All together

•January 5, 2011 • Leave a Comment

 

As human beings we love to try to put people in boxes.  We want life to be neat and tidy, to know where we are with people.  I hate it when people try to do it to me, I always like to throw in the odd surprise – so just when you thought you’d worked me out, or even worse pigeon-holed me, I can break out from it.  But we can still have that tendency to make value judgements on people and what they do – or don’t do.

This reading tries to take us away from that.

Peter has just has encounter with Cornelius, his great vision where God challenges him about what he considers to be clean and unclean.  And now Peter is able to say,

“I am certain that God treats all people alike”.

indeed God is pleased with everyone who worships him and does right.  Whatever nation they come from – whatever street they live in, whichever shops they buy their clothes in, however they do things that we do a different way, whatever they look like or sound like – God gives each one his peace, and each one has their sins forgiven by him.

 

Fundamentally underneath all the trappings we are all the same.  We are all human beings in need of love, hope, peace and forgiveness.  We are all in this together, so we should be helping one another, not engaging in a game of one-upmanship, or judgement of who is in or out.

If we return to the subject of justice, fighting for justice for all is a fundamental need.  To work for fairness for all.

Arm in arm, hand in hand, we all stand together.

 

Lord

help us to stand

together.

May we not judge

or pigeon-hole –

because we don’t like it when it’s done to us.

Help us to be understanding

Give us the courage to stand alongside

And invite others to stand with us.

We are all precious to you

May we become precious to one another

As we stand together in your love

 

Posted in forgiveness, justice
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Who do we appreciate?

•January 5, 2011 • 1 Comment

In this post-Christmas period, we are still trying to work out what Jesus is about.  What his coming into the world means.

Isaiah reminds us that the Lord’s servant is coming to bring justice.

Here is God’s servant, the one he has chosen, the one with whom he is pleased – and the promise – he will bring justice to the nations.

I thought I’d look up justice , just to make sure I’d grasped its full meaning.  Dictionary.com tells me that it means “to act or treat fairly”.  To be just, is to be guided by truth, reason and fairness.  So it’s about doing the right thing, making sure that things are fair.  But it goes on to add another definition to justice that grabbed my attention

“to appreciate people properly”

If we appreciate people properly, we can do no other than seek the best for them, long for fairness for them – and we’re going to want others to do that too.  If we appreciate that each life is precious, we have to find justice and fairness for them.

“I alone am the Lord your God” is the declaration at the end of the Isaiah passage – and perhaps this is the key to justice – when the Lord alone is our God – not our bank account, our house, our looks or any other thing that we might treasure.  When we look to God’s ways, not things that seem important; when God alone is the centre of our lives, the reason for our actions, the purpose to life, the lens through which we see others – then we will seek justice.  Because that is his way, his desire for all people.

Is God alone our God?  Do we appreciate people?  Do we look to the ways that Jesus came to show us?  Do we seek to bring justice and peace, in our lives, in our community, in the world?

Come Lord, we pray

Bring justice and peace

In our lives

And through that

May we seek to bring justice and peace

to your world

That the gates of your Kingdom

May be flung wide open

And your ways will rule throughout the world

 

Posted in Christmas, justice
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The offer is on the table

•January 2, 2011 • 1 Comment

Today is Covenant Sunday in our church.

During the service we will share together in saying these words:

 

‘I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing,
put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you,
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you,
or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing:
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.’

The initiative in the Covenant is God’s.  He promises that he will make a covenant with his people.  Not like the one they’d had before, because the people had broken that.  This time God will write his laws in their hearts – he will be their God – and they will be his people.  God will forgive them the wrongs of the past – forgive them and forget.

 

God calls to us, every one of us, inviting us to join our lives and our hearts with his.

 

That is the offer that is on the table.  But for a covenant to be ratified it has to be agreed by both parties.

 

I was reminded again recently by all the paperwork involved in buying property, how many place you have to sign to say that you are aware of and agree to every small point of the contract.

God makes his offer, of love, of hope, of peace, of forgiveness – freely offered to us.

It’s up to us whether we take up that offer.

As I’m typing this the adverts are on the tv reeling off offer after offer.  Great bargains we apparently can’t live without…  I’m not convinced, but the offer God makes to us is a truly special offer.

Over Advent, we reflected on giving ourselves to God, in response to what he has given to us in Jesus.  This Covenant Prayer is our opportunity to make that response.  To offer ourselves,  all that we are, all that we can be, all we have – all our being; to the one who gave everything he had to us and for us.

It’s not an easy commitment to make, there are lots of hard words.  Commitment to God is serious business, but so is his commitment to us.

 

So the offer is there – are we going to take it or not?

 

Posted in forgiveness, God
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