...and another!

Well, apologies that another sermon is appearing and there have been no random snippets of pointless reflection over a cuppa since the last one. Still, all praise and thanks to God for any RevGals who wander by with their wise words and valued comments again!

Sunday November 25th – Christ the King
Colossians 1: 11-20
Luke 23: 33-43

Jackie Pullinger – got on a boat and waited for God to tell her when to get off – dedicated her life to living and working in the dark streets of the lost city of Hong Kong – saw God transform lives of crime and drug addiction.

Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, rebuilding each other’s homes after the destruction and violence of the genocide. I have a video I’ve watched over and over again of Christians working together amidst ongoing hatred and suffering.

A double decker bus called ‘BarNBus’ – a group of people sitting out on the bus just to be around for, listen to and chat with young people who might wander over.

The church home group who offered what they could to pay the monthly mortgage payment of a member who’d been made redundant, until that person could find more work.

Why have I told you about these things this morning? Because they are examples and demonstrations of the kingdom of God being close at hand, being here and now and of people living according to the ways and values of that kingdom.

We know that we don’t see all the fullness of God’s kingdom in front of us yet, but we musn’t be mistaken into thinking that it’s just way off into the future – only to be seen when Jesus returns or when we die and enter his presence.

And we’re thinking of these things today because we’re remembering ‘Christ the King’. Next week is Advent Sunday when our readings start to turn our thoughts towards preparing for the coming of the Lord – that first coming – born in the earthiness of the animals’ habitation when there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the inn; but also his second coming, when Jesus will return in glory. Let’s make sure we give the Advent preparations their due time and attention and not leap straight into Christmas – as the shops and streets around us are doing.

[Take the opportunity to come along here on December 1st for our time of focus on Advent and how to spiritually prepare for the Christmas season. It’s just from 10 – 1 and will provide examples and opportunities of types of prayer because we will only be a strong and Christ-centred church when we take seriously our spiritual lives and commit to becoming a people of prayer, both individually and together. And I have to state that the day won’t be scary but will just give tasters and ideas for making sure this advent we don’t just join in with the shopping frenzy, but think about the really valuable preparations of the season.]

So, this last Sunday before Advent we’re reminded of the end of Jesus’ earthly journey and witness again that conversation between Jesus and the man – the criminal – being crucified next to him. This man refused to join in the mockery of the soldiers and the scoffers and the man on the other side of Jesus; instead, having rebuked the other, he said to Jesus, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And to that he heard the reply, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Jesus’ reply completely blows out of the water the assertions of those who try and proclaim Jesus only a ‘good man’ or a ‘wise teacher.’ Jesus was so much more than either of these – he was, and is, as Paul in our Colossians reading declares, ‘the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation in whom all things in heaven and on earth were created. He is before all things, in him all things hold together. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.’
These might be concepts that our weak minds struggle to get to grips with – the fullness of God in human form – but God made man, dwelling among us, is the heart of our faith, and of course the heart of the Christmas message that it’s our job to continue to proclaim as the season approaches.

Don’t let anyone tell you, or convince you that Jesus was just a very good man, an inspiring teacher, a wise prophet – he was of course, and still is, all these things, but he’s most significantly the Son of God, the King of kings, the Lord of lords. These aren’t arrogant claims we spout off, but his own revelation.

And today we remember Christ the King! That criminal dying beside him saw the truth and made a simple request, ‘Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.’ And the thing is, Jesus could say ‘yes, today you’ll be with me in paradise’ because he knew and because he was drawing near to death on that cross; and when it happened the gate of heaven would be opened for us to follow him. Not because he was a good man or a wise teacher, but because he was God’s Son – the one man who could break down sin and death and the barrier between humanity and God.

And what of the kingdom of our King? How often we pray together “your kingdom come your will be done” when we pray the Lord’s prayer, but how much expectation of seeing that kingdom before our very eyes, do we actually have?

We will ONE DAY see the kingdom in all its fullness, but it is real and it’s real now!
“The kingdom is present wherever people pray the way Jesus taught us to pray. The kingdom is present wherever Jesus nurtures certain behaviours and lifestyles that we call the fruit of the Spirit. The kingdom is present wherever people pour water over the heads of babies or take bread and wine to their lips all simply because Jesus told us that this is the way we are to act in remembrance of him.”[1]

The kingdom is present whenever a believer refuses to cut corners on their taxes, when this woman brings light into an elderly neighbour’s darkness by sitting with them, listening and sharing words of peace, or when that man gives up his Saturday to coach a football team for youngsters. The kingdom is present whenever a young person stops binge drinking along with the crowd for the sake of Jesus, or whenever someone stops in the street not only to buy a ‘Big Issue’ but to pause and chat and ask ‘how are you?’

The kingdom is present when one of us stops to pray for another and we witness the peace and presence and even the healing power of God here and now. That’s living in the kingdom. And I want to encourage you to do these things today because we’re called to be the people of God’s kingdom – not just in the future, but in the here and now. Christ is our king and it’s for us to show each other and the world out there what his kingdom is like – and give them a foretaste of heaven!

And ‘the world out there’ is not a huge sweeping ‘everything’ that seems too overwhelming to change, but it’s the people who fill your office to whom you can show honesty, integrity and patience and for whom you can pray.

It’s the people who live next door to you who you can bless with your prayers and graciousness, even when they curse you with their loud music or their badly behaved children.
It’s everyone you come into contact with in your ordinary, every, day. It’s going the extra mile because Jesus is our king.

I just want you to look around you for a moment – look at the people sitting behind you and next to you and in front of you – at the other end of the church – WE are God’s church, WE are the ones he has in this place who can demonstrate God’s kingdom in [our location], WE are God’s hands and feet and voice. WE are the ones who need to live as our king would have us live – loving one another, welcoming the visitor and the stranger, praying with commitment and conviction for God to be at work here, listening to one another and those who cross our paths, sharing the hope God’s given us with anyone who asks why we go to church, rolling up our sleeves to cook for our community when they turn out for lunch here, giving our time to nurture the faith of our children and young people and offering what we can – in time, in money, in energies to the Lord because it will be more worth it than we can possibly imagine.

Let’s give thanks to God for one another for where these things are already happening but let’s each ask God to prod us into action to be a part of the demonstration of his kingdom and keep our ears, our eyes and our hearts open so we can respond.

Amen.


[1] from “http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/thisWeek/index.php”

And so appears another one...

For those of you who wander by here every so often and wonder why sermons seem to randomly appear for no good reason, I suppose I could give a word of explanation...
Somewhere off in the land of t'internet are a bunch of lovely RevGals. On Saturdays as we slog our way through sermonising we share thoughts, encourage one another and sometimes read and comment on the results... hence the occassional postings.
Oh, and if you're a revgal wandering through, "Hello, thanks" and a little wave to you! So, here we go again...

Sunday 4th November 2007
Luke 6: 20-31

I find there’s something quite appealing about this gospel passage. I think it may be because I’ve always had something of a rebellious nature and Jesus’ teaching here is just perfect for rebelliousness (I’d like to think that nowadays mine is a godly rebelliousness, that in some tiny way lives up to the things Jesus is speaking of – going against the grain of how the world likes to do things)!

It crossed my mind (rather briefly you’ll be relieved to know) to present you with a human visual aid to illustrate the whole of the passage – a headstand in the middle of the church; because Jesus here is basically turning most of our approaches to life, and our expectations on their heads. But I’ll spare you – and myself -that and just say it instead – Jesus here is turning our human standards and assumptions upside down, on their heads, up the right way!

As Jesus begins to make these statements he looks up and addresses his disciples….. Jesus was stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. Many people were gathered, but Jesus then looks up at his disciples and speaks directly to them… and even that gives us a sense of the few being addressed among the many, called to lead lives that may not make sense to those who surround us.

“Blessed are you who are poor, blessed are you who are hungry now, blessed are you who weep now, blessed are you when people hate and exclude you because of me…” These are certainly not states that the world, that is society around them, and around us, would consider blessed at all – in fact I’m sure the world would consider these states more of a curse.
Jesus isn’t here blessing poverty and starvation in themselves, mourning or hatred in themselves, after all in Revelation we hear that these things will all pass away in the new heaven and the new earth.

If we think about those disciples who were listening… to become Jesus’ followers they had already recognised their spiritual poverty and need of God, as well as possibly given up much physically to follow him. They might sometimes have been physically hungry, though Jesus had provided for them with the loaves and fish, but they would have been spiritually hungry (and Matthew’s gospel has the addition ‘blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness’), perhaps they had wept over the things that God must surely weep over as he looks upon his world, and we know that they were often persecuted and in time killed for their faith in Jesus. I think there is both a physical and a spiritual element to Jesus’ ‘bless-eds’.

And doesn’t that just turn on it’s head the things that we’re presented with all around us that are supposedly of value in the world… we must aspire to be rich and create our own security with homes and possessions, we must be happy and full up with all the things we enjoy, otherwise we’re seen as failures. Aren’t those the things that we are told to see as valuable, the things to aspire to? Earn as much as you can, get as much as you can, have as much fun as you can…. I know a lot of people who would say that these are the things they aspire to, but Jesus goes as far as saying “woe” or “alas” to the people whose lives are full of seeking after these things: “Woe to you who are full now, woe to you who are laughing now, woe to you when all speak well of you.” Jesus wasn’t saying that as a threat, but as an indicator that the kingdom is a very different shape and those who live only according to selfish values are not living in the ways of the kingdom.

He’s turned life right on it’s head… the lives of the people of God are to be different. Be poor enough in spirit to put your security in God, not depending on what we can build around ourselves, on possessions or money, but depending on God, weeping over the things God must weep over, and recognising that when we exhibit these kinds of values then we may be ridiculed and considered fools. Some of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world are still killed for these things, but Jesus says “great is their reward in heaven” when they’ve had to endure this on earth.

I don’t want us to miss the verses after the blessings and woes…. Again Jesus turns upside down our usual reactions and priorities. When we consider our enemies what is our reaction towards them, what are we inclined to do? Well, Jesus says love them. When we consider those who curse us, what are we inclined to do…? Jesus says bless them, and he continues in the same way with other scenarios that make us recognise how different the values of the kingdom of God are, to those we may well have been taught in the world.

All of this stuff goes against the grain – but it’s meant to. We have moved from darkness to light and the life in the light of Jesus is very different, has other values, is turned upside down from the old life of darkness.

It sometimes takes a long time for the Holy Spirit to be writing a new set of values on our hearts that will in turn produce godliness in us, but as we read and re-read these words of Jesus, as we worship God together, as we pray and meet with God, the message hits home a little bit more and a little bit more and he opens our eyes and changes us.

Being financially rich and having material possessions doesn’t make you a valuable person, but being God’s does, and we’re often secure enough here in our society that sometimes it’s hard to depend on God, when it’s so easy to depend on a regular income – whether that’s a wage, a pension or a state benefit, a sturdy roof over our heads, and all that we have. Some of you though may have had very challenging experiences in your lives and really known God’s faithfulness in the midst of those challenging times.

I found the times in my life when material things or human securities, were under threat, or not to be taken for granted, were the times when I learnt most to depend on God. Even when [teenson] was a baby and the 3 of us lived in one room in a hostel for 6 months waiting for a council house, and a few years later when I was a single mum working as a childminder, trying to pay a mortgage and there was little if anything left over…. we were still rich in comparison to millions in the world. So let’s be generous with what we have and recognise that though we have much our greatest need is to depend on our utterly dependable God.

We can either go after comfortable lives in the here and now, go after human approval and status, do what makes life as easy and profitable as we can make it. Or we can go after the ways of the kingdom where we may look foolish to others, where we may go without for the sake of a stranger, where we may be ridiculed or worse for not going with the crowd.

The first is the way that brought the word ‘woe’ or ‘alas’ to Jesus lips: you will be hungry, you will mourn and weep because this way doesn’t satisfy for long.

The second is the way of blessing – yours is the kingdom of God, said Jesus; you will be filled, you will laugh, your reward is great in heaven – but it takes time, it takes effort, it takes generosity, it takes sacrifice, it takes compassion – but it’s more worth it than you can possibly imagine.

We are the people of God and we’re called to live the upside down lives of the kingdom (only upside down to the world around us – the right way up to God of course!). Give your time to the people the world says don’t deserve it, work for the good of others when there’s nothing in it for you, give some of your money away even if it means going without, love the people the world looks down on and despises because these are the ways of Christ. And keep praying that the Holy Spirit will grow the ways of the kingdom in each of us, and in us as a church.

Amen.