Sunday Service 12th January

Welcome to our meditation for 12th of January.

We are at that part of the year when New Year resolutions begin to fail.

Why is that?

Why are we so bad at being committed, especially to things that are supposed to be good for us?

We will reflect on that after our reading from John

Sermon

When an evil spirit goes out of a person, it travels over dry country looking for a place to rest. If it can’t find one, it says to itself, ’I will go back to my house.’ So it goes back and finds the house clean and tidy. Then it goes out and brings seven other spirits even worse than itself, and they come and live there. So when it is all over, that person is in a worse state than he was at the beginning.

By now, if we had any New Year resolutions, they are beginning to fray.

If we decided to get fitter then we are finding that getting back to our routines are making it harder to find the time to train. So we might miss one day out, but we promise to do double the next day.

If we have been on a diet then those extra cookies that we bought for Christmas and New Year are looking very tempting, and we are thinking that just one might be worth it, as a treat for all that hard work we have done.

If we are reading the Bible from beginning to end we are starting to find it a bit monotonous and we are just reading the passages, they aren’t giving us any insight.

Part of the trouble with New Year resolutions is that the point of them is to make us better.

But that is a never ending journey.

How fit do you need to go before you are the right fitness?

How spiritual do you need to be before you are the right level of spiritual?

And once you get there you can’t just stop, you need to keep on doing what you’ve been doing just to stay the same, for no benefit what-so ever.

What’s worse; if you stop you start to deteriorate.

So at some point we say, ‘What’s the point, I don’t feel any better?’

How can we make changes in our life that really make a difference?

Because I think we want to change, I think we want the world to change, because the world isn’t in a good place, and we are stuck on this world that isn’t in a good place.

I love this passage today because it has such a psychological and spiritual truth within it.

It just makes sense.

Though it starts with an unusual beginning.

Jesus has just healed someone who is mute.

For the first time here is someone who can communicate, can talk.

For the first time he can participate in conversation, be part of a fellowship.

For the first time this person can give his opinion and influence others.

Yet it doesn’t seem like an amazing miracle.

It isn’t spectacular like feeding 5,000 people with couple of sandwiches, or calming a Force 8 storm.

It isn’t tear-jerking like watching someone see their wife or child for the first time

or seeing a child raised from the dead and watching the reaction of the parents.

This is such a banal miracle that others want Jesus to do another one,

to prove that a miracle, something really important and special, has actually been done.

And yet, and yet, to the person to which the miracle has been given, their whole life has changed.

If you are mute then life is done to you.

Imagine as a child and you can’t speak.

People talk about you and you can’t contradict them.

You can’t tell your side of the story...ever.

You can’t tell your parents if someone has done you harm.

If someone has cheated you or slagged you off, or even hurt you, you can’t tell anyone.

And if you try...then with a few words they have a story justifying why they did what they did, and you can’t contradict it.

You have no argument.

Conversations are about you, not with you.

And you get used to that.

You get used to people making decisions about you rather than with you.

You get used to going along with other people, even if it is a bad idea, because you can’t convince them to do otherwise.

And then you are given a voice.

Now you are given a choice...for the first time you can say, ‘No.’

It is an amazing thing...and no one cares.

They are all arguing about the morality of the person who did it

and whether it was even a good thing or an evil thing that you are cured.

If that had happened to me then that would drive me nuts.

This is the most amazing miracle of all to that guy, because it happened to him.

But no one cares.

Which kind of implies that no one cares about HIM.

And here is the thing, the really most important thing, just because no one else is thankful that this has happened to him...what is his reaction going to be?

Because I think this mini-parable that Jesus speaks is to that person who was mute.

Is he going to react to what God has done by being thankful for what God has done for him,

or is he going to react to the crowd and be angry because they aren’t acknowledging what has happened to him?

Because that decision will dictate how that man goes forward.

I’ll just repeat that...

Is he going to react to what God has done by being thankful for what God has done for him,

or is he going to react to the crowd and be angry because they aren’t acknowledging what has happened to him?

Because that decision will dictate how that man goes forward.

And that is important because that is where we are.

It is the start of the year and already we are surrounded by distractions.

In a few days time the Presbytery meets to discuss the new presbytery plan of church deployment

and every church will be distracted about what they need to do to keep a minister

or what they need to keep their building open.

There are so many distractions on the news

about wars all over the place

and terrorism attacks all over the place,

also symptoms of global warming all over the place.

There are insecurities about how much the food costs, or the heating costs.

No doubt family concerns will start to distract us; illnesses, break-ups, births, deaths.

And here is the truth.

God has given each of us a miracle of today.

It is the most amazing gift that anyone could have given us.

The demons and tiredness and worries and concerns of yesterday are gone, cast out.

When we woke up this morning we had a fresh start.

Each breath a gift, each decision an opportunity to do good, to become the person we want to be.

Each moment an opportunity to bring comfort and hope and joy to someone else.

Our heart has been cleaned out.

The dust of indifference...gone.

The dirt of mistakes...gone.

The grime of hurt...gone.

Each morning we are given a brand new, spanking clean, completely fresh...beginning.

And the rest of the world has said, ‘So what?’

So how do we react?

Are we going to react to what God has done by being thankful for what God has done for us,

or is we going to react to the crowd and be angry because they aren’t acknowledging what has happened to us?

That decision will dictate how we go forward.

Because here is the important part of the parable, the bit we often miss.

We think the object of the exercise is to get that clean heart, that new beginning.

We get everything in our life sorted out and then we try to tell the world to just stop, no one move, everything is perfect, and we want it kept that way.

But a perfect empty house is just an empty house; it isn’t a home until life is in it.

If we made our house prefect and then closed the door so nothing could spoil it then the house wouldn’t be a perfect house, it would be a cold tomb.

And dust and dirt and grime somehow still get in to spoil it all.

But it is worse than that.

If our heart is empty then anything can get in there, anger, spite, frustration, envy, greed...and those things will come in uninvited.

And once they are in they are really difficult to get out.

But there is an alternative.

We can invite God in, really invite God in.

And if God gets in then God is so big that nothing else can get in.

Because God doesn’t come alone;

God invites compassion and patience and love and hope and joy and generosity and so many other things.

In fact, if truth be told, God and those other things take up so much space that our hearts can’t contain it all and so our hearts get bigger and bigger.

So what will it be?

We have a gift of a new beginning.

We can try to keep it empty, try to keep it perfect as it is.

But then we end up with a cold, empty tomb of a life.

Or worse...the pettiness of the world sneaks in; all that jealousy and envy and slights and hurts.

Or...we can take the risk and let God’s life come in, share our life with God, with all that entails.

Let us pray

Heavenly Father

We are still feeling the ebbs and flows of the beginning of the New Year:

a time to reflect and think of what has been.

Though quickly the routines of the New Year are taking over and crowding us in.

The concerns and worries and struggles tying us in knots of pressure and time.