awe of the love of God. He was in awe of the beauty and power of God’s creation. He was in awe of the cross of his Lord Jesus Christ. He lived his life with a sense of wonder in the Presence of the Sublime. Walter never stopped asking questions, and knew that all his answers were provisional. He loved with all his heart and soul and mind and strength, but never lost his sense of creatureliness in the presence of the majestic Creator and Redeemer.

Awe in the Presence of the living God is indeed the beginning of wisdom. It was wisdom that led him to love.

I would back grandfather Walter’s wisdom against the accumulated knowledge of many professors in the universities of this nation. And I would unhesitatingly rank his quality of love far above people like me.

AWE LEADS US TO GOD’S LOVE

Awe is sanity. It stops our proud huffing and puffing and gorilla-like chest beating. Awe induces a healthy bout of humility and it creates space for love. Love is the signature music of this universe. Only by love can we be in tune with it.

This is all you need to know, that which Christ has supremely shown us: God is love. Loving is wisdom; wisdom is loving God and loving one another.

Everything else is supplementary.

We know more about the universe than ever before. We know more about the interrelatedness of all things on earth. We know more about the skies and their majesty. We know more about the microscopic and sub-microscopic things that are all around us and within us. Our amassed knowledge makes people like Moses, Isaiah, Paul and even Jesus of Nazareth appear unsophisticated. And yet we know very little. All the knowledge of this world is not more than an attempt to chart the activity of God’s little finger when it is briefly flexed.

Academic knowledge is a not the way to get in touch with the Purpose that ingrains the universe and flowers upon this lovely planet earth. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It leads us to that core of all things: Holy, Divine Love.

Recently Danny, a kindly, middle aged man, asked me: “What is it all about? Bruce, what is this life really about?”

My answer was simple: “It is all about loving: giving and receiving love, Danny. Basking each day in the warmth of God’s love. Loving the great Lover at the heart of all things, loving the Christ who gave his all, and then sharing that love in the way you treat all people. Loving others like you love yourself. That is the secret.”

(This was, of course, nothing but a variation on the key theme of Jesus. I have no word to speak except his.)

Danny was not impressed. He did not retort impatiently, nor start a vigorous argument. He just wore an over-patient, almost pitying look on his face. My answer was too simple, too ordinary. Like the rich young man in the Gospel story, he turned sadly away.

This kindly, yet lost man, was looking for something more complicated; something more scientifically erudite. He did not comprehend that the most profound things of all are the utterly simple ones. A little child may know them, and the mentally handicapped person can comprehend them.

Knowledge puffs up. Love builds up and leads to endless joy and exploration.

SERMON 2: HE SPEAKS WITH AUTHORITY

Mark 1:22

They were astonished at his teaching, for unlike the scribes he taught them with a note of authority.

To speak with authority was evidently something rare in religious circles at the time of Jesus. He surprised people with his note of authority. When he spoke, people found something powerful happening to their psyches.

TODAY’S “AUTHORITIES”

These days the world seemed stuffed to the gills with so called authorities. They come at us from every side. They fill the magazines, TV channels, internet, radio and newspapers with their most confident opinions.

Health--both orthodox and alternative medicine.

Sporting pundits.

Dieticians

Music buffs

Gardening experts.

Stock market advisers.

TV and radio vets.

Psychologists

Criminologists

Astronomers

Astrologers

Ethical analysts

Political commentators

Art and literature critics

Education pundits

Motoring experts

Pop music gurus

Preachers claiming the ‘only true gospel’

All these, plus a host of enthusiastic authorities found among collectors of various persuasion; from antiques to stamps, from vintage cars to beer cans, from rare wines to types of barbed wire.

Authorities are everywhere, like locusts. The mass media delights in trotting them out on every question. They all claim to really know what they are talking about, and they seek to impress us, influence us, and in some cases manipulate and use us for their purposes. They respond with patronising purring if we listen to them, or discuss at length their ideas, and best of all if we take their advice.

The trouble is we have rightly become sceptical. Many of these authorities do not deliver what they promise. The stock market expert accepts no responsibility when his opinion proves grossly at odds with ensuing trends. The motoring authority is not really concerned if you follow his opinion and end up buying an automobile “lemon.”

Moreover, authorities disagree among themselves, often don’t practice what they preach, rarely admit mistakes, and seem to have forgotten the grace of humility. We are sceptical, and make jokes about authorities. Like the one about “experts,” which breaks the word down into: ex= out of, spurt=drip under pressure. Hence an expert opinion comes from a drip under pressure.

Yet, and here’s the rub, though folk are sceptical, the majority seem to keep listening to them. That’s enough to make some of us even more cynical!

CHRIST’S AUTHORITY

Now take a long look at a different kind of expert that has been around for a long time. An authority who is one of a kind: Jesus whom we call the Christ.

On the Sabbath in the town of Capernaum, he taught in the synagogue ¾

They were astonished at his teaching, for unlike the scribes he taught them with a note of authority. Mark 1:22

Then Jesus healed a deranged man and they were the more amazed ¾

“With authority he commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” Mark 1:27

Have you ever paused to ask what it would have been like to meet the human Jesus? Would it have been a delightful experience or a discomforting one? Most likely (provided you were not a closed-minded bigot) in comfort or discomfort you would have sensed a special kind of charismatic in Jesus.

All kinds of people came under his sway: women, men, lepers, children, the mentally ill, the physically handicapped, tax agents, fisherman, call girls, the Roman soldier, village people, city people, devout scholars like Nicodemus, divorcees like the woman of Samaria, educated Judeans like Judas.

How can one explain it? I am sure there were many strands that constituted this note of authority that set Jesus apart, and made people gasp in wonder. I will now look at three of these strands.

HIS WORDS AND ACTIONS MATCHED

What he said and what he did were in harmony. With this Jesus there was no credibility gap. He taught what he lived and lived what he taught. To use contemporary jargon, “he had it all together.” There was a humble confidence about Jesus which arose from his complete integrity.

What a shock that must have been. And still is. In a world teeming with pretentious authorities, in Jesus they met a genuine one. Like us, the rest of the mob had wide gaps between their faith and practice. Like today, even their most loving preachers should have advised: “Don’t judge my message by me.”

But Jesus had it together. It was like (in pseudo fairy tale language) living all your life among frogs and toads pretending to a crown princes, then suddenly having the real thing come to your town. His words and actions perfectly matched. There was no dichotomy in this person. That fact carried a powerful authority. They were astonished at his teaching, for unlike the scribes he taught them with a note of authority. Mark 1:22

THEIR SOULS RESONATED

When Jesus of Nazareth taught and befriended and healed people, something hidden, and maybe long forgotten, from deep within the human soul cried, “Yes! Yes! This is it! This is the real thing.”

Jesus is heard and seen as the person of authority because he awakens an echo of God that lies deep inside us. We come face to face with him and something sacred, no matter how far buried under junk, and resonates in his presence. A forgotten or neglected or wounded part of us gasps with new hope. Layers of pessimism, fed by numerous disappointments, cannot hold down that hope which awakes when Jesus is around.

It is like parts of that wide, semi desert Inland of Australia, where the sun has scorched, year after year, barren sand hills and plains. Sometimes there has been no rain for twenty years.

In the red sands lie little grey seeds whose future seems hopeless. Then one day a tongue of the Northern monsoons sweeps further inland, and thunder storms soak the land. Those little grey seeds leap into life. Within a few days the desert is ready to blossom as the rose.

That is another clue to the authority of Jesus. He awakens life that seem buried and hopeless. What he says and does calls to the seed-core of our being, and that core stirs and starts to come to life. They were astonished at his teaching, for unlike the scribes he taught them with a note of authority. Mark 1:22

THE SPIRIT SAYS “YES!”

When Jesus taught, or embraced, or dined with outcastes, or healed the maimed, the Spirit of God said “Yes!” to those who were willing to listen. This is often called the witness of the Spirit. God endorses the word of Jesus.

Without it, we preachers would be an utter waste of space. In spite of all our shortcomings, whenever we witness to Jesus the Spirit of God can take our inadequate words and say to some listening soul: “Yes! This is the truth! This is hope. This is where you should be going.” The Spirit of God may give our words an authority far beyond what the speaker deserves.

If the Holy Spirit can add authority to the words of sinners like us, think of what authority the Spirit can bring to bear on the words and way of Jesus. With a person who supremely, and with awesome simplicity, not only ‘talks the talk but walks the walk,’ the Spirit can affirm with a resounding ‘yes!’ that shakes the foundations of the observer or listener. They were astonished at his teaching, for unlike the scribes he taught them with a note of authority.

NO ROOM FOR CYNICISM

I claimed earlier that our so called experts are supposed to know what they are talking about. Sadly, they frequently don’t know half as much as they think they do. This leads to cynicism among ordinary people.

We do not need to cynical, sceptical, or even just a trifle suspicious, of Jesus. Jesus knows. He knows what he is talking about. It comes from his heart, from the deep well of his own unique spiritual experience.

Christ’s subject is the human heart and God. He has a grip on the Truth and our hungry soul recognises it and leaps with hope. This fellow Jesus knows God like no one else. He shares God’s love like no other. Whenever he speaks, whenever he acts, his authority comes from Absolute Reality.

And at his voice the lost rejoice and the demons flee away! “With authority he commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”

A GREAT THANKSGIVING

The joy of the Lord be with you,

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them up to God.

Let us give thanks to our wonderful God.

We delight to give God thanks and praise.

Majestic God of the universe, Friend of the planet earth,

we thank you for all that you have done for us.

For the land, sea and air, and all that lives therein,

great Creator we thank you.

For the long saga of the human race,

with its longing for goodness and truth

in spite of its superstition and sin,

Sustainer of life we thank you.

For the people of the Old Testament story

whom you called into a special service.

For their leaders who liberated the downtrodden,

the law makers who limited folly and injustice,

the prophets who spoke your hard truths,

the psalm writers who sang aloud their faith,

God of Israel we thank you.

For Christ Jesus, truly our brother

yet truly your beloved Son,

who lived with us and for us,

embracing the outcaste and the lost,

dying and rising for our salvation,

Saviour-God we thank you.

For the untameable presence of your Holy Spirit,

ever enabling, renewing and shaping the church,

placing love in our hearts and light in minds,

God-among-us, Spirit of Truth, we thank you.

And now, with the faithful people of every age and place,

and with the choirs of angels and archangels,

we join in the eternal hymn of praise:

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,

heaven and earth..... etc.

or--

And now, with the loving people of all time and space,

and with all your other children of the stars,

we unite in the cosmic hymn of praise:

Holy, holy, holy Friend, God of grace and truth,

heaven and earth... etc

PRAYERS FOR OTHERS

Most holy Friend, Saviour of those who call on you, please give us more of the compassion and authority of Jesus. Embolden us to heal the multiple diseases that afflict humanity and drive out the demons that afflict our contemporary world. Hear us, O God.