Turning to God

Human pride begins with turning our backs on God.
Wisdom begins with facing God in humility.
Those who hate God cringe before God’s judgement.
Those who receive God’s love with openness
are fed with the finest wheat
and, from the rock, honey which satisfies.
God overthrows the powerful abusers
and sets the humble in their place.
For all who exalt themselves will be humbled
and everyone who humbles themselves will be exalted.
(Cf Psalm 81:10-16; Sirach 10:12-18)

Facing God's Wrath

These days we don’t like the image of a wrathful God—and with some reason. The wrath of God has been called down by the people of God on all sorts of people who very likely didn’t deserve it. But if we ignore the God who is angry in the scriptures, we miss a lot of the story. Yet, we must be very careful when we interpret this imagery.

God’s anger is not directed against the stranger. God’s call to the people of God is to provide hospitality to the stranger. God’s anger is not directed towards the people with whom we feel uncomfortable, for they are strangers too.
Rather, God’s anger is directed at the people who should know better—the very people of God; and it is directed at the people of God when we turn away from God’s call to hospitality, and God’s offer of hospitality.

In the scriptures, God is depicted as being angry when the people of God turn away from God; and when the justice of God is transgressed by ill-treatment of those in need—those without the necessary social support required for survival and for thriving. In the scriptures, the classic picture of such people is often given in terms of “the widow, the orphan, and the stranger”.

In our readings for today, we have 2 interesting pictures of God’s judgement. In Jeremiah, God is lamenting a people who left the God who loves them behind:

Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:12-13)

And in the Gospel reading, Jesus warns about thinking too highly of ourselves and too little of others:

For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Luke 14: 11)

To be sure, God is always merciful, but like a good parent, mercy is not given without direction and boundaries. God loves us; and we know it. Therefore we have a responsibility to the people who need God most.

Witness to Grace

Each week, whether we celebrate Holy Communion or not, we gather around Christ’s table, the table of the reconciliation of all creation. As we focus on Stewardship from Thanksgiving, I invite you to remember both the promise of this gift of reconciliation and the vocation that we have within it—to worship, witness and serve as God’s people for the sake of God’s world. The following litany from Brian Wren captures that promise and vocation. It is a meditation on 1 Corinthians 11:17-29 which includes the Narrative of Institution, the telling of the story of the beginning of Christ’s thanksgiving meal.

What do you bring to Christ’s table?
We bring bread,
made by many people’s work,
from an unjust world
where some have plenty
and most go hungry.

At this table all are fed and no-one turned away.
Thanks be to God.

What do you bring to Christ’s table?
We bring wine,
made by many people’s work,
from an unjust world
where some have leisure
and most struggle to survive.

At this table all share the cup
of pain and celebration
and no-one is denied.
Thanks be to God.

These gifts shall be for us
the body and blood of Christ.
Our witness against hunger,
our cry against injustice,
and our hope for a world
where God is fully known
and every child is fed.
Thanks be to God.
(From Wendy Robins, ed., Let All the World, USPG, 1990)

Where Your Treasure Is

In Luke 12:32-40, we are again confronted with questions about our priorities, our orientation, our focus. Are we oriented towards God, or towards the pursuit of things that are not of God? “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (v. 34).

A couple of weeks ago, in the sharing about Emmaus, Armidale Congregation was reminded of the importance of facing up to our real priorities: where our money, time and energy actually goes, not where we think it goes, or want it to go, but where they are actually directed, and what that means for what is our real focus in life? On Sunday 22 August, we’re going to focus on Stewardship from Thanksgiving. We’ll share lunch, give thanks for God’s work in the life of our congregation, and re-consider our own priorities.

In creation, God calls us to be stewards of the resources of creation. In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God invites us to be partners in healing and reconciliation, stewards of God’s grace. The Spirit works within the people of God as God’s stewards for the benefit of all creation.

If we experience stewardship as acting out of guilt or fear, then we may as well not bother: guilt and fear are not our calling in God. If stewardship is an act of thanksgiving for God’s gracious gifts to us in creating, reconciling and sustaining us as God’s people, then we just might be part of God’s building of a new commonwealth of justice and peace in our world.

So what is it that you are thankful for in your life, the life of the people of God, the life of the world? And do your real priorities reflect your thankfulness; or are they directed towards the “musts” and “shoulds” of other people’s “priorities” and preoccupations?

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (v. 32). Focus then on the things that are of God: the good creation; reconciliation in Christ; and the gift of the Holy Spirit enfolding us into very life of God. Your priorities, your real priorities will follow this focus as you celebrate the life we have in God.

Signs of the Times

In Luke 12:49-56, Jesus exhorts his disciples to interpret the signs of the times. Would that it were so easy? It’s hard to know what are the significant social, cultural and economic movements in our time. In this election season, we are presented with many claims and counter-claims about what’s important and what will make things better (or worse).

As Christian people, we begin from a particular perspective in our analysis. We begin with our understandings of who God is, who we are before God, and what is God’s will and purpose, not just for us, but for the whole of creation.

The Twelfth Assembly of The Uniting Church in Australia (July 2009) adopted the statement An Economy of Life: Re-Imagining Human Progress in a Flourishing World. This statement describes how the Church understands God’s will for the reconciliation and renewal of all creation and what this means for how we understand human progress. It considers the values and goals of the current global economic agenda and suggests that a Christian economic perspective would be based on different values and aim to achieve the wellbeing and flourishing of all people and the planet. Pre-election materials have been prepared based on this statement by UnitingJustice (http://assembly.uca.org.au). That resource reminds us:

Like all citizens in a democratic state, Christians have a responsibility to actively engage in the political processes of their country. As Christians, however, we have a particular responsibility to think about how we do this in a way that answers the call to be good news in the world: to bring justice, peace and hope to those processes and to seek justice, peace and hope as outcomes.

Let us pray that we may faithfully interpret the signs of the times in God’s terms and act within God’s will for the whole creation. Happy voting!