This is a very lightly revised version of my old sermon Jesus Of The Transfiguration.
Love Your Enemies, Luke 6:27-38 (Ordinary 7 Year C)
The older I get and the longer I preach, the more I collect a list of subjects that are awkward to preach on. Prayer – because which of us can say we pray enough? Evangelism – because we know we struggle with that. Giving – because it’s often thought unseemly to talk about money.
I think I might add today’s theme to that list. Who wants to be told to love their enemies? Wouldn’t many of us rather turn up the dial on the furnaces in Hell for those who hate us and hurt us?
I may be doing some of you an injustice. Perhaps you have only serene and beatific thoughts about your enemies. But not all of us do.
I have certainly had to wrestle with this text this week. I contemplated getting out an old sermon on the passage and just modifying it. But the best one I found was tied to a particular item in the news at the time.
And so instead I bring to you the three questions that have been at the heart of my struggle to submit to the words of Jesus here this week:
Who is Jesus addressing?
Who are the enemies here?
How do we love our enemies?
Firstly, then, who is Jesus addressing?
I ask this question, because sometimes Christians want to apply Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (as it is in Matthew’s Gospel) or the Sermon on the Plain (as it is here in Luke) in a rather flat way to national life. They want to make the teaching of Jesus into national policy.
But that is not what Jesus is doing here. He has no vision for a Christian nation. There is no such thing, in contrast to aspirations from Christians on both the right and the left of politics. The Christian nationalists in the USA who have swung behind Donald Trump misunderstand the Gospel itself when they think they can make America more Christian by gaining political power and passing certain laws. That is legalism, not the Gospel.
And of course it’s rather awkward for some of their politics to find that the Jesus they invoke in their prayers taught some things that really don’t fit their political vision at all, not least here. They would probably dismiss this as ‘dangerous woke nonsense.’
But the Christians on the left of the political spectrum who might leap on Jesus’ teaching here and campaign for a nation state that is committed to pacifism are equally wrong. You cannot force the teaching of Jesus on those who do not bow the knee to him as Lord.
I do not say that to justify warmongering nations. Of course not! But we need to recognise that the group of people Jesus is addressing here is his disciples. When you read the Sermon the Mount or the Sermon on the Plain you realise Jesus is talking to his disciples. However, others are listening in.
Hence, in other words, Jesus addresses his followers, who together form a colony or outpost of his kingdom in the world. But others are listening in and watching us. The world will notice how we respond to the challenging teaching of Jesus, such as we find here.
So it’s important for us to get a handle on what it means to love our enemies, because the world knows that Jesus taught this, and it is watching to see how his disciples live it out. We will damage Christian witness if we ignore it, or if we explain it away.
Yes, even in these times when religion is less popular, the world is watching Christians. Just consider the damage to the Church of England caused by the safeguarding scandals lately. A recent survey showed that now only 25% of the population consider it trustworthy. For those of you who grew up thinking the church was a respected institution, please consider that.
Let’s take the challenging teaching of Jesus seriously, then. Including this ‘love your enemies’ stuff.
Secondly, who are the enemies here?
We begin to answer that by saying, it is anyone who hates us.
They may hate us for our faith. We know that millions of our brothers and sisters around the world pay a massive price for their faith, sometimes the ultimate price. In the last week, there have been reports that terrorists beheaded seventy Christians in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Not a week goes by without news of a similar atrocity or other forms of persecution against Christians appearing in my email inbox.
Our enemies may hate us, regardless of our faith. Some of the context here may well be Jesus imagining what the occupying Roman soldiers did to ordinary citizens. Yet we are not simply citizens of our nation, we are citizens of heaven, and our calling is not only to live by the laws of the land (insofar as our faith allows us) but to live by the law of God. In a properly constituted society we may wish to have recourse to the law against such people in order to protect others, but we are called to guard our hearts against hatred.
Or we may simply here be dealing with people who are not naturally in our orbit – our family, our neighbours, our colleagues, our friends, and so on. I say that, because of the way Jesus mentions giving to beggars (verse 30). We would not naturally label beggars as enemies in the conventional way. Yet Jesus calls us to show generous love to them, too.
And this example may have something to teach us about the recent public argument between JD Vance, the new American Vice-President, and Rory Stewart, the former British MP. Vance claimed,
There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world.
Vance seemed to imply that love of people further from us, especially around the world, came a distant last, and he based it on the Catholic concept of ‘ordo amoris’, which says there is an order or sequence of who you love. He probably misrepresented Catholic teaching, and Rory Stewart fired back at him, accusing him of a ‘bizarre take’ on the Bible, which was ‘less Christian and more pagan tribal’. Heaven only knows where Mr Vance would put loving your enemies. A distant last, at a guess. It may be natural and easiest to love those who are nearest to us first, but Jesus upends so many social conventions, and we need to listen to him.
Thirdly, how do we love our enemies?
Jesus sets out the range of what he calls us to do in verses 27 and 28, before he gives any specific examples:
27 ‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
How do we do this? I just want to give you a few examples.
In one town where I served, a bookshop in the High Street began overtly promoting occult books and practices associated with them. Many Christians faced with such a situation would have defaulted into aggressive protest mode. They would have organised petitions and boycotts and maybe contacted the local media. They might have requested a meeting with the manager and angrily demanded the withdrawal of the books. They might have gone on a prayer march and cast out demons.
But not the group of Christians who discovered this incident. They turned to prayer, but not of the angry kind. Instead, they prayed that the bookshop would be blessed. If the bookshop were blessed, they might not need to resort to promoting spiritual darkness.
These Christians had been influenced by a preacher who once said, ‘In the celestial poker game a hand of blessings always outranks a hand of curses.’
Or take the experience of one of my relatives many years ago. He was dating the girl who would later become his wife. However, his girlfriend’s mother disapproved of him. He wasn’t good enough for her daughter, in her opinion. His job did not rank as highly professionally, and he was less educated than the girlfriend.
My relative shared his frustrations about this with a friend at church. And his friend made a suggestion.
‘When you leave your girlfriend’s house each evening, say ‘God bless you’ to her mother. You won’t be able to feel mean towards someone you are blessing.’
My relative bristled at the idea. But he tried it – starting by saying it through gritted teeth. But eventually – it worked. Blessing changes relationships for the better.
One last story: one year while I was training for the ministry in Manchester, a married student and his wife invited me (still single then) to their flat to celebrate my birthday. My birthday meal? Beans on toast!
My friends offered to call a taxi for me to get home, but I declined and chose to walk back.
Big mistake. For on the journey back to the hall of residence a teenage thug mugged me, breaking my glasses and causing minor damage to my eyes.
Another student, himself a former solicitor, took me to the police station and stayed with me while I was interviewed and made a statement.
While I am sure this teenage thug was known in the locality, no-one was ever arrested.
However, people asked me what I would have done if the criminal had been. Would I, as a Christian who believed in and preached forgiveness, have pressed charges?
My answer was that provided I was sure no hatred remained in my heart towards the mugger, then yes, I would consent to the laying of charges. For me – and you may see this differently – this held together both the call to love and forgive my enemy and the need to uphold justice and protect other members of the public.
Conclusion
There may be one final question nagging in our minds: why should we love our enemies?
Because, says Jesus, this is what God is like. As he puts it:
Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
We have been brought into the kingdom of God by divine mercy towards us who were his enemies due to sin. Yet God still loved us, his enemies, to the point of his Son dying on the Cross.
If we are to respond in gratitude and imitate our Saviour, then we too shall learn to show practical love to our enemies.
Thriving When The Heat Is On, or Spiritual Resilience, Jeremiah 17:5-10 (Ordinary 6 Year C)
This is a lightly revised version of a sermon I first preached eighteen years ago (!). You can find the text here.
Prepared For Mission, Luke 5:1-11 (Ordinary 5 Year C)
Before I was a minister and before I studied Theology, I worked in Social Security. It was, as I have sometimes said, one way of seeing life. I can recall a number of stories from those days which are, shall we say, a little too colourful for the delicate ears of some Christian congregations -notwithstanding other barriers such as the Official Secrets Act.
But suffice to say that in that work I encountered people with chaotic lives, in desperate circumstances, as well as the occasional chancer. I also represented colleagues to their bosses when their personal lives were affecting their work.
Just from that general outline I am sure you can guess that I had some formative experiences that were useful preparation for when I became a minister, even though I had no sense of such a call at the time.
Our story from Luke today is one where Jesus tells Simon that his experience as a business partner in a fishing co-operative will stand him in good stead for a life as a disciple and an apostle.
There is a sermon to be preached on this passage about just how much God values our everyday work, but I will save that for another time. For today, I want to look at the aspects here that prepared Simon for what was to come. Even though we are not fishermen (although I don’t know if anyone has angling as a hobby!) there are elements of Simon’s story that speak to us as well.
Firstly, obedience:
4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.’
5 Simon answered, ‘Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.’
Simon, James, and John are experienced fishermen. They know what they are doing. That they are washing their nets after a night-time fishing trip tells us exactly what kind of nets they are using. They were called ‘trammel nets’. They were made of linen, were visible to fish in daylight hours and hence why they went fishing at night, and they would be cleaned the next morning[1]. All this is known from historians of the day and confirms that they were conducting their trade according to the best knowledge and practices known then.
But here comes this crazy carpenter – what does he know about fishing? – and he gives them instructions which make no sense to these experienced professionals. It’s daylight, and the fish will see the nets. No way will any fish be caught.
‘But because you say so, I will let down the nets,’ says Simon. Because this is more than a crazy carpenter. This is Jesus, the Expected One, the Hoped-For One, the Messiah himself. And so, even though their friends in other fishing co-operatives based on the lake will think they are mad, they set sail again. They head for the deep water. They let down their nets. And – oh my.
The call of the Christian disciple is to follow Jesus and do what he tells us, even when it seems scarcely credible. He sends us out into deep water, too – into situations that are deeper than we have ever encountered before, circumstances we would resist embracing because they seem too fraught with danger.
It’s something of a threat to our desire for a quiet, comfortable life, isn’t it? But why does it surprise us? Isn’t so much of what Jesus calls us to do the very opposite of conventional expectations? We are to forgive, not hate. We are to give, not take. It’s utterly consistent for Jesus to call us to do unexpected things in his service.
Perhaps what we need to do is to ask him to give us a dream for our lives that is so big and so deep that it can only be fulfilled by relying on him.
Sometimes we hear talk about having ‘smart goals’, where the letters of the word ‘smart’ stand for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and targeted. But in the light of this, I want to ask, ‘Achievable by whom? By us? Or by Jesus?’ Because the latter are the goals that fix our Christian obedience.
Secondly, fellowship:
In verse 7, the people working alongside Simon in the boat are called his ‘partners.’ It’s a word that denotes business partners, which makes sense.
But by verse 9, they are no longer ‘partners’ but ‘companions’. The Greek word has changed, and while this word could denote the members of a fishing co-operative, it ‘is capable of much wider nuances’[2] and is related to the word ‘koinonia’, which is often translated with that glorious Christian word ‘fellowship.’ In the work of catching the abundant haul of fish, partners become a fellowship.
And fellowship is central to the life of Christian discipleship. We do not follow Jesus alone, but together in a body. We cannot do it alone. We need the power of the Holy Spirit, and the encouragement of our brothers and sisters.
But this word ‘fellowship’ is open to much misunderstanding, because we have seriously devalued its meaning. To listen to the way some churches conceive of fellowship, you would think it was little more than talking together. ‘Join us after the service for fellowship over tea and coffee.’ It is so much deeper than that.
Strictly, the word means, ‘what we have in common.’ Luke shows us what that meant for the early church in the first chapters of his second volume, the book we call The Acts of the Apostles. The first believers are sharing in fellowship by the end of chapter two. We find that it means they shared their very lives together, including their possessions. They had Jesus Christ in common, and they shared all they were and all they had in common, too.
When we think of the partners becoming a fellowship in Luke 5, it is reminiscent of Paul writing to the Christians in Philippi and giving thanks for their ‘fellowship in the Gospel.’ In other words, they had shared together in the hard work of the Gospel, just as Simon, James, and John, along with their partners, had shared together in the hard work of hauling those full nets into the boats.
The work of the Gospel can be tough, but Jesus has given us each other to do that work in common, supporting and helping one another. We do not need to be alone in the work. Indeed, we should not be alone. We were not designed that way. God always intended that we support our brothers and our sisters in all the ways we share the Gospel in the world. We may be on the frontline with them. We may be supporting them with prayer and financial giving. And together, we haul in the heavy nets.
I think it would be helpful if each one of us asked, with whom am I in fellowship in the Gospel? Who do I know who can support me as I bear witness to Jesus in the world with my words, my deeds, and my character?
One strategy would be for three of you to gather together as a ‘prayer triplet’, regularly praying each other’s spheres of influence. Such a group would meet regularly, review how everybody is getting on, hold one another to account, and be a source of encouragement. This is real fellowship: it’s so much more than chatting over tea and coffee!
Thirdly, grace:
Simon witnesses the amazing catch of fish and is overcome with the sense that this must be a demonstration of God’s holy power. There seems no other explanation for him being astonished to the point of him saying to Jesus, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!’ (verse 8) In the presence of such holiness, he knows himself unworthy.
But of course, Jesus will not have that. For as well as holiness, he has grace. Don’t go away, Simon, come closer. I have a commission for you: ‘Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.’ (verse 10)
And that gracious invitation and call leads Simon, James, and John to leave behind their business (just as it is thriving!) and everything else to follow Jesus (verse 11).
Which of us has not echoed the words of Simon, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinner’? It may be that we witnessed the awesomeness of God’s power in some way. It may be that we are only too aware of our sins and failures: can he really forgive us again? And if he does, surely there is no way he can use me? Or it may just be a sense of our utter inadequacy in the face of Jesus’ blazing purity and beauty of character. We are unworthy. We are not heroes of the faith. What would God want with us?
And yet, and yet. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ says Jesus, ‘I still have work for you to do.’
There is a legend told of Jesus returning to heaven at the Ascension and being welcomed by the angels, who congratulate him on all he has achieved.
Then one angel says, ‘But Lord, what is the next stage of your great plan of salvation?’
Jesus replies, ‘I have left it in the hands of a small group of my followers.’
‘But Master,’ counters the angel, ‘what will you do if they mess things up? What will your plan be then?’
‘I have no other plan,’ says Jesus.
And that’s the plan. His plan is us – sinners that we are.
So if spiritually we are down in the gutter right now, it’s time to hear the good news that Jesus is still calling us. He still has work for us to do in building for his kingdom. He still has people for us to reach with his love. We may be the ideal people to speak and show his love to certain folk.
Let us allow Jesus to wipe us clean with his grace so that we can embrace again his call on our lives. And let’s set out in fresh obedience to him that we may see him do new wonders in our day. And let us do it not as lone rangers but in fellowship with others.
[1] Joel B Green, The Gospel of Luke (NICNT), p232.
[2] Op. cit., p234 n27.
The J.O.Y. of Following Jesus, Luke 4:21-30 (Ordinary 4 Epiphany 4 Candlemas Year C 2025)
When I became due for my second sabbatical from ministry, I was serving in an appointment where no previous minister had had a sabbatical. The circuit tried to do lots of explaining to the senior church steward at my main church, but he only had one question:
‘What’s in it for us?’
There was no concern for my well-being, only for what they could get out of it.
Such was the attitude that when I then had to have surgery ten days after returning from the sabbatical, the response was, why didn’t you have the operation during the sabbatical?
Soon after that, my re-invitation came up for consideration, and you won’t be surprised to know that a faction organised against me. They didn’t try to throw me off a cliff as the Nazareth mob attempted with Jesus, and I would agree I made some mistakes in my ministry there, but you might understand why today’s passage resonates with me.
To treat the reading more positively, I would say it encapsulates that old Christian saying that the letters of the word ‘JOY’ stand for Jesus first, Others second, and Yourself last.
So – Jesus first:
There is a wonderful episode in the book of Joshua chapter 5, just before the Israelites are preparing to take Jericho:
13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, ‘Are you for us or for our enemies?’
14 ‘Neither,’ he replied, ‘but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.’ Then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence, and asked him, ‘What message does my Lord have for his servant?’
15 The commander of the Lord’s army replied, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.’ And Joshua did so.
I think Jesus’ words to the Nazareth synagogue have a similar effect. They have heard all about his wonderful words and deeds. We read last week how the news had spread throughout the countryside about him, and how people in various synagogues had praised his teaching (Luke 4:14-15). Now the local lad made good has come home, but it doesn’t go to their plan, because if the words of Isaiah have been fulfilled in their hearing (verse 21) then who is he?
Oh.
He is making a proclamation that he is the long-awaited Messiah, even if he avoids the specific word. He is the prophet greater than Moses who has been expected according to Deuteronomy.
And if he is, then he is the One to whom they must bear allegiance. It’s not enough to take pride in what they regard as home-grown talent, like football supporters chanting when a young player has come through their academy and scored for the first team, ‘He’s one of our own.’ Like the mysterious character Joshua encountered, as commander of the Lord’s army he has come – and then some.
Our first call, then, is to pledge allegiance to Jesus. We do that in a big way each year at our Covenant Service, but there is a sense in which we do that every time we take communion.
For we call Holy Communion a ‘sacrament’, and that word comes from the Latin ‘sacramentum’, which was the oath of allegiance that a Roman soldier took to the Emperor. When we come to the Lord’s Table, we pledge our allegiance again to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
There is a slogan on the Methodist website that says, ‘God loves you unconditionally, no strings attached. That’s the good news.’ But that’s a very partial description of the good news. Because when John the Baptist and then Jesus came preaching what they called the good news, it came with the requirement of a response. And the first response is to pledge allegiance to Jesus as Lord. After all, the first Christian creed was simply the words, ‘Jesus is Lord.’
Next – Others second:
On Thursday, an American Christian friend of mine posted to Facebook with some disgust words of the new Vice President, JD Vance as reported by Fox News:
“I think there is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world.”
These are appalling words for someone like Vance to say, when he is a convert to Roman Catholicism. They so contradict the New Testament, where all believers are a family, where social distinctions are dissolved in the Gospel, and where Jesus redefines our neighbour as anyone at all who is in need and says that neighbour love of that kind is one of the greatest commandments.
And it may be that we can make an easy poke at the Trump administration for such blatant heresies. Certainly, JD Vance’s parish priest needs to call him to repentance.
But what is the difference between that and the way many other Christians turn religion into a consumer exercise? When our faith is about the style of worship I like, the music I prefer, and mixing with people just like me, we have gone far from the ways of Jesus.
What has Jesus just been reading about from Isaiah? Good news to the poor. Recovery of sight for the blind. Freedom for the captives. The Jubilee year. When we pledge allegiance to Jesus, these are the things that follow next.
If we are to follow Jesus and not the mob, we will be thinking, who can I bless today? Who can I serve this week? Where can we make a difference for good in our neighbourhood? What are the social issues that need a Gospel witness? Who have we excluded from hearing the Good News, especially among the poor, and what will we do to right that?
It may be a stark statement and possibly an over-statement, but you may know the famous words of William Temple, who was Archbishop of Canterbury during World War Two, about the Church. He said that the church was the only institution that existed for the benefit of those who were not its members. It is good that this congregation already takes that seriously. Let us always remember that such things are not peripheral to the church, but central to our calling.
Finally – Yourself last:
It’s important to hear that I said ‘Yourself last’ not ‘Yourself not at all.’ For this is the Jesus who taught, love your neighbour as you love yourself. And in doing so he assumed we would love ourselves. There is a distinction to be drawn between a proper loving of ourselves and indulging ourselves, always gratifying ourselves, or thinking the universe revolves around us.
No wonder we read in the Gospels of Jesus going away on his own to pray, and of him encouraging the disciples to come aside from all the activity to rest awhile. Is it what he did when he walked through the crowd here?
There is a proper self-care that is not the same as self-centredness. It is a looking after ourselves so that we are fit and able to live with Jesus at the heart of our lives and with the strength to show God’s love to all, especially those on the margins. Yes, Charles Wesley wrote in one of his hymns the line, ‘To spend and to be spent for those who have not yet my Saviour known.’ But where does the energy come from that we spend? And what do we do when we are spent? We need to tend to ourselves for the sake of the Gospel.
Yourself last, but this is self-care in order to be able to serve, and thus we distinguish it from self-pampering.
Much of this is a challenge to me, because I do not always look after myself as well as I might for the sake of all I am called to. Last year, I read a memoir by the great scholar who supervised my post-graduate research in Theology, Richard Bauckham. It was mainly a book about his struggles with poor eyesight, but in passing he made a comment about how he has always ensured he gets eight hours of sleep a night in order to be in a good state to pursue his calling as a scholar, even in retirement.
That is something I have not been good at, especially since a phase in my ministry ten years ago, when two of my three circuit colleagues curtailed their appointments, and the other retired. I ended up getting into the bad habit of doing late nights.
The Methodist Church has been on a learning curve with this. When I entered the ministry, the official guidance was that on our six working days a week, we ministers could take up to an hour off each day. That’s all. Somehow we were also meant to cultivate a hobby! Is it any surprise that in 2017 a nurse at our doctor’s surgery told me that working 8 am to 10 pm six days a week was bad practice for anyone?
Then, a few years ago, the Connexion woke up to the fact that there was a well-being crisis among ministers. Well, fancy that! Now they tell us to divide each of our working days into three sessions – morning, afternoon, and evening – and work two of the three. They also tell us to remember the provisions of the European Working Time Directive, under which workers normally do not start another day’s shift until at least eleven hours after their previous one has finished.
These are examples from my world. There will be approaches you can take in your circumstances. There will be other matters to consider, too. But the principles are the same.
So – Jesus first: in response to his love for us, we pledge our allegiance to him.
Others second: we have a Gospel to proclaim in word and deed.
Yourself last: self-care for the sake of that Gospel.
This is a Christian way of living. It rejects the ‘What’s in it for me?’ line. It doesn’t throw Jesus off a cliff. Instead, it exalts him and brings JOY to him and to us.
And that’s what we’re about.
The Good News Covenant, Luke 4:14-21 (Ordinary 3 Epiphany 3)
No video this week: on Friday afternoon, while working on this sermon, a workman’s van crashed into our kitchen wall, causing structural damage to our manse.
No-one was hurt. But it does mean I’ve got behind. Anyway, here’s the text of this week’s sermon.
How did you hear about the assassination of John F Kennedy in November 1963? I am too young to remember how we heard the news in the UK, but I imagine people heard on the next available TV news bulletin.
But I do know how I heard about the death of Princess Diana in August 1997. I came downstairs that Sunday morning, and as was my habit I turned on the BBC breakfast news. There was the rolling coverage provided by 24-hour news services.
And I remember how I heard about the death of the Queen in 2023. Debbie and I were sitting in a branch of Pizza Express, waiting for a meal before going to a concert. A news alert flashed up on my phone.
How did people hear major news in the Roman Empire two thousand years ago? A messenger would come to their town or village and make a public announcement, probably in somewhere like the marketplace. I guess they were a little bit like town criers. They would tell the people that there was a new Emperor on the throne in Rome, or that Rome’s legions had won a great victory against an enemy.
And do you know what they called their proclamations? You do. ‘Good News.’
So when the New Testament speaks about Good News it takes over this model and gives it a refit according to the life and ministry of Jesus. It would be something like this:
‘Good News! There is a new king on the throne of the universe. His name is Jesus. He has conquered sin and death not with violence but by his own suffering love and death. And God has vindicated him by raising him from the dead.’
Jesus speaks of ‘Good News’ in Luke 4, and – to state the obvious – he is by definition doing so before his death and resurrection. But he is telling his hearers about the nature of the kingdom he is inaugurating, including what it is like to live under his reign and by implication what it requires of its citizens.
Therefore, what we are considering today is both the offer Jesus makes to us by his grace and the call he makes on us in response.
Firstly, good news to the poor:
I find that Christians go into battle with each other on this one. What is good news to the poor? Is it that we evangelise them? Or is it that we campaign politically for them?
I think the answer is ‘yes.’ In other words, I don’t see this as an either/or choice.
But we need to understand who people in Jesus’ world would have understood as ‘the poor.’ Certainly, it included the economically poor, but it also it also included those who had no status or honour in society. So we’re not only talking about the destitute, we’re talking about women, children, lepers, Gentiles, prostitutes, and so on.
And by making a list like that, you will I am sure be saying to yourself, that sounds pretty much like the main constituency Jesus served. He brought the Good News that there was a new king on the throne of the universe to these people, and they welcomed it. This king was for them. They could be citizens of his kingdom. God’s love was offered freely to them in word and deed by Jesus, and they too could enter the kingdom by repentance and faith, just like anyone else.
The early church clearly followed up on this. When Paul writes to the Corinthians, he observes that not many of them were of high rank. And after the apostolic age, we find former slaves becoming bishops in the church.
For John Wesley, it all kicked off on 1st April 1739, when, at the urging of George Whitefield, he preached for the first time in the open air to the miners of Kingswood, between Bath and Bristol. The Good News was for them, he realised. And he would later become concerned about their social needs as well.
If we are to take the mission of God seriously today, we must put this front and centre, because Jesus did. Yet in this country, church historians say that the Christian church has not seriously taken the Gospel to the poor since the Industrial Revolution. John Wesley was probably the last person to do this on a significant scale.
I am not saying that we are doing nothing in this respect. I am sure some of the people who come to ‘Connect’ fall into the categories I am talking about. As we give a welcome and acceptance to them, we need to find the right ways and times to share the Good News with them.
And I am aware that this town is very much divided into two halves. But at the same time, it is a town with Marks and Spencer’s at one end and Waitrose at the other. This is the only church I have served where the hand gel provided to the minister before handling bread and wine at communion comes from M and S!
So allow me to flag this up, because in this area it would be easy for us to lose sight of this important strand of Jesus’ teaching. There are few things more dangerous for Christians than getting comfortable.
Secondly, freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind:
What did Jesus mean by quoting this from Isaiah? Clearly, ‘freedom for the prisoners’ didn’t mean he went around the jails of Palestine opening prison doors and letting the convicts out. It has more to do with him pronouncing freedom from the guilt of sin in the offer of forgiveness, freedom from the power of sin in his casting out of demons, and freedom from being sinned against by standing for justice and also enabling people to forgive wrongdoers.
Recovery of sight for the blind is a little more straightforward, given the healing miracles Jesus performed.
But a lot of that might sound a little distant to us. The church limits the number of people who exercise a deliverance ministry because it needs all sorts of safeguards and protections built in. Most of us don’t have a healing ministry, either. I only know for sure of two occasions in my life when I have prayed for someone to be healed and they were. Not that I want to discourage anyone from praying for healing, though: I’m just saying that only a few Christians have an ongoing ministry of healing.
So what can we take from this? Plenty, actually. We may not all be evangelists, but we are all witnesses who are called to share our faith in word and in deed with people beyond the Christian community. That’s why we’re beginning the Personal Evangelism course tomorrow morning. This is a chance for us to find ways of being able to speak about our faith gently to others. How else are people going to find faith and the Good News of God’s forgiveness in Christ? I encourage you to sign up!
It’s also about our example. When we are wronged, the world will look at how we respond. When terrible things happen, our culture is full of language about certain actions and crimes being ‘unforgivable.’ And while I obviously wish no harm on anyone, our neighbours will be watching us when we suffer wrongly. If they see forgiveness in us, or at the very least a working towards forgiveness, you can be sure it will make an impression.
Further, we can be involved socially in campaigns for those who have suffered wrongs. Yes, this includes our fellow Christians who are persecuted around the world, but we should not limit ourselves to our spiritual kith and kin. Anyone who is an unjust victim, even if it is someone we don’t agree with, is someone for whom Jesus wants freedom. In fact, standing up for those we disagree with can itself be a powerful witness.
As for the recovery of sight for the blind, apart from the question of physical healing there is the matter of those who are spiritually blind. Jesus spoke truth to the wilfully blind, such as many of the religious leaders of his day. He also spoke truth to reveal God’s love to those he was calling out of darkness.
Therefore, we can do two things. We can pray that blind hearts and minds be opened to the truth of God’s Good News. And we can also be the ones who share that truth, backed by prayer.
Thirdly and finally, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour:
All the talk of releasing and setting free is brought together in the talk of ‘the year of the Lord’s favour.’ And that language is the language of the Old Testament Jubilee. The Jubilee Year, which in the Law of Mosese was to occur once every fifty years. And in that year debts were forgiven, slaves were set free, and land was returned to its original owners. Whether Israel ever truly observed it is debatable, but here Jesus says it’s coming in with his kingdom and so it’s a sign not only of how to live now but also of the age to come. It is a manifesto for how the community of God’s kingdom will be and how his people are to live now.
The forgiveness of debts was financial. What a test of discipleship to hone in on how attached we are to our money. Will we always stand on our rights, demanding what is ours, or will we forgive a debt?
I saw that demonstrated by my father when I was still living at home in my early twenties. I had a friend who was an only child and an orphan. His father had been killed in a car crash when he was eight, and then when he was fifteen, just before our mock O-Levels, his mother died of cancer. Then in his early twenties he had a broken engagement. With few relatives, he came to live with us for a couple of weeks while he tried to get himself together again.
But in that time he just expected my mother to do his laundry and cook for him, and he never offered any money towards his keep. After he left to go back to his home, we had a family conference over dinner. What were we going to do about his debt to us?
And my father simply said, ‘We’re going to put it down to God’s account.’
And we know Jesus builds that into the Lord’s Prayer: Forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who are indebted to us. Yes, of course it’s a vivid metaphor for the forgiveness of sins and our forgiveness of those who sin against us, but we should never let that fact obscure the challenge of the literal words.
There is much more I could say about the Jubilee. I could talk about our attachment to the land, which may have implications for our national and international politics. I could mention the ongoing problem of slavery that still exists in our world, and which you might encounter in the staff at the local car wash or nail bar.
But I don’t have time to go into that. I’ll just say that the way we are willing to forgive and release people, money, land, and possessions will be a powerful witness in our world that frequently talks of things being ‘unforgivable’.
The Jubilee was part of God’s covenant with Israel. He had delivered them from Egypt, and this was part of their response of grateful obedience to him. In the renewal of our covenant with God, we are called to a similar response, as we also are in bringing good news to the poor along with freedom and sight to people.
In our commitment this morning, may these be formed as our continuing participation in God’s mission. For then we will be proclaimers of Good News today.
The Sign of Water Into Wine, John 2:1-11 (Second Sunday in Ordinary Time)
I’m still not completely shot of the sinusitis, so this is another repeated sermon. In this case, it’s from six years ago, and hasn’t previously appeared on the blog.
I have long wanted to write a book, and perhaps the easiest to write would be the ministry equivalent of the old James Herriot ‘All Creatures Great And Small’ vet tales. Over a long course of time in the ministry, you can gather all sorts of tales, and few areas are more fruitful than what are formally called ‘rites of passage’, or more informally ‘hatch, match, and despatch’ – baptisms, weddings, and funerals.
Having had Sarah Steele’s wedding here yesterday, my mind would easily go to several stories:
- My first ever wedding, where my nerves affected my preparation, and just as I was catching up the bride arrived early
- The fourteen bridesmaids who arrived on a bus
- The Catholic wedding I was asked to register, which was so calamitous in so many ways that I became convinced Father Ted was a real person
- The wedding where my address was interrupted by a drunk guest, who was promptly told by the bridegroom, ‘Shut up, I’m listening!’
- The Star Wars actress whose wedding I conducted last March at Weybridge. OK, she only had a minor part in the last Star Wars film, but don’t ruin a good story for me!
And more, of course, that were memorable for a host of reasons.
Maybe the wedding at Cana was the most memorable one in history, though. This is more than a miracle story. All the miracles in John’s Gospel are more than miracles. As this account concludes:
11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
It’s not just a miracle, it’s a sign. A sign of Jesus and his glory. But in what ways?
Firstly, it’s a sign of resurrection:
2 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, ‘They have no more wine.’
Those opening words ‘On the third day’ should be a hint. For even though in this part of his Gospel John is apparently narrating a week in the life of Jesus, the words ‘on the third day’ have additional suggested meaning for Christians, especially since that came at the end of the narration of another week, Holy Week. If you think I’m stretching a point, then note this passage from Isaiah:
On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare
a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine –
the best of meats and the finest of wines.
7 On this mountain he will destroy
the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
8 he will swallow up death for ever.
(Isaiah 25:6-8a)
In the words of Professor Richard Bauckham (and yes, I’m biased, because he was my research supervisor),
Here the provision of the finest wine is linked with the abolition of death.[1]
Here in the second chapter of John is a sign of what we shall see in the second to last chapter: the resurrection of Jesus. John is hinting at what is to come. Jesus will reveal his glory in his resurrection, and his disciples will believe in him because of it. Peter and John will believe. Doubting Thomas will believe. Before any of the men believe, Mary and the women will believe.
If you want to see the glory of Jesus, see the One who in vacating his tomb conquered death. This is glory: he has defeated the last enemy for himself, and this points to the time when he will abolish death for all.
Dr Paul Beasley-Murray, a retired Baptist minister friend of mine, wrote an article the other day in which he reflected on four books he had recently read about death and dying. He included some quotes from some of the books, which happen to illustrate how the glory of resurrection hope transforms the way Christians look at death. All the people I am about to quote are themselves Christians (including the vicar!).
From John Wyatt, Emeritus Professor of Neonatal Paediatrics at University College London:
If our hope is in the power of medical technology to overcome every obstacle, we are doomed to ultimate disappointment. What is worse, this kind of hope may stand in the way of godly acceptance of God’s will for the last phase of our life, impeding the possibility of strengthening or ‘completing’ our relationships in a healthy and faithful way.
From retired Anglican vicar Martin Down:
I know of no real remedy for fear of any sort other than faith… It is God alone who can both say to us ‘Fear not’ and give us good reason not to fear.
And finally from retired oncologist Elaine Sugden:
Rather than think about loss of hope, think instead of purpose and opportunity.
Because of the resurrection, we are people of hope. And that brings glory to Jesus.
Secondly, this story is a sign of intimacy between Jesus and his people:
3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, ‘They have no more wine.’
4 ‘Woman, why do you involve me?’ Jesus replied. ‘My hour has not yet come.’
5 His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’
Now at first this exchange might just sound like an almost amusing account of a mother – and a Jewish mother at that – who knows how to get her son to do what she wants him to do. (Although did Mary know Jesus would turn water into wine? I don’t think so. I’m sure she was surprised, too.)
But it’s much more than that. Who was responsible for supplying the wine at a Jewish wedding two thousand years ago? The answer is, the bridegroom. So by giving Jesus the problem that the wine has run out, Mary gives Jesus the rôle of the bridegroom. That is probably why he replies, ‘My hour has not yet come.’ His own great wedding feast – the wedding feast of the Lamb and his bride, the Church – has not yet taken place. It is to happen at the end of all things as we currently know them.
What we have here, then, is another part of the great image that runs through Scripture in which God’s love for his people is depicted in marital terms. In the Old Testament God woos his people with love, but she is unfaithful, and divorce language is used. But Jesus, the Bridegroom Messiah, washes his bride clean with his blood at the Cross, and will marry her to be with her for ever in the new heavens and new earth.
It’s not surprising, then, that in the rest of his Gospel John records Jesus using the intimate language of mutual abiding to describe the relationship between him and the believer. Jesus abides in the believer, and the believer abides in him. Jesus goes so far as to say this is what his own relationship with the Father is like[2].
The glory of Jesus here, then, is in the closeness of the relationship that he wants to have with his disciples. It’s a great deal more than celestial chumminess. Rather, having come and lived among people in the Incarnation, as John describes in his first chapter, Jesus wants not only to live among us but to share life with us: the joy and the mess, the simple and the profound.
The glory of Jesus is this: however majestic the Second Person of the Trinity is, he wants to share life in relationship with his church and with each of his disciples. Is it not remarkable – no, astonishing – and wonderful that this is what he wants for you and for me and for us?
Do not be afraid, but by all means be amazed. Be thrilled and be grateful!
Thirdly, this story shows the glory of Jesus in his abundance:
6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from eighty to a hundred and twenty litres.
7 Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water’; so they filled them to the brim.
8 Then he told them, ‘Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.’
Stone jars were not subject to the Jewish purity laws. Unlike clay jars, they could not become impure and therefore have to be smashed. A priestly family, or at any rate a household concerned with ritual purity, would use them as working jars. They were also large, and expensive to make, because they had to be carved out of one large stone. But in the long run they were cheaper, because they could be reused, unlike clay jars. That meant that probably only the better-off families could afford them.
But the main thing here for our immediate purpose is that they were large. Connect this with these observations about wine (bearing in mind how much wine was made in the miracle) by a theologian called Andrew Wilson:
In the scriptural imagination, however, and particularly in the prophetic tradition, wine represents abundance, shalom, hope and new creation. It embodies blessing: “May God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine” (Genesis 27:28, ESV); and happiness: “wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread to strengthen man’s heart” (Psalm 104:15). It speaks of love: “we will extol your love more than wine” (Song of Songs 1:4); and bounty: “then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine” (Proverbs 3:10).
Jesus makes so much wine in the six large stone jars. And he doesn’t make supermarket plonk, he makes fine wine:
‘Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.’ (Verse 10)
Undoubtedly, we have a picture of the glory Jesus will reveal at the end of all time, in the new creation, when blessing and abundance will flow to his people and all will have plenty and be satisfied. This isn’t the so-called ‘prosperity gospel’, where if you truly have faith you will be healthy and wealthy now, but a promise of the End that Jesus will sometimes show glimpses of now when he blesses us in this life. And when he does bless us in this life, we respond with thanksgiving rather than hoarding, and with offering what he has blessed us with for the good of others.
We look forward, then, to the glory of Jesus when he puts all things right in creation, makes everything new, and blesses abundantly, not grudgingly.
But we also respond now, so when we witness those whose lives are not characterised by abundant living, we know as Christians we must pray, speak out, act, and give. It may be poverty. It may be famine. It may be injustice. It may be disease. Our call is to witness to the coming abundance of blessing, and to show that the present way of things is not the will of God.
All of which draws us to the conclusion where we note what the passage says about our response and how that may enable the glory of Jesus to be seen.
There are a couple of threads about response in the passage. One is about obedience to Jesus:
5 His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’
6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from eighty to a hundred and twenty litres.
7 Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water’; so they filled them to the brim.
The co-operation of the servants in obedience to his command enables Jesus to show his glory.
The other is about faith, and it’s back to where we began:
11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
Put these two threads together and you have ‘Trust and obey’. If I’d known exactly where my studies of the passage were going to lead me this week when I picked the hymns, then ‘Trust and obey’ would almost certainly have been the next hymn. But it isn’t, because I didn’t realise that at the time.
However, ‘trust and obey’ are the ways we respond to the glory of Jesus and co-operate with his ways so that others may see his glory. When we encounter the glory of Jesus, as the disciples did at Cana, then the right response is to believe in him.
And when we do believe in him, the appropriate way of showing that is to obey him, so that others too may see his glory in the promise of resurrection, a relationship of intimacy, and and the gift of abundance.
Indeed – let us trust and obey.
[1] Richard Bauckham, Gospel Of Glory, p182.
[2] Ibid., pp9-13.
Jesus’ Baptism and Ordination – and ours, Luke 3:15-22 (Epiphany 1, Ordinary Time 1)
These last couple of weeks I have been struggling to shake off a sinusitis bug I have had since just after Christmas, and I’m afraid the consequent sinus headaches have made sermon preparation difficult. Hence, this week I’m repeating a sermon from – oh my – fifteen years ago. The original text is here.
Epiphany and Covenant Service 2025: The Magi (Matthew 2:1-12)
This is a revised version of a sermon I preached six years ago but which is not on the blog. The text that follows is how I preached it in 2019 and does not exactly conform to the video, because I paraphrased and added some material:
Rumour has it that the Nativity Play was cancelled at Parliament this Christmas.
Why? Apparently, they couldn’t find three wise men.
OK, that’s a silly Internet joke I saw during the festive season, along with the cartoon where three wise women bring practical gifts such as a casserole instead of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
But I love the story of the Magi, and with Covenant Sunday falling this year on Epiphany, the feast where the wider Christian Church throughout the world and down through history celebrates the appearing of the Messiah to the Gentiles, we have a story that also says much to the Covenant theme of commitment to Christ.
Here, then, are three aspects of the Magi and their coming that speak to the question of our commitment to Christ.
Firstly, the Magi were Gentiles.
Yes, I know that’s stating the obvious, but it’s important. Matthew is the most Jewish of all the four Gospels, but no Jew comes to worship the infant Christ in his Gospel, only the Magi from the east – perhaps modern-day Iraq.
The Magi represent all that is wrong in spiritual practice in the eyes of faithful Jews. They were astrologers, and astrology began in ancient Babylon. When Israel was taken captive to Babylon, astrology was a common habit of the surrounding culture. In the parts of Isaiah that relate to that part of Israel’s history, astrology is condemned and ridiculed. It is not the way to find truth and purpose in life. For the Jew, that could only be found by following the one true God – as it should for us, too, and which incidentally is why no Christian should devote time to their horoscope.
It is these unsound, unclean people that come in the highly Jewish Gospel according to Matthew and worship the infant Christ. Matthew is telling us that the Gospel, while originating with the Jews, is for the whole world. It’s no coincidence that Matthew ends his Gospel with the so-called Great Commission, where the risen Jesus sends his followers to the whole world with the call to discipleship.
Therefore the first challenge I want to bring from the story of the Magi this morning to us on Covenant Sunday is our call to be bearers of the Gospel to all people, including those who are not remotely like us. Who are the people who to us are unclean or unsound? Who are the people whose lifestyles we would instinctively condemn? Christ lived and died for them, too. Who are the people with whom we would not naturally associate, the people we wouldn’t mix with at a social gathering? Again, Christ lived and died for them.
I’ve noticed that one of the most contentious issues among residents of Byfleet has to do with what happens when travellers come and pitch up on land in the village. I understand some of that reaction, given the mess they often leave and the inconvenience they cause. But one of the great areas of numerical growth in Christianity in the UK these days is among travellers and gypsies. Largely, the Gospel was originally taken to them by our Pentecostal friends. Now there are indigenous gypsy congregations and Christian conventions. We might not want to have too much to do with them. But God loves them and has reached out to them through other Christians.
So I’d like us to consider this Covenant Sunday whether there are any people we might naturally think are unsavoury, but who need God’s love in Christ to be shown to them. Does anyone occur to you?
Secondly, the Magi decided to go.
The Magi go on their long and arduous journey, and when the biblical scholars tell them and Herod that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem, they are still the only ones who go. Those who apparently know their Scriptures do nothing.
Christian commitment involves hearing the call of God and doing something about it. This the Magi demonstrate in spades. They don’t even know the Scriptures, but they follow the call as they have heard it the best they can. The strange sign of the star, the biblical reference from the prophet Micah to Bethlehem, and finally the warning in the dream not to return to Herod. In all these ways they show the characteristic of true disciples: they hear and they go.
I sometimes fear that we in the modern church are rather like the biblical scholars whom Herod called. We have heard and read the Christian message over and over again down years and decades, but do we always allow it to have a challenging or transforming effect on us? Do we hear the Bible read and then move on? Do we just read it and then close it?
I may have told you before the story of the Argentinean pastor who preached on the same text every week for a year.
‘Pastor, when you are you going to preach on something different?’ asked one church member.
‘When you start obeying this passage,’ replied the pastor.
Something like that can be our problem. We are fed a diet of weekly sermons, we think we know the Bible and our faith quite well, but how much have we let it change us?
Yet along come the Magi and for all their learning in other areas they are simple when it comes to matters of faith. God shows them what to do, and off they go.
I believe that sometimes it’s the newer and spiritually younger Christians who come along, get hold of something basic about the faith, and run with it in ways that really the experienced Christians might have done.
One example of this would be the Addlestone (now Runnymede) Food Bank. The person who had the vision for this was a middle-aged woman who had only recently found faith through an Alpha Course, but she quickly grasped that following Jesus meant caring about the poor. Her professional background was as a stockbroker. She was used to managing accounts containing many millions of pounds. She used her managerial and entrepreneurial skills in the service of God’s kingdom to sell the vision of the food bank to the churches, to start it up, organise, and run it, before being snapped up by the Trussell Trust for a national rôle with them. As I say, she was young in the faith, but she heard the voice of God and ran with it.
What more might we do if we allowed ourselves to be that bit less jaded about all the things we have heard over and over again in the Scriptures and in the preaching of the word?
More specifically, is there one particular thing where you know God has been giving you a little poke for a long time? Wouldn’t the Covenant Service be a great time finally to say ‘yes’ to him, ‘I’ll do it’?
Thirdly and finally, the Magi decided to give.
So yes, here we’re onto the gold, frankincense and myrrh. Not a casserole dish in sight.
The popular idea is that gold is for a king, frankincense for a priest, and myrrh to mark death. It’s very appealing, it fits with what comes later in Jesus’ ministry, but Matthew makes no such connections. This interpretation first arose in the second century AD, courtesy of the church leader Irenaeus.
As the New Testament scholar Dr Ian Paul says [in the article linked above],
In the narrative, they are simply extravagant gifts fit for the true ‘king of the Jews’.
And it’s as simple as that. The ‘king of the Jews’ who will come to be seen in Matthew as the king of all creation is worthy of extravagant giving. The gifts presented are worth a lot of money and come on the back of the immense giving of time and energy the magi have put in to come this great distance and pay homage to Jesus.
I wonder whether as experienced Christians our whole approach to giving becomes jaded. The giving of our time and energy can feel no different from a job or from involvement in a social activity or a hobby. The giving of our money can seem like little more than a subscription to a favourite cause, like just another standing order or direct debit from our current account.
Does it take the passion of newer Christians to get us in touch again with what giving could be for disciples of Jesus? Younger Christians are often passionate and inelegant in their worship and their giving. We may look down on their uncouth offering. We may give them a withering look or damn them with faint praise. We may do something similar not just with new Christians but with new churches.
But rather than resort to dressing up cynicism in spiritual language, we might better ask how the giving aspect of our own discipleship might be freshened up. Maybe in our spiritual lives we are tired and worn out. So perhaps that means we need a renewed encounter with Jesus himself.
And surely the God of love and mercy wants to refresh our dry Christian lives. He would love to give us a new vision of his Son through the work of his Holy Spirit in our lives. He would love to bring us to the feet of Jesus again. For there we encounter the One whose whole existence is of self-giving love. He loved us enough to give up heaven for human life – and humble, poor, obscure human life at that. He loved us enough to walk the way of the Cross so that our woundedness might be healed, our sins forgiven, and the power of dark forces broken. He loves us even now so much that he longs to give eternal life and spiritual gifts and blessings.
Yes, when we encounter God the Giver in Jesus Christ, we shall surely be inspired into a renewal of our own giving.
What I’d like to note as we conclude is that in twelve short verses where Matthew tells the story vividly but concisely, the Magi who leave by dodging Herod are men who have been changed from how they were at the beginning of the account. They arrived through the dubious offices of astrology. But they left, having listened to Scripture, having met Jesus, and having listened to God in a dream.
So are we open on this Covenant Sunday to being changed, too? Who are our Gentiles who need the Good News? Are we just sermon-tasters of theoretical Bible students, or are we like the Magi ‘going’ – that is, putting what we have heard into action? And have we encountered Jesus the Giver, who stirs up the extravagant giving of our hearts?
Friends, we too need to be changed. May we be open this Covenant Service and this New Year to the transforming power of Christ through his Holy Spirit.
Fourth Sunday in Advent: God Is Coming Home (Luke 1:39-55)
(This is a second consecutive repeat sermon from six years ago – sorry about that, but the week has been thoroughly disrupted by loss of landline and broadband for five days. I’m really not sure the words ‘BT’ and ‘Business’ belong together in the expression ‘BT Business Contract’!)
‘It’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s coming – football’s coming home.’
Every time the England football team has qualified for a major tournament since 1996, that songs – ‘Three Lions’ – is dusted down and sung again.
There is a sense of ‘coming home’ when Mary visits her older cousin Elizabeth. It’s not immediately obvious in English translations of the Bible, but there are allusions in this story to 2 Samuel 6:2-19, where King David and his men bring the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. Just as the ark of the covenant was the portable sign of God’s presence among his people, so now in the Incarnation Jesus will be ‘the portable presence of God’, if that doesn’t sound too irreverent. And just as David danced before the ark of the covenant, so the infant John leaps in his mother Elizabeth’s womb. The prophetic voice in Israel has been silent since Malachi four hundred years earlier, but now God is at work. Like that sentence in ‘The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe’, ‘Aslan is on the move.’
So what happens when God is on the move? Blessing – that’s what happens. Mary is blessed. Her baby is blessed. Elizabeth is blessed – she says she is ‘favoured’, which is a word that explains what blessing is. And surely her leaping, dancing baby is also blessed.
What blessings appear when God comes home to his people?
For Elizabeth’s unborn baby John, it is the blessing of joy. He leaps in the womb (verse 41) and Elizabeth says he ‘leaped for joy’ (verse 44). Why would John leap for joy?
Remember what their relationship will be. They are cousins, but John will be born first and he will herald the coming of his cousin Jesus, the Messiah. John will be the forerunner. He will be the compère, introducing the main event. He will be the best man to the bridegroom. In adult life, nothing will give John greater joy than the advent of Jesus. He will be filled with joy to announce that the Messiah is coming. He will not be interested in promoting himself; instead, his passion will be to introduce Jesus, and then get out of the way so that all the spotlight can fall on his cousin.
Our joy too is to announce the presence of Jesus. For in him, God has come to be with all who will follow him. We are not left alone, for the One called Immanuel, God with us, is here. We have no interest in promoting ourselves, only in highlighting Jesus, for he is our joy and nothing gives us greater joy than to see people recognise him, acknowledge him, and celebrate his love.
Remember what I said that the infant John leaping in his mother’s womb is a New Testament parallel to King David leaping and dancing for joy before the ark of the covenant, the Old Testament sign of God’s presence, being restored to the midst of God’s people. Does anything give us more joy than to know that in Christ God is present? We are not left alone. We are not deserted. Even in the silence, God is here.
So let us be joyful this Christmas. We rightly query the self-indulgence of society at Christmas, and the excessive celebration of – well, what, exactly? But if anyone has reason for joy at Christmas it is the Christian.
That said, being truly joyful in this season can be difficult. There are so many pressures and things to do that if we are not careful, we get so run down that we are unable to celebrate. I know that is true of me as a minister, with all the extra services, and I can remember the time my daughter asked me how grumpy I was going to be this Christmas.
But I also know I am not alone in that experience. It is widespread. How ironic that the loudest voice I have heard in the last year or two urging people to simplify Christmas in order to make it better has been the television and internet money saving expert, Martin Lewis. What’s the irony in Martin Lewis urging people to simplify Christmas in order to enjoy it more? He isn’t a Christian. He’s Jewish.
Can we find space again this year to be filled with joy at the coming of our Lord?
For Elizabeth herself, the blessing of God coming home to his people is to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
God not only comes near to Elizabeth, God comes right into Elizabeth’s life. It is a sign of what is to come. The coming of God will not end with the departure of Jesus but will continue in the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Now the coming of the Holy Spirit can lead to all sorts of gifts in God’s people. What do we see in Elizabeth? Let’s read on:
42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favoured, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
Elizabeth’s gift is to ‘recognises blessedness’[1]. In other words, the Holy Spirit enables Elizabeth to recognise what God is doing, to notice where God is bestowing favour. So when God comes close to Elizabeth and fills her with the Holy Spirit, she receives the ability to discern what God is doing, and then to welcome it and live accordingly.
Now when you state the work of the Holy Spirit like that, isn’t that something we long for and desperately need? Isn’t it critical for us too to be able to discern what God is doing and respond appropriately? In today’s church we often lurch from one thing to another, trying this trick or that technique in order to see things turn around, but I rarely hear people say, let us seek God to know what God is doing. It’s as if we can solve the problems of the church by human ingenuity and technology. And we can’t. Not only that, God won’t let us, because if things turned for the better that way we would end up glorifying ourselves, telling ourselves what clever folk we are, rather than bringing praise to God.
Remember that in Elizabeth and Mary’s day things were bad. As I said in the introduction, it had been four hundred years since God had spoken through the prophet Malachi. God’s people were not even free in their own land, they were under the occupying force of Rome. They weren’t truly it at home: they saw themselves as being in exile, similar to when they had been carted off to Babylon in the sixth century BC. The people of God in their day were looking around for ways to turn the situation around, just as we are with the aging and declining numbers of the church.
But unlike the leaders of her day, Elizabeth realised that the problem was a spiritual issue. When God drew near, she was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to see what God was doing. Surely her blessing is a lesson for us. As we long to find a way forward today, it won’t do to follow the fads and fashions. We need instead to pray, ‘God, come close to us. Holy Spirit, fill us with the presence and wisdom of God.’ Should not this be our posture in response to the plight we find ourselves in – prayer rather than conferences and committees?
Finally, Mary: what is her blessing when God comes near? It is the gift of faith. For as the discerning Elizabeth recognises,
45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfil his promises to her!
We need to pause and reflect on just how remarkable Mary’s faith was. Unlike our society, to fall pregnant outside marriage was shameful. And while the imposition of the death penalty by stoning was by no means certain, the ending of her betrothal by divorce and social shaming and ostracization were sure bets. In the face of this, Mary believes her Lord.
Think also about Mary’s age. Marriages were arranged soon after girls reached puberty, and the young men were just a few years older, but not much. Mary is therefore probably about thirteen or fourteen when she learns of her unusual supernatural pregnancy. At that tender age, Mary believes her Lord. In a society where older people were respected and younger people weren’t, Mary is the one who is the example of faith.
The fact that God has moved close to Mary in sending Gabriel to announce the birth and in the Holy Spirit overshadowing her to cause the pregnancy has put Mary in touch with the great tradition of faith in which she stands. She
places herself squarely in solidarity with all God’s people and recognises in her own experience the establishing at least in principle of all that the faith of God’s people had encouraged them someday to expect from God.[2]
It all comes alive in Mary. The great stories of faith and trust in the past, long dormant in the four-hundred-year silence of God, are seen now in a young teenage girl.
And if we feel remote from God and the great heroes of faith, then one thing we can surely do is petition God to draw near to us that our faith might be ignited and we display faith that puts us too clearly within our great spiritual heritage. We might stop banging on about the greatness of the Wesleys and begin instead to emulate them.
But let’s notice too that Mary’s faith is not some vague, general belief. Elizabeth defines it as ‘she who has believed that the Lord would fulfil his promises to her’. Often that is the challenge of faith. God makes many promises to us in the Scriptures and either they seem hard to believe (as was surely the case for Mary with her pregnancy) or we are left waiting a long time for God to come through on what he has promised.
But Mary stood firm. God had spoken. Yes, she sought clarification from Gabriel, but unlike Zechariah she did not lapse into unbelief. It is symbolic, surely, that when Zechariah expresses unbelief he is struck dumb, because he had nothing worthwhile to say, whereas Mary, who asks questions but still believes can hurry rejoicing to her cousin’s house and pour out her praise in the hymn we call the Magnificat (verses 46-55).
Maybe it’s easier when we sense the nearness of God to stand firm. But whether we currently feel God to be close to us or not, are there divine promises where we are still waiting to see the fulfilment? Is God asking us to wait trustingly to see what he will do?
We might be facing the temptation to wobble in our faith. If we do, remember how the children of Israel wobbled at the Red Sea when they felt trapped between the waters and Pharaoh’s army. And remember what Moses said to them: ‘Stand still and you will see the deliverance of the Lord.’ Where is God calling us to stand still and see his deliverance, like Mary?
So this Christmas, as we tell the two-thousand-year-old story of God coming to his people in human flesh, may it not be another act of going through the motions. May it be a time when we sense God drawing near to us and filling us with joy. May we sense God’s nearness as he pours out his Spirit on us and we discern what he is doing, so that we may respond and join in. And may the closeness of God’s presence strengthen our faith so that we may believe his promises and stand firm to see his deliverance.
[1] John Nolland, Luke 1-9:20, p75.
[2] Ibid.
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