For the last three weeks we have listened to Jesus’ intense teachings on money, forgiveness, and living with a servant mind-set. It is absolute and it is simple-in-a-difficult-way.

We cannot grasp for material gain alone.   We can either serve God or Money.

It is also about the absolute mercy of God, (consider Lazarus and the Rich man), which is where we are heading today, but in a different context. Jesus and his disciples are back on the road to Jerusalem.

Our gospel this morning is I think, centrally concerned with mercy and also thanksgiving or gratitude.  

In the gospel we heard last week, Jesus has just told the disciples the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, poor beggar and servant of any and everybody’s.  Yet the servant/beggar is raised up and the rich man is tormented in the great reversal of death.

Today’s passage follows directly on from last week and Jesus now teaches his disciples what this servanthood means.  It means that we seek to look at things, and think, and act, in ways that won’t cause the ‘little ones’ of God, so very, very precious to our Father, to stumble.

We can’t be the church, the people of God, if we cause others to stumble because that destroys the sacred community of Christ Jesus.  The sacred oneness between Jesus and his bride the church.

It can seem at first glance that today’s gospel is just several disconnected sayings strung together rather loosely, but on a closer look, Jesus is speaking to us about faith for living in this sacred community.

This morning’s gospel reading can be seen as part two of last week’s gospel about the dishonest manager.  Both last week’s and this week’s gospel parables begin with “There was a rich man!” 

Last week’s gospel ended with the phrase “You cannot serve both God and money,” and this morning’s gospel is a story illustrating the fate of one who served God and one who served money.

But this morning we are going to see a way in which Paul brings all these things together in today’s reading to his letter to his spiritual son, Timothy, written towards the end of his tumultuous life.

Jesus said that if “the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.” In today’s reading Paul tells us exactly what this freedom means, and how we are to live in this freedom in the full confidence of faith, in the bright and sheer light of the future.

Many of the parables Jesus told are perplexing, but none more so that today’s reading from Luke.  What an unpleasant character this manager sounds!  So what would Jesus have to say to us today in this parable?

As always, let’s begin by putting this parable in context.  This parable of the dishonest manager acts as a bridge between the stories of the Prodigal Son (15:11-32) and the Rich Man and Lazarus (16:19-31), which we’ll look at next week.

Like the prodigal in the preceding story, our dishonest manager has “squandered” what was entrusted to him (15:13; 16:1).  And, like the story that follows, this parable begins with the phrase, “There was a rich man” (16:1).

We join Luke again as he continues his record of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and we arrive at the magnificent and unique chapter 15.

We could call this chapter the ‘gospel of lost things.’  It is a series of three parables beginning with today’s passage on the lost sheep, and the lost coin, and concludes with the parable of the lost (or prodigal) son which we spoke about in Lent.

So today we are looking at the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin and they have much in common.

It is easy to shy away from the tough teachings of Jesus, but every part of the gospel of Jesus Christ is good news, which is what the word ‘gospel means or course.

If we dig a little deeper, the tough teachings are also very good news! And here in Drayton Parish we truly want to be disciples of Jesus, and so we tackle uncomfortable and difficult readings head on … and we see amazing things.

Today’s gospel is uncomfortable reading, to be sure.  It is all about trust, discipleship and allegiance. To whom do we belong?

Jesus is really interested in mealtimes.  In Luke, these meals Jesus attends are often marked by some social faux pas, or breach of etiquette, out of which he draws a truth about the Kingdom of God.

In Luke especially, Jesus causes much to happen and has much happen to him over meals.  From defending eating with sinners (5:30), to encouraging a woman who gate-crashed a men-only dinner for Pharisees and had the audacity to pour oil on his head (7:36-50).

Being invited to a festive occasion, all of which had an official dinner, and where you were seated, were important in the honour and shame culture of Jesus’ Day.  Last week, we looked at how a shame-filled woman had her head lifted high by Jesus in the synagogue.

In a parallel vein, this week we return to a topic we have looked at frequently, the most beautiful of all character traits - humility.  It is to the humble and lowly, that the best seats at the heavenly banquet have been reserved.

All our readings today concern real encounters with the Living God doing very real things in lives.

Both Jeremiah and the bent-over woman were physically touched by God - Father and Son.

The Psalmist is crying out to God for refuge and help, in the full hope and expectation that it will be provided, because he has seen God’s faithfulness already when he looks back on his life.  They have all been seen by God, just as we have.

When the Kingdom of God comes so close to us and we find ourselves suddenly aware that we are seen by God exactly the way we are, and, for a moment, encounter heaven.

Last week we looked at how, by our faith alone, our sins are forgiven, and we are judged in Christ himself; who presents us without blemish before the Father.

Today’s reading from Hebrews gives us examples of living the faithful life and how to persevere and mature in our faith.

Now the beginning of this chapter in Hebrews tells us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1).  Our faith is the basis of our hope, and the writer of Hebrews tells us that our hope is assured or guaranteed by Christ himself. 

In today’s reading from Hebrews, we see a list of many faithful saints of the Old Testament who, just like us, are commended for their faith and nothing else. They ran the race that was set before them, just are we are to do.

Today we are going to look at a very unfashionable aspect of this Christian life, judgement.

As a minister of Christ, I am obliged to be faithful in all I teach, yet to avoid speaking on Judgement is to avid speaking on love and justice.

What is seen as judgement for one will be justice and consolation for someone else.  And if God loves all of us equally, then judgment of an injustice is as much part of the character of God as love is.

It is the flip side of the same coin.  There is no love without judgement.

I sometimes hear people talk of the “God of the Old Testament”, as if he were a different God to the God found in the New Testament. 

As if one was a God of wrath and the other the God of love.  Yet the Old Testament is full of passages that show is great and powerful creator God loves us like a doting mother.

Today’s reading from Colossians is all about becoming real. As citizens of the Kingdom of God, we live a new life in the fullness of Christ and today’s message is a very practical look at what behaviours we display in our lives that show this reality.

There is a quite famous old English Christmas story that I read when I was very young, called The Velveteen Rabbit.

Some of you will almost certainly know it, and I have mentioned it before but in a whole different context – that of being real with ourselves - and relating to a different passage of scripture.

We were to continue exploring Paul’s letter to the Colossians, however our gospel reading from Luke today is too compelling, and what a wonderful passage of scripture it is!

It is a portion of some of Jesus’ teaching on prayer, which is the source of all growth in the Christian life; by us for sure, but also by the fact that Jesus and the Holy Spirit themselves are constantly interceding (that is praying) for us!

It begins with the Lord’s Prayer (also recorded in Matthew’s gospel) – the great model of how to pray and what to pray for.

Then it moves on to the importance of perseverance in prayer, and concludes with an answer as to why we should pray and what happens when we do. 

There is a full sermon in every line of the Lord’s prayer!  But this morning we are focusing on the end of today’s gospel and homing in specifically on just two verses, 9-10.

We will be spending a couple of weeks in Paul’s letter to the Colossians, so first let’s get some background and context for this remarkable letter.

The city of Colossae was around 180 or so kms east of Ephesus, in the Roman province of Asia, what we would call eastern Turkey.

Ephesus was a very important centre in the early Church. Paul spent three years there and his teaching we are told, “spread throughout the province of Asia.”

Our understanding of the three-fold ministry of deacons, priests, and bishops (also called overseers) comes from Paul’s organisation of the early church.

So we can legitimately describe Paul as the Archbishop who oversaw other bishops to lead the other provincial churches.

The Jews have a way of teaching that was based on the idea that the shortest distance between a speaker and the truth is a story. 

Jesus knew this, and when addressing groups of people or individuals who may have understood a thought or a concept in their heads, but not in their hearts, he too used a story, or what we call a parable, as the shortest distance to the truth.

Now the priest, the Levite and perhaps especially the lawyer who initiated this beautiful response from Jesus, had a great head knowledge of the Old Testament law, which was not at all reflected in their hearts.

As he did on the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7), and many other places, Jesus radically reinterprets this law to show its original intention. Jesus wants his listeners to understand who their neighbour is, and what love is.

He also wants them to know that this love will be demonstrated in himself for them and for us and for all the world.

Today’s gospel is about mission, a helpful definition of which is, ‘finding where God is active and jumping in’ (former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams).  And God is active always and everywhere!  

To put today’s gospel in context. Jesus had earlier sent out his twelve apostles on the same task, to go before him to cure the sick and the broken in mind and spirit.

Immediately on their return, when Jesus was debriefing them, a crowd of 5,000 showed up whom Jesus and the disciples fed.

Jesus now sends out seventy more disciples, not the twelve, on the same mission.  To learn how to feed his sheep.

The Lord operates in his kingdom the same way today.  After we believe and come of a certain spiritual age, God starts to use us, or ‘send us out,’ even if we are not aware of it.

This morning, we are looking to Paul’s letter to the Galatians to show the two ways we can live our lives: self-directed living, or God directed living, which Paul calls living by the Spirit.

First, let’s play a little word association game.  If someone were to say the word ‘God’ to you, what would be the first word that would come into your mind?  Your first thought? 

Would it be an old man with a long flowing beard?  Would it be a judge?  Would it be a distant father who never seems to visit or care for us? Would it be guilt?

Perhaps though, it would be the word, ‘Grace.’  So, let’s look at these two different ways of living through the prism of grace. 

Our reflections and thoughts this morning are on the unique and fascinating OT prophet, Elijah, in today’s reading from 1 Kings.  They are not so much theological as pastoral.

Something has happened to Elijah that has totally punctured him, and he is emotionally exhausted.  His flame has burnt out and he can’t go on.  

The heroic and ever-active Elijah, used by God absolutely uniquely, has become passive and fearful because of a nasty letter.

This exhaustion can present itself as extreme lethargy, anxiety, and an exhausting inner tension, brought about by severe emotional disturbance in our lives.  Quite often sudden grief in all its forms, sometimes accumulated stress in an occupation.

Now I think this relates to us as well as Elijah. From time to time all of us have or will suffer a form of this emotional exhaustion to one degree or another.

We are exhausted but can’t sleep.  Life becomes too much for us, and we need the very pampering of God himself, just like Elijah.

Our readings from 1 Kings 19 today can teach us a great deal about coping when we are in a dark place.

The Holy Trinity.  In some ways I’d rather begin by saying nothing, for a sermon about the Trinity is a sermon about God’s own self. 

But we have been talking about the Trinity in some way or another ever since Lent, and so this morning I will try to talk about the trinity in different way.

When we get over our compulsion to do a lot of talking and explaining about God, we come to realise that our first and best response before God is simply to stand in wonder and awe in and of his great love for us.

The greatest and most powerful love story ever told.  

Today my friends we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit at the time of the Jewish harvest festival called Shavuot, or the festival of weeks, or Pentecost, as it was fifty days after the Passover.

Jesus ends today’s gospel with,

“’I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father…  If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, the helper, to be with you forever.  17 This is the Spirit of truth, … You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you’”  (Jn 14:14-17 selected).

That’s what this day, the Day of Pentecost, is about.  It’s about the risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ sending the Advocate, the Comforter, the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to the church, to help the church, who, as one, are the children of God.

Today we are celebrating Ascension Day which fell three days ago on Thursday, forty days after the resurrection.  Now I’d like us to consider the ascension as the essential ‘third movement’ of the completion of Jesus’ work – death, resurrection, and ascension.

I found this confirmed in my reading this week, as the gospels, Acts and Peter’s and Paul’s letters also see Ascension Day as a third movement of the completion of Jesus’ work as the Son of Man.

Here is just a sampling of how Scripture refers to the importance of the Ascension, then we’ll conclude by looking at what that means for us.