What is marriage without loyalty

 

I was never there the day that she said these words, but there is no dispute, my Grandmother would have said these words. She would have spoken them years before World War Two. She did speak them in love and in meaning. And she stood by them:

I, Mary Gladys Wilton, take you, William David Beals to be my husband,
to have and to hold from this day forward;    
for better, for worse,    
for richer, for poorer,    
in sickness and in health,        
to love and to cherish,
till death us do part,     
according to God’s holy law.  
In the presence of God I make this vow.

I know that these were her words due to her strong Anglican faith. Grandad, Bill Beals, became an Anglican in order to marry Gran. They would have two children before he went off to war in Europe; he was both recognised for distinguished services and injured. The turmoil of the war was real for him, but in amongst his worst times, he would send postcards back home speaking of his deep love and his longing to have Mary back in his arms. As soon as he did, two more children were born, the youngest being my Dad William Jeffery Beals.

Grandad carried a Gideon’s Bible throughout the war and also came back a stronger Christian. Gran and Grandad stuck by their vows – war did not part them; just as they promised, it was death that parted them in the 1980s when Grandad passed.

Marriage is a covenant relationship between two people. Being a covenant relationship, even in Biblical times, means and meant it is a legally binding relationship. Being a covenant relationship means that there are promises by both parties. Being a legally binding relationship, a covenant relationship also comes with consequences should one party fail to engage in their obligations. Being a covenant relationship, such a relationship comes with expectations of faithfulness, loyalty and commitment.

The relationship between Israel and God was a covenant relationship. In Exodus 23, we see Israel entering into the “I do” moment. The ceremony is given to us completely.

When Moses went and told the people all the LORD's words and laws, they responded with one voice, "Everything the LORD has said we will do." Moses then wrote down everything the LORD had said. He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the LORD. Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, "We will do everything the LORD has said; we will obey." Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, "This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words."  (Exo 24:3-8)

 God’s promise to the nation of Israel was clear:

Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (Exo 19:5-6)

When Israel entered into a covenant with God, a marriage with God, they committed themselves to living the way God had instructed them. The blessings of this Covenant were real; Deuteronomy 28 confirms these blessings. But the consequences were also real should Israel choose not to follow their part of the deal. Covenant first and foremost is about relationship – both parties have to work. And being a covenant relationship, God promised to be faithful to Israel, should Israel be faithful, loyal and committed to God.

Those of us who are married, will also confirm that when one party feels that the loyalty and commitment to the marriage is one way, then it can lead to arguments which, at times, exposes the truth about just who is committed, who is faithful and who is truly loyal.

And Malachi is very much just that – an argument between the two covenant parties – God, the father, and his people, Israel the nation. It goes backwards and forwards six times. Each time God makes a statement, I have loved you, but you despise me, you have turned against me and your wives and so on. Each time, Israel argues back often with an accusatory ‘how’ and then God comes in with the punchline truth which knocks Israel to its knees.

We are up to the third argument. The one that is centred on the relationship between Israel and God – the covenant relationship

Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us?

Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?

Judah has been unfaithful. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the LORD loves by marrying women who worship a foreign god.

As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the LORD remove him from the tents of Jacob—even though he brings an offering to the LORD Almighty.

Another thing you do: You flood the LORD's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands.

You ask, "Why?"

 It is because the LORD is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.

Has not the one God made you?

You belong to him in body and spirit.

And what does the one God seek?

Godly offspring.

So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. "The man who hates and divorces his wife," says the LORD, the God of Israel, "does violence to the one he should protect," says the LORD Almighty.

So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful. (Mal 2:10-16)

Malachi 2:10-16 really comes down to the crutch of the argument. In this covenant relationship, just who is living up to their commitments. The reality is Israel isn’t. They are being disloyal on three fronts:

They are being disloyal to their God

They are being disloyal to each other

They are being disloyal to their wives.

This is disloyalty on all levels – spiritually, socially, and personally. Three levels of relationship and on each level, there is nothing but disloyalty. And this is deep. We are not just talking one covenant. The reality is, God had been entering into covenants of promise since Adam and Eve. The first documented covenant was with Noah, the second with Abraham, the next with Moses and another with David. Each covenant built upon the previous, bringing more life to it.

And God is saying to his people – you have been disloyal to all the promises your ancestors entered into and in this you have been disloyal each other and disloyal to me. The reality was, the people of Judah, the people who had returned from exile had entered into marriages outside of Israel. God was not calling them to an ethnic purity, but to a spiritual one. We see time and time again in the Bible though the books of Judges, Samual and Kings, that every time the people of Israel married into the religions of the world, they would be swayed by those religions.

And it is easy to see why, it is even evident today in the covenant of the cross, the God of Israel, the God of the Christians, is not a lukewarm God. The blessings that come with this God, come at a cost. The Gods of the nations that surrounded Israel were Gods that promised power and wealth.

Today, we are surrounded by the secular Gods of money, power and success. To marry into this while following a God that actually requires sacrifice – love first your God and love your neighbour as yourself can come across to others as a very weak God especially as the blessings associated with our God are not blessings of wealth and power. Blessings of success, yes, but every fifty years, there would be a reset – no one would ever find themselves in a position in which they could lord it over others.

This disloyalty, Malachi shows, went deep, not only was it a disloyalty of God and others. This disloyalty ran deep – it ran into the households of Israel – men were being disloyal to their wives.

A marriage is real – it is a covenant that mirrors the covenant of God’s relationship with Israel. If you ever want to see the reality of covenant, relationship, faithfulness and loyalty, it is in a marriage.

The vows of a marriage are sacred and meaningful. I started this sermon with the traditional vows my Grandmother gave in an Anglican church to my Grandfather.

I, Mary Gladys Wilton, take you, William David Beals to be my husband,
to have and to hold from this day forward;    
for better, for worse,    
for richer, for poorer,    
in sickness and in health,        
to love and to cherish,
till death us do part,     
according to God’s holy law.  
In the presence of God I make this vow.

According to the Anglican Church, these vows represent the following aspects of covenant relationship:

1.    They offer timeless guidance through life’s biggest shift. They give a snapshot into a deep enduring commitment that can feel so overwhelming in the moment.

2.   Their simplicity speaks louder than over-explaining. They get to the point.

3.  They root the ceremony is in a shared faith. You can’t speak these words without standing in the same faith.

4.   They remind couples what commitment really means. No matter what happens, I commit to you; and

5.    They resonate across generations. Even when personalised, we commit to these promises.

So, God through Malachi is able to actively push the point – you have not lived up to your part of the deal. You want all the blessing but what have you given in return. I have lived up to my promise. I have loved you, but you have doubted and despised my love. I have lived up to my promise and saved you when the going got rough, and what did you give me in return, you have given me a wonky box of sacrifices – all the things that you wouldn’t even give to the beggars on the street. I have been faithful to you, but you have been disloyal to me, your neighbours and even your wives.

It is hard-hitting. Thank God we have a new covenant. A covenant that replaces the ones of old, a covenant of grace and mercy. A covenant won at the cross.

Thank God, this makes living so much more easier because God’s grace and mercy are always at the door; all we have to do to enter into a covenant with Jesus is to confess his name and ask for forgiveness.

If Malachi was here today, he would be so pleased to see truly covenant people. Wouldn’t he?

Sorry church, if Malachi was here today, his message may change but the principles would still be there. We have entered into a covenant relationship. Like the covenants of old, this new covenant builds on those of the ancestors of Israel. Actually, it doesn’t just build upon them, it fulfils them and gives them substance and life.

He would remind us that such a relationship, is two-way first and then overflows to our relationships with each other and in our families.

He would point out that there is real evidence that we are completely unfaithful to God everyday we leave the church doors and blend into the world around us. The world is right when it points out to hypocrisy:

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today     
Is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips             
Then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle.        
That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable. (Brennan Manning)

He would point out that the Covenant of the cross is based on a concept of forgiveness:

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Mat 6:14-15)

But within churches, even our own, the festering sin of unforgiveness is real. The reality is, if you do not forgive, or if you sort of forgive but not really forgive, or if you pretty much forgive, but refuse to seek restoration, or if you forgive with conditions – your Father will not forgive your sins.

It’s as simple as that.

I also think Malachi will point out God’s despair at the watering down of the gospel. We have sold the world a religion of promise and prosperity, we have sold Jesus as a self-help therapy tool. We have watered Jesus and the gospel down.

While the message of the cross is good news and brings blessing. The message of the cross is one of repentance and a call to deeply know and be in relationship with God. When we are in right relationship with God, we can then be in right relationship with each-other.

And then I hear Malachi whispering in my ear: tell them about Paul, tell them what to look for. You see, the message of Malachi was for a community, a community that relationship of unfaithfulness and disloyalty manifested from God, down to each other and into each home. Israel had become corrupt there were no right relationship.

Fiona, tell them about Paul, tell them what to look for. Tell them there is something to work for – tell them. Okay Malachi.

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. (Gal 5:19-26)

Paul is echoing Malachi – to live in wrong relationship with God, each other and our own families is to live in hatred, discord, jealousy, envy. But to live in right relationship is to push into Christ in our covenant relationship and strive, yes strive, because our salvation has to be worked out – we have to walk each day closer to Christ. We are to strive to have within our relationship with God, each other and in our own homes – love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control.

Church, my challenge, to each of us is to strive to encourage each other to be fruitful in our spiritual walk with each other.

Church, let us be loyal, let us be committed, let us be faithful to God, to each other and to our families.

The Most Crippling Personality Disorder

 

One of the most important lessons I got from my time at Bible College, was a little hint as to how to read the Bible. Well, to be honest there were lots of hints, but this one little hint helped me focus on the core themes of the Bible instead finding myself down the wormhole of tricky one-off scriptures such as Elhanan, son of Jarre-oregim killing Goliath in 2 Sam 21:19 not David.

What was this hint?

It’s simple.

If you want to find what the key messages of passages, books, letters, psalms then look to the repetition. Us humans are created beings and sometimes the father has to drum something into us so that we truly understand it. So he repeats the message again and again so that it becomes the royal rule.

And, if you haven’t picked it up already, there are three to five words that are repeated throughout the Bible. In fact, you will find them mentioned 10 times, six of these times in the gospels.

The first mention is in the law of Moses:

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:18)

The second mention is in the gospels:

To love God with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. (Mark 12:33)

It is later mentioned by the apostle Paul, in two letters Romans and Galatians:

For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "Love your neighbour as yourself."(Galatians 5:14)

Finally it is mentioned by James:

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbour as yourself," you are doing right. (James 2:8)

It is in these verses that we get a hint of what the most crippling personality disorder is. The one thing that can be wrong with some of us that simply stops these laws in their tracts. And a simple truth – you can only understand the love of God for you and you can only truly, in full intention, love your neighbour if you love yourself. The most crippling personality disorder is the inability to love oneself, to trust oneself, to know where you stand as a child of God – to know you are loved and accepted.

So today, you are going to have a very different kind of sermon, well message, from me. Not a deep theological reading of scripture but something more real because I for one was a person who was crippled by this personality disorder. And I should know because out of all of us, I went through a period of my life in which I had to be diagnosed as either having a personality disorder or not.

So, today’s message is a personal one – because I know that there are people in this room that would struggle today with right relationships because they too have been crippled by this disorder. I know personally how difficult it is to be in right relationships with others when you struggle to love yourself and I know personally how difficult it is to be in right relationship with God without experiencing love yourself and being able to rest in it without feeling you ‘truly’ and I mean TRULY in capitals loving yourself.

So, let’s start with a letter. This letter was written 20 years ago. It came from the Capital and Coast Health Personality Psychotherapy Service. It was written to the Lower Hutt Community Mental Health Team. The Lower Hutt service had referred a client to the Personality Disorder specialists after a major suicide attempt which led to the Crisis Team noting that the patient appeared to exhibit symptoms of ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder’. A serious permanent personality condition which means an individual fails to form healthy relationships because of an obsession with self and their self-importance. The letter itself is a lot longer, but these sections give you a picture of what was happening.

Dear Psychiatrist in Charge

Fiona was referred to our service for a second opinion on diagnosis and ideas on treatment that may be suitable.

Fiona’s reports about the deterioration in her well-being were consistent with information provided by others involved in her health care.

Fiona clearly meets the DSM-IV criteria for PTSD and also Major Depressive Disorder secondary to the PTSD when her coping resources are overwhelmed … It is more useful from a treatment perspective to view Fiona’s problems as the result of personality vulnerabilities that have developed as a consequence of childhood abuse, rather than symptoms of a diagnosable Personality Disorder.

She has also developed a number of (at times contradictory) beliefs about the world and herself that have survival value in the past but are now hampering aspects of her recovery. The letter goes on …

Now I told you that this was going to be deeply personal. There are very few of us who have had to go through a formal diagnosis to be confirmed to not have a personality disorder but rather the reality of living in a state of contradiction and self-doubt. Very early in the journey with this team, they pointed this our directly to me – you have an amazing husband, you have the most supportive church, you have loving friends, you are incredibly successful in your study – yet you don’t believe in yourself, you think your husband will leave you, your church and friends will reject you and that you were born to fail. Can’t you see the contradiction?

A few years later, when I was going for a senior leadership position. I was given feedback by the interview panel and my manager – didn’t I realise that I had the position, the panel believed in me, but in the way that I finished the interview (I just said one sentence that sowed a seed of doubt) I had sabotaged my changes. My manager said to me – Fiona there is so much promise on your life but it is like you want to live a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure – you sabotage opportunities in such a way that you can say to yourself – told you I am a failure.

This most crippling personality disorder looks like this – the person who seems to fulfil a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. They or even you, seem to be finally stepping out of the hole, but then they, or you, make an excuse to not make the final step. And then they, or you, refuse to own this decision as that a decision to ‘break free’ but as just another reason why the world is against them.

And there is some self-centredness here, the self-loaving victim is often thinking about themselves and why life is no better, not realising that it is in their refusal to step out of hole and make that pro-active decision to live life differently.

But we need to show some grace here, as we go to the next point of this message, because, what causes this most crippling personality disorder? We have to realise that it is not caused by the person themselves. If you suffer this, you did not cause it. It is a result of the fallen sinful nature of humankind and a massive break in all cultures. It is because our own world and the many cultures within it, set the conditions up for self-loaving through shame.

It's all through the Bible – not as something spoken into but as something culturally evident. Let’s look at one place – the parable of the prodigal son. In Luke 15. It is simple story of a son who takes his heritage while his father is alive and uses it all up living a party life-style. The son finds himself in the gutter, sleeping and sharing food with pigs. In Jewish culture this is the ultimate shame as pigs are unclean. And then he comes to his senses in verse 17:

But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants."' And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry.

(Luk 15:17-23)

The parable of the prodigal son teaches us a lot about shame. But the key aspects are this:

1) Shame is a condition often put on whole families when someone fails to meet accepted cultural norms

2) Shame can become a spoilt soil in which all other generations experience shaming

3) Children who are raised in the spoilt soil of shame will often fail to love themselves.

The prodigal son’s actions should have placed him directly into a condition of shame. His father breaks that cycle before it set in. But there is no way that the community would have naturally accepted his son back if his father had not have done this. In reality, the son after sleeping and eating with pigs would always be an outcast unless someone stopped the shaming.

But that is Jewish culture Fiona, shame is not a big thing in New Zealand Fiona. Okay there are aspects of shame in Māori culture Fiona, but in the wider cultural norms of New Zealand Fiona – there is no shaming – right? No Wrong.

There is no place more evident when a cloak of shame has been placed than in suburbs like Wainuiomata. We know this suburb has grown in waves, with one of the largest growth spurts being in the 1960s. New Zealand was a different place at this time. There were enough jobs for at least one person in each family to work, most of this time it was the fathers. So all men could work – you could be asked the question – what do you do for work and not experience the twist of shame if you don’t have an answer.

Those of you with memories back then will remember the Wainuiomata, Seaview, Gracefield and Petone were production suburbs. There were factories galore and generations could work in the same factory. We have a magazine at home from General Motors, which was where Petone Mitre 10 Mega is today – one article celebrates three generations working in the factory. Another see a man retiring after 50 years of service to General Motors, the departing gift was a gold watch.

The great oil shock of the 1970s and the economic reforms of the 1980s changed New Zealand permanently. The factories closed down particularly when NZ made goods could be replaced with cheaper products bought from the brand new chain store – the Warehouse.

So what has shame got to do with it?

Well, in the 1960s, if you lost a job your unemployment benefit would enable you to live until you got another job, Social Welfare was there to honour your role as a father needing to bring in an income. In the 1980s and 1990s, the unemployment benefit was reduced drastically, so that people were desperate for jobs. There were no jobs, and what popped up in the Social Welfare offices was walls of shame – little tickets of the few jobs around which you had to be first to select to even have a chance. My Uncle Harry was one of those men, and each day he returned home from Social Welfare without a job, each day he was made to feel a little bit more worthless.

By the 1990s, the unemployed had to demonstrate that they were actively looking for work. I was one of those, having to knock on doors and get signatures from potential employers to show that at least I had asked and could remain on a benefit.

The point is, in a single decade, Wainuiomata went from a community in which every home had a breadwinner, to a community in which unemployment was high. The reality was – there were no jobs. And the conditions of receiving a benefit meant many men had to go through a process of being shamed. When this happens to hard working people they resort in one of two ways – with their fists or with depression. The soil of shame has been laid and in this condition, children are raised in shame and struggle to feel love, learn to love and love themselves.

It's an extreme example. But it is a very real example. And I encourage you all to think and to pray into this. We have ways of shaming people which have generational effects.

In my own context, my self-loaving may be blamed on abuse. But I go deeper than that – my mother returned to Westport in the 1980s. The first thing she did  when she went home was to take me to church where the victor told her publicly to leave because she was a divorcee and brought shame on her family. He called her a harlot.

And this makes me think of the Samaritan people and the Samaritan woman; a people shamed by the Jews because of their race – they were the half-castes of the Jewish society – half Jewish and half Assyrian. A woman with five husbands who obviously struggled to love herself. And it makes me think of Mary Magdalen, another harlot, a real prostitute – women who are shamed. And those of you who have been to Calcutta know this, prostitution is a real and raw choice of desperation. But once shamed, the seeds of self-hate are sown in the children and their children.

Self-hate and self-loaving are real and they are a result of growing in a soil of shame. And the reality is we have too much of this soil in our society today. There is so much shaming happening of those who are already low. The worst thing is that it is happening first at our highest institution, our government and then it flows into the dark shaming soil of social media. The shaming that happens is real in New Zealand and we as God’s people can shine a light on this.

So, how do we address the conditions that lay the foundations of self-hate? How do we even step out of the position of being unable to love oneself?

It is simple, look to the father of the prodigal son. The father knew what he should do. Culturally, he raised his sons well. His son had plenty of time to repent and come home before sleeping and eating with pigs. His son would have known that this simple action would bring an element of shame on his father. His father knew that as a good Jewish father, he should demonstrate publicly his disappointment in his son. And his son knew it too “I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants”.

His father knew that as a good Jewish father, he should say to his son – well you made your bed of shame and you should sleep in it. You are no longer my son, but you can stay on as a hired servant. Your children will not be by children. For now on your older brother is my beloved. This is why the older brother was so angry – dad was not doing what he should be doing and shaming his brother.

But his father was bigger than that – it was not about what he should do; it was about what he would do. He would rise above the expectations of his society, he would rise about the expectations and he would be a father first and foremost. He would choose to act in love.

So, for us as a church are we prepared to be would people. Would we choose to act in love, rather than the following the shoulds of our society are we prepared to break apart the soil of shame with the hoe of Christian love.

It is harder than we think – but as soon as you start a sentence – people should …. And finish with the need for consequences. Think of the father of the prodigal son. He parked the should and chose to do an action of would in love.

Because this very action, may be the action that causes a person living in conditions which feed their self-hatred and loaving to see themselves in a different way – because you chose to see them first. You chose not to see them as a object of consequence but as human being created in the image of God.

And what about that person, what about you? Those of you who feel like you could never really be loved. What about those of you who have grown up in shamed environments.

Well, it is simple. You need to break the chains here. No one can do it for you. Actually, the reality is, many may have even tried – but right at the moment, the moment where you knew that things would permanently change. The moment you knew deep inside that as soon as you made that step you would no longer a victim, a loser a no-hoper, you felt an immense fear. Because you have never known a different life – being a overcomer, a winner and a person who has hope – you don’t know what that looks like. It terrifies you.

Well it is time to break that chain once and for all and come out of the hole. It happened to me 20 years ago. And it has been a journey. It has been terrifying yes, there have been moments when I have wanted to be a victim of self-hate again. But then I look to the hills and I see what I have achieved with Christ Jesus by my side and I realise that the greatest Father did not what he should but what he could for me. He sent his son to die for me – he did the greatest would out of love for me and I realise that:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Rom 8:1) and

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. (2Co 5:17)

The most crippling personality disorder was created in a garden of shame, and can be overcome by stepping out of your hole, realising the love of the father and walking as a new creation.

But this has to be an action that you take. It has to be a public declaration that you make. Because from that point on, you will be walking into the unknown. You will no longer feel the same of condemnation but the royal cloak of protection God has around you as a new creation.

Where's your Tūrangawaewae?

There is an old truth that our language deeply affirms our cultural values. The words we use, and the words from which we find meaning, come from our cultural surroundings and our aspirations as a culture. For example, we can find within the English language an appreciation for the literal meanings of words. When English is spoken, words have clearly defined meanings; in the main, they do not symbolise deeper more abstract concepts. In English, we can also find a real complexity, so that while our words must mean what we say they mean, we can, just as I am now attempting to do, say things in such a way that we confuse those listening and they simply don’t know what we have been saying.

But we are privileged here in Aotearoa New Zealand in that we are not confined to words which spring from the dominant Germanic Languages of the Northern hemisphere. We have two other official languages, one of which is more symbolic and rich in meaning and application. This is the language of the Tangata Whenua – te reo Maori. And within te reo, we find words that can help give meaning to the scriptures in ways that English can’t. You see, te reo, like Hebrew, is a symbolic and figurative language. While the words can describe what can be seen in a moment, words also call upon deeper concepts that are way more spiritual in nature. These words can give us a sense of who we are in the moment and in relationship with God.

One such word is tūrangawaewae. In English, it means a space to place your feet upon. But this should not be understood in the literal sense. To say I have tūrangawaewae now does not mean that I have a stage upon which I can stand and speak. To have tūrangawaewae is when you have a deep and embedded foundation for your own identity. It is the space in which you feel empowered and, essentially, at home in yourself. To have a strong tūrangawaewae is to have a core to yourself and your being that is so steadfast that no adversity, no adventure or even opportunity will shake you from this foundation. 

And there is one thing about David and his rise to kingship in the Bible. David is a man who had tūrangawaewae. He knew that his identity and every aspect of his being were rooted in God. He knew it to such an extent that he held fast to it. He saw no reason to press ahead of God; he saw no reason to give up. He knew who he was and he knew where he stood. 

And, the question is, do we really know ourselves? Do we really have a strong sense of our tūrangawaewae? When life hits us with adventures, do we see these as affirming the glory and grace of our God? When life hits us with adversities, do we see these as affirming our need for God and his mercy? When life hits us with opportunities, do we see these as moments in time in which we can allow our God to show himself in our lives and our world?

By the time we get to Chapter 26 of 1 Samuel, we find a man who is so rooted in God, that he can trust God without reservation. His tūrangawaewae is so deeply found within his God that he cannot help but focus on the light, when others look to the shadows of missed opportunity. 

This concept of David being so rooted in God that he could trust God whether it was opportunity or adversity is key to Chapter 26. After all, the chapter, in itself, seems to strangely echo another chapter. It is as if we are being told the story twice. And, it could be that we are. But most likely, whether the story is a repeat or not – the point to be made is not historical. The point to be made refers to the character of David and how he stood strong in, and with, God – even in times of opportunity.

We will read Chapter 26 from The Voice translation:

Then the Ziphites went to Saul at Gibeah and told him David was hiding on the heights of Hachilah ... Saul again gathered 3,000 seasoned Israelite soldiers, and he went down to the wilderness of Ziph to find David. They camped by the road on the hill of Hachilah … but David and his men were hidden in the wilderness. When he learned that Saul was coming after him, David sent out some spies who discovered Saul was certainly at it again. Then David went to Saul’s camp and found where Saul slept, as well as Abner … general of the army, surrounded by their men. David looked over the situation and spoke to … Abishai.

David: Who will follow me into the center of Saul’s camp?

Abishai: I’m right there with you.

So David and Abishai snuck into the encampment under the cover of darkness, and at last they found Saul sleeping in the middle of the camp, his spear stuck into the ground near his head, with Abner and the other soldiers lying around him asleep.

Abishai (to David): This is your chance! God has placed your enemy at your mercy. Let me take his spear and pin him to the ground. I only need one try.

David: No. Don’t kill him. Who can legitimately strike the Eternal’s anointed king without consequences? As the Eternal One lives, his time will come. The Eternal will strike him down; either he will die, or he will go into battle one day and be slain. God forbid that I would be the one to harm the Eternal’s anointed king. But please, take his spear next to his head and that water jug, and let’s go.

 So David took the spear and the water jug from right beside Saul’s head and crept back through the camp. No one saw or knew they were there. No one woke up because the Eternal had caused the entire camp to fall into a deep sleep. David went up a hill, standing a safe distance away. Then he shouted to Abner and the army.

David: Abner! Can you hear me?

Abner: Who hails the king’s camp?

David: What kind of man are you? Is anyone your equal in all Israel? So why haven’t you done a better job guarding your lord and master, the anointed king? After all, one of the people who crept into your camp tonight could have murdered your lord. This is not a good thing that you have done, because you failed to protect your lord, the anointed of the Eternal. As the Eternal One lives, you deserve to die. Where is his spear? Where is the water jug that was at his head?

Saul recognized David’s voice.

Saul: Is that you, David my son?

David: Yes, you are hearing my voice, my lord, my king. Why does my lord continue to chase his servant? What have I done? Am I guilty of something?  Now then, may my lord the king hear the words of his servant: If the Eternal has stirred you to try and kill me, may He be appeased by an offering. Now I ask you, don’t kill me here, so far from the Eternal’s presence. The king of Israel and his army have come after a single flea, as one goes to hunt a partridge in the mountains.

Saul: David! I was remiss. Come back, my son. I will never try to hurt you again because today you treated my life as precious and preserved it. I have been a fool and made a big mistake.

-------

Here’s a story that echoes Chapter 24. David has a change to kill Saul. In Chapter 24, it was at a moment of real possibility – Saul goes to the toilet in a cave where David is hiding and instead of killing him, David takes a piece of his robe. Now in Chapter 26, David has another chance in the dead of the night. Again, instead of killing Saul he takes his weapon and water. In both instances, he demonstrates that Saul’s life was in his hands. However, he also recognised that both their lives were in God’s hands and it was God’s divine authority to take life or give life. Both are stories of opportunity, but to those with David at the time, both are stories of missed opportunity.

I believe this is why we find two similar stories. These stories do demonstrate moments of opportunity for David. But he doesn’t take it. And part of me knows that many of us, even I, are often grabbing opportunities left, right and centre. It is like we see every opportunity as an opportunity from God. 

And when we walk this sort of walk, we are like a dandelion seed blowing in the wind. We bounce around everywhere, finally stopping when we become trapped in some soil, rocks or rubbish. We fail to learn this important lesson. Just because it’s an opportunity, doesn’t mean that it comes from God. And if our tūrangawaewae is firmly implanted in God in the first place, the Spirit of God which dwells within all believers would raise a check. We would be more discerning and only take the opportunities which allow God to reveal himself.

And having his identity strongly implanted in God would keep both David’s heart and actions in check. David would have known, yes this is an opportunity, but he would also know that to take matters into his own hands would be a deep sin against God. You see when we jump ahead and seize opportunities because we know that the outcomes will be inherently good for us, or even just inherently good for our family or even God, we are sinning. This is because we dethrone God in our lives. When we seize an opportunity, not given by God, we are sending God a very real message. We are telling him that he has got things wrong. We are telling him that we know better. We are telling him that he doesn’t know how to do his job. We are essentially telling him that we are better than him. 

And in this instance, we are not a floating daffodil seed with no real sense of tūrangawaewae. We do have a sense of tūrangawaewae, our identity is firmly planted in ourselves and our own desires – stuff God and stuff everything else. And in this instance, we may feel that our foundations are firm. We think we are planted in ‘rich’ soil. But in reality, this soil is full of corruption, sin, death and darkness. We are poisoning ourselves in this position with sin upon sin. Our lives on the outside may seem positive in that we are opportunity takers not breakers. But the foundation for our lives poisons our being. 

David is not a floating daffodil seed, nor is he planted in the poisoned soil of his own desires. David stands firm in his God and his identity in God. He knows that taking the opportunity now would destabilise his foundations. He knows that to seize God’s promise in his timing, not God’s, would break his relationship with God. And he knew that the promises given to him by Samuel, Jonathan and even Saul himself, were promises from God. He had to be in relationship with God for that promise to come through. To break that relationship would effectively make the promise null and void.

In a sense, David knew that he had to have faith in the promise-giver. And in a sense, he knew what it was to have faith. A Christian theologian with a fantastic name Elton Trueblood said:

 ‘Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation’. 

I think that this definition is true and is well suited to David. You see, many of us fall into the trap of finding proofs to justify our faith or God’s calling for our lives.  For each belief we have, we search for evidence. ‘If you really mean for me to do this God, then you will give me a sign.’

If David was embedded in a faith fed by evidence, he would see every opportunity as proof that God was with him. And he most probably would have also seized the opportunity. After all, it can be concluded that if God really wanted David to be king, then God would provide an opportunity for David to take the kingship. He would provide proof through opportunity. But David didn’t believe in God, because God could prove himself. David just trusted God without reservation. This meant that David had to trust God right to the point of kingship. If God really wanted him to be king, then David would simply trust in God that this would occur. He wouldn’t push God for proof and he wouldn’t seize the opportunity. He would focus on keeping his foundation, his tūrangawaewae, strong.

And this must have been hard, in both Chapters 24 and 26, we hear that David had others with him. He had friends and colleagues. In both situations, he would be encouraged – seize the moment, take the opportunity. Carpe Diem!! After all, surely God has given the opportunity? In both situations, David’s sense of tūrangawaewae is so strong that he knows that he doesn’t have to push ahead into his future. He can stand firm in the present, because he is standing with God.

But what did David see when his foundation was with God? What did he see that his companions didn’t.  Mathematician Blaise Pascal once said: 

‘In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t’ 

David’s foundations in God meant that he could see God in the situation. Even if he was having difficulty, he would be able to pick up his harp and worship with God.  He knew just how strongly God was there and he kept himself grounded in this truth. He could see the light. But his companions focused on the shadows. Even if those shadows were opportunities, they would speak into them. They would encourage David, ‘here is your moment to take matters into your own hands. Why trust in the light, focus on the shadows present, on Saul laying on the floor who is out to kill you (and just might); focus on him and you will have success in future leadership.’

And I think that shadow watching is a problem that continues today in our Christian walk. There are times that we look at the shadows in our own situation and we let the shadows blind us from the light. But there are also times that we speak the shadows into the lives of others. There are times when we may encourage others to seize an opportunity out of God’s timing. Our meaning in this is good and sometimes we think we are speaking for God. But we are not on that person’s journey and it may be that God wants to really show that the outcomes have been achieved only through his fulfilment in all completeness rather than the actions and abilities of any single person. 

And this is what it comes down to – to have an established tūrangawaewae in God is to know that your identity is with him to such a point that you want to glorify him in all that you do. To have an established tūrangawaewae in God, is to know that if God has placed a promise on your life, God’s challenge to you, is to allow God to fulfil the promise so that in the end, all you can say is … the only reason why I stand here today in this promise is because of my God. With my God, I know I have tūrangawaewae, I have a place to stand, I have an identity – but most of all I have him.

When it comes to the story of David, as I wrote this sermon, God continuously reminded me of one person in our church family who has had a similar journey. I know that part of the reason why this person’s name would come to my mind again and again was that I was one of those ‘shadow talkers’. I felt that this person could have come to God’s promise a lot quicker if they took some simple shortcuts. I now know that there was a reason for this person’s journey. They have ONLY achieved what they have today because they allowed God to glorify and reveal himself.

You know Church, life is hard. But being human is harder. We often look for the shortcuts, the way out of our times of struggle. When we look down, we look at our feet and we think about how tired we are. But let each of us look inside ourselves and take the David step. When we look down at our feet, let’s re-focus to look at where our feet are planted. Let each of us think of the cross and plant our feet firmly into the space it has created for each of us to have a relationship with God.

Submission re Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill

As an academic, I could have written a long and well referenced submission. I chose here to submit from the heart and my convictions. So the submission is shorter, in plain English, and to the point.

Submission re Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill

Tēnē koutou Select Committee,

My name is Fiona Beals. My family descends from:

* One of two convict ships which came to New Zealand (Pankhurst boys) (the Beals family

* Fencibles sent to protect Auckland from invading Māori who would not give up their land (the Kelly family

* The Wakefield settlement of Wellington, and the first Treaty grievance filed with Queen Victoria (the Wilton, Hayward and Blade family)

* Lost records due to closed adoption.

I call on the Committee to make sense and not progress this bill any further. Moreover, I call on the Government of New Zealand to relook at the issues that are allowed to drive elections. It is not appropriate that youth crime is repeatedly used as an issue to drive votes. This Bill ensures that we have a system in place which will effectively damage children (particularly Māori and Pacific). Instead, there needs to be an increased focus on addressing inequity and disadvantage from birth so that crime is not seen as a option to achieve success in life.

There is no international evidence that military style inventions work. In fact, the evidence points out that for a small number of young people a military style intervention might work (Campbell Systematic Review of Evaluative Studies), but for most this type of intervention damages and effectively makes better criminals.

Policies in New Zealand should be developed from evidence, not emotions and this is very much an example of a policy promised by a Government in an election driven by emotive issues.

This policy also effectively puts into law the ability to abuse our most vulnerable population. Approving the use of force is not appropriate at a time in which the Government is in the middle of apologising and redressing the damage down by State and Faith institutions to children (many of these children are now adults in gangs and in prison). I call on this Committee to join the dots …

I ask this Committee to effectively look at the causes of youth crime (not the response). As a country, we should be committed to ensuring that the causes of youth crime are eliminated – poverty, child abuse, institutional racism, generational dependence on the State, an education system which is geared towards pathways into academia rather than vocational trades (ie our compulsory schools focus in on academic subjects not subjects that involve the hands which alienate whole groups of children) are all areas that the State should first focus on.

What this effectively means is that the Government should first look at Child Welfare; not Youth Justice.

Finally, as stated, I call on the Government to review the issues that are allowed to drive elections. As a country, we should not have issues that drive division or arose emotive and reactive responses as issues that  can be campaigned on.

Thank you, Ngā mihi

Fiona Beals

Submission Re Treaty Principles Bill

 As an academic, I could have written a long and well referenced submission. I chose here to submit from the heart and my convictions. So the submission is shorter, in plain English, and to the point.

Submission re Treaty Principles Bill

Tēnē koutou Select Committee,

My name is Fiona Beals. My family descends from:

* One of two convict ships which came to New Zealand (Pankhurst boys) (the Beals family)

* Fencibles sent to protect Auckland from invading Māori who would not give up their land (the Kelly family)

* The Wakefield settlement of Wellington, and the first Treaty grievance filed with Queen Victoria (the Wilton, Hayward and Blade family)

* Lost records due to closed adoption.

I call on the Committee to make sense and not progress this bill any further. Moreover, I call on the Government of New Zealand to relook at the issues that are allowed to drive elections. It is not appropriate that a minor party be given so much power when a major party is seeking to form Government. Coalitions should be built on consensus, not compromise. The only reason this bill is even before this Select Committee is because of ‘compromise’ and a minor party seeing the righting of history as an offence.

This Bill effectively white-washes history and implies that The Treaty (no matter what translation) was something promised to both indigenous people and settlers. This is not the case. There is not one settler statement in the document. Nor is there a settler signature. It was a sovereign and divine promise of the Sovereign of England to the indigenous people which guaranteed rights, resources and protection to the indigenous people should they allow this country to become part of then English Empire.

What offends the Act Party now is that, since the 1970s, respective Governments from both sides of the house have worked to redress a very real fact. This fact is that the settlers and the settlers’ governments since 1840 have not respected the Treaty – land was stolen, wars were fought, laws were put in place to ensure that settlers had an upper hand.

The Bill would make sense, if everyone had the same start and opportunities (equality). The reality of our history is that Māori people are represented highly in negative statistics and are less likely to experience the same outcomes of Pakeha. We need policies that enable equity rather than assume that a false equality exists.

This Bill does nothing for Māori – the original signatories; it would not have been signed in 1840 if these principles were on the table.

Finally, as stated, I call on the Government to review the issues that are allowed to drive elections. As a country, we should not have issues that drive division as issues that  can be campaigned on (this includes youth crime as well as race-based issues). This does not stop policies being developed but it does stop elections being governed by headlines and emotions and limits the ability of minor parties being the tail that wags the dog.

Ngā mihi

Fiona Beals

 

Breaking Out of the Performance Box

 

There is something dangerous that happens when the strange becomes the familiar. When the strange becomes familiar, it is easy to think that answers are so simple, that messages are commonsense and that we know what something means before we hear it; because, we just do.  Anyone that questions that logic, who can point out a contradiction in the original message and how we live now, is just not with the programme.

The Sermon on the Mount would be close to 2000 years old. It has been reflected on and spoken about for 2000 years. That’s a long time and it is long enough for the strangeness that would have been in the atmosphere of the first hearers, to become logical commonsense now.

After all, we know that the poor are blessed because the Kingdom of heaven is theirs, it is just commonsense that we are salt and if we lose our saltiness we are worthless, every Christian knows that Jesus fulfilled the law, we know that anger towards someone would be subject to the same judgement as the sin of murder and we know the dangers of sharing oaths.  

All of this is familiar isn’t it – it is not a strange message. And as a result, the learning for us is really an affirmation, isn’t it? Even if the affirmation is the ongoing challenge.

But, there is a danger in that, that danger is that we fail to see what the message was challenging the original hearers to do and what the message is challenging ourselves to do today. We become spiritually blind to the message of the scriptures even if sermons and commentaries are so on point. Our blindness is what Jesus is speaking into throughout the gospels – “He who has ears, let him hear”. “He who has ears, let him hear.” Are our ears open enough for us to see the truth in the challenge?

Because there is a real danger, a danger to our own salvation because the Sermon on the Mount was not just a message of wisdom bringing sense to the Torah, the Laws of Moses, it was a call to a whole new way of life. And, in order to see this, we need to make the familiar strange again so that the blinkers covering our own eyes are removed. Because if we acknowledge that the Sermon on the Mount is close to 2000 years old, we have to admit are not living this whole new life.  The challenge continues today.

So, I want to ask you? Do you find the Sermon on the Mount strange in that it is challenging you to see your whole walk with God differently? Do you find the Sermon on the Mount, strange in that it is telling you that what you see as normal is completely abnormal in the eyes of God?

Have you found the last few weeks challenging it that you have been encouraged to see the Father, the Law and the way we treat others differently?

if we all go on living like we live now – we risk something. We risk walking a hypocrite life – a life where our faith is a performance not a way that is focused on bringing the reality of God’s Kingdom to this earth.

Now before we jump into the scriptures, I just want to provide a little bit more context into why I am suggesting that we need to make the words of Jesus strange to us again in order to see our own blindness to his message.

I have a background in an academic field called sociology. In short, sociology is the study of community. It basically argues that issues that happen in society, in families and to individuals are caused by how that society forms itself – particularly in the way it sets up rules, structures and institutions and how a social group determines success.  Note it is a study in how society forms itself, in how we as humans establish what is normal and how a social group would function.

Back in the day when I was teaching sociology, I would ask students, a typical sociological question, a question that determines what a social group values. This question, in a New Zealand context, is what does it mean to be a successful New Zealander – the answers are pretty predictable

*  To own your own home

* To have a successful job

* To make reasonable money

* To have a family

* To have social status in your community

The list goes on

I would then point out that not everyone would achieve these goals, and that for some people these goals are simply not achievable from the onset. For others, these goals may be ripped out from under them with unexpected changes. I would use Wainuiomata in the 1980s as an example, before the 1980s there were enough factories to employ fathers from every home, when the factories left, new jobs were not created. This led to what sociology is most interested in – different sets of behaviours, actions and reactions.

I would then point out that people may respond to their situation in a number of different ways; I am just going to focus on two here. The first would be to innovate. To accept that the markers of success but find alternative ways to meet these. “I want these goals, I can’t get them in the usual way, I’ll start a drug business.” The second would be to rebel; to say – “stuff it, I am going to make my own goals and reject these”. And I would say to my students, Christians fall into both of these camps.  Because Christians are not called to live by the ways and values of the world, but many find ways to do this, just with a Christian spin.

Ideally, if Christians were doing what they were called to do, they would be in the rebellion camp – setting up new markers of social success, but in actual reality Christians often sit in the innovation box. They accept the markers of success in New Zealand society, and just work hard, finding innovative ways to support each other into achieving these goals while still seeing their accomplishments as a result of their hard work.

Now, I am not saying having a home and a job is a bad thing. But I am saying some of us in this room are comfortable with where we sit as New Zealanders. We have a home, job etc. And having someone tell us that these are not markers of Kingdom success will be quite a challenge. There are others in this room who struggle with the markers of New Zealand success because no matter how hard they work and try the markers are just out of their reach, they will never own a home, have a successful job; some may not even have a family. They will even, today, feel like outsiders because they are not like the one’s in this room who just seem to have made it in New Zealand today.

In the Sermon on the Mount, it is this group of outcasts that Jesus is talking to. Those who struggle to achieve success in the eyes of the Roman and Jewish world. Jesus was talking to the outsiders confirming a new way of living while telling Pharisees, get out of the ritual of getting these goals differently and get with the righteous living programme.

He is actually telling both groups, the answer is not to innovate and try to fit into the box of the worldin another way – the answer is to create another box altogether – the answer is to live in righteous rebellion to the markers of worldly success. This is what will unite the Kingdom of God with this world.

So, are you prepared to make the familiar strange to yourself, even if it challenges you to your innovative core? Are you prepared to move the markers of success in your life from those determined by Aotearoa New Zealand to those determined by God?

Because, if you are, then you will find yourself living your faith differently – it won’t be about status and how others see you, it will be about your heart, your attitude and how God sees you. Because if you have taken the last few weeks to heart, you will know, your faith is not a performance – it is a heart way of living.

Mathew 6:1-8 from The Message: Jesus says:

"Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don't make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won't be applauding.

"When you do something for someone else, don't call attention to yourself. You've seen them in action, I'm sure—'playactors' I call them—treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that's all they get. When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.

"And when you come before God, don't turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?

"Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

"The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They're full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don't fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need.

Moving to Verse 16, finishing at 18, Jesus goes on to say:

"When you practice some appetite-denying discipline to better concentrate on God, don't make a production out of it. It might turn you into a small-time celebrity but it won't make you a saint. If you 'go into training' inwardly, act normal outwardly. Shampoo and comb your hair, brush your teeth, wash your face. God doesn't require attention-getting devices. He won't overlook what you are doing; he'll reward you well.

In these verses, Jesus has moved on from the wisdom of righteous living found in the Torah, to the enacting out of religious practices. He is not moving away from one part of the message to the other, he is giving the consequences of the first part of his sermon. If you understand the principles of God’s Kingdom (what we call the Beatitudes). If you understand the place of the Law and how to enact the principles of the Law then you will know that your faith needs to be more than a performance.

Jesus is directly challenging and talking into a societal marker of success found in the  social groups of his time and one that continues into our own culture today – that is the marker of social status. The social status of being seen to be religious and holy, particularly within the community of faith.

You see being seen as religious and holy was not one of Roman success but of Jewish success in living under the oppression of Roman rule. Today, being seen as religious and holy is not one of New Zealand success, but one of Christian success and an innovative way to achieve the social status all New Zealanders strive for.

But being seen as religious and holy is just that. It is being seen. It is a performance, particularly when the praise of others is what feeds you (even when you do, in your own righteous way, relabel that praise as encouragement).

Jesus gives three explicit examples of religious performance – generosity, prayer and fasting. And I would have it a guess that if he was preaching to the Church of today, he might add to that list, worship, purchasing of Christian books, movies etc and attending Christian events. 

Now none of these things he is saying not to do, and even when he says do these things in private, is he saying that these things must be done in private, what he is saying is – what feeds you when you do this – is it your desire to be recognised by others? Is it your desire for praise by others? Or is it about your relationship with your Father? Because if this is not the first desire then you are living in the wrong box – get yourself into the righteous rebellion box, because that is where it all starts.

None of us in this room are immune from wanting to be in the box of comfort that comes with the recognition of others. And, don’t get me wrong, it is good to encourage. But, for those of us receiving the encouragement where is our heart at in our initial actions?

I want to give a really personal example here which came with the lesson to me that even though my intention was good, my heart was in the wrong place – my intention was Godly, but I was doing what I did to get a thank you from a human, not a holy hug from God.

Please, before I go any further, realise that this story is about me, the others in this story are no longer with us and it would be wrong to try and guess who was involved. The person that needed a heart change was me.

Quite some time ago, Eric and I gave substantially into an area in our church family. We are talking thousands of dollars. It was a very specific area and the recipients experienced the reward of our investment directly. They never knew how much money it cost Eric and I and we never have told them – after all, we were following the principle of giving without making a spectacle of it. Near the end of this time, we received a complaint that what we had given wasn’t up to expectation. We never received a thank you. It hurt deeply and put me in a position of anger and also promising myself to never give again.

I am sharing this story, not because the people in this story were in the wrong. Remember, no one knew how much we had given and we never asked for thanks or an acknowledgement. But the lesson in this story was for me and it was a very deep lesson. I had given in the hope of a ‘thanks’. I never got it. But it wasn’t up to the recipients to thank me. My heart was in the wrong place in terms of giving.

I had to learn a very powerful lesson and I remember talking with Pastor Paul at the time – it was a lesson of grace and mercy. I learnt that grace freely given, is given in expectation of nothing worldly in return and just as grace is freely given to me, I am to extend it to others. Mercy freely given, is given in expectation of nothing in return, and just as mercy is freely given to me, I am to extend it to others.

I learnt, that giving with even the hope of human acknowledgment was not giving under the call of God and the cross. I was challenged by God to accept that there will be ministries and families that Eric and I will be called to bless and that we should never expect a thank you in return, but savour the thank yous when they come. But never stop giving, never stop praying, never stop fasting, never stop worshipping or buying Christian teachings just because we haven’t had a thank you or two. Because, we are blessed to be a blessing.

I learnt a powerful Sermon on the Mount principle. Because of the initial expectation of the giving, that being a thank you, I became angry. The sermon tells me that holding anger towards others brings God’s judgement. I learned never to hold an oath towards others as a result of my feelings, as experiences would mean that at times, I simply might not be ready to be a person of my word. And I learnt, that I had to get the righteous living towards God and others right in my life first to ensure that all my practices of faith, even when in public, would be reflective of my relationship with my Father. If I could not get my feeling towards others right first – my faith was simply a performance.

And what about you? Is your Christian faith a performance or is it a heart transformation? What are the markers of success in your life? More importantly, what are the markers of success in your Christian walk? And then even more importantly, is how has God blessed you blessing others?

Finally, I personally think it is time that we as a Church begin to consider how we enact our vision for our Valley:  

We exist to provide a local place of worship, to help establish Wainuiomata as a Christ centred community by promoting Biblical values and positively impacting the lives of those around us.

Because enacting this vision would see how challenging our conceptions of social success. We would move from personal markers of homes, jobs, social status and even the expectation of a particular type of family to the principles behind Sermon on the Mount – one that demonstrates clearly to Wainuiomata in our actions that we put God above all others, and we treat our neighbours how we ourselves would like to be treated – forgiveness is our doorstop, mercy the keys to our whare and grace the doorway.

The Gospel Truth: Standing Up to Fake News

Have you ever contemplated this: how easy it is to lose all hope by simply overthinking God or letting other people sow doubt in our minds?

How easy it is to lose all hope by simply overthinking God or letting other people sow doubt in our minds.

Many people argue that the most important Chapter of the Bible is 1 Corinthians 15. While Chapter 13 is one of the most loved, in its focus on love, Chapter 15, focuses on a gospel truth – the resurrection. You see while love hung on the cross as a sacrifice for us, love always brought the resurrection of our Christ, and the resurrection of ourselves.

With love comes the hope of the resurrection. Love opens the door to us for the hope of a resurrected life lived in harmony and unity with our Father, his Son and his Holy Spirit.

Chapter 15 is a long Chapter. So to get to the gist of it, I am going to read from the paraphrase: The Street Bible:

He [Paul] drums up the core principles: the Liberator died to wipe out our mess; then he came back, alive and kicking. There were witnesses and Paul was one of them. If Jesus didn’t come back from death, then pack it in team! Without that, it’s all a big game: we’re just a club like any other (only sadder). But he did come back to life and blew apart Adam’s death-chains that hold us back from limitless lfe. He’s in charge and he’ll pick off his enemies until it’s only the big one left – death itself. Then he’ll kill death! All because he came back to life. Like a seed only grows when it’s been buried in the earth, so we’ll die and get a new lease of life. We don’t know the details yet, we can’t draw a diagram, but it’ll happen.

I’m telling you, guys, our mortal bodies don’t get to heaven. You can’t have something that ages, rots and dies living somewhere timeless – it doesn’t work. But the secret’s out. Some of us won’t snuff it, but all of us will get a body-exchange. No coded warning: some angel will get the nod; then a blink later he’ll blast his trumpet and the dead will come back alive permanently; we’ll rip off our mortal clothes to be kitted out with our new, designer immortal bodies. Then the old line ‘Death’s drowned in Victory’s Ocean’ will have come true. Like Hosea said it:

Death, you’ve lost your edge – how come?

Death, your bullets are blank – how come?

Death’s ammunition is our mess – he just packs it into bullets that comply with Moses’ Rule Book, and then fires it all back at us. But thank God, our Boss, Jesus the Liberator, has emptied the bullets by clearing up our mess, so the bullets are duds and just ricochet off us. We win!

So, my good mates, don’t shift. Don’t get blown off the road. Go for it 100 percent – you’re working for the Boss and you know it’s worth breaking sweat for. It’s not a waste of time. Hang in there.

How easy it is to lose all hope by simply overthinking God or letting other people sow doubt in our minds.

Chapter 15, the resurrection chapter, is a powerful chapter. Powerful, not only in its message, but also powerful in terms of the context that Paul is speaking into.

You see Paul is directly speaking into a context of fake news. He is telling them – here are the facts. This is the gospel truth – believe it in its fullness. In all of your chaos, you have overthought the gospel. You have been misled by the philosophies of others. And by doing this, you have removed the hope out of the gospel truth. The gospel didn’t stop at the cross, it only just started there.

Paul is directly speaking into this fake news and shining a light on it.

How easy it is to lose all hope by simply overthinking God or letting other people sow doubt in our minds.

We learn from the opening verses of Corinthians 1, that the church was overthinking the gospel, rather than just believing in facts, the Church had spilt. People had started to take sides on who gave the correct teachings of Christ and the way of the Church. The Corinthian church had become a church divided by conceptions of Truth.

And, it appears that, all of these conceptions centred around a divide in the Greek world – a divide that is also in the western world, the culture of our world today – and that is the divide of the body and the spirit. Often this divide has the spiritual as meaning more, and of more value, than the physical. This is simply not true.  

It is possible that some of the church at Corinth had started to rethink what was meant by resurrection. Some may have concluded that true resurrection occurs when our spirit is set free from our bodies. Some may have even concluded that in death, our body is gone, there is nothing more. Some may have thought that the resurrection had already occurred, there was no resurrection to look forward to. Some may have even questioned the resurrection of Jesus – maybe they doubted it, maybe they thought he broke free from the prison of his physical body.

Afterall, let’s be honest – if you think about it, if you really, really, think about it, I mean it you spend a good deal of time thinking about it – physically coming back from the dead is a ridiculous concept, isn’t it?

Aside from the story told to us in the Bible – how many of us know someone other than Jesus who has come back from the dead after three days – just think about it. Resurrecting a physical body is just ridiculous.

How easy it is to lose all hope by simply overthinking God or letting other people sow doubt in our minds.

Paul puts his counter-argument to the fake news spreading in the Corinthian Church through three key sections. In the first 11 verses, he focuses on the historical event of Christ’s resurrection, in verses 12 to 34, he points out that the only hope for the Corinthian church is in resurrection and from 35 onwards, he challenges the Corinthian church to live a resurrected life. So, let’s look at each aspect.

The historical event

Paul is quick to point to the facts of the resurrection of Christ. Paul does not argue for a doctrine or philosophy of resurrection. He points to the facts. It is a fact that Jesus died. It is a fact that his body was physically buried. Jesus did not just disappear. He died on a cross and to ensure that he was dead, a soldier pierced his side. His death is a physical fact. Furthermore, his death was a very public death. Everyone that was there would have seen it.  His body was buried by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. They physically picked his body up, laid it in a tomb and closed the tomb. Three days later the tomb was found empty – fact.

The risen Christ appeared to more than 500 people including Paul. When Paul was writing this, many of these people would be still alive and would still able to testify to what they had seen.  So, just as his death is a physical fact, the physical resurrection of Christ is a fact. A side fact to all of this, is that we know from scripture, that the disciples did not expect Jesus to come back from the dead.

It is a belief in these facts which brought the church into existence. It was the reality that some people in Corinth believed in these facts, that the church in Corinth existed. If these facts are not true, the church in Corinth existed on foolishness, and we today would as well. The church exists because of the resurrection.

Yes, if you really think about, talk about it, and debate it, concepts like resurrection seem extraordinary, impossible and improbable. But the gospel is built on facts, not philosophies or thinking.

The gospel does not give us guidelines for our life; it does not tell us what we have to do; it is not a set of rules – instead it tells us the truth that Jesus died for us, he died for our sins, and in order to give us a new life, he was resurrected from the dead. The new life, our new life, comes in the resurrection

Because Christ rose from the dead so we too will rise.

How easy it is to lose all hope by simply overthinking God or letting other people sow doubt in our minds.

Now that Paul has established the facts around the physical resurrection of Christ, he goes onto his next point.

The Resurrection, Our Only Hope

Paul asserts that while love was nailed to the cross, our sins were atoned at the cross, that our point in hope is within the resurrection moment – the victory moment. Death, the ultimate enemy, could not hold him down – he is risen. Death will not hold us down, as we too will join into the resurrected moment.

So our hope, Christian hope goes beyond death. For us, the day may end in a sunset, but we are looking beyond the sunset to the sun rising – and there is a double pun there because I am also talking about looking beyond the s.o.n. set to the s.o.n. rising.

Without a belief in our own resurrection, our own physical resurrection, our faith, our point of hope, is useless. Without the resurrection moment, and the hope that it brings, we have no assurance of the revelation moment, when we are reunited with each other, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

If we have no hope for this future – we are fools – because we suffer for nothing in this moment. Every time we confess the name of Jesus, without hope of the resurrection, we speak without the power that it brings.

Jesus died for our offences, our sins, in his resurrection is our justification. The victory is in the resurrection, not the moment of death on the cross.

And, if Christ did not rise, then our faith is pointless – he would not be able to advocate for us; we would not have a hope in a future – it would be all pointless. A dead saviour cannot take away sins, rescue us from the God’s wrath, or develop a relationship with us

Resurrection is where our hope is planted, to not believe in the resurrection either of Christ or of the church is to believe in something without power. There is no point in believing in falsehoods, the Christian life is only the best life when it is based on the truth of the gospel.

How easy it is to lose all hope by simply overthinking God or letting other people sow doubt in our minds.

So, Paul establishes through facts, the gospel truth of the resurrection, he then goes onto pointing out the hope of the resurrection for believers. He then moves into the final part of his discussion on resurrection from verse 35:

The Resurrection Life

This final bit still hits the fake news creeping into the Corinthian church yet again. This comes back to the physical and the spiritual. And a concept that some of us even fall into now, of thinking about resurrection as something solely spiritual. When we sing of the hope of the resurrection, many of us have a spiritual picture in our minds, we do not see in our minds a resurrected physical body. We have fallen into the trap of thinking that our God, the God who created us physically, only cares for our spiritual selves. This is not true. The reality is, as Paul would remind the church of Corinth, resurrection is very physical.

It is important to realise that whenever the resurrection is mentioned in scripture it is about the physical standing up of the body – it is about the physical body being stood up. The Greek word for resurrection, anastasis means just this ‘to stand up’. Now commentators are very quick to point a simple truth out (a truth that doesn’t involve too much thinking) – a spirit simply cannot be stood up, float up maybe but for a spirit to do something physical is impossible.

Added to all this is that we are so often caught up in this debate about the physical and the spiritual, and what matters most to God is that we miss the real focus. The real point of difference that we need to focus on, the real difference we should be focused on is our current body and condition which is subject to death, it is mortal, and our future body and condition which is immortal.

Paul reminds us that by one man’s sin (Adam’s sin) we were made unrighteous, by another man’s obedience (Jesus’ obedience) we have been made righteous. Death is not the final word on our lives and while most of us in this room will die – we, along with those that have left us in death, will experience a resurrection moment.

It will be physical, but one thing we know is, our mortal bodies are flawed products. They break on us, we get sick, we experience plan and most of us have our own disabilities. Our bodies are broken.

Paul is quick to remind the Corinthian Church, though, that bodies are not prisons and that in our resurrection we will inhabit a new body, one that is immortal without the flaws of our current condition.

It is a little like we are seeds, and in our death we are planted, but in our resurrection we become the plant the seed was destined to be. Or for the younger of us, it is like we are like Marvel Superheroes, our human condition is broken, but in our metamorphosis into a superhero, we realise our immortal and ultimately perfect condition.

It a tough bit of theology, but it is key: resurrection is a fact in the gospel, it is our hope, and in our hope we will be resurrected anew.

What helps me understand this is knowing that in his own resurrection, Jesus was not recognisable immediately to his disciples. It tells me something deep happens in a resurrection moment. And it must – after all, once you have physically conquered death, you must be transformed.

And it is while we live in this hope and expectation, that we live in preparation of our resurrection moment. And the best way to prepare is to live a life in service to each other, in the way of love knowing that hope springs eternal.

How easy it is to lose all hope by simply overthinking God or letting other people sow doubt in our minds.

Let us hold onto the gospel Truth of the resurrection – it is physical, it is real and it is our hope.

Are you prepared to believe these three key messages:

1) The act of love on the cross is followed by the hope that is found in the victory of the resurrection.

2) That if we dismiss this simple truth, we reject the reason for our being as a Church.

3) That if we accept this simple truth, the promise is that we too will both physically and spiritually be resurrected into immortality so that we can commune with our Father, his son and be in the presence of his Holy Spirit.