Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 26th August 2007 by Ms. Rose Chue. The scripture readings that day were Jeremiah 1:4-10, Psalm 71:1-6 and Luke 13:10-17.


A journey, a quest. A quest to defeat evil and to have your innermost desires fulfilled. This is basically the story of the Wizard of Oz . I used this children’s story as a starter because it is a popular drama in Hong Kong schools at present and the words and music have been running in my head for the last year. And when I looked at the Bible readings for today somehow the Yellow Brick Road and the Emerald City became interwoven with Jeremiah and the Psalms.

Five characters on their way along the Yellow Brick Road to the great city of Oz, to see the terrible Wizard. Five characters who all had a special desire. Dorothy at last had realized the worth of home and wanted to go back to her Aunty Em, back to the security of a strict but loving home. The Scarecrow wanted a brain; the Tin Man wanted a heart and the Lion wanted courage. And don’t forget Toto. Toto just wanted to be with Dorothy. With which character do you identify?

The Jeremiah reading seems to link with the Lion – “I don’t know how to speak. I am too young.” I don’t know how to speak. I haven’t had the training. I don’t know how to speak. I haven’t studied the books. Throughout the Bible this scene is repeated. Moses said,” I am nobody. What can I tell them? What shall I do? I am a poor speaker. Please send someone else.” Barak, the warrior leader of 10,000 men told Deborah, “ I will go if you go with me, but if you don’t go with me, I won’t go either.” Gideon told the lord, “ How can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the tribe of Manasseh and I am the least important member of my family. Give me proof.” How many lions do we have in this congregation?

The Tin Man could not feel because he was not given a heart. Yet it was because he once had a heart that he became the Tin Man. He had loved, but none too wisely as he had offended the Wicked Witch of the East. After he became the Tin Man he was further frightened of having any emotions as emotions, whether of sorrow or joy, could produce tears and tears would cause rusting. Yet the Christian message is based on love and love in action. The love that can be felt in pain as well as in everlasting joy. The centre of our faith is these words of Jesus, “For God so loved the world so much that He gave His only Son. So that everyone who believes in him should not die but have eternal life.”

For my part I am the Scarecrow. It’s not because I feel I am lacking a brain but that too often I get so tired of crows and flying monkeys - the students, the colleagues, the demands of the public examinations and the edicts of the Education Department - that pull the straw from me and I dread the fire that char my dried grass. Yet Jesus gave and gave again for us, for me. It was for me that he prayed in the Garden of Gethesemane – “I pray … for those who believe in me because of their message. I pray that they may all be one. Father! May they be in us, just as you are in me and I am in you.” I stand here this morning because of God’s love, because of Christ’s atonement, because of the many thousands who throughout history have built up the Kingdom of God, because of the many today in many countries who hold me in loving prayer.

But there is one further point I would like to make about the Lion, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow. A lion is a lion. By its very nature, its reputation, its image – fear is cast on all who behold it. If a lion walks into this hall, it doesn’t matter whether it has courage or not. We won’t have the courage to find out! Likewise for the Tin Man’s problem. Tin does not rust. It is iron that rusts. However emotional the Tin Man feels, however fiercely the storm may rage, there will be no rust. A Tin Man, by the nature of tin, does not rust. And I the scarecrow – whatever stuffing is pulled out of me, more can be stuffed back.

Why then are we afraid? Why do we feel we are lacking in something? Why do we say we are incomplete? By the word of God we are complete.

Listen to what is written –

Then the Lord stretched out His hand, touched my lips, and said to me, “Listen, I am, giving you the words you must speak. Today I give you authority over nations and kingdoms to uproot and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

But there is another kind of fear, the fear developed through experience. Psalm 71: 1-6 is an old man’s prayer – we who are the senior citizens you might say of heaven.

During the summer holidays I went to stay with my niece and her young daughter. I am the youngest of my immediate family, the number seven child, and so had been the designated baby sitter and child minder from the age of six. I remember the times when I used to toss my nephews and nieces up in the air or swing them around by one foot and by arm like the mechanical rides in Ocean Park. But now I don’t even dare to hold my little great niece. Why ? I have learnt about the fragility of young children’s bones and how one little trauma can affect a life. I used to have a colleague who was terrified of butterflies because as a toddler she had been teased by her brothers.

I have seen too much of the power of cruel and wicked men and now all I want is a secure shelter and a strong fortress. I have done my share of fighting and I just want to rest. I want to stay on the boat our pastor talked about last week, I do not wish to step onto the water, not even for Jesus.

I remember the enthusiasm and the surety of my early days. There were the times in industrial Newcastle in England, going from door to door with gospel tracts, or traveling alone across Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. There were the times on the first Mission station to which I was sent. The station included not just the school but the only United Church theological college and so when I was called to preach – which was often at the last minute – there were the rows of solemn earnest theological students and lecturers at the back and I could see all those minds working overtime analyzing what I was saying. In those days I was so comfortable in myself I would just go in with the Bible readings and say, ‘OK, Lord, over to you.’ And now I am afraid.

We know that we have placed restraints on ourselves. How do we break free? In the Gospel reading Jesus cured a woman, an instant release of her affliction, and answered his critics with these words – “Now here is this descendant of Abraham whom Satan has kept bound up for eighteen years; should she not be released on the Sabbath?”

Are we not descendants of Abraham also? We are more than descendants of Abraham. We are the children of God, we are princes, we are the stars in the sky. Should we not be released from our fears and stand upright? Phyllis Wong spoke to us about transformation by faith and with that faith we could, as our pastor urged us last week, be prepared to leave the security of our comfort zone and follow Christ.

The last reading set for today is from Hebrews 12.

“You have not come, as this people of Israel came, to what you can feel, to Mount Sinai with its blazing fire, the darkness and the gloom, the storm, the blast of a trumpet, and the sound of a voice. When the people heard the voice, they begged not to hear another word, because they could not bear the order which said, ”If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death!” The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, ‘ I am trembling and afraid!’”

That is the Emerald city, that is the Wizard of Oz. That is the smoke and all the lights. That is where we feel that unless we fulfil our tasks we will not be made whole.

The Hebrews passage goes on to say,

Instead, you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, with its thousands of angels. You have come to the joyful gathering of God’s first-born sons, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, who is the judge of all mankind, and to the spirits of good people made perfect. You have come to Jesus, who arranged the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that promises much better things than does the blood of Abel.

I read recently a review of a collection of the Mother’s letters. We all know the work started in Calcutta – Christians of whatever denominations can point to her as a person of great faith and courage. No Lion, no scarecrow, no Tin Man was she – or so it seems. Yet this is what she wrote – “I call, I cling, I want – and there is no one to answer – no one on whom I can cling – no, not one – alone – where is my faith – even deep down right in there there is nothing but emptiness and darkness.”

Nothing but emptiness and darkness. This from Mother Therese, a woman of God respected and venerated all over the world for the work she did in the name of Jesus.

She goes on - “I am told God loves me – and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the call of the sacred heart?”

And again – “ I utter words of community prayers – and try my utmost to get out of every word the sweetness it has to give – but my prayer of union is not there any longer – I no longer pray.”

For fifty years Mother Therese lived without sensing the presence of God in her life and yet she carried on with what she believed was the work appointed for her to do. That is true faith. That is the faith that enables us to leave our comfort zone and to go out into the world.

The last part of the Hebrews readings is this -

“Let us be thankful then, because we receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Let us be grateful and worship God in a way that will please him, with reverence and awe; because our God is indeed a destroying fire.”

Our pew Bibles have the translation ‘destroying.’ I am not a Greek or Hebrew scholar but to me a better word is ‘consuming’ which is found in other translations. Destroying seems to imply ending in nothing; consuming is a process from which another product may emerge. We are to go up to Mount Zion to receive this kingdom. During this we indeed will be consumed but we will be transformed into that joyful gathering, into the presence of God, into the presence of Jesus.

I am at the age when friends and relatives die. Death has been on my mind recently and I was interested to find out that a recent option for disposing of a dead body is to consign it to great heat and pressure for many days. At the end of that process a normal adult body would produce 200 diamonds. 200 diamonds. Mother Therese, in spite of all her agony of soul, has given the world brilliant diamonds. Are we prepared to go to Mount Zion and be consumed by the fire of God and out of the ashes, diamonds will sparkle?