Jeremiah 23:23-29

Psalm 82

Hebrews 11:29-12:2

Luke 12:49-56

Jesus said, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:

father against son

and son against father,

mother against daughter

and daughter against mother,

mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law

and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, `It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, `There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"

Let us Pray,

Almighty God, By your grace alone

we are accepted and called to your service;

strengthen us by your Holy Spirit

and empower our calling;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

The theme in the New Zealandprayer book for this Sunday, the 12th Sunday after Pentecost, is Ministry.  When I first read these lessons I was perplexed.  What could I talk about?  Could I talk about ministry?  Perhaps I could just ignore the lessons and talk about ministry, one of my favorite topics.  But on further reading and reflection I realized that these lessons can be used to talk about ministry and our call to our ministries.  How do we know what ministries God is calling us to perform?  For most of us it seems that it is not that easy to discern our callings.  Other people see our strengths before we recognize them in ourselves. 

In Jeremiah we hear that God is everywhere.  He is not to be locked up in a box or partitioned away and brought out or called upon only when we need God.  God is present even when we are shopping or arguing with another person, or telling people of our dreams.  God is present in our lives whether we choose to recognize it our not.  One of the things I get out of the old testament lesson today is that it is acceptable to God for us to share our human or earthly dreams with others.  It is ok to make earthly prophesies, as long as we don’t try to make others believe that our earthly dreams and prophesies are God’s word.  We need to be careful and discerning before we talk about or for God.  Are we being prophetic and sharing God’s love and call with the world or are we merely using our egos and spreading man’s wishes on others, for better or for worse? 

Here is where it gets tricky for me.  How can so many people all say that they are talking about what God is calling us to do with so many diverse and often contrary messages.  Or are they contrary messages?  In some ways that is what is at the root of the angst in the Anglican Communion these days.  The struggles are not about sexuality, although that is one front on the war for people hearts and souls.  No the real struggle is about listening for God’s call to us and how we listen.  In Jeremiah we hear God saying “Is not my word like fire, says the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?”  To me this says that God’s word has many meanings  and that we don’t necessarily understand all of them at any given moment.  We may hear one thing one way today but hear the exact same thing in a different and perhaps revolutionarily different way at another time.  For me that is the heart of the struggles in our church.  How do we hear and accept who is being called to ministry.  Our great Anglican tradition is one that works for me.  The triad of Scripture, tradition and Reason allows me to understand how our understanding of the words of God can change.  For me scripture is not a dead, written once, only one meaning, set of laws and regulations.  Scripture can, and I believe should be, opened up and understood by different people differently at different times or in different cultures.  Our experience and traditions help us unwrap the stories of the people of God and God’s callings to us.  It is through reasoned discourse and study that help us understand and listen to what our living God is still calling us to do.  For me, as a trained scientist, I cannot read all of the bible as a literal history.  In some areas the authors of the books, as Paul said in first Corinthians “…see through a glass, darkly”, but as our knowledge about God’s creation grows we see some things a little more clearly and, as I see it, we need to read the Bible stories with our current knowledge about science and theology instead of taking them at face value.  Do the stories still hold meaning? For me yes.  For example, Just because I may not literally believe that creation came into being in 7 days does not mean that the creations story needs to be ignored.  There are truths even in the creation stories that still speak to this scientist.

So how do we know what God is asking us to do?  The epistle from Hebrews says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,” I believe that we need to look at the pillars of strength and faith who have come before us and are still with us and through their advice and nudging we need to hold up our calling to the Mirror that is Christ and see if we see Christ reflecting back in our calling or only man.  How do we do that?  I think that is what our Gospel lesson is all about.  Jesus is frustrated that the people around him can tell all about the weather but cannot tell what God is trying to get them to do.  Jesus is trying to bring God’s Radical reign of love to earth and the people can’t hear what they are being called to do.

Barbara Crafton, keeper of the on-line community called the Geranium Farm, says that the way we understand earthly things, like the weather or our careers or hobbies is that we study them.  She says we “spend time working with the things we care about, and we learn to recognize their ways pretty well. We invest in them, make it our business to learn about them. We seek them out. That's how we prepare for our careers. We go to school to learn about them, seek the advice of experts, hoping to become experts ourselves. We start out small and hope to advance, and put in hours and years at it. We wind up knowing a lot about our chosen field.

We know a lot about our hobbies. We choose something that feels like play to us, something we do just for the delight of it, and the hours we spend doing it fly by. We work hard at this play, striving to become a better swimmer or cyclist, a better cook or painter, to master something new.

And we know a lot about our families. It doesn't take long for a new parent to crack the code of a baby's cries: which one means hunger, which a wet diaper, which means honest-to-God pain. Let us live together long enough and we can read each other like a book.

How do we get to know the things we know? By caring enough about them to spend the time it takes to learn them.

Oh, I see what Jesus means! He's not contrasting worldly knowledge with spiritual knowledge to its disadvantage; he's merely pointing out that we will learn those things we consider important, and will remain ignorant of the ones we don't care much about.

So where is the spiritual meaning of your days, in your hierarchy of important things? Is the conversation with God in your life a thing you've made it your business to learn about by spending time at it? It's a relationship, after all, and any relationship requires frequent checking in. People who love each other need to talk to each other. We who want to learn the love of God won't do so if we never show up. We won't be punished for it; it's not that kind of a relationship. We'll just learn about other things instead.

As we look towards our continued journey towards shared ministry in this place  I believe we need to take the time to learn and become familiar with what god is calling us to do.  We won’t all hear the same thing!  I think that was what Jesus was trying to get across when he said in today’s gospel “From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided” We all have different experiences which influence how we hear and understand which will lead to divisions in thought.  The divisions in themselves are not bad!  It is how we work with differences of opinion that matters.  If we, with  respect, take the time to learn why our neighbors hear the community being called to one ministry, when we hear a different calling, we may find that we are both hearing different parts of the same Ministry, just different facets.  

How do we discern where God is calling us to ministry?  As Barbara Crafton says one way is to “ Sit quietly and listen. Read the words of somebody whose spirituality you respect. Play music that lifts your soul. And ask:  Show me yourself. Starting here, starting now, I will be watching for you.”  So when we think God is calling the Church to different, perhaps conflicting ministries, perhaps we need to take time out.  Not get impatient and let God’s presence into our lives and let God’s work happen on God’s schedule, and not try to force man’s schedule on God.!

Amen.