Tawa Baptist

Three women and a baby

Scripture: Exodus 2:1-10

Video Link: https://youtu.be/6GXi7kmRR4o

Audio Link: Stream Sermon – 10 May 2026 – Three women and a baby by tawabaptist | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Creative faith
  • Courageous intercession
  • Compassionate leadership
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Today is mothers’ day, a time to honour the women in our lives who have given birth to us, fed us, raised us and cared for us. With this in view our message today focuses on three women who acted in motherly ways. From Exodus chapter 2, verses 1-10, we read…

Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basketfor him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. 5 Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. 7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” 8 “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

There is more than one way to be a mother. In this passage we observe how three women all act as mothers for the same child. Moses’ biological mother exercises creative faith. Moses’ sister exercises courageous intercession and Moses’ adoptive mother exercises compassionate leadership. Let us begin with Moses’ biological mother.   

Creative Faith:

There is a classic puzzle known as the nine dots puzzle. The aim is to link all nine dots using four straight lines without lifting the pen. What you discover (after much time and frustration) is that it’s impossible to do this if you think inside the box.

The only way you can do it is by drawing your lines outside the box. The nine dots puzzle requires outside the box thinking; that is, thinking in a creative way. Moses’ biological mother had a problem which required outside the box thinking. So what was the problem?

Well, the king of Egypt (also known as Pharaoh) had issued a command to all his people, to throw every newborn Hebrew boy into the River Nile.

Pharaoh was basically instigating a policy of genocide or ‘ethnic cleansing’ against the Israelites.  

In the opening verses of Exodus 2, we read how Moses’ mum gave birth in the usual way and she saw that her son was a ‘fine’ child. There are echoes of the creation story here.

In Genesis 1, on the sixth day of creation we read, God saw all he had made and it was very good. The Hebrew word translated as fine, in Exodus 2, is the same word as good, in Genesis 1. Can you see the connection? Moses’ mother looked on her son and saw he was fine (or good), just as God looked on his creation and saw that it was good.

Although God’s name is not mentioned in the story of Moses’ birth, the reader is reminded of the creation story. Just as the Lord brought order to the chaos in the beginning, at creation, so too he is bringing order to the chaos of Pharaoh’s decree to murder Hebrew babies.   

Moses’ biological mother cannot drown her own son, so she hides him as long as she can. This kind of ‘in the box thinking’ was never going to be a permanent solution. It would soon become impossible to keep her child hidden.

Let’s just pause a moment and imagine what life was like for Moses’ parents. Normally, the birth of a child is something to celebrate, but Moses’ mum and dad could not share the good news with anyone.

Presumably, Moses’ mum tried to hide the fact she was pregnant in the first place. Then there was the difficulty of giving birth as quietly as possible, not to mention the constant stress to trying to keep the baby from crying once he was born.

Parenting a newborn baby is difficult at the best of times. Just imagine how exhausted and on edge Moses’ parents must have been trying to protect their son with a death sentence dangling over his head.

Moses’ mum is a smart lady. She knows that hiding her son is not sustainable.

If Moses is to have a chance, she needs to think outside the box, and this is the creative solution she comes up with. Moses’ mum took a basket, covered it with tar to make it watertight and set it among the reeds of the Nile with her baby in it.

Moses’ mum didn’t just throw her son into the deep end to see if he would sink or swim. No. She put him in a water-tight vessel and nestled him in the calm part of the river, among the reeds, where he was likely to be found, hopefully by someone kind.

By doing this, Moses’ mum was exercising creative faith. Creative faith is not blind faith. Creative faith is smart faith, faith that thinks outside the box for the wellbeing of others. Faith that is as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Faith that provides doorways for our kids, giving them the best possible chance in life.

There were no guarantees with the plan. In fact, there was a lot that could go wrong. But it does no good to overthink the things we cannot control. Moses’ mum did everything in her power to give her son the best chance she could, and she gave God an opportunity to act. This is what creative faith does; it gives God options.

Courageous Intercession:

How many here have a younger brother or sister? Being an older sibling comes with responsibility. Indeed, the eldest child in the family normally possesses a stronger sense of responsibility than others. We often find ourselves in a parenting role for our younger siblings. It shapes us.  

Moses’ biological mum was not the only woman who provided care for Moses. Moses’ sister also played a mothering role in her brother’s life by exercising courageous intercession.

Intercession comes from a Latin word that simply means ‘to go between’.

An intercessor intervenes on behalf of another person. Acting as the go between, or the advocate, for someone else. 

Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, was a courageous intercessor. She was vocal in her support of the African American civil rights movement. Eleanor opposed her husband on this issue by becoming one of the only voices in the Roosevelt administration insisting that benefits be equally extended to Americans of all races.

Oskar Schindler (an Austrian born industrialist) was another courageous intercessor. He intervened, not with words but with actions, to save 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust of the Second World War. He did this by creative ‘out of the box’ thinking; employing Jews in his enamelware factory and bribing SS officials to look the other way. 

Eleanor Roosevelt and Oskar Schindler were people of power. Their intercession was courageous in the context of the times, but they interceded from a position of relative privilege. Moses’ sister did not enjoy such power or privilege, which made her intercession all the more courageous.

In verse 4 we read how Moses’ sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to her baby brother. Unlike Cain, who killed his brother Abel, Moses’ sister watched over her brother for good. As an older sibling she had a strong sense of responsibility. She was her brother’s keeper.

When Moses’ sister saw that Pharaoh’s daughter had taken pity on the baby, she found the courage to speak up and intercede for Moses saying, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”  

What an incredibly brave thing to do. Moses’ sister was a lowly slave girl, while Pharaoh’s daughter was among the powerful elite. And yet, Moses’ sister was suggesting to Pharaoh’s daughter that she break the law and go against her father. Moses’ sister could have wound up in a lot of trouble for even talking to the king’s daughter, let alone encouraging civil disobedience. It was a huge risk.  

But Pharaoh’s daughter agreed and Moses’ sister acted as an intercessor, a go between, fetching Moses’ mother. This resulted in Moses’ mother being paid to nurse her own son.  

I invite you to pause and reflect in silence for a moment. Who has interceded for good in your life? Bring that person to mind. How did it make you feel when you learned they had your back? If it’s a good feeling, sit with it for a while.

Is there someone who needs you to intercede for them?

Compassionate leadership:

There is more than one way to be a mum. Moses’ biological mum exercised creative faith, Moses’ sister exercised courageous intercession and Moses’ adoptive mum, the princess of Egypt, exercised compassionate leadership.  

God’s deliverance often comes from unexpected quarters. Pharaoh’s daughter is the one we least expect to save Moses. She is a pagan. She is the daughter of Israel’s arch enemy and she comes from a life of privilege.

We might expect her to be so self-absorbed that she doesn’t even notice the baby. Or, if she did notice him, so blindly loyal to her father that she would leave the child to drown. But this princess’ behaviour topples our prejudice.   

Some commentators observe that God is parallel to Pharaoh’s daughter here.

We wouldn’t naturally associate God Almighty with a princess, much less a pagan princess whose dad is a homicidal maniac. And yet this is what we find in Exodus 2.  

The Lord (Yahweh) is not mentioned in Moses’ birth narrative, but we see his image reflected in the way Pharaoh’s daughter responds to the situation with compassionate leadership.

Verse 6 tells us that when the princess opened the basket and saw the baby crying, she felt sorry for him. This ‘feeling sorry for him’ goes deeper than superficial sentimentality. She demonstrates genuine compassion for Moses.

Compassion is a feeling of empathy which moves a person to an act of mercy. Compassion doesn’t just feel sorry for the poor. Compassion does something to help the poor.

Jesus whole ministry was an act of compassion. In Matthew 9 we read…

35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”  

Jesus didn’t just feel sorry for people. He was moved to heal people and show them a better way to live. The interesting thing here is that Jesus drew others into the work of compassion with him. Indeed, he encourages us to pray for God to send more workers to help with the heavy lifting of compassion.     

In verse 9 of Exodus 2, Pharaoh’s daughter says to Moses’ mother, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.”

Pharaoh’s daughter shows double compassion here. Compassion in saving the baby Moses and also compassion for a struggling Hebrew family. Pharaoh had subjected the Hebrew people to slave labour. But Pharaoh’s daughter does not agree with slavery. She wants to be fair and pay the workers.  

Notice the connection with Jesus here. Just as Jesus invites others to help him in the work of compassion, so too Pharaoh’s daughter draws together a team of people to care for baby Moses.   

Pharaoh’s daughter takes the risk of going against her father’s command and makes a long-term commitment to provide for Moses. She eventually adopts Moses as her own son, thus saving his life. This act of compassionate leadership is, at the same time, an example of courageous intercession.

God is parallel to Pharaoh’s daughter in this chapter. At the end of Exodus 2, we read how the Israelites cried out to God under their slavery and the Lord heard their cry and was concerned for them.    

Just as the princess was moved with compassion by the cry of the Hebrew baby, so too God is moved with compassion by the cry of his people. And just as Pharaoh’s daughter was faithful in adopting Moses as her own son, so too God provides for our adoption through Christ.

In Galatians 4 we read…

4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.  6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

Through faith in Jesus, we are adopted into God’s family. We are royalty. 

The name ‘Moses’ is actually an Egyptian name, probably meaning ‘son’, but it sounds like the Hebrew word, ‘to draw out’. Just as Pharaoh’s daughter drew Moses out of the Nile, so too God will draw Israel out of slavery in Egypt.

Moses’ deliverance, by the hand of Pharaoh’s daughter, foreshadows Israel’s deliverance by the hand of Yahweh.

The princess’ compassionate leadership and courageous intercession remind us that not all the Egyptians are like Pharaoh. We cannot judge a group by one member of that group.

The actions of Pharaoh’s daughter also remind us that God’s people don’t have the monopoly on compassion. God is free to work with and through whoever he wants.

Conclusion:

As is so often the case, the Lord begins his work of redemption quietly, unobtrusively, under the radar, often through the creativity, courage and compassion of those we least expect.

In Israel’s case, God sowed his seeds of salvation through women. We see God’s sense of humour here. There is considerable irony in Pharaoh’s policy of killing the sons and preserving the daughters. As it turned out, the daughters were far more dangerous than the sons. 

May the Lord bless you.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
  2. What are some of the ways a person can be a mother? Who has been a mother to you? 
  3. How is the beginning of Genesis similar to the beginning of Exodus?
  4. What is creative faith? How might you exercise creative faith in your everyday life?
  5. What is intercession? Can you remember a time when someone interceded for good in your life? What happened? How did you feel? Is there someone you can intercede for?
  6. In what ways is God parallel to the daughter of Pharaoh?
  7. What connections do you observe between Moses and Jesus? 

Bibliography:

  • R. Alan Cole, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: Exodus, 1973.
  • George A.F. Knight, Theology as Narration: A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, 1976.
  • Terence E. Fretheim, Interpretation Commentary: Exodus, 1991.
  • Alec Motyer, Bible Speaks Today: Exodus, 2005.
Tawa Baptist

The rich man and Lazarus

Scripture: Luke 16:19-31

Video Link: https://youtu.be/yi8J-TveAQc

Audio Link: Stream Sermon – 26 Apr 2026 – The rich man and Lazarus by tawabaptist | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Jesus’ purpose
  • The rich man and Lazarus
  • The afterlife
  • The rich man and Abraham
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

GPS stands for Global Positioning System. The GPS in your car or phone receives signals from satellites orbiting the earth which allow it to determine the latitude, longitude and altitude of your location within inches.

If your GPS only gave the latitude coordinates, then it wouldn’t be very helpful. You need all three reference points to be able to pin-point your position with accuracy.

Accurately interpreting Scripture is like finding the right GPS location. You need more than one coordinate. A single verse or passage won’t do. Scripture interprets Scripture.

Today we continue our sermon series on the parables of Jesus, this week focusing on the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. Also known as the parable of Dives and Lazarus. ‘Dives’ being the Latin word for ‘rich man’.

Fair warning, the content of this parable may disturb some listeners. It has the quality of a Stephen King movie. It plays on our worst fears about the afterlife.

We need to remember; the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is just one of many stories Jesus told in the gospels. We cannot expect to get an accurate picture of salvation and judgement based on this one parable alone.

That said, from Luke 16, verse 19 we read…

19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. But the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ 25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’ 27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ 29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ 30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

Jesus’ purpose:

The first question we need to ask ourselves is, why did Jesus tell this parable? What was his purpose? Understanding Jesus’ purpose prevents us from going down the wrong path with our interpretation. We discover Jesus’ purpose by looking at the context. The context gives us another coordinate.

In verse 13 of Luke 16, Jesus says: 13 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” 14 The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. 15 He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.

Jesus then goes on to talk about the value and permanence of the law and prophets before telling the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

The immediate context shows us Jesus’ purpose. Jesus told this parable for the Pharisees, who were sneering at him because of his teaching about money.

This parable, therefore, is not about the temperature of hell. It’s about the Pharisees’ attitude to money and their interpretation of what we know as the Old Testament.

The rich man in the parable is a cartoon portrait representing what the Pharisees themselves believed. As you know, cartoon portraits tend to exaggerate certain features of the person being drawn. It appears Jesus is using hyperbole here to make his point.

Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, your interpretation of the law and prophets is wrong and therefore your attitude to money and people is wrong. You don’t value what God values. If you don’t repent, you will end up in a bad place, like the rich man. Let me give you two examples of how the Pharisees misread the Bible.

Firstly, they assumed they were automatically accepted by God because they were Jewish, descended from Abraham. Tough luck if you are not Jewish.

All those filthy gentiles are going to hell. That is severe prejudice, that’s racism, right? But, as we see in Jesus’ parable, being a descendant of Abraham does not help the rich man.

The Pharisees’ reading of the law and prophets also led them to believe (wrongly) that health and wealth are God’s reward for being righteous, therefore the rich and healthy must be righteous in God’s sight. Conversely, those who are sick or poor are being punished by God for their sin.

This belief is still around today. It’s sometimes called ‘cargo cult’ or ‘prosperity doctrine’. Jesus’ parable turns the Pharisees’ beliefs about money upside down.      

The confidence the Pharisees put in their ancestry and their wealth was misplaced.

Okay, so we can see (from the context) that Jesus’ purpose in telling the parable of the rich man and Lazarus is to correct the Pharisees’ misguided interpretation of the law and prophets. Now let’s look more closely at the parable itself.

The rich man and Lazarus:

Of all the parables Jesus told, this is the only one in which a character is named. The rich man is not named. When someone is not named in the Bible, it is often because they don’t deserve to be remembered.

The poor man, Lazarus, is named though. By giving the poor man a name, Jesus is signalling to his audience that Lazarus (even though he is poor and sick) is the hero of the story. Lazarus gets the honour of being remembered.

Lazarus is a Hebrew word which means ‘the one whom God helps’.

At first glance Lazarus’ name may seem ironic, because it does not appear that God is helping Lazarus, at least not in this life.

Lazarus does not enjoy good health. He is covered in sores and apparently cannot walk by himself. Verse 20 says Lazarus is laid at the gate of the rich man, which implies he must be carried. All of this means he cannot work or participate in gathered worship. He is an outcast, obliged to beg for survival.

By contrast, the rich man wears expensive clothes and lives in luxury, fine dining every day. The rich man is well connected.

In many ways Lazarus reminds us of righteous Job who lost everything, through no fault of his own, and ended up sitting by the rubbish heap scraping his sores with a piece of broken pottery. Lazarus does not scrap his sores with pottery, but he does (apparently) make friends with the local dogs who lick his sores.  

Unlike Job though, Lazarus does not complain to the Lord or to anyone else. Lazarus sits in silence. He does not call out for help from the people who pass by him every day on their way to the rich man’s banquets. He says nothing, all the time quietly longing to eat the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table.

But no food comes his way.

According to the internet, 1% of the population in New Zealand own 16% of the wealth. And according to the 2023 census, over 112,000 people (or 2.3% of the population) are severely housing deprived. 14.3% of children live in poverty.  

Growing up in the 1970’s, I don’t recall seeing anyone begging or sleeping rough in New Zealand. Now we see it all the time and we live in a welfare state. How did this happen? How do we turn it around?

There was no state funded welfare system for Lazarus. He was literally on the bones of his bum, dependent on the kindness of others.

The afterlife:

In time Lazarus dies and the angels carry him to Abraham’s side where he is comforted. The rich man also dies but he doesn’t go to the same place as Lazarus. The rich man finds himself in torment.

By the Pharisees’ reckoning the rich man should have been with Abraham, but Jesus turns their belief on its head.

Now, if all we had to go on was this one parable we might think the poor go to paradise when they die and the rich go to hell. Fortunately, the Bible offers other points of reference, other coordinates, that give us a more accurate picture of judgement and salvation.

We know from a wider reading of the Scriptures that the rich man did not go to hades because he was rich. He ended up in hades because he did not love God or his neighbour.

When asked, what is the most important command in the law, Jesus replied:     

30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.”

The rich man loved luxury and fine dining more than he loved God or his neighbour. If he had loved God and his neighbour, he would have trusted God’s word and helped Lazarus in some way. He had the resources and he could see the need. Lazarus was right on his doorstep. But the rich man didn’t seem to care.

By the same token, we know being poor does not give you a free pass to paradise. Abraham was accepted by God because of his faith. In Romans 4, Paul writes: 3 What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

That Lazarus found himself by Abraham’s side in the afterlife shows that Lazarus was justified by his faith in God, just as Abraham was justified by faith. God, who looks at the heart, could see Lazarus’ patient faith, even though Lazarus looked to everyone else like he was rejected by God.

Suffering and poverty, in this life, are not proof of God’s displeasure. Nor is health and wealth proof of righteousness. This life is not always fair.  

Returning to Luke 16, in verse 23 Jesus says the rich man was in torment in hades. Some English translations use the word ‘hell’, but the original Greek says ‘hades’, which is not exactly the same as hell.

What then is hades? According to Greek mythology (which is not supported by the Bible) the souls of the dead went to hades, a place characterised by darkness and gloom (sort of like Wellington on a bad weather day).

The Greeks imagined different zones within hades. For example, a neutral zone, where ordinary souls are kept, neither a place of reward nor punishment. There was also a paradise zone, where heroes and righteous people are rewarded. As well as a zone of torment where evil doers are punished.

Lazarus, it seems, was in the paradise zone with Abraham, while the rich man was in the place or torment.

There is a Greek myth about hades which shares some similarities with Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In this myth, a man by the name of Tantalus did a few things to anger the gods, so they sent him to the torment zone in hades where he was forced to stand in water with a fruit tree above his head.

Whenever Tantalus tried to bend down to drink, the water receded. And whenever he tried to reach up and pluck some fruit from the tree, the branch would spring away. This meant Tantalus was always thirsty in the presence of water and always starving in the presence of food. It is from this myth, about Tantalus, that we get the English word tantalise.   

The rich man’s punishment, in Jesus’ parable, was similar to that of Tantalus. The rich man could see Lazarus in paradise with Abraham and longed for a splash of water to cool his tongue. He was being tantalised.  

Now, just because Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus bears some similarities with aspects of Greek mythology, it does not automatically follow that Jesus endorsed Greek mythology. We know the Greek gods are not real because the Bible tells us there is only one true God, the Lord, Yahweh.

Likewise, we cannot base our understanding of hell on this one parable.

The New Testament employs a variety of different images and metaphors to describe exclusion from the kingdom of heaven.

Sometimes we come across the phrase outer darkness, and other times we are given the picture of a fiery furnace. Jesus also used the image of Gehenna, which was the rubbish dump outside of Jerusalem.

Where does that leave us? Well, if we take the Bible seriously, then we know there is a final judgement and there is a hell. We know hell is a place to avoid, but we cannot say with any certainty what hell is like. Is it a place of eternal conscious suffering? Or is it a place of total annihilation? Or is it a bit of both, some punishment before a second death? There are many theories but honestly, we don’t know.

What we do know, from the Bible and from our own experience, is that God is good. He sees the whole picture and he looks at the human heart. He is just and merciful, slow to anger, full of compassion and rich in love. He won’t treat anyone unfairly. God has provided for our atonement through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Forgiveness is available for all who repent and believe in Jesus.

The rich man and Abraham:

We see God’s fairness worked out in the rest of Jesus’ parable. In verse 24 of Luke 16, the rich man calls out: ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’  

What we notice here is the rich man’s attitude toward Lazarus has not changed. He still thinks of Lazarus as beneath him, someone to be used like a slave or a servant. He doesn’t seem to understand that the social status he enjoyed while he was alive has no currency in the afterlife.

The rich man is willing to put Lazarus in harm’s way just so he can cool his tongue momentarily. The rich man’s sense of entitlement is incredible.

What the rich man should have said was, ‘Lazarus, please forgive me. I’m so sorry’. But he doesn’t. The rich man remains unrepentant.

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.

The thought here is not that people who receive good things in this life are automatically destined to receive bad things in the next life. No. That’s hardly fair. Besides, the reality is we each receive a mixture of good and bad things in this life. The point is, the rich man is being judged by his own standards.

In Matthew 7, Jesus says the measure you use for others is the measure God will use for you. The rich man neglected to care for Lazarus and now he himself is being neglected.

From verse 27 the rich man says to Abraham, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

This is the only glimmer of virtue we see from the rich man. Sadly though, he still fails to see Lazarus as one of his brothers. Yet again, the rich man thinks he can boss Lazarus around like a slave.

Through all of this, Lazarus remains silent. There is no angry outburst from Lazarus. No resentment. Lazarus does not tell Abraham what to do. Lazarus has forgiven the rich man, harbouring no bitterness toward him.

Abraham refuses to send Lazarus back from the dead saying, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

There it is. The law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets make it clear what God wants; for people to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly. The rich man and his brothers have no excuse.

Jesus is telling the Pharisees here that his teaching about how to use money (and everything else for that matter) is in accordance with the law and the prophets. So when the Pharisees sneer at Jesus’ teaching, they are putting themselves at odds with Moses and the prophets.  

Like the Pharisees who keep arguing with Jesus, the rich man continues arguing with Abraham, insisting that if his five brothers see someone rise from the dead, they will repent and be saved. But Abraham is not having a bar of it.

‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”.

How true that turned out to be. When Jesus raised his actual friend, Lazarus, from the dead (in John 11), the Pharisees and other religious leaders did not repent. They became more determined to kill Jesus and Lazarus. That’s how badly they misread the Scriptures.

Conclusion:

So what can we take from Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus?

Here’s three things:

Firstly, what we do in this life has eternal consequences. Our choices matter. When we love God and love your neighbour, money becomes our servant, something we can use to help others. If we don’t love God and our neighbour, money will inevitably become a cruel master that oppresses us and others.

Secondly, when we fail to love God and our neighbour (and we will fail at this), we need to repent and put our faith in Jesus. Salvation is not an entitlement. Getting into the kingdom of heaven is not automatic. God is looking for ways to get us into his kingdom, but we still need to repent and believe in Jesus.

Thirdly, we need to be very careful how we interpret and apply the Bible. Remember, we need more than one coordinate. Scripture interprets Scripture. If we read the Bible in a self-serving way, we risk ending up in a very bad place.

Let us pray…

Jesus, you are our righteousness and our hope. Empower us by your Spirit to love God and love our neighbour as we love ourselves. We ask you to deliver us from evil that we may enjoy fellowship with you forever. Amen.  

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
  2. Why is our interpretation of Scripture important? How can we check that our interpretation (and application) of Scripture is accurate?
  3. How does Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus make you feel? Why do you think it makes you feel this way?
  4. Why did Jesus tell the parable of the rich man and Lazarus?
  5. Why did the rich man end up in a place of torment after he died? Why did Lazarus end up being comforted by Abraham?
  6. What does the rich man’s dialogue with Abraham reveal about the rich man? What does Lazarus’ silence throughout reveal about Lazarus? What does the parable reveal about Jesus and God?
  7. What is your key takeaway from this message? What might you do differently? How might you think differently?  

Bibliography:

  • William Barclay, ‘The Gospel of Luke’, 1965.
  • Leon Morris, ‘Tyndale Commentaries: Luke’, 1976.
  • Fred Craddock, ‘Interpretation Commentaries: Luke’, 1990.
  • Darrell Bock, ‘NIV Application Commentary: Luke’, 1996.
  • Joel Green, ‘New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospel of Luke’, 1997.
  • Kenneth Bailey, ‘Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes’, 2008. 
Tawa Baptist

Fishers of Men (by Pat Hutchison)

Scriptures: John 1:35-42, Luke 5:1-11, Acts 1 & 2

Audio Link: Stream Sermon – 12 Apr 2026 – Fishers of Men (by Pat Hutchison) by tawabaptist | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • The Call
  • The Journey
  • The Fulfilment
  • Conclusion:

Introduction:

Some of us consider we have done Easter, we have had our share of Hot Cross Buns, Easter Eggs and we came to Church twice, so let’s move on,  But wait a minute are we missing something if we end Easter on Easter Sunday?  We celebrate the Resurrection with some amazing songs and there is so much hope.  Something wonderful has happened that changed our world forever, prophecy came true and we have a Risen Saviour who is in the world today.

I want us to pause and take a look at some events before and after the Resurrection. 

What was it really like for the disciples, in particular Simon Peter. 

We will look at: The Call

                              The Journey

                              The Fulfilment

The Call:

It began for Simon Peter with “The Call” We read in John 1:35-42.

The next day John was there with two of his disciples.  When he saw Jesus passing by he said, “Look the Lamb of God!” When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.  Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”). “Where are you staying?” “Come” he replied, “and you will see.” So they went and saw where he was staying and they spent that day with him.  It was about four in the afternoon.  Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.  The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.  Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John.  You will be called Cephas” (which when translated, is Peter).

John had his disciples, it was not uncommon for a Rabbi to have followers – “Come and you will see” was an invitation to follow Jesus, but Jesus was more than a “Rabbi”.   The two disciples left John and followed Jesus. 

Andrew is named as one of the disciples with John and one of the first things he did was to find his brother and tell him “We have found the Messiah (that is the Christ) Andrew brought Simon to Jesus who named him Peter.

Jesus wanted them to be more than followers, they were to become “Fishers of Men”.  In Luke 5:1-11 we read:

One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret (Galilee). The people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God.  He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets.  He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the shore.  Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.  When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch.”  Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.  But because you say so I will let down the nets.”  When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break, so they signalled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.  When Simon Peter saw this he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord, I am a sinful man!”. . .   Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on You will fish for people.” So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed Jesus.

Simon respectfully addresses Jesus as Master but is clearly not happy with the command to go a little deeper and cast his nets.  He tells Jesus that they had worked all night and caught nothing so what was the point of casting their nets again – inferring they were fishermen who knew night was the best time for fishing.  This is one of the first glimpses we get into Peter’s personality – blunt. To the point.  Peter disagreed with the request but nevertheless obeyed. 

The catch was amazing – way more than they could cope with. Peter recognised this as being a miracle, Peter experienced the grace of God and was aware of his sinfulness.  Peter was awestruck.  He is aware that his life is changed and henceforth they will be “Fishers of Men”.

So we are beginning to get a picture of Simon Peter:

  • He is a fisherman
  • He has heard about Jesus
  • He is Andrew’s brother
  • Andrew brings him to Jesus
  • Jesus gave him the name of Peter.
  • He is obedient
  • He speaks his mind
  • He becomes a disciple of Jesus.

The Journey:

This brings us to “The Journey”.  What did the disciples see and learn.  They witnessed the teaching of Jesus, the miracles, the parables, the healings.  How the religious leaders treated Jesus, how the Pharisees were looking for ways to show Jesus was not following the laws of God.  They were there at the feeding of the 5000.  They participated in the sending out of the 12 in pairs.  That was a lot to absorb and process.   Most of the references are “the disciples” but as events are drawing closer to the end of Jesus ministry, we find Peter mentioned by name.

These events give us glimpses of Peter’s personality as well as his belief and understanding of who Jesus was. It is not possible for us to look at everything so I will just focus on a few key events.

Peter experienced a very personal and close experience of the healing power of Jesus.  In Matthew, Mark and Luke Jesus went to Peter’s house with his disciples. When the disciples were in that area they often used Peter’s house as a meeting place, so they were familiar with the house and all who lived there. On this occasion Peter’s Mother in Law was sick with a fever and Jesus touched her.  Immediately she was healed and able to get up and serve her guests. The healing was complete and was a healing of someone close to them. 

There was the time after the Feeding of the 5000 when Jesus sent the disciples ahead of him by boat so he could pray by himself.  The water became rough and in the early morning Jesus came to them – he was walking on the water and the disciples saw him.  They were terrified and said – It’s a ghost. 

Jesus calmed them and assured them it was himself.  Peter replied asking Jesus to tell him to come to him.  Jesus did this and Peter got out of the boat and walked towards him.  Peter was distracted by the wind and began to sink, he cried out to Jesus and Jesus rescued him rebuking him for having little faith.  When they climbed back into the boat the wind died down and the disciples worshiped him saying, You truly are the Son of God.

At the Transfiguration, Jesus takes a small group of the disciples – Peter, James and John up a mountain. They witnessed a vision of Jesus, Jesus was praying and his appearance changed, his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men – Elijah and Moses were with him and spoke of Jesus forthcoming death. Peter and the other disciples were sleepy but became fully aware at the vision in front of them. 

Peter immediately responds by wanting to build booths to house the three figures.  Is this Peter’s impetuousness or does he misunderstand the vision?  God speaks and Peter and the other disciples are awestruck and Elijah and Moses disappear.  Jesus reassures them not to be afraid and when they are coming down the mountain Jesus tells the disciples not to tell anyone what they had seen.

The Transfiguration marks a turning point in Jesus Ministry as from here on everything points towards the Cross. Jesus foretold his death.  Peter responds to this by taking Jesus to one side declaring this will not happen.  We see Peter’s impetuousness come to the fore and Jesus rebukes him. The idea of Jesus dying is difficult for Peter and the disciples to grasp.  Peter has not grasped the full meaning of Jesus as the Messiah and what this means for Jesus. 

Jesus and the disciples are in Jerusalem, it is just before the Passover and Jesus is escalating his preparation of the disciples for what is coming and Peter is continuing to act impulsively.

We have the Washing of the disciple’s feet, Jesus tells of his betrayal by one of them.  Jesus gets up from the meal, takes of his outer garments and begins to wash the disciples’ feet, something expected of a servant, not a leader.  Peter does not want Jesus to wash his feet and Jesus explains the necessity of this.  Peter over reacts and wants Jesus to wash all of him.  Jesus replies and in his explanation tells them there is one present who is not clean and teaches them about servanthood.  This is bewildering to the disciples who could not possibly grasp what is to happen.  It is in this situation that Jesus predicts his betrayal and Judas leaves the group.

Jesus prepares his disciples by telling them he will be with them only a little while longer and giving them the command to Love one another.  By this everyone will know that they are His disciples by their love.  Peter asks, “Where are you going?” Jesus tells Peter that where he is going no one can follow but they will follow later.  Peter vows to lay down his life for Jesus and Jesus answered and predicts that before the rooster crows Peter will disown Jesus three times.

Jesus and his disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus took Peter and two other disciples further into the Garden and told them to wait and watch while he went to pray.  Jesus began to be sorrowful and troubled – he knew what was coming.  Three times they fell asleep while waiting and Jesus tells them his hour has come and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners, Rise:! Let us go! Here comes my Betrayer.

Judas betrays Jesus and Peter reacts with his sword, cutting off the ear of one of the men in the group coming to arrest Jesus.  Jesus rebukes Peter and heals the severed ear.  Jesus is lead away.  Peter and another disciple follow Jesus trying to keep as close as possible to him as they could.  Peter is recognised as being close to Jesus, first by a servant girl and another two times and a rooster crows.

How devastating for Peter who is immediately aware of Jesus prediction and we are told that Peter wept.

We don’t hear much about Peter until after the Resurrection when he sees Jesus along with the other disciples.  Peter and another disciples were told by the women that Jesus was not in the tomb when they came to anoint him, and they saw the empty tomb. Peter was also in the locked room because they were fearful about the rumours circulated by the guards at the grave that the disciples had taken the body from the grave. Jesus appeared to the disciples. 

Peter was fishing and again they caught nothing.  Jesus appeared to them and Peter is again told by Jesus to put down his net and the catch was amazing.  Jesus had breakfast with the disciples and Jesus reinstates Peter, and declares his love for Jesus and Jesus tells Peter to feed his sheep.

From the journey we learn:

  • Peter stayed with Jesus from the time of his call
  • Peter declared Jesus was the Messiah
  • Peter often acted impulsively
  • Peter often misunderstood Jesus
  • Peter was rebuked by Jesus
  • Peter didn’t want Jesus to die and said he would do everything to stop it
  • Peter witnessed the  transfiguration of Jesus
  • Peter denied knowledge of Jesus three times
  • Peter was with the disciples when Jesus appeared to them
  • Peter recognises Jesus when they were fishing after the Resurrection
  • Peter is reinstated by Jesus and given responsibility for the followers of Jesus.

The Fulfilment:

This leads us to the Fulfilment of Jesus bestowing on Peter he was to become a “Fisher of Men”.

The story of Peter continues in the Book of Acts.  He is indeed a Leader and is empowered by the Holy Spirit from being a follower to bringing many into faith and belief in Jesus.  We cannot look at all the accounts of Peter in Acts.

In Acts we read, before Jesus was taken up to heaven, He appeared to the disciples over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.  On one occasion he gave them this command “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.  For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.   You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”.

The Day of Pentecost occurred at the same time as Jews gathered to celebrate The Feast of Harvest, so that explains why there were crowds from many places.  The origins of Pentecost is 50 – it was celebrated 50 days after the Passover and on the eve of 50 days after the Resurrection.

The Holy Spirit came with a great wind and tongues of fire.  They could understand the different languages and people were amazed – some people used the opportunity to say the people were drunk.  We read of Peter addressing the crowd calling on them to Repent and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.  And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off – for all whom the Lord our God will call. We are told about 3000 came to faith that day.  This was indeed the beginning of the Christian Church.

We also learn about Peter healing a lame beggar asking for money by saying “Silver or Gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you.  In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Many who knew this lame beggar were amazed and Peter took advantage of this and preached to the gathered crowd.  Shortly after Peter and John who was with him were arrested and imprisoned after being brought before the Sanhedrin.  This resulted in them speaking the truth despite being threatened into silence.

Healings continued along with persecution but nothing could stop them. The Sanhedrin wanted Peter and John put to death but a Pharisee named Gamaliel spoke to the Sanhedrin telling them to leave them alone saying if their activity is of human origin it will fail.  But if it is God they will not stop these men. They were released after a flogging.  They never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.  And many believed.

Peter was summoned to go to Cornelius a Roman Centurion who is described as devout and God fearing.   Peter had a vision and the result of this is that Gentiles (non-Jews) became Christians and were welcomed into the Community of Believers.  

The story does not end with Acts.  Towards the end of the New Testament we have the Letters of Peter, these are attributed to Peter.

From the Fulfilment we learn

  • Peter was empowered by the Holy Spirit
  • Peter was bold
  • Peter healed a lame man
  • Peter was put into prison for his preaching and teaching
  • Peter was persecuted
  • Peter had a vision
  • Peter took the gospel to the Gentiles
  • Peter left us with the Letters of Peter

Conclusion:

Our faith journey begins with a call and our faith journey has ups and downs with difficult times.  We may not be imprisoned or persecuted but there is suffering involved.  We learn from Peter that when you answer God’s call you don’t become perfect.  You don’t have to strive for perfection.  Faith is always growing – we learn and grow. 

Like Peter we need to keep looking to Jesus – if we take our eyes off Jesus we will sink like Peter. 

We too can become Fishers of Men.  Peter’s brother bought him to Jesus we too can bring our brothers and sisters to Jesus.  We can speak to individuals, we can pray and we can increase God’s Kingdom and so become Fishers of Men.

Let us pray…

Almighty God we have heard about Peter, his call his journey and his fulfilment of being a Fisher of Men.  Help us to be bold like Peter and to become Fishers of Men to bring others into your Kingdom. Amen.

Tawa Baptist

True Religion

Scripture: Matthew 21:10-19

Video Link: https://youtu.be/PqlzG3Y8V8w

Audio Link: Stream Sermon – 29 Mar 2026 – True Religion by tawabaptist | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • The merchants
  • The priests
  • The fig tree
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

At a wedding recently I met a man from Russia. He was telling me how quite often, in Russian wedding ceremonies, the bride and groom seal the deal by stepping on a glass. This might stem from a Jewish custom, I think.

There are generally lots of words in wedding ceremonies, but the act of stepping on a glass is symbolic. It signifies the finality of the marriage commitment. What has been done cannot be undone. Breaking a glass also reminds the couple that the journey of life involves sorrow as well as joy.

This acted-out parable communicates the meaning of the marriage commitment with a power and clarity that goes beyond words.

This morning, we continue our series on the parables of Jesus. Many of Jesus’ parables come to us in the form of the spoken word; stories which, in their own mysterious way, infiltrate the human imagination.

Not all of Jesus’ parables are stories though. Sometimes Jesus demonstrated his parables with symbolic actions that communicated God’s message with a power and clarity that goes beyond words.

With today being Palm Sunday (the beginning of holy week) our message focuses on Matthew 21, verses 12-19. This passage describes at least two acted-out parables of Jesus; symbolic actions performed on the first Palm Sunday, twenty centuries ago. From Matthew 21, verse 12 we read…            

12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” 14 The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant. 16 “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, “‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?” 17 And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night. 18 Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

In Luke 17 (last week’s message), Jesus talked about not causing others to stumble and rebuking those who sin against you. In the reading we just heard, from Matthew 21, Jesus rebukes those merchants and priests who are causing others to stumble, and he rebukes a fig tree for being fruitless.

You have probably heard the phrase, ‘throwing down the gauntlet’. A gauntlet is an armoured glove worn by knights in medieval Europe. A gauntlet protects your hands in battle.

If a knight wanted to challenge another knight to a duel, he would throw his gauntlet at the feet of his opponent. This symbolic act called into question the opponent’s honour and bravery. By picking up the gauntlet the opponent showed he accepted the challenge. If he refused, his honour was degraded.

Over time, ‘throwing down the gauntlet’, has come to mean any sort of action that demonstrates a desire to confront another person.

In Matthew 21, Jesus throws down the gauntlet to the religious leadership in Jerusalem. He is not so much questioning their bravery as he is their integrity. Jesus throws down the gauntlet in a number of ways.

In verses 1-11, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, surrounded by pilgrims who are shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’. This is an acted-out parable; it is Jesus’ way of announcing himself as Israel’s Messiah. It is also a challenge to those in authority in Jerusalem. Will they submit to Jesus as King or will they resist?

The merchants:   

Jesus’ first act, after arriving in the holy city, is to drive out the merchants and money changers from the temple courts. This is another way of throwing down the gauntlet.   

Jesus is demonstrating (through an acted-out parable) how God feels about business being carried out in the temple. Clearly, the Lord is not happy. 

Jesus is not flying off the handle in a fit of rage. His actions are considered, intentional, surgically precise and fair. Jesus is motivated by love for God and love for his neighbour.

Now the merchants were carrying out a necessary service to facilitate worship. They were selling doves and livestock for pilgrims to sacrifice to God in the Jerusalem temple. Likewise, the money changers were exchanging foreign currency for the right kind of currency. So why does Jesus drive them out of the temple courts?

In verse 13 the Lord provides Scriptural warrant for his behaviour by quoting from the Old Testament prophets. First Isaiah, then Jeremiah. When Jesus says: “It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’”he is quoting from Isaiah 56, where we read…

3 Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.” …4 For this is what the Lord says:foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant—7 these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

The prophet Isaiah gives us a vision of inclusion here. Jesus came to fulfil this vision. God’s purpose was for Israel to be a light to the other nations of the world. God wanted the nation of Israel to be a picture of what his kingdom is like. The other nations of the world were to learn about God from Israel.

With this in view, the temple was designed with an area for Gentiles (non-Jews) to come and seek the God of Israel. However, Gentiles could not go past their designated area in the temple courts. It was a case of, ‘you may come this far and no further’.

The merchants and money changers were plying their trade in the court of the Gentiles, which essentially made it impossible for people of other nations to draw near to God, in prayer.

By clearing the merchants out of the temple courts, Jesus was welcoming people of all nations. He was making room for prayer and reminding Israel of God’s purpose.

In Matthew 27, when Jesus gave up his spirit on the cross, we read how the curtain hanging in the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. This is a sign of what Jesus’ death accomplished. We now have direct access to God through Jesus, whatever our ethnicity. We no longer need a temple building.

Jesus’ rebuke, of the merchants, that they were making the temple a den of robbers, comes from the prophet Jeremiah. In Jeremiah chapter 7 we read…

9 “‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? 11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.

In Jeremiah’s day (centuries before Jesus) many people hid their evil deeds behind the cloak of respectable religion. They gathered for worship on Saturday and carried out the prescribed rituals, but the rest of the week they disobeyed the ten commandments.    

Their religion was false and God was not having it. After centuries of warning, the Lord allowed the Babylonians to attack Jerusalem and destroy the temple built by Solomon, killing thousands and forcing the rest into exile.     

By quoting Jeremiah and referring to the merchants as ‘robbers’, Jesus is implying they were ripping the people off, exploiting them financially.

More than this, Jesus was throwing down the gauntlet; he was challenging the integrity of those who ran the temple system. They were no better than the people of Jeremiah’s day. God had allowed Israel’s enemies to destroy the temple once and he would do it again if necessary.

How then does Jesus’ clearing of the temple apply to us today? Let me offer two applications…

Firstly, our faith (our religion) needs to have integrity. It needs to be true.

We live with integrity by practicing what we believe. Coming to church on Sunday won’t cut it if we are not obeying Christ the rest of the week as well. We need to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.

In order to live with integrity, we need to clear time and space in our cluttered lives to pray and nurture our relationship with God. The goal is to be fruitful for God’s glory and we can only be fruitful when we abide in Christ.

In some African cultures, so I’m told, there’s a tradition of sitting outside someone’s house to say thank you. No words are spoken; the person simply sits. The longer you sit, the greater the thanks.

If you were to do that in kiwi culture it would seem weird, like you were stalking the person. But in some African cultures, this gesture expresses gratitude with a power and clarity that goes beyond words.  

How do you carve out time to be with Jesus? Prayer isn’t just asking God for stuff. Sometimes prayer is like sitting outside God’s house, offering our time in silent contemplation and gratitude for who he is and what he has done.

The priests:

Jesus’ rebuke of the merchants in the temple courts is really a rebuke of the religious leaders who allowed them to be there in the first place. It is to the priests we turn now. 

After clearing the temple, the blind and lame came to Jesus and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.

Jesus’ healing of the blind and lame within the temple is its own kind of acted-out parable. Jesus’ symbolic actions show us what a temple is for. A temple is place of prayer. A place where people are reconciled to God and made whole.

A place where vision and perspective are restored and people find the means to walk without a crutch. It is also a place where God is praised.

Jesus replaces the temple building. We find salvation and hope in Christ.

Jesus is our temple, our holy place where we are reconciled to God.   

Ironically, the chief priests and scribes show themselves to be spiritually lame and blind. Jesus would have healed them too, but they didn’t want this.

They were too busy being indignant. Indignant just means angry.   

Hosanna literally means ‘save us now’ and Son of David is code for the Messiah, God’s anointed King. The children can see that Jesus is the Messiah come to save them, but the religious leaders cannot see what is staring them in the face, even with all the miracles Jesus is performing.

What was it Jesus said in Matthew 5? Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The children are pure in heart; they can see God at work in and through Jesus. The religious leaders are not pure in heart. They are blind.   

The priests question Jesus saying, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” They think Jesus should be silencing the children’s praise. But Jesus does not silence the children. Again, Jesus quotes Scripture to his opponents (much like he did with Satan in the wilderness).

The Lord says, “Yes,” [I do hear what they are saying] “have you never read, “‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?”    

Of course they have read it. This comes from Psalm 8. Far from silencing the children’s praise, Jesus is holding up the children as an example for the religious leaders to follow. Talk about throwing down the gauntlet. But the religious leaders don’t pick up the challenge. They have no response for Jesus.

So the Lord retires to Bethany for the night. Bethany is about two miles outside of Jerusalem on the side of the Mount of Olives. Jesus is making time and space to be alone with God. I imagine Jesus was sitting outside God’s house in silent contemplation and gratitude for what God has done in revealing his glory to little children.       

The fig tree:

Okay, so given the corruption and dodgy dealings in the Jerusalem temple we can understand why Jesus rebuked the merchants and the priests. But what was his beef with the fig tree?

From verse 18 of Matthew 21 we read: 18 Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.

Fig trees, in the Middle East, bear fruit twice a year. Usually in June and then again in September. We know for a fact that Jesus came across this fig tree in early April, because it was a week before the Jewish Passover festival.

The tree was not supposed to bear fruit for another three months and yet Jesus speaks to it in such a way that it withers. That doesn’t seem fair. We are not used to that sort of carry-on from Jesus. Was the Lord just a bit hangry? (Someone get Jesus a Snickers.) Well, no. Jesus’ encounter with the fig tree was an acted-out parable.

According to Joel Green[1] (and other Bible experts) fig trees bear an early crop of bitter and immature male figs called ‘taksh’ which drop off before the proper fruit comes in June. Taksh is sometimes eaten by the poor, but it doesn’t taste very nice.

If a fig tree doesn’t bear the immature taksh, then it won’t bear proper fruit in June or September. Jesus could tell the fig tree was barren because it had no taksh on it. The leaves were also misleading. Normally, a fig tree with leaves promises fruit. The leaves of this fig tree though were like false advertising.   

Jesus was not condemning a perfectly good tree that would have fruited in due course. The tree had already condemned itself by being fruitless.

The fig tree (like the grape vine) was symbolic of the nation of Israel. (Sort of like the maple leaf is symbolic of Canada and the silver fern is symbolic of New Zealand.)

With this imagery of the fig tree in mind, the Old Testament prophets[2] used the withering of fig trees as a symbol of God’s judgement on Israel.

Jesus’ encounter with the fig tree, therefore, was an acted-out parable of God’s judgement on Israel for practising empty (fruitless) religion. It was a symbolic action that communicated God’s message with a power and clarity that goes beyond words.

To the casual observer the Jerusalem temple system looked good, but it lacked substance. The fruit that God wanted (of justice, mercy and humility) was not there. Indeed, the religious leaders were plotting to murder Jesus, the Messiah of God.

The withered fig tree was a prophetic sign of what was going to happen to the Jerusalem temple. In AD 70, some decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection, Jewish nationalism provoked the Romans to lay siege to Jerusalem and destroy the temple building and many lives with it. Jesus’ prediction came true.

It’s important to understand that in giving this prophecy, Jesus held no malice in his heart. Grief, yes, but not hatred. Just a day before, when he entered Jerusalem, Jesus wept over the city as Jeremiah did before him.  

We come across another parable featuring a fig tree, in Luke 13. In the context, Jesus was telling people they needed to repent or perish. From verse 6 we read

6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ 8 “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

In this spoken parable, Jesus highlights God’s grace in giving people more time to repent. God does not want to destroy. He would rather redeem. But we must not presume upon God’s grace. If we don’t bear the fruit of repentance, God will bring us to a just end.

The religious leaders had plenty of opportunity to repent. John the Baptist came before Jesus saying: the axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

Then Jesus came preaching a gospel of repentance and performing miracles, for three years. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, the nation of Israel would be given another 40 years of Christian witness before the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. Sadly, many missed their opportunity.

Conclusion:

Jesus’ acted-out parables of clearing the temple and declaring the fig tree fruitless, are a call to God’s people down through the ages, to practice true religion. The kind which bears the fruit of justice, mercy and humility. We can only do this by God’s grace and the power of Jesus’ Spirit.

Let us pray…

Loving God, we have sinned in thought, word and deed. We have sinned in ignorance and by our own deliberate fault. We have been unfair to you and unfair to others. Forgive us we pray. Help us, by your Spirit, to walk in freedom and righteousness. Through Jesus we ask. Amen. 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
  2. What acted-out parables (or symbolic actions) have you participated in? What meaning do these convey?
  3. Why did Jesus drive out the merchants from the temple courts? What was he communicating through this acted-out parable? How does Jesus’ clearing of the temple apply to us today? How might it apply to you personally?
  4. Discuss / reflect on Jesus’ references to Isaiah 56 and Jeremiah 7. How did these prophecies relate to the people/temple of Jesus’ day? How might they relate to our situation today?
  5. What is the purpose of a temple? Why is a temple building no longer necessary? Who fulfils the purpose of the temple for us?
  6. How do you carve out time to be with Jesus? What does your prayer life look like? Do you make room to sit and consider God’s goodness and grace?
  7. Why does Jesus say to the fig tree, “May you never bear fruit again!”? What does the withering of the fig tree signify?
  8. What does it look like to bear the fruit of repentance? Is there anything you sense God wants you to repent of? Take time this week to make things right with the Lord.

Bibliography:

  • R.V.G. Tasker, ‘TNTC: The Gospel According to St Matthew’, 1963.
  • William Barclay, ‘Gospel of Matthew Vol. 2’, 1967.
  • Michael Green, ‘BST: The Message of Matthew’, 2000.
  • Craig Keener, ‘The Gospel of Matthew – A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, 2009.
  • R.T. France, ‘NICNT: The Gospel of Matthew’, 2007.

[1] Refer Green, page 223

[2] C.f. Isaiah 34:4 and Jeremiah 8:13.

Tawa Baptist

The Shrewd Manager

Scripture: Luke 16:1-9

Video Link: https://youtu.be/3PdGt4m0G2M

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • The shrewd manager
  • The noble master
  • The not so shrewd disciples
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

In Matthew 10, as Jesus is commissioning his disciples for a short-term mission trip, he says to them: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”  

Shrewd is a word which means clever, smart, astute, sharp-witted, intelligent.  

The world is sometimes hostile to the Christian message, therefore we who are believers need to be shrewd or street smart. We need to manage ourselves well, without doing harm. We need spiritual insight to navigate the society we live in, without compromising our faith in Christ.   

Today we continue our series on the parables of Jesus. Last Sunday Sam Barris spoke on the parable of the Good Samaritan, in Luke 10. This week our focus is the parable of the Shrewd Manager, in Luke 16, (also known as the parable of the unjust steward).

The parable of the unjust steward could be summed up by Jesus’ instruction to “be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves”, although the emphasis in this parable is on being as shrewd as snakes. From Luke 16, verse 1, we read…

Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’ 3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’ 5 “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 “‘Nine hundred gallonsof olive oil,’ he replied. “The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’ 7 “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’ “‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied. “He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’ 8 “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

There are two main characters in this parable: the shrewd manager and the noble master. Listening to the parable are the not so shrewd disciples.

Let us begin with the shrewd manager.

The shrewd manager:

They say survival depends mostly on the top two inches. If you are lost in the wilderness, you will make it out alive if you are shrewd, if you have the right mindset and an astute awareness of your environment.

In practical terms, this means staying calm and accepting the reality of your situation. Denial wastes time and energy. The sooner you recognise what’s really happening, the sooner you can get clarity on your next steps.

Clarity on your next steps comes with focusing on what you can control and setting priorities accordingly. One of the first things you need to prioritise is building a shelter. You can go weeks without food, but if it’s cold and wet and you don’t have shelter you might not make it through the night.     

The parable of the shrewd manager comes straight after the parable of the prodigal son. Both parables share some similarities.

Each has a noble master and a wayward character who wastes their master’s money. Indeed, the word ‘prodigal’ means to be extravagant, reckless with money or wasteful. The shrewd manager is essentially a prodigal manager.

Both wayward characters have a reality check. They reach a crisis point, an ‘aha’ moment about themselves, when they come to their senses. Once they accept the reality of their situation, they find clarity on a way forward.

And, in both parables, there is a merciful outcome. Each of the wayward characters is saved by the extraordinary grace of their master.

These two parables are not the same in every way though. Jesus told the parable of the Prodigal Son primarily for the Pharisees, that they would rejoice in the fact that he (Jesus) had come to seek and save the lost.

In contrast, Jesus told the parable of the Shrewd Manager for the benefit of the disciples, that they would not be naive but would be street smart and awake to the reality at hand.

The parable of the Shrewd Manager assumes a scenario that Jesus’ Middle Eastern audience would have been familiar with. A rich landowner who leased his land to farmers who paid rent by giving the landowner a portion of their harvest.

In Luke 16, verse 1, the rich man learns that his manager has been wasting his possessions, so he calls the manager in, fires him on the spot and orders him to hand over the books.

Interestingly the manager does not argue with his master. When the master asks him, ‘What is this I hear about you?’, the manager is silent. The manager is shrewd. He doesn’t react defensively in the moment. He stays calm.

The manager can see he is in a precarious position. His survival is at stake.

To argue his innocence or offer excuses, when he does not have a leg to stand on, would only escalate the situation and further aggravate the master. Best to exercise his right to remain silent while he gathers his thoughts.  

After leaving his master’s presence, the manager has a reality check. He says to himself (in verse 3), ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg…

This is a moment of crisis for the manager. To his credit he harbours no illusions about himself. He quickly comes to his senses and faces the facts. Shrewd people may be a bit crafty in their dealings with others, but they know better than to deceive themselves.   

The manager does not worry about what he cannot control. He focuses on what he can do in the situation. He prioritises shelter. His plan is to make his master’s debtors will feel obligated to take him in once his job is gone.

If he does them a favour, perhaps they will employ him or at the very least provide him with hospitality for a while.  

The shrewd manager wastes no time. He calls his master’s debtors in and (one by one) he reduces their debts significantly.

To the first he says, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 “‘Nine hundred gallonsof olive oil,’ he replied. “The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

Four hundred and fifty gallons of oil was worth about 18 months’ wages. It was a very large sum.  

To the second debtor the manager says, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied. “He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

The first debtor got a 50% reduction and the second debtor got a 20% reduction. However, twenty bushels of wheat (at that time) was roughly the same value as 450 gallons of oil (about 18 months’ wages). Again, it is a very large sum.

There were other debtors, no doubt, each getting a generous discount on their invoices, but Jesus only mentions two. Two is enough to give the idea.    

Now the debtors don’t realise the manager has already been given the sack and is no longer authorised to write off their debt. The manager has very shrewdly given the debtors what we might call ‘plausible deniability’.

Publicly the debtors would be able to say, ‘I had no idea the manager had been fired. I thought he was authorised to make the reductions’.

But, given the manager’s reputation for shrewdness, the debtors might also be thinking, ‘This is a bit too good to be true. I have a feeling the manager is going to want his cut’. So privately the debtors might be expecting to split some of their savings with the manager afterwards.

The manager very shrewdly gets the debtors to write the reduction in their own hand. This shows the master the debtors are aware of the reductions making it a lot more difficult for the master to change the figures back without losing face. [1]

Okay, so that gives us a picture of the manager’s shrewdness. The manager knows how to survive. He stays calm. He quickly accepts the reality of his situation. He focuses on what he can control and he prioritises shelter.

That said, he has still taken a huge risk. The manager has been extremely generous with the master’s money. What if the manager has pushed it too far? What if the master decides he’s not having this? The master is well within his rights to send the manager to prison for fraud or sell the manager and his family as slaves to recoup his losses. It is to the master we now turn.

The noble master:    

The master is described by Jesus (in verse 1) as rich. This raises the question of the character of the master. Is he rich because he is ruthless or is he more community minded in how he uses his wealth, more noble?

At times, in the gospel of Luke, the rich are cast in a dim light. For example, in Luke 6 Jesus says: “Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.” This in contrast to the poor who are blessed because the kingdom of God is theirs. (Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus, at the end of Luke 16, illustrates this thought.)

But the rich are not always cast in the role of the villain. Elsewhere in the gospels, Jesus makes a rich man the hero of his stories. For example, the father in the parable of the prodigal son is rich but also very gracious in welcoming home his wayward son. Likewise, the vineyard owner (in Matthew 20), who pays all his workers the same, is rich but also very generous, a good guy.

The point is, being rich does not automatically equate to being bad, just as being poor does not automatically equate to being good. We know from our own experience people are more complex than that.

When Jesus said, ‘woe to the rich’ and ‘blessed are the poor’, he was making a point: the values of God’s kingdom are very different from the values of this world. What we think of as fortunate or blessed is not what God thinks of as fortunate or blessed. Indeed, there is a startling reversal of fortunes with the coming of God’s kingdom. The first shall be last and the last shall be first.   

The rich man (the master) in the parable of the shrewd manager is portrayed as noble. He appears to be liked and respected by others in his community.

The parable begins with the manager being accused of wasting his master’s possessions. If the rich man wasn’t decent, the community would not be warning him that his manager was up to no good.    

But there are other clues to the master’s noble character as well. In verse 2 we note the master acts in a way that is both just and merciful. We see the master’s justice in that he does not ignore the manager’s immoral behaviour. He calls the manager to give account.

Among other things, the parable of the shrewd manager reminds us that a day of judgement is coming. God is like the noble master, and we are like the manager. Everything we have, all our possessions, all our time, our talents and energy, our very lives, it all belongs to God our master.

We are merely stewards, managers, kaitiaki of what God has entrusted to us. One day God will call us to give account for how we have used what he has entrusted to us. One day we will have to hand in the ledger of our lives.

How are we using the freedom and resources at our disposal? Are we using our money and time and skill in service of God’s purpose? Or are we wasting it, squandering it, using it to our own advantage?   

As well as being just and not letting his manager carry on wasting his resources unchecked, we also note the master’s mercy and grace. The master was well within his rights to demand the manager repay the losses.

If you have a company credit card and you exceed your budget, running up expensive lunches and luxury travel on the card, you expect your employer to not only fire you but also demand repayment of the excess and probably take you to court.

But the noble master in this parable does not require the manager to repay his debt. He knows the manager cannot afford it. After giving the manager an opportunity to explain himself, and getting no response, the master simply fires the manager on the spot. The manager has got off lightly because his master is merciful as well as just.     

Another clue to the master’s noble character is found in how the manager responds to being fired. The manager’s survival strategy hinges on his belief that the master is noble.

If the master was a ruthless man, a scrooge type character, the manager would not have risked further aggravating his master by discounting the debtors’ accounts. The manager knows his master is kind and generous and that’s why he thinks his plan will probably succeed, which it apparently does.

The manager’s strategy is brilliantly shrewd. By reducing people’s debts, the manager has made his master look like a generous hero in the eyes of the whole community.

The master chooses to show extravagant grace to the manager once again and does not contest the reductions. This act of grace for the manager is also an act of grace for the whole community. Everyone wins at the master’s expense. [2]

Does this remind you of anyone? Jesus perhaps?

In verse 8 we read how the master commended the dishonest manager because he acted shrewdly.  

The master praises the manager, not for being dishonest, but for being clever and brave. Jesus is not giving his disciples license to act fraudulently or immorally here. Remember, Jesus’ disciples are to be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. The manager in the parable was certainly shrewd, but he was not innocent.    

The not so shrewd disciples:

Jesus seems to lament the fact that his disciples are not so shrewd. In the second part of verse 8 the Lord says: For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.

In other words, Jesus wants us (his disciples) to be smart in doing what is right. When we face adversity or crisis in this world, Jesus wants us to respond with creativity, like the shrewd manager. Jesus wants us to use our initiative, our street smarts, to manage ourselves well and advance the gospel. He wants us to trust wholeheartedly in the goodness of God.

How might we be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves?

Let me give you some examples from Scripture of what this looks like …

Rahab the prostitute acted shrewdly when the Israelites surrounded the city of Jericho. She protected the Jewish spies and made a deal with them for her own protection. Rahab is one the heroes of faith listed in Hebrews 11.

Nathan, the prophet, was shrewd in how he confronted king David.

After David committed adultery with Bathsheba, Nathan flew under the radar; he got through David’s defences with a parable about a rich man who stole a poor man’s lamb. And when David reacted in anger at the rich man, Nathan said to him, ‘You are the man’.    

Zacchaeus, the tax collector, was a shrewd manager. When Jesus invited himself to Zaccahaeus’ house for dinner, Zacchaeus saw his opportunity and declared he would give away half his possessions to the poor. Zacchaeus was being generous with God’s money, and Jesus commended him for it.

The apostle Paul was a shrewd operator too. When he was arrested without just cause, he used the opportunity provided by his arrest (and his Roman citizenship) to appeal to Caesar, so he could speak to the emperor about Jesus and thus advance the gospel.

In verse 9 Jesus goes on to say: I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

In the same way the manager had to prepare for his future because he was about to lose his job, so too we need to think about our eternal future.

This life won’t last forever and when it ends, we can’t take our money with us. If we are smart, if we are shrewd, we will invest our money in that which lasts.  

And what lasts beyond this life? Faith, hope and love conceived by the gospel of Christ.   

Let us pray…

Gracious God, grant us the wisdom and courage we need each day. Make us clever and kind in communicating your goodness and truth. Through Jesus we pray. Amen.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
  2. Discuss / reflect on Jesus’ parable in Luke 16:1-9. Who did Jesus tell this parable for? Why did Jesus tell this parable?
  3. What does it mean to be shrewd? In what ways does the manager in Jesus’ parable demonstrate shrewdness?
  4. Can you think of a time in your own life when you were faced with a real crisis? What happened? How did you respond / survive the crisis? 
  5. What clues do we find in the text that indicate the master is noble? In what ways is the master like Jesus?
  6. How might we be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves when communicating the gospel message? Can you think of examples of what this looks like from Scripture or from your own experience?
  7. How are you using the freedom and resources God has entrusted to you?  

Bibliography:

  • William Barclay, ‘The Gospel of Matthew’, 1967.
  • R.V.G. Tasker, ‘Tyndale Commentaries: St Matthew’, 1963.
  • Michael Green, ‘BST: The Message of Matthew’, 2000.
  • Craig S. Keener, ‘The Gospel of Matthew’, 2009.
  • R.T. France, ‘New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospel of Matthew’, 2007.
  • Kenneth Bailey, ‘Poet and Peasant’, 1983.
  • Kenneth Bailey, ‘Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes’, 2008. 

[1] Refer Kenneth Bailey

[2] Refer Bailey, Poet & Peasant

Tawa Baptist

The Good Samaritan (by Sam Barris)

Scripture: Luke 10:25-37

Good morning everyone. Today I’ll be carrying on Will’s current theme of Parables. We’re going to be looking at the Good Samaritan today – a parable that stems from a question asked of Jesus from an expert in religious law.

We’re going to look at the questions he asked, how Jesus responds, what that meant for the people at the time, and what that means for us now. Let’s begin with reading the parable in Luke chapter 10 v 25 – 37.

One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”

The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’”

“Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”

The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”

Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.

“Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.

“Now which of these three would you say was a neighbour to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked.

The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.”

Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”

When I was being toilet trained, my parents struck up a deal with me. Every time I went to the toilet and undertook the necessary actions, I would receive one M&M. I agreed, so we wrote up the contract, and the M&M deal was on.

After reviewing the contract however, I noticed a loophole. Fantastic. The deal had specified exactly what I said, “Every time I went to the toilet and undertook the necessary actions, I would receive one M&M.”. It didn’t say anything about undertaking the necessary actions to completion.

I would go to the toilet a little bit, if you understand what I mean, retrieve my agreed upon reward, and then go back to the toilet to do a little bit more, expecting to retrieve the same reward straight away again. From what I’ve been told, it worked at first but my parents were not pleased with me exploiting this loophole so it did not last.

Of course, my main objective here was to obtain as many M&Ms as possible. I was also really asking the question “What’s the least I can get away with here and still obtain my reward?”.

We see the same thinking from the lawyer in this section. The first question he asks of Jesus is, “What should I do to inherit eternal life?”. This gives us a good understanding of how he views Jesus’ teachings to this point. He sees the way to eternal life as a tickbox exercise “If I just do this handy list of things, I’m in – job done.”.

It makes sense, he’s a lawyer – all you’ve gotta do is follow these rules and you’re good to go. This isn’t quite how inheritance works however – an inheritance is received, it’s not earned.

Jesus replies with a question, directing him to the laws he knows this man is already aware of. “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”. How do you read it is an interesting question. He doesn’t just ask him to quote it word for word, Jesus is asking him how he understands and interprets it, maybe as far as how do you choose to live this out?

The lawyer then answers by quoting parts of Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind” And “Love your neighbour as yourself”.

He’s nailed it, what a great answer! He describes loving God in all ways – not just a nice feeling but how you live out your life – day to day. As he quotes, loving God goes hand in hand with loving your neighbour as well.

Jesus agrees, a great answer! He says “Right! Do this and you will live!”.

The lawyer then follows up with a question that shows – while he may have fantastic theological knowledge, his desire to live it out fully might not quite be there. There’s a big gap between his knowledge and understanding of the law and how he chooses to act on that.

“Who is my neighbour?” he asks. Luke says that he asks this to justify his actions, not in hoping that he’ll be given the opportunity to show love to more and more people around him, but rather the opposite. He wants to cut down his list of requirements to the bare minimum. He wants to prove he already meets this requirement, job done. He’s asking how can I narrow my obligations and still receive the same reward? Eternal life sounds pretty great, I’m up for that. Let me just check it’s not going to be too much of an inconvenience though.

Some people close to me are so easy to love, I’m completely fine with them being my neighbour. Some others though…. They don’t quite agree with me on everything, maybe they even don’t like me. Surely, I don’t need to show them the same love as those in my inner circle, for example.

Often when I’m reading the Bible and I’m reading passages about religious leaders testing Jesus, trying to cut him and his teachings down, or attacking him for breaking their laws, I read them as the villains of the story. Here’s Jesus who we love, sharing the Good News, and these religious experts come in and just don’t get it – they’re on the bad side, trying to shut down Jesus, the hero of the story.

When I read about this religious lawyer, he’s quite relatable to be honest. I don’t want him to be relatable, but I find myself asking the same question regularly. Whether it’s toilet training or something a bit more recent – reaching out to a friend, giving up my time, energy, and resources to provide for others, putting in my best efforts at work, being a loving friend, brother, flatmate, leader. What’s the minimum I can do to pass? Do I have to put in this level of effort for everyone?

Let’s read again how Jesus responds. Jesus replied with a story:

“A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’ “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbour to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked. The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”

Hearing this parable in 2026 has quite a different meaning to it than how the Jewish audience were hearing this story when Jesus told it for the first time.

A lot of the depth is lost on us at first – it becomes a nice story of how we should show acts of kindness and not walk past those in need. That in itself is great and important but the cultural impact of this story at the time ran a lot deeper.

Firstly, Jesus introduces us to a Jewish man who is travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was an infamously dangerous road. It was isolated, steep and rocky – descending 4000 feet through narrow, winding canyons that provided great hiding spots for bandits. It had a bad and unsafe reputation but from all we’ve been told, this man is travelling it by himself. Living up to the reputation of the road, the man is attacked, robbed, beaten, and left to die on the side of the road.

We then see a Priest and a temple assistant come across this man in need and walk right past him. There’s an expectation here, that the Jewish audience would have had as well, that these are the exact people who would help out this man in need. It’s even possible that the priest was very wealthy, travelling with a group, plenty of resources available to help here.

I spent some time trying to work out the reasoning or justification these people would have to ignore this man especially given their titles and roles in the temple. Some commentaries said that the priest would have been thinking about becoming ceremonially unclean if they touched this person (if he was dead) or that they only had an obligation to help Jewish people and there was no way of knowing this beaten man’s cultural or ethnic origin so why risk it?

There were all these ideas flying around as to their motivation to just walking past but after looking at it for a bit, I realised it probably doesn’t actually matter. Jesus doesn’t focus at all on their motivation or justification behind this. The sole focus is on their actions and what they chose to do when faced with this opportunity to help – they walked right past.

When we’re faced with situations where we have an opportunity to help those in need, do we focus on the action we need to take or our reasons for not helping? We might be quite tired, we don’t think we’re the best person to support, we might have enough going on to deal with ourselves. Those can all be true but whether our inaction is justified someway or it isn’t – it is still inaction. Our rationalisation of this does nothing more to support the person who is in need.

What Jesus was doing in introducing these two characters in the Priest and the temple assistant was setting the Jewish audience up for the big plot twist. This is where some of the cultural context may not pack the same punch for us as it did for them at the time. Jesus has established a narrative direction here – we’ve started with a priest, next we’ve got a temple assistant, who’s next? The audience here are probably anticipating an Israelite/a regular Jewish person.

That would have been an obvious and clear next person, based on the structure of their society at the time. There would have been genuine shock when a despised Samaritan became the hero of this story.

When you hear the word Samaritan, what do you think? I would be very surprised if you didn’t automatically think of this story we’re talking about today. In fact, the term “Good Samaritan” is a common term today for someone who selflessly helps someone in need. Being called a Good Samaritan today is a great compliment. We even have a charity here called Samaritans Aotearoa. They are a charity that provides a 24/7 crisis help line where volunteers pick up the phone and support people who call through whether they’re lonely, suicidal, depressed, distress or just going through a bad time. The impact of this story over time has moulded the meaning of the word Samaritan into something incredibly positive.

This was really not what the word represented when Jesus told this parable. There was a huge cultural divide between Jewish people and Samaritan people. Jews despised Samaritans largely because of historical, ethnic and religious divisions. When Israel fell to Assyria, foreign people settled in the region and intermarried with the remaining Israelites, creating a group Jews later saw as religiously compromised – or Samaritans which you can read about in 2 Kings 17.

By Jesus’ time, the hostility was so strong that Jews and Samaritans typically avoided each other. We see examples of this in the book of John. Firstly, on a separate occasion to this, Jesus and Jewish religious leaders are debating and, in an attempt to discredit him, they say to him in John 8:48: “You Samaritan devil! Didn’t we say all along that you were possessed by a demon?”. Calling him a Samaritan here is meant as a derogatory term, implying he is religiously corrupt or outside true Jewish faith, and they pair it with accusing him of being demon-possessed to completely undermine his authority.

Secondly, the divide is made clear when Jesus was speaking to a Samaritan woman at a well. When Jesus asks her for a drink, she is shocked because Jewish men normally would not speak with a Samaritan woman at all saying “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?”.

This gives an idea of how the Jewish audience would be reacting to this new character introduction – a Samaritan man? This can’t be good. What happens next though? “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’

There are a lot of justifiable reasons for the Samaritan man to walk past, just like the priest and the temple assistant did. In fact, he probably has a lot more reasons to simply carry on his journey. Firstly, this Jewish man was travelling by himself on a dangerous road. He put himself into this situation, right? He clearly wasn’t well prepared or made some bad decisions that got him to this point.

Secondly, this man is Jewish remember. We have a pretty good idea of what he might think of a Samaritan man coming to his aid.

Thirdly, what if this was a trap? An ambush? The same bandits who attacked and robbed this man could be hiding around the corner waiting for him too.

Fourthly, helping this man is going to be expensive and ruin his plans. There are many reasons to walk by here, but he does not. The Samaritan simply acted out of compassion.

Jesus then asks the religious expert: “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbour to the man who was attacked by the bandits?” The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”

Jesus flips the question on its head. It’s no longer about asking “Who is my neighbour?”. We’re called to be a neighbour to those around us. Jesus makes it very clear that any form of social, cultural, religious, political barriers should not be getting in the way of being a neighbour and showing love to those in need.

What does that look like for us then? If there’s anything that is plentiful in the world today, it’s opportunities to help people in need. It’s clear that Jesus is saying that loving your neighbour is not just an emotion, it’s a physical response as well.

James 2 tells us: Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? It’s a very simple message but do we find it as simple to live out every day on an individual level?

Sometimes it’s small: noticing someone struggling, offering a listening ear, lending a hand with a practical task. Sometimes it’s bigger: volunteering your time, giving resources, or supporting someone who feels isolated. And sometimes it means crossing barriers – social, cultural, or personal – to show care where others wouldn’t. In all cases, it’s about seeing the need and responding with action.

It needs to be a part of a church’s identity as well. When people are in crisis, do they feel they can rely on their local church for support? Can we say that now about our church? Here’s a great example of a church showing love to their community: How good is it to see God’s love being broadcast in local media?

[Audio clip plays of a church providing refuge for people after a crisis]

May they be an example to all of us. Beyond practical help, we can also provide spiritual help to those in need – again, there is a lot of need for this too. Whether that’s praying for those around us, sharing the hope we’ve found in Jesus, providing encouragement, inviting people to church.

The opportunity to lead people to Jesus and the hope he brings is ever present. This comes with the same limitless boundary as to who our neighbour is that Jesus describes in the parable as well. That can be scarier or harder though, right? This is where the cultural, religious, political, personal and a range of other differences can feel like a bigger blocker. If someone is rude to me for whatever reason, that doesn’t make it easier to pray for them. I certainly don’t want to be responding with an invite to church.

This always makes me think of the story of Jonah which we heard here a month or two ago. Jonah, after delivering a message from God to the Ninevites, anticipates and even hopes for God to destroy Nineveh as his message had warned. When God showed compassion to the Ninevites and chose to not carry out the destruction He had threatened, Jonah was very angry. Jonah doesn’t believe the Ninevites deserved the same love God had shown him. To which the Lord responds: “…Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?

Who are the Ninevites in your life? If there’s someone in your life that you’re praying God deals with instead of saves, you’re missing an opportunity to show them the same love you’ve experienced.

To live like the Samaritan in this story, we have to understand that we’ve also been the Jewish man beaten at the side of the road before as well – or maybe we still are. Jesus is our good Samaritan. He’s compelled by compassion to act and show us love. He gave everything, even His life, because he sees the great need we have and acts on His compassion. Through Jesus, we accept the gift, or the inheritance, of eternal life. When we experience Jesus’ compassion, it should change how we live. The love he has shown us isn’t meant to stop with ourselves. When we respond with love to our neighbour, it is an outpouring of the love we have been shown.

Galatians 5 reminds us what that looks like in action. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.

Living like the good Samaritan is a lifestyle shaped by the Holy Spirit, showing God’s love in practical ways. To be clear, this message isn’t coming from someone who has this perfected either. Living this out fully is a journey that we go on when we accept Jesus into our lives and seek to follow Him and grow more like Him every day.

My prayer today is that for myself and for everyone here, may this message lead us to take action when we feel compassion. To show love to those who need it – not because of where they come from or what they believe, but because of the love we have been shown.

1st John 4:9-12 tells us: God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

If this isn’t a love that you have experienced yourself, you’re in the right place. Chat to those around you, we also have a regular prayer ministry team. May you come to know and understand what it means to be loved by God as well.

Let’s pray: Dear Lord, thank you for this parable and what it teaches us. May we come to love those around us as you have loved us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Tawa Baptist

The Master and Servants

Scripture: Luke 12:35-38

Video Link: https://youtu.be/buo39MSYm6M

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • The servants prepare
  • The master serves
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Complete this phrase: Ready… Set… What comes next? [Wait]  Yes, that’s right Go. Ready, set, go. Or at least that’s what we would normally expect. 

Today we continue our series on the parables of Jesus. Last week we heard about the gracious employer, a parable of how God’s kingdom operates by grace. This week our focus is the parable of the master and servants, in Luke 12. This parable is short, but it takes us by surprise. We are expecting “ready, set, go”. But our expectations are reversed. From Luke 12, verse 35 we read…

35 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. 37 Blessed are those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. 38 Blessed are those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

What we expect with this parable is: ready, set, go to work. But what we get is: ready, set, recline and receive.

There are two main characters in today’s reading: the servants and the master. The servants are those who follow Jesus, his disciples throughout history. That includes us if we call Jesus, ‘Lord’. The master is Jesus himself.

Let’s start with the servants. We, the servants, need to be prepared for when Jesus, our master, comes.

The servants prepare:

Apparently, Wellington has between 50 to 80 earthquakes each day. Thankfully, only 100 to 150 are strong enough to be felt each year.    

The last significant earthquake in Wellington, of 6 or more on the ricker scale, was back in October 2023.

Wellington has dodged a few earthquake bullets in recent times. No one thought Christchurch would be hit as badly as it was. That’s the thing about earthquakes; we can’t predict when they will happen. We know they will happen, that is certain. We just can’t say when, so we need to be ready all the time.

Being ready all the time does not mean living in a constant state of anxiety, always on edge. That would not be helpful. Being prepared means having stores of canned food and water. Keeping a grab bag and first aid kit handy. We don’t know when a really damaging earthquake might hit, but we prepare by having emergency supplies ready to go.

In the parable we just read, from Luke 12, Jesus tells his disciples to…

35 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet…

Jesus sometimes used the image of a wedding banquet to paint a picture of our future hope, when God’s kingdom is realised in its fullness. Centuries before Christ, the prophet Isaiah also used the image of a banquet to illustrate our future hope. From Isaiah 25, verse 6, we read…

6 On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines.
7 On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; 8 he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth.

This prophecy came to be known as the Messianic banquet, for it pictures the salvation created by the Messiah. Christians believe Jesus fulfils this prophecy. After his death and resurrection, Jesus (the Messiah) ascended to heaven.

One day he will return in glory and when he returns the picture of Isaiah 25 will be realised. That’s our future hope.

Like an earthquake, we don’t know when Jesus will return but his second coming is certain, and so we (his disciples) need to be prepared. Unlike an earthquake though, which causes death and destruction, the Lord will swallow up death forever and wipe away the tears from all faces.

Although most Bible commentators agree Jesus’ parable in Luke 12:35-38 is referring to the Lord’s second coming, we need not limit the Lord’s activity to some unknown future date. The risen Jesus is active by his Spirit now. Jesus may come to us personally at any time before the conclusion of human history. We, the servants of Jesus, need to be ready to obey Jesus at every moment.     

So how do we prepare for Jesus’ return? Well, being ready for Jesus does not mean having supplies of water and baked beans handy. We make ourselves ready by being faithful. Being faithful means living our lives now (today) in a way that anticipates Jesus’ return in the future.

Imagine someone lets you stay in their house rent free while they are away. It’s a really nice house with a pool and a garden and plenty of rooms. You are thankful for the accommodation because you don’t have a place of your own. They are doing you a favour.

You don’t know how long the owner will be gone for. Maybe a few days, maybe a few years. In the meantime, you take care of the house. You don’t throw wild parties or trash the place. You mow the lawns regularly. You feed the pets, take the rubbish out and respect the neighbours.

Looking after the place is how you look after your relationship with the owner. That’s what it means to be faithful. In verse 35 Jesus uses two images to help us see what it looks like to be prepared for the master’s return.

First, he says, be dressed and ready for service. This is a bit of a paraphrase. The original text literally says, ‘gird up your loins’. The phrase, ‘gird up your loins’ comes from the Old Testament. Men and women at that time and in that culture usually wore long robes. It was cooler in a hot climate.

However, when you needed to get somewhere in a hurry or do any sort of physical labour, the robe got in the way. ‘To gird up your loins’ meant tying a belt around your waist and tucking the robe up into the belt, allowing you to move more freely and get the job done. Basically, to gird up your loins is to be work ready. It’s like saying, ‘roll up your sleeves’. 

Most famously, the Lord God told the people of Israel to gird up their loins on the night of the first Passover. The people needed to be ready to leave Egypt quickly. When Jesus comes knocking on the door of your life, it is like an exodus from the slavery of sin and death. You need to be ready to move.

Okay, so that’s what gird up your lions meant 2000 years ago. What does it mean for us today? Well, if you work on a building site, then girding up your loins means having your work boots on and wearing your hi-viz gear.

Or if you are a teacher, then the equivalent of girding up your loins is having your lesson plan ready for when the bell rings and the students turn up.

Or if you are a cricketer waiting to bat, then girding up your loins means having your pads and box on.

Or if you are a surgeon, then girding up your loins is like scrubbing your hands and putting on gloves and a surgical gown.

But what if you are Christian? What does it mean to ‘gird up your loins’ then?

Robyn and I have lived in the same house for over 20 years. During that time, we have accumulated a lot of stuff. After Christmas last year, we had a clear out. We decluttered the garage and our cupboards. Quite a bit of stuff went to the tip or was given away. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. In fact, it felt quite good and now our house is that much easier to keep tidy.

Girding up your loins is not about adding anything. Girding up your loins is about decluttering your life. To gird up your lions is to free yourself from those things which hinder your obedience to Christ.

The things that hinder our obedience to Christ may include unhelpful excesses, like spending too much time on the internet or drinking too much or taking on too much debt or whatever.

But the things that hinder our obedience to Christ can also include good things. Things that may benefit others but don’t really fulfil God’s call on our life.

Jesus called his disciples to bear witness to his death and resurrection and then to proclaim the gospel. That’s what Jesus wanted them to do.

But what if Peter, James and John went back to fishing fulltime, after Jesus ascended to heaven? What if they decided not to be apostles? I mean fishing is a good occupation. It feeds people, right?

Yes, fishing can be a good thing, but to spend your life fishing when Jesus wants you to preach the gospel, is to disobey the Lord. For Peter, James and John, girding up their loins meant leaving the family fishing business behind so they could make sharing the gospel their fulltime gig.  

What is getting in the way of you obeying Jesus? What is it (good or bad) that makes you too busy to pay attention to Christ? Girding up your loins is about decluttering your life, freeing yourself to be more responsive to Jesus.   

As well as being dressed and ready for service, Jesus also says (in verse 35) to keep your lamps burning. They didn’t have electricity in the first century. Lamps, at that time, were fuelled by oil. To keep your lamp burning meant keeping the oil topped up and the wick trimmed.  

Lamps of course provide light. Without a lamp the servants would not be able to see. They would be walking around in the dark, blind. To keep your lamp burning is to ensure you can see clearly, to keep your perspective. But lamps also enable you to be seen by others. Lamps help to identify you.  

When I was younger and fitter and lived in Hamilton, where the roads are wider, I used to ride a bike everywhere. When riding at night I always had my lights on, back and front. My bike lights helped me see where I was going but more importantly, they helped me to be seen by other traffic. My lights identified me as a cyclist so cars could avoid hitting me. I always kept a spare set of batteries handy, for my bike lights.         

As I understand it, the lamp in Jesus’ parable symbolises our faith as servants of Jesus. It is the light of our faith that enables us to see in the darkness of this world, so we can do the work Jesus has for us to do. More than this, it is the light of our faith that identifies us as followers of Jesus.    

To ‘keep your lamp burning’ is to keep the light of your faith going. We do this by maintaining regular rhythms of prayer, Bible reading, rest, gathered worship and fellowship with other believers. As we keep these sacred rhythms, we make room for the oil of God’s Spirit to fill us.   

We must not miss the fact that Jesus compares his followers to servants.

The Greek word, doulos, can mean servant or slave. The servants in view here are men and women of low status.

Humility is required to be a follower of Jesus. The work of a Christian disciple is not glamorous. It is often menial and tiring. Our time is not our own. Nevertheless, there is a certain dignity in being a servant (or slave) of Jesus, for we are serving the King of heaven and earth. We are serving God’s good purpose. We belong to Jesus.

The master serves:

Okay, so we have heard how the servants prepare. What about the master?

In verse 36 we read that, when the master returns, he comes and knocks on the door.  What a curious thing. Why does the master knock on the door of his own house? I mean, when I come home, I don’t knock on the front door of my own house. No. I just let myself in.

But as I thought about this, I remembered that when the kids still lived at home, I would knock on their bedroom doors before entering. It’s respectful, it’s good manners. You knock on internal doors because you don’t want to scare people or barge in on them.  

The master of the house in Jesus’ parable is probably not knocking on his front door. He is more likely knocking on an internal door, to the servants’ quarters perhaps.

The point is: Jesus, our master, is respectful. He does not force his way into our lives. In his grace Jesus allows us to invite him in. The question is, will we open the door and let Jesus in immediately? Or will we make him wait?

In verse 37, Jesus says: Blessed are those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. He says it again in verse 38: Blessed are those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. 

The servants here do not put their pyjamas on, turn out the light and go to bed. No, they keep their work clothes on and leave their lamp burning, ready to receive their master at a moment’s notice. They are not passively waiting. They are eagerly expecting their boss. The slaves don’t have their own agenda. The only agenda they serve is their master’s agenda.

The Greek word for blessed here is Makarios. It’s the same word Jesus uses for the beatitudes in Matthew 5. You know, ‘blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the pure in heart’, and so on.

Makarios is a state of spiritual wellbeing. To be Makarios is to be fortunate, happy, well off, in a relationship of favour with God. It’s not just that the servants will be blessed in the future. They are blessed now. They are in a fortunate position now.           

Jesus reverses our understanding of what it means to be blessed or well off. We think we are fortunate or blessed if we win Lotto or if we enjoy good health and live in a nice neighbourhood. But that is not how Jesus sees it.  

By the values of this world, a lowly slave who is always walking around with their loins girded ready to work, is not considered well off. Indeed, staying up all night losing sleep is not considered a blessed or fortunate state of being.

Just like being poor in spirit or grieving is not considered a fortunate state.

But, according to Jesus, those who strip off all that hinders them from obeying him, are blessed, they are fortunate. Those who set aside their own agenda and eagerly await Jesus’ return are blessed now. They are not doing this to earn a blessing or to curry favour. They love their master and long for his presence. Their reward is intrinsic; the joy of seeing their master again.  

The real surprise (both for us the listener and for the servants in the parable) comes in the second part of verse 37 where Jesus says: Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. 

We were expecting; ready, set, go to work. But what we get is; ready, set, recline and receive. The idea of the master of the house girding up his loins to serve his servants was unthinkable for a first century middle eastern audience. That would never happen.

These servants were near the bottom of the heap and the master was at the top. What master would humiliate himself by serving his slaves like this?

It is a complete role reversal.

By the master’s actions the slaves cease being slaves and become beloved friends and guests. Because that’s what you do for your friends, you serve them. They are changed by the self-emptying love (the undeserved grace) of their boss.

The master in this parable reminds us of Jesus. Because that’s what Jesus did in going to the cross. He humiliated himself. He served us. He fed us with his very body.

In his letter to the Philippians the apostle Paul gives this picture of Christ, saying…

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others. 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mind-set as Christ Jesus: 6 who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!

Even though Jesus is the supreme master (the master of all masters) he comes to those who faithfully wait in expectation for him and he serves them.

He serves us, turning us from slaves into beloved friends.

Conclusion:

On the night before his crucifixion and death, Jesus acted out this parable as a foretaste of the Messianic banquet to come. During the last supper, Jesus girded up his loins and served his disciples by washing their feet.

Peter didn’t want a bar of it at first. But Jesus told Peter he must let him do this or Peter would have no part in him. As much as it goes against the grain, we must allow Jesus (our master) to serve us – we must receive his grace – for only then will we be transformed from slaves to beloved friends.  

The right response to the Lord’s grace is faithfulness. Being faithful means serving Jesus’ agenda, not cluttering our lives with of our own agenda.

What then is Jesus’ agenda? The night before he died Jesus impressed upon his disciples three things:

The importance of loving one another. The importance of service over position. And the importance of unity in the body. Love, service and unity, they go together and they are what we do in preparation for the return of Jesus, our master. 

Let us pray…

Lord Jesus, you are our master, we belong to you. Thank you for serving us by going to the cross in obedience to God the Father. May you go on filling us with the oil of your Spirit that the lamp of our faith would not go out. Amen.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
  2. Discuss / reflect on Jesus’ parable in Luke 12:35-38. Why did Jesus tell this parable? How might Jesus’ original audience have been surprised by this parable? In what ways is Jesus like the master? 
  3. How can we prepare for Jesus’ return? What does it mean to gird up your loins? What is getting in the way of you obeying Jesus? What takes your attention away from Christ?
  4. What does it mean to ‘keep your lamp burning’? How do you (personally) do this? What (or who) fills your lamp with oil?
  5. Why does the master knock on a door in his own house? What might this suggest about the master? What does it look like to open the door of our lives to let Jesus in?
  6. What does it mean to be blessed (Makarios)? Why are the servants in the parable blessed?
  7. What change occurs for the servants as a consequence of the master serving them? Have you received Jesus’ grace / service for yourself? 

Bibliography:

  • William Barclay, ‘The Gospel of Matthew’, 1967.
  • R.V.G. Tasker, ‘Tyndale Commentaries: St Matthew’, 1963.
  • Michael Green, ‘BST: The Message of Matthew’, 2000.
  • Craig S. Keener, ‘The Gospel of Matthew’, 2009.
  • R.T. France, ‘New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospel of Matthew’, 2007.
  • Kenneth Bailey, ‘Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes’, 2008. 
Tawa Baptist

The Gracious Employer

Scripture: Matthew 20:1-16

Video Link: https://youtu.be/ArWz2FkYrds

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • God’s kingdom is personal
  • God’s kingdom is gracious
  • God’s kingdom is fair
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death.

The debate went on for some time until C.S. Lewis wandered into the room. “What’s the commotion about?” he asked. “We were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace”. [1]

Today we continue our series on the parables of Jesus. Last week we heard about the parable of the lost sheep. This week we focus on the parable of the gracious employer, in Matthew 20. The main point of this parable is that God’s kingdom operates by grace. From verse 1 of Matthew 20 we read…

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denariusfor the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went. “He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ 7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ 8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ 9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ 13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

This parable is about the kingdom of heaven, also known as the kingdom of God. The kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are interchangeable terms. They are different ways of saying the same thing.

Some people, when they hear this parable, think Jesus is promoting socialism. No. This parable is not about socialism. God’s kingdom is not like any earthly political system we may be familiar with. Nor can it be equated to a geographic location.

On a basic level the kingdom of heaven is God’s government or God’s reign.

Said another way, the kingdom of heaven is life with God in charge. Life when God’s will is done. The kingdom of heaven is God’s way of operating.

Three things this parable tells us about God’s kingdom: It is personal, it is gracious and it is fair. What then do we mean when we say God’s kingdom is personal? Brian McLaren tells a story which helps to illustrate this idea that’s God’s kingdom is personal.

God’s kingdom is personal:

Once upon a time, there was a good and kind king who had a great kingdom with many cities. In one distant city, some people took advantage of the freedom the king gave them and started doing evil.

They profited by their injustice and began to hate the king. They convinced everyone the city would be better off without the king and declared their independence from the kingdom. Soon, with everyone doing whatever they wanted, violence, corruption and fear reigned.

The king thought about what he should do. ‘If I take my army and conquer the city by force, the people will fight against me. I will have to kill so many of them and the rest will only submit through fear, which will make them hate me even more. But if I leave them alone, they will destroy each other. It breaks my heart to think of the pain they are causing one another.’

So the king considered a third way. He took off his robes and dressed in regular clothes. Incognito, he entered the city and began living in an abandoned building. He took up a trade fixing broken furniture.

Whenever people came to him, his kindness and respect were so striking they would linger a little longer, just to be in his presence. They told him their problems and asked his advice. He told them the rebels had fooled them and the true king had a better way to live, which he exemplified and taught.     

One by one people began to put their confidence in him and live his way. Eventually, the city regretted its rebellion and wanted to submit to the king’s reign again. But they were afraid to approach the king. What if he took revenge for their rebellion?

It was then the king-in-disguise revealed his true identity: he, the furniture fixer, was their king and he forgave them. The city was restored to the kingdom once more. All those who loved the king remained in the city, while those who still refused to accept the king’s authority were sent away.

By his gracious presence and personal touch, the king saved the city and most of its citizens, something that could never have been accomplished through brute force. [2]   

God’s kingdom is personal. It operates at the level of the human heart and inter-personal relationships.

In Matthew 20, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a human person, more specifically a vineyard owner.  Verse 1 reads: “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard…”

Employing casual day labourers was a common practice in the Palestine of Jesus’ day. Workers would go out early in the morning (around 6am) to the marketplace and wait for someone to come and offer them work.

Day labourers tended to be quite poor. If they didn’t get work, they (and their families) didn’t eat. These workers were near the bottom of the heap.

Somewhat surprisingly the wealthy landowner goes out of his way to do the hiring himself, personally. The landowner has a foreman. It is normally the foreman’s job to hire and manage the workers. Why doesn’t the landowner send his foreman to do this job? Because he prefers a personal approach.

The kingdom of heaven is like the landowner. God’s kingdom, his way of operating, is personal. God’s kingdom is not a hard to navigate bureaucratic system. God’s kingdom does not function by AI or recorded message. In God’s kingdom we don’t deal with a machine or even a manager. We deal personally with the Spirit of Jesus.

God’s kingdom is personal and God’s kingdom is gracious. What then is grace?

God’s kingdom is gracious:

The classic definition of grace is unmerited favour. Being treated better than you deserve. Receiving something good without doing anything to earn it and without being entitled to it. God’s grace is what sets Christianity apart from every other religion.

Under New Zealand law, employees are entitled to ten days sick leave per year, payable after six months employment. This can accumulate up to a maximum of 20 days. That’s the letter of the law.

Let’s say you have accumulated 20 days sick leave but, for reasons outside of your control, you need to take 30 days. Your employer then has a choice. They can either abide by the letter of the law and pay you only the 20 days owing, or they can go beyond the letter of the law and pay you the 30 days you need.

Paying you the first 20 days is just and fair. The employer is meeting their obligation to you. But paying the extra 10 days, well that is grace. It is unmerited favour. The employer is under no obligation to pay the extra.

Returning to Matthew 20. The kingdom of heaven is like the landowner in Jesus’ parable. The landowner is gracious and the kingdom of God is gracious. We see this grace operating in a number of ways.

In verses 3-6 we read how the owner comes back to the marketplace in three-hour intervals throughout the day to hire more workers. Normally an employer would get all the workers they needed at the beginning of the day.

But the owner of this vineyard returns personally at 9am, 12 noon, 3pm and then again at the 11th hour, which is 5pm. And each time he goes back he offers the job seekers work.

Interestingly, the landowner does not stipulate the rate of pay with these later workers, like he did with those he hired at the beginning of the day. To those hired at 9, 12 and 3 he simply says, ‘I will pay you whatever is right’.

And the day labourers trust the gracious employer. They don’t attempt to haggle with him or make him sign a contract. They are keen to work and have faith the landowner will do right by them.  

The workers who are employed towards the end of the day are (presumably) less desirable, having been passed over by other employers. By 5pm (one hour before knock off time) this gracious landowner is employing people that no one else will hire.

Those who are last to be offered a job may appear less employable, but you have to admire their tenacity. Most people would have given up and gone home by lunchtime if they hadn’t been offered work. Those who are last are still holding out hope, even when it seems hope-less.

What’s more they agree to work for the landowner, without any promise of payment. The landowner does not say he will pay them anything. He simply tells them to work in his vineyard. The last have shown the greatest faith.    

But the real star here is the landowner, who shows us what the kingdom of God is like. The landowner takes a personal interest in making sure everyone gets the opportunity to earn money to feed their family.

This employer wants to give the poor work in a gracious way, so their mana is preserved. The employer doesn’t rob the last of their dignity by offering them a handout. He could have simply given them one denarius and told them to go home. But he doesn’t do that. The employer upholds their self-respect by giving them the opportunity to do meaningful work for pay.  

The biggest surprise and the most obvious display of grace, comes in the middle of this parable, when the owner instructs his foreman to pay the workers. Each person gets one denarius, regardless of how long they worked. One denarius is the equivalent of a full day’s living wage.

The owner of the vineyard knows this world is not an even playing field.

He understands that half a day’s pay is not enough to feed a hungry family.

So he pays people based on what they need, not what they have achieved. That is grace.

To show grace we must have the capacity to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. Grace understands. The landowner is like the kingdom of God.

The landowner shows the grace of understanding. Likewise, in God’s kingdom our need is understood and provided for.

God’s kingdom is fair:

Not everyone understands God’s grace though. When those who were hired first saw the late comers receiving a full day’s wage, they presumed they would be paid more.

The first have a sense of entitlement and a sense of entitlement gets in the way of grace. Those who were hired last know their need for God’s grace and they accept it without question. But those who were hired first are blind to their need. They forget it was by the landowner’s grace they were given the opportunity to work all day in the first place.

When the first receive the same as the last, they don’t think it’s fair and complain saying: ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

Now, the vineyard owner could have avoided this confrontation with the grumbling workers. If he had paid them first, they would have gone home happy, none the wiser about what the others were paid. So why does the owner reverse the order? Well, there is no grace without truth.

Perhaps the owner intentionally makes the first wait till last because he wants to show the first what grace really looks like. He wants them to understand the truth, that being on the highest level is not the most important thing. What really matters is not leaving others behind, even if it means you come last.

The vineyard owner is gracious, but he is no fool. He won’t be manipulated or controlled by others. The owner speaks to one of the grumblers saying…

13 ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go…

The main thing to note here is the landowner is being fair and generous.

Yes, he has overpaid some of the workers, but he has not shortchanged anyone. One denarius for a day’s work represents a living wage. It is fair pay and those who were hired first agreed to it.

The landowner is honouring his contract. Now those who worked all day are wanting to break the contract, to change it after the fact. Those who were hired first are the ones who are being unfair, not the landowner.

Another thing to note, in verse 13, is the way the landowner addresses one of the complainers as ‘friend’. New Testament Greek has more than one word for friend. There is the positive word, philos, which refers to someone dearly loved and trusted. However, the landowner does not use philos here.

No, the landowner addresses the complainer as hetairos, which was a general form of address to someone whose name one does not know. It is a polite title for a stranger. [3] In Matthew’s gospel, the word hetairos is applied to those who presume upon grace. [4] You don’t want Jesus to address you as hetairos.

That’s like hearing Jesus say, ‘I don’t know you’.

The landowner (who is like the kingdom of God) has the last word. He says to those who had complained: I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

The owner of the vineyard is being fair with the grumblers. He is being honest with them. Indeed, he is showing them the truth about themselves. They don’t care about justice. They are simply greedy and envious.  

Kenneth Bailey paraphrases the landowner’s meaning like this: “You want to take more for yourselves. I have chosen to give more of myself. You want to be richer at the end of the day. I have chosen to be poorer at the end of the day. Don’t try to control me. Take your just wage and get out.” [5]   

The landowner’s response is personal, gracious and fair. Just as God’s kingdom is personal, gracious and fair.   

Conclusion:

The parable concludes with the saying: “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” In other words, the kingdom of God reverses human expectations. God’s kingdom operates by divine grace, not human achievement. [6] It is not for us to try and control God’s grace. It is not for us to say who can and can’t be saved. We need to let God be God.

Let us pray…

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace and compassion in reaching out to us personally. Thank you too for your fairness and generosity in meeting our need for salvation. Forgive us for the times we have tried to control you. Grant us humility to embrace the work and reward you offer. Through Jesus we pray. Amen.     

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
  2. What is grace? Can you think of a time when you experienced grace? What happened? How did you feel? What was your response?
  3. What is the kingdom of heaven / kingdom of God? How is God’s kingdom different from the kingdoms / governments of this world?
  4. Discuss / reflect on the parable of the gracious employer. Why did Jesus tell this parable? What is the main point? How does this parable make you feel?
  5. What does the landowner teach us about the kingdom of God?
  6. Why does the landowner go looking for workers to employ himself? Why does he not send his foreman?
  7. Why does the landowner pay all the workers the same? Why does the landowner have the foreman pay the last first and the first last? Why do those who worked all day complain against the landowner?
  8. Who do you identify with most in this parable? Why?

Bibliography:

  • William Barclay, ‘The Gospel of Matthew’, 1967.
  • R.V.G. Tasker, ‘Tyndale Commentaries: St Matthew’, 1963.
  • Michael Green, ‘BST: The Message of Matthew’, 2000.
  • Craig S. Keener, ‘The Gospel of Matthew’, 2009.
  • R.T. France, ‘New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospel of Matthew’, 2007.
  • Kenneth Bailey, ‘Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes’, 2008. 

[1] From Mark Stibbe’s book, ‘A Basket of Gems’, page 67.

[2] Adapted from a story by Brian McLaren found in Mark Stibbe’s book, ‘A Basket of Gems’, page 80.

[3] Refer Bailey, page 361.

[4] Refer Keener, page 482.

[5] Refer Kenneth Bailey, page 361.

[6] Refer R. France, page 746.

Tawa Baptist

Joy at Christmas

Scripture: Luke 1 & 2

Video Link: https://youtu.be/HqQXjSp8HI8

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Elizabeth’s joy
  • The shepherds’ joy
  • Mary’s joy
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning and merry Christmas everyone.

I have here in my hand an apple. (Don’t worry, this is not going to be a sermon about forbidden fruit.) If I were to plant the seeds of this apple and nurture them, it could take several years before the seeds produced more apples to eat.

The theme of this morning’s Christmas day service is joy. Joy is the fruit of hope. Or, to put it another way, if joy is the apple, hope is the tree. If you want joy, then cultivate the seeds of hope, and be prepared to wait. We can put our hope in many different things, but for our joy to be secure, our hope must be true.  

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. When our hope is in Jesus, our joy is secure. The account of Jesus’ birth is peppered with joy. This morning’s message touches on some of the joy found in Luke’s birth narrative.

Elizabeth’s joy:

We begin with Elizabeth and Mary. When Mary learned from the angel that she would become pregnant with Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, she went to visit her relative Elizabeth who was pregnant with John the Baptist.

Mary entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear. But why am I so favoured that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy…”

What was the cause of Elizabeth’s joy? Two things: the presence of the Holy Spirit and the anticipation of Jesus’ arrival. The Holy Spirit confirmed Elizabeth’s hope to be true, and this produced joy, from the inside out.

Now it needs to be acknowledged that for many years Elizabeth’s life was not characterised by joy. Zechariah and Elizabeth suffered a great deal of disappointment in not being able to have children. Their hope of starting a family died. But the Lord in his mercy resurrected new hope.

In verses 57 and 58 we read: When it was time for Elizabeth to have a baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbours and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy and they shared her joy.

Joy was a long time coming for Elizabeth, but it was worth the wait.

When our hope is in Jesus, our joy is secure.

The shepherds’ joy:

Joy is for sharing. In Luke 2, an angel from heaven shares the joy of Jesus’ birth with some shepherds in the fields saying: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord…

What we notice here is that divine joy is not just for a select few. The joy of Jesus’ birth is for all people. There is more than enough salvation for everyone. That is very good news.  

After the angels left, the shepherds went and found Jesus, wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. When they had seen him, they shared the joy by praising God and spreading the word about Christ the Lord.

Now it needs to be acknowledged that life was not easy for these shepherds. They were poor, working around the clock in all sorts of weather, not able to participate in the normal rhythms of community life. They were looked down on with suspicion by many. Misunderstood.  

So it was a joyful surprise for these shepherds to be among the first to hear about the birth of the Messiah. It meant they were seen by God and trusted by him. Included. Accepted. When our hope is in Jesus, our joy is secure.

Mary’s joy:      

We have compared joy to the fruit of a tree. We might also compare joy to the keel of a yacht. The keel is that part we do not see because it is underwater. The keel keeps the yacht upright, especially in high winds. Without the keel, the yacht would be prone to capsizing.

In the same way a keel lends stability to a boat, so too joy (born from a deep and true hope) lends stability to our soul, especially in the storms of life.

The joy surrounding Jesus’ birth acted as a keel for Mary’s soul. In Luke 2, we read how Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Joy often overflows in praise of God and sharing good news with others, but for those with a more contemplative soul, joy finds sanctuary in the heart and mind. As we ponder what God is doing in Christ, our joy deepens (like the keel of a yacht) lending stability when the circumstances of our lives get a bit rough.

It needs to be acknowledged the first Christmas was far from ideal. Israel was oppressed by the Romans. The people suffered under a heavy yoke both politically and spiritually. Not a great environment for raising children.

And yet, in spite of this, hope was growing and joy was budding.  

Conclusion:

We are not oppressed in the same way people were in the first century.

But many of us feel weary and weighed down in other (unseen) ways. Christmas is not always a happy time. The expectation that it should be happy only heightens our disappointment when it is not.

Perhaps you identify with Elizabeth. For you, joy is a long time coming. Hang in there. A bruised reed he will not break and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out. When our hope is in Jesus, our joy is secure.

Perhaps you identify with the shepherds. You know what it is to be left out in the cold, not trusted, misunderstood. God judges fairly. He sees you.

He gets you. When our hope is in Jesus, our joy is secure.

Perhaps you identify with Mary. Young and vulnerable, with something precious to lose. Ponder the Lord’s faithfulness. Treasure the joy he brings.

It will be a keel for your soul.

When our hope is in Jesus, our joy is secure. Where is your hope placed?

May the awareness of God’s goodness sustain our hope and fill us with joy.

Grace and peace be yours this Christmas and New Year. Amen.

Tawa Baptist

Leadership & Administration

Scripture: Romans 12:8 and 1 Corinthians 12:28

Video Link: https://youtu.be/8qs2bj1tBlg

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Administration
  • Leadership
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Max Lucado once wrote: A person who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.

The conductor does not follow the crowd; they follow the music. They cannot afford to worry about what others think; they must stay focused on leading the orchestra, helping all the different musicians to play their part in harmony.  

Over the past two or three months we have been considering the spiritual gifts Paul mentions in Corinthians and Romans. Gifts like prophecy, teaching, helps, tongues, marriage, singleness, wisdom, knowledge and so on. Today we conclude our series on spiritual gifts by taking a closer look at the gifts of administration and leadership.

If we think of the church like an orchestra, then those with the gifts of administration and leadership are like the conductor of the orchestra, helping the various members of the church to use their gifts in harmony with each other. Let us begin then with the gift of administration. From First Corinthians 12 we read…

27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 28 And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. 

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

Most of you would remember the TV show MASH. MASH stands for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. MASH was a dramatic comedy set in the Korean war of the 1950’s. One of the lead characters in MASH was Corporal Radar O’Reilly.

Corporal O’Reilly got the nickname ‘Radar’ because he always sensed when the choppers were coming with wounded before anyone else did. Radar was not an officer or a doctor. He was the hospital’s administrator. He filled out forms and basically kept the organisation running smoothly.

We could say Radar was the ‘under the radar’ leader of the MASH unit. He was like the conductor of the orchestra except he wasn’t seen up front. Without Corporal O’Reilly the MASH unit would not be able to function. It was a running gag that a Corporal (and not a Colonel) was actually running the place.

In Corinthians 12, Paul talks about the church being like a body with many different parts. Each person in the church is a part of the body of Christ and just as each part of a body has a special function, so too each believer has a special gift. We need each other to be different or else the church will not function as it should.

One part of the body Paul mentions is those with the gifts of administration. We might not think of administration as that spectacular but, in any organisation, it is essential to have people who can organise things.

The alternative would be chaos.

A church without administrators would be like an orchestra without a conductor. It would be like a MASH unit without a Corporal O’Reilly, or an aircraft without a pilot.    

In fact, the Greek word translated as administration, in verse 28, literally means the work of a ship’s pilot. The ship’s pilot is the one who steers the ship through rocks and shoals to safe harbour. [1] Modern Greek uses the same word for an aircraft pilot. [2] 

The work of an administrator then is the work of steering the church in the right direction, keeping it on course, avoiding dangers, recognising the changing weather and adjusting accordingly.

Bible commentator, David Prior, observes (and I paraphrase here)…

The pilot / administrator knows the capabilities of their craft and crew.

They know who to call on at which moment. They do not panic nor relax their vigilance. They are focused on the goal of reaching journey’s end safe and sound.  

The gift of administration carries the idea of giving guidance. The guidance may be for an individual or for the church as a whole.

Joseph, the son of Jacob (in Genesis) was a gifted administrator. Joseph rose to the position of chief steward in Potiphar’s house. After being falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, Joseph was sent to prison where he was put in charge of the other prisoners due to his administrative skills.

Then, after being released from prison, Joseph gave guidance to Pharoah (king of Egypt) and Pharoah put Joseph in charge of the administration of Egypt’s entire economy. Joseph, a man with a God given gift for administration, piloted Egypt through a severe famine, saving millions of lives from starvation.      

It is interesting that Jesus chose at least one tax collector (Matthew – aka Levi) among his disciples. Tax collectors are administrators. They are good at keeping records. Matthew’s gift with admin bore fruit in his recording of Jesus’ teaching, giving us the gospel of Matthew.

The infamous gangster Al Capone was, in the end, caught and put away by an accountant, someone good at administration. Through a meticulous investigation, forensic accountant Frank Wilson uncovered evidence of tax evasion and, in October 1931, Al Capone was convicted of tax fraud (through Frank Wilson’s guidance).

There is a lot of administration in running a church these days, way more than when I started. Much of the administration is driven by keeping up with statutory compliance. There are quite a few people in this church who provide guidance by assisting with administration behind the scenes.

We have the deacons board of course, but also the finance team and the health & safety committee, as well as Brodie, in the church office. Pastoral staff have a significant administrative element to their work too. Administrators provide information that is helpful in guiding our decisions.

Let me say thank you to the administrators among us. We need your skill and attention to help steer the church and keep us off the rocks. It is not glamourous work, but it is necessary for the right functioning of the body.

Let me also say, administration is no less ‘spiritual’ than some of the more dramatic (or supernatural) gifts. The same Spirit who empowers the prophet also empowers the administrator.

We come across an example of good administration in the early church in Acts chapter 6. From verse 1 we read…

In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jewsamong them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 2 So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3 Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4 and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.” 5 This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. 6 They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them. 7 So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.

Three things we note here. Firstly, the apostles did not try to do everything themselves. They recognised their gift was not administering food to widows, so they delegated this responsibility to others who did have the gift.

Secondly, the apostles empowered the congregation to choose their own administrators. And the congregation chose mostly Hellenistic Jews. That is, Greek speaking Jews. Jews who were born and raised outside of the land of Israel. Because these administrators were Hellenistic Jews, they had a better understanding of the needs of the Hellenistic widows who were missing out.

Thirdly, the apostles commissioned the seven administrators by laying hands on them and praying for them. In doing this the apostles were demonstrating that administration is spiritual. It is a function carried out with the help of the Holy Spirit.

As a consequence of this wise administrative move, the apostles were released to preach the gospel and the church continued to grow.   

Leadership:

Closely related to the gift of administration (or giving guidance) is the gift of leadership. In Romans 12, verse 8, Paul writes…

8 If [your gift] is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.  

The Greek word translated as lead (in verse 8) is proistēmi. It literally means ‘to stand before’ and thus to influence others. That is, to cause them to follow a recommended course of action. [3] To lead, in other words.

Leadership is more than administration. A leader doesn’t just provide guidance. A leader embodies the guidance. They stand before others. They go first, modelling by their actions the way people are to follow.

Seth Godin puts it this way…

‘The secret of leadership is simple: Do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there. People will follow.’

There is quite a bit in this pithy statement. Firstly, a leader does what they believe in. This implies authenticity. The leader is not faking it. Nor are they just talking about an idea. They are deeply committed to what they believe in.

They live their beliefs.

Painting a picture of the future is about giving people hope. Someone once said, ‘leaders are dealers in hope’. If you are asking people to change, then they need to believe the change will be worth it. They need to be convinced the future will be better for having made the change.    

Going there, is about being the change you want to see in the world. Leadership involves influencing people by what you do. Deeds speak louder than words. Leadership means showing as well as telling.

To be convincing then, a leader needs to be authentic, they need to offer hope and they need to lead by example. Ultimately though, what makes a person a leader, is people who will follow. Without followers one cannot really call themselves a leader.      

Being the first one to do something, taking the lead, requires a certain courage.    The courage to turn your back on the crowd, to risk rejection and humiliation, to do things differently, to cut a new path for others to follow.

One of the greatest leaders of all time was king David, king of Israel. Before he took the throne, while he was still a callow youth, David showed Israel the leadership they needed at that time.

David acted on his belief that the God of Israel was stronger than the enemy. David painted a picture of the future by defeating Goliath with a stone and a slingshot. David was a dealer in hope. He had the courage of his convictions.

He led by example, and people followed him.

But one even greater than David has come. His name is Jesus. Jesus cut a new path; he redefined leadership in terms of service to others. Jesus did not come to conquer Israel’s political enemies. Rather, Jesus conquered humanity’s spiritual enemies by going to the cross. Jesus overcame sin and death.  

Jesus is our leader. He suffered rejection and humiliation, betrayal and loneliness. But God vindicated Jesus by raising him to eternal life on the third day. Jesus’ resurrection paints a picture of what the future looks like for those who follow him in faith.

Now the examples of David slaying Goliath and Jesus conquering sin and death may feel a bit out of reach for us. They might also give the false impression that leadership is an occasional, isolated act of heroism.

Leadership does require courage and going where others have not been before, but the day-to-day reality of church leadership is less dramatic than that.  

Returning to Romans 12. Paul says that those who lead should do so diligently.

The definition of diligence is ‘careful and persistent work or effort’.

David learned how to use a sling through diligent practice as a shepherd defending his sheep. Likewise, Jesus went to the cross after 33 years of careful and persistent obedience to God the Father.

Leadership requires the energy to give our best every day and in every situation for the wellbeing of the community. If you are in the habit of serving diligently by giving your best in the routine small things, then when a trial by fire comes you will be better equipped to deal with it.

One of my favourite jobs when I was younger was splitting firewood. It is incredibly satisfying to bring an axe down on a willow ring and feel the wood come apart. Not so satisfying when you get a knotty piece though.

The trick with splitting wood is not holding the axe handle too tight or too loose. If you hold the axe too loose, it will fly out of your hands. But if you hold it too tight, you will get blisters faster and you will feel the shock through your arms more sharply. You have to hold the axe handle with just the right amount of tension.  

Diligence is about holding the handle of leadership just right, not too loose, not too tight. If you are a bit slack in your approach to leadership, you risk losing a handle on what you are doing. Likewise, if you are too up-tight (too white knuckle obsessive in your approach) then you risk burning out and making everybody else’s life a misery.

The Pharisees were hyper diligent in their observance of the law of Moses and it got in the way of people loving God and loving their neighbour. We need to keep the main thing the main thing. Diligence is a fine balance.

One of the things that sets Christian leaders apart is that we are followers first.

The ancient Greek philosopher, Solon, is credited with saying…

‘He who has learned how to obey will know how to command.’

Before we can lead anyone in the Christian faith, we must first learn to obey Jesus. Our authority to lead others comes from our obedience to Christ. Christian leaders are disciples of Jesus first. Indeed, if we take on the mantle of leadership, we don’t stop being disciples. We continue to take our lead from Jesus himself.    

When we look at the leaders of the early church, they were actually following the Spirit of Jesus, not their own inclinations.

In Acts chapter 10, the apostle Peter received a vision from heaven with a sheet containing all sorts of unclean animals. Then he hears a voice telling him to eat the animals.

At first Peter was shocked and appalled, saying ‘I have never eaten anything impure or unclean’. And the voice spoke again saying, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean’.

Long story short, the Lord wanted Peter to take the gospel to the Gentiles and to the Roman Centurion, Cornelius, in particular. More than that, the Lord wanted Peter to lead the way in showing the mainly Jewish Christian church that it was time to welcome Gentiles (non-Jews) into the fold.

This might not seem like a big deal to us, but it was huge for Peter and others at the time. Peter was being asked to turn his back on the crowd and on Jewish tradition. But Peter found the courage to obey Jesus, to follow the Lord’s lead, and now the Christian church is made of people of all nations.   

The other thing we note about Christian leadership is that it is usually plural.

In the New Testament, Christian leaders don’t normally stand alone. They stand together and make decisions together.    

The famous baseball player Babe Ruth once said: ‘The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.’   

In Acts 15 we read how some Jewish Christians were insisting that Gentiles who wanted to become Christians must be circumcised and required to obey the Law of Moses. Then in verse 6 we read how the apostles and elders met to consider the question.

Peter did not try to handle this on his own. He got the other church leaders together to discuss the issue and together they found a way forward.

Conclusion:

This morning we have been talking about the spiritual gifts of administration and leadership. These gifts are no less spiritual for being down to earth and practical. Maybe you have one of these gifts. Maybe God has gifted you in some other way.

Charles Schultz (of Charlie Brown fame) once wrote: ‘Life is like a ten-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.’

God doesn’t just give us one gift. He is generous. He normally gives a number of gifts. What gifts has God given you? How are you using these gifts?

Let us pray…

Gracious God, thank you for the gifts you have given your people. Help us to understand how you have equipped us and where you want us to serve. Glorify yourself through our strengths and our weaknesses we pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.  

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
  2. What does Paul mean by the gift of administration, in 1 Corinthians 12:28? What does a good administrator do for an organisation? Is this your gift?
  3. Discuss / reflect on Seth Godin’s comment: ‘The secret of leadership is simple: Do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there. People will follow.’ By this definition, who has had a significant leadership role in your life?
  4. What qualities or characteristics does a leader need to possess to be convincing?
  5. What does it look like to lead with diligence? Why is diligence important in leadership?
  6. What are some of the distinctives of Christian leadership?
  7. What gifts has God given you? How are you using these gifts? 

[1] Refer William Barclay’s commentary on 1 Corinthians, page 129.

[2] Refer David Prior’s commentary on 1 Corinthians, page 221.

[3] Refer Marva Dawn’s book, ‘Truly the Community’, page 131.