Living the Faith we Know

 

Living the Faith we Know

All of us would have experienced times when things happen to us for which there are no simple answers. As time passes, we may be able to gain some understanding – but not always, and the situation, the way we responded to it, just sits there as a painful unanswered question. In time we may find the initial pain has passed, but the questions it raised still remain.

We all carry our own internal wounds and bruises, and these often can cause us to re-frame our understanding of life – and perhaps of people, or of the Church, or of our faith in who Jesus and God is – or was – for us.

Certainly we are not alone in those moments, although often it is not until we actually share our doubts and struggles, our pains and heartbreaks, that we are able to understand them in a different light.

I say all this as an introduction to the readings set for this coming Sunday ^1, because in each reading we find that same principle tucked away. For example, it was only when Ezra started to translate, or re frame, their sacred texts, that his listeners started to understand them with new insight. Similarly, with St.Paul, he often reminds us in his writings that we actually need each other, because we are all interconnected. For example, in Romans 12:5 he writes: “So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another”. It is as we recognize this, and have the courage to learn to live that insight, we find new strength and purpose in working together. We find a similar truth unfolding in the Luke's Gospel reading set for this Sunday.

Luke wrote his Gospel sometime in the early decades of the second century. He was writing to people who had been through enormous suffering. For example:

• They had experienced the destruction of all they held sacred: their homes, their livelihood, their city of Jerusalem that included their Temple.

• They had experienced relentless persecution under two Roman emperors.

• Many of their Christian leaders had been martyred – including James, Peter, Paul, and Simeon (who was Jesus cousin and bishop of Jerusalem),

• They had seen families torn apart and betrayed, some dying horrific deaths.

In response to all this suffering – they asked similar questions to ones we might ask:

• Why? Why is this happening to us – when Jesus promised to always be with us?

• Where was God when we needed God the most?

• What have we done to deserve this?

• How do I, will I, continue to live and find meaning and purpose?

It is when we read Luke's Gospel with this in mind we discover a number of things we might have otherwise missed.

For example,

• Luke mentions the marginalized, the oppressed, and those who suffer more than any other Gospel.

• Luke alone records that Jesus is born in a stable – because there was nowhere else.

• The first to hear the good news of his birth were the outcast shepherds.

• We also find that Luke includes more stories of sickness and those in need as compared to the other Gospels. For example:

• In Luke 7 we have the story of a mother whose son has died

• In Luke 10 we have the story of a traveler who is set upon by robbers who wounded and robbed him and left him to die. He received no help and support from the religious leaders who were also traveling the same road, yet a passing foreigner stops and risks his life to offer the man help – and in doing so, he alone reveals the love and compassion of God.

• In Luke 15 we have another parable, this time of a father whose son rejects him and wishes him dead by demanding now his share of his father's inheritance – and goes off and then squanders the lot.

The point of all these stories is not about why or what or where or how? Rather we simply meet the compassion and love of God reaching out through the lives of ordinary people.

And yet, the community that wrote Luke's Gospel did so in the face of unfolding horror and suffering. And yet in the midst of all that was happening, they had discovered that the Jesus they believed in, was still with them, giving them the courage and faith to continue to be the hands and feet of God to those who were held captive by their fears and pains. In this way they were able to help them to find new life and hope because they knew that God had not abandoned them!

So the Good News this Gospel hold for us, is that it’s much more important to live the truth than to know it, because Faith is not found by reading about it, nor even believing in it, because is only by living our faith will we discover “the truth that is able to set us free: (John 8:32).

Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga

May you find peace and good will on your journey.

Phil

________

Footnote:

¹Nehimiah 8:1-10, 1 Corinthians 12:12-32a, Luke 4:14-21

 

When is Enough – Enough?

I have heard it suggested that the annual incomes of the world's 100 richest people could end global poverty four times over¹, which brings us to the heart of this Sunday's Gospel reading (Luke 3:7-18).

This week, as we make our pilgrimage through the season of Advent, we journey with John the Baptist. John saw a gross imbalance of wealth in his day. So much so that he strongly condemned those who failed to share their wealth with those in need:

“The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Instead John suggested the wealthy should do something far more radical and counter intuitive:

Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, anyone who has food should do the same...”

As we travel through these days of Advent we also have a similar opportunity to offer support to those in need in the community in which we live by supporting the local food banks, for example, or to follow John's advise literally, and give away good clothes we no longer need to the various Opportunity Shops in the local community.

However, the heart of John's advice was that we should also learn to “be content with what you have” which sounded very similar to something Jesus' said in his sermon on the mount – or to Gandhi's comment: “our happiness really lies in contentment” – which reminded me of the following story about a government official who longed for fame, fortune and dignity.

The official happened to serve an elderly king and had tried many different ways to please the king. For example, when he discovered the King loved poetry, he tried to learn to write a poetry thinking this was one way he might get promotion or fame, fortune and dignity. However, while he was learning to be a poet, the king died and the young prince was crowned king.

Unfortunately, for the government official, the new king did not like poetry, instead, he liked military matters and going to war – so the government official began to learn how to be a warrior in the hope that he might be promoted and so gain the fame and fortune he longed for. However, it wasn't long before the king was killed on the battlefield and his son was crowned. The new king, however, did not like poetry, nor did he like going to war. Rather, all he wanted to do was to play chess and sought out those who were also good at playing chess.

At this point the official had become old and helpless. As he reviewed his life he thought: “I have tried to serve three kings in the hope I might receive fame, fortune, dignity and promotion. But I have gained nothing. I have wasted my whole life – and shortly after that he died in confusion.

The sad story makes a point: Those who chase after what they want without wisdom, are chasing after their own shadow.

Do we find ourselves chasing after shadows? What should we do? John was asked a similar question in this weeks reading – and he pointed to Jesus. John was aware that greed and desire, fame and fortune will never give us lasting peace and happiness. It is faith that makes the difference, because faith begins to create what it desires. Faith supports us to keep trusting, hoping and believing. It also helps us to discover a generosity of spirit which is exactly what John refers to in our this week's Gospel reading. He suggests that if we have faith, faith will help us to learn to see everything through, and even with, the eyes of God.

Which leaves us with these questions:

• How do you see the people you meet in your life?

• Do you see the glory of God radiantly shining on their faces?

• If not, how might you share even a little of the faith and hope that you have.

O God, this Advent season: give us new eyes so we might see your glory in those we meet. Amen.

Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga

May you find peace and good will on your journey.

Phil

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1. Oxfam International https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/annual-income-richest-100-people-enough-end-global-poverty-four-times-over

             Weddings – and Transformation

Most of us would have attended a wedding at some stage. It may have been your own wedding, or a friend's wedding, or the wedding of a family member. In each event you would have appreciated the enormous amount of planning and preparation that a wedding takes. It is a special and a busy time, full of hopes and excitement... and then finally, the chosen and memorable day finally arrives.

On this coming Sunday (19^th of January) the Gospel reading is about a Jewish wedding. As we hear or read the Gospel text, we will note how their wedding customs differed from a typical western wedding. First of all it occurred not in a church or at the beach, but in the family home of the groom. It also didn't take an afternoon – rather it could last for seven days.

Typically, it began with the wedding supper, then at some point the family and friends would gather for wedding ceremony, and after the wedding party would normally make a long trek around the whole village so that everyone could wish the newly wed's all the best for their future together.

In John's Gospel (Ch 2:1-12) we read how Jesus and his mother Mary attended a wedding in their local village – but curiously they didn't arrived until the third day. What seems even more strange is that the wedding seems to have involved a family member, because because as soon as Mary arrives she takes charge when she hears that the wine supply had run out.

But we soon discover there are other curious twist in this story, for while most artist impressions of the wedding naturally include the Bride and Groom – in John's telling of the story, they are not mentioned at all. It's almost as if John, in composing this story, was inviting us to look for a deeper meaning because the story is so rich in metaphors and meaning.

For example, the story begins with the phrase 'On the third day'. This happens to be a common Jewish term used to mark a time for 'New Beginnings', or a time of 'Divine intervention', or the 'fulfilment of promises'. We first find this mentioned in the Hebrew book of Exodus that marked the day that God appeared to His people (Ch 19 v 11). In the Gospels we come across a similar use of the term to mark the day Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to Mary and the Disciples (Luke 24:46). The 'Third Day' was also used as a term to remind us that God's pattern is to create new life, and to continually create and affirm his covenant with us. We find all these meanings unfolding in this wedding story which is so rich with symbols familiar to the Jewish People.

For example, when Jesus' mother Mary takes charge because the wine supply had run our, her first request was to have the six empty stone water jars that were normally used for the Jewish rites of purification, to be filled be with water – no mean event as each one could hold 20-30 gallons. Yet the symbolism extends into this request as well because there are other similar references for water in the Jewish scriptures. For example in Exodus 17 we hear how the Jews in their pilgrimage from Egypt ran out of water in the desert and God instructed Moses to release water from a rock by striking it with his rod; and in the Gospels we hear how Jesus met a Samaritan woman by Jacob's well that led to a discussion not only on Jesus request for a drink but also on the living water Jesus seeks to share with anyone who comes to him:

“Whoever drinks the water I will give him will never be thirsty ever again. Rather, the water I will give him will become in him a spring of water, bubbling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).

It is this abundance of what God has to offer us that lies at the heart of these references. We find the same abundance occurring elsewhere in the Gospels – such as the feeding of the 5000; or the miraculous catch of 153 fish by the tired depressed disciple-fishermen when they follow Jesus' suggestion to place their net on the other side of the boat. These are all reminders that God's love is limitless, generous, and overflowing and knows no bounds.

We find other example of the generosity of God in Amos 9:13-l4:

“The time is surely coming, says the Lord...(when) the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel...they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.”

Or in Exodus l7 where we hear how God instructed Moses to release water from a rock by striking it with his rod; and in the Gospels we have the story of Jesus meeting a woman by a well he we have these words:

“Whoever drinks the water I will give him will never be thirsty ever

again. Rather, the water I will give him will become in him a spring of

water, bubbling up to eternal life ” (John 4:14).

It is the release of God's generosity that lies at the heart of these, and many other references in the Bible that are reminders of that God's love has no boundaries, because it is limitless, generous, and overflowing – and we are reminded of it again in this story of the wedding that ran out of wine we are reminded again that God's love is limitless, and what God has to offer us will fill and overflow their (and our) lives with transforming joy.

So what better symbol could the author of John's Gospel include at the beginning of Jesus' ministry – than tell the story of Jesus attending a wedding, to remind us also, as his readers and listeners, that we too have access to the same love and generosity of the One who created us, and delights in us, as promised by the author of the book of Isaiah (62:4-5):

You shall be called 'My Delight'...
for the Lord delights in you.
For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.

And while sometimes we may feel we are a bit like an empty stone water jar – tired, deplete, forsaken, desolate, anxious, or fearful – God is still with us and has so much more to share with us, and invites us to come with open hands and an open heart and mind to receive and share God's gift of transforming love and life.

But wait! There is still more tucked away in this story for us to ponder. John's Gospel stresses throughout his story of Jesus, that faith is not about knowledge – because the word 'faith' is not a noun – nor is faitht about believing the right thing. Faith is a verb – it is about 'doing' something – and we can only discover and know the love and presence of God by living the truth we know. It is as we allow this generous open gift of God's presence to transform us, that we are able to turn that gift into generous action towards others.

Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga

May you find peace and good will on your journey.

Phil