Spokane Friends Meeting

”…for you we always thank God.’

How Paul tells us he prays for the people of the Colossian church gives us a wonderful inside look at his heart. What he says about his praying for these people gives us insight into what is important for the life of the church today. The first fourteen verses of this epistle are filled with meaning and could the basis of a whole series of messages. What we are going to try and do this morning is tap into the heart of them to see what they may tell us of how we might well pray for each other. Hear the words of the Apostle Paul from Colossians 1:

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From a classical perspective missionaries are those who are sent out as announcers of God’s grace. In a very real sense they are evangelists.   These missionary evangelists that go as Jesus’ representatives in Luke 10 are told to declare that “the kingdom of God has come near (to you)”. Have you ever noticed how such a message is upsetting? Actually it’s divisive. The theme appears As early in the Jesus narratives as when Simeon blesses the infant Jesus and declares that he “is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed”.  And of course the theme continues as Jesus tells his disciples about his going to Jerusalem. Both Jesus’ own ministry and the story of the church’s early mission in Acts play this out this theme.   Some who hear the message respond positively, and others, for some reason, oppose it – bitterly. Some of the verses in our New Testament reading anticipate the rejection Jesus will experience, others accentuate the positive by celebrating their own missionary experience. Taken together, the positive and negative aspects combine to emphasize that the gospel message calls for decision. Now were God’s kingdom exclusively future focused maybe there would be less opposition but, as our text declares, the Kingdom of God has come near, and is here and begins its work in this present moment. That means change.

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Living by the flesh involves a life focused on the self and its needs above all else. We seek to satisfy our desires by consumption and control, rather than relationship and care. The obvious examples of living by the flesh include the contrast between fossil fuel consumption and global warming, opulent living and starvation, and suburban security and inner-city violence. On the other hand, living by the spirit involves behaviors that build community and create interdependence. Guided by the Spirit, we go beyond the artificial boundaries of ethnicity, race, class, and nation to experience the unity of all life in God’s spirit. Our own self-interest expands to see the well-being of others as essential to our own well-being. 

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It seems that God doesn’t respond to exaggerated claims of self-importance. Rather Elijah  is instructed to go out and stand on the mountain before Yahweh. Placing yourself before God sometimes has a way of putting things in perspective. 

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Forgiveness is unconditional or it is not forgiveness at all. For the sinner, forgiveness has the character of “in spite of,”. For the righteous forgiveness is endowed with the character of “because.” Unlike the righteous, sinners cannot transform the “in spite of” into a human “because.” They can’t demonstrate evidence because of which they should be forgiven. God’s forgiveness is unconditional. There is no condition whatsoever in a person which would make you are me worthy of forgiveness. If forgiveness were conditional no one could be accepted and no one could accept their own self. We know that this is our situation, but we hate to face it. It is too great as a gift and too humiliating as a judgment.

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For the first time in the Old Testament we have a new story form, a prophetic narrative that describe in speech and deeds the work of the Prophet. The stories of Elijah are the first to use such a literary device. And, as we soon learn, the Elijah narratives are unruly pieces of literature.   Elijah enters sacred history from an unknown place and without pedigree. A Tishbite of Tishbe tells us nothing – except that he is a traveler, a stranger in the land. We are told that Elijah is the prophet who “stands before the Lord”. For one to ‘stand before the Lord’ is rare indeed. Only Abraham and Moses share this distinction. In the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel that appellation is reserved for angels. Jewish Cabalist thought Elijah to have been an angel, others saw him as a priest of the timeless order of Melchizedek. Beyond Elijah’s need to eat, which even in parched and desolate land of thirst and hunger seems almost incidental – Elijah himself never seems worried about from where his next meal might come – , unperturbed by droughts and distances he strides the earth with little about him that seems human. Without divine warrant or credentials; no battles won, no patriarchal heritage, no miraculous birth narrative, he is a man who simply speaks.

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 William Loader says that Paul emphasizes that nothing should clutter the simplicity of our relationship with God. There are no hidden hurdles that we must clear or qualifications we must achieve. It is an unconditional love which greets us – long before we are even able to assess ourselves. So here is where it gets tricky. When someone offers you that kind of relationship, it can be very threatening, because the invitation is to be loved for who you are, not for who we are trying to be or for the image we are trying to hide behind.

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Because the Celtic Church was never infected with a dualistic outlook on creation, they did not see matter as evil, nor the spiritual world as divorced from the material. They looked on Creation around them as one great hymn of praise to its Creator, reflecting God’s nature and character. Because they lived in a rural world, life was lived in rhythm with creation and was made up of work, worship and rest, with everything cloaked in prayer. Thus, many Celtic prayers are associated with simple events such as rising in the morning, lying down at night, cleaning a hearth or baking bread.

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The Last Word: Acts 16:16–34; Psalm 97; Revelation 22:12–14, 16–17, 20–21

Our story today continues where we left off last week, where Paul and his cohorts are beginning their work in Philippi.  The story is jammed packed with people who are, each, in some fashion, slaves to something or someone.  The girl around which the story is built is possessed of a spirit and is in fact the possession of a business consortium, each of whom were slaves of greed.  The magistrates and locals who arrest Paul and Silas were prisoners of religious intolerance and the jailer who then incarcerates them, even though he had the key to their prison, was himself a prisoner living in fear of his own life. And I also don’t want us to miss the extent to which Paul also seems to be a prisoner to his obsession with his mission. Though I found this story about Paul and Silas getting in trouble in Philippi disturbing, it actually made me feel a bit less critical of my own life and ministry.  The Apostle Paul, we discover, is just a human being.  You might find it helpful as well. This is how it comes to a head. Reading from Acts 16.

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Eighteenth-century deists like Thomas Jefferson believed in a supreme being who created the world, ordered it with the predictable laws of nature and morality, and then abandoned it like an absentee landlord. Deists, who judge everything by reason alone, reject the faintest whiff of a miracle. The god of a deist is remote, safe and silent.  He won’t bother you, he won’t intervene in human history or answer your prayers, and he certainly won’t speak to you. Most of us may not be thoroughly deists but a good part of the time we live, we think, and we act like one. We are sort of “functional deists. So what this story tells you may stretch our capacity to comprehend because it tells us that God spoke to Paul in a “vision.” Here is a narrative in which a vision leads to a new practical beginning.

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