Tag Archives: calling

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Invited to follow

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 22-minute message. Unfortunately the video livestreaming did not work today, so we have only the audio version of this message.

One of the foci of the Bible is on the past. Lots of references to ‘remember’ – remember when I brought you out of Egypt, remember when I led you into the promised land, remember Abraham and Jacob, remember where you came from, etc. Our region focused on ‘remembrance’ last year (2022). In our parish, and perhaps in your church also, there are good things to remember and also bad things to remember. Churches are seldom always happy all the time – we go through ups and downs, storms and rainbows. This is certainly true in my church.

Our readings today speak of such troubled times. 1 Cor 1:10-18 speaks about divisions and quarrels in the Corinthian church, with members aligning with different leaders and sowing descension between between them. And Isaiah 9:1-7 similarly speaks of darkness, oppression, a bar across one’s shoulders, distress, gloom and defeat. And later Isaiah 58 speaks of the yoke of oppression. There are many hard times in most churches. Some of this might be hidden from many members of a church, but when you look closely, there it is.

We want something better! For 2023, we want a better experience of church. And so, our region this year is focusing on ‘identity’ in 2023. The question to answer is, “Who are we?” What are we about? What’s important to us? What characterises us? Sometimes we say nice things about our identity, but don’t actually live the out. We need to walk our talk. At the start of last year, our parish did some strategic planning about identity and came up with values like being Christ-centred, generous, united, a family/community, a sense of belonging, caring and so on.

Back to Isaiah 9:1-7 where we read about some of these ideas: light, overcoming oppression, the shattering of the yoke, peace, justice and righteousness. And Psalm 27 – what a magnificent and uplifting Psalm!! – speaks about light, salvation, dwelling in God’s home, sheltered by God, seeking God’s grace and (my favourite line), “to gaze on the beauty of the Lord”.

Actually, at this point in the sermon, I went to sit with the congregation and joined them in looking forward into the sanctuary. I invited them to imagine God standing up there in the front and us just gazing on him. We spend some minutes doing just what. What a wonderful experience it was to sit quietly in God’s gracious presence and to just be and to feel his love.

And then we come to Matthew 4:18-23, about Jesus’ calling of the brothers Simon Peter and Andrew, and the other brothers James and John, sons of Zebedee. They were all fishermen, out on the Sea of Galilee catching fish. Jesus stands on the water’s edge and calls them, “Hey you! Follow me! With me you’ll catch people instead of fish! Come!” No hesitation from any of them! None!! Peter and Andrew: “At once they left their nets and followed him.” James and John: “Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”

It’s incredible really. Jesus was not well known at that point. He had no followers, no reputation, no means, nothing. But something in his call must have been so compelling that without a second thought they all left their livelihood, their families, their community and followed Jesus, and remained faithful disciples until they died.

At this point in the sermon, I went around the church touching people on their shoulder and calling them, “Jesus is calling you to follow him… He wants you to partner with him… He wants you to work alongside him.”

This invitation is incredible. God’s modus operandi, from Genesis 1, has always been to work in partnership with people. He could do everything and anything himself without us. But he chooses and desires to work in partnership with us. What a mind-blowing opportunity – to work alongside God, to be a co-worker with and partner of God.

This is what we want to do more of in our parish this year. This is who our identity is. We want to be a church that partners with God in accomplishing God’s goals and living out God’s values. As a start, we want to become an increasingly caring and compassionate church. We want to see each other, know each other, reach out to and support each other, take care of and care for each other. Jesus says that when people see how we love each other within the church, then they will know that we are his disciples and will be drawn to him. So, that’s our main churches main programme for the first half of 2023 – to strengthen our capacity to care. We will do this through two main initiatives. First, during Lent, which start in a couple of weeks, we will focus our teaching on caring for and loving one another, and after Easter, we will run a series of short training sessions on how to be a better, more attentive, more caring friend – not a counsellor or therapist, but a good friend.

In this way, we will be responding to Jesus’ invitation to follow him and build our identity as people after Jesus’ heart.

Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew, Lorenzo Veneziano, 1370; Staatliche Museum, Berlin. From https://www.praytellblog.com//wp-content/uploads/2017/11/15_Lorenzo_Veneziano_Calling_of_the_Apostles_Peter_and_Andrew._1370_Staatliche_Museen_Berlin..jpg

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Bread of Heaven (Part 5)

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 25-minute message. Or watch the video on Facebook here (the message starts at 30 minutes). Or read the text summary below.

We complete our five-part series on the Bread of Heaven, this week focusing on John 6:56-69. Over the past four weeks, Jesus has been consistently redirecting us to himself and presenting himself to us as the source of life. Among other things, he has show that:

  • He cares about us.
  • He feeds us, meets our physical needs, abundantly.
  • He redirects us from earthly things to heavenly spiritual things.
  • He directs us towards himself.
  • He invites us repeatedly into a relationship with him.
  • He says he is the bread of life, come down from heaven
  • He invites us to feast on him.
  • He offers us and the world eternal life.

Now the question is: How will you respond to all this?

There are two sets of responses in our reading: the response of the larger group of Jesus’ disciples and then the response of the 12 disciples, voiced by Peter.

The response of Jesus’ disciples

Today’s reading indicates that Jesus’ teachings are hard – who can accept them? What is it about Jesus’ teaching in John 6 that is hard to accept, offensive? In part, it is his claim that he came down from heaven (John 6:42) and in part that he invites us to eat his flesh and drink his blood (John 6:52). On the one hand, he is too heavenly and on the other hand he is too earthly and fleshy. He is too high and too low!

Jesus responds to the first point by asking how they will feel when they see him ascending back into heaven (John 6:61-62). If his claim to have come down from heaven is hard to accept, how much more witnessing him ascending back into heaven! And he respond to the second point by saying they should forget about earthly flesh and concentrate on spiritual flesh and words, which are full of Spirit and life (John 6:63).

But, recognising that his teachings are hard to understand, Jesus acknowledges that some do not believe and some who believe will fall away. It is our choice whether or not we believe in him. Yet, it is important for us also to know that God the Father enables our faith, enables us to believe and even to accept hard, difficult teachings. Indeed, three times in this chapter, Jesus emphasises that it is the Father who inspires and enables our belief:

  • The Father gives us to Christ (John 6:37).
  • The Father draws us to Christ (John 6:44).
  • The Father enables us to come to Christ (John 6:65).

God is sovereign. God does the drawing of our hearts towards Jesus. We rely and depend on God to enable and inspire our faith. And so we pray to him when our faith frays.

Nevertheless, many of Jesus disciples turn away and leave him. God does not force them to stay or force them to believe. We have free well to listen to God’s call and to follow him. God may give, draw and enable our faith, but he does not coerce – we still choose.

The response of Peter

Finally, Jesus turns to the 12 disciples – they are not among those who turned away and left. He asks them, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” (John 6:67). The phrasing of the Greek implies a ‘no’ answer. Jesus is hoping that they will not join the others who have turned away.

Peter’s reply is wonderful:

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!” (John 6:68) Peter knows the options out there, and concludes that they are all wanting. Even if Jesus’ teaching is hard to fathom, he can think of no better options. And besides, despite the difficult of Jesus’ teachings, he recognises that these are words of eternal life. Not words about eternal life, but the words of eternal life! Jesus very words are Life itself! As Jesus said earlier (v63), “the words I have spoken are full of the Spirit and of life.”

“We have come to believe to know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:69) Here Peter describes a process – the same process that we have been following these past five weeks: there is a process (“we have come”) of learning to trust Jesus and to entrust ourselves into Jesus (“to believe”) that leads to knowledge about who Jesus is and what he means to us (“and to know that you are the Holy One of God”). There is a process of trusting Jesus that leads to us knowing him.

All of this (this entire chapter 6 in John’s Gospel) has been about drawing us closer into a trusting relationship with Jesus, redirecting us from the things of the world to himself, and learning to trust that he himself, as the bread that has come down from heaven, is the source of all the nourishment that we need, of life, of Spirit.

Again, the question is: How will you respond to all this?

Featured image of sourdough bread from https://www.independent.com/events/how-to-make-sourdough-bread/
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That is why I have come

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 15-minute message. Or watch the video on Facebook (the message starts at about 29 minutes).

“That is why I have come!”

These are the words of Jesus for us today. In Mark 1:29-39, we read of Jesus healing people and casting out demons. He then withdraws to pray and his disciples follow him, annoyed, saying, “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus responds, “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so that I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” Jesus has a clear sense of calling, of why he is here in this world. It emerges out of his time of prayer with his father. He has come to heal, to restore, to save and to preach. (You may recall last week’s sermon, Acts of love, in which I showed that while Jesus is involved in both knowledge or teaching and healing or acts of love, it is the latter that enjoys more attention.)

Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 9:16, Paul writes, “When I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, since I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” Paul does not regard preaching as something he can choose to do or not do. He feels that he was made to preach, and thus has to preach. And so he says, “I am simply discharging the trust committed to me.” God called him to preach, and preach he must.

I resonate with this verse. After many years of feeling called into ministry, and running away as fast and as far as I could, I finally conceded and preached my first sermon in August 2005 (you can read that sermon, based on Romans 12:1, here). Terrified as I was, I knew as I stood, clinging to the lectern, that this is what God had called me for and that I had to continue preaching. I felt compelled to preach! There was a period of a few years when lay ministers were barred from preaching. I remember feeling like a bear with a headache or a woman who was 11-months pregnant. I was irritable, distressed, uncomfortable, in pain, because I felt I was unable to give birth to the sermons growing in me. As Paul wrote, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!”

The clear sense of calling or purpose expressed by Jesus and Paul, and indeed most of the characters in the Bible (think of Isaiah’s “Here am I. Send me!” in Isaiah 6:8), is God’s gift to every Christian. It not just some special few who have a calling, a sense of why they are here, as sense of being compelled to do something for God. This is a gift God gives to every believer. 1 Corinthians 12:7 & 27 tells us that “to each one [that is, to every single one] the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” and that “each one of you [that is, every single believer] is a part of” the body of Christ.

God has put you on earth for a purpose.

You are alive for a reason.

You have been sent to do particular work for God.

What is it that God is calling you for? What has God gifted you to do? What is that nagging voice at the back of you mind telling you? What do you know you should be doing for God, but are avoiding? What is it that deeply satisfies you? What is it that, when you do it, tells you that you are in the centre of God’s will for you?

That thing is what you are here for. That is what you are compelled to do. That is why you have come!

Featured image from https://byfaithonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/620x400_p40.jpg
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Called – Authorised – Sent

Click here to listen to the audio of this 18-minute message. Or watch the YouTube message below, or read the summary text thereafter.

Matthew 9:35-10:8 sets us on a path of discipleship in which we have the opportunity to participate in God’s work in building the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ message is “the good news of the kingdom”, which includes personal salvation as well as a transformation of the world in which we live. It shows God’s interest in the whole of human life, from the individual through to the societal.

But while the harvest is plentiful, the workers are few. Jesus calls the disciples to pray for workers who can participate with God in building the kingdom of Heaven. You are that worker! As am I! We pray regularly, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. And we are the answer to that prayer.

And then in Matthew 10:1 & 5, we read that Jesus:

  • “Called his twelve disciples to him” – the calling is individual and collective. He calls you and he calls me, and he calls all of his followers, the church.
  • “Gave them authority” – Jesus authorises them to do God’s work in building the kingdom
  • “Sent out” the disciples – he sends them out to do his work.

We are called, authorised and sent!

Jesus instructs them to proclaim this message: “The kingdom of heaven has come near”. The kingdom is near because Christ is near; and Christ is near, because he dwells in the hearts of his followers.

What does this look like in practice? Matthew lists four things that the disciples do. These are the same things Jesus has been doing. And Jesus does them not to show off his power, but to demonstrate the heart of God – God’s loving heart for humankind. These are:

  1. The ill are healed. This is about making people whole, and relieving pain and distress.
  2. The dead are raised. This points us forward to the resurrection of Christ, who becomes the first of the the many who will be raised to new life in Christ.
  3. Those with leprosy are cleansed. Leprosy was not just an illness, but also a social condition that lead to profound social exclusion and rejection. Cleansing or purification from the disease would lead to re-entry into the community, thus social restoration and integration.
  4. Demons are driven out. Demons oppress people, holding them in bondage. When they are driven out, people are liberated from oppression. This links to Jesus’ manifesto (Luke 4:18), where he proclaims freedom for prisoners and sets the oppressed free. In this way, oppressive power in human relationships is overcome.

The proclamation of the Kingdom being near, and the evidence of this in these four acts of service, show that God is interested in wholeness, life, social integration and liberation from oppression. These are all facets of salvation and all manifestations of God’s presence.

It is to this that we are called in this present time, a time when there is much fracturing of social relationships, much oppression, much brokenness.

We do this work out of a fullness of gratitude for what God has already done for us. “Freely you have received; freely give” (Matthew 10:8b).

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Featured image from: https://thereeldeal.blog/2017/07/13/on-mission-for-jesus-mark-67-13/

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A compelling calling

Click here to listen to this 16-minute message.

In 1 Corinthians 9:16, the Apostle Paul says that he is ‘compelled’ to preach the Gospel. This expression is fascinating, as it gives us some unique insights into Paul’s psychology and spirituality, namely, how he experienced God’s calling on his life. By gaining some insights into Paul’s experience of being called by God, we can gain some insights into our own experiences of being called.

I draw some parallels between Paul’s experience of a compelling calling and my own experience. I myself feel compelled to preach. And when opportunities to preach are lacking, I feel discombobulated and distressed. I think there is a difference between God’s call, which is an objective calling from God, and the compelling call, which is our subjective experience of God’s objective calling pressing upon us.

And so, I am calling on Christians to seek the compelling call – that sense of God’s call being insistent and persistent, irresistible and urgent.

Drawing on an expression used in Isaiah 40, I ask: Do you not know? Have you not heard?

  1. That you are deeply and passionately loved by God.
  2. That God has a unique purpose for you in the world, that draws on the whole of who you are.
  3. That the Holy Spirit of God equips and empowers us to live out this purpose, together with God and within a community of faith.
  4. That God desires us to have a deeper and more profound subjective experience of that compelling calling.
  5. And that God deeply and passionately loves the whole world, and desires to be reconciled to everyone, and wants us to participate with God in achieving that.

It is my prayer that we – Christians – become a more purposeful and invested community, working in partnership with God, to spread the Gospel message of the Kingdom of God.

In this message, I recite a poem, which has been meaningful to me for more than a dozen years. It is called ‘What is this seed?’, in a book by Edward Tyler entitled Prayers in Celebration of the Turning Year (1978).

What is this seed that thou has planted in me
that I must bring to fruit
or pass my life in sterile waste?

What is this gift that thou hast given me
that I must in turn pass on
or it will destroy me?

What is it you are asking me to do
that I must do
or know my life defeated?

I ask, in Christ’s name
Amen.