in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands

(Presbyterian, Congregational, Disciples of Christ)

What are you doing here?

This "brutally direct question" is a call to reflection and action we each need to hear - and this Pastor's letter is a great sermon - click here to read

Extracts from a sermon by Rt. Rev. Dr. Roderick Hewitt

as the CWM Assembly 2006 opens in Ocho Rios, Jamaica on 18th June

CWM's Assembly in Ocho Rios opened on 18 June with a challenge to take the good news home.

Drummers, choirs, and a steel band led the delegates and guests in enthusiastic and colourful celebration: "From many tribes and nations, with thankful songs we come."

Moderator of CWM and of the host church, the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, Rt Rev Dr Roderick Hewitt laid down a challenge to the Assembly.

"God's redemptive work is opposed to structures of injustice at every level in our world that maintains the privileges of the powerful," he said.

"The good news that was embraced by the shepherds declared that God in Jesus Christ has inaugurated a new reign that no empire can subvert. Jesus' birth, the birth of the Christ child, set a stark warning to the emperor and his empire that God's purpose for his world is greater than Caesar's.

"To the pretenders of local and global power the church declares the sovereignty of God's power.

"The good news takes us into a very uncomfortable experience. It begins with an understanding of the human condition - a condition that no amount of adjustments can change. Change can only come if we admit our weakness, powerlessness and hostility and embrace God's good news of acceptance, forgiveness and love in Christ.

"Rooted at the heart of this transformation is the power of the cross.

"The mission of the crucified and resurrected Christ has made impotent the awesome powers of the imperial systems of this world that seek to make and keep people captives to their desires. In the face of worldly powers God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

"This is the good news that we will take home: that the called out people of God in every local community around the world, however weak or poor we are, we are part of God's mission of righting the wrongs of this world that are enslaving people and denying them fullness of life."
d denying them fullness of life."
Reported by Kenwyn Pierce of CWM (Council for World Mission)

YOU MATTER

St. John 15: 9 - 17

“Love is dangerous”           says a cover story article in the National Geographic ... read full sermon

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NEWNESS

The central message of the Bible is a message of newness.  It speaks emphatically and forcefully of the creation of a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21:1).  Read full sermon from The Family News May 2006

BEING THE CHURCH IN A CHANGING WORLD

Isaiah 58: 1- 14

In a recent sermon at an ordination service of the United Church, The Rev. Norbert Stephens, Minister of Webster Memorial United Church in Kingston, Jamaica, examined a number of topics that are critical to all of us who comprise Christ's Church in today's world: "How should the church function in a rapidly changing world?” How do we retain or reclaim our identity? What is our core business as church in a time like this? Should we remain fixed and fixated by our traditions and practices and simply wait out the changes occurring in every area of life, or should we just go with the flow? Should we, like the shapers of our tradition did, raise the theological questions about life and customs, or should we just park the questions in the search for relevance and growth? Click here for the whole sermon:

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FORMED FOR GOD’S FAMILY

A sermon presented as part of the George Town charge’s 40 Days of Purpose Programme, and based on:

The Purpose Driven Life - Part 3

Rick Warren

Saddleback Church – Lake Forest, Calif.

Click here for full transcript.

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Going? Or Going along?

Lift your sights higher

(Extract from a sermon on God's grace - New Testament readings and commentary omitted for this purpose.)

Text: Genesis 12:1-4; Psalms 121;

Genesis 12: 4 told us “So Abram left, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him.”

So we see Abram going, as the Lord had told him, in testimony to that great faith which was credited to him as righteousness. But what of Lot, who was the only other person named in our text? All we are told is that Lot went with Abram. Is that all it was to Lot, I wonder, He went along? I am tempted to suspect so. For a time though, if you continue to read the story of Abram, you see Lot doing quite well (it seems), by simply going along. By the next chapter, Abram has become very wealthy – though we won’t go into the means of that today. All we’re told about Lot is that he “was moving about with Abram, and also had flocks and herds and tents.” In fact, together they had too much and some friction was building up. So Abram, in what seems quite a grace filled gesture, tells Lot he must choose whatever land he wanted and Abram would go somewhere else with his flocks. You choose first. You take the pick of what’s available – and he points out there is plenty to choose from. Genesis 13:10 tells us that “Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered” - so he chose that. Lot “looked up” and saw … rich land, a good earthly prize, and he took it. Our Psalmist today looked up to the hills too, but that was not what he saw. He saw instead the Maker of those hills, of heaven and earth. He saw from Whom his help, his protection, his true and lasting rewards, come. Should Lot have looked further, like the Psalmist?

In verse 14, we read “The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Lift up your eyes … and look north and south, east and west. All the land you see I will give to you and your offspring forever.” I think most of us are familiar with the rest of this story, though it is worth closer study. But we generally know that when Lot chose the land, he “pitched his tents near Sodom.” Not perhaps the wisest choice. First, he and all his family and possessions were taken away captive, but Abram went and rescued him. Then it sort of went further downhill from there! The next thing we see is, through the efforts of Abram again, he is rescued from Sodom just before the two angels destroyed the whole town, and he ends up living in fear in some cave, with just his two daughters, with whom he sires two sons, whose descendants constantly oppose the descendants of Abraham, the people fashioned by God for His redemptive purpose.

Is there not evidence in the Church today that we have to take more seriously the call from God to leave the familiar situations or spheres we feel at home in, whatever they may be individually, stop just accepting the status quo we’ve grown comfortable with, and step out in faith to claim some new territory for Christ? Whether we are 25, 55, or 75 like Abram, we need to get going in faith and give God the opportunity to show us what He wants to do, amongst new people as well as ‘family’ - and like Abram we have to just do it. Even if sometimes we get it wrong for awhile. The story of Abraham makes it clear that if we continue in sincere belief in God, He will pull us back on track, rescue us from our imperfections and reward our work abundantly in ways we could not imagine. But He will keep demanding that we have true faith. From Genesis 15: we read that “Abram believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Yet in 17:1, God is still telling him “walk with me and be  blameless” and, later, “you must keep my commandments, you and your descendants” (which now include us, as heirs through our belief in Christ to that righteousness of Abraham).

It’s all the way to chapter 21 before Isaac, the long promised son, is born. Then in chapter 22 again Abraham’s faith is put to the greatest test of all. God’s grace accepts us as we are with all our imperfections, but doesn’t ignore them or give us the luxury to choose to do so. Gen. 18:15 notes what seems almost an aside: “Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said ‘I did not laugh.’ But [the Lord] said, ‘Yes, you did laugh.’” And then there is no more on this subject. Just that. We might think it strange to find it there. After all, we can understand a little lie like that! We can easily convince ourselves that to deny it will save face for the other person as much as ourselves. And we’d kind of think it doesn’t seem big enough for the Lord to stop and argue about. But He did. ‘Yes, you did doubt me.’ Is that often what we call our conscience?

I also think there is evidence all around us, even in the Church, that too many of us are not going anywhere in obedience to God. If we’re not being obedient to Him, but seem to be going in the right direction for awhile, it’s just because we are only going along, like Lot, with the ones who have the faith to go where the Lord has told them. But from Lot we have seen that you can only go along like this for a while. Sooner or later you are going to be given the opportunity in grace to make your own choice. And when you look up you’ll be blindsided by what is right in front of you: the worldly hill that fills your sights, whether it’s a quick buck, power, sex, laziness, or a sense of hopelessness, the need to repair a shattered home you didn’t expect to have to face, the despair of an abusive relationship, you name it. You’re not going to see the glory beyond the hill, the Source of your real, lasting joy, help and sustenance. You cannot see the greater opportunity in all directions that Abraham saw when he looked up. You cannot see the Kingdom of God, because, as Jesus said to Nicodemus, to do so you would have had to have truly believed. And because of this, too many of our people have surely pitched their tents too close to Sodom.

And they are being taken captive. Surely we who are now blessed to be Abraham’s descendants have to hone our plan, as Abram did, and go and rescue them and their families and bring them back where they belong. We have the space for them! This is not a time for the Church to give up. I hope you have been noticing how often scientists in so many fields, like astronomy, medicine and psychiatry, are now admitting that there definitely appears to be more to life and to the universe and to child development, etc., than biology, chemistry and physics. They are finally discovering that the human brain, whether in severely brain damaged patients or rebellious teenagers, responds to the voice of love. And that is what Christ in His grace has equipped His believers with, the miraculous power of love that is pure. Surely, therefore, we must help our people, young and not so young, rich and poor, abused and abuser, to see the greater opportunity, the greater joy, that lies beyond the immediate hill that is obscuring their vision. Since love and care cannot be indifferent, surely we must help our people to lift up their eyes, truly raise their sights, and see that there is something better to aspire to, to hold out for, so much better than what so many are now settling for. Surely we are called on to get down on our knees and beg God to spare them, even if, as with Lot’s family, some refuse to be rescued because they can’t see the destruction drawing in on them. Some will come back, and that is what we are called on to do, share the grace, the great opportunity, given to us by the God who so loves us all. Amen.