Sunday 30 October

Hi


On Sunday morning we will be continuing with our studies in Matthew's Gospel when we consider Jesus healing the paralytic in Matthew 9. In the Evening we will look at Zechariah 4.


On Sunday 9 March we looked at Matthew's account of Jesus calming the storm from 4 perspectives:

The story of Jesus calming the storm must be one of the best known of the Gospel stories, the story has an entrancing beauty and I am not sure we know what the beauty of the story is. For me the beauty of the story lies in unfolding of the splendour of Christ Jesus. At the beginning of the story we see His as an ordinary man exhausted after a long hard day He sleeps peacefully. But then this ferocious storm blows up, in fact more than a storm the Greek suggests a storm plus earthquake there has been a tsunami as the storm has raged the bed of the Sea of Galilee has known a fearful convulsion and these terrifying waves threaten to sink the boat; the disciples have never experienced anything like it. They waken Jesus He rebukes the wind and the waves, the whole creation is under His command and all is still. And we are left marvelling Jesus is so much more than just a man, so much more than just another healer and preacher ‘even the wind and the waves obey Him.’ Our hearts and minds are drawn to the mystery and wonder of who Jesus is.

One of the fascinating things about this story is that at different times different people have read the story and seen different things in it; and that is the journey I would like us to take today.

In Matthew’s time the people of Israel feared the sea greatly – they were land lubbers they liked to feel the earth beneath their feet; the sea represented their worst nightmare and for us all a tsunami represents the worst nightmare of all. For the people of Matthew’s time the sea was a wild unpredictable place, storms could come from nowhere, there were hidden reefs of rocks that could scupper a boat and of course who knew what monsters lived beneath the waves. We smile at the story of Jonah but not the people who were there when the Bible was being written; the storm being swallowed by a leviathan was their great nightmare. So when these folk read of Jesus calming the wind and the waves their thought is not of Jesus as the Lord of Creation but of Jesus the one who can control all the strange, perplexing chaotic things that can happen to us; the one who is greater than the monsters in our nightmares.

Two year ago when they discovered two malignant tumours growing inside me I never had a moment’s fear or worry; I might be facing my last Christmas but the basic reality of my life had not changed. I belonged to Jesus not to this world, he had not changed so what was there to fear? Jesus is greater that our worst nightmare.

One of the earliest Christian writers was a man named Tertullian and he lived in Carthage from about 160 to 220 AD and he really laid the foundations of how we understand the Christian faith he was the first to use the term Trinity to try and understand how Jesus and the Father are related. At that time the Christian church was a small persecuted minority. Tertullian read the Bible quite differently to you and me. He saw the great stories of the Old and New Testaments as pictures that illustrate what God is up to. When he read the story of Jesus calming the wind and the waves he saw a series of pictures. He saw the boat as the church and in the boat were a small defenceless band of disciples. He saw the storm as a picture of the forces of persecution that raged around the church at the time and he saw Jesus as the greater defender of His people who rises up to save His people, His very presence assuring them of safety.

We can think of Elspeth working in one of the most dangerous places in world. Osama Bin Laden lived and was killed just sixteen miles from her hospital in the town she goes to do her shopping. But Elspeth has no desire to return home to the relative safety of Scotland; she knows that she is safest in the place where God wants her to be and that He is the master of the storms that rage around her. It is better to be at the centre of the storm with Jesus than on the dry ground on your own.

Ten when we zoom forward some 1 300 years to the days of Luther and Calvin we find that Tertullian’s method of understanding the Bible as a series of pictures had become so overgrown with outrageous interpretations that these two great Bible scholars swept away all the allegorical interpretations and hauled the church back to thinking about the words that are actually written down in the Gospels. When we read the story this way two great thoughts press upon us. Firstly there is the weakness of the disciples. After hearing Jesus turn away the very bright young man who seemed to have only and intellectual interest in the things of God and then the chap who seemed to be formality and keeping the rules did the disciples have big ideas of themselves as they got on board the boat and set sail for the other side of the Sea of Galilee? They were soon reduced to nervous wrecks as an earthquake ripped apart the sea bed beneath them, huge waves came up from the floor of the sea and the storm howled around them. Were they learning the great lesson that it is who our faith is in that matters not how strong or weak we are? Then they see just how great their Lord is the earthquakes, the waves, the winds and the rain all obey His command. This was the understanding they needed as the storm and earthquake of Jesus’ arrest and trial broke upon them. That night too their faith was shattered, they surrendered to their darkest fears self-preservation drove them to desert and deny Jesus but Jesus in the majesty of His being is greater than our failure.

But now as I read the story I begin to see another understanding of the story begin to emerge. Jesus promises us ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’ He binds Himself to us with an unconditional promise that flows wholly out of His sovereign goodness. It is the same relationship god had with Israel in the Old Testament. Israel finds herself in slavery in Egypt, she cries out in prayer and God comes and delivers her. Here the disciples are in this boat they are in the greatest peril they pray and Jesus rises up and delivers them. He is a mighty friend who is always, always there.

When I was studying Civil Engineering for a year I lived at Heriot Watt University’s campus at Riccarton. During the final term there was an outbreak of dysentery. We were all summoned to a large hall and told that we had to nominate a friend who would look after us should we fall ill. I never felt so low in my life; none of my friends stayed on the Campus they all stayed in Edinburgh. Thankfully I was not ill but I have never forgotten that feeling of abandonment and loneliness. We can face anything in life if we have a friend who promises never to leave us or forsake us at our side.

Four different perspectives on this story, four different views of how Jesus looks after His people; together they tells us Jesus is able. 

Sunday 9 October

This morning we welcome John Goddard to the Kirk Session and dedicate the Guild as they begin a new session.

Way back in July I laid before the congregation my views on schism at this time of dispute and division within our denomination. I do not ask you to agree with me; just to try and understand whre I am coming from.

This morning I would like to address the subject of schism. A number of congregations, I do not know how many, are in such profound disagreement with the recent decision of the General Assembly to explore the possibility of the acceptance and blessing of same sex partnerships they are dissociating themselves from our denomination the Church of Scotland. I have no wish this morning to enter into the arguments for and against the acceptance of same sex relationships I have made my views on that plain elsewhere. This morning I simply want to say where I stand with regard to schism, should the Church of Scotland make decisions I profoundly disagree with. Let me say at the outset I can only foresee two sets of circumstances in which I would leave the Church of Scotland over this issue. The first would be if the Church of Scotland required me to bless a same sex relationship then they would have to put me out because in all conscience I could not bless that which Scriptures teach is unholy. The second set of circumstances I will outline later. I do not ask you to agree with me I simply want to explain where I have come to in thinking about schism and share with you how I have got there.

In thinking about schism why begin with our reading this morning the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats? In this haunting story Jesus taught about the last day that those who will be welcomed into Christ’s Kingdom will be those who clothed the naked, gave drink to the thirsty, fed the hungry, cared for the stranger, nursed the sick and visited the prisoner. One of the main things this parable teaches me is that the holiness that our Father seeks from us is not a form of piety that takes us out of the world and expresses itself in some kind of moral and religious purity but a holiness that does not mind getting dirty in order to bring the compassion of God to others.

This is seen in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the two religious leaders who were concerned to keep themselves clean and so avoided the man in the ditch and passed by on the other side are condemned in the parable; it is the man who in compassion risked uncleanness and went to the aid of his neighbour who is the man who truly loves God and his neighbour.

In Matthew’s Gospel the parable of the sheep and the goats is set down as the last parable Jesus teaches before he is arrested, tried and crucified. This is the amazing thing about Jesus His death upon the cross is set before us the ultimate expression of God’s holy love yet at Calvary Jesus is executed by a church who rejects Him as their Lord, fails to see His glory, think it is good thing that even though innocent He should die the most cruel death imaginable and stir the crowd to seek His death. More than that His disciples fail Him and deny Him and on the cross he bears the guilt of their sin and dies in ignominy, shame and desolation abandoned by His Father.

Now I know there is great deal of teaching in scripture about moral integrity and living by the word of God. I remember a minister telling that he once met one of the business leaders from the stock exchange here in Glasgow and saying to this man that one of the finest members of his congregation worked in Stock Exchange. He then spoke of his shame when the man replied ‘I wish she was one of our finest workers, she seems to spend all her time on the phone to her friends.’ Christians must exhibit uprightness but that does not mean dissociating ourselves from those we disagree with and whose lifestyle we cannot consider conformable to the word of God.

But Christ Jesus did not abandon Israel and His disciples when they abandoned Him. Christ Jesus did not reject His disciples and Israel when they rejected Him. He bore the shame that His disciples might be restored and even the priests who stirred the crowds against Him might experience His saving mercy and grace.

The second reason why I cannot walk away from the Church of Scotland is my understanding of what it is to be a minister. The minister has to have a number of skills. The ability to take a passage of scripture and explain it faithfully in a way that people young and old can grasp what it means. One also has to have some basic pastoral skills in caring for people at different points in their lives. One has to be able to chair meetings and bring a disparate group of people to a consensus and so the list goes on and on.

But undergirding all that the minister, I think, has to live out the covenant love of God; God is a friend who is always, always there. When David all but raped Bathsheba, had her husband murdered and then tried to cover the whole stinking mess up, when he was found out David confessed that there was nothing he could do to put matters right, he was blood guilty he deserved to die for what he had done; yet still he could turn to God and plead for mercy and God in His compassion provided a way of salvation for him. I think in some small measure the minister the elder has to reflect such covenant love to God’s people; to be a friend who is always, always there no matter what has happened or what may have been done.

This love is seen very clearly in the life of Jeremiah. Jeremiah lived at a time when idolatry and immorality was rife in the little kingdom of Judah. The agony of endeavouring to be faithful to Jehovah at such times came to a head for Jeremiah when the men of his home town of Anathoth plotted to kill him. Jeremiah brings a heart breaking complaint to God about the unjustness and unfairness of it all. God listens but then does something extraordinary. He tells Jeremiah things are only going to get worse! but then He opens up His heart to Jeremiah and tells him of His agony over the unfaithfulness of His beloved Judah.

The pain Jeremiah knew was as nothing as to the agony Jehovah knew over the unfaithfulness of His people and the judgement that was to come upon them Jehovah was to be faithful to Judah through all this, throughout her idolatry and immorality, through the days of judgement and exile right to the time 70 years on when Judah would be restored, long after Jeremiah was dead. Jeremiah had to live out that faithful covenant love. I believe God is calling us to the same.

Strangely this leads me to the other circumstance when I would leave the Church of Scotland. If the Kirk Session of BVP were to decide, against my advice and pleading, to leave the Church of Scotland and called a congregational meeting as they have just done in Stornoway and you voted to leave against my pleading and advice then I would leave with you for I must live out covenant love to you. I must remain committed to you in love even though I may think you are profoundly wrong. My thoughts and must come second to living covenant love.

In thinking through rights and wrongs of schism my guide has been none other than John Calvin and the opening chapters of Book 4 of the Institutes.

Calvin lived away back in the 16^th Century at the birth of the Reformation. Calvin had been raised as a Roman Catholic his father was one of the important officials in one of the cathedrals of France. Then as a young man he had discovered the wonders of free grace, that we are put right with God not through our religious practices but through what Christ has done for us one the cross. This meant that as a young man Calvin was hunted across Europe with a price on his head and lived to see many of his friends martyred. But he played a pivotal role in rebuilding the church across Europe and around the world. On the one hand he had to deal with what he saw as the idolatries of Rome and on the other with a myriad of smaller splinter churches grouped under the umbrella title of the Anabaptists.

Calvin understood that wherever the word of God was taught and the sacraments of the Baptism and the Lord’s Supper were celebrated there was the church. Despite Rome martyring his friends and what he saw as the iniquities of the Mass Calvin refuses to anathematise the church of Rome instead he writes: ‘Among the Corinthians, quarrels divisions and jealousies flare, disputes and altercations burgeon together with greed an evil deed is openly approved of which even pagans would detest; the name of Paul is insolently defamed; some mock the resurrection of the dead, to the destruction of the whole Gospel as well, God's free gifts serve ambition, not love and many things are done without decency or order. Yet the church abides among them because the ministry of the Word and Sacraments remains unrepudiated there. Who then would dare snatch the title ‘church’ from these who cannot be charged with even a tenth part of such misdeeds.’

Then in his next chapter Calvin humbles me greatly and painfully. I was greatly exercised by the question of whether or not I could attend a Presbytery meeting presided over by a minister in a relationship declared sinful and outlawed by the Word of God. Calvin writes that whilst the church must make every effort maintain proper order when we come to the Lord’s Table we are not to examine our neighbour, examine the church, examine the person presiding but examine ourselves. That hit me like a bucket of cold water shocking me out of my self-righteousness; we all come to the Table on the same basis the gracious invitation of our Lord we are not to look round about us and weigh the worthiness or unworthiness of others but to marvel that Christ should have us here at all.

Then finally Calvin writes: “that an ill-advised zeal for righteousness is born of pride and arrogance and a false opinion of holiness than of true holiness and true zeal for it and he quotes Augustine who wrote: ‘The godly manner and measure of church discipline ought at all times to be concerned with the ‘unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.’”

So Calvin comes to the conclusion that a true expression of holiness is not to separate ourselves from those we disagree with but to work, pray and preach and teach the Word of God for the up-building of all God's people.

Calvin then writes; “True indeed that Christ gave himself up for the church that he might sanctify her; he cleansed her by the washing of water in the word of life, that he might present her to himself as his glorious bride, without spot or wrinkle.’ Yet it is also no less true that the Lord is daily at work in smoothing wrinkles and cleansing spots. From this it follows that the church’s holiness is not yet complete.’

You will remember that Jesus said to Peter that he was giving to him the keys to the kingdom of heaven and the cross keys remain to this day the symbol of the Romans Catholic church. For Calvin the keys to the Kingdom of heaven is the preaching of the free grace and unmerited mercy of Christ so that the wonders of Christ’s forgiving redeeming love are unlocked for all God’s people to enjoy.

True holiness is no be found not in dissociating ourselves from a spotty wrinkly church but by so praying and preaching the free grace of God in Christ that the wrinkles are smoothed out and the spots healed.