Decide

Haiku for living well

God says: Decide now.

Prosperity or hardship,

life or death. Your choice!

Obey God’s commands.

This is the way to true life,

thus will you prosper.

Rules for living well,

Commandments to enable

harmonious life.

Laws that serve people,

that create community;

building justice, love.

False Gods surround you;

don’t go astray or serve them.

That path leads to death.

Obey and hold fast

to God. This way leads to life;

live long in the land.

I give you this land.

Obey my laws, you’ll be blessed;

choose the way of life.

© Ken Rookes, 2023 

We have left everything

Haiku of the journey

He had kept the law,

this man who wanted to live

the life eternal.

Jesus looks with love.

One thing you lack. Sell the lot,

give it to the poor.

For your poverty,

treasure in heaven. The cost

proves to be too great.

How hard for the rich

to enter God’s realm. Camels

squeezing through needles!

Relax, he wasn’t

talking to us. Just this man!

We can keep our stuff.

We who have comfort,

warm, with three meals; perhaps we

are among the rich.

Who, then, can be saved?

For mortals, not possible,

but God can do it.

What you leave behind

to follow, you will receive

back a hundredfold.

In the age to come

all will be reversed. The first

are last; the last, first.

© Ken Rookes 2021

 

Abide

 Haiku of love

Make my joy complete

by keeping my commandments;

abide in my love.

You will know my joy

when love is allowed to rule.

Grace, forgiveness, love.

You, too, are to love

as Jesus loves each of us.

Love, costly and true.

No love is greater

than that which offers itself

for the sake of friends.

Servants no longer!

When you do what I command,

you become my friends.

I have no secrets

from you. All God has shown me

I make known to you.

Go and bear much fruit.

Enduring fruit, born of love,

as God’s own children.

© Ken Rookes 2021

always be full of joy!

Last week we had what the Jewish people call the Ten Words and what we call the Ten Commandments from the Hebrew Scripture. We heard that they are guidelines for living not absolutes to be obeyed at all costs. When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus quoted two from Hebrew Scripture, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart mind, soul and strength” and “Love your neighbour as yourself.” We heard how Paul said that knowing Christ surpassed all of the laws he had tried to live by. This week we have some more guidelines for living God’s Way that have come from this experience of Paul. It would be interesting to explore why we take Moses’ guidelines so seriously and almost ignore those of Paul who is arguably the Moses of the New Testament.

Paul wrote to the Philippians [4:4], telling them twice to always be full of joy. It is surprising and saddening to notice how many people who claim to have lived as “good Christians” have little joy in in their lives, perhaps because their experiences and their relationship with God have been restricted by misguided expectations.

Then Paul tells us to be known for our gentleness, kindness, consideration or good sense, according to what translation you are reading, and to let this be obvious. Paul then reminds us that Christ is always near. Next we are told not to worry about anything but to let our prayers be known to God with thanksgiving. One version says, “Let your prayers be shot through with gratitude.” [New Jerusalem Bible Phil 4:6]  Giving thanks to God was a big deal for Paul. It comes up about 24 times in his writing. Next, he reassured his readers that the incomprehensible peace of God will keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

The final guidelines are to think about things that are true, honourable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent or worthy of praise. This is a really good list to judge our actions by. We can use this list to question any doubts we may have about our actions in light of the Words from the Old Testament. Encouragingly Paul urges them to keep on doing what they have learned and then blesses them.  

Some of the most successful revolutions occur because grass-root people realise that the way they are living and being treated by others is not right. Leader arise from within the oppressed because these people have reflected on what is happening and have decided it is not just therefore something must be done about it.. They draw the attention of others to the potential that has been overlooked. They are responding to God’s inner call to life, to celebrate and enjoy all life offers.

We are invited to the wedding feast. This is a great privilege, a time to celebrate, a time to get to know the host better. Are we too busy, too preoccupied or just not interested? Accept the invitation that you too, may be always full of joy and free to live and love by the words, the guidelines of Jesus and Paul.

Rev Julianne Parker

(for full sermon see sermons page)

the tension between justice and mercy

A missionary, home on furlough, came to speak to the congregation. Among other things he told how a young man, newly converted to Christianity had taken literally Matthew 5:29. He had looked longingly at the wife of one of his friends and he knew this was wrong according to the Bible. The Good Book says, “It is better for you to lose one member than for your whole body to be thrown into hell” so he tore his eye out. He died painfully a couple of weeks later from the infection created by the damage he had done to himself. Is this what Jesus meant? Is it what Jesus wants from us?

In Deuteronomy 30, and many other places, the Bible urges us to choose life.  Maybe the young man had not chosen death, but it was the consequence of his action. Jesus also said he had come that they might have abundant life [John 10:10].

...As we understand more about the Jewish faith of which Jesus was part, and the Hebrew people, we see that they didn’t see the commandments as absolutes for perfect obedience. They saw them as guidelines for living that gave people the option of considering for themselves the right way to behave in any given situation.

Recently one of the lectionary readings was Micah 6:1-8. Verse 8 reminds us that what God requires of us is to act justly and love mercy. Throughout Scripture there is a tension between justice and mercy. We know they are probably the most important components of God’s love and living God’s Way. But we can never be completely just and completely merciful at the same time. When we are being just to one person we tip the scales away from being merciful and when we are being merciful we are often being less than just to someone else. We are called to hold the two in tension.

...When we look at the Gospels as a whole, we see that Jesus practiced what is called situation ethics where he decided in each situation how to respond to the needs of people to be fed and healed. His words in Matthew 5 seem unnecessarily harsh and incompatible with the compassionate nature of God. We can only guess at the reason for this teaching.

We can respect our maturity and chew things over before deciding in any situation if the commandment about this is one to honour.  We can seek to balance justice and mercy in decisions. In my ministry I have met a number of older women whose lives have been hell in abusive marriages and I am pleased that we now encourage people to escape abusive relationships.

In the reading from Deuteronomy 30, Moses was pleading to the people to choose life. Immediately before the part we heard is the verse, “The word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.” These words are encouraging the people to trust that they can tell and will know what to obey and when not to.

When we look at Jesus’ actions as well as listening to his words we are guided in how to behave. It is good if we can put more emphasis on the trust part of trust and obey; trust Jesus’ leading, trust others and trust yourself as Moses urged and you will find there are many ways to be happy in Jesus as well as trusting and obeying.

(excerpts from Rev Julianne Parker's sermon for the week, see here for complete sermon)