Lossiemouth Church of Scotland

Rev. Geoff McKee’s scripture for 03 June 2018 is from the apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. Paul compares Christians to earthen jars and this metaphor challenges us to recognise that we cannot live faithfully as followers of Christ by justifying ourselves. Instead, we must understand how in our weakness we show the way of Christ and share the gospel as a result.

Click here to download a PDF version of the sermon.

2 Corinthians 4:5-12 (New International Version)

5 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

In 2009 Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at the University of Oxford, published A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years.

It is an excellent, general and very readable history that seeks to tell the documented story of Christianity.

In 2013 he published Silence: A Christian History. It’s a remarkable, alternative history that seeks to tell the story of Christianity through what has not been said. That might seem like an impossibility but he produced a fascinating book.

As an example of an intriguing silence, he wrote about the strange case of the name ‘Mark’.

He wrote:

“As an example of a silence which has always fascinated me, from my first historical specialization in the sixteenth century, is the almost total absence of the Christian name Mark in late medieval and Tudor England, when the names of two of his fellow-Evangelists are common, and another, John, is overwhelmingly present. The one obvious exception which proves the rule, Anne Boleyn’s unfortunate musician Mark Smeaton, might explain later Tudor silence by discrediting the name because he was executed for treasonous adultery with the queen, but does not account for what went before.”

He goes on:

“This is one silence, apparently trivial, yet surely significant, for which so far I have found no good explanation. If we were to solve it, we might learn something new about the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.”

It’s a brilliant book and it emphasises to us that there is much that has not been said or recorded that is crucial to a broader understanding. There may be a number of reasons why facts have not been disclosed but, in the main, silence is due to human weakness. No-one wants the cupboard door to be flung open and all the skeletons to come tumbling out.

There are a good number of skeletons that appear in McCulloch’s book.

The apostle Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, desired to remain silent about his recent personal history.

This was because he was aware that a straightforward appeal to his experience would not wash with the sceptical Corinthians.

When Paul wrote to the Galatians he felt a great deal of freedom to simply state the chain of events that led him to be a self-proclaimed apostle to the Gentiles. The context was very different and clearly he did not fear a concerted backlash to his efforts.

However, with the difficult Corinthians, it could be very different. He couldn’t afford not to be heard because he was perceived as being too pushy. He didn’t want these people to be thinking to themselves: ‘Who does this fellow think he is?’. He needed to introduce himself in such a way that he made a claim to be heard but did not come over as being arrogant. And, you know, I think he did a remarkable job!

Once there was an emperor in the Far East who was growing old.

He knew it was coming time to choose his successor. But, instead of choosing one of his assistants or one of his own children, he decided to do something different.

He called all the young people in the kingdom together one day. He said, “It has come time for me to step down and to choose the next emperor. I have decided to choose one of you.”

The kids were shocked!

But the emperor continued. “I am going to give each one of you a seed today. One seed. It is a very special seed. I want you to go home, plant the seed, water it and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from this one seed. I will then judge the plants that you bring to me, and the one I choose will be the next emperor of the kingdom!”

There was one boy named Ling who was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly told his mother the whole story. She helped him get a pot and some planting soil, and he planted the seed and watered it carefully. Every day he would water it and watch to see if it had grown.

After about three weeks, some of the other youths began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow. Ling kept going home and checking his seed, but nothing ever grew. Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by. Still nothing.

By now others were talking about their plants but Ling didn’t have a plant, and he felt like a failure. Six months went by, still nothing in Ling’s pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Ling didn’t say anything to his friends, however. He just kept waiting for his seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the youths of the kingdom brought their plants to the emperor for inspection. Ling told his mother that he wasn’t going to take an empty pot. But she encouraged him to go, and to take his pot, and to be honest about what happened. Ling felt sick to his stomach, but he knew his mother was right. He took his empty pot to the palace.

When Ling arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by all the other youths. They were beautiful, in all shapes and sizes. Ling put his empty pot on the floor and many of the other kinds laughed at him. A few felt sorry for him and just said, “Hey, nice try.”

When the emperor arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted the young people. Ling just tried to hide in the back. “My, what great plants, trees and flowers you have grown,” said the emperor. “Today, one of you will be appointed the next emperor!”

All of a sudden, the emperor spotted Ling at the back of the room with his empty pot.

He ordered his guards to bring him to the front. Ling was terrified. “The emperor knows I’m a failure! Maybe he will have me killed!”

When Ling got to the front, the Emperor asked his name. “My name is Ling,” he replied. All the kids were laughing and making fun of him. The emperor asked everyone to quiet down.

He looked at Ling, and then announced to the crowd, “Behold your new emperor! His name is Ling!”

Ling couldn’t believe it. Ling couldn’t even grow his seed. How could he be the new emperor?

Then the emperor said, “One year ago today, I gave everyone here a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds which would not grow. All of you, except Ling, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grown, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Ling was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new emperor!”

Courage and honesty were at the heart of Paul’s appeal to the Corinthians.

Like Ling, Paul wrestled with all the doubts and insecurities that come with being given responsibility.

The easy way would have been to bluster on and make a case for his credibility.

The hard way was to admit his weakness, a mere clay jar, an earthen vessel; something that easily breaks and then – to everyone’s surprise – the treasure is exposed.

The challenge for us all is to understand that we do not live faithfully as followers of Christ by justifying ourselves. We do not have to do that because it is in our very weakness that the way of Christ is demonstrated and the gospel is shared.

It is a very hard lesson to learn and we are fortunate that the apostle Paul was able to communicate it to us through the example of his Saviour. May God help us to live in the same manner.

Amen.

Isaiah 6 is Rev. Geoff McKee’s scripture for Trinity Sunday (27 May 2018). It would be easy to get bogged down in technicalities about a 3-in-1 God; instead, the Isaiah passage delivers us from intellectual conundrums, as Geoff explains. He sets out 3 important truths which Isaiah’s experience reveals about the nature of worship. It is fascinating to see how much Isaiah’s encounter with God – which can be dated to 740BC – shapes our modern worship.

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

Isaiah 6:1-8 (New International Version)
Isaiah’s Commission
6 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

How do we end our prayers so often?

What do we pray?

‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost’.

Ann Spivack wrote in a magazine article: “While our friends from India travelled around California on business, they left their 11 year-old daughter with us. Curious about my going to church one Sunday morning, she decided to come along. When we returned home, my husband asked her what she thought of the service.

“I don’t understand why the West Coast isn’t included too,” she replied. When we inquired what she meant, she added, “You know: in the name of the Father, the Son, and the whole East Coast.”

This Trinity thing can be confusing, can’t it.

Is the Eternal Functional Submission of the Son taught in Scripture?

The Bible indicates that the Son submits to the Father while he is incarnate (John 5:19 and so on), and that he continues to into the future (1 Corinthians 15:27-28).

But does it also teach that he has done so from eternity past?

Is the Eternal Functional Submission of the Son novel?

That is: was it articulated, or even entertained, in the ancient church, or by the Reformers?

Is the Eternal Functional Submission of the Son heterodox, or even heretical?

The debate began with a claim that Eternal Functional Submission is not just wrong, but that it involves “reinventing God”, producing a different deity to the God of Nicene orthodoxy.

Is there a separation of the divine will?

Here’s the point many critics of Eternal Functional Submission are making –

For the Son to submit to the Father’s authority, there must be a distinction between the will of the Father and the will of the Son (otherwise submission would make no sense).

Which is fine, as long as we’re talking about Christ after the incarnation, since Christ has two wills.

But if we’re talking about Christ before the incarnation, then we’re saying the eternal God has two wills—and that is a denial of divine simplicity.

Does the Eternal Functional Submission of the Son imply that Christ only had one will? This is the flip-side of the previous point.

Take the Gethsemane prayer. Was Jesus saying “not the will of the Son, but the will of the Father,” or “not my human will, but your (and in fact my) divine will”?

If the former, as some Eternal Functional Submission advocates have argued, does that lead to the conclusion that Christ had just one will? Does the Eternal Functional Submission of the Son involve denying the Eternal Generation of the Son?

And so it goes on… Are you asleep yet?

What a travesty that the nature of our God is reduced to intellectual conundrums. [Read more…]

The opening verses of the Acts of the Apostles and the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven are Rev. Geoff McKee’s text for Ascension Sunday, the seventh Sunday of Easter (13 May 2018). Geoff explains how what is probably the most understated of the three key events which make up Christ’s act of salvation (his death, resurrection and ascension) is, nevertheless, central to salvation.

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

Acts 1:1-11 (New International Version)
Jesus Taken Up Into Heaven
1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptised with water, but in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.”

6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But 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.”

9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

We find ourselves this morning right at the end of the Easter season.

Our minds may be more at ease now, as the astonishing stories of the resurrection have had time to influence us afresh, stimulating our thinking and inspiring our living.

But right at the end of the season we are hit with another concept that puzzles and perplexes us.

Where is Jesus now?

Where is the Father’s right hand anyway?

Ascension Day always occurs on the Thursday prior to the Seventh Sunday of Easter, forty days after Easter Sunday.

We do not gather for worship on Thursday and so today is our celebration of the Ascension of our Lord.

I think it is fair to state that this is the most understated of the three key events which make up Christ’s act of salvation: his death, resurrection and ascension. The three may be only truly understood as a unity and so neglect of one will distort our understanding of the whole.

If the resurrection stretches our incredulity with its outrageous claim of new life from death then the ascension likewise seems to beg us to believe beyond reason.

Comic stained glass windows depicting a cloud with a pair of legs sticking out underneath it may make us laugh but it’s uncomfortable because what on earth – or beyond – was going on?

What are we actually being called on to believe here?

One of the essential elements of the incarnation is that Jesus entered into space and time to live and identify with humanity.

His resurrection body carries the marks, the evidence of that space/time experience and his continuing existence in the resurrection body implies that that space/time experience is real in some kind of meaningful sense.

Recognising the work of Augustine and the insight of Albert Einstein, we can acknowledge that time is a further dimension of spatial location.

You are receiving this sermon at 57.43.14 degrees North and 3.17.35 degrees West at (time of day) on Sunday 13th May.

Where is Jesus, in those terms, at this precise moment?

Of course, we can’t specify that.

We can say, consistent with the New Testament, that he is not here, but that he is elsewhere, at the right hand of the Father.

Could we say that he has ascended to the future; the future in God that changes the present?

For example, when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” we may also be praying, ‘Give us this day our future bread” – the bread that is promised to us now, which we are awaiting (because it can be translated that way).

None of this is easy, but we must not settle for less than the fullness of Christ.

Jesus remains fully human, located in time and space, yet unseen by us.

If, indeed, he is in the future of God’s purposes, we can be sure that he reaches to us from that point. He is not too far away. He is not remote.

The early church believed that the very particular ministry of the ascended Christ to all of humanity and the created order is prayer.

He remains both truly God and fully human and he continually prays for us.

Now for all of us – and especially for those of us who struggle with prayer (and I would think that would make up the majority of us) – that is particularly good news. [Read more…]

Rev. Geoff McKee has Acts 10:44-48 as his Scripture for the sixth Sunday of Easter (06 May 2018). This passage makes clear that “the unstoppable gospel of Jesus Christ is for all nations and for all races.”

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

Acts 10:44-48 (New International Version)
44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. 46 For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.

Then Peter said, 47 “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptised with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” 48 So he ordered that they be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days.

I read the following recently in a blog article about racism in the Church.

“It isn’t exactly evidence of great insight, though, to say that “racism is wrong”. The more urgent question is: why is racism so persistent in human societies? Why, when we know the devastation that racism can wreak, is prejudice against someone on the basis of race or ethnicity something that is so casually evident?

Let me put it more pointedly: why is it that, even though I know that racism is terrible, I still find within my own heart evidence of racist assumptions? I still assume, pretty much, that white guys should be in charge of most things. And, as the flipside, I do catch myself suspecting the motives of people who are not like me. Typical, I catch myself thinking, they can’t control their kids. They are always stealing. They are all corrupt. They breed like rabbits.”

“Even though I know that racism is terrible…”

The Holy Spirit has been working on humanity for two thousand years, placing within most of humanity a deep-seated unease with racism.

And yet we can do our utmost to quench the Spirit of God. Some have even managed to so grieve the Spirit of God that all that is left is a chasm of darkness. [Read more…]