A tablespoon of honesty, a tablespoon of courage

I remember when I was l living in New Plymouth studying media, I was living In an old church which had been converted into a boarding house, with a Wonderful family who took in exchange students to make money. One night I was listening to Billy Joel and the song Honesty came on and all of Sudden Jinn, a brother from Japan started singing the chorus and I said “You know This song?” He smiled sweetly and replied “In Japan Karaoke is very popular” Honesty was the idea that entered my mind while I was reviewing today’s Readings.

Honesty is expressed in some powerful ways in today’s readings. Let’s look at Jeremiah, it would be easy for us as modern readers and Seekers to think “New covenant, shows us the way to Christ, isn’t that Awesome” Yes, that is a valid connection for us to make but what might it have Meant to its intended audience? It may be hard for us to understand the dire nature of the situation that Jeremiah’s community was in: They were displaced, they were dealing with Slavery and everyone who led or had influence in the exiled community had Either been killed or captured.

Jeremiah is viewed as a book of consolation or a Prophet or hope. Jeremiah 29:11, we all know that one, right? “For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration— “plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” I don’t know about you, but I find the honesty and the rawness of Jeremiah both compelling and challenging.

I often wonder about the role and influence of the Church if we dealt with life With the honesty and rawness that we see in the likes of Jeremiah: Imagine with me if you will, the shape of a Christening; if one of our minister’s Stood up and spoke about the challenges that we face in life. - Broken relationships being misunderstood being fired Illness the list could go on and on I suspect we would all be quite shocked right? But we all know there are times where things like this need to be discussed. But as we know there is hope. The interesting thing about how hope is expressed in our reading today is That it’s a huge shift in thinking. To move from the communal responsibility and punishment for transgressions to more of individual responsibility, once again to us, it makes sense, right? However, to the people to whom this was originally directed this would have been a huge shift in there thinking. Add to this, the notion of the law being written on the heart. I would imagine, that would be extremely liberating and frightening at the Same time.

Have you ever noticed that? a change occurs, big or small and it is both liberating and frightening because it takes us out of what we know into something new, something unseen and unexplored. Here’s today’s first pause, I invite you to reflect on an occasion where change happened, and it took to somewhere uncharted? Or perhaps you’re travelling through an experience like that now? Take a moment on that. In Jeremiah today, we are being offered both comfort and closeness with The Holy and within that experience we are being called to a higher level of Responsibility.

Both as individuals and community. We are being called to Give it away to those around us. Part of it, or should I say a large part of it Involves pulling down, building up, planting and living out the hope we have. Here’s our next pause, what does your involvement in that look like? Take a moment on that In my opinion, the book of Jeremiah, provides an interesting look at the Cycle of life. We see Love, as in God wants to love us and have us love others with Openness. We see hope as in God wants us to place our hope in and experience real Life.

We even get a glimpse of death, as in for new life to bloom many old ideas Have to pass away.

It may be helpful to look at this as an illustration of the life of our Lord. In this reading and in the life of Lord. What do we see? - love hope death life These are all things that we are going to be involved in, whether we are Christians or not and no matter your theology or viewpoint: can’t avoid Them. Here’s the difference for us. We have with us the companionship of Christ and we are called to live in an honest kind of vulnerability and intimacy with Jesus. To put it another way, God could be saying “Into to me see” so you can say To others “Into me see” Here’s our next pause, where does that take you? Take a moment on that?

Timothy takes us to a slightly different place in our individual and collective Journey with God, while Jeremiah gives us a chance to reflect on how we live with vulnerability. Timothy for his part is asking the question what do we stand on in life through the good, the bad, and the just plain strange? Well, this epistle shows Timothy as someone with a good grounding Scripture. We note that scripture was and still is, the lens by which the Jewish people interpreted their lives. And the call to one degree or another is the same for us.

This reading, seems for whatever reason seems to carry a lot of Weight. I don’t know about you, but throughout my Christian life, I have Been in many situations where scripture or theology is being debated Someone will say “but all scripture comes from God” As if that somehow Means that you can’t think about or debate it or even be made uncomfortable by it. I hope we all realize that anything, anything worth engaging in, is worth questioning. The other points with considering with Timothy is that when it says all scripture comes from God it was referring to the First Testament, the New Testament as we have it now hadn’t been born. it is also best viewed in the Frame of an internal memo, as a way keeping ourselves accountable rather Than telling others what to do and how to see the world.

Here’s our next pause. What is your relationship with scripture like? Where would you like it to be? Take a moment to think about that.

What can we take from Timothy this morning? For myself, I like the accountability of it and the elements that tell us not to get distracted by every noise, opinion, Facebook post and Covid issue. Timothy is calling people to stand in their Christ experience and to proclaim It. Like so much of Holy scripture, Timothy is calling us to travel alongside each other in a loving and transparent community, a community that listens, hears and responds. Here’s our next pause, when was the last time your reflected on your Christ journey where you have come from? Where do you think you’re going? How are you being called to proclaim your Christ story? Take a moment on that.

While our first two readings, seem to play the role of internal memos. The Gospel today is a call to live out what we know, with a kind of abandonment and courage. Again, honesty is at the top of the list, we see the judge being honest and The widow, whom we know by the standard of the day was a nobody, being honest, challenging her place and wanting different kind of life, a life of justice. There are lot of directions this Gospel could take us. The two that come to Mind for me are internal honesty and external honesty.

Internal honesty, might represent your prayer life or private practice Developing healthy habits connected to prayer or reflection time? It could be developing courage to persist in prayer regarding a particular Issue. In fact, thinking back to the beginning of my faith journey, one of things I struggled with was praying for my own needs. Here’s our next pause, what does the idea of internal honesty make you Think of? Take a moment on that.

Now, let’s look at the Gospel from the angle of external honesty. Do you know what I mean by external honesty? Well, for myself external honesty represents how we live in the world, our Accountability with others. It also represents what sets us fire! What do care about in the world? - what brings us joy in life? What are our passion topics? Where do we long for justice? Where do we long for change and reconciliation?

What are we called to be involved in? What cause are we to give our lives to? How are we being called to live out and show Christ’s love to those Around us? Here’s our next pause. Take a moment to think about that. Here’s quite a sobering thought for us, do you know that the cross and resurrection and every other piece of theology by which we may choose to view life; mean nothing…. Until it is made alive in life, as it was in the life of Christ: as it is meant to be with us. As the world was saved and moved by whom Jesus was, so it is with us. There’s that quote that does the rounds online “The world is moved by what you do not your opinion”

Today, we are invited to reflect on the fact that vulnerability is often the Doorway to faith and faith is a moving, changing experience. We are invited to use scripture to remain accountable to God and each Other and to tend to the health of our community, while being allowed to think and reflect on what we read and hear. In conjunction with that we must ensure that we don’t use it as lens to judge the world. The Gospel today is inviting us to think about our personal relationship with God, prayer and reflective life etc.

While at the same time calling us to be Involved in the continual healing of the world that God loves by choosing where we put our voice. Where are we placing our yes, where are we are we placing our, no? inside our Christian call to raise our voices as the widow did; and say “Stop, wait a minute, things can be different” I pray that we can live with honesty, and realize how loved we are, while Realizing how we are meant to love others. I pray that we can live with courage and choose to find ways to stand for Justice, compassion, mercy and forgiveness and grace.

God bless you all. May love and grace be the languages you speak and hear Now and always. Amen