Category: Religion

Sunday’s Sermon: Lenten Discipline

Matthew
4:1-11

Introduction
Fabio Capello made an impression when he got his England football squad
together at the beginning of the week, prior to the friendly match with
Switzerland on Wednesday. There was a new régime at work. The players weren’t
allowed their mobile phones, games consoles or iPods. Capello referred to them
by surname. They had to wear uniform. They were to sit down for meals together,
and leave together. No wonder that highly intellectual player Rio Ferdinand
astutely observed that it was like being back at school.

Capello has instilled a culture of discipline. And discipline
is central to our thinking, now that we have entered Lent. Much as I like
three-point sermons, I’m not going to look at the three temptations Jesus faced
in the wilderness. Instead, I want to look at the disciplines Jesus employed. Although
there are many spiritual disciplines, coincidentally I find three in this
story.

1. The Discipline of
the Spirit
At the risk of alienating the sport-haters even more, let me tell a story not
about football but about that even more wonderful game, cricket. It was the
only sport I was ever remotely good at playing. I was a left-arm bowler (seam
and spin – I’ve always been indecisive!), and a specialist number eleven
batsman. When I fielded, I liked to be close behind the batsman, in the slips. There
were two reasons for this: one was that in that position, you didn’t have time
to be scared if the ball came hard and fast. The other was that if I was a long
way from the bat, on the boundary, I didn’t have a strong throw to get the ball
back to the wicket-keeper. Yet there was one time when I was playing for my
primary school in a tournament when I was fielding on the boundary. I remember
hurling the ball back as best as I could to the wicket-keeper, and our teacher
called out, ‘Good throw, David F!’ I didn’t think it was a good throw, but he
did.

What does that have to do with Lent disciplines and the Holy
Spirit? Bear with me for a moment. Our story begins with these words:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted by the devil. (Verse 1)

‘Led by the Spirit’? Many Christians talk about feeling they
are being led by the Spirit. They feel led by the Spirit to serve God in Outer
Mongolia, the inner city or leafy Surrey. They feel led by the Spirit to change
job, marry a beautiful blonde, move church, or buy a Mars bar. They feel led by
the Spirit to tell you something.

But the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. There’s
nothing warm and fuzzy about it. He has just had an amazing experience of the
Spirit descending on him at his baptism – a spiritual ‘high’ if ever there was
one – and now he is led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

What does it have to do with throwing a cricket ball? Simply
this: ‘led by the Spirit’ is altogether too twee a translation. The Greek
means, ‘Jesus was thrown out by the Spirit.’ Ekballo is the Greek verb: ‘ek’, meaning ‘out of’, and ‘ballo’, to
throw, from which we get our word ball. The Holy Spirit hurls Jesus into the
wilderness.

There’s a lot of traditional ‘led by the Spirit’ language
that I approve of. I do believe the Holy Spirit leads people to share insights
with others that the speaker couldn’t otherwise have known would be helpful to
the hearer. I do believe the Holy Spirit does remarkable works of power that
transform lives for the better. I believe all that stuff. But I also believe
the Spirit leads us into the tough places, the wildernesses of our lives and
this world, just as Jesus was led. It is therefore a Christian discipline to
listen to the Spirit’s promptings, even if they are uncomfortable.

So is there an area of life where you felt led by the Spirit,
perhaps forcefully, but where you are unhappy or at least uneasy? It might be a
job, family situation or something to do with church. It’s easy to want to run
away sometimes, but if the Spirit has thrown us into such an environment, then
escape should not be our first option. The season may well come to an end, just
as it did for Jesus in the wilderness, but we are wise to allow the discipline
of following Spirit’s leading to teach us more of God’s ways and shape us more
like Christ.

2. The Discipline of
Self-Denial
If there’s one thing we associate Lent with, it’s giving up something for the
forty days. Last year, we invited a couple of families around one day and got
out our chocolate fountain. It was agony for some of the girls, who had decided
to renounce chocolate for Lent!

You may have seen other initiatives publicised this Lent.
There is TEAR Fund’s Carbon Fast,
which encourages us to cut our carbon use and reduce further damage to the
climate. There is the Church of England’s Love
Life Live Lent project, with us for a second year this year. It features
booklets for children, youth and adults, suggesting a new action for each day
of Lent.

All of this comes from Jesus’ actions in the wilderness:

He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he
was famished. (Verse 2)

It wasn’t unusual for a Jew to fast. Forty days was extreme,
though. It goes close to the limits before lack of food has an irreversibly
detrimental effect on the body. Remember that those IRA hunger strikers who
died, such as Bobby Sands, fasted for fifty or sixty days. Why does Jesus do
it?

As I explained in a couple of school assemblies this week,
Jesus shows us a Christian value of giving up something good for the sake of
something better. The ‘something better’ here is prayer. For Jesus, being in
close communion with his Father was essential throughout his life. However, here,
at the outset of his ministry, it is particularly vital. Prayer becomes more
important than food.

It also becomes a counter-cultural witness. How easy it is
to conceive of life as being about self-fulfilment. It’s an immature society where
people gratify their every desire. The other day, Rebekah has a friend come
back after school to play with her. When her father came to pick her up, he
said in all innocence, ‘They’re having fun. That’s what we’re all here for, isn’t
it?’

Psychologists tell us that the ability to defer personal
gratification is a sign of maturity. Those that can’t do this are not grown-up
people. On that basis, we have developed a whole culture of adolescence – we have
adolescents of every age!

On a purely human level, this is of course what Fabio
Capello knew in imposing a disciplined approach in his management of the
England football team. A group of people whose lifestyle affords them every
opportunity for self-indulgence run grave risks of undermining the very skills
that have earned them their outrageous wages in the first place. In the
sporting arena, Capello knew that success would require self-denial.

So it is for us, too. I’ve just started a Lent course at
Broomfield where we are studying the DVD version of John Ortberg’s book If
You Want To Walk On Water, You’ve Got To Get Out Of The Boat. In the first
session, he makes an important point: Christians have to choose between comfort
and growth. If we opt for comfort, we shall not grow spiritually. If we are
committed to growth, we shall have to become uncomfortable in all sorts of
ways. Self-denial will be required.

Is God, then, calling us to give up something, not so that
we might be miserable, but rather because he is training us for something
better? Is God calling us to the discipline of denying ourselves in some area
so that something better might happen for his kingdom? If that is the case,
then there is real incentive for the discipline of self-denial.

3. The Discipline of
the Scriptures
When the pressure is on, Jesus responds the same way every time to the tempter.
He answers each of the three temptations in the same way: ‘It is written’
(verses 4, 7 and 10). He dismisses every temptation with Scripture.

And it’s not merely a case of Jesus shooting back a
proof-text. In the second temptation, where he is tempted to throw himself off
the Temple, it’s as if the devil has become wise to this, because he quotes the
Bible, too. I can remember a radio phone-in presenter banning his callers from
quoting the Bible, because he said people could quote it to support any
position. The devil treats Scripture like that.

But Jesus doesn’t. He can dismiss the temptation with more
Scripture, because he knows his Bible better. He knows the big story of
Scripture, the story of God, his ways and his character. In fact, every time
that Jesus fires back a verse at the devil in this story, each quotation comes
from the same part of the Bible. They all come from Deuteronomy, and the
account of Israel’s forty years in the wilderness. Clearly, Jesus sees great
significance in that for his forty days in the desert.

Ah, you say, but Jesus was the Son of God. He knew the
Scriptures because he was deity. We’re not like that. However, wait a minute –
remember his humanity. Remember that Jesus conducted his ministry as a man
acting in the power of the Spirit. Without that, he couldn’t be our example for
living. And as a human being, a Jew of two thousand years ago in Palestine, he
would have gone as a boy to synagogue school. From an early age, Jesus was
steeped in the Scriptures.

I see Jesus, then, as someone who had engaged in a
disciplined reflection on the Scriptures. He read them, meditated on them and
prayed them. It was as if they became woven around him like a garment. For years
before this event in the wilderness, Jesus has engaged in the discipline of
Scripture. It is stored up in his life.

I have taken to comparing this to the Old Testament story of
Joseph in Egypt. You will recall that when he becomes Pharaoh’s trusted
adviser, he institutes a policy where during the seven years of plenty, grain
is stored ready for the seven lean years. In a similar way, the discipline of
Scripture is one where we store up the goodness of God’s Word, ready for the
lean or wilderness times. When we hit a crisis, God may graciously direct us to
some Scripture that will help us. But I believe his best for us is that we immerse
ourselves in the biblical material now, before the crisis hits.

So how do we come to the Bible helpfully? I recently found
some helpful
and challenging words from an American Methodist, William Willimon[1].
He says we can’t just come to Scripture, condemning it for where it doesn’t
meet our preconceived ideas. For example, how can we condemn it for being
violent when our society is extremely violent (just not always in front of our
eyes)? We spot what we think are cultural limitations in the Bible, such as
where we think it is sexist or racist, but we are blind to our own. Our big
mistake is in trying to conform the Bible to our view of the world. Here are a few
sentences from Willimon:

Scripture is an attempt to construct a new world, to stoke,
fund and fuel our imaginations. The Bible is an ongoing debate about what is
real and who is in charge and where we’re all headed. So the person who emerged
from church one Sunday (after one of my most biblical sermons, too!),
muttering, “That’s the trouble with you preachers. You just never speak to
anything that relates to my world,” makes a good point.

To which the Bible replies, “How on earth did you get the idea that I want to
speak to your world? I want to rock, remake, deconstruct and rework your
world!”

…

Thus when we read Scripture, we’re not simply to ask, “Does
this make sense to me?” or “How can I use this to make my life less miserable?”
but rather we are to ask in Wesleyan fashion, “How would I have to be changed
in order to make this Scripture work?” Every text is a potential invitation to
conversion, transformation, and growth in grace.

So a true discipline of Scripture shapes us. We are thus ‘in
shape’ to face the wilderness and temptation, whenever they occur. That discipline
of Scripture becomes our primary way of disciplined listening to the Spirit,
thus leading – amongst other things – to the discipline of self-denial. In all
these disciplines, we become fitter, more trained for the battle against evil,
in which victory is already assured – because of Christ’s obedience, even to
death on a cross.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

2

Sunday’s Sermon: Lenten Discipline

Matthew
4:1-11

Introduction
Fabio Capello made an impression when he got his England football squad
together at the beginning of the week, prior to the friendly match with
Switzerland on Wednesday. There was a new régime at work. The players weren’t
allowed their mobile phones, games consoles or iPods. Capello referred to them
by surname. They had to wear uniform. They were to sit down for meals together,
and leave together. No wonder that highly intellectual player Rio Ferdinand
astutely observed that it was like being back at school.

Capello has instilled a culture of discipline. And discipline
is central to our thinking, now that we have entered Lent. Much as I like
three-point sermons, I’m not going to look at the three temptations Jesus faced
in the wilderness. Instead, I want to look at the disciplines Jesus employed. Although
there are many spiritual disciplines, coincidentally I find three in this
story.

1. The Discipline of
the Spirit
At the risk of alienating the sport-haters even more, let me tell a story not
about football but about that even more wonderful game, cricket. It was the
only sport I was ever remotely good at playing. I was a left-arm bowler (seam
and spin – I’ve always been indecisive!), and a specialist number eleven
batsman. When I fielded, I liked to be close behind the batsman, in the slips. There
were two reasons for this: one was that in that position, you didn’t have time
to be scared if the ball came hard and fast. The other was that if I was a long
way from the bat, on the boundary, I didn’t have a strong throw to get the ball
back to the wicket-keeper. Yet there was one time when I was playing for my
primary school in a tournament when I was fielding on the boundary. I remember
hurling the ball back as best as I could to the wicket-keeper, and our teacher
called out, ‘Good throw, David F!’ I didn’t think it was a good throw, but he
did.

What does that have to do with Lent disciplines and the Holy
Spirit? Bear with me for a moment. Our story begins with these words:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted by the devil. (Verse 1)

‘Led by the Spirit’? Many Christians talk about feeling they
are being led by the Spirit. They feel led by the Spirit to serve God in Outer
Mongolia, the inner city or leafy Surrey. They feel led by the Spirit to change
job, marry a beautiful blonde, move church, or buy a Mars bar. They feel led by
the Spirit to tell you something.

But the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. There’s
nothing warm and fuzzy about it. He has just had an amazing experience of the
Spirit descending on him at his baptism – a spiritual ‘high’ if ever there was
one – and now he is led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

What does it have to do with throwing a cricket ball? Simply
this: ‘led by the Spirit’ is altogether too twee a translation. The Greek
means, ‘Jesus was thrown out by the Spirit.’ Ekballo is the Greek verb: ‘ek’, meaning ‘out of’, and ‘ballo’, to
throw, from which we get our word ball. The Holy Spirit hurls Jesus into the
wilderness.

There’s a lot of traditional ‘led by the Spirit’ language
that I approve of. I do believe the Holy Spirit leads people to share insights
with others that the speaker couldn’t otherwise have known would be helpful to
the hearer. I do believe the Holy Spirit does remarkable works of power that
transform lives for the better. I believe all that stuff. But I also believe
the Spirit leads us into the tough places, the wildernesses of our lives and
this world, just as Jesus was led. It is therefore a Christian discipline to
listen to the Spirit’s promptings, even if they are uncomfortable.

So is there an area of life where you felt led by the Spirit,
perhaps forcefully, but where you are unhappy or at least uneasy? It might be a
job, family situation or something to do with church. It’s easy to want to run
away sometimes, but if the Spirit has thrown us into such an environment, then
escape should not be our first option. The season may well come to an end, just
as it did for Jesus in the wilderness, but we are wise to allow the discipline
of following Spirit’s leading to teach us more of God’s ways and shape us more
like Christ.

2. The Discipline of
Self-Denial
If there’s one thing we associate Lent with, it’s giving up something for the
forty days. Last year, we invited a couple of families around one day and got
out our chocolate fountain. It was agony for some of the girls, who had decided
to renounce chocolate for Lent!

You may have seen other initiatives publicised this Lent.
There is TEAR Fund’s Carbon Fast,
which encourages us to cut our carbon use and reduce further damage to the
climate. There is the Church of England’s Love
Life Live Lent project, with us for a second year this year. It features
booklets for children, youth and adults, suggesting a new action for each day
of Lent.

All of this comes from Jesus’ actions in the wilderness:

He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he
was famished. (Verse 2)

It wasn’t unusual for a Jew to fast. Forty days was extreme,
though. It goes close to the limits before lack of food has an irreversibly
detrimental effect on the body. Remember that those IRA hunger strikers who
died, such as Bobby Sands, fasted for fifty or sixty days. Why does Jesus do
it?

As I explained in a couple of school assemblies this week,
Jesus shows us a Christian value of giving up something good for the sake of
something better. The ‘something better’ here is prayer. For Jesus, being in
close communion with his Father was essential throughout his life. However, here,
at the outset of his ministry, it is particularly vital. Prayer becomes more
important than food.

It also becomes a counter-cultural witness. How easy it is
to conceive of life as being about self-fulfilment. It’s an immature society where
people gratify their every desire. The other day, Rebekah has a friend come
back after school to play with her. When her father came to pick her up, he
said in all innocence, ‘They’re having fun. That’s what we’re all here for, isn’t
it?’

Psychologists tell us that the ability to defer personal
gratification is a sign of maturity. Those that can’t do this are not grown-up
people. On that basis, we have developed a whole culture of adolescence – we have
adolescents of every age!

On a purely human level, this is of course what Fabio
Capello knew in imposing a disciplined approach in his management of the
England football team. A group of people whose lifestyle affords them every
opportunity for self-indulgence run grave risks of undermining the very skills
that have earned them their outrageous wages in the first place. In the
sporting arena, Capello knew that success would require self-denial.

So it is for us, too. I’ve just started a Lent course at
Broomfield where we are studying the DVD version of John Ortberg’s book If
You Want To Walk On Water, You’ve Got To Get Out Of The Boat. In the first
session, he makes an important point: Christians have to choose between comfort
and growth. If we opt for comfort, we shall not grow spiritually. If we are
committed to growth, we shall have to become uncomfortable in all sorts of
ways. Self-denial will be required.

Is God, then, calling us to give up something, not so that
we might be miserable, but rather because he is training us for something
better? Is God calling us to the discipline of denying ourselves in some area
so that something better might happen for his kingdom? If that is the case,
then there is real incentive for the discipline of self-denial.

3. The Discipline of
the Scriptures
When the pressure is on, Jesus responds the same way every time to the tempter.
He answers each of the three temptations in the same way: ‘It is written’
(verses 4, 7 and 10). He dismisses every temptation with Scripture.

And it’s not merely a case of Jesus shooting back a
proof-text. In the second temptation, where he is tempted to throw himself off
the Temple, it’s as if the devil has become wise to this, because he quotes the
Bible, too. I can remember a radio phone-in presenter banning his callers from
quoting the Bible, because he said people could quote it to support any
position. The devil treats Scripture like that.

But Jesus doesn’t. He can dismiss the temptation with more
Scripture, because he knows his Bible better. He knows the big story of
Scripture, the story of God, his ways and his character. In fact, every time
that Jesus fires back a verse at the devil in this story, each quotation comes
from the same part of the Bible. They all come from Deuteronomy, and the
account of Israel’s forty years in the wilderness. Clearly, Jesus sees great
significance in that for his forty days in the desert.

Ah, you say, but Jesus was the Son of God. He knew the
Scriptures because he was deity. We’re not like that. However, wait a minute –
remember his humanity. Remember that Jesus conducted his ministry as a man
acting in the power of the Spirit. Without that, he couldn’t be our example for
living. And as a human being, a Jew of two thousand years ago in Palestine, he
would have gone as a boy to synagogue school. From an early age, Jesus was
steeped in the Scriptures.

I see Jesus, then, as someone who had engaged in a
disciplined reflection on the Scriptures. He read them, meditated on them and
prayed them. It was as if they became woven around him like a garment. For years
before this event in the wilderness, Jesus has engaged in the discipline of
Scripture. It is stored up in his life.

I have taken to comparing this to the Old Testament story of
Joseph in Egypt. You will recall that when he becomes Pharaoh’s trusted
adviser, he institutes a policy where during the seven years of plenty, grain
is stored ready for the seven lean years. In a similar way, the discipline of
Scripture is one where we store up the goodness of God’s Word, ready for the
lean or wilderness times. When we hit a crisis, God may graciously direct us to
some Scripture that will help us. But I believe his best for us is that we immerse
ourselves in the biblical material now, before the crisis hits.

So how do we come to the Bible helpfully? I recently found
some helpful
and challenging words from an American Methodist, William Willimon[1].
He says we can’t just come to Scripture, condemning it for where it doesn’t
meet our preconceived ideas. For example, how can we condemn it for being
violent when our society is extremely violent (just not always in front of our
eyes)? We spot what we think are cultural limitations in the Bible, such as
where we think it is sexist or racist, but we are blind to our own. Our big
mistake is in trying to conform the Bible to our view of the world. Here are a few
sentences from Willimon:

Scripture is an attempt to construct a new world, to stoke,
fund and fuel our imaginations. The Bible is an ongoing debate about what is
real and who is in charge and where we’re all headed. So the person who emerged
from church one Sunday (after one of my most biblical sermons, too!),
muttering, “That’s the trouble with you preachers. You just never speak to
anything that relates to my world,” makes a good point.

To which the Bible replies, “How on earth did you get the idea that I want to
speak to your world? I want to rock, remake, deconstruct and rework your
world!”

…

Thus when we read Scripture, we’re not simply to ask, “Does
this make sense to me?” or “How can I use this to make my life less miserable?”
but rather we are to ask in Wesleyan fashion, “How would I have to be changed
in order to make this Scripture work?” Every text is a potential invitation to
conversion, transformation, and growth in grace.

So a true discipline of Scripture shapes us. We are thus ‘in
shape’ to face the wilderness and temptation, whenever they occur. That discipline
of Scripture becomes our primary way of disciplined listening to the Spirit,
thus leading – amongst other things – to the discipline of self-denial. In all
these disciplines, we become fitter, more trained for the battle against evil,
in which victory is already assured – because of Christ’s obedience, even to
death on a cross.

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

0

Sunday’s Sermon: Lenten Discipline

Matthew
4:1-11

Introduction
Fabio Capello made an impression when he got his England football squad
together at the beginning of the week, prior to the friendly match with
Switzerland on Wednesday. There was a new régime at work. The players weren’t
allowed their mobile phones, games consoles or iPods. Capello referred to them
by surname. They had to wear uniform. They were to sit down for meals together,
and leave together. No wonder that highly intellectual player Rio Ferdinand
astutely observed that it was like being back at school.

Capello has instilled a culture of discipline. And discipline
is central to our thinking, now that we have entered Lent. Much as I like
three-point sermons, I’m not going to look at the three temptations Jesus faced
in the wilderness. Instead, I want to look at the disciplines Jesus employed. Although
there are many spiritual disciplines, coincidentally I find three in this
story.

1. The Discipline of
the Spirit
At the risk of alienating the sport-haters even more, let me tell a story not
about football but about that even more wonderful game, cricket. It was the
only sport I was ever remotely good at playing. I was a left-arm bowler (seam
and spin – I’ve always been indecisive!), and a specialist number eleven
batsman. When I fielded, I liked to be close behind the batsman, in the slips. There
were two reasons for this: one was that in that position, you didn’t have time
to be scared if the ball came hard and fast. The other was that if I was a long
way from the bat, on the boundary, I didn’t have a strong throw to get the ball
back to the wicket-keeper. Yet there was one time when I was playing for my
primary school in a tournament when I was fielding on the boundary. I remember
hurling the ball back as best as I could to the wicket-keeper, and our teacher
called out, ‘Good throw, David F!’ I didn’t think it was a good throw, but he
did.

What does that have to do with Lent disciplines and the Holy
Spirit? Bear with me for a moment. Our story begins with these words:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted by the devil. (Verse 1)

‘Led by the Spirit’? Many Christians talk about feeling they
are being led by the Spirit. They feel led by the Spirit to serve God in Outer
Mongolia, the inner city or leafy Surrey. They feel led by the Spirit to change
job, marry a beautiful blonde, move church, or buy a Mars bar. They feel led by
the Spirit to tell you something.

But the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. There’s
nothing warm and fuzzy about it. He has just had an amazing experience of the
Spirit descending on him at his baptism – a spiritual ‘high’ if ever there was
one – and now he is led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

What does it have to do with throwing a cricket ball? Simply
this: ‘led by the Spirit’ is altogether too twee a translation. The Greek
means, ‘Jesus was thrown out by the Spirit.’ Ekballo is the Greek verb: ‘ek’, meaning ‘out of’, and ‘ballo’, to
throw, from which we get our word ball. The Holy Spirit hurls Jesus into the
wilderness.

There’s a lot of traditional ‘led by the Spirit’ language
that I approve of. I do believe the Holy Spirit leads people to share insights
with others that the speaker couldn’t otherwise have known would be helpful to
the hearer. I do believe the Holy Spirit does remarkable works of power that
transform lives for the better. I believe all that stuff. But I also believe
the Spirit leads us into the tough places, the wildernesses of our lives and
this world, just as Jesus was led. It is therefore a Christian discipline to
listen to the Spirit’s promptings, even if they are uncomfortable.

So is there an area of life where you felt led by the Spirit,
perhaps forcefully, but where you are unhappy or at least uneasy? It might be a
job, family situation or something to do with church. It’s easy to want to run
away sometimes, but if the Spirit has thrown us into such an environment, then
escape should not be our first option. The season may well come to an end, just
as it did for Jesus in the wilderness, but we are wise to allow the discipline
of following Spirit’s leading to teach us more of God’s ways and shape us more
like Christ.

2. The Discipline of
Self-Denial
If there’s one thing we associate Lent with, it’s giving up something for the
forty days. Last year, we invited a couple of families around one day and got
out our chocolate fountain. It was agony for some of the girls, who had decided
to renounce chocolate for Lent!

You may have seen other initiatives publicised this Lent.
There is TEAR Fund’s Carbon Fast,
which encourages us to cut our carbon use and reduce further damage to the
climate. There is the Church of England’s Love
Life Live Lent project, with us for a second year this year. It features
booklets for children, youth and adults, suggesting a new action for each day
of Lent.

All of this comes from Jesus’ actions in the wilderness:

He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he
was famished. (Verse 2)

It wasn’t unusual for a Jew to fast. Forty days was extreme,
though. It goes close to the limits before lack of food has an irreversibly
detrimental effect on the body. Remember that those IRA hunger strikers who
died, such as Bobby Sands, fasted for fifty or sixty days. Why does Jesus do
it?

As I explained in a couple of school assemblies this week,
Jesus shows us a Christian value of giving up something good for the sake of
something better. The ‘something better’ here is prayer. For Jesus, being in
close communion with his Father was essential throughout his life. However, here,
at the outset of his ministry, it is particularly vital. Prayer becomes more
important than food.

It also becomes a counter-cultural witness. How easy it is
to conceive of life as being about self-fulfilment. It’s an immature society where
people gratify their every desire. The other day, Rebekah has a friend come
back after school to play with her. When her father came to pick her up, he
said in all innocence, ‘They’re having fun. That’s what we’re all here for, isn’t
it?’

Psychologists tell us that the ability to defer personal
gratification is a sign of maturity. Those that can’t do this are not grown-up
people. On that basis, we have developed a whole culture of adolescence – we have
adolescents of every age!

On a purely human level, this is of course what Fabio
Capello knew in imposing a disciplined approach in his management of the
England football team. A group of people whose lifestyle affords them every
opportunity for self-indulgence run grave risks of undermining the very skills
that have earned them their outrageous wages in the first place. In the
sporting arena, Capello knew that success would require self-denial.

So it is for us, too. I’ve just started a Lent course at
Broomfield where we are studying the DVD version of John Ortberg’s book If
You Want To Walk On Water, You’ve Got To Get Out Of The Boat. In the first
session, he makes an important point: Christians have to choose between comfort
and growth. If we opt for comfort, we shall not grow spiritually. If we are
committed to growth, we shall have to become uncomfortable in all sorts of
ways. Self-denial will be required.

Is God, then, calling us to give up something, not so that
we might be miserable, but rather because he is training us for something
better? Is God calling us to the discipline of denying ourselves in some area
so that something better might happen for his kingdom? If that is the case,
then there is real incentive for the discipline of self-denial.

3. The Discipline of
the Scriptures
When the pressure is on, Jesus responds the same way every time to the tempter.
He answers each of the three temptations in the same way: ‘It is written’
(verses 4, 7 and 10). He dismisses every temptation with Scripture.

And it’s not merely a case of Jesus shooting back a
proof-text. In the second temptation, where he is tempted to throw himself off
the Temple, it’s as if the devil has become wise to this, because he quotes the
Bible, too. I can remember a radio phone-in presenter banning his callers from
quoting the Bible, because he said people could quote it to support any
position. The devil treats Scripture like that.

But Jesus doesn’t. He can dismiss the temptation with more
Scripture, because he knows his Bible better. He knows the big story of
Scripture, the story of God, his ways and his character. In fact, every time
that Jesus fires back a verse at the devil in this story, each quotation comes
from the same part of the Bible. They all come from Deuteronomy, and the
account of Israel’s forty years in the wilderness. Clearly, Jesus sees great
significance in that for his forty days in the desert.

Ah, you say, but Jesus was the Son of God. He knew the
Scriptures because he was deity. We’re not like that. However, wait a minute –
remember his humanity. Remember that Jesus conducted his ministry as a man
acting in the power of the Spirit. Without that, he couldn’t be our example for
living. And as a human being, a Jew of two thousand years ago in Palestine, he
would have gone as a boy to synagogue school. From an early age, Jesus was
steeped in the Scriptures.

I see Jesus, then, as someone who had engaged in a
disciplined reflection on the Scriptures. He read them, meditated on them and
prayed them. It was as if they became woven around him like a garment. For years
before this event in the wilderness, Jesus has engaged in the discipline of
Scripture. It is stored up in his life.

I have taken to comparing this to the Old Testament story of
Joseph in Egypt. You will recall that when he becomes Pharaoh’s trusted
adviser, he institutes a policy where during the seven years of plenty, grain
is stored ready for the seven lean years. In a similar way, the discipline of
Scripture is one where we store up the goodness of God’s Word, ready for the
lean or wilderness times. When we hit a crisis, God may graciously direct us to
some Scripture that will help us. But I believe his best for us is that we immerse
ourselves in the biblical material now, before the crisis hits.

So how do we come to the Bible helpfully? I recently found
some helpful
and challenging words from an American Methodist, William Willimon[1].
He says we can’t just come to Scripture, condemning it for where it doesn’t
meet our preconceived ideas. For example, how can we condemn it for being
violent when our society is extremely violent (just not always in front of our
eyes)? We spot what we think are cultural limitations in the Bible, such as
where we think it is sexist or racist, but we are blind to our own. Our big
mistake is in trying to conform the Bible to our view of the world. Here are a few
sentences from Willimon:

Scripture is an attempt to construct a new world, to stoke,
fund and fuel our imaginations. The Bible is an ongoing debate about what is
real and who is in charge and where we’re all headed. So the person who emerged
from church one Sunday (after one of my most biblical sermons, too!),
muttering, “That’s the trouble with you preachers. You just never speak to
anything that relates to my world,” makes a good point.

To which the Bible replies, “How on earth did you get the idea that I want to
speak to your world? I want to rock, remake, deconstruct and rework your
world!”

…

Thus when we read Scripture, we’re not simply to ask, “Does
this make sense to me?” or “How can I use this to make my life less miserable?”
but rather we are to ask in Wesleyan fashion, “How would I have to be changed
in order to make this Scripture work?” Every text is a potential invitation to
conversion, transformation, and growth in grace.

So a true discipline of Scripture shapes us. We are thus ‘in
shape’ to face the wilderness and temptation, whenever they occur. That discipline
of Scripture becomes our primary way of disciplined listening to the Spirit,
thus leading – amongst other things – to the discipline of self-denial. In all
these disciplines, we become fitter, more trained for the battle against evil,
in which victory is already assured – because of Christ’s obedience, even to
death on a cross.

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0

Revival

Kingdom Grace has a serious
post on false prophecies of revival. There was also a humorous (but so
close to the truth) piece on Lark News last month, entitled Holy Ghost
neglects to turn up at revival. Both have prompted lingering thoughts about
my past involvement in revival and prayer movements to come more to the surface.
I have also been recounting how my thinking has developed on beyond those
movements.

In the mid-1990s, the ‘Toronto Blessing’ profoundly affected
me for the better. God did something through that to put me back together after
a broken engagement and prolonged spiritual abuse. I’m not saying he couldn’t
have chosen other vehicles, but what he used was the TB.

That movement got connected in with revivalist tendencies.
Before the Vineyard movement disfellowshipped the Toronto
Airport church around late 1995, John Wimber had apparently (and wrongly)
prophesied imminent revival at some meetings in London. To go to Toronto was to
encounter all sorts of people, and a church hooked on Zionist eschatology (not
central to Vineyard theology, in my understanding). I preached about revival,
expecting it, although I hope not falsely prophesying it. Nicky Gumbel of the
pro-Toronto Holy Trinity Brompton had a
book out around this time on the subject that influenced me.

In 1997 came Princess Diana’s death and the ‘Diana
prophecy’, where God was said to be moving in the UK faster than the
flowers were being cleared from the streets (a prophecy that was partly given
before Diana died, you may recall). Excitement increased. Surely, we were on
the brink of something big spiritually in the UK. But we didn’t see anything
that looked like revival, not even something that was a new manifestation or
interpretation. We saw further decline.

Around this time, Medway Celebrate was launched in
the Medway Towns, where I was now serving as a minister. I was invited to join
the team. I hadn’t appreciated when joining just how committed it was to the
spiritual warfare approach of Ed Silvoso
and concomitant controversial beliefs in ‘territorial spirits’.
There was much talk of unity in prayer to bring revival, reading of Elijah List
prophecies and networking with other prayer networks in the Thames Gateway and M25 areas. I’d
hate to suggest it was all bad: far from it. Christians came together across
boundaries. There was some fine worship. Silvoso was strong on encouraging
Christians to bless non-Christians, rather than curse them. I made many fine
and caring friends in the Celebrate team. However, the governing theology was
one where everything had to be prayed in, there was little about concrete
action.

One day, a then-local Baptist pastor called Darren Blaney did the
ten-minute preach at Celebrate (it was a midweek lunchtime meeting). Darren
spoke from Acts chapter 1, if I remember. His question was what do we do while
revival isn’t here. I don’t recall specifics, only that it was brave and
honest.

In 2002, I went back to my first church in Hertford to take
Church Anniversary. I was led to Jeremiah 29 as my text, the prophet’s letter
to the exiles. It has become one of my fundamental texts since then. Since
then, my preaching seems to have been preparing people for exile rather than
revival. Surely, Christians in the West are in some kind of exile. For all the
talk of revival, it isn’t here (yet?). We currently have to live as exiles, and
yet the prayer and revival movements rarely help people with that. And what if
God opted for exile, rather than revival? Or what if the revival were to come in
many decades’ time, as it did for Judah? What if, when it happened, the return
was patchy, and in dribs and drabs, sometimes half-hearted, like the return
from Babylonian exile? What do we do for people with shattered dreams? These
are not questions from a lack of faith: they stem from pastoral necessity and
honesty.

So do I want to ditch all the prayer and revival talk? Not
entirely, actually. A friend of mine called Linda Ashford introduced me to
a prayer movement she was involved in. She called it ‘Picking up the baton’. It
started with a year of prayer for the counties of East and West Sussex, with a
view to it spreading, county by county, and right up to the Orkneys. She quoted
a maxim of Steve Chalke’s, that
Christians should be about ‘intimacy and involvement’ – intimacy meaning prayer
and worship, involvement meaning getting our hands dirty in the community. I’m
interested in a prayer and action movement. I’m interested in one that won’t go
‘pop’ like a balloon if revival isn’t around the corner. We’re here for the
long haul, not the quick fix.

Actually, it’s not just about the quick fix, malevolent as
that is in an instant society. I also believe the yearning for revival is about
us wanting to feel significant, not just going through a ‘day of small things.’
We’d like to feel that we are part of a defining epoch in history, where God
does amazing things, that people will write about us, or at least our generation,
in years to come. We know we don’t belong on the pages of the closed canon of
Scripture, but we’d like to be the cause of much ink in future church
histories. It’s closely allied to the interest in the prophetic – not just
because there are prophecies of revival (it’s been around the corner since the
mid-1990s, but still hasn’t come) – but because a certain understanding of
prophecy would make it feel like Big Things are happening before our eyes. Some
of that most unhealthy trend, Christian Zionism, is undoubtedly infected in
that way.

At the same time, I want to keep the prayer element central.
I’ve had enough of prayerless action movements in the church, too, or social
action Christianity whose contribution to prayer and worship is liturgies of
the hectoring and lecturing variety.

And I’m not ditching the ‘gifts of the Spirit’, either.
Along with some of the post-charismatic bloggers such as Kingdom Grace, RobbyMac, Jamie Arpin-Ricci and Brother Maynard, I still
see a strong and important place for them. However, as Kingdom Grace says in
her post Temple
Tantrum, there is a place for them being exercised quietly and humbly,
without people having to build up a platform ministry and a following to
generate income for themselves. (Whether I count as post-charismatic, I don’t
know; I await the publication of RobbyMac’s
book in April, but maybe labels aren’t the biggest thing to worry about.)

Somewhere in all this, charismatic and Pentecostal
Christianity needs a radical reimagining. The hype and lust for sensationalism
have been the toxins infecting the living water. Movements that have recovered
something authentically biblical in the area of spiritual gifts (but which have
sometimes arrogantly called themselves ‘Full Gospel’, as if they had a complete
handle on the truth) have not always matched these with other critical biblical
values, such as humility, servanthood and sacrifice. The failure to marry gifts
of power with godly hearts has been catastrophic.

Prophecies have been given during this period of heightened
expectation for revival that anonymous people would lead a new move of God.
These are the prophecies that have the most authentic ring of truth to me. They
have not been taken seriously, in my estimation. People have latched onto the
‘new move of God’ bit, but neglected the ‘anonymous people’ component. Too much
is at stake. We ape the world in the creation of our superstars – who, although
they resemble large fish in a small pond, nevertheless do quite nicely out of
it. Some of the superstars would lose their meal tickets.

Like congregations who don’t show up on Good Friday but cram
the building on Easter Day, Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity needs to dwell
at the Cross. Not only so that we can repeat evangelical mantras about Jesus
dying for the sins of the world (much as I emphatically believe that), but so
that our lifestyles may be reshaped, in order that we might truly live, and
bear the life of Christ to a needy world. Then – with a combination of
‘intimacy and involvement’ – we might see more remaking of a broken society,
just as the revivalist tendencies long for.

All this is basic Christianity. It’s Luther’s theologia crucis writ large. I find it
frightening that we so need to come back to basics (if I dare use that
tarnished expression). However, it is a recovery of Cross-centred basics that
will enable us to live in exile and work for any revival God might be pleased
to grant.

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5

On Routine Pastoral Visiting

Last week’s Leadership Journal email contained links to two articles on this theme, but with contrasting titles: “Unproductive” Visits by Scott Penner and Effective Hospital Visits by Chris Blumhofer. That contrast between ‘unproductive’ and ‘effective’ comes close for ministers sometimes. We want our visits to be effective, but often they feel unproductive.

For someone like me, a constitutional introvert, the way in which many visits centre on small talk (which is not one of my strong suits) rather than God revealing a way through a pastoral problem can be difficult. The thought of pastoral visiting and bearing the load of people’s problems put me off candidating for the ministry for a long time. A course in Pastoral Counselling had taken my fears away. Unfortunately, I have found in ministry that few visits are like that. Rarely is there the pulse-racing sense of God at work in the visit. They are, well, ordinary. Humdrum, if you will. I hope it’s not that I want to be a hero, riding with the cavalry across the brow of the hill. But I do want to witness the Holy Spirit’s work.

Yet I have discovered that from time to time God is at work in the ‘ordinary’ visit. Sometimes, however, we only know that in retrospect. Here is a story about one such example.

Two weeks ago, Rosemary died. All the time I have known her, she had been in the advanced stages of that most wicked condition, Alzheimer’s Disease. The first time I visited her in the home, I knew it was going to be hard. I tried talking to her about the photographs and mementoes that surrounded her. There was no reaction, except that she kept repeating two words: ‘Mum’ and ‘money.’

It was a difficult call for me to know when to end the visit. I talked about as much as I could. I told her news about people in the church. I spent some time in silence – well, my silence, while Rosemary continued saying ‘Mum’ and ‘money.’ It was a balance between feeling the visit was worthwhile, and not feeling that I was trying to escape quickly from an awkward situation. So eventually, I told her I was going to leave. But could I pray with her before I went?

Out of nowhere came the words, ‘Of course you can, love.’

I prayed, and she was quiet. Once I concluded the prayer, back came ‘Mum’ and ‘money.’ But for a couple of special minutes, the original Rosemary – whom I had never known – peered out from under the blanket of dementia.

Last Tuesday, I had the privilege of conducting her funeral. I told this story. It was a comfort to the relatives and friends. It even brought a laugh on a sad occasion. One flash of grace from a difficult visit a couple of years ago ministered peace to people last week. Yes, God had been at work in a ‘routine’ visit.

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10

War

I’ve just finished reading Meic Pearse’s brilliant book The Gods Of War: Is Religion The Primary Cause of Violent Conflict? I’m not posting a review here, because my copy is a review copy for Ministry Today, and eventually my overall thoughts will appear there. In the meantime, I found that two aspects of Pearse’s argument chimed with stories from my past.

Firstly, he argues that Christians may not fight to defend their faith, only die for it. However, they may go to war to defend the weak. (He sees this as a middle line between the just war and pacifist positions, both of which he regards as indefensible.) It reminded me of a fellow student at Trinity College, Bristol. John Njoroge was in the same year as me. He was an Anglican priest from Kenya, and a member of the Kikuyu tribe (which makes this reference poignant in the light of current events). John argued that he would never fight back if he were mocked or attacked for his faith, but he would if he were attacked for being a black man. Was he right?

Secondly, Pearse argues that the greatest threat to peace today comes from western secular liberal democracies, who force their views on other cultures, which are often of a more traditional and hence religious nature. The war is waged not only with armies, but with globalised economics, the media and slanted political treaties (you can only join the EU or receive this aid if you implement certain policies on sexual issues such as abortion and homosexuality). This made me think I wasn’t so far off the mark when I wrote an article on my old website in the summer of 2003, in which I argued that the real reasons Tony Blair went to war over Iraq was to protect the liberal consumerist democracy so central to postmodern culture. Although critics tied Blair and Bush together on religious grounds, their expression of Christianity is vastly different – Blair more liberal, Bush more conservative. But both wanted to protect consumerism. Remember Bush’s infamous call in the wake of 9/11 that people support America by going shopping. Is postmodernism fundamentally violent? Any thoughts?

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0

Tomorrow’s Sermon: The Mount Of Transfiguration

Matthew
17:1-9

Introduction
According to OFSTED, the standard of
Geography in our schools is in decline.
This week’s Essex Chronicle interviewed
local people about this. Less than a quarter knew that the largest ocean in
the world is the Pacific. One third didn’t know that Everest was the highest
mountain on earth, and half didn’t know that the mountain range in which
Everest is situated is the Himalayas.

All of which brings us to the Mount of Transfiguration. Nine
of Jesus’ apostles didn’t make it to the Mount of Transfiguration. Only three
did. That tells you this incident was special, just as the same three
accompanied Jesus in Gethsemane.

And the fact that the incident happens on a mountain also
tells us this is important. Whenever Jesus climbs a mountain in Matthew’s
Gospel, it is a sign to pay particular attention. The words or deeds that
follow will be significant.

So it’s no surprise that when the voice from heaven speaks
here, it ends with the words, ‘listen to him’ (verse 5). You always encounter
the authority of Jesus on mountains in Matthew – from the Sermon on the Mount
(chapters 5-7), to mountain after the Resurrection where he gives the Great
Commission (28:16-20).

Peter and the others certainly need to be reminded about the
authority of Jesus here. Sometimes we do, too. We slip, we compromise and we
dilute our allegiance to Jesus. Peter also needed encouragement for the
difficult task of obeying Jesus. I suggest we do, too. All these things – the challenges
and the encouragement – we find on the Mount of Transfiguration.

1. Heroes
Peter’s first mistake is this. When Elijah and Moses appear, he equates Jesus
with them. He needs to hear that it is Jesus to whom he should listen. He needs
to look up with his friends at the end of the experience and only see Jesus. I
think he’s gone in for a spot of hero worship.

The Christian Church has been altogether too good at
creating personality cults, where we elevate people to a status close to that
of Christ. It isn’t just the Catholic veneration of Mary or loyalty to the
Pope. Protestants are just as good at this trick. Some Christians hang on every
word of church leaders they admire. Listen to members of some congregations
talk about how good life was when so-and-so was the minister, and you’re
dangerously close to a personality cult where people depend on a talented
leader, instead of trusting in Christ.

Is it possible that we do something similar? Here is an
example.

For all the modern hymns and worship songs I pick for
services, it may surprise you to know that I love Charles Wesley’s writing. I
have a problem with some of the tunes allocated to them: I sometimes wonder
whether the compilers of Hymns and Psalms had done a sponsorship deal with the
manufacturers of Prozac. There seems no other explanation for the preponderance
of dull tunes in the book.

However, I have a problem sometimes with people who defend
Wesley’s hymns against other developments in worship. I encountered this in my
first circuit. Some people were quite virulent about my expansion of the
worship repertoire. When pressed to defend the Wesley hymns, it was on the
grounds of superior poetry and musicality. I don’t deny these are important,
but they never mentioned the doctrines Wesley wrote about – doctrines he had
experienced. None of his staunch defenders alluded to sharing in his spiritual
experience.

If only they had, I think they might have behaved
differently. They made Wesley into a kind of hero that he would have abhorred.
They applauded the style of his faith, but not the substance. They were the
least likely to be sharing their faith with others and pursuing holiness of
life.

No – Charles Wesley, and I am sure, John, too – would have
been horrified by the Wesleyolatry that has plagued parts of the Methodist
tradition since their death. They would have been far more likely to urge us in
the way Paul pleaded with some of those to whom he wrote, ‘Follow me as I
follow Christ.’

That is the message of the Transfiguration, too. ‘Listen to
him.’ Jesus is transfigured, not
Moses or Elijah. It isn’t that we should discard Moses or Elijah. But disciples
should follow them in their pointing to Christ.

Who have we made our hero alongside Christ, or maybe even
instead of him? The voice from heaven tells us to get our priorities straight:
‘Listen to him.’

2. Museums
One area of continuity when we moved here in 2005 was to find ourselves living
on the Dickens Estate. You will know that the roads on our estate are named
after Dickens characters and places: Copperfield, Nickleby, Quilp, Barnaby
Rudge, Flintwich Manor and so on.

The continuity was in having come from an area, the Medway
Towns, which had strong links with Charles Dickens himself. Dickens lived in
the Rochester area for some of his life. Every year, the council there makes
some money out of this – sorry, celebrates this – in two ways. There is a
Dickensian Christmas weekend to get you shopping in the area. In addition,
there is a Dickens
Festival in June. Not only that, a large area of the former Chatham
Dockyard (now known as Chatham Maritime) has been given over to Dickens World, which is a museum and
theme park based on the man, his life and literature. They’ll fleece you for
£12.50 before letting you in through the turnstiles.

Could it be that in his confusion and fear Peter tries to
commemorate the Transfiguration with his own little museum or theme park? He
blurts out a half-witted idea to make three dwellings – one for Jesus, one for
Moses and one for Elijah. I’m not suggesting he wanted to exploit it
commercially in the way the memory of Charles Dickens is in Kent. But he wants
to put up buildings to mark the spot and celebrate this little bit of history.

Is there anything wrong with that? Why does the voice from
heaven interrupt him while he is jabbering on? Come back to the Dickens
Festival in Rochester for a story, because I think it might be a way into the
dilemma.

For all his flaws, you can be sure of one admirable quality
about Charles Dickens: he cared about the poor. His novels campaigned against
the social injustices of his day. If you were going to celebrate Dickens,
wouldn’t it be appropriate to do so by helping the poor, rather than bowing down
at the temple of consumerism?

Well, at the Dickens Festival, many people would dress up in
the costume of the day, perhaps pretending to be a particular character. In our
last year there, I watched costumed visitors walk past Big Issue sellers,
pretending they weren’t there, and with little appreciation of the sick irony
that they who were celebrating Dickens did not share his care for the poor.

Now do you see the problem? The commemoration and
celebration of the Transfiguration that the Father’s voice from heaven calls
for is to ‘listen to him’. Yet we can turn church into a museum, and I don’t
simply mean when a church closes and the circuit sells the premises. Many of
our congregations are living, flesh and blood museums. We can preserve things
how they were. We can go through the motions. We can honour the traditions of
our ancestors. However, if all we have is the style without the substance, then
we’ve tried to build three dwellings, like Peter.

So – if we really are steeped in the Methodist tradition of
Christianity – do we truly believe that every single person needs salvation in
Christ? Do we believe it’s possible for anyone to find the love of God in
Christ? Do we believe it’s the birthright of all disciples to have such peace
in our hearts that we know we belong to Christ, and that it isn’t arrogant to
claim this? Are we optimistic about how much more the Holy Spirit can change us
into the likeness of Christ? If we do believe these things – if we will let the
Spirit of God ignite such faith in our hearts – then our churches will not be
museums.

3. Dazzle
It’s not only the appearance of the long-dead Moses and Elijah that turns Peter
and his friends into three lumps of jelly, it’s what happens to Jesus himself –
the very act of transfiguration. His face shines like the sun and his clothes
become dazzling white. Here we have special effects to make both Hollywood
movie directors and washing powder manufacturers jealous.

And there are certain parts of the Christian church that go
in for the razzle-dazzle and the glamour. Certain TV evangelists even dress
entirely in white suits. It goes with the image, along with the private jet,
the luxury home and the security guards – just like Jesus, don’t you think?

The question arises, why does Jesus go through this
experience? In addition, why does the voice from heaven speak, not only with
the words ‘Listen to him’ that we have already discussed, but also with
repetition of words from his baptism – ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I
am well pleased’ (verse 5)? Should I order my Mercedes now?

Yes. Er – only kidding. In fact, the Transfiguration is
linked profoundly with the suffering
of Jesus. It comes after Jesus has revealed his identity as Messiah at Caesarea
Philippi, prophesied his suffering and warned his disciples that anyone who
follows him must embrace rejection, suffering and even perhaps death. The
Transfiguration is not an escape from that destiny. It is God’s affirmation of
his Son’s obedience.

What will sustain Jesus as he resolutely travels to
Jerusalem and the Cross? It is knowing that he is the Son of God, and that the
Father loves him. ‘This is my Son, the Beloved’, says the voice. Accompany that
with such an encounter with the Father that his face shines and his clothes
dazzle, and you get some sense that God the Father affirms and encourages Jesus
by deed and word here. Has Jesus forgotten who he is? Does he need reminding of
the Father’s love? No. However, an underlining gives him strength and
encouragement.

If Jesus needed that, then how much more do we? He is Son of
God in a unique way. We are sons and daughters of God by adoption. We are not
divine. However, what is the effect of hearing that voice, affirming that we
are the Father’s children? What does it do for us to know that the Father loves
us? Is it not the foundation we need to live the daring and sacrificial life of
faith?

I only remember one sermon from the weekly communion
services at college during my three years in Bristol. The preacher was Tom Smail.
He preached on the baptism of Jesus, and picked out those similar words: ‘This
is my Son, the Beloved’. He used these words to remind us how God saw us – as
beloved children. I have never forgotten this. When I waver, I go back to this
truth.

Likewise, I remember one main insight from my Ethics tutor.
We were talking about vocation. He described how the traditional Catholic view
had been to confine vocation to the priesthood, the monastery or the nunnery.
The Reformation expanded it to include ‘ordinary’ jobs. But that wasn’t radical
enough, he said. Our most fundamental vocation is not to do, but to be – to be
children of God.

When you know you are a child of God, and when you know the
Father loves you, you have inner resources that are the strongest of
foundations when the storms of life come. The life of faith will bring
challenges aplenty. We can walk into them, knowing the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ loves us for eternity. We can ‘listen to him’, and set out on the
challenges of discipleship.

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0

Tomorrow’s Sermon: The Mount Of Transfiguration

Matthew
17:1-9

Introduction
According to OFSTED, the standard of
Geography in our schools is in decline.
This week’s Essex Chronicle interviewed
local people about this. Less than a quarter knew that the largest ocean in
the world is the Pacific. One third didn’t know that Everest was the highest
mountain on earth, and half didn’t know that the mountain range in which
Everest is situated is the Himalayas.

All of which brings us to the Mount of Transfiguration. Nine
of Jesus’ apostles didn’t make it to the Mount of Transfiguration. Only three
did. That tells you this incident was special, just as the same three
accompanied Jesus in Gethsemane.

And the fact that the incident happens on a mountain also
tells us this is important. Whenever Jesus climbs a mountain in Matthew’s
Gospel, it is a sign to pay particular attention. The words or deeds that
follow will be significant.

So it’s no surprise that when the voice from heaven speaks
here, it ends with the words, ‘listen to him’ (verse 5). You always encounter
the authority of Jesus on mountains in Matthew – from the Sermon on the Mount
(chapters 5-7), to mountain after the Resurrection where he gives the Great
Commission (28:16-20).

Peter and the others certainly need to be reminded about the
authority of Jesus here. Sometimes we do, too. We slip, we compromise and we
dilute our allegiance to Jesus. Peter also needed encouragement for the
difficult task of obeying Jesus. I suggest we do, too. All these things – the challenges
and the encouragement – we find on the Mount of Transfiguration.

1. Heroes
Peter’s first mistake is this. When Elijah and Moses appear, he equates Jesus
with them. He needs to hear that it is Jesus to whom he should listen. He needs
to look up with his friends at the end of the experience and only see Jesus. I
think he’s gone in for a spot of hero worship.

The Christian Church has been altogether too good at
creating personality cults, where we elevate people to a status close to that
of Christ. It isn’t just the Catholic veneration of Mary or loyalty to the
Pope. Protestants are just as good at this trick. Some Christians hang on every
word of church leaders they admire. Listen to members of some congregations
talk about how good life was when so-and-so was the minister, and you’re
dangerously close to a personality cult where people depend on a talented
leader, instead of trusting in Christ.

Is it possible that we do something similar? Here is an
example.

For all the modern hymns and worship songs I pick for
services, it may surprise you to know that I love Charles Wesley’s writing. I
have a problem with some of the tunes allocated to them: I sometimes wonder
whether the compilers of Hymns and Psalms had done a sponsorship deal with the
manufacturers of Prozac. There seems no other explanation for the preponderance
of dull tunes in the book.

However, I have a problem sometimes with people who defend
Wesley’s hymns against other developments in worship. I encountered this in my
first circuit. Some people were quite virulent about my expansion of the
worship repertoire. When pressed to defend the Wesley hymns, it was on the
grounds of superior poetry and musicality. I don’t deny these are important,
but they never mentioned the doctrines Wesley wrote about – doctrines he had
experienced. None of his staunch defenders alluded to sharing in his spiritual
experience.

If only they had, I think they might have behaved
differently. They made Wesley into a kind of hero that he would have abhorred.
They applauded the style of his faith, but not the substance. They were the
least likely to be sharing their faith with others and pursuing holiness of
life.

No – Charles Wesley, and I am sure, John, too – would have
been horrified by the Wesleyolatry that has plagued parts of the Methodist
tradition since their death. They would have been far more likely to urge us in
the way Paul pleaded with some of those to whom he wrote, ‘Follow me as I
follow Christ.’

That is the message of the Transfiguration, too. ‘Listen to
him.’ Jesus is transfigured, not
Moses or Elijah. It isn’t that we should discard Moses or Elijah. But disciples
should follow them in their pointing to Christ.

Who have we made our hero alongside Christ, or maybe even
instead of him? The voice from heaven tells us to get our priorities straight:
‘Listen to him.’

2. Museums
One area of continuity when we moved here in 2005 was to find ourselves living
on the Dickens Estate. You will know that the roads on our estate are named
after Dickens characters and places: Copperfield, Nickleby, Quilp, Barnaby
Rudge, Flintwich Manor and so on.

The continuity was in having come from an area, the Medway
Towns, which had strong links with Charles Dickens himself. Dickens lived in
the Rochester area for some of his life. Every year, the council there makes
some money out of this – sorry, celebrates this – in two ways. There is a
Dickensian Christmas weekend to get you shopping in the area. In addition,
there is a Dickens
Festival in June. Not only that, a large area of the former Chatham
Dockyard (now known as Chatham Maritime) has been given over to Dickens World, which is a museum and
theme park based on the man, his life and literature. They’ll fleece you for
£12.50 before letting you in through the turnstiles.

Could it be that in his confusion and fear Peter tries to
commemorate the Transfiguration with his own little museum or theme park? He
blurts out a half-witted idea to make three dwellings – one for Jesus, one for
Moses and one for Elijah. I’m not suggesting he wanted to exploit it
commercially in the way the memory of Charles Dickens is in Kent. But he wants
to put up buildings to mark the spot and celebrate this little bit of history.

Is there anything wrong with that? Why does the voice from
heaven interrupt him while he is jabbering on? Come back to the Dickens
Festival in Rochester for a story, because I think it might be a way into the
dilemma.

For all his flaws, you can be sure of one admirable quality
about Charles Dickens: he cared about the poor. His novels campaigned against
the social injustices of his day. If you were going to celebrate Dickens,
wouldn’t it be appropriate to do so by helping the poor, rather than bowing down
at the temple of consumerism?

Well, at the Dickens Festival, many people would dress up in
the costume of the day, perhaps pretending to be a particular character. In our
last year there, I watched costumed visitors walk past Big Issue sellers,
pretending they weren’t there, and with little appreciation of the sick irony
that they who were celebrating Dickens did not share his care for the poor.

Now do you see the problem? The commemoration and
celebration of the Transfiguration that the Father’s voice from heaven calls
for is to ‘listen to him’. Yet we can turn church into a museum, and I don’t
simply mean when a church closes and the circuit sells the premises. Many of
our congregations are living, flesh and blood museums. We can preserve things
how they were. We can go through the motions. We can honour the traditions of
our ancestors. However, if all we have is the style without the substance, then
we’ve tried to build three dwellings, like Peter.

So – if we really are steeped in the Methodist tradition of
Christianity – do we truly believe that every single person needs salvation in
Christ? Do we believe it’s possible for anyone to find the love of God in
Christ? Do we believe it’s the birthright of all disciples to have such peace
in our hearts that we know we belong to Christ, and that it isn’t arrogant to
claim this? Are we optimistic about how much more the Holy Spirit can change us
into the likeness of Christ? If we do believe these things – if we will let the
Spirit of God ignite such faith in our hearts – then our churches will not be
museums.

3. Dazzle
It’s not only the appearance of the long-dead Moses and Elijah that turns Peter
and his friends into three lumps of jelly, it’s what happens to Jesus himself –
the very act of transfiguration. His face shines like the sun and his clothes
become dazzling white. Here we have special effects to make both Hollywood
movie directors and washing powder manufacturers jealous.

And there are certain parts of the Christian church that go
in for the razzle-dazzle and the glamour. Certain TV evangelists even dress
entirely in white suits. It goes with the image, along with the private jet,
the luxury home and the security guards – just like Jesus, don’t you think?

The question arises, why does Jesus go through this
experience? In addition, why does the voice from heaven speak, not only with
the words ‘Listen to him’ that we have already discussed, but also with
repetition of words from his baptism – ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I
am well pleased’ (verse 5)? Should I order my Mercedes now?

Yes. Er – only kidding. In fact, the Transfiguration is
linked profoundly with the suffering
of Jesus. It comes after Jesus has revealed his identity as Messiah at Caesarea
Philippi, prophesied his suffering and warned his disciples that anyone who
follows him must embrace rejection, suffering and even perhaps death. The
Transfiguration is not an escape from that destiny. It is God’s affirmation of
his Son’s obedience.

What will sustain Jesus as he resolutely travels to
Jerusalem and the Cross? It is knowing that he is the Son of God, and that the
Father loves him. ‘This is my Son, the Beloved’, says the voice. Accompany that
with such an encounter with the Father that his face shines and his clothes
dazzle, and you get some sense that God the Father affirms and encourages Jesus
by deed and word here. Has Jesus forgotten who he is? Does he need reminding of
the Father’s love? No. However, an underlining gives him strength and
encouragement.

If Jesus needed that, then how much more do we? He is Son of
God in a unique way. We are sons and daughters of God by adoption. We are not
divine. However, what is the effect of hearing that voice, affirming that we
are the Father’s children? What does it do for us to know that the Father loves
us? Is it not the foundation we need to live the daring and sacrificial life of
faith?

I only remember one sermon from the weekly communion
services at college during my three years in Bristol. The preacher was Tom Smail.
He preached on the baptism of Jesus, and picked out those similar words: ‘This
is my Son, the Beloved’. He used these words to remind us how God saw us – as
beloved children. I have never forgotten this. When I waver, I go back to this
truth.

Likewise, I remember one main insight from my Ethics tutor.
We were talking about vocation. He described how the traditional Catholic view
had been to confine vocation to the priesthood, the monastery or the nunnery.
The Reformation expanded it to include ‘ordinary’ jobs. But that wasn’t radical
enough, he said. Our most fundamental vocation is not to do, but to be – to be
children of God.

When you know you are a child of God, and when you know the
Father loves you, you have inner resources that are the strongest of
foundations when the storms of life come. The life of faith will bring
challenges aplenty. We can walk into them, knowing the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ loves us for eternity. We can ‘listen to him’, and set out on the
challenges of discipleship.

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Tomorrow’s Sermon: The Mount Of Transfiguration

Matthew
17:1-9

Introduction
According to OFSTED, the standard of
Geography in our schools is in decline.
This week’s Essex Chronicle interviewed
local people about this. Less than a quarter knew that the largest ocean in
the world is the Pacific. One third didn’t know that Everest was the highest
mountain on earth, and half didn’t know that the mountain range in which
Everest is situated is the Himalayas.

All of which brings us to the Mount of Transfiguration. Nine
of Jesus’ apostles didn’t make it to the Mount of Transfiguration. Only three
did. That tells you this incident was special, just as the same three
accompanied Jesus in Gethsemane.

And the fact that the incident happens on a mountain also
tells us this is important. Whenever Jesus climbs a mountain in Matthew’s
Gospel, it is a sign to pay particular attention. The words or deeds that
follow will be significant.

So it’s no surprise that when the voice from heaven speaks
here, it ends with the words, ‘listen to him’ (verse 5). You always encounter
the authority of Jesus on mountains in Matthew – from the Sermon on the Mount
(chapters 5-7), to mountain after the Resurrection where he gives the Great
Commission (28:16-20).

Peter and the others certainly need to be reminded about the
authority of Jesus here. Sometimes we do, too. We slip, we compromise and we
dilute our allegiance to Jesus. Peter also needed encouragement for the
difficult task of obeying Jesus. I suggest we do, too. All these things – the challenges
and the encouragement – we find on the Mount of Transfiguration.

1. Heroes
Peter’s first mistake is this. When Elijah and Moses appear, he equates Jesus
with them. He needs to hear that it is Jesus to whom he should listen. He needs
to look up with his friends at the end of the experience and only see Jesus. I
think he’s gone in for a spot of hero worship.

The Christian Church has been altogether too good at
creating personality cults, where we elevate people to a status close to that
of Christ. It isn’t just the Catholic veneration of Mary or loyalty to the
Pope. Protestants are just as good at this trick. Some Christians hang on every
word of church leaders they admire. Listen to members of some congregations
talk about how good life was when so-and-so was the minister, and you’re
dangerously close to a personality cult where people depend on a talented
leader, instead of trusting in Christ.

Is it possible that we do something similar? Here is an
example.

For all the modern hymns and worship songs I pick for
services, it may surprise you to know that I love Charles Wesley’s writing. I
have a problem with some of the tunes allocated to them: I sometimes wonder
whether the compilers of Hymns and Psalms had done a sponsorship deal with the
manufacturers of Prozac. There seems no other explanation for the preponderance
of dull tunes in the book.

However, I have a problem sometimes with people who defend
Wesley’s hymns against other developments in worship. I encountered this in my
first circuit. Some people were quite virulent about my expansion of the
worship repertoire. When pressed to defend the Wesley hymns, it was on the
grounds of superior poetry and musicality. I don’t deny these are important,
but they never mentioned the doctrines Wesley wrote about – doctrines he had
experienced. None of his staunch defenders alluded to sharing in his spiritual
experience.

If only they had, I think they might have behaved
differently. They made Wesley into a kind of hero that he would have abhorred.
They applauded the style of his faith, but not the substance. They were the
least likely to be sharing their faith with others and pursuing holiness of
life.

No – Charles Wesley, and I am sure, John, too – would have
been horrified by the Wesleyolatry that has plagued parts of the Methodist
tradition since their death. They would have been far more likely to urge us in
the way Paul pleaded with some of those to whom he wrote, ‘Follow me as I
follow Christ.’

That is the message of the Transfiguration, too. ‘Listen to
him.’ Jesus is transfigured, not
Moses or Elijah. It isn’t that we should discard Moses or Elijah. But disciples
should follow them in their pointing to Christ.

Who have we made our hero alongside Christ, or maybe even
instead of him? The voice from heaven tells us to get our priorities straight:
‘Listen to him.’

2. Museums
One area of continuity when we moved here in 2005 was to find ourselves living
on the Dickens Estate. You will know that the roads on our estate are named
after Dickens characters and places: Copperfield, Nickleby, Quilp, Barnaby
Rudge, Flintwich Manor and so on.

The continuity was in having come from an area, the Medway
Towns, which had strong links with Charles Dickens himself. Dickens lived in
the Rochester area for some of his life. Every year, the council there makes
some money out of this – sorry, celebrates this – in two ways. There is a
Dickensian Christmas weekend to get you shopping in the area. In addition,
there is a Dickens
Festival in June. Not only that, a large area of the former Chatham
Dockyard (now known as Chatham Maritime) has been given over to Dickens World, which is a museum and
theme park based on the man, his life and literature. They’ll fleece you for
£12.50 before letting you in through the turnstiles.

Could it be that in his confusion and fear Peter tries to
commemorate the Transfiguration with his own little museum or theme park? He
blurts out a half-witted idea to make three dwellings – one for Jesus, one for
Moses and one for Elijah. I’m not suggesting he wanted to exploit it
commercially in the way the memory of Charles Dickens is in Kent. But he wants
to put up buildings to mark the spot and celebrate this little bit of history.

Is there anything wrong with that? Why does the voice from
heaven interrupt him while he is jabbering on? Come back to the Dickens
Festival in Rochester for a story, because I think it might be a way into the
dilemma.

For all his flaws, you can be sure of one admirable quality
about Charles Dickens: he cared about the poor. His novels campaigned against
the social injustices of his day. If you were going to celebrate Dickens,
wouldn’t it be appropriate to do so by helping the poor, rather than bowing down
at the temple of consumerism?

Well, at the Dickens Festival, many people would dress up in
the costume of the day, perhaps pretending to be a particular character. In our
last year there, I watched costumed visitors walk past Big Issue sellers,
pretending they weren’t there, and with little appreciation of the sick irony
that they who were celebrating Dickens did not share his care for the poor.

Now do you see the problem? The commemoration and
celebration of the Transfiguration that the Father’s voice from heaven calls
for is to ‘listen to him’. Yet we can turn church into a museum, and I don’t
simply mean when a church closes and the circuit sells the premises. Many of
our congregations are living, flesh and blood museums. We can preserve things
how they were. We can go through the motions. We can honour the traditions of
our ancestors. However, if all we have is the style without the substance, then
we’ve tried to build three dwellings, like Peter.

So – if we really are steeped in the Methodist tradition of
Christianity – do we truly believe that every single person needs salvation in
Christ? Do we believe it’s possible for anyone to find the love of God in
Christ? Do we believe it’s the birthright of all disciples to have such peace
in our hearts that we know we belong to Christ, and that it isn’t arrogant to
claim this? Are we optimistic about how much more the Holy Spirit can change us
into the likeness of Christ? If we do believe these things – if we will let the
Spirit of God ignite such faith in our hearts – then our churches will not be
museums.

3. Dazzle
It’s not only the appearance of the long-dead Moses and Elijah that turns Peter
and his friends into three lumps of jelly, it’s what happens to Jesus himself –
the very act of transfiguration. His face shines like the sun and his clothes
become dazzling white. Here we have special effects to make both Hollywood
movie directors and washing powder manufacturers jealous.

And there are certain parts of the Christian church that go
in for the razzle-dazzle and the glamour. Certain TV evangelists even dress
entirely in white suits. It goes with the image, along with the private jet,
the luxury home and the security guards – just like Jesus, don’t you think?

The question arises, why does Jesus go through this
experience? In addition, why does the voice from heaven speak, not only with
the words ‘Listen to him’ that we have already discussed, but also with
repetition of words from his baptism – ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I
am well pleased’ (verse 5)? Should I order my Mercedes now?

Yes. Er – only kidding. In fact, the Transfiguration is
linked profoundly with the suffering
of Jesus. It comes after Jesus has revealed his identity as Messiah at Caesarea
Philippi, prophesied his suffering and warned his disciples that anyone who
follows him must embrace rejection, suffering and even perhaps death. The
Transfiguration is not an escape from that destiny. It is God’s affirmation of
his Son’s obedience.

What will sustain Jesus as he resolutely travels to
Jerusalem and the Cross? It is knowing that he is the Son of God, and that the
Father loves him. ‘This is my Son, the Beloved’, says the voice. Accompany that
with such an encounter with the Father that his face shines and his clothes
dazzle, and you get some sense that God the Father affirms and encourages Jesus
by deed and word here. Has Jesus forgotten who he is? Does he need reminding of
the Father’s love? No. However, an underlining gives him strength and
encouragement.

If Jesus needed that, then how much more do we? He is Son of
God in a unique way. We are sons and daughters of God by adoption. We are not
divine. However, what is the effect of hearing that voice, affirming that we
are the Father’s children? What does it do for us to know that the Father loves
us? Is it not the foundation we need to live the daring and sacrificial life of
faith?

I only remember one sermon from the weekly communion
services at college during my three years in Bristol. The preacher was Tom Smail.
He preached on the baptism of Jesus, and picked out those similar words: ‘This
is my Son, the Beloved’. He used these words to remind us how God saw us – as
beloved children. I have never forgotten this. When I waver, I go back to this
truth.

Likewise, I remember one main insight from my Ethics tutor.
We were talking about vocation. He described how the traditional Catholic view
had been to confine vocation to the priesthood, the monastery or the nunnery.
The Reformation expanded it to include ‘ordinary’ jobs. But that wasn’t radical
enough, he said. Our most fundamental vocation is not to do, but to be – to be
children of God.

When you know you are a child of God, and when you know the
Father loves you, you have inner resources that are the strongest of
foundations when the storms of life come. The life of faith will bring
challenges aplenty. We can walk into them, knowing the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ loves us for eternity. We can ‘listen to him’, and set out on the
challenges of discipleship.

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