Journey to Soteria

October 10: Pastor Robin Stelzer

In first world countries leprosy has largely disappeared; modern medicine has allowed us to treat the illness so that the social stigma of the disease no longer exists. Yet, like many bygone issues, the language remains and we are familiar with the idea of being ‘treated like a leper’. To be a leper was and is to be an outcast from the rest of society. Robin used this idea of the leper in his message but also took it further: to be a leper is to be faced with your own sense of ‘inadequacy and doom’. This can only be overcome with God’s intervention as we see in the readings. This then leads to “soteria” or as Robin described it as ‘full health, full safety, well being and rescue from every harm.’

Reflection

• Without unnecessary dwelling, to what extent do you connect with the sense of being a leper; of feeling that an affliction was/is the defining aspect of your identity from which you could/cannot escape?
• Robin mentioned a number of scenarios that were equivalents to leprosy: financial difficulty, career collapse, addiction, depression, broken families and relationships, chronic ill-health were just some of the sufferings he mentioned. How might this comparison be useful in breaking the chains of these particular problems?

Readings: 2 Kings 51-17; Luke 17: 11-21

The Kings reading is lengthy and interesting. Sometimes reading the Old Testament is very difficult, emerging as it does from ancient times and ancient people in a culture entirely different from our own. At other times, though, one is struck by the reality of the encounters between these people and we become aware that their human experience is just like ours. As you read the Old Testament passage, you might like to consider the following and think about which aspects stand out to you as a reader. You could then explain why they stand out.

• The starkness of the ending of verse 1: He was a valiant soldier but he had leprosy.
• The remarkable compassion of the servant girl and her faith
• The hope the Naaman must have had as he set out
• The misunderstanding of the ‘King of Israel’ – note how ironic this passage becomes in light of the King of Israel – as he asks how he can possibly kill and raise the dead
• Elisha’s exasperation – this section is quite funny – as he explains to the king that he, Elisha is the prophet, not the king
• Namaan’s anger and disappointment at the process of healing – it’s not what he expected
• Namaan’s statement of faith: Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel.
• Elisha doesn’t accept Namaan’s gift – he doesn’t require it.

The second part of the story is also interesting as Gehazi sees an opportunity for gain and effectively misappropriates God’s gift for personal gain. Elisha recognises Gehazi’s sin and Gehazi, in Old Testament fashion, now pays a much greater price. The long term cost of living for yourself far outweighs the short term gain.

In the Luke reading, we see that Jesus is able to heal 10 lepers and one of them returns to express gratitude. In the text, one of the interesting aspects is (in the NIV) the use of the hyphen to describe the leper “- and he was a Samaritan’.

Robin suggested in his message that this gratitude, this thankfulness is ‘full health’ or Soteria. He spoke again about a community (there will be another message on this topic coming soon!) that is ‘healing, thankful, and generous.’

Reflection

• The implication is that full healing is a healing that includes thankfulness. How might we show thankfulness for healing?
• It might be useful, even important, for your group to share what they understand by healing. What are the hopes that we have about healing? What uncertainties, doubts and misgivings do we have about healing?
• In the Luke reading, the story says that Jesus healed 10 lepers and one returned to thank him. Can we read any significance into that number for the church today?
• What application can we make to each of the words Robin used to describe a community of Soteria: healing, thankful and generous?

Prayer

Once having identified the practical application, commit to it in prayer, taking time to be thankful for what God has done.

Bend Every Energy: Persisting

 

October 24: Pastor Robin Stelzer

Amongst cricketers these days there is a catchphrase: “form is temporary, class is permanent”.  It is used when a batsman suffers a run of low scores and his place in the side is threatened. Elite sports people believe that if they stick at it, if they think through their game, maintain a dedication to practice then the results will come.

Successful people in other fields tend to believe the same thing. By successful, we mean those who are able to face challenges, not be threatened or cowed by them and are determined to see it through. Part of this ‘success’ is the simple habit of ‘persistence’ which was the word Robin chose as the theme for his message from the gospel reading about the widow who pursues justice through the ‘uncaring judge’.

Readings: 2 Peter 1: 2-8, Luke 18: 1-8

In the first reading, Robin emphasised that the ‘character qualities’ listed do not emerge from human effort or self-motivation. These are spiritual qualities that start with faith. This is really crucial. Robin also explained that the English word ‘add’ is really a very simple translation of ‘bend your energies by giving your generous energy to a life of faith’.

Reflect

With this definition of ‘add’ in mind consider the aspects outlined in 2 Peter. Which of these aspects would you regard as strong and which as ‘needs prayer and work’

• faith + goodness;
• goodness + knowledge;
• Knowledge+ self-control
• self-control + perseverance
• Perseverance + godliness
• Godliness + mutual affection
• Mutual affection + love
• = ?

The above list is a challenge to those of us who have a tendency to misunderstand (or perhaps not understand at all) the grace message. The heresy of antinomianism was the view that grace overcomes sin (true) which means that sin doesn’t matter anymore and no effort is required (false). At the root of this false view of grace is a lack of response to it; grace should begin the process of transforming our hearts, our very selves.  The above descriptions suggest that ‘Christian life must not be an initial spasm followed by chronic inertia.’ There needs to be a commitment to on-going progress. This commitment is described by Peter and highlighted by Robin in his message in the following way: bend every energy.

Luke 18: 1-8

The story of the persistent widow is the application of the aspects outlined above. The woman ‘bends all her energies’ towards securing justice. At first, the story seems an unattractive one as a careless reading of it might seem to suggest that God is compared to an uncaring judge. Yet a close reading reveals that Jesus uses a technique of story-telling in which an incomplete comparison is made so that he can get to the resolution. In this story, there are three points:

1.       Even an uncaring judge eventually responded to the widow- how much more then will a loving God respond?

2.       That God is a God of justice – the injustice of the world is reflection of a fallen world of people not of God’s intentions or desires

3.       The faith of the persistent widow but note the ending: “where will he (the Son of Man) find such faith on earth?

This last question that Jesus asks gets us back to the issue of faith and bending all energies in response to Jesus and God’s grace. As we develop our faith, we end up with a life that is filled with and through Christian love.

Application

• As an individual, commit to working on the character developing list in 2 Peter. Commit also to persist
• As a group, begin to identify a concrete application that you could do together that shows a Christian response to the injustice of the world. Make it specific and organise a time as a group to act upon it.

Be as little children

 

October 17:  Pastor Matthew Thomas

When your scribe’s children were very young (they are still young), they would be collected at roughly 4.00pm from day care. My son soon became very skilled at knowing exactly when 4.00pm would occur and he would wait by the gate for me to collect him. He was confident that I would fulfil my role and he was absolutely dependent on me doing so. This mixture of trust and dependence is what Jesus tells us is required to enter the kingdom of God.

Pastor Matt began his message by noting that as a congregation in partnership with the school we have a special connection with children. Indeed, he quoted the African proverb that ‘ít takes a village to raise a child’. This is value laden remark and one that we would do well to consider in depth as we continue to make the claim of being a ‘’community’’.

Reflect (take some time on your own and then carefully share your responses)

• If you were brought up in the church, what are your childhood memories of that experience?
• What do you believe that a church should provide for children?
• What expectations should a church have of our children – what do we want to see from them as they grow?
• What aspects of the ‘village raising a child’ have we lost and why have we lost them? Should we attempt to reclaim them? How might we do that?

Exploring the reading: Mark 10:13-16)

This is a very short reading so it is possible to think through it in detail.

1.       The disciples ‘rebuke’ the children for approaching Jesus. As with many gospel stories, this is not simply an insensitivity on the part of the disciples but a cultural practice. Children and women were excluded from the ‘affairs of men’ and religion was one of those. D.R. Hare suggests that actually one of the reasons that Christianity was so popular and spread so quickly was that it allowed the whole family to participate in religious practice.

2.        Jesus remarks that the ‘Kingdom of God’ belongs to “ones such as these”. What are the qualities that children have that means that the ‘Kingdom of God’ belongs to them?

3.       Jesus goes further in verse 15 saying that ‘anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.”

A few weeks ago when we looked at the Nicodemus story in John 3, we spent time on the phrase ‘born again’ and what a challenge that was to people who feel that their best years are behind them or that they cannot learn anything new. Here, with its emphasis on children, a similar idea emerges. In his message, Pastor Matt remarked that “children were totally dependent on the will of others and had no legal or social weight to make claims for particular treatment.” Hence, he said, to enter the kingdom of God is to do so with absolute trust.

Matt also connected this story about children and childhood to discipleship itself. Discipleship offers us the opportunity to grow, to fulfil potential and to see potential of which we were unaware. In this way, as Matt argued, “as we receive the kingdom we receive God’s potential in our lives.”

In the last section of his message, Matt moved to the idea of us being ‘teachable’. As adults, we know that children must be taught in ‘the way’. In his teachings, Jesus clearly expects the disciples to learn and grow;  in the story of the rich young man, Jesus prefaces part of his teaching with the proclamation “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.’ Jesus is referring to the problem of wealth but he might well be referring to the difficulty we have in assuming a position of trust and dependence. These are not qualities associated with western culture and our ideals of what it is to be a sophisticated, mature adult. So here, as with everything, Jesus subverts conventional wisdom both in his time and in ours.

Application

• Think about the concepts of dependence, interdependence and dependence. Which one is the most appealing to you?
• Can you identify an area where your determination to be independent might be a barrier in your relationship with Jesus?
• If you can identify such an area (or areas!) how might you begin to let go of it?
• If willing, you could share this area with your group or somebody in your group and ask them to hold you accountable at your next meeting.