Annabel Smyth's Sermons

What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

2012-01-29T11:00:00.000Z

We don't alwaysremember this in our day and age, but Jesus was a Jew. This seemsobvious when I say it, but we don't often think through theimplications of it. And one of the implications is that everySabbath day, he went to worship at the local synagogue, wherever hefound himself. Normally at home in Nazareth, but when he was on theroad, he went local.

And here, in Mark'sGospel, Jesus is at the very beginning of his ministry. Mark tellsus that he has been baptised, and then gone into the desert to thinkthrough the implications of this, to work out what it means to be“God's beloved Son, in whom he is well pleased.” He was tempted,and learnt what was and was not the right thing to do with his divinepower.

And then John, hiscousin, was put in prison and Jesus knew the time had come to starthis own ministry in good earnest. He came out of the desert, andpicked up Andrew and Peter and one or two others – we know fromJohn's gospel that Andrew and Peter had been followers of John beforethis – and then, on the Sabbath, he finds himself in Capernaum,about 20 miles as the crow flies from his home town of Nazareth. Sothey all go to the synagogue there.

Now, one of the thingsabout synagogue worship was that – is that, I should say, as Iunderstand it is much the same today – is that you don't have tohave a trained preacher up there, but almost any adult – adultmales, in many synagogues, but some welcome women, too – can get upon his hind legs and expound the Scriptures. And visitors were veryoften asked to read the Scripture passage for the day as a way ofhonouring them, and it was quite “done” to comment on it. Youmight remember Jesus goes home to Nazareth at one stage and is askedto read the Scriptures there, with rather disastrous results. Butnot on this occasion.

What happens here,though is equally unexpected. Someone with an evil spirit is there,and the evil spirit recognises Jesus, and causes its host to cry out,interrupting whatever Jesus was saying or reading, to cry out: “Whatdo you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

“What do you wantwith us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

It's a good question,isn't it? What does Jesus want with us? Why does he come,interrupting our nice, peaceful church services? Why does he come,interrupting our nice, peaceful lives? What do you want with us,Jesus of Nazareth?

Of course, the answeris going to be different for each and every one of us. And yet thereare some universal truths.

Firstly, I think, heanswers “I want you to let me love you.”

To let him love us. That sounds as though it ought to be a no-brainer, but in fact, itcan be very difficult to allow ourselves to be loved. And we tendnot to look at it that way round, anyway. We think it's our businessto love God – I am not quite sure what we think God's business is,but we don't always expect him to love us. And yet, how can we loveunless he loved us first?

There's a story you mayhave heard before, told by the theologian and writer Gerard Hughes,in which he describes an image of God that many of us may have grownup with; a God who demanded our love and attention, and threatened uswith eternal damnation if he didn't get it. And we ended up tellingGod how much we loved him, while secretly hating him and all he stoodfor, but terrified of not appearing to love him, because of theeternal damnation. We weren't told, or if we were told, we didn'thear, the first bit, which is that God loves us! God loves us somuch that he knows quite well we can't possibly love him first. “Welove, because He first loved us,” we are told. His love comesfirst. We need to let him love us. That's the first answer to thequestion, “What do you want of us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

“I want you to let melove you.”

And the second answeris “I want you to let me heal you.”

Healing. It's a bit ofa vexed question, isn't it? We know that healings happened in theScriptures, and we know that they can and do happen today, but werarely seem to see any. We do see miraculous physical healings nowand again, and we thank God for them as, indeed, we thank God whenpeople are healed through modern medicine. But our bodies are goingto wear out or rust out one day, whatever we do. We aren't designedto live forever on this earth, in these bodies, and they willeventually come to the end of their usefulness to us. But Scriptureteaches that we will be raised from death in a new body, so it makessense to me that the parts of us that make us “us”, if you like,are the parts that need healed. Our emotions, our personality, ourmemories. Things that have screwed us up in our pasts, that we findhard to get beyond. I believe Jesus always heals us when we ask, butwe usually get the healing we really need, not necessarily the one wethought we wanted!

Also, while ourlanguage differentiates between healing and forgiveness, Jesusdoesn't seem to so much. Remember the paralysed bloke whose friendslet him down through the roof? Jesus' first words to him were “Yoursins are forgiven!” which was what healed him. We need to beforgiven our sins, we need to be healed of being a sinner, if youlike. We need to be changed into someone who can love God, and whocan step away from sin – and we'll never do that without Jesus, letme tell you. We need to be healed so that we can become the personGod created us to be. “I want you to let me heal you.”

“What do you wantwith us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

“I want you to let melove you.

I want you to let meheal you.

And I want you to letme fill you with the Holy Spirit!”

To be filled with God'sHoly Spirit. According to the Bible, this isn't an optional extra,it's an absolutely central part of being a Christian. Remember thebelievers at Antioch, who were asked whether they'd received the HolySpirit when they were baptised, and they were like, “You what? What's the Holy Spirit?” and Paul had to re-explain the Gospel tothem. It turned out they'd only got as far as John's baptism ofrepentance, not the baptism into a new life with Christ. So far asPaul is concerned, receiving the Holy Spirit is an absolutely centralpart of being a Christian.

Makes sense, really,when you think about it. Because if we are filled with the HolySpirit, we are filled with God Himself, and can be loved and healedand made whole, and God Himself can direct our lives, never forcing,never compelling, but always asking and reminding us, and enablingus. We need to be filled with God's Holy Spirit if we are to growand change into the people God designed us to be.

“What do you wantwith us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

Of course, at that timethe question was inappropriate, as was the follow-on of: “I knowwho you are, the holy one of God!” because Jesus was only just atthe start of his ministry. He wasn't ready to become universallyknown, and anyway, he could sense that that which asked the questionshad no interest in wishing him well. So he did the only possiblething, which was to command the evil spirit to come out of its host,which it did, and when the host recovered, all was well. But, ofcourse, stories like this spread around, and Mark tells us thatJesus' fame in the area began to grow.

“What do you want ofus, Jesus of Nazareth?” The question still resonates down theyears, and I think the answers are still the same as ever: “I wantyou to let me love you. I want you to let me heal you. I want youto let me fill you with the Holy Spirit.” What is your answer? What is mine?

Will you let Jesus loveyou? Will you let Jesus heal you? Will you let Jesus fill you withhis Holy Spirit? Amen.

God's Extravagance

2012-01-22T13:45:00.001Z

Some years ago now,when my daughter got married, my husband and I went to France to buythe sparkling wine they'd chosen for toasts and so on, and theyordered the rest of the wine on sale or return from Majestic or oneof those. Of course, frantic panic and calculations about how muchto get – but we all got it right, and there was plenty but notenough, as my daughter said, to be worth sending back! So we sharedout what was left among the various families, and very nice it was,too! But wouldn't it have been awful if we'd got it wrong?

And, in our Gospelreading for today, that is exactly what happened The wine ran out. I gather that wedding parties in those days tended to go on for aboutthree days, and it isn't clear at what stage the wine ran out;probably towards the end of the festivities. We aren't told why,either. Perhaps the wine merchant let them down, or perhaps herrelations drank more than the bridegroom's family had expected, orperhaps they just didn't calculate properly. Who knows? Anyway,theyran out of wine. Total embarrassment and despair, and probably agreat deal of fury going on behind the scenes.

But among the weddingguests were a very special family. Mary, the carpenter's widow fromNazareth, and her sons. Cana isn't very far from Nazareth, onlyabout twelve miles, but that's quite a good day's journey when youhave to rely on your own two feet to get you there. So it's probablethat either the bride or the groom were related to Mary in some way,especially as she seems to have been told about the disaster with thewine.

And then comes one ofthose turning-point moments in the Gospels. Mary tells her eldestson, Jesus, that the wine has run out.

Now, as far as we cantell, Jesus is only just beginning to realise who he is. John'sgospel says that he has already been baptised by John the Baptist,which implies that he has been out into the desert to wrestle withthe implications of being the Messiah – and the temptations whichcame with it, and John also tells us that Simon Peter, Andrew andsome of the others have started to be Jesus' disciples and had comewith him to the wedding. But, in this version of the story, Jesushasn't yet started to use his divine power to heal people and toperform miracles, and he isn't quite sure that the time is right todo so. So when his mother comes up and says “They have no wine,”his immediate reaction is to say, more or less, “Well, nothing Ican do about it! It isn't time yet!”

His mother, however,seems to have been ahead of Jesus for once, on this, and says to theservants, “Do whatever he tells you!” And Jesus, who was alwaysvery close to God, and who had learnt to listen to his Father all thetime, realises that, after all, his mother is right and the time hascome to start using the power God has given him. So he tells theservants to fill those big jars with water – an they pour out asthe best wine anybody there has ever tasted. As someone remarked,right at the fag-end of the wedding, when people are beginning to gohome and everybody has had more than enough to drink, anyway.

I don't suppose thebridegroom's family were sorry, though. Those jars were huge –they held about a hundred litres each, and there were six of them. Do you realise just how much wine that was? Six hundred litres –about eight hundred standard bottles of wine! Eight hundred.... youdon't even see that many on the supermarket shelves, do you? Eighthundred.... I should think Mary was a bit flabber-gasted. And it wassuch good quality too.

Okay, so people drankrather more wine then than we do today, since there was no tea orcoffee, poor them, and the water was a bit iffy, but even still, Ishould think eight hudnred bottles would last them quite a while. And at that stage of the wedding party, there's simply no way theycould have needed that much.

But isn't that exactlylike Jesus? Isn't that typical of God? We see it over and over andover again in the Scriptures. The story of feeding the fivethousand, for instance – and one of the Gospel-writers points outthat it was five thousand men, not counting the women and children –well, in that story, Jesus didn't provide just barely enough lunchfor everybody, quite the reverse – there were twelve wholebasketsful left over! Far more than enough food -all the disciplescould have a basketful to take home to Mum.

Or what about when thedisciples were fishing and he told them to cast their nets that-away? The nets didn't just get a sensible catch of fish – they were fulland over-full, so that they almost ripped.

It's not just in theBible either – look at God's creation. You've all seen pictures ofthe way the desert blooms when it rains – look at those millions offlowers that nobody, for a very long time, ever knew were thereexcept God. Or look at how many millions and millions of sperm maleanimals produce to fertilise only a few embryos in the course of alifetime. Or where lots of embryos are produced, like fish, forinstance, millions of them are eaten or otherwise perish long beforeadulthood. And millions and millions of different plant and animalspecies, some of which are only now being discovered.

Or look at the stars –have you, perhaps, been watching this Stargazing Live programme thisweek with Brian Cox and Dara Ó Briain? All those millions uponmillions of stars, many with planets, some with planets like our ownthat may even hold intelligent life..... God is amazing, isn't He? And just suppose we really are the only intelligent life in theUniverse? That says something else about God's extravagance increating such an enormous Universe with only us in it! Our God istruly amazing! And who knows, somewhere, in a galaxy far away, Godmight be being worshipped by beings who are far different from us –perhaps they are five feet square, one inch thick, and ripple! Orperhaps they are more like plants than like people.... who knows? Apart from God, nobody knows! But it's fun to speculate.

But there's a moreserious side to this than just science fiction, much though I loveit. The point is, doesn't an extravagant God demand an extravagantresponse from us? His most extravagant act, so far as we know, wasto come down to earth as a human being, a tiny baby, born in anobscure village in a dusty corner of the world, totally helpless,totally vulnerable.... our own celebrations of Christmas, no matterhow over-the-top, don't even begin to come close!

And yet our responseis, so very often, "meh!"; lukewarm! We tend to give God the minimum, ratherthan the maximum – that's much too scary! And yet we're told thatthe measure we give will be given back to us, pressed down, shakentogether and running over! As the response to our Psalm reads, “Howabundant is your goodness, O Lord.”

We hold back. Wefollow God only a little bit. We don't dare give the full tithe, thefull ten percent, because we think that in times of recession wecan't afford to. Or we think it doesn't apply to us. Well, I'm notone to preach prosperity theology, but God does promise all sorts ofblessings on us, material or otherwise, if we bring in the fulltithe.

Or, perhaps we dofollow God whole-heartedly – but we see Christianity as a matter ofjudgementalism, of a God who seeks excuses to condemn people, ratherthan excuses to forgive them. We see people proclaiming in themedia, or on Facebook, or elsewhere that God hates a given group ofpeople – usually gay people, or women who have abortions. Suchnonsense – how can he hate those he came to die for? He may or maynot approve of their actions, but – well, he doesn't approve ofeverything we do, either. We too are sinners, and know that we are!

Would our extravagantGod, the one who produced eight hundred bottles of top-quality wineat the tail end of a party, would that God really be mean-minded? Yes, we have seen from Scripture that God can be extravagant in hisjudgements as well as in his gifts, but not, normally, against peoplewho are trying to follow him as best they know how. It is those whoturn against God, who follow false gods, and who, worse still,encourage other people to do the same, they are the ones who comeunder judgement.

Sometimes, though, wecan't respond extravagantly to God's extravagance because we areafraid to allow God to be extravagant with us! Maybe we'd be askedto do something we really don't want to do.... or live somewhere wedon't want to live, or.... you know the scenario. But, my friends,if an extravagant God calls you to do something extravagant for him,won't he give you extravagantly, abundantly, the strength and, yes,the desire, to do it?

Jesus came, he told us,so that we can have life, and have it abundantly! Abundantly. Arewe allowing God to be extravagant in our lives? Am I? Are you? Amen.

Echoes - Matthew chapter 2

2012-01-06T18:53:00.000Z

This is an edited version of a sermon first preached some years ago. It doesn't feel right to just preach on the Epiphany without mentioning its aftermath.

The story of the comingof the Magi and the flight into Egypt, from Matthew’s Gospel, isreally rather strange.

It’s certainly notfound elsewhere;

in fact, Luke’sversion of events is so different you sometimes wonder whether theyare talking about the same thing.

Here we are, inMatthew,

finding the Holy Familyliving in Bethlehem,

fleeing to Egypt,

and then settling inNazareth,

well out of reach ofHerod’s descendants.

But Luke tells us thatthe family lived in Nazareth in the first place,

went to Bethlehem forthe census,

and, far from avoidingJerusalem,

called in there ontheir way back to Nazareth!

And, indeed, went thereeach year for the festivals –

I wonder, don’t you,whether they stayed with Mary’s cousin Elisabeth

and whether Jesus andJohn played together as children?

Not that it matters.

We all rationalise thetwo stories into one,

and add our ownextraneous bits –

the ox and the ass, forinstance,

are figments ofpeople’s imaginations, not part of the Luke’s account.

Even the stable – themanger may well have been separating the dwelling-house from theanimal-house, rather than in a separate stable as we envisage it.

But from Matthew’stelling of it, the Holy Family lived in Bethlehem anyway and didn’tneed to use a stable!

And they were probablyastrologers, not kings,

and Matthew doesn’tactually say how many there were!

He doesn't even specifythat they were male, although they probably were. The word “Magi”just means “wise ones”.

And do you really thinkpeople kept bursting into song,

like they do in Luke’sgospel?

I rather think thatLuke, like Shakespeare, was writing what he thought they ought tohave said, rather than what they actually did say!

But both Gospels –

for both Mark and Johnchoose not to start with Jesus’ birth,

but at the start of hisministry –

both Gospels agree thatJesus was born to a virgin,

was conceived in her bythe Holy Spirit in some way we simply don’t understand.

And they both agreethat he was born in Bethlehem,

to a mother named Maryand a father named Joseph.

Both gospels alsoprovide a genealogy for him,

tracing him right backto Adam in St Luke’s case,

and only as far back asAbraham in St Matthew’s case!

And occasionallytracing by different routes.

And both agree that thebaby Jesus was visited by outsiders, by people who were not from thereligious establishment of the day.

The shepherds wereapparently outsiders, not accepted in Jewish society.

And the Magi, ofcourse, were foreigners, outsiders, not even Jewish.

Similarities,differences – it doesn't really matter, as I said.

The Bible people werenot writing to modern standards of historical accuracy, but they arestill telling us true stories, however they might vary in detail.

It’s what they aretelling us that matters, not the historical details!

Have you ever noticed,too, that Luke’s version of events is from Mary’s point of view,but Matthew is telling us it from Joseph’s?

Luke shows us Gabrielgoing to Mary and saying “Hail, thou that art highly favoured;

blessed art thou amongwomen!”

But Matthew shows usJoseph’s reaction to the news that Mary was expecting a baby and itwasn’t his –

he could have discardedher publicly and left her with no other resource than to go on thestreets.

But he didn’t.

He decided he’d endthe betrothal quietly, with no public scandal.

And then he listened tothe angel who said that he should marry her anyway.

I think I rather likeJoseph, don’t you?

He comes across assomeone who’s willing to listen,

and to change his mind.

He comes across assomeone who listens to God,

and is prepared toaccept that God speaks to him in dreams.

In our reading today,again, Joseph listens.

He acts on what hehears –

he takes his family andflees to Egypt,

and when he is told itis safe, he brings them home again,

only to Nazareth, notBethlehem.

But this whole storythat we heard read to day has echoes in the Old Testament, doesn’tit?

And it echoes down theyears.....

There is Israel goingdown into Egypt

and being called up outof Egypt in the Exodus as God's son (hence the quotation from Hoseain verse 15),

but we also have echoesof when Pharaoh tried to kill Hebrew infants

which led to Mosesbeing hidden the bulrushes.

Jewish legends aboutthis event also have dream warnings

just as we have here

and I expect Matthewknew about them when he was writing the story.

At that, wasn’t thereanother Joseph who knew all about hearing God’s voice in dreams?

What these echoes do isto root the story in history.

The provide a settingfor Jesus, if you like.

Sending Jesus wasn’tjust something God decided to do totally randomly –

he was firmly rooted inthe history of the Jews, who were expecting a Messiah.

Matthew, who is thoughtto have been Jewish, is trying to show how the Scriptures led down tothis moment.

Rather like, if youwill, when Jesus explained the Scriptures to Cleopas and his wife onthe road to Emmaus, so they were able to see that they pointed toJesus, and to the Resurrection.

For Matthew, all theScripture quotations act as proof that Jesus is who He claimed to be.

It’s not the sort ofthing scholars nowadays consider proof,

but that doesn’tmatter.

For Matthew, as for allJewish scholars of the time,

that was how you provedthings:

was there a relevantquotation in the Scriptures?

He wants to set theMessiah in context.

And showing thathistory is repeating itself:

a new Pharaoh killingthe babies, a new Joseph listening to dreams, a new journey intoEgypt, and a new Exodus out of it.

And it echoes down toour own day, doesn’t it –

refugees, peoplefleeing in terror of their lives, genocide....

it never ends.

The magi –

wise men, astrologers,it’s thought –

came to Bethlehem toworship the new-born infant,

and we are invited todo the same.

But we don’t justworship him as a baby –

it’s not justabout watching a child grow and develop, and applauding when he doessomething really clever, like I do with young James.

Actually,he has learnt to applaud himself when he's done something heconsiders clever, but never mind that now.

No,worshipping the Baby at Bethlehem involves a whole lot more thanthat.

It’sabout worshipping Jesus for Who He became, and what he did.

Wekneel at the cradle in Bethlehem, yes –

butwe worship the Risen Lord.

Wecelebrate Christmas, not just because it’s Jesus’ birthday,

althoughthat, too,

butbecause we are remembering that if Jesus had not come,

hecould not come again.

Andhe could not be “born in our hearts”, as we sing in the oldcarol.

Weworship at the cradle in Bethlehem,

butwe also worship Jesus all year round,

rememberingnot only his birth,

buthis teachings,

hisministry,

thePassion,

theResurrection,

theAscension and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Andwe worship, not only as an abstract “Thing” –

whatwas that song:

“Iwill celebrate Nativity, for it has a place in history....” –

it’snot just about worshipping a distant divinity,

butabout God with us:

Emmanuel.

Jesus,as a human being, can identify with us.

Heknows from the inside what it is like to be vulnerable, ill, in pain,tempted.....

Fromthe story of the flight into Egypt, we see him as a refugee, anasylum-seeker, although he was just a baby, or perhaps a small boy atthe time.

Fromthe story that Joseph chose deliberately to settle his family in thesticks, far away from civilisation, we see Jesus as living anordinary, obscure life.

Hisfather, Joseph, was, we are told, a carpenter, although in factthat’s not such a great translation –

theword is “Technion”, which is basically the word we get our word“technician” from.

A“technion” would not only work in wood,

buthe’d build houses –

anddesign them, too.

Hewas a really skilled worker,

notyour average builder with his trousers falling off.

Jesuswould have been educated, as every Jewish boy was,

andprobably taught to follow his father’s trade.

Afterall, we think he was about 30 when he started his ministry,

andhe must have done something in the eighteen years since we last sawhim, as a boy in the Temple.

Godwith us:

aGod who chose to live an ordinary life,

whoknows what it is to be homeless, a refugee;

whoknows what it is to work for his living.

Whoknows what it is to be rejected, to be spat upon, to be despised.

Whoknows what it’s like to live in a land that was occupied by aforeign power.

This,then, is the God we adore.

Wesing “Joy to the World” at this time of year, and rightly so,

forthe Gospel message is a joyful one.

Butit is so much more than just a happy-clappy story of the birth of ababy.

Itis the story of the God who is there.

Godwith us.

Emmanuel. Amen.

Be Joyful Always

2011-12-11T12:49:00.000Z

From St Paul's instructions to the Thessalonians, which formed part of our first reading:
“Be joyful always;
pray continually;
give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.”

“Be joyful always;
pray continually;
give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Hmmm. It rather jumped out and hit me in the face when I was reading the passages set for this Sunday, and I can't help but wonder what on earth St Paul was talking about. How on earth are we supposed to be joyful always? Does he mean we always have to be happy, and it's wrong if we are miserable? Surely not! How can we pray continually? We do have lives, after all – we need to concentrate on other things like cooking the dinner or the work we're being paid to do! And how about giving thanks in all circumstances? Even in the middle of a disaster?

The Bible tells us, over and over again, that we should rejoice and be glad – I believe there are over 800 verses telling us to. So it must be something we are meant to do. But how?

We aren't always happy and rejoicing – and indeed, it would be quite wrong if we were. If someone is hurting very badly, it doesn't help to go and be happy all over them! There are times when we are all very unhappy – personal tragedies, dreadful things that happen to loved ones, national tragedies.... how can we “be joyful always” when people have lost their homes in a hurricane or an earthquake?

Indeed, in the letter to the Romans St Paul tells us to “Weep with those who weep” as well as “Rejoice with those who rejoice”. And even our dear Lord wept when he arrived at Bethany and found his friend Lazarus dead and buried.

So it's obviously not wrong to be unhappy, to be sad. And yet we are told to be joyful.

Well, for one thing, St Paul also reminds us, in the letter to the Galatians, that joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. And this means that it isn't something we have to find within ourselves. It is something that grows within us as we go on with God and as we allow God the Holy Spirit to fill us more and more. Joy grows, just as love, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, kindness and self-control do. We become more and more the people we were created to be, more and more the people God knows we can be.

That doesn't mean we'll never be unhappy, far from it. But we know, as St Paul also tells us, that God works all things together for good for those that love him. Even the bad things, even the dreadful things that break God's heart even more than they break ours. Even those.

We may be unhappy, we may be grieving, we may be depressed. But we can still be joyful, we can still rejoice, because God is still God, and God still loves us. Okay, sometimes it doesn't feel like that, but that's only what it feels like, not what has really happened. God will never abandon us, God will always love us. God will weep with us when we weep. And underneath there always is that joy, the joy of our salvation.

Okay, maybe that is understandable. We can be joyful always if joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. But what about praying continually? We have lives, don't we? We have to do such basic things as eating and sleeping and going to the loo, never mind earning our living. How can we pray continually?

I suppose it depends on what prayer is. If it's all about a conversation with God, or even worse, a monologue from us telling God about our world and our lives, then it probably isn't possible.

But what if, what if it were more about an attitude of mind? A way of living where we are continually conscious of God's presence with us, of God's love for us? There is a plaque some people like to have in their homes that says “Christ is the head of this house; the unseen guest at every table, the silent listener to every conversation.” That can sound as though he's some kind of creepy stalker, but it's also a reality, if you are God's person. And one can practice being aware of this, of God's constant presence with us.

It does take practice, of course; you can't just go from only thinking of God when you're in Church on Sunday or when you're praying or reading your Bible at home, and forgetting about Him when you're watching East Enders or getting the supper. Some people find it helpful to build reminders into their lives, so that every time they put the kettle on, say, or get up from their chair, or whatever, they remember to – I was going to say grin at God, but you know what I mean. After all, you can be sitting very happily in the same room as someone else, both of you utterly absorbed in whatever it is you're doing – even, it has to be said, watching different television programmes over the Internet – but you're still aware that the other person is there. I think it must be a bit like that with God. You can be getting on with your life but aware, in the background, that God is there with you. I wonder if it's that that St Paul meant by “Pray continually.” I think it must be something like.

By the way, don't think I'm some sort of super-spiritual genius – I can't do this, a lot of the time. Sometimes I can, but more often than not it doesn't happen!
I'd like to be able to – but then again, like all of us, there are times when I'd really rather forget.....

And, you know, I bet that, like the underlying joy that the Holy Spirit gives, being able to be aware of God's presence, so that you can take up and put down conversations with Him, must also be a gift of the Holy Spirit.

So, be joyful always, pray continually, and the third one was “Give thanks in all circumstances.”

Give thanks in all circumstances.

Now, I know there are some writers who have interpreted this to mean that we have to give thanks for everything. I don't see how we can do that – I mean, we know that God's heart breaks when a child is killed on the roads, or when an earthquake devastates a country. How are we supposed to give thanks for things that make God Himself weep?

I don't think it means that. I think it's more about having a thankful heart. About acknowledging God's good gifts to us. About – okay, if you like, about counting our blessings. We can't, and I don't think we should, thank God for the dreadful things – but we can be aware that God is there, in the midst of the dreadful things, and we can certainly thank him for that. We can be aware that in all things God does work for good for those who love him.
“Be joyful always;
pray continually;
give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.”

“For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” That's important, too. I don't think we can just do all this in a vacuum. It is because God wants this for us, it is His best for us.

Yes, it will take some work on our part – we know that God the Holy Spirit will most certainly do his part by enabling us to develop a sense of joy in Christ that can and will be there even through the most heartbreaking of outward circumstance, but of course we have to do our part by allowing Him to, by practising, with His help, being aware of his presence at all times and developing, again with His help, a thankful heart that sees and acknowledges what God is doing in our world. And no, it won't be easy, and no, we can't do it by ourselves but only with Christ's help.

We are in the season called Advent, and Christmas is rapidly approaching. We've already started singing carols – King's Acre's carol service is this afternoon, if you fancy coming along – four o'clock, I think. And over the Christmas season, we will be singing words like, “Yet what I can, I give him, give my heart” and “Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today!” The thing is, do we really mean it? Are we just singing lyrics we've known for years and never really taken much notice of? Even the ghastly “Away in a Manger” – “No crying he makes?” I don't think so! Not if he was a real baby, not a wax doll! Anyway, sorry, even when we sing “Away in a Manger” we are asking God to “fit us for heaven, to live with thee there!”

And that's what it's all about, isn't it? St Paul's instructions are things we simply can't do on our own, no matter how hard we try. But if we do ask God to help us fulfil them, if we do learn to “Be joyful always, pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances”, then when we do get to heaven, we'll fit right in! Amen.

Micah, Matthew and Me

2011-10-30T16:14:00.000Z

I must admit I rather despaired when I looked at this week’s readings. What on earth am I going to say about them? But then I had a second look, and decided that the Micah and Matthew readings were saying much the same thing, but to different people in different ways. I wonder, though, what they have to say to us today. And then I listened to the news.....

Micah was a prophet in 8th-century Judah, more or less a contemporary with Isaiah, Amos and Hosea. He prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem, particularly, as in our reading, because they were simply dishonest and then expected God to cover for them: “Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money. Yet they lean upon the LORD and say, Is not the LORD among us? No disaster will come upon us.” But Micah said, “Ain’t gonna happen!” As one modern paraphrase puts it: “The fact is, that because of you lot, Jerusalem will be reduced to rubble and cleared like a field; and the Temple hill will be nothing but a tangled mass of weeds"

An archaeologist called Roland de Vaux has excavated village sites only a few miles from where Micah is thought to have lived, and he has something very interesting to say: “The houses of the tenth century B.C. are all of the same size and arrangement. Each represents the dwelling of a family which lived in the same way as its neighbors. The contrast is striking when we pass to the eighth century houses on the same site: the rich houses are bigger and better built and in a different quarter from that where the poor houses are huddled together.”

During those 200 years, Israel and Judah had moved from a largely agricultural society to one governed by a monarchy and with a Temple in Jerusalem. The distinction between the “Haves” and the “Have nots” had grown, as it does still today. But Micah tells the powerful ones – the judges, the priests, the rulers – that God will have no interest in propping up any so-called progress that is built on the backs of other people. For God, justice and equality matter far more than progress or growth.

Thus Micah. So what of Matthew?

Here we have Jesus lambasting the religious leaders of the day. Or not. He says to listen to their teachings and follow them, but not to imitate them. They put on a huge display of being holy, when they really aren’t. They lay huge burdens on people. As I’ve said many times before, the trouble with the Pharisees was that they really did want to follow God, but they had misunderstood what was wanted, and thought that in order to be God's person, you simply had to follow the law absolutely exactly. To help them do that, they had added some incredibly detailed “what ifs” and “in this case yous” to the Law. The Law, as interpreted by the Pharisees, provided for every single detail of life, and if you failed to keep it absolutely perfectly, then, they thought, God wouldn’t want to know you.

Well, that was all very well. The Pharisees meant well, of course, but they were imposing impossible burdens on people. It was quite impossible to keep the Law in their way. And the Pharisees themselves made one very big mistake: they rated keeping the Law more highly than human relationships. They were more concerned about the way people obeyed, or did not obey, the Law than they were about who people were, and how they were hurting, and why. And, of course, somewhat inevitably, they tended to be rather proud if they managed to live as they thought right, and then they looked down on those who didn't live as they did, believing God would exclude them. Jesus takes this further, and says that not only do they place impossible burdens on people, but they also then don’t follow the law themselves – they are too proud of being holy, too proud of their position. They compete to wear the biggest phylacteries – a phylactery, incidentally, was a small leather box which you put a verse or two of Scripture in – often, I believe, the verse that goes “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is One” – and then wore bound round your forehead and on your arm during prayers. Only the Pharisees tended to wear theirs all the time, which wasn’t the idea at all. Remember how Jesus, elsewhere, told his followers not to show off when they prayed, or to make a big fuss when giving to charity?

Jesus also rebukes the Pharisees for enjoying their status, revelling in being looked up to, getting the best seats and so on. It’s not about that, he says. It’s not about status or standing – it’s about following God.

I am not sure quite why vast swathes of the Church have disregarded the instruction not to call any man “Father”, and address their ministers or priests as such, but there you go. But the point is, Jesus says, that the greatest among you must be your servant, just as he was to wash his disciples’ feet before the Last Supper. “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” Jesus has said that elsewhere, too. A great deal of Matthew’s gospel is devoted to this concept – those three great chapters 5, 6 and 7 which contain the distillation of Jesus’ teachings we call the Sermon on the Mount, for instance, and then these later chapters. For Matthew and his congregation, the emphasis was very much on serving others, on putting yourself last, on being there for other people.

So, then, for Micah it’s all about being honest, not taking bribes, not giving dishonest weight, not expecting God to be on your side no matter how you behave. God is more interested in justice than in growth. For Matthew it’s about not putting on side, not being puffed up because of your position. And what, then, is it for me? For us, really, but that doesn’t start with “M”!

Well, one very important thing happened this week – Canon Chancellor Giles Fraser resigned his post at St Paul's Cathedral because he could not countenance the Cathedral's decision to have the protesters forcibly removed from outside it. He believes that the Church should have no part in violence, and has paid for his principles with his job. The Revd Fraser Dyer, a vicar who was a part-time chaplain there, also resigned for similar reasons.

All the comments I've seen on Facebook and elsewhere make it clear how much Canon Fraser and Mr Dyer is being admired for their stands. They are people who know what they believe is right, and not only say so, but Caonon Fraser, at least, has put his money, quite literally, where his mouth is. He is the antithesis of the religious leaders that Micah and Matthew condemn.

And those people who have been protesting outside the Cathedral are also standing up for what they believe in. Canon Fraser apparently commented, back in August at the time of the riots, that people in the City were no better, really, only out for what they could get. And the protesters would like to see that changed. We may or may not agree with their methods, but can we disagree with their viewpoint?

Our passages today condemn greed, they condemn self-seeking and they condemn vanity. We will, I'm sure, say if we're asked that we know all that, that we wouldn't dream of behaving in the way Matthew and Micah describe. No, I don't suppose we would – but would we go as far as Canon Fraser did? I wonder! Still, we aren't, right now, called to do so – although you never know what lies around the bend in the road.

But it really isn't easy not to be complacent! We so often fall into the trap of considering ourselves – not exactly better, but perhaps wiser or something – than our neighbour. Do you remember the story Jesus told about the Pharisee and the tax collector, where the Pharisee thanked God that he was so much better than the tax collector, and his whole prayer was thanking God, not for what God had done, but for what he had? I heard a story of a Sunday-school teacher – not, I hasten to add, one of ours – who told her class this story and then said, “Now children, let us thank God we are not like that Pharisee!”

Well yes, we might laugh – but I didn’t laugh when, meditating upon that story, I found myself thanking God that I was not like that Sunday-school teacher! Oops!

See what I mean?

It isn’t easy, but it’s not meant to be an impossible burden, either. It is, after all, for freedom Christ has set us free, so the Apostle Paul tells us. We shouldn’t be burdened by guilt, or by anything else that our leaders choose to put on us. Sometimes we preachers – oh yes, I’m quite sure I do it, too – sometimes we accidentally make it very difficult for people to follow Jesus.

We assume, often quite without realising it, that our way of following Jesus, of being Christ’s person, is the only valid way, and then when other people have a different experience, we try to tell them there’s something wrong with them!

One of the things that really impressed me in the interview the BBC had with Canon Fraser was his insistence that the Chapter of St Paul's wasn't split over the issue – they disagreed, yes, and he felt that his principles meant he had to resign, but he respected that other people had different views to his. How refreshing to hear someone say, almost in so many words, that different doesn't necessarily mean wrong!

This, I think, is why Jesus tells us in Matthew not to put our teachers and preachers and ministers on a pedestal. That only ends up showing up their feet of clay! Only God is the perfect Teacher, and what filters through us is, at best, flawed and at worst can be pernicious – look at some of the things that Christians do and say in the name of Christ. Things like “God hates Gays”, or that “Unborn children are so precious that the mother’s life and health don’t matter.” Or, the hardy perennial: “Give lots of money to God – or rather, to the preacher – and you will be rich and healthy!” Getting back, yet again, to Me First!

Listen, we're not supposed to be discouraged by all this! Jesus makes it quite clear that religious leaders can lay impossible burdens on their followers, and that's not just the Pharisees! We look at people who do great things for God and despair because we're not like them. We would be reluctant to resign our job on a principle. We don't want to let go of our complacency. We would like lots of money and frankly, our own wants do tend to come first with us! And we find preachers who tell us Not To Be Like That very difficult to cope with.

The thing is, as so often, it's about allowing God to work in our hearts, to change us into the people we were designed to be. And then when the time comes that we might be called on to give up something precious for the sake of the Gospel, like Canon Fraser, when we might be called to live with less money for awhile, or to yield to someone else's agenda, and we never do know what's just round the bend in the road – if and when that time ever comes, if we are really serious about God, and about allowing Him to work within us, then we will be able to cope. Without him, no. But with him – well, it might not be easy, it might well be very difficult indeed, but we will cope. Amen.

What belongs to God

2011-10-16T15:17:00.000+01:00

Has anybody got penny on them? Or even a pound coin? Okay, whose picture is on the front of it?

We’re used to our coins, aren’t we – we barely even notice that they have a picture of the Queen on one side, and a few odd remarks in Latin printed round the picture. They basically say Elizabeth, and then DG, which means by God’s grace; Reg, short for Regina, means Queen, and FD means Defender of the Faith – a title, ironically, given to Henry the Eighth when he wrote a book supporting the Pope against the Protestant Reformation, long before he wanted to divorce Katherine of Aragon and had to leave the Catholic church.

When I was a little girl, though, before decimalisation, coins were even more interesting, as they didn’t all have pictures of the Queen on – the old shillings, sixpences, florins and half-crowns had often been issued during the reign of George the Sixth and pennies were often even older – it was not unusual to find penny that had been issued during the reign of Queen Victoria, even! My father used to make us guess the date on the coin, based on which reign it was, and if we were right we got to keep it. Not that we ever were right, so it was a fairly safe game for him, but it made sure we knew the dates of 20th-century monarchs!

Different countries have different things on their coins, of course; if you look at Euro coins, they have a different design on one side depending on which country issued them: the German ones have a picture of the Brandenburg gate, or a stylised eagle; the Irish ones have a harp. Those Euro countries which are monarchies have a picture of their monarch on them, as we would if we joined the Euro, and the Vatican City ones have a picture of the Pope! That might be a fun game to play with my grandson in a few years’ time - guess which country this euro-coin comes from, and you may have it. Assuming, that is, that the Euro survives its present crisis, but that’s another story.

This convention, of showing the monarch on your coins, dates back thousands of years, and was well-known in Jesus’ day. But unfortunately, this raised a problem for Jesus and his contemporaries, as the Roman coins in current use all showed a picture of the Emperor, and the wording round the side said something like “Son of a god”, meaning that the Emperor was thought to be divine.

You might remember how the earliest Christians were persecuted for refusing to say that the Emperor was Lord, as to them, only Jesus was Lord? Well, similarly, the Jews couldn’t say that Caesar was God, and, rather like Muslims, they were forbidden to have images of people, either. So the Roman coins carried a double whammy for them.

They got round it by having their own coins to be used in the Temple – hence the moneychangers that Jesus threw out, because they were giving such a rotten rate of exchange. But for everyday use, of course, they were stuck with the Roman coins. And taxes, like the poll tax, had to be paid in Roman coins. You might remember the episode where Jesus tells Peter to catch a fish, and it has swallowed a coin that will do for both of their taxes. But that was then, and this is now.

Now, Jesus is in the Temple when they come to him – in the holy place, where you must use the Jewish coins or not spend money. “They”, in this case, are not only the Pharisees, who were out to trap Jesus by any means possible, but also the Herodians, who actually supported the puppet-king, Herod.

The question is a total trick question, of course. They come up to Jesus, smarming him and pointing out that they know he doesn’t take sides – so should they pay their poll tax, or not? If he says, yes you must, then he’ll be accused of saying it’s okay for people to have coins with forbidden images; it’s okay to be Romanised; it’s okay to collaborate with the occupying power. And if he says, no don’t, then he’ll be accused of trying to incite rebellion or terrorism.

So Jesus asks for a coin. I expect it was the Herodians who produced one – the Pharisees would probably not have admitted to having one in their pockets, even if they did. And he asks whose image – eikon, the word is – whose image is on the coin? And they said, puzzled, Caesar’s of course, whose else would it be?

And we all know what he said next: Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; give to God what belongs to God.

It’s kind of difficult, at this distance, to know what he meant. Was he saying we need to keep our Christian life separate from the rest of life? God forbid, and I mean that! If our commitment to God means anything at all, it should be informing all we do, whether we are at worship on Sunday or at work on Monday or out at the pub on a Friday! There is a crying need for Christians in all walks of life; whether we are called to be plumbers or politicians, bankers or builders, retired or redundant! Wherever we find ourselves, we are God’s people, and our lives and values and morals and behaviour need to reflect that.

So what is Jesus saying? It’s about more than paying taxes or not paying them. It’s not about whether we support our government or whether we don’t. We know from Paul’s letters that in the best of all worlds, Christians should pay their taxes and live quietly under the radar, exercising their democratic right to vote and not taking part in violent overthrow of a legitimate government. Doesn’t always work like that, of course, but by and large.

Maybe the clue is in that word image - eikon. For are we not told that we are made in the image of God? If our picture were on a coin, it would say round the side “A child of God” - not, as for the Caesars, meaning that we are gods ourselves, but meaning, quite literally, that we are God’s beloved children.

Sure, sometimes God’s image gets marred and spoilt, when we go astray. I’ve seen coins that have been buried in the earth for years, and they go all tarnished, and sometimes, if they’ve been there for centuries, they build up an accretion of gunk round them to the point that you can’t possibly tell what they are. But even that gunk can be cleaned off, with care – and you’ve all seen those Cillit Bang ads where he dips a penny into the fluid and it comes up bright and shiny again!

Maybe Jesus is saying that this is not an issue to divide people – Caesar gets what belongs to him, which is the coin, and God gets what belongs to him, which is us! No need to choose – you don’t have to be either a quisling or a resistance worker. We don’t separate what belongs to Caesar from what belongs to God – we give ourselves to God, and the rest follows!

Is it, then, about possibly owing a small amount of money in tax, but owing God a far greater amount – our very being? Yes, that is definitely part of it. It was, I think, forty years ago this week that I first consciously said “Yes” to God; and yes, that does make me horrendously old! But the more I go on with God, the more it seems not only possible, but also sensible. You see, God created us in His image and likeness, and not only that, but God redeemed us through Jesus, and empowers us, by the Holy Spirit. So yes, we do owe God our very being – we are created by him, and without him we wouldn't exist. It's not so much that we owe him the duty of giving ourselves back to him – we do, of course, but we know that! It's more about not being able to fulfil our potential on our own. We are made in God's image, but unless we allow God to indwell that image, to empower it, we will never really fulfil our potential as human beings. So we owe it to ourselves, almost as much as we owe it to God, to say “Yes” to him, to open ourselves to Him.

So we are made in God's image, and as such we owe it to both God and to ourselves to give ourselves back to God. But we also owe it to God and to ourselves to make sure that our image reflects God.

We owe it to God and to ourselves to make sure our image reflects God. There's a wonderful book by an author called Georgette Heyer, I don't know if people read her much these days, but this book is called “These Old Shades”, and in it, one of the characters – a child – is taken to Versailles and sees the king, and her rather sleepy reaction at the end of the evening is, “He is just like on the coins!” I wonder whether anybody would recognise God after having seen us. Would they say, “He's just like on the coins”?

The thing is, we do mar God's image in us – I mentioned earlier how coins can be so covered in the gunk of ages as to be unrecognisable. But coins can be cleaned – again, remember the Cillit Bang ad. Our prayer of confession today was one of the alternate Anglican ones, which I have always loved for the words “We have wounded your love and marred your image in us.”
This, for me, reflects the fact that we are made in God's image, and that sometimes that image gets distorted.

I am well aware that this sort of thing is apt to make us all feel guilty, apt to make us feel we must be terrible Christians, and so on. But that's so not what I want to do here. After all, there are plenty of other ways of distorting God's image – look at the Pharisees, for instance, who tried to turn God into a set of rules and regulations. Or in our own day, look at some of the more extreme Christian sects in the USA who want to preserve unborn children at all costs, including the mother's right to her own body. Or that church that proclaims that God hates gays.

Yet all of those are following God to the best of their ability. Yes, they have got things tragically wrong. Yes, they are distorting, marring, God's image in them. But they are not, I think, any more evil than you or I are. And God will, I pray, help them find their way back.

Because that, in the end, is what God is all about. God minds far more about our relationship with him than we do! We wander off, we get lost, marring God's image in us, distorting Christianity into something very much less than it is – oh yes, I've been there and done that – and yet, every time, the Good Shepherd pulls on his Barbour and his Wellies and goes looking for us to bring us back into the fold. We don't have to do it ourselves. Indeed, it's when we try that the distortions are apt to happen. We just need to be open to allowing God to keep us clean and polished and ready for action!

The coins that bear Caesar's image on them need to be given to Caesar. But the coins that bear God's image – we ourselves, each and every one of us who names the name of Christ as Saviour and as Lord – those coins need to be given to God, reflecting His glory, and allowing Him to work in our lives to make us more and more like Him, and more and more the people He designed us to be. Amen.

Doing it God's way

2011-09-23T13:17:00.006+01:00

You know, I feel very sorry for Moses. There he is, doing his best to lead his people to the Promised Land, and what happens? They do nothing but grumble! They keep telling him they'd rather be back in slavery in Egypt, thank you very much, quite ignoring the fact that when they were in slavery, they hated it! But first of all they didn't have anything to eat, and then, when God provided manna for them – and nobody knows what manna was, exactly, only that it was edible and tasted good – they got bored of it, and wanted meat, so God sent quails for them. And now here they are grumbling because tonight's camping place doesn't have any fresh water for them. Moses is very fed up, and also slightly afraid of a riot and stoning, so God intervenes and tells Moses to hit a certain rock with his staff and water gushes out. And the people of Israel stopped grumbling, until the next time!

They were never contented. And nor, in many ways, were the Pharisees from our Gospel reading. They were not bad people, of course; they really did want to follow God, but they had misunderstood what was wanted, and thought that in order to be God's person, you simply had to follow the law absolutely exactly. To help them do that, they had added some incredibly detailed “what ifs” and “in this case yous” to the Law. The Law, as interpreted by the Pharisees, provided for every single detail of life, and if you failed to keep it absolutely perfectly, then, they thought, God wouldn’t want to know you.

Well, that was all very well. The Pharisees meant well, of course, but they were, quite without realising it, imposing impossible burdens on people. It was quite impossible to keep the Law in their way. And the Pharisees themselves made one very big mistake: they rated keeping the Law more highly than human relationships. They were more concerned about the way people obeyed, or did not obey, the Law than they were about who people were, and how they were hurting, and why. And, of course, somewhat inevitably, they tended to be rather proud if they managed to live as they thought right, and then they looked down on those who didn't live as they did, believing God would exclude them.

And they find Jesus' teachings very unsettling, especially when he starts telling them they're being totally hypocritical, fussing about how many mint leaves to tithe but ignoring people who are in need. Unsettling and disturbing. So they ask Jesus by whose authority he is speaking.

Now this was a trick question, of course. If he claimed a human source for his authority, they could discredit it. If he said it was just his own thoughts, or, worse, if he claimed it came from God, they could stone him for a heretic. It could be that some of them genuinely wanted to know, but many would have hoped he'd blunder. But he didn't. He turned it back on them – okay who gave John the authority to baptise? And that, too, was a trick question. If they said John's authority was from God, Jesus could legitimately ask why they hadn't believed him, and if they said it was merely human, well, what would the people think – they believed John was a prophet sent from God, and weren't going to stand for the Pharisees telling them different!

And then Jesus tells them the lovely little story to show how it's not always the obvious people who are first in line for the kingdom of God. The two sons, one seemingly more than willing to help his father in the vineyard, the other with some excuse or other not to. And then the role reversal, the first son failing to go, despite having said he would; the second son finding he was free after all and going to help. And he was the one who found favour with his father that day. “For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.”

And if you didn't believe John, Jesus implied, you aren’t going to believe me, either!

So what do these readings have to say to us this morning?

I think it's very much about our expectations. What do we expect from God? The people of Israel expected God, through Moses, to provide for their every want. Not just their every need – which he manifestly did – but their every whim. They wanted leeks and onions and all the delicious food they'd left behind in Egypt. They wanted to be free, but they didn't want to pay the price of that freedom! They wanted to be in the Promised Land already, without having to travel there, if that makes sense. And whenever things got slightly uncomfortable for them, they grumbled and moaned and whined – on one occasion, you may remember, they even went so far as to worship another god in the shape of a golden calf. They wanted God to do things their way.

And the Pharisees also wanted God to do it their way. They wanted God to say they were doing it right, their tithes and their keeping the law in infinite detail would make things all right. God would, they hoped, accept them because they kept the Law. Which was all very well, but not when it turned into that they hoped God would reject those who didn't keep the Law! They definitely wanted God to do it their way!

I have a horrid nasty feeling that we are all too apt to do this, too. I know I do. It would be nice to be able to manipulate God, to make God do things our way. In many ways, it would be nice to be able to take responsibility for our own salvation. We can't, of course, any more than the Pharisees could. They tried to be saved by keeping God's law exactly perfectly, just as we try to assume we are saved because we have committed ourselves to be Jesus' person. But they weren't, and we aren't. We are saved by God's grace alone, and we can do nothing to change that.

That sounds as though I'm preaching about predestination and stuff like that. I'm not. As Methodists, we believe that everybody needs to be saved, and that everybody can be saved, can know they are saved, and can be saved to the uttermost. But the point is, while I know that God has saved me, whatever I might mean by that – and I don't always know, so don't go asking me – I know that God has saved me, but I have no way of knowing about you. You know, yes. You know, and you will doubtless tell me, that God has indeed saved you, but I have no way of knowing unless you tell me. And you have no way of knowing about anybody else, and nor do I.

We can't make God do things our way. We'd like it if people were only saved if they prayed the sinners' prayer, or whatever, and then expressed their faith exactly like we do. Human nature, that is. The Israelites wanted God to do things their way, to provide all sorts of delicious food for them whenever they wanted it, not just camp rations. They wanted to have arrived in the Promised Land without having to go there.

We have to remember that it was the son who worked in the vineyard who did what his father wanted. The father still loved the son who changed his mind and didn't go – that was never the issue. He still loved him, but he wasn't best pleased about it, all the same.

So what is it God wants us to do? Obviously to believe, to have faith. And to stop trying to manipulate him! It really isn't easy. I was upset by something earlier this week, and found myself praying, “Lord, if you do that, I'll never speak to you again!” What I should have been praying, and what God gave me the grace, eventually, to be able to pray, was: “Lord, if you want to do that, you're going to have to change me to enable me to accept it, because I certainly can't right now!” I dare say God could manage very happily if I never spoke to him again – but I'm not sure I could!

Seriously, though, it can get like that, can't it? Another rather silly example – someone on Facebook posted a comment that I considered judgemental, and I was going to post “Judge not, that ye be not judged” on his status, when I realised – or God pointed out to me, whichever – that if I did that, I'd be being just as judgemental as I was planning to accuse him of being! Oops!

It isn't easy to do things God's way, rather than to try to make God do things our way. That is always the temptation – I know it's one of my persistent temptations, and I shouldn't wonder if some of you share it. We want our own way; we think we know how the world should be run, and we think God is very silly not to see it the same way as we do. Okay, when I put it like that, it sounds ridiculous – but isn't that exactly what the Israelites were doing? What did God think he was doing, they wondered, making them camp here where there wasn't any fresh water? Isn't it exactly what the Pharisees were doing? What did God think he was doing, they wondered, sending this laughing young man to tell them they'd got totally the wrong idea about God?

The good news is, of course, that we can catch ourselves doing it, and repent. I don't mean having to grovel and tell God how awful we are – often, it is enough just to laugh at ourselves. “Oops, I did it again!” as the song says... And if we can and do commit ourselves to doing things God's way, then next time we try and do it the other way round, we might catch ourselves just that wee bit earlier.

And yes, sometimes it isn't at all easy. If things look as though they might be going in a direction we would hate – illness, a threatened job loss, whatever it might be – it's not at all easy to say to God, “do it your way. Thy will be done!” Often we know God's going to have to change us before we can accept it.

But we do, in the end, have to say “Thy will be done!” to God. If we keep on and on saying “Do it my way!” eventually God might just take us at our word – and leave us to get on with it. And, as I said, I don't know about you, but I don't think I could cope with a universe without God, could you? Amen.

Not helping!

2011-08-28T12:50:00.000+01:00

Poor old Peter – he never seemed to be able to be right for very long, did he? In the passage from Matthew that was set for last week – did you hear it, I wonder – he was the one who proclaimed that Jesus was the true Messiah, the Son of the Living God. But now we see him getting it wrong. He was only trying to help, but somehow it didn't work.

Jesus was telling them that he was probably going to have to die, and Peter says “No, I won't let that happen!” And Jesus is so tempted – supposing Peter did fight? I wonder, what would have happened – not that we are ever told that. Peter did have a sword, we know – he had it in the Garden of Gethsemane. Unusual for a fisherman to have one, but Peter did, and he may well have known how to use it. But probably he would have been overwhelmed and died, and the result would have been the same. All the same, it must have been so heartwarming for Jesus to know he had a friend who was prepared to put his life on the line. But no – Jesus mustn't listen. This was the voice of the tempter, always so near, so insidious, so tempting.... “Get thee behind me Satan!” he says. “Peter, you're not helping!”

Peter was trying so hard to help, but really, he wasn't helping at all.

That happens sometimes. I asked the children earlier to try to remember a time when they had tried to help and it all went wrong. Or perhaps you can remember such a time? You thought you were being helpful, but you weren't.

I think this happens to us as Christians far more than we really care to think about. We think we are being helpful, showing others about how lovely it is to be a Christian, but really, we are putting people off.

Take one example, for instance – street preachers! Now, you know and I know that it takes a very great deal of courage to go out there and proclaim your faith in the middle of the street, to hordes of shoppers who haven't the time or the energy to listen, or to commuters who just want to get home and put their feet up. But why is it that so often you listen to what they have to say and cringe? All too many seem to think that the Good News is that you are a sinner and God is going to condemn you! Is that helping?

I remember once I'd had to go up to Oxford Circus to buy something – I can't now remember what – and there was a street preacher who had decided, for some reason, that all the people going shopping were there just for their own selfish pleasure and started berating them for consumerism. I was very tempted to point out to him that he really didn't have a clue, but didn't. I expect he went home very pleased with himself, but was he helping? I don't think so!

But there's me being judgemental, and that won't do, either. I am as bad as any – I try to preach love, not judgement, as you know, but is what I preach reflected in my own life? I don't think so! Well, not all the time, anyway. It's so not easy to get it right – often, we want to comfort a friend, for instance, but what do you say? So often, whatever we say is wrong!

I'm sure you've found this as often as I have – a well-meaning friend tries to comfort you when you're upset, but actually makes things worse! I know sometimes being told that God will never fail me or forsake me really hasn't helped when it's felt that this is exactly what has just happened! I know, obviously, that God hadn't failed me or forsaken me, but at the time, it felt like it! But sometimes people simply won't acknowledge the reality of our feelings: “Oh no, you don't feel like that”, or “Oh no, you don't believe that!” It doesn’t help. I remember once being told, by someone who really ought to have known better, that if I didn't find God's promises true – I forget which one I was complaining about – there was something wrong with me!

Well, quite probably there was – but it really didn't help for the person to say so. God doesn't always work in ways that are as straightforward as we would like to believe, does He? The Holy Spirit is a rushing mighty wind, not an electric fan. Or, if you like, he is not a tame lion! God does exactly what God wants, and because He sees round corners in a way that you and I simply can't, we don't always know what's going on. And being told that if we believe thus and so, or pray in these words rather than that, then our pain will wrap itself up into a nice little ball and go away really isn't helping!

We will see our loved ones again in Heaven, no doubt – but that doesn't help when we want to see them fit and well here on earth, does it? The thought that we will, one day, see them again is a great comfort once the worst of the pain is over, but it's no comfort at all when there is a great big black hole in the middle of your life where they once were!

Of course, we have all mouthed pious platitudes at friends in trouble – I know I have. And I don't suppose it helped, any more than it helped when friends mouthed pious platitudes at me! The Bible may say thus and so, but in the real world, people have feelings and emotions and although God simply adores us, he never promised we wouldn't have trouble and pain. Nor did he promise that we would be aware of him while we were having it – only that he would never fail us or forsake us. And he did promise that he would work all things for good to those who love him, but he didn't promise that would exclude the bad things!

I think a lot of the time it's because we don't know what on earth to say! We want to make ourselves feel better by clinging to the truths – and don't get me wrong, of course they are truths – that we have found in the Bible. But sometimes it's just simply the wrong thing to say. Or perhaps it's the right thing to say at the wrong moment! Someone whose marriage is in dire trouble simply doesn't need to hear that Christians shouldn't divorce – they need to be loved and held and allowed to cry. Someone who finds themselves unexpectedly pregnant doesn't need to hear that Christians shouldn't do sex when they're not married.... bit late for that, I should think! Again, we need to learn how not to be judgemental – and oh, how hard it is to learn that!

And perhaps we need to learn how not to give advice! Often, the best answer to “What should I doooooo?” is “What do you think you ought to do?” or “What choices do you have?” Usually, I think, people make the wisest choices when we help them find out for themselves what to do, rather than tell them!

I seem to have got a long way from Peter, but it's all part of the same thing, really. “Lord, I'll never let this happen to you!” Peter was in denial about what was to happen. How often we deny what our friends are feeling, we tell them they don't feel like that, or worse, that they are wrong to feel like that. Oh, I've been there and done that – obnoxious little prig I was, when I was younger! Probably still am!

Peter wanted to make himself feel better, as much as Jesus: look how supportive I'm being! But that wasn't what was wanted just then. What Jesus needed, arguably, was a shoulder to cry on, or even someone to buy him a pint and let him have an hour or so to relax and forget about what was looming. Denial didn't help. The wrong kind of being supportive didn't help. Tempting Jesus to look for a way out of it didn't help. Peter was trying to be helpful, but in the end, he was not helping!
This is all very depressing, really! I'm sure we've all remembered occasions that we look back on and cringe at what we said to someone that really didn't help, that made matters a great deal worse! But that, of course, is not what I want to leave with you today. Yes, the street preachers I started with need to learn where people are, not where they think they are, so they address themselves to the problems people are actually facing, not what they think they ought to be facing. Yes, we need to learn how not to be judgemental, how not to give unwanted advice, how not to try to make ourselves feel better by regurgitating the “Christian” answer to a problem that really doesn't address how our friend is feeling.

But the point is, we are human, and we're always going to get it wrong some of the time. And the One to whom we go for forgiveness when we do get something wrong is also the One who will help us and enable us to get it wrong less often. God the Holy Spirit can, does and will help us to get it right.

Look at Peter again. This is the same man to whom God gave the knowledge that Jesus was – is – the Messiah, God's anointed one. This is the same man who denied Jesus three times. This is the same man who leapt over the side of his boat to swim to the shore to greet the risen Lord. And this is the same man who was anointed so powerfully at Pentecost that one sermon converted three thousand people!

If God can use Peter, despite Peter's propensity for putting his foot in it, God can use us. And that's why we shouldn't despair when we find we are not helping – we should, instead, ask God how we can help. And listen to the answer! It isn't always the obvious “Christian” thing – in fact, very often it isn't. Perhaps, if people don't tend to come to us for support and reassurance, they have learnt they won't find it from us. But as we make ourselves more and more open to God; as we learn that we don't have to be perfect, we just have to be Christians; as we learn more and more to listen to God and to expect the unexpected, so people will come to us more and more. Amen.

Children's Talk: Not helping

2011-08-28T12:49:00.000+01:00

So, you younger ones.
Do you have to help at home?
What sort of jobs do you do?
Perhaps you make your own beds,
or keep your bedrooms tidy,
or do you help Mum in the kitchen?
Some of you older young ones do the cooking sometimes, I know –
I heard all about that delicious roast chicken.....

When my daughter was little, she had to keep her room tidy,
and she had pet mice,
so she had to keep their cage clean
and make sure they had enough food and water and so on.
And later on she used to cook sometimes –
she's a great cook, and I love going to meals round at hers.
When I was a little girl, we had to make our own beds and help with the washing-up after meals –
my parents didn't have a dishwasher back in those days.

But sometimes, when you try to help, things go wrong, don't they?
I remember several dropped plates when I was trying to dry the dishes –
that wasn't very helpful.
And I vividly remember burning a panful of sausages beyond recall, which was also not helpful –
I didn't know how to cook them, and guessed wrong.

Can you think of some times when you tried to help and it all went wrong?
In our reading, Peter was trying to be helpful, and it didn't quite work.
And I'll be looking at some more ways in which we can be unhelpful in a little while, after the music group has led us in worship!

Waving or drowning?

2011-08-07T13:04:00.000+01:00

These are two very familiar stories we've heard read this morning, aren't they? The story of Joseph and his – I was going to say his technicolour dreamcoat, but that's Andrew Lloyd Webber, not the Bible! And the story of Jesus walking on the water, which is the one episode that people who know nothing of Jesus seem to know about.

So anyway, Joseph. Talk about dysfunctional families – his was the very worst. His father had been a liar and a cheat, as had his maternal grandfather. And Joseph himself was the spoilt favourite – his father had two wives, you may remember, Rachel, whom he loved, and Leah, whom he didn't but was tricked into marrying anyway. He also had a couple of kids by Leah's and Rachel's maids, Bilhah and Zilpah, but Rachel, the beloved wife, had had trouble conceiving, so Joseph and his full brother Benjamin were very precious, especially as Rachel had died having Benjamin. He, it seems, was still too young to take much part in the story at this stage, but Joseph was well old enough to help his brothers – and, we are told, to spy on them and sneak on them to his father. And stupid enough to boast of self-important dreams.

It's not too surprising that his brothers hated him, is it? Obviously, he didn't deserve to be killed, but human nature is what it is, and the brothers were a long way from home and saw an opportunity to be rid of him. At least Reuben didn't go along with having him killed, although he did sell him to the Ishmaelites who were coming along.

Joseph has a lot of growing up to do, and we all know the story of what happened and how, in the end, he was able to forgive his brothers and help save them from famine.

Let's leave him for the minute, though, and go on to this story of Jesus walking on the water. This is the thing that everybody knows about Jesus, that he walked on water, and even those who don't realise that the Jesus who walked on water is the same Jesus whose birth is celebrated at Christmas know “walking on water” as some kind of metaphor for the divine.

But there's more to the story than that, just as there is more to Jesus than someone walking on water! Jesus didn't go much for spectacular displays of his divine power – that wasn't what he was about at all. In fact, you may remember that he refused to be tempted in that way when he was being tempted in the wilderness. He mostly kept who he was to himself, until the right time came.

And now it was the right time to join the disciples. He had told them to go on ahead while he stayed behind to pray, and at some time in the wee small hours he was ready to join them. They should have been at the far side of the lake by now, but they were up against a contrary wind. I've never been to the Sea of Galilee, but I'm told by those who have that the storms can blow up very suddenly, and the disciples, although experienced fishermen, were struggling slightly.

And then, here is Jesus, walking towards them on the water. Most of them are terrified, except for Peter, who says, “Lord, if that's really you, order me to come out on the water to you!”

And Jesus tells him to come, and he comes, and then he finds he really is walking on the water, and panics. Peter is a strong swimmer, he didn't really need to panic, but in the dark and the cold and the confusion.... well, Jesus grabs him and they get into the boat – and then suddenly it's calm and quiet.

Now, I don't know any more than you do whether this is a true story or not. It almost sounds as though it was a dream; or perhaps it was a legend that got into the story of Jesus at an early stage. Or perhaps it really did happen. At this distance, it doesn't matter; what does matter is that the story got into our Bibles, and so God means us to learn from it!

But what? What can we learn from either this story or the story of Joseph? In a way, the Joseph story is easier.

I am very blessed; I belong to a wonderful and close family. Last Sunday, I had the privilege of witnessing my grandson's baptism – he has a wonderfully close family on both sides, and, as his other grandmother said, a fairly uncomplicated one – only one branch where people have married more than once and had more than one family.

But I know how lucky and blessed we are. It's very unusual – all too many families these days aren't close, don't enjoy spending time with each other, and are what might be classed as dysfunctional. Sadly, even within our church family. We do like to put on a happy face when we come to church, pretend everything is lovely, even when it isn't.

But God sees behind the happy faces to the heartbreak behind. God knows that not all families are happy ones; not all parents can be kind and loving, no matter how much they might want to be. Not all husbands and wives can get along together. And so it goes on.

But when we look at the story of Joseph and his family, we can see that this doesn't actually matter to God. These people became God's chosen people, the twelve tribes of Israel. God used them in spite of how dysfunctional, how disorganised, how downright cruel they were.

The story of Jesus walking on the water is, I think, more about Peter than it is about Jesus. If Jesus is who he says he is, then suspending the laws of nature is reasonable. But for Peter, fallible Peter – the one who, if he could get it wrong, did get it wrong – for Peter to walk on water is not reasonable. And Peter panicked and nearly drowned, and Jesus had to rescue him.

I was going to say that Peter is the most human of the disciples; I think, perhaps, it is that he is the one we read most about. We know when he puts his foot in it and says the wrong thing. We know when his faith fails him. We know when he panics and nearly drowns – or, indeed, when he panics and denies Jesus.

And yet: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”

God chose Peter long before Peter chose God! Jesus knew that Peter was the one chosen to carry on the work after he, Jesus, had been raised to glory, even perhaps at at time when Jesus had only the faintest inkling of what lay before him.

God used Peter, even though Peter was so human and fallible. And God used Joseph and his family, even though they were so awful. And God can use you, and God can use me.

But.

And there always is a “But”, isn't there?

God couldn't use either Joseph or Peter as they were. Joseph had to grow up and stop being an immature brat. As you probably remember, we're told that he was accused of rape and left to languish in prison for several years, during which time he did grow up, and became an invaluable administrator and was thus able to help organise famine relief when it became clear that there was to be a massive famine. He matured enough to forgive his family, and to help them all settle in Egypt where, for several generations, they were happy and comfortable.

And God couldn't really use Peter the way he was, either. Peter was transformed, of course by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Not that he would claim to be perfect, even then, but he became someone God could use.

And you and I, we need to be transformed before God can use us. We need to allow God to work in us, to renew us, to make us into the person he intended us to be.

But the good news is, of course, that we don't have to be perfect! It doesn't matter what our family background is. It doesn't matter how chaotic our lives are just now. What does matter is our openness to God, and our willingness to be transformed.

I'm not sure how much, if anything, Joseph knew of God, other than as the sender of dreams. His transformation was a slow and painful process. Ours may be, too – but I'm sure of one thing, and that is that the more we are open to God, the more we commit ourselves to being God's person, the more honest we can be with ourselves and with God about how chaotic our lives are and how badly we get things wrong, then the easier it is for God to transform us.

And, of course, we don't have to wait for that transformation to have fully happened before God can use us! We can still be used, ready or not. And God does use us, sometimes, often even, without our knowledge. But never, I think, without our consent. Amen.

God gets involved

2011-07-03T13:04:00.001+01:00

One of the joys of preaching at two different churches on consecutive weeks on consecutive readings is that you can use the same introduction as you used last week! Which is my fairly standard Abraham introduction, but still...

I wasn't here last week because I was at Mostyn Road, and so I don't know what A focussed on. But I had a look a the story of what's called “The Binding of Isaac”, when Abraham nearly sacrifices Isaac but doesn't at the last moment. Our Old Testament reading for today, follows more or less straight on from there, and tells how God provided a bride for Isaac to help fulfil the promise that Isaac would be the father of many nations.

Scholars seem to think that these stories of Abraham,
which had been an integral part of the Jewish tradition,
were collected together and written down during the 5th and 6th centuries BC –
this, you remember, was when the Israelites were in exile,
the Temple had been destroyed,
and they had no king of their own.
Only a very few Israelites were left in Jerusalem,
and they had rather lapsed from their traditions and practice.
So the various stories were collected and written down,
possibly somewhat haphazardly, in case it should all be lost.

Abraham himself is thought to have lived in the early part of the 2nd millennium BC. Apparently the earliest he could have been born was 1976 BC and the latest he could have died was 1637 BC.
This was in the Bronze age –
he would have had bronze tools, not iron, and possibly still a flint knife.

When Robert and I were in Italy at Easter-time,
on Easter Monday we went to the town of Bolzano,
where they have the museum where the body of Oetzi, the ice-man, is stored.
You may remember that he was found in the Alps about 20 years ago,
having been preserved in a glacier for over 5,000 years.
The point is, this was even longer ago than Abraham –
he only had a copper axe, as they hadn't discovered about bronze yet.
But the things that were found with him – his axe, his coat, his trousers, his bow and arrows, his knife and so on,
you could see just how they were used, and he was really a person just like you or me!
That makes Abraham feel less remote, as he, too, would have worn clothes we recognise, and carried tools we'd know and so on.

Abraham had felt called by God to leave his home-town of Ur in the Chaldees, which in his day was allegedly highly civilised.
They had, apparently, nineteen different kinds of beer and a great many fried-fish shops, if you call that being civilized!
However, they did enjoy other kinds of food, such as onions, leeks, cucumbers, beans, garlic, lentils, butter, cheese, dates, and the occasional meal of beef or lamb. Just the sort of food I like!
There was wine available, to make a change from beer,
but it was expensive, and drunk only by the rich.
They played board-games,
enjoyed poetry and music, which they played on the lyre, harp and drum,
and were generally rather well-found, from all one gathers.

The only thing was that without many trees in their part of the world,
they had to do without much furniture,
and tended to sleep on mats on the floor, for instance, instead of beds.
But definitely a sensible and civilised place in which to live.
When you hear it described, it doesn't sound all that remote, does it?
They were people like us, and had similar tastes to us.

But Abraham had felt called to leave there,
and to take his family and household and to live in the desert.
And there, eventually, long after Sarah had given up all hope of having a child, Isaac was born.

And now Isaac has grown up and Sarah has died, and it is time for Isaac to marry. Abraham is urgent that he marry a woman from his own tribe, not a local Canaanite woman, who wouldn't have known about God, so he sends his servant back to Ur, to find a suitable relation for Isaac to marry.

The servant explains, rather earnestly, how he asked God to show him which the right woman was – would she offer to draw water for his camels, or not? That wasn't an easy task – camels, which can go four or five days without water, like to drink A LOT at one time, so she'd have needed a fair few bucketsful!

Rebecca's family would have liked a few days to get used to the idea, but the servant says he needs to get back as soon as possible, and Rebecca agrees to leave next day. So she and her various maidservants – one of them may have been her old nurse – got packed up and ready, and set off. And eventually they get home safely, and there is Isaac coming to meet them. And they get married, and live more-or-less happily ever after!

We sometimes get alarmed about arranged marriages these days; we know that in those communities where they're still more-or-less the norm, things can go horribly wrong – think of those so-called “honour killings” we hear so much about! Even in this day and age, it isn't always easy for someone to escape an abusive situation if they don't know where to go. But as I understand it, an arranged marriage can be every bit as happy and as successful as one where the bride and groom have chosen one another; we all know that you have to work at being married, whether you knew your husband for years beforehand or whether you met him a few days or weeks before the wedding – or even at the wedding!

I think Rebecca was very brave going off with Abraham's servant like that; she had no way of knowing who or what was awaiting her at the far end of the journey. The servant had bigged up Abraham's – and thus Isaac's – wealth, and had given her lots of gold jewellery, but was he telling the truth?

But one thing stands out about this story and that is that God was involved from beginning to end! And God led them all to a happy ending.

I wonder how much we actually believe that God is really involved in our lives? I know we say we do, but these Sundays in Ordinary Time are very much places where what we think we believe tends to come up against what we really do believe! After all, not all of our stories have happy endings, do they? Some do, many do, and for these we give thanks, but what happens when they don't?
Does God get involved in our lives? And if so, how does this work, and how can we work with God to ensure a happy ending?

Well, the Bible definitely tells us that God is involved in our lives, and I am sure most of us could tell of moments when we were perfectly and utterly sure of this. But equally, most of us could tell of moments when we really struggled with it! Where was God when this or that bad thing happened? Does God really care?

Many of us have lived through enough bleak times to know that one comes out the other side. We know that, when we look back, we will see God's had upon it all. God may not have led us to a happy ending, exactly, but we can see how God has worked all things together for good for us.

It's not a matter of God waving a magic wand and producing the happy ending we want; we all know God doesn't work like that. And it's not a matter, either, of God having set the future in stone so that nothing we can do can change things. Nor is it a matter of God simply sitting back and letting us struggle as best we can, although everybody feels at times that this is what is happening.

It's more as if God is working with us, moment by moment. Sometimes we – or other people – do things that mean the situation can't come out as God would have wished. God has a detailed plan for creation, but his plan for our individual lives isn't – can't be – mapped out in moment-by-moment detail since we are free to make our own choices. But God truly wants the best possible life for each one of us. The idea, I think, is to stay as close to God as possible, trying to be aware of each moment of decision and what God would like for us to do.

But, of course, as St Paul points out in the letter to the Romans, that isn't actually possible! We're a bit crap at actually doing the right thing, no matter how much we know we want to! It was impossible for Paul to keep the Jewish law in its entirety, no matter how much he wanted to. And although we know we're, and I quote, under grace not under the law, we do tend to find it easier to try to follow a set of rules and regulations than to follow Jesus! And, of course, we don't follow those rules and regulations perfectly – how could we?

But Jesus points out that his burden is light! Sometimes we don't feel as though it is. “Come unto me all you who are burdened, and I will give you rest!”

I am sure Abraham's servant must have felt incredibly burdened when he went back to Ur to find Rebecca. But the servant, at least, spent his time moment-by-moment in God's presence. He trusted that God would lead him, step by step, to the right woman and that God would bring the whole journey to a happy conclusion. “Come unto Me all you who are burdened, and I will give you rest!”

Abraham's servant trusted God. I wonder how much we trust God? It isn't always easy, is it. Last week's story, how God asked Abraham to kill Isaac, was very much about trust. Abraham didn't even argue with God – he just went ahead and did as he was told, leaving it very much up to God to do the right thing! Even Isaac didn't struggle – he was a young man at that stage, not a small boy, and he could easily have overpowered his elderly father. But no – he allowed himself to be bound and laid upon the altar. And God did do the right thing, as it were, and produced the ram.

And now God did show the servant his choice of wife for Isaac. And so was born the Kingdom of Israel. We never know the consequences of our choices – they may be far more far-reaching than we expect. But we do need to practice involving God in our everyday lives, otherwise, when the crunch comes, we'll find it much harder than it need be to rely on him. “I will give you rest,” says Jesus, but if we don't know how to come to him for that rest, how can he give it to us? Amen.

Abraham and Isaac

2011-06-26T13:12:00.001+01:00

Our Old Testament story is a very strange one, isn't it? The editors of Genesis explain it away as “God testing Abraham”, but although they might think God is Like That, I'm not at all sure I do!

Still, it is very much a part of the story of Abraham, so we must look at it. Scholars seem to think that these stories of Abraham, which had been an integral part of the Jewish tradition, were collected together and written down during the 5th and 6th centuries BC – this, you remember, was when the Israelites were in exile, the Temple had been destroyed, and they had no king of their own. Only a very few Israelites were left in Jerusalem, and they had rather lapsed from their traditions and practice. So the various stories were collected and written down, possibly somewhat haphazardly, in case it should all be lost.

Abraham himself is thought to have lived in the early part of the 2nd millennium BC, somewhere between 1976 BC and 1637 BC. This was in the Bronze age – he would have had bronze tools, not iron, and possibly still a flint knife.

Robert and I went to Italy over Easter this year, and on Easter Monday we went to the town of Bolzano, where they have the museum where the body of Oetzi, the ice-man, is stored. You may remember that he was found in the Alps about 20 years ago, having been preserved in a glacier for over 5,000 years. The point is, this was even longer ago than Abraham – he only had a copper axe, as they hadn't discovered about bronze yet. But the things that were found with him – his axe, his coat, his trousers, his bow and arrows, his knife and so on, you could see just how they were used, and he was really a person just like you or me! That makes Abraham feel less remote, as he, too, would have worn clothes we recognise, and carried tools we'd know and so on.

Abraham had felt called by God to leave his home-town of Ur in the Chaldees, which in his day was allegedly highly civilised. They had, apparently, nineteen different kinds of beer and a great many fried-fish shops, if you call that being civilized!

However, they did enjoy other kinds of food, such as onions, leeks, cucumbers, beans, garlic, lentils, milk, butter, cheese, dates, and the occasional meal of beef or lamb. Foods that you and I enjoy to this day! There was wine available, to make a change from beer, but it was expensive, and drunk only by the rich. They played board-games, enjoyed poetry and music, which they played on the lyre, harp and drum, and were generally rather well-found, from all one gathers.

The only thing was that without many trees in their part of the world, they had to do without much furniture, and tended to sleep on mats on the floor, for instance, instead of beds. But definitely a sensible and civilised place in which to live. When you hear it described, it doesn't sound all that remote, does it? They were people like us, and had similar tastes to us.

But Abraham had felt called to leave there, and to take his family and household and to live in the desert. And there, eventually, long after Sarah had given up all hope of having a child, Isaac was born.

And now this. Now the demand to give up Isaac, to sacrifice him to God. What should Abraham do? What could Abraham do, being the kind of person he was? He wasn't perfect – he had been known to tell lies when things got awkward; he had tried to bring God's plan for him into being himself by conceiving a child on his servant Hagar. No, he wasn't perfect, but what he was, was someone who really wanted to follow God, and to do what God wanted. And now, it seemed, God wanted him to sacrifice his only child. What of the promise to make his descendants a great nation? But if God said to do it, Abraham did it, to the best of his ability.

Child sacrifice was, of course, not unknown in that era and that region, and some scholars even think that it was not unknown among worshippers of God, although it's explicitly and emphatically forbidden in the various books of the Law. The Israelites were not to copy their neighbours' bad example! Deuteronomy 12, verses 30-31 says: “After the Lord destroys those nations, make sure that you don't follow their religious practices, because that would be fatal. Don't try to find out how they worship their gods, so that you can worship in the same way. Do not worship the Lord your God in the way they worship their gods, for in the worship of their gods they do all the disgusting things that the Lord hates. They even sacrifice their children in the fires on their altars.”

Anyway, Abraham and Isaac – who, by the way, wasn't a small boy by then, but probably a young man – go off with the servants up to the mountain to sacrifice. Traditionally, they went to where the Temple would later be built in Jerusalem, where the Dome of the Rock is now. At least, that's what Jewish scholars say – Christian commentators have thought it was more probably Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified. The Bible isn't exactly clear, but it's in that sort of area, anyway. And Abraham causes the servants and the animals to wait behind, while he and his son go and worship, “and then we will come back to you.” Note that “We”; we'll come back to that!

And Isaac asks where is the animal for the sacrifice, and Abraham says that God will send one – but he binds Isaac and puts him on the altar. You notice, Isaac doesn't struggle – or we are not told if he does – but accepts his fate as from God. And then, just in time, the angel intervenes and the ram is sacrificed instead of Isaac.

Well, it's a very extraordinary story! What was Abraham thinking? What was Abraham thinking God was thinking? God had promised him that he would be the father of many nations – but Isaac had not yet married or had a child, so if he was killed, that would be the end of the line!

Of course, the traditional Christian interpretation of this story is stated in the letter to the Hebrews, chapter 11, verses 17-19: “It was faith that made Abraham offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice when God put Abraham to the test. Abraham was the one to whom God had made the promise, yet he was ready to offer his only son as a sacrifice. God had said to him, 'It is through Isaac that you will have the descendants I promised.' Abraham reckoned that God was able to raise Isaac from death – and, so to speak, Abraham did receive Isaac back from death.”

Abraham may well have thought that God might provide a last-minute substitute for Isaac, or, failing that, would return Isaac from the dead. Remember that he said to his servants that “We will come back”, not “I will come back.” He trusted God.

The story is, of course, considered to be a picture of the Atonement, too – God sacrificing his own son, Jesus, in place of humanity. And Isaac, like Jesus, went more-or-less willingly to his death. And where Jesus was raised, Isaac was given the ram as a substitute.

Of course, there are many other ways of looking at the Atonement, and frankly, this one is one that I don't find says anything to me at this stage in my Christian journey. It is part of the truth, of course, but not all of it. I prefer those parts of the truth that focus on God's love, rather than on God's judgement. But it's there, nevertheless, and it is part of it.

I said at the beginning that the stories had probably been written down during the Exile, and it's also interesting to read what some of the Jewish fathers have made of it. One writer reckons that actually, Abraham was testing God, not vice versa! This, after all, is the Abraham who had pleaded with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah – it's like he went off and did what God was asking without arguing in order to put pressure on God to do the right thing, as it were, and send the ram! After all, he doesn't even say “You what? But you told me Isaac was to be the father of many nations!” He just went off and obeyed what he believed God was asking him to do.

And that, of course, is the important thing that I wish to leave with you this morning. We have just begun the very long haul of Ordinary Time that goes on until the end of November. And while, during the first half of the Church's year, we look at the life of Jesus, his birth, his teachings, his death, resurrection and ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, during this second half of the year, what we are basically looking at is our faith, and what happens when what we believe comes up against what we think we believe!

And that's what happened to Abraham. He was asked to trust God even for the life of his only Son, the Son that God had promised would father many nations.

Of course, that test, if that's what it was, didn't come out of the blue. Abraham had had long practice in believing God, in trusting him, from moving out of Ur of the Chaldees, through the promise of a son – and the failure to trust that led him to conceive Ishmael – and the birth of Isaac, and so on. He was used to trusting God, and so when the crunch came, he was able to.

Are you used to trusting God? If and when the crunch comes in your own life, will you still be able to trust him? Job, you may remember, said he would go on trusting God even if it killed him. And trusting God has killed many, many people down the centuries, the martyrs who preferred to die than to renounce their faith. Could you trust God when the crunch comes? Can I?

I tell you one thing; we may or may not be able to, but we certainly won't be able to if we don't practice trusting Him in our everyday life! Amen.

The Sheep

2011-05-15T12:49:00.000+01:00

Here in London, we probably don't think much about sheep, do we?
Okay, we might wear wool clothes, or eat curry mutton or roast lamb,
and we might use a lanolin hand-cream when our hands are dry and chapped, but by and large, we don't think much about where these things come from.
About sheep.

It's very different when I go and visit my family in Sussex,
because my brother is a shepherd,
and so sheep loom pretty large in our lives down there.
They are silly creatures, really –
very few brains!
Usually they follow a leader, and the trick is to become their leader.
An Australian sheep-farming friend of mine likes to enter her sheepdogs in trials, and she comments that
“Sheepdog trialling is a tricky sport.
Sheep have this amazing ability to bring Humans and Dogs completely undone.
Experienced triallers know that no matter how good the dog and how good the handler it only takes ONE sheep to bring the whole show down.”
Yes, that makes enormous sense to me.
One sheep finds a hole in the fence, and they are all through it,
and have all wandered off where they ought not to be....

These days, shepherds don't stay with their flocks 24/7 the way they used to;
time was, they would often live in caravans on the Downs with their sheep, who could wander almost at will during the day, and then be fenced in, or “folded” into a corral with hazel hurdles, at night.
The shepherd lived there with them, and knew the sheep intimately.

That's less easy to do these days, with bigger flocks;
and the development of electric fences means that there is no need for the shepherd to be there 24/7,
although during the lambing season, my brother will get up several times in the night to check the ewes,
and has been known to sleep on a camp-bed in the shed with them!

In Bible times, it was more traditional;
the sheep would be folded at night, gathered into fenced-off areas,
and the shepherd would lie down at the entrance to guard the sheep.
And in our reading, Jesus likens himself to that shepherd:
“I am the gate for the sheep!”
He contrasts himself with those who climb over the hurdles,
or who get into the fold some other way –
the thieves, those who would steal the sheep.
Or perhaps in our day we might think of people's dogs left to run loose –
you wouldn't believe, or perhaps you would, the amount of damage a couple of dogs can do.
Not good.

Sheep do tend to know their shepherd.
My brother's sheep are fairly brainless, as sheep go,
but they do eventually learn to recognise his car,
and that of the other shepherds, and their response to those cars is quite different from their response to, say, my father’s car.
They know when they see those particular cars, they’ll get fed, or looked at, or
moved to a new pasture, or something nice.

And Jesus tells us, in our reading, that the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

So I wonder, how is it that we know the Shepherd's voice,
and what does it mean in practice?

How is it, then, that we know the Shepherd's voice.
I think there are two reasons.
The first is that He speaks to us;
the second is that we listen to Him.

He speaks to us.
Well, in one sense that's somewhat of a no-brainer, as the Americans so graphically put it.
We are told, from our earliest days as Christians,
that God speaks to us through the Bible,
and through other people,
and even, although we must be careful, through our own imaginations.
But being told it and knowing it seem to be two different things!
Of course, there are times when we hear the Shepherd's voice so clearly, times when we know we are His, held in His arms –

or round his neck, the way shepherd today will still carry a young sheep.

We have all known times when we hear the Shepherd's voice so clearly,
but, of course, we have all known those other times, too;
times when God seems far away, when our prayers go no further than the ceiling, when, so far from hearing God's voice, we wonder whether, in fact, our whole faith has been based on a delusion!
I'm sure we've all been there and done that, too!

Now, it's traditional to be told that when those times happen, it is our fault.
We have stopped listening, we are told, we have gone our own way,
we have sinned.
And, of course, some of the time that is exactly what has happened,
even if some preachers do make it sound like God isn't talking to us any more because we've offended him!
I think, rather, it is we who cannot hear the voice of God when we are uncomfortable in God's presence.
But usually when that has happened we know that is what the matter is,
and sooner or later we admit this to ourselves, and to God,
and things come all right again.

But some of the time, with the best will in the world,
we know we have not sinned,
and it really doesn't seem to be our fault.
Times when everything goes pear-shaped,
and you wonder where on earth God is in the middle of it all?
And part of you knows that this is exactly where God is –
in the middle of it all –
but that part is operating on sheer faith.
You can't sense God's presence, or hear the Shepherd's voice at all,
no matter how hard you listen.
It happens to all of us, probably more often than we care to admit.
Again, preachers have various explanations for it,
and you've probably heard them as often as I have.
That God is testing our faith, as though God didn't know how strong our faith actually is.
Actually, of course, God does know, but we don't necessarily,
and it can be a salutary shock to us!

The thing is, of course, that we don't understand, can't understand, why these things happen.
God is God, not just another person like us, and it's not possible to understand.
We don't know why we suddenly seem to lose the ability to hear God's voice, and why, even worse, we suddenly seem to lose all sense of God, and seem to simply be going through the motions.

The fact that it's almost universal, that almost every Christian goes through it from time to time must mean that it is normal.
But I don't know why it happens,
and I don't altogether accept the explanations as to why.
I think it's just "part of the human condition", or, if you prefer, "part of the mystery of faith", and we must accept it as such.

There are times when we just don't understand what God is doing, and that's okay, too.
Some years ago now, there was an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease,
and as part of the effort to control this,
you were only allowed to move your livestock to another field with government permission.
My brother's sheep became stuck in their field,
long after they had exhausted all the grass,
long after they should have been moved.
And they wanted out, and couldn't understand why they were not moved, to the point that they would run up to any and every car going past, asking to be moved, even cars they would normally ignore like my father's.
My brother had a very good reason that year for not moving his sheep to a new field, no matter how much he wanted to move them, and no matter how much they wanted to be moved.
He wasn't allowed to by the Government, because of foot-and-mouth precautions.
And you try explaining that to sheep!
And since God is even further beyond us than we are from real sheep, how could we be expected to understand what constraints He has?

Sometimes, of course, the matter seems urgent, when we want to know what God wants us to do, and yet God simply doesn't seem to answer.
The more we pray, the less we know what to do, and the quieter God seems to get.
It's so frustrating!
And we rage and rampage and know no peace.

In our reading from Acts, the believers were going through one of those times when God was so close to them, when new believers were coming in all the time, when life was simply ideal.
They lived together, they shared everything in common.
It was idyllic, and, of course, it couldn't last.
Ethnic tensions crept in between the Jews and the Greeks;
there was that dreadful time when Ananias and his wife pretended they'd given their all to the church, when they hadn't at all.
It wouldn't have mattered –
nobody was making them give anything at all, never mind all they had –
but to lie about it?
They paid a fearful penalty.
The community was wonderful while it lasted, but it didn't, couldn't, last.
I wonder whether they felt they were failures when it all broke up, when they started to be persecuted, when things basically went wrong –
or did they accept that things happen, and that God still loved them?

Jesus says "My sheep know My voice".
It is a given.
There are no ifs, buts and ands.
He says "My sheep know My voice".
We do hear His voice, and know it.
Even when we think we don't.
Often, when seeking guidance, we know in our hearts that a given path might probably be wrong.
Or wrong for us, if not intrinsically wrong.

We, of course, behave like sheep from time to time.
We think we do not hear the voice of the Shepherd, so we rush after any and every passing thing that looks as though it might be the Shepherd.
Just as my brother's sheep ran after my father’s car,
hoping that we were coming to move them to a better field.
Is this the right Shepherd, we ask ourselves, rushing to find out.
And sometimes, in the process, we get ourselves badly lost.
We find that the better field was no such thing.

But remember our Lord's story about the lost sheep?
When we do get lost, we can trust the Good Shepherd to pull on Barbour and Wellies forthwith, and head out to find us.
"No one will snatch them out of my hand," Jesus said.
So even if we, or someone we care about, has gone off down the wrong track and got lost, we can trust the Good Shepherd to come and find us again.

Because the Good Shepherd, Jesus tells us, is come "that they may have life and have it abundantly".
Abundantly.

So when we get to a time where we seem not to hear His voice,
a time when we look round and He seems to have vanished, let's not panic.
Let's not assume it was all our fault –
it might have been, but not necessarily.
Let's not abandon all idea of Christianity, of churchgoing, of being God's person.
Instead, let's sit and wait, calling out to God in prayer, but accepting the silence, trusting that one day the Good Shepherd will come and find us, and say
"There you are!
Come on, I'll take you back to the rest!" Amen.

Mothering Sunday (Second sermon for 4 April)

2011-04-03T12:08:00.000+01:00

What day is it today? Mothers’ Day – is the wrong answer! At least, it might be Mothers’ Day out in the world, but here in Church it’s Mothering Sunday, and that, in fact, is only tangentially about human mothers!

Today is the fourth Sunday in Lent, and it’s long been known as Laetare Sunday, or Refreshment Sunday – it’s half-way through Lent, and in days when people kept it rather more strictly than they do now, it was a day when you could relax the rules a little. And the tradition grew up that on that day, you went to the mother church in your area – often the cathedral, but it might have just been the largest church in your area.

Families went together, and it became traditional for servants to have time off to go home and see their families on that day, if they lived near enough. In the Middle Ages, servants may only have got one day off a year, and it was, traditionally, the 4th Sunday in Lent. Many servants had to leave home when they were very young – only about 11 or 12 – because their parents simply couldn't afford to feed them any longer. And, indeed, many of these children hadn't known what a full tummy felt like until they started work. But even so, they must have missed their families, and been glad to see them every year.

And today is also a day for remembering God’s love for us. We’re having the readings for the Fourth Sunday in Lent today, but if we’d had the traditional Mothering Sunday readings, we would have heard Jesus weeping over Jerusalem:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem! Your people have killed the prophets and have stoned the messengers who were sent to you. I have often wanted to gather your people, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you wouldn't let me.”

The image of Jesus as a mother hen! What we remember on Mothering Sunday isn’t just our mothers, although that, too, but above all, the wonderful love of God, our Father and our Mother.

We do give thanks for our mothers - this year it's all a bit special because it's my first as a grandmother, and Emily's first as a mother - and I texted my own mother this morning, remembering that it was her first as a great-grandmother. But we have to remember, too, people whose Mums are no longer with us, and to remember that some people didn't have satisfactory relationships with their own Mums, and some people have never known the joy of motherhood.

But we can all celebrate God's wonderful love for each and every one of us.

Can you see?

2011-04-03T12:06:00.000+01:00

This is a very splendid story in John's Gospel, although it's rather long, which is why I divided the reading into two bits. It's not just about a healing, it's about what happened afterwards.

We start with the man born blind, and first of all the disciples want to know why this had happened. We all want to know why, don't we, when dreadful things happen. Why was this child born disabled? Why did that earthquake and tsunami devastate part of Japan? Or part of New Zealand, for that matter? Why did so and so get cancer? Why did so and so get cancer and then get better, when someone else couldn't get better, and died? And so on and so forth. It's human nature. Even though we sometimes know the answers, or at least part of them – that city was built on a fault line, which is why the earthquake happened just there; that person shortened their lifespan by smoking. And so on. But other times there seems to be no reason for it.

And so the disciples ask Jesus whether the man's blindness was some kind of punishment for him, or for his parents. I wonder if the parents were asking, too: “Why us? What did we do wrong?”

But Jesus said no, it wasn't anything like that, but to show how he, Jesus, is the Light of the World. And he proceeds to heal the man.

Now, all the Gospels tell of Jesus healing a blind man, sometimes called Bartimaeus, but this is the only one that takes it further, and looks at the consequences. You see, after all, if your life is touched by Christ there are, or should be, consequences. If nothing changes, was it a real touch?

For the blind man – and let's call him Bartimaeus for now, as it makes life easier with pronouns and such – life changed immediately. My sister-in-law, who is blind, says that not only would he have been given his sight, but he would have been given the gift of being able to see, otherwise how would he have known what he was looking at? He wouldn't have known whether what he was looking at was a person or a camel or a tree, would he? But he was given the gift, so he knew.

And he could stop begging for his living, he realised, and he went and did whatever the local equivalent of signing-on was. And, of course there were lots of mutterings and whisperings – Is it him? Can't be! Must be someone new in town, who just looks like him!

“Yes, it's me,” explains Bartimaeus, anxious to tell his story. “Yes, I was blind, and yes, I can see now!”

“So what happens?” asks the neighbours.

“Well, this bloke put some mud on my eyes and told me to go and wash, and when I did, then I could see. No, I don't know where he is – I never saw him; Yes, I'd probably know his voice, but I didn't actually see him!”

And the neighbours, thinking all this a bit odd, drag him before the Pharisees, the religious authorities of the day. And they don't believe him. Not possible. Nobody born blind gets to see, it just doesn't happen. And if it did, it couldn't happen on the Sabbath. Not unless the person who did it was a sinner, because only a sinner would do that on the Sabbath – it's work, isn't it? And if the person who did it was a sinner, it can't have happened!

They got themselves in a right old muddle. Now we, of course, know what Jesus' thoughts about healing on the Sabbath day were – he is on record elsewhere as pointing out that you'd rescue a distressed donkey, or, indeed, lead it to the horse-trough to get a drink, whatever day of the week it was, so surely healing a human being was a right and proper activity for the Sabbath. But the Pharisees didn't believe this. They thought healing was work, and thus not a proper activity for the Sabbath at all.

So they decided it couldn't possibly have happened, and sent for Bartimaeus's parents to say “Now come on, your son wasn't really blind, was he? What has happened?” And his parents, equally bewildered, say “Well yes, he is our son; yes, he was born blind; yes, it does appear that he can now see; no, we don't know what happened; why don't you ask him?” And the Bible tells us they were also scared of being expelled from the synagogue, which is why they didn't say anything more.

Actually, they must have had a fearful mixture of emotions, don't you think – thrilled that their son could suddenly see, scared of the authorities, wondering what exactly Jesus had done, and was it something they ought to have done themselves, and so on. And, of course, wondering how life was going to be from now on. Very soon now, their son probably wouldn't need them any more; now he was like other people, he could, perhaps, earn a proper living and even marry and have a family.

So the authorities go back to Bartimaeus, and he says, “Well, how would I know if the person who healed me is a sinner or not? All I know is that I was blind, and now I can see!” And then they asked him again, well, how did it happen, and he gets fed up with them going on and says “But I told you! Didn't you listen? Or maybe you want to be his disciples, too?” which was, of course, rather cheeky and he deserved being told off for it, but then again, I expect he was still rather hyper about having been healed. And he does go on rather and tells them that the man who opened his eyes must be from God, can't possibly not be, and they get even more fed up with him, and sling him out.

And then Jesus meets him again – of course Bartimaeus, not having seen him before, doesn't actually recognise him – and reveals himself to him. And Bartimaeus worships him.

Then Jesus, the Light of the World, says that he has come so that the blind may see, and those who see will become blind – looking hard at the Pharisees as he said it. The Pharisees are horrified: “What, are we blind, then?”

And Jesus says, “If you acknowledged that you were blind, you, too, could be healed. But but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains!”

That's the thing, isn't it – the Pharisees wouldn't admit they needed Jesus. They wouldn't admit there was anything wrong. Jesus has picked up on this before – you remember the story he told about the Pharisee and the tax-collector, and the Pharisee was too pleased with himself to be able to receive God's grace. The tax-collector knew he was a rat-bag, and thus God could do something.

We know that bit. We know that we need to acknowledge our need of God before God can act – we must make room for God in our lives. But when we have done that, and God has touched us, in whatever way, things change. For Bartimaeus, it was about learning to live with his sight, and about dealing with the issues that it raised.

I wonder what it is for us. For make no mistake, my friends, when God touches our lives, things change. Sometimes it is our behaviour which changes – perhaps we used to get drunk, but now we find ourselves switching to soft drinks after a couple of glasses. Perhaps we used to gamble, but suddenly realise we haven't so much as bought a Lottery ticket for weeks, never mind visiting a bookie! Perhaps we used to be less than scrupulous about what belongs to us, and what belongs to our employer, but now we find ourselves asking permission to use an office envelope.

Very often these sorts of changes happen without our even noticing them. Others take more struggle – sometimes it is many years before we can finally let go of an addiction, or a bad habit. But as I've said before, the more open we are to God, the more we can allow God to change us. Sometimes, of course, we cling on to the familiar bad habits, as we don't know how to replace them with healthier ways of acting and thinking, and that's scary.

But the point is, when God touches our lives, things change. They changed for Bartimaeus, I know they changed for me, and they will have changed for many of you, if not all of you, too.

But it's easy to fall out of the habit of allowing God to touch you and change you. I know I have, many times. The joy of it is, though, that we can always come back. We aren't left alone to fend for ourselves – we would always fail if we were. We just need to acknowledge to ourselves – and to God, of course, but God knew, anyway – that we've wandered away again.

That's a bit simplistic, of course – there are times when we are quite sure we haven't wandered away, and yet God seems far off. But I'm not going into that one right now; nobody really knows why that happens, except God! But for most of us, most of the time, if we fall out of the habit of allowing God to touch us and heal us and change us, we simply have to acknowledge that this is what has happened, and we are back with him again.

It can be scary. Bartimaeus was scared, and with some reason as his healing ended up with his being chucked out of the synagogue. That was relatively mild compared with what has happened to some of Jesus' followers down the years, though. But then, we are always given the strength and the ability to cope with whatever comes. We don't have to cope alone. God is there, not only changing us, but enabling us to cope with that change. And we are changed and grown, and God gets the glory! Because it's not just about what happens to us – although, human as we are, that's the bit we think about most. It's also about showing God's glory to the world, showing people that Jesus is the Light of the World. As happened when Bartimaeus was healed; as may well happen if and when God touches our lives. Amen.

Tempted and Fallen

2011-03-13T14:30:00.000Z

This was prepared before the dreadful earthquake in Japan. I did sort-of mention it: "What if the temptation had been for the earthquake not to happen.....?"

The first reading today was about a man, and a woman and God. The man and the woman don't have names – later on, they are called Adam and Eve, but at this stage they don't need names. They are just Man and Woman. They are the only Man and Woman that exist – God hasn't made any more, yet – so they don't need names. Man can just go, “Oi, you!” and Woman will know he's talking to her.

God has made the Man and the Woman, and put them in a garden, where there is plenty of food to eat for the picking of it. It's lovely and warm, so they don't need clothes, and in fact they are so comfortable with themselves and with God that they don't want clothes. There are animals to be cared for,and crops to be tended, but the work is easy and pleasurable. And all the fruit in the garden is theirs, except for one tree,which God has told them is poisonous. If they eat the fruit of this tree, God said, they'll die.

Well, so far, so good. But at this point, enter another player. The serpent. Now, the Serpent is God's enemy, but the Man and the Woman don't know that. They think the Serpent is just another animal. Now Serpent comes and chats to Woman.

“Nice pomegranate you've got there!”

“Mmm, yes,” says Woman.

“Look at that fruit on that tree over there, though,” says Serpent. “That looks well tasty!”

“Yes, but it's poisonous!” explains Woman. “God said that if we ate it, we'd die, so we're keeping well clear of it!”

“Oh rubbish!” says Serpent. “God's stringing you a line! It's not poisonous at all. Thing is, if you eat it, you'll be just like God, and know good and evil. God doesn't want you to eat it, because God doesn't want any rivals! Go on, have a bite! You won't regret it!”

So Woman has another look at the tree, and sees that the fruit is red and ripe and smells tempting, so she cautiously stretches out her hand and grabs the fruit, and, ever so tentatively, takes a tiny bite. Mmm, it is good!

So she calls to Man, “Oi, you!”

“Mm-hmmm,” calls Man, looking up from the game he was playing with his dogs. “What is it?”

“Come and try this fruit,” says Woman, and explains how the Serpent had said that God had been stringing them a line, and how good the fruit tasted. So Man decides to have a piece himself.

But it's coming on to evening, and at evening, God usually comes and walks in the garden, and Man and Woman usually come and share their day. But tonight, somehow, they don't feel like chatting to God. And those bodies, the bodies they'd enjoyed so much, suddenly feel like they want to be kept private. They look at one another, and both retreat, silently, into the far depths of the garden, grabbing some fig leaves to make coverings for themselves.

Presently, God comes looking for them. “What's up? Why are you hiding?”

“Well,” goes Man, “I didn't want to face you, 'cos I was naked.”

“Naked?” says God. “Naked? Who told you you were naked? You've been eating that fruit I told you was poisonous, haven't you?”

“Well, er, um.” Man wriggles. “It wasn't my fault. That one, the Woman you gave me. She said to eat it, so I did. Wasn't my fault at all. You can't blame me!”

So God looks at Woman, and says, “Is this true? Did you give him the fruit?”

Woman goes scarlet. “Well, it was Serpent. He said you, well, that the fruit wasn't poisonous.”

But, of course, the fruit had been poisonous It wasn't that it gave Man and Woman a tummyache or the runs; it poisoned their whole relationship with God. They couldn't stay in God's garden any more. Serpent was going to have to crawl on his belly from now on, and everyone, almost, would be afraid of him. Woman was going to have awful trouble having babies, and Man was going to find making a living difficult.

But God did show them how to make warm clothes for themselves, and didn't abandon them forever, even though, from that time forth, they weren't really comfortable with God.

Well, that's the story, then, that the Israelites used to explain why human beings find it so very difficult to be God's people and to do God's will. And it shows how first the Woman and then the Man were tempted, and fell.

They fell. But Jesus resisted temptation. You may remember that he was baptised, and there was the voice from heaven that said “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And then Jesus went off into the desert for six weeks or so, to come to terms with exactly Who he was, and to discover the exact nature of his divine powers.

I often think that what Jesus was tempted to do was to behave as though he were Harry Potter – to misuse his divine powers for his own comfort and safety.

It must have been so insidious, mustn't it? "Are you really the Son of God? Why don't you prove it by making these stones bread? You're very hungry, aren't you? If you're the Son of God, you can do anything you like, can't you? Surely you can make these stones into bread? But perhaps you aren't the Son of God, after all...." And so it would have gone on and on and on.

But Jesus resisted. The way the gospel-writers tell it, you would think he just waved his hand and shook his head and said, “No, man shall not live by bread alone!” But that wouldn't have been temptation. You know what it's like when you're tempted to do something you ought not – the longing can become more and more intense. There are times when you think, Hmm, that'd be nice, but then you think, naaa, not right, and put it behind you; but other times when you have to really, really struggle to put it behind you. “If you are the Son of God....”

The view from the pinnacle of the Temple. So high up.... by their standards,
like the top of the Canary Wharf tower would be to us. "Go on then – you're the Son of God, aren't you? Throw yourself down – your God will protect you!" The temptation is to show off, to use his powers like magic. Yes, God would have rescued him, but: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” That's not what it's about. That would have been showing off. That would have been misusing his divine powers for something rather spectacular.

Jesus was also tempted with riches and power beyond his wildest dreams – at that, beyond our wildest dreams, if only he would worship the enemy. We can sympathise with this particular temptation; I'm sure we all would love to be rich and powerful! But for Jesus, it must have been particularly subtle – it would help him do the work he'd been sent to do! Could he fulfil his mission without riches and power? What was being God's beloved son all about, anyway? Would it be possible to spread the message that he was beginning to realise he had to spread if he was going to spend his life in an obscure and dusty part of the Roman empire? And again, after prayer and wrestling with it, he finds the answer: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” Let the riches and power look after themselves; the important thing was to serve God. If that is right, the rest would follow.

You may remember that Jesus was similarly tempted on the Cross, he could have called down the legions from heaven to rescue him. But he chose not to. It wasn't about spectacular powers – often, when Jesus did miracles, he asked people not to tell anybody. He didn't want to be spectacular. He'd learnt that his mission was to the people of Israel, probably even just the people of Galilee – and the occasional outsider who needed him, like the Syro-Phoenician woman, or the Roman centurion – and anything more than that was up to his heavenly Father.

And, obviously, if the "anything more" hadn't happened, we wouldn't be here this morning! But, at the time, that wasn't Jesus' business. His business, as he told us, was to do the work of his Father in Heaven – and that work, for now, was to be an itinerant preacher and healer, but not trying deliberately to call attention to himself.

St Paul deliberately contrasts Jesus with the first Man, Adam: “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ all are made alive.” Jesus, by resisting temptation, balanced out the first Man and Woman's failure to resist. Jesus, we believe, paid the penalty on the Cross for humanity's failure to resist the lures of the evil one; for our failure to live as God's people should; for our failure to live as God's people. And because of that, we shall all live.

Because, in the end, that's what it's about. Not what we do or don't do – that's just petty details. But are we going to be God's person, or are we not?

Ash Wednesday 2011

2011-03-10T08:32:00.000Z

So here we are at the beginning of another Lent. We are having a rather traditional penitential liturgy, closing with the Imposition of Ashes, for those who want. A sign of penitence, of repentance.

So what is it all about? Is it all solemn and penitential? Should Lent be a joyless, miserable few weeks? It certainly has form for being just that. I can't find my copy to quote exactly, but back at the turn of the last century, children in a vicarage family dreaded Lent: it was assumed that nobody would want to eat cakes, sweets or jam, so these were not served, and for small children it seemed a dreadfully long time! And on the one, memorable, occasion they were allowed to accept an invitation to a party in Lent, they were reminded that they should only eat bread and butter – and were somewhat at a loss as to what to do when they found it was sprinkled with hundreds-and-thousands, as was often the custom at parties in those days! The sausage rolls and mini-pizzas that would have saved them at a party today were unknown then!

More recently, I had a cousin whose birthday normally falls in Lent, and I gather her father didn't really like her to have a party until Easter was safely over. And when Robert and I were married, also in Lent, my mother was not at all sure whether we should have flowers or not!

You'll see no flowers here today, nor will you until Easter Day. That's a legacy of our Anglican roots – no Anglican church will have flowers now, or at least not on Sundays, until Easter. It is, apparently, fine for weddings and funerals, but you don't keep them the way you normally would.

And in those churches where they change colours according to the seasons, the cloths and the clergy's stoles will be changed from the green of Ordinary Time to the purple of Lent and Advent.

Even today people still give things up for Lent; a friend of mine, who is not a Christian, nevertheless doesn't eat chocolate during Lent as a minor act of self-discipline. Actually, given that we are competing in France in a couple of weeks and both of us find chocolate one of the best ways to avoid a serious adrenaline crash, it will be a rather more serious deprivation this year, I suspect! Other people give up other things – booze, for instance, and some friends are giving up their social networking for Lent – Twitter, for instance, or Facebook.

But just giving things up is often not enough. When we were children, we were never allowed to give up anything for Lent unless we saved the money we would otherwise have spent and gave it to charity. And if you give up going on a social network, what do you do with the time? Do you really spend it practising the presence of God, or does it get frittered away playing Solitaire or something similar? I know which it would be if I tried doing that!

But should Lent be a dreary, solemn time, with an emphasis on the negative? I think not. Sometimes people take on something extra during Lent. The classic, of course, is the Lent Study Group, but there are other things. Some people make a point of reading a book about God, or about people's experiences and history with God, during Lent. Others might make a point of doing something for other people – going round and visiting people from church that perhaps they haven't visited for ages. If you are on bad terms with someone, Lent is a terrific time to put things right. Or you might make a point, as I do some years, of finding something to be thankful for each day.

But what, then, about all this solemn penitential stuff we're going to do in a minute? It's easy enough to think of it as miserable; as meaning we ought to be unhappy about being such dreadful people, and so on. But I don't think it's meant to mean that.

It is, I think, about making a fresh start, about preparing for Lent. Back in the day, people used to go to confession on Shrove Tuesday, to be shriven of their sins, so that they could start Lent right with God. What, after all, could be nicer, after all, than being right with God, than knowing you are right with God, that you are forgiven, that you are loved?

Confession isn't really about telling God the nasty things you've done, said or thought. It can involve that, of course, but I think it's deeper than that – it's about facing up to the fact that you are the sort of person who can say, do our think such things: I have to face up to the fact that I am the sort of person who will snap at her family, given the slightest excuse to do so, or that I tend to be very greedy and lazy, as you can doubtless tell just by looking! But without God's help I shall always be these things. God knows what I'm like – it's no surprise to Him. But I need to face up to the fact that I'm like that, and ask God to help me change.

And, of course, we need to let go of anything someone else has done that has hurt us, to forgive them. And that can be horrendously difficult, too, especially if you're still angry at them. Again, it's not really something you can do by yourself – you need God's help to do it. God can take the anger and the hurt and even the hatred, and transform it – but you have to be willing to give it to him, and sometimes you have to start by asking for help to make you willing to let go of it! That's all part of confession.

And sometimes, it's God himself who we need to forgive. Which sounds awful, but what about those times when something awful happens and we don't know why? Think of the people of Christchurch, New Zealand this Lent – I wonder how many are angry with God because of the earthquake that has destroyed their Cathedral and may well have destroyed their homes, or their loved ones. I know there have been times in my life when bad things have happened, and I've been very angry with God. Who, thankfully, doesn't mind – admitting our anger is, as always, part of confession.

And sometimes, of course, it's ourselves we need to forgive. We find it very hard to accept we are the kind of person who can snap at others, or who can waste a lot of money in the shops, or on on-line gambling sites, and when we catch ourselves doing something like that, we feel we've let ourselves down, and we find it very hard to put it behind us and allow God to help us carry on. Again, admitting that is part of confession.

The second part, the repentance, isn't just about saying “Sorry” to God, although that's where it starts. It's about turning right round, and going God's way rather than our own way. This may well involve changes in our behaviour, but mostly it involves changes in our deepest being, in who we are, in what's important to us. And that doesn't happen overnight, of course, and won't happen at all without God's help.

We're not just telling God how ghastly we are and promising to change in our own strength. We're asking God to help us grow and change. If we try to change in our own strength, we shall surely fail. Sometimes we get it twisted, and think we have to make ourselves perfect before we can come to God – er no. We must come to God exactly as we are, and allow Him to come into our deepest levels and help us to grow perfect. It won't happen overnight, but as long as we are open to God, it will happen.

And so we come to our penitential rite.

This isn't something we do publicly very often. In our Gospel reading, Jesus reminds his followers that mostly, you keep your religious practices to yourself. You don't make a parade of being holy, because that's not what being holy is about. You don't let everybody know when you're fasting – and I assume that, in this day and age, it means you don't moan on Facebook about missing chocolate or booze if you happen to have decided to give them up for Lent! You certainly don't make a parade about what you are giving, or giving up! What you give to the church or to charity is between you and the Treasurer of that organisation – oh, and the Inland Revenue if you are a tax-payer and gift aid it. Nobody else needs to know. If you are helping out someone who is in financial difficulty, nobody needs to know except you and that person.

You don't have to let people know how much – or how little – you pray, although it's only polite to say you've prayed for someone if they've asked you to. But if you found you lay awake in the night praying for them – and it can happen, if God really needs you to pray for that person – then you don't go saying so, and certainly not to anybody else!

Instead, says Jesus, you do all that privately, keeping it between you and God and anybody else who really needs to know, and you carry on as though nothing has happened.

And that's what we're going to do now. We're going to use the words on the sheet to help us get ourselves right with God, and if we wish, we're going to have the sign of the cross marked on our foreheads with ash as a sign of that happening. But we will wipe it off before we leave here – there are plenty of tissues if you haven't one – and we will go on our way rejoicing.

And I hope we will continue to rejoice throughout Lent; rejoice that we are loved; rejoice that we are saved; rejoice that we are, however slowly, becoming the people we were created to be. It's not our idea, it's not our doing. It's God's idea.

And then, come Easter Sunday, we will be able to realise all this for ourselves, to make the Resurrection real, to know the Risen Lord in our own hearts and lives, and for the joy and love to spill over on to those around us. Amen!

Choose Life

2011-02-13T13:54:00.000Z

The Children's talk is an integral part of this sermon, albeit separated by the music group and the Gospel reading!

Children's Talk

Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a kingdom far away, there was trouble in the land. The King, whose name was Manasseh, had decided to forsake worshipping the God of his ancestors, and to worship other, more exciting gods instead. Not only that, but he put up altars to them in the holy Temple at Jerusalem, and despite all the priests could do, and despite dire warnings from the prophets, he carried on like this, even sacrificing one of his children and practising black magic.

The priests in the Temple were scared. They didn't know how much longer they would be allowed to stay, or even whether the King would have them killed. What if no new priests could come? How would future generations know how to worship God? Their country had enemies, and it was quite possible that it would be over-run, and God's name might disappear altogether.

So the priests did the only thing they could think of. They wrote a book to tell future generations all about God, and how to worship, and, especially, how to live as God's people. And then they hid it away in the depths of the Temple, and carried on as best they could.

Roughly fifty years later, there was a new king on the throne, the grandson of King Manasseh, and his name was King Josiah. King Josiah did worship God, and one day he decided that it was high time the Temple in Jerusalem was refurbished, painted, cleaned, the stonework repointed, all that sort of thing. And while that was happening, the priests found this book that had been hidden away for so long – either that, or they decided that now was a good moment to produce it – and they brought it to the King.

And that book was at least part of, and perhaps all of, the book of Deuteronomy which our reading came from. I'll tell you more about what it said in a bit, but when Josiah read it, he was horrified and realised that he and his people had been doing things all wrong, and he made them all listen to it and do what it said. And God was pleased. The doom that had been prophesied did come on the land, but not in Josiah's lifetime. You can read all the story in 2 Kings chapters 21 to 23, if you've got a good modern English translation. Not now, though. Now the music group is going to sing for us.

Choose Life

The book of Deuteronomy turned out to be like nothing Josiah had ever heard before. The central theme of the book, how God wants his people to be, is of course that famous passage that begins "Hear, O Israel, The Lord is God, the Lord is One". We are to love God with all of our being, and to keep all the commandments, decrees and ordinances, says the book of Deuteronomy. And, as the passage we heard read says, we are to choose Life. To choose to follow God is to choose Life.

The rest of the book is an expansion of that theme. You look after your neighbour, especially if your neighbour is an Israelite. Refugees or "sojourners" who have settled among you are also to be treated with kindness and compassion, since you were once sojourners in Egypt. If you have slaves or servants, you must give them the opportunity to go free at the end of six years, and give them some capital to help them make a new start. You mustn't give it grudgingly, either, since you've had work from the slave for six years, and no way could you have got a hired servant so cheap. If your slave runs away, people are to assume that you were a cruel owner, and the slave won't be returned to you. If your paid servants need it, you must pay them daily, and don't you dare cheat them!

You don't fancy military service? Well, you don't have to go if you are about to get married, or have just got married, or if you've just built yourself a house or planted a vineyard, or even if you are afraid. Fighting is the Lord's work, and we don't want anyone who isn't whole-hearted about it. If you do go to war, the camp must be kept clean and hygienic at all times - please go right outside the perimeter when you need to "go", and use your trowel afterwards. And when you fight, give your enemy every chance to surrender first.

Above all else, the book of Deuteronomy is concerned with rooting out idolatry, forcefully if necessary. Because of this the whole system of worship is being changed. From now on, you can't sacrifice to God where you please, but only in the Temple in Jerusalem. No more popping into the local shrine; it's too difficult to police it and to make sure it is only God that sacrifices have been made to. Now, obviously, this is going to cause some upheavals, and the authors have made provision for this.

Firstly, you ask, what about your dinner? If you've been in the habit of eating your share of the sacrifice, what do you do if you can't sacrifice any more? Have you really got to go hunting every time you fancy some meat?
No. From now on you may butcher your own meat, or have it butchered for you, so long as it is done in a certain way. It doesn't have to have been sacrificed first. Secular meat is quite OK.

Bur what about me? I'm a Levite, a descendent of Levi. I've been used to working in the shrines and keeping myself on part of the meat brought as sacrifice. What am I going to do now? Well, you get given charitable status, along with widows, orphans and sojourners. Henceforth it is the duty of all religious Jews to support you.

Well, OK, that's fine, you say. But how am I going to worship God? It's three days' journey to Jerusalem; I can't go gallivanting up and down each week. What am I to do?

The answer to that one has repercussions to this day! What they did was, they set up a system of praying with psalms and readings that gradually developed into the synagogue worship that persists even today. What's more, we Christians adapted it, and in various forms it became the Benedictine Daily Office, the Anglican Matins and Evensong, and even has echoes in a Methodist preaching service such as this one! All because those who wrote Deuteronomy felt it would be better, or that God was saying, if you prefer it said that way to have sacrifices made only in the Temple in Jerusalem so that an eye could be kept on what happened. There was too much worshipping of other gods going on.

The other thing that shows God's hand in all this, of course, is that the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD. Suppose the Jews hadn't had an alternative form of worship to fall back on? And what would we have done without it? Jesus rendered Temple worship obsolete, because he was, as the old Prayer Book has it, "a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." God is clever sometimes!

But that is all detail – I find it fascinating, and suggest you sit down and have a good read of the book of Deuteronomy in a modern paraphrase sometime. All sorts of fascinating rules and regulations....

But that's the point. They could so easily become just dry rules and regulations. The priests were aware of this, I think, which is why they were so emphatic about the need to choose, to choose life: “Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

But it got too easy to follow God just by keeping the rules, and by the time Jesus came along, that, all too often, is what was happening. And all the rules were getting hedged around with “Well, what if....” and “In this case, you should...” until they had become a real burden.

Jesus cuts through this, as we heard in our second reading. Just keeping the rules isn't enough. It's not enough to not murder someone – you haven't to be angry with them in a way that would destroy their self-esteem, and when things go wrong, it's down to you to be the first to go and put them right. It's not enough to not have sex with someone if the only reason you fancied them in the first place was because they had a great body. You don't get divorced for trivial reasons, no matter how scrupulous you are about doing it legally. You don't need to swear by anybody or anything, as you should be so trustworthy that just a “Yes” or “No” is enough.

Jesus is giving this picture of what his followers would be like, and it's really hard to live up to. I'm pretty sure I don't, and I'm pretty sure you don't, either.

But then, of course, we don't have to. I mean, not like that. It's not about our trying and struggling and failing to make ourselves into better people. It never has been. In our own strength, we are always going to fail. It's about a reciprocal relationship with God. It's about allowing ourselves to be transformed. About saying to the Holy Spirit, okay, here I am, You do it. He will! Probably not in ways you'd expect, and quite possibly not in ways you'd like, given a choice, but you will be transformed, more and more, into the kind of person God created you to be.

Josiah could have just listened to the book of the Law, and nodded, and said "Oh yes, how very interesting", and let it flow over him. But he didn't. Josiah really wanted to worship God properly – his cousin Zephaniah was a prophet, and quite possibly influenced him to follow God – so he rooted out all the shrines to God that were sometimes used to worship other gods, and he required his subjects to worship God alone, and to celebrate the Passover. The Bible tells us that that first Passover, in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign, so in about 621 BC by our reckoning, was unique: "No such Passover," it says, "had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, or during all the days of the kings of Israel or of the kings of Judah."

The point is that Josiah really meant it about worshipping God, and when he was confronted with the Scriptures, the book of the Law, he chose life.
And we are asked to make that choice, too. Is our religion something formal, a matter of coming to Church on Sundays, of obeying certain rules, going through the motions?

It would be much easier if it was just a matter of obeying rules, wouldn't it? We would just have to do this, do that, not do this, not do that, and God would accept us. But it doesn't work like that. Nor does the more subtle temptation: “I believe that Jesus died for me, so I am saved.” And that's true, of course – but it's the wrong way round. Once again, it's making our relationship with God dependent on something we do – but, my friends, nothing we can do can save us! If we think it is our faith that saves us, we need to think again. It is Jesus who saves us! We can and should believe in Him, but that belief shouldn't be a matter of static facts, a matter of just the Creeds and no more. It should be a belief that leads to a living, two-way relationship with him. He has saved us; we can do nothing to help or hinder him. What we can and should do is be willing to enter into that relationship with him, so that we can know He has saved us, so that we can be saved to the uttermost, as our doctrines have it.

“I set before you life and death;” says the Lord. “Choose life.”

Come and see

2011-01-16T13:04:00.001Z

You know, I don't know about you, but usually when I think about the calling of the disciples, I think about the scene by the See of Galilee, with James, John, Simon Peter and Andrew all mending their nets after a hard days' fishing – or, perhaps, them out in the lake still and Jesus pointing out to them a shoal of fish that he could see and they couldn't. And Simon Peter falling on his knees before Jesus, and Jesus telling them that if they followed him, he would teach them to fish for people. That's what I think of, anyway.

So this story in St John's gospel comes a little strange. In this passage, Andrew is already one of John the Baptist's disciples, and, at John's suggestion, goes after Jesus, and then comes and gets his brother, Simon Peter, and introduces him. Not a fish or fish-net in sight! You wonder, sometimes, when the stories were being collected, who told what to whom, and who was trying to make who look good!

Not that it matters, of course; truth and historical accuracy weren't the same thing in Bible days, and don't need to be today. So for now we'll stick with John's story, since it was our reading for today.

And today's story introduces us to a very important person – Andrew. At least, Andrew is very important in John's gospel. We don't often think of Andrew, do we? He's Peter's younger brother, but it's Peter, James and John who go with Jesus when he is transfigured; it's Peter, James and John who accompany Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane. Andrew gets left out. Andrew stays back with the other disciples.

But here, according to John's version of events, Andrew was with John the Baptist, and when they encountered Jesus, he and his friend went off after him. “What do you want?” asked Jesus.

“Where do you live?” asks Andrew, in return. And Jesus says, “Come and see!”

We're all so used to the idea that “Foxes have dens and birds have their nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” that it might strike us a bit odd – but, of course, when Jesus hadn't yet started his ministry, he was not yet itinerant, and presumably still lived with his mother and brothers in Nazareth. Although, in fact, the story says that they were in Bethany, on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptising, and later on they leave to go home to Galilee, so presumably he was staying with friends somewhere. This wasn't the same Bethany where Martha, Mary and Lazarus lived, though, so he wouldn't have been staying with them. This Bethany is sometimes called Betharaba, to distinguish it.

I did read that the questions have a deeper meaning – I don't know enough Greek to be sure, but apparently they can be interpreted as Jesus asking Andrew what he is really looking for, Andrew asking Jesus who he is at the deepest level, and Jesus inviting Andrew to come and find out. But whatever happens, Andrew and his companion spend some time with Jesus, and the first thing that Andrew does afterwards is go and find his brother Simon Peter, and introduce him to Jesus.

Andrew does this a lot in John's Gospel. He introduces people to Jesus. First of all he introduces Simon Peter – to become Peter, that great Rock on whom Jesus was to build his church. And Simon Peter becomes one of Jesus' closest friends and supporters, far closer than Andrew himself did.

Then a bit later on, Andrew introduces some Greek travellers to Jesus; the travellers speak to Philip, and he goes to Andrew, and then both of them take the travellers to see Jesus. We aren't told what happened next; John goes off into one of Jesus' discourses. But it was Andrew who introduced them.

And in John's version of the story of the feeding of the Five Thousand, it is Andrew who brings the boy to Jesus, that nameless youth who had five barley loaves and two fishes, and who was prepared to share them with Jesus. Andrew brought the boy to Jesus.

Yes, well. I've heard, and I'm sure you have too, lots of sermons on St Andrew where they tell you that you ought to be like him and introduce people to Jesus. Which is all very well, and all very true, but it's not quite as simple as that, is it?

First off, when preachers say things like that, the congregation – well, if I'm any representative of it – go all hot and wriggly and feel they must be terrible Christians because it's so long since they last introduced anybody to Jesus. And the ones who are apt to feel the hottest and wriggliest are those who really do more than anybody else to introduce people to Jesus.

And anyway, Andrew only introduces people to Jesus when they want to be introduced. Simon Peter, his brother, was probably already following John the Baptist, and was anxious to meet the Messiah. He may, of course, have thought that the Messiah, the Anointed One, would rebel against the occupying power, an earthly leader, but, of course, he soon learnt differently. The Greeks in chapter 12 of John's Gospel had asked for an introduction. The boy with five loaves and two fish was anxious to share his lunch with Jesus, but couldn't get past the security cordon of the disciples.

And when our friends want to be introduced to Jesus, that's when we need to imitate Andrew. If they don't want to know him yet, and we keep trying, we'll just end up being utterly boring and probably lose their friendship! It's probably better to just pray for our friends, and hold them up to Jesus that way – if and when they are ready for more, they will let you know. There is, as the Preacher tells us, a time for everything!

King's Acre, as a church, does a great deal to make Jesus known in the community, what with the youth club, Girls' Brigade, Pop-In and the Tuesday toddler group. We are giving people the opportunity – they know what a church stands for, and if they don't, they can always ask. We may never know how much we've done for people, how much our example has led them to want to find Jesus for themselves, to question the easy, unthinking atheism popularised by Richard Dawkins and his ilk. That's as it should be – our job is to be ourselves, to be Jesus' people, as we have committed ourselves to being.

So what sort of people are we going to be being? I think Jesus gives a very good picture of what his people are like in that collection of his teachings we call the Sermon on the Mount: poor in spirit – not thinking more of themselves than they ought; mourning, perhaps for the ungodly world in which we live; meek, which means slow to anger and gentle with others; hungry and thirsty for righteousness; merciful; pure in heart; peacemakers and so on. They love everyone, even those who hate them; they refrain from condemning anyone, or even from being angry with them in a destructive way; they don’t hold grudges or take revenge, value or use people just for their bodies, or end their marriages lightly. Their very words are trustworthy. In short, they treat everyone with the greatest respect no matter what that person’s race, creed, sex or social class. They also treat themselves with similar respect, looking after themselves properly and not abusing themselves any more than they abuse others.

We don't, of course, have to force ourselves to become like that in our own strength – we'd make a pretty rotten job of it! We do have to give God permission to change us, though, to “let go and let God”. We have to be willing to allow God to work in us, gradually transforming us into the people we were created to be.

And as we do so, we will be able to have a response when our friends ask what Church is all about, or who Jesus is.

And people are asking, aren't they? Like Andrew, they want to know where Jesus is. Where is Jesus in these dreadful floods in Queensland? Where is Jesus in that shooting in Arizona? Where is Jesus in the riots in Tunisia and the Ivory Coast? Where is Jesus in Haiti, where a year after the earthquake people are still living in tents – and they are the lucky ones? Where is Jesus in Pakistan?

Jesus answers us, as he answered Andrew: Come, and see. And the answer, of course, is that he is there in the middle of it all, as he always is. “Behold the Lamb of God,” said John, “Who takes away the sins of the world.”

There are always dreadful things happening in our world. There always have been – even back in Jesus' day, you remember, the disciples asked what had gone wrong when a tower collapsed, killing rather a lot of people. Look at the book of Job, or at some of the Psalms, trying to come to terms with why bad things happen, and so often to people who really didn't deserve it. And there are no easy answers; all we can do is to trust and to believe that God is there in the middle of it. “Come and see,” said Jesus, and they went and saw. And we are invited to stay with him exactly where he is: in the middle of it all. Amen.

With thanks to Joelle Hanson for the 2nd half!

His own received him not

2011-01-02T16:11:00.001Z

From John chapter 1, and verse 11: “He came to his own country, but his own people did not receive him.”

“He came to his own country, but his own people did not receive him.”

The “He” we are talking about is, obviously, Jesus, and we are looking at part of the great Prologue to John's Gospel that we sometimes call the “Christmas Gospel”. It is, of course, still Christmastime in the Church, and it is very nearly Epiphany, when we celebrate the visit of the Wise Men to Jesus, so it all seems to fit together rather well.

I believe, incidentally, that this first chapter of John is thought to have been written last, a sort of summary, almost, of the whole thing, or it may have been a paraphrase of a then-current hymn, rather like Paul quotes one in Philippians 2. Not that it matters, of course, not at this distance; it is the Prologue to John's Gospel, and it tells us of the Word of God, the Light of the World, who was rejected by his own people but who adopted any and all who did choose to believe in Him. Which is basically the whole of the Good News in one sentence, no?

Anyway, the thing about this second half of the Prologue – oh dear, I shall start sounding like Frankie Howerd in Up Pompeii if I'm not careful – is that it spells out quite clearly that anybody who does believe in Jesus becomes a child of God, not through physical birth, but through spiritual birth.

This is a good reading for Epiphany, of course. John doesn't tell us about the Wise Men coming to see Jesus – only Matthew does that. But the Wise Men are a vital part of the Christmas story, however strange a part. To the point that I'm now going to ask Felicia to read Matthew 2:1-12 to us.

Matthew tells us the story largely from Joseph's point of view, of course, and there are some very serious differences, not to say contradictions, between his version of events and Luke's. Matthew seems to think that the Holy Family lived in Bethlehem, rather than Nazareth, which was where they moved to for safety after they came back from Egypt. No mention of mangers or inns here – and not even Luke says the manger was actually in a stable! Could be they'd just run out of cots....

But none of that matters, of course, not against the real truth, that God became a human being: the Word became Flesh and lived among us, as our passage says: “The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us. We saw his glory, the glory which he received as the Father's only Son.” That is what matters. The details are just details, and are not important.

So the wise men – we don't know how many there were, Matthew doesn't say. Actually, he just says “Magi” or wise ones, so it's not impossible, although it's rather improbable, that they would have been a mixed group, men and women both. Tradition, of course, has made of them kings, and given them names: Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar. And it is only tradition that identifies gold with kingship, frankincense with divinity, or godhead, and myrrh with death. This can, of course, be quite helpful, reminding us Who Jesus is, but it is nevertheless tradition, not Scripture.

But what is important about the Magi is that they came. They were not Jewish, yet somehow they knew that the new-born King of the Jews was important, and they wished to worship him. Important enough that they travelled “from the East”, arguably modern-day Iran, but who knows, all the way to Jerusalem to find the child. “They went into the house, and when they saw the child with his mother Mary, they knelt down and worshipped him. They brought out their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and presented them to him.”

And their offerings were accepted. There was no question that these foreigners, these non-Jews, should not worship Jesus. The Jews, Jesus' own people, did not receive him, but these foreigners did. They sort of symbolise all of us, down the generations since then, who were not born Jewish but who nevertheless believed in Jesus.

The thing was, the Jews' rejection of Jesus didn't surprise God! You can't actually surprise God – He always knows what's round the next corner, which is something we can never know. But God knows. And St Paul, or whoever it was wrote the letter to the Ephesians, knew that: “Even before the world was made, God had already chosen us to be his through our union with Christ, so that we would be holy and without fault before him.”

Holy and without fault before him! And he has given us, according to Paul, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world, echoing the Gospel promise that “Out of the fullness of his grace he has blessed us all, giving us one blessing after another.”

How true that is! And isn't God great?! The magi came to Bethlehem to worship the new-born infant, and we are invited to do the same. But we don’t just worship him as a baby – it’s not about going smiling down at a baby kicking on a rug, and saying “Oh how clever” when he picks up a toy, as I do with my own baby grandson.

No, worshipping the Baby at Bethlehem involves a whole lot more than that. It’s about worshipping Jesus for Who He became, and what he did. We kneel at the cradle in Bethlehem, yes – but we worship the Risen Lord. We celebrate Christmas, not just because it’s Jesus’ birthday, although that, too, but because we are remembering that if Jesus had not come, he could not come again. And he could not be “born in our hearts”, as we sing in the old carol. Christmas isn't just a remembering thing, I think, although that too – it's also about allowing the Lord Jesus to be born in our hearts, about renewing our relationship with him.

We worship at the cradle in Bethlehem, but we also worship Jesus all year round, remembering not only his birth, but his teachings, his ministry, the Passion, the Resurrection, the Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit. And we worship, not only as an abstract “Thing”– what was that song: “I will celebrate Nativity, for it has a place in history....” – it’s not just about worshipping a distant divinity, but about God with us: Emmanuel.

Jesus, as a human being, can identify with us. He knows from the inside what it is like to be vulnerable, ill, in pain, tempted.....

His father, Joseph, was, we are told, a carpenter, although in fact that’s not such a great translation – the word is “Technion”, which is basically the word we get our word “technician” from. A “technion” would not only work in wood, but he’d build houses – and design them, too. He was a really skilled worker, not your average builder with his trousers falling off. Jesus would have been educated, as every Jewish boy was, and probably taught to follow his father’s trade. After all, we think he was about 30 when he started his ministry, and he must have done something in the eighteen years since we last saw him, as a boy in the Temple. I wonder, sometimes, what he said when he hit his thumb with a hammer, as he undoubtedly did more than once. A friend and I were discussing this once, and could come up with nothing more specific than “Something in Aramaic!”

God with us: a God who chose to live an ordinary life, who knows what it is to be homeless, a refugee; who knows what it is to work for his living. Who knows what it is to be rejected, to be spat upon, to be despised. Who knows what it’s like to live in a land that was occupied by a foreign power. Who came to his own people, but his own did not receive him.

This, then, is the God we adore. We sing “Joy to the World” at this time of year, and rightly so, for the Gospel message is a joyful one. But it is so much more than just a happy-clappy story of the birth of a baby. It is the story of the God who is there. God with us. Emmanuel. Amen.

Children's Talk for Christmas 2 Year A

2011-01-02T16:11:00.000Z

Well, now. Have you had a lovely Christmas? Did you get some amazing presents? What did you get?

I was given, among other lovely things, some home-grown lamb and pork from my brother, which I’m really pleased with. I like Christmas!

But I’m sure you’ve noticed that there seem to be two sorts of Christmas! There’s the bit we do in Church, about Jesus being born, and the shepherds, and the star, and the kings, and so on. And then there’s the other bit, about Father Christmas, or Santa Claus, and Rudolph and the sleigh. And somewhere in all there there is lots of extra food and drink and turkeys and mince pies and stuff like that. It all seems rather a muddle, don’t you think?

Well, that’s partly because it is a muddle. You see, nobody knows when Jesus’ birthday really was, but scholars seem to think that the one day it absolutely wasn’t was the 25th of December. It is more probable that he was born in September – after all, sheep wouldn’t still have been out in the fields in December at that time and place.

But December is the darkest time of the year. We’ve just had the absolutely shortest day there can be – only 7 hours, 49 minutes and 43 seconds of daylight here in London – and now the days are getting longer again. Barely perceptibly at first – today, for instance, there is only going to be 7 hours, 56 minutes and 49 seconds of daylight, so today is only just over seven minutes longer than the shortest day. But it is longer, and that’s the point. People used to celebrate the turn of the year, the fact that the Light was going to come again.
And what better time to celebrate the coming of the Light of the World, people thought. So the old pagan celebration of Yule got a Christian bit tacked on to it, but the joins show rather!

And the Santa Claus thing is even more of a muddle – you see, in some countries he doesn’t even come on Christmas Eve! He comes on 6 December, which is St Nicholas’ Day, because, you see, his name really is “St Nicholas”, and “Santa Claus” is what it was corrupted to over the years. And so children in lots of European countries expect that Santa will bring them presents on St Nicholas’ Day. But our civilisation has muddled up Santa with Father Christmas, and we only get one lot of presents! Shame, really!

So what I’m trying to say is this – don’t worry about the fact that Christmas seems to have two faces. Enjoy it! But don’t ever forget that there’s more to it than just Santa and Rudolph and parties.... remember what Christians celebrate at Christmas! And are still celebrating – all the Santa stuff is over now, but the Christian Christmas goes on for another several days yet! Amen.

Hanging in there

2010-12-12T10:13:00.001Z

Today is the third Sunday in Advent.
We’ve lit three candles in our Christmas Countdown –
er, I mean Advent Wreath.
Christmas is coming –
only another fortnight!
End of next week, even!
I expect you’ve already had some Christmas cards –
we have.
And maybe you’ve already been to a Christmas party.
Robert had one during the week.
Maybe you’ve even finished all your Christmas shopping, and feel yourself well organised. I sort of am, except for working out who is cooking what on Christmas Day itself.
But in the Church, it isn’t Christmas yet.
Not for another two weeks!
Even though King's Acre is having their carol service today.
Technically, we are still in the Season of Advent, and the lectionary tells us that this week we look at John the Baptist.
You may have looked at him last week, too;
traditionally on the second Sunday in Advent we look at his role as a prophet. Today, however, we look at his role as the Forerunner, the one who came to prepare the way for Jesus.

Now, you know who he was, of course.
He was Jesus’ cousin, born to Zechariah and Elisabeth in their old age.
He was the unborn baby who “leapt in the womb” when Mary, carrying Jesus, came to visit Elisabeth.
We know absolutely nothing about his childhood, how well he knew Jesus, whether they played together as kids, or whether they only saw each other once a year when the holy family went up to Jerusalem.
What we do know is that, when he grew up, John disappeared off into the desert for awhile, to study and pray –
whether alone, or with a community such as the Essenes,
we also don’t know.
When he came back from the desert, he was a prophet,
just as Luke alleges that his father foretold:
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
by the forgiveness of their sins.“

For the people of Israel, that was rather exciting.
They hadn’t had a prophet for many centuries, not a proper one.
And John looked the part.
He dressed like a prophet, in camel-hide clothing.
He ate locusts and wild honey, just as they expected a prophet would do.
He gathered a small flock of disciples around him.
And he preached God's message:
"Repent and be baptized and get ready for the coming of the Kingdom!"
Well, you can imagine, the crowds absolutely flocked to hear him!
Better than the cinema, this was –
such an excitement.
But what they wanted was to see the prophet.
They didn’t really want to hear what he had to say.
Few of them were really willing to repent,
to turn right round and go God's way.
Not even the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law.
Not that they interfered with him, mind you –
could have been nasty, if they had.
But they didn't want to know!
Very frustrating.

But there were the other kind of people, too.
People who really did want to listen to John,
to hear what he had to say and to act on it.
People who came to him, asking to be baptized in the river Jordan.
And one day, his cousin Jesus comes to him and asks for baptism.

And at that moment, John knows that this is the One he has been waiting for, the One for whom he has been preparing the way.
And yet he wants to be baptized - surely not!
Surely it should be he, Jesus, who baptizes John?
John's always known that when the Messiah came,
he wouldn't be fit even to undo his shoes and wash his feet,
slaves' work, that.
John mutters something to this effect,
but Jesus says, "No, let's do this thing by the book!"
And as he enters the water, the Holy Spirit comes down on him in the shape of a dove, and a voice speaks from heaven,
"Behold my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased!"
And John says, so we are told, “He must increase, and I must decrease”, and he spends his time pointing people to Jesus,
as well as preaching the message of repentance,
of turning round,
of going God’s way.

And then John preaches against scandal and sleaze in high places once too often,
and the powers-that-be have had enough,
so they put him in prison to try to shut him up.

And then the doubts start.
Is Jesus really the one God was going to send?
Could John be mistaken?
This is his cousin, after all –
Aunty Mary’s son.
John had thought so, but everything’s gone so totally pear-shaped he can’t be sure of anything any more.
So he sends one of his disciples to ask Jesus,
“Are you the one who was to come,
or should we expect someone else?”

Jesus sends John a message of reassurance:
“Go back and report to John what you hear and see:
The blind receive sight,
the lame walk,
those who have leprosy are cured,
the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
and the good news is preached to the poor.
Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”

In other words, “Hang in there, mate, you’re doing great!”

And then Jesus tells the crowd that John is just about the greatest of God’s servants that there ever has been, or ever will be –
yet while he’s on earth,
even the least of those in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he is.

Sadly, as we know, it all ends tragically –
the king’s wife seizes the opportunity to have John killed,
and he is beheaded.
Jesus is devastated by the loss of his cousin,
and goes off by himself to pray,
but the crowd follow him and he has to feed them all,
and then he sends the disciples off ahead, because he really, really, really wants to be alone with his Father to try to come to terms with John’s death –
and ends up walking across the lake to join them, later on!

===oo0oo===

I love this story –
the affection between the cousins,
the respect that John had for Jesus,
but the fact that John was also human enough to doubt,
and secure enough to express his doubts.

Because we all have our doubts, from time to time, if we’re honest.
And that’s as it should be.
There are times, and I wish they came more often,
when God is as real to us as bread and butter,
when we couldn’t doubt his existence and his love for us
if we were paid to do so.
But at other times, all trace of God seems to vanish from the universe.

Perhaps dreadful things happen, either personally or on the world stage –
I remember hearing someone on “Thought for the Day” saying,
on the 14th September 2001, hat the smoke rising from the collapse of the World Trade Centre seemed to come between her and the face of God.
I knew exactly what she meant!
And for John the Baptist, it was personal circumstances –
being thrown into prison, deprived of his whole reason for being,
which at that time was to preach repentance and to baptise people.

John is actually quite a good model of what to do when doubts strike.
He does absolutely the right thing –
he goes to Jesus and asks, outright.
And Jesus reassures him.
But the interesting thing is that Jesus actually reassures him by saying “Look around, and see what’s happening!
Look for the signs of the kingdom!”
He doesn’t just say “Yes, of course I’m the Messiah, you silly little man!”
Or even, “Don’t worry, mate, I’m the Messiah!”
What he does is say, “Look, see what is happening, see how the blind receive sight”, and so on.
And maybe that is his answer to us, too, when the doubts happen,
when we wonder whether it’s really a load of nonsense,
whether it’s just wishful thinking.
Look around and see the signs of the kingdom.

===oo0oo===

And sometimes, when we doubt,
it’s good to come back to those lovely words from Isaiah 35.
For me, this is one of the most lyrical and beautiful passages of the Bible.
So often, if I’ve been praying for my church, or in a time of darkness, I’m drawn back again and again to these words:

“The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendour of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendour of our God.”

And so on –
I’m tempted to quote the whole thing,
but we’ve already heard it once this morning!
It is such a wonderful promise that,
no matter how black the present may seem, things will get better.
One day.
Maybe not in this life, but one day.

Of course, sometimes it happens that external circumstances get worse and worse.
John was in prison, and would soon be executed.
We see all sorts of crime and injustice, terrorism and hostage-taking, mistrust and suspicion.
We reckon bad things always happen in threes, which is superstition, but it does seem that way sometimes!
And yet, and yet, and yet –
there are signs of the Kingdom of God.
Sometimes very tiny signs –
parents bringing their children to baptism,
a young couple choosing to be married in church,
even what I’ve heard described as “random acts of senseless kindness!”
I personally think beauty is a sign of the kingdom –
whether beauty in nature,
or in music,
or in words, like these words from Isaiah.
I don’t believe that there’s beauty where the Kingdom isn’t!

And, of course, at this very dark time of year,
we rejoice that in a very few days we will be at the solstice
and the days will start to lengthen.
It’s no accident that the early Church fathers put the festival in which, above all, we celebrate the coming of the Light of the World
at the very darkest time of the year.

Jesus sent a message to John urging him to hang in there, not to despair, for there were signs that the Kingdom of God was coming.
And we, too, can hold on to those signs in the middle of our busyness in the run-up to Christmas, perhaps in the midst of sorrow or despair, perhaps even in the midst of happiness and excitement.
The Kingdom of God is coming, the Light of the World will come, and there are signs of hope.
Hang in there!

Children's Talk, Advent 3 Year A

2010-12-12T10:12:00.000Z

I don't know if you've ever been in Central London when a visiting head of State is being taken to Buckingham Palace, too – they close off the roads, and there are motorcycle outriders and lots of police to ensure the visiting personage has a clear ride. They go and prepare the way.

And I expect you heard on the news this week what happens if they fall down on the job – the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall were driven straight into the middle of student rioters and their car was bounced and scratched. Their security people had failed to prepare the way.

Well, you can see where this is leading, can't you? John the Baptist came to prepare the way for Jesus, the Messiah. The prophet had said “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight”, and whether that originally referred to Jesus, or to a local ruler of the day doesn't matter, as it came to mean Jesus and John.

And, of course, we need to prepare for Jesus, too. Getting ready for Christmas isn't just about presents and cards and thinking about a festive meal, although of course it can and does involve all that. It's also about preparing for Jesus. Christmas isn't just a remembering thing, it's also about inviting Jesus into our lives and homes and hearts now, today, at the end of 2010. We make that formal in the New Year, when we have our Covenant Service, of course – but we need to prepare for the coming of our Lord, and make him welcome!

Remembrance Sunday 2010

2010-11-14T12:42:00.001Z

“'When you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.' Then Jesus said to them: 'Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.'”

Depressing, isn't it? We long for peace, we are encouraged to make peace, and yet here is our dear Lord telling us that there will not be peace. Wars and revolutions, he says, must happen. Nations will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

And today, on Remembrance Sunday, it is still true. How many British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since we first deployed troops there? Up to 15 October this year, it's three hundred and forty-three. That's three hundred and forty-three families who have lost a child, a sibling or a parent. Three hundred and forty-three deaths – and that's just British troops. The Americans have lost nearly eight thousand, over the years, just in Afghanistan.

And what of those who have been injured, so badly, some of them, that their bodies or minds will never work quite right again. According to Ministry of Defence figures, between 1 January 2006 and 15 October 2010:

* 1,511 UK military and civilian personnel were admitted to UK Field Hospitals and categorised as Wounded in Action.
* 2,876 UK military and civilian personnel were admitted to UK Field Hospitals for disease or non-battle injuries.
* 218 UK personnel were categorised as Very Seriously Injured from all causes excluding disease.
* 222 UK personnel were categorised as Seriously Injured from all causes excluding disease.
* 3,919 aeromedical evacuations have taken place for UK military and civilian personnel injured or ill in Afghanistan.

And there have been over seven thousand Afghani civilian casualties since 2006! Civilian casualties – people who were not fighting, just trying to get on with their lives. Seven thousand! The totals are beginning to add up rather disastrously....

Yes, there will be wars and revolutions. But there hasn't been a battle on British soil since Culloden in 1745. And none of the wars our troops have fought since 1945 have impinged on our daily lives unless we happened to have a relation serving with the armed forces. In the two wars we call world wars, last century, it was very different. Everybody’s lives were affected in one way or another.

The horror of it all came home to me very vividly one holiday some years ago now, when we toured Northern France. We wandered around Alsace and Lorraine, parts of France which were part of Germany within living memory, and which changed hands twice in not-quite-living memory. People who were born before 1870 and died after 1945 would have forcibly changed nationality no fewer than five times!

Battles were fought in this area. We visited a fort on the Maginot line, which the French had hoped would be impregnable in the 2nd World War. And we visited Verdun, a town which has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times within the past hundred and fifty years that it is a wonder anything is left of it today! Just this week there was a programme on the BBC, you may have seen it, showing film and still photographs of the trenches, and of towns and villages that had been totally flattened by the fighting, not a house remaining. At least they had managed to evacuate those who lived there before the fighting started. There was one very poignant sequence filmed after the fighting had ended, which showed people coming back to rebuild their homes and their lives, and although there were no houses standing yet, the market had restarted. And then, twenty years later, it was all to do again.

How lucky we are that we have not had fighting like that on British soil. Yes, we were bombed in both wars, and you can still see the scars today: a block of newer flats among older ones in one of the streets in my part of Brixton, for instance, showing where the original houses were destroyed. I wasn’t around in those days, but those of you who were will, I know, tell me how terrible it was.

But since then, although there have been wars of all kinds, they’ve all taken place in someone else’s back garden. The tanks have rolled through other people’s streets. Yes, we have been attacked – those dreadful bombs in July 2005 are just the most recent, and the nastiest, in a long stream of terrorist attacks here.
But we didn’t have foreign soldiers walking in our streets, swaggering around imposing their will on us, perhaps even raping every woman. And maybe that’s one of the reasons we continue to remember those who fought and died for their country so long ago. My grandfather was badly wounded in the First War, and my father in the Second. Actually, the First World War must have been really terrible – I’ve read my great-grandfather’s diaries. His elder son was wounded so badly nobody thought he would live – although he did, obviously, or I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale – and my great-grandfather got permission from the War Office and went over to France to visit him. And then it became clear that he would live, after all, so my great-grandfather came home again, only to hear that his other son had been killed on the Somme.

My other grandfather was a career officer in the Royal Engineers, involved in both wars – my mother and grandmother didn’t see him for years during the second world war. One of his brothers was killed in action, too – he was a flyer, and the life expectancy of fliers over the Western Front was measurable in minutes. And my family's story is far from unique – most families, from every country that was involved, suffered similar losses and agony.

But this is all history. Kids study it in school. Even the oldest of us here weren’t much more than children when the Second War finished. I wasn’t even born. I don’t remember having a ration book, although I’m told I did. I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t buy anything I wanted in the shops, whenever I wanted it. But I grew up during the Cold War, which the younger ones won't remember. The tension between the then Soviet bloc and the West was always there, a constant background to our lives. We understood from a very young age that one of these days, someone would press a red button and it would all be over, in what was called Mutually Assured Destruction. When the Berlin Wall fell, in 1989, it felt like a reprieve from a shadow we had grown used to living with and barely realised was there until it lifted.

But 1989 brought no real peace. There was an appalling conflict in the Balkan states, and places like Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina became household names. There was a Gulf War in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait and everybody else ran to the rescue. And the second Gulf War after the September 2001 atrocities. And then the war against the Taliban. And wars in Somalia, in Rwanda, in Liberia.... maybe it's easier to list countries who have not been at war!

Those casualty figures from Afghanistan I quoted are happening now, today. Our troops are still fighting. Other troops are still fighting other wars. There will be wars and revolutions, just as Jesus told us.

So what is the point of Remembrance when it is going on happening? War may or may not be justifiable, but it is always horrible and never glorious. But it is fought by people, by men and, these days, by women. Troops who have always been seen, throughout history, as cannon-fodder and expendable. We have the raw numbers – you can find them on the Ministry of Defence website, and unless we know the people, they are just numbers.

But they are not numbers, not really. Each and every one of them is a person, an individual. Someone like you. Someone like me. Someone, above all, for whom Christ died on the Cross. Each and every one of them is known to God, and loved by God. They are not perfect, any more than you or I are perfect, but they are not monsters, either. God loves them, just as God loves you and me.

In many wars, you don't get much of a choice about whether you are a soldier or not. You're conscripted, you are required to join up, whether you want to or not. Even in the last century, people who were brave enough to say “No, I don't want to fight; put me to another job and I'll do it, but not fight and kill people” were often considered cowards and even executed, although they were in many cases very brave indeed, working as stretcher-bearers to pick up those who had been wounded, and coming under fire themselves. They deserve to be remembered just as much, I think, as those who died fighting.

But there will be wars, Jesus said, and revolutions. Nations rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom. There doesn't seem as if we have much choice about it, given human nature.

Jesus also said “Blessed are the peacemakers”. We need to strive for peace, even knowing that there will always be war. “Strive for peace” - it sounds almost an oxymoron, doesn't it, a contradiction in terms. But St Paul reminds us that our fight isn't against flesh and blood, but against “but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” It is they, arguably, who are responsible for much of the earthly conflict we see. And Paul also reminds us of the weapons we need to arm us for this particular conflict: faith, truth, righteousness, peace, salvation and, above all, prayer.

I'm sure that our prayers for peace do make a difference. As do our prayers for our armed forces. We remember what are, I think wrongly, called “The glorious dead”, as if it is glorious to be shot dead at twenty rather than dying in one's bed at ninety, but we are right to remember them; for if we remember, we shall, I hope, also remember to pray for those who are still alive, and still fighting. And to pray for peace. Wherever the conflict is, whichever soldiers are fighting, our job is to pray for them, for both sides. To lift them up to that great Captain, the Prince of Peace.

And one day, one day, perhaps, Isaiah's vision will come to pass: “Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands. They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them. Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.” Amen.

We Feebly Struggle

2010-10-31T12:03:00.000Z

Today, as we have already mentioned*, is Hallowe'en. And tomorrow will be All Saints' Day. In some countries, tomorrow will be a Bank Holiday, and if you are that sort of person, you might buy chrysanthemums and put them on a loved one’s grave – when I lived in France, back in the early 1970s, you only ever saw chrysanths on sale around this time of year. But recently I've noticed they focus on Hallowe’en far more than they used to - American influence, no doubt.

In this country, though, we never have gone in much for All Saints, except in church names, like All Saints Lyham Road. We’ve tended to go straight from Hallowe’en to Guy Fawkes’ Night with nothing in between. But if the Church suggests, as it does, that we should celebrate All Saints’ Day, then maybe we should do so. And there is a long tradition, in the Church, of celebrating a festival on the previous day, the eve. So it is all right to celebrate it today, instead.

What, I wonder, springs to mind when you think of the word “Saint”? We Protestants don't tend to think of them all that much, really. I suppose we think of New Testament people, like St Paul, and some of us might fly the St George cross during the World Cup, but by and large, they don't really impinge on our consciousness. We don't have a formal category of “Saint” in which to put people, as we believe that all who trusted in Jesus during their lifetime have eternal life. We don't have the concept of Purgatory, of a time of working off our sins, as we believe that we have already passed from death into life. We are all saints!

Then why celebrate All Saints? What's the point? Well, in a way that is just the point – all Christians are saints! This isn't the day, by the way, for commemorating those who have died – that happens on All Souls' Day, which is on Tuesday. Many churches will hold special services around this time of year to commemorate those who have died during the course of the year, and invite those with whom they have contact – Railton Road Church is having just such a service next Sunday afternoon. I think that's rather nice. But today is about those who are living, those who are part of the great Church Triumphant, as we call it. We, here on earth, are the Church Militant, still fighting the world, the flesh and the devil, as the old prayer-book has it. “We feebly struggle, they in glory shine” says the hymn we'll be singing at the end of the service.

We don't tend to think too much about what happens after we die. But if our faith is real, if what we believe is true, then what happens next is something even greater than we can imagine. It is our great Christian hope, as St Paul reminded us in our first reading, from his Letter to the Ephesians:

“I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”

We have that glorious inheritance.

But it doesn't always seem like it! As C S Lewis once put it: “The Cross comes before the Crown, and tomorrow is a Monday morning!” We feebly struggle, they in glory shine!

But Jesus reminds us that it's okay, a lot of the time, to feebly struggle. Our second reading was taken from Luke's version of the collection of Jesus' teachings known as the Sermon on the Mount – actually, I think Luke's version is commonly called the “Sermon on the Plain”, but never mind that now. The point is that both Matthew and Luke start off their collections with a proclamation of people who are blessed. Luke says it is the poor, the hungry, and people who are hated, which he contrasts explicitly with those who are rich, well-fed and of who people speak well of!

I don't know what was preached on here last week, but at Railton I listened to a sermon about the Pharisee and the sinner, and was reminded that our values and opinions are not necessarily God's. And that is certainly the case here – in the Jewish world, prosperity was seen as a sign of God's blessing, and poverty was thought rather disgraceful. Jesus is turning the accepted wisdom upside-down. No, he says, you are blessed if you're poor, if you're hungry, if you're hurting...

Matthew, who was Jewish, couldn't quite bring himself to write that down, and has people being blessed if they hunger and thirst after righteousness, or if they are poor in spirit, but in many ways the principle is the same, I think.

Of course, we in the First World aren't really poor, only by comparison; we have food, shelter and clothing, we have health care and education, and a general standard of living that our ancestors could only dream of. So is it woe unto us?

I think it's the same issue that the Pharisee had, who, you may remember, was so pleased that he fulfilled the criteria for an upright, religious member of the community that he forgot his need of God, and it was the tax-collector, the hated quisling, who remembered that he was a sinner, and that he had need of God's mercy. Again, Jesus is turning this world's values upside-down; it is the despised outcast who went home justified, and the professionally religious man who, that day at least, did not.

Jesus' teachings, as collected by Matthew and Luke, give a terrific picture of what God's people, the saints, are going to be like. They'll be people who don't judge others, who don't get angry with others in a destructive way, who don't use other people simply as bodies. Basically, they treat other people with the greatest possible respect for who they are. And they trust God. They don't get stressed out making a living – they do their absolute best at whatever their job is, of course, but they don't scrabble round getting involved in office politics in order to get a promotion. They trust God to provide the basic necessities of life, but they don't make a parade of being ever so holy, they just get on with it quietly.

Jesus' values turned the world upside-down. We are almost – dare I say used to them. They don't shock us, or strike us as strange – until, that is, we try to live them! Then we discover just how far off they are from the values that most people live by. And what we say we believe comes smack up against what we really believe – and what we really believe usually wins! Truly, we feebly struggle!

But the saints in glory shine! They found the secret of living the way Jesus suggested. And it wasn't striving and struggling and trying to do it all by themselves. Remember what St Paul wrote, again. He prays that we might be given the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that we may know God better. And he prays “that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.”

We don’t have to strive to know this in our own strength; we can allow God to put this knowledge in us and make it part of us. The saints in glory have done this. We feebly struggle, but we don't have to, we can relax and allow God to do it for us.

As we are, we would never inherit the Kingdom of God, whether on this earth or in the world to come. But transformed by God’s Spirit, then, in the words of St John, “We shall be like him”. And yet, paradoxically, we shall still be ourselves.

St Paul addresses some of his letters to “The saints in such-and-such a town”. He knew, and they knew, that it was possible to be a saint in this life. The letter to the Corinthians, for example, begins: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The word “sanctified” means “Being made saint-like”, and it’s one of the things that happens to Christians who are truly intent on being God’s person. You can’t help it; the Holy Spirit who dwells in you does sanctify you, makes you more the person that God created you to be. We feebly struggle, but the Holy Spirit always wins!

Jesus taught that the values and opinions of God's kingdom are radically different to those of this world. The saints, those who trust in Christ, all have one thing in common, and I hope and pray that it's a feature that I share, that you share: They all knew, and know, that of themselves they are doomed to feebly struggle. It is only through recognising our own weakness, our own utter inability to live anything like the sort of life Jesus expects of his followers, that we can be enabled to live that life. And one day, one day, we will be among the number of those who “in glory shine”. Amen.

* In earlier children's talk

Mr Moneybags and the Big Issue seller

2010-09-26T15:09:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, there was a really big city gent, known as Mr Moneybags.
You might have seen him, dressed in an Armani suit,
with a Philippe Patek watch on his wrist,
being driven through Brixton in a really smart car to his offices in the City, or perhaps in Canary Wharf.
Mr Moneybags did a great deal for charity;
he always gave a handsome cheque to Children in Need and Comic Relief, and quite often got himself on the telly giving the cheque to the prettiest presenter.

But in private he thought that the people who needed help from organisations like Comic Relief were losers.
Actually, anybody who earned less than a six-figure salary was a loser, he thought.
He despised his five brothers,
three ex-wives,
ten children,
twenty-five grandchildren
and the hordes of mistresses,
secretaries,
assistants
gofers
and general flunkies
who surrounded him –
and they knew it, too.
Especially, though, he despised the homeless people,
who he thought really only needed to pull themselves together,
to snap out of it,
to get a life.

Particularly, he despised the Big Issue seller
who he used occasionally to come across in the car-park.
He would usually buy a copy, because, after all, one has to do one’s bit, but once in the car would ring Security and get the chap removed.

Laz, they called him, this particular Big Issue seller.
Not that Mr Moneybags knew or cared what he was called.
I’m not quite sure how Laz had ended up on the streets,
selling the Big Issue
or even outright begging.
It might have been drugs, or drink,
or perhaps he was just one of those unfortunate people who simply can’t cope with jobs and mortgages and families
and the other details of everyday life that most of us manage to take in our stride.
But there you are, whatever the reason,
Laz was one of those people.
He was rather a nice person, when you got to know him;
always had a friendly word for everybody,
could make you laugh when you were down,
knew the way to places someone might want to go, that sort of thing.

But what he wasn’t good at was looking after himself,
keeping hospital appointments,
taking medication,
that sort of thing.
And so, one morning, he just didn’t wake up,
and his body was found huddled in his bed at the hostel.
They couldn’t find any relations to take charge of it,
so he was buried at the council’s expense, very quietly, with only the hostel warden there.
But the warden always said, then and ever afterwards,
that he had seen angels come to take Laz to heaven.

At about the same time, Mr Moneybags became ill.
Cancer, they said.
Smoking, they muttered.
Drinking too much….
Rich food….
So sorry, there was very little they could do.
Now, of course, Mr Moneybags wasn’t about to accept this,
and saw specialist after specialist,
and, as he became iller and more desperate, quack after quack.
He tried special diets,
herbal remedies;
he tried coffee enemas,
injections of monkey glands,
you name it, he tried it.
But nothing worked and, as happens to all of us in the end, he died.

His funeral wasn’t very well-attended, either.
Funny, that –
you’d have thought that more of his
five brothers,
three ex-wives,
ten children,
twenty-five grandchildren
and the hordes of mistresses,
secretaries,
assistants
gofers
and general flunkies
might have wanted to be there.
But no.
In the end, only the ones to whom he had left most of his money were there,
and a slew of reporters,
hoping to hear that the company was in trouble.
Which, incidentally, it wasn’t –
whatever else Mr Moneybags may have been,
he was a superb businessman, and the company he founded continues to grow and flourish to this very day.

Anyway, there they were,
Mr Moneybags and Laz the Big Issue seller, both dead.
But, as is the way of things,
it was only their bodies which had died.
Mr Moneybags found himself unceremoniously told to sit on a hot bench in the sun, and wait there.
And he waited, and waited, and waited, and waited,
getting hotter and hotter,
thirstier and thirstier.
And he could see the Big Issue seller, whom he recognised,
being welcomed and fed and made comfortable by someone who could only be Abraham, the Patriarch.
After a bit, he’d had enough.
“Abraham,” he called out, “Couldn’t you send that Big Issue seller to bring me a glass of water, I’m horrendously thirsty?”

And you know the rest of the story.
Abraham said, not ungently,
‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things,
while Lazarus received bad things,
but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.
And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed,
so that those who want to go from here to you cannot,
nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
And he pointed out that Mr Moneybags’ five brothers,
three ex-wives,
ten children,
twenty-five grandchildren
and the hordes of mistresses,
secretaries,
assistants
gofers
and general flunkies
wouldn’t listen to Laz if he were to go back and tell them –
they really knew it already, thanks to Moses and the Prophets.
You note, incidentally, that Mr Moneybags didn’t ask if he could go back!

===oo0oo===

Jesus had a lot to say about money, and our relationship with it
didn’t he?
And about our relationship with other people, too, for that matter.
Do you remember the story he told about the sheep and the goats?
This was when he reckoned that at the Last Judgement it would be those who had cared for Jesus in the persons of the sick, the prisoners, the hungry and, yes, the Big Issue sellers who would be welcomed into heaven, and those who had ignored him, in those guises, would not.
“For whoever does it unto the least of one of these, does it unto Me”, he said.

It must have come as a shock to Jesus’ hearers.
They had been taught that if you were rich and successful, it meant that God favoured you, and if not, not.
I am always rather amused when I read Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes and compare them with Luke’s –
Luke says, frankly, “Blessed are you when you are hungry, or thirsty, or poor”, but then, he was a Gentile and didn’t have the background that Matthew, a Jew, had.
Matthew can only bring himself to write “Blessed are you when you are poor in spirit, or when you hunger and thirst after righteousness.”
For him, still, poverty is not a sign of God’s favour, but rather the reverse.

Even today, you know, there are those who preach prosperity, they preach that if you are God’s person you will be rich and healthy.
But that isn’t necessarily the case.
Jesus never said that!
Okay, so he healed the sick, but he had a great deal to say about the right attitude to possessions and to other people.

It’s in this sort of area, isn’t it, where what we say we believe comes up smack bang against what we really believe.
We discover, as we study what Jesus really had to say, that being His person isn’t just a matter of believing certain things, it’s about being in a relationship with Him, and about letting him transform us into being a certain kind of person.
It’s no good believing, says St James, if that faith doesn’t transmute itself into actions.
And this seems to be what Jesus says, too.

It’s no good saying you believe in Jesus, and ignoring the very people Jesus wants you to look after –
the dispossessed, the refugees, the downtrodden, the marginalized, the exploited.
It’s not easy, I know.
We do hesitate to give money because of the very real possibility it might be spent on drugs or drink.
But there are other ways of giving.
There are various charities we can give to, or even lend a helping had at.
I believe one organisation sells meal tickets one can give away.
Of course, one can even buy the Big Issue!

Seriously, though, we need to take this sort of thing seriously.
Quite apart from anything else, our very salvation may depend on it.
We say that salvation is by faith, and so it is –
but what is faith if it doesn’t actually cost us anything?
What is faith if it is mere lip-service?

And anyway, what sort of picture are we giving to the world if we just talk the talk, and don’t walk the walk? (I mentioned something here about Back to Church Sunday, and how we need to show people who we are, as well as tell them)
Do you remember Eliza Doolittle, in My Fair Lady, exclaiming “Don’t talk of love, show me!”
I reckon the world is saying that to the Church right now.
Don’t let’s just talk about Jesus, let’s show people that he is risen and alive and dwelling within us by the power of his Holy Spirit.
The best way to cultivate a right attitude to money, people and spiritual things is to see the “beggar outside our gate” –
quite literally the Big Issue seller, if you like, but basically anybody who is not like ourselves.
The miracle is that the more loosely we hold our possessions, the more we enjoy them, the more we serve the needs of others, the more we value them, and the more we listen to God’s words, the more we value ourselves.
And, of course, the more we are able to show people Who Jesus Is, and that he is alive today.
Amen.

Of God and Money

2010-09-19T19:49:00.000+01:00

I don’t know –
today’s Gospel reading!
What are we to make of such a story, do you suppose?
The steward has been doing a rotten job,
so he gets told to put his books in order and pack his bags.
And he decides to make a few friends for himself en route,
to build up a few favours he can call in when he is homeless and hungry.
So he starts adjusting the debts of those who owe his master some money –
you owe my master a hundred jugs of oil?
Okay, let’s call it fifty.
A hundred bushels of wheat?
Hey, eighty’s just fine!

So what do you think his master would say to that if he found out?
Call the police, shouldn’t wonder.
Have him done for fraud.
But no –
the master was pleased!
One modern paraphrase puts it like this:
“Now here's a surprise:
The master praised the crooked manager!
And why?
Because he knew how to look after himself.
Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens.
They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits.
I want you to be smart in the same way –
but for what is right –
using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival,
to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials,
so you'll live, really live,
and not complacently just get by on good behaviour.”

Another paraphrase goes: “You see, that’s how it is.
The people who belong to this present world are far better equipped to dodge and weave their way through their dealings with one another than you lot are, and you belong to the light.
So take it from me, if you’ve got a fistful of filthy lucre, use it to help other people out. That way, when it runs out, you’ll have friends for eternity.”

John Wesley, who preached his famous “Use of Money” sermon
on this very passage, sees it slightly differently.
He reckons that Jesus is saying that those who seek no other portion than this world, and I quote: "are wiser" –
not absolutely;
for they are one and all the veriest fools,
the most egregious madmen under heaven;
but, "in their generation," in their own way;
they are more consistent with themselves;
they are truer to their acknowledged principles;
they more steadily pursue their end.”

We, Christians –
and I think this is as true today as it was in Wesley’s time –
aren’t very good at talking and thinking about money.
We remember that “the love of money is the root of all evil”
and shy away from the subject.
We might or might not talk about holding lightly to our material possessions and living simply and all that, but by and large, we don’t talk about it.
It was the same in Wesley’s day.
But we all need money, we all use money.
Wesley concluded that Scripture shows that we should earn all we can,
save all we can
and then give all we can.

He then went on to explain further.
I rather love this paragraph, as isn’t it true in today’s world where people spend so long at the office:
“We ought to gain all we can gain, without buying gold too dear, without paying more for it than it is worth.
But this it is certain we ought not to do;
we ought not to gain money at the expense of life, nor (which is in effect the same thing) at the expense of our health.
Therefore, no gain whatsoever should induce us to enter into, or to continue in, any employ, which is of such a kind, or is attended with so hard or so long labour, as to impair our constitution.
Neither should we begin or continue in any business which necessarily deprives us of proper seasons for food and sleep,
in such a proportion as our nature requires.
Indeed, there is a great difference here.
Some employments are absolutely and totally unhealthy;
as those which imply the dealing much with arsenic, or other equally hurtful minerals, or the breathing an air tainted with steams of melting lead, which must at length destroy the firmest constitution.
Others may not be absolutely unhealthy, but only to persons of a weak constitution.
Such are those which require many hours to be spent in writing;” –
or, perhaps, these days, at a computer screen –
“especially if a person write sitting, and lean upon his stomach, or remain long in an uneasy posture.
But whatever it is which reason or experience shows to be destructive of health or strength, that we may not submit to;
seeing "the life is more" valuable "than meat, and the body than raiment."
And if we are already engaged in such an employ, we should exchange it as soon as possible for some which, if it lessen our gain, will, however not lessen our health.”

He goes on to add that:
“We are, Secondly, to gain all we can without hurting our mind any more than our body.
For neither may we hurt this.
We must preserve, at all events, the spirit of an healthful mind.
Therefore we may not engage or continue in any sinful trade, any that is contrary to the law of God, or of our country.
Such are all that necessarily imply our robbing or defrauding the king of his lawful customs.”
These days, of course, it’s her Majesty’s Government, rather than her person, which is robbed by tax evasion and smuggling –
as prevalent now as in Wesley’s day, if not more so.
All the same, could it harm our souls to engage in it?
I suspect so.

“For it is at least as sinful,” said Wesley, obviously forgetting for the moment what story he had taken to base his sermon on,
“For it is at least as sinful to defraud the king of his right, as to rob our fellow subjects.
And the king has full as much right, to his customs as we have to our houses and apparel.
Other businesses there are, which however innocent in themselves,
cannot be followed with innocence now at least, not in England;
such, for instance, as will not afford a competent maintenance without cheating or lying, or conformity to some custom which not consistent with a good conscience:
These, likewise, are sacredly to be avoided, whatever gain they may be attended with provided we follow the custom of the trade;
for to gain money we must not lose our souls.”
Slave trading springs to mind, of course, or trafficking as we call it today;
or again, drug-dealing.
“There are yet others which many pursue with perfect innocence, without hurting either their body or mind;
And yet perhaps you cannot:
Either they may entangle you in that company which would destroy your soul;
and by repeated experiments it may appear that you cannot separate the one from the other;
or there may be an idiosyncrasy,
a peculiarity in your constitution of soul, (as there is in the bodily constitution of many,) by reason whereof that employment is deadly to you, which another may safely follow.
So I am convinced, from many experiments, I could not study, to any degree of perfection, either mathematics, arithmetic, or algebra, without being a Deist, if not an Atheist:
And yet others may study them all their lives without sustaining any inconvenience.
None therefore can here determine for another;
but every man must judge for himself, and abstain from whatever he in particular finds to be hurtful to his soul.”

Wesley then goes on to explain that, just as you shouldn’t earn money doing things that might hurt you physically or spiritually,
similarly you mustn’t do anything that might hurt other people, either physically or spiritually.
Within those limits, you should work hard, concentrating on what you’re being paid to do and not wasting time on Facebook or Twitter.
Well, Wesley didn’t exactly say that, but that’s more or less what he meant!
And Wesley reminds us to use our God-given intelligence to do our jobs as well as we can.

He then goes on to discuss his thesis that one ought to save all one can.
He reckons you shouldn’t fritter money.
Buy your necessities, by all means, but don’t go mad for luxuries you don’t really need.
Don’t try to keep up with the Joneses.
And don’t spoil your kids.
“Why should you purchase for them more pride or lust, more vanity, or foolish and hurtful desires?”
And, foreseeing today’s massive inheritance tax, “Do not leave it to them to throw away.”
He was actually talking about kids wasting their inheritance, like the Prodigal Son, but it’s nevertheless a good point.

Finally, he discusses the third, and arguably most important clause:
“Give all you can”.
For him, it wasn’t about tithing, or giving away a certain proportion of your income.
He reckons you should start from the premise that everything you are and have is God’s, and take it from there.
Your property, he thinks, isn’t your own, it is God’s.
You’re just the steward.
And if, says Wesley, “you desire to be a faithful and a wise steward, out of that portion of your Lord's goods which he has for the present lodged in your hands, but with the right of resuming whenever it pleases him,
First, provide things needful for yourself;
food to eat, raiment to put on, whatever nature moderately requires for preserving the body in health and strength.
Secondly, provide these for your wife, your children, your servants, or any others who pertain to your household.
If when this is done there be an overplus left, then ‘do good to them that are of the household of faith.’
If there be an overplus still, ‘as you have opportunity, do good unto all men.’
In so doing, you give all you can;
nay, in a sound sense, all you have:
For all that is laid out in this manner is really given to God.
You ‘render unto God the things that are God's,’ not only by what you give to the poor, but also by that which you expend in providing things needful for yourself and your household.”

Almost everything I’ve said this morning has been Wesley, not me.
But talk about why keep a dog and bark yourself –
what Wesley had to say all those centuries ago is still true for us today, I think.
We should still be careful how we earn our livings,
not harming ourselves or our neighbours in so doing.
We should still work hard while we are at work,
not distracting ourselves or faffing about.
We should still live sensibly and frugally, especially in the light of climate change and reducing our carbon footprints and all that –
we are, after all, stewards of the planet God has given us.
And we should still regard ourselves as God’s stewards in our attitude to what we do own –
fine to spend money on ourselves where we need to, and God is totally not mean!
There’s no need to be a miser, but just to be aware that maybe one day God will ask you to do something for, or give something to, someone else.

And do pray.
I haven’t mentioned our first reading so far, from Paul’s letter to Timothy, but it seems that prayer was, and should remain, a priority.
When did you last pray for David Cameron or Nick Clegg?
And I mean really pray, not just “Oh God, David Cameron!!!”
Maybe if we all prayed for him, not just “God bless,” or “Oh God”, but really holding him and Obama, and other world leaders up to the Throne of Grace,
well, maybe things would be different.

I forget, at this instant, who it was who said that the world has not yet seen what one person truly dedicated to God can do.
I actually disagree with whoever it was –
Dwight L Moody, I think –
we’ve seen loads of people who have dedicated their life to God and made a huge difference, from Wesley himself, Mother Teresa, all sorts.
But the point is, if we are truly dedicated to God, if our whole lives are about being God’s person, then how we live may or may not make a difference to the whole world, but it probably will to our own immediate community.
Let’s be good stewards, but let’s also be streetwise and know how to use what God has given us! Amen.

Great Expectations

2010-08-22T16:10:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, there was a young man called Jeremiah. He was from quite a good family – his father was a priest, although not a high priest, and owned a fair bit of land not far from Jerusalem. So Jeremiah grew up in a fair amount of comfort, loved and nurtured by his family. Perhaps he had planned to be a priest himself when he grew up.

But then one day, in about 626 BC, God came to him, and said: "Jeremiah, I am your Creator, and before you were born, I chose you to speak for me to the nations."

Jeremiah is shattered! “Lord God, you’re making a big mistake! I am a lousy public speaker and I’m too young for anybody to take me seriously.”

But God insists: .“Don’t put yourself down because of your age. Just go to whoever I send you to, and say whatever I tell you to say. Don’t let yourself feel intimidated by anyone, because I’ll be there as back up for you. You’ll be okay; take my word for it.” And Jeremiah is touched by God, and enabled to speak God’s word.

Some six hundred years later, Jesus is teaching in the synagogue one Sabbath day, as he often did. There was a woman in the congregation who was twisted and deformed – perhaps she had scoliosis or perhaps it was an arthritic condition. Certainly it was long-standing. We are told she had been like this for eighteen years. And Jesus suddenly notices her, and heals her. She is able to stand fully upright again, and starts praising God.

Well, that didn’t please the leader of the synagogue. Healing people like that on the Sabbath – wasn’t that dangerously close to work? “Oi,” he goes, “Stop healing people on the Sabbath! Now then, if you want healed, you come on any of the other six days of the week; I don’t want any Sabbath-breaking going on here!”

“Oh come on, mate,” says Jesus. “I saw you taking your donkey down to the drinking-trough earlier this morning, Sabbath day or no Sabbath day. If it’s all right for you to take your donkey to have a drink on the Sabbath, it’s all right for me to heal this good lady, whom Satan had bound for eighteen whole years!”

The leader of the synagogue had nothing to say to this, but the crowd really cheered.

I think it’s about expectations, isn’t it? God expected Jeremiah to proclaim His word to the nations. Jesus expected that the woman would be healed, Sabbath day or no Sabbath day. The ruler of the synagogue expected Jesus to keep the Sabbath. And Jeremiah and the woman? I don’t think they expected anything at all!

What does God expect from us? What do we expect from God’s people? And what do we expect from God?

Firstly, then, what does God expect from us?

Jeremiah was expected to go and proclaim God’s word. He had been specifically called for this purpose, and although he was horrified when the call came, and tried to get out of it, he ultimately accepted it, and trusted in God’s promise that “Attack you they will, overcome you they can’t”; a promise that was fulfilled many times over in the Biblical narrative.

I wonder what God is expecting of you? I know I am expected to preach the Gospel. Like Jeremiah, I was very young when I was called – about 15. Unlike him, I wasn’t able to answer that call for many years for reasons that I won’t go into now, but suffice it to say that for about the past 20 years I have known that this is what God has wanted me to do. This is what God expects of me. I am so grateful, every time I preach, that all I am expected to do is to provide the words; God does the rest!

So what does he expect of you? Some of you will know, definitely, what God expects; you are a steward, or a local preacher, or a musician. For others, it’s less clear cut. You have a job, perhaps, or are bringing up a family. Or perhaps that is all behind you now, and you are retired.

But whatever it is you do, you are expected to be Christ’s ambassador. You are a witness to him in everything you say and do. Now, before you start squirming uncomfortably, and thinking “Oh dear, I’m not a very good one, am I?”, don’t forget that Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit came, we would be his witnesses throughout the known world. Not that we should be, or ought to be, but that we would be. We are. You are an ambassador for Christ, and whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, this is what you are, through the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells within you.

When God calls you to do something, whether it is some well-defined job like cleaning the church, or running a prayer group, or speaking forth his word, or simply praying quietly at home, or whether you’re called to be God’s person where you work, or where you live, God will enable you to do it, just as he enabled Jeremiah.

And so to my second question for this morning: What do you expect of God’s people? When someone says he or she is a Christian, what do you reckon they’re going to be like?

The leader of the synagogue was confounded when Jesus didn’t conform to his expectation of what a good Jewish man did or didn’t do on the Sabbath. Healing people? Seriously? No, no, that counted as work!

And sometimes we are confounded when we come across Christians whose standards of acceptable behaviour might differ from ours. Could they possibly be Christians at all? Do real Christians behave like that? Some churches have felt so strongly about some of these issues that they have even split up, causing enormous hurt and upset in their various denominations. Yet who are we to judge another’s behaviour? In fact, you might remember that St Paul suggests that if your brother is offended by something you do or don’t do, you should do it, or not do it, as the case may be, so as not to upset them, or, worse, to let them think it’s all right for them to do it, when it might not be at all all right, and might lead them away from God. We need to be sensitive to one another, and to refrain from judging one another. We probably have our rules that we live by, but we don’t have the right to force those rules on to other people, not even on to other Christians.

I suppose the thing is, we shouldn’t really expect other Christians to be like us! Many, of course, will be – that’s why you go to this church, here, because you find people you are comfortable with, people whose vision of what God’s people are like resonates with yours. But there will be others whose views you are less comfortable with; who perhaps strike you as rather puritanical, or rather lax.

Of course, when we know someone, we know what they are like, whether they are reliable, whether you can trust them. And we accept them, normally, for who they are. Just as God does with us. But we mustn’t be judgemental. Maybe they hold views that we find strange, or even unpleasant. Maybe they feel free to behave in ways we’ve been taught that Christians don’t do, or ways that we feel would be sinful for us. But it is not for us to judge. Our Lord points out, in that collection of His teachings known as the Sermon on the Mount, that we very often have socking great logs in our own eyes, so how can we see clearly to remove the speck in someone else’s? In other words, keep your eyes on what’s wrong with you, not on what’s wrong with other people! See to it that you obey your rules, and leave other people to obey theirs.

That’s something, I think, that the leader of the synagogue would have been wise to keep in mind, rather than criticising Jesus for healing someone on the Sabbath, to say nothing of criticising the congregation for coming to be healed that day. He had rules he needed to keep, and he needed other people to keep them, too. But Jesus had other ideas. For him, healing someone on the Sabbath was as normal and as natural as making sure your livestock were fed, or your cow was milked.

So, then, God is free to expect anything from us; we should not, though, expect other Christians to be just like us. But what do we expect from God?

Jeremiah didn’t expect anything from God. When told that he was to proclaim God’s word, his first reaction was to panic: “I can’t possibly! I’m a lousy public speaker and much too young!” But God gave him the gifts he needed to fulfil his task, and sometimes Jeremiah had to actively act out God’s word, not just speak it!

The woman who was all twisted and bent over didn’t expect anything from God, either. She presumably went to the synagogue each week to worship, not really expecting anything to happen. But that particular Sabbath day, Jesus was there – and that made all the difference. After eighteen years she was finally free of her illness, able to stand up straight, able to walk normally and talk to people face to face once more.

What did you expect from God this morning? Let’s be honest, we come to church week after week, and on most Sundays nothing much happens! We worship God, we spend some time with our friends, and then we go home again. And that’s okay. But some weeks are different, aren’t they? Not often, but just sometimes we come away from Church knowing that God was there, and present, and real. I wonder why these occasions are so rare? Partly, of course, because mountain-top experiences like that are rare, that’s why we remember them. There’s an old story of two men coming out of Church one Sunday morning when the preacher had been rather more boring even than usual. The first man said, “Honestly, what’s the point? I’ve been going to Church more or less every Sunday for the past 30 years, and I must have heard hundreds of sermons, yet I hardly remember any of them!”

To which the second man replied, “Hmm, well; I’ve been married for 30 years and my wife has cooked me a meal more or less every night, and I don’t really remember many of them, either. But where would I be without them?”

Church, mostly, is about providing daily bread for daily needs. We don’t expect to see miracles each Sunday, or healings such as took place in the synagogue that day. But what do we expect when we come to Church? Do we expect to meet God in some way?

What do we expect from God? We know that our sins have been forgiven, right? And that God is gradually making us into the people he designed us to be. But do we expect more? Should we expect more? Neither Jeremiah nor the woman in the synagogue expected anything from God – yet God gave, bountifully, to both of them in very different ways.

Who was it who said “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God”? I can’t remember right now, but it’s really what I want to leave with you this morning. What does God expect from you? Are you trying not to hear something you think God might be trying to say? What do you expect from other Christians? Are you requiring a higher standard from them than from yourself? And what are you expecting God to do for you today? Amen.

Mary the Mother of God

2010-08-15T13:17:00.000+01:00

Today is the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At least, in some parts of the Church it is. If you’re Catholic, it is the Feast of the Assumption, and a public holiday in many countries. If you’re Orthodox, it is the Dormition, only many branches of the Orthodox Church observe their Festivals according to the old calendar, so that won’t be until the 28th of this month. But for us Protestants, it is simply a day to celebrate Mary the Mother of God.

We tend not to think very much about her, do we? Possibly in a reaction to what we see as Catholic worship of her, we tend to ignore her most of the year, except possibly for a mention on the Annunciation, on the 25th March, and then this festival, deep in August when many people are away.

As so often happens, the festival long pre-dates Christianity. It has taken over what used to be a day celebrated to the goddess Diana, who, if you remember your Roman mythology, was the goddess of the hunt, and of the Moon, and, incidentally, was celebrated as a virgin goddess.

Hmmm, that’s interesting. We celebrate the Virgin Mary on a feast-day originally dedicated to a pagan virgin goddess. It makes sense, really, when you come to think about it, given that Christianity took over many other pagan festivals. But perhaps it helps to explain why some versions of Christianity do venerate Mary so much. If you were Jewish, you were quite used to thinking of God as Father and Creator, but if you came from a background which worshipped a virgin goddess, Mary obviously provided what you found you were missing. And again, if you were used to worshipping a mother figure, as so many people were, you found something in Mary that perhaps you missed in the Christian depiction of God. Don’t forget, in the olden days you had to convert to Christianity when your ruler did, or the head of your tribe, or whatever, and if the worship you were used to was suddenly no longer provided, you had to make what you could of what you did have!

And then, of course, the Catholic Church being nothing if not practical, formalised a great deal of what was happening, and thought, about Mary into doctrine.... and so it went on. Chicken and egg type of situation, drawing on tradition and practice more than on Scripture. And so, of course, when the Protestants went back to the Bible, discarding most, although not all, traditional theology, Mary rather fell back into the background.

The thing about Mary, though, is that she provides a model for us to copy. In our Bibles, we first meet her as a young girl in Nazareth who says “Yes” to the enormous, impossible task God set for her, to be the mother of the Messiah. Tradition tells us that she was the daughter of Joachim and Anne, and quite possibly had been reared in the Temple, like Samuel, only if she was living in Nazareth when she was 16, I’m not quite sure how that could have been. Unless, of course, as Matthew implies, she was living in Bethlehem, which isn’t that far from Jerusalem. In either event, she was not dedicated to the Temple as a permanent virgin or anything; she was betrothed to Joseph, a local craftsman, who we are told was much older.

I do rather love Luke’s stories about Mary – how one of the things the angel had said to her was that her relation, Elisabeth, was pregnant after all those years. And, as we heard in our reading, Mary rushes off to visit her. Was this to reassure herself that the angel was telling the truth? Or to congratulate Elisabeth? Or just to get away for a bit of space, do you suppose? We aren’t told. But Elisabeth recognises Mary as the mother-to-be of the promised Saviour, and Mary’s response is that great song that we now call the “Magnificat”. Or if it wasn’t exactly that – that may well be Luke putting down what she ought to have said, like Shakespeare giving Henry V that great speech before Agincourt – it was probably words to that effect! I think she was very, very relieved to find the angel had been speaking the truth, and probably did explode in an outpouring of praise and joy!

And later, in Bethlehem, when the shepherds come to visit her, we are told that she “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”

The next time we see Mary is when Jesus is twelve and gets separated from them in the Temple. I spent a lot of time with that story when Emily was a teenager – how Mary and Joseph say to Jesus, “But why did you stay behind? Didn’t you realise we’d be worried about you?” and Jesus goes, “Oh, you don’t understand!” – typical teenager!

We don’t see Joseph again after this – as I said, tradition has it that he was a lot older than Mary, and, of course, he had a very physical job. It wasn’t just a carpenter as we know it – the Greek word is “technion”, which is the same root as our “technician”; if it had to do with houses, Joseph did it, from designing them, to building them, to making the furniture that went in them! And tradition has it that sometime between Jesus’ 12th birthday, and when we next see him at the start of his ministry, Joseph has died.

But we see a lot more of Mary. She is there at the wedding at Cana, and indeed, it’s she who goes to Jesus when they’ve run out of wine. And Jesus says, at first, “Um, no – my time has not yet come!” but Mary knew. And she told the servants to “Do whatever he tells you”, and, sure enough, the water is turned into wine.

There’s a glimpse of her at one point when Jesus is teaching, and he’s told his mother and brother are outside waiting for him, but he refuses to be diverted from what he’s doing. And, of course, it could have been that it was just random people who said they were his relations to try to get closer to him.

We see Mary, of course, weeping at the Cross – something no mother should ever have to do. And Jesus commending her into the care of the “beloved disciple” John. And, finally, we see her in the Upper Room in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit came.

Tradition then has it that she moved to Ephesus with John, where she died sometime between three and fifteen years later, and that her body was taken into heaven – or perhaps she didn’t die, but was taken bodily into Heaven first, which is what Catholics believe. In either event, this is what the Catholic Church celebrates today; the Orthodox believe she died, and her body was taken into heaven, which they celebrate as the Dormition.

Well, we Protestants don’t necessarily see her as the Queen of Heaven, or anything like that, but she does make a terrific role model, doesn’t she? She says “Yes” to God; she tells the servants at the wedding to “Do whatever Jesus tells you”. She does what no mother should ever have to do, and watches her Son die one of the most cruel deaths imaginable. And she stays with the disciples afterwards, and is in the Upper Room when the Holy Spirit comes. She stayed with Jesus, all the time. She believed in him, apparently not just because he was the son of her body, although that too, but because He was raised from death, and she remained, one imagines, a faithful disciple until she died.

I’ve been thinking about that a bit this week, as it is the start of Ramadan when, as you know, observant Muslims don’t eat or drink anything during daylight hours. That must be incredibly difficult – I should hate to have to do it. Yet they do it every year, for four whole weeks, as a discipline to help them stay close to God. I find it always says things to me about my own self-discipline and how I need to help myself stay close to God. Nadine was reminding us just last week how easy it is to slip away from one’s first love for God.

But Mary stayed close to her Son, and through Him to His heavenly Father. Mary’s “Yes” to God enabled God to be incarnate, to come to earth as God the Son. Our own “Yes” to God is unlikely to do anything quite so earth-shattering, but on the other hand, who knows where it will lead? We don’t observe Ramadan, and when we do observe a season of fasting, such as in Lent or Advent, we tend not to allow it to impinge on us very much. But we do need to do whatever it takes to stay, like Mary, close to God, and to say “Yes” to whatever we are asked to do. Amen.

Allowing God

2010-07-04T21:30:00.000+01:00

Jesus said to his disciples:
"A large crop is in the fields, but there are only a few workers.
Ask the Lord in charge of the harvest to send out workers to bring it in."

St Paul wrote to the Christians in Galatia:
"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."

You can see the theme the lectionary compilers were thinking about –
harvests!
But there are other themes, too, that unite the two readings.

In many ways our two readings are completely different, of course.
Nobody seems to know who the 72 people that Jesus sent out were –
nor, actually, how many there were,
as some translations say seventy, others say seventy-two.
But who were they?
Where did they come from?
Why do we never hear of them before or since?
All very peculiar.

But Jesus sends them out, telling them they were not to take anything with them –
no luggage, not even hand baggage.
One paraphrase has it:
"comb and toothbrush only!"
but I'm not entirely sure they were meant to take even that much.
They were to be totally dependent on other people's generosity in order to live.
If one household wouldn't take them in, another probably would,
but you weren't to move from house to house to find who was the better cook.

Apparently the instruction not to stop and greet people en route was because doing the polite, in those days, could take a mighty long time,
it wasn't just a matter of saying "Hi!" and moving on, you had to stop and ask about all the family members right down to your sixth cousin twice removed, who was probably their uncle anyway.
So it all took time, so you hadn't to stop.

And when they come back –
we are not told how long they were on the road –
they were full of their experiences:
"Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!"

But Jesus said that was almost by the way.
It didn't matter.
What did matter was "that your names are written in heaven."

A modern paraphrase puts it this way:
"All the same, the great triumph is not in your authority over evil, but in God's authority over you and presence with you.
Not what you do for God but what God does for you –
that's the agenda for rejoicing."

---oo0oo---

Some years before this story was written down, but a few years later, chronologically, St Paul was coming to the end of his letter to the Christians in Galatia.
This is, you may or may not know, one of the earliest letters –
they think it might have been written as early as 54 AD, so within twenty-five years or so of the Crucifixion.
People who had actually heard Jesus speak would still be alive;
people who had seen the Crucifixion;
maybe even people who had seen the risen Jesus.

And St Paul was already travelling around and making converts.
And this is where the problem arose, because originally, people who were converted were Jewish, and tended to follow the Jewish law and so on.
At that, St Paul himself was.
But then you started getting this new lot of Christians,
who had never been Jewish
and didn't see that it was necessary to keep the Jewish law in order to be a Christian.
This, as we know, is also what St Paul thought,
but there were others who disagreed,
and said that if you were to be a proper Christian, you had to be circumcised
(if you were male –
they didn't practice female circumcision)
and keep the Jewish Law, with all the observances about what you did and didn't eat,
what did or did not make you unclean,
what you could and couldn't do on the Sabbath Day and so on.
For St Paul, this had all been rendered totally obsolete by the Cross of Christ –
you were saved by faith, not by keeping the Law.
And thus his letter to the good Christians of Galatia.

The end of the letter, he says, is written in his own handwriting –
some scholars think he had something the matter with his eyes, which is why he tended to use a scribe or secretary to write his letters for him.
And when he uses his own handwriting, it tends to be rather large and scrawly.
But it enables him to stress what he wants to leave them with which in our pew Bibles reads:

"Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything;
what counts is a new creation."

Another modern translation puts it:
"It doesn't matter if you are circumcised or not.
All that matters is that you are a new person."

And in a modern paraphrase, they put it like this:
"Can't you see the central issue in all this?
It is not what you and I do—
submit to circumcision, reject circumcision.
It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life!"

That is really the point:
a new creation.

St Paul is very big on that, it's one of the things he stresses.
This from his letter to the Corinthians:
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come!
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them.
And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation."

---oo0oo---

Obviously, being "a new creation" is something God does.
It's not something we can do.
And having our names "written in heaven",
that's not something we can do, either.
It is something God does.

Now, over the centuries, some branches of Christianity have interpreted this to mean that you don't get a choice about it,
and that it's not until you get to heaven that you find out whether your name was or was not written down there.
They call it "Limited Atonement" –
as if!

But we Methodists don't believe that.
We believe that everybody needs to be saved –
to become a new creation, if you like –
and that everybody can be saved.
We also believe that we can know that we are saved, and that we can be "saved to the uttermost", as they say –
for Wesley, this meant that one could grow so close to Jesus that for all intents and purposes one would be practically perfect.
He didn't, you will note, claim to be like that himself,
although he did reckon he knew one or two folk who were.

We know all this, of course.
Most of us have been Christians for more years than we care to remember!
But it's always good to remind ourselves of the basics from time to time;
and the thing that really leapt off the screen for me from the various translations and paraphrases that I read
was that both having our names written in heaven and being a new creation is something that God does, not something we do.

"Not what you do for God but what God does for you –
that's the agenda for rejoicing," as the modern paraphrase put it.

And we who have been Christians for many decades sometimes forget that.
We get so involved in Church administration, or worse, in Church politics, that we forget what we're here for –
and the main thing we're here for is to allow God to do something for us!

So the question I want to leave with you today is:
When did you last allow God to do something for you?

The Fruit of the Spirit

2010-06-27T12:41:00.000+01:00

Think of a bowl of fruit. I wonder what fruit you think of. Apples, oranges and bananas, perhaps; or at this time of year peaches and nectarines and strawberries? Or perhaps the tropical fruits, like pineapples and mangoes and papayas. It doesn’t really matter what they are – they are all fruit. So are things like tomatoes and cucumbers and squash and marrow; basically if it is a mechanism for carrying seed, it’s a fruit. If not, not, which means that disgusting rhubarb is actually a vegetable!

Fruit, of course, is Nature’s way of ensuring that seeds are widely distributed – the fruit is eaten, and the seeds deposited somewhere else to grow away from the parent plant. Obviously centuries of cultivation have meant that some fruit has grown a very long way from its origins, and of course, for farmers nowadays it is a cash crop; I’ve driven past cherry orchards in the South of France, and plum orchards in the Vale of Evesham, and we have all heard of the fruit fields in California.

St Paul talks about a crop of fruit, too, in our reading from the letter to the Galatians. He isn’t talking about apples and oranges, though; his fruit is qualities: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control And he calls this the fruit of the spirit.

The fruit of the Spirit. Now, you may have heard plenty of sermons on the fruit of the spirit – I know I have! And do you know, almost every time I’ve heard one I’ve ended up feeling horrible and guilty – I always start to think that I don’t show the fruit of the spirit in my life, and that means I must be a terrible, rotten person, or I’m doing the whole Christian thing all wrong, or something like that!

But I don’t think St Paul really meant what he was saying to make us feel all guilty and horrible. I’m sure he meant something rather different.

You see, he didn’t just write this list of good qualities out of the blue! He wrote it as part of a letter to the Christian Church in Galatia, which was either the Roman province of Galatia, or a much smaller area that was called Galatia long before the Romans came. Doesn’t matter which it was, not at this stage. What does matter is that the Galatians had a problem. They wanted to follow Jesus, but some of their teachers thought that in order to do that, they must also keep the Jewish law. They were teaching that they must become Jews first and Christians afterwards.

Well, St Paul was Jewish himself, and he knew that this was not so. He knew that you could be a good Christian without necessarily being a good Jew. He himself was both, of course, but he was beginning to abandon the Jewish rituals when they became a barrier to evangelism. He said that the Jewish law was fine as long as it lasted, but now that Jesus has come, it’s all changed. You don’t need to keep the Jewish law any more. “For freedom, Christ has set us free.”

But then he realised that people might just misunderstand him, so he goes on to say BUT. And his BUT is that you do have to let god the Holy Spirit fill you, and live in accordance with God’s will. You see, Paul says, if you just live for yourself – what he calls “the sinful nature” – if you don’t either follow the Jewish law or allow God the Holy Spirit to lead you, you might well end up with some or all of the nasty qualities he listed: idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies and the like. And, he says, people like that don’t fit into God’s kingdom.

And then he says, but if you allow yourself to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you’ll produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And he says that if you belong to Jesus, the old selfish you has been crucified. Put to death. He doesn’t you notice, say it should be put to death, or it must be put to death. He says it has been put to death. By virtue of the fact that you belong to Jesus.

The trouble is, of course, that when you hear that, if you’re anything like me you go “I wish! In your dreams!” and similar sort of remarks. Because we know all too well that we are prone to some of the things in the list of nasties – we might get jealous, or bite someone’s head off because we’re stressed out... and so on. There are times when a life showing nothing but Paul’s fruit of the Spirit seems like an impossible dream.

Perhaps Paul is being idealistic? Perhaps we should all be trying to be loving and so on? Perhaps that’s the ideal, and if we mess up it doesn’t matter all that much?

Well, that's not what it says. Yes, of course we should, ideally, be trying to be loving and all that, but by ourselves we simply aren’t going to succeed. It isn’t that we should try and develop these qualities – it is that, if we are God’s person, we gradually will develop these qualities.

I’ve said before and I’ll probably say it again that these Sundays in Ordinary Time are the ones when the readings put what we say we believe smack up against what we really do believe, and how that belief translates into practice. If we are God’s person, we are told, we gradually will develop these qualities. We’re told that we’re being made more and more like Jesus as we carry on our walk with God, and these qualities, above all, are ones that shone out of Jesus.

Now, we’re probably not going to notice them very much; it’s far more obvious that we’ve had a meltdown than that we haven’t had one when we might have done! Reminds me of the silly story of the man with the string round his wrist, and when asked why he wore it, he said, “It’s to keep the elephants away!”
“But there are no elephants!”
“Yes, you see, it works!”
It’s really hard to prove a negative! And in some cases it’s hard to prove a positive – we know when we have been unloving or unkind, but do we know when we have been loving or kind? And ought we to know? Wouldn’t we end up being proud of ourselves, as though it were all down to us, when it isn’t really.

Because, you see, these qualities are fruit. And you can’t make fruit, can you – well, there is doubtless an Apple factory somewhere, but that’s something different. You can’t go and watch a banana being made, or the peel being put on an orange. Fruit grows. It’s the farmers and the growers who produce fruit, not factories or mills. The farmer, or the market gardener, does a great deal to protect the fruit trees, and see that they aren’t eaten by pests, or get too dry, and that the trees have been pollinated so that the fruit can grow, but basically they have to be patient, and wait for the fruit to grow and ripen.

And so do we. We can’t manufacture love, or joy, or gentleness, or the other qualities Paul mentions. But we can help them grow.

How? Well, obviously first of all by really being God’s person, not just in Church on Sundays, but allowing what we do on Sundays to affect the rest of our week. Ideally we should try to take time to be with God, even if only for a few minutes, every day. John Wesley reminds us of the “means of grace” of prayer, both private and corporate, the Holy Scriptures and Holy Communion. He points out, in his famous sermon on “The means of grace” that these things aren’t powerful in and of themselves, but only insofar as they bring us towards God. We can pray until we’re blue in the face, Wesley says – well, words to that effect, anyway – but it’s not our prayer that changes things, it’s God working in and through our prayers. And, of course, Wesley reminds us, it’s not praying or whatever that makes us a Christian – it is God’s grace alone that can do that.

Nevertheless, the “means of grace” are very helpful to keep us aligned with God, and the closer we can stay to God, the more fruit will grow in us. Remember what Jesus told us, in John 15: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”

And in another of Paul’s letters, he reminds us to go on being filled with the Holy Spirit, too; it’s not a once-for-all thing, but a daily need, a continuous process.

But let’s be realistic, too – we are going to fail! We often show more nasty qualities than good ones. It happens. It’s no good saying “It oughtn’t to happen,” or “It doesn’t happen” when we know full well that it does. That’s because we’re here on this earth and we are not yet made perfect. And when it happens – not if, when – then we need to admit to ourselves, and to God, that it has happened. That we aren’t perfect. We need to apologise to the person we were unkind to, or who bore the brunt of our latest meltdown, or whatever, and then pick ourselves up and go on being God’s person.

Because the more we go on with God, the more we will grow these fruit-qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. It’s the only way. We can’t make them; we can’t even fake them. We can only grow them. Let’s be committed to doing just that. Amen.

In Remembrance of Me

2010-05-09T12:15:00.000+01:00

I was preaching at our Church's monthly Communion service; our minister had asked me to share the service with her.

“If anyone loves me,” said Jesus, “he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”

You remember that this passage comes from John’s Gospel, at the Last Supper; it’s where Jesus is summing it all up for the disciples before the crucifixion. “In my Father’s house are many mansions” and so on. If you had the lectionary reading last week, as we did in Shropshire, it was the passage about the commandment to love one another, from the same section. This bit sort-of carries on from there. “If anyone loves me, they will obey my teaching.”

In our Gospel reading, Jesus makes it pretty clear that being a Christian isn’t just about believing, it’s also about obeying. We need to take Jesus’ teaching on board, and allow our faith to make a difference in our lives. It’s not just a mental assent to a set of propositions, it’s about a whole new way of living. We know that, of course, but half the time we forget it and, if you’re anything like me, when you remember, you instantly start thinking you must be a terrible Christian!

But look at it again, for a minute: “If anyone loves me, they will obey my teaching!” Not “They ought to”, or “They must”, but “They will!” It will happen more or less automatically as long as we love Jesus. It’s not about a legalistic list of dos and don’ts; it’s about a relationship with the living God. “They will obey my commands.” Not because we have to, not even because we love Jesus, but because it’s a cause and effect type of relationship. We don’t need to feel guilty, we just need to let go and let God. As Jesus goes on to say:

“My Father will love him – or her – and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

That’s a pretty extraordinary statement, when you come to think of it. To make their home with us? Really? Actually, it’s a bit terrifying – are we, am I, are you living as though this is true? Is it true for us? Yikes....

And then Jesus goes on to say not to worry if his disciples don’t remember all this, as when the Holy Spirit comes, He will teach it all to us, and remind us of all of Jesus’ teachings.

And then he concludes “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

I have been thinking about this passage in the context of Holy Communion, which we are celebrating today. In the other Gospels, Jesus takes the normal Jewish Friday-evening ritual of taking, blessing, breaking and sharing the bread and the wine, that every Jewish family did, and still does, on a Friday evening, and made it into something different, something special. The bread becomes, in some way, his body, the wine becomes his blood. And we are told to “Do this in remembrance of me”.

Now, as I’m sure you realise, there are as many different ways of looking at Holy Communion as there are Christians! What happens when we take, bless, break and share the bread and the wine, as we are about to do, is what they call a mystery. That’s a jargon-word of course, it doesn’t mean anything to do with Midsomer Murders or Lewis; what it means is that no matter how deeply you go into it, no matter how deeply you understand it, because it is of God, there will always, always be more that you don’t understand. And that’s as it should be! We won’t understand the things of God until we are in Heaven with God, and quite probably not even then.

I was taught, as a very small girl, that Holy Communion is a sacrament. And that a sacrament is “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace”. In other words, we do something – in this case taking, blessing, breaking and sharing the bread and wine – and God does something, too.

For some people, it is a time quite simply of remembrance. We use the Lord’s Supper to remember what Jesus did for us on the Cross. For others, it’s the great Thanksgiving, the Eucharist, where we not only remember what Jesus did, but give thanks for it. Or again, it might be, quite simply, a time of special communion with Jesus – whether that is through the actual bread and wine in some way, or because the service is very focussed. And then there are people for whom it is a re-enactment of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross – not repeating it, but re-enacting it.

And, of course, because it is a mystery, everybody is probably right, and nobody probably has the whole truth about it. And that’s okay. And our views will, quite probably, change as we continue on our Christian journey, with one aspect taking priority and then another, and that’s quite normal, too.

But whatever the Eucharist means to us, one very good reason to make our Communions is because Jesus said to: “Do this in remembrance of me.” Christians have differed widely about what Jesus actually meant when he said “This is my body, this is my blood”, but we are all united that he said to do it anyway!

“If anyone loves me, they will obey my teaching!”

And this is one of the ways in which we do obey Jesus’ teaching, by making our Communions. Whether we do this daily, weekly, monthly, or even less often, almost all Christians, except Quakers, make their Communions regularly. It is one of the great uniting things – Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians have very different views of the sacrament, but we all celebrate it regularly, one way or another.

And of course, in our Gospel reading, Jesus reminded us that “the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” And in the great prayer of Thanksgiving, the Eucharistic prayer, one of the things is praying for the Holy Spirit to come. “Pour out your Holy Spirit, that these gifts of bread and wine may be for us the body and blood of Christ,” or words to that effect. There’s a technical term for that part of the prayer, by the way; it’s called the epiclesis. Just fancy that!

But the point is, it echoes back. The Holy Spirit, Jesus said, will teach us all things and remind us of everything that Jesus said; we pray, in our Communion prayer, for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

For me, right now, as you may have gathered, the service is all about a special moment of communion with Jesus. A time of forgiveness, a time of healing, a time of empowerment, of refilling with the Holy Spirit, of – well, of Jesus, if you like. But, of course, there are times when it feels as though one is just going through the motions. Perhaps you didn’t come to church in a great mood, or the service has been uninspiring, or you’re uncomfortable or in pain or something, or just one of those days when you simply can’t concentrate. We all have them. You know what it’s like as well as I do.

The thing is, I think this passage helps to show us that it doesn’t really matter. We come to Communion, if all else fails, because Jesus told us to do so. He never actually promised we’d get anything out of it, even though quite often we do. He just said, “Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For his first followers, this was a normal and natural part of their Friday night rituals; whatever Jesus may or may not have meant by “This is my body, this is my blood,” passing the cup and the plate around was what they did.

For us, it is a Sunday morning ritual. But still, we do this in remembrance of him. We do it because he told us to.

Of course, there are plenty of other things that Jesus told us to do; in the context, he may well have been referring to the so-called “new commandment”, to love one another. And we know from elsewhere, from Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels, exactly what sort of people we are going to be, which can be summarised as people who treat other people with the greatest possible respect for who they are. No matter who they are. But nevertheless, by making our Communion we are doing as he commanded us.

But what does it do? Does it actually change anything? I said earlier that it was a Sacrament, and that implies that God does do something. Yes, we make our Communions frequently, although perhaps now that we’re wholly Methodist not quite as often as we’d like. And I don’t suppose, most of the time, that we feel any different.

I suspect, though, that we’d soon notice if we didn’t take Communion as regularly as possible. It is one of what Wesley calls the “Means of Grace”, which include prayer and reading the Scriptures and fellowship, as well as Communion. It is a place where we come into contact with God, and those places are vitally necessary to us. Without them, we are apart from Jesus, and you remember that he said “Without me, you can do nothing!”

And, as we come to make our Communion, let’s remember, too, the last thing Jesus said in this particular passage: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

“Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” Amen.

Silly Sheep

2010-04-25T13:17:00.000+01:00

“My sheep know my voice,” says Jesus. “My sheep know my voice”.

My brother is a shepherd, so I always love preaching on the shepherd texts in John’s Gospel. His sheep are fairly brainless, as sheep go, but they do eventually learn to recognise his car, and that of the other shepherds, and their response to those cars is quite different from their response to, say, my father’s car. They know when they see those particular cars, they’ll get fed, or looked at, or moved to a new pasture, or something nice.

However, some years ago now there was a foot-and-mouth epidemic, and you weren’t allowed to move your stock at all without permission. So the sheep were stuck in one field, from which they had eaten all the grass, and were bored and restless. Sometime around then, we drove past in my father’s car, and their reaction was as if we had been my brother – they came rushing up, bleating, hoping for something nice to happen.

This Gospel reading always reminds me of that incident. Jesus says "My sheep know my voice". My brother's sheep obviously did not know who was their shepherd, and were quick to run after any passing car or person who might have been able to move them to another field. Normally they knew, but because they were stuck and hungry and bored, they wanted anybody or anything to be their shepherd.

So I wonder, how is it that we know the Shepherd's voice, and what does it mean in practice?

How is it, then, that we know the Shepherd's voice. I think there are two reasons. The first is that He speaks to us; the second is that we listen to Him.

He speaks to us. Well, in one sense that's somewhat of a no-brainer, as the Americans so graphically put it. We are told, from our earliest days as Christians, that God speaks to us through the Bible, and through other people, and even, although we must be careful, through our own imaginations. But being told it and knowing it seem to be two different things! Of course, there are times when we hear the Shepherd's voice so clearly, times when we know we are His, held in His arms - or round his neck, the way shepherd today will still carry a young sheep. It is, my brother tells me, far and away the easiest way to carry a sheep, but it does make nasty stains down the front of your jacket!

Sorry, that was a diversion, where was I? Oh yes, we have all known times when we hear the Shepherd's voice so clearly, but, of course, we have all known those other times, too; times when God seems far away, when our prayers go no further than the ceiling, when, so far from hearing God's voice, we wonder whether, in fact, our whole faith has been based on a delusion! I'm sure we've all been there and done that, too!

Now, it's traditional to be told that when those times happen, it is our fault. We have stopped listening, we are told, we have gone our own way, we have sinned. And, of course, some of the time that is exactly what has happened, even if some preachers do make it sound like God isn't talking to us any more because we've offended him! I think, rather, it is we who cannot hear the voice of God when we are uncomfortable in God's presence. But usually when that has happened we know that is what the matter is, and sooner or later we admit this to ourselves, and to God, and things come all right again.

But some of the time, with the best will in the world, we know we have not sinned, and it really doesn't seem to be our fault. Times when everything goes pear-shaped, and you wonder where on earth God is in the middle of it all? And part of you knows that this is exactly where God is - in the middle of it all - but that part is operating on sheer faith. You can't sense God's presence, or hear the Shepherd's voice at all, no matter how hard you listen.

It happens to all of us, probably more often than we care to admit. Again, preachers have various explanations for it, and you've probably heard them as often as I have. That God is testing our faith, as though God didn't know how strong our faith actually is. Actually, of course, God does know, but we don't necessarily, and it can be a salutary shock to us!

The thing is, of course, that we don't understand, can't understand, why these things happen. God is God, not just another person like us, and it's not possible to understand. We don't know why we suddenly seem to lose the ability to hear God's voice, and why, even worse, we suddenly seem to lose all sense of God, and seem to simply be going through the motions.

The fact that it's almost universal, that almost every Christian goes through it from time to time must mean that it is normal. But I don't know why it happens, and I don't altogether accept the explanations as to why. I think it's just "part of the human condition", or, if you prefer, "part of the mystery of faith", and we must accept it as such.

There are times when we just don't understand what God is doing, and that's okay, too. My brother had a very good reason that year for not moving his sheep to a new field, no matter how much he wanted to move them, and how much they wanted to be moved. He wasn't allowed to by the Government, because of foot-and-mouth precautions. And you try explaining that to sheep! And since God is even further beyond us than we are from real sheep, how could we be expected to understand what constraints He has?

Sometimes, of course, the matter seems urgent, when we want to know what God wants us to do, and yet God simply doesn't seem to answer. The more we pray, the less we know what to do, and the quieter God seems to get. It's so frustrating! And we rage and rampage and know no peace.

Or those times when something simply dreadful has happened - when someone has died prematurely, or killed in an accident, or beaten up by thugs, or any or all of the dreadful things that can and do happen nowadays. We wonder where on earth God is, we ask how a loving God can allow such dreadful things to happen, we cannot hear God's voice.

In our reading from Acts, the believers in Joppa were despairing – Tabitha was dead. Tabitha, who had been the first to lead her community in good works – how were they going to manage without her? Where was God in this? The voice of the Shepherd seemed to have disappeared from their universe.

But they sent for Peter, who brought them God’s voice, and who brought healing to Tabitha, enabling her to carry on with God’s work.

This is rare, of course. Mostly, when people die, they stay dead! We grieve, and we know that God grieves with us, even though sometimes it feels as though all trace of Him has vanished from our universe.

Jesus says "My sheep hear My voice". It is a given. There are no ifs, buts and ands. He says "My sheep hear My voice". We do hear His voice. Even when we think we don't. Often, when seeking guidance, we know in our hearts that a given path might probably be wrong. Or wrong for us, if not intrinsically wrong. And when something dreadful happens, it is God's heart, I think, which is often the first to break.

We, of course, behave like sheep from time to time. We think we do not hear the voice of the Shepherd, so we rush after any and every passing thing that looks as though it might be the Shepherd. Just as my brother's sheep ran after my father’s car, hoping that we were coming to move them to a better field. Is this the right Shepherd, we ask ourselves, rushing to find out. And sometimes, in the process, we get ourselves badly lost. We find that the better field was no such thing.

But remember our Lord's story about the lost sheep? When we do get lost, we can trust the Good Shepherd to pull on Barbour and Wellies forthwith, and head out to find us. "No one will snatch them out of my hand," Jesus said. And earlier in the chapter, in the part we didn't read, he reminds us that not only do we know him, and hear his voice, but he knows us: "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father."
So even if we, or someone we care about, has gone off down the wrong track and got lost, we can trust the Good Shepherd to come and find us again.
Because the Good Shepherd, Jesus tells us, is come "that they may have life and have it abundantly". Abundantly.

So when we get to a time where we seem not to hear His voice, a time when we look round and He seems to have vanished, let's not panic. Let's not assume it was all our fault - it might have been, but not necessarily. Let's not abandon all idea of Christianity, of churchgoing, of being God's person. Instead, let's sit and wait, calling out to God in prayer, but accepting the silence, trusting that one day the Good Shepherd will come and find us, and say "There you are! Come on, I'll take you back to the rest!" Amen.

Thomas gives permission

2010-04-11T12:57:00.000+01:00

Today is one of those rare Sundays when we have the same Gospel reading every year;
the story of Thomas.
Doubting Thomas, we call him in the West, which is really rather unfair of us, as if it were the only thing about him that mattered!

This story, of course, begins on the evening of the Resurrection.
According to John's account –
and yes, it does differ a little from some of the other accounts, as he puts in far more detail –
the first person to have seen the risen Jesus was Mary Magdalene.
She had gone to the tomb very early,
and found that it was empty.
And while she was weeping quietly in the garden,
Jesus had come to her and reassured her.
Peter and John had also seen the empty tomb,
but had not yet met with the risen Jesus,
and the account isn't terribly clear as to whether or not they realised what had happened.

Anyway, that evening the disciples are together,
and Jesus comes to them, as we heard read.
He reassures them,
and reminds them of some of his earlier teachings,
and then, apparently, disappears again.

But Thomas isn't there.
We aren't told whether he hadn't yet arrived
or whether he had just left the room for a few moments,
gone to the loo, or to get pizza for everyone,
or something similar.
But whatever, he misses Jesus.
And, of course,
he doesn't believe a word of it.
The others are setting him up.
Or it was a hallucination.
Or something.
But it couldn't possibly be true.
And for a whole week he goes round muttering,
while the others are rejoicing.
Goodness, he must have been cross and miserable,
and the others must have been so frustrated that they couldn't help him.

And then Jesus is there again,
with a special word of reassurance,
just for Thomas.
He gets his side out, showing the wound.
Perhaps Thomas would care to touch it?
This isn't ectoplasm,
it's proper flesh.

Thomas can take Jesus' hand again,
just as before.
And Thomas bows down in awe and worship.

So what can we learn from the story of Thomas?
I personally find the story a very liberating one.
From Thomas,
I learn that I have
permission to wait,
permission to doubt,
and permission to change my mind.

Firstly, then,
Thomas tells us we have permission to wait.
That sounds odd,
but don't forget it was a whole week until Jesus put him out of his misery.
It must have been a pretty endless time,
feeling sure that his friends had got it wrong,
wondering who was going mad,
them or him.
But Thomas put up with it.
He didn't abandon his friends,
he didn't run off and do something different.
Instead, he stayed with them and put up with the pain and confusion and bewilderment,
and ultimately Jesus put everything right.
The Lectionary celebrates this every year on this Sunday;
it is the anniversary of the day when Jesus came to Thomas and put it all right for him.

A whole week, though.
Imagine that.
It must have felt like an eternity of doubt,
of confusion,
of bafflement.
The others were all totally convinced they’d seen Jesus,
and as far as Thomas was concerned, they’d all run quite mad.

So often we want things now.
If we are unwell, or grieving,
we want instant healing –
we want the confusion to be resolved.
What was that old prayer:
"God, give me patience, and I want it now!"
An addict trying to give up cigarettes or drink or other drugs
wants the craving to go away.
Someone who is ill or injured feels terrible and longs to feel better.
We don't like to experience bad feelings, obviously,
and we want them to go away. Now.
We also don't like to watch someone else experiencing bad feelings.
We might try to deny their feelings,
telling them they don't feel like that.
Or we might try to tell them they are wrong or wicked to have those feelings.
I’ve heard people say that if we have asked for healing,
we should then proceed to deny we feel ill!
A friend of mine is grieving for the loss of a loved one,
and one of the things she is finding most difficult is those well-meaning people who tell her she should be “over it” by now.

It is hideous horribly difficult to watch someone else suffer,
and we develop these strategies of coping so that their suffering doesn't rub off on us.
Also, of course, we don't like to have negative feelings because somehow we think we are failing as Christians when we do.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s gone to Church in a bad mood but with a sweet smile pasted on, and a “Fine, thanks!” in response to anybody who asks how we are.
We don’t like to admit we aren’t feeling wonderful –
in fact, we may even have been told, as I have in my time, that it’s a sin to feel less than one hundred percent on top of the world one hundred percent of the time!

I think one of the things the story of Thomas gives us is permission to have bad feelings.
Permission to feel confused, or angry, or bereaved, or muddled, or ill, or craving, or whatever.
Permission to wait to feel better, to allow it to take its time.

Thomas also tells us we have permission to be wrong, and to doubt.
Thomas was wrong.
He thought that Jesus had not been raised.
But it wasn't the end of the world that he thought so.

All too often, I think that if I am wrong,
if I am mistaken,
if I make a nonsense of something,
it is the end of the world.
I confuse making a mistake with a deliberate sin,
and think that God and others will condemn me for it.
But no,
look what happened to Thomas.
Far from being condemned,
Jesus comes to him specially to prove he is alive.
To show Thomas that the others hadn't gone totally mad.
Jesus was extra specially kind to Thomas.

It is encouraging, isn’t it?
We’re allowed to doubt –
it’s not the end of the world if we find something difficult to believe!
So often we try to suppress our doubts,
to pretend that we believe everything we’re supposed to believe, all “our doctrines”,
feeling that if we wonder for one minute we’ll be condemned.
Or maybe our experience of Christ’s love is so very different from that of our neighbour’s that we wonder if it’s really valid at all.
Or perhaps we don’t feel comfortable with the way another church worships, finding it too liturgical and formal or too uncontrolled and informal,
and we wonder if it’s really a valid form of worship at all.

The thing is, when that sort of thing happens,
when we suddenly wonder whether our faith is all a big nothing,
or when we wonder if we’ve got it right,
then the story of Thomas tells us not to worry.
As the prophet Isaiah tells us,
“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying,
‘This is the way; walk in it.’”
“This is the way; walk in it.”

It’s okay to experiment with our faith, with our expression of our faith, and even, sometimes, with our whole lifestyle.
After all, if our faith doesn’t actually affect the way we live, it’s not much good –
but maybe we have allowed it to affect us to the point that the only people we know are Christians,
maybe even Christians who think exactly the same way we do?

The point is, if we get it wrong, Jesus will come to us, as he came to Thomas, and help us get back on track.
The Good Shepherd doesn’t hesitate to put on his Barbour and Wellies and go to find us if we get ourselves a bit lost.

So Thomas gives me permission to feel awful and
permission to make mistakes and to doubt.
But it would be wrong to leave it at that,
without looking briefly at the third permission Thomas gives us,
and that is to change our minds.
The thing is, Thomas was mistaken when he believed that Jesus had not risen from the dead.
Okay, fine.
But as soon as Jesus showed him he was wrong,
he changed his mind.
He fell down and worshipped the risen Jesus.
He felt ghastly for the whole week between Jesus' appearing to the rest of them, and Jesus appearing to him.
And that's okay.
But when Jesus did appear,
he forgot all about feeling ghastly,
he didn't get cross and go "Where were you?" or anything like that.
He just fell down and worshipped the risen Lord.

It doesn't matter if we feel awful for any reason.
It doesn’t matter if we get it wrong.
What does matter, though,
is if we are given the opportunity to correct ourselves,
or to put things right,
and we fail to take it.
Thomas didn't do that.
Thomas admitted he was wrong,
and he fell down and worshipped the risen Lord.
When we are shown, as Thomas was,
that we have made a mistake,
the thing to do is to put it right.
They do say that the person who never made a mistake never made anything, and that's very true.
But the point is, it is only by correcting our mistakes that we can make progress.
If we stay stubbornly convinced that we are right, and everybody else is wrong, we won't get anywhere.
We won't be freed to go on with Jesus.

Thomas is supposed to have gone on to found the Church in India.
He couldn't have done that if he had gone on being convinced he was right and everybody else was wrong.
He admitted he had been wrong,
and thus was free to put it behind him and go on with Jesus.

This appears horrendously unfinished - I had to ask the Holy Spirit to quickly dictate a final paragraph, which was something like:

Is there anything you need to put right and put behind you to enable you to carry on with Jesus?

I do find this story of Thomas so very encouraging. It shows us that it's okay to feel awful, and not to feel better at once; it's okay to get things wrong, and to doubt, and, above all, that when we do get it wrong, we can put it right and carry on with Jesus. Amen.

What a waste?

2010-03-21T09:33:00.000Z

The gospel story that we have just heard read, of Jesus being anointed Mary at Bethany, is a very familiar one. So what's it all about?

There are slightly different versions of the story in each of the four gospels, which reflects the fact that those who made the gospels wrote down what was said and taught in their particular fellowships, and from their particular collections of "The sayings of Jesus", or whatever unofficial manuscripts were floating around their church.

Matthew's and Mark's stories are the most similar. They set the episode in Bethany, at the house of Simon the Leper. A woman wanders in off the street, pours the ointment over Jesus' head and, for all we know, wanders straight out again. Tradition has it that she was Mary Magdalen, but we don’t know that. The disciples and others gathered there go: "Oh, what a waste! If she didn't want it we could have sold it and given the money to the poor." Jesus tells them to be quiet, because the woman was anointing his body for burial and what she did would be remembered for ever. As, indeed, it has been.

John's gospel, the version we just heard read, however, stays in Bethany, but John says that Jesus was staying with his friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus, and that it was Mary who upended the ointment all over him. Some people have used this to reckon that Martha was married to Simon the Leper, or indeed, to reckon that Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalen were the same person. Again, possible, but we don’t know that.

Luke might possibly be talking about a different episode, because his version takes place in a Pharisee's house, and the woman is definitely a hooker, and she pours the stuff all over his feet, not his head, and Jesus said that only goes to show how much she knows God has forgiven her.

Anyway, that's the basic story, one way or another. But what's it about, and what has it got to say to us today?

First, then, what is the story about? Well, I think it's about extravagance. Those alabaster jars were incredibly precious. If you were lucky enough to have one, it was your most precious thing and you guarded it with your life, practically. It could only be opened by breaking it, so it couldn't ever be used again. You didn't go pouring the contents all over the head of passing prophets, no matter how charismatic.

So when the disciples said, "What a waste!" they seriously meant it. The jar was broken, it was no use any more. The ointment was poured out, and that in itself was costly enough. Mary had given her most precious thing to Jesus, and from everyone else's point of view, it looked like a terrible waste. They couldn't even make use of the gift by selling it and giving the money to charity. It was all gone. What a waste.

You know, the more I read this story, the more it reminds me of God. You see, Mary was frantically extravagant and wasteful. But so often, God's like that.
Think of the story of the wedding at Cana, right at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. When they ran out of wine, towards the end of the festivities, Jesus provided some more. But he provided far more wine than anyone could drink. I worked it out once that the six stone jars he had filled would hold about eight hundred bottles of wine. You'd need a white van to bring that lot back from Calais, and I should think the Customs would be taking an intelligent interest in you! And even the host at the party almost said “Serving the best wine now, when we’ve all had more than enough? What a waste!”

Or think of the story of the feeding of the five thousand. Actually, one of the gospels, Matthew, I think, says that the five thousand was only the men, and didn't count the women and children, which would have made it more like thirty-five thousand. Anyway, when Jesus provided lunch for them, and he certainly did count the women and children, even if nobody else bothered, it wasn't as though there was only just enough to go round; there were twelve huge basketfuls left over. Enough for each disciple to take one home to Mum. So perhaps that wasn’t a waste....

Or what about our natural world? How many different species of flowers are there? Scientists know that they don't know. And animals, too, come to that. I read in the paper a few years ago that they have just discovered about three totally new species of antelope in the jungles of somewhere like Vietnam; somewhere in south-east Asia, anyway. And nobody knew they were there except God. What a waste!

Think of reproduction, too. All the waste that goes on. The millions of baby fish that are hatched, so that a few may survive to adulthood. Birds nest every year, but I read somewhere that only about two of all the offspring a bird hatches in the course of its life reach an age to reproduce. That's sad, of course, but not if you think of those birds that do reproduce as exceptions and the normal life-span of a bird is from hatching to fledging. What a waste, though.

The millions of sperm male mammals produce so that one, just one, can fertilise an egg. All this fuss they're making about male infertility, these days, but most men are still producing about 60 million sperm each time - and they don't think that's quite enough!

On a larger scale, think of all the stars in the night sky, or those pictures of distant galaxies you sometimes see from the Hubble telescope when it comes on "The Sky at Night" or Horizon. I wonder how many of those stars have planets on them like ours, and how many of those planets have life on them, and how much of that life is intelligent and knows its Creator. We're not going to know this side of heaven, but God knows.

Why am I tempted to say "The truth is out there!"?.....

But, seriously, for all we know, beings that are five feet square, one inch thick, and ripple might be worshipping God right now this minute in some far-off galaxy. And we fuss about people whose just happen to come from a different tribe. Ah well.

And if we are the only life in the cosmos, intelligent or otherwise, what does that say about God? All those universes and stars and black holes and pulsars and quasars, just for God, and for us, to enjoy looking at? A waste?

Even on this earth things are pretty incredible. Have you ever flown over London in an aeroplane on a clear day? Or looked at Google maps with the satellite view – Street view is good, and fun – this is us – but I like the satellite view, largely because one photo was taken right in the middle of Emily’s wedding..... But the point is, all those houses, all those cities – you can look at all sorts of random places on Google Maps if you want, places you might never have otherwise known about – but God always knew. God knows the people in those houses, walking along those streets, driving those cars.

God is seriously incredible. And God doesn’t waste things. We, in our human selves, tend to think “What a waste!” when we see the massive over-production of Nature, or when people are extravagant.

But God loved us so extravagantly that all that love, all that knowledge, all those galaxies were given up and God came to earth as a human baby. The Truth really was Out There, but he came down to Here.

As Jesus. Needing to learn everything from scratch. Needing to be fed, and have his nappies changed. Growing up as an ordinary human being in an ordinary family. In a provincial town in a colony of one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen. When God became a human being, it was a thorough job!

And this human being, who was also God, and who had the potential to be worshipped by beings who are five feet square, one inch thick, and ripple, is sitting having dinner with his friends. If Mary caught a glimpse, the tiniest, tiniest glimpse, of the wonder and the majesty of God, and had the slightest inkling of who Jesus is, then no wonder only her most precious possession would do.

She, of course, is far from being the only person who ever responded so extravagantly to God. Look at Mary the mother of Jesus. Her "Yes!" to God was really extravagant - she risked total ruin, including of her reputation. Supposing Joseph had repudiated her on the grounds that she was not chaste? He could have done so, and then where would Mary have ended up? On the streets, most likely! It didn't happen, but it could have. That's extravagant!

Look at Peter and John when they were first hauled before the Sanhedrin. Not only did they refuse to stop preaching the word, but they then went home and prayed for more boldness to do it more forcefully. That's extravagant! But it was very far from being a waste.

Or what about St Paul? Think of how he focuses on all the hardships he has undergone in order to keep on doing what he does, in other words, preaching the Good News. That's extravagant! But it was very far from being a waste.

Or what about all those men and women who have laid down their lives for the sake of the Gospel. Some of them went to the other side of the world; others stayed at home. We know some of their names; others are known only to God.

Or what about people like George Muller, who gave up the life of a rich playboy to look after orphans in Bristol? Or Eric Liddell, who abandoned being an athlete to go to China for God. Or Gladys Aylward, who was turned down by the missionary society that sent Eric Liddell, but who went anyway, independently, and saved the lives of hundreds of children, and now even has schools named after her!

Or even Florence Nightingale, who was baulked in her first ambition to serve God through the church, because in those days the Anglican church did not allow women to do anything except sit on their behinds and listen. Anyway, we all know how Florence Nightingale eventually decided to serve God, and the result.

The people who have responded in that way down the years are legion. They heard God, and responded extravagantly. It may be that the world thought they were wasting their lives, but for them, only the most extravagant response would do.

Today is called Passion Sunday, a day on which historically we remember God’s extravagance in sending Jesus in to this world to die on the Cross for us. And when we recall, too, through this story of Mary anointing Jesus, some of humanity’s response to this.

A waste? Perhaps. But for Mary, only her absolute prize possession would do for the One who had brought her beloved brother back from the dead. And at that, she probably felt it was not enough.

What is our response today to God’s extravagant love? What is my response? What is yours?

Temptation

2010-02-20T16:02:00.000Z

It's difficult, isn't it?
There you are being offered a box of chocolates, and you simply can't resist!
Or it's late, and you're tired, and it's a whole lot easier to get a take-away than to cook supper.
Or you're in the supermarket, and there's a wonderful-looking cheese-encrusted loaf that seriously calls your name....
or they have a special offer, buy one and get one free, on Ginsters' Cornish Pasties.

And if you need to watch your weight as much as I do,
you'll know these aren't totally great food choices!
But they are sometimes very tempting ones!

Okay, so eating the wrong sort of food can scarcely be called a sin!
It might be preferable to nibble on grapes rather than buying Lindt truffle eggs at 50p a throw, but that’s all!

But sometimes we find it easy to be tempted to do wrong.
Perhaps we're tempted to use our bodies in the wrong way,
or worse, to misuse other people's bodies.
Or to misuse other people full stop –
Jesus reminded us that if we were angry with someone,
we needed to express our anger in such a way that it didn't destroy the other person, or put them down.
Jesus tells us that we are to treat other people with the greatest possible respect for who they are –
physically, emotionally and spiritually.
And the rest of the New Testament makes it clear that we aren't even supposed to think unkind things about other people,
which it's very hard to do at times!
We can be tempted, too, not to get involved when a friend needs help or a listening ear;
we can be tempted to ignore it when someone in the church is in difficulties.
We can be tempted to steal –
even a few minutes' of our employers' time to make a personal phone call or answer a personal e-mail.
Although, of course, most employers do allow a reasonable amount of that, but not all.

And some poor folk are addicted to things, drink or drugs or gambling or cigarettes or something –
and it's terribly hard for them to resist the temptation to indulge their habit.
I know –
I'm addicted to cigarettes.
Oh, I've not smoked for almost exactly 16 years, but I'm still addicted,
and one puff and I'd be back to 40 a day in no time at all.
On the other hand, I can claim no virtue for not being addicted to gambling –
it simply doesn't interest me and I've never seen the point!

Different people are tempted to different things.
I know that when I read today's Gospel,
I often wonder what the problem was –
what are these so-called temptations?
But to Jesus, they were very real, and very urgent.
He was being tempted to misuse his divine powers, to go for cheap glory rather than the way of the cross.

I don't know how many of you enjoy the Harry Potter books and films –
I love the books, although I’ve only seen a few of the films;
I do prefer reading to watching when it comes to fiction.
But sometimes, when I read about the way they use their wands, I wonder why they bother –
I mean, whatever is the point of using magic to draw the curtains, for instance;
can't they just pull them by hand or with a cord, like everybody else?
Jesus did miracles, sure, but they weren't like that.
They weren't just to avoid bother, or to get something more easily.
That's why it was wrong for him to turn the stones into bread –
it would have been a cheap magic trick and would have done nothing to enhance God's glory.

It must have been so insidious, mustn't it?
"Are you really the Son of God?
Why don't you prove it by making these stones bread?
You're very hungry, aren't you?
If you're the Son of God, you can do anything you like, can't you?
Surely you can make these stones into bread?
But perhaps you aren't the Son of God, after all...."
And so it would have gone on and on and on.

We read Luke's account, and it just sounds as though Jesus shook his head and said, "No, it's written: you shall not live by bread alone!"
But it can't have been that easy, can it?
If it were, it wouldn't have been worth worrying about.
It's like I have no interest in going to a casino,
or in playing games of chance –
it just isn't my scene, so I'm totally not virtuous if I don't do it!
But for someone who finds that sort of thing the most enormous fun, it must be enormously tempting:
"Oh, go on then;
you never know, you might win!
Just buy that scratchcard.... who knows, it might be the one!"
And so on.

Jesus was also tempted with riches and power beyond his wildest dreams –
at that, beyond our wildest dreams, if only he would worship the enemy.
We can sympathise with this particular temptation;
I'm sure we all would love to be rich and powerful!
But for Jesus, it must have been particularly subtle –
it would help him do the work he'd been sent to do!
Could he fulfil his mission without riches and power?
What was being God's beloved son all about, anyway?
Would it be possible to spread the message that he was beginning to realise he had to spread
if he was going to spend his life in an obscure and dusty part of the Roman empire?
And again, after prayer and wrestling with it, he finds the answer:
“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”
Let the riches and power look after themselves;
the important thing was to serve God.
If that is right, the rest would follow.

And then the third temptation.
The view from the pinnacle of the Temple.
So high up.... by their standards,
like the top of the Canary Wharf tower would be to us.
"Go on then –
you're the Son of God, aren't you?
Throw yourself down –
your God will protect you!"
It's the Harry Potter temptation again, I think –
the temptation to show off, to use his powers like magic.
Yes, God would have rescued him, but:
“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
That's not what it's about.
That would have been showing off.
That would have been misusing his divine powers for something rather spectacular.

You may remember that Jesus was similarly tempted on the Cross, he could have called down the legions from heaven to rescue him.
But he chose not to.
It wasn't about spectacular powers –
often, when Jesus did miracles, he asked people not to tell anybody.
He didn't want to be spectacular.
He'd learnt that his mission was to the people of Israel, probably even just the people of Galilee –
and the occasional outsider who needed him, like the Syro-Phoenician woman, or the Roman centurion –
and anything more than that was up to his heavenly Father.

And, obviously, if the "anything more" hadn't happened,
we wouldn't be here this morning!
But, at the time, that wasn't Jesus' business.
His business, as he told us, was to do the work of his Father in Heaven –
and that work, for now, was to be an itinerant preacher and healer, but not trying deliberately to call attention to himself.

In the world of Harry Potter, magic is sometimes used for personal comfort and to save time –
look at Mrs Weasley cooking by magic,
and Fred and George teasing Ron and Harry because they have to prepare the Christmas Brussels sprouts using a knife,
instead of just being able to wave their wands at them.
And Harry, on his 17th birthday, using magic to fetch his spectacles from the bedside table just because he could!

Jesus wasn't like that.
His powers weren't to be used to save him discomfort, even death.
They were only to be used at God's command,
to heal the sick,
raise the dead,
and cast out demons.
There were no short cuts.
He had to go to the Cross,
to walk the way of Calvary,
to be put to death.

Mind you, in the very end, so did Harry, of course.
You remember how he has to die,
and then has the choice whether or not to go back and save his world.
He had to die first, though.
He is a picture of Christ, dying for his world to be saved.
Rather like Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
But in our world, unlike in Harry’s,
there simply aren't any short-cuts.
Jesus couldn't use his powers for his own glory, his own comfort,
and certainly not to save his own life.

And we can't, either.
And I don't know about you, but sometimes I find the traditional things preachers tend to say about this story rather irritating.
They point out that temptation does go away if you don't give into it,
and that help is available to help us resist.
Well, yes –
if it's something like an addiction –
been there, done that, when I was giving up smoking,
and I know I couldn't possibly have done that without God's help.
And if there is time, we can often decide that we won't do whatever it is we are being tempted to do, whatever it is.
But far too often, the temptation to do or say the wrong thing happens so quickly,
there simply isn't time!
before you know it, you've snapped at someone,
or you've got engrossed in something at work and missed the train you'd earlier promised to catch.
Or whatever.

I'm not quite sure what you're supposed to do then....
except know that God does change us, slowly,
as we walk more and more in His way,
as we get more and more used to being His person all the time,
not just on Sundays or whenever we happen to think about.

Earlier, I said to the young people that it didn't matter much what Lenten discipline you chose as long as it was something to help you come nearer to Jesus, to become more Jesus' person.
And that's true for all of us.
This season of Lent is about becoming more and more Jesus' person.
We aren't required to be perfect –
although when we do mess up, we're required to try to put things right as far as possible.
But we are expected to be open to being made more and more perfect!

Jesus was tempted in ways that we may not be.
But we are all tempted, we all have our own weak spots.
Mine are different to yours, but I have them, and so do you.
But with God's help we can fight them,
we can gradually gain ground over them.
And Lent is a terrific time to increase our spiritual discipline to help us do just that.
Amen.

Children's Talk - Lent 1

2010-02-20T16:00:00.000Z

Today is the first Sunday in Lent.
Lent is the time when we prepare for Easter.
But Easter is still a very long way away,
it isn't happening until April.
We get just over six weeks to prepare, which is quite a long time, really.
At Christmas, we only get four weeks,
can you remember what that time is called?

The thing about Lent is that it's traditionally been a time of fasting.
This means some kind of physical deprivation,
to help you with your spiritual preparation.
Some people find that not eating sweets, or meat, or fizzy pop –
booze if you're grown up –
or something like that helps them to be more spiritually aware,
and more ready to think about Jesus at Easter.

In my church, King's Acre, we don't have flowers in Lent,
to remind us that this is a special time.
And then we appreciate the Easter flowers all the more.
And in churches where they have different colours on the communion table or the minister's robes at different times of year,
during Lent and Advent it's purple.

This can be a good discipline, but of course it can just be done for the sake of doing it!
I don't know if any of you know the children's author, Noel Streatfield?
She wrote a lot of books for children,
the most famous of which is called Ballet Shoes.
Well, she and her sisters grew up about a hundred years ago,
and in their family, as in many others,
it was assumed that nobody would want to eat sweets or cake or jam during Lent, so they were never served!
So even if you had wanted to eat them, you couldn't have done so.
And I don't really see what good that did, as it wasn't a voluntary thing,
and just made the children dread Lent each year.

My mother used to say that if you give up something for Lent,
you ought to put the money you save aside,
and give it to Children in Need or a similar charity,
so that you aren't just doing it for yourself.
She has a point!

Some people take on something extra during Lent.
Perhaps they go to a study group, or read a bit of the Bible every day,
or spend time visiting someone who isn't well, or something.
Or maybe you could do something like remembering to say "Thank you" to God for something every day.
One year I did that; every day, I wrote on my blog something I felt thankful for.
It was surprisingly difficult to do, too, to find something different to say “Thank you” to God about every day.
I’m doing it again this year, but it really isn’t easy.

The thing is, it doesn't really matter what Lenten discipline you choose, as long as it's something that helps you come nearer to Jesus.
If it doesn't, don't do it!

Glimpses of Glory

2010-02-14T13:02:00.000Z

Our broadband was down the day I was preparing this, so I wasn't able to save a copy in the "as written" format; this is the formatting I use when I'm actually preaching, as it's easier to read ahead and not sound as if I'm reading it!

Readings
Old Testament: Exodus 34:29-35
Gospel: Luke 9:28-43

I wonder how many of you are going to be hooked on the Winter Olympics,
which started in Canada yesterday?
I know we’ll be watching a lot, especially the ice-skating,
and even more especially the ice dancing, which is our sport.
The athletes are going out for their moment of glory.
I know what it is like –
not the Olympics, of course, but lesser competitions.
You spend hours and hours choreographing your routine –
Robert and I have been doing that just this morning –
and practising it.
You focus on the tiniest of movements –
an arm here, a leg there –
to make it look exactly right.
On the day, you spend a long time getting dressed
and putting make-up on,
and glitter,
and everything to make sure that when you are out there on the ice you look fantastic
and you skate your best.
It is your moment of glory,
the reward of all the months of training,
day in, day out,
that you’ve put into it.

But while you are training,
there are great long periods of time when nothing much seems to happen,
when the routine feels as though it’s an end in itself rather than a means to an end.
There are long months when the competitions feel a long way away
and you are plodging on, seeming to make no progress whatsoever.
And then suddenly someone says how much you’ve improved,
or you suddenly realise how much more you can do than when you were preparing for this competition last year,
and it all feels worth while again.

But isn’t it the same with our Christian lives, too?
We plod on, dutifully using what John Wesley called “The means of grace”,
that is, the Sacrament,
public worship,
the Scriptures,
prayer and so on,
and yet nothing seems to happen.
Sometimes it feels as though our relationship with God is all down to us, not to God,
and doubts set in.
But then, just sometimes, God breaks in and we get a glimpse of his glory.
I know that has happened to me, and I hope it has happened to you.

In our readings today, various people get glimpses of God’s glory.

Firstly, Moses and the Israelites.
Moses is spending time in the mountains with God.
This passage is set shortly after that infamous episode with the golden calf,
and I think the authors are trying to emphasize that it is God, Yahweh, who is in charge,
not Moses, not a golden calf, nor anybody else.
So Moses’ face shines when he has been in God’s presence, as he is speaking with God’s authority.
The Israelites caught a glimpse of God’s glory.
And we are told that Moses did, too;
he was allowed to see just the tiniest shadow of the back of God –
as though God had a human form, but then, he was told,
he couldn’t see the face of God as he wouldn’t live through the experience.
Nobody can, nobody except Jesus.
We can only come to God through Jesus;
more of that in a minute.
The Israelites could only see God’s glory reflected in Moses’ face, and it scared them.
Moses, who hadn’t at all realised anything was different,
had to put a veil over his face while he was among them, so as not to scare them.

The New Testament reading set for today, which we didn’t read,
points out that Moses was able to take the veil off, eventually, because the glory faded.
Moses was back among the people, involved in the every-day tasks of running the Exodus,
and gradually the glimpse of glory that he had had,
and that he had passed on to the Israelites,
faded.

Okay, fast-forward several hundred years to the time of Christ.
This time, it is Jesus who is going up the mountain and he asks his friends James, Peter and John to go with him.
I don't know whether Jesus knew what was going to happen,
only that it was going to be something rather different and special,
and he wanted some moral support!
And so the four friends go up the mountain -
and suddenly things get rather confused for a time,
and when it stops being confused,
there is Jesus in shining white robes talking to Moses and Elijah.

Peter, of course, babbles on about building shelters,
but more to reassure himself that he exists, I think, than for any other reason.
And then the voice from heaven saying "This is my Son, listen to Him".
In other words, Jesus is more important than either Moses or Elijah, who were the two main people, apart from God, in the Jewish faith.
To good Jews, as James, Peter and John were, this must have almost felt like blasphemy.
No wonder Jesus told them to keep their big mouths shut until the time was right,
or he'd have been stoned for a blasphemer forthwith.

Peter, for one, remembered this momentous day until the end of his life.
Years and years later, he -
or someone writing in his name -
was to write:
"For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he received honour and glory from God the Father
when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, `This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.'
We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven,
while we were with him on the holy mountain."

For Peter, James and John, it was to be proof that Jesus is the Messiah, and through all the turbulent times that followed they must have held on to the memory of that tremendous day, when they saw a glimpse of God’s glory in Jesus.

But they, too, had to come down from the mountainside and carry on,
and immediately they are confronted with a crisis:
a child who has been brought to the disciples for healing, but nothing has happened.
In this version of the story, Jesus sounds almost cross –
well, you can’t blame him, can you?
He was probably tired after being on the mountain,
and rather wanting a quiet supper and his bed,
and now the disciples were all talking at once, explaining how they’d tried to cast out this demon,
and the boy’s father is adding to the confusion, and yadda, yadda, yadda…..
Basically, back to normal!
We know from other accounts of this story that afterwards Jesus tells the disciples that they can only cast out that sort of demon with prayer and possibly fasting.

So it seems that glimpses of God’s glory are very rare, and the normal gritty, hum-drum, everyday life is the norm.
And that’s as it should be.
You can’t live on a mountain-top all the time, you’d get altitude sickness!
If you were on holiday all the time, you wouldn’t appreciate the rest and relaxation that being on holiday brings.
It’s not much fun waking up and knowing you have no work to go to and, when you get up, the big excitement of the day will be deciding what to have for supper!
We are never quite sure where God is in all of this.

But God is there.
Those very special glimpses of his glory, such as Moses saw,
such as Peter, James and John saw, are just that:
special. They happen maybe once or twice in a lifetime, if that.
But God is there, acting, working in our lives, even if we don’t always recognise Him.

Like the story my father tells of the time there was a big flood, and people had to climb up on to the roofs of their houses to escape.
One guy thought this was a remarkable opportunity to demonstrate, so he thought, God’s power, so he prayed “Dear Lord, please come and save me.”

Just then, someone came past in a rowing-boat and said “Climb in, we’ll take you to safety!”

“Oh, no thank you,” said our friend, “I’ve prayed for God to save me, so I’ll just wait for Him to do so.”

And he carried on praying, “Dear Lord, please save me!”

Then along came the police in a motor-launch, and called for him to jump in, but he sent them away, too, and continued to pray “Dear Lord, please save me!”

Finally, a Coastguard helicopter came and sent down someone on a rope to him, but he
still refused,
claiming that he was relying on God to save him.

And half an hour later, he was swept away and drowned.

So, because he was a Christian, as you can imagine, he ended up in Heaven,
and the first thing he did when he got there
was go to to the Throne of Grace, and say to God,
“What do you mean by letting me down like this?
I prayed and prayed for you to rescue me, and you didn’t!”

“My dear child,” said God, “I sent you two boats and a helicopter –
what more did you want?”

When we pray for someone to be healed, quite often we want to see God intervening spectacularly, like the disciples expected to see with the boy with a demon from today’s reading.
But most often what happens is that the person gets well slowly, with or without medical intervention.
After all, if you think of it, there’s a limit to what medicine can do.
My father had his hip replaced a few years ago, and I was amazed to learn that, when he came home from hospital a week later, he no longer needed a dressing on the wound.
It had healed up really fast.
“Aren’t surgeons amazing!” he said, and, indeed, they are.
But all they could do, no matter how experienced, was sew up the wound, and encourage it to heal –
they can’t actually make the flesh grow back together again.
That has to be left to natural processes –
or is it God?

I believe God is involved in healing, whether it is by direct, supernatural intervention,
or, more usually, through the normal processes of one’s immune system,
aided by medical or surgical intervention when necessary.
But those glimpses of glory that I started with –
when you realise that you are making progress in your chosen sport or hobby, or when you are out there competing –
I believe those times, too, are from God.

I think, then, that what I want to leave with you today is this:
as we go into Lent,
which is a time when we are apt to think about God, and our relationship with Him,
perhaps a little more deeply than at other times of the year,
let’s be on the lookout for touches of God in our everyday lives.
They don’t have to be spectacular, they probably won’t be.
But each of them is a little glimpse of glory. Amen.

The Body of Christ

2010-01-24T14:07:00.000Z

“One fine day it occurred to the Members of the Body that they were doing all the work and the Belly was having all the food. So they held a meeting, and after a long discussion, decided to strike work till the Belly consented to take its proper share of the work. So for a day or two, the Hands refused to take the food, the Mouth refused to receive it, and the Teeth had no work to do. But after a day or two the Members began to find that they themselves were not in a very active condition: the Hands could hardly move, and the Mouth was all parched and dry, while the Legs were unable to support the rest. So thus they found that even the Belly in its dull quiet way was doing necessary work for the Body, and that all must work together or the Body will go to pieces.”

“Now you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it”.
“You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.”

The story I shared with the children earlier is much older than St Paul. Aesop, who wrote it or collected it, is thought to have lived around 600 BC, and it may be much older still. St Paul, who was an educated man, probably knew it, and thought of it when he drew the analogy about our being parts of the Body of Christ.

St Paul was, of course, writing to the Church in Corinth, and it looks as though the people there had got themselves into a bit of a muddle about who was the most important. Some people thought they really didn’t matter very much. Other people thought that everybody else should be just like them. Still others thought that people with smaller roles to play in the Church didn’t matter as much as they did.

I suppose we know this reading well enough not to fall into those traps, do we? Or do we? I am not sure that I do – I find it all to easy to think I don’t matter very much, and nobody will miss me if I don’t go to Church this week. Well, unless I’m preaching, of course; I think people might just notice if I didn’t turn up when I was supposed to be taking the service. But if St Paul is right, then it does matter.

This last week, one of my teeth fell out; now, you would think a tooth wasn’t very important in the way of things; I can manage perfectly well without it. But I do miss it – there’s a funny gap in my mouth, and it feels strange.

And think what it is like if you don’t feel very well. You might have a tummy-ache or a head-ache, but all of you feels rotten because of it. Or, perhaps more to the point, if you’ve injured yourself in any way. A couple of years ago I sprained my left thumb; not badly, but you know what sprains are like, they go on hurting longer than you would believe possible! Anyway, the point is, I hadn’t realised quite how much I used my left thumb, until quite suddenly I couldn’t. And do you know, the simplest of tasks were quite beyond me – I couldn’t even do my trousers up, and had to wear pull-ons for a few days! I couldn’t drive, because I couldn’t change gear or use the handbrake. I couldn’t even read comfortably. We simply don’t realise how necessary various body parts are until suddenly we can’t use them! And think how much attention they take up when they are hurting – you can’t think about anything else! Our body parts matter, and we matter as parts of Christ’s body.

We mustn’t ever think – and this, I think, is one of the points St Paul was trying to make – that we don’t matter, that we’re less important than other people in the church. We do matter. God has led us to this church for a good reason, and even if all we do is come faithfully on Sundays and then go home again, we matter. We are part of the Body of Christ. And you never know who looks out for you each week. If nothing else, you are praying for us, and those of us who, right now, have a more visible role to pray, we need your prayers.

So we mustn’t fall into the trap of thinking we don’t matter. As St Paul says, the ear can’t say that it’s not a part of the body just because it isn’t an eye.

But do we fall into the trap of thinking that everybody else must be just like us? St Paul enquires, forcefully, how we think a body could see if it was all ear. Or how it would smell if it was all foot.... well, perhaps not quite that, but you know what I mean.

But we have problems with that, sometimes, too. Particularly in terms of how we worship. It’s all too easy to assume – and quite often we don’t even really know that we have assumed – that our particular way of being a Christian is the only right and proper way. Other people may think very differently to us; their worship may feel quite different; they may use slightly different faith language, and perhaps have different ideas as to what salvation is all about. But they are still part of the wider Christian family, and we need to accept them as such. Of course, nothing wrong in talking to them, trying to find out where they’re coming from, where you agree, and where you agree to differ; but we need to accept people from other branches of Christianity as equals, as Christians, as other parts of the Body.

I’m thinking rather of Haiti when I say this. You may remember how, just after the earthquake had happened, an American telly-vangelist caused widespread outrage by suggesting that the people of Haiti had made a pact with the devil some two centuries ago, and this was God’s judgement. A singularly unhelpful comment, particularly as the people of Haiti had done no such thing, but the current population was and remains worried because every one of the capital’s 81 Catholic churches was destroyed. And quite apart from anything else, what sort of picture of Christianity does it give to the world at large? Fuel for the Richard Dawkinses of this world, again.

Fortunately, over and against that, there has been the terrific reaction of the global Christian community with aid and money and people to help. Not just Christians, of course – we don’t have a monopoly on helping out in disasters! But many Christian agencies had workers already there in Haiti, loving and caring for the poorest people in the Western Hemisphere. And, indeed, several of them lost their lives in the earthquake. They didn’t see the Haitians as any different to them, despite the fact they don’t always express their faith quite the way we do. They saw them as part of the Body of Christ, and were there to help a part that was in particular need. And is in even more need now.

And then, of course, there is the third temptation, that St Paul describes as the hand saying to the foot “I don’t need you – you’re not a hand!” We must be careful not to think of those who do less important jobs – or perhaps don’t do very much at all in the Church – as less important or, worse still, unnecessary.

That’s where Aesop’s fable comes in, of course – the body parts thought that the stomach was quite unnecessary, but they soon found out differently. Now, Paul’s readers would probably have known the fable just as well as he did, being educated Greeks, and probably smiled rather wryly when it was read out to them, realising exactly where Paul was going to go with this one. Because yes, all parts of the body matter, and we can’t manage without each other. If all you can do is pray for your leaders – then get praying! The church couldn’t function without your prayers, any more than my body can function if I don’t eat properly.

Of course, Paul’s analogy isn’t totally accurate; after all, we grow and change, and our role in the Body of Christ changes during the course of our lives in the way that body parts don’t. And change happens, whether we like it or not.

But by and large it is still true. We are the Body of Christ, and individually members of it. And that applies globally as well as locally. Right now, it is the people of Haiti who are hurting very badly, and who need our help. Who knows, some day in the future, if it will be they who are helping us, after some disaster our other?

Those, of course, are the obvious conclusions we can draw from Paul’s passage; this is what he was trying to say to the Corinthians, and, down the centuries to us. But I think there is still some more.

I think perhaps these days it’s easier for us, with the development of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and so on. I know some of you are on Facebook – I’ve been playing Scrabble with you, rather badly – and I expect you agree with me that it’s a wonderful way of being in touch with people without having to stay in touch with them. We are connected. If my friend X posts that her daughter has just had a baby, I can rejoice with her. If, on the other hand, Y posts that his mother has just died, I can share in his grief and send my love and sympathy – and if it’s someone I know well, or who lives close by, I can offer practical help, too. And I can giggle with Z over something amusing his child said, or a ridiculous situation they found themselves in.

The point is, we are all connected. Not all of my Facebook friends would call themselves Christians, although many do. Some of them I’ve never met, other than through a shared interest or hobby. Others are close friends who I see often, or members of my family. One of the best things has been getting to know a cousin – well, she’s married to my cousin, actually, not related herself – who I’ve never actually met as she lives in South Africa, but we’ve chatted frequently and I feel like I know her.

The poet John Donne famously said that “No one is an island”. We are all inter-connected, all parts of the Body of Christ. I venture to say that, even of those who don’t call themselves Christian, because they are connected to me, and I hurt when they hurt, and rejoice when they do.

Now, obviously I’m not saying we should all join Facebook – I’ve just spent the past ten minutes saying that we’re all different and what suits one doesn’t suit another! But what I am saying is that these days, it is possible to be linked with people you’ve never met, who live 6,000 miles away, and still count them as dear friends.

“Now you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.” None of us is more important than anyone else; we all matter. We all belong. This is even truer today than it was in St Paul’s time. And I, for one, thank God for it. Amen.

Let us pray:

Teach me, O Prince of Peace:
to see humans where once I saw soldiers,
to see people where once I saw victims,
to see creatures of God where once I saw enemies,
and to see the conflict that simmers in my own heart
as clearly as that which scars the world.

Christ the King

2009-11-17T20:16:00.001Z

Today is the very last Sunday of the Christian year, and it is the day on which we celebrate the feast of Christ the King.

I wonder what sort of images go through your head when you hear the word “King”. Often, one things of pomp and circumstance, the gold State Coach, jewels, servants, money…. and perhaps scandal, too. What do you think of when you think about a king? The modern monarchy is largely ceremonial, but I tell you one thing, I’d rather be represented by a hereditary monarch who is a-political than by a political head of state for whom I did not vote, and whose views were anathema to me! But it hasn’t always been like that.

We think of good, brave kings, like Edward the Third or Henry the Fifth: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”. We think of Elizabeth at Tilbury: “Although I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, I have the heart and stomach of a King, and a King of England, too, and think foul scorn that Parma, or Spain, or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm.” Or Richard the Lionheart – I’m dodging about rather here – who forsook England to fight against Muslims, which he believed was God’s will for him. Hmm, not much change there, then.

But there have been weak kings, poor kings, kings that have been deposed, kings that have seized the crown from others. Our own monarchy is far from the first to become embroiled in scandal. Think of the various Hanoverian kings, the Georges, most of whom were endlessly in the equivalent of the tabloid press, and cartoonists back then were far, far ruder than they dare to be today. You may have seen some of them in museums or in history books. The ones in the history books are the more polite ones.

But traditionally, the role of a king was to defend and protect his people, to lead them into battle, if necessary; to give justice, and generally to look after their people. They may have done this well, or they may have done it badly, but that was what they did. If you’ve read C S Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy, you might remember that King Lune tells Shasta, who is going to be king after him:
“For this is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there's hunger in the land (as must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land.”

And when we think of Christ as King, we come up against that great paradox, for Christ was, and is, above all, the Servant King. No birth with state-of-the-art medical facilities for him, but a stable in an inn-yard. No golden carriage, but a donkey. No crown, save that made of thorns, and no throne, except the Cross.

And yet, we know that God has raised him, to quote St Paul, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” Christ was raised as King of Heaven.

And it is the Kingdom of Heaven that he preached while he was here on earth. That was the Good News – that the Kingdom of God is at hand. He told us lots of stories to illustrate what the kingdom was going to be like, how it starts off very small, like a mustard seed, but grows to be a huge tree. How it is worth giving up everything for. How “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

Jesus does lead us into battle, yes, but it is a battle “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” And through his Holy Spirit, Jesus gives us the armour to enable us to fight, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, et cetera, et cetera.

Jesus requires that His followers forgive one another, everything, all the time. Even the unforgivable things. Even the abusers, the tyrants, the warlords…. Even Osama bin Lade! We may not hold on to anger and hatred, for that is not the way of the Kingdom.

In our Gospel reading this morning Pontius Pilate clearly wondered what it means to name Jesus as King.

Pilate, who served the most powerful king in the world, knew what a king was. He knew about the power that a King has, the authority that he wields, the unquestioning obedience that he demands, and the power that he has to compel that obedience should it not be volunteered.

Pilate was a creature of his time, one who knew and accepted the rules – one who in fact was charged with making and enforcing the rules, and while he, like people today, sought to use those rules to his advantage, he knew what the consequences of ignoring or scoffing at the rules were.

One of the rules that Pilate was called to enforce was the rule that anyone who claimed to be a king, anyone who dared to set themselves up as an authority over and against the lawful authority of Caesar, was to be executed.

It was a rule that Pilate had no scruples about enforcing. It was a rule that he had enforced thousands of times throughout Galilee.

And so when Jesus is brought before Pilate the charge that is laid against
him is that he is a revolutionary – that he is one who unlawfully claims to be the Messiah, the King of the Jews.

The very idea that the bruised and beleaguered man that stood before him could be taken for a king must have seemed ridiculous to Pilate. He knew what Kings acted like. He knew what they looked like. He knew what even those who pretended to be kings acted like and looked like. And Jesus was not like that!

As we have seen, Jesus’ Kingdom is not of this world. He is the king who rides on a donkey, the king who requires his followers to use the weapon of forgiveness, the king who surrendered to the accusers, the scourge, and the cross.

But he is also, and let us not forget this, he is also the King who was raised on high, who triumphed over the grave, who sits at the right hand of God from whence, we say we believe, he will come to judge the living and the dead.

So are we going to follow this King?

Are we going to turn away from this world, and its values, and instead embrace the values of the Kingdom? I tell you this, my friends, most of us live firmly clinging to the values of this world. I include myself – don’t think I’m any better than you, because I can assure you, I’m not, and if I didn’t, Robert soon would! We all cling to the values of this world, and few of us truly embrace the values of the Kingdom.

But if Christ is King, since Christ is King, then we must be aware that he is our King. If we are Jesus’ people – and if you have never said “Yes” to Jesus, now would be a terrific time to do so – if we are truly following Jesus with our whole hearts and minds, then let us remember our King calls out to us from the cross and invites us to follow him and to pray fervently for the coming of his kingdom –
• a kingdom which welcomes those whom the rest of the world might find most unlikely followers,
• a kingdom in which we can ask for forgiveness from those whom we have hurt, and come to forgive those who have hurt us.

As we reach the end of one church year and look to the beginning of a new one, may the one whom we know to be King of the universe and ruler of our lives guide us in our journeys of welcome and forgiveness that our churches may include all whom God loves, and our hearts may find healing and wholeness. Amen!

Lazarus and the Saints

2009-11-01T08:34:00.000Z

Our Gospel reading today concerns the raising of Lazarus. You know the story, of course – Lazarus was the brother of Martha and Mary, and Jesus seems to have been a frequent, and beloved, visitor to their home in Bethany, just outside Jerusalem. It’s possible, if not probable, that he stayed there most years when he came up to Jerusalem for the Passover, and they certainly seem to have been among his closest friends.

Anyway, Lazarus falls ill, and they send to Jesus to come and heal him. But Jesus, unaccountably, delays for another two days. And when he does set out to go there, the disciples are rather worried, as they fear for his safety. But he explains that Lazarus has died, and God wants him raised from the dead.

And when he gets to Bethany, both Martha and Mary disobey tradition, and come out to meet him. Normally, relatives of the deceased were expected to stay seated on low stools while the visitors came to them to offer their condolences – it’s called sitting shiva, and I understand it’s done in Jewish families to this day. Anyway, Martha and Mary run out to meet him, Martha first. Jesus has this wonderful conversation with her which culminates in him saying to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” and Martha replying with that wonderful declaration of faith: “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” Martha said this. Martha. A woman – and not only a woman, but a traditional woman, usually more concerned with getting a meal for Jesus and the disciples than in learning what he had to say! It’s amazing.

Anyway, then we come to the bit we just read, where Mary comes out to Jesus in her turn, and Jesus weeps at his friend’s grave. And then he calls for the stone to be rolled away and Martha, wonderful, practical Martha, complains that it’s going to ponk quite dreadfully after four days.... but the stone gets rolled away, and Lazarus comes forth, still wrapped in his graveclothes.

Now, it’s a wonderful story, and I expect you, like me, have heard many great sermons and much wonderful teaching on it. But the reason why we had it this morning is because today is All Saints’ Day, when the church is asked to celebrate those who have gone before into glory. What is sometimes known as the Church Triumphant; we here on earth being the Church Militant. And tomorrow is the Feast of All Souls, when many churches will have special services to commemorate those among them who have died during the year, although some will concatenate the two and have the service today. Some churches, particularly Anglican ones, will have invited the families of all those who have been bereaved – probably known because the vicar took the funeral – to come to church either today or tomorrow to commemorate their loved one. Rather a nice idea, I think. In France, All Saints’ Day is a Bank Holiday – well, this year it will be All Souls’ Day, of course, as All Saints is a Sunday! Anyway, the tradition there is to take flowers – usually chrysanthemums – to put on your loved ones’ graves.

But All Saints itself is about life, not death. Jesus said “I am the Resurrection and the Life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

It’s a funny word, “saint”, isn’t it? We seem to give two meanings to it. It seems to me that there are two sorts of saint. The first is a Saint with a capital S. These are often Bible people, like St Paul, of course, but there are also lots of Saints who were, in life, totally dedicated to being God’s person. To the point where, very often, they got into serious trouble, or even killed for it. There was St Polycarp, who was put to death, and when he was given a chance to recant, to say he wasn’t a Christian after all, he said very firmly that he’d served God, man and boy, for something like eighty years now, and God had never let him down,
so if they thought he was going to let God down at the last minute, they’d another think coming. Or words to that effect.

There were Saints Perpetua and Felicity, her servant. Saint Perpetua was a young mother, whose husband and father both roundly disapproved of her being a Christian, and Felicity, also a Christian, was expecting a baby when they were taken and put on trial. They were left until Felicity had had her baby – a little girl, who was brought up by her sister – and then they had to face wild beasts in the arena. And so went to glory.

There are lots of other saints, too, whose story has come down to us. Although sometimes their stories are rather less exotic than we once thought. St George, for instance, the patron saint of England: he was born in Cappadocia of noble, Christian parents and on the death of his father, accompanied his mother to Palestine, her country of origin, where she had land and George was to run the estate. He rose to high rank in the Roman army, and was martyred for complaining to the then Emperor about his persecuting the Christians – he ended up being one of the first to be put to death.

And his dragon? Oh, that was a bit of a misunderstanding. The Greek church venerated George as a soldier-saint, and told many stories of his bravery and protection in battle. The western Christians, joining with the Byzantine Christians in the Crusades, elaborated and misinterpreted the Greek traditions and devised their own version. The story we know today of Saint George and the dragon dates from the troubadours of the 14th century. Of course, you can look at it, as they did, in symbolic terms: the Princess is the church, which George rescued from the clutches of Satan. I imagine football fans often see places like Brazil or Argentina as the dragon, especially during the World Cup!

But not all Saints belong to the dawn of Christianity. There is Thomas More, for instance, who was put to death by Henry the Eighth as he wouldn’t admit that the King’s marriage to Katharine of Aragon was valid, or that the King was Head of the Church. And in our own day, Mother Theresa looks likely to be made a saint, if she hasn’t been already, although she died in her own bed. She has been beatified, which is the first stage towards being made an official Saint You don’t absolutely have to be a martyr to be made a Saint, although it helps.

So, anyway, those are just a very few of the many “Saints” with a capital S. No bad thing to read some of the stories of their lives, and learn who they were, and why the Church continues to remember them.

And then, of course, there is the other sort of saint, the saint with a small “s”. St Paul often addresses his letters to “The Saints” in such-and-such a town. He basically means the Christians. Us, in other words. We are God’s saints. We are the sanctified people – sanctified means “being made holy”, or being made more like Jesus.

And you notice that it is “being made holy”, not “making ourselves holy”. We can do nothing to become a saint by ourselves! We can’t even say that God has saved me because I believe in him – our salvation, our sainthood, is a free gift from God and we can do nothing to earn it, not even believe in God! We aren’t saved as a reward for believing – we are saved because God loves us!

We believe that, like Lazarus, we shall be raised from dead. But unlike him, we shall probably be raised to eternal life with Jesus, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. And we are also told that Jesus came so that we might have life, and have it abundantly. That applies to the here and now, too, not just pie in the sky when we die! Our whole lives now have that eternal dimension. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we won’t experience great sorrow here – sadly, that is part of human existence. And I don’t think it means that we can live just as we like, doing whatever we like, because God has saved us. Rather to the contrary, I think personal holiness is very important. We need to do all we can to avoid sin. Jesus shows us in some of his teachings what his people are going to be like: poor in spirit – not thinking more of themselves than they ought; mourning, perhaps for the ungodly world in which we live; meek, which means slow to anger and gentle with others; hungry and thirsty for righteousness; merciful; pure in heart; peacemakers and so on.

St Paul gives other lists of characteristics that Christians will display; you probably remember from his letter to the Galatians: Love, joy, peace, patience and so on. And he gives lots of lists of the sort of behaviour that Christians don’t do, ranging from gluttony to fornication. Basically the sort of things that put “Me” first, and make “me” the centre of my life.

But the wonderful thing is that we don’t have to strive and struggle and do violence to our own natures. Yes, of course, we are inherently selfish and it’s nearly impossible to put God first in our own strength. But the whole point is, we don’t have to do it in our own strength. That is why God sent the Holy Spirit, to come into us, fill us, and transform us. We wouldn’t be very happy in heaven if we were stuck in our old nature, after all!

But if we let God transform us, we can have abundant life here on this earth, and then we leave our bodies behind and go on to be with Jesus. And that, we are told, is even better!

Jesus asks us, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Can we reply, with Martha, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”

Looking for God

2009-10-11T14:29:00.000+01:00

Our two readings today are both about people who can’t find God. Firstly Job, and then the man who we call “The rich young ruler”.

So, Job. It's a funny old story, isn't it, this story of Job. Do you know, nobody knows anything about it - what you see is totally what you get! Nobody knows who it was written, or when, or why, or whether it is true history or a fictional story - most probably the latter!

I did read that they think the first two chapters are incredibly ancient. That figures, actually, since the picture of God that we see in it is also very old - the sort of super-King holding court among the angels, and Satan not even being the Devil yet, just one of the many beings who had the right to God's ear. Rather like the earthly kings of the time, no doubt.

The source I was reading seemed to think that the poetry chapters were more recent, but even still, nobody knows who wrote them, or when. Even still, "more recent" is a relative term! The Book of Job is incredibly ancient, or parts of it are. And so it makes it very difficult for us to understand. We do realise, of course, that it was one of the earliest attempts someone made to rationalise why bad things happen to good people, but it still seems odd to us.

I think one of the oddest things is that picture of God as almost an earthly King, with his court around him. And Satan as one of the heavenly beings belonging to that court.

The story first of all establishes Job as really rich, and then as a really holy type - whenever his children have parties, which they seem to have done pretty frequently, he offers sacrifices to God just in case the parties were orgies! And so on. Then God says to Satan, hey, look at old Job, isn't he a super servant of mine, and Satan says, rather crossly, yeah, well, it's all right for him - just look how you've blessed him. Anybody would be a super servant like that. You take all those blessings away from him, and see if he still serves you! (Wealth was considered to be a sign of God's blessing).

And that, of course, is just exactly what happens. The children are all killed, the crops are all destroyed, the flocks and herds perish. So then Satan says, well, all right, Job is still worshipping you, but he still has his health, doesn't he? I bet he would sing a very different tune if you let me take his health away!

So God says, well, okay, only you mustn't kill him. And Job gets a plague of boils, which must have been really nasty - painful, uncomfortable, itchy and making him feel rotten in himself as well. Poor sod. No wonder he ends up sitting on a dung-heap, scratching himself with a piece of broken china!

And his wife, who must have suffered just as much as Job, only of course women weren't really people in those days, she says "Curse God, and die!" In other words, what do you have left to live for? But Job refuses, although he does, with some justification, curse the day on which he was born.

Then you know the rest of the story, of course. How the three "friends" come and try to persuade him to admit that he deserves all that had come upon him - we've all had friends like that who try to make our various sufferings be our fault, and who try to poultice them with pious platitudes. And Job insists that he is not at fault, and demands some answers from God! And that’s where we came in. Job feels he can’t find God to get the answers from!

“If only I knew where I could find God,
I’d pound on the door and demand a hearing.
God would have to listen to me state my case
and argue my innocence.
Let’s see what God would have to say to that!
Then I could get God’s answer clear in my head.

Would God simply pull rank and rule me out of order?
I don’t think so. Surely God would listen.
Surely if an honest bloke like me gets a fair hearing,
God would judge in my favour
and clear my name once and for all.

But I can’t find God anywhere.
I look up, down, forwards, backwards – nothing.
I think I catch a glimpse to the left, but no;
I rush to the right, but God vanishes like a mirage.”

We know what happens in the end, of course – God does eventually answer Job, and, in some of the loveliest poetry ever written, tells him that he’s all wrong. He’s looking in the wrong place. He’s looking at all his problems and trying to find a reason for them, but where he should be looking is at God, at his Creator:

“Do you give the horse its might? Do you clothe its neck with mane?
Do you make it leap like the locust? Its majestic snorting is terrible.
It paws violently, exults mightily; it goes out to meet the weapons.
It laughs at fear, and is not dismayed; it does not turn back from the sword.
Upon it rattle the quiver, the flashing spear, and the javelin.
With fierceness and rage it swallows the ground; it cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.
When the trumpet sounds, it says "Aha!" From a distance it smells the battle, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.
Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads its wings towards the south?
Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes its nest on high?
It lives on the rock and makes its home in the fastness of the rocky crag.
From there it spies the prey; its eyes see it from far away.
Its young ones suck up blood; and where the slain are, there it is.”

Wonderful stuff, and it goes on for about three chapters, talking of the natural world and its wonders, and how God is the author of them all. If you ever want to rejoice in creation, read Job chapters 38, 39 and 40. And at the end, Job repents "in dust and ashes", we are told, and then his riches are restored to him. Job was looking at his problems, not at his Creator.

And so we turn to the Gospel reading, the story of the rich young ruler. Well, All three gospels tell us that the person who came was a rich man, but Matthew tells us that he was young and Luke tells us that he was a ruler. He was probably a ruler in the synagogue. So we call him the rich young ruler.

Anyway, he comes running to Jesus just as he – Jesus – is about to leave town. (Running? They didn't run in those days once they were grown up!) I wonder why he left it so late? Perhaps he really didn’t want to ask. If he was a ruler in the synagogue, he probably thought he ought to know better than this travelling preacher who has come to town. Or perhaps he was held up by looking after business – people with a lot of money do seem to have to spend an awful lot of time looking after it. But whatever, he comes racing up, falls at Jesus’ feet, and addresses him as “Good Teacher!”

Jesus fends him off by saying “No one deserves to be called ‘good’ except God”. But he sees that the young man is in earnest – he really does want to know how to gain eternal life. He is looking for God.

So Jesus answers, “Well, you’ve been brought up in the synagogue, you’re a good Jew, you know the Commandments, don’t you?” And he quotes: “‘Don’t murder; Be faithful in marriage; Don’t steal; Don’t tell lies about anyone; Don’t cheat anyone; Treat your parents with respect.’ ”

The man replied, “Teacher, I’ve kept all these rules, ever since I was a youngster.”
Jesus looked him straight in the eye and, filled with love for him, he said, “You still haven’t found what you’re looking for though, have you? Come and follow me and you’ll find it. First though, go and flog off everything you own, give the proceeds to charity, and then, with all your investments in heaven, you’ll be free to find it.”

And we are told that the man went away, very sad, because he was very rich. Even though he saw his riches as a blessing from God, the rich young ruler was looking at his money, his property, his business, not at his Creator.

Both Job and the rich young ruler were looking for God. Job couldn’t find God because he was looking at his problems. The rich young ruler couldn’t find God because he was looking at his money.

What are you looking at that comes between you and God? What, if anything, is stopping you from finding God?

In or Out?

2009-09-27T12:30:00.000+01:00

So which football team do you support? Or do you prefer rugby, or cricket – what’s your sport, and who’s your team? Do you play for a local team? Or did you, when you were younger?

It’s great being part of a team, isn’t it? Or perhaps being part of a group, or a gang of friends. At least it can be. But suppose you are left out? Suppose you’re the one who is always the last to be chosen because you’re hopeless at games? Suppose you’re the one they jeer at and laugh at?

Here’s another suppose. Suppose you were part of a group whose function in life was to do nice things for people – perhaps you did shopping for old people, say, or you knitted blanket squares for charity. And your group got together each week to catch up on what you’d been doing, and perhaps have a meal together, or generally have a bit of fun together. You’re a group, a gang, and it shows. People know who you are. They like you.

But then supposing you suddenly discovered that someone else was doing the same nice things as you were. The specky, nerdish kid that nobody likes. He was also fetching shopping for old people, or knitting blanket squares for charity, or whatever it was.

I wonder how you’d react. Would you think, oh, that’s nice, good for him. Or would you think, here, how dare he? He’s not one of us, what does he think he’s doing? We’re the only ones who do that job!

I think both Jesus and Moses came up against this attitude in our readings today. “How dare they! They’re not part of our group – tell them to stop!” For Jesus, it was when one of the disciples discovered that someone else was casting out demons in Jesus’ name, but it wasn’t anybody they knew and, as far as they were concerned, he had never met Jesus and he wasn’t One of Them. “We tried to make him stop,” explains John, “but he wouldn’t!”

But what was Jesus’ reaction? “"Don't stop him. No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down. If he's not an enemy, he's an ally. Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it that God will notice.”

And something very much the same has happened in our Old Testament reading, too. Moses has got fed up again – Moses frequently gets fed up! This time, the children of Israel have been grumbling because they don’t like the food. God has been supplying them with Manna – nobody knows quite what that was, but it was a basic food source for them while they were wandering in the desert. Anyway, although they hated being in slavery in Egypt, they are beginning to miss all the fish, and the melons, the leeks, the cucumbers, the onions and the garlic. Well, I don’t blame them, really – I think I’d miss those things if I couldn’t have them! But not worth being a slave for! Anyway, God is a bit cross with them and says that okay, they want meat – fine, he’ll give them so much meat they’ll get sick and tired of it! At this stage, Moses doesn’t know how on earth God plans to do this – later, we learn, it was flocks of quails, which are a type of rather delicious game bird – and it all seems a bit much, so he gets his 70 elders, his team leaders, together to pray. And while this is happening, the Holy Spirit falls on the elders, and they begin to speak forth God’s word.

This was unusual in those days – the Holy Spirit didn’t come to people as a matter of routine, in the way that he does today, so when it did happen, it was thought to be a mark of God’s favour. And there are two of the elders who, for whatever reason, haven’t joined the gathering. Their names are Eldad and Medad, and they have stayed in the camp – but because they are elders, the Holy Spirit has also fallen on them. Oh dear. So, of course, someone comes running up to tell Moses, and his heir, Joshua – the same Joshua for whom the book of the Bible is named – says “Well, aren’t you going to stop them?”

Moses, I think, roars with laughter. “Are you jealous for me? I wish that all God's people were prophets. I wish that God would put his Spirit on all of them.” A wish that, of course, came true at Pentecost.

But do you see? It’s all about wanting to exclude people, isn’t it? They’re not part of the gang, so they can’t do what we do. They mustn’t be allowed. They must stop casting out demons in Jesus’ name, or they must stop speaking forth God’s word in prophecy.

Oh dear.

Not good.

Well, yes, we know that in theory, but do we know it in practice? It’s all too easy to exclude people, isn’t it? For a wide variety of reasons. Primary school kids sometimes form gangs whose whole idea is to exclude the opposite sex: No Girls Allowed; No Boys allowed. That’s relatively harmless, of course – but then you get the ones who exclude people whose skin colour is different, or who perhaps have some kind of disability. Or who are of a different religion – it is a very short step between reckoning that they’re mistaken in what they believe, to reckoning they, themselves are bad people for believing it.

None of this is nice; it’s the road to ethnic cleansing, to genocide, to the Holocaust. A road humanity has trodden all too often, and will probably tread all too often in the future.

But almost worst is when it happens in the Church. You will probably know better than I do the story of what happened when Black Christians first came over to this country with the Empire Windrush and its successors, and it’s not pretty. But that’s not the only form of exclusion, even if it is the most obvious one.

It’s what about the other Christians? People who worship God differently. People, who perhaps, disagree with us about certain issues. We are altogether too apt to say “Well, if you don’t agree with me, you’re not a Christian!” I know I’ve been guilty of that in my time. We try to limit God – who is in, who is out? Who’s in God’s gang?

But God doesn’t. We’re not Christians because of what we do or don’t believe; we’re Christians because God loves us and has sent his Son to die for us. We have responded to that, but that’s not what has saved us – God has!

There is a man in America1 who, for a variety of reasons, has decided to spend this year worshipping in a different church every Sunday, not just Christian churches, either, but Jewish and all sorts. I’ve been following his blog for the last couple of months; I can’t remember how I first found it. It’s fascinating reading his journal, and watching his faith grow and develop. A couple of weeks ago he went to a church that he found constraining – they were, for his taste, too negative, too full of “Thou shalt nots”. And after some thought – and argument with people from that church who commented on his reflections – and a Sunday spent worshipping in a Church that was rather more to his taste, he has this to say:

“I don't care who you are, what you've done, who you voted for, how often you read the Bible, or what your political stance is on gay marriage or abortion. I don't care if you are gay, straight, or bisexual. I don't care if you've had sex with a thousand people or you're forty years old and saving yourself for marriage. I don't care if you are Methodist, Catholic, Muslim, or you sat next to me at the Church of Scientology. GOD LOVES YOU. Not because of what you can do for him, but because he's freaking God, so he doesn't need you to do a damn thing. He loves you because he made you. He created you to be the jacked up person you are, and he loves you in spite of your flaws. You're the Prodigal Son. So am I. And God is running toward us with open arms. Nothing else matters except his desire to welcome us back home. And he's waiting. Despite the thousands of rules Pharisees will lay on you to convince you that you're unworthy of God's love, God says you are worthy because of the sacrifice Jesus made two thousand years ago. Period. Bottom line. End of story.”

To which I could only respond: “Amen!” And, that being the case, how dare we exclude anybody? They may not worship God the same way we do; they may look different, or behave differently. They may have quite different views about all sorts of issues that we think are important. But, as Jesus said, “Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it that God will notice.”

And then Jesus went on to give a warning: “On the other hand, if someone –however insignificant they might seem – is believing in me and you put up a road block and turn them back, you’ll be made to pay for it. You’d have been better off being dumped in the middle of the bay wearing concrete boots.”

You see, it does matter. We are all part of God’s kingdom, and woe betide us if we try to exclude anybody, or try to make someone else feel they don’t fit in. God is Love – and woe betide us if we try to cut anybody off from that love. Just because they aren’t on our team doesn’t mean they’re rubbish players!

1 http://stevenfuller.blogspot.com

Mary

2009-08-14T19:28:00.002+01:00

Yesterday, in some parts of the Christian Church, was a major festival in the Church’s calendar. It’s what’s called the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and celebrates the belief that her body, as well as her soul, was taken to heaven after she’d died. Or possibly even before, it’s not clear. Either way, it’s a very old tradition, going right back to the early years of Christianity, even though there’s nothing about it in Scripture. And even those Christians, like us, who don’t necessarily subscribe to that doctrine, do still consider 15 August one of the Festivals of Saint Mary.

And even though we Protestants don’t really think about Mary much, the fact that she’s such an important figure in so much of Christianity means she’s probably worth thinking about from time to time.

So what do we actually know about her from the Bible, as opposed to tradition? She first appears in our Bibles when Gabriel comes to her to ask her if she will bear Jesus, and, of course, as we all know, she said she would, and Joseph agreed to marry her despite her being pregnant with a baby he knew he wasn’t responsible for. I do rather love Luke’s stories about Mary – how one of the things the angel had said to her was that her relation, Elisabeth, was pregnant after all those years. And, as we heard in our reading, Mary rushes off to visit her. Was this to reassure herself that the angel was telling the truth? Or to congratulate Elisabeth? Or just to get away for a bit of space, do you suppose? We aren’t told. But Elisabeth recognises Mary as the mother-to-be of the promised Saviour, and Mary’s response is that great song that we now call the “Magnificat”. Or if it wasn’t exactly that – that may well be Luke putting down what she ought to have said, like Shakespeare giving Henry V that great speech before Agincourt – it was probably words to that effect! I think she was very, very relieved to find the angel had been speaking the truth, and probably did explode in an outpouring of praise and joy!

And later, in Bethlehem, when the shepherds come to visit her, we are told that she “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”

The next time we see Mary is when Jesus is twelve and gets separated from them in the Temple. I spent a lot of time with that story when Emily was a teenager – how Mary and Joseph say to Jesus, “But why did you stay behind? Didn’t you realise we’d be worried about you?” and Jesus goes, “Oh, you don’t understand!” – typical teenager!

We don’t see Joseph again after this – tradition has it that he was a lot older than Mary, and, of course, he had a very physical job. It wasn’t just a carpenter as we know it – the Greek word is “technion”, which is the same root as our “technician”; if it had to do with houses, Joseph did it, from designing them, to building them, to making the furniture that went in them! And tradition has it that sometime between Jesus’ 12th birthday, and when we next see him, Joseph has died.

But we see a lot more of Mary. She is there at the wedding at Cana, and indeed, it’s she who goes to Jesus when they’ve run out of wine. And Jesus says, at first, “Um, no – my time has not yet come!” but Mary knew. And she told the servants to “Do whatever he tells you”, and, sure enough, the water is turned into wine.

There’s a glimpse of her at one point when Jesus is teaching, and he’s told his mother and brother are outside waiting for him, but he refuses to be diverted from what he’s doing. And, of course, it could have been that it was just random people who said they were his relations to try to get closer to him.

We see Mary, of course, weeping at the Cross – something no mother should ever have to do. And Jesus commending her into the care of the “beloved disciple” John. And, finally, we see her in the Upper Room in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit came.

That’s really all we know about her from the Bible, but other early traditions and writings, including some of what’s called the apocryphal gospels – they’re the ones that didn’t make the cut into the New Testament as we know it – tell us a bit more. They tell us that her mother was called Anne and her father was called Joachim, and that she was only about 16 when Gabriel came to her. One source has it that Anne couldn’t have babies, and when Mary finally arrived, she was given to be reared in the Temple, like Samuel. And traditional sources also tell us that she went to live in Ephesus, probably with John, and died somewhere between 3 and 15 years after the Crucifixion, surrounded by all the apostles. And that her body was taken up to heaven, which is where we came in!

Well, so far, so good, but how did they get from there to the veneration of her, not to say worship in some cases, that we see today? This may be something you find difficult to understand – I certainly do – and that’s okay. We aren’t required to do more than honour her as the Mother of our dear Lord; we mention her when we say the Creed, of course, and there are lots of churches dedicated to her. My parents’ church in Clapham – some of you have been there – is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, as are loads of other churches around the world.

But we do not think of her as quasi-divine in some way. We do believe that Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, not by ordinary human means, but that this was something that happened in time, not in eternity! She became the Mother of God – she was not the Mother of God before Jesus was born.

It’s been fascinating, reading up on all the various Marian theologies to prepare this sermon. I don’t propose to go into them now – I don’t understand some of them at all, and anyway, it would take too long. It would appear, though, that while veneration of Mary is very ancient indeed, the theological study of her is comparatively recent. Actually, theology isn’t quite the right word, given that that is the study of God - I think the technical term is “Mariology”. And when it spins over into giving Mary that worship that properly belongs to God alone, it becomes “Mariolatry”.

I wonder, though, just how it happened that veneration of Mary became such a thing among Roman Catholic Christians. Orthodox Christianity also venerate her, but make it quite clear that she is not divine – the distinction, sometimes, among Catholics gets a bit blurred. One theory I have heard put forward is that she gives a female aspect to Christianity, which may or may not be lacking from the Trinity. Well, if that is so, how come Protestant women have managed without for so many generations? (I added something here which I only thought of the night before I preached about goddess-worship, and maybe it carried over - people were used to worshipping a Mother goddess).

We Protestants, of course, do have a choice – there is a tradition of venerating Mary in some parts of the Protestant Church, but it is far from compulsory. We honour her as the Mother of our dear Lord – and we honour her, too, for her bravery in saying “Yes” to God like that. After all, had Joseph repudiated her for carrying someone else’s child, she could have ended up on the streets!

As for the Assumption – well, who knows? Some Catholics think she was still alive when that happened, but the official position is unclear. The Orthodox call it the Dormition, or falling-asleep, and celebrate her death, but they, too, believe her body was carried up to heaven. But I am amused to learn that in Italy, the day is called “Ferragosto”, and is far older than Christianity – it was originally a festival of the goddess Diana, and became a public holiday during the reign of the Emperor Augustus! We Christians do like to take a pagan festival and turn it into something else, don’t we?! (And goddess-worship, perhaps!)

But what, then, can we learn from Mary? We don’t tend to think of her very much, at least, I don’t. But there is that incredible bravery that said “Yes” to God – and remember, she didn’t know the end of the story, not at that stage! There are times I wonder what she must think of it all! But she was totally submitted to God in a way that very few people can claim to be.

And, of course, there is what she said to the servants at that wedding in Cana - “Do whatever He tells you”. And that’s not a bad motto to live by, either: Do whatever Jesus tells you. Amen.