What Matters

Love's Power

Words are powerful.  Words don't so much as describe us as they create us.  Scripture contains some powerful words, none more so that the word Love.  But love has been devalued through overuse and misuse.  Peter Hobson, minister at Glebe Road Uniting Church, helps us rediscover the power of biblical Love as it is articulated in John's first letter.  Listen in... Download loves_power.mp3

Love's Command

Loving our neighbor can be tough enough.  Sometimes loving our friends can be even tougher.  Fact is, those we are closest to can hurt us the most.  John had some direct words to say to a community that was tempted to hate rather than love.  His words are our challenge as well.  Listen in... Download loves_command.mp3

Love's Children

At the beginning of the third chapter of his first letter, John gets a little excited.  He dwells for a moment on the lavish nature of the love God pours into our lives.  The word lavish is from a French root word (lavasse) that means 'deluge of rain.' John is telling us we have been drenched in God's love. Listen in for more...Download loves_children.mp3

Father Damien

When we talk about resistance, we often think of the most extreme examples.  I know that when I think of resistance in the context of Christian mission, my mind first flicks to those real fighters, the revolutionaries. However resistance is not always extreme, it is not always loud and it may never be recognised or applauded during ones life time or even after it. There have been many quiet resistors and there are those resisting right now; in ways so quiet that we will never hear about them.
A man who quietly resisted is Father Damien, born in 1840, a man who deliberately ministered in a leper colony in Hawaii with the consequence that he eventually contracted leprosy and died at the age of only 49. 

Father Damien was a Catholic minister, who in 1864 traveled to Hawaii to work as a missionary in downtown Honolulu. There, Damien served in several parishes on the island of Oahu at the same time as the Kingdom of Hawaii was facing a public health crisis.  By 1864 Native Hawaiians had became so afflicted by diseases introduced to the islands by foreign traders and sailors that thousands had died of influenza, syphilis and other diseases. This included the plight of leprosy. In the year that Damien moved to Hawaii, the Hawaiian King quarantined the lepers of the kingdom and moved them to a settlement colony on the north side of the island of Molokai. For Hawaiians, leprosy was by far the worst of the plagues, for the idea of banishment struck right to the heart of their sense of community.  The lepers were provided with supplies and food but no proper healthcare even though there was a huge Christian presence on the islands. It is said that fearful of the disease, the majority of missionaries would steer their boats up to the beach near the colony and throw supplies ashore, never setting foot on the island and ministering only from the boats.

Moved by the miserable condition of the lepers whom the Hawaiian government had deported to the island, Damien felt the call of God on his life to minister to the needs of the people.  In 1865, Damien asked for permission to go to the colony and in 1873, he traveled to Molokai, not as the first to visit the colony but as the first to live among them.  He followed this call, even though it meant a certain death sentence on his life because the contraction of leprosy was almost inevitable.  He arrived at the island to the introduction ‘Father Damien will be a father to you, and he loves you so much that he does not hesitate to become one of you; to live and die with you” Over the following years, Damien went beyond being a priest. Under his leadership, basic laws were introduced, shacks became painted houses, working farms were organized and schools were erected. He is said to have dressed ulcers, built homes and beds, built coffins and buried more than 6000 lepers. 

Damien was a skilled carpenter and not only built several churches in the colony but then organized the choirs to sing in them. After twelve years of this heroic service he discovered in himself the first symptoms of leprosy. He nevertheless continued his mission, but on 28 March, 1889, Damien became bedridden and passed away shortly after. He had served 15 years amongst the lepers.

In Damien’s ministry we see 3 aspects of resistance played out.

1. Resistors listen and obey the call of God on their life, they don’t allow their path of resistance to be judged by human criteria.He obeyed the call of God on his life and didn’t allow his path of resistance to be judged by human criteria. Damien followed his heart, a heart set on Christ’s mission to be with the sick and needy. A personal conviction that extended beyond what anyone else recognised as ‘appropriately Christian’ at the time to something he shared only with God.  See Damien was not resisting an anarchic government; he was not fighting for his life nor imprisoned nor even persecuted.  But, to be with the lepers he had to quietly resist the fact that no one had done what he had done before; he had to resist the social stigma that was attached to mixing with lepers. He had to resist falling in line the behavior of his own church members because they had never taken their mission so seriously as to actually believe in risking death for the sake of reaching the needy.  Damien had to resist living up to human criteria to follow the call of God on his life.

2. Often resistance will take place against the comfort of those we associate with, against our friends rather than our enemies. Damien had to resist those he associated with, the views of his fellow ministers and the comfort of doing what was considered acceptable of a Christian minister.  Whilst he had a lot of support when he arrived in Hawaii, his shift to the leper colony was not popular with his church and initially he had to resist constant discouragement from parts of the church.  He could have stayed on the big islands and ministered amongst the healthy population; he could have been quite successful and brought many souls to Christ.  Yet, he left this for a life amongst the terminally ill in a remote colony of the rejected. Can I suggest that we may be right in pursuing what God has called us to do, even if everyone else around us condemns us for that, even other Christians….If we follow Christ’s mission, if we truly resist, we will very well face opposition from those that we consider on side because their own comfort is threatened by a more radical Christianity.

3. Resistance isn’t accompanied by a promise that people will ever notice us, or agree with the path that we have chosen. Resistance isn’t accompanied by a promise that people will ever notice or agree.  After Damien died he was highly criticised by the church and was buried in a simple grave.  Though sorely missed by the surviving leper’s, he was accused back home and in Hawaii of being quote ‘a dirty bigoted man’.  It was said that he disobeyed orders not to go to the leper colony, he was not responsible for the reforms that took place, he was immoral with women and the leprosy from which he died was a result of his own vices and carelessness.  These particular accusations came from Reverend C. M. Hyde, a Presbyterian minister in Honolulu.  Though now credited for what he did on the island, Damien died poor and unrecognized, shunned by members of his own faith.  Whilst we know that resistance for Christ shouldn’t be accompanied by earthly reward, the thought remains that resistance will end at some point and we will be applauded by society or other Christians for bravely living for Christ.  The thing is, the majority of resistors die unnoticed by the majority of their fellow human beings.  It seems sad that doing the right thing doesn’t result in other people necessarily supporting us.  However it is nonetheless the path we may have walk, purely because God tells us to and because we have to trust our Father above what anyone else says.

Perhaps the words that best sum up a life of resistance, as lived by Father Damien, were the words spoken at a commemorative service at his graveside in 1936.

"Holiness is not perfection according to human criteria; it is not reserved to a small number of exceptional beings. It is for everyone . . . . In your daily life, you are called upon to make choices which sometimes demand extraordinary sacrifices."

This is resistance.

Love's Enemy

Antichrist is a strong word.  John uses it a lot in the first letter that bears his name.  More than that, he talks about the Antichrists within the church.  It is confronting language for confronting times.  Listen in... Download loves_enemy.mp3

Corrie ten Boom

Many of you will know the story of a woman who provided a “Hiding Place” for jews during the Second World War in the Netherlands. A woman who was subsequently arrested and sent to a German concentration camp. A woman who knew that amidst the troubles that beset her, the power of God was made manifest and the peace that passes understanding became an ever present reality. A woman named Corrie ten Boom.

There are three things that you will notice about her story:

1. The ten booms practically aided fellow resistors

2. Resisted against the hopelessness around them when they were in prison

3. Shared God’s faithfulness with others

Corrie ten Boom and her family were devoted Christians who dedicated their lives in service to their fellow man. Their home was always an "open house" for anyone in need. Through the decades the Ten Booms were very active in social work in Haarlem, in the Netherlands and their faith inspired them to serve the religious community and society at large.
   During the Second World War, the Ten Boom home became a refuge, a hiding place, for fugitives and those hunted by the Nazis. By protecting these people, Casper and his daughters, Corrie and Betsie, risked their lives. This non-violent resistance against the Nazi-oppressors was the Ten Booms' way of living out their Christian faith. This faith led them to hide Jews, students who refused to cooperate with the Nazis, and members of the Dutch underground resistance movement.
On February 28, 1944, this family was betrayed and the Gestapo (the Nazi secret police) raided their home. Casper, Corrie and Betsie were all arrested and imprisoned. Corrie’s brother Willem, sister Nollie, and nephew Peter were at the house that day, and were also taken to prison.

Although the Gestapo systematically searched the house, they could not find what they sought most. They suspected Jews were in the house, but the Jews were safely hidden behind a false wall in Corrie’s bedroom. In this "hiding place" were two Jewish men, two Jewish women and two members of the Dutch underground.

Although the house remained under guard, the Resistance was able to liberate the refugees 47 hours later.  The six people had managed to stay quiet in their cramped, dark hiding place for all that time, even though they had no water and very little food. The four Jews were taken to new "safe houses," and three survived the war.

Four Ten Booms gave their lives for this family’s commitment, but Corrie came home from the death camp.  She realized her life was a gift from God, and she needed to share what she and Betsy had learned in Ravensbruck:  "There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still" and "God will give us the love to be able to forgive our enemies."

I propose that each of us are at one stage of Resistance:

1. Aiding other resistors
2. Resisting against the hopelessness around us
3. Sharing God’s faithfulness with others

In other words, we are either pulling others out of the lion’s den, we are in there ourselves, or making God’s glory known after he has pulled us out of the pit.

God did not deliver Corrie ten Boom from the trials and tribulations that are the lot of every Christian in this world of sin, but He kept her and preserved her in the midst of terrifying circumstances.

In one of her many books, Corrie wrote, “Looking back across the years of my life, I can see the working of a divine pattern which is the way of God with His children. When I was in a prison camp in Holland during the war, I often prayed, Lord, never let the enemy put me in a German concentration camp. God answered no to that prayer. Yet in the German camp with all its horror, I found many prisoners who had never heard of Jesus Christ. If God had not used my sister Betsie and me to bring them to Him, they would never have heard of Him. Many died, or were killed, but many died with the name of Jesus on their lips”.

(Heidi Rulfs)

Polycarp

Polycarp lived between the years of 70 and 155AD. He was student of the apostle John, one of Jesus’ closet friends. John appointed Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna, an ancient Greek city where he served faithfully for many years. Polycarp is known as being one of the most famous early church fathers in history. He was among the most influential to combat Gnostic heresies that were beginning to spread through the early Christian church. The Caesar during this time was Marcus Aralias and the Roman authorities under his command were eager to eliminate this fast growing religious movement that proclaimed the Christ as Lord.

After refusing to conform to the Roman instigation of Caesar worship, Polycarp was arrested for being part of this politically dangerous cult and was brought before the Roman proconsul and surrounded by an angry mob shouting for his execution. However, the Romans took pity on the old man, who at this stage would have been well into his eighties, and they urged Polycarp to proclaim that Caesar is Lord and offer a small offering to Caesar’s statue in order that he might avoid torture and execution. In response Polycarp spoke the following words for which he has become most renowned, “"Eighty-six years I have served Christ, and He never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”

Following this the Romans prepared to burn Polycarp at the stake as he offered up his last prayer. The fire was lit but to the crowd’s astonishment the flames did not consume Polycarp but instead they swirled around him as if a wall of wind was between him and the flames. The chief executioner then drove his sword through Polycarp leaving this old church father dead.

Instead of discouraging Christians as the Romans had expected, Polycarp’s faith inspired many believers, empowering them to become resistors of the faith as Polycarp had been. As a result, today there are countless testimonies of Christians who have boldly bore witness to the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
The martyrdom of Polycarp shows us that God does not allow death because He is helpless or unable but rather because death is a powerful declaration of the free gift of life given to us.

The incredible declaration of faith shown by Polycarp should be an example to us of how dearly we should hold our Christian faith. On the one hand, imagine how easy it would have been for this frail old man to simple pay homage to Caesar and save his own life. On the other hand think of how that was never really an option for Polycarp who’s faith ran so deep that even the threat of death could not move him from it.

In closing I want to present two questions for thought in light of the story of Polycarp.
Firstly, Would my faith stand firm if put to the test?
Secondly Does my love for the patterns of this world prevent me from finding total freedom in Christ?
The last thing I want to share is a passage from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians; at the end of the book where he gives this young church some final instructions. Reading from Chapter 16 verse 13 and 14.
Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love.

The resistance of Polycarp shows us that in all circumstances, God’s will can and will be done. It’s through people like Polycarp but also through people us who aren’t as different to Polycarp as we may think.

(Greg Rulfs)

Love's Test

Love is received and love is given.  It is not a commodity to be hoarded or held on to.  Love is a gift from the very heart of God.  It is a gift given at great cost (1 John 2:2).  Listen in to find out more...Download loves_test.mp3

Martin Luther

It takes a certain amount of courage to fight against a system that is corrupt and wrong from outside that system. It takes even greater courage to fight against a system that is corrupt and oppressive when it is the system you love and engage in everyday.

Martin Luther was a man who has shaped the look of the church forever. A man who would rather stay true to the theology God had awoken in his heart than keep the church together. He was born on the 10th of November 1483 to a mining family. His father Hans possessed qualities such as zeal, determination and passion, which he passed on to his son Martin. Hans within a decade became the owner of a number of smelting furnaces, which then put Martin into the wealthy echelon of society in his teenage years.

Martin’s father had a strong, strong desire for Martin to become a lawyer, and sent Luther off to be educated. Luther compared his schooling to purgatory and hell. When Luther went to university he described university to be a beerhouse and whorehouse, where each day was a day of rote learning and often wearying spiritual exercises.

At the age of 21 as Martin was walking he was gripped with the conviction that God wanted him to be a monk and to his father’s dismay he entered an Augustinian monastery.

As a monk Luther was vigilant in following the rule of the monastery. He would fast for long periods of time, spend long hours in private prayer. Due to his desire to please God he would record every minor lapse or sin in his life so that he could ask for forgiveness at weekly confession.

But all this work made him feel worse rather than better. His sense of guilt increased instead of decreased.

After spending significant time meditating on the book of Romans God revealed to him that righteousness wasn’t something he could achieve by trying harder, but it was a gift which God gave people because of Jesus’ work on the cross.

Luther said:

The righteousness of works and hypocrisy, are the most mischievous diseases born in us, and not easily expelled, especially when they are confirmed and settled upon us by use and practice; for all mankind will have dealings with the Almighty God, and dispute with him, according to their human natural understanding, and will make satisfaction to God for their sins, with their own strength and self-chosen works. For my part, I have so often deceived our Lord God by promising to be upright and good, that I will promise no more. But will only pray for a happy hour, when it shall please God to make me good.

Due to his passion for this doctrine the church’s practice of selling indulgences. Certificates that reduced the time a person would spend after death in purgatory being punished for their sins. Absolutely enraged him. How could the church sell that which God gave freely?
So on October 31 1517 Martin Luther Pinned 95 theses on the door of a church at Wittenburg. Spelling out in exact detail, his issues with indulgences.

Theses number 86 reads: Since the pope’s income today is larger than that of the wealthiest of wealthy men, why does he not build this one church of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with the money of indigent believers?

Needless to say, this was not exactly popular. So after refusing to recant on his beliefs he was excommunicated. And set out on constructing a new reformed church.

I resonate with Luther’s story.
I know the feeling of disappointment a family can feel when you chose a path that is not what they desired, especially one of serving a God.
I believe that the doctrine of salvation by faith and not works is so incredibly important.
I love Luther’s passion for the written word of God, he translated the Bible into german so that everyone could read it, and not just clergy.
I also see that the evil in Luther even after doing all these great works is also in me and that I must cling to God and Godly counsel.

See what I haven’t mentioned yet is Luther’s incredible anti-Semitism. His writings about the Jewish people were used by the Nazi’s to bolster credibility for their diabolical cause. Which makes me realise that you can resist some detestable systems of oppression, poverty, racism, and hatred, but in the same lifetime support something just as bad. His story brings it home for me that yes he is a hero in many senses, but he is also human. As is Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abendigo, Dorothy day, Soren Keirkegaard and anyone else that is spoken about during this series. They are human as are we, and we can put them on a pedestal all we like, but we are just as capable of resisting the empire, whatever the empire may be, as they are, and their stories should be told not for us to go ‘well that is great…for them’ but for us to be inspired and realise what God can do with a life, and to draw us into prayer that God would use our lives similarly, not for our glory, but his.

(Nicholas Patselis)