Janet’s Blog

Interestingly some of the spam comments, (see previous post) are to do will halloween costumes… well I don’t really think I need one. Several times this summer I have taken the short cut back from the cemetery on my own through the passage. Imagine, it’s pouring with rain, I appear from a hole in the wall wearing a black floor length cloak, hood over my head staring carefully at the ground trying not to slip on the steps, and hoping there is no-one of a nervous disposition in the graveyard as I appear…

 

 

In the summer I bumped into three people in the space of a week who said, I know something already because I read your blog, but now the autumn is coming and I am getting lots of spam comments about real estate in Idaho or sorting out my debts, so if you visit and feel like encouraging me, leave a real comment! Even if it just says hello, I was here…

Remembering what God has done

 

A friend is someone who knows the song of your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.

 

Hearts don’t sing, of course, what a strange metaphor, hearts beat, mouths sing, well mouths with throats and lungs sing, but if I asked you all what was the song of your heart, you would all know what I meant, even if perhaps it might take a minute for you to remember, a moment to remember how it goes, a moment to remember what it is that you have forgotten.

 

We find our journey in the Old Testament, today’s visit to the story of God in a real cliffhanger of a place, where if it were Eastenders no doubt the de der de de dah music would cut in at a vital moment. The problem would be choosing which vital moment of course. When the cloud moves between between the Israleites and the Egyptians? When Moses lifts up his arm and the wind comes to blow the sea away? When the chariots somehow mysteriously start to fall apart? Or when Moses stretches out his hand again at the Lord’s command and the sea flows back and drowns the Egyptians whose bodies are washed up on the seashore? Any one of these would be a fantastic cliffhanger ending, I suspect the directors of Eastenders would stretch the story into many episodes just for that reason.

 

And after the drama.

‘So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and his servant Moses.’

 

And what happens next, a sneak preview into the next chapter will reveal that Moses and Miriam and the Israelites sing songs. The songs of their heart.

 

The Lord is my strength and my might and he has become my salvation he is my God.

 

This is not just a song for Moses and Miriam and even the Israleites, Hymn 685 in Mission Praise reminds us,

The Lord, is my strength and my song,…

 

 

There is a wonderful cartoon which can sometimes be found on birthday cards and the like. It has a picture of Moses standing and the waters are parted and Moses is saying to the Israelites. “What do you mean it’s a bit muddy?”

 

It’s fantastic, but not very accurate, because we hear of no reluctance of the Israelites to cross the sea. I think the rapid approach of all of Pharoah’s armies had focused their minds somewhat. The people don’t start complaining until umm…verse 24 of the next chapter.

 

An so it seems before we can even get our breath back from the excitement of God’s saving power for his people, the Israelites have already forgotten the song of their heart, and have many complaints about God.

 

Psalm 114 is a song remembering God’s mercy. One of the purposes of the Psalms is exactly this, that they remind the people of God of the song of their heart, when they have forgotten how it goes.

 

Psalm 114 reminds the people of God of two important water crossings, firstly the one we have just heard about and also the crossing of the river Jordan. Water in Ancient Near Eastern culture is a paradox, it is the very stuff of survival and life in an area of the world which is dry. Water is also the image of chaos, most ANE cultures has some sort of flood myth, flood is still all these millennia later, one of the chaotic destructive factors over which we have with whatever technology we have, have no control.

In fact if we are honest, it is one of the forces to which technology is most susceptible.

 

So the Psalm 114 sings the song of God’s might and power over the forces of chaos, the underpinning understanding that he is the over all power in the universe, and reminds Israel that God saves, redeems and delivers them by controlling the waters, and so controlling chaos. This song reminds them that God is on their side, it sings back to them the song of their hearts.

 

The unmerciful servant forgets his song so quickly it seems he may have forgotten it before its first outing. Surely his heart must have been filled with joy when he was forgiven his debt, delivering not only himself, but his family from being sold, and all his possessions. Did his heart sing? What would have been his song.

 

But he takes no time to sing of his Lord’s grace in delivering him.

 

He takes no time to remember his forgiveness and the song of his heart, he passes straight on to condemn other people and so the master is displeased.

 

What is our heart song?

 

What is it of God’s grace which makes us want to sing?

 

Which  particular  miracles have we seen that left us singing at the time, but we have since forgotten the song? But each one of us in our own story probably has a tale of unexpected grace which makes our heart sing.

 

But as Christians our heart song is also of the bigger idea, our surprise in the wholeness of God’s grace, like the servant forgiven the large debt. Our thanks for our forgiveness from God should be our heart song, our salvation song, our redemption song.

 

Church is a place to share our sorrows, yes. To remember and grieve, all too frequently in the past few months.

 

But church is also the place for us to remind each other of the songs of our hearts, and to sing them back to each other, if we like the grumpy Israelites or the unmerciful servants have forgotten the words.

 

When we come to the communion service we join in the words, with the whole company of heaven,

‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord…’

 

So here in this place and with the whole company of heaven let us be true friends with each other.

 

 

A friend is someone who knows the song of your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.

 

This sermon bears a strong resemblance to a sermon I preached in Wellington a couple of years ago. My excuse, the 50% part time job in this fortnight includes four funerals, a wedding and the start of school term. Anyway I thought it bore saying again.

 

 

Who do you think you are?

 

When preparing for this sermon that phrase kept coming back to me, it seems in a way to be the theme, Jesus says it, in effect, to the Syro-Phonecian woman.

 

Who do you think you are?

 

I had a nagging suspicion that it was from a song that it sprang forth from my memory, so I looked it up, and indeed it was the first line of a Spice Girls song which goes, who do you think you are, some kind of superstar? And no I’m not going to sing it for you you’ll be relieved to know.

 

Who do you think you are?

 

Who do you think you are? Has also of course been a successful BBC programme which has helped celebrities trace their family tree, looking at family genealogy has become very, very popular, of course it has recently become much easier with many records being available online, but there seems a real sense in which people are wanting to know something about who they are and where they come from.

 

We certainly have been interested in the journeys of the people enabled by the BBC to find out who they are? I am inherently curious, and so I love that sort of thing. Did you know that Barbara Windsor, the actress is very distantly related to John Constable the Suffolk painter. Jeremy Paxman’s great-grandmother and great-grandfather died from tuberculosis at a young age, Stephen Fry’s maternal grandfather was a Hungarian sugar beet expert, who moved to East Anglia in the 1920s to help set up the processing plants for the sugar beet grown there. Most of the family left behind were killed, because they were Jewish.

 

The woman who came to Jesus knew who she was, she was Syrophonecian, a gentile, did she have a right to come to Jesus to ask this miracle for her daughter?

 

 

No she definitely should not have come to Jesus.

 

In Matthew’s account of this story we hear a little more, this woman is not only Syro phonecian but on top of that she is a descendant of the ancient Canaanites, the bitter biblical enemies of Israel whose paganism had often led Israel into idolatry. She will remind the readers of this gospel, and the disciples around Jesus, of Jezebel, that most evil of queens. 

 

This woman comes to Jesus, just after there has been a big discussion of purity. She comes, a gentile, a woman, from the most despicable of Gentile origins, the disciples around Jesus would have expected him to send her away, to dismiss her out of hand.

 

No, she knew Jesus was a Jew, she knew she shouldn’t be there, because she knew who she was. Yet still she comes, she comes because she recognises that God’s grace is acting through Jesus in such largesse, there is so much that there will be some for her even though she knows her place. She just wants a crumb from under the table.

There are many academic arguments about whether or not Jesus yet understood his mission was for the whole world or not at this stage in his ministry. Some even suggest that this was a turning point for Jesus.

 

Jesus says

“Who do you think you are?”

The woman says

“I know I am unworthy, but I know you are merciful and powerful so I come anyway.”

 

It becomes clear then through into the New Testament that Jesus’ death and resurrection are for everyone, not just the rich or the poor, the Jew or the Gentile, the man or the woman.

 

 

Who do you think you are?

Subconsciously I wonder if we are guilty of asking those questions of the people who are sometimes brave enough to enter our church buildings.

Who do you think you are coming in here and sitting in the chair I’ve sat in for the last twenty years?

 

Who do you think you are coming in here and not even knowing what to do to follow the service?

 

Who do you think you are, coming in here with muddy feet?

 

Who do you think you are not ever coming to church, even though you don’t know anyone who comes, and you are intimidated by all that happens in here?

 

Who do you think you are coming in here making such a racket?

 

Who you do think you are coming in here with dirty clothes and needing a wash?

 

Jesus says

“Who do you think you are?”

The woman says

“I know I am unworthy, but I know you are merciful and powerful so I come anyway.”

It was family service last week on Sunday, and Wednesday’s sermon was not written out, so here we are with Sunday monring’s, I remembered my notes this time, not sure it flowed quite as well to be honest.

 

Chew your food,

That’s what we were all told,

Chew your food,

Eat it carefully, chewing properly will aid your digestion, your will enjoy your food more and you will find it a general aid to health.

Chew your food. Relax, there’s no rush, food is important, relish it and it will be more nutritious.

Maybe your mother would be astounded at the fact that people would eat on the street, that is just not done, it’s just not right. For mothers like this the current fad for walking along a town high street eating a pasty, drinking water from a bottle whilst speaking on a mobile phone would probably have given them palpatations.

God says to the Israelites, ‘eat in haste’, ‘eat in haste’ whilst you wait to see what God will do.

Eat in haste, no mention of careful chewing here.

Eat dressed in you outdoor clothes, ready and prepared to go out of the door, eat with your waterproof coat on, your backpack packed and your walking pole in your hand.

I wonder when you last ate dressed in your coat?

Was it a good time or a bad time?

Was it part of a long journey, a walk, a time when your heating was broken?  If I ask you to picture someone eating in their coat, who is it that comes into your mind?

In Egypt all those years ago it is a wakeful night, a night of roasted meat, quick cooked bread and bitter herbs, a night which thousands of years later the people will still remember with that food on the table.

This is history being written, time will be counted again from this time, the time when God moved powerfully in the lives of many people.

God says this is to be the first month, the first month of your year count your time from then.

It’s difficult to tell how the people would have been feeling. In times of extreme stress some people find it difficult to eat, the familiar knotting of the stomach, the trouble with actually trying to get the food down, no matter how well it might have been chewed. Others will have perhaps been ravenous, thrilled excited, knowing that at last God is going to act. Some will have been sitting thinking about the cost of the act which God was about to perform, the extremes to which God has been pushed, to provide salvation for his people.

Others will have only been keen for justice, for the new order to begin. Some maybe won’t even have thought that it was going to come to anything, although these people have just witnessed all the plagues, the frogs, the river of bloos, the boils, and so on. God had done all these things, but this time, this time would Pharoah let them go, could they run. Would this really be it, would they really get away this time.

If I asked you to think of the events which have happened which have changed to world what would you say? Maybe 11^th September 2001? Maybe the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Maybe the fall of the Berlin Wall?

 

We all have turning points in our lives, times from when we count things. The times which for us were the times when the month becomes the first month. The moment when time begins again. We count time from when we left school, from when we married, from when we divorced, from when someone died. The time, the moment, from which our life was never the same again.

What does God do for these Israelites for whom their lives will never be the same again?

Well firstly he feeds them, he builds them up in preparation for their trauma and their journey.

They may be eating in haste, but they are eating, eating good food which will sustain them on the first part of their flight from Egypt.

God reassures them that although this will be a difficult and terrible time for them, he will be with them, and the time will pass and they will remember it for the generations to come.

Maybe if we think back to a difficult time in our life, preferably some time ago, how do we feel about it now, in comparison to how we felt about it then?  Can we see God at action in that time? Even if perhaps we felt like he had deserted us at the time?

The gospel passage for today doesn’t promise us an easy life, it talks about conflicts and troubles which will be encountered by the church in the days, years and millennia to come.

Jesus promises to be with us,

For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.

There will be times when we don’t have time to chew our food, there will be times for all of us where we have to eat standing up with our coats and boots on. Times when we are fearful of what tomorrow may hold. Times when we feel called by God to do something difficult. There will be times like that for us, when we need to be ready, when we need to receive whatever God will give to sustain us, then we need to be ready to act, however painful or difficult or scary that might actually be.

And so in those times when we need to eat in haste, we need to remember that as he always has been, God is with us and like the Israelites, brings us to deliverance and salvation.