Box Hill Baptist Church
Welcome to our church community.Archive for Front pages
13 November 2011
In Thessalonians 4:9-12 Paul turns to the people, and says something like, “What does it mean to be a community that loves one another? I actually don’t need to tell you that! Because you guys display that love so powerfully, here and beyond. You do it unassumingly, without fuss, going about your business efficiently and care-fully, without being a burden to others, being resourceful and resilient, and doing all that is needed to make the world know that you are a community that loves Christ.’
‘Love of God’ is not some woolly, weak, feel-good religion. Love of God is expressed in the way we are community, and when we are that community, then the world will know who we are. When we are out of sorts within, it is reflected in the way we engage with the wider community. When we are living and working well together, then it is expressed lovingly and creatively beyond.
On this day, when we consider the working life of the church, it is rather staggering to think that we can do all the things we do, in a no-fuss, no-nonsense way, that honours the fact that we know the nature of love… we know what loving God looks like with rubber gloves on! People so often see a need, and get in a fix it… I’ll come out of my office to see people scrubbing the metal racks of the oven without being asked, or without anyone else knowing. Or they’ll take on a major event, and make it fuss free and easy for everyone else, while behind the scenes they work to make it happen. There are a myriad of stories. And each one serves to make us who we are.
They are the stories of this community that we hear and honour on this day… and they are the stories that will take us into tomorrow. Into a future, that will continue to teach us to grow in love.
9 October 2011
In a society where almost anything goes, it is almost old-fashioned to hone in on things that really matter. It is easy to go with the flow, and conform to a picture of what life is about that is potentially set by the screen of Neighbours or the site of “second life”. Sure, life-crises pull us up, ground us back in reality, and ask questions of us. But what if we were to simply take the time to avoid distraction, shift our focus from the transient feel-good to the more significant? How might our lives be changed. Interestingly, this passage of Paul links ‘peace of mind’ with the call to ponder the things that matter. How easy it is to sit and let the television fill our heads at the end of a tiring day, or to allow our kids to be consumed by the latest hi-tech world. Discerning that which is life-giving and that which is life-diminishing must be part of our decision making process. The temptation is to surrender to what is presented, rather than be decisive about what is helpful or unhelpful. Interestingly, reading a book takes so much more energy, we are far more likely to exercise our discernment skills. Being prepared to put aside that which is destructive, whether it loses or gains favour, is the only means by which we can live honest and truthful lives. The eternal wisdom of Paul continues to call us to authentic and truthful living.
“One final thing, my dear friends, give your hearts and minds some healthy stuff to chew on. Authentic stuff, principled stuff, uncontaminated stuff. Things that are worthwhile, fulfilling, and straight as a die. Things of integrity that make for a fair go for all. These are the kind of things you should fill your minds with – quality stuff instead of shoddiness. Meditate on these things and you can’t go wrong. Keep yourselves on track, putting into practice what you picked up from me, from my teaching and from the example I set. Rest assured, the God of peace will be right there with you.” Philippians 4:8 -9 Nathan Nettleton
21 AUGUST 2011
Be Transformed.
Too often we take the easy way out and, like a jelly in a bowl or play-dough in a mould, we allow ourselves to passively be squeezed into conforming with the dominant culture of our society. In today’s reading, however, Paul urges us to be transformed by the active choice of renewing our minds. In this place we can know what is good, acceptable and mature. With an attitude of gratitude for each other, and particularly God’s love, we can offer our gifts and talents for the good of the whole community.
I would not have known my name,
if You had not asked it of me.
I would not have believed my worth,
if You had not worn my shame.
I would not have begun to see,
if You had not lived on this earth.
I would not have learnt to love,
if You had not first loved me.
from Jesus our Future, Bruce Prewer.
24 JULY 2011
The text we will explore today, is perhaps one of the most familiar within our Christian tradition. It is a text of great assurance, and for many it is a text of great consternation. Many of us learned it in Sunday School from Matthew 8 – “All things work together for the good, to those who love God…” which sits within the same passage that affirms “nothing can separate us from the love of God…”
Whilst we may be troubled by things not appearing “good” even if I love God, the passage unfolds in an intimacy and immediacy of God present that both extends us, and leads us to wonder about the nature of ‘separation’ and ‘union’. Indeed, if we read the passage carefully, we come to see that there is a beautiful description of us participating in the ‘good’ rather than simply being a recipient. I am participating in this ‘all things come together for good’ reality, because I am intimately connected with this God. When that is my sense of grounded awareness, then I can not only feel assurance, but I have to acknowledge I am an active agent. I am called to outwork God for the good of that which is around me.
Which is why I our children have grown pumpkins to sell to connect with the children of Ethiopia. Which is why we must think about the clothes we buy or the shoes we wear, and whether they exploit workers in the making. Which is why we must work at the best possible solutions to climate change… How we might be active agents of God, working for the Good.
There is nothing passive about a passage which claims an intimate and dynamic presence of God’s love in our lives. It is a call to know God and to reveal God in our living!
Anne
3 July 2011
Each Sunday we reflect on words in our Bible that have been handed down to us by many generations of faithful people for over two thousand years. We stop and reflect on those words and their wisdom echoes down through the ages connecting with us in 21st century Australia. Our life situations are very different to those of Abraham, Isaac, Sarah, and Rebecca. Our experiences as followers of Jesus are very different culturally to those of the Apostle Paul. But our humanity connects us not only to each one of these past heroes, but also to each other. We are fellow travellers on the journey of human life and we are faced with the same realities of life and death, of hope and despair as have all people at all times in human history. Like them, we can lose sight of our own shortcomings and use others for our own gratification. But like them also, we can turn in repentance to the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ who will always offer us forgiveness and open up to us the possibility of new beginnings.
We believe in a God who always surprises us, who creates life from death
Who brings good out of evil, who leads us from despair to hope.
We believe in a God who is faithful to us, who shows mercy when we run away.
Who shows patience when we deny the truth, who gives reconciling love when we betray.
We believe in a God who lived and died as one of us To take the fear out of living and dying, to open our eyes to death, within us and around us,
And open our hearts to a new way of living.
We believe in a God who forgives us, who sets us free from past grief and failure And calls us forth into a new day.
Dorothy McRae-McMahon, Echoes of our Journey (1993)
19 JUNE 2011
Today is being celebrated by most Christian churches in Australia as Trinity Sunday – a time to celebrate our understanding of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. At a time of increasing global awareness this is one of the most theologically challenging topics for discussion. There are some who accuse Christians of believing in three separate Gods –God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Like many of us, they simply can’t get their heads around the bigger picture that depicts the One God present to all of creation in three distinct manifestations.
So what do we mean by speaking of God as Trinity?
If God is the creative parent of all that exists, just how big is our God?
If God relates to human beings in the same way that the story of Jesus reveals to us, how might we relate to God as the essence of all that we are and can be?
If God is as accessible as the air we breathe, can we define ourselves as any different to any other human being who breathes the same air?
‘Great loom of God, where history is woven,
You are the frame that holds us to the truth.
Christ is the theme, the pattern you have given:
Come, work with us and weave us into one.’
(WCC Assembly, Melbourne 1991)
Caught by the Wind
Those who fly kites know that kites are earthbound and cannot lift and soar until they are caught by the wind.
People and churches are earthbound and cannot be themselves until the wind of God’s Spirit lifts them to fly.
Kites are not free to thrust and move until they are let go to explore the skies.
People and churches are not free to love and care until they can let go and catch the Spirit which is love.
Kites have no power and direction unless they are caught and controlled by the wind.
People and churches have no power and direction unless they allow the Spirit of God to move within them.
O God, may your Spirit lift us from being earthbound and free us to soar, to explore, to have direction and purpose.
O God, help us to fly as people freed by your Spirit, to live and to love.
Adapted From KITES FOR PENTECOST by Marcus Benjamin
10 April 2011
John 11 — Lazarus
We all know how Lazarus made the biggest comeback since . . . well . . . Lazarus. And we might remember how John’s Gospel uses amazing ‘signs’ like this to illustrate nearby “I AM” sayings of Jesus — in this case: “I am the resurrection and the life.” But we also know only too well that this kind of ‘resurrection’ is not a common experience for us in the face of death — however much we might long for it to be so.
So what kind of false hope does this story encourage? And wasn’t it a resuscitation rather than a resurrection anyway — since Lazarus would surely have to die again one day? How then does this story connect with what happens to Jesus, and ultimately to us?
Jewish scholar Jon Levenson reminds us that if our first question is: ‘Will I have life after death?’ then ‘the discussion has already gotten off on the wrong foot.’ We are caught up in a cosmic transformation far more significant than our own private anxieties — a truth that should help relieve those very same anxieties. ‘Resurrection’ in the Bible is consistently understood in the plural (as communal rather than individual), and as embodied (rather than ‘soulish’ or ghostly). Now that’s a good place to start our discussions . . .
Keith
28 November 2010
Advent calls us out from sleep, the slumber that closes our eyes to what is around us, and gives us time to realign our lives with God’s purposes… purposes of love and truth. The season lifts our horizons and provides glimpses of a world in which weapons of war become tools for the feeding of everyone, where the Korean peninsula might imagine and move to realizing peace. In that world, when we put on armour it is the vulnerable humanity of Jesus Christ that we don. It is to hold before us the only path into God’s future, the way of patient and persistent attention to the myriad and mysterious ways God comes to us.
Two men push shopping trolleys, one is attentive, the other mindless in the shopping centre. One notices the baby grin in a passing trolley as the other complains at the nuisance it is to shop. Two women shift washing from the basket to the clothes line, one is attentive, the other bored. One bemoans her lot, the other notices the rosella call. Advent calls us out of complacency and boredom into attention to every human action; into awakening to the significance of every day and each moment, every face and our own. Advent is our annual wake up call to pay attention to life – for human lives are God’s chosen ‘site’ for comings and goings.”
14 November 2011
Today we gather to consider the life and the work of this church over this past year. You have had a chance to read the reports, and consider the activity that has unfolded. How extraordinary that so much goes on… It is all an expression of who you are, who we become together and the very nature of our creative God.
It is no co-incidence that this year we have week by week been weaving a fabric… thread by thread. Each thread offers a unique contribution to the whole. The weft, the upward strings, hold it all together. This creative fabric beautifully reflects who we are as a community, coming together week by week, day by day, working at the things we believe to be important that express uniquely our identity in Christ. Creatively we have done that there, and creatively we have told the stories in our marvellous book, ‘a community creates’
What this book does is quite remarkable. It acknowledges how different we all are… and it is all there in black and white to both honour and understand. Surely, understanding difference is actually about recognizing the need for humility and gentleness and kindness to dwell among us. Surely, when we look at one who loves to cook when we can’t stand the kitchen, or wonder about someone who has musical skills when we can’t sing a note, surely when we hear that for them, the expression is an honouring of who they are meant to be… just as for me it might be making a model train… surely then, I can learn to soften just a little more, suspend judgement on another for their funny ways, be a little kinder when I think about the quirkiness.
And the extraordinary thing about the book, is that we have one thing in common – we are all different. We are united by our difference. We are one in our difference. And that quirky oddness in another is just what I need to remind me of who I am… even if sometimes it is irritating. The call in here, is to sit with the diversity of who we are in peace. Maturity means that we honour and value one another, not expecting them to conform to my picture of what they should be. Maturity as a church means recognizing that we are one voice among many, making one contribution among many, and, yes that is unique and valuable, and we claim it as our heritage and our story and our call… just as we honour others to do the same.
This church community is a rich and brave community that is open to explore and value that which is different, and to work with the wonder-ful range of expressing who we are. Each individual story makes a contribution to the whole. This opening of imagination, this extending of our selves and the consequent participation in the creative process is the way we are each invited into a wholeness that will transform the world.
