Pastoral Letter 47

Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,

Love, grace and peace to you all.

It has been more than ten months since the outbreak of the COVID in Australia. We’ve missed our activities so much, prayed hard and hoped for better days to come so we could reopen our doors.

And we did in November for four Sundays, including the St. Andrew’s Day Service, enjoyed the much missed singing, Mark’s music, the Advent themes, doing the readings and sharing Communion on two occasions. But sadly, we had to close down again on the fourth Sunday of Advent and missed the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Services.  We were hoping that this wave would pass quickly, but because of the ongoing restrictions, the church Elders and Council Members agree not to reopen the doors. We still feel that it is wise to follow the instructions and the directives given to us by the government and the Uniting Church. So, I urge you again, please be patient for a little more as we will continue to worship at home. The Elders and Council Members will reassess and decide what will be our next steps, when they meet on Wednesday 3 February. In the meantime, I will continue writing to you every week my to keep in touch and let you know what our next steps will be.

Since July 2020, the Presbytery was encouraging the Ministers to take their annual leave. As you know, I preferred not to take leave; the main reason being the way we were doing our Services. But I believe that it is time for me to take some time to relax, refresh and recharge. So, I have informed my wish to the Elders and the Church Council to take two or three weeks in February. I am happy to let you know that the Elders and the Council Members are happy and encouraging me to take my leave. Our friend, Bob Minton, is happy to cover for me during my leave and take three Sunday Worships 7, 14 and 21 February. The Sunday 7 February Service will be the way that we are doing, and you will have worship at home, with Communion. For the other two Sundays, we have to decide if it will be possible to have the services on our premises. The logistics will be difficult and tricky, considering the COVID restrictions and the fact that we won’t have hymnbooks and would need the power point presentation on the screen. I believe it will be easier to stay home and do as we are doing now. In the meantime, if things get better, we will have our first face to face worship on Sunday 28 February. We will let you know after the meeting.

Regardless of what we decide, you will still receive the Orders of the Service, the hymns with my pastoral letter as usual, but probably a short one. I will make sure that the three people who received hard copies on Saturdays, will still receive a copy, to join us on Sunday morning for worship.

I am hoping that the Newsletter for February-March will be ready the first week of February with some information for the coming months, if and when we will be able to recommence our activities. I know that we are anxious after almost a year of frustration and missing what we all used to do. But let’s hope for better days to come, when we will be able to join and enjoy the programs after a year of the pandemic hanging on our heads.

Please keep communicating with me for anything you need. I am more than happy to assist you, besides praying for you. Please communicate with each other with phone calls and keep everyone informed with any new developments that happen with you, your family or any congregation member that you know is having any problems.

In the meantime, please continue to pray and put your trust in God, the Father who loves us and is with us always.

Krikor

Speak Lord, Your Servant is Listening

1 Samuel 3: 1-10, John 1:43-51

Generally human beings aren’t very good at listening. It’s surprising, really. There doesn’t seem to be much to the art of listening – you just sit there and nod your head at the appropriate times. For many people, listening is a problem. And people naturally are not good listeners. There might be no better example of poor listening than what happens during a sermon. People shift around. Even though they can go for hours at work without taking a break or going to the bathroom, but when the sermon goes longer than 15 minutes, they become restless.

People just aren’t good at listening. They would rather be talking, or doing things, or dreaming about things, or watching things. But listening? That’s a difficult thing to do.

Today we find out how important listening is when it comes to our relationship with God. Remember, this is the Epiphany season, that time in the church year when Jesus reveals His glory, and lets people see His grace and mercy and love and forgiveness. Today we learn how important it is, and what a blessing it is, when we listen to Christ, when we listen to His Word.

Today we meet the prophet Samuel, when he was a little boy who worked in the temple under the supervision of a man named Eli. We are told in verse 1 that, “In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.” In other words, God was choosing not to speak to His people.

Why would God do that?

Why would God keep himself from his people?

Well, when we study the history of the nation of Israel at that time, we learn that these people were very wicked. No one was interested in listening to God, hearing His Word. People were too busy with their own lives, too busy breaking God’s commands. The last thing they had time for was listening to a prophet speak the Word of God to them. And so, the Word of the Lord was rare at that time.

Is the Word of the Lord rare in our life?

How often do we listen to the Word of the God?

How often are we able to come for public worship or virtual worship?

What about in our own private life?

Is the Word of the Lord rare in our private life?

Are we too busy to have a private devotional life with God?

It’s interesting to me when I talk to people who are drifting away from God – one of the most common things they say is this: “But I pray all the time.”

But is praying to God the same as listening to God?

The answer is NO – it’s the opposite. Prayer is a good thing, and most people don’t pray enough. But prayer is not how God speaks to us. Prayer is not how Christ reveals His glory to us. Isn’t it interesting, that Eli, in our story, and Samuel – both of them were very busy working in the temple, doing religious types of things. And yet, verse 7 tells us that “Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord; the Word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.” God was still a stranger to Samuel. And so, it is with so many people, so many of us – God is still a stranger. We’re too busy to listen, and we pray at times when we remember, but really, we are failing to make his Word a priority in our lives.

But what happens when we stop, and listen to our God?

Three times God called out to Samuel, and Samuel did not know it was the Lord. Finally, Eli figured out what was going on – God was finally speaking, and Samuel was the one God had chosen to speak to. And then verse 10: “The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other time, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ Then Samuel said, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening’.”

From that moment on, God spoke to Samuel on a regular basis, and Samuel listened. He came to know God for who He really was, what He was really all about. He became a prophet that everyone respected in Israel, because everyone knew that God was speaking to Samuel, and Samuel was listening.

Isn’t it amazing, that we can get to know the true God, not by doing something difficult or complicated, but simply by listening? What a blessing it is when we take time out of our busy lives and listen to our God! For example, did we hear the voice of God this morning? Did we hear what God said to us after we confessed our sins? God told us that His Son, Jesus Christ, has taken all our sins away. God told us that Jesus, His Son, has died as a sacrifice for us, to pay for all the mistakes we have made in our life. God told us that because of His Son, Jesus, He completely forgives us for all our mistakes, all of our sins. Were we listening when God spoke to us and said these things to us at the beginning of our service?

God speaks to us through the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. What Christ say to us there? “Here is my body, given for you. Here is my blood, shed for you, for the forgiveness of all of your sins.” Do we realize that when we hear these things at the Lord’s Supper, we are hearing the voice of Jesus Christ? Will we be listening? Christ is telling us that everything is good and right between us and Him, that there is nothing we have done that stands in the way, between Him loving us.

Isn’t it amazing, that we can know these things, not by doing something complicated, but simply by listening to the Word? And what a blessing it is when we listen! Did you see what happened in our Gospel lesson for this morning? Nathanael was told about Jesus by his brother. “But how could anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael said. Nathanael wasn’t going to give Jesus a chance. Why listen to someone like that, someone from the middle of nowhere? But then he went and met Jesus and listened to Him. And Jesus revealed to Nathanael His power, telling Nathanael that He, Jesus, had already seen him under the fig tree, that Nathanael was a person in whom there was nothing false. The more Nathanael listened to Christ, the more amazed he became. Finally, Nathanael said, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”

These wonderful words of faith are words that we would like to feel and speak every day to our Lord, Jesus Christ. What an amazing God we have, that He would give us this kind of faith simply through His Word. What an amazing God we have, that He asks us to do nothing more than listen, to say, as Samuel says: “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.”

Jesus told Nathanael: “You shall see greater things than these” and Nathanael did. He eventually saw Jesus rise from the dead and ascend into heaven. And as we listen to our Lord, and spend time in His Word, we will be able to see those same wonderful things.

Let listening to the Word of God be for us our number one priority this new year, 2021. The blessings we will receive are endless – a renewed understanding of God’s forgiveness and love for us, a renewed faith, a renewed desire to serve Him with our life. May these words we have repeated this morning: “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening” – may these words be our motto, not just this year, but all the days of your life.

People have the tendency to listen only to what they want to hear. The Bible even tells us that. God’s word informs us that “The heart is deceitful above all things”. (Jer. 17:9)

Why does God want us to listen?

How about now. I believe nothing has been changed, we see that the Word of God is rare. Not many people read, study, reflect or apply it in their daily life. Even though they consider themselves Christians, they don’t have the necessary biblical knowledge and as a result of that they have weak faith. And because the Word of God is rare there is no vision, which results in no mission. That’s where we see the church today; on the way of weakening and becoming passive in many areas.

The church is struggling and has shifted to survival mode instead of being active on many levels doing its mission. This is sad and something needs to change.

But the good news is that God is control and, in His time, He will call and take action. He will prepare people to serve Him faithfully regardless of their shortfalls and weaknesses.

The call of Samuel to be a prophet and the early disciples to follow and obey His commands are good examples. In the two examples it is clear that when He calls people, they respond to Him even after a brief questioning period. In the case of young Samuel, God had to call three times until it is realised that the One who is calling is God Himself. And in the case of Nathanael, we see an interesting expression that says: Can anything good come from there? Referring to Jesus coming from Nazareth. Then declaring: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel”. What an expression of faith and commitment. We know that those first disciples left everything to follow Him.

Yes, God calls the “man”, us, in His time and the only thing we should do is to follow Him.

God wants us to hear His voice, and He wants us to hear His voice because that’s the only way we’ll receive all the blessings He wants to give us. But we struggle with this because our hearts are deceitful, that is, we hear only what we want to hear, and we tend to put our priorities above His.

As we have started the New Year, this is a good time for a healthy self-appraisal.

Jesus is still calling disciples. This is not an exceptional lifestyle—it is the normal Christian life.

If we truly want to obey Christ, we will strive to follow Him as His disciples, learning and growing by His enabling grace, and only if we could say with Samuel “Speak Lord, Your Servant is Listening”.

Amen!