Wednesday, August 24th, 2005
Three boys are in the schoolyard bragging about their fathers. The first boy says, “My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a poem, they give him $50.” The second boy says, “That’s nothing. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a song, they give him $100.” The third boy says, “I got you both beat. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, he calls it a sermon. And it takes eight people to collect all the money!”
Tags: preaching, Worship
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Saturday, August 20th, 2005
I’m preaching tomorrow at Logan Uniting Church, on ‘helping hands’. We’ll be introducing the work of Blue Care, a domiciliary service provided by the Uniting Church in Australia, Queensland Synod.
I’ll be drawing on the work of Stephanie Paulsell, author of Honoring the Body, and a contributor to Practicing Our Faith.
Stephanie says:
“The Christian practice of honouring the body requires that we view the world through the lens of Jesus’ wounded but resurrected body. His broken body brings into focus the bodies of the sick and the wounded and the exploited. His resurrection shows us the beauty God intends for all bodies. As we love and suffer, as we seek God and each other, with our bodies, we remember that every body is blessed by God, deserving of protection and care.”
Stephanie’s work on the Practicing Our Faith web site has a number of questions around three practices of honoring the body, bathing, adorning and touching.
Bathing
Have you ever let bathing remind you that humans are created in God�s image?
In what ways might baptism be connected with daily bathing?
How did Jesus care for the bodies of his friends when he washed their feet (John 13)?
Adornment as a way to protect ourselves, as well as to provide delight.
Do you regularly notice what other people wear?
When do you pay the most attention to the clothes you wear?
What do you hope your clothing says about you and your commitments?
In what cases does adornment separate us from others?
When does it unite?
Has adorning your body ever helped you be more attentive to God’s presence?
Touching
…when it is appropriate, seeks to honour, not diminish.
Notice the touching in Luke 7:36-50. In what ways does the woman honour Jesus’ body?
What do we teach our children about ‘good’ touch and ‘bad’ touch? How do children learn to respect their own bodies and the bodies of others through touch?
When have you been aware of a healing touch?
Recall occasions when you have cared for another through touch.
What do we learn about our bodies through liturgical acts of touching such as washing of feet, exchanging signs of peace, and anointing?
Stephanie Paulsell is Houghton Professor of the Practice of Ministry Studies at Harvard Divinity School.
Tags: preaching, Spirituality
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Saturday, August 13th, 2005
So here’s my main points for tomorrow morning…
Life is to be shared, not acquired!
Looking at the character of God I am often amazed at God’s generosity. The ways in which God continues to pour his blessings into our lives without conditions. It’s in the nature of God to share. Think about it. Creation. Patient guidance of a wayward people. The servant nature of Jesus’ leadership. The giving of God’s presence in the Holy Spirit. The giving of gifts and the development of God’s character in us. That’s what God’s goodness is about.
As we focus on God we realise that life is to be shared, not acquired.
Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
Recently I’ve started earning revenue from my television adverts blog. I’ve put in text-related advertisements from Google Adsense on the side of the blog. So every time someone clicks one of those ads my credit goes up. Some people make a living out of doing this, with their sites attracting thousands of people each day. But my site only has about 700 people a day. All the same, I’ve been sharing with my family the excitement of seeing the dollars build up each week. My daughter has given me the challenge of using the income to sponsor a family through World Vision. Wow! I realised as she said this that I could so easily have become obsessed with gaining income - so much that I was overlooking how we could share it with others.
That’s the difficulty we have isn’t it. The culture we live in values acquisition, possession and comfort. We equate happiness with being ‘well off’. What if we followed Jesus’ lead and turned that round so that being happy was associated with how we shared our wealth with others? Instead of conforming to our culture, we’re called to be counter-cultural in a way that transforms our society.
Being generous with what we have to give, now
I was at a workshop on generational change recently. One of the exercises we used was for each generation to come up with questions for the others. The Gen X group asked the Baby Boomers, “Why did you give up on the ideals of social justice that you had when you were younger?” The answer - we bought houses.
Have you ever dreamed about what it would be like to have more money than you have? What would happen if by some chance you won the lottery? Or if you inherited thousands of dollars from some rich aunt. Would you give more and serve more than you do now? Would you be more generous than you are now?
The reality is that our generosity is linked with our inner attitudes and not our bank balance. Living simply so that others may simply live - it’s actually easier to do when we haven’t invested in maintenance-hungry possessions. But if we develop patterns of thinking and serving when we have little, we’re likely to take those through when we’re well off financially.
That’s the lesson Jesus continually taught his disciples. Just a cup of water in my name. Just these two fish. Just these five loaves of bread. Just that penny. Start with what you have.
Being generous works best in community
I’ll talk about some of the Growing Up Generous thoughts from the previous post.
And affirm some of the projects at Logan - such as supporting the Cancer Society Daffodil appeal. And I’ll talk about the churches of Mackay and their working together to rebuild a village destroyed by the tsunami in December last year, on the East coast of India. The village is called Chinamayawani Lanka. Satya Yeramsetti’s project is online at www.sysetti.com
All things are possible with God!
I’ll finish with a reference to the sense of despair experienced by the disciples with Jesus as they saw the potentially generous young man ride away. It’s so difficult. Who could do it? Jesus agrees that it is difficult. But with God, he says, it is possible. With God, our lives can change. Not just for our own sake but for the sake of our communities.
Tags: Bible, preaching, Spirituality, stewardship, Theology
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