Believe in the impossible

 

Reflection Sunday 20^th December 2020 4^th Sunday of Advent

The Gospel reading I’ve chosen to reflect on today (Luke 1: 26 – 38) played a significant part in my life. It was the Sunday before Christmas 2002. I was a local preacher leading a service at Cirencester Methodist church. And I remember distinctly preaching on the words “For nothing will be impossible with God”. I don’t recall more than that. But all I know is that after the service a man called Derek spoke to me and said he felt I should offer for ministry. This had been suggested in the past, but I’d shied away from it. But on this occasion, I found myself saying yes to God and the rest is history.

“For nothing will be impossible with God” Luke 1:37 NRSV

In an age where we can turn on our computers and find out all manner of things – or even use a library! – we like to know the background to people. For example when I see an actor on TV I vaguely recognise, I find myself looking them up there and then to see what they’ve been in.

But we can’t find out much about the for characters in the Bible. What little we know about Mary can be easily told. She lives in Nazareth, she’s “a virgin”, in other words a young woman who in fact maybe even a teenager; she’s engaged to be married to Joseph and she has a cousin called Elizabeth.

Why did God choose her to be the mother of Jesus Christ, God’s own son, the saviour of the world? We don’t know. Why, then? Why, there? Why, her? We don’t know. It makes no sense and yet

“nothing will be impossible with God”

In Alice in Wonderland there is a wonderful dialogue between the Queen of Hearts and Alice

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

That’s exactly where we are with this story. It makes no sense by our terms at all. But we are asked to believe an impossible thing because nothing will be impossible with God.

This is a story of impossibilities. Consider the impossibilities Mary faced in this story: She is a virgin and pregnant—she is having a child while she is a virgin. Impossible! No way! Won't happen! Joseph has to follow through on the marriage after he discovers Mary is pregnant. Impossible! Mary must avoid being stoned to death when the neighbours hear the news. Impossible!

Consider the impossibility Elizabeth faced. She was well past childbearing age, and yet God says she is going to conceive and bear a child. This impossible news left old Zechariah speechless. Impossible! No way! Won't happen!

“nothing will be impossible with God”

This is a story of biblical impossibilities. But what are the impossibilities in our world? What would you label "impossible" in your life? Peace in our world. Impossible! No way! Won't happen! True Christ like values coming to our nation? Impossible! Our church reaching our surrounding community and making our world different? Impossible! Restoring relationships, healing past hurts in our lives? A relative or friend entering a relationship with Christ? Breaking an addiction and overcoming past hurts and disappointments? Impossible!

We find ourselves with the same troubled mind as Mary, wondering over the impossible (v. 29). We even ask the same question Mary asked, "How will this be?" (v. 34). To us it seems impossible! No way! Won't happen! The real question for people today is "How can the impossible become possible?"

The impossible can be possible through faith. Through putting aside our scepticism, our doubt, our uncertainty and giving in to God the impossible can be made possible. By allowing God to act through us the impossible will be possible. Just going back to the example of my calling for a moment. I realised once I’d accepted God’s call that he had been calling me for several years. I found excuses and kept the barriers down. But once I’d allowed God to act within me the impossibility was overcome, in all manner of ways.

The contemporary hymn writer Graham Kendrick puts it this way in one of his hymns:

God is at work in us
His purpose to perform
Building a kingdom
Of power not of words
Where things impossible
By faith shall be made possible
Let's give the glory
To Him now.

(Rejoice! Reproduced under CCLI number 150863)

British missionary William Carey once said "Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God" I’ve no idea whether Mary expected great things of God. But once she realised what God was asking her to do, she accepted her calling

³⁸ Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word. Luke 1:38 NRSV

How often do we say, “let it be with me according to your word.”? Do we expect great things from God? Do we believe that in God the impossible will be made possible? Imagine what will be possible if we do!

Credit: The picture used at the start of this blog is "The Annunciation" by Afro American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner(1859 - 1937) The pictures is housed in the Philadelphia Museum. 

https://philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/104384.html

Where are the prophets?

 

Reflection Sunday 13^th December 2020 Third Sunday of Advent

 

Two of the Bible readings suggested for today concern prophets. The prophet Isaiah and, John the Baptist who was also a prophet. Both passages of scripture have a familiarity to them.

The Isaiah passage (Isaiah 61: 1 – 4, 8 – 11) was drawn upon by Jesus in Luke 4: 14 – 30.

¹⁸ ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor. Luke 4:18

There Jesus sets out for the people of Nazareth (who were amazed at how well he spoke given he was Joseph’s son) what his ministry would be concerned with. (If you look at the passage in Luke, you’ll see that Jesus’ message was not well received.)

As in so much of his prophesy, Isaiah foretells not only Jesus’ coming but also what his ministry will be like and would be concerned with.

Then of course we have John the Baptist. He was identified as a prophet by the people who came to hear him preach and his message is very prophetic - “Prepare the way!” But when he was asked if he was Elijah or the Prophet (John 1:21) he denied it. (To the Jewish people “the Prophet” and Elijah were both thought to come before the arrival of the messiah. And in that sense John could be thought of as “the Prophet” – though most Jewish people thought of “the Prophet” as being Moses like.)

As we know, most Jewish people did not make the connection between Isaiah’s great prophesy, and what John the Baptist was proclaiming, and the coming of Christ as Messiah. At best, Jesus himself might have been regarded as a prophet by much of the Jewish community.

We move forward from Jesus’ ministry to the church in Thessalonica. And Paul’s letter to the young church there (written scholars think around 55 AD / CE, 20 years or so after Jesus’ death and resurrection.)

Paul is addressing an issue that has perplexed the Church ever since: how do we understand the fact that Jesus has not returned in glory as we had been led to expect? How do we hold on for that hope?

In 1 Thess 5: 1 – 11 Paul encourages the Christians to live “wakefully”, alert for the salvation that may come about at anytime. (A theme I’ve commented on over the last couple of weeks.)  But in 1 Thess 5: 11 – 24 Paul shows them how they are to live in the meantime – the time between Christ’s first and second advents – the time in which we live. Verses 12 – 13 suggest they can have peace with one another by respecting their leaders. Verse 14 seems to be instructions to church leaders. And in verse 15 we have instructions for congregations.

But it is verses 19 - 21 that caught my attention.

¹⁹ Do not quench the Spirit. ²⁰ Do not treat prophecies with contempt ²¹ but test them all; 1 Thess 5: 16 – 24

We know from 1 Corinthians 14 that Paul was concerned with the use of prophecy within worship and the church. In the early church Prophets were Christian leaders who declared aloud in worship, words they claimed to have received from God. Paul’s warning to the church in Thessalonica is to respect the prophecy but also to test them.

In some branches of the Church today, perhaps Pentecostal type churches, prophesy and “bringing a word” from God is still very much a thing. In our tradition it is not something we encounter very often. Does that mean we do not have prophets in the Methodist church? In fact, we might say “where are the Prophets?” anywhere?

There is a danger in thinking of Prophets as those  being some who predict the future – just as Isaiah and John the Baptist foretold the coming of Christ.

But Biblically and historically, true prophets spoke out about injustice and exploitation. They spoke on God's behalf when his people went astray and forgot the poor. They spoke truth to power, not condemnation to the downtrodden and marginalized. (Have a look at prophets such as Amos and Micah for example.)

Some of you may know the song by Simon and Garfunkel from the 1960s “The Sound of silence”. It contains these words:

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whispered in the sound of silence

To me these words in a secular song are a reminder that if we look for them, if we listen out for them, we will find prophets in the most unlikely of places. I’ve no idea whether the Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford is a Christian, but his high profile enabled him to give a voice to children in need of free school meals. His speaking out against injustice was prophetic. Yes, MPs, church leaders and so on had been doing the same. But somehow, Marcus Rashford’s voice broke through.

(Incidentally, going back to that song, “whispered in the sound of silence” is a reminder to us that God spoke to Elijah the prophet not in the wind, earthquake or fire, but in the still small voice.)

Of course, as Paul reminds us, we need to be wary of prophets. We need to test what they say. It seems to me that if what a “prophet” says accords with Christ’s teachings, for example in Luke 4 (and Isaiah 61) then they could well be authentic, and we should take note of what they are saying.

Who are the prophets today? Are we listening to them?

Praise and honour to you living God for John the Baptist, and for all those voices crying in the wilderness who prepare the way. May we listen when a prophet speaks your word, and obey.

 

A New Zealand Prayer Book © Anglican Church of New Zealand Harper Collins 1989

 

Revd David P. Gray 7^th December 2020

Use the waiting time wisely

 

Reflection Sunday 6^th December 2020 Advent 2

 

Last Sunday, I wrote about how Advent is a time of waiting, and waiting in hopefulness. This Sunday I want to explore the idea of waiting a bit further. And my Reflection mainly focuses on the reading from 2 Peter 3: 8 - 15a

Lew Bowman in the Feasting of the Word commentary for this passage notes that a frequent question of believers is “What is God doing in the world?” and a supplementary question to this is “What are the roles of human beings in this work?” They are questions that test faith. And let’s be honest, how many of us from time to time have said something along the lines of “Why doesn’t God do something about this?” which suggests we may feel (even if only in that moment) that God isn’t doing anything.

We may think this way of thinking is modern, confined to what is sometimes referred to as “a post Christian era”. But we’d be wrong, for Christians have wrestled with this for hundreds of years. In fact, Christians have been thinking this way since a generation or so after Christ’s death and resurrection.

The early church of 2 Peter was wrestling with this as they endured the scoffers who taunted them with the failure of the second coming. (2 Peter 3: 3 – 4) It is worth noting that 2 Peter was probably written in Peter’s name a generation or two after this death. It was written by a theological follower of the great apostle, using the apostle’s name to give authority to the ideas in the letter. Bearing this in mind, the subject of the letter makes sense.

The earliest followers of Christ, those who either had known him or had been in contact with the apostles, had heard Jesus’ teachings that he would come again. From their (relative) first hand experience they believed the second coming would be imminent. But by the time of the church in 2 Peter, and even more so now, this urgency, and this belief that the return is imminent, has petered out!

The author of the letter explains that if we have this sense that Christ’s return won’t happen, then we are missing the point. We are counting time in human terms whereas God measures time differently.

⁸ But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 2 Peter 3:8

The writer explains that what matters is not the way God counts but rather the way God speaks. God’s word created the cosmos; God’s word speaking through the prophets pointed ahead to the present messy days when scoffers refuse to believe God’s promises. And God’s word preserves the earth until the earth is consumed in grace and judgment – grace and judgment that will also come by God’s Word (see John 1).

There is a reason why God has delayed his final judgment. And that reason is to allow time for repentance. Therefore, what to us looks like God’s tardiness in sending his Son into the world once again is actually an act of mercy on God’s part.

⁹ The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 9

And let me emphasise part of that verse; God does not want anyone to perish in the wrath that will come when Christ comes again, but God wants everyone to come to repentance. In verse 10 the writer lays out his understanding of what will happen when the day of the Lord arrives. And it doesn’t sound good! Hence why God in his love for people, even his most wayward children, wants repentance.

Of course, talk of repentance in Advent brings us to John the Baptist. The voice calling in the wilderness, preparing the way for the Lord, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Mark 1: 1 – 8)

For a certain type of minister this would be a call to go out on to the streets of their local town, calling people to repent and then baptising them in the local river. And certainly, we know we are living in a world where we are surrounded by those who should repent and seek forgiveness for their sins before it is too late to do so.

But I feel first and foremost that as a minister I need to focus on the needs of those I have “pastoral charge” of. To ensure all is well with my own people before heading off to the River Avon in the centre of Chippenham and baptising those stood in the queue outside Wilco’s!

In fact this is important for the writer of 2 Peter reminds those of us who have already become followers of Christ, that as we watch and wait for his coming again, as we watch and wait for the new heaven and the new earth, we are to

make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 2 Peter 3:14

In other words, we are to look at the planks in our own eyes before looking at the specks in others’ eyes. (see Matthew 7:5)

The great Christian writer Henri Nouwen once said,

 "If we do not wait patiently in expectation for God's coming in glory, we start wandering around, going from one little sensation to another. Our lives get stuffed with newspaper items, television stories, and gossip. Then our minds lose the discipline of discerning between what leads us closer to God and what doesn't, and our hearts lose their spiritual sensitivity." 

It's the hard work of acknowledging our own sin and repenting that leads us to God.

Use this time of Advent to look at your own life. Are there things that are keeping you from being closer to God? Are there things that interrupt your waiting?  If so offer them to God, seek his forgiveness and then know that in his great love for us he forgives us. Thanks be to God. Amen