Category: Food and Drink

Famous Last Words

Yesterday was the day Debbie and I had been waiting for since we moved to Chelmsford in August 2005. We had worked out when both of our children would finally be full-time at school, and it would be January 2009. Hence, with Rebekah having been at school since September 2007, Mark would step up from mornings only (which he’d done for the Autumn Term) to a whole day this last week. We had promised ourselves lunch out together, just the two of us.

And so it came to pass that yesterday we found ourselves in the first place we had earmarked for a lunch date: the local branch of La Tasca. Yes, it’s a restaurant chain but rather nicer than any chains we ever had in Medway and neither of us had ever eaten Tapas. We arrived with a voucher for fifty per cent off our meal and discovered they had a better deal: lunch for two for ten pounds (drinks and gratuity excluded).

So it was that we enjoyed chorizo sausage, squid (well I did, Debbie doesn’t like seafood), vegetarian paella, Spanish omelette and a beautifully dressed salad. Hungry, anyone?

Afterwards, knowing that we needed a new salt and pepper set, we headed for Debenham’s, trying to score a bargain in their sale, if any were left. Our old salt mill fools everyone because it has a plastic cover on the bottom to avoid a mess. Many of our guests don’t notice this if we forget to tell them and then wonder why they aren’t getting any salt. The pepper mill had – shall we say, ground to a halt. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun.)

Having taken the escalator from outside the back of the store to the first floor, we discovered that the ‘home’ section of the store was on the second floor. As we climbed a flight of stairs, we were assaulted by lurid (if they can be in monochrome) posters bragging about all the designer labels the shop sells. I expressed my disdain about people who pay out just to be seen with a particular name on their clothing, and on we went.

Then the inevitable happened. Debbie reminded me my dressing gown was tatty and I needed a new one. She saw some in the sale. Twelve pounds. Excellent. Except they were a designer label. John Rocha.

So much for eschewing designers. At that price I caved in and dragged it around the store while continuing to look for salt and pepper mills. My big anti-designer words went out of the window at the sight of the price. I guess Naomi Klein won’t be signing me up that quickly. At least I won’t be inviting you around to see me wearing the dressing gown. You wouldn’t want to see me first thing in the morning. So I’m not buying it to show off. And doubtless there are those who would consider it inappropriate for me to own such a garment: perhaps the church is paying me too much.

The cruet set? Well, there was nothing in the sale. We settled on a cheap (by Debenham’s standards) set for ten pounds, passing on the sets that retailed for twenty or even thirty-six. That’s more like it.

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Hope

Isaiah 40:1-11

Hope is in short supply right now. Increased unemployment. Home repossessions threatening to hit 1991 records. Banks, the backbone of our economy, in turmoil. Many suffering fuel poverty as gas and electricity prices stay high, even when petrol prices have reduced. You know the rest. We could do with some hope.

In the time of John the Baptist, Israel could have done with some hope. You’ve heard it enough times. In their own land, yet feeling like exiles, because they were occupied by Rome. Every now and again, someone popped up to offer hope in terms of an uprising. Every time, Roman legions quelled the rebels and executed them publicly.

Where do you go for hope, when it appear eating a diet not approved by Jamie Oliver and clothes that would give Trinny and Susannah apoplexy. (No bad thing?)

Well, you root yourself in another time when the people of God needed hope. The time addressed in Isaiah 40. Most of God’s people had been deported to Babylon, and had been there a few decades by this point. A handful had been left in Jerusalem.

Then, a prophet in the Isaiah tradition turns up in Babylon, addressing the dispirited exiles and the desolate residents of Jerusalem. Using three metaphors from the physical world around him – wilderness, grass and mountains – he offers God’s hope to those lacking it and most needing it.

And this theme of hope complements what we thought about last week, on the first Sunday of Advent. Then, our theme was waiting. Today, it is hope, which is the content of Christian waiting. Had we read to the end of Isaiah 40, we would have heard – depending on which Bible translation we used – about those who will renew their strength by either ‘waiting’ or ‘hoping’.

So – without more ado – how does the Isaiah prophet help us to hope, using these images of wilderness, grass and mountains?

Wilderness 
Last week, as we considered the theme of waiting, we wondered how we live when it feels like God is absent. Isaiah 40 is bold in response to this: you may feel that God is not here, but God is coming! He gives us a picture that is a bit like the building of a new road (hopefully without the environmental concerns we have about such a project in our society). Prepare God’s way in the wilderness, make a straight highway in the desert, raise the valleys, lower the mountains, and smooth out the rough terrain, and you will see God’s glory (verses 3-5).

So – in a time of God’s apparent absence, the good news is that God is coming. In a time of spiritual darkness, the good news is that you will see God’s glory. Music, surely, to the ears of disillusioned exiles in Babylon, and beaten-down people in Jerusalem. This is a message of comfort. Your punishment is over. Enough is enough (verses 1-2).

We may not know when things will change for the better for Christian witness in our culture, but we can hear similar echoes of hope in Advent. Our waiting and hoping is for Jesus who is called Immanuel, God with us. God is coming. We are not alone. Christ is coming. Christ came. The Father sent the Spirit of Christ. Our sense of aloneness is only apparent. It is not actual.

Of course, we must be careful: proclaiming that in Christ, God is with us, can make us sound like we have a religious superiority complex. This is not a matter of our deserving special rank. It is a matter of grace, God’s undeserved favour to sinners. The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Jesus, God with us, came for lost and sick people – including us. Yes, God is with us in Christ. But we hold that knowledge humbly. And as we share it, we do so as one beggar telling another where to find bread.

And the wilderness was specifically to be a place where God’s glory would be seen.  Would God’s glory be seen in raining down fire and brimstone? No. It would be seen as he led a raggle-taggle bag of exiles back home.

Similarly, Advent is a time when we wait in hope for the glory of God. His glory will be seen and sung about in skies over Bethlehem. His glory will be seen, in the words of Bruce Cockburn,

Like a stone on the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe

It’s a different kind of glory. It’s wilderness glory, a manger at the back of a house in Bethlehem, not a palace in Jerusalem. It’s the glory of God humbling himself into human flesh, one who later as an adult would not grant the wish of two disciples known colloquially as the Sons of Thunder, who wanted to unleash damnation on enemies.

Yes, come to unexpected dry places like a wilderness – like a manger – and find that God is present in strange glory. Come to Broomfield and find him? Why not?

Grass 
When the prophet speaks about the people being like grass, I think he has wilderness grass in mind. It withers and fades in the heat of the wilderness, so when we hear about that happening when the breath of the Lord blows on it (verse 7), I think we’re meant to imagine that the Lord’s breath is hot and intense. The breath of the Lord, the Spirit of God, is not here life-giving but life-taking. The judgment of God had fallen upon the people with the Babylonian invasion and exile; now, like grass in the hot sun, they are withering and fading.

It’s not difficult to find similarities in later generations. In the days before Jesus was born, Israel was withering under oppression from Rome. In our day, we in the western church (especially in Europe) feel like we are withering and fading. What word of hope do we find here? It comes in verse 8:

The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.

Whatever happens to us, the purposes of God are not thwarted. Whether we wither due to divine judgment on our faithlessness or whether it is general oppression or persecution, hear the promise that ‘the word of our God will stand forever’.

A story was told during the time when Russian communism ruled Eastern Europe. Soldiers raided the home of a Christian family and made some arrests. To humiliate them, they threw the family Bible on the floor. But a soldier noticed that one page didn’t burn. It contained the words of Jesus: ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.’ That incident was key in the soldier’s conversion to Christ.

There will be many attempts to destroy God’s word from its place in our society, and some of those attacks will focus on the church. But we are in Advent, the season of hope. The word of the Lord stands forever, and the gates of hell will never prevail against the church of Jesus Christ.

None of this is a reason for complacency, but it is a reason for hope. Therefore, it’s here to boost our faith and fuel our prayers for God to renew his wonders in our day. 

Mountains 
So God is present in his strange glory, and he is speaking and will not be silenced. Those are grounds for hope, but they are not very specific. We need a vantage point. The herald, the preacher (who by the way is female in the text), needs to ‘get up to a high mountain’ to see things as they are and be several hundred feet above contradiction in preaching good news to discouraged people (verse 9).

What good news? That God is victorious over the enemies of his people, that he comes in conquest, with his people as his booty, and with the gentleness of a shepherd caring for ewes and lambs (verses 10-11).

Israel’s hope was the end of captivity in Babylon. The hope in Jesus’ coming was in his resurrection from the dead. Our hope, based on that resurrection, is that of God’s final victory when he appears again, not only to claim his own, but to renew all of creation, with a new heaven and a new earth.

There are always reasons in the world to make us gloomy. At present there is a plethora of reasons. There are also reasons to be pessimistic about the western church. You would think there were few grounds for hope. But when you get up the mountain to see things from God’s perspective, the situation looks different. You see hope in the promises of God, who has acted decisively in the past, who will do so again, and who one day will make all things new.

It’s rather like the old story told by Tony Campolo. People give him all sorts of reasons to be negative about the state of the world and the church. But his standard reply is, “I’ve been reading the Bible. And I’ve peeked to see how it ends. Jesus wins!”

So let the world write us off. Let our friends regard our faith as irrelevant. Let Richard Dawkins describe religion as a virus. But see God’s view from the mountain: Jesus wins. Let that fill us with Advent hope.

And while we’re on the mountain, let us – like the female herald in Isaiah 40 – proclaim it to all who will hear. Let us encourage one another in the church. Don’t be dragged down by the lies and limited perspectives of the world: Jesus wins. 

And let us also proclaim it to a world sorely in need of hope. To people who thought they could trust in money, until the banks blew up. To people who gained their sense of identity from their job, until redundancy hit. To people struck down with disability or chronic or terminal illness, whose lives had been based on the vigour of their bodies. To all these people and many others, proclaim that Jesus wins. It is promised in the actions of God and especially in the Resurrection. We have a hope worth trusting in. Why be afraid? Why be dismayed?

Conclusion 
You may recall I’ve said that my first circuit appointment was in the town of Hertford. There, the Methodists regularly quoted John Wesley’s Journal regarding several of the visits the great man made to the town on his preaching travels. They were fond of quoting one entry in particular, where Wesley was utterly discouraged. It said, ‘Poor desolate Hertford.’ Those words hung like a curse over them.

But you may also remember how I have talked of being involved in ecumenical youth ministry in the town. Somebody gave me the complete set of Wesley’s Journal, and I looked up all the entries on Hertford. They weren’t all doom and gloom. Some were, but one in particular wasn’t. In it, Wesley recounted coming to preach at a school in the town. To cut a long story short, he saw a revival break out among the children.

You can imagine the impact that story had on us as we gathered to pray about youth ministry. Never mind ‘poor desolate Hertford’. There was a heritage of Holy Spirit work among young people in the area. God had not been absent or silent. He had been gloriously present, proclaiming Good News.

So I want to say that the Advent hope is like that. It is time to cast off the darkness. The great Advent text in Isaiah 60 says, ‘Arise, shine, your light has come’. This Advent, might we just dare to believe and to hope in our God?

And might we find that in this hope we have something beyond riches to share with a world, whose own versions of hope have plummeted in value?

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Links

Here’s another set of links for your improvement and amusement. Enjoy your weekend.

Is Tide washing powder useless?

Turning the air blue: Clive James muses on the ineffectiveness of profanity.

The Word Magazine Album Atlas plots the locations where famous album sleeves were photographed. It’s the magic of Google Maps.

Jeremy Woolf on five social media trends to look out for.

Starbucks are becoming increasingly Fairtrade-friendly in the UK. Now that’s a miracle!

They must have gone on the music, more than anything else, but In the bleak midwinter has been named best carol by choirmasters. I don’t recognise half the titles in the top ten. Also, BBC News published this story under ‘entertainment’.

The Paperless Christmas Advent calendar is back, and goes live on Advent Sunday (this Sunday, that is) at 10:00 am GMT. Similarly, see the Church of England’s Why Are We Waiting, with daily updates.

Ben Witherington on why it’s not biblical to seek an airtight theological system.

Santa Claus does exist. They said so at church.  Via blogs4god

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Links

OK, here’s another round-up of links I found during the last week. Have fun.

A Theremin (remember Good Vibrations?) inside a Russian doll. (Via Mojo.)

A friend of mine once rewrote Monty Python’s Dead Parrot Sketch as the Dead Church Sketch. But now we learn that the ancient Greeks pre-empted the dead parrot sketch.

Jesus spoke about lust as ‘adultery of the heart’. Now, a ‘virtual affair’ in Second Life has led to a divorce.

The Today programme on BBC Radio 4 ponders great drum solos.

Remember the Johnny Cash song ‘One piece at a time’? Well, a Russian Orthodox church has been stolen, brick by brick.

Once it was pizzas looking like Jesus, now it’s Buddha bee hives.

You want a prayer movement – how about this? Artist creates ‘public prayer booths’ in NYC. They look like phone booths, apparently.

If only this were true: hoax New York Times newspaper proclaims end of Iraq war.

My father has a life-long interest in astronomy. Doubtless he will have been excited to read about the Hubble Telescope spotting a planet orbiting the star Fomalhaut and the planetary system discovered by the Gemini Observatory in Chile. (Both links via Personal Computer World‘s weekly email.)

Ruth Haley Barton has written on the loneliness of leadership: loneliness drives us to seek the presence of God rather than any notion of the Promised Land.

Unhappy people watch more TV. ‘TV doesn’t really seem to satisfy people over the long haul the way that social involvement or reading a newspaper does,’ says researcher John P. Robinson.

Go on, you want to make cake in a mug.

MyBloop – unlimited free online storage, max file size 1 GB. Via Chris Pirillo.

Twenty hated clichés. In contrast, here are James Emery White’s top five irritating Christian phrases.

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Kitchen

So we’re in Café Rouge having a lovely family lunch out, when Mark, our four-year-old, wanders off with his glass of apple juice.

“What are you doing, Mark?”

“I’m going to the kitchen.”

Poor lad. He had assumed that he needed to take his empty glass, plate and cutlery to the kitchen, just like at home. The idea that a waiter would come and collect it for him, while he needed to do nothing, hadn’t clicked, no matter how many other times we’d been out for meals.

Maybe he’s like many of us. We can’t believe that God will come and do something for us. We have to do it. And we fail to understand grace and integrate it into our personalities. At best we think God should be paid, just as (indirectly) our waiter was today. What a difference that is from the gratitude and love God longs to draw from our hearts.

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Sunday’s Sermon: Don’t Worry, Be Faithful

Matthew 6:24-34

Introduction
Petrol
prices up, up, up: a
barrel of oil has doubled in a year. Gas and electricity up. Food prices
up. And the official inflation figures? Not up very much at all. Of course,
governments never fiddle statistics …

I paid
my credit card bill this week, and it looks like we’ve just eked out the money
to the end of the quarter[1].
It had been an expensive quarter. I had needed two new pairs of glasses. The vacuum
cleaner had become so unreliable it needed replacing. My car required an
expensive annual service, not least because the garage discovered that the
front brakes were in advanced state of wear.

You
may well be able to write your own version of this – not least if you are on a
limited or fixed income. Financially, things are becoming tighter for many of
us.

And
in a world like that, we hear Jesus telling us not to worry about money, food
and clothing. ‘Don’t worry?’ we wonder, ‘How can we not worry?’

So
how can we receive Jesus’ words today? Is he hopelessly unrealistic, or does
his teaching here help us to face an uncertain and rocky world with faith and
hope? Well, there aren’t too many Christian preachers who will say Jesus is
unrealistic (there shouldn’t be any!). I think he helps us to face uncertain
times with confidence in him. He does so by giving us a mixture of challenges
and encouragement.

1. Loyalty
‘You cannot serve God and wealth,’ says Jesus (verse 24). God versus Mammon:
choose. Mammon seems to have been the god of wealth in ancient Carthage[2].
God versus wealth is a choice of gods: whom will we serve? Who will have our
loyalty? Only one can have our devotion, and to the extent, says Jesus, in
typically colourful Jewish language, that all else will seem like hatred.

If we
are to face financial matters with peace and not worry, the first thing we have
to do is settle the issue of our loyalty. If Mammon is our god, then our moods
will swing more violently than the stock market. If the Lord is our God, then
our trust is in the One called The Rock. God is dependable.

It’s
easy to see the ways in which the gods of wealth – modern-day Mammons – are worshipped
today. Remember Bill Clinton’s campaign slogan when he was first elected to the
White House: ‘It’s the economy, stupid’. But wealth is a created thing: if it
is worshipped in place of the Creator, then it must be an idol, a false god. It
should not command our ultimate loyalty.

Yet
do we get our loyalties twisted, too? In another context, I recently read a
book where the author was saying that one of the problems in certain sections
of the church was that people invited Jesus to be part of their story, when true
conversion was about saying we were becoming part of Jesus’ story[3]. Jesus
is no optional extra to be added to life. Jesus is Lord.

This
is not necessarily a call to take a vow of poverty, although God may call some
to that. We still need money. We should still be sensible with it. Nor is God a
spoilsport: he does allow us to enjoy good things from his creation, just so
long as we remain more attached to him than to things. For times will come when
our loyalty to Christ is tested by our attitude to finance. It may be about a
major purchase, or the expectations we have about our lifestyles. It may be
about what we budget for in our outgoings.

However,
it will be rare to find there is a biblical passage that explicitly tells us
what to do. No verse tells me what quality of car I may drive, how much I should
spend on a new computer or a reasonable amount to spend on a meal out with my
wife.

It’s
more subtle than that. The test of loyalty is a test of the heart. We answer it
by listening to the promptings of the Spirit, seeking advice from others and doing
that most difficult of things, listening to the true motives of our hearts. When
we can discern our motives, we shall know whether our desire is to please the
Lord or serve the idol of Mammon.

2. Value
If you’re anything like us, one of the things you’ll have thought about in the
current financial climate is your major outgoings. What is your biggest
expenditure, and where can you trim? Not having a mortgage, our biggest regular
expense is the weekly food bill. We try to be careful not to buy those impulse
purchases that bump up the bill.

Then
Jesus tells us not to worry about food, drink and clothing! Yet they are some
of our biggest expenses! And don’t worry about how long we might live – even though
our nation spends billions on the National Health Service. Isn’t this advice
financial suicide? It sounds like it.

It isn’t
when you consider why Jesus tells us not to worry about these things. He tells
us to look at God’s care for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. In
God’s eyes, we are more valuable than either of these is. The people who spend
their time worrying and striving after these things are ‘the Gentiles’ – that is,
in this context, those who do not believe in the Lord. (Verses 25-32)

Therefore,
it’s an action of unbelief to spend all our time worrying about money and
possessions. What is it we don’t believe? We don’t believe that God loves us. We
don’t believe that God values us like nothing else on earth.

So stop
for a moment and consider just how much God does love and value us. God is
love, and created everything in love. Human beings are the only part of that
creation to be made in God’s image. In love, God still sought us out when we
turned our backs on him. Ultimately, in love, the Father sent his Son. Jesus
was born in poverty and humility. He died a terrible death and was raised from
the dead to reconcile us to God. God then comes by his Spirit to dwell within
and among his disciples. God wants to be with us; God is with us! That is how
much God loves and values us.

When
worry and stress come our way, we tend to forget important things. It’s time to
remember that God has placed an extraordinary value upon us. No transfer fee for
a footballer can match God’s valuation of us. He values us by the life of his
Son. No riches or possessions can compare with the Holy Spirit of God dwelling
within us.

So am
I advocating a reckless attitude to money? No – and yes. No, because we should
still plan our income, our spending and our giving carefully. Yet however
wisely we do that, we may still feel the pressure. Then it is time to remember
the great love God has for us, and the enormous value he places on us. A God
who views us like that will give us peace; he will look after us and provide for
our needs.

But
yes, there is a sense of recklessness about this, too, because on top of everything
else, God may challenge us in prayer to do something with our finances or
possessions that may seem crazy. God may lead us to do something that humanly doesn’t
make sense. Then, even more, is the time to remember the value God places on us,
and the immense love he has for us. If God clearly leads us in an unusual
direction with our wealth, we can be sure he will provide. The missionary
pioneer Hudson Taylor
once said, ‘God’s will done in God’s way will never lack the mean or the means.’[4]

3. The Kingdom
If we have an unqualified loyalty to our Lord and we believe he loves and
values us immeasurably, then what should our attitude be? Jesus says that instead
of striving for money and possessions, we are to ‘strive first for the kingdom
of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to [us] as
well’ (verse 33). Put simply, commit yourself above all things to the will of
God and he will supply your needs. Here’s how that happened once for me.

As you
know, I have been to two theological colleges. I applied to my first college at
a time in my life when I knew God was calling me to something, but I didn’t
know what, so I couldn’t ‘candidate’ for the ministry. Trinity College, Bristol offered me a
place. I applied for a grant (this was before student loans), but my education authority
turned me down. The college gave me a deadline by which I could guarantee them I
had the funds for my first year, and I appealed against the decision the
education authority made.

Forty-eight
hours before the college deadline, I learned that I had lost my appeal. What now?
Had I misread God’s guidance? However, it was at this stage that things started
to happen. My parents rediscovered some old funds they had forgotten. A student
who had taken a gap year between A-Levels and college and had worked to save
money for a car gave those savings to me. Her boyfriend also gave me some
money. Two elderly women at church gave me large sums of money. One wrote a
covering letter. She said, ‘It seems that God is asking you to trust him to
supply your needs. He will supply ours, too.’

By the
deadline, I had three quarters of the money required for that first year. I phoned
the Vice-Principal. He said they would take me, and help me with applications
to charities and trusts when I got there. He didn’t know I’d tried that and got
nowhere.

I preached
a sermon at a church other than my own in my circuit where I told how God had
provided for my needs. I didn’t explain that I still needed some more money. Afterwards,
a friend invited me back to his flat for coffee. He explained that he had been
planning a big holiday to New Zealand to see his auntie, but she had since died
and he saw no point in going. He had exchanged his sterling for New Zealand
dollars. However, the dollar had since fallen in value against the pound and he
had held onto the currency in hope that the exchange rates would go back in his
favour. They had worsened, and the money was annoying him. Would I like to take
this annoyance off him? Into my lap he threw two plastic Thomas Cook envelopes.
They contained NZ$2310. At the time (1986) this was worth £741, and I realised
he had originally exchanged £1000.

Later,
a friend at church who was a bank manager set up an account so that anyone
could give anonymously towards my support. With that and other gifts, all my
needs were provided for three years at college.

It all
felt like something out of a paperback testimony. Yet I felt very ordinary. I was.
I still am. I was no superhero of the faith. Jesus meant it when he said, ‘Seek
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be
given to you as well.’

Conclusion
This morning we are offering prayer for healing during the intercessions after
the next hymn. However, healing is not merely about our bodies. It is about
every aspect of life. Perhaps your fear or anxiety needs a healing touch from
God. If so, then let me invite you – just as much as anybody else – to come to
the communion rail for anointing with oil. Come to declare your unqualified
loyalty to Jesus Christ, and find an assurance from him that God loves you and
values like nothing else, and that when you commit yourself to his will, he
will meet your every need so that you may fulfil his kingdom purposes in your
life.

[1]
Methodist ministers are traditionally paid quarterly, not monthly (although the
latter option may now be chosen).

[4] An
apology for the exclusive language, but Taylor was a man of his time.

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Sunday’s Sermon: Don’t Worry, Be Faithful

Matthew 6:24-34

Introduction
Petrol
prices up, up, up: a
barrel of oil has doubled in a year. Gas and electricity up. Food prices
up. And the official inflation figures? Not up very much at all. Of course,
governments never fiddle statistics …

I paid
my credit card bill this week, and it looks like we’ve just eked out the money
to the end of the quarter[1].
It had been an expensive quarter. I had needed two new pairs of glasses. The vacuum
cleaner had become so unreliable it needed replacing. My car required an
expensive annual service, not least because the garage discovered that the
front brakes were in advanced state of wear.

You
may well be able to write your own version of this – not least if you are on a
limited or fixed income. Financially, things are becoming tighter for many of
us.

And
in a world like that, we hear Jesus telling us not to worry about money, food
and clothing. ‘Don’t worry?’ we wonder, ‘How can we not worry?’

So
how can we receive Jesus’ words today? Is he hopelessly unrealistic, or does
his teaching here help us to face an uncertain and rocky world with faith and
hope? Well, there aren’t too many Christian preachers who will say Jesus is
unrealistic (there shouldn’t be any!). I think he helps us to face uncertain
times with confidence in him. He does so by giving us a mixture of challenges
and encouragement.

1. Loyalty
‘You cannot serve God and wealth,’ says Jesus (verse 24). God versus Mammon:
choose. Mammon seems to have been the god of wealth in ancient Carthage[2].
God versus wealth is a choice of gods: whom will we serve? Who will have our
loyalty? Only one can have our devotion, and to the extent, says Jesus, in
typically colourful Jewish language, that all else will seem like hatred.

If we
are to face financial matters with peace and not worry, the first thing we have
to do is settle the issue of our loyalty. If Mammon is our god, then our moods
will swing more violently than the stock market. If the Lord is our God, then
our trust is in the One called The Rock. God is dependable.

It’s
easy to see the ways in which the gods of wealth – modern-day Mammons – are worshipped
today. Remember Bill Clinton’s campaign slogan when he was first elected to the
White House: ‘It’s the economy, stupid’. But wealth is a created thing: if it
is worshipped in place of the Creator, then it must be an idol, a false god. It
should not command our ultimate loyalty.

Yet
do we get our loyalties twisted, too? In another context, I recently read a
book where the author was saying that one of the problems in certain sections
of the church was that people invited Jesus to be part of their story, when true
conversion was about saying we were becoming part of Jesus’ story[3]. Jesus
is no optional extra to be added to life. Jesus is Lord.

This
is not necessarily a call to take a vow of poverty, although God may call some
to that. We still need money. We should still be sensible with it. Nor is God a
spoilsport: he does allow us to enjoy good things from his creation, just so
long as we remain more attached to him than to things. For times will come when
our loyalty to Christ is tested by our attitude to finance. It may be about a
major purchase, or the expectations we have about our lifestyles. It may be
about what we budget for in our outgoings.

However,
it will be rare to find there is a biblical passage that explicitly tells us
what to do. No verse tells me what quality of car I may drive, how much I should
spend on a new computer or a reasonable amount to spend on a meal out with my
wife.

It’s
more subtle than that. The test of loyalty is a test of the heart. We answer it
by listening to the promptings of the Spirit, seeking advice from others and doing
that most difficult of things, listening to the true motives of our hearts. When
we can discern our motives, we shall know whether our desire is to please the
Lord or serve the idol of Mammon.

2. Value
If you’re anything like us, one of the things you’ll have thought about in the
current financial climate is your major outgoings. What is your biggest
expenditure, and where can you trim? Not having a mortgage, our biggest regular
expense is the weekly food bill. We try to be careful not to buy those impulse
purchases that bump up the bill.

Then
Jesus tells us not to worry about food, drink and clothing! Yet they are some
of our biggest expenses! And don’t worry about how long we might live – even though
our nation spends billions on the National Health Service. Isn’t this advice
financial suicide? It sounds like it.

It isn’t
when you consider why Jesus tells us not to worry about these things. He tells
us to look at God’s care for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. In
God’s eyes, we are more valuable than either of these is. The people who spend
their time worrying and striving after these things are ‘the Gentiles’ – that is,
in this context, those who do not believe in the Lord. (Verses 25-32)

Therefore,
it’s an action of unbelief to spend all our time worrying about money and
possessions. What is it we don’t believe? We don’t believe that God loves us. We
don’t believe that God values us like nothing else on earth.

So stop
for a moment and consider just how much God does love and value us. God is
love, and created everything in love. Human beings are the only part of that
creation to be made in God’s image. In love, God still sought us out when we
turned our backs on him. Ultimately, in love, the Father sent his Son. Jesus
was born in poverty and humility. He died a terrible death and was raised from
the dead to reconcile us to God. God then comes by his Spirit to dwell within
and among his disciples. God wants to be with us; God is with us! That is how
much God loves and values us.

When
worry and stress come our way, we tend to forget important things. It’s time to
remember that God has placed an extraordinary value upon us. No transfer fee for
a footballer can match God’s valuation of us. He values us by the life of his
Son. No riches or possessions can compare with the Holy Spirit of God dwelling
within us.

So am
I advocating a reckless attitude to money? No – and yes. No, because we should
still plan our income, our spending and our giving carefully. Yet however
wisely we do that, we may still feel the pressure. Then it is time to remember
the great love God has for us, and the enormous value he places on us. A God
who views us like that will give us peace; he will look after us and provide for
our needs.

But
yes, there is a sense of recklessness about this, too, because on top of everything
else, God may challenge us in prayer to do something with our finances or
possessions that may seem crazy. God may lead us to do something that humanly doesn’t
make sense. Then, even more, is the time to remember the value God places on us,
and the immense love he has for us. If God clearly leads us in an unusual
direction with our wealth, we can be sure he will provide. The missionary
pioneer Hudson Taylor
once said, ‘God’s will done in God’s way will never lack the mean or the means.’[4]

3. The Kingdom
If we have an unqualified loyalty to our Lord and we believe he loves and
values us immeasurably, then what should our attitude be? Jesus says that instead
of striving for money and possessions, we are to ‘strive first for the kingdom
of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to [us] as
well’ (verse 33). Put simply, commit yourself above all things to the will of
God and he will supply your needs. Here’s how that happened once for me.

As you
know, I have been to two theological colleges. I applied to my first college at
a time in my life when I knew God was calling me to something, but I didn’t
know what, so I couldn’t ‘candidate’ for the ministry. Trinity College, Bristol offered me a
place. I applied for a grant (this was before student loans), but my education authority
turned me down. The college gave me a deadline by which I could guarantee them I
had the funds for my first year, and I appealed against the decision the
education authority made.

Forty-eight
hours before the college deadline, I learned that I had lost my appeal. What now?
Had I misread God’s guidance? However, it was at this stage that things started
to happen. My parents rediscovered some old funds they had forgotten. A student
who had taken a gap year between A-Levels and college and had worked to save
money for a car gave those savings to me. Her boyfriend also gave me some
money. Two elderly women at church gave me large sums of money. One wrote a
covering letter. She said, ‘It seems that God is asking you to trust him to
supply your needs. He will supply ours, too.’

By the
deadline, I had three quarters of the money required for that first year. I phoned
the Vice-Principal. He said they would take me, and help me with applications
to charities and trusts when I got there. He didn’t know I’d tried that and got
nowhere.

I preached
a sermon at a church other than my own in my circuit where I told how God had
provided for my needs. I didn’t explain that I still needed some more money. Afterwards,
a friend invited me back to his flat for coffee. He explained that he had been
planning a big holiday to New Zealand to see his auntie, but she had since died
and he saw no point in going. He had exchanged his sterling for New Zealand
dollars. However, the dollar had since fallen in value against the pound and he
had held onto the currency in hope that the exchange rates would go back in his
favour. They had worsened, and the money was annoying him. Would I like to take
this annoyance off him? Into my lap he threw two plastic Thomas Cook envelopes.
They contained NZ$2310. At the time (1986) this was worth £741, and I realised
he had originally exchanged £1000.

Later,
a friend at church who was a bank manager set up an account so that anyone
could give anonymously towards my support. With that and other gifts, all my
needs were provided for three years at college.

It all
felt like something out of a paperback testimony. Yet I felt very ordinary. I was.
I still am. I was no superhero of the faith. Jesus meant it when he said, ‘Seek
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be
given to you as well.’

Conclusion
This morning we are offering prayer for healing during the intercessions after
the next hymn. However, healing is not merely about our bodies. It is about
every aspect of life. Perhaps your fear or anxiety needs a healing touch from
God. If so, then let me invite you – just as much as anybody else – to come to
the communion rail for anointing with oil. Come to declare your unqualified
loyalty to Jesus Christ, and find an assurance from him that God loves you and
values like nothing else, and that when you commit yourself to his will, he
will meet your every need so that you may fulfil his kingdom purposes in your
life.

[1]
Methodist ministers are traditionally paid quarterly, not monthly (although the
latter option may now be chosen).

[4] An
apology for the exclusive language, but Taylor was a man of his time.

0

Sunday’s Sermon: Don’t Worry, Be Faithful

Matthew 6:24-34

Introduction
Petrol
prices up, up, up: a
barrel of oil has doubled in a year. Gas and electricity up. Food prices
up. And the official inflation figures? Not up very much at all. Of course,
governments never fiddle statistics …

I paid
my credit card bill this week, and it looks like we’ve just eked out the money
to the end of the quarter[1].
It had been an expensive quarter. I had needed two new pairs of glasses. The vacuum
cleaner had become so unreliable it needed replacing. My car required an
expensive annual service, not least because the garage discovered that the
front brakes were in advanced state of wear.

You
may well be able to write your own version of this – not least if you are on a
limited or fixed income. Financially, things are becoming tighter for many of
us.

And
in a world like that, we hear Jesus telling us not to worry about money, food
and clothing. ‘Don’t worry?’ we wonder, ‘How can we not worry?’

So
how can we receive Jesus’ words today? Is he hopelessly unrealistic, or does
his teaching here help us to face an uncertain and rocky world with faith and
hope? Well, there aren’t too many Christian preachers who will say Jesus is
unrealistic (there shouldn’t be any!). I think he helps us to face uncertain
times with confidence in him. He does so by giving us a mixture of challenges
and encouragement.

1. Loyalty
‘You cannot serve God and wealth,’ says Jesus (verse 24). God versus Mammon:
choose. Mammon seems to have been the god of wealth in ancient Carthage[2].
God versus wealth is a choice of gods: whom will we serve? Who will have our
loyalty? Only one can have our devotion, and to the extent, says Jesus, in
typically colourful Jewish language, that all else will seem like hatred.

If we
are to face financial matters with peace and not worry, the first thing we have
to do is settle the issue of our loyalty. If Mammon is our god, then our moods
will swing more violently than the stock market. If the Lord is our God, then
our trust is in the One called The Rock. God is dependable.

It’s
easy to see the ways in which the gods of wealth – modern-day Mammons – are worshipped
today. Remember Bill Clinton’s campaign slogan when he was first elected to the
White House: ‘It’s the economy, stupid’. But wealth is a created thing: if it
is worshipped in place of the Creator, then it must be an idol, a false god. It
should not command our ultimate loyalty.

Yet
do we get our loyalties twisted, too? In another context, I recently read a
book where the author was saying that one of the problems in certain sections
of the church was that people invited Jesus to be part of their story, when true
conversion was about saying we were becoming part of Jesus’ story[3]. Jesus
is no optional extra to be added to life. Jesus is Lord.

This
is not necessarily a call to take a vow of poverty, although God may call some
to that. We still need money. We should still be sensible with it. Nor is God a
spoilsport: he does allow us to enjoy good things from his creation, just so
long as we remain more attached to him than to things. For times will come when
our loyalty to Christ is tested by our attitude to finance. It may be about a
major purchase, or the expectations we have about our lifestyles. It may be
about what we budget for in our outgoings.

However,
it will be rare to find there is a biblical passage that explicitly tells us
what to do. No verse tells me what quality of car I may drive, how much I should
spend on a new computer or a reasonable amount to spend on a meal out with my
wife.

It’s
more subtle than that. The test of loyalty is a test of the heart. We answer it
by listening to the promptings of the Spirit, seeking advice from others and doing
that most difficult of things, listening to the true motives of our hearts. When
we can discern our motives, we shall know whether our desire is to please the
Lord or serve the idol of Mammon.

2. Value
If you’re anything like us, one of the things you’ll have thought about in the
current financial climate is your major outgoings. What is your biggest
expenditure, and where can you trim? Not having a mortgage, our biggest regular
expense is the weekly food bill. We try to be careful not to buy those impulse
purchases that bump up the bill.

Then
Jesus tells us not to worry about food, drink and clothing! Yet they are some
of our biggest expenses! And don’t worry about how long we might live – even though
our nation spends billions on the National Health Service. Isn’t this advice
financial suicide? It sounds like it.

It isn’t
when you consider why Jesus tells us not to worry about these things. He tells
us to look at God’s care for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. In
God’s eyes, we are more valuable than either of these is. The people who spend
their time worrying and striving after these things are ‘the Gentiles’ – that is,
in this context, those who do not believe in the Lord. (Verses 25-32)

Therefore,
it’s an action of unbelief to spend all our time worrying about money and
possessions. What is it we don’t believe? We don’t believe that God loves us. We
don’t believe that God values us like nothing else on earth.

So stop
for a moment and consider just how much God does love and value us. God is
love, and created everything in love. Human beings are the only part of that
creation to be made in God’s image. In love, God still sought us out when we
turned our backs on him. Ultimately, in love, the Father sent his Son. Jesus
was born in poverty and humility. He died a terrible death and was raised from
the dead to reconcile us to God. God then comes by his Spirit to dwell within
and among his disciples. God wants to be with us; God is with us! That is how
much God loves and values us.

When
worry and stress come our way, we tend to forget important things. It’s time to
remember that God has placed an extraordinary value upon us. No transfer fee for
a footballer can match God’s valuation of us. He values us by the life of his
Son. No riches or possessions can compare with the Holy Spirit of God dwelling
within us.

So am
I advocating a reckless attitude to money? No – and yes. No, because we should
still plan our income, our spending and our giving carefully. Yet however
wisely we do that, we may still feel the pressure. Then it is time to remember
the great love God has for us, and the enormous value he places on us. A God
who views us like that will give us peace; he will look after us and provide for
our needs.

But
yes, there is a sense of recklessness about this, too, because on top of everything
else, God may challenge us in prayer to do something with our finances or
possessions that may seem crazy. God may lead us to do something that humanly doesn’t
make sense. Then, even more, is the time to remember the value God places on us,
and the immense love he has for us. If God clearly leads us in an unusual
direction with our wealth, we can be sure he will provide. The missionary
pioneer Hudson Taylor
once said, ‘God’s will done in God’s way will never lack the mean or the means.’[4]

3. The Kingdom
If we have an unqualified loyalty to our Lord and we believe he loves and
values us immeasurably, then what should our attitude be? Jesus says that instead
of striving for money and possessions, we are to ‘strive first for the kingdom
of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to [us] as
well’ (verse 33). Put simply, commit yourself above all things to the will of
God and he will supply your needs. Here’s how that happened once for me.

As you
know, I have been to two theological colleges. I applied to my first college at
a time in my life when I knew God was calling me to something, but I didn’t
know what, so I couldn’t ‘candidate’ for the ministry. Trinity College, Bristol offered me a
place. I applied for a grant (this was before student loans), but my education authority
turned me down. The college gave me a deadline by which I could guarantee them I
had the funds for my first year, and I appealed against the decision the
education authority made.

Forty-eight
hours before the college deadline, I learned that I had lost my appeal. What now?
Had I misread God’s guidance? However, it was at this stage that things started
to happen. My parents rediscovered some old funds they had forgotten. A student
who had taken a gap year between A-Levels and college and had worked to save
money for a car gave those savings to me. Her boyfriend also gave me some
money. Two elderly women at church gave me large sums of money. One wrote a
covering letter. She said, ‘It seems that God is asking you to trust him to
supply your needs. He will supply ours, too.’

By the
deadline, I had three quarters of the money required for that first year. I phoned
the Vice-Principal. He said they would take me, and help me with applications
to charities and trusts when I got there. He didn’t know I’d tried that and got
nowhere.

I preached
a sermon at a church other than my own in my circuit where I told how God had
provided for my needs. I didn’t explain that I still needed some more money. Afterwards,
a friend invited me back to his flat for coffee. He explained that he had been
planning a big holiday to New Zealand to see his auntie, but she had since died
and he saw no point in going. He had exchanged his sterling for New Zealand
dollars. However, the dollar had since fallen in value against the pound and he
had held onto the currency in hope that the exchange rates would go back in his
favour. They had worsened, and the money was annoying him. Would I like to take
this annoyance off him? Into my lap he threw two plastic Thomas Cook envelopes.
They contained NZ$2310. At the time (1986) this was worth £741, and I realised
he had originally exchanged £1000.

Later,
a friend at church who was a bank manager set up an account so that anyone
could give anonymously towards my support. With that and other gifts, all my
needs were provided for three years at college.

It all
felt like something out of a paperback testimony. Yet I felt very ordinary. I was.
I still am. I was no superhero of the faith. Jesus meant it when he said, ‘Seek
first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be
given to you as well.’

Conclusion
This morning we are offering prayer for healing during the intercessions after
the next hymn. However, healing is not merely about our bodies. It is about
every aspect of life. Perhaps your fear or anxiety needs a healing touch from
God. If so, then let me invite you – just as much as anybody else – to come to
the communion rail for anointing with oil. Come to declare your unqualified
loyalty to Jesus Christ, and find an assurance from him that God loves you and
values like nothing else, and that when you commit yourself to his will, he
will meet your every need so that you may fulfil his kingdom purposes in your
life.

[1]
Methodist ministers are traditionally paid quarterly, not monthly (although the
latter option may now be chosen).

[4] An
apology for the exclusive language, but Taylor was a man of his time.

0

Café Church

A circular email this week from Fresh Expressions mentioned a particular experiment in café church by Christ Church Baptist Church in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire. They started meeting on the fourth Sunday of the month at the local Costa Coffee and have since built a relationship with the Costa Foundation. The story is here, and the church’s site about the project is here. It’s just a shame only to hear this week that the church is holding a day conference tomorrow about it. Especially as I prefer Costa to Starbuck’s!

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