Sunday 12th April – He meets us where we are – Pastor Noel Due

Pastor Noel Due – Transcript

Thank you again for your warm welcome and invitation to be with you. There is a little Hebrew phrase, “El Roi”. It’s actually a name, El is the common Hebrew word for God. It’s not the specific name, sort of like God with a small G that we use in English. And Roy is the description of what he’s doing in this case. And it is El Roy, the God who sees me, the God who sees me.

Now, as I said to the 8.30 am people, because we’ve had to change our clocks last weekend, we’re probably still a bit jet lagged. It takes a long time to adjust after the one hour time difference and you’re still getting to sleep at the wrong time and all that. So just in case you decide to drift off, I’m going to give you today’s message in a sentence and then what you do with the next 50 minutes is up to you. So here it is in a sentence.

“When we see that we are seen, we see all things differently, including ourselves”. I’ll say it again. “When we see that we are seen, we see all things differently, including ourselves”.

Now this little statement, Elroy, you are the God who sees me, comes from a very poignant passage in the Old Testament. You’ll remember that there was a woman called Hagar who had a son called Ishmael. And there was another woman called Sarah who was also in the household of Abraham and she had a son called Isaac. And Abraham had a little bit of a problem with the women and the sons in his household.

After significant pressure, Hagar was ejected from the household with her boy, Ishmael. And to be ejected from the household was to be left without protection. And she found herself and her son in the desert, without a way forward, without a hope, seemingly, without a future, with no provision. And God came to her in that space of lostness, in the wilderness, and made promises to her and promises to her son Ishmael. And we must not forget, with all the promises that were made to Isaac and his descendants, there were also magnificent promises given to Ishmael and his descendants, which God is still working out in the history of the world.

And so Ishmael and Hagar were seen by God. He came to her, he spoke to her, and he provided water for her in the wilderness.

In a sort of echo of the wilderness wanderings of the people of Israel, to provide for them just as they were in the wilderness back then, so also to provide for Hagar and Ishmael as they were in the wilderness just now. And she said, Surely you are the God who sees me.

Now when it comes to children and family systems and the way we bring up children, being seen as a child is the most important and fundamental part of your security. Being seen does not just being seen and not heard, as it used to be said. Being seen means to be known, to be attended to, to be understood, to be empathised with, to have concern for in a way that is going to take you seriously and take your future seriously.

To be seen is the most basic level of human acceptance and it begins ever before the child knows that he or she is seen. They are seen by mum and dad before they are born. They are seen when they can’t even recognise that pinkish-looking BLOB that hovers over their crib from time to time. They can’t even recognise that is the face of mummy. But mum and dad see them. And if a child is seen in that way, then their upbringing can be secure. And they can be settled when they are discomforted. and they can be soothed when they need it. But if they’re not seen, then they are always insecure and always difficult to settle and never really soothable. They become, well, we say difficult children, but it’s often difficult parenting.

So to be seen is the most fundamental thing that belongs to us as human beings relationally. If you think about the closest relationships in your life, perhaps with the closest relationship with your wife or husband, if you see one another, it makes all the difference. Not if you just know that they’re in the house or he’s in the back shed. I don’t know why men go to the back shed, but… to be seen, to be known, to be understood, to be considered.

Now sometimes when we think of being seen, for those of us perhaps who had a certain background, we think not of being seen but of being caught. I don’t know if any of you young blokes when you were about 10 decided you might want to steal a cigarette from your dad’s packet. and take it behind the woodshed and light up. Did anyone ever try that? Yeah, no, look at you. We’ve got a few confessors here. Mercy and peace be upon you. The rest of you lying sinners, there’s no mercy and peace for you. Well, sometimes you can be in a situation where you think, if someone sees me, I’m going to get caught.

Now, getting caught is not the same as being seen. Now, sadly, there’s a lot of kids who live their lives frightened that they’re just going to get seen in that negative sense, that they’re going to get caught for something. They live their lives never secure in the attachment that they have to their mum and their dad. They live their lives always walking on eggshells, feeling as though there’s just one clip around the ear away from trouble. Because for them, being seen is being caught. So they see everything differently. And when they see it in that light, then every relationship is a problem for them growing up. And every relationship, if they continue that into adulthood, becomes a problem for them. And it becomes an increasing problem for them with their own kids growing up. And we wonder why we have sometimes what’s called a crisis of parenting in some of our Western nations today.

But being seen is not the same as being caught. When we think about it in terms of the way that we think of Lutheran theology, being caught is what the law does to you. It induces fear. It thinks somehow that God is watching you. like a big ogre in the sky. He’s just looking to see if you’re going to get everything right or not, whether you will walk the tightrope or whether you’ll slip up. And if that is your experience of God, then you will live also in fear and you will be very insecurely attached to Him and you will not be settled and you will not be soothed and you will not go on an adventure of faith.  You will be like the elder brother, or you will be like the Pharisee, or you will be like someone who boasts of doing the right thing, but in your heart you have malice and envy and wickedness, because your way of seeing is completely distorted. Can you understand that?

The God who sees us does not see us in that way. The God who sees us does not see us in order to tally up our mistakes and to clip us around the ears. The God who sees us is Elroy, the God who comes to us, the God who finds us when we don’t even know that he is. He’s the God who sees us before we could even recognise who he is.

Now why am I talking about all of this when we’ve had our gospel reading from John 20 and we’ve got the figure of Thomas? Well, if you remember, for those of you who are here, a few weeks back, it was on Sunday the 15th of March, the gospel reading was on the man who was born blind. And you remember Jesus made some mud. He spat on some dirt, made mud, put it on his eyes and told him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam and he came back seeing. Do you remember that? If you weren’t here, you didn’t miss much. In fact, if you weren’t here, it’s on the website and you can listen to it.

But we’ve got two parallel stories here. We’ve got a story of a man who did not see physically but in the opening of his physical eyes, he had his spiritual eyes opened. And then we have in John chapter 20, a man whose optical system was working perfectly, but whose spiritual eyes were closed and blind, and he needed them opened as much as the other man by the pool of Siloam needed his open. Both needed to know that they were seen. See, if you think about the man by the Pool of Siloam, he could not see Jesus. Jesus saw him before he could see Jesus.

And it’s a beautiful story of faith because he grows as the story progresses. He starts off in answering the question, you know, who is it who’s healed you? Well, it’s a man called Jesus. And then further on, well, what do you think about this man? Well, he must at least be a prophet, surely. But then further on, when he’s been rejected from his people and he’s alone and isolated, Elroy comes to him, the God who sees him.

The good shepherd follows up his sheep. and he finds him. And there the conversation continues and he comes to full belief. He says, my Lord, or you are indeed the Messiah, and he worshipped him.

Now you’ve got a similar process happening here with Thomas. Now he’s sometimes called doubting Thomas, but it’s not really doubting that was the problem, because he says effectively, I’m unbelieving. The way it’s written in Greek is I’m going to continue in unbelief. I refuse to believe. So I’ve come to a point where I don’t believe and I’m going to stay in that point where I don’t believe unless I see. Now he’s acting like a blind man, even though he’s got sight. and he’s not trusting the word that Jesus has said.

Now, if you go through the Gospels, you’ll find repeated references to Jesus telling them that he would be handed over to the chief priests, to the scribes, to the Pharisees, that he would be beaten, that he would be persecuted and crucified, he would be buried, and that on the third day he would rise again. Now, we don’t know how many times Jesus told them that, but he told them that repeatedly.

In Matthew’s gospel, we have three clear references where Jesus told them that. He’s also told them that according to Luke and Mark, but in Matthew it says, from that time on, he began telling them that.Tthe Son of Man must be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and must be crucified and be buried, and on the third day rise again. So this was not new news to them. It’s not something they had never heard before. It was a core part of what Jesus had been teaching them all the way through their discipleship, but somehow they did not receive it. They did not believe it. Their ears and eyes remained closed.

And so when it came to the morning of the resurrection, no one was anticipating a resurrected Jesus. And it is really quite significant when you look at all of the gospel accounts that no one, absolutely no one, had any anticipation that Jesus would be alive on the third day. The women did not go there to see the resurrected Christ. The women went to the tomb to complete the burial. Do you remember? Because he’d been taken down on the eve of a high Sabbath day

But the women, at least, give them credit, they were out and about. They had a bit of intestinal fortitude, also called something else, which I can’t remember, but starts with a G and it ends with an S. The blokes were hunkered down. They were locked in a room out of fear. So who’s got the bravery? Okay. The women are out and about. The blokes are hunkered down because of fear.

And Jesus appears to them and says, what? I’ve got my eye on you blokes. You shouldn’t be sitting here smoking behind the woodshed. You’re in trouble. How many times have I told you? Well, just stand up. Wait, what used to be said to me by my mum was, just wait until your dad gets home. Some houses it might be even worse if you wait till your mum gets home, I don’t know, but for me it was just terror if she said, wait till your dad gets home. And Jesus didn’t say to them, just wait till I get back to heaven and tell my father what’s been going on here, you unbelieving lot of ingrates. No, he said to them, what? Peace be with you.

Peace be with you. Elroy, the God who sees. He sees where they are. He finds them where they are. He doesn’t leave them where they are. They’re going to become his witnesses, first in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria, and then the uttermost parts of the earth.

And do you know where Thomas ended up, by the way? Who knows where Thomas ended up? India, southern India, where he eventually died as a martyr. The only one that we understand who lived to old age was John, the apostle who wrote Revelation and the letters of John and John’s gospel.  All the rest met a grisly end at the hands of the enemies of the gospel.

So in India today there is still a church called the Martoma Church, the Church of Thomas, and they have a very reliable tradition that chases their history back to this bloke, Thomas, whom we’ve read about. He said, Well, I’m going to remain an unbelieving until… But just the sheer physicality of Jesus’ presence. Like, he doesn’t come into the room as Caspar the ghost. You know, remember Caspar the friendly ghost? Yeah, some of you are too young to remember that. You know, Rob Voigt, too young to remember that. But Caspar the friendly ghost, when he ate something, you could see it floating around in his tummy and No, Jesus is not Casper, the friendly ghost. He’s not some disembodied spirit.

He comes wafting into the room like aromatherapy visitor. He comes in a bodily resurrected presence and he says, Touch me. Put your hand into my side. Who would do it? Like, look, I still bear the marks of the crucifixion. Look, I still bear the mark of the spear wound. A spirit, as he says in Luke’s gospel, doesn’t have flesh and bones, as you can see I have. I am a resurrected physical human being called Jesus. And I say to you, peace be with you. You’re not caught out. I see you. I know you. I understand you. I come to you where you are, and I’m not going to leave you where you are. I’m going to transform you so that you will go to the uttermost parts of the earth with me. Not you will go there and I’ll follow along, but I will go there and you will follow me.

So Jesus reenacts the experience of being seen that Hagar had in the wilderness. He reenacts that in the story of the blind man. by the pool of Salaam. He reenacts it here in the story of Thomas. And three times in that brief passage, he says peace. And in the way that the New Testament was written, or the Old Testament too, for that matter, if you see anything repeated three times, it’s the equivalent of putting highlighter,  underlining, bold text and exclamation marks that we might put on a document today. It’s emphasising something exceptionally strongly. Twice he says it to the disciples and then also directly to Thomas. Peace be with you.

And when I come to see you, Jesus says, I come to see not what you think you are, but what you really are. I come not to judge you and to give you a clip around the ears for your lack of faith. I come to bring you so that where I am, you may be also. When you know that you are seen, you see all things differently. including yourself. So when you know that you are seen in that way by God, you see all things differently. See, if you think about being seen in the sense of being caught, God watching out to zap you when you get it wrong, then you’ll either fall into one of two errors.

One error would be to say, Well, thank God I’m not like other sinners. Thank God I’m not like Pastor Adrian here. Thank God I’m not like, you know, the bloke who lives next door, who’s living with someone and he’s not married. Thank God I’m not like the tax collector. You know how the Pharisee goes. And then we sit on our little high horse and we say, well, thank God I’m not like the Pharisee. And of course we are. So you can see yourself wrongly as a righteous person.

Or the law will do the other thing to you and it will crush you under a heel and all you’ll think of is, I’m nothing. I’m not worth anything. Like, why would anyone be interested in me? Like, I’m a piece of chewing gum stuck on someone’s shoe being trodden into the pavement. I’m worthless, I’m useless, I’m hopeless, I’m a stupid fool of a human being.

But when God comes to us, he sees us just as he sees us, not as we see ourselves. He doesn’t see us through that twisted lens of our own self-judgement, our own wrong self-acceptance, our own wrong self-righteousness. He sees us in the eyes of grace; he sees us in the fullness of Christ; he sees us in and with and through and for Christ.

Now Martin Luther said lots of things, some of which were really funny some of which were really horrible and much of which was really good and some of which were really dreadful.  But one of the things he said was that you must take the words “For you” very, very seriously to heart. For you. This is the bread which is given for you. The blood which is shed for you. He sees you. Don’t think about someone next to you. This sermon is not for the person in front of you. For you he comes. He sees you. And Christ comes for you, with you, to you, to be in you, that you may be with him and in him for the Father, in the Father, you.

You who are not a piece of chewing gum stuck on someone’s shoe, and you who might think that you’re righteous, but you’re actually not. He comes to you to bring you to a place where you will know him. See, what did it, how did that reading from John end? These signs are written so that you might believe. That Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God, and that believing you might have life in his name.

And so that sign of the healing of the blind man did what it was supposed to do. The blind man in John chapter 9 came to see that Jesus was the Messiah and he believed and believing he had life in his name. And the outcome in the end is the same for Thomas by a different route. But the same end, he came to see that Jesus is the Messiah and believing that he has life in his name.

I have not come into the world to condemn the world, said Jesus. I have come to save it. I’m not in the world I’m not in the business of slapping people around the ear holes to get them straightened up. I’m in the business of declaring the love of God to them. And here today, he’s in the business of declaring the love of God to you. He sees you today. He sees you. He knows you. He attends to you.

If I may quote, with the pastor’s permission, a Baptist preacher called C.H. Spurgeon. Has anyone heard of C.H. Spurgeon? Greatest preacher of the Victorian age, even though he was a Baptist, we’ll forgive him. Yeah, he’s a wonderful man. But Spurgeon said something like this, When we see that Christ has done everything for us at the Father’s bidding, Does it not enter our heads to ask, does the Father love us even more than his own Son? Think about it. Now, I don’t think there’s any comparative love. He loves us as much as his own Son, in his own Son, for the sake of his own Son, but goodness me, What lengths does he go to, to bring his love to us through his son?

So can you by faith today hear that God sees you and hear that he knows you and believe as Hagar did that he makes promises to you? And that you can say, my Lord and my God, you have seen me. You have known me. And you have loved me. And I trust you. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. but if you’ve seen me and known me and loved me in that way so what did we say the sermon was all about when you see that you are seen you see all things differently including yourself so may the Lord bless these words to our hearts, Amen.

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