Advent Hope

Luke 1. 68-79, Romans 8. 18-25
 
Let me tell you the back story to the wonderful piece of poetry we have just read.  It is a story that speaks to us – to the despair and pain in our personal circumstances and the terrible mess we see around us in our nation and in the nations of the world. The speaker was an old man called Zechariah, and the child (v. 76) was his eight-day-old  son, John.   Zechariah and his wife Elisabeth had tried for years to have a child, and had eventually given up.  Elisabeth's biological clock had passed the stage when she could expect to become pregnant, years before.  And then,  Zechariah had an encounter with an angel in the temple and was told he was going to become a father, in his old age – and the child would have a special job to do preparing for Messiah to come and sort out the mess that the nation was in.  Zechariah had hoped, and been crushed, so often that he didn't believe what the angel said – so was struck dumb, and could only watch as Elisabeth went through her pregnancy.  It was at the baby's circumcision that  Zechariah recovered his speech – and  out came this wonderful poem.
 
Zechariah knew, as he held this wee scrap of humanity in his arms, that God had not only visited him and Elisabeth and rescued them from the loneliness, shame, and insecurity of childlessness – but God had visited and redeemed his people from all the mess they were in.  Now, it hadn’t happened yet.   But enough had happened to assure  Zechariah that the job was as good as done... redemption was definitely on its way and nothing could stop it. 

Messiah wasn't even born yet – but Zechariah knew all about Mary’s pregnancy too, and was able to say “The Lord has raised up a horn of salvation -  a mighty saviour for us in the house of his servant David – and has shown his mercy” (mercy is chesedh – God's covenant-keeping love).

And Zechariah could see that John's task was to get people ready for Messiah by having their sins forgiven. He could see that Messiah's Kingdom was not just about politics but began with the mess inside.  And he just hints at the insight that Messiah's kingdom was going to be for all the nations who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.  

What an amazing thing, that this wee, old, disappointed and slightly cynical man, from a back water village, in small, occupied country could receive and articulate this hope!  

Hope is the big issue as we look towards this Christmas.  I know some of us have been through difficult and disappointing things in the past year: bereavement, illness, financial challenges.  And in our world, we see militant Islam and militant secularism squaring up to each other. There have been attacks in France, Kenya, Uganda, Lebanon. We see our country signing up to drop bombs on Syria.  We all get busy “doing Christmas” while food-banks do a roaring trade – and it's not all benefit scroungers.  A young army Lieutenant suffering from PTSD after action in Afghanistan, walked barefoot into a food-bank in Hillingdon.  A young couple had no heating, no money, and no food, when they were hit with a delay in benefits combined with Dad being off work with 'flu and getting no sick pay. A 21 year old student who has been in care so has no parents to fall back on, lost both her part time jobs; she's not got kids, so was not entitled to any benefits. It makes me feel a sense of despair.  This is Britain, 2015 years AD.  Anno Domini – in the year of our Lord.   What happened to this Kingdom?

And about 55 year AD, Paul writes to Christians  in the heart of the Roman Empire, in Rome itself.  Paul like  Zechariah was  a Jew, and  like  Zechariah his life had been turned around by a supernatural experience.  Paul had met with Jesus – which turned upside down, his assumption that Jesus was dead.  Paul's life-work from then on, was telling people about Jesus. The same words that  Zechariah uses – salvation, redemption – Paul also uses.  Messiah has come.  Messiah has brought the Kingdom.  Messiah has died to put us right with God – to bring us into the Kingdom.   But after Jesus, there was still disappointment, suffering, oppression.  There was still a Roman Empire.      Paul didn't always have it easy. The people he wrote to in Rome, didn't have it easy either: some as Jews struggled to fit into the pagan Roman culture.  And Rome was still the capital of an oppressive empire – and a city of inequalities, with the poorest living, or more accurately sleeping, in crowded tenements, and going out to street stalls to buy fast food.  Many tenements were shared by a number of families and had no space for luxuries like cooking.   So what has happened to this Kingdom?  

Paul says  “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us...”   there is more to come.  Paul's vision is bigger than Zechariah's.  He expects the Kingdom to impact the nations and the whole created order.   He talks about the whole of creation being messed up. It is, he says,  
 “subject to fulility” - a  universe not functioning as God created it to do. And I think of Wilfred Owen's war poem “Futility” which ends
     Was it for this the clay grew tall?
     —O what made fatuous sunbeams toil     To break earth's sleep at all?

• In “bondage to decay” – and decay could mean destruction, shipwreck, ruin, 
• groaning in shared agony right up too the present time.  

Right on Paul.  We recognise it.  That's our world. 

But Paul also talks about creation as “Waiting, craning its neck forward to see....”  to see what?  To see the same thing we are waiting and groaning to see.  Paul says creation is waiting for the sons of God to be revealed – to be unveiled in all their glory.  He says we groan for the final completion of our adoption and our redemption.

These things are already done for us in Christ – we are the sons of god, we are adopted in his family, we are redeemed which means rescued through he paying of a ransom.  Paul says

• There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (v. 1)
• The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free  (v. 2)
• All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (v. 14)

That has all happened but is hidden away, obscured by the futility, decay and groaning.   So where's the Kingdom?

Paul says we have the “First fruits of the Spirit” (v 23).  That's an idea from Jewish and Greek religion: the idea that the first fruits of the harvest belonged to God – and certainly for a Jew to bring the first-fruits to the Lord  meant that the rest of the harvest belonged to the Lord too.  So, the first fruits of the Spirit – the Holy Spirit's present activity in our lives, means that the rest of the harvest is coming.  

• The Spirit sets us free.  When he comes, he puts his authority and constraint, God's rule, God's Kingdom, within us, setting us free from the other law of sin and death.  That doesn’t make us perfect  but it means that change is a possibility for us and legalism is not the pathway to that change. 
• The Spirit assures us we are God's Sons.  He enables us to call out to God “Abba (Daddy) Father”.  Pete Greig, in “God on Mute” describes seeing a wee Arab boy with his Dad at a swing park in Israel.  The wee boy fell off the swing, gasped for breath for a second or two, and then wailed “Abba!”  The Spirit enables us to call God “Father” with that level of intimate affection and trust. 
• The Spirit helps us pray – when we don't know how best to pray the Spirit prays though us in groans too deep for words.

Because he has the Spirit at work in his life, Paul, like  Zechariah, is able to say “it is as good as done.”    The Holy Spirit is the coming Kingdom, in our lives, now.    

There's plenty in our world and in our own lives that could make us despair. We don't yet see the triumph of the Kingdom – the justice, the peace, the wholeness the freedom from bondage to decay.   It's the fact that we don’t see it, that makes it a hope.  But God's word says it will happen.   We live hopefully,  and patiently; and prayerfully, knowing that in all things God is at work for good; we know he has his plan, and we know we are part of it. 

The activity of the Holy Spirit in our lives, is the foretaste for the whole of creation, of the coming Kingdom. So we welcome the Holy Spirit, the transforming, encouraging, praying, empowering Spirit,  in our lives. We allow him to work through us, so that all of creation can begin to get a  glimpse of who God's sons are, what God's rule is like. We co-operate with the Spirit so that the whole of creation can taste, in us, something of the freedom of the coming Kingdom. 
© Gilmour Lilly December 1016

Loving relationships

1 Corinthians 13
Love is the one thing you can't be without. 
Everything else – good things that are valuable and even essential contributions to the life of any Church – are worthless, they are nothing, without love.  Tongues of men (eloquent preaching?) And tongues of angels (heavenly language), prophecy, wisdom, knowledge, faith, generosity to the poor and courageous self-sacrifice (Surrendering one's body to be burned).  These are all  examples of power, gifting, and courage; they are all needed.  But they are all pointless without love.

We have been looking at the “Quality Characteristics” of healthy churches: Empowering leadership; Gift based ministry; Passionate spirituality; Effective structures; Inspiring worship; Holistic small-groups; and Need-based mission.  I can see connexions between these and Paul's list in 1 Cor 13: tongues, prophecy, knowledge, generosity...  They all help make the Church  better. Without them, the love can be a squandered resource.  But without love, the other stuff is nothing. 

Without love, the other seven characteristics and all the gifts and gestures in the world,  are

worth nothing.  They are like a computer or tablet without an operating system.  It may be brand new, have the clearest screen, the crispest sound, the latest wi-fi, vast amounts of memory.  But when you switch it on, all you will get is a blue screen.  Yes, all the other technical bits will make the computer work better: a rubbishy screen and tinny speakers will mean nobody can appreciate the wonderful operating system.  But without the operating system, all you have is a big paperweight!  Without love, gifts, planning and sacrifice are worthless.  Without gifts, planning etc., love may be unfocussed. 

So what is love? 
Love is more than a word; it is more than a feeling.  And it is more than a bunch of gestures.  It is more even than simply generosity or self-sacrifice.   What is it?  It is an attitude,  a way of thinking as well as behaving towards other people. What do loving relationships look like?
Loving relationships are ones marked by

• Patience, (literally longsuffering, the willingness to “put up with” people's mistakes and slowness) and kindness,
• Generosity.  Love does not envy (it does not long for what belongs to someone else)
• Humility.  Love does not boast.  Love is not proud (gk means “puffed up” – a difficult word that paul sometimes uses,  with implications of being impossible to challenge or correct.)
• Decency. Love is not rude (behaving unseemly, e.g. sexually inappropriate behaviour.  Same word is used in 1 Cor 7. 36, about a young man “not behaving properly” towards his girlfriend.) Rudeness, isn't jumping the queue, but wandering hands, sexually inappropriate humour.  Love doesn't use people or objectify them sexually.
• Unselfishness. We don't insist on “my own way”  No need to explain: Paul sums that one up perfectly!
• Anger management.

  

  Image by G Lilly

  Love isn't quick to fly off the handle, nor does it keep a grudge going.  Some of us are fireworks: the least provocation and “boom!”  Some of us are like a garden bonfire, that smoulders quietly for days – or years.  And some of are like both: quick starters and slow burners!
• Joy.  Love doesn't feel pleased when someone does something wrong.  We do, sometimes; we say “thank you Lord I am not like that sinner” (Luke 18. 11) and maybe get a secret pleasure from putting them right. Love rejoices with the truth.  When people do well, achieve something, overcome a difficulty, we celebrate with them.
• Strength.  Love always protects.  Or Love bears all things. The  word is related to the word for the flat roof of a house.  Thick, solid enough to keep the rain out, tough enough to walk on.  S of S 2. 4 says “his banner over me is love”.  We need to put a banner, a blanket of secure, protective,  love over one another.
• Full of Faith and hope.  Love believes all things is not about believing the best of people, but about always having faith and being hopeful.  When someone comes to the church door telling me a “sob-story” and asking for money, does loving them mean I will believe their story?  No; loving them means I believe God can do something for them!  It is part of love, to bring faith and hope into our life together. 
• Perseverance.  Gods love never ceases.   And true love never stops loving.  That doesn't mean allowing abuse to happen.  But it does mean we love when we don't feel like loving.

So, those are the kind of relationships we should expect to see in a Healthy Church.  Strong, lasting, faith-filled, generous, tolerant and sensitive relationships. And relationships like that “Never cease.” 

Love is the Kingdom
Paul goes on to talk about various gifts – tongues, prophecy, knowledge – as things that are going to disappear – eventually!  When I was a kid, we were taught, wrongly, that tongues and prophecy would disappear when the bible was completed.  That's not what Paul means at all.  “When the perfect comes” means being fully grown up, the final climax of everything. 
All we do and experience in this life, is like childhood.  When we are in eternity, we will be grown up.  We will think and understand in a different way.  

Now, what we have of Christian experience and knowledge of God, even with the wonderful gift of Scripture, is like looking in a not very good mirror that is just a square of polished brass or silver.  (And they made mirrors like that in Corinth!)   One day, we will understand God, how creation happened,  how Jesus can be both God and man, who the Holy Spirit is; we will understand why God allows suffering.  We have that understanding, and lots more,  to look forward to!   

And when that day comes, there will still be faith, hope, and above all, love.  So loving relationships in the Church, make that Church a foretaste of heaven, right here on earth.  Loving relationships in the Church, mean that the Church is living today in the experience of the Kingdom of God: a church where there are  loving relationships, is one where “our God reigns!” 

© Gilmour Lilly 2015

Need-oriented Mission: Matthew 11. 1-6, 25-30

On one occasion, fairly early on in his ministry (John was still alive) Jesus was travelling in Samaria, and feeling weary, he sat down beside  a well while his mates went shopping.  It was midday, hot, and as Jesus sat, he saw a woman approaching, carrying a water jar.  I wonder what was going through his head? 

Maybe, just maybe, “Come to me all you who are tired and heavily laden.... and I will give you rest...”  We often use these verses in the context of caring for overworked disciples: "Jesus' yoke is ready and his burden is light," we tell people who are too busy, trying too hard and beating themselves up themselves up because they can't do all that they feel is expected of them. I've quoted these verses myself in exactly that situation. But the context of these words was clearly mission.

In Matthew 10, Jesus has sent the Twelve out – on mission trip, to preach, heal the sick, drive out the demons.  Did you ever wonder what Jesus was doing while the disciples were out on mission?   We imagine him taking a few days off. Spending a few days at his Mum's place, maybe playing a few rounds of golf?  But Matthew tells us what Jesus was doing.  Chapter 11 verse 1 says quite clearly,  that “After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee”.  While the 12 were on mission, Jesus was on mission too.

We are on a mission: Jesus has sent us out. And when we are on a mission, Jesus is on a mission too! That is good news because we can't do it on our own. Recognising the truth of the Kingdom, knowing who Jesus is, depends on God revealing truth.  (see v25-27)  We need Jesus to be with us.

So it seems that Jesus is saying “Come to me all who are weary and heavily loaded...” to everyone who is tired and overburdened.  He is saying it to people who don't know him.  He is inviting people to put their faith in him and know his rest: not so much “inactivity;” more relief, from the stresses they are under.   

West were the burdens that Jesus' hearers might be carrying?
Jewish legalism.  Jesus described the Pharisees with their legalistic religion as laying heavy burdens on people.   (See Mt 23. 4).
Greek intellectualism.  The big thing for the Greeks was “the search for truth.”  But the Gospel is not so much for he wise and learned as for the little children.   (v 25f)
Roman tyranny.  Matthew 5.41talks about “going the extra mile” and that relates to something that the Empire could do – and had done, going back to the days of the Persians hundreds of years before Jesus. They could press gang people at random for short spells of forced labour.  Remember they forced Simon of Cyrene to carry Jesus' Cross. (Mt 27. 32)

What are the burdens and heavy loads that people have today?  Let me tell you a story about a young refugee. His wife and son are still in his home country, and he is waiting for his asylum case to be decided. He attends a Christian group and is learning about Jesus; and he has started another Christian group in his own flat where he tells his friends what he is learning about Jesus. What is his burden?  What is the heavy load of someone who works on the food industry, has to work long hours on low wages, who can't complain for fear of losing his job: he knows his company gets its business by being the cheapest supplier. What is the heavy load of someone working at Amazon or Sky? What is the burden for a single mum or someone in an abusive relationship? For someone with an ageing parent or a disabled child?  For someone living in Kurdistan, in fear for his life and with no prospects of improvement? What is the heavy load for somebody bereaved in Paris or Garissa (Kenya)? What is the heavy load for a young person caught up in ISIL?  We need to see that, to understand what the burdens are in people’s lives and to start there in reaching out with the Good News.

But the solution to the world's burdens and problems is not political or economic or military. It is not enough to change the government our kill the terrorists. The Problem will always come back. The solution is spiritual. It's not the UN, or the EU or Westminster or Holyrood; it's the Kingdom of God.  The Church's message is not Come to Jeremy (Corbyn) or come to George (Osborn)  but “Come to Jesus”.  We need to establish on our minds the supremacy of Jesus and his sufficiency, the sufficiency and potency of his Kingdom to change lives, circumstances and cultures. The point about verse 27 is who Jesus is.  God the father has committed (literally “handed over”) everything to him.  The father and the Son know each other as a matter of course, because they are the same.  They are God.  Unless God reveals Jesus to us we are only his acquaintances. 

When we come to Jesus, he gives relief, and places his yoke on us, his way of living, his "law", his demands. But Jesus the carpenter places on us an easy, well-made yoke.  He calls us to be learners, or disciples.  The Syriac NT – an ancient language similar to the Aramaic Jesus spoke – says “Come to me and I will rest you; for I am restful and you shall find rest for yourselves.”

So if you are weary and burdened today, Jesus says “come to me and I will give you rest!”  And I want to invite you to put your trust in Him – the Son of God –  for everything. I want to promise that as you put his yoke on you, and become his disciple, his learner, you will find rest.

And for all of us, I want to suggest four processes or habits, four things we can do, to engage in need-oriented mission. 

Image: G Lilly

Practical compassion .  We meet people at their point of need.  
Prophetic challenge. We speak the word of God, not only into people's need of a saviour, but into people's and society's need to repent.
Prayer for our world and for and with people. 
Presenting the Good news – one-to-one graciously presenting people with the truth that God loves them, and that through Jesus' death and resurrection, change is a possibility, and with the opportunity to repent and believe the Good News. 

We can see these worked out in the ministry of Jesus.  His life was empowered by prayer: an ongoing conversation with the Father.  He was constantly ministering to people's practical needs – healing the sick, feeding the hungry; once when he had raised a wee girl from death and people were staring at what had happened, Jesus said “Give her something to eat.”  The practical needs...  HE often spoke with prophetic insight and incisiveness as he proclaimed the Good News. 
Matthew 11. 1-6, 25-30We see several of these habits at work when this woman came to the well and began to draw water (John 4) …  When she arrived,  what were her burdens?  She had a sense of shame and was looked down upon for her lifestyle.  That is why she was at the well in the heat of the day: when everyone else was resting in the shade she could get her water without being looked at and spat upon.  She needed to be accepted and treated as a human being. 

Jesus took practical, sacrificial steps to meet her deepest human needs.  Men treated her as a sex object, women treated her as a slut.  Jesus treated her with respect and dignity, even asked her for a drink.  She was surprised to be asked.  Jesus took her questions seriously and answered them. 

All the while he is presenting the truth about who he is and what he can do. “If you knew who

Image: G Lilly

it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.  The water I give  will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 

When the woman heard that she said, “I want this water!”  Then Jesus says the thin the woman has dreaded hearing:  “If you want this water, your husband needs to be in on this. Go and get him!”   The woman is squirming.  I don't have a husband.  And then the embarrassing question becomes a bombshell: “You bet you don't have a husband – you've had five and you're now living with a guy you're not married to.”   Tough words; but they are true: how did Jesus know?   The woman recognises that Jesus is a prophet.  She's intelligent; she's also desperate to change the subject, so the conversation touches on other questions: who's got the right way of worshipping, and the promised Messiah.  Then Jesus tells her “I am the Messiah!”   She is so excited she rushes off to bring her friends to Jesus. 

That's need-based mission at work. 

© Gilmour Lilly November 2015

Inspiring Worship

Introduction: (Allan) What are our reasons for coming to church? Is it out of habit ? Been doing it for years? Take a pew and go through the motions sing a few songs fall asleep halfway through the seven week up for communion single a few more songs then have a chat and a cuppa and a biscuit is that how it's supposed to be? No!

Of course that's not how it is supposed to be. But we don't start with habit, or going through the motions. We may end up like that; but I believe most of us start with a desire to respond to God and to be “inspired”! But things can go pear-shaped quite easily and we end up swapping that sense of expectancy for one of habit. So how can we keep this things healthy and vibrant?

A number of years ago when I was in Gloucester, someone visited our Church and, on her way out said to me “I really enjoyed my worship this morning!” Now, as you know, I am very polite, so I bit my tongue. But what I wanted to say was “Well, it's nice to get a compliment, but we weren't actually worshipping you!”

So the first question I want to ask about worship actually is “Who are we worshipping?” It's important that our worship is focussed on God, not on our own needs or preferences; not on the needs or preferences of any group within the Church; and not even on the needs or preferences of outsiders or “seekers”. It's for God. To quote Mike Pilavachi, it's “For The Audience of One.”

Let's hear God's word.... Deut 6. 4-5, 13-15

Lomond Hill, Fife. Image by G Lilly

In its original context God's people Israel were living in an environment where many gods were worshipped; and as the Lord had revealed Himself to them the idea had slowly dawned in their minds that their god was different: he was the only god they should worship because he was really the only god. When Deut 6. 4 says “The Lord our God is One...” that “One” is important. It's almost like a name for God. He is “The One.” he is “Unique”. His name is Yahweh – the Eternal One, the one who was and is and is to come, the one who uniquely says “I am who I am!” Our first key word then, is The Eternal.

But still for Israel – as we as for us today – there was the constant pressure and temptation to take our minds off the Lord and worship other gods. We may not go down on our hands and knees in front of our computer screens, but it's easy for other things to become idols.

And that asks us – as it should do – a question that goes to the very core of our being. It's about more than “Who is A Church service for?” The Church by the simple fact of worshipping God, fires off this question to the whole of our society: “Who or what do you worship?”

Matt Redman's song says, “I'm coming back to the the heart of worship... and it's all about you, Jesus!”

That brings me to another question: What is worship?

Let's hear God's word again: Romans 12. 1-2

Bread and wine. Image by G Lilly

Remember what we learned last week: The wine is not the bottle. The ESSENCE of worship is not about singing or preaching or raising our hands or kneeling down. That's just the bottle. The wine, the essential core of worship is this: surrendering our lives to God, because of what he has done for us in Christ. The words sacrifice, offer, holy and acceptable (in Romans 12. 1-2) are technical religious words. Literally the Greek means “Present your lives to God, as a living, holy and acceptable sacrifice.”

Worship is not just what happens in here at 11 a.m. it is about the whole of life. It is about our home life; it is about how we spend – and earn – our money; it is about our sexuality, about health, about relationships, about forgiveness, generosity, balancing work and rest. It's about everything. To be a worshipper means that in everything, I give myself to God; in everything I am not accepting conformity to the world but seeking to be transformed.

Present your bodies as a living sacrifice... And I believe that, if we could nail that, we would end the whole thing of “Worship wars” that has blighted the Western Church for decades.

So How do we worship? We look at the EXPRESSION of worship...

Let's hear God's Word: Revelation 4. 8-11; Revelation 5. 11-14.

That's a sneak preview of the worship of heaven – and it's pretty way out: it's vibrant, colourful, active, loud, thoughtful, truth-centred.

My Dictionary of bible themes lists the following as aspects of “worship” Adoration, Praise, prayer, asking, blessing, doxology, enquiring of God, lifting up hands, celebration, longing for god, waiting on God, magnifying God, meditation, remembering, study, thanksgiving... sacraments, singing, spiritual gifts. In these and maybe in ways we haven't even thought of we connect with and respond to Yahweh, to Jesus the lamb, to the present Holy Spirit.

There is a prayer – we used it last week – that says it is right that we should worship God “at all times and in all places.” We can worship here in Church – but we can worship in the street, in the park, in the café... And we worship, primarily because Jesus is worthy.

Why worship?

The effects of worship (according to my Dictionary of bible Themes) include: Blessing, Guidance, Joy, Sense of God's presence, Deeper sense of Jesus' Lordship. Boldness in witness: Conviction of sinners.

Let's hear what the Bible says: 2 Chron 5. 13f cf Acts 16. 25f;

That's pretty inspiring. If I were Paul or Silas, chained up in prison, after being whipped, I'm not sure I would feel like singing God's praises, but despite all they had been through, that's exactly what Paul and Silas were doing. When God's people connect with him in worship, somehow we release his power into our situations.

So, Inspiring worship? Do we worship to get inspired? No, we worship because Jesus is worthy, even if we are not. But in worship, in connecting with the Eternal God, and offering our lives to Him, something is going to happen to us, too. We can't worship god and not be changed.

As we worship, we connect with god; we become aware of our own sinfulness; we know God's power to clean us up and forgive us; and we are inspired to serve him in his world.

We finish with the story of how one man was changed and inspired as he connected with God.

Isa 6. 1-8

©Gilmour Lilly November 2015

Matthew 9. 14-17. Effective Structure

He lived in Capernaum, so Matthew (or Levi) who worked for the Romans as a  tax-collector, was a familiar figure. One day, as Jesus was walking past his office, he called him to “Follow me”.  Without a moment's hesitation, Matthew left his office and began to follow, and then threw a party, with Jesus as the guest of honour.  All the outcasts and dodgy types were there.  Jesus was criticised for the company he was keeping, but that was why he was there: for the outcasts, the broken; the people whose lives had fallen apart.  The Kingdom was party-time for those with broken lives, who were ready to make a fresh start.  

But there was another question fired at Jesus – maybe not immediately – but in time. John the Baptist's disciples, hearing about  what was happening, wanted to know why they and the Pharisees were fasting, while Jesus was partying.  Michael Green says “Typical religious people. They engage in all sorts of actions and ceremonies but have not the least idea why they do it.” 

Fasting had originally been something people did in moments of grief or desperation – turning from sin or urgent prayer. The Jewish religion had turned it into a religious exercise.  For them, fasting was just part of the Structure of their religious life.  It went along with going to the Synagogue, and celebrating the great festivals through the year.  It was part of the structure of their faith community.

We talked last week about Spirituality: the processes by which we know God and grow in him.  Structures are what the Church brings to the equation to shape our lives as Christians and our life together.  I suppose they are the “organised” bit in organised religion.  There are structures that exist to manage our life together:  meetings at set times and in familiar places. A news bulletin; rotas for making the tea; Leadership and other Teams, a bank account; Kids' work, house groups, plans for Christmas. It's all part of our “Structure”.

Jesus comes to this old structure of Judaism with a new thing called “The Kingdom of God”.  It's exciting. It's fresh and creative and a bit intoxicating; it's alive and growing.  The Kingdom is often likened to a wedding.  A huge celebration: bigger and better than Mathews big party for Jesus.

And some people thought, “Good!  The Messiah's Kingdom will keep our religion alive. He will make it stronger; we will get rid of the Romans, rule ourselves and maybe rule the world.”  

But Jesus doesn't agree.  That's why he tells these three parables. “You can't call a fast at a wedding banquet.  You can't patch old clothes with new cloth.  You can't store new wine in old wine-skins.”

1.  Fasting wasn’t appropriate when Jesus was there, doing the stuff that shows God's rule. There would be times for fasting – like when Jesus was taken away and put to death as Jesus hints in the parable.  There are still times to fast and times for celebration for the Church today.

2. Patching up the old.  Jesus says you can't use the Kingdom to patch up the old and threadbare structures of man-made religion.  Your old shirt has already been washed many times and shrunk as much as it is going to.  When it gets a hole you patch it with a bit of new cloth, put it in the wash and the new bit shrinks.  You are back where you started, with a hole in your shirt! 

3. New wine in old wine-skins. You can't hope to carry the vibrant reality of the Kingdom in the tired bottles of man-made religion.   New wine is still alive, still fermenting, releasing bubbles of CO2.  Wineskins were made from the skins

Public Domain image

of goats, that were cleaned, tanned, stitched and sealed. New made ones were stretchy but older ones lost that stretchiness. New, fresh, young wine needs new-made, brand-new wine-skins. The wine of the Kingdom is always fresh, young, growing, bubbling and fizzing.  It needs constantly to be put in inventive, new-made wine-skins.

The wine is not the bottle. That is so obvious that I almost missed it until I read what Howard Snyder, a Methodist scholar wrote way back in 1978, “Jesus distinguishes between something essential and primary (the Wine) and something secondary but also

Image by G Lilly

necessary and useful (the wine-skins)”1   The wine is not the bottle, just as the tree is not the plastic sleeve used to protect it when it's a young plant.  As it grows, it outgrows that structure.

That's what Jesus says about structures.  That and very little else.  As far as worship, he gave one instruction: break bread in remembrance of me. As far as leadership, he appointed twelve to be with him and then to be sent out. 

In Acts 1 we find the Church has latched on to … the number 12: the structure.   Then in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit came.  So now the Church had two things:  it had people and it had the Spirit. (An it had the Gospel, and very little else!)  And out of the people, the Spirit made this thing called “fellowship”: koinonia is the Greek word for it.  Snyder says “This is the only explanation for the early Christian community described in Acts. The creation of genuine fellowship is an integral part of the work of the Holy Spirit.”2   The first believers were together; they obviously communicated with each other because they knew about one another's needs.  Snyder says “Communion without communication would be a contradiction in terms.”3  And the Spirit kept moving amongst them.   Paul says"where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom" (2 Corinthians 3. 17).  And as the Spirit moved, the Church continued to reach its neighbours with the Gospel.  Together, communication, freedom, and mission, were the key words for the earliest Church's life, and their structures were simply there to enable these values. 

What Jesus, the Acts of the Apostles, and indeed the rest of the bible models, is a flexible approach.  The seven were appointed for practical caring ministry in Acts 6 because what they had – the 12 doing all the work – wasn’t' working.  But isn't it interesting, that when the structures embody these values, both in Acts 6 . 7 and in Acts 2. 47, the church's mission leaps forward. 

In the Old Testament, as the people journeyed through the desert, Jethro told Moses to appoint judges because what they had – Moses doing everything – wasn't working. 

Even the physical structure of the Tabernacle was designed to work – to be waterproof when it was up and portable when it was down.  The holiest thing in the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, the greatest symbol of God's presence with his people, was designed to be practical. Designed by God himself, overlaid with gold, but with rings and carrying poles built in so it could be carried. It's about structures that work.  The Bible teaches us effective structures.  The test of effective structures are togetherness, communication, freedom and mission.

My Dad's family were hoarders.  In the sixties they still had things like the family's ID cards and ration books.  I still have bits and pieces I have saved up from when I was a teenager. But my Mum wasn't a hoarder. When I was in second year at secondary school, we did woodwork.  I can't remember anything Mr McClymonts taught us about woodwork.  All I can remember is how he swore at my poor workmanship. Each of us made a box for putting shoe polish and brushes in.  Mine wasn't very good, but I eventually took it home and gave it to my Mum.  It was kept, with brushes and polish, under the sink, and I forgot about it until one day, in the 80's I was back home for a family funeral, and wanted to clean my black shoes.  I went looking for the polish box – and Mum had thrown it out when they had moved.  I was a bit put out at the time.  But you know what – she was right.  My joints were not that neatly chiselled out, they were made good with wood-filler, and the whole thing had been given coat of red paint to hide the defects. It was not the kind of thing she was going to put on the coffee table when visitors came round.

We can be hoarders in the way we deal with our structures.   We try to make the new cloth of the Kingdom patch up the old, threadbare structures.  We try to justify the existence of the old wine-skins by putting the kingdom into them.  Sometimes we need to just chuck them out. 

Sometimes we suffer from an obsession with structures.  We forget that the wine isn't the bottle: the tree isn't the plastic sleeve.  Church structures don't have a sort of divine seal of approval on them. Thirty or so years ago some groups of Christians were obsessed with “restoring Biblical structures to the Church.” The one of those groups published a magazine article that asked “Who's got the right Biblical Structure?” And the answer? “Nobody!”  We can be obsessed with new structures when we are thinking “new”. And we can become obsessed with structures when we are thinking “old”. 

It's the new wine of the Kingdom that matters.  We need to create structures that work for the Kingdom: new wine-skins.  Effective structures that bring us together, and enable communication, freedom, and mission. And that brings us back to where we started, with Jesus partying with Matthew the tax-collector and his friends.  The new wine is the generous, vibrant, living Kingdom. the Spirit in the Church, is the spirit of the Kingdom.  And the Kingdom is about the lost. Effective structures are not there to keep the saints in or the lost out.  They need to have doors and windows.  Effective structures let the Kingdom do what it wants, where it wants, where it's needed.


© Gilmour Lilly November 2015

Luke 7. 37-50. Passionate spirituality

“Spirituality” is an unfamiliar word.  It simply means the processes involved in maintaining our relationship with God and being transformed by that relationship.  It's about knowing God and growing as  a result.

Passionate spirituality, is not the only kind of spirituality:  There are a number of other less helpful kinds!  The Pharisee demonstrates polite spirituality.  He has invited Jesus round after the synagogue service, for food.  He wanted to hang out with Jesus, and you can't invite people round without giving them some food.  But you can't have a hot meal because that would involve working on the Sabbath.  So the meal would be cold meat, salads, fruit, with bread baked the previous day.  The guests would be given water to wash their hands – that was the law.  But no foot-washing, no ointment, no welcome kiss: that was luxury.  So it was polite enough.  It was enough to get by.  But it wasn't on fire.  It wasn't an expression of love.  It was  a matter of doing the minimum. 

Many of us have a polite spirituality today.  We are measured, unemotional, respectable, in how we maintain our relationship with god. He gets his bit of our time – an hour or so on a Sunday, read a few verses every day; a few coins in the offering.  Jesus looks beyond the few coins, or the many – to see what is going on in our hearts.  He is looking for the things we do to be the overflow of  heart of love for him. 

And the danger is that the next step down from a “polite” spirituality” is a “spirituality of Pretence”:  the kind of thing that Malachi mentions – where worshippers bring a sacrifice – but it's a lame or blemished animal.  It withholds the tithes – the tenths of flocks and harvest that the Old Testament law required of every family in the nation.  And it says “This whole temple thing is such a bore! How long is it going to go on for?”  And some of us have been there: we like everyone to think we are people who pray and read our bibles, but we can go for days or weeks without doing either apart from in Church on a Sunday.  We like everyone to think we are  giving generously to the Church – but we know how much we are really giving.  We like everyone to think we are committed to Jesus but inside, we are thinking “this is such a drag!” 

Some people have a spirituality of “Entitlement”.  What I call a “push-button spirituality”.  We do our bit for god.  We come to Church, we sing, we praise, we give.  Maybe we don't brag about what we do; we are quiet and discrete about it.  We don’t complain.  But we believe God owes us something.  We feel as if our prayer, our walk with God, our Sunday worship and service, entitles us to have our prayers answered. 
We have a push-button spirituality when we preach “repent and believe” without any expectation that a person's life will be changed by Jesus.  Now I believe in “repent and believe”.  But repent and believe is more than a legal transaction; it is  dynamic event that brings about a transformation. 
We have a push-button spirituality when we teach that somewhere, there's a key, a way of releasing faith, that will get all our prayers answered by God.  Now I know Jesus said “believe that you have received it and it shall be yours.”  But that's not a formula to get what I want in prayer.  It's a challenge to bring our desires, our asking, into the service of kingdom faith, not to bring kingdom faith into the service of our desires.
We have a push-button spirituality when we expect that following a particular pathway will bring results – blessing, answered prayer, growth.  God never provides us with buttons to push. He is a person not a machine.  He is looking for relationship, for passion.
The trouble with a “push-button spirituality” is that, if we are motivated by the results, rather than the love, then, when we stop getting the chocolate, we stop pushing the buttons.

Passionate Spirituality, is the greatest commandment, the spirituality God desires.  Jesus recognises that the woman “loves much”.  And Jesus says “The greatest commandment is 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” (Mt 22. 37-40, cf Lk 10. 27)  This goes right back to the Old testament, to Deuteronomy 6. 5.  Passionate Spirituality is what God has always wanted.  For us to love him... with everything.

Passionate Spirituality, is seen in the woman's generous, extravagant, emotional response to Jesus.  Her response is total.  She has gone beyond the idea of giving a wee bit back to Jesus.  She is giving everything.  Mark tells us the ointment was worth 300 denarii, and a denarius is a day's wages. That means it was worth a year’s salary for a full-time labourer.  That's a lot of money.  The woman is giving everything.  Once a widow threw two tiny copper coins into the temple treasury, among other people who were throwing huge bags of money in.  Jesus saw her.  Maybe she was embarrassed, but Jesus said her gifts was worth more than all the fat cheques because he knew that she had given all she had.

So, passionate Spirituality is extravagant.  It is about everything we have.  And in fact, as the woman came into the presence of Jesus, not only did she give everything. she had materially, but indeed even her reputation – or what was left of it – was in tatters.  What she did was extreme.  But the nature of passionate spirituality, is extreme.

Some of us have fearful, self-preservation, calculating hearts that are reluctant to give in terms of money, time, praise, appreciation, opportunities or forgiveness.   We need to restore the passion in our hearts that can be extravagant because we are in love.

Passionate Spirituality is about emotions, because it is about everything. There is love, there is gratitude, there is wonder, and shame and fear and relief, all rolled into one.  So she is in tears; she gets embarrassed, she mishandles the situation, and ends up letting her hair down to dry Jesus' feet after soaking them with her tears. 

We need to find place for our emotions in our walk with Jesus.  Too often our spirituality is about our minds and our words.  And yes, we need to understand: but we need to respond, and part of that response needs to be with the emotions that God has created us to have.  So, do we get excited when we read God's word?  Do the tears ever flow when we are worshipping God together or praying on or own?  Do we ever feel like shouting out with uninhibited joy at God's grace?  Let's not be afraid of emotion. 

Passionate Spirituality, is our response to God's love.  Jesus says the one who is forgiven much, loves much.  That doesn’t mean she was forgiven because of what she did for Jesus.  It means that what she did for Jesus, she did because she knew she was forgiven. Somewhere backstage of this encounter, was another meeting with Jesus.   Passionate spirituality comes from a heart that knows it is loved.  That is where Passionate Spirituality comes from. It isn't worked up through tear-jerker music. It is our response to revealed facts.  The fact that made the difference for the woman in the story was that Jesus had accepted and forgiven her, messed up as she was.  The Pharisee in the story hadn't got Spiritual passion, because he hadn't got the facts. It's not that he didn't need forgiven: with his sneering criticism of both the woman and Jesus, he was about as nasty a piece of work as any Jesus dealt with.  He just hadn’t realised his need.   A key theme in the story is “Who is this who even forgives sins?”  Listen: joy comes, gratitude comes, passionate spirituality is birthed, in knowing who Jesus is and how his love forgives our worst mess.    


And Passionate spirituality makes a difference. 
What the woman did in Luke 7 led to truth being discovered about Jesus.  “Who is this, who even forgives sins?”  Truth is revealed when we get passionate about Jesus. Matthew and Mark tell us that the anointing prepared Jesus.' body for burial.  In telling a similar story, John 12. 3 says “the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment”.  When we get passionate about Jesus, the fragrance can go a long way!

And for the woman herself, Jesus says “Your faith has saved you; go in peace”.  Passionate spirituality, when we respond to truth with everything – releases assurance of salvation and enables us to journey towards peace. 




© Gilmour Lilly October 2015

Gift-Based Ministry.

 Gift-Based Ministry.  Romans 12. 1-8; 1 Corinthians 12. 4-14; Ephesians 4. 4-13

Firstly, ministry simply means “Service”!  The word the NT uses mainly one word both for ministry and service.  Scholars will try to tell you that sometimes the word is used “in a technical sense” to refer to church officials, and at other times it means just “service”.  That may well be true, but it obscures the simple inescapable point that the same word is used for both – so in the Greek Bible, what church officials do and what ordinary people do, sound the same.  It's all ministry.  It's all service.   So maybe we should abolish “ministry” and simply have service instead.

Everyone has Ministry because everyone has gifts.  Did you notice in each of the three readings, that certain words crop up over and over again?
On of these words is “to each”

• to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. (Eph 4. 7)
• to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. (1 Cor 12. 7)
• We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. (Rom 12. 6)

Another common theme in each of the readings is “unity in the body”!   Check out

• Romans12. 5 “we, though many, form one body”
• 1 Corinthians 12  “we were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body”
• Ephesians 4. 4 “There is one body and one Spirit.”

Everyone has gifts – they are diverse, and different in their shape and size and colour and texture.  The NT uses different words for these gifts.  They are “grace-gifts”, favours from God, ; they are manifestations of the Spirit, signs of God's presence, ; and they are presents or payments.  So we can expect these gifts to work in different ways at different times.  

• Sometimes God will equip you for something because he is calling you to do it: maybe once only.  
• Sometimes God favours us with a gift to use over and over.  
• Sometimes we are given gifts that don't fit neatly into one of the categories of the NT.  You may not know what to call it but it's a favour from God and a manifestation of his presence when you use your gift.  
• Our gifts may be used in public worship, or in private service, inside or outside the Church.  

Everyone has gifts because everyone has grace.
Another word that crops up in each of our readings is “Grace”.  Gifts, how they are received and what they do in the lives of other people, is all about “Grace”.  Sometimes in Bible Churches we think we have the idea of “Grace” all summed up neatly: “God's Riches At Christ's Expense” and all that. But the danger is we have only begun to scratch the surface.  “God's redemptive Activity in Christian Experience” is a  bit more of a mouthful – but it gets nearer to the breadth and scope of what grace is about: god generously, freely at work in our lives, doing beautiful things, and making beauty out of our ashes, calling from us wonder, joy and gratitude.  Gifts are received from a generous, creative father, to make us generous, creative people. 

But there is something unique in each of the passages too.  Each one has a word for us today.
 
Reality check
In Romans 12. 3 Paul tells us not to think of ourselves too highly but to have sober judgement about our gifts:  literally “to think towards a sound mind”.  It's the same word that is used when Jesus drove the legion of demons out of the man in the caves in Mark 5, and then people found him “clothed and in his right mind”.   He was no longer screaming and self-harming; he was no longer naked and delusional. The demons were gone and his mental condition was healed. He was now in touch with reality for the first time in years.

In this business of gifts, then, we are to get in touch with reality. If you have gifts, use them.  The RSV helpfully supplies the words, although they aren't there in the Greek, the clear point about the list of gifts, is that we are to use exactly what we have been given.  Nothing less, nothing more.  If you are a teacher, then teach; if you are a server, then serve.  Use what you've got.  But be realistic: don't use what you haven't got.

That’s the way to emotionally healthy Christian service and to emotionally healthy Church.  The other kind of ministry, of service, where do what we're not gifted at, where we think outside of a sound mind, we get further and further awy from a sound mind, because the more committed we get to wrong thinking, the more delusional we become.  So whether it's the kind of person who says “Well, I have the gift of prophecy, so everyone ought to listen to me and nobody can ever tell me I'm wrong”; or whether it's the kind of thinkign that says “I'm indispensable, they can't manage without me, the show must go on so I ahvae to keep pushing myself;” we are thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought; we're thinking we are mori important and the stuff we aer doing is more important than it really is. We need to think ourselves towards reality. If we do what we are not gifted at, to fill in the gaps, to be like someone else whom we admire, to impress the congregation with how clever we are or how generous, or efficient or self-sacrificing, is not God's way.  It's not healthy. It's not the way that releases the Holy Spirit.  It's not the way that builds up the body.  Jesus says “my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

You are God's gift to the Church!
In Ephesians 4. 11f, the gifts are the people: Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.  Throughout history, we have assumed that these are “Special people” with a particular calling to ministry in the Church.  The AV put a load of commas in v 12 so it reads, “for the perfecting (equipping) of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying (building up) of the body of Christ.”   That implies that the special people build up the saints, do ministry and build up the body.

When I was a young Christian I was taught that one of these commas shouldn't be there: it should read “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.”  That implies that the special people equip the saints (for their ministry or service) and build up the body of Christ.  In fact there are no commas, or punctuation of any sort, in the original Greek text.  So maybe the special people are meant to equip the saints so the saints can all do works of ministry and all build up the body.

But – remember what I said at the beginning?  Everyone has a gift.  “To each one grace was given...  When Jesus rose he gave gifts to men: and his gifts were that some should be ...”
Apostle – creative, visionary, outward looking people
Prophet – who bring insight and challenge
Evangelists – persuasive, relational, cross-cultural
Pastor – caring, consolidating, relating
Teacher – understanding, presenting, and demonstrating the truth.
And that's it.  There's no mention of healing, tongues, administration, or giving aid. So what if – whatever other gifts we may have – everyone is meant to have one of these as the direction of travel in our service for God.  That would mean that every one of us is God's gift to the Church – and the purpose is net-mending and body-building.  “To equip of the saints” is the same word that is used in Mark 1. 19, where the fishermen were getting their nets in working order. I love the idea that we can all play our part in net-mending – as the church is equipped to reach out – and body-building.

Let the Spirit work through you.
In 1 Corinthians 12. 7-11, Paul reminds us over and over that the source of all the gifts, is the Holy Spirit.  It doesn't matter what it is – whether it's playing an instrument you learned at School or praying in a  language you have never learned – whether we use our hands to apply a bandage or impart God's blessing – we look to the Holy Spirit to come through in what we do.  Walking with God, rooting our service in our spirituality, and moving in the costly, and powerful flow of the Holy Spirit, co-operating with him in what he wants to do through us, is a far better option than being busy for God, trying to impress him or others with our dedication or our cleverness. It's a far better option than trying harder and hander to squeeze more out of ourselves.  The flesh is a hard taskmaster.  But Jesus gives us his Spirit and says “my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

And so one of the qualities of a healthy Church is “Gift-based service for Jesus”.  We are realistic about what we can and cannot do.  We do what we are led to do by the Holy Spirit.  And as we are humble and realistic about what God has called us to do, we discover that we are each God's gift to the Church and we are each able to play our part in net-mending and body-building.

© Gilmour Lilly October  2015

Luke 5. 1-11 Empowering Leadership

So as the crowd milled around trying to listen to this young preacher and healer,  there they were, washing the seaweed and silt out of their nets, after a bad night when they had caught nothing.  And the preacher climbed into one of their boats and asked the owner, Simon, to put out a bit into the water.  The routines of life were interrupted,  grumpy fishermen for some reason did as they were asked... A boat makes a  great pulpit and still water carries sound, so it was an excellent solution to the problem that only the front few rows could hear. Whether they liked it or not Simon, Andrew, James and John were suddenly involved in what the young preacher was doing.  

The young preacher had a plan and a sense of purpose and direction: he knew what he wanted wanted to achieve.  And he got other people involved.

Then the young preacher, Yeshua ben Yousef, when he had finished teaching the people, told the fishermen “Go out a bit further, into the deep water and do some fishing”.  It was daytime, not the time for fishing. Daytime fishing needed different nets from the ones they had been using at night. It was getting hotter, the men were tired. And they have this young preacher ordering them about.  Simon argues: “Master (Governor!  But in fact it was the gentile Luke's way of translating “Rabbi!”) we didn't catch anything all night. But because you say so...”)

The young preacher pushed the fishermen.  He stretched them.  Floating about in the shallows, using their boat as a pulpit, was OK. It was doable.  It was comfortable.  But daytime fishing after a useless night, that was hard work.  It was going to look daft (and there was a crowd looking on).  It was an act of faith. It was out of the comfort-zone. And it worked.  As they did the crazy, unthinkable, counter-intuitive thing, they made this amazing catch of fish.  Simon and Andrew had to get James and John to come and help.

Simon's reaction was to say “Lord (“kyrie” – the Greed word used to translate the Old Testament “Yahweh” –  the name of God himself) you should leave, because I'm a sinful man. Suddenly he realised two truths:
(1) who he was dealing with.  He was beginning to come to terms with the fact that this man was God incarnate. 
(2) his own moral failure and utter unworthiness to have anything to do with this young preacher who has such authority.

The young preacher, Yeshua, Jesus, is Lord!  He is God the Son.  In what he has done and called the fishermen to do, he has revealed to them the truth about who he is and about their own weakness. 

In coaching and development, there is often a sticking point: the person being developed suddenly feels that the growing is too much to handle; they are never going to make it; there is a sense of inadequacy and cost.  Simon is at that sticking point when he suggests it's time for Jesus to leave – but Jesus responds by saying, “Don't be afraid -  from now on you will fish for people.”  Jesus isn't interested in experiments or experiences.  He is interested in transformation.  He would not have achieved much in the lives of the four fishermen, if they simply had “experimented” with working for Jesus, if they simply had this amazing experience – “Wow – what a wonderful catch of fish”.  Jesus was into life-transformation. 

That's what discipleship is all about.  It is life-transformation.  It involves participation: it involves getting out of our comfort zone.  It involves participating in the things God is doing.  It involves revelation.  It involves transformation. 

So the four of them pulled their boats up on the shore, and walk away with Jesus.  Others could take the boats out and fish.  They were pitching in with Jesus.  Full commitment, following Jesus, participation in his big project, going outside of their comfort-zones, learning to exercise a stretching, at-the-limits kind of faith.  We can call that discipleship. 

What Jesus had done in this first encounter, this initial call of Simon and Andrew, James and John, was set the tone for the rest of their journey together.  His leadership is empowering leadership.  Or to put it another way, it is about discipleship.   And Jesus called his disciples to make disciples.  That is a call to leadership.  It is a call to empowering leadership – for the disciples to exercise the same kind of empowering leadership that Jesus himself exercised.

“Empowering leadership” is one of the Characteristics of a Healthy Church.  It is one of the things, the first thing actually, which needs to be there for the Church to be healthy, catching the wind of the Spirit and bearing fruit.   A healthy Church is one with a culture of discipleship. 

So what do we mean by empowering leadership?

It is more than simply management.   Peter Drucker, the father of the scientific study of management once said, Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. Management is about keeping the risks down, using the resources well, laying down the rules, understanding and controlling the processes so that everything runs smoothly.  Management will delegate and harness people's abilities.  When Jesus got into the boat, he was managing the situation.  Later on, when he was going to feed the five thousand, he told the disciples to sit everyone down in groups of fifty of a hundred – he was managing. We need management.  It's a start – but it's not enough. 

Empowering leadership, like all leadership, sees the future, it has a sense of vision and purpose. And it knows what are the right things to do to get to that future.

Empowering leadership is about everyone being involved. It starts with a simple call to perform a simple task.  “No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it” says Andrew Carnegie.   But if all Jesus had done was delegate – involving the fishermen by having them row their wee boat out a bit – it wouldn't have been empowering leadership.

Empowering leadership is about challenge and invitation. Empowering leadership will stretch people.  It is not simply about harnessing what people can do easily, in order to get the job done.  It is about enabling people to discover new gifts, to exercise more faith and to see God at work.

Empowering leadership is about revelation. It is about enabling people to see God at work, not just as they hear wonderful testimonies and stories.  One of the outcomes of Empowering leadership – of disciple-making – is that we see God at work, in and through our lives, and we have a sense of humble inadequacy as a result.

Empowering leadership is about transformation. It nurtures and prepares people to take responsibility.  It's about growth, not just in knowledge but in experience and ability and character. 
Empowering leadership understands that such transformation is not just a matter of learning ideas and concepts.  It is about putting these into practise.  So the empowering leader needs to be living the life of the Kingdom himself or herself, putting it into practise.  We cannot lead people where we are not prepared to tread. 

That’s a challenge to those who lead – to exercise “empowering Leadership”. To make disciples who can make disciples.  That challenges us at the level of intentionality – because discipleship, empowering leadership, won't happen on its own.  It challenges our integrity – because we can only lead by example. And it challenges our skills.

It's a challenge to our Church life: we need a culture of discipleship.
 People are not “grunts” to get the job done.  They are not a workforce to keep the Church running.    They are disciples who are learning how to make disciples. 

And it's a challenge to each one of us to and put ourselves in the place of being disciples – ready to be transformed! To develop the art of “follower-ship”. And as we are discipled, to be disciples who can make disciples.

© Gilmour Lilly October  2015

Revelation 3: “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”

 Recap: we are beginning to study the characteristics of a “healthy Church”, and after Harvest we will look at those eight signs of health: Empowering leadership, Gift- based ministry, Passionate spirituality, Effective structures, Inspiring worship, Holistic small groups, Need- oriented  mission, and Loving relationship.  We have learned that Jesus., the risen and victorious Lord, cares for his Church: the Church is nothing without him and he expresses his life through his Church.  We've l;earned about the importance of holiness, perseverance and love.   In chapter two the same themes keep coming up, but each of the three churches in chapter three is quite distinctive: the good , the  bad and the ugly.  I'll let you figure out which one was which.

Sardis was a city whose glory lay in the past: it had been the capital of Lydia and a centre of Persian government. Now it was a quiet backwater, but a nice backwater. It's people live in the relative luxury.  And the Church in Sardis seemed, outwardly, to be quite lively and active. It was known for its good works. Everyone said what a great lively church there was at Sardis. It was busy with the externals of religious activity.   But inside, the reality was, it was dead. There was no real spiritual life or power.  I was "not infused with the life-giving Holy Spirit" (G E Ladd)  Maybe the Church's glory, too, lay in the past.     So what does the church which is all image and no substance, which looks alive but is dead, need to do?

Firstly, wake up.  Douglas quoted Bob Dylan last week – “You gotta serve somebody.”  This week's Bob Dylan quote (from the same album) is “When you gonna wake up?” "Awake" means "be watching".   Sardis had never been taken in a frontal attack, but twice had been taken by stealth because its defenders were not vigilant.  Church, as we enter our “healthy Church” journey, we want to be paying attention, not to our own judgements or even the opinions of others.  We need to be hearing from Jesus.  “Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.”  

Remember and Repent, do the things yo did at first.   Jesus calls the church back to its earlies experience of love and devotion.  Churches, mission agencies, charities and even businesses and government agencies can go through  a recognised “Bell curve” – beginning with a God-given vision, a truth discovered, a great idea, slowly building momentum and strength, learning how to do things – developing and growing, until the growth slows, the movement plateaus out and eventually begins to decline, slowly first, then rapidly.  The way to halt decline is to rediscover the vision, the deposit of truth, the guiding principles (not the way of doing things – that will always be changing) that were present at the start of the movement.   We need to return to the original vision.

"I will come like a thief" the Lord will bring upon a lethargic church an unexpected experience which will mean a divine judgement.  He knows our names. He knows the names, the identities of those who have not become dirtied and dead.  So as individuals, we are the Church.  We can either be part of life or of death for our Church.  We can settle down to enjoy life in our nice backwater – but that's death. We can complacently tell ourselves that our Church is doing OK – but that's death.  We can do what needs to be done to make our church look okay – but that's death.   Or we can strengthen the life of the Spirit within us – through repentance, prayer and the word, and faith

Philadelphia was the youngest of the seven cities.  Problems included Jewish persecution and the pagan cult of Dionysius. The church was small and weak, with limited influence, But the Lord was pleased with its  good works.

Jesus is “Holy and true.  "True" in Greek designates reality , but in Hebrew designates trustworthiness. Jesus is the trustworthy steward who has the  key of David.  In Isaiah 22. 15-22. the guy in charge of “David's house” – that is, the royal palace – was a steward called Shebna,  but he was using the royal resources for himself (getting his own tomb cut in the royal garden!)  so the Lord says that another official called Eliakim will take over that responsibility and have the keys of David. And that is one of those double-meaning prophecies that looks forward to the messianic kingdom, and to Jesus.

And Jesus who has these keys says to the Church in Philadelphia, “I have set before you an open door that no man can shut.”  What does that mean?

The Jews (as in Smyrna Jews in race and name only, not in heart) claimed that only the Jews could enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  But Jesus is telling the Church that HE has these keys – the Messianic Kingdom comes though what Jesus. does. He uses them to open the door to the Kingdom, for believers.  

Jesus has the keys to the Kingdom – not just the keys to heaven but the keys to the “Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven”.  These keys are not just about who gets to seven.  They are about who experiences the power and authority of the reign of God in and through their own lives.  We have an open door into the kingdom, the rule of God. And as we go through that open door into the kingdom we go through open doors of opportunity.  People often jump to the conclusion that the “open door” is about opportunity for the Gospel (as in 1 Cor 16. 9, Col 4. 3)  But that door opens to us the door to the Kingdom opens to us.  When we begin to enter in and explore the authority and power of the Kingdom, we begin to discover our opportunities!  The Lord promised that the Jews (as in Smyrna Jews in race and name only, not in heart) will bow down in respect to the Church.   We have an open door to the Kingdom and thus an open door of opportunity among the hardest opposition to the Gospel.

Jesus has the keys of the Kingdom, and he gives them to his people.  I think, that sometimes, we are like people who have lost their keys!

Laodicea was a commercial center, famous for black woollen cloth, medical school, and eye salve.  It is likely that church members were full participants in this affluent society, and that their affluence had exercised a deadly influence on the spiritual life of the church.  As a result, there is nothing the Lord can commend in this church.  As  a community, and as individuals, they are “neither hot nor cold”: they were characterized neither by coldness to the Gospel or hostility to faith , nor by zeal or fervour. they were simply indifferent nominal complacent.

But despite that, they thought they were doing just fine.  "I am rich, I have prospered" literally "I am rich, I have gotten riches" so the church was not only boasting of her supposed spiritual well-being, but boasting that she had acquired wealth by her own efforts. 

How do we sort that out?   What does “repentance” look like of the Church in that state.  Jesus comes to his Church and says “Guys, I have a word of advice for you – you need  to start trading with me, with Jesus instead of trading with the world.”  (Verse  18).  The verse is almost a quote from Isaiah 55 v 1 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.  Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy?  Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.” We are wearing ourselves out, trying to be keep ourselves going, to pay our way and reach our community in our own strength.  We need t trade with Jesus – and he will give us what we need without money and without price: not for free but as we give our lives to him. 

Jesus says “I stand at the door and knock – who's going to let me in?”  The scary thing is that he isn't saying that to pagans, he's saying it to the Church. Like a heavenly door-to-door salesman, Jesus. is knocking our door.  HE has clothes for our nakedness, ointment for our blinded eyes, free of charge.  All he wants is his place at the table, as we share a meal as a symbol of affection,of confidence,and of intimacy.  Who will let him in?

© Gilmour Lilly September  2015