60 Paisley Street, Victoria 3011, Australia
A rough guide to our location in Footscray, Melbourne
|
60 Paisley Street, Victoria 3011, Australia A rough guide to our location in Footscray, Melbourne
|
|
Pictures from the family camp at the Campaspe Downs country resort
|
Sermon: “Waking Up on the Inside!” ( by Pastor Khanh Do) Text:
Mt 26:36-46 Sunday 9 July
2006 One the
funniest ‘tragic’stories in the Bible comes from Acts 20. Paul
was preaching a long sermon in an upstairs room in Troas.
Sitting in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who began to sink
into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When
he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and died.
Paul stopped talking and went to restore the young man to life, then he
went back upstairs, ate something, and continued talking until the next morning! What lessons
can we learn from this story? 1.
‘Nothing gets in the
way of a sermon.’ 2.
‘Long sermons can be
dangerous, even tragic’, and finally 3.
‘Never, ever sleep
during a sermon!’ You do so at
your own risk! I can’t promise to bring you back to life, but I can promise to
keep talking no matter what! If you
haven’t realised by now, our theme this morning is about ‘waking up’.
It’s not just about trying not to fall sleep when we should be awake
like during church or when we are in a classroom.
It’s about breaking free from a habit, a routine, a way of life or
faith that makes us safe and comfortable. As the words of
the song “Bring me to Life” in the
call to worship says, it’s about waking
up on the inside. We’ve all
woken up from our sleep this morning; we’ve washed our faces, had showers and
maybe even drank some tea or coffee to make sure we’re awake.
We may be awake physically but are we still sleeping on the inside? Are
we still sleeping spiritually? This
is a question I believe our text
this morning asks of us. Sensing he
is nearing death, Jesus takes three of his closest friends (Peter, James and
John) to a place called Gethsemane to pray.
He tells them to stay awake with him as he goes to pray but comes back to
find the disciples fast asleep. Jesus
tells them again to stay awake but again he comes back a second and third time
and finds them sleeping yet again. Although
the story is about the disciples’ giving in to physical
sleep, it is their spiritual sleep that I think Matthew is more concerned about.
This becomes apparent when we read this episode in the wider context
Matthew’s gospel. Just a few verses earlier, Peter had just boldly declared
Jesus: “though all become deserters
because of you, I will never desert you,” and “even
though I must die with you, I will not deny you” (vv. 33, 35).
Further,
a few chapters earlier,
Jesus had warned his disciples about being awake and alert when he returns: “keep
awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming”
(24:42); makes it out
like a thief coming in the night: “Understand
this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief
was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be
broken into. Therefore
you must be ready, of the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour” (24:43-44).
And he told the
parable of the ten bridesmaids where only 5 were ready and went with the bridegroom
because they had oils in their lamp and the others didn’t (25). “Keep
awake” says Jesus “for you now
neither the day nor the hour”. Keep
awake! Be alert! Be ready!
Christ returns at the most unexpected time and place!! This, I
believe, is the major focus of the final chapters of Matthew’s Gospel.
Yet here in our story, on
three occasions Christ does return but only to find the disciples fast
asleep. They didn’t get it; they
didn’t get how being disciples of Jesus was meant to be played out when it
really mattered. They needed to
wake up. They
may have been awake to being known
as followers of Jesus, but they were spiritually fast asleep.
You may awake this morning but are you still sleeping? What are the
things we need to wake up from?
What do we need to wake to? There are two
things I suggest. 1.
Waking up to our responsibilities in and for the world. Following Jesus
is about waking up from focussing on ourselves, our needs, and being awake to
the needs of others and the world. Jesus wanted
people to be wake up. He wanted the
religious authorities to wake up from
their deep sleep of privilege, wealth, power, injustice, and wake up to
the needs of the disadvantaged, the poor, the lepers, the sick, the prostitutes,
the widows, the foreigner. He wanted them
to wake up to the way they shaped society to benefit themselves.
Jesus
too wants us to wake up;
wake up from our deep sleep comfort and privilege and wake up to sharing our
god-given resources. He wants to
wake up from the sleep of complacency, keeping things the way they are.
We
need to wake up from the sleep
that those in positions power can do as they like just as long as it doesn’t
affect or disadvantage us. We need
to wake up to the fact that when another human is suffering, we suffer, the
world suffers, God suffers. But
Jesus also wanted disadvantaged people/victims to
wake up from their condition. They
can just as easily fall into a deep sleep of self-pity: I’m helpless, nobody
loves me, why me? And this is the
type of sleep that we often drift off to when it comes to meeting the needs of
world: I’m
too young, I’ll do it when I’m older, I’m too old I’ll leave to those
younger, I’m too busy, I’ll do it when things slow down a bit, it’s not my
calling! But if we think
about those who have made a difference
in the world, [e.g. Gandhi, Luther king, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, Bono
form U2] they do not have magical powers. They
were not born world-changers. They
could have easily gone the other way. They
are simply people who are awake:
they are people who refused to be drawn into the deep sleep of not caring, the
deep sleep of keeping things the way they are.
They refuse to be sleeping and doing nothing. We need to wake
up to our responsibilities as humans as Christians! Being awake
means living a responsible life.
We need to wake up from understanding our faith as something we
do with our heads rather than our lives.
We need waking from sleep that sees our faith as separated from, or more
important than, our living out. Our
faith must be an active faith; it can only find expression in what we do; in how
we act/behave. We pray “Our
father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.” When do
‘mission’ or work toward social justice, we are trying to live out what we
pray, we in fact helping to bring about God’s kingdom.
Being awake in
this way means doing good at every
opportune time. But it’s not
about being able to recount what we’ve done or what we expect in return.
No, we are called to be good for nothing. Yes, Christians must be good for nothing! 2.
Being Awake to God As Christians
we need to be awake to God! Spaghetti Jesus In the early
1990s, in Atlanta USA, a woman named Joyce
Simpson couldn’t decide whether to
stay with the church choir or quit and sing professionally. So she prayed for a
sign from God. Very soon after, she
spotted the face of Jesus on the street – to be more precise it was on a Pizza
Hut poster. Apparently the shadowy
image of Jesus' face in strands of spaghetti hanging from a fork meant she
should stay with the choir. ‘Spaghetti
Jesus’ made headlines all over the country with thousands coming to Atlanta to
get a glimpse. Cheesy Mary Almost two
years ago, Florida, US, woman declared she had found an image of the Virgin Mary
on a burnt grilled cheese sandwich. She
auctioned it off, selling it for US$28,000!! In
her Ebay ad, she wrote: “I would like all people to know that I do believe
that this is the Virgin Mary Mother of God. That is my solemn belief. People ask
me if I have had blessings since she has been in my home. I do feel I have, I
have won $70,000 on different occasions at the casino near my house.” I
remember seeing this story in the news on TV. (http://www.goldenpalaceevents.com/auctions/grilledmary01.php). Fishy Jesus At about the
same time, a Canadian man burnt his fish stick at dinner and saw an image of
Jesus on it. He then auctioned it
off on Ebay. I’m sure you
would’ve heard about these stories or similar ones even here in Australia.
As silly as these stories sound, they express an important truth about
how we look for signs of God in every day life. I
think most of us deep down we want to see
God in an unusual way, in a way that captures our imagination and fills us with
awe. A way that’s spectacular and miraculous that reassures us
that we’re on the right track – that we’re worshipping the right God. But
I feel it is a deep sleep that we need to wake from.
We have all the signs in world of God in our everyday life, it really
depends on what you’re looking for: When I think at how there is just the
right amount of sunlight to give the
earth life, any more than we’d all fry any less we’d freeze; when I see how Liam
has turned from dependent restful baby to a independent restless 2 and a
half year old; when I feel how much love you give my family; when I have peace
at difficult times; God must around somewhere! When
we’re wanting and expecting the spectacular,
it is seeing Christ in the ordinary that Jesus teaches us to be awake to.
These are the unexpected things we need to be ready and awake to
appreciate. This is the
unexpectedness of Christ! If
Christ comes like a thief in the night,
when do you notice that a thief has been in your house? It
is after the thief has already entered. We
know the thief has been there because of the “evidence” left behind. We
must be awake to the evidence of God’s fingerprints all around us and upon us! Waking
up from a deep sleep is
never easy and it may take sometime until we are fully awake.
But it is a journey that leads to life. What do you
need to wake up from? What do you need to wake up to? Here again is a
verse from the song “Bring Me to Life” (evanescence) which I think describes
well our need to wake up! All this time I can't believe I couldn't
see Come Lord
Jesus, wake us up on the inside and bring us to life.
Amen. Go with open
eyes, minds, and hearts May the God of
life awaken within you a new sense hunger to know God. May the Christ
of compassion stir within you a renew love for others May the Holy
Spirit, fan within you the flame of faith anew. |
