You visited me

Pentecost 18 year C Sermon 07

‘I was sick and you looked after me’

I want you to imagine… you are very very old… you’re too weak… and to weary to move…
but your eyes and ears… are still sharp.
Your head is clear. There’s a sheep skin
covering the mattress underneath you on your hospital bed…keeping you comfortable and warm.

Out the window you can see and hear the promise of spring …the buds and the birds…
And right next to your bed…you can hear the reassuring beep beeping of your heart monitor…
‘I’m still alive’… you chuckle to yourself.

All in all you’re glad to have a quiet room to yourself. Away from unwanted intrusions…

There’s enough hustle and bustle in the corridor outside your room… and every so often…you hear the jarring clatter of a bed pan hitting the floor.

But mostly you’re alone with your memories.
The problem with being so old… you’re thinking…
is you outlive everybody else… and with the family in Aussie for the winter…there’s no one left to
pop their head in the door…

And you close your eyes at the sudden sting of tears

missing the ones who are now gone forever…
as a fresh wave of old familiar grief sweeps over you…

you’re used to it…it comes and goes…but today as the wave washes out to sea…you’re left with a hunger in your skin… and a longing for a friend.

You turn your head at the respectful knock…
a smiling stranger walks to your bedside…

and looks love… right into your eyes.

I’m the chaplain he explains and I’ve got time to talk if you feel like it…otherwise I’m happy just to sit here for a little while…

You try to wipe a tear away without him seeing…
but your hands are too heavy

And your gentle visitor scoops their hand…
gently under yours…and you sense you could shift it when you’re ready. But for now… you’re content just to savour the warmth… of skin on skin. [pause]

Leg slide
Now let’s imagine you’re just upstairs and down the corridor in another ward…a room with four beds. You’re only 18 years old …braving it out
on your own in the hospital… and bored to tears …they won’t let you use your cell phone on the ward …and you’re out of minutes anyway…
how are you gonna tell your mum and dad about the accident…you were so cock sure… you’d be on top of everything…travelling alone…

And you couldn’t get home if you wanted to…with your leg in a cast and no ticket…

home’s twelve thousand miles away…

You have no idea what to do…or who to even ask …for help…

And suddenly there’s some lady by your bedside…
looking like your nanna with a big cross on her chest…and she’s smiling down at you…
looking love into your eyes.

‘Heard you haven’t had a chance to contact your parents about the accident…the chaplain says…
you could email them from my office…but wouldn’t it be a whole lot better to hear their voices…

I’ll tell you what…I’ll still be on at midnight
so I can wheel you down to the phone box
on the first floor… so you can catch your mum and dad at home.

And just as quickly she disappears out the door… sweeping a wave of warmth and relief over you…

How did God find me here, you wonder…
[pause]


two hands slide
What on earth would motivate people… to spend their days… traipsing up and down hospital corridors of hope and healing…pain and fear and despair…
day after day…

Offering comfort to strangers…touching the sick

You know what I think it is…I think it’s Jesus’ words
Word slide
‘For I was sick and you visited me…you looked after me.

Chaplain slide
Hospital chaplains are people who get to see Jesus every day…aware of his presence in each person they meet. Aware of the intrinsic value in every human being…no matter how grumpy…how smelly…how tearful…how lonely…

why would Jesus tell us… we would minister to him in the sick and the prisoner… and the hungry begging in the streets…because it’s too easy
to walk right past them…ignore them…
You see in Jesus time the sick were unclean… and untouchable…people presumed it was payback for sins

Chaplain slide
Today we’re celebrating the work of people who who believe the Christ lives in us… Along with worshippers all over New Zealand…
Today we’re marking 35 years of Inter-Church Hospital Chaplaincy.

Hands slide
Jesus broke with the traditions of his day when he touched the sick… and cut across cultural and religious taboos and fears. His actions are the model for his followers in caring for the untouchable.

Jesus revealed… compassion is a central quality… of God and a life centred on God. Jesus showed us an alternative vision of human life lived in community.

We’re blessed here in New Zealand that for the past 35 years the Government has allowed the churches to provide Hospital Chaplaincy in public sector hospitals.

The service stretches the length of the country from Kaitaia in the North to Invercargill in the South. In all some 48 hospitals and health care units are covered. Hospital Chaplaincy is a specialised ministry – requiring intense training to meet the needs of patients across cultures and religions.

their duties require them to wrestle with the great realities of human injury and illness, accidents, and suffering, the termination of life support and grief…as well as the promise of healing, and wholeness offered to us by God… through Jesus Christ.

It’s a vocation that understands that while God is the healer…many people will have a place within God’s healing process.
A chaplain’s place is to create the kind of atmosphere where healing is more likely to take place.

It’s my experience that busy medical staff are grateful for the presence of chaplains on their wards…to offer what they don’t have time to offer…the dimension of hope, and personal attention, a listening ear, wisdom, and patience … maybe even a laugh…and the opportunity for prayer forgiveness and reconciliation.

Sometimes the chaplain is an advocate for the least powerful person in the hospital… and at the same time a support for the top decision maker.

The challenge to us as the Church… if we want to continue to have chaplains in our hospitals… is to help fund the churches’ share of the cost. Chaplains are our eyes and ears and hands…
when we can’t be at every bedside.

My prayer is that you would consider making a donation to this cause as you leave the church today.

Let us reflect on this as we listen to James Twyman’s The Servant Prayer.

Rejoice with me

Pentecost 16 year C 07 Sermon Rejoice with me Luke 15:1-10 1 Timothy 1:12-17

Jesus... God revealed in human form...Jesus says ...‘Rejoice with me...’

Paul... a former terrorist... testifies that the
grace of our Lord... was poured out on him.
Tells us he once was lost, but now he’s found.

Did you really listen...to the parable of the lost sheep? Did you take in every detail...It’s a story so familiar ... you might not even listen... when someone reads it in church...thinking...ah... I know what that’s about.

But what if you’d never heard the story before... [pause] hey...wouldn’t it be great...if there were someone here who never...ever...heard the story before...

Wouldn’t it be amazing... if there were folk sitting right next you... who didn’t realise... how far... God is prepared to go...to find them...and bring them home...
to the love and warmth of his family...who pray with Jesus... ‘our Father...holy is your name...

Wouldn’t it be exciting...if we were as diverse as the crowd Jesus is talking to... in Luke’s gospel?
But we’re not...and sometimes I wonder why that is. [pause]

And when you think about it...Jesus is always playing to a diverse crowd.

Jewish tax collectors...who’d sold out to the Roman’s... and other so called "sinners" ... untouchable men and unclean women… outsiders you wouldn’t welcome to your house… let alone sit next to… in the synagogue…

These people had been cut off…and cast out…
of religious community…shunned by those who saw themselves… as the people of God.

And in the crowd did you notice…there are Pharisees too…who run the synagogues …
and teachers who specialise in Jewish law…
Masters of religious surveillance…monitoring… the situation…on the lookout… for sin and heresy…for pollution…worried about Jesus’ popularity…
as a rabbi. [pause]

In their world of religious purity…
rabbi’s kept themselves ritually spotless…
by avoiding anyone and anything that was ritually unclean…good rabbi’s invited only the best of the best… to be their disciples.

Good rabbis wouldn’t waste their breath or their energy…on these losers Jesus is talking to…
In their eyes…they weren’t worth it.

So they’re muttering and jeering…
‘This Jesus seems to waste all his time…hanging around with sinners.

They don’t like Jesus yoke… they don’t like his teaching…
They don’t like his values…
they don’t like his way… [pause]

But maybe they just don’t understand that…
Jesus is showing them something…
about what God is like…so to make it clear
for everyone listening…for the so called sinners…
and the so called righteous…

He tells them all a story… [pause]
‘Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep in a paddock... and loses one of them.

Wouldn’t he leave the ninety-nine
and go after... the lost sheep [pause]
until he finds it? [pause]

And when he finds it, wouldn’t he joyfully put it on his shoulders and go home.

And would he call his friends and neighbors together with great enthusiasm and excitement and say...
'Rejoice with me; I found my lost sheep.

Everyone’s sitting there looking at Jesus...
gob smacked...

I’m serious...Jesus says…in exactly the same way ... there’ll be more rejoicing in heaven...
over one sinner... who turns back to God...
than over ninety-nine virtuous people...
who don’t need to repent. [Pause shift of mood]

Do you get that?
Jesus is inviting everyone who will listen...
to rejoice with him...he’s bringing them all back home

every one of them is worth it…
every one of them... is worth looking for…
worth the effort…worth the cost... [pause]

worth... dying for…[pause]

Where are you
in Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep?

Are you out on the darkened cliff side...
in the shadows? Maybe you’ve been labeled a ‘sinner’ by the religious authorities?

Or maybe... that’s how you see yourself...
Maybe you don’t think you’re worth it...
[pause]


Can you hear his footsteps...
approaching through the bush... as he looks for you...to bring you home?

Or maybe you’re one of those people...
in the crowd...safe back in the paddock...
certain of your place in the flock...
but uncertain...that some people are worth the effort...let alone safe to bring home.

Maybe you don’t feel like rejoicing with the shepherd. [pause]

And maybe that’s the part of you... that’s lost...[pause]
can you hear his footsteps as he approaches
Can you hear his invitation? ‘Rejoice with me’ [pause]

Or maybe you identify with the shepherd...
willing to follow him... and pay whatever it costs...

Or like me... maybe you’re counting your blessings
like the formerly lost sheep...Paul
who wrote that letter to Timothy...

Only too well aware of the times... you’ve strayed from the path... and got lost...grateful the shepherd carried you home...to pour out his grace on you.

Rejoice with me.
I once was lost...but now I’m found...

The dark night of the soul

Pentecost 14 year C Sermon Prayer 5 The dark night

You know those amazing… clear… mid winter nights – when the moon is full… and lights up the snow on the mountains… and we’re dazzled by the brightness and the night seems to shine like the day?

It was like that the other night wasn’t it…just this week …a perfect night… a perfect moon…
and then it started to happen… didn’t it…

slowly but surely…over an hour… a shadow crept across the moon… eclipsing its light.

And our beautiful mountains and lakes …
which only moments before… were bathed in light....
are cast into darkness.

And the moon...it was there...but only a dull red reflected light… could pass through the earth’s atmosphere

It can happen during a solar eclipse too…like the one your looking at…Everything grows dark. [pause]

A very similar experience… can happen to us…
in our relationship with God. The ancient Christian mystics… called it the Dark Night of the Soul.

I can think of a couple of times in my own life… when I felt cut off… from God’s light and warmth.
One time as a teenager …I can remember sitting in church… feeling desolate and disconnected from God…I didn’t know what to do…so I opened the Bible and there were the words of Jesus in Johns Gospel "I will not leave you comfortless."

The next time was about… fourteen years ago… when I felt like I was…in a battle for my life with someone at work…I was desperate and depressed…

It was so bad…I wasn’t clinging to God in the darkness …or wrestling with God…
it just seemed to me that God wasn’t there.

And one day in the midst of all this emptyness…
I just sat on the floor of my bedroom and prayed …
in tears I demanded God meet me in my darkness.
I told God I wasn’t going to move until he joined me.
And slowly I became aware of God’s presence again.

A few years later…someone asked me what I’d do… if I were rejected for ministry training a second time …by then my trust in God’s ongoing presence… had grown to the point… where I could answer immediately…

‘I guess if that happens… I’ll just have to go into that dark place… knowing that God is already there… waiting for me.’ [pause]

I read somewhere that
‘when everything seems at its darkest…
we often find… we’re standing in the…
blinding light of God’s love.’ [pause]

Sometimes the temptation is strong…to give up praying… to walk away from God… to yield…
to weariness or cynicism…. And it’s these times
I want to talk about today... [pause]

Even for people who surrender to a life of prayer …devout people with strong faith…
it’s not unusual to experience the extremes…
of spiritual emptiness and abandonment.

Sometimes the dryness darkness and doubt… can be so intense... we seem to lose all spiritual light... and all hope.’

When we’ve only ever learned about praying with words… a time can come when we feel unable to pray. Or when our prayers aren’t answered…
we feel like giving up...or we get tired of waiting for God’s promises to be fulfilled…

You know…even Moses threw down a sack full of God’s promises in a huff. In fact…any misgiving or doubt you could ever have…has already been voiced somewhere in scripture.

The voices of the Bible speak to us of...
the ‘agony of dislocation, hurt and betrayal…
lives that don’t make sense… of a god who doesn’t seem to care or even exist. Try reading the Habakkuk, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations or the drama of Job...and listen to the Psalmist. ‘I’m worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.’ [pause]

Through out the Bible God’s people pour out...
a litany of protest and complaint… that the world is out of kilter…instead of complaining to each other they nag and remind God of unfulfilled promises... they cry out that justice and mercy... do
not appear to rule the earth.

Even those upon whom Jesus would build his church would doubt…Jesus says to Peter, ‘I’ve prayed for you that your faith may not fail.’
But Peter’s faith did fail...didn’t it… three times.

Times of darkness, dryness, doubt…suffering and decay, disappointment and death… all belong to the twilight that’s part of our creaturely experience.
They’re not evil…and they’re not completely avoidable…they’re the ‘shadow side’…
of what it means to be alive…

We hear it fromJesus on the Cross...
as he cries out in anguish...the words of the psalm:
‘My God, my God... why have you forsaken me?’

Yet from this side of the resurrection…
we can see …even betrayal and death… can be redeemed… as part of the outworking of God’s grace.

Karl Barth…a great 20th century theologian …reminds us that ‘true prayer…
is prayer which is sure… of a hearing.’

And this is where we need to be reminded...
of the other things we’ve learned… about what it means to be in communion with the creator of the universe …especially that the only way we can know anything about God…is because God chooses to reveal himself to us … and we pray because God has invited us to pray

Remember the words from Jeremiah…
‘When you seek me you shall find me – if you search with all your heart. If you pray to me I will listen to you. I know the plans I have in mind for you – plans for peace, not disaster, reserving a future full of
hope for you. If you pray to me I will listen to you.’

God invites us into relationship…and into prayer... and promises to listen…God is…by definition… present with us…and so when there seems to be no answer…we wait…until the day dawns… and the morning star rises in our hearts. When we surrender our will to God’s… even ‘no’…is an answer.

In Jesus’ school of prayer…we’re careful…
not to confuse our feelings…
with God’s presence or absence. In this way…
we come to understand… the real meaning of faith.

And when we find… the solid bedrock of faith…
our difficulty with prayer… has served its purpose…
we discover …our ability to pray… and our relationship with God…aren’t based on feeling…
but on the unshakeable conviction…
that God is there…and hears us.

Whenever we question the intensity of our feelings… about prayer or worship or God…
we risk becoming obsessed with technique.
When we expect to stay on the mountain top…
be high on God all the time… we become guilt ridden or disappointed when it doesn’t happen… and we forget that prayer simply means… keeping company with God… who is always… and already present.

We need to ask ourselves...
if our desire for communion with God...
is greater… than our need... to feel ‘high on God’.

My experience… is that the peace of God… Paul talks about... is closer to relief... and even closer to rest. When we accept this… our desire for communion can remain strong…even in the midst of exhaustion and distraction…and pain.

And so we come to the end… of our month long
exploration of prayer…and we’re left with these

five precious rules for prayer

One:
Freedom and Obedience
Love can never be imposed from outside. We’re free to respond to God’s desire for us…free… to make his cause our own…and free to present our cause to him.

Two
The invitation is universal
‘Faith’s table is always laid, whether the invited guest sits down... or stays away… with a thousand excuses God’s love comes near to us...even when we shut our eyes and pretend it’s not there.

Three… We learn in Jesus’ school of prayer
our intercessions are universal
God’s cause is the cause of all creation. And so with Christ… we pray God’s will be done in all the earth. Our individual cause.. is included in the greater context

Four… we are
sure of a hearing… True prayer… is based on the assurance of being heard. Trust in God… is our gift back to God…
even when our prayers seem to go unanswered…
we pray in faith… that in everything… God can work out his purposes of love. And the bible tells us…
even the prayers of unbelievers are heard.

Five
Faith and Hope In Jesus’ school of prayer…we learn even betrayal and death… can be redeemed by God’s grace. Any balance… between fear and hope… that existed before the incarnation of Jesus...
has been tipped… in favour of the resurrection.

And so in faith and hope… we respond to God’s
invitation to communion with him.
And with the Psalmist we pray:
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you’re there; if I make my bed in the depths, you’re there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there… your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness… wont be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.