Tokichi Ishii was a man with an almost unparalleled criminal record. He was way worse than Clifford Olson. He had murdered men, women and children in the most brutal way. Anyone who stood in his way was pitilessly eliminated. Now he was in prison awaiting death. As it happened, he was visited by two Canadian women. They were allowed to talk to him only through the bars of his cell. They tried to communicate with this monster, but  he only glowered at them like a caged and savage  animal. In the end they abandoned the attempt but they gave him a Bible, hoping that it might succeed where they had failed.

Strangely enough, he began to read it, and having started, he  could not stop. He read on until he came to the story of the Crucifixion. He came to the words, ‘ Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,’ and these words broke him. “I stopped,” he said, “I was stabbed to the heart as if pierced by a five inch nail. Shall I call it the love of Christ? Shall I call it his compassion? I do not know what to call it. I only know that I believed and the hardness of my heart was changed.”

Later when the condemned man went to the scaffold, he was no longer the hardened, surly brute he once had been, but a smiling radiant man.

Christ had brought Tokichi Ishii to life, and life to Tokichi Ishi. And this unlikely man, formerly dead, but now alive – ironically just when his earthly body is to be put to death – will inherit eternal life.

Seeing that………… we know that God too weeps for us, his children, even for those of us who have become dead to him. Even for Tokichi Ishii.

Incidentally, the Greeks, for whom John’s  Gospel was written, were astounded to hear of a God who actually cared for people.  We saw this caring exemplified in  the life of Jesus.  

We also saw a wonderful sense of purpose in Jesus, as in everything he did, he acted for his Father, was obedient to his Father, and allowed his Father to work through him.

How would it be in this world if we set God in his proper place in our lives, and instead of acting for ourselves,  we acted for God?

How would it be if we took the new life he has given to us, the empowerment with which we have been gifted, and did something wonderful for God?

……….if .. like a baby bird which has never flown before, we can step out into the world, trusting that the wings he has given us will hold us up, and do something that we have been scared to do to before …………

………because if we don’t use what we have been given, we will lose it.

What a shame if that came to be, after the magnificent sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf.

What a shame to have wasted our time here.

Far better to be alive, and vibrant  – noisy for Christ  – if you like –  and to let the world see his triumph – in the world, and in us.

Lord, make us pure; enrich our life

With heavenly love for evermore;

Give us thy strength to face the strife,

And serve thee better than before.      

                                                               

I once  read that 63% of all Canadians are taking some sort of supplement. Most take vitamins; but herbs, and other medications are being taken by people who want to be healthy, have younger-looking skin, maintain their youth, do away with aches and pains and so on.Some of these supplements are beneficial, and some may not be, and we should check with our  physician before taking them. 

But what does it profit a person to be physically fit if they are spiritually sick?

Some physically fit people commit suicide. Not too many sick people do. They know the value of life.

Plenty of  physically fit people live unhappy lives.

Many physically fit people get into trouble. (You don’t see too many people in wheelchairs being wheeled into court.) 

Being physically fit is fine, but it’s more important to be spiritually fit.

To keep ourselves spiritually fit, we need to stay connected to Christ through attending church regularly, daily prayer, bible reading, meditation, self-examination, Christian fellowship and so on.

It’s called  ‘abiding in Christ.’  

The evangelist John tells us that  when we abide in Christ  we find ourselves loving God and loving others. Others that we might not have loved normally.   

In fact he says, “ Those who say they love God and yet hate their brothers or sisters are liars. If you can’t love those whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you have not seen?’”

The only way to become a loving person is by abiding in Him and being fed by Him. 

I have had a ficus plant for a long time. It has been there.  Barely. Although I dutifully watered it, and turned the pot around weekly, it never grew. It looked the same after fifteen years as the day I bought it.  Then I saw my wife using a product on her outdoor plants, called Miracle Grow. I tried feeding my ficus plant with it, and all of a sudden it began to grow like Topsy. We had to cut it back using garden clippers. It looked like it might take over the house.   

All the time I was just watering it, it was starving.  But once it was fed, there was no holding it back.

It’s easy to be a ficus kind of Christian, isn’t it?   Just kind of ‘there.’ Doing nothing. Just ‘there.’

I know Christians like that, as I am sure you do.

We all need to be fed don’t we?  

Because the truth is that God doesn’t need ‘ficus Christians’. He needs Christians who want to grow, and he offers to feed us with the spiritual food that will enable us to grow, and be fruitful.   

And that, my brothers and sisters, is the meaning of life. Christian life, that is. 

Amen.

There was a Catholic priest living in the Philippines, who was a well loved, hard working, and respected pastor. Unknown to anyone, however, he carried a sin within his heart – something he had done  whilst in seminary, and although he had repented of it  some years before, he still carried the guilt within him.

He had no sense of peace, no inner joy, no sense of forgiveness.

As it happened, there was a woman in his parish who deeply loved God, and who claimed to have visions, in which she spoke to Christ, and Christ to her. The priest was skeptical of her claims, so to test her visions, he said to her,” You say you speak directly with Christ in your visions. Let me ask you a favour. The next time you have one of those visions, I want you to ask him what sin your priest committed when he was in seminary.”

The woman agreed and went home. When she returned to the church a few days later, the priest said, ” Well, did Christ visit you in your dreams?”

She replied, ” Yes. he did.”

” And did you ask him what sin I committed in seminary?”

“Yes, I asked him.”

“Well, what did he say? “

“He said, ‘ I don’t remember,'”

That is what God wants us to know about forgiveness. When our sins are forgiven, they are forgotten. The past, with its sins, hurts, brokenness, and self recrimination – is gone, dead, crucified, remembered no more.

What God forgives, He forgives,

But in today’s Gospel Jesus tells us that there is a sin that God does not forgive.

A sin that cannot be forgiven.

A sin against the Holy Spirit.

This is an obvious puzzle, don’t you think?  That all the sin, all the heinous crimes, all the inhumanity of man to man, can be forgiven-  all but one. 

Sin against the Holy Spirit!

Why is that so?

And what is sin against the Holy Spirit?

Mark tells us that Jesus said this, because they –  the Pharisees- said abut Jesus, ” ” He has an unclean spirit.”

Does this mean that Jesus is angry and denying forgiveness to those who accused  him of working with Satan?

I don’t think Jesus, nor God would hold back forgiveness if forgiveness were truly sought.

Don’t you agree?

So what is all this about?

Well  it is explained by some who study these sayings closely,  that Jesus could not have used the phrase ‘ The Holy Spirit ‘ in the way we Christians use the term. The Spirit as we know it, did not come until Jesus had returned to his glory.

It wasn’t until Pentecost that men and women came to the supreme experience of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus must have used the term, they say,  in the Jewish sense of the term.

In Jewish thought the Holy Spirit had two functions. First was to reveal God’s truth, and the second was to enable the truth to be recognised. And acknowledged.

The Holy Spirit enables people to recognise God’s truth, when he enters their lives. The truth of how they are living, for example.

The old saying is that the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins.

That’s fine, but if we don’t do anything about it what is the point? .

Ignoring God’s truth, denying it, leads to a condition where one can look on the goodness of Christ, for example,  and call it evil – as the Pharisees did.

When you can see goodness and call it something else.

When you can see the truth and deny it, and instead profess a lie to be the truth.

I have met people like that. They can lie to your face and not blink while doing it,

They can see a kind act and denigrate it. 

They can do evil and present it as virtuous.

And if you have no sense of guilt for what you have done; no contrition, no regrets, no remorse, then how can you be forgiven?

God cannot forgive someone who refuses forgiveness, laughs in the face of God, calls the Son of God, Satan’s minion.

The prerequisite for forgiveness is  the expression of penitence.

If someone does not accept what they are – doesn’t even know what they are, then how can they be forgiven?

There are many stories of men on death row who have accepted Christ as their Saviour and experienced forgiveness, and who went to their deaths quietly and at peace.   

There are as many stories of men on death row who laughed in the face of those who would bring Christ to them. and went swearing and cursing, and struggling to their deaths.

Then there are gracious examples of forgiveness coming from the victims, of terrible acts.

Corrie ten Boom had been a prisoner in a nazi concentration camp during the war and she and her sister had endured terrible degrading acts from one of the German guards. He had jeered at them and visually raped them as they stood naked in the delousing shower. 

Now, this man, one of the most cruel and heartless of the guards, was facing her, with hand outstretched, and asking, ” Will you forgive me?”

She says, ” I stood there with coldness clutching my heart  but I know that the will can function  regardless of the temperature of the heart.

“I prayed, ‘ Jesus help me’ .

“Woodenly, mechanically,  I thrust out my hand onto the one stretched out to me and I experienced an incredible thing.

“The current started in my shoulder and raced down my arms and sprang into our clutched hands. Then this warm reconciliation seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to me eyes.

“I forgive you brother,” I cried with my whole heart.

“For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard, and the former prisoner.   I have never known the love of God so intensely as I did in that moment.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you.” She says.

That guard knew his sin. And wanted –  needed – begged for –  forgiveness – from the person he had sinned against.

He was acknowledging the goodness in the woman facing him, and the evil he had done..

His former victim forgave him, and so, I am sure, did God.

Those whom Jesus says cannot be forgiven are those who know no guilt, and feel no need for forgiveness.

How can they be forgiven?

What for?

If they feel no guilt.

There is one condition for forgiveness and that is penitence. And as long as people see the loveliness of Christ’s love , as long as they hate sin, even though they can’t leave it, even if they are in the mud and the mire, they can still be forgiven.

Praise God.

But those who have lost the ability to recognise goodness when they see it, and have so inverted their moral values that to them evil is good, and good is evil, then they can never be forgiven.

That is sin against the Holy Spirit.

When you come across that sort of person you are convinced that Satan must live within them.

In this modern era, however, I wonder if that way of being, that sort of behaviour, is a sign of mental illness, manifesting itself as evil.

And if that is so, that sin is caused be a mental illness, then could the actions of such a person, be understood by God?

And in His gracious wisdom, could He then forgive?

And if so, then could we?    

Amen.

The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Matthew.

 He told them a parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. ³² Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

³³ He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds^[a] of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

The Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl

⁴⁴ “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

⁴⁵ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. ⁴⁶ When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. ( Matt. 13:31-33, 44-52)

                                    _______________________

Someone who didn’t attend church once said to me, “ The people who go to church aren’t so good. In fact, “ He said, “ I know  people who don’t attend church who are more loving and caring than most of those who do.” 

He might be right, I don’t know.   But as I told him, church is for bad people. If everybody were good it wouldn’t be needed.

Church is there to help bad people become good people.

And there is no other institution that has that as its goal.

The parable that Jesus told about the fisherman with his net, catching all sorts of fish,  tells us that the church, if it is doing its job, is reaching out to and bringing in all sorts of people.

In one big net, without discrimination.

Not only that but we are also told elsewhere in the Gospel of Matthew that we should not judge – any of those people –  lest we be judged.

So opening the doors of the church to all and sundry is what we should be doing.

I was at St. Mark’s Niagara on the Lake some years ago, doing supply, and I went to the town a few days earlier, to see where it was, and so on. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the church was open to all and sundry – people who might be serious about its history, or need a quiet place to pause for a moment, maybe to meditate, or even, can we say it? To pray?

Of course it is in a tourist town, and has a major part in its history, so it is of especial interest to tourists. 

It was very different to a church that Susan and I visited some years ago in the village of Cropthorne, in the British Midlands.

The church was locked and we were just looking around the outside, and after a few minutes I saw this figure come screaming up the driveway on a bike.

It was  a gentleman wanting to know what we were doing. And he wasn’t a friendly welcomer either.

It was symptomatic, perhaps of a major problem that threatened to divide the church at that time, which was struggling to decide who to admit and who to refuse to admit. 

When the church should have been uniting to reach out to AIDS victims, victims of war, the internet being used to make a spectacle of children being abused , and any number of other urgent causes, time was spent, jawing about who we should admit to the church, and incredibly, at that time in the UK trying to decide in this twenty first century whether women were good enough to become priests and bishops – can you believe that?

But do you know why I think the bad attitudes, and contentiousness arise?

I think it is because many Christians have lost sight of Jesus and what he means to us, and how he wants us to live, and to be, and to be with. We get caught up in the business of the church not the business of Jesus.

“Again,’ Jesus said, “ the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant who was seeking goodly pearls. When he had found one of great value,  he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

How many of us value the kingdom of heaven that we would sell everything to have it?

I admit, I can’t include myself in that holy company.

I did give up a lot when I went into seminary. Much of what I had, but not everything

But I don’t think it quite means that you have to impoverish yourself. I think it means that we have to realise  the great value in being in the kingdom, and cherish  it, and want it, and be joyful that we are in it.

You know after retiring for the first time, I served in a number of churches  and I can tell you I found few where there was a real sense of joy at being in the Kingdom. At being Christian.

Joy at being a Christian.

And if the kingdom is such a great thing to have – and it is – then how come we are not joyous. Not smiling all the time?

Could it be that we are inwardly gleeful, but trying to avoid smiling –  like, it was once said,  a funeral director trying not to smile, at a $25,000 funeral?

Here’s a thought from a man who gave up everything, the Apostle Paul.  “And we know that all that happens to us is working for our good if we love God and are – get this – are  fitting into His plans.

In other words, if we are in the Kingdom, and are living according to God’s plans for His people – and for us – then everything will work for our good.

Fitting into His plans!

I have a lot of great verses underlined in my Bible. I don’t know how I missed that gem.   When I read it this week, my goodness, it resonated with me. Because I am a type A person.  I have  to have everything planned out, and predictable. And if it isn’t then I find my well of patience running dry.

But  Paul is telling me that if I am working according to God’s plan for me, then I can let go of that need to have everything in my life shipshape.

And be happy.

And so can you.

And Paul goes further and strengthens our faith which may be weakened when things don’t seem to be going just right – something else I needed to hear right now – he says,  “When we have trouble or calamity, when we are hunted down or destroyed, is it because He doesn’t love us any more? And if we are hungry, or penniless or in danger, or threatened with death, has God deserted us?

“No,” he says,” for the scriptures tell us that we must be ready to face death at any moment of the day – and,  he goes on  -“  I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from His love.  Death can’t. Life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away.

“ Our fears for today, our worries  about tomorrow, or where we are – high above the sky or in the deepest ocean – nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us.”

So what are we worried about?  Why do we have long faces when we come to church. Why do we let small things occupy our minds rather than focusing on God, and trusting?

I don’t know.

Human nature I guess.

But I will tell you something.

Whenever I officiated at a wedding and led the couple through the words of the service, and the vows, I went home to my wife with my commitment to my marriage and to her reinforced.

I needed to be reminded what marriage is.

It isn’t about who makes supper, or who washes the dishes, or whether you should pay some extra money off the mortgage, or take a vacation, or arguing about what to watch on TV, or whose turn is it to put the kids to bed.

As important as those things seem to be.

No, it’s about two people who have committed themselves to be with each other for life. And I mean life. Not a slow death.

It means that two people have covenanted to support each other, to weep with each other, to laugh with each other, to raise a family with each other.

And be happy with each other.

Don’t ever forget that.

Similarly, being a Christian – being in the kingdom –  isn’t about  ritual; who walks down the aisle first in the clergy procession; who lights which candles in which order; who raises money, makes the coffee, teaches in Sunday School, does the flowers, sends money off to the Third World  – those things, as important as they are  all come automatically when we live in the Kingdom.

But being a Christian is about a covenant made with Jesus Christ. To follow Him. To put him first. To live within the precepts he has given us; to value him and his sacrifice,  (if you saw movie, The Passion of Christ you would value that sacrifice anew) to  take the forgiveness that he bought, and accept it and let go of guilt and live happily in Him.

Let go of guilt, and live happily in Him.

And just as listening to the marriage vows again strengthened my commitment to my marriage, hearing Jesus’ parables again, hearing Paul’s words again, strengthen my commitment to Christ.

And remind me that I really don’t have anything to worry about.

As long as I love God and fit into his plans for me.

And if you don’t have anything to worry about, then you can smile when you come to church. You can smile when you go to work.

And you know what happens then? 

Someone may ask, “ How is it that Bob is always so happy?  Even when we are under pressure here? ” or “How is it that when you go to ask Mary something, she always has time for you?”

And someone else may say, ‘It’s because Bob is a Christian.’ Or ‘Because Mary is a Christian.’

People get to like us. People want to be like us.

To be with us.

They might even ask about coming to church for Pete’s sake!

And since we are secure in God’s love, we don’t have to be protective about church – whether someone will fit in – or whether they will like it here –  hey, get that big net out there – and bring them all in. Willy nilly!

Didn’t I say that the church is for bad people –  and since God accepted us without judging us too severely – then we accept them without judging them too severely.

But it all starts with us revisiting our Christian promises to Jesus.

Or if we have never made any, doing it today.

Remembering what He means to us, and us to Him, and reveling in it, enjoying it, being joyful in it,  living the life of a Christian and loving it.

Unfortunately, McDonald’s got there first.  But imagine what a  sign posted outside of every church with the words, “We are loving it,”  might do.

Amen.