Greetings.
This Sunday is a focus on Presbyterians Sharing, and we’ll look at 1 Timothy 6: 6-19. Between services is a special moment to remember Noha F. Her grand-daughter, Grace, will be singing at both services. Nursery and Kids’ Faith program at 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.
With best wishes,
Greg
LiPeng Wang from TRC shares at Briarwood about her trip to Israel and Palestine through the Presbyterian Church in Canada. She also presents Briarwood with a book from her trip. Thank you LiPeng!!
The registration desk at Monday’s Blood Drive. Thank you to Jim and Virginia (not pictured) and everyone who helped pull of an important event. The bake table was amazing!
Greetings Friends.
Thanks to Kathy A. last weekend for an amazing Community Corn Roast! Thanks to the Session this week for this year’s mini-Retreat. Photo here! For what is on this Sunday, and this month at Briarwood, please have a look at the “What’s happening at Briarwood” flyer, link here.
Wishing everyone a great weekend.
Please keep Noha F. and Yvette N. in your prayers.
Greg
A great Session mini-Retreat last night from 5-9 p.m., looking at material from the Presbytery’s Kennon Callahan conference in May 2013. Thank you to Cedar Park United for hosting us!
A sermon preached at http://www.briarwooodpresbyterianchurch.ca on September 8, 2013
O God, we bless you and thank you
for another September,
another time to gather after a summer,
another to be together in your presence;
Startle us, O God, with your truth,
and speak to us your Gospel
for our lives.
In Jesus name.
Amen.
It used to be that people actually write letters. I know it sounds arcane, but they would actually use a pen, write on something called paper, and in their own handwriting pen a message to a friend or loved one, then mail it.
When we lived in the U.K., you could buy special airmail letters. / They were one piece of paper. Thin. But you could write on both sides. And when you were done you could fold it up into an envelope and mail it just like that, with the postage already on it. Just for the fun of it, I would use these once and while, to write home. And I would find myself, because it was one piece of paper, squeezing in as much as possible on each side, then folding it up, and dropping it in one of the red royal mail boxes.
Today’s scripture is a letter too. It’s only 5 paragraphs. Short for the NT. A few words squeezed onto a old letter. But one that shakes the foundations of a society with the Gospel of Jesus.
It’s written by Paul. He’s in prison. Probably in Rome. He’s 55-60 years old now. A lot of his work in planting churches behind him. And in prison, he comes somehow in contact with a slave who has likely stolen money and run away. His name is Onesimus. And in this letter, Paul writes from prison to this slave’s owner, Philemon, encouraging him to receive Onesimus back into his household no longer as a slave,
but as a beloved brother in Christ Jesus (v.16).
Now this / is / a situation that should NOT be filled with gratitude, love, forgiveness or kindness. It was not OK for a Roman slave to run away. It was not OK for other people to take them in. Slaves could be crucified. People who helped them could be made to pay the owner compensation. And slave owners who acted in ways other than harshness and severity would be seen as weak, as dishonored in their own houses and communities.
So this letter. This situation that Paul finds himself in. This is not fine.
Quentin Tarentino put out a movie last Christmas called Django Unchained. In one scene a group of slaves from the south of the U.S. in the 1800s are shown on a forced march. They are in chains. They are treated terribly. Their feet, without shoes, are bleeding. They are thirsty. Their owners shout insults at them. And whip them. And when a vigilante comes out of the forest and sets them free. Wounds their owners. And the slaves are faced with the choice of how to treat their owners. And the how scene plays out is one that is far, very far, so very far, from the kind of response and reaction Paul writes about in this letter when he says to Philemon, the owner
receive him no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother
and when he writes about Onesimus, who ran away,
I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. v. 12
It’s a radical kindness and forgiveness when there should / be hate and aggression.
It’s that kind of letter, this letter to Philemon.
And it’s that kind of Gospel.
PAUSE
I think the three characters in this letter, who have already met, have some helpful things for us, as we try to live out, the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our own lives.
First, there’s Paul.
Paul, is a man, who is completely taken by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He describes himself not as an apostle, or an amazing church planter, or speaker, or even a successful tent maker, which was his trade. Paul describes himself first in this letter, as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. He sees his life, his current situation, as completely caught up in Christ. Even though he’s in prison. Even though he’s not sure where he’s life is going to lead. Even though he’s not in great health, but something has been bothering him that has not healed. Despite and IN all these things, Paul sees his life in Jesus Christ. Christ is not separate. A Sunday from x to x a.m. kind of thing. He is in prison in Rome, but describes himself instead as a prisoner for Christ.
We are, West Islanders / for Christ.
We are, commuters down the 20 / for Christ.
We are, makers of ethical decisions at work, / for Christ.
We are, seniors / for Christ. Students, Parents, Friends, / for Christ.
We are, in poor, good, perfect health, / for Christ.
We’re invited to see no separation. No compartments. But Christ in every part of life.
But Paul, also helps us with something else. Paul shows us what it’s like to be / an advocate.
Paul lives out the Gospel of Jesus, like this. He advocates, he pleas on behalf of, he stands in, he helps a brother. He takes up his pen, and puts his own self, his own reputation, his own character, his own wallet!, on the line. If he owes anything, Paul writes to Philemon, if Onesimus the slave owes anything, charge it to my account. Paul is an advocate for a man who has no rights, no standing, and is unable to do anything about it.
And as Christians, I think that’s helpful. Living out the Gospel, we’re invited to be advocates for those who need it.
It’s hard, almost impossible, not to think of one Christian in particular who was an amazing advocate. He gave his life to a cause. And I want to read you part of his speech, that helped to change the course many lives, who had no voice, and the course of history.
Spoken to House of Commons, 12 May 1789
“When I consider the magnitude of the subject which I am to bring before the House—a subject, in which the interests, not of this country, nor of Europe alone, but of the whole world, and of posterity, are involved: ….I must speak of the transit of the slaves in the West Indies. This I confess, in my own opinion, is the most wretched part of the whole subject. So much misery condensed in so little room, is more than the human imagination had ever before conceived…. A trade founded in iniquity, and carried on as this was, must be abolished, let the policy be what it might,—let the consequences be what they would, I from this time determined that I would never rest till I had effected its abolition.”
A Christian. A modern day advocate for others. How is God calling us to be advocates today?
Second, there is Philemon.
Philemon, who receives this letter is helpful to us, I think, because he is a man who practices forgiveness. And does it, when it makes no sense in the least. Remember, He is the one owed in this situation. He is the one wronged. He is the one who has lost.
Here is a man, whose name actually means. Love of brother. And here is a man, who faced with this decision. Extends forgiveness and kindness radically, well beyond custom. Well beyond expectations. But does so completely.
I just picture a Christian here in Philemon who is known by love. Acceptance, forgiveness and grace surround him. They are a force in his life. Forgiveness and grace are a power in his household and on his street.
Could it be, that we’re being called, to forgive radically, completely; when we know it is not deserved or even expected? Are we being called, to be a Philemon? To love your brother or sister a new, to show a radicaly kindness in Jesus.
And lastly, there is Onesimus.
He is a slave running for his life. Imagine his journey from his home – ancient Greece – to somewhere in Rome. Looking over his shoulder all time. No idea what the future might hold. Knowing that he owes a debt he’ll never repay. Not in control of his fate. A sense that his options are limited to none. And somewhere along his journey he meets a Christian, and he finds himself face to face with something he never could have imagined. The possibility of grace. He’s the receiver not of judgement or cruelty, which according to the law, he deserved. He’s the receiver of forgiveness and grace.
Onesimus is someone we can remember who received radical kindness when it seemed completely impossible. And that’s is helpful for us because he reminds us that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has a power we can’t imagine or predict. All the regular stuff is transformed.
It’s incredible how close slavery is to our memory, isn’t it?. Esp. on this continent. How people like Onesimus’ fled North from the states, seeking safe haven in this country, just a few hundred years ago. As they came North, the slaves of the south sang songs, you might remember. Songs of trust in a God who could somehow turn this upside down. Churn things up. Bring a freedom and a justice where there was only bondage and death. One of the songs slaves on this continent sang, was called “Wade in the Water”. Like many of the songs, it hid instructions on how best to evade bounty hunters and law enforcement that chased after slaves fleeing North. Wade in the water, refers to going through the edge of streams and rivers to make it difficult for the blood hounds to track them. The song goes on, naming the pilgrimage of the Israelites across the Jordan, naming the level and rough ground you have to cross, saying what to do if one slave arrived North before the other. But the refrain throughout is this – Wade, wade in the water; God’s going to trouble the waters. God’s going to trouble the waters. And the gospel of Jesus does exactly that. Churns everything up. Forgives where there shouldn’t be forgiveness. Hopes where that’s not ok. Gives kindness out, radically. A place where God does amazing things.
There’s a legend about Onesimus that I like to believe. The legend is that Paul does send him back to Greece, where his master Philemon greets him, receives him. Onesimus gets his freedom. Becomes a Christian leader in Greece. Eventually becomes bishop of Ephesus, a city of a quarter million. A mega city, then.
I think that’s helpful, because Onesimus, whose name means, useful, reminds us that God has a use for us. Right here and right now. In our lives. In our homes. In this community. God, the living God, has a use for us. We’re invited like Paul, to be advocates for those without a voice; we’re invited like Philemon, to offer radical kindness and forgiveness in our daily lives, to be known, to be famous, for love; and we’re invited to live like Onesimus, to trust in the kindess and compassion of God in Jesus Christ.
And like Paul writes to Philemon so long ago,
I repeat here
for us,
for today
for every, day in this year ahead.
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
be with your spirit.”
Amen.
Greetings Everyone,
This Sunday at 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. we look at the letter to Philemon and the theme of radical kindness. Welcome back to the choir for the 10 a.m. and looking forward to Francois Du Preez’s band leading at 11:30 a.m.
There is Kids’ Faith Program registration for the new year at 11 a.m., between services. On Saturday is Briarwood’s Community Corn Roast and mission bake sale, starting at 11:30 a.m..
Wishing everyone an excellent weekend!
Greg
General Secretary of the World Communion of Reformed Churches asks for churches to pray for Syria.
A sermon prepared for Bike to Church Sunday, 21 April 2013 at http://www.briarwoodpresbyterianchurch.ca
Acts 16: 9-15
Let us pray.
Startle us, O God, with your truth. Let your word reign in us. God of creation, maker of all things, we listen for what you are speaking to us. Through Jesus Christ. Amen.
From the very beginning of the Bible, God has had something to say about the earth. The first thing God has to say about the earth is that God made it. It’s not ours to begin with. This planet, this earth, this universe, all that is under and the stars and the skies themselves are a gift. To be treasured, valued, enjoyed. And also, and therefore, cared for. The second thing that God has to say about the earth is that it a treasure trove of diversity. Six days, we hear in the creation story. Six days of diversity, where animals, plants, sea, sky, moon, stars, sun, humans are included in a planet that itself shows forth God’s creativity at every turn. This planet, this world, we hear in the Bible, is not an accident, or a mistake, but something made possible from the impossible, brought forth from the void, or the tomos in Hebrew – where there is nothing, not even order, but only chaos – a planet and world brought forth by the creative, and powerful Spirit of the living God. And so, in this diversity of creation, there is purpose, meaning, divine intention. And the third thing that God has to say about the earth, is that it is good. In an age where more people live in the city than in the countryside, sociologists speak of Nature Deficit Disorder. Where children’s live and psyches are actually for the worse through malnourishment of being in creation. Being near to a tree. Feeling grass on their feet or hands. Smelling a new flower of Spring. Seeing vast, expansive open spaces. Touching animals. There’s something so good – so true – so closely tied to who we are as human beings created by a creative God – something so good about creation. That it is, quite honestly, something we need to live.
Now for us as Christians in the Christ’s church today, we can’t forget that for the apostle Paul, tied to the development of the early church was a deep connection to creation. Here is a man, an apostle, a believer, a witness to the resurrected Jesus, who does his amazing work of building up the early churches, outside. In fact, sometimes Paul is more intimately connected with creation than he might have wanted. He tells the church in Corinth (2 Cor 11): Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, …. danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters;in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked.
In today’s passage, we find Paul by up in the region of Macedonia in the city of Troas, on the coast of the Aegean sea. And whether you’ve been there or just seen the pictures, the waters of the Aegean and Mediterranean are magical. That bright clear turquoise colour, with the mild Mediterranean climate to match. Not a bad place to build a church!!
But, Paul travels from there by ship, as he often does, on those beautiful waters of the Aegean sea, across to the town of Phillipi. And there, he meets a woman called Lydia, soon to become a believer in Jesus, by the river. The Krenides. Which wasn’t very big, and likely in that time, not too clean; but a journey by a sea, then to a river, nonetheless.
The picture behind me is a picture of the earth taken not from the usual angle, for us, with the Americas in the middle. This one is the other way around, and shows, for the purposes of our story, the Aegean Sea, where Paul sailed, up at the top right.
You see we have to remember, that so much of what God is doing in the Bible and in the book of Acts, is not only outside in creation, under the open sky, by seas, rivers, streams, mountains, desert and pathways, but also closely tied to the earth itself and to this planet that God has made.
The large sweeping story of the Bible is from creation, to cross, to church, to eternity, all tied up in creation. So much so that Paul, later in his life, will write, “for the creation waits with eager longing….in hope that [it] will be set free from its bondage to decay…” That is, for Paul, even creation at this moment waits on God, to be renewed by God, to be caught up in resurrection.
In the meantime, as Christians, we’re invited to remember this. That creation matters. We’re invited to remember that Jesus, the son of God, became part of this planet, the word or logos of creation, made flesh.
And that because of all this – that God has something to say, that creation is tied up in God’s story, and that God isn’t done with the world yet – because of this we’re invited to be a people who care for the world that God has made.
At this time we are bombarded with bad news about the earth, global warming, glaciers melting so fast they soon won’t feed important rivers and communities, algae blooms, plastic garbage flotillas in the Pacific; and lots more. And so I don’t really need to repeat all that here. We hear it often. Maybe too often.
Some of us, even as Christians, have become cynical when it comes to things like this. We’ve come to think, that what we do doesn’t really matter, or we might be fed up, and think that we can’t really make a change. But we are left then, with something pretty important: how to be in relationship with a God we believe is the cause behind the beauty and wonder we see, and we are left then, with how to be in relationship with a Jesus who walked among us, became flesh, right up there on that earth behind me; and we are left then, with how to be a faithful citizen of earth, too.
The handout you have today in your bulletins gives all kinds of suggestions, most of which you’ve heard before. But today, as a group, we are enjoying trying one – biking, carpooling, bussing, walking to church, as that’s been possible. And today is an invitation to each us to consider some of these actions and our own lives, and how we might respond to God the maker of heaven and earth.
If you’re looking to dig deeper, let me know and I will refer you to a report received by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church through its International Affairs Committee, in 2010, called Caring for God’s Creation.
But as we consider our care for God’s earth more personally, I wonder how many of us can remember times recent, or long ago, where we knew the presence of Jesus, the word made flesh, powerfully but gently, in creation. Maybe you’ve been met by this Jesus under the starlight sky, maybe you’ve climbed a mountain only to look out on the vista below and beyond and been touched by God’s grandeur, perhaps you’ve simply sat on a park bench on a summer’s night, feeling the warm breeze and been reminded of the gentleness and power of the Spirit.
However we put it, for most of us, being in creation does something to our souls, connects with something within us. And I believe that connection is between Creator and creature. Between the God above us and within us by the Holy Spirit, sustaining all creation, and us.
Caring for creation, then, can be part of our spiritual life and action.
As one theologian puts it. “When we know [Jesus] and love him, when we follow him, the very image of God shines in us.”
Presbyterian pastor John Buchanan speaks about his grand-daughter. He says, “A perfect illustration of what I have [writing about] was hand delivered at the end of a service by Eleanor, age eight. El draws somewhere between Impressionism and Modernism, with a hint of Picasso as well. Eleanor created a perfect illustration of Genesis 1: blue waters, a bird-spirit hovering, blue sky and clouds, sun shining. I’m in there, she says, dressed in a black robe. Eleanor, in a green dress, is looking up into the sky and is saying, “Hi, God.”
She got it all right.
Another Christian put it this way:
Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1: 15-17)
Or in the words of song we all remember.
He’s got the whole world…..
In the name of the F, S, and HS.
Amen.
rev. dr. greg davidson 