Parables

Sermon notes from Sunday, July 13, 2008

Why are stories so compelling?

• Eustace: dragon scales removed at baptism.
• Aslan: Christological sacrifice.
  

Greek vs. Jewish response

• Greeks loved argument for argument’s sake.
• Jews wanted to reach a conclusion and apply it to their lives. [Barclay, p. 12]
  

Luke 16:15 “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”

Parable: “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.”

• God uses the visible to make known the invisible.
• Jesus used parables as a way to force people to be objective about issues to which they were blind and then to compel them to see themselves in the parable. This is what Nathan did to David with the parable of the ewe lamb. [Barclay, P.13]
• Parables were produced spontaneously by Jesus to apply to the current situation.
  
• “parables are not carefully composed works of art, but sudden, lovely improvisations in the dust and heat of conflict.” [Barclay, p. 15]
  

Romans 1:20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Matthew emphasized the “kingdom of heaven” a euphamism for the “kingdom of G0d” because he was writing to Jews. Kingdom of God = the reign of God.

Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus declared, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children"

1 Corinthians 1:18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

1 Corinthians 2:14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

These parables continue to answer the questions of why some rejected God, as in chapters 11 and 12: Cities around Galilee and “who are my brothers and sisters?”

Summer Sermons

Even in an age when men know less and less of the Bible, and care less for it, it remains true that the stories that Jesus told are the best known stories in the world.

- Wm Barclay, "The Parables of Jesus" (1970), page 9

On Sunday, July 13th we begin a series of three lessons from Matthew chapter 13 that relate to sowing seed:

• The Parable of the Sower, Sunday July 13th
  
• The Parable of the Weeds, Sunday, July 20th
  
• The Parable of the Mustard Seed (and others), Sunday July 27th

Beginning Sunday August 3rd, we will start a two part* Instructed Eucharist:

• The Liturgy of the Word, Sunday August 3rd
• The Liturgy of the Table, Sunday August 1oth

*We may stretch this out longer than two weeks, if there is a lot of discussion.

Sermon notes for July 6, 2008

Matthew 11:25-30

[25] “Jesus declared” is literally “Jesus answered”

What then is the question? Jesus is answering the age-old problem of people rejecting God’s word by example of John the Baptist and cities around Galilee.

(Recall Jonah 3:5-10) Matthew 12:41 -- The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

Trajectory:
1. John the Baptist is the prophet like Elijah [Malachi 4:5] preaching judgement and redemption.
2. John calls for repentance and points the way to Jesus.

• Ignoring the plea for repentance will bring judgement.
• Heeding the plea will bring redemption, safety, rest, mercy.
  

3. Jesus denounces unrepentant cities, as did OT prophets.
4. Jesus declares rest for those who come to him.

“John came leading disciples to fast over Israel’s sin [11.18] but Jesus came celebrating the kingdom like a wedding feast [11.19]” – Keener p 219

[25] Why are these things hidden from the wise?

• As pharoah’s heart was hardened? [Ex 7:13-14] “he would not listen”
• 1 Corinthians 1:18-21 -- For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. [19] For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." [20] Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? [21] For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
• 1 Corinthians 2:12-14 – Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. [13] And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. [14] The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
  

[25] “little children” = “infants” – applied figuratively in the Greek, referred to the “helpless” in general. – Keener p 220

[27] It is not the wise who reveal God – It is His Son.

[28] “Rest” could also be understood as “relief”

• The discipleship demands of following Jesus are a relief compared with the insatiable demands of the Law.
• We are completely crushed under the Law, while our knees are merely bloodied by following Christ.
  

Matthew 23:4 -- They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.

Matthew 5:20 -- For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

What does Jesus mean by “righteousness”?

[28 - 30] Jesus modeled his words after Ben Sira – Sirach/Ecclesiasticus, with which Jesus’ hearers would be very familiar. [Sirach 51:23-27]

Come to me, you who need instruction…bend your neck to the yoke, be ready to accept discipline; you need not go far to find it. See how little were my labors compared with the great peace I have found. [NEB]

• Yoke symbolizes: Oppression, Service and Obedience to the Law – France 201
• My yoke is “easy” = My yoke is “good” or “kind” -- France p 201
• – not due to lighter demands but because it is based on a relationship with one who is “gentle and lowly in heart”
• “Jesus’ yoke is not lighter because he demands less but because he bears more of the load with us” -- Keener p 222

GAFCON Final Statement

Sunday, June 29, 2008

STATEMENT ON THE GLOBAL ANGLICAN FUTURE

Praise the LORD!
It is good to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.
The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. (Psalm 147:1-2)

Brothers and Sisters in Christ: We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, send you greetings from Jerusalem!

Introduction

The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), which was held in Jerusalem from 22-29 June 2008, is a spiritual movement to preserve and promote the truth and power of the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ as we Anglicans have received it. The movement is global: it has mobilised Anglicans from around the world. We are Anglican: 1148 lay and clergy participants, including 291 bishops representing millions of faithful Anglican Christians. We cherish our Anglican heritage and the Anglican Communion and have no intention of departing from it. And we believe that, in God’s providence, Anglicanism has a bright future in obedience to our Lord’s Great Commission to make disciples of all nations and to build up the church on the foundation of biblical truth (Matthew 28:18-20; Ephesians 2:20). [the statement continues]

Read it all at GAFCON.org

More NEWS . . .

More news about the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), et cetera is on the Diocese of San Joaquin blog: Soundings

Conservative Anglicans form breakaway church in revolution led from the south

[Note: The title of this post, which was the Guardian's headline, is very misleading. Conservative Anglicans are not forming a "breakaway Church". As the article describes below, they are working to preserve Anglicanism and establish reform within the Anglican Communion.]

"All around the world the sleeping giant that is evangelical Anglicanism and orthodox Anglicanism has been aroused by what happened in Canada and the United States of America. It was an act of folly." - Archbishop Jensen (Sydney)

Conservative evangelicals representing half of the world's Anglicans launched a new global church yesterday, challenging the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury and vowing to rescue people from the forces of "militant secularism and pluralism" created by a "spiritual decline" in developing economies.

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, Foca, will sever ties with the main churches in the US and Canada, whose leaders they accuse of betraying biblical teaching. Foca architects will tomorrow go to the conservative evangelical church of All Souls, in central London, to discuss global Anglicanism and English orthodoxy.

Hundreds of disgruntled clergy, representing many Church of England parishes, will be in the audience and the speakers will include the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, and the Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Luke Orombi.

Great swaths of Anglican provinces, including Africa, South America and Asia, are furious with their counterparts in the northern hemisphere, accusing them of being in thrall to contemporary culture, with the ordination and consecration of gay New Hampshire bishop Gene Robinson acting as a turning point. The creation of Foca is a schism in all but name.

Outraged over the "false gospel" being promoted in the west, Foca pledges a return to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, ignoring 21st-century additions and interpretations. It will train its own priests by sending them to hardline theological colleges such as Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and Oak Hill, London, and will insist on more orthodox practices in its churches.

There will also be a primates' council, comprising senior bishops and archbishops who attended the Jerusalem summit that led to Foca's inception.

At a press conference Jensen said they would bring "order to a situation of turmoil" and help to deal with "the chaos caused in the Anglican church through revisionist activities". [the article continues]

Read it all at The Guardian

JERUSALEM: ANGLICAN COMMUNION FACES SPLIT

North American Province Will Become a Reality

By David W. Virtue in Jerusalem
www.virtueonline.org
June 28, 2008

Believing that God has called them to a "new work", Primates at the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) announced tonight that they have launched a movement of Confessing Anglicans that will, in effect, be a rival Anglican Communion.

Tomorrow, when orthodox Anglicans meet for their final day of pilgrimage, 1,200 representatives including 303 bishops of the Anglican Communion representing more than 70% of the Communion, will announce the formation of a new Anglican body that will affirm "'the faith once for all delivered to the saints"' as a bulwark against the growing and rampant liberalism in the mostly Western church.

While the word "schism" is not found in the text, it is, to all intents and purposes, a formal split from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the four Instruments of Unity.

The new global Anglican fellowship will act, for a time, within the present organization, but many see fragmenting synodical boundaries of the Church of England. In North America, a new North American Anglican Province will be set up to draw together members of Common Cause Partnership and various Anglican evangelical and Anglo-Catholics jurisdictions, setting it on a collision course with the liberal (some believe revisionist) Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in Canada.

Coming as it does, just two weeks before some 600 bishops representing only 30% of the Anglican Communion meet in Canterbury, this fellowship meeting in the land of Jesus' birth, poses a direct challenge to the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, as well as to the Primate of The Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori and to Fred Hiltz, Primate of the Anglican Church in Canada. Most of the Anglican bishops here will not attend Lambeth.

This momentous decision, the likes of which we have not seen in 500 years of Anglican history, made by representatives from all 38 provinces, will directly affect nearly half the total number of provinces in the communion including, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, India, Sydney, and the Southern Cone, which makes up two-thirds of all worshipping Anglicans. [The article continues, concluding with the GAFCON Statement.]

Read it all at Virtue Online