Reflection: “Questioning our expectations of God” This week's reflection is provided by Warwick Havyatt. How we often put our expectations before the will of God ! I was out at Forbes some years ago on a friend’s farm. The crops were failing as a summer of drought was approaching. It was sad to see the stunted wheat with withered heads and the canola limp and straggly with no chance of setting seed. It could have been a bumper season, the winter growth had been good but there was no Spring rain and all the work and investment was going to waste. The farm manager toured the place with the owner and myself, it was a glum sight. Whilst we looked at the failed crops, the farm manager said, “How can you believe in God, when he lets things like this happen.” I was taken aback by this. I reflected on what he had said, I could not agree with him. God did not plant the crop, he had provided the land with its own natural riches, which farmers had destroyed to plant their crops for profit. How could you hold God responsible for the risk taken in planting a crop especially in rural Australia when drought is such a part of the landscape? I did feel sorry for the loss and felt the disappointment of the owner and the manager. There was a definite sense of desolation. But I also felt that often our ideas of God are way out of place and that the expectation of society in general is that God should do what we want and give us what we want. We think of our own needs and gloss over the reality that God is the ultimate authority. It is so easy to fall into the mindset that we have God on tap. In doing so we have our ideas the wrong way around about who serves who. In our reading from Matthew, we see that the Jewish priests in the Temple in Jerusalem held the religious authority in Jewish Society. The priests thought that they were the very chosen of God, the Godly elite. But then they are challenged. Fronting up in their midst comes Jesus, an itinerant preacher from Galilee. He reached out to the people, teaching them about God without much reference to the proper procedure and protocol of the Temple, and he even dares to challenge the priests as to their authority when they question his authority to preach. The whole question of authority to preach can be a thorny one. John Wesley was at first indignant when he heard that in his absence a layman was preaching in services rather than just reading. John Wesley was an ordained minister (actually in the Anglican Church) and this seemed an affront to him. It was his mother who persuaded him that as long as the message of Christ was being preached then that was a positive outcome. John Wesley went on then to promote lay preaching, setting out rules and structure for lay preachers and defending them from criticism by the Anglican Church of the day. Even today, the question of preaching authority is in the news with the Sydney Anglicans not allowing women to preach to a congregation with men. It is interesting in our reading from Matthew that Jesus calls on the authority of John the Baptist and we are told that the priests shrank away from answering due to John’s popularity. In fact, it may be a bit deeper than it first appears because under Roman Rule, the Jews felt oppressed but the Temple had gained special dispensations from the Roman Government, which caused resentment. The people were looking for a leader, in fact a messiah to deliver them. Obviously, the Temple priests had a credibility problem but were too blinded by their own importance to recognize the power of Jesus. In the story of Exodus, the Israelites challenge the authority of Moses which was given by God. If God really was looking after them, why would he let Moses lead them into the desert to die when they were surviving reasonably well as slaves in Egypt? Was God really leading Moses? As if the parting of the waters of the sea was not enough proof for them. God lead Moses to the rock that brought forth water when struck by his staff. The expectations of the Israelites were then met, maybe not quite as they expected, and the authority that God had placed on Moses was restored. We may see this as being somewhat fickle on the part of the Israelites but I suggest that faced with hardship we would most probably be just as fickle. Often our expectations are high and our patience runs thin. Our expectations can easily clash with the authority of God, but God is the ultimate authority and the humility of Jesus Christ and his total acceptance of God’s will should inspire us and guide us in our lives. Amen. Warwick Havyatt
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