You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly (Psalm 65:9a).
Read Psalm 65:9–13
If anyone should be at the forefront of environmental protection, it should be those who believe that the land is ultimately God’s. This reading echoes the thought of Psalm 24:1: ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.’ The land is God’s. Our land, Australia, is his, and he first gave our Indigenous people the task of being its caretakers and now to those of us who are non-Indigenous to also care for it. But the abundant, natural care for the land comes from God.
I don’t know if it still happens, but churches used to hold a Harvest Thanksgiving service each year, where the sanctuary would often overflow with produce from the land that people had brought as an act of thanksgiving. In more recent times, in urban areas, some churches asked people to bring whatever would be a good representation of their work: perhaps a laptop, a musical instrument, a briefcase or an office chair – whatever it was that contributed to them being able to make a living. It’s a good thing. A good thing to acknowledge that God is the great provider, and he crowns the year with his bounty (verse 11).
Caring for the land means acknowledging that land is a gift. Here in Australia, we experience both bountiful years and years of scarcity. We know what it is like when things flourish and how it is when there is drought, flood and fire. Sometimes we can take good things for granted, and perhaps sometimes, when things are grim, we are forced to put a greater value on the gift we have.
This psalm is simply a thank-you song. It begins with the words, ‘Praise awaits you, O God’ (verse 1). When I see how God cares, enriches, provides, drenches, softens, crowns, clothes and covers, what is left for me but to praise? We can add: because God’s gift is so precious, we will care for this gift.
Thank you, gracious God, for your care for our land. By your Spirit, give each of us the will to care as custodians of what belongs to you. Amen.
Pastor Jim Strelan is a retired pastor living on Brisbane Northside. He served in Papua New Guinea and as school pastor in several schools and congregations with schools. Jim is married to Ruth, and they have three children and seven grandchildren, who Jim loves unconditionally. He loves to share the gospel as simply and clearly as he can.
John 15:1-11 The Vine and the Branches
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunesa] so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
In my first year of high school, Australia converted to decimal currency and Simon and Garfunkel released the song, “I am a rock”. While everyone in Australia was working together to adjust to the new currency the song spoke of going it alone. “I am a rock. I am an island.”
It’s a sad song about being hurt and withdrawing into isolation in order to avoid any more pain.
We’ve had some experiences of isolation this year and depending on our nature we’ve either enjoyed or hated those times.
Our God is into community. God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in a divine community of love and because we’re made in the image of God we’re also made for community.
The Christian faith in particular and life in general aren’t meant to be solo adventures. Even those with an introverted nature need others. We all need community.
Paul describes the community in terms of a body with many different and varied parts in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12. The different parts of the body need each other and when they work together the body functions properly.
The beauty of this image and situation is found in the love and support we give and receive in the community. There are times when we desperately need the support of a loving community and there are times when we provide the support to members of the community.
This ‘strange’ year has highlighted the need for community. We need to care for each other and look out for each other.
It’s great to know God is always doing his best for us. It’s also clear our sisters and brothers are gifts from God. God often helps us through the community. God bless you with all the help you need and with all the strength you need to help others.
A hundred years ago two astronomers were engaged in a great debate about the size of the universe. Some say it was the first great debate.
Have you been having any great debates lately?
In the Gospels we find Jesus engaged in many debates with his opponents. I love the way Jesus is always the winner.
Debates generally produce winners and losers. Sometimes that means little more than some temporary prestige for the winner and disappointment for the loser. But other debates produce more serious and long lasting consequences.
One of those is the debate our church has been having over who can be ordained, men only or both women and men. For many of us it’s been a 30 year debate. A long debate.
As a church and particularly as pastors we’ve become increasingly polarised. We shouldn’t be surprised, debates tend to polarise opinion.
The General Church Board and the College of Bishops met in February this year and their Covid-delayed report is dated August 2020. It’s a report to the whole church and you can find it on the LCA website (https://www.lca.org.au/lcanz-leaders-report-on-ordination-deliberations/) or I can give you a printed copy.
I think it’s fair to say it presents a pretty gloomy outlook for the LCANZ. None of the three and a half scenarios presented are without winners and losers.
Bishop John Henderson writes in his concluding remarks, When we disagree with each other, when we argue or fight with one another, Christ is there between us. He takes into himself any hurt, accusation, verbal barb or violence. If we hurt each other, it is really him we hurt. ... So, as you pray about this issue, as you think about what you are going to say, write or do on this issue, think first about Christ and his unwavering, undiscriminating, unending love for the sinner, the outcast, the broken.
Pray for a God-pleasing way forward. Pray for love to increase and polarisation to decrease for God’s sake.
What does it mean to be a servant of Christ?
Would people say you are a ‘true servant of Christ’ and if they did what would it mean? What might people see in you to cause them to make that assertion? Stop for a moment and think about your answer.
The Lutheran Church of Australia confers a Servant of Christ Award to honour lay people who give outstanding service. The guidelines say a recipient shall be a lay member who has:
· given long and faithful service as a member of the LCA
· rendered this service in a humble and selfless spirit
· sought to bear witness to the gospel in word and conduct.
Maybe you might wonder why you haven’t been nominated.
Paul talks about being a servant of Christ or a slave of Christ on a number of occasions in his letters.
One of those, is in his letter to the Galatians:
I am not trying to please people. I want to please God. Do you think I am trying to please people? If I were doing that, I would not be a servant of Christ. Galatians 1:10
Paul makes it clear we’re to please God or Christ not please people. What does this look like in 2020?
It seems to me we could get very divergent answers to this question depending on our understanding of what is at the heart of the Christian faith.
I’d like to link my answer very directly to the Gospel, to the Good News we find in Jesus, the Christ. Therefore, love will be at the heart of a God-pleasing life of service.
A servant of Christ, a Christian person, will be known by their love - their love for God and their love for people. To be an ’ambassador’ is the ultimate servant role and Paul says the love of Christ compels us to be his ambassadors in the world, sharing his message of peace. (2 Corinthians 5)
God bless you, servant of Christ.!
In Jeremiah 18 God sends the prophet to watch a potter working with clay. He observes the potter shape and reshape the clay until it takes the shape desired by the potter. When a pot wasn’t turning out as desired it was formed back into a lump and a new start began.
Jeremiah was given this image as an explanation of how God was shaping and reshaping his people into the shape he desired them to be. Just as the pot had no concept of the shape it would become, the people were unaware of their intended shape.
How does God shape us? Has God been using the Corona-virus experience to shape us? How has he been doing that? How has it been working? Can you see any changes in your ‘shape’ as a disciple of Jesus? Can you see a change in others?
In a sense we’ve been taken back to basics. We may have felt like we were taken out of our comfort-zone. Did we feel like a lump of clay without any shape or beauty, during this pandemic? Can we even begin to imagine the beauty God is creating in us as individuals and as a group of Christians as he continues to shape us?
On the other hand, maybe we feel like the shaping is complete. Are we then being air dried or kiln dried? How much ‘heat’ are we experiencing?
I’ve a feeling we should be aware of a limitation in the image of the pot and potter. Once a clay pot is finished and hardened it can’t be reshaped. It loses it’s flexibility. It can be broken but not reshaped.
In our lives the shaping God does is a lifelong process and therefore we should never harden into a particular shape but always be pliable in the potter’s hands. We should never become too old to learn new tricks.
It’s also good for us to remember that in all things, including this particular time, God is always working for our good. If we’re being re-shaped then it’s being done by our loving God who’s always working for our best.
This doesn’t mean we’ll feel no discomfort with what’s happening. In fact, it might be uncomfortable to the point of painful. We might feel quite out of shape and also out of sorts but remember we have a loving and trustworthy God who’s shaping us to be beautiful in his eyes.
Let’s be pliable in God’s hands. Let’s be willing to be surprised by what God’s doing in our lives and the lives of those around us. Let’s trust our lives to the Master Potter who has a plan for our lives and will shape us into a masterpiece of divine beauty.
We are the church after church.
As God’s people we assemble, or at least we used to, in the building we call the church, we spend time doing what we often call ’church’ and then we go from there to be the church in the world. We are the church after church.
We are the body of Christ.
Paul explains this in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, each of us is part of the body of Christ and we each have a unique part to play in the working of the body. Martin Luther said we are little Christs. This is true both in church and after church.
We are temples of the Holy Spirit.
In 1 Corinthians 6:19 Paul says, “You surely know your body is a temple where the Holy Spirit lives. The Spirit is in you and is a gift from God. You are no longer your own.” If we replace ‘temple’ with ‘church’ our bodies are ‘churches’ where the Holy Spirit lives. We are the church wherever we are.
What does the church do after church?
Jesus took the beginning of Isaiah 61 as his mission statement in Luke 4
“The Lord’s Spirit has come to me, because he has chosen me to tell the good news to the poor. The Lord has sent me to announce freedom for prisoners, to give sight to the blind, to free everyone who suffers, and to say, ‘This is the year the Lord has chosen.’” Luke 4:18f
Since this is the mission of the Christ, and we are the body of Christ in the world today, then this is our mission. To tell / preach the good news.
On the day of Pentecost the great crowd of people were amazed because they were hearing everything in their own language. In Acts 2:6 & 8, the Greek word they use ‘dialekto’ gives us our word dialect. They each heard the good news in their native dialect.
The Holy Spirit empowers the church after church to spread the good news of Jesus in a multitude of languages and dialects so the whole world can be free to live in the glorious grace and love of Jesus Christ.
Holy Spirit, empower us to be the church after church. Amen.
For something extra have a listen to Twila Paris' "How beautiful" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJM0hFvz_64
MILK
INVITATION TO THE THIRSTY: Isaiah 55:1
“Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
SIP: Milk – what comes to mind when you see or hear this word?
Perhaps its colour - white and clean or a recollection of the rich, creamy flavour coating your taste buds? How about the chill on lips and teeth and the cool cascade in your throat, as you guzzle an icy cold glassful? Or the fresh, frothy, mouth-filling feel that is oh so quenching? Or maybe, in seasonal contrast, the comfort of adding heat and chocolate to it for sustenance on a wintery afternoon?
Do you picture, a bottle, a churn, a cow? Maybe a baby suckling at the breast?
From the day we are born, we experience milk via the physical senses God has built into our bodies. As adults we can make choices about if or how we consume our dairy products. But for babies it isn’t an optional extra they can take, or leave, it is the fluid of life. The nourishment needed for survival, health, and growth.
However, as grown-ups, we are more than our bodies, so what of spiritual nourishment?
Cows’ milk, goats’ milk, even mothers’ milk, will feed us physically and nudge you with delight and thanksgiving towards spiritual well-being. But to truly nourish you in spirit you need pure, un-diluted spiritual milk - to eat and drink of God’s goodness.
DRINK:1 Peter 1:22-2:3 Newborn Babies
22 Once your lives have been purified by obeying the truth, resulting in a sincere love for all your fellow believers, love one another eagerly, from a pure heart. 23 You have been born again, not from seed which decays but from seed which does not – through the living and abiding word of God. 24 Because, you see –
All flesh is like grass
and all its glory is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, and the flower falls
25 but the word of the Lord lasts for ever.
That is the word that was announced to you.
2 So put away all evil, all deceitful, hateful malice, and all ill-speaking. 2 As newborn babies, long for the spiritual milk, the real stuff, not watered down. That is what will make you grow up to salvation – 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
*Read also Psalm 34*
DRINK DEEPLY: Meditative Prayer
Reflect, ponder, think, consider, deliberate, muse, wonder, mull over, meditate upon:
Take time to spend alone with God, drinking of his goodness. Have a two-way conversation as you deliberate together, holding God’s word before you. But let God do most of the talking! He is the one giving you a drink!
Drink the spiritual milk of Jesus’ presence and his grace as he speaks to you and the Holy Spirit guides and teaches your mind, heart, and spirit. LISTEN! And write down anything of significance you may wish to remember.
You may find one or more of these helpful to facilitate your quiet time with God:
· Go and find a quiet spot inside or outdoors to listen to God. You can sit or wander.
· Reflect on the words and phrases that stood out for you from the 3 Bible passages. Ask God to speak further with you about them and their significance for your life.
· Reflect on your state of being a child of God, of being spiritually re-born, of your new life in Christ. How do these realities affect your daily living and priorities?
· Pray that you may keep on longing for and tasting God’s goodness
· Pray for specific people you know to come drink and taste of Jesus and life in him
· Pray that you may find ways of being a vessel from which others may taste and see this goodness