Give grace to 'the' disease!

Welcome to Bishop Edwin Ngubane and Rev David Seccombe this morning.  David for more than a decade has been Principal of George Whitefield College in Cape Town.  He was Pastor of St Matthews Shenton Park for more than a decade before that. Of Bishop Edwin I know much less, except I have listened to his sermons on the internet and welcome him to share his love for the Word of God and its message with us today. Next week we will resume our reflections on Isaiah.  In preparation for that I encourage you to think this week about “the world’s disease”.  This is where Isaiah begins in chapter 1 and 2.I listened to Bishop Edwin speak in one internet sermon about Jesus’ baptism and what it tells us about his kingship.  Isaiah is a book of hope that reveals, 700 years before Jesus, a lot about his kingship.  Isaiah illuminates both the disease and the cure.  Bishop Edwin’s internet talk reminded me that we cannot appreciate the cure if we don’t understand the gravity of the disease.For many of us here in Perth on this luscious, clear skied west coast the disease seems far off.  “Just give us the cure. Keep all that miserable stuff to yourself.  Don’t spoil my peaceful life.”Interestingly, west coast lives aren’t that peaceful. I was having a cuppa with a delightful mum of one of my daughter’s friends.  They live in a very posh street and we breezily chatted about the neighbours and the neighbourhood. She told me that most of the huge houses have one or two occupants.  She suggested that many people seem to her like prisoners. They often despise their neighbours and exchange lawyers letters rather than talk to each other.  This gave me opportunity to share with this Mum about the person – one of the very few – Jesus called a fool [Luke 12].  Sadly, she reflected,  many of her very wealthy neighbours came into Jesus’ category of fools. Their cure seems to be themselves; their blinkeredness, power, status and wealth.  I loved talking to this lady but felt very sad for her neighbours.  I don’t want, as Paul says, to think I’m wise but really be a fool [Rom 1:22]. So, as we look together at Isaiah, let’s show some grace for the disease, it makes the cure all the sweeter. In Jesus’ AdventureMalcolm