For it is God who is at work in you,

 enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Philippians 2.13

 

In our reflections last Sunday, we found out that God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts.

 

God’s sense of fairness is quite different from the sense of “fairness” the world or you and I think and practice. Our economic and political systems, our social relations and even our culture are imperfect. It reeks with individualism, profiteering, control and monopoly of resources by a few. Privatization of resources and services lends to marginalization, injustice and poverty for the great majority of people of the world. The truth is: more often than not, our thinking and ways reflect that of the world.

 

If God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and God’s ways are not our ways, how can we as God’s people be able to know, understand and reflect in our lives God’s thoughts and ways?

 

Locating God

 

How the God of Israel was known to the people can be similar to a father/mother-child relationship. The child, from infancy surely but slowly, begins to know the parents as they make themselves known to the child in ways that the child can understand – perhaps as beginning with nurture, guidance, training and enabling, and later on to self-reliance and autonomy. Between the parent and child, the relationship is built on mutual trust and understanding.

 

In the life of the Israelites, there were many times that they lost their faith in God. Hungry and thirsty in the desert almost made them turn around and go back to bondage in Egypt. They say it is better in Egypt because at least there can eat and drink regularly even while under captivity.

 

But their greatest mistake was often they would forget where God is in their Journey. They ask, “Where is God?” and then complain. This complaining began to bear on their collective faith. It was dividing the people.

 

This pandemic is causing a lot of divisions in society. Though the slogan “Keeping apart keeps us together” speaks mainly about the appropriateness of physical distancing to avoid infection, it does not necessarily apply to our belief and practice as a community of faith.

 

This is because covid-19 is not the only reason that may keep us apart. The differences in the way we address the pandemic and how we conduct ourselves as a church can also be a source of our separation and disunity. Our cultural diversity which is embraced in the Uniting Church  , is not playing well and is becoming differences

 

This is because covid-19 is not the only reason that may keep us apart. The differences in the way we address the pandemic and how we conduct ourselves as a church can also be a source of our separation and disunity. Our cultural diversity which is embraced in the Uniting Church, I observe, is not playing well and is turning into differences.

 

There is the pull towards ethnocentrism, meaning looking inward to each ethic or language community to the point of neglecting the need for interculturalism, meaning collectively responding and everyone contributing to the worship and ministry of the church. I observe that there are people shunning away from online meetings and even online services. There is a decrease in contributions to our relief packages for international students and temporary migrants. We only have a handful of volunteers to run some our ministries.

 

So this points us to the need to be aware of the effects of the pandemic to our being a multi-cultural, intercultural church. Are we living out these names or descriptions we claim we have embraced in all the circumstances we are in? What does “being in full accord and of one mind” and “to have the same mind in Christ” mean to us?

 

Our knowledge of God, which is gained from our study of the faith journey of the People of God found in the Bible, in particular how God revealed the Godself to the people. And in our understanding, we also learn that God is quite unique because God came as a human being in Christ. We ate taught that God abides in us, and is in us through the Holy Spirit.

 

Is God in the pandemic? Yes, God is in the circumstances where we find ourselves. God with the sick and the suffering and with the front-liner and those finding a vaccine. God is with the lonely and those alone while God is with those who provide care and comfort. God is with the stood down, the ones who lost their jobs and those who makes ways and means so that they will not fall through the cracks.

 

Why do I say these? It is because, as Paul said, God knows how to be human by becoming human. And so we can find divine companionship and comfort.

 

If God abides with us, we should also abide in God. Abiding in God is being immersed in God. It is following God’s will.

 

Jesus provided an example, through the parable, how one can be obedient to God’s will. The son who said, “I will not” but changed his mind and went to work in the vineyard followed the will of his father, not the other son who said he will but did not go.

 

Jesus was referring to this very parable when, on the night that he was betrayed, prayed in Gethsemane saying “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want” (Mat 26.39).

 

Paul described Jesus as one who:

6 though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death– even death on a cross.

 

Jesus was obedient to God’s will even to the point of death. And Paul says let this mind of Christ be in us: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus (Phil 2.5).

 

In order to have the mind of Christ, we are called to:

empty ourselves,
take the form of a slave,
be humble, and
be obedient even to the point of death

 

In a world where we are taught to have our fill of economic wealth, fame, glory, and knowledge, Christ calls us to empty ourselves.

 

In a society where we always wish to be treated like masters, Christ calls us to take the form of a slave. When we look after our own interests, we are called to look after the welfare of others.

 

In a world where the temptation to be giants in our fields, be proud of our success, be put on a pedestal, Christ calls us to be humble. Where selfish ambition or conceit is the name of the game, we are called to humility, to regard others as better than ourselves.

 

In a world where the fittest survive, where self-preservation at any cost matters most, where what God wants and God’s will is made insignificant, we are called to be obedient even to the point of death.

 

Who says to be a Christian is easy? It is indeed difficult and challenging because there is a constant need to know the will of God in us and the world. We are assured however that we can do this by acknowledging, as Apostle Paul said, God is at work in us, enabling us both to will and to work for his good pleasure  (Philippians 2.13).

 

Amen.