Read…   Amos 8:1-10

   If I asked you to tell me about the prophets of the Old Testament, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of you told me you didn’t know much about them but didn’t they predict the future and especially didn’t they predict the birth of Jesus.   We read bits of Isaiah around Christmas time to show his birth was predicted by the Old Testament.  (Actually I think Isaiah would be very surprised to hear about Jesus!)

   The prophets (and they make up about one third of the Old Testament)  did of course make some statements about the future but usually these were along the lines of ‘things need to change in our society and if they don’t these are going to be the consequences’.  Primarily I believe these charismatic characters were God’s messengers sent to tell societies about how God wanted them to live and to call the people back to faithful living.  They spoke of justice for everyone, a fair go for everyone, respect for everyone.  Often they were reluctant and they usually had a hard time because what they had to say wasn’t welcomed.  Telling people they have to change the way they are living usually goes down like a lead balloon.  But in Amos’ case change was needed because his people had gone off the rails.  

  We are told at the beginning of the book that carries his name that he was born in Tekoa, a small village not far from Jerusalem.  He was a semi nomadic shepherd who lived in the time of when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jereboam king of the northern kingdom of Israel.  What he said was anchored in a specific time and place.  The opening verse of his book tells us he spoke out two years before the great earthquake.  It seems we share something in common with Amos although I think the earthquake that he’s remembered for is his message that the way things were needed to radically change!    

      Amos speaks for God:

For crime after crime of Israel I will grant no reprieve, because they sell the innocent for silver and the destitute for a pair of shoes.  They grind the heads of the poor into the earth and thrust the humble out of their way.  Father and son resort to the same woman and they profane my name…..it’s not a pretty picture that Amos portrays about some of the things that were happening in his own society.  And yet around him people were optimistic.  The economy was doing well, and the rich were wallowing in their wealth. People were heading along to local synagogues on the Sabbath.  But Amos says God is not fooled.  This is not how things should be for God’s people.  For him and the God he knows a country is not judged by it’s economic growth, its economic outlook, or even how full the churches are.  Amos tells us we should judge a nation according to how well it treats the poor, the disadvantaged, and the marginal.  Crucial for him was the question of what was happening to forgotten people at the bottom of the heap, or the fringes of society.  In some of his hard hitting comments he rages against the upper class women of  the wealthy area of Bashan famed for it’s fertile soils and fine cattle:

“Listen to this you cows [he is calling the women cows!] of Bashan who live on the hills of Samaria.  You who oppress the poor and crush the destitute with your indifference, who say to your husbands, ‘bring me a nice gin and tonic’..it’s not going to last….”  

And he goes on to speak of foreign armies invading the country that has gone rotten and the rich cows being led away into captivity.  The message is clear.  God wants a caring society, a just society, and if you won’t change then watch this space.  God’s judgment was close at hand.    

   He also has a go at the religion of his day picking out the two biggest and most holy sites of worship in the land at Bethel and Gilgal.  People would expect him to say come to Bethel and Gilgal and worship God.  But mocking them he says:

Come to Bethel and turn your back on God.  Come to Gilgal and turn your back even more!  Yes bring all your tithes and your offerings, do all the right religious things, but he says,  your worship is a mockery. 

He was saying their worship was an empty sham.  They might have prayed loudly on the Sabbath but on the first day of the working week they went back to ripping others off and behaving in ways that dishonoured God.  Again Amos pronounces the word of God:

Spare me the sound of your songs; I can not endure the music of your lutes.  Instead let justice flow like a river and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. 

Amos was speaking about the inequality he saw.  Some said their wealth was a gift from God, even a reward for their fine upright moral behavior.  Amos saw another reality.  Clearly there was no concern for the disadvantaged and struggling people in society and instead of a cohesive caring society there were huge inequalities and very little understanding of what life may be like on the other side of town.

     Amos saw visions.  WE heard about one this morning.  A basket of beautiful summer fruit.  The grapes, figs, olives, apples, oranges, looked lovely.  The Hebrew word for this in the text is gayitz.  It is a picture of abundance and all being well.  But Amos hears God saying to him that in fact not all is well and the end is nigh.  The Hebrew word for end is qetz which sounds like gayitz.  The word play was not lost on the Hebrew listeners.  Things may look lovely like the basket of fresh summer fruit, but in reality the fruit was going rotton.  It was well past it’s ‘use by’ date. 

 On that day says the Lord I will make the sun go down at noon, and the earth will grow dark.  I will turn your feasts into mourning.  I will make it like mourning for an only child, deep and bitter.  Even the land will become dry and desolate.    

   Archeologists have confirmed Amos’s picture.  In the early days when the Israelites settled Canaan the land was distributed more or less equally amongst the families and tribes.  As late as the tenth century BC archeologists have found houses were all approximately the same size and there wasn’t great disparity of wealth.  But by Amos’s day two centuries later everything had changed   Groups of large palatial dwellings were found in some areas while tiny hovels were found huddled together in other areas.  The gulf between the rich and poor had increased dramatically and the once united society had become divided by a chasm with no caring bridge between them.  God’s word through Amos was frightening.  The consequence of this inequality was that Israel would collapse as a nation and be utterly destroyed and laid waste.

   And that’s what happened. Just a few years down the track the Assyrians came and conquered the land.  Buildings and life as they knew it was ended.  The cows of Bashan were taken away into captivity and their fine homes destroyed. The land became dry and desolate.  The judgment of God as prophesied by Amos came to be.

What do we make of Amos and the prophets like him in our Bibles?  They tell us God is very concerned about the sort of society we shape for ourselves.  Good societies are fair societies full of honesty, fairness, and a respect for each other and for God.  No more us and them. 

    Profits and the drive for good dividends must always be balanced with good and safe working conditions for workers.  I’m sure ex ANZ boss David Hisco is a nice guy, but he was living on another planet.  Ultra high salaries and crazy perks for the boss, questionable property deals for his wife, while the cleaners in his bank are paid probably close to the minimum wage.  It’s a recipe for disaster.  You can’t build good societies with us and them.    

We know there are good hard working families in our own society who just never get a chance to get ahead with a lack of affordable housing and basic health costs resulting in a hand to mouth existence.

   The sort of society and world we live in matters to God, so I give thanks for the work of our community project at Waltham Cottage.  It may be a few small drops in the ocean, but every drop in the ocean counts.  Every endeavor that seeks to build good community, every action that proclaims we are all neighbours makes God smile.

  Amos and other prophets are there in our scriptures to unsettle and remind us we should be greatly concerned for others especially those that don’t get the opportunities we do, the blessings we take for granted.   We are a society and we are all linked.  Let justice flow like a river and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.  Let us be part of that river and stream.

An address for Trinity Sunday: Readings – Proverbs 8:1-4,22-31 John 16: 12-15

   One of the things our early Christian forebears struggled with was a paradox.  They agreed there was only one God, and their faith was a monotheistic faith, but the one-ness of God wasn’t as one dimensional or static as they had thought.  They had met Jesus, or heard stories of Jesus, human like us, and yet revealing God in a way unseen before.  And now there was a power and presence in their midst they called the breath of Jesus speaking into their lives in a new dramatic way. 

  God was not an unknown God, a vague mysterious being out there beyond the clouds but was known and experienced alongside, and even speaking from deep within.   One of the images from their culture that helped them make some sense of this was from the world of Roman theatre.  There one actor often played multiple parts in a play simply by wearing a different mask.  This phenomenon gave them an idea.  Maybe God could be thought of as an actor in the world wearing different masks.  The one-ness of God was upheld but within this one-ness they came to see there was a dynamic diversity.  In Christ and though the Spirit they claimed God was alive in the world in new ways.  And as they pondered and debated a radical new understanding and teaching about God emerged.  They had to create a whole new term to convey it …. and that term was the Trinity.

    I need to say we are embarking on an impossible journey today because books and books have been written about the Trinity and it still remains a mystery.   It is at best an idea that helps us draw closer to God, but at its worst it simply confuses and divides.  Our Muslim brothers and sisters shake their heads in horror saying we are making the one God three.

   I might say this term was particularly helpful for the Irish and for St Patrick because they quickly cottoned on to the shamrock as an image for this new understanding.  One shamrock leaf has three parts, and those of you who have looked into Celtic Christianity will recognise the motifs that originate from the image of the trinity.  The Celts were very familiar with the idea of interconnectedness and they quickly resonated with the idea that God was best seen in interconnectedness and community.  If God exists in community maybe we also find life in community. 

   There were other images that became popular including that of a spring of water which has an unseen underground source, a spring or fountain where it becomes visible, and a stream that flows from it.   In all three parts it is the same life giving water but it is experienced in different ways….. hidden, gushing, and journeying out into the world.  All three parts contain the same substance, water, but you see the water in different ways.  Images help us understand.

   The three parts to the Trinity picture of God were described by our forebears as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

   First through Jesus and his good news they had come to know and relate to God in a parental way.  Like a parent God was the source of all creation, the giver of life and existence.  They saw God’s parental love as source and wisdom that guides, corrects, surrounds, and watches over us in a manner that is seen in the very best of parenting.  It is a gracious, longing presence that gives freedom to choose, but which goes on seeking the best for the child.  They called God the Father, and there were reasons why they only rarely used motherhood to describe God back then.  Today if we were formulating the idea of the Trinity for the first time we would include both motherhood and fatherhood to speak of God’s creating and parental love.  It’s not an easy task to redefine our traditions in light of now.  It takes time.

   Secondly in Jesus they saw God in the life of a fellow human being who walked with them.  God was not some far off remote presence, or something that was unseen such as a hidden source of water, but God wanted to participate in the life of the world.  If you have seen me you have seen the Father Jesus says in John’s gospel.  God had broken into our human world as a visible spring of water, a human being born as one of us – Jesus.   Our forebears called the gift, the Son, partly as a reaction to the proclamation of the world around them that the son of God was the emperor of Rome.   No said the Christians the true light of God wasn’t the emperor but is seen in Jesus the crucified one.   He is the raised up by God from the power of death.  He is the true spring of life. 

   Through Jesus and his good news they also experienced a third reality.  Within them and around them they felt a presence that called them to reshape their lives and the communities of which they were part. A burning fire within, a rushing wind, a gentle breeze whispering.   There was a power alive within, around them building bridges across divides, reconciling, forgiving, boldly proclaiming a new way of life.  The water of eternal life was flowing like a river in their midst transforming lives, giving courage to be different.  They called this outpouring of God, the Holy Spirit.

   The Trinity was an attempt to put into words the radical way the early Christians were rethinking and freshly experiencing God in the aftermath of their encounter with Jesus.  Through God’s parental love, through Christ’s revealing life, death, and resurrection, and through this unrelenting  wind blowing inside and outside the fences they felt they were caught up with a God who while beyond and over us, walked with us, and stirred fires within us.    The new teaching or doctrine about the Trinity helped them see God in a life giving way reminding us that the word doctrine and doctor share a common root.  Both doctor and doctrine are supposed to help us find health and wholeness.

   You may be shaking your head and saying this is all over the top and the doctoring power of the Trinity really is academic claptrap.   

   I don’t know how many times I’ve been challenged with the view that the God of our scriptures is a violent bloodthirsty God.  It is one of the main reasons people reject organised religion.  Look at the conquest of Canaan by Joshua as he led the Hebrew people into the Promised Land.   The first target was the city of Jericho where not only all the people were killed, with men women and children totally wiped out with the exception of Rahab and her family, but also all the animals…. Anything that was alive was brutally slaughtered – at the command of God we are told.   Joshua was leading an invasion of Canaan and wanted to terrorise the inhabitants into submission, but does this way really reveal the heart of God?  Our forebears in giving us the doctrine of the Trinity brought a healing picture of God.  Creation is sometimes brutally violent, but consider how such violence sits with Jesus, who instead of picking up a sword would rather be tortured and killed.  Imagine how this sits with the reconciling, connection building Spirit who descends upon us like a dove.  The Trinity invites us to see three faces of God and through seeing all those faces we come closer to the heart of God.    

  A  temptation of any religion is that it becomes frozen in time.  Seeing the Trinity like a spring of water that is flowing should alert us to the possibility that we have more to learn.  Jesus told us the Spirit would guide us into more truth when we were ready to bear it.  The Spirit dances within us, breathing the life of God, proclaiming the sanctity of all life.  It took nineteen centuries before we proclaimed slavery was evil, and even longer to proclaim the equality of women.  We are still struggling with the learning that human sexuality can take different forms.   The Spirit is now breathing of a new revolution in how we live in harmony with the gift of creation, how we use resources, and how we can no longer treat the earth as a giant garbage disposal unit that can deal with all our extravagant lifestyles.  There is a dynamic changing face of God in the Trinity.

    We are used to seeing ourselves as isolated individuals.  Our protestant faith has emphasised individual responsibility.   The Trinity sees God characterised by ‘living in relationship’.  God is characterised not by a single entity but by a community with different faces.  I wonder what that has to say to us in an individualistic world.  If God exists in creative tension I wonder if we can’t give witness to a community where we celebrate creative tension instead of hiding our differences.  If God exists as the melding of different faces, maybe we can see more clearly the value of the different faces in our community.  

    Let the mystery of Trinity speak to you.

Dugald Wilson 16 June 2019

An address for Pentecost Sunday, reading  Acts 2:1-13

       The wind is a mysterious force.  In Hebrew and Greek the two languages of the Bible the word for wind and breath is the same word.  In Hebrew, ruach, in Greek pneuma.  You cant see the wind but you can see its effects.  You cant see your breath but taking a breath has an effect.  (without it you die)

Participation activity: Blow up balloons and let them go   – cant see the breath in the balloon but it energizes and creates a new life in the room as balloons zip everywhere!

It is God’s Spirit, or breath, who moves over the empty creation as a wind and life begins.   In the creation stories it is God’s Spirit, or breath, who breathes into the first creatures made of dust and human beings are brought to life.  It is the breath of life.  It is the breath that gives and enhances life.  All of us I think want to feel alive.  We want to do more than just exist, we want to live, really live.  We want to find eternal life as our scriptures call it, we want to walk tall, make a difference, and find deep peace.  When I think of the Holy Spirit I think of a power that is working in the world to bring this life we long for.  The Spirit is working in my life to lead me to this abundant life, the Spirit is working in our community to bring this life, and the Spirit is reshaping the world to bring this life.   So when economic systems work to benefit the powerful and forget the rest the Spirit blows the embers of discontent.   When people think the earth can be treated as a commodity for plunder and abuse the sacred gift of creation pumping carbon into the atmosphere and all sorts of nasties into our local waterways the Spirit will raise up people to lead a revolution.  When the church loses its saltiness and withers away the Spirit will stir a reformation.  When you and I are tempted to put our feet up and say this is as good as it gets the Spirit will nudge and whisper of another chapter in the journey of aliveness, the journey towards abundant life.   The Spirit is a breath of life…. Life in all its fullness in all creation.

There was a sound like rushing wind and the early disciples encountered the breath of life, the Spirit of aliveness.   A new community was born that was called to give witness to this life in all its fullness in individuals and in communities. 

Lets do something that illustrates this.  Take your balloon.  It’s limp and lifeless, but I invite you to blow it up.   It now invites you to a party, maybe to throw it to someone and have some fun.  You can let it go and it literally takes off.  The Holy Spirit is a power alive in our world like the breath in the balloon that brings life, and goes on whispering and blowing to bring a fullness of life that Jesus talked about.

The  tongues of fire – (Participation activity: light a flaming torch and giving out little flames to everyone and talk about fire and flames)    We recognize this with the decorating of the church with red, the colour of fire.  Our story tells us at Pentecost these bursts of fire-energy spread out and touched each one of them.  No-one was missed out.  I think that’s significant. The flame of fire is a symbol of God, and at Pentecost we witness the truth that each of us are empowered with a God given flame or burst of energy.   I wonder what this could symbolize?  The Holy Spirit is alive in me your little flame celebrates. 

I choose to give the flame another name and that is the passion of God.  Within each of us there is a God filled passion or energy to do or be something.  I believe that each of us comes into the world with a sacred purpose.  There is a dream of God in our being.  This may involve undertaking a particular task or tasks or it may be to live a certain way, or maybe most often a mixture of both.  Whatever each of us has a unique role to play in God’s ongoing plan for the life of earth.  One way of recognizing this is to see what we get passionate about. We each have unique gifts, and a calling to play a part in the ongoing journey of creation.  Some people are wonderful planners and administrators, some are great carers, while others teach brilliantly or work with their hands.  Some are great encouragers, or have a gift of healing, others are great prayers have great wisdom.  Some are musicians, while others are teachers, academics and researchers.  There is a God flame burning within each of us and one of my prayers this morning is that we will each know our God flame well. 

There was what appeared to be like tongues of fire dancing around the room where they were, and a flame came and rested on each one of them.    A new community was born that was called to discover their God given gifts and to use those gifts together to transform and heal the world.

Today we celebrate that the Spirit of God is alive within each of us.  I invite you to be still for a moment and consider your own gifts.  Remember each of us is gifted…. It’s often the case that we are not very good at recognizing our giftedness and that is largely because we are not good at reflecting back to each other and encouraging each other.  You are invited to write on your flame a word or words to describe your gift then peel off the double sided tape and stick it on you.  You may like to talk about your gifts over coffee after the service. 

Wenn ich anfangen Deutsch zu sprechen Sie wahrscheinlich nicht verstehen mich  (When I start speaking German you probaly wont understand me!)  Participation activity: See how many greetings we can recite in the congregation…

I start speaking in another language and you can no longer understand me –  our sense of connection is broken.  But if we speak the same language we can communicate, have a conversation, and hopefully connect.  Connecting is a wonderful thing.  The cross we have on our church is a connecting cross just like an addition sign.  And when we add and connect things happen.  One connected to one becomes two.  Two connected to one becomes three.  When we connect with another amazing things happen.   It’s a wonderful thing to have a common language that enables us to connect. There is a power released when you know you are not alone.  The Holy Spirit is a connecting power.  The Spirit of Jesus wants to build connections with god and with each other. 

I’m thinking of the great gulf between generations in our own society, or the gulf between races or religions, the huge gulf between those who live comfortably and those who struggle to pay the bills or to find a roof over their heads.  At Pentecost a new community formed where the fences were down, the connections were made across all sorts of boundaries – there were to be no insiders and outsiders.  This sense of connection was to be a key feature of the new community.   Slaves and free, young and old, Jew and gentile.  The Christian community was a community without fences.  The first Christians stirred by the Spirit were people who put effort into building bridges across divides, reaching out beyond the comfort zones to discover the stories of the strangers.  The Pentecost story isn’t just about speaking other languages it was about connecting across all the things that divide us and building team.  Maybe the Spirit is whispering to you today to do some connecting?

Dugald Wilson 9 June 2019

So what do we know about Dorcas…  See Acts 9:32-43

• She is known by two names.  Dorcas is Greek and Tabitha is Aramaic and it means ‘gazelle’.
• She lived in Joppa now called Jaffa on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.  I imagine there was a small group of Jewish followers of Jesus there may be about 15. 
• She is called a disciple – the Greek form of the word for disciple is the only time it’s used in the New Testament.  It has the connotation of someone with authority.  She is I think someone who is still very active and who has died not of old age but of some other issue.
• She is revered among the widows of Joppa.  She seems to have a ministry of looking after widows who were often people on the edge.  In a patriarchal society where women had little financial independence widows especially immigrants were very vulnerable and without a husband were often in a precarious situation.  Without a husband they had no breadwinner and no protector. 
• Dorcas was known for making clothing.  The widows who mourned her death showed Peter some of the fine clothing she had made for them.  She was a woman who had a ministry in caring for others.   The term used at the beginning of the reading to denote the Jesus followers at Lydda is saints or hagios.  It means the holy ones.  Holiness was about being different, and the difference is about being chosen for special purposes of God.  We are saints too but it’s not about greater honour or prestige in God’s eyes it’s about being chosen to fulfil the special purpose of God.  For Dorcas this was about caring for others.
• She was the only person raised from the dead by an apostle and the story of this miracle obviously did the rounds of Joppa and some joined the small band of Christ followers there.

Miracles in the ancient world were important and a sign of God’s activity.  The ability to perform miracles was a sign that God was working in someone, and the elevation to sainthood in the Catholic Church still has this requirement.   You have to show the person has performed a miracle.  True to my protestant roots I would name Dorcas as a saint because she has discovered her God purpose and is living it out to great effect in caring for others.   There are wondrous things happening in this story and it’s easy to overlook the wonder of someone who has discovered their calling in life and who is living this out in the service of God.

The resuscitation of Dorcas after her body has been washed in preparation for burial however is also wondrous.   What happened and why.  If it happened then wouldn’t it be cool to get access to this power today.   I confess I have never prayed for someone who was dead to start breathing again – a resuscitation of the deceased.  I have of course prayed that they will return to be at home in God.    But I find myself wondering about all sorts of things.  How was Dorcas resuscitated and how could cells in her brain starved of oxygen survive?  Mysterious things sometimes happen with dead bodies which is why they used attach strings to dead people’s wrists when they put them in a coffin and run the string up to a bell above ground.  If the person came alive again the bell would ring and hence we get the term saved by the bell.  We also get the term graveyard shift because someone was appointed to listen through the night in graveyards for any bells.   Something obviously happened to Dorcas and she came alive again and Peter got some credibility.   But what does this tell us about God’s activity.  If only there were a few more Peter’s around could we solve the health system overload….. 

Imagine this.  The Lion Air Boeing 777Max plane full of passengers crashes because the pilots were unable to override the software that continually pushed the nose down.  Arriving at the pearly gates the passengers are informed by God, ‘sorry I would have loved to intervene and save you but not enough of you were praying.’    Or the alternative, as the pilots struggled to regain control the people on board were totally united in prayer asking God to save them.  God intervened and turned off the software causing the problem and the plane touched down safely.  ‘Phew, good thing we all prayed’ said the passengers.    Both scenarios raise some pretty big questions about the place of prayer. 

But so does this.  Some double blind studies have shown that people who pray and who are prayed for   heal more quickly than those not prayed for.  I have to say such research is inevitably dodgy, because the variables are impossible to tie down, but it makes sense to me that this could be the case.  What doesn’t make much sense is the picture of God waiting somewhere for enough prayer to as it were to twist God’s arm to act.   I believe there is a power of healing alive within our world which can be enhanced and freed to move through prayer so I want to encourage prayer for healing.  I believe also this power can be enhanced through other ways… love and knowing we are loved, but also through other means like medical science and good medical practice.   I don’t picture God intervening from the outside, from up there somewhere, but God acting through the healing power that is in us, in others, and in the world.

I also believe that healing is not just about physical restoration, but is a body, mind, relational thing. Often it’s about being strengthened to face the reality of what is.  I have a friend in a wheelchair who had many prayers prayed for physical healing which never happened, but she would say she and her husband have been strengthened to face their situation.  Their tragedy has seen much outpouring of love and actually their lives have touched many others and given them strength too.  For Dorcas resuscitation may have been for a couple of years or whatever but she still faced death.  It’s human to pray that the mountains we face be taken away.  Even Jesus asked in prayer for the cross to be taken away from him.  But the reality is that our faith is not an insurance policy that prevents tragedy and loss.  As I have said prayer does sometimes open doors for healing power to flow in all sorts of forms but the covenant or deal God has made with us is not to protect us from all pain, but to be with us no matter what.  There is I think a common temptation to believe that if we are good God will give us special favours, but being in relationship with God strengthens us and guides us in living life, whatever comes.  This also is not always apparent.  Jesus cried from the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me.   It’s human to see just a small part of the big picture and we have to learn to trust in something bigger than us.

The Psalm that is our lectionary Psalm for today proclaims this.  It is a psalm you know well, Psalm 23 and I invite you to join with me in singing it now.