Psalm 18.19
'He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.'
Almighty and gracious and 'spacious' God
we praise you for the length and depth and height and breadth
of your love for us in Christ Jesus
your Son and our only Saviour and Lord.
We thank you that in Christ we can be free
from condemnation and all restriction
free from guilt,
free from despair
free from fear and suspicion of other people.
We thank you for that perfect love that casts out fear
for fear is to do with punishment.
As we worship today
may the Holy Spirit deal
with the alienation
that keeps us far from you
and from each other.
May we enjoy your grace and space.
May we know your rescue
and your delight in us
through Christ our Lord
Amen
Psalm 119.41-64
The Health Services Executive is much in the public eye
especially over the needs of vulnerable teenagers
many of whom get sucked into criminality
and sadly some meet lonely, violent deaths.
Especially if like me you live in a leafy suburb
it is all too easy to get into an attitude of condemnation
and pronouncing what ‘they’ should be doing more
whether ‘they’ are the police or social workers or schools
or of course the families themselves.
Condemning is all too easy and cheap and useless.
I would like us to pray today for people in places not so far away from here
places of profound social deprivation
and to keep praying regularly for God’s blessing to be seen practically
so that people there may enjoy the peace and safety that we take for granted.
Before we pray it will be helpful to try and understand more
and to see what God says in his word
And please, let none of us say that thought that may be hanging in our minds
‘Lock them all up and throw away the key.’
Or bring back flogging, bring back hanging’
Even if those things were possible they would be counter productive -
violence produces more violence
and for Christians they are counter to the spirit of Jesus.
The story of the prodigal son for example is about mercy to a delinquent
not locking him up or flogging him or making him live on bread and water.
The Irish Examiner did a feature on youth crime last week (16 July)
looking at how complex the problems are
and what is being done to try and help.
Research suggests that teenagers in trouble
are likely to be from families where there is alcohol abuse,
a history of criminal activity and ineffective parenting.
They are likely to drop out of school and
to keep the company of other young people hanging about.
What then happens often is that youthful high spirits
and a lack of maturity as teenagers
leads to impulsive, out of control behaviour
which does not see the long term consequences and cost
whether to themselves their families or the wider community.
The Examiner articles highlight different key things
which need to happen together to bring about change:
education, employment, increased Garda presence,
sustained involvement by social services
a culture of co-operation between the courts and social services.
Where does prayer and faith come into all this? In two main ways.
First lets pray that government makes decisions
that allow even scarce resources go to these places of most need;
lets pray for teachers who can persevere in schools
where there is much reason to be discouraged;
lets pray for employers not to dismiss a job application
because it comes from a ‘bad area’;
lets pray for people to get a sense
that drowning their pain and emptiness in alcohol or other drugs is not the answer
that there is hope in a restored relationship with God.
And lets pray for family relationships to be restored all over the place.
That leads us to our second main line of prayer
looking at the spiritual roots of these problems
that people would understand what God says
about true freedom in him and about how much he values us.
TRUE FREEDOM
45 I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.
‘Freedom’ is a word which cannot really stand on its own.
It is not reasonable to claim the freedom to shout ‘Fire’ in a crowded building.
If a fox has freedom to hunt hens then the hens are entitled to be free of fear.
Retired people sometimes find that the freedom they looked forward to
not having to go to work each day
becomes a burden not a delight, they are bored not fulfilled.
To use a painful example in recent news
we cannot allow a freedom to drive as fast you like.
So be very careful with people who complain
about their freedom being hampered by rules and regulations.
We need rather to think in the way that the Psalm writer thinks
who says as another version puts it
‘I have gained perfect freedom by following your teachings’
When I was a student I did a tour of Greece in three weeks.
I didn’t see all the ancient sites
but I remember in a youth hostel meeting some guys
who were doing the world tour for a year or so.
You might have thought they were more free than me
more time and space do as they pleased
but they were bored.
One of them remarked how he envied those of us on a quick tour.
We were focused, we were following a plan.
Do not listen to the voices that suggest
that the teaching and the rules of the Bible are oppressive or restrictive.
The opposite is true.
As the old prayer says: God’s service is perfect freedom.
Here’s something from an unlikely source
that understands something of the roots of true freedom.
‘Men are free when they are in a living homeland,
not when they are straying and breaking away.
Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief.
Obeying from within.
Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community,
active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose.
Not when they are escaping to some wild west.
The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom.
… The shout is a rattling of chains, always was.’
DH Lawrence is a writer
usually associated with the loosing of restriction on personal liberty
but here at least he has glimpsed the emptiness of unrestricted freedom.
Lawrence wrote, perhaps longingly,
about people obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief’.
Now lets look at what Jesus himself said about obedience in John 15
9 "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love,
just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.
11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends if you do what I command.
15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business.
Instead, I have called you friends,
for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.'
No longer slaves but friends.
When we are with our friends are we not most free and fulfilled?
To return to the problems we began with:
is this not the freedom and the friendship we want for young people
in danger of ruining their own and others’ lives through crime?
Not a freedom where they kick over responsibilities
and head for the deceptive wild west
but a freedom and fulfilment they will find in relationships
which are wholesome positive secure constant.
And is that not a freedom and friendship we each need?
Not simply as a social blessing
but one with spiritual roots in the friendship of Jesus Christ?
True freedom and deep value.
We go to v 57
‘You are my portion, O LORD; I have promised to obey your words.’
You are my portion, my share in life, my inheritance.
The promised land in the book of Joshua was apportioned out
given by God in separate lots or portions to each tribe
but the Levites (Joshua 13.33) had no portion (inheritance) in the land
because their portion was the Lord.
What was a great spiritual reality for the Levites in the Old Testament
becomes in the coming of Christ a reality for every believer.
It is simply and wonderfully this: The LORD is all that we need.
That was something that in the despair of the book of Lamentations
the writer of Lamentations held on to:
3.24 'I say to myself, The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’
The city was captured, the temple was in ruins,
all that they had held dear and treasured was in bits
but they still had wealth in God.
One writer puts it like this:
In saying ‘God is our portion’ we lay hold on God as a person.
We grasp all his riches as ours
and think of ourselves as having a legal entitlement to them
and we appropriate them as our very own.
We say to him
‘All your resources are mine to draw on.
Your strength flows to me in my weakness;
your wisdom comes to me in my folly;
your righteousness is mine to cover my sinfulness;
your presence is mine in my loneliness;
your comfort is mine when my heart is broken by grief;
you are my solid rock and the foundation of my life
when everything else around me is falling to pieces;
your life is what I draw on; your life is my life. YOU are mine.
We shouldn’t claim this in any arrogant self confident way
but this is the point, it’s an inheritance, an allocation a gift from God -
we have done nothing to deserve it
but when we say God is our portion we mean
‘In Christ I have everything. I’m a prince in his kingdom.
I have honour and dignity; power and wisdom.
I possess all this for I possess God as my portion.
And if we know the wonder of God being our inheritance
what other response can there be than how that verse ends?
I have promised to obey your words.’
If we long that alienated young people and fractured families
should live better ways
we’d better live that way ourselves in obedience of this God in Christ
of whom we can say:
The LORD is my portion, I am rich in him.
He has given me true freedom.
Loving Father
We bring your our concern for people not far away from us
who struggle with basic freedoms
who have not had the opportunities we have had
who feel vulnerable and afraid
where there is pressure on the young to join a gang
and pressure on young and old just to give up
and drown their sorrow or let drugs deaden the pain.
We acknowledge, Lord that if we lived where they live
if we had the upbringing they had
we might well be no different in our behaviour.
Help us dear Father to be truly Christian
to model lives where freedom in Christ
is harmonised with obedience to Christ
and increasing Christlikeness in all our reactions.
We thank you for teachers, doctors, social workers, police
who seek to do their best in serving others.
Give them wisdom, renewed energy and good humour
and may our whole nation be compassionate rather than condemning.
We have heard God’s word;
we have worshipped him with praise and prayer.
Now may the Holy Spirit go on writing God’s law in your hearts;
may the mind of Christ be truly in you as you go into all the world
and love the Lord your God
with all your heart and soul and mind and strength
and your neighbour as yourself.
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