Weak In The Presence Of Beauty: The Transfiguration, Matthew 17:1-9 (Sunday Before Lent, Year A, 2023)

Matthew 17:1-9

One of the early solo hit singles by the singer Alison Moyet was entitled ‘Weak In The Presence Of Beauty’. The words describe the protagonist bumping into an old boyfriend, and they imply that this man was bad news. However, he was also good-looking, and the singer knows she cannot afford to spend time with him, for fear that she will go ‘weak in the presence of beauty.’

When we are in the presence of beauty, we do strange things. We stop being rational. Men stumble over their words in the presence of a beautiful woman. Peter babbles incoherently in our reading when he sees Jesus transfigured and Moses and Elijah appear.

4 Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters – one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’

Other Gospels tell us he just didn’t know what to say.

The spiritual equivalent to being overwhelmed by beauty is to be overcome by the tangible presence of God. Right now, there is a story in the news that exemplifies that.

On Wednesday 8th February, a regular daily act of worship began in a chapel at Asbury Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. It’s still going on. People have so encountered God that they have not wanted to leave. Some are caught up in passionate worship. Others are on their knees, repenting of sin. Still others are sharing testimony to what God is doing then and there in their lives. Others are bringing prophetic words. People are travelling great distances to join the queue and get into the chapel. The American fast food chain Chick-Fil-A has been delivering food to the chapel so that some people can eat there and remain longer.

Does that sound like religious mania to you? If it does, let me bring you down to earth. Asbury Seminary is one of the leading training institutions in the United States for … Methodist ministers. Two of the New Testament scholars who I most frequently use in my studies and quote in my sermons, Craig Keener and Ben Witherington, are Asbury professors.

It’s too early to classify this formally as a revival, but it has all the hallmarks of a work of God. There are some similarities to outpourings of the Spirit as described in the Book of Acts. What is going on at Asbury is a return to Methodist roots, because we were a revival movement at the beginning – a revival movement where it was nothing unusual for people to be overcome by the tangible presence of God, just as Peter, James, and John were at the Transfiguration.

Now here’s the question I have this week about the Transfiguration experience. Who was it for?

And I have to say that I have changed my mind about my answer. In previous years, I have looked at the Transfiguration and those amazing words from heaven that affirm who Jesus is, and I’ve said: that was for Jesus. The words from heaven are very similar to those that come from Heaven at his baptism to affirm him before his public ministry starts. Now, he is about to embark on his journey to Jerusalem where he will suffer and die, and this equips him for it. When I have preached that in the past, I have emphasised how often dramatic experiences of God occur in the church among those who suffer for their faith, and there is some truth in that. I can support that from church history and personal testimony.

But as I said, I’ve changed my mind. I now think the Transfiguration, with its powerful experience of God’s nearness, was for the disciples.

Why? The voice from heaven was not addressed to Jesus, but to the disciples:

5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!’

Listen to him! That can only be addressed to the disciples! Why didn’t I see this before? That’s what I’ve been asking myself in the last few days!

And that’s one of two things that follow for disciples of Jesus from their dazzling spiritual experience: listen to Jesus.

They needed to hear that message. Just before the Transfiguration Jesus has prophesied for the first time that he will suffer and die. They couldn’t handle it. Peter in particular rejected it. That didn’t fit with their understanding of a triumphant Messiah.

So at the Transfiguration God takes matters in hand with these men who will be apostles. Listen to Jesus. He is my Son. I love him, he’s doing great things.

The particular thing they need to heed from Jesus is the necessity of him going to the Cross, as I said. It would be the centre of the Christian message. It would be the means of transformation for anyone who comes to Christ, for there they find love, forgiveness, and a new start. If you go away from the message of the Cross, then you also depart from Jesus.

I mentioned last week that my Byfleet church recently hosted a wedding blessing for a couple from a church that didn’t have its own premises. After the service, everyone was invited to write a message to the happy couple in a special book. This is what I wrote:

Stay together at the foot of the Cross and you won’t go wrong.

We have the reading about the Transfiguration on the Sunday before Lent starts, precisely for this reason. From here Jesus starts his journey to Jerusalem in earnest, knowing he will be betrayed, falsely convicted, tortured, and killed. If you want to go with Jesus from the Mount of Transfiguration, you have to go with him to Calvary.

I think that’s why many of the people in the chapel at Asbury Seminary were on their knees, confessing their sins. Their dramatic experience of God’s presence took them to the Cross.

And like the wedding couple whom I advised to ‘stay together at the foot of the Cross’, it is not a place that we visit once and from which we then move on. It is a place to dwell.

You may not fully understand it. Like those first disciples, you may feel like you only have a few pieces of the jigsaw and you need more in order to see the big picture God is putting before you. But when you do, you will see a picture of the Cross.

So listen to Jesus, and go to the Cross.

The second of the two things that follow from the awesome experience of God at the Transfiguration is something not said by the Father from Heaven, but by Jesus:

6 When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground, terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them. ‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

It may be natural when God’s presence comes close in awesome power to be afraid. This may be a genuine setting for ‘The fear of the Lord.’

And given that most times we don’t experience God as so close (and maybe, if we’re honest, don’t want to) when he comes that near to us it’s not surprising that the nearness of his holiness shows up our lack of holiness. So no wonder the response of many to such an encounter is the confession of sin.

But while that may be a necessary stopping point on the journey, it isn’t the destination. Jesus doesn’t want his disciples to remain permanently in the place of fear. Yes, God is holy – but he also loves us. Yes, we need to confess our sins – but God also wants to forgive us and renew us.

So this is an invitation to get going in the life of the kingdom in close fellowship with Jesus. The One who was seen in blazing light by the disciples and who will also be seen in blazing light at his return is the One who will accompany us in life.

So as we like Peter, James, and John prepare to come down from the mountain-top experience, we do so knowing that whatever trials will test us and whatever mundane things threaten to take the shine off the glory, Jesus the Transfigured One is still with us. His light and glory are not far away.

For us, of course, it is not his physical presence but the presence of his Spirit. And while we might prefer, as a child once said, ‘God with skin on’, the fact that his Spirit accompanies us makes it possible for him to be close to all who honour his Name.

Yes, I know there are times when he tests our faith by hiding behind the clouds of life for a protracted period, but he is still not far away from us.

And if he does come in splendour and glory into our lives, don’t run. Hear him say, ‘Don’t be afraid.’ Listen to him and let him take you with him to the Cross.

And allow him to draw close to you as friend, even with his stupendous power and authority.

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How To Be Better Than The Pharisees, Matthew 5:21-37 (Ordinary 6 Lent -2 Year A 2023)

Matthew 5:21-37

In last week’s Gospel passage from the preceding verses, Jesus said that his kingdom community was being watched by the world and so needed to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

But he then went on to say a third thing: that the world needs to see that we are better than the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. We are not just forgiven people, we are people on a journey of transformation.

This week’s passage puts flesh on those bones. In these verses, Jesus gives us specific examples of how we are meant to be better than the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law.

Jesus does this by taking examples from the Ten Commandments specifically and the Jewish Law, the Torah, generally. You will have noticed there was something of a formula going on in each example in the reading. First, there is a statement along the lines of ‘You have heard that it was said long ago’, followed by the law in question, and then Jesus says, ‘But I tell you’ and he then proceeds to up the ante and make that particular Law even more challenging.

This formula of ‘You have heard that it was said’ followed by ‘But I tell you’ is one that several Jewish teachers used. It’s a way of saying, ‘I have a different and better interpretation of the Law than what you have heard up to now.’ Well, you can bet Jesus has!

What is he trying to get over? That it’s not enough to obey externally in our actions the letter of God’s Law, what God is looking for is more than that. He is looking at our character.[1]

Now it’s easy to see what sort of character faults Jesus is condemning here, but maybe we should take those and reverse them to see what character traits he is commending as worthy of his kingdom.

So let’s look at the four examples he gives that we read.

Firstly, when Jesus talks about the command not to murder, he identifies anger, putting people down, and broken relationships as character faults behind the outward action and similar to it. The positive quality he identifies as important for his followers is reconciliation (verses 21-26). Be reconciled to the person who has something against you before you come to worship. Be reconciled to the person who is taking you to court for a debt.

We know how this fits into wider Christian theology. Because God has reconciled us to himself through the Cross of Christ, he calls us to be reconciled to each other. The church is meant to be a community of reconciliation.

We reflect this at least in part in our denominational structures in the Methodist Church. If a formal complaint against someone cannot be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties in the local circuit, it is passed onto the District. And the body there which tries to resolve the problem is called the District Reconciliation Group.

It’s a shame, then, that some people in our churches would rather complain and assassinate someone’s character, and even make up false accusations rather than seek reconciliation. And after I first wrote those words, I reflected on the expression ‘character assassination’ – you can see why Jesus links attitudes of the heart to murder there.

When I call for reconciliation I am not asking that we sweep differences or pain under the carpet and pretend they don’t exist. That is not reconciliation.

Of course, reconciliation can be difficult, if not downright painful. Sometimes we need a mediator to steer all the parties on a helpful course. It can help to have some mediators who have had particular training and gained certain skills.

But make no mistake, reconciliation is core to who we are as the Christian church. If we undermine it or despise it, then we are undermining our very identity as the church. We become not a place of life but of murder.

Secondly, when Jesus talks about adultery and the adultery of the heart that is lust (verses 27-30), he is calling us to the positive character trait of contentment. For what Jesus is doing here is linking the commandment not to commit adultery with the commandment not to covet. If a man lusts after another woman, he is lusting after someone else’s spouse or partner or daughter.

Jesus does not, of course, refer here to passing attraction, “but the deliberate harbouring of desire for an illicit relationship”[2].

When we are not content with our possessions, we covet buying more. When we are not content in our relationships, we covet someone else.

One of the problems we have with relationships today, and I think I’ve said this before, is that in the absence of belief in God, we expect too much of our romantic partners. We expect them to fulfil all sorts of needs – not just physical, but emotional too. We place a heavy burden on them that really only God can fill.

So when our loved ones fail to meet all our needs, the seeds of discontent are sown. And as those seeds grow, they burst through the surface of the soil as weeds that strangle our contentment. We begin to think that someone else would suit us better.

It’s a delusion. It doesn’t work. And if the thought is allowed to proceed to action, then two families can get destroyed.

As the church, we need to be a community that resists the lies of our world that say we shall only be satisfied with more, more, more. It bankrupts our bank accounts and it breaks up our families and relationships. Betrayed spouses may spend years before they ever trust someone again. Children suffer in their upbringing, however heroic many lone parents are.

I’ve quoted before in weddings the old saying that the bride’s aims and goals on a wedding day are Aisle-Altar-Hymn. But we need to accept one another’s imperfections and frailties, showing some of the grace that God has shown to us in Christ. We need to be less concerned with changing them for the better (and if they don’t, changing them for a newer model) than with changing ourselves.

Thirdly, when Jesus talks about divorce (verses 31-32) the positive character trait he has in mind is faithfulness.

We do have to read Jesus’ words here in parallel with what he says elsewhere in Matthew (in chapter 19) where he underlines sexual immorality as grounds for divorce, and what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, that if a Christian is married to a non-Christian and the non-Christian wants out, that too is a ground for divorce, but what is at the root of this teaching is that marriage is meant to be one man and one woman exclusively for life. The New Testament scholar Craig Keener says that Jesus and Paul

… exonerate those who genuinely wished to save their marriage but were unable to do so because their spouse’s unrepentant adultery, abandonment, or abuse de facto destroyed the marriage bonds.[3]

Jesus in his typical use of extreme hyperbolic language is not here sending abused wives back to their abusers, as I have sadly heard some Christian ministers do, but calling on those who have done wrong to mend their ways.

The other week Byfleet church hosted a wedding blessing for another church – one that doesn’t have its own premises. As the pastor took the young couple through their vows, I noticed that when he asked them questions such as ‘Will you be faithful to her/him until you are parted by death?’ their answer was ‘I will.’

Now that’s fine up to a point. ‘I will’ indicates both that it is a promise going into the future, and that sometimes love and faithfulness is an act of will. Because for all the joys of marriage, it will also be tough at times.

I much prefer our marriage service, where the bride and groom don’t say ‘I will’ but ‘With God’s help I will.’ God is ready by the Holy Spirit to help us with those challenging assignments he gives us.

And that isn’t just about marriage. It’s about us in the church being faithful to Jesus and faithful in our commitment to each other. Does Jesus see faithfulness to his teaching and to one another among us?

Fourthly and finally, when Jesus talks about whether or not you should swear an oath in court (verses 33-37), he has in mind the positive character trait of integrity.

Jesus’ banning of oaths wasn’t an unique position, but it was rare, and of course there are examples of oaths in the Old Testament, where the expectation is that if you make an oath you must keep it, even at great cost to yourself. It also warns against foolish oaths.

The intention behind Jesus’ teaching is probably similar to the ancient Greek view that your word should be as good as your oath. It makes me think of my late father’s experience of working in banking in the City. When the so-called ‘Big Bang’ happened in the financial world in 1987, my father bemoaned the fact that what disappeared overnight was the notion that a gentleman’s word was his bond. So much business was conducted in the city on a well-founded basis that if someone gave their word they would keep it. A handshake sealed the commitment of both parties. But this was replaced by lies and suspicion that had to be kept in check by laws.

Jesus is calling his people to be so known for their commitment to truthfulness that our reputation means no-one needs to ask us to back it up in some legal way. He calls us to remember that when we speak, we do so not merely in the presence of human witnesses, but in the presence of God. Yet how much do we live our lives in the knowledge that God is present? Should that not have an effect on our commitment to truth?

In Jesus’ day, some people thought it OK to break an oath and deceive people if they swore on something trivial, such as their right hand, but he wants his people to be different. In our day, we know how easily some people find it to engage in bare-faced deceit. Sadly in the last couple of years we have had too many examples of that in Parliament, but it’s not the only arena where we’ve witnessed this disturbing trend. Some people think they can say anything they like on the Internet, and there will be no consequences. They are wrong.

So if Jesus calls us to be people who are habitually known for their truth-telling, it is another way in which he is calling us to be distinctive in the face of the watching world.

The same is true of the other character virtues we’ve been thinking about today. His call to faithfulness comes to us in a society that has replaced lifetime faithfulness with serial monogamy, and now ‘throuples’. His call to contentment comes to us in a society where we are forever meant to buy bigger and better things, regardless of whether we need them, relationshhips included. His call to reconciliation comes to us in a society where we seem to have caught the American disease of ‘If it moves, sue it.’

How is God calling me to be distinctive as a Christian today?

How is he calling us as a church to be distinctive?

How indeed shall we be the light of the world?

[1] Craig Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, pp 180-182.

[2] Op. cit., P189.

[3] Op. cit., p192.

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We Are Being Watched, Matthew 5:13-20 (Ordinary 5 Lent -3 Year A 2023)

Matthew 5:13-20

Earlier this week I was at the Byfleet Tuesday Fellowship where over a series of meetings I have been telling them the story of my life and faith. Bit by bit, episode, by episode, this week we finally got to the point where my family and I arrived in this circuit in 2010 – which was probably a good point at which to end.

One of the hymns we sang on Tuesday was ‘Blessèd Assurance’, for its theme of testimony and those lines, ‘This is my story, this is my song.’ I hope that in hearing my story people heard how my story fits into the bigger story of Jesus.

We’ve been tracking the story of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel in recent weeks. A fortnight ago, we heard how Jesus came into Galilee of the Gentiles with a proclamation that was to begin forming his community of light, a community that forms through repentance. Last week (if you watched my video) you’ll know I preached on the opening of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus shows us what the repentant life with him looks like.

This week, Jesus tells us what the community of light is meant to look like to the watching world.

Firstly, says Jesus, his people are the salt of the earth.

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

Now before we think about the salt, I want us to think about the earth.[1] The word here could just mean the soil, or it could mean the land, be that the local land where they are or the land of the whole world.

If it’s the local land, then it would be an image of Israel. Remember that before Jesus ever said, ‘Blessèd are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth’ (Matthew 5:5), the Psalmist had said that the meek will inherit the land (Psalm 37:11). The land was so crucial to Israel: it was, after all, the Promised Land. If that’s what we’re talking about here, then Jesus is seeing his people as a renewal movement within the people of Israel. And I guess initially that’s what Christ-followers were.

But I mentioned a fortnight ago that Matthew has the mission to the Gentiles in view. He emphasises that Jesus comes to ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’, and he ends his Gospel with the Great Commission. So in the long term the earth here is surely the whole world. We are to be salt in the whole world. This is an image of the mission to which Jesus calls us.

So we need to know what the salt is. We know how salt had various uses, the main ones being as a seasoning, a preservative, and as a fertiliser. I am going to dismiss the first two of seasoning and preservative here, partly because they refer to food whereas Jesus is talking about salt of the earth, and that’s where it was used as fertiliser.  Besides, it makes little sense to talk of the Christian calling as merely seasoning the world or preserving it. We are not here simply to make the world more flavoursome, or to preserve it, when there is much wrong with it. It is not our calling to bless everything that goes on in the world.

No: if we are salt of the earth, then Jesus means that we are fertiliser. The kingdom community is divine fertiliser. We enable life and growth where there is death and despair. Ultimately, that life only comes in Jesus Christ. We point people to that by our words and deeds. Food banks and the like are signs and pointers to the life of Christ in the midst of death and hopelessness. We also need to speak about the life Christ brings.

So a church community is meant to be fundamentally outward-looking. A fellowship that only looks inwards on itself is one where the salt has lost its saltiness. That may seem strange to us, who are used to our salt largely just being made up of one chemical compound. But in the days of Jesus salt was often found in a mixture with other minerals, and it could be dissolved out of it.

To us, salt losing its saltiness is absurd. Jesus would say to us, a church that only looks in on itself and does not make outreach a priority is equally absurd. Such a church cannot offer life, because it has dissolved the life out of itself.

Secondly, says Jesus, his people are the light of the world.

14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Go back two weeks again in our story. Jesus has come to Galilee of the Gentiles to bring light to those living in darkness. Now, he says, that’s the ongoing task of his people. While in John’s Gospel Jesus owns the title ‘Light of the world’ for himself, here in Matthew he gives it to his kingdom community.

Sometimes we’re happy at the thought that Jesus is the light of the world, but we baulk at the fact that he called his church to be that light, too. It would be easier and more comfortable for us if our faith were just a private thing. We wouldn’t have to worry about being a good witness and what reaction we might get to that in society.

And there are factions in our society who would like us to adopt that attitude. Groups like the National Secular Society and others argue that faith has no place in public life. Either they don’t understand what faith is, or they don’t want to understand.

Jesus says, we are going to be seen – both as individual disciples and as a community of believers together. It will be our good deeds that shine light into a darkened world. We are not doing them so that people praise us, as Jesus condemned some religious leaders for doing: we are doing good deeds so that people may ‘glorify [y]our Father in heaven.’

Do we want to make a first step in changing this world for the better, for the glory of God? Surely we do. Then we need to think, talk, and pray about what good deeds would show up as light in our dark world.

So let me remind you of some of John Wesley’s most famous words:

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.

I think Jesus would approve of those words.

Thirdly and finally, Jesus calls us to be better than the Pharisees.

Jesus says he hasn’t come to abolish the Jewish Law but to fulfil it, that we should therefore not dilute it, and that in fact our righteousness needs to exceed that of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law (verses 17-20).

We need to hear this, and hear it carefully. Jesus is not saying that we should obey every Old Testament law, for he said that the food laws were no longer necessary (Mark 7:1-22) and the New Testament generally sees his death on the Cross as fulfilling the sacrificial laws.

Therefore, we need to read the Old Testament and its laws carefully. As Dr Ian Paul says,

… God looks on the heart as well as the hands. We must, in our reading of the Old Testament, always move from ‘What does it say?’ through ‘What is the intention?’ before we ask ‘What is God saying to us now?’[2]

The bottom line is that we cannot be casual about our conduct. Just because we believe in grace, mercy, and forgiveness does not mean we can live carelessly. That will not shine light into darkness. That will simply make us hypocrites, just as Jesus often said the religious leaders of his day were.

No. In God’s grace and mercy in Christ we do indeed find forgiveness and many a fresh start in life after we have messed up. But that grace then calls us to aspire to a higher standard. If all we are called to be as Christians is ‘nice’ then what makes us shine as the light of the world?

That’s why the early church gave dignity to the dead by taking funerals for those not considered worthy of one in the Roman Empire. That’s why they also took care of babies abandoned to die because they were the wrong sex or in some other way did not fit their parents’ aspirations.

Friends, if we are called to bring life to our world and shine in the darkness, how is the Holy Spirit calling us to a higher standard than mere religion?

It’s a question we need to ponder.

[1] Here and in most of what follows I am dependent on Ian Paul’s blog post ‘Being distinctive as the people of God in Matthew 5’.

[2] Ibid.

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The Purpose of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:1-12 (Ordinary 4 Epiphany 4 Year A 2023)

Matthew 5:1-12

If ever I want to wind up a congregation about how long the sermon is going to be, I tell a story I’ve often used about the famous Puritan preacher Richard Baxter of Kidderminster. On one Sunday, he was heard saying in his sermon, “And sixty-fifthly …”

Now, I’ve never preached a sixty-five point sermon. Honest! A typical sermon of mine has three points. I know that’s a cliché to many, but psychologists have suggested we remember things in threes.

But today’s reading could tempt me to preach an eight-point sermon: one point for every beatitude. I did attempt that once as a young minister, preaching on Remembrance Sunday, where this reading is also set. Let’s just say it wasn’t one of my most successful sermons.

Actually, I think the Beatitudes are best served by a sermon series or by a weekly series in a Bible study group – one week for each Beatitude. That way we can get to grips with them.

Instead, this week what I want us to do is something we often miss by rushing into the Beatitudes at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. I shall say a little about the Beatitudes, but mainly I want us to think more widely about the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount. That should set us up well for the next couple of weeks, when we also have passages from the Sermon to reflect on, and I hope it will help us in the longer term on those occasions when we return to the Sermon on the Mount.

So my question for today is this: what is Jesus doing in the Sermon on the Mount?

Firstly, Jesus is showing his authority.

It is not an incidental detail when Matthew tells us that Jesus ‘went up on a mountainside’ (verse 1). Whenever Jesus goes up a mountain in Matthew’s Gospel, something important happens. Other examples include the Mount of Transfiguration in chapter 17 and the mountain where he gave the Great Commission after his Resurrection in chapter 28.

This repeated mountain pattern alerts his Jewish readers to something important. They remember that God gave the Law to Moses on a mountain – Mount Sinai. Here is a new Moses.

And then they remember that they were promised one greater than Moses would appear. For the Sermon on the Mount is the first of five big blocks into which Matthew divides Jesus’ teaching – just like the so-called ‘Five Books of Moses’: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

A new Moses, indeed one greater than Moses is here. He has special, if not unique authority. Therefore we cannot dismiss the teaching here as just ‘good advice.’ Nor can we dismiss it as unrealistic and other-worldly. We can’t say it’s idealistic nonsense that doesn’t apply in the real world. You could say it is the ideal ethics of the kingdom, but

It is the ideal ethics of the kingdom that its citizens must exemplify in advance.[1]

Jesus is bringing God’s new Law, the Law of his kingdom. This is meant to make us stand up on our feet and give it our full attention. Why? Because Jesus has the very authority of God.

Secondly, Jesus focusses his teaching on his disciples.

His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them.

In the previous chapter he has called people to repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near (4:17). Now, he says, this is what the life of a repentant disciple looks like.

One experience preachers occasionally have at the door after the service is the person who comes up to us and says, “Thank you for your sermon this morning, that was meant for so-and-so. I hope she was paying attention!”

However, before we rush into saying that the teaching we find in the Sermon on the Mount is applicable to other people, maybe politicians for example, we need to remember that it is first and foremost addressed to those of us who claim to be disciples of Jesus, however imperfect we are.

In the Sermon on the Mount you and I get to take a good, hard look at ourselves and how we are getting on as followers of Jesus:

Jesus himself apparently expected full compliance with his teaching, not in the legalistic or ascetic ways he himself condemns, “but as signs of God’s kingdom.”[2]

In the Gospel narratives Jesus embraces those who humble themselves, acknowledging God’s right to rule, even if in practice they fall short of the goal of moral perfection.[3]

If we want to know how we are getting on as Christians, the Sermon on the Mount is a good barometer. If we are wondering what to do for Lent this year, maybe one good discipline would be to read through the Sermon in Matthew 5-7 in small chunks, reflecting on Jesus’ teaching, and bringing our findings to God in prayer.

Thirdly, Jesus teaches in full sight of the world.

Jesus teaches here outdoors as many rabbis of his day did, not confining his teaching to the synagogue. This is a way of life that is meant to be lived out in the world. It is not private piety.

And moreover, he knows the world is watching:

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside … (verse 1a, my italics)

There are a couple of things we can draw from this. One is what I’ve just said, namely that the world is watching the disciples of Jesus as they are taught. And you can be sure that if your friends or family know that you are a Christian, they are watching you, too.

Therefore, it’s all the more important that we engage with the teaching of Jesus. I know that the old cliché is kind of true when we say, ‘Christians aren’t perfect, they’re just forgiven’, but I want to take issue with that word ‘just.’ Yes, we are imperfect and we are forgiven, but we are more than that. We are people on a journey, growing in grace and faith. As Paul tells us in Philippians 1, God has begun a good work in us, and he is going to finish it. It’s like the catchphrase from Mastermind: ‘I’ve started, so I’ll finish.’ And our neighbours are watching our progress.

The other thing about Jesus teaching in full sight of the world is that

He wanted both [the disciples and the crowd] to hear, calling both to decision.[4]

When Jesus teaches his message here, he is saying, “This is what the kingdom of God looks like. Are you up for it? Make a decision!” And when we live it out before the watching world, there is a sense in which we are doing the same. “This is what the kingdom of God looks like. This is God’s future. What are you going to do about Jesus?” Such faithful living is the beginning of our evangelism.

Fourthly and finally, Jesus begins the Sermon with encouragement.

That’s what the Beatitudes are – encouragement. They are encouragement for disciples of Jesus. The preamble to an ancient speech or letter, or the ‘proem’ as it was called, was often filled with encouragement for the hearers or recipients. You see the same in the way Paul begins most of his letters. Even when he’s cross with a church, he often starts by recounting blessings associated with them.

And so that’s why Jesus says ‘Blessèd’ eight times at the beginning. You are blessed – times eight! You are blessed as you live the life of a disciple. You may not always think you are blessed as you follow me, he says, but really and truly you are.

You are blessed in the work of the kingdom – when you long for righteousness and you make peace.

You are blessed in the attitudes of the kingdom – when you grow in meekness, mercy, and purity of heart.

You are even blessed in the suffering that comes from walking in the ways of the kingdom – when you are poor, grieving, or persecuted.

These conditions do not always look like what the world would call ‘blessèd’, but God is with his disciples there, he is growing their work and character, and he is promising them justice when the kingdom has fully come. In all these ways he encourages his people that they are on the right path. We simply need to take care that we are walking in these directions, and God will take care of the blessing.

So as we submit to the authority of Jesus by seeking to follow his challenging teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, we are helped by the Holy Spirit. And as we live out values such as the Beatitudes before the world, we shall be challenging that world about the need to respond to the call of Jesus.

[1] Craig Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A socio-rhetorical commentary, p161.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Op. cit., p161f.

[4] Op. cit., p165.

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Demi Lovato and the Community of Light, Matthew 4:12-23 (Ordinary 3 Epiphany 3 Year A 2023)

Matthew 4:12-23

Light.

Here is a quote that a friend of mine posted on Facebook the other day:

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.’

(Og Mandino)

It resonated with me as I read today’s passage in Matthew 4, where the evangelist quotes the famous words of Isaiah,

the people living in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
    a light has dawned

(Matthew 4:16/Isaiah 9:2)

We associate those words from Isaiah with Christmas. I have picked them for most carol services. For Christians, they are a prophecy of the Messiah, Jesus.

But the New Testament doesn’t connect them with the birth of Jesus. Their association with Christmas comes not from Scripture but from their use in Handel’s ‘Messiah’[1]. In the Bible, Jesus is only revealed as the light coming to the people in darkness when he begins his public ministry here.

Yet here’s the thing about Jesus coming as the great light in the darkness: he has come to form a community of light, because in the next chapter he will tell his disciples they are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14-16).

So what Jesus is doing in today’s reading is setting down the foundations for his community of light. Here are three of those foundations:

Firstly, repentance.

17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’

The kingdom of God has come near, so repent. At its core, the word repent means ‘a change of mind’, both in the English and the Greek of the New Testament.

But repentance is not just an intellectual change. It is such a change of mind about life and truth that our lives and conduct change, too.

Why? Because ‘the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ That is, the king himself has arrived, and his name is Jesus. Just as Roman heralds would go through the towns and villages to proclaim the accession of a new Emperor, so Jesus announces his own coming as king. And if there is a new king on the throne of the universe, then it is his will that is to be obeyed, rather than whoever or whatever we were following before – our own self-gratification, the disordered self-centredness of society, or the lies of the enemy.

For the community of light that Jesus is beginning is the kingdom of God community. It is what the great American Free Methodist scholar Howard Snyder called, ‘The Community of the King.’

When we gather on Sunday for worship or in a small group in the week, we are gathering as the community of King Jesus. We are light to the world by living out our allegiance to him, not by making the faith easier to believe as we compromise with the standards of the world. All that does by definition is expand the darkness. Being the light requires being different, and that means repentance. And not one-off repentance, but something we keep coming back to throughout our lives.

Most of us probably have a good idea about things we need to change in our lives to bring them under the rule of King Jesus. The difficulty may be in where to start! So let us ask the Holy Spirit for guidance about our next steps in repentance.

Secondly, fishing.

19 ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’

I have only been fishing once in my life. I was on a mission trip to Norway and our church hosts took us fishing in a fjord. If we didn’t catch any fish that afternoon, we wouldn’t eat that evening. Fortunately, we caught enough – although I only contributed one.

It’s the same for the church. We need to fish in order to live. We can’t wait for people to come to us. For too long we did that, and it was an act of complacency in times when people had some similarities to us and sympathies with us. Those days are gone.

It’s pretty likely that Simon Peter and Andrew heard Jesus’ vision of fishing for people as a sign that they would be sent to the Gentiles. For in the Old Testament, to be delivered from the waters was to be delivered from foreigners. There is some similar New Testament language in the Book of Revelation. And Gentiles were sometimes compared to terrifying mythical sea creatures.[2]

We need to get beyond our existing boundaries, says Jesus. It’s no good just spending time with our own kind. The Good News is for all. Matthew has already referred in this passage to ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’. In his birth stories, it is the Gentile Magi who worship, not the Jewish teachers. And at the end of his Gospel we shall have the Great Commission to go into all the world. It all begins here.

But, you say, I’m not the sort of person for that. May I remind you that neither were Simon Peter and Andrew? It was unusual for a rabbi to come and recruit disciples. Normally young men chose a rabbi to follow. The fact that these young men are not following a rabbi but out in the working world tells you they weren’t the brightest talent. But Jesus called them.

And Jesus calls us, too. He reminds us that we know people beyond the boundaries of the church who need the love of Jesus.

Remember, if we don’t do it, we starve, we die.

But how? That leads to the third foundation of the community of light, word and deed.

23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and illness among the people.

Now perhaps you hear that and say, ‘But I can’t preach and teach. And I’ve prayed for friends and family who are sick but none of them has got better. So how can I follow Jesus?’

Well – we don’t all have the same gifts, but the common thread is this: we take the light of the kingdom community beyond its boundaries by sharing the good news in word and deed. We may each have different ways of doing that, but a commitment to sharing God’s love in word and deed is the key principle. Although you should never write off the power of the Holy Spirit, of course!

Even though our wider society and culture turns increasingly away from Christian values, and even as it adopts a less and less friendly attitude to the church, we cannot go out into the world with our heads down. Nor as Christians can we go into the world with the thought that these people are so negative against us that we are going to curse them. We show love, even to our enemies.

A Bible passage I’m sure I’ve mentioned before to you but which is one of my favourites for understanding our calling today is Jeremiah 29. The prophet Jeremiah writes a letter to those of his people who have been forcibly taken into exile from the Promised Land to Babylon. Rather than cursing their captors, Jeremiah tells the exiles to bless them and to seek their welfare.

I think that’s one place where we start today. Here’s an example to make us ponder.[3] Last week, the Advertising Standards Authority banned poster adverts for the latest album by the pop star Demi Lovato. The album is called ‘Holy F*ck’ and portrays her in sexual bondage gear on a bed shaped like a crucifix as if she is on the Cross, like Christ. So pretty repulsive, and you can see why the ASA banned the posters for their offence to Christians.

But this is a young woman who, after becoming a child TV star, developed eating disorders and was subjected to sexual abuse. As she tried to cope with the pain, she became addicted to drugs and suffered mental health issues. A heroin overdose nearly killed her. She sustained brain damage and temporary blindness.

Her manager encouraged her to attend a church Bible study, and for a short while she felt close to God. But on the new album she sings that ultimately she felt like she didn’t fit in at church.

In our world, there are plenty of broken people who think they don’t fit in with church. Most of their stories are nothing like as dramatic as Demi Lovato’s. But they need God’s healing love showing to them and explained to them. They need the light of Christ, and his community, the light of the world, are the people to do this.

That means us. We are the community of King Jesus, not a religious club.

[1] I owe this insight to Ian Paul at https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/the-calling-of-the-first-disciples-in-matthew-4/

[2] Ian Paul, op. cit., citing Chad Bird via Peter Leithart.

[3] What follows is based on James Emery White at https://www.churchandculture.org/blog/2023/1/19/a-prayer-for-demi-lovato

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Discipleship and the New Creation, John 1:29-42 (Ordinary 2 Epiphany 2 Year A)

John 1:29-42

I once said of John’s Gospel that John won’t settle for one meaning of a word when ten will do. It’s a Gospel packed with symbolism, even in the literal stories.

And that’s true in our passage today, from the very first words of it: ‘The next day’ (verse 29). There is a whole series of references in the first two chapters of his Gospel to time: this is the first of three times John says ‘The next day’ (also in verses 35 and 43). So they are days two, three, and four of a week.

Then chapter two opens with ‘On the third day’, a phrase that has meanings all of its own when you know about the Resurrection. But if you add it to the first four days we have a week in the life of Jesus.

Now is John just showing us what a typical week in the ministry of Jesus was like? No. A Gospel that has begun with the words ‘In the beginning’ and then alludes to seven days is telling us that these are not seven days of creation, but seven days of re-creation, as Jesus has come to make all things new. These stories are telling us some of the ways in which Jesus brings salvation by making the old, decaying, sin-afflicted creation new.

In today’s reading, we see the part that discipleship plays in the new creation. We see two gifts God gives us, and two responses he calls us to make in order that we may be true disciples of Jesus.

Of the two gifts the first is the Lamb of God. Twice in our reading John the Baptist tells his disciples, ‘Look, the Lamb of God’ (verses 29, 36). Of course, by ‘Lamb of God’ he means Jesus.

And in the first of those two references, John the Baptist goes further:

‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’

‘Takes up the sin of the world’ is arguably a better translation: Jesus the Lamb takes up the sins of the world like he takes up the Cross. He takes them up onto himself. The very thing which has been wrecking creation, namely sin, is taken out of the way by the One who will die at the time of the Passover lambs. Instead of Israel being passed over for death because her homes were marked with the blood of Passover lambs in Egypt, now anyone marked with the blood of the Lamb of God is passed over, too.

Not only are they forgiven, but their sin is removed because the Lamb of God has taken it up. This is the first gift of a discipleship for a new creation. People are made new as sin is taken up from them by Christ.

‘If anyone is in Christ – new creation!’ wrote the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians. We are made new at the Cross, and creation is taken in the direction of newness rather than decay by the removal of our sins.

What is the application for us? Well, obviously praise and rejoicing. But we will come specifically to application in the two responses in a few moments’ time.

The second of the two gifts is the gift of the Spirit.

32 Then John gave this testimony: ‘I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptise with water told me, “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptise with the Holy Spirit.” 34 I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.’

Put simply, the Holy Spirit is permanently with Jesus and Jesus will give the Holy Spirit permanently to his disciples.

If the first gift, Jesus the Lamb of God, removes sin from us and from creation, then the second gift, the Holy Spirit, enables us to live in newness of life following that. The Holy Spirit brings the power to live like the new creation is here.

But of course we know that’s a battle. Paul has a wonderful passage on this in Galatians chapter 5 where he talks about living in the flesh versus living in the Spirit. ‘Flesh’ here is not our bodies but our sinful human nature that does not want to do the will of God. He says, you won’t win the battle just by keeping the Law, the religious rules. It’s no good just applying willpower, because you will fail. Instead, he says, you crucify the flesh as you live by the Spirit and keep in step with the Spirit.

So how do we live by the Spirit who has been given to us? By adopting lifestyles that are hospitable to the Holy Spirit. Historically, Methodists have called these the ‘means of grace’. These days, Christians more often call them ‘spiritual disciplines’ or ‘spiritual practices.’ A church leader from Portland, Oregon named John Mark Comer has a course to help groups of Christians learn and practice the disciplines so as to be open to the Spirit. It’s called Practicing The Way. The course teaches each practice over a four-week period, and that includes putting it into practice. Were I remaining here longer I would be introducing this big time, but instead I commend it to you for personal study and house groups. (It’s free of charge.)

These, then, in brief, are two gifts of God that work to bring in the new creation. We have Jesus the Lamb of God who removes all the old creation sin to give us and the world a new start. And we have the Holy Spirit, who helps to live in a new creation way.

But I also said there were two specific examples of our response in the passage. What are they?

The first of the two responses is being wih Jesus.

When John the Baptist identifies the Lamb of God for a second time, two of his disciples leave him to follow Jesus, and the earliest expression of that following Jesus is wanting to see where he is staying (verses 35-39). In other words, they want to be with Jesus.

If you are going to follow someone you had better get to know them, and that’s what happens here. Sure, there is a lot of work in the world with which the Christian needs to get on with, but none of that kind of following Jesus makes any sense unless we have spent time with him, getting to know him and his ways.

That’s why you can’t choose between prayer and action as a Christian. Prayer feeds action. We need time with Jesus and then time in the world. Some people disparage prayer as ‘wasting time with God’, but it’s the best waste of time you can ever fritter away.

How might we do this? Don’t just speak to him, listen as you also read the Scriptures prayerfully. Learn not only to be alert for what he wants you to do, but also be open to him disclosing his heart and his passion to you.

You can be with Jesus on your own. You can be with him in the company of a small group or of a congregation. It’s best to be with him in all of those permutations.

But whatever you do and however you express it, make sure that spending time with Jesus is a priority, because it sets you up for following him in the world. And it gives you the agenda for your part in God’s new creation.

The second of the two responses is bringing people to Jesus.

40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (that is, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus.

We don’t read much about Andrew in the Gospels, but on those rare occasions when he does become centre-stage in the narrative he’s often bringing people to Jesus. As well as this incident, he also brings the boy with the five fish and two loaves to Jesus, and he brings some Greeks who want to see Jesus.

Andrew is the quiet evangelist. Not for him the crowds to teach and preach to like Jesus. But he knows he has encountered someone special in Jesus and he wants other people to know. He doesn’t always know a lot, but he knows enough to say, ‘We have found the Messiah’ and encourage others to try him out, too.

What Andrew does (and quite consistently here) is like the modern-day Christian who knows that Jesus would make a difference in the life of a friend and invites them to come to church.

Simple invitations. Not grand sermons. Not great intellect. Just someone who has had a transforming experience of Jesus Christ and realises that many people need him. This is the chance for others to find who can release them from the deathly habits of the old creation and bid them come into the new creation.

Conclusion

From ‘In the beginning’ at the opening of Genesis to ‘In the beginning’ at the opening of John’s Gospel: we jump from creation to new creation.

How this world needs to be made new. Disciples whose old ways of sin have been lifted off them by Jesus the Lamb of God and have been given the powers of the new creation in the Holy Spirit are part of Jesus’ plan to make all things new. We can get our bearings for following Jesus from being with him, and we can invite others into his saving presence so that they too might be renewed and signed up for the work of God’s kingdom.

It therefore just remains to ask: what part is each of us playing?

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The Upside-Down Baptism Of Jesus, Matthew 3:13-17 (Ordinary 1 Epiphany 1 Year A)

Matthew 3:13-17

One thing I look back on with affection from childhood is the puddings my Mum used to make. She was great at making classic puddings with leftovers. Nobody for me has quite equalled her bread pudding – not least because she didn’t add so many fancy spices that a lot of cooks do.

Ditto her bread and butter pudding – a great way to use stale bread, and I always loved sultanas as a child. Only a holiday once in Shropshire, featuring a visit to Ironbridge, where a café offered various different flavours of bread and butter pudding, ever came close.

But one pudding she always made differently – and in my opinion, better than anybody else – was pineapple upside-down cake. Everybody else made it with slices of pineapple rings and added glacé cherries. Well, I hated cherries, and Mum used not pineapple rings but crushed pineapple, which made the flavour soak right through the cake.

Are you feeling hungry now?

Upside-down cake could be a metaphor for the ministry of Jesus. I’m not the first preacher to tell you that Jesus turned everything upside-down from our expectations. Any attempt to fit Jesus into our expectations, be they social, political, or anything else, is doomed to failure or to distorting him badly.

Today, I want to show you the way his baptism turns everything upside-down.

Firstly, Honour and Shame:

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, ‘I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me?’

John has just done the big introduction to Jesus, like the compère building up to the headline act. He has told the crowds that although he baptises people in water, someone is coming who will baptise with fire! The curtains part, the spotlight picks out this man as he walks onto the stage of history … and he wants to be baptised by John.

Whoa! Hang on, says John. You’re the big shot, not me. But Jesus says, I do things differently. You’re not going to get the prima donna act from me.

Now we acclaim celebrities and stars (even if later we like to shoot them down), but in Middle Eastern culture honour has always been important. People should be honoured. There is nothing worse than shame. That’s why, as I’ve told you before, Islam cannot get its head around the idea of a crucified Messiah.

But in submitting to baptism, Jesus shows his willingness to embrace the same shame as those who had already come to the Jordan to confess their sins. He has come to identify with their shame and to embrace it.

I believe this could be a powerful way of sharing the Good News of Jesus today. We struggle to convince people they are sinners (although strictly that’s the Holy Spirit’s job, not ours) because they think of ‘sinners’ as especially bad people, rather than all of us with our failings, which we tend to excuse.

But many people know feelings of shame. They know things in their lives that they just can’t talk about openly. Jesus has come as one who understands shame and who bears it all the way from the manger to the Cross.

In fact, an old friend of mine called Judith Rossall wrote a book that reclaims the importance of shame in the Bible. It’s called ‘Forbidden Fruit and Fig Leaves’[1] and she argues that this all comes to a climax at the Cross, which was such a shameful mode of execution that Romans didn’t talk about it in polite society. Jesus was shamed by the Jewish and Roman authorities at the Cross, but honoured by God at the Resurrection[2].

So if you have something that you find so shameful you can’t bear to talk about it openly, I want you to know that Jesus’ willingness to be baptised is an early sign that he above all will embrace you in your sense of shame to make you whole. Whether it was something awful you did or something terrible that was done to you, I believe Jesus wants to raise you up and give you hope, honour, and dignity.

Secondly, Humility and Salvation:

15 Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfil all righteousness.’ Then John consented.

Now when we hear the word ‘righteousness’ we might think this is about moral or ethical behaviour. But it’s more than that here, because it’s paired with the word ‘fulfil’, and Matthew has a big thing about the fulfilment of Scripture. Go back to the birth stories we’ve been reading at Christmas and you’ll see that a lot there. Fulfilling all righteousness means not only doing what Scripture requires, but that Jesus is fulfilling God’s whole plan revealed in the Scriptures. He fulfils Israel’s history and destiny by identifying with them here in baptism, and he takes that all the way to identifying with their sin at the Cross[3]. In submitting to John’s baptism of repentance even though he had not sinned, he showed where he was going: to the Cross, where he would identify not only with sinful Israel but the whole sinful human race. He would experience abandonment by God, but be vindicated in the embrace of the Resurrection.

Again, there is something relevant for people today. Who feels abandoned by God? Who thinks that God has left them, because of their sin? Jesus came to heal that. In undergoing a baptism of repentance he showed that he would stand in for us whose sins separate us from God.

And not only that, by doing so he would show us that the God who cannot look on our sin is nevertheless on our case, calling us back to him. The way back is the Cross.

If you have a sense of being abandoned by God and you know you have done things which have separated you from him, then hear the Good News here as Jesus fulfils all righteousness in his baptism of repentance and ultimately in his death at the Cross. God’s plan all along was to make a way back to him when we are far away due to our own fault.

If that is you, then you can start the journey back today through what Jesus did for you at the Cross.

Thirdly and finally, Hero and Servant:

16As soon as Jesus was baptised, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’

What a guy to do all this! And the Holy Spirit comes down on him in the form of a dove, just as

the dove appears as the harbinger of a new world after the flood, which other early Christian literature employs as a prototype of the coming age[4].

The new world is coming! This is what Jesus is bringing! Wow! And the voice from heaven commends him, and says how pleased he is with his Son. What a hero!

But wait. The language of affirmation from heaven is modelled on Isaiah 42, the first of the so-called ‘Servant Songs’ in that book. Godly heroics are not achieved by a superstar, by a celebrity, by someone in peak physical condition, or by a warrior. They are achieved by a servant.

I talked once before about how sad it is that when many children are asked today what they want to be when they grow up, the most common answer now is, ‘I want to be famous.’ But the example of Jesus shows how shallow this is. The Son of God himself rejects this way of life!

And that is good news for all of us. Because if you don’t have to be a famous celebrity or some kind of hero in society in order to change things for the good in line with God’s kingdom, then this way of life is open to everyone! Very few people will become nationally-known heroes that it’s really not worth aiming for. If it comes along, it comes along – but there are dangers.

However, everyone can find other people to serve. There are no limits. The upside-down way of Jesus opens up the way for everyone to make a difference for good in the world.

Conclusion

Jesus at his baptism gives some of the earliest signs that the ways of the world are disordered and that his upside-down approach will restore this world to a healthy and life-giving order.

So let us not seek honour for ourselves. If we live among the shamed, let us embrace it, for God will honour us and will transformed the shamed by his love.

Let us take the road of humility, knowing that it is the pathway to salvation, rather than pride and self-exaltation.

And let us not worry for a moment about whether people will regard us as heroes. Instead, let us give ourselves over to a life of service, knowing that this is how God brings in his kingdom.

[1] Judith Rossall, Forbidden Fruit and Fig Leaves: Reading the Bible with the Shamed; London, SCM, 2020.

[2] See Judith Rossall, Whose Honour? Whose Shame? Some Reflections on the Bible; Anvil volume 37 issue 2 at https://churchmissionsociety.org/anvil/whose-honour-whose-shame-some-reflections-on-the-bible-judith-rossall-anvil-vol-37-issue-2/

[3] Craig S Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, p132.

[4] Keener, p133.

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New Year, New Commitment (Methodist Covenant Service) Romans 12:1-2

Romans 12:1-2

Artificial Intelligence – or AI for short – has been much in the news lately. It’s a form of technology that seeks to think better than humans and act more skilfully (or at least quickly) than humans. Even as I type the words of this sermon, the word processor is periodically predicting which words I am typing, or even which are the next words I am typing. If I like what I see, I can hit the Tab button on my keyboard and it will confirm the suggestion.

If you want to experiment and have a bit of fun with this, then you can find an AI tool on the Internet called ChatGPT. I registered the other day, and decided to play by giving it a specific task: write me a sermon for a Methodist Covenant Service.

You know what? It did. What a time-saver!

But I had a reservation. It used the words of the Covenant Prayer as the text for the sermon, whereas a Christian sermon must have Scripture as its text. So I tried it again, using these verses from Romans.

It worked again. I am sure some of you would like the results. But it was only a three-minute sermon. Even my Catholic friends, who are used to homilies, not sermons, might consider that too short. It made the odd good general point, but didn’t flesh it out to make it practical.

So for the time being I will not be replaced by a computer, and you will have to accept the three points I want to make about our commitment to Christ from Romans 12:1-2.

Firstly, why does God call us to commitment?

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy … (verse 1a)

‘Therefore’: we need to refer to what Paul has written up to now in the letter. In view of the first eleven chapters. But fortunately Paul sums up those eleven chapters as ‘in view of God’s mercy’.

Paul has been talking about God’s merciful plans and actions towards a human race that has spurned his love and his laws. Despite all human beings having grounds to believe in God’s existence and despite his chosen people being given his laws everyone has sinned.

But God has given up his Son, even to death, that we might be forgiven our sins and put right with him. And God has given us his Spirit, so that we can live a new life. God has done all this for us in his mercy.

In fact, strictly what Paul says here is not ‘God’s mercy’ but ‘God’s mercies’, because time and time again God is merciful to us. We respond to his mercy by giving our lives to him. But then we fail and sin again. Yet he continues to forgive us when we come in repentance. If Jesus teaches us to forgive ‘seventy times seven’, how much do we think God will forgive when we seek his mercy?

He shows mercy upon mercy. Truly, his mercies are new every morning.

Yes, of course God is our Judge. Of course, God is holy. But he has shown his intentions towards us in his deeds of mercy. When we renew our covenant with him today, we are responding to his mercy, not his severity.

Today is a day when we rejoice in how merciful God is towards us, and we say that because of his mercy, we joyfully give ourselves to him  all over again.

Secondly, what kind of commitment does God seek from us?

… to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. (Verse 1b)

In the original Greek of the New Testament, it’s not just the adjective ‘living’ that applies to the word ‘sacrifice’, it’s all three adjectives: living, holy, and pleasing [to God].

Somebody once said that the problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar. And maybe that’s a clue to what this is about. We need to offer ourselves daily to God. Jesus spoke about taking up our cross daily and so each day we say afresh to God, ‘Here I am, please use me for your kingdom today.’

Then we are a holy sacrifice, because we are offering ourselves not only to do God’s work but to do God’s work in God’s way. We’ll never say that the means justifies the ends. We’ll avoid manipulating people. We’ll examine our motives the best we can. And our goal will be God’s glory, not our own.

And it’s also a pleasing sacrifice to God. This is our invitation to put a smile on the face of God. It is to ask ourselves, what can we do that we know will please God? The Bible is full of thoughts about what the Lord loves: if we look those up we will start to have a good idea of ways in which we can lay down our lives, our talents, and our possessions to bring God joy.

Thirdly and finally, how do we work out that commitment?

2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

On Friday, I read a brilliant essay[1] by James Cary, who is a TV comedy scriptwriter and also a Christian. He begins with a quote: ‘Politics is downstream from culture’ and explains how our politicians only really put policies into practice that derive from our wider culture.

The problem, he says, is that our culture is now hostile to Christianity, because the Church has abdicated the rôle she had centuries ago as a patron of the arts and culture, especially since the Reformation, when only the word mattered, and visual things became under suspicion.

So it’s very dangerous today for the Christian in Paul’s words to ‘conform to the pattern of this world’, because if we do we will take on values that are opposed to Christianity. Yes, Christians need to start influencing our culture again by producing artistic works that are shaped by the Gospel,  but even before that we need to make sure that our own thinking and living is shaped by the Gospel. We need to heed Paul’s call to ‘be transformed by the renewing of [our minds].’

It’s absolutely urgent that we let the Gospel shape our minds. That’s why we need to be reading our Bibles daily and pondering what we need to do in response to its teaching. That’s why we need to read good quality, thoughtful Christian literature rather than trashy magazines or watching junk TV. It’s why younger generations need to reduce their intake of social media in favour of prayer.

I’m not saying we should never consume lighter forms of art and culture. But I am saying that it is crucial we take deliberate steps to renew our minds according to the ways of Christ. If we’re not deliberate about it, then we shall end up no different from the wider world.

And every day that goes by, it becomes more crucial to renew our minds. How about we make 2023 the year when we make major strides in that cause?

[1] James Cary, Getting Upstream (Or A Call To ‘Once Upon A Time’) n.d., available for a donation towards his writing at https://jamescary.substack.com.

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Behind Every Great Woman Stands A Great Man, Matthew 1:18-25 (Advent 4 Year A 2022)

Matthew 1:18-25

Now there was a time
When they used to say
That behind every great man
There had to be a great woman[1]

If you’re a fan of Eighties music, you’ll recognise those words. They are the opening verse of ‘Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves’, a glorious feminist anthem of female emancipation from simply being the supporters of men to being people who are out front making major contributions to society in their own right.

The story of the Annunciation as related to Joseph reverses the patronising ‘Behind every great man there is a great woman’ slogan of past times which the song references. This is a story in which behind a great woman – Mary – is a great man – Joseph.

I want to show how Joseph is a model not only for supporting Mary but also for following Jesus.

Firstly, Joseph displays humility.

I didn’t realise until this year something that absolutely stares you in the face about Joseph: he doesn’t utter a word in the Gospels. Mary has plenty to say! But Joseph – well, maybe he’s the strong, silent type.

Certainly he makes no play for himself and his own importance. He knows his rôle is to support Mary in her amazing task. He doesn’t seek the limelight. He simply gets on with doing the right thing. Quietly. In the shadows.

The same is true about following Jesus. The rôle of the Jesus-follower is to support him, not draw attention to ourselves.

I’ve been a minister for thirty years. Five years into my ministry, I got the chance to be a seminar speaker at the biggest Christian holiday/conference event in this country, Spring Harvest. One of my minister friends wrote to me and said, “You’re getting into the evangelical big time now!”

Well, as you can tell – no, I didn’t. If I’m honest, I think I would have enjoyed going on to speak at more conferences, but it only ever happened once more, at an event called Easter People. And then the opportunities dried up.

But the important thing was to get on with proclaiming and supporting Jesus wherever God gave me the opportunity. And that proved generally to be in quieter, more obscure places than under the lights.

But that’s OK. Because the deal about being a Christian is not self-promotion. It’s promoting Jesus.

Are you tempted to make a name for yourself? I tell you, it’s an awful lot better making a name for Jesus.

Secondly, Joseph displays courage.

Here we must remember what a different society Joseph and Mary were living in compared to ours. In our culture, we have learned recently that for the first time births outside marriage exceeded those inside marriage. But Joseph and Mary lived in a world where the moral norm was for sex to be restricted to marriage.

Therefore, for Joseph to discover that Mary (who is not yet quite married to him) is pregnant is devastating. Not only that, but it will also bring shame on him in the village. We know that one of the stories which went around about Mary in those days is that she fell pregnant after a liaison with a Roman soldier, an enemy.

It’s not surprising that he thinks of ending the relationship – although his compassion is shown by wanting simply to end it with a divorce (because a betrothal had legal status) rather than exposing Mary to the risk of being stoned for adultery.

Yet in the face of mockery and shame, and with the encouragement of the angelic visitor in his dream, he presses on with marrying Mary. That takes courage.

Often it takes courage to do what God asks of us. When Jesus grew up, he gave a lot of teaching that requires courage to follow in the face of likely social reaction. That is true for us today, too. It can be a challenge to stand up for truth-telling when people want to cover an embarrassment with lies. It can require courage to defend the needs of refugees and asylum seekers when others in our society want to sling anyone not born here out of the country. Bravery is needed to stand in opposition to the idea that disabled babies should be aborted before birth, as if the disabled are of less value than the healthy.

Sometimes Christians are portrayed as wimps. But if you really follow Jesus you won’t be a wimp, you will be courageous. The real wimps are those who opt out of following Jesus, because they just want to be popular or have an easy life.

Which are you?

Thirdly and finally, Joseph displays faith.

Joseph was a good guy. He wanted to be faithful to God’s law and still protect Mary. That’s why he opted for the divorce route, we’re told. He was a salt of the earth type, and even some of those who mocked him (for which he needed the courage we’ve just spoken about) probably also had a sneaking respect for him. He was one of the good’uns.

But being good is not what gets you into God’s people. Having faith is what does that. And it’s when Joseph has the faith to do what the angel tells him that he shows himself to be a true believer.

Many people today still think that if they do good things they will go to heaven. But that is not the Christian message. We all fail God. Not only that, we tend to deceive ourselves. We criticise others for their wrongdoing while cutting ourselves plenty of slack for our own failings. No-one is good enough to reach God’s standards.

Joseph’s action of trusting God’s message through the angel and acting on it reminds us to stop relying on our own goodness to get us into heaven. It won’t get us there. Instead, we need to hold out empty hands in trust to God, so that he can give us all we need for salvation. That means receiving the forgiveness of our sins. That means receiving the goodness of Jesus in place of that sin. That means receiving his Spirit to give us life, just as the same Spirit enabled life to begin in Mary’s womb.

This is the only way we can be good enough for heaven: to receive the goodness of Jesus by holding out the empty hands of faith.

So – where does all of this leave each of us this Christmastime? Will we accept the humility to make our lives all about Jesus rather than about ourselves? Will we take the necessary courage to follow Jesus, even when that puts us at risk in our society? And will we strop trumpeting how good we are to rely instead by faith on the goodness of Jesus qualifying us for heaven?

[1] Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin, Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves; Annie Lennox / David Allan Stewart, © Universal Music Publishing Int. Mgb Ltd.; from the album Be Yourself Tonight, 1984.

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