Kingdom Culture, Luke 14:1-14 (Ordinary 22 Year C, 2022)

Luke 14:1-14

Meals out are a bit of a theme in our family at present. We had a large gathering of relatives in a pub recently to mark my wife’s big birthday. We are about to have another family meal before my sister and brother-in-law move away from this area.

Then a week or so ago, Debbie and I went for a Chinese before seeing a film at the cinema. Who was on the table behind us? Eamonn Holmes. It appeared we had happened upon one of his regular haunts.

We know that in the Gospels lots of important things happen around a meal table with Jesus. He even turns one of them into the central way that we remember his death for us.

And a meal table is a place where we see lots of protocols and cultural habits. In our case, they might range from not putting your elbows on the table to waiting for everyone to be served before beginning to eat.

There were certainly protocols and cultural values aplenty at the home of the Pharisee where Jesus dined in today’s reading. Yet what this story shows us is that the culture of God’s kingdom is often the reverse of the diners Jesus was with.

So today we’re going to examine what we see here about the culture of God’s kingdom and ask whether there are ways in which we need to reverse our values, too. Each of the three episodes in today’s story has something to tell us.

Firstly, in God’s kingdom, rules are interpreted by love.

I’m thinking of the first six verses of the reading here, where we learn that the meal is happening on a Sabbath, and people watch to see whether Jesus heals a sick man (just as he has done on a Sabbath in a synagogue). Sure enough, he does.

Jesus does not dispense with the rules. He honours them. But he will not apply them woodenly. He lives by the Law of God, knowing its intention for good. As he explains elsewhere, the Sabbath was made for the benefit of human beings, not vice-versa.

So here he makes it clear that of course you can and you should do good on the Sabbath. Any use of the Sabbath to prevent that would go against the spirit of God’s intentions about his Law.

If on the other hand all you do with the rules and laws is apply them literally and woodenly without any love, who benefits? The people who are in power.

And who doesn’t benefit when laws are interpreted woodenly and unlovingly? Those in need.

Jesus won’t have this. He has come to bring good news to the poor. God’s Laws must be interpreted in the spirit of love so that those in need receive good news. God never provided his Laws just to buttress the position of the wealthy and the powerful.

It’s something we need to bear in mind in the church. We have our own set of rules by which the church is governed. They contain a lot of wisdom. They should not be dismissed. But at the same time if all we do is enforce them rigidly and harshly, what good does that do? Who does that help? Only the rule-makers.

It isn’t being faithful to Jesus to ditch the rules – and especially not God’s Laws – but it is the way of Jesus to interpret them with love and compassion for those in need.

Secondly, in God’s kingdom, status is replaced by humility.

We come now to verses 7 to 11, where Jesus tells dinner guests not to take for themselves the seat of honour, in case their host demotes them, but rather to take the lowest seat, from which they may be called up higher.

In Jesus’ society, honour and status were everything. They determined your work, your income, your friendship circles, and who you could marry. This was given visual demonstration at meals. Therefore, in order to get on in society, people strove for higher status and greater honour. But

Jesus’ teaching here not only undercuts the importance of status; it also sees status and standing as something that is given, not something that is gained—a gift from another (specifically God), not something accrued by one’s own effort.[1]

People still lust after honour and status today. But why? It is selfish and self-centred. Not only that, it doesn’t necessarily last. A loss of income or the onset of a serious disease can take it away quickly. Why settle for something temporary and selfish when an alternative is on offer that is eternal?

But to have eternal honour and status in the kingdom of God requires a different approach. It requires being like Jesus, who had more status and honour than any other human being, but who laid it aside to be born into poverty and obscurity, and who laid down his life for the salvation of the world.

The best honour and status, then, is out of our hands. We humble ourselves and leave things in the hands of God. But we do so knowing he is full of mercy and grace. He does not habitually raise up the rich, the powerful, and the celebrities, he exalts the humble.

Some people will not like the idea that their status is out of their hands. They will not like such powerlessness. But our aim as Christians is not to exalt ourselves, it is to exalt Jesus Christ in our daily lives. If we have done that, then that will satisfy us.

Too many people in the church still get obsessed with rank and status. It’s time we put all that to bed. As Wesley’s hymn ‘Captain of Israel’s host, and guide’ puts it, ‘Our end, the glory of the Lord.’ Let that be our ambition  and let us be content to leave any elevation to him, putting aside our toxic pride and jealousy.

Thirdly, in God’s kingdom, giving is all about grace.

We come to the third and final section of the reading in verses 12 to 14, where Jesus tells meal hosts not to invite people to meals in order to get a return invitation, but rather to invite them who have no chance of being able to reciprocate. We are not to give in order to be repaid in this life, says Jesus.

This was revolutionary teaching. In the ancient world, you gave a gift to somebody because you considered them worthy of it. You didn’t give many gifts, but those you did tended to be lavish.

How was someone deemed worthy of a gift? It might be to do with their ethnic background, their social status, their sex, their moral qualities, their success in life, or their beauty. For ‘gift’ in the ancient world you might want to think something more akin to a ‘prize’ in our society.[2]

Now Jesus comes along and says that God’s approach to giving is utterly unlike this. It has nothing to do with the person deserving it, nor is it decided by the ability of the recipient to give back in return. Giving, according to Jesus, is an act of grace. God gives to people who neither deserve it nor can repay him. God invites people to his table on the same basis: the invitation goes out even though people do not deserve to be there, and even though there is no prospect of them reimbursing him.

That is why we are in the family of faith. None of us deserved to receive the invitation. None of us can pay God back for all he has done for us in Jesus Christ. But God in his grace said to each one of us, ‘Come to my feast.’

We cannot give back to God in equal measure of his gift to us. But we can show our gratitude, and we can pay it forward. For just as we have received the grace of God’s gift, so we can in grace give to others without expecting recompense, and we can invite those who could not possibly invite us.

After all, how else will the world know about the transforming grace of God in Christ unless we not only speak about it, we demonstrate it?

I have always loved a story that the American preacher and sociologist Tony Campolo used to tell. He would recount how when he was driving on a toll road, he would come up to the toll booth where he needed to pay and give the attendant twice as much money as he needed to.

‘That’s for me, and that’s for my friend in the car behind,’ he would say.

Of course, he didn’t know the person in the car behind at all, and he would drive off slowly watching in his rear view mirror with amusement as the toll booth attendant tried to explain to the next motorist that they didn’t need to pay.

So – our reading leaves us with three challenges this week. They are simple to state:

Firstly, how can I keep the Law of God lovingly this week?

Secondly, where do I need to let go of my desire for status and humbly leave my life in God’s hands?

And thirdly, how can I show the grace of God this week by giving to someone who cannot pay me back?

[1] Ian Paul, https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/jesus-the-kingdom-and-the-politics-of-the-table-in-luke-14/

[2] Op. cit., quoting John Barclay, https://www.psephizo.com/reviews/the-subversive-power-of-grace/

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Jesus In Love Divides Us, Luke 12:49-56 (Ordinary 20 Year C 2022)

Luke 12:49-56

On the home page of the British Methodist Church you can currently find these words displayed prominently:

God loves you unconditionally, no strings attached. That’s the good news.

And I’d like to ask the author of those words whether they had read today’s Gospel passage. Because the best we can say for such words is, they are a half-truth.

With a certain sense of alarm at certain trends in our church and elsewhere, I have mischievously entitled today’s sermon ‘Jesus In Love Divides Us.’ And yes, that is a play on the report about sexuality that was called ‘God In Love Unites Us’ – a title that portrayed an utterly forlorn hope.

Fire on earth. Not peace but division, says Jesus here.

And perhaps the stark things Jesus says in our passage today are all the more shocking when you go back to the early chapters of Luke’s Gospel. When he is born in Bethlehem, the angels proclaim peace. When Jesus preaches at Nazareth, he says he has good news for the poor.

Yet here is Jesus not so much preaching good news as bad news! What do we make of it?

Firstly, Jesus is preparing his disciples for rejection.

Don’t misunderstand me, Jesus is good news. In his own Person he embodies God’s Kingdom. He brings the forgiveness of sins. He gives value to people who are treated as worthless by society. He brings ultimate purpose to life. He conquers death. Even Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak haven’t promised those things!

But – not everyone accepts that message, and not everyone likes it. We know the reaction of many leaders in society to Jesus when he was on earth. Was he popular with them? Largely, no. He was a threat to them. They plotted against him. They colluded to have him put on a Cross.

And Jesus warned his followers that similar things could and would happen to them. In this passage his ‘baptism’ may well be his baptism of suffering at the Cross. The division of families is because some will follow Jesus and others will not. Sometimes in church circles we make the family into an idol, but Jesus says following him is more important. It is not that we deliberately break up families as some religious cults do, but it is to say that deciding about Jesus is an unavoidably divisive thing, and pain may come our way.

Now when we ask why people are rejecting Jesus, we sometimes get into the question of what is wrong with the church. And to some extent we should think about that. There can be things about us that give people a bad impression of Jesus, and we need to address them. I have said much about this in the past.

But we must also see that people reject Jesus because his ways are a challenge to their self-centred living. I was reading a discussion about a magazine article where twelve church leaders had been asked how we respond to continued church decline. Basically, all of them in their different ways berated the church for what was wrong with it.

But one person said this:

I don’t think there is a problem with the church. The issue is with a self-righteous, materialistic society that has turned its back on God and is largely only interested in spirituality in a flesh-centred, personal-development sort of way. What we need to do is stay faithful to Christ through this difficult and challenging time.

I wouldn’t say there’s no problem with the church, but I would say let’s be realistic about how much rejection of Christianity there is in our culture. People sometimes disguise it with high-handed moral words, but in a lot of cases, the reason people say no to Jesus is because they don’t want to give up control of their lives to him. They are much happier in a me-centred world, but as we know, Jesus won’t allow that.

Although we see heart-warming stories of kindness and love in our society too, we are generally surrounded by people whose major life decisions are about themselves and their personal happiness, rather than the serving and self-giving love of Jesus and his kingdom. So we should not be surprised when our Jesus message and our faith is rejected.

So if you have done all you can to be faithful but are still not seeing things turn for the better, then understand that at times in history the church goes through phases like this. It’s a tough thing to say and it’s far from an excuse to be casual. Because what we need to do is ask ourselves, are we being faithful to Jesus and his teaching? If we are, then we are doing the right thing, and we leave the consequences to God.

Secondly, Jesus is preaching a bigger Gospel.

Let’s go back to that slogan on the Methodist website:

God loves you unconditionally, no strings attached. That’s the good news.

I said that at best it was a half-truth. What’s right with it and what’s wrong with it?

What’s right with it is that God’s love is offered to us without us deserving it, and before we ever made any attempt to love God ourselves. ‘While we were still sinners, Christ died for us,’ said Paul in Romans 5. God makes the first move in salvation. It all comes from him. Salvation is not of our making. It’s not something we deserve or earn.

But what’s wrong with the statement? Well, think about how Jesus himself proclaimed what the Gospel writers call the ‘good news’. His good news message was ‘Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.’ There is good news that doesn’t emanate from us or rely on us. The good news in first century terms is that God is on the throne, not Caesar. In our terms it is that God is on the throne, not Boris Johnson, Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden, or anyone else you care to name.

But because the only wise and compassionate God is on the throne of the universe, we need to make a response. Because God reigns over all, we need to respond by aligning our lives with his will. That’s why Jesus said to the first disciples, ‘Follow me.’ Are you going to go my way, asks Jesus? We have a choice to make.

In our tradition, John Wesley started a movement that stressed how the Gospel was available to all people, and he welcomed enquirers. But he distinguished between those who were exploring the faith and those who were committed to Christ.

So when we sing hymns like ‘Let Us Build A House’ where each verse ends with a rousing line, ‘All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place,’ we must remember that is true for people exploring the faith. But when it comes to responding to the welcoming love of God, there is a commitment to be made that involves offering the whole of our lives. Anything less than that misrepresents the message of Jesus.

In all our talk of being inclusive, we must never lose sight of this challenge. It’s the old adage that I’ve often quoted before: God love us just as we are, but he loves us too much to leave us as we are.

Thirdly and finally, Jesus is warning about the implications of the Gospel.

What is all that talk about interpreting the signs of the times? Why does Jesus say to the crowds they are good at weather forecasts but not at understanding the times in which they live?

Well, it’s not the first time he’s accused the crowds of just wanting a sign. Now, he says, there is a sign before you but you don’t understand it. Yet you need to.

The sign they can’t see or interpret is that of the divisions that Jesus brings. He is the real deal. He is all that he claimed to be. He is all that the religious leaders feared he was, and for which they hated him. It’s no good thinking he’s just another teacher. Nor is it enough to think he is a prophet.

In other words, as Hughie Green used to say all those years ago, it’s make your mind up time. How we react to Jesus is critical. We cannot ignore him. We cannot patronise him by saying what a nice chap he was. We cannot say he was a great teacher – and then not follow his teaching. The sign that Jesus in love divides us points us to the fact that we must respond one way or the other to Jesus.

How do we respond positively to him? By turning from our selfish ways – and that’s a lifelong task – and following him. That following him will involve so much more than an hour on Sunday. It will mean learning from him as his apprentices and putting what we learn into practice. It will mean self-denial rather than the self-fulfilment that the world (and some of the church!) preaches.

It takes all that we are and all that we have. Allying ourselves with Jesus is not a hobby or a consumer decision. It is life and death, nothing less.

And among those who do not share our willingness to say yes to Jesus will be those who will reject us, as we noted in the first point. We should not be surprised. Our enthusiasm to be inclusive must always be tempered by this.

So – back to where we began.

God loves you unconditionally, no strings attached. That’s the good news.

Really? These words can never be a full statement of the good news. They might be the beginning, but we must never forget the challenge that Jesus brings and the cost it entails as we are divided into those who will follow him and those who will not.

And while we count the cost of discipleship, perhaps someone will have a word with the Methodist media team.

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Spiritual Fitness, Luke 12:32-40 (Ordinary 19 Year C)

Luke 12:32-40

Last Sunday afternoon, along with a massive chunk of the population, Debbie, Mark, and I sat in front of the TV to cheer on the England Lionesses in their Euro 22 final against our old friends from Germany. When the match went to extra time at 1-1, I thought the Germans were the more likely winners. I am glad I was wrong!

During the week we also enjoyed the exploits of the Scottish runner Eilish McColgan who followed in her mother Liz’s footsteps by becoming Commonwealth 10,000 metres champion – and breaking her mother’s record.

These tremendous athletes will all have given close attention to their fitness in order to scale the heights of their respective sports. Without doing so, they would not have ended up with medals being hung around their necks and trophies being lifted triumphantly before the fans.

You know where I’m going with this. Sometimes the New Testament uses the analogy of athletes in training to challenge us about our spiritual lives. Paul tells the Corinthians that running to win the crown of life requires discipline (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). Near the end of his life he says, ‘I have run the race’ (2 Timothy 4:7).

And while Jesus doesn’t explicitly use that language in today’s reading, there is something similar going on in what he teaches here. These verses may not seem terribly connected, but what holds them together is a theme of ‘spiritual fitness’. I am going to draw out two areas of spiritual fitness that I believe Jesus highlights here.

Firstly, the heart.

A young man I once knew got married in his late twenties. A year later, he was dead, his beautiful bride left as a widow. The inquest showed that he had an undiagnosed heart condition, and this killed him. Nobody had any idea that he had any heart troubles. Apparently, there are many cases like this every year.

We need to pay attention to the states of our hearts. Some of us pay little attention to our hearts and do not realise that they are diseased. Something could go wrong for us, too. Think of the stories you have heard over the years about Christians who seemed strong in their faith, but then – seemingly out of the blue – either they lost their faith or alternatively they were caught in a serious sin. When we don’t pay attention to our hearts, disasters like this can happen.

Jesus says,

33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

We read this off the back of last week’s reading where we thought about biblical attitudes to money and possessions. One of the things I talked about last week was including the poor in our giving. Here Jesus specifically calls for that response from us.

This is not necessarily a call for all of us to sell all our possessions, for otherwise how would Jesus’ ministry have been funded by the wealthy women that Luke mentions in chapter 8?

But it is an issue of our heart. ‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’

In other words, where do our most fundamental desires lie? When we have time to ourselves and are  not occupied with anything from work to looking after the grandchildren, what things does our heart alight upon? If we had limitless money and all our bills were taken care of, how would we spend that cash? If there were no obstacles, what would be our dream lifestyle?

Did anything come to mind as I asked those questions? Were we thinking of that dream cruise? Were we going to spend our money on yet more fancy toys? Were we going to fund the ultimate home improvement?

Or did Jesus and advancing his kingdom come into any of our minds?

What we set our hearts on is what we treasure, says Jesus.

Are the deepest desires of our hearts skewed off course? Do we need some spiritual heart surgery so that our number one passion is our love for Jesus and our service of his kingdom?

Perhaps when we were young Christians these were the things that commanded our energies. But over the years, our arteries have become clogged with the cares of this life and the attractions of Mammon.

How many of us need heart surgery? We may be doing a lot of good, right, and competent things in our lives, but like the church at Ephesus which received a letter in the book of Revelation, is it possible that we have lost our first love?

If our arteries have become clogged up, I offer these words from a song entitled ‘Passion For Jesus’ by an Irish singer named Brian Houston. May they become our prayer:

I’m calling out to You
There must be something more,
Some deeper place to find,
Some secret place to hide
Where I have not gone before.
Where my soul is satisfied,
And my sin is put to death,
And I can hear Your voice,
Your purpose is my choice,
As natural as a breath.
The love I knew before,
When You first touched my life,
I need You to restore,
I want You to revive.
Oh, place in my heart a passion for Jesus,
A hunger that seizes my passion for You.
My one desire, my greatest possession,
My only confession, my passion for You.[1]

Secondly, posture.

Right now, we are waiting as a family for our son’s A-Level results, but as many of you know, I never sat my A-Levels. About a month before the exams, I had a sudden onset of severe neck pain. The cause was never diagnosed at the time by the consultant rheumatologist, but years later when my wife was pregnant with our first child, our daughter, I was suffering from migraines and went to the GP about them.

“I’m pretty sure your migraines are caused by your neck problem,” said the GP, and he advised me to book an appointment with an osteopath attached to the practice. After a number of treatments with him, he offered a diagnosis of my neck problem.

Posture. And it had two causes. One was that as a typical blue—eyed boy I am highly sensitive to bright light. As a result, I had developed a slightly stooped, round-shouldered posture as I tried to shield my eyes. This has not had a good effect on my neck.

The second was due to my left-handedness. My secondary school made all the pupils use fountain pens, and these are difficult for left-handers, since we push the pen from left to right across the paper and have to avoid putting our writing hand in the ink that is still drying. I was not taught (as I learned too late in later years) that the answer is to turn your paper forty-five degrees, so I developed what is called the ‘hook’ writing style.

Moreover, at Sixth Form we had chairs with desks hinged to them. You could rest your writing arm on them. Well – you could if you were right-handed. They didn’t have any for left-handers. This exacerbated the bad posture of the hook writing style.

Putting all this together led to the bad posture that caused the pain which kept me from my A-Levels.

Jesus calls for us to adopt a certain (good!) posture as Christian disciples.

Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning,

he says in verse 35.

Have the posture of a servant. This is how to be ready for when he will appear again in glory.

Jehovah’s Witnesses live in fear that if they are not actively doing God’s work at the very moment of the Second Coming they will not receive their eternal reward. But what Jesus says is more subtle than that. ‘Be dressed ready for action.’ It’s not about filling every second with frantic activity, but it is about having the right attitude, the right stance, the posture if you will.

Go back to the Commonwealth Games, and go to the athletics track or the swimming pool. See the sprinters on their blocks awaiting the starting gun or the swimmers on their pedestals awaiting the hooter that starts the race. These athletes are adopting the right posture for their race and are ready for action.

Jesus is calling us to be on our starting blocks, ready for the opportunity to serve.

After all, he says, when the Master returns, he will serve. To serve is to be like the Master. It is to be like Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, or ready to heal those in need who come across his path. Our posture is one of service because that is the posture of Jesus.

This raises a question about how we live our lives each day. Are we just going about our daily business, much like anybody else on Planet Earth, or do we begin each day on the starting blocks, ready to hear the starting gun that calls us to service?

Is it our daily prayer that we will take the opportunities to serve people in the name of Jesus when he brings such people across our path? Do we desire to have the same posture as Jesus?

If we do, then we don’t need to worry about the return of Jesus catching us by surprise and worrying us. We will be ready. As the late David Watson put it,

For those who are ready, he will not come as a thief in the night but as a friend in the day.[2]

So – what is our spiritual health like? There are many other areas to consider as well as what I have spoken about today. Is our heart healthy? Do we have a passion for God’s kingdom and a heart for the poor?

And is our posture healthy? Are we ready and willing to serve as Jesus did?

If there were a spiritual equivalent of a medical, what would it say about us?

[1] Brian Houston, ‘Passion For Jesus’ from the album Big Smile Copyright © 2000 Kingsway’s Thankyou Music

[2] Quoted by Ian Paul at https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/how-do-we-live-in-trust-generosity-and-readiness-in-luke-12/

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A Godly Approach to Money and Possessions, Luke 12:13-21 (Ordinary 18 Year C 2022)

Luke 12:13-21

My paternal grandfather was one of eight children. There were six brothers and two sisters. By the time their parents had both died, so too had two of the brothers – they lost their lives in World War One. So when the estate came to be divided up, there were four surviving boys and the two girls.

However, the will left the estate entirely to the boys, with nothing for the girls. My grandfather thought this was unfair and said to his brothers that they should share the inheritance with their sisters.

But his brothers refused to share with their sisters. And moreover, for his troubles, my grandfather and grandmother, along with my father, who was a small boy at the time, were thrown out of the family home. They put their limited possessions in a wheelbarrow as they went to find somewhere else to live.

Where there’s a will, there’s a war.

A former Superintendent of mine told me that one skill he wasn’t trained for at college was breaking up family fights at the crematorium after a funeral.

‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me,’ says a member of the crowd to Jesus (verse 13).

If the person was not the eldest child, they might feel aggrieved. For in Jewish tradition the eldest son received the ‘double portion’ of the estate – twice as much as his younger siblings.

So surely this is a justice issue? And surely Jesus will speak out?

No.

Jesus knows something else is at work. Not justice, but greed.

‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.’ (Verse 15)

Well, how contemporary does that sound? And whether or not we are all wealthy, we are surrounded by it in our society, where much of our economy depends on people buying what they don’t need. And we’re certainly surrounded by it in Surrey, to the extent that when I first arrived in this area one of the other ministers asked at a staff meeting, ‘Is the Gospel against Surrey?’

And the indoctrination starts young. At our first Christmas here, our children felt the odd ones out because they didn’t go skiing in December. The next summer, our son was told he hadn’t had a real holiday because he hadn’t been on an aeroplane.

When we think life is about the abundance of possessions, we are saying ‘No’ to God. We are replacing the one true God with a rival false god called Mammon.

Make no mistake, a lot of the language in our society around possessions is religious. Think of all the times you have been told that a particular item is a ‘must-have’. Is it really? That’s the language worship and idolatry. God is our only must-have.

But, you say, there are certain possessions that we need in order to live and function in our world. I agree with you. We cannot live without material things. God made a material world and we are material beings. Of course we need certain things. I am not about to suggest that we should all sell up and disappear to become hermits.

It makes our use of money and possessions into a spiritual exercise. The way we use what is given to us needs to be as much a matter of prayer and discernment as anything else we do.

I want to suggest three principles we need to remember if we are to treat money and possessions in a godly way.

The first is stewardship. What do I mean by this? That what we have is not ours but on trust to us from God, and that we manage it on his behalf. I think this is the meaning of Genesis chapter 1, where God makes human beings in his image and tells them to rule over the earth. The earth does not become the possession of people, because God made it, but God makes human beings to be his stewards, his delegated managers, looking after it wisely for the Master.

You’ll notice I’m using the words ‘steward’ and ‘manager’ interchangeably. A steward is a manager. And the thing about managers is that they are not the people with final authority. They only have delegated authority from above. And that’s our position. Items do not ultimately belong to us. We manage them on behalf of our God, to whom they truly belong.

In that sense, it’s tricky even to use the word ‘possessions’, even though Jesus uses it. Because in the final analysis it is God who possesses them, not us. They are on loan to us from God, and we shall be accountable for our trust.

The farmer in Jesus’ parable takes no account of this truth. He is going to make decision about all the grain himself and for himself (verse 18).

In fact, if we’re not careful, the big problem is not that we possess things but that things possess us. How dangerous is that? We no longer have self-control, because other things control us.

And in that sense, we are involved here both in idolatry and in addiction, something the farmer accidentally confesses with his desire to ‘eat, drink and be merry’ (verse 18).

Are there any possessions in our lives where we need to hand them back to God? Do we need to say, Lord, I’m sorry that I have treated this item as if it were wholly mine. Here it is, I return it to you. If you let me keep it, I will use it for your glory.

When we came to Surrey we realised that there was a popular but expensive hobby: golf. However, I already had an expensive hobby, and that is photography. The cost of using what I consider proper equipment as opposed to a smartphone is high. It therefore means that I have to be careful with my spending on new equipment. Photographers talk about people who suffer from GAS – and before you think that’s an unfortunate antisocial bodily problem, I should tell you that GAS stands for Gear Acquisition Syndrome. Even unbelieving photographers know that the continual lust for just one more piece of equipment is misguided and dangerous. I have to be sure I am dedicating the gear I use to God and not to myself.

And that leads me to the second principle: prayer. How are we going to show we have regard for God in the use of those things he has entrusted to our care? Surely a major part of the answer is that we consult him. That means prayer. Tragically, the farmer in Jesus’ parable has no place for prayer. All he does is gather the grain for his own benefit. Think of the poor who would have suffered from not having what they needed, had this story been true.

We have a recent example of this on a major scale in our world with the Russian blockade of Ukrainian grain and the millions facing starvation as a result. That’s what happens when you think you can do what you like with worldly goods, and when your belief in God is either non-existent or mere lip service.

In some cases, God has already given us the wisdom we need in order to know what to do with material things. The Bible shows us plenty of things about his general will for life and the world.

But in other cases we need the step of discernment that prayer provides. Last week when preaching about the Lord’s Prayer I told a story about how some years ago I had been thinking about buying a computer but wasn’t sure whether to spend that large amount of money, until I received a word from God from a friend who had no idea I was contemplating this.

Recently we had to replace our big desktop computer in the study, because our old one was causing too many problems and it’s a necessary piece of equipment for my work and for modern life. But I also have a laptop computer that I take with me to meetings, and last year the manufacturer said that it was now too old for them to provide support for it if it went wrong. So I’ve researched what would be a good replacement, and I think I know.

However, even though I have looked at examples of my proposed replacement online and seen one or two go for attractive prices, I have not bought one yet. For every time I see a replacement I feel uneasy. Without a sense of peace from God I’m not happy to proceed.

Why? Prayer can make it clear it’s right to buy, it’s wrong to buy, or it’s right to wait. And that’s where I am at present, waiting. It’s God’s call, not mine. I can cope until then.

The third and final principle here is giving. In the parable, the punchline is that God castigates those who don’t give.

‘But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”

‘This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich towards God.’

(Verses 20-21)

‘Not rich towards God.’ Put another way, not a giver. Being rich towards God has echoes of Jesus’  language elsewhere about ‘treasures in heaven’, which we know means giving and other good deeds.

If we want a good way of dethroning Mammon in our life and worshipping the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, then giving will aid us in that goal.

Now just to raise the issue of giving is to risk navigating a tricky subject. Christians disagree about how much we should give. It’s also a sensitive issue at present with rising inflation and other bad economic conditions.

Some Christian argue we should all tithe, that is, give one tenth of our income. They usually say it should all go to the local church, and any other giving should be on top of that.

It’s tricky to translate tithing directly from the Bible, because it was not usually a tenth of income but a tenth of the crops they harvested. But what is clear is that our giving should be proportional to our income, because the Apostle Paul says as much in 2 Corinthians 9.

It’s certainly also important in biblical terms to give to the poor (or those working with them) and to the cause of Christian mission. You can see examples of these in the New Testament, notably the book of Acts but also in some of the instructions the Apostle Paul gives to those early churches in his letters.

Forgive me for not giving you a simple answer. I would simply say that giving is part of our stewardship and must also be approached in prayer. Just make sure that in praying about your giving you are not saying, ‘How little can I get away with giving?’ but ‘How much can I give?’ The former would be like the farmer; the latter would be like a Christian disciple.

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The Lord’s Prayer: Who Is The God We Pray To? Luke 11:1-13 (Ordinary 17 Year C)

Luke 11:1-13

The late Rob Frost used to run a Christian conference after Easter every year, called Easter People. I don’t know whether any of you went to it. Some people described it as Spring Harvest for Methodists who were too scared to go to Spring Harvest. That’s a little harsh, but for some people there was some truth in that!

One year, I was asked to be a speaker at a set of seminars where a team of us was going to teach on the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer. Each of us had a section of the prayer to expound – one each morning for the week. It is so rich as a prayer that explaining and applying the entire prayer in one talk or one sermon fails to do it justice.

Indeed, when I have taught on it in churches before, I have taken a series of sermons to explore it.

But I don’t have that luxury today. So rather than go through the entire prayer at breakneck speed, I want to explore the teaching Jesus gives here immediately after the Lord’s Prayer. For it’s all very well knowing what to pray, but it helps to know who we are praying to, which is what that teaching is about. It’s no good using the right words or formula if we have a distorted picture of God.

Firstly, God is a friend. This is the theme of verses 5 to 8, where Jesus tells the story of the man who needs to disturb his friend at night for bread. And it’s no coincidence that Jesus mentions bread in this story after the petition in the prayer for ‘daily bread’ (verse 3). When we need our daily bread, God is our friend.

Jesus tells the story on the assumption that friends are bound together by honour or obligation. This wasn’t discussed much in Judaism, but the pagan philosophers of his world certainly explored this, and if we remember that Luke was a Gentile, then we see here some teaching that will make some immediate sense outside of Judaism among the new Gentile converts.

And in fact that is made all the clearer when we look at a difficult part of these verses. The latest version of the NIV translates verse 8 this way:

I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

Did you expect those words ‘your shameless audacity’? Aren’t you used to hearing ‘your persistence’, with the preacher then calling you to persistence in prayer?

The trouble is, the old ‘persistence’ translation is almost certainly wrong. An American scholar, the late Kenneth Bailey, who lived most of his life in the Middle East and who studied the ancient texts, the early translations into other Middle Eastern languages, and the local culture concluded that ‘persistence’ was wrong. It was wrong as a translation and it was wrong in the culture of hospitality in Palestine.

In fact, Bailey linked it to this concept of honour that I mentioned. The friend would not want his honour to be questioned, however grumpy he was for being woken up at midnight. That desire to maintain his honour would motivate him to answer the request for bread.

And so I go with the alternative translation that is a footnote in the NIV: not ‘because of your shameless audacity’ but ‘to preserve his good name’. God is an honourable friend, so much more honourable than the grumpy friend in Jesus’ story. He does not want the honour of his name to be called into question, because it is so important to him that his position as our friend is maintained.

So I wonder what ‘daily bread’ needs you bring to God? It may literally be daily bread, especially with the problems our world is having with supply and inflation. We now know that Jesus’ expression ‘daily bread’ was one that was in everyday use in his day, because some years ago archaeologists found an ancient shopping list which specifically mentioned daily bread.

If you are bringing your basic needs to God, know that you are bringing them to an honourable friend. And that is not just a formal expression in the way that Members of Parliament refer to MPs of the same party as ‘my Honourable Friend’, this is real and deep with our God. For the honour of his name as our friend, he will make sure our needs are met. He will not do so miserably or reluctantly, because he cares for us.

I urge you to put aside any thought that it’s unworthy to bring your basic needs to God in prayer. As your friend, he cares about the food you eat, the income you have, the energy you need for your home, the clothes you wear, and many other things, too. As Jesus reminded us in the Sermon on the Mount, he does not want us to worry about these things. Why? Because as an honourable friend, he will see to it that we have enough.

Do not view God as an ogre, says Jesus, view him as your caring friend. He is so much better than that. He is not cruel. He is caring. He is not indifferent and asleep but ready to be asked. Bring him your needs without shame.

Secondly, God is our Father.

Now in recognising God as Father, I am of course aware that there are people who have had bad experiences of a human father. That’s not something I can say. When my father died five years ago, I wrote on Facebook that a light had gone out of my life.

But what I experienced was growing up in a family where money was tight. Often I tell the story of being a small boy and overhearing my parents talking one evening about how they were going to manage all the bills, so I went into the front room where they were and offered to give up my pocket money. So I didn’t have an abusive father like some, but I had an experience of finding it hard to believe that a father could provide everything I asked for.

Things improved as I got older, but the key for me was slowly absorbing the biblical picture of God as a caring, concerned, compassionate Father, who had all the resources of creation at his disposal:

for every animal of the forest is mine,
    and the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10).

So for those who do not have a good image of the word ‘father’ I do not take the route of dispensing with it and just using feminine language for God, I prefer over time to rehabilitate the notion of fatherhood, because its use for God is a good and nourishing one.

This is what Jesus basically says to his listeners. Paraphrasing, he says, you know that human fathers want to give what is good to their children, so how much better is your heavenly Father? Scorpions for eggs? No! In the Holy Land, scorpions are common and I read the other day of someone who camped on a beach there and found a small scorpion had crawled into his sleeping bag.[1]

But no loving father would do that to their children. And neither will our heavenly Father with us. He will only give us what is best for us.

Now ‘what is best’ is naturally not necessarily what the world considers ‘best’. It is not necessarily the best of material possessions, the highest of incomes, and the most desirable of homes.

Rather, you may have noticed that Luke’s account of these words differs in one important way from Matthew’s. Here, Jesus does not say, ‘how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him,’ he says, ‘how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him’ (verse 13).

The very best is God’s own presence with us for ever, the Holy Spirit. Can anyone beat such a gift? No!

As parents, Debbie and I will give to our children so that they may make the best of their lives, and we keep savings in order to do that. We do not give to them in order to indulge them, but so that they can have the best we can provide for them to make something worthwhile with their lives.

Well, it’s all that and much, much more with God. We can confidently ask him for the good things we need, and because not only is he an honourable friend, he is also a loving Father, he will provide for us. But he will set us up for the life of serving and loving him in his kingdom – the best life of all, even if it is costly – by the gift of his Spirit.

Would it not be the most natural thing of all, therefore, for Christians regularly to be praying for more of the Holy Spirit in their lives? It seems logical to me if we have such a loving and caring Father in heaven.

I know that we still go through hardships. I know that we still face trials. I know that we still face life situations where we do not know why certain things are happening to us. But through all that I am still convinced of God’s fatherly goodness to us. Let me tell you one final story about that goodness as I have experienced it.

Much earlier in my ministry, and a little while before I met Debbie, I was considering whether to buy a new computer for my work. I really liked the look of one particular model, and I wanted to buy it.

But I was hesitant. As you know, I like computers! And I didn’t want just to kid myself that this was God’s will to spend this large amount of money. So I prayed and left it with God.

In my main church was a woman called Mandy. One night at the church prayer meeting she had had such a powerful experience of the Holy Spirit and afterwards she discovered that she had received the spiritual gift of prophecy. Not prophecy in the sense of foretelling the future, but prophecy in the sense of being able to bring direct and relevant messages from God to people.

One Saturday morning she had gone to the church premises to pray on her own. Walking around, she came to the front of the sanctuary, near the communion table and the lectern, and in that area she felt prompted to pray for me.

While she was praying there, she heard God say to her, ‘Tell Dave he can have what he wants.’

She relayed that to me sometime in the succeeding days and I knew instantly this referred to my dilemma about the computer. My prayer was answered by a loving Father.

In conclusion, I don’t want to harangue you about the need for prayer, it’s too easy to do that. Instead, I want you to hear just how good and loving our God is. He is the friend who will maintain his honour by providing what we need. He is the Father in heaven who provides the good and the very best for his children.

Let us be confident in this God of love when we pray.

[1] https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/how-can-we-pray-like-jesus-in-luke-11/

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A Meze Meal of Mission, Luke 10:1-20 (Ordinary 14 Year C 2022)

Luke 10:1-20

The first time I was invited to a meze meal at a Greek restaurant, I was daunted when I saw the menu. Twelve courses? How on earth would I get through all that?

But I need not have worried. For if any of you have had a meze meal, be it Greek or Turkish, you will know that the many courses are small in size. They are more like taster menu size.

And not only that, they arrive thick and fast. So if you try one thing and don’t like it, then you don’t have to worry, because in a few minutes another dish will be served and you may well like that better.

Today I want to give you a meze sermon. My thoughts on this passage have turned into a series of several short reflections. There won’t be twelve, though!

And while I don’t want you to sit in judgment on the Word of God, I do encourage you to see as we go along which points nourish you, which themes are relevant and challenging to you, and which ones are of lesser importance to you now.

As you will have realised, the overall subject of the reading is the mission of Jesus.

Firstly, mission is about partnership:

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. (Verse 1)

No big names here. We don’t know the names of the seventy-two. And they don’t go alone, they go in partnership.

There is no need to wait for the next big evangelist to come along and hire a huge venue in which to preach if we want to reach out to the community with the love of God.

I have nothing at all against the Billy Grahams of this world. They have had a good effect on millions of people. But they were of their time, when radio and television were exploding. They may no longer be of our time now, either.

And Jesus didn’t use this method much. Yes, there were a few times in the Gospels when large crowds gathered to listen to his teaching, but mainly he sends his disciples into the world with his message.

Wherever we go in the world, we have opportunities to speak about Jesus. It’s important that we cultivate our relationships in the world for this sake.

I talked about this in a meeting when I was at theological college, and afterwards one of the lecturers came to me and confess, “I don’t think I have any friends outside the church.” How sad. We will never make an impact on the world if we don’t have non-Christian friends.

Where are your non-church friends? Could you and a fellow Christian build a relationship with them and support each other through the challenges of outreach?

Secondly, mission is about prayer.

 He told them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. (Verse 2)

I think you know by now that one of the things I am tired and despairing of in the church is the attitude that says we can correct all the things that are wrong in the church or the world with the right techniques or money or publicity. Some have called this ‘the technological fallacy’, because it forgets the supreme rôle of people.

But above all human beings is Almighty God, and it is to him we must turn if mission is going to make a difference. When we have realised that all the technology and the latest fads and fashions will not rescue us, perhaps we will remember that our primary task is spiritual, and it requires a spiritual approach.

We can pray in a number of ways as part of God’s mission. We can pray for those we know and love who do not yet know God’s love in Christ. We can pray that our church will be led by the Holy Spirit in what we do to bring God’s love to our community. We can pray for the wider church in our nation and around the world: what might she be doing to proclaim God’s redeeming love and to demonstrate it?

So who are you praying for? And how are you praying for the church’s involvement in mission?

Thirdly, mission is a priority.

Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. (Verses 3-4)

Look at how Jesus doesn’t want the seventy-two to be distracted. Minimal money and possessions. No distracting conversations on the way that will delay you.

Do we really make mission a priority in the church today? What do the agenda of our business meetings tell us about what we consider important? How much time and money are we spending on showing people outside the church the redeeming love of God in Christ? And how much time and money is going on keeping ourselves comfortable?

So now that we are living without COVID restrictions (would that we were also living without COVID itself) what are the activities we can undertake that will provide a bridge to those who need Christ? The more we go on the more we shall have to do things beyond the boundaries of the church building, because this is an alien and unsettling place for members of the unchurched generations.

But we may also be able to remain invitational to some extent. David Voas, Professor of Population Studies at the University of Essex, wrote this in an Anglican document:

Inviting friends to church does not come easily to most English people, which is partly why it is helpful to have non-threatening halfway house events like carol services as a draw. A corollary of the social difficulty of extending invitations is the reluctance to refuse them. Ours is a culture in which asking is a powerful act: it is hard to do but correspondingly hard to decline.[i]

Fourthly, mission is about prevenient grace.

When you enter a house, first say, “Peace to this house.”If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house. (Verses 5-7)

The Gospel is a message of many blessings. It includes peace with God and one another. It includes healing of every kind. So if we want to know whether it is worth giving our time to a particular place or person or family, we look for signs of responsiveness to that good news. Is that something these people desire? Is it something they would love to emulate? If so, then it is worth our time.

Why? Because these are signs that God has been at work before we got there. God is now bringing us in to use us in finishing the job.

Last week we talked about moving on when people reject Jesus, and he still allows for that here in what he goes on to say about those who are unwelcoming and the prospect of judgment. But since we majored on that last week, let’s concentrate more on the idea that we look for signs that God has already prepared people for his Good News.

It’s what John Wesley called ‘prevenient grace’. It is grace that comes before anything we do. God always acts first in salvation, we only respond. If someone finds faith it will not be our doing. Instead, God will have been at work in them before we show up and do our part.

So we bless people with peace. We seek healing and all other kinds of blessings for them. If God has been preparing them we will see some evidence and then we should remain and persist. If there is hostility, we move on and warn them of the consequences if they do not repent.

Fifthly and finally, mission is about peace.

I’ve just said that peace is part of the Gospel. In fact, it’s pretty central. The wonder of the Gospel is that God gives to us before we give to him. He even gives before we are worthy – if ever we are, anyway.

But for all that, it’s easy to get wrapped up with what we have done – especially when things are going well, as the seventy-two found out here.

The seventy-two returned with joy and said, ‘Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.’

He replied, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’ (Verses 17-20)

Just as we proclaim a Gospel that is about God’s grace and mercy rather than human merit, so we need to keep within that. It is dangerous to rejoice in anything other than that, says Jesus. If you start rejoicing when everything is going well, you will falsely attribute success to yourself, rather than to God using you. And if you do rejoice when things go well, what will you do when things go wrong? The sense of your value and worth to God will oscillate. You will be unstable.

No, says Jesus, rejoice that your names are written in heaven. This is what anchors us – the grace and mercy of God to us in making us his own, despite our sin. It’s what we proclaim as the Gospel. And it’s what keeps us on an even keel.

Never lose the joy and wonder that goes with that. It will make people wonder about you – in a good way!

[i] From Anecdote to Evidence: Findings from the Church Growth Programme 2011-2013, quoted at https://www.paulbeasleymurray.com/2022/06/30/develop-an-invitational-culture-or-die/, accessed 1st July 2022.

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When Someone Says No To Jesus, Luke 9:51-62 (Ordinary 13 Year C, 2022)

Luke 9:51-62

What should we do when people say ‘No’ to Jesus? Or maybe they don’t say a clear-cut ‘Yes’?

It’s a question that troubles many Christians. Sometimes that is because the person saying ‘No’ is a loved one.

Our reading from Luke today deals with that issue. Both parts of the reading are relevant to this question, both the Samaritan villages that do not welcome the disciples, and the three people who in Jesus’ eyes display inadequate commitment. Each of the two parts says something distinctive about how we respond.

Part 1: Judgement Is Above Our Pay Grade

As Jesus sets out for Jerusalem, he sends messengers ahead of him, but despite this in one Samaritan village they do not welcome him (verses 51-53). Imagine civil servants and royal equerries being sent to a town ahead of a visit by the Queen, doing all the donkey work, then the Queen arrives and people throw bad eggs and rotten tomatoes at her. It’s a bit like that.

You can understand James and John asking Jesus, ‘Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?’  (Verse 54)

You can understand their reaction all the more when you remember that elsewhere in the Gospels Jesus had a nickname for those two. In Mark 3:17, he called them ‘sons of thunder.’ What does that say about them? Were they like first century Hell’s Angels, riding into the village in their leathers and on their Harley Davidsons? Were they more like punks, spitting at people they didn’t like? It’s not a flattering nickname, and a desire to call down fire from heaven on an unwelcoming village seems perfectly in step with the name.

So if you thought of John as the gentle apostle who wrote about love, think how much he was transformed over the years!

And surely to reject Jesus is to reject salvation? So isn’t judgement the natural corollary? Wasn’t there a logic to what James and John suggested?

Perhaps we can identify with them more than we might easily admit. Think of a time when you were rejected. Did you have unworthy thoughts inside you about the people who did that to you?

Or remember a time when one of your children was treated badly by someone. What did you want to do to the perpetrator? You might not have said it out loud, but somewhere inside you there was probably a rage against that person, and you began to imagine what you would like to do to that person if you have the guts and if you thought you could get away with it.

I will confess to you that I am like that. You may have me down as a placid character, but don’t anyone dare mess with my children, even though one is now an adult and the other will be in a matter of weeks. I sometimes think I could write the script of an 18-rated film if I followed all my darkest imaginings.

But Jesus rebukes them (verse 55) and he and the disciples move on to another village (verse 56). We don’t know what Jesus says in his rebuke, but we can probably infer.

We know that Jesus spoke clearly about God’s judgement at the end of time. If I recall correctly, all but two references to Hell as a consequence of judgement in the Bible are on the lips of Jesus. He didn’t mince his words. Yet he didn’t endorse what James and John said. Instead, he moved his disciples on elsewhere.

I think the inference is very clear. We may indeed be upset, but let us leave judgement to God and move on. This is not a way of making excuses for people, but it is to say that judgement in the hands of God will be righteous and holy. In our hands it is imperfect at best, and at its worst descends into naked revenge.

Think for a moment: we know that God is holy and God is loving. What better character could there be to exercise judgement than the One who perfectly embodies those qualities? Do we measure up? No.

When someone we know rejects Jesus, or rejects us because of Jesus, then we leave the judgement to God. We pray a prayer of relinquishment, handing them over to God, who is best placed to deal with them in righteousness and love. ‘Lord,’ we say, ‘ will you please deal with this person? You will do what is wisest and best.’

And then, like Jesus with his disciples, we move on. We may or may not move on geographically, we may simply move on emotionally. But to move on is healthy. Leave the situation behind with God. He knows best what to do so that person might find him, or if their heart has become hardened towards him.

So concentrate on someone or something else. There are so many people who need to come into contact with the love of God, and he uses us to do that. He may have a new challenge for us.

Part 2: Don’t Lower Your Standards

When we get on to the brief exchanges Jesus has with three people who apparently do want to be his followers but whose offers he does not take up (verses 57-62) it’s important to remember that Jesus often teaches by saying extreme things to make a point. In English we call this ‘hyperbole’, and it was very common in Jewish teachers.

So when he tells the first enquirer that the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head (verse 58) he is making a big, cartoon-like statement to make that person realise that following him risks involving considerable inconvenience and discomfort. Don’t come this way if you just want life’s creature comforts, says Jesus.

And when we look at the life of someone like the Apostle Paul, we see someone for whom that was profoundly true. Paul talked about physical danger, imprisonment, threats to his life, being stranded at sea, sleeplessness, hunger, and thirst all in one passage, for example (2 Corinthians 11:23ff). It’s not exactly the way to the good life as is commonly conceived by people today!

If you follow me, says Jesus, you’re not signing up for an easy life.

Then when the second person wants to bury his father, Jesus says that the man cannot put social norms and expectations above following him. The man can’t have been talking about the actual burial of his father, because that happened within twenty-four hours of the death. This was necessary in a hot climate, and to this day Jews and Muslims bury their dead much quicker than we do.

So the only burial the man can be thinking of is what happened later when the bones of the deceased were transferred from their own grave to a communal ossuary in the village. There was no requirement in the laws of Moses for a son to do this, it was a matter of social custom. Jesus says you can’t elevate that over following him. He is Lord.

The third person makes what also sounds like a reasonable request, to say goodbye to his family, but Jesus’ response about not looking back when you have put your hand to the plough (which was a well-known ancient proverb) indicates that Jesus thought this person was easily distracted from the cause of God’s kingdom. And you can’t do that. You can’t be half-hearted. You can’t say, well I’ll come to church when I feel like it. Or, I’ll do what Jesus wants when it doesn’t get in the way of what I want to do.

I want to suggest to you that Jesus’ approach is the opposite of what we typically say today. We are so desperate about our declining and aging numbers that we say Jesus welcomes all, but we drop the obligations that Jesus puts on disciples.

But here’s the paradox: the grace of God is free, but it costs us all we have. A church that preaches free grace but not discipleship is not preaching the Gospel.

Hear it again: the grace of God is free, but it costs us all we have.

John Wesley knew this, and he structured the early Methodists accordingly. We have heard a lot about the small groups he set up, but he set up more than one kind of group, and they had different purposes. So the class meeting was the one open to all, including those enquiring after the faith – or, as Wesley put it, ‘Those who desire to flee from the wrath to come.’

But the band meeting was for those who were seriously committed to Christ. In the band meeting members held one another accountable for their Christian lives each week. They did so in a confidential relationship. Even to this day Methodist ministers will sometimes say to each other, ‘I want to speak in band.’ This means they want to speak confidentially.

When someone is unwilling to accept Jesus’ challenging standards for discipleship, it is the wrong response to lower the bar. Jesus never did that. When the rich young ruler walked away, Jesus didn’t chase him and say, I didn’t really mean you had to give up all your possessions. Just ten per cent will do.’

When people are reluctant to follow Jesus, yes of course we remember that God’s grace is freely offered to all, but we must also remember it will cost us everything.

If someone says no to that, we leave the judgement to God and we move on.

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Defeating Evil, Luke 8:26-39 – Jesus and the Gerasene Demoniac (Ordinary 12, Year C)

Luke 8:26-39

We had hardly passed the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic when Vladimir Putin began his invasion of Ukraine. For our world, it has been one storm, closely followed by another.

You could say that is what Jesus and his disciples face in this story. From the storm on the lake to the storm in an individual’s life, a storm so violent that he has effectively been put in an outdoor solitary confinement by his society.

Yet as Jesus stilled the storm on the lake he now stills the storm in this man’s life. Surely this story, then, is good news for a world facing its own storms.

We might think that a story of someone infested by many demons is far from our experience and beliefs today, but the themes of the story are in fact profoundly relevant to us.

Yes, it is remote in one sense, even for someone like me who does believe in the existence of the demonic, because even I don’t see demons under every bed. I can only think of one or two cases where I am certain I have encountered them. And in my opinion only a few Christians are called to confront them as Jesus does here.

But I still find relevant themes here for our life and mission today. Luke himself certainly didn’t see this as purely confined to the ministry of Jesus. You can see that in the use of one particular expression that occurs elsewhere in his writings. The man addresses Jesus as ‘Son of the Most High God’ (verse 28). Not only was this a title that the Archangel Gabriel used twice when telling Mary about the child she would conceive (Luke 1:32, 35) it is also a title that pops up in Luke’s other book, the Acts of the Apostles, when Paul is faced by a demonised girl (Acts 16:17). Now if that is the case, Luke must have assumed that this kind of ministry was not unique to Jesus, but it continues with his followers.

Firstly, the story reminds us we are in a spiritual battle.

Where did Jesus fight his initial great spiritual battle? In the wilderness, and the Holy Spirit led him there (Luke 4:1). Note the contrast with the afflicted man in this story:

Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places. (Verse 29b)

The man has not been led by the Spirit but driven by the demon – to where? Solitary places. The Greek word translated ‘solitary places’ is the same one used for the desert where Jesus faced his three temptations.

What are the differences? Jesus is led by the Spirit, the man is driven by the demon. Jesus resists temptation, but the man does not or cannot resist the forces of evil.

We know only too well our own battles with evil and temptation, especially when we are in solitary places, isolated from the support and encouragement of others. How ashamed we feel when we realise yet again that we have not conquered sin and temptation like Jesus did in his earthly life.

But the key to winning the battle is Jesus. When we have failed and need forgiveness again, we remember that he has won the battle against evil not just on his own but on our behalf. Ultimately, he conquered it at the Cross. When we have faith in him and are united with him, then we are clothed in his victory, not our failure. The Father looks at the repentant sinner, united with Christ, and sees the victory over sin of his Son. This is Good News!

And not only that, Jesus gives us hope for our future battles. For just as he was led by the Spirit, so since Pentecost he promises the Spirit to us, too. We can be led by the Spirit as well. When we are faced with temptation, then we can call on the Holy Spirit to strengthen us in resistance and holiness. That’s why Paul writes these encouraging words on temptation in 1 Corinthians 10:

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Secondly, this is a story about power.

I’m sure you will remember from other biblical stories that in ancient times there was something powerful about a person’s name. You will recall stories where people are given particular names with certain meanings, because these indicate the kind of person or life they are going to lead under God.

But the ancients also believed that if you knew someone’s name, you had power over them. So the demons try this on early in the story, even though there seems to be a note of fear in what they get the man to say:

‘What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!’ (Verse 28b)

They know who Jesus is. And they know what he can do to them.

Jesus, though, shows no fear. He asks the name and takes control.

Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’

‘Legion,’ he replied, because many demons had gone into him. And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss. (Verses 30-31)

Jesus has authority as Son of the Most High God, and he knows all about the demons controlling this man. Who is in charge here? Jesus.

Again, this is good news for us. Jesus knows the names of those who oppress us. He has power over the forces of darkness that make our lives miserable. He is coming for them.

Sometimes, that means quite a wait. We don’t know how long this man had been afflicted by demons. Sometimes it is quicker. In other cases they will be dealt with at the Last Judgement.

I believe that Jesus is coming for Vladimir Putin. There will be a dreadful price for him to pay if he does not repent. So too will there be for the monsters in power in Beijing, who persecute Christians, Uyghur Muslims, and others. I think this is part of what we call ‘Good news for the poor.’

One of my favourite Psalms for appreciating this is Psalm 73, where Asaph the Psalmist begins by talking about how the wicked have everything their own way and the righteous suffer (verses 1-16). But then he enters the sanctuary of God (verse 17), the place of worship, where God is acknowledged as King , and he sees things differently:

Surely you place them on slippery ground;
    you cast them down to ruin.
How suddenly are they destroyed,
    completely swept away by terrors!
They are like a dream when one awakes;
    when you arise, Lord,
    you will despise them as fantasies. (Psalm 73:18-20)

God places the wicked on slippery ground. Don’t just look for instant obliteration: watch the unfolding of history, and pray. The power of God will prevail one day, and especially at the Last Judgement.

Thirdly and finally, this story is about restoration.

Contrast the man at the beginning of the story and at the end. At the beginning he has not worn clothes for a long time (verse 27) but after the demons are expelled he is ‘dressed’ (verse 35). I wonder where the clothes came from. Did Jesus send the disciples to get some?

At the beginning of the story he is shouting in a loud voice (verse 28) but afterwards he is ‘in his right mind’ (verse 35).

At the beginning of the story he has been living in tombs, not a house for a long time (verse 27) but at the end Jesus sends him back to his community, and he returns as a witness to Jesus (verses 38-39).

He is restored in so many ways. The physical and material restoration of clothing. The restoration of his mind. The restoration of relationships with his fellow villagers. And key to all this is that after Jesus’ powerful intervention the man is ‘sitting at Jesus’ feet’ (verse 35). This is the power of the Gospel.

And therefore this is what we are called to proclaim and to show. We proclaim restoration of relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We show it in material provision – and the clothes here inevitably made me think of the Knaphill clothes bank.

Yes, we who benefit from the victory of Jesus and his power in the battle against evil now need to share this with others. Like the man, we are to ‘Return home and tell how much God has done for [us]’ (verse 39). Alongside it, Jesus calls us to demonstrate all the ways in which his restoring love works: in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, offering healing love to the disturbed, and reconciliation of relationships.

The only question is, when are we going to start?

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Understanding and Experiencing The Trinity, Romans 5:1-5 (Trinity Sunday Year C)

Trinity Introduction

Knaphill friends have heard me tell the story before about how I was once visited by a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses and when they knew I was a Christian, they pointed out that the word ‘Trinity’ is not in the Bible.

“Neither is the word ‘trousers’,” I replied, “but I’m not about to take mine off!”

My point was that we needed to invent a word like ‘Trinity’ to describe what underlies the biblical teaching.

Because the Christians of the first few centuries were faced with a dilemma. Their faith clearly originated in Judaism, which emphasises that there is but one God. However, Jesus appeared on the scene doing things only God was allowed to do. For example, do you remember how the religious leaders criticised him when he pronounced the paralysed man lowered through the roof as forgiven? They said only God could do that. They were faced with two alternatives: either condemn Jesus as a blasphemer, or rethink.

And this was further complicated after Pentecost, when the Spirit came, also doing divine work. So how do you account for a God who is one but who is revealed as Father, Son, and Spirit?

Muslims and others will tell us this is just plain nonsense: three persons cannot be One. However, the tribes Muhammad encountered and condemned for this reason were probably ones who were actually ‘tritheists’ – people who believed in the three gods. And there is a genuine difficulty with the word ‘persons’ that we use in connection with the Trinity. It’s the nearest English word we have, but it’s not exactly the same.

And so eventually, after three centuries or so of wrestling with these questions, the Church promulgated the doctrine of the Trinity. And we should think of that doctrine not so much as a tight definition but rather a set of boundaries: while you stay within the boundaries, you are describing the true God; go outside the boundaries, and you are not.[1]

Essentially, those boundaries are three lines of a triangle and we need to hold all three lines. Erase one of the lines, and we fall into heresy.

The three boundaries are that there is one God, eternally in three Persons, who are equal. What happens if you remove one of the three lines?

If you keep one God and three Persons but remove the equality, you get the ancient heresy promoted by a man called Arius, called ‘subordinationism’, where Jesus and the Spirit are subordinate to the Father – they are less than him. This is what Jehovah’s Witnesses believe.

If you keep one God and the equality but rub out the idea that God is eternally three Persons, then you get another ancient heresy, this time called ‘modalism’, which was advocated by a man called Sabellius. He said that God was the Father in the Old Testament, Jesus in the Gospels, and the Spirit from Acts onwards. God changed his mode. You can see it in poor sermon illustrations that compare the Trinity to H2O, saying that it can be ice, water, or steam. But Jesus addresses the Father in prayer and promises the Spirit, so this cannot be right.

Finally, if you keep the three persons and the equality and but remove the ‘one God’ line, then you end up with what I said I think Muhammad encountered, not trinitarianism but tritheism, a belief in three gods, contrary to our Jewish heritage.

Now you may say this is thoroughly brain-bending, and perhaps it is! But why should we expect our understanding of the Almighty to be simple? When Albert Einstein’s theories became popular a century ago and they replaced much of Isaac Newton’s thinking, some commented that God would not have had to have stretched himself that much to come up with Newton’s equations. There was something appropriate, if you believed in God, that Einstein’s work was so complex.

Perhaps that is a principle worth bearing in mind when we find the doctrine of the Trinity difficult.

I could say more, and in the past I once preached a series of five sermons to explore the Trinity. If you want any reading on the subject, I particularly recommend ‘Experiencing the Trinity’ by Darrell Johnson.

Romans 5:1-5

I said the Trinity underpinned the biblical witnesses to the one God, eternally and equally subsisting in three Persons. Here I’m going to look at their various rôles once – as Paul says in the context – we have been justified by faith.

Firstly, God the Father brings peace.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (verse 1)

Living under the Roman Empire, Augustus Caesar had established peace, the so-called Pax Romana, and he claimed to have done so by the principle of Iustitia, or justice. His successors had taken titles such as ‘Lord’ and ‘Saviour’.[2] Does any of this sound familiar?!

Paul takes this language and utterly transforms it. God the Father, not Caesar, has brought justification, treating people as if they had never sinned, through a Lord and Saviour not called Caesar but Jesus Christ.

And from that he had given the gift of peace, not peace brought through the sword and jackboots of an army but by Jesus suffering on the Cross.

It is peace with God. The barriers are broken down, and the relationship of peace between God and humans is now possible.

Moreover, that peace between God and people leads to peace between people in the community of the kingdom that we call the church. And so the church witnesses to God’s alternative kingdom that is so strikingly different from the Roman Empire. Instead of peace by subjugation, we have peace by suffering. Instead of peace by force, we have peace by putting others’ needs ahead of our own.

It becomes a question for us as a church: not only have we individually found peace with God through Jesus justifying us at the Cross, but also do we live out God’s life of peace together in fellowship? Are the quality of our relationships a sign of God’s kingdom, in contrast to the ways of empire that surround us?

Secondly, Jesus brings grace.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. (Verses 1-2)

‘Gaining access’ and ‘standing’ are clues that what Paul has in mind here is a room that Jesus has brought us into with the Father. It’s like coming not just generally to the Temple but specifically to the altar with a sacrifice. But that sacrifice is of course Jesus himself and we now stand in a place where we experience ‘grace’ not as a one-off encounter with the forgiveness we don’t deserve but more as an ongoing expression of God’s continuing love.[3]

Just think of that for a moment. The grace that Jesus brings us into is so vast that we stand and remain in it – well, we do, unless we choose to walk out on it.

That is why Paul says ‘we boast in the hope of the glory of God’, because God’s intention is to have us in his temple of grace for all time. We have something to enjoy now and to look forward to. This gives us hope. It’s based on God’s enduring love.

When things get bad in ministry, I sometimes look forward to retirement – perhaps more and more as I get older! The knowledge that we have a house in Sussex is something that tells me life will not always be like this in the bad times.

The followers of Jesus celebrate the good news that he ushers us into the presence of a God who has not promised to love us ‘until we are parted by death’, as the marriage service says, but ‘for ever and ever.’

Be encouraged! Jesus gives us a firm foundation by grace in the love of God.

And from that firm foundation let us be prepared to take risks in his name, rather than forever playing it safe.

Thirdly, the Holy Spirit helps us to love.

3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Verses 3-5)

As I said, things may be tough, but with the enduring presence of God’s love and grace, we have hope. And so Paul goes on to explain how we are enabled to endure, because we have hope.

And so we come to the point where Paul says that the hope we grow into does not disappoint us, ‘because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.’

‘God’s love.’ The Greek literally says, ‘the love of God’, and most translators, like the NIV, take it that way. But it could be translated ‘our love for God’, and given that the context is things we do, such as suffer and persevere, I (following N T Wright on this point[4]) favour that translation.

This would mean that what Paul is talking about here is that the Holy Spirit enables us to love God, especially during those times when we persevere and suffer, leading to the formation of our character and hope.

For in the difficult times it is often harder to love God. When we are up against and we want to complain, love is farthest from our minds. Yet we are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength, and there are no get-out clauses.

Loving God does not always come naturally or easily. But the good news Paul tells us is that this is one reason the Holy Spirit is sent to us: to help us to love.

And that takes us full circle. The peace of God is not just a personal gift but something we live out in community as an alternative kingdom, doing so reassured that Jesus has brought us into the place of God’s enduring grace and love. But living out that love is difficult. We cannot do it alone. For this we receive the Holy Spirit.

Thus the Trinity is intimately involved in the whole life of Christians, and the Christian community.

[1] What follows is based on Darrell W Johnson, Experiencing The Trinity; Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2002, pp 41-45.

[2] N T Wright, ‘Romans’ in The Interpreter’s Bible Volume X; Nashville: Abingdon, 2002, p 515.

[3] Wright, p 516.

[4] Wright, p 517.

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The Importance of the Ascension (Easter 7, Resurrection People 7) Hebrews 4:14-16

Hebrews 4:14-16

I saw this image on Facebook on Thursday, which was Ascension Day. A classic painting of Jesus ascending above the bewildered disciples has had a caption added:

The Feast of the Ascension: celebrating the day that Jesus began working from home.

I rather liked that. I wondered whether devout Catholic politician Jacob Rees-Mogg might ponder it the next time he leaves snarky notes on the office desks of civil servants who are working from home.

What do we make of the Ascension? When I try to explain the event to congregations, I usually suggest it is what John Calvin called one of God’s accommodations to us. He rose into the sky to get the message through to disciples who thought heaven was ‘up there’. Although Professor Tom Wright now says that the Jewish concept of heaven was that it was an invisible realm next door to this life and therefore the crucial part of the story is that Jesus disappears from sight.

But be that as it may, what does the Ascension mean for us? I’m going to divide that into two halves.

Firstly, it’s about the finished work of Jesus.

Hebrews 4:14 tells us that Jesus ‘has ascended into heaven.’ But what does he do there?

Two other parts of Hebrews tell us something that this section doesn’t, and they both use the same expression. In both chapter 10 and chapter 12 we read, ‘He sat down.’

It’s like he gets to heaven, he goes in the front door, finds the sofa in the living room, and takes the weight off his feet. Job done. Now he can rest.

In other words, the Ascension tells us that Jesus had completed all he was sent to Earth to do. Through his life, teaching, miracles, death, and resurrection he has achieved his goal. Salvation has been won. It is available to all. The task is being passed to the disciples and any day now the Holy Spirit will equip them for that.

Compare it if you will to the account of the crucifixion in the Gospel according to John. As he is about to die, Jesus cries out, ‘It is finished!’ (John 19:30) When he said ‘It is finished’ he didn’t mean, it’s all over, and my mission has failed, but the very opposite. For the Greek word that English Bibles translate as ‘finished’ means ‘finished’ in the sense of ‘accomplished’. Jesus is saying, ‘Mission accomplished!’ and the Ascension confirms that.

Jesus has done everything we need for salvation. The Cross is sufficient, the Resurrection proclaims it, and the Ascension ratifies it. To come into a relationship with the living God and to live as a disciple of Jesus requires only what he has done for us. At the Cross, the guilt we carry and the sentence we deserve for our sins are taken away and laid on Jesus. At the Cross, evil forces are conquered not by violence but by the suffering love of God in Christ. At the Cross we are set free.

It has all been done. Finished. Mission accomplished.

So one thing we must not do is attempt to add to what Jesus has done. Sometimes when we feel particularly guilty we think we have to do something as an act of penance to earn the favour of God. But as Martin Luther discovered when he studied the New Testament more fully than he had been taught as an Augustinian monk, the word is not ‘penance’ but ‘repentance’. And even then we do that in response to what Jesus is offering us.

Similarly, some people think they have to live a good life in order to win God’s favour. This is at heart an act of pride: ‘I did it myself’ – or even worse, in the words of the dreadful song, ‘I did it my way.’ But the fact that Jesus has done it all is meant to humble us. We cannot save ourselves. That’s the point. Everyone must come to that realisation, whether they are of high rank or low in human society, that we come in humility to Jesus and depend entirely on him for salvation.

On this day when we celebrate Jesus sitting down at the right hand of the Father, I want us all to realise afresh that our relationship with Christ is described in the words of the hymn:

Nothing in my hand I bring
Simply to thy Cross I cling.

What is faith then? It is not stretching out our hands to offer God something from our lives that we think or hope might make us acceptable to him. Instead, it is an opening out of our empty hands to be filled with all that Jesus has to give us from what he has done for us at the Cross.

John Wesley knew this. Last Tuesday was the anniversary of his conversion at Aldersgate Street, when he found that the assurance of God’s love simply came directly to him from God, not from all the labours to which he had devoted himself up until then.

Therefore, if you are ever the kind of person who says of yourself, ‘I’m trying to be a Christian,’ I want to ask you to put that language to bed from today. Either you are a Christian, or you are not. Being a Christian isn’t a boast, it isn’t a matter of personal superiority. It’s a matter of holding out those empty to hands to receive the finished work of Christ.

Secondly, the Ascension is about the unfinished work of Jesus.

Wait a minute Dave, you’ve just been at pains to say that Jesus finished his work. How can you now say his work is unfinished?

Glad you asked. And I hope this is provocative enough to keep you listening. One part of his work is finished, the work I’ve just been describing, to make salvation an offer to all.

But another part of his work is unfinished. And it’s described in our reading. Hebrews calls Jesus our ‘high priest.’ What does a priest do? A priest offers sacrifices for the people – but we’ve covered that in my first point about the finished work of Jesus in speaking about his death. Jesus our high priest offered himself as our sacrifice.

But a priest does something else for the people. A priest prays for them. This is something that Hebrews will refer to three chapters after our reading:

Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. (Hebrews 7:25)

Two circuits ago, and elderly Local Preacher prayed for me every day. But he died. My parents also prayed daily for me. But they have both died while I have been here.

However, I am not short on the most powerful prayer for me in my need, because Jesus intercedes for me. And he does the same for each of you. Be encouraged! This is his priestly work.

And furthermore, he understands, because as our reading says,

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to feel sympathy for our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Don’t you find that encouraging, too? I often tell mourners at a funeral that when I am going through a bad time in my life I don’t necessarily find it helpful to have well-meaning Christians come up to me and tell me exactly what they believe about why God has allowed this. I want to lay my hands on such people – but not in the sense of healing!

The people I find most supportive when I am walking through troubles are those who have been there themselves. They understand.

One of my favourite examples of this is that about five years before I met Debbie I had a broken engagement – or, as my sister called it, a narrow escape. One day when I was grieving the break-up of my relationship, two friends called Sue and Kate turned up on the doorstep.

‘We’ve come to take you out for a pub lunch,’ they said.

I don’t remember the food from that meal. What I remember is how both Sue and Kate shared about broken engagements they had been through. They understood. They could support me.

Because Jesus has been through human weakness and faced temptation, he can do all that and more.

If you are facing sorrow or crisis right now, I encourage you to re-read the Gospels. Look for the stories where Jesus too goes through the ringer. Then recall that because he has been there too, he understands what you are facing, and can pray like no-one else to the Father for you.

This is how our ascended Lord spends much of his time. This is his unfinished work. It will continue until he appears again in glory, to judge the living and the dead, and to take us to our eternal home.

In conclusion, I’ve always been disappointed how Methodist churches treat the Ascension as a minor festival or even as a non-existent one. It is so important. It has much to teach us and encourage us.

I hope we will all leave today rejoicing in the finished work of Christ, who has sat down at the right hand of the Father, having completed everything necessary for our salvation.

And I hope we will also all leave today encouraged by the high priestly work of Christ who identifies with us and intercedes for us – his unfinished work.

May both of these great truths be strong foundations for our worship and our witness.

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