What are you Doing Here?
Notes
Transcript
What are you doing here?
What are you doing here?
Repeated question
Out of my comfort zone
learning lots of things
Information vs. Experience
Information vs. Experience
Getting to know people
Passion, gentleness, determination, mana
Experiences I’ve never had before
Tangata whenua side of powhiri
sharing in the kitchen, and in the laundry
making friends and caring for whanau
Feeling the sorrow and the courage, and also the hope
witnessing Kōhatu whakamaharata - tauhou
worshipping together
Learning to speak on behalf of the people
All of this I could have read about in a book, and I thought I knew something.
I didn’t know.
I didn’t know until I’d been there
Out of our comfort zone
Out of our comfort zone
All of us are taken out of our comfort zone from time to time.
Sometimes we have the courage, or the conviction to choose it.
Sometimes we stumble into it
Sometimes we are taken there against our will.
Sometimes what takes us there is an opportunity, like my trip to Ōhope.
Sometimes what takes us there is a choice to step into something new.
Sometimes what takes us there is a tragedy that rips us away from what we know and love.
When we’re outside the insulation of our everyday lives, we have the opportunity to come face to face with God.
To go beyond information, and into experience
Of the highs and lows of human experience
and into experience of the presence of God
Elijah was beyond his comfort zone.
He was there because he had teh courage to speak up for God to a people who did not want ot listen
He was there because he was on the run and led by angels he knew not where
He was there because he was running for his life.
And in the midst of this chaos, God asks him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
That’s the question, beyond any other, that keeps us up at night.
When everything else is stripped away, like it has been stripped from Elijah, what are we doing here?
As individuals?
As families?
As a community of faith?
What are we doing here?
This is not an easy question.
It’s uncomfortable.
It is not easy to answer.
It’s hard to put it into words.
But it cuts to the heart of matters, whatever our cirtcumstances.
What are we doing here?
Learning from Elijah’s Experience
Learning from Elijah’s Experience
God meets us there
God is not in the noise
God comes to us in a whisper
God gives us a purpose
God gives us help on the journey
As our parish finds itself on the mountainside, wondering what we are doing here it is tempting to find a list of tasks, like God gives Elijah. It’s not always that easy.
It’s hard for us to discern where we will be in 5, 10, 20 years time.
What we know is that God will be with us.
Growing in Christ
Growing in Christ
What we know, is that we are called tio live in the way of Jesus
Practising hospitality
Offering Good News
Inviting people in to the freedom of Christ
Living in the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit
What are we doing here? We are living in the hope and faith and love of Jesus Christ. When everything else has been stripped away, that’s what is left. And it’s good.
When we go beyond our comfort zones we grow
That’s what happened for me in Ōhope.
I arrived wondering what on earth I was doing there.
I came awayu knowing that I was loved
I came away learning how much I still have to learn, about the people of te Aka Puahou, and about myself.
I came away trusted and loved, and entrusted with a responsibility to speak on behalf of my new friends into the life of our church.
Tokotoko
Speak a blessing
May the Lord bless you,
he will take care of you:
May the Lord make his face shine
to you,
and he will take care of you:
Jehovah will lift up his face
to you,
he himself will grant peace
to you. Amen
Mā Ihowa koe e manaaki, māna koe e tiaki:
Mā Ihowa e mea kia tiaho tōna mata ki a koe,
māna anō hoki koe e atawhai:
Mā Ihowa tōna kanohi e whakaara ki a koe,
māna anō e tuku te rangimarie ki a koe.
Āmine