Speaking the truth to power

Advent 4 year C Sermon John 1:1ff

The Prophetic Office of Christ

For 1700 years the church was unable to fulfil its prophetic task of speaking the truth to power…because in Christendom the church held the power.

We were called to be a dwelling place for God…to be formed more fully into the image of Christ who was grace and truth in the flesh…called to proclaim his truth to all powers and principalities.

Instead we became caretakers of an institution…
Instead of speaking out with one voice together…
for centuries the prophetic task was left to courageous individuals… like Martin Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Te Whiti, Rutherford Waddell, and Kate Shepherd

Over the past month I’ve preached on are called the three offices of Christ and his church…prophet priest and king...
so you’ve already heard what kind of king our saviour is
and you know how scripture views him as high priest…

today we will hold up Jesus office as the ultimate prophet of God… and the role of the church…
our church has…in carrying on Jesus prophetic work.

And it’s my conviction that today we need to be a Christian community that’s prophetic by our very existence,
not simply by what we do on Sunday morning, or in our study groups. We need to embody our prophetic task in everything we do.

Today Christendom is long gone…and again like the early dessert mothers and fathers…we find ourselves dwellers in the wilderness.
So we have to ask ourselves what might it mean to build a prophetic community from a place in the desert of high speed high-tech and high expectations…a world where a sense of entitlement… to instant results pervades our own community and… rules out… listening and waiting for guidance from God

Blank baby slide

But there are some good things about being in the wilderness …things are simplified for us…the basics become life giving.

word slide

If we’re to proclaim Jesus’ grace and truth with confidence to the powers and principalities of this world…
you and I need to know where we picked up our basic Christian­ belief …that Jesus is God’s very prophetic word… spoken to us… in the flesh…

Was Jesus just a home town kid showing off …
or was he actually grace and truth in the flesh…
God’s ultimate prophetic voice to human kind…

Some Christians would like to ignore Jesus prophetic work and consequently their own task of speaking the truth to power…But today I’m telling you there’s no way you can negotiate this out of who Jesus was and …from our work as followers of the Word made flesh. For they are rooted in the words of scripture in John’s Gospel.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all humankind.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so through him all might believe. John himself wasn’t the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him,
the world didn’t recognize him. He came to his own, but his own didn’t receive him.

Slide words

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
children born not of natural descent,
nor of human decision or a husband’s will,
but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

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God speaks… and the universe is created…
galaxies and giant nebula come into being…
black holes…cosmic gases…suns and stars…
all the elements that make for life…

God speaks and… an un touched…. Hebrew girl…
conceives a child…

and this child… will become a light for all nations…
the light that shines in the darkness promised by the prophets.  

God has spoken…………..and God’s very Word…

become grace and truth in the flesh …Jesus is born. [pause]

In our gospel reading John the theologian…helps us…
to understand…that the anointed one…the holy one… who enters our humanity in Jesus … is the very same Word …with a capital W… the word…through whom
the whole universe… was spoken into being.  

and because of this incarnation… this enfleshment
of God’s Word in a child born in Bethlehem
…a relationship of intimacy  is made possible…
between God and all humanity…all flesh.

to all who received him…who believed in his name,
he gave the ability to become… the children of God.

God’s purposes…are to be made clear…
in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Where people have walked in darkness and misunderstanding…now…
there’s a walking… talking…human expression…
of God’s Word for humanity…

this child… born not in a palace, but in a manger…
would show us by his life… and by his death…
just how God’s purpose of Shalom…
of peace with justice for all people…would be achieved…

word slide

Love your enemies…do good to those who hate you…
pray for those who persecute you…make peace…
show mercy…be humble…

Word slide

travel light…share what you have to feed the hungry…
care for the sick…let the oppressed go free… [pause]

men and women… living in the deadly darkness of fear and exploitation…abuse and slavery…can now see by the light of Jesus’ life and teaching…that their wellbeing
is what God desires

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Men and women… who live in the toxic gloom of pride … and greed and envy …who live in the wasteland of cynicism or the exile of perpetual resentment and judgement of others’ right to be in or out.

can now see by Jesus’ light…
there’s another way to the fullness of life…

And those who believed in his name…would do what he did
they’d become children of God…as he was a child of God.

Last year at this time there was a movement growing which attracted people from all over the world and all religions… they called this movement Occupy…

But 2000 years ago… Jesus would announce…not the occupation of Wall Street or Aotea Square or the dinosaur park…

but love’s occupation…of the whole earth

Jesus would demonstrate…
and call his followers to demonstrate
that the purposes of God will not be defeated…
by the worst things humankind can do. [pause]

How well are we doing?

‘How well do we wait for God?’…how well do we prepare for the coming of God’s future?…
how well do we make room… for Jesus in our lives?…
and how well do we carry… Jesus’ saving message of Shalom into the world…a just peace that takes into consideration the welfare of everyone especially the vulnerable.

Does the message we carry into our community sound like good news to the poor the persecuted…and the different.

Dare we ask how well…we occupy Wanaka…in Jesus’ name… dare the global Christian community ask itself how well we occupy the earth in Jesus’ name

Dare we ask…how well we shine the light of God’s love…into the dark places …  

Because this is exactly what we are meant to be doing
as we wait… for the full realisation of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus slide

Today in the wilderness of corporate powers and self-worship
where God is meaningless…even thriving churches are as small and vulnerable as Jesus was in the first fragile days of his life…[Pause]

The very revelation of God… arrived in a human baby… tiny… vulnerable… without protection… no resources of his own …relying completely on the generosity of his parents.

An infant citizen… of a nation…
occupied by force and by fear…

This child would grow to understand his calling
to do what Israel failed to do…
to shine the light of God’s justice and peace …….
God’s mercy and forgiveness………………
to all nations…even enemies and oppressors…

This child would die…speaking the truth of forgiveness  to the powers of Rome…this child would die with his prophetic word on his lips… rather than retaliate… [pause……]

but that was not the end…
by the power of God’s Spirit…the Word made flesh
would be raised… and he would call his followers to take the light of God’s love… to the ends of the earth… [pause]

God’s Word became flesh…. and dwelt among us…
full of grace and truth…and to everyone
who believed in his name… he gave the power to be called …the children of God

May Christ dwell in you today and in our church
and may your life be full of grace and truth.

And as we journey together into God’s promised future …
let us pray together to be instruments of grace and truth…

Say with me the prayer of St Francis

Slide words

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

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O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.