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
Saturday, 5 April 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
Friday, 29 February 2008
Mothering Sunday - Our Mother God
1 SAMUEL 1: 20 - 28 JOHN 19: 25 - 27
I remember back in 1999 when the Methodist worship Book came out. The circuit in which I was working on the Isle of Man decided to purchase a number of copies for use throughout the churches. Generally it was well received. There was just one matter that caused concern - the Communion service in which God is addressed as both “mother” and father.” And I know that for some, that one reference to God as “mother” invalidated the whole book.
And yet I think that that one reference was entirely justifiable. Now don’t get me wrong. Next week we will not be praying to;
“Our mother who art in heaven.”
That is not how Jesus taught the Lord’s Prayer and it is not how it has been prayed for two millennia. And I’m far too much a respecter of tradition to disregard either scripture or the historic teachings of the church.
And yet I equally do not want to ignore the motherhood of God. And in that I have some worthy colleagues. Listen for a moment to Anselm who became Archbishop of Canterbury just six years after the death of William the Conqueror. Nor regarded as a liberal trendy, he had this to say;
“Jesus, you are gentle with us as a mother with her children.”
And then listen to the greatest religious thinker that this country has ever produced, Mother Julian of Norwich, who over six hundred years ago wrote;
“As truly as God is our Father, as truly God is our Mother.”
Now of course most Biblical references to God portray God as male. That is hardly surprising given that the social context in which the scriptures emerged was one in which men were dominant. But there are exceptions. In the Old Testament there are to be found verses which provide us with images such as God being as a woman in childbirth, a mother unable to forget the child she has fed and a midwife attending a birth at a time when only a woman could serve in that role. And the list could go on much longer. And within the Gospels, Jesus likens God to a woman searching for a coin whilst Jesus takes on himself female imagery in his lament over Jerusalem when he cries out;
“How often have I longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”
Now of course, God is beyond gender. Being spirit, God does not have the attributes that make us male or female. Indeed, it is irrelevant for in the very first chapter of Genesis we are told that God has created male and female in God’s image. Of course Jesus lived as a man although it is his humanity rather than his gender that is significant in him being the means of our salvation.
Speaking of God as “father” or “mother” doubtless provides us with a quite a range of pictures. Observing the media and hearing people’s stories suggest that whilst for most people there are positive responses to the term “father,” there are those for whom the term is a block on any relationship with God. And yet our stereotypes of fathers and mothers can fall short of reality. I know in many a home the ultimate threat may have been;
“Wait till your father gets home.”
But we know that fathers are not necessarily the fearsome disciplinarians that those words imply. After all in some homes it is the mother who is the strict parent whilst the father may have great qualities of caring, patience and compassion which are often associated with mothers. Time and again the stereotypes are seen to be removed from the realities.
Surely God combines both fatherhood and motherhood in God’s dealings with us. Indeed God represents the very best that can be hoped for of both fathers and mothers. Truly, God is the altogether lovely perfection of parenthood. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the Father figure who is intended as a representation of God, in some ways behaves as a mother would do. He shows restraint in the face of the Prodigal’s insensitive request for his inheritance. When the Prodigal returns he is most unmanly in running to meet the Prodigal and in kissing him. And then when the other son refuses to join the celebration, he takes on the mother’s role as a peacemaker rather than thrashing the lad as would have been expected of a father. No wonder that Rembrandt in his painting, “The Return of the Prodigal son” has two very different hands of the father touching the returned son - one being very muscular whilst the other has the elegance and gentleness of a woman.
So whilst I am not going to start praying the Lord’s Prayer by beginning with “Our Mother” rather than “Our Father”, I do think it is important to recognise that in God’s we find the wholeness and the perfection of both fatherhood and motherhood. Our God is the divine parent to whom we owe our lives and in whom we find all that we could want in a parent. Yet ultimately, this is about our search for ways to relate to God and to describe God. And then the list of ways in which we can see and experience God would seem to be endless. Our language can never fully describe the wonder of God,
But finally what thought can we take away? I think it is this. God loves us passionately. God is concerned for our well being. And God cannot stop being concerned for us even when love becomes painful. He is what we would wish a parent to be and more besides. So today let us just wallow in God’s love - the love without limits!
BIDEFORD METHODIST CHURCH - Sunday March 2nd 2008
I remember back in 1999 when the Methodist worship Book came out. The circuit in which I was working on the Isle of Man decided to purchase a number of copies for use throughout the churches. Generally it was well received. There was just one matter that caused concern - the Communion service in which God is addressed as both “mother” and father.” And I know that for some, that one reference to God as “mother” invalidated the whole book.
And yet I think that that one reference was entirely justifiable. Now don’t get me wrong. Next week we will not be praying to;
“Our mother who art in heaven.”
That is not how Jesus taught the Lord’s Prayer and it is not how it has been prayed for two millennia. And I’m far too much a respecter of tradition to disregard either scripture or the historic teachings of the church.
And yet I equally do not want to ignore the motherhood of God. And in that I have some worthy colleagues. Listen for a moment to Anselm who became Archbishop of Canterbury just six years after the death of William the Conqueror. Nor regarded as a liberal trendy, he had this to say;
“Jesus, you are gentle with us as a mother with her children.”
And then listen to the greatest religious thinker that this country has ever produced, Mother Julian of Norwich, who over six hundred years ago wrote;
“As truly as God is our Father, as truly God is our Mother.”
Now of course most Biblical references to God portray God as male. That is hardly surprising given that the social context in which the scriptures emerged was one in which men were dominant. But there are exceptions. In the Old Testament there are to be found verses which provide us with images such as God being as a woman in childbirth, a mother unable to forget the child she has fed and a midwife attending a birth at a time when only a woman could serve in that role. And the list could go on much longer. And within the Gospels, Jesus likens God to a woman searching for a coin whilst Jesus takes on himself female imagery in his lament over Jerusalem when he cries out;
“How often have I longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”
Now of course, God is beyond gender. Being spirit, God does not have the attributes that make us male or female. Indeed, it is irrelevant for in the very first chapter of Genesis we are told that God has created male and female in God’s image. Of course Jesus lived as a man although it is his humanity rather than his gender that is significant in him being the means of our salvation.
Speaking of God as “father” or “mother” doubtless provides us with a quite a range of pictures. Observing the media and hearing people’s stories suggest that whilst for most people there are positive responses to the term “father,” there are those for whom the term is a block on any relationship with God. And yet our stereotypes of fathers and mothers can fall short of reality. I know in many a home the ultimate threat may have been;
“Wait till your father gets home.”
But we know that fathers are not necessarily the fearsome disciplinarians that those words imply. After all in some homes it is the mother who is the strict parent whilst the father may have great qualities of caring, patience and compassion which are often associated with mothers. Time and again the stereotypes are seen to be removed from the realities.
Surely God combines both fatherhood and motherhood in God’s dealings with us. Indeed God represents the very best that can be hoped for of both fathers and mothers. Truly, God is the altogether lovely perfection of parenthood. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the Father figure who is intended as a representation of God, in some ways behaves as a mother would do. He shows restraint in the face of the Prodigal’s insensitive request for his inheritance. When the Prodigal returns he is most unmanly in running to meet the Prodigal and in kissing him. And then when the other son refuses to join the celebration, he takes on the mother’s role as a peacemaker rather than thrashing the lad as would have been expected of a father. No wonder that Rembrandt in his painting, “The Return of the Prodigal son” has two very different hands of the father touching the returned son - one being very muscular whilst the other has the elegance and gentleness of a woman.
So whilst I am not going to start praying the Lord’s Prayer by beginning with “Our Mother” rather than “Our Father”, I do think it is important to recognise that in God’s we find the wholeness and the perfection of both fatherhood and motherhood. Our God is the divine parent to whom we owe our lives and in whom we find all that we could want in a parent. Yet ultimately, this is about our search for ways to relate to God and to describe God. And then the list of ways in which we can see and experience God would seem to be endless. Our language can never fully describe the wonder of God,
But finally what thought can we take away? I think it is this. God loves us passionately. God is concerned for our well being. And God cannot stop being concerned for us even when love becomes painful. He is what we would wish a parent to be and more besides. So today let us just wallow in God’s love - the love without limits!
BIDEFORD METHODIST CHURCH - Sunday March 2nd 2008
Sunday, 24 February 2008
Lent 3 - Not so gentle Jesus (Non lectionary sermon)
JOHN 2: 13-22
I think the first prayer that I learnt came from Charles Wesley. It began;
“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child;
Pity my simplicity,
Suffer me to come to Thee.”
If that wasn’t bad enough, I attended a church where proudly displayed was what I now know to be Warner Salmon’s painting “The Head of Christ.” It’s the picture that most of you will have seen (500 million copies have been produced) in which Jesus has flowing blonde hair, blue eyes and makes the late John Inman look like The Terminator. In short it is a picture that has always made me want to protest;
“What a wimp!”
In both prayer and painting I think we have got Jesus very badly wrong and I for one have had to do a bit of unlearning. Which is just as well because today’s reading portrays Jesus in a manner that is hardly “meek and mild.” So let the real Jesus be unleashed!
And that Jesus is certainly blazing with anger in John’s Gospel. Now John puts the clearing of the Temple at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus whereas the other Gospel writers put it as the follow up to the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. Some would argue that there could have been two such events but given the importance attached to the Temple as a centre of religious and economic life in Jerusalem, it is surely inconceivable that Jesus would have been allowed two such outrages. After all the American scholar EP Sanders argues that this is the event that was the trigger for the execution of Jesus. So I am inclined to think that this episode occurred at the timing suggested by the first three Gospels whilst John being more concerned with significance than chronology has found it suitable for his purposes to tell this story at the beginning of his Gospel.
So let’s for a moment look to the temple itself. The Temple at the time of Jesus was the third Temple ( or a major development of the second Temple depending on your point of view) to be built on that site. Building had begun under Herod the Great at about 20 BCE. It would not be totally completed until about 63 CE under Herod Agrippa. It was a thoroughly magnificent building made of white marble that gleamed in the daylight. Hugely impressive, it conveyed a message about the greatness of Israel’s God and it was the centre of Israel’s religious and economic life. So to confront the Temple establishment was a bold and audacious move by Jesus.
So to what exactly did Jesus object? It wasn’t simply that there was a market place. This was normal in any temple cult. Currency need to be changed from that of Rome to Jewish money in order for the necessary payment to be made. Appropriate livestock had to be sold in order for sacrifices to be made and that which was brought in needed to be inspected. And yet, protesting that God’s house has been turned into a “market” Jesus unleashes his full fury upon the traders - making a whip of cords to drive the animals out of the Temple, scattering the coins of the money changers and overturning their tables.
Wow! This is no meek and mild Jesus. This is a Jesus who is furious, a Jesus who is not going hang around to observe social etiquette. But why? In part it is because the Temple traders are using religion as a means to carry out extortionate practices at the expense of poor worshippers. After all, Jesus is here in line with the prophetic tradition in rejecting the exploitation of the poor. And he knows only too well that much of this commerce is in fact controlled by high priestly families such as that of Annas (Jospehus refers to the “bazaars of Annas“) which included his son in law Caiaphas who figures in the trial of Jesus. No way is Jesus prepared to sit back and see an elite carrying out sharp practice to the detriment of worshipers, many of who would have been impoverished. Instead, we witness a courageous stand against the dominant powers.
Another cause of the anger of Jesus may well have been that the activities about which he protested were going on in the Court of the Gentiles. This Court was as far as gentiles could go. And yet, they were hardly experiencing worship in the midst of a bazaar. Jews could go further especially if they were men but this was as good as it got for gentiles. Now whilst most of what Jesus has been doing has been with his fellow Jews, he has hinted that God is for all peoples in for example his conversation with the Samaritan Woman at the Well and in the parable he told of a good Samaritan. Here, he can no longer abide a system which has been abused in such a way as to keep people from a full experience of God’s love. It has to end! I just wonder to what extent our proclamation and attitudes today keep people who are other than us, away from a full experience of God’s love today.
So there we are. Jesus, far from being meek and mild, is eyes ablaze with anger. His actions are the actions of fury. So perhaps we need not be afraid of anger. Indeed, I would suggest that there are times when we should embrace anger even when that anger is directed towards the places where many would not wish it to be placed. I certainly feel anger at the production of instruments that could carry out mass killing including when they are done by my own country. I certainly feel anger at the opening of casinos and bookies that exploit human weakness. I certainly feel anger at the toleration of homelessness and inadequate housing in a country where such need is often but a few yards from ostentatious wealth whose desires seem to be much more listened to in high places than the cries of the needy. So let there be no mistake - at times anger and the action that goes with it is a Christian duty! Be gone meek and mild church! Arise a church of militancy for the dispossessed, the voiceless and the victims!
But still this is not the point at which to stop. As Jesus is challenged, to give a sign for what he is doing, his answer is;
“Destroy this Temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
How do we interpret this? Well certainly one possibility is to see it in terms of a prophesy of the imminent destruction of the Temple. John’s readers will know that this has happened in 70 CE.
But I guess that most Christians will see it as pointing to his own body. For ultimately the risen Christ will be all that the Temple should have been as the place to meet with God. As we travel through Lent on the way to the events of Good Friday and Easter, we see in Jesus the all sufficient means through which we may approach God and experience the fullness of God’s love. A day of anger in Jerusalem has shown the temporary nature of the Temple as a means to God. Instead we can see in the passionate courage and love of Jesus that in him all our hopes and dreams can be wisely invested.
A world without the Temple seemed an impossibility. Today, we still put our hopes in wrong places be they nation, leaders or even British values. These things are not necessarily wrong in themselves but when we depend on them, they become a form of idolatry. The only place that I can encourage you to invest your allegiance and hopes in in Jesus Christ who is God made flesh. He is thoroughly reliable.
ALVERDISCOTT METHODIST CHURCH February 24th 2008
I think the first prayer that I learnt came from Charles Wesley. It began;
“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child;
Pity my simplicity,
Suffer me to come to Thee.”
If that wasn’t bad enough, I attended a church where proudly displayed was what I now know to be Warner Salmon’s painting “The Head of Christ.” It’s the picture that most of you will have seen (500 million copies have been produced) in which Jesus has flowing blonde hair, blue eyes and makes the late John Inman look like The Terminator. In short it is a picture that has always made me want to protest;
“What a wimp!”
In both prayer and painting I think we have got Jesus very badly wrong and I for one have had to do a bit of unlearning. Which is just as well because today’s reading portrays Jesus in a manner that is hardly “meek and mild.” So let the real Jesus be unleashed!
And that Jesus is certainly blazing with anger in John’s Gospel. Now John puts the clearing of the Temple at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus whereas the other Gospel writers put it as the follow up to the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. Some would argue that there could have been two such events but given the importance attached to the Temple as a centre of religious and economic life in Jerusalem, it is surely inconceivable that Jesus would have been allowed two such outrages. After all the American scholar EP Sanders argues that this is the event that was the trigger for the execution of Jesus. So I am inclined to think that this episode occurred at the timing suggested by the first three Gospels whilst John being more concerned with significance than chronology has found it suitable for his purposes to tell this story at the beginning of his Gospel.
So let’s for a moment look to the temple itself. The Temple at the time of Jesus was the third Temple ( or a major development of the second Temple depending on your point of view) to be built on that site. Building had begun under Herod the Great at about 20 BCE. It would not be totally completed until about 63 CE under Herod Agrippa. It was a thoroughly magnificent building made of white marble that gleamed in the daylight. Hugely impressive, it conveyed a message about the greatness of Israel’s God and it was the centre of Israel’s religious and economic life. So to confront the Temple establishment was a bold and audacious move by Jesus.
So to what exactly did Jesus object? It wasn’t simply that there was a market place. This was normal in any temple cult. Currency need to be changed from that of Rome to Jewish money in order for the necessary payment to be made. Appropriate livestock had to be sold in order for sacrifices to be made and that which was brought in needed to be inspected. And yet, protesting that God’s house has been turned into a “market” Jesus unleashes his full fury upon the traders - making a whip of cords to drive the animals out of the Temple, scattering the coins of the money changers and overturning their tables.
Wow! This is no meek and mild Jesus. This is a Jesus who is furious, a Jesus who is not going hang around to observe social etiquette. But why? In part it is because the Temple traders are using religion as a means to carry out extortionate practices at the expense of poor worshippers. After all, Jesus is here in line with the prophetic tradition in rejecting the exploitation of the poor. And he knows only too well that much of this commerce is in fact controlled by high priestly families such as that of Annas (Jospehus refers to the “bazaars of Annas“) which included his son in law Caiaphas who figures in the trial of Jesus. No way is Jesus prepared to sit back and see an elite carrying out sharp practice to the detriment of worshipers, many of who would have been impoverished. Instead, we witness a courageous stand against the dominant powers.
Another cause of the anger of Jesus may well have been that the activities about which he protested were going on in the Court of the Gentiles. This Court was as far as gentiles could go. And yet, they were hardly experiencing worship in the midst of a bazaar. Jews could go further especially if they were men but this was as good as it got for gentiles. Now whilst most of what Jesus has been doing has been with his fellow Jews, he has hinted that God is for all peoples in for example his conversation with the Samaritan Woman at the Well and in the parable he told of a good Samaritan. Here, he can no longer abide a system which has been abused in such a way as to keep people from a full experience of God’s love. It has to end! I just wonder to what extent our proclamation and attitudes today keep people who are other than us, away from a full experience of God’s love today.
So there we are. Jesus, far from being meek and mild, is eyes ablaze with anger. His actions are the actions of fury. So perhaps we need not be afraid of anger. Indeed, I would suggest that there are times when we should embrace anger even when that anger is directed towards the places where many would not wish it to be placed. I certainly feel anger at the production of instruments that could carry out mass killing including when they are done by my own country. I certainly feel anger at the opening of casinos and bookies that exploit human weakness. I certainly feel anger at the toleration of homelessness and inadequate housing in a country where such need is often but a few yards from ostentatious wealth whose desires seem to be much more listened to in high places than the cries of the needy. So let there be no mistake - at times anger and the action that goes with it is a Christian duty! Be gone meek and mild church! Arise a church of militancy for the dispossessed, the voiceless and the victims!
But still this is not the point at which to stop. As Jesus is challenged, to give a sign for what he is doing, his answer is;
“Destroy this Temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
How do we interpret this? Well certainly one possibility is to see it in terms of a prophesy of the imminent destruction of the Temple. John’s readers will know that this has happened in 70 CE.
But I guess that most Christians will see it as pointing to his own body. For ultimately the risen Christ will be all that the Temple should have been as the place to meet with God. As we travel through Lent on the way to the events of Good Friday and Easter, we see in Jesus the all sufficient means through which we may approach God and experience the fullness of God’s love. A day of anger in Jerusalem has shown the temporary nature of the Temple as a means to God. Instead we can see in the passionate courage and love of Jesus that in him all our hopes and dreams can be wisely invested.
A world without the Temple seemed an impossibility. Today, we still put our hopes in wrong places be they nation, leaders or even British values. These things are not necessarily wrong in themselves but when we depend on them, they become a form of idolatry. The only place that I can encourage you to invest your allegiance and hopes in in Jesus Christ who is God made flesh. He is thoroughly reliable.
ALVERDISCOTT METHODIST CHURCH February 24th 2008
Lent 3 - Good news for Outsiders
JOHN 4: 5-26, 39-42
This morning time is short and we face a scripture that speaks profoundly to us. So I just want to highlight a little of the message that comes at us from this encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Sychar.
Firstly, that this meeting ever happened tells us something important about Jesus. You see, this encounter comes against a background of over 500 years of enmity between Jews such as Jesus and Samaritans. Its roots lay in the planting of new peoples into the area by Assyrian conquerors. With time not only was there a racial issue between two people but a religious issue also. For Samaritan religion had come to a different place than Jewish religion. As the dialogue makes clear one of the differences was in the place of supreme worship of God. For Jews, the Temple in Jerusalem was the place that counted. Samaritans on the other hand looked to Mount Gerizim which was close to the scene of this encounter. Once a temple had stood there but Jewish leaders had destroyed it a century earlier.
By the time of Jesus, both parties had their grievances and so they tended to have as little to do with each other as possible. Indeed most Jews would have avoided going through Samaria but Jesus didn’t.
Anyhow, our scripture finds him thirsty by the well when a Samaritan woman arrives. Firstly he asks her for water and out of that engages her in conversation. Nothing unusual in that you might think. But in that culture it was unusual. For as verse 9 makes clear, Jews did not normally associate with Samaritans. And more than that it was not normal for a man to engage in private conversation with a woman other than a member of his family, something which led to the disciples being surprised at finding Jesus talking with a woman. Do you get it? Jesus was not letting the conventions of the day get in the way of proper and respectful conversation with this Samaritan woman. To most Jewish people, she was an outsider but to Jesus she was quite simply a person worthy of respect.
Now it would seem that her experiences of life had not been altogether kind. We are told that she had had 5 husbands before her current partner. Often this is interpreted as suggesting that she had a particularly sinful lifestyle. Her coming to the well at a time when the Sun was at its hottest rather than earlier in the morning, is often interpreted as suggesting that she was ashamed to be with other women who knew her story all too well. But this is reading too much into her story. The woman may simply have been unfortunate, a victim of bereavement is a society where life expectancy was not all that could have been wished. She may have been harshly treated by men in her life to a point where some of the spark had been knocked out of her so that she preferred to stay away from company. We do not know. What we do know is that if others thought her not to be worth their time, that was not a view shared by Jesus.
Oh make no mistake, here we find the worth of all people being affirmed by Jesus. Differences for him were not an excuse to erect the barriers. Whilst our rag the Daily Mail was this week exposed offering money for stories that would reflect badly on East Europeans living in this country, Jesus systematically knocks down the walls we build against people who are deemed to be other. Indeed, in his respectful dialogue with a woman of other faith, perhaps we can see a model as to how we can dialogue with people of other religions in this country. This means being prepared to listen and even to seek the help of those who are “other” as Jesus does in his request for water, rather than hectoring them or dehumanising them.
Now, this is pretty traditional interpretation. Jesus is on the side of the outsider and this has important significance in how we treat outsiders today be they of other religion, other lands especially asylum seekers or those who are deemed to have in some way or other to have flawed lifestyles. The love of Jesus is for all and we do no favours when we put limits on the love of God.
But I think there is something else going on here. It is too easy for us to see Jesus as the insider and the Samaritan woman as the outsider. You see, that is not the whole picture. This encounter is not in Israel. It is in Samaria. It is on the home turf of the Samaritan woman. She is the one who is at home. And in this place it is Jesus who is the outsider. Consciously and deliberately Jesus has made himself into the outsider. And this can speak to Christian living today. In a real way, Christians need to get used to being the outsider in what is effectively post Christian society. Forget about a past when Christianity in its corrupted form of Christendom dominated. Look to today where we are surrounded by many a Samaria and like Jesus respond to the challenge to engage with a society in which Christians are the outsider. There is a real temptation in times of falling church numbers in Britain, west Europe and increasingly the USA to retreat into a bunker mentality. And yet the example of Jesus urges us away from that. Jesus urges us to positively engage with the diversity of humanity especially with those whose experience of rejection is greatest. If Jesus can be the archetypal outsider, then that is the place for us.
This story is at a well. People who lived in the Middle East in those days as today knew only too well the worth of water - pity Coca Cola with their wasteful use of water do not know this worth. Shortages of water are a problem for much of the world. And yet vital as that is, Jesus offers this Samaritan woman a vision of “living water” which will bring refreshment for all time. This was an is the offer of Jesus. In our world of the rat race in which the rats all too often do their worst to those who cannot keep up, Jesus offers the living waters of his presence, his love and his acceptance. He brings grace, a word that can change the world, through which he gives us a value that we can never earn. This grace is something that we can mediate to others. Just as Jesus stood out against life denying culture in his time, so to are we called to challenge the grey arbiters of power in our world with a vision of grace.
The Samaritan woman rejoiced in her encounter with Jesus. She tells what has happened to her fellow Samaritans. Jesus stays a couple of extra days with the historic enemy. And it is they who discern that Jesus “really is the Saviour of the world.”
And what more of this Samaritan woman? We know no more of what happened to her although I cannot but think that this encounter was life changing to both this woman and to Jesus. But across the world she goes on being celebrated. In Mexico, La Samaritana is celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent with specially flavoured water being given so as to commemorate her gift of water to Jesus. In Russia she is honoured as Svetlana which means “equal to the apostles.”
What an elevation for this outsider! But this is the Gospel of the ultimate outsider in which outsiders still find favour.
BIDEFORD METHODIST CHURCH Sunday February 24th 2008
This morning time is short and we face a scripture that speaks profoundly to us. So I just want to highlight a little of the message that comes at us from this encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Sychar.
Firstly, that this meeting ever happened tells us something important about Jesus. You see, this encounter comes against a background of over 500 years of enmity between Jews such as Jesus and Samaritans. Its roots lay in the planting of new peoples into the area by Assyrian conquerors. With time not only was there a racial issue between two people but a religious issue also. For Samaritan religion had come to a different place than Jewish religion. As the dialogue makes clear one of the differences was in the place of supreme worship of God. For Jews, the Temple in Jerusalem was the place that counted. Samaritans on the other hand looked to Mount Gerizim which was close to the scene of this encounter. Once a temple had stood there but Jewish leaders had destroyed it a century earlier.
By the time of Jesus, both parties had their grievances and so they tended to have as little to do with each other as possible. Indeed most Jews would have avoided going through Samaria but Jesus didn’t.
Anyhow, our scripture finds him thirsty by the well when a Samaritan woman arrives. Firstly he asks her for water and out of that engages her in conversation. Nothing unusual in that you might think. But in that culture it was unusual. For as verse 9 makes clear, Jews did not normally associate with Samaritans. And more than that it was not normal for a man to engage in private conversation with a woman other than a member of his family, something which led to the disciples being surprised at finding Jesus talking with a woman. Do you get it? Jesus was not letting the conventions of the day get in the way of proper and respectful conversation with this Samaritan woman. To most Jewish people, she was an outsider but to Jesus she was quite simply a person worthy of respect.
Now it would seem that her experiences of life had not been altogether kind. We are told that she had had 5 husbands before her current partner. Often this is interpreted as suggesting that she had a particularly sinful lifestyle. Her coming to the well at a time when the Sun was at its hottest rather than earlier in the morning, is often interpreted as suggesting that she was ashamed to be with other women who knew her story all too well. But this is reading too much into her story. The woman may simply have been unfortunate, a victim of bereavement is a society where life expectancy was not all that could have been wished. She may have been harshly treated by men in her life to a point where some of the spark had been knocked out of her so that she preferred to stay away from company. We do not know. What we do know is that if others thought her not to be worth their time, that was not a view shared by Jesus.
Oh make no mistake, here we find the worth of all people being affirmed by Jesus. Differences for him were not an excuse to erect the barriers. Whilst our rag the Daily Mail was this week exposed offering money for stories that would reflect badly on East Europeans living in this country, Jesus systematically knocks down the walls we build against people who are deemed to be other. Indeed, in his respectful dialogue with a woman of other faith, perhaps we can see a model as to how we can dialogue with people of other religions in this country. This means being prepared to listen and even to seek the help of those who are “other” as Jesus does in his request for water, rather than hectoring them or dehumanising them.
Now, this is pretty traditional interpretation. Jesus is on the side of the outsider and this has important significance in how we treat outsiders today be they of other religion, other lands especially asylum seekers or those who are deemed to have in some way or other to have flawed lifestyles. The love of Jesus is for all and we do no favours when we put limits on the love of God.
But I think there is something else going on here. It is too easy for us to see Jesus as the insider and the Samaritan woman as the outsider. You see, that is not the whole picture. This encounter is not in Israel. It is in Samaria. It is on the home turf of the Samaritan woman. She is the one who is at home. And in this place it is Jesus who is the outsider. Consciously and deliberately Jesus has made himself into the outsider. And this can speak to Christian living today. In a real way, Christians need to get used to being the outsider in what is effectively post Christian society. Forget about a past when Christianity in its corrupted form of Christendom dominated. Look to today where we are surrounded by many a Samaria and like Jesus respond to the challenge to engage with a society in which Christians are the outsider. There is a real temptation in times of falling church numbers in Britain, west Europe and increasingly the USA to retreat into a bunker mentality. And yet the example of Jesus urges us away from that. Jesus urges us to positively engage with the diversity of humanity especially with those whose experience of rejection is greatest. If Jesus can be the archetypal outsider, then that is the place for us.
This story is at a well. People who lived in the Middle East in those days as today knew only too well the worth of water - pity Coca Cola with their wasteful use of water do not know this worth. Shortages of water are a problem for much of the world. And yet vital as that is, Jesus offers this Samaritan woman a vision of “living water” which will bring refreshment for all time. This was an is the offer of Jesus. In our world of the rat race in which the rats all too often do their worst to those who cannot keep up, Jesus offers the living waters of his presence, his love and his acceptance. He brings grace, a word that can change the world, through which he gives us a value that we can never earn. This grace is something that we can mediate to others. Just as Jesus stood out against life denying culture in his time, so to are we called to challenge the grey arbiters of power in our world with a vision of grace.
The Samaritan woman rejoiced in her encounter with Jesus. She tells what has happened to her fellow Samaritans. Jesus stays a couple of extra days with the historic enemy. And it is they who discern that Jesus “really is the Saviour of the world.”
And what more of this Samaritan woman? We know no more of what happened to her although I cannot but think that this encounter was life changing to both this woman and to Jesus. But across the world she goes on being celebrated. In Mexico, La Samaritana is celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent with specially flavoured water being given so as to commemorate her gift of water to Jesus. In Russia she is honoured as Svetlana which means “equal to the apostles.”
What an elevation for this outsider! But this is the Gospel of the ultimate outsider in which outsiders still find favour.
BIDEFORD METHODIST CHURCH Sunday February 24th 2008
Sunday, 17 February 2008
Lent 2 - Moving with God
GENESIS 12: 1-6 JOHN 3: 1-17
I am one of those people who finds it hard to warm to that patriarch of Genesis, Abraham. A man who on two occasions puts himself before the well being of his wife by pretending that she is his sister so as not to disillusion powerful men who wish to sleep with her, is not exactly the sort of person I admire. That he is recorded as exiling his first child and her mother, being prepared to sacrifice his child whether it be Isaac as in the Jewish and Christian traditions or Ishmael as in the Islamic tradition, and that he seems to have difficulty getting on with people leading to a splitting with Lot and even the unleashing of a war, mean that to be honest I don’t find Abraham to be the sort of guy I would choose to go out for a pint with.
And yet, Abraham is a venerated figure in three religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Why should that be? I think that the answer is that this deeply flawed man is at the same time a man who is prepared to give himself to doing what he feels God to be calling him to, even if this means that he is in more than one way entering new territory.
At the time we meet him, he is already advanced in years. His family have already made a great move. They have travelled from Ur which is probably in what is now South East Iraq to Haran which would be on the Syrian/Turkish border. Their goal has been Canaan but they have not arrived at that destination.
But now comes a call from God;
“Go from the country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
Now I know that migrations on the part of nomadic people were not unusual. But there comes to all of us a time when we want to feel settled. We can all find ourselves held to the places and people that are familiar. Nothing unsettles us quite as much as change.
And yet, this elderly man demonstrates a remarkable level of obedience to God. He get up and moves even though he does not know where he will be going. And in so doing, he abandons the props with which he had lived including his extended family. All of this for an uncertain future! All of this responding to a promise that this elderly man who is married to an elderly woman, would be the founders of a great nation. It sure is obedience even to the point of being just a little crazy.
And if you follow the story, you will find that deeply flawed Abraham keeps trying to do what God calls him to. And of course through his first two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, he is seen as fathering two great nations.
Now, Abraham may not be the primary figure in any of the religions. For Judaism, I would suggest that Moses is more significant. And certainly for Christianity it is Jesus who is of prime significance whilst for Islam, it is the Prophet Muhammad who is seen as the greatest of God’s messengers. But within each of those faiths, Abraham is a vital figure. Jewish circumcision looks back to him and Jewish people see themselves as children of Abraham. For Christians, his significance is seen in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus going back to him and his portrayal in the Letter to the Hebrews as a great example of faith whilst Muslims see him as the prime example of Hanifism, faith in One God.
But the greatest Biblical tributes to Abraham are found in his being described as a friend of God. We first find this incredible description of Abraham in Isaiah (41:8) and it is repeated in the Letter of James where we find it written;
“Thus the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” and he was called the friend of God.”
What a description of Abraham’s relationship with God! It is unique. And it comes about because Abraham believed the incredible promise of God and acted accordingly.
Yes, Abraham is an example of a man who responded to a dynamic understanding of God. He had the capacity to appreciate that God is not simply about the continuance of the status quo but God challenges us to see the world in new ways and to move with God even when that moving takes us into the realism of uncertainty and unpredictability.
I think that there is also movement going on in our Gospel reading. In it we find a well known encounter between Jesus and a man named Nicodemus. Now, Nicodemus was a part of the religious establishment. After all he was a Pharisee, people who were certainly known for their orthodoxy. More than that he would seem to have been a member of the ruling council, the Sanhedrin. And yet, we find him crossing boundaries by coming to speak to Jesus. Oh, we would not have been short of learning. He could have been given the position he occupied. But this Nicodemus was no closed mind and so having heard about Jesus, he was prepared to abandon the safety of past understandings to see if through Jesus he might be enabled to move forwards. In Nicodemus is the ultimate reproach for the closed minded. He is a reminder that precious as inherited truth is, God is always challenging us to new ways of exploration.
The encounter begins with misunderstanding but in the ensuing dialogue there is much that merits contemplation. This morning, I just want to briefly touch on two insights from this scripture.
Firstly, there is talk of a new birth. The same Greek word can be translated as meaning “born from above” and “born again.” My impression is that Jesus is speaking of being “born from above” whilst Nicodemus understand him to be speaking of being “Born again.” That at any rate is where the commentaries leave me.
But think for a moment. Is not being “born from above” quite a revolutionary thought? You see, at the time of Jesus one’s birth status was important. One’s place of honour depended upon it. It was a factor for life in a society in which status was so very important. But wait for it! If we are “born from above” as children of God, then surely we all have a new status. We are all lifted up. And with that then surely distinctions of social class begin to fade away. More than that, in a world in which the only arena in which men and women could free associate with one another was where they were brothers and sisters, this concept of being all children of God surely challenged both segregation and the ranking of men above women. Truly, we miss all too often the vision that comes from being “born from above” that Jesus is heralding a social revolution in which all might find hitherto denied dignity. No wonder that the Apostle Paul was later to write thos earth changing words;
“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Of course, Christianity is about so much more than social reform but it is undeniable that it challenges honour systems that put some above others. Within the gospel is the seeds of social transformation and part of our discipleship is to work out and live its meaning for today.
And secondly, there is the message of Divine love directed at the world. Ancient Israel seems to have lived with a tension between those who saw God’s love as directed exclusively in the direction of Israel and those particularly within the prophetic tradition who saw that love as being wider, directed even as illustrated in for example the Book of Jonah towards the greatest of Israel’s enemies. John 3: 16 has often be used as a clincher verse for exclusion of non Christians from God’s love. This morning I resist that debate but urge you to here evidence that God is attached to the whole world. And that attachment to the whole world is so great that the Son has been sent in order that we might from now be experiencing the quality of life which comes from being in the unending presence of God. And in that presence transformation is worked out as instanced by for example John Newton who following his conversion to faith in Christ eventually came to that second conversion that did not just lead him away from the slave trade that had been his livelihood but into campaigning against that which he now could no longer tolerate.
I think that both Abraham and Nicodemus are examples of people who were prepared to resist the temptation to stand still. Had they stood still, then their lives would never have flowered as they did. Both learnt that just clinging to the place that they were at, was not sufficient. Our God is a dynamic God who urges us forwards. This can serve to mean that our understandings of God need to develop, that our understandings of the injustices of the world need to move forwards and that even how we worship is a not something that should be left fossilised.
Today, we live in a fast changing world. Often Christianity is regarded as irrelevant at best. You and me are called to be a part of God’s mission in our world. By all means cherish that which is our inheritance but for goodness sake, do not close down the doors on God doing something new. Time and again, we need to have the nerve to ask if we are currently in the right place with God. We need to be open to stepping out into the unfamiliar for God most certainly does not stand still. The question for every Christian church this Lent is whether we are accepting of fossilising or whether we are prepared to move with God and God’s mission.
ALWINGTON and NORTHAM METHODIST CHURCHES - Sunday February 17th 2008
I am one of those people who finds it hard to warm to that patriarch of Genesis, Abraham. A man who on two occasions puts himself before the well being of his wife by pretending that she is his sister so as not to disillusion powerful men who wish to sleep with her, is not exactly the sort of person I admire. That he is recorded as exiling his first child and her mother, being prepared to sacrifice his child whether it be Isaac as in the Jewish and Christian traditions or Ishmael as in the Islamic tradition, and that he seems to have difficulty getting on with people leading to a splitting with Lot and even the unleashing of a war, mean that to be honest I don’t find Abraham to be the sort of guy I would choose to go out for a pint with.
And yet, Abraham is a venerated figure in three religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Why should that be? I think that the answer is that this deeply flawed man is at the same time a man who is prepared to give himself to doing what he feels God to be calling him to, even if this means that he is in more than one way entering new territory.
At the time we meet him, he is already advanced in years. His family have already made a great move. They have travelled from Ur which is probably in what is now South East Iraq to Haran which would be on the Syrian/Turkish border. Their goal has been Canaan but they have not arrived at that destination.
But now comes a call from God;
“Go from the country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
Now I know that migrations on the part of nomadic people were not unusual. But there comes to all of us a time when we want to feel settled. We can all find ourselves held to the places and people that are familiar. Nothing unsettles us quite as much as change.
And yet, this elderly man demonstrates a remarkable level of obedience to God. He get up and moves even though he does not know where he will be going. And in so doing, he abandons the props with which he had lived including his extended family. All of this for an uncertain future! All of this responding to a promise that this elderly man who is married to an elderly woman, would be the founders of a great nation. It sure is obedience even to the point of being just a little crazy.
And if you follow the story, you will find that deeply flawed Abraham keeps trying to do what God calls him to. And of course through his first two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, he is seen as fathering two great nations.
Now, Abraham may not be the primary figure in any of the religions. For Judaism, I would suggest that Moses is more significant. And certainly for Christianity it is Jesus who is of prime significance whilst for Islam, it is the Prophet Muhammad who is seen as the greatest of God’s messengers. But within each of those faiths, Abraham is a vital figure. Jewish circumcision looks back to him and Jewish people see themselves as children of Abraham. For Christians, his significance is seen in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus going back to him and his portrayal in the Letter to the Hebrews as a great example of faith whilst Muslims see him as the prime example of Hanifism, faith in One God.
But the greatest Biblical tributes to Abraham are found in his being described as a friend of God. We first find this incredible description of Abraham in Isaiah (41:8) and it is repeated in the Letter of James where we find it written;
“Thus the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” and he was called the friend of God.”
What a description of Abraham’s relationship with God! It is unique. And it comes about because Abraham believed the incredible promise of God and acted accordingly.
Yes, Abraham is an example of a man who responded to a dynamic understanding of God. He had the capacity to appreciate that God is not simply about the continuance of the status quo but God challenges us to see the world in new ways and to move with God even when that moving takes us into the realism of uncertainty and unpredictability.
I think that there is also movement going on in our Gospel reading. In it we find a well known encounter between Jesus and a man named Nicodemus. Now, Nicodemus was a part of the religious establishment. After all he was a Pharisee, people who were certainly known for their orthodoxy. More than that he would seem to have been a member of the ruling council, the Sanhedrin. And yet, we find him crossing boundaries by coming to speak to Jesus. Oh, we would not have been short of learning. He could have been given the position he occupied. But this Nicodemus was no closed mind and so having heard about Jesus, he was prepared to abandon the safety of past understandings to see if through Jesus he might be enabled to move forwards. In Nicodemus is the ultimate reproach for the closed minded. He is a reminder that precious as inherited truth is, God is always challenging us to new ways of exploration.
The encounter begins with misunderstanding but in the ensuing dialogue there is much that merits contemplation. This morning, I just want to briefly touch on two insights from this scripture.
Firstly, there is talk of a new birth. The same Greek word can be translated as meaning “born from above” and “born again.” My impression is that Jesus is speaking of being “born from above” whilst Nicodemus understand him to be speaking of being “Born again.” That at any rate is where the commentaries leave me.
But think for a moment. Is not being “born from above” quite a revolutionary thought? You see, at the time of Jesus one’s birth status was important. One’s place of honour depended upon it. It was a factor for life in a society in which status was so very important. But wait for it! If we are “born from above” as children of God, then surely we all have a new status. We are all lifted up. And with that then surely distinctions of social class begin to fade away. More than that, in a world in which the only arena in which men and women could free associate with one another was where they were brothers and sisters, this concept of being all children of God surely challenged both segregation and the ranking of men above women. Truly, we miss all too often the vision that comes from being “born from above” that Jesus is heralding a social revolution in which all might find hitherto denied dignity. No wonder that the Apostle Paul was later to write thos earth changing words;
“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Of course, Christianity is about so much more than social reform but it is undeniable that it challenges honour systems that put some above others. Within the gospel is the seeds of social transformation and part of our discipleship is to work out and live its meaning for today.
And secondly, there is the message of Divine love directed at the world. Ancient Israel seems to have lived with a tension between those who saw God’s love as directed exclusively in the direction of Israel and those particularly within the prophetic tradition who saw that love as being wider, directed even as illustrated in for example the Book of Jonah towards the greatest of Israel’s enemies. John 3: 16 has often be used as a clincher verse for exclusion of non Christians from God’s love. This morning I resist that debate but urge you to here evidence that God is attached to the whole world. And that attachment to the whole world is so great that the Son has been sent in order that we might from now be experiencing the quality of life which comes from being in the unending presence of God. And in that presence transformation is worked out as instanced by for example John Newton who following his conversion to faith in Christ eventually came to that second conversion that did not just lead him away from the slave trade that had been his livelihood but into campaigning against that which he now could no longer tolerate.
I think that both Abraham and Nicodemus are examples of people who were prepared to resist the temptation to stand still. Had they stood still, then their lives would never have flowered as they did. Both learnt that just clinging to the place that they were at, was not sufficient. Our God is a dynamic God who urges us forwards. This can serve to mean that our understandings of God need to develop, that our understandings of the injustices of the world need to move forwards and that even how we worship is a not something that should be left fossilised.
Today, we live in a fast changing world. Often Christianity is regarded as irrelevant at best. You and me are called to be a part of God’s mission in our world. By all means cherish that which is our inheritance but for goodness sake, do not close down the doors on God doing something new. Time and again, we need to have the nerve to ask if we are currently in the right place with God. We need to be open to stepping out into the unfamiliar for God most certainly does not stand still. The question for every Christian church this Lent is whether we are accepting of fossilising or whether we are prepared to move with God and God’s mission.
ALWINGTON and NORTHAM METHODIST CHURCHES - Sunday February 17th 2008
Sunday, 10 February 2008
Lent 1 Choices
Genesis 2: 15-17; 3: 1-7 Matthew 4: 1-11
In his “Confessions”, St Augustine writes;
“Give me chastity and continence but not just now.”
I guess, we all know the reality of temptation. It is a part of being human. That has always been so and always will be. And today, as we enter into the season of Lent, we are met by scriptures on this very subject of temptation.
From the Old Testament has come the story of what has traditionally been referred to as “The Fall.” It is a story that shows man and woman breaching the one boundary given to them by God. It is a story that reminds us that there is a real temptation to breach boundaries and to take on ourselves those things that belong to God. How we see those boundaries today, is a matter of some debate. After all God has called humanity into the process of creativity. So at what stage do we over step the mark in matters such as the application of scientific knowledge? A big one for ethicists there!
Now, the story operates on one level as a reminder of our need for humility. We learn through it that we have a real temptation to step outside of God’s will. From the story has come an understanding of “original sin” which sees humanity as sharing in a falling short of what God would wish us to be. And in so many ways as Paul recognised, Adam is representative of humanity.
But the story has so much more to tells us. Firstly it reminds us that the things we do bring consequences. The disobedience of Adam and Eve brings exile from the garden for them amongst other things. And indeed shame enters into the human experience. And still today, we know what it is to live with the consequences of the choices we make. That is why it is so important to make our peace with God and with others as we worship.
But the story need not be seen as entirely negative. The Orthodox tradition has been particularly helpful in offering a positive outlook on this story. They would suggest that acquiring knowledge of good and evil is a picture of our being enabled to grow up. You know, as a father I am having to learn to let James and Kaye make their own decisions. A part of me would love to wrap them up in cotton wool and protect them for all of their lives. But what would that do to them? It would leave them as but little children for all of their lives. So all I can do is to seek to influence them but to then allow them to make their own decisions even when I might wish they made other choices. It is painful at times but it is the duty of a love that respects them. Likewise this story can be seen as God showing his love for humanity by enabling us to enter into choices, even those that are not in keeping with God’s will. Put simply, the story can be seen as God telling us that we can be free beings who grow through experience rather than utterly dependent little children, forever in nappies.
Now, if Paul sees Adam as a representative person, he equally sees Jesus as a representative person. From Adam, Paul sees death entering the world through disobedience. Through Jesus, he sees the greater power of life entering the world through obedience. Why? Because Jesus is the one who is victorious over temptation!
The tempting of Jesus at the beginning of his ministry is a reminder of the full humanity of Jesus. He is tempted in every way as we are. Matthew sets the temptations in the wilderness shortly after Jesus had been baptised at the Jordan by John the Baptist. The temptations which in length of time equate to the length of Lent are temptations as to the nature of his forthcoming ministry. Tired and hungry as he was, Jesus must have found it hard to resist these temptations to make things so much easier. Each of them was attractive to Jesus - after all temptation has no power if it is not attractive.
Those temptations have meaning today. Turning stones into bread is not a bad thing of itself and yet as the answer of Jesus reminds us, the good is no substitute for the best. Jumping from a pinnacle of the Temple into the depths of the Kidron Valley relying on God’s intervention, would certainly be spectacular even by the standards of some of today’s tele evangelists. But forcing God’s hand is hardly a stance of worship or discipleship. And then doing a deal with evil to attain power is alien to God’s character in every way. And how many have made that particular error of going along with this and that so as to climb a greasy pole believing that with them at the top things would be so very different - only to discover that the result of selling one’s soul is that the compromiser is different and the wrongs just go on and on!
One thing that always catches my eye as I look at the tempting of Jesus, is that the use of the scriptures in temptation. There we see the danger of the clincher verse so beloved by literalism. For Scripture can be used in destructive ways. That is why in Methodism saying “The Bible says” is not enough. To take seriously scripture, we use the Wesleyan Quadilateral in which scripture is in dialogue with tradition, reason and experience. Furthermore, there is value in seeing the scriptures through what we know of Jesus. Given that Jesus is seen to have been all loving, embracing and inclusive, we do well to recognise that we have a problem if our understanding of a scripture is at odds with what we know of Jesus. Always, our theology needs to be in touch with the Word made flesh that is Jesus.
Finally, I want to make a contemporary point. In the past three days, listening to the radio and reading the newspapers has at times made me ashamed to be British. I refer to the controversy over the Archbishop of Canterbury’s lecture to lawyers on Thursday. I have read the lecture and subsequent clarification by the Archbishop. I am not sure of the extent to which I agree or disagree with him as yet. But I do know that I am disgusted at the misrepresentation of the lecture and vilification of the man. I beaing a bear with a small brain, know that at times his arguments are hard to understand and I wish that he would be a little easier to understand (although many of the lawyers present were very impressed at what they heard). Contrary to what is being portrayed, he did not call for a parallel system of law to be introduced. Sections of our media are guilty of bearing false witness in this matter and of inflaming tensions that they themselves have done much to fan. In the case of that great theological publication, the Sun which has sent Page 3 girls to Lambeth Palace and a sound system playing “Rule Britannia”, the coverage has been totally mendacious. The front page on Thursday was nothing short of incitement to hatred! And sadly, far too many have jumped on a bandwagon without bothering to find out what the Archbishop said, such as the MEP I heard on Friday night on 5Live who was quick to condemn the Archbishop but had it eventually squeezed out of him that he had only read a newspaper account - Peter Hitchens managed a similar performance of ignorance on a Welsh radio channel.
I hope that we don’t as a society fall further into a soundbite method of discussing complex issues. The question of law and religious minorities is complex. May we not fall into the temptation of following the voices of hatred whose desire to hold on to exclusion results in denigrating a most reflective holy man, a man who seeks to give value to all. But of course, we wouldn’t be the first to do that would we?
Bideford Methodist Church Sunday February 10th 2008
In his “Confessions”, St Augustine writes;
“Give me chastity and continence but not just now.”
I guess, we all know the reality of temptation. It is a part of being human. That has always been so and always will be. And today, as we enter into the season of Lent, we are met by scriptures on this very subject of temptation.
From the Old Testament has come the story of what has traditionally been referred to as “The Fall.” It is a story that shows man and woman breaching the one boundary given to them by God. It is a story that reminds us that there is a real temptation to breach boundaries and to take on ourselves those things that belong to God. How we see those boundaries today, is a matter of some debate. After all God has called humanity into the process of creativity. So at what stage do we over step the mark in matters such as the application of scientific knowledge? A big one for ethicists there!
Now, the story operates on one level as a reminder of our need for humility. We learn through it that we have a real temptation to step outside of God’s will. From the story has come an understanding of “original sin” which sees humanity as sharing in a falling short of what God would wish us to be. And in so many ways as Paul recognised, Adam is representative of humanity.
But the story has so much more to tells us. Firstly it reminds us that the things we do bring consequences. The disobedience of Adam and Eve brings exile from the garden for them amongst other things. And indeed shame enters into the human experience. And still today, we know what it is to live with the consequences of the choices we make. That is why it is so important to make our peace with God and with others as we worship.
But the story need not be seen as entirely negative. The Orthodox tradition has been particularly helpful in offering a positive outlook on this story. They would suggest that acquiring knowledge of good and evil is a picture of our being enabled to grow up. You know, as a father I am having to learn to let James and Kaye make their own decisions. A part of me would love to wrap them up in cotton wool and protect them for all of their lives. But what would that do to them? It would leave them as but little children for all of their lives. So all I can do is to seek to influence them but to then allow them to make their own decisions even when I might wish they made other choices. It is painful at times but it is the duty of a love that respects them. Likewise this story can be seen as God showing his love for humanity by enabling us to enter into choices, even those that are not in keeping with God’s will. Put simply, the story can be seen as God telling us that we can be free beings who grow through experience rather than utterly dependent little children, forever in nappies.
Now, if Paul sees Adam as a representative person, he equally sees Jesus as a representative person. From Adam, Paul sees death entering the world through disobedience. Through Jesus, he sees the greater power of life entering the world through obedience. Why? Because Jesus is the one who is victorious over temptation!
The tempting of Jesus at the beginning of his ministry is a reminder of the full humanity of Jesus. He is tempted in every way as we are. Matthew sets the temptations in the wilderness shortly after Jesus had been baptised at the Jordan by John the Baptist. The temptations which in length of time equate to the length of Lent are temptations as to the nature of his forthcoming ministry. Tired and hungry as he was, Jesus must have found it hard to resist these temptations to make things so much easier. Each of them was attractive to Jesus - after all temptation has no power if it is not attractive.
Those temptations have meaning today. Turning stones into bread is not a bad thing of itself and yet as the answer of Jesus reminds us, the good is no substitute for the best. Jumping from a pinnacle of the Temple into the depths of the Kidron Valley relying on God’s intervention, would certainly be spectacular even by the standards of some of today’s tele evangelists. But forcing God’s hand is hardly a stance of worship or discipleship. And then doing a deal with evil to attain power is alien to God’s character in every way. And how many have made that particular error of going along with this and that so as to climb a greasy pole believing that with them at the top things would be so very different - only to discover that the result of selling one’s soul is that the compromiser is different and the wrongs just go on and on!
One thing that always catches my eye as I look at the tempting of Jesus, is that the use of the scriptures in temptation. There we see the danger of the clincher verse so beloved by literalism. For Scripture can be used in destructive ways. That is why in Methodism saying “The Bible says” is not enough. To take seriously scripture, we use the Wesleyan Quadilateral in which scripture is in dialogue with tradition, reason and experience. Furthermore, there is value in seeing the scriptures through what we know of Jesus. Given that Jesus is seen to have been all loving, embracing and inclusive, we do well to recognise that we have a problem if our understanding of a scripture is at odds with what we know of Jesus. Always, our theology needs to be in touch with the Word made flesh that is Jesus.
Finally, I want to make a contemporary point. In the past three days, listening to the radio and reading the newspapers has at times made me ashamed to be British. I refer to the controversy over the Archbishop of Canterbury’s lecture to lawyers on Thursday. I have read the lecture and subsequent clarification by the Archbishop. I am not sure of the extent to which I agree or disagree with him as yet. But I do know that I am disgusted at the misrepresentation of the lecture and vilification of the man. I beaing a bear with a small brain, know that at times his arguments are hard to understand and I wish that he would be a little easier to understand (although many of the lawyers present were very impressed at what they heard). Contrary to what is being portrayed, he did not call for a parallel system of law to be introduced. Sections of our media are guilty of bearing false witness in this matter and of inflaming tensions that they themselves have done much to fan. In the case of that great theological publication, the Sun which has sent Page 3 girls to Lambeth Palace and a sound system playing “Rule Britannia”, the coverage has been totally mendacious. The front page on Thursday was nothing short of incitement to hatred! And sadly, far too many have jumped on a bandwagon without bothering to find out what the Archbishop said, such as the MEP I heard on Friday night on 5Live who was quick to condemn the Archbishop but had it eventually squeezed out of him that he had only read a newspaper account - Peter Hitchens managed a similar performance of ignorance on a Welsh radio channel.
I hope that we don’t as a society fall further into a soundbite method of discussing complex issues. The question of law and religious minorities is complex. May we not fall into the temptation of following the voices of hatred whose desire to hold on to exclusion results in denigrating a most reflective holy man, a man who seeks to give value to all. But of course, we wouldn’t be the first to do that would we?
Bideford Methodist Church Sunday February 10th 2008
Saturday, 2 February 2008
Transfiguration Sunday - The transfiguration of Christ
MATTHEW 17: 1-9
It hardly seems possible but as we enter February, we are but days away from Lent and the contemplation of the way of the cross. Our next few weeks will be weeks in which the Passion of Christ is at the centre of our thinking. And indeed today’s Gospel reading is very much in the shadow of the Passion. Only a short while before the event which we shall today consider, there has been a high point and a low point in the understanding of those who travelled with Jesus. The high point has been the declaration of Simon to Jesus;
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
“He’s got it!” we are inclined to shout. And Jesus seems to have shared our pleasure for in response to this momentous declaration, he has told Simon that now he shall be known as Peter which means “Rock.” And amazingly, on this rock, will Jesus build his church.
The low point has been a total misunderstanding of the
Messiahship of Jesus. This has been revealed in Peter’s reaction to what that Messiahship entails. For when Jesus speaks of the imminence of his suffering and death, Peter cannot but rebel at the thought;
“God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”
And for this desire to protect Jesus, Peter has thrown at him by Jesus, one of the great put downs of all time;
“Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Poor Peter! In practically no time, he has gone from “Hero to Zero.” He must have felt crushed. No doubts about his sincerity but surely a case of being sincerely wrong. And his journey to real understanding would have a lot further to go.
But, however humiliated Peter felt himself to be, Peter was by no means chucked out of Jesus' inner circle. Indeed but six days later, Matthew tells us, Peter along with James and John was taken up a high mountain by Jesus. But this would be no ordinary trip up a mountain. On the contrary, it would be an experience to remember for the rest of their lives! An experience that would take them into a wonder so much greater than could be conceived by the scope of their imaginations! An experience that would be teeming with meaning!
So what happened upon that mountain? Well, they certainly saw Jesus in a way that they had never seen him before. Matthew speaks of Jesus’ face shining like the Sun and his clothes becoming dazzling white. Echoes here are to be found of Moses' face shining after an encounter with God. Oh here, they see that Jesus is so much more than they had hitherto realised - the result being that here was an experience not just of Jesus being transfigured but equally of the three disciples being transformed.
Indeed, the experience is about more than an inexplicable change in Jesus’ appearance. It goes so much deeper than that. Firstly, the disciples see Jesus talking with two venerable figures from the past. How they are able to recognise Moses and Elijah we are not told but that he should be seen as in conversation with these men, is highly significant. After all, Moses was known as the great lawgiver of Israel and Elijah was known as the greatest of the ancient prophets. Matthew’s readers would certainly understand the message contained here, that Jesus represents the completion of the Law and the Prophetic tradition. They would get Matthew’s message that in Jesus the hopes of all the years were finding fulfilment. In Jesus, the story of ancient Israel was finding its true meaning and its ultimate goal.
But further revelation was to come. As James, John and Peter know not what to do, there come a voice from the heavens. In part it echoes the voice from the heavens that was heard at Jesus’ baptism, as it proclaims;
“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased.”
But then comes an addition;
“Listen to him!”
I would guess that these words were important to Jesus. Too often we underplay his full humanity in our desire to affirm his divinity. But that humanity is a core part of our Christian doctrine. And that humanity would mean that in tough times, Jesus would need to be able to look back and find assurance to enable him to face those times. As the barbarism of a cross would loom ever closer, he would need to be able find assurance that he was in God’s will - anything less and you turn Jesus into an automaton!
And for Peter, James and John, this message would also be important. Soon they would face despondency as Jesus was taken from them. Soon they would know what it was to take huge risks for the gospel. And in such times, the ability to look back on a moment of assurance, would be invaluable. And invaluable it most certainly was for as we find in the Second Letter of Peter;
“For we received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him (Jesus that is) by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.”
You see the wonder of this occasion did not leave them. It was a memory to savour as they sought to live out their calling as followers of Jesus. But let us not forget that important as wonder and awe are, so to is the call to listen to Jesus. After all if we do not do so, we end up with a distorted understanding of God who as David Jenkins has reminded us “is as he is in Christ.”
So what of our response? Poor old Peter was reduced, as I guess we would have been, to speaking gibberish. In a way his suggestion to build tents for Jesus, Moses and Elijah, represents our tendency to seek to institutionalise religious experiences rather that let them transform us. For always one of the great temptations is to hang on to what feels good to us rather than to engage with real discipleship in a world that is so very often uncomfortable and filled with pain. We need to be fed spiritually to be truly equipped for service but if all we do is to wallow in the good feelings that can be ours, then the call of Christ is rejected and his words are treated as unheard. Jesus and his friends will come down the mountain and immediately encounter a boy who is disturbed and in great need of help. The need of such suffering and marginalised people serve to remind us of the temptation to be so self centred as to be so seemingly heavenly minded as to be no earthly use. After all, in terms of our Christian discipleship, the purpose of the magnificence of the mountaintop is to equip us for service in the valleys.
Now we stand ready for the journey that eventually leads to Calvary. As that journey nears its end, we will see Jesus’ agony at Gethsemane. Once more the same three companions, Peter, James and John, will be taken with him. Once more they will fall short, three times falling asleep while Jesus was praying out of his deep anguish.
The presence of Peter, James and John at these two events of opposing extremes, mountain and valley, reminds us that suffering and glory are intrinsically linked. The follower of Jesus cannot ask for the glory without the self giving for to ask for such is to ask for that which is other than the way of Jesus. Ultimately it is the Crucified Lord who will also be the Glorified Lord.
As for us, well we can cherish what is revealed about Jesus through the accounts of his Transfiguration. We can cherish the varied experiences through which we are taken to the mountain top. But then, our calling is, strengthened by such experiences, to follow Jesus and to serve him even in the lowest valleys.
GAMMATON AND ALVERDISCOTT METHODIST CHURCHES - SUNDAY FEBRUARY 3RD 2008
It hardly seems possible but as we enter February, we are but days away from Lent and the contemplation of the way of the cross. Our next few weeks will be weeks in which the Passion of Christ is at the centre of our thinking. And indeed today’s Gospel reading is very much in the shadow of the Passion. Only a short while before the event which we shall today consider, there has been a high point and a low point in the understanding of those who travelled with Jesus. The high point has been the declaration of Simon to Jesus;
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
“He’s got it!” we are inclined to shout. And Jesus seems to have shared our pleasure for in response to this momentous declaration, he has told Simon that now he shall be known as Peter which means “Rock.” And amazingly, on this rock, will Jesus build his church.
The low point has been a total misunderstanding of the
Messiahship of Jesus. This has been revealed in Peter’s reaction to what that Messiahship entails. For when Jesus speaks of the imminence of his suffering and death, Peter cannot but rebel at the thought;
“God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”
And for this desire to protect Jesus, Peter has thrown at him by Jesus, one of the great put downs of all time;
“Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Poor Peter! In practically no time, he has gone from “Hero to Zero.” He must have felt crushed. No doubts about his sincerity but surely a case of being sincerely wrong. And his journey to real understanding would have a lot further to go.
But, however humiliated Peter felt himself to be, Peter was by no means chucked out of Jesus' inner circle. Indeed but six days later, Matthew tells us, Peter along with James and John was taken up a high mountain by Jesus. But this would be no ordinary trip up a mountain. On the contrary, it would be an experience to remember for the rest of their lives! An experience that would take them into a wonder so much greater than could be conceived by the scope of their imaginations! An experience that would be teeming with meaning!
So what happened upon that mountain? Well, they certainly saw Jesus in a way that they had never seen him before. Matthew speaks of Jesus’ face shining like the Sun and his clothes becoming dazzling white. Echoes here are to be found of Moses' face shining after an encounter with God. Oh here, they see that Jesus is so much more than they had hitherto realised - the result being that here was an experience not just of Jesus being transfigured but equally of the three disciples being transformed.
Indeed, the experience is about more than an inexplicable change in Jesus’ appearance. It goes so much deeper than that. Firstly, the disciples see Jesus talking with two venerable figures from the past. How they are able to recognise Moses and Elijah we are not told but that he should be seen as in conversation with these men, is highly significant. After all, Moses was known as the great lawgiver of Israel and Elijah was known as the greatest of the ancient prophets. Matthew’s readers would certainly understand the message contained here, that Jesus represents the completion of the Law and the Prophetic tradition. They would get Matthew’s message that in Jesus the hopes of all the years were finding fulfilment. In Jesus, the story of ancient Israel was finding its true meaning and its ultimate goal.
But further revelation was to come. As James, John and Peter know not what to do, there come a voice from the heavens. In part it echoes the voice from the heavens that was heard at Jesus’ baptism, as it proclaims;
“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased.”
But then comes an addition;
“Listen to him!”
I would guess that these words were important to Jesus. Too often we underplay his full humanity in our desire to affirm his divinity. But that humanity is a core part of our Christian doctrine. And that humanity would mean that in tough times, Jesus would need to be able to look back and find assurance to enable him to face those times. As the barbarism of a cross would loom ever closer, he would need to be able find assurance that he was in God’s will - anything less and you turn Jesus into an automaton!
And for Peter, James and John, this message would also be important. Soon they would face despondency as Jesus was taken from them. Soon they would know what it was to take huge risks for the gospel. And in such times, the ability to look back on a moment of assurance, would be invaluable. And invaluable it most certainly was for as we find in the Second Letter of Peter;
“For we received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him (Jesus that is) by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.”
You see the wonder of this occasion did not leave them. It was a memory to savour as they sought to live out their calling as followers of Jesus. But let us not forget that important as wonder and awe are, so to is the call to listen to Jesus. After all if we do not do so, we end up with a distorted understanding of God who as David Jenkins has reminded us “is as he is in Christ.”
So what of our response? Poor old Peter was reduced, as I guess we would have been, to speaking gibberish. In a way his suggestion to build tents for Jesus, Moses and Elijah, represents our tendency to seek to institutionalise religious experiences rather that let them transform us. For always one of the great temptations is to hang on to what feels good to us rather than to engage with real discipleship in a world that is so very often uncomfortable and filled with pain. We need to be fed spiritually to be truly equipped for service but if all we do is to wallow in the good feelings that can be ours, then the call of Christ is rejected and his words are treated as unheard. Jesus and his friends will come down the mountain and immediately encounter a boy who is disturbed and in great need of help. The need of such suffering and marginalised people serve to remind us of the temptation to be so self centred as to be so seemingly heavenly minded as to be no earthly use. After all, in terms of our Christian discipleship, the purpose of the magnificence of the mountaintop is to equip us for service in the valleys.
Now we stand ready for the journey that eventually leads to Calvary. As that journey nears its end, we will see Jesus’ agony at Gethsemane. Once more the same three companions, Peter, James and John, will be taken with him. Once more they will fall short, three times falling asleep while Jesus was praying out of his deep anguish.
The presence of Peter, James and John at these two events of opposing extremes, mountain and valley, reminds us that suffering and glory are intrinsically linked. The follower of Jesus cannot ask for the glory without the self giving for to ask for such is to ask for that which is other than the way of Jesus. Ultimately it is the Crucified Lord who will also be the Glorified Lord.
As for us, well we can cherish what is revealed about Jesus through the accounts of his Transfiguration. We can cherish the varied experiences through which we are taken to the mountain top. But then, our calling is, strengthened by such experiences, to follow Jesus and to serve him even in the lowest valleys.
GAMMATON AND ALVERDISCOTT METHODIST CHURCHES - SUNDAY FEBRUARY 3RD 2008
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