The following links are to the Revised Common Lectionary commentary pages of Howard Wallace and Bill Loader, and are suggested as preparation for hearing the readings in worship for the Sunday indicated above.
Series I: Genesis 21:8-21 see also the By the Well podcast on this text and Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17
Series II:
Matthew 10:24-39 see also the By the Well podcast on this text
The worship service for Sunday 14 June 2020 can be viewed by clicking on the image below. Other worship services can be found in the list below or at the MtE YouTube channel
Pentecost 2
14/6/2020
1 Peter 5:6-14
Psalm 116
Matthew 9:35-10:8
In a sentence
1 Peter calls Christians to an extraordinary life of service
[‘]Set all hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring; be holy; love one another deeply; rid yourselves of all malice; let yourselves be built into a spiritual house; abstain from fleshly desires; conduct yourselves honourably; live as free people; have unity of spirit, sympathy and love, a tender heart and humble mind; do not repay evil for evil; sanctify Christ as Lord; keep your conscience clear; live no longer by earthly desires but by the will of God; be hospitable; speak and act as stewards of God’s grace; entrust yourself to the faithful creator; humble yourselves, cast all anxiety on God, resist the devil.[’]
The ‘charge’ Peter puts to his people is nothing less than, ‘Be extraordinary’. Know what you are, and become that ‘thing’. You are of God, in Christ; Be then what you are, where you are.
In this, Peter calls his people not to the ‘ten-million-views-on-YouTube’ type of extraordinary which dominates our sense of the marvellous today – the freak event, the apparently miraculous timing, or the just plain stupid. Peter’s ‘be extraordinary’ is a call to change our sense of what is ordinary, our sense of what is proper and appropriate.
We learn a sense for what is appropriate in the home, at school, in our engagements at work and through other aspects of human society. And much of that is very good. Yet Peter’s ‘be extraordinary’ is not, ‘Be what you have learned to be from the breast,’ but rather, ‘Be as Jesus was’, whose death seemed to his killers to be just what they had long learned to be appropriate. For Jesus’ death was, in this way, an entirely ordinary thing. It was just the cogs in the machine of one particular human society grinding on, producing what that machine is supposed to produce, which includes not a little death of things insufficiently ‘ordinary’ or appropriate, the death of who does not fit, of who is not valued.
Peter’s ‘be extraordinary’ is a call to be willing to be Jesus, in your own particular time and place. And do not be surprised, he reminds them, that it is hard work. There is death in the machine and you can’t fix it. But even if you can’t fix it, you don’t have to fear it, or be forced by it to be less than God calls you to be. A fearless life is not necessarily a long one, or even a wholly ‘happy’ one. It is simply a life which knows where we have come from and what we are here for.
We have come from the God who calls us unto being. This is not a mere calling into existence. It is the call issued to those capable of hearing and responding (or not). We are when we respond. Peter’s people have heard this call, have received themselves from God through Jesus, and now see themselves in the work of Jesus. Here is the new and better ordinary.
We are here, then, that we might become that new ordinary, that ‘extra’-ordinary. We are here as an answer to the question, ‘Where is God?’ We usually ask this question in such a way as to imagine that the answer might be, ‘Oh, God’s just over there…’ Peter’s answer is that God is ‘there’ in the life of Jesus, and wherever that life finds an echo in our lives. God is present in humble acceptance, in the gentle word, in the grace which releases. God is ‘there’ when God’s people speak and act ‘as if the God of grace’, as we saw last week. Do these things, for the remembrance of me.
To know what we are – that we are of the God of grace – and to become this – humble yet fearless, merciful yet strong – this is God’s call to us in Peter’s letter.
It’s all rather simple, then. We have a charge to keep.
Let us, then, humble ourselves, cast our cares on God, keep alert and resist the constant temptation to be any less than the very good God seeks in us.
And may we find that this is enough.
These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.
Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.
His father was a respected farmer in Wildhaus, St. Gallen. Two brothers became priests and two sisters nuns. Little is known of his early years but he studied in Basel (1494), Bern (1496-98); Vienna (1498-1502). He gained his MA in 1506. Widely read in the Fathers and current humanism, he was deeply attracted by Erasmus and his scholarship. Ordained in 1506, he became parish priest in Glarus till 1516, taking time out in 1513 and 1515 to be a military chaplain. That experience left him strongly opposed to mercenary service. His next position was at the Benedictine Abbey at Einsiedeln, where he did further study of Greek, using Erasmus’ New Testament and further consolidated his reputation as a fine preacher.
That led in 1518 to an invitation to be people’s priest in the Old Minster in Zurich. Beginning on New Year’s Day, 1519, he undertook to preach through biblical books, instead of confining himself to the readings of the lectionary. At this stage, he had no commitment to reform, but a near-death experience from plague in 1519 altered his priorities, both in his personal life and in his ministry. In 1522, he began to live with Anna Reinhart, a widow, while at the same time criticising abuses in the Zurich churches and community.
His critique of fasting led to disregard of these rules.
The Bishop of Constance was concerned at this breach. Disputations on the matter in January and November, 1523 aroused intense interest and led to the civic authorities removing the Minster from the bishop’s jurisdiction and supporting some of Zwingli’s suggestions for change.
Images, pictures and organs were removed, the Mass was simplified and Zwingli established a combined school and seminary. Religious houses were sold and the proceeds used to set up a welfare fund. A marriage tribunal took over the role of the bishop’s court. Zwingli married his de facto wife in April, 1524.
By 1525, sharp differences were emerging about reform. Some clergy believed that Zwingli was too cautious. They set up fellowships outside parish structures and began re-baptising adults who confessed their faith. Zwingli rejected their views on pure churches and underlined the partnership of Council and Church. Some dissenters were exiled. Others were drowned as a punishment. Such were beginnings of the radical reformation.
Zwingli believed that reforming centres should form political alliances. A conference was held in Marburg in 1529 to this end. Much agreement was achieved, but Luther and Zwingli disagreed about the real presence in the Mass. Zwingli sent a version of his beliefs to the meeting in Augsburg in 1530, hoping that a coalition could be created against the Habsburgs. That was not successful. It was not even possible to achieve a union of Swiss cantons. Attempts to preach reform in the Forest cantons led to civil war and Zwingli’s death at the second Battle of Kappel in November, 1531. Catholicism was allowed back into Zurich.
Zwingli did not establish an international reform movement, but his teaching on God’s sovereignty and covenant, the sacraments and church-state relations brought Word and Spirit together in a vital partnership, which was influential in parts of Germany and the British Isles.
G.W. Locher, Zwingli’s Thought, 1981; W.P. Stephens, Theology of Huldrych Zwingli, 1986
by Rev Dr Ian Breward
These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.
Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.
The Methodist Church in Tonga first sent Missionaries to their South Pacific neighbours in Samoa in 1835. When the church called for Missionaries to go to Papua New Guinea, Siosaia Lavaka Ma’u from Ha’akio, Vava’u, Tonga and his wife Seluvaia were among the first four to offer to take the Gospel to Papua in 1891. They were sent to work at a place called Genaia, north of Dobu.
Siosaia and Seluvaia were students at Tupou College, the first Secondary School in the South Pacific, founded by Dr. James Egan Moulton. Both families were among those who were persecuted for supporting Wesleyans who remained loyal to the Church in Australia.
They faced many hardships at Genaia, because they were a long way from the towns, but the hardest of all for Siosaia was when his beloved wife and unborn child were murdered. His forgiving spirit is evident as he told the story in a letter to the Overseas Secretary Dr. Brown on the 26th October 1896:
“I write this letter with loving greetings to you and your wife. All our workers are well and even though I have been struck with a cruel blow, my sorrow is mixed with happiness because I know for sure that Seluvaia is in Heaven.”
Siosaia was asked to to go Samarai to mend the Church’s boat, and to wait for the steamer which brought their supplies. When he returned he found Seluvaia with horrific injuries, and as a result she had lost their unborn child. These things happened early Sunday morning 4 October.
She was able to speak a few words to her husband. “I should have died but I pleaded with the Lord to keep me alive so that the little girl I was holding would be spared. (‘Ana was their adopted daughter) I stayed alive but I fainted from my injuries”. He asked her if she wanted him to tell of these things that had happened and she said, “Yes, give my love to the church. Tell them I send much love and I have peace in my soul”.
Siosaia wrote to the overseas Secretary Dr. Brown passing on Seluvaia’s love. He said she died peacefully and as he watched he knew that she was at peace and happy to leave this world.
When the judge asked the man who did this why he did it, he said that the police had taken his wife from the island of Nivani. He made up his mind to go to Panaieti and kill the missionary’s wife, because she was a foreigner the same as the policeman.
Siosaia said he did not understand the man’s reasoning, because the police did not visit them in their home. What he knew was that the man was afraid to go and look for the police and because he knew that Siosaia was away from home, he decided to murder dear Seluvaia.
“I am not complaining because I know that many have travelled this path to eternal life, to be martyred for the Gospel. Yes, nothing will separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord“, said Siosaia in his letter to Dr. Brown.
On her simple grave read these words:
HERE LIES SELUVAIA, WHO WAS MARTYRED FOR THE GOSPEL
Rev. ‘Isikeli Hau’ofa (Missionary to Papua 1937-1970) visited Seluvaia’s grave in 1970. He spoke to a man who was the son of the lady who was with Seluvaia. He was still young at the time but he remembered witnessing the event. This is what he said:
“When Tonkomkom (the man who attacked Seluvaia) reached the house of the missionary, Seluvaia came out holding her adopted daughter. Tonkomkom used a club to hit Seluvaia on the back of her neck and body, and when she realized that he intended to kill her and the child, she tried to shield the child and bear the blows herself. The village people rushed to her aid and took the child from her and vowed to take revenge but Seluvaia said, “Do no such thing. This is the way for me to reach the Kingdom, and this is the reason I came here.”
Missionary’s wife Mrs. Bartholomew described Seluvaia as a beautiful person, always with a smile who captivated everyone who met her. She was a true servant of Christ, and she was a fine example of humility in the midst of the heathen people. Her home was always spotless and the women of the village were always welcome. They came to watch her sew and weave and she took this opportunity to talk to them about the Gospel. The story of Seluvaia and her courage is well known in the history of the Papuan church, and because of her death, many souls accepted the Gospel.
Written by Rev. Siupeli Taliai whose grandfather, Henry Taliai Lavaka Ma’u, was the younger brother of Rev. Siosaia Lavaka Ma’u.
These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.
Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.
(the evangelist & martyr)
(Greek: Mattheus = given, a reward)
The calling of the tax (or toll) collector Matthew by Jesus is mentioned explicitly in the Gospel that bears his name (Mt 9:9), although Mark and Luke use the name Levi in their parallel stories (Mk 2:14; Lk 5:27). All three Gospels list the name Matthew among the twelve disciples (Mt 10:3; Mk 3:18; Lk 6:15; see also Acts 1:13), and tradition attributes the first Gospel in our NT canon to him.
The Gospel of Matthew has been associated with Antioch (Syria) by many scholars, coming together in the form we know today during the 80s at a time of great division and tension within the Jewish community there. It is not surprising then that this Gospel is in many respects the most Jewish of all (Mt 5:17–20!), whilst also containing the most severe criticism of the Temple authorities and other Jewish leaders (Mt 23; 27:25). Amongst other themes, Matthew’s Gospel is noted for its profound respect for the ‘Law and the Prophets’, the ‘New and the Old’, for the Sermon on the Mount, and for its 12 fulfilment citations of the OT (“This happened in order to fulfil — or to ‘fill up” — what was said in the Prophet/s . . .”).
Traditions about Matthew’s life after the resurrection are not very clear or convincing. One account has him on mission in Ethiopia, and martyred there (by axe).
Traditionally, St Matthew is Patron Saint of tax collectors and accountants. It would be appropriate also to suggest that he be Patron Saint to Jews who continue to wrestle with the Jesus traditions, to the persecuted, and to preachers and orators. His Feast Day is 21st September (in the West, and 16th November in the East).
By Dr Keith Dyer
These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.
Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.
The invading Fijian warriors stormed the village. They intended to wipe out its residents. But they felt restrained. They planned to kill all the natives and cast them into ovens to cook them for eating. However, they admitted, they couldn’t carry out their grisly plan because the God of the Christian missionaries was stronger than they were.
The lead missionary of the village on the island of Viwa, John Hunt, had recently witnessed God’s power in another way. Prior to the civil war that brought the warriors rushing into the village, God sparked a spiritual revival in Viwa. In the first week alone over 100 natives confessed their sins. They spent time on their knees as warriors of prayer, unaware that a deadly physical war was about to erupt.
John Hunt was born near Lincoln, England. He engaged in farm work throughout his youth. At age fourteen, John became a Christian. He was eventually invited to become an exhorter at the local Methodist Church. Other speaking opportunities came. His messages won decisions for Christ. He decided to enter full-time ministry.
John studied at the Wesleyan Theological Institute in Hoxton. After graduation, the missions board asked him to consider Fiji. John married Hannah Summers and they departed by ship to the South Pacific.
In 1839, John and Hannah disembarked at a missionary station on Rewa. They soon witnessed the uncivilized Fijian’s ways. The punishment for stealing was usually to have the offending fingers chopped off. The natives purged their population of the sick and aged by strangling them to death. One day the natives of the village where John lived avenged the death of one of their own by killing eleven men from the other village, cutting up their bodies, and cooking and eating them.
John and Hannah Hunt’s lives were sometimes threatened, but they always felt that God protected them. John stated in one of his journal entries, “I feel myself saved from almost all fear though surrounded with men who have scarcely any regard for human life.”
The Hunts relocated to the missionary station at Somosomo and later saw their most rewarding ministry at Viwa.
John preached three times every Sunday and lectured three days a week. He opened a small medical clinic. He routinely sailed to nearby islands that had not heard the gospel message. While keeping up his demanding schedule, John became skilled in the Fijian language and spent what time he could translating the New Testament. God rewarded his efforts.
In 1845, John called a prayer meeting for villagers to confess their sins. They came and expressed their sorrow through sobbing and moaning as they pled for forgiveness. That atmosphere of repentance went on for days. Many came to a sincere confession of faith in Jesus Christ. The queen of Viwa became a devoted Christian. After that, the local beaches flowed with less blood.
John joyously wrote in a letter, “Many who, a little while ago, were among the worst cannibals in the world, are now rejoicing in God their Saviour.”
One of John’s greatest successes was the translation of the New Testament, not only into the Fijian language, but with Fijian idioms. He believed anyone could put Fijian words into sentences, but he gave careful attention to “expressing an idea exactly in the way in which a native would express it if he had the idea in his own mind.”
As he translated, John consulted a Greek Testament and a lexicon. Since so much of the New Testament had no literal equivalent in the Fijian culture, John also relied on help from converts. He completed the New Testament, and it was published in 1847.
William E. Richardson
These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.
Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld, 1905 – 1961, was a Swedish economist and diplomat. He was appointed to the position of Secretary-General of the United Nations replacing the Norwegian Trygve Lie, after his sudden resignation on 10 November 1952. Hammarskjöld was a compromise candidate from unaligned Sweden. He was considered of impeccable diplomatic stock, in fact an aristo-bureaucrat. His father was Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, Prime Minister of Sweden, from 1914 to 1917, and mother Agnes Hammarskjöld (née Almquist). Hjalmar Hammarskjöld was a polyglot intellectual, a full professor at Uppsala University, a scientist and a renowned expert in international law.
The young Dag grew up in the rarefied environs of Uppsala Castle, the residence of the Governor of Uppland, another high position his father held for a while. By 1930, Dag had obtained Licentiate of Philosophy and Master of Laws degrees. Before he finished his law degree he had already been appointed Assistant Secretary of the Swedish Government Unemployment Committee. He wrote his economics thesis, and received a doctorate from Stockholm University.
He developed a successful career, becoming the youngest secretary in the history of the Sveriges Riksbank (the Central Bank of Sweden) in 1936 and was soon promoted to serve as the Chairman of the Central Bank. He was the Governor of the Central Bank 1941–1948. Hammarskjöld appears on the new 1000 Kronor denomination note that the Swedish Central Bank recently printed and released.
Although Hammarskjöld served in a Government Cabinet dominated by the Social Democrats from 1949 to 1953, he never officially joined any political party remaining politically unaligned.
He became the Chairman of the Swedish delegation to the UN General Assembly in New York in 1952. The negotiations between the Western powers and the Soviet Union for a replacement as Secretary-General that ensued after Trygve Lies abrupt resignation in late 1952 were unfruitful at first. It was not until March 1953 after further deliberations the French Government put forward four candidates, including Hammarskjöld.
Then the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and the United States all declared for Hammarskjöld. The U.S. State Department authorized the vote for Hammarskjöld after assurances that he ‘may be as good as we can get’. First the Security Council, followed suit by the UN General Assembly, voted to appoint Hammarskjöld as Secretary-General in April 1953. Dag Hammarskjöld was sworn in as Secretary-General on 10 April 1953 and voted in for a second period unanimously in 1957.
Under Hammarskjöld the UN became more actively involved in maintaining World Peace even if that meant sending out UN troops to areas of civil unrest. Hammarskjöld’s second term was cut short when he was killed in an airplane crash while en route to cease-fire negotiations during the Congo crisis in 1961. He is one of only four people to be awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize. President John F Kennedy named him one of the finest of statesmen that dedicated his life to serve the peace and the people around the globe. President Kennedy also proclaimed that in Honour and Tribute of Hammarskjöld after his death the National flag should be flown at half-staff on all Government buildings of the United States.
After his passing among his personal effects poems and Haikus were found. They showed another side of the aristocratic diplomat, namely of a deeply spiritual soul on a constant quest for personal enlightenment. The poems were later translated to English by W.H. Auden and appears as Markings by Dag Hammarskjöld in the Vintage Spiritual Classics series.
Like many Swedes today Dag charged his batteries, and took solace from his demanding position, in the natural landscapes of arctic northern Sweden also known as Lappland. This landscape also captured the imagination of Hammarskjöld. Many of his short poems in Japanese Haiku format are based on his brush strokes of poetic language that derive from the innermost depths of his soul and in equal part from observations of the surrounding landscape. Another space where his spirituality took concrete form is in the creation of ‘A Room of Quiet’ at the UN Headquarters. It was personally planned and supervised in every detail by Hammarskjöld and opened in 1957.
The Dag Hammarskjöld pilgrim trail meanders its way from the start at Abisko National Park 100 kilometers west of Kiruna to the Sami village of Nikkaluokta some 105 kilometers to the south. The trail runs through miles upon miles of sweeping high alpine terrain and wideopen spaces under a towering sky. The creation of the pilgrim trail in 2004, complete with seven meditation places inspired by ‘A Room of Quiet’, was a joint project between the northernmost Swedish Lutheran Diocese of Luleå, the Regional Government of North Bothnia and the Swedish Alpine Association. The indigenous Sami people and their organisations were consulted during all phases of the construction of this trail that goes through the heartland of their country.
‘A landscape can sing about God, a body about Spirit’, Markings. D Hammarskjöld translated by W.H. Auden
It is both a treat for the weary and retreat for the mind and soul to do your personal pilgrimage along the Dag Hammarskjöld trail in winter and spring on skis, and in summer and autumn by foot. I believe Dag thought so and this author concurs.
‘A sky as blue
As that above the snow-crest
Before the last ski-run’
Poem by Dag Hammarskjöld
Translated into English by W.H. Auden
Dr Roger Kalla, Chair of the Swedish Church
The worship service for Sunday 7 June 2020 can be viewed by clicking on the image below. Other worship services can be found in the list below or at the MtE YouTube channel