“… do even greater things than these”

 Surgical Ward, Fistula Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Gospel of Matthew 9: 18-26 (NIV)

¹⁸ While he was saying this, a ruler came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” ¹⁹ Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.
²⁰ Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. ²¹ She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”
²² Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that moment.
²³ When Jesus entered the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd, ²⁴ he said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. ²⁵ After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. ²⁶ News of this spread through all that region.

During my years with World Vision I travelled on a number of occasions to Ethiopia and visited the fistula hospital established by Reg and Catherine Hamlin. Catherine Hamlin’s book, The Hospital by the River, tells of the work done there to treat and heal thousands of women and young girls.

It was not until I had heard about the dreadful isolation experienced by women with untreated fistulas and had toured her hospital with Catherine Hamlin that I began to understand what drove the woman in these verses of Matthew’s Gospel to reach out for the edge of Jesus’ garment. The woman had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, detail also recounted in the Gospels of Mark (5: 24b-34) and Luke (8: 42b-48). Though it could have been caused by other than fistula, this woman’s flow of blood would have led to a sense of shame and likely total social isolation. Rejected by her community, she had no legitimate way of approaching our Lord to ask for healing.

Her healing was instantaneous, miraculous. The healing achieved at the fistula hospital is very different. It requires surgery, post-surgical recovery and then rehabilitation before the women are permitted to return to their communities. And yet, though slow, treatment and healing after fistula is effected for thousands today with love, care and protection.

The Gospel of John (14: 12) records Jesus’ teaching: “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

Jesus did not tell his disciples that, when they undertook the work that he had been doing, their methods should be precisely the same as those he used. The Hamlins undertook the work Jesus had been doing but applied the most appropriate techniques available to them – and have done, in quantity, even greater things than were achieved for this one woman referred to in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Parliamentarians, similarly, have opportunities to do the work Jesus was doing and have the authority given them by the Australian people to undertake this work, whether in the fields of health or education or protection or justice. Let us pray for our Parliamentarians that they will exercise this authority and their opportunities wisely and, when there is success, they will give the glory to God.

Be imitators of God!

 Canberra’s flying fox colony

 

Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians 4: 29 – 5: 5 (NIV)

²⁹ Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. ³⁰ And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹ Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. ³² Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

¹ Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children ² and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
³ But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. ⁴ Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. ⁵ For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person – such a man is an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

The Apostle Paul directed these words to the Christian Church in Ephesus where, years earlier, he had proclaimed the Gospel over a period of several months. In this letter he was urging them to “put off the old self” and to “put on the new self”, renewed in their minds by the Gospel of Jesus Christ (4: 22-24).

This is of course just as relevant to us today. There was, for most of us, a former way of life, corrupted by deceitful desires – desires planted there by the evil one to tempt us to regard anything at all to be more attractive than our relationship with our Heavenly Father through Christ. Having “put off the old self”, we are not subject to these desires for we have subjected ourselves, of our own volition, to the lordship of Jesus.

But yet, there can be lapses for those who have “put on the new self”.

Paul’s instructions are positive; although the lapses are mentioned, the better alternatives are presented. Instead of unwholesome talk there is to be what is helpful for building others up (4: 29). Instead of bitterness, rage and anger and the other evils listed, there is to be kindness, compassion and forgiveness (4: 32). Instead of immorality there is to be holy living accompanied by thanksgiving (5: 3, 4). Paul has summed it up by calling on Christian women and men to be imitators of God, living lives of love because of the sacrifice and example of Christ. He has continued to proclaim that Christ loved us and gave himself up for us – and that Christ’s obedience to his Father was a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God which we should emulate.

This is a call for all Christian women and men to be imitators of God in their daily living. It is  particularly relevant for Senators and Members of Parliament to be imitators of God in their daily living too, and not only in their electorates where daily they interact with constituents. It is just as relevant in the public forum of Parliament House, especially in the absence of such conduct from others who are not yet followers of Jesus Christ.

A slave to sin?

 A symbol of danger

Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians 2: 1-10 (NIV)

¹ As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ² in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³ All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. ⁴ But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – ⁹ not by works, so that no-one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

A friend recently told me of an acquaintance who, though outwardly a follower of Jesus, had separated from his wife to live a life of sexual self-indulgence. This acquaintance claimed still to have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and considered that he could continue to rely on God’s grace to save him.

God’s grace is freely available to sinners. Without the grace of God none could be saved. The Apostle Paul has said as much in his Epistles including verses 4 and 5 above:

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.

To follow “the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air” (verse 2) after being raised up with Christ, however, is to hold that the ruler of this world, Satan, offers a more attractive future than that offered by God in Christ Jesus.

How can one who is “dead in (his) transgressions and sins” (verse 1) claim to be saved if purposefully remaining in those transgressions and sins?

The Apostle Paul addressed this situation clearly in his Epistle to the Romans (Chapter 6):

¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey – whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. ¹⁸ You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

We are created in Christ Jesus to do good works, not so that through works we may earn passage to heaven but to honour the God to whom we surrender and to whom we strive, in love, to give unconditional obedience. That allows us to do good works “prepared (by God) in advance for us to do” (verse 10).

We love because …

 “the Father has sent his Son …” (Detail, Eighth Station, Hartzer Park Chapel)

First Letter of John 4: 13-21 (NIV)

¹³ We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. ¹⁷ In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother (or sister), he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother (and sister), whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. ²¹ And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother (and sister).

Throughout this part of the Apostle John’s first letter, the author’s reference to “love” uses the Greek word “agape” – “God-like love”. We who live in God are able to love because he first loved us. The evidence of the extent of God’s love for his children is his sending of his Son to be the Saviour of the world.

With the love of God in us by virtue of the gift to us of his Spirit, we are to love our brothers and sisters with this same, God-like love. In this week following the canonisation of Saint Teresa of Kolkata, we are reminded of the extent to which that love for our brothers and sisters can go in willing, selfless service.

It is impossible for anybody who truly loves God to refuse to love also his brother and sister (verse 20). John Stott presents it clearly*:

To claim to know God and have fellowship with God while we walk in the darkness of disobedience is to lie. To claim to possess the Father while denying the deity of the Son is to lie. To claim to love God while hating the brethren is to lie also. These are the three black lies of the Epistle, moral, doctrinal and social. However loudly we may affirm ourselves to be Christian, our habitual sin, denial of Christ and selfish hatred expose us as the liars we are. Only holiness, faith and love can prove the truth of our claim to know, possess and love God.

Here is a challenge for all of us, particularly those in the Parliaments/Legislative Assemblies of this nation. The culture may be combative at times; it certainly is competitive. People who love God have no licence, simply because of the culture of their profession, to ignore God’s call to love one another. Competing ideas can be discussed without rancour if the will is there to love one another as Christ loved us. “We love because he first loved us.” “Whoever loves God must also love his brethren.”

Those of us who are not in Parliament are duty-bound to pray for our Christian brethren who are: that they may consistently demonstrate the love of God in thought, word and deed.

*John R. W. Stott, The Epistles of John, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, Inter-Varsity Press, Leicester England, 1983, p. 170.