An Ode to the Fatherless

 

At the beginning of 2019, I gave a sermon that involved this teddy bear. I grew up holding and loving that bear. It carried my memories of a time with my hero; my dad being present in my life. But the teddy carried the brokenness of one who longed to be a father, and one who walked away from being one.

You see the teddy bear was made by a prisoner who could not see his children but wanted to give them a gift. He couldn’t, so in his own symbolic way, my father was asked to give the bear to me and in that way, the prisoner was able to give a gift to his child.

That teddy bear became a symbol of two kinds of fatherlessness at once: the prisoner who could not be with his children, and the father who chose not to be with his.

And I tell you this because Scripture does not hide these stories. And neither should we. Even as we come together to celebrate and honour father’s day; we also need to acknowledge the presence of fatherlessness in our lives.

Fatherlessness is real. It shapes us. It marks us. But it does not define us.

But there is another type of Fatherlessness, the type that is invisible to many of us, the men without children. One of the most painful memories I have is of Father’s Day in 2015, I dropped into Uncle Harry’s at Westport. Uncle Harry was a friend of mum – on the Coast we follow the Irish and Māori tradition of calling very close friends, uncle and aunty. I popped in to say goodbye to Uncle Harry as we were returning to Wellington. I said to him that he was my dad in my childhood, he believed in me, he mentored me, he saved up on a sickness benefit for my first guitar and he celebrated me. He was my daddy. He tried to deny it in his own humble way but thanked me and also said he believed in Jesus. That night he died.

Fatherlessness is something we don’t often talk about in church because it feels too tender, too complicated, too close. It’s aches in us and pulls our hearts down.

Today, I want to tell you that Scripture does not ignore these stories. All throughout the Bible there are stories of the fatherless; orphans, children whose father’s neglect them, men who fail to be good fathers and men who step up simply because God calls them to it. The Bible does not hide them. Scripture does not pretend that fatherhood is tidy or simple. In fact, one of the clearest examples of broken fatherhood in the Bible is King David; the man after God’s own heart.

And if Scripture is willing to show us David’s brokenness, then maybe we can find ourselves in his story too.

 

1. David the Overlooked Son

Before David ever became king, before he ever wrote a psalm, before he ever held a sword, he was a boy in a field. A boy whose father didn’t call him in when Samuel came to anoint a king. Jesse lined up all the sons he thought mattered. David wasn’t one of them.

We read in 1 Samual 16 that Samuel is instructed by God to gather Jesse and his sons, one by one the sons come up, each time Samual is certain he is selecting God’s chosen.  By verse 10 we read:

In the same way all seven of Jesse’s sons were presented to Samuel. But Samuel said to Jesse, “The LORD has not chosen any of these.” Then Samuel asked, “Are these all the sons you have?”

“There is still the youngest,” Jesse replied. “But he’s out in the fields watching the sheep and goats.” “Send for him at once,” Samuel said. “We will not sit down to eat until he arrives.”  (1Sam 16:10-11)

These verses reveal the complete contradiction of it all. Jessie is told to bring all his sons, Jessie brings all seven of his sons; failing to acknowledge from the outset that he actually had eight sons. David, the youngest, the outcast and the overlooked.

David’s story begins there; in the ache of being unseen.

In Psalm 27:10 we read, “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” David wrote that. He lived that.

For every child who has grown up without a father, David’s life whispers: God sees what others miss. God calls the overlooked. God names the forgotten.

2. David the Broken Father

But David’s story doesn’t stay in the field. He becomes king. He becomes a warrior. He becomes a poet. And he becomes a father.

And this is where Scripture refuses to tidy things up.

David’s children lived through the consequences of his silence, his absence, and his failures.

In 2 Samual 13 we learn of the story of Amnon and Tamar, brother and sister. Both to different mothers but both with David the father:

Amnon became so obsessed with Tamar that he became ill. She was a virgin, and Amnon thought he could never have her. (2 Sam 13:2)

Amnon eventually assaults, let’s be honest he rapes, Tamar. And David did nothing. Nothing.

Tamar’s grief sits in Scripture like a stone that refuses to move. She tears her robe. She sits in ashes. And David is silent. He would have felt the guilt of being the one that sent Tamar to Amnon. But Amnon had lied to David. David would have sat on the guilt of being a part of the horrible plot. And yes, he was furious at Amnon, but he did nothing. I believe the words of his daughter so caught in scripture would have sat on David as a burning stone: “No, my brother! Don’t force me!”(2 Sam 13:12).

Amon’s brother Absalom burns with anger at his father’s inaction. He takes justice into his own hands. He kills Amnon. He flees. He returns. And David still does not speak to him. Absalom waits in Jerusalem for two years, just to see his father. And we know that David loved Absalom, 2 Samual 14 affirms that; the scripture opens with “the king’s heart longed for Absalom.” But the King could not look into the eyes and soul of his son for two years.

Eventually Absalom leads a rebellion that tears the kingdom apart.

Absalom and Solomon’s brother Adonijah then try to seize the throne because Scripture says, “His father had never rebuked him” (1 Kings 1:6). David had simply never corrected his Adonijah, and given what we know about Amon and Absalom, I think it is fair to say that David never disciplined his sons.

The story of David the father, is not a footnote. This is the Bible’s way of saying: Here is a real father who failed in real ways.

And yet – and this is where the gospel breathes – David’s story does not end in failure.

When Absalom dies, David cries out, “O my son Absalom! My son, my son! If only I had died instead of you” (2 Sam 18:33) It is the cry of a man who realised too late what his absence had cost.

Some fathers here know that cry. Some carry regret. Some carry distance. Some carry choices they wish they could undo.

David’s story tells you this: Failure is not final. Regret is not the end. God restores. God rebuilds. God calls men back into courage.

In Joel 2:25, we read “I will restore the years that were lost.” That is not poetry. That is promise.

3. David the Father of Many

Now let me speak those of you men without children.

Before David ever held a baby of his own, he fathered a nation. His courage shaped people. His worship shaped generations. His psalms have mentored the world.

He became a spiritual father long before he became a biological one.

In Isaiah 56:5 we read, “I will give them a name better than sons and daughters.” This is God saying: Your legacy is not limited by biology. Your influence is not small. Your life is not less.

What I personally love about this verse in Isaiah is that it is a verse within a prophecy for the Eunuchs of the temple; even without being a father, their names matter, they have legacy and they have a purpose in God’s story.

Some of the most powerful fathers in Scripture never had children of their own: Paul, Barnabas, Elijah. David joins them.

4. David the Father Who Stepped Up

And then there are the men who choose to step up — the ones who father children who are not their own.

David did that too.

In the cave of Adullam, he gathered the distressed, the broken, the outcasts; and he shaped them into mighty men. He fathered them with courage, with presence, with love.

He welcomed Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son, to his table and treated him as family. He fathered by choice, not obligation.

Scriptures commands us to step up into the gap when there is fatherlessness and the Lord in turn provides a promise that in stepping up, blessings will come. We are commanded in James 1:27 to “Look after orphans and widows in their distress.” We learn from Ruth 2:12 that God commands a blessing “May the Lord repay you for what you have done.”

To every man who has taken a child’s hand, who has spoken life into a teenager, who has become a spiritual father in this church; you embody the heart of God.

To my husband Eric, thank you for being a dad, from both Tricia and I. Thank you for being both fatherless and a true and authentic father. You see for over a decade Eric poured out a father’s love into the lives of the Moffat twins. And this was a real authentic pouring out. While the twins were at primary school, Eric would go to their home every school night to sit with them and do their homework. Every second weekend, as they were growing up, the twins would come to our home for the Saturday and sometimes weekends, and Eric would do intentional adventures with them – horse-riding, cooking, gaming, tramping, adventure parks, the zoo – you name it, he was there present doing it. We also had opportunities to holiday together and to return to the West Coast to see how tourists do the Coast.

And yes, I was involved too, but more so as an academic who specialises in education and child development; as someone who knows just how important fathers are to healthy development. As someone who knows that in the English language ‘father’ is both a noun and a verb; it is a name and it is action. I see this in Eric, a true father.

A man who consistently showed up in the lives of the Moffat twins and loved them. A father who spoke life into the girls. Their memory of their childhood is so much richer with Eric in it – caving, extreme forest, pancake rocks and the ‘it’s sinking, it’s sinking, it’s sinking’ panic as we crossed a small river in Westport while the tide was rising. A dad who made space for the girls and gave them a sense of belonging.

I know that Tricia still sees the blessing that Eric has been for her girls and for her. As a church, this is an honour. It is really something that we can do together as we learn to grow together in love. Our children in this church are a blessing and we all can contribute to their healthy development. Being a father is not restricted to a biological relationship; it is a communal relationship.

So where does this leave us?

David’s story reminds us that God does not wait for perfect fathers, perfect families, or perfect men. He works through honesty, through brokenness, and through those willing to step forward.

If you are a father, step into the blessing God has entrusted to you. If you are a man without children, recognise the role you still carry in shaping and guiding the next generation. And if you are a fatherless child, the challenge before you is forgiveness; not because it is easy, but because it is freeing.

Absalom died without reconciliation. His story ends in tragedy. But ours does not need to.

I stand here as someone who grew up without my father in my life, someone whose father even now struggles to receive forgiveness even as his life draws to a close. And yet, in forgiving him, in recognising the father‑figures God placed in my life, in seeing my father’s own broken story, and in pressing into the Fatherhood of God, I have discovered a love that is deep, healing, and profoundly real.

This is the invitation for all of us today: To step up. To forgive. To receive. And to discover that the love of Father God is wider, deeper, and more redeeming than any story of brokenness we carry.

 

Keeping the Fire Burning: What does it mean to be ahi kā

 

On June 19, I had the honour to be invited to participate in a day of remembrance with Ngāti Toa Rangatira, the mānā whēnua of Porirua. We stood around a flagpole as they raised their tribal flag to remember the day, 19 June 1840, when their paramount chief Te Rauparaha put his signature to Te Tīrītī o Waitangi on Mana Island. He signed in the belief that it would guarantee him and his people their ownership of the lands they occupied and he told his people to never let their flame be extinguished, never let their fires go out.

Before the flag was raised, I was talking with a fellow Christian staff member who asked me – what are you doing over the weekend? I said, I am writing a sermon about church membership and what it means to be ahi kā – what it means to keep the fire burning. I spent some time with her talking about the concept of ahi kā and the gift God has given churches here in Aotearoa New Zealand with Māori culture – there is a lot that can be learnt if churches journey with and alongside marae.

We finished the conversation and went to the Ngāti Toa event led by kaumātua Dr Te Taku Parai.  As we stood around the flag on a windless Wellington morning, Te Taku spoke into the key symbol on the flag – a hand holding a flame. The flag of Ngāti Toa is called ahika he told the crowd standing around it.

Quite literally ahi kā means burning fires he told us, but in Te Āo Māori, the Māori world, words have symbolic meaning. To be ahi kā Te Taku told us is to keep the fire burning. Traditionally, fires provided warmth, they would show land being occupied and would sustain the people through the provision of cooked foods.

On a marae, or meeting place, ahi kā represents loyalty to each other, the place that you may have been born and your community. Ahi kā means a deep commitment to keeping the presence of your people to a place visible, the fire burning so that others can see – yes, those people have a presence and a commitment to keeping that presence alive.

Even if wars are lost, or like in recent times, natural disasters destroy the marae itself, to be āhi ka, is for those to remain to tend to the fire that remains, preserving that space and place for people to return.

When I spoke to my colleague that morning on June 19^th, I did not know that the flag of Ngāti Toa Rangatira was called Ahika. All I knew was that since I said yes to being an elder of this church, I felt that God was calling us to be in a place of ahi kā. Just before I said yes, members of this church voted as to whether we would discontinue rebuild insurance of this building complex should it be destroyed in a natural disaster. In that decision, the voting members of this church committed to ensuring that we would maintain a presence in Wainuiomata should we lose this building.

And from that point, I felt God pressing into me to share this message. It has been two years in the making, but as Te Taku spoke into Ahika just over a week ago, I knew in my heart that it is time to share with you what God has impressed on me. We are to be a people who come together in membership to keep the fire of God burning in this community.

You see, ahi kā is the fire that can only stay lit because the people of God stay present.  In this place, at this time, to be a member of this community of faith, of Wainuiomata Baptist church is not to hold the status of ‘member’. It is not to separate those who can vote from those who cannot. Membership here is a presence that you commit to keeping. It is saying that, yes right here, right now I commit to keeping ahi kā, to keeping the light and flame of our fire burning.

This helps us then to see what membership truly is, what to be ahi kā, truly entails. I want to suggest that if we take this idea that the fire can only stay lit because the people of God stay present, that membership entails five deep commitments. And, all of these are about right relationship – right relationship with God and right relationship with each other.

The first of these ahi kā commitments is a commitment to covenant belonging. We can find this call to covenant belonging throughout the full letter of Ephesians. It is the perfect letter for this as it is to a church that has been built on diversity – Jew and Gentile coming together in Christ.  In Ephesians 2, verses 19-22, we learn that:

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

To being committed to keeping the fire that we believe in alight here is Wainuiomata, we are committing to more that just a contractual relationship in which we sign a bottom line and get on with life. We are committed to joining with fellow Christians, citizens of God and members of his household. We are committed to holding Christ as our cornerstone, learning from those who have come before us, and understanding that as we are brought  together in a covenant relationship, we rise up to being a holy temple, a dwelling for God’s spirit.

A covenant relationship with each other is ongoing, it is relational, it is mutual, it looks to the future but also builds our identity as a church together. It is us as a community that defines this church, not the building which keeps us dry. It is us staying present, staying connected and staying committed.

I am reminded of a sermon from Cecily Archer a number of years ago when she spoke into the three-way Covenant relationship between ourselves and our God as a triangle. The apex or top of the triangle is God, at the base is each other, as we allow ourselves to build relationships with each other in God, we become closer to God in turn. This illustration is often used to talk about marriage in God, but the God’s people are also called to live in covenant – and that means in relationship with each other.

The second ahi kā commitment is committing to a presence that sustains the community. It other words, it is a presence that shows to each other and the world that a fire is burning here – there is a presence and the community of this church is alive and well.

In Acts, we learn of the early church and how ahi kā, having a present fire can lead to growth as the fire attracts others. I am reading from Acts 2, verses 44-47:

All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

So, what is a presence that sustains a community and how can we see this in Acts 2. To be blunt, a presence that sustain a community, is a commitment to remaining, dwelling together, showing up and keeping the fire burning – something that you can’t do if you choose to only come to church when you feel like it. I would even argue that if we made the decision to never again have a Sunday service here, visibly but only met online, our fire would slowly cease burning because we would be for all intents and purposes no longer physically present. After all, it is near impossible to achieve the first commitment, a covenant relationship, on a YouTube screen.

So, showing up and being present is a commitment that another Māori concept captures perfectly – whakawhanaungatanga (the enacting of physical, visible and spiritual expressions of being family together). A commitment to a presence that sustains a community is a community of physical, visible and spiritual relational belonging – coming together as a church family and connecting with others.

The third ahi kā commitment is one to whakapapa, where we have come from, and continuity. It is a commitment that builds on from Helen Temple’s poem – Someone took away the chairs

When I was young, I used to sit behind the saints at church and listen as they told of battles fought and won in lonely places would pray and sing, steady and sure, their faith worn smooth with years ... Today I stood in church and saw that someone had taken away the chairs. Mine was the front row now, and just behind me was young Christians wanting to learn from me …

To be committed to knowing where we have come from and continuity means that we are committed to keeping the fire of Wainuiomata Baptist church burning so that the next generation knows where home is. It is us as a body committing to passing on our faith, mentoring young believers in theirs, knowing and holding the story of this church, and it is a commitment to maintain mission – both local but also global. It is a commitment to sending people out, keeping the fire alight so that if and when they need to, they can find their way home – and there will be a home to go to.

I remember people who have come before me in this very church and how they spoke into my life – June and her smile of welcome, Anne and our hidden family connection in the Wilton line. I still hold in my physical bible at home, a photo of encouragement from Gilbert Hadfield for my first ever sermon, as well as a card from Tricia for the same sermon. One of my most cherished letters is from Barbara Gibbard for a sermon I gave on Romans 13 and Bonhoeffer. I still remember, with a smile, family forums when Ron Senior, a founding member of this church would remind us all of our history. And now, it is my turn to give back and feed into the next generation. It is my turn, to tell the story of this church to others. We have a long and proud history built on families, built on mission, and first and foremost built on faith with Christ as our cornerstone.

The fourth ahi kā commitment is one of shared responsibility. It is to say, yes we will be kaitiakitanga of this church, our faith community, we will work together in active guardianship, being good stewards of what God has provided us. And, yes this is about how we actively steward the physical resources we have been provided – this building, the whēnua, the land, on which it sits. How we steward our staff – and this includes our leadership, our pastor. It is about how we give physically our talents, tithes and offerings. It is also active stewardship of our relationship with each other and of what we believe.

Both Phil and I have used the letter of Ephesians as teaching from Paul to the Ephesian church as how to live together – how to light the fire and keep the fire burning.  By the time John is given his revelation, the Ephesian church has moved away from being a church that lives in grace and humbleness, showing mercy to each other to being so rule bound and pious that they are the first of the seven churches to be rebuked by Christ in Revelations 2:2:

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

The fire and presence of the Ephesian Church will no longer be present.

One of the hardest things in keeping ahi kā, is keeping each other to account in love and reminding each other that it is the grace and mercy of Christ that brings us together – it isn’t anything that we have done or can do through our own strength.  So, it is understanding that we have to steward the mission that God has given us, we have to be committed to protecting the unity and health of our church community, we have to work together to discern God’s direction and, yes, we steward the resources we have been given and bring the tithe into the house.

I want to hit this point again about stewarding right relationships with each other though one more time. I have a few more years on me now compared to 1990 when I first committed to Christ. I have see churches come and go – I like others here have seen churches in Christchurch lose their buildings due to the earthquake but I have also see a lot of church buildings, still standing, but empty of worship. I want to suggest one thing, if a church is strong in relationship with each other, they can lose their building and remain strong together. We have seen this through the Christchurch earthquakes, but if a church is divided or poor in relationship with each other, the building may remain but the church itself will collapse. I have seen this time and time again. I have been part of a church where this happened and it still breaks my heart because of the hurt that resulted. The fourth ahi kā commitment is one of shared responsibility and stewardship.

Finally, ahi kā in membership is a mutual commitment. It is a commitment by each and everyone of us to a shared covenant of presence and responsibility. This aligns with how Baptist congregational governance works. When we come together to make decisions, we like the early church in Acts, we make those decisions mutually together. It is not the pastor or the elders presenting the big decisions, it is all of us – all of us as one. Because all of us play a part in ahi kā. All of us keep the fire of our community of faith present.

If we have this understanding that ahi kā is about presence, covenant living together, building on our past and keeping the fire burning into the future, shared responsibility and a commitment to being good stewards of our faith and our resources; if we have a mutual and shared commitment to this, then we have a fire that we can build upon.  

You see, ahi kā is the fire that can only stay lit because the people of God stay present.  In this place, at this time, to be a member of this community of faith, of Wainuiomata Baptist church is not to hold the status of ‘member’. Membership here is a presence that you commit to keeping. It is saying that, yes right here, right now I commit to keeping ahi kā, to keeping the light and flame of our fire burning.

Return to me: Bring what you have

 

Today, we begin with Malachi 3:6-12 with an explicit intent to read deeply these words, not to find some hidden command or promise but to find all that was going wrong with God and his people, the nation of Israel.

“I am the LORD, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed. Ever since the days of your ancestors, you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them. Now return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.

“But you ask, ‘How can we return when we have never gone away?”

“Should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me!

“But you ask, ‘What do you mean? When did we ever cheat you?’

“You have cheated me of the tithes and offerings due to me. You are under a curse, for your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple.

If you do,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test! Your crops will be abundant, for I will guard them from insects and disease. Your grapes will not fall from the vine before they are ripe,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.

“Then all nations will call you blessed, for your land will be such a delight,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.

(Mal 3:6-12)

These scriptures are often so much misused by the church; particularly our contemporary Western Christian church where we have, at times, watered down Jesus and recreated God into our image. Often these scriptures have been misused as a promise towards a prosperity gospel – invest in me and I will ensure that all is returned to you and more. Give me five dollars and I will ensure you get fifty in return.

It is a complete misreading to focus on yourself and the blessing that you think God might have for your wallet in these scriptures, a complete misreading. God is not an investment bank, nor is he a savings scheme or the super shares with a hundred percent guarantee on the stock exchange.

So, this week, as we read into and pick up the key themes of Malachi 3:6-12, I am not going to focus on the actual practice of tithing. I will talk into it, but I will talk into tithing within the context first and foremost of a covenant relationship.

God, church is a covenant partner. And if you have heard a key message over the last few weeks, when Israel, when we, enter a covenant relationship, it is a two-way relationship. Both parties must give, both parties have obligations. Both parties need to demonstrate loyalty and faithfulness. This is something Israel was struggling to do in any way. This is something that we fail to do when we don’t see our relationship with Christ as a covenant relationship.

If we want to see what a covenant relationship looks like in human fullness – then it is a marriage. A marriage is a two-way relationship in which each partner is faithful, loyal and committed to each other. And it is in the context of a marriage that we are going to reflect on tithing and what it really means.

It is pretty common practice that when two people commit to each other in marriage, one of the first actions is the establishment of a joint bank account. In fact, banks look favourably upon joint bank accounts, and you are most likely to get a mortgage if your mortgage is part of a joint bank account. To banks, a joint account shows a commitment from both partners to honouring any debt and fulfilling the obligations of a mortgage.

In a marriage, two incomes become one. And if it is a one income marriage, that one income becomes the income of the couple. Some of us in this church know the reality of this, as if you happen to lose your job and you are in a committed relationship, with you partner still in employment, you are not eligible for income support such as the unemployment benefit.

A marriage, in the time of Ancient Israel, or now in Aotearoa New Zealand, is a committed relationship. It comes with financial legal obligations – all property and income is shared full stop. And separation often comes at the costs of both parties, as it is expected that assets and savings are split equally.

So, want does this mean when it comes to tithing, what does this mean when it comes to Malachi. And what does this mean today, when the church is literally the Bride of Christ.

In Malachi, God and Israel, are in very real marital argument. The letter starts, with God stating up front. I have been the only committed partner in this relationship. I have loved you, but you have despised me. God then goes on to point out how Israel has been the partner in the relationship that has been unfaithful and disloyal.

Imagine this, in a marriage, asking your partner to go and buy takeaways. They come home; they have bought themselves a burger but have bin-dived for you and have bought you in return a half-eaten mouldy subway sandwich. God points out through Malachi in Chapter 2, that this is the sort of sacrifice Israel now gives to God, the best of the best is kept for themselves, and the throwaways are presented to their Covenant partner.

I don’t know about you, but if Eric persistently bought me food recycled from rubbish bins while eating his freshly cooked steak sandwich, I would feel cheated.

But the cheating was much deeper, the cheating of Israel extended to the bed. The marriage of Israel to its God, was being violated in the bed. And it was real violation, as I pointed out two weeks ago – Israel was in violation to its God, in marrying into relationships that involved other Gods; Israel was in violation to its own community in violation with each other and, Israel was in actual violation with their own partners. Men were actively being disloyal to their wives.

We learnt last week that Israel had totally turned from God; they had turned from the justice of God; to a complete misjustice in how they treated each other. This is how that stood in their marriage, where God called Israel to return to their Covenant relationship. Return to me, and we start there this week. Not at the tithe but at the relationship. Return to Me. Return to me.

You see the relationship had broken right down between the two Covenant partners. God was still there, he was faithful, he was loyal and his arms were open – Return to Me. Israel had fallen over physically and spiritually; the hope of the return was so, so hard.

But also they were blind – remember the argument approach, God states up front where Israel is, and Israel argues back, then God comes in with the punch-line.

Return to Me

“But you ask, ‘How can we return when we have never gone away?”

Then comes the punch-line. “You have cheated me.”

In the most simple act, you have cheated me. Here we are in a Covenant relationship – a one-income relationship and you can’t even give me a small tithe of that income. Just as the adulterous husband cheats his wife from her income, you are doing that to me – you have your own private bank account off-shore in some foreign tax haven. You have cheated me.

You see, this is not a passage of instruction for a tithe. It is a passage that reminds us deeply, that when we enter into a covenant relationship, even the covenant of the cross, we enter into a relationship with Jesus that equates to a marriage. In our relationship with Jesus everything we own belongs to him, everything we earn belongs to him – everything.

Return to Me.

“But you ask, ‘How can we return when we have never gone away?”

You have cheated Me.

I have always been taught that where you primarily invest your money, is where your heart is. If you primarily invest your money into banks and bonds, then your heart is deeply caught within the bounds of money itself; if you primarily invest your money into boats, cars, trains, shoes, earrings, then their your heart is to. But the opposite can be true as well, where you choose not to invest your money into, is something that means little in your heart.

Investing just a tithe in the time of Ancient Israel was an investment into the temple and into the ministries and functions that came from the temple. If Israel invested just a portion, just a tithe, just ten percent of their money, then the temple could function well and serve in all the ministries God had called the priests to perform.

But what I love about Malachi 3:6-12, is God tells Israel how to simply return to Him. Bring all of the tithe back into the storehouse.

I find that just simple – it is not a deep spiritual return. It is one Covenant partner saying to the other – show me your commitment, return all of the money that belongs to this family into this house.

It is so special, because if you believe you have slipped away in your covenant relationship, the return is as simple as – return what is owned to this house to this house. This response is not a deeply religious one, it is not ritualistic, it is physical active response of one Covenant partner recommitting to the other.

Return to Me.

“But you ask, ‘How can we return when we have never gone away?”

You have cheated Me.

Return all the is owned to My Temple, to My Temple.

And the return of the tithe, the physical return of the tithe, even in the time of Israel has a physical impact. God is not saying return the tithe to me – but return the tithe owning to me in your storehouses to the temple – he is saying contribute to my temple. When a tithe is returned to the temple, it becomes planted into the ministry of God and, as such, the impact of the tithe being returned to the temple, is a community impact.

Return to Me.

“But you ask, ‘How can we return when we have never gone away?”

You have cheated Me.

Return all the is owned to My Temple, to My Temple.

Then you as a Nation will be blessed and all Nations will call you blessed.

This last bit, verse 12, is profound as it reminds us of the whakapapa of Covenant.

“Then all nations will call you blessed, for your land will be such a delight,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.

In Malachi 2, verses 10, Malachi referred to the Covenant of Israel’s ancestors. It is often quite easy to just think this is referring to one Covenant, but it is referring to many. And once we get to Verse 12, we realise deeply that Malachi was referring to the Covenants found within the whakapapa of Israel. One of these being the Covenant with Abraham.

It is in Genesis 15 that we learn of the Covenant with Abraham – a Covenant of blessing – all Nations would be blessed. Now get this, Malachi references back to a Covenant of Nations and blessings with a return of the tithe. Genesis 15 comes after Genesis 14. The Covenant of Abraham comes straight after Abraham gives freely a tithe to the priest Melchizedek.

Most preachers will correctly say that tithing came before the laying of the foundations of Biblical law with Moses; it started with Abraham and a promise of blessings which would pour into all nations.

Jesus too would refer to giving and expectations in the context of the widow:

While Jesus was in the Temple, he watched the rich people dropping their gifts in the collection box. Then a poor widow came by and dropped in two small coins. “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said, “this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them. For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has.”

(Luk 21:1-4)

We would also learn that, in the church of Acts, buying into the Covenant relationship of the cross came with the physical action of giving:

All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity— all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.

(Act 2:42-47)

 

Return to Me.

“But you ask, ‘How can we return when we have never gone away?”

You have cheated Me.

Return all the is owned to My Temple, to My Temple.

Then you as a Church will be blessed and all people will call you blessed.

Now I want to give you some practical application. And I am going to ask you up front, are you in a Covenant relationship with Christ? If you aren’t now is the change to get right with God and come to the Cross and find this God that brings so much healing, blessing and compassion. A God that also judges but as you heard today – he is a God that is quick to say – Return to me.

But if you are in a covenant relationship with Christ, how is it showing in your possessions? Do you have a deep understanding that a Covenant is like a marriage, all you possess belongs to God. And if you are in a Covenant relationship with God, how is your giving into his Kingdom, let’s be frank, into this church, your own family of believers. Because if you are not giving, you are cheating, not us, but God.

I know this is hard. But it is true – you are in a covenant relationship – a two-way relationship. It is a relationship that involves you giving into his Church – your Church. As you return to God, return to God physically in marriage and allow your income to become his income.

Just as the tithe would do in the Bible, and giving does here today, giving pays for ministries, for our Pastor, for this building and all the bills that come with it. It doesn’t shock me that the Temple in the Bible fell into disrepair so many times – without giving, a building cannot stand on its own and a ministry cannot be sustainable.

You can give the two small coins of the widow; or we call could be radical and give all that we have; the word tithe itself just means ten percent. It’s like a small tax, but it is investment into your relationship, into your community and into your family.

Church, this is not a sermon on donuts, but even donuts require money to be made, this is a sermon on the amount though and it is a call for action. Return to God, return to the covenant relationships established from Abraham and settled at the cross. Restore the tithe to God’s house – you are the bridge of Christ – return the tithe to this storehouse, to your family.

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.