Sermon transcript, 14 June 2015  (Baptism of Robbie England)

Lifted up in Christ by Fr. Dana

Ezekiel 17:22-24, Psalm 92, II Corinthians 5:1-10, Mark 4:26-34

Recording:  http://1drv.ms/1PCgcjf

Man was created to have relationship with God. In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, chapters 1 and 2 are about creation: how He made the universe and all that is in it, including how, after He had created all the animals, He paraded them in front of Adam and let him name them all. Adam did not find an adequate companion, and so God put Adam to sleep, took a rib and made a woman and that was the perfect companion for Him. They both also had a relationship with God: an intimate relationship; not just “He’s up there somewhere, we know about Him, we can see the evidence around us, but He’s gone to sleep and we’re doing whatever we want”. Genesis 3:8 says, “They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day”. They heard the sound, and the key is that they knew what that sound was: they knew what it sounded like for the Lord to go walking in the garden. They knew because He did it often and they were there. There is no Scripture that says that Adam and Eve walked with God, they were familiar with Him being in their midst and, as the Bible shows us, having conversation with them.

Unfortunately this particular verse is the beginning of the end of that relationship, because the second half of the verse says that they “hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” They didn’t normally do this, but on this day they did, and you can probably guess why: Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the one thing in all creation that God said “Don’t go there”. “You can have everything else: all the animals and plants, the mountains and the ocean, you can do anything you want to do, but don’t even go near that tree.” (Genesis 2:16-17) He said that because He knew that tree was tempting. Having everything else in the universe was not enough: they had to do it. And when they did, and God came walking as He normally did, they said, “Whoops! We’d better hide”, because they knew they were naked (Genesis 3:10). The remainder of chapter 3 describes how Adam and Eve, who were designed to have a relationship with God, and to walk in and enjoy the garden, because they did the one thing… There weren’t Ten Commandments; there was only one: keep your hands off that tree! And they disobeyed it. That was the end of that intimate relationship of actually walking with God.

Only God can restore us

As you know, we’ve all been suffering the consequences ever since. One of my daughters said that she would like to meet Adam and Eve, and just _______, because they were so _______! But the truth is that if we had been there any of us would have done the same thing. It’s easy to say “No, I wouldn’t”, but you weren’t there, and you don’t know. Man lost that intimate relationship with God through his own actions. Unfortunately, there is nothing that man could do in his own actions to restore that intimate relationship: it wasn’t possible. The whole Old Testament teaches us that it wasn’t possible. God tried to get that idea across to us by establishing all the sacrifices and various laws for the Jews: the people with whom He chose to have the closest relationship, to be an example to the rest of us. All the things He set up for them to do still didn’t do it. All the blood sacrifices, morning and evening – and even more often on the Sabbath – and all the things they had to do, never restored that relationship. In fact, God said the blood of animals sacrificed by a sinful priest isn’t going to do it. [Psalm 143:2, Micah 6:6-7, Galatians 2:16, Hebrews 10:1-4]

And so God knew this would happen from the very beginning – when He created Adam, He knew that Adam would fall – and He already had a plan: He already knew what He would do about it. [Acts 4:27-28, Romans 11:32] And it wasn’t to ask man to do something; instead, He asked His Son to become man, and to do what man could not do for himself, which was: to live a sinless life and to be sacrificed, to offer Himself as a sacrifice just as all those animals had been sacrificed, to offer Himself as a payment for the sins of mankind; and Jesus said, “Yes, I’ll do it” [Hebrews 10:5-7]. We have expressions such as “A man pulls himself up by the bootstraps”, which means “A man takes control of his own life and makes something of himself”. Or you hear of a “self-made man”: nobody helped him; he went out, worked hard, and did it. The truth is, in terms of spiritual salvation, we can’t do that. And in fact, even in our physical life: we think this person did it on his own – Frank Sinatra: “I did it my way”. No you didn’t! – Guess who gave you that voice: God did. Guess who made all those women go crazy over you: God did. Man did not lift himself up: God does.

God brings down the proud and lifts up the humble

And that’s what the Scriptures that we heard today tell us. Ezekiel 17:22-24 is talking about a tree, but he’s really not; the alternate reading (Ezekiel 31:3ff) talks about Assyria as a tree. He’s talking about Israel and the other nations including Assyria, and He has a theme: “I will do it; you can’t do it. You can try all you want, but you can’t do it – I will do it.” God raises up the lowly and brings down the lofty; God raises up the humble and brings down the proud: God does it. Ezekiel 31:10ff says, in other words, “Because I grew you big and powerful, and you were lifted up in your heart – ‘I did this’ – I’m going to bring you down.” And God brought them down. Whatever He wills to do, He does it: “I am the Lord… I have spoken, I have performed it.” The good news is that He wills to do good things for us; but we need to remember that He lifts up the humble and brings down the proud.

In Psalm 92:7 He talks about “When the wicked spring up like grass, and when all the workers of iniquity flourish”. It certainly seems in our day that if you’re doing wrong you’ll prosper: if you’re stealing, either from the rich or the poor, you’ll prosper; if you’re advocating evil, you’ll prosper, grow and succeed. But if the rest of the verse says “it is that they may be destroyed forever.” Hitler had a good thing going: it looked as if he was going to conquer the world; Napoleon and Alexander “the Great” both looked as if they would conquer the world; the Roman Empire and all these other empires were great and mighty – where are they now? God raises up and God puts down. The wicked spring up, but only for a season, so that He can show us through their end what the end of all man is when he depends on himself.

God lifts up the humble in Baptism

What does that have to do with today?   What does it have to do with Baptism? Today Robbie has come to be baptized; and while that’s a great thing for him, it’s an awesome thing for us as well. It’s an awesome thing when a man says “I can’t do this myself; I’m not capable; I need the Lord.” I grew up in an evangelical church where Baptism was primarily a sign: I was baptized at Easter, April 1963; and so if Satan comes after me and says “You’re going to hell”, I can say, “It says in my Bible that I was baptized on 12 April 1963, so there!” That’s true, but that’s not all that it is by a long shot. It wasn’t about me standing up and saying, “OK, I’m ready”: that’s a little piece. The big piece is what God did in me on that day. That’s why we call it a Sacrament. It’s not just a sign – though it is a sign – but it’s something that God does in a man or woman that changes him or her. It is a prime example of Him lifting up the humble, of Him doing something in a man that man cannot possibly do for himself.

In Baptism we renounce the lure of the world, the flesh and the devil; we turn to Jesus and place our trust in Him; and the reason we do it is that He is the only One who can raise us up; He is the only One who can save us [Acts 4:12]. And we will hear that we will need to persevere: that when we fall, we need to confess our sins; that when we stumble, we need to confess and stand back up: not stop, but keep walking. And the reason we do that is that although Baptism does an awesome thing in us… When that water is poured over our head and we are chrismated as Christ’s, an amazing thing happens; but it does not instantaneously make us perfect. Just as when we were born physically, we came out helpless: we had to be fed, other things had to be taken care of; we had to learn to walk… First we had to learn to crawl: we fell crawling; you try to go too fast and go “plop” on your chin…   We have to learn; we have to grow: we stumble, we crawl, we learn to stand, holding onto things, then we learn to let go and totter and fall, then we do that 117 times, then we take a step and our parents go nuts because we took a step… That’s what it’s like in the spiritual life: when we are baptized we are born again, reborn as Jesus said, born in the Spirit (John 3:5). We were born of water, which speaks of the water which breaks in the womb: physical birth in water and spiritual birth by the Spirit. That’s what happens at Baptism: water is a symbol.

A death and a new life

We die to self when we enter the water; and when that water washes over us, we are raised up again. [Romans 6:3-6] We have to die in order to live. We come to Baptism giving away ourselves, as Jesus did: He sacrificed His life; He went physically to death for us and was raised physically from death; and when you go to heaven and see Him, you will see that He still physically has the scars, He still bears the wounds in His hands. We know that because after He rose and appeared to the disciples they were able to put their hands in those wounds (John 20:27): He still bears the scars for us. And we are called to lay down our life, not physically – at least, not at Baptism – and that ends: the old man dies, and we become a new man – because of what God does, not because we submitted to Baptism. And we are given a new life, a life we’ve never had before. You will have a new life this afternoon that you’ve never had before, Robbie. It may not dramatically different, because again you start by crawling before you learn to walk; the spirit will be different, because the Holy Spirit will be in you; and we rejoice in that.

And in this ceremony we participate: we remember our Baptism, and we make the same promises again for ourselves that you make. This is a time to share in the joy of Baptism and the joy of a new life, and we are grateful for being a part of it.

Sermon transcript, 7 June 2015

God is building up His Body by Fr. Dana

Exodus 24:3-8, Psalm 116, I Corinthians 11:23-30, John 6:54-63

Recording:   http://1drv.ms/1iQlfm4

We’ve heard of the Body of Christ a lot; we say it practically every Sunday during the Eucharist. There are two aspects to the Body of Christ and they’re both very important.

Discerning the Body of Christ

The first is described in today’s Gospel: these are Jesus’ words (John 6:54-58). After the destruction of the temple in the early centuries of the Church, the Romans especially, and others, accused Christians of cannibalism – not because they attended a service, but because they saw the Liturgy. What is this – eating flesh? It has been a problem for the church; it was a problem for the followers of Jesus; it made even the disciples grumble. It is a really hard saying (John 6:60). In our day, if I want to sell a product to you, I will focus on the positive attributes and play down the negative ones, the things that would make you have second thoughts. It’s obvious that Jesus wasn’t selling something – He was calling followers… Actually He wasn’t calling followers – He was calling disciples, people to be committed; and He wanted to make absolutely sure that the people who said “yes” knew what they were signing up for.

The verses that follow bear this out (John 6:61-66). He’s talking to his disciples, not to the crowd. He has just told them something that makes a significant number of them think, “Uh… I don’t know if this is for me; this is pretty strange”; but He doesn’t sugar-coat it – He says, “This is the way it is. You can only accept it if the Father has called you.” This isn’t the Twelve, but it’s some of the others. Some who later went out as the Seventy-Two were included among the disciples: they were those who followed Him; they didn’t just come to get healed or something, but they were following Him around. Some of them after He said this went home: they said, “I can’t do this: it’s too much; I can’t bear it.” Can you imagine that? Can you imagine following Jesus for weeks or months, seeing everything that he did, hearing everything that He said, and then coming to a day where you say to yourself, “I can’t do this; this is not for me”? I find that hard to believe, and yet it happened. And that means I’m capable of that too: it’s not that I’m better than they are. I have the advantage of having read the whole Bible, and still I see that that could happen to me. Some walked away, but some stayed.

This was obviously important then; if it wasn’t important, Jesus would have said, “That’s just a minor theological point: don’t worry about it; it’s above your head. We’ll go on and do more important things.” He didn’t say that. it was important then, and it’s important now – because the importance of what he was saying about His Body and His Blood was not merely symbolic. The truth is, when we go to the table and that Bread and that wine are consecrated and we eat it, we are truly consuming the flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We don’t know how; we can’t explain it; we can’t take a microscope and say, “Oh yes, I see Jesus’ DNA in this”. But it’s true nevertheless: Jesus said it’s true.

And it’s important; and how important it is is expressed in the New Testament reading; because when we eat the flesh of Jesus and drink the blood of Jesus, it affects us. Every person who takes it, it affects us – either to strengthen us or to judge us (I Corinthians 11:27-30). It is as if I was one of the Roman soldiers, even the one who put the spear in His side, or one of those who hammered nails into His hands and feet, I would be guilty. “Not discerning” means “not understanding”: you take it, but it’s like McDonalds.   If we take seriously what Jesus said about His Body and His Blood, we must also take seriously the consequences of receiving it unworthily; and that is why every time we come to the table of the Lord we always have Confession first: we take the opportunity to say “This is a miraculous mystery; it’s the price that was paid for me; it’s important, it’s critical, and I need to look at myself: am I worthy?” Not, “Am I worth it in my own eyes?”, because we never are, but “Am I worthy in His sight? Have I cleared the table of all the junk that has accumulated over the week or the day?” Every time we offer the Bread of life, so that it does not become the Bread of judgment, we offer Confession so that we can examine ourselves and ask God to take away our sins. That sounds as if the Body of Christ is pretty important.

We are the Body of Christ

There’s another part of the story, though. It’s an awesome part, but there’s another part. Paul describes the other aspect of the Body of Christ: read I Corinthians 12:12-14. “Now you are the Body of Christ” (I Corinthians 12:27). Do you hear that? This is not just an analogy for a committee, organisation or corporation. Read I Corinthians 12:27-30. He’s making a point here: you are members of a Body – not a political or corporate body, but the Body of Christ. We are not sardines in a can, all of us identical; we’re not Lego pieces, all the same shape and size, and He can build whatever He wants to out of them – we’re unique. We are unique individuals, we have unique talents, we have unique gifts, we have unique skills; we look unique. We have different functions, purposes and roles, but we don’t have different value to Him. The person who has a hard time speaking and sweeps the floors and dusts the pews is every bit important to God as the person who puts £2000 in the plate every Sunday or the person who stands behind the altar: it’s not a difference in value – it’s a difference in role. And all of those gifts, functions and purposes are given to us uniquely for the benefit of the Body, the Body of Christ.

Read Ephesians 4:11-13. “Edifying” means “lifting up”; an edifice is a very imposing building, tall, big, daunting…   That’s why He gives us gifts, roles and talents: for the edifying, lifting up, strengthening, making impressive (as in making an impact on the world)… making the Body of Christ imposing… until it is perfect. Last week we talked about teleios, meaning “perfected”, and we used the analogy of a ship: to be teleios is to be a ship in which the hull is sound, there are no leaks, the rudder is strong, the masts are in place, all the rigging is there, the sails are up, ready to go. That’s His goal for the Body of Christ, which we are.

We are called to give our lives for the life of the world

In the verses before today’s Gospel, Jesus compares the Bread that He is to the manna that the Jews ate in the desert (John 6:49-51). Notice He says, “I will give it” [His life]: no one is taking it from Him [John 10:17-18]; no one murdered Jesus. Jesus came to give His life: if He didn’t want to give His life, there wasn’t anybody who could have taken it: not Herod, not the Emperor, not Pilate, no one – He gave it. He gave His flesh on the cross for the sins of the world. He gave His Body – the Body of Christ – for the life of the world; and we, the Church, are called to be His Body. If we are called to be His Body, and if He gives His Body for the life of the world, then He gives us for the life of the world. That is profound.

And that explains why Paul says what he does in Romans 12:1-2. We are called, to present our lives as a sacrifice, just as Jesus did, to give them willingly. God doesn’t take them: He wants us to give our lives to Him, just as Jesus did. It’s our choice. We give our lives in many forms: we give our time (we do this by being here); we give our talents and treasures. Some of us may be called to give our lives unto death: I don’t know what this culture will be like in ten years. But whether we give, and how much we give, is our choice. Jesus gave it all; what we give is our choice. Read II Corinthians 9:6-8. To help you choose: If you sow a little, you’ll reap a little; if you sow a lot, you’ll reap a lot; but it is your choice. This is not a guilt trip; this is your choice. The word for “cheerful” is “hilarious”: not “Ha ha ha…” but “Go for it; take it; I want to see what you’re going to do with it!” The truth is, no matter how much you give – even if you give more than you think you should, or than the world thinks you should; even if you’re the woman who only gives two coins because she only has two coins – you will have always enough, and an abundance for every good work, so that we can do more.

God is building us up

This applies to us individually, and it also applies to St. Stephen’s. We’re in a new place and a new phase. We’re not physically in a new place yet, but we’re entering a time of challenge and change. We don’t know yet what it will look like, but we know it will be different. Some people thrive on change: “Ah, yes! An adventure! Awesome! I’ve been waiting for this!” Some people don’t: for some people change is uncomfortable at least; for some it’s really, really scary. If this change is a little scary for you, a little upsetting, it’s alright: no one should look down on you for that. Change is hard: we’ve got used to the way things are, and now they’re going to be different. Some things will be better, as we see them, and some will be harder, as we see them; but in God’s sight everything will be better in terms of His purposes. We don’t know what the change will look like, but we know that it is part of God’s work to edify the Body. We are the Body; He is building us up, He is strengthening us, He will help us to grow, and we will look different – a good different; we will act differently – a good different; we will have new opportunities – good opportunities. But we will still be who we are.

We are the Body of Christ; Christ is the Head of the Body. Your body, most of the time, does what the head tells it to do. We will go where Christ, our Head, wants us to go, and do what He wants us to do; and the good news is, He will take care of us. Whatever we give, whatever we give up, whatever we sacrifice, He will give us always in all things an all-sufficiency, and in fact an abundance, for us to do good works. His desire is for our good, not our ill. He’s not saying, “Oh, I’ve been waiting for this: you guys have been real trouble; this is going to be fun…”   He’s taking us to the next level; and it’s for our good and for the good of people who don’t even know Him yet: people whose lives we’ll touch because of this change, people who don’t know Him yet, but they will know Him in the future, and then they will be part of His Body as well: they will become the Body of Christ.

Right now we’re like the disciples in the boat on the Sea of Galilee and the storm is tipping the boat every way and there’s water splashing in, and they’re saying, “Oh my God! Don’t you care that we’re going to die?” But Jesus said, “What are you worried about?” If you can, instead of hiding in the bottom of the boat and thinking “I’ll be glad when this is over!”, take a deep breath, stand up, walk to the front of the boat, stand there in the crowd and feel water splashing on your face and the wind blowing your hair, and enjoy the adventure –it is going to be an adventure. Feel the spray, feel the wind, and know that neither of those has power over the One in the boat, whose Body we are. Hold fast to the knowledge that He will protect us, and He will bring us to a place of safety – just as He did the boat: they made it to the other side and it was calm – and that place will be a home for St. Stephen’s. If you’re worried, if you have concerns, don’t hold them in; share them with Edye and me; let’s pray about it.

Maybe God put something on your heart that we really need to think about, that needs to be something important about where we go, and it isn’t important where we are now. We need all your input, because we’re moving together. This isn’t my idea: “I’ve been waiting for this; now we can get to the place I want.” He’s taking us where He wants us to go, and He speaks to each of you. Sometimes other voices speak to us too – voices that makes us afraid, voices that tell us, “That can’t be God – no way!” – but by sharing together we can discern what is the Lord and what is not. That’s the way we learn to hear God’s voice: “Oh, I’ve heard that voice before, and that has nothing to do with God”, or “I’ve heard that voice before, and that’s God, and I’m not sure I like what He’s saying” or “I’m not sure I understand what He’s saying”. Together we can do this, because God wants it done.

He will carry us, He will protect us, and He has a place for us, because we are the Body of Christ. We receive the Body of Christ and it changes us; it strengthens us, that we may be the Body of Christ. Let’s do it.

Sermon transcript, 31 May 2015

God is launching the ship by Fr. Dana

Isaiah 6:1-5, Psalm 93, Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-16

Recording:  http://1drv.ms/1iQjHIJ

Before I start, I have a message for you, from I Thessalonians 2:2-3. I’m going to change “we” to “I”: “I always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in my prayers. ³ I remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Truly I thank God for you: you are a blessing to me and to my family, and to the Lord, most importantly – seriously.

A vision of hope

The Old Testament reading begins with Isaiah 6:1. Uzziah was a good king (Israel had some good kings and some rally horrible ones), perhaps the second best since Solomon (Jehoshaphat is hard to compare with), and he reigned for fifty years: that’s a long period of good. But now he’s dead, and there’s a year of mourning, and it was during this year of sadness that Isaiah was given the vision in this chapter. It was a vision of hope in the midst of despair. It was a vision of such hope that every Sunday during the Eucharist we declare a portion of it. Maybe you recognise it: when we celebrate the Eucharist, we declare what the seraphim said in this passage: “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of power and might; heaven and earth is full of Your glory.” (from the Sanctus; see Isaiah 6:2-3) The passage tells how overwhelming this experience was, and the effect it had on Isaiah, who said, “Woe is me, for I am undone!” (Isaiah 6:5) – “I’m not worthy of this” – like Peter was when Jesus first met him and provided the harvest of fish. They’d been fishing all night, and Peter said, “Get away from me: I’m unclean, I’m not worthy of Your presence”. (Luke 5:4-8) Nonetheless, God was with us: He was with Peter and He was with Isaiah; He didn’t leave. What He did was in the Spirit: what He did symbolically for Isaiah was that He took a coal from the altar and touched Isaiah’s lips, and his lips were no longer unclean (Isaiah 6:6-7); in fact his whole body was no longer unclean.

In the Psalm we heard that the Lord reigns, that He’s clothed with majesty (Psalm 93:1), and all of these things that we saw in Isaiah. Nonetheless the floods have lifted up; the earth has lifted up in a threat to overwhelm, the floods look as if they’re going to bury us (Psalm 93:3). Yet Psalm 93:4 tells us that “The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters”: those waters that look like they’re going to flood you out are just noise. It’s Satan making proud boasts, but they have no power; and the reason they have no power is that “The Lord on high is mightier… than the mighty waves of the sea”; and His “testimonies are very sure” (Psalm 93:4): we can count on it. That doesn’t make things easy.

The way of the world and the way of the Spirit

In Romans 8:12-14, we heard that those who have received the Holy Spirit are to live according to the Holy Spirit: we are to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, rather than the siren songs of the world, the flesh and the devil. The world is always trying to get us to focus on ourselves: “What’s good for me? If it feels good, do it. You can prosper – who cares about anyone else? You can be anything you want. You can do anything you want.” The flesh says the same things: “Gimme, gotta have it, gotta have it…”, whether it’s money, sex, new car, whatever… That’s what advertising is all about, to appeal to your flesh: “Ooh, I need that!” If you turn away and think about it, you don’t really need it: that car won’t get me to work any faster or any better than the one I have; in fact the insurance would be about three times what I pay on my car now. It appeals to “I want it, gimme, gotta have it, need it, now!” And you know the devil doesn’t have your best interest at heart: he never has. Just ask Adam and Eve.

In the Gospel we heard that all men and women are creations of God, and therefore they’re born of water. Jesus talked to Nicodemus about being born of water (John 3:5), and that makes sense: when you’re an infant in your mother’s womb, you’re surrounded by fluid, and when you’re born the water breaks and it comes gushing out. With our first child, Edye was sitting on a chair in the kitchen when her water broke; it was as if a huge water balloon was sitting on the chair and somebody popped it. She was dry, and there was a flood of water was coming from under the chair. Eowyn was born of water, and that’s enough to make us a creation of God.

That doesn’t make us a child of God. That requires us being born of the Holy Spirit; and when that happens, something happens to us. Jesus says, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes.” (John 3:8) I’m sure you’ve experienced that: you’ve been walking on the street and all of a sudden a gust of wind blows your hat off or blows your umbrella inside out, and you think, “Where did that come from?”, and it passes, and things are calm again. That’s nature; that’s also, Jesus says, the way everyone is who is born of the Holy Spirit.

Wait a minute – that’s not logical. In other words, He’s saying that those born of the Holy Spirit act in ways unexpected by the world: if you’re born of the Holy Spirit, you will do things – not every day, not continuously, but there will be times when you do things that your unsaved friends don’t have a clue about: “Why the… would you do that?” In fact, some of your saved friends may not understand you: “God can’t want you to do that…” Yes, He can. He asked His prophets to marry a prostitute [Hosea 1:2ff] or to lie on the ground for a year [Ezekiel 4:4-6] or to go with no clothes [Isaiah 20:2-5] – but He had a purpose: He was trying to make a point to the people, and the people weren’t listening. He had to get extreme. Extreme sports have nothing on God: that’s playtime; God can be extreme. Those born of the Holy Spirit act in ways unexpected by the world, because the world cannot comprehend the ways and purposes of God. It’s not their fault: if they don’t have the Holy Spirit, they can’t understand the ways of God; our minds aren’t built that way.

Then to prove it, Jesus says that the Son of Man must be lifted up on the cross (John 3:14). There’s an example of God’s ways being totally foreign, incomprehensible even to the men who followed Jesus for three years. “The Son of Man must go to Jerusalem and be lifted up on the cross.” “What! No, Jesus! Don’t say that! Forbid that!” Jesus said, “Get behind Me, Satan!” (Matthew 16:21-23) God’s way just didn’t make any sense to Peter. That’s the way God works.

We’ve been in the harbour of preparation…

What’s your point, pastor? How does that apply to me?

Think of Saint Stephen’s Charismatic Episcopal Church as a ship. It has been in the harbour for twenty years, since its inception.   “Being in the harbour” doesn’t mean that we haven’t been doing anything or that God haven’t been doing anything, or that we’ve missed whatever His plan was and He has put us on the shelf – I am not saying that. Quite the opposite: we’re a ship in the harbour because we’re being built and fitted for a journey; and any time God builds something He takes His time. In the USA there is a yearly construction contest: who can build a house fastest? There is a competition where you build from the foundation up and build the whole house in about a day and a half. You can do that, but you would not want to live in that house: after only a few months you would start seeing cracks in the wall, because they didn’t take the time to build it right; the whole goal was to be fast. God’s goal is not to be fast – God’s goal is to build something that will last not just ten, twenty or a hundred years but for eternity. Whenever God builds something to last, He always spends much more time preparing the foundation and the infrastructure than we ever expect.

Look at Jesus: He spent roughly three years in active ministry, from the time He was thirty until His death when he was thirty-three. But He lived thirty years before that: He grew up as a child; He was under the authority of His father; He was learning… just for those three years. But His ministry was not limited to those three years, because when he died His ministry didn’t stop, and when He rose His ministry was transformed: it wasn’t just speaking to people on earth – it was transforming people who hadn’t even been born yet: His ministry still goes on. That was exactly God’s plan from the beginning.

We’ve been in the harbour this long because God is not building a row-boat: something for a couple of people to sit in and paddle around and enjoy the flowers and the birds and then come back to the bank. He is building a mighty sailing vessel with three masts, rigging and sails, to carry a multitude; and He is fitting it to withstand the high seas – not the harbour. We’ve been in the harbour, but that’s not where we’re going or what we’re built for. We’re built for the high seas, and the high seas means storms, high waves, fear, adventure… we don’t know, all of this…. We’re not quite finished: He doesn’t wait until the last little touch is made on the ship; as soon as we’re seaworthy he sends us out. He’s been working in us to make us seaworthy; He’s not finished: there’s more to be done, there’s a lot of learning and teaching and healing that still has to be done; but He has determined that we are far enough along that it’s time for launch.

…but now we are being launched

We can be confident in this, because He’s the one in charge of the timing. On Tuesday afternoon I received this letter from the Anglican Diocese of London, dated 22 May: “Dear Father, You may be aware that St. Margaret Pattens has undergone significant repairs in the last year and more are currently being planned. Along with our emerging partnership with other Anglican churches, we are actively planning for a growth in our mission and ministry, and this will mean significantly more use by ourselves of the church on Saturdays and Sundays. With that in mind, I am writing to formally give notice to you under the terms of our agreement… that your use of St. Margaret Pattens will cease on 1 September 2015.”

The church of St. Margaret Pattens needs their space, and that’s OK. I’d been feeling that God had something for us; now I know that it’s God’s plan and not my feeling.

It continues: “We have thought very carefully about this and have consulted other colleagues, because we know that this will cause some difficulties for you. It has not been an easy decision for us, as we greatly value what you bring to the mission of the wider Church. If you wish to look for the use of another church, I would be willing to look to see if there would be other possibilities for you. Do let me know your thoughts. With best wishes, Martin Sargeant, Head of Operations.” (I think he’s acting as the Archdeacon.)

We have been notified: 1 September, we are being launched. This is exactly what God has wanted, even if we don’t think we’re ready; but He is doing this. Like Isaiah, we are coming to an end of a very distinctive period in the life of St. Stephen’s. As we saw a couple of weeks ago [from the photos at our 20^th anniversary celebration], we’ve got some tremendous memories of what has gone on in this place. But what’s gone on is not because of this place – it’s because of God. And God isn’t going to stop working just because we change places. It’s been good, and God has given us people over the last twenty years who have poured their lives into us for our good. Some of those people are still here, and some of them are still pouring their lives into us even though they’re not here.

We can’t see where we’re going – but God can

But now He is sending us out, and we cannot see where we’re going. That’s the scary part. As in the Psalm, we look out, and chaos fills the world. The seas will probably be rough at times; but God reminds us that though those floods are lifted up, they’re nothing but noise. As when Jesus was asleep in a boat on the Sea of Galilee – and that wasn’t even a big boat; it probably had a single mast with a sail – and the disciple said, “Oh, don’t You care? We’re going to die! Wake up!” and Jesus says, “Don’t you trust Me?” And then He said, “Cut it out!”, and the storm stops. We can have that same kind of confidence, because we’ve learned from the disciples, and from Jesus being asleep in the boat, that it’s OK; we’ve never experienced that before, but we have their testimony. Though the floods be lifted up, God is higher and mightier than all.

The Epistle to the Romans tells us that we are to live according to the Holy Spirit: to follow His leading rather than the lure of the world, the flesh and the devil. So we’re not going to look for a place in a rich neighbourhood where we can get big – unless that’s where God wants us to be. We want to know, “God, where do you want us? Where are You sending us? And help us to understand why You’re sending us there.”

In the Gospel, we find that our path may not make sense to the world; it may not even make sense to us. I don’t know where He’s calling us; but I do know that wherever He calls us to, if we go where He calls us, we will prosper in the ministry that He gives us – maybe not in the ministry that we envisioned, not in the plans that I had, but in the plans that He has.

It is for God’s purpose

My previous Bishop’s favourite word is teleios; it appears in the Bible and is translated in some places as “mature” or “perfect”. One of those places is Colossians 1:28. Referring to “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27), it says, “Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” That’s what God is doing in us: that’s that building in the harbour, that building that will keep going on in us wherever we go. He wants to make us perfect; not so that we can be a trophy on the shelf, but so that we can become perfectly obedient and perfectly carry out His will, and also help others to become teleios. One picture of teleios is a ship; the hull is solid, it’s airtight, all the masts are built and strong, the rigging has been put on, the sails are up, full of wind and ready to go: nothing lacking. That’s what God is doing in us, not for our glory but for His glory, and for His purposes: that we might bring other people on board and that they might become teleios as well.

That’s what God is doing; we don’t understand how. We know that’s His purpose; we can’t necessarily automatically correlate the things that are happening to us in our personal lives, in our church – Why is this going on? Why do I have to go through this? Why are You asleep, Jesus? – We don’t understand; but He’s doing it, and we need to trust Him, because the ship of Saint Stephen’s is about to be launched.   No longer will we be sitting in the cradle where it’s stable, where we can all sit on one side of the ship and it won’t tip – we’re going out into the water: not just the calm water of the harbour, but we’re going out past the breakwaters that smooth the waves, out to where the sea is rough. And He will never give us more than we can handle. We may be standing at the rail saying “Oh, my God!”, but He will be there. He has a place for us; He has a new place for us. It’s new to us: it may not be a new building, but He has a new place for us that will match the destiny that He has for us; and we can’t see that yet. So we don’t know where we’re going, but He does. He knows exactly where we’re going; He’s had it written down for aeons; we just can’t see it. And so our task is to discern what His heart is; and we need help. We don’t want to follow our flesh or the world or the devil; we want to follow God. I have a vision that God gave me 25 years ago, but I don’t know that that’s the vision for this church.   The vision we want is God’s vision; and if it’s God’s vision, it will also be the Bishop’s vision; and if it’s the Bishop’s vision it will be our vision; and we all need to embrace what God wants to do, and to embrace it we have to discover it. And that doesn’t mean, “Here’s what the next 100 years are going to look like.” He may just say, “Just go here, and I’ll tell you what to do when you get there.” But it has to be His word and not ours.

Pray

The responsibility of deciding rests, under the authority of the Bishop, with the Rector’s Council, which at present is me, Dcn. Andrew and Dcn. Dado. But we’re not the only ones who hear, and so here’s what I would ask you to do:

• Please pray that God would reveal His will to us and to you, that we would be in unity, not with some “10-year master plan for reaching 500 people” but unity with His plan, and that we would faithfully obey everything that He directs.
• And I ask that you would pray that every scheme and attack of the enemy would be exposed and defeated; because if God has something more than us, you can bet that the enemy is going to pull out all stops to try to defeat it. That’s true of all believers; if all you’re doing is sitting in the pew warming it, Satan’s not going to do much to disturb you, because he already knows you’re ineffective; he doesn’t want to rile you: Heavens! You might get serious. But if you’re striving to do the work of God the way God wants you, he will come against you just as he came against Jesus. He knew Jesus was a threat – he just didn’t know how bad! And so he did everything he could against Jesus. Pray that he will be defeated and that we won’t listen to his plans but we’ll listen to God’s plan.
• And also pray that not one person in our church will be left behind. Change is hard; for some people it’s really hard. For some people change is “Oh, something new! Exciting! This is awesome! This is adventure!” But for some people, it’s “No! I was just getting used to what we were doing. I was just getting the hang of it.” Some people have physical reactions to change, and that’s OK, but we need to help them. We want no one to be left behind.

On a practical level, please send me the address of where you live. I want to plot on a map where everyone lives – not necessarily so that we can get in the middle of where most people are: that might be God’s plan, or it might not – but wherever we go, we want it to be as easy as possible for people to get there. My heart is that we can have a place that we can have 24/7, all the time; we can have men’s fellowship, women’s fellowship, choir practice, informal practices, acolyte training… any time we want without shelling out more money. Maybe that’ll happen; maybe that’s a few years down the road: we’ll see. But if we can have your address, it’ll help us to discern the impact of whatever God is speaking to us. Of course if you’re planning to move somewhere in the near future, it would be nice to know that too. We don’t want to control where you’re moving – that’s your business – but help us to know.

All hands on deck!

Really what this is, going back to the ship analogy: this is a call from the Admiral, from Jesus: “All hands on deck!” Whether you’re in the prayer ministry or healing ministry or young adults or worship or acolytes, or maybe you’re not really involved yet, God is saying, “All hands on deck!” This is getting serious: we’re going on a journey, we’re going on a mission, a mission to build disciples; and we need all the hands we can get, because there’s a lot of work to do. The time of mostly preparation is over: preparation will still go on, we’re not perfect, but now there are other things that need to be accomplished, and we all need to be on board. I pray that God will touch you and me, all of us, to give us a sense of destiny: that He has something good planned for us, and it probably won’t be easy. He could just throw it in our lap – He’s done that before – but if He doesn’t, we need to be prepared. So pray, pray, pray, that His will be done.   We have three months; we don’t have to rush, but we do have to be serious and listen. And if you hear the Lord saying something to you, please pass it on, and we’ll share it with the Rector’s Council and the people, and let’s see where this adventure takes us together.

Sermon transcript, 24 May 2015, Pentecost Sunday

The Person and power of the Holy Spirit by Fr. Dana

Acts 2:1-21, Psalm 104:24-35, I Corinthians 12:4-13, John 20:19-23

Recording:  http://1drv.ms/1PCbwd1

Pentecost is a significant time in the history of the Church: the Holy Spirit was not on the earth before that day: something happened, something new.

What is the Holy Spirit? If you were raised on Star Wars, it’s not “the force”, although the Holy Spirit can be with you. However unlike the force the Holy Spirit cannot be controlled; there is no training programme for you to go through to control the Holy Spirit (to control “the force”). The Holy Spirit also does not have a “dark side”; the Holy Spirit is all light, all good, because He is good. In fact, the question I asked – “What is the Holy Spirit?” – is a trick question, because the Holy Spirit is not a “what” – the Holy Spirit is a “Who”: He is a Person.

Who is the Holy Spirit?

The Nicene Creed has a section each for the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the section on the Holy Spirit, this is what it says:

“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life…” Read Genesis 2:7. The Holy Spirit is the Lord and the Giver of Life: He brings life; He causes life. Two years ago when Edye and I visited St. Stephens’ for the first time in this decade, we heard the reading about the dry bones (Ezekiel 37:4-10). The army, though it was miraculously restored with bone, muscle and sinew, was not alive until the breath came. Is there a breath to which it can be said, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain”? I’m not aware of a breath out there that inhabits the four corners of the earth. So who was this breath that came and breathed into the dead army? This breath was the Holy Spirit, who came and breathed life into this army; and that is what he does to us: He is the Lord and Giver of life.

The next line of the Nicene Creed says, “…who proceeds from the Father…” The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, when the disciples were gathered, because God the Father sent Him, at Jesus’ request: “I will ask the Father and He will send you…” (John 14:16). Jesus only did what He saw that the Father was doing, so He knew that this was God’s plan, and He asked the Father, and the Father did it. Also read John 14:26. Jesus did this because He knew that the disciples could not accomplish in their own power all that they were called to do: they didn’t have a chance; and so He said, “I will ask the Father and He will send you the Helper.”

The next line of the Creed: “…who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified…” Here is proof: the Holy Spirit is not a force; the Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit is worshipped, just as God the Father is worshipped, and just as Jesus the Son is worshipped. When He met the women and they fell down and worshipped Him (Matthew 28:9), He did not tell them, “Don’t do that: I’m a human” – He accepted their worship: He is God. The Holy Spirit is also God.

“…who has spoken through the Prophets.” We could be here for quite a while looking at all the examples where the Holy Spirit spoke through the Prophets; but we won’t – we’ll just look at one. The children of Israel have been wandering through the desert, eating manna – the food of angels – and whining that they don’t have any meat. And so God had Moses gather seventy elders around him, and… Read Numbers 11:25. In fact, the Spirit was so powerful that although two of them remained in the camp, when the Holy Spirit fell on the sixty-eight, He also fell on the two in the camp. He came on these seventy men, regardless of where they were, and they all prophesied [Numbers 11:26-27]. The Holy Spirit speaks through the prophets.

“The power of the Highest will overshadow you”

The section of the Creed about Jesus Christ also talks about the Holy Spirit: it says that He “…was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man…” Jesus was conceived in the Virgin Mary because of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit did not become a physical person and have sex with Mary so that Jesus was conceived – the Holy Spirit came upon her. When the angel came to Mary, He said this: read Luke 1:31, 34-35. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you…” This is why we call Mary the Mother of God, and Joseph her husband – not the Father of Jesus, because He wasn’t. The Holy Spirit came upon her, and she conceived Jesus. Notice how similar these words to Mary are to the words Jesus speaks to His disciples regarding the coming Pentecost (Acts 1:8). That’s what happened at Pentecost: the Holy Spirit “came upon” the disciples. Tongues of fire settled on them (Acts 2:3), but the Holy Spirit didn’t stop above their head: He went inside them, into their hearts, into their spirits.

…that all might be saved

And strange things started happening. One of them, the most obvious, was that they started speaking in other languages. They weren’t what we would classically call “speaking in tongues” – it went far beyond that. If I speak in tongues, I speak in a language that I don’t know, and you hear me speaking in that language. That’s not what happened here: each person hearing the disciples heard in their own native language every person that was speaking (Acts 2:6-11). Being drunk would not explain this! All eleven of them were speaking, and all however many hundreds of people who were there heard all eleven speaking in their own language. It’s as if I am speaking one thing, and every one of you is from a different country, and every one of you hears it in your own language: it wasn’t what I was speaking – it was what happened between what I said and what you heard. That defies the laws of physics: I can’t make a sound or speak a word that one person hears as a totally different word than someone else does. This was amazing; this was the Holy Spirit.

In our reading we heard Peter talk about the prophecy in Joel (Acts 2:16-21). This is not an audio-visual spectacle to make people’s hearts flutter. The goal is to save lives, to rescue the perishing: that’s why the Holy Spirit came.

Our second reading talks about the gifts, the various manifestations, of the Spirit. It talks about diversity, but then says, “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all” (I Corinthians 12:7). If He gives you or me a gift, we could go around saying, “Look at this gift that I’ve got – it’s bigger than your gift.” It’s not – it’s for the profit of all. Later on it says, “one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills” (I Corinthians 12:11). That’s what it means to be the Body of Christ. We each have different gifts: we don’t all need to be an eye or an ear or a hand; I think I’m probably a left knee-cap! All the parts are important, and they all have to work together for the body to function properly. And the Holy Spirit is the Master of all this: He causes us all to work together to fulfil the commands of the Head – and the Head of the Body is Christ. We together are a Body – not a club or an organization where we have roles: I’m the Secretary and somebody else is the Vice-President – no, we’re a Body: we’re an organic, living Body, and we work together to fulfil the direction of the Head. The love of Christ flows through the veins of the Body: it nourishes us, it fills us; and the Holy Spirit lives in us to make that real and to manifest it in the outside world, that all might be saved.

The key to authority

Then we hear in the Gospel that the disciples are shut in this small room, quivering because of what just happened and what they think could happen. They were afraid of the Jews who had just put Jesus to death, along with the Romans. Jesus came in (He didn’t bother unlocking the door) and gave them peace; and He gave them the Holy Spirit; and with the Holy Spirit came authority. (John 20:19-22) They had authority because they were under authority: they were there because He had called them as disciples. They didn’t know what to do – they didn’t receive any specific instructions when Jesus died – but they came together because they were a body; and He gave them authority. The reason they have authority is because they are under authority. You remember the Roman army captain: the centurion came and asked that his servant be healed (Matthew 8:5-9).

Why don’t we see more evidence of the power of the Holy Spirit in our day? It’s not that the Holy Spirit was really powerful on the first day and over time He dissipated – like the smoke of our incense: it’s really powerful if you’re close to the thurible, but the further away you are the weaker it is, and pretty soon it disappears, and now I can get very close to it and wouldn’t smell much. Is it not possible that our cultures – the world’s culture – have got us to the point where we really want to use power for our own benefit? There are even ministries that will teach you how to use the Holy Spirit to get what you want; that’s not what the Holy Spirit came for. In fact, when we step out from under God’s authority to go our own way, we lose His authority. It’s not something that once I’ve got it I can go anywhere I want and do anything I want – we only have authority if we’re under authority.

The power of living with God in control

One of the places where we have recently seen the power of the Holy Spirit was in a bunch of guys dressed in orange jumpsuits kneeling on the edge of the ocean with men in black behind them with swords, and the men in orange are praising Jesus. That’s power! Power doesn’t have to be rising up and slaying the enemy. The power God gives could do that – He did that with Moses and Elijah – but sometimes He chooses to do something else: sometimes He makes us witnesses in intense trial, even in death. Read about the saints in the first few centuries of the Church: there are some amazing things. People were fried on griddles, like a sausage in a frying-pan, and they did not renounce the Lord. That’s power; and that’s witness, because the people around were affected by what they saw. People today are affected by seeing those men in orange – and that doesn’t mean that only men do that; women do too; it just hasn’t made it to YouTube.

“The manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.” He may indeed want us to prosper, even as individuals; He may want you to have a really good job. But if He does, it’s not just for you – it’s for your family, for His Church… He wants good things, but it works together for good, not just for me.

So the key to seeing the Holy Spirit move in power is not, “God, You need to send Him again because He’s got worn out down here” – the problem is in us. Have you ever heard the saying, “God is my Co-Pilot?” It means “I’m flying, and He’s sitting over here telling me what to do.” Wrong picture: God is not my Co-Pilot. God is my Pilot. He knows where we’re going, and He knows the best way to get there. When you receive the Holy Spirit, God becomes your Pilot. He makes the decisions, and our responsibility is to become like Jesus: to see what He’s doing – to see what the Father is doing – and go with it. If the Father is taking you to a new job that’s better, go with it. If God is saying, “You’re right where I want you to be; stay there, and I’ll tell you when it’s time”, we need to enter into that with joy, not grumble and then say, “OK – is it done yet? Now can I change?” It means being patient. This is a perfect relationship; and I guarantee that if you do that, your life will be amazing. I don’t mean they’ll make a movie out of it – I mean you’ll say, “I’ve never lived like this before: it’s incredible. What it’s doing in my heart is amazing.” It’s good, but it’s scary, because you have to give up control.

Are you familiar with CS Lewis’ The Narnia Chronicles, especially The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? When the children come into Narnia and meet the beavers and find out about Aslan, Lucy asks, “Who is Aslan?” Mrs. Beaver replies, “‘I tell you, he is the King of the wood, and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion, the great Lion.’ ‘Ooh!’ said Susan. ‘I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel quite nervous about meeting a lion.’ ‘That you will, dearie, and no mistake,’ said Mrs Beaver; ‘if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.’” (Aslan is a metaphor for Jesus.) “‘Then he isn’t safe?’ said Lucy. ‘Safe?’ said Mr Beaver; ‘don’t you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.’” (Ch. 8)

If you live with God in control, it’s not safe, but it’s good: it’s incredible. The results aren’t guaranteed. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to live long and prosper. Remember Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego: King Nebuchadnezzar built a huge image, 90 feet high, and said everybody had to worship the idol; and these three men refused to do that (Daniel 3:1-7, 12). So they were brought to King Nebuchadnezzar, and he spoke to them. (Daniel 3:14-15) Do I follow the Lord or not? This is pretty scary. What did they say? Daniel 3:16-18. “We believe He’s coming through; we believe He’s going to rescue us; but if we’re wrong it doesn’t matter: we’re still following You.” Just like the guys in the orange jumpsuits: “All I’ve got to do is say the word, and your head will stay attached to your body.” “Sorry. Actually, I’m not sorry: I’m not going to follow you – I’m going to follow Him.” They heated up the fire, tossed them in – and they’re walking around in there! (Daniel 3:24-25). That was the Lord. And so they came out and Nebuchadnezzar made a decree: “Don’t say anything bad about the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, because if He doesn’t kill you, I will.” It changed his heart. That’s the power of the Holy Spirit.

That’s the power that we see in Thomas. Jesus gets word that Lazarus has died and says, “Let’s go to Jerusalem”; and the disciples say, “Are you crazy? They were just trying to kill you. Why would you go back there?”; and Thomas says – “Doubting Thomas”: “I ain’t going to believe unless you prove it” – Thomas said, “Let’s go with Jesus, so we can die with Him.” (John 11:7-8, 15-16) “I don’t want Him to die alone” – He didn’t say the last part, but that’s what he meant: “If He’s going, I’m going.”

That’s what we’re called to do. That’s the kind of Holy Spirit power we’re called to have: the power to tear down idols – if that’s what God’s called us to do; power to confront the culture, if that’s what God’s called us to do; power to die on a beach somewhere, if that’s what God’s called us to do; power to declare the truth in love, even though people will misunderstand it, twist our words and hate us for it: we’re called to do what is right.

The power to build a better church

We’re here not to build a better life, but to build a better church – and I don’t mean a better church than has ever existed before. I’m just saying that we’re here to build the kind of church God wants, that He built early on and has built many times throughout history: not a church that is angry at the world, the flesh and the devil – although it’s ok to be angry at the devil – but a church that will go into the world and show – not just say, but demonstrate – the love of Christ. And we have to do that first with each other: if we can’t love each other – whom we’ve seen – we can’t love strangers on the outside.

…a church that comes against the sins of the flesh and defeats them, not by passing laws but by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. That doesn’t mean we don’t try to pass righteous laws: we want bad things to be illegal and good things to be legal; but that’s not going to save us. What will save us is what we do regardless of what the law says. If the law says that evil is good, we have to do the good; and if we are put in jail for it, “Sorry, o King, but we’re choosing Him.”

… a church that stands unflinchingly against the devil and that is so obedient to the will of God, whatever it is, that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. The gates of hell are not an offensive weapon: the devil is not coming against you swinging a gate. Jesus said “On this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18) because the church is storming the gates of hell: the church is on offense, not defence; the Church is not hiding in a room wondering when the Jews will come, knock on the door and take us away – although they may do that: it won’t be the Jews this time… but we won’t be hiding in a small room just waiting. We are offense – not offensive. (Yes, there are groups that claim to be the Church that make a point of being obnoxious to people; I don’t think they have saved any souls. They may feel good inside if they have spoken a piece of the truth, but they haven’t done the work of the Lord.)

To have a church like this sounds really great in theory, but I’m neither worthy nor able to lead a church like that. I guarantee I can’t do it. That’s why He sent the Holy Spirit. He can do it; He is worthy; He is able and – even better – He is willing. He’s looking for people to say “Yes”: that’s all it takes; not for our glory, but for His glory.

So what do we do? It’s called reckless abandon. Go for it! That’s what He’s called us to do. Then we will see the power of the Holy Spirit at work; whether it’s in lack or prosperity, life or death, whatever it is, we will see the Holy Spirit work; we will see men and women and children saved; we will see amazing things happen, whether the culture changes or not. We just need to say “Yes”.

Sermon transcript, 17 May 2015

Wait for the Holy Spirit by Fr. Dana

Acts 1:1-11, Psalm 47, Ephesians 1:15-23, Mark 16:9-15, 19-20

Recording:  http://1drv.ms/1iQiTDB

Now we know what that song was talking about: “Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord”. Jesus told His Apostles to wait. I’m sure they were happy to wait: after Jesus was crucified they gathered in an upper room with the door bolted, shivering and waiting for a knock: “They’re coming to take us away…” He told them to “wait for the Promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4), and that Promise was the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). Why did He do that? He told them to do that because He knew they didn’t have a ghost of a chance to accomplish anything without the Holy Spirit.

Last week we talked about how we immersed by the love of Christ. We aren’t just filled with it: God doesn’t take a compartment of our heart and inject it with a syringe – He fills us up with it, He surrounds us with it, and we walk in it all the time. There is no place where we can go together away from it. That helps us understand that no matter what we do, no matter what Satan tells us, we haven’t stepped outside it. Yes, we’ve sinned and done wrong; yes, we need to confess and repent… but He hasn’t cut off His love, He hasn’t turned the spray off until we get our act together: we are always walking immersed in His love.

But today we see that we are not only immersed in the love of Christ, but we are also immersed – baptized – in the Holy Spirit. And it’s the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, who gives us the power to love the way Jesus loved and the way Jesus loves, and the way that we are called to love.

We are called to be witnesses to the end of the earth

He said, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and then you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem and all Judea, in Samaria” – everywhere that He went – “and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8) – beyond where He went. They will be witnesses – not teachers of doctrine, not, “Here’s the manual, let me teach you the precepts” – they were called to be witnesses.

What is a witness? If you are called into court as a witness, what do you do? You don’t testify to something someone told you, because the judge will throw it out: it’s called hearsay. You testify to what you have seen directly, to what you have experienced personally: not somebody else’s experience, but your experience; and that’s what these disciples were called to do.

And they will indeed reach to the ends of the earth – except these eleven men didn’t: there are places in the earth that they never got to. Was Jesus lying? No – He’s just speaking the big picture. This happened in the Old Testament with Elijah: read I Kings 19:15-16. God gave him specific instructions, which he didn’t fulfil. Elijah didn’t make it to Damascus: as he was going, God took him up – Elisha was with him; he didn’t die, but God took him up – but Elisha received a double portion of his anointing. Elijah didn’t do it, but it still got done: Elijah didn’t anoint Hazael and Jehu, but other prophets did [II Kings 8:13, 9:1-13]. In exactly the same way, the Eleven Apostles don’t make it to the ends of the earth; but the Gospel does, the faith does. He was not saying, “You eleven men are all there are, and you have to go and do the whole thing”; He said, “You go”. When He was praying for them at the Last Supper, He said, “I don’t pray just for you, but also for those who will come after you and follow you” (John 17:20). That’s what He means when He tells the Eleven, “You’re going to go into all the earth”: not you personally, but you and a person who follows you and a person who follows him or her… and on and on…

And so Jesus was telling the truth; and in fact, we are some of those followers. We stand in the line of succession back to those apostles. He’s giving us the same command He gave them. That doesn’t mean we are all supposed to quit our jobs and become missionaries somewhere. Some may be – some of us may be called to England, some may be called to Africa, or the Philippines – who knows? Some may be called to be good parents and raise up faithful children. Some may be called to be honest businessmen and women of integrity and to show forth the love of Christ in the workplace. But we are all called, because today we are still carrying out the commands that Jesus gave to His disciples.

What God wants for us

In our second reading Paul prays for the Ephesians some specific things; but just like Jesus, Paul is not praying only for the Ephesians – in fact all of the letters that Paul sent to various churches, the churches were encouraged to share, to make copies and pass them around, so that everyone could receive the benefit of those letters [see Colossians 4:16]; and not only them, but then handed down to us so that we receive the benefit of those letters. So although in this letter Paul is praying especially for the Ephesians, it also applies to us in the same way as Jesus at the Last Supper says “I do not pray for these alone but also for those who will believe in Me through their word.” So what does Paul pray for the Ephesians? What is he praying for us? What is Jesus praying for us? Because He ascended into heaven and sat down at God’s right hand, and He ever, ever – meaning all the time, 24/7, 365.24 – prays for us, intercedes for us (Hebrews 7:25).

Paul says this: “wisdom and revelation, in the knowledge of [God]” (Ephesians 1:17). Wisdom is not knowledge. Knowledge is facts: I know all these things; wisdom is understanding how they’re put together and how they are applied: How do they apply to my life? How do they apply to this situation in which someone has come to me for prayer? Wisdom is the ability to take facts and revelation and apply them to that situation. And God give us that: Paul is praying that God would give us that. Revelation is understanding that only comes from God: I cannot get revelation by studying. That doesn’t mean that while I’m studying the Bible God can’t give me revelation; but revelation is not understanding what I’m reading – revelation is understanding something that goes beyond what I’m reading; it has to be revealed to me. But all of this comes from the knowledge of God – not from the knowledge of Buddha or Mohamed or anyone else, but the knowledge of God. And so education for the sake of education, by itself, is worthless; that doesn’t make it bad, but it has to have wisdom, the wisdom of God.

Paul also prays that we would have enlightened understanding (Ephesians 1:18). “The Enlightenment” is a name given to a period of history; the period before it is sometimes called the “Dark Ages”. That term as applied by people in the Enlightenment, so there’s a little prejudice there: the “Dark Ages” were not totally dark, and actually had some very faithful people and faithful understanding in them. But “enlightenment” means “to push out the darkness”; it is being freed from ignorance – instead of doing something just because it’s a habit, understanding why you’re doing it and what you’re doing.

Paul prays that we would “know… the hope of His calling” on us. You who are just coming out of college, going to university: could you not apply yourself much more if you knew one hundred percent, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what God has called you to do? If you knew that God had called you to be a doctor, a nurse, a lawyer, a mum, or whatever it is… what hope would that give you? No uncertainty, no fear… Would that not give you more confidence, if you knew exactly where you were supposed to be and exactly what you were supposed to be doing! That’s what Paul prays for us.

He also prays that we would know the riches of Christ’s inheritance in us. I have something of value that has been bequeathed to me because Jesus died: I inherited it. If you knew the riches that are yours because of Christ Jesus – I’m not talking about “I want to be a millionaire”; I’m not saying that He promises that we’ll all be rich or that any of us will be rich; but we have riches, we have something of value, we have the pearl of great price, for which the farmer sold all that he had and bought the land just so that he could have the pearl – if we understood what those riches were – and that’s another whole sermon that I will not preach today – how many of our temporal comforts would we be willing to give up? If we could see what will be ours in heaven, and perhaps even on this earth – maybe not money, but spiritual children – if we could see that and understand the impact we would have, and understand the riches we would have, couldn’t we do without that brand new phone? Do we need a iPhone 7, 8 and 9, and an iPad, and I’m tired, and an ITV, and I’m sick of it? We could do without those.

And most of all, Paul prays that we would “know… the greatness of His power toward us who believe” (Ephesians 1:19). What is that power? Power to say, “I command you, traffic, to split and for me to get to work on time?” I don’t think that’s what he’s talking about. He’s talking about that same power that raised Christ from the dead (Ephesians 1:20) – there’s no greater power than that – and set Him above every other “principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named” (Ephesians 1:21) – every name: Satan, government, education, art, culture: everything that can be named; there is no dominion that is higher than Christ. And that same power is toward us who believe, not to use to get what we want, but to do what he’s called us to do. If we keep focused in that direction, we can’t lose. If we turn away from that direction, we can’t win. Which would you prefer? I know where I’d rather be.

Signs of faith

That sounds really good. Now we come to the Gospel reading. The first time Jesus met the Eleven after rising from the dead, what did He do? “Way to go, guys, you men of faith and power, I’m proud of you – well done!” He didn’t say that – He rebuked their unbelief (Mark 16:14). “The women told you, and you didn’t believe them. Thomas – the others saw and told you, and you didn’t believe them.” Don’t be too hard on Thomas, or call him “Doubting Thomas”, because he’s also the Thomas who said, when Jesus said “I’m going to Jerusalem to die”, said, “We may as well go with Him” (John 11:7-8, 15-16). But after He rebuked them for not believing, He says, “You – go into the world to preach the Gospel and baptize – that is, make disciples” (Mark 16:15, Matthew 28:19-20). Jesus, you don’t understand: these guys couldn’t even believe what they were told from people who were witnesses; and now you want them to do what? “Go – but wait. Go, but don’t go yet. Wait!” Because He knew that once the Holy Spirit got hold of them, then they could go, then they could do, then ten out of eleven of them could go and do until they were put to death for the faith. Only John became old; the others met a very untimely and unpleasant end.

And He says when they go that these signs will accompany them (Mark 16:15-18), not so that they could test God – the devil tempted Jesus to do that in the wilderness: “If you’re really God, must make these stones turn into bread”; and Jesus said, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Matthew 4:3,7) – but He gave them these signs so that whenever they needed them – you’re in a situation, and the only way out is for this to happen, it will happen – God will do it. They went, and the signs were confirmed (Mark 16:20). They believed Him, they trusted Him: they took His word for it. They didn’t take Mary’s word for it; Thomas didn’t take the other disciples’ word for it, but they took His word for it; and they acted.

 Breathing the Holy Spirit

Do you sense the call of God on your life? I don’t mean just in some huge “God wants me to give up everything and go somewhere” – that may be what He’s doing, but He may be doing smaller things that are just as important. Do you sense the call of God on your life? And if so, do you feel inadequate? I can’t do that. Are you crazy? You want me to what? That’s a good place to be – it’s where the disciples were. You are inadequate, and so am I; and it’s OK, because we know the One who is all adequacy, the one who supplies everything. And the good news is He wants you to have the Holy Spirit, not just up here, but in here. He wants to fill your heart and to fill your body; He wants you to breathe the Holy Spirit in and out every time you take a breath. He wants to be that close to you. He created you for that; He created you for relationship. Adam walked “in the cool of the day” with God (Genesis 3:8). How cool is that? In fact, the way God pointed out that Adam had eaten the fruit was that He showed up for the daily appointment. “Adam, where are you?” – “I’m hiding.” “Why are you hiding?” – “I’m naked.” “Who told you that you were naked?” (Genesis 3:9-11) God created us for a personal, walk-by-Him all-the-time relationship. Jesus said we are to be yoked with Christ (Matthew 11:29): that’s a wise, old ox and a young, rambunctious ox yoked together in a single frame so that the young one can pull hard and the old one can say, “We’re doing work here: just keep straight, keep going…” and the two of them can do it together. That’s what Jesus does with us; that’s the relationship, that’s the breathing in and out of the Holy Spirit, and that’s what He wants for us.

Pentecost is when the Holy Spirit fell with tongues of fire on the disciples.   That’s what they were instructed to wait for. We celebrate that next Sunday: holy fire. God, don’t just put the fire on my head; start in here. Burn it up, because I know I’ll be like the burning bush that Moses turned aside to see: it’ll burn and burn, but it won’t burn up, because He’s the fuel for the flame. Have you received the Holy Spirit?   That’s not just, “Do you speak in tongues?” That’s one sign: it’s not the only sign. There are all kinds of signs: fruit that is born by the Holy Spirit. Is He alive inside you? Is He helping you make decisions: Where are you going to go? What are you going to do? Who are you going to marry? Where are you going to work? If you haven’t received Him, or if you’ve been ignoring Him – it’s possible to do that – then I invite you to think about coming forward during the Prayers of the People or during the Eucharist, or if you need longer to think about it, then next Sunday.

What does God what for you? He wants you to know your calling; He wants you to know the riches that He has for you; He wants you to know the purpose He has for you; He wants you to know the power – not selfish power but selfless power – that He has for you, for you to do what he has called you to do. He wants you to receive that, and we as a church want you to receive that, because that’s how you become everything that you are destined to be. And we pray that you might receive the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, the eyes of your understanding be enlightened, that you may know the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, what is the exceeding greatness of His power towards you. That’s what He wants, that what we want, and that’s what we’ll pray.

Sermon transcript, 10 May 2015

Abide in My love by Fr. Dana

Acts 11:19-30, Psalm 33, I John 4:7-21, John 15:9-17

Recording:  http://1drv.ms/1gUW0Nz

This morning, let’s take an in-depth look at the Gospel (John 15:9-17) and what it says to us. This is at the Last Supper: Jesus is talking to His disciples, in His last address to them before He goes to lay down His life.

Living under water

Read John 15:9. Jesus is telling them that love that He showed them – the love that He had for them, the love that He gave them – is the love with which the Father loved Him. It’s not just any love: it’s not, “Hey, guys; it’s been great, I’ve enjoyed this”; but, “I’ve given you everything I am, because the Father has given Me everything He is. And so don’t just receive My love – abide in My love. Don’t just long for it, or wish you had it, don’t strive for it, don’t imitate it – live in it, breathe it, inhale it, exhale it. Realise that you are submerged in it wherever you go.”

It’s almost like living under water. If you were to live under water, something would have to change about your lungs. Now if I’m under water for more than about 40 or 60 seconds, my body starts reacting, and my mind starts reacting and says “I need air, I need to get out of here quickly”, and if I’m close to the surface I don’t panic, but if I’m down about 12 feet I get a little worried. To live under water I have to be changed: my breathing apparatus has to change.

Sometimes we think God has just been spraying His love on us: wherever we go there’s this nice little spray that keeps us warm. It’s more than that: He’s not spraying His love on us. When we live as if it’s a spray, then when the spray stops we think, “Oh, what’s wrong?” But we’re not living under a spray. When we become a child of God, when we receive Him into our heart, and we receive His Holy Spirit, we are immersed in His love. We are not only immersed into the water of Baptism, from which we come back out: we are brought out of the water, but we are never brought out of His love. We are submerged, and we live there.

Every person is created by God and loved by God; but until they are born again into the Kingdom of God, they walk in the midst of this water without ever being touched by it. They are not submerged in it the way we are. Have you ever been in an aquarium with tunnels underneath the water with the fish in it, so you can walk and see the fish swimming over you and around you? That’s what it’s like to not know the Lord; but when you know the Lord, you’re walking in the water; you’re breathing the water, you’re breathing His love. It’s in here, it’s in your lungs, it’s in your nostrils, it’s everywhere: you can’t get away from it.

We are submerged, but we need to unblock the flow

Read John 15:10. How do we know that we are submerged in His love? How do we know that we are abiding in His love? If we keep His commandments, we are abiding in His love. But when we fail – and we all do – ninety-nine times out of a hundred we know that we’ve failed. It hurts us, and sometimes it makes us angry. Have you ever been angry at yourself? “I did it again! How many times do I repeat this same thing?” Sometimes it makes us despair: “Will I ever learn? Will I ever do it right?” And it’s usually at that point that the enemy comes in and tries to convince us that we’ve run out of His love – that He’s really only been spraying His love on us and that we’ve somehow stepped out from under the spray, and now we’re in trouble. He knows that we’re weak at that point, and he wants to convince us that either we’ve gone out of the pattern of His spray or He’s shut the water off: “OK, you blew it – I’m shutting the water off.” Both of those are a lie, because the water of His love is not being sprayed on us – we are immersed, submerged in it. He wants us to give up: “God’s shut the water off, you may as well do what I want”, says Satan. But it’s a lie. Perhaps for a moment we’re not able to breathe: something is blocking us from taking in that water of love; maybe we’ve reverted to our air-breathing lungs for a moment – but it’s only for a moment: still we are immersed in His love, and His love is still filling us, it’s still in our lungs. And when we repent and confess, the flow is restored.

That’s the abiding. We talked about “I am the Vine, you are the branch…” (John 15:5); “abiding” just means connected so the flow happens. It doesn’t mean you don’t have problems, it doesn’t mean you don’t fail, but it just means whatever happens, keep connected. To use the water analogy, make sure the pipes are connected and if something blocks it find out what it is and use whatever it takes – which spiritually is confession: “There’s a blockage here; I can tell because I’m not getting enough water.” I confess; your blockage is gone, the flow is restored. The water was always there; if there’s something that’s keeping it from flowing, that’s temporary: the water hasn’t left. The water of God’s love is still there; we are still submerged in it.

No one can take away your joy

Read John 15:11. With this love – which you can think of as a vast, permanent ocean of redeeming love – with this love comes also His joy. When you truly understand what He’s saying about being submerged in His love, you will have true joy like you have never known. Not giddy happiness – oh goody! – because giddy happiness doesn’t last. Stuff always comes around that ruins it: the world doesn’t co-operate, I don’t cooperate, my flesh doesn’t cooperate; the devil doesn’t cooperate; everything tries to defeat – and does defeat – my happiness; but it can’t defeat my joy if I know I’m walking submerged in His love, everywhere I go. I turn this way, I turn that way, I run as fast as I can… I can’t get out of His love: I can’t.

In John 16:16, 20-21, Jesus tells His disciples, “I’m going to go to Jerusalem and be crucified, and you’re going to be sad: your happiness will be gone.” But He also tells them that He will rise: “I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you” (John 16:22).

Imagine what it was like to be a disciple who has been with Jesus for three years and seen Him do all these incredible things: He walked on water, He raised the dead multiple times, and then you watch Him be crucified. “I had these incredible hopes; I knew this was the truth, I knew this was the answer, I knew this was going to be a permanent change in the world” – and He died. What is going on? Imagine the disappointment – because they didn’t understand what He was saying here. But He’s telling them that they will get it; because they’ll see Him again, and then they’ll understand all these things that He’s been saying: “I’ll rise again on the third day; the temple that you destroyed I will rebuild in three days”… And when they’ve seen that and gone from incredible hope to complete and total despair and they see Him after the despair, they will never worry again. They can’t get any lower than they were the morning after Good Friday; that’s the lowest of the low: “He’s gone, we’re done, and the soldiers are going to come for us next. It’s over.” And when He appears – if He can conquer death, what should I be afraid of?

“And your joy no one will take from you.” When you realise that His love never ends, there is no spray to walk out of, there is an unlimited ocean of love that we walk in and that we breathe and move in, and it inhabits us; His love never leaves us: we can’t find its limit, because it doesn’t have a limit, and He will never forsake us, His love will never leave us, He will never leave us – just as when He was in the grave and the disciples were dead sure that he had left them, that it was over, even then He had not left them: it was their emotions and their understanding that said that it was over. But just because they felt it, and just because they thought it, and just because every evidence of everything they looked at said that was the case, didn’t make it the truth. He never forsook them, even in the darkest hour of the history of the universe; and so He’s not going to leave you either. And if you can get hold of that, your joy will never end. It doesn’t matter how bad things get. I guarantee they won’t get as bad as they looked for the disciples on Holy Saturday: your life may be in more danger than theirs, but you can’t get as hopeless as them because you know the truth – they didn’t understand it; you do.

When we sin, often the first thing that leaves us is our joy: “Not again!” And when our joy goes, it’s much easier for Satan to convince us that His love has gone as well. We think, “I’m mad at me; God must be really mad at me, because He’s perfect and I’m not, and if this is bothering me, just think what He thinks about what I’m doing.” It’s a lie. That’s why it’s so critical for us to understand that we are immersed, we are submerged in His love, not just sprayed with it. When we sin, our happiness may leave us; but when we repent, we find that the joy never left us. It never left us because His love never left us.

Love with His love

Read John 15:12. Uh-oh! He’s been talking about how much He loves us. I really enjoy receiving. Come on, Jesus: love me as much as You want: I can handle it. Cover me up with it. He goes beyond that: “I’ve loved you; now love one another.” What? “Wait a minute – I can stand here and be immersed in Your love; but You want me to love with Your love?” Now He’s messing with our lives. He’s not just pouring in – He’s saying, “I want something to happen in here, something different.” Jesus goes far beyond His love for us. Remember, He first said that if we love Him we’ll obey His commandments. And now He gives us no wiggle-room: “This is My commandment: love one another as I have loved you.” Not just “Love one another”. Sure: I like you, Peter, you’re a good guy. Remember the episode when James and John said, “Can I sit at your right hand?” and the other disciples said “Grrr! Why didn’t I think of asking that first?” There was competition there… and Jesus said “Love one another the way I’ve loved you. Don’t just love one another as a football team: yeah, we’re all in this together, we’re all trying to accomplish the same thing; we’re going to win the game” – go way beyond that. Love one another the way I loved you.”

Love with the love that you’re immersed in. We’re not immersed in His love simply so that we can breathe it in. Mine – absorb – yes. We’re immersed in His love so that in everything we say and do we breathe it out to others. Ouch – that’s tough. Just as we carry the light of Christ everywhere we go, so we carry the love of Christ; and I would say to you that people see the light by experiencing the love. You can’t carry the light of Christ without the love of Christ.

“You need to be saved. You’re going to go to hell if you don’t get your act together.” That’s not how Jesus loved. Jesus got down in the dirt, wrote something, and said, “Whoever’s without sin, cast the first stone.” He showed love. And when everyone had gone, He said to the woman, “They don’t condemn you; neither do I. But go and sin no more.” [John 8:3-11] The message of, “Yeah, you’re not right with God; something needs to change” is still there, but the attitude is totally different. It’s not, “You’re going to burn in hell if you don’t come forward and accept Jesus”; it’s, “God loves you, and He doesn’t want that to happen. And this is who He is; this is His perfection; this is His love for you. Now what are you going to do?”

If we carry His love, that same thing can happen; because when people are touched by His love, they say: “I don’t deserve this; and if I don’t deserve it, how are you giving it to me? I can’t even love adequately the people in my life that are good to me. And you’re loving me and you don’t even know me.” – Or, “I’ve done you wrong…” or, “I’m competing with you for a job…” – whatever your relationship with this person is. If you love with the love of Christ, they will be changed – not because of you, but because of Christ.

And the really good news is – though He commands us to do more than just carry it, but to share it, to give it – we can give it to everybody we see, all the time, as much as we can, and we’ll never run out of it. We never have to worry about, “This is my last piece of the Oreo; if I give you this, then I won’t have any.” We’re not that way with His love, because we’re submerged in it; we breathe it; we walk in it.

[Unfortunately the recording ends shortly after this point: the following section is from Fr. Dana’s notes.]

What does His love look like?

And what does that love look like? Read John 15:13-15. The love of Christ looks exactly like Christ: Jesus laid down His life for us that we might be His friends. Now we are called to lay down our lives for our friend. But what friend is Jesus talking about? Is He saying we only need to lay down our lives to those who are closest to us?

I don’t think so. He has just said we are His friends, and if so then He is our friend. He is the friend we are to lay our lives down for! James 2:23 confirms this, speaking of Abraham when he offered to sacrifice his son Isaac. We are not called to sacrifice our sons – that was a specific request of Abraham that pointed to the future sacrifice of Christ. But we are called to lay down our own lives for Jesus.

Read John 15:16. Jesus chose us. We accepted His invitation to become adopted sons and daughters of God, but He was the one who made the first move. We are called to do likewise: love others long before they deserve it. Love with no expectation of being loved in return. Love for the sake of Christ, not for the sake of the one loved. If we do, He promises that we will bear fruit – others will accept His invitation as well to become adopted sons and daughters – and our fruit will last.

Remember His promise

Read John 15:17. Remember the promise: “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love.” If we truly understand how much God loves us, there is nothing He calls us to that we cannot do.

“Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but robust vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. You cannot see Him just now, you cannot understand what He is doing, but you know Him. Shipwreck occurs where there is not that mental poise which comes from being established on the eternal truth that God is holy love. Faith is the heroic effort of your life, you fling yourself in reckless confidence on God.

God has ventured all in Jesus Christ to save us, now He wants us to venture our all in abandoned confidence in Him. There are spots [in our lives] where that faith has not worked in us as yet, places untouched by the life of God. There were none of those spots in Jesus Christ’s life, and there are to be none in ours. “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee.” The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we take this view, life becomes one great romance, a glorious opportunity for seeing marvellous things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.”(Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 8 May)

Sermon transcript, 3 May 2015

It all comes from the Vine by Fr. Dana

Acts 8:26-40, Psalm 66:1-12, I John 3:14-24, John 15:1-8

Recording:  http://1drv.ms/1gUUg6J

We desire the power of God; we desire the power of the resurrection. We celebrated Easter Sunday not long ago: the most powerful time and the most powerful event in the universe.  But Jesus didn’t get to the resurrection directly.  He couldn’t get to the resurrection until He had gone through death.  And He didn’t get to death until He had gone through obedience.  He was obedient until death, and that obedience started when the Father asked Him, “Would you go down there to the earth, to My creation, and give Your life for them?” It didn’t start in the garden of Gethsemane: it started back in heaven.

How can we receive that power? Today’s Gospel begins with Jesus saying, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser (John 15:1). Later He says, “Abide in Me, and I in you.” (John 15:4a)

Where is the joy?

Dcn. Andrew and I just returned from a clergy meeting and church growth seminar in Cologne, Germany. And yesterday, after it was all over and most of the people had left, we had a chance to reflect on what we had heard and experienced. We had joined probably more than a hundred people from the CEC throughout Europe.  Dcn. Andrew said that one of the differences between the people in St. Stephen’s and the people we had seen there was joy.  There we had seen a joy in serving God and others that has not been seen in London for quite some time.  Do not take that as a criticism: that is not how he meant it or how he received it; and I agree with him.  It’s not that you are deficient: you volunteer to help and do all kinds of things, and you’re happy when you’re helping; but true joy seems to evade you like a butterfly that’s just out of reach.  We could be wrong, but I would ask you to think and pray about it: is it true?

I believe it because I know what that’s like: I can remember sitting in a small group in Oklahoma back in 1984 (the early Palaeolithic period for some of you!), and I remember finally blurting out what had been bubbling in my heart for a long time; I didn’t have a word for it, but for a dozen years something had been going on, and finally I just let it all out. Where is the joy?  I was saved at the age of nine, about 21 years before that.  Being saved wasn’t a problem, but where was the joy?  I was doing what was right because I knew it was right, but the joy in doing it wasn’t there.  Ask yourself: are you feeling that?  It’s not that you’re doing the wrong thing – you’re doing the right thing; you’re doing it because it’s the right thing, you’re doing it because you love Jesus…  But do you ever wonder, shouldn’t there be some joy in this? – The joy that comes out of your heart, not because people appreciate me, not because everything is good, but just joy in serving the Lord.

“Am I loved?”

My next thought is: If there is this difference, why? What has produced the difference between the people that we met or met again in Cologne, and the people here that we know and love?  You and they have a lot in common: they’re not that much different from you.  They have families where both parents or Filipino, or where one is Filipino and the other is European – and in most of those the female is Filipina… but I wonder if there isn’t one struggle that you have that they don’t.  Some of them have been around as long as you – I don’t know the exact dates of how you spread through Europe – but I think it might be safe to say that none of those churches have gone through a significant period without a full-time resident Rector, certainly after having one the first time; they’ve never had that experience of being left – Not alone: you weren’t left alone, and Fr. Donn (bless him and his family) poured himself out to be here for you, to stand in the gap for you; you weren’t left alone, but you were still left, and that does something.  – Just like a divorce: even if both sides agree that this is the best thing, and there aren’t any children, it still hurts; and it does something inside.  I just wonder if that’s not the case.

And I think there’s a reason for that, both in terms of marriage and your relationship with your Rector. Have you ever heard the saying that each of us has a God-shape vacuum in our heart?  There’s a space in our heart that wants to be filled, and it’s peculiarly shaped so that only God can fill it.  It’s not the only analogy that works, but I believe that it’s true.  Everyone has a fundamental need and a driving desire for the answer to one question – and our Patriarch talked about this in the last few days.  That question is: “Am I loved?”  And the question that’s in the hole in your heart is not just, “Am I loved by someone?” but “Am I loved by God?”  Everyone has it; not everyone will acknowledge that that’s what that is, but they will still try to fill that hole with everything else in the universe: sex, money, drugs, rock and roll… you name it; and none of that works.  Everyone has this fundamental need and this consuming desire to know the answer to the question, “Am I loved?”  And if the answer is “I’m just an accident of circumstance” or “I evolved from something”, then the answer is automatically “No, because there is no one to love me like that” – which is why that particular religion is so dangerous.

Am I loved? How do you know you are loved?  If I asked you that question, “How do you know you are loved by God?” how would you answer me?  He created you…  It tells us in the Bible…  Both of those are true.  The Bible says we are loved, and we know the Bible is true; therefore I must be loved.  That’s all we need to know, right?  In my head I know I am loved.  How far will knowledge get you?  When the storm comes up and life starts overwhelming you, “The Bible says God loves me”.  Yes, it does.  It’s one thing to know the facts; it’s a totally different thing to experience the truth.  If you only know the facts, then you have to keep reminding yourself: “God loves me; God loves me… Why the hell am I here?  God loves me…”  Once we’ve experienced the truth, we don’t have to convince ourselves, we don’t have to argue: we know…  One of my past Bishops used to say, “You know it in your knower” – the part of you that knows not just facts, but the part of you that knows so that it doesn’t matter what happens, what I know is truer than what I see.  You know the facts: you know God loves you; but you still long for your experience to flesh out the bones of the facts.  The bones by themselves are dry. “Can these bones live?” (Ezekiel 37:3) How can they live?  God has to breathe into them (Ezekiel 37:4-10).

I ask you: you’re living and moving and having your being in Jesus Christ; but is there this feeling that just won’t go away? Is there this wondering: What would it be like if every action that I did came from the heart of God instead of from me working so hard just to get one foot in front of the other? – It’s work; why can’t it be joy?

It hurts…

God loves you; but then, if God loves in you, why did your Rector leave? If God loves you, why did your first husband or wife leave? Why? – Especially in those relationships that are so important in our lives because they are in the image of God’s relationship.  The Covenant of Marriage is a Sacrament; the Ordination of a Priest is a Sacrament: they both have vows that are made to God, to do certain things, to act certain ways, to love.  And if you’ve been hurt because of a human – because both are human: both your spouse and your Priest – and your Deacon and your Bishop and your Patriarch – are all human; and the fact that they have been through a Sacrament and have made vows does not guarantee that we’ll always be faithful.  You’ve been through the vows, and it didn’t guarantee that you would be faithful either.  Hopefully, love overcomes unfaithfulness; but it still happened, and it still hurts.

And there was a time when you as a church needed someone – and Fr. Donn did his superhuman best to be that someone from hundreds of miles away on a part-time basis because there were other people he was committed to – but you needed someone here on the ground to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the trenches, in the battle, behind enemy lines.   – Because that’s really where we are.  The earth is the Lord’s, but for a time He has allowed it to be occupied by the enemy.  We are citizens of heaven – we are not citizens of this earth – and so we are here behind enemy lines, fighting the battle.  And when the captain suddenly disappears, it hurts.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t forgive him and we don’t love him. Just acknowledging that it hurt does not put blame on someone else.  We’re not trying to make excuses or point blame; we’re trying to get down to what was left inside after the sword was removed.  Have you watched The Lord of the Rings, the movies?  Remember when Frodo gets stabbed and a little piece of the sword breaks off in there.  And it doesn’t matter what you do on the surface: if you don’t get the point of the sword out, he will die.  And my question is: Is there a little tiny shard of the past – whether it’s St. Stephen’s, or maybe it’s something else: maybe it’s a marriage, maybe it’s a combination of things – is there something in there, so small that it doesn’t really show on the surface, but it’s sapping … stealing everything the Lord puts in? – Yes, it’s there, but it’s work…

Where the power comes from

Was that time in the history of St. Stephen’s when your joy started leaving, or was it another time not related to St. Stephen’s? Was there ever a time when it was a joy to serve? – I mean really a joy.  It was still hard – you still had to come every Saturday to set up, you still had to do 9,000 tonnes of laundry and ironing, and pull things out of storage and put things back in storage: it was hard, but it was joyful. – Not just happy – we can be happy now – but “I don’t mind this a bit”.  Because with the joy comes the energy, the power to do this.  If I’m not getting power when I’m doing this, I’m draining my battery, and every night I have to go home and plug myself into the wall to get re-charged.  And sometimes the night isn’t long enough to get me recharged, or I forget to plug myself in until 2:00 in the morning.

“I am the vine, you are the branches.” (John 15:5a) You can be connected to the vine and damage can come that doesn’t cut you off, but it removes a big part of your ability to receive from the vine, so that what comes from the vine is dripping on the ground or drying out or just not getting through. And if it’s not getting through, you’re starving; you’re not green and lush and healthy and robust and growing all the time: you’re just trying to keep from turning brown and falling off. “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me… for without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4, 5b)

Help them know they are loved

I’m only beginning to learn that the most important thing a Rector can do for the flock is to help them know they are loved – not by telling you (although hopefully I do tell you), but more importantly by what I do; and I confess I haven’t been really good at that. I’ve already failed in many ways, and I’ve only been here not quite a year. I didn’t fully understand. Before teaching, before exhorting, before encouraging, before planning, before anything: loving. Not in a way that I think says “I love you”, but in a way that you think says “he loves me”. Not because I’m God, but He put me here as His overseer, and so what I see Him doing is what I need to do. Today starts a new day. And I’m only at the beginning of that, and so I ask you to pray for me.

That’s the good news. The bad news is, you have the same responsibility. Think about it: When a visitor walks through that door, they have the same question: “Am I loved? Does God love me?” They may not phrase it that way, but they want to know, “Am I loved?” and the real question is, “Am I loved by the One that matters? Because He created everything.” When they walk in, how will they know the answer? How will they know, “Does God love me? Am I loved?” Am I the only one who can show them? I hope not; because if so, we’re in deep trouble. How will they know? What if they’re not Filipino? That could be tough. It is tough, because we’re like a family; but it can be done. How can you show them they are loved? I don’t have a simple answer to that, and I’m not looking for one; but I do have a more important question: If we don’t show them that they are loved, why should they come back?

This is a challenge; this a huge challenge – not just for you but for me as well. And the answer is in the Gospel: we can only show them that they are loved if we are connected to the Vine and there isn’t anything that’s hindering the flow of nutrients from the Vine to the branches. Jesus is the Vine; we are the branches. It isn’t good enough for Him to sit over there and for us to sit over here and we look at Him, if we’re not receiving anything.

Conclusion

Yesterday’s New Testament reading from Colossians 3:12-14 said, “Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering;  ¹³ bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. ¹⁴ But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.”  The fact that most of you are here means that you have put on longsuffering: have many of the adults been here less than five or ten years? You are the ones who have hung in there; you are the ones who are longsuffering. Some people couldn’t: they had to leave. And we’re not going to condemn them: we’re all at different stages and different maturities in our walk. But if you didn’t forgive one another, you wouldn’t be here, because I’m sure we all have things that we could harbour unforgiveness about, and if we thought about them we’d leave.

We can’t change the past; but we can make sure there’s no little sliver of the sword inside that still steals our joy, steals what we receive from the Vine; and that’s what will make the difference – not just for us but for people who will come in that door. Maybe I blew it when they came in the door: maybe I should have stopped my sermon and said something. “Like to think that your sermon was so important that you couldn’t just stop and say…?” We learn from our mistakes: if we don’t, we keep making them; but we can learn. We can’t change the past: we can heal it, we can let God heal it, we can acknowledge it – which is the first step to healing; but we can’t change it. What we can change is the future. And by healing the past we free up the future. I am not willing to let the past hold my future hostage, to let my future or St. Stephen’s future be chained to something in the past: because it will keep us from being who we’re called to be and from doing what we’re called to do.

But the only way we can change is if we abide in the Vine. “Abide” is not “in the presence of” – it means “connected to, receiving from, all the time”. We’ll see how God wants to work that out: it’s not announcing a big new programme: I don’t have a big new programme. I just know that that’s what God wants to do, and that we will change the world if we love the way Christ loved us.

Sermon transcript, 26 April 2015

How God makes Himself known by Fr. Dana

Recording:  http://1drv.ms/1NYuv4b

God is speaking about the church rising up.  In our days it seems that the words from Psalm 2:1-2 quoted in the first reading are certainly true (Acts 4:25-26).  Even nations that were historically Christian are becoming increasingly anti-Christian – not just post-Christian (“we used to be”) but anti- ; perhaps God is bringing things to a head.  And the question is: How do we respond to that?  Because we are called to rise up: the Church is called an army [Ezekiel 37:10]; Jesus is called the Captain of the Host [Joshua 5:14, Revelation 19:11ff].

How are we called to fight?

So we are to fight; the question is: How do we fight? [II Corinthians 10:3]  Do we make signs and march down the street and beat people over the head who don’t want to listen to what we have to say? Do we go on national television and get into a shouting match with them?  They can speak pretty loudly, and they have a lot of financial backing from various places in the world.  How do we fight?

What did we see when Peter and John were let go?  “They went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them” (Acts 4:23) – They had threatened them if they didn’t stop preaching and ministering in the name of Christ.  First their companions quoted the Psalm that I read to you, because it looked to them as if the world was matching what the Psalm said.  Certainly Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles – everybody – gathered together to bring about Jesus’ death (Acts 4:27-28).  But they didn’t protest; they said, “Thanks be to God!”  ^“And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.” (Acts 4:31)  This is not Pentecost – that was two chapters earlier.

How did Jesus fight?

What was Jesus like?  If we’re supposed to fight, and we’re supposed to be conformed to the image of Jesus, one might suspect that we’re supposed to fight the way Jesus fought.  What did Jesus do when He was confronted with sin?  What did He do with the woman caught in adultery?  I believe what He did conformed to what Isaiah said He would be like.  Jesus had just healed a man’s hand on the Sabbath, and it made the Pharisees upset: read Matthew 12:15-21 [quoting Isaiah 42:1-4]. Jesus was looking for bruised reeds; He was looking for flames that were about to go out.  He wasn’t confronting the people who thought they knew it all – although He did confront the people (the Pharisees and the Sadducees) who thought they knew it all and claimed to be speaking for God.  He didn’t like people lying in God’s name.  The people who were sinning, like the adulterous, He had mercy on.  He knew her flame was about to go out, and so He didn’t snuff it out.  He also didn’t condone it – He said, “I don’t condemn you.  Go and sin no more.” [John 8:2-11]  What do you think that woman did, having had that experience: do you think she went back to her old life?  I’ll bet not.  When the Lord of the universe stands in front of you and says, “I don’t condemn you; but go and sin no more”, you can bet she was changed.  She found the God who loved her, and so she loved in return.

That’s how we’re called to fight – not to match word for word, blow for blow, sign for sign, march for march…  I’m not saying there aren’t times when marching is appropriate, perhaps; but that’s not going to change hearts.  You’re not going to change hearts by changing minds – the heart has to come first.

And so the way we rise up… the first step is the way Jesus did it.  He prayed – not only once a day, but often, because He said He only did what He saw the Father doing [John 5:19]; and so He had to take time to find out what the Father was doing.  Remember, He left His godly prerogatives in heaven when He became a man, so He didn’t automatically know everything that was going on: He voluntarily limited Himself; and so He had to get in touch with the Father: “What are You doing today?  Whom will I come across?  Whom do I need to minister to?”  He did that because…  Remember when He went to His hometown: He stood up in the synagogue and read from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me… to proclaim freedom for the captives…” and they said “Oh yes! Wow! Awesome!” And then He said, “There were a lot of lepers in Israel, but the only one who was healed was Naaman the Syrian.” [Luke 4:16-30]  He must have prayed about that situation, because He could have been really popular there; but instead He challenged them.

He was looking for people whose reed was bruised, and He wasn’t about to break them; but He did want them to know that they were bruised and they needed something.  He didn’t say, “It’s OK: you’re all right.  God loves you anyway.”  He loved them by telling them the truth, in a quiet way – not by shouting in the streets: not by confronting, not by arguing.  That’s hard.  He knew that He had all the answers: I would have been tempted to say, “Look, stupid!  How can I be more clear?” He didn’t do that – that’s what we have to do.  And so when the Lord says “Rise up”, He’s not talking about “Let’s go and organise a political party; let’s take over the government!”  Let’s take over the government by changing the hearts of the people, because if the people’s hearts are changed they’ll vote the right way.  We’re in the business of making disciples.

How does God reveal Himself?

And God has made Himself known.  He’s made Himself known in a couple of ways, and those are revealed in the Catechism.  Last week we talked about what a catechism is: that it’s instruction in the Christians faith; that it was taught to all Christians; and that it’s important because it records the truth and communicates it faithfully.

We had this discussion with someone this week: “Can’t you just know God by reading the Bible?  You don’t need to go to church; just me and the Bible, you can figure it out.”  If we were open only to the Holy Spirit we could do that; but even Satan appears as an angel of light [II Corinthians 11:14], and so you can’t just trust your own opinion.  And you should know that just by looking at all the people in the world and what their opinions are on the same passage: you can justify almost anything you want to do by picking out a Scripture.  And so the Catechism from early on in the Church was, “Here are the important things, and here is how they’re worked out: this is what they mean, this is what they do.”

Today I’d like to talk a little about God’s self-revelation: God reveals Himself.

General and special revelation

“How does God reveal Himself to all who would receive Him?  God reveals Himself by general revelation through His wonderful creation and by special revelation through Holy Scripture.  The definitive revelation of God is Jesus Christ.”  (ICCEC Catechism, Question 3)  Let’s look at a few Scriptures to prove the point.

Let’s start at the beginning: read Genesis 1:1.  If I’m a person who has never read the Bible before, and I’m born and I grow up and I look at the world, I wouldn’t necessarily automatically say that there’s a God who created heaven and earth.  So this is a special revelation, that God made the earth: Scripture is telling us where it came from.  But what it’s describing – in very general terms – is God’s general revelation; because if you look at the world, it’s too amazing to think that it probably came by itself.

Read Genesis 2:4.  We’re laying out the history: this is what happened when the earth was created.  That’s definitely special revelation, because we wouldn’t know anything about that without Scripture.

Read John 1:1-3: this refers to the same beginning as Genesis.  To find out what “the Word” is, we need to look at the rest of Scripture; and who is the Word?  Jesus is the Word made flesh.  In the beginning was the Word Jesus – not the word “Jesus” but the Person who was and is the Word.  Jesus was with the Father; and there was no time when God the Father was, that Jesus wasn’t.  Jesus wasn’t born later: He was born as a man later, but He was not created; He was in the beginning with God.  This is definitely special revelation, because there is no way we could just look at Creation and learn that: look at the design of a tree, how water freezes, the weather patterns… we couldn’t figure that out.

Read Romans 1:19-20.  Here we have a little more description of how this works, and of the difference between general and special revelation.  Man, before he had science, looked at the stars, and the sunrise and sunset, and Creation, and the birth of a baby, and said, “Wow! Miraculous!  There must be something or someone behind this.”  They wouldn’t know who or what He was like, but, “Wow!  This is amazing.  I don’t understand, and I can’t re-create it with my hands.”

Science supports our faith

It’s interesting that today in our culture there is a prevalent view that science is a danger to faith: “The more we know about science, the easier it is to prove the Christians are wrong.”  However in the last hundred years the opposite has been the case.  We used to think that Sodom and Gomorrah, Babylon, and a lot of these things, were stories and myths; but then we started discovering that these places really existed.  They found artefacts from Solomon’s reign and David’s reign.  The more we know, the more the Bible is proved right.

I’m not worried about people who have theories about what we know now, and these theories are at odds with Christianity, because they are only a theory.  When I was a young child, we thought that the atom was a billiard ball – you couldn’t get any smaller than that;  by the time I got to college we knew that it is protons, neutrons and electrons; and now I couldn’t even tell you all the particles: quarks and anti-spin and…

The more we learn, the more we see that this couldn’t come about on its own.  The Theory of Intelligent Design basically says that some things can come about through evolution: a bird can get a thicker or longer beak based on environmental conditions; a rabbit’s fur pattern can change over time.  However there are certain things that can’t happen through evolution: there is a motor in your cells that has several parts; and for it to function all the parts are required.  You can’t evolve a motor by a process such as: first the driver appears and then later the carburettor appears, and then the fuel appears… if the motor is critical for life.  It can’t happen gradually if you can’t have life without the whole thing – the whole thing had to happen at once, pretty much instantaneously.  That’s only one example.  Look at genetics and DNA: they think they can trace the DNA of mankind back to the area of the Euphrates in the Middle East, where Genesis said the Garden was [Genesis 2:8,10,14].  The more we learn, the more we know that what the Bible says is true.  The more we learn about archaeology, the more we discover that these places really existed.

You’ll also have people claiming, as they have recently, things such as “We’ve found Jesus’ tomb with his wife Mary and their child.”  Don’t worry about it – that too will pass.  Every time they think they have a theory that says, “Aha!  You’re wrong. I know it.  I’ve proved it”, the theory turns out to be wrong; and it’s not because they’re incompetent – it’s because God is real.

Creation and “the unknown God”

Read Psalm 19:1-4.  Everyone can understand a sunset and the stars in the sky. This is all general revelation.  God has done this, and if you look at it objectively you’ll say, “I don’t think this can be random.”  But then He gives special revelation.   Read Acts 17:23.  Paul was speaking to the people of Athens, and he had gone through their pantheon.  Why did they have a monument to an unknown God?  They had all these gods: the god of fire, the god of this and that, and Diana which was a meteorite that fell down from heaven…  But they had to have one for the unknown God, because all these other gods – idols, statues, meteorites, whatever – didn’t explain the world.  “This can’t be all of it, because there are things in the world that none of these can explain.”  So Paul proclaimed to them: read Acts 17:24-26.  DNA proves that it’s true: that all the nations of the world come from one blood – in fact, one couple.  Read Acts 17:26-30.  “Until now, if you didn’t know the Scriptures, all you’ve had was general revelation.  Now I’m proclaiming to you not just the Old Testament Scriptures, but a Person who is the ultimate special revelation of God, and His name is Jesus Christ.”  They’d already accepted that “There must be some God we don’t know about”; and Paul is saying, “Here He is: He became a man” – not like a Greek or Roman god who put on a disguise and came down and propagated the species; but He came down and was Man and was God and showed all the attributes of God: God’s truth, God’s way, God’s life, God’s love: all of it are embodied in Him.

Who does God reveal Himself to be?

So we have general revelation, special revelation; and the question is: “Who does God reveal Himself to be?”  Now that we’ve accepted that there is revelation, that we can know God and we can know some things about Him, who does He reveal Himself to be?  “God reveals Himself as having one single Nature, but in a Holy Community of three Persons; named the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This truth is revealed to us…” (ICCEC Catechism, Question 4)  It’s not general revelation: you’re not going to go outside, look at a forest and say “There must be a Trinity” – although it turns out that if you look at all of Creation you’ll find some amazing things.  Matter exists in three states: solid, liquid and gas.  There are a number of other places where the number three is important.  But that doesn’t prove God; it’s just there.  What does prove to us?

Read Deuteronomy 6:4: that’s the beginning of what the Jews call the “Shema’ Y’Israel”, and what Jesus called the First Great Commandment: it’s followed by “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.”  There is one God.

How about those three Persons?  When a man came to Him and said, “Good Teacher, what must I do to be saved?” Jesus’ first response is, “Why do call Me good? There is only one who is good, and that is God.” (Mark 10:17-18)  He didn’t say, “Don’t call me good, because there is only one who is good and that’s God” – He said, “Why do you call me good?”  They didn’t record any answer, but Jesus asked the question.  Then after Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the women who had come to the tomb, “they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him.” (Matthew 28:9)  Jesus said there was only one God; He told Satan in the desert, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.” (Matthew 4:10, quoting Deuteronomy 6:13)  If the women worship Him and He is not God, what will He say?  The same thing the angel said to John: “Get up!  I’m a created being like you.” (Revelation 19:10) He didn’t say that – He accepted their worship.  He didn’t say the three words, “I am God”, but He said a lot of things that say “I am God”.

At the Last Supper He says, “The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” (John 14:26)  There’s the Trinity in one Scripture: the Helper, the Holy Spirit – that’s God; the Father – that’s God; in My name – He’s God.  Later He says, “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.”  (John 15:26) ­– One God, three Persons.  He’s still saying God is one, as the Shema’ says; but there are Three Persons.  Paul says in Ephesians 4:4-6, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” – God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

Again and again: there are three Persons: one God but three Persons, with three roles, three functions.  And they’re not jealous of each other.  In fact there’s a theological term called perichoresis.  It’s a dance: the three Persons of the Trinity are in an eternal dance with each other.  Each one has His part, each one fulfils His part, each one moves perfectly in time with the other two, no one trying to rise above the other: perfect community.  We are created for that: that’s the kind of relationship we are created for, because we are made like Him.

Keep to the foundation

The point is, these are truths that have been in existence since the beginning.  And if we only take the Bible and choose verses to support our particular sins, habits, likes, dislikes… and ignore the basics, the foundation, we can build a structure that doesn’t look anything like God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  And if we do, at best Scriptures tells us in the end what we build will be burned up in the fire but we’ll make it through by the skin of our teeth; at worst, if we build something that is totally against God, we might not be saved.  And so it’s important for us to keep focused on the truth, on the foundation.  Whatever our special revelation is, we must keep to what He established from the beginning.

Sermon transcript, 19 April 2015

Where is your heart? by Fr. Dana

Recording:  http://1drv.ms/1gUrhjv

The topic this morning follows on from our men’s fellowship yesterday: “Where is your heart?” It comes primarily from Matthew 6:19-21. This applies not only to men. Where we spend the best of our time, talent and treasure is where our heart is. That could be football, television, our work or career, our family, or the Lord. For each of us last night, God and our family were at the top; that is very good. God wants to build on this foundation.

God owns everything. If God owns everything, what do you own? – Nothing; and I don’t either, despite what the taxman says! Read Psalm 50:10-12. You mean all those blood sacrifices barbecued on the altar weren’t because God was hungry? No! That’s not why they were established. God does as He wills.

How God established the tithe

God blessed Abraham in battle, and Abraham offered back to God (Genesis 14:18-20). Salem means “peace”, and a tithe is a tenth, ten percent. God had blessed Abraham with the spoils of battle; and Abraham – not because it was law: the Law had not yet been given, but because He wanted to do it – gave to the High Priest of the Lord, Melchizedek, ten percent of everything that he had gained. That’s a sign of where his heart was. Eight chapters later we see an even clearer picture of where Abraham’s heart was. God said to Abraham, “Sacrifice your son.” We’re not talking about ten percent now. At that point Isaac was Abraham’s only direct heir (he also had a son by the maid Hagar, but that’s not where the promise was to be fulfilled): it was a hundred percent of his legacy. Abraham went up the mountain; he even had Isaac carry the wood for the fire on which he was going to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham was willing; [Genesis 22:1-10] but just as he was about to do the deed… read Genesis 22:11-12. Abraham was willing to go way beyond the tithe!

Generations later, Abraham’s grandson Jacob had a dream of angels going up and down on a ladder, and he was so impressed that he made a vow (Genesis 28:20-22). The Law had still not been given; Jacob voluntarily said, “From this day forward, of everything I get I will give a tenth to You, because I trust in You to give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and you’ll take me back to the place You’ve sent me to.”

So we have two examples of men who gave willingly to the Lord. Then the Law was given, and it embodied the tithe (Leviticus 27:30, 32). Now God establishes the tithe, not because He needed the land, the produce, the plants or the livestock – because He owns everything – but to reveal where each man or woman’s heart is. Where is your heart? The tithe is worship, just like dance, singing, and participating in the Mass: you’re giving your time and your talents; the tithe is just giving your treasure.

How is the tithe to be used?

God not only established the tithe, but He also made it clear how it was to be used. It’s not so that the Rector can do whatever he wants and have a big house and a fancy car. God commanded the tithe to be for the Levites. They were one of the Twelve Tribes, but they were different: when they came into the Promised Land, each of the tribes received a big parcel of land to divide among all their families, and it was theirs forever. The law of the Year of Jubilee said that if you sold your land, the price depended upon the number of years to the next Year of Jubilee, because every fifty years the land went back to the family that originally owned it [Leviticus 25:10-16, 23-28]. All the other tribes got a really valuable inheritance; the Levites did not. The Levites were the paid ministers: the Priests, singers, and anyone who was paid through the temple through their ministry (Numbers 18:21-24). The Levites were never to acquire land; God is their inheritance: all they have is the tithes of the people. If the people don’t tithe, they don’t get anything. If they are unfaithful and the people wander away and the faithful disperse and there is nothing coming in, guess what? – the ministers don’t get anything. That seems right: if you neglect the people, why would you receive support?

That’s how it’s supposed to be. When I was called to be Rector of St. Stephen’s, we gave up having our own house. We sold our house and paid off most of our debts. If some day St. Stephen’s leases or buys a house for us to live, in it will not be in our name: it’s not our house – it will be in the church’s name. It will not be an inheritance for our children – it will be an inheritance for the church’s next generation. Our inheritance is the Lord.

Without the tithe, ministers have to seek outside employment, and when they do that they can’t devote full time to ministry. I’ve tried working and being involved in ministry, and I hate it; but God provides. If that’s what has to be done, it’s what we do. But the idea of the tithe is that the minister doesn’t have to.

That doesn’t let the minister off the hook, because the Levites have to tithe too, as everyone else does. The other clergy’s tithes go to the church, but my tithe and each Rector’s tithe goes to the Diocese, to support their ministry to all of us.

There are also offerings: anything beyond that ten percent, whatever the Lord leads. You can look up examples of those in II Kings 12 and 22. The offerings were for the maintenance of the temple. The tithes should go to support the ministers: first the Rector, but then as we get a little bigger perhaps we will have a paid worship leader or a paid administrator… or whatever it is. We’re not there: offerings by themselves couldn’t pay the rent. These are the principles God set down, and how we should be using them: that is our goal.

We are stewards

The point is: God owns everything. I own nothing; we own nothing. But He has put everything in our hands (Psalm 8:4-8). We’re given all of this as stewards. A steward is not someone who owns something, but someone who manages things on behalf of the owner. I’m not a “tree-hugger” – I don’t believe you should sacrifice people to save a tree or a fish – but I absolutely believe that the earth was given to us to take care of, to be a good steward of. That means I need to make intelligent choices, and I need to do things that leave the earth in a good state for the next generation. To use all the resources and say, “Sorry, guys, you’ve got to figure it out yourself” is not being a good steward. A steward is responsible for what he is given. Paul describes a steward, in terms of the Apostles as stewards of the Gospel (I Corinthians 4:1-2). To be a steward, one must be found faithful. In fact, Jesus told a parable about an unfaithful steward, where the master said, “Give me a statement of accounts, because you will no longer be the steward”. [Luke 16:1ff]

We are all stewards: it’s not about how much we’ve been given; it’s not about whether we’re rich or poor. One who’s been given a lot is not more valuable than one who’s been given a little. Jesus described it in Matthew 25:14:15. Some of us are great administrators; some of us aren’t. Some of us are great musicians; some of us aren’t. It’s likely that those who are great administrators aren’t great musicians – although sometimes they are. The point is not “Oh, I’ve got five talents: I must be special.” No – He gives us what we can handle where we’re at, and looks for faithfulness. Later on, to the two who were faithful He said the same thing (Matthew 25:21, 23). He didn’t make a distinction: they were both faithful.   Yes, there is another telling of the same parable, or one very similar parable, in which the one who gained ten more got ten cities, and the one who gained five more got five cities [Luke 19:12-13, 15-19]; but the point is here that it’s your faithfulness – it’s not how much you got in the beginning. If you need any further proof of that, look at Mark 12:41-44. Like Abraham, the widow put in a hundred percent of her inheritance. “This is all I’ve got: without this I don’t have any worldly hope; but I’m putting it in.” God’s not interested in how much we have – He’s interested in where our heart is, whether we have little or much. He says so in Luke 16:10-11. I ask God for all kinds of things, and He says, “If you haven’t been faithful in the small things, who will give you more? Why would I give you more, if you’re pouring out what I give you on the ground?”

Give your first and your best to God

And so I ask each of you as I ask myself: it’s a question that I have to ask myself all the time, because it’s not a one-time deal; it’s like Jacob: it’s a lifestyle, “from now on”. And so I ask of you, “Where is your heart? Where do you put the first and the best of your time, your talent and your treasure? When do you pray – is it when you’re awake and alert and you can focus on it, or is it that last two minutes before your eyes close? We all have to answer that question.   But I would like to challenge you – and me: give your first, and your best, to God. Put Him to the test [Malachi 3:10], and just see if He doesn’t provide all the rest for you the way He promised He would (Matthew 6:33).

I could try to bribe you by quoting all the Scriptures that say “If you give, you’ll get good things back”. I’m not going to do that, because God doesn’t want to bribe you into doing the right thing; God wants you to do it because your heart is in it. That’s why it says, “God loves a cheerful giver” (II Corinthians 9:7). God wants us to be like the woman: “I don’t know how You’re going to do this, God, but You said both the coins, so here they are.”

That doesn’t mean that every time for every person He says put it all in. This is not a formula; this is not magic. This is, “What’s the Lord saying?” Maybe the Lord is saying, “I know you can’t do ten percent right now; start with five; start with six; work up to ten. Do five for six months, and see if I don’t come through; and if I do, then make it six, make it seven. Test Me.” Give God a chance to be faithful. – “Oh, well I’ll tithe when I get rich.” He who is faithful in little will be faithful in much: if you don’t tithe when you have a pound, you won’t tithe when you have a thousand pounds, because that thousands pounds will look much better than the pound did.

God desires us to give out of love because He gave out of love. God asked Abraham to give his only son because God would give His only Son. He’s not asking anything more than He’s already done. And He’s not asking you to give a hundred percent and then you never see it again. He’s saying, “I gave you all this; I’m just asking you to give ten percent back to Me to deal with, and you get to be a steward of the other ninety percent.” What kind of deal is that? You won’t get that from your employer. It’s amazing. But He wants our heart. It has to come from the heart. And I pray that all of us can make that choice, and our hearts will be open and giving, because this city will be impacted by us if we can do that. That’s what happened in the early Church: they weren’t afraid to give. I don’t mean just money, but their lives: that changes the culture; that changes the nation. We can do that – not by might, not by power, but by His Spirit [Zechariah 4:6].

Sermon transcript, 12 April 2015

We believe… by Fr. Dana

Recording:  http://1drv.ms/1LaNU1u

One of the things I want to start talking about today is the Catechism of the CEC.  If you were around in the really early days of the CEC, there was a lot of excitement; the Holy Spirit was moving and things were happening.   We were a little quick to lay hands on people and ordain or consecrate them: everyone wanted to be a part of this thing that God was doing; and that’s natural, but it turned out that some of them were “ambulance chasers”: people who sit at home with their radio scanner on, listening for things happening, and when they hear something they want to go and watch.  That doesn’t mean their heart wasn’t in the right place: they got excited and they jumped in; but when things got a little difficult, that wasn’t what they were looking for.  Part of that is because we didn’t understand what the Church is.  We have learned a bit over the last twenty or so years, and part of that is embedded in our Catechism.  A Catechism is the teaching of what is true; and I want to go a little bit into what the Church is and what some of us thought the Church was because of where we were coming from.

Who are we?

The Catechism says, regarding our identity, that “We are men and women of faith from diverse backgrounds, seeking an expression of the church that is fully sacramental and liturgical, evangelical and charismatic…” – those are the three streams; “a Church fully submitted to the authority of Scripture, as interpreted by the continuing witness of the ancient church…”  That means that the people who first heard the Word know best what it meant.  Have you ever played “Telegraph” or “Chinese whispers”?  You sit in a circle and one person whispers something to the first person, and they whisper it to the second, and it goes around the circle… and the fun part is comparing what the last one says to what the first one said.  How did you get that?  That’s exactly what happens through history if we don’t go back: they wrote it in 33 AD, and here we are in 2015 and people go back and say “I want to do some research and see what it really meant”, and they look at all kinds of things, except the people who received the letter: how did they act when they received the letter?  What did they do when they heard the Word?  That’s where the faith is not sola Scriptura: it’s not “just the Scriptures”, if you mean by that “just the Scriptures and whatever I feel like they say”: it is the Scriptures as the Church has always known them and has always understood what they meant.  We have to apply them in new ways: they didn’t always have mobile phones and the internet; but they did have other temptations, other things that could consume their time, and other tools that could be used rightly or wrongly, so it still applies.

We are “…a church fully submitted to the authority of Scripture, as interpreted by the continuing witness of the ancient church and governed by consensus. Our worship is Biblical, liturgical…” – We have a liturgy; the truth is, just about everybody’s worship is liturgical, even if the liturgy is just a bulletin that says “Call to worship – Scripture – Song – Sermon…”: that’s a liturgy and an order.  “Our worship is Biblical, liturgical and Spirit filled, ancient and contemporary, holy and joyful. We are committed to advancing God’s kingdom by proclaiming the Gospel to the least, the lost and the lonely.”

We believe in the seven Sacraments: at the centre is the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper; there is also Baptism, Confirmation, Reconciliation (or Confession), anointing for healing, Ordination, and Matrimony.  What distinguishes the sacramental Church from evangelical or Protestant churches is mostly the Sacraments.  The church I came from had Baptism, Communion and marriage; we prayed for healing but didn’t do anointing; and some sort of ordination.

We’re fully evangelical: we believe that the Bible contains everything that is needed for life and salvation.  We believe in the Great Commission: that we are called to go into all the nations and baptise [Matthew 28:18-20].  We believe that we are saved by grace alone and justified by faith, and saved to do good works [Ephesians 2:8-10].

And we are a church that is open to the working of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit which are specified in the New Testament, and that all believers are empowered to participate in that ministry: it’s not just for the clergy [Romans 12:6-8, I Corinthians 12:4-31, Ephesians 4:7-16, I Peter 2:9, 4:10-11].

What is the Church?

In my opinion, the big distinction between those three streams when they’re separate – the sacramental stream, the evangelical stream, the charismatic stream – is their view of what the Church is and what the Sacraments are.  If you came from a charismatic church or another Protestant church, it’s quite likely that your view of the Church is that it’s the people – true statement – and that it’s really a kind of democracy.  If your church had to search for a pastor, you probably published a notice somewhere in a denominational publication or a newspaper, or somehow got the word out that we’re a church and we don’t have a pastor.  Prospective pastors would apply; they would come in and preach a sermon and you would get to know them, and some small Council of people from the church would decide which one we should recommend, and they would recommend it to the church, and the church would say yes or no, and then you would make the offer and they would say yes or no.

The Kingdom of heaven is not a democracy: we don’t elect the king – the King is Jesus.  And He appointed apostles, and they went around choosing Bishops, leaders in every area, to be administratively over the Church and to shepherd the Church: it was their responsibility.  Multiple churches in an area were under a Bishop, like the Bishop of Jerusalem and the Bishop of Rome.  The Bible talks about Bishops and Deacons; Priests came along when there were so many churches that the Bishop couldn’t handle it, and so the Bishop ordained Priests to be his representative, not to be the owner of a church.  The Priest could only act under the authority of the Bishop; if the Priest and the Bishop didn’t agree, guess who won?  The church doesn’t belong to the Priest; the Priest isn’t elected.  A good Bishop listens to the people under him: to his Bishop’s Council, to the clergy in the Diocese; when there’s an opening, he talks to people: “Who do you think would be good?”  People put in names that they know, and they talk and pray about it.  And the Bishop tries to get the mind of the Lord; he doesn’t have to follow what the people or his Council recommends: they can agree that this is the person and he can say, “I’ve heard what you’re saying, but I think God is saying this…”  It’s not a democracy: that doesn’t mean we don’t have a voice, but it does mean that the Holy Spirit can overrule.  And if the Bishop is wrong, whose fault is it? – The Bishop’s.  That’s why the Bible says it’s not a good idea to want to be an overseer, because you have more responsibility and accountability.  The Church is not a democracy where we elect the people over us, so that they reflect our personality – that’s what’s happening in democracies all over, especially America – and then we complain about what they do.  He told you he was going to do it, and you elected him: he’s not leading you – he’s actually following you: he’s doing what you elected him to do.  That’s not the Kingdom of heaven.

The Kingdom of heaven is a monarchy: there is one King, and authority flows down from the Head.  That’s why Jesus was so impressed with the Roman army captain who came to Him and said, “Come and heal my servant.”  Jesus said “Sure, I’ll come”, and the captain said, “Wait a minute – You don’t even have to come.  Say the word…”  This was a Roman army captain, and Jesus turned to the people, the Jews, and said, “I haven’t seen faith like this anywhere in Israel!”  Ouch!  The captain said, “I have authority because I’m under authority.  If I’m not under authority, I don’t have any authority, and it’s just my word against anybody else’s.  But if I’m under authority, I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes.”  And he says to Jesus, “If You say my servant is healed, that’s good enough for me.”  And Jesus said it, and he left.  And the next day on the way home he meets some servants coming to him, and they say, “You’re not going to believe this, but your servant just hopped up and he’s fine.”  And the captain says, “Oh yes, what time did that happen?”  “Oh, yesterday about three o’clock.” “That’s when I was talking to Jesus.” [Luke 7:2-10, John 4:46-53]

That’s what the Church is about – being under authority.  As long as we listen to what God is saying, then we can be confident about doing it.  We can do crazy things if God is saying it.  If we just do it because it’s crazy, we’ll look stupid: I know, from personal experience…

What are the Sacraments?

How we view the Church affects our faith; it affects our behaviour; it affects what we call the Sacraments.

• In the Protestant Church, Communion is all about remembering.  Jesus said it, and we say it, in the Eucharist: “Do this in remembrance of Me.” (Luke 22:19)  That is true.  But they ignore the other part, which says, “Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you have no part in Me.” (John 6:53) – “Oh, well, that was a mistake; He should have clarified that.”  Guess what – He had plenty of opportunity to clarify it; and in fact people said “That’s a hard teaching”, and people left because of it [John 6:60, 66].  If He didn’t mean that and He started seeing people wander away, do you think He would have said something?  “No, wait a minute, I didn’t mean that – it’s a just a spiritual picture.”  He didn’t say that, because it’s not true – it’s not just a spiritual picture.  Jesus is really there: it’s really His body and blood.  It may look like bread and taste like wine, but it still is His body, because He said it is.  That’s a Sacrament, not a remembrance: a Sacrament is something that God does, not something that we do.  In the Sacramental Church, the Sacraments are things God does; in the Protestant Church, they are things that we do. 
• In the Sacramental Church, marriage is God putting two people together and making them one [Matthew 19:4-6]: you are making vows to Him to love, honour and obey your spouse.  In the Protestant Church you are making vows to each other – “I promise to do this” – and God is signing as a witness: it’s something we do instead of something God does.
• Ordination: becoming a Priest; or Consecration as a Bishop:  In the Sacramental Church, you have to be called to be a Deacon or a Priest (that doesn’t mean we can’t make mistakes and think someone’s called because they really want to be); and when you are called, you have to make vows – just like marriage vows.  When I made my vows to my Bishop in the CEC to uphold the Gospel as the CEC understands it and to obey my Bishop, that’s no different from the vows that I would have made to my wife if we’d been in the CEC when we got married.  Then to say, “I’ve decided that I like a different Church better” is the same as me saying, “There’s this thirty-year old that I like better”.  We laugh, but I’ve heard people make that kind of argument about leaving the church – not only the CEC, but it could be Rome or another Church: “I made these vows, and I really meant them, and I want to be true to them, but I can’t be true to them, so rather than stay in the Church and be untrue to them, I’m going to leave the Church.”  That’s like saying, “I want to be faithful to my wife, but I can’t, so I’m going to divorce my wife: that’s the best thing for her.”  That’s the best thing for her?  No.

Dying to self

But some of that is because these people came from the Protestant Church; and in the Protestant world, to become a pastor all you need to do is go to Bible school, go through a course of study, get your degree, diploma or certificate of ministry; and then – you remember those churches that are looking for pastors?  You start sending out your resumé: you’re looking for a job; and you send it to the ones where the jobs look best, or that fit your particular personality.  And you get hired, and it’s good.  And you’ve been going a few years, and you think, “I could make twice as much if I was a pastor in a big city…” and so you start looking for another job.  That’s all I knew when I was in the Protestant Church: that’s how it worked.  You could even look for jobs outside your denomination: you could go to a Baptist seminary and come out and be a pastor in a Methodist Church.  That’s not a shepherd – that’s an employee.  And if I think I can get a better deal somewhere else, I’ll go somewhere else, or I’ll tell you, “I can get a better deal somewhere else.  Can you give me a raise?” – just as you do in the corporate world.

There’s no dying to self.  And that doesn’t mean there aren’t Protestant preachers who have died to self: I’m not saying that everyone is bad.  I’m just saying that the system doesn’t teach you what the Church is; it doesn’t teach you what a pastor is.  A pastor is a shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, not an employee who’s looking to build a good retirement [John 10:11-13].  And so we have to deal with the consequences; but we’re learning in the CEC is what it means to be a Church; what it means to be a Deacon, or a Priest, or a Bishop; what it means to lay down your life for your friends.  That’s what love is: “Greater love has no man… than… [to] lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

I was in Dublin yesterday; we had our Bible study, and we started this Catechism, and it did not go well: it turned into a lecture…  Then we had some questions, and it took off.  One of the questions that I didn’t have an answer for was, “Why do Priests wear black?”  Good guys wear white, and the guys who wear black are the bad guys…  Last night I had time to find the answer, and it’s a good one: Black is the colour of death.  Black in combination with the collar…  Why do you put a collar on an animal?  It’s a yoke, so that you can lead and guide it where it’s supposed to go.  “Take My yoke upon you…” (Matthew 11:29)  We should be yoked to Christ: when we put on the yoke and say, “Whatever You say…” – to do that, we have to die.  Because if we put this one and say, “I’ll be yoked with You as long as You don’t ask me to do something I don’t want to do”…  That sound silly, but how many people put on the yoke and then say, “I really don’t want to do that; and I don’t want to do that so badly that I’m leaving”?  It does happen.  You have to die: if you want to be yoked to Christ, you have to die – daily.  “Daily die to yourself, pick up your cross, and follow Me.” [Luke 9:23]

Why do we need instruction in the faith?

This is just an introduction to the Catechism, which is just instruction in the faith.  Why do we need instruction?  Why can’t we all just figure it out ourselves?  There are a few Scriptures that give us enlightenment there, and I will touch on two of these quickly:

• Read Luke 1:3-4: Luke is writing to Theophilus (a name which means “lover of God”) and he is telling him why he is writing.  He’s saying, “I’m writing this down so that you can know for sure that this is what happened, and so that you can communicate it to other people who weren’t there.”
• Read II Peter 1:15-16: (“Decease” means death.)  They wrote the Scriptures down so that when all the people who physically  knew Jesus were gone and all the people who had witnessed what He did had died, there would still be an account of what had happened so that all those people in the twentieth century who want to say, “Well, He didn’t really say this because it doesn’t fit His character”, or “He didn’t really do this, because miracles don’t happen”…  Peter and Luke and John knew that was coming and said, “I’m writing this down, because I was there, I saw it, I know it happened; and you need to know for sure that it happened, so that your faith can be as strong as mine.  And the people hundreds of years from now can faith as strong as mine because they have our testimony.”

It was important to them.  And there is one argument that is used to say, “Even with all of that, it’s still not true – they made up a story so that they could sell the movie rights, or so that they could be big hotshots.”  Let’s assume for a moment that they made this up, that Jesus died and actually did not rise from the dead, they buried Him somewhere and someone recently found His tomb, along with Mary and their child.  Let’s imagine that this is true, and that you are Peter, Andrew, James, and John, and the government is telling you, “If you don’t recant – if you don’t tell us that this is a lie – we’re going to behead you, crucify you upside down, boil you in oil…”  I’ve made some money selling manuscripts, but I know it’s not true, and they’re threatening to kill me in a very painful way.  Am I going to say I refuse to deny it?  No.  The only way I’m going to refuse to recant my story is if my story is true and I saw it.  Ten of the Eleven disciples were put to death because they were Jesus’ disciples and said they saw, they knew Him, it happened.  They all could have saved their lives by saying, “Ha, just kidding; you know, I was trying to be popular”.  Even if three or four of them had done that, then there would be some cause for doubt.  Not one.  And the only reason the other one didn’t get in that situation is that they never tried to put him to death: John lived to a great old age.

The reason why we have the Catechism is so that you know what you believe, and you can stand on it like a rock.  Jesus said to Peter, “You are the rock, and on this rock I will build My Church…” – not Fr. Dana’s church, Bp Elmer’s church, not Patriarch Craig’s Church, not Pope any-of-them’s Church – “My Church; and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” [Matthew 16:18]  Too often we think we’ve got to go back into the fort and close the gates and protect ourselves until Jesus comes.  He didn’t say, “The gates of heaven will not fall when we’re attacked by Satan”; He said, “The gates of hell will not prevail against the Church.”  Satan is not taking the gates of hell and trying to beat us over the head with them – he’s behind the gates, and the Church is coming after him!  The gates of hell will not prevail: to do that we’ve got to know what we believe; and it’s got to be solid, because the enemy will try everything possible to make us doubt and to make us get back in our hole and be safe and wait until the storm’s over.  That’s not what we’re called to do.

We’ll hear more: we’ll get into the Sacraments, the Creeds, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer… and we’ll do this over time… so that we can be prepared, and so that we can do what God’s called us to do.