Sermon 2.9.2018
Focus Scriptures:
Song of Songs 2:8-13, James 1:17-27, Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23.
The genesis of any sermon starts with a reading of the set scriptures. I tend to read them about 2 weeks before the date of the sermon……and then about a week later I browse some favourite commentaries..after that I let everything marinate.
The marinade’s primary ingredient is prayer ….my own and those of a couple of solid Prayer Warriors …so that I am open, in my very ricochetting way, in heart and mind to the promptings from our Chief Chef….The gracious Holy Spirit.
About a week before the sermon’s to be preached, an email comes from Nathanial asking about hymn choices. That is not as straighforward as you might imagine …because you can’t base the choice of hymns on personal preferences….otherwise with ,yours truly, you’d be on a singing diet of Charles Wesley sung to Welsh tunes with the odd sprinkling of USA Gospel Tent songs by Fanny Crosbie.
But sometimes our ‘Boss’ nudges, or metaphorically opens the hymn-book …and an hymn draws attention to itself.
Having now learned from experience that these ‘accidents’ are not ‘accidents’…but are, in fact, a form of guidance…These out-of-the-blue hymns are invariably a spiritual heart -food for someone here this morning. A personal intimate silent whisper from our God to assure you of His presence.
This was how the hymn ‘What a friend we have in Jesus’was chosen.
The hymn had a double blessing as it also provided me with an insight that might link our reading from the erotic poem the Song of Songs, the letter of James ,the brother of Jesus and Mark’s gospel where we encounter Jesus giving the very religious folk from the Temple a lesson in getting their spiritual priorities sorted.
What a friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
everything to him in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer!
During the course of our lives experience many different type of relationships. Some are short term,others life-long. Some are professional and social, others personal and intimate. The nature of our various relationships determines the commitment/energy and effort we are willing to invest it…Over time life’s priorities change and so do our relationships. Some relationships are ‘flash in the pan’…shorter than a donkey’s gallop, + others still, especially marrage, can grow and triumph over the vicissitudes of time, ripening into a depth of fondness, loyalty and love, which endures a lifetime and beyond.
In John’s gospel, Jesus says:
You are My friends if you do what I command you…I have called you friends, because everything I have learned from My Father I have made known to you.
You did not choose Me, but I chose you.
And I appointed you to go and bear fruit—
Jesus says’… I have called you friends”
A good friendship is one of life’s greatest gifts. Real friends call on each other, support each other, seek the good for each other, listen to each other, look out for each other, +have unspoken bonds of deep fondness, trust and love.
So it is between each of us and Jesus.
In Mark’s Gospel earlier, we saw that our friend Jesus ‘hates fake’ and when He encounters it ‘calls it out’…as with Peter and now discovered with the legalistically minded religious Temple folk . Be assured He will also call out humbug in us.
”This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me”
…teaching human precepts as doctrines…(they) abandon the commandment of God and hold to (their pc)human tradition.”
Interacting with Jesus will stretch and deepen our understanding of ourselves + what’s authentic in life. His compassionate honesty strips away the rubbish of excuses… the blame game and our shirking personal responsibility.
The focus of Jesus is not on the external but the internal:
“Listen… and understand… it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come:
It takes time, forgiveness and the unconditional love of Christ to unravel and heal us of all the toxic baggage we carry. Throughout this process our Jesus promises: I will never leave you or forsake you”.
But we need to put in the time with Him.
”Here I am!( He says) I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”
Being a close friend with another influences the way we think and live. Things that once were ‘cool’ may not now be so. Growing in trust, openness, affection and respect changes perpectives. ( dirty water)
Those befriended by Jesus and who befriend Him are changed. James tells us not to be passive in our absorbing the gospel’s spiritual energy. He encourages us to: be doers of the word, and not merely hearers ”
Again, with Jesus all springs from the heart’s interior where His Holy Spirit generates and replenishes the well of love that He raises in us. Paradoxically the more of this love we give away, the more we receive.
Do not be a Dead Sea.The Dead Sea is dead because nothing flows out.
For if the ‘implanted Word of God’ in us is not producing loving actions, loving results….something is not kosher in our relationship with God… James fears that those whose expression of their Christianity is only ‘from the teeth out’ are ”deceive/ing themselves.”
if any (of us) are hearers of the word and not doers, (we) are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like……………(grounding)
He assures us….that in our ”being not hearers, who forget, but doers who act– (we) will be blessed in (our) doing.”
In our Gospel Jesus ennumerates the infectuous defilements that can erupt from the our hearts. James reminds us that there must be evdence of God’s Word being active in our lives. In relation to money, helping the poor, respect within a congregation, bridling our tongues, and good works…None of which are for our self glorification or self-justification but as testimonies to Jesus who tabernacles in our hearts.
What God commands His grace enables.
All our works, prayer, worship and conversation spring from hearts being transformed by the indwelling love of God Himself …whose Spirit steadliy transforms our wayward hearts with unrelenting love….until each soul’s relationship with God becomes like those passionate and intimate lovers we met in the Song of Songs.
Read Song of Songs today. Interestingly it contains no reference to God. For Judaism it is a allegory of God’s passionate love for Israel. The early Church Fathers declared it an allegory of God’s love for His Church. All wonderfully noble. But this humble reader…could not help feeling that the Song of Songs is also about the all consuming eternal, passionate Love of God for each of us here, who seeks to love …and is loved by His Son Jesus.
May we, through the gift of faith in the unmerited favour of God see the day come when each of us cries out in unison with Jesus:
“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine,,,” …..Amen