Sunday Service

Address 08/02/09

Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

Has it not been told you?

These are the words which started the first reading we heard this morning – from Isaiah. But what is it that we should know precisely?

And what is it that Jesus wants to tell others about so much that, in our second reading, we hear that he wants to go up into the other villages around Galilee so that he can preach?

Well its what we call the Good News - which can be reduced to three facts: -

Firstly, God loves us … unconditionally. Whoever we are, whatever we’ve done, God loves us

Secondly, God is always there for us. This is something we only find out when we are down. The sad reality is that probably everyone of us, here today, has experienced God being there for us, at a time when our sadness or despair was so great that, actually no-one else could help.

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And thirdly, if you really believe the Gospel stories of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, then you know that Jesus has gone ahead of us all to prepare a place for us with God in heaven. There is going to be a better life by far on the other side of death, all we have to do is live our lives as God would want us to; obeying those two new commandments: -

Love the Lord thy God

Love thy neighbour as thyself

Do you not think that perhaps it’s because we’ve heard that good news that we haven’t ended up on the edge of society. Its that good news which has given us the resilience to get back on track after things have gone wrong, a reason for fighting our way up from the depths and away from self-destructive behaviour – a resilience and a reason for living and fighting back, that so many people, especially those on the edges of our society, do not have because:

They do not know!

They have not heard!

They have never been told!

And it’s our job to tell them; to give them a reason too, for getting back on track. That’s what being a follower of Christ is all about.

 But how do we do this?

Let’s look back at how Jesus told people. He preached his message in a Palestine where the Jews were comfortably and safely ensconced in living according to the letter of the Law. They were obsessed by ritual purity and despised, disliked and avoided those who were unclean. When the great Rabbis of the time wished to spread the word of the Law to others, they would set up their stalls in Jerusalem; and the ritually clean people of the time would flock to sit at their feet and learn from them.

Jesus didn’t care if people were ritually unclean. He called a tax collector to join his disciples, he ate and fraternized with the poor and the despised, he touched the lepers. He went out amongst the people and he cared for them, including those on the edges of Jewish society.

He met them in their territory, because he knew that that was how to reach them. How else could the Roman Centurion have asked for his son to be healed? - A Gentile would never have got within a mile of him in the temple! How else could that woman have been healed by touching the hem of his garment?– she would never have been allowed within the precincts!

Jesus went out to be with the people and that is what he is asking us to do today. You see we have plenty of ritually unclean people in our society today. Of course we don’t call them that, but we still avoid them – the drug addicts, the troublemakers, the alcoholics, people who have never know any other kind of life.

We need to go to where they are and give them the good. But lets be honest, just telling people about God’s love is useless, and frankly probably a bit embarrassing! For the people we need to reach and help; only actions will do.

We actually have two tremendous examples of this type of action or mission in our own town of Dundee.

The first is in the Steeple Church. The congregation was plagued with young people skateboarding around the perimeters of the church particularly in the evenings. Rather than try and get rid of them, they set up a table and provided hot drinks and biscuits. The young skateboarders gradually came to enjoy the free refreshments and eventually asked why the congregation was doing this.

They began to ask about churches and were told about the local churches and the times of services; but they then asked why they couldn’t have their own church time there, at what had become know as the Hot Chocolate Club. And so plans are afoot at the Steeple to provide ‘church time’ in the evenings to those young people in a place where they are comfortable.

The second example is in our own church – its the Family Project for single parents 21 years and under and their children, where young women are helped to learn how to interact with and care for their children,

 to prepare cheap but nourishing meals,

supported to go for training for work.

The Project has grown and developed and now, three years on, … some of these same girls are beginning to ask some questions about God and there are plans afoot to provide them with time to discuss these questions.

Our project, and that at the Steeple, are just two examples of providing mission to some very disadvantaged young people, by going to them, as Jesus would have done, where they are, sharing their life and, now that they are ready and asking questions, we may be able to share the news about God with them.

You know, in the early days of the project, some of the girls asked one of the volunteers how much she got paid for doing the work. When told ‘nothing’ their response, which sadly would be echoed by many in our society today was (please excuse the pronunciation) ‘Yer af yer heed’!

Yes the staff and volunteers at both projects are probably ‘af their heeds’! But, as St Paul would put it, they are all ‘fools for Christ’s sake and that is how it should be for Christians.

Do they not know?

Have they not heard?

Has it not been told to them?

Then we, as Christians need to reach out to them.

Now not everyone can go out and physically reach out, like the volunteers in these projects are doing. But there are other ways to support such ministry and the most important is by prayer. We can all do that, we can all make some time to pray for those who ‘have not heard’. We can all find a quiet time to speak to God in genuine, heartfelt prayer for such people on the edge of our society, who, like us, are children of God, so that they too can come to know and relax in his unconditional love.

So let us think about this as we sing our next hymn celebrating the good news I have been talking about.

Lets sing Hymn   We have heard the joyful sound, Jesus saves.