Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 8, 2019

Scriptures:

Psalm 11

Matthew 6:25-34

Jonah 3:1-10

Have you ever encountered a real “Scrooge”? I’m speaking about a negative, annoyed, frustrated, demanding, selfish person who cannot stand to see other people happy and enjoying life. You remember that the original Scrooge was a figment of the imagination of Charles Dickens, the great English author. From the imaginative mind of Dickens came “A Christmas Carol” whose main character is one, Ebenezer Scrooge, whom Dickens calls, “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!”

As Dickens tells the story of Scrooge, we see him at various stages of his life: Christmas Past, Christmas Present, Christmas Future. Eventually, old Ebenezer came to his senses and was marvelously converted and became a man of good works.

I believe there were other “Scrooges” long before Dickens’ Scrooge. As I read the story of Jonah, I would label him a “Scrooge.” Yes, I realize he was a prophet of God, but he seems to me to be the ultimate Scrooge. Why? When God told him to take “good news” to Nineveh, he instead hopped in a boat and headed in the opposite direction to Tarshish, which is about as far away from Nineveh as one can get.

A storm came up, and eventually Jonah admitted that he was the cause of the problem. He told the ship’s crew to throw him overboard. Finally, they threw him into the sea where a great fish swallowed Jonah. The prophet cried out to God and the fish vomited him on dry land. God finally got old Scrooge’s attention, and miracle of miracles, there is …

A second time around… As the scene opens, old Jonah is sitting on a Mediterranean beach, probably all shook up by his recent fish encounter. Suddenly the same word from God came to him a second time saying, “Get up; go to Nineveh, that great city; and proclaim to it the message I tell you.”

Jonah carried out his assignment with very little enthusiasm. In his “Scrooginess”  he only went part way into the city. Why was he such a reluctant prophet? One reason was that he was called to preach to a nation other than Israel, and this went against his “religion.” Good Jewish prophets didn’t preach to other nations. There was to be a strict separation from other nations. Also, Jonah believed that other nations were out to destroy Israel.

Not only was he to preach to a people outside of Israel, but the particular city to which he was being sent was Nineveh. It was the capital of Assyria, a nation which in its day had set a standard of dread and terror. There was no way Jonah was going to preach to that gang of cutthroats.

As Jonah sat on the beach, stewing in his own juice, God called him a second time, and he responded as a prophet is expected to respond. So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, that great city.

Jonah went to the city of Nineveh with a message of …

Bad news which became good news… Jonah walked toward the city of Nineveh, called by God a “great city.” He was not a happy prophet. He did not even do what he was told. Jonah stopped short of going across the city of Nineveh. His sermon was not a homiletical masterpiece, for in the Hebrew it consisted of only eight words: “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Not much of a sermon! It does not take great oratorical ability to deliver that kind of message.

Surprisingly, Jonah’s sermon was successful, and the response of the people was amazing. They accepted the message, believed it, trusted God, called for a fast, and dressed themselves in the clothes of mourning. Jonah was called to preach bad news to his enemies. This was Jonah’s gospel, but Jesus, who is our Gospel, was called to die for his enemies. Jonah was unwilling to go until he was forced to go. Jesus, however, came to do the “will of his father.” Jonah spent three days in the stomach of a great fish because of his disobedience. Jesus spent three days in a tomb of earth and death as an act of obedient love.

Not only did the people of Nineveh repent, but the king also repented and joined his subjects by putting on mourning clothes and sitting in ashes. The king then called for a fast and admonished all of his subjects to turn from their evil and wickedness.

How did God react to all of this? God saw the repentance of Nineveh’s citizens, and God called off the intended destruction. The prophet’s “Bad News” was heard, and the people repented. Destruction was called off, and that was “Good News.” Yes, the “Bad News” of Jonah became the “Good News” of God for Nineveh. In the story of Jonah there is something more that is essential, and it is this …

God is a God who cares… As one example, God cares about the devastation in the Bahamas, and all over the Atlantic Coast, right up to the Maritimes. Through you and me God cares, using PWS&D (Presbyterian World Service and Development). While Jonah acted like a “Scrooge,” God revealed that God is a God who cares. Jonah certainly did not care for the city of Nineveh. Who cares? God does, and God goes to great effort to see that a prophet was sent to the city. The New Testament reveals the extent of God’s caring love in a single verse: “For God so loved the world, that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). One might go so far as to say that “God so loved Nineveh that God sent Jonah to preach to them.”

It is said that Paul Yonggi Cho pastors what is believed to be the largest church in the world. This Korean pastor has been used by God to impact the world. When his ministry began to receive international acclaim, Cho said to God that he would go anywhere to preach the gospel except Japan. Cho could not forget what the Japanese had done to Korea and her people, as well as members of his own family. Eventually an invitation came for Cho to preach in Japan of all places. He accepted the invitation but with bitterness.

His first speaking assignment was to address a pastors’ conference with a thousand Japanese pastors. When he stood to speak, these words came out of his mouth: “I hate you, I hate you. I hate you.” Cho broke down and wept. His hatred had gotten the best of him.  

One Japanese pastor, then another, until all one thousand stood up. One by one these Japanese walked up to Yonggi Cho, knelt in front of him, and asked forgiveness for what their people had done to Cho and his people. As these pastors humbly sought Cho’s forgiveness, Cho found himself saying to each one, not, “I hate you,” but, “I love you.” The Japanese were Paul Yonggi Cho’s Ninevites. Who are your Ninevites? Who are mine? The late Dr. Martin Luther King is quoted to have said, “Hate can not drive out hate, only love can do that.”

Who really cares? God does! What does the story of Jonah then mean for us as the Church? It asks those of us within the body of Christ to examine our attitudes toward those who are outsiders. This story warns us of a “Scrooge” attitude which conveys the message, “We are on the inside, and you are on the outside, so stay on the outside because we insiders don’t want anything to do with outsiders.” The story of Jonah reminds us that we exist for the sake of the people of our world. Yesterday we had the chance to demonstrate this visibly, right here in our parking-lot.

The story of Jonah ends with a question mark. This “Scrooge” might not have a heart for the people. 1) So here’s the question for you and me: If Jesus came to save the people of Vancouver, Edmonton, Greenfields, London, Tokyo, Sydney, and all people everywhere, what kind of love should we show others if we claim to experience God’s love?  

The gospel of Jonah just doesn’t measure up, but the Gospel of Jesus, now that’s a gospel for all people everywhere. May God continue to equip us here at Dayspring. Let us keep showing the love of God to all those around us.  

1) Source: CSS Publishing Company, Old Testament Sermons for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, by Curtis Lewis 

Copyright 2019 – Heinrich Grosskopf, Minister of Dayspring Presbyterian Church

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Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost – September 1, 2019

Scriptures:

Psalm 124

Matthew 21:18-22

Jonah 1:11-17; 2:10 – 3:3

This morning we continue our series of sermons on the book of Jonah, titled “The sign of Jonah”. Today we look at scene 4. Scene 1 was about Jonah being called by the Lord to speak to the terrible city of Nineveh, but Jonah was refusing to obey and took a ship in the exact opposite direction. Scene 2 portrays the situation on board the ship as a fierce storm threatens to sink the ship. When Jonah asks to be thrown overboard because he knows the storm is due to him, a great calm comes over the sea. Sinking into the bottom of the sea, it is obvious that Jonah would drown. But then in scene 3 an enormous fish miraculously swallows him up and delivers Jonah onshore by spewing him out. As I said last Sunday, whether this happened historically is in a sense beside the point, and if it did happen, it says something about how almighty God is. However, fixating on a literal interpretation might take us off track. More importantly, we can rather listen to the human message received from God by listening to the deeper story. 

The message is as fresh to us as it was when it was written long before the birth of Christ. It is about the sign of Jonah. 

What is this sign of Jonah? Is it all about dying to ourselves? Does it perhaps refer to our baptism, where our old self dies and we become new people through faith? We’ll discover this as the series goes on.

Now, was Jonah changed, or just whipped; repentant or simply compliant? Standing there, soaking wet, on the shore of the Mediterranean, only a fool would have gone looking for another boat headed to Spain. This God is too big to fight; does Jonah decide to outsmart God? Perhaps Jonah was thinking, “Want me to go and preach to my arch enemy, the people of Nineveh? Okay, I’ll do just that, I’ll do it in spades.” “Look out Nineveh, God has had it with you, you are about to get yours!”

It stands out that Jonah is getting the message a second time around. We often tend to reason that God is like us and that the chances God gives us are limited, as we might give three warnings, but then we’ve had it. It becomes just too much, and we want to pull the plug. No, God is a God of second chances, of seventh chances and even “seven times seventy”; infinite. God does not give up on us.

My refrain throughout this series is: “What does it look like when we reach out beyond ourselves?” We might bump into obstacles. We expect the world out there to be resistant to what we have to say or do. So to stay safe and to avoid the risk of being rejected and therefore hurt we might find it easier to simply take care of our own.

But for you and me to be facing an environment of resistance to what we have to offer might feel like a crisis. My friends, it is not the biggest spiritual crisis we can experience. A crisis is only created when the Church refuses to recognize that in a non-Christian culture, the proper posture for believers can only be a missionary posture. I sense that our young ones are getting it, they want to take on a missionary posture, one of making a difference. This missionary path is the path that could take us to vitality. Will it not happen when we reclaim our missionary posture in the world, our so-called “gadfly status” of upsetting the status quo with principalities and powers of all types? While it is the path to vitality, it will be a path paved with integrity, that I have an inkling is the true way for the Church in the twenty-first century to go.

We might resist the call once, maybe a second time and many more times, but it is never too late. The chances are never over before God. But at the same time, we can’t keep on relying on those second chances, as Jesus’ parable of the fig tree illustrates it. Let’s spring into action and start affecting those around us. Jonah was about to lash out against a Nineveh that to him was beyond being saved, being redeemed. But were they so much beyond being saved? We shall see further along with the series as we proceed through the story of Jonah.

How long will God have to wait for us to come around to God’s way of loving?

Copyright 2019 – Heinrich Grosskopf, Minister of Dayspring Presbyterian Church

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Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost – August 25, 2019

Scriptures: 

Psalm 130

Matthew 16:1-4

Jonah 1:11-2:10

We are at scene 3 of the 6-part story about the reluctant prophet Jonah. There have been times when think I could identify myself with this prophet. It’s certainly not equally easy to speak to all people with the same level of comfort. Sometimes it is a cultural difference, and other times it simply is that the other person is at a different place in life than I am. I think you too might be able to identify with that. Jonah did not want to go and address the people of Nineveh. 

In the first scene, it was God who called Jonah. Jonah fled to Tarshish by way of a ship out of Joppa to “flee from the presence of the Lord.”

Then in scene 2, Jonah is onboard the ship, but Jonah realizes that he cannot hide from God. God causes a fierce storm and the ship threatens to break up. Jonah says that he’s the reason that the Lord is angry. The only way the Lord will be appeased is if they throw him overboard. So the sailors throw Jonah overboard. As Jonah goes overboard, he doesn’t know what we know. He doesn’t know about a great fish or being saved from drowning. He sees only death by drowning at sea. 

By a show of hands, who here today has ever experienced a close drowning? I recall a time in my life when I had just finished high school and I was at the coast of what is called Namibia today, north of Henties’ Bay. It was the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of summer. I was going deeper and deeper into the waves and my uncle was calling me to come back to shore. I indicated that I was OK, but he said I must come back. The teenager that I was, I didn’t pay heed, until those anxious moments came when it felt like I lost control. 

Fortunately, the tide brought me back onshore. But what a scary feeling! I never wanted to admit it, but it was scary.

So, in scene 3 today we see Jonah being swallowed up by a fish. What type of fish this was is beside the point. Whether this could have happened seems to miss the point of the human encounter that a reluctant servant of God has with God. Nevertheless, at the end of the scene, we learn that Jonah was back on dry land, literally after being vomited out by the fish. That is the way the original Hebrew puts it. Jonah is despised by the fish, to say the least.

Is Jonah learning a lesson? Does Jonah “soften up” so to speak? Does a near-drowning, but being swallowed up and spit out on top it all, change Jonah’s heart? Is there a change of attitude? 

We here at Dayspring Presbyterian Church are at a crossroads in a sense. As I’ve been saying for a while now, we are at a point where we can put more focus on looking outwards than on maintaining ourselves. Yes, that has been the case all along, but even more so now. 

Do we need to be swallowed up and spewed out by “an enormous fish” before we can see beyond ourselves? I don’t think it needs to happen to us. 

However, from time to time we as individuals all go through times of chaos, of not knowing whether we will ever make it. It happens to a greater or lesser extent. 

When we are at the bottom, in troublesome circumstances, it is a great time to begin to talk to the Lord. 

We can resist the chaos by trying to build for ourselves such ordered lives that we shut all chaos out. We can seek to so arrange our lives so that we are invulnerable to anything unexpected and disorderly – to any storms, confusions, conflicts or uncertainties so that chaos is buried and under control. A teacher wrote on a first grader’s report card, the following: “Johnny seems to march to the tune of a different drummer, but don’t worry, by the end of the year he will have joined the great parade.” Poor Johnny, and poor teacher! Of course, we deceive ourselves. The chaos is always a hairbreadth away. Jonah goes from running away, to being caught in a storm, to being thrown overboard, to spending time in the belly of a fish. Could it ever get more chaotic? There is no resisting chaos for Jonah! 

What does Jonah learn? Would it be fair to say that Jonah learns that God is not such an angry God? Perhaps yes. Jonah learns that God is mercifully saving him from drowning. God, in God’s mercy, has sent this fish to save him out of the destruction that he had brought upon himself. God didn’t need to, but God chose to. 

The Lord teaches Jonah that he cannot go on his own and dictate the way his life will be. There isn’t only Jonah in Jonah’s world. There is more to life than just myself. 

Jonah’s lesson in the belly of the fish was preparing him for more to come. In scene 4 we will see that Jonah gets called a second time around. How will the transformation affect Jonah’s response? But that’s for next week… 

Let us always remember that God is constantly working through us, sometimes in spite of us, truly in spite of us. Perhaps Jonah was about to learn that when it isn’t all about him, and that God uses him, in spite of his reluctance. Amen 

Copyright 2019 – Heinrich Grosskopf, Minister of Dayspring Presbyterian Church

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Tenth Sunday after Pentecost – August 18, 2019

Scriptures:

Psalm 82

Matthew 12:38-42

Jonah 1:1-17

The curtain opened on the incredible story of God and God’s prophet last Sunday. Scene 1 was entitled: “God calls Jonah,” and it read as follows: “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, ‘Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.’ But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.”

God called God’s prophet to go to Nineveh. This call was a little bit to the north and a lot to the east. Jonah headed for Tarshish, which was a little bit to the south and a lot to the west. Jonah’s purpose was to flee from the presence of the Lord. Jonah was indeed a reluctant prophet of God’s. 

Scene 2 takes place onboard the ship that Jonah chartered to take him as far from the presence of the Lord as possible. We’re not told how far the ship sails westward across the Mediterranean Sea. All we’re told is that the voyage is suddenly interrupted with a big, loud “But…” That’s the sound of God saying, ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways.’ And ‘My will be done,’ even if it is contrary to your will.

We at Dayspring are, in a sense, on a voyage. I don’t need to remind you that our congregation’s name is derived from the ship by the name “Dayspring” that sailed on a mission from Nova Scotia to the New Hebrides in the South Pacific. So in a sense, it once again is a voyage – albeit it in a different form – for us as a faith community. Some of you’ll recall that in 1969 this congregation was started as a “New Church Development” as a ministry in the southwest of Edmonton. It was a mission-oriented move, meant to expand Presbyterian ministry in the southwest of Edmonton. 

Fifty years later, we know that the Lord has been good to us in many ways. We expanded our own building and many building projects have been completed. We have no mortgages to pay off anymore. 

How do you and I respond to this piece of God’s grace towards us? Do we see it as a chance to sit back and relax? Do we look at it as a moment to enjoy the fruit of our labours, so to speak? Or as we are reminded of so regularly, do we look upon it as a God-given moment in our life as a faith community to “Go out”? Maybe not as much to a “city filled with wickedness”, but nevertheless to “go out”. 

For a series of six, which started off last Sunday, I plan to pause, along with you, around “The Sign of Jonah”. I am curious as to how God speaks to Heinrich, and how God speaks to each one of us. 

You see, on three separate occasions, the Pharisees, Scribes and the crowds asked Jesus to give them a sign to convince them of who He is and what He’s up to. On all three occasions, Jesus answers the same way. “No sign will be given to you except the sign of Jonah.” In other words, knowing the story of Jonah is important to knowing the story of Jesus Christ. So our mission now is to get to know the story of Jonah. 

According to this morning’s reading we find Jonah being on the ship on his way to Tarshish, which is in the vicinity of where Spain is today. And now the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea.

Perhaps our sea is not nearly as stormy as the one that Jonah finds himself in. Our sea is actually a very placid sea. It is a sea of comfort and one of feeling quite secure. Does this mean that God can’t speak to us as well?

Well, through the story of Jonah, we too can be brought to a place of discomfort. We need to continue to ask ourselves whether God does not have a greater purpose for us, beyond the four walls of this church building. 

When God calls it is for a purpose. And in our minds we can run away from God’s call. No matter how far or hard you and I try to run, God always wins. Some of us learn that early on in life. For others of us it takes a lifetime. We head for our own private Spain. Yet, God has a way of getting us where God wants us. Sometimes life is generally quite good. At other times, life gets stormy, choppy, and more often than not we end up overboard. Like Jonah, when we ignore God’s call in our lives, it leads to stormy, treacherous, and desperate times. And, as was the case for Jonah, all but the most stubborn or obstinate of us cry to God for help.

Another name for that is crisis religion. It reminds me that in Chinese there are two characters for the word crisis. One means “turmoil and tragedy” and the other “opportunity”! Crisis is God’s way of creating an opportunity for us to respond to God. I mean, who else is there to call upon in a crisis but God? 

Crisis is God’s way of creating a context for change in our lives. Again and again in the Bible when people encounter God it is in a time of crisis, and a genuine response leads to change, a shift in values and life’s orientation. Lives change, or at least begin to change, and people begin to live differently. Encountering God means change in direction. 

God cares for you and me and wants to guide each one of us. 

Whenever you are tempted, whenever clouds arise,
When songs give place to sighing, when hope within you dies,
You can draw closer to Him, from care He sets you free;
Because — His eye is on the sparrow, and we know He watches us.

Today, God watches us and we can allow God to speak to us. It doesn’t help running away or putting our heads under the sand to ignore God’s call. Jonah had to be thrown overboard for the sea to cease from its raging. For the next number of weeks we will be looking at how the Lord is speaking to us here at Dayspring in this year of 2019. After Jonah was thrown overboard, he was swallowed up and spit out. So, next week, the curtain will open on scene 3: “Jonah in the belly of the fish”. Let’s allow the story of Jonah to speak to us today in 2019 as well. Amen

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost – August 11, 2019

Scriptures:

Psalm 33:12-22 (CEV)

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 (NRSV)

Jonah 1:1-3 (NRSV)

Have you ever experienced that you know what’s the right thing to do in a certain set of circumstances? You know full-well to do something helpful to a person or a group of people, but you decide nevertheless to go against the grain and you refuse to do the best thing that needs to be done. Would this be what was happening to Jonah?

Would this be what was happening to me the other day? My wife knew to share a bedroom in our home to a woman in dire need, a friend of hers. I got so ticked off that I was fuming for the rest of the evening, thinking “why do we have to make part of our home available?” My goodness this is such an inconvenience to give up some privacy! Little did I know that something from the message to Jonah was playing itself out in my own life. While I was falling asleep, I felt strongly convicted by my upsetness earlier on that evening.

On three separate occasions, the Pharisees, Scribes and the crowds asked Jesus to give them a sign to convince them of who He is and what He’s up to. On all three occasions, Jesus answers the same way. “No sign will be given to you except the sign of Jonah.” In other words, knowing the story of Jonah is important to knowing the story of Jesus Christ. So our mission these number of weeks is to get to know the story of Jonah. The story unfolds in six different scenes and we’re going to look at each scene in succession over the following six weeks. We will therefore see more of this Sign of Jonah unfolding as the weeks go by.

Jonah’s task is to go out and speak to the wickedness of the people of Nineveh. You see, Jonah is a prophet of the Lord. The job of a prophet was to deliver a message from God to people. And there were two types of messages that prophets were to deliver. One was the message of divine judgment, and that began with, “Woe to you…” The other was a message of divine blessing, and it would begin with, “Blessed are you…” 

From Israel, Nineveh was quite a distance, about 800 km to the northeast. Today, Nineveh is the city of Mosul in the country of Iraq, about 400 km northwest of Baghdad. 

The thing about Nineveh that’s important for us to know is that it was the capital city of the nation of Assyria, and the Assyrians were known for being the most ruthless, barbaric people in their time. Brutal to the core. I’m not going to get any more graphic. 

God wants Jonah to “call out against it.” Against Nineveh. God is sending Jonah to deliver a message of divine curse and divine judgment against them. Terrible, but in this scenario very necessary! Jonah is to make known to them what God wants them to hear. But preaching this judgment always has as its purpose to prepare the way for the preaching of the gospel. Hopefully, if they hear that God sees their evil and that God does not tolerate it at all, they will turn from their evil and cry out for mercy. And this is just what God wants to see happen and what God loves to do, right now as well.

It might surprise you and me that God would be interested in foreign, pagan nations even in the era of the Old Testament. Maybe you thought that in those times of the Old Testament God was only interested in the nation of Israel and that God’s concern for the gentiles didn’t happen until the New Testament. Actually, all throughout the Old Testament, God sends God’s messengers to go into all nations with the message of God’s judgment, but also of God’s love so that they might repent and be saved. 

Therefore, when Jesus sends his disciples to go “to all nations” with the message of his judgment and mercy, and when the apostle Paul is commissioned to go be God’s messenger to the gentiles, this is just God carrying out the same love and compassion for all people as God always has. God truly desires “all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” Always has and always will.

Some people have a problem with this you know. They have this idea that God loves God’s people – the Israelites of the Old Testament and the Christian Church of the New Testament. And if you’re not one of these, then God doesn’t care. Or at least, God shouldn’t! God’s got no business warning evildoers to turn from their evil ways so that they’ll live. They think that some evil is just too evil for even God to have mercy on. I think that is the way Jonah reacted to the Lord’s call to go to Nineveh.

Where do you and I fit into this picture? Do we have a message of judgment to convey to wicked people? Probably not right now.

But there might well be people that need to know about God, and about God’s love for each human being. Our mainline churches have become so well looked after, that we might tend to forget that there is a world out there that needs to be touched by a life-changing message, and be told about God’s all-encompassing love for them.

Can we keep ourselves comfortable and in doing so, stay away from reaching out beyond our church walls and the walls of our homes, for that matter? Jonah did not want to go and reach out to outsiders, especially “wicked” people such as the people of Nineveh. You and I might not be all that different to Jonah, except that we live in a different time. What is God’s call to us as Presbyterians here at Dayspring? 

Copyright 2019 – Heinrich Grosskopf, Minister of Dayspring Presbyterian Church

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Sixth Sunday after Pentecost – July 21, 2019

Scriptures:

Psalm 15 (CEV)

Isaiah 52:7-10 (NRSV)

Matthew 28:16-20 (NRSV)

In Jesus’ time there were various ways in which He made it known that He was the Son of God. He met with a small group of disciples, people who were to imitate Jesus’ life so that the Christian message of God who loves the world could spread wider and wider. This presence in the small group could still be described as the IN-part of IN-UP and OUT. 

Another thing Jesus did, was to meet God in times of separation and silence. That’s why He went aside and up to a mountain to speak with God. This can be seen as the UP-part of IN, UP and OUT.

Jesus also met the needs He saw in the world around Him with God’s love, grace, and power, often taking his disciples with Him as He did. He healed the sick, touched the lepers, fed the hungry, and opened blind eyes and deaf ears. And, He proclaimed the Kingdom of God, inviting people to turn from their old ways toward new life. He invited them, and I quote from Matthew 28, to “…go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (end quote). This completes the triangle of IN, UP and OUT, by being the OUT-part. 

In the book of Acts, we see how the followers of Jesus did the very same things Jesus had been doing. They had learned from Jesus how to live, minister, and serve like Jesus. And they passed it on.

We still get to pass it on.

Does this still apply today? Are we as Christians relevant at all? Sometimes people make fun of you if you say you’re a Christian and that you go to church. They ask all sorts of questions, uncomfortable questions, just as a way to put you down, not always, but often. The questions range from “are you closed minded, ignorant or hypocritical.” 1) Did you know we are part of one huge galaxy that stretches wider that anyone can imagine? We aren’t all that important. 

This and much more, is the way the world looks at the church. There has never been a time when Christians haven’t been questioned. When the church was a patriarchal institution, there were huge complaints that the church is all about male dominance.

Many factors have made the Christian witness difficult. It even made us ashamed to be called Christians. We ducked, and still duck, when folks ask questions in that direction. 

In response, the people of the church have ever so often tried to adapt to the current culture so that we don’t look as weird and awkward as some would think we are. That in itself is the only way we can be relevant. It’s the only way others would be attracted to the message that Christ loves the world. However, it can easily draw us away from being true to our message. Talking about our faith openly helps change people’s perceptions. However, we aren’t here to “save the world” as if we are the absolute only ones who have access to the truth. 

One day, walking out of my driveway on my walk to work, I noticed a misplaced little pile of dirt on the approach. As I got closer to it, I discovered that this little pile of dirt was moving. It wasn’t dirt at all; it was an unfathomable number of very small ants.

I’ve had my share of run-ins with ants over the years, but I will say this for them:  they are industrious little creatures. When I commented to my neighbour about this little pop-up colony, he said, “Darned critters are going to take over the world one day!”

While that might be an exaggeration – I hope it is! – the truth is that we have something to learn from those ants as the church. God calls us to be active. As one old preacher once put it, while we are called to be standing on the promises, we are too often found sitting in the premises. The holy huddle just won’t do anymore; we need to be in our neighbourhoods, engaging with people who are not yet in a relationship with Jesus, modelling for them what it means to love God and love others.

That means being active, though not necessarily busy. Busyness, says Eugene Peterson, is an illness of spirit. Most of us are addicted to being busy. But if we’re busy, that may not leave us time to engage with others as the Lord calls us to. We do well to find a balance, and to maintain it.

How can you be active, but not busy? Present a non-anxious presence to your friends and neighbours. Exude confidence in the God who made you, redeemed you and sustains you. Don’t be afraid to share the good news that Jesus can do for them what He has done for you. And be helpful.

“Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones.

Learn from their ways and become wise!

Though they have no prince

or governor or ruler to make them work,

they labour hard all summer,

gathering food for the winter” (Proverbs 6.6-8, NLT). 2)

Another motivator is the image of God’s conduit, a gushing channel to everyone. Think of God’s love going into this conduit. Think of our lives being the conduits. If we receive God’s love and hold it dear to us, it ends in us. When God’s Spirit opens us up as conduits, then the love of God spreads wider and wider into the whole wide world. Let’s allow the Holy Spirit to make us wide open to the needs of a broken world. We are like beggars searching for bread, along with other beggars. When we find the bread, we point the other beggars towards this divine source of abundant life. 

1) From “Five tips for defending your faith” on a website “For Christian teens, Christian students, and youth ministries” by the name of fevr.net (https://fervr.net/teen-life/five-tips-for-defending-your-faith)

2) A direct quote from the Presbyterian Church in Canada website, at: https://presbyterian.ca/2016/06/17/consider-the-ant/ 

Copyright 2019 – Heinrich Grosskopf, Minister of Dayspring Presbyterian Church

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Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – July 14, 2019

Scriptures:

Psalm 25:1–10 (CEV)

1 Corinthians 4:16-17 (NRSV)

Luke 6:12-19 (NRSV)

For God to move forward with any congregation at any time, there are various ways to look at it. When I use the diagram of IN, UP and OUT, this is merely another way of looking at the way a congregation works. Some congregations focus a lot on OUT and IN, but — without judging — have very little focus on becoming quiet and reflecting on God, the UP dimension. That could become skewed.

As Christians we have the way of describing God as “here” but also “elsewhere.” There’s no way of pinning God down. Is God down below, or up above? In metaphorical ways we see God as up, even though the earth is round. When our Lord Jesus was on earth, He spent time with his heavenly Father. God intended it that way. Many times, we read about Jesus praying. He spoke with his father, God. He listened to God in heaven. Jesus engaged regularly in worship and praise on his own and in formal gatherings at the synagogue and temple. In Acts, we see the apostles and the early church doing the same things wherever they went. 1.) They were imitating. Luke 6:12-19 shows us a day in the life of Jesus. “Jesus went out to the mountain to pray…” Then there is this encouragement we get from the apostle Paul when in 1 Corinthians 4, he appeals to us to be imitators of him.

Last week we had a look at the first part, “In”, and this week we look at “Up” before we get to “Out” next week.

When we talk about this triangular movement, where the three aren’t separated, it is worthwhile fleshing out what “Up” refers to. “Up”, just as “In” and “Out” never works in isolation. 

Being in communion with our Maker, and having a close relationship with Jesus who saved us, the Holy Spirit guides our lives into the future. We can not do it by simply loving one another and reaching out. We can only make sense of it all when we love God, by reaching to God.

We can get closer to our Triune God (Three in One), creator-God, saviour Jesus Christ, through the inspiring work of the Holy Spirit by making time to read the scriptures, sing songs of praise and praying regularly for the Lord’s guidance. This way we know that God truly is with us on our faith journey.  

Let’s briefly turn to these three, scripture, songs and prayer. 

God draws us closer through God’s written word. Scripture speaks to us and enlightens us every Sunday. Some describe scripture as God’s love-letter to us as God’s church. In a very real sense, we learn a lot about how God loves us people on earth. Throughout the week, we can be drawn to God to want to learn more about this loving God. It happens whenever we prayerfully read the Bible and study it. There are also formal Bible study groups at churches. Ours gets up and running again on Wednesday mornings at 10:30 in September. 

Let’s move on from Scriptures to song. 

God gave us music. That’s why songs also direct us to God. There is also the ancient proverb: “One who sings well prays twice.” It’s a natural thing for someone to want to sing to the one whom they love. Who wants to refuse to be in a good mood from singing out loud and enjoying it? When we intentionally sing to God, it’s possible for us to get into a closer relationship with God. The opposite is also true, that if we don’t intentionally sing to God, it could be hollow and empty. It’s the same as just singing a tune and having no clue what the song is about. 

Now from song, we move over to prayer.

Prayer—prayer can be seen as an all-important way God created for us to get in touch with God self. It is the way our soul breathes in oxygen to keep our soul alive. Without talking and conversing with God, our souls starve out, without us even knowing what went wrong. Most all of us go through times when our prayer-life wanes and then it waxes again. There’s an ebb and a flow to our spiritual lives. The main thing is to keep returning to this wonderful example that Jesus set for us by talking to God regularly. 

Doesn’t it make sense that our lives together as fellow believers in various groupings can literally only make sense when we have a closer walk with our creator-God? God groups us together, by reaching “In” as children of God, and then as we’ll see next week, because we are spiritually equipped, we are able to reach out. 

Any family, also a church family that prays together, stays together. This way, we have strength to serve anyone with whom we cross paths. This sums up what God has always intended for us. Gather, and then be strengthened by God to be sent out.

1.) From an article “Discipling Lifestyle – Up-In-Out” on a website https://firstcoastmissional.org/discipling-lifestyle-up-in-out/

Copyright 2019 – Heinrich Grosskopf, Minister of Dayspring Presbyterian Church

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Fourth Sunday after Pentecost – July 7, 2019

Scriptures:

Micah 6:6-8

Psalm 66:1-9

1 John 1:5-7

“We had a neighbourhood ice cream social this past Sunday”, says Nita on a website called artofneighboring.com. “We live on a street that is not a cul-de-sac, but has no outlet. There are about 45 homes. We made flyers and I walked around the neighbourhood with my dog, distributing one to each home. We invited everyone to bring their dogs.

Everyone considered the ice cream social a success! Only a couple of people brought their dogs, and they were well received. Several people did need or want the sugar-free or lactose-free options and seemed to really appreciate having them available. Several neighbours said we should make it an annual event, and some said we could have it at their yard some year. One man came, who is quite disabled, who no one in the neighbourhood had ever met before; even people who have lived here for years and take walks around the neighbourhood often. He seemed to enjoy himself and everyone enjoyed visiting with him. Altogether we estimated about 40 people attended. 1) I trust that just as much kindness happens in our own neighbourhoods. 

You might recall that at our Anniversary Sunday worship which was on Pentecost Day, I referred to the day of Pentecost being about IN, UP and OUT. It is also referred to in this month’s DayBook.

For today, next week and the Sunday after, I intend to flesh out a little more on each of these.

Without all three in balance, our lives start to get wonky.

We are looking at the IN-part today. As 1 John puts it “We have fellowship with one another.” Our whole faith exists in relationships that we as believers have with one another. 

Notice that we see here this fellowship with others exists because it was initiated in the Father and the Son. We walk in the light, as He is in the light… Notice that as we walk in devoted dedication to God, essentially we are where God is. The fellowship is with God and then extends to God’s people.

John Wesley said: I want the whole Christ for my Saviour, the whole Bible for my book, the whole Church for my fellowship, and the whole world for my mission field. 

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good…” we heard according to Micah, “and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” – Micah 6:8

To live on mission with Jesus, we have to pay attention to issues of kindness or mercy around us. Not much is required by God. Kindness is one of them, along with justice and walking humbly. I read of a Cambodian woman who saw an older boy forage through garbage near her home. Eventually, she invited him to stay with her family. Her family made ends meet from week to week, but she knew they could make a little space for one extra person. It would have been easier for her to bring him to a mission-run orphanage or charity. But she did what she could do according to her abilities. She lived out kindness. The fellowship of kindness that was among her people at home was extended to one more person.

Here at church we have ample chance to pay attention to ways in which we can love each other (described as IN). This is where we practice fellowship, where the difference we make outside is shaped among ourselves. Kindness here can be seen as forms of “charity that begins at home”. We have a group of South Africans meeting on the fourth Sunday of most months. This way we create a unique type of fellowship. There is our Bible study group where our faith is stretched.

We strengthen our ties with one another by doing various things together. Our carnivals and garage sales are more examples of such opportunities. Yesterday, fifteen odd people worked together in cleaning up our garden around the church. Don’t underestimate the coffee hour after church services. This too is a chance for us to make our kindness known in fellowship with one another.

Individuals go through trying times and some reach out to one another privately, reaching out and giving one another pastoral care. 

There are many more forms of this. Our youth coordinator Shane, his assistant Zach, and church school coordinator Lynn have been working hard to get young groups established. The Kid’s club, the youth group, our church school, our young adults. There have been groups going on trips to help build houses for families in Mexico. 

What more can we do? How about a group or more groups of folks who enjoy riding bicycles? There could be groups that function well together by going skiing during the winter months. There are possibilities of volunteering together in soup kitchens. 

This In-part of In, Up and Out is vital and we would be neglecting who we are as a congregation if our bonds with one another aren’t strengthened, through thick and thin. 

May God’s Spirit equip us as we go forward.

Copyright 2019 – Heinrich Grosskopf, Minister of Dayspring Presbyterian Church

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Third Sunday after Pentecost – June 30, 2019

Scriptures:

Psalm 16 (CEV)

Galatians 5:1, 13-25 (NRSV)

Luke 9:51-62 (NRSV)

“Goals are what take us forward in life; they are the oxygen to our dreams. They are the first steps to every journey we take and are also our last. It’s very important that you realize the significance and importance of goal-setting.” 1) What an inspiring statement! There are many statements that keep the modern mind focussed. 

At the beginning of this month we celebrated Dayspring’s 50th anniversary. We have lots to thank God for. Many volunteers, many people getting involved with Dayspring. 

We can thank God for many rewarding experiences, and then sadly tend to feel like resting on our laurels. Much has been accomplished over the last 50 years. As we know, “resting on our laurels” would however get us nowhere. Jesus, in the reading from Luke 9 says “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (verse 60) and “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (verse 62).

This morning I plan to explore with you something about our bigger vision as a congregation. Dayspring, much like the ship by the same name of Dayspring, back in the second part of the 1800s, has set sail towards a bigger goal. What was Jesus doing, according to our reading? Our reading started at Luke 9:51: “When the days drew near for Him to be taken up, He set his face to go to Jerusalem.” This starts a fresh new narrative. It is widely regarded as a pivotal verse in Luke’s gospel. It is the beginning of a major section in Luke’s narrative. It has been dubbed as the famed “Journey to Jerusalem Narrative.” The ultimate goal for Jesus, is to reach Jerusalem, the place of his crucifixion, his resurrection, and also of his final ascension into heaven. In a certain sense, Jesus is setting sail towards his ultimate goal.

Friends, we are indeed on a journey. We too have an ultimate goal. Where are we heading to? Where is Dayspring heading to? Coming to think of it, it is rather unlikely that we would be spending time every Sunday worshipping in this sanctuary as we are today in the next 50 or 100 years. Some of us might well be alive in fifty years. If I were alive, I would be 111. I might hopefully have reached my ultimate goal of being with God forever. Where would the next 100 years take each of us here today? How do we travel on this journey as we venture into the future, into the next 6 months?

The ultimate goal of being with God forever seems to be quite similar to Jesus’ ultimate goal of reaching Jerusalem. As we journey along with Jesus, we too might resemble Jesus’ disciples journeying along with Him to his ultimate goal. How did Jesus’ disciples respond?

Imagine yourself saying to Jesus that you are willing to follow Jesus but you must first bury your father. This is quite a reasonable request. Jesus’ answer is actually shocking. “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” What is Jesus doing here? He certainly doesn’t seem to be modelling any compassion as a grief counsellor. However, let’s face it, what Jesus says in the first part is very absurd. This might be where the clue lies. Obviously dead people cannot bury anyone, busy as they are with their own decomposition. 

James Alison has a great response to these words: “Rather [Jesus] is saying: this piety of burying the dead is proper to a culture based on death, and has nothing to do with the piety of those who are building the kingdom which knows not death. Get out of the culture of death, leave it behind, and build with me the culture which is coming into existence.” 2)

The kingdom of God has greater purposes. Our lives have greater purposes. We aren’t meant to live for ourselves only. Jesus emphasises it. When his disciples point fingers at the Samaritan village for not offering Jesus any hospitality, they tend to be the ones forgetting that they themselves aren’t receiving Jesus into their lives. 

Have you ever had such a situation, pointing with two at the other party and discovering that three other fingers are pointing back?

In a very powerful way we hear Luke painting a picture of what it actually means to be the Christian faith movement that follows Jesus. There is a definite goal. Jerusalem is the goal, Jesus’ face is set towards that goal. It is here that Jesus’ ultimate meaning will be fulfilled. 

When we ask ourselves “where to from here” it’s helpful to see how God reaches God’s goal in Dayspring. As an initial Southwest Mission in the growing late 1960s Edmonton, Dayspring became a New Church Development by 1969 and onwards. With the leadership of ruling and teaching elders, five decades did not go by without pain and struggles. 

God led us through many difficulties and will continue to do that. 

Do we not perhaps still live in a world that structures itself around the deadly games of insiders against outsiders? I have a hunch we do. It is for such a world that Jesus comes to be on the side of outsiders. Little wonder that Jesus ends up being completely out of place in such a world. 

Our purpose, it appears to me, remains as always, to make a difference in a broken world where outsiders still walk by, in search for meaning. The church on this planet is the largest movement of volunteers. We too are a strong force to be reckoned with when we spring into action.

Actions that we are currently including, have been the End Poverty Edmonton initiative, feeding kids at Richard Secord School with jam and muffins, helping the Neighbor Centre and moral support towards our Food Bank Depot. How can we step up our outreach and inclusion of folks from our direct neighbourhoods, at home as well as here at Dayspring? We don’t necessarily need to bring people in, but indeed to be open towards people we cross paths with. They are our equal fellow human beings. 

Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem. Let us keep our face towards goals that Jesus both intends and equips us for through God’s Spirit. 

1) A quote from “Code of Living – 5 Powerful Reasons Why Goal Setting Is Important, by Osman at https://www.codeofliving.com/5-powerful-reasons-goal-setting-important/

2) Much insight was gleaned from an Excerpt on Luke 9:51-62 from “The Work of René Girard as a New Key to Biblical Hermeneutics,” by Paul Nuechterlein. Currents in Theology and Mission, June 1999, pages 196-209, at http://girardianlectionary.net/res/pjn_luke9_1999.htm

Copyright 2019 – Heinrich Grosskopf, Minister of Dayspring Presbyterian Church

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Second Sunday after Pentecost – June 23, 2019

Scriptures:

Psalm 22:19–28

Luke 8:26–39

Galatians 3:26-4:7

W. Paul Jones tells the story of a woman who suffered from polio during her childhood. Some of us have never seen a young person crippled by polio — confined to a wheelchair, or crutches — or even worse, an iron lung. Thank God and Jonas Salk that we haven’t. It’s a terrible thing to happen to a young person.

But the effect on the self-image of the woman that Paul Jones tells about was worse than her physical pain. Here is how she viewed herself. She said that when, as a child, her mother would leave her in Sunday school, she would always ask her mother if she could wear her mother’s locket. Her mother assumed she had a special attachment to the locket. That wasn’t it at all. Here is how she explained her relationship to the locket. She says, “I knew I wasn’t worth coming back for, but I knew my mother would come back for her locket.” 1) How incredibly sad to feel that way about yourself. 

Self-image or self-esteem has been a hot topic in psychology for decades, going about as far back as psychology itself. Even Sigmund Freud, who many consider the founding father of psychology, had theories about self-esteem at the heart of his work. What self-esteem is, how it develops (or fails to develop) and what influences it has kept psychologists busy for a long time, and there’s no sign that we’ll have it all figured out anytime soon! 2)

In my humble opinion I don’t think any person can say they have this “thing” called “self-esteem” completely down pat. 

Each person on this planet has their own battles to fight. There is no way someone could empathetically say “smarten up” and then all will be fine and dandy. What we think of ourselves and how we interact with others is a lifelong journey for every individual.

But think of this: It has been said 3) that the majority of mass-shootings have been performed by people with an extremely low self-esteem. The remainder of mass-shooters seem to be narcissists. This turns out to be another manifestation of a weak self-image. Narcissists are usually people who manage their self-image with a facade of grandiosity, but deep down things aren’t all that okay. 

There are many who believe it all starts with the style of parenting that people receive during their childhood.

So many people today, if their dads or moms are still around, have no real relationship with them. And many others have a relationship that could be described as destructive. Quite often insecure parents raise their children to be just as or even more insecure. It’s not for any of us to judge as this is part of what we call the human condition.

Sometimes we’re too hard on ourselves. We don’t accept that what we do is good enough. If we think, “It’s not really any good,” “It’s not perfect,” or “I can’t do it well enough,” we miss the chance to build self-esteem. 4)

For sure there are often good people who have bad times. One reason many good people have bad times is that they continue to carry around baggage from past experiences or relationships that have crushed their self esteem in various ways. Maybe that is true of so many of us. 

The apostle Paul’s words in this morning’s reading, which are found in his letter to the Galatians are refreshing balm to all who have been damaged by their past for whatever reason, “… in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith” and then it continues, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” 5)

Is it really only insecure parenting that brings about a low self-esteem? Although it’s not all that simple, it helps turning our eyes towards scriptures, indeed we can look at the apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatians. 

The thing is that there is good news, described in our reading from Galatians and quite a few other places. The good news is that it matters not what kind of relationship you have or had with your earthly parents, you have a heavenly parent who is everything that you hoped a mom or dad would be. Our heavenly Parent is forgiving, accepting, a Parent who believes in you, who created you in God’s image. You are the apple of God’s eye.

Max Lucado’s famous words are appropriate, “If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If God had a wallet, your photo would be in it. God sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Face it, friend. God is crazy about you!” 6)

Here is what we need to see: God has one passion and that is people. Every person on this earth. God loves you not because you are white, not because you are male or female, not because you are American, African or European, not because you are physically attractive, not because you come from the right socio-economic class. God loves you because you are you. 

This is what each of us needs to accept and allow to become a reality. We all need to let God love us. 

There is also one more important truth to remember. The more we fight and act and try to be okay in the eyes of others, the harder it is to feel good about ourselves. This is a humanistic route towards a healthy self-esteem. It is human-driven. It all falls on us.

The Christian and spiritual way is to accept that God has already made us good enough, to realise that we only need to let God love us. We need to walk forward towards God’s wonderful and warm love for the person who I am. 

Amen

1) “People who are hard on themselves” by King Duncan, on a subscription-paid website, sermons.com 

2) “What is Self-Esteem? A Psychologist Explains”, by Courtney Ackerman at https://positivepsychology.com/self-esteem/ 

3) From an internet article by the title, “Low Self-Esteem: Universal Cause of All Suffering and Mass Shootings”, February 16, 2018, by Kimesha Coleman https://www.coachingbykimesha.com/single-post/Low-Self-Esteem-Universal-Cause-of-All-Suffering-and-Mass-Shootings

4) “How Can I Improve My Self-Esteem?” reviewed by D’Arcy Lyness, PhD, at https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/self-esteem.html 

5) “People who are hard on themselves” by King Duncan, on a subscription-paid website, sermons.com 

6) “People who are hard on themselves” by King Duncan, on a subscription-paid website, sermons.com 

Copyright 2019 – Heinrich Grosskopf, Minister of Dayspring Presbyterian Church

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