I’m going to tell you about two people – person A and person B. I’ll give you a few facts about each, and let you decide who you think the ‘better’ person is, they are real people, and I’ll tell you who they are at the end. Person A – Person A was expelled from school as a child and they were accused of plagiarism while at university. Person A was closely monitored by the FBI for much of their adult life and was arrested on 29 separate occasions for things like disobeying police, disturbing public peace, and civil disobedience. Person A at one time was regarded by some as the most hated man in America. Now person B. Person B was awarded the Iron Cross First Class medal for bravery in war, and was once named Time Magazine’s ‘Man of the Year.’ Person B was known to have championed animal welfare causes and also had childhood aspirations of becoming a Catholic Priest. Person B was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939. It’s obvious based on these facts who the better person is, isn’t it? There’s a clear hero and ‘bad guy’ isn’t there? Now, some of you, probably those who watch too much Midsummer Murders on TV probably suspect that there’s a plot twist coming – and you’d be right… Person A is none other than Martin Luther King Jr, the renowned American Baptist pastor and most prominent leader of the civil rights movement in the US in the 50s and 60s. That might make you wonder who the heck person B is then who, based on the facts, could sound like quite the humanitarian. Person B is Hitler. Pretty interesting right? Hopefully, your reaction to the plot twist was shock! If it was, then that’s the same reaction that those listening to Jesus tell the parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector would have had.

Jesus sets up the parable as a comparison between the two central figures – the Pharisee and the tax collector. As modern-day readers of this parable, we’re conditioned from the get-go to perceive the Pharisee as the ‘bad guy.’ The gospel accounts of Jesus’ life are peppered with these encounters between Jesus and the Pharisees, often painting the Pharisees as Jesus’ enemies. They’re often described by their legalism and hypocrisy. To us, the Pharisees have come to represent the worst of religious people – judgemental, entitled, superficial, and arrogant. This parable does not disappoint, it essentially reinforces such a perspective. And because of that we rightfully automatically assume that the tax collector will end up being the good guy. And so because of our preconceived understanding, the shock factor of this parable is lost on us. We might not think it, but what Jesus was saying here, to the audience he was saying it to, was actually quite radical!

Verse 9 tells us that Jesus told this parable to those who were confident of their own righteousness, and who looked down on others – probably some Pharisees. To the Pharisees, tax collectors were the worst of society. The Jews were supposed to be God’s people, the chosen ones. The Roman Empire had taken over, oppressing and exploiting the Jewish people, God’s people. The Pharisees saw themselves as some of the last few who remained faithful as the people of God, they were intent on remaining pure in light of the waywardness around them – this meant strictly observing the rules and rituals of temple worship, and coming up with a few of their own along the way. The tax collectors on the other hand, to the Pharisees, were even worse than their Roman occupiers. They were Jews who’d sided with the Roman Empire by agreeing to collect the tax from the Jewish people, skimming a bit extra off the top for themselves. So when Jesus talks of a Pharisee and a tax collector praying at the temple, his audience of Pharisees would’ve been drawn in as they waited intently for Jesus to commend the Pharisee and put the filthy tax collector in his place. Of course, they would have been totally blindsided, shocked when they heard Jesus declare that in light of their two prayers, it was the tax collector, yes the TAX COLLECTOR, who went home justified before God, not the Pharisee – that was the plot twist.

The message of this parable is pretty clear, it’s quite easy to follow, isn’t it? Even without our conditioning to see the Pharisee in a certain light, we’d probably be able to figure out where Jesus was going with this just based on the posture of the two figures in the parable. The Pharisee from the outset is described by his sense of self-righteousness, standing apart from his unclean counterpart so as to not be associated with someone so lowly. The Pharisee proceeds to offer a prayer of thanksgiving, which really is no prayer at all. While his prayer is addressed to God, it’s really a narcissistic monologue about how much better he is than others – specifically, the tax collector. In other words, this is not a prayer, it is a ‘humblebrag.’ A humblebrag is when you make a seemingly modest statement, but for the purpose of drawing attention to yourself – “actually come to think of it, my back is a bit sore standing up here preaching – probably that half-marathon I ran before church this morning…” Compare that with the tax collector, who in every way comes to the temple in a posture of humility and remorse. Where the Pharisee is concerned with people noticing where he stands, the tax collector is off in the distance away from others. Where the Pharisee is quick to list his accomplishments, the tax collector owns his brokenness and beats his chest in anguish. Where the Pharisee places himself above others to claim his righteous status, the tax collector throws himself onto the mercy of God. Ironically, the tax collector can’t even bring himself to look heavenward as he prays, yet is profoundly more orientated towards God than the Pharisee.

Our natural reaction to this is to of course identify with the tax collector. Particularly as New Zealanders, we’re a pretty egalitarian bunch, we’re drawn to humility. We’re quick to sniff out inflated egos and give a wide berth to those, like the Pharisee who possess them. But, if we pause for a moment and reflect, maybe we begin to see more of the Pharisee in ourselves than we first thought. I mean, is not the very fact we take pride in not being like the Pharisee in itself a bit pharisee-like? Before we know it, we might find ourselves praying prayers that are not so different from the Pharisee – “God, I thank you that I am not like this Pharisee, self-righteous and arrogant, who thinks that his good works set him apart from the rest of us ordinary folks…”[1] Or to bring it a bit closer to home – “God, I thank you for making me an even-keeled Presbyterian, not like those happy-clappy charismatics, or those bible-bashing fundamentalists…” If we’re not careful, we can end up with a pendulum swing reaction to the Pharisee, or self-righteous attitudes like his that are equally unhelpful. Where the Pharisee exalts himself by his pride, if we’re not careful we can exalt ourselves by our humility – and become a bunch of ‘humblebraggers’ that take pride in avoiding expressions of pride. In other words, we determine we’re better off than others because of our humility compared to their pride – it’s the classic gripe we have with Aussies.

See, I think we misinterpret this parable if we come away from it simply seeing the Pharisee as the bad guy, and the tax collector as the hero. While those caricatures might fit with the scene that Jesus describes, there’s also another figure in this parable that we need to consider. A silent figure, who’s hiding in plain sight… God. Before God, we are all equal. We all have inherent value and dignity as those who in some way bear a resemblance with our creator, and at the same time, we are all broken and given to brokenness. Like the tax collector, when we’re honest before God we can’t help but be humbled – humbled by a sense of our own true brokenness and the gap that exists between us and God, but also humbled by God’s mercy and grace, that despite our brokenness and the gap that exists God doesn’t stop drawing near and doesn’t stop offering us wholeness. So I’m sorry to say, before God none of us are better off than the Pharisee, the “happy-clappies”, the “bible basher”, or even the Aussies.

It’s not always easy to be honest before God. It takes determination and it takes courage. The world we live in tells us to avoid things that are difficult, it feeds us with busyness and distraction. At the moment in the church calendar, we find ourselves in the season of Lent. In some ways, the whole idea of Lent is that we make space in our lives to come honestly before God. Lent encourages us to pick something up, or to put something down that might help orientate us towards God. This might be like practising a new rhythm of stillness and contemplative prayer or journaling our prayers to God in light of what’s going on for us. It might be choosing to abstain from something in an attempt to counter busyness and distraction. The season of Lent takes us through to Easter, through to the cross and the resurrection – where we are confronted both by our own brokenness and by God’s mercy and grace. Lent encourages us to sit with these things, to engage with them afresh. Because it’s easy for them to pass us by or slip off our radar in the busyness of life, but these are the things – our brokenness and God’s mercy, that instill the humility of the tax collector in us. So I encourage you to consider what’s a small change during Lent that might help orientate you towards the Easter message. It doesn’t have to be a big change or even one that others know about, just something that might prompt you to sit with the message of Easter afresh this year.

^[1] Cousar, Charles B., Gaventa, Beverly R., McCann, J. Clinton, Newsome, James D.Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary based on the NRSV. WJK Press, 1994. P.575.

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It always makes for a sometimes humorous but always shocking story to hear of the person who has been living a double life. The classic one of course being the husband who has one family in one place and another somewhere else. I read a story this week of a man who went missing during the Spanish civil war. He was presumed captured or killed. However, when the war ended it turned out that he hadn’t been fighting at all but had rather snuck over the border from Galicia (Northwest Spain) to Barcelona (northeast Spain), and he had done so to marry the younger sister of his wife! He had married one sister on the republican side and one on the nationalist side. The two sides of the family still don’t talk to this day!
Most of us, thankfully, don’t end up in these situations but the temptation to live a divided life is very much a real thing. I had a boss once who often pushed us as workers into unreasonable territory. We worked on ladders in dangerous situations, regularly weren’t allowed to take breaks and often wouldn’t let us finish for the day even though we were working outside and it was dark and raining. As well as this he often spoke to us rudely and criticised our work. He died a number of years ago and I decided to go to his funeral. Well, the man spoken about in the service was not the man I knew! Here was, apparently, an exemplary christian man who lived his faith with kindness and generosity with a cheeky sense of humour! I had to work quite hard to reconcile the two different sides to him. The person I had experienced was not this man of christian living remembered at the service. There wasn’t much congruence between this man’s church on Sunday and work on Monday. How is it that putting one’s faith in a box that doesn’t get opened during the week can so easily happen? I don’t know, really, but it’s funny how it creeps in. Some things get marked as sacred which makes other things, by default, not-sacred. Sunday, the holy day, set aside for holy things… and all of a sudden the other days can’t contain any of that stuff because they are not holy. Or, think back to the past, where we’d never think about getting rid of the pews or using the communion table for anything else… aren’t you glad we’ve been able to make a few shifts around this stuff?

We’ve of course tried to be intentional about breaking down the sacred/secular divide. We have buildings that reflect an openness to the community and that can be used in a variety of ways by a variety of people. We don’t need a building to look like a ‘church’ for us to gather together in worship. We could do it in someone’s backyard if we had to! Another way we’ve tried to break down the Sunday/Monday split is largely symbolic, and I have heard a comment from time to time that it makes some uncomfortable, which is fine because when things are done differently it can take a bit to get used to them. Here it is: Each time we gather for worship whether on Sunday or on Thursday we have a time of sharing and notices; and lately we’ve been hearing ‘stories from The Village,’ right in the middle of our worship. What this says to us and reminds us every week is that what we get up to in the week is very much caught up in how we express our worship. Our faith and our service, our faith and our lives are not divided, they are part of the whole.

There is an old word I’d like us to focus on for a minute or two. Liturgy. Liturgy is normally used as the formal description of the order or form of a public service of worship. The order and shape of the worship service is the Liturgy. Any service of worship has a Liturgy, some would like to say they don’t, others pride themselves on being ‘liturgical’ but actually any service of worship, whether it is a sing-a-long and a sermon or an elaborate bells and whistles affair, they all have a form, they all have a Liturgy – a pattern of worship.
The old meaning of the word is interesting. It comes from two Greek words which literally mean, ‘public working.’ ‘Activity of the public’ or ‘the work of the people’ is what liturgy means. I like that! Liturgy – The work of the people. Worship was an activity that belonged to the people. It was only throughout time that it exclusively became related to narrow forms or patterns of Christian worship only led by the clergy.
For a number of years I’ve become interested in what would happen if we workshopped the meaning of this word a bit, to try and make it mean something a bit wider. Let’s try this out. Liturgy, ‘the work of the people in the form, shape, or pattern of worship…’ work and worship… which leads me to think perhaps our work is worship… So, the peoples’ work is the shape of their worship. Do you see the movement here? The movement from work to worship. But perhaps we can have the movement the other way too: worship to work, worship that gives shape to the peoples’ work… It seems this can become quite a dynamic thing. How’s this then for a new meaning: Liturgy, The form of our worship that gives form to our work which is the shape of our worship… I like this, we’ve started to remove that false distinction between Sunday and Monday here. Work of course is anything that you do, that you put energy into, not just something you are or were paid for or something that you find tedious! Liturgy: The pattern of our worship that gives shape to all of our activities, which are the activities of our worship. The work of the people. We could call this, The Liturgical Life.

You might be able to guess where I’m going with this. The belief and value underpinning our Vision and Purpose that we are looking at this week is: That our worship and our acts of service bear witness to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. All of our lives are works of worship and it is in our coming together at times like these that helps give our lives shape and content. We are formed by coming here together and listening for the voice of God. It is good for us to be reminded who God is and who we are and to be reminded about the story that we live in. We come here in worship to remind us that all of life is holy. And we go from here to remind ourselves that the work of God is always to be found in the midst of life as we, like Bartimaeus, follow Jesus on ‘the way’ together.

Which is what stood out to me in this story of the healing of blind Bartimaeus. Right at the end it says he followed Jesus on ‘the way.’ There are a number of other stories of blind people being healed in the gospels. But in this one, the recipient of grace, followed Jesus on the way. Now it could be that ‘the way’ is saying he followed Jesus as Jesus was walking around from town to town. But it could mean more than that. ‘The Way’ was how the first Christians were known. They were people of ‘The Way’. So Bartimaeus is called by Jesus and he follows them in ‘The Way’. What does healing lead to? What does new sight, new ways of seeing the world lead to? What does fresh understanding lead to? Bartimaeus followed, Bartimaeus pursued Jesus. He was called, ‘what do you want me to do for you?’ Jesus asked him. Bartimaeus was healed and he followed, he became part of a community centred on this man called Jesus. Bartimaeus moved from being unknown to known and he belonged. A gift of life, of new sight, a gift of light into a dark place gave rise to something new. Bartimaeus moved from being outside society to now belonging to a community. His faith and his living were one – a participant in ‘the way’ of Jesus.
A little later on in the New Testament the Apostle Paul picked up on this in his letter to the Ephesians. In chapter four he encourages them to ‘“Live lives worthy of their calling… for… There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling… one God… of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:1-6, paraphrased) Note the word ‘one’. God who is one is above all and through all and in all… there’s not much separation in that… if we are to live lives worthy of our calling, then it doesn’t seem like from what Paul is saying that there is a god of the calling, and a god of the living… a god of the calling and a god of the responding… a god of Sunday and a god of Monday… Paul said, live the life you are called into… a life of one-ness. Do not be divided in how you see things, do not be divided in how you live. Live the Liturgical Life.

That our worship and our acts of service bear witness to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. This we believe and this we value. That we gather at certain times for worship reminds us of the story of grace we are part of. And, we get about our living… our market, our birthday dinners, our donations of food, our clothing shop, our foot clinic, our music moments, our preschool music, our partnerships in the community… all the activities in our life… these we do, which connects our worship with the real world and before we know it our gathering together and our activity throughout the week are one, together part of the whole of what it means to live as followers of ‘the way’ of Jesus. Each informing and feeding one another.

A Prayer
God of grace, love and fellowship. May we always resist separating some things off as holy and as such designating everything else as not-holy. May your oneness inhabit our worship and our service and may they be good and true witnesses to your ongoing and unfailing love for all. Amen.

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I’m going to begin today with a story I’ve used before, so forgive me for that, it’s just so good and so relevant for today and for us and where we are. In his bestselling book Good to Great business and management guru Jim Collins reports on a mammoth study he and a team of researchers conducted looking into the question of why some companies seem to be able to make the leap from being a good company with good performance indicators to being a great company, one that leaves its competition in its dust. One of the keys to success that they identified was that of an aspect of what they call ‘disciplined thought’ – which is the art of being able to confront the brutal facts, while never losing faith. He tells the story of American military officer Admiral Jim Stockdale who during the Vietnam War was tortured over twenty times during an eight-year imprisonment. He earned a number of medals upon his release due to the way in which he conducted himself during his time in the prison camp; he set about organising the other prisoners, he devised elaborate secret communications systems within the prison population to break the feelings of isolation, he instituted rules that helped the other prisoners deal with torture, along with a number of other things. During his research for the book, Collins got the opportunity to spend an afternoon with Stockdale considering the big question of how on earth did he deal with the horrendous situation in the prison camp while having no idea if he would ever make it out alive or not? Collins writes this:

“I never lost faith in the end of the story,” he said, when I asked him. “I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which in retrospect, I would not trade.”
I didn’t say anything for many minutes, and as we continued the slow walk… Stockdale limping and arc swinging his stiff leg that had never fully recovered from repeated torture. Finally, after about a hundred metres of silence, I asked, “Who didn’t make it out?”
“Oh that’s easy,” he said. “The optimists.”
“The optimists? I don’t understand,” I said, now completely confused, given what he’d said a hundred meters earlier.
“The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”
Another long pause, and more walking. Then he turned to me and said, “This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
To this day, I carry around a mental image of Stockdale admonishing the optimists: “We’re not getting out by Christmas, deal with it!”Jim Collins, Good to Great, p85.

Collins calls this The Stockdale Paradox – being able to confront the brutal facts while never losing faith in the end goal. We have to be ‘hopeful realists’ when we find ourselves in uncharted and challenging territory.

Heading over to our story in Luke’s gospel, I wonder how the disciples were feeling at this moment. The picture painted is kind of interesting. For their first solo journey, without Jesus there with them, there’s a bit in here that they could have been concerned about. Firstly, they were quite vulnerable as they were sent out – ‘like lambs among wolves’ – They took nothing with them, they didn’t really know when they were to eat, or where they would sleep. There is a very real sense in which it was potentially a hostile environment they were going into, they were to expect rejection. The key point in this passage seems to be, however, on their receiving of the hospitality of those who did welcome them. They were to eat whatever was served up to them, and they were to stay in one place and honour those who welcomed them. Now, there is a bit of research around that strongly suggests the towns where these disciples were being sent were not Jewish towns. Food then, would have or could have been a stumbling block. What was a Jewish person to do if it was bacon butties for breakfast? Well, Jesus suggests they were to put aside their customs and accommodate themselves to whoever was welcoming them – and therefore, welcoming him, welcoming the good news of God’s Way. These disciples Jesus sent, were entering a different culture, and the message Jesus sends them is to adapt, be open, and accommodate to whatever comes before you. The challenge to go on this journey without any supplies, or really any contingency plans is quite a novel idea! The Scouts would not approve… they were purely to go trusting in the grace of God to provide anything they needed along the way. Not only did this include money, food and shelter, but also other workers to join in and share the load of work. They were to go and trust that God would provide for all their needs – supplies and people power. There is a very real sense of God being at work ahead of them. In essence, these disciples were sent by Jesus on a mission into a new culture and the only thing they took with them was the message of God’s good news and the demonstration of that good news. They were at risk, and they were vulnerable, but they were to trust that God would provide and they were to be open to what this provision looked like even if it wasn’t what they were used to.

Let’s ‘park’ Luke 10 for a moment and talk about time. As you know we are working through our collective Vision and Purpose as a church family. Our vision of who we are and who we seek to be is: To be an open, vibrant, multifaceted, God-filled presence in our communities, for the purpose of: taking notice, pointing towards and engaging people with the goodness, grace and love of God, through Jesus, animated by the power of the Spirit. The particular belief and value we are looking at today is: God’s Perspective is bigger than ours. Perspective. So, let’s think about time as an example. We experience time in a linear way. We are in this moment in time and our only experience of time is that it goes forwards. Second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour; days, weeks, months, years… we live in time in a straight line that moves forwards. General Christian thought throughout history is that this is not God’s experience of time. God’s relationship to time is that God was before time and so exists outside of our timeline. Imagine our timeline – straight, linear, forward-moving. And God is with us, but God also is looking at this timeline from left, right, behind, in front, below, above. St Patrick described it like this: Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left… God’s perspective is bigger than ours. We simply can’t know all there is to know. We can’t do all there is to do. What a relief! Perhaps this is something we need to hear.

Perhaps this is something that those disciples needed to hear too. They were to go into this unknown, unpredictable situation to see what they found. They were to expect some to welcome them. They were to expect some to reject them. But, in both situations, Jesus says that the Kingdom of God has drawn near. God is at work in those who receive our presence, and God is still at work in those who aren’t interested – that’s what this implies I believe. God is at work for God sees more, God knows more, God is more. God is the one at work as the disciples went with the good news of divine peace. In their vulnerability, God was at work. Being vulnerable is to be at risk, but being vulnerable is also owning up to the fact that we don’t know how things will go, that we don’t have all the answers, that the answers might be found as we are in conversation with the communities we interact with. Being vulnerable is admitting that we need to rely on the hospitality of others. Being vulnerable is to acknowledge the ‘brutal facts’ as Admiral Stockdale would say – the lambs among wolves, the anticipated rejection; our long slow decline in numbers and decreasing engagement, the increasing complexity, and our financial challenges. But, as Stockdale would also say, to never give up hope of what is still possible – that the good news of God’s way still draws near and still has work to do in us and through us to the communities we interact with. This is good news, isn’t it? In my opinion, this totally flips the responsibility of ‘outreach’ and of ‘church’ from us to God! Sure we acknowledge we have challenges and we adapt to those as best we can, but we are to be at work in this big gospel good news story, because ultimately it is God who has the big picture, therefore we don’t follow fear and where it might lead us, we follow hope and joy and peace and love.

One of the biggest challenges for us from Luke 10 is that as we acknowledge our reality while never giving up hope we are not only called to follow where God is at work but that this will be into new spaces and places that we haven’t been before. Quite often, not always, but quite often the thinking behind our interactions with the community is that ‘we provide something, they’ll come and maybe they’ll be interested in faith and add to our life. But Jesus lays the challenge here of ‘we go, and it is there that we will be provided for.’ In our adventuring out into new ground, following where God is at work; that is where the provision will be found. We acknowledge the challenging realities, we never give up hope in the work of grace, and as we follow where God is already at work it is there the provision for our life will be found. We will not continue into a long and meaningful future by getting stuck in our challenges and retreating back to safer ground. God’s perspective is bigger than ours. God, remember, stands at all points on our timeline – behind in what we have already done, beside and below to guide, hold and nurture, above to inspire and in front with a smile and an invitation to come and see what lies ahead.

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Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 & John 16:12-15 – Caught up in the divine dance

A reflection by Dan Spragg

This part of John’s gospel is located in what is known as Jesus’ farewell discourse. Chapters 14-17 find us listening in on Jesus’ final teaching to his disciples. We are at the end of the last supper, the crucifixion is just around the corner.  Jesus at this point has a sense of what is coming and in his wisdom as a leader, in his wisdom as a friend, he decides that some parts of what is next would be too much for the disciples to get their heads around and so he leaves some bits out. It’s already bad enough that he is talking of leaving them, which they don’t really understand, they can’t see the bigger picture, and so he works to encourage them instead. Yes, he will go, but when the time is right, the Spirit will guide them and this guidance will be true and it will be as if Jesus is there with them teaching them once again of what God is up to in the world. It is exactly what they needed to hear. I’m sure many of you would have had moments with others that are similar to this. Moments in which actually the whole story would be too much to handle, so you say what is needed in that moment, and you offer assurance that all will be well. What this really cultivates is trust. And trust is at the heart of any good relationship. This is exactly what the disciples needed to hear.

As you know we are going through our Vision and Purpose and what underpins these as a church community. Our Vision, To be an open, vibrant, multifaceted, God-filled presence in our communities. And our purpose, To take notice of, point towards, and engage people with the goodness, grace and love of God, through Jesus, animated by the Spirit. I’d like to point out that the systematic theologians amongst us will be happy with our statement of purpose… it’s very trinitarian, most proper! Sitting underneath our Vision and Purpose are a number of values and beliefs. One of those is: God is three-in-one (trinity) – diverse yet one – the source of life, freedom and goodness. I’m actually wondering if we need to shorten this statement. Not because it’s too long, but because it is too short… If we are saying what God is the source of then how can we leave out grace, mercy, faithfulness, joy, love, forgiveness… etc… We included ‘trinity’ as one of our core beliefs, not because we’re meant to, but  because of the picture it paints for us about our understanding of God, therefore our understanding of how we are to be with one another and with the community around us.

The Trinity has been and is a significant thing in church history. The split of the Eastern and Western churches in 1054 is in large part because of disagreement over the understanding of the inner workings of the Trinity. The doctrine has been debated and refined and wrestled with for centuries. In the 20th Century there was a big rise in questions of the existence of God and our collective imagination answered that in a large part with our enlightenment moulded modern and scientific minds which in a few places got caught up in the mathematics of it. How can 3 be 1? How can God exist in this way, or even exist at all outside of the parameters of the natural world? God understood as the Trinity is mysterious and mystery doesn’t necessarily fit in a world understood purely through mechanics and empirical proof. Unfortunately this lack of willingness to engage with the existence of God with any sort of imagination or with a willingness to live with mystery did cause quite a few to leave the faith.

As far as trying to describe who God is to us we can build arguments and descriptions but underneath it all surely it is simply human words trying to describe interactions with the divine. John’s Gospel is a great example of this. In somewhat of a contrast to Mathew, Mark, and Luke, John’s Gospel uses quite a lot of language that is couched in mystery. It is a mysterious language trying to grasp something beyond the surface. Even in the short passage we have with us today things aren’t straightforward, it can take a number of slow reads through to get what is going on in any logical sense, but, perhaps logic shouldn’t be the aim. John points to a deeper reality. Perhaps the best way to summarise it is to call it a ‘communion,’ There is communion and there is an invitation to trust. There is communion present and there is a ‘oneness’ of purpose to the actions of the divine, that we can trust in.

Perhaps it is like a song? In music, there is rhythm, melody, harmony. There are multiple instruments and voices. These combine and create new sounds. There are these many things and yet there is one song. I don’t have to describe the feeling of what a good piece of music does to us, do I? It lifts us, it inspires us, it causes us to reflect and think, but it also causes emotion. Good music can move us, our whole being – our toes tap, our body moves, our mind engages, our hearts soar. Perhaps this is a good metaphor to describe the mystery of who God is? It’s something we get caught up in, not something we necessarily understand.

Thankfully in the later part of the 20th Century some new understandings of the Trinity began to emerge. They began to revolve around understandings that were based on relationships and that the trinity was a social thing. An old Greek word has been picked up and explored. Perichoresis, which essentially means, interrelation, or interconnection. The image most widely used alongside this is ‘the divine dance.’

And so I went looking for a dance image and this was the first result. Take a look at this image for a moment. Three dancers moving as one. There is beauty and synchronisation. If you can get close enough you will see that the dancer on the right is smiling –

there is delight, joy, enjoyment. This is a pretty good image of God. God as an eternal dance – dynamic, moving, coordinated, a sense of oneness – unity found in their differences being together.

The community John was writing to existed some 20 or 30 years after Jesus had been crucified. This gospel was written to a community who not only had their leader taken from them, but who also had been displaced from their land, and they were not welcomed by the locals whether those locals were Greeks or Romans or Jews. In their conflict, in their experience of absence and disorientation, they needed to hear that what Jesus taught was true and real, and it was true and real because Jesus was in one heart and mind with God, and it did not matter if conflict and chaos came because the Spirit of this truth, the Spirit of God, the presence of the Christ would teach them and guide them into this way. This ‘way’ of God that Jesus taught was near and at hand. They needed to hear that while things seemed to be going nowhere fast, God was with them as an active participant of one heart and mind, to bring them into the life of this dynamic dance of delight, love, and joy.

For us today, I wonder if we are not too dissimilar to that community of John’s. The church, feeling a little displaced in society not really knowing who it is or where it stands half the time. We indeed know our own challenges as The Village. Coming through the pandemic, there is still the unknown of what happens next. We are facing the complexities of financial challenges, depleted energy levels, and the busyness of life in general. Life is full of what might appear on the surface to be the absence of God and it is full of disorientation as much as it is full of delight and wonder and joy if we have eyes to see. Seeing this joy, being reminded of it, having a sense of God’s presence being real and with us is indeed the challenge. Taking up Jesus’ invitation to trust that we will be guided along the way, that is the challenge. Being open and humble enough to admit we cannot see the bigger picture, humble enough to admit that our words only attempt to describe the fullness of the dance that is found in life with Christ; but nevertheless allowing the Spirit to guide us into that life, that is the challenge.

We also have with us today the character of Wisdom from Proverbs. Wisdom is personified as one who is calling out to us, one who is ancient – there in our beginning, one who delights with wonder and joy at the creative acts of God. Wisdom is seen here as God’s partner in work, a master craftsperson, working alongside God. In 1 Corinthians Paul likens wisdom to Christ, ‘Christ as the wisdom of God’ (1 Cor. 1:24) Wisdom, or Christ as the expression of God in the world. And we are to be the embodiment of this, the church is the body of Christ in the world.

That is why we’ve included the Trinity as one of our core values and beliefs. Not because of fear of heresy if we didn’t but rather because of the dynamic, life giving, joy-filled, unifying image of God that it portrays to us. The divine dance. The dance, or the song, that we are lifted up into and caught up in and can’t help but join in with because of the sheer energy that is there to guide us and propel us along, whatever our reality may appear to be. And, because this is who God is, and this is what we are caught up in as we travel together as a church community, this is the God who we get to share beyond our walls to the communities around us. A God of life and love, a dynamic, moving, diverse yet unified divine presence that we are invited to be a part of and participate in.

The post Reflection 2 October – Caught Up in the Divine Dance appeared first on Village Church.

A reflection by Josh Olds

Many of you will know that we’ve recently had a new addition to our household – baby River, our third wee girl was born just a few weeks ago. I’ve quickly come to realise that while it’s lots of fun having a house full of kids, it’s also very loud. In the last few weeks I have really come to appreciate moments of silence, at times they can feel few and far between! But there are particular moments at home when actually silence isn’t a good thing. I’ve noticed that quite often if Susan and I are preoccupied with something and leave the (older) girls to entertain themselves, silence is often a surefire indication that mischief is being perpetrated. It’s kind of like the line you sometimes hear in movies – “it’s quiet… too quiet.” More often than not when the kids are left to their own devices monkey business seems to be the path of least resistance. As they say – when the cat’s away the mice will play! We seem to see a similar concept play out in the Exodus reading we had a moment ago in what’s ominously referred to as the ‘golden calf incident.’ As the story unfolds we read of a people who go astray when left to their own devices.

The events of our passage occur within the wider narrative of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt and their journey from being a people enslaved by the Egyptians, to becoming a nation in their own right as the people of God. Moses, the one through whom God liberates the Israelites from Egyptian rule, has shepherded God’s people through the wilderness to Mount Sinai – the holy mountain of God. There, gathered at Mount Sinai God claims the Israelite people as his treasured possession and famously seals his covenant with them in stone, providing Moses with the instruction guide of what it meant to live as God’s people. That brings us to the events of our passage – in Exodus 32, Moses is up Mount Sinai having a parish council meeting with God and is interestingly receiving guidelines for the building of the tabernacle – the mobile, tent-like structure that was to be the dwelling place of God’s presence in the midst of his people. What I want to do this morning is follow the contours of the narrative captured in our passage pausing at different points to reflect on what’s going on.

As the narrative begins Moses is up the mountain with God; the focus is on the people down below, who, in Moses’ absence are growing antsy. The concern of the people seems to revolve around the fact that they are without a tangible representation of God. Notice that it is Moses who the people attribute with bringing them up out of Egypt, there is no mention of God. With their concept of God bound up in the person of Moses, who is nowhere to be seen, it’s as if God is nowhere to be seen. Without a sense of God with them, they feel rudderless, vulnerable, unsure about where to from here – so they take matters into their own hands. The people charge Aaron, Moses’ brother and resident peace-keeper while Moses is up the mountain, with making them a tangible representation of God to lead them forth. Let’s pause here for a moment to reflect on the fact that the first two ‘terms and conditions’ that God has asked of the Israelites as his chosen people are that 1. They have no other gods before Him, and 2. That they have no idols, or human-made mini-gods.

The loyalty of God’s people is drawn away by what they can see and feel and touch, or at this time the lack thereof. Moses’ absence has created a vacuum that they felt they needed to fill. It’s interesting that while Egypt was a place of slavery for the Israelites, it was also a place of familiarity. It was a place where they were governed by Pharaoh, a figure seen as a god in the flesh. We can see them looking for God in that same way, someone or something that they can look to, be reassured by, something that can’t be doubted because it’s right there in front of them. With Moses no longer able to be seen, or felt, or touched, in their antsy-ness the people turn to what is familiar, what is comfortable, even if it means being drawn away from the God who has chosen them.

The narrative progresses as Aaron becomes the focus. He obliges the people and collects their gold jewellery and fashions it into the golden calf, the tangible representation of God that the people desire. As Aaron presents the finished product to the people, in contrast to the people’s earlier acknowledgement that it was Moses who had brought them up out of Egypt, it is now declared that God, represented in the golden calf, was responsible for the Israelite liberation. As an aside, there’s some ambiguity as to whether the golden calf was an image of a false god, or a false image of the true God. Either way, it goes against how God has called his people to live. The tangible nature of the golden calf quells the people’s antsy-ness, they are reassured once again that God is with them, as such Aaron declares a festival to the Lord, a day of worship, of sacrifice, of revelry – all in devotion to their shining-bovine representation of God.

The people of God can’t seem to help being devoted to what is before them, it’s almost as if they’re hardwired to worship. So much so that a cast statue of a calf could be equated with the God who rescued an entire nation of people out of slavery. Now, while it’s easy for us to look down our noses a bit at the Israelites and their seemingly bizarre choices, I wonder how different we really are. I wonder what the golden calves in our context today might be? Maybe we’re not smelting our gold rings in our backyard to fashion items of worship, nonetheless, I do notice the tendencies within myself to be devoted to things in place of God. I was reading an Old Testament scholar this week who highlights that there are two ways we can look at this; firstly, the false gods in our lives, things we devote ourselves to in place of God – money, possessions, ourselves, people we look up to, and secondly, the false images of the true God in our lives, things we associate so much with God that we worship them instead of Him – a church building, that retired minister, the old liturgy or style of music, perhaps a theological position or doctrine to which we cling too tightly.^[1]

The narrative of our passage then shifts to a new scene, to the top of Mount Sinai where the presence of God is engaging with Moses. God, aware that his golden-calf-worshipping people below have not held up their end of the bargain as the people of God, instructs Moses to head back down the mountain. Notice twice more this phrase “brought up out of the land of Egypt” appears. This time, surprisingly it is God crediting Moses with the liberation of the Israelites. It’s hard to know what to make of this! It’s almost as if God lets the Israelites’ rejection of him and his covenant with them take its natural course – ok, if you claim Moses as your leader, then be Moses’ people. God’s covenant with the Israelites was always to be a two-way street, to which Israel hadn’t complied. God’s next statement is almost inconceivable, he offers to start the whole plan of having a people of his own again with Moses. Again, passages like this raise lots of questions, and it’s hard to know how to make sense of them! I don’t purport to have especially enlightened answers, but I do think we need to seek to interpret verses like these within their wider contexts. As such, lets continue following the narrative here.

Moses doesn’t take God up on his offer, in fact he refutes God’s claim, as the people had claimed, that he was one who had brought them up out of Egypt and he sets the record straight – God, these are your, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt. Moses implores God to remember his promises to the ones through whom he had brought the Israelite people about. Moses advocates for his people, for God’s people, he denies his own opportunity for credit and legacy and appeals to God’s mercy, seeking to restore the relationship between God and his people. Inexplicably our passage ends in verse 14 with “And the Lord changed his mind…” Wild. This unfathomable, transcendent, creator God listens to a person and seemingly changes his mind. Again, this can be hard to get our heads around and make sense of, many of us will have questions, it’s ok, its good to have questions. But don’t let those questions throw the baby out with the bath water – this passage displays that God is a relational God, that he welcomes human participation in his mission, that he invites our conversation with him, that ultimately God is for his people.

I think in some ways we are all hard-wired to worship, to recognise and respond to the worth of something or someone, we don’t get to decide if we’ll spend our lives worshipping, but only who or what we’ll spend our lives worshipping. Unlike the Israelites in our passage, we don’t need to look for a tangible representation of God, because he has already provided us with one; God himself has a name and face in Jesus. God himself came down the mountain and moved into the neighbourhood in the person of Christ, the one truly worthy of our worship and devotion.

The post Reflection – 25 September – God has a Name and a Face – Jesus appeared first on Village Church.

Dan has a plan for the preaching over the next while but today he set me free from that and was brave enough to tell me that this Sunday I could have the last word!  He didn’t tell me how many last words I could have though!  Anyway, that got me thinking.  One last sermon at The Village, what do I want to say?  You might have picked up, over the years, that I am rather fond of the parable of the prodigal and his brother, which I will, very soon, suggest could benefit from a new name.   I think I might have shared before that I was told on finishing my training at Knox that I should remember that there is a whole Bible full of texts to preach on, not just this one parable.  My lecturer agreed with me about the importance of this parable, but he was worried, for you and any future parishes, that you might never hear of anything else!

You might have also spotted that the reading of the story finished today before we heard the elder brother’s reaction to his father’s exuberant welcome to his wayward younger brother.  I had it stopped at that point because I think that the older brother’s lack of grace is often a distraction from the character the parable is really all about and the one that I want to dig deeper into today, the father.  As I mentioned, if I could, I would rename this parable and call it the parable of the forgiving father, because, to me anyway, it’s his monstrous act of forgiveness that is the truly shocking aspect of this parable.  The father fascinates me, perhaps, because I am now at an age and stage in life where I understand more fully just what it takes to put forgiveness before righteous anger.  Perhaps, by now, I have been the recipient of enough forgiveness to know how life-changing it can be. 

Today is a day to bring out all the favourites, so the Franciscan priest Richard Rohr, is also with us, because conveniently, he was talking about this very subject in what he offered each day this week.  He said this: “When all is said and done, the gospel comes down to forgiveness. If we don’t “get” forgiveness, we’re missing the whole mystery. We are still living in a world of quid-pro-quo thinking, of performance and behaviour that earns an award.”  He goes on: “People who know how to forgive have known how good it feels to be forgiven, not when they deserved it, but precisely when they didn’t deserve it.”

Have you ever watched as someone is shown forgiveness when they least deserve it, and how it changes the air in the room?  It takes the wind out of the sails of the one forgiven; it melts hearts; it opens the door to a possible new future.  It is a transforming and powerful way to change a situation from tense and angst-ridden to calm and future-focussed.  Rohr continues, “I have often found people in 12-step programs or in jail who were quite forgiving of other people’s faults because they’d hit the bottom themselves. They knew how much it hurt to hurt. When someone with a generous heart and a loving spirit entered their lives and forgave them, it was like being reborn.”

You see the thing is, none of us ever knows the full picture in any situation.  That’s why God is the one who can forgive all, God has the whole picture.  Our struggles with offering forgiveness are usually because we are offended by the little bit we can see.  Someone hurts us and we feel that, but we seldom know enough of the offender’s story to know why they have acted or spoken as they have.  Forgiveness is an act of trusting beyond what we can see, because there will be more to what has happened, than we can know.  Of course, it is true too that none of us gets everything right all of the time, none of us are all good or all bad, we weave our way between these extremes.  As Rohr also says, “None of us have loved as we could love, or as we have been loved by God.”  You know how it is, most of us can talk about love better than we can live it.  So, we are immersed in a broken state, and because we ourselves are not perfect, we’re enabled to have empathy and compassion for others.  If we were perfect, we might expect perfection from ourselves and others but we are not perfect. We have no right to expect others to be, (even if they are your ministers)! 

Forgiveness is not doing nothing, it isn’t a passive state, its task is to take the blows because the forgiver has chosen to let go of the barriers that existed between them and the forgiven.  There wasn’t much more they could throw at Jesus when he was crucified but he took what they handed him and then asked God to forgive them.  The task is not to defend ourselves, or seek retribution, or to demand our own way.  The Queen did it with a ‘keep calm and carry on’ attitude which is often dismissed as a stiff upper lip stoicism, but she knew Jesus and the manner in which he graciously took the blows and then asked God to forgive the perpetrators.  The decision to forgive someone is an act of trust in God who we know does things differently than how we might do them.  It’s an invitation to join in God’s re-ordering of things; the upside-down kingdom way.  Now I am not going to pretend it’s always an easy thing to do.  There are some hurts that we might forgive but we shouldn’t forget, lest we enable them to be repeated. But by forgiving we are to lean into God with trust.

In John’s gospel _(15:5) we hear Jesus say those all too important words, ‘apart from me you can do nothing’.  We are as joined to God as the vine is to the branches, and it’s only when we are cut off from the source of life itself that we become resentful, unforgiving, and untrusting.  In, and with God, we are enabled to love and forgive everything and everyone – even those who hurt us.  Alone, through our own willpower and intellect, we will seldom be able to love like this when situations get tough.  It gets harder too, the longer we leave it.  Our wounds might callous over but they don’t necessarily heal.  The longer we persist in not forgiving, the harder it becomes because we have more and more years of resentment to get past.  Some people become more bitter as they age because the hard wall of unforgiveness becomes impenetrable.  The good news of the gospel is that in forgiving and being forgiven we can be free.

I wonder if forgiveness is so difficult for some because they have not accepted that they too are capable of doing the very worst thing.  Until we know, beyond doubt, that we are no better, and no worse than anyone else, we will be stuck in some superior place of judgement.  The hope is that we become aware of the fragile state of our goodness, without actually having to do the worst we could do.  Discovering the depths of the evil we are capable of is the great leveller, it’s what gives us empathy and compassion for others who are finding this out for themselves.  ‘There but by the grace of God go I’, is how it is sometimes expressed.  None of us know the full story in anyone else’s lives so we are in no position to judge and therefore we have every reason to forgive and thereby be released from both self-righteousness and judgementalism.

In 2019 Mart and I arrived in Northern Ireland on July 12.  My mother grew up there, and I wish I had remembered more of her stories about what it meant to be there in July.  To be fair, she didn’t talk about it a lot; the memory remained raw and painful right to the end.  She just said that in the marching season (July) she and her parents would lock the doors, draw the curtains and wait it out.  They were Protestants as were the marchers; but they marched to celebrate the killing of Catholics in a variety of battles.  July 12 is the high point in the marching season.  After we got off the boat, we drove straight to my mother’s hometown of Ahoghill.  And poor Mart drove unknowingly into the town centre in a fairly big campervan.  There were people everywhere, a kindly but bemused policewoman said, you had better get out of here, so we did, after he negotiated about a 25-point turn.  We parked up the road, Mart was keen to see what it was all about, something inside me made me reluctant, but I went along.  It felt like there was a palpable evil in the air.  Children joined their fathers, banging drums with great passion – about killing people just like them, their own people with a different way of practising the same faith, who they never knew.  That was what got to me.  In front of our eyes, another generation was being trained in hate and unforgiveness.  I hated it and the land of my forebears took on a distasteful feel.  I don’t have any desire to return, but I would be very happy to go back down south where there is less hate in the air.  That’s unforgiveness aided and abetted by the state and civic authorities; religious fervour and unforgiveness encouraged and used for power.  God’s reordering has not been allowed there, the gospel has been distorted and used for human-ordered outcomes.  There will be many Northern Irish who can’t see it because they are so deeply ‘in’ it.  In this country there are many who can’t see the imbalance of power that has been the outcome of a Treaty that has not been honoured, and has instead been ignored or distorted to benefit the privileged.  This week is Maori language week and the emerging stories of how the state-sanctioned killing of the language was used to squash and overpower a culture are chilling.  A lot of effort is going into reversing that now, but it’s so much harder to get a culture back than it is to embrace, honour and value it in the first place.

The parable of the forgiving father opens up so much that I truly could preach on it every week.  The more you get into it, the more that opens up for discovery.  This week I discovered that the late Bishop Tutu and his daughter have written a book on forgiveness in their South African context.  I saw some extracts from it and now I’ll have to find the book, what they had to say is so good.  In it they talked about ubuntu, the African concept of ‘I am because we are’.  Ubuntu declares that the community and I are so inextricably and interdependently linked, that I don’t exist outside of the community.  Our Western individualistic tendencies have not always helped us to live well together.  Tutu’s daughter went on to talk about ubuntu peace.  She said that when the truth and reconciliation process was happening in South Africa the words that were used didn’t translate well.  The perpetrators thought they were saying ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘forgive me’, which is an individualistic way of asking for the slate to be wiped clean so they could continue to live their lives without guilt and continue to benefit because their crimes privileged them.  What the victims heard them say was, ‘I ask for peace’.  The victims expected different outcomes because what they heard would have included a making good, not just a wiping clean of the slate.  I’m sorry or forgive me, are a call to wipe the slate clean for me; a wiping of past injustices so the wicked can be released from their guilt and greed while keeping the benefits that their behaviour has bestowed on them and their children.  It sets the perpetrators free from all responsibility for those they have hurt.  But, I ask for peace is an ubuntu apology and it is all about ‘we’, recognising our interconnectivity.  It asks for a space to plant the seeds of a better future for the whole community.  This is quest for a peace that heals, it hopes for a better ‘we’.  It appeals for a healing of the fabric of life – it requires action.

This got me thinking about our approach to creation and the abuse that has gone on there too.  How do we stop blaming and shaming, judging and moralising the challenges around this issue and begin to work our how we can get to a better ‘we’.  How can we be part of the healing in community for a better ‘we’ for all, particularly those with less to fight with, the poor and the isolated.  I can be sorry for living as though it’s all about me, and live this out by doing something to help toward a better ‘we’.

We haven’t always been so good at the restoration elements involved in the forgiveness game.  We haven’t always ‘got’ the gospel and the power of forgiveness.  Forgiveness requires we die to self, for the sake of the other, and there are costs in this.  But it brings life, to the forgiver and the forgiven; it brings hope of a better ‘we’.  It takes us beyond fickle feelings and intellectual exercises, to the heart of who and whose we are.  We are called to join in God’s ongoing redemptive work of forgiveness, love and enabling abundant life.  That’s who we follow; that’s our job.  The church is not a club for the like-minded, or a comfortable social gathering; it’s where the messy work of forgiving, loving and living is worked out over time – all of us are called into God’s restorative work.  I am often surprised at how difficult forgiveness can be in churches.  It should be where forgiveness is practised over and over until we grow into a better ‘we’.

So, finally here is my last word.  I wonder if you can find it in your hearts to forgive me for the things I haven’t done, or have done, the things I haven’t said, or have said, the things I missed and the things I should have overlooked; that have led to anything less than what if God-like?  And, can I declare to you that I also forgive you for your trespasses?  It seems to me that the former far outweighs the latter, but in God’s reordering shown by the father in the parable, there is no hint that God is remotely interested in weighing anything.  It’s just a story about a respectable Jewish man who abandons all decorum, breaks the rules, runs to meet the one who has learned that he isn’t perfect, and hugs him and restores him.  I trust that God will work with whatever my time here has been or done to make a better ‘we’, a space where our hope for a better future can grow and flourish.

The post Reflection 18 September – God is Loving, Forgiving & Living appeared first on Village Church.

How many times have you lost something?  I struggle to imagine there is anyone, anywhere who hasn’t lost something at some point.  Some of us do it more than others though, it’s fair to say!  Some of us are finders too, and dare I say it, there is a possibility that there might be a gender thing going on there too, when I think of my household…or is that just another unfounded generalisation, perhaps!

I have quite a few lost and found stories, maybe more than I should have, and I am going to share a couple with you now.  Just last week our Josh borrowed one of our eftpos cards to do a wee job for us and then later quietly revealed to me that it must have slipped out of his pocket somewhere during the day.  I popped into the place where he thought it could mostly likely be, but it wasn’t there, so I tried blocking the card on the banking app on my phone.  Then the learning began!  First up, I learned that all of our cards are linked.  This discovery came about when we tried to pay for our groceries later on that evening – things became a little awkward when we found that all of our cards were blocked!  The next morning, I rang the bank and went through the process, you know how it is, it takes longer to identify that you are who you say you are, than to actually get the job done, and when you have joint accounts you need the other part of the joint bit nearby, to say the right things at the right time, (never a guaranteed thing with Mart, who sees occasions like these as new opportunities for play)!  Anyway, we got through it and they eventually declared, to our great relief, that we are who we think we are.   As I put the phone down, having jumped through all the hoops, I said to Mart, you know what will happen now don’t you, Josh will ring from Wanaka to say he’s found the card.  And right on cue the phone rang and yes Josh had found the card! 

Not all of my lost and found stories involve Josh, but interestingly, quite a number do!  A few weeks prior to the first lockdown in March 2020, Josh returned to live with us and brought with him two fairly young kittens.  Nancy and Glen are brother and sister and lockdown proved to be a great asset for the task of homing new kittens.  We got to know them quite well because neither we nor they could go anywhere.  By the time that we were emerging from lockdown they were about six months old.  A week or so after this they completely disappeared.  It seemed strange because they hadn’t shown any signs of leaving or wanting to explore beyond our place before this.  Josh got onto social media and put photos up around the area and a week later someone down Ilam Rd, toward Memorial Ave, made contact to say they had found Glen.  He returned, hungry and a bit scruffy, but otherwise intact.  But there was no sign of Nancy.  Four weeks later we had given up and resigned ourselves to the loss of her.  The following Sunday morning we walked out of the house to come to church and there on the doorstep was Nancy, very skinny and trailing one back leg at an odd angle.  Undeterred, and glad to be home, she bounded upstairs to find Josh.  In the end, we concluded that they may have fallen asleep in the sun, under the canopy on the back of the truck, which I took down to the Fendalton Road corner for about an hour, around the time they went missing.  So how do cats do that?  How do they get taken several blocks from home and still find their way back?  It’s not as though she walked away and so was able to retrace her steps.  When I told that story at mid-week worship on Thursday almost everyone there had a lost and found cat story – so chances are that you may have one too.  It was a very exciting moment finding Nancy on the doorstep.  Of course, that leg had been broken far too long for it to mend and it had to be removed.  The vet said she might be a sedentary cat after that, but she didn’t hear that bit, and she climbs trees and leaps off things without a second thought.  She’s the cheeky character out of the two of them and we doubt she even remembers now that she used to have four legs!

I think I might have talked about this story before, but it can probably take another telling.  When we were on the Camino, over three years ago now, early one particular afternoon we found ourselves wandering into a small village.  On this occasion there was no one to be seen but there were a couple of dogs chasing one another around the place having a great time together, until someone opened a door and called one of them inside, leaving the other one a bit lost.  Then it noticed us and decided we could be its newfound friends and it wandered off with us as we walked away from the village.  We worried that we were inadvertently drawing it away from its home, and we tried everything we could do to encourage it to ‘go home’.  But we didn’t speak Spanish, and it didn’t understand English, or what a firm raised voice meant, so it continued on with the task of guiding us.  For hours it ran alongside us, occasionally running ahead but always looking back to check we were ok and still on track.  Sometimes it ducked off into a field and we thought we were alone again, but then up ahead we would see the tail wagging as it ran ahead making the way safe. 

It really did become a friend for the day and kept us entertained with its uniquely doggy way of encouraging us.  As the day was drawing in, we could see in the distance that we were approaching the town where we hoped to find a bed for the night.  We hadn’t seen another human, or a car, or anything but the dog for the whole afternoon.  Then, out of nowhere, a car appeared.  It stopped in the middle of the road, the driver got out, went to the rear of the car, opened the boot, and the dog jumped in and the car drove off.  Clearly this had happened before.  The routine looked well-rehearsed and neither the dog nor the man seemed surprised at what happened.  What we thought was a lost dog was actually one just, expecting, and trusting that it would be found.  Here’s a poem about lost things. 

On Searching for a Book of Stamps

BRIAN BILSTON

check in wallet

check once more

hunt through bag

look in drawer

feel coat pockets

peer in pot

rifle desk

find them not

shake out shoes

lift up hat

inspect fridge

ask the cat

scour the shelves

peek in purse

turn out cupboards

swear and curse

go to shop

buy new stamps

put in wallet

next to stamps

So, what do the eftpos card, Nancy the cat, the stamps and the Camino dog all have in common? They were all lost.  But what was it that made them lost?  What were they lost from?  What is it that stops us feeling lost?  What does it mean to be found?  I wonder if some people remain in that lost state because they can’t recognise the state of being home.  You might know people that seem to always be searching because the comfort of ‘home’ seems to elude them.  What makes home, ‘home’, or found, ‘found’?

Chances are that the lost sheep that Jesus spoke of, was having a good time eating all that lovely grass before he discovered that he was alone.  And Nancy too was probably having a high old adventure until she got broken and it dawned on her that she was on her own, perhaps hungry and missing her brother and her humans.  Being lost can sneak up on you.  I wonder how she felt when she realised, she was lost.  She’s a plucky wee thing but it must have mattered to her that she was out of her familiar world and that she needed to find her way home again.  She could surely have found food or a new home, new humans, somewhere else.  She was lost because she was out of touch with the group that sustained her, the group that fed her, that gave her a sense that she counted.  In her brokenness, did Nancy sense that she needed her team, where she counted and where she felt connected and valued?  She had lost her community and some sense within her, told her she needed to find it again.  I’m glad she did, her community was missing her too.   We were all doing what we could to find her; much like the shepherd searching for that one sheep that had become lost, the widow searching for the lost coin.  These stories that Jesus tells, about things being lost and found, show us that God is like the shepherd, seeking always to find those who are out of community, and when they have found it, then all the world seems to fit back into place, and life takes on a new meaning.  Of course, in the next few weeks Glen and Nancy will be moving to the country and we face the task of connecting them into a new world there.  If anyone spots a three-legged feisty tabby and white cat back around here, give us a yell!   

One thing that I noticed in all of these stories of lost and found is that the joy that is experienced in finding, or, in being found, almost always outweighs the pain felt in being lost or losing something, or someone precious to the community.  How quickly we recover when we find what was lost and bring it back where it belongs!  That feeling of ‘coming home’ to whatever it is that holds meaning for us taps into something very deep and primal within us.

It seems very clear that we need community, we need one another, whether we always like it or not.  In community we can flourish; outside of it we might survive, but God’s intention for us is not survival it’s abundant living!  That’s why God’s love’, God’s sheepfold, is so big, and God’s arms are very wide to enable all who are lost to be found and welcomed back into God’s embrace.  And that’s the work we, the church, do with and for God, finding and welcoming the lost back into community.  We can’t do that if we are judging them, or thinking ourselves superior to them, or blocking ourselves off from them because they are different from us, or they are uncomfortable for us to be around.  If we want to live well and want others to live well, we have to be loving, and forgiving shepherds like the one Jesus spoke of in the parable we heard earlier. 

This week, The Village Community Centre celebrated 25 years of reaching out into the community in a wide variety of ways, so that others may experience the deep sense of community we are so fortunate to know in The Village.  We do this because we want others to come to know the shepherd who looks out for the sheep, even the ones who wander off and get lost.  Over the years the Community Centre has given the church a significant means to be able to stretch beyond these walls and make God’s welcoming embrace known to those who sense deep within, that very human need to be counted and valued.  May this work continue to flourish so that through it, people may come to know who they are in the embrace of God.

Lost

DAVID WAGONER

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

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