Pastoral Letter 252
Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,
Grace and peace to you all. I hope all is well.
We have celebrated another Christmas and entered a New Year, the year 2025, with hope and anticipation. This Sunday is the 7th Sunday of Epiphany and next Sunday we will celebrate Transfiguration of Jesus and then we enter into the Lent season, starting with Ash Wednesday in the 5th of March, which will lead us to Passion Week or Holy Week and Easter, when we will celebrate the victorious resurrection of Christ from the death.
On Friday, 7 March 2025 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. Please join us if you can and pray with us.
We have committed to continue our ministry here at St. Andrew’s by God’s grace and keep the flame of ministry, doing the best we can for His glory. As you know my placement here at Longueville will end on 31 May and 25 May will be my last Sunday as your Minister and the Service of Closure and Retirement will be held on Sunday 25 May 2025 at 11:30 am followed by refreshments, organised the Church Elders/Council and Sydney Central Coast Presbytery. We are expecting a big crowd, Uniting Church representatives, local Councillors, Armenian Community leaders, friends and family members.
From 1 June till the end of the year the Church Council and the Elders will organise the way ahead making sure that we will have our regular Sunday services and the programs running, which will not be smooth and easy, but with God’s help we will navigate through the expected turbulence keeping the faith. Let us remind ourselves that God, through His Son, is the head and the Lord of the church, we are just His loyal agents performing the duties He has given us. We move forward helping and supporting each other, regardless of all the challenges we face. Just we have to remind ourselves that God is faithful and will take care.
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 strength and courage to navigate the road ahead.
- Pray for trusting God and asking that He protect those who need protection.
- Pray for the blessed assurance and confidence He has given us in Christ Jesus.
- 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
Understanding Forgiveness
Genesis 45:3-11 and 15 and Luke 6:27-36
The readings today are linked together by one theme: forgiveness and our role in the act of forgiving. This climaxes in the message of Jesus in the closing words of the Beatitudes, this time presented as the “Sermon on the Plain” as recorded by Luke. It is this theme of forgiveness, and how it applies to us today.
As we read in the book of Genesis, Joseph was the youngest and least of his brothers, who innocently told them about dream after dream in which he is the most important. He was also the best loved son of Jacob, being the ‘son of his old age’. Jacob honoured him with the wonderful ‘tunic of many colours’, an honour usually saved for the eldest son. And so, we are told that his brothers hated him. This theme of family unrest is something just as common today as it was then. One day, far from home, they had the chance to rid themselves of Joseph and, stopped just short of murder, they sold him into slavery and brought home the beautiful coat torn and soaked in goat’s blood, telling Jacob a wild beast had consumed Joseph.
Then several years later his brothers were frightened when they met Joseph in Egypt. The tables have turned, and Joseph commanded great authority in Egypt and literally had the power of life and death over them – they were completely at his mercy. They had an overpowering sense of helplessness, and they were fearful.
And what did Joseph do? Was that not the time to punish his brothers, to gain retribution for the wrong they did to him?
Instead, Joseph said to them: “Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves…for God has sent me ahead of you…” and so totally absolved them of their guilt and wrongdoing. “So, it was not you who sent me here, but God…” acting through you. Even more astonishing to us, he told them to go back and bring their entire extended family to dwell in Egypt under his protection and care. This story is a good example of God’s grace – God uses even the evil that we sinners do to forward His work. With “God’s will being done” how can any mortal person remain angry? Even more important, if we judge another’s actions based on our limited view of time and space, how can we fault humans see the divine plan being worked out? This divine plan often takes many lifetimes to understand – as we see in Joseph’s actions as, of course, Joseph had just delivered Israel into bondage in Egypt, which would again serve God’s will through the person of the Prince of Egypt, Moses.
What was it that allowed Joseph to forgive such a great wrong?
When we think of how violently our emotions respond to even small perceived insults against us, we are shocked that Joseph washed the slate clean so quickly. It stuns the mind to think that he was so aware of God’s grace in all around him that he would grant so big a blessing to those who had hurt him. When we look to the sacrifice of the last Adam, Jesus Christ, maybe this isn’t so hard to understand.
But the question remains…how did he do it?
We are called by God to transcend our sinful physical selves and to allow the growth of our spiritual selves. What constrains us in this is, more often than not, ourselves – in many things it is said, we are our own worst enemies. It is easy to live in what is comfortable and what is habit, but much harder to challenge ourselves to critically examine our lives to find what God calls us to transform.
When we have questions about which way to go in life, prayer is always a good option. People have a lot of conflicts with others. It is easy to begin to hate those who anger us the most, because it removes from us the obligation to forgive and intercede – after all, they are the ones who have wronged us! This of course is contrary to the Christian way of life. One of the most dangerous traps of this spiritual combat we are in is to focus on the sins we see in others. The psalmist tells us: “Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath. Do not fret – it leads only to evil” (37:8). A restless spirit is open to many temptations, which blinds us to the log in our own eye. The most powerful tool against this focus on the sins of others is prayer.
When was the last time that we prayed for our enemies? One of the best ways to deal with those who hurt us is to pray for them, and to pray that we will better understand them. Praying for someone does not mean we agree with what they have done.
The question that keeps coming up is how can do this as Joseph forgave?
We are told in the Gospel today to love our enemies and to bless those who curse us, and to pray for those who abuse us. Also, to be merciful just as our Father is merciful. Focus on that phrase – to be merciful just as our Father is merciful, to forgive just like God forgives. If we thought the standard that Joseph set was hard, how can we ever dream to forgive as God himself forgives us?
Joseph forgave his brothers for wronging Him, but he ended up as the prime minister of Egypt. Not hard to imagine forgiveness when our life has worked out so well.
What about those of us who have not seen the happy ending to the story?
What about the murderers, thieves and abusers we see on television each night, and the families whose lives they have changed forever?
This seems to be not so easy.
Why do we forgive? Jesus also tells us in the Gospel today that we will be forgiven as we forgive others, words echoed in the Lord’s Prayer, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” In the Gospel of John, Christ gives us the new commandment – to love one another. “Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another” and there again is that charge to love others as God loves us. And the reason why: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Now if there was another really good reason to forgive our enemies, that is – so that everyone will know that we are disciples of the Most High. Forgiveness, Jesus is saying, is a form of evangelism – indeed it is not only our souls in the balance, but also the eternal life of those who hate us. Jesus set the standard for this forgiveness on the cross, and the army of Holy Martyrs have echoed this – beginning with Saint Stephen’s stoning before the Sanhedrin and his prayer, “Lord, do not hold this against them.”
But how? How does a parent who loses a son in a terrible high school shooting forgive those who have killed him and pray for their forgiveness?
The answer is – we cannot. It is impossible for us to forgive all. When the persecution reaches a certain point, we cannot find the forgiveness that God charges us to give. At least, we cannot find it alone.
John W. Stott writes: “…we Christians are specifically called to love our enemies (in which loving there is no self-interest) and this is impossible without the supernatural grace of God flowing through us…” The way to love our enemies is not through reliance on ourselves, but on the power of God working through us by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Only through this can we strive to be the spiritual beings that God calls us to be.
We are charged by God to pray for those that harm us, to forgive, through God’s presence in us, those that harm us, and in all things to follow the golden rule – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Forgiveness is an easy thing to talk about, but we know it is the hardest part of our spiritual battle to consistently succeed at – as we cannot do it alone.
Our challenge is to overcome our natural inclination to hate, and to pray for our enemies. We should accept as a challenge and invite everyone today to do the same – in the next week let us pray for one person who we think he or she is our enemy, or someone who angers us and ask for God’s grace to help us forgive them.
Can we imagine what Palestine and Israel would be like today if everyone committed themselves to following such a course?
Through these small steps we may feel the promise of Jesus – “Your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High…for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
Let us learn from Joseph and be ready to forgive others including our enemies.
Let us be merciful kind, loving and forgiving, as our Father is.
If we are His image and the representatives of the body of Jesus Christ, then we should reflect God and His forgiveness, as He has done for us through His Son Jesus Christ, for whom is the glory, the power and the honour for ever and ever.
Amen!