And so today we come to the first Sunday after Ascension Day, a day which is all too often bypassed in the life of the church today. For in a way, the Ascension is something we find hard to imagine. I confess that I find it difficult to think of the Ascension without picturing in my mind the Apollo spacecraft lift offs which were such a big part of my school days. And of course, I know that the idea of heaven up in the skies above and hell in the depths below is a pre scientific view that was allegedly mocked by the soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin with the words;
“I don’t see God up here.”
So it that I know that my pictures of the Ascension of Jesus are inevitably flawed. It is clearly beyond us to comprehend exactly what the disciples witnessed other than to appreciate that Jesus is not subject to the physical restraints that we experience. As Markus Borg puts it;
“He is no longer restricted to or confined to our dimensions of time or space as he was in his historical lifetime.”
Powerfully, Ascension reminds us that Jesus is no longer physically with us but yet he is alive and a presence in our lives and in the world. As Fred Pratt Green memorably puts it in his Easter hymn;
“Christ is alive! No longer bound
To distant years in Palestine,
He comes to claim the here and now,
And conquer every place and time.”
This reminds us that Jesus is today as alive as ever. More than that, it informs us that his scope is greater than ever before for the physical limitations that we experience are for him now in the past. Yes, the Jesus who was crucified, is through Ascension set free to affect the world yet more than when restricted to a small portion of Middle Eastern land.
And yet this must have been a difficult experience for those who were closest to him. Those of us who have seen loved ones move to distant places know only too well the stomach pangs that come from physical separation. And for those closest to Jesus, this pain would be added to by them being taken out of their comfort zones. Notice how at the beginning of our scripture reading their concern was about restoring the Kingdom to Israel - a somewhat narrow concern. Yet Jesus whilst giving no answer to this matter, tells them that now they are to be called to think and act in a much bigger way. The very people who had failed Jesus in Gethsemane, are told that their future is to be standing up for and propagating the good news about Jesus in Jerusalem where they have failed him. And then the calling gets wider - firstly to surrounding Judea, on to hated Samaria a place to which they have in the past been hostile and then on to the very ends of the earth and all manners of peoples.
An unbelievable calling! A calling well beyond the capacity of this parochial bunch who this far have quite a record of not stepping up to the mark. But note here that this is not some sadistic challenge in which they are destined to fail. On the contrary the calling is linked to a promise, the promise of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is that the Holy Spirit will give them a power for the tasks that lie ahead, the Holy Spirit will enable them to do things beyond their expectations and imaginations. In this we see a linkage which continues to be relevant today. Calling and promise are entwined. For the promise is to enable the calling to be followed through whilst the calling is only given with the accompaniment of the promise that enables it to be given reality.
And so it is that Ascension is about the story of Jesus going on. During Easter we have seen his love in the self giving of Good Friday. In his resurrection we have seen God’s resounding Yes to all that Jesus has said and done, the victory over death, hatred and violence. Now through Ascension we see Jesus set free from limitations so that the story might continue through the likes of you and me as we are given help by the Holy Spirit. And now the story is no longer tribal or nation. On the contrary it is now for all nations and for all peoples.
I don’t know about you but I have always liked the men in white with their message to the followers of Jesus that they need not look into the sky. You see there is far too much speculation. The “Left Behind Books” are but one example of a tendency to speculate about end times and the likes. And such speculation is utterly useless and wasteful as Jesus has already intimated. There is no point idly looking above when there is a world to engage with and much work to be done.
Those present at Ascension made their ways back to where they were staying. With the family of Jesus and a number of women they engaged in community. They spent time in prayer as they sought to be about the continuation of the work of Jesus. And when Pentecost came, they went on to the streets of Jerusalem and soon they continued that work in Judea, Samaria and truly to the ends of the world as it then was known. And today as heirs to the promise of the Spirit, we are called to engage with the world in all its diversity sharing the hope that is at the heart of the message of Christ, loving and giving value to all those who experience need, condemnation or rejection, and building community.
Having during recent weeks looked at the stories of Jesus and celebrated that he is alive, today the story becomes personal. For now it is about us - how we follow on from Jesus. Yes, now it is about the Gospel according to us!
BIDEFORD METHODIST CHURCH MAY 4TH 2008
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
Sunday, 27 April 2008
CHURCH ANNIVERSARY - The Sower
MARK 4: 1-20
The parable of the sower - I guess that at least one or two of you are wondering if I have had a bit of a senior moment. After all, this is a parable that is often visited at Harvest Thanksgiving but Church Anniversary - well it just does not see to belong.
But believe you me whilst I have my fair share of doddery moments, I was in no way experiencing one of them when I decided that I would preach on this parable for tonight’s service. So why are we looking at this parable? The reason is quite simple - it speaks directly into the ministry of the church for today.
It helps to appreciate the realities of Palestinian agriculture. The common practice was for small family farmers to eke out a basic living from marginal plots whilst wealthy landowners kept the best land for themselves. The peasant farmers would throw their seed earnestly hoping for the best. After all the stakes were high. They would need sufficient return to feed their families, pay the rent and invest in sufficient seed in order to repeat the cycle again the following year. If the yield was insufficient and they fell into debt the farmer would face the prospect of borrowing from the wealthy landowners against the security of their land. If the cycle of failure continued and debts could not be repaid, they would face the prospect of losing their land to the lenders and of having to work to pay off the debt.
This system was fundamentally unjust. It deprived the peasant farmer of real choices in life. For truly such people were in chains. And yet Jesus in this parable gives a picture of a better tomorrow. His parable envisages a bumper harvest way beyond the expectations of his hearers, a bumper harvest that could make all the difference, the bumper harvest that would break the cycle of poverty and struggle. Beyond reasonable expectations, it looked to a future of liberation.
Sometimes, we downplay this aspect of the Gospel. We speak as if our aspirations can be measured in the size of congregations. This is absolute piffle. Much better to small and faithful than be seduced by a cult of numbers in pews or the trimmings of success. We need once more to touch base with the inspirational words of James Russell Lowell who proclaimed;
“They are slaves who fear to be in the right with two or three.”
And a part of our calling is the work of liberation which lifts people up from being nobodies to the value that God would bestow on all. This means that the church must be a community that confronts the prejudice that excludes in all its forms. This means that the church must be a place that embodies in word and deed radical inclusion for every single one of God’s children. After all has not Jesus spoken of coming that all may have life with abundance. Of course this speaks into the role of the church as a prophetic voice.
I wonder if anyone read today’s Sunday Times which proclaimed that the richest 1,000 people in Britain have seen their wealth quadruple over the past decade. When I read that, I wanted to puke. For I see plenty of the struggles of people even within my own town whose lives feel as bare and who are a limited in choices as the sower of whom Jesus told. I have no time for an easy accommodation with the powers that be if they cannot see the corruption in extreme wealth and life denying poverty side by side. Our faith is a faith that takes material seriously, a faith that is sorely misrepresented if we see bums on seats as more important than the denial of a good life for those at the bottom of the pile. Oh I know that the church matters but may we never forget that the church is not an end in itself but a signpost that points to God’s Kingdom of justice, peace and joy for all.
Back to the parable and we find the differing outcome of the seeds that are sown. Sowing on poor soil, it is no surprise that much of the soil would land in the places where it would fail to bring a yield. This is a simple fact of life. And I think that today in our efforts to make the Gospel real in peoples’ lives, there is here an echo. Much of what we do bears no obvious fruit. And yet, surely our greatest calling is to faithfulness rather than to success. Now I have no problem with planning or prioritisation - these are obvious realities in the ongoing life and work of the people of God. But they must never blind us to the reality that what we are about in the mission to which God calls us, is the incredible reality that God’s grace is for all. There is no nook or cranny that is beyond God’s love, no place of darkness that cannot be illuminated by the light of God, not one of our Hells that cannot be transformed by grace.
Of course, in many an exposition of this parable we have found ourselves contemplating the difficulties of sowing God’s seed. We are encouraged to think of the factors that seem to be obstacles to God’s work. Lack of roots, troubles and persecutions, the lures of this world, all these things come to mind. Such things represent challenges and remind us that God’s mission requires patience and a capacity to resist the temptation of shortcuts. And as those of us on the Pioneer Disciple Course will be finding, mission in God’s world involves a need for understanding of what is happening in that world.
But yet, it can be more personal. Use your imagination for a moment and picture the sower as being not us but God. Picture ourselves as the seed that is thrown, landing on various soil. You may imagine yourself in the varying cataegories of where the soil has landed. And if you are like me, that will not be easy because I know that at different times I am each of those seeds. For generally we are all a mixed picture. More and more I think that we fail to conclusively fit into neat boxes such as saint or sinner. At different moments, we can be both of these things and a whole lot more beside. So here this parable serves to challenge us about addressing our points of weakness so that we might grow in fruitfulness to God living lives and being in community in such a way as to make a difference and to bring about the signs of the Kingdom of God.
Fremington Methodist Church, today you celebrate another year as a community of God’s people in this village. You can look back with gratitude at past blessings. You can also look ahead to a continuing part within God’s ongoing mission. May this parable encourage you to move forwards with God, seeking to be the seeds that produce a yield.
But don’t expect it to be easy. Don’t expect great applause for this Gospel is full of challenge and controversy. Jesus, himself, was met with hostility for in so many ways it is a challenge to the orthodoxy of not just his but any age. Yet here is a challenge to both love and sow wastefully for if we hold back no seed is sown. And if no seed is sown there can be no yield.
So go forwards dreaming dreams and seeing visions of what can be. For we are called to simply allow ourselves to be a part of God’s unlimited possibilities. Holding nothing back, who knows what might be?
FREMINGTON METHODIST CHURCH SUNDAY APRIL 27TH 2008
The parable of the sower - I guess that at least one or two of you are wondering if I have had a bit of a senior moment. After all, this is a parable that is often visited at Harvest Thanksgiving but Church Anniversary - well it just does not see to belong.
But believe you me whilst I have my fair share of doddery moments, I was in no way experiencing one of them when I decided that I would preach on this parable for tonight’s service. So why are we looking at this parable? The reason is quite simple - it speaks directly into the ministry of the church for today.
It helps to appreciate the realities of Palestinian agriculture. The common practice was for small family farmers to eke out a basic living from marginal plots whilst wealthy landowners kept the best land for themselves. The peasant farmers would throw their seed earnestly hoping for the best. After all the stakes were high. They would need sufficient return to feed their families, pay the rent and invest in sufficient seed in order to repeat the cycle again the following year. If the yield was insufficient and they fell into debt the farmer would face the prospect of borrowing from the wealthy landowners against the security of their land. If the cycle of failure continued and debts could not be repaid, they would face the prospect of losing their land to the lenders and of having to work to pay off the debt.
This system was fundamentally unjust. It deprived the peasant farmer of real choices in life. For truly such people were in chains. And yet Jesus in this parable gives a picture of a better tomorrow. His parable envisages a bumper harvest way beyond the expectations of his hearers, a bumper harvest that could make all the difference, the bumper harvest that would break the cycle of poverty and struggle. Beyond reasonable expectations, it looked to a future of liberation.
Sometimes, we downplay this aspect of the Gospel. We speak as if our aspirations can be measured in the size of congregations. This is absolute piffle. Much better to small and faithful than be seduced by a cult of numbers in pews or the trimmings of success. We need once more to touch base with the inspirational words of James Russell Lowell who proclaimed;
“They are slaves who fear to be in the right with two or three.”
And a part of our calling is the work of liberation which lifts people up from being nobodies to the value that God would bestow on all. This means that the church must be a community that confronts the prejudice that excludes in all its forms. This means that the church must be a place that embodies in word and deed radical inclusion for every single one of God’s children. After all has not Jesus spoken of coming that all may have life with abundance. Of course this speaks into the role of the church as a prophetic voice.
I wonder if anyone read today’s Sunday Times which proclaimed that the richest 1,000 people in Britain have seen their wealth quadruple over the past decade. When I read that, I wanted to puke. For I see plenty of the struggles of people even within my own town whose lives feel as bare and who are a limited in choices as the sower of whom Jesus told. I have no time for an easy accommodation with the powers that be if they cannot see the corruption in extreme wealth and life denying poverty side by side. Our faith is a faith that takes material seriously, a faith that is sorely misrepresented if we see bums on seats as more important than the denial of a good life for those at the bottom of the pile. Oh I know that the church matters but may we never forget that the church is not an end in itself but a signpost that points to God’s Kingdom of justice, peace and joy for all.
Back to the parable and we find the differing outcome of the seeds that are sown. Sowing on poor soil, it is no surprise that much of the soil would land in the places where it would fail to bring a yield. This is a simple fact of life. And I think that today in our efforts to make the Gospel real in peoples’ lives, there is here an echo. Much of what we do bears no obvious fruit. And yet, surely our greatest calling is to faithfulness rather than to success. Now I have no problem with planning or prioritisation - these are obvious realities in the ongoing life and work of the people of God. But they must never blind us to the reality that what we are about in the mission to which God calls us, is the incredible reality that God’s grace is for all. There is no nook or cranny that is beyond God’s love, no place of darkness that cannot be illuminated by the light of God, not one of our Hells that cannot be transformed by grace.
Of course, in many an exposition of this parable we have found ourselves contemplating the difficulties of sowing God’s seed. We are encouraged to think of the factors that seem to be obstacles to God’s work. Lack of roots, troubles and persecutions, the lures of this world, all these things come to mind. Such things represent challenges and remind us that God’s mission requires patience and a capacity to resist the temptation of shortcuts. And as those of us on the Pioneer Disciple Course will be finding, mission in God’s world involves a need for understanding of what is happening in that world.
But yet, it can be more personal. Use your imagination for a moment and picture the sower as being not us but God. Picture ourselves as the seed that is thrown, landing on various soil. You may imagine yourself in the varying cataegories of where the soil has landed. And if you are like me, that will not be easy because I know that at different times I am each of those seeds. For generally we are all a mixed picture. More and more I think that we fail to conclusively fit into neat boxes such as saint or sinner. At different moments, we can be both of these things and a whole lot more beside. So here this parable serves to challenge us about addressing our points of weakness so that we might grow in fruitfulness to God living lives and being in community in such a way as to make a difference and to bring about the signs of the Kingdom of God.
Fremington Methodist Church, today you celebrate another year as a community of God’s people in this village. You can look back with gratitude at past blessings. You can also look ahead to a continuing part within God’s ongoing mission. May this parable encourage you to move forwards with God, seeking to be the seeds that produce a yield.
But don’t expect it to be easy. Don’t expect great applause for this Gospel is full of challenge and controversy. Jesus, himself, was met with hostility for in so many ways it is a challenge to the orthodoxy of not just his but any age. Yet here is a challenge to both love and sow wastefully for if we hold back no seed is sown. And if no seed is sown there can be no yield.
So go forwards dreaming dreams and seeing visions of what can be. For we are called to simply allow ourselves to be a part of God’s unlimited possibilities. Holding nothing back, who knows what might be?
FREMINGTON METHODIST CHURCH SUNDAY APRIL 27TH 2008
EASTER 6 If you love me
JOHN 14: 15 - 21
“If you love me”
Don’t those words send a chill through you? The note of qualification is all too present. How often those words are used by a child, a lover or even a parent as a precursor to some demand or other. They are the words that make you feel apprehension as to the contents of your wallet or your bank balance - provided the credit crunch hasn’t emptied these things already.
And yet now these words are coming to us not from one on the make but from Jesus himself. And so we get the feeling that we are about to find out the true cost of faith.
But what follows is perhaps even more demanding. What will we do if we love Jesus. The daunting response to that is;
“You will keep my commandments.”
Wow! For me those words take me back to a friend from my teenage years who advised me against being confirmed into the Methodist Church. After all the miserable so and sos would turn my life into an unending endurance of boredom in which anything remotely enjoyable I might do, would bring the wrath of the religious thought police down upon my unsuspecting head.
And to be honest this is the sort of text that I used to dread hearing preaching on. I always feared that a sort of Christian Taliban would tell me that I couldn’t enjoy a pint, the punk music which I loved in my youth and to be honest still do, or chasing women. Now there may well be good reason for a measure of restraint in these things but we do a violence to this scripture if we suggest that this is what Jesus is talking about here.
For to Jesus, the essence of his teaching was not the petty restrictions that have damaged many peoples’ perceptions of religion, but instead was about love. Think back to a teacher of the law who came to Jesus asking what was the most important of the commandments only for Jesus to respond;
“The first is ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
See, it is love that is at the heart of the commandments of Jesus. And indeed only a few verses before our scripture reading, in the same dialogue at the Last Supper, Jesus has given one final commandment;
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
So when Jesus says;
“If you love me you will keep my commandments”
He is not talking about ethics. He is simply saying that those who love him with be people who are people of love.
Now I know that love can easily be a debased word. It can be spoken in a shallow way such as on a first date or in the desire for a few moments of peace. At times the word seems divorced from any reality. Some of you will remember the song “Both Sides Now” penned by Joni Mitchell, a song revived in the film “Love Actually” - a song which contains the words;
“I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
Its loves illusions I recall
I really don’t know love at all.”
And the reality is that far too many lives are marked by an abundance of love talk accompanied by a great shortage of love action. For the love that Jesus speaks of is a love that in gratitude is directed to God and which also develops for other peoples including ultimately as demonstrated by the example of Jesus, those whom we might see as the most unlovely. And that love directed at others goes well beyond fancying or fluffyness. It is the love that seeks the best for others even when they are awkward or living in a way that is destructive to self or others. And is this not what we see in Jesus? - that great capacity not to see or to freeze people in their worst moments but to see amidst the tattered realities, preciousness and even potential.
And make no mistake, love really changes things. This week I read of some of the tensions after the erection of that dreadful Berlin Wall. Apparently in the early days thereafter, truckloads of stinking garbage was dumped from East Berlin into West Berlin. Anger developed and many in the west wanted some sort of payback. And yet, the Mayor took a very different path. He asked that beautiful, fragrant flowers be gathered. These flowers were taken to a place along the wall before being poured over to the east along with a banner that proclaimed;
“We each give what we have.”
And if we are to be followers of Jesus who love Jesus, we need to get into offering reconciliation where there are barriers, peace where there is confrontation and love where there is hatred. Why? Because we are called to give what we have and these are the things that Jesus offers to us.
And Jesus tells us that help is at hand. In our Scripture reading, he has talked of a promise. Soon the friends with whom he is speaking will be without his presence for soon he will die for love. Yet, he wants them to know that they will not be without God. That is why he promises them that they will not be orphaned for the Holy Spirit, the go between God. Will be with them to assist them in their futures. The Holy Spirit will guide them and enable them to live out the way of love.
This morning I want to encourage you to travel the journey of love. Oh there is life without love but it is a waste of time or as the poet Mary Oliver puts it;
“not worth a bent penny or a scuffed shoe.”
Its value is negligible. But Jesus points us to a better way - the way that he has embodied, the way of love. Each person here this morning is within his circle of unending, divine love. God’s love for each of us is as powerful as that of any parent, lover or friend - passionate and without condition. And yet he asks us to let it embrace our entire being that we might model love with all that we are.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
And what are those commandments? In one solitary word - love!
BIDEFORD METHODIST CHURCH - SUNDAY APRIL 27TH 2008
“If you love me”
Don’t those words send a chill through you? The note of qualification is all too present. How often those words are used by a child, a lover or even a parent as a precursor to some demand or other. They are the words that make you feel apprehension as to the contents of your wallet or your bank balance - provided the credit crunch hasn’t emptied these things already.
And yet now these words are coming to us not from one on the make but from Jesus himself. And so we get the feeling that we are about to find out the true cost of faith.
But what follows is perhaps even more demanding. What will we do if we love Jesus. The daunting response to that is;
“You will keep my commandments.”
Wow! For me those words take me back to a friend from my teenage years who advised me against being confirmed into the Methodist Church. After all the miserable so and sos would turn my life into an unending endurance of boredom in which anything remotely enjoyable I might do, would bring the wrath of the religious thought police down upon my unsuspecting head.
And to be honest this is the sort of text that I used to dread hearing preaching on. I always feared that a sort of Christian Taliban would tell me that I couldn’t enjoy a pint, the punk music which I loved in my youth and to be honest still do, or chasing women. Now there may well be good reason for a measure of restraint in these things but we do a violence to this scripture if we suggest that this is what Jesus is talking about here.
For to Jesus, the essence of his teaching was not the petty restrictions that have damaged many peoples’ perceptions of religion, but instead was about love. Think back to a teacher of the law who came to Jesus asking what was the most important of the commandments only for Jesus to respond;
“The first is ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
See, it is love that is at the heart of the commandments of Jesus. And indeed only a few verses before our scripture reading, in the same dialogue at the Last Supper, Jesus has given one final commandment;
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
So when Jesus says;
“If you love me you will keep my commandments”
He is not talking about ethics. He is simply saying that those who love him with be people who are people of love.
Now I know that love can easily be a debased word. It can be spoken in a shallow way such as on a first date or in the desire for a few moments of peace. At times the word seems divorced from any reality. Some of you will remember the song “Both Sides Now” penned by Joni Mitchell, a song revived in the film “Love Actually” - a song which contains the words;
“I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
Its loves illusions I recall
I really don’t know love at all.”
And the reality is that far too many lives are marked by an abundance of love talk accompanied by a great shortage of love action. For the love that Jesus speaks of is a love that in gratitude is directed to God and which also develops for other peoples including ultimately as demonstrated by the example of Jesus, those whom we might see as the most unlovely. And that love directed at others goes well beyond fancying or fluffyness. It is the love that seeks the best for others even when they are awkward or living in a way that is destructive to self or others. And is this not what we see in Jesus? - that great capacity not to see or to freeze people in their worst moments but to see amidst the tattered realities, preciousness and even potential.
And make no mistake, love really changes things. This week I read of some of the tensions after the erection of that dreadful Berlin Wall. Apparently in the early days thereafter, truckloads of stinking garbage was dumped from East Berlin into West Berlin. Anger developed and many in the west wanted some sort of payback. And yet, the Mayor took a very different path. He asked that beautiful, fragrant flowers be gathered. These flowers were taken to a place along the wall before being poured over to the east along with a banner that proclaimed;
“We each give what we have.”
And if we are to be followers of Jesus who love Jesus, we need to get into offering reconciliation where there are barriers, peace where there is confrontation and love where there is hatred. Why? Because we are called to give what we have and these are the things that Jesus offers to us.
And Jesus tells us that help is at hand. In our Scripture reading, he has talked of a promise. Soon the friends with whom he is speaking will be without his presence for soon he will die for love. Yet, he wants them to know that they will not be without God. That is why he promises them that they will not be orphaned for the Holy Spirit, the go between God. Will be with them to assist them in their futures. The Holy Spirit will guide them and enable them to live out the way of love.
This morning I want to encourage you to travel the journey of love. Oh there is life without love but it is a waste of time or as the poet Mary Oliver puts it;
“not worth a bent penny or a scuffed shoe.”
Its value is negligible. But Jesus points us to a better way - the way that he has embodied, the way of love. Each person here this morning is within his circle of unending, divine love. God’s love for each of us is as powerful as that of any parent, lover or friend - passionate and without condition. And yet he asks us to let it embrace our entire being that we might model love with all that we are.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
And what are those commandments? In one solitary word - love!
BIDEFORD METHODIST CHURCH - SUNDAY APRIL 27TH 2008
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Easter 5 Simeon says
LUKE 2: 25 - 33
There are times when the lectionary seems just a little perverse. Today’s lectionary is one such occasion. We are still in the season of Easter and yet the Gospel reading for the second service today, takes us right back to beginnings, to the time when Jesus was still a helpless, gurgling baby.
And yet the story of the presentation of Jesus at the Temple is a story that is bubbling with meaning and important messages that we do well to take seriously.
Let’s for a moment go back to just before our reading from Luke’s Gospel begins. For we find two significant early events in the life of Jesus. Firstly, he was circumcised on his eighth day in accordance with Jewish requirement and with along with that he was named Jesus or Yeshua as it probably was in the Hebrew. Secondly, there was the purification of his mother which would have been 40 days after the birth. This would be combined with a sacrificial offering.
Why does this matter? Well it is important to remember the Jewishness of Jesus. Yes, we can say that Jesus is for all people but the specifics of his birth are that he was born, lived and died a Jew. And his parents were quite clearly observant Jews. To fully understand Jesus, it is important to appreciate that he was a Jew and not a Christian. That heritage needs to be taken seriously if we are to be diligent in seeking an understanding of Jesus.
It also leads us into the matter of anti Semitism. The church needs to be aware that there is a long history of Christian anti Judaism which has been a breeding ground for anti Semitism. The failure to appreciate the Jewishness of Jesus, has often led to anti Jewish violence particularly at Easter. That this unsavoury history of anti Jewish Christian thought was a contributing factor in the Holocaust is beyond doubt. As the Dabru Emet statement of Jewish scholars makes clear, whilst the Holocaust was not a Christian event, it could not have happened without the history of Christian anti Semitism. Certainly we need to exercise care in how we read the Gospels for whilst at times our translations suggest a negative picture of Jews, these Gospels were written by Jewish men to point us to a Jewish saviour. Where hostility is suggested, it needs to be read in the context of a family quarrel in which the possibility of a middle ground is squeezed out.
So anti Semitism is not a valid Christian option. In the coming fortnight much of the country will be having local government elections. We are an exception. Now I have deliberately never used the pulpit to endorse political parties - it would be an improper thing to do. However, I have absolutely no hesitation in affirming that a vote for the BNP is a vote against Christ. Why? Because this political party comes from a background of neo Nazism which has historically been involved in vicious anti Jewish campaigning. It makes no difference that it now has taken to turning its bile against Muslims, may of whom are themselves semitic peoples. It is the same poison directed against specific people who are other than the perpetrators of hate. Look at it this way. Jesus came from a people who have more than most been at the receiving end of hatred and prejudice. This being so, invalidates all prejudices against other groups who from time to time enter the firing line. Such prejudice is wrong on principle as well as being contrary to the teachings and practices of Jesus.
But in these rituals something else can be discerned. That something is the material lack of wealth on the part of the Holy family. Back in Leviticus, there had been laid down the requirements for the sacrifice to be made when the days of a mother’s purification were over;
“If she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering.”
Well Luke suggests that it is the poorer option of payment that is taken by Mary and Joseph, not entirely surprising as they will soon be living in the backwater of Nazareth. Now this does not mean that they were amongst the desperately poor. It merely suggests that they were people of limited means - not exactly the sort of people likely to have a child that would turn the world upside down. These are simply humble folk coming to consecrate their first born child to God - as should be the imagery of our infant baptism.
But now something remarkable is to break in on this everyday Jewish happening. And the sign of it is an old man named Simeon. An elderly man, he longs to end his days in peace, released from regrets. Within him as the flesh grows weak, however is a hope and a longing that he might witness the consolation of Israel. And in a split moment, that longing finds fulfilment. Driven by the Holy Spirit, he enters the temple courts. Seeing Mary and Joseph with the child, he takes the child into his arms and says the words that we echo in our Nunc Dimitus, used at many a funeral;
“Lord now lettest they servant depart in peace.”
It’s OK. He can leave this world in peace for now he is sure that God is fulfilling the hopes of all the years. And he, Simeon, is a witness to this. Now he can leave this world in peace and tranquillity for he knows that God has stepped into a world of woes - through a peasant couple and their baby. Whilst we too often make a hash of dying, this man is able to go in peace.
But what is particularly wonderful is how this man grasps the significance of the child. Any nationalistic expectation that he had hitherto had, goes out of the window. As indeed should our feeble efforts to portray God as an Englishman. I am reminded of a church in Cornwall where at a civic service the civic leaders intended that Robert Hawker’s “Song of the Western Men” be sang. It’s a sort of Cornish National Anthem and frankly with words as meaningless as most National Anthems. But because of the violent air to those words which hearkened back to a Cornish rebellion when James 11 incarcerated Bishop Trelawney, the minister refused to have it sung in an act of worship - a stance I hope to take should I ever be confronted with similar circumstances. Quite a row broke out and a lot of nonsense was spoken by the Councillors of Cornwall - not unusual believe you me! The one note of sanity was when the minister said that what was sung should reflect the fact that we worship “the God of all peoples and not all things Cornish.”
Well Simeon would agree on that for now he speaks of a salvation;
“prepared in the sight of all people,
A light for revelation to the gentiles
And for glory to your people Israel.”
Do you get it? This very Jewish boy is not a revelation of a tribal God but of a God whose salvation and grace is for all the nations of the world. Whilst we erect walls that keep people apart, this Jewish child reaches out beyond each and every one of these barriers. And in a sense that was not new. Whilst in ancient Israel, there were those who saw God as being for one nation, the Hebrew Bible has far more about welcoming foreigners than loving neighbours - something the British Government might just take on board when deporting unsuccessful asylum seekers to lands such as Iraq, Zimbabwe and Uzbekistan where they face unsafety or cancer sufferers to lands that cannot provide sufficient medical care.
But the picture I like most from Simeon is that of providing light. The more time I spend in North Devon, the more I become aware of people being trapped in darkness. My town has many inadequately housed people, people unable to find stimulating employment, people trapped in addiction be it alcohol, drugs or gambling, people struggling for a sustainable lifestyle that will not keep putting them in conflict with the law, people even young people sinking into a morass of depression. Christ offers a light to these people by telling them that they count and are of worth, and by kicking our behinds that we might challenge the morally bankrupt structures of our society that have become a force for continual darkness. And that which is the case in North Devon is equally the case elsewhere - sometimes even more dramatically. This Christ directs a light on all that dehumanises or creates fear. His light shines in the darkest of places. And all of this was revealed to Simeon. Easter tells us that despite undergoing death, Jesus is alive and God has given a Yes to all that Jesus has said and done. If we need to see more of that purpose, well Simeon has seen to it for us - it is to bring the light that will bring salvation to those entombed in darkness
TORRINGTON METHODIST CHURCH SUNDAY APRIL 20TH 2008
There are times when the lectionary seems just a little perverse. Today’s lectionary is one such occasion. We are still in the season of Easter and yet the Gospel reading for the second service today, takes us right back to beginnings, to the time when Jesus was still a helpless, gurgling baby.
And yet the story of the presentation of Jesus at the Temple is a story that is bubbling with meaning and important messages that we do well to take seriously.
Let’s for a moment go back to just before our reading from Luke’s Gospel begins. For we find two significant early events in the life of Jesus. Firstly, he was circumcised on his eighth day in accordance with Jewish requirement and with along with that he was named Jesus or Yeshua as it probably was in the Hebrew. Secondly, there was the purification of his mother which would have been 40 days after the birth. This would be combined with a sacrificial offering.
Why does this matter? Well it is important to remember the Jewishness of Jesus. Yes, we can say that Jesus is for all people but the specifics of his birth are that he was born, lived and died a Jew. And his parents were quite clearly observant Jews. To fully understand Jesus, it is important to appreciate that he was a Jew and not a Christian. That heritage needs to be taken seriously if we are to be diligent in seeking an understanding of Jesus.
It also leads us into the matter of anti Semitism. The church needs to be aware that there is a long history of Christian anti Judaism which has been a breeding ground for anti Semitism. The failure to appreciate the Jewishness of Jesus, has often led to anti Jewish violence particularly at Easter. That this unsavoury history of anti Jewish Christian thought was a contributing factor in the Holocaust is beyond doubt. As the Dabru Emet statement of Jewish scholars makes clear, whilst the Holocaust was not a Christian event, it could not have happened without the history of Christian anti Semitism. Certainly we need to exercise care in how we read the Gospels for whilst at times our translations suggest a negative picture of Jews, these Gospels were written by Jewish men to point us to a Jewish saviour. Where hostility is suggested, it needs to be read in the context of a family quarrel in which the possibility of a middle ground is squeezed out.
So anti Semitism is not a valid Christian option. In the coming fortnight much of the country will be having local government elections. We are an exception. Now I have deliberately never used the pulpit to endorse political parties - it would be an improper thing to do. However, I have absolutely no hesitation in affirming that a vote for the BNP is a vote against Christ. Why? Because this political party comes from a background of neo Nazism which has historically been involved in vicious anti Jewish campaigning. It makes no difference that it now has taken to turning its bile against Muslims, may of whom are themselves semitic peoples. It is the same poison directed against specific people who are other than the perpetrators of hate. Look at it this way. Jesus came from a people who have more than most been at the receiving end of hatred and prejudice. This being so, invalidates all prejudices against other groups who from time to time enter the firing line. Such prejudice is wrong on principle as well as being contrary to the teachings and practices of Jesus.
But in these rituals something else can be discerned. That something is the material lack of wealth on the part of the Holy family. Back in Leviticus, there had been laid down the requirements for the sacrifice to be made when the days of a mother’s purification were over;
“If she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering.”
Well Luke suggests that it is the poorer option of payment that is taken by Mary and Joseph, not entirely surprising as they will soon be living in the backwater of Nazareth. Now this does not mean that they were amongst the desperately poor. It merely suggests that they were people of limited means - not exactly the sort of people likely to have a child that would turn the world upside down. These are simply humble folk coming to consecrate their first born child to God - as should be the imagery of our infant baptism.
But now something remarkable is to break in on this everyday Jewish happening. And the sign of it is an old man named Simeon. An elderly man, he longs to end his days in peace, released from regrets. Within him as the flesh grows weak, however is a hope and a longing that he might witness the consolation of Israel. And in a split moment, that longing finds fulfilment. Driven by the Holy Spirit, he enters the temple courts. Seeing Mary and Joseph with the child, he takes the child into his arms and says the words that we echo in our Nunc Dimitus, used at many a funeral;
“Lord now lettest they servant depart in peace.”
It’s OK. He can leave this world in peace for now he is sure that God is fulfilling the hopes of all the years. And he, Simeon, is a witness to this. Now he can leave this world in peace and tranquillity for he knows that God has stepped into a world of woes - through a peasant couple and their baby. Whilst we too often make a hash of dying, this man is able to go in peace.
But what is particularly wonderful is how this man grasps the significance of the child. Any nationalistic expectation that he had hitherto had, goes out of the window. As indeed should our feeble efforts to portray God as an Englishman. I am reminded of a church in Cornwall where at a civic service the civic leaders intended that Robert Hawker’s “Song of the Western Men” be sang. It’s a sort of Cornish National Anthem and frankly with words as meaningless as most National Anthems. But because of the violent air to those words which hearkened back to a Cornish rebellion when James 11 incarcerated Bishop Trelawney, the minister refused to have it sung in an act of worship - a stance I hope to take should I ever be confronted with similar circumstances. Quite a row broke out and a lot of nonsense was spoken by the Councillors of Cornwall - not unusual believe you me! The one note of sanity was when the minister said that what was sung should reflect the fact that we worship “the God of all peoples and not all things Cornish.”
Well Simeon would agree on that for now he speaks of a salvation;
“prepared in the sight of all people,
A light for revelation to the gentiles
And for glory to your people Israel.”
Do you get it? This very Jewish boy is not a revelation of a tribal God but of a God whose salvation and grace is for all the nations of the world. Whilst we erect walls that keep people apart, this Jewish child reaches out beyond each and every one of these barriers. And in a sense that was not new. Whilst in ancient Israel, there were those who saw God as being for one nation, the Hebrew Bible has far more about welcoming foreigners than loving neighbours - something the British Government might just take on board when deporting unsuccessful asylum seekers to lands such as Iraq, Zimbabwe and Uzbekistan where they face unsafety or cancer sufferers to lands that cannot provide sufficient medical care.
But the picture I like most from Simeon is that of providing light. The more time I spend in North Devon, the more I become aware of people being trapped in darkness. My town has many inadequately housed people, people unable to find stimulating employment, people trapped in addiction be it alcohol, drugs or gambling, people struggling for a sustainable lifestyle that will not keep putting them in conflict with the law, people even young people sinking into a morass of depression. Christ offers a light to these people by telling them that they count and are of worth, and by kicking our behinds that we might challenge the morally bankrupt structures of our society that have become a force for continual darkness. And that which is the case in North Devon is equally the case elsewhere - sometimes even more dramatically. This Christ directs a light on all that dehumanises or creates fear. His light shines in the darkest of places. And all of this was revealed to Simeon. Easter tells us that despite undergoing death, Jesus is alive and God has given a Yes to all that Jesus has said and done. If we need to see more of that purpose, well Simeon has seen to it for us - it is to bring the light that will bring salvation to those entombed in darkness
TORRINGTON METHODIST CHURCH SUNDAY APRIL 20TH 2008
EASTER 5 - The martyrdom of Stephen
ACTS 7: 51-60
It’s a story of religious violence, a story of the violent death of a religious dissident. A death brought about through the brutality of stoning!
Indeed our story leads us into the difficult subject of such a brutal method of killing being not merely suggested but actually commanded by religion.
Now today we think of stoning as being a punishment that belongs to the world of Islam. Indeed, the only countries I know of in which stoning is carried out are some of the countries in which Islam is the dominant faith. These include Saudi Arabia, Iran and parts of Afghanistan. Having seem a part of a video of this atrocious barbarity, I can only describe it a sickening and evil. Yet, it is worth noting that there is no endorsement of stoning within the Quran - rather it is the Hadith collections concerning the way of the Prophet that endorse this method of killing.
Today, there is a debate concerning such Hadiths within Islam. Indeed, amongst others, Tariq Ramadan the Muslim academic who has written extensively on an interpretation of Islam within modern society and who is currently lecturing at Oxford, has called for a moratorium on capital and corporal punishment in the Muslim world. And he is certainly far from alone in pursuing such an argument.
Now, I hope that Muslim reformers are successful. But before we think that stoning is simply an Islamic problem, it is possible that its acceptability in early Islamic society may owe something to the fact that its religious roots can be seen in the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament. Within the Arabian Peninsula at the time of the Prophet, there were both Jewish and Christian presences. And indeed many of our Old Testament prophets are to be found within the Koran, people such as Abraham and Moses. So there would have been an exchange of religious ideas going on.
In this we learn much of stoning being promoted as an act required by God. The crimes for which the first five books of our Bible endorse stoning include;
- touching Mount Sinai
- cursing or blaspheming
- adultery (which includes urban rape victims not screaming loudly enough)
- preaching the wrong religion
- breaking the Sabbath
- cursing the King
- and my favourite which I occasionally remind James of, being a disobedient son.
Thank God that nowadays not even the most extreme, unbalanced Christian, in this country anyway, demands that those scriptures are adhered to.
Indeed, I cannot reconcile any teaching of a religion of love with such a practice of execution with maximum suffering as is the reality with stoning.
Actually, I would go much further. I cannot reconcile execution or indeed killing of any sort with following a religion of love. The five countries reported by Amnesty International as being responsible for 88% of known executions - China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the USA - merit pariah status in those parts of the world that claim to be civilised. Indeed, Amnesty’s estimate that at its current rate of executions, approximately 370 people will be executed by a bullet in the head during the Olympics makes all the excitement generated by people hopping, skipping and jumping, seem somewhat tawdry.
You see, as Christian, we have a particular interest in this subject. We follow a Lord and Saviour who was publicly and brutally executed by the powers of his day. And in his living and dying we are granted a picture of one whose perspective and values are as different as can be from those of the executioner. Indeed, the only time other than his own execution that we find Jesus near such an event, is the occasion recorded in John’s Gospel where a woman caught in adultery is brought before him. By the law of Moses, albeit that capital punishment was a matter for Rome, she merited stoning to death. Yet the response of Jesus was to challenge whoever was without sin to throw the first stone. And when the accusers melted away, he dismissed her with;
“Go now and leave your life of sin.”
See, at the heart of Jesus’ approach was the desire that people should learn from their failings and live better lives. Always at the core of his being was not a longing for law or justice but the unfolding of grace, that which is kinder to us than we can ever deserve - grace which the cross shows us being directed at us even when we are at our most vile. Oh may we never forget that we would be without hope in encountering a holy God were it not that the chief characteristic of that God is grace. But that grace is for us even when we are at our worst. As Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher put it;
“Nothing in man can be an effectual bar to God‘s love.”
Anyhow back to our Bible reading. It is as much a story of religious inspired violence as the Inquisition or those who fly planes into buildings. It is as much a case of mob violence and hatred as any example we see in the world today. And it is centred against a man called Stephen. This man was of those who had been set aside to take care of the needs of the most vulnerable people such as widows. He seems to have been diligent in this task. He seems also to have been a powerful witness on behalf of Jesus Christ. And so in response to this, a plot began amongst those within the synagogue who felt threatened by the new Christian movement. And so Stephen was tried for blasphemy - along with heresy the time old accusation that religious people have used against those with whom they disagree. But Stephen demonstrates great courage. Facing the Sanhedrin that had not so long before condemned Jesus, he gives it to them straight. He recites a history of his and their own peoples’ disobedience to God. One can imagine the heckles rising. But then as if he was the first person to contemplate writing a book entitled “How to lose friends and alienate people” he ends with a furious denounciation;
“You stiff necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him - you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it.”
Strong stuff! And it sure brought great fury upon him. For his religious judges drag him outside the city walls and there they stone him to death. And Stephen dies bravely with the prayer that Jesus should receive his Spirit and the entreaty that echoes that of Jesus on the cross, that this violent deed should not be held against the perpetrators.
And that is the end of the story. Or is it? You see, one of those present at this stoning was Paul or Saul as he then was. We do not know what impression the martyrdom of Stephen made on him. We know that at the time he approved - in other words he accepted a religious understanding that dehumanised him to the dignity of those who were other than him. And yet, one wonders if what he saw, might not have touched him somewhere in his soul even if it would take some time before he could identify with Stephen. But we know that heroic self sacrifice can bring great effects. Over a century later, when there had been many more Christian martyrs in the tradition of Stephen, Tertullion the African Christian leader who became Bishop of Carthage, would observe;
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”
And down through history those words have been abundantly true. For the history of Christianity is a history in which many have suffered the ultimate penalty out of their adherence to Jesus Christ.
And why is this so powerful? In part it is because there is in the Gospel a pattern of death not being the end. We see it in Jesus Christ who was well and truly killed yet raised more alive than ever. We see it in the saints of history and even in our own age. Who can forget Archbishop Oscar Romero whose courageous stand against economic injustice and paramilitary violence led to his being slain as he celebrated the Mass - a man who had prophetically proclaimed just a week before that fateful gun shot;
“I have been frequently been threatened with death. I should tell you that as a Christian, I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me I will come to life again in the Salvadorean people. If they kill me from the moment I offer my blood to God for the redemption and resurrection of El Salvador, my death will be for the liberation of my people and as a testimony of hope for the future.”
How right he was, for today Oscar Romero remains a huge inspiration for Christians not just in El Salvador but throughout the world. You just cannot censor love. You cannot censor grace. You cannot censor the Gospel.
We are meeting in the season of Easter. We know only too well how we can devalue the lives of others and become persecutors just like the crowd calling for Jesus to be crucified or the mob that dragged Stephen to be stoned. We need to guard against the tendencies within ourselves to treat others as lesser, as expendable. We need to guard against the tendencies within ourselves to feel that our understanding is so right that we must stamp on those who see the world or even faith in a way that is different from us. For all of us have within us the possibilities of being persecutors for persecution is not just done by monstrous characters.
But also we need to live within the Easter hope that sees death giving way to resurrection. Sure, we may not have the courage of the army of martyrs whose blood has been shed but from the we can learn that violence, hatred and deaths are not last words. For they give way to peace, love and life. For the victory of all that is beautiful is ensured by the resurrection of Jesus - and so the triumph of the stone throwers is but a temporary aberration. The defeat of what they represent is truly inevitable.
ALWINGTON METHODIST CHURCH SUNDAY APRIL 20TH 2008
It’s a story of religious violence, a story of the violent death of a religious dissident. A death brought about through the brutality of stoning!
Indeed our story leads us into the difficult subject of such a brutal method of killing being not merely suggested but actually commanded by religion.
Now today we think of stoning as being a punishment that belongs to the world of Islam. Indeed, the only countries I know of in which stoning is carried out are some of the countries in which Islam is the dominant faith. These include Saudi Arabia, Iran and parts of Afghanistan. Having seem a part of a video of this atrocious barbarity, I can only describe it a sickening and evil. Yet, it is worth noting that there is no endorsement of stoning within the Quran - rather it is the Hadith collections concerning the way of the Prophet that endorse this method of killing.
Today, there is a debate concerning such Hadiths within Islam. Indeed, amongst others, Tariq Ramadan the Muslim academic who has written extensively on an interpretation of Islam within modern society and who is currently lecturing at Oxford, has called for a moratorium on capital and corporal punishment in the Muslim world. And he is certainly far from alone in pursuing such an argument.
Now, I hope that Muslim reformers are successful. But before we think that stoning is simply an Islamic problem, it is possible that its acceptability in early Islamic society may owe something to the fact that its religious roots can be seen in the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament. Within the Arabian Peninsula at the time of the Prophet, there were both Jewish and Christian presences. And indeed many of our Old Testament prophets are to be found within the Koran, people such as Abraham and Moses. So there would have been an exchange of religious ideas going on.
In this we learn much of stoning being promoted as an act required by God. The crimes for which the first five books of our Bible endorse stoning include;
- touching Mount Sinai
- cursing or blaspheming
- adultery (which includes urban rape victims not screaming loudly enough)
- preaching the wrong religion
- breaking the Sabbath
- cursing the King
- and my favourite which I occasionally remind James of, being a disobedient son.
Thank God that nowadays not even the most extreme, unbalanced Christian, in this country anyway, demands that those scriptures are adhered to.
Indeed, I cannot reconcile any teaching of a religion of love with such a practice of execution with maximum suffering as is the reality with stoning.
Actually, I would go much further. I cannot reconcile execution or indeed killing of any sort with following a religion of love. The five countries reported by Amnesty International as being responsible for 88% of known executions - China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the USA - merit pariah status in those parts of the world that claim to be civilised. Indeed, Amnesty’s estimate that at its current rate of executions, approximately 370 people will be executed by a bullet in the head during the Olympics makes all the excitement generated by people hopping, skipping and jumping, seem somewhat tawdry.
You see, as Christian, we have a particular interest in this subject. We follow a Lord and Saviour who was publicly and brutally executed by the powers of his day. And in his living and dying we are granted a picture of one whose perspective and values are as different as can be from those of the executioner. Indeed, the only time other than his own execution that we find Jesus near such an event, is the occasion recorded in John’s Gospel where a woman caught in adultery is brought before him. By the law of Moses, albeit that capital punishment was a matter for Rome, she merited stoning to death. Yet the response of Jesus was to challenge whoever was without sin to throw the first stone. And when the accusers melted away, he dismissed her with;
“Go now and leave your life of sin.”
See, at the heart of Jesus’ approach was the desire that people should learn from their failings and live better lives. Always at the core of his being was not a longing for law or justice but the unfolding of grace, that which is kinder to us than we can ever deserve - grace which the cross shows us being directed at us even when we are at our most vile. Oh may we never forget that we would be without hope in encountering a holy God were it not that the chief characteristic of that God is grace. But that grace is for us even when we are at our worst. As Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher put it;
“Nothing in man can be an effectual bar to God‘s love.”
Anyhow back to our Bible reading. It is as much a story of religious inspired violence as the Inquisition or those who fly planes into buildings. It is as much a case of mob violence and hatred as any example we see in the world today. And it is centred against a man called Stephen. This man was of those who had been set aside to take care of the needs of the most vulnerable people such as widows. He seems to have been diligent in this task. He seems also to have been a powerful witness on behalf of Jesus Christ. And so in response to this, a plot began amongst those within the synagogue who felt threatened by the new Christian movement. And so Stephen was tried for blasphemy - along with heresy the time old accusation that religious people have used against those with whom they disagree. But Stephen demonstrates great courage. Facing the Sanhedrin that had not so long before condemned Jesus, he gives it to them straight. He recites a history of his and their own peoples’ disobedience to God. One can imagine the heckles rising. But then as if he was the first person to contemplate writing a book entitled “How to lose friends and alienate people” he ends with a furious denounciation;
“You stiff necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him - you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it.”
Strong stuff! And it sure brought great fury upon him. For his religious judges drag him outside the city walls and there they stone him to death. And Stephen dies bravely with the prayer that Jesus should receive his Spirit and the entreaty that echoes that of Jesus on the cross, that this violent deed should not be held against the perpetrators.
And that is the end of the story. Or is it? You see, one of those present at this stoning was Paul or Saul as he then was. We do not know what impression the martyrdom of Stephen made on him. We know that at the time he approved - in other words he accepted a religious understanding that dehumanised him to the dignity of those who were other than him. And yet, one wonders if what he saw, might not have touched him somewhere in his soul even if it would take some time before he could identify with Stephen. But we know that heroic self sacrifice can bring great effects. Over a century later, when there had been many more Christian martyrs in the tradition of Stephen, Tertullion the African Christian leader who became Bishop of Carthage, would observe;
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”
And down through history those words have been abundantly true. For the history of Christianity is a history in which many have suffered the ultimate penalty out of their adherence to Jesus Christ.
And why is this so powerful? In part it is because there is in the Gospel a pattern of death not being the end. We see it in Jesus Christ who was well and truly killed yet raised more alive than ever. We see it in the saints of history and even in our own age. Who can forget Archbishop Oscar Romero whose courageous stand against economic injustice and paramilitary violence led to his being slain as he celebrated the Mass - a man who had prophetically proclaimed just a week before that fateful gun shot;
“I have been frequently been threatened with death. I should tell you that as a Christian, I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me I will come to life again in the Salvadorean people. If they kill me from the moment I offer my blood to God for the redemption and resurrection of El Salvador, my death will be for the liberation of my people and as a testimony of hope for the future.”
How right he was, for today Oscar Romero remains a huge inspiration for Christians not just in El Salvador but throughout the world. You just cannot censor love. You cannot censor grace. You cannot censor the Gospel.
We are meeting in the season of Easter. We know only too well how we can devalue the lives of others and become persecutors just like the crowd calling for Jesus to be crucified or the mob that dragged Stephen to be stoned. We need to guard against the tendencies within ourselves to treat others as lesser, as expendable. We need to guard against the tendencies within ourselves to feel that our understanding is so right that we must stamp on those who see the world or even faith in a way that is different from us. For all of us have within us the possibilities of being persecutors for persecution is not just done by monstrous characters.
But also we need to live within the Easter hope that sees death giving way to resurrection. Sure, we may not have the courage of the army of martyrs whose blood has been shed but from the we can learn that violence, hatred and deaths are not last words. For they give way to peace, love and life. For the victory of all that is beautiful is ensured by the resurrection of Jesus - and so the triumph of the stone throwers is but a temporary aberration. The defeat of what they represent is truly inevitable.
ALWINGTON METHODIST CHURCH SUNDAY APRIL 20TH 2008
Sunday, 13 April 2008
Easter 4 Have I got good news for Ninevah ( a non lectionary sermon)
JONAH 1: 1 - 17
As if being someone who has struggled with depression for longer than some serve a life sentence isn‘t enough, crazily I find myself working as a Methodist minister. Sure there are very many good things about being a Methodist minister but there are also difficult things such as working for the church at a time when the mainstream church is we are told in a state of decline - and the statistics sure bear that out with Methodism struggling more than most. And as someone whose every school report spoke of extreme shyness, there are times when being in a public role is about as close to torture as it is possible to get - without being water boarded by George Bush and his merry friends.
So why? It’s not that I fell in love with chapel culture as a youngster in Cornwall - far from it! It’s not that I am committed to a system that will ensure that things stay as they are or even enable us to visit the past - far from it! It’s not that I long to see the world in black and white with clear rules - far from it! It’s not that I wish to stand against things that are new and unsettling - far from it! These things are totally and utterly meaningless to me - even in some cases abhorrent!
No the only thing that makes me voluntarily stand here this morning is my belief in a word called “grace.” What is grace? Well in short it is the sovereign favour of God for all humankind irrespective of our deeds, earned worth, or proven goodness. In the words of the U2 song by that name, grace is a “thought that changed the world,” that which finds beauty and goodness in everything. And such is the nature of God who finds beauty and goodness in each of us, God who sees the potential within us however buried from the world it might be.
And this morning, grace is at the heart of our service. We have seen it in the three baptisms that have taken place. All three children are so young, too young to have earned God’s favour. And yet we baptise them into the family of God in celebration of God being committed to them in love, with Jesus living dying, being raised and interceding to the Father for them. In the words of our liturgy and in words that we have sung, we can look at these children knowing that the story of Jesus is a sign of God’s love for them - “All this for you.” Yes, God is for us, even at cost, before we could know anything of it. Yes, God loves us well before we are able to love God.
But even this does not reveal the full scope of grace. And that is why this morning, we find ourselves looking at the story of Jonah. And what time we have wasted on speculation about man eating fish and the likes - time wasting that has diverted us from the incredible power of this story. For I am convinced that what we have is a Biblical satire which reveals great truth to us just as Jesus reveals so much through the parables that he told.
Anyhow, first let’s look at the likely background to the book of Jonah. The view of most scholars is that it was written about 500 years before the birth of Jesus. The elite of Jewish society who had been in exile in far away Babylon, had returned to Jerusalem and begun the task of rebuilding their community, their city and their temple once more. Under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, this rebuilding had taken a somewhat nationalistic turn in which foreigners were distrusted. Two examples of this were Ezra forcing men to separate from their foreign wives and the rejection of the offer of help in rebuilding the Temple from Samaritans. Xenephobia at it worst and religion at its most hateful!
And so we encounter this story that paints a subversive alternative view of what being God’s people is all about, a story full of unforgettable imagery. And the story is hung around the person of Jonah, son of Amittai, a fiercely nationalistic prophet who is mentioned in the Second Book of Kings. This Jonah is in our story told to go to Ninevah, the capital city of Assyria, the historic empire that includes portions of modern Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. Such a suggestion would have shocked the first readers of this story for Assyria had been a violent empire. Indeed it was the great enemy that, soon after the historic Jonah, overran much of the Northern Kingdom of Israel taking many into exile and repopulating the lands with amongst others those who merged with the remaining population in Samaria to become the despised Samaritans. Jonah like most of those who first heard the story would hardly want Assyria to be given a second chance when instant destruction was a more palatable alternative. So in our story, Jonah decides to reject the commission and to go in the opposite direction. Anyhow thanks to a storm he gets thrown overboard and swallowed by a fish. Vomited up, he once more gets the commission and this time he goes to Nineveh - only he is so successful that the King takes heed and leads a process of repentance. And at this God shows mercy. Poor old Jonah hits the very depths of depression. He is devastated and angry with God - so angry that he goes to a place to sit alone wishing he could die. Sat in the shade of a shelter he has made, he is blessed by the provision of a vine to protect him from the sun. But when the vine is chewed by a worm his mood deteriorates further. And so the story ends with God rebuking him with these words;
“You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Ninevah has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”
See it! The story is a warning that when we put limits on the love and grace of God as Jonah did, we are putting ourselves further from God than those whom we might see as the outsiders. For God’s grace is not merely for a nation or a type of people but it is for all. To the nationalists who dominated the rebuilding of Israel after exile, no suggestion could be more scandalous than the people of Assyria being within God’s love. For here is the absolute prohibition of exclusion.
This story which we have too often tamed into being a fishy story, this story which we have wasted far too much time over arguments about historicity, is a thoroughly outrageous story that outraged respectable opinion when it first emerged. And I believe it continues to do so today. For here is the message that all are of value to God even those who are caught up in a life denying, destructive, decadent culture as was the case with Assyria. God’s love is as much for the outsider as the insider. God’s love is for the reprobate as much as for the saint. God’s love is put out by none of the stenches that we create.
I worry that too often Christianity has been defined as not being as others. If you read the Daily Mail you find Christianity being defined as much by not being Muslim as anything else. But building barriers does not take you closer to God as can be illustrated by that particular rag trawling only recently for stories to reinforce prejudice against East European migrants. But you cannot define Christianity in terms of rejection. It just will not do!
You see, Christianity is rooted in a vision of inclusive love. It is so rooted in this story and indeed in the life of Jesus. God wills good for all and that includes those who are slaughtered by the weapons we make and sell. It includes those who are incarcerated for God does not say “throw away the key and forget them.” It includes those who are deemed to be life’s losers. Why? Back to that U2 song;
“Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things.”
That is the wonder of grace. Not based on the anti Christian shame culture that pervades society but on the limitless possibilities that flow from the love of God.
Yes, grace turns the world upside down. And because of that we have been hesitant to let it invade our world. It is a bit like the late Donald Soper who visited this church for the 75th anniversary celebrations, once put it;
“Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it’s been thought too hard and never tried.”
And there’s the rub! Grace is a fundamentally revolutionary concept. It is uncomfortable to the powers within our world. But Christianity in its earliest days had an uneasy relationship with the powers until the coup when a non violent faith based on grace suffered a takeover at the hands of the bloodstained Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. And yet, the message of grace has never been eliminated.
Today, the church stands on the verge of marginalisation. And that is no bad place to be. It is after all where Jesus stood. Church privileges are challenged as never before and the church is but one of many voices. Yet here comes the opportunity to re-emphasise the one and only thing we have to offer - grace! You do not have to have earned it as baptism has reminded us. You do not have to deserve it as the news in Ninevah reminds us. It is simply that which God offers us. It is God’s statement that every one of you count and if society says otherwise, then society is infiltrated by demonic values. The task of the Christian Church is to challenge the culture of domination with that which liberates. And that is grace. My grace be lived and experienced by each of us. May grace be unleashed in the public policy of this and other lands. Enough of domination! Enough even of justice! Grace is our hope!
And it is that and that alone which keeps me within the church. Good news for Ninevah of old and all the Ninevahs of today.
BIDEFORD METHODIST CHURCH SUNDAY APRIL 13TH 2008
As if being someone who has struggled with depression for longer than some serve a life sentence isn‘t enough, crazily I find myself working as a Methodist minister. Sure there are very many good things about being a Methodist minister but there are also difficult things such as working for the church at a time when the mainstream church is we are told in a state of decline - and the statistics sure bear that out with Methodism struggling more than most. And as someone whose every school report spoke of extreme shyness, there are times when being in a public role is about as close to torture as it is possible to get - without being water boarded by George Bush and his merry friends.
So why? It’s not that I fell in love with chapel culture as a youngster in Cornwall - far from it! It’s not that I am committed to a system that will ensure that things stay as they are or even enable us to visit the past - far from it! It’s not that I long to see the world in black and white with clear rules - far from it! It’s not that I wish to stand against things that are new and unsettling - far from it! These things are totally and utterly meaningless to me - even in some cases abhorrent!
No the only thing that makes me voluntarily stand here this morning is my belief in a word called “grace.” What is grace? Well in short it is the sovereign favour of God for all humankind irrespective of our deeds, earned worth, or proven goodness. In the words of the U2 song by that name, grace is a “thought that changed the world,” that which finds beauty and goodness in everything. And such is the nature of God who finds beauty and goodness in each of us, God who sees the potential within us however buried from the world it might be.
And this morning, grace is at the heart of our service. We have seen it in the three baptisms that have taken place. All three children are so young, too young to have earned God’s favour. And yet we baptise them into the family of God in celebration of God being committed to them in love, with Jesus living dying, being raised and interceding to the Father for them. In the words of our liturgy and in words that we have sung, we can look at these children knowing that the story of Jesus is a sign of God’s love for them - “All this for you.” Yes, God is for us, even at cost, before we could know anything of it. Yes, God loves us well before we are able to love God.
But even this does not reveal the full scope of grace. And that is why this morning, we find ourselves looking at the story of Jonah. And what time we have wasted on speculation about man eating fish and the likes - time wasting that has diverted us from the incredible power of this story. For I am convinced that what we have is a Biblical satire which reveals great truth to us just as Jesus reveals so much through the parables that he told.
Anyhow, first let’s look at the likely background to the book of Jonah. The view of most scholars is that it was written about 500 years before the birth of Jesus. The elite of Jewish society who had been in exile in far away Babylon, had returned to Jerusalem and begun the task of rebuilding their community, their city and their temple once more. Under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, this rebuilding had taken a somewhat nationalistic turn in which foreigners were distrusted. Two examples of this were Ezra forcing men to separate from their foreign wives and the rejection of the offer of help in rebuilding the Temple from Samaritans. Xenephobia at it worst and religion at its most hateful!
And so we encounter this story that paints a subversive alternative view of what being God’s people is all about, a story full of unforgettable imagery. And the story is hung around the person of Jonah, son of Amittai, a fiercely nationalistic prophet who is mentioned in the Second Book of Kings. This Jonah is in our story told to go to Ninevah, the capital city of Assyria, the historic empire that includes portions of modern Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. Such a suggestion would have shocked the first readers of this story for Assyria had been a violent empire. Indeed it was the great enemy that, soon after the historic Jonah, overran much of the Northern Kingdom of Israel taking many into exile and repopulating the lands with amongst others those who merged with the remaining population in Samaria to become the despised Samaritans. Jonah like most of those who first heard the story would hardly want Assyria to be given a second chance when instant destruction was a more palatable alternative. So in our story, Jonah decides to reject the commission and to go in the opposite direction. Anyhow thanks to a storm he gets thrown overboard and swallowed by a fish. Vomited up, he once more gets the commission and this time he goes to Nineveh - only he is so successful that the King takes heed and leads a process of repentance. And at this God shows mercy. Poor old Jonah hits the very depths of depression. He is devastated and angry with God - so angry that he goes to a place to sit alone wishing he could die. Sat in the shade of a shelter he has made, he is blessed by the provision of a vine to protect him from the sun. But when the vine is chewed by a worm his mood deteriorates further. And so the story ends with God rebuking him with these words;
“You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Ninevah has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”
See it! The story is a warning that when we put limits on the love and grace of God as Jonah did, we are putting ourselves further from God than those whom we might see as the outsiders. For God’s grace is not merely for a nation or a type of people but it is for all. To the nationalists who dominated the rebuilding of Israel after exile, no suggestion could be more scandalous than the people of Assyria being within God’s love. For here is the absolute prohibition of exclusion.
This story which we have too often tamed into being a fishy story, this story which we have wasted far too much time over arguments about historicity, is a thoroughly outrageous story that outraged respectable opinion when it first emerged. And I believe it continues to do so today. For here is the message that all are of value to God even those who are caught up in a life denying, destructive, decadent culture as was the case with Assyria. God’s love is as much for the outsider as the insider. God’s love is for the reprobate as much as for the saint. God’s love is put out by none of the stenches that we create.
I worry that too often Christianity has been defined as not being as others. If you read the Daily Mail you find Christianity being defined as much by not being Muslim as anything else. But building barriers does not take you closer to God as can be illustrated by that particular rag trawling only recently for stories to reinforce prejudice against East European migrants. But you cannot define Christianity in terms of rejection. It just will not do!
You see, Christianity is rooted in a vision of inclusive love. It is so rooted in this story and indeed in the life of Jesus. God wills good for all and that includes those who are slaughtered by the weapons we make and sell. It includes those who are incarcerated for God does not say “throw away the key and forget them.” It includes those who are deemed to be life’s losers. Why? Back to that U2 song;
“Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things.”
That is the wonder of grace. Not based on the anti Christian shame culture that pervades society but on the limitless possibilities that flow from the love of God.
Yes, grace turns the world upside down. And because of that we have been hesitant to let it invade our world. It is a bit like the late Donald Soper who visited this church for the 75th anniversary celebrations, once put it;
“Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it’s been thought too hard and never tried.”
And there’s the rub! Grace is a fundamentally revolutionary concept. It is uncomfortable to the powers within our world. But Christianity in its earliest days had an uneasy relationship with the powers until the coup when a non violent faith based on grace suffered a takeover at the hands of the bloodstained Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. And yet, the message of grace has never been eliminated.
Today, the church stands on the verge of marginalisation. And that is no bad place to be. It is after all where Jesus stood. Church privileges are challenged as never before and the church is but one of many voices. Yet here comes the opportunity to re-emphasise the one and only thing we have to offer - grace! You do not have to have earned it as baptism has reminded us. You do not have to deserve it as the news in Ninevah reminds us. It is simply that which God offers us. It is God’s statement that every one of you count and if society says otherwise, then society is infiltrated by demonic values. The task of the Christian Church is to challenge the culture of domination with that which liberates. And that is grace. My grace be lived and experienced by each of us. May grace be unleashed in the public policy of this and other lands. Enough of domination! Enough even of justice! Grace is our hope!
And it is that and that alone which keeps me within the church. Good news for Ninevah of old and all the Ninevahs of today.
BIDEFORD METHODIST CHURCH SUNDAY APRIL 13TH 2008
Saturday, 5 April 2008
Easter 4 - Jesus the Good Shepherd
JOHN 10: 1-10
It’s fine to talk about “Good Shepherd” Sunday on the fourth Sunday of Easter but most of us in today’s Britain start with the great disadvantage of knowing precious little about shepherds. We rarely see them and the little we know of them probably owes much to the rustic literature of Thomas Hardy and creations of his such as Gabriel Oake in “Far from the Madding Crowd.”
So is this one of those Sunday that we would do well to dispense with? Not quite, in my opinion. For if we explore the metaphor, we find that this is a Sunday that can enrich our understanding of the God we encounter in Jesus Christ.
The image itself is ancient. It can be found as a metaphor as far back as the ancient Egyptian Pharoahs who saw themselves as having royal responsibilities as well as privileges. And these responsibilities included care for the subjects for our word “pastor”comes from the Latin translation. Within Israel, the symbolism can be seen in the shepherd boy David becoming Israel’s greatest King, the same David who is eternally associated with the psalm that begins with those words that have resounded down through the centuries;
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.”
And now today we are invited to think of Jesus as our shepherd. An image that may help us see something of the meaning of Jesus as our shepherd, comes from Hawaii. The novel “Hawaii” by James Michener tells of an old man who contracts the leprosy that makes him an outcast in that society. His future can only be away from all he cherishes and those whom he holds dear - in the horror of a leper colony. The old man shares his sad news with his family but now his wife offers to become his “kokua.” These “kokuas” are healthy people who willingly commit themselves to accompanying and nursing a leprous patient. In so doing they take on the risk of catching the disease and experiencing the same suffering as those whom they offer themselves to. No wonder that they are asked as they prepare to go aboard the ship that will take them to their new lives;
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
After all to be a “kokua” demands a special level of commitment, commitment that can only come out of love. Jesus, the shepherd, demonstrates just that sort of commitment - the commitment of one who is prepared to sacrifice all out of love for the likes of you and me.
We see such a lifestyle in the Palestinian shepherd who would have shared in all the hardship and dangers of the flock, constantly alert to the dangers of attack. Theirs was a way of life that left them on the margins of society, unclean when it came to the religious observances of the day, and poor prospects as family men given that the protection of the flock would involve their own families being left vulnerable at night. Oh, the reality is so far removed from the cuddly image of shepherds that we see in our Nativitys.
And so it was with Jesus. Now all too often domesticated by the church, Jesus lived a counter cultural lifestyle which took him away from security, daring to express by words and actions the grace of God for all peoples in ways that scandalised so many of the respectable. Rather than exalting princes or religious leaders, he was often to be found with the most rank of outsiders telling them that they had a stake in the Kingdom of God. And through it all, he was attracting the enmity of the predators of his day, predators who would eventually get their way in his being hounded to a brutal public execution, causing even his family to question the path that he was treading. And all of it for you and me with a focus as intent as any shepherd protecting his flock from danger.
Today we look to Jesus as our shepherd. When Jesus spoke to his hearers, it was in a world in which many claimed a right to lead and guide. After all, Jesus was in a controversy with other religious leaders. When John wrote his Gospel, he wrote to a church with a veritable collection of would be leaders amidst a world in which the Gospel was very much a minority religious understanding. But, amidst the claims of so many, John forcefully reminds us that the true leader, the true guide, the true shepherd is Jesus. Why? Because John’s Gospel is written precisely so that we
“may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
For John, Thomas is spot on when having met the Risen Christ, he declares;
“My Lord and my God!”
And if Jesus is Lord and God, then the post of “Shepherd” is filled and we have no need to look elsewhere. Sure, the insights of others may have much value. Sure, ambitions, hopes and dreams may enrich our lives. But these things can never be our masters. That position belongs exclusively to Jesus and is no longer up for grabs.
And more than that, had our reading gone but one verse further, and we would have read that Jesus proclaims himself to be the “good shepherd.” Now I am not one of those who believes that Jesus should be worshipped simply for being God. It is not going too far to say that the object of worship must surely be worthy of worship. And at times down through the years, the church has given us a pretty poor picture of God. And this is a problem for other than a bit of unworthy wheeler dealing in our approach to God based on self interest, there is absolutely no point in worshipping a Lord who is other than good. If God is more vengeful than me at my worst, the whole things is a preposterous waste of time. For surely, the one whom we worship and whose guidance we accepts has to be better than you and me at our best. And whatever our difficulties with some scriptures, given that God is as God is revealed in Christ, then God is truly good. To know what God is like, we simply have to look at Jesus, and then we find that God is good beyond all measure. And that goodness is revealed in Jesus braving hostility and danger so that we might have life to the full, to the max!
Now, all these things are rather comforting. Shepherd images do that to us. And such is right for it is important to know that Jesus is for us as much in the times when we stray as when we are safely in the flock. And psychologists can tell us much about the importance of belonging. But before we contentedly wallow in these things, let’s not ignore the challenge that comes from Jesus being the shepherd. I simply refer you to Brian Stoffregen’s lectionary notes in which he refers to hearing a lecture by Ed Friedman who referred to a friend of his who had watched Palestinian shepherds with their sheep. He noticed that the most common action of shepherds to their sheep far from being coddling them was to hit them in the ass with a rod - not quite the empathetic action we might expect. So this morning it is that I encourage you to be grateful for the courageous love and care offered to you by the good shepherd who is Jesus but also be ready for kick up the arse that we each need to be true followers. Such is our Gospel - we receive unmerited love but from time to time we need the Gospel of the arse kick if we are to be what God intends us to be so that we might have life to the max!
ALVERDISCOTT METHODIST CHURCH - SUNDAY APRIL 13TH 2008
It’s fine to talk about “Good Shepherd” Sunday on the fourth Sunday of Easter but most of us in today’s Britain start with the great disadvantage of knowing precious little about shepherds. We rarely see them and the little we know of them probably owes much to the rustic literature of Thomas Hardy and creations of his such as Gabriel Oake in “Far from the Madding Crowd.”
So is this one of those Sunday that we would do well to dispense with? Not quite, in my opinion. For if we explore the metaphor, we find that this is a Sunday that can enrich our understanding of the God we encounter in Jesus Christ.
The image itself is ancient. It can be found as a metaphor as far back as the ancient Egyptian Pharoahs who saw themselves as having royal responsibilities as well as privileges. And these responsibilities included care for the subjects for our word “pastor”comes from the Latin translation. Within Israel, the symbolism can be seen in the shepherd boy David becoming Israel’s greatest King, the same David who is eternally associated with the psalm that begins with those words that have resounded down through the centuries;
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.”
And now today we are invited to think of Jesus as our shepherd. An image that may help us see something of the meaning of Jesus as our shepherd, comes from Hawaii. The novel “Hawaii” by James Michener tells of an old man who contracts the leprosy that makes him an outcast in that society. His future can only be away from all he cherishes and those whom he holds dear - in the horror of a leper colony. The old man shares his sad news with his family but now his wife offers to become his “kokua.” These “kokuas” are healthy people who willingly commit themselves to accompanying and nursing a leprous patient. In so doing they take on the risk of catching the disease and experiencing the same suffering as those whom they offer themselves to. No wonder that they are asked as they prepare to go aboard the ship that will take them to their new lives;
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
After all to be a “kokua” demands a special level of commitment, commitment that can only come out of love. Jesus, the shepherd, demonstrates just that sort of commitment - the commitment of one who is prepared to sacrifice all out of love for the likes of you and me.
We see such a lifestyle in the Palestinian shepherd who would have shared in all the hardship and dangers of the flock, constantly alert to the dangers of attack. Theirs was a way of life that left them on the margins of society, unclean when it came to the religious observances of the day, and poor prospects as family men given that the protection of the flock would involve their own families being left vulnerable at night. Oh, the reality is so far removed from the cuddly image of shepherds that we see in our Nativitys.
And so it was with Jesus. Now all too often domesticated by the church, Jesus lived a counter cultural lifestyle which took him away from security, daring to express by words and actions the grace of God for all peoples in ways that scandalised so many of the respectable. Rather than exalting princes or religious leaders, he was often to be found with the most rank of outsiders telling them that they had a stake in the Kingdom of God. And through it all, he was attracting the enmity of the predators of his day, predators who would eventually get their way in his being hounded to a brutal public execution, causing even his family to question the path that he was treading. And all of it for you and me with a focus as intent as any shepherd protecting his flock from danger.
Today we look to Jesus as our shepherd. When Jesus spoke to his hearers, it was in a world in which many claimed a right to lead and guide. After all, Jesus was in a controversy with other religious leaders. When John wrote his Gospel, he wrote to a church with a veritable collection of would be leaders amidst a world in which the Gospel was very much a minority religious understanding. But, amidst the claims of so many, John forcefully reminds us that the true leader, the true guide, the true shepherd is Jesus. Why? Because John’s Gospel is written precisely so that we
“may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
For John, Thomas is spot on when having met the Risen Christ, he declares;
“My Lord and my God!”
And if Jesus is Lord and God, then the post of “Shepherd” is filled and we have no need to look elsewhere. Sure, the insights of others may have much value. Sure, ambitions, hopes and dreams may enrich our lives. But these things can never be our masters. That position belongs exclusively to Jesus and is no longer up for grabs.
And more than that, had our reading gone but one verse further, and we would have read that Jesus proclaims himself to be the “good shepherd.” Now I am not one of those who believes that Jesus should be worshipped simply for being God. It is not going too far to say that the object of worship must surely be worthy of worship. And at times down through the years, the church has given us a pretty poor picture of God. And this is a problem for other than a bit of unworthy wheeler dealing in our approach to God based on self interest, there is absolutely no point in worshipping a Lord who is other than good. If God is more vengeful than me at my worst, the whole things is a preposterous waste of time. For surely, the one whom we worship and whose guidance we accepts has to be better than you and me at our best. And whatever our difficulties with some scriptures, given that God is as God is revealed in Christ, then God is truly good. To know what God is like, we simply have to look at Jesus, and then we find that God is good beyond all measure. And that goodness is revealed in Jesus braving hostility and danger so that we might have life to the full, to the max!
Now, all these things are rather comforting. Shepherd images do that to us. And such is right for it is important to know that Jesus is for us as much in the times when we stray as when we are safely in the flock. And psychologists can tell us much about the importance of belonging. But before we contentedly wallow in these things, let’s not ignore the challenge that comes from Jesus being the shepherd. I simply refer you to Brian Stoffregen’s lectionary notes in which he refers to hearing a lecture by Ed Friedman who referred to a friend of his who had watched Palestinian shepherds with their sheep. He noticed that the most common action of shepherds to their sheep far from being coddling them was to hit them in the ass with a rod - not quite the empathetic action we might expect. So this morning it is that I encourage you to be grateful for the courageous love and care offered to you by the good shepherd who is Jesus but also be ready for kick up the arse that we each need to be true followers. Such is our Gospel - we receive unmerited love but from time to time we need the Gospel of the arse kick if we are to be what God intends us to be so that we might have life to the max!
ALVERDISCOTT METHODIST CHURCH - SUNDAY APRIL 13TH 2008
Saturday, 22 March 2008
Easter Day - From tears to joy
JOHN 20: 1-18
It was a miserable start to the day. Filled with desolation at what had happened but two days previously, Mary Magdalene went on pilgrimage to the tomb of Jesus whilst it was still dark. She had no reason to hope - only reason to weep. And on her arrival, what she saw must have been like a kick in the teeth. The ultimate desecration had happened. Someone had rolled the stone away. Given that grave robbing was a sufficiently big problem to cause an imperial edict against it t have been proclaimed, there could only be once conclusion - not only had Jesus been killed in a humiliating way but even in death he was not being left in peace.
Soon she would meet two of the followers of Jesus - Peter and the Beloved Disciple. Ultimately they would both enter the tomb and see the strips of cloth lying there. Now we are told that the Beloved Disciple did at this point believe but even then such belief was incomplete.
Soon the men have gone off to wherever they were staying. But Mary Magdelene remains at the tomb. Stuck in a Good Friday world, she is left to weep. We can barely imagine the extent of her agony. But now things begin to change. We are told that she sees two angels where Jesus should have been lying and they engage her in conversation before she turns to face what she thought was the gardener. It is only when this man calls her by name, that she realises just who she is speaking to. It is Jesus! And now the transformation in Mary Magdelene takes effect. “Rabboni!” she cries. And with that she embraces him with such commitment that Jesus has to tell her to stop. But now the tears have been replaced by joy and the Mary who returns to the disciples is as different as different can be from the Mary who had set off that morning. Why the change? Well, the reason is in those words on her return;
“I have seen the Lord!”
And for her just as ultimately for the other followers of Jesus, the world became transformed. Sorrow gives way to joy. Fear gives way to boldness. And a world drenched in the tears of Good Friday becomes a multi coloured world on Easter Day, no longer filled with despair but pregnant with new and wonderful possibilities.
And so this day is full of meaning for us. It is an event that affirms our value in the sight of God. I guess that the fear of rejection is one of the greatest fears within us. We live in a society that is prone to squashing people, squeezing the sense of self worth out of them. And yet the Easter story shows us Jesus taking the place of those who are most despised and rejected. He has become as one with them in his ministry and this can be seen in his death. In this he shows the degeneracy of society which is built on the imposed suffering of those who are scapegoated. His vision is of a Kingdom which embodies rejection of scapegoat for it is a Kingdom that embraces humanity in its diversity rather than excluding and rejecting. That Kingdom of radical and peaceful inclusion gets an emphatic YES through the resurrection of Jesus. The Nobodies become Somebodies in the new order to which Resurrection points. To use the title of a children’s song from Barney the Dinassour, “Everyone is Special.”
In today’s Mail on Sunday, there is for once an article worth reading. It is an Easter message by the archbishop of York, John Sentamu. In it he makes mention of how several years ago, he was a member of the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Feelings ran high especially when the four young men suspected of committing the murder appeared. Amongst the angry throng, there were four equally young men with iron bars concealed in their trousers, waiting for the chance of a revenge attack. Sentamu went out to tell these men that violence was not the answer. Their reply was;
“Bish, we don’t believe in God.”
Sentamu responded;
“It doesn’t matter. God believes in you.”
And this morning I want to tell you that everything about Jesus including his death and resurrection should tell you that God believes in you!
But not only is the Easter story telling us that God believes in each and everyone of us regardless of our status and failings but it also speaks to us about hope. As we have seen the Easter story is rooted in the appearances of Jesus to heartbroken people who had lost the capacity to hope, people who knew only shattered dreams. Back in 1992 when South Africa’s future was uncertain, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was asked if he felt able to remain hopeful as he looked at the pains of uncertainty. His reply was;
“I am always hopeful. A Christian is a prisoner of hope. What could have looked more hopeless than Good Friday? But then at Easter God says, ‘From this moment on, no situation is untransfigurable.’ There is no situation from which God cannot extract good.”
Indeed as Rev Nathan Baxter, the retired Dean of the Washington National Cathedral, puts it in challenging words that speak of how Easter can be as real to us as it was to those caught up in the Easter story we contemplate during this time of year;
“Remember this: Easter is not just a holy event that happened almost 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem. It is a little Easter on whatever day we discover our need for the love of God. When we discover that all the Good Fridays of our lives cannot destroy the love God has for us.”
So this morning I invite you to respond afresh to the old story. Once more God invites you to move forward trusting in him who wipes away your tears and invites you into the circle of joy.
Christ is risen! This is the time for celebration!
BIDEFORD METHODIST CHURCH SUNDAY MARCH 23RD 2008
It was a miserable start to the day. Filled with desolation at what had happened but two days previously, Mary Magdalene went on pilgrimage to the tomb of Jesus whilst it was still dark. She had no reason to hope - only reason to weep. And on her arrival, what she saw must have been like a kick in the teeth. The ultimate desecration had happened. Someone had rolled the stone away. Given that grave robbing was a sufficiently big problem to cause an imperial edict against it t have been proclaimed, there could only be once conclusion - not only had Jesus been killed in a humiliating way but even in death he was not being left in peace.
Soon she would meet two of the followers of Jesus - Peter and the Beloved Disciple. Ultimately they would both enter the tomb and see the strips of cloth lying there. Now we are told that the Beloved Disciple did at this point believe but even then such belief was incomplete.
Soon the men have gone off to wherever they were staying. But Mary Magdelene remains at the tomb. Stuck in a Good Friday world, she is left to weep. We can barely imagine the extent of her agony. But now things begin to change. We are told that she sees two angels where Jesus should have been lying and they engage her in conversation before she turns to face what she thought was the gardener. It is only when this man calls her by name, that she realises just who she is speaking to. It is Jesus! And now the transformation in Mary Magdelene takes effect. “Rabboni!” she cries. And with that she embraces him with such commitment that Jesus has to tell her to stop. But now the tears have been replaced by joy and the Mary who returns to the disciples is as different as different can be from the Mary who had set off that morning. Why the change? Well, the reason is in those words on her return;
“I have seen the Lord!”
And for her just as ultimately for the other followers of Jesus, the world became transformed. Sorrow gives way to joy. Fear gives way to boldness. And a world drenched in the tears of Good Friday becomes a multi coloured world on Easter Day, no longer filled with despair but pregnant with new and wonderful possibilities.
And so this day is full of meaning for us. It is an event that affirms our value in the sight of God. I guess that the fear of rejection is one of the greatest fears within us. We live in a society that is prone to squashing people, squeezing the sense of self worth out of them. And yet the Easter story shows us Jesus taking the place of those who are most despised and rejected. He has become as one with them in his ministry and this can be seen in his death. In this he shows the degeneracy of society which is built on the imposed suffering of those who are scapegoated. His vision is of a Kingdom which embodies rejection of scapegoat for it is a Kingdom that embraces humanity in its diversity rather than excluding and rejecting. That Kingdom of radical and peaceful inclusion gets an emphatic YES through the resurrection of Jesus. The Nobodies become Somebodies in the new order to which Resurrection points. To use the title of a children’s song from Barney the Dinassour, “Everyone is Special.”
In today’s Mail on Sunday, there is for once an article worth reading. It is an Easter message by the archbishop of York, John Sentamu. In it he makes mention of how several years ago, he was a member of the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Feelings ran high especially when the four young men suspected of committing the murder appeared. Amongst the angry throng, there were four equally young men with iron bars concealed in their trousers, waiting for the chance of a revenge attack. Sentamu went out to tell these men that violence was not the answer. Their reply was;
“Bish, we don’t believe in God.”
Sentamu responded;
“It doesn’t matter. God believes in you.”
And this morning I want to tell you that everything about Jesus including his death and resurrection should tell you that God believes in you!
But not only is the Easter story telling us that God believes in each and everyone of us regardless of our status and failings but it also speaks to us about hope. As we have seen the Easter story is rooted in the appearances of Jesus to heartbroken people who had lost the capacity to hope, people who knew only shattered dreams. Back in 1992 when South Africa’s future was uncertain, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was asked if he felt able to remain hopeful as he looked at the pains of uncertainty. His reply was;
“I am always hopeful. A Christian is a prisoner of hope. What could have looked more hopeless than Good Friday? But then at Easter God says, ‘From this moment on, no situation is untransfigurable.’ There is no situation from which God cannot extract good.”
Indeed as Rev Nathan Baxter, the retired Dean of the Washington National Cathedral, puts it in challenging words that speak of how Easter can be as real to us as it was to those caught up in the Easter story we contemplate during this time of year;
“Remember this: Easter is not just a holy event that happened almost 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem. It is a little Easter on whatever day we discover our need for the love of God. When we discover that all the Good Fridays of our lives cannot destroy the love God has for us.”
So this morning I invite you to respond afresh to the old story. Once more God invites you to move forward trusting in him who wipes away your tears and invites you into the circle of joy.
Christ is risen! This is the time for celebration!
BIDEFORD METHODIST CHURCH SUNDAY MARCH 23RD 2008
Easter Day - The Power of Love
MATTHEW 28: 1-10
Rowan Williams put it well when he says that when we celebrate Easter;
“we are standing in the Middle of a second ‘Big Bang,’ a tumultuous surge of divine energy as fiery and intense as the very beginning of the universe.”
What a claim that is - that the day we are celebrating is on a level with the very beginning of time. And yet whilst both ‘Big Bang’ and ‘Resurrection’ are in many ways beyond the scopes of our imagination, together they do so much to define our understanding of the world. The former brings the world into being and is in essence the science of creation - through which a loving God sets of the cosmos with its bright array of possibilities. The latter transforms how we see the world that is known to us and how we see ourselves. Both are within the realms of mystery. Both bring into play new realities.
And yet both come without expectation. One of the strongest evidences for the Resurrection of Jesus is that his followers did not expect it. On Good Friday and Holy Saturday we go about our lives contentedly because we know what the outcome of the story will be. And in that we lose some of the power of the story. For to those closest to Jesus, the inbetween time was a time of hopelessness and despair. Their world had caved in. The hopes and dreams that had been theirs, now lay totally and absolutely devastated. Their world was shrouded in complete darkness. All that remained was to visit the tomb - those painful visits that we all make in times of loss.
And so it is that Mary Magdelene and another Mary - the mother of James according to the other synoptic Gospels - came to the tomb. According to Mark and Luke, their intent was to anoint the dead body of Jesus but of this intent there is no mention made by Matthew. Indeed it is surely questionable whether the authorities would have allowed them to go about such a task. But anyhow, what matters is that such an anointing never happens and this becomes a most unusual visit to a tomb. Matthew tells us of an earthquake and an angel sat in the tomb, with Roman guards outside frozen in a state of petrification. The angel tells the news that Jesus is risen and tells the women to let the disciples know for Jesus is heading for Galilee where it had all began. And then as the women who are by now a combination of joy and fear, hurry away to take the good news to the disciples, they are met by the Risen Christ.
Every year we tell these Gospel stories of the appearances of the Risen Christ. And whilst the accounts of the Gospels have their differences, what they have in common is that there was no expectancy of resurrection and indeed those closest to Jesus had big difficulty in believing in it. Why? Because the Resurrection of Jesus was outside of their world vision. For the Resurrection of Jesus cannot but change how we see God, the world and ourselves. Yes, like ‘Big Bang,’ it is a defining moment!
But how does it serve as a defining moment? Well, William Sloan Coffin puts it well;
“Easter has to do with the victory of seemingly powerless love over loveless power.”
In the story of Holy Week and the Passion of Christ, we see plenty of loveless power. We see loveless power in;
- the Authority of the Empire of Rome with its military might and power of life and death
- the economic power based upon the temple where the poor were exploited by the families who controlled the trade
- the religious power of the High Priest and Sanhedrin silencing the voices that might just undermine them and their positions of dominance over peoples’ lives
- the power of a mob who normally would have been subject to power but who were now relishing the moment of being able to decide a man’s fate.
But all this power rooted in domination, power that on Good Friday would seemed to have been triumphant, falls before the power of love. The power of love which had been demonstrated in the liberating teaching and healings of Jesus as well as in his self giving death, receives a resounding YES from God in the act of Resurrection. Here is the emphatic approval for all eternity of that all inclusive love embodied in Jesus. Now we begin to get the Resurrection message that
- Life is stronger than death
- Love is stronger than hatred
- Non violence is stronger than armies and weaponry
- Inclusion is victorious over all that excludes.
Put bluntly the message of Resurrection confronts much of what we glibly accept. It speaks to us of a new way, Christ’s way, which embraces human dignity and dares to dream of realising a new reality of peace, building people up and respect for what Rabbi Jonathan Sachs describes as “The Dignity of Difference” rather than our lazy acceptance of inevitability of conflict, shame culture and fear of diversity. Resurrection challenges us to question where we are going when
- a Ghanaian widowed mother of two, Ama Sumani, dying of cancer is deported to a land where it was known that she would be denied the drug that would have prolonged her life
- failed asylum seekers from Zimbabwe are threatened with deportation and the promise of imprisonment on their arrival by the ever tender, Robert Mugabe
- great games can be hosted and the most lethal of weapons afforded and yet basic housing is left an unfulfilled dream for all too many, even here in Bideford
- the children of this country were fund to be the unhappiest in the west in a recent survey despite Britain being the 5th wealthiest country.
You see, Resurrection is not a safe subject. It means that we have to take this Jesus and the Kingdom he proclaimed very seriously. His message challenged the norms of his day and the response can be seen in Good Friday. To expect it to be warmly welcomed today is a pipe dream born from the womb of ignorance.
And yet, it has to be the basis of our hope. Without Resurrection, hope is dead. But with Resurrection comes hope to battered lives and smashed up communities. For new and fresh beginnings become possible through the resurrected one who says;
“Behold I make all things new.”
This evening I want to encourage you to put Resurrection at the heart of your faith. I do believe that it points us to life beyond the grave. I take the Apostle Paul very seriously when he writes;
“For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”
I take him seriously when he says that without Resurrection our faith is futile. And as one who is often involved in accompanying people whose lives are coming to an end, and in comforting those who are bereaved, this is important to me and I wholly believe it. But I am equally convinced that Resurrection is as much about our living as followers of Christ.
Gene Robinson is the Episcopal Bishop of Mew Hampshire. His appointment was controversial due to the fact that he had been in a same sex partnership for some years. In the melee surrounding his appointment, he received many death threats and indeed before his consecration he was asked to provide his blood type so that if he was attacked at the consecration, treatment could begin on the way to hospital. Writing for the online Anglican publication “The Witness” at Easter a couple of years after the events, he looked back making the following observation;
“I remember saying to our two grown daughters, who were worried and anxious about my well-being, "You know, there are worse things than death. Some people actually never live -- and that is the worst death of all. If something does happen, remember that the God who has loved me my whole life, will still be loving me, and I will have died doing something I believe in with my whole heart."
As I strapped on my bulletproof vest just before the service, I remember feeling blessedly calm about whatever might happen. Not because I am brave, but because God is good and because God has overcome death, so that I never have to be afraid again
That is the power of the resurrection. not in what happens after death, but what the knowledge of our resurrection does for our lives and ministries before death.”
Mighty words indeed that remind us how we are in the care of the one who has defeated the most dreaded of enemies. Words that encourage us that we can journey forwards knowing that we are accompanied by a living, loving God. A God who sets each of us free and takes away the fear of hopelessness. Jurgen Moltmann came to faith amidst the ashes of his country’s defeat in the Second World War. He first read the Bible in a prisoner of war camp. There he sought hope and found it in the risen Christ and hope has been a theme of his writings ever since. In his “Jesus Christ for today’s world” he puts it this way;
“ In the image of the resurrection of the body, life and death can be brought into harmony in such a way that death doesn’t have to be repressed either. In this spirit of the resurrection I can her and now wholly live, wholly love and wholly die, for I Know with certainty that I shall wholly rise again. In this hope I can love all created things, for I know that none of them will be lost.”
My favourite film of all time is “Dead Poets Society.” In that film the inspirational albeit unorthodox teacher, John Keating, seeks to inspire the pupils of a stuffy school where boys live out their parents’ dreams. In once scene he takes them to look at the pictures of past pupils who are long dead. He urges them to get close to the glass and asks them if they hear what those pupils are saying to those of today. At that, Keating starts to whisper
“Carpe Diem! Carpe Diem!”
before sharing the words in English -
“Seize the moment! - Have an extraordinary life boys!”
So today as we celebrate the “surge of divine energy” that is the Resurrection, we are called once more to live out the counter cultural Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed. His work of radical inclusion of all peoples as being of infinite worth goes on. And it continues with the Risen Christ. May we live extraordinary lives as Easter People daring even to be a little bit subversive.
Carpe Diem! Seize the moment!
BIDEFORD METHODIST CIRCUIT EASTER SERVICE SUNDAY MARCH 23RD 2008
Rowan Williams put it well when he says that when we celebrate Easter;
“we are standing in the Middle of a second ‘Big Bang,’ a tumultuous surge of divine energy as fiery and intense as the very beginning of the universe.”
What a claim that is - that the day we are celebrating is on a level with the very beginning of time. And yet whilst both ‘Big Bang’ and ‘Resurrection’ are in many ways beyond the scopes of our imagination, together they do so much to define our understanding of the world. The former brings the world into being and is in essence the science of creation - through which a loving God sets of the cosmos with its bright array of possibilities. The latter transforms how we see the world that is known to us and how we see ourselves. Both are within the realms of mystery. Both bring into play new realities.
And yet both come without expectation. One of the strongest evidences for the Resurrection of Jesus is that his followers did not expect it. On Good Friday and Holy Saturday we go about our lives contentedly because we know what the outcome of the story will be. And in that we lose some of the power of the story. For to those closest to Jesus, the inbetween time was a time of hopelessness and despair. Their world had caved in. The hopes and dreams that had been theirs, now lay totally and absolutely devastated. Their world was shrouded in complete darkness. All that remained was to visit the tomb - those painful visits that we all make in times of loss.
And so it is that Mary Magdelene and another Mary - the mother of James according to the other synoptic Gospels - came to the tomb. According to Mark and Luke, their intent was to anoint the dead body of Jesus but of this intent there is no mention made by Matthew. Indeed it is surely questionable whether the authorities would have allowed them to go about such a task. But anyhow, what matters is that such an anointing never happens and this becomes a most unusual visit to a tomb. Matthew tells us of an earthquake and an angel sat in the tomb, with Roman guards outside frozen in a state of petrification. The angel tells the news that Jesus is risen and tells the women to let the disciples know for Jesus is heading for Galilee where it had all began. And then as the women who are by now a combination of joy and fear, hurry away to take the good news to the disciples, they are met by the Risen Christ.
Every year we tell these Gospel stories of the appearances of the Risen Christ. And whilst the accounts of the Gospels have their differences, what they have in common is that there was no expectancy of resurrection and indeed those closest to Jesus had big difficulty in believing in it. Why? Because the Resurrection of Jesus was outside of their world vision. For the Resurrection of Jesus cannot but change how we see God, the world and ourselves. Yes, like ‘Big Bang,’ it is a defining moment!
But how does it serve as a defining moment? Well, William Sloan Coffin puts it well;
“Easter has to do with the victory of seemingly powerless love over loveless power.”
In the story of Holy Week and the Passion of Christ, we see plenty of loveless power. We see loveless power in;
- the Authority of the Empire of Rome with its military might and power of life and death
- the economic power based upon the temple where the poor were exploited by the families who controlled the trade
- the religious power of the High Priest and Sanhedrin silencing the voices that might just undermine them and their positions of dominance over peoples’ lives
- the power of a mob who normally would have been subject to power but who were now relishing the moment of being able to decide a man’s fate.
But all this power rooted in domination, power that on Good Friday would seemed to have been triumphant, falls before the power of love. The power of love which had been demonstrated in the liberating teaching and healings of Jesus as well as in his self giving death, receives a resounding YES from God in the act of Resurrection. Here is the emphatic approval for all eternity of that all inclusive love embodied in Jesus. Now we begin to get the Resurrection message that
- Life is stronger than death
- Love is stronger than hatred
- Non violence is stronger than armies and weaponry
- Inclusion is victorious over all that excludes.
Put bluntly the message of Resurrection confronts much of what we glibly accept. It speaks to us of a new way, Christ’s way, which embraces human dignity and dares to dream of realising a new reality of peace, building people up and respect for what Rabbi Jonathan Sachs describes as “The Dignity of Difference” rather than our lazy acceptance of inevitability of conflict, shame culture and fear of diversity. Resurrection challenges us to question where we are going when
- a Ghanaian widowed mother of two, Ama Sumani, dying of cancer is deported to a land where it was known that she would be denied the drug that would have prolonged her life
- failed asylum seekers from Zimbabwe are threatened with deportation and the promise of imprisonment on their arrival by the ever tender, Robert Mugabe
- great games can be hosted and the most lethal of weapons afforded and yet basic housing is left an unfulfilled dream for all too many, even here in Bideford
- the children of this country were fund to be the unhappiest in the west in a recent survey despite Britain being the 5th wealthiest country.
You see, Resurrection is not a safe subject. It means that we have to take this Jesus and the Kingdom he proclaimed very seriously. His message challenged the norms of his day and the response can be seen in Good Friday. To expect it to be warmly welcomed today is a pipe dream born from the womb of ignorance.
And yet, it has to be the basis of our hope. Without Resurrection, hope is dead. But with Resurrection comes hope to battered lives and smashed up communities. For new and fresh beginnings become possible through the resurrected one who says;
“Behold I make all things new.”
This evening I want to encourage you to put Resurrection at the heart of your faith. I do believe that it points us to life beyond the grave. I take the Apostle Paul very seriously when he writes;
“For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”
I take him seriously when he says that without Resurrection our faith is futile. And as one who is often involved in accompanying people whose lives are coming to an end, and in comforting those who are bereaved, this is important to me and I wholly believe it. But I am equally convinced that Resurrection is as much about our living as followers of Christ.
Gene Robinson is the Episcopal Bishop of Mew Hampshire. His appointment was controversial due to the fact that he had been in a same sex partnership for some years. In the melee surrounding his appointment, he received many death threats and indeed before his consecration he was asked to provide his blood type so that if he was attacked at the consecration, treatment could begin on the way to hospital. Writing for the online Anglican publication “The Witness” at Easter a couple of years after the events, he looked back making the following observation;
“I remember saying to our two grown daughters, who were worried and anxious about my well-being, "You know, there are worse things than death. Some people actually never live -- and that is the worst death of all. If something does happen, remember that the God who has loved me my whole life, will still be loving me, and I will have died doing something I believe in with my whole heart."
As I strapped on my bulletproof vest just before the service, I remember feeling blessedly calm about whatever might happen. Not because I am brave, but because God is good and because God has overcome death, so that I never have to be afraid again
That is the power of the resurrection. not in what happens after death, but what the knowledge of our resurrection does for our lives and ministries before death.”
Mighty words indeed that remind us how we are in the care of the one who has defeated the most dreaded of enemies. Words that encourage us that we can journey forwards knowing that we are accompanied by a living, loving God. A God who sets each of us free and takes away the fear of hopelessness. Jurgen Moltmann came to faith amidst the ashes of his country’s defeat in the Second World War. He first read the Bible in a prisoner of war camp. There he sought hope and found it in the risen Christ and hope has been a theme of his writings ever since. In his “Jesus Christ for today’s world” he puts it this way;
“ In the image of the resurrection of the body, life and death can be brought into harmony in such a way that death doesn’t have to be repressed either. In this spirit of the resurrection I can her and now wholly live, wholly love and wholly die, for I Know with certainty that I shall wholly rise again. In this hope I can love all created things, for I know that none of them will be lost.”
My favourite film of all time is “Dead Poets Society.” In that film the inspirational albeit unorthodox teacher, John Keating, seeks to inspire the pupils of a stuffy school where boys live out their parents’ dreams. In once scene he takes them to look at the pictures of past pupils who are long dead. He urges them to get close to the glass and asks them if they hear what those pupils are saying to those of today. At that, Keating starts to whisper
“Carpe Diem! Carpe Diem!”
before sharing the words in English -
“Seize the moment! - Have an extraordinary life boys!”
So today as we celebrate the “surge of divine energy” that is the Resurrection, we are called once more to live out the counter cultural Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed. His work of radical inclusion of all peoples as being of infinite worth goes on. And it continues with the Risen Christ. May we live extraordinary lives as Easter People daring even to be a little bit subversive.
Carpe Diem! Seize the moment!
BIDEFORD METHODIST CIRCUIT EASTER SERVICE SUNDAY MARCH 23RD 2008
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Palm Sunday - The heat is on
It’s a day of excitement. Jesus arrives in Jerusalem as he has done many times before. Only this time it is so very different. Now his mission is reaching its climax and he has come to confront the powers of his day.
And as he enters the city in a meticulously planned entry, there is much expectation surrounding him. Now, I do not think for a moment that the whole city was filled with excitement. Amidst the bustle of the coming Passover celebrations, the streets would have been full. Probably only a limited number of people were caught up in the events of the day for otherwise Rome, paranoid at such times, would surely have intervened as a matter of order. But for those who were involved in these events, this was surely a heady day.
And how they celebrate as Jesus comes into the city upon a donkey. Cloaks are placed on the road whilst branches are cut from the trees and placed on the road whilst some go forwards shouting;
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest!”
So what is this day all about? You see, it is a day that we have made safe for those sweet processions with donkeys, processions that so very often would seem to be so very distant from the passions and the radical challenge posed by that entry which we remember today.
Let’s for a moment look first at Jesus riding on a donkey. The detailed preparation for this suggests that we have here no accident. Far from it, we have before us a highly subversive piece of street theatre in which all was deliberate. There is a fulfilling of ancient prophecy from Zechariah even to the point of Matthew improbably suggesting that Jesus was riding two animals. And yet the riding on a donkey is highly significant. For whereas we tend to have a less than exalted image of donkeys thinking that their main purpose is to provide rides for children at such cultural centres as Blackpool or Skegness, they were well regarded animals at the time of Jesus. So well regarded as to be fit to carry a King. But here comes the rub, the donkey was fit to carry a King who came in peace whereas a horse was the means of transport for a King who came for war.
But then those branches and the shouts. Well to understand that we have to go back about 200 years to a story that was well known to Jesus’ contemporaries albeit not included in our Bibles unless we have the Apocryphal books. Anyhow a tyrant named Antiochus Epiphanes had tried to destroy thr practice of Judaism with great brutality. An elderly priest named Mattathias had rounded up his sons and they had launched a sort of insurgency. It was a bloody affair. And it took some 20 years and the loss of many lives before it came to a successful conclusion. When one of the brothers led his victorious troops into Jerusalem the First Book of Maccabees tells us, he was greeted with praise, palm branches and music. Now there are clear echoes of this in the welcome that Jesus receives in our Palm Sunday narrative.
And quite frankly there’s the rub. Because this hints at an expectation as to what Jesus would be. For many in the crowd, there would be the hope that Jesus would be the one who like the Maccabeans would bring freeedom from an oppressive overlord. Even Zechariah’s prophecy would be remembered as coming in the context of the destruction of hostile enemy nations. Of course this expectation could only be whispered. After all not that many years before, a Zealot revolt led by Judas of Galilee and Zadok the Pharisee had been punished with the public crucifixion of all 2,000 people captured during that rebellion. Surely, the years of hurt might be brought to an end by this Jesus. No wonder the shouts of “Hosanna” meaning “Save Us” pierce the air.
Indeed, the failure of Jesus to meet these expectation may well have been a significant factor in the change in public opinion during that week. For the week would end with a crowd that may have included some of the first crowd now crying out;
“Crucify him!”
But we need to hold it here. Because Jesus doesn’t lead a bloody insurrection, does not leave us with a Jesus merely uttering pious sentiments. Far from it. Palm Sunday is full of radical challenge. And there are two ways that I feel we need to be aware of that.
The first of those ways is in Jesus living non violence. The American theologian Walter Wink has written much in recent years about what he calls the “myth of redemptive violence.” Wink contests that this myth rather than Christianity, Islam or any of the other world religions, is the dominant myth in our world today. He roots this myth back into early Babylonian creation myths and notes its prevalence in much of the television we inflict on our children today. Its essence is that evil is defeated by what is often seen as heroic against the odds violence. Violence redeems ths bad situation. Commemorating as we are doing this week the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, we see the power of this myth. If there is an evil or an unplatable situation the answer is force - John McCain a possible future President of the USA singing, “Bomb. Bomb bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” only last year to a well known Beach Boys song. And the same goes on in a smaller way in just about every playground. The myth is strong and drowns out all talk of mercy, peace and reconciliation.
But Jesus confronts the myth. He has done so in his ministry time and again. He will do so again when Peter draws a sword in Gethsamene. For the King who comes in peace on a donkey comes proclaiming and embodying a love that is more powerful than any weapon of mass destruction. And in now way is that contrast more clear than the events of this day. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossman project the possibility of two processions on that day. From the West Pontius Pilate and his military enter the city with all the apparatus of state power, coming to remind the people at this notoriously volatile celebration, just who is boss. From the East, Jesus and his followers enter the city with all their powerlessness. And yet, despite a day of darkness looming later in the week, it is the powerless unarmed Jesus who brings transformation to the world rather than the imperial might offered by Pilate. Contrary to the voice of the “myth of redemptive violence” it is Jesus that we need rather than the Superman our culture cries out for.
But finally, whilst his path is non violent, Jesus does indeed confront the powers. You do not need to kill or bomb to confront effectively. It is the Nobodies of the world who enter the city with Jesus. And in the week ahead, Jesus will continually challenge the powers on behalf of the Nobodies. This would continuee within the early church. And that church would challenge the symbols of empire and the exploitation of one human by another. For Jesus comes as the King who offers a very different Kingdom to that of Rome or even the empires of our day. His is Kingship rooted in self giving love and mercy rather than in the cult of domination. And today as then he challenges so much of what we think is our Christian way of doing things. The hostile crowd who would say he was no friend of Caesar were right then. And still today they are right. This Jesus is truly the great subversive who subverts even those things we do not question.
So into a bustling city comes Jesus laying down the gauntlet. Still today he lays down that gauntlet. And he invites you and me to move from the domain of the Pilates of this world to the Kingdom that he embodies.
ALWINGTON METHODIST CHURCH Sunday March 16th 2008
And as he enters the city in a meticulously planned entry, there is much expectation surrounding him. Now, I do not think for a moment that the whole city was filled with excitement. Amidst the bustle of the coming Passover celebrations, the streets would have been full. Probably only a limited number of people were caught up in the events of the day for otherwise Rome, paranoid at such times, would surely have intervened as a matter of order. But for those who were involved in these events, this was surely a heady day.
And how they celebrate as Jesus comes into the city upon a donkey. Cloaks are placed on the road whilst branches are cut from the trees and placed on the road whilst some go forwards shouting;
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest!”
So what is this day all about? You see, it is a day that we have made safe for those sweet processions with donkeys, processions that so very often would seem to be so very distant from the passions and the radical challenge posed by that entry which we remember today.
Let’s for a moment look first at Jesus riding on a donkey. The detailed preparation for this suggests that we have here no accident. Far from it, we have before us a highly subversive piece of street theatre in which all was deliberate. There is a fulfilling of ancient prophecy from Zechariah even to the point of Matthew improbably suggesting that Jesus was riding two animals. And yet the riding on a donkey is highly significant. For whereas we tend to have a less than exalted image of donkeys thinking that their main purpose is to provide rides for children at such cultural centres as Blackpool or Skegness, they were well regarded animals at the time of Jesus. So well regarded as to be fit to carry a King. But here comes the rub, the donkey was fit to carry a King who came in peace whereas a horse was the means of transport for a King who came for war.
But then those branches and the shouts. Well to understand that we have to go back about 200 years to a story that was well known to Jesus’ contemporaries albeit not included in our Bibles unless we have the Apocryphal books. Anyhow a tyrant named Antiochus Epiphanes had tried to destroy thr practice of Judaism with great brutality. An elderly priest named Mattathias had rounded up his sons and they had launched a sort of insurgency. It was a bloody affair. And it took some 20 years and the loss of many lives before it came to a successful conclusion. When one of the brothers led his victorious troops into Jerusalem the First Book of Maccabees tells us, he was greeted with praise, palm branches and music. Now there are clear echoes of this in the welcome that Jesus receives in our Palm Sunday narrative.
And quite frankly there’s the rub. Because this hints at an expectation as to what Jesus would be. For many in the crowd, there would be the hope that Jesus would be the one who like the Maccabeans would bring freeedom from an oppressive overlord. Even Zechariah’s prophecy would be remembered as coming in the context of the destruction of hostile enemy nations. Of course this expectation could only be whispered. After all not that many years before, a Zealot revolt led by Judas of Galilee and Zadok the Pharisee had been punished with the public crucifixion of all 2,000 people captured during that rebellion. Surely, the years of hurt might be brought to an end by this Jesus. No wonder the shouts of “Hosanna” meaning “Save Us” pierce the air.
Indeed, the failure of Jesus to meet these expectation may well have been a significant factor in the change in public opinion during that week. For the week would end with a crowd that may have included some of the first crowd now crying out;
“Crucify him!”
But we need to hold it here. Because Jesus doesn’t lead a bloody insurrection, does not leave us with a Jesus merely uttering pious sentiments. Far from it. Palm Sunday is full of radical challenge. And there are two ways that I feel we need to be aware of that.
The first of those ways is in Jesus living non violence. The American theologian Walter Wink has written much in recent years about what he calls the “myth of redemptive violence.” Wink contests that this myth rather than Christianity, Islam or any of the other world religions, is the dominant myth in our world today. He roots this myth back into early Babylonian creation myths and notes its prevalence in much of the television we inflict on our children today. Its essence is that evil is defeated by what is often seen as heroic against the odds violence. Violence redeems ths bad situation. Commemorating as we are doing this week the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, we see the power of this myth. If there is an evil or an unplatable situation the answer is force - John McCain a possible future President of the USA singing, “Bomb. Bomb bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” only last year to a well known Beach Boys song. And the same goes on in a smaller way in just about every playground. The myth is strong and drowns out all talk of mercy, peace and reconciliation.
But Jesus confronts the myth. He has done so in his ministry time and again. He will do so again when Peter draws a sword in Gethsamene. For the King who comes in peace on a donkey comes proclaiming and embodying a love that is more powerful than any weapon of mass destruction. And in now way is that contrast more clear than the events of this day. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossman project the possibility of two processions on that day. From the West Pontius Pilate and his military enter the city with all the apparatus of state power, coming to remind the people at this notoriously volatile celebration, just who is boss. From the East, Jesus and his followers enter the city with all their powerlessness. And yet, despite a day of darkness looming later in the week, it is the powerless unarmed Jesus who brings transformation to the world rather than the imperial might offered by Pilate. Contrary to the voice of the “myth of redemptive violence” it is Jesus that we need rather than the Superman our culture cries out for.
But finally, whilst his path is non violent, Jesus does indeed confront the powers. You do not need to kill or bomb to confront effectively. It is the Nobodies of the world who enter the city with Jesus. And in the week ahead, Jesus will continually challenge the powers on behalf of the Nobodies. This would continuee within the early church. And that church would challenge the symbols of empire and the exploitation of one human by another. For Jesus comes as the King who offers a very different Kingdom to that of Rome or even the empires of our day. His is Kingship rooted in self giving love and mercy rather than in the cult of domination. And today as then he challenges so much of what we think is our Christian way of doing things. The hostile crowd who would say he was no friend of Caesar were right then. And still today they are right. This Jesus is truly the great subversive who subverts even those things we do not question.
So into a bustling city comes Jesus laying down the gauntlet. Still today he lays down that gauntlet. And he invites you and me to move from the domain of the Pilates of this world to the Kingdom that he embodies.
ALWINGTON METHODIST CHURCH Sunday March 16th 2008
Sunday, 9 March 2008
Lent 5 - Out of the depths
PSALM 130
“And now I am happy all the day.”
So ends the chorus of a popular hymn. And whenever I hear it I get the urge to throw up. Why? Because nothing is to me more alien than those words. They just don’t ring true with my experience of life.
I freely admit to having a very powerful depressive streak in my life. There are times when I find functioning very difficult indeed. I’ve been through some of that this week and even this evening I know that I am struggling. But hey I am not alone. And this evening I want to get across the message that Christians who are feeling down are as much a part of the body of Christ as those who are at the top of the mountain. Indeed some of us are in both situations at differing times.
Now don’t bother feeling sorry for me. I won’t have it. After all I am in some pretty good company. Winston Churchill used to tall of being plagued by the “black dog” - something I can identify with him in even if not in much else. Martin Luther was so affected by depression that on one occasion his wife dressed in black, explaining to him that from the way he had been behaving she assumed God had died. And dear Vincent Van Gogh, the artist who had once been a pastor, in an extreme attack of depression, cut off his ear. So you can see that the company, if not the experience, is pretty good.
Now I can offer no easy responses to the problem of feeling down. If I could you would be able to direct at me the call to heal myself. I simply want this evening to make the point that for some if not most of us, there are times when we can feel wretched. And if we are to be real then we should not have to hide it. Oh be gone cult of unending happiness. Instead let us embrace reality and banish artificiality.
Now any serious reading of the scriptures makes clear that following God is not about entering on an unending “Happy Clappy” convention. Indeed the thought of such a thing is to me at least nausea inducing. The scriptures are very honest in showing us quite a range of human feelings and experiences. So I find Psalm 130 to be a helpful piece of scripture. Indeed its first verse is so real;
“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.”
There is no posing here. The author recognises the situation in which the author is ensconced and knows that there is no benefit in trying to put on a front to God. The author feels wretched and is prepared to recognise it in the presence of God. And surely if there is a requirement on us when approaching God, it is to be real. That being real means a recognition of where we are and also an expression of desire as to what we might become.
Anyhow despite the pain, the Psalmist clearly longs to be in communication with God. This is good as communion with the God who is the source of our being, enables us to experience the deepest of realities. After all is it not an important desire that we should be in relationship with the one to whom we owe our being. Indeed many have argued that we only find true fulfilment in harmony with God - that this is a need within each of us. Man at war with God is hardly likely to be at peace with fellow man. And if our Being is the product of God then surely God understands us better than we can even understand ourselves.
Still within our Psalm there are two essential revelations about God which are of help to us in our desire for peace of mind.
The first of these is that God is forgiving by nature. The Psalmist grasps what we see in Christ - namely that God has deep wells of forgiveness. Too often, we find ourselves thinking that we can never be forgiven. Indeed we can become dominated by our failings. Yet despite the church too often portraying God as austere and remote, the truth is that God longs to forgive us. Like the father in Jesus’ story about a Prodigal Son, God’s nature is to be all forgiving without regard as to how far we have roamed. It is as demonstrated by Jesus upon the cross amidst mockery and abuse yet crying out;
“Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”
Forgiveness without limit regardless of the extent of our offences! It is this that is the means by which we are put right with God rather than the special pleading of the Psalmist based upon hours of waiting on God.
Secondly, there is reconciliation with God made available. The Psalmist links this with God’s work in both past and future. We see God’s unfailing love in his dealings with Israel going back to ancient Covenants. We see it going forwards in the work of Christ which is able to bring us full redemption. The sins of the past can be as if they never happened. God has wiped them away. And this is surely life changing for here is God’s love breaking into our hearts enabling us to make new beginnings - all thanks to Christ who has entered into our world and suffered and died that we might embrace the peace with God to which Jesus points.
None of this makes life a bed of roses. Hard times and injustices continue in the world. At times we may feel rather rejected. At times our faces may have tears rather than smiles. Yet hope can not be obliterated because God is for us even when we are at our lowest - indeed maybe more so at such times. The Psalmist kindly points us to a love that will not let us go, a love that we witness in the Passion of Jesus Christ who journeys to a cross with all the pain and rejection that this entails, out of a courageous and passionate love for you and me. He is on our side amidst our vulnerability. For surely God is for us even when we feel furthest from that love.
Now we await his entry to Jerusalem. We await the witness to that love on Calvary. And we await its vindication through resurrection on Easter Day. And then we celebrate by accepting an invitation to his table where we find wonder of wonders, that not only are forgiven and loved but we are right royally accepted as we are. And so we find meaning in the amazing truth that the Maker of the Stars and Seas is for us - no more than that the Maker of the Stars and Seas invites us to be his friends.
Wow!
NORTHAM METHODIST CHURCH Sunday March 9th 2008
“And now I am happy all the day.”
So ends the chorus of a popular hymn. And whenever I hear it I get the urge to throw up. Why? Because nothing is to me more alien than those words. They just don’t ring true with my experience of life.
I freely admit to having a very powerful depressive streak in my life. There are times when I find functioning very difficult indeed. I’ve been through some of that this week and even this evening I know that I am struggling. But hey I am not alone. And this evening I want to get across the message that Christians who are feeling down are as much a part of the body of Christ as those who are at the top of the mountain. Indeed some of us are in both situations at differing times.
Now don’t bother feeling sorry for me. I won’t have it. After all I am in some pretty good company. Winston Churchill used to tall of being plagued by the “black dog” - something I can identify with him in even if not in much else. Martin Luther was so affected by depression that on one occasion his wife dressed in black, explaining to him that from the way he had been behaving she assumed God had died. And dear Vincent Van Gogh, the artist who had once been a pastor, in an extreme attack of depression, cut off his ear. So you can see that the company, if not the experience, is pretty good.
Now I can offer no easy responses to the problem of feeling down. If I could you would be able to direct at me the call to heal myself. I simply want this evening to make the point that for some if not most of us, there are times when we can feel wretched. And if we are to be real then we should not have to hide it. Oh be gone cult of unending happiness. Instead let us embrace reality and banish artificiality.
Now any serious reading of the scriptures makes clear that following God is not about entering on an unending “Happy Clappy” convention. Indeed the thought of such a thing is to me at least nausea inducing. The scriptures are very honest in showing us quite a range of human feelings and experiences. So I find Psalm 130 to be a helpful piece of scripture. Indeed its first verse is so real;
“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.”
There is no posing here. The author recognises the situation in which the author is ensconced and knows that there is no benefit in trying to put on a front to God. The author feels wretched and is prepared to recognise it in the presence of God. And surely if there is a requirement on us when approaching God, it is to be real. That being real means a recognition of where we are and also an expression of desire as to what we might become.
Anyhow despite the pain, the Psalmist clearly longs to be in communication with God. This is good as communion with the God who is the source of our being, enables us to experience the deepest of realities. After all is it not an important desire that we should be in relationship with the one to whom we owe our being. Indeed many have argued that we only find true fulfilment in harmony with God - that this is a need within each of us. Man at war with God is hardly likely to be at peace with fellow man. And if our Being is the product of God then surely God understands us better than we can even understand ourselves.
Still within our Psalm there are two essential revelations about God which are of help to us in our desire for peace of mind.
The first of these is that God is forgiving by nature. The Psalmist grasps what we see in Christ - namely that God has deep wells of forgiveness. Too often, we find ourselves thinking that we can never be forgiven. Indeed we can become dominated by our failings. Yet despite the church too often portraying God as austere and remote, the truth is that God longs to forgive us. Like the father in Jesus’ story about a Prodigal Son, God’s nature is to be all forgiving without regard as to how far we have roamed. It is as demonstrated by Jesus upon the cross amidst mockery and abuse yet crying out;
“Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”
Forgiveness without limit regardless of the extent of our offences! It is this that is the means by which we are put right with God rather than the special pleading of the Psalmist based upon hours of waiting on God.
Secondly, there is reconciliation with God made available. The Psalmist links this with God’s work in both past and future. We see God’s unfailing love in his dealings with Israel going back to ancient Covenants. We see it going forwards in the work of Christ which is able to bring us full redemption. The sins of the past can be as if they never happened. God has wiped them away. And this is surely life changing for here is God’s love breaking into our hearts enabling us to make new beginnings - all thanks to Christ who has entered into our world and suffered and died that we might embrace the peace with God to which Jesus points.
None of this makes life a bed of roses. Hard times and injustices continue in the world. At times we may feel rather rejected. At times our faces may have tears rather than smiles. Yet hope can not be obliterated because God is for us even when we are at our lowest - indeed maybe more so at such times. The Psalmist kindly points us to a love that will not let us go, a love that we witness in the Passion of Jesus Christ who journeys to a cross with all the pain and rejection that this entails, out of a courageous and passionate love for you and me. He is on our side amidst our vulnerability. For surely God is for us even when we feel furthest from that love.
Now we await his entry to Jerusalem. We await the witness to that love on Calvary. And we await its vindication through resurrection on Easter Day. And then we celebrate by accepting an invitation to his table where we find wonder of wonders, that not only are forgiven and loved but we are right royally accepted as we are. And so we find meaning in the amazing truth that the Maker of the Stars and Seas is for us - no more than that the Maker of the Stars and Seas invites us to be his friends.
Wow!
NORTHAM METHODIST CHURCH Sunday March 9th 2008
Lent 5 Hope in the darkest hour
EZEKIEL 37: 1-14 John 11: 1-45
I found a story that I liked only yesterday. It’s about a man who had just moved to a new city. Sat in a taxi, he was looking for somewhere that would be good for dinner. Leaning forward, he tapped the driver and said, “Hey mate!” - only for the driver to let out a blood curdling scream followed by his losing control of the vehicle which in the next few moment almost hit a bus, jumped the curb and stopped only inches from the window of a crowded restaurant. After a prolonged silence in which all that could be heard was two hearts beating like base drums, the driver turned around and said;
“Man you scared the living daylights out of me!”
The passenger who was still in a state of shock replied;
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise tapping you on the shoulder would scare you so badly.”
Quickly the driver explained;
“Well, it’s not your fault. This is my first day driving a taxi. For the past 25 years I’ve been driving a hearse.”
Today as approach Easter, we are reminded of the reality of the shadow side of life. Ant timely that is for our faith has to take seriously the dark realities of life if it is to be real. Sure we can rejoice as we shall do on Easter Day but many a time of rejoicing can only come after times of darkness and even despair.
Ezekiel certainly knew about the dark side of life. After all this priestly prophet was living through what many felt to be a time of calamity. Jerusalem had been destroyed and many of its more able people such as Ezekiel himself were living in distant exile in Babylon far from what they knew best and cherished most. All around him the temptation to give up was at its greatest. And yet this prophet sought to communicate a message that all was not lost. For God would never abandon his people and despite all that had happened could be trusted. Despite the past, and Ezekiel had plenty to say about that, there was still a future to look forward to.
Part of this vision of hope is to be found in the vision of the valley of dry bones. The valley envisaged may well have been an actual battle site from one of the battles that had reduces the people to such a sorry state. What matters from the vision is that these unburied bones are as dead as dead can possibly be. They are caput - finished! There is no reason to place any hope in them. And yet through the Spirit, these bones are enabled to rise up, find life and renewed purpose.
What is the vision all about? Quite simply Ezekiel is proclaiming the message that the shattered defeated people of Israel who are as finished as dry dead bones, may experience a new life - a new life not rooted in anything special about them but rooted in the purposes of God. The God who will raise Jesus from the dead, the God who will equip that motley group of Galilean followers of Jesus for mission, the God who today empowers the church of Christ - that God brings new hope and life to a people who have sunk into despair and who are to all intents and purposes dead. And perhaps we need to engage ourselves with that vision of Ezekiel when we are tempted to lose hope for our world.
And then from John’s Gospel we find that familiar story of the raising of Lazarus. Here we find a foretaste of the resurrection of Christ. Listen for a moment to those words of Jesus when Martha rebukes him for not coming quicker;
“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
This, the sixth of John’s seven signs that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, shows Jesus possessing Divine power over the greatest of humankind’s enemies, death itself. Certainly John’s narrative points to Lazarus being very much dead. And one day he would be again. But Jesus is here revealed as the one who is able to bring new life from death in these sense here of bringing a man back to life just as in his hands as we die to what we have been he is able to make us into new creations that will reflect his love in a way that we could not have previously envisaged. For the time for being born from above is not at the moment of our physical death but here and now. As Lindy Black puts it so eloquently, it is a case of;
“From womb to tomb and vice versa!”
This morning we are reminded of the shadow side of life with all its pain. More of it we will see in the hatred and violence that leads to Good Friday. And if we are to be real, there is no way that we can ignore the darkness. And yet it cannot be the whole picture for in those moments of our greatest helplessness, God is weaving exciting possibilities of new beginnings. Today we see those new beginnings being dreamt of within a vanquished humiliated nation and in coming to fruition in a corpse that is especially mourned by two sisters. Why? It all boils down to the Divine love that wills only the best for us. We have seen it in Jesus of Nazareth bringing new life for all manner of people in Galilee through healings and the granting a new sense of their value. This is what the Kingdom of God is all about. As former Roman Catholic priest John Dominic Crossan puts it;
“Life out of death is how the people would have understood the Kingdom of God, in which Jesus helps them to take back control over their own bodies, hopes and their own destinies.”
Indeed! Life out of death! And that we shall see afresh as we enter into the Easter story and find once more of death being unable to hold back the new life embodied in Jesus - the new life that is the source of all our hope
GAMMATON METHODIST CHURCH Sunday March 9th 2008
Opening story comes from Billy Strayhorn
I found a story that I liked only yesterday. It’s about a man who had just moved to a new city. Sat in a taxi, he was looking for somewhere that would be good for dinner. Leaning forward, he tapped the driver and said, “Hey mate!” - only for the driver to let out a blood curdling scream followed by his losing control of the vehicle which in the next few moment almost hit a bus, jumped the curb and stopped only inches from the window of a crowded restaurant. After a prolonged silence in which all that could be heard was two hearts beating like base drums, the driver turned around and said;
“Man you scared the living daylights out of me!”
The passenger who was still in a state of shock replied;
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise tapping you on the shoulder would scare you so badly.”
Quickly the driver explained;
“Well, it’s not your fault. This is my first day driving a taxi. For the past 25 years I’ve been driving a hearse.”
Today as approach Easter, we are reminded of the reality of the shadow side of life. Ant timely that is for our faith has to take seriously the dark realities of life if it is to be real. Sure we can rejoice as we shall do on Easter Day but many a time of rejoicing can only come after times of darkness and even despair.
Ezekiel certainly knew about the dark side of life. After all this priestly prophet was living through what many felt to be a time of calamity. Jerusalem had been destroyed and many of its more able people such as Ezekiel himself were living in distant exile in Babylon far from what they knew best and cherished most. All around him the temptation to give up was at its greatest. And yet this prophet sought to communicate a message that all was not lost. For God would never abandon his people and despite all that had happened could be trusted. Despite the past, and Ezekiel had plenty to say about that, there was still a future to look forward to.
Part of this vision of hope is to be found in the vision of the valley of dry bones. The valley envisaged may well have been an actual battle site from one of the battles that had reduces the people to such a sorry state. What matters from the vision is that these unburied bones are as dead as dead can possibly be. They are caput - finished! There is no reason to place any hope in them. And yet through the Spirit, these bones are enabled to rise up, find life and renewed purpose.
What is the vision all about? Quite simply Ezekiel is proclaiming the message that the shattered defeated people of Israel who are as finished as dry dead bones, may experience a new life - a new life not rooted in anything special about them but rooted in the purposes of God. The God who will raise Jesus from the dead, the God who will equip that motley group of Galilean followers of Jesus for mission, the God who today empowers the church of Christ - that God brings new hope and life to a people who have sunk into despair and who are to all intents and purposes dead. And perhaps we need to engage ourselves with that vision of Ezekiel when we are tempted to lose hope for our world.
And then from John’s Gospel we find that familiar story of the raising of Lazarus. Here we find a foretaste of the resurrection of Christ. Listen for a moment to those words of Jesus when Martha rebukes him for not coming quicker;
“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
This, the sixth of John’s seven signs that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, shows Jesus possessing Divine power over the greatest of humankind’s enemies, death itself. Certainly John’s narrative points to Lazarus being very much dead. And one day he would be again. But Jesus is here revealed as the one who is able to bring new life from death in these sense here of bringing a man back to life just as in his hands as we die to what we have been he is able to make us into new creations that will reflect his love in a way that we could not have previously envisaged. For the time for being born from above is not at the moment of our physical death but here and now. As Lindy Black puts it so eloquently, it is a case of;
“From womb to tomb and vice versa!”
This morning we are reminded of the shadow side of life with all its pain. More of it we will see in the hatred and violence that leads to Good Friday. And if we are to be real, there is no way that we can ignore the darkness. And yet it cannot be the whole picture for in those moments of our greatest helplessness, God is weaving exciting possibilities of new beginnings. Today we see those new beginnings being dreamt of within a vanquished humiliated nation and in coming to fruition in a corpse that is especially mourned by two sisters. Why? It all boils down to the Divine love that wills only the best for us. We have seen it in Jesus of Nazareth bringing new life for all manner of people in Galilee through healings and the granting a new sense of their value. This is what the Kingdom of God is all about. As former Roman Catholic priest John Dominic Crossan puts it;
“Life out of death is how the people would have understood the Kingdom of God, in which Jesus helps them to take back control over their own bodies, hopes and their own destinies.”
Indeed! Life out of death! And that we shall see afresh as we enter into the Easter story and find once more of death being unable to hold back the new life embodied in Jesus - the new life that is the source of all our hope
GAMMATON METHODIST CHURCH Sunday March 9th 2008
Opening story comes from Billy Strayhorn
Sunday, 2 March 2008
Lent 4 - Eyes opened to love
John 9: 1-13, 28 - 42
It is one of those less than endearing facts of life that those who get the worst deal in life tend to also have to put up with the sneers of those who are more fortunate suggesting that in some way they are to blame for the kicks in the teeth that they endure. An example is the Poor Laws which existed until some way into the 20th century. Sure they protected the poor from being unable to exist but surely I cannot be alone in finding something repugnant in the wealthy assessing who is deserving poor and who is undeserving poor. My own great grandmother was but one of many who ended her life being subjected to this onslaught on her human dignity. Thank God for the arrival of the welfare state which put an end to this nonsense. May it never return although recent pronouncements as to who may and who may not have local authority housing fills me with no small measure of alarm.
Or Gospel reading this evening tells us of man who was down on his luck and who suffered the same sort of pious sneers as to whether his sufferings were his own fault. He was a blind man who had to beg in order to exist. I don’t know about you but I shudder when I hear the question put to Jesus by his closest followers;
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
The theology behind the question is surely vile to us. It represents a theology that provides us with a repugnant view of God, a view of God that were it to be true would in all honesty make it impossible for me to worship God. And yet it was not seen as the view of crackpots. Far from it. This question came out of the orthodoxy of he time of Jesus. After all, a theology had come to prevail from the time of the exile which suggested that if a person or nation was faithful to God, then rewards and blessings would follow. As for a person of nation that was unfaithful, the opposite outcome would occur. And to be fair it was a theology that enabled people to make sense of the horrors of the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the elite. More than that it was a theology that enabled those who returned to create a nation that took faithfulness to God seriously.
But the problem was that it created an image of a thoroughly capricious and petty God. So it becomes a theology that is an abomination. And yet it had deep roots. We see it in the friends of Job who rebuke him amidst his sufferings - in love of course! We also see it in those who suggested that the victims of a collapsed tower at Siloam were necessarily particularly sinful. In that regard Jesus rejects this wretched perspective. And so he does in this case.
So let us be clear that a theology that suggests God is pleased with the rich or the healthy but displeased with the poor or the sick is a total abomination. It is no better than the vomit of Satan. And so it needs to be rejected and exposed wherever it rears its ugly head. Indeed, let any theology that denies the absolute love of God be confronted. Instead may we seek to always represent God as all loving as is seen in Jesus. For the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be in conflict with the loving, inclusive Jesus. Do you get it? Theology matters because it is important that we do not misrepresent the God to whom we point people towards. Be gone indeed, every life denying image of God!
So what does Jesus do? He sees an opportunity to work for good in a bad situation. Only the past week, I was at a meeting concerning the housing crisis in Bideford. The problem of people being unhoused or inadequately housed in Bideford or Anywhere else for that matter is nothing short of scandalous. I shiver at a system that leaves people uncertain of shelter or having to walk the streets for much of the day until they can return to temporary abodes whilst money can be found for weapons of mass destruction, gambling dens or appeasing the self interest of life’s greatest winners in a material sense. It is nothing short of a moral and spiritual disgrace. But sadly we cannot obtain the necessary changes to this shocking state of affairs. So rightly Christians and others are getting together to develop a scheme that will seek to bring hope to some of those whose needs is greatest. For suffering has surely to bring a challenge to engage with the problem.
And Jesus engages with this man. In John’s account he doesn’t even wait to be asked to help. He just gets on and helps a man in need. Making mud with saliva Jesus spreads it on the man’s eyes - there are echoes here of the second creation story in Genesis. He tells the man to wash in the pool of Siloam on the south side of the Temple. And the result is that the man is enabled to see. Now hold on to this. Jesus responds to suffering by opening up the possibilities of God working loving purposes in the situation. And that is surely a good model for us.
But this story is not just about a healing. It is about a transformation. Let me tell you a story. It goes like this. One day a Christian and a Communist were sat on a park bench watching the world go by. As they observed the goings on, they noticed a poor, drunken beggar dressed in rags. The Communist pointed to the beggar and said, “Communism would put a new suit on that man.” But the Christian responded, “Maybe so, but Jesus Christ can put a new man in that suit.” Now for me this should not be seen as an either/or story. The Marxist in me entirely approves of the words of the Communist - to each according to his needs is not a bad concept. But it doesn’t go far enough. It doesn’t solve the problem for problems can keep repeating themselves. A new creation is needed to go along with the social transformation. And in John’s story, the greatest miracle is the transformation that takes place within the blind man.
What is the transformation? Well I don’t know how many of you watched Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian.” It’s actually quite a good film and if you read interviews with the team you will find that it was not intended to make fun of Jesus but to make fun of how we are prone to searching for gods made in our image and to be honest of the church - and I think there are times when people are entitled to do just that. Anyhow there is one scene in which Brian who has become a messiah figure due to public misunderstanding, is harassed by a beggar crying out;
“Alms for an ex leper.”
We are encouraged to believe that this is a leper who has indeed been healed by Jesus after many years of leprosy accompanied by begging. In the dialogue there is a cute moment when Brian asks the ex leper who cured him only to get the answer;
“Jesus did. I was hopping along minding my own business. All of a sudden, up he comes, cures me. One minute I’m a leper with a trade, next minute my livelihood’s gone, not so much as a by-your-leave.. You’re cured, mate. Interfering do-gooder!"
And in that we see that healings such as this one are not just about a cure to an illness but about entering a totally new way of life. This blind man would probably have developed a security from his practice of begging. He has done it for years. But now as a man who could see, that practice had been taken away from him. He would have to learn to live a very different way. How this man did so we are not told but in his conversation with the Pharisees we see a man rise to levels that can hardly have been expected. The man who had begged for his subsistence, the man who had had to please others so that he might have the necessities of life, now becomes a man who is not prepared to be browbeaten but who is prepared to argue his case with those learned Pharisees. Yes, the man has been transformed and now he is a new creation. So never forget that Jesus is in the business of changing people. He transforms them into new creations. And this is part of the business of the church today.
But finally the blind man seems to see better than the Pharisees. Hence that mysterious phrase of Jesus;
“I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”
There is indeed an irony that a blind beggar would seem to see better than the religious professionals. There is a temptation to reach that point where one cannot see the wood for the trees. And amongst these quite definitely devout people that state had been reached. For there are times when we all need to see the most important truths of all. I am reminded of a story about Karl Barth who may have been the greatest theologian of the 20th century. His “Christian Dogmatics” are certainly a most impressive legacy. Yet coming towards the end of his life he was asked after a lecture what he considered to be the greatest truth that he had learnt in his fruitful life. His reply was this;
“The greatest truth I have ever learned is ‘Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so,’”
And that my friends we need to see - that Jesus loves me, you, the cussed guy down the road who drives us crazy and yes also the Muslim bowing down to Allah. Never, ever forget that the love of Jesus is for all. Otherwise all we are left with is sanctimonious mumbo jumbo!
And that is at the heart of seeing. Forget your aspirations at knowing the truth to all life’s big questions. Search for truth for unfocused devotion can be a dangerous thing but have the humility to know with Paul that our knowledge is partial and that we see as through a darkened glass. Still remember that the love of God for all and through all is what matters most.
One of the best hymns to have come out of America in the 20th Century was Thomas Dorsey’s “Precious Lord, take my hand.” Sung at the funeral of Martin Luther King, its background was in the unexpected deaths of Dorsey’s wife Nettie and the child she was carrying. Dorsey went through guilt at not having responded to an instinct to remain with her rather than travel to a revival meeting. He also felt let down by God until he came to a place of resolving to listen closer to God and in that fund peace. That peace took him to a piano late at night in a music school and there as he played a melody came that most memorable of hymns;
“Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
When my way grows drear
Precious Lord linger near
When my light is almost gone
Hear my cry, hear my call
Hold my hand lest I fall
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
When the darkness appears
And the night draws near
And the day is past and gone
At the river I stand
Guide my feet, hold my hand
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I'm tired, I'm weak, I'm lone
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.”
May our eyes like those of the blind beggar be opened to the courageous, unconditional love of God that comes to us through Jesus. May we see!
TORRINGTON METHODIST CHURCH - Sunday March 2nd 2008
It is one of those less than endearing facts of life that those who get the worst deal in life tend to also have to put up with the sneers of those who are more fortunate suggesting that in some way they are to blame for the kicks in the teeth that they endure. An example is the Poor Laws which existed until some way into the 20th century. Sure they protected the poor from being unable to exist but surely I cannot be alone in finding something repugnant in the wealthy assessing who is deserving poor and who is undeserving poor. My own great grandmother was but one of many who ended her life being subjected to this onslaught on her human dignity. Thank God for the arrival of the welfare state which put an end to this nonsense. May it never return although recent pronouncements as to who may and who may not have local authority housing fills me with no small measure of alarm.
Or Gospel reading this evening tells us of man who was down on his luck and who suffered the same sort of pious sneers as to whether his sufferings were his own fault. He was a blind man who had to beg in order to exist. I don’t know about you but I shudder when I hear the question put to Jesus by his closest followers;
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
The theology behind the question is surely vile to us. It represents a theology that provides us with a repugnant view of God, a view of God that were it to be true would in all honesty make it impossible for me to worship God. And yet it was not seen as the view of crackpots. Far from it. This question came out of the orthodoxy of he time of Jesus. After all, a theology had come to prevail from the time of the exile which suggested that if a person or nation was faithful to God, then rewards and blessings would follow. As for a person of nation that was unfaithful, the opposite outcome would occur. And to be fair it was a theology that enabled people to make sense of the horrors of the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the elite. More than that it was a theology that enabled those who returned to create a nation that took faithfulness to God seriously.
But the problem was that it created an image of a thoroughly capricious and petty God. So it becomes a theology that is an abomination. And yet it had deep roots. We see it in the friends of Job who rebuke him amidst his sufferings - in love of course! We also see it in those who suggested that the victims of a collapsed tower at Siloam were necessarily particularly sinful. In that regard Jesus rejects this wretched perspective. And so he does in this case.
So let us be clear that a theology that suggests God is pleased with the rich or the healthy but displeased with the poor or the sick is a total abomination. It is no better than the vomit of Satan. And so it needs to be rejected and exposed wherever it rears its ugly head. Indeed, let any theology that denies the absolute love of God be confronted. Instead may we seek to always represent God as all loving as is seen in Jesus. For the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be in conflict with the loving, inclusive Jesus. Do you get it? Theology matters because it is important that we do not misrepresent the God to whom we point people towards. Be gone indeed, every life denying image of God!
So what does Jesus do? He sees an opportunity to work for good in a bad situation. Only the past week, I was at a meeting concerning the housing crisis in Bideford. The problem of people being unhoused or inadequately housed in Bideford or Anywhere else for that matter is nothing short of scandalous. I shiver at a system that leaves people uncertain of shelter or having to walk the streets for much of the day until they can return to temporary abodes whilst money can be found for weapons of mass destruction, gambling dens or appeasing the self interest of life’s greatest winners in a material sense. It is nothing short of a moral and spiritual disgrace. But sadly we cannot obtain the necessary changes to this shocking state of affairs. So rightly Christians and others are getting together to develop a scheme that will seek to bring hope to some of those whose needs is greatest. For suffering has surely to bring a challenge to engage with the problem.
And Jesus engages with this man. In John’s account he doesn’t even wait to be asked to help. He just gets on and helps a man in need. Making mud with saliva Jesus spreads it on the man’s eyes - there are echoes here of the second creation story in Genesis. He tells the man to wash in the pool of Siloam on the south side of the Temple. And the result is that the man is enabled to see. Now hold on to this. Jesus responds to suffering by opening up the possibilities of God working loving purposes in the situation. And that is surely a good model for us.
But this story is not just about a healing. It is about a transformation. Let me tell you a story. It goes like this. One day a Christian and a Communist were sat on a park bench watching the world go by. As they observed the goings on, they noticed a poor, drunken beggar dressed in rags. The Communist pointed to the beggar and said, “Communism would put a new suit on that man.” But the Christian responded, “Maybe so, but Jesus Christ can put a new man in that suit.” Now for me this should not be seen as an either/or story. The Marxist in me entirely approves of the words of the Communist - to each according to his needs is not a bad concept. But it doesn’t go far enough. It doesn’t solve the problem for problems can keep repeating themselves. A new creation is needed to go along with the social transformation. And in John’s story, the greatest miracle is the transformation that takes place within the blind man.
What is the transformation? Well I don’t know how many of you watched Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian.” It’s actually quite a good film and if you read interviews with the team you will find that it was not intended to make fun of Jesus but to make fun of how we are prone to searching for gods made in our image and to be honest of the church - and I think there are times when people are entitled to do just that. Anyhow there is one scene in which Brian who has become a messiah figure due to public misunderstanding, is harassed by a beggar crying out;
“Alms for an ex leper.”
We are encouraged to believe that this is a leper who has indeed been healed by Jesus after many years of leprosy accompanied by begging. In the dialogue there is a cute moment when Brian asks the ex leper who cured him only to get the answer;
“Jesus did. I was hopping along minding my own business. All of a sudden, up he comes, cures me. One minute I’m a leper with a trade, next minute my livelihood’s gone, not so much as a by-your-leave.. You’re cured, mate. Interfering do-gooder!"
And in that we see that healings such as this one are not just about a cure to an illness but about entering a totally new way of life. This blind man would probably have developed a security from his practice of begging. He has done it for years. But now as a man who could see, that practice had been taken away from him. He would have to learn to live a very different way. How this man did so we are not told but in his conversation with the Pharisees we see a man rise to levels that can hardly have been expected. The man who had begged for his subsistence, the man who had had to please others so that he might have the necessities of life, now becomes a man who is not prepared to be browbeaten but who is prepared to argue his case with those learned Pharisees. Yes, the man has been transformed and now he is a new creation. So never forget that Jesus is in the business of changing people. He transforms them into new creations. And this is part of the business of the church today.
But finally the blind man seems to see better than the Pharisees. Hence that mysterious phrase of Jesus;
“I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.”
There is indeed an irony that a blind beggar would seem to see better than the religious professionals. There is a temptation to reach that point where one cannot see the wood for the trees. And amongst these quite definitely devout people that state had been reached. For there are times when we all need to see the most important truths of all. I am reminded of a story about Karl Barth who may have been the greatest theologian of the 20th century. His “Christian Dogmatics” are certainly a most impressive legacy. Yet coming towards the end of his life he was asked after a lecture what he considered to be the greatest truth that he had learnt in his fruitful life. His reply was this;
“The greatest truth I have ever learned is ‘Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so,’”
And that my friends we need to see - that Jesus loves me, you, the cussed guy down the road who drives us crazy and yes also the Muslim bowing down to Allah. Never, ever forget that the love of Jesus is for all. Otherwise all we are left with is sanctimonious mumbo jumbo!
And that is at the heart of seeing. Forget your aspirations at knowing the truth to all life’s big questions. Search for truth for unfocused devotion can be a dangerous thing but have the humility to know with Paul that our knowledge is partial and that we see as through a darkened glass. Still remember that the love of God for all and through all is what matters most.
One of the best hymns to have come out of America in the 20th Century was Thomas Dorsey’s “Precious Lord, take my hand.” Sung at the funeral of Martin Luther King, its background was in the unexpected deaths of Dorsey’s wife Nettie and the child she was carrying. Dorsey went through guilt at not having responded to an instinct to remain with her rather than travel to a revival meeting. He also felt let down by God until he came to a place of resolving to listen closer to God and in that fund peace. That peace took him to a piano late at night in a music school and there as he played a melody came that most memorable of hymns;
“Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
When my way grows drear
Precious Lord linger near
When my light is almost gone
Hear my cry, hear my call
Hold my hand lest I fall
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
When the darkness appears
And the night draws near
And the day is past and gone
At the river I stand
Guide my feet, hold my hand
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I'm tired, I'm weak, I'm lone
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.”
May our eyes like those of the blind beggar be opened to the courageous, unconditional love of God that comes to us through Jesus. May we see!
TORRINGTON METHODIST CHURCH - Sunday March 2nd 2008
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