Sunday's coming!

Lent 2 - The way of the cross

2012-03-02T15:37:00.002Z

Mark 8:31 – 38 : Romans 4:13 – 25

I was never a specially daring child, though I’ve had my share of bumps and scrapes. One thing I remember trying several times, though, is walking along a see-saw. You start at the end on the ground, you inch your way up, up hill, towards the middle where you know that, any minute now you’ll reach the point at which the whole thing tips the other way and you can run down the other side & off, preferably without breaking any bones!

We’re at that point in Mark’s gospel today, the tipping point, the dangerous bit where one end flies up and the other down and then it’s down-hill all the way for Jesus.

Up until this point, Jesus has gone about healing and teaching and constantly people have been asking themselves ‘who is this?’. Now, here at Caesarea Philippi – Peter has finally answered the question “You are the Messiah”.

Jesus immediately tells the disciples to hush – and then goes on to say what we have heard today, so that they will understand just what sort of Messiah he is.
Jesus doesn’t want them to get carried away with thoughts of political power or violent rebellion. He says ‘the Son of Man must suffer and die’. He makes them stop with everything in the balance and listen to what is ahead of them, before they rush down the second half of the see-saw.

And poor Peter, who just moments before got it so right, now gets it so wrong ‘not you, not this?’ - he rebukes Jesus for being so gloomy, at which Jesus says to him “get behind me Satan, you think as men think, not as God thinks.”

Jesus doesn’t say that he might suffer, or that he fears he will suffer, he is emphatic – he MUST suffer and die.

There has already been enough opposition to Jesus for him to see that at this point either he has to give up any attempt to demonstrate the coming of God’s kingdom – give up the healing and teaching and return to the life of a quiet carpenter from Nazareth, or he has to continue past the tipping point of the see-saw and face the consequential crash down that will come as the religious authorities of the day move to have him silenced for good.

Jesus must suffer and die – only by facing up to the worst that could be done to him and carrying on through death to resurrection could the ultimate power of God be demonstrated.

But then Jesus says something even more shocking to his disciples – “Anyone who wants to be a follower of mine must renounce self; he must take up his cross and follow me”.

Jesus is warning his followers that faith in him is not a spectator sport, it is something in which they have to get up and get involved. Just as Paul describes the faith of Abraham as all-important, so Jesus demands faith in him.
And Abraham’s faith wasn’t a ‘sit by the fireside and tell old stories’ kind of faith – it was a faith which led him to leave his home in Ur and travel to Haran; a faith that made him leave his new home of Haran & travel into the desert – a faith of such trust in God that the impossible became possible, yet a faith that demanded trust in action from Abraham.
Jesus demands this kind of faith in action from his disciples.

And not just any action – being prepared to take up the cross – being prepared to stand with Jesus Christ and shoulder the burden of suffering and pain. Whilst he is totally dedicated to the work of the kingdom of God, Jesus is clear-sighted about the suffering that will follow for him and the suffering his followers might also suffer. Until the kingdom comes finally and in power, Jesus is reminding his followers that they will not be immune from suffering when they follow him – in fact the very act of discipleship will bring suffering and death to some.

So what does it mean to us to take up the cross and follow Jesus?

I think it means many things:
It means being prepared to lay down our lives, to give ourselves completely to God, to ask first in any decision ‘what is God’s will?’ and not simply to follow our own inclinations.

It means being realistic about the fact that our faith will not make us immune to the suffering of the world around us – that just because all things are possible with God we cannot expect an easy ride. Following Jesus may not be impossible but sometimes it can be, as a friend said recently, “bloomin’ hard”.

Ask the young person who is made fun of by their class-mates or work-mates because they confess their Christian faith;
or ask the very able woman who has to decide whether to opt for personal happiness or service of Christ;
or ask the elderly widow or widower who is hanging onto faith when life is incredibly difficult and everyone around thinks they’re lonely and deluded…

Taking up our cross means actively seeking the way Christ calls us to follow, even if that way is difficult – and living with the consequences of knowing we could just have opted to stay where we were and stay comfortable.

I don’t know what taking up the cross might mean for each one of us here – and yet Jesus clearly tells us to take up the cross and follow.

Yet, if all that seems a gloomy message – remember the last part ‘take up your cross...and follow me’. The road may be difficult but we walk it with Jesus – beyond every tipping point he is there to catch us, for each journey he is the guide and the goal.

So have faith, take up your cross, and follow him.
Amen.

Lent 1 Baptism

2012-02-25T11:52:00.000Z

We have a baptism at one of the churches on Sunday - so this very short sermon is an attempt to reach a lot of people who maybe haven't been in church for a while. I'm trying to preach them Good News!

Mark 1: 9-15

You might wonder what the baptism of Jesus has in common with Lily’s baptism today.
First of all, the differences might strike you:
• Jesus’ baptism was nearly 2000 years ago.
• He was a grown adult and chose to be baptised himself, he wasn’t taken by his parents.
• The baptism happens outside, in a river, not in a church at all.

But the amazing thing that happens at Jesus’ baptism is that people hear the voice of God say to Jesus "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

This is the point at which Jesus starts living the life that God has planned – telling people what we call ‘the Good News’ – telling people that God loves them, that God’s love and care is always with them, and that they can live lives where they have a relationship with God, a relationship so close that they can call God ‘Father’.

Jesus spent the rest of his life telling people that, and his life ended with him dying on a cross to show them that God’s love would do anything for them. And finally on Easter Sunday, his followers learned that God’s love was so powerful that Jesus was alive again and that the risen Jesus would never leave them.

The followers of Jesus believed what Jesus said about God’s love. And they began baptizing people to show that God’s love could give them a whole new life. Quite soon they realized that God’s love was for everyone from the moment they were born, and so they started baptising babies.

So here we are today baptising Lily.
Because we want to thank God for her life
And we want to thank God for loving her
And we want to celebrate the fact that God’s amazing love will be with her all through her life.
God wants Lily’s life to be something amazing – a life of love and a life lived knowing that God loves her. A life just like the life that Jesus always talked about – a life of following and listening to Jesus and learning more and more about God’s love.

And as we celebrate with Lily, God wants us all to know that God’s love is there for each one of us too.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.

Transfiguration

2012-02-20T17:49:00.000Z

Last week I had 3 funerals and everything else got a bit 'squished' as a result: just realised that I never got round to posting this - oops!

Mark 9: 2-9

The story of the transfiguration is one of the strangest of the episodes of Jesus’ ministry – so strange that some writers have suggested that it didn’t happen during Jesus earthly life at all, but is a resurrection appearance which has got misplaced in the gospel.
But if this is a resurrection story, it’s a very odd one – nowhere else do Moses & Elijah appear with the resurrected Jesus, or does anyone offer to build a shelter for Jesus, and in no other resurrection story is Jesus silent.

I think we learn most from the story when we take it that Mark has put it in the right place in the narrative of the life of Jesus: and in fact we learn most when we stop looking at what Jesus is doing, and pay more attention to the disciples: James, John & Peter.

Everything that happens in this story is directed at the 3 disciples:
Jesus led them up the mountain
He is transfigured before them
There appeared to them Moses & Elijah
A cloud overshadowed them
They saw no-one with them
Jesus ordered them to tell no-one what they had seen.

Whatever happens on that mountain, it is for the disciples’ benefit, it is to help them understand more about Jesus’ identity and purpose: it offers them a glimpse of the glory that truly belonged to Jesus, and which is normally veiled in his earthly ministry.

Jesus wants these three disciples to understand his true identity – but then he swears them to secrecy.
You may well have noticed this theme of secrecy throughout Mark’s gospel – after any statement or display of his identity, Jesus is often heard saying ‘tell no-one’.
This can seem puzzling: does Jesus want his followers to know who he is, or not?

Mark starts his gospel with the clear statement that he is writing ‘The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God’. Mark is in no doubt about who Jesus is – God made flesh. But as the gospel is told, Mark wants his hearers and readers to understand Jesus’ identity in the context of the whole of his life.

It is almost as if he wants us to see the jig-saw pieces falling into place, rather than being in too much of a rush to cheat and look at the whole picture on the lid of the box. It may well be that Mark wants us to understand how it was for these disciples – slowly but surely coming to terms with the fact that their friend and master, Jesus, was the incarnate Son of God come to save the world through his death and resurrection.

As the narrative of Mark’s gospel starts to move us towards Jerusalem, and as in our church year we are about to begin Lent and the journey to Easter, we come face to face with the transfigured Christ. Whatever happens to this man Jesus in the days to come – the opposition, betrayal, arrest, scourging and crucifixion – even death itself – is happening to the Son of God.
And Peter James and John are the ones entrusted with the clearest vision of who Jesus is, so that after death and resurrection, they can help everyone to make sense of what has happened among them in Jesus.
However we envisage the transfiguration of Jesus, we cannot escape the parallels with another time Jesus was alone with James John & Peter – a time which perhaps shows another attempt by Jesus to tutor them into a better understanding of his identity.
The next time when Jesus draws these 3 disciples away from the others will be in the garden of Gethsemane. They will hear Jesus pray ‘Father, take this cup away from me – yet not my will but yours be done’.

This Jesus, their friend, is revealed to them at the transfiguration as the one who bears the whole of the glory of God. God himself says ‘this is my son – listen to him!’. And then as the point of death is very near, as they listen to Jesus, they hear him accept the will of the father – even though he knows he will have to drink from the cup of suffering.

And what about us? Thanks to Mark’s gospel, alongside other sources, we are privileged to know just who Jesus is – the Son of God, come, veiled in flesh, to live and die and live again for love of the world. This is where Peter James & John’s story of the transfiguration becomes good news for us.

In this strange story we see a glimpse of Jesus’ real identity. Jesus is not just another man, even a good teacher, or a prophet among prophets. Jesus is God incarnate – Jesus is God’s initiative, God action of self-giving.

As Lent begins next week, can we find ways to deepen our knowledge of Jesus, explore his identity more fully, and share our faith with others?
Can we be part of the company of those who help the full jigsaw of the story of Jesus to be completed – in what we say to others and what we do for them?

Here at the table of the Lord we are welcomed and invited to share in his life and death and resurrection as we celebrate with this bread and wine.

May we see and know and grow in the love of Jesus Christ – to God’s glory. Amen.

The God who heals

2012-02-11T21:47:00.000Z

Readings:
2 Kings 5: 1-14
Mark 1: 40-45

Imagine the story of the healing of Naaman the Syrian was a play – which part would you most like to be cast in?

Naaman is on stage a lot of course – it’s his story in many ways so he has top billing. He is a very successful army commander but suffers from leprosy and needs healing. But although Naaman is the focus of the story I think he’s too prone to making mistakes to really be the hero.

Instead, you might like to look at the important parts played in the story by the 3 servants:

Naaman's wife's servant is the one who tells Naaman to go to Elisha for healing in the first place - she has faith in her God.

I think she’s quite a heroine in the story, actually. If she was resentful towards her owner (and remember she’s been captured in battle, so didn’t exactly choose to be serving Naaman’s wife) the story might never have got started. But when she sees Naaman’s suffering she has faith that God, through Elisha, can and will heal him.

Naaman's own servant is the one who persuades him to bathe in the miserable little river Jordan - he seems to a pragmatist, when he says 'if the prophet had told you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?'. Whether he believes it will work or just thinks Naaman might as well try it, we don't really know. But without him, Naaman would simply have gone home unhealed. His attitude to Elisha’s offer of healing seems to be ‘it can’t hurt, so you might as well try’.

Elisha's servant appears twice – firstly he’s the one that delivers Elisha’s instructions to Naaman, since Elisha himself won’t even leave the house to talk to Naaman. Then, after Naaman has given in, bathed in the Jordan, and been healed, Naaman tries to pay Elisha for his services & the prophet refuses payment. Elisha’s servant appears again, going running after Naaman to claim some of the money. And he is punished with the skin disease. He thinks God’s power is something he can cash in on.

I think those three different servants help us to reflect on the 3 different reactions to God’s power to heal.

How do we feel about God’s healing?
Do we say ‘I suppose we could try it? – it can’t make things any worse – are we pragmatic like Naaman’s servant?

Do we see God’s healing power as something to cash in on – something we can offer people who come to our church, perhaps – an added extra for church membership?

Or like Naaman’s wife’s servant, the young girl whose name we do not know, do we accept God’s ability to heal and trust that if it is God’s will, healing can follow?

We may feel there’s an echo of this same trust in the words of the leper who comes to Jesus. “If you choose you can make me clean”.
And Jesus’ response is just as simple ‘I do choose. Be made clean’.
Jesus shows us God’s healing at work in the life of a man who desperately needs it.

He needs it because being a leper is a life sentence which leads to him being considered unclean and an outcast.
He needs it to be able to work.
He needs it to be able to even live in the same house as his family.

Jesus gives him the greatest gift, the gift of healing.
But did you notice that Jesus doesn’t waste time asking what this man’s attitude is to the healing Jesus offers? He may want his livelihood back and be interested in money, like Elisha’s servant; he may just be desperate and willing to give it a go, like Naaman’s servant; or he may have absolute faith, like the servant girl who serves Naaman’s wife.

Whatever his reasons or his thinking, he asks Jesus for help. And Jesus heals him.

When as Christians we start thinking about healing we may get ourselves in all sorts of knots. How does healing work? Why isn’t everyone healed? When will God heal us and when will he offer us the new life that comes through death?
We can’t answer these questions, and yet maybe the stories of both Naaman the Syrian and of the leper healed by Jesus teach us that if we can just find faith enough to ask for help, God will reach out and touch us, and make us whole.

Whatever our needs this day, may the risen Jesus grant us healing in his name, so that we may celebrate at his table in this bread and wine, just as one day we will celebrate the new life of heaven.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.

Jesus heals in the power of God

2012-02-05T07:09:00.000Z

Whether this sermon gets preached depends on the weather - more snow here than we're used to - I feel that church members may prefer to stay at home!

(Isaiah 40: 21-31, Mark 1 : 29-39)

Brrr! Those who know me well know I am no lover of Winter: I was really rather relieved to see the back of January and as far as I’m concerned the best thing about February is that it’s shorter, if only by 2 days this year. I am obviously not alone in finding this time of year difficult, though, at least three different dates in January were declared to be the ‘most depressing day of the year’ – thanks to a combination of short days, cold weather, and the after-effects of Christmas.

So I’m glad that we’ve heard Isaiah’s vision of a wider perspective, to lift our eyes and spirits to something higher.

I love the Isaiah reading for its grandeur of vision about the greatness of God.
“It is God who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in;
who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing”.

When our minds are filled with the many worries of life, it is good sometimes to remember that we are really very small in the great scheme of things – and that God is over all and above all things that concern us.

But Isaiah also gives us a sense that this God, incredibly great and powerful though God is, cares for us and will use his greatness to lift us up when we most need it. So we have those wonderful words:
‘those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
These are words to encourage and amaze us. God is great and rules over all, but God is concerned for us – none of our burdens are insignificant to God, and God promises us strength when we most need it.

When in Mark's gospel Jesus comes to declare God’s coming kingdom, we find him assailed by the many concerns of the people around him, but determined to show that God’s care and God’s power to heal extends to everyone.

Mark tells us of a day in the life of Jesus – and it’s a Sabbath day, too! Having healed a man in the synagogue described as possessed by a devil, Jesus seeks rest in the house of Peter and Andrew. But immediately he arrives he is told that Peter’s mother-in-law is sick – and so Jesus goes and heals her, so completely that she is able to wait on them at table.

Then there seems to be a respite, until the sun sets, the sabbath is over, and then more and more people are brought to Jesus for healing. Finally Jesus goes off to pray alone, but then early the next morning Peter & the other disciples hunt him down, to tell him that more people are looking for him.

Maybe this sense of being surrounded by demands is familiar to us. Yet in all the demands, Jesus is clear 'this is what I came out to do - to proclaim the good news of the kingdom and to cast out demons'.

The healings Jesus carries out by ‘casting out demons’ are the hardest for our modern minds to cope with. We might understand these stories as being about mental illness, and so see them as healing stories.

But it is interesting that Mark tells that Jesus does many of these sorts of healing in his ministry, and that Jesus himself points to the importance of this.
Now, I am not about to suggest that our world is full of demons which we do not recognise. But I think our world is full of ‘possession’.
On Friday last week I had cause to travel to King’s Cross on the train – I saw people possessed by selfishness, rushing past someone struggling with a push-chair; I heard a conversation between two people possessed by envy, discussing bankers’ bonuses; and as I passed through Tottenham I thought about the greed which had possessed those caught up in the looting last summer.

As Jesus begins his ministry, he starts by clearing the decks – removing those things which possess people, so that they can receive the good news of God’s kingdom and the gift of God’s love.
What is most impressive to those of us who feel overwhelmed is that Jesus is happy to turn back to the crowds, again and again. Jesus’ work of healing is not the only reason he has come to live among us, and yet he knows that if we are to listen to the message he brings of God’s kingdom of love and if we are to begin a new relationship with God through him then we must first be healed of what ails us and made free from all that possesses us.

Jesus has come to bring life in all its fullness. To those who wonder if life has any meaning or purpose; to those who feel completely overwhelmed by worry or sickness or just too many demands in life; to those who long to be lifted up in the strength of God.

Jesus brings us new life – his life – in this bread and this wine. And he invites us to share his life and know its power. Thanks be to God. Amen.

2012-02-02T17:46:00.000Z

Readings for this week:
Isaiah 40: 21-31
Mark 1 : 29-39

I love the Isaiah readings for its grandeur of vision about the greatness of God - but then the sense it gives that this great God cares for us and will use his greatness to lift us up when we most need it. Then Mark's gospel shows Jesus doing just that - no grandeur now, but the healing and caring is held in one human being.
I used the gospel reading during the week to help a meeting to reflect on its work - it seemed people could sympathise with Jesus' very Busy Day - and its meant to be Sabbath, too! Yet in all the demands, Jesus is clear 'this is what I came out to do - to proclaim the good news of the kingdom and to cast out demons' - which I take to mean clearing the ground, freeing people of what 'possesses' them, so that the can receive the good news of God's love.

Priorities, perspective... all these things are washing about in my head. And then I spotted on Facebook someone reading an article about 'the five regrets of the dying'. The article is here

The five top regrets are

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

I am still processing how (if at all) these things connect to the good news of the kingdom & the lives of our churches and the people in them...
Looks like I need to do some hard thinking tomorrow..

Christ in the temple

2012-01-29T06:42:00.000Z

Candlemas/Week of prayer for Christian Unity

I know there are people here who dislike the word ‘ecumenical’ – and prefer the more descriptive ‘churches working together’. And as we gather to celebrate the week of prayer for Christian unity we are demonstrating ‘churches working together’ – we have chosen to worship together today, to sing together, pray together, open scripture together & celebrate communion together.

So it would have been easy, preparing this sermon, to focus on what more we can do together, how we can work together more closely and more effectively so that we can be a more effective witness, to the world, of the God we worship and serve together.

But then I read the Gospel reading more carefully – and it challenges me to say something rather different.

There is so much happening in the story of the presentation of Christ in the temple.
Mary & Joseph come with their offering to give thanks for the safe delivery of Mary’s child, and to bring Mary herself back into the worshipping community.
Simeon and Anna are waiting in God’s temple for the time of God’s salvation to come, and they give thanks when they see this tiny baby brought into the temple by his parents. They recognize and give thanks that God is at work in this baby.
Mary, Joseph, Simeon and Anna are just the witnesses of the real cause of celebration. They celebrate God at work, God revealed in this baby.

So this story teaches us to look for what God is doing in this world – God with us, alongside us, bringing in the kingdom almost by stealth, inviting people to follow Jesus and join his work to bring in justice, peace, freedom for all people.
We sometimes forget, in our concern to ‘run’ our churches, to keep the show on the road, and maybe, if we have the energy, to work with other churches, that these are not our churches at all, but they are parts of the body of Christ.

And Christ said ‘I will build my church’ not ‘I will build my churches’ – nowhere in what Jesus says do we find an intention to divide people, but everywhere Jesus declares unity, belonging, one-ness in Him.

As we celebrate the presentation of Christ in the temple together, we are challenged, like Simeon and Anna, to see what it is that God is doing among us. Simeon and Anna are both long in years and stalwarts in the temple. They have worshipped faithfully over many years and now they see the first signs of the light of Christ – a light that will grow and will challenge all the dark places of the world. But this is God’s initiative, not ours.
Jesus will grow to call others to follow him – and those who follow faithfully will continue to know God with them.
With the strength of the Spirit, we can follow Christ faithfully and discover the Christian Unity which is God’s will and God’s gift. And so I’m afraid we do use the word ‘ecumenism’ because it reminds us that we are part of God’s economy, part of God’s dealing with the world, we are all part of God’s activity. The word itself can be translated ‘the household of God’ – we are all part of one, much larger whole... in God.

But this isn’t an excuse to sit back and say ‘well, we’re one in Christ really, so as long as we get together from time to time, God can bring about our true unity when he’s ready’.
Simeon may have been a faithful worshipper in the temple, but he recognizes that when God acts there is a challenge to change which is so fundamental that some will see it as a threat.
So Simeon says to Mary ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too’. He make it clear that recognizing God with us is not a reason for complacency, but is a very real challenge. There will be pain in Christ’s journey, there will be hard work, and rejection and a journey through death itself.

All around us are signs that the church as we know it is changing and possibly even dying. We might long for a return to some glory days of the church – we might even wonder whether working together might reverse some of the decline – huddling together for warmth against the bleak winds of change.
But I think we are challenged to be bolder than this, as we seek the truth of God’s unity.
Ecumenism - seeking our unity – is not a pretty add-on to the ‘real work’ of keeping our churches going - but is a reaction to the disturbance that all is NOT as it should be. Jesus says that we are one – and if we do not show it, we damage our mission. I am not simply blaming denominationalism for the decline of the church in the West – it’s much more complex than that – but if the state of the church disturbs us, than maybe that is healthier than a false comfort.
Christ comes, God’s gift to the world, and the world will never be the same again. Christ’s presence is a gift to disturb and change and ultimately to heal the world. Christ’s presence is a gift to disturb and change and ultimately heal his body, the church.
If we seek to receive the gift God gives us, it can empower us to be one and as one to share the good news of God’s love for our world.

May it be so, according to God’s will. Amen.

Follow me!

2012-01-18T21:56:00.001Z

Notes for Sunday's sermon on Mark 1: 14-20

There’s something fishy about this story of the call of the disciples – and I don’t mean Peter, Andrew, James & John themselves.

At first hearing we probably wonder how they did it. We imagine ourselves, going about our ordinary everyday business: just as the fishermen were.
Jesus walks along the shore and says, almost casually ‘follow me and I will make you fish for people’. And immediately they leave their nets, and James & John leave their father, and follow Jesus.

We might wonder what someone would have to say to us to get us to drop our whole lives like that, and follow. And John the Baptist has just been arrested – so maybe this isn’t a good time to be associating with his cousin Jesus, the one who John has called ‘the lamb of God’.
These fishermen – how brave, how daring, maybe how foolish. Could we be that brave? That daring? That foolish?

But the first fishy thing is that this story of Jesus, the one whom they will learn to call rabbi, teacher, is all the wrong way round. Rabbis didn’t go looking for followers: people who wanted to learn from a rabbi sought out a rabbi to follow. It’s as if Jesus doesn’t understand about the traditions of religious teaching of his day.

Here is the system – as Jesus knew all too well.
From the age of about 6 until about 10 every little Jewish boy would have gone to the local synagogue school, where they would have learnt the Torah – the Law – the first five books of Holy Scripture. They would learn the whole thing by heart, so that they could read and recite the Torah.
For some boys, education stopped then and they would leave formal learning and begin to learn their family trade: farming, fishing, carpentry. The brighter boys would carry on learning until they were 14 – they would learn all the rest of the scriptures – what we call the Old Testament – the books of history and poetry and prophecy. And they would learn to answer questions with other questions, not just to give answers by rote. Of course we are used to hearing Jesus answer questions with other questions as an adult – but we also have at least one example of him doing that as a 12 year old, when he gets lost and is found in the temple – deep in discussion with the teachers of the law – meeting questions with questions. It seems that Jesus progressed to this higher form of learning.

Then at 13 or 14 the boy who knew all the Scriptures would, if he wanted to progress, go and look for a rabbi from whom he could learn still more. A young man would find a rabbi he respected and say ‘rabbi, I wish to become your disciple’. The rabbi would test the boy with lots of questions to make sure that this was someone he could teach – someone with the right calibre of mind for the task. And if the young man performed well, and the rabbi agreed to accept him as a student, the rabbi would then say ‘Come, follow me’.
Those who are advanced, and bright, and keen, seek out the rabbi. If he thinks they are good enough he says ‘follow me’.
That’s the usual way that it worked in Jesus’ day.

Meanwhile, back on the beach – are four fishermen. We don’t know how old they are. We don’t know whether they had any schooling beyond the age of 10 – but we do know that they weren’t seemingly looking for a rabbi.
They weren’t the grade A students jostling for a place with the finest rabbi of that time. They were doing their very ordinary job – not a very glamorous job, either – hard work… outdoors work… smelly work, if we’re honest.
And something incredibly fishy happens. Out of the blue comes the strangest of rabbis, who cuts out all the interview stage and jumps straight to the ‘job offer’ – “follow me and I will make you fish for people”.

Very fishy. Very strange. And what makes these definitely NOT grade A students follow? Well, that’s the other fishy thing about the story. Mark tells it very simply - Jesus said "’Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him.”
Strange, and yet a pattern Mark is going to use a lot.
Later in this very same chapter Jesus meets a man with an unclean spirit in the synagogue. Jesus says “‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.”.
A little while later Jesus has a man with leprosy come up and beg him for help. Jesus says “‘Be made clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.”.

Jesus says ‘follow me’ and they follow.

Maybe it’s not so fishy after all. Jesus is so much more than a rabbi – he is the one who speaks healing and it happens. When he speaks of the kingdom of God – it is here. When he says ‘follow’, even the second-rate and fishiest amongst us are given the strength to follow.

This is not, after all, a story about how four men find the courage the follow Jesus the rabbi.
This is the story of how in Jesus we see God acting in our world. He comes to us – he calls us – even the least likely of us. He accepts those whom the world might reject and his call gives us the power to follow him. This is the story that shows us what Jesus can do for us: take us, transform us, and make us an amazing part of his wonderful project – building the kingdom of God. Listen for his call – and receive his power – today.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.

"Oh give me Samuel's ear!"

2012-01-13T10:00:00.000Z

Readings for this week:
1 Samuel 3: 1-10 , John 1: 43-51

I blame Sunday school. That and the hymn ‘hushed was the evening hymn, the temple courts were dark’. But I have always read this story of God’s call in the temple as the call of Samuel.

The young boy is woken by God’s voice calling in the night. Samuel assumes that it is Eli who is calling him, and is taught by the old priest how to respond to God’s call & listen to what God has to say. You can see why it’s a favourite in Sunday schools: God speaks to a young child, so all young children better sit up and listen!

But when Samuel does listen to what God has to say, this is what God says:
‘See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfil against Eli all that I have spoken

concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house for ever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them.’

The message is for Eli. In the previous chapter, we have been told that Eli’s sons, Hophni & Phineas, priests by birth, have been using their position to steal food from worshippers. Eli knows this, but despite his rebuke it seems he can’t stop them from disrespecting people and God. Then a ‘man of God’ comes to Eli and warns him that God will punish his sons, since Eli won’t: both sons will die on the same day.
So although Samuel is understandably reticent to pass on God’s message to Eli, in fact he is not telling Eli anything he doesn’t already know. Eli knows his sons are rotten. He knows that God will punish them. He knows that his role of priest will no longer be continued after his death by his sons.
Samuel just confirms what he already knows.
In the darkness of the temple that night, it is to Eli that God is really calling – using Samuel to communicate to Eli what will happen.
Eli’s sons will die. Then who will be the faithful priest to the people in Eli’s place?
God’s message to Samuel does not say. But the fact that the message come through Samuel tells Eli that his successor will not be one of his sons but will be Samuel himself.

This story, that at first sounds like a sweet story for children, turns out to be part of a rather difficult history which shows God’s people how God is continually acting in new ways and through new people – and that those who are wise will listen for God’s word and be ready to join in the new thing with God.

We encounter this story during our celebration after Epiphany – we are remembering how God is revealed to us in the events of Christmas and in the baby of Bethlehem. But our Christmas story, too, cannot simply be read as a sweet children’s story – the magi turn up with the strange gift of myrrh, and force us to think about what will happen to the child, Jesus – how he will grow, what he will do and say, how God will be revealed in his whole life and death & resurrection.

Samuel will grow – he will continue to listen to the Lord God’s call and he will be considered a wise man of God – he will in fact be looked upon as a judge: a ruler for the people of Israel. But then, in a strange repetition of Eli’s story, just as Eli’s sons turn bad, so do Samuel’s sons – and again the line of succession shifts so that instead of Samuel’s sons becoming judges, Samuel is told by God to anoint Saul as the first king over the people of Israel.

You might wonder why we need this chunk of ancient history.
But whenever we hear of what God has done in the past we are forced to ask how God is acting now.

I think it is human nature to want to know what will happen in the future. The new year brings a flurry of predictions about who will be the stars of 2012, or what products will be big, or of astrologers trying to tell us what will happen to us. Like Eli, we might want to settle down into the idea that we will be succeeded by our children: even when all the signs point in an opposite direction. But if we listen to God, we find God has a plan – not our plan, not a set plan, not a nice quiet predictable plan. God will do a new thing, and will keep doing new things – God will call to young and old, and those who respond will be made part of God’s kingdom and rule in ever new ways.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, back in 2003, said in an address that Mission is “finding out what God is doing and joining in”. The story of Eli & Samuel shows us that we need to continue to be attentive to what God is doing and saying, because God’s plan is responsive to what people are doing or failing to do.
In the same address, Rowan Williams said “What makes a Church is the call of Jesus Christ, and our freedom and ability, helped by grace, to recognise that call in each other. The first reality is God's action in summoning us together as a people.”

So when in John’s gospel Jesus calls people, it isn’t a romantic story of small children, it deals with very ordinary, adult men, called into a fellowship of the followers and disciples of Jesus.

Andrew has seen Jesus baptized by John the Baptist, and tells Peter, his brother. Philip is from the same place as Peter & Andrew so maybe they’ve told him something about Jesus. But all Jesus says to Philip is ‘follow me’ – and not only does he decide to do it, he goes to fetch Nathanael as well.
Jesus tells Nathanael he saw him under the fig tree & that’s enough to convince Nathanael that Jesus is the King of Israel.
What they have seen & heard, what they have learnt about Jesus is enough to convince them to follow and learn more.

We cannot know what 2012 will hold. We cannot even be sure how God’s call will reach us in the year to come. But we know that God is faithful and loving and that God’s purposes are for all the world to hear of God’s love and mercy. We will need, this year, to be listening and attentive to what god is doing, as God finds ever new ways to communicate love to all people.

May we be helped to hear the call, and strengthened through this bread and wine to follow Jesus.
And may we be challenged even by the familiar words of the hymn 'hushed was the evening hymn' - since when we pray 'Oh give me Samuel's ear' we may not hear what we want to hear: but we will hear what God needs to tell us.
To God's praise & glory.
Amen.

Epiphany notes

2012-01-08T07:27:00.002Z

So finally the three kings make it to the Christmas party.
But perhaps not quite the three kings we were expecting.
There are the magi, of course – the visitors from the East who come with their gifts of Gold, Frankincense and myrrh. Sometimes we assume that as there were three gifts there were three of them – but Matthew doesn’t tell us. But whether they are kings or simply astronomers their gifts and the story of their journey tell us important things about kingship.
Their kingship is that of knowledge and wisdom and the willingness to enter into adventure in search of the truth.

Along their journey, the magi encounter a second king, Herod. His kingship is of a very different kind. He exercises power over his kingdom – he defends himself against the potential threat of another king. He is a king who is keen to show the authority tat comes with his position.

Of course journey’s end for the magi comes with the king they are actually seeking all along – the third king of the story - Jesus. Having failed to find him in a palace with Herod, they encounter him in an ordinary village

The magi present their symbolic gifts. The gold and frankincense are mentioned in the Isaiah reading. They are the gifts that symbolise the coming of people to praise the Lord God. The gold is often seen as a symbol of grandeur and power – like Herod’s kingship. The frankincense points to the kingship of mystery and wisdom – like that of the magi. But the magi also bring a third gift, which shows that Jesus’ kingship has a different dimension, in addition to the glory of Herod and the wisdom of the magi.
Myrrh symbolises death, self-sacrifice, the willingness to lay aside the glory and the wisdom of kingship for a greater purpose.
This third and greatest king, Jesus, will live and die and rise again to show people the true power he wields – the power to love and change the world. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Re-entry!

2012-01-04T17:15:00.000Z

After a wonderful church celebration of Christmas (many, many services, but I wouldn't have missed them for the world!) followed by a lovely family celebration of Christmas & then a great break away for the New Year, here I am back in harness.
Sunday we will be marking Epiphany: how Jesus Christ shows us God.
the readings are:
Isaiah 60.1-6
&
Matthew 2.1-12

I am struck by the three kings of the Matthew reading: not the three we assume came with the gold, frankincense & myrrh, but the kingship of Herod (which is about power & fear); of the Magi (which is about wisdom); and the kingship of Jesus (which is about sacrifice - the self-emptying to come to our world in order to touch and heal and save us.. ultimately expressed in death on the cross).
The three gifts of the magi point us to this - gold (power & riches), frankincense (wisdom & mystery) & myrrh (death & self-offering).

At some point I will post the notes which will form the 8am sermon on this: but I have also to come up with an all-age service which (as an experiment) will be held in the local primary school, not the church - God with us, where we are, not only where & how we expect him, offering us a new start for a new year.

Christmas Eve

2011-12-23T16:53:00.000Z

It is nearly time for the child to be born.

The birth of a child is always good news. In the bit of the world I come from – the Yorkshire/Lancashire border, there’s a poet who’s well known - Sam Laycock. In his poem ‘bonny brid’ – written about the birth of yet another child to a poor family during a time of famine in Lancashire, he manages to be realistic about how hard it is and yet strikes a positive note of good news at the birth of a child:

Tha’rt welcome, little bonny brid ,
But shouldn’t ha’ come just when tha did;
Toimes are bad.
We’re short o’ pobbies for eawr Joe,
But that, of course, tha didn’t know,
Did tha, lad?

Cheer up! These toimes ‘ll awter soon;
Aw’m beawn to beigh another spoon-
One for thee;-
An’, as tha’s sich a pratty face
Aw’ll let thi have eawr Charley’s place
On mi knee.

(For those who want to see more about the poem, there's a webpage here)

It is nearly time for the child to be born. And that birth is Good news.

It’s a night for good news. We’ve nearly got to Christmas day. Whatever isn’t done now – shopping, cleaning, delivering - will have to remain undone.
It is nearly time for the child to be born and for the world to rejoice.

And so we hear Isaiah promising a time of rejoicing, a time when the Lord God will come and live among his people.
It is nearly time for the child to be born – and that child is Christ the Lord – God among us at last.

But then we hear what John’s gospel has to say about the coming of what he calls ‘The Word’.
It is nearly time for the child to be born – and that child is the one who is not always recognised by the very world that he made. Yet John is clear “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

But just before that John says something even more amazing. He talks of children of God, born not through human desire and human will and human will, but by the will of God.

It is nearly time for the child to be born.
And some will say that that child is born because an angel told a virgin it would happen. And perhaps when you hear John speak of amazing birth, you might assume he’s speaking about the birth of Jesus himself.

But he isn’t – John is talking about the amazing truth that the gift of Jesus and his love makes it possible for all who believe in God’s love to become children of God – born by divine, not human means. John has nothing to say about the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, he is talking about our birth – yours and mine. John says that we can be born as children of God, if we just believe in his adoptive love.

It is nearly time for the child to be born.
And that child is you.
God bless you with love this Christmas. Amen.

Christmas Day

2011-12-23T13:51:00.000Z

A very short reflection...we all have turkeys to cook, don't we?

Christmas Day
So all through Advent we have been looking at the Advent gifts ‘ God can’t wait to give’
The lit candle – hope in the darkness.
The Word of God - which brings comfort.
The water - which reminds us of John the Bapitst & the new life from God.
The baby, born to Mary – who shows us how God chooses to enter the world.
Today’s final gift – is.. a crown (a simple paper crown from a cracker!)

We are reminded that the child, Jesus, the baby born to Mary & placed in the manger, is the King of all. He will grow to heal, teach, lead and ultimately to save people. His life, his death & his resurrection will demonstrate the amazing gift of the love of God.

God is born in human flesh – come to be among us and yet born to be our King and our Lord.

The crown also reminds us of the 3 wise ones who are traveling to worship this baby king – with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

But the crown also points us to the most amazing thing about Christmas – because we all know if we find a crown in our crackers this lunchtime that this crown is .. for us. (I will put the crown on here. And yes, I will look silly!)

Through this wonderful gift of Jesus at Christmas, God crowns us with love, comes to be with us for ever, and makes us his children and the heirs of the promise that we are all sons and daughters of the most high God – loved and precious as the richest royalty.
Enjoy your gifts, whatever they are, and enjoy God’s greatest gift of love. Amen.

Advent 4 notes

2011-12-17T18:45:00.000Z

Advent 4 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Luke 1:26-38

The Advent gifts ‘gifts God can’t wait to give’ just keep coming. We have had the lit candle – a sign of the light of hope in the darkness; the Word of God, which brings comfort; and the water – to remind us of John the Baptist and the promise of new life. This week’s final gift is…a child (photo of a baby), which reminds us that God decides how he will come into this world.

The idea that a child can be God’s gift to us is certainly not earth-shattering. I had a friend who used to joke ‘children are a gift from God – don’t tell him where you live!’. But Advent tells us that God does not just give us the gift of a child – but that the child who comes is God’s gift of himself.
We know this – it is why we sing ‘O come to us, abide with us, our Lord, Immanuel – God with us’.

But you might wonder about the relevance of the reading from the second book of Samuel, where David wants to construct a home for God. Through the prophet Nathan God makes it clear that he, God, will decide how and when he will be present with David. God reminds David of all that he has done for him – bring with him al his life as he lifted from obscurity and caring for sheep to be the most renowned king of Israel. Instead of David making a home for God, God promises to make a house for David – a family line which will stretch through the generations, all the way to Joseph and therefore to Jesus.

God does not need David to build him a house – God will decide how he will be present with God’s people. And when the time is right, God will not come to dwell in a house at all, but in the most unexpected way possible.
The gospel reading from Luke takes us to the very start of God’s plan to dwell with us – which we know as our Christmas story.

The angel Gabriel appears to Mary & tells her she will have the child who is to be the sign of God with us – the Immanuel – the incarnate son of God. God chooses Mary – God chooses birth – God chooses to be truly human. Mary agrees – and The Word is made flesh.

Depending on which gospel account you read, the angel also appears to Joseph to tell him not to be afraid to marry Mary as he had planned – and the couple who are chosen by God to be the parents of Jesus are all sorted out.

After that it might feel as if the plans go awry: first there is the Roman census which bring the couple & everyone else of David’s line to Bethlehem – just as the baby is due to be born. Then there is no room at the inn, and so the God of all creation is laid in a manger.

After the careful planning to be brought into the world, we might be tempted to think that God has let the planning slip rather – and allowed the birth to take place in less than ideal surroundings.

But when Luke tells us about the angels appearing to the shepherds there are songs of great rejoicing - good news to all the earth. Then the angels say a strange thing ‘this will be a sign to you. You will find the child wrapped us and lying in a manger’.

A sign to recognize Jesus? But the star and the angels take the shepherd to the place – surely there aren’t a huge number of babies born in Bethlehem that night , that the only way to recognize Jesus is that he is the one in the manger. So if the sign isn’t about identification of the right baby, of what is it a sign?

We immediately associate the word manger with our nativity scenes, with the account of Jesus’ birth. But of course a manger is the feeding trough for the common animals of Jesus’ time – the donkey, the cattle, the sheep and goats.

The sign which the angels refer to could be just this – that this Jesus who has come to dwell with us has come to be foodstuff, like straw in a manger – he has come to feed the world.

This is the child who will grow to feed the five thousand.
This is the child who will grow to offer his friends bread & wine and say ‘this is my body, broken for you’ ‘my blood, poured out for you’.
This is the child who will give up his life so that the whole world may know life in all its fullness.

Christ is born and is laid in a manger – as a sign that God is here to dwell with us and to feed and heal and change the world.

And so our Advent gift is of the baby who is truly God with us , for us, in us.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Advent 4 initial thoughts

2011-12-12T12:01:00.000Z

This coming Sunday I have two more Carol services & just one 'preaching service'.

The theme for this week is Mary: ‘God decides how he will be ‘housed’ in this world’
Object in the 'bag' will be a baby photo

The readings are
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
Luke 1:26-38

I heard a great sermon on the significance of the manger from Susan Durber at Westminster College, & I think I want to contrast to care with which preparations are made for any baby being brought into the world - and especially the birth of Jesus - and the whole 'laid him in a manger' bit. Luke has the angels tell the shepherds this is a 'sign'. A sign of what? presumably the identity of this special baby: Jesus, the one who will feed the world, who will be the bread of life for all.

Advent 3 notes

2011-12-08T09:24:00.000Z

Readings this week:
Isaiah 61: 1-4
John 1: 6-8, 19-28

Advent 3
Today’s advent ‘gift’ from God: is water.

I don’t expect any of us will find ourselves unwrapping a bottle of water this Christmas day: but we couldn’t manage long without the gift of water.
What does water mean to us? We associate water with life – growing, drinking, washing, cleansing.

We have heard in the gospel reading how John the Baptist comes baptising with water – he is offering a new start, a turning around, repentance. John offers people a new beginning – but he is clear that his role is only to start people on the path to a better life. John is the forerunner for the Lord who is to come – he is clear that what people really need is not his baptism with water, but what Jesus has to offer: a new life knowing that God is with them.

So our gift of water is only a sign of the Advent gift of life. What does this life look like?
Stop for a moment & hear the voice of John the Baptist ‘Make straight the way for the Lord!’.

What is it the Lord comes offering us? The prophet Isaiah declares:
“He has sent me to announce good news to the humble, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, release to those in prison.. to comfort all those who mourn.”

For the people of God at a time when their country has been invaded, their leaders have been taken captive and their sons have been slain in battle, God, through Isaiah, is offering what they most want, most need, most long for. Like water to someone dying of thirst – God offers the gift of life worth living.
When you hear these words from Isaiah you might remember, perhaps, that in Luke’s gospel these are the words with which Jesus begins his ministry, when he is about 30 years old. Jesus is the fulfilment of God’s promise to bring the good news of comfort, liberty and healing. Jesus brings life in all its fullness.

We might wonder just how Jesus brings us this most wonderful gift.
We might even be tempted to jump ahead from Bethlehem with its manger and stable, wise men and shepherds – to jump ahead to a time when Jesus actually does something, begins healing & teaching.

Jesus himself was to grow to be thought of as a wise man, and to refer to himself as the Good Shepherd. Is the story of the birth of Jesus anything more than a humble beginning to the story of an extraordinary life?

The story of the birth of Jesus to Mary is not only found in the gospel stories of our Bible. The Koran – the holy book of the Muslims, also tells the story of an angel appearing to Mary to tell her she was to have a special child, even though she was a virgin. But in the Islamic tradition the story goes on to describe how Mary is rejected by her village & forced to give birth alone. Mary is only believed about the angel and all that stuff, and received back into the village, when Jesus, still a babe in arms, miraculously speaks and tells the people that she is telling the truth and that he is a prophet.

There are, of course, elements which are common to this account and what we are told in the Christian gospels. But for Muslims, Jesus is a prophet and not the Son of God – as soon as he can start to prophesy he can bring truth and understanding to people, he can do God’s work on earth.
The difference for us as Christians is that who Jesus is carries more importance than what he says or does. Jesus brings God’s promises of a time of peace and gladness and love before he can do anything at all – just by being here. We tell the good news of God with us in Jesus Christ – of the divine become human and entering this world as a helpless baby.

What does it mean to say that God gives us himself in Jesus?
It means that the phrase ‘God is with us’ is so much more than an empty promise or meaningless platitude. God has come to live among us to experience and understand our human condition, and then to transform it.

The truth of God with us takes us light years away from our pre-packaged, high pressure, high-spending Christmas. What we buy, what we eat, who we see is all secondary to the fact that God has touched this earth, taken on our human life, and shown us a glimpse of his heaven, where there is healing for our wounds, comfort for our sorrow, freedom where we are trapped.

We might wonder how this happens. Is Mary really a virgin when she gives birth to Jesus? Even if Jesus is the son of Mary & Joseph, how is he also the son of God? Why is this baby the one who shows us God?

All I can say is to quote the angel when Mary protests that she cannot become pregnant “with God, all things are possible”.
We cannot know how, but we are told that God enters our world in Jesus Christ: a helpless, crumpled, human baby.

Here is the greatest gift of all – wrapped in human flesh – the God of love come to us where we are, as we are, to make us all we are made to be.

Like the water that gives us life: God’s love is here – freely available and bring refreshment, new life and a fresh start.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.

Notes for Advent 2

2011-12-02T14:16:00.000Z

Advent 2
Isaiah 40: 1-11, Mark 1:1-8

This Advent I’ve been inspired by the John Lewis adverts on the TV. If you haven’t seen them yet, they star a 7 year old lad waiting for Christmas. We see him staring out of the window, looking at his advent calendar, trying to make the clock go faster, and finally gobbling down his peas on Christmas Eve so he can go to bed, where he shuts his eyes tight & tries hard to get to sleep. On Christmas morning he finally wakes up, but rushes straight past all his presents… because what he’s been waiting for is the chance to get a badly-wrapped present out of his wardrobe which he proudly takes in to give to his mum & dad.
The punchline is “For gifts you can’t wait to give”.
I’m not being sponsored by John Lewis, but when I got one of their bags, having bought some candles for Whittlesford URC, I thought I would use it.
But my version is modified –
“Advent: for gifts God can’t wait to give”.

Last week the gift was a candle – a sign of the advent hope God gives us: the light shining in the darkness.
This week the gift is the Bible – a sign of the ‘The Word of God’. What sort of gift is that?

We heard today from an earlier part of Isaiah from last week’s reading – today’s part of the book is known as second Isaiah – written at a time when the people of God were in exile. The Babylonian army had invaded Jerusalem and taken away many of the people and all of the leaders into Babylon. The people were in a terrible state – either left at home with no leaders, or living in a strange land among a strange people.

This was the time when (In Psalm 137) the psalmist writes ‘by the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion’.

To these people in the misery of their predicament, the prophet speaks the word of God : ‘Comfort’.

I wonder whether the word comfort is too soft for what the prophet believes God has in mind.

We use ‘comfort’ as the name for a fabric softener, we speak of comfort blankets and comfort zones. If you were to comfort someone you might imagine something soothing, full of platitudes – but the prophet is certainly not wanting to just say ‘there, there’ to God’s people!

Isaiah’s comfort has much more of a sense of purpose – almost force. The prophet is told to cry out to the people and assure them that although it might feel as if God has abandoned them, God is still with them, and will give Jerusalem ‘double for all her sins’. The pain and suffering is very real, but God will give them enough to sort out all their problems and more.

When the prophet speaks of the valleys being lifted up and the mountains and hills being made low, he may be speaking of the lengths people will go to, to prepare the way for God to come. But he might also be talking about the effect on the lives of people when God does come.
We all know about the peaks and troughs of life. We may never have experienced being held against our will in a foreign land, but none of our lives are immune from the holes into which we sometimes find we’ve sunk – illness, depression, financial worries, concerns about family or friends. There are times when we feel we have sunk into a pit.
The prophet says, more than that he declares, he cries out - that God will come and the valleys – and everyone in them – will be lifted up. God’s word of comfort is a promise that he will not leave us to languish – he will rescue us.

The prophet is realistic about our human lives ‘surely the people are like grass…the grass withers, the flower fades’ - we know the uncertainty of life – the only certain thing is that it will come to an end. But by contrast, the word of the Lord will stand forever – God’s presence and God’s rescue is a certainty in our uncertain world.

However bad life feels, however deep the pit, however shaky our foundations, the prophet Isaiah declares to God’s people then and now “Here is your God!”.
This is not a promise of comfort at some undefined point of the future – this is a promise that God is here, now, with us.

And God has come to act, not to offer platitudes or to sprinkle fairy dust.
He will feed his flock, gather the lambs, carry them, and gently lead the mother sheep.
This is the God who saves his people from their pit.
Real comfort is to be found not in words which make us feel better, but in a properly worked out escape plan!

You might wonder whether Isaiah’s phrase ‘for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it’ is focussed too much on words and not on action, but the great thing about the gift of God’s word is that it is an active force.
When God speaks – things happen. Remember way back in the beginning of the account of creation – each thing is brought into existence by the word of God – God says ‘let there be light’ and there is light.

So when God says ‘The glory of the Lord shall be revealed’ – that glory is already here. The word of God is timeless – it is for the past, present and future – and promises us the comfort of God’s presence with us for all time. So the beginning of Mark’s gospel sees the fulfilment in that time of Isaiah’s prophecy of a messenger preparing the way of the Lord with the coming of John the Baptist.

John declares that the glory of the Lord is to be revealed in the one who comes after him, Jesus – the one who will call himself Good Shepherd, who will come to save all God’s people.

So receive today’s Advent gift – the Word of God – the promise of God’s presence with us forever. Receive the gift, live in the knowledge of the comfort and salvation God offers, and be ready to share that gift with all who need to hear it this Christmas.
In the name of Jesus – the one who come to us. Amen.

What, no sermon?

2011-11-28T16:56:00.000Z

I did preach on Advent Sunday - but sadly, just as I had finished my sermon notes my Hard Drive died. It is now replaced but of course the sermon has gone! I made some notes in long hand (using paper & pen) & I'm not sure anyone noticed on Sunday - but it does mean there is no electronic version of the what I said. Sorry.

Thank goodness I'd saved the Advent ideas here, though - because that has gone, too!

Advent ideas

2011-11-22T11:02:00.001Z

I'm very grateful to Neil Thorogood of Westminster College for his ideas about Advent
downloadable here, along with a whole host of ideas from the wonderful Westminster staff.

I've decided to have a theme running through Advent: "The Gifts God can't wait to give". (Yes, I also owe inspiration to the John Lewis ad here - if you haven't seen it
(It still makes me cry when I watch - I think its beautifully filmed & a lovely sound track).

So, each Sunday of Advent I will pull out of my modified John Lewis bag (modified to read 'God's Advent - for gifts God can't wait to give) a symbol of the Advent theme for that week, as an intro into the sermon. This means I now need to sit down and decide what my theme will be for each week of Advent - but when I've done it, it could take a lot of the heat out of preparing worship for the next 5 weeks! So here's the outline:

Advent 1 Theme = hope
Isaiah 64:1-9
Mark 13:24-37
‘The day of the Lord – who comes’
Object: a candle to light (hope in the darkness – you could use this to then light the Advent candle)

Advent 2 Theme = God’s Word
Isaiah 40:1-11
Mark 1:1-8
‘The voice that calls out ‘prepare’
Objects could be: Bible

Advent 3 Theme = John the Baptist
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
John 1:6-8,19-28
‘The forerunner of the Messiah’
Objects could be: font (or a tap!)

Advent 4 Theme = Mary
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
Luke 1:26-38
‘God decides how he will be ‘housed’ in this world’
Objects could be: baby clothes or a baby photo

Christmas Day Theme = the birth
Isaiah 9:2-7
Luke 2:1-14
‘God with us’
Object: a crown (to help focus upon all that Jesus is);

Christ the King - notes for Sunday

2011-11-18T18:29:00.002Z

Christ the King
In a week where the news has been full of further protests against banking practices, unrest in the Arab nations, and financial questions about the euro, unemployment and recession, it might be tempting to look for a breather when you come to church.
But I think our Bible readings today make us think about our world and question still further: Where is God when life is difficult and unfair? What use is prayer when we’re struggling? Why can’t the Bible help us to make ethical decisions about money or power or what to do with our lives?

I'm particularly struck by the Ezekiel passage.
Three times we find the phrase, in the words spoken by the Lord God 'I myself..'.
I myself will search for my sheep.
I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep.
I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.

You might think all this ‘sheep’ talk is a long way from where we are. But clearly, through Ezekiel, God is wanting to tell his people that he will care for them. The leaders of Israel – prophets, judges, kings, don’t always get it right, of course. And when those leaders are doing a bad job, the prophets accuse them of being bad shepherds of the people. Shepherds are meant to care and tend, to lead the flock to safe pasture, to defend them against attack, to bring them all safely home.
Psalm 23 talks of God as the shepherd who cares, and this prophecy from Ezekiel picks up a lot of the same language, and might also remind us of Jesus parable of the good shepherd.
God will provide his people with a king – David – who will be a good shepherd. But more than that, God himself will search for the lost, care for them as a good shepherd does, and judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.
And this judgement is maybe not as people might have expected – God is not the shepherd who passes a practiced eye over the flock and sees which animals are thriving – are well-fed and strong, and prefers to choose the big animals as the ones to breed from. God does not judge the large as being the best.
God’s judgement is more like me when I’m feeding ducks.You know how it is. You throw in some food, onto the surface of the water – and there’s always one or two ducks who are quicker and bigger and more aggressive than the rest – they get to the front, they chase the others off, they gobble up more than their share. I get very upset when I’m feeding ducks - I try to throw the food nearer to the quieter, hungrier, smaller ducks at the back. I get very cross with the ones you know have had more than their share and I try to even things out.

Turns out that God, the good shepherd, works a bit like that, too – “Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.”.
God wants fair shares, not bullying and injustice.
When we’re facing questions in our world about liberty and justice and equality – God is clearly on the side of the underdog – or undersheep in the case of Ezekiel.

The theme of judgement is of course taken up in the parable, too. Jesus tells stories that show God’s concern for fairness – and because Jesus Christ is God incarnate, he shows us in his life how God feels towards us all. If Ezekiel’s words are the promise of God acting - God decalring 'I myself' will care – Jesus is that ‘I myself’ of God in a human form – God delivering on his promises to be with us and to care.
So we see Christ's care for the sheep as the good shepherd who searches for the lost and tends to sick and brings the bullies to account.
We might read the parable as a promise that one day – at the end of time – in the far and distant future, the Son of God will come and judge and sort it all out. This might not feel like a very satisfactory hope – that one day, in heaven, all will be well.

Bu the hope is nearer too us than that – because look at how Jesus will judge between people. He will separate them into those who have cared for others and those who have not. Christ's demand, as King of all time, is that we act as those who live by his rules. The demand for justice is not a distant demand for some imponderable time in the future. Jesus Christ demand action for justice now. We are called to be those who are responsible for searching, caring, and tending for the lost sheep of our world.

I seem to end up discussing this parable with people a lot, even when it’s not going to be used on Sunday.

It’s a great story because it challenges so may of our assumptions about what is right and good in life.
If we are people of faith, we might want to say ‘we should care for others because Jesus tells us to’ or even ‘we should serve others because we are serving Christ in the least of these…’. But Jesus is clear that those who have served the poor and the weak were oblivious as to Christ’s presence ‘When Lord, did we see you hungry and feed you?’; and in much the same way the goats – the ones who have ignored the needy, never thought of this as a spiritual matter ‘when Lord did we see you hungry and refuse to feed you?’.
Caring for the poor is not something we do because we are told or because we fear for our immortal souls. It is something we do because we recognise it is right.

In Christ’s kingdom there is life for all – and it is our task to see that all have the offer of life in all its fullness.In the name and through the power of God. Amen.

Christ the King

2011-11-15T20:19:00.000Z

Readings for this week include:
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 and
Matthew 25:31-4

Perhaps because I've been looking at the Matthew for the last few weeks, I'm particularly struck by the Ezekiel passage. Three times we find the phrase, in the words spoken by the Lord God 'I myself..'.
I myself will search for my sheep
I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep
I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.

The theme of judgement is of course taken up in the parable, too. But I think I want to focus on Christ as God incarnate - God as 'I myself'.
Christ's care for the sheep - the good shepherd who searches & tends.
& then Christ's demand, as King, that we act as those who live by his rules - searching, caring, tending, for the lost sheep of our world.

Lest we forget

2011-11-12T22:21:00.000Z

Yes, gentle reader, some of this is the same as last week - that's the beauty of being in four different churches - I felt some of it was equally relevant this week

Many people know how much I like puzzles – sudoko, crosswords, brain-teasers: I find it hard to walk away from an unsolved challenge. Perhaps that is why I love parables so much: they tease our brains, we wonder what they are about, and we try to work out their relevance to us.

So today we heard the parable if the talents.
3 servants are each given a number of ‘talents’ and treat those talents differently. When the owner returns from a long time away, he asks them each what they have done with the talents they were given, and rewards them or punishes them according to what they have done.

Some people read this story about ‘talents’ quite literally and conclude that Jesus is telling us not to waste the talents – the gifts and abilities God has given us.

Unfortunately, this is ignoring the fact that Jesus probably told the story in Aramaic and it was recorded in Greek – so it is really just a coincidence that the English word ‘talent’ has more than one meaning.

But in the time if Jesus, a talent is a sum of money – so this parable is about money, right? Well.. not necessarily, no. In the parables of Jesus, we are encouraged ot think about what the story of ordinary things teaches us about the less than ordinary things of God. This is why jesus uses the introduction ;the kingdom of heaven is like..’ for most of his parables.

I think this parable is more about how we spend our lives, than how we spend our money. And in the context of Remembrance Sunday I think there is an important message here about how we treat the way that other people have spent their lives – or, if you like, how we ‘spend’ or waste our memories.

In the previous chapter before this parable, Jesus talks about the end of time and concludes ‘Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour’.

Then in this chapter of Matthew’s gospel, Chapter 25, Jesus tells three stories, all introduced with a single sentence ‘then the kingdom of heaven will be like this’ .

First Jesus tells the parable of the bridesmaids, some wise and prepared, and some foolish and unprepared; then the parable of the talents; and then Jesus tells the story of the coming of the son of man and the separation of all people into sheep (who have done the right things in life) and goats (who have got it wrong).

All three stories speak of people being brought to account in some way – of being tested to see whether they have done the right thing. Are the bridesmaids ready to light their lamps and accompany the bridegroom?
Have the servants invested what they were given wisely – or merely buried their talents?
Have the people been like good sheep – sharing with the poor, the naked, the imprisoned?

The unifying question in the three stories seems to be ‘what have you done?’.
So in the parable of the talents the question is ‘what have you done with what you have been given?’.

The servants in the parable have been given money to take care of – one has buried the money for safe-keeping, whilst the other two have taken what they were given and have invested it wisely, so that it makes a profit.

I said at the start that this could be a parable for remembrance Sunday about what we do with our memories. What do I mean by that?

As we stand in silence at the War memorial later, we will be thinking of those who have died in war. Their bodies are buried, their lives ended. Their souls are in God’s hands, but it for us to decide what to do with the memory of their lives.
If we decide that all lives given in war are a waste, that we do not choose to remember, perhaps because we are frightened of being thought of as glorifying war, isn’t that like burying the talent?

They are gone, we say. Nothing can bring them back. We bury their memories with their bodies, we allow both to decay and leave no trace.
But the parable tells us to use what we have been given, to take the gift and invest it wisely and so allow it to be fruitful.
if we keep the memory alive, if we choose to honour their memory, take seriously the lives they laid down, then we will be allowing those lives to have been spent in making our present and our future better, rather than feeling that those lives were wasted in the past.

When we remember the lives spent in war, we allow our remembering to change us, to make us stronger in our resolve to work for peace, determined to use the lives and the time we have been given to make a difference in our world.

We thank God today for those who gave their lives in war – and we determine to use their gift to us – to cherish their memories and to work to make the gift worthwhile – a sacrifice which makes us and our world richer.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.

What a waste!

2011-11-09T09:18:00.001Z

Some of you might remember the Ian Dury song of the same name 'what a waste' (if you get the same 'thrashy' ad first I do apologise - Ian Dury is much better!).
It's kept going round in my head this week as I've been contemplating Remembrance Sunday and (especially) the Gospel reading for this Sunday - the parable of the Talents. I think the idea of being 'called to account' frightens many of us - but accountability is an important part of life.

So, reading Matthew 25: 14-30 in the context of the whole of the chapter I am left with the question of how we spend our lives, rater than waste them: spend time instead of wasting it - maybe even 'spend' rather than waste our remembrance.

I'm hoping this will make more sense when I sit down to flesh it out - meanwhile I still have the thrid of three funerals to conduct this week - so maybe that explains why I'm more than usually concerned with how we spend and don't waste what God gives us.

Give me oil in my lamp

2011-11-05T20:12:00.000Z

Very late posting this week - I have really had to wrestle with Matthew 25: 1-13!

So this Sunday is the 3rd before Advent, which means that Christmas is starting to loom on the horizon.
I don’t know about you, but I am simultaneously intrigued and frustrated by those little puzzles that you sometimes get as Christmas presents. I’m the sort of person who can’t really rest until the puzzle is solved. I might force myself to put it down from time to time, but I can’t stop myself from coming back to it to have another go at solving it. Christmas Day and Boxing Day can be seriously eaten into by the frustration of a puzzle which is difficult to solve.

A bit like a parable really. Especially this parable. All week I’ve been reading, re-reading – trying to solve the puzzle – what is the point of this parable? What is Jesus trying to teach us by telling it?
Matthew has Jesus conclude the parable with ‘Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour’.

I see how this fits with what Jesus has to say in the previous chapter, where Jesus talks about the end of time and concludes ‘Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour’. After that teaching we are not surprised to hear Jesus say ‘keep awake’ - but it doesn’t really fit this parable.

All the bridesmaids fall asleep, even the wise ones. What makes them wise is not their wakefulness, but the fact that they are prepared for the ‘job’ they have to do when they are suddenly woken. If you wanted a 2 word summary of their wisdom, it wouldn’t be ‘keep awake’ it would be ‘be prepared’.

But be prepared for what? This chapter of Matthew’s gospel, Chapter 25, has Jesus telling three stories, all introduced with a single sentence ‘then the kingdom of heaven will be like this…’ .

First Jesus tells this parable of the bridesmaids; then the parable of the talents, in which the owner suddenly returns after a long absence to see what his servants have each done with the money he gave them; and then Jesus tells the story of the coming of the son of man and the separation of all people into sheep (who have done the right things in life) and goats (who have got it wrong).

All three stories speak of people being brought to account in some way – of being tested to see whether they have done the right thing. Are the bridesmaids ready to light their lamps and accompany the bridegroom? Have the servants invested what they were given wisely – or merely buried their talents? Have the people been like good sheep – sharing with the poor, the naked, the imprisoned?

The unifying question in the three stories seems to be ‘what have you done?’. So this parable, of the bridesmaids, is a warning to think about the task that has been given us and make sure that we are ready to act when the time comes.

And ‘the time’ is the end of time – whether that is the end of our personal time, the end of our life, or the end of all time, a time when God will finally call this whole experiment of life on earth to a halt. We do not know when that time will be – we may even doze while we wait – but when it comes we need to be ready to light our lamps and accompany the bridegroom into the feast.

But the puzzle of the parable is still not entirely solved, is it? Because if we take this parable with the story at the other end of the same chapter, we might feel we have another problem.
The story of the sheep and the goats contains these words to the ‘righteous’, the good people
“I was hungry & you gave me food, I was thirsty & you gave me something to drink… I was naked & you gave me clothing.”
What might Jesus say to those who are faced with foolish bridesmaids who have run out of oil? “I was short of oil and.. you told me to get off to the dealers and buy some for myself.” .

Why doesn’t the Jesus who exhorts us to share with the poor tell a story in which the bridesmaids share between themselves & are all welcomed into the wedding feast?
Because this is a parable about being ready for heaven and not a story about how to keep lamps lit. The ‘oil’ of the parable is not a physical commodity which can be shared between the bridesmaids – ‘having oil’ is a metaphor for ‘being ready’.
And whatever that readiness means for each of us, it isn’t something that can be shared. We can ask one another if we are ready, but only in your own heart can that readiness really be there.
Being ready for Jesus to come to us isn’t a physical matter of being busy, or being good, or even being awake. Being ready is a spiritual matter.
So how can we be ready? One way is to acknowledge that the end will come. We cannot live our lives as if they will go on forever – as if this is all there is, as if the world we know is all that should concern us.
Our physical needs have to be met – and Jesus is clear in the story of the sheep and the goats that we also need to think about the physical needs of others.

But in the end our lives are not merely about the physical, but about the spiritual and eternal. The purpose of the bridesmaid is to be prepared to shine her light; the purpose of the servant is to invest what the Lord has given; the purpose of the righteous people is to care for the weak.
Our purpose is to love. We are made to be in a loving relationship with God. The ‘oil’ that cannot be shared is our readiness, our capacity to respond to God’s love, in this world and the next. So thanks be to God for this meal, in which we meet God & are invited to know & share his love & be fitted for heaven. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Notes for Reformation Sunday

2011-10-29T21:39:00.000+01:00

Reformation Sunday.

Today is Reformation Sunday. It’s always interesting to get Christians together & find out who does and who does not consider themselves to be ‘Reformed’. I think as I was growing up (as a part of the United Reformed Church - formed by the union of Congregationalists and Presbyterians) we were more likely to use the term ‘non-Conformist’ than “Reformed’: though as time goes on I think I prefer the more positive title of Reformed. And it’s particularly interesting to ask Anglicans where they stand, because they need to decide whether the formation of the Church of England was, at least in part, a response to the European Reformation or merely a split from Rome, so that they feel more Catholic than anything.

But if you’re worried about this turning into a history lesson or an exercise in tribal allegiance instead of a sermon, let me remind you that being Reformed means, among other things, taking the Bible seriously. So let’s do that.

At one level it sounds as though both Micah and Jesus are thumbing their noses at authority. Micah says :
“I am filled with power, with the spirit of the LORD,
and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.”

Whilst Jesus declares: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.”

It would be easy to say something like 'the Reformation challenged the authorities of that day & won through - thanks be to God’. Micah & Jesus both show us that we should always be ready to question authority. This is what one American Old Testament lecturer, Fred Gaiser, has called the approach of 'hey Martin (Luther) got it right and so do we!'.

So today I want to preach Reformation but not as a historical 'hoorah' - rather as a challenge to all of us to never forget that we need to keep our eyes on God's gracious working among us.

So what is really happening in the time of Micah? How was God’s grace in action then?
The prophet Micah preaches against those calling themselves prophets in his day who were telling the people of God only what they wanted to hear – that God was with them, that all would be well. Micah, in contrast, talks of the judgement against his people for the way they are refusing to walk in God’s way, but then ultimately of God’s salvation which will come to his people when they turn back to him. When Jerusalem subsequently fell to their enemies, God’s people found in Micah’s prophecy an explanation for what had happened, and eventually did indeed become faithful to God once more.

So, yes, Micah criticizes the leadership of his time, but it is all God’s people whom he is calling to a new faithfulness. He is not simply telling people to ignore their leaders and choose new ones, he is telling people to take responsibility for their own lives under God. That is the difference between revolution and Reformation.

Meanwhile Matthew tells us about Jesus’ teaching, and again we hear the grace of God in action.
It is interesting to notice that this is the beginning of the last section of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew’s gospel before the crucifixion, and if we look carefully, we find ia counter-balance to this last section of teaching in the first section in Matthew’s gospel of Jesus’ teaching, which is the Sermon on the Mount (in chapter 5).

At the start, Jesus teaches the disciples in the hearing of the crowd, here at the end he does the opposite – he teaches the crowds in the hearing of the disciples.

In the sermon on the mount Jesus teaches about blessings – the beatitudes ‘blessed are you when…’ – here at the end he is about to embark on a series of ‘woes’ = ‘woe to you when…’
Having begun his teaching by trying to set his listeners on the right path, Jesus ends his teaching by warning against the wrong path. So in what seems like an all-out attack on the Pharisees, Jesus uses these stereotypical characters “the Pharisees’ to warn his listeners against living lives which do not echo their religious beliefs.
What you believe must inform what you say and do, says Jesus. Remember that Jesus’ greatest criticism was reserves for ‘hypocrites’ of all kinds – those people who say one thing and do another.

It is said that Calvin locked the doors of the Cathedral in Geneva other than for worship on a Sunday, to remind his people that God was not only to be found in the Cathedral, but everywhere in the world beyond.
The Reformed sensibility teaches us that our 'religious' lives are not just what we do in church, but how we treat others in 'the world'.

So Reformation Sunday is not a time to celebrate the victory of one way of being a Christian over another, or a chance to rail against what we perceive to be the faults of our leaders – in the church or in the political sphere. It is a time to celebrate the grace of God, which come to us through God’s Word. It is a time to take seriously Gods living Word to us, and to be open to continually being re-formed, to have our hearts set on fire to get out there & live God's way.

May what we believe and what we say and do be evidence to the world around us that the living God hasn’t finished with us yet, whether we choose to call ourselves Reformed or not.
Thanks be to God. Amen.

Reformation Sunday - so what?

2011-10-25T13:48:00.000+01:00

This coming Sunday is 'Reformation Sunday', but it seems to me to be a good Reformed principle to look in detail at the set Bible readings for the day.
So my texts will be:
Micah 3: 5-12
Matthew 23: 1-12

I'm very struck by the criticism of "authority" in both Micah & by Jesus in the gospel.

It would be easy to say somehting like 'the Reformation challenged the authorities of that day & won through - thanks be to God. This is what one OT lecturer has called the approach of 'hey Martin (Luther) got it right and so do we!'. (Fred Gaiser, here

I want to preach Reformation but not as a historical 'hoorah' - rather as a challenge to all of us to never forget that we need to keep our eyes on God's gracious working among us.
The Reformed sensibility teaches us that our 'religious' lives are not just what we do in church, but how we treat others in 'the world'.
I hope we can celebrate but also have our hearts set on fire to get out there & live God's way... more to follow - although wouldn't it be interesting to see people's reactions if that was the whole sermon?!

What do you know?

2011-10-21T12:23:00.000+01:00

Leviticus 19: 1-2, 15-18 Matthew 22: 34-40

I have lived my life in fear for the last 10 years or so.. ever since one of my brothers revealed that if he was ever on ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’ I would be his friend to phone to help him if he had a Bible question. Imagine the pressure of being on national television (heard, if not seen) and having to give the right answer: and imagine the embarrassment when it was revealed that even thought I had got the simple question wrong, I was in fact a minister of religion.

Sometimes I wonder what sort of questions I might be asked, which part of the Bible the question compilers might choose. Perhaps today’s readings have given us a clue – because probably the best known bit of the Bible is the 10 commandments. Well, I say best known – but most of us are a bit hazy about exactly what they are.
Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not covet thy neighbours ox… or was it ass…
Isn’t it strange how the commandments telling us what not to do stick in our minds most firmly.

In 2004 the Methodist Church invited people to text in their choice of an 11th commandment.
The winning entries were:
Thou shalt not worship false pop idols
thou shalt not kill in the name of any god
thou shalt not consume thine own body weight in fudge
and thou shalt not be negative.

Actually, as we heard, the book of Leviticus includes a lot more positive advice about how to live a holy life, or how to live as God wants us to live & how it is best for us to live.

Through Moses, God says that people need to be holy – they need to live lives of love and decency and respect, because that is what we were made for.
Then, in one modern English translation of Leviticus, it says this:
“Be fair, no matter who is on trial – don’t favour either the poor or the rich…Stop being angry and don’t try to take revenge.
I am the Lord, and I command you to love others as much as you love yourself.”

The 10 commandments themselves are not all negative:
Worship God alone.
Do not make idols.
Do not misuse God’s name.
Remember the day of rest, the Sabbath.
Honour your father and mother
And then the 5 which I mentioned earlier – do not kill, commit adultery, steal, lie or be envious of other people.

When the Pharisees ask Jesus ‘which is the greatest commandment’ it’s meant to be a trick question. We all know how difficult it is to agree which is the best or most important of anything – I’ve got fed up of watching these ‘best films of all time’ type TV programmes, I end up staying up til midnight to see what’s number one – only to end up saying ‘oh, rubbish, Sound of Music is much better than the Terminator’ – or whatever it is.
Jesus is meant to be onto a loser – if he says ‘You must not kill’ is the top commandment, people will say ‘Ooh, he doesn’t think worshipping God is important, then’ or if he says the most important commandment is ‘Respect your parents’ he can be criticised for not being tough enough on crime!

So what Jesus says is very clever – he sums up all the 10 commandments in 2 phrases ‘Love God with a your heart & soul & mind’ and ‘love your neighbour as you love yourself’. Love God, love other people – that’s it.

So Jesus gets out of the trick question very neatly.
But he does something else – Jesus is really clever because he makes us think about what the commandments are really for. They aren’t a set of rules to be followed like mindless robots – and God isn’t watching & waiting for us to slip up so that he can punish us horribly for breaking the rules. The commandments are there to help us work out what life is really about – what we are here for. And they tell us that we’re here to love God & love other people.

It might sound a bit mushy – and it might not surprise you to find out this originated in the United States – but one way of referring to the Bible is as ‘God’s love letter to us’. I said it sounds a bit mushy – but it’s true: the stories and poems and letters in the Bible are all recorded to try to help us know about the God who loves us and wants to talk to us and guide us.

I started by wondering whether the 10 commandments were the best known part of the Bible. And I think that knowing is really at the heart of following Jesus. But not knowing what all the rules and commandments are, or even knowing which could be considered most important – Jesus points us to a knowledge that is not about facts, but is about relationship.
The most important thing is to know God, and love God in return; to know God’s love in Jesus Christ, and to celebrate it; to know that our love for other people is a vital part of being alive, and to want to serve them.
And know this: Jesus meets us at this table, to feed us, fill us and guide us in knowing God more fully. Thanks be to God. Amen

Final version

2011-10-15T22:06:00.000+01:00

Perhaps I wimped out, but I decided that some people might get so upset by the 'God's backside' phrase, That I've dropped it!

God turns his back
Sometimes a sermon starts with a text that is a struggle to understand. Sometimes life throws up such hard questions that the sermon needs to start there. And sometimes the two things come together. This week I have been wrestling with the reading from Exodus (33:12-23) but also wondering what we do in those times in life when it feels that God is far from us and doesn’t really care. And I hope the reading actually gives us some help with our questioning.

So what is the Exodus story all about? Moses is having a wobble - and you can't really blame him. After much pleading with Pharoah, and many miraculous interventions from God, God’s people have been released from Egypt. Then the people wander in the wilderness, complaining about the lack of food and water – and again are miraculously provided for by God.

Finally the people have arrived at Mount Sinai, and Moses goes up the mountain to receive God’s law. This is no quick task – there’s far more to this law than just the 10 commandments - and the people grow tired of waiting and set up the Golden Calf to worship. God is furious and sends Moses back down the mountain: Moses is furious and smashes the tablets bearing the 10 commandments. Then God orders the people to travel away from Mount Sinai towards the promised Land.

But it seems that God, too is having a sulk and is ready to give up on his people altogether. He tells Moses that although he will send an angel to show God’s people the way, God himself will not accompany them. So Moses, in the passage we heard, is trying to convince God to come with the people, to stay close to them all the way to the Promised Land.
At one level this may feel very removed from our experience of God - we don't chat with God & insist that he acts like we want & then demand, as Moses does 'show me your face'.
But we do know what it is to go through times when we are not sure whether God is with us or not. And perhaps, like Moses & the people of Israel, we know how it is to forget the good stuff that has gone before -the times when we know God has been with us - when we are faced with a difficult time in life and a sense of God's absence.

So, like Moses, we may call out in dostress for God to show us his face.
And what do we feel we get when we most need to know God with us?
God turns his back on us. Well, thanks, God.

But to Moses, God makes it clear that he is not refused the sight of God's face because God does not care enough to bother - God in fact goes to a lot of trouble to show himself, but to spare Moses too much. It is not good for us to see too much of God with us. What would life be like if we knew always, exactly what God thought of what we do - if we lived face-to-face with God?

What if we could feel every disappointment we cause God? What if we knew exactly what God wants of us and if we knew exactly where we would fail God, even before it happened. What if we could see each step of our life before we lived it? Life would be almost unimaginably different. Somehow life is only life if we are allowed by God to find our own way - to know something of God with us, but not to be so stifled or so controlled that we cannot really live at all.

Perhaps instead of thinking that God turns his back on us, we can see that God spares us his face. He gives us room to discover his will, rather than forcing us to live in the full glare of God’s presence.

But this doesn't mean that God doesn't care - he knows Moses by name, he allows Moses to plead for God's help & presence, and he shows him his back - not because he has turned his back on Moses, but so that Moses can freely follow.

Moses discovers that God will lead his people to the promised Land.
God will give his people glimpses of his glory, but never subject them to the full realization of his will, leaving no room for their own free wills.
God will never abandon his people.

And this same God will never desert us, however far he may feel from us.
God deals with us as he deals with Moses.
God knows us by name,
God gives us glimpses of his presence,
God leads us home.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

God's backside

2011-10-11T19:08:00.000+01:00

Back in May I went to a 'festival of preaching' where one of the speakers was Anna Carter Florence. If you've never heard of her, find some of her preaching & read it - she's fabulous! She was telling us that in order to preach you first have to let the Word 'pass over your body'. Since then, I've tried to preach on whichever text has gripped me most (even if sometimes I've felt I had to wrestle hard to get some sense out of it).

So this week my text has to be
Exodus 33:12-23

What is this all this about? Moses is having a wobble - and you can't really blame him. But it seems like God, too is having a sulk and is ready to give up on his people altogether.
At one level this feels very removed from our experience of God - we don't chat with God & insist that he acts like we want & then demand 'show me your face'. But we do know what it is to go through times when we are not sure whether God is with us or not. And perhaps, like Moses & the people of Israel, we know how it is to forget the good stuff that has gone before -the times when we know God has been with us - when we are faced with a difficult time in life and a sense of God's absence.
And what do we feel we get when we most need to know God with us? God's backside.
Well, thanks, God.

But to Moses, God makes it clear that he is not refused the sight of God's face because God does not care enough to bother - God in fact goes to a lot of trouble to show himself, but to spare Moses too much. It is not good for us to see too much of God with us. What would life be like if we knew always, exactly what God thought of what we do - if we lived face-to-face with God?
What if we could feel every disappointment we cause God? What if we knew exactly what God wants of us - if we could see each step of our life before we lived it? Life would be almost unimaginably different. Somehow life is only life if we are allowed by God to find our own way - to know something of God with us, but not to be so stifled or so controlled that we cannot really live at all.

But this doesn't mean that God doesn't care - he knows Moses by name, he allows Moses to plead for God's help & presence, and he shows him his back - not because he has turned him back on Moses, but so that Moses can freely follow.

Probably by the time this makes 'first draft' rather than initial thoughts, I'll have taken out references to God's backside, for fear of offending people so much they stop listening. Watch this space...

Come to the party - but not as you are.

2011-10-07T08:55:00.000+01:00

Matthew 22: 1-14 - the parable of the wedding banquet

Jesus’ parable, as ever, paints an exaggerated, almost ridiculous picture.
The kingdom of heaven is like a king who invites people to a party, but they don’t come. No, more than that, they refuse to come & they murder the slaves who have come with the invitation. So the king sends troops to destroy the non-attending, murdering guests and burns down their city. I think they can consider themselves un-invited!
Then the king sends out for more guests, gathering anyone and everyone off the streets. This king goes to enormous trouble to makes sure the feast is full of guests. If you went a sense of how ridiculous all this is, imagine the gates of Buckingham Palace being thrown open to everyone for the Royal Wedding this year and the Queen encouraging everyone from the streets to tuck in to the wonderful food.
But, back at the parable, a man is spotted who is inappropriately dressed – so the king orders the servants to bind the guest hand & foot and throw him out.
This seems terribly harsh on the man – how could he know, when he left the house to go to the market, that his King would order him to be scooped up to fill the seats at his banquet? But presumably everyone there was in much the same boat, and yet the rest have somehow managed to find a wedding robe for the event. So what’s going on in this parable?

Well, first of all I think Jesus is deliberately painting a slightly peculiar picture to help us to understand the almost desperate welcome God offers. Like a king who almost press-gangs guests into his palace, God will go to any lengths to welcome everyone into the kingdom. But what then? How should we react to the surprising invitation to be part of the kingdom? Jesus says we should react with more than just a nod and a thank you. What more does God require?

Just picture the scene. It’s Saturday night and “Strictly come dancing” is about to start. You have on your oldest, comfiest jumper & you’ve kicked your shoes off. The popcorn or peanuts are just within reach on one side of you & your favourite drink is to the other hand. Then the door-bell rings: it’s a neighbour wanting you to join them for a party, right now! If you decide to accept the invitation, you’re not simply going to slop across the road as you are, are you? – you’ll quickly change into something appropriate, because unexpected though the invitation is, and much as you might prefer the evening you’d planned, if you’re going to accept the offer you need to accept it graciously and respond accordingly.

So what response does God require of us, if we are to accept the gracious invitation to be part of the kingdom? Jesus warns that although the invitation is to all, this is not cheap grace, which we can accept almost grudgingly, but requires us to appreciate that we are guests of the king and need to behave like it. God’s grace is for all – but we must change – not our clothes, of course, but our attitudes to others, our love, our purpose.

The invitation this morning is to take this bread and wine. All are invited, none are excluded. But God requires us to come suitably prepared to celebrate – ready to be part of the invitation to others, ready to be changed into people of love and grace, ready to meet the King and know his love.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.

What will he do? God's vineyard.

2011-10-01T12:29:00.000+01:00

After a sudden epiphany when I realised that Jesus does not answer this question 'what will he do?', I have re-shaped the sermon a bit. And thanks to those friends on facebook who helped me conclude my thoughts about fruitfulness - have a gold star!

What will he do?

This week's wrestling is with the parable of the tenants in the vineyard. The other lectionary reading helps us to remember that in the Hebrew Scriptures 'the vineyard' was God's Promised land, inhabited by God's chosen people. I think we have to beware an anti-semitic reading of this parable that says 'God throws out the Jews and put new 'tenants' in his vineyard: us!’.

So what does Jesus say about this owner of the vineyard?
He is persistent - almost to the point of stupidity. The first slaves are beaten, killed and stoned. So what does he do?
Sends more! - and they are 'treated in the same way'.
Isn't this the point at which we expect the owner to bring in the bailiffs & clear the place out & either put in new tenants or sell & get out of wine-production altogether.
But no, our persistent/foolish owner sends his son, saying 'they will respect my son'. But it comes as no surprise to us to find that these lawless tenants kill him too. Now what will he do?
We think we know the answer, don’t we – the owner will do what he should have done in the first place - sort them out. He is far more patient than we might expect, but in the end he wants his vineyard to produce wine.

What will he do? Asks Jesus.
And have you noticed that in the parable as we heard it, it is the crowd who answers the question, not Jesus. “They said to him, "He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time."

Jesus does not answer the question which he asks, ‘now what will the owner do?’ – he asks the crowd for an answer.
And when they give the sensible, human answer ‘he will finally sort them out’, Jesus says "Have you never read in the scriptures: `The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is amazing in our eyes'?. Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”
When the crowd gives the obvious answer to his question, Jesus reminds them that God’s world is different from our world – God’s logic is different, God sees things differently. What we cast away, God treasures. We would lose patience with these tenants. Jesus never says that that is what God will do.

So what if this is not a parable told to show the Pharisees that God has had enough of them and is bringing in a new thing called Christianity? What if Jesus is trying to say that God’s endless patience is the sign of God’s kingdom, and that when we judge others and want God to punish others, that is when we are far from the kingdom? If we want to be part of what God is doing in God’s world, we need to be as patiently, endlessly forgiving as God – then our lives will show the fruits of the spirit – love, joy peace, patience, kindness.. and so on.
So, says Jesus, the kingdom of heaven will be given to those who produce the fruits of the kingdom.

Matthew puts this parable at the end of a very varied string of events, all recorded in Chapter 21.
First Jesus enters Jerusalem and throws the money-changers out of the temple. Then he curses the fig tree because it is not producing fruit. Then Jesus' authority is questioned by the chief priests and elders of the people. Then Jesus tells 2 parables - first the one about the sons who are asked to work by their father and say yes & no, and then this one of the tenants.

Throughout these events, which of course are in the lead up to a lot of resistance to Jesus, and finally to his arrest and death, there seems to be recurrent themes about bearing fruit, being part of the life of the kingdom, and doing what is required.

Jesus tells this parable against a background of questions about who is and who is not a part of the kingdom, who is on God's side, who is living the right way in the sight of God.

And Jesus is clear in the parable - God is endlessly patient, he is not going to give up on people if they fall at the first hurdle in following Jesus. Yet God is looking for a harvest for results, for the fruits of the kingdom, for people who seek God's will and do it. And it is precisely the patience to bear with those who are not yet part of the kingdom which makes us fully paid-up citizens of Gods kingdom!

There may be wrestling and difficulty - there will even be persecution and death - but God wants us to be people of faithful fruitfulness, who never lose sight of God's kingdom and never lose faith in God’s way of bearing with people.

So what does this fruitfulness look like in our lives – as individuals and as churches?

I think in some people’s eyes it looks like foolishness. So close to harvest we probably think of fruitfulness as something lush and lavish and wonderful. It can be wonderful – but in a totally different way: more like the scrawny weed that breaks through the concrete against all odds, than a mouth-watering bunch of grapes. The fruits of God’s kingdom are the sort of hope that keeps us going when all seems bleak. The sort of hope that sits and waits as the body of Christ lies in the tomb on Holy Saturday, believing that God’s love will triumph in the end on Easter Sunday.
If we show the fruits of God’s kingdom we try to be as forgiving as God is.. even when the world tells us to hit back. We trust that God’s love will never leave us – even when all the tangible proof seems to point in the opposite direction.

And if all this sounds like hard work and we wonder whether we can keep bearing this kind of fruit, God offers us nourishment at this table.

This bread and wine remind us of Jesus’ offering of himself, the ultimate sign of God’s endlessly patient, self-emptying love. The life laid down for us, but also the life restored by the ultimate sign of God’s kingdom – the power of the resurrection.

Eat, drink – be restored – and may God’s love help your life to bear the fruits of God’s kingdom.
To his praise and glory.
Amen.

What will he do?

2011-09-28T16:06:00.000+01:00

This week's wrestling is with the parable of the tenants in the vineyard:
Matthew 21:33-46.

The other lectionary readings help us to remember that in the Hebrew Scriptures 'the vineyard' was God's Promised land, inhabited by God's chosen people. I think we have to beware an anti-semitic reading of this that says 'God throws out the Jews and put new 'tenants' in his vineyard: us!

So what do we learn about this owner of the vineyard? He is persistent - almost to the point of stupidity. The first slaves are beaten, killed and stoned. So what does he do?
Sends more! - and they are 'treated in the same way'.
Isn't THIS the point at which we expect the owner to bring in the bailiffs & clear the place out & either put in new tenants or sell & get out of wine-production altogether.
But no, our persistent/foolish owner sends his son, saying 'they will respect my son'. But it comes as no surprise to find that these lawless tenants kill him too.
Now what will he do?
What he should have done in the first place - sort them out. The owner is far more patient than we might expect, but in the end he wants his vineyard to produce wine.

So, says Jesus the kingdom of heaven will be given to those who produce the fruits of the kingdom.

Matthew puts this parable at the end of a very varied string of events, all recorded in Chapter 21.
First Jesus enters Jerusalem and throws the money-changers out of the temple.
Then he curses the fig tree because it is not producing fruit.
Then Jesus' authority is questioned by the chief priests and elders of the people.
Then Jesus tells 2 parables - first the one about the sons who are asked to work by their father and say yes & no, and then this one of the tenants.

Throughout these events, which of course are in the lead up to a lot of resistance to Jesus, and finally to his arrest and death, there seems to be recurrent themes about bearing fruit, being part of the life of the kingdom, and doing what is required.
Jesus tells this parable against a background of questions about who is and who is not a part of the kingdom, who is on God's side, who is living the right way in the sight of God.

And Jesus is clear in the parable - God is endlessly patient, he is not going to give up on people if they fall at the first hurdle in following Jesus. Yet God is looking for a harvest for results, for the fruits of the kingdom, for people who seek God's will and do it.
There may be wrestling ad difficulty - there will even be persecution and death - but God wants us to be people of faithful fruitfulness, who never lose sight of God's kingdom.

A diversion

2011-09-22T16:50:00.000+01:00

This week I am not preaching on Sunday - but I will, instead be preaching on Saturday, at the induction of my friend, Rachel, to be warden of the URC's St Cuthbert's centre on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.see here for more details

My part is to reflect on the passage about Jacob's ladder:
Genesis 28: 10-17

Here is a first draft of what I'm likely to say:

“Way way back many centuries ago: not long after the Bible began,
Jacob lived in the land of Canaan, a fine example of a family man…”

Except that in the reading we just heard we catch up with Jacob long before Andrew Lloyd-Webber & Tim Rice get hold of him. This Jacob is not a fine example of anything – except perhaps a rather slimy, cheating piece of work. Jacob is the younger twin, the second-born, and not the one who is supposed to inherit the lion’s share of his father wealth and blessing. But first he tricks his brother Esau into promising him all his rights as first-born (by catching Esau when he’s hungry and offering him a bowl of stew); then, with the help of his mother, he tricks his father into giving him his blessing by cooking his dad’s favourite goat dish and using the skin to make his arms seem hairy like Esau.

So in the bit of the story we just heard he is leaving home partly to get away from his murderous brother, Esau and partly to go and find a suitable wife. This time it’s Jacob who’s hungry and alone and probably wondering whether all this conniving was really worth it.

And then God appears to him in a dream. He sees a vision of a link between heaven and earth – but not a way for him to claw his way up to a prime position in heaven as he’s tried to claw his way into prime position in the family. This link between heaven and earth is populated with angels, God’s messengers. Jacob’s ladder is the way in which God stoops to communicate with earth – it is proof that God has a love for people and a plan for their lives, and if Jacob will just stop scheming for a moment he might hear what God has to say. You see, up til now in the story Jacob hasn’t much time for God at all – in fact at one point in talking to his father he refers to ‘The Lord your God’. Jacob doesn’t see how God has any part to play in his plan for his life – until this point when God speaks to him and promises ‘I shall be with you to protect you wherever you go’. The promise to bless Abraham, his grandfather, and Isaac, his father, now becomes a promise to bless Jacob himself.
And when Jacob wakes up he realises ‘surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it’.

Now far be it for me to suggest that there are people here who until now have not realised that God is in this Holy Island of Lindisfarne: the clue here is in the title. But for Jacob it seems there is no hint of the divine presence until his dream. Yet perhaps the really surprising thing is not, in any case, the geographical place that God is found, but the fact that God is found in the life of a lying, cheating, scheming, non-religious, disrespectful no-hoper like Jacob. Even in the worst of us, even at the hardest times, God is in this place; God is at work; God is with us wherever we go.

I pray this place, this ministry into which Rachel is entering, all those who come into contact with St Cuthbert’s Centre, each one here and each one who comes may know the truth that God is in this place, so that it can be like Jacob’s ladder, joining heaven to earth, through the grace of God.
Thanks be to God.

All being well, after this we will sing no hopers, jokers and rogues - a folk song I just love and which fits this occasion wonderfully.

It's not fair!

2011-09-12T21:46:00.000+01:00

I realise it's only Monday - but struck by an item of news about modern day 'slavery' and inspired by a reflection by Anna Carter Florence on the hardship of waiting here
I've just sat down and written a first draft of the sermon.

The parable of the workers in the vineyard:
it’s NOT FAIR!

This last week a disturbing story emerged of workers allegedly held in slavery on a traveller site in Leighton Buzzard. In 21st century Bedfordshire, grown men were picked up in vans and promised labouring work and somewhere to live at £40-£80 per day. But when they got to the caravan site they were put in small sheds or rundown caravans with too little food, had their identity papers taken and their heads shaved and were made to work with no pay – whilst being told that of they tried to run away they would be beaten up.

And all this in a neighbouring county to ours. At first I could scarcely believe it – and then as news of the case grew it became clear that this is not the only place in our country – today! - where this has happened.

How desperate and vulnerable do you have to be to say ‘yes’ to someone who pops up out of the blue and offers you work? Well, apparently the men were picked up from soup kitchens and day centres for the homeless, and the mentally ill. You and your life have to be pretty much at the bottom if an unknown job in an unknown place with unknown people looks like a good choice. Desperate people, with very little in their lives, desperate for work.

There are people like that in Jesus’ parable. When we hear the story, it is all too easy for us to sympathise with the workers who were hired first – they work hard, all day – in the scorching heat. They have toiled and slogged and earned their daily wage. And then they find that the slackers who have only worked since 5 o clock in the evening get exactly the same wage. Like children, the workers grumble about the landowner’s decision ‘It’s not fair!’.
When I was teaching, I once did an assembly on this parable – and as I entered the staffroom at break, nearly 2 hours’ later, my fellow teachers were nearly ready to lynch me because they had been so incensed by the unfairness of the story. It is not fair on those who worked harder – we can see that, feel it on our bones. The union reps in the staff wanted me to understand that we needed pat differentials in life, to help us all to feel valued for the work we did! The way the landowner acts in this story - it’s just not fair.

But just for a moment let’s look at the story another way: from the point of view of the desperate workers who had no work. All day long they had been in the marketplace, waiting to be hired. Each time someone came looking for workers, they might have stood up a bit straighter, tried to look ‘hire – able’, strong, hard-working, reliable, tough. And each time they weren’t hired we can imagine how their shoulders might have slumped.
Early in the morning, the fittest looking ones are hired & go off to work, knowing they will be paid that day and have something to take home to their hungry families. At nine o’ clock, some other lucky ones had gone off – to at least do most of a day’s work. At noon and at 3 the same person had come back and hired a few more. But by five there were just the most desperate left. No point in going home early, no money in their pockets, no food to share with anyone. Another day with no work, no pay, no hope. Just the sort of desperate men who might jump at any offer of work – however uncertain they are about the offer. Then the question ‘why are you standing here idle all day?’
“because no-one hired us”,
‘then go into my vineyard and work til evening’.
After a couple of hours it’s pay time. No wage has been agreed – they line up not knowing what they might get – what fraction of the daily wage they might be given. And they are given the whole day’s wage.
Unless we’ve done that kind of piece work we can only imagine how it feels to unexpectedly get the full day’s wage. But then those who have worked half a day – and even all day in the hot sun – get exactly the same agreed daily wage. Much grumbling ensues: and the landowner asks the grumblers ‘are you envious because I am generous?’.
Would you begrudge the desperate men their daily bread?

You see it’s all too easy to see this parable as one which is not fair to those who work all day. But what about those who wait all day? How hard is it to spend all day not knowing whether you will be chosen or not, and beginning to suspect that you might have missed your chance. And wondering what you will eat that night.

And we know that Jesus told this parable because he had people coming to him and wanting to know who was going to enter God’s kingdom, and how, and what reward his followers could expect.

We know that when we hear this parable we burn with the unfairness of life, in which those who work tirelessly for God and for others have to bear the sting that God loves a wretch who turns to God after a life of debauchery just as much as he loves each one of us. We work in the heat of the day, and get no more reward than those who don’t.

But have a heart for those who wait, for those who are desperately unsure of their reward, for those who only find out at the last moment that all will be well. Give thanks to God for God’s generosity, which extends grace to all and to each: do not be envious because God is generous, but be glad because you know your reward. And trust the grace of God to see that all will be well for all God’s children.
Amen.

Forgiveness

2011-09-09T17:30:00.000+01:00

OK -back on track with the lectionary:
Matthew 18: 21-35
and here's a first draft...

Forgiveness
Peter asks Jesus about forgiveness ‘How many times should I forgive?’.
What a good question.
She let me down again – should I forgive her again?
He really hurt my feelings this time with what he said - how can I forgive him?
The crime is so awful, the implications so enormous – where is the place for forgiveness? in the story of the Twin Towers & 9/11, or the death in custody of Baha Musa, or the shootings carries out by Raoul Moat.

What difference would it make to this world if we really took forgiveness seriously? How many times should I forgive?

So Jesus tells one of his parables. A parable about forgiveness.. or maybe unforgiveness.

A slave owes his king 10,000 talents. A talent was about a year’s wages for a labourer. This is a huge sum. Even if the man lives on nothing and gives all that he earns to the king it would take him 10,000 years to pay him back. This slave is in deep, deep trouble. Jesus doesn’t tell us how this man has racked up that kind of debt – but he wants us to know that when the king threatens to sell the man, his wife & children and everything he owns it will still not make more than the tiniest dent into the amount he owes.
He cannot pay this debt.
So he begs ‘have patience me and I will pay you all I owe’.
No he won’t. He can’t. He can never earn enough to pay the king back – not in a month of Sundays (or approximately 10,000 years).

But the king has pity, releases the man, and, says Jesus, forgives the debt.
But then Slave number 1 bumps into Slave number 2, who owes him a hundred denarii. Now a denarius is the daily wage for a worker – so in other words, Slave 2 owes about 100 days’ or 4 months’ wages. So he begs ‘have patience me and I will pay you’. It may take a year – or even two – but he should be able to pay his debt off, because it’s 4 months wages, not 10,000 years wages.

But Slave 1 – because he is nasty and unforgiving- throws Slave 2 into prison until he pays off the debt.

So Jesus shows us what unforgiveness looks like – pretty stupid, actually, fairly inhuman, if we’re honest: a man who has been forgiven 30,000 times what his mate owes him refuses to be moved by almost exactly the same plea that got him off his huge debt ‘have patience me and I will pay you’.

As so often with Jesus’ parables this is a ridiculously exaggerated story – no-one, surely would be so stupid as Slave 1.

But he gets his come-uppance.
His fellow slaves are as outraged as we are by his awful, mean, nasty behaviour and tell the king what has happened.
Then the king summons Slave 1 and points out ‘I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me - you should have been just as forgiving’.
And then the king does something strange – maybe we miss it because we’re so pleased to see horrible Slave 1 get his just desserts – the king hands Slave 1 over to be tortured until he has paid the whole debt.

What debt? Didn’t the king forgive Slave 1 – so he wiped out his debt. Except he didn’t, did he?

We call this story the story of the unforgiving servant or the unforgiving slave – but we could call it the story of the unforgiving king – because when the king hears what Slave 1 has done he re-activates the debt which he is supposed to have forgiven.

And Jesus tells us this story to help us to think about forgiveness. Perhaps we wonder if Jesus tells the story to show how God forgives. We often assume that any ‘king’ in a parable is automatically meant to be God. But surely we don’t want God to treat us like the king – who forgives but then changes his mind.
So how does God’s forgiveness work, and can it help us with our forgiveness?

Jesus tells Peter to forgive not just 7 times, but 70 times 7 – in other words – stop counting! Forgive, keep being ready to forgive, never give up on forgiveness. But the parable also tells us that forgiveness must be real, and lasting and ‘from the heart’. You can’t just say you forgive someone and then take it back later.

And the parable also reminds us that when we stop to take in how much we have been forgiven, it will make our much smaller amount of forgiveness that much easier to offer. When we recognise that God, compared to the King on the story, is even more generous, even more loving and forgiving, with a grace that lasts and never gives up on us... When we know how we are forgiven, then we know we can afford to forgive. God’s forgiving love can change us into people who can be forgiving – truly, deeply, once and for all – people who offer a forgiveness which lasts – and which changes lives forever.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.

The gift of baptism

2011-09-03T11:03:00.000+01:00

Yes, I'm cheating: having not preached last week I'm using last week's lectionary readings as they fitted so well with the baptism that I'm conducting. Thought that after holidays I could be allowed to cut myself some slack!I also shortened them slightly for the sake of the 2 grandfathers who are reading them and the congregation, most of whom will be the 'baptism party'.

Sermon notes for Sept 4th (baptism)
Romans 12:9-13
Matthew 16:21-26

I was delighted to hear the first reading – the one from Paul’s letter to the Romans this morning, especially at Harry’s baptism.

Here’s the Bible my Godparents gave me the day I was baptised – aged just under 3 months. You can see that like it’s owner it’s showing signs of wear & tear!
And here inside my Godmother, Marjorie, wrote (verses from Romans ch 12).

It might seem an odd present for a tiny baby: I remember as a child being a bit jealous of my brother – who had a silver egg cup and spoon as a Baptism present, and would use it whenever we had eggs for breakfast! But as I’ve grown, I have treasured this Bible and especially those words from Romans. I feel it’s a present I’ve grown into, rather like baptism itself.

Harry is enjoying himself today, I hope, but I doubt he really understands much of what’s happening and we won’t expect him, young as he is, to remember today. But he will have his baptism certificate and candle, along with any other presents from today, so that he will know that he has been baptised. This means that whenever he wants it or needs it, the church will be here for him – many different denominations, throughout the world – Harry will be part of the worldwide family of God.

Throughout this baptismal service we will keep talking about following Jesus Christ and being part of his church. You might wonder what following Jesus really means: obviously it was one thing for the fishermen that Jesus actually met and talked to and said ‘follow me’ – and it means something slightly different for us today.

In part, being one of Christ’s followers means changing the way we live – being forgiving to others, sharing what we have with those who don’t have enough, showing hospitality – and doing all this as people who are full of love, hope and joy. These are the things that the letter to the Romans talks about.

But you might be wondering what can make us trust God’s love in the first place – what evidence have we got that God actually loves us? The best sign that God loves us comes to us in Jesus. In Jesus Christ, God became a human being like one of us. To show us the true extent of God’s amazing love Jesus came prepared to suffer and die on the cross. This was hard for his first followers to understand, as we heard in Matthew’s gospel.

Jesus tells his followers that we have to do the same as he does – to be prepared to put other people first, to ask ourselves what God wants us to do with our lives, not just to go after what we want.

So in baptism, Harry will be accepting God’s love – a free gift of grace which has been there for him since the day he was born. We, too, can remember that we are God’s special children – each one of us.

And then, in the bread and wine of communion we will remember Jesus’ gift of his life given up for us – his body broken and his blood poured out as the greatest sign of all of the greatness of God’s love.

Everyone is welcome to share in the symbolic meal as together we remember Jesus and promise to become part of his life in the world today. Strengthened by God’s love we can go out to be God’s people in the world, following Jesus Christ and putting others first.

So may God touch each one of us this morning, in the name of Jesus. Amen

Transformed...

2011-08-12T14:15:00.000+01:00

Completed sermon notes for Aug 21st

Transformed

As some of you know I have been on holiday this last week, so this sermon had to be written a week early, for once. As I was writing it, the news was full of the riots and looting in London and various other cities. Whatever else has happened in the intervening week, I’m sure the riots are still fresh in our minds.

Paul’s letter to the Romans, with it’s call to 'Be transformed not conformed' feels like the good news many people need to hear as we contemplate what makes the think veneer of society break down so dramatically. Don’t follow the crowd, and be conformed but allow God’s love to change you: be transformed.

There have been many theories as to why the disturbances have happened, and I’m sure there isn’t one simple answer. But I saw struck by three comments in particular I heard from people at the centre of areas of trouble.

A mother in Manchester stated “if you treat them like scum, they’ll act like scum”
A resident of Tottenham reflected “these boys in gangs have no sense of belonging or self-worth, except what’s given to them by belonging to a gang”.
And someone caught looting a shop brazenly said ‘I can afford this stuff, but if you can take it for free, you’re going to, aren’t you?’

It is awful to see violence and arson, to hear reports of people losing homes and livelihoods and even lives in the face of what looks like mindless violence. And it is shocking to hear that at the core of some of this there is such a sense of despair and true poverty - the sort of poverty of thought which says you are only worth something if you own the right goods, or belong to the right gang, or are paid huge sums or treated like a celebrity.
- it's time for the church to speak out about what really makes people happy & to stand out against consumerism - not just moaning about 'the state of the world' but offering an alternative.
Maybe we need Peter’s honesty & forthrightness to speak to the world.
Here we are, back with Peter in our Gospel reading. Despite the confidence-inspiring nickname – the Rock – there has always seemed to me to be something very human about Peter – more rocky than Rock.

Last time we ‘met’ Peter in the lectionary he was acting before thinking – jumping out of the boat to join Jesus walking on the water.
In today’s reading we meet another example of Peter’s impetuousness – as well as someone who acts before thinking, Peter is also, it seems, is a blurter-out of what’s in his head.

When Jesus asks ‘who do you say that I am,’ the others disciples don’t have much to say. They’ve been quick enough to talk about what other people have been saying, but when they are suddenly asked what they think, they go very quiet. You can imagine finger-nails being examined, clothing being picked at for imaginary fluff and sandals being drilled into the floor.
But Peter splurges ‘You are the Messiah, the son of the living God’. He must have glowed with pride to hear Jesus respond ‘Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah’.
Perhaps it is Peter’s very humanity, his ability to be open to what God can do for him and through him, and his readiness to speak out that makes him the Rock on which Jesus can build his church.

Jesus chooses an ordinary person – perhaps better at using his heart than his head – and definitely fallible and imperfect. This is Peter - a rock in the sight of Jesus – someone Jesus will take and teach and forgive and fashion into a stable foundation.

As well as exhorting us to be forthright like Peter, you might be wondering whether what Peter says has any relevance to our troubled world. I think it has.
Peter says to Jesus ‘You are the Messiah, the son of the living God’.
In Jesus Peter sees God beside him – speaking with him, healing the wounds of the world, listening to what Peter has to say.

If one of the great ills of our world is a lack of self-worth and a vacuum where there should be a sense of value, our own value or the values of others; then here is the Good News for that situation. Every single person – every young person, unemployed person, black person, every old person, disabled person, overlooked person. Every single one of us can know God alongside us – not as a vague sense of good, or even as a moral compass to help us steer clear of trouble – but as a loving friend, a guiding Spirit, a heavenly Father.

I can think of no better word of Hope than the word ‘Love’. Yes, it is love which binds families and communities together and enables them to re-group and re-build. But first comes the love of God – the love which would hold each one of us like a precious child and which whispers ‘you matter. I care’.

This is what produces the transformation that Paul writes to the Romans about – this is the love which changes and enhances and empowers lives.

As we give thanks to God for the Rock which is Peter, let’s also give thanks for the God who by the power of the Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus Christ can take each one of us, rocky as we may be, and build us up into the body of Christ, the church founded on Peter, God’s agents in the world. The people who are here to declare to the world – you are loved and precious.
To God’s praise and glory
Amen.

August 21st

2011-08-10T16:10:00.000+01:00

No, I haven't forgotten August 14th - but I'll be on holiday & not preaching. So the plan is to get ahead and prepare for Aug 21st this week. Well, it's a plan - but lots of extra stuff seems to have hit the diary this week...*sigh*

Anyway readings for Aug 21st are:
Isaiah 51: 1-6
Romans 12: 1-8
Matthew 16: 13-20

My initial thoughts were to preach about Peter - but will all the riots & stuff it seems that Isaiah & Romans are more relevant. 'Being transformed not conformed' feels like the good news many people need to hear - it's time for the church to speak out about what really makes people happy & to stand out against consumerism - not just moaning about 'the state of the world' but offering an alternative.
I may well make reference to the Camping and caravanning club campaign 'Get Rich Quick'
here - especially as I am off in the tent the next day! Happy Times.

If it is you (final version)

2011-08-06T20:32:00.000+01:00

Slightly expanded and amended:

If it is you Matthew 14: 22-33

Last week’s gospel passage told the story of the feeding of the five thousand. This week’s passage begins with Jesus sending the disciples back across the lake while he dismisses that crowd of over 5000 and spends time alone in prayer. And then, in the depth of the night, as the disciples struggle against a head wind, the most amazing thing happens – Jesus walks across the lake towards them.
I am not surprised the disciples were terrified – wouldn’t you be?
The storm is wild, the night is dark, they just want to get to land. And through the dark and the storm comes a figure …walking on the sea. What??

Maybe they had already lamented the fact that Jesus wasn’t with them when the storm started – after all Jesus had already shown them on another occasion that he had the power to still the storm. But the last thing they expected was for Jesus to come and join them in the boat by walking on the water. This is not normal – maybe it is even an evil spirit or something – a sign that something awful is going to happen to them.

And then the figure speaks – it is Jesus, and he tells them not to be afraid. Hearts start to beat a little more normally, and maybe if Jesus is there he will sort the storm out for them, too.

And then Peter does a very strange thing. Peter calls out 'Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water'.
Peter says ‘if it is you… prove it? Is Peter genuinely unsure that it is Jesus? But then surely a more natural thing to say would have been 'if it is you speak again? or come closer?
Or maybe “if it is you.. save us! Come and still the storm; or come and help us get back to shore; or come into the boat with us”.
But Peter says “if it is you, command me to come to you”. Is Peter perhaps sure now that it is Jesus & is he trying to gain 'top disciple' standing by doing what Jesus does? Is Peter so carried away by seeing Jesus do this amazing thing that he wants to join in?

I can't help comparing this with John's account of the post-resurrection appearance of Jesus on the beach. Remember? After the death & first resurrection appearances of Jesus, the disciples go fishing, and then spot a figure on the beach. John says “it is the Lord” & again it is Peter who is first out of the boat. He warps something round himself, because he’s naked in the boat, and swims to shore while the others bring the boat in.

Maybe Peter is just impetuous and can’t wait to be with his Lord – putting his friends, the other fishermen, and even the safety of the boat itself to one side in his eagerness to join Jesus.
“If it is you, command me to come to you”. You have to admire Peter’s loyalty and reckless abandon!
And at first it works: he, too, walks on the water. Then he notices, or maybe he remembers, the storm – the high wind, the huge waves – and he is afraid and starts to sink. Peter cries out “Lord, save me!” and Jesus reaches out and catches him and together they get into the boat. Then the oart that perhaps we all remember. Jesus says to peter “Why did you doubt? Oh you of little faith”.

This might seem a bit unfair, Peter getting criticized for trying and failing to follow Jesus, when the pthers haven’t even tried. We might feel that we are firmly on Peter’s side. In fact we might feel we are always on Peter’s side. We all like Peter, don’t we? - because he is fallible, like us.

But why does Matthew tell us this strange story of Peter’s rash decision to get out of the boat?
In fact only Matthew’s gospel includes this part about Peter in this story, although Mark & John tell the story of Jesus walking on the water. One suggestion is that Matthew puts Peter in this story, as in other stories, to stand for every disciple of Jesus.

Peter is the rock on which Jesus builds the church. Peter is the faithful, foolish, fallible disciple.
Peter is each one of us.

If this is a stiry not just about Peter but about each one of us, what does this story tell us about our following of Jesus? Our faith, our doubt? Our need to call out "Lord, save me!"...
Maybe Peter calls out to Jesus becomes a question to each one of us ‘if it is you..’

If it is you in this story, how are you getting on with following Jesus. If it is you, are you prepared to get out of the security of the boat and risk the storm? If it is you, dare you trust Jesus to help you? If it is you, what do you do when you feel you are sinking? If it is you, what help do you need?If it is you, do you find it easy to believe – or easier to doubt yourself, your family, your friends. If it is you, do you doubt that you’re worth saving, or doubt that Jesus can help?

If it is you, here’s good news. The identity of the disciples in this story may be interchangeable – it could be Peter, it could be me, it could be you. But the identity of the one who can help us all is the same. It is Jesus who comes to us when the storm is at its height. It is Jesus who can give us the power to follow him onto the water’s surface. And it is Jesus who will catch us when we fail.

Let us pray: “Jesus, if it is you who comes to us, hold out your hand whenever we sink. Hold out your hand to touch and save. Hold out your hand and feed us here at your table. Amen.”

If it is you...

2011-08-04T18:11:00.000+01:00

Notes so far for the sermon. If it feels unfinished, it's because it is. I just stopped & I'm not sure where I'm going for the last part - but I quite like this 'If it is you' theme & might rework the whole sermon to make more of it: or just tag a bit on the end - who knows?

7-8-11

Last week’s gospel passage told the story of the feeding of the five thousand. This week’s passage begins with Jesus sending the disciples back across the lake while he dismisses the crowd and spends time alone in prayer. And then, in the depth of the night, as the disciples struggle against a head wind, the most amazing thing happens – Jesus walks across the lake towards them.
I am not surprised the disciples were terrified – wouldn’t you be?
The storm is wild, the night is dark, they just want to get to land. And through the dark and the storm comes a figure …walking on the sea. What??

Maybe they had already lamented the fact that Jesus wasn’t with them when the storm started – after all Jesus had already shown them on another occasion that he had the power to still the storm. But the last thing they expected was for Jesus to come and join them in the boat by walking on the water. This is not normal – maybe it is even an evil spirit or something – a sign that something awful is going to happen to them.

And then the figure speaks – it IS Jesus, and he tells them not to be afraid. Hearts start to beat a little more normally, and maybe if Jesus is there he will sort the storm out for them, too.

And then Peter does a very strange thing. Peter calls out 'Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water'.
Is Peter genuinely unsure that it is Jesus? But then surely a more natural thing to say would have been 'if it is you come into the boat with us'.
Or is Peter sure now that it is Jesus & is he trying to gain 'top disciple' standing by doing what Jesus does? What is Peter doing?

I can't help comparing this with John's account of the post-resurrection appearance of Jesus on the beach. Remember? After the death & first resurrection appearances of Jesus, the disciples go fishing, and then spot a figure on the beach. John says “it is the Lord” & again it is Peter who is first out of the boat - this time to swim to shore while the others bring the boat in.

Maybe Peter is just impetuous and can’t wait to be with his Lord – putting his friends, the other fishermen, and even the safety of the boat itself to one side in his eagerness to join Jesus.

“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you”. You have to admire Peter’s loyalty and reckless abandon!
And at first it works: he, too, walks on the water. Then he notices the storm – the high wind, the huge waves – and he is afraid and starts to sink. Peter cries out “Lord, save me!” and Jesus reaches out and catches him and together they get into the boat. Then the oart that perhaps we all remember. Jesus says to peter “Why did you doubt? Oh you of little faith”.

We all like Peter because he is fallible, like us.
In fact only Matthew’s gospel includes this part about Peter in this story – and one suggestion is that Matthew puts Peter there to stand for every disciple of Jesus.

Peter is each one of us.
So what does this story tell us about our following of Jesus? Our faith, our doubt? Our need to call out "Lord, save me!"...
Maybe Peter’s question to Jesus becomes a question to each one of us ‘if it is you..’
If it is you in this story, how are you getting on with following Jesus. If it is you, are you prepared to get out of the security of the boat and risk the storm? If it is you, dare you trust Jesus to help you? If it is you, what do you do when you feel you are sinking?

Here’s good news. The identity of the disciples in this story may be interchangeable – it could be Peter, it could be me, it could be you. But the identity of the one who can help us all is the same. It is Jesus who comes to us when the storm is at its height. It is Jesus who can give us the power to follow him onto the water’s surface. And it is Jesus who will catch us when we fail.

If it is you...

2011-08-01T13:49:00.000+01:00

Been looking at Sunday's gospel reading at the first meeting of 'The Good Book Club':
Matthew 14: 22-33

Mark & John both have this story too, but only Matthew has the strange bit including Peter.
I say 'strange' because I can't quite understand why, when Jesus walks on the water & then reassures the disciples that it IS him, Peter then says 'Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water'.
Is Peter genuinely unsure that it is Jesus? But surely a more natural thing to say would have been 'if it is you come into the boat with us'. Or is he sure now that it is Jesus & trying to gain 'top disciples' standing by doing what jesus does?

I can't help contrasting this with John's account of the post-resurrection appearance of Jesus on the beach, when again it is Peter who is first out of the boat - this time to swim to shore.

We all like Peter because he is fallible, like us - so what does this story tell us about our following of Jesus? Our faith, our doubt? Our need to call out "Lord, save me!"...

Blessings in the darkness

2011-07-29T17:22:00.000+01:00

Readings: Genesis 32: 22-31
Matthew 14: 13-21

I know I’m showing my age – but one of the first films I remember seeing was Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty”. I loved the little flying Fairy Godmothers with their gifts for the little princess – and I shuddered at the appearance of Maleficent – the Bad fairy Godmother who came with the curse – the bad news that the little girl would prick her finger on her 16th birthday and die – although in fact she only falls asleep.

I feel a bit like Maleficent today – here we are gathered on this happy occasion of Nia’s baptism, when we celebrate God’s blessing of her: but I want to remind you of some of the bad news around, some of the many hazards and difficulties. How are we meant to make sense of God’s blessing in a world where so much can go wrong?

The funerals have begun for the 76 people who died in Norway; our TV screens are full of pictures of people

starving in Eastern Africa; and nearer to home this village has been shocked by the death of a young woman, Heidi, who was only 38.

It’s tempting to say ‘well let’s just shut the doors and forget the world outside and concentrate on the good and Holy things happening here’. But our Bible readings – and maybe our experiences of life, tell us that God doesn’t just bless us in the happy times of our lives, in fact we might even be more aware of God’s help when times are hard.

We heard about Jacob wrestling at the ford at Jabbok. Jacob is a pretty colourful character: he’s the father of Joseph (with the technicolour dreamcoat) and has four wives – Rachel & Leah, who are sisters & their slavegirls ZIlpah & Bilhah – and that’s how he ends up with 12 sons, including Joseph.

Jacob has been out of the country: a few years before he tricked his brother, Esau into giving up his rights as first-born, when Esau returned home from hunting desperate for the stew Jacob had made.

Then when his father Isaac was old and blind he tricked him into blessing him and not Esau. And so Jacob had had to run off to live with his uncle, Laban, to avoid Esau’s revenge. Still frightened of Esau, Jacob has sent 220 goats & 220 sheep, 30 camels, 40 cows and 30 donkeys ahead as a gift for Esau, trying to fob off his brother with gifts, while he hides at the back. Then he decides to cross the ford back home.

That is when he meets and wrestles with ‘a man’ until daybreak. Some people have interpreted this story as being an encounter with an Angel, with a messenger of God. Jacob’s account is “I have seen God face to face” – he feels he has met God himself. And as he wrestles in the darkness and the fear, all alone, he knows he is blessed by God. It’s hard and it’s scary but God is there.

Now don’t panic, I’m not going to suggest that we build an obstacle course between here and the font, so that Nia gets a taste of what it feels like to struggle for God’s blessing. But I hope that when the struggles come in life (and they will, won’t they, because life is like that) she will know that God is with her however scary and hard it seems.

The people who came to listen to Jesus in that story of the feeding of the 5,000 learnt an important lesson about God’s love for them. They were hungry, and in the middle of nowhere and Jesus’ disciples were sure there wasn’t anywhere near enough food. But Jesus made sure everyone was OK: there was more than enough of God’s love to bless everyone that day – all 5,000 – no-one went home hungry.

When we think we can’t cope, when it’s scary, when it’s hard – when we’re desperate: God’s love is there.

So we should celebrate today – God’s blessing is here for Nia, and for each one of us, whatever life brings.
Thanks be to God. Amen.

Mustard seeds & messy churches!

2011-07-23T19:07:00.003+01:00

The Mustard Seed (Matthew 13:31-33,44-52)

Listen, then, to the parable of the vicarage garden.
‘The kingdom of heaven is like a vicar who had in her garden great quantities of ivy, cow parsley and ground elder. She watched as these plants grew until the whole garden was thick and green and almost impenetrable. And when there was a street party for the Royal Wedding the local children made dens and forged paths with sticks and declared the garden ‘brilliant’; and muntjac deer came and could eat without causing any real damage; and the wood pigeons came and waddled about feeding and grew so fat they could hardly leave the ground. And the vicar decided she’d better not try to become a member of the village gardening society.’

Those who cast a glance over my fence will realise this is not entirely fantasy. I have a dream that one day when I retire I will grow vegetables and pretty flowers and sit in the shade sipping something cool and
enjoying it all. But right now my garden is something else: something slightly wild and unkempt, but a place that some creatures find welcoming in a way that perhaps other gardens can’t be. I think the muntjac have learnt that they won’t get chased away : and the black and white cat from who-knows-where is so at home that when I venture out into my garden (usually to attend to the bins) the cat gives me a very old-fashioned look which says ‘who are you? get out of my garden!’.

Jesus offers us a whole string of short parables to try to explore different facets of what it means to talk about God’s kingdom, God’s rule, God’s place.
The nearest to my heart, given my attitude to gardening, is the parable of the mustard seed.
The kingdom of heaven is like someone who takes a mustard seed and plants it in a field. This tiny seed grows to be a great tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.

This mustard seed Jesus talks about is not the ‘mustard and cress’ which we might know from our kitchen windowsills – it is a pernicious weed of first century Palestine. The kingdom of heaven is like an out of control weed, a great scourge, something farmers would love to get rid of. But it is not entirely useless. It can provide an unexpected home for the birds of the air – although if we’re honest, flocks of marauding birds are another sight that wouldn’t exactly gladden the eye of the farmer.

But the kingdom of heaven is broader than the farmers imagine – it is not meant to be kept neat and tidy, ordered and sensible – the kingdom is a place of delight and exploration and welcome to absolutely everyone.

Jesus tells his parables to get us thinking. How does God’s love work? Who is included in this ‘kingdom’ Jesus talks about? What does it mean to accept the love God offers?

We see in the parable of the mustard seed that even tiny outworkings of God’s love can produce big results – just as a tiny seed can grow to a large tree.
We know that a lot of the growth that happens, happens almost in secret – we cannot see the great root system that must support a large tree – but it must be there, hidden below the ground, to enable the tree to thrive.

But most surprisingly, Jesus tells us that even a thing some would think a weed can be used to offer a life and a home to other creatures.
We cannot keep the kingdom of God tidy and predictable – we cannot simply apply rules of cause and effect – we certainly can’t keep away those who need to be at home in the places where God’s love is growing.

The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed which grows into a tree and welcomes all the birds of the air. So what should the church of Jesus Christ, as an outpost and expression of God’s kingdom, be like?

A bit ‘messier’ than we would like, perhaps. I don’t mean the building should be untidy – that serves no useful purpose! But I think Jesus challenges us to be less sure of our boundaries and our rules:
to be altogether more fuzzy about who’s part of God’s work and who isn’t. I know as churches we’re all very good at saying that everybody is welcome – but Jesus asks us if we really mean that. Do we welcome the messy weeds of this world, or the birds of the air that other might want to shoo away?

So here’s the advert: Peter Ball – our synod training officer – and I will be putting on a course for local churches in Cambridgeshire called “Everybody Welcome”. It starts in October, and there are flyers about it for everyone. The course will encourage us to think about how we make our welcome really for everybody: even the weed and the birds of this world.

And now I invite you to this table to eat & drink: not because you’ve earned it or you deserve it – but because God’s kingdom of love really is for everybody. Even you. Thanks be to God. Amen.

God's kingdom

2011-07-20T21:26:00.000+01:00

Readings for this week include
Matthew 13:31-33,44-52

with a real treasure-trove of parables of the kingdom: the yeast, the mustard seed, the pearl, treasure in a field, the net.
I think I will preach on just one: the mustard seed - which I referred to in last week's sermon with the 'other' churches. At one church this week we will have the Godly Play version of the Mustard seed - it is such a short, simple story and yet can provide such food for thought.
I would also like to encourage people to set aside dates in the their diaries for the Autumn for an 'Everybody Welcome' course, making a link with the birds of the air being welcomed in the branches of the strange weed that is the mustard bush.
Also i think I'd like to link the idea of the growth of the kingdom in the mystery of a seed with the Romans reading (Romans 8:26-39) and Paul's teaching about the way the Spirit helps us to be on-anxious about God's love and God's purpose.

Fit for purpose?

2011-07-15T18:04:00.000+01:00

Readings:
Matthew 13: 24-30
Romans 8: 12-25

Fit for purpose? – seeds and weeds

“Fit for purpose” seems to have become something of a buzz phrase. A few years ago I only ever heard people talking about articles you had bought being ‘fit for purpose’ or ‘not fit for purpose’ under the consumer goods act. But in just the last week, for example, there have been questions in the news as to whether bodies such as the International Whaling Commission, the banks’ risk management systems, and the press complaints commission are ‘fit for purpose’, and even whether individuals such as sports stars, journalists and politicians are ‘fit for purpose’. It seems that wherever there are doubts about human performance someone will want to say not just that mistakes have been made, but that somehow these people are not ‘fit for purpose’.
For weeks now we’ve been listening to chunks of Paul’s letter to the Romans, with Paul agonising over human fallibility. If we are created by a loving and powerful God, and if we know that God has shown us right and wrong, how come the world is so full of mistakes. What is it about humanity that makes us not ‘fit for purpose’?

Maybe there’s an answer in Jesus’ parable.
The kingdom of heaven is like field in which good seed is sown, but like last week’s parable, things don’t quite go to plan. An enemy comes and sows bad seed – and so weeds grow among the crop. The field can’t be weeded at this stage without disturbing the roots of the good crop, so the farmer waits until the harvest – then the good wheat and the useless weeds can be distinguished and separated.
At one level it may be that Jesus is simply saying ‘there is good and bad in this world, but separating the two has to wait – good and bad have to grow together for now, until the time is right’.
This provides some sort of answer as to why people do bad things in life and seem to get away with it, why God seems to tolerate our mistakes better than we do!

But I don’t think Jesus means us to take this parable in isolation. Matthew introduces this parable with ‘Jesus put before the crowd another parable’ – which come straight after the one we commonly call ‘the parable of the sower’, perhaps we want to call this ‘the parable of another sower’ – or most accurately ‘parable of the seeds, part 2’: because Jesus is about the tell the parable of the seeds part 3: the parable of the mustard seed – which grows to become a huge plant – a plant commonly considered by farmers in first century Palestine to be a weed.

So what is Jesus saying in these 3 parables?
Some seed grows well, some doesn’t: it depends where it lands. But the seed that lands in good soil can produce a good crop.

Some seed is good seed – and some is bad: you can’t always tell which is which until it comes time to harvest the crop.

Some seed that seems like bad seed – weed seed – has a use after all because when it grows it produces a home for the birds: an unexpected harvest from something that seemed useless.
The kingdom of heaven, says Jesus – is like these parables of seeds.

We human beings waste a lot of time trying to work out who is good and who is bad – who might be ‘in’ with God, and who might not be, who might, instead, be evil. Jesus warns us to look at the fruits of people’s lives – including our own lives. We know when good seed lands on good soil and produces a good result – we can see the crop that we harvest. Human lives, says Jesus, are like this: if there is a good result – if there is recognisable good fruit – good things happening in people’s lives and in the lives of those they serve – then God is at work – the kingdom of God is present.

Where God’s message of love falls on deaf ears, or produces no effect, where nothing good is growing, then we can conclude that God is not able to be at work in his kingdom here. But Jesus warns us to be patient: sometimes it takes time for the fruits of God’s love to show; sometimes the good stuff is almost hidden by the bad things happening around it; and sometimes what looks like something useless can turn out to be God’s work after all.

Don’t be too quick to judge someone as not ‘fit for purpose’. And that includes yourself. Be patient, says Jesus – just because there is good and bad seed growing in the field of your life doesn’t mean that God’s kingdom can’t be at work in you.

Of course we want to be fruitful and good – to show the Spirit at work in our lives producing love joy faith, patience kindness goodness, faithfulness gentleness and self-control. But no-one can be good all the time – and we shouldn’t waste our time and risk uprooting the good growth of the kingdom by trying to root out the bad in others or on ourselves.

So in answer to the question “what is it about humanity that makes us not ‘fit for purpose’?”, Jesus might say : forget ‘fit for purpose’, no-one is entirely fit for purpose.

But do remember, says Jesus, what the purpose of our lives is: our purpose is to be people in whose lives God’s work can grow – people who show God’s love to others.
Our purpose is love, and even though we know we cannot be always loving, we can still continue to be people in whose lives God’s love grows and changes our world.

May it be so. Amen.

July 10th

2011-07-08T21:24:00.002+01:00

Ears to hear?

If you’ve heard the Gospel story before you probably know it as the parable of the sower. But a better title is probably the parable of the seed. The whole point of the story is what happens to the seed. It is scattered by the sower – broadcast, thrown all over the place. The sower is generous, almost wasteful, in the way that he scatters the seed. He doesn’t look at some areas and think “there’s no point in scattering there” – he risks throwing the seed everywhere.

This is a parable – so Jesus is telling us this story to show us what the kingdom of God is like – what God is like – and Jesus demonstrates how this liberal generosity works.

A great crowd of people are listening to Jesus. They are stood on the beach. listening to Jesus talk from a boat. Jesus’ words go everywhere – he doesn’t try to control who hears the message of God’s love – he wants everyone to hear. Jesus starts his story with ‘listen!’ and ends with ‘let anyone with ears listen!’. Anyone with ears – that doesn’t really leave anyone out, does it?
God’s message of love, like the seed, goes everywhere and everyone can hear it. Then what?

Different things happen in different places and at different times – not because the seed, or the message, is different, but because we, the listeners, are different at different times.

At the Parish Church this morning we had a baptism and I gave a short sermon on this parable.
I imagine some people there were not really listening. They might have been there to support the baby’s family, but they weren’t really expecting to hear anything very interesting in church this morning.
The path. The place where the seed has no real chance at all.

Other people there might have been listening, but they were not really ready to take things to heart. By the time the get to the party for little Corra they might say “that was a nice service” but have forgotten any detail of what happened of what was said.
Rocky ground. A place where things can’t go too deep.

Other people might have been miles away through the service. Worries about health, about money, about relatives – all sorts of things can crowd into your head when you sit quietly in church.
Weedy ground. A place where any message of love gets choked by other things.

But some people might have listened and perhaps have noticed for the first time that Jesus talks about God’s love for them. Maybe a seed has started to grow as they’ve realised that Jesus wants them to listen and to hear that God loves them and that their lives could be different and more loving, with God’s help.
Good soil. A place of growth and a place where love can grow.

Jesus says ‘Listen!’ – and some will, and some won’t.
And what about you?
We all have good days and bad days.
Hard days, stony days, thorny days.
Jesus invites you to open your ears and your heart to accept the seed of God’s love.
Let that message sink into you. Be good soil.
See how God’s love can grow in you and produce a wonderful harvest.
Receive the love God offers in Jesus – and be prepared to grow and be fruitful in his name. Amen.

July 3rd

2011-07-01T12:53:00.000+01:00

Romans 7 15-25, Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

How are you feeling today?
More specifically – how do you feel about yourself? How is your self-esteem?
According to an article I read this week, if you’re the Chief Executive Officer of a company your answer to that question is likely to be ‘I’m perfect’.
Every week for the past year and a half, the Financial Times has asked business leaders 20 questions including: "What are your three worst features?"
In the replies, the CEOs refuse to really admit to any weaknesses – reflecting instead on ‘disguised strengths’. They almost all cite impatience, perfectionism and being too demanding - all of which turn out to be things that it's rather good for a CEO to be.
This led the researcher to suggest that the three worst traits of chief executives are a lack of self-knowledge, a refusal to be honest and a quite extraordinary willingness to give themselves the benefit of the doubt.
(Article here if you want to read it)

But what about you? How do you feel about yourself?

Well, maybe you can relate to the reading we had from Romans, where Paul wrestles with human nature – specifically the question “if we know what is good and right, why can’t we always do it?” – why do we always make mistakes and then hide behind dishonesty and self-delusion?

To help us understand Paul’s debate, I’ve written the Romans reading for, essentially, 2 voices: if everyone could read the part marked ‘All’ and then one half of the church read the paragraphs mostly starting ‘For..’ – which are over to the left of the page, and the other half reads the passages starting ‘But..’ which I’ve indented slightly over to the right, we might understand Paul’s argument.

…Romans 7: 15-25 ‘antiphonally’ (see post below)

Poor Paul! This isn’t just a debate about ‘human nature’ in abstract – it’s a pouring out of how frustrated he feels about himself. ‘I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate’.

Apart from, perhaps, any CEOs in the congregation, we all know this feeling: why do I lose my temper and snap at the people I love most? why do I volunteer to do something and then end up feeling put upon and disgruntled? why do I continually say to myself ‘I’ll go and do that in a minute’… I could go on, but I’m sure you have your own pet annoyance with yourself which leaves you thinking ‘I’ve done that again’.

Paul points out that the law, the commandments of God, tell us what is right and good… but we continually fail to keep it.
What is this ‘sin’ that makes us choose the wrong thing, when we know what is right? What is it about human nature that makes us incapable of doing the good we would choose to do? And how do we overcome our faults?
Paul ends up calling himself a ‘wretch’, in complete frustration.

But then Paul suddenly throws in ‘Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ – whatever our mistakes and our own frustration with ourselves, God has an answer to help us – in Jesus.

So in the Gospel reading we heard Jesus say "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Jesus doesn’t just try to soothe his listeners’ angst by telling them that what they do doesn’t really matter, Jesus offers a solution. Walk with me: more than that, come & be yoked to me – linked firmly, like 2 animals pulling a plough together. And recognize that if you’re yoked to Jesus, he is always the stronger partner, so that Jesus can take the weight, bear the burden and bear the load. Jesus says ‘Let me help: let’s do this together’.

How are you feeling?
Exhausted? Fed up with yourself? Frustrated by your own inability to get it right? Jesus says ‘let me help’ in fact, more than that ‘you rest, I’ll take the load’. Here’s Good news indeed – not a spur to try harder and be better people, but proper help!

And how do we keep ourselves yoked to Jesus – how do we keep walking with him and allowing him to help?
Some of it happens here, in the fellowship of the church, as we try to be Christ to one another.
Some of it comes through exploring the Bible, as we deepen our knowledge of and relationship with the God who comes to us in Christ.
And some of it comes in prayer and worship as we hear the invitation: “come - eat , drink, rest & be made new.”

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Antiphonal reading of Romans

2011-06-29T21:42:00.000+01:00

So, to try to help people grasp the wrestling that Paul is doing in this reading, I thought I'd try reading it antiphonally - some bits all together, and then the other parts with half the congregation saying one part and the other responding with 'but...'

Like this:

Romans 7: 15-25
All: I do not understand my own actions.

For I do not do what I want,
but I do the very thing I hate.
Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good.
But in fact it is no longer I that do it,
but sin that dwells within me.
For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh.
I can will what is right,
but I cannot do it.
For I do not do the good I want,
but the evil I do not want is what I do.
Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it,
but sin that dwells within me.
All So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.

For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self,
but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

All: Wretch that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

July 3rd

2011-06-28T08:04:00.000+01:00

So I think this week I'm going to focus on
Romans 7: 15-25
& Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

I feel I should tackle Romans - yet what I know I ought to do & what I do are two!

Struggling with not launching into a whole spiel about Paul's theology (zzzzz) but can't deny that he hits the nail on the head:
the law shows us what is right
our will is to do the right thing
but we fail!
- only Christ living in us can help us.
& can't help seeing a useful link between that and the gospel image of being 'yoked'.

Will keep thinking...

First after Trinity: June 26th

2011-06-24T14:19:00.000+01:00

With apologies for no earlier posting: I have been at a festival of preaching this week with the incomparable Anna Carter Florence. I have come away with my head buzzing with ideas - but then had to knuckle down to the hard task of actually writing a sermon! Maybe the style is different as a result of all I've learnt - and maybe for once I won't wrap thing up too much at the end - but leave a hanging question...?

Abraham’s test (Genesis 22: 1-14)
“God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you." So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him.”

What?! Can we just rewind a little here?

God said to Abraham… ‘take your son & offer him there as a burnt offering’ and Abraham said …?
Nothing. Not a word. No argument, no need for an explanation, no qualms. God said sacrifice your son & Abraham saddles the donkey, loads it with wood, and sets off with Isaac… to kill him. Because that’s what God has just told him to do.

I hope we haven’t heard this story so often that we’ve lost the sense of outrage we should feel.
I have an outraged question. Where is Sarah?
Did Abraham pop into the tent and say ‘I’m just off to make a sacrifice, dear’ and did she even ask ‘what are you sacrificing?’ so that he could say
‘Oh, you know – our son…our only son.. our beloved son… Isaac’. Where is Sarah? Why is there no account of her standing in front of the donkey with an even bigger knife than the one Abraham is carrying, saying ‘put the boy DOWN’.

We might feel we know what this story is about.. God tests Abraham. Abraham has to have faith – has to do what God says – and because we’ve just heard the end of the story we know there’s a ram in the bush & Isaac is perfectly safe all along because ‘God himself will provide’.

God tested Abraham – and Abraham passed because he trots off on his donkey with the intention of murdering his son because that’s a perfectly reasonable thing for God to ask, isn’t it?
Except – no, it isn’t. What sort of God asks a father to sacrifice his son like that? What kind of father silently acquiesces? Abraham has a kind of faith: we might call it blind faith, or total faith, or wild-eyed murderous extremism.

God tested Abraham.
God and Abraham have quite a few conversations in the book of Genesis.
The Lord comes to Abraham in Harran and says ‘leave your own country and go where I will show you’… and Abraham goes.
The Lord says, in Canaan, ‘I am giving this land to your descendants’ and Abraham builds an altar.
The Lord says to Abraham when he’s settled at the terebinths of Mamre ‘Do not be afraid. I am your shield. Your reward will be very great’ and Abraham says ‘But I’m childless’ and God say to Abraham ‘Look up at the sky & count the stars – so many your descendents will be’ & Abraham put his faith in the Lord.
God says ‘I will give you this land’ and Abraham says ‘how can I be sure?’ and God performs a ceremony to seal the deal.
Then, after Abraham has had a son, Ishmael, with Sarah’s slave girl, because Abraham & Sarah reckon they’re too old for their own children, the Lord says ‘Sarah will have a son’ and Abraham laughs and says ‘Can’t you bless me through Ishmael?’ but the Lord says ‘Sarah will bear you a son’. That son is eventually born – and named Isaac.
And just before the story we started with today the Lord tells Abraham that he is going to destroy the cities of Sodom & Gomorrah. And Abraham argues with God and says ‘what if there are 50 innocent people there? You can’t destroy them’ and God agrees: and Abraham says ‘what if there are 45 innocent people?’ and God agrees he won’t destroy the cities then.. and Abraham goes on and on, 40, 30, 20.. until he gets God to agree that even if there are just 10 innocent people, the cities won’t be destroyed. However the bad news for Sodom & Gomorrah is that they’re all a rotten bunch and God destroys the cities.

Looking at these stories, have you noticed that Abraham seem to be getting increasingly ‘lippy’ with God as time goes on? Maybe it’s that over time Abraham has a relationship with God, in which they talk together about things. So when the Lord tests Abraham & asks for Isaac’s life wouldn’t you expect a ding-dong battle at least as good as the one over Sodom & Gomorrah?
But what God gets is – silence and a saddled donkey.

God tested Abraham. But did Abraham pass the test , or fail it?
Was God looking for blind obedience from Abraham, or trying to start a conversation? You might think we don’t know the answer to that question – but I think there’s a clue in the story itself. When Abraham & Isaac reach the top of the mountain “Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy”.

It is not God who talks to Abraham, tells him to spare Isaac, and points out the ram who will be the sacrifice instead. It is God’s angel, God’s messenger. In fact if you look in the book of Genesis you’ll find that God never speaks to Abraham again. God tested Abraham. And perhaps Abraham failed the test & God decided he’d better not risk telling Abraham anything ever again, because Abraham had stopped asking questions & had begun to do what God said without stopping to think for himself at all.
God tested Abraham.
Was he prepared to accept God’s demands blindly? Or was he still prepared to test what God said against what seemed right and good and reasonable – and indeed to test it against what God had already said because God had promised all these descendents through Isaac and the boy was only 12 years old.

Was God calling Abraham to an extremist, fundamentalist faith? Or to a faith which seeks understanding, an on-going and growing relationship with God?
And what tests us? And how will we respond in faith?

Trinity notes

2011-06-18T18:59:00.002+01:00

Trinity

So here we are again on Trinity Sunday. We’ve celevrated the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ at Eastertide, and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost – and now we have this one week to try to tidy all our thoughts about God into the formula of the Trinity – Father, Son & Holy Spirit.

But why should we care about the Trinity? And especially, why should we care about the Trinity when there are 'real' problems in the world which demand our attention so much more urgently. Take suffering. To be specific, let's take the case of a little boy in one of our villages who is undergoing treatment for a tumour. He is suffering. His family is suffering. His friends are suffering. The whole school community is suffering. (all these to varying degrees, obviously). And in the face of all this not one person has yet asked me to explain to them the theory of the Trinity. Odd, that.

But one thing that people are wondering and quietly asking, is ‘what is happening when a young child is sick?’. And particularly, “where is God in this?’ and ‘what is God doing about this situation?’.

And so I believe we do need to think about the Trinity today, because how we handle the crises and suffering of life on the one hand and how we think about God on the other hand are intimately related.

If we think there is no God, then there is no anguished question 'why?' - stuff happens, people get ill, even little people, and there really is no reason.
But once we decide that we think there is a God, we are left with the question 'what sort of God is it that lets a little boy suffer?' or at least ‘what is God up to, right now?’.

So as we struggle to make sense of our world we are left with the question ‘what do we really think God is like?’.

Do we think God is Omnipotent? All-powerful? Then if God is the one who is in charge of everything, why can't he just stop all cancer from happening?

Do we see God as a loving Father? Do we think God actually cares about what happens to any of us? or has he created a world, wound it up & let it go, relatively unconcerned about this cosmic experiment? Is God, in fact, an absent father rather then a living loving reality.

Or have we got it all wrong & is God not much more than a comforting idea on a cold night?

You wouldn’t expect me to comprehensively answer all these questions in the space of one sermon, let alone unpack to your entire satisfaction the mystery of the Trinity!
But the idea that God is somehow three in one – and that all three ‘persons’ of the Trinity are about relationship and about relating to the world has something to offer us.

Whatever else the doctrine of the trinity says into this situation, it says that God is complex, not easily understood. It reminds us that we need to keep wondering, and asking, and searching, and remember that there will be no simple answers to our deepest questions. If God is truly God, then all our human ideas about God are bound to fall short of the reality that is God.

Yet even though we accept that our ideas will only offer us a partial glimpse of the truth about God, the idea of God as Trinity can be helpful. The idea of the Trinity points us to a God who is both dynamic & active and one who cares about the fate of humanity.
So the God who creates and cares in the Father cannot impassively watch his children suffer.
The God who comes to us and suffers alongside us in the Son will not simply leave us to our fate.
The God who moves among us in the Spirit has power to act, yet not a power which merely over-rides our human condition and our physical laws.
The God who is all three - and yet one - is a God of inter-relationship, complexity, love.

This is a God who is with us in our questioning, but who defies simple answers and straight-forward definitions.

When the ups and downs of life cause us to wonder what God is about, we need to have the courage to face the hard question of what we believe about God’s involvement with the world. In the end we are left with a deep mystery of a God who cares, and yet cannot protect us – or our children - from all suffering.
The Trinity teaches us that God is intimately involved with this world God has created. God who is Father & creator holds all things in being and sustains life; God the Son is the one who has lived a human life with all its pain and difficulty; God the Spirit is present in all and to all human lives.

When we wonder whether we understand the nature of God, the idea of the Trinity can remind us that the God whom we meet on our journey through life is complex and wonderful. Yet although we will never understand God, we are faced with the idea of a God who exists in community within Godself – and who reaches out to pull each of us into the dance of the Trinity.

So may we know ourselves held and loved, even in the hardest of life’s questions and the darkest of life’s episodes: held and loved by God – Father Son & Holy Spirit. Amen.

Trinity...!

2011-06-15T15:58:00.000+01:00

This is absolutely an off-the-top-of-the-head ramble, just to get my mental cogs turning.
Why shoudl we care about the Trinity when there are 'real' problems in the world which demand our attention so much more urgently. Take suffering. To be specific, let's tek the case of a little boy in one of our villages who is undergoing treatment for a tumour. He is suffering. His family is suffering. His friends are suffering. The whole school community is suffering. (all these to varying degrees, obviously). And in the face of all this not one person has yet asked me to expound a theory of the Trinity. Odd, that.

But (and you were just waiting for that weren't you) I think that how we handle the crises and suffering of life and how we think about God are intimately related.
If we think there is no God, then there is no anguished question 'why?' - stuff happens, people get ill, even little people, and there really is no reason.
But if we think there is a God, we are left with the question 'what sort of God is it that let's a little boy suffer?'.
What do we really think God is like?
If God is the one who is in charge of everything, why can't he just stop all cancer from happening?
Does God actually care about what happens to any of us, or has he created a world, wound it up & let it go, relatively unconcerned about this cosmic experiment?
Or have we got it all wrong & is God not much more than a comforting idea on a cold night?

Whatever else the doctrine of the trinity says into this situation, it says that God is complex, not easily understood, but also both dynamic & active and caring of the fate of humanity.
The God who creates and cares in the Father cannot impassively watch his children suffer.
The God who comes to us and suffers alongside us in the Son will not simply leave us to our fate.
The God who moves among us in the Spirit has power to act, yet not a power which merely over-rides our human condition and our physical laws.
The God who is all three - and yet one - is a God of inter-relationship, complexity, love.
This is a God who is with us in our questioning, but who defies simple answers and straight-forward definition.

Pentecost

2011-06-11T11:49:00.002+01:00

This year we have a joint service for 7 churches with communion and with a baptism: so the order of the day is 'a short sermon' (just as well as I also have 2 weddings today!). Here it is:

Pentecost
Without question the reading we heard from Acts is the worst Bible reading ever to be asked to do. On ‘Thought for the day’ on the radio last week, Richard Harries, the retired Bishop of Oxford, used part of this reading at 10 to 8 in the morning: you have to be a retired bishop to get away with that sort of thing!
After the Spirit comes, the people all around hear Jesus’ followers talking about God’s love and power:
“Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs”.

Never get on the wrong side of the person who arranges the readers’ rota in your church, or you will be given this reading on the day of Pentecost!

But what’s the point of this really difficult list of names?
The point is that these are people from all over the place – North, South, East & West – people who spoke dozens of different languages. God’s power comes in the Holy Spirit at Pentecost so that the whole world can hear the message of God’s love, which Jesus disciples saw in him.

The message is that God’s love is for everyone.
And that’s why we baptize children – even if they are too young to understand what we are doing. God’s love is there for you from the moment of your birth, wherever you’re from, wherever you go, whatever language you speak.
When we celebrate Pentecost and when we celebrate a baptism we celebrate the explosion of God’s love into the world for absolutely every single person.

But just before we got to the terrible list of names, we heard an amazing story of how God’s spirit comes to Jesus’ followers – with the rush of a violent wind, and tongues of flames spreading out to touch everyone. Pentecost is dangerous stuff – the coming of the Spirit is not just a nice gentle breeze which leaves people feeling soft and fuzzy, it’s a typhoon, which picks people up and throws them into a whole new life.

Opening yourself up to God’s Spirit can be dangerous and scary – it can change your life forever. Because once you have felt God’s presence, you can never again deny that God is with you, guiding you all your life, giving you power when you feel weak, filling you with new power and new love.

This Baptism will mark George and Milly forever as God’s children, touched by God’s spirit of love.
This Pentecost reminds us that the same Spirit is here to touch each one of us.
May we all be touched and changed and know God’s love and power, today and forever. Amen.

Easter 7

2011-06-03T14:40:00.002+01:00

Jesus prays “And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you”. I wonder how Jesus disciples felt when they heard this prayer. What did they think they had ‘signed up for’ in following Jesus? When they first decided to follow him, perhaps they thought it would be nice to have a rabbi, to sit around and listen to him, watch him perform miracles.. all very cosy.
Yet this prayer of Jesus - just before his crucifixion – warns them that it’s not that simple. The time is fast coming when they will have to do the work Jesus has begun.

And the ascension, which was celebrated on Thursday, just underlines this sense of responsibility. Jesus has died and has risen but is now gone back to the father – the last thing they glimpse are his feet. Then they have to get on their feet & really start to follow Jesus.
The disciples learn that following is not just tagging along after: it involves more commitment than that.
I’m sorry to be so unseasonal – but we find this kind of committed following in the carol ‘Good King Wenceslas’! You might remember that the King sees the peasant ‘gathering winter fuel’ and sets off into the snow to bring food & wine to the destitute peasant. The poor old page doesn’t really have a choice :
“In his master’s steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted.
Heat was in the very sod which the saint had printed”.

Jesus’ resurrection body has left the earth forever, and so the disciples have to accept the challenge to live life as Jesus’ new body, the church.
But Jesus is not just passing the baton to the disciples & leaving them to it. After the ascension, they might well have remembered this prayer of Jesus to the Father that ‘they may they be one as we are one’ and Jesus request for God the Father to ‘protect them’.

The disciples must walk in Jesus’ footsteps, but always guided and upheld by what Jesus has left with them - the Spirit. Of which more next week, when we celebrate Pentecost!

But perhaps you’re left wondering what the Ascension of Jesus really means for us.

There was an article in ‘Reform’ magazine this month by John Pridmore, who writes that he struggles with Ascension if it is only a celebration of the victorious Christ finally being freed from the squalor of earth to return to the father. Pridmore rejects the idea of a Jesus ascended and untouched by our reality, but reminds us that as we see Jesus ascended he does not leave our humanity behind, but takes our humanity with him into the heart of the Godhead.
He sums this up in a wonderful phrase “All that we are – much of it so wretched – is what he is”.
The ascension is not a farewell appearance from Jesus, but is a cementing of the relationship between heaven and earth.

So at the ascension, Jesus’ mission passes to the disciples; it shows us Jesus taking our humanity into heaven; and it also releases the presence of Jesus into all space and time.

It is easy to treat the ascension as if Jesus becomes less present in the world – disappearing, head first, into a cloud.

But the ascension shows us Jesus’ resurrection body being received into heaven so that Jesus can be present in the here & now in a different way and can be equally and really present to all his followers, wherever and whenever they live.

Years ago when I was a science undergraduate, I heard Timothy Radcliffe, who went on to be Master of the Dominican order, talk about the resurrection. He said that we had to let go of the idea that Jesus became less bodily, less enfleshed, at the resurrection, and instead to understand that he becomes more bodily, more real, more truly present. If this doesn’t make complete sense to you, take heart in the fact that I have been thinking about it for 30 years and I still don’t fully understand it.
But I think Tim Radcliffe’s ideas have something to offer in our understanding of ascension, too.

Instead of thinking that the ascension makes Jesus go away from us, we need to realise that it makes Jesus even more present to us, even more real. Jesus becomes more bodily – he is here.

Jesus takes our humanity into the heart of God, he passes the task of mission to all his followers, but he never abandons us, but is present: in bread and wine – in our neighbours – in his body, the church.

Let’s celebrate Christ with us – and wait with eager expectation for the celebration of the coming of the spirit, next week at Pentecost.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

First thoughts about June 5th

2011-06-02T12:44:00.000+01:00

Readings:
Acts 1: 6-14
John 17: 1-11

Following Jesus - what did the disciples think they had ‘signed up for’?
When they first decide to follow Jesus, perhaps they think it will be nice to have a rabbi, to sit around and listen to him, watch him perform miracles.. all very cosy.
Yet this prayer of Jesus - just before his crucifixion – warns them that it’s not that simple. The time is fast coming when they will have to do the work Jesus has begun.

And the ascension, which was celebrated on Thursday, just underlines this sense of responsibility. Jesus has died and has risen but is now gone back to the father – the last thing they glimpse are his feet. Then they have to get on their feet & really start to follow Jesus.

The disciples learn that following is not just tagging along after: it involves more commitment than that.
I’m sorry to be so unseasonal – but we find this kind of committed following in the carol ‘Good King Wenceslas’! You might remember that the King sees the peasant ‘gathering winter fuel’ and sets off into the snow to bring food & wine to the destitute peasant. The poor old page doesn’t really have a choice :
“In his master’s steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted.
Heat was in the very sod which the saint had printed”.

Jesus’ resurrection body has left the earth forever, and so the disciples have to accept the challenge to live life as Jesus’ new body, the church.

But Jesus is not just passing the baton to the disciples & leaving them to it. After the ascension, they might well have remembered this prayer of Jesus to the Father that ‘they may they be one as we are one’ and Jesus request for God the Father to ‘protect them’.

The disciples must walk in Jesus’ footsteps, but always guided and upheld by what Jesus has left with them - The Spirit. Of which more next week!

Easter 6

2011-05-27T16:59:00.000+01:00

Readings:
1 Peter 3: 13-22
John 14: 15-21

(Just to explain the last part of the sermon - this week we 'launch' a new thing - four groups from all four churches to plan worship, mission & outreach, youth & children's work, & pastoral care. It seemed right to refer to this in the sermon).

Easter 6
Today - the fifth Sunday after Easter - is called by some people Rogation Sunday and can be marked by a congregation going out and ‘beating the bounds’ - walking around all of the edges of the Parish.

It got this name because of the words in the Prayer Book gospel for the day: "Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give to you". (The Latin for ‘ask’ is 'Rogare' ). By the 17th century, the old Roman festival of "boundaries", had been adapted by the church on this Sunday and served a practical purpose. In the days before Ordnance Survey maps, there were not always clear lines of demarcation between the parishes, especially where there were open field systems. During the procession, all around the boundaries of the parish, boys were bumped on prominent marks and boundary stones, or rolled in briars and ditches, or thrown in the pond to ensure they never forgot the boundaries. The Victorians made it more civilized by beating objects rather than people, in the context of a service and procession, and also included prayers asking God to bless the crops, especially asking for protection against disease.

You might wonder, in these days of maps, and pesticides, whether we need to think about Rogation Sunday anymore, but I think our Bible readings remind us that we still need to consider how we interact with the world outside the church building, and that we still need to ask God to help us in all that we do.

Rogation was about the church interacting with the world around: working out where the boundaries were of those who were in the church’s care, going out and being seen, and asking for God’s help in the daily lives of the people outside the church.
In a sense, it is a form of evangelism – of reaching out with the Good News of God’s love. I realize some people find Evangelism a deeply scary word,
laced with ideas of jamming your foot in someone’s door – and yet we would not be much a church of Jesus Christ if we kept the Good News to ourselves. So what sort of Evangelism is it appropriate for us to get involved with, today?

The first letter of Peter tells us not to be afraid to be followers of Christ, even if we encounter hardship. The author has this advice to give the church : “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence”. No hard sell here, no door-knocking, no sales pitch. Be ready to ‘Give an account for the hope that is in you’ – be able to say what your faith in Jesus means to you, prepared to speak out about your own experiences of God’s love in your own life, in the Bible and in church.
At the end of April, the media reported the death of Revd David Wilkerson – author of “the cross and the switchblade” – an account of his work with teenagers in gangs in New York, who became converted to Christianity and gave up lives of drug abuse and violence to follow Jesus Christ. They were amazing stories – and yet…as I read them as a teenager I felt that their stories were not like my story: ordinary people need to hear ordinary stories of the extraordinary love of God. Your neighbour, your friend, your family need to hear your story, however simple, of a journey of faith to help them see they could make the same journey.

This may seem an almost over-whelming thing to ask – but this is Rogation Sunday, so let’s remember that when God is asked, God helps.
Jesus says to his followers “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever”.

On this day of asking the chief thing to ask for is the spirit of God to enable us to be true children of God. Jesus promises the spirit, which will ‘lead us into all truth’ and which will make us his followers, his body, his people. The Spirit will help us to speak to others simply and effectively about the God we know in Jesus. But we have to be prepared to open our mouths. We may feel scared, but Jesus promises we are not alone.
So, let’s imagine that we get up the courage to speak to someone. What then? What can we do?

A few weeks ago I was at the annual Ministers’ Spring school – lots of opportunity for discussion and worship and fellowship. As always it was tiring but well worth while. One of our speakers this year was Bishop Graham Cray, who is now heading the “Fresh Expressions” attempt to reach new people with Church. I was very struck by something Graham Cray said : ‘Church is community before it is an event, even a worship event’. When we invite people to church we might of course invite them to a particular event, like a Songs of Praise or Harvest or whatever. But we should be inviting them to come and meet some other parts of the body of Christ. We need to be drawing people into a community of followers of Jesus. Because here in the midst of the body of Christ people stand the best chance of encountering the best advert there is for Christianity - the risen Jesus Christ.

We might be left with lots of questions about how we can reach people with the Good News, how we can make the church a really good place to invite people to, and how we can make sure they meet God in Jesus, here. I hope some of these questions will be tackled by some of the new groups we are setting up, that I talked about in the notices. But I do know that to do this work we will need to be fed and nurtured ourselves, reminded of God’s love for us and assured of his strength.

And so we come to this table, to draw near to God and to be fed by him – so that we can then turn out to the world with hope in our hearts and a message of love to share. In the strength and in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Guilt

2011-05-26T07:56:00.000+01:00

I wrote this for one of my church newsletters - I think it also applies to the guilt I feel about not always getting round to posting early on this blog!

"It was bound to happen sooner or later. I missed the deadline for my minister’s letter in the village newsletter. I am cross with myself for leaving it so late and feel guilty that it might make people think I don’t care enough to write this month.

The truth of course is that among the many things I had to do to catch up from time away at Minister’s Spring School and then URC Mission Council the letter got left until…too late!

But it has got me thinking about guilt. “We have not done those things which we ought to have done”, we might sometimes pray.
I end every week feeling that there are things I haven’t done, and often find myself praying that God will grant me another week of life to try to get it all finished. In one prayer from Iona we pray “Give us time to amend our lives”.

Yet fortunately, since absolute completion is impossible, it is not all down to us – God is gracious and loving and forgiving and sometimes I feel I hear a divine whisper telling me not to be so hard on myself.

A lovely poem by James Thomson (a Scottish poet, 1700 – 1748) sums this up – I offer it to you if you sometimes get carried away with a sense of guilt:

ONCE in a saintly passion
I cried with desperate grief,
"O Lord, my heart is black with guile,
Of sinners I am chief."
Then stooped my guardian angel
And whispered from behind,
"Vanity, my little friend,
You're nothing of the kind."

Yours, a forgiven child of God,
Ruth"

Easter 5 - a baptism

2011-05-21T23:16:00.002+01:00

Home
You might think it’s a good job that Ella- Rose is too young to understand the Bible readings we’ve just heard, because they seem a bit gloomy for such a happy occasion.
Jesus talks about a home in heaven for us at the end of life: and the story of Stephen tells us how suddenly and violently his life ends.

But I think these are amazing readings, which remind us that Ella –Rose is starting out on a journey today which Jesus promises will never end. Today we celebrate Ella Rose’s baptism and remember that the love of God is here for her and will travel with her all through the life that we know and beyond it to the place we call ‘heaven’ – the life that never ends, in God.

I have often used the words of Jesus from John’s gospel at funeral services – they are words many people find comforting. A promise of a Home in

Heaven, many dwelling places, prepared for us by Jesus himself, a place of peace and eternal rest.

But the Story of Stephen reminds us that this earth is not our home, but that if we are followers of Jesus our eyes should be on something higher than our own comfort. Stephen is content to be a faithful follower of Jesus and to stick to the truth of Jesus’ identity as God’s Son, even though it cost him his life. But the good news is that Stephen knew that God’s love which he had seen in Jesus would never leave him, whatever happened.

We do not live in a place or a time of such danger – we know that Ella- Rose will never be kidnapped or tried or stoned for her faith. But we should not let this relative safety and security blind us to the truth: this world is not our home –this little span of life is not all we get: our journey is much longer than that.
Baptism is the beginning of a much longer journey with God than we can possibly imagine. That is both a comfort and a challenge to each one of us. If this world is not all there is: if God’s love is the most powerful force in the universe, then how we live our lives is affected by that.
Stephen thought that living always remembering God’s love was worth giving up his life for: and he’s only one in a long line of 2000 years of Christian martyrs. Even today, especially in those countries where different faiths clash, there are people who lose their lives because they refuse to give up their Christian faith.
Stephen was not recruited as a preacher or a teacher but as an administrator, helping to share out food in the early church. Yet Stephen is ‘full of grace and power’ and begins to do great wonders and signs among the people, and so becomes involved in a debate in the Synagogue about the rightness of choosing to follow Jesus. Trumped up charges of blasphemy are brought against Stephen, in a bid to get rid of him.
In his defence, Stephen paints a picture of God constantly calling his people forward, and people constantly resisting. So all the prophets of God have been persecuted, and latterly Jesus has been rejected, says Stephen. “You have received the law given by God’s angels and yet you have not kept it”. The people in the synagogue rise up in fury and stone Stephen, as we have heard.
Stephen preaches the need to listen to the new things that God is doing, the need to be prepared to hear the gospel afresh and not stick with what is known and comfortable. And he lives what he preaches – he doesn’t just settle for the job of administration he has been given, but is open to the prompting of God’s Spirit which leads him to teach and preach and be faithful to God’s message even to the point of death. His sight is not set on his own plans for life – but on the dwelling place prepared for him by Jesus in God’s kingdom.
The challenge to each one of us is to respond to Christ’s call on our lives by having our eyes open to the things of heaven – the gifts which God gives us – peace, love and our true home.
This journey starts with God’s love for Ella-Rose & each one of us, and it calls us to follow Jesus Christ in our walk to heaven. And then o this journey through life we have to be prepared to be someone remarkable, for God.
Amen.

Easter 4 (already?)

2011-05-14T19:10:00.000+01:00

Apologies for late posting - been away from the desk most of the week.
Readings are:
Acts 2: 42-47
John 10: 1-10

Good Shepherd
Do you ever find yourself wondering quite what it is that Jesus was offering people? That’s an easy question for those who are sick and come for healing – but John’s gospel tells us that Jesus came for the sake of the whole world, so what exactly is this “full life” that Jesus promises his disciples?

The first part of the Gospel reading seems rather complicated:
Jesus says ‘the man who does not enter the sheepfold by the door.. is nothing but a thief and a robber’ but ‘the shepherd... calls his own sheep by name’. John then goes on to say of Jesus’ disciples, ‘they did not understand’.

I don’t really blame Jesus’ listeners for not immediately understanding - it does take a bit of thinking through.
Jesus is saying something about his relationship to those who follow him: he is the good shepherd, the one who cares, the one who can be trusted.

He hasn’t come to take hearts and minds by force, like a thief, but to offer a way to go which those who trust him will follow.

Jesus is saying something about his identity as the one who can be trusted and followed. He is also chiming in with the tradition that the King of Israel was considered to be leader only in the place of God, the true shepherd.

We only have to think of the 23rd Psalm “The Lord is my shepherd” to see that the shepherd of Israel was the Lord God.
Jesus is identifying himself as leader of the emerging church and as the true shepherd of the people, the Son of God himself.
Jesus uses the parable of the shepherd to inspire his listeners with confidence that they can trust and follow him and that through him they will gain life in all its fullness.

But ‘full life’ doesn’t mean a life entirely protected from the ups and down – the dark valleys and the green pastures - that ordinary people encounter. Jesus isn’t offering a message to accept God’s care & so be wrapped up in cotton wool, untouched by the pain of the world.
Jesus says these words just before the Passover and his death on the cross. Following a crucified criminal is certainly not a guarantee of safety or security: there will be risk and rejection and what looks, to the world around, like failure.

I don’t believe for a moment that Christians should go out looking for suffering – but that we shouldn’t be surprised if it comes, and that by enduring it we can reveal the love of God, as Jesus did. Full life means a life unafraid, a life lived in the knowledge that whatever the wolves of unhappiness that seem to be circling us, we are safe in the care of the Good Shepherd, and that our lives have meaning and purpose, as his had.

So faithful followers of the crucified Messiah hear Jesus’ voice and follow him: he leads them and cares for them, but this is no guarantee of being treated well by the world or of what many people would reckon ‘success’.

Here in Jesus’ phrase ‘I am the Good Shepherd’ is an invitation to all of us to become a part of the project of God - the kingdom of God. A full life is one which accepts our role as workers for God’s kingdom: those who will work for a place of love, joy and peace for all people, a place where everyone will know themselves loved and cared for by God.

So the offer of Jesus to be the Good Shepherd is not just about caring for us, his sheep, but also about calling us to follow, and to become truly His. After Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension the disciples began to realise that they were now called to become the body of Christ, the new agent through which God’s love would work.
You might have felt a little overawed by the description from the book of Acts of the church at that time.
the believers has all things in common, signs and wonders were being done, they were adding daily to their number.

Just 2 weeks ago I was saying that the early church didn’t always get things right, but they’re certainly getting a lot right here! This is some time after the day of Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit. Filled with the life and power of Jesus Christ, the church is growing and living the kingdom.

I spent quite a lot of time last week at our Ministers’ Spring School, listening to lots of the latest ideas about the way society is organised, the way the world is headed, the values most people live by, and the role of the church in bringing God’s love to people in new and fresh ways.

In a nutshell, the conclusion seemed to be that in a fast-changing, self-centred, consumerist world what most people are experiencing is isolation, a sense of futility and a deep sense of longing which they try to fill with consumer goods – new houses, new cars, new phones, and so on.

In that face of all this, the church is called to follow Jesus and to proclaim the glorious truth of God’s love, showing people a route to faith in Jesus which leads to a truly full life – a life of hope and trust and love.

We might think the odds of this counter-cultural message being heard in our world is slim, but our task is to proclaim it faithfully, to model being a people who are living God’s kingdom, and to accept the strength and protection of the Good Shepherd to lead us where we must go as we seek new words to express ourselves and new ways to display God’s love.

So may we, as a church and as individuals, know, proclaim and enjoy life is all its fullness. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Emmaus

2011-05-04T18:16:00.000+01:00

Coming to Faith Acts 2:14a, 36-41 Luke 24:13-35

This story of the events around the journey on the road to Emmaus is one of the most memorable in Luke’s gospel.
It’s a story you could tell almost entirely in verbs.
Walking, talking, arguing, asking, explaining, understanding, inviting, staying, breaking, praying, sharing, recognising, returning, telling.

All this activity, but perhaps the most important part of what happens is the process of turning around.

First the disciples literally turn around – they walk the 7 miles or so from Jerusalem to Emmaus & then, as night falls, they turn around and go straight back to Jerusalem again.

And what causes this physical turn around? A turn around in their knowledge and emotions.

At first they fail to recognise Jesus, but they are taken on a journey by Jesus which leads them to turn around from lack of recognition to recognition.

There is a real sense of transformation in this story.
The disciples are crushed, puzzled, crest-fallen – arguing between themselves about what has happened. Jesus joins them on the road – but we are told they did not recognise him.
Emmaus, where they are headed, stands to the West of Jerusalem, and so some have argued that they didn’t recognise Jesus because they were blinded by the setting sun.
But surely even if they didn’t recognise Jesus in the setting sunshine as he joined them, they would have recognised him as he talked to them and walked alongside them?
Yet just as Mary, in the garden on that Easter Sunday morning, had failed to recognise Jesus at first, so it is with these two. It seems that the risen Jesus is not just a revived Jesus, he is not instantly recognisable.

There is an argument sometimes put forward that the so-called resurrection of Jesus can be explained away by the idea that Jesus did not die on the cross but was only unconscious and was then revived by the cool of the tomb.
But that would not explain this difference that is apparently there – the resurrected Jesus is recognisably Jesus, but is not simply identical: hence the failure to recognise him at first.
So, un-recognised for the moment, Jesus engages them in conversation.
And when they talk of the Messiah, he shows them how, starting from Moses and the prophets, God’s word speaks of the purposes of God through suffering and trial. We are not told the argument Jesus gives – what bits of the scripture it is that he unpacks for them.
But somehow, slowly, their eyes are opened.

Finally when Jesus joins them for the meal and breaks bread, their eyes are opened as to who he is. They recognise him, and rush back to tell the others they have met with the risen Jesus.

And it’s not just their knowledge, but their expectations and emotions have been turned around.

As they explain to Jesus on the road why they are so sad, it becomes clear that Jesus needs to turn around their hopelessness and fear. They think the story of Jesus has ended in defeat ‘But we had thought that he was the one to save Israel’.

They need to see the new thing God is doing.
God is not acting through a messiah who is victorious in war – but triumphs by passing through death to new life. They thought they knew how God would act – sending a great warrior to rescue Israel. But God has been doing something else. Jesus does not avoid suffering, but triumphs over death by real encounter with it. God does not carry out resuscitation, but resurrection. They must turn around everything they think they know and embrace new life, new hope, new ways of God acting in the world.
Where does that leave us?
If it really was the risen Christ that couple met on the road to Emmaus, then Jesus Christ has turned round death for us. He was alive that Easter Sunday evening and he is alive forever, not limited to a physical body in Palestine 2000 years ago, but set free to be with all his disciples, forever.

So we, too, can meet with Jesus. As we travel through life, are we ready to be turned around by an encounter with the living Christ?
We might feel that all is lost, that hope is gone… but Jesus can walk with us, and show us life and hope.
We might think we have seen it all and that God can no longer surprise us, and then find that Jesus turns round our expectations.
We might meet him, here & now, this morning…

& the second half of 'Easter 2'

2011-04-28T18:04:00.002+01:00

The first half of the sermon is in the previous post - here's the second half!
(but if you want to play a little game you could read the second half first & see if it makes more sense that way round!)

(continued notes..)

I really like this story – not just for what it tells us about Thomas, but for what it tells us about the other disciples. For me, this story pokes holes in the idea that the early church had it all right and we get it all wrong.

On Easter Sunday, all the disciples except Thomas & Judas are locked in the room ‘for fear of the Jews’. According to John’s gospel, they have heard from Simon & John about the empty tomb and then they have heard from Mary Magdalene, who has seen & even spoken with the risen Jesus. Still, they’re unsure, still, they are afraid.
These stories may have poked some holes in their darkness, but they’re still not completely sure they can live in the light of the resurrection.

Then Jesus appears and they rejoice. Jesus says to them ‘As the Father sent me so I send you - receive the Holy Spirit’.
Maybe more holes appear in the darkness: but when they tell Thomas he is unconvinced, and a week later they are back again (only this time with Thomas) sat in the room behind closed doors.

Jesus has to appear again to convince Thomas that the light is shining in the darkness: and maybe this second appearance, as well as the appearances that John mentions to us but doesn’t describe, are needed by the disciples before they can really believe in Jesus as the son of God who has risen from death & who is telling them to tell the world.

We sometimes tell the Easter story as if the joy of new life and resurrection dawns on Jesus friends all at once. But the gospels tell us accounts of stories, and hints, and possibilities, and various appearances of the risen Jesus. Each pokes a new home in the darkness, each lets a little more light in.

So perhaps we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves if we struggle to understand and we struggles to share the story ourselves.

The darkness can seem overwhelming: the darkness of grief, or hopelessness, of fear, of pain. But Jesus is alive – the darkness has been overcome – and every hope we have and every story we hear can poke another hole in the darkness until there is enough light to really see the eternal life Jesus offers.

May God grant us light for our way and bless us so that we may poke holes in the darkness of this world and bring light to others, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Easter 2 thoughts so far...

2011-04-28T16:03:00.000+01:00

It's a funny old week - with Holidays Monday & Friday.
Here are my thoughts so far about
John 20: 19-31
1 Peter 1: 3-9

I am grateful to a fellow blogger for bringing my attention to this story
here

“There is a widely told story about Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island, who suffered ill health as a child. One night the nurse found him up, out of bed, with his nosed pressed against the window. ‘Come here, child,’ she said to him, ‘you’ll catch your death of cold.’ But he wouldn’t budge. Instead he sat, mesmerized, watching a lamplighter slowly working his way through the black night, lighting each gas street light along his route. Pointing to him, Robert said,
‘See, look there; there’s a man poking holes in the darkness.’”

And so my theme for this week has to be ‘poking holes in the darkness’.

Just 2 days after all the joy of Easter Sunday, on Tuesday, I had to lead a funeral for a 41 year old dance teacher. The church was full, the congregation were largely younger people – including quite a number of Sam’s former pupils, and friends of her 16 year old daughter. Emotions were high, as you would expect – and suddenly it seemed that the message of Easter Sunday was more important than ever. My task at that funeral was to help people to give thanks to God for Sam’s life, but also to ‘poke holes in the darkness’ and talk about the promise of Jesus that ‘where I am, there you will be also’. Since Jesus is alive, we can reasonably hope that Sam, too, is alive. This doesn’t take away the grief, but I believe it pokes some holes of the light of hope in the darkness of grieving.

In our gospel reading today, Thomas is not with the others when the risen Jesus first appears to them. So they excitedly tell him "We have seen the Lord.".
But he wants to poke holes in their argument: ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." .
I find it hard to criticise Thomas for his doubts – he is of course being perfectly reasonable in thinking that Jesus, who was dead, will remain dead: this is what normally happens. This is the darkness of the reality of death.

But then Jesus appears a second time, and confronts Thomas with the hope of resurrection life. This doesn’t just poke holes in Thomas’ darkness, it dispels it utterly, and Thomas the doubter becomes Thomas who “gets it” as he proclaims ‘my Lord and my God’.

Easter Sunday notes

2011-04-23T12:29:00.000+01:00

After a wonderful Maundy Thursday - exploring the resonances between Passover & the Last Supper & Communion; and then a very simple but moving Good Friday, I'm finally ready to post Easter Sunday's sermon. the readings are:
Colossians 3: 1-4
Matthew 28: 1-10
& a good chunk of Henry Scott Holland!

Easter Sunday
Death is nothing at all…
So begins the very popular poem, often requested by grieving relatives, written by Henry Scott-Holland, canon of St Paul’s Cathedral from 1884.
I struggle with the words ‘death is nothing at all’ – even while I warm to the idea that our loved ones are not as utterly lost in death as we might fear they are.

Death is nothing at all – but if that was really true, we wouldn’t want to hear those soothing words at all, would we? We know that death is terrible, unknowable, frightening. So what is Scott-Holland doing telling us that death is nothing at all?

Well, for a start those words are taken out of context. The words come from a sermon preached at St Paul's Cathedral on Sunday 15th May 1910, shortly after the death of King Edward VII. Entitled King of Terrors, Scott Holland’s text was 1 John 3.2,3: “Beloved, we are God’s children now: what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is.....”.

In the sermon, Scott Holland is contrasting our two opposing ways of viewing death – as a terrible event and yet, as a source of hope for new life and continuing love .

This is what he actually says in his sermon
“I suppose all of us hover between two ways of regarding death, which appear to be in hopeless contradiction with each other. First, there is the familiar and instinctive recoil from it as embodying the supreme and irrevocable disaster...... How often it smites, without discrimination, as if it had no law! It makes its horrible breach in our gladness with careless and inhuman disregard of us. ... Its shadow falls across our natural sunlight, and we are swept off into some black abyss.....So we cry in our angry protest, in our bitter anguish......
But, then, there is another aspect altogether which death can wear for us. It is that which first comes down to us, perhaps, as we look down upon the quiet face, so cold and white, of one who has been very near and dear to us.... And what the face says to us in its sweet silence to us as a last message from the one whom we loved is: “Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room..”.

So this Easter morning I am not going to say ‘death is nothing at all’ – for that is only one side of all that we feel about death. Yet the rising of Christ from the dead tells us that our hope is not empty.

I cannot yet say death is nothing at all, but I can say Death is not the final word,
death is not the end,
death is not a calamity but a release,
death is defeated
death is dead.

The resurrection of Jesus tells us something vital about Jesus and his relationship with God the Father. It tells us that all the things he said about being the Son of God, the one sent by God, the one who lives in God: all these things are true.
Jesus is not just the man murdered unjustly on Good Friday – he is God himself, giving up his human life for us, but then risen and living and alive for all time and space.
Going back to Henry Scott-Holland’s text from the first letter of John:
“Beloved, we are God’s children now: what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is.....”.

Or as we heard from Paul’s letter to the Colossians:
“you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”

The resurrection of Jesus Christ doesn’t just tell us things about Jesus, the Son of God – it tells us things about ourselves, because Jesus promises that we are also children of God.

Jesus is alive. Death is not the ruler here – and so we are promised eternal life in Jesus – we can be part of his resurrection life just as his followers were part of his earthly life.

On Easter Sunday we declare that Christ is risen indeed.
We declare that death is defeated.
Maybe, by the grace of God’s love, we can even get to a point of declaring ‘death is nothing at all’.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Easter laughter

2011-04-20T17:11:00.000+01:00

I love the tradition of telling jokes on easter Sunday - to show that we laugh at death.
So here's an Easter giggle for you: "Less ambitious hymns"

I vow to thee, my county

Thin be the Glory

Most of my hope on God is founded (and I wish it would make me stronger, I really do)

What a Facebook friend we have in Jesus

Our God is an Okay God

Lord, you have my left ventricle

Hail thee, regular day

O Little Town of Basildon

Go tell it on the mole hill

Blessed Insurance

Send me general directions, O Great Redeemer

We Three Kings, Disoriented Are

Come, now is the time to workshop

Crown him with half a crown

How satisfactory Thou Art

They’ll Know We Are Christians By the Fish on Our Cars

Be Thou My Vision Express

I Lib-Dem-Vow to thee, my country

I suspect that my Redeemer lives

Actually, a rather noisy night. Have you never given birth in a stable? Jesus Christ!

Mundane Things of Thee are Spoken

The Nuneaton Carol

I have decided to follow Jesus on Sunday mornings

Our dog is a great big dog.

If I were a low-fat-spread-fly

People have recommended you as a holiday destination, Zion city of our God

Palm Sunday notes

2011-04-15T11:38:00.000+01:00

Readings:
Philippians 2: 5-11
Matthew 21: 1-11

I haven't even proof-read this - but it all adds to the entertainment factor!
Very rough first draft:

Palm Sunday
What does power look like? This is fascinating time in the world’s history to ask that question on Palm Sunday.

We have seen amazing scenes from the Middle East & North Africa over the last 3 months or so. People kept subdued for many years by the evil and oppression of tyrants, suddenly starting to believe in “people power”, and calling for change and the bringing in of a democracy.

In Egypt, the people packed into Tahrir square and would not leave until there was change.. and eventually Mubarak resigned; in Libya rebels continue to fight for control of towns and call for Colonel Gaddafi to relinquish power; in Tunisia President Ben Ali fled the country 2 months ago but now protestors are saying there has been no real change; President Assad of Syria has formed a new government following the resignation of the previous government following protests; in Bahrain King Hamad acted to clear protestors out of the capital Manama & imposed a state of emergency; and we could also talk about Morocco, Yemen, Oman, Iran, and Algeria.

It seems that those who have previously held power for many years have suddenly faced mass protest. Why? It would take someone far more informed politically than me to answer that question in detail – but it seems that part of what has happened is the belief that people can make a difference – that if enough people are mobilised onto the street there is very little the authorities can really do against their own people. Power in many of these countries largely belongs to the one who controls the armed forces, but if enough groundswell of public opinion can be generated, then even the powerful can be overcome by ‘people power’.

I wonder how different it was in 1st century Jerusalem? Herod may have been the ‘client ruler’ or puppet king at the time of Jesus birth, but his political power had now passed to his three far less effective sons, whilst a Roman governor – Pontius Pilate – had been put in place. Pilate, who ruled Judea, had control of the armed forces of the empire, or at least his share of them. He was ultimately responsible for law & order – and used this power to put down any attempt at riot or defiance with great violence. Crucifixion was the public method of humiliation and execution for any rebels who might want to rally a protest, as well as being a terrible warning to thieves and bandits.
The historian Josephus mentions over a dozen rebel bandit figures, like ‘Judas the Galilean’ and ‘The Egyptian’. Each rebellion and its ensuing wave of crucifixions, brought an increasing sense of political unrest, until eventually, after Jesus death in AD 66 there would be a huge revolt resulting in the destruction of the Temple as a means of crushing all Jewish political hopes.
So what does Jesus do on Palm Sunday?
He could, I suppose have tried to rally the 1st century equivalent of ‘people power’ – to whip up the zealots that we know he had in his group of disciples to get together gangs of those intent on political change, maybe even to find a way of arming some of the Jews against the Roman soldiers who patrolled the streets. Instead Jesus places himself firmly in the place of the promised Messiah – riding the donkey promised by Zechariah, entering David’s city of Jerusalem, acclaimed by crowds. He looks every inch the Messiah of God – but then he refuses to save the people by any show of military power.
He will say very clearly to Pilate at his trial “my kingdom is not of this world”.
At one level, the crowd on Palm Sunday know what Jesus is doing – they don’t cry ‘Romans out!’ or ‘Judea must be free’, they cry ‘Hosanna’ – Lord, save us. Jesus is the promised Messiah from God, the one who will bring life and hope and salvation for his people, and through them, for the world.
What the crowds can’t grasp, because it is totally unprecedented, is that to display the saving power of God, Jesus will submit to suffering and death. This act, that would seem like the end of any ordinary rebellion, and the death of all hope, brings Jesus’ followers face to face with real power.
Jesus receives the acclaim of the crowds, he owns the title of Messiah, and he shows them a new way of displaying power. his is not earthly power, people power or political power, it is much more powerful than that.

Jesus dies in humility and submission and terrible pain. But the power of the Jewish authorities to convict him and the power of the Roman soldiers to kill him is no match for the power of God Almighty.
The power of God will have the last word, when Jesus is raised from death to show once and for all to whom the power belongs.
To God belongs all the power and glory – and such amazing love that Jesus will let human hands take him and crucify him, to show once and for all that the power of God’s love is the greatest power in heaven or on earth or under the earth.
That love offers us bread & wine here as a way of receiving God’s love in Christ. Eat & drink & be thankful.
And to God be all the glory now & forever. Amen.

Brief refection for Lent 5

2011-04-09T15:51:00.002+01:00

Reflection on Ezekiel 37: 1-14

Even beautifully read like that, this is one of the weirdest stories in the Bible, I think.
But I think it’s got a lot to offer us, today.

We have been thinking about the wonder of God’s creation, about our place in caring for it, and we have confessed the need to mend the damage which humankind has caused to the world.

And maybe it’s because Easter is late this year & so it feels such a long time since the last holiday
or maybe it’s because the news of unrest and tsunami and shootings seems relentless
or maybe it’s because Lent forces us to face up to our mortality and fear
.. but I can really relate to those dry bones – scattered, useless, dessicated.

Ezekiel is shown them because the Lord wants his people to know that even though they feel scattered and worthless now, they will be brought back to their land and their God will not abandon them. God breathes new life into the bones, just as he will breathe new life into the people of Israel.

Resurrection is God’s gift to those who need it most. New life, new power, new hope.
We know that this is what Ezekiel saw, we know it is what Jesus promised when he raised Lazarus, and we now it is how the Lent and Easter story ends.

When we look at our world and feel helpless, we need to turn to God, whose power can fill us with new life and new resolve.

So hear the word of the Lord – and be enabled to act to cherish our world.
Hear the word of the Lord – and receive strength for life.
Hear the word of the Lord – and get ready to celebrate the Easter joy of death overcome by new life.
Hear the word of the Lord – and rise up, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Final notes for April 3rd

2011-04-03T07:00:00.000+01:00

It's felt like hard work this week, putting these final thoughts together - but here they are at last:

1 Samuel 16:1-13 , John 9:1-41
Seeing is a complex business.
I’ve worn glasses since I was 7 and remember being very puzzled by our lovely family optician, Mr Low, saying to my mum “she’s very short-sighted, but she uses her eyes well”.
Seeing is not just dependent on how well our eyes function, but also involves what we make of the images our eyes detect.

So I wonder what we each see in today’s Bible readings. There's so much in there about seeing & not seeing & how we can 'see' what God sees.

The reading from the book of Samuel tells us the story of David being 'selected' by God, through Samuel’s anointing. Looking at the seven sons of Jesse, Samuel is sure that one of these fine specimens is the chosen king to replace Saul.
But the Lord tells Samuel – ‘the Lord does not see as mortals see: they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart'.
None of the seven is chosen, and Samuel asks if there’s another son – little number eight, little David is out looking after the sheep. Of course when he appears it is David who is selected.

But then did you spot the description that David was 'ruddy, and had beautiful eyes & was handsome'. God may have chosen him for his heart, but the teller of the story also wants us to know about his outward appearance, and to know that he was good-looking.
The Lord does not see as mortals see. We are obsessed with appearance and status and outward beauty – but God sees us as we are. God chooses us for our heart, not our face. God loves us for who we are. Can we see what God wants us to see? Can we learn to see others as God sees us – as people who are utterly lovable, however we may appear? It’s a real challenge, it involves an act of will as it goes against our natural instinct. Yet how often, when we’ve taken the time to get to know someone, do we find that someone whom we didn’t find attractive at first meeting is actually, deep down, not as they appeared.
Meanwhile John’s gospel tells us the story of Jesus healing a man born blind. Here is someone who at the start of the story cannot see at all, and yet learns to see in more than one way. He is healed – to see the world around him, and he also perceives who Jesus is, who has given him his sight.

John wants us to know how amazing this story is – Jesus doesn’t just restore sight in someone who has lost it – he gives sight as a completely new gift, to someone who has never seen before.

Jesus is then criticised by the Pharisees for healing the man on the Sabbath, and as they question the man born blind (twice!) and his parents they are torn between seeing Jesus as a sinner, because he did this work on the Sabbath, and seeing Jesus as someone sent from God because otherwise how could he do this work of healing at all.

It is the healed man, in the second interview, who says ‘Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing’.

So this story becomes more than just a story of a healing but becomes a story dealing with the question of who is 'seeing' and who is not seeing Jesus for who he really is.
The man who was blind can now see – and sees that only the one from God can do what Jesus does.

Can we see what God wants us to see, here?

Can we see how Jesus brings God’s love into the world – healing, making whole, bringing light in the darkness and breaking free of the rules which tie people in knots.

The eyes of the Pharisees may work, but they are struggling to see Jesus as he is. They see trouble, they see a rule-breaker, they see disruption to the status quo.

What do we see? And what would it mean for us to see Jesus as the Son of God?

John says, of Jesus, in his prologue to the gospel:
“He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”

Can we see as the blind man sees? Can we believe in Jesus as the one from God, as he does?
And so can we accept that we are the beloved and precious children of God. Because when we believe in Jesus as the one sent from God with a message of salvation for the world, the consequence is that we begin to see ourselves and others in a whole new way.

Here is Jesus – come to heal & love.
We know that as we continue to travel through Lent we will be faced with the stories of how the criticism of Jesus and the conflict around Jesus’ identity come to their final climax with his death on the cross.
Some eyes will never see who Jesus is – but others will be opened by the marvel of the resurrection.

Today is Mothering Sunday.
I realise that the celebration of mothering and motherhood can bring us mixed feelings, because our earthly mothers and some experiences of being a mother can never be perfect. But these readings encourage us to see motherhood and parenthood in a new way.

If we see who Jesus is, and what that can mean to us, and if we see how God sees his children, perhaps we can dare to believe that God sees each of us as a precious, adored, child: that God looks on us with the eyes of an adoring mother. We are children of God.
That's how God sees us & that's why God comes to die for us.

Now do you see?

Thanks be to God for the gift of sight.
Amen.

Towards Lent 4

2011-03-28T18:41:00.000+01:00

Readings for lent 4 (Lent, not Mothering Sunday readings) are:

1 Samuel 16:1-13
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41

There's so much hear about seeing & not seeing & how we 'see' what God sees.
The Samuel reading is the one about David being 'selected' by God - with that memorable phrase that 'God does not see as mortals see - because mortals only see the outward appearance' - then David is selected and the description is that he was 'ruddy, and had lovely eyes & was handsome' - just the outward description, then!

Meanwhile jesus heals a man born blind - and is criticised by the PHarisees for healing on the Sabbath - so the story becomes a question of who is 'seeing' and not seeing Jesus.

Can we see as God sees? Can we see others as God does?
There is a link to Mothering Sunday here - can we see other with the eyes of an adoring mother?
Can we dare to believe that that is how God sees us - as a precious, adored, child.
That's how God sees us & that's why God comes to die for us.
Now do you see?

Lent 3 notes

2011-03-25T17:13:00.000Z

Lent 3
In the Lent groups last week we were looking at what brought us each to faith – whether there where things we had in common, or whether our stories were quite different.

In the group I was in I think one of the things that we felt we had in common was a sense of having, at some stage in your life, to make a choice for yourself about God and about Jesus. Did you believe the stuff you have heard? – or not.

As we hear John telling is the conversation between Jesus and the woman at the well, we might feel that here is a familiar sort of story . Jesus meets a woman, they get to talking about something ordinary - water – but slowly the woman realizes that this person Jesus is extraordinary and it slowly dawns on her that he could be the Messiah. And so off she goes to tell other people what she has found.

If you look at the gospel of John as a whole, you find that this idea of meeting Jesus and having to decide for yourself what you think is a recurring theme. John uses a recurring pattern of encounters with Jesus which lead either to belief in him, or to conflict.

John makes no secret of the reason for his gospel, towards the end (after the resurrection) he writes “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”. Throughout the gospel John refers to many things that Jesus did not as miracles, but as ‘signs’, which help people to believe in him as the Messiah from God.
So how do these signs and the theme of conflict work to convince us about Jesus?
Fasten your seat-belts for a whistle-stop tour.

John begins by setting his stall out in the prologue - he is clear about who Jesus is: and equally clear that John the Baptist in NOT the Messiah.
Then comes the first 'sign' that Jesus is the Messiah (the turning of water into wine at the wedding at Cana) followed immediately by Jesus overturning the tables (a story that John puts near the start of Jesus’ ministry, not near the end as others do).
Jesus next has the conversation with Nicodemus (which the lectionary had us read last week), followed by an argument about baptism.

Then Jesus has today’s conversation with the woman at the well, and this is closely followed by the second sign (the healing of official's son) & the third sign (the healing of the man at the pool of Bethsaida ) followed by an argument about healing on the Sabbath & statements about Jesus' authority. Next come the fourth sign (the feeding of the 5000) & the fifth sign (Jesus walking on the water), and these are followed by 'grumbles' about Jesus saying he is the bread of life.

There then follows a really strange interlude about Jesus' brothers trying to force him into the open at the festival of shelters (ch 7) & Jesus' teaching there, followed by the much better known story of the woman caught in adultery, which results in more conflict, concluding with people picking up stones to kill Jesus (end of ch 8).

The sixth sign is the healing of the man born blind (again, on a Sabbath), followed by the Pharisees investigating the event.
Jesus teaches about his being 'the good shepherd' & this is followed by the rejection of Jesus & more threats of stoning.

The seventh sign is the raising of Lazarus, followed by more talk of 'the plot to kill Jesus', the anointing of Jesus by a woman, before his death, at Bethany, and a plot to kill Lazarus, so that the seventh sign won’t be able to be proved.

The final chapters of the gospel are taken up with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem & the last week of Jesus' life, including the longest stretch of teaching from the Last Supper in any of the gospels.

It seems to me there is a constant ebb & flow of signs of Jesus' identity & people 'believing in him' with the opposition to Jesus. Given that John himself says that the purpose of the gospel is that people will put their faith in Jesus as Messiah & have eternal life, perhaps it is not surprising that John won't let us sit on the fence about Jesus, but forces a choice - Jesus is the son of God to believe in, or Jesus is a heretic to be eliminated?
This was the choice facing the woman at the well, the choice facing everyone who met Jesus, the choice facing us. Indifference is not an option. Will you reject Jesus, decide this is all just nonsense? Or will you believe in Jesus as the Son of God who can do and say these amazing things that show us the light of God’s love?

John is also clear about the danger of believing – with the decision to believe in Jesus comes the promise to follow him in walking in God’s love, and the responsibility to care for others in Jesus’ name.

If you’re ready to take the risk of believing, the good news is he’s here for you in bread & wine – to feed and strengthen you in your choice.

So eat & drink & be very thankful.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.

John's gospel

2011-03-20T14:55:00.000Z

Yes - all of it!

Looking at today's lectionary reading (Jesus & Nicodemus - John ch 3) in context yesterday I realised something about the 'shape' of John's gospel that I don't think had hit me before.
i knew about John's use of the symbolism of water.
I knew about the 'signs' that John draws attention to - the wedding at Cana, the healing of the man born blind, raising of Lazarus, etc (7 of them, if I remember correctly).
But what I don't think I'd noticed before was the recurring conflict:

John begins by setting his stall out in the prologue - he is clear about who Jesus is: and equally clear that John the Baptist in NOT the Messiah. Then comes the first 'sign' (wedding at Cana) followed immediately by Jesus overturning the tables; the conversation with Nicodemus, followed by an argument about baptism; the woman at the well, the second sign (healing of official's son) & third (healing of the man at the pool of Bethzatha), followed by an argument about healing on the sabbath & statements about Jesus' authority; the fourth sign (feeding 5000) & fifth (walking on the water), followed by 'grumbles' about Jesus saying he is the bread of life & a real weird interlude about Jesus' brothers trying to force him into the open at the festival of shelters (ch 7) & Jesus' teaching there, followed by the much better known story of the woman caught in adultery & more conflict, concluding with people picking up stones to kill Jesus (end of ch 8); the sixth sign is the healing of the man born blind (again, on a sabbath), followed by the Pharisees investigating the event, Jesus teaching about 'the good shepherd' & the rejection on Jesus & more threats of stoning; the seventh sign is the raising of Lazarus, followed by more talk of 'the plot to kill Jesus', the annointing at Bethany, a plot to kill Lazarus, & then the triumphal entry into Jerusalem & the last week of Jesus' life.

It seems to me there is a constant ebb & flow of signs of Jesus' identity & people 'believing in him' with the opposition to Jesus. Given that John himself says (20: 30) that the purpose of the gospel is that people will put their faith in Jesus as Messiah & have eternal life, perhaps it is not surprising that John won't let us sit on the fence about Jesus, but forces a choice - Jesus is the son of God to believe in, or Jesus is a heretic to be eliminated.

One of next weeks services is an all-age service, and I'd really like to get people thinking about these different 'episodes' and how John tells the story and forces us to choose.

Lent 2 notes

2011-03-19T18:43:00.000Z

Apologies that there's been no 'thinking' going on here this week: one of those weeks where I have been wrestling with a combination of the texts & all the stuff going on in the world - but not found time to actually post: so here we are 'fully formed' - but I still reserve the right to preach around these notes, rather then read them!

Readings are Genesis 12: 1-4a
John 3: 1-17

Jesus & Nicodemus Lent 2
Some weeks when we come to meet with God in worship it feels as if our heads are just full of unanswerable questions. Civil war in Libya and UN involvement in yet another country; tragedy upon tragedy for Japan; and some of the most heart-breaking stories of suffering – especially of children – on Friday’s Comic Relief Day. Why does it happen? How should we respond? Where is God in all this?

So how are we meant to listen to the story of Nicodemus coming to Jesus by night – and that knotty phrase it contains where Jesus says that ‘you must be born again’ or ‘born from above’.

What on earth is Jesus on about? This isn’t the sort of teaching that Nicodemus, a Pharisee is risking his neck to hear. All through John’s gospel there is a constant questioning of who this Jesus is. John speaks of the ‘signs’ by which people come to believe in Jesus.
The first of these signs – the changing of water into wine at Cana – has just happened as the story of Nicodemus is told, and Nicodemus begins his conversation with Jesus by saying ‘no-one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God’. Nicodemus comes to this teacher from God – Jesus – to find some answers. What is the main thing Jesus wants to teach? Be born again. Nicodemus certainly misses the point ‘can a person enter the mother’s womb & be born a second time?’. If he was a man of our times Nicodemus would almost certainly say ‘eeuw!’.

But it seems that Jesus is wanting to help Nicodemus to see that following Jesus, believing in him, trusting him, will turn his whole life upside down & make it as if his life was starting again from scratch.

Nicodemus comes with his flannel and flattery “I know you are a good teacher” – and Jesus cuts him off in mid sentence. Jesus doesn’t want a fan club, he wants disciples. He doesn’t want clever people nodding their heads at what he says – he wants people prepared to stake their whole existence on the message that he brings – that God’s love is a free gift of astonishing grace and that accepting that love is the most important thing you can do with your life.

Nicodemus is a man of learning and letter and law. He knows – or he thinks he knows – what it is that God has required of people – careful adherence to the commandments and a concern for doing what is righteous. But Nicodemus is in for a huge shock. He’s not the first – we heard the beginning of the story of Abraham, from the Bible’s very first book. Leave your land and your family and go…
Without even a destination in mind, Abraham agrees to go wherever God calls.
This is the sort of whole-hearted following that Jesus is asking for from Nicodemus – a new life, a new place, a new goal – like having your whole life turned upside down and beginning again.

Poor Nicodemus – still left with so many questions. What sort of new life, and how can he be sure that he will like it, once his life begins again? But Jesus asks for trust – this is what he has come into the world for – ‘God so loved the world he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life’.
Jesus doesn’t promise answers, he promises life in all its fullness.

But for us in 2011 it almost seems obscene to be thinking about these questions – what does ‘born again’ mean?; what is eternal life? ; how do we follow Jesus? – when the world is in such turmoil.
The people of Japan are painfully aware of the huge trauma of having your life turned upside down by something outside your control. And so our minds may be teeming with other, even more difficult questions – why earthquakes and tsunamis?, why death & disaster?, why sickness and misery?

But Jesus points us to a response to our questions that goes beyond trying to satisfy our sense of justice, or our scientific sensibilities, or our yearning for truth. Allow your world to be turned upside down – stop looking for a reason why God allows this, and trust instead that God cares deeply for each human life.
I was interested to hear that the Shinto Buddhists of Japan do not torment themselves with the questions ‘why has this earthquake happened?’ – they simply accept that natural forces are stronger than they can imagine – and so the ground will shake and the force of a tsunami will wash life away. And the question that then remains is – how will you help your neighbour?
Jesus tells Nicodemus to start again in life and let go of the search for legal correctness in favour of grace and love. And maybe Jesus tells us the same.

You may find this the most unsatisfying answer to your questions about the state of the world – but here it is ‘the state of the world is the state of the world – yet among the wreckage of our personal lives and the life of the world, Jesus offers the hand of love’.

When our world is turned upside down – either because we choose to start again or because change is forced upon us – Jesus invites us to trust him, to walk with him – to receive this bread & wine - & to know that we are loved.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sermon notes Lent 1

2011-03-12T18:14:00.002Z

Reading: Matthew 4: 1-11

Lent. The annual decision about whether we should give something up, or take something up: the time of lent studies and groups and lunches…and always the sense of ticking down towards Easter, and trying to be ready to make sense, again, of this story that is the most vital one of our Christian faith... and yet the most demanding.

As Lent begins, we hear again the story of Jesus beginning his public ministry by resisting the temptations placed before him by Satan. Each of these temptations concern the question of how Jesus will conduct his ministry.

1. ‘Turn these stone to bread’
Jesus has to decide whether he will perform miracles just for his own satisfaction or to gain the attention of the crowds. But he resists with the words ‘Human beings cannot live by bread alone’

2. ‘Throw yourself from the temple heights’
As the son of God, Jesus could call upon his heavenly father to protect him from all that being human might entail – to be caught by angels as he throws himself down. But again Jesus resists, saying ‘you shall not put the Lord your God to the test’.

3. ‘Bow down and worship me’
Jesus has to decide whether he will compromise his message, to make things easier for people to hear, to keep himself safer – he could seek power through using the wiles of the world. But instead Jesus remembers his determined focus on the kingdom of God, as he quotes the commandment ‘You shall have no other God before me’.

Each time he is tempted, Jesus has an answer which shows his intention to conduct his ministry in God’s way. As Jesus’ ministry unfolds, this determination is demonstrated in the way Jesus lives and acts, not only by his words. Jesus lives out his resistance to evil.
We can think of examples for each of the temptations:

1. ‘Turn these stone to bread’.
After the feeding of the 5000, Jesus tells his disciples “I am the bread of life”, and at the Last Supper with his disciples Jesus shares bread with them all and says ‘this is my body, broken for you’. Jesus is not interested in performing miracles as a way to gain a massive following, but only as a way of pointing to the importance of what he is offering – life in all its fullness through his self-offering.

2. ‘Throw yourself from the temple heights’
Far from allowing God the father to protect him from the difficulty of life, Jesus allows himself to be lifted high on the cross, in great pain, to die for love of the world. From the cross, Jesus will hear again the words ‘If you are the son of God…come down from the cross and save yourself’. Yet Jesus is not interested in saving his own skin, but the world he loves.

3. ‘Bow down and worship me’
Jesus has to resist the temptation to worldy power. And, again, at the last supper, Jesus will bow down – as he stoops to wash the disciples’ feet. He demonstrates that his ministry is not about wielding power, but about serving others, and he sets the example of servanthood for all who will follow him.

Jesus shows, both in the answers he gives when he is tempted, and in the way he lives out that determination to choose God’s path, what it truly means to be the Son of God. Jesus is the one who will give himself, not perform tricks to impress people, who will stick with God’s will even when it leads to suffering, and who will be the servant of all, not the one with all the power and the glory.

As we move through Lent we can continue to reflect on these statements about Jesus’ identity and purpose and mission. We will continue to see God’s will in the ordinary things of life, and in the broken, and in the self-sacrificial. This Lent we might want to work out our own response to the Jesus that we meet, individually and as a church.
What does it mean for us to turn our backs on slick tricks which might impress others, and instead offer, deeply, all that we are?
How can we find and do God’s will, even when that means taking the hard path, or being unappreciated or even vilified?
Who are we called to serve in the name of Christ and as the body of Christ, and how can we resist the temptation to do what brings us glory, not what glorifies God?

May the Holy Spirit guide us to develop and live out our own discipleship of Christ and resistance to temptation, throughout Lent & Easter.

Amen.

First Sunday of Lent

2011-03-08T14:40:00.000Z

We have a 'creative church service based on the theme : “If you are the Son of God…”

Reading: Matthew 4: 1-11

As we talked about the temptations as a planning group, we realised that as well as what Jesus said to Satan to resist temptation, he also lived his resistance in different ways - he acted out his resistance to temptation as his life & ministry continued.
So we wil have three 'stations' to explor
1. ‘Turn these stone to bread’
Reflection on the Last Supper – “I am the bread of life”
With chunky bread to share.

2. ‘Throw yourself from the temple heights’
Reflection on Jesus being lifted up on the cross
Making crosses from wire & nails

3. ‘Bow down and worship me’
Jesus stoops to wash the disciples’ feet
Washing one another’s hands

Our gathering thoughts will reflect on what it truly means for Jesus to be the Son of God – and how we can reflect on that & develop and live out our own resistance to temptation, through Lent & Easter.

I am so struck by this new way of looking at the Temptation of Christ that I think my sermon for the 'main' service will also explore this.

Transfiguration/St David's Day

2011-03-05T19:44:00.000Z

Readings:
Exodus 24: 12-18
Matthew 17: 1-9

I wonder how you would respond if someone asked where you find God?
Some people would point to amazing places – I remember some friends being utterly bowled over by the Grand Canyon: personally I find the sands around the causeway to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne very special.
Some people might say they find God in amazing feelings: John Wesley, founder of Methodism spoke of his heart being ‘strangely warmed’, I have heard people talk about a sudden rush of a sense of love, or of worship which helped them feel they had found God.
Other people might talk about finding God in amazing people – saints whose lives we read about in history books, or people we know or have known ourselves.
And a final group of people might say they find God in the quietness of a church.. or a forest.. or their own room.

There are no right & wrong answers of course, and it is amazing to reflect on the great variety of ways in which people become aware of the presence of God.

The story we heard of the disciples experiencing the transfiguration of Jesus seems to combine an amazing place, amazing feelings and an amazing person – as Jesus is changed in front of their eyes and they see him as God’s own son.
The disciples are up a mountain with Jesus. They know their Hebrew scriptures, they know that up a mountain is the place to meet with God – just as we heard in our reading from Exodus. What is strange and different is that they meet God in Jesus and see him in a different way than they ever have before.
They might hope to meet with God on the mountain with Jesus, but in fact they meet God on the mountain in Jesus.

Everything that happens in this story is directed at the 3 disciples:
Jesus led them up the mountain
He is transfigured before them
There appeared to them Moses & Elijah
A cloud overshadowed them
Jesus came and touched them
Jesus ordered them to tell no-one what they had seen.

Whatever happens on that mountain, it is for the disciples’ benefit, it is to help them understand more about Jesus’ identity and purpose: it offers them a glimpse of the glory that truly belonged to Jesus, and which is normally veiled in his earthly ministry.

In a sense this story says a lot about why the disciples believed in Jesus – especially as they reflected on this experience in the light of two very similar experiences of finding God with them: before this event, at Jesus’ baptism, and after this event, at Jesus’ resurrection.
The transfiguration helps the followers of Jesus to understand more about who Jesus is – God with them in a human being. But it might leave us wondering how we – who cannot have this experience – might come to believe in Jesus as God with us.

After his resurrection and ascension, Jesus is no longer physically present on earth – so we cannot experience what Peter, James & John experienced – but Jesus leaves a new body on earth – the church. The church is called the body of Christ because in it we can still see God with us – God at work in the world.

The historical saints of the church are a part of this body which can be known to us. So we remember St David today.

There is a story told of St David that on one occasion he was preaching to a large crowd of people and God caused the ground beneath his feet to rise up to from a hill, so that more people could see and hear David.
Whatever the truth of that story, there is no doubt that in the life of David people saw Jesus at work – teaching, caring, telling people about God’s love.

Sometimes it can feel as if saints as those whose lives have been so holy and so extraordinary that we can only marvel at them and feel inadequate. But saints are really those people who have reflected God’s glory in their lives – who have loved with the love God gives them – and to a greater or a lesser extent we can all do that.

God may not cause the ground to lift us up when we speak, but we can be unafraid to lift up our voices to tell others what we know. We can be courageous to say when, where and in whom we have found God, we can share the ways in which we have experienced something of God’s love.
We have not had the extraordinary experience of witnessing the transfiguration of Jesus, which the disciples had. But thanks to their account and to the whole gospel we are privileged to know just who Jesus is – the Son of God, come, veiled in flesh, to live and die and live again for love of the world. And we can point other people towards the glimpses of God’s glory that we have seen – and listen to the stories others tell – and learn more about God’s presence with us in Jesus.

As Lent begins next week, can we find ways to deepen our knowledge of Jesus, explore his identity more fully, and share our stories with others?

Here today at the table of the Lord we are welcomed and invited to share in remembering his life and death and resurrection as we celebrate with this bread and wine. May we know God with us here…and everywhere. Amen.

..but first it's Friday!

2011-03-04T10:28:00.000Z

Women's World Day of Prayer.
The readings chosen by the women of Chile are:
Deuteronomy 8: 7-10
1 Kings 17: 8-16
Mark 6: 30-44

This is what I'm saying:

I’m always happy to talk at a Women’s World Day of Prayer service – but I nearly always have to start by saying I don’t know every much about the country we’re thinking about. I’m sure I don’t know anymore about Chile than most of you – I have unfortunately never been there – but it is a country I find fascinating and amazing.
Those of you who have had time to read the information inside the order of the service may have been as shocked as I was to read that the country is 110 miles wide and 2,640 miles long – it also includes in its possession Easter Island, 2,200 miles form the mainland in the Pacific. Transport is notoriously difficult in such a long, thin country.
80% of the country is mountainous – including the Andes range, which separates it from Argentina – and there are over 600 volcanoes: 10% of whoch have erupted at least once in the past 100 years. We know, from the news, about the most recent large earthquake in February last year, when 521 people died and half a million homes were damaged.
For the vast majority of people, Chile is a hard place to live.

So I was quite surprised to see that the women of Chile had chosen as our first Bible reading the part of Deuteronomy where we hear how God will provide for his people. It might sound a bit unrealistic or patronising – God will give you a good land, plenty of food, you will lack nothing. But remember that this promise come to the people fo Israel after they have escaped slavery in Egypt, wandered for 40 years in the desert, and survived shortage of food and water, and times of great disheartening when they wished they were back in Egypt. This people knows life can be terrible hard, but through it all they have learnt that God will provide.

Our second reading also talks about God providing in hard times. Elijah is fleeing for his life and come to Zarephath where he asks a widow to feed him. She is gathering her last scraps to have a final meal before she gives in to starvation: but Elijah tells her to trust that god will provide – and the oil and flour continue for many days.

In our gospel reading – the story of the feeding of the 5000 which we know so well – Jesus tells the disciples ‘you give the people something to eat’: but all they have is 5 loaves and 2 fish. Jesus prays, the food is shared and God provides enough for all – with even basketfuls leftover.

Three Bible stories which tell us how God provides for people. But God’s provision is not just for the people and times of the Bible.

I’m sure we find it hard to hear the name ‘Chile’ without now thinking of the 33 Chilean miners who were trapped underground for more than 2 months and so wonderfully rescued in October last year. The families prayed at the top of the shaft, the men prayed underground, it felt like the whole world held its breath and prayed – and we saw that God still provides.
I saw very struck at the time that the first thing that had ot happen in the rescue, before any of the men could get out, was that a team of helpers had to go down into the mine. This was an act of incredible bravery: those rescuers had to trust that they wouldn’t simply get stuck with the 33. As stories of life underground have emerged, it seems they were even braver than we knew – as the men in the mine were reporting continual rock falls and instability underground. God provided people with the technical know-how, bravery and trust to get the 33 men out. God provides.

We might think of our own examples of lives where we know that people feel trapped and hopeless. I can’t mention Egypt, as I did at the start, and not think of the upheaval of the political situation on the Middle East. But no situation is ever too hopeless for God. We should listen to the women of Chile and join them in prayer. God will provide. Amen.

Inscribed in the palm of God's hand

2011-02-27T13:01:00.000Z

At our all-age service I read this
The Kissing Hand

and linked it to the Isaiah bit about God's care.
Everyone loved it. aaw.

Final notes for Feb 27th

2011-02-26T16:46:00.000Z

Yes, for a while it said 'July' there...when's the next holiday??

Anyway. here's the final version - short-ish as there's a baptism and communion to fit in..

Matthew 6: 24-34
The reading we had from Matthew is taken from a long piece of teaching given by Jesus, in chapters 5 & 6 which Matthew calls ‘the sermon on the mount’.

It starts with ‘blessed are the meek, the poor, those who mourn, the peace-makers’. Jesus is clear that God will bless them and provide what they need. Then Jesus talks about all sort of things – the law and the prophets and their relationship to his teaching, he talks about murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, retaliation, giving to others, prayer, fasting, and attitudes to wealth.
Phew! In just 2 chapters of Matthew Jesus covers a lot of ground. His listeners might have been wondering where the finger was going to point next. What else does Jesus want us to do, or not do?
But as Jesus reaches the end of the sermon in many ways he come back to the theme of the start – the poor, the hungry, the meek…are all blessed by God. So don’t worry about what you will eat or what you will wear.. do not be anxious. Believe in the grace of God.

I think Jesus is keen that his followers understand that responding to God’s love means that we want to know how best to live in ways that show we are God’s children – so loving our enemies, giving to the poor, praying are all important. But Jesus knows how people tend to tip over into making these good things a condition for being loved by God. If we’re worried that we need to be good enough for God’s love, Jesus says ‘do not worry’. What’s a flower ever done? But it’s beautifully clothed by God. And all the birds have enough to eat – even though they have no way of growing or storing food.
Do not be anxious, says Jesus. God wants his creation to flourish & grow & know love: not as a reward for doing the right thing but just as a condition of being alive.
I’m really glad we’ve had this reading today as we’re celebrating Clare’s baptism. When Chris, Clare’s mum rang me to ask if this as possible, she might have been a bit surprised at the speed with which I said ‘yes’. But baptism is for anyone and everyone who asks for it. It is the symbolic celebration of God’s love for each person who lives. There are no conditions to God’s love, nothing we have to do to earn it, and so there’s nothing we have to do to deserve baptism, except ask for it. Do not worry – God does everything that needs doing in baptism: God has brought you here, met you here, and will bless you here with his holy spirit.

Sometimes you hear someone describe baptism as ‘putting on Christ’. In some church traditions the person who has been baptized might change after baptism into new clothes, to symbolize the new chapter of their life.
Jesus says do not worry about what you will wear – God will clothe you with grace and with love.

Our other celebration this morning is of the Eucharist – the sharing of bread and wine and remembering of the life and death & resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Do not worry about what you will eat – here is bread and wine: admittedly not in a great enough quantity to fill your stomach, but again it is symbolic of all that God gives us in love.

Do not worry about what you will eat – the God who loves us enough to come to us in Jesus will not let us hunger or thirst, but will bless us with all that we need.

So as we celebrate this morning, let’s trust in God to grace our lives with everything we need for our own good, and for the good of others, in Jesus name.
Amen.

Early thoughts for February 27th

2011-02-22T20:29:00.001Z

Readings for Sunday:
Isaiah 49: 8-16a
Matthew 6: 24-34

Over at 'Revgalblogpals', there's a discussion of 'lectionary leanings' every Tuesday. This week the thoughts are about the Matthew reading.
'Parodie' has written:
I'm thinking about how important it is to read this passage in the context of the whole Sermon on the Mount. Do not worry about what you will eat or wear - if someone asks you for your cloak, given them that and more - blessed are the meek/poor in spirit/etc. The encouragement to not worry does not come with the promise that all will be well in the moment, but that God is present with us even when things seem hard.
Hopefully this will expand by the end of the week!

I've got as far in my thinking as Jesus seems to be all over the place in this sermon - murder, adultery, retaliation.. where will the finger point next?? Jesus finishes with Do NOT be anxious. Believe in the grace of God.

I think maybe these ideas belong together...
and also link to the Isaiah reading about God's infinite care of us - I love the idea of being inscribed on the palm of God's hands and I think this is a wonderful reading for the adult baptism tat we have this week.

So.. better! (I think)

2011-02-11T09:40:00.000Z

Final version - with final section which I hope will preach the Good News.
I was very struck by what Eugene Peterson says
here, at 'Working Preacher'
that sermons should be about what God is doing, not just exhortation of the congregation.

So hopefully this sermon veers away from being a 'rant'!

Choose
This is proper ‘Old Testament God’ stuff from Deuteronomy:
“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish”.

On the face of it this is fairly straight forward – choose to follow God’s laws, or perish.
And it’s no good looking for a get-out in the words of Jesus, either. The Gospel reading had Jesus saying:
“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, `You shall not murder'; and `whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, `You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire.”

But before we all fall quaking to our knees, let’s just go back to that word ‘choice’. God says to the people of Israel – choose life. Choose to walk in God‘s way. Choose to be mindful of God’s laws, and to keep them – not because otherwise you fear punishment, but because this is the way to live full and happy lives. So do not kill – not because you will be punished by God if you do, but because when everyone keeps this law society is richer and better. Do not break God’s laws, because in laying down the laws, God has shown people the best ways to live.
But how do we choose well, not when it is fairy easy and straight-forward to tell right from wrong, but when life is a lot more murky?
Faced with the choice to kill someone or not to kill them, I think we all know what the right choice is.

But Jesus warns his followers ‘if you are angry you will be liable to judgement’. If you are angry with someone you are choosing the path that leads to sin – the path that ultimately can lead to murder. Jesus wants his followers to orientate themselves towards the will of God – to know how to turn at every twist in the path of life. Jesus wants us to choose well, and to choose always what enhances life and affirms and builds up, rather than destroying life and hope.

To underline how important it is to make the right choices, even when they seem small choices, Jesus points out that anger can eventually lead to murder, that looking lustfully can eventually lead to adultery, that divorce should not be entered into lightly and thoughtlessly, any more than marriage should be in the first place.

And in case his listeners think that sin is only about big things and not the little choices, Jesus uses some dramatic language:
“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.”

Jesus doesn’t want us to be able to blame a wandering eye or itchy fingers for what we might think of as ‘minor’ sins.
Jesus wants us to be wholehearted in our walk in God’s way - loving God with all our heart, soul mind and strength and choosing the right path, even in the little things of life.

So the good news so far is that we are not walking in fear, trying to be good in order to avoid Gods wrath & judgement. But it’s still not feeling like really good news, is it? It still seems that so far we’ve been thinking about what we need to do to get our lives right.

But let’s not forget that we do not walk in fear and we do not walk alone. We are following Jesus. This is just some of his teaching to a crowd of followers in the fifth chapter of Matthew, that we call ‘the sermon on the mount’. Matthew places this teaching right at the start of Jesus’ ministry. And where does Jesus start? With blessings: ‘Blessed are the poor, the humble, the hurt & grieving’. Jesus starts with a message of God’s love for all people – especially the ones who might feel that life suggests they are cursed, not blessed. Then Jesus talks about his followers as salt and light for the world – spreading the good news of God’s new light & life to everyone. Then, and only then, does Jesus turn to the law, and warns ‘I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it’.

Jesus says know you are loved & blessed, be ready to share that Good news with the world, but don’t think you can live however you like – live as children of God who walk in God’s light. Jesus will move on to teach about revenge, love, giving, prayer and money. But the conclusion of this ‘sermon’ is simple ‘do not worry. Your father in heaven knows what you need’.

God knows the strength we need to be enabled to make all the right and good choices in life.
So it is good that we meet today around the Lord’s table. Here we have a reminder of all that God’s love has done for us and all that God wants to give to us. Here we can receive the strength we need to choose well and live well and walk well.
Here the Holy Spirit will come among us and dwell in us, to help us to live as God’s beloved children.

Children who are loved, and blessed and enabled to walk with God.

To his praise and glory.
Amen.

So far...

2011-02-10T18:54:00.000Z

Here are Sunday's notes so far - I think I want to avoid hectoring and find a way of ending the sermon with some encouragement about how we can walk God's way in faith and not in fear... will come back to this tomorrow!

Choose
This is proper ‘Old Testament God’ stuff from Deuteronomy:
“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish”.

On the face of it this is fairly straight forward – choose to follow God’s laws, or perish.
And it’s no good looking for a get-out in the words of Jesus, either. The Gospel reading had Jesus saying:
“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, `You shall not murder'; and `whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, `You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire.”

But before we all fall quaking to our knees, let’s just go back to that word ‘choice’. God says to the people of Israel – choose life. Choose to walk in God‘s way. Choose to by mindful of God’s laws, and to keep them – not because otherwise you fear punishment, but because this is the way to live full and happy lives. So do not kill – not because you will be punished by God if you do, but because when everyone keeps this law society is richer and better. Do not break God’s laws, because in laying down the laws, God has shown people the best ways to live.
But how do we choose well, not when it is fairy easy and straight-forward to tell right from wrong, but when life is a lot more murky?
Faced with the choice to kill someone or not to kill them, I think we all know what the right choice is.

But Jesus warns his followers ‘if you are angry you will be liable to judgement’. If you are angry with someone you are choosing the path that leads to sin – the path that ultimately can lead to murder. Jesus wants his followers to orientate themselves towards the will of God – to know how to turn at every twist in the path of life. Jesus wants us to choose well, and to choose always what enhances life and affirms and builds up, rather than destroying life and hope.

To underline how important it is to make the right choices, even when they seem small choices, Jesus points out that anger can eventually lead to murder, that looking lustfully can eventually lead to adultery, that divorce should not be entered into lightly and thoughtlessly, any more than marriage should be in the first place.

And in case his listeners think that sin is only about big things and not the little choices, Jesus uses some dramatic language:
“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.”

Jesus doesn’t want us to be able to blame a wandering eye or itchy fingers for what we might think of as ‘minor’ sins.

Thoughts towards Sunday...

2011-02-09T18:44:00.000Z

Maybe I should rename this blog "Sunday's mercilessly rushing towards me like an express train" as that's how it's felt every week so far this year.
So here we are again more than half way through the week & nothing much done.
One service this week is our 'creative church' service, when we will be using a kind of labyrinth approach - moving between prayer stations to think about how we choose to walk in God's way (focussing particularly on the Deuteronomy reading)

Deuteronomy 30: 15-20

but also allowing ourselves to be challenged by Jesus words about being mindful about the things that lead to sin in the Gospel reading:

Matthew 5:21-37

My plan is to plan the creative church service & then use my reflections on that to write the sermon for the other (communion) service. Before Saturday, which I'm planning to take as a proper day off - because I need it. What was it Robbie Burns had ot say about 'best laid plans of mice & men'..? Perhaps it doesn't apply to women! Here's hoping.

Sunday February 6th

2011-02-05T18:55:00.002Z

Salt & Light
There is a word used in my native Yorkshire which I still use quite a lot, as I have never found a satisfactory equivalent. The word is ‘sloughed’ – it has a sense of disappointment, of being down of feeling crushed and despondent. I wonder if it has its roots in John Bunyan ‘Slough of despond’. Even if you don’t use the word, you know the feeling. Sloughed.
It’s a word which could easily be applied to many churches in our country at the present time. We’re not what we were – there are too many other options for things to do on a Sunday, there are too many people who think churches are just for weddings, baptisms and funerals (& maybe Christmas) and can’t see why you want to go at other times. Even a former President of the Methodist Conference has said “we used to be someone, once”. How can we keep our spirits up – how can we make an impact on the world around us?
Jesus says to his followers “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”
Not you could be.. or even you should be.. you ARE.

‘But if salt loses its saltiness… but if the light is placed under the bushel basket.’
Is Jesus warning them that they need to keep themselves ready and able to salt and light – as salty & light-y as possible? Is Jesus warning them that they could lose their edge as disciples, that they could get sloughed? No, I don’t think so, I think Jesus is trying to underline that his followers already are the salt and the light this world needs.

We’re used to Jesus’ little joke about the camel & the eye of the needle, and some of you might have heard me say before that the parables are full of the ridiculous and the cartoon. I think here’s another example.

‘You are the salt of the earth – but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?’.
Here’s a bag of salt from my cupboard. It’s moved house with me at least twice – possibly three times – it must be 7 years old – possibly more. And…it’s still salty. I have never thrown away salt because it’s not salty anymore – it just doesn’t happen. It’s ridiculous to say ‘if salt has lost its taste…’ and I think that’s the point Jesus is making. His followers are the salt of the earth and nothing can take away that saltiness. In fact, of course we add salt to enhance the taste of things which might otherwise be bland, and far from going off itself, salt stops other things from going bad. You are salt & will always be.

‘You are the light of the world…No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket’. Because not only would you not be able to see the light – you would probably set your basket on fire. Ridiculous.

So you ARE salt & light.
Don’t believe me? – or not sure what it means, or feel that it’s a bit ‘un British’ to blow your own trumpet? Here are some real life examples…

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday (Feb. 3), President Barak Obama explained that his daily prayers centre around three themes - petitions for strength, humility, and a desire to walk closer with God. He said
"The challenge I find then is to balance this uncertainty, this humility, with the need to fight for deeply held convictions, to be open to other points of view, but firm in our core principles. I pray for this wisdom every day. I pray that God will show me and all of us the limits of our understanding and open our ears and our hearts to our brothers and sisters with different points of view."

I’ve also been asking friends on Facebook to let me have their examples of being salt & light:

One wrote ‘When I was at Uni in the 80's I didn't want to hang about with the CU as they weren’t my kind of people. I was a sweary, beery, sarcastic student who was also warm and caring, I'd like to think! I went to church on a Sunday (occasionally in the first two years and regularly in the final one). On our Graduation day loads of parents told mine how glad they were that we were friends and what a good example I had set. To be honest I was a bit disgusted at the time as I had tried my best not to be singled out as different but actually I think that by not being part of the CU I was able to be more of a "normal" Christian and possibly even a tad salty!’

Another told me about her daughter “When she was in Year 1 at school, Zoe was learning about light sources as a science topic. They'd had homework where they were to look round the house and draw light sources that they see, so she'd drawn light bulbs, the television, clocks, oven light, 'fridge, candles, etc.
When we went to parents' evening, her teacher said she loved Zoe's ability to think "outside the box". They'd been discussing the light sources they'd found at home in class, when Zoe put her hand up and said "Jesus is my light source".”

Another mum wrote “K carried the candle into the candlemass assembly on Wednesday and with all her classmates was the light of the world for that day! Proud mummy tears but also recognition that they all really understood the message of Jesus as the light....a touching moment.”

Finally, one friend told me of a young woman standing up in front of a whole youth conference which was debating who should be welcomed by the church – one young man said he doubted that they should welcome single mothers. She strongly made an impassioned case for being welcoming – as she is a single mother. But the real ‘light’ moment came when she was able to thank everyone for their contribution to the weekend – even those with views which hurt her.

This same friend pointed out that it was easier to think of examples of others being salt & light than to claim it for yourself.

So here’s the challenge – hear Jesus saying ‘You are the light and the salt of the world – and ask yourself how you can bring life an dlight and joy to everyone you meet this week.

To the glory of God. Amen.

Being salt & light

2011-02-03T19:43:00.000Z

I have been reading a suggestion from David Lose of the Luther Seminary, St Paul's Minnesota.
here

He suggests that to help people appreciate what Jesus says - that they ARE salt and light, we set up a 'salt & light blog'. So - humour me if you will - and tell me here any recent examples of when you have been salt & light to people around you. I hope to use some really good examples to inspire the congregation on Sunday. Have you got something to share? I'd love to hear it.

Sermon so far goes like this - now it's over to you...

Salt & Light
There is a word used in my native Yorkshire which I still use quite a lot, as I have never found a satisfactory equivalent. The word is ‘sloughed’ – it has a sense of disappointment, of being down of feeling crushed and despondent. I wonder if it has its roots in John Bunyan ‘Slough of despond’. Even if you don’t use the word, you know the feeling. Sloughed.

It’s a word which could easily be applied to many churches in our country at the present time. We’re not what we were – there are too many other options for things to do on a Sunday, there are too many people who think churches are just for weddings, baptisms and funerals (& maybe Christmas) and can’t see why you want to go at other times. Even a former President of the Methodist Conference has said “we used to be someone, once”.

How can we keep our spirits up – how can we make an impact on the world around us?

Jesus says to his followers “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”

Not you could be.. or even you should be.. you ARE.

‘But if salt loses its saltiness… but if the light is placed under the bushel basket.’
Is Jesus warning us that we need to keep ourselves ready and able to salt and light – as salty & lighty-y as possible. Is Jesus warning them that they could lose their edge as disciples, that they could get sloughed? No, I don’t think so, I think Jesus is trying to underline that his followers already are the salt and the light this world needs.

We’re used to Jesus’ little joke about the camel & the eye of the needle, and some of you might have heard me say before that the parables are full of the ridiculous and the cartoon. I think here’s another example.

‘You are the salt of the earth – but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?’.
Here’s a bag of salt from my cupboard. It’s moved house with me at least twice – possibly three times – it must be 7 years old – possibly more. And…it’s still salty. I have never thrown away salt because it’s not salty anymore – it just doesn’t happen. It’s ridiculous to say ‘if salt has lost its taste…’ and I think that’s the point Jesus is making. His followers are the salt of the earth and nothing can take away that saltiness. In fact, of course we add salt to enhance the taste of things and far from going off itself, salt stops other things from going bad. You are salt & will always be.
‘You are the light of the world…No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket’. Because not only would you not be able to see the light – you would probably set your basket on fire. Ridiculous.

So you ARE salt & light.
Don’t believe me – or not sure what it means, or feel that it’s a bit ‘un British’ to blow your own trumpet. Here are some real life examples…

Candlemas

2011-01-30T00:07:00.000Z

Not preaching at the main service tomorrow, so here's the 8am reflection:

Presentation of Christ in the temple. Luke 2:22-40
We are a little early to celebrate Candlemas – it actually falls on February 2nd, because that is exactly 40 days after Christmas Day and the birth of Jesus. According to Jewish law, families were commanded to present their male children at the Temple in Jerusalem, to give thanks to God and pray for the purification of the mother and health of the child, for it was considered that after the vital forty-day period it was almost certain that all mortal danger was passed. This is a perfectly normal event in the life of any Jewish family but that this is not an ordinary family. Luke tells us this story because he believes it is a story which will help us to understand more about what God has done in Jesus Christ: to grasp the good news of God’s coming kingdom.

We hear how Simeon & Anna see and recognise the 40 day old Jesus – and know this is the one. Here is another moment of epiphany, a revelation in the midst of ordinary life of the glory of God come to earth.
Luke wants us to know that Jesus is not just the one to be looked for by Simeon and Anna, the one to bring hope to Israel, but is the one who brings good news to all time and space – to the whole world. ‘A light for revelation to the Gentiles’ – light and hope for Jew and non-Jew alike.

As we come with our seeking, hoping, and longing in the ordinariness of this day, Christ comes – God’s chosen, the one who can save us, the one who can change things, by revealing God’s love. In this bread, in this wine, in these prayers, God comes to us all.

The message of Luke is that God has come to us, that heaven is shining through in the ordinary things of life, that we are never abandoned and may hope for new and abundant life.
In the grace and the gift of Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jan 23rd - Call of fishermen

2011-01-22T15:45:00.000Z

Readings for this week are:
Isaiah 9:1-4
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-23

Jesus calls the first disciples.

Every now and then when I’m reading a familiar Bible story, a question will pop into my head that seems so basic I wonder why I’ve never thought of it before.
We’ve heard the story of Jesus calling the first disciples. My question is WHY FISHERMEN?

First a subsidiary question – what’s Jesus doing by the sea at all – why Capernaum?
We know Jesus was referred to as being from Nazareth, despite actually being born in Bethlehem. Nazareth is land-locked, between the sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean, but in this story here he is walking by the shore. Jesus is by the sea of Galilee, in the tiny fishing village of Capernaum. We might wonder why, if Jesus had decided to move away from Nazareth, he didn’t choose a place of power like Jerusalem, or at least Bethlehem, which is in striking distance of the city.
But Jesus chooses.. nowhere – a backwater. Right from the start, Jesus signals that his message of good news is not just for the powerful and the important, but is god news for the lowest and the least and the almost forgotten places – like Capernaum. And while he’s there, he begins to call followers, starting with these fishermen.

In this unimportant place, Jesus calls unimportant people, as he calls first the smelly, the poor & the over-taxed. Under Roman occupation those engaged in fishing had to pay for ‘fishing rights’ – surrendering up to 40% of their income as tax. These fishermen know what it is to be ground down by the authorities, they have jobs which are hard and unpredictable – even on the sea of Galilee fierce storms could rage. They had jobs which needed them to go out every day for a fresh catch to make enough to survive.
Going out fishing in their boats was a daily activity involving physical nerve and early mornings. Why fishermen? Well, maybe they would be the ones who would find it easiest to understand that following Jesus wasn’t just a once-in-a lifetime choice like buying a farm, or setting up a business, but was a decision for each new day.
Jesus begins his ministry with a call to repent. This is not just a one-off decision, but a continuous call to turn in God’s direction – to walk along with Jesus & continue to make the right choices, day by day. Fishermen understand the daily rhythm of choice.

At one level this call process to the fishermen seems very simple, Jesus calls, they follow – but then what?
What follows is a kind of 3-year apprenticeship as the fishermen, and others called by Jesus, see what Jesus does and hear what he says in his ministry, and learn to follow.
Even after 3 years they are not fully initiated, fully knowledgeable, they make mistakes & have doubts, and have to be nudged in the right direction by God’s spirit.
Just because they are called by Jesus doesn’t mean they know exactly what to do. Maybe that’s another good reason for calling fishermen: however much experience they’ve got, there can be bad days, when the fish seem to just not be there.
In Luke’s account of the call of the fishermen, they are faced with exactly this situation of empty nets and wasted time. Fishermen understand persistence in the face of frustration.

It might also help us with this question of ‘why fishermen?’ if we think about how they caught their fish. These are not men who fish for leisure, with carefully selected live bait or carefully crafted fly and beautifully flicked and placed line. They have nets, they trawl and drag their catch into the boat.
Maybe Jesus calls fishermen because they’re not looking for subtlety and cleverness. When they are told to become ‘fishers of people’ they won’t get side-tracked into asking what bait they can offer people to entice them to experience God’s love.
Fishermen understand that God’s net of love catches us all whether we want to be caught or not!

Perhaps you’re unconvinced by my suggestions as to why Jesus called these fishermen first: maybe you have your own suggestions, or maybe it’s just that these were the first people to really show an interest in what Jesus had to say.
But surely if we are to follow Jesus we would do well, like the fishermen, to understand the daily decision to walk in the way of Jesus, understand the patience and persistence that it takes, and understand the unstoppability of the gathering of all people into God’s love.
We know that following Jesus is not straight-forward and easy, and we need all the understanding we can muster to help us as we walk in Christ’s way.

So it’s good that we’re not in this alone – but are privileged to be part of a community of Christians, all trying to walk God’s way. It’s good that we’re part of God’s church. We heard today another part of the Letter of Paul to Corinthians. It got off to such a good start last week ‘to God’s church at Corinth, called to be saints’…and now just 10 verses in, Paul gets to the real purpose of writing, not to tell the Corinthians how well they’re doing as followers of Christ, but to tell them off for all the dispute and division between them.

Paul is realistic about how hard it can be to follow Jesus, and he gives us a great message all who are divided in this week of prayer for Christian Unity:

“I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”.

We need to share our different understandings of what it means to follow Christ, if we are to grow together in faithfulness and in understanding.
Perhaps another reason for Jesus calling the fishermen is that they understand team work – they know that they need one another.

May we learn, day by day, to follow Jesus more faithfully, in company with those fishermen and in friendship with all who call themselves Christian, to the greater glory of God. Amen.

January 16th -Epiphany 2

2011-01-13T15:12:00.002Z

Readings for today include John 1: 29-42
but quite honestly I've had enough of John the Baptist for a while. And we can look forward to hearing about Jesus calling disciples NEXT week - so (shock horror!) I'm ignoring the gospel. For those who want to, they can think about John's role as a fore-runner and how that relates to what I have to say about being called to be saints - but I'm focussing on
1 Corinthians 1: 1-9 and
Isaiah 49: 1-7

I just sat down and rattled off the first 2/3rds of the sermon - and now need to sit back and chew over my own question - how can we live up to our calling to be saints... (more to follow, I think...)

Called to be Saints
Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth certainly starts with a clarion call: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints…”

Called to be saints. What an expectation. I wonder how you feel about being the church of God that is in Whittlesford/Duxford – called to be saints.

You might immediately feel that you’re not good enough to be a saint. Saints are holy, special, prayerful, they do and say amazing things. Above all, you have to be really good to be a saint – don’t you?

Well – here’s some good news. No. You don’t have to be really good to be a saint. Actually you don’t even have to be really good to be a Christian. Over the Christmas break I’ve been dipping in and out of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s latest book, written with his daughter, Mpho. The book is called ‘Made for Goodness’ – but one of the first things he says is ‘stop being good’.
Tutu knows that all sorts of terrible things happen when people try to earn God’s love by being really good. Being called to be saints doesn’t mean trying our hardest to be good so that God will loves us – it means being people who recognize that God loves us even before we are born.

God loves us – we are his beloved, special, chosen people – all of us. But that isn’t all there is to being a Saint.

There’s the lovely story of a little girl who went with her Sunday School class to visit a large Parish church. The little girl was in awe of all the beautiful stained glass windows that she saw, as the sunlight came shining through them. At one point, she asked her teacher who the people were that she saw depicted in the windows. The teacher told her that those were saints. Later, when the little girl got home, she told her family about what she had seen. She said: "I learned who the saints are today. They're the people who let the light shine through them."

If we think of Desmond Tutu himself – I would say that he is a living Saint – the light of God’s goodness just shines from him. he is a saint and a wonderful witness to the love of God in the world.

So if we are called to be saints we are called to be people who know that we are loved by God and who let that love shine in us and through us and out of us.

The reading from Isaiah doesn’t use the word ‘saint’, but it talks about God’s servant – someone chosen by God, loved and called by God before they were born and cared for by God. But this servant of God has a job to do.
God says: "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."

Being a saint, being a servant of God, involves shining in the whole world so that everyone will know about God’s love.
We are called to be saints. How can we live up to our calling?

Final draft - baptism of Christ

2011-01-08T20:31:00.003Z

Having been away for a few days I was able to look at this again and hoik it around a bit - much happier with this draft.
Can't help noticing that while I was away I broke through the 10,000 hits mark. Apparently there are 249 posts ss that's about 40 hits per post - which in my world is a pretty large congregation - I just don't get to see you all! Thanks for reading - I find it encouraging.

Baptism of Christ
The baptism of Christ is one of those rather unusual events in Jesus’ life: it is an event that is recorded in all four of the gospels. Maybe this isn’t so surprising – it is the start of Jesus’ ministry, it is the point where the obscure carpenter’s son from Nazareth starts to preach & teach & heal.
This is clearly a vital moment in the life of Jesus and it tells us so much we need to know about Jesus: as a part of the community of God’s people, as God’s servant, and as part of the Trinity – the community of the Godhead.

Firstly, here is the point where Jesus claims by his actions that he is part of the community of people walking God’s way.
John the Baptist has appeared, calling people to repentance, to turning back to God's ways. He tells of the nearness of God's kingdom, the time of complete fulfilment of God's promises to humanity. A new era, in which God rules, is almost here!
And Jesus comes because he is part of it.
John seeks to dissuade Jesus from seeking baptism but Jesus insists: he is ready to take this step and make this decision to begin his ministry as God chosen servant. Jesus is aligning himself with God’s purposes and God’s people.

Secondly, Jesus is identified as God’s servant. In the words Jesus hears when he comes up out of the water, we hear an echo of what Isaiah says about God’s servant. ‘This is my chosen one’.

Jesus takes this step of faith as God’s servant.
I think when we hear this story of Jesus’ baptism we hear a story that in some ways echoes the annunciation to Mary, his mother – when the angel tells her that she is the chosen one who will bear Jesus.
Like Mary, Jesus decides he will do what God wants of him: he comes to be baptised by John. Yet the words spoken at the Baptism are not those of Jesus saying ‘I am your devoted servant – use me for your purposes’ (which is what Mary says). The voice we hear in today’s story is the voice of God the Father ‘You are my beloved, in you I am well pleased’.

This is the point at which the Spirit of God fills and inspires Jesus, and where we see the Father, the Son & the holy Spirit all working together to begin a work that is far more than any human person could ever do. Here, thirdly, is one of the biblical stories in which we see most clearly the ‘three-ness’ of God.

So this story teaches us things about Jesus as a member of the community of God’s people, as the servant of God, and as a part of the Trinity of God.
But this story also teaches us something about our role as servants of God.
The reading from Isaiah was one of four Servant Songs, poems about God's special agent whom God will select. This servant will be quiet, gentle, respectful of others, and patient. He will be concerned with God's will and he will not fail nor be discouraged until he has achieved God's purposes. He will continue to do what God did in the past – he will be faithful to the God of history. So Jesus as God’s servant and hears those words “You are my chosen, in whom I delight”. Then through Jesus’ ministry this message of God’s choice and God’s delight becomes a message for each person who will accept it.
‘You are chosen’ ‘you are precious’ ‘you are mine’ – God whispers these words to each one of us here – to everyone.

As we begin a new year, we need to be faithful to all that has gone before and remember the God of history, whose servants we are.
And we need to trust in God’s blessing for each one of us – God’s healing, shown in Jesus – God’s strength offered to us when we most need it.

Of course we may feel that sometimes we are biting off more than we can chew – that it’s all too much for us – we are too few, we are not young anymore, we are battling a secular world. Can God really use us to speak peace to our world?
Surely we are too weak and the struggle we face is too much?

But we should never underestimate the power of God. Jesus’ ministry may have begun by stepping into the Jordan, but it ended by stepping out of the tomb, via suffering and death. Jesus was the faithful servant of God the Father, bringing salvation for all, there is nothing that God cannot do.

But even when we are walking God’s way it isn’t always clear at start where we will end up. Jesus was the inspired son of God, yet this wasn’t clear at all times, even to his closest followers.

We began with a story about the start of Jesus’ ministry, with his baptism in the Jordan.
But in it we find a message for the New Year for each one of us.
There is no limit to what God can do with us this year – we are his beloved ones and he is pleased with us.

We can take a step of faith into 2011 and remember always that we are here serving the God who through all time reaches out to people in love. And we should know, as Jesus knew, the Spirit with us to give us the power to serve the one God, Father Son & Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Baptism of Christ - Jan 9th 2011

2011-01-04T18:11:00.001Z

Readings are:
Isaiah 42: 1-9
Matthew 3: 13-17

I have 'splurged' a sermon, which I will take with me as I have a few days away, and will probably hone - but here is the fist draft:

Baptism of Christ
The baptism of Christ is one of these rather unusual events in Jesus’ life: it is an event that is recorded in all four of the gospels. Maybe this isn’t so surprising – it is the start of Jesus’ ministry, it is the point where the obscure carpenter’s son from Nazareth starts to preach & teach & heal.
This is clearly a vital moment in the life of Jesus and I hope we can learn from it.

Here is the point where Jesus claims by his actions that he is part of the community of people walking God’s way.
John the Baptist has appeared, calling people to repentance, to turning back to God's ways. He tells of the nearness of God's kingdom, the time of complete fulfilment of God's promises to humanity. A new era, in which God rules, is almost here!
And Jesus comes because he is part of it.
John seeks to dissuade Jesus from seeking baptism but Jesus insists: he is ready to take this step and make this decision to begin his ministry as God chosen servant.

So we could read into this story a message about taking the plunge (if you’ll pardon the pun) – certainly of having the courage of your convictions.

But in the words Jesus hears when he comes up out of the water, we hear an echo of what Isaiah says about God’s servant. ‘This is my chosen one’. It is not enough just to hear of the baptism of Christ and think – we must be bold. If we are to take the plunge it needs to be as those who seek to serve God’s purposes, not just our own.
We need to take the step of faith as God’s servants.
I think when we hear this story of Jesus’ baptism we hear a story that is about more than just Jesus deciding he will do what God wants of him – it is also the point at which the Spirit of God fills and inspires jesus, and where we see the Father, the Son & the holy Spirit all working together to begin a work that is far more than any human person could ever do.

So how do we recognise what being God’s servant means?

The reading from Isaiah was one of four Servant Songs, poems about God's special agent whom God will select. This servant will be quiet, gentle, respectful of others, and patient. He will be concerned with God's will and he will not fail nor be discouraged until he has achieved God's purposes. He will continue to do what God did in the past – he will be faithful to the God of history. So Jesus comes with a message – a message first of all heard by Jesus “You are my chosen, in whom I delight” – but a message which becomes a message for each person who will accept it – ‘you are chosen’ ‘you are precious’ ‘you are mine’ – God whispers these words to each one of us here.

As we take the plunge, we need to be faithful to all that has gone before and remember the God of history, whose servants we are. And we need to trust in God’s blessing for each one of us – God’s healing, shown in Jesus – God’s strength offered to us when we most need it.

Of course we may feel that sometimes we are biting off more than we can chew – that it’s all too much for us – we are too few, we are not young anymore, we are battling a secular world. Can God really use us to speak peace to our world?
Surely we are too weak and the struggle we face is too much?

But we should never underestimate the power of God. Jesus’ ministry may have begun by stepping into the Jordan, but it ended by stepping out of the tomb, via suffering and death. Jesus was the faithful servant of God the Father, bringing salvation for all, there is nothing that God cannot do.

But even when we are walking God’s way it isn’t always clear at start where we will end up. Jesus was the inspired son of God, yet this wasn’t clear at all times, even to his closest followers.

We began with a story about the start of Jesus’ ministry, with his baptism in the Jordan.
But in it we find a message for the New Year for each one of us.
There is no limit to what God can do with us this year – we are his beloved and he is pleased with us.
We can take a step of faith in 2011 and remember always that we are here serving the God who through all time reaches out to people in love. And we should know, as Jesus knew, the Spirit with us to give us the power to serve the one God, Father Son & Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dec 26th

2010-12-28T18:07:00.000Z

Dec 26th Isaiah 63: 7-9 Matthew 2: 13-23

So here we are, caught between Christmas and New year. The bin is full of wrapping paper, we’re wondering quite where to put the presents and looking forward to al those delicious left-overs of Christmas dinner. The new year beckons and we wonder what 2011 might bring us: and in our papers we read stories of political unrest in Korea & Pakistan, of the terribly sad deaths & diappearances and the unhealthy scrum of the sales…what happened to the story – just yesterday of peace on earth and good will to all people?

Matthew, bravely, tells us what happens immediately after the magi have returned to the East. Here is the unsavoury part, the bit that gets missed out of our Carol services. Joseph is warned to flee to Egypt, and Herod in his fury orders the massacre of all the boys aged two and under in the whole region in his attempt to rid himself of the threat of this rival so-called ‘king’ of whom the magi spoke.
Some of the most compelling and dreadful Christian art involves the depiction of this ‘massacre of the innocents’ – the terrible brutal killing of a whole generation of babies.
Meanwhile, Jesus, the target of Herod’s wrath – escapes.

It is only human nature to ask ‘why’?

If Christmas tells us God is with us, why does there seem to be more bad news than good? And if Jesus has truly come as saviour of humanity, why so early in the story do we get the very reverse – the birth of Jesus causing a terrible massacre, while Jesus himself is saved by the warning of an angel?

These are questions we almost daren’t ask, for fear of not being able to answer them. But ask them we must.
If God is truly with us, God is with us in the bad news as well as the good.
The message of God incarnate is not a sickly-sweet, reality-defying tale of ‘the little Lord Jesus no crying he makes’, the arrival of an unearthly one who causes no offence. ‘God with us in Jesus’ is the God who takes on flesh and blood and bone and sweat to stand shoulder to shoulder with a world where terrible things happen and will continue to happen.

Nothing could have been achieved by the infant Jesus being slaughtered by Herod – his mission to bring Good News would have died with him at that point.
Yet Jesus was not spared slaughter indefinitely: he was truly human and subject to the same laws of nature as each one of us. So the moment of accepting incarnation, being born in flesh, was also the moment of accepting a mortal death. And with the wisdom of hindsight we can see that sooner or later the authorities were going to take issue with his radical message of God’s love for the least and the lowest, Jesus’ breaking of the rules of order in society.
Jesus is not entirely spared the massacre of the innocents – God merely delays his fate so that the Good News can first be heard and the kingdom shown in Jesus’ life.

So where does this leave us? When the innocents of today are massacred – by soldier’s sword or terrible accident or human folly – how can there possibly be Good News? Jesus shows us God with us: weeping with the sorrowful as the God who truly shares our humanity, nerving us to stand for justice and peace against all the odds, calling us forward into his kingdom of light.

And isn’t this better news, in the end, than being told that God is with us only in the good parts of our lives – when we are strong, or victorious, or feel blessed?
When life is at its darkness, we are promised light.
When pain threatens to overwhelm us utterly, we are promised hope.
When innocence dies, we are promised new life.

This is the real good news, the true depth of God with us, the gritty truth of incarnation, of God made flesh.

And if all this isn’t amazing enough, as we stand at the brink of the New Year God offers us a promise and a challenge.
He will be with us – here in all our worship and whenever we are in need in this year to come.

But we are not promised protection while those around us suffer. We are called to be the body of Christ, to be God enfleshed for the suffering and the hopeless. We are called to offer the Good News in a hurting world – God with us, in 2011 and until the end of time.

So may we use the future god gives us to grow in the knowledge of God with us and to share that Good News with our neighbours.
In Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen

Christmas Day

2010-12-24T12:27:00.001Z

Yes, it's short - do I expect complaints on christmas morning? NO.

Christmas morning
You might have felt that the whole week has been building up to this morning – that’s certainly the way it’s been in my household! – but for the modern-day Magi – those who like to watch the stars and planets, the big event this week was the lunar eclipse on Tuesday morning. At about 6.30 in the morning, the moon passed into the shadow of the earth & so for a little while went first a coppery-colour & then quite dark – until reappearing as the relative positions of the earth, moon & sun, shifted.

No, I didn’t get up at 6.30am – but there was some wonderful footage on the BBC website – and a very excited astronomer describing what we could see. He said ‘there’s the moon, a quarter of a million miles away; and you can also see Venus, very brightly – 46 million miles away. And in the opposite half of the sky there’s Saturn, a billion miles away. It’s at a time like this we can see our place in the solar system’.

All those millions and billions make me feel that our place in the solar system is very small and insignificant. It’s at a time like this we can see our place.

But today is Christmas Day – and at a time like this we can see our place in God’s universe.
Isaiah says :
‘Break forth together into singing… for the Lord has comforted his people…and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.’

Meanwhile John describes how the one through whom ‘All things came into being… became flesh and lived among us’. It’s Christmas – and at a time like this we remember that despite the enormity and vastness of the universe and the glory of the God who holds it all in being, we are blessed with a child, in whom we can see all the glory and truth of God.

At a time like this, God comes to us in flesh and blood and bone.
At a time like this, God comes in bread & wine & celebration.
At a time like this – at this time, may we know God with us.
And may we know a Happy and Blessed Christmas. Amen

Christmas Eve!

2010-12-24T11:41:00.001Z

Not sure I have time to post everything I'm saying over the next, mad 48 hours: but here's this evening's reflection:

Christmas Eve.
It’s been a hectic few weeks, hasn’t it: and I’m sure I’ve complained as loudly as anyone - so much to do, so much to plan and think about, constant lists.. and then the snow to make everything that bit more difficult!
And then the blessed Angels sing ‘Peace on earth’ – and we wonder how to even get a moment’s peace, let alone how to pray for peace for our mad world.

I’ve got an uncle who is forever sending me emails of jokes & little quotes & things. This was one of his better ones: a wonderful quote from a 7 year old named Bobby: "Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."

It’s really tempting to spend a few minutes giving you a talk that goes ‘never mind all the presents & cards & decorations & stuff’ the REAL meaning of Christmas is this – the birth of Jesus. ..

..so create a space to stop and think and pray and then you’ll know the real meaning of Christmas.

But the real meaning of Christmas is that God became human, that God takes all the human stuff seriously. God shows us that all of our lives are important – not only spiritual, heavenly airy-fairy bits. God being born in Jesus means that God is earthy, grounded - real. The phrase ‘The little Lord Jesus no crying he makes’ is not a clue to the unearthly nature of Jesus – it’s just the romantic imaginings of a Victorian hymn-writer. There would have been crying, and not just from Jesus – but I’m sure from Mary & Joseph too!

The real meaning of Christmas is that it is all real – that God comes to us in all the ordinary stuff of life – crying babies, overbooked inns, cold shepherds, so-called ‘wise’ men who are lost & won’t ask for directions.
God comes to all of us & all of this world in all of our mess and frenzy. God comes to us – in Jesus.

So whether this Christmas you are ready or not – whether you are happy, lonely, filled with regrets, fearful, angry, or just a bit jaded, listen to the angels’ song ‘peace on earth, goodwill to all people’.
And know that God is with us in all of our Christmases.

Every ordinary place & ordinary person can become part of God’s heaven & filled with God’s love.
So may we be blessed by God’s love and know real peace this night & always. Amen

Reflections for Advent 4

2010-12-18T18:08:00.002Z

So, here's the bones:

Matthew 1: 18-25

Then 'Joseph's story'
Well, everyone knows the story of Mary & the angel. But you can’t blame me for not believing it at first. I’ve seen it before, you know, some of my friends... Betrothed a long time and – well, they get a bit impatient and accidents happen & they get married pretty quickly. But we weren’t like that – Mary & me. We were content to wait, do it right.
Then she came & told me about the baby. I was devastated. Well, I knew it wasn’t mine – so I naturally assumed it was another man. ‘Let me tell you about it’ Mary said – I didn’t want to hear it – I didn’t want to know who it was and how much she loved him more than me, and how sorry she was for letting me down & hurting me. I didn’t want to hear her say anything.. I just wanted to get away. I stormed out & left her standing there shaking her head.

My brother said to me ‘Have her stoned – her and her fancy man – whoever he is – that’s the law. Report her and at least have the satisfaction of seeing her punished’.
But I said to him ‘Reuben – I still love her, that’s why this hurts so much – I’ll just break off the engagement quietly and in a month or so she can marry the father of her child and I’ll just have to find someone else.’
And I thought that was the end of it: a sad & sorry end, but there you go.

Then I had the weirdest dream – an angel came & told me to marry Mary: he knew my name and everything! He said that this child was from the Holy Spirit and that we should call him Jesus and that he would ‘save his people from their sins’.
I have no idea what all this means, or what the future holds in store… but I went straight to Mary when I woke up. She laughed and cried and kissed me – and said that she had tried to tell me about the angel for herself.

It’s a good thing God took it in hand and sent me his messenger.
So now I’m looking forward to marrying Mary and meeting this ‘Jesus’ and raising him as my own, precious son.
I wonder what he will be like…

Luke 1: 26-35

Then Mary's story (after The Rev. Sherrie Dobbs Johnson's Midrash "Mary in the stable")
It often happens to women – being falsely accused of wrongdoing..
The new bride of a handsome widower. . . .People say she was going with him before his wife's head was cold in her grave.
The young woman who married the only man who ever treated her like she was gold instead of giving her gold-plated necklaces and bracelets and rings. . . . People say she married him for his money.
The dark-skinned woman who lives with a dark-skinned man, yet has a light-skinned baby. . . . People say, "No way!" could that baby be her man's child.
Wrongly accused – judged-misunderstood.

I am Mary, a teenager who is about to have a baby without the benefit of marriage.
I am engaged, but my fiancé and I have never had sexual relations. People laugh at me when I tell them this. While that hurts, what my fiancé believed was more important: If not by him, then by whom?
His face when I tried to tell him.. I thought he would never believe me.

Thank God for angel who told Joseph I was not made pregnant by any human, but that the Spirit of the Lord had put this new life into my body. I told him – that’s what the angel told me, too!
Then we laughed. he is such a good man, my Joseph. We wonder what it will mean to give birth to the Saviour of the world. We're going to name him Jesus, like the angel said!

So let the people talk. Let 'em laugh. I said to the Lord those months ago, "I am yours." I meant every word I said.
And now I wonder about this child I bear: how can such a tiny baby save the world?

Then a Reflection on these stories.
As we listen to Joseph’s story and Mary’s story with all their wondering and questions, we may well have questions of our own.

What will this birth mean? - shame & scandal; or life & hope?
Perhaps we are so familiar with the ‘happy ending’ we see of the nativity scene on the Christmas cards that we forget how difficult it must have been for Mary & Joseph. Mary said to the angel ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ – but there must have been times in the next 9 months when she wondered if she should have objected a little more to God’s plan.

Mary & Joseph each face the facts of what is happening – including the visit from an angel and have to decide what they should do - run & hide? grin & bear it? Or listen to what God's messenger is telling them and live with the consequences?
What about us? Can we allow this story to challenge us – to spur us on to new commitment to God’s plan for humanity? Dare we offer to be a part of the kingdom of God?

And finally as we listen to this story of the birth of Jesus from Mary’s and from Joseph’s points of view we might wonder where God is in all this. Is it God who is sorting out the mess, by sending the angel to tell Mary & Joseph what to do? Or does God cause the mess in the first place, with this plan for Jesus to be born?
Or maybe, that night in Bethlehem, in a stable, among the animals, the straw, the blood and the sweat, we will look at the mess and see God right in the midst of it.
God with us.
Amen.

Advent 4

2010-12-15T16:24:00.002Z

I've been looking in particular at
Matthew 1:18-25

which gives the birth of Jesus very much from Joseph's point of view.
I'm thinking of balancing it (as the gospels do) with Mary's point of view, and then bringing us to our own point of view, as we look at some fairly simple questions:

what will this birth mean? - shame & scandal; or life & hope?
what should I do - run & hide? grin & bear it? listen to what God's messengers are telling me?
where is God in this? sorting out the mess? causing it? right in the midst of it?

If I have time (hah!) I think I'd like to write reflections by Mary & by Joseph, with time to think in between & then a concluding reflection bringing it 'home'.
Oh yes, and I have a wedding on Saturday & 2 carol services on Sunday to finishing organising too!

Because someone asked 'Where is it?'..

2010-12-15T16:21:00.003Z

... here are the notes from Sunday's sermon at the adult baptism. It seemed to make sense to people. I hope so.

I have to confess I’m getting to the stage when I’m losing track of what day it is. Twice last week I thought it was Friday when it wasn’t – once on Wednesday and once on Thursday. The problem with these days as Christmas is getting closer is that they’re all a bit the same – loads to do, a mixture of writing cards, opening cards, writing more cards, buying and wrapping presents, thinking about food & drink and (for me at least) preparing lots of services. I may not know what day it is – but I know it’s very nearly Christmas – the signs are all around in The TV adverts, the shops, the music, the lights & trees... it all seems to have come round incredibly quickly.
We are all filled with expectation & excitement... or apprehension & dread, depending on your psychological make-up. It’s soon going to be Christmas.

So I’d forgive you for wondering why we have had a reading not about the birth of Jesus, but from 30 years on, when Jesus has started his work and preaching. John the Baptist has baptised Jesus and then John has been put in prison for his condemnation of his ruler, Herod. John is beginning to wonder whether Jesus is the Messiah after all. He sends his disciples to ask “Are you the one, or must we look for another?”.
Jesus tells him to look at the evidence “the blind recover their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, the poor are brought good news”. If Jesus was a modern day teenager he would simply say to John ‘Am I the one? Like, duh!’.
Who else but the Messiah could do those things?
When all these good thigns happen, you know God is at work in his world.

Darren, your baptism is just the beginning of a journey for you today. You want to be a good Godfather, you want to help to shape and guide a young life, and so you have taken this step of baptism yourself. You are responding to the evidence you have seen of God at work in the world in new life and new hope.

I want to give you – and all of us – a challenge today. You know it’s Christmas because of the evidence all around you. But right at the heart of Christmas is this message that God came into the world in Jesus. John the Baptist was challenged to look for the signs around him and I believe we are each challenged to look for the evidence around us. Look for goodness and new life, hope and joy in he world – and when you find them, think about the presence of God in them.

But it’s even more challenging than that. You might hear in the Christmas story about Jesus Christ - who was the word made flesh 2000 years ago. But you might wonder how people can see & hear that for themselves, as John did? How can the world of today see the human face of the one who is God with us?

People need to see the face of Christ today in us – that’s why the church, to which you’ve just been joined in baptism, is sometimes called the body of Christ.
Listen to the story the church tells; look at the love in the lives of the people who are part of the church; and think about what your part is going to be in showing the love of Jesus in the world.
Look for the evidence of God – and then be prepared to be that evidence for your godchild and for the whole world. And may God help each one of us to live up to that same challenge – in Jesus name. Amen.

Advent 3

2010-12-09T11:02:00.002Z

Yes, posts are getting later. Yes, it's my "busy time". No, I'm not ready for Christmas - but then, I feel like coming over all deep & theological & saying 'I'm not meant to be ready yet - it's still Advent'.

So this week's readings are:

Isaiah 35:1-10
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11

Challenge number one is that we have one of our 'Creative church' services this week (when we try to present the Word other than simply by someone reading all 3 readings as the 'Readings', and invite people to respond in some other than simply by listening and coming forward for communion).
Challenge number two is that we have a baptism of an adult (sprinkling, not full immersion) this week, and so potentially have people there who wont be too clued up on the first Isaiah and how important the later redactions of the text are.
Challenge number three is the usual one about passages from later in Jesus' (and John the Baptist's) life being used here to help us reflect on the identity of Jesus as we prepare for his coming.
Challenge number four for me is that I also have a different service to lead later the same morning & I'm starting to feel like there aren't enough hours in the day (what with also having umpty Carol services & the like to organise). I think I might cheat a little and prepare something on 'Mary' that I can use both this week & next for similar services at different churches.

So:
We have decided to shorten the Matthew reading and make that the only one for the service, read in a 'dramatic' way:

Matthew 11: 2-6

Narrator:
Messengers from John the Baptist.
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him,

John: (off stage) ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’

Narrator: Jesus answered them,

Jesus: ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: 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. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.’