Pastoral Letter 86

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

Grace and peace to you all.

I write this Pastoral Letter with great joy, firstly for getting more good news on the lockdown soon to come, and secondly, celebrating Dee’s birthday and our wedding anniversary last Tuesday, when Dee and I did the 8 km walk around the Narrabeen Lagoon in two hours. It was an easy walk and a very enjoyable experience in the natural beauty with beautiful scenery. It was an amazing experience, but not like the experience of the crowd that gathered around Jesus, when He began to teach by the lake (or the sea) of Galilee, as we read in the first verse in chapter four of Mark’s gospel, from where is our Gospel reading this Sunday. It was good also to meet a couple of familiar faces, one of them being Alan, the previous minister of the Chatswood Church of Christ, who was one of the active ministers of the Willoughby Ministers’ Association and catch up with him for a few minutes. It was a good, relaxing and enjoyable day.

God willing, we will get out of lockdown in a few weeks’ time. Everything looks good and promising and hopefully this coming Monday will be Freedom Day for those who have been fully vaccinated, as we are. We have been waiting for a very long time to hear this good news, which means we will be able to come together to have our face-to face services and greatly missed fellowship and weekly programs soon. With this positive news, we will be able to reopen our doors for worship. As I have indicated earlier in my previous pastoral letter, we will celebrate St. Andrew’s Day together at the end of November and go into Advent season preparing for Christmas and New Year celebrations. The Elders and Council have decided to reopen our doors on Sunday 21 November as a start and the following Sunday 28 November, there will be an official celebration with singing inviting our neighbours to the service, followed by special Morning Tea with free Sausage Sizzle. More details later.

We will keep you updated with our plan, as we move toward normal times. Please pray and be patient, as we look forward to better days and back to our regular programs. Always remember that God is good and is always with us, leading us on our way forward.

In the meantime, please join the other members tomorrow morning in worship, following the Order of Service. This week we will use the John Flynn Foundation Order of Service, as we did in the last few years. Please light a candle, follow the order and be aware that I have added two more hymns, from Mark’s suggestions. Give a little more time for your personal prayers and pray for others. I am attaching a few photos from Penny, which were taken just after the completion of a church Sunday service. She says: “It had an ‘island’ flavour, ladies in long white dresses and hats, as we are looking forward to Sunday’s special service to honour the great man”. We have received hard copies of the John Flynn Order of Service in the mail, which I have left on the table in the foyer if you wish to have a copy with the soft copy that I am attaching to this email. Please feel free to grab one when you are around. Worth having a copy.

Considering the strong recommendation of the Presbytery’s Pastoral Relations Committee in regard to ministers not to accumulate their leaves and plan to take them, I have decided, and the Church Council has agreed, to take two weeks leave in early November, just before we reopen our doors for face-to-face worship. I will be on leave for two weeks from 2-17 November 2021. Hopefully that will coincide with the birth of our twin grandchildren, who are due soon. Please pray for their safe arrival and blessings of God.

Here are some prayer points for this week:

1. Pray for tomorrow’s service and join in prayer with all the churches, praise, and worship God.

2. Pray as the COVID-19 restrictions are easing with a quicker pace and we look forward to reopening our doors on the 21^st of November.

3. Pray for the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, the struggling and the stressed.

4. Pray for Lebanon as people are still in desperation and need help.

Please let me know if you or anyone else has prayer points.

Krikor

MESSAGE

John Flynn Sunday

Speak Lord, for We Are Listening

1 Samuel 3:1-10 and Mark 4: 14-20

Generally human beings aren’t very good at listening. It’s really surprising. 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 a break, but when the sermon goes longer than 15 minutes, they become restless.

People just aren’t good at listening. They’d 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 your relationship with God. Remember, this is the time when we eventually get out of the COVID lockdown and have our freedom of moving around and soon opening our doors for worship, God reveals His glory, and lets people see His grace and mercy and love. He assures us that He was with us during the tough times in the dark tunnel of COVID. 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 you study the history of the nation of Israel at that time, you 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 God?

How often are we able to come for public worship (when we are not in lockdown)?

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 to me 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, for 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 says: “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 God!

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!

In the gospel of John chapter 1 we read that when Philip told Nathanael that they have found the One that Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph, Nathanael asked: “Nazareth! Can anything good come out from there?”

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 that”, 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 are able to see those same wonderful things.

Let listening to the Word of God be for us our number one priority. 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, regardless of what happens around us or in the world. Be it pandemic, war, natural disaster, economic crisis, health issues, pain, suffering and even death, we should have listening ears and be attentive to what God says to us.

May these words we said this mornng: “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening” – be our motto, and let us try our best to have open ears and hearts, to hear the word of God and listen to what He says to us.

We have a record of how the earliest believers became followers of Jesus. Andrew and John became disciples through their teacher, John the Baptist. Peter came to Christ through his brother Andrew’s encouragement. Jesus seeks out Philip, who then goes looking for Nathanael. This progression provides a model for personal evangelism—bringing people to Jesus by telling others what He means to us.

The word “disciple” occurs 269 times in the New Testament. This designation could be translated as “learner” or “apprentice”. It was common in Bible days for people to attach themselves to a teacher. Jesus’ disciples would learn by listening and doing. Experiential knowledge is putting learning into life. Discipleship is following Jesus in an attitude of study, obedience, service and imitation. Discipleship means embracing a Christian worldview and lifestyle.

Two of John’s disciples, one of them was Andrew, who followed Jesus.After spending a day with Jesus, Andrew rushes to find his brother Simon, to tell him he has found the “Messiah”, the “Christ”, the “Anointed One.” When Simon came to Jesus, Jesus changed Simon’s name to “Cephas”, the Aramaic word for “stone”, which in Greek is Petros (English equivalent being Peter). It is a sign that he will become a new man in Christ and was to be transformed into the leader of the early Christian church. Jesus saw Peter, not as he was, but as he would someday be, a foundation stone in the building of the First Century church. Peter is not seen as a rock in the Gospels, but he becomes a solid rock in the days of the early church. Christ gives us the power to become all that He has in mind for us.

Then Jesus departs to Galilee and finds Philip, and Philip seeks out Nathanael, explaining that he has found the one Moses and the prophets wrote about. Philip was a thoughtful seeker—he had read the Scriptures and was looking for the Messiah. This is how Christianity grows-—one person telling another, sharing the Good News. Philip declares that Jesus is the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. Nathanael doesn’t share Philip’s enthusiasm, and ridicules, doubting that anything good could come from Nazareth.

Nathanael starts out as a doubter, but then He encounters Jesus, who welcomes him as one who knows him well, even though they’d never met. Jesus calls Nathanael “a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.” Jesus knew about Nathanael, and He knows all about us. He has known all about us even before we were born, and He wants us to follow Him.

Jesus’ words startled Nathanael, and Jesus explained that He saw him while he was “under the fig tree”. Jesus knew that Nathanael was seriously studying the word of God and listening to His voice. His doubts vanish instantly. He acclaims Jesus as the “Son of God” and “the King of Israel”.

Our gospel reading explains the meaning of the parable Jesus said, when He was teaching the people. The parable is the well know “The Parable of the Sower”. Jesus got into a boat and sat in it on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge. He said that a farmer went out to sow his seeds. The farmer went into his farm. John Flynn also went into a farm, but in his case, it was the Inland Australia, where a lot was needed, help, care, love and much needed Good News. Being a man of vision, Flynn went out to take the good news after listening to God’s call. I am sure he said: “God, speak for your servant is listening”. He opened his heart, and ears to listen to God and did all he could and the best he could, to become the man, the servant and the extraordinary selfless man he was; the obedient servant of God, the great man, the missionary, the preacher and the Outback man.

In our reading we see Jesus goes on to tell the parable and mention the four different places the seed fell: along the path, rocky places, among thorns and good soil. Then He went on saying: “He who has ears to her, let him hear”. Then in His interpretation, He made clear that those seeds that gave good results, fell on good soil and explained that the metaphor of the good soil is for those people who hear the word, accept it and produce a crop that’s thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.

The picture that Jesus paints is very clear. He is talking about the people who listen, hear and accept the word and produce crops, results, and a good life. But I believe He is also speaking about the farmer who went out to sow the seeds. Without the effort and the hard work of the farmer, even the good soil will not give results. If the good soil represents the people who are willing and ready to listen to the Word, without the farmer, they don’t have that chance of giving results of thirty, sixty and hundred.

Everything starts with the farmer, the sower and servant, who is willing and ready to accept the challenge and go out to do his job and play his role. This means the sower himself is part of the good soil. He is a humble servant, who is ready and willing to listen to God. Like Samuel, the prophet, who as a young boy by the help of Eli uttered the words: “Speak, for your servant is listening”, John Flynn, the great man of the outback, should have uttered similar words and accepted the challenge and did what he did for many years and left a legacy that others could follow with the same enthusiasm, commitment, dedication and love. In the words of Rev. Gregor Henderson, former Chair of the John Flynn Foundation, John Flynn believed he was commissioned to bring Christ to the people of Inland Australia and to improve their conditions of life. He saw it much more broadly in terms of seeking to meet all the needs of the people in the Outback, not just their spiritual needs.

God calls each and every faithful to hear His voice and listen to His Word. He expects from us all to say similar words as the boy Samuel did. God expects from His church and the members of the body of Jesus Christ to say: Speak Lord, for we, your people are listening to You.

Let’s recommit ourselves today to the Lord and strive to do the best we can in our capacity, big or small and only for His glory.

Amen!