Seven signs (1) - Water into Wine - John 2:1-11

The Story.
John tells us the Gospel (Good News) of Jesus in a different way from Matthew, Mark and Luke.  That doesn't mean he's making it up.  John is simply painting his picture of Jesus for us.  John himself admits Jesus did loads of things, too many to write up in a book. He picks out seven of these miracles Jesus did, that are especially important to him. He calls them the "seven signs".  We're looking at these signs because we aim as a Church to be "Learning to show the Father's love." It's time to focus on the signs that demonstrate God's character.

Bocksbeutel style Bottle
by "Prince Grobhelm."
Used under GNU license

And the first story is all about a wedding in a village called Cana, about 10 or so miles north of Nazareth in Galilee.  I guess things were a bit tight. Weddings were a big occasion with lots of guests, (maybe the whole village!) Before the celebrations were over, the wine ran out. Mary, Jesus' mother came and told Jesus. It looks as if she was expecting Jesus to do something.  Jesus responded by saying "Why are you asking me  this? My time has not yet come."  He wanted his Mum (who seems to have been on the catering team for the wedding!) to stop fussing around him. But he wasn't refusing to help. He knew what he had come to do and the right moment would come - to sort out this problem and to sort out the world's problems.   Mary told the servants to do what Jesus says - and Jesus had them collect water - 100-150 gallons of it. That's how much the six stone jars would hold.

I would not have relished the task of filling up the glass of the guy in charge of the banquet, from one of these jars.  After all, they had been filled up with - water!  It must have been a bit of a step of faith to ladle a drink from one of these jars, but it was turned into wine - and not just any old wine, but the best wine that had been served all night!  So good that the master of ceremonies complimented the Bridegroom on keeping the best until later in the feast.

And the Point?

Road sign in Callander.

John himself tells us the point. The point is that in this sign Jesus gave a glimpse of his glory. He revealed it, manifested it....  And his disciples put their faith in him.

This was a supernatural event.  There's no evidence that Jesus was somehow manipulating the situation and performing some sort of trick.  And the resulting drink was the best wine!  John is describing a miracle. The point is that supernatural things - and I'm in no doubt this was a miracle - are signs. They tell us something.

This sign revealed Jesus' glory.  It pulled the curtain back on who Jesus is and what he is all about, his identity as the Word who was with God and is God; his sonship; his Kingdom.

And as a result of this sign, his disciples - the seven he had already gathered together - read the sign, and trusted in Him.  They said "Yes, this guy really is God with us!"  The signs release faith.

Do you have a problem with this passage?  
It raises some questions, doesn't it?   For a start, why wine? Why so much wine?  Why do something that would just help a wedding to go better, when there were sick people in various houses in Cana, maybe even some of them present at the wedding, needing his healing?  Isn't it just a bit of a stunt? A bit of indulgence? Let's be clear about some things.

Firstly, Jesus is NOT showing that it's OK to get drunk.  He isn't suggesting that excess is OK.  That is important to say in our increasingly alcohol-soaked Scottish culture. Remember the sign isn't about how to live our lives - it's to reveal his glory, his character and identity!

Secondly, Jesus is not putting on a cheap sideshow to give everyone a good time and make everyone rush to follow him.  Only Jesus, Mary, the disciples, and the servants knew what had happened. It wasn't that public. And it was still an act of compassion - to run out of wine at a wedding was a big deal, a real disgrace: in fact you could be sued! This was not a publicity stunt, and it wasn't extravagance. It was an action designed to reveal his glory - his character and identity.

So what's the difference?
Turning water into wine - lots of wine, enough that if the whole village was there with a population of about 600 people, everyone would have a whole bottle each - gives us an insight into the nature of Jesus, his Kingdom and his Father. When Jesus takes these jars of water used for Jewish ritual washing, the sign is clear. Jesus transforms the water of Jewish legalism into the new wine of Christian freedom.  He is saying that his Kingdom is "New Wine" that cleanses, transforms and releases us, in the present, and is to be enjoyed at the wedding feast of the Lamb in glory. He is saying "I am the One who can take water and turn it into wine. I am the one who can take shame and turn it into approval.  I am the one who can take inadequacy and weakness and turn it into strength. I am the one who can take what is insipid and unpalatable, and turn it into what is rich and wholesome and enjoyable. I am the one who can what is messed up and sad, and turn it into something joyful."  This Kingdom is about celebration, it is about joy; it is abundant and extravagant in the way God showers his love upon us.

The difference for us is that we are learning to show the Father's love.  We can demonstrate Father's love in a number of ways. We can do so through
* Charismata or Gifts
That means healing the sick; it means praying for God's provision; it means speaking a word of knowledge, it means living those moments when there is the tangible sense of God's presence in our worship.
* Compassion or Generosity
Jesus himself called his message "Good News to the Poor".  We need to be good news to the last, the lost and the least in or world.  That is what John Hayes from Inner Change calls "the Other Miracle" - caring for the poorest of the poor.
* Character or Godliness
Jesus replaces the water of purification with new wine.  We can't improve ourselves; we need God to transform us.  Can the character of Jesus, the fruit of the Spirit, be seen in your life?  Love, joy peace, patience kindness goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are a miracle, too!  There once was a man who was standing on the street corner speaking out against Christianity and pouring scorn on the idea that Jesus could turn water into wine. One of the bystanders was a recently converted alcoholic, who challenged him: "I don't have much education and don't know about Jesus turning water into wine, but I do know that in my home he has turned whisky and beer into food and clothes and shoes"

We need to be wineskins full of the new wine of the Kingdom.  We need to have Jesus turn the water of our failure, our religion, our weakness and inadequacy, into the new wine of his Kingdom, his triumph, his joy and his glory.  We need to show the Father's love in charismata, compassion and character.  We need space for each of these.

And those signs, those demonstrations of Father's love, are designed to build faith.  As we show the Father's love we build up one another's faith; and we draw others to put their trust in Jesus too.



© Gilmour Lilly June 2012

The Mission of the Three-in-one.: Isaiah 61 1-6

What is God like?  Answers on a postcard!  Israel knew the Lord as the everlasting God, YHWH, the great "I am" - who had revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush and made a path for them through the Red Sea; who had gone before his people in a pillar of cloud and fire, who had given them a new land to live in... This God is strong and powerful and active; he is mighty and mysterious and holy and pure....

And this God has always had that habit of "hovering", creatively touching people, so that a mortal like Samuel or David or Isaiah could see visions and speak God's own word... when the "Holy Spirit of the Lord" came upon them.  This Holy Spirit is God-at-work, God on the move, God on a mission, in and through people he anoints...

There's a story of someone who was asked, "Do you believe in a god who can change the course of events on earth?"  And answered, "No, just the ordinary one."  But that doesn't make sense, for this God - the God of Exodus, the God of the Red Sea, the God who hovers creatively over his servants - to do nothing.  The idea of a God who doesn't do anything is a daft idea.

So what's this God 's agenda?  What is it he is about doing in his world? What's God's agenda, God's plan?  We find out in Isa 61. 1-6.  God's plan involved:  
* Good news to the poor;
* Bandages for the broken hearted (crippled inner-lives)
* Liberty to the captives
* Cutting loose for those who are tied up...
* A year of Jubilee!!!  Jubilee in Israel meant the time every 50 years when land that had been mortgaged returned to the people who originally owned it, people who had become bonded labourers to pay debts were set free and debts were cancelled.  But that "Year of Jubilee" becomes the "Day of the Lord" when God works out his plan for his world, Messiah comes and evil is judged.
* Comfort for those who mourn.
* Israel is blessed as the nations bring their wealth to her and becomes "A priestly community". As a priestly community, Israel is to do for the nations what the priests do for Israel: prayer, sacrifice, reconciliation.
* And all of this is worked out through a person Isaiah, over and over, calls "The Servant.  Look at Isa 42. 1-3  "Here is my servant! I have made him strong. He is my chosen one; I am pleased with him. I have given him my Spirit, and he will bring justice to the nations.   He won't shout or yell or call out in the streets. He won't break off a bent reed or put out a dying flame, but he will make sure that justice is done."  This servant suffers and dies to deal with sin and bring people back to God.  Isa 53:5  "He was wounded and crushed because of our sins; by taking our punishment, he made us completely well."
That is God's agenda... That is what Israel expected her God to do.

Then Jesus came... Born because of the Holy Spirit's power touching Mary; soaked in the Spirit when he was baptized, led by the Spirit in the desert, Jesus now came to the synagogue, was handed the scroll, and read these words.  Then he preached the kind of sermon you wish I would preach: it is only 9 words in both English and Greek: "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled, in your ears."    (Actually, Luke says "he began to say to them, so this was just the opening sentence!  But what an opening!}   Today this is fulfilled: Jesus is saying that he is  "The Servant", the anointed one.  He's the final piece of the jigsaw. As he takes away sin, his life and work are all about
* Good news to the poor;
* Bandages for the broken hearted (crippled inner-lives)
* Liberty to the captives
* Cutting loose for those who are tied up...
* Jesus' ministry actually began in an Israelite Jubilee year; and he brings in the Jubilee "Day of the Lord" when God works out his plan for his world.
* Comfort for those who mourn.
* Israel is blessed as the nations bring their wealth to her and becomes "A priestly community".

It's good to know Jesus as the Suffering Servant who takes our sin away, the lamb of God who takes away the Sin of the world (John 1. 29) .  It's essential that we know Jesus in that way, and that we know he has taken or sins away.  But it's also essential that we know Jesus as the Anointed Servant who comes proclaiming the Kingdom - good news to the poor, liberty for captives, healing for the broken, comfort for the grieving.  And it's essential that we know Jesus the Anointed Servant who calls his people to be a Priestly community bringing prayer, sacrifice and reconciliation to the nations.  

Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your ears. At a moment in time.  In a wee synagogue in a Northern town in Palestine, in front of a crowd who knew Jesus, had watched him grow up and had now fixed their eyes upon him...  And Jesus says "Right in your ears this word is fulfilled."  Never mind your eyes; use your ears.  Don't judge by what you think you know.  Judge by the world of God.


But that "today" goes on.  I H Marshall (in his commentary on Luke, New International greek text Commentaries) says, 'The "today" of Jesus is still addressed to all readers of the Gospel.'  Paul says, "Listen! This is the hour to receive God's favor; today is the day to be saved!" (2 Cor 6. 2) Today, God's agenda is still:-.
* Good news to the poor; how are we good news to the poor?  Not by preaching a prosperity Gospel. Not by saying, "Send us a cheque and God will make you rich!"  But by saying, "here, you are welcome. Here, you matter. Here you will be cared for. Here you will not be judged by your clothes or your hair-do.  Here, you don't have to pay to belong."
* Bandages for the broken hearted (crippled inner-lives)
* Liberty to the captives.  What holds people captive?  Addicitons, habits, debt, poverty (the poverty trap), abusive relationships, guilt, shame, illness, depression, loneliness, fear, superstition, and demonic forces.
* Cutting loose for those who are tied up...
* It's not just social action; it's the Jubilee "Day of the Lord" when God works out his plan for his world.
* Comfort for those who mourn.
* And we are "A priestly community" who do for the nations what the priests did for Israel: prayer, sacrifice, reconciliation...

So, on this Trinity Sunday, what is God like?  He's Father, Spirit, Son.  Mysterious and beyond our understanding.  The I am, the God who hovers over his people, the one who comes and brings Jubilee.  What's God like?  He's like Jesus; he's the Jubilee god...  Now is the day of salvation. Today, we want to fulfill our destiny as his priestly community.  We need to be able to say, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me..."  Never mind what you see. Hear God's word.


© Gilmour Lilly June 2012

Pentecost - What does the Holy Spirit do? Acts 2. 1-18; 41-47

Pentecost: Jewish anniversary of the giving of the law to Moses; "birthday of the Church"; celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit, God at work in his people.  But what does the Holy Spirit do?

1. Overwhelms us with the Presence of God
The language is that of someone trying to describe the indescribable.  Luke doesn't say the wind blew.  He says there was a sound like a mighty wind. He doesn't say there were tongues of fire: he says there were what looked like tongues of fire.  But wind and fire both happened in the Old Testament when people met directly with God.  (See 1 Kings 19. 11-12; Ex 19. 18)  So Luke is describing the indescribable; he is trying to describe an event when God came directly to his people: indeed the sound filled the room; and the effect of the Spirit's presence filled their lives.  Different versions of the same root word in Greek as in English.

Luke elsewhere quotes the words of Jesus who describe this experience as being "Baptised" with the Holy Spirit.  (See Acts 1. 14-15; see also Acts 11. 16 where Peter uses the same expression about what happened to Cornelius and his household.).  Now baptism is about "initiation" - how we start as  a Christian and how we start in an experience of the Holy Spirit.  But I'm a Baptist. Baptism is initiation, but it's also immersion!  It's an overwhelming, all-or-nothing experience. To be baptised in the Spirit is too make a beginning in being filled with the Spirit: but it is to be immersed in the Spirit, surrounded by the Spirit, overwhelmed by the Spirit, soaked in the Spirit.

So, immersed in the Spirit, the disciples began to behave in ways that drew attention to them.  And some of those who noticed said, "They are drunk!"  This immersive encounter with God, was having a profoundly mind-altering effect on them.  Fear was gone.  They had a renewed confidence in God that other people put down to having hit the wine early in the day.  Later on Paul would tell the Ephesians "Don't get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Sprit" (Eph 5. 18)

It is not an abnormal or strange thing to be overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit.  If God comes to you, you should expect to be overwhelmed!  If God moves in, you should expect to be transformed!  Set free!

All Saints Church in Sunderland built a Parish Hall in 1904 borrowing money that a few years later they war struggling to repay. . The Vicar, Alexander Boddy was influenced by the early Pentecostal Movement and began to seek the Lord; Revival came to the Church, which became a centre for revival.  But it also became solvent. There is still a plaque in the Church hall, which says simply, "When the fire fell, it burned up the debt".

When the people of God are overwhelmed by the Spirit, things happen. The Fire of the Spirit burns our rubbish, melts our emotions, lights our darkness, raises the temperature of our faith.

2. Equips us for the kingdom of God
He empowers us to witness for Jesus and gifts us for the works of Jesus.

a. The Holy Spirit empowers us for witness for Jesus.
They were by the time the crowd gathered - outside!  They had started in a house (v2) - possibly an upstairs flat (Acts 1. 13). There was movement. They were propelled outwards.  Let's be quite clear: the direction of the Spirit is the direction of the kingdom.  And the direction of the Kingdom is outwards.  God doesn't just give us the Holy Spirit so that we can have nice experiences in Church: so that we can feel all nice and happy and fellowshippy. Ho doesn't give us the Spirit so that we can have gifts to enjoy and can compare notes with other people about their gifts. He gives us the Holy Spirit so that we can follow the direction of the Kingdom, and be empowered for Mission.  What was it Jesus said about the coming of the Spirit? "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses. (Acts 1. 8)

They were speaking in tongues.  There are two kinds of tongues described in the Bible and in Christian experience over the years: there are occasions where the tongue is an earthly language that the speaker doesn't know; and there are times when the tongue is not any known human language: what Paul called the tongues of angels, and what some Christians call a heavenly language. On the day of Pentecost, the disciples were speaking in languages recognised by the people around them: Elamites, Medes, Persians, and so on... And they were "declaring the mighty deeds of God". The language of the Spirit is the language of the Kingdom. And the language if the Kingdom is the language of mission. It is the mighty deeds of god, in the language of ordinary people.   That's a pretty good way of describing being witness about Jesus to the nations.... The coming of the spirit is about witness.  He empowers us to witness to Jesus. Jesus has to be at the centre of what we say and how we say it.

b. The Holy Spirit gifts us for works like Jesus.
And they were exercising a gift.  The Holy Spirit equips us for the Kingdom of God by giving us gifts.  In Verse it was tongues; in verse 43 it was signs and wonders (the same words used for the mighty works of Jesus.)  For some that gift may involve the release of a language that helps you go beyond your own ideas as you pray.  For some it may involve prophecy, or healing, or administration or teaching ... but the point of all the gifts is that they equip us for the Kingdom of god. They equip us to be doing the work of Jesus in our world today; and that is part of mission, hand in hand with spoken witness.

3. Forms us as the People of God. 
This - this overwhelming, this equipping, this experience that transformed the disciples, this power for witness and gifting for service - is the work of the Holy Spirit.  "These men are not drunk as you suppose" Peter explains; then he goes through Old Testament scriptures to demonstrate that this is exactly what the people of God should have expected to happen....  And at the end of his message, five thousand become believers.  Now that is evidence of power for witness.  That is overwhelming!  But Luke doesn't just say five thousand became believers.. They were added to their number.  The Holy Spirit baptises us into one body.  The Holy Spirit doesn't come to us to make us "lone ranger" Christians, just doing our own thing because we have a direct line to God.  He puts us in a body.

And what a body!  This body is beautiful!
a. She is one. 
The disciples in Acts 2 were together, holding all things in common.  Verses 44-46
b. She is holy.
That doesn't mean she's perfect: but it does mean she belongs to Jesus... She puts Jesus first. (v. 42) And Jesus looks at the Church and says, "that's my girl"!
c. She is catholic.
She is all over the world.  We are part of a worldwide community of faith in Jesus. The Jerusalem Church was already international! See verses 9-11
d. She is apostolic.
She is both focussed on the "Apostles' teaching (v.42) and maintains that apostolic, missionary direction: people were added daily as they were saved. (v. 47)

In a perfectly co-ordinated graceful spontaneous movement, people just love to spend time together. (verse 44; they share their goods - selling stuff and giving the money away; they shared regular meals together and broke bread together; they praised God and worshipped together.  The Holy Spirit wants to form an attractive, beautiful body from us as a Church, as he comes to fill us, to overwhelm us, and to equip us for the Kingdom.



© Gilmour Lilly May 2012

Acts 1. Ascension

The showing...and the knowing
See verse 3: "He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God."  This 40-day period is important for the disciples.  It gave them the time and opportunities to see Jesus, to talk to him and listen to him, eat with him, share news of encounters with him.   So they knew, Jesus is alive. No doubts at all in the minds of the disciples after these 40 days!  He demonstrated that he was alive...with many convincing, clear proofs.    It mattered for them and it matters to us, because we can rely on the factuality of the evidence.  It wasn't just and idea. It wasn't just a rumour. It was based on 40 days worth of regular, physical encounters, including shared meals!   And he spoke about the Kingdom of God.  He re-enforced the teaching he had been giving from the beginning of his earthly work.  The "Kingdom of God" means the sovereign, saving action of God through Christ - re-establishing God's rule, healing for the entire broken-ness of the created order.  


However, in their continuing nationalistic enthusiasm, they asked whether now is the time when the Kingdom is to be restored to Israel.  Jesus answer is firstly to say that nobody knows the day or the time (something we do well to remember whenever someone tells you they think they have figured out when Jesus is coming back!) and secondly to insist that they shall be his witnesses.  In other words, what actually matters is not when things happen or even how they happen.  What matters is the plaice of Jesus in all of it.  You shall be my witnesses.   


This is to be the theme of the Church. God is King, and how through Christ, God became King.  How God's rule affects us now and how it affected the world we live in now and for eternity. That is a big theme. But that is the theme of the Church...  That is the good news that the Church has to proclaim.  The King has come and his name is Jesus. Through his death and resurrection, the King has triumphed, and his rule shall be established.  


What Jesus showed, we know.  This is our message.  Through these meetings and conversations in these last 40 days of earthly encounter, Jesus shows us that he is alive and reminds us of our message. 


The Going...
And then, having really worked that into their lives, he knows he has to go.  The way they encounter his presence has to be transformed. They have to move from dependence on Jesus physical presence, to a new interior intimacy.  The Holy Spirit will come. God on the move, will move into their lives. The breath of the risen Christ will infuse their lives...  This is what they are waiting for.  But even as Jesus says this the disciples are distracted towards by their hopes of the triumph of Israel over its enemies. So Jesus says it again.  "You shall be witnesses when the Holy Spirit comes upon you...."  Jesus has to go in order that the Holy Spirit may come...  So Jesus is getting them ready for the big moment when he will be taken up into heaven:


So the time comes: Jesus promises the Spirit will come, and then he is taken into heaven. The clouds surround him and he is gone.  But where was he going ?  Does the way he ascended show that "Heaven" is up there somewhere, in the clouds?  NO!  We should understand that "the heavens" begin in the space that surrounds us.  God is present everywhere.  We are not God. Earth, rivers, trees and sky are not God. But He inhabits the space around us in an unseen dimension.  He hears when we call him and speaks from the heavens - not necessarily from the sky but "out of thin air." That agrees with waht Paul says.  Paul tells us that Jesus is "In the heavenly places, seated at the father's right hand".   (Eph 1. 20)  That is not "Up there" but "out there" - in a different dimension, unseen but near enough that we too can enter it.  Paul says God has "raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus", (Eph 2:6)


So there's a gap. Jesus no longer walks with us and eats with us physically - though sometimes, people like Paul have seen Jesus and heard His voice.  Where two or three are gathered in his Name, he is there.  So that gap isn't huge.  We need to accept the gap and benefit from it.  Because arcing across that gap, into our very hearts and spirits, Jesus wants to pour out his Holy Spirit - God in our lives. 


The Growing... 
What are we to do with the gap?   We want to fill the gap.  It's tempting to fill it: --
With wishful thinking, nostalgia, and sentiment.  When Jesus had gone, the disciples were looking into heaven; staring after Jesus.  They thought, "That's it.  He has gone. It's the end of an era. Sure, we know he's alive; sure he promised the power of the Holy Sprit... but we'll miss him. Things will never be the same again!"  Then the angels (looking like two men in white robes) ask them why they're standing staring into the heavens.  Jesus will return. That's a wonderful fact; but it's not the thing they are to focus on.. Jesus has told them what they are to focus on - the coming of the Spirit with power to witness.  Wishing the old times back again, or sweet and sentimental images of the future, are not what we are meant to fill the gap with.
With busyness and legalism. The disciples go back to their upper room, and they begin to pray - as Jesus had told them to.  I wonder if the prayer meetings got a bit boring. Does that ever happen to you in a prayer meeting?  What happened next was OK.  In fact there were good things about the calling of Matthias. It was done in a spirit of mission.Ii aimed to ensure that mission to Jewish people would be done in a way that made sense to them.  Jesus talked about being witnesses, and Peter wanted to make sure that there were the full twelve witnesses who had been with Jesus from the start.  I don't agree with those who suggest that Matthias should never have been appointed, and if the Church had waited Paul would have become the twelfth apostle.  Paul's apostleship was different from that of the twelve.  No harm was done by the way Matthias was selected.  But it simply wasn't what Jesus had told them to do, then. What he had told them to do was wait. And in appointing Matthias, they weren't waiting; they were filling the gap in their leadership and filling the gap in their experience; they were making preparations; they were getting busy. The Holy Spirit is more than capable of filling the gaps in any team, if we will wait on him. The Holy SPirit will come adn equip us if we wait on him.


It's a great temptation to fill the gaps.  We can fill the gaps with sentiment, with sound, with noise, with little poems, with sermons, praise songs, solos, videos and films; and it's all about feelings, emotion, sentiment, nostalgia.  We can fill the gap with right theology, with appointing the right people to the team, with the constitution and rules, with planning and resources, with spreadsheets and websites.  There's nothing wrong with worship that offers the very depths of your heart to God.  There's nothing wrong wit theology or planning or constitution.  Just so long as we know that they are not designed to fill the gap.  We need to avoid filling the gap.. We need to learn to wait.  As we wait, and pray, and ask, and wait, God will answer. He will give us the promised Holy Spirit.  




© Gilmour Lilly May 2012

Communion - the founding feast of the Church

Introduction

Tissot: The Signs on the Door.
Public Domain Image

"On the night he was betrayed"- on the occasion of his last meal with his friends during his natural life, Jesus took bread.  It was the Jewish Passover, a founding moment in the life of the Jewish people.  And Jesus took that remembrance and recast it "in remembrance of me".  Here he is with his core group of followers - disciples - establishing the tradition that was going to be handed on - just as the Passover tradition had been handed on - as the foundation meal of the new community, the Church.  He instils into this new celebration meal the values of the Kingdom, the vision for this new community.  When we make the Lord's Supper merely a commemoration of his death, we make it somewhat less than it is mean to be.  It is the founding and bonding festival of the Church.  And as we shall see, it contains and illustrates the values that are summed up in our "Mission Statement" which is "Learning to show the father's love."  Here, at the Lord's Table, without looking too hard, we will find a call to Discipleship, Demonstration, going Deeper with God and Dealing with people in love.  Not in that order, though.

1. Dealing with people.  Love.  Christianity is about relationships.
The whole Institution of the Lord's Supper is wrapped up in relationships, like a deli wrap. The meat in the middle is the Jesus bit of Communion; the wrap is relationships.   Is that just Paul?  After all he had to tackle the stupid, selfish things that were happening in the Church at Corinth?

No! It is Jesus too.  Remember that Passover was always a "family meal".  It was designed to hold the community together but not by being eaten in a huge celebration in the temple or tabernacle; but by each household having its own lamb and bread and wine.  In the company of Jesus it established the New Community as a New Family with Jesus as the Head of the house.

What Paul does is take that principle that comes from Jesus and apply it to what was happening at Corinth.  They were subtly divided - not necessarily or even mainly about doctrine. It was about friends hanging together, cliques that looked out for each other and ignoring ieverybody else, so that at communion "Some are left out, and go home hungry. Others have to be carried out, too drunk to walk." (v. 21, The Message) The resulting inequalities and insults, were an absurdity and a denial of the core of what this meal is all about.  Elsewhere, Paul says, "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread." (1Co 10:17)

2. Going Deeper with God.  Christianity is about Spirituality.
Jesus took bread and said, "This is my body"; he took wine and said, "This is my blood."  What happens at communion?  We remember.  We call to mind.  But we do more than that.  In the Holy Spirit, Jesus isn't absent but present.  He promised as much.  "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." (Mat 18:20)

Paul understands that the act of eating a piece of food can be an act of identifying with something spiritually: in fact he is prepared to take the beliefs of pagans about what happened at pagan temple meals and use that in the context of what happens at Communion.  "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" (1Co 10:16)

"Hand-baked Matza" by Debresser
used under creative commons license

There are parts of the Church that believe that at a point in the communion service, something happens to the bread and the wine so it literally, physically becomes the body and blood of Jesus.  That is sometimes called the doctrine of the "Real Presence" of Jesus in the bread and the wine.  I don't believe that is what Jesus intended when he said "this is my body"; and I don't believe it is what Paul intended either.  But in our Baptist Protestantism, we have developed a doctrine of the "Real Absence" so that all we do is "remember" and all that is present is something to "represent" Jesus.  But by the Holy Spirit, when we obey his command, Jesus is here.  So why on earth do we feel we need to improve in the words of Jesus himself, who said, "This is my body"?

By the Spirit, when we break bread, we should expect Jesus to be present.  We can "feed on him in our hearts by faith".  And if he is present, we can encounter him, spend time with him.  I appreciate that people have dinner in the oven, kids to attend to, and so on.  There are reasons why we may have to watch the clock when we are in Church. But one reason not to be watching the clock is because it's just a waste of time.  When you are in a love with someone, you want to waste time with that person. If Jesus is present, then we want to waste time with him.  We don't have to be getting things done!

3. Demonstration.
At the Passover, there were words and actions. The instructions for Passover include what to say  "when your children say to you, 'What do you mean by this service?'" (Exo 12:26-27)  in the same way the drama of eating the bread, prepares the way for proclamation.  Some scholars talk about the "visual word."  In communion, there is the visual word; and the spoken word as the Jesus story explains and complements the dramatic action.  "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim (Gk: Spread the news of) the Lord's death until he comes."  (1Co 11:26)

The communion service is an action that shows that Jesus died for us at Calvary. That action embodies the presence of Jesus and his presence takes action to demonstrate the love of God When Francis of Assisi sent his men out he told them, "Preach the Gospel; use words if necessary!" Well, words are necessary: we need to know the words and use the words.  Can you put your own story into words?  Have you words to sum up the Jesus story?  But words should be the caption for the pictures, the action.  We are learning not just to talk about the Father's love but also to show it.  Scottish Baptists need to take on board this challenge to our "Word-centred" approach.  How can we show Rosyth God's love?  . Let's find the actions that show the presence and love of God to our community.

4. Discipleship.  Helping each other to grow.
What does it mean to eat or drink "in an unworthy manner." (v. 27) It means when we don't "discern the body" (v. 29); that is when we don't see the body around us and when we don't see Jesus in the Eucharist. If we are capable of taking this food and drink and treating it as simply food and drink, not seeing Jesus, not hearing his story, we eat and drink in an unworthy manner.  If we are capable of taking this food and drink while treating the people around us at communion, with contempt, scorn or callous disregard, (as in v 21) we eat and drink in an unworthy manner.

This is serious stuff. If we eat and drink in this unworthy way we are "guilty of Christ's body and blood" (v. 29) - guilty of killing him, and judged accordingly.  Around the Cross of Jesus there are two sorts of people.  There are those who benefit from what he did on the Cross. And there are those who are part of the process of putting him to death.  If we eat and drink the bread and wine "in an unworthy manner" we separate ourselves from the benefits of that sacrifice. We are therefore held guilty of his death, in other words, lost.

God disciplines us, and we can discipline ourselves. Paul says, "Let a man examine himself..."  Questions are  always a great way of learning, checking that we have learned properly and deepening our learning. In examining ourselves we need to ask two basic questions about discipleship...

1. Do I discern the sacrifice of Jesus at the Table? Am I a disciple?  Am I trusting Jesus and walking with my Heavenly Father? Am I growing?
2. Do I discern the body around me and expect Jesus to minister to me through my brothers and sisters?  Who's discipling me?  Who am I discipling?  Am I helping or hindering other people from growing and from finding faith in Jesus?

© Gilmour Lilly May 2012

Matthew 28. 16-20. Disciples Make Disciples

The story for the eleven begins when Jesus first appeared in Galilee proclaiming, "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand."  They began to be a community of disciples when Jesus found Simon and Andrew, James and John and said, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men."  From then they say the Kingdom of God at work, they saw the demons driven out, they saw the sick healed, they saw the crowds gather and heard the teaching "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God...."  So it had gone on for months, two or three years. And then Jesus had been arrested, crucified, buried. Now the tomb was empty, Jesus was alive... seeing is believing... but seeing wasn't believing. On this mountain they worshipped, but some "held back, not sure about worship, about risking themselves totally" (The Message translation).

We come to Jesus with a story to tell.  What is your story?  How has Jesus spoken to you and called you? What have you seen of his kingdom's power?  Maybe not a lot!  Maybe not as much as you would like?  What do you know of God's kingdom in his world?  Again, maybe not as much as you would like...  Let's not let that bother us.... Jesus has an agenda for our lives. He is looking toward the future not the past.  He calls us to participate in his mission, to participate in his life and to grow in his Kingdom.  Go and make disciples...


Disciples make disciples
Matthew calls the eleven who climbed the mountain with Jesus "Disciples"... and they are to "Go and make disciples of all nations."  Disciples make disciples make disciples make disciples.  Who makes disciples? Disciples? What do disciples make? Disciples.  The great commission is not to evangelism.  It is to discipling. It is to the worldwide making of disciples who make disciples. Jesus puts discipleship - disciple-making - at the core of what it means to be a Christian today.

The heart of discipleship: 
The task of the church is making disciples.  Making other people like us.  Not just perpetuating the institution: but perpetuating Jesus and the Kingdom.  Because it was Jesus and his Kingdom that were at the core of Peter and Andrew's, James and John's experience of being disciples....  Unless Jesus is at the centre, we are stuck. We are wasting our time.

The start of discipleship:

Go and make disciples, Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus gives us a clear, decisive jumping-off point for discipleship. He tells us we are to take new disciples - not people who feel they are spiritually mature and thus ready for baptism or that "God is speaking to them about baptism" but people who are simply ready to commit to following Jesus - and lead them through this public, visible act of identifying them with Jesus in his death and resurrection, and of identifying them with the community of his people in the Church.  (As an aside, that raises significant questions about our Baptist practise of baptism "when you feel God is leading you to"  -- and of Church membership!)  The journey toward commitment to Jesus may well be a slow one. C S Lewis said it's like crossing the border, maybe from England to Scotland: if you were awake when you crossed the border you may know exactly when you crossed. if you were asleep you may not know. But you know that you have crossed it!  We may not always know quite when we crossed that line to become a disciple of Jesus.. We may not quite know when we made a start but we realise we have made a start. Discipleship involves a clear break with the past, a clear commitment to Jesus and his people.

The art of discipleship;
But that start is only the start.  Jesus says, "Baptise them and teach them to do everything I have told you." (Matt 28:20)  Teaching them to observe all.  Discipleship is not (repeat, not) about learning facts.  It is about learning to do what Jesus commanded.  It is about observing the commandments.  It is in other words, totally practical!  It's about living a life that says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit."  It's about turning the other cheek, feeding the hungry. It's about praying with faith, healing the sick, driving out the demons. It's about humility, compassion, faith, authority.

We have a story to tell. And the story is not all good!
If disciples make disciples, then how can I possibly make disciples?  Dare I reproduce in someone else the kind of discipleship I am living? Am I able to say to what Paul did: "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. "(1Co 11:1). The word imitator is a "mime-artist", a mimic.  It is used six times in the New Testament.  Paul says, "Mime what I am miming. Copy my exact actions in regard to the way you follow Jesus."

We have stories of confusion, let-down, failure. We have moments when we should have worshipped but we doubted.  When our culture, our tradition, our mindset, held us back. I guess to worship Jesus was a big step outside the Jewish comfort-zone for some of the disciples. And they would go on failing.  Despite these direct words of Jesus, Peter, James and John and Andrew took a long time to go to the nations...

Now, if making disciples is all about teaching people the Bible, then some of us are stuck because we don't know our Bibles that well, we aren't great with reading, with talking to others. But, if making disciples is all about how we live the Christian life, then all of us are stuck. Some of us just see the failures, stories of misunderstanding and unbelief.

But Jesus is not stuck because you are. 
He is not fazed by the mess you have made or the mess you are in.  He is looking toward the future not the past.  He is more interested in where you are going than in where you have been.  He is able to wrap all that up and use it, take care of it.... He is looking toward the future with you

He says, "All authority is given to me.  Therefore go ..."   Not because of where you have been but because of where Jesus has been; not because of who you are but because of who Jesus is....    He is in the position to say to us today "Go, make disciples..."  Because of who he is and because of where he has been he is in this unique, powerful springboard situation, where he is able to say, "All authority is given to me..."

Because of who he is and where he has been, he has the authority to commission and send us.  He has the right to send us and it is right that we say, "Yes" and go where he is leading us.

Because of who he is and where he has been, he has the understanding and authority to disciple us: his teaching is worth listening to; his example is worth following.

Because of who he is and where he has been, he has the authority to transform us, the power to make us different. And he says "I am with you, always..." 

And that makes a difference to us.  ...We have a story to tell.  It's an unfinished story of learning, seeing God at work, growing, failing and starting over.  It's an unfinished story of grace at work.

All of us have the potential to be involved in disciple-making.  We're on equal ground.  .... So climb the mountain with him....and hear his call today...."All authority is given to me. Go, make disciples of all nations... and look, I am with you..."


© Gilmour Lilly May 2012

James 5. 7-20

James insists that Real Faith gets to work and affects real-life issues like money, poverty, social justice, how we speak to each other, handling conflict, dealing with persecution...It's intensely practical, and apparently, not very religious... except that James doesn't recognize the difference between a "religious" part of life, and the other part.  And in fact, neither do we.  I mean, if Jesus isn't in charge of the "ordinary" bits of life, you can be pretty certain he's not really in charge of the religious bits either. Real faith radicalizes both "everyday life" and "religious life"!   Now he finishes off as he starts with his concern for survival in the faith. Real faith, that tugs and pushes how we relate to the real world, also impinges on how we "do religion..."

The Coming Kingdom ...
James speaks to the poor (the mainstay of the New Testament Church!) and says, "Be patient - hang in until Jesus comes back."  Our hope is beyond history. It is about when Jesus comes back to judge the world.  This is what we wait for. We are living in the anticipation of Jesus coming back.  (1Th 4:16f)  Then, all the challenges, and pains that we experience in this age, will be ended.  He is going to make a new heavens and a new earth (Rev 21. 1).  He is going to make everything new and there will be no place for the old order stuff: tears, death, mourning, crying, pain, (Rev 21:4) darkness; nothing unclean or accursed. Isn't that breathtaking? Isn't' that something to look forward to? There is life after this. It's going to be good! That's our hope!

Rainbow At MaraetaiBeach
New Zealand
Image in Public Domain

But that hope isn't just "pie in the sky when you die". It isn't just something to look forward to so that we can get through the trials of life in this world.  Rather, it is a solid hope for the future of the Kingdom - the reign of God - that releases us in anticipation of that coming Kingdom, to live in that Kingdom now.  While waiting for the final harvest, we are also waiting for the rains - that will make that harvest happen. In Israel there is "early rain" in October that softens the soil for sowing the seed; and "later rain" in April or May, which caused the grain to swell up before the harvest. Sending both the early and the late rain is the act of the God who keeps his promises. (Dt. 11. 14)  James brings it home very practically.  

He speaks to "Brothers" - as he does in every chapter of his letter. That sense of relatedness with each other because of our relationship with Jesus, is vital. The Church was never intended to be an institution with a constitution and a mission statement.  It was intended to be a community of people.  These things may help ensure that the community is safe and healthy. But they are not the church.  Under all that, are relationships. People who can call each other "brother."  As we wait for Jesus to come back, part of our discipleship must be calling one another "brother".
We need to be patient with irritating people, and we need to be steadfast in difficult circumstances as we wait for the coming of Jesus.
We need to be honest in all our dealings. Jesus isn't telling us we should refuse to take the oath in a court of law; he is saying we must be scrupulously honest in everything. Every "no" means "No" and every "Yes" means, "Yes"

The Present Kingdom ....
And as we wait for that day to come, James calls us to experience the Kingdom in three ways:

1. The possibility of real healing 
Those who are "Suffering" (v13): meaning generally having bad stuff happen in life, are to pray. (Those who are joyful are to sing praises!)  And those who are ill are to seek healing ministry.
The word "sick" implies something physically wrong that makes a person unable to work. What are poor people to do in that situation? Especially were there is no medicine - or where health services are too expensive for the poor?   The Church needs to rediscover its Jesus-like ministry in this area. There are mistakes to avoid:
(1) Making healing so important that we forget about Heaven and behave as though death was the worst thing that could happen to a Christian!  Death is the final healing!
(2) Making healing a nice thing for Christians to enjoy - when most of the healing Jesus did was in the context of mission.
However, here, James does talk about healing - in the context of what happens within the church community. How does it work?
Call the elders.  A time of illness can be an isolating experience. Don't go it alone; call the elders: formally appointed Church leaders, who because the sick person cannot go to Church, effectively take the Church to him or her. (By the way, God sometimes gives us words of guidance to get us to where we are needed; but we are not to presume. If you don't tell your church leaders you're ill, don't blame them for not knowing!
Anointing with oil: See Mk 6. 13.  "The healing work is done by God's Spirit, offered freely to man's need and appropriated by faith, but material aids may sometimes prepare the way." (Leslie Mitton)  anointing is done "In the name of Jesus" (which means "with the authority of Jesus,") and is accompanied by the prayer of faith.
Diversity in healing. The prayer of faith will save (literally, sozein); God will raise him up (wake from sleep, raise the dead, cause him to stand up); confess your sins and pray that you may be healed (doctored, cured). Physical health is closely linked with spiritual and emotional healing.
Body ministry in healing Confession and prayer is not merely a ministry of elders to members of the body (although they commissioned to minister in this way) but for everyone.

2. The power of believing prayer.
Elijah foretold the drought that was God's judgment on a people who went away from him, (I Kings 17. 1-2); and he saw the tiny cloud that said the rain would come again three years later. (I Kings 18. 42ff); he prayed the prophesied events into reality.   There is a principal there.  God prophesies and promises.  But we are called to pray.  

I find it impossible to conceive that James could have mentioned the early and late rains in verse 7, and then forgotten about them by verse 17!  As we look towards the future coming of the Kingdom, we need to pray for the present coming of the Kingdom, the early rain and the later rain.  As we look towards the Day of Pentecost and praise God for the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, it would be good to pray "Lord, renew your wonders, as of a new Pentecost".

3. The practice of disciple-making
Finally, James thinks of the ones who look as if they re not surviving and thriving, but drifting from the truth. So he finishes off by saying whoever sees someone heading into spiritual danger, and in love, without giving them a telling off, reaches out to bring them back to the where they should be, will save that soul from death and cover, hide from view a huge pile of sin. Isn't that a lovely, gracious thing to be doing?  That's discipleship. And it's for everyone.  James doesn't actually say, "Whoever does that". He says, "When one of you does it."

As we come to the end of our series on James, the call is for all of us to be one-to-one disciples. It is for all of us to be growing, taking responsibility for our own development as Christians; and for all of us to be taking responsibility for the care of one another.    Every disciple is meant to be making disciples, encouraging other people to grow.  That's part of the Kingdom, now.  It's part of discipleship. It's meant to be part of the everyday life of every Christian.

© Gilmour Lilly April 2012