July 2 2023, PATRIARCHAL PONDERINGS 2. "Mount Moriah – Place of sacrifice”

Readings: Psalm 13, Jeremiah 28:5-9, Matthew10:37-42, Genesis 22:1-14
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, July 2, 2023

I want to begin today with some words of Jesus, from Matthew 10:39,  “To find your life, you must lose your life—and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Or as it appears in the Message Bible, “If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me.”

This passage, about Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son Isaac, is a tough one. It is not a comfortable passage, but one that suggests to us that God is more “unknowable” and “unpredictable” and a lot less “safe” than the Deity we sometimes seek to define and imprison within our carefully worded theologies and doctrines.

The core of this story is that it’s about sacrifice.  It suggests that to fulfill our destiny as the people of God,  requires surrendering our dreams to God. Applying this bible passage to the story of our own lives, it suggests to us that if our dreams are ever to be fulfilled then we need to be prepared to let go of them. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom which tells us that if we are going to achieve anything great in life, we have to hold on to our dreams with all that we are!

Why this back-to-front teaching? Last week, in our patriarchal ponderings, we were considering some of the mistakes that Abraham had made. We compared his life to a soap opera. The time he passed his wife Sarah off as his sister, because he was afraid that if Pharaoh thought that she was his wife he would kill him. The time Abraham and Sarah couldn’t wait for God to fulfill the promise of a son to be born to them, so Abraham went and fathered a child through Sarah’s slave girl, Hagar.

Abraham, though possessed by a dream – a dream that he was to be the father of a great nation – a dream that through his son Isaac such things were to be fulfilled – Abraham was not to put his faith in the dream, but in the God who gave the dream. Abraham had to take a ‘hands off’ approach if ever that dream was to become a reality. This was not something that Abraham, or any of us, are good at.

Our reading from Matthew gave us some hard teaching. “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

There is a spiritual principle at work in this teaching that is hard to see. We so easily confuse our own desires as being what God desires for us. The commitment Jesus asks of us is a deep and all-encompassing call. God asks us to make God’s love our deepest love. And that doesn’t just happen.

Sometimes God may put us in a situation where that love is tested beyond what we think is reasonable.  That seems to be what was happening with Abraham and Isaac. It’s a spiritual principle, that often, before God can truly use a gift God has given us, particularly if it is something we are particularly harnessed to, we must be prepared to give it up.

In my own life the thing that comes to mind is writing and performing rock and contemporary music. I was weaned on the music of the Beatles and in my teens my life was all about going to concerts and learning how to play guitars and keyboards and writing songs. I spent every moment I could find playing in bands and dreaming of maybe one day making a living out of it. Even today I meet old friends and they express surprise my life didn’t go down that road. They could see in me back then, that was my passion, that was what I was all about.

Back in April last year a band with the rather unusual name of “Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark” were playing their 40th Anniversary tour in Brooklyn. I had grown up in my homelands playing music around their two main protagonists, a lovely couple of guys,  Andy and Paul. They, over the years, have made quite a career for themselves. In Europe and around the world they have sold over 40 million records, and back in the eighties had songs in movies such as “Pretty in Pink.” Although they never really cracked the US market, they are still today selling out shows in London's Royal Albert Hall and all around the world.

By a rather random set of circumstances, I had an opportunity to spend a little time with them before their Brooklyn concert, having not had contact with them for over four decades. They were very generous and gave Yvonne and I the V.I.P. treatment for the show. We were though, totally surprised when right before their last song, they announced to the audience, “We met somebody tonight we hadn't seen for over 40 years. He allowed us to borrow his synthesizer for our very first gigs. Thank you, Adrian, thank you, you started this.” A lovely and a rather surprising moment!

You see it was over 45 years ago, I became involved in the church and committed my life to being Christian. That didn’t mean all my musical desires went away. I pondered how to use my skills for God’s glory. Where I lived the idea of Christian Contemporary music hadn’t been dreamed up. So, I started to unravel myself from secular band mates and forming Christian rock bands. For a while everything was going well, recording opportunities, possibility of being on mainstream TV, a wonderful platform for proclaiming the gospel,  and I thanked God for giving me my “amazing ministry of rock music.” It was where my gifts were, I could do it,  I loved doing it, it excited me and, as a bonus, it did seem to be raising Christianity’s profile!

But no sooner had it all started, than the whole thing fell apart. I felt strongly God telling me to lay off the music, and that I was being calling me to a ministry of the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church, to a ministry of preaching and teaching and service. I didn’t see how the two could work together. Particularly as I kept feeling God was saying, “No music. No more.” And I was mad and angry and confused about it. This had been what I lived for up till then. The band. The rock music. I really loved it and was building my life out of it.

I reached a point where I got on my knees and said to God, “O.K. Lord. I don’t see the sense in this. I don’t understand why you would gift me with something and then take it away... but O.K… I’m going to rip up every song I’ve ever written, I’ll sell the guitars and the instruments, I’ll never play a note again.”  

I loved to play, but, as I prayerfully tried to work through it, I understood I was called to love God more. To paraphrase Matthew 10:39 “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; Whover loves their songwriting and music making more than me is not worthy of me,” I sensed that spiritually, at that moment, if I didn’t sacrifice what I felt was one of the most beautiful gifts God had given to me, if I did not let that dream go, then I could no longer be of use to God or anybody else.

Having reached that point where I was prepared to give the whole thing up, literally as I was figuring out how to sell my musical gear, it was as though God smiled and said, “Just testing. Just wanted to see what was important in your life. Your music or me! Now that we’ve set that straight, you can keep the guitars and the gear... O.K?”

The crazy thing is to look back over my years of ministry I see how music has played a part. There have been recordings, songs on TV and radio, musicals, theme songs for retreats and songwriting itself has opened doors of communication and opportunities for ministry with others that otherwise would have remained firmly closed. I even get to play guitar now again in worship here in Bridgehampton.

Once I’d abandoned the dream of rock  music being “My amazing ministry” God seemed able to use my musical abilities in a way God wanted to. If my hands were on the wheel, it was an idol, a sacred cow, a passion not under God’s complete control. I needed to let it go!

Now obviously my experience pales in comparison to that which Abraham was traveling through. His “Mount Moriah,’ his place of sacrificing the son, who was heir and future, is at an altogether different level. By degree of comparison, my struggles seem almost insignificant. But there is one point of intersection. Abraham had to let go of the dream before it could ever be fulfilled. Nothing could be allowed to take the place in his heart that God was meant to occupy. Abraham needed to see that. We need to see that too.

For this account is also about “Seeing God.” Through his willingness to sacrifice what was closest to his heart Abraham broke through to a deeper revelation of God and to a heightened sense of God’s presence around him and within him.

In Hebrew Moriah translates as ‘The Lord Provides’ or ‘The Lord Sees.”  On a number of different occasions in the passage the idea of ‘seeing’ is mentioned. This ‘seeing’ is both on the part of God and the part of Abraham.

It is God who sees the place and the content of Abraham’s sacrifice. It is God who directs Abraham towards that place. It is God who looks deep into the heart of Abraham and sees that this test of faith that he is being subjected to will result in Abraham having a deeper fellowship with God than he had yet experienced.

Abraham’s seeing comes by the way of obedience to what he believes God is showing to him. Abraham goes to the place God has shown him. Abraham recognizes the importance of sacrifice in this meeting he has with God. At the story’s conclusion, Abraham clearly sees that God did not require the sacrifice of Isaac, and it cements his trust in the God whom he had now encountered in a deeper and more powerful way than ever before.

In the context of what I was saying earlier about my musical dreams, I feel my musical dreams were my ‘Isaac.’ I had to be bought to a hard place, a place where I was prepared to sacrifice them before God could really use me.  

As you think about your life, do you have an “Isaac”? Is there a dream that is in your heart that takes precedence over doing the will of God?  Where’s your passion? What has God gifted you with? And … what if God wants something more for you? Are you prepared to lay your heart on the altar and do with your life whatever God wants? These passages raise some deep questions.

Or are you setting the conditions? Is your commitment to God along the lines of “God, I’ll do whatever you want me to, I’ll go wherever you want me to, I’ll be whatever you want me to… just as long as I get to set the terms and specify the game-plan!” Whose hand is on the driving wheel of your life? Who’s steering your course? Who’s the Lord? Who’s the Master? These scriptures challenge us all to ask difficult questions.

Thankfully, we live in different times than Abraham. I do not believe that God would ever, in our day, call us to do anything as diabolical as sacrificing one of our children. That was then, this is now. And there were underlying historical and theological reasons to it all that woiuld make for a totally differnt sermon.

Yet I do believe that God calls us to sacrifice our dreams on the altar of God’s love, in order that our whole lives are under God’s care and guidance. Jesus told His disciples “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

Mount Moriah was the place of sacrifice. It was the place where Abraham drew nearer to God than he had ever done in his life. May there be “Mount Moriah Moments” in our spiritual journey; moments when we realize that God sees and knows what is best for us and we, correspondingly, are prepared to give our best to God.

As an inspiration consider these elements of bread and wine. Jesus sacrificed all that He was in order that we may know God's salvation. Never was such love as this! We taste and see right here the mystery and awesome commitment of God towards us. Yes... God will stretch us and challenge us and convict us as to the importance of putting His love first in our lives.

But here around this table we find strength for the journey and seek to move one more step along the road God has in store for us.

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.

June 25, 2023. PATRIARCHAL PONDERINGS 1 "Hagar and Ishmael”

Readings: Psalm 86:1-10, Romans 6:1-11, Matthew 10:24-39, Genesis 21: 8-21
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, June 25, 2023

Not that I’m an avid watcher of them myself, but there are those who find themselves faithful devotees of afternoon soap operas with titles such as “The Bold and the Beautiful,” “The Young and the Restless” and “Days of Our Lives” There have been occasions when I’ve watched an episode, and I’ll be honest, it’s hard to figure out what exactly is going on.

All those relationships and so-and-so having something going on with somebody who is somebody else’s half-sister twice removed and then some dark figure from the past appears and upsets the whole thing… and all this in just the first five minutes.

Yet truth can be stranger than fiction, and our Bible reading this morning gave us a plot just as thick with twists and turns as your average afternoon soap. A tale of family betrayal, jealousy, separation, and survival against the odds.

There is Abraham, the man of destiny, but a man who couldn’t always wait for his dreams to be fulfilled and tried to force the issue. There is Hagar, the mother of his firstborn son, Ishmael, a lady scorned by Abraham’s first wife, Sarah. Sarah has become increasingly jealous of Hagar and is fearful that her son, Isaac, will never inherit the promises she hoped would be all his.

And so, at a family celebration that should have been a time of great rejoicing, Abraham is convinced both by his wife and the intervention of God, to send Hagar and Ishmael away. Dispatched into the desert, Hagar struggles to survive, but all is well. Ishmael turns out to also be a child of promise. And in next week’s episode….

Of course it’s not the plot of a soap opera, it’s an account from the Word of God and therefore has a whole lot that it can reveal to us about our lives, as individuals and as a community of faith. It speaks to us and the situations that come our way.

1.    Even with the best of intentions things can go terribly wrong.
2.    Even with the highest aspirations we still mess up.
3.    Although things go wrong and we mess up, God is still the Redeemer.

Even with the best of intentions things can go terribly wrong.

As we travel through the days of our lives, day by day, we don’t set out with the intention of making everything go wrong. We don’t get out of bed and think, “Let’s see what we can make a total disaster of this morning.” Oftentimes the worse acts are done with, what seems to their perpetrators, the best intentions.

It was no different with Abraham. Abraham had entered into a covenant relationship with God in which God had promised that Abraham would be the father of a great nation. His wife Sarai was childless, and the years were moving along. They were no longer the “Young and the Restless,” or “The bold and beautiful.” So, together, Abraham and Sarai agreed that Abraham should take Sarai’s maid, Hagar, as a wife and bear a child for them through her.

When Hagar proved fruitful and became pregnant, Sarai, far from being pleased, becomes bitter and treats her unfairly, causing her to run away. After an angelic intervention Hagar decides to return and in due time a son, Ishmael is born. Abraham presumes that Ishmael is to be the child of promise through whom his line would be established.

Not so!  The unthinkable happens. Sarai in her old age now becomes with child. This child is to be the one through whom Abraham’s line is established. After Isaac is born, Sarah’s enmity towards Hagar returns and Hagar is forced to separate from them and go her own way.

This wasn’t the first separation between Abraham and his kinfolk. He has been having a long running dispute with his nephew Lot. Such was the nature of their disagreement that they mutually agreed to go their separate ways, even though their paths were destined to cross again.

All of which I share with you to point out that in families, even families of faith, things don’t always run smoothly. If you’re looking around this morning at your family or somebody else's family and you are thinking, ‘We are not exactly the “Bold and the Beautiful”’ I encourage you to take heart and not to feel that your situation is unique or unforgivable. Families have always been complicated. Don’t beat yourself up over things that seem to be part of the way life is! Which brings us to our second observation.

Even with the highest aspirations we still mess up.

Sarai/Sarah was a woman of tremendous faith. She did indeed turn out to be the mother of all Israel. Yet her relationship with Hagar was disgraceful. She used her. She was abusive towards her. She was jealous of her and eventually got rid of her.

Abraham was without doubt a man of tremendous faith. But he also made some tremendous mistakes. While he trusted God most of the time, there were those other times when he thought he could do a better job than God and tried to sort things out in his own way.

Back in Chapter 12 you can read of how, when Abraham journeyed to Egypt, he was afraid that the Egyptian’s would find his wife Sarai so attractive that they’d kill him in order to take Sarai as their own.  So, he pretends Sarai is his sister, not his wife. It turns out that the Pharoah does indeed find her attractive and takes her to his house, rewarding Abraham with servants and material possessions.

Sounded like a good plan, but Abraham lost her in any case, so it backfired. Even worse, God is on the case and Pharoah’s household starts to be subject to all kinds of plagues, and they can’t understand why, until it is discovered that Pharoah’s latest wife wasn’t Abraham’s sister but actually Abraham’s wife. High aspirations, best intentions, but Abraham messed up.

He messed up when he fathered a child through Hagar. Again, that was him trying to take control of a situation God had all figured out. He shouldn’t have listened to Sarai’s idea, he should have kept trusting God, but, no, as we do so often in our lives, it was a case of, “I’m sure God’s Word is right… but I’ll do things my way, thank you very much.”

Was it not Frank Sinatra who had a hit with “I did it my way”? Very commendable, if by doing things ‘our way’ we mean taking responsibility for our own actions. Not so commendable if doing things ‘our way’ means neglecting to seek for our lives to be guided by God and nurtured by God’s Holy Spirit. ‘Our way’ can be the wrong way.

The bible plainly insists that we are all sinners who fall short of the glory of God. Even though we have the highest aspirations, we still mess up. The Bible story also insists that with God there is the hope of redemption.

Although things go wrong and we mess up, God is still the Redeemer.

In spite of Abraham and Sarai’s mess ups and moral failings, Abraham did indeed become the father of a geographical nation and a spiritual father to many people of faith. God’s plans were not thwarted by their misunderstanding or disobedience. Maybe things may have taken a different course had their faith expressed itself in different ways, but that’s always going to be one of the “Well we just don’t know” moments of history.

Nowhere clearer though in this account is God shown to be the Redeemer than in the situation of Hagar and Ishmael. They are not among the chosen people. They were not considered the inheritors of God’s promises by those who thought that God’s ways were something exclusive to them. A child seemingly born in circumstances that were not the will of God. A mother who is little more than a slave at the whim of Sarah’s manipulations. Their fate is uncertain, and they languish in the desert, desperate for nourishment.

God has a lot of time for outsiders. God seems to have a great deal of room for those that the religious folk of the day considered to be outsiders. God seems to like breaking the walls down. I was perturbed, though not surprised, to see that the Southern Baptist denomination are now disenfranchising those congregations who had dared to allow women to play an active role in ministry. They seem to have lost sight that the first witnesses to and proclaimers of the resurrection were all females.

As a number of denominations struggle and are falling apart over issues of sexuality, I can’t help question, why they are making such a fuss over matters Jesus never expressed an opinion about.   
Yet, Jesus is accused, many times, in the gospels of welcoming the outcast and the sinner. He also said, “Judge not lest ye be judged. “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.” How easily some who claim to have a biblical faith manage to jump over such verses.

Hagar cries out to God. God answers. God tells her that she too is a child of promise. That her son Ishmael will also know God’s blessing. That there is room in God’s promises and within God’s covenant for all people who put faith in what God can do. For all who recognize that God is walking with them.  Eventually things work out for Hagar and Ishmael in unexpected ways. Under God’s blessing they prosper.

Life may not have dealt us the best hand. We may well mess up and make wrong decisions that cause ourselves and others harm. Our families, our relationships, our homes, may not be the places of refuge and picture of harmony that some would expect of people who know God.

So, remember this. God remains the redeemer. God is still the redeemer. God has sent Jesus Christ to be our Savior. Jesus Christ demonstrated through His life and works that every human life is of concern to God, even those lives whom others have little time or respect for. Know yourself loved by God, although you make a mess of things and so often try and do things your way instead of living God’s way.

God is the Redeemer. Allow God to redeem your past. Seek for the Holy Spirit of God to redeem the ‘days of our lives’. We may not be the ‘young and the restless’ or the ‘bold and the beautiful’. Though they may sometimes appear that way, our lives were never meant to be soap operas.

We are invited to ask Jesus Christ to help us through whatever the coming week may bring along.  The same God who heard the cry of Hagar and Ishmael knows the true needs of our hearts and lives.

Do not then be afraid to recommit your life to Him.
Seek the way of the Lord,
and ponder how our lives can be used
in and for the service of Jesus Christ,
to whose name be all
glory, honor and power
AMEN

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.

June 18 "Knowing the Way"

 Readings: Exodus 19:2-8, Romans 5:1-8, Matthew 9:35-10:8, Psalm 37:1-6
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, June 18, 2023

While my Father only rarely ventured inside a church, my mother was a faithful Methodist throughout her life. She was a Sunday School Teacher, she used to play piano for numerous youth and ladies meetings. She was a ‘Steward’ (equivalent of an ‘elder’ in our system.) In later years, while she could still drive, she used to have a group of elderly folk she would provide a free taxi service for to and fro from meetings and she rarely missed a Sunday.

As a young child I was nurtured in the Methodist faith. But as a teenager, I strayed into the Presbyterian church (who had a very active youth group,) met a beautiful girl called Yvonne, and that was it. I became a Presbyterian.

It’s not always clear as to how we make decisions or why our life has gone in a particular way. When we do face hard decisions, we need to find a way through them. Scripture offers this advice in Psalm 37:5   " Give yourself to the Lord; Trust in Him, and He will help you"

So that’s where my thoughts are going this morning. How do we know the way of the Lord? How can we find out what God's way is and so do the things He wants us to do? As we seek God’s direction for us as a church, and as we all face that question throughout our lives, it seemed a good moment to visit this topic.

Without faith, of course, not a lot can be said about being guided by God.  The whole thing rests upon our eagerness to listen for God's voice and our willingness to respond to it.  Faith that Jesus is the Son of God He claimed to be, that He died and now He lives, that God has a purpose and can direct our lives through His Holy Spirit.  What I'm asking right now is not “Is that faith is there?” but how, within that faith, God can guide our lives.

In examining this question, I want to reconnect with my Methodist roots and consider with you some of the ideas of John Wesley, the great Methodist Revivalist. Although he lived in the eighteenth Century his ideas on discerning the will of God have guided people of many generations, myself included.

John Wesley proposed four tests for truth, known to many of our Methodist friends as the ‘Wesleyan Quadrilateral’. Scripture, Reason, Tradition and Experience

1. God guides us through Scripture

Through their creeds and confessions, the Reformed churches have always stressed the authority of the scriptures.  Our PC(USA) has a whole volume of Confessions to inform us as to how past generations have interpreted God’s leading in relation to Scripture’s teaching. In the introduction to the confessions, we are reminded that every Confession is not a replacement for Scripture, but a product of its time and that Scripture alone is the final authority.

John Wesley saw the Bible as the fundamental source of guidance for Christian people.  He suggested that we have a responsibility to take every word we hear, any preaching we seek to understand, any advice (however well meaning), that we are given to our study of God's Word and see if what we are being advised is consistent with the truth we find in Scripture.

There is no shortage of people around who will tell us, "The Lord wants me to do this" or "God is saying this."  If what God is supposedly saying is not in accordance with what God has already said in God’s Word, then the speaker may be confusing the voice of God with thoughts from within themselves or from some other source.

I have had people tell me "Jesus told me you should this" or "God wants you to do things this way." I am very suspicious of such statements, particularly if what the Lord has said to them reflects some prejudice or characteristic peculiar to that person. Sometimes people use the phrase, "God has said" as a form of emotional blackmail or to give more credibility to their own personal views. Bible passages like the ‘Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness’, remind us that even the Devil can quote Scripture!

That being said, I sincerely believe that God can and will guide us in specific ways as we meditate upon and study God’s Word.  It has been my experience that some of the most important decisions in my life have had their roots in prayerful and careful reading of Scripture. Where there is an open bible and an open mind, an expectancy of meeting with God, alongside a desire to do God’s will then people discover the truth the Psalmist spoke of, "Thy word is a light unto my feet" (Psalm 119:105)

John Wesley's first point. God guides us through prayerful consideration of the Bible.  We have a duty to test everything we hear against the revealed truth of Scripture.

2. God guides us through Reason.

When we are considering a certain course of action or thinking about a particular word we have heard, Wesley's second criteria was the test of reason.  Does what we are hearing make sense? Is there any coherence to it? Would this be a reasonable course of action to take?  Is it something understandable or explainable to others?

There is a tale told of a man who was fed up with life.  Nothing seemed to be going his way.  He tried this and that until eventually he shouted out to God, "Lord, what would you have me do?"  His plea was met with a stony silence. He had heard that God spoke through the Bible so in desperation he pulled one of the shelves, blew off the dust and said to God, "Right, Lord this is it. The first thing I read when I open this bible will be your word to me."

He opened it up and read Matthew 27:5 "Judas went off and hanged himself."

"Lord" he said, "The next thing I read in the bible will be your word to me." Having read of Judas's suicide the next thing he read was this:- "Go thou and do likewise.” Thankfully he never took that advice! That is not being reasonable. And suicide is nothing to joke about. However, it underscores an important point.

There is a huge difference between treating Scripture as some sort of spiritual lottery and prayerfully seeking the will of God.  God has created us with a capacity for reason.  We have a mind, and an intellect and we are expected to be responsible in using our God given capacity to reason to think things through and consider the implications.

William Barclay writes, "Do not leave your mind behind when you try to read the Bible, or when you try to discern the direction God is leading your life.  The truth of Christ is for the body, soul, and spirit, for mind, feeling and heart."

We do not have to reason alone.  We have each other.  It is helpful to share our thoughts with our fellow travelers on the spiritual highway. If our thoughts are jumbled or if we are blind to possible consequences of our actions, it often takes someone else to set us straight.  That's why it is important to talk things through.  The more important the decision, the more reason to talk it through. That’s why God brings people together in fellowship and in Church Communities.

But a word of caution.  When it comes to personal things don't just talk to anyone and everyone.  Seek out people you can trust and that you respect.  People you can share with in confidence.  Try and find those on a similar wavelength or at least sympathetic to your needs and feelings.  For there is also a biblical parable about casting pearls before swine!

3. God guides us through Tradition

It has been said that one of the greatest failures of the church of the current day is that her people have forgotten where they came from.  They do not know their roots nor are they aware of their heritage.  We are in danger therefore, in scriptures words, of "Being tossed to and fro with every word of doctrine," (Ephesians 4:14) of being taken in by whatever sounds comfortable, attractive or easy.

It is sad that for some people "Tradition" has become a dead word.  Something to be resisted and fought against, something negative and restraining.  For sure it can become that. I'm reminded of the father in the "Fiddler on the Roof" and that marvelous story of how "Tradition" had to be maintained, yet in the interests of love also be reformed.

What is tradition? It is that experience of others that has proved the way of the Lord in the heat and fire of trial and tragedy. An ancient saint, St. Teresa, when crossing a stream in full rage, told her sisters, "Fear not, I have touched the bottom, and it is sound." Tradition tells us others have stood on the foundation of God's Word and God's Way and found it solid as a rock.

It is those principles, the accumulated experience of over 2000 years of discipleship that we should take notice of.  Whilst the outer world of civilization has changed, the inner world of the soul and the spirit have remained the same.  We are still people who remain restless till their heart finds it home.

We can look back and see how people have made right and wrong choices.  We can see how God has guided people in the past and how differences of opinion have been resolved. Sometimes we must look back before we can go forward.  We need to be reminded that we are not the first, nor shall we be the last to launch out in faith. God guides us through traditions.

4. God guides us through experience.

For most of us, for something to be relevant to us, it must be something we have personally experienced. 

You can look at pictures of a sunset in a book and say, "My, that looks nice."  But to stand on the banks of an ocean shore, watch the sun sink slowly down, see the changing colors, the red and the yellow glow that seems to burn on the water, to gaze undisturbed at the end of a day, is far more than saying, "My, that looks nice".

Such is the difference between giving assent to truth with our mind and knowing truth through our own experience.  The more we experience the touch of God on our lives, the clearer we are able to understand the way God wants us to go.  "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life", Jesus told His disciples. The more we practically apply ourselves to living out the truths of Christianity then the clearer the Way we should go becomes.  

We started out asking "How do we know the way of the Lord?" John Wesley offers us some pointers in the right direction.

1. Scripture. God guides us through prayerful consideration of His Word.
2. Reason. We have a mind and an intellect to guide us. We have each other to reason with.
3. Tradition. The accumulated experience of 2000 years of Christianity needs taking note of. Tradition assures us others have "touched the bottom and found it sound"
4. Experience. The more we experience the touch of Christ on our lives the more we will be able to discern the voice of Jesus amongst all the other voices that call to us.

All four tests are not exclusive but belong together. We are to use all of these to help us discover the ‘Way of the Lord.’

The most important thing of all though is to have surrendered our lives to His love.  Unless we can come to Jesus and say, "Lord, I will do whatever you want me to do" then we shouldn't expect to receive His guidance.  What we would like, what we think is best for us, doesn't come into it. The basic essential is a living faith that places us in the right position to follow.

All of which brings us full circle to the words of the Psalmist with which we started;
Psalm 37:5  " Give yourself to the Lord; Trust in God, and God will help you"

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.

June 11 DREAM - Message for End of Sunday School Year

END OF SUNDAY SCHOOL YEAR SERVICE  - D.R.E.A.M.
Readings: Genesis 37: 1-11, Psalm 33:1-12, Romans 4:13-25, Matthew 9:9-13
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, June 11 2023

DO 

 

Some people have dreams – that remain just dreams. Some churches have big plans that remain just big plans. For anything to come out of visions and dreams that God puts into our hearts – you have to DO something about them. D…The first letter of Dream.

Presbyterians are often known for their abundance of committee meetings. It’s a solid biblical pattern for getting things done. Committees are wonderful vehicles through which God’s Spirit can work in powerful ways. But there is always the danger that if you are on a committee that has talked about something then that means the problem is solved. The problem only starts to be solved when we do something about it!

In Matthew 9 we are told about Matthew the tax collector being called to follow Jesus. Up to that point Matthew’s life may have been fairly routine. But that day Jesus walked into his office and said, “C’mon, Let’s go do something!” changed everything. We read “He rose and followed him”.

Maybe Matthew wasn’t happy with his life. Maybe he was concerned about the way things were going in the world around him. He saw something in Jesus that he thought could make a difference. So, he got up and followed Him. The time for dreaming was past. The time for doing was here!

Some folks are dreamers. Some folks are doers. The difference between them is that the doers have the kind of faith that makes things happen. We should remember that! In fact, there are a lots of things we need to remind ourselves about. R is the second letter of “Dream.”

REMIND  

 

Jesus said “Go into all the world and make others my disciples”. We regularly should remind ourselves that our reason for being a church is not simply to nourish our personal spiritual lives, but to reach out to others with the gospel message. If we are constantly looking in, we need to look out!  All churches are Mission Churches. A Church without a vision for mission has lost sight of the reason God bought it into being in the first place.

This year in Sunday School our youth have been involved in practical projects that are going to make a difference in other people’s lives. That’s something we want to do as a church. Through supporting mission, here and throughout the world, we want to help others know the love we have found in Jesus.  

We are constantly challenged to redefine who we are and who we can reach. We need to remind ourselves that as a Church we are all in the business of mission.

Exactly who is involved in that mission? Who? Why… all of us! E is for …

EVERYONE 

 

God used young Joseph and his crazy dreams. Now, we saw in our reading that Joseph’s family were not actually happy about that! Who Joseph  he think he was having dreams that involved all of us? What they didn’t allow for was the fact that these were dreams God had put in his heart.

He used a couple well advanced in years, Abraham and Sarah, to build a nation. He accepted the fish and loaves of a young boy and used them to feed 5000 hungry folk. He welcomed the hospitality of Mary and Martha and of Zaccheus and of Matthew and of so many others.

He called everyone… everyone who responded to Him to be involved in the work of the Mission. Everyone means just that. Every one of us here, everyone listening to this message or reading it, is called by God to be actively involved in the mission of Jesus.

For example, if everyone made it their task to bring one other person into membership of their church in the coming year, then according to the laws of logic they would have twice as many people filling this building by this time next year. That’s simple arithmetic. 1 + 1 = 2. Right?

When the prophet Isaiah heard God saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (in Isaiah 6:8) Isaiah did not say “Here I am, send somebody else”, he said “Here I am. Send me”. Everyone is involved in the work of mission. You, Me. The person sitting next to you.

One thing that stops us fulfilling our mission is that we worry about the wrong things. The fourth letter of DREAM is the letter “A”

ABOUT 

 

Some thing that stops us being bold in our witness for Jesus Christ is that we worry about – what if? What if we seem too pushy? What if we fail? What if this turns out to be costly? What if it rains?

You know I was looking at the weather forecast this morning. Do you know that the forecast is promising torrential rain all day tomorrow? Tomorrow there will be torrential rain and the possibility of flooding. At least there will be in parts of Africa, because that was the forecast I was listening to. All of which has very little relevance to what the weather is going to be doing here in Bridgehampton, NY

Many of our “What if’s” are generated by the fact that we are tuning into the voices of this world rather than building our faith upon the Word of God. If we are about building God’s Kingdom then surely it is God’s Word that should direct us, not the words of the doom and gloom merchants of our culture?

God knows all about us. God knows all about our situation as a Church. God knows what God is calling us to do! And God never gives God’s  people a call to do something without also empowering them for the mission to which they are called. That is not to say God gives us all the resources up front. Rather that as we proceed in obedience to do the things Jesus is calling us to do, God provides what we need to see it through.

When Jesus, after the resurrection, sent the disciples out, He did not do so alone, but in the power and with the presence of the Holy Spirit… His personal presence within them and all around them, directing and leading and guiding and preparing the way.

God knows about our problems,
God knows about our worries.
God knows about our temptations and failures.
God knows about the things that trouble us today.
God knows about our hopes and dreams.

And as we place our lives into God’s hands God knows He can do something about them! All of this is about belonging to Christ the King. And it’s all about Mission. “M” is our final letter.

MISSION

Joseph was faithful to the dreams God implanted in his heart. It was at times extremely costly, and he surely had days when he questioned himself about the wisdom of his actions.

Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane struggled in prayer over the path that lay before  Him. “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” But the vision that God had for God’s people was a greater destiny that overshadowed His struggles. His desire to be faithful to His mission was greater than any other call that life placed upon Him.

The disciples heard the command to “Go” and they went into the entire world. It was never easy. They had to constantly readapt and change and reform in order to meet the challenge of different cultures and situations.

The Church across the centuries has been faithful in carrying out the Great Commission of their King. In the past have been those who had a vision for what a Christian community could achieve here in this location. It is for us to build upon that heritage and dream new dreams and envision new forms of ministry. In the process, God promises that we will be changed and empowered by God’s Holy Spirit.

So, let us dare to dream.

Let us be faithful to Christ’s call to go into all the world, (which includes the world on our doorstep).

Let us seek to catch others up in our dreams for a better world.

We have a mission from God. And my mission today involved the word “Dream”… which… lining it out, shares my concern for today.

DO
REMIND
EVERYONE
ABOUT
MISSION.

The Reverend Adrian J Pratt B.D.

June 4, Trinity Sunday "Matthew's Vision For The church"

Readings: Psalm 8, Genesis 1:1-2:4a, 2 Corinthians 13:11-13, Matthew 28:16-20
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, June 4, 2023

The Gospel of Matthew is an amazing piece of work. The best thing I can think of comparing it to is a movie. It starts of like a movie, giving us a list of opening credits that invite us to consider that the central figure of the story that is about to take place is somebody of great historical significance.

Then it moves to the mystery of Christ’s birth, to the preaching of John the Baptist and the Baptism of Jesus by John in the Rivers of Jordan. Matthew then takes through a whole series of scenes. Sometimes it’s action, sometimes it’s a story that’s told, sometimes a sermon. It all reaches a climax in the crucifixion of Jesus and then the frantic muddled excitement of the empty tomb.   

Our reading for this morning was from the very last verses of Matthew’s epic. “The Commissioning of the Disciples.” Staying with the film analogy, it’s the perfect ending that cries out for a sequel.  Matthew seems to say, as his movie draws to an end… ‘and all this was just the start.’

Matthew never got to make the sequel. That was left to Luke (who gives us the Book of Acts) and comes to us through the letters that circulated among the early church that we know as the Epistles.

Part of the genius of the Gospel of Matthew is its ability to give us a story that functions on so many different levels. The last few verses are no exception.

Today is Trinity Sunday and it is in these closing words of Matthew that we are invited to “Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Those words, across the centuries, have inspired numerous mission enterprises. These are words that teach us about the authority of Jesus. They are followed by words of great comfort and the promise “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Taking these verses together, we are given an insight into Matthew’s vision of what the church should be. It is that picture of the functions and duties of the Church that I want to think about on this Trinity Sunday. It does us good to pause  and ask, “Well, what are we supposed to be about as the people of God? What’s the Church for? Why do we need it?”

First and foremost, Church is a place to meet Jesus.

(Mat 28:16) “… the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated.” God has designated for us a place and time where we can be together in God’s presence and meet with Jesus. At Bridgehampton Presbyterian that time is at ten thirty on a Sunday morning, unless it is summer time when we move to 9:30. That is not to say that are not other times and places when we will experience the presence of God in our lives, but Sunday Worship is a special time, one sacred hour in the week in which we can give ourselves to meeting with God in each other’s presence.

Sometimes people give their reasons for attending a church as “I like the music” or “I enjoy the liturgy” or “I enjoy the sermons” or  even “I like the pastor.” This verse reminds us that church is not primarily about discovering an experience that tickles our senses.

Church is designated as a meeting place with Jesus Christ. He alone, the salvation He offers to us, the grace and love that flow from the heart of God to our life… that’s the reason for coming to church. If we take away our focus away from Jesus, and place it elsewhere, be it on the music, the liturgy, the preacher or the message, then we are indulging in a very subtle form of idolatry.

Idolatry is allowing something other than God to become the focus. There is nothing wrong with great music, great preachers or great liturgy. But we should never allow them to become our reason for church attendance. Church is a place to meet with Jesus.

A church I once served  used to sing a chorus... “Open my eyes Lord, I want to see Jesus, to reach out and touch Him, to say that I love Him.” Which moves us on to consider...

Secondly, Church is a place of Worship.

(Mat 28:17) “And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him”
It is a plain command of Scripture that we are to worship only the Lord Our God. On Trinity Sunday we remind ourselves that we worship God, through Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

In this designated time and place our worship takes several different forms. We offer our lives to God and pray “Our Father.” We thank God for the grace and love that is revealed to us in Jesus Christ.  We seek to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to serve God.

Yet most of all worship is an act of enjoying the presence of the One God. As the catechism puts it, “The Chief end of man is to worship God and enjoy Him forever!”

When we take the worship experience out of our life, life loses one of its most precious dimensions. We are called to approach worship like the Psalmist who said, “I was glad when they said let us go to the house of the Lord!”

If only we realized the awesome possibilities of what can take place as we worship, then we would never miss an opportunity to be with our sisters and brothers in Christ before the throne of God. Profound changes can come upon people in the presence of God! Worship is meant to be a happening, something that renews us and fires us up to go out and tell the Good News that God is on the move.

Can Worship be like that? Well… maybe we’re not so sure. In fact, there’s probably a whole lot of things that we are not sure about when it comes to God, to the Bible, to our relationship with the Church… to spiritual things in general. Maybe you have your doubts. That’s O.K. Why?

Thirdly, Church is a place to come with our doubts

Verse 7 continues; “they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful.”
Think of that! This is the disciples we are talking about. These are the ones who saw all the miracles, heard all the teaching firsthand, witnessed the death and resurrection with their own eyes and were now standing, visibly, in the presence of their Lord and Savior. And how are they handling it? “Some were doubtful”

Never stop coming to church just because you don’t agree with everything or understand everything. Fact is we are never going to be without our doubts. You may get some preachers who come along and give the impression they know it all and have fathomed out exactly what God is about and what you need to believe and will not hesitate to let you know God’s thoughts on everything under the sun. They remind me of the advert that used to be on T.V, where the guy sits at the computer, and he gets up from his chair and claims that he’s reached the end of the internet!

If God is God, then no human mind can ever fathom the depths of God’s mystery. Sometimes we can’t even remember where we’ve left our car keys, which makes me realize, that we were never designed to know everything about God and makes me highly suspicious of those who make dogmatic claims to truth that seem denied to the rest of humanity. Church is a place to come with our doubts.

This idea of Trinity is one of those you can kind of explain, but not really. The early church Fathers were content to talk of the Trinity as a sacred mystery. As a something to be experienced.

The mystery is that sometimes, as we worship, whilst our knowledge remains the same, something Trinitarian happens. We leave this place knowing that our lives are in the hands of a God who created a wonderful world for us to live in, a God who in Jesus Christ has provided all we need to get us through and a God who in the power of the Holy Spirit is going to be there for us every step of the way.

A fourth thing.
Church is a place to listen for God’s Word.

Matthew 20;18 ; “Jesus came up and spoke to them”
Jesus speaks to us today in our worship services. How? Through each other. Through the words and music. Through the conversations and teaching. Through the prayers in which we share and the Creeds to which we give assent. Through the Bible readings and sermons. All of it, the place, the time, the actions, the environment, the words, and the silence… the whole experience can be a Word of God to us.

We come to church to meet with Jesus, to worship God, to find guidance for our doubts and to listen for God's word for our lives. And one Word that we will hear is that this is an experience that’s too good to keep to ourselves. God wants us to go out and spread the Word. He  promises to go with us as we do so!

Church is a place of Commissioning

Matthew19-20 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you”
 We are offered here a threefold commission.
•    To make disciples
•    To baptize
•    To teach

For disciples to be made, the Word we have received has to be proclaimed. Proclamation takes place for us in the same way as it did for Jesus. Sometimes it is through deeds where very few words are spoken. Sometimes it is through spoken words that bring the realization of God’s presence to people’s lives. In the same way  we are to reach out to others.

Our baptism is not only a sign that we belong to God, but also an indication that we belong to the church. We are a community of people united by the love of God. Others need to know they can be a part of it!

And when we are a part of it we realize we have a lot to learn. So, the church has not just a role in preaching and serving but also an educational task… teaching the ways of the Kingdom.

Finally, Church is a place of promise

Matthew 28:20 : “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. "
A beautiful promise of Jesus forms the very last words of Matthew’s gospel. Were Matthew's gospel really a movie this is the verse that would be written over the closing scene as they ride off into the sunset.

I close with that thought this morning. What a wonderful thing it is to know that whatever we are traveling through in our lives right now, Jesus wants to stick with us and carry us through.  

Our world, our lives, everything around us, constant change. We don’t know what lies ahead. Good fortune or the winds of change blowing against us. We just don’t know what tomorrow will bring. But we can know that God promises to travel with us through whatever life may bring our way.

Jesus promises that if we entrust our lives into His hands, He’s going to stick by us, no matter what. If church means nothing more to us than it being a place where we discover God’s promise, then that alone should be sufficient to get us through the day.

Matthew concludes his gospel by giving us a vision for the church. He invites us to meet with Jesus, to come as we are, with all our doubts and fears, just come and worship. As we do so we hear God’s Word, a Word that both challenges and comforts. 

The challenge is to go and let others know how great the love of God can be.

The comfort is that the love of God is greater than we dare imagine and can hold us through all our days! Recall again those words of Jesus... “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.