Wheelbarrows and worries: what are we missing ?

 It is really easy to get distracted. I remember hearing a story about a rugby match where distraction was used. It happened when the great Welsh player Gareth Edwards was playing for Cardiff, and one of his Welsh team-mates Ray Gravell was playing for Llanelli.

The one problem that they encountered on the pitch was that having played together for Wales they knew each others insecurities.

Gareth Edwards worked out that there was one way to distract Ray Gravell so that he would have a dreadful game. This would ensure a better result for Cardiff.

So, he picked on Gravells’ physical condition. He began the game by saying, “You look out of shape, you’ve put on a lot of weight.” This of course bothered Ray Gravell. So much so that so he kept asking other players during the game if he had indeed put on weight. This of course distracted him greatly, and it was not helped by the fact that every time Gravs looked at Gareth, he was making hand gestures to suggest a big tummy ! 

Distraction can come about so easily. We can all find ways to get the attention of someone else. Our readings this morning are all about God having a hard time getting people’s attention.

In the Old Testament reading from the book of Genesis (18:1-10a) we heard of Abraham who had stopped believing the promise from God that he and his wife Sarah would have a child. 

To be fair to Abraham he was in is nineties ! Anyway, God needed to get Abraham’s attention and so He sent three strangers who promised once again that Abraham and Sarah would have a child. 

God stepped into normality for Abraham and surprised him. 

In the New Testament reading from the epistle to the Colossians (1:15-28) the people to whom the epistle was written had been led astray by distractions, other beliefs, new ways of thinking. These were all seeking to take the people away from God. In the letter they are reminded what the gospel is about. This is, that there is one God, who has both made Himself known and has a concern for the world.

Then in the gospel reading (Luke 10:38-42) we heard of the distraction of Martha. I always feel really sorry for Martha. She was there trying to make everything perfect for Jesus, she was looking after the house, the food, she was busy. As a result of her busy activity she had became so intent on doing things correctly, in being a good host, that she got distracted from her guest. Mary rather than being the good host was a good guest.

This is in terms of Jesus coming alongside her, whilst she sat and listened intently, paying him all her attention. Yes, Jesus was Martha’s guest, but for Mary she felt that the impact of Jesus was such that she was His guest.

There is a danger that we can be distracted from God, and not hear what God is saying to us, I think we are all guilty of carrying on with our lives and not letting God in.

Sometimes we do this by piling up more and more things in our lives, the things that we have to do, and this cuts down on the time that we should be spending with God.

Sometimes, we can be so intent on doing things for God that we miss out on Him speaking to us, because we are so busy doing what we think is His work. 

I don’t think that Martha was wrong, neither do I think that Mary was wrong. They both wanted to listen to God, and they both went about it in different ways. Martha was a go and do type of character and Mary was a sit and listen type of character.

I think that in our lives there is room to be both of these, I also think that we need to be aware of when we need to go and do and when we need to sit and listen. It’s easy to be distracted.

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev used to tell of a time when there was a wave of petty theft in the Soviet Union. To try and prevent this the authorities put up guards around the factories. At one timber-works in Leningrad, the guard knew the workers in the factory very well. The first evening, out came Pyotr Petrovich with a wheelbarrow and, on the wheelbarrow, a great bulky sack with a suspicious-looking object inside. "All right, Petrovich," said the guard, "what have you got there?" "Oh, just sawdust and shavings," Petrovich replied. "Come on," the guard said, "I wasn't born yesterday. Tip it out." And out came nothing but sawdust and shavings.

So he was allowed to put it all back again and go home. When the same thing happened every night of the week the guard became frustrated. Finally his curiosity overcame his frustration. "Petrovich," he said, "I know you. Tell me what you're smuggling out of here, and I'll let you go." "Wheelbarrows, my friend," said Petrovich, "wheelbarrows."  

We can be easily distracted but when we do this we can miss the point. The point being that God is there for us and He has much to share with us. We can build things up around our lives which protect us from the things that threaten to hurt us. We can build concerns around ourselves which worry us.

We can build the ‘must do’ things in our life that stop us from being spontaneous. In fact we can build so many things around us that we become so much of a Martha type of character that we never get to enjoy the peace that Mary felt.

We need to be the type of people who are ready to remove distractions and all that stands in the way of us and God. 

We need Mary days when we take away all that gets in the way of us and God so we can focus on Him. By doing this we can allow Him to lead us into Martha days, where we do His work in both showing and telling others about His love. 

So may we be ready to not only be the people who go and do things for God and other people, but also to remove distractions and allow God to strengthen us. May we be ready to listen to God and ask Him to use us as he wishes. AMEN

Just love

 May I speak in the Name of God : Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN

Have you ever had that moment when a child trounces you… that moment when you feel really in control and then a child reasons with you. My nephew Jack did just this to me when he was 9 years old. He was out playing with his friends and clearly decided that it was time for him to have lunch. I was at my Mum in laws house and she had said that when Jack came back in, I was to make him wait while she finished what she was doing and then she would make him lunch. 

Now to be honest at this stage Ian and I hadn’t been married long and I wanted to get everything right. So, when Jack came in I explained that he needed to wait because Gramma was on her way to feed him. Jack looked and informed me that he was busy playing, I said ‘well it won’t be a long wait’. 

He looked at me patiently and then very nicely said that the problem was his friends were eating at their houses right now and if he wasn’t quick he would miss the game. I said well, just wait… then Jack explained that he wasn’t going to be a bother, after all there was some bread that he could use. I explained that there was fresh bread on the way. 

Jack said that he was really happy with the bread that he had and after all this wait Gramma wouldn’t need to start a new loaf for him. 

By this stage I was starting to realise that Jack’s very polite and reasoned approach was getting the better of me. I made one last attempt and he once again smiled at me patiently and said, ‘thank you, Aunty Helen but I must go back out to play now, don’t worry Gramma will be fine and if she isn’t I will explain it to her.’

Sometimes no matter how many objections you put up to something the answer is already sorted. In our gospel reading (Luke 10:25-37) this morning we heard of the lawyer who wanted to do what was right. He approached Jesus and whether he wanted to show off how good he was, or whether he wanted to check that there wasn’t more that he could do, we can’t be sure. But, he went to Jesus and asked what was needed to gain eternal life.

The response Jesus gave was too simple for the lawyer. It was as if he could not believe that gaining eternal life was only about love. The lawyer wasn’t satisfied - he almost wanted a big list that he could tick off.  A bit like a to do list…. There is a Christian speaker called Vicky Beeching, who said that when she was a child she wrote a list of all the things that she could and couldn’t do, she read a puritan book about holiness – to be honest it would have been pretty hard core stuff and if she hadn’t met the requirements that she imposed for herself she would get really cross and mournful. 

It is sad that she as a child had set limits on herself so that she could be perfect and holy. A bit like the lawyer she could not believe that it was all quite simple… we are to love God and to love others.

I often say that I spent so long concentrating on the fact that Jesus had died for my sins that I forgot that it was not for me to spend my time feeling guilty but to enjoy God and His love.

Jesus explained to the lawyer who his neighbour was by telling the incredibly well known parable of the good Samaritan. This parable is often thought of with the Samaritan being one of the type of people that the people of Israel hated. 

There really was hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans because the Samaritans had been separated from Israel during the time of exile. In fact the two groups were incredibly similar but they had built up a suspicion. It makes me think that our neighbours can actually be people that we are suspicious of, the people who are sort of like us but not quite the same, the people whom we are not sure of, the people whom we may have a grudge against, the people who have hurt us or someone we love. 

Our neighbours are everyone. In God’s world and kingdom it is all about love, it is all about acceptance. It is letting go of the past and moving forward. It is all about love. 

This is what community is, this is what we as believers are meant to be like. In our New Testament reading (Col. 1:1-14) we heard of a community that believed, and also had love for all the saints. They were a group who loved each other. A man named Epaphras is mentioned. He was someone who probably came to faith after hearing Paul preach and then went back to tell people all that he had heard. It is thought that he then went back and told Paul all about these new believers. Paul wrote to them offering encouragement and help in their faith and as he wrote, he was congratulating the Colossian believers that their love  meant that they were joined together. 

It is so easy to talk about the love of God for us, it is so easy to talk of the need for us to love each other and anyone that we meet. 

It is easy to talk but it’s not so simple to do.  God calls us to love one another, God calls us to love Him with all that we are. There is another very important bit missing and that is that it is God alone who gives us the strength to do this. 

God, as it says in the letter to the Colossians, ‘has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.’ 

Perhaps the answer can be simple as we love each other and God who has rescued us. 

God, who loved us so much that He came amongst us, died and rose again.  

He gives us the strength. 

As we seek to be more like Jesus may we remember that, that it is He who gives us strength, and may we be ready to turn to Him and ask Him to help us love. AMEN

 

Seeds that speak: honesty, mission and the Gospel

 I want to begin with a story about a man who was planning to retire from his job as chief executive officer. He decided that it would be good to have a year to plan for his successor. He called 4 of his staff and told them that he was considering one of them as his replacement. He told them that to help him decide he had a test for them all. The test was that he gave them each a seed and asked them to plant it. Then they were to bring the plant back in a year. From this he would be able to see who was the person to have the job.

One man named Jim went home, planted his seed, watered it, and kept watching for a whole year. The others in the group kept saying how lovely their plants were. Jim’s wasn’t growing at all. 

At the end of the year, they all took their plants to the boss to see what would happen. Jim was picked as the next Chief Executive Officer. He was really surprised as his seed had not produced a plant. The boss said that Jim got the job because he was the only honest one. The seeds had all been dead and wouldn’t grow. The other staff members had replaced the original seed with one they bought. Jim kept going.

You reap what you sow. This was seen in the reading from the letter to the Galatians that we have heard this morning. (Gal. 6:7-16). In that reading we heard of Paul, who wrote the letter, trying to teach the new believers in Galatia about how they were how to live as believers. He pointed out that in order for them to live in harmony they needed to think both about what they were doing and what they were saying. They were to sow spiritual seeds. This would be through their love for God. In this way they would show others both how to love and be loved by God.

The community of faith in Galatia would have had people who thought that they were better believers. Paul was showing that actually the most important thing was to know Jesus. He pointed out that they needed to behave in a way that was appropriate to their spiritual life. That is their life as believers. 

I have never liked the word boasting. It is one of those words that people use, the kind of word that describes something that I was taught, was naughty. Boasting isn’t good. However, Paul tells the believers in Galatia to boast but only in Jesus and His death on the cross.

I can see that Jesus dying for us is worth boasting about. Paul was trying to encourage the believers, the same way that this reading encourages us. If we spread the good news of Jesus, by living more like Him, just think of the difference we can make. If we only boast in Jesus and not in ourselves, that will give the opportunity for more people to hear about Him. 

In the gospel reading (Luke 10:1-11, 16-20)  we heard about sowing again but in a slightly different way. Jesus had a plan to reach people with the good news about Him. First of all He went about talking to people and showing how they needed to change their lives, and how they could know salvation. Then He called His 12 disciples to spread the good news about salvation. In the gospel reading we heard of Jesus sending out 70 others, to do the same. 

I wonder whether these 70 had been following Jesus, waiting for their chance to tell people about him. They may have felt like they were waiting in the wings. Suddenly their chance had come, and Jesus sent them out with the reassuring words that they would be like lambs amongst wolves. Not the best reassurance. They were to go out and tell people about Jesus, but they weren’t to waste any time. If they weren’t welcome they were to leave and try somewhere else. If they were welcomed into one place, they were to stay there and use it as their base whilst they were preaching. 

The 70 had an amazing time and naturally when they came back they were ready to tell Jesus all about it. Jesus doesn’t really tell them to stop talking about everything but He moves them on. Why ?

Well, just like Paul in his letter to the Galatians, Jesus wanted the 70 to know that they were to keep proclaiming the good news of the salvation that He brought. 

I may have told you this before but I am not good at gardening, I don’t know when things grow best. I was looking on the internet and I saw charts to help you know when to plant certain seeds. It’s not the same with planting the seeds of God’s love and salvation. The time is always now !

In the gospel reading there was an urgency. Jesus was sending these 70 out and there wasn’t time to do anything except tell people about Him. In the letter to the Galatians we heard that we reap what we sow. If we sow for Jesus, we reap for Him. If we plant the seed of telling people about our faith just imagine how it can grow. Of course, we may never know what happens but just imagine the impact.

There isn’t a plan or diary for telling people about Jesus. It’s always something that we are to do.

Last week I was reminded of William and Catherine Booth who founded the Salvation Army. They began by preaching about Jesus to the poor in London on 2nd July 1865. Their work was incredible. 

I am not equating either Usk or the ministry area with 19th century London, however there are some words from Booth that can help us in our mission to reach out to others with the good news of Jesus and His love.

The words are, ‘While women weep as they do now, I’ll fight; while little children go hungry as they do now, I’ll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I’ll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl on the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight - I’ll fight to the very end !’

May we fight for God as we sow his love into the hearts of others by telling them about our faith. May we do our bit to to spread the good news of Jesus both by what we say and what we do. AMEN