A Full Life in the Emptiest of Places

Today we reflected on our communities.
We lamented that neighbours are too often strangers who live near us,
And that it's sad when we have to pay people to help us.
We found it strange to think that we live in a culture that maintains such high walls between ourselves and our neighbours, wants so little of God or church, and yet longs so sincerely to be famous, to be known, to have significance.
And yet we also sensed a greater hope,
In which life streams forth from the church,
To the streets, to peoples homes
Into the lives of lonely, disconnected people.
And though we may have secretly thought that no change was possible,
God reminded us who He is,
That the very soil beneath our feet can be changed,
Transformed, restored
If we'll only dig our roots deep into Him.
A salt bush has a capacity to tolerate the most barren of environments
Environments suffering so much degradation from human irresponsibility
And there, in the midst of the lifelessness, it plays a part in rehabilitation
Restoration
And things are changed
All we thought we knew, gives way to the new.

Isaiah 58
9-12"If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people's sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
firm muscles, strong bones.
You'll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again.

BLESSED ARE THE MERCIFUL, FOR THEY WILL BE SHOWN MERCY

Lord you have wired mercy into our being!
We know intuitively not to harm, whoever we are, wherever we come from.
But even this, this is only the tip of the iceberg.
You ask that we would not only be harmless,
but that we would treat others as we would like to be treated.
As those who love to be blessed we join as one to be a blessing.
As those who love mercy, help us to be merciful to others.
Remind us Lord, that we have life because of your own merciful choice.
May we live out our gratitude, loving others as we have been loved.
Help us to feel what others feel Lord to such an extent that our actions are no longer left "un-checked"
May our judgments be tempered with mercy and empathy.
May we delight in letting people off the hook,
giving people ourselves rather than our animosity.
Because when we come to you your hands are not tightly clenched and ready to strike,
they extend kindness, generosity and support.
Your arms remain open.
Make us like you, more and more.
Amen.

BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS

Lord our appetites leave a lot to be desired.
Create a new hunger within us Jesus, a new thirst,
a taste for seeing the world as it ought to be.
Redeem our desires Lord, shape them with your love.
Help us to love justice,
to long for the deliverance of those exploited,
and liberation for those caught up in cycles of violence.
More than that, help us to love people in such a way that we reach out and embrace.
May just communities that include the powerless and loveless spring up.
May we gather for worthy causes,
may this be our zeal, our obsession.
Ruling over people brings no revolution.
May we come together not for our own strength or benefit,
but to lay down our lives in our commitment to those who are pushed to the margins.
May we join in the plight of others,
May we refuse to remain idle.
Hold us to our prayers Jesus, amen.

BLESSED ARE THE MEEK

Lord we act as those completely at the mercy of our passions, our hurts, as if our path is dictated by what happens to us and around us.
We get hurt and then we hurt others.
And we get stuck in this game of who can hurt who the most.
But there is no force, control, or coercion in your nature.
You don't conquer through violence and domination.
You come with an unconquerable love that has the capacity to withstand the greatest degrees of unlove and hostility.
You redefine our ideas of justice.
What is just? What is right?
We learn that cycles of hurt and pain do not make the world a better place.
You challenge us to be angry, but respond in a different way, a higher way, your way.
Teach us forgiveness, help us to show restraint.
Let us in on a strength we barely even understand.
Help us to treat others as we would like them to treat us - especially when they're treating us so poorly.
And may we not stand by when others are being profoundly harmed when we have the capacity to do something about that.
Shape us Lord, Amen.

BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO MOURN

It would be easy, Lord, to not think about the way things really are.
To live in our little worlds,
Worlds that are safe, protected, affluent.
Surely those who are ignorant are blessed?
Not according to you.
You sound a wake-up call to all those with ears to hear,
Eyes that see,
Hearts that feel.
And your Spirit moves in us, stirring our hearts so that ours might beat in time with yours.
And in the process Lord we feel this discontent, a restlessness.
It's so much harder to accept the present state of affairs.
We become aware of human suffering and we can no longer remain as we are.
As we identify with you we identify with the marginalized, distressed, disabled, and disadvantaged.
Jesus help us to cry out, lament and wail prophetically,
To mourn without being crushed,
And to find hope and see you at work.
Comfort those who have lost much.
Come Lord Jesus, may your Spirit bring life in abundance.
Amen.

BLESSED ARE THE POOR OR POOR IN SPIRIT

Jesus you dare us to imagine.
You invite us to imagine a world in which it is not status or riches that we place our trust in,
A world that doesn't play favourites.
And you challenge us Lord,
You plead that we'd endeavor to see the distance between ourselves and the poor become less and less.
With our hearts exposed by the company we keep and the things we pour our best energy into, you challenge us to a richer way.
You ask us to become poor 'in spirit'.
So may our comfortable existence be tampered with,
Our safe distance trampled on.
Lord grab us by the hand and take us wherever you're going,
To whomever you want us to meet,
Because following you is where we gain real treasure in this world.
And you want to show us where to find life, life to the full.
It might just be in the last place we'd expect to find it.
Teach us humility Lord. Help us to love more.
Amen.

Blessed Are They

On a hillside outside the town, this new Teacher from Nazareth has drawn quite a crowd. He doesn't look much, but he speaks authoritatively, in simple but poetic cadences that make his words easy to remember. But it's not his delivery that silences the crowd. It's his crazy, illogical, counter-intuitive, hope-filled message.

"I'll tell you who's fortunate," he says. "The really lucky ones are not the rich, the conquerors, the religious elites, the people with power and land and everything going for them. It's you - you who are poor and sad and at the bottom of the heap. You, who realy want to do what God requires, who care about others and stand up for what's right. You're the ones who make God smile."
Lyn Jackson

Come join us as we journey through the 'Be-Attitudes' each Sunday, 11am-12.30pm, over the next 8 weeks starting on the 31st of May. If you are interested in coming along, we would love to hear from you: Contact Jesse - mrjessesize@hotmail.com. The 8 weeks look like they will culminate in a contemplative-mountainous-beatitudes-picnic-bushwalk... tentative details:
Sunday 26 July, 11am @ Morialta Conservation Park
What better way to journey through the be-attitudes than in open space on a mountain trek (in the mode that Jesus delivered the original 'sermon on the mount'!)

Bless.

Wilderness Time (Luke 4:1-13)

In a world that puts forward an array of lifeless promises,
A world that values might and power,
And seems to be satisfied with cheap thrills,
You offer another way.
A way that makes sense of who we are as human beings,
Even if everything we hear in society seems to suggest otherwise.
But you show us the way.
You are the way.
Deliver us from the temptation to build a life around things,
Things that take more than they give,
Free us from lives dedicated to futile offerings that have no lasting significance.
Deliver us from the temptation to offer concern without compassion,
Welfare without care,
Aid divorced from love, trust, relationship, sacrifice.
Jesus, deliver us from the temptation to reduce our life of faith to another form of escapism,
A mere reprieve from the ordinary.
May we part company with popularity, prestige and party tricks.
Yours is a way of sacrificial love,
A risky, engaged, passionate and personal way of being human.
Your way is life.
You are life.
Amen.

God's Kingdom is Here (Mark 1:14-20)

Jesus you come with a radical kingdom invitation, a radical welcome.
You don't restrict your invitation to those who have ticked all the right boxes, those who are worthy, the elite - not by the world's standards anyhow.
You redefine and rename. You transform. You add new meaning and life.
You call those with ears to hear, eyes to see, those hungry for a new way of being human.
Those restless and longing for change delight in your kingdom call, people disenfranchised with lives dictated by greed, comfort, security, fear, alienation and so on...
You search for actors willing to audition for parts in the kingdom - God's drama being staged here and now.
A way of righteousness and justice,
A way of peace,
A way of joy.
Lord may we be those who drop our nets immediately - our agendas, our fears, our excuses - and instead pick up your agenda as we follow you wherever you lead us.
May we delight and long for your kingdom.
Give us kingdom eyes and kingdom hopes.
May we in some sense be your kingdom, together offering both a challenge and invitation to all that you love deeply, to all who hear your call.
In Jesus' name, amen.