Faith (Hebrews 11)

What do you do when you have a need? What do you do when you have a problem? Arrrrrgh…? Well, some of us do. The Jews had a problem in today’s Old Testament reading: they didn’t have food. There were 600,000 or a million of them. This was a significant problem, and a real need: they weren’t making this up. However, rather than simply going to Moses and asking him, or asking the Lord to fulfil their need, they communicated their need through whingeing or whining and complaining. They even made a false accusation (read Exodus 16:3). God responded to their request, not in anger or even frustration, but He very simply responded with respect. However He also identified the real problem in their hearts: they didn’t trust Him. The real problem wasn’t that they didn’t have enough to eat, but that they didn’t trust God.

Our real problem is lack of trust

God met their need richly: He went above and beyond what they required, even beyond what they asked: He sent them manna from heaven and meat in the form of quail (Exodus 16:13-14). The quail not only covered the camp, but stayed still long enough to be caught by hand. I can’t even shoot a quail with a shotgun half the time, but they caught them with their hands: that was God.

He sent them manna from heaven and gave them quail, but He also gave them a lesson in trust. He gave them a test (read Exodus 16:16-20). They didn’t get it: He said gather an omer apiece; those who were really industrious and gathered a lot only had an omer, and those who only gathered a little had an omer: everybody had the same amount. Those who kept it overnight found that it stank and rotted or moulded. That was a lesson; but it wasn’t enough (read Exodus 16:21-24). It’s OK to gather too much when you are told to: it won’t rot. Read Exodus 16:25-30. Finally they get the idea that if you did what the Lord says, it works the way He indicates that it’s supposed to work. Our generation has that problem: God has given us instructions on how to live, and we don’t think that’s good enough, so we have to try our own ways. The whole world is trying their own ways in almost every area you can think of, and most of it is not working.

Do you remember where in the journey out of Egypt this incident happens? You might be surprised: it was right after they’d crossed the Red Sea. It wasn’t “Three years ago God led miraculously through the Red Sea, but I’ve forgotten about that.” Only a chapter earlier they were singing, dancing and partying, because they had just seen the army of Egyptians destroyed (read Exodus 15:1-6)– those whom they were deathly afraid were going to destroy them. Three days later they came to a place where there was water, but it was bitter and through a miracle God made it sweet (Exodus 15:22-25); and He made that a teaching moment (read Exodus 15:26). He gave them water; and immediately after this begins today’s reading: there was no water and no food, and they were complaining. They had very short memories. But we would never do that, would we? I would never complain – I wish that were true. But I am guilty of this as well, and I suspect, if we were honest with ourselves, most of us would also admit.

We as a church are in a similar place that the Jews were in: we’ve been in this church for 20 years and in London for 25 years, but at the end of this month we have to find a new place to meet, and so far we don’t see anything happening. It’s not as if we’re starving and have no water; but, like the Jews, we have a need and we don’t see any immediate provision for this to happen. We don’t have a big savings account or a huge income. How is this going to work? We can’t really see how God will provide; and whilst it doesn’t look risky as if some of us will die, but it does look risky. What if the transition to a new place is difficult? What if on the first Sunday of September we don’t have a new place that has everything we need? What if it takes a while? What if people say, “I really liked coming when you were here, but now I don’t know if I want to go to a different place?” What if they stop coming? What if they stop giving? What are we going to do? We could be afraid just as the Jews were: if we think about all the things that could go wrong, we could worry. But what is God telling us? We’re not in nearly as bad a position as the Jews were: their life was threatened; they had a tremendous need; but – Guess what? God provided. He didn’t provide in the way they thought He would: “What’s this stuff on the ground?”

Open your hand

God provided, and when He provided they still didn’t quite get it. When He gave them manna, they still didn’t trust Him to give manna for tomorrow, so they tried to gather extra; and that’s the part that stank. He’s telling them, “Look, I promised to provide, so you don’t have to do it in your own. You don’t have to store it away in the bank – remember the parable of the rich man: “I’m going to tear down these barns and build some that are really big, and save it for the rest of my life…” – No: “I provided for you today; I’ll provide for you tomorrow. Don’t worry about tomorrow.” They wanted to store some in case God didn’t come through, in case God lied to them. Are we tempted to do the same thing? We could say, “We’re going to freeze all spending: we’re not going to spend anything in the church; we need to save everything just in case… We don’t know what kind of down-payment we’re going to need; we don’t know what kind of rent we’re going to find; our rent might go up… We need to hoard it all, we need to hold it in, we’ve got to keep it just in case.” And God says, “Did I call you here? Have I provided for you for 25 years? Have I provided this place for 20 years? Did I bring you out here to kill you, and I’ve just waited for 20 years for you to get stronger because when you were weak it would have been too easy?” Is that the kind of God we serve? I don’t think so.

I’m preaching to myself, because in myself I’m thinking, “Yes, but we’ve got to be wise and keep a little for tomorrow…” I have to resist that temptation. The way you should picture: we have a bank account, the church has a bank account, and you probably have one. It has something in it: imagine that was all in your hand: “I’m going to hold on it, I’m not going to let go of it. I’ll pay that bill, but I’m not going to spend on that; there’s someone in need, but I’m not going to help then either. I’ve got to keep it, because I might need it tomorrow.” God is saying, “I’ll provide for tomorrow. Open your hand.” “No! – If I open my hand, my hand could then be empty, and I won’t have anything, and I won’t have any control over my life; I might lose it, I might not have enough, and you might not give me what I need.” “Open your hand.” “Mine!” “Open your hand.” “No!” “Open your hand.” I have to force myself to open my hand. And He may take some things away; He may take it all away. But whatever He takes away, He will put into my hand what I need for tomorrow. And what i have today may be as big as a golf ball, and when I open my hand it gives Him a chance to give me a beach ball – it may be made of gold for all I know. Whatever we need for tomorrow, He will provide – not just financially, but emotionally and spiritually. He doesn’t want anyone to be left behind in this transition: He’s the Good Shepherd; He takes care of His sheep.

God provides for all kinds of needs

And this applies far beyond St. Stephen’s building situation: it applies to each one of us in our personal lives; not just our finances but in other ways. Last week we prayed for people, and nearly everyone came forward, because everyone has needs: marriage needs, crises, physical needs, employment needs… all kinds of needs. Just like the Jews, we have needs; and God knows it; and they’re reasonable needs. He’s not saying, “Come on, buck up, you can do without that.” We prayed about all kinds of important things. And the message of today’s Old Testament reading is that God cares about every one of those needs, and God provides for every one of those needs, but God provides on His terms. “I want a steak!” “How about manna and quail?” “I want beef!” “Manna and quail.” “I want salad!” “Manna and quail.” Manna and quail are better for you than anything else you want. It was designed perfectly for that needs at that moment. And they went through forty years in the desert, and their shoes didn’t wear out. He takes care of all our needs, the way he wants to do it. Not only does the Lord say “I am the Lord who heals you”, but He also says “I am the Lord who provides” – “I will provide”. And just as He did for the Jews He will do for us; He will provide above and beyond all that we can ask or imagine. He will provide what we need, not necessarily what we want; but what we need will be much better than what we want.

Seek what pertains to eternal life

We see a little corollary to this in the Gospel reading: Jesus has just fed the 5000, and these people are following Him everywhere. He says, “You are following Me not because I am God but because I fed you. You’re willing to walk a long way for your next meal.” He doesn’t say, “That’s a bad thing”; He says, “Take that desire and have the same kind of intense desire – ignore the situation, keep going – in the things that keep you in eternal life. Yes, you’re hungry because I fed you, and it was awesome, and you want to see it happen again, and it’s good to be full. But there’s something beyond your stomach. Seek what pertains to eternal life; strive in the same way for that which you need to live eternally, and I’ll tell you where to get that.” (John 6:24-27) Jesus gave them the bread, not on that day, but He told them how He would do it.

And He would do it the same way that God did with the manna. The Jews didn’t have to do a single thing: they went to sleep at night, woke up the next morning, and what was lying on the ground? Manna. All they had to do was go out and pick it up – nothing else. Jesus says, “I’m going to do that same thing. My Body is the bread that gives eternal life, and all you need to do to receive and consume that bread is to pick it up when it’s offered. You only have to receive it. But to receive it you have to believe that it’s there and that it’s good for you.” (John 6:28-35) All the manna covering who knows how many square miles for 600,000 people, all the manna would have been for nothing if the people had looked at it and said, “I’m not eating that”. He won’t force feed us, but He provides.

Why does God provide?

He’s going to provide us a place; we don’t yet know what it looks, and we don’t yet know where it will come from. The question is: Why is He providing? What is it for? Is it just so that St. Stephen CEC, London does not vanish from the face of the earth? I suspect not: it’s not just so we can exist. If we look at the New Testament reading it gives us a clue: it talks about the Body of Christ. We are the Body of Christ: we individually are the Body of Christ, and we at St. Stephen’s are a part of the Body of Christ, just as the church in Estonia is another part; it looks different and functions differently, and it is another critical part of the body. Paul says, “To each of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” (Ephesians 4:7) Each of us individually have different gifts, different grace; each church has different gifts, different charisms, different grace, different talents… and why is that? Jesus “gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11). That talks about our individuals gifts; and you can see in the same way He does churches: this church reaches better into this part of the community, another church reaches better into a different part of the community: different ministries; but all “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12). Remember that “edifying” – it has the same root as “edifice”, which means an impressive building – is for the purpose of building up the Body of Christ: to make it bigger, to make it stronger, to make it more healthy, to make it able to stand the test of time, to make it teleios: mature.

Conclusion

We are facing this change at the end of the month. Hopefully we’ll remember not to come here on Sunday morning. I may have a hard time with that: I may have to do like the time change, and set an alarm the day before: Go… wherever we’re supposed to be going on the first Sunday of September. In the process, whether we have a new place or not, we should do what the Jews should have done, which is to take our request directly to God: not in a “You just brought us out here to die” frame of mind, but “You have a plan for us, You have a destination, You have a Promised Land for us, but I don’t see how to get from here to there; can You please show us the way”; and He will. We will keep on praying for that, and we’ll receive it with joy, because we know it’s coming even when we don’t see it.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember as we seek God’s face for our church, for our Diocese, is really what this is all about. What the Jews in the Promised Land was all about is not seeking God for what He can give but seeking God for who He is. This whole thing with the manna was training, not in how to eat right, but trust. Every day, trust; different days, trust. If we know and experience who he is, we won’t have problems believing what He will do. He will provide; and He will provide it not only for our benefit but so we can share it with others. That’s the ministry, that’s the edification: to reach out to whatever community He’s moving us to, to reach out and draw them in; to raise Jesus up, and He will draw all men to Himself. That’s our heart, that’s our goal, that’s what we pray for, and that’s what He will provide.

Faith: looking the need straight in the eye

25 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by Fr Columcille in Homily, Scripture

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Sermon transcript, 26 July 2015

Faith: looking the need straight in the eye by Fr. Dana

II Kings 4:42-44, Psalm 145:10-19, Ephesians 3:20-4:6, John 6:1-12

Recording: http://1drv.ms/1NYXchs

The readings today all seem to have a very common theme: they talk about need that is great – too great.

God takes a little and makes it enough

A few verses prior to the Old Testament reading, Elisha had returned to Gilgal, there was a famine in the land, and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him (II Kings 4:38). Each of these is significant:

Gilgal is the very first place that the Israelites came to when they entered the Promised Land – the reason they had been brought out of Egypt, the reason they had made the journey, the reason they went round and round in the wilderness for forty years until all those who had been unfaithful had passed away. Read Joshua 4:19-24: God parted the Jordan as He had the Red Sea, so that they passed through on dry land. In the middle, one person from each of the tribes picked up a stone (not a pebble but a significant stone), then they set these up in a pile in Gilgal. Here they are in a place where God did an amazing thing some 40 years earlier, and the stones were there as a memorial to remind them.
There was a famine: things looked pretty bleak. There wasn’t enough food for one person to live on, much less many.
You’re the prophet of the Lord, sitting there with 100 students in front of you who expect you to be the man of the Lord, and no one has anything to eat. That is embarrassing for somebody in charge; but Elisha is not worried. He’s teaching these men to be prophets – an informal school of prophets – and here is an excellent opportunity to teach. His faith and leadership are put to the test.

A man comes with food, twenty loaves and grain, perhaps enough to serve a meal to a few people, but we have 101. Elisha calmly tells them to serve the food. I love the reaction: “What?!” “Serve the food, because the Lord will provide.” It doesn’t look as if He’ll provide: it was one person carrying the food, so it wasn’t that much. No great words, no wave of the hand, nothing showy… but what happened was the miraculous provision of God, who made what wasn’t enough more than enough. (II Kings 4:42-44)

We see something similar in the Gospel: Jesus is in this situation, except that He has a lot more people. He’s been preaching and He’s very popular, and people are following Him, and so He leads them up the side of a mountain and starts teaching them. (John 6:2-3) He finishes, and everybody’s tired and hungry, and He says to His disciples, “We need to feed these people.” They don’t quite respond with “What?!”, but they do respond: “We don’t have anything, and it would take a lot of money just to feed all these people a few French fries.” But then one of the disciples says, “There is this young lad, and he does have five loaves and two fish, so we’ve got something – but what’s that going to do? It might be enough for three people.” (John 6:5-9)

Jesus says the same thing Elisha said: “Feed it to them.” “Are you nuts? Do you want to start a riot?” It would be like going into the O2 filled with people and saying “We have free million dollar bills, but we only have four of them – come and get it!” They sat down, and they realised that there were five thousand men, and uncounted women and children. Jesus gave thanks to God and gave the food to the disciples to distribute. There were five loaves and two fish: ten of the disciples had half a loaf of bread each, and the other two had a fish. They keep on handing out food until they reach the last person, and everyone is fed. Afterwards He said, “We don’t want to waste it; pick up what’s left”, and they gathered up twelve basketsful. God took a little and made it not just enough but more than enough. (John 6:10-13)

Rely on Him, and give Him the little we have

“Jesus said this to test them, because He already knew what he was going to do” (John 6:6). The test wasn’t, “You feed them; if you don’t, you fail”; it was a test of their faith. They had some faith: they could have said “We don’t have anything – no way”. They didn’t have anything, but they looked around and found a young lad was willing to share his lunch. They said, “We have a little bit, but what can we do with this?” That’s all it took. God gives us situations like this to test us – not to see if we can be self-sufficient and fix the problem, but to see if we will rely on Him to fix the problem, and if we will give Him whatever little we have to use to fix it. It’s like the woman in the temple who dropped the two coins in the offering: she could have said “I’ll give You one, God, to do miraculous things with, but I’ll keep the other because I really want to eat today” – but she didn’t: she gave it all. The young man with five loaves and two fish didn’t say, “I’m going to keep one loaf and one fish for myself and then you can have the rest; I’ll make sure I have enough, because I’m not sure what you’re going to do with the other four loaves” – he gave it all. God took it, and made it more than enough.

He’s training His disciples to rely on Him – yes, to look at what you have and admit that it’s not enough. The disciples didn’t say “I believe in Jesus’ name that we have enough food for all these people”; they said, “We’ve got five loaves of bread and two fish; that’s not quite enough”. They weren’t afraid to look at their poverty in the face of a great need: they were honest; and they came to the one Person, Jesus, who could do something about it. It didn’t run out until everyone had had enough – not just a little bit extra, but twelve basketsful. And I’ll bet those baskets were the deep kind that you can carry stuff around in, not the little trays that we use for offerings.

It’s these kinds of provision of God that allows Paul to say, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think…” (Ephesians 3:20). That is “redundant” – saying the same thing twice when you don’t need to; he says it multiple times. “…according to the power that works in us…” God didn’t stop doing miracles when Jesus went to heaven. He didn’t stop doing miracles when the canon of the Bible was put together – the goal of Jesus Christ on earth was not to get the Bible finished and solidified and then to leave. The Holy Spirit was sent to live in us, to move around us, to continue doing the works of God. “…to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:21) He does it not so we can get this stamp of approval that says “We’re faithful: we do great things; we know we’re really good, because God does things through us.” He does it for His glory, and our desire is to move out of the way and let Him do His work.

Nothing that we face is too large for Him: He is able to surpass all that we can think, by an amount that is too large to measure. What that should say to us? Don’t give up. Don’t give up when you’re sitting there and have no food. Don’t give up when someone comes past and says, “I’ve got a few loaves and a couple of fish”. Don’t give up when it’s time for them to eat: “I can’t put this on the table – are you crazy?” Don’t give up when it’s time to hand it out: just go, and God will keep extending; God will provide.

Take the first step in faith

Do you watch any Indiana Jones movies? My favourite scene is where he’s getting close to where the Grail is, and he comes out of a cave and looks down a cliff, and there is a huge chasm and the other side is fifteen or twenty feet away. He knows he has to get across, but there’s no way – there’s nothing there. He takes a step, and hits on solid. He took the step when there was nothing there – he didn’t wait to see; he didn’t take some sand and throw it on the path to find out; he took the step first, when there was nothing there. That is what God is asking us to do.

But Indiana Jones didn’t do that at home stepping off the ledge of a second-storey window; he didn’t do it to prove that he could do it – he did it because he was on a mission, allegorically, you could say, a mission sent by God. He didn’t do it so that he could prove he could do anything, but because it was the only way he could get from where he was to where he had to go: there was no alternative. It was the same in the Gospel: there are five thousand men, and the nearest town is ten miles away; we can’t send them walking to get food; they’re hungry and tired: they need something. And God provided. That applies to us as well.

Receive God’s provision

What do we do when we have a problem, when we have problem that is too big to climb? It’s impossible: I can’t even get up this first rock. We look straight at the problem; we don’t deny the problem or minimise it – “It’s not that bad; it’ll be ok” – but we look honestly at the obstacle. We look honestly at ourselves – I haven’t got a thing that will get me over, through, around, or in any way on the other side of this mountain. Then we pray, and we ask God.

And we work with what He gives us: if He sends a boy with five loaves and two fish, that’s what we work with. If He sends us provision to solve this problem in a way that’s really not what we wanted to do, we need to go with Him. Perhaps you’ve heard the story of someone who’s caught in a flood: he’s sitting on his roof in the midst of a swollen river is running past really fast, and he said, “Dear God, please rescue me!” Along comes a man rowing a boat: “Hop on! We’ll take out of here.” “Oh no – God’s going to save me.” Along comes a motor boat with six people who have been rescued. “Come on – hop in!” “No – God’s going to save me.” Along comes a helicopter with a guy on a ladder: “Come in! We’ll save you.” “That’s all right – God’s going to save me.” The house collapses; he falls into the river and dies. He goes to heaven, stands in front of the throne and says, “You didn’t save me! I trusted in You! You let me down!” Jesus looks at him very calmly and says, “I sent you two boats and a helicopter – what do you want?” We have to be prepared to accept what he wants to provide, because His way of getting us over, under or around this obstacle, or healing this problem – this physical problem or this relationship problem – might be a little different than we’re expecting, but we must receive.

The same God is with us

Do not give up on Him; do not give up on each other. There may be someone here who has a word or something for your problem. We are the body of Christ; we have different gifts, functions, talents and abilities, but we are all called to love one another, to help one another. We are also called to minister to those outside our group, to the least, the lonely and the lost. Let us not give up. God will provide what we need to do what we’re called to do.

We can “take that to the bank”; Elisha could take that to the bank, Jesus could take that to the bank, Paul, and Peter and James and John and all the other disciples could take that to the bank; and they did, and we are with them, because as Paul’s letter said, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; ⁵one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6) It is the same God who was with Elisha and Elijah and Isaiah and David, with Mary when she was told she was pregnant, with all the disciples, ten of whom were killed for their faith – the same God is with us. The same God will provide for us, the same God has provision; He isn’t saying “He needs more than I’ve got – what am I going to do?” – He is more than enough for us. And I really believe that what He wants to do right now is to provide.

I am the Good Shepherd: go and do likewise

25 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by Fr Columcille in Homily, Scripture

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Sermon transcript, 19 July 2015

I am the Good Shepherd: go and do likewise by Fr. Dana

Jeremiah 23:1-6, Psalm 23, Ephesians 2:11-22, Mark 6:30-34

Recording: http://1drv.ms/1gV86Gm

The readings today seem to have a lot to do with sheep. And as you know, one of the primarily analogies Jesus used for Himself was the Good Shepherd – the True Shepherd. The prophets and everyone else were hirelings; that doesn’t necessarily make them evil, but they are not the Owner of the sheep. I am not the Owner of any sheep: you belong to the Lord; I’m a caretaker, and I will be answerable to the Lord for how I’ve treated His sheep.

God rescues His sheep from abusive shepherds

The Old Testament started out pretty strongly: “‘Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!’ says the Lord.” (Jeremiah 23:1) In the original the word for destroy means “to cause to wander away, to perish.” When sheep wander away from the flock, they’re in danger because they’re by themselves, and wolves make them easy prey. The word for scatter means “to dash to pieces” or “to disperse”. If you had a small handful of sand and drop it in a bucket of water, it starts spreading out; that’s the meaning of “scatter”. Woe to the shepherds who cause the sheep to fall away from the faith and perish, and those who cause the sheep to be scattered into separate groups. To such shepherds, the Lord says, “I will attend to you for the evil of your doings,” (Jeremiah 23:2).

But to the sheep He says, “I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.” (Jeremiah 23:3) He’s not blaming the sheep for wandering off – there are sheep that, despite the best efforts of the shepherd, wander off because they have their own mind about things; that’s not who He’s talking to. When the sheep stray, the shepherd goes after them; if a sheep does this all the time, the shepherd breaks a leg so that it can’t wander so far, and it limps after them: He has a way of dealing with unruly sheep. But that’s not what he’s talking about here.

Read Jeremiah 23:4-5. This is played out over and over again since Jesus’ time and before Jesus’ time. The Old Covenant shepherds – the Pharisees and rulers – neglected the sheep, in some cases destroyed and scattered them. You’re supposed to shear sheep: when the wool gets too long, you cut off most but not all of it, and use it for clothing and other things, and then the sheep grows more wool. If you shear it too closely and don’t leave enough wool, the sheep can’t maintain body temperature: it’s unhealthy. A shepherd who takes too much from the sheep harms the sheep; and certainly a shepherd who kills the sheep and eats them for his own benefit is harming the sheep; and these will be held accountable.

But God sent His Son Jesus Christ, who at the end of this passage is called “the Lord our righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6), to gather all these injured sheep and bring them back. Jesus Himself said, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” (John 10:16) There is one faith, one Lord, one Baptism (Ephesians 4:5), one flock, one Shepherd. He will bring them back from all the places where they have been driven. And He did that when He came to earth: He did it physically by gathering followers, and He did it spiritually for those of that time who never met Him directly and for everyone since then who hears the Gospel and responds. And He appointed New Covenant shepherds: the Eleven Apostles and the one who as added to become Twelve again. These shepherds fed the flock, they were fruitful and increased. But as you know, over the last two thousand years some of those shepherds lost their way and started abusing and feeding off the sheep. But God didn’t stop working, and He is ever renewing His flock, renewing His shepherds. Multiple times over the past two millennia He has removed some of His shepherds and replaced them with shepherds who will feed and protect His flock, so that as this passage says, “They shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking.” That should not fill us with pride but with holy fear, especially those in leadership; because if we are appointed as shepherds, we have a solemn charge, we have a responsibility. If we start abusing the sheep, He will remove us; we are not immune.

Good shepherds care for the sheep

Psalm 23 describes the life of a sheep under the Good Shepherd: those who follow the Great shepherd, Jesus, will receive provision, restoration, protection, comfort, will be fed, He’ll fill our cup to overflowing, He’ll set a table for us even in the midst of our enemies – that’s good to know because the world isn’t too friendly to us right now – and, most importantly, we’ll dwell with Him forever. That’s the life of a sheep. It’s a great life. He’ll lead me beside still waters and make me lie down in green pastures. That doesn’t mean I’ll have everything I want, be rich, or that things will be easy – but it will be good.

In the New Testament reading, He talks about the flock becoming one. He’s speaking to Gentiles: read Ephesians 2:11-12. People who were not Jews, people who didn’t intentionally come and learn from the Jews, were without hope: they didn’t know anything about the true God; they didn’t know anything about Jesus Christ. But read Ephesians 2:13-15: He has made us both (Jews and Gentiles) one flock. Now they are no longer foreigners; now they are sheep of the flock, just like His chosen people. This is good news; it is another expression of the good news of the Gospel.

And then in the Gospel (Mark 6:30-34) we learn how a good shepherd operates. Jesus and the disciples had been ministering in a very busy place with lots of people around; He knew they were getting tired, and He was tired. He said to his disciples, “Let’s go to a quiet place, because we need to refill. It’s good to minister, but you can’t keep pouring out when your needle is on empty. Let’s go to a quiet place.” And they did; but the sheep followed them. Jesus is not a selfish shepherd – He’s a good shepherd. They get out of the boat and there are all these needy people there; He says they are like sheep without a shepherd. Even though He’s tired, even though the specific reason they came away was to rest, He meets their needs: the sheep come first; He ministers to the sheep. This is how a good shepherd takes care of the sheep, how he responds. A good shepherd shows love and compassion to the sheep, and that precedes rest. He had mercy on the sheep because He knew they couldn’t fend for themselves. Sheep without a shepherd start to scatter, and those that get away from the main group become easy pickings for wolves. He knew, and He didn’t want that to happen, and so He ministered to the sheep.

Rescuing lost sheep in today’s culture

There are sheep out in the world today. Some of them have been part of a flock and have wandered away; some of them have never known Jesus, but they will. We are called to minister to them. I’m the shepherd of this congregation, but we are also each a shepherd in some way. Parents are shepherds of their children: we’re responsible for feeding them, taking care of them, helping them to grow, encouraging them… Every one of us has been given something: talent, resources, time… whatever it is, we have something that we can give to other people. That’s what He’s calling us to do: even if we don’t have “Shepherd” as a title after our name, we are still called to love one another, to minister to one another, to go after the sheep that are lost, and to rescue any of them that are willing to be rescued and saved.

We’re in a unique age in our culture. When I was a teenager, and certainly earlier, it was almost assumed that eight or nine out of ten people that you would meet were Christians. They understood what you were talking about, and they understood concepts like sin, compassion, redemption… They don’t anymore; and in fact, when you mention some of those terms, they’re downright hostile: it’s seen as control, manipulation. A lot of the sheep really don’t want to be rescued: they’re quite happy on their own, and no amount of debate will change their minds. You cannot argue someone into the Kingdom: you might point out some fallacies in their life philosophy, but that doesn’t make them want to receive yours.

We’ve seen a time like this before in a culture – in a big culture: the Roman Empire. In the time of the disciples, the Roman Empire wasn’t at all friendly to Christians, and in the century or two after that it got worse, to the point where some of the Emperors liked to cover them in tar and plant them in their gardens and burn them as torches to light their parties. But that Empire was changed; in fact, it fell.

The Celtic way of evangelism

We live in a culture that’s not friendly. No one’s being burned as torches – thank goodness! But we need to reach out to them, and we need to reach them; and we can learn some things. There are many places we can go to learn: we can learn from the disciples and from the Scriptures, but that doesn’t tell us much about the day-to-day life of people other than Paul and the Twelve Apostles. One place where can look is the Celtic Church. Have you seen Celtic or Irish art: crosses with lots of curlicues, and illustrated Gospel books with lots of fancy letters that are almost impossible to read? The Celtic people did that. Ireland was primarily a Celtic culture before Saint Patrick came. Ireland is one of the few places in the world where Christianity came from the outside and became the primary faith without anyone being killed – that didn’t happen in Rome or in most of Europe. There are things we can learn about how it happened in Ireland.

About twenty years or so ago I first read a book called The Celtic Way of Evangelism, and it opened my eyes. It’s not going around knocking on doors and handing out tracts; it’s not arguing people into the Kingdom. It describes how Saint Patrick and his followers brought Christianity to Ireland and totally transformed the whole culture. There are some things we can learn about that. I would like to read you a few little things out of here, to start you thinking about how this might apply to us.

Patrick had been kidnapped in a raid by men from Ireland, taken to Ireland, and was a prisoner there for several years, escaped, came back to Britain where he lived, and had a dream where one of the Irish peasants was calling to him and saying, “Come back: bring the Gospel”. This was unprecedented, because until this point in time there was a philosophy that you can’t save a barbarian people; if they weren’t civilised, you couldn’t relate to them and they couldn’t understand the Gospel. This was why there was bloodshed in other places: the first thing you had to do was go in and civilise them, get them to act the way we act; then you could share the Gospel. That didn’t happen in Ireland. The Celts were barbarians: there was child sacrifice, Druidic priests, and all kinds of strange practices. But one thing they did was that they were always looking for the truth – maybe in the wrong places, but they were always looking for the truth.

Enter Patrick. While he didn’t say this, by looking at what happened in Ireland, we can understand that the first principle is that there is no shortcut to evangelising people: the first thing you have to do is understand them. You can’t go around that fact; you can’t minister to someone you don’t understand. This was tried in other places, but the way of understanding them was to beat them into submission until they talked and thought the way did, and then you could communicate them. That’s not what happened with the Celts; they listened. The Druid priests maintained control because they had secret knowledge that only the priests knew, secret spells and secret philosophy; if you wanted anything you had to go to the priests and ask for it. That was one of the big distinctions they saw in the early Christians: in Patrick and his followers: the people easily perceived the difference in early Christianity, which was open to all, it kept no secrets from anyone, and had as its aim the happiness of the whole population – not fattening the shepherds.

Here’s a little description of how they did it: Patrick’s entourage [group] would have included a dozen or so people including priests, seminarians, and two or three women. Upon arrival at a tribal settlement Patrick would engage the king and other opinion leaders, hoping for their conversion or at least their clearance to camp near the people and form into a community of faith adjacent to the tribal settlement. The team would meet the people, engage them in conversation and in ministry, and look for people who appeared receptive. They would pray for sick people and possessed people, counsel people and mediate conflicts. On at least one occasion Patrick blessed a river and prayed for the people to catch more fish – and they did. They would engage in open-air speaking, probably employing parables, story, poetry, song, visual symbols, visual arts and maybe even drama, to engage the Celtic people’s remarkable imaginations. Often Patrick would receive the people’s questions and then speak to those questions collectively.

The group would welcome prospective people into their fellowship to worship with them, pray with them, minister to them, converse with them, and break bread together – not say, “You have to do this, this and this before you can come into our fellowship.” The mission team typically spent weeks or even months as a ministering community of faith within the tribe, and the church that emerged would have been astonishingly indigenous, made up of local people who lived there. In this area, if God blessed the efforts of Patrick’s band and the people responded in faith, or if enough people gathered around, they built a church.

Patrick engaged in this group approach to apostolic ministry for twenty-eight years until he died. By this time the people that he’d planted were also growing up and planting. An ancient document called The Annals of the Four Masters estimated that in those twenty-eight years Patrick’s mission planted seven hundred churches and that Patrick ordained perhaps a thousand priests. Within just his lifetime, thirty to forty, perhaps more, of Ireland’s one hundred and fifty tribes became substantially Christian. Patrick and his followers went into the culture, made a place – camped near the tribal settlement – and modelled the Christian way of faithfulness, generosity and peace to all the Irish; and the Irish responded.

The strange thing is, the leadership of the Church loved Patrick – right? They said, “Good job! Amazing! I don’t believe how you did that!” No – they called Patrick on the carpet for associating with these barbarians. It sounds like the Pharisees: “Jesus eats with sinners. If he was the Son of God, he’d know who those yucky people are, and he wouldn’t get near them.” Patrick did just what Jesus did, and look what happened.

Where is the community to which God has called us?

How does that relate to us? We’re looking for a place to meet. We have an awesome place right now; it’s incredible. There is no tribal settlement out there. If we could take the tourists off the street, take away the bus and taxi drivers, and go outside the door, there wouldn’t be anyone within a how many miles: no one lives very close. We aren’t in a community. We love tourists and we talk to them and minister to them when they come in here. This morning someone came here looking for a Roman Catholic Church, and I used the map on my phone to show him where the closest one is. Will he come back here? No – there’s no community out there to minister to, to engage with on a prolonged basis, like Patrick. I really believe that we’re called to be in a place – wherever that is – where we can be a presence in a neighbourhood, a tribal settlement, that we can walk out of our door and minister to; where we can have a sign that says who we are and what we do, and if you need something, come on in; and as we build a reputation in the neighbourhood they will, and we’ll grow. The goal is not to grow: the goal is to see sheep rescued, restored, made healthy, including our own people now, and any sheep that God brings to us: that’s what we’re called to.

And so I would ask you to pray seriously about that: How does that apply to us? How can we fulfil what we are called to do? This book is not a manual how to; it doesn’t tell you ten steps how to build a big church. It says: This is what we have seen in looking at how Patrick and others engaged the culture, the barbarian culture, and we can learn from that; we can apply knowledge from that – maybe different techniques: they didn’t have cell phones or electric drums – but we can apply what we learn from this. And so I would ask you to join with us to pray. We have a group of intercessors – an intercessor is someone who gets between two parties and communicates both directions. Intercessors want to hear from God and speak what God says to the people and speak to God what the people are saying. Even if you’re not able or willing or desirous to be an intercessor, you can still pray. Pray that God would show us where He has for us; because He has a place just for us: we don’t know what it looks like or where it is, but we know it’s just what we need at this point in our history. And if we’re faithful to follow Him, He’s faithful to lead, because this is the kind of transformation of the culture He desires: not to go out with signs and whacking people over the head, not to be Bible thumpers, “slaying” people “in the Spirit” with something physical; but to be Jesus, to be good shepherds.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins

~ and restore the places long devastated

Faith (Hebrews 11)

Courage! (Isaiah 40)

You shall go out with joy, and be led forth in peace (Isaiah 55:12-13)

Isaiah 55 in the offices of prayer

Following the Lord: the very definition of wisdom

A vision

Marriage: a contract, or a sacrament?

Need in the place of uncertainty

Faith: looking the need straight in the eye

I am the Good Shepherd: go and do likewise