Advent Sunday: The Most Miserable Time of the Year? (1 Thessalonians 3:9-13, Advent 1, Year C)

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

The other year on Advent Sunday I railed against the rise of luxury Advent calendars. Well,, no need for me to be original this year, because this week the Irish journalist Melanie McDonagh did exactly that in The Spectator magazine. This year, she writes,

There are tea or coffee Advent calendars with a different flavour for each day – see Whittard’s Tea or Pact Coffee or Fortnum’s – there are beauty advent calendars like the Space NK one for £199 with a different skincare product for each day or the one from Dior for £400; a gin advent calendar from the Craft Gin Club; there are cheese versions, pork scratching versions and there are, of course chocolate advent calendars, which are everywhere: Charbonnel et Walker does one for £75; Cadbury’s Dairy Milk for £2.19 (‘make every day in the run-up to Christmas magical’).

And in fairness, Ms McDonagh also rages against ordinary chocolate Advent calendars. Why?

Advent generally is about expectation (actually it’s partly about preparing for the Day of Judgment); it’s the reverse of a binge.

That’s right: Advent isn’t a time of preparation in the sense that we prepare by buying presents, getting the decorations out of the garage, and putting up the tree. It’s a time when we prepare not only for the humble coming of Christ in the manger, but also for his future coming in glory, when he will judge the living and the dead, as the Creed says.

No, this is not ‘The most wonderful time of the year’. If anything, it’s ‘The most miserable time of the year,’ and I don’t mean that purely for those who find this season hard due to the anniversaries of bereavements and other tragedies.

So let me be the first person this year to wish you a thoroughly dismal Advent.

Er, no, not really. In our reading from 1 Thessalonians Paul is anxious not only to visit his beloved friends in Thessalonica, but also to help them prepare for Christ’s coming as judge. And while he wants them to be serious about that preparation, we can hardly call his desires for them miserable.

There are two ways Paul urges the Thessalonians to prepare for Christ’s coming. As we explore them, I hope you’ll agree with me that they require seriousness but they don’t necessitate being miserable.

Firstly, says Paul, love one another.

12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.

Love each other (presumably those are the church members) and love everyone else (all those Jesus would have called our neighbour).

Love. Easy to state, hard to do. But that’s the calling.

Love one another in the church, because when Jesus comes again the new creation is going to be a place of love. Nobody will be having a little dig at someone else in the kingdom of God. Nobody will be stabbing someone else in the back when Jesus comes again. Nobody will disregard or ignore their brother or sister when Jesus returns. The actions of the community will entirely be driven by love.

Love your neighbour. Because the world needs a witness to the redeeming and unconditional love of God in Christ. If someone is hurt, we do not look for an excuse by pondering whether they deserve help before deciding whether or not to do something. If their need is an interruption to our routine, then rather than worrying about our routine we consider their need as putting our routine into perspective. How can we expect the world to believe in a God who loves them if the community that professes to believe in that love doesn’t show it to them?

But as I said, all that is easy to state but hard to do. We may struggle to love some people in the church. Just as it is said that we can choose our friends but not our family members, so the same is true about the church family. There are some people here whom we honestly would not pick as fellow church members if we had the choice.

And we just don’t seem to fit together naturally all the time, do we? Many years ago a couple of writers described building the church as like ‘building with bananas.’ Imagine trying to build an edifice out of bananas. Their shape would make it very tricky! Growing the church feels like that at times!

And as for that ‘love your neighbour’ stuff – well, what if we don’t approve of their lifestyle and we don’t think God does, either? What if they hold political views we don’t like? If people inside the church can be hard to love, it can be doubly difficult to love some people who don’t share our faith.

So maybe this is miserable after all?

Let’s re-read verse 12:

12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow. That’s the key. It’s not that we can do this on our own. That would be drudgery and failure. Our challenge to love as a sign of the coming kingdom is one that the Lord enables us to do, and he does not expect us to achieve without him.

So here’s a prayer thought for those times when we struggle to love someone, either in the church or the community, and yet we know Jesus wants us to show them his love. I once heard a preacher tell a story where he said that God challenged him to do something difficult, and he said, ‘No, Lord, I’m not wiling.’

But then he heard the Lord’s reply to him. ‘Are you willing to be made willing?’

Are we willing to be made willing to love? Let us say ‘yes’ to Christ increasing our love.

Secondly, says Paul, be holy.

13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

Oh dear, holiness. Well, that must be dour and it must be hard work. Doesn’t it make you think of those Christians who think the closer you get to God, the more sour-faced you will be?

If that’s your image, then let me speak to you about the famous preacher and devotional writer of a hundred or so years ago, Oswald Chambers. Famed for his preaching that led people to repentance and new life, he was also known for his joy and laughter. Many of his converts may have wept for his sins, but they laughed for joy at their realisation of how great God’s love for them was.

D W Lambert, who as a child knew Chambers as a friend of his parents, wrote a book about him. Here is one story he recounts of him:

On one occasion when my mother was preparing the tea, to which a number of local ministers had been invited to meet Chambers, there came gales of laughter from the study. I, with the priggishness of a small boy, looked shocked, thinking that such holy men should not indulge in laughter. My mother, with quiet insight, remarked, “When God makes you holy He gives you a sense of humour.”[1]

Indeed, Chambers was often asked to babysit for some couples – something remarkable, given that he and his wife Biddy lost their only child Kathleen when she was just four years old. The children would tell their parents that Chambers didn’t preach to them, he was a playmate, and he taught them funny rhymes. I don’t have time for more stories today about him, but if you go on the Internet and search for ‘Oswald Chambers laughter children’ you will find several anecdotes that support this.

Sure, holiness can be tough, challenging and painful. But at its heart it is about becoming more like Jesus. And we remember that Jesus loved weddings and banquets, and he promised abundant life to his followers. If you come across one of those Christians who gives you the impression that the most devout Christians are the most miserable ones, it’s usually because they are miserable people and they don’t realise just how good Jesus is.

But I can’t deny the difficulties in being blameless and holy. Which one of us hasn’t had that sense of failure that we are so very far from being like Jesus? Isn’t the call to be holy a counsel of despair? We may understand that it makes sense, because surely when Jesus comes again all will good, true, pure, and right, and we need to be in harmony with that, but many of us are so conscious of our shortcomings and our besetting sins.

So note that there is good news in this verse. Let’s read it again:

13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

May he strengthen your hearts. Just as we found the command to love to be challenging but we discovered that God enables us, so the same is true of the call to holiness. May he strengthen our hearts.

So our prayer for holiness is similar to our prayer for greater love. Lord, I’m not always willing, but you can make me willing. I take responsibility for my own actions, but you can give me the strength I need in order to be holy, to be more like Jesus.

Yes, love and holiness are both marks of what life will be like when Christ returns. As Christians, we hear the call to conform to the life of the age to come while we live in the midst of this age which will pass away. This is all very demanding.

But in both cases, God is on hand and he waits for us to pray and ask him to give us the increase and the strength to fulfil his commands.

If we truly want to use Advent as a season of preparation, then let us prepare for Christ’s coming again by praying that God will give us more of himself so that we can be more truly loving and more deeply holy.

[1] D W Lambert, Oswald Chambers: An Unbridled Soul, p7f.

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Last Sunday Before Advent, The Feast of Christ the King (Year B)

John 18:33-37

I feel sorry for Pontius Pilate. This was the man who should be in charge – well, on behalf of the Roman Emperor, of course. But he doesn’t know what to do with Jesus, this supposed King of the Jews. Pilate should be decisive, he should be acting powerfully, but he isn’t.

Why? He’s a lame duck ruler. We’ve sometimes seen lame duck Prime Ministers in the UK when the ruling party has lost its majority in the House of Commons and no other party will enter into an arrangement or a coalition with them. And we’ve seen lame duck American Presidents when their party has lost its majority in both Houses of their elected representatives.

Pilate is at the mercy of the Jewish leaders. They might be speaking as if they are soliciting a favour or pleading with him, but they have him round their little finger. For a few years previously, Pilate had sent Roman soldiers into the Temple in Jerusalem, where some of their acts had scandalised Jewish religious sensibilities. The Jewish leaders had sent a deputation to Rome to protest, knowing this kind of unnecessarily offensive behaviour was against Imperial policy. As a result, Pilate was on a final warning from Rome. One more mis-step and he would be exiled.

So we have this dreadful, ironic situation before us. Pilate, the man who has all the human power and authority, is weak. The Jewish leaders, who should have been kept in check by a better political operator, can play the system. And the One who looks weakest of all is the One hailed as King.

King of the Jews

33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’

It’s a Jewish title being applied to Jesus. Never in the New Testament is Jesus called ‘Emperor’ in contrast to Caesar. No: when the Gospel gets thoroughly into the Graeco-Roman cultures the title the early church appropriates for him there is not ‘Emperor’ but ‘Lord’, corresponding with the divine claim that Roman Emperors made for themselves. That was used to claim not merely Jesus’ right to reign and rule, but his divine status. He is more than an Emperor.

But ‘King of the Jews’ – now that’s a problem. The Jewish nation had longed to have a king again since losing their monarchy at the Exile in the sixth century BC. And it was a threat to Rome, because of Jewish aspirations to have a leader who would topple the occupying Roman forces. Jesus could be a threat to Pilate, even if previous pretenders had usually been summarily arrested and executed.

Pilate would not be alone in finding the title ‘King of the Jews’ problematic. It was an issue for the Jewish leaders, too. It had become clear that Jesus didn’t conform to their ideals and not only that, he was fiercely critical of them. Whichever group of Jews they belonged to, Jesus had a largely unfavourable critique of them.

So if you were a teacher of the law but taught it rigorously without factoring in love for God and love for neighbour, Jesus had something to say to you. If you were a Pharisee with a passion for faithful, orthodox religion but had held that in such a way that you had become harsh and judgmental, Jesus would point that out. And if you were a Sadducee, believing as little as possible and all the while being in cahoots with the occupying forces who gave you a privileged position in society, then Jesus wasn’t going to be your biggest fan.

And none of this is merely interesting historical detail, because there are similarities and parallels in our lives today. If Jesus is King, then we need to look at our lives and attitudes.

For he threatens to topple our personal authority and autonomy. We think we have the right to run our own lives. In the title of a popular play many years ago, we ask, ‘Whose life is it anyway?’ Or we sing along with Billy Joel, ‘Keep it to yourself, it’s my life.’

But Jesus says no, it’s not your life, you were bought with a price. You belong to me. I am king. We have some re-ordering to do.

Or we apply our faith in Jesus harshly, looking down on others, casting aspersions on them, acting as if only they are the ones who have things to put right in their lives, because we hold to the true and pure faith. But many a passionate Christian has turned into a Pharisee over the centuries, and it’s still happening.

And others of us would rather hob-nob with the powerful of our society, feathering our nests and hoping that some of their glory brushes off on us. But Jesus the King will tell us that this is a highly disordered way to live, and will call us to account, not least when our attraction to power is bad news for the poor.

My kingdom is not of this world

36 Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.’

Well, maybe here is where we’re let off the hook? If Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, if it’s other-worldly and all about heaven, then perhaps we won’t be too challenged by it after all?

And for all their strictness, that’s the sort of line that cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses take. Because Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, we should not get involved in the things of this world, such as politics or economics. We can avoid getting messy with them.

And some Christians construe a version of faith that is a little bit like that, where Jesus is interested in their private, personal morality, but not about the rest of life. His kingdom is not of this world.

Except – there’s a problem. It would be better to translate these words ‘My kingdom is not from this world.’ You can see the intent from the rest of the verse, where Jesus says, ‘But now my kingdom is from another place.’

So it’s not about the limitations of the kingdom, it’s about where the kingdom originates from. The kingdom over which Jesus rules originates from heaven. It originates from the One who is the Creator of all things. And therefore, when Jesus says his kingdom is not from this world, he is distinguishing it from earthly kingdoms and empires, but not by limiting it. In fact, he’s expanding its reach.

If Jesus is King, then, he’s going to affect my personal morality, but he’s also going to affect my politics, my economics, my working life, and everything else. Many years ago, the late John Stott said that you can’t have Jesus as Saviour without having him as Lord, and if he isn’t Lord of all then he isn’t Lord at all.

As Christians we are recognising Jesus as King now, before the great day when every knee shall bow at his name and every tongue confess him as Lord[1]. We live in the knowledge that he is reigning now, before the day when all his enemies, death included, will be put under his feet, and there is no longer any rebellion or contesting of his rightful place.

We recognise Jesus as King now, because he is reigning already. That’s what the passage from Daniel 7:9-14 is about. When the one like a son of man (which in New Testament terms we understand to be Jesus) comes on the clouds of heaven it is not him returning to earth in glory in the Second Coming, for we read that at that time he comes to ‘The Ancient of Days’ – that is, Almighty God, and reigns there. This is a passage that foretells the implications of the Ascension.

At present, people ignore, disregard, oppose, or reject the reign of Jesus as King over all. But we know that day is coming, so as Christians we live as subjects of the King now. And in doing so, we witness to the world about what is coming.

The great twentieth century church leader Lesslie Newbigin once said that the local church is what he called ‘The hermeneutic of the Gospel.’ Now that may be high-falutin’ theological jargon to you, but the word ‘hermeneutic’ simply means ‘interpretation’. In other words, then, the way the local church lives interprets the Gospel to the people around it in society. If people want to know what the Christian message is, it’s not simply that we should be able to tell them what it means in our lives, they should be able to see what it’s like to live under the reign of Christ from the way we live.

I wonder how the local community looks at our church. Does it see a colony of Christ’s kingdom, living by what he says? Or does it see something else?

The Feast of Christ the King

And that is really what this Sunday is all about. I am reluctant to call it ‘The Last Sunday Before Advent’, with rather sounds to me like everything is petering out but don’t worry, everything will get going again next week.

I would rather call it by its positive title, ‘The Feast of Christ the King.’ This is where we have been heading for all of the church year since we began last Advent. We anticipated the coming of Christ and celebrated it. We marked his life and ministry, his death, resurrection, and ascension. Then we recalled the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost and the mission of God in which the Spirit-empowered church shares.

All this leads up to today. We are looking to the great day when Jesus reigns without any opposition, unlike now.

Therefore, it’s the climax of the Christian Year. This is where we’re heading. This is where history is heading.

Our calling is to live more faithfully like that future is here already, and to do so as a witness before the watching world.

[1] Philippians 2:10-11

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Remembrance Sunday: The Healing of the Nations, Revelation 22:1-5 (Ordinary 33, Year B)

Revelation 22:1-5

When I was a child, the Dam Busters movie came to the local cinema and my Dad – who had loved his National Service in the RAF – took me to see it. To me as a boy, Barnes Wallis, who invented and trialled the ‘bouncing bomb’ not far from here at Brooklands, Wing Commander Guy Gibson, and the crew members of Bomber Command were surely national heroes. This Remembrance Sunday, only one member of Bomber Command is still alive – Squadron Leader ‘Johnny’ Johnson, who is about to celebrate his one hundredth birthday.

Heroes. As a youngster, I didn’t really consider the complex moral questions about the bombing of the Ruhr Valley and whether Christians could view it as justified under the Just War Theory of St Augustine, who said that in a just war you could only target those who were actively involved in the enemy’s war effort.

But I suspect that whatever stance we take on war, a lot of us do childlike thinking about it. As a teenager I was to embrace pacifism, but some would say that is naïve idealism. It can be equally naïve to assume that bombing your enemies into oblivion makes everything right.

And Christians will never totally agree on issues of war. I’m not going to try to take on that hopeless task today.

But I do want us to use this Lectionary reading from Revelation 22 to show us what God’s glorious vision of the future in his new creation is like, because that gives us a good idea of his will, and it therefore points to some of the things we can hope for and live by now as we prepare for the full coming of his kingdom.

Firstly, in the New Creation there is life:

We hear about the ‘water of life’ coming from God and the Lamb (verse 1), just as in Ezekiel the water flowed from the Temple, the place of God’s presence. And we read about the ‘tree of life’ (verse 2), which you will remember from the Garden of Eden, so here Eden is restored but supersized.

So this is life that comes only from God (the water of life) and it is immortal life (Adam would have lived forever had he eaten from the tree of life in Eden). This is eternal life. This is the gift of God. This is the life we receive when we respond to the grace of God in Jesus Christ and find forgiveness of sins and new purpose in following Christ and turning away from sin.

It is this life, the gift of God, which stands in contrast to the death we witness in the world and which is at the forefront of our thinking on Remembrance Sunday. The ways of God are life, not death.

And it is not just physical death but spiritual death which the life of God opposes and replaces. To stay wilfully apart from God is to choose eternal death.

Therefore, one thing we might remember on Remembrance Sunday is the importance of the Gospel. Yes, we join with the rest of our society in commemorating the war dead and the sacrifices that millions made, but as Christians we go further. We say that there is an antidote to the ways of hatred, mistrust, and violence that lead to war, and that is in Jesus Christ and him only.

So one thing we learn from Revelation 22 is that in the church we need to keep the main thing the main thing. And the main thing is the proclamation of the Gospel. What a tragedy it is that other things get in the way. The other day a minister who is retiring next year told me how he sincerely hoped that in his final year of active ministry he would be able to concentrate on preaching and teaching rather than on GDPR, accounts, property, and all the other governance issues.

But not only that, this is a reminder to all of us in the church that we have our part to play in sharing the Good News of Jesus among those we know. It isn’t that we are all preachers – thank goodness we’re not – and it isn’t that we’re all called to go door-to-door or button-hole people in the street. But it remains the call to all of us to talk naturally in conversations about the difference Jesus has made in our lives.

If on Remembrance Sunday we want to see a better world, then it is incumbent upon those of us who believe a better world is coming to share that Good News with the world.

Secondly, in the New Creation there is healing:

We read that ‘the leaves of the tree [of life] are for the healing of the nations’ (verse 2) and that is then explained with the words, ‘No longer will there be any curse’ (verse 3).

The curse on the nations is healed in the New Creation. What does that mean? It means that the curse of Eden is reversed. In the pictorial language of early Genesis, it was the sin of Adam and Eve that led to a widespread curse on humanity. It was a wide-ranging curse. It not only adversely affected our relationship with God, our relationships with each other were cursed, so was our relationship with work, with children, and with the whole of creation. All of life was under a curse. What was previously blessèd became cursed.

But no more. Through the Cross and Resurrection God reverses the curse. We can know him. We can have good relationships. We can find purpose at work. We can bless and restore creation – something that is surely on our minds as the COP26 conference ends. All these are God’s gifts of healing in Christ. They are partial in this life, but they will be complete in the New Creation.

Now this is important in following on from my first point. Because there are those who will say that it isn’t enough to preach the Gospel, and that it doesn’t bring about the wider transformation in society. They will point to things like the dreadful genocide in Rwanda back in 1994 and point out that Rwanda was a heavily evangelised nation with a high proportion of confessing Christians. Indeed, in certain parts of the Christian world it was celebrated as a great example of evangelism and revival. People spoke about the ‘East African Revival.’ Yet many of these Christians participated in the terrible massacres.

The problem with Rwanda is that a narrow Gospel was proclaimed, one that only called converts to a personal, perhaps even private, piety. We need the call to conversion, but it needs to be a call to an entirely converted life. Because the message that the whole curse is lifted in the New Creation and that healing has come is a message that applies right across life – not just to personal and private issues like relationships, but also to public and social areas, such as work.

So what we cannot do as Christians is truncate the Gospel. Some truncate it by the sort of narrow private piety I’ve just described – ‘Come to Jesus, and let him put your personal life in order.’ Others truncate the Gospel but omitting the call to conversion and simply proclaiming that God loves social justice. But the healing of the nations from the curse of the Fall means we need to declare and to live out the healing from the curse in every sphere of life.

As we seek a better world than the one that we live in, let alone the ones that provoked world wars, our calling as Christians is to proclaim the Gospel in all its fulness and to live as an example of that all-encompassing Gospel which brings healing and restoration to every broken part of life.

This will therefore not only be in our spoken message, but in our lifestyles, and in what we offer the world. Too often churches are filled with toxic behaviour, and when that happens it’s a denial of the Gospel and it’s a denial of opportunity to the world to know the beauty of God’s healing love.

Instead, let’s be people who know that the life of the Gospel brings healing and let’s show that.

Thirdly, in the New Creation there is light:

There will be no more night, we read in verse 5. At this time of year when the clocks have gone back and the nights have drawn in, that sounds like Good News to me!

The other day on Twitter, someone parodied the old Simon and Garfunkel song ‘The Sound of Silence’ by writing these words:

Hello darkness, my old friend,
Why are you here? It’s 4 pm.

Not that I want things to be like New York, ‘The city that never sleeps’, having stayed in an hôtel there on Broadway where you could hear traffic noise and be assaulted by neon advertising 24/7.

But light instead of darkness. No more the darkness of sin, because my guilt has been wiped away. No more the darkness of continual sin, because the Holy Spirit has helped us to live differently. And no more the darkness caused by the sins others have inflicted on us, because God in Christ has healed us and helped us to forgive.

All those things that have brought darkness in this life will no longer cast shadows over us and suck life out of us. We shall know the beauty of God’s light.

How does he do this? There might be a clue in the preceding verse:

4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

God’s name on our foreheads. Do you remember when as a child you had to write your name on everything you owned, and when you had name tags sewn into your clothes? God puts his name on us and says, ‘You belong to me.’ What could be more reassuring and restorative than that? We belong to him. His name is upon us. This can carry us through the darkest times: we are Christ’s.

We may not be facing a world war today, but where could we apply this? You’ve heard me talk about the fact that depression has had quite an effect on my family, and so you may not be surprised to know that I’m concerned by the increase in mental health issues since COVID-19 hit and I believe the church can offer something to the world alongside all the necessary medical resources.

And there is an encouraging growth in Christian resources for use in the church and the community to help with this. I’m looking at one called Kintsugi Hope. Whether it’s the right resource I don’t know yet, but the word ‘kintsugi’ is Japanese for a way of restoring broken pottery by painting it with seams of gold and thus making it more beautiful.

Whether that particular path is the right way forward for us or not, we have here a wonderful picture in these five verses from Revelation about how the fulness of the Gospel hope in the New Creation is the cure for the sickness that the world faces with when we think of the events that led to the establishment of Remembrance Sunday and its continuation. We also recognise that war is far from the only way in which there is brokenness, sickness, and darkness in our world.

We are people of hope. Jesus brings life, healing, and light. One day his new world will be flooded with these things. In the meantime, it’s our call to participate in his work by proclaiming the Gospel, by living and advocating healed lives, and by showing the world how Christ’s light overcomes the darkness.

Remembrance Sunday, then, reminds the church of our unfinished task.

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Orbiting The Son, Mark 12:38-44 (Ordinary 32 Year B)

Sorry, the out of focus problem is back – I thought I had all the settings correct to record myself!

Mark 12:38-44

The new pastor of a large independent church invited all the other local ministers to attend a concert being given at his church by a well-known Christian musician. He invited us not only to the concert, but to come and eat with the musician beforehand.

At the time I was single, and the thought of not having to cook and wash up for myself for an evening was appealing, so I went along beforehand. We had a very agreeable time over food, and then when it was time for the concert itself I noticed some people from one of my churches arriving and taking up some seats on the back row, so I went to join them.

After the gig, the pastor expressed surprise that I had sat at the back. “I had a seat for you on the platform with me,” he said. I replied that was very kind of him, but really there were times when I felt I was up front in the public eye more than enough, and it was a pleasant change for me as a minister to sit at the back.

Later events were to show that that incident was merely the tip of the iceberg when it came to the pastor’s attitudes. A few years later, his ministry at that church fell to pieces over issues surrounding the unholy trinity of money, sex, and power.

It’s so dangerous to invest our status, identity, and security in the wrong things.

And that’s what our reading is about today. I know I’m often critical of the way the Lectionary selects verses, but not this time. I find it helpful the way we get to read these two separate incidents together, because they both have a similar theme. I’m used to hearing the story of the widow’s mite on its own, but to hear it alongside Jesus’ earlier condemnation of religious leaders is illuminating.

Both of these stories show people with power and authority seeking a sense of status from public acclaim.

In the first story, the teachers of the law (who were not necessarily wealthy, well-paid religious leaders) enjoyed drawing attention to themselves by dressing in a special way and looking important in the synagogue and at banquets. They would have been on the platform at the concert I attended.

Me, me, me. Look at me, they say. It’s a warped and dangerous approach to power and authority, so far from the servant model that Jesus taught.

And because their approach to power and authority deviates from the way of Jesus, it becomes a dangerous exercise. When it’s all about me getting the attention, then the power available also gets used for – guess who? – Me.

We get a flavour of this when Jesus says,

40 They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.

Jesus knew what he was talking about. The Jewish historian

Josephus (Ant. 18.81-84) tells of a Jewish scoundrel exiled to Rome who affected the ways of a scribe (“he played the part of an interpreter of the Mosaic law and its wisdom”) and succeeded in persuading a high-standing woman named Fulvia to make substantial gifts to the temple in Jerusalem. The bequests, however, were embezzled, and Rome – from Emperor Tiberius on to plebs in the street – was outraged.[1]

Since the scribes were largely dependent on gifts from worshippers and benefactors for their livelihood this would be like a minister today finding a way to exploit congregational giving to feather his own nest.

We may not all have a position of power and influence, but we all need to take heed of the dangers of wanting the attention to be on ourselves. What we see here is that when that happens, corruption follows.

We need to remember the way of Jesus, which is to be a servant, not an attention-seeker.

Each Sunday when I’m at Byfleet there is a small way in which I try to remind you and myself about that important truth. You will have noticed that at the end of the service I don’t process out down the centre aisle. I sneak off round the side, saying a quick thank-you to Vaughan or Peter on the laptop and to Adrian on the organ. I don’t want you at the end of the service to be thinking about the person who led you in worship; I want you to be thinking about the object of our worship, Almighty God.

What can you do to remind yourself Jesus is the centre of attention in the Christian life, not you?

In the second story, the crowds are depositing their gifts for the Temple at the treasury. But some are making a flamboyant song and dance of it:

Many rich people threw in large amounts. (Verse 41b)

Why throw the money into the receptacle unless you want to be ostentatious about your giving? Once again, it’s a case of ‘Look at me!’ Those looking on are meant to think, ‘Wow, what wonderfully generous people!”

Again, the concern is to bolster up one’s personal image. These are people who feel good about themselves when other people praise them.

I can’t help thinking that these people would be the sort who today would turn up on a TV telethon like Children In Need or Comic Relief with an oversized cheque clearly bearing their name or their company’s name, because they’re less interested in helping the cause than in getting their name before the public and gaining publicity for themselves.

It’s the widow who shows true faith in this story, of course. Hear again Jesus’ estimation of her when she contributes ‘two of the smallest coins in circulation’[2]:

43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on.’

What’s the difference between the widow and the wealthy? The widow puts her whole life in the hands of God. The wealthy keep control for themselves.

Thus, it’s the widow who shows what discipleship is like, according to Jesus. True faith is not a lifestyle option from the glossy magazines with the Sunday papers. It is not a deluxe extra specification on your car. True faith is to say to Jesus, here I am with all that I am and all that I have. I put it all in your nail-scarred hands to do with as you see fit.

The widow would ask us whether we have put our entire lives at the disposal of our Lord. It’s a life of sacrifice in response to the One who would lay down his own life very soon. Just as astronomers discovered that the Sun does not orbit the earth but rather the earth orbits the Sun, so the widow teaches us that we are not at the centre where the brightest and best orbit us. Rather, we orbit the Son – the Son of God.

And as these two episodes conclude, so also concludes Mark’s account of Jesus’ public ministry. Everything else will be behind closed doors or in secluded places. What are we like where no-one else sees us?

In such locations, we cannot be attention-seekers. In such places, we are challenged to remember that we make Jesus the centre of attention, not ourselves, and that as he laid down his life for us so we lay our lives before him to be used as he pleases.

Let us always remember that we orbit the Son, not vice-versa.

[1] James R Edwards, The Gospel According To Mark, p379.

[2] Ibid., p381.

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No More Tears: A Brief Reflection For An ‘All Souls’/Memorial Service (Revelation 21:1-7)

After a week off, I return with two videos, which I’m posting at 15-minute intervals.

The second video will be my regular Lectionary teaching, but this one is for an ‘All Souls’/memorial service one of my churches is holding. I put All Souls in quote marks, because what we do probably doesn’t meet the aspirations of my Anglican and Catholic friends for such an occasion, but it is a pastoral service we normally offer each year for those who have been bereaved.

Revelation 21:1-7

I once worked with an Anglican rector who believed there would be no sea in heaven. Not much fun for anyone who enjoyed playing with a bucket and spade and wearing swimming trunks or a swimming costume!

His argument was based on the first verse of our reading, which includes the words, ‘there was no longer any sea.’ I disagreed with him, pointing out that Revelation uses a lot of picture language, and that the sea was something that terrified the ancients. So to say there would no longer be any sea was a way of saying that all our fears would be removed in the life of the age to come.

Unfortunately, my argument didn’t work, it just came up against intransigence. ‘If the Bible says there isn’t any sea in heaven, then there isn’t any sea,’ he said.

But even if I disagreed with him about that – and you may wonder why I’m starting an All Souls service address with this line of thought – there is definitely one form of water that will be abolished in God’s new creation when it comes.

Verse 4:

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

No more tears. All wiped away. An end to crying.

No more tears. It’s a universal aspiration. Think of the song ‘No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)’ by Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand. It’s about the end of a relationship that started promisingly but descended into the man causing the woman misery.

No more tears. Even Ozzy Osbourne made an album with that title. It was the first recording he made sober.

We long for the day when there will be no more tears. Sometimes in this life our grief and pain is so huge and so draining that, in the words of Alison Moyet, we are ‘All cried out.’

My late aunt had a physiological problem with her tear ducts, and she couldn’t cry. But we long for the day when the tears don’t flow because we don’t need to cry anymore.

How we long for that on an occasion like today when we remember those we love dearly but who have been separated from us by death. Yes, we also learn to smile at happy memories. But we still weep.

No more tears.

Jesus says, that day is coming. When he makes all things new (verse 5), even the heavens and the earth (verse 1), he will make us new with resurrection bodies just like his. No longer will we be subject to decay and death. We shall have immortal bodies.

And we’re waiting for that day.

However, it already feels like a long wait. For all we know, it may be much longer yet. But it is coming.

And that’s why we light candles today for our loved ones. Small chinks of light in the darkness. For our hope is there, even in the darkest of times. At times it may seem to flicker and be at risk of being snuffed out, but it is real. It is real because of Jesus’ resurrection and his promises, which he always keeps.

As we come forward and put our lit taper on these tea lights, see it as a sign of hope. Light in the darkness. For all who entrust their lives to Jesus, light indestructible is coming.

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That’s The Way To Do It: Bartimaeus and Prayer (Mark 10:46-52, Ordinary 30, Year B)

Mark 10:46-52

When the children were small, we used to take them on holiday each year to the Isle of Wight – the perfect location if either you were a young child or you wanted to travel back in time to the 1950s. If you’ve been there, you’ll understand that comment!

One year, we decided to visit Osborne House, Queen Victoria’s holiday getaway on the island. When we walked down to the beach that is part of the grounds, we found a traditional Punch and Judy show.

Now since Punch and Judy is hardly the epitome of political correctness and is therefore seen far less in recent years, this was a novel experience for our children. And to our son, who has always enjoyed slapstick humour, the sight of Mister Punch dispensing with his enemies by whacking them and then squeaking, ‘That’s the way to do it!’ was great entertainment.

‘That’s the way to do it’ could, in a more positive sense, be a slogan for our reading today about blind Bartimaeus. And especially if we contrast Bartimaeus with our story last week about James and John, which immediately precedes this in Mark’s Gospel. If James and John show us how not to bring a request to Jesus, Bartimaeus shows us a good way. ‘That’s the way to do it,’ Mark seems to say to us.

In what ways does Bartimaeus show us the right way to approach Jesus?

Firstly, he has humility.

As a blind man who with no social security is reduced to begging on the fringes of society to make a living (verse 46) he is in more than a humble position in the first place: ‘humiliating’ rather than ‘humble’ might be the word.

But his true humility comes through in the way he calls out to Jesus:

47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’

He knows something of who Jesus is – ‘Son of David’ is a messianic title – and he knows that the only right and proper appeal to him is therefore a humble one – ‘Have mercy on me.’

This is so different from the proud and arrogant way in which James and John came to request the seats on Jesus’ right and left when he comes into his kingdom. They expected power and recognition for themselves, or at the very least to bask in Jesus’ glory. Not Bartimaeus. ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’

Mercy is the right approach to Jesus. We cannot compare to him. Moreover, we are sinners. The appeal to mercy is the only route.

Pope Francis wrote a book a few years ago entitled ‘The Name Of God Is Mercy’, and I wonder whether Bartimaeus had heard that mercy characterised the way Jesus dealt with people in need. Whether he did or not, we know that he got on Jesus’ wavelength.

Let’s not come trumpeting our greatness and our achievements, which is more in spirit with James and John, and which got them nowhere. Let’s remember instead that Jesus loves mercy, and that is the way to him. We are sinners in need of mercy, and he loves to hear us call out to him on that basis. The cry of mercy is a beautiful song in the ears of Jesus.

Secondly, Bartimaeus has persistence.

48 Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’

It’s as if people in the crowd were saying to Bartimaeus, ‘You’re just a blind beggar. What would the Messiah want with you? You’re no help to his cause! Oh, and by the way, your noise is ruining our special time with the great man. Shut up!’

Now it wouldn’t be surprising if someone as lowly in the population as a blind beggar like Bartimaeus suffered from what we call low self-esteem. He might very well have thought of himself as a nobody and as worthless. I’m sure cruel people would have tried to reinforce such a message on him.

And if he felt so low and worthless, then when these people in the crowd rebuked him for calling out to Jesus, the low self-esteem could have taken over and he might have acceded to their demand that he keep quiet.

But no. Mark tells us his response was that ‘he shouted all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ He won’t let anyone or anything stand in the way of his audience with the Messiah.

What stands in our way when we begin to approach Jesus? Is it a sense of worthlessness? Is it the voices of others, telling us we are no-one special and Jesus would never be interested in someone like us? Perhaps that inner voice says, ‘Don’t bother, you’re not very good at prayer anyway.’ These voices do not come from heaven: if anywhere, they come from the other place.

So do not listen to the messages that discourage you from approaching Jesus, because our sins are too many, or because we don’t amount to much in the world, or we’re not a very good Christian. Do what Bartimaeus did: be persistent. Press on with calling out to Jesus for mercy.

Because at some point those voices will subside: they will have to, because Jesus is calling you, just as he did Bartimaeus (verse 49). Then it’s time to throw aside our cloak, jump to our feet, and come to Jesus (verse 50).

Thirdly and finally, Bartimaeus has good motives.

Contrast the nature of Bartimaeus’ request to that of James and John. They want the power and the glory, but when Bartimaeus hears the same question from Jesus as James and John did – ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ (verse 51) – he simply asks for his sight. He just wants to be fully human.

And even then, his request to be fully human, to have sight like the next person, is not a selfish request. For what does he do when he is healed?

52 ‘Go,’ said Jesus, ‘your faith has healed you.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

Go, says Jesus, but Bartimaeus doesn’t go, he comes. He follows Jesus ‘along the road’ – more literally, ‘along the way’, and you’ll remember that the first disciples were called ‘followers of the way’ before ever they were called Christians. Bartimaeus follows Jesus on the way – and we know where Jesus is going. He is on his way to Jerusalem, where he will suffer and die.

Bartimaeus wants something that will benefit himself, but his first use of that gift is an act of discipleship. His request is not like a child asking for a toy at Christmas, he is asking for something good for himself that he then puts to use in the service of Jesus.

I have a friend who has asked God in prayer for more income. But he hasn’t done so to enjoy a more extravagant lifestyle. He has asked for more money so that he can bless others more.

As many of you know, I have an expensive hobby – photography. Mostly I fund it by selling old possessions and part-exchanging old photographic equipment. I love to buy a new lens for my camera, but they don’t come cheap! But while I want to enjoy the hobby myself, I also want it to benefit others. Right now, I’d like to think it’s benefitting you, because all these videos are shot on high quality equipment I have bought. I aspire to my purchases being pleasurable but not selfish, because I love to bring something good and beautiful to other people through my hobby. And so I pray about my purchases!

Conclusion

That’s the way to do it, James and John. Learn from Bartimaeus. Show humility as you come to Jesus. Be persistent through the discouragements. And have good motives, not selfish ones as you make your requests.

Doing so brings joy to Jesus. He will delight to hear you.

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Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want: What Do Your Prayers Say About You? (Mark 10:35-45, Ordinary 29 Year B)

Mark 10:35-45

The village where I live has various claims to fame, from an internationally known strain of the azalea flower being named after it, through the novelist Hilary Mantel being a former resident, and then the fact that in their pre-fame days the Spice Girls rehearsed here.

While the Spice Girls were preparing for world domination, they sometimes had lunch at a café in the village run by the churches, called The King’s House. (It’s no longer in operation, sadly.)

And so it came to pass than when a documentary was made some years later covering their ascent to fame, a scene of them at The King’s House was scripted and filmed. One of the volunteers there was assigned the rôle of taking their order.

The volunteer in question was one of our church members, a retired Professor of Botany at Imperial College named Jack Rutter. I never knew him, because he moved away and then died just as we arrived here. He was a brilliant man, but his vast knowledge did not stretch to popular culture.

Thus it was that he could be handed a line in the script which he could deliver with a completely straight face as the Spice Girls dithered over what to order from the menu.

He said to them, ‘Tell me what you want, what you really, really want.’

35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘we want you to do for us whatever we ask.’

36 ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ he asked.

Jesus says to James and John, ‘Tell me what you want, what you really, really want.’

Because when Jesus asks us what we really want from him, it reveals our hearts. So in the Old Testament at the dedication of the Temple, the Lord asks King Solomon what he wants, and he famously chooses wisdom rather than wealth. Next in Mark’s Gospel Jesus meets blind Bartimaeus and asks him what he wants him to do for him. Bartimaeus asks for his sight, and he then follows Jesus.

But when Jesus responds to James and John’s request that he do whatever they ask of him, he uncovers an unworthy, if not spiritually lethal request. For what they want is so contrary to the ways of God’s kingdom.

And perhaps that’s something we might reflect on generally: what do the kinds of requests we make in our prayers say about us, our values, and our priorities? Are they in line with God’s kingdom?

Sometimes, God’s answer to our prayers is ‘No,’ and on this occasion James and John get a very lengthy ‘No’ as Jesus sets out just how contrary to popular aspirations in his day (and ours) the kingdom of God is.

In what ways does Jesus say ‘No’ to what James and John really, really want? There are three, and they are all linked.

Firstly, Jesus talks about suffering.

Jesus asks them whether they can drink his cup and be baptised as he will be.

‘We can,’ they answer,

You will, says Jesus, but it’s not up to me who gets the best seats in the house. (Verses 38-40)

The problem James and John have here is that they interpret ‘cup’ and ‘baptism’ differently from Jesus. In the Old Testament, ‘cup’ is used figuratively in different ways. It can be a good thing, such as ‘My cup overflows’ in Psalm 23, and that’s the sort of meaning James and John have in mind. However, it can also be the cup of suffering, and that’s the line Jesus takes.

Jesus has to tell them that the life of the Christian disciple in following him will not be one big jamboree. For all the joy of the kingdom, following Jesus will mean suffering for your faith, just as Jesus himself suffered.

When we become Christians, some of our problems are all over but some other problems are only just beginning. Our sisters and brothers in other nations know this at great cost. For us it may be lesser.

I recently ran an advertising campaign on Facebook for one of my churches, hoping to drum up some letting income. A small minority of people launched personal attacks at me for doing so, one telling me to ‘f- off out of here’. I didn’t respond. I didn’t justify myself. I didn’t put him down. I just ignored it. I expect it from time to time as a Christian. I’ve had worse. Let’s not be surprised by it if we follow Jesus.

Secondly, Jesus talks about serving.

Gentile and pagan rulers lord it over people. They enjoy their status. They crush the people under them, says Jesus. I’m sure we can think of plenty of examples in our own world. He reverses this by saying that the key value to greatness is not gorging yourself on power but serving others. In fact, he doesn’t even say ‘servant’, he says ‘slave’, which was lower than a servant. (Verses 42-44)

It’s a sign of that Christian heritage that we refer to senior members of Government as ‘ministers’, a word which means ‘servants.’ I’ve said before in sermons that ‘Prime Minister’ means ‘first servant’, and one thing to do at a General Election is ask which party leader looks most like someone who would bring a spirit of service to the job.

But we need to remember it in the church, too, which is what Jesus was talking about. Even in the small pond of the church there are those who like to be big fish. There are sad individuals who crave the limelight, or who want to climb the greasy pole. Pick whatever metaphor suits you! But these people think it’s OK to put others down. They like to be seen as the important ones.

I see these traits in both my fellow ministers and in members of congregations. And Jesus reminds us that this is contrary to his kingdom. ‘Not so with you,’ he says (verse 43) – and that is present tense, not future. It isn’t that it’s something to be eradicated in the future, it’s something that shouldn’t even be present now if we had any inkling of what it means to be his disciple.

When you want to fill a vacancy in the church, be that an officer in the local congregation or a new minister, look for someone who doesn’t care about status but who does care about serving.

Thirdly and finally, Jesus talks about sacrifice.

45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

I’m using the word ‘sacrifice’ here not in the ritual religious sense but simply in the sense of giving up something or even everything.

Here is the way Jesus would be the triumphant Messiah who brought people into his kingdom: not by obliterating his opponents but by giving himself up to death, through which those who were kept captive by sin were set free.

We cannot sacrifice for others in the same way as Jesus, but the call to sacrifice, to give up things for the kingdom of God is still loud and clear to us from Jesus.

Life, then, according to Jesus, is not about all the things we amass. It’s not about the abundance of possessions. It’s not about having a bigger and better home. It’s not about having a better paid job than the neighbours. And it certainly isn’t about having access to the elite members of society.

Jesus says we will know true life when we have sacrificed for the kingdom of God. I wonder why we find this so hard? We wouldn’t think twice about sacrificing time, money, or possessions for children, so why not for Jesus and his kingdom? If that’s our issue, then are we like James and John people who are apparently in the religion game just for the benefits and not for the challenges?

Conclusion

Tell me what you want, what you really, really want.

If your life is centred on yourself then suffering, serving, and sacrificing are not going to be top of your list.

But if your life is focussed on following Jesus, then you may well pray for the grace to endure suffering for his name, to serve others rather than polish your own reputation, and to sacrifice things for the cause of the kingdom.

What do you ask for in your prayers?

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Wealth and Discipleship (Mark 10:17-31) Ordinary 28 Year B

It’s the story more commonly known as ‘the rich young ruler’ this week. What do we learn about discipleship from it?

Mark 10:17-31

In 1978, a landmark book on Christians and simple lifestyle was published. Entitled ‘Rich Christians In An Age Of Hunger’ and written by Ronald Sider, one of the most startling quotes in the book is this:

What 99 percent of all Western Christians need to hear 99 percent of the time is: “Give to everyone who begs from you” and “sell your possessions”.[1]

And maybe that’s why today’s passage is so uncomfortable for us. We see what happens to the rich man in this story, and we fear Jesus might require the same of us.

So what does our reading teach us? Well, its theme is discipleship, so the question is, what does it teach us about discipleship?

Firstly, we learn that Jesus comes first. That’s the essence of discipleship. We see this in the way that the man has obeyed all the commandments – well, at least outwardly. Jesus even throws in a commandment that isn’t one of the Ten Commandments when he includes ‘You shall not not defraud’ (verse 19) – or, as some manuscripts put it more fully, ‘You shall not defraud the poor.’

Yet that’s not enough, according to Jesus.

21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’

It’s not simply that the man is expected to follow the religious rules, even if he can keep them. He has to obey Jesus.

That gets to the heart of Christian discipleship. We can’t appear before God and say, ‘I kept the rules. I was a good, moral person.’ Plenty of people think that’s what makes a Christian, but it isn’t, according to Jesus. We cannot pride ourselves on our character and think that’s what earns us a heavenly pass. It isn’t. At the Last Judgment, there will be millions of so-called ‘good people’ who are on the wrong end of Jesus’ verdict.

Why? Because they didn’t put him first. They didn’t listen to him and do what he asked them to do. The rich man wanted to inherit eternal life, but he didn’t want to put Jesus first.

And as he learned, putting Jesus first means sitting lightly to other things. They must not compete for our affections. What we have is not ours anyway, but something which God has entrusted to our care. If Jesus needs it for something else, as here, then the Christian disciple needs to obey her Lord.

Among the wider group of his disciples, others treated wealth and possessions differently. We hear at the end of our reading from Peter about how he and the Twelve have given up so much to follow him. We know from other parts of the Gospel such as Luke 8 that others put their wealth at Jesus’ disposal in other ways, such as the women of means who provided for him and his entourage. Each of them in different ways was putting Jesus first.

Perhaps each of us should pause and consider what is stopping us from putting Jesus first in our lives.

Secondly, we learn that Jesus’ love is uncompromising.

Did you notice that? I didn’t say ‘unconditional love’, which is what we often talk about. I said, ‘uncompromising love.’

I think it’s quite amazing that we read ‘Jesus looked at him and loved him’ at the beginning of verse 21. We know how Jesus was concerned for the poor. It would have been easy to be aggressive and hateful towards a wealthy person, such as this man – and indeed I have often seen Christians show naked hostility towards rich people.

I could have been like that. I grew up in very modest circumstances in north London. My parents were children during the Depression of the 1930s. My father’s father was out of work for five years. My mother was born to a single parent on a council estate. It wasn’t until he got to around the age of 60 that my father felt his salary was comfortable – and then depression took it from him as he had to retire early.

So you can imagine that coming to an area like this in Surrey as we did eleven years ago was potentially problematic for me. There were certainly aspects of local expectations and lifestyle that neither Debbie nor I liked then, and we still don’t.

But Jesus loved the rich man, and so must I. The difference is the kind of love Jesus offered him.

For we talk so readily of ‘unconditional love’ and we say, ‘Jesus loves us just as we are.’ And while that’s true so far as it goes, it’s only a half-truth. Just because Jesus loves us as we are doesn’t mean he wants to leave us like this. In fact, he loves us too much to leave us as we are. And he couldn’t leave the rich man in slavery to his wealth and his property.

So Jesus doesn’t offer the kind of love which says, ‘I love you as you are,’ with the silent implication that people can stay just as they are. He offers uncompromising love where he says, ‘I love you so much, but I won’t negotiate how you live, this is what I require of you if you are truly to follow me.’

Now that poses a problem for us when we think about wanting to welcome people into church, but maybe John Wesley had a helpful approach to this. As you know, he was big on putting people into small groups for the sake of their spiritual growth, but what a lot of people don’t realise is that he had more than one kind of small group. The one most people have heard of was the ‘class’, and there was only one requirement for joining a class, which was that essentially you were a spiritual enquirer.

However, if you were clearly a committed disciple of Jesus, there was another group for you, and that was a confidential group called the ‘band’.

Maybe we need to maintain these distinctions today. The rich man in our story would have made it into the class but not into the band, and then he would have even left the class.

What we need to remember is this: the love of Jesus is unconditional in that it is offered before we ever loved him, but it is also uncompromising because it calls us into the lifestyle of a Christian disciple.

Thirdly and finally, we learn that Jesus’ grace is transformative.

I’m thinking here of the conversation Jesus has with his disciples after the rich man has gone away. In the light of Jesus’ standards they wonder who can possibly be saved, and Jesus replies that what is humanly impossible is nevertheless possible for God. (Verses 23-27) Then Peter talks about all the sacrifices he and the other disciples have already made in order to follow their master, and Jesus promises them a mixture of rewards and persecution in this life, but unfettered blessing in the life to come. (Verses 28-30)

Contrast all that with the weak and insipid way we talk about grace in the church today. A recent Methodist document simply defined grace as ‘God’s unconditional regard towards people.’ Rather like the ‘God loves us as we are’ thinking we just considered, it’s only a partial truth. Grace is not only the way God reaches out to us and accepts us, it’s the way in which he changes us and fulfils that desire of Jesus’ uncompromising love to see us transformed.

You see, while discipleship requires commitment and effort from us, we all know our propensity to fail – that’s behind the disciples’ despairing comment, ‘Who then can be saved?’ But ultimately, we’re drawn to discipleship by the call of Jesus, and we’re enabled to be disciples by the Holy Spirit. So in the final analysis, it’s the work of God doing something good in us that we don’t deserve. And that’s grace. God makes the impossible possible.

But not only that, says Jesus, this grace shows that discipleship is more than the costly decisions we make to follow him (although that is part of it). As the New Testament scholar James R Edwards puts it,

But to conceive of discipleship solely in terms of its costs and sacrifices is to conceive of it wrongly – as though in marrying a beautiful bride a young man would think only of what he was giving up. … the reward of eternal life makes the sacrifices of discipleship look insignificant in comparison to the lavish blessing of God.[2]

God will bless the disciples of Jesus in this life, although there will still be the troubles of persecution, and he will bless again in the life of the age to come. That too is grace, along with the way grace enables and empowers us to walk the path of the disciple.

To conclude, let’s go back to where we started. Do we all have to sell our possessions? It depends on what Jesus asks of us, because to be a disciple means putting him first and following his will for our lives, rather than simply keeping a set of religious rules.

The thing is, his love meets us where we are but also draws us on into that life of imitating Jesus. And that call is one we will fail, but that’s where his grace comes in – again, meeting us where we are but transforming us and blessing us beyond description.

That, in outline, is the life of a Christian disciple.

[1] As found at https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/sell-all-of-our-possessions/

[2] James R Edwards, The Gospel According To Mark, pp 316, 317.

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Jesus On Marriage And Divorce (Mark 10:1-16) Ordinary 27 Year B

Once again some technical problems with focus in the video – sorry. Hopefully I’ll get this solved for next week.

Mark 10:1-16

In recent times, a dark underbelly of the Christian church has been exposed to the world, mainly through sex abuse cases, often where the victims have been children.

I have to say, it’s not the only dark side of the church I’ve witnessed. Today’s reading gives a first century example of something that still goes on in the church.

What is it? It’s manipulative politicking that seeks to put someone in an impossible situation. I’ve been on the receiving end of that. Worse still has been when accusers have made up false allegations against my wife as a way of getting at me.

I sometimes think that if I’d known in advance how nasty and slimy some church members would be, I’d have been reluctant to offer for the ministry.

Well, that’s a cheerful start this week, isn’t it? But it’s exactly what the Pharisees are doing to Jesus in today’s difficult reading. They are setting a trap. They are trying to discredit Jesus or put him in an impossible situation.

The Trap

Once again, I’m going to be critical of the Lectionary. Had we followed that strictly, we would have begun at verse 2, but verse 1 of Mark 10 carries some important information. It tells us that Jesus ‘went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan.’ That means he’s in the territory of Herod Antipas. In chapter 6, Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist has been beheaded following his criticism of Herod and Herodias divorcing their first spouses because they fancied each other. If Jesus now starts condemning easy divorce, then his life too could be in danger. It’s really quite cynical of the Pharisees to happen to come up with this question in this territory.

And of course Jesus could be made to look harsh and uncaring if he held a hard line. Jewish law allowed divorce.

On the other hand, what if Jesus sides with easy divorce? It would undermine and contradict the ministry his cousin had had.

And furthermore, the only argument among the rabbis was about what constituted legitimate reasons for divorce. They believed that a man could divorce his wife ‘Because he hath found in her indecency in anything.’ Some concentrated on the word ‘indecency’ and said that adultery was the only reason for divorce. Others concentrated on the words ‘in anything’ and said that the wife ruining a meal was sufficient cause for divorce.[1] On this basis, Jesus is being asked, which group of rabbis do you side with? And that reduces him to just another rabbi, no-one special – certainly not the Son of God.

What will Jesus do?

The Reversal

Jesus accomplishes a complete reversal. As so often in his ministry, he responds to a question with a question of his own. He won’t allow himself to  be trapped by his opponents’ assumptions.

But this time he’s especially clever. He asks a question where he knows what his opponents will say, and just as they’re feeling like they’re on solid ground he will take the ground from under their feet as if it were quicksand.

‘What did Moses command you?’ (verse 3) is his question, and he knows the Pharisees will jump to Deuteronomy chapter 24. Sure enough, they do.

4 They said, ‘Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.’

And they think they’ve got him. Now then, Jesus, choose a side and choose your fate.

But no. Jesus is not going to allow those women who have been cast aside like an unwanted toy by their husbands also to be treated as the mere objects in a debate. And the way he does that is by exercising his divine authority, bursting out of their trap where they wanted him simply to pick one rabbi’s interpretation versus another’s.

5 ‘It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,’ Jesus replied. 6 ‘But at the beginning of creation God “made them male and female”. 7 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’

‘It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this rule.’ Who could know that except One who shared in the life of the Godhead? This isn’t the best interpretation that a rabbi can come up with: this is an authoritative divine declaration. What Moses gave wasn’t an instruction that allowed Jewish men to treat their wives as disposable; it was a concession that limited the worst effects of divorce on women in a patriarchal society.

The Pharisees thought they had boxed Jesus into a corner. But Jesus has landed a knock-out punch.

And just to emphasise the point, Jesus takes the whole thing back to first principles – something the Pharisees failed to do, and something today’s Church often fails to do as well.

The Principles

To take things back to first principles and to God’s design for marriage, Jesus goes back to Genesis. He quotes from Genesis 1:27, the verse which declares that all humans are made in the image of God, when he says,

6 ‘But at the beginning of creation God “made them male and female”. 

In doing so, he establishes the equality of men and women in relationships. It is not that one sex owns the other.

And then Jesus goes into the other creation account in Genesis chapter 2, where he quotes verse 24, and draws a conclusion:

7 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’

Jesus very clearly tells his opponents that rather than look for all the get-out clauses, you should look for what marriage is about in the first place.

And what is marriage in Jesus’ eyes here? It’s between one man and one woman, exclusively, for life, and where the sexual act belongs as the sign (almost the sacrament!) of that lifelong unity.

The Methodist ‘God In Love Unites Us’ report tried to wriggle out of these clear conclusions by claiming that Genesis 2 was only about mutual help. Well, it begins there but it blatantly doesn’t end there and Jesus won’t let it end there. He authoritatively declares as the Son of God that this text teaches much more than that.

So where does that leave Jesus when it comes to the question of divorce?

The Problem

Jesus addresses this more when he goes into the house with his disciples:

10 When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. 11 He answered, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.’

In the context, Jesus is referring to the people who throw away their spouse because they are no longer wanted. That was what the Pharisees had in mind. That was the ‘easy divorce’ culture that had grown up in Jesus’ day because Judaism had taken the teaching of Moses as a permission rather than a concession.

And not only do we know from this passage that Jesus had a concern for those who are treated as disposable objects by their spouses rather than equally made in the image of God, we also know from Matthew’s version of this incident that Jesus specifically allowed divorce for those whose spouses broke their marriage vows by sexual immorality.

And it is this twin approach of Jesus – holding out high ideals while having compassion for those who are hurt – that shape our Christian approach to marriage and divorce.

On the one hand, we say to those who want to set out on this adventure that it will take commitment of a level they may well not have known before in their lives. Marriage takes work. It doesn’t just happen, which is why the modern idea that ‘marriage doesn’t work’ or ‘we just drifted apart’ do not sit easily with the Christian vision of marriage. I remind couples whose marriages I am taking that in their vows they won’t say ‘I do’ – they’ll say ‘I will’, which is both a promise and a commitment to an act of will. In fact, they say, ‘With God’s help I will,’ because they will need God’s help to live up to their vows.

On the other hand, we are not here to castigate those who are let down by a spouse who treats them as inferior and does not consider them worthy of loyalty and faithfulness. I once met a couple who wanted a church wedding, but the bride had been divorced after her first husband left her for someone else. She had rather cruelly been told by a vicar they had approached before me that she was ‘damaged goods’.

Can we – like Jesus – support and celebrate life-long marriage, while tending to the wounds of those who have been hurt by those with whom they had exchanged vows?

Because I believe that’s what he calls his church to do.

[1] James R Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark, p299.

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Harvest Sermon: Reversing the Curse (Genesis 8:15-22)

A brief apology for omitting one technical step in my set-up before recording the video this week which led to the focus being on my bookshelves and not on my face. I didn’t have time to re-shoot. However, you may consider it an improvement!

Genesis 8:15-22

If I turned up this morning with all three volumes of The Lord Of The Rings, opened one of them at random, and read to you about the battle of Isengard, you might think it was interesting but how much sense would it make to you?

If you saw on the stage a scene from Romeo and Juliet where the two lovers are professing their devotion to each other but you knew nothing about the hostility between the Montagus and the Capulets, what meaning would you draw?

And if the first instalment you ever watched of Eastenders was Dirty Den serving divorce papers on his wife Angie in a Christmas Day episode one year, might you ask yourself, ‘Well, what led to that?’

These things don’t make much sense on their own, do they?

Yet that’s exactly how we often treat the Bible in church. It’s why I like to preach on a sequence of readings from the same book if I can. That’s why many of my sermons and videos in recent weeks have been from the Gospel according to Mark.

But on a special occasion like today we have to break the pattern and it means taking a passage out of nowhere. If only this week’s reading from Mark had been suitable!

Now you will recognise some of the context of Genesis 8 immediately. You will realise this is the end of the Flood, and that’s useful for understanding these verses, but we’ll need to set it in a wider story. This passage makes more sense in the context of what has already happened earlier in Genesis, and in the context of the great story that all the books of the Bible in their vast diversity combine to tell.

Putting it in that wider context, I’m calling this story of harvest and other good things one of ‘Reversing The Curse.’

The key reference here is not so much Genesis 6, where the story of the flood begins, although that is relevant. The big connection is with Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve fail to follow the terms and conditions on the apple and the tree of life. That poetic story of human sinfulness contains references to the damage that sin causes. It isn’t just that it fractures our relationship with God, it also damages our relationships with other human beings and so men dominate women (which only comes in the curse). Our connection with the wider creation also takes a hit. We see hard, physical toil at work as one sign of the curse, and we see the pain of childbirth as another. In the words of Bob Dylan, ‘Everything is broken.’

The flood in Genesis shows then that the problems in the Garden of Eden have escalated to the whole human race. This is the point where wickedness is in such a frenzy that God resorts to drastic measures.

But now, after the flood, God expresses his deepest desire, which is for salvation rather than judgment, and it’s a salvation that reverses all the curses of sin – the breaks with God, one another, work, family, and creation. And so we heard at the end of the reading,

21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

22 ‘As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.’

Despite ‘every inclination of the human heart [being] evil from childhood’ God will seek to save people from sin. One day it won’t be Noah’s burnt offerings of clean animals and clean birds (verse 20), God will take sacrifice for sin into his own being in the Person of his Son.

The brokenness between human beings is something God longs to heal, too, and we get a fresh start in this story with Noah’s family. They are far from perfect, and soon even righteous Noah himself causes embarrassment for his sons by getting drunk.

And as God shows this preference for salvation, the other ruptured parts of existence are up for healing, even if they are not mentioned here. If work now brings toil and pain, then it is a Christian call to work to heal that. Right now in golf, the Ryder Cup is underway between the USA and Europe. Samuel Ryder, who donated the gold trophy, was a Christian entrepreneur, who pioneered paying sick pay to his employees, not wanting anyone to go penniless because they were too unwell to work.[1]

Other Christian business founders have done similar things down the years. You’ve probably heard the stories about George Cadbury and Joseph Rowntree, but you can add to that list people such as Sir William Hartley the jam-maker, William Colgate, Henry Heinz, Henry Crowell the co-founder of Quaker Oats, and in more recent years Anthony Rossi, the founder of the Tropicana drinks company. All said that their Christian values should imbue their businesses and make things good and honest for their employees and their customers.[2]

The response to the curse of pain in childbirth mentioned in Genesis 3 is found in many ways, as Christians get involved in medicine, in pregnancy crisis centres, and in adoption and fostering agencies.

But by now you’re probably thinking, ‘This is all very well but I came to a harvest festival! Where’s the harvest theme in all this?’ It’s there at the climax of the reading. Verse 22 again:

22 ‘As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.’

Harvest is all of a piece with this. God with his desire for salvation is not content to look at a broken world where people do not have enough to eat, whether it is a crisis, ongoing unemployment, steeply rising energy bills, or the damage of climate change, especially in the developing world.

And that calls all of us to involvement. We cannot leave things as they are. We cannot tolerate unjust suffering and the treatment of human beings as just some kind of collateral damage in a wider political project.

Remember, God’s final word is not judgment but salvation. And salvation is not just a private spiritual knees-up between me and God, it is the remaking of the whole broken creation. So God lays it out that this means a good and steady source of food for all (seedtime and harvest), facilitated by a balanced climate (cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night).

Therefore, when we bring our harvest gifts today and we dedicate them to Woking Food Bank, we are not just saying that we are grateful we can enjoy our food. We are saying that, but we are saying much more.

As we have laid our gifts before the Lord this morning, I believe we are saying this: we will not rest while people do not have the harvests that we have. We will give. We will pray. We will campaign and we will act. And what we shout for in the larger world we will show in our smaller worlds, by our acts of hospitality.

Because the will of God is one where not only the rich can feast, but that all can be invited to the feast of the kingdom. Every time we come to Holy Communion we look backwards to the Cross where we are put right with God, forwards to the wedding feast of the Lamb, and to the present where the Holy Spirit enables us to become junior partners in the work of God.

And within all that, harvest festival is a pledge of allegiance to the kingdom of God. As the Holy Spirit helps us to co-operate with the will of God, we promise our own parts in the remaking of the world:

  • Our witness to the redeeming love of God in Christ that brings sinners into fellowship with him;
  • Our experience of reconciliation with one another which we put into practice to help heal other relationships;
  • Our efforts to return purpose and wholeness to the drudgery of work;
  • Our concern to be pro-life, not just from conception, but all the way to the grave;
  • Our campaigning and our lifestyle that seek to ensure all have a climate in which they can grow a healthy harvest.

For that is where the divine promise we read today of seedtime and harvest, summer and winter belongs in the great story of God – in a story in which our God is making all things new.

[1] https://licc.org.uk/resources/the-ryder-and-solheim-cups-golfing-for-gods-glory/

[2] https://issuu.com/salvationarmyuk/docs/wc_15_august_2020_web

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