Sermon: Sunday August 29th, 2021: “Getting the balance…” (Please read Ps 115: 1-3; Matthew 13: 24-29 & Isaiah 55).
There is some truth in the contention that life is all about balance. You must eat vegetables with your fruit and exercise the mind and the body…we need a balanced view of God, too…
As a school boy I remember the dreaded morning Assembly taken by the Head Teacher. When we sang “Morning is broken”, we naughty boys were determined we should “Stick it with Bostick!” Only two generations ago there was, it seemed, some sense of God… an unspoken, shared agreement as to the reality of His existence. Church bells would ring out and the Boy’s Brigade band sounded in the distance every Sunday, even if I didn’t go to church. There was no Sunday football or retail experience to be had…
‘Our Father’ was (indeed) in heaven, whatever we imagined His character to be like. For some, He was the big, white- bearded one… up there somewhere, high and mighty, in the sky. When the thunder rolled, He was voicing His angry displeasure; or (according to my Uncle Peter, when I was frightened) He was only “moving the furniture in heaven” again. I thought of Jesus as gentle, meek ‘n’ mild. The “Holy Ghost” was just plain scary and, as for God-the-Father; He was ready to smite the badly-behaved boy with lightning-bolts, so best stay out of His way, really! Not the most balanced view of God…perhaps!
We all knew the Lord’s Prayer parrot-fashion, in the same ritual way we learned our “times tables”, or our dates from history and our French verbs. When the first disciples came to Jesus and asked Him to teach them how to pray like He prayed, we can be certain that the LORD never intended the prayer to be used as a ritual monologue, or as some kind of magic formula…
Our Father (as we touched upon last week) can only be prayed by believers, i.e. by those whom the LORD had called and chosen, by a family of believers and genuine God-fearing women or men, or seekers. As the Parable of the wheat and the weeds makes clear, God alone knows those who are His. When the time comes, He will separate the real from the counterfeit children. Praying to Our Father spoke to a close, loving relationship (between Father and child) which few serious Jews would have thought possible or advisable. Only the committed Christian can pray this prayer!
Our Father is a (deeply) healing doctrine. There is a heavenly Father who loves His creation, who is concerned for (and involved in) all the detail of our lives, and especially in the lives of the forgotten, helpless, the fatherless and unloved.
But Jesus teaches something else when he says, “…who art in heaven; hallowed be Thy Name; Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”
Intimacy must be balanced with respect – love with holiness…nearness with farness. We may have this Father but we dare not approach Him with casual complacency. He is not some grandfather in heaven…a senile benevolence (C.S. Lewis).
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis) is a lovely “children’s book”. If we have been raised in church, we are taught that God is love and, for balance, that God is just. But in reality, we tend to opt for one or the other—either God is “loving” and fine with whatever we do, or he is primarily an angry judge. It’s difficult to believe in a God who is both perfectly loving and perfectly just, because we don’t really know anyone who can hold those two qualities together perfectly . . . Unless, of course, you’ve met the lion, Aslan, the Christ-type figure of the book. Aslan is both intolerably severe and irresistibly tender. When the Pevensie children first hear about Aslan, they are unsure what to think. Should they be afraid? “Is he—quite safe?” I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion” – Susan
“If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.” – Mrs. Beaver
“Then he isn’t safe?” – Lucy
“Safe? . . . Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King I tell you.” – Mr. Beaver
We do well to remember whose presence it is we enter. As we children sing, our God is a great big God, an awesome God…other than…different to…extending beyond the bounds of normal experience, higher than, above all. etc. The theologians speak of a transcendent God. “Who art in heaven” is Jesus’ way of reminding disciples that, when you pray, there is Someone who is greater than they. “Our God is in the heavens. He does whatever He pleases…” (Psalm 115:3)
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55)
A prayer that starts with “Abba” continues with “hallowed be THY Name”. Jesus is teaching a healthy balance between relationship and reverence. We hallow (honour) His Name (who He is) because He is the author of all and the LORD of all. He wants us to really start there. All the great bible prayers start there, with the LORD, by acknowledging that He is in control of all things great and small; He has everything in his hands, nations and people…. all things: our lives, our days and weeks…our future...
10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55)
A prayer that starts with “Abba” continues with THY Kingdom come. The kingdom of God is hastened (brought a little closer day-by-day) every time we lift up His Name; every time we declare His kingdom come, His will be done on earth as it is in heaven…every time we do the work of prayer, every time we come to Him…every day brings with it more hope…or it should…
There can be no more hopeful or healing doctrine than this. He is the LORD. I don’t need to worry about the results. He has all of that in hand. What He says…He will do. There is a great gulf between us and Him! All we have to do is do the work (believe), rest and pray! A transcendent LORD stands outside and distinct from His creation which is limited to time and space. The LORD sees what we cannot…
8 “Remember this, keep it in mind, take it to heart, you rebel. 9 Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. 10 I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’
God’s purpose, His plans (His will) will stand. Jesus always did the Father’s work, always obeyed him, didn’t grasp at equality with God, even though He was in His very nature God. (Philippians 2). What a waste of time it is for us to push forward our little plans as if they will prevail, without consulting the Lord. He thwarts the plans of the crafty, so that their hands achieve no success. (Job 5:12) The plans of the Lord stand firm forever… (Psalm 33:11). Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails… (Proverbs 19:21).
In many ways, our God is a long way off. He is a transcendent God. He is an immanent God, too – closer than a brother. At the end of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Mr. Beaver nicely sums up:
“He’ll be coming and going . . . One day you’ll see him and another you won’t. He doesn’t like being tied down . . . He’ll often drop in. Only you mustn’t press him. He’s wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.”
We come to God on God’s terms and in the way, He says. 3.3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again…”
But we can (only) know what He reveals to us. He does draw near, as we draw near. We know that when we come (approach/worship/speak) to God the Father we can only do so through…in the Name of, by the shed blood of…the Son Jesus Christ and only in the power of the (given) Holy Spirit…
We can only approach God, begin to know anything at all of God, through and because of God. This is the exclusive privilege of His children. Those who are saved or born from above are only so because heaven came to earth in the form of Jesus.
12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. (Hebrews 13: 12).
The God who is a long-way-off…He brings near.
It is only by grace that we enter…
“LORD, teach us to pray…may indeed our Father’s great name be held high and honoured in our world, our land, in our lives and in the lives of those we love. Help us to see you clearly. Hasten the day when your kingdom comes, and help stand against all that is contrary to your perfect will – Amen!”
Revd Mark Faris-Robertson
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