What Are You Looking For? (Advent 3)

 The word "Advent" is from the Latin verb "veno" to come and the prefix "ad" which means before. We are focusing on how to be ready for Jesus whenever comes. In the Gospel Reading (Matthew 11.2-11) Jesus is explaining what people were looking for in John the Baptist. You can not prepare to meet Jesus or Holy Spirit if you do not know what or who you are looking for.

1. Jesus asks if they were looking for a reed blowing in the wind?

Jesus is teaching about John and Himself by explaining what John was not: 

How Can I Believe? (Proper 29A)

How can I believe is the cry of our hearts as we seek the truth about God in a world full of chaos, evil and divided opinion. The short answer is YOU can’t on your own - but with God’s help you can. Like Moses and the Pharisees we need to experience Gods power and presence personally. Personal relationship and experience of the divine is the gift of faith. The readings help us understand:

·     What belongs to God?

·     How do we know we can trust God?

·     How do we get this gift of faith?

 

1. What belongs to God?

Reconciling Conflicts With Love

(Available on Youtube "John Gishler")

Jesus is teaching us how to reconcile conflicts with love. Matthew 18 describes this section (v. 15-22) as “Dealing with sin in the church”. Paul explains that all sin is a failure to love God, our neighbour or ourselves. Conflict and unforgiveness pollutes our soul (sin) and separates us from God and other people. Today we are focussing on the work of the church to proclaim, teach and model orthodox faith with love. Jesus repeats Mt. 16.19 re-affirming the role of the church as holding the keys to the Kingdom with the authority of binding and loosing sin guilt. This three-step process of confidential reconciliation is the opposite of what normally happens. It protects reputations, determines the truth and facilitates forgiveness:

1. Person goes first to the person to seek reconciliation
2. Only if this fails, they take witnesses and go again to reconcile
3. Only if  both attempts fail do they take it to the church leadership, again in confidence, to avoid spreading the conflict beyond three or four people 

Step #1: “Go and point out their fault just between the two of you” 

Spiritual Life In The weed Patch (Proper 16)

In the Parable of the Weeds Jesus is giving us a critical teaching on how to develop a spiritual life in the face of evil. Our natural tendency is to fight with the weeds. Jesus says:

·      Do not try to root out evil

·      Be led by the Holy Spirit

·      Endure suffering as an offering to God

 

1. Do not try to root out the evil

Right Relationships For Spiritual Life (Proper 13a)

(Available on John Gishler Youtube June 28)

 Today’s Readings challenge us to develop right relationships in this life as we prepare for our resurrection life in Jesus Christ. Last week we were challenged to love God more than family. This week we are challenged to die emotionally and spiritually to anything that competes with our love of God and to love our neighbour as ourselves. This involves painful challenges to the development and healing of our spiritual lives.

 

1. Right relationship with God

Easter - The Good News of Reconciliation With God

There are three huge questions:

• Can we really believe the Good News of Reconciliation?
• What does the Good News of Reconciliation mean?
• How do we apply the Good News in this Church?

 1. Can we really believe the Good News of Easter?

The Good News of Easter is that God raised Jesus from physical death to authenticate all Jesus teachings and to create a new way for individuals to be forgiven and reconciled to God. Forgiveness removes the sin guilt that separates us from God, creates a holy place in us for the Holy Spirit and enables our soul to live on with God after our body dies. Many people have trouble with the miraculous and tend to dismiss the Resurrection – and its’ implications for salvation as myth. How do we know this is not a myth?

Lent Is a Time o Dig Around the Roots (Lent 3)

The Readings begin with Isaiah’s prophecy (55.1-9) calling people to repent, turn from their evil ways and seek the Lord. God is reaching out to them with the offer of forgiveness and free spiritual food that will satisfy their deepest needs. We all hunger for forgiveness and a right relationship with God and our neighbour that gives meaning and purpose to our lives. The 10 Commandments define our special covenant relationship with God:

• Covenant is like a marriage relationship
• Breaking any one condition ends the relationship
• God promises us love, spiritual protection, and eternal spiritual life - and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (after Jesus)
• We promise love and loyalty to God and our neighbour
• We begin our self-examination by spending at least a half hour asking 10 questions that requires deep thought to find an example, however minor of our in-effect worshiping other gods - i.e. hockey, money, power, sex, popularity (self)

Jesus Christ Gives Us Spiritual Life - Proper 24

The Readings are about searching for something lost and rejoicing when it is found. The parables about lost sheep and a lost coin teach us the importance of not giving up and working hard to find the lost. In the Gospel Reading Jesus is specifically targeting the Pharisees who instead of going out to search for the lost were content, like many of us, to sit around and condemn sinners. Sinners are like the lost sheep because they have wandered away from the protection of the community to do their own thing. September 11 is a good time to honour the hundreds of policemen and firemen who chose to rush into burning buildings to find and rescue Gods precious children. By the way if you are ever driving past the Museum of the Regiments on Crowchild Trail in Calgary and notice what looks like a steel beam beside the old guns – it’s a piece of the World Trade Centre presented to Calgary firefighters who volunteered to help the day after.

1. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners

We Are To Be Temples Of The Holy Spirit (Eph. 3.22) for Proper 16

This is what all Christians are supposed to be. We are to be people in such a right-relationship with God that God the Holy Spirit can live in us. The Readings explain what this is in terms of the relationship between a shepherd and sheep. In modern times this is the relationship between each of us and Jesus. If this is a good and holy relationship based on faith and love, the Holy Spirit will come and live inside each of us to guide us, strengthen us and heal us as we go through life in this dangerous time and place.

1. Jesus is our righteousness (Jer. 23.6)

Names in the Bible are very important. They tell us what a person is expected to be. They are a one word personal mission statement. The expected Messiah - Jesus, is to be called “The Lord our righteousness”. It is important to note that we do not have “righteousness” or a right relationship on our own. Jesus is our righteousness. It is only when we are connected to Him that we are spiritually covered by the righteousness of Jesus.

• The Greek in the Bible really means “in Him”.  
• God by his love and grace accepts our Faith and trust in Jesus sacrificial death for us as equal to us dying for our own sins.
• We repent and die emotionally to our sins in our weekly Confession.
• This is why the Priest can give us absolution.  
• God accepts this repentance in Faith and forgives us through the shed blood of Jesus.
• We are spiritually covered by our faith in the righteousness of Jesus
• Those who are not living “in Him” through their Faith in Jesus,  Baptism and Christian lifestyle are not covered by the righteousness of Jesus. They are alone and vulnerable to all the temptations, deceptions and spiritual attacks of the Evil One. We can see what this looks like on the front page of any newspaper. It is not very happy.

2. Jesus is our teacher

Christians Are Called To Shine With the Glory of God

In January we begin a New Year and many people pause to reflect on their lives and make resolutions on what to do in the New Year. It helps if you have some idea of the purpose of human life. As Christians we are different because we do not believe that the purpose of life is to die with the most toys, the biggest house or the largest investment portfolio. Christians believe that the purpose of life is to be a sign of the glory of God. The Readings chosen for today remind us that God chooses holy people and reveals Himself to them so they will be filled with joy and reflect His glory.

1.     God chooses holy people

The Readings include two call stories – the call of Samuel and the call of Nathaniel. Why is Samuel chosen instead of the priestly sons of Eli? If we read around the call story we learn that the two sons of Eli had blasphemed God, had not repented and had not been rebuked by Eli. Both Eli and his sons had made themselves unholy by their failure to respect the authority of God. In contrast, notice the humility of Samuel. Notice how he never even thinks that God might want to talk to him. His life is focussed on serving God by serving Eli.