Lossiemouth Church of Scotland

For the third Sunday after Pentecost (30 June 2019), Rev. Geoff McKee discusses the difficult concept of “Freedom in Christ”. Love is meant to be given away. Freedom offers us the opportunity – and the means – to become entangled with others through the sharing of love. By sharing the love of Christ, we are free to free others.

You can download a PDF version of the sermon by clicking here.

Galatians 5: 1, 13-25 (New International Version)
Freedom in Christ
5 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

…

Life by the Spirit
13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Do you ever wish we could get back to the wholesomeness and stability of the past, to a world where things are simpler and easier?

That’s just the issue explored in the superb 1998 film, Pleasantville.

The central characters of the movie are teenage twins, David and Jennifer, each struggling in their own way with the pressures of modern life and a family that has been through divorce.

Jennifer becomes the ultimate party girl, careless and acting on her every whimsy. David becomes depressed and retreats from the world into his room, where he spends as much time as he can watching his favourite TV show, an old 1950’s black and white sitcom, Pleasantville.

Pleasantville seems to offer everything David could want: simplicity, intact families, stability, clear community values.

Then, one day, something strange happens. [Read more…]

This is Rev. Geoff McKee’s sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost (23 June 2019).

You can download a copy of the sermon as a PDF by clicking here.

Galatians 3:23-29 (New International Version)
Children of God
23 Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. 24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

G.K. Chesterton – in his book What’s Wrong with the World? – wrote,

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”

When a Christian re-locates to a new area (maybe because of a new job, or beginning studies at university), it is customary for the person to spend some time looking about for a church to worship in and maybe join. Usually the advice is to take your time and have a good look before making a decision – and that’s sound advice.

How do you choose a church?

What criteria do you use?

You know, most folks will gravitate to a church that seems to best serve their needs and, in many cases, the new church will be very similar to the one they have left.

• We tend to be intensely individualistic; how do I fit in?
• And we tend to gravitate to people like ourselves. There, we are comfortable and we are more likely to be happy, we think.

Could it be that the Church has chosen you?

Could it be that Jesus has chosen you?

The choice doesn’t lie with you so why are you involved in making so many personal decisions regarding a supposed choice?

People these days are fond of identifying with all sorts of categories and labels:

• I am a vegetarian.
• I am a feminist.
• I am nationalist.

Whatever…

In Paul’s day, they would say:

• I am a Jew;
• I am a Gentile;
• I am a slave;
• I am a free person;
• I am a man;
• I am a woman.

And, whilst all these categories remained, none of them would define the Christian.

For Paul, no one was a Jewish Christian, or a Gentile Christian, or a Christian slave or a Christian free-man or a male Christian or a female Christian but all were Christians in the family of God.

Paul – in this passage in Galatians – is addressing these kinds of issues.

The Jews were asking: “What best suits us? How will we find our happiness in the newly emerging church?”

And the answer coming back to Paul was: “By insisting on the Law for all (or the main parts of it, at least for the Gentile converts, like circumcision).”

What harm could there be in that anyway? They were really asking the question; “How much like a Jew does a Gentile need to be in order to be a Christian?” And the answer coming back was, ‘as much as possible!’ And, then lying beneath all of that, there was more than a feeling that Gentiles were never going to be quite right, never mind what they did to fit in.

Back to Chesterton:

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”

So much anger, so much sadness, and so much fear because people did not understand what it meant to be baptised into Jesus Christ.

Categories differentiate and unsettle, creating tensions which pull apart.

We all have distinctives that we enjoy and we like nothing better than grouping up with those who share our preferences.

We place great importance on being in the right.

This has caused great trouble in the Christian community through the generations and we see the early prototypes in a passage like Galatians 3.

Why does the church have a history of fragmentation that results in multiple expressions of the Christian faith springing up all over the place? One of the reasons is that people believe they are in the right and that lot down the road have got it wrong. Now, it may be over minor doctrine but that begs the question: ‘if it’s so minor why are you not still together?’

Is it more important to be ‘right’, or to be in a healthy, well-boundaried relationship in Christ? After all, have you chosen the church or has the church chosen you?

During World War II, Hitler commanded all religious groups to unite, so that he could control them.

Among the Brethren assemblies, half complied and half refused.

Those who went along with the order had a much easier time. Those who did not, faced harsh persecution. In almost every family of those who resisted, someone died in a concentration camp.

When the war was over, feelings of bitterness ran deep between the groups and there was much tension. Finally, they decided that the situation had to be healed. Leaders from each group met at a quiet retreat. For several days, each person spent time in prayer, examining his own heart in the light of Christ’s commands. Then they came together.

Francis Schaeffer, who told of the incident, asked a friend who was there, “What did you do then?” “We were just one,” he replied. As they confessed their hostility and bitterness to God and yielded to His control, the Holy Spirit created a spirit of unity among them. Love filled their hearts and dissolved their hatred.

It’s getting to the point when everyone agrees that something has to be done is absolutely necessary. Until then all striving is futile.

The American devotional A.W. Tozer wrote:

“Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.”

Something has to be done; someone has to be looked to: Jesus Christ.

If you are baptised into Christ, you belong to Christ and so you belong to one another in the family of God. Therefore all other distinctions are, at best, secondary and, at worst, absurd.

Tradition claims that Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchure is built over the cave in which Christ is said to have been buried.

In July 2002, the church became the scene of ugly fighting between the monks who run it. The conflict began when a Coptic monk sitting on the rooftop decided to move his chair into the shade. This took him into the part of the rooftop courtyard looked after by the Ethiopian monks.

It turns out that the Ethiopian and Coptic monks have been arguing over the rooftop of the Church of the Holy Sepulchure for centuries.

The rooftop had been controlled by the Ethiopians but they lost control to the Copts when hit by a disease epidemic in the 19th century.

Then, in 1970, the Ethiopians regained control when the Coptic monks were absent for a short period.

They have been squatting there ever since, with at least one Ethiopian monk always remaining on the roof to assert their rights. In response, a Coptic monk has been living on the roof also, to maintain the claim of the Copts.

And so we get to a Monday in July 2002, when the Coptic monk moves his chair into the shade. Harsh words led to pushes, then shoves, until an all-out brawl is going, including the throwing of chairs and iron bars. At the end of the fight, 11 of the monks were injured, including one monk unconscious in hospital and another with a broken arm.

May we not so distort the good news of Jesus Christ that a suffering world looks on us with despair and disgust.

We are no longer imprisoned.

We are children of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Let us live in the light of that.

Amen.

Rev. Geoff McKee explains why Psalm 8 such an appropriate and powerful text for Trinity Sunday (16 June 2019). It is the one human being – Jesus – that brings meaning and purpose to all the rest. Our God is revealed as one God in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and it is the relationship between the Son and the Father that establishes the possibility of our transformation.

You can download a PDF version of the sermon by clicking here.

Psalm 8 (New International Version)

For the director of music. According to gittith. A psalm of David.
1 Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory
in the heavens.
2 Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?

5 You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honour.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
8 the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

9 Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

“God made the angels to show His splendour – as He made animals for innocence and plants for their simplicity. But men and women He made to serve Him wittily, in the tangle of their minds.”

So said Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s A Man for all Seasons.

We are unique in creation because we have the capacity to contemplate its wonder.

And glimpse ourselves in relation to God’s awesome splendour.

The psalmist, David, gazed at the heavens above and was amazed at its size and mystery. If only he had known that he saw about 0.001% of the 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, he might have felt a good bit smaller still! Then he heard the babies cry and the children loudly play and was lost in wonder at their exploration of sound and action; discovering and being inspired by the endless possibilities that being human offers. The bringing together of the heavenly glory and the calls of a child or infant might seem strange to us but God delights in such a drawing together.

The story is told of a mother who wanted to encourage her young son’s progress at the piano.

She bought tickets for a performance by Paderewski, the famous Polish concert pianist.

When the night arrived they found their seats near the front of the concert hall and eyed the majestic Steinway waiting on stage.

Soon the mother found a friend to talk to and the boy slipped away.

When eight o’clock arrived, the spotlights came on, the audience quietened, and only then did they notice the boy up on the piano stool, innocently picking out “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

His mother gasped in horror but, before she could retrieve her son, the master appeared on stage and quickly moved to the piano.

“Don’t stop – keep playing” he whispered to the boy.

Leaning over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around the other side, encircling the child, to add a running obligato.

Together the old master and the young novice held the crowd mesmerised.

In our lives, unpolished though we may be, it is the Master who surrounds us.

He whispers in our ear, time and again, “Don’t stop – keep playing”.

And, as we do, he augments and supplements until a work of amazing beauty is created.

For us, the wonder is that he has chosen to work with us. Sometimes when we’re struggling and feeling a bit sorry for ourselves we might ask, “God, why me?”

Here, David, from a completely different angle asked, “God, why us?” Why are we so special that we gain this privilege?

And the answer to that question is not at all apparent in the Psalm. Instead, we are left marvelling at our fortune to the extent that recognition and praise must return to God.

We have to go elsewhere to receive the key to unlock the fullest Christian understanding of the dynamic of our privilege.

We read the following in the New Testament book of Hebrews chapter 2, and verses 5 to 9.

“It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. But there is a place where someone has testified:
“What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
a son of man that you care for him?
You made them a little lower than the angels;
you crowned them with glory and honour
and put everything under their feet.”
In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. But we do see Jesus – who was made lower than the angels for a little while – now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

Here, we find the writer of the Hebrews directly quoting from Psalm 8.

He refers to the importance of human beings in God’s creative work.

The writer does something special.

He understands humanity not through the reference of humanity in general but through one human being, Jesus Christ. It is the one human being that brings meaning and purpose to all the rest.

The divine act of the exaltation and coronation of human beings that David pondered in the Psalm is seen perfectly manifested in Jesus. It is only Jesus who can truly claim the mantle which was bestowed on all and in God’s re-creation of the world and cosmos; it is Christ who bears the honour and bestows it on humanity in turn.

We are created to bear God’s image; we are re-created to bear Christ’s image and, in so doing, bear God’s image.

How does that work?

Well, it can only work through the divine relationship that exists in God. Our God is revealed as one God in three persons; Father, Son and Holy Spirit and it is the relationship between the Son and the Father that establishes the possibility of our transformation.

Remember Philip’s request to Jesus in John 14, to show us the Father? Jesus answered: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father… do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”

Jesus explained that the works he does are the works of the Father who dwells in him. In other words, the image that the Son bears is that of the Father; thus the Son’s work is intended to reveal the person of the Father.

Furthermore, it became Jesus’ goal to reconcile humanity to his Father through the power of the Holy Spirit; that what was clear in him was manifest through us.

So the triune God has established the true worth of humanity through his own nature and work, all of which makes Psalm 8 such an appropriate and powerful text for Trinity Sunday.

A newly-appointed minister went to visit the home of a member of his congregation.

Upon arriving there, the minister discovered his host was an avid gardener, and was only too delighted to show his minister around the garden, a magnificent sea of greens, purples, blues, whites, yellows and pinks.

Wanting to set the relationship off on a strong, positive note, the minister commented, “Praise God for the beauty of his handiwork”.

But his host replied in a somewhat offended tone, “Now minister, don’t go giving all the credit to God. You should have seen this garden when the Almighty had it to himself!”

The gardener in fact had very good theology.

God has designed the world in such a way that God works in partnership with us, and we with God, to achieve God’s ends. He has made us a little lower than God, and crowned us with glory and honour.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Amen.

The sixth Sunday of Easter (26 May 2019), has Psalm 67 as one of its Lectionary Scriptures and Rev. Geoff McKee discusses selfishness and sharing, reminding us that we are blessed by God in order that we may bless others. As Christians, we have a sacred heritage to pass on to others – to the world – to the glory of God.

You can download a PDF version of the sermon, if you wish, by clicking here.

Psalm 67 (New International Version)
For the director of music. With stringed instruments. A psalm. A song.
1 May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face shine on us—
2 so that your ways may be known on earth,
your salvation among all nations.

3 May the peoples praise you, God;
may all the peoples praise you.
4 May the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you rule the peoples with equity
and guide the nations of the earth.
5 May the peoples praise you, God;
may all the peoples praise you.

6 The land yields its harvest;
God, our God, blesses us.
7 May God bless us still,
so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.

The lectionary texts for this Sunday portray the cosmic reach of God’s blessing:

• Paul sailed for Philippi where he shared the gospel and baptised Lydia, the first recorded European convert to Christianity (Acts 16:9-15)
• In the Revelation passage, John was taken to the mountaintop where he saw the new Jerusalem and the nations moving through its gates to find healing from the tree of life (Revelation 21:10, 21:22-22:5)
• In Psalm 67 (above), the Psalmist understood God’s blessing of the believing community to extend out into all the earth, to all the nations.

One of the greatest ambitions of any violinist is to play a Stradivarius.

Meticulously handcrafted by Antonio Stradivari, these very rare violins produce an unrivalled sound.

So you can imagine the excitement of acclaimed British violinist Peter Cropper when, in 1981, London’s Royal Academy of Music offered him a 258-year-old Stradivarius for a series of concerts.

But then, the unimaginable.

As Peter entered the stage, he tripped, landed on top of the violin and snapped the neck off.

We can’t even begin to imagine how Peter Cropper felt at that moment. A priceless masterpiece destroyed! [Read more…]

For the 5th Sunday of Easter 2019 (19 May 2019), Rev. Geoff McKee considers Psalm 148.

You can download a PDF version of the sermon by clicking here.

Psalm 148 (New International Version)

1 Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights above.
2 Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
3 Praise him, sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars.
4 Praise him, you highest heavens
and you waters above the skies.

5 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for at his command they were created,
6 and he established them for ever and ever—
he issued a decree that will never pass away.

7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
8 lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
stormy winds that do his bidding,
9 you mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars,
10 wild animals and all cattle,
small creatures and flying birds,
11 kings of the earth and all nations,
you princes and all rulers on earth,
12 young men and women,
old men and children.

13 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name alone is exalted;
his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.
14 And he has raised up for his people a horn,
the praise of all his faithful servants,
of Israel, the people close to his heart.

Praise the Lord.

On the evening of 20th July 1969 people across the world were huddled around black and white TV sets, breathless as they watched a grainy image.

Those who didn’t have TV sets had gone to the homes of neighbours who did.

No one wanted to miss what was being shown on the screen.

The air was thick with excitement and nervous tension.

Then, at four minutes to eleven, a white-suited Neil Armstrong stepped from his spacecraft onto the surface of the moon, uttering the immortal words, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Getting to the moon was a phenomenal achievement.

It signalled hope that we humans could achieve great things.

But, from another perspective, getting to the moon signalled the very worst about us.

Eight years before Armstrong stepped on the moon, the Russians put a man named Gagarin into a spaceship and launched him into orbit around the earth – the first ever manned space flight.

That moment shamed the people of the United States.

It was the time of the Cold War and once Gagarin went into space the US was determined to beat the Russians to the moon. They redoubled their efforts. The space programme became a national priority.

Why?

What was so important about being first to the moon?

The race to the moon was a race for bragging rights.

It was a competition to show which nation had the greatest know-how, which system – Capitalism or Communism – the most advanced technology, the cleverer scientists.

A report to the House Subcommittee on Manned Space Flight of the Committee on Science and Astronautics in 1974 stated that the Apollo moon program cost $25.4 billion, which equates to over $100 billion in today’s values. All of this occurred at a time when the US and the world were filled with hungry people.

The greatest sin of humanity is to believe that it is the centre of the universe.

In other words, to always ask the question: ‘What’s in it for us?’

The Psalter – the collection of 150 Psalms in our Bible – is divided into 5 books, reflective of the 5 books of the Law, the Pentateuch.

The final 5 Psalms in the Psalter, all framed with the words ‘Hallelu jah’ are in themselves a mini-Pentateuch of praise to God.

The attention is resolutely taken off the human condition, with its myriad interests and concerns, and it is placed on the praise of God.

In fact, the entry of humanity itself in Psalm 148 – in the great praise chorus to God – is relegated to the end portion of the Psalm.

We are far from the centre of attention.

Have you ever heard the sun, the moon and the stars praising God? Have you ever heard fire, hail, snow and frost praising God? Well then, you haven’t been listening hard enough!

What a delight this Spring to walk through the woods very early in the morning and delight in the contrasting songs of the dawn chorus. The Chiffchaffs and the Willow Warblers really do praise God! If you haven’t heard them you’re missing something very special…

It is good for us to take our place beneath the rest of the created order that we might learn in humility.

It’s appropriate that this Psalm is read at Easter time by Christians for, at its heart, is the mission of God to reconcile all things under his Lordship.

Paul wrote of the significance of the ministry of reconciliation and, in Ephesians, he declared that all things are reconciled or united in Christ.

The work of Christ should not be reduced to one particular view of the atonement. It is not exclusively about sacrifice nor is it exclusively about victory but it is most certainly about reconciling all things in himself.

We are included in Christ’s reconciling embrace.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism reminds us: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” That sounds like a good outcome and is consistent with the objective of all creation which groans with anticipation for its reality.

C.S. Lewis wrote: “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.”

We have the privilege among all of creation to express it verbally and we should do so until our delight is complete.

William Henry Draper wrote his great hymn All creatures of our God and King exactly 100 years ago based on the words of Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun which was, in turn, inspired by Psalm 148.

It contains a startling and stunning piece of theological writing in its sixth verse which is worth returning to.

“And you, most kind and gentle death,
waiting to hush our fading breath,
O praise him, alleluia!
You homeward lead the child of God,
and Christ our Lord the way has trod:”

The invitation here is to death itself to offer praise to God because death itself is only ultimately God’s servant.

That is quite stunning and it comes directly from the way our Lord has trod.

If Jesus had not gone there, there would be no redemption and death – along with everything else -would not have been reconciled to the all-encompassing love of God.

Louis Albert Banks told the story of an elderly Christian man, a fine singer, who learned that he had cancer of the tongue and that surgery was required.

In the hospital, after everything was ready for the operation, the man said to the doctor, “Are you sure I will never sing again?”

The surgeon found it difficult to answer his question. He simply shook his head, no.

The patient then asked if he could sit up for a moment.

“I’ve had many good times singing the praises of God,” he said. “And now you tell me I can never sing again. I have one song that will be my last. It will be of gratitude and praise to God.”

There, in the doctor’s presence, the man sang softly the words of Isaac Watts’ hymn, “I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath,/ And when my voice is lost in death,/ Praise shall employ my nobler power;/ My days of praise shall ne’er be past,/ While life, and thought, and being last,/ Or immortality endures.”

At a service in a Presbyterian church in Omaha in the United States people were given helium filled balloons and told to release them at some point in the service when they felt like expressing joy in their hearts. Since they were Presbyterians, they weren’t free to say “Hallelujah, Praise the Lord.” All through the service balloons ascended, but when the service was over one third of the balloons were unreleased.

The Psalm would say to us today: ‘Let your balloon go.’

Only you can do it.

May you be inspired to praise the Lord!

Amen.