Pastoral Letter 251
Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,
Grace and peace to you all in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
I am glad to share with a piece of good news about the way ahead from 1 June, after my placement ends here at St. Andrew’s and retirement. During the week the Church Council officers and I had a fruitful meeting with the Presbytery Minister Rev. Martin Levine. We will keep you posted in the coming weeks with further information after the next Council and Elders meeting. In the meantime, we keep moving forward as usual and carry on as faithful and committed servants God with His help.
On Friday, 7 March 2024 at 10:00 am, we are invited to attend the World Day of Prayer, which will be held again at St. Aidan’s Anglican Church, down the road, 1 Chritina Street, Longueville. This year the program is prepared by the women of Cook Island. The theme is: “I made you wonderful”, based on Psalm 139: 1-18. Following the service, morning tea will be served.
We continue to pray for all those who need our prayers, remembering those who are facing many challenges, such as natural disasters, hunger, homelessness, uncertainties and so many other things
If you are not able to join us tomorrow, please light a candle and join us following the attached Order of Services.
Please let me know if you or anyone else has prayer points.
Here are some prayer points for this week:
- Pray for the church to be steadfast in its witness.
- Pray for the oppressed and those who suffer undergoing challenges of different kinds.
- Pray for peace, justice and wellbeing and for those who work to help those who are in need.
- Pray for the poor, the sick, the hungry, the struggling, the stressed and those who are less fortunate.
- Pray for the next phase of our ministry here at St. Andrew’s beyond 1 June 2025.
In Christ
Krikor
MESSAGE
Blessings and Woes
Luke 6:1-26
I’d like to ask a few very simple questions.
What kind of life would we like to have?
When we ask for God’s blessing on our lives, what kind of blessing are we thinking about?
What is the picture of our life in our mind that we want?
All of us want to be blessed. Every time we pray for someone or anyone, we pray that God may richly bless them. We usually use good religious words, but depending on what our understanding of blessing is, it can mean very different things.
That is what this passage is about. This passage is about how we measure the blessings in our lives.
There are two basic measures of blessing.
There are worldly measures, and there is a Godly measure.
Jesus only has one measure. But the world has many. The Jews of Jesus’ time used worldly measures of their blessings. Many Christians today also claim worldly measures of blessing for themselves.
This passage gets right to it. By the world’s measure, if we are rich, successful, happy and popular, that means we are blessed by God. By the same indication, the world says that if we are poor, miserable, ugly and rejected, we have a disability, then we or someone in our family has done something to displease God. That was the understanding of the people as we read in the Scriptures. Blessings, by worldly standards, are understood as circumstances. They are possessions, independence, fame, power. All those things are located in the realm of this world.
But Jesus has a whole other meaning to the word ‘blessing”. Jesus’ words show that it is a virtual reversal of the worldly understanding of “blessing”. The word ‘blessed’ for Jesus refers to the condition of those who live their lives in the Kingdom of God – who submit to God’s rule in their lives. It’s not about circumstances. It is about knowing that God rules our lives within our circumstances. If we know that, we are blessed. But if all we know are the promises of this world, then that’s all we’ll have. No matter how successful we are in this world, that is not enough to be a blessed.
We are so engulfed in this world; it is hard to understand what Jesus says. Let’s try to clarify a couple of things about what He’s saying and think about what this passage means for us.
First, Jesus is not saying that we have to be poor and persecuted and hated in order to be blessed. He’s not saying that it is a prerequisite or necessity to blessing. He’s not saying that we are blessed because we are poor and hungry and crying and hated. There are lots of poor, hungry, crying, hated people who are not blessed at all – who don’t know and certainly don’t live in submission to the reign of God at all. Too many are just angry and mean and despairing that they, by the standards of the world, have no blessing.
But Jesus is confronting the world and saying that if we are poor, if we are hungry, if we are crying and hated, it does not mean that we are not blessed. As a matter of fact, we know we can’t rely on the circumstances of the world. We know our weakness. It is right there if front of us. We can’t get away from it. Jesus reaches out to all the poor so that they may know that exactly where they know their life to be out of control, they can rely on God and live in God’s grace.
Second, the flip side of that is also true. Just because we are successful by the world’s standards of blessing, does not mean either that we are blessed, or cursed by God. But if those worldly circumstances are all that we identify ourselves by, since they are so good, then that’s all we’re going to get. Woe to us, because that stuff – those riches, that food, that laughter, that popularity – it doesn’t last, we’ll have our time of knowing just the opposites.
So, what is the bottom line in all of this?
When the standards of the world guide us, we will have great woe. But when we let God determine who we are, we will be greatly blessed. When we let our looks, our poverty, our hunger, our sadness, and our lack of popularity be the final word about the meaning and significance of our lives, we will be in hopelessness and despair. But when we let the kingdom of God have the final word about the meaning and significance of our life, we will have true joy.
If we let the world call the shots, we’re going to be easily torn down. The people who hate us and abuse us will destroy us. A pastor said: “Those who make great and unreasonable demands on you will be able to lord it over you, and you will feel as though you amount to nothing”. What Jesus is saying is that we are now free not to give the world that much control over us. We are now free not to let our enemies have the final word in our lives. … His disciples are blessed because they trust God above everything else.
I want to encourage us to look at our life and re-evaluate where our blessings are. So much is going on for so many of us. It’s happening so fast. We are so completely bombarded with the world’s viewpoint that everything can get distorted. Our feelings, our false sensitivities, our misperceptions can be devastating.
Let’s look again and simply trust that not any of that other stuff matters except what God thinks of us. If we rely on the world’s picture of who we are, it may even look good for a while. But there cannot be anything really good there.
Let’s turn our eyes upon Jesus. Let’s look full in His wonderful face. And when He’s looking back at us, what we’ll see reflected in His eyes, is His love for us.
And then we will be blessed as He says!
Amen!