Pastoral Letter 90
Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,
Greetings to you all.
I write this 90th Pastoral letter during my two weeks leave with great joy and thanksgiving. As I have informed you earlier with a separate email, God has blessed us with twin grandkids, Mieka and Luca, who were born last Friday, 29 October 2021. Now Dee and I are happy grandparents and Lori is an aunt and we are so delighted and excited with the addition of these two gorgeous and adorable, sweet babies. Once more God reminds us that He has and will give blessings to make us praise Him with great joy and give Him thanks. All glory and honour to our God.
With more easing of restrictions, we are enjoying more freedom as we move with a steady pace back to our normal. Some of the churches around us have already opened their doors for worship, and all are welcome to attend, respecting the social distancing regulations and masks on. Singing is not allowed; only ten singers will be at the front for leading the worship. From the 1st of December, singing will be allowed in places of worship.
Here at St. Andrew’s, we will reopen our doors on Sunday 21 November as a start and the following Sunday, 28 November, we will celebrate St. Andrew’s Day together and go into Advent season preparing for Christmas and New Year celebrations. We will invite our neighbours to the service, followed by a special Morning Tea with free Sausage Sizzle from 11:00 am till 12:00 noon.
After a successful Lower North Shore Zoom Study Series with Rev. Dr. Kenneth Bailey “The Good Shepherd”, which was over five weeks in July and August this year, with the initiative of Crows Nest Uniting Church, we will have an Advent Study Series “Signs of the Times: Christ and Climate” led by Rev. Dr. Clive Pearson. The study will be hybrid – face-to-face at Crows Nest Uniting Church and on Zoom. If you wish to join, make an effort to attend live or on Zoom, whichever suits you. The Zoom link Is:
Today, Pastor Rick is sharing with us Lane Cove Uniting‘s Sunday Service and for 14 November, our dear friend Bob Minton, has offered to prepare the Service and the message.
Please join the other members tomorrow morning in worship, light a candle, have a piece or a small roll of bread, a small cup of wine or juice for Communion and follow the Order of Service.
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 21st of November.
3. Pray for Mark as he was hospitalised and had his surgery.
4. Pray for the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, the struggling and the stressed.
5. Pray for Lebanon as people are still in desperation and need help.
6. Pray for the Lower North Shore Zone’s Advent Study Series commencing on 11 November at Crows Nest and via Zoom.
7. Pray as we prepare to go into the Advent Season and celebrate Christmas
Please let me know if you or anyone else has prayer points.
Krikor
MESSAGE
Genuine Heart, a Grateful Spirit, and a Generous Attitude
Mark 12:38-44
In every age, God’s people have struggled to find the words to speak effectively about the stewardship of money.
And though Jesus speaks directly and often about the dangers of allowing money to take the place of God in our lives, people of faith often find such words difficult and awkward.
This awkwardness is compounded many times over in the midst of economic downturns and times of hardship.
On the one hand, thoughtful Christians want to be known as kind and generous people, but on the other hand, becoming such a person is not exactly second nature to many of us.
For this reason, I believe, Jesus takes an opportunity in the passage from Mark, to point out an unlikely person – a poor widow – as an example of what God values most in the stewardship of our money. I see that what Jesus values in this woman are a “Genuine Heart, a Grateful Spirit, and a Generous Attitude”.
Jesus and His disciples were in the temple area of Jerusalem, near the treasury. From their vantage point, they could see what people were putting into the offering plates. Some of the wealthy folks were putting in large sums of money, but these large sums and the people giving them, aren’t at all impressive to Jesus.
Then along comes a poor widow, who catches the attention of Jesus. He sees that she gives from “A Genuine Heart.”
In the previous verses, Jesus finds Himself in debates with the religious leaders. They engage Jesus in arguments about paying taxes to the emperor, about which commandments are the most important, and about how certain laws related to marriage can be interpreted in unusual circumstances.
The debate isn’t really engaged from a genuine heart for learning more of God’s ways with people, but more as a way of discrediting Jesus with the people who are listening in. They’re trying to catch Jesus in a theological trap.
Of course, Jesus sees through their questions and understands their true motives. He answers each question without getting caught in their traps. The religious leaders are truly amazed at Jesus and His wisdom and knowledge.
Jesus then turns to His disciples and points out the way that these same religious leaders like to be seen in their long robes – it’s an impressive display of their authority. He condemns the way they use their positions of influence to their advantage, for example, getting the best seats in the synagogue and by taking the seats of honour at banquets.
In essence, He’s saying that their hearts contain the wrong motives.
First and foremost, they’re out to make themselves look good in the sight of others!
In contrast to these people, Jesus notices the poor widow and says: “This is the kind of person I’m after!” Her motives are pure, and she clearly gives out of a genuine heart for God. Although her gift is meagre in comparison to the large sums given by the wealthy, it is by far the greater gift, because it comes directly from her heart.
I’m suggesting to you today that the place to begin our giving is by examining our hearts.
Do we desire to give God the very best that we have, from all that we have, or are we just doing things to make ourselves look good in the eyes of others?
Several years ago, I heard of a Kenyan woman, named Lydia, who joined a mainstream church. Sometime later, she told the minister that she really loved the congregation, but she missed certain aspects of her home church, especially parts of the worship service.
When the minister asked Lydia what it was that she missed the most, he was amazed at what she told him.
She said: “I miss the offering. In Kenya, we would sometimes dance down the aisles during the offering. We didn’t have much to give, but what we did have we gave with much joy. What a privilege to give back to God!”
How can we make the offering we give each week, more than just a routine part of the worship service?
Is it something that we do mechanically (or even grudgingly)?
I like to link the offering of our gifts to the church with the attitude of our hearts. Just so you know, my favourite verse in the bible is from Psalm 116:12
“What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me?”
Because God has given so much to us, especially in, and through, his son Jesus Christ, surely, we can give back to God with glad and joyful hearts.
For Lydia and for the woman in Mark’s story, giving an offering to God is first and foremost a matter of having a genuine heart for God.
What is at work in these women?
For them to give extravagant gifts so willingly and from their meagre possessions, they must be giving from “A Grateful Spirit.” Their gratitude is unspoken, but it is clearly their motivation in giving.
Dr. Michael McCullough is a psychologist and the editor of the book “The Psychology of Gratitude“.
In a recent interview, McCullough says the scientific research reveals what many of us have been taught by grandmothers all along – that taking time daily to be grateful for the blessings in our lives leads to a higher degree of satisfaction and sense of well-being.
He continues: “Your grandmother was right. When people are encouraged to take a few moments, every day, even as little time as two or three minutes a day, to simply appreciate a few positive things that typically somebody else did for us, you end up feeling better at the end of the day about your life in general. We see boosts in positive emotion. We see reductions in negative emotion. People are more satisfied with their lives as a whole, they even sleep better at night! They are more prone to spiritual pursuits.”
I always love it when the scientific and secular research backs up what the Bible has been teaching us all along.
The Psalmist says in Psalm 100: “Enter God’s gates with thanksgiving!”
The Apostle Paul says in I Thess. 5:18: “Give thanks in all things.”
Jesus also encourages daily thanksgiving in the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us today our daily bread.”
A grateful heart is a foundation of an emotionally and spiritually healthy life and we would all do well to take the time, each and every day, to count our many blessings.
You can bet that the woman in Mark’s story had a grateful spirit for God’s blessings in her life.
Jesus affirms her because she is giving for all the right reasons – a genuine heart for God and a grateful spirit.
And there’s one more thing we notice.
The woman’s genuine heart for God and grateful spirit, motivate her to give with “A Generous Attitude.”
Her gift is clearly the most generous of all – not because of the amount of the gift, but in the sacrifice behind it. Jesus tells us that the rich people may have contributed much – but they still had a lot left over.
The widow, however, contributed out of her poverty. She put in everything she had – all she had to live on – willingly and joyfully.
A minister friend told me that when they first came to the church where they were serving, an envelope arrived in the mail, with a very unusual financial gift. The gift was a money order made payable to the church in the amount of $5, along with a personal note of gratitude. At first, they thought the note and the gift were some kind of a joke. Who, they wondered, sends a money order for $5 as a stewardship pledge to a Uniting church?
In the note, the donor wrote of how much the church had meant to them over many years. The benefactor believed in the mission and ministry of the congregation and, they said, it gave them great joy to send this offering during the stewardship campaign. The note was hand-written, clearly written by an elderly person who had difficulty writing and, on asking around, no one in the church seemed to recognize the person’s name.
These donations continued coming each year, with a similar note of gratitude. Then, some years later, the minister received a phone call from a solicitor, informing the church that the person had died and had listed the congregation, and the minister personally, as “next of kin.” Apparently, they had lived and died in a state-run retirement centre, with no possessions or money to speak of. The solicitor simply wanted to confirm that the congregation was aware of the person’s passing.
Doesn’t this person remind us of the woman in Mark’s story.
This person obviously owned very little and lived simply. Yet their life was characterized by the same genuine heart for God and grateful spirit that motivated them to give with a generous attitude of giving.
I believe that Jesus would point to this person and say: “That’s what I’m after! Follow their example!”
Generosity has a way of multiplying itself, doesn’t it?
Jesus points to the poor widow to both challenge and inspire his followers to likewise give with a generous heart.
It truly is amazing to me that God can take what seems to us like a small gift, and when it is given for all the right reasons – from a genuine heart, with a grateful spirit, and a generous attitude – God will multiply it many times over.
Remember, God is not always looking for gifts of money in His Kingdom. The service we undertake, in His name, can be a great blessing to others and is made all the more effective when it is given generously.
May God bless us in this season of our lives, with those very characteristics that are pleasing to Jesus:
a genuine heart, a grateful spirit, and a generous attitude – to the glory of God!
May God’s richest blessings be on you all.
Amen!
Rick Johnson