Pastoral Letter 52

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

Grace and peace to you all.

I am continuing to enjoy my annual leave, trying to relax before for our next Sunday face-to-face Worship Service on Sunday 28 February. This Sunday, early morning, Dee and I will head to the mountains and worship at Leura Uniting Church. After the service we will spend some time and have lunch with our friends Rev. Dr. William and Carolyn Emilsen.

Please join the others on Sunday morning for worship, light a candle, following the Order of Service prepared and led by Bob Minton, who is covering for me during my leave for three Sundays.

We will recommence Pizza/Movie Nights, starting on Tuesday 3 March 6:30 pm and onwards, every first Tuesday of the month. Please see the details in the recent Newsletter. Also, we will resume Time4U, starting on Wednesday 10 March 10:00 am and onwards only on Wednesdays.

This year the World Day of Prayer will be held at St. Aidan’s Anglican Church Longueville, on Friday 6 March 10:00 am. The service has been prepared by the women of Vanuatu on the theme: “Build on a Strong Foundation”. Everyone is encouraged to and pray in solidarity with them on this special day.

Our dear Esther’s Memorial Service will be held on Thursday 25 February at Macquarie Park Cemetery and Crematorium, with a limited number of attendees, due to COVID restrictions. The family will send us the link to follow the live streaming of the service on the day.

I look forward to seeing you all next Sunday for our regular worship. Just remember that we are not going to have Morning Tea and our premises will be cleaned and sanitised on Saturday.

Stay well and keep praying.

Krikor

REFLECTION ON THE THEME:

Lent is not a time for being miserable, but for taking stock and resetting our aims for following Christ.

     Loving God, in you we trust, let us never fool ourselves.

Lent is an opportunity for healthy repentance-

repentance for our indifference in face of the permeating evil of the world, repentance for personal sins which we have glossed over as “mere foibles.”

     According to Your loving kindness, remember me, God of goodness and saving grace.

Lent is a time for joy;

the exhilaration that comes- from defying temptations, from turning our face to the light that shines on the narrow path of Christ Jesus, from walking into adverse winds and enjoying small victories day by day.

     Make me to know Your ways, O God, teach me Your paths, for You are the God of my salvation and my true happiness.

The Rainbow and the Cross

Mark 1:9-15

Let us pray.

O Lord, we pray, speak in the calming of our minds and in the longings of our heart. Speak, O Lord, for Your servants listen.

Amen.

Old children’s story goes like this: 

One child asks another:

Would you forget me in an hour?     No.

Would you forget me in a day?         No.

Would you forget me in a month?    No.

Knock knock.                       Who’s there?

I thought you said you wouldn’t forget me.

Today we heard the story of the covenant God made with Noah. It is a covenant where God promises that He will never forget us, nor any of the creatures that He made.

It is a covenant that promises that God will never again destroy the earth because of the sinfulness of man, and as a sign of this covenant – this promise – God creates the rainbow so that whenever it is raining God and all of us here who see it will remember that promise.

The beautiful thing about this covenant, this agreement that God made is that is has no conditions upon it. It is a covenant without any “if” clauses, such as “if you love me” or “if you obey me” or “if you worship me” or if you brush your teeth or help old ladies across the street – then I will be good to you!

No – the covenant God made Noah is an unconditional covenant. It is a covenant of love wherein God promises to remember us even if we forget Him.

That is what God’s love is like. He remembers us even when we forget Him. No matter what we have done – when we stand at the door and knock, God won’t ask “who’s there” He will instead open the door and welcome us in.

God can be grieved by us. We can make God sad and we can make God angry, but God swore to Noah that He would never be so angry that He would destroy the people and the world that He made.

Despite our sinfulness, despite all that we do to hurt each other and to hurt ourselves, God has promised not to abandon us, to not to forget us and seek our destruction, but rather to remember us and His love for us.

Indeed – God does remember us – and God seeks us out. He calls us to love Him as He loves us.

No matter what we have done, God calls to us like a parent calls to his child, God calls us to turn around and try once more to be the person that we were born to be, and God reaches out His hand and tries to deliver us from the judgements that we set ourselves up for with our foolishness and our pride.

God wants to help us, not destroy us.

This is the meaning of the covenant sealed with a rainbow, and this is the meaning of all God’s covenants with us.

Abraham was chosen by God to raise up a great nation, so that the world would be blessed by a Holy People.

David’s children were chosen by God to be Kings over Israel, so that one day the world might be saved by a Messiah.

And Jeremiah was chosen to announce a new covenant, where God would place the Law in each person’s heart and where each person might personally come to know God and His salvation.

That last covenant, the once announcement by Jeremiah, has been fulfilled, and each of us here is now privileged, if we so choose, to be a part of that covenant, a covenant that is signed by the cross of Jesus and sealed by our baptism into His death and resurrection.

God remembered the promise He made to Noah, and even though we have provoked God in a manner worse even than that of the people who lived before the flood, God has kept His promise.

God sent His Son instead of a flood to deal with our sin, and He died for our sin – the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God and to allow us to live well both now and forever.

Through Jesus – God remembers us.  In fact, through Jesus, God stands at our door and knocks, and He tells us: “Here I am.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

What then shall we say to this love of God, what shall we say about the signs of His love? 

The cross and the rainbow?  The Bread and the Wine?

What shall we say about His knocking at our door?

What shall we say about His invitation to come and dine?

God wants us to say “Yes” to his love; He wants us to see the signs and wonders He has left for us; He wants us to open the door to our lives and let Him come in and do His work:

– a work in which He makes us more and more like His son Jesus,

– a work in which He makes us holy, and saves us from our own sin, our own foolishness.

Recall today, as we begin Lent, my friends, the story of Jesus, and how after He was baptized, He spent 40 days in the wilderness being tempted, and how, He then went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God saying: “The Kingdom of God is near, repent and believe in the good news.”

God wants us to try our best to be like Jesus, He wants us to believe in His love, He wants us to know that He is near to us and ready to help us, He wants us to turn to him in faith, and strive to lead a new life with Christ.

The word of the gospel, the good news, is that God forgives us our sin, that He remembers His love for us, and extends His saving hand of grace towards us. God’s love for us is a marvel and a grace.

But, as we begin Lent, let us remember that our forgiveness comes at a cost, that a price is paid for our sin, a price in pain and suffering, and that, as long as we yield to sin, as long as we yield to temptation, not only do we hurt ourselves and others — we hurt God.

What we can do as people who have heard Christ and accepted His invitation to believe in Him, in the saving love of God the Father, is to repent of our sinful ways and to struggle as best as we can – as did Jesus in the wilderness – to live a sin free life.

If the truth be told I think that everyone here has not struggled quite hard enough with sin, that we have sometimes given in too easily to temptation, especially in the simple things,

– the things like the temptation to gossip,

– or the desire to get just a little bit of revenge,

– or the desire to kid ourselves about our lifestyle and tell ourselves that it is really OK.

Most of us have a tougher time with temptation than we like to think.

We try to tell ourselves that the things that we do:

– the little things that hurt others or ourselves, aren’t really all that important or all that harmful,

– or that someone else is really to blame for them.

When we get angry, or feel terribly anxious or upset, and then yell at our husbands or our wives, or rebuke our children and slight our friends, we often tell ourselves that it is because of something that they did – that it is justified by the circumstances.

We do not like to think that maybe, just maybe, even when we have been provoked, that while our reaction is justifiable, maybe our behaviour is not.

We forget the lesson of the rainbow and of the cross, the lesson that tells us that even though we anger God, even though we do things that God cannot approve of, God still loves us, and while He calls us to live a better life, He does not push us away, He does not reject us, He does not condemn us.

It is a good thing I think, to cultivate the sense that we do not resist sin enough.  I believe that this kind of humility, this kind of realism about ourselves, can only be pleasing to God.

Acknowledging our weakness in the face of temptation gives us a foundation upon which we can build a new life, for it is only as when we recognise our need, that we can be open enough to have our needs met.

Our sins arise primarily because we do not readily recognise the need we have to struggle with ourselves.

Most of the things we do that are harmful do not come out of some great issue which we must decide about, rather they arise out of the habits we have, habits that are comfortable and whose correction requires some effort.

We say bad things about some people because it makes us feel good,

– because it makes us feel just a bit better than they are,

– and because it is easier to say what we say than to look for the good that may be in the person,

– and because it is easier to condemn them than to forgive.

We throw junk out our car window and add to the pollution of our world because it easier to do so than to have to pack around garbage bags.

We use more of the world’s resources than we have to because recycling requires just a bit more effort than we like to make.

We give into temptation, we hang onto our sinful ways, because no matter what we might say, we are comfortable with them.

The good news that Jesus announced is that God does not forget us, that His kingdom is at hand and we can enter if we desire to do so.

God loves us,

God forgives us,

and God calls us to His side and offers to us a new beginning in Jesus, a new life in Christ.

God calls us to be like Jesus, to struggle with temptation, and to hold firmly onto His word, this so that we might experience the blessings of a good life, and so that our world will not suffer so much needless pain and suffering.

This Lent I call you to examine your life, to look at all that you do, how you treat your family, and how you act at work or in the community and ask yourself if you are taking the easy way, or if there is something you can do  to be a more loving and caring person.

I call you to examine how you live.

Do you do your best to be aware of the environment?

Do you really struggle with what you use and what you waste?

And I call you to examine how you treat yourself.

Do anger and fear constantly sweep over you?

Does your daily walk take you constantly to extremes?

Do you love yourself as well as God loves you?

God has something better in mind for us all than that which we now do and experience.

God created this world to be good, and He placed us in a magnificent garden and gave us company and asked us to take care of that garden and each other.

God made us to keep company with Him, and despite all that we do to reject Him, and all that we do to harm each other and ourselves, God reaches out to us and calls to us to come to His side and to love and enjoy the world that He has made.

No matter what we have done – when we stand at the door and knock, God won’t ask “who’s there” He will instead open the door and welcome us in.

Trust God to help you struggle with temptation and with yourself and ask God for His continual forgiveness and eternal blessings to be upon you and the world that His son Jesus Christ died for.

The promises that God has made, the promises we see in signs like the rainbow and the cross, are forever; they have not been and will not be broken.

Accept those promises for yourself,

Struggle with sin,

and thank God for all his mercies. 

Amen