Advent 1 "Feasting on Hope"

Readings: Psalm 122, Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13-11-14, Matthew 24:36-44
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, November 27, 2022

Having feasted on good food for Thanksgiving and looking forward to feasting again at Christmas time, I invite you this morning to feast on hope as we worship God together.
 
The particular hope that our lectionary readings point us to today is the hope of God’s Coming Kingdom. This includes the hope of Isaiah’s vision when God shall “Judge among the nations: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” The hopes of a world where the living Christ is given His rightful reign in people’s lives and darkness will be abolished by the light of His glorious presence.

• Isaiah visualizes a Kingdom where the ways of God will be lifted high and justice be restored to all, in such a way as there will no longer be cause for war among the nations.
• Paul calls his Roman readers to wake up and change their ways of living, because God's salvation was just around the corner.  
• Matthew’s gospel tells us that the day of the Lord will arrive unexpectedly, like a thief in the night, and cautions us to be ready for the kingdom to come.

Each reading has wonderful images of hope to feast upon

First of all feast on Isaiah’s vision.

Things Isaiah spoke of had a habit of coming to pass.  Some of his visions had to do with the immediate future of the life of Israel.  Others foretold of Christ.  Other visions concerned the distant future of all the world.

He tells us that the day will come when God’s rule towers above all other principalities and powers. The instruction of God will be the highest power of all. People from all around will want to know God’s direction in their lives.  He tells us that justice and righteousness will be restored, that war will be at an end and that nationalism will be no longer a cause to fight about.

This fills me with hope.  For at the present time God is dethroned from many people’s lives. At the present time many are not looking to God for direction. At the present time people are ready for war at the drop of a hat. At the present time our world is a place of injustice and unrest.  It is good to know that these things will not always be so.

Armed with this hope every time I see someone opening their lives a little more to the love of God, every time I hear of an initiative towards peace, every time some injustice is put right, we hear a whisper of greater things to come. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Such is also a tremendous incentive for us to be involved in initiatives to create a fairer and more justice world in the present. To work towards the fulfillment of the glorious vision of peace and justice that Isaiah proclaims. To support all those efforts that feed the hungry, bring good news to the poor and bring light to those held captive in the darkness.

Such  actions are not of this world but carry the trademark of God’s Kingdom. Whenever we commit ourselves to change, we are declaring ‘The Kingdom IS coming.’  Maybe as Bob Dylan said in one of his songs, it is “A slow train coming,” but every now and again you can hear a distant rumbling on the tracks. The glorious hope in this passage from Isaiah is the knowledge that one day all will be well. That our efforts make a difference.

Secondly, Feast on Pauls wake up call

Not only shall all be well in the wider world, but there will also come a time when all will be well with our own lives. Those Paul wrote to in Rome were surrounded by all sorts of ungodliness and subject to all the problems that being sinful human beings’ places upon us.

Although they had converted to Christianity, they still struggled to truly live a Christian life.  They often found themselves paying more attention to bodily appetites than to their spiritual diet.  From what Paul tells us they had a battle going on in the area of self-control. Some struggled with alcohol abuse. Some had no control of their sexual lives.

Some were argumentative and couldn’t control their words.  Others were consumed with jealousy. Some just couldn’t resist a chance to party the night away. You’d think he was writing to guests on the Jerry Springer show, not the members of First Presbyterian Church in Rome!

Take heart from this passage. From the raw material of imperfect human lives God builds the church. Never despair of yourself or of others. Be hopeful. If at times you feel your life is about as far from being holy as it could be, realize you have friends in high places and low places! If at times temptation wins, well, you’re not the first and you won’t be the last to lose a battle with temptation.  Put your hope in God. Listen for God's alarm bells and wake up calls and respond to them.

Thirdly, Feast on the unpredictability of it all

Many times, the return of Christ is presented to us in terms of cold analysis and as though it were a doom-laden fact. At various times across the Christian centuries there have been groups of folks convinced that their generation was the last and that Christ was coming especially for them, right then and right there to rescue them from the evil world around them.

Such certainty of instant redemption obscures for us the really important element of Jesus teaching. The motif of surprise. There is a glorious sense of tension in Jesus words. On the one hand He tells us get ready, the Son of Man is coming, like a thief in the night, one will be taken, one will be left behind.  But on the other hand, He tells us, “Well if you think you know when all this is going to be going on, you are completely and totally wrong”. “The Son of man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will” (Matthew 24:44).

So rather than speculate about dates and times, I suggest we interpret our passage from Matthew in this way. “Always leave room in your life for God’s surprises.” Never close your soul to the unpredictable nature of God’s love. Never let your Christian life become a humdrum routine affair that leaves God’s Spirit no room to move.  Never think that God is through with you or that you have reached the end of the road in your spiritual journey or that there is not more you can do to bring about change in our world.

As our lives go through their different seasons there comes times when we can no longer serve as we would wish. This element of surprise is an incentive for us to seize the day. To do what we can with what we have while we still have the opportunity to do so.

As we move through Advent towards Christmas it is worth reflecting why Jesus was born and the nature of the mission He pursued. When invited to preach His first sermon in Nazareth he unrolled a scroll containing the words of Isaiah and proclaimed: “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 favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

Whenever we work towards such aims, we are working with Christ, surprising the world with His presence and spreading His hope where it is desperately needed. As we do so, we find our own lives are challenged and changed. We are called to not only believe in the coming of the Kingdom God, that great vision of Isaiah, but also to work towards making God’s Kingdom a present reality.

Today we can hope to have our broken lives renewed through God’s Holy Spirit.
Today hope can spring eternal and life be made new.
Today we can look forward in hope to the coming of God’s Promised Kingdom.
Today we look forward in Advent hope.
Today we can recommit our lives to being carriers of the hope of Jesus Christ.
Praise God!
Every worship service is truly an opportunity for feasting on hope.
Amen.

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.

“Harvest of kindness”

 HARVEST/CHRIST THE KING SUNDAY
Readings:  Jeremiah 23:1-6, Colossians 1:11-20, Matthew 5:43-48, Psalm 8:1-9
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, on November 20, 2022

“What are human beings that You are mindful of them, mortals that You care for them?
Yet You have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.”
(Psalm 8:4-5 NRS)

On this Harvest Sunday my thoughts were directed to this text from the Book of Psalms. It talks about many things, God’s care for us and our world and our responsibility to care for each other. Most of all it suggested to me the importance of kindness, a reoccurring theme in the Old Testament. Today I would like to offer you three thoughts.

1.    Be kind to yourself and reap a harvest of contentedness
2.    Be kind to each other and reap a harvest of community
3.    Be kind to the earth and you will be rewarded with abundance.

Be kind to yourself and reap a harvest of contentedness

How we see ourselves is directly related to the contentment we find in our lives. Contentment is not dependent on how life treats us, but how we treat the things life brings our way. Some days it brings sunshine, some days it brings the storm, sometimes much is given, sometimes much is taken away. And while to a certain extent we have control over our destinies, that control is never absolute.

I grew up listening to song by a group called Fairport Convention, who on their 1973 album titled simply “Nine” had a tune with the chorus, “Pleasure and pain is like a profit and gain, Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, Be kind to yourself when you’re tired of yourself, Don’t go mixing the reds along with the blues.” For sure, life offers us a mixed palette of experience!

Yet for a Christian person contentment comes not so much from who we think we are, but from whom God’s Word says that we are. The scriptures talk about mindfulness. Not the sort of mindfulness that we are encouraged to practice by health professionals but knowing that God has us always in mind.

“What are human beings” asks the Psalmist, “That You (God) are mindful of them? “The verse continues “Mortals that You care for them?” This thought that God cares for all of us and has things in mind for all of us, can be a tremendously empowering thought if we embrace it with our lives! We are somebody, not because of what we have achieved in life, or because of who are family may be, or the car we drive or the place we live, our value is tied up with the fact that God, has us, in mind.

In the church calendar today is Christ the King Sunday. If Christ is King, and we are sisters and brothers in Christ, then through faith in the King, that makes us royalty. Verse 5 enforces this fanciful idea “You have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.” Only royalty get to wear crowns.

One royal follower of Jesus, the apostle Paul writes to the church in Phillipi “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret … I can do all things through Him who strengthens me”. (Philippians 4:11-13 NRS)

God has things in mind for our lives. God knows what we are going through. God wants to help. In Christ we are sisters and brothers of the Servant King who gave His life that nothing can separate us from God’s love. Jesus Christ is the source of Christian contentment. Seeing our lives through God’s eyes, can be our source of peace. So, I say, be kind to yourself, focus on Christ and reap a harvest of contentedness. But this royalty thing? Don’t let it go to your head…

Be kind to each other and reap a harvest of community

Before her passing in September this year the Queen of England celebrated 70 years on throne. She proved herself to be a lady of Christian faith and her life was defined by the sense of duty that she felt her high office had called her to. Over the centuries before (and continuing during) her rule she saw the once vast British empire, that it was claimed covered a quarter of the world’s inhabitants, crumble and shrink.

Yet during her reign she has managed to create, from the ashes of that experience, a ‘Commonwealth’ of nations who have come together, not out of coercion, but by choice. Some of whom had rejected all ties of empire, some who were never a part of it.

Isn’t that what a Christian community is supposed to be? A place we share our ‘common-wealth’? A place we bring our gifts of time, talent and treasure and become mutually enriched? We read in the Book of Acts what happened right after Pentecost was that the believers gathered, shared together, brought who they were and what they could offer to the table.

But for a community to grow, it takes kindness. Looking to each other’s interests as much as to our own. Even as Paul suggests, in humility counting others as better than ourselves. And the church is a peculiar kind of community, because we don’t get to choose who is a part of it. At least, that is how Scripture tells us it should be. The church is a community God has called together, so they can demonstrate to the world what living together in Jesus name can look like.

Not so sure we do such a good job of that! The fact that there are more denominations and splinter groups and groups who claim to be independent form the rest of the Christian church because only they have the truth… isn’t exactly testimony to the notion ‘See how these Christians love one another.' But that does not mean we should give up trying to do those things that God calls us to!

Sowing seeds of kindness towards each other can still reap a harvest of community. And the stronger our community of faith becomes, then the further we can be enabled to reach out to the community around us with the gospel message.

We have a mission. And that mission focuses on the ability of Jesus Christ to turn people’s lives around. I fear we often forget that He is the center, not this program or that initiative, but we are called to proclaim Christ, and Him crucified, and risen from the grave and in the power of His Holy Spirit able to bring about radical change to a person’s life.

A football coach ensures their team take time to gather. They may even huddle up in the changing room, to psyche each other up. ‘Go Team!” But they are never going to win a single game unless they put all they have onto the field of play. We can huddle up and pray in our church services, but we also need to get out into the field of the world and sow those seeds of kindness if any kind of harvest is going to be seen.      

Be kind to yourself and reap a harvest of contentedness.
Be kind to each other and reap a harvest of community.

Be kind to the earth and you will be rewarded with abundance

We have signs of God’s abundance all around us today.  In Scripture Adam and Eve’s first job is as gardeners caring for Creation. Their misuse of their freedom made that task a harder task to deal with than they had ever imagined. We should learn from that. Care of Creation has been our stewardship mandate since time began.

The Old Testament laws are full of provisions that suggest the land, as well the people, needed time for Sabbath, for rest, recuperation, and renewal. Sadly, in our greed, we somehow gloss over those passages. It’s not complicated. Be kind to the earth and we will be rewarded with abundance Abuse the resources at hand and we will be in trouble. Just like happened in the first garden of Eden.

And this text “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them” takes us right back to the original Creation. It is just as well I had nothing to do with the creation story because my reaction would have been to see that humanity went as extinct as the dinosaur’s way before the present day.

The damage we do to our planet, to each other, to the creatures we share the planet with. Our warring madness, our inability to see each other as people of infinite value, our greed, our mindless schemes, our  abuse and neglect of things we should cherish. Our prejudice and violence and inability to simply get along. What a mess.

How do we take steps to change all of that? Through kindness. Through doing the little things that make a big difference. Through being mindful that we can make a difference if we keep sowing positive seeds of acceptance, peace and most of all love. There can only be a harvest of kindness if we keep sowing seeds of kindness. As the graphic at the top of the page suggests: “Plant Kindness, Harvest Love.”

So today, I sow these three seed thoughts into your lives and I pray, as I pray every time I am given the privilege of occupying a pulpit, there will be some sort of harvest as a result.

•    Be kind to yourself and reap a harvest of contentedness.
•    Be kind to each other and reap a harvest of community.
•    Be kind to the earth and you will be rewarded with abundance.

Psalm 8:4-5  “What are human beings that You are mindful of them, mortals that You care for them?
Yet You have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.”

To God Be All Glory!
AMEN

"The Living Difference"

Readings: Psalm 98, Exodus 3:1-6, 2 Thessalonians. 1-5,13-17, Luke 20:27-38
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, 6th November 2022

Some Mormons believe that if you are a faithful Mormon then after you die you are resurrected to the third or celestial heaven, where you are given a kingdom for yourself and your family. There you will rule, as a god like being whilst you populate a separate planet of your own.

One form of Islamic belief is that heaven is filled with earthly pleasures, a paradise of sensual delights. Other belief systems suggest that when you die you are sent back again to this earth, maybe as a human or maybe as an animal.  Still others see life as circle that only reaches its end once the soul has achieved a sense of oneness with Creation.

For sure these questions of eternity and after-life have vexed many minds over many centuries. In Jesus day there were Pharisees and teachers of the Law and Essene's and Herodians and Greeks and Romans, all of who had very different ideas about what happened after death. And amongst them there were also the Sadducee's. The Sadducee's did not believe in Resurrection. As the joke goes… that’s why they were ‘Sad –You - See.’

They believed in the Scriptures, but only the 5 books of Moses, that form the first 5 books of our Old Testament.  They figured that once God had given the commandments, everything else was unnecessary. Just get back to the ‘true’ bible and things will change.  One thing they were convinced that their bible didn’t teach was that there would be any kind of resurrection from the dead for those who believed.

The Sadducee's saw Pharisees as overburdened with laws and far too sure that they alone knew the purpose of God. They saw the temple authorities as tied up with the politics and ceremony of the day.  They saw the common people as… well…‘common.’ They didn’t like Jesus.  His popularity was a threat to their respectful position and His teaching about God seemed, to them, dangerous.

So, they come to Jesus with a trick question about marriage.  According to the Levitical law in Deuteronomy 25:5 (one of the books they did believe in) if a man died childless, his brother must marry the widow and beget children to carry on the family line.

‘O.K Rabbi’, they say, ‘answer us this one.’ This guy marries a girl, dies, so, as the law says, his brother marries her, then he dies and so and so on right through all the brothers.” “If there is a resurrection” they challenge, “Whose wife will she be in the after-life?”

Jesus, as He often did, turned the question around and left them with more questions than answers. In the first part of His answer Jesus cautions the Sadducee's not to think of heavenly things from an earthly perspective.  Constructing imaginary scenarios and trying to logically think of what heaven may be like, on the basis of the life they were experiencing on earth, was doomed to failure.

We too can construct heaven in our imaginations, heavens based on our likes and dislikes. Do we really want to sit on a fluffy white cloud, strumming a harp in the company of overfed cherubs and anemic looking angels? There must be more to it than that! Jesus throws some powerful word pictures our way. He firstly, no doubt in response to their question, plays with the idea of marriage.   

Marriage, He explains, is something that belongs to this life on this earth. People marry, people re-marry and God can sort all of that out on the other side. God will honor our relationships. When somebody passes away, we often talk about there being a glorious reunion in the afterlife. That’s part of our Christian hope. To dismiss thoughts of resurrection, on the grounds that we can’t figure out exactly how the reunion is going to work out, is like refusing to go to the most wonderful party ever thrown, because we are not sure who else is going to be there.

Marriage, as Scripture elsewhere affirms, is a high and holy calling; relationships between husband and wife are a reflection of the relationship of Christ to the church.  But only a reflection.

Relationships in the heavenlies are to be more beautiful, more committed, with greater depth and intimacy than anything we may experience on earth.  To predict how those relationships will be on the basis of the too-ings and fro-ings of earthly encounters Jesus suggests was just plain wrong.

Not only was marriage not going to be happening in heaven, but neither was death. Verse 29 ‘for they cannot die anymore.’ The same would apply to the bearing of children. There will also be no more tears and no more pain, for the former things have passed away.

Jesus scolds the Sadducee's for their lack of appreciation that life on earth was not life in heaven and suggests that they were indeed foolish if they thought they could work the one out one the basis of the other.  But He doesn’t leave it there. He also takes issue with them on their understanding of the Scripture.

He doesn’t take issue with the fact that they only thought the first five books of Moses were Scripture’s worth taking note of, rather that they hadn’t grasped the significance of even what was contained in those first five books. They claim that in those Scriptures there was no reference to any kind of resurrection.

Jesus takes them on a bible study in the Book of Exodus, the passage about Moses and the burning bush.  In the passage, Jesus points out that Moses calls God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was impossible that God should be the God of the dead. Therefore, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob must be the living. God was God of the living! So, there was such a thing as the resurrection. Their own Scriptures said it was so. The Sadducee's are both confused and silenced by this answer.

At the end of the day the Sadducee's were left looking foolish because they thought they knew more about the Scriptures than Jesus did.  They argued about the concept of resurrection with somebody who was about to exemplify for all time and all people the real thing.

For ourselves, who profess Jesus Christ as Savior, we do well to hear His perspective on the afterlife. He assures us that if we put our faith and trust in Him, then something immeasurably worthwhile, indescribably wonderful, awesome, majestic, beyond anything earthly words, pictures or thoughts can adequately describe, is awaiting us on the other side.

Jesus uses an enigmatic phrase; ‘sons of the resurrection’ to describe those who seek to make their ultimate destination God’s Kingdom.  I like that phrase. Let it sing through your mind a little. ‘Sons and daughters of the resurrection’ Imagine jumping out of bed in the morning with that attitude coloring your day. Imagine living every day with resurrection in mind.

“I am a resurrection person.  The things I do today are not confined by the boundaries of death, decay, and time.

I am a resurrection person. The life which I will live today is part of a life that will never be diminished. The things I do today are making a mark, not only on the passing things of this life but in eternity.

I am a resurrection person. Though I may face defeats, God will turn them to victories, though I may face failures, God will use them to build my character, though I may face darkness, God will lead me with God’s light, though I may face suffering, God will heal all my infirmities in God’s good time.

I am a resurrection person.  Every moment in time that ticks by, bringing age and eventually death is but a glorious moment that is bringing me closer to my final destiny, my eternal home, my heavenly mansion, my Father’s house.

I am a resurrection person, I am an Easter person and Hallelujah is my song!”

The Sadducee's came to Jesus with a question designed to catch Him out. Their idea was that whatever He said it would be an answer that cast Him in a negative light. But Jesus turned things around by recalling them to the deeper meaning of Scripture. That God was, and is, and always will be, the God of the living.

In John 10:10 Jesus speaks to the crowds and tells them, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” In the face of those who would steal away a resurrection perspective from our lives, we are encouraged to focus on Scripture and discover for ourselves the quality of life that Jesus would have us live.  

Abundant life. Life that recognizes resurrection power as something not just for tomorrow, but that energizes our lives today. A life that is framed by a perspective that life is a journey from before the womb to beyond the tomb. Spirit life that is lived in a way that makes all our tomorrows a better place to be.

Belief in resurrection makes a difference.  A living difference to every moment you live on earth. Just occasionally the awareness of that glorious Kingdom does seep through to us.  Don’t fight it.  Embrace it. Listen to Jesus. Keep learning what His Words teach us. Trust in God, that in God’s hands, saved by grace, through faith, you’re safe.

So come to this table laid with bread and wine. Were they not bathed in resurrection light these elements would speak only of tragedy. But because Christ is Risen, “He is risen indeed” and this celebration can make a living difference to our everyday walk with God.

My life is not framed by the passing moments of each day
but I live out my days in the presence of the eternal love of God.
In life and death I belong to God.
“I am a resurrection person, I am an Easter person and Hallelujah is my song!”

I invite us all to receive these elements in the faith of the living Jesus.
And to God be the glory.
Amen.

The Reverend Adrian J Pratt B.D.