PENTECOST

PENTECOST 2010 – ACTS 2: 1-21 & JOHN 14: 8-17, 25-27

Have you ever felt discouraged, afraid, powerless or disillusioned?
If the answer is ‘yes’ then you’re not alone. The disciples of Jesus went through such emotions themselves, as did the prophets before them, and so have many faithful people after them.
When we can’t see what God’s doing or understand what’s happening in life, church or world we become downcast and it’s then that it becomes all too easy to take our eyes off God, to question our faith, or to think that God’s deserted us. But it’s at such times that it becomes all the more necessary to look to God, to pray, to be reminded of God’s faithfulness and that we’re not the only ones to go through such times of discouragement or apparent darkness.
The prophet Elijah became so afraid when his life was under threat and he thought he was the only man of faith left that he ran away in despair and cried out to God, “Take my life Lord!”
The people of Israel despaired when they were taken captive and exiled by the Babylonians and when their captors mocked them and told them to sing their songs of worship now they proclaimed (as we have it in Psalm 137): “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion….How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?” For them the presence of the Lord was in the place of the Temple and they were removed from his presence. (Though the prophet Ezekiel found out otherwise when he, one of the exiles, was by the river Chebar and the Lord appeared to him in glory and gave him a word to speak to his disobedient people whether they would listen or not). The Lord was still there!
The disciple Peter was so afraid when he observed the trial of Jesus that he denied knowing him and wept with despair and disappointment at his own lack of courage in the face of persecution.
The writers of the Psalms, the poems and songs of God’s people Israel, often called out “Where are you Lord? How long O Lord must I wait for you?”
After Jesus had died and though he was even then raised from the dead, his disciples locked themselves away in a room because they were afraid of the Jews and it was into that locked room that Jesus appeared among them and spoke out “Peace be with you”. What did they most need in that room of anxiety and fear – the peace that God brings, the peace that Paul described as “beyond understanding” in his letter to the Ephesian Christians later on – peace of mind and heart not due to our circumstances but despite them.
We might not, like Elijah, face the threat of an evil queen like Jezebel trying to kill us for opposing her anti-God regime. We might not face violent persecution for being associated with Jesus like Peter and the early disciples did, though many do face that around the world today. We may not, like the greatest Psalmist King David, face enemy armies fighting the people of God. We may not experience being a minority faith in a society hostile to Christ as the disciples did in the days before they saw the joy of the resurrection of Jesus, though sometimes it seems our society is becoming more hostile to Christianity; we may not be sent into exile to hide away because of our faith; and yet we all face times of discouragement, fear, disempowerment and disillisionment. Do you see that God’s people have faced worse than I pray we will ever face and have come through with a faith like gold that’s been tested as through fire!

Because always God was there! Sometimes they didn’t realise it in the midst of the storm, sometimes their sinfulness and unwillingness to live God-honouring lives closed their ears and eyes to God, sometimes they had to wait and trust, but God in various ways reveals his presence and gives his peace in all of these situations.
It might be that facing the loss and pain of bereavement, worries for family members, concern about money and meeting the demands and needs of each day, sadness at being alone or living with difficult relationships, problems at work or being unable to find work, insecurity around issues of settling in another country, fears about your health or any number of other concerns and burdens cause you to feel that sense of discouragement or lack of peace.

And in the church too we can face concerns: As a church we have costs as you’d expect of any big family with a big home to keep and heat and light and maintain. Our Parish has a Parish Share (that is our allocation from the deanery towards the costs of our clergy, housing, and the training of new ministers) of £... for this year. If we actually gave a parish Share that reflected the number of stipendiary clergy in our Parish the cost to the Team would be a huge amount more than that. And of course we also put money into our mission and ministry here as well – all of this pay out is for God and to God – part of our commitment of discipleship, to enable there to be a church in this place to glorify and serve him. Meeting the costs of being church here and not just meeting them but we pray beyond that – and seeing an abundance that lets us be creative and imaginative and generous is something that I ask you to keep as a focus for your prayers through the coming year. This is one of the things of life that can give the vicar a distinct lack of peace, but in this we’ll pray for God’s abundant blessing to be demonstrated through us and that we will be like Barnabas who generously sold a field and placed the value of it at the disciples’ feet as his offering (none of us may have a field to sell but I pray we’ll think and pray afresh and bring what God prompts us to bring to set before him even if that offering seems so small to us – together we will provide the abundance and God will bless it!).

But where is all this leading then? What we find is that into the midst of our lives – both the holiness and the messyness of them, God has a promise and that promise is that he will pour out his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Comforter, the one who comes alongside to help, the bringer of peace, the encourager.

Just as the risen Jesus came and stood among his disciples and said “Peace be with you” so God’s promise to us is that now Jesus has ascended to heaven his Spirit is being poured out for all people who call on the name of the Lord and they will be saved. We might not always be saved from the calamities of life but he will be alongside us in them, sometimes he will even transform them; but we will be saved from the sin that separates us from God, forgiven and made new. And in that newness we’ll receive life that stretches beyond death and into God’s presence – the hope of what’s still to come, we’ll receive purpose and meaning for life and we’ll receive an equipping and empowering to be part of God’s transforming mission on earth – right where we are.

That was the Holy Spirit, the gift, that God told those early disciples to wait for and the gift that we see poured out on the day of Pentecost, the day we celebrate today with a prayer once again that God will pour out his Spirit on us as individual people and as his church.

Why did God pour out his Spirit on those first, waiting, disciples?
Why does God pour out his Spirit on us, the disciples of today?
The reasons and benefits are numerous and we find them contained in the two readings we’ve heard today…

1. So they could hear God. People from many nations were gathered together and when the Spirit was poured out they each heard the message of Jesus, spoken by the disciples, in their own language. God wants people to hear and understand and sometimes he even gives a gift of ‘tongues’ that the speaker does not understand but the hearer does.

2. So that they might call on the name of the Lord and be saved. Peter, as he spoke to the crowd, quoted the words of the prophet Joel: “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh…” And the result of these outpourings (in prophecies, visions and dreams) would be that people would come to God and be saved.

3. So that they would know the Father. God pours out his Spirit so that we can know him, and know him through Jesus – the one who came to show us the Father and break the barrier of sin and death that stands between us and God. The Spirit helps us to believe and understand the things of God and to know that we are his children.

4. So that they might do the works of Christ and glorify the Father. Our faith is not just a matter of belief in Christ but a matter of action too. Jesus sent out his first disciples to do the things they’d seen him doing – empowered by the Holy Spirit – healing the sick, breaking the powers that bound them, proclaiming the good news of God. None of those things can be done in our own strength but only by God at work through us with the outcome that people are blessed and God receives the glory!

5. So that they might keep his commandments. Jesus summarised all the law of God in two commandments: to love the Lord your God, with heart, soul, mind and strength and to love your neighbour as yourself; but he also taught them to be prayerful, always calling on the Father, to baptise, to teach what he had taught them, to make disciples and to love and serve one another. It is the Holy Spirit poured out that enables us to keep these commandments.

6. So that they would receive peace from God and not be afraid. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
And here we come back to where God meets us in the very real things of our day-to-day lives that I spoke of before. The Spirit is poured out so that we can know God with us – encouraging, comforting, envisioning, helping and empowering us to live for Christ and be at peace with God.

And how amazing it is to see the fruit of the Spirit at work in us and among us – not only in growing in us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, but the Spirit is at work when people of different cultures and traditions can stand side by side around God’s table and receive bread and wine, the gifts of God’s presence, together; the Spirit is at work when forgiveness takes the place of bitterness and thoughts of revenge from past and present hurts; the Spirit is at work when great doubts are gradually replaced by growing seeds of faith and hope; the Spirit is at work when acts of love and service are visible in a society of indifference to all but those we call our own; the Spirit is at work when God’s mission of bringing strength to the weak, healing for the sick, binding up the broken and seeking out the lost from God is shared by his people; the Spirit is at work when God is honoured in our words, our actions, our choices and our lives.

COME HOLY SPIRIT!
Amen.

Around the crib...

It's quite miraculous that this many days before Christmas Eve I have my 'sermon' (in the form of a story in three parts) for the Christmas Eve crib service! A member of the church gave me a pack of candy sticks (canes) to use at Christmas, so the story has grown around them... At the end the dressed up children will gather around the crib for the blessing and to show us what the picture in the note looked like - along with the others at the 'stable' of course.... you'll see! (I haven't got a sermon for Sunday morning or the Carols by Candlelight yet, but we can't have everything can we!)

I want to tell you about a little boy today and something quite special that happened to him at Christmas time.

Now this little boy lived with his mum and dad and Gran and his two little sisters in a very small house and they didn’t have much money. Sometimes it got very chilly indoors and they had to put on an extra jumper until there were enough pounds to put on the meter key and make the heating come on again. And sometimes his mum had to go out to her second job almost as soon as she came in from her first one so they could pay the bills, while dad was working away from home and Gran looked after them.

When the children at school were talking about all the things they’d like to get for Christmas – X-boxes and DVDs and big toys and vouchers to spend, this little boy felt a bit left out because he knew he wouldn’t get anything like that. He wondered, even though he was only 7 years old, why Christmas was so different for some people to others.

He wondered why some people put lots of lights on their houses that twinkled and sparkled when it started to get dark, and other people didn’t.

He wondered why some people started to get excited when Christmas was coming and smile a lot more and other people had a scowl on their face and got very grumpy or just looked very sad and didn’t really want Christmas to come.

He wondered why some people spent lots and lots of time in the shops and carried huge bags full of things to wrap as presents and other people, like his mum, thought very carefully about the one little gift they could buy for the people they loved the most.

He wondered why some people had great big turkeys with lots of potatoes and vegetables and stuffing and then Christmas pudding at home, and some people who didn’t have anywhere to live went to a special shelter on Christmas day while people they didn’t know kindly made them a lovely dinner before they went back to the cardboard box they lived in on the street (he’d seen that on the television).

Yes, this little boy wondered lots of things about Christmas. He often wondered them while he was sitting by the windowsill with his chin resting on his hands.

And then, one day, about three days before Christmas Eve, while he was sitting in his usual spot, chin on his hands, looking at the people and traffic passing the window, he heard the clonk of something coming through the letterbox and landing on the doormat.

He thought one of his inquisitive little sisters might run and see what had come through – but there was no sound of movement. So he got down from his perch by the window and went to the door where he found a candy stick with a little note tied to it, with his name on.

The little boy picked up the candy stick – and what a delicious looking treat it looked to a little boy who didn’t get many sweets. But when he looked at the note it said, “Don’t eat me!”
“Oh, he thought… and that got him wondering again – why can’t I eat this lovely candy stick?” But something made him realise it was important to do what the note said, so he didn’t eat it. Instead he looked more closely and there was some more writing on the note: “Hold me upwards so the hook is at the top.” (the little boy held the candy stick upwards). “Just like a walking stick is there to hold frail people up and help them along, I am here to hold you up and help you along!” Well what a funny thing for a candy stick to say, he thought.
And then he turned the note over… and there was a picture of a little baby, wrapped in strips of cloth, but instead of lying in a baby’s crib bed, this baby was lying in an animal’s feeding trough with bits of straw poking out from underneath him.
The little boy had an idea he knew who that baby was… they’d talked about a baby who was lying in a feeding trough, in assembly at school.

What a lot of things to wonder about, and as the little boy wasn’t to eat the candy stick he took it into his little bedroom and tucked it under his pillow.

Late that night, well after everyone was in bed asleep, the little boy was lying awake wondering again about that little candy stick with its note. And while he laid there, in the quiet of the night, he thought he heard a noise. It sounded like the clink of the letterbox again and the gentle thud of something hitting the mat. But what could be delivered in the middle of the night?

The little boy quietly slipped out of bed and tiptoed down the stairs, and there on the mat was another candy stick!
This one had a note attached to it as well… and the note said his name again and, “Don’t eat me!” But there was some more writing on this one too… “wave me around like a conductor’s baton and imagine the music being played.” The little boy had a feeling he should do what the note said again, so standing by the front door, in the middle of the night, in his pyjamas, he started to wave the candy stick in the air just as though he was conducting a whole orchestra and as he waved it he could hear the hum of the music. And then he saw that there was some more writing on the note… “Now remember the music you’ve learned about me and sing it.” “About who?” the little boy wondered… and then he turned over the note and there was the same baby… wrapped in cloths… lying in a feeding trough. Perhaps that was who he should sing about?

By this time the little boy was feeling very tired, so he went back up the stairs, tucked the second candy stick under his pillow, climbed into bed and was soon fast asleep. But in his dreams there were lots of songs that night… songs of a star in the sky and bright angels pointing at something in the distance.

When the little boy woke up in the morning, two days before Christmas Eve, he’d nearly forgotten about the candy sticks, but then he felt something bumpy under his pillow and remembered those little surprises and all the things they made him wonder about.

So you’ll guess how very surprised he was when he went downstairs and on the kitchen table was another candy stick! His mum (who was too busy getting ready for work to worry much about it) said she didn’t know how it had got there – it must have come through the letterbox again, but this one had his name on it too.

And “Don’t eat me!” Hmmm, all these lovely candy sticks – “I wonder why I can’t eat them”, thought the little boy?

He looked at the note on the third candy stick… “Hold me downwards so the hook is at the bottom. Remember my name when you see the ‘J’. It is me who will walk with you and help you along.” And on the other side of the note was… the little baby, in the feeding trough, with bits of straw poking out from under him.

Well the little boy remembered what the note on the first candy stick had said… like a walking stick I will help you along. And now this note was telling him who that was, because he knew that the baby on the other side was Jesus… ‘J’ for Jesus.

Well, that gave the little boy a whole load of other things to wonder about! How could the baby on the picture, on the note, help him along… perhaps it was more than just a nice story and perhaps the songs that had started off in his dreams and got him singing, were more than just songs – perhaps they were pointing him to someone very special?

By that time the snow had been falling for a few hours so wrapped in his dad’s thick, old scarf and wearing his Gran’s gloves the little boy went outside and decided to build a snowman.
He made a ball with a handful of snow and then gradually started to roll it around in the snow on the ground so it got bigger and bigger and bigger. Then he left the big ball of snow to be the snowman’s body and started again to make his head. Then he turned around to find some stones under the snow to make some eyes and a mouth. And when he turned back again… what do you think he saw sitting on the snowman’s head? Another candy stick!

“How did that get there?!” he thought and looked quickly up and down the road to see if he could see who might have left it… but there were just busy looking people hurrying along and cars whizzing past in the slush on the roads… how very puzzling!

So he lifted it off the snowman’s head and read the little note: “Don’t eat me!” He wasn’t very surprised to read that now and wondered if he’d ever get to taste a delicious, sugary candy stick?
But, as usual, the note carried on: “look at my stripes – red and white. Life is stripy sometimes – good and bad, difficult and easy, light and dark, happy and sad; but I will walk with you on the red stripes and the white ones.”
And there on the back was that little baby again…

The little boy thought about the words on the note – he’d certainly noticed how stripy things could be and it made him feel good, hopeful, when he thought about there being someone who knew about the things that were bad and difficult, dark and sad in the world and who would be close by then. So he went back into the house, up to his bedroom and put the fourth candy stick under his pillow with the others. Then he went back outside and finished the snowman.

The next day no candy sticks appeared, or the day after that… and then it was Christmas Eve!
Even though the little boy knew that there wouldn’t be lots of presents the next day, he was still excited about Christmas. And he still wondered every so often about the candy sticks under his pillow. He had a feeling inside that something good was happening.

During the morning the little boy played with his sisters, though they could be a bit annoying sometimes – especially when they broke up the lego castle he’d built – but that was little sisters for you. While they were playing near the Christmas tree, the little boy looked at all the sparkling tinsel and decorations they’d put on the tree together the week before. And as he looked at the tree, a glimmer of red and white caught his eye… he went over to the tree and behind a little hanging star… he found another candy stick!

“Don’t eat me!” it said again! And, “Run your finger along my stripe – look at the winding path that goes from one day to the next and follow me along it.” And there again, on the other side, was the little baby.

The little boy wondered what that could mean? Perhaps there was someone making a safe path for him to follow that would show him how to do the right things? Then the little boy thought for a bit about his granddad – he had gone to heaven and they’d all been sad when that happened. But his granddad had once told him that he was following Jesus on a path that would take him to a wonderful place where they’d meet again one day. The little boy hadn’t really understood his granddad then but now he remembered the ‘J’ for Jesus and wondered if the candy stick was pointing him to the same path his granddad had told him about.

As he went upstairs to put the latest candy stick under his pillow, the little boy wondered where they had all come from – who had put the candy sticks through the letterbox, on the kitchen table, on the snowman and the Christmas tree? What a lot to wonder about!

He lifted up his pillow and there were the candy sticks… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 with the last one… but then he looked again and saw that there was an extra one! There was his name again… but this time the note said, “Eat me!” The little boy looked again to make sure he hadn’t read it wrong – no, it definitely said, “Eat me!” this time. And the note continued: “Sometimes good gifts come from heaven. Enjoy them and be thankful.” And just to make sure… he turned the note over, and there was the little baby, lying in the feeding trough, with bits of straw poking out from under him.

Well, that little boy didn’t need to be told twice. He didn’t have sweets very often at all, and all those candy sticks had been making his mouth water… so he unwrapped the plastic and put that delicious sweet in his mouth… mmmmm. And in his mind he said, “thank you” as he enjoyed the lovely tastes.

There was a little thought in the back of his mind though, a thought that made him feel a bit sad and a bit guilty at the same time, because his two little sisters weren’t enjoying that lovely sweet, while he was. But he didn’t worry about that for too long!

And then night-time came again, and it was Christmas day! The little boy and his sisters came crashing down the stairs with excitement to see if there was anything under the tree. There were three little stockings laying there with their names on. The little boy put his hand into the stocking, and the first thing he pulled out was… another candy stick!

“Mmmmm, he thought, lovely!” But as he looked at the note he saw that this one said again, “Don’t eat me!” And underneath it also said, “The Christmas gift is a gift of love to be shared – give the rest of the candy sticks away.” Well, that was a difficult thing for a 7 year old boy to think about… but over those few days he’d wondered and learnt a lot of things, and he’d been able to keep those candy sticks under his pillow without eating them so far – and now he knew why.

But before he did anything else, the little boy turned over the note to see the picture on the other side. And there as usual was the little baby, lying in the feeding trough, wrapped in cloths and with bits of straw poking out from under him. But this time there was something else in the picture too – behind the baby was a bright light, an outline of wings and a halo. The little boy knew it was an angel. And underneath the picture this time were some words… “an angel appeared saying, ‘glory to God in the highest.’” And the little boy knew something else as he looked at the picture on the note – he knew that he would always remember the message of each of those candy sticks because they had come from Jesus – God in the highest heaven, and that an angel had been a messenger that Christmas bringing him good news of great joy.

But now there was something else to do. The little boy took the last candy stick and went up to his bedroom, but instead of tucking it with the others under his pillow, he took them all out. Then he went back downstairs to his mum, his dad (who was home for Christmas), his Gran, and his two sisters and gave each of them a candy stick. “Here’s a present from Jesus” he told each of them – “because he loves you” – and the little boy told them all about the upwards hook and the downwards hook, about the conductor’s baton and the music, about the stripes and the path to follow, about saying thank you for God’s gifts and about why he was sharing his candy sticks with them all. Then he looked down and saw that he had one candy stick left. “Who can I give this one to?” he thought. And then a thought popped into his mind… next door but one was an elderly man, a bit of a grumpy man, a man who told the children off if their football went on his garden, a man who didn’t have many visitors and was lonely; and the little boy knew that that’s who he should give his last candy stick to. So that Christmas morning, with his Gran, the little boy knocked at the neighbour’s house and holding out the candy stick with ALL the notes attached, he said, “Happy Christmas!”

Bad Blogging!

I haven't posted the same thing on both my blogs before, but having got a bit out of the blogging habit, and being undecided about which blog to post my first-for-a-while random thoughts on, I've gone for both as a kick-start back! So apologies if you've read this somewhere before!

I'm currently on a fortnight's holiday and to-ing and fro-ing about a bit. A good part of the bank holiday weekend was spent in Cromer having a very relaxed time at a friend's flat and enjoying the pace of Norfolk life (until the car journey home when my London-style driving is slightly at odds with the meandering Norfolk kind!).Over the last week I've thought of various things I'd quite like to blog about, but without the motivation to actually blog them... for instance the closure of Walthamstow dog track. I join the distraught crowd who wanted it to stay. I'd been hoping to get there for the last Saturday night but unfortunately couldn't make it. I can't imagine the North Circular without the glow of the Walthamstow Stadium sign... the place is an institution (in the positive sense of the word!). The following information may bring my parenting into disrepute but when TeenSon was little we used to take him in his buggy, along with a bunch of friends, and spend a fun Saturday night in the 'cheap' side of the dogs. Not a huge gambling risk seeing as our bets were of the '50p to win' on, for example, number 4 - dog chosen because its name had some peculiar appeal or tentative link with something or other! And we spent TS's 14th birthday there too - for the first time ever in the 'posh' side. And now it's gone.
And the other thing that caught my attention (rather delayed) this week was the fact that retired athlete Jonathan Edwards has announced himself an atheist. Now I know all this happened sometime last year - but I managed to miss all that and it was only watching a bit of Olympic commentary with TeenSon the other day that I caught up when he said, "he's not a Christian anymore". I was rather disbelieving I have to admit, until I resorted to the trusty Google and read the interviews. I really was rather shocked, Jonathan Edwards having been such a visible and 'public' Christian. I felt quite sad for him as I read that when he'd retired from athletics he'd discovered quite how much of his identity was wrapped up in the sport and when that was gone other aspects of his identity came into question as well - including the Christian aspect. And it all seemed to unravel for him. Of course, I, along with others, can only speculate on his faith as was and as is now, wondering if this was the first ever real questioning and doubting he'd applied to God, life, the world and all. But I felt sad for him and pray that he'll keep exploring and questioning. Was he someone who thought that having God in your life made everything ok? Faith built on the 'rock' trusts God when the storms are blowing all around, but some seem to acquire a faith that thinks God extinguishes all the storms instead of enabling us to stand through them (and him standing with us in them). One blogger commenting at the time referred to the parable of the sower where the seed sown on rocky ground springs up but because its roots don't go deep, it doesn't survive the heat of the sun and is scorched and withers away - equating to a faith that springs up joyfully at first but when trouble or persecution comes the faith also withers away. (Or the seed sown among weeds which is choked by the cares of the world). Perhaps there's something of this in the experience of Jonathan Edwards... or perhaps not - that's between him and the God he's no longer sure of, but I pray that God will reach out and take hold of him once again.
And now I'm off to do more holiday-type things, like read a bit of Cadfael and fall asleep (well I did get back very late last night!).

Some days...

Some days I wish I was a beach hut attendant or a postman or a gardener
(yes, ha ha if you've seem mine)
or worked in a bookshop or the library
or was childminding again
or was a long distance lorry driver
or a hilltop hermit
or doing what I do but 60 years ago
and in the country
where I could plod around the village like an Agatha Christie vicar
and not seem to worry so much about structures and visions
and could drink lots of cups of tea
(er, well some things don't change)
and frown a bit when the old ladies start gossiping
(though I suppose if I was an Agatha Christie vicar
I might need to worry about murderous neighbours...)
and I suppose I wish I could have a glimpse ahead
to see if I did any good
and if the days when it's a bit of a struggle
are only pages 43 to 45 in the biography someone writes about me one day
where the huge struggles seem to pass very quickly in the big scheme of things
And some days I wish my default was 'that was ok'
and not 'I am a failure'
or the assumption that someone else would be so much better
because I know that God sees in me
what I often miss
but that doesn't stop me worrying
that I am killing his church
running low on imagination
or forgetting that God
can do so much with or without
my feeble efforts
and yet he lets me share the journey.
Some days I have to remind myself
to put the right shoes on in the morning
not try and put His on by mistake
but pick up my faithful old boots
and keep plodding
keep seeing
the beauty of the autumn colours
keep smiling
at the thought of the people who share this ride
keep laughing
at the humour of humanness
keep believing
that God is at work
keep trusting that all will be well
just because he says so.

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.

Something to Ponder?

Sunday 28th October 2007
Luke 18: 9-14

When Cardinal Basil Hume, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England, was told that he had terminal cancer, his first thought was, ‘If only I could start all over again, I would be a much better monk, a much better abbot, a much better bishop.’ But then he reflected and he said, ‘Then I thought, how much better if I can come before God when I die, not to say, “Thank you that I was such a good monk, good abbot, good bishop,” but rather, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” For if I come empty-handed, then I will be ready to receive God’s gift. God be merciful to me a sinner.’ *

How many of us share those same first thoughts as Basil Hume… I know I do at times, “if only I’d been a better mum, a more daring Christian, a better vicar and so on.” And yet we as Christians, like Basil Hume, need to come round to a different way of thinking - so that my aim isn’t to stand before God and say, “thank you that I was a good mum, a daring Christian, a good vicar” but “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Think about how you express your Christian life, what you do in the church, perhaps how you pray for God’s people, your acts of service and beware of the danger of coming before God with these things as badges of righteousness. God delights when we serve him well, BUT it’s not these things that make us right and just and safe with him, it is his mercy when we recognise our need of him.

It’s not that God doesn’t want me to be the best mum, the best, Christian and the best Vicar I can be, and you to express your life and faith in the best way you can, but it’s that most importantly we come to recognise that our righteousness comes from a humility before God and receiving his welcome, his forgiveness, and his righteousness. And then our response is to be and do the best we can before him.

Jesus is pretty clear about this in the parable he told, and Luke very generously gives us a one sentence introduction to the parable, stating the reasons Jesus told this story – firstly to challenge those who trusted in themselves for righteousness and secondly to challenge those who regarded others with contempt.

And so we’re introduced to the Pharisee and the Tax collector.
The poor old Pharisee gets such a pounding doesn’t he!

It could even be disturbingly amusing to think that we might read this parable with a sense of, ‘well at least I’m not like that Pharisee,’ when thinking that makes us just like him! And this was a respectable man, a religious man, a man who followed the disciplines of faith – he prayed, he tithed, he fasted – BUT he looked to his own actions to be right with God and not to God’s mercy; as well as looking contemptuously at the other man.

And then there’s the tax-collector. Tax collectors were far from popular folk in Jesus’ day. They were either considered dishonest – becoming rich from their excessive tax takings (think of Zaccheus, the tax collector, who having encountered Jesus, promised to pay back much of what he had stolen) - or they were thought of by the Jewish people as colluding with the Roman occupiers – not very popular all round!

So the man of God stood praying, and noticing the tax collector, he expressed to God his sense of gratitude that he wasn’t like the other man.

Who is it that we might sometimes catch ourselves looking down upon? Who is it that we might hold up against our own standing with God and declare less worthy than ourselves? Do we sometimes hold the things we do before God and expect those things to open the door to heaven and to God when it is Jesus, dying on the cross with our sins laid upon himself, who has opened that door?

‘Be merciful to me a sinner’ was the man’s prayer and that needs to become or remain our prayer – and not only that, our attitude of heart too. And THEN, knowing the freedom of God’s forgiveness, the joy of receiving his mercy – we can go out into the world and serve in grateful response, we can work in his church in grateful response, but we must never lose sight of God’s free gift of grace.

Luke is very generous in his communication of Jesus’ teaching here – for those of us who like simple statements there’s his brief summary: “Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.”

And for those of us that like the storytelling or visual form of teaching there’s the story itself, illustrating the same thing but giving a specific example that would have immediately communicated to those first hearers and readers what Jesus was getting at.

Who might we today exchange for the Pharisee and the tax collector so that this story challenges us as it would have back then? The stereotypes would probably shock, as I imagine they did when Jesus first made his point. Because the people’s expectation would have been that the Pharisee was the ‘good’ man and the tax collector the ‘bad’ man. And that’s just the point – it’s God’s mercy that leads to righteousness and not what we do. So I’m not going to insert an alternative Pharisee and tax collector for us – but just a reminder to guard ourselves from being like the Pharisee and heeding the warning, ‘do not trust in yourself for righteousness or regard others with contempt.’

But, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner.’

Amen.


*taken from 'Spicing up your Speaking' - Simon Coupland