The Vault

Isaiah 48 - Listen To Me!

2009-05-18T11:39:00.001+01:00

Notes from a sermon preached on the 17th May 2009

When I get the chance I love to read the children a chapter or two before bedtime. We loved Enid Blyton, the Hobbit, Roald Dahl and Stig of the Dump amongst other great yarns and story-tellers. There are days though when I look up from the book to realise that they’renot really paying attention, and at these times I play a little game with them. Suddenly one of the Hobbits might change names to Rowan and might catch a plane to deepest trifle desert where they turn green and blow up the size of a swimming pool before being eaten by a passing Land Rower – you get the idea. Its always interesting to see how long I can go on making nonsense before they realise what I’m saying… I’ll have to try it one night when I’m preaching and I see you’re drifting!

Five times in quick succession God calls people to listen,
• 48:1 ‘Listen to this, O house of Jacob, you who are called by the name of Israel…’
• 48:12 ‘Listen to me, Jacob, Israel, whom I have called: …’
• 48:14 ‘Come together, all of you, and listen…’
• 48:16 ‘Come near me and listen to this…’
• 49:1 ‘Listen to me, you islands…’

‘Listen’ …A call for attention. An offer of something important. An invitation to open yourself up to what someone else has to say.

‘Listen’ …A call to put aside your agenda, what you were doing, what you were thinking and consider what is important to someone else.

‘Listen’ …A hint of mystery, something new is about to be revealed, to be shared. What is it going to be?

God says listen, drawing us out of our world into his, inviting us to pay attention, to prepare ourselves for something special. This ‘listen’ may have been spoken thousands of years ago, but it still sounds today with meaning and purpose, drawing us as it drew them.

Listening is probably one of the hardest tasks that there is.

To listen means forgetting yourself for a while, not rushing to answer, to butt in with your own thoughts. To listen requires careful attention to what is being said – there’s a world of difference between hearing something and actively taking it on board – I only have to think of the weather forecast to realise this. So often I put the weather on as I need to know what its going to be like, only to realise after its finished that I didn’t actually pay it any attention and missed it completely, even though I was sitting there staring at the screen!

To listen means to make yourself vulnerable. It is easy to assert ourselves and push our views on others, but to listen means allowing others to shape and inform your thought, potentially changing your mind or values or plans.

To listen is an act of trust – do I trust the other person not to abuse me when I make myself vulnerable in this way.

You’d have thought that listening to God would be easier wouldn’t you, but its not the case is it. This is why the book of Isaiah was written to start with. God saw that trouble was coming for them and so spoke through Isaiah to warn them of the consequences of their current actions. Stop paying lip-service to me in worship whilst abusing others, place your trust and hope in me rather than other nations and your own military and political strength. If you do this, he’d said, then all will be fine – in fact more than fine

17 This is what the LORD says—
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
"I am the LORD your God,
who teaches you what is best for you,
who directs you in the way you should go.
18 If only you had paid attention to my commands,
your peace would have been like a river,
your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
19 Your descendants would have been like the sand,
your children like its numberless grains;
their name would never be cut off
nor destroyed from before me."(Is. 48:17-19)

Note that here God reveals the purpose of prophecy, not so much about predicting the future, but giving his people direction and understanding.

Fairly clear message you’d have thought, easy to grasp and respond to, and yet had they listened? They’d heard the words of course, but they’d continued living as they were, placing faith in themselves and others but not God, and consequently what God had said would happen, happened. They were defeated and carted off into Exile. How is it that God describes them here, as people whose sinews in their necks were iron and their foreheads bronze. They were a stubborn people and had heard yet not listened.

It is easy for us to sit here and look back at them and think how foolish they were. Why didn’t they do what God had told them! But if we’re honest with ourselves, are we any better? God gives us the same message doesn’t, trust in me, place your hope in my provision, my ways. Most of the time we know exactly what God wants of us, but how quick are we to listen, to respond, to truly place our trust in him?
Why is it so hard?
• Maybe it’s because we can’t see God?
• Maybe it’s because everyone else around us is doing the same thing?
• Maybe it’s because our culture says this we’ll be alright if we live this way?
• Maybe we think we know best?
• Maybe it’s because we know what we already see and do and feel safe there?
• Maybe it’s simply habit?

Isaiah brought this prophetic warning well ahead of time, so that when trouble came, they would be able to look back and realise that he was trustworthy, that he was worth listening to. When they first heard, it didn’t seem possible that they could lose their land, but it happened just as God had warned them it would. No idols told them this, only he foresaw it – no model of iron or stone, no philosophy or ruler.

Sometimes God calls us to something do something new, or to think in a new way. Sometimes he does something new that we haven’t seen before, or is outside how we usually think of God. This can be difficult. We don’t like to be moved from our comfort zones. New things make us worry – there are plenty of ‘what ifs…’ that can be provoked on our lips. But here God is telling us that we needn’t worry. Instead, if we look back to other times in our lives when God has been at work, we can find encouragement from them.

The Israelites could look back to the Exodus – here was something new. God had promised to rescue them, and he did. They could look back to the Exile, as God did in this passage, and remember how what God had warned them about had come to pass. I look back to times on mission when God paid our shopping bills out of the blue, or when I came to Westcott, my last church, so many things that needed to fall into place did so, or FUSION events or Youth Conference events which I felt out of control of, but God came up trumps as he had promised to do so. Perhaps we can look back to some of the great things God has done amongst us as a church family in the past. When God has called us to new things, he has never let us down. Why should he suddenly start doing so now!

So what’s the new thing he’s calling them to listen to, to be prepared for? What’s God planning that he hasn’t done before? He’s going to defeat the Babylonians and prove to the world that he hasn’t abandoned his people. He’s going to rescue them and send them home. Again he is saying it far enough before it happens so that when it does happen, everyone will see that it is his work – ‘Leave Babylon, flee from the Babylonians! Announce this with shouts of joy and proclaim it. Send it out to the ends of the earth; say, "The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob.’ (48:20). History tells us that it was Cyrus who defeated the Babylonians and set the Israelites free. If it wasn’t for this writing written in advance, all might say that he was the cause of their freedom, but this writing proves otherwise. His was no normal earthly defeat and liberation exercise, but this was God at work!

But was this the whole of what Isaiah was talking about when he said something new was about to happen?

Isaiah was not the only one or I think the first to suggest God would rescue the Israelites from captivity. This was not a totally new idea. Is there something else going on here, another greater fulfilment?

We assume that the Lord’s chosen ally against Babylon in verse 14 is Cyrus, for that is the servant he talks about in earlier chapters, but if you read on to the following chapters, the nature of the servant gradually changes from the mighty king Cyrus to one who will achieve greatness through his suffering and standing up for and in the place of the afflicted and sinful. This is another great liberator, someone completely unlike any who have gone before. Totally unexpected!

Jesus – for this is of course who he’s talking about – doesn’t fit in so many ways. The Cross seems nuts. His teaching turns our values upside-down, and changes the way we see ourselves and our world completely. God knows he wouldn’t make sense to the Israelites, and he knows he doesn’t make sense to us today, but by telling them about him so far in advance, and reminding them about how he has always proved true in the past, he reassures them – and us – that we can place our trust in this peculiar, unique and wonderful man.

1 Samuel 4-6 - 'God in a Box'

2009-05-12T10:46:00.002+01:00

Notes from a sermon preached at Turner's Hill Free Church on 10.05.09

3 hints...

As I have already given away through the emblem on the front of my tunic from Sierra Leone I am an ardent Liverpool Football Club Supporter. Liverpool are the most successful English football club, and this season after a decade of waiting for a return to form, the glory days suddenly seem just a whisker away. In case you want to quibble with my claim about their greatness, how’s this for a record: they have won the European Cup 5 times, the top flight league 18 times, and on top of that 7 FA cups and 7 League Cups. This year it looks as if they may be pipped to the Premiership title by Man. Utd and a handful of points, but title number 19 is getting very close. When they win it, it will take pride of place on the trophy cabinet to underline their claim as the top team in English footballing history, and wheeled out to make the point whenever required!

I bought myself a new toy a couple of years ago in a bid to get my life organised, a Palm handheld computer. On it has a diary into which I can put my appointments, set alarms to remind me when to do things. It even synchronises to my PC at home too so that I’m never without my list of tasks to do. Putting in a new appointment or job to do is easy. You just tap the ‘new’ button, scrawl in the job or meeting, and chose the type of event or job it is from a drop down list of options. This way I can quickly locate all church events, or personal tasks or SLM related activities.

If you go to Google and look up ‘in a box’ the search engine will tell you that there are about 16,400,000 webpages that it knows of with this phrase. You can get ‘lunch in a box’, ‘a band in a box’, ‘a rocket in a box’, a celebration in a box’, ‘a monster in a box’, ‘a farm in a box’ and even ‘liposuction in a box’! Pre-packaged and prepared for ease of use, a thousand and one commodities are ready for our use in these readymade and convenient packages. All you need to do is open the box and within it discover everything you need to fulfil your wishes in one easy location.

You may be wondering what these three topics have to do with 1 Samuel 4-6, but be patient, all will become clear!

First of all, let me give you an overview of the three chapters – they’re a bit long to read out fully, but I do recommend that you go home and check them out, it’s a great story.

In 1 Samuel 4 the Israelites are beaten in battle by the Philistines, taking some 4000 casualties. This is a fairly desperate state of affairs. Like we may do here when the campaign in Iraq is finally finished, they held an enquiry to look into what went wrong. Blame games aside, the major question was what could they do to get their own back? It didn’t take long until someone pointed out the one big weapon that they had that the Philistines didn’t – God! They could take the Ark of the Covenant with them, and God would ensure that they were victorious. Men were sent to Shiloh where Eli’s sons were attending to bring back the Ark.

The shout that went up when the Ark was brought to the camp was earth-shattering. They were so excited, convinced that because God was now with them that they were invincible. Catch is, the Philistines heard the shout, and when they learnt what it was about, it focussed them all the more, stirring them on to greater acts of bravery and violence on the battlefield. This time the Israelites not only lost, but 30,000 of their men were slain. Total destruction. What’s more, the Ark was lost, captured as a trophy by their enemy. Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas killed. Hearing the news of the loss of the Ark Eli collapsed, breaking his neck in the fall and dying.

It would seem that not only were the Israelite’s weak, but their God was too… Back in their lands, chapter five tells us that they placed it in their temple to Dagon in Ash, like a trophy in their trophy cabinet. Look what we’ve won, look how great we are! Look how mighty our god is!

They didn’t feel quite so smug the next morning when they found the statue of Dagon lying prostrate before the Ark. Carefully they raised it back up to its rightful place, putting it down to an accident, or pesky kids or something. Next day Dagon was prostrate again, but this time shattered, only the body intact.

This left them with a quandary, what to do with the Ark? How should they respond to what God was doing in their midst? Does this change their view of Dagon and Yahweh?

In the end they decided not to abandon Dagon and switch to worshipping the Israelite’s God, but instead to move the Ark out of the temple and to a city called Gath. From there they moved it again to Ekron. In both places the people were afflicted with tumours, in Ekron many died as death swept through the city. Just as God had proved himself to be greater than Dagon, he proved himself to be more powerful than the people too. The chapter ends with the people calling out for the Ark to be sent away.

And that of course is exactly what happens in Chapter 6. The Philistines load up a cart with the Ark and gold gifts – gold tumours in fact, just like the ones God had given them, gold rats too as it seemed as if diseases were not enough – strapped it to oxen and sent it on its way.

The cattle knew the way to go, and the Ark was returned to Israel accompanied by much rejoicing! When they found it, the Israelites broke the cart up and used to offer the cattle as sacrifices – sacrifices of thanksgiving and no doubt repentance too. Most of Israel celebrated that day, but not all, for some looked into the Ark. You’ve heard the phrase ‘curiosity killed the cat’? Well that was certainly the case here.

So what is going on in this story? What is it trying to tell us about God, the Philistines and the Israelites?

It doesn’t take much imagination to see does it! It’s all about who God is, how we see him and what we make of him. Remember those three topics I mentioned at the start? Three pictures of different ways in which we can see or treat God.

We can see him as a trophy. We are told that we should boast in our God. The Israelites certainly did – that’s just what they were doing when they brought the Ark into battle, ‘You think you’re good do you? Well just look at who’s on our side! Now do you think you’re the best!’ Thing is, we’re supposed to boast about him, not about ourselves using him as some status symbol that we possess. The Philistines did the same thing when they brought the Ark into their temple. They didn’t place it there to worship, but instead as a trophy, ‘Look what we’ve won! You thought you were the clever ones didn’t you!’ By placing it at the feet of Dagon, they were simply rubbing salt in the wound, ‘Our God is better than ours, we’re better than you…’.

This is why Eli collapsed when he heard that the Ark had been seized. Partly because he knew the prophecies about him and his family were coming true, but also because he realised that the thing he had gained his status from, his position of power and authority, had been snatched away. His trophy was gone. This was why God toppled the statue of Dagon, again he was saying I am not confined to a box or you narrow vision of who I am.

God is not some trophy to be wheeled out like the Premiership title in bragging contests between rival fans. God is not there for our benefit – although in his mercy he chooses to love us and care for us. No, we are here for his benefit, to bring him glory, to worship him through our words and deeds.

In what ways do we treat God as a trophy? As a status symbol? Do we use our relationship with him to look down on the world, to see ourselves as better than them as we have God? We may not articulate it that way, but I’ve observed it so often in the way we speak about ‘the world’ and our non-Christian neighbours, especially those we perceive as living sinful lifestyles. We are better than them because we have got God. No actually, we are no better than them, and that’s the point of the Gospel. We are all sinners, none of us are worthy of God. Our position in Christ has nothing to do with us, and everything to do with Jesus’ grace.

Do we use our relationship with God in order to gain special benefits in the world, to be treated differently as if it is our right? I think of some of the ways as Christians we have demanded our rights as Christians and I wonder sometimes if we have got our priorities right…

This leads onto the second picture I used. Why didn’t the Israelites take God with them into the first battle? Put aside the whole ‘God in a Box’ thing for a moment. Was it that they didn’t think they needed God then? Did they think that God was to do with worship, with sacrifices and priestly type stuff, whereas combat had nothing to do with him?

There are many occupational hazards with my job. Too many cups of tea when visiting! Strangers phoning me and knowing where I live. That feeling of being watched all the time, on show, under the microscope… I think the worst hazard though, is what it can do to my relationship with God though. On a Sunday morning I go to church to work. Mid week Bible studies are work. Reading the Bible is in order to get ideas for sermons. Prayer becomes about the church and its problems. Do you see what’s happening? The danger is that I end up relating God to my work, and so when I leave work behind at the end of the day, I also leave God behind too.

We live in a world full of competing demands. We’re all juggling too many things – work, family, friends, church, and so on. There is the danger for all of us that we add God to this list and make him something to be compartmentalised and fitted in like an entry in my electric diary.

We can treat him as ‘a god in a box’ to be bought out and used when it suits as, on our terms, for our needs. Freddie Mercury quote – made disposable pop, to be listened to and then thrown away. So easy to do this with God.

For the Israelites, they made the mistake of thinking that God was literally ‘a god in a box’, the Ark. They believed that God was contained within it, and that he was therefore in someway under their control. He went where they took him, and therefore if they took the Ark into battle, there god would come too and fight on their behalf.
In what ways do we wheel God out when it suits us, and leave him behind when we think we don’t need him?

The bottom line? Our God is no trinket to be trifled with, we cannot confine him to an Ark, a box or compartment in our lives..

We are privileged to be his children – but this is not through right or merit, but through his grace and love alone. This does not take away from who he is though. He remains the King of kings, the Creator of all things, the Beginning and the End, before whom all glory and honour are due. Let us learn from the mistakes of the Israelites and Philistines and give him the position in our lives he deserves – the Centre. He is not ours, ‘God in a box’, but instead we are quite simply his.

Isaiah 44:24-45:25 - Of, Through & For the World

2009-05-06T12:54:00.002+01:00

Notes from a sermon preached on 26th April 2009

Arriving at the service this morning was a strange experience. The first thing I saw was not the doormen who usually great me as I arrive, but blue and white tape announcing to the world that I was entering a crime scene. My first thought was that they’d caught up with me at last! Then I learnt that a young lad had a broken bottle shoved in his face at a 21st birthday party at the community service last night. The scene of crime officers were there this morning looking for any forensic evidence.

It was fascinating watching the effect of their presence on the congregation. It changed the dynamic of the start of the service dramatically. Folks didn’t seem to want to take to their seats, and were instead clustered together in the hall, near the doors, but with the doors between them and the police officers closed. Some were clearly nervous of them, others were fascinated, some tried to engage them in conversation and others still wished they weren’t there. Like it or not, we weren’t able to escape from the fact that they were there.

A... was leading the worship this morning, and she commented on this coming together of the world and the church, and this got me thinking. In many ways this episode was like a little snapshots of the way Christians see the world.

In many ways, this is the very question that today’s passage spends time looking at. How does God relate to the world, and how should we, his people see the world. There have been many answers to these questions. I wonder what yours would be?

Is the world something you’re part of? Want to embrace it? Want to avoid it? Is it important or unimportant to you? Are we more important to God than the world? Is the world neither of these, instead there, but of little impact upon your life?

Now forget what you’ve just answered, and ask yourself the question again. Maybe we think we know what the right answer is, but how do we actually act towards the world and relate to it? I wouldn’t be surprised that if we were honest with ourselves, that the theory and the reality don’t always match up.

This passage looks to the time when God’s People were exiled, defeated by the Assyrians and Babylonians, forcefully relocated from the Promised Land to alien homes, and the Temple where God dwelt and where they met with him destroyed. This is a dramatic clash between the world and God’s People. To God’s People it felt as if God had abandoned them to the world, or even that God had been defeated by the world – this was an era when the strength of a nations god was measured by who they conquered – if your nation beat another in battle, then your god was greater than theirs.

The World here is the enemy, a threat to God’s People and their ways, threatening to overcome them, to defile them, to destroy their faith and freedom to practise their religion. Some might see echoes of this in the confusing relationship between immigration, multiculturalism and the influx of other faiths today. As what is sometimes referred to as ‘Christian’ England is exposed to other ways of life, and the rise in secularism as well as other faiths (although I would argue that secularism is a faith in its own way). Sometimes it is portrayed as if these other faiths are eroding away our Christian identity challenging our faith. The World is a threat and we need to take care not to be defiled by it, or lured away by it from our walk with Christ.

The language of this passage in Isaiah supports this picture of the World as a threat. God refers to himself as their ‘Redeemer’ – one who will rescue his people (44:24), one who promises to bring them out of the world and bring them home – Jerusalem will be inhabited, the towns of Judah rebuilt and the Temple restored (44:26-28)

Remember that like now, then there were many god’s believed in, many ways of seeing the world, many competing truths. Over these, God asserts that he is in fact the only God. There is no other. He alone created the heavens and the earth. He alone is the source of power and authority. He alone knows what is true and wise. He alone knows what will be and is faithful to all his promises. There is no competitor, no rival to his position. He, and he alone, is God. Anything else set up as a god or authority apart from him is in fact an idol. Worth nothing. Lesser than him, and leaving their followers ignorant.

In the end, he announces, before him every knee will bow, and by him every tongue will swear.

God is King and he is Lord of All, of and over the World who stands against him.

*****

But things are not as black or white as this might suggest.

God has made this promise to rescue his people from the World, but wait a minute, who is it that he uses to rescue them. Will he raise up a prophet like Moses? A Warrior like Samson? A King like David? No. Instead he uses Cyrus…

Cyrus is the King of the Persians. He is a foreigner who neither knows or cares about the Jew’s God. You can hear the protests can’t you! You can’t use him God. He’s not one of us. He’s your enemy, a foreigner. He’s of the World – a threat to us who will lead us astray. How can this be!

The Church is the carrier of God’s Word. We are the ones who know God, who have committed ourselves to him, who know his will and follow him. What does the Bible describe as standing against us? The World, the Flesh and the Devil. Apart from God we can do no good, the only way we can do good is through the renewal of our minds and lives by the Holy Spirit who transforms us to be like Christ.

To make it worse, Isaiah refers to Cyrus as God’s Shepherd. What do you think of when you hear that word? Maybe David, the Shepherd King? Maybe Psalm 23 where God is our shepherd? Maybe the priests who Zecharah calls shepherds – good an bad. With this sort of background, you can hear the fury of God’s People when they hear Isaiah using this name. Is this blasphemy? It’s certainly close. How dare Isaiah afford an unbelieving foreigner this status?

God’s reply is a strong one. Who are you to tell me who I can or cannot use! I am the one who made you – read 45:9-13. God can use whoever he wants to, and here he chooses Cyrus.

This has implications for us. Doing God’s will is not restricted to the Church. The World can work for God, know and complete his will, demonstrate his truth.

Have you ever wondered about why Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God rather than the Church. Are they the same thing? Passages like this make me believe that they are not. The Kingdom of God is wherever God’s will is being done – this could be by God’s People, but also by those who are outside God’s People, in other words the World. Wherever people stand up for injustice, that is God’s Kingdom at work. Wherever people show compassion – that is God’sKingdom. Wherever truth is held over dishonesty, that is God’s Kingdom.

This calls for humility from us.

It calls for humility from us in our theology – what we believe and say about God. Who are we to restrict what God can and cannot do.

It also calls for humility in our dealings with others outside the church. Doing good, and doing God’s will is not restricted to the Church, the World also have a part to play. Does this suggest that we should not be so quick to dismiss the world as our enemy, or unimportant. Perhaps there are times when it is right for us to seek partnership with the world in the business of the Kingdom. Should we be looking for others who are aiming for similar things in their work and supporting each other? Perhaps the Council might fit into this position – not always, but at times. Or maybe High Trees? Or the local school? Maybe local environmental groups? The list could cover many varied groups, businesses and individuals.

Maybe this passage calls us to watch our language (World vs Church) and to think in terms of conversation instead of confrontation.

It is interesting to note, though, that God says that he has called Cyrus to work for him, for the benefit of his People – 45:4. Does this suggest that the Church is superior or more important to God than the world?

***

When Jesus came striding onto the scene and Paul following in his footsteps, they caused the same sort of outrage that Isaiah was causing by sharing these words of God’s. By this time, the Jewish faith had accented the importance of God’s People over and above the World, that the World, the Gentiles were the enemy, to be looked down upon. They caused an outrage because they argued otherwise. We don’t hear the shock value behind John 3:16 because we have got so used to the words that we miss the implication. God so loved THE WORLD. Jesus and Paul in their own ways were reminding God’s People that they had been called not for their own benefit, but to bless the world – wasn’t that the Promise that all those many years ago God had made to Abraham? That through him all nations would be blessed?

This passage says the same thing. Yes it says that God will subdue the nations, that every knee will bow before him, but shortly before that it says in 45:22 ‘Turn to me and be saved all you ends of the world’. He may be King of and over the World. He may use the world to grow his Kingdom and serve the Church, but his ultimate purpose is to save and redeem the World.

The World is no perfect – then again nor are we. We are not called to stand against it, or see ourselves as superior to it, but in humility we are called to work with the World and for the World, to grow God’s Kingdom.

Luke 24 - Experiencing the Risen Christ!

2009-04-21T12:56:00.002+01:00

Notes from an All Age Easter Celebration Service, Easter Day 2009 (12.04.09)

When today’s passage was first written, it was a brand new story and that was the problem, which was why Luke had to stress that Jesus’ death and resurrection had always been intended.
• The women who went to the tomb were told by the angels that Jesus had promised them that he had to be crucified and would then rise again. (24:7)
• Stranger on Emmaus Road explained how the Moses and the Prophets explained what would happen to the Christ. (24:26-27)
• Jesus opened their minds so that they could understand the Scriptures – that the Christ would suffer and rise (24:44)

But Luke also knew that the time would come when it would no longer be a new story, but an old one. Now the story is two thousand years old. It’s all very well and good Luke saying that Jesus was raised back to life, but how can we know that this is true?

Luke doesn’t try and prove the resurrection by reasoned argument or scientific proof. Instead, he does something even more exciting. He tells us a number of different ways in which we can get to know the risen Jesus for ourselves today!

Series of items – to add to the Garden step by step…

EASTER GARDEN: Bring on the plants!
o Every year we tell this story, we remember how Jesus rose from the dead.
o The same thing happens in this chapter. Time and time we have the story being told and retold, with the resurrection as its ending. The women tell the disciples, the two on the road to Emmaus tell the stranger who joins them, then they tell the disciples when they discover the stranger is Jesus. As you finish the chapter with the disciples heading back joyfully to worship in Jerusalem, you also get the impression that they are bubbling to tell everyone they meet!
o By telling the story, we remember that Jesus is alive, and share that with others!

BIBLE:
A good book is more than just words. As you read a good book, the characters in it and the places and situations they experience come alive, that’s what it’s supposed to do. Through the voices in this passage, Luke is telling his readers that this is what the Bible is there for too. As Jesus talks to the two men on the road to Emmaus, he explains all that the Law and the Prophets had to say about him. The Law and the Prophets was an expression that meant the Old Testament as we now know it. Luke tells us that as he spoke to them, their hearts burned within them. He is also showing us that as we read the Bible today, that God will bring Jesus to life through its words for us, our hearts will also burn as we read it, the divine speaks through its pages.

COMMUNION CUP:
It wasn’t until Jesus joined the two men on the Road to Emmaus for diner that they realised who he was. What was it that gave him away to them?
o As they ate he took the bread, broke it and gave thanks and gave it to them? Does that phrase sound familiar to you? It’s just like the Last Supper isn’t it, where Jesus took the bread and wine from the Passover Meal and used it to talk about who he was and what he was going to do for them, for us. No doubt they recognised the words. For us, I’m sure that like me, you thought about taking Communion where we regularly read those same words. Is Luke saying that we can come to know the risen Jesus in communion? How?
o Powerful symbol of what Jesus did for us – how he died so that we could be reconciled to God, made friends with him again.
o Promise of what to come – life after death!
o Opens our imagination and awareness of God in the present

£20 NOTE:
What is this? It’s a bit of paper with some pictures printed on it and some writing. Doesn’t sound particularly amazing does it! What’s it worth? Not much I wouldn’t have thought.
o What does it say on the note though? I promise to pay… Does that change anything? Still looks like a piece of paper to me! How am I supposed to know that its worth something? How do I know if it is really worth £20? By trying it. It is only by testing the promise that you can find out if it’s true.
o When the disciples first saw the risen Jesus in the room they were scared. They didn’t know if he was really who he looked like he was. Maybe he was a ghost? An Illusion? A delusion? That’s why Jesus told them to touch his hands and feet. By touching him they would be able to see that he was who he promised he was.
o Luke is telling us that at the end of the day, the only way to discover if Jesus is real is to test his promises. If we try to live by his promises, if we test him, touch him, we shall find that he is indeed trustworthy.

DOVE/FIRE:
The final way in which we can get to know the risen Jesus today is found at the very end of the chapter. Jesus tells the disciples to go and share the great news of Easter with the rest of the world, but before they do so, they are to wait for God to give them power to do this – the Holy Spirit.
o Jesus is not with us now, he has left us, ascended into Heaven
o But the Holy Spirit is his way of being with us today,
 reminds us what Jesus taught us
 helps us to become like him
 and enables us to continue his mission of love in action

The story of Jesus rising from the dead may be an old story, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t know him today. We can know him through retelling the Easter Story, letting the Bible bring him alive for us, finding him in Communion, testing his promises, and enjoying his Presence through the Holy Spirit.

Luke 19:28-48 - The Visit of the King

2009-04-21T12:51:00.003+01:00

Notes from an All Age Service Talk on Palm Sunday, 2009 (05.04.09)before a prayer walk around Wormley

Lot's of fuss earlier this week about Obama visiting the UK. Did you see his car! (Show picture)

Observers say the car is likely to include:
• bullet proof glass
• armoured body,
• a separate oxygen supply,
• completely sealed interior to protect against a chemical attack.
• Some joke the car is so tough it could withstand a rocket-propelled grenade.

David Caldwell of General Motors who made it joked: ‘One of the specifications is that we don't talk about the specifications’. What a contrast to Jesus coming into town, not in 'The Beast' but on a donkey...

But like the coming of Obama, Jesus coming to Jerusalem caused great celebrations!
• Cloaks on road - like red carpet
• Joyful praise!
• Other versions - palm branches, waving flags

But like Obama coming to London, not all were happy. The protests then were by the Pharisees who told him to make his disciples be quiet.

Why?
• Jealous? Afraid that the crowds might shift their allegiance from them to him?
• Afraid? Afraid of what the Romans might do? Would they decide that the Jews were crossing the line?
• Didn't think it was right - should be celebrating Passover, God's rescue, not Jesus

I wonder what Obama felt this week about all the fuss? How did it make him feel? What did it make him do?

Jesus looks over the city as he came, and cried over it
• Not self important, but concerned for people
• Prayerful
• Upset as Jerusalem didn't recognize him for who he was

I'm always struck by this part of the passage. Struck by the humanity of Jesus, the emotions he feels. Struck by the depth of his feelings too - even for those who he knows are against him, or will turn against him in a few short days. Always challenges me to ask how much I care for those in my communities. Do I see through those outside the school, or in the shops or at the doctors, or even judge them? Jesus didn't...

As we walk in a moment - try and see Wormley as Jesus does. Pray for the people and places we see. Pray that they might enjoy God and recognise him.

But was Jesus just concerned about that town, those people, his people?
He was inclusive, concerned for foreigners, those who came from elsewhere - turning over tables so that the Gentiles could pray and meet with God.
As we walk, let's pray for those of other cultures and backgrounds in this area, that they might be made welcome. Pray too that we might be open to those outside the church

Luke 22:66-23:56 - Who Was That Masked Man?

2009-04-21T12:46:00.002+01:00

Notes from a sermon preached on Good Friday 2009 (10.04.09)

For many the sound of the William Tell Overture will conjure up memories of radio and TV westerns with a masked man with American Indian companion confronting conflicts and problems, with the famous question, ‘Who was that masked man?’

Whilst the Lone Ranger may now be a figure of the past, others queue up to take his place. Superheroes with their secret identities are all the rage on the big screen right now, with Spiderman, Superman, the Hulk, X-Men and Watchmen generating big bucks at the box office. Again the question is asked by those who come across them, ‘Who is that masked man?’

There is another such figure who has hit the screens again in recent years whose identity prompts the same question – who is that man? Films such as the Da Vinci Code and The Passion by Mel Gibson have thrust him back into public consciousness, if he ever went away. Last year at this time, the BBC made their own adaptation of the passion story, the last week of Jesus’ life.

There are many haunting portrayals of Jesus’ final week before his was crucified, not the least those of the Gospels themselves. Whenever I read them I am left asking that same question, who was that man? In many ways, that’s what the rest of the New Testament is about, trying to answer this riddle that the Gospels present. Who was he? What did he stand for? Why did he die? What did his death achieve?

Today’s passage in many ways focuses no this mystery as Jesus is jostled from one kangaroo court to another.

The Council of Elders
It starts with the chief priests and the teachers of the law, the council of elders. They are the ones who have detained Jesus with the help of the Temple guard. Jesus is thrown before them at first light, and they demand of him, ‘If you are the Christ, tell us.” In other words, who are you? Are you just a man? Or are you God’s chosen one, the one sent in his power and authority that has been long awaited?

This figure of the Christ is one that emerges gradually in the Old Testament. Hint by hint, the suggestion of someone coming in God’s power and authority develops, one who will restore Israel to her former glory, a king like David, a prophet like Moses. One who will set her people free! And yet this Messiah remains in the shadows, unclear, disguised. They do not know what he will look like and when he will come. At the time of Jesus, many thought that in those days of occupation by the Romans, the time for the coming of God’s Saviour was nigh…

Was Jesus that man? The religious leaders pose the question that was on many lips, and it hangs there in the air for us today. Was Jesus the Christ, God’s appointed one?

Of course, they had already made up their mind. It was not Jesus. This question was just to give them, the excuse they were looking for to dismiss him, to remove him. If he said no, then it was all over. If he said yes, that was blasphemy.

Are you the Christ?... They did not expect the answer they got, ‘I’m not going to tell you, as you wouldn’t believe me even if I was!’ They certainly didn’t expect what he suggested next…

Pilate
Off to Pilate. Again the question rears its head. Who is this man? Here’s a trouble maker who preaches rebellion against the state… There’s a contemporary ring to that isn’t there. Pilate, here’s someone preaching race hate, campaigning against taxation, radicalising the people. He claims to be the king! So goes their suggestion – not what they really think though is it. Pilate is a sharper politician than they thought though. He wants to find out for himself. Perhaps he sees through their motives…

‘Who are you?’

Perhaps he sees in Jesus a deluded preacher. Perhaps he sees him as a challenger to the religious leaders, but no more. He certainly doesn’t see him as a threat. ‘I find no basis of a charge against him!’ But the Council won’t back down. They press their allegations, and to Herod he goes…

Herod
Herod’s heard of Jesus. He’s heard of the walking on water, the feeding of the five thousand. Maybe even rumours of Lazaras. News like that spreads. Jesus is the hot property on the entertainment circuit, the darling of the Tabloids and Glossies. Eat your heart out David Blaine they announce. This man is the real deal, a true magician!

You know what they say about meeting your idols? Herod was disappointed. Jesus was nothing like the figure he’d been told about. The hype failed to live up to the reality. No tricks on show here. No illusions. No response to his demands or questions. ‘Who are you?’ When no answer comes, no display of power, Herod concludes he’s a joke. He’s got one illusion of his own, and egged on by the jeering troops and priests, he drapes a royal robe upon Jesus’ shoulders – look, the masked man has become a king indeed!

Back With Pilate
But Pilate’s not into jokes right now. Perhaps being woken first thing has put him in a bad mood! He just wants shot of the Jews and their accusations. I see nothing wrong with this man. I’ll humour you by having him flogged, but that’s it, then he’s out of here. But the gathered crowd aren’t so keen…

The BBC’s Passion last year suggested that the crowd were in fact a rent-a-mob gathered together by the Jewish leaders. Although the Gospels don’t say as much, it makes sense. Not everyone is against Christ – there’s a crowd that follows him to his crucifixion, mourning his loss – but here not a voice cries out in his support. How else would they know about Jesus being presented to Pilate?

Remember Peter the night before warming himself beside a fire, whilst denying three times that he knew Jesus? What follows is a strange contrast. The crowd keep calling for Barabbas to be released instead of Jesus. Three times Pilate appeals to them, saying that Jesus is innocent. The crowd cannot be appeased though, and Pilate finally relents. Jesus, the innocent one, is locked up awaiting execution, whilst Barabbas, the guilty on, goes free. Isn’t it strange that unlike Peter, the Jew, Pilate, the Roman Gentile resists the temptation to deny Jesus. And yet, despite this, in the end both Jew and Gentile abandon Jesus to his death… What is Luke trying to say here? In the innocent Jesus taking the guilty Barabbas’ place? And in Jesus being denied by Peter, and yet defended by Pilate? But how about when Pilate finally gives in, and surrenders Jesus to his fate?

The Jewish Leaders are guilty. Pilate is guilty. Herod is guilty. The crowd are guilty. Both Jews and Gentiles are guilty. Even the disciples are guilty – Peter as well as Judas. Jesus, the innocent man, is killed because no one stopped it from happening. Jesus is killed because no one was prepared to find out who he really was…

But Who Is He Really?
The danger of thinking about Jesus is that we decide who he is. As with the characters in this story, we look for what we want to see, what our labels suggest, and what our prejudices want – or don’t want. Rather than us trying to decide who he is, perhaps we should let him talk for himself.

• What does it say about Jesus that we find him hanging between two Criminals rather than in the court seated alongside Herod, or presiding over the ceremonies alongside the priests?
• What does it say that as the voyeurs watch him, the rulers sneer at him, the soldiers mock him, and one of the criminals throws insults at him, what does it say about him when Jesus says nothing, does nothing?
• Why does Luke point out the humiliation of Jesus losing even his clothes which are gambled for by the guards below?
• What does the irony of the sign ‘King of the Jews’ above a man hung on a tree, cursed by God, reveal about him?
• How about when he dies? The sky goes dark, the earth shakes and the curtain separating the people and God in the Temple tears in two – what does this mean?

To the women following him, he tells them to mourn for what is about to happen to them rather than what is happening to him. About those executing him, he asks his Father to forgive them as they don’t know what he is doing. To the criminal who asks to be remembered by Jesus in his kingdom, he says he will be there with him in paradise. And as he dies, he cries out, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’

Jesus identity is marked by power, but not power as the religious leaders and political top-cats know it. It is marked by the power of extreme forgiveness, forgiveness offered to friends and enemies. It is marked by surrendering the chance to save your self in order to save others, including those who’ve betrayed you or let you down. It is marked by the wealth of relationship, the Son offering relationship that lasts beyond even the grave, security in the Father.

The apparent end of this King is marked by irony. The King of the Jews is so different from the kings of his day – and indeed ours – that he is rejected; not recognised by his religion or by his country. But this is not to say that all reject him. A Centurion – a Roman occupier – announces him as a righteous man, and the women, so often rejected by their time, are those mourning him before and after his crucifixion.

All that is left is a question. Who is that masked man?

Isaiah 41 - The Sovereign God's Salvation

2009-03-23T16:07:00.002Z

Notes from a sermon preached by surprise on 22.03.09pm

Background to Isaiah
So what do we know about Isaiah?

We’re told in chapter 1:1 that Isaiah prophesied during the reign of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah (the Southern Kingdom). Uzziah reigned from 786 BC, Hezekiah, 697BC. Chapter 6:1 tells us that he started in the year that Uzziah died, ~736BC.

These were difficult days for the Kingdom of Judah, days when the Assyrian kings began to threaten and advance upon them. Ahaz was tempted to join a coalition against the Assyrians, but in the end asked them for mercy. His successor, Hezekiah, against Isaiah’s advice, led a revolt against the Assyrians. This was a disastrous move ending up with Judah being destroyed in 701BC, except for it’s capital, Jerusalem. Jerusalem eventually fell to the Babylonians in 586 BC with them being thrown into captivity in Babylon. This lasted until 539BC when Cyrus, King of the Persians, defeated the Babylonians, and the Jews were allowed to return home.

The book that bears his name can be divided up into three sections:
• Chapters 1-39 are set in the 8th Century BC – these are the years leading up to Judah’s defeat by the Babylonians and their exile into Babylon, and explain why God allowed them to be Exiled.
• Chapters 40-55 are set in the 6th Century BC – these contain prophecies that bring words of hope to his exiled people.
• Chapters 56-66 are set in 539BC onwards and speak to the Exiles who had returned to Judah

As you can see, this book covers an extraordinary scope of time and situations. This scope, and also the way it falls into these three distinct sections has made some wonder if it was written by more than one author. Perhaps Isaiah wrote the first section 1-39, and others following in his school of prophets (a bit like painters in the Renaissance had schools, learning from a master, and students paintings being named after their master). Other say that the first section is Isaiah speaking into his own time, and the other sections being future predictions God had given him.

To be honest, it doesn’t matter which it was. What is important to us is what this book has to say to us in its entirety as we’ve received it.

So what’s Isaiah about? Some have called it the Gospel in the Old Testament.

The first section talking about why they were exiled looks at human sinfulness, individual and corporate, and the consequences of that.

The second section where God brings the exile hope, talking about their being brought back home, talks about salvation, God’s plan to restore us and our world. One thing that is startling about this is the sheer expanse of salvation. It’s not just about me and my eternal life, it’s far bigger than that.

The final section where God brings words of challenge to those that return from Exile, talks about Christian living and what it means to live in the light of God’s salvation.

Isaiah is a large book, and we’re going to look at the second and third sections. Tim’s was supposed to be doing this opening sermon today, but as he’s unwell, I’ve going to look at Isaiah 41 as I was going to next week – maybe Tim might be able to come back to Isaiah 40 then instead!

41:1-7 - Invitation to the Nations Rejected in Favour for Idols
The chapter opens with an invitation from God to the world to come and meet with him. Islands and nations is a way of describing the whole of the Gentile world. It talks about meeting in the place of judgement, but this is not about judgement, but about making a treaty, building a relationship together.

The meeting begins with God describing his power and influence. He talks of a commander who is moving across the world, defeating all in his path, subduing their kings. His power is awesome. He turns them to dust with his sword, to windblown chaff with his bow. ‘Who is behind this?’ God asks, ‘Does he do this on his own? No, he is my servant, and I am the one who has called him to it and empowered him to do it’

This commander isn’t named here, but he is clearly a figure of power who changes the shape of the world. The point is clear though, God is involved in the world, planning, moving and controlling. His sovereignty is over all.

This is who I am! God is declaring. I am the sovereign God! Trust in me, side with me.

What happens now reminds me of the opening chapter of Romans 1:18-20:

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Although God’s power and sovereignty is clear, and his invitation to them has been made, they instead say to each other that they are good enough without him, that they are strong enough. Instead of God they trust in the idol that they have just formed on the anvil and nailed down to the floor so it doesn’t topple.

Here is a warning to the nations, and an encouragement to the Jews in exile. God is in charge, and non-can withstand him. He moves nations as he will, blowing them away as if they don’t exist. His people may have done wrong, which is why he has allowed them to be exiled, but if the nations mistreat them or revile him, then he can move against them in power that they cannot withstand.

Three Pictures of Consolation
The scenery now changes, moving from the scale of the nations, to look to the Jews in exile, with three descriptions of the salvation God is going to bring to them.

1) 41:8-13 – The Victorious Servant
The first description is of the Jews as God’s victorious servant.

At this point in time, the Jews must have been feeling rejected and scorned by God. They had been thrown from the Land he had given them, cast into a foreign nation, away from their Temple and worship, everything that gave them their identity and relationship with God. They must have been afraid that this was it, God was angry with them, furious at what they’d done. Perhaps they thought they’d blown it. Perhaps they felt afraid of God, fearful of what he might do to them next.

Maybe there are times when you feel like this? That you’ve let God down, that he’s angry with you, or abandoned you?

Perhaps as the church today in the West, this speaks a bit into our situation where the church has moved out of the mainstream to the edges of our society? Has God abandoned us? Is the world against us? What hope have we got?

‘Do not fear’ says God. Listen to the descriptions God uses to talk about them:
• ‘O Israel my servant’
• ‘Jacob, whom I have chosen’
• ‘descendents of Abraham my friend’
• ‘I took you’
• ‘I called you’
• ‘I have chosen you and have not rejected you’

Do not be afraid, let me take you by the hand and help you. What a wonderful picture of a parent and child. On their own a child might be frightened, scared, lonely, but when a parent takes them by the hand they become invincible, confident and determined. God takes the Jews by the hand.

And what does he say about those who stand against them. I often find that if you pick out the descriptive words you get a great sense for what is going on:
• ‘ashamed’
• ‘disgraced’
• ‘nothing’
• ‘perish’
• ‘you will not find them’

Everything is turned upside down. No longer will they be the fearful opposed nation, but the confident triumphant one.

2) 41:14-16 – The Transformed Worm
The second description that of the transformation of the Jews.

The first picture talks about how God sees them – not as his enemy to be rejected, but as his chosen children. The second picture looks at how they see themselves.

When things have gone wrong for us, our estimation of ourselves tends to go down. The Jews must have had a rock-bottom opinion of themselves. They’d blown it big time – lost their homes, jobs, friends, nation, religion, maybe even their God himself. It couldn’t have got any worse.

In verse 14 God calls them a worm, little Israel. That must have been how they felt. Ever been there?

Was digging yesterday, creating a vegetable patch, removing turf and turning over the soil. Found worm after worm. Totally helpless and prone. A worm could never defeat nations. A worm could never be rich or powerful. A worm could never be on the cover of OK magazine. Bottom of the heap.

But this little helpless creature is transformed. From a worm to a mighty beast with many teeth, great strength and vigour, before whom all fall. He threshes mountains, crushing them, smashing hills to chaff, blowing them away. What a change!

Remember Gideon cowering in his winepress, scared witless of the Midianites? What did the angel say when he came to him? ‘The Lord is with you Mighty Warrior!’ We might be the smallest of the small – on our own – but with God we can be metamorphosised into something so much more brilliant.

3) 41:17-20 – The Needy Sustained
Finally the picture moves from the national scale to a more individual scale. God is not just concerned with the transformation of nations, but the plight of the individual.

The people are thirsty, desperately in need of water, sustenance. Their tongues are parched, but wherever they look for water, they find none. All they can see are barren heights, desert and parched ground. There is no water here, no hope for sustenance.

When times are tough, it’s always the poor that suffer most. The rich and powerful can provide for themselves, but here Isaiah is portraying the plight of those in the most difficult positions. But just as al is not lost for the nation, so hope is not lost for these in dire straits. God sees their need and the barren wastelands burst into water! The deserts are transformed into rich verdant gardens. All can see and know that God is at work here – can anyone else do this?

What does this picture suggest to you? I suspect that Babylon wasn’t a desert, suggesting that this is more of a symbolic description. Does it relate to the barrenness of their lives? Or their need for spiritual sustenance? Or their lack of hope? Whatever it might be, or whatever your need might be, this tells us that God is capable of bringing the sustenance that is needed in impossible ways.

41: 21-29 - Futility of the World’s Trust in Idols
Not time to go through this in detail, but having talked about these three pictures of the salvation that God will bring his people, Isaiah returns to the meeting between God and the nations. The nations have rejected him in favour of their idols. But what can these idols do? What can they say? Nothing…

But instead there is a hint of what is to come for the nations, God has stirred up one from the north, a new commander, and he’s heading their way… Good tiding for Jerusalem.

Colossians 1:24-2:5 - Do You Want to KNow a Secret

2009-03-23T16:00:00.003Z

Notes from a sermon preached on 22.03.09am

Listen,
Do you want to know a secret?,
Do you promise not to tell?, whoa oh, oh.

Closer,
Let me whisper in your ear,
Say the words you long to hear,
I'm in love with you.

I’ve got a secret for you, do you want to know it?... Just by saying those words I’ve got power over you haven’t I. You want to know what it is, and the only way you can discover it is if I tell you.

Usually secrets only for those in the know. Those with the money. Those in the right positions. Those in the right countries. Those in the right social class. Those with the right looks. Those in the know have power over those who don’t. The haves and have nots

Life itself is a mystery.

Where does life come from? Does it have meaning beyond survival? Is there a Creator behind it? If so, what is this god like? Do we have to earn his favour? If so how?

These are the secrets at the heart of existence. Religion has always claimed answers to these questions.

So often, though, religion has sadly used this as a source of power.
• Priests become those who have the power to bring the people to god and so can use this position to gain favour, influence and finance. Abuse of their position.
• We, those who belong to this religion, are better than those who are not. Or indeed, we who belong to this religion, hate those who do not.
• To be part of our religion and discover our secrets you have to behave a certain way, undergo particular rituals, behave like us, talk like us, dress like us, put your brain to one side and blindly take on all that we say…

It’s not wonder than people say that religion has been the cause of so much ill in the world, is it!

So what does the Bible have to say about this? Where does Christianity fit into this? Sitting in his cell, writing to the Colossians, Paul has a lot to say about that. As Michael and Alison have said before me, a teaching was beginning to influence the church there, talking about inner secrets of faith available for those who were permitted to them, superior Christians.

What does he say: 1:24-27 ‘Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— 26the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. 27To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.’

Paul acknowledges that at the heart of our existence are these big questions about meaning and significance. He answers that the answers to these questions have remained hidden for ages and generations. For all time human beings have looked to the skies and asked if there is a god, wondered what life was all about. For all time we have endured suffering and pain and called out in frustration if it will it always continue and complained that it is not fair. There is wisdom in this. There is the danger when talking to people that we rush to our answers and the gospel without acknowledging their struggles and their questions. This can come across as rude, and says that we don’t take what they’re saying and feeling seriously.

But Paul then says that the mystery that has been hidden away, stored out of sight, until the time came for it to be revealed – has now be revealed! He says in verse 26 that the mystery ‘is now disclosed to the saints’ But wait a minute! Doesn’t that sound like the same old story? The mystery is given to a select group who can then use it as power over others? Not at all!

In verse 27 Paul talks about it being revealed to the Gentiles. In the Old Testament, the Jews turned the revelation of God from something that was to bless all nations into a national possession, a close held treasure that made them superior to others, a well guarded mystery. But God, in Christ, has over-turned that. No longer is the mystery of God disclosed just to the Jews through their priests, but in and through Christ, this mystery is disclosed to all people, even those outside the ‘People of God’. When in verse 25 Paul talks about the word of God being presented in all its fullness, what does he mean by this fullness? I believe on the one hand he is talking about the revelation of God in Jesus being a complete, perfect one – Jesus is the manifestation of God – but more than that, by fullness, Paul is talking about the all encompassing nature of the revelation, that perfect revelation of God, being for all people, not just the Jews. Through Christ, God has overturned the exclusiveness of faith, opening it to all people.

This is at the heart of our faith. The Gospel is not just for the select few, but for all people. Jesus offered himself to religious leaders such a Nicodemus, women of allegedly dubious nature such as Mary Magdelene, foreigners such as the Centurion and the Samaritan woman, thieves and collaborators with the enemies of God’s People such as Mark, the tax collector. He even offered himself, dare I say it, to a terrorist being executed alongside him, offering him a place in paradise.

This is what is behind what Paul says in Galatians 3:28: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ There are no barriers, no rituals to fulfil, no background checks. You don’t need to come through any other person but Jesus.

Peter writes something similar in 1 Peter 4:10 when he says, ‘Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.’ The word here for various forms is pikilos which literally means many-coloured. God’s rainbow coloured grace is for all people, it is not monotone or restricted in its scope.

But what is to stop the same thing happening now that happened before to God’s revelation to the his people in the Old Testament? What is to stop the religious leaders, the scholars, those in power, those in church, in the know, using it as a tool to power, to position, holding on to it and not sharing it? This was one of the concerns behind the Reformation, that too much power was being invested in the Priests who because of their privileged position could hold sway over their laity and general populace.

The heretical teachers at Colossae were saying that they had a higher knowledge than that possessed by ordinary believers. Paul cuts through that. The mystery he says is now ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’ (27).

Jesus Christ offered his life to all people, so that they may have a relationship with God. Today, through the Holy Spirit living in believers, all may have that direct relationship with God. No other intermediary is needed. This indwelling of Christ, the Holy Spirit coming to live in all believers is an incredibly liberating thing! There are no people prohibited from faith, and no people prohibited from knowing God, anyone can have the Spirit in them. By hope of glory, Paul is referring to the security of our eternal relationship with God that the Spirit brings us, that goes beyond this life and into the next.

So much of what we do and how we live is about securing our positions at the expense of others. Gossip is about putting others down, so that we can be promoted at their expense. Politics is often about seeking the best for us and those like us at the expense of others. Our economics is set up in such a way that those who have money can enjoy that which those who don’t can’t. God and his gospel however, are not like that, instead it shatters the barriers and liberates, bringing all who want to respond directly to God. In this God is saying that all are equal, all are valued, all count.

As this is the way we normally behave, its easy to revert to type. Its too easy for us to kid ourselves into believing that Jesus wants us to sign up to a list of behaviour, a list of doctrines, to wear the right clothes, to speak the right language, to go to the right services and sing the right songs, but this is to miss the point and to try and convert Jesus’ liberating message into a power tool again of we’re in you’re out.

This was the big lesson that Paul had to learn on the Damascus Road. Paul was the one who was so sure that following the rules was what it was about, the one who was so proud of being part of the chosen people who God had called and yet, on the Damascus Road when he met with the Risen Jesus, this was turned upside-down. His value system was thrown out as he was told that God loved the world, everyone, and wanted all to have a relationship with him. It was not about following the rules but accepting that love and beginning to love in the same way. Paul literally became a new man, revelling in his new freedom. This explains why he wrote:

‘We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labour, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.’ (28-29)

Paul is so often misunderstood as saying these are all the things you must do to follow Jesus, but that's not it at all. Instead his revolutionary message is that there is nothing we need to do to follow Jesus other than say yes. There are no barriers, no conditions, no sense of some being better than others. God's Gospel is for all. Yes Paul calls us to holy living - but that's not as a prerequisite, but instead as a response, a thank you, not because we have to, but because we want to, for what Jesus has done for us.

John 20 - Re-surrection/creation

2009-03-23T15:54:00.004Z

Notes from a sermon preached on 08.03.09

Peter and John & the Empty Tomb
It doesn’t surprise me at all that when Mary found the stone in front of the tomb rolled away that she ran back to Peter and John. It was still dark. Who knows what was going on? If they’d learnt nothing else from the last few days, it was surely that they couldn’t trust anyone. Not the Romans. Not their priests. Not even their friends… Peter, John, someone’s been in the tomb and has stolen our Jesus away…

Peter has always been one to rush in before thinking, and he’s not one to change his ways! Straight away both he and John leg it for the tomb to see what’s going on. John gets there first. He’s the more sensible one, more cautious. He looks in from outside, but won’t go in alone. Peering into the darkness, he makes out strips of linen lying on the ground. Peter doesn’t have the same sense as John, and pushes straight past, bundling into the darkness, not thinking about what or who could be within. Fortunately for Peter, there are no grave robbers or crooks in here, only the strips that John could see, and lying to one side of them, folded, the cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. Nothing else was in there, alive or dead. Just as Mary had said, Jesus had been taken, snatched from his resting place. Finally John plucks up the courage to go in. Now he can see for himself he believes…

I often wondered what that verse meant, ‘He saw and believed’, especially when its followed by a note saying that they still didn’t understand that the Scriptures said he would rise from the dead. The logical answer is that they believed what Mary had told them, that Jesus had been stolen by someone – robbers perhaps, certainly not unknown (that’s why graves were sealed) or perhaps the authorities as one final kick in the teeth aimed at the rebellious King of the Jews.

At the same time though, there’s a hint of a puzzle here, something more than at first meets the eye. The grave clothes are obviously important to John as he writes this many years later. Why does he take the time to describe them so much? What his he trying to say here? What is so significant about them lying separately, the burial head cloth that had been around Jesus’ head folded so neatly?

Why does John not simply say that they believed Mary, if that’s what he meant? Clearly they didn’t run into the grave and suddenly believe in Jesus’ resurrection – I think what they did next would be really quite different if they had done. But by using this loaded word ‘believe’ without further clarification, maybe John is leaving it deliberately vague, hinting again that there’s something going on here, more than meets the eye.

Mary in the Garden
Peter and John head back home. There’s nothing more they can do here. Whoever had disturbed the tomb had gone, and after they had backed the insurrectionist Jesus, they could hardly go to the authorities and complain about the snatching of his body could they! But Mary stays in the garden outside the tomb, crying.

Let me let you into a secret. Kate and I are ‘Desperate Housewives’ fans… There, said it. For those who don’t know there series, it’s about the goings on in a suburban street, Wisteria Avenue, in the US. On the surface, it’s simply and enjoyable soap, following the lives of the glamorous and dysfunctional families that live there. There’s more to it than that though. It’s really an expose, an examination of why we live and behave the way that we do. One of the antagonists in the series is Dave Williams who at first seems a totally sorted kind of guy. But after a while we see him doing all sorts of concerning and strange things – transpires his wife and child were killed in a car crash and he can’t let go…

Mary isn’t able to just let go like Peter and John. Jesus might be gone, but she can’t just go home as if nothing had happened. Seeing him executed was bad enough, but there was no way she could accept that on top of that someone had gone and stolen him. She stands outside weeping, from time to time glancing into the tomb in a kind of denial – perhaps if I look again, it might turn out that he’s there after all. Perhaps Peter and John missed him in the gloom…

All of a sudden there are two figures in the glom, dressed in white, sitting where the body should have been. ‘Woman, why are you crying?’ ‘They have taken my Lord away and I don’t know where they’ve put him’, she replies.

What do you make of this? It’s an odd exchange, strangely matter of fact. Usually if you spot an angel, you fall to the ground in fear! All that Mary does here is answer in a matter of fact way. Nothing is said about her being surprised, or scared, or puzzled. Then as she turns around, she sees another figure in the gardener. Again, ‘why are you crying?’ The same answer – they’ve taken my Lord away. Are you the gardener – perhaps you know where they’ve taken him!’

Perhaps it’s simply that her grief is so overwhelming, that she is unable to see beyond it.

He’s Alive!
When the gardener speaks again, the world changes forever. ‘Mary’

‘Rabboni! Teacher!’ It’s Jesus!
What is it that Jesus had said about himself a few chapters ago? ‘[The shepherd] calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.’ John 10:3-4

Words aren’t really needed at this point. Simply hearing her name in this way was enough. There’s something so wonderful about the Risen Jesus not launching into a speech, declaring his greatness, or laying out some new manifesto or plan. Instead he just says her name. The most important thing to him is his relationship with her. Here is a friend comforting a companion in need. He knows here and he knows what she needs…
There’s something new here as well. I can’t believe that Mary didn’t recognize him. Yes there were tears in her eyes, and she wouldn’t have been expecting to see him there, but he was the one she was crying for. He was the one she was holding on to.

Jesus is not the Jesus they buried in the tomb. He hasn’t just revived, come back to life and stepped out. Something is radically different. Mary doesn’t recognise him, later he miraculously appears in a locked room, not once but twice. He may have a body, but it’s not like ours, and it’s not like his was. This is something new, something that hasn’t been seen before. Why do you think he needs to show the disciples and then Thomas his wounds – these are the proof that he is who he says he is – clearly they’re not totally convinced otherwise.

It doesn’t say as much, but it takes no imagination to see Mary throwing herself at Jesus, embracing him, holding him, clutching on to him – after all, wouldn’t you?

Jesus then says something that has always puzzled me. (17) ‘Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’’ What do you make of that?

Was Jesus worried about the physical effects of her touching him – either for her or for him – just as God wouldn’t let Moses see his face for fear that to do so would be too much? Or is he saying that she needed clutch on to him – he wasn’t going to return to his Father just yet, there would be more times they would meet yet, so she needed hold on to him in case he was snatched away again? I certainly think this makes sense. I also wonder if there’s an element here of him telling her to let go of the Jesus he was, the Jesus that had died on the Cross, to let go of what had been and to grasp instead the new. Don’t look back, look forward. Everything is new! He is not dead, but is returning to his Father! Don’t stay in the tomb, but come out into the garden!

Life in His Name!
John ends this chapter by explaining why he had written his gospel, ‘these [miracles] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.’ (31)

Just as he called Mary out from the Tomb into the Garden, so to he calls us by name, calling us out of death into life. Jesus has risen and life is no longer the same. Live this life in light of the Risen Jesus.

Sometimes I think we’ve made a mistake by talking about The Cross too much. Yes its short hand for Jesus’ death and resurrection, for all that he’s accomplished for us, but the fact that we use a phrase that talks of death to summarise it, The Cross, blinds us to where the story ends, with something new, resurrection.

• We live in our past mistakes
• We live in lives governed by the world around us
• We are content with what is rather than what could be
• We live caught up in the way we were conditioned to see ourselves
• We live locked in for fear of what might happen to us

And yet as he did to Mary, Jesus calls us from the Garden - come out of the tomb, come out of death and chose something new. Choose life. We don’t need to stay bound by these things. They don’t belong to us anymore. Jesus has called us by name and set us free! Believe (it’s that word again) and life is yours for the living.

Weekend Off

2009-03-03T13:10:00.003Z

We were away in Belfast this weekend celebrating my Best Man's 10th Wedding Anniversary. A great time was had by all! Consequently, I've no sermon to post here this week...

On Sunday morning we attended CFC (Christian Fellowship Church) in Belfast. Felt very odd not having any role to play other than being a member of the congregation (although, that of course is an important role!) CFC is a very welcoming church, felt very much at home, although it got me wondering what Wormley would lok like if we grew to the same size...

John 18 - Jesus, Too Hot to Handle

2009-02-23T14:17:00.002Z

Notes from a sermon preached on 22.02.09pm

Following Jesus is like this…

A man had a desperate desire to fly. He’d seen the Sun and the sky and wanted to feel the freedom of flying amidst the clouds, and to see the Sun closer for himself. Over time he gathered together feathers from the fowl he kept, and with care and dedication, glued them together with wax to make a pair of wings. Finally the day came. He strapped them to his arms and jumped towards the heavens. Flapping his arms as he’d seen the birds do, he tried to fly. Much to the surprise of the onlookers he succeeded, and up, up into the air he lifted! But as he came nearer the inviting yellow globe, the wax in his wings began to soften and change…

On a dark night, the warmth and light of a glowing bulb is attractive, but to the moth who draws close it is a two edged sword, as the light demands total commitment…

Let the person with ears listen!

See, Judas is leading the soldiers to come and take Jesus. They’re large burly men, armed and dangerous. They mean business. Feel the tension crackle in the air as they appear. They’re lead by the chief priests and Pharisees, those who had been speaking out against Jesus. You’ve heard the rumours, talk of retribution and murder. Indeed, Jesus himself has hinted that they are a threat to him. Seems he was right and the talk true. Feel the adrenaline rushing through you. You ready for the attack, but as Jesus is pointed out, the guards don’t rush. No, look, they’re drawing back and falling to the ground!...

Peter skulks outside whilst Jesus is grilled by the High Priest. A warm fire offers heat on the cold night, but you can see that it brings him little comfort. ‘You’re one of his disciples, aren’t you?’ asks a servant girl. Peter answers abruptly, ‘No, I am not.’ You can sense the fear in his voice. What will happen to me if I’m found out? Will I get arrested too if I make my allegiance public?...

Smack! The sound of the bound and helpless Jesus being struck in the face resounds around the room. But is he helpless? Listen to the way his calm replies rattle Annas the high priest, and the others in the room. As they grill him it is obvious that there is one man who is control of the whole situation. He remains calm and honest…

If Pilate were in a graphic novel, then you could see clearly in a bubble what he was thinking. Its hardly needed though. You know he found nothing wrong in what Jesus had done. It is clear, he is innocent of breaking the law. Annoying Jewish leaders maybe – but Pilate could identify with that – nothing would give him more delight than to shut them up himself. But he couldn’t afford to. He needed their support as much as he needed Rome’s. What to do; if he released Jesus that would only cause him trouble in the end?…

Jesus or Barabbas?...

Time and time again in this chapter a choice is offered, to choose Jesus, or to choose an easy life. What is clear is that to choose Jesus is anything but an easy life. To put it bluntly, Jesus was too hot to handle. There’s something about this man that made him attractive. But those who found themselves drawn to him found that life with Jesus was not always as comfortable as they’d expected. In fact, at times it could be downright uncomfortable.

But what is it about this man that made him too hot to handle? Why did the guards draw back and fall to the ground? What did they see in him that caused them to be filled with such awe? Why is Peter afraid of being associated with him? What is it about him that unsettled Annas? What did Pilate think he might do if he released him?
How do we see Jesus?

This particular passage has challenged me afresh about this man. There’s something in human nature that makes us want to box things into categories – perhaps that goes back to naming the animals in the Garden of Eden! If you’re ill you want to know what you’ve got – if an ailment has a name, it is no longer so frightening; it is easier to deal with. It’s the same with people. A stranger has no name. We don’t know who they are, how they might see us, what they might want of us, or do to us.

Over the centuries we’ve tried to give Jesus a box to fit in; Jesus the Teacher, Jesus the Miracle Worker, Jesus the Revolutionary and so on. If we can give him a tag we know what to expect from him.

To many outside the church, Jesus has become Jesus the Good teacher. But who is he to us? What name have we given him?

I suspect that many in the church have made him Jesus the Friend, and indeed he is! Think about some of the passages we’ve looked at recently where we’ve thought about Jesus staying with us, caring for us, concerned for us, sharing his plans with us and seeking to bring us joy. These are all marks of a True Friend.

But there’s a problem with that. By turning Jesus into Jesus the Friend, we’ve made him predictable. Jesus the Friend is not Jesus the Trouble-Maker, nor Jesus the Revolutionary. If Jesus is Jesus the Friend, how can he be Jesus the Righteous or Jesus the God? When was the last time that you found him too hot to handle?

Perhaps we need to ask ourselves if our definition of Friend is big enough. Can Jesus be our friend and still challenge our lifestyles, fill us with awe, and demand our allegiance?

As some of you know, I’m one of the governors at the local school. When I first became a governor they sent me away on a course to find out what that meant. One of the definitions they kept referring to was that we were to be ‘critical friends’ – in other word we were there to help and encourage the school, to care for it and so on as a friend would, but that through having that relationship we were to challenge the school to improve, to seek to point out its weak points as well as its good.

I hate the phrase ‘critical friend’ – it sounds harsh and somewhat clinical – but I like what its trying to say. In many ways it applies to Jesus. He is our Friend – that is clear. One of the major thrusts of the Gospel is to tell us that God cares for us, loves us, is there for us. But the relationship isn’t a niave one or a blind one. God sees us as we are, he knows our weaknesses as well as our strengths. His calling on our lives isn’t all sweetness and life either. He might say, follow me, ‘my yoke is easy and my burden light’ but he also says that we should ‘take up our cross and follow him’. As our God he has every right to challenge us, to look into our souls and demand change. As our God there is every reason why we should draw back and fall to the ground before him. As our Friend he still has that right, but as our Friend we know that when he challenges us, he does it for the right reasons.

Jesus demands so much of us. He demands our loyalty, our time, our resources, our obedience. He calls us to put aside our own desires and needs, and to serve. He calls us away from lives of comfort to lives of change. If we come close to him, he changes our behaviour, our ethics, our ambitions, our dreams even. What’s more, this is public.

I can think of no more unsettling verse than his call for us to take up our cross and follow him. As a friend he calls us to live his life. This costs.

Are we prepared to let the Jesus who turns over tables into our lives as well as the Jesus who feed the Crowd with bread and fish? Are we prepared to welcome the Jesus who spoke to Annas with unwavering honesty as well as the Jesus who said he no longer calls us servants? Are we prepared to say that we know the man who is ridiculed and in trouble for what he has said and done?

As I was preparing this, the news was full of talk about Abu Qatada, the radical Muslim preacher who the Law Courts have finally decided can be thrown out of the UK. His words of revolution has caused outcry and he has been connected to the 7-11 bombings and called a key UK figure in al-Qaeda related terror activity. Jesus never called for terrorism or violence, but in many ways his actions caused him to be seen in a similar way in his days. He too called for a change in the established order and the way in which we see the world. He called for the first to be last and the last to be first. As a radical religious teacher, he too was not afraid to preach a message that would not be universally popular. He too was despised by the authorities of his day.

As I mulled on these thoughts, I also remembered that Jesus called us to continue his work, to be like him. Do we love the world as he did? Do we challenge the world as he did? Are we, his family today, too hot to handle?

Eccl. 9.11-10:20 - Wisdom & Folly

2009-02-15T14:52:00.002Z

Note for a sermon preached on 15.02.09am

For ten long years the Greeks had been besieging the costal city of Troy. They’d tried everything, and thrown all the might and power at their disposal at it, but Troy had stood. It showed no sign of falling. Imagine the elation from the city walls the day they saw the army sailing away having abandoned their efforts. It must have been a glorious moment, relief beyond measure, but there was one thing that concerned them, something that had been left behind. Standing outside the city walls was a large wooden horse.

Stories differ as to what happened next. Some say that they decided to drag the horse into the city as a victory trophy. Others say that they found a Greek soldier cowering in the rocks where he had been abandoned by his retreating colleagues after a falling out. He told them that the horse was an offering to Athena.

Either way, the result is the same; the horse is brought into Troy.

They weren’t to know that the soldier left on the shore was in fact a plant…

They weren’t to know that inside the horse were a crack squad of Grecian warriors waiting to come out at night, slaughter the guards and open the city gates…

They weren’t to know that the retreating ships had in fact under cover of night turned around and returned to their shore…

An angel appears at a university faculty meeting and tells the dean that in return for his unselfish and exemplary behaviour, the Lord will reward him with his choice of infinite wealth, wisdom or beauty. Without hesitating, the dean selects infinite wisdom.

"Done!" says the angel, and disappears in a cloud of smoke and a bolt of lightning. Now, all heads turn toward the dean, who sits surrounded by a faint halo of light. At length, one of his colleagues whispers, "Say something."

The dean looks at them and says, "I should have taken the money."

I remember seeing a stand up routine by one of my favourite comics Jasper Carrot. In it he remarked that in every survey of women asking what they looked for in men, that the top answer was a sense of humour. In true Carrott fashion, he then turns to the ladies in the audience, "OK, girls, imagine you walk into a pub and standing at the bar is Keven Spacey, not renowned for his sense of humour. Now, he's standing next to Ken Dodd..."

What characteristics do you prize in a person – whether they are a public figure, a friend or partner? Good looks? Sense of humour? Caring nature? Willingness to listen? Athletic nature? Confidence? Ambition? To the teacher, the top quality is wisdom, almost always missing on our lists.

What is wisdom? It’s not a word we use very often today. We might talk about intelligence, but that isn’t the same thing. Wisdom is not how clever you are, but is to do with having the insight to live a good life. If we look at the proverbs that the Teacher uses in today’s passage, we can gain an image of what a wise person might be like:

• A wise person lives a quiet or humble life rather than a loud, domineering life (9:17)
• A wise person brings peace not destruction (9:18)
• A wise person is a calm person, not a hasty one (10:4)
• A wise person is gracious with their words rather than self promoting (10:12)
• A wise person thinks ahead instead of living just for the moment (10:14)
• A wise person is hardworking and is a good steward of what they’ve been given rather than being lazy of gluttonous (10:16-18)
• A wise person takes care not to antagonize other people needlessly, especially those in authority, instead of being quick to criticize (10:20)

Living a wise life fosters community, peaceful living, and prosperity (in holistic sense). In contrast living a foolish life destroys community through its self-promoting and self-centred actions. Such a life brings destruction.

Funny when you see it put like this that wisdom isn’t valued more than it is.
When the wooden horse was wheeled into Troy, I am sure there was someone in the city who was wise enough to call out – ‘it’s a trap!’ But as always this cry was ignored in favour of the value of the prize or the prestige it brought. The Teacher tells another story about a siege. In this siege a small city is being besieged by a powerful king. There is no way that they can survive. No way can they keep the invaders out. The numbers and machinery of their opponents are just too large and sophisticated. But that doesn’t take into account wisdom. In the city there is one wise man, and he has the insight to overcome the enemies pounding at the gate and to keep them out. Wisdom can’t take away the troubles of the world, but it can help us cope! And yet what happens afterwards? Is this hero celebrated? Is he given a reward and held up as a shining example? No. he is forgotten…

Why isn’t wisdom valued?

Wisdom doesn’t draw attention to itself. In fact points away to others. Wisdom isn’t glamorous or sexy. Wisdom is learnt; you can’t get it in a jar like instant coffee or buy it at Lakeside. In a debate, so often the person that shouts loudest gets heard, even though their point of view might be wrong or unhelpful. At a party, people will navigate towards the attractive ones, without even realising what they might miss out on by not spotting others. Doors will open to someone with money or who knows the right people, but not so well to someone who is unknown who might have something valuable to offer.

It will also come as no surprise to you to realise that being wise won’t give you an easy life – remember back in chapter 2 the Teacher pursues wisdom, but realises that the same fate awaits the wise person as the fool.

But wisdom does have its rewards. What did he say back in Ecclesiastes 8:1? ‘Who is like the wise man? Who knows the explanation of things? Wisdom brightens a man’s face and changes its hard appearance.’ Why is this?

Wisdom may not solve the problems of life, or take them away, but it does enable us to face them, to deal with them. Wisdom breeds peace and relationships. Wisdom stresses grace over judgement. Wisdom looks to others not ones self. These are the qualities that we need to live as part of an imperfect world.

Think of the list of the qualities we drew up to describe wisdom earlier? A wise person lives a quiet or humble life, brings peace, is a calm person, is gracious with their words, thinks ahead, is hardworking and is a good steward of what they’ve been given, and takes care not to antagonize others needlessly.

Does that sound familiar to you? It reminds me of the fruits of the Spirit from Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I guess this isn’t surprising really when you remember what Solomon says elsewhere about wisdom – ‘the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and disciple’ (Proverbs 1:7).

To seek to be wise is to seek to be like Christ; this is good thing. To seek to be wise, we need to cultivate openness to God, praying for the Spirit to mould us into God’s image, listening to his prompting and direction. It is God who makes us wise, but we can help that process through seeking after him.

Of course we shouldn’t be surprised that when we try and live wise lives that we may get walked over and forgotten like the man in the siege – isn’t that what happened to Jesus? People might think it odd that we seek to live this way rather than putting other more glamorous objectives first. But when this happens, take courage from Christ. The world said that the way he lived was foolish. It wondered why he didn’t fight back or demand power. It was scandalised when he washed people’s feet and ate with the prostitutes and tax collectors. To die on the cross was to suffer defeat. And yet through this foolishness we are saved, just as the inhabitants of that city were rescued by the wise man inside its gates.

‘God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."’ (1 Corinthians 1:27-31)

John 16 - Our Joy Shall Be Complete

2009-02-11T10:00:00.001Z

Notes from a sermon preached on the 08.02.09pm

An Englishman, a Frenchman and a Russian were discussing happiness. “Happiness,” said the Englishman, “Is when you return home tired after work and find your slippers warming by the fire.”
”You English have no romance,” said the Frenchman. “Happiness is having dinner with a beautiful woman at a fine restaurant.”
“You are both wrong,” said the Russian. “True happiness is when you are at home in bed and at 4 a.m. hear a hammering at the door and there stand the secret police, who say to you, 'Ivan Ivanovitch, you are under arrest,' and you say, 'Sorry, Ivan Ivanovitch lives next door.'”

There’s a lot of gloom about at the moment.
The Economy is grim.
The weather is grim.
And to cap it all we’re doing Ecclesiastes in the morning!
Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, we come to John 16 and the immanent arrest and execution of Jesus…

I remember my Bible College tutor teaching us to preach about the small words of the Bible, and that’s what I want to do today as in the midst of all this depression is a small word, joy.

At first you wouldn’t equate this passage with joy would you. To be honest, the theme that leaps out is not happiness but grief. As you read it, you feel grief that Jesus is going to die. Jesus talks of the grief of the disciples whilst the world rejoices, presumably at his death, and then he starts talking about the unavoidable grief of a woman in labour.

Jesus has a lot of gloom to share with them. He’s talked about the fact that he’s leaving them, that he’s going to be betrayed. Here he picks up what is going to happen to them, the mounting persecution, their being thrown out of the synagogue, even being martyred, with those doing the martyring believing they were glorifying God through it!

I find this really quite touching, if a bit sombre. In the midst of it all, just as he was on the cross itself, Jesus is more concerned about others than himself. Rather than being overwhelmed with his own grief, Jesus is more worried about his disciples. What will happen to them? He knows what it is like to lose a loved one – his tears when Lazarus died were not for show – and he is concerned that the disciples will soon face that same sense of loss.

Most of us have at some time or other have been through bereavement. What is it that you need the most just then? Most of us have been in the difficult position of knowing someone who is in mourning. What can you say? What can you do to help, to make things better? I think it would be fair to say that this is one of the most challenging parts of my job – actually, at the time there isn’t that much you can say.

Possibly the answer is that during such times, what is needed most is someone to sit with you, to be there with you. Not someone with all the answers, but someone who can listen and shows real concern.

Now, obviously Jesus won’t be able to be with the disciples when they mourn – it will be him they’ll be mourning over – but at this point in time, his care for them compels him to do what he can to reassure them that it will be okay, to let them know that he understands, that he is with them.

Of course this continues with us. The risen Jesus, having experienced every aspect of human life, knows what it is like to experience pain and loss, and as we face it today, he faces it with us, feeling it as we feel it, sitting with us. He knows, he understands.

‘Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.’ Romans 12:15

A pastor was so annoyed with boys stealing apples from
his orchard that one day he put up a sign, which read:
'Don't steal. For the Lord sees it all.'
The next day some apples were stolen again.
The boys had jotted underneath the sign:
'Maybe He did. But He did not betray us.'

The truth is though, that knowing someone stands with you in grief might help, but it doesn’t turn the grief into joy does it. But this is the promise that Jesus makes, that ‘their grief will turn to joy’ (20)

Have you ever experienced pain that seems pointless? Not ‘no pain, no gain’, but simply ‘pain, no gain’. That is the worst kind of pain. To the disciples, when Jesus died, they probably felt that. All around them the world rejoiced, celebrating what had just been done, whilst they were left with thoughts of what could have been. What was their pain going to achieve?

But it wasn’t pointless. It had a purpose, just as the pain of a woman in labour. Jesus was going to die for a reason – and he wanted them to know that. They would mourn, but after the night comes day, and after Christ’s death, resurrection. Rising from the grave, death could never touch him again, could never snatch him back. They would regain their joy, only this time it could not be stolen from them again, as Jesus would ever die again. ‘So it is with you: Now is the time of your grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy’ (22).

That’s what you need isn’t it, friends who don’t desert you no matter what happens. That is another mark of a true friend for those of you who were here last week. That’s a source of joy for us. Jesus is always with us, and will never leave us.

There is more to Jesus’ return that will bring them joy though. Now, not only will Jesus never be taken from them again, but also their prayers will have new power. Anything they asked for in his name would be given to them. ‘Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete’ (24). This is a real reversal of fortunes isn’t it? Going from getting nowhere, everything going against you, to getting everything you ask for.

I still wonder though, is that what this passage is really about at its heart? Is it really about the joy that is gained when we get what we want? This doesn’t seem the most Christian attitude does it!

Let’s probe this joy a bit further. Is that really the source of their joy?

{22} ‘…Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. {23} In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. {24} Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.’

Sandwiched between verse 22 talking about joy in being reunited with Jesus and verse 24, joy from answered prayer is verse 23 – ‘In that day you will no longer ask me anything.’

In the NIV this reads as if the disciples will no longer need to ask Jesus for anything as now they can ask the Father directly in his name. This is misleading. It is actually saying that the disciples will no longer ask Jesus any questions. There will be no need. Seeing the risen Jesus, they will know that all he said about himself was true. Seeing the risen Jesus, they will know that he is God. Seeing the risen Jesus, they will know that he will look after them – a fact that is supported by their receiving in prayer all that they ask for in his name. This is why they will be joyful, because they will have grown in faith.

As Alison wonderfully shared with us this morning, this world will at times be depressing, gut wrenching, painful, and if that was all there was, there would be no joy. But it isn’t.

I believe that our God is a God of humour. God created the belly laugh. God created the pun. God created the kind of laughter that keeps on going until it hurts! Don’t believe me? Have you ever seen an Osterich run – now there’s a bizarre sight! Or what about the duck-billed-platypus. Surely that’s a joke! You’d have to have a sense of humour to create such a thing! He turned water into wine, gave the ancient Sarah a child – she saw the funny side and laughed – gave Jonah a ride in a whale of all things! The top joke of all of course has to be the one Jesus pulled when on Easter Sunday he leapt out and shouted ‘April Fool’s’!

There’s nothing worse is there than being surrounded by people laughing and not quite getting the joke- don’t you hate it! I pray that we’ll get this last joke. It’s only when we realise that this is not all that there is, and that no matter what happens in the here and that an eternal party awaits us – is that not what Jesus promises when he says I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until I drink it with you in my Father’s Kingdom. This wonderful news can sustain us.

Its an occupational hazard in my line of work that you get to know a lot of funeral directors. Do you know what, I’ve realised that the best ones are the ones with a sense of humour. They can have a wicked sense of humour! It’s a survival mechanism. When life is difficult, being able to laugh at it gives you power over it. Christ’s great joke over death and sin, gives us the power to laugh at these two former enemies of ours, and gives us power over them. With heavenly laughter in our souls we can overcome all that this world throws at us.

There is one more thing. At the heart of our passage is relationship. We have Jesus caring for the hurting disciples like a parent a crying child. We have the image of a mother in the pains of labour, relieved by the arrival of her new child, and we have throughout the intimate relationship of the Father and his Son - for example in verse 32: ‘You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.’

As he prepares to leave them, Jesus is seeking to encourage the disciples to persevere through the coming grief, strengthening them with the knowledge that they are about to become part of his family - that is the reward of faith.

We have already said that when they see the risen Jesus, they will be reassured that he is who he said he is. But that’s not all. When they see the risen Jesus, they’ll know the extent of the Father’s love for him – as it’s the Father who will raise him. Just as the crucifixion is the evidence of God’s love for us, so the resurrection is the evidence of his love of Jesus.

Karl Barth, one of the most famous theologians of recent times said, ‘Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.’ Laughter is a great way to cross barriers, to bring people together. To share a joke, you need two people!

In verse 27, Jesus tells us that as we’ve loved him, so the Father loves us! But how much does he love us? Does he love us as his Son? Or is it just a ‘fond of us’ love, that really doesn’t measure up to much? This is where answered prayer comes in. God answers our prayers in Jesus’ name as he would if his Son asked him. When we ask and receive, our joy does not just come from the fact that we get what we ask for – that isn’t actually so important. Where our joy comes from is realising that this tell us that our Father loves us as much as he loves his Son.

John 15 - I Choose You

2009-02-05T14:20:00.001Z

Notes from a sermon preached on 01.02.09

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.

Jesus is approaching his Hamlet moment. It is a time for choices.
To serve or to be served?
To go or to stay?
To accept the cup God was offering him, or to reject it?
This theme is one that runs throughout John’s Gospel.

‘He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…’ John 1:10-12

Jesus, the Word made flesh, has come into the world, the Light. Who will accept him and who will reject him? What choice do we make?

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

’
John 3:16 God, the Father, has chosen the world and has sent his Son to save us from perishing.

At the heart of this passage is another important choice:

‘You did not choose me, but I chose you…(5:16)

‘Follow me,’ Jesus demands of Philip at the start of the Gospel, and ‘follow me’ he has demanded of us as we read this books pages. We are given a choice – to accept this call, or to reject it, but this decision starts with God’s choice, his choice of us.

There is a story about a Sunday School teacher was teaching a group of teenage boys one Sunday about Christ's disciples; about their abilities, their attributes, and why Jesus might have chosen them. Toward the end of the lesson a teenaged boy who was particularly enthralled about the whole concept of calling, of being chosen by God, said, "Teacher, why did Jesus choose Judas?" To which the Sunday school teacher replied, "Son, I don't know. But I have a harder question. Why did Jesus choose me?"

I don’t know if this was a hard choice for God or not. It certainly was a costly choice – again and again humanity has rejected him, but still he keeps on choosing us. But the most astonishing statement in the Bible is this one, God chose us! God chose us not as who we could be, or because of who he can make us, but God chose us as we are – you , me, warts and all. As it says in Romans 8:15, ‘But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’

There’s something so liberating about that fact. So many of us have nagging doubts about ourselves, low self esteem for whatever reason. If we have the guts, we can throw those accusations away, because God himself has chosen us – chosen you.

I’ve spoken to lots of different people this week. There was a man who phoned me three times to ask if I was the person who ran the website as he had a proposition for me. By the third time to phone went, our conversation was short. Then there is the receptionist at the school – I’m in school quite a lot these days with the children and the work I do with my church hat on. Occasionally, when she’s not too busy I’ll stop and have a chat with her about how things are going, but it tends to be just niceties. I’ve also been having a cross continental chat with Reuben Dove in Sierra Leone as well this week. Some of them have been quite detailed. I try to keep my emails informal so that they don’t become a list of demands, but to be honest we both know that that is what they are, a list of things that Reuben needs to know or do, in order to fulfil his duties as a Agent for the SLM. My favourite conversation of the week, though, was on Thursday night. Kate and I managed to escape for a meal, just the two of us, and we talked non-stop from beginning to end, sharing bits of news, feelings and the things that are important and personal to us.

How do you tell if someone is your friend? There are many marks to a true friend aren’t there. One of the real tests is to ask yourself what do they tell you, and what do they keep to themselves? One mark of a true friend is that they’ll tell you the things that are on their mind, with you the guards go down.

Over the course of the Gospel, Jesus’ relationship with the disciples changes. To start with he’s a teacher, instructing and encouraging them – in a way a bit like the relationship between Reuben and I. At times he gets frustrated and complains about hw they don’t get it, a little like me and the man phoning about the website. But by this point in the Gospel, this has all changed. He has chosen them to be his friends and is sharing with them in an unguarded, intimate way.

There is a Celtic word ‘anamcara’ for such a friendship. It is more than just someone you get on with. An anamcara is your ‘Soul Friend’, a person with whom you resonate, to whom you can open yourself up to, and who in turn can reveal that to you, to show you who you really are, but in a protective, safe, way.

There is a sense here that Jesus is seeking such a relationship with us. This friendship is not just a past thing, something restricted to the disciples, but through the Spirit, the ‘Counsellor’, he is seeking it with us too. He is looking for people with whom he can share his thoughts, feelings and plans, Soul Friends, and he has chosen us.

But just like the Celtic anamcara is more that a nice companion, Jesus is looking for more than just a nice friendship. As we befriend him, he holds up the mirror to us in the way that only a true friend can. As we befriend him, we come to see ourselves as we really are. You see, Jesus has chosen us for a purpose. Let’s go back to verse 16 again and the rest of the sentence: ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last…’

Like any true friend, Jesus wants us, his friends, to have fruitful lives.

To explain this, he uses the image of the vine and the branches. We are the vine branches, and like a real vine branches, he wants us to bear fruit. To produce fruit, we need to remain in him, the vine – who has heard of vine branches that can produce grapes without being connected to a vine with its roots that nourish and strengthen the branches. This is another wonderful image of the nature of the friendship he offers us. If we accept his friendship, then Jesus nourishes us and protects us. Equally, if we fall out of relationship with him, if we separate ourselves from him, then we shall be isolated and vulnerable, and find that our lives become unfulfilled.

But there’s more to this image, there’s also the gardener, God the Father. His job is to tend the vine and its branches in such a way that as much fruit is produced as possible. To do this, Jesus says he has to clear out the dead branches, those that aren’t producing fruit and cut back those that are, so that they produce more fruit.

This pruning of the fruitful branches, reminds me of the anamcara who reveals the real nature of a friend to the friend, so that they are able to build on what is good, and work on that which is not. The Father, through the Spirit prunes our lives, snipping away through experiences and more directly that which is not fruitful in us, so that we become more Christ-like.

This facet intrigues me. God is not demanding that we change or he’ll reject us. He has already chosen us. It is not up to us to produce fruit – our fruitfulness is up to him. He does the cutting back, it is the Spirit that enables us to do good and to be good. Again, this is liberating! All we have to do for this to happen is to remain in him, or as the King James Version puts it, abide in him – which of course takes us back to last week’s sermon and chapter 14 where we thought about Jesus preparing a room in God’s home for us.

But what does this mean? How do we develop our relationship with him? We all know the answers don’t we. Spend time in prayer, read the Bible, go to church. This is what good Christians do isn’t it. But wait a minute, that’s not what Jesus says is it? Listen:

‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.’ John 15:9-12

To remain in Christ, to enjoy fruitfulness through a good relationship with him, we have to go back to that tough calling of love that Noel challenged us with a couple of weeks ago. To become Christ-like we have to be Christ-like, it is in practising that we’re made perfect. Through loving we learn to love.

‘Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.’ John 15:13

John 14 - Do not let your hearts be troubled, trust in God

2009-01-27T17:01:00.004Z

Notes from a sermon preached on 25.01.09pm

Context
Jesus has just told his disciples that he is leaving them.
They’re unsettled, worried.
What are we going to do without him? What is going to happen to him?
Where is he going?

For John’s readers, no doubt these fears were echoed by his readers. There days were uncertain ones as Christians. Times of persecution. What did the future have in store for them? Were they safe? What was going to happen to them?

Jesus’ response – ‘Do not let your hearts be worried. Trust in God, trust also in me’ (v14).

Easily said! Why should we? What does he offer to back this up?

Our Future is Secure in God
To those who didn’t know where they would be in the future – would they be safe, imprisoned, homeless - Jesus said ‘In my Father’s house are many rooms!’

God has somewhere prepared for us. Our future is secure in him.

Nowhere is there a literal description of ‘heaven’, just a series of different metaphors.
We talk of living with God, but here the picture is more than that, it is more intimate. We are invited to come and live with him in his house. His house becomes our home.

I think this is a fantastic metaphor.

A home is somewhere safe – an Englishman’s home is his castle.

A home is somewhere where we are looked after – I remember being ill in my digs at University. All I wanted to do is go home and be cared for.

A home is somewhere where we can be ourselves. Most of the time we spend wearing different masks – a face for work, a face for church, a face for our friends and so on. We take time to present to them the person we want them to know us as through our dress, our actions our speech. We also take care to shield from them the bits we don’t want them to see – bits we are embarrassed about, or worried about how they would react to us. At home, we can take off our masks and be simply ourselves. We don’t need to take time to put on a mask – our family know who we are, sometimes better than ourselves. We don’t have to hide away our quirks or embarrassing secrets, as our family are there for us.

A home is somewhere we belong. We might go to work, but that isn’t where we belong. We might go to the shops, or the pub or the cinema, but these are not places where we belong. We keep coming back home – that is the place where we start the day and the place we end the day.

Genesis recognises the importance of home when it talks about marriage. It notes that when the two become one, the man leaves his parents and makes a new home with his wife. It notes it because this is such a dramatic change in their lives.

We have a home with God secure for us, a place where we will be safe, where we belong, where we can be ourselves, a place where we are cared for.

Jesus is Taking Us There
The second thing that Jesus tells them to bring them security is that Jesus is going to take them to their new home, going to take them to God.

What is the difference between a house and a home? It’s the nature of the relationships that there are in it. The room that Jesus goes to prepare for us is not simply a place where we shall live, a house, but a home.

It is impossible for us to get to know God on our own. He’s invisible, unknowable in so many ways, so beyond us, greater than us, bigger than us. Ecclesiastes says as we looked at a few weeks ago, that God has set eternity in our hearts. There is a instinctive feeling that surely there must be more than this, that there must be something or someone else out there God. Throughout time, people has expressed this through religion – humanities attempts to reach out to God. But it is impossible for us to reach him – the fate of the Tower of Babel is a monument to the futility of that quest.

How can the house God has prepared for us become a home when we can’t have a relationship with him as we’ve never seen him and can’t comprehend him? Jesus tells us that he is the answer, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him’ (6-7).

Jesus is the exact imprint of his Father, in his will, his desires, in his character. He looks and acts just like his Dad. The fact that they’d seen God though him, means that they could relate to God, be at home with him. This is one of the many reasons why it is so important for us to read the Bible. The disciples could get to know what God the Father was like by watching and listening to Jesus, The Son. Clearly Jesus is no longer with us – but as we read its pages, Jesus steps out of its pages so that we can see him once more.

This home though, is not just a future thing though, in a very real way, God invites us into his home now. Jesus says, ‘If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him’ (23). If we demonstrate our trust in him today – and by trust I mean not simply saying I believe, but living as if you believe – then our Heavenly Father will come and dwell with you.

Our hearts needed be worried, but we can trust in God because our future is secure in him and because Jesus is going to take us to that future by making God known to us.

Jesus is Sending the Spirit
The third reason we don’t need to let our hearts be worried, and can trust in God instead is that there is a reason for Jesus leaving his disciples. He was not just going to prepare a room for us, but also so the Spirit could be sent to us.

The word for the Spirit used here is the Counsellor. In Greek it is paraclete, meaning one who comes alongside. Another key word in Greek here is the word used for another. It means another of exactly the same kind. The Spirit is not simply like Jesus, he is exactly like Jesus. The Spirit is divine as Jesus is divine as the Father is divine. We can relate to him exactly as the disciples related to Jesus. In fact this is why it was so important that Jesus went allowing the Spirit to come. Only a handful could relate to Jesus at any one time – but through the Spirit is able to live with all of us at the same time.

We have not been abandoned as orphans, left relationshipless, but the Spirit has come so that we can continue to have a relationship with the Father and the Son.

The Spirit comes to reassure us of our future hope in God.
The Spirit comes to remind us what Jesus has taught us – in him as well as the Bible, Jesus comes alive before our eyes, of course it is through the Spirit that we hear in a living way what God says to us through the Bible.

There is one more aspect to the gift of the Spirit. The Spirit comes to bring us peace.

How do we make peace?
We strive to provide for ourselves. We seek to control our lives and what happens to us. Again, as we’ve been reading in Ecclesiastes in the mornings, this is a futile task. We cannot control the world, determine what happens to us and around us. The Teacher might say, trying to make peace is like chasing after the wind, meaningless!

But in the Spirit, God is with us. With the Spirit we know our relationship with him is secure no matter what happens to us. With the Spirit we know that our future is secure. These things are in the safe hands of God – and this knowledge can bring us real peace.

Jesus’ Example
Of course it is one thing for us to sit hear tonight and nod away agreeing with all of this. But agreeing with it is not enough. Jesus calls us to trust in him, to base our lives on this faith.

Perhaps the final thing to encourage us to trust in God is Jesus’ example.
Jesus sees what is to come. No doubt he was uncertain, worried etc.
Sometimes fear, concern etc. can paralyse us. End up doing nothing out of fear for what could be…

But how does he finish this conversation? He says, ‘Come let us go.’

Do not let your hearts be troubled, says Jesus, trust in God, trust also in me.

Ecclesiastes 5:8-6:12 - Work & Wealth

2009-01-27T16:56:00.002Z

Notes from a sermon preached on 25.01.09am

This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, the more famous of the founders of the theory of evolution (the other being Alfred Wallace). I would imagine that if I was to come up with a phrase that summarises what Charles Darwin was about, I suspect you’d come up with ‘survival of the fittest’, and that was the phrase that came to my mind when I started reading this passage.

‘If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still. The increase from the land is taken by all; the king himself profits from the fields.’ (5:8-9)

The popular understanding of Darwin’s theory of evolution says life is a case of the ‘survival of the fittest’, the fittest thrive at the expense of the weakest. Now I am in danger of doing here what I get passionately frustrated by, well meaning Christians taking sound bites from science to work with – either promote or denounce – without understanding the intricacies behind them. Darwin had a lot more to say than simply life is about ‘survival of the fittest’, but this isn’t the time or place for that discussion. For today, let’s take that bleak sounding sound-bite.

As the Teacher surveys life, he comes to the same conclusion. As Jesus himself saw, he recognises that the poor will always be here and that others trying to get ahead will always oppress them. But his view is starker than ‘survival of the fittest’. Not only are the weakest doomed, but also the lot of the strongest isn’t so good either.

He tells two little stories about seemingly successful people to drive home his point…

…A man hoards wealth, accumulating as much as he can, but in the end his riches bring him harm. Maybe their stash attracts thieves? Maybe their greed gains them ridicule? Maybe those they gain it from become bitter and turn against them?

…What was the point of his striving?

…A certain woman was also in the business of accumulating wealth, but this time not for their own benefit, but in order to pass it on to her children. Something goes wrong. Maybe a stock market crash wipes off the value of her shares? Maybe the government takes most of it away in inheritance taxes? Maybe in her old age, the money she’s earned is needed to pay for her care? When she dies, and the time comes for her fortune to be handed over, there’s nothing left.

…What was the point of all her striving?

…We enter this life with nothing and we leave with nothing.

Now remember what kind of writing this is – it is important to remind ourselves of that fact at this point, as we consider what this means for us. Ecclesiastes is part of the wisdom writings in the Bible; the Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes. These writings have their own particular style and customs, and it is important to take note of what they are. Here are two:

· Sometimes they contain a conversation. In Job it is between Job, his friends and God. To understand what God might be saying to us you need to ask who’s talking. If it is a character it might be a reflection on life, but not necessarily what God thinks. Where God speaks, you know that is what he thinks and wants! In Ecclesiastes it’s similar. Here we have a conversation alternating between observation by the Teacher on life under the Sun, life as we see and experience it, and life under God, life lived with recognition of God and in faith in him. Just because the writer of Ecclesiastes says something in the context of ‘life under the sun’ that doesn’t mean that that is the truth or God’s will for us – rather that is how people of no faith might see things. There’s an important difference here. That in itself puts a question mark over what he’s been saying so far…

· The other thing to note is that being wisdom writing, Ecclesiastes, like the Proverbs is full of pithy down to life saying. These are used to forcefully make a point. These are of course generalisations, and often the writer exaggerates to make a point. Take today’s passage for example. Of course it is possible to become rich and use it for good. Not all rich people are unhappy. But the point is that the pursuit of wealth for contentment is in many ways a futile thing and it is often done at the expense of others. Wealth cannot guarantee happiness, health, a good future, and can’t keep away death.

So, the Teacher surveys humanity’s striving and comes up with an even bleaker conclusion than the sound bite understanding of Darwin. Life is not just survival of the fittest at the expense of the weakest, but ultimately, even the strongest are left empty. What have I achieved with my life? Have I made a difference, made my mark? Or have I wasted it on the daily drudge? I wonder if the Teacher was going through some kind of mid-life crisis, because that’s what it sounds like?

But wait. Does it need to be this way? Is life meaningless? The Teacher says no!

‘18 Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him—for this is his lot. 19 Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God. 20 He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.’

Sometimes as Christians we have this feeling that we should be about big things. Our lives should be devoted day and night to changing the world, serving the poor or sharing the gospel with the globe. It is no wonder when we then look at our lives that we can feel someone disappointed!

Sometimes, God does call people to become world-changing figures. God called Mother Teresa to her work with the poor and Billy Graham to his evangelistic campaigns. But that’s the Teacher’s point. God called Mother Teresa to her work, not you. Equally, he called you to your work, and not Mother Teresa. God has given us the life that we have. It is a tailor-made gift from him to you. We don’t need to go chasing after another life to find satisfaction, for this is the one that God has given us, and he knows the one that is right for us. Of course, I’m not saying that every situation we find ourselves in is wonderful, or as God wills it – remember we are living in a fallen world, things are never going to be perfect, but God has given you this gift and offers the possibility of satisfaction in it.

The people in the stories of warning that the Teacher tells are people who endure work, so that they can gain something else at the end of it. Work is seen a means to an ends, a ‘necessary evil’ if you like. How easy it is to see our daily chores that way. But what about the labourer who goes to sleep satisfied at night in verse12. Why is his sleep sweet? He has learnt that work itself, the act of working is in itself a gift, to be enjoyed in its own right. Work is a good thing (paid or otherwise).

Going back to the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall, when God utters the curse after sin enters their lives, work becomes effected:

17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return."

But work existed before this point! God worked in creating the world – on the seventh day he rested from his work. He looked at what he’d done and it was good. Adam was invited to play a part in that work, naming the animals and keeping the Garden.

Working is part of living out God’s image in us. Being creative is part of who God is, and as we follow his example, then we will find satisfaction as it is part of what God has made us to be. If we give thanks for the work that we have – whether that is paid or not – if we seek God’s Presence in our work, and do it with him and for him, then we shall find that it is satisfying. If we seek to do it as well as we can with the ability that God has given us, rather than rush through it, then we shall find fulfilment in what we do, and that fulfilment may fill that void that those who seek after more and more wealth are seeking to plug.

Equally, enjoying our relationships and our social lives, our rest and recreation, is also part of the image of God in us – he exists in the community of the Trinity, he walked with Adam and Eve. It is right, good and proper to enjoy ourselves and rest – as God himself did. These things are important, and not a waste of our time or energy. Rest is certainly not wrong. Seek God in work and relaxation, work hard at both and do them for and with him, then you will find that you are fulfilling his image in you, and that is the route to fulfilment.

Ecclesiastes 2:24-3:22 - Faith In God: The Alternative to Pessimism

2009-01-12T12:48:00.003Z

Notes from a sermon preached on 11.01.09am

‘What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labours under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless.’ Eccl. 2:22-23

And so ended the passage we looked at last week, a depressing look at the drudgery that can be life. Last week we started a new sermon series going through the book of Ecclesiastes, in which the Teacher – either King Solomon himself, or someone following in his footsteps – took on the quest of finding meaning in life. What is it that brings us contentment, fulfilment, true happiness? What is the point of it all?

Over the centuries we’ve all been on that same quest, although we may not describe it in some of the lofty terms that the Teacher does. Like him, we’ve tried finding contentment in pursuing pleasure, accumulating knowledge, learning from history and devoting ourselves to WWW. As we called it last week – work, wealth and women (or men depending on your gender!)

Sadly, like him, so often we find these things wanting. They don’t always turn out to be the answers we though they might be – as for several of these the credit crunch is proving right now.

I’m glad you’ve made it through to this week and that the depressive nature of last week’s topic didn’t cause you all to pack it all up and give in! I hinted at the end of last week that the Teacher had some good news for us. Today, you’ll be glad to hear, we come on to that!

Straight after those depressing words we opened with the mood changes completely. He starts talking about eating and drinking – symbolic for being content. He talks about finding satisfaction in work and enjoyment. He talks about receiving gifts and wisdom, knowledge and happiness. Something has definitely changed. But what is it? What is he doing that has transformed things? He’s still talking about the same activities – working, seeking knowledge and wisdom, eating, drinking – and yet these are now positive things.

In a stage show, lighting can have dramatic effect. Bright white lights can make everything seem very clinical, stark, naked. Blue lighting can make it seem cold, secretive, or spooky. Swap for yellow lights, and the same scene becomes much warmer, more friendly. Think of the difference in mood you can experience by walking from a kitchen illuminated by fluorescent strips into a living room light by warm soft lighting. Totally different experiences. Or for those who came to the Carols by Candlelight service here a few weeks ago – how different this room feels under those lights than it does today.

The difference in these passages is caused by the light shining on them.

Again and again in the first couple of chapters the Teacher talks about the activities he sees and tries as being done ‘under the sun’, for example, Eccl. 2:17, ‘So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.’ You can almost picture the scene can’t you of a farm labourer hoeing a field being beaten down by the harshness of the midday sun above him. Each movement is an effort, the heat draining the energy from him as fast as the sweat pours from his brow.

The picture is one of humanity on their own battling against the elements. It’s an aggressive picture, a lonely picture, a hopeless picture, a losing battle. Its also a very earth bound picture. I remember the first time I came to Wormley. I was doing this bicycle trip around the churches in our denomination. To start with it was very much an endurance test, knocking out the miles on the road. So often I would find myself head down, starring at the road a foot in front of the bike, counting out the strokes, one at a time, blocking out the rest of the world.

I don’t know if you noticed, but this sense of isolation is underlined by God being mentioned only once in last weeks passages (1:1-2:23), and even then only to blame for the burden of this heavy life in 1:13, ‘What a heavy burden God has laid on man!’

Then we come to 2:24. Suddenly the Teacher raises his head and looks up. Immediately these references to ‘life under the sun’ simply vanish. Instead, it is God that shines through everything, the divine brings illumination. The mood is transformed. Everything looks so different. Moving from life under the sun to life under God brings a newfound optimism and contentment. Compare our opening verses:

‘What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labours under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless.’ Eccl. 2:22-23

With the subsequent ones:

‘24 A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, 25 for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?’

If we live with our eyes to the ground, live under the sun, then our life will appear meaningless. There is no lasting fulfilment here. But if we live with our eyes to God, then everything changes.

So what does it mean to live life under God as opposed to living life under the sun? Does this mean that we need to spend all our time singing worship songs and doing ‘Christian’ things? I sincerely hope not! Whilst I enjoy belting out the odd chorus, a never ending chorus binge – no thanks! The worker in both these sections is working the same field. The activities in chapters 1-2 are the same as those in chapter 3. We still work, do pleasurable things, eat drink and spend time with family and friends, only we do them inspired by God, and for God.

What do I mean? Let’s take the parable I told last week, the parable of the farmer who spent his time building bigger barns in order to house his ever-increasing crops. The story ends with him dying and never getting to enjoy his riches. Why is that farmer condemned in the parable? Is it because he was seeking to be a productive farmer, to grow the best crops he could? No. He is condemned because he is working ‘under the sun’, motivated by greed, harvesting for himself. If he’d been growing them for God, seeking to be a good farmer, using the gifts God had given him in thanksgiving and to help others, then Jesus would have praised him instead. Money is not the root of all evil – it is the love of money…

The same sort of idea can be applied to the other areas of our lives. What drives us as we engage in them? What do we do them for? Who do we do them for?

Do you want to be fulfilled in your work? Then work as if you were working for God not your boss.
Do you want to be fulfilled in your relationships? Then love your family and friends as if they were Christ himself.

Life under the sun and life under God are the same life, just motivated and driven by different sources. One leads to disappointment and the other to fulfilment.

Now, to leave it there would be easy – it would sound great – but if we’re honest, that’s unrealistic and simplistic. Life’s not like that. All this kind of theology does is leave people feeling as if they are inferior Christian, as if somehow they aren’t good enough at pleasing God as they aren’t fulfilled all the time and wondering why some of the folks who live life ‘under the sun’ seem to have a better life than they do

Fortunately, this isn’t the theology of the Teacher. He doesn’t stop at this point but expands it with three other observations.

For starters, he recognises that our finding satisfaction (v.13) is not something we earn, but a gift from God. The fact that we aren’t happy and others are does not mean that they are better at pleasing God that we are, that they are superior Christians. It doesn’t mean that we can earn satisfaction, just as we can’t earn salvation. Satisfaction is the gift of God, given to whom and whenever he chooses is his love and wisdom.

Secondly, although we might be striving to live under God, we can’t escape the fact that sin is still in the world, and that sin has consequences for those it touches upon – even those who are themselves innocent.

Read Eccl. 3:16

How often do you see people on the news torn apart by things that have been done to them or their families, but the culprits have got away with it, or have received what they perceive to be a lenient sentence. This lack of justice can be like a sore that won’t heal, preventing them from ever having closure and finding peace again. How do you reconcile that to the idea of living under God bringing contentment? If you live ‘under the sun’ there is no hope in such situations. How about those living under God? Does this take away our contentment? It needn’t, as we know that our life under God doesn’t end with our death, but continues afterwards. Read Eccl. 3:17. We know that God will act as judge over sin, including those sins which their perpetrators though they’d got away with. Closure can be found in him. Equally, that recognition of our life with God to come, counteracts any disjoint caused by seeing others who aren’t living under God having more enjoyable lives today.

In fact we don’t need to have our sense of contentment ruined today by the imperfections of life lived now. Life will never be perfect today – that’s impossible. We are imperfect people, living with other imperfect people in a world that is tainted. Inevitably there will be good times and bad times. If this life is all we have, then these seasons would ruin our sense of fulfilment. If to be satisfied, we need the perfect life here and now, then we are destined to failure – and that is the trouble with life lived ‘under the sun’. It is good when it is the season for being born, but death snatches that away. It is good when it is time to laugh, but weeping is sometimes louder. Peace is wonderful, but there is always war. But God has set eternity in our hearts. We may not fathom all that God is done, but he has told us that a time will come when these changing seasons will come to an end, and a new season be ushered in, life with him. Life under God knows that this is coming, so enables us to celebrate the good seasons as gifts of God, and to endure the bad, patiently trusting in him.

Until that day, the Teacher concludes there is indeed nothing better for us to do than to live for God, enjoy the work that he gives us and find our satisfaction in him.

Ecclesiastes 1:1-2:23 - Everything is Meaningless

2009-01-06T12:26:00.003Z

Notes from an All Age Service, 04.01.09am

Who wrote a letter to Father Christmas this year? I wonder what you asked for?
Pantomime season - imagine you got Aladdin's lamp and a Djinni popped out and granted you three wishes, what would you ask for?

Read the story of Solomon gaining wisdom - 2 Chronicles 1

We're going to start a new series today looking at the book of Ecclesiastes. This is written either by Solomon, or someone following Solomon's lead. They call themselves the Teacher. Listen to what he says about himself: Read Eccl. 1:12-14

The Teacher is on a quest (in the Message, Eugene Peterson calls him the Quester). His quest is to find happiness, success, meaning, contentment. Tries a variety of different things - surprisingly the same as people try today!

Quest to discover what he tried
Letters under chairs. Rearrange to reveal what he tried:

· History (1:3-11)
· Pleasure (2:1-3)
· WWW. (no, not world-wide-web, but Work, wealth and women) (2:4-11)
· Knowledge (2:12-16) (Science & Wisdom)

Have you ever tried to catching bubbles? Try it. Just as you think you've got it, they either slip between your fingers or pop. The Teacher spent a lot of time watching what people do, the things they wish for and work for, and came to the conclusion that they were like chasing after the wind, or catching bubbles - pointless. Read 1:2

History (1:3-11) - do we ever learn from past mistakes (Great War, war to end all wars). Have humans improved? changed?
Pleasure (2:1-3) - does anything actually bring us lasting joy?
Work, wealth and women (2:4-11) - all these things can change... desire for bigger, better, faster... feeling that could be more
Knowledge (2:12-16) - can science discover everything? solve all illnesses and problems? despite all we've learnt are we wiser people now? During the Industrial Revolution, belief that we were going to get better and better, solve all problems etc.

Problems:
· We may work hard - but someone else profits...
· Work can be pain and grief, with no rest...
· Have things until you die, and then you leave it behind to others...

Someone else realised the same thing, and told the following story: Jesus' parable of the rich man and his increasing barns! Read Luke 12:13-21

At this time of uncertainty in the world, with the credit crunch and threat of redundancies and other knock on effects, this is being discovered again. The institutions & practises we trusted in & the money we banked on have been reavealed as being less secure than we thought. What is worth investing in? What brings us meaning and purpose?

Our age is an age of cynicism. Lack of trust & hope. In many ways Ecclesiastes seems much like our day. The Teacher cuts through much of the nonsense and hypocrasy to reveal the futility of many things that are thought to be worthy. But, unlike our age, it has something to offer in their place. Despite what is often said about this book, it is full of joy and goodness, and full of God. We will discover more in coming weeks...

John 1 - Carol Service Talk ’08: Into the Light!

2009-01-06T12:23:00.002Z

Notes from an All Age talk from our Carols by Candlelight Service on 21.12.08

So what do you think of the lights tonight!
All around us, people have their Christmas lights on.

Light is an amazing thing. Can do incredible things.
One of the things light is, is fast!
(Hand out following numbers on sheets of A4, one digit on each. Get children to rearrange to make right numbers!)
How fast do you think Chris Hoy is on his Olympic bike? - 40 miles per hour
How fast do you think a cheetah can run? - miles per hour
How fast do you think the fastest car can go? -SC Ultimate Aero: 257 mph+,
Top speed of Concorde? -,450 miles per hour
How about light? -71 million (671,000,000) mph

Furthest star in observable universe was 76,369,821,721,183,332,680,000 miles away. We can see it now, but that light has taken 13,700,000,000 years to get here!

The light from this star has travelled this enormous distance, taking for ever to get here, going through miles of darkness, and yet it is still going, the light is still shining.
It doesn’t matter how dark space is, nor how big it is, it can’t put it out.

In his Christmas story, the Gospel writer John says the birth of John was like light blazing into the world.

Many things light can do:
1) Show us the way – like lights on an airport runway
2) Reveal what’s hidden, like a like in a cellar, or a torch on a walk
3) Or can create beautiful things like a rainbow or glitterball (turn on)
4) Light is also vital for life – we can’t live without it.

Some people think that as we celebrate such an old story at Christmas, some 2000 years old, that it is meaningless now. But like the light from a distant star, the light of Jesus continues to shine, still bringing direction, understanding, beauty and life to those that accept him today. John says that those who believe in him are given the amazing offer of becoming children of God.

One of the most amazing lights that I know is this one…

Light trick candle – blow out and watch relight.

Jesus’ light is not old light – like light from that distant star.
His light might have gone out on that first Good Friday when he was killed on the Cross. If that had been the case, then the light we celebrate today would be a faint 200 year old remnant. But the wonderful story about the baby Jesus, is that he grew up, was killed, but then was brought miraculously back to life by his Heavenly Father. His life still shines today.

This is what we celebrate at Christmas – the coming of this Light that shines from then to this day.

Luke 2:1-20 - Christmas Day!

2009-01-06T12:18:00.001Z

Notes from an All-Age Christmas Day service on 25.12.08

I love Christmas, it’s a magical time. Looking back, many of my childhood memories come from Christmas time.

Complaining that my parents wouldn’t get up early enough!
Eating a tube of sweets and a Satsuma for breakfast, whilst playing with my new toys.
Playing in the snow on white Christmas, and defrosting in front of Bernard Cribbins on Jackanory.
Competing with my Grandad to see who could eat the turkey drumstick the quickest.

I remember one year having a treasure trail to find a special present – a new bike. In our reading earlier, the shepherds had something like a treasure trail too. They had to find Jesus, just like you have. Only a minister didn’t start their trail – it was started by a host of glorious angels – God’s messengers.

They didn’t have paper clues either. They had a sign to look for – they had to look for a baby who was lying in a manger wrapped in swaddling bands. If they found such a baby, they would know it was God’s son – and that’s just what happened.

Of course, that’s the most important present isn’t it; God’s gift of Jesus to us? What did the angels say about him? That he was a Saviour – he was going to rescue us from all that is wrong, both within us and without us – and that he was going to bring us peace, peace with God, peace with our world and peace with ourselves, if we accept him.

So how did everyone else find out about Jesus? What signs did they have? Some followed a star. Some like Simeon later in the chapter, were lead to Jesus by the Holy Spirit. But what about everyone else? What was their clue, their sign? It was the shepherds, who went about telling everyone about the wonderful things they had seen.

As we celebrate Christmas, it is good to remember how we found out about Jesus. I suspect for most of us, somebody told us about him, just like those shepherds. But maybe, as we celebrate, it would also be good to ask ourselves how our friends and families are going to find out. Who is going to be a sign to them?

Christmas Eve - Hark How All the Welkin Rings!

2009-01-06T12:12:00.004Z

Notes from a sermon preached during a midnight Communion Service on Christmas Eve, 2008

I have discovered over the years that I’ve taken Christmas services (a scary 15 years now!) that on the whole you can’t go wrong. For the hour or so of each service, the stress that sadly surrounds so much of our modern celebrations vanishes as we refocus on what its really all about. The children are excited, and the adults relax and enjoy themselves. Everyone is on your side. Its great!

That’s not to say though, that taking Christmas services is without its dangers. I’ve learnt that there are at least two things that could lead you into difficulties…

The first is that unless you want to be hounded out of church and into the headlines of the Christmas papers, you don’t say that a certain jolly fellow dressed in red doesn’t exist!

The other big mistake is to mess with the carols. Don’t, under any circumstances, change the words or the tunes. This causes at least confusion, if not downright rebellion and anger!

I stumbled across these words the other day that reminded me of this danger:

Hark, how all the welkin rings,
“Glory to the King of kings;
peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
join the triumph of the skies;
universal nature say,
“Christ the Lord is born today!”

Imagine the response if I put these words up for us to sing…

First there would be laughter!
Then there would be the questions – confused voices demanding to know what on earth a welkin is.
Then there would be mutiny… and I’d end up singing a solo.

The irony is that these are the original words, as written by Charles Wesley, the brother of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. The rest of the words are:

Christ, by highest Heaven adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord:
late in time behold him come,
offspring of a Virgin’s womb!
Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see,
hail the incarnate Deity!
pleased as man with men to appear,
Jesus, our Emmanuel here!

Hail, the heavenly Prince of Peace,
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that man no more may die;
born to raise the sons of earth;
born to give them second birth.

Come, Desire of nations, come,
fix in us thy humble home;
rise, the woman’s conquering Seed,
bruise in us the serpent’s head.
Now display thy saving power,
ruined nature now restore;
now in mystic union join
thine to ours, and ours to thine.

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.
Let us thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the life, the inner man:
O, to all thyself impart,
Formed in each believing heart.

I’m now going to make an outrageous claim, and argue that Hark the Herald Angels sing is actually a Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion Christmas Carol (that’s the denomination we belong to). One of our ‘founders’, the most famous preacher of his day, George Whitefield was a great friend of Charles and John Wesley. He had a look at the words, and broke the rules. He changed them to the ones we know today. These words caught on and Charles’s didn’t. George’s introduction of angels singing in the first verse really annoyed Charles, as the Bible says that the angels spoke, not sang…

So what is a welkin? Welkin is an old word for heaven or the skies.

I must confess, that although the words are somewhat clumsy for us to sing today, and they were set to a dirge of a tune, I love the picture that Charles’ original words conjure up. It’s not just the angels that proclaim the birth of Jesus, but the heavens, the nations, the skies – indeed all of creation!

In Romans 8:22, the Apostle Paul wrote that that Creation is groaning, as in childbirth, since sin came into the world and corrupted it. In Charles’ original words, the birth of Jesus becomes the moment when these groans are converted into cheers, as the child who will put all things right is born.

So often Christmas can be centred on all the events that took place around this birth, either mentioned in the Bible or simply traditional, rather than on the child that was born. The focus of these original words, like those of the Bible itself, is on the question – who is this child that has been born?

Listen to some of the titles given to the baby: King of kings, Christ (God’s chosen one), the Lord, God, Emmanuel, Prince of Peace, Sun of Righteousness and the Desire of Nations. That’s quite some adoration.

I’ve found all of those wonderful titles in the Bible except the last, the Desire of Nations, although that one certainly fits with the message of scripture. This frail child, dependent on Mary and Joseph, is none other than the ultimate power and authority. This baby is God himself, the Son of our Heavenly Father. In him God draws close – that’s what Emmanuel means, God with Us. But this is not a ruler like so many of our rulers, exercising their reign through might of arms or the threat of sanctions. No, this infant is the Prince of Peace, the one who will show that true power is found in humility and service.

Charles Wesley’s words doesn’t just tell us who the Babe is, but what he has come to do. Laying aside his heavenly glory, Jesus has been born as one of us, to give us the chance to be raised after death to new life, to have a second birth. As John’s Gospel puts it:

John 1:10-13 - He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

This is a restoration of what was meant to be when God first created, that what was lost in the Garden of Eden – and relationship with God, with each other, and Creation. But even as God told Adam and Eve of the consequences of what they had done, he gave a hint of hope. Talking to the Serpent he said:

Gen 3.15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

As the carol declares, Mary’s offspring is the one this speaks of. Bruise in us the serpent’s head! Jesus has come to put right what was made wrong. He has come to destroy the work of the Serpent, to restore in us God’s image, to restore ruined nature, and to join us to him.

Christmas is a time for invitations. Come to my Christmas party, come see the babe that was born, come. This Carol, and the scriptures behind it, offer another invitation. The invitation is to receive these wonderful gifts, the gifts of life, of being restored to be the people we are meant to be, to have the effects of Adam’s sin replaced with the character of Christ. The offer is to receive new life, relationship with God that goes beyond the grave. This offer declared by the angels and sung by the welkin is to all humanity, open to all who believe.

Luke 1:39-80 - Playing Second Fiddle

2009-01-06T12:09:00.001Z

Notes from a sermon preached on 14.12.08

Those that are astute amongst you may have noticed that today’s reading was the same as last weeks. This is not a mistake! Nor is it to say that Michael didn’t do a good job last week! At the end of his sermon last week, Michael left us with a question – why don’t we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist. This question has niggled away at me, and I want to come back to it again today.

John was certainly a man who courted controversy and grabbed people’s imagination and attention.

He had an arresting appearance, a somewhat wild man dressed in clothes made from camel hair, crunching on locusts and wild honey.

He was a charismatic speaker. His preaching was urgent. Even though he was based out in the wilderness of Judea, people flocked to him from throughout Judea – from the rustic villages and sophisticated city. In many ways he was a living fossil, a throwback to the prophets of old. His message was a stern reminder to live Holy Lives, to remember their covenant with God, and this urgent call was accompanied by drama, baptising those who responded in the Jordan to symbolise the forgiveness of their sins. His message was not just confined to ordinary folk either. He was not afraid to criticise the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his day.

John wasn’t just concerned with spiritual issues either. He was not afraid to mix religion and politics – he was quite an activist. Even King Herod was not immune to his judgement because of the evil that he and his family had done – to the point that John ended up being imprisoned for his efforts. More than that, he ended up being beheaded! (Was he in a way the first Christian martyr, not Stephen?)

No doubt a great man. And yet when we celebrate great men today, whilst we remember Jesus, where is John?

There were also similarities between his birth and Jesus, as Michael mentioned last week.

Let’s take a moment to look at some of them:
· To start with, they both belong to the same extended family. If anything, you could argue that John’s immediate family, with Zechariah being a priest, put him in a better position.
· Both their births were prophesied by angels – how’s that for a claim to fame! A touch more class than a pregnancy test at the doctors…
· In both cases, the birth was impossible – Mary was a virgin and Elizabeth was beyond child bearing age.
· To cap it all, the Holy Spirit was involved - in Luke 1:35 Gabriel tells Mary that the Holy Spirit will come upon her to bring about her pregnancy, and in Luke 1:15 he tells Elizabeth that the Spirit will be upon John from birth.
There’s no doubt that John had a spectacular start to life. The circumstances around his birth were as spectacular as his leadership and life. So why then do we celebrate Christmas but not Johnmas?!…

If I’d been John, I’d have been really quite frustrated! All that hard work, all that he gave up, the cost of living in the public eye, all for nothing. Who wants to play second fiddle! So where did it go wrong for John?

Let’s get to the passage for today, the prophecy by Zechariah given in response to the question about John, ‘What then is this child going to be?’ (66) What does he have to say?

Read Luke 1:68-75

· John has been brought by God himself to rescue his people, to buy them back (68)
· He is a horn of salvation! Horn is a symbol for strength. (69)
· He has been planned for generations, announced by the prophets (70)
· He has been sent to deliver them from their enemies (71)
· He is God’s way of fulfilling the promises he had made to the Fathers of Israel, the promises of being a great nation, of blessing the world (73)
· Through him they will be able to serve God without having to look over their shoulders at others, worrying about their safety or what might be done to them (74)
· And not just go through the motions, but serve with holiness and righteousness – to be right before God, to enjoy a proper relationship with him (75).

This sounds spectacular doesn’t it!

But wait a minute. What does he say next? ‘And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High’ (76) Can you believe it! All along he’s not been talking about John, but Jesus. How must it feel to realise that even your Dad sees your cousin as being more important then you. How depressing!

My experiences of being second trombone – sometimes longed to be first trombone, to get to play the melodies, to get the best parts. Realised though the importance of being second – without a second trombone, the music sounds empty. Needs the harmonies and bass notes to fill it out, to enrich it. Besides, I wasn’t good enough (as some of you might find out next Sunday evening…)!

John was called to be Jesus’ second trombone – or to put it in more usual language, to play second fiddle. This is not unimportant – for the lead person to be successful, those under them and around them need to play their part too.

Read Luke 1:76-79

He was to be a prophet – pointing to God’s will, showing them the coming of God’s kingdom. He was to go before Jesus, preparing the way for him. He was to reveal to them the ways in which they had failed to follow the law – so that when their saviour came they knew they needed one.

But that question still remains. Although Jesus clearly has the more important role – John’s work is still important. His birth is dramatic, his life forceful, and yet in many ways he remains forgotten. Why is that? Why don’t we celebrate his life and birth?

Rather than call him Jesus’ Second Fiddle, another way of seeing it would be to call him Jesus’ warm up act. A warm act is also important, necessary to prepare the audience for what is to come, to help them relax and be ready. But what is the worst thing that a warm up act can do? I can’t think of anything worse than having the warm-up act play better than the main act. If they upstage the headliners, then they have failed in their job. Or how about a pace-setter in a race? If the pace setter outruns the person they are setting the pace for, they have failed in their job. Or how about John McCain and Sarah Palin? I wondered during their campaign if she failed in her job as everyone was talking about her and not the Republican candidate for President. John’s job was to prepare people for the coming of the Messiah, and if everyone was so caught up with following him that they failed to notice Jesus when he came, then he would have failed. As he himself put it, ‘He must become greater; I must become less.’ (John 3:30) John did his job well.

Perhaps this is where we fail in many of our Christmas Celebrations and nativity plays? We have Mary and Joseph, the Wisemen, the Shepherds and their sheep, donkeys, innkeepers, drummer boys, Lords a Leaping, angels – a cast of thousands! Our meals are lavish, our traditions rich. This is all fine – no problems with that – until we discover that we’re talking about them and not Jesus…

You see, if I’m not mistaken, John’s calling is also our calling – to point to Jesus, to prepare for his coming. We’re called to play second fiddle, to be his warm up act, and to play ourselves down. When people see us, they are to see through us to Jesus. When people hear us, they are to hear Jesus speaking through us. When we do good, we do it not for ourselves, but for Jesus. This is not to say that we are unimportant, or that we don’t count, but our value, our importance is to be found in who it is we work for.

There’s something very counter-culture to this isn’t there; something radically different. Can you think of anyone or any movement that sets out to be forgotten? For that is the challenge of the birth and life of John. Its not that we aren’t to have any impact – quite the reverse in fact – think back to the impact John had – but the result of the impact is not to bring glory on ourselves.

When people think of us, what do they think about – our happiness etc.? Or do they remember God being with us, remember us as being the ones that showed them to him? How do I measure how well a service goes? For me a good service is not one where people greet me on the way out and say that was a fantastic talk. No it’s when they say on the way out that they met God this morning. What would it mean for you? How do you measure how successful you are at work, at home, at play?

Luke 1:1-38 - Hope in Barren Times

2008-12-01T11:24:00.002Z

Notes from a sermon preached on 30.11.08

Having looked at Mathew’s account of the birth of Jesus, it’s now time to move to Luke’s. Remember Matthew’s began with the genealogy, a grand pronunciation of the royal lineage of Jesus, Luke’s has a very different feel.

Luke is writing his Gospel for a certain Theophilus, presenting it as a piece of history, an account of the things that have been fulfilled amongst them, as handed down by eyewitnesses and servants of the word. As we explore what Luke has to say to us, we have to bear in mind what it is he’s trying to do with his Gospel. On the one hand it’s a piece of history – an orderly work based on eyewitness accounts – but its not just a chronological record, he’s trying to make a point. Its about the things that have been fulfilled amongst us, its content has been handed down by servants of the word – it deals with faith and theology – and Luke is telling it in order to persuade Theophilus that what he’s been taught is true – it’s a piece of evangelism.

Unlike Matthew, he takes us straight into the historical situation of the time. It’s the time of Herod, king of Judea. This is a time of frustration for the Jewish people. Their glory days are behind them, their land is ruled by the Romans who have put this puppet king on the throne to rule over them. As we learnt in Matthew, this Herod was a political wheeler and dealer, doing whatever he had to stay in power – including killing the firstborn boys after he heard that one of them might have a claim on his throne.

The story centres on a couple called Zechariah and Elizabeth. The sense of frustration and unproductiveness of the nation is echoed in their lives. They are old couple, and yet they have no children, in a time when there was great stigma to being unable to have children, and also concern – who is going to look after us and provide for us when we are unable to care for ourselves.

There’s the history if you like, but Luke also adds this comment about Zechariah and Elizabeth being upright in the sight of God. I wonder why he puts that there? The fact that he makes a point of doing so makes me wonder if it marked them out. Was it unusual for Jews at this time to have this desire to serve God? Not only was this a politically and physically barren time, but maybe it was also a spiritually barren time, a low point in the faith and life of God’s People.

But for Zechariah on this particular day, there is something to lighten up proceedings. He has been chosen by lot to go into the Temple and burn incense. This was a great honour and one he would have hoped for and looked forward to for all his life as a priest. There were so many priests that many did not get to do this at all in their lifetime, and it was restricted so that you got to do it only once – a bit like being invited to one of the Queen’s Garden Parties! He and the other priests would have gone into the Holy Place, but when the time came, the rest would leave him with the incense whilst they prayed outside…

But before we go any further, I want to step back in time to tell three other stories. It’s a bit like Matthew with his three loose women making sense of Mary becoming pregnant. Here we have stories of three other couples who met with God with amazing consequences, and their stories will make sense of us of what happens to Zechariah and Elizabeth, and Mary…

The Story of Abraham and Sarah
Let’s go back to the time of Genesis. The Jewish people don’t exist yet – to be honest, God is really unknown at this point. There’s a man called Abram – we now know him as Abraham. Out of the blue, God appears to him and calls him to leave his home of Haran behind and travel to the land he shows him where he’ll make him into a great nation, and through him all people on the earth will be blessed.

There’s a catch though, he and his wife are childless. They are both old, and Sarah past the age of childbearing. This leaves an awkward question hanging in the air – how can they start a nation with no children. Nevertheless, they up sticks and travel to Canaan.

Sometime later a truly extraordinary event happens. They receive a visit from three men. Panic as there always is when guests turn up unannounced. Rushing around they prepare some food for them. At one point, whilst Sarah is in the tent, the guests now identified as the LORD, announce that she will bear him a son during the coming year. Sarah over hears this and laughs – but is rebuked by the visitors for this – is anything too difficult for the LORD!

It happens as the messengers predicted. Sarah bears Abraham an impossible son, Isaac. Isaac is the Father of Jacob and Esau, and through the descendents of Jacob come the 12 tribes of Israel – a great nation!

The Story of Samson
Fast forward. After a time of living in slavery in Egypt, Moses rescued them and with Joshua brought them back to Canaan. They’ve conquered the land – it is now called Israel. The Promised People now dwell in their Promised Land.

Theres a catch though. They’ve fallen away from God, and their land has been taken over by the Philistines. During this time lived a man called Manoah who’s wife was sterile and childless. One day an angel appeared to her, delivering a surprising message,

Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean, because you will conceive and give birth to a son. No razor may be used on his head, because the boy is to be a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth, and he will begin the deliverance of Israel from the hands of the Philistines." Judges 13:4-5

This is just what happens, she has a son. They call him Samson, and it says that God blessed him, and the Spirit of the LORD stirred him. God gave him amazing strength and determination, and he led Israel for 20 years, in life and death working to deliver them almost single-handedly from the Philistines.

The Story of Samuel
Fast forward a bit further. Although Israel have continued to grow, they still aren’t what you’d call a great nation yet. They aren’t secure or particularly prosperous. The Philistines continue to trouble them. In these days the word of the LORD was rare and there were not many visions. At this time lived a man called Elkanah with his two wives Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none – a source of great sorrow for her, because she desperately wanted children and was made to feel like a second-class wife by her rival.

Every year Elkanah and his wives went to worship at Shiloh. This particular year Hannah prayed desperately for a son, promising that God gave her one that she would give him to the LORD and never use a razor on his head. In fact her prayers were so emotional that the priest thought she was drunk.

God hears her prayer, and Hannah remembers her promise. She takes the boy to that same priest, Eli and leave him to be brought up by him, and history is never the same again. In the time when God never seemed to be heard by his people, Samuel hears him calling. Eventually, it is through Samuel that David is chosen to be Israel’s King, defeating the Philistines, bringing them peace, unity and prosperity. Then they do indeed become a Great Nation.

Time to return to Luke’s story. Can you see the echoes of these three stories in the visits of the angel Gabriel to Zechariah and Mary?

· As in the time of Samson, their land is occupied and controlled by foreigners.
· As in the time of Samuel and Samson, it would seem that on the whole, God’s people have strayed from God and his ways.
· Elizabeth is old and beyond childbearing age, and Mary is a virgin, neither of them can have children – just like Sarah, Samson’s mother and Hannah, and yet as in these three stories, God promises them a child through his messengers – just as he does to the barren Elizabeth and the virgin Mary.
· Like Samson, the angel says that when John is born he is to never take wine and the Spirit will be on him from birth
· Like Samuel, John will grow to be one that will call people back to God, and will pave the way for the coming King
· Like Sarah, Zechariah is unable to believe that all this is possible – she laughs and is chastised, he voices his disbelief and is struck dumb.

Not only Luke making a record of what has happened, he is clearly trying to tell us something through these echoes.

All these children have been great saviours for their people. They have been born in times of trouble and barrenness. They have been born as the result of God’s promises, his direct intervention in miraculous ways. They have been born to bring deliverance. These two boys promised by the angels, are to continue this tradition. But more than that, remember how the Gospel starts – ‘Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled amongst us’ (1:1). They are not just following this tradition, but they are fulfilling it – theirs is the ultimate intervention. Theirs is the ultimate promise. Theirs is the ultimate salvation. The others may have played their part in bringing the People of God to a Great Nation, but listen to the titles of Jesus given here: he will be great, Son of the Most High, he’ll be given by God the throne of David, his reign will be eternal – conceived by the Spirit, he is the Son of God!

With all the talk of recession, it feels like there’s a barren time ahead of us.
Living in the West, it can seem as if the church is going through a barren time – whilst all around the world the church is growing, here we’re struggling to hang on to what we’ve got at best.
At times like these, its good to hear these stories that remind us the God can and does intervene in seemingly impossible ways. Its good to be reminded of his actions of the past, but most of all, it is good to hear of the miracle baby, born Jesus, The Lord Saves, who sits on the throne even to this day.

As we light the first candle on our Advent wreath today and pray, in some way we are mimicking Zechariah lighting the incense and the priests praying behind him, lets pray knowing that our God reigns!

John 10 - Big Brother Is Watching You

2008-11-25T11:55:00.010Z

Notes from a sermon preached on the 23.11.08

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!
Slogan from 1984 shown on powerpoint slide

Over recent years we have seen an explosion in the way technology is being used for the good of society:

· CCTV
· Talk of identity cards
· Speed cameras
· Government computer databases

But what are these trying to do?
What do they achieve?

Sometimes it feels as if these things are not really what they are explained to be.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
(Slogans of The Party in 1984 - shown on powerpoint slide)

What is described as looking after us can sometimes seem as if it watching us, tracking us. More concerned with controlling us, or exercising power over us, than caring for us.

Easy to be cynical, but ours is an age that has become uneasy with the exercise of authority.
All to often authority can be wielded as a means to
· gain status
· gain wealth
· control others for your own ends

On all levels
· Government – only in it for themselves
· Organised religion – cause of wars, child abuse, stern dogma, after our money
· Science – play at being God, but no responsibility or real knowledge, so much they can’t change/do/cure
· Health Service – love the individual nurses etc. but too much bureaucracy

For a great example of this, can I point you to the great British institution of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’! Here the public has been responding against the panel and their power/authority etc. and voting for John Sergeant. The panel are saying who they believe is best – and its not John Sergeant – but the public have taken a liking to John and a disliking to the way the panel exercise their power…

Maybe the other reason for our reaction against these figures, is the feeling that like The Prisoner, that we are treated as simply numbers in the system, targets to be obtained, opinion polls to be placated.

I am not a number, I am a free man
- Number Six, in The Prisoner
(shown on powerpoint)

What do we want from those that have influence over our lives?
· We want them to be in it for our benefit, not theirs.
· We want them to use the resources they have at their disposal, effectively, making the best of what we have given them, but at the same time, we want them not to be wrapped up in efficiency drives that they don’t see the personal stories involved.
· We want them to be able to make a difference, and not simply be a talking shop.
· We want them to be able to relate to us, to be in touch with the common man
· At the same time, we want them to do what is right, even if it goes against public opinion

We’re not asking much are we! And that’s the problem.

Do you remember the Old Westerns on TV. It was easy wasn’t it to tell who was the good guy and who was the bad guy. If they wore black hats, they were the baddies. If they wore white, they were the goodies. But the real world isn’t like that. The real world isn’t filmed in black and white. In the fallen colour world we live in, there are no black and white hats, just various shades of grey. There are no such things as pure motives, only mixed ones. Technology is as good as its designers make it to be, and can be used and abused. Our leaders are constrained by their abilities and the nature of the world we live in.

Are there those who can fulfil our criteria? To be honest, it’s impossible.

Religious leaders are not exempt. When I look at myself honestly, I know that there are times when I do things for the right reasons, and times when I do not. There are times when I treat people as people, and I fear times when they become ‘bums on seats’. There are times when what I do is a calling, something I’m passionate about and totally committed to. There are also times when it is just a job…

The hired hand doesn’t always do what is right.
Her temptation is always to do what will please her employers.

The worker won’t always stick at the job.
For him the temptation is always to put himself first if there is a risk to his health or well being. ‘I don’t have to take that!’ and out you walk.

Who has the moral purity and power and knowledge and insight to be able to be the kind of leader we crave? Not one of us, that’s for sure. To say you could is to invite mistrust – only a crazed maniac would believe that, and who would trust them!

And yet there is this yearning in us for such a figure, an inbuilt desire. Maybe that’s why Barak Obama has attracted such a following, the feeling that he fits this mould. We know such people will let us down, and yet we hope that they might be different. Only a god could live such a life – and when we make these people gods, we only go on to be disappointed when they turn out not to be. I’m not knocking politicians and other leaders – I’m just suggesting that we need to be more realistic and reasonable about what we expect from them. I’m sure most of them are in it for the right reasons, but like us they are non-perfect people operating in a non-perfect world.

It is no wonder then when Jesus came promising to be such a figure, that he provoked such a mixed response. Some sat up when they saw what he said and did. Here was the one they’d been looking for! But not all were impressed. He may have done good deeds, performed miracles, and yet to claim he was a leader who would always put those he lead first, a leader who cared for those in his care above himself, a leader that treated people as individuals not numbers. That’s too much! They knew from experience how difficult it was to lead. They knew the temptations and pitfalls. And then when he began to criticize their leadership, that was just taking it too far. He may have opened the eyes of a blind man, but this was just arrogance. Actually it was more than that, it was blasphemy – only God could live up to that standard.

The scope of what he was claiming also concerned them. Not only did he claim to be able to reach these high standards, but also to care for more people than they. He spoke cryptically, not really making it clear who he was talking about. Was he implying that he was concerned for more than just the religious people? Was he talking about those who didn’t practise their faith? Those whose behaviour didn’t match up to their beliefs? Was he even including those who didn’t give a damn about God? Actually, maybe he was even speaking about those who weren’t even Jewish…

I wonder what I’d have made of Jesus? I wonder what you would have made of him?

What are the claims that he makes? Here are some of them:

I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out, and find pasture. A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of…

I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own sheep and my own sheep know me. In the same way, the Father knows me and I know the Father. I put the sheep before myself, sacrificing myself if necessary…

No one can steal them from out of my hand…

Words are cheap. Anyone can make big claims. The test is in the keeping of them.

· He promises that we are precious to him. Sheep are these days maybe an object of ridicule – who here wants to be compared to Flossy?! But to those he was talking to they were of great importance. Sheep brought them milk to drink and meat to eat. Sheep brought them wool for clothing. Sheep could be sold to enable them to live. They were a vital part of the economy.
· He promises that he will provide for us rest and fulfilment.
· He promises that he is unlike the leaders that have gone before.
· He promises us life to the full – starting today and lasting beyond the grave.
· He promises that he knows us each by name and will treat us as individuals, attentive to our personal feelings and needs.
· He promises that he will protect us from those who seek to harm us.
· He promises that he would even go as far as giving up his life if it was required for us – freely, out of his own choice.

Leaders come and go, making incredible claims. But their words are cheap. If they could but keep one, maybe we could trust them to keep the rest? Maybe then we could really believe they are the one we’ve been waiting for…

Image of the crucifixion shown on powerpoint with the text:
If they could but keep one…

John 9 - Blindness/Sight

2008-11-20T15:05:00.003Z

Notes from a sermon preached on the 16th November 2008 (pm)
See Comments for my reflections on the sermon

The more I’ve looked at this passage, the more its intrigued me. There’s so many ways in which to see this chapter, so much that it has to say. What’s it about.

The story starts with the disciples quizzing Jesus about a blind man they come across. This man has been blind from birth, and they want to know why this is. What is the cause of his blindness? A common understanding of the time is that suffering and sickness is as a result of sin – either the person’s sin, or their parents.

This belief continues today – it might not be vocalised, but there is this understanding that if you do good, then good things will happen to you and if you do bad… Perhaps this is a throwback to the influence of the idea of Karma from Eastern spirituality

It certainly can be true – we can become ill as a result of our actions. If you sleep around there is the danger of catching STDs. If you hold a grudge against someone, which you won’t let go, this can cause increased stress and that in turn can affect you physically and so on. The Bible also teaches us that sickness and suffering entered the world as a result of sin – the curse of Genesis 3.

So, what about this man? Why was he ill? Was it something he had done? Because he was born this way, was it something that his parents had done?

Jesus’ reply cuts through their concepts. ‘This happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life’. Notice what is isn’t saying though – he’s not saying that sickness is never caused by one’s sin, nor is he saying that sickness is also there so that God’s glory may be shown. Jesus, here and elsewhere, refused to be drawn into simplistic theories about the nature and cause of suffering – a warning that we shouldn’t either. Instead, he takes each person as an individual, and treats them as they need. This is a great pastoral lesson for us – it is so easy to try and argue problems away or come up with glib answers, but life is rarely so simple. If we make generalisations, we shall run the risk of missing what is the problem in an individual case, and depersonalise them.

Some of you may wonder why I wear a red ribbon on my guitar strap. I first got it when Freddie Mercury died of AIDS in exchange for a donation towards research into AIDS and HIV. When I wore it to church one day I was shocked by the response it got. I ought be careful I was told about wearing that in Christian circles, because AIDS was God’s judgement on homosexuals. I was stunned by this well-being statement – especially in light of the subsequent spread of AIDS across Africa where it has little to do with homosexual practises at all! I wear it now as a protest against this view but also to remind me to treat people as individuals and to not leap to broad generalisations and judgements.

Having challenged their beliefs like this, Jesus spat on the ground, made some mud paste and applied it to his eyes, telling him to go and was it off at the pool of Siloam. He does this, and miraculously is healed! His healing has so dramatic and so complete that those who are his neighbours, and those who pass him by everyday, aren’t convinced that he’s the same bloke!

But is this man’s renewed sight what this chapter is really all about? Most of the chapter doesn’t focus on him as the main character. In fact a great deal more is said about the activities of the Pharisees.

You see, Jesus’ actions were troubling. Of course healing someone is a good thing – but does the end justify the means?

The healing was done on the Sabbath, the day of rest. This was not good.
To heal, Jesus kneaded the mud on the Sabbath. That was considered work. Also not good.
He also applied the mud to the man’s eyes. Again, that’s work. Definitely not good.

In three ways, Jesus had acted against the understanding of how you should obey the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy, as a day of rest. This created a crisis for them. If they had got it right, then Jesus was not honouring the Sabbath – in other words, he was breaking the Ten Commandments. If he was breaking the Ten Commandments in such a blatant way, then how could what he was doing come from God? Alternatively, perhaps they had got their understanding of the Commandments wrong – if he had done such a miraculous sign, then surely he had to be from God!

To try and get to the bottom of it, they called upon the man to talk to him about what had happened. Then they summoned his parents and then they talked to the man once more.

It’s fascinating to trace two journeys that are going on here.

To begin with all the man can say is that this man’s name was Jesus. Hen when the Pharisees first question him about the healing, all he does is describe what Jesus did. He doesn’t offer any evaluation of Jesus at all. There are no superlatives, no celebrations, just a description – ‘he put mud in my eyes, I washed and now I see’

At this point the Pharisees have quite a mixed view of Jesus. They are divided as to whether or not he is a good man.

Then in verse 17, they decide to ask the man about what he thought about Jesus. His reply is simple – ‘he is a prophet’. He’s beginning to realise what this man who healed him was.

The Pharisees don’t find this satisfying – it doesn’t really resolve their quandary, as they want it to. What do you do when you ask for advice and you get the answer you don’t want? You go and ask someone else, and keep on asking until you get it! They call on his parents, and try and persuade them into telling them more. They’re not prepared to say more – we’ll come back to that later. Instead all they’ll say is that he couldn’t see, but now he can, and they really ought to talk to their son – after all, he was the one who had been healed and he was old enough to answer for himself!

And so they go back to the man again. I sense now that they’re getting fed up – and to be honest have made up their mind. ‘Give glory to God!’ they declare ‘we know this man is a sinner!’

I don’t know about you, but that declaration sounds like self-contradictory to me. ‘Give glory to God!’ doesn’t sound like an invitation to tell the truth. It sounds like a demand to pull the party line. Give glory to God by agreeing with his leaders that this man is a sinner. Give glory to God by denying his Son!…

The position of these Jews is hardening by the minute, and their angry interrogation is forcing the man to examine his own position, and as he evaluates what has happened under their questioning, it becomes more and more clear in his mind who this Jesus is. I love the next bit so much, I’m just going to read it again!

24A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. "Give glory to God,[a]" they said. "We know this man is a sinner."
25He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"
26Then they asked him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?"
27He answered, "I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?"
28Then they hurled insults at him and said, "You are this fellow's disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't even know where he comes from."
30The man answered, "Now that is remarkable! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. 32Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."
34To this they replied, "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out.

As the man talks about his healing, his eyes are opened to the fact that Jesus is of God. You could say he his spiritual blindness is healed. At the same time, his Jewish interrogators travel on a journey the opposing way, becoming increasingly to stubborn to be able to admit that there is the slightest possibility that Jesus could be of God. They become blinded by their own arrogance and theology.

This journey challenges me no end.
As an evangelical Bible College student, I like to think I have a good grasp of what the Bible says about God. I have a fair understanding of what he wants from us too. I’d even go as far as saying I have a reasonable framework with which to weigh up things that I hear and experience to determine if they are of God or not.

But every now and then things happen that don’t fit.
Toronto Blessing
God and Politics
Debates around homosexuality, euthanasia, and so on.
Times when I’ve been pushed to reconsider what I thought God was saying on these matters. Times when I’ve had to examine why I believe what I believe, and to ask again is my belief right.

There have been times when I’ve found myself rejecting people from being the sort of people that God could use.

It’s so easy to become like these Pharisees and believe we’ve seen it all, and got it wrapped. And yet Jesus instead calls us to humility. It’s okay to have a good idea about what you believe in. In fact I would encourage you to study, to read the Bible to pray and work through what you believe. But the challenge is to remain humble in our beliefs, to not hold them so tightly that we refuse to listen and watch, to re-evaluate them. You see, the risk is that not only do we miss out on what others can bring into our lives, not only might we be getting things wrong (and maybe even hurting others as a result) but we might also be missing out on God being at work in our lives and communities. He might be there right in front of our eyes, and we might miss him. This is surely the worst kind of blindness.

There’s a choice here, a decision to be made. This man in the story is left nameless for a reason. He’s EVERYMAN, he represents us all – he could be anyone of us. Jesus,

‘was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God' (John 1:10-12)

Are we willing to see him, or shall we let ourselves be blinded. I mentioned earlier that I would come back to the parents and their response to the Pharisees. Something strange is going on there. They refuse to say anything much to the Pharisees as they are scared of being thrown out of the synagogue if they side with Jesus. Whilst its not impossible that some local synagogues had decided by this stage that they should excommunicate those who followed Jesus, it wasn’t that common until much later. Some suggest that perhaps the parents were afraid of what would be thought of them, but as John writes, he puts the fears of those he is writing to in their thoughts. John was writing so that people in his day would come to faith in Jesus – and for these there was a real fear of persecution. Its not just our traditions and beliefs that can blind us to Jesus, but peer pressure and fear too. Maybe John is warning them that they run the risk of missing Jesus, just as the Pharisees did.

This brings a new way of seeing the last section of the passage too. The man gets thrown out of the synagogue for sticking up for Jesus, and hearing this Jesus tracks him down. The formerly blind man gets to see his Saviour for the first time. Their chat ends with a wonderful climax, the announcement by the man that he believes, followed by his throwing himself at Jesus’ feet in worship. His eyes have been fully opened!

If John is writing this with his peers in mind, what is he saying here?
Verse 16 tells us that the miracle is a sign – it points to something. It points to who Jesus is.
In this story he is pointed to as a prophet – one coming with God’s authority, speaking his will.
He is pointed to as one who can heal the blind – a sign of the Messiah, the Christ, God’s Chosen One.
In that last conversation, Jesus is pointed to as the Son of Man – the one to whom God gives authority over all nations.
He is pointed to as the one by whom all will be judged through their responses to him.

The Pharisees declared, ‘As for this man (v.29) we don’t know where he comes from. The answer is clear – God.

But the amazing message for Johns readers – ourselves included – is that although placing our faith in him doesn’t mean and end to suffering – in the difficult times, this very same Saviour comes and seeks us out and stands by us.

Matthew 1:18-25 - Loose Women!

2008-11-20T14:56:00.004Z

Notes for a sermon preached on the 16th November 2008 (am)

Over the years I have been to hundreds of nativity plays, and I have to say that everyone of them does a better job of it than this one. Everytime I read Matthew’s Christmas story I wonder at all the tricks he’s missed. Look at all the thing’s he’s missing:

· No discussion of Mary’s cousin Elizabeth’s pregnancy and the birth of John the Baptist
· No discussion between Gabriel and Mary – no magnificat
· No Census
· No trip to Bethlehem on a donkey
· No no room in inn
· No manger
· No shepherds and angels on the hillside

Hopeless! What’s left for the nursery children to do in their play? There’s nothing left for the mothers to cry over and the dads to laugh about. In fact, if you read it really carefully, he does the Christmas story in one verse: ‘25But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.’

But that’s to miss the point. Matthew is not really all that concerned with the story of how Jesus was born – he’s got other objectives in mind…

And that’s what our series which Noel started last week is about. Christmas is the only time we get to look at the stories usually, and the catch with that is that we cram the stories into the space of a few weeks, combining bits from John and Luke and Matthew until we get something that ressembles the school nativity, but to be honest, doesn’t really bear much resemblance to the story that the Gospel writers themselves wanted to tell, that which was important to them. Matthew’s Christmas story is different to Luke’s, which in turn is very different to John’s. We’re looking at the Gospel of John in the evening – PLUG EVENING SERVICE – and so what we’re going to do the next few weeks is look at first the Christmas story according to Matthew and then according to Luke, taking time to hear what the actual Gospel writers had to say as individuals, hearing the real story – not the amalgam that we’ve turned it into.

So what’s Matthew’s point? What’s he trying to say? In many ways, this is a Christmas story with a contemporary ring to it. I don’t think they had Heat magazine when Jesus was born, or the News of the World, but if they did, maybe they’d read something like this in the days following Jesus’ death….

SCANDAL – CLAIMS OF CULT FIGURE DISCREDITED
Our reporter on the field can exclusively reveal the shocking news that the so called Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, not only died an humiliating death on the Roman gallows, but also had no claim to David’s line. It transpires that his mother, Mary, had been playing around even whilst engaged! Incredulous disciples have been stunned by this talk of illegitimacy whilst his opponents are delighted.

It would seem that Matthew isn’t really all that interested with the events around Jesus’ birth. He’s more interested in a scandal.

There’s nothing like a scandal to undermine the reputation and standing of a leader. Thing of Nixon and Watergate, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and the numerous allegations surrounding The Conservative party in the 80s and sleaze.

A scandal doesn’t even have to be founded in truth for it to have a disastrous effect. Just a hint of wrongdoing can be enough to get the gossipmongers going, distracting everyone from what is really important. A single innuendo can be enough to topple a public figure from influence and authority.

Gossip is nothing new, and the love of scandal has always been around. What is it that the writer of the Proverbs has to say in the Old Testament:

Proverbs 18:8
The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts.

Proverbs 16:28
The perverse stir up dissension, and gossips separate close friends.

This is why James writes sternly about how Christians should keep a tight rein on their tongues.

At the time of Matthew writing his Gospel, there was a scandal brewing. There was a rumour doing the rounds that Jesus was illegitimate. The rumour was that Mary had slept around, that Joseph wasn’t Jesus’ dad. This was bad news.

It was bad news because it gave him a bad reputation.
It was bad news because it undermined the moral authority of his teaching – or so it was thought.
But most of all it was bad news because it totally undermined Jesus’ claims.

Jesus’ central claim was that he was the Messiah, the Christ, God’s Chosen One. The Old Testament looked forward to a time when the Messiah would come and restore God’s Kingdom, put things right for God’s People. This Messiah was to be an heir to the Kingdom of David – the great King of the Old Testament – and an heir to the promises made by God to Abraham – that his descendents would make a vast nation through whom all people would be blessed. This is why Matthew starts off his Gospel with the genealogy. He is putting forward the claim that Jesus is of Abraham and Davids’ lines. BUT if Jesus was shown to be illegitimate, then his claims came crashing down around him. He might be a great teacher and miracle worker – but God’s Chosen One he most certainly was not!

Matthew makes no attempt to dodge the issue. He doesn’t pretend its not there – through Joseph he admits it. Joseph, he says, was engaged to be married to Mary, and yet while they were betrothed, she became pregnant.

First things first, Matthew makes it clear that Joseph and Mary hadn’t got impatient and decided not to wait until they were married before making love – he makes that clear by saying that this happened ‘before they came together’.

But that doesn’t really help does it. It still leaves that awkward question hanging in the air. If the child isn’t his, whose is it?

It is no surprise that as far as Joseph is concerned, that is it. Relationship is over. Mary is clearly a loose woman. Her feelings for him are clearly not as strong as he would have expected or hoped. I have to say, he is shown to be a man of great humility though and gentleness. Whilst many of us would kick up a fuss and storm out, letting everyone know what had happened (at least they do on Eastenders), Joseph decides to finish it quietly.

This still leaves things hanging awkwardly. Perhaps Mary might get away without the public humiliation from a great bust up – but it still leaves her a single Mum with an illegitimate child. Jesus’ claims are still left in tatters. The scandal still stands.

I want to go back to the genealogy for a moment. Noel did a great job last week of opening it up for us. But as he alluded last week, there is more in it than just claiming that Jesus is descended from Abraham and David. There are these four women.

· We have Tamar – who dressed up as a Temple Prostitute to trick her father-in-law Jacob into having sex with her.
· Then there’s Rahab – the prostitute in Jericho who the spies Joshua sent out to check out the land ‘visited’.
· Next there’s Ruth, who wasn’t beyond seducing Boaz – the innuendos make it clear that there was more here than being friendly – in order to make him take her and Naomi in and look after them when they were destitute.
· Finally there is Bathsheba, here simply called Uriah’s wife, who David fell in lust with and whose husband he had killed so that he could have her for his own.

At first glance this is a real rogues gallery! And then you add Mary who appears to have had an affair with someone ending up pregnant whilst engaged to the wonderful Joseph! I've never intentionally watched the TV programme 'Loose Women', but if you wanted a new panel for a show with that name, you couldn't get much better than this!

If you were a campaign manager for someone on the election trail, you would want to cover these people up wouldn’t you, not boast about them! But Matthew is a wily character. He knows exactly what he is doing.

Each of these four stories is on the face of it a scandal – just like that of Mary – and yet the Jews in Matthew’s time had come to see these women as great heroes. Through Tamar’s actions, Jacob’s line was continued, leading to David. Through Rahab, the spies were protected, and the conquest of the Promised Land made successful, and so on. In each case, their deeds turned out for the good of God’s people. All sorts of legends and traditions grew up around each woman, and apparently another factor these stories have in common at the time of Matthew’s writing is that they see God’s Spirit being on these woman and at work through them.

Through putting these four ladies in the genealogy, before turning to Mary, Matthew is making a point. Don’t judge Mary as being scandalous – through her deeds, whatever they might seem like – good is coming for the People of God. To make the claim complete, he says that just as he was at work in these four women, the Holy Spirit is at work in Mary too – the child is not illegitimate, it was conceived through the Spirit!

How does Matthew know this – because an Angel told Joseph. Joseph had to become Jesus’ Father in order for Jesus to have a rightful claim to be seen as the Heir to David’s Throne and to the Promises given to Abraham.

Of course, this child is no mere son, but Immanuel, God with Us, and Jesus, The Lord Saves.

Is it a scandal?

Yes, but not the one that Matthew was defending against. The scandal is that God’s Son has been born, the Messiah, and yet so few will be celebrating his coming this year, but instead are distracted by the story that isn’t there and the traditions that have buried it. The scandal is that we get so wrapped up with the how he came, that we forget why he came. Now that's a scandal!

Jesus On... The Church

2008-11-04T13:30:00.000Z

Notes for a sermon preached on the 26.10.08

There’s something captivating about chucking stones into an expanse of water. Whenever you find pebbles and water next to each other, you’ll find people picking them up and lobbing them in. What is it about this that makes it so attractive? Is it the chance to show off your strength – how big a stone can you pick up? – how far can you lob it? Is it a chance to show off your technique – have you perfected the art of making the stone skim across the water? Or is it that you’re a lover of the big splash when you chuck your boulder as high as possible to produce the rock equivalent of a belly flop! I for one love throwing stones into water in order to watch the ripples that are produced. There’s something hypnotic about watching the concentric circles, each getting wider as a new one is created inside it.

It would be a bit of an understatement to say that Jesus caused a bit of a splash when he started his public ministry. Here was a man who exploded onto the scene with great authority.
· He came speaking as one carrying the words of God himself.
· He came fashioning miracles the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the time of Moses – he healed the sick, turned water into wine and ironically caused the waves to cease and the storm to still.
· He came offering forgiveness, bringing release to those who were burdened by guilt, but also concern to those who believed that only God had the power to pardon.
· He came calling people to follow him, expecting them to place their allegiance in him.

We’ve heard these words before as we’ve gone through this series, but I think they bear repeating as they summarise so well the dramatic nature of Jesus’ work:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
Luke 4:18-19

Jesus was a revolutionary, announcing the Kingdom of God as open, but in ways that no one imagined before.
This was a Kingdom that was open to all people, not just the Jews.
This was a Kingdom that was open to the poor, not just the rich – in fact those who were rich may struggle to get in!
This was a Kingdom where all people were valued and valuable.
This was a Kingdom where the first would be last and the last would be first.
This was a Kingdom where power was exercised through washing other people’s feet, a Kingdom where it was better to give than to receive, where sacrifice counted for more than accumulation.

Not only did Jesus come announcing this radical Kingdom, but he also demonstrated it. Unlike so many, he was not just about fine words, but was prepared to put his money where his mouth was, so to speak.

The ripples from this heaven sent stone were enormous.
· They started by the shores of Galilee, but quickly spread from this backwater to the Big Pond of Jerusalem.
· The poor and outcast celebrated.
· The blind did indeed see, and the oppressed were set free.
· The crowds thronged to cheer him on
· The religious leaders were unsettled.
· The political leaders were disturbed.
· Outrage was heard in corridors of power.

Jesus’ mission had a single objective.

Of course, as we’ve looked at over the last few weeks, this single objective was not and is not a simple one to achieve. Before we moved, I decided to clean the oven. It will only take a few minutes I’d thought, but that estimation hadn’t taken into account the impenetrable effect of layers of caked in grime that cookers attract over the years. I can now proudly announce that you can see through the glass doors and pick it up, should you so wish to, without handling greasy feet!

Over the years, humanity produced layers and layers of grim – and I’m not just talking about literal grease here. This single objective was going to cost in sweat and tears. To release us from the guilt of our deeds would cost Jesus his life. Through this might act of sacrifice the stains and filth of our world were and are being absorbed and made clean, his resurrection power bringing new life.

But Jesus had a bigger plan in mind than causing a stir in Palestine. His work was that of changing the world, restoring it to the beautiful creation that God had spoken into existence, restoring it, making it new.

There is a problem with ripples. Once the stone has impacted the water, a clock strats ticking. The ripples travel outwards, but as they go, their strength weakens, until eventually they stop and the water goes still.

Don’t for one-minute fall into the trap of thinking that when Jesus returned to his Father than he wanted this to happen. Don’t believe that Jesus went content to let the disturbance that he’d caused settle down, the waters still, and the status quo return. When he turned over the tables of the money lenders in the Temple, he never meant for them to be put back up again. When he announced ‘Blessed are the poor’ he didn’t add for three years only. When he hung on the cross, he didn’t announce this is for you only. Jesus intended his ripples to be different, to continue flooding across the world – not just Palestine – until he returns again.

And this is where we come in!

A dream only lasts while it is being dreamt, a relay race only continues as long as the batton is passed. Ripples will continue as long as stones are cast into the water.

We only have record of Jesus using the word church twice, and even then it is debated if that is the word he actually uttered or if this is a word that the Gospel writers placed in his lips to help readers of their time understand what he was talking about. People debate if Jesus invented the church, or if it is some later creation by Paul or other leader. There is no doubt though, if you read the Gospels, that Jesus had every intention of forming a people to continue his work when he left.

Follow me he demanded of Levi, Peter and Andrew, James and John. Around him he gathered his twelve disciples, spent time with them, teaching them, praying with them, laughing and enjoying their company. As their relationship develops, one day Jesus turns around to them and asks,

"Who do people say the Son of Man is?"
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
(Matthew 16:13-18)

This is one of those few times when Jesus uses the word church. What actual word he uses is irrelevant though. What is important is that here we have Jesus saying that he is going to build a movement of people around Peter as his leader, the leader of the church in Jerusalem after his death, and based on the proclamation that Jesus is God’s Christ, the Chosen One. This is the Church.

And what is it that Jesus gets this movement to do?

When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them: "Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them." So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.
(Luke 9:1-6)

In other words, Jesus wanted them to continue his work. He was training them, mentoring them to continue making the same ripples he had been making. This is the Church.

Then, as he left them after his resurrection, he left them with these words:

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
(Matthew 28:16-20)

Just as Jesus came into this world to create ripples, make a big splash, he passed on to his followers the instruction and power to do the same. If they did that, then he would be with them, working in and through them by his Spirit.

What’s more, he instructed them to do what he had done, pass on the work to the next group, keep the ripples flowing. The Church envisioned by Jesus for today is the same as that he started with the 12, people gathering together as a family, spending time with him, praying, learning, laughing, and going out to make a difference.

The Old Testament tells of another time when God made a wave to sort out this world, the story of the Flood and Noahs’ Ark. He’s now sending a second wave, a wave of people not water, to deluge this world with his love and wash it clean. Pick up your stones, and start the ripples flowing.

John 5 - Jesus, the Bringer of Life

2008-10-20T10:58:00.000+01:00

Notes from a sermon preached on 19.10.08 - see comments

It’s amazing what responses a genuine attempt at doing something good can have. I remember a few years ago being on a trip with L. H. who used to come to Wormley. We were driving to a Sierra Leone Mission meeting in Sussex, approaching the Dartford crossing. I’d been telling her about some sessions I’d had at the Soul survivor Church in Watford. There, Mike Pilavachi was encouraging us to be ‘generous in obscurity’ – in other words to do good deeds but in such a way that no one would no who it was, or would bring us praise. He told us the tale of one time when he’d been going over the Dartford Crossing, and decided to pay the toll not just for himself, but also for the car behind – even though he had no idea who was driving in it. Masterful idea I thought. We decided we’d give it ago. We sorted the money out, £1 for us and a £1 for the car behind. The tension rose in the car as we crossed lanes to get to one where there was a human attendant. I wound the window down, reached over, handed him the money and proudly said – that’s for us and the car behind! That felt good. Our bubble was somewhat burst when the guy leaned down and said – it’s a van, that’ll be another 20p please… Sadly, we didn’t have that on us…

Then there was the time when we took this idea of trying to good things for no return onto the streets of Cheshunt. We spent a day painting the Drill Hall, putting up fire alarms and such like. My abiding memory is of Jack Wells, chasing some disbelieving bloke down the street, clutching a biscuit and hot cup of tea, insisting that it really was for free…

The pool at Bethesda was the place of last resort. This is where those who couldn’t afford to pay for health care came – or those for whom health care had no answer. The blind, the lame and the paralysed lay there in great numbers, waiting, hoping. The pool was said to have healing powers

One invalid had been laying by its waters for some 38 years. What sort of life does that hint at! He wasn’t able to get to the waters by himself, and when he needed to –when the waters stirred suggesting the healing powers were there, he had to call out for someone to help him. This took time – everyone else was too busy getting themselves into the pool. I suspect you can picture the scene – a bit like Harrods at the start of the January Sales where everyone simply stampedes to get ahead, leaving everyone else in their wake. By the time he found someone kind enough to give him a hand, he’d missed his chance, and it was back to the edge of the pool to await the next time. It was no wonder that he’d given up hope – can you imagine 38 years of missing out like this. His only hope had been a constant no hope.

I imagine by now to be honest he had given up. This life had become familiar. Being a victim, a martyr to his condition, had become his identity. It was who he was.

This happens easily. Amongst my gaming friends it is a running joke that I am cursed because I rarely seem to roll a good dice roll in the games we play. Most of the time, it is taken for granted that I will fail, and to be honest, most of the time I think that too.

Of course it can be more serious than that. I think of my friends in Sierra Leone who’s country has been in such a bad way for so long that they have got stuck in a rut of thinking that they have nothing and can do nothing for themselves and are dependent on aid from charities and governments. Part of our job in the mission is getting them to see beyond that and begin to help themselves.

On a personal level, maybe we’ve always got the impression from others that we’re not attractive, or clever or popular. These remarks or behaviour shown towards us can be way of the mark, but we can easily take it on, and begin to believe that we are that thing and get stuck there. This can be a hard place to escape from.

Into this hopeless situation comes Jesus. Hearing about this invalid, Jesus turns to him. ‘Do you want to get well?’ I wonder what emotion that phrase was charged with? Was it a gentle question? A rebuke ‘Do you really want to get well?’ Was he trying to encourage the man or shock him out of his despair, or even was he trying to rebuke him for his self-pity? The man’s answer is a helpless one, no one will help me… he has given up.

But then Jesus calls him to get up, pick up his mat and walk. At once the man is cured, and that is exactly what he does! The word for ‘get up’ here is the greek verb ‘egeire’ – remember that, we’ll come back to that later.

I find it fascinating that we’re not told what the man thought of this. It doesn’t tell us that he went away leaping and praising God, or that he reluctantly gave up his life of begging. Instead the continuing conversation is on the question of who it was that healed him. This is probably quite important. It would be all too easy to tell this story in wonderful detail. To spend time elaborating how the man felt, what the reaction of the crowds was and so on. But as exciting as these things would be, John wants us to focus on one fact. Jesus is the one who can enter into hopeless situations and change them. Jesus is the one who can heal, who can set free the victim, who has the power to turn lives around. Jesus is the bringer of life. If you ever feel in such a situation or place, you needed despair, as there is one who can make the difference.

***
There is more to this story though than this miraculous healing. John wants us to discover through it something more about this life-bringer.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were in many ways a great bunch. They had a passion for doing what God wanted. They poured over the scriptures which they believed revealed to them what God wanted, and strove to understand what that meant for them in the age that they were living in. Over time they produced lists of how they thought the law should be applied to their culture, in many ways they were doing what most churches do most Sundays during the sermon. We often knock them – as Jesus himself did – but at heart their motivation for doing what they did was not a bad one.

They lived in a multi-cultural society. This mean that they had to work hard to maintain their distinctive identity. Not surprisingly the command to make the Sabbath a rest day became a key one – this truly did mark them out from those around them. One of the guidelines they drew up was that you shouldn’t carry things on a Sabbath…

Jesus was in trouble. To be accurate, he was in double trouble. Not only had he performed a miracle on the Sabbath = work, but he had also got the man to pick up his matt = work. Can you picture the scene? Jesus gets home pleased about his day, when there is a knock on the door. It’s the elders. The minister has heard he’s been up to no good and has sent them round to deal with it…

Jesus has a quick retort, v.17, ‘My Father is always at work to this very day, and, I too, am working.’ If God stopped working, the world would end. He needs to keep working to sustain it day by day. In other words the rule could be, and ought to be, broken in order to do good.

You’re out and about and you see a little girl fall over, hurt herself and burst out into tears. What do you do? Do you rush over, brush her down, comfort her and look for her parents? Or do you stand back and hope someone else might help because you’re concerned about people’s response to your actions in the age of CRB checks and litigation?

Someone comes to church who you’ve not seen before. It soon becomes clear that they don’t really know what they’re supposed to do, and they keep butting in during the sermon. What do you do? Tell them to be quiet, or allow them to have their say?

It’s all too easy for us to let rules and guidelines dictate how we live, instead of the desire to express love. It is also all too easy to let them affect the way those outside the church see us and more importantly our God. Catch is, it isn’t always so easy to see this happening unless someone points it out to us. This is why I’ve appreciated visiting other churches or going to Sierra Leone. Stepping out of our own cultures helps us to evaluate them afresh. What are your priorities? Doing things as they’re supposed to be, or bringing life?

Jesus, John tells us, was all about bringing life. That was his top priority, and he wasn’t going to let traditions or rules get in his way…

***
So we have this developing picture of Jesus as the one who can bring life even into the most despairing of situations, and the one who makes bringing life his top priority. This behaviour gets Jesus into trouble – not that this stops him at all. But what really starts the friction between him and the religious leaders, what blows this debate from an argument to hatred, is what Jesus also claims.

He claims a special relationship with God – he calls him his Father.

He claims that he does what his Father reveals to him – in other words, God has made him privy to his plans. Think about that for a moment. What does that mean? Most of the time I’m not privy to the Prime Ministers plans. To know what he has on his mind, you’d need to be in the cabinet or close to him in some way. Here Jesus is saying that he such a close relationship with God, close enough for God to reveal his plans to him, and close enough that God wants him to do them.

He claims that he can do things that most Jews thought were God’s prerogative. He claims that he has the power and the authority to raise people to life – not just a renewed life as in the invalid at the pool at Bethesda, but to raise people to eternal life, just as his Father does. Equally, he has the power and authority to judge those he raises – as he is the Son of Man. Incidentally the word used for raise in vs. 28,29 here is the same as the word used for ‘get up’ in Jesus’ instruction to the invalid. It is the same life giving power.

Remember that vision in Daniel where he sees one like a Son of Man approaching the Ancient of Days and being given power and authority? Jesus is claiming to be him.

Put this together and you have an outrageous claim – Jesus is clearly saying that he is more than just the bringer of life. He is claiming that he is the source of life, God himself. He has a different role to the Father, but is equal to him in status and of the same power and will.

Many things set Jesus up against the religious leaders of his day. There was ‘professional jealousy’, the way he was more popular than them, his criticism of their hypocrisy, his stand against Roman oppression and the implications of their being crossed and so on. But this was the one thing that above all others riled them and lead ultimately to his death; his claim to be divine.

Knowing that they took offence to this, he calls upon the witness of John the Baptist, the reality of his miracles and the thrust of scripture to support his claims. This is what I am, and these things prove it.

***
Through this story a picture of Jesus has been gradually and carefully crafted.
· Jesus is the one who can bring life even into the most hopeless of situations.
· More than that, bringing life is his top priority, above following laws and traditions.
· Jesus has the power to not only bring life to us here, but also life in the world to come, where he will raise us to either new life or judgement
· How is this? Because Jesus is not just the bringer of life, but the source of life, God himself. Through him all things were created as John puts it in his introduction!

What does this mean to us? We have a response to make. Do we, like the religious leaders of the day deny his claims, and risk his judgement? Or do we, like the invalid at the pool accept his offer.

Jesus On… His Death

2008-10-13T12:13:00.000+01:00

Notes on a sermon preached on 12.10.08

Romeo, O Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo!

Romeo and Juliet, a whirlwind romance, a match made in heaven, but for us, the audience, it is from the start a tragedy. We know that they are from families bitterly divided, the Montagues and Capulets. There is a horrible feeling of inevitability as their eyes meet for the first time. This love is a love doomed to tragedy and all we can do is sit and watch in horror as their family feud closes in on them, and despite their increasingly desperate actions, nothing can be done to save them. A tale of helplessness.

The collapse of the world banking system at the moment has that same sickening feeling of inevitability. Only a year or so ago and everything was rosy, but suddenly we hear of sub-prime mortgages in the US, followed by the run on Northern Rock, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, HBOS, and the banks of Iceland, one after the other. Where’s this all going to go? What’s going to happen next? Governments and banks are doing all that they can to try and rescue the market from unravelling, but they are powerless. You know how everything goes in slow motion when you can see an accident happening but there is nothing you can do about it? So it is with the financial crisis right now. Everyone can see what is happening, even if they don’t understand it, but there seems to be nothing that anyone can do. A tale of helplessness.

‘I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?’ (Rom 7:15-24) A tale of helplessness.

In so many ways, the human story, our story, your story is a story of helplessness. So often we can see what is wrong in the world, or in ourselves, but there is nothing we can do about it.

This tale of helplessness is played out in the life of Jesus as well.

As you read through the Gospel of Luke, there’s that same sickening feeling. The stories start off at a fair pace as we move through the early ministry of Jesus; his miracles, teaching, and parables. But then it slows…

Jesus seems to be on a collision course, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. It all starts with admiring crowds and great popularity. Everyone wants to see a miracle, to be there when he speaks. He’s the new kid on the block, the latest big name, and everyone wants a piece of him. But as so often happens, this celebrity goes sour. Those who came before him become bitter when they see him taking their place. The Jewish religious leaders become jealous and don’t get what this fresh faced rabbi is all about. Soon their private concerns become public rivalry, eventually all out hostility.

There’s talk of shady acts, plotting and murder. Eventually it ends up with an unholy alliance between the most unexpected of bedfellows, the Jewish leaders and the Roman authorities. The events pan out before us, moving ever slower, in greater detail.

He’s dragged before Pilate who finds nothing wrong with him. Despite this, somehow he ends up before Herod, who can also find nothing that he has done that is wrong. Yet Jesus still is not allowed to go. Every attempt to release him is blocked. The stakes escalate. Eventually Pilate in desperation remembers his annual tradition of releasing a convict. Surely they’d prefer to see Jesus go than the thug Barrabas!

But no, give us Barrabas the crowd cry! Crucify Jesus!

And so somehow, on the Cross we find Jesus. He never should have been there. It should not have happened, and yet no one could stop it.

A couple of years ago, Kate and I went to Parc St. Paul, one of the top theme parks in France. Made every effort to get there early so we could get to the front of the queues and have a full day there. When we arrived, we found it was deserted. Just us in the car park! Got straight on to everything we wanted to. There was one ride where we were strapped in – that should have sounded the alarm bells! – and lifted up what seemed like miles into the air, leaving the children pulling faces at us far below. In fact when we reached the top, Rowan seemed smaller than an ant. When we eventually stopped we began to panic. What if something happened to the children while we were strapped in all these miles above them? To be honest, this was merely a cover for the real reason we were panicking. We were strapped in miles above the ground and any moment now the ride would plunge us straight back down at some ridiculous speed! Time past slowly with us dangling, suspended mid air, helpless. Just as we thought it had broken down. Wooosh!!!…

At the heart of this story about helplessness is Jesus.

He’s pleaded with his friends to stay awake and pray with him, but they all fell asleep, and then one by one deserted him. The trials are a mockery, and he knows it – there’s no point in making a fuss and so he keeps quiet. His clothes are stripped from him, and with them his dignity. On that Cross, the whole world circles him, like vultures over a dying creature. Even his Father seems to turn from him – as he calls in another Gospel, ‘My God, my god, why have you forsaken me!’ Helpless, all he can do is take it.

The sign above him reads ‘King of the Jews’ and yet this is a King with no power. The taunt of the crowd who only a few days before cried Hosanna.
Even the criminal next to him looks down upon him – hailing down curses on him, ‘Aren’t you God’s chosen one? Save yourself and us!’ The one who held the masses in the palm of his hand, indeed, the one who held the stars in his hands, now holds only a nail and the heaped disgust of those who had offered him before adulation. Helpless, all he can do is take it.

Couldn’t anyone stop this? His friends tried. Pilate tried. Even Jesus himself called out for this cup to be taken from him! How could it be that one so wise, so good and so powerful could end up this way?

Here’s the thing. When the crook on the cross by him shouted, ‘Save yourself and save us’, Jesus faced a dilemma. Jesus had always known that this moment was coming. In fact he’d chosen it. He wasn’t helpless. Yes, everything that happened was done to him, but it was his decision that had bought him here, his obedience to his Father’s will.

As far back as Luke 9:22 we read Jesus revealing this to his disciples,

"The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life."

Then a bit later in Luke 13:31-33,

‘At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, "Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you." He replied, "Go tell that fox, 'I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.' In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!’

Time and time again Jesus makes similar comments. He is perfectly clear that the conclusion of his teaching and miracles is the Cross at the hands of God’s people. And yet he chooses to continue. He has every opportunity to go another way. And yet he resolutely refuses. His disciples try to stop him saying such things, try to deter him from heading to this fate, but when they do he rebukes them, (Mark 8: 33)

‘But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."’

So what’s the dilemma? When the criminal hanging next to him cried out ‘save yourself and us’, he could save himself, and he could save us, only he couldn’t do both. Either he could save himself from the anguish of the Cross, or he could save us from our sinfulness –that helplessness that we looked at a couple of weeks ago that means that although we want to do good, we can’t help but do wrong, wrong to ourselves, our neighbours and to God himself.

Hanging there above Golgotha, Jesus looked again at those around him and made his choice once more.

He looked at the woman wailing because of what he was enduring, and he was overwhelmed at their helplessness, telling them not to weep over him, but to weep for what they were about to have done to them.
He looked at those crucifying him, their helplessness in their deeds, and called out ‘Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.’

To the criminal that turned and asked to be remembered in his kingdom, overcome with love he assured, ‘I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise’

Remember Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness – now as then, at any point Jesus could have called upon hosts of angels to come and release him. But surveying those around them, helpless in their sin and the sins of others, he made his choice. He chose to save us.

Jesus never explains how his death saves us. In someway, through his willingly taking on himself the helplessness that we all experience, and absorbing all anger and hatred that was sent his way, the sins of the world, he took our place. Somehow, from the Cross, he calls out ‘Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing’ he knows that through his sacrifice, those who place his trust in him are forgiven, are saved. He is willing to die there, to commit his spirit, his life, his breath to his Father in death, as he knows through that death he has restored our broken relationship with God.

Back to the introduction to Romeo and Juliet:

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Through the sacrifice of these helpless star-crossed lovers, the two warring families are brought to peace.

Read Isaiah 53
Through Jesus choosing to be helpless, choosing to save us not himself, we are given the chance to be reconciled with our Father, if we say yes to what he has done for us.

You Must Be Born Again? (John 3)

2008-10-09T13:40:00.000+01:00

Notes from a sermon preached on 05.10.08

‘Are you a born again Christian?’
It’s funny that this phrase has become a shorthand way of asking if you are a particular kind of Christian, if you buy into a particular way of doing Christianity.
Bit of an oxymoron really – Jesus says that to enter the Kingdom of God you need to be born again. In other words you can’t be a Christian and yet not born again!

Love the way Jesus used word-pictures and often deliberately ambiguous words in order to provoke people to think and to see new ideas.

You must be born again is one of those phrases.

What I want you to try and do is listen to this phrase as if you’re hearing it for the first time – put aside all the connotations that can come with it, put aside the meanings you’ve heard given to it. Try and put yourselves in Nicodemus’ shoes for a moment. Here he is, a significant religious leader, coming to Jesus in the night. We’re not told why he came. Has he come to test him? We have many other stories of Pharisees and teachers of the law doing just that. Has he come because he wants to know more, but is embarrassed or worried about what his colleagues might say if they knew hence using the cover of darkness? Or is it simply that he works long hours, studying the scriptures into the late hours every night? We’ve not told. His motive is not clear, what he wants to find out is unclear – and we never find out as Jesus interrupts before he can say anything…

‘I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again’

Imagine hearing it for the first time – put aside all the connotations and associations it has developed in the last 2 millenium. I would imagine if I heard it today for the first time, like Nicodemus I would imagine it had some literal meaning With Nicodemus I would be saying – what do you mean, you’re talking rubbish. How can we be born again? How can we climb back into our mothers’ wombs? The very idea is ludicrous!

But whatever Nicodemus really thought about Jesus, he saw him as a teacher, a wise-man – maybe even from God (he knew of the miracles after all). Given time Nicodemus would have realised that Jesus must have meant something else. Perhaps he means something more poetic? Perhaps it is a metaphor of some kind.

What do you associate with a new born child? What are young babies like?

· Dependence
· Vulnerability
· Wonder
· Trust
· New future ahead
· Chance to grow up again
· Fresh start
· Learning afresh

What is it Jesus said elsewhere about how to enter the Kingdom of Heaven – unless you become like one of these (referring to children)…

But how can we return to that state? Even if we’re not meant to be literally born again, if we’re meant only to regain that way of seeing the world and ourselves, its still an impossible dream isn’t it? Once you’ve lost childlike innocence, how can you ever forget what you’ve learnt or experienced? Once you’ve become jaded, how can you become trusting again?

Nicodemus clearly doesn’t get it either, and Jesus responds to his confusion with another strange statement.

‘No one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying you must be born again.’

So what does this mean? Does it help us grasp anymore about what being born again means?

Being born of water? What does this mean? Could it refer to natural birth – ‘my waters have broken!’ Or maybe it alludes to the waters of baptism, the symbol of the start of our Christian life?

How about flesh giving birth to flesh? Some have seen this as being in contrast to Spirit giving birth to spirit – flesh being an evil thing, the Spirit being good. But the word translated flesh here is not the one used by Paul to mean our sinful nature, the inclination to do wrong that we all have. No this word simply means flesh, skin and bones, the stuff we are made of. This has no negative connotations at all. He is simply contrasting human birth with divine birth.

Jesus is calling for something more than what we can humanly achieve. Being born again entails some sort of spiritual birth, initiated by the Holy Spirit.

Let’s leave John for a while and return to Genesis for a moment. One of my favourite and oft repeated pictures is that of God breathing the breath of life into the model of Adam formed from the earth. The Hebrew word for breath is ruach. The same word is used for the Spirit in the Old Testament. In that first birth, God is breathing his Spirit into Adam. Now here’s the thing. The Greek word for Spirit is pneuma, and you’ll never guess what that word can also mean? Yes, breath!

By saying we must be born again, and that we must be born of water and of spirit, is Jesus saying that in some God enabled way, we must be recreated, restored to that first creation – to be made again as we were always meant to be made?

I’ve never seen that connection mentioned before, but I can’t help but see it. In order to enter the Kingdom of God we need to regain that which Adam lost when he was cast out of the Garden of Eden – if not lost, that which became corrupted, tarnished, God’s spirit, God’s breath, his image in us.

But we end up saying the same thing again – how can I be born again? I can’t climb into the womb? I can’t regain innocence lost? Eden is barred and I can’t go back, or somehow breath in God’s breath afresh.

And yet, Jesus is surprised by that. ‘You are Israel’s teacher and you do not understand these things?’ He expects Nicodemus, the Pharisee and member of the ruling Jewish Council to understand, to know what he’s talking about. Doesn’t this imply that that his background should have alerted him to what Jesus is saying? Is there something in Old Testament – the Scriptures that Nicodemus would have loved so much, that would help us understand this phrase better?

There is, Ezekiel 36. In this chapter God announces that having punished the Israelites because of their sin by sending them into Exile, he is now going to astonish the nations and show them his power by bringing them home and gathering them up to himself:

24 " 'For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God.

God is to bring his people back to him, to cleanse with water and restore them through his Spirit (its that being born by water and spirit again). No doubt Nicodemus thought this had happened when they returned from Exile, but there is something more here that Jesus is alluding to. This being born again is not something we can achieve, but that only God can do for us. He sprinkles water on us, he puts his Spirit in us.

Remember I said that Jesus loved to use ambiguous words. This phrase ‘born again’ can be translated or understood in two ways. The other way is ‘born of above’ or ‘born from above’. The only way we can enter the Kingdom of God, to receive eternal life, to be part of the New Jerusalem of Revelation, is through God’s work, not our own. It is no coincidence that following this passage in Ezekiel is the story of God bringing life to old bones in Ezekiel 37 (read Ez. 37:1-14?) Here God call’s the four winds to come and breath into the bones, to bring the skeletons to life – its that word again, wind, breath, ruach, Spirit. God brings new birth through his power, through his Spirit. God can do the impossible, that which we cannot.

And how does this come about? John explains in the most famous verse of all, John 3:16. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not die but have eternal life.’ Jesus, God’s sent Son, was lifted up for us on the Cross so that we may be cleansed and restored, renewed to what we were before the Fall, children of God.

Do you wish to receive this gift?
Do you wish to be restored, renewed?
Do you want innocence lost to be found?
Doesn’t just refer to that point when we become a Christian, but also to our lives as a whole as we allow God to transform us by his Spirit into his likeness.
Prayer for God’s promised renewal.

Jesus On... Humanity

2008-10-09T13:38:00.000+01:00

Notes from a sermon preached on the 28.10.09

Mother Terasa once said about the poor she was caring for,

“Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.”

She also once said,

“I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.”

Here’s another quote, this time by one of the most influential theologians of the Reformation, Martin Luther,

“It is also taught among us that since the fall of Adam all men who are born according to the course of nature are conceived and born in sin. That is, all men are full of evil lust and inclinations from their mothers’ wombs and are unable by nature to have true fear of God and true faith in God. Moreover, this inborn sickness and hereditary sin is truly sin and condemns to the eternal wrath of God all those who are not born again through Baptism and the Holy Spirit. Rejected in this connection are the Pelagians and others who deny that original sin is sin, for they hold that natural man is made righteous by his own powers, thus disparaging the sufferings and merit of Christ.”

Many of you will know the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The main character in the book is Dr. Jekyll, a friendly, helpful and happy gentleman in a story by Robert Louis Stevenson. Alongside Jekyll there is Mr Hyde, a wild violent monster of a man. As the story develops it becomes clear that Hyde is in fact the same man as Jekyll, he is Jekyll’s evil side, brought out by a self concocted potion.

The church seems to have a Jekyll and Hyde attitude towards today’s topic – us. Or rather, we seem to see ourselves as either a Jekyll or a Hyde.

One of the sections of the Bible I keep coming back to when I’m thinking about the big themes of life is Genesis 1-3. Somehow its simple and captivating storyline captures so much of what it means to be human and why the world is the way it is.

If you remember back to the first week I talked about what theology is and that we all have a theology – a framework through which we understand God. This framework informs how we read the Bible and hopefully our reading of the Bible informs our theology.

These three chapters provide a great example of this. Depending on how you see humans affects which of these chapters you may focus on.

On the one you have story of Creation in Genesis 1. God makes the world, and at every step he looks back at what he has made and declares that it is good. The pinnacle of his creation is humanity itself, and again it is good. More than that, they are made in the image of God – they are created to reflect the character of their Creator. Genesis 2 expands this picture of who we were made to be. This story shows us God forming Adam, the first man, and breathing his life into him. This tells us that we are special to God – everything else he spoke into existence, but we have the breath of God in him. Adam and Eve, his God made partner, are then sent to work for God in Eden. Genesis 3 implies that as they worked in the Garden, God would often come and walk with them, that they would chat and spend time together. This is a wonderful picture of the goodness and specialness of humanity – Dr. Jekyll if you like.

But then you have Genesis 3. You probably know the story. God has told them that they can east from any plant bar one, and yet, tempted by the Serpent, Adam and Eve eat from it. Nothing is the same again. They realise that they are naked – their innocence is lost. Their trust of each other and of God is lost, relationships are broken. The world itself is changed – they are sent banished from the Garden and fin that work is no longer pure pleasure, but difficult toil. Like Pandora’s box, now the first sin is out, others follow – it seems that their descendents cannot stop themselves from doing wrong – before long we have greed, suspicion, murder, lies and all sorts of immorality. Something is broken in people and they can’t put it right. Even the greatest of figures – the Moses’ and Davids of this world – can’t help but fall into sin. This is a pattern that continues through time – look at the frontpages of the tabloids, they don’t read that differently today. Humanity has become Mr Hyde.

Jekyll, humanity created good and in God’s image, and Hyde, humanity fallen and corrupt. How we balance these two aspects dramatically effects how we see God and each people. If you think those around you are Hyde’s you’re going to treat them in a completely different way than if you see them as Jekyll’s. You would also imagine that God will view us quite differently too.

So what does Jesus have to say?

………

Screaming broke the sound of intent listening in the Temple Courts. A rabble of devout Pharisees and Rabbis dragged in a distraught woman and threw her onto the ground at the floor in front of Jesus. ‘Here, Jesus. We’ve caught this woman red-handed in bed with another man. We all know adultery is wrong. What should we do?

Weighing up the situation, Jesus turned from them, picked up a stone and hefted at her…

One of the most disturbing things I have ever read is the Sermon on the Mount, the collection of Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 5-7. We can try and put these statements down as hyperbole on the part of Jesus, or pretend they’re not there, but they are:

Mt. 5:20 ‘For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.’

Mt. 5:22 ‘But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.
’
Mt. 5:27-30 ‘"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body 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 part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.’

And so it goes…

This does not paint a pretty picture does it? If we read these statements honestly, then we all know that we are in dire straits. I was tempted to make some joke about breaking each of these before the morning is out most days – I’ve done it before – but what Jesus is saying is that this is no joking matter. Our lives continue that pattern of hurt and destruction that Adam and Eve started. We are unable to stop ourselves, and if Jesus is telling the truth, like them we too are under judgement because of it.

Theologians talk about this condition as being ‘original sin’ the idea that we continue the pattern of Adam and Eve’s behaviour, or that somehow their sinfulness is passed down to us. Another famous theologian put it like this:

“Original sin, therefore, seems to be a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God's wrath, then also brings forth in us those works which Scripture calls "works of the flesh" (Gal 5:19). And that is properly what Paul often calls sin. The works that come forth from it--such as adulteries, fornications, thefts, hatreds, murders, carousings--he accordingly calls "fruits of sin" (Gal 5:19-21), although they are also commonly called "sins" in Scripture, and even by Paul himself.”

………

Screaming broke the sound of intent listening in the Temple Courts. A rabble of devout Pharisees and Rabbis dragged in a distraught woman and threw her onto the ground at the floor in front of Jesus. ‘Here, Jesus. We’ve caught this woman red-handed in bed with another man. We all know adultery is wrong. What should we do?

Weighing up the situation, Jesus turned from them, bent down and started to scrawl in the dust with his finger.

‘Jesus, answer us. You’re a Rabbi. What should we do?’ the mob demanded once more.

‘The one of you that has not sinned should pick up the first stone’, came back the sad reply. Silence. One by one they began to leave, the oldest first. Jesus then looked at the woman with undemanding love and said, ‘ignore what they say, you’re a free woman, follow your heart…’

Going back to the Sermon on the Mount with its stringent demands, it has always struck me as a paradox how it begins. Jesus looks at the crowd, the rejects of his time, a huddle of rejects and sinners, and starts with the words, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’. Poor in spirit? What does that mean? Lacking in prayer life? Far from God? Unable to do what God calls for? Its hardly a term of congratulations is it!

Unless I’ve totally missed the point, Jesus seems to be saying to this group of people that despite their poor picture of God, lack of faith and lives that fail to impress, that God has chosen them! They are indeed lucky!

And so we have a Jekyll and Hyde situation again. On the one hand Jesus condemns us to being Hydes – by the standards he sets we are all condemned, and yet in the same breath he seems to suggest that we are also Jekylls, chosen by God because of or despite our spiritual poverty. What does this mean? How can this be?

………

Screaming broke the sound of intent listening in the Temple Courts. A rabble of devout Pharisees and Rabbis dragged in a distraught woman and threw her onto the ground at the floor in front of Jesus. ‘Here, Jesus. We’ve caught this woman red-handed in bed with another man. We all know adultery is wrong. What should we do?

Weighing up the situation, Jesus turned from them, bent down and started to scrawl in the dust with his finger.

‘Jesus, answer us. You’re a Rabbi. What should we do?’ the mob demanded once more.

‘The one of you that has not sinned should pick up the first stone’, came back the sad reply. Silence. One by one they began to leave, the oldest first. Jesus then looked at the woman …but not with undemanding love, but unconditional love. ‘Has no one condemned you? Neither do I. Go away – but sin no more…’

You see, it isn’t a case of one or the other, it can be both. Jesus isn’t recoiled by our corruptness. He still sees us with eyes of love – he can see God’s image in us, distorted maybe, but still there. He also isn’t naïve. He sees the sin and distains it. The story of Jekyll and Hyde is at heart not a horror story, but a tragedy. The tragedy is that they are the same man. Hyde is capable of love as he is really Jekyll. The tragedy is that Jekyll is incapable of rescuing himself and Hyde doesn’t want to.

And this is why Jesus, God’s Son, became one of us. As God looks at us, he can see the tragedy of the human condition – despair at what we have become and what we could be. The great news is that whilst we can’t do anything about it, like poor Jekyll, Jesus can. Jesus’ mission was one of restoring God’s creation, rescuing it from its fallenness. This is at the heart of what he means when he talks to Nicodemus who has asked what he must do to receive eternal life, and says you must be born again – in other words, made new through him.

Jesus On... Jesus

2008-10-09T13:35:00.000+01:00

Notes from a sermon preached on 14.09.08

The internet is a dangerous thing. The most innocent of searches can turn up all sorts of dodgy sites. I remember when the school first went online, the County invested in a filter which meant that computers couldn’t access sites which contained words deemed inappropriate found in a list which was constantly being updated. Great idea – but it didn’t really work – sites containing the word porn were rightly censored, but so too were sites containing the word Middlesex…

In my experience, churches have a similar list of words which are avoided. Some of these are for good reasons, others shouldn’t really be there. Today we’re starting a new sermon series looking at one of these words, the ‘T-word’

"The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion." - Thomas Paine , The Age of Reason

Before I went to Bible College I'd heard so many stories about what can happen to theology students. They go in sorted and sound, but when they come out, their tutors have battered their faith out of them and replaced it with theology - changed something dynamic and lifebringing into something dry and dead

To many theology is a bit of a swear word - something to be avoided. Either because its something that you need a a list of ologies as long as your arm to understand, or because it has no real impact on the real world and how we live, or as these stories said, it goes against real faith by questioning what the Bible really says.

But what is theology? Many definitions. In contrast to Thomas Paine’s statement about theology being the study of nothing, Anselm of Canterbury famously wrote that theology is "faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum)." I like to look at the literal meaning of the word theology - the study of God, thinking about God, or God Talk.

Theology is all about understanding what we believe, not just believing it blindly, seeking answers to questions such as: Who is God? Who is Jesus? How can humans be the source of so much that is good, but also the source of so much misery and pain? Can the world be put right? And so on.

Isn't this what Psalm 1 says will make us prosper and bear fruit!

1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

Truth is, we all have a theology - an understanding about who God is and who we are. It is important to recognise that. It is also important to recognise that our theology affects how we interpret Bible passages (as well as hopefully the other way around)

In our new series we plan to have a look at Christian theology, and hopefully show that it is fun, but also that it has a real impact on our faith and how we live in a positive way.

Of course theology can be dry as gunpowder - I have tombs of theology books at home. I suspect that some of you have heard the dreaded ‘t-word’ and have begun to shut off already. But, hold on, in the right conditions, Gunpowder can be highly explosive! From the mouth of Jesus it certainly was - it got him killed and changed the world in the process. Our plan is to look at some of the basics of Christian Theology over the next eight weeks, but not in some boring systematic way, but through the words and actions of Jesus.

Self-Centred
To kick us off, this morning we’re going to explore what Jesus had to say about himself. As I prepared this, I was reminded once again how self-centred Jesus was. What do I mean by that? Am I saying Jesus was selfish?

In this age of celebrity we are used to seeing successive screenstars and musicians talk about their lives, their past, their needs and desires. Look at me! Their desperate faces scream out. Was Jesus like that?

On one level, yes. Think of some of the things he said. He called people to ‘Follow me’ (Mark 1:17), and beckoned them to, ‘Come to me’ (Mt. 11:28). He talked about, ‘My kingdom’ (Lk. 22:30) – think how conceited that would sound on one of our lips! And outrageously he announced, ‘I am the way the truth and the life’ (John 14:6).

Then there are the famous I Am sayings that we shall no doubt think about in the evenings as we start a new series going through John’s Gospel. I am the bread of life (John 6:35), I am the light of the world (John 8:12) and even I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).

Put aside what you know about Jesus for a moment and try and picture Robbie Williams appearing on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and shamelessly declaring that everyone should drop what they’re doing and make him their leader and follow him and do what he says. Imagine the response if he said that he was the only one that could satisify everyones needs and desires. Now, Robbie has been criticised for being arrogant from time to time, but he’s never gone quite that far… and yet that is exactly what Jesus insisted.

Such a figure I think I would instinctively turn away from. Any political leader who claims to be the only one with the answers is treated suspiciously, and any religious leader who makes such statements today would be seen as a cranky cult leader. Yet somehow Jesus is different. Why is this? Is it because we are reading his words many years on, somehow the implicit self-centredness is cushioned? I don’t think so as even in his day many heard him and did exactly what he called them to.

Divinity
If there is one thing more provocative than saying these sorts of things, it is a claim to be godlike. Think of the response of the tabloids when David Ike claimed to be the son of God or Michael Jackson performed on the Brits wearing white with arms stretched out singing Earthsong in some sort of Christ imitation. Both were immediately ostracized.

When we think about what Jesus said about himself, we have to face up to the fact that his claims went further than saying follow me I can put everything right. He claimed to be divine. There are those who insist that nowhere in the Bible does it say this – but it does and its absolutely everywhere, and its not just on the lips of those who followed such as Paul, but its on the lips of Jesus himself.

Take for example John 10:30 where Jesus says:
30I and the Father are one."
Now you could argue that he is simply saying that they are in agreement, but that’s not what the crowd thought he was saying, listen to how they responded…
31Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, 32but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?"
They understood this to be a claim to be one with God, or divine.

Or theres a similar situation in John 8:58 where he makes the strange statement:
58 "Very truly I tell you," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"
This is a loaded statement. It sounds like he’s saying that he’s positively ancient – older than Abraham himself, but its more than that. In the Old Testament, Moses asks God what his name was. God’s reply was, ‘I am who I am’. Could it be that Jesus is claiming to have God’s name, to be God? The crowd thought so for again theypickled up stones to stone him.

Or in John 20:28, Thomas meets the resurrected Jesus having doubted what the others had told him about him coming back to life. Thomas calls out,

28 Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"

If Jesus didn’t believe he was God, you would expect him to correct Thomas at this point, being a good Jewish boy, but no, instead he replies,
29 Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
I could go on. Time after time there are these incidents where Jesus makes claims which to his Jewish audience were clear claims to be on a level with God – and for a religion where there was only one God, that meant he was claiming to be God himself.

Then there are the miracles. The point of the miracles is not that they are some great stage show, but that they underline what Jesus has been saying about himself. His claims are not just empty words as they would be on the lips of a celebrity or cabinet minister, but they are backed up with a demonstration of divine power. Who is this man, the disciples cried – even the winds and waves obey him… Jesus has claimed to be God and his acts back up this claim – he walks the walk as well as talking the talk as they say.

Its ironic that this area is one we struggle to accept. For us it is difficult to accept that Jesus was divine – accepting him as a human person yes, but God? No. To the early Christians it was obvious that Jesus was divine. They’d heard his teaching and seen his life and miracles, including of course his resurrection. Divine? Obvious, human – not so obvious…

Humanity
But if you accept his claims to divinity as backed up by his miracles, especially his resurrection, it is his humanity that will make his claims sound different to those of a spoilt diva. If you read through the Gospels, not only does this picture of an incredibly powerful person appear, who speaks and acts with authority, but also a picture of a very real human emerges.

We read of his emotions – turning from joy and laughter to sorrow and anger and love and ambition. We read that he ate and drank, that he experienced pain and injury, that he worked and learnt. Hebrews tells us that he faced temptation in everyway just as we do. And like us, he was born, matured and died…

His humanity is vital. If Jesus hadn’t been fully human, he couldn’t have redeemed humanity – his pure life would have been achieved in a way that we couldn’t have done. In order to satisfy the law, he had to be under the law – and God isn’t, only us. No doubt we’ll come back to that later in the series.

So why does Jesus say it was important that God became human? He says to Philip in John 14:9:

9 Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father…

It is this that explains why Jesus’ claims sound different. It is not that he was a nobody who demanded that he was a somebody in order to get people to love him. No, instead he was a somebody who become a nobody in order to show people that he loves them! No longer are his claims those of a boastful star, but the words of a tender and humble God who wants his creation to discover him and know him. Know the song 10 steps to heaven? Forget it. There’s only one step, developing a relationship with God’s Son.