Seeing, Knowing, Speaking
Gate Pa – Easter 6 and Harvest Festival
Readings:
First Reading: Acts
16:9-15
Psalm: 67
Second Reading: Rev 21:10, 22-22:5-6
Gospel: John 5:1-9
What I want to say:
that it is really hard to
love one another
who we love and how we love keeps being made smaller by
culture and religion
we Christians struggled with this from beginning
if we had truly loved as Jesus loved then would been no
wars
are not able to – too hard
2 options
give up and carry on as have
repent of lack love, and with God seek love another as
Christ loves
explore how Chris loves using
reading from John 5 – how we sees, knows and returns people community of God.
relate that to both harvest
festival and to three children will baptise
What I want to happen:
people to reflect on who they might need to see, and how we
might love them
The Sermon
1. Introduction:
`Love one another. As I have loved you, love one another. By
this will all know you are my disciples.
As I said last week sounds straight forward and easy to do
discovered
as looked readings Acts and Galatians and down centuries since
actually really
hard to love one another
who we love
and how we love keeps being made smaller by culture and our religion
we
Christians struggled with this “loving one another as Christ loves us” from
very beginning
if we had
truly loved as Jesus loved then would been no wars
didn’t say we shouldn’t fought in wars –
said that there would have been no
wars for us to fight in.
very
different thing
reality is that we are simply not able to love as Jesus loved
there are
individuals who get pretty close
call
most of them saints
rest us, just seems too hard
2 options
give up and
carry on as have – not loving
or repent of
lack love,
and
with God seek love another as Christ loves
pick
ourselves up and try again, and again, and again.
2. Loving like Jesus
why is loving as Jesus did so difficult?
I suggest that it involves seeing people and seeing our world
really differently
saw that last week – stories around who allowed in early
church and how treated
see that in reading Gospel this morning
on face of it seems like pretty simple story of Jesus healing
someone
lot more
going on
One commentators talked about difference between disease and
illness
disease is symptoms – what we tend
focus on
illness is both cause and consequence
of disease
not
bacteria or viruses
disruption/disordering/destruction
of right relationships with God, family, neighbour, community
disruption
of those relationships is manifest in illness
causes
more disruption
so this man in story is alone
for
whatever reason – family abandoned him
now
an outsider
nobody
invisible
belongs
to no-one and nowhere
when we read story we read point
healing when disease – symptoms are dealt with
to
be when Jesus says, “stand up, take your mat and walk.”
But if illness is really destroyed
relationships which led man to be invisible
point healing of that is when in
verse 6
“When Jesus saw him lying there
and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be
made well?”
notice what
Jesus does to this invisible non person
sees him – no –one else saw him –
invisible
knew about him – no-one else took
time to know anything about him non
person
belongs
to no-one and nowhere
spoke to him – no-one spoke to him –
he did not exist
Jesus
culture and religion said this person should be treated as if they did not
exist, was beyond love.
they are beyond God’s care
Jesus broke
all those ways seeing world
saw him
knew him
spoke to him
and in doing
so healed the broken relationships, and restored to his place in God’s
community
all this of
course gets Jesus into heaps of trouble
not only for act itself
but because it is the Sabbath – day
of rest
another
reason why loving as Jesus does is hard
to truly love as Jesus loves is
dangerous
who is invisible to us
who do we need to see, to know,
to treat as God’s beloved when nearly everyone else says – move on by quickly?
3. William Wilberforce
a person who lived out exactly
what Jesus did today in gospel - William Wilberforce
someone
that saw slaves – had been invisible
worked
tirelessly to not only see them but to know them
like
Jesus and man read about today
love
them and free them
Another fact many people don’t
know is that Wilberforce and many worked with him ending slavery were also
heavily involved in formation of SPCA
for them – how we treat each
other and how treat animals is intimately linked
if we treat animals simply means
satisfy our needs
–
small step treat fellow humans means satisfy our needs
4. Harvest Festival
(suggest not
only animals but all creation)
today is
harvest festival
as said in
pew sheet
We join with all God’s people giving thanks
for God’s provision.
we give thanks for the harvest that we might have
grown,
and the harvest we are able to buy each day
in the shops.
in celebrating God’s abundant provision we are invited to two
things
acknowledge
that creation is God’s and not ours to use and abuse as we wish
be satisfied
with all that God does provide, and not seek and strive for more.
that means
to be generous as God is generous
to
share God’s fruits and goodness with all.
5. Baptism
Today we baptise Gracie Rose, Holly Lorraine and Clara
Elizabeth.
big day
today we celebrate gift life given by God in
these three young girls
we celebrate God’s profound freely given gift
of love found in each of these girls
Divine
spirit love dwells within each of them
today
join parents, Matthew and Coral, friends and family
praying
these girls will grow knowing that gift.
today we also invite them to join with us in
our struggle to live that out
our struggle to love
love
as Jesus does
love
all Jesus loves
on
this harvest festival, to love God’s creation as Jesus does
we are all invited to see all people and all creation as
God’s
that means inviting them to be with us as seek to be
satisfied with all that God provides
to
be generous as God is generous
to
share God’s fruits and goodness with all.
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