Matthew 5:43-48
As the fire burnt the church down on Friday my sermon went in to the bucket.
It’s hard to know just what to say today.
So, sticking with the “unexpected” theme, lets just start with Postman Pat!
When they were young my two boys used to love this programme, I guess you can still see it today.
There were various characters in that show but the most annoying must surely be the Rev Timms.
What an advert for a minister! His main feature seemed to be to come out with some glib line from the Bible, but he never did anything to really help.
So in one episode when something was lost, instead of helping look, he just steps forward and says: “Seek and ye shall find…” and then he disappears again. And in another show when there was a terrible rainstorm he simply proclaims: ”The rain falls on the just and the unjust”.
You feel you’d just like to slap him about for all his glib and trite statements. (Except he’s only a puppet, after all!)
Anyway, here we are today and we actually have this text today
“The rain falls on the just and the unjust”.
So what does it actually mean?
It means that we live in a world of chance and accident and often things happen which are not deserved.
When the Bible was written the world was much younger and people had a less developed understanding of God. And some of the ideas that they had of God weren’t too helpful, to say the least
One of them was this…
Maybe everything that happens is what God wants to happen.
God is in control - that must mean that everything that happens is God’s will.
If something good happens to you – God wants that to happen.
If something bad happens to you – God wants that to happen.
If you win a prize – God fixed it.
If you have an accident – that was God’s doing.
If people are killed in a terrible tragedy – well its all Gods will.
Everything that happens is what God wants to happen.
Thankfully Jesus came along and helped us to see that this view is just not right at all.
“The rain falls on the just and the unjust” – means that good and bad things happen to good and bad people.
If you are a bad person bad things and good things will happen to you.
If you are a good person bad things and good things will happen to you. Good things and bad things are not determined by how good or bad we are.
God does not want things to go wrong.
God does not want things to go wrong for Langside Church.
So, okay, maybe that means God isn’t bad.
But now it seems like God isn’t too powerful.
If this world is subject to chance and accident then what does it matter what God thinks? God can’t do anything about it.
So it seems like the choice is that either God is responsible for everything or God can’t really do anything.
But here is where God really comes in.
God keeps on creating, keeps on doing new things, and even in the worst of times and in the middle of tragedies
God can take that and transform it.
Out of ugliness God can bring something beautiful.
Out of darkness God can bring light.
Out of defeat God can bring victory.
Out of death God can bring life.
God did not want something like this to happen to Langside – the nicest wee church in Glasgow. But God can take this tragedy and make good things come from it if we are willing to give God our trust.
We have temporarily lost our building. But no one has been hurt. We have still got one another. And we have still got God who is with us now as much as God has ever been. So we have nothing to fear.
This setback is not going to stop us. We are going to keep going, keep working, keep thinking, keep praying, keep worshipping and we are going to move towards being exactly the people God is calling us all to be.
There are two things we need to take time to do.
The first one we need to do is to be sad.
No church actually needs a building, but buildings are very useful to us and ours was particularly helpful and greatly loved. After the work that went into it, and considering the emotional attachment we have had to our new building we are right to be grieving. We need to take time to be sad, and express our sadness.
The second thing we need to do is to get excited. To look to the future with faith.
Because just as God promises us all (as individuals), a new beginning whenever we need it - the same goes for a church fellowship like ours.
Listen again to our reading for today…
“Do not cling to events of the past or dwell on what happened long ago. Watch for the new thing I am going to do – it is happening already!”
(Isaiah 43:18,19)
This is Gods word for us this day. The God of new beginnings is with us. And this God has got plans for us. And that is exciting.
To know that something new is going to happen.
God calls us all to take part in this big adventure.