SERMON SEPTEMBER 10, 2017: MONTH OF CREATION

As we continue our sermon series on Creation the focus today is on the Wonder …

Sir Isaac Newton had a perfectly scaled down replica of the then known solar system built for his studies. A large golden ball represented the sun at the centre, and the known planets revolved around it through a series of cogs, belts, and rods. It was an incredible machine. One day while Newton was studying his model, an agnostic friend stopped by for a visit. The man marvelled at the machinery and asked, "Who made this exquisite thing?" Without looking up, Newton replied, "Nobody." "Nobody?" his friend asked. "That's right," said Newton, "all of these balls and cogs and belts and gears just happened to come together, and wonder of wonders, by chance they began revolving in their set orbits with perfect timing."

Can we actually imagine ‘Nothing’?

No Earth, no Universe just an unimaginable ‘Nothing’. The nothing that existed before the Creation. As described in the second verse of Genesis: ‘…now the Earth was formless and empty’..

…it didn’t exist…and then, to paraphrase Bill Bryson’s book – A Short History of Nearly Everything,

‘In a single, blinding pulse, a moment of glory much too swift and expansive for any form of words – from nothing our universe begins – it is a place of the most wondrous and gratifying possibilities and beautiful too.’

In the six ‘days’ described in Genesis from the absolute of nothing there was the creation of the wonder of our universe… 

‘…God saw all that He had made, and it was very good…’

To quote from Psalm 33

‘By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,

their starry host by the breath of his mouth.’

So, from nothing, we get to the wonder described in Psalm 19 … 

‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world…’

The wonder of all this, God’s creation, declares His glory. God has always been glorious. But when God created the heavens and the earth, there was, amazingly, a whole new way of seeing and declaring the eternal glory of God.

Although all of creation declares God’s glory, in Psalm 19 David focuses on the heavens, because the heavens are the most universally visible of all God’s works. David describes the skies as “the work of God’s hands.”

When we speak about creation, it is not just anyone’s creation. It is God’s creation. It is the work of His hands. Just as you can always see something of the artist in their creative works, so you can see something of God in all His creative works. The heavens acclaim and praise God through their beauty, through their complexity, through their incredible balance and order, even through their sheer size.

They also help to increase the knowledge of God in man. Look at verse two of Psalm 19: “Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.”

But in these verses David says even more. Not only is there a revelation of God in creation, but God’s testimony to himself in creation is unmistakable. First of all, it is a continuous testimony. We can see some of this in the tenses of the verbs David uses in verse one. We really miss it in our English translations, but in the original Hebrew they are all participles, expressing continuous action: “The heavens are declaring the glory of God; the skies are proclaiming the work of his hands.” In other words, this is something they are doing unceasingly.

Look also at how he describes this testimony in verse two. He says this testimony takes place “day after day, night after night.” Whether the sun is shining by day or the moon and the stars by night, whether we are enjoying a beautiful, calm, peaceful day or we are in the middle of a powerful thunderstorm, there is never any time of day or night when God’s creation is not declaring his glory. It is a continuous testimony.

Not only that, it is also an abundant testimony. It would be one thing if this revelation of God was happening all the time, but as just a small trickle of testimony to God’s glory. But look at the lavish words David uses to describe this testimony. He says, “The skies pour forth speech.” This word translated as “pour forth” is a word that means “to bubble up and overflow,” literally “to gush forth” in an uncontrolled and uncontrollable manner. God was not stingy in creation. God has created colours and sounds and variety and wonders everywhere we look…

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful:

The Lord God made them all.

Whether we look deep into the heavens with a telescope or deep into the inner workings of the cell of a plant with a microscope, whether we look up, down or all around, God’s fingerprints are all over what we see. God has provided an abundant testimony to himself and the wonder of His Creation.

Paul says in his letter to the Romans:

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

God may be invisible to our eyes, but the creation does reveal some of God’s qualities to us. The size and complexity of creation, especially as seen in the heavens containing the sun, the planets, the moon and the stars, show us God’s eternal power. The beauty and order and design of creation show us God’s divine nature.

Just to take one example – the basic unit of construction in a honeycomb is the hexagon which enables the best use of space with the least amount of material used in construction. This is important as a gram of wax needs up to 8 grams of honey to be produced. A wonderful creation.

There is so much we can learn about God from just observing the intricate wonder of his creation… and so it is important that we spend time with God in his creation: watching the sun rise or set and the seasons turn, staring up in awe at the stars in the heavens, walking in nature away from the hustle and bustle of human activity, resting in the fields and the streams, delighting in God’s plants, flowers, animals and creatures. All of these things teach us more about God and draw us to praise and to worship him in deeper and better ways.

…and in the midst of all this wonder…from

Psalm 8:

When I consider your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which you have set in place,

What is mankind that you are mindful of them…

human beings that you care for them?

From Genesis:

‘The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.’

– the Creation of Man…in God’s image…

From Psalm 139:

‘For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful…”

God, in his love for us has made man a special creation…a creature to whom God can speak and who can respond to God. Human dignity is based on this likeness to God.

Think about our bodies – how wonderfully they are made – do we just accept everything they can do or do we stop every now and then and thank God for what he has created in us?

Reading a magazine – differentiating one page thickness from two pages – fine motor control etc etc - the wonder of all our senses – smell, touch, sight, hearing, taste…

Our bodies are an intrinsic part of the wonder of creation.

…and as we ponder on the wonderful miracle of Creation we need to reflect on the role of Jesus…

It's not hard to picture Jesus as we've seen him in countless Bible studies, church Easter plays, and in several motion pictures. It's even possible for us to picture Jesus as our resurrected Lord, and our glorified Saviour in heaven. But as we "fix our eyes upon Jesus," what of the prelude to it all? What about the Jesus of the very beginning? What about the Jesus who was intimately involved in the very creative process of all things? Have we thought recently how all of Creation bears witness to Jesus?

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.’

Recall the words at the beginning of John’s Gospel about the Word of God,

‘What has come into being in him was life and the life was the light of all people.’ and Jesus words, ‘I am come that you might have life, and have it abundantly.’ ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’

The more we focus on Jesus, the more there is to see, and the more we realize we'll never see it all and that applies to the wonder of Creation.

…and don’t forget us in terms of creation…as Paul says in his second letter to the Corinthians:

‘Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone; the new has come.’

God, in His love for us, sent His Son to give mankind a fresh start…

From our gospel reading today :

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Christian songwriter Graham Kendrick commented when writing his popular song The Servant King (From Heaven you came) which was written to reflect the theme for the 1984 Spring Harvest Bible teaching event:

'It was a challenge to explore the vision of Christ as the servant who would wash the disciples' feet but who was also the Creator of the universe.'

The song starts from an incarnational root - 'From heav'n you came, helpless babe' - and progresses to one of Graham's most poignant lines: 'Hands that flung stars into space to cruel nails surrendered'. What an image for us to think about.

…and as we consider the amazing wonder of all creation we should not forget the emphasis on the importance of Humankind….

Pope Francis reflected that:

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons in the second century [taught] that the glory of God is seen in a living human being. Let the light of that glory shine so brightly that everyone may come to recognize the inestimable value of all human life. Even the weakest and most vulnerable, the sick, the old, the unborn and the poor, are masterpieces of God’s creation, made in his own image, destined to live forever, and deserving of the utmost reverence and respect.

Amen

Roger Lee, 10 September 2017

SERMON SUNDAY 19 AUGUST 2017 - MONTH OF COMPASSION

THE MONTH OF COMPASSION

God of the foreigner and the outcast, no one is excluded from your embrace: inspire us so to love the world, that all will live in the dignity and security of belonging in God’s family; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Genesis 45:1-15

45 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, ‘Send everyone away from me.’ So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. 2 And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. 3 Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?’ But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence.

4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come closer to me.’ And they came closer. He said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. 6 For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest. 7 God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. 9 Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, “Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. 10 You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. 11 I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.” 12 And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. 13 You must tell my father how greatly I am honoured in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.’ 14 Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. 15 And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

Psalm 133

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

Paul writes: 11 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew… 29 for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. 32 For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

Matthew 15: 21-28

21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ 23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ 24 He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ 25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ 26 He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 27 She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ 28 Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.

May I speak….

Our theme for August is compassion, and God has gifted us an interesting gospel passage!

The passage begins with Jesus withdrawing far up the coast, to the region of Tyre and Sidon. Why? Jesus must have been specifically going to this Canaanite area, to meet this Canaanite woman – this was surely not a chance meeting!

When Jesus reaches the district of Tyre and Sidon, a Canaanite woman comes out and starts shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ 

Jesus’ response is interesting – initially, he doesn’t answer her ... 

And his disciples urge Jesus to ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’

Jesus finally answers her, saying ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’

I love her response - she comes and kneels before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ and then ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table’ after Jesus says ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’

After challenging her in this way, Jesus responds compassionately, saying ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter is healed instantly.

Interestingly, the text gives the impression that Jesus was not willing to answer her request because she was a Canaanite - there is obviously something powerful at work in the ethnic dimension of the conversation.

What is clear is that the woman was not going to give up, she kept pleading, so that Jesus recognizes her great faith. 

The contrast is truly striking: in Israel, Jesus was trying to convince people He was the Messiah, and He was being challenged to prove it with a sign. But here in Gentile territory, He meets a woman convinced He is the Messiah and He could not discourage her efforts.

His apparent attempt to put her off is surely a test, and her great faith must have been gratifying to Jesus.

To understand the imagery of “dogs” used in the conversation, one needs to research the ethnic controversy and the Hebraic Scripture’s background of conflict between the kings of Israel and the Canaanites.

But that is not the core message – this passage is really about the persistent faith of this Canaanite woman.

In the Gospel of Mark [7:24-30], we are told Jesus came to the region and entered into a house and did not want anyone to know it. The woman heard about it and came looking for him. Mark explains that she was Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. This would be typical of the northern country, for it was ruled by Greeks for the period immediately before the time of Jesus. People in the region would be of mixed nationalities.

Mark does not include the disciples’ suggestion to send her away, or Jesus’ statement that he was only sent to the lost sheep of Israel. Scholars have suggested that that statement was added later to Matthew, as guidance to Matthew’s Jewish church in its relation to Gentiles, but that makes no sense. Besides, we do not know much of Matthew’s church. The story is better interpreted as part of the development of redemptive history, moving from the late OT concepts to the full Christian idea of Gentiles and Jews in the kingdom.

The Gospel of Matthew had already included such a statement in Matthew 10:6, and Matthew’s Jewish audience would have been interested to know that Jesus did a miracle for a Canaanite woman, in Gentile land.

Mark was writing to a different audience than Matthew, a Gentile audience, and that statement would need a lot of explanation to them. Jesus had healed Gentiles before, but always in Jewish territory.

Tyre and Sidon were the two main Phoenician cities just north of Mount Carmel on the coast. In the Hebraic Scripture times, this was all the region of the Phoenicians, better known as Canaanite tribes.

The Canaanite empire provided a formidable military challenge for Joshua and then the Judges. The Canaanites were (from the Hebrew perspective), thoroughly pagan and corrupt and a strong threat to the Israelite’s religion. So there is a long history of spiritual and military conflict between the Israelites and the Canaanites.

But why did Jesus go to the region? He withdrew from the conflict with the Pharisees and elders as He was trying to control the timing of things –

He did not want people to make Him king, and He did not want the confrontation with His enemies to come to a head too soon. So He withdrew frequently, or told people not to say anything about His miracles. It appears that Jesus withdrew for a time, both to let the conflict settle a bit, and to turn attention to Gentiles. The timing is most significant--the Jewish leaders were rejecting Him, and the Gentile woman who hardly knew Him was seeking mercy.

The point of the Conversation, surely, is Jesus drawing the declaration of faith out of the Canaanite woman.

The way that Jesus deals with this woman has been given some very strange interpretations. One scholar suggested that Jesus had been a racist and this woman converted him from that narrow view. That is just silly. If He had been a Jewish racist, He would not have come to Tyre and Sidon.

No, what Jesus is doing is typical of the way He dealt with people--He would put stumbling-blocks, as it were, in their way to see if they had faith to step over them.

For example, when someone called Him “good,” He said, “Why are you calling me good, there is no one good but God.” How they responded to that would show what they thought of Him (He was not denying that He was good, or God).

The woman came crying out to Jesus, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” Her words are significant, given Matthew’s description of her as a Canaanite.

She is well aware of the ancient rivalry between the Jews and the Canaanites. She believes He is the promised Messiah; but if that is true, then He is to her a Jewish king, “Son of David.” As such, He is sovereign over her and her land, and all she can do is cry for mercy. Her words open the old wounds. But she was desperate for her daughter, and so would cry out for mercy from the visiting Jewish king.

It is the setting and her words that prompt the disciples, and then Jesus, to respond the way they do.

At first Jesus was silent, no doubt to see if she would persevere--and she did, following Him down the street crying out. 

The disciples said “Send her away.”

Now this could mean a couple of different things. 

They could mean, “Send her away because she is a nuisance”, or they could mean, “Send her away by healing her because she won’t go away.”

The second interpretation makes more sense, because Jesus’ answer speaks to it. In other words, Jesus saying “I am only sent to the lost sheep of Israel” would explain why he was not healing her.

Jesus’ answer focuses on His primary mission in the world, as reflected by Matthew. Jesus is the promised Jewish Messiah who came to His own, but when His own reject Him, He turns to the Gentiles.

Jesus’ own mission was primarily to Israel; the mission of the Gentiles will be to go into all the world. But events like this show the disciples that Jesus intention is the salvation of all.

Surely the primary point of this passage is that Jesus wants the disciples, and the woman to fully understand the role of the Son of David, the Messiah, was bigger and more inclusive than their understanding that the Hebraic Scriptures’ exclude Gentiles (like the Canaanite woman) from the covenant made with the Jews. 

As I’m sure Jesus expected, this woman would not be put off, and she knelt before Him and begged, “Lord, help me.” Jesus challenged her a little further, reminding her of the historic distinction between the cursed Canaanites and the blessed Israelites. In the short saying, the Jews are the “children” and the Gentiles are the “dogs.” The children get fed first.

But the woman’s answer is marvellous: even the “dogs” eat the crumbs that the children drop. She accepts the role of a “dog” in relation to Israel (she knows the Messiah came to Israel first); acknowledging that she may not deserve to sit down at the Messiah’s table and eat with the “children,” but that she should be allowed to pick up some of the crumbs they drop. She wants some of the uncovenanted mercy of God, God’s general saving grace to all.

The word for dogs here refers to small dogs, perhaps children’s pets who are harmless and somewhat helpless. She accepts Israel’s historical privilege over the Gentiles, especially the powerful Canaanites; but she is no threat to that in her request for the grace to be freely given to the Gentiles. 

She is saying she will take what the Jews do not want. 

And that attitude played out again and again in Paul’s missionary journey when he turned to Gentiles because while many Jews did not want their Messiah, many Gentiles did.

The Conclusion of our passage describes Jesus rewarding her faith by healing her daughter.

Jesus honours the faith that seeks mercy. She had no resentment, no anger about her situation; she only knew that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah who came to heal people, and for some reason He was in her town. She sought mercy from Him.

And Jesus now responds with emotion (“O woman” has emotional force). Her faith was rewarded. And she became one of the early Gentiles to enter the kingdom.

The basic theme of the passage is that Christ went into Gentile territory and performed this miracle for a Gentile woman who had greater faith than those Jews who were rejecting and challenging Jesus’ claims. This demonstrates Jesus’ teaching of the first being the last, and the last being the first.

This passage also demonstrates the compassion and grace of our God, which is freely given to those who seek, whether (from the human perspective) they ‘deserve’ compassion and grace or not.

This passage is also about the faith of people who are in need, and about the coming advance of the kingdom to the Gentiles who will be sent into all the world.

So Jesus is not playing cruel, racist games with the woman - He did not go all the way to her region to avoid her, but to heal her and to make it clear that the compassion and grace of God will be given to all who ask, even though His mission called for Him to present Himself to Israel as the Son of David.

Jesus wanted to heal her daughter (He came all the way to her region to do exactly this), but He also wanted her to express her faith in spite of whatever racial tensions there were. And since she knew that He was the Lord, the Messiah, she asked for mercy, and, filled with compassion, He healed her daughter. Jesus extends compassion and mercy to all who ask it of Him.

And so the instruction is for us as well, that we too take the message of God’s compassion and mercy to the world, one person and one creature at a time, as we freely extend the compassion and mercy we have freely received. Amen!

Rev Gavin Smith