Epiphany 8 Yr a Woodbridge JSM God's love for exiles/Christchurch

Epiphany 8 yr a woodbridge jsm

Isaiah 49;8-16a

Psalm 131

I Cor 4;1-5

Mtt 6;24-34

There can be no better example of how worthless are the things of this world than the earthquake in Christchurch last week.

Whether you had Gucci glasses or a Lamborghini and a frig full of caviar and bin 47 Penfolds when the ground began to shake, all the effort and worry and stress which goes into making the money to buy the best all of a sudden is put into perspective.

This past six months has been a series of disasters in Australia with floods, cyclone Yasi and fires also and New Zealand has had two earthquakes within six months, the first causing no loss of life but enormous damage.  And the mine collapse near Graymouth.

This is the way of the world, there are peaceful years but natural disasters are a part of life and while we take precaution where we can, there are some things which you just cannot prepare for.

Many  people are philosophical when it comes to the damage of bushfires and floods and earthquakes also, when it comes to property, but when it comes to lives it is a different story.

A death is a major trauma for loved ones and we grieve with Christchurch for those lost last week. Our grief is miniscule compared to that of relatives and other residents of Christchurch. A huge number of people are affected between families, loved ones and friends. neighbours, fellow workers. Members of clubs and societies, even the people who travel to work on the same bus or train. When they are not there now it will be a constant reminder of the tragedy.

I read of a counsellor involved in 9/11 who upon hopping onto a train which he was accustomed to catching prior to the disaster when visiting the city a decade later burst into tears when he knew that so many of the people not there were lost in the tragedy.

Every resident of Christchurch will be affected by the communal cloud of grief and this really puts into perspective the waste of time and effort which goes into consumerist persuits.

The upside to tragedies such as Christchurch is the way which the best in people comes to the fore and Christian values are shared in so many ways throughout society.

I spoke of Brisbane last time I was here after the flood a month ago. The Holy Spirit leads people to acts of goodness whether they are churchgoers or not. But for a Christian it is particularly valuable to have a faith which upholds and encourages one during trouble.

It is such a shame for all those who do not have a faith and have to face trauma with their own strength. I cannot imagine how defeated many must feel under the pressures, stresses and strains which many if not most people experience in this life.

God certainly does not intend that people undergo such pain. God has given us promises which are relayed again in the words of Isaiah today which are spoken to us through Jesus who came to fulfil the law and the prophets.

“In the time of my favour I will answer you, I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land.

To say to the captives Come out and those in darkness, be free.

They will neither hunger nor thirst nor will the desert heat or the sun beat upon them.

He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.

God speaks of his love for his children and the prophet says,

Shout for joy O heavens, rejoice O earth, burst into song O mountains, for the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

 And goes on to quantify that love by saying that even though a nursing mother may forget her infant, that he will never forget his children, God is saying that the love he feels for his children is greater even, than that of a nursing mother.

Oh! if only it were possible for those who are hurting now to know and believe those words,  comfort for those suffering to be able to rest their pain and grief into God’s hands.

God must have seen the Israelites in bondage in Babylon in the same light because in Isaiah’s poem we hear Zion say “The Lord has forsaken us” and it was to this statement that the nursing mother comparison was relayed by the prophet. The exiles believed that their plight was irreversible and that their behaviour had caused God to desert them. There are no doubt many in Christchurch feeling just the same right now and God would have them hear the same words of comfort that he gave the exiles.

When Jesus in the sermon on the mount says “Do not worry” I am sure he is not just talking about clothes and possessions and what we eat. When we think about worry in a Christian context, we know that worry involves a shutting out or separation from Jesus. We are trying to achieve in our own strength that which we should be leaving to God. To plan is not to worry, to worry is to prepare and avoid the loss of something. The negative side of planning perhaps.

The converse of worrying is to draw closer to Jesus and allow him to share in our concerns, to help us with those which are genuine and those people in  Christchurch have plenty of genuine concerns on their plate right now.

We can pray that Jesus can assist them in their immeadiate needs, for healing, shelter, food, and support. Their needs run deeper than just those needs of survival. There is the need for emotional healing, a process of returning to something like normality. I am sure that counselling will be available through government and church to help in that.

But there is also the even deeper need of spiritual healing which those who are Christian will draw upon readily. People will feel bruised and broken in spirit, and angry that God has “let” this happen. God does however, make the rain and the sun to fall or shine upon the righteous and unrighteous so there will be a natural restoration for many who are non-believers but we know that not all will allow even that natural process to occur.

The prophet Isaiah in the preceding passage to that which we heard today also prophesises that God will make his children to be a light for the gentiles who in their exile and despair may have taken hope that God really had not deserted them and so today, we give thanks that God’s grace is so freely abundant to all who call upon him and take our  role seriously of helping through prayer to bring that light to those who are suffering and without relationship with God through Jesus.

That is the good news however,  that we can pray, alongside of Christians throughout the world, and when we know of the amazing healings and restorations that flow through grace from prayer in our own midst and when we know from reliable sources of the miracles which happen through prayer elsewhere, we can direct our prayer at this time for those who are otherwise bereft of support at the deeper spiritual level and pray God bring light into their lives through people, and through the power of the Holy Spirit that in this tragedy they may find the doorway to peace opened and choose to pass into a relationship of peace, hope, guidance and support and most of all, salvation, for all their lives.

Through our geographical proximity, through blood and friendship relationships the tragedy in New Zealand is very real to us and it is natural to keep family before God as a very high priority, we must also recognise that Northern Africa is experiencing a massive transformation and that Libya has the potential to become the next major human induced tragedy of the world. So we keep the  people of Libya in prayer for safety and a just outcome of this present conflict. Despite the faith differences we know that all people are equally loved by God, so join with all who ask for ask for God’s grace to bring healing, justice and peace to Libya.

Amen

Epiphany 7 Yr A Woodbridge, John Cannell

SERMON A  SS.Simon & Jude Woodbridge  Sun 20 Feb 2011  J.K.Cannell

Lev 19: 1-2, 9-18.   1 Cor 3: 10-17.   Matt 5: (17-37) 38-48

The Six Antitheses of Jesus:  particularly Retaliation, and Loving our persecutors vv38-48

May I suggest we have our bibles open at these pages of vv 17-48.

Father, teach us obedience.  Give us Grace to be effective witnesses to your healing love and mercy, through Jesus your Son.                                           

The OT reading begins easily enough.   The Lord told Moses to say to the Israelites, “Be holy like Me”.   Mmm.   That seems OK though it’s asking rather a lot.  But then it gets a bit provocative.  “When you are reaping your fields or harvesting your grapes, leave some for those who have nothing”.   Not very business-like! Come on! I’ve got a family to feed you know!  “Never deceive or oppress your brother or your neighbour or anyone who works for you or even an alien.   Be careful to be just, not only to your brother and daughter but to any fellow-countryman”.  Now hold it.  It’s not a fair world.   And then it becomes downright arguable, over the top for us reasonable law-abiding folk.  “Never seek revenge.  Never cherish a grudge”, it says!

Imagine:  “Crikey if I behaved like that they’d kick me out of the synagogue.  If old Mordecai did what it says he’d have been the laughing stock of the village.  Remember when silly young Ruben set fire to Mordecai’s  entire corn crop that year!  Mordecai took the matter to the elders and they broke Ruben and his family, just about, with the fines and all, and quite right too.  Doesn’t matter if it was an accident, Mordecai still suffered.  And then silly young Ruben added insult to injury by falling in love with Mordecai’s daughter Miriam.  Lovely girl.  But Mordecai sent his daughter far far away and between you and me he arranged for Ruben to be hurt one night.  I don’t blame him....Where might it all have ended?    Next day that visiting Rabbi started arguing... “God says you must love your neighbour as yourself”.  He said that that’s what Moses reckoned that God said.  Well I don’t know.  Look, give me some good clear rules and I’ll obey them, I’ll stick to the rules.  I’m God-fearing.  I’ll obey the rules.  But when some visiting Rabbis try on a lot of stuff about “loving everybody even the people next door” then where are you?  A man’s got to look after his family doesn’t he, at all costs?  It stands to reason.  God didn’t love the people next door when he drowned all Pharoah’s troops when they came after us, across the Red Sea, when our forefathers were escaping out of Egypt, did he?  Look, the Torah’s our book, Genesis,  Exodus , Leviticus, Numbers and good old Deut.  And fair do’s, we Jews more or less stick to Moses’ rules, The Law as we call it, not the airy fairy Abrahamic stuff with forgiveness and faith and all.  You know where you are with rules!”

That, more or less, is where civilized humankind was then, and mainly is now. 

Now we’ll skip about 1600 years and refer to the New Testament. We open the Gospel of Matthew again.  The Fathers of the Church have compiled this lectionary so that we can hear what Jesus the Messiah, the Christ Himself teaches from the Father’s Heart, in NT and OT.   He who is of God, one with God, eternal with God, mighty above all creation but our friend and brother, Saviour and Redeemer, speaks in the Gospels. 

The main thing about Matthew 5:17-48 is the attitude to God’s Law, rather than man’s.  Jesus says He came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it.  Some think this means He came to dot the is and cross the ts and make it even more detailed but Jesus makes it clear that that is not at all what He is on about.  Some think He came to abolish it altogether.   In a way, as we shall see, He came to intensify the demands of The Law.  Formal obedience to rules is nothing compared to Gods’ righteousness.  A Pharisee might well have said “Look I have done precisely what is required in such and such a situation.  I didn’t enjoy doing it.  I didn’t want to do it.  But I did it, and fulfilled the Law of Moses, and I’m not going to go one millimeter past that.  I’m making no further commitment”.  And that saddens and offends the Heart of God.  Jesus is not looking for the dreary completion of some legal clause or a demonstration of external rectitude.  Righteousness means being right with God.   Jesus is looking for the response to the Law to be a springboard for a life of devotion to God.   In vv 21-48 He gives a number of examples of the outworking of that wholeheartedness and holiness, in obedience.   He shows that to keep the letter of the old Law while ignoring its spirit, to try to buy merit with God while at the same time breaking laws inwardly, is not on for a Christian. 

Even beyond the detailed contents of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the legalism of the scribes and Pharisees was particularly contained in their accumulated oral pronouncements, which many people memorised.  This was a vast lot of law...the Torah had plenty already (as you’ll see as you read it), but there was much more.  In the 3^rd century some of it was codified in the Mishnah that runs to 800 pages.  Then scholars wrote 12 printed volumes to amplify that, in what was known as the Jerusalem Talmud.  The pettifogging minutae must have been heartbreaking to someone who wanted to live right with God.  For example, to keep the Sabbath holy a new lamp could be moved from one place to another but not an old one.  A donkey could go out on the Sabbath wearing its saddle cloth (if it was fixed on the day before) but couldn’t wear a bell, because it would have to do work to cause the bell to ring.  And people watched closely to see whether these restrictions were ever flouted!  There were thousands of regulations like that, for everything.  All this was to preserve righteousness.  (See The Message of Matthew by Michael Green, The Bible Speaks Today, IVP, Ed John Stott, 2000).  But the rules were not enough.  No wonder Jesus said “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees you will certainly not enter the kingdom of God!” 

The prophets of old used to say “Thus says the Lord”.  But the rabbis who followed were not guided by the Holy Spirit but by the Talmuds and the traditions of men, and we are told that they usually avoided preaching on their own authority.  Instead they liked to discuss the theses and statements of other clerics.  “Rabbi Nathaniel said last year.....and in view of Babylonian Talmud No.563 I will add some observations about that.....”  And in the midst of these layers of confusion and obfuscation and theses concocted by the scribes, comes Jesus!  With immense authority Jesus dismisses centuries of orthodox interpretation and with assurance He starts explaining  the roots of OT teachings with “You have heard it said.... BUT I TELL YOU.....”.   At long last the Messiah has come.  God speaks!   He rips the veil away from God’s Word and suddenly the truth becomes clear; frighteningly clear.

In this discourse of Ch 5 vv 21-48 (our lectionary readings for last week and this week), Jesus presents six antitheses to the rabbi’s theses.  (See Quicknotes Bible Commentary Series Matthew and Mark  Vol8 by Stephen Leston, Mark Strauss, Ian Fair.  Barbour, Ohio 2008).  These contrast the old accumulated law of the elders scribes and Pharisees, all fractured and shot with contradiction, with the new unified righteousness which He proclaims.   The traditional theses are turned upside down by Jesus’ antitheses.   In that way Jesus did correct and complete (or fulfill) the Law of Moses.  In doing so He did not abrogate the ancient Law.  He went behind it to its original function, to the secret purposes of the human heart, and the heart of God.

The first is about murder.  Anger can equal murder!   We begin to see that Jesus’ good news is a matter of life and death.  We are reminded of 1 John 3.15 “anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and no murderer has eternal life in him”.  Jesus adds hard things.   For example, to call someone raca (Matt 5:22) is to use an Aramaic swearword for a ‘blockhead’.  Do not call one of God’s creatures that, Jesus says, and get rid of your bitterness towards your brother and everyone else.    The second is lust equals adultery.   We are warned.    The third antithesis is about divorce, as hot an issue then as it is now.  Conservative Rabbi Shammai insisted that ‘something offensive or indecent’ in Deut 24 meant infidelity but Rabbi Hillel was much more liberal.  He would probably say that burning the toast at breakfast was deserving of divorce for some.  So between these conservative and liberal views a great disparity developed throughout Jewry, which Jesus obviously found distressing.   But Jesus is stricter than Moses.   It must have been shattering for those who took advantage of the Mosaic concession of Deut.24:1-4 to allow divorce, to have heard Jesus setting out God’s original purpose for marriage.   In the kingdom, as at the creation, marriage is meant to be exclusive and lifelong .  (Gentle St.John Chrysostom links Matt.5:31-32 with 5:3-9 of the Beatitudes.  Surely a man of God who reconciles others and is a peacemaker and is merciful cannot cast out his own wife).  The complexities introduced today by mental ill-health and a fallen world make this prime social problem even more intractable.  But Jesus leaves us in no doubt about His views.  Besides, He heals in all manner of hopeless situations.  He forgives and renews, and we have access through His Church as it faithfully continues those works of healing and restoration among those who have faith.

Fourth, Jesus turns to oaths and promises.  An example:  Rabbi Zechariah makes a judgement in the synagogue court:  “Poor Bartholomew cannot be held to his promise to buy Ezra’s land because he swore on the great altar of the Sanctuary.  Had he sworn on the Sanctuary itself it would have been a binding vow, but the altar is insufficient.  So I excuse him”.                    No, says  Jesus, there’s no need to swear;  a good man’s word is enough.  A citizen of God’s kingdom must be utterly trustworthy.  Otherwise he is in sin.  As it was then, so now.

The fifth and sixth antitheses, about retaliation and love, are at the heart of this great treatise of ‘The Sermon on the Mount’.    (We come at last to the verses set for today: 38-48).   The teachers of The Law taught “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”.  But Jesus says, “Don’t resist (possibly ‘engage with’, ‘fight’) those who do wrong to you.  (Guthrie, Motyer et al say that in the context this applies to wrongs done to you; it does not prohibit the defence of others).  “Don’t retaliate.  “Offer the other cheek as well.  “Give to anyone who asks.  “Don’t resist those who wrong you.”   (Jesus is not talking about global pacificism or the abolition of police forces and the rights and wrongs of war.  Paul talks about the responsibilities of states in Rom 13). The teachers of The Law said “Love your neighbour and hate your enemy”, although a command to hate your enemies appears nowhere in the bible.   Jesus said “What I say is pray for your enemies and those who hurt you!”   “There must be no limit to your goodness, as your heavenly father’s goodness knows no bounds.”    Jesus says that private revenge can not be part of a christian’s life.  

Now friends, it is normal for us to try to rationalise and qualify hard biblical teaching, and water it down to stuff more socially acceptable to modern man.  But this is the Gospel of God.   As my friend Bp. Howell Witt of NW Australia used to say, “Don’t muck about with it”.    

This teaching is rubbish to a ‘man of the world’.  Of course I will retaliate when cheated, hurt, wronged.   And the practice of the Rabbis was legalistic and retaliatory.   Here is the greatest contrast of all between the old Law where punishments fits the crime and the Christ-way of forgiveness, from the OT and the NT.    Listen to Leviticus 24:20.  If anyone injures and disfigures a fellow-countryman, it must be done to him as he has done...fracture for fracture, etc.  Or Deuteronomy 19:21  You must show no mercy: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.  Much of that stuff is still observed in Muslim Sharia law.  But Jesus will have none of it.   Jesus’ understanding of these Mosaic laws is that they were intended by God to restrict excessive retaliation rather than empower retaliation.  Now His precious Son, Christ the King, teaches that kingdom ethics permit no retaliation at all!   Much the same teaching is given in 1 Peter 2:18-23 and in 3:6-9 and 14-17.  

It’s interesting about guilt and grievances.  Verse 23 is often misread.  Read it.   If you are presenting your gift at the altar and suddenly remember that your brother has a grievance against you, leave that gift there and go and make peace with your brother, and then come back and offer your gift.  Instead of getting all hot under the collar about what I think he has done to me, I should go and talk with him about what I did to him, and beg his pardon.

Michael Green talks about his conversation on vv 40-42 with a black Christian leader in South Africa.  It may have been The Revd. Desmond Tutu when a young man, before he was consecrated bishop, though I don’t know.  “How did you respond on the many occasions you were humiliated by whites?”  He replied “When I was unjustly forced into some menial action, I completed it, and then turned and asked my ”boss” whether there was anything more he would like me to do to help him?  This always took the wind quite out of his sails.”  It’s what the bible calls heaping coals of fire upon his head.  I guess that’s when Satan quietly excuses himself and instead gets stuck into some other situation involving retaliation.  He can make trouble out of that much more easily.  That’s the point.  Members of the kingdom, you and I, can cause utter amazement by the way we respond to insult and hurt.   Then we can help bring about healing and renewal and repentance.  There should be such generosity of spirit about us that we give and give, just as God has given to us.  That’s the principal way we are to be His ambassadors in human kingdoms.    So now we can add another layer to this Jesus teaching about not retaliating, because it disarms evil and greed to dispense with grudges and debts and it makes our own lives so much simpler!  It helps to heal people, to forgive them when they have sinned against us, and it heals us too.  Ultimately it avoid wars.  And although it’s God’s business, it brings others to repentance as nothing else can.

So there’s plenty of human justification in not retaliating.  But the main reason for acting generously with prayer and without bitterness towards those who hurt us is that’s what Jesus commands!     But there’s more: God’s generosity in NOT making our punishments fit our crimes, but in forgiving the penitent and making us co-heirs of his kingdom is the example we follow.  His kindness and compassion lifts us out of our misery and darkness into His marvellous light.  In having taken it upon Himself to pay the costs of our selfishness and sin, we sinners can stand before Him, justified, for goodness’ sake!  Man, that’s generosity!  That’s Grace!

Dr. John Macquarie the theologian visited Hobart years ago.  In his Bishop’s Lecture he reminded us that at no time in the terrible suffering of the betrayal, passion, trial, scourging and crucifixion did Jesus cry out in cursing or vengeance or anger against his enemies and torturers.  He the sinless could have retaliated.  He did not.  So, said Macquarie, although Satan must have tried as he had never tried before, he never found a foothold, a chink, an opportunity at which to enter into the life of the great High Priest who was also the Lamb of God, and so pollute the perfect sacrifice.  So he lost the day.  He lost his only chance.   God triumphed.   That’s reason enough to live according to Jesus’ antitheses in the teaching of Matthew 5, to act generously, forgive love and pray for those who hurt us, avoid retaliation.  Jesus knows people will argue about this for centuries but His last word on the matter is this:- “There must be no limit to your goodness”.  

You mean me, Lord?

Amen    

Epiphany 4 yr A cyg JSM

Can you imagine God, looking down upon St. Marks, loving and caring and wanting to continue moving us in the direction that he plans for us

It is a comforting thought to me because to recognise that that is the case, that we are not just involved in an academic exercise which dissects and analyses the bible readings, but that along with many other ways, God is a part of the service and helping us to know his will for us as the Holy Spirit helps us to hear God through the living word, the bible.

Let’s hear what the bible is saying to us today.

I see a pattern of moving. In each of the readings, God is working to move the hearers from their present place to a different place.

Isaiah has some stern words, not unusual for Isaiah but he lays it on the line to the Israelites , “Esse quam videre” to be and not to seem to be” as our school motto ran when translated from the latin.

God is upset that people engage in a token fast and demand that God hears their prayers to which they receive no response. God informs them that it is wrong to engage in religious practise and continue sinning, doing what they please, extorting their workers, arguing with each other, fighting and so on.

These are a people who have lost their way. They have been genuine in the past. But have lapsed into bad habits and are now disobeying the law.

Isaiah goes to great lengths many times to reinforce to the Israelites that it is faith which is the most important, that people should be obeying the law because it is part of their faith, not something separate which became the tragic separation of the law from the faith.

In a nutshell, God is moving his people back to faith and integrity from their present position.

Paul writes to the Corinthians and begins with humility not authority which he may well have to right to do. He tells them that it has been with fear and trembling that he addressed them rather than by powerful arguement and strong logic. Paul appears to be addressing some of the add ons, which Corinth had leaned towards, causing splintering by following Appollos or Cephas or some Paul himself.

Paul has demonstrated his skill at reasoning and use of logic in arguement. His words at the Areopagus stand in testimony to that skill so he could well have embarked on an eloquent debate. The point he was making however was that it was the simple undiluted message with which he started that the Corinthians should come back to. Christ crucified.

The Corinthians seemed impressed with powerful arguement and so their splintering. Paul is relying upon the power of the Holy Spirit. The knowledge of the Corinthians of the power of the spirit demonstrated among them already, and the power of the Spirit to work within his readers to help guide them back to the essences of their belief.

So God, through Paul is looking to move his readers back on to the straight and narrow path, to dispense with the frills and add ons which they think has enhanced their faith and come back to the simple truth of salvation through faith in Jesus death on the cross.

Jesus we hear in Matthew’s gospel is talking to his disciples immeadiately after delivering the beatitudes so he has set the scene of the kind of attitude belongs to those who are blessed by God. He goes on with two profound statements to his disciples, “you are the salt of the earth” and a little later, “You are the light of the world”.

As he elaborates on both of these statements it would seem by implication that he is warning the disciples against remaining insular in their own group and not spreading themselves and the gospel amongst the society. Also warning them against hiding their light in a way in which the world cannot see and appreciate who they are and what they are doing and in whose power they are doing it.

It may not be that they have been inadequate in these areas, Jesus may just be stressing the importance to this way of being in order that the gospel would be propagated to its best advantage by these disciples. Either way it is moving the disciples to a different place that they are at to a different place, to a higher plane of operation.

Jesus elaborates on what seems to be an unrelated matter, that of how he has come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

Maybe a tad difficult to understand for his listeners at the time, but subsequent writers of the bible have no difficulty with the principle of having faith in Jesus sacrificial death and resurrection is the fulfilment which replaces the law.

It should be enhances the law in that no one is trying to say that the ten commandments are irrelevant, rather that the loving response to Jesus great love can only be to do as he would want for us to do.

I am sure that the disciples were in a different mental and emotional place after they had listened to Jesus on that day.

So again as we ponder on just where God would have us be today tomorrow and the next day and beyond, it is quite easy to understand that god’s plan for us is to move from where we are today.

Simply because life and Church life and personal relationship with God are a journey so movement has to be part of a journey.

That does not assume that we have lost the way, are on a wrong track or are in a bad place.

When we remember that of our top ten characteristics nine were equal to or above the 85^th percentile of all the Anglican churches in Australia. That alone says that we are doing something right. It also says that we are in a good place to continue moving forward, and needless to say it would make sense to keep the strong points firmly in mind as we plan the future.

When I say plan the future, I mean work with God to plan the future. The parable of the sower and the seed speaks of the partnership between God and His people. The farmer spreads the seed and God makes it germinate and grow. So it is up to us to use the benefit of hindsight and the journey God has undertaken with us so far, along with the strengths which we know we have along with much prayer and discernment as we seek God’s will for the path ahead.

One thing we can know from today’s readings, and in fact from virtually all our knowledge of the bible, is that shining our light, Shining Jesus light in the world through our worship, work and word is if you like, part of the objective of our journey and holding on to the core values, the understandings of Jesus life, death and resurrection is the underpinning of the journey.

So from todays readings, the message is that movement is natural, God is continually helping His people to move and grow. Part of that growth appears to be about shining the light of Christ in the world which comes with righteousness, i.e. faith in Jesus and living out the way of Christ. And coming deeply in prayer to seek God’s guidance in the wonderful partnership we are in with God through Jesus.

Let us pray now,

We give you thanks and praise Lord for your grace and mercy in bringing us to this day. In all we have learned and built on. We give you thanks and praise that you have built a loving family here and for the friendships, joys and happy memories we have as a result of the journey so far. Lord, we thank you even more for the journey we know lies ahead and for the plan and purpose you have in and through that journey.

So continue to guide and strengthen us and lead us that we may truly shine your light in the world and bring many people into the knowledge and love of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen