<html><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div><br><br>Sent from my iPad</div><div><br>Begin forwarded message:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><b>From:</b> "Fr HC Smith" <<a href="mailto:howard.smith@anglican.org.au">howard.smith@anglican.org.au</a>><br><b>Date:</b> December 29, 2010 3:52:03 AM EST<br><b>To:</b> "Propertalk" <<a href="mailto:propertalk.topic@ecunet.org">propertalk.topic@ecunet.org</a>><br><b>Subject:</b> <b>[propertalk.topic] Epiphany thoughts</b><br><b>Reply-To:</b> <a href="mailto:propertalk.topic@ecunet.org"><a href="mailto:propertalk.topic@ecunet.org">propertalk.topic@ecunet.org</a></a><br><br></div></blockquote><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><span>Friends,</span><br><span>Here are a few Australian thoughts towards a sermon for Epiphany Sunday.</span><br><span>Best wishes for a rewarding 2011.</span><br><span>Howard</span><br><span>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br><span></span><br><span>* Today the Church observes a feast with a funny name: The Epiphany; it especially remembers the visit of the Wise Men to the Holy Family some time after the birth of Jesus.</span><br><span>+ We guess it was some time later, because they went to a</span><br><span>"house" and not to an inn; and also because when King Herod</span><br><span>took his revenge he had all the young children "under two years old" killed.</span><br><span>+ The thing we are asked to note is that these wise men who</span><br><span>came to Jesus were not Jews, they came from foreign lands;</span><br><span>- and yet they came to worship Jesus.</span><br><span>+ In this story God is teaching us that the Kingdom which Jesus</span><br><span>preached about is for all people in the world.</span><br><span></span><br><span>* Then in our reading today from Ephesians, we heard the same teaching from Paul, the great leader of the early Christian Church.</span><br><span>+ He says : "God has let the Gentiles (all those people who are</span><br><span>not Jews, including us in the 21 cent), become part of the people of God".</span><br><span>+ And that's a lesson we still need to hear and learn today.</span><br><span>- there are still folk about, who think that only certain people can be part of God's Kingdom;</span><br><span>- and people make up all sorts of rules about who is included:</span><br><span>- e.g. only people who believe certain ideas, especially</span><br><span>religious ideas, like believing in Jesus as one's own personal Saviour</span><br><span>- or only people who behave in certain ways, like people who</span><br><span>go to church, or who don't go to the pub;</span><br><span>- or only people with a certain coloured skin, such as white Europeans;</span><br><span>- or only people who are perfect, and never do anything seriously wrong.</span><br><span>+ But that's not what God says in the Bible: the Kingdom is open</span><br><span>to all people: Jesus comes to give "blessings that cannot be</span><br><span>measured". God has so much love to share that we can't put</span><br><span>any limits on it at all.</span><br><span>+ The Wise Men we remember today, came from an entirely</span><br><span>different religion, - they weren't Jews, they didn't worship</span><br><span>YHWH, and they believed in astrology (which was frowned</span><br><span>upon in the Torah, the Jewish Law)</span><br><span>- and yet they were still welcome at God's great miracle, at</span><br><span>the sign of God's New World, they were welcomed into the</span><br><span>presence of Jesus & the Holy Family.</span><br><span>- They didn't have to conform first to some fixed pattern or</span><br><span>idea of believing or behaving,</span><br><span>- all they had to do was to come to Jesus, bringing their</span><br><span>special gifts, probably really drawn by the Holy Spirit.</span><br><span>+ And the same is true for us in 2011: all we have to do is to come to Jesus,</span><br><span>- bringing our own selves, with our own unique gifts, skills,</span><br><span>knowledge: bring it all to Jesus who will accept us, and give</span><br><span>us the blessings of being welcome in the Kingdom of God.</span><br><span>+ And one of those blessings is that we will learn to accept all</span><br><span>other people too, in the same way God accepts us.</span><br><span>+ If and when we do that we are well on the way to getting rid of</span><br><span>war, violence, cruelty, discrimination, and all those other nasty</span><br><span>habits we humans have picked up.</span><br><span>+ Just as Paul had to learn that God treated him with kindness,</span><br><span>we can profit from the same lesson.</span><br><span>+ We all want a better world, that's why we elect new</span><br><span>governments from time to time - we hope and pray they will do</span><br><span>better than the last lot.</span><br><span>+ Sadly other people resort to violence, trying to achieve similar ends</span><br><span>- like suicide bombers in various parts of the world,</span><br><span>- or the ongoing terror in Israel-Palestine.</span><br><span>+ But all such attempts only seem to make things worse rather than better;</span><br><span>- the challenge of this Feast of the Epiphany is for us to become "Wise Men",</span><br><span>- to realise that God wants us to destroy our barriers by love,</span><br><span>accepting each other as fellow citizens of God's Kingdom.</span><br><span></span><br><span>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *</span><br><span>The Rev'd Dr H.C. Smith</span><br><span>Retired Anglican Priest</span><br><span>Orange NSW</span><br><span>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *</span><br><span></span><br></div></blockquote></body></html>