Tag: hospitality

Jesus Is Alive: The Sweet Centre Of Easter, Luke 24:13-35 (Easter 2, Low Sunday)

https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/luke-24-13-35-the-resurrection-is-at-the-centre/278456462

(Please see the PowerPoint at the link above: for some reason WordPress wouldn’t let me embed it in the usual way.)

Luke 24:13-35

The Greek letter chi looks like our ‘x’ but the ‘ch’ takes the sound as if it were Scottish – so ‘loch, not ‘lock, as in places like the silver sands of Loch Morar, where I proposed to my wife.

And the letter chi with its ‘x’ shape gives name to a literary structure. We speak of some narratives having a ‘chiastic structure.’ This means that instead of the themes simply being linear, with one theme following the next, they are more ‘x’ shaped. The first theme is repeated at the end, the second theme is repeated one from the end, and so on until you find out what’s at the centre of the story. Put another way, the story proceeds from the beginning to the middle, but then the themes come again in reverse.

The famous story of the walk to Emmaus that we have just read is ‘chiastic’ or ‘x-shaped’. Let me show you how.

A1 Journey from Jerusalem (vv 14-15)
            B1 Jesus appears, but unable to recognise him (v 16)
                        C1 Interaction (vv 17-18)
                                    D1 Summary of ‘the things’ (vv 19-21)
                                                E1 Empty tomb and vision (vv 22-23a)
                                                            F Jesus is alive (v 23b)
                                                E2 Empty tomb but no vision (v 24)
                                    D2 Interpretation of ‘the things’ (vv 25-27)
                        C2 Interaction (vv 28-30)
            B2 Able to recognise Jesus,  but he disappears (vv 31-32)
A2 Journey back to Jerusalem (vv 33-35)[1]

At the centre – like the sweet soft centre of a chocolate – is the fact that Jesus is alive.

And what does this central theme, that Jesus is alive, tell us about the surrounding layers in the story?

Firstly, it transforms the journey:

I am showing an image on the screen of two people on a journey and if you look closely you’ll see they are a man and a woman. There is an ancient tradition that the companion of Cleopas was his wife. And that was one reason why the Anglican rector friend of mine who preached at our wedding chose this passage for his sermon that day.

But whether they are husband and wife or simply two fellow disciples, it’s striking to contrast their two journeys: the one from Jerusalem, and the one back there. Either way, they are clearly two of the disciples who have dismissed the testimony of the women who went to the tomb early that morning and who came back with that fantastic story that it was empty, but they had met two angels who told them that Jesus was alive.

What does this indicate?

Dismissal of the women’s witness points to a fissure in the company of disciples, just as the departures of these two persons from Jerusalem marks the beginnings of the drift away from high hopes and the community of discipleship.[2]

In other words, they are not just walking away from Jerusalem, they are walking away from faith in Jesus and the band of disciples. The disappointment and the collapse of their hopes is leading to the disintegration of their faith. Note how they say about Jesus, ‘we had hoped’ (verse 21).

How many people find that disappointment with God leads to the crushing of their hopes and the dissolving of their faith? Sometimes, of course, their hopes were wrong and naïve, they had almost a ‘Father Christmas’ concept of God, where if one particular prayer was not answered then that was the end.

Sometimes they had not grasped that to be a Christian and walk the way of the Cross was going to mean that you embraced disappointment on the way, because not everything was ever going to go right in this life, even with belief in a loving God. They have been taught badly by the church. We have far too often sugar-coated the cost of discipleship.

And sometimes it’s more complicated than any of this. It can be a long, slow build-up of things.

Yet Cleopas and his companion at the end of the story return to Jerusalem with a very different vibe. Full of hope and excitement, and having invited the stranger into their house because it’s late and about to get dark, they have no compunction in going out in the dark to return to the disciples. At normal walking pace, we’re talking two and a half hours to get back, and this at night, and when they’ve not long that day already completed the same distance the other way. What has transformed them is that Jesus is alive.

It is still what transforms people. To know Jesus is alive means that this world doesn’t end in despair, because God is making all things new. It means that hate doesn’t win in the end, but love. It means that what we do isn’t worthless but has eternal value.

We can argue and debate with people who don’t share our faith and there’s a place for that, because our faith makes truth claims, but in the end for someone to follow Jesus they need to experience the living Jesus revealing himself to them. So with those we are praying for to find faith, let us pray that the living, risen Jesus will make himself known to them.

Secondly, the fact that Jesus is alive transforms the hospitality:

I want you to picture me as a young Local Preacher. A little taller. More hair, and none of it grey. Much skinnier. I have come to preach on this passage at Eastertide one year, and my eyes have landed on verse 30:

 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.

Ah, I think, Jesus does the same four things with the bread here that he does at the Last Supper: he takes it, gives thanks, breaks it, and gives it to people. Surely in this episode Luke is preparing his readers to experience the risen Jesus at Holy Communion. And that’s what I preach. And that’s what many others have preached. Perhaps you’ve heard sermons on this passage where the preacher has said this.

But it ain’t necessarily so. Only later was I to learn that those four actions – taking, giving thanks, breaking, and giving – were what devout Jews did at every meal. If Luke’s language recalls any other part of his Gospel here, it’s more likely the feeding of the five thousand in chapter 9, which also acts as a revelation of Jesus[3].

The big thing here in Jesus performing those four actions is that he was invited into Cleopas’ home as a guest, but he doesn’t behave as a guest. He behaves as the host. The bread is his, for ultimately he created it. The home is his, for ultimately he as Creator is behind it. And the disciples are most certainly his, too.

And remember how central and almost sacred to Middle Eastern culture the act of hospitality is. Even today, you will be invited into homes if you mingle with the ordinary people rather than stay on your coach tour. They bring it with them to other countries, as I found out when in the last circuit the clothes bank one of my churches ran often served Syrian refugees. One man, profoundly deaf, always wanted to invite me to his flat, and told me I could turn up any time and he and his wife would feed me.

The story tells us that we invite the risen Jesus right into the centre of our lives, our homes, but that we cannot confine him to the guest room. He will take over. He has come to be in charge of our homes and our lives. It’s like the old gag that Jesus is a capitalist – he only believes in takeover bids.

Since Jesus is alive, we can welcome him into our lives. Let us do all we can to make sure he feels at home with us.

Thirdly and finally, the fact that Jesus is alive transforms the Scriptures:

One thing that comes up time and again in the Gospels and especially Luke at this time is about how you handle the Scriptures. Sometimes Christians, and especially Protestants, are prone to lifting proof-texts out from here and there to make a case for whatever it is we want to advocate. This has been called ‘Bible bingo’. I think of the story about the man who wondered what to do next in his life, so he opened up his Bible with his eyes closed and pointed his finger at a verse. It said, ‘Judas went out and hanged himself.’ Perturbed by this thought, he repeated the exercise, only to alight on the verse, ‘Go thou and do likewise.’

Cleopas and his companion evidently had their traditional Jewish way of doing so. It wasn’t quite like that, for the rabbis had developed particular ways of interpreting the holy texts. But it’s evident that by failing to take account of Jesus and his mission they had missed God’s revelation. As Joel Green puts it:

What has happened with Jesus can be understood only in light of the Scriptures, yet the Scriptures themselves can be understood only in light of what happened with Jesus. … And before the disciples will be able to recognise the risen Lord … they must grasp especially the nexus between suffering and messiahship.[4]

And so the fact that Jesus is alive now informs how we listen for what God is saying in Holy Scripture. As well as reading individual passages in their immediate context, we read everything in the light of God’s great story that comes to a climax in Jesus.

Therefore, when we read the Bible, we ask ourselves, where does this episode fit in God’s great story of salvation that leads to the Resurrection and the New Creation? What does it mean to read this, knowing that Jesus is alive?

To give a couple of quick examples from those difficult Old Testament laws: we no longer have to worry about the ritual laws prescribed for Temple worship, because Jesus has fulfilled everything to do with the Temple in his own body. He is the true Temple. Other laws may still hold, although we shall still need to interpret and apply them carefully.

And we don’t jump into making capital punishment such a widespread sentence as the Old Testament does, because it is given at a time when God had not yet revealed the Resurrection and life after death. We are free to come up with other punishments and leave open the possibility of repentance and faith before death, even for the worst of criminals.

Jesus, of course, reinterprets marriage in the light of eternal life, as I explained in my Holy Week meditations.

There is so much more to say here, but no time to do so. It is the Scriptures that give us the framework for understanding the suffering Messiah who was raised from the dead, but equally it is the risen Lord whose resurrection points to the climax of the chronicles of God, and we interpret the Bible in that light.

Conclusion

The truth that Jesus is alive is at the centre of the Emmaus Road story. It transforms the two disciples’ journeys, their hospitality, and their reading of the Scriptures.

But isn’t it also true that the presence of the risen Lord transforms everything? Is it not the case that every day we can ask what light the presence of the risen Jesus shines on whatever we are encountering?

[1] Adapted from Joel Green, The Gospel of Luke (NICNT), p842.

[2] Op. cit., p844.

[3] Op. cit., p843.

[4] Op. cit., p844.

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Mission in the Bible 9: Fellowship as Lifestyle Evangelism (Acts 2:42-47)

Acts 2:42-47

In recent years, one criticism older generations have had of the young is the way they devalue the currency of words. ‘Awesome’ is used when they simply mean ‘Good.’ Sometimes our daughter says to me, ‘Dad, can’t you ever get excited about anything?’ and I reply, ‘I’ll call something awesome when it really is. Until that time, this is just good.’

However, if we older generations look down our noses at younger people over this, we should realise that in the church we are also guilty of devaluing the currency of words.

And one word we frequently devalue in the church is ‘fellowship.’ ‘We invite you to stay after the service for a time of fellowship over tea and coffee.’ ‘Working together on the Christmas Bazaar is an experience of fellowship.’

Fellowship is so much more than a warm fuzzy feeling.

We see the biblical word for fellowship, ‘koinonia’, deployed in our reading from Acts chapter 2. It has a cluster of meanings: ‘fellowship’, ‘sharing’, ‘in common.’

It’s used elsewhere in the New Testament of things like the Lord’s Supper, when Paul tells us that the bread we break is a ‘sharing’ in the Body of Christ. We have the Body of Christ in common. We have fellowship in the Body of Christ.

Ultimately, our fellowship is everything we have in common in Christ. And the three thousand converts at Pentecost find that such deep fellowship is the first fruit of their faith in Christ. This is what happens when the Holy Spirit leads them in putting into practice the teaching of Jesus.

Much of our fellowship is little more than a religious game of snooker where we bump into each other, and then bounce off. Not them. The first fruit of mission was a shared life. This really was the church as a sign and foretaste of God’s kingdom.

And the preached evangelism from Peter which led to their conversions (verse 41) led to the lifestyle evangelism at the end of our passage where ‘the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved’ (verse 47). So this is important! What did this fellowship look like?

Firstly, it was shared worship:

In verse 42, they share in prayer. In verse 46, they meet together every day in the Temple courts.

This continues what was already happening. The one hundred and twenty disciples upon whom the Spirit fell at Pentecost had been gathering together for prayer. And it continues afterwards. So some years later, when the Corinthian Christians are meeting for worship probably in a large house owned by one of the few wealthy members of the church, they are not simply in the same room together, they are using their differing gifts of the Spirit in the service of worship. Or at least that’s what Paul wants them to do.

The best and most true Christian worship is shared worship. Yes, it’s possible to worship alone and we should, but it’s not the sum total of worship. There is no such thing as a solitary Christian, as John Wesley said.

It isn’t always possible to have mass participation in a typical Sunday service and not everybody likes speaking in front of everyone else, although there might still be things we could do to involve more people and their gifts. But often the place for truly shared worship is the small group such as the house group. In these contexts, it’s often easier to have a time of worship where more people can make contributions based on their gifts.

And so that’s another reason why we need to revisit the idea of small groups in many churches. We need to share in our worship, having the opportunity to use our gifts in that cause.

Perhaps we worry that our gifts aren’t all that good. A small group is a good place to try them out among supportive friends. If we play a musical instrument, we don’t have to be Royal Albert Hall performance standard. Our friends will cheer us on and encourage us.

And I have certainly known examples in the past where the first steps a budding preacher made were in a small group where they led a Bible study. Sharing together in worship has great potential for taking nascent gifts and growing them.

Plus, we don’t have to do this from scratch. There are various resources around to help small groups share in worship. I don’t recall whether I still have it after the big reduction in books I had to do to come here, but I used to have a book entitled, ‘50 Worship Ideas For Small Groups.’ It was co-written by the hymn writer Stuart Townend.

So let me encourage people to be brave in our churches, and truly share in worship.

Secondly, it was shared meals:

Again, we find this in verses 42 and 46. In verse 42 ‘They devoted themselves to … the breaking of bread’ and in verse 46 ‘They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.’

‘Breaking bread’ here is not code for an early form of Holy Communion. It is an everyday expression for eating together. Simple meals earlier in the day often were just bread. But more ample meals later on ‘would start with breaking and blessing bread and wine.’[1]

Later, these practices would help form the framework for celebrating the Lord’s Supper, but what we have here is sharing in that most basic way of meeting human need and sustaining life: everyday eating. It might even be that the common meals in the Christian community were ‘sometimes at the expense of those who could afford the food.’[2]

In this, the early church was following the example of Jesus, who conducted much of his ministry over food. Some of his most dramatic teaching was over a meal. He provided for people’s needs in the feedings of the five thousand and the four thousand. I believe Jesus knew that there is something about a meal where, especially if it is not rushed, people begin to open up some of the deepest things in their lives. So what an opportunity it becomes to share together, support each other, and deepen faith.

And this is something the church can build upon. There are churches that run men’s breakfasts with a guest speaker. I can think of a church I know that has a monthly women’s pub meal. The opportunities are there to make this into something significant for the kingdom of God. Yes, of course we can unwind and let our hair down – if we have enough – but we can also take the moment to build our relationships and our trust so that we can support each other and help one another’s faith grow in the face of life’s challenges. There is a chance here to take something good and make even more of it.

Furthermore, we can develop the biblical gift of hospitality. Remember that one definition of hospitality is to make someone feel at home even when you wish they were at home! So yes, it can include a meal, but it can be so much more.

I often appreciated that when I was single – apart from the times when I arrived to find they had also invited a young lady with whom they were trying to set me up! It was well-meaning but misguided.

Let’s see what we can do under the Holy Spirit’s guidance to make the most of sharing food together.

Thirdly and finally, it was shared possessions:

If the worship and the meals are the bread in the sandwich on the outside in verses 42 and 46, then the filling is in the middle in verses 44 and 45:

44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.

So – I guess this one is the biggest challenge of all, especially in a consumerist, materialist society like ours. And even two thousand years ago, what the early church practised was different from other groups. Professional guilds and associations required the payment of entry dues (perhaps not dissimilar from today), and radical religious groups like the Essenes enforced the complete surrender of goods to the community. But what the Christians practised according to Acts was voluntary.[3]

Luke does not describe abolition of private property. Rather, members sold property to help other members as any had need (Acts 2:45). Their resources do not become community property, but are designated for the poor; they were not against property, but valued people altogether more.[4]

I have seen and experienced this for myself. I cannot tell you the whole story now, but when I wanted to go to theological college, I was turned down for a grant (as it was in those days). A number of people gave sacrificially to make it possible for me to go. One was a student who had taken a gap year to earn some money for her own needs, but who gave it to me. Another was an elderly lady at my church, who gave me a large cheque with a letter in which she said, ‘It seems God is calling you to trust him for your provision. We will trust him, too.’ With those words, I read between the lines that this was a significant sacrifice for her.

I saw it at college when a Singaporean student heard that her mother had died back home but she didn’t have the money to pay for a flight to get back for the funeral. The student community, filled with people on limited incomes, rallied round, and raised the money for her to board a plane.

I saw it in the last circuit when due to a technicality a Nepalese church member lost his Nepalese citizenship but could not afford to apply for British citizenship. We set up a fundraising campaign on the website gofundme.com. When we got within an ace of the amount we needed, who gave a donation to carry us across the line? A student.

This is what it means to value people more than property. This again is the church putting into practice the teaching of Jesus about treasures in heaven.

Conclusion

How did the early church devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching (verse 42)? These examples of real fellowship were certainly part of it.

And are we surprised that the apostles performed ‘many wonders and signs’ ( verse 43)? Not really, if the Holy Spirit was already at work so powerfully among the community.

And as I said at the beginning, the evangelistic preaching of the apostles is matched by the evangelistic lifestyle of the church, showing what the kingdom of God is like. No wonder ‘the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved’ (verse 47).

But it takes more than just being nice. I think I have had enough of Christians just trying to be nice. If I want nice, I can go to my camera club and meet plenty of nice people.

Being the sign and foretaste of God’s kingdom calls for more than niceness. It calls for a deep openness to the power of the Holy Spirit, who will mould us into what one author called ‘The Community of the King.’

Are we up for the challenge? Come, Holy Spirit.

[1] Craig Keener, Acts (New Cambridge Bible Commentary). p171.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Op. cit., p174.

[4] Op. cit.. p175.

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How Do We Welcome People To Our Churches?

Is it like this?

We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor, yo no habla Ingles. We extend a special welcome to those who are crying new-borns, skinny as a rail or could afford to lose a few pounds.

We welcome you if you can sing like Andrea Bocelli or like our pastor who can’t carry a note in a bucket. You’re welcome here if you’re “just browsing,” just woke up or just got out of jail. We don’t care if you’re more Catholic than the Pope, or haven’t been in church since little Joey’s Baptism.

We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems or you’re down in the dumps or if you don’t like “organized religion,” we’ve been there too.

If you blew all your offering money at the dog track, you’re welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church.

We welcome those who are inked, pierced or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers and doubters, bleeding hearts … and you!

That’s how one Catholic community in the States welcomes people, according to Jon Acuff. Being a pastor ‘who can’t carry a note in a bucket’, I like it.

What do you think? Assuming they live up to their words, what might it say to us?

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A Brief Sermon For A Renewal Of Wedding Vows

Forty years! How on earth does someone like me, who has been married one fifth that length of time dare to speak some words to you on this day?

As I pondered that question, I felt led back to a particular memory of our own wedding service. No, not Debbie entering the church building to the accompaniment of ‘Born to be wild’ in memory of her past as a biker, with my mother whispering in my ear, “What is this music, dear?”

Nor did I think about us leaving the service to the strain of the Thunderbirds theme music, to the evident delight of my two young nephews who were our page boys. International Rescue might be a metaphor sometimes needed in marriage, but it didn’t occur to me in relation to you two!

Instead, I recalled that the Anglican rector friend of mine whom we asked to preach chose a surprising reading, we thought, for a wedding. It was Luke 24:13-35, the story of the two friends who walked to Emmaus, not believing yet that Jesus had risen from the dead. I didn’t dust down his sermon – besides, I couldn’t find the tape of the service! But it did make me think that I would offer my own thoughts on this story in connection with your own marriage.

As I say, it’s a surprising reading, but it is one about two friends, two companions. My rector friend said that some people think that Cleopas and his companion are a married couple. I’m not sure about that, but whether they were or not, I think there are some encouragements we can draw from the story on this wonderful occasion today.

Firstly, I see a couple talking about Jesus. Cleopas and his friend or companion are exercised about Jesus in the story. Granted, there are things they don’t know and major issues on which they are wrong, but nothing matters more to them than to talk together about Jesus.

And that’s something I appreciate about you as a couple, too. We can talk about all sorts of things, such as the way we compare notes about young children. David and I can talk about computers or football. But what is most important and utterly natural in your presence is that we talk without any sense of being forced or nervous about the central aspect of our lives, faith in Jesus.

In my four years here, I have seen it grow and grow in you. It was always there – our early conversations often centred on your experiences in the past with the Campers and Caravanners’ Christian Fellowship, and particularly the things you learned through your friend Mike Dominy.

But I have seen it increase. I think the decisive time was when you went on the (this is ironic with this text) Walk To Emmaus weekend. Something went up a gear in you then, especially in David!

There are all sorts of helpful things we can learn about what makes a healthy marriage. But for a Christian couple, this is critical. How sad it is when Christians find it hard to talk about their faith, even with their loved ones. But you can do that, and because you can, you have a way of getting to foundational issues about life and faith which surely holds you in good stead in your marriage. If you talk about Jesus, you will be talking about self-giving sacrificial love. You will be talking about forgiveness. You will be talking, therefore, about matters absolutely critical to the health of a marriage.  I see this as a work of the Holy Spirit within and among you. I pray it is something to which all Christian couples would aspire.

Secondly, I see the presence of Jesus with you. Jesus came and joined the couple as they walked to Emmaus. They weren’t aware for quite a while that he was with them. They were unable to identify the mysterious stranger who accompanied them and made sense of the Scriptures. Only in the breaking of the bread were their eyes opened to his identity.

And similarly, you may not be aware all the time that Jesus is with you. I am sure you know it in theory, but there will be times when you do not feel his presence or circumstances will be dire and you imagine he is distant or absent. You would be only human if you were not to have those thoughts and feelings as you live with Arline’s health.

But let me tell you something. People see Jesus in you. They see it in how you live out your lives in the face of joy and pain. They experience something of him, simply by coming into contact with you. Some will be able to say, ‘That’s Jesus’. Others will merely know there is something special about you.

And you may be surprised to learn this is the case. However, it is my experience that it is often other people who notice things like this. I know of a story where a student vacated his room at the end of a term and someone stayed in it for a conference during that vacation. That latter person experienced a particular sense of peace that they put down to the faith of the student who normally lived there.

Likewise, I know a story where the house where a Christian family had lived in was sold. The new residents were Christians. They had an unmistakable sense that they had moved into a property that had been full of prayer over the years.

Today, then, many of us here celebrate the fact that you are a couple through whom we encounter Jesus.

The Rector who preached at our wedding lifted five points from this story. I am going to confine myself to three. My third is about hospitality.

Cleopas and his companion offered hospitality to the stranger who had joined them on the road. It was a natural thing to do in Middle Eastern culture, and indeed still is. It is not something so natural in our society.

But it is something I – and others – have experienced from you. One piece of advice we were given when training for the ministry was that if you are going out visiting for a few hours, save for last a visit to some people who are positive, and who refresh you just by being with them.

Often when I’ve called on you unannounced, you have been my last call of the afternoon for that very reason. Whether times have been good or you have been going through further adversity, I have always been glad that I have had time with you. If it were ever inconvenient, you have never let on. You seem to know that definition of hospitality which goes like this:

Hospitality is making people feel at home when you wish they were at home (Michael Baughen).

It is something we know you have practised in the way you have welcomed international students into your home.  In the New Testament, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit in the case of some people. why? Because it’s a Jesus thing again. The offering of love. The giving of self, of time, of possessions. All these are implied in the act of hospitality. Christians, therefore, can offer hospitality as a witness to their faith. I believe you do.

As I conclude, then, you may think I have described you as far better people than you feel you are. Well – let a friend have this public opportunity to say kind things about you! I am sure you know dark and broken things that I and many others here have no idea about.

But – today we celebrate the love you have shared in forty years of marriage, and which you continue to share. In particular, those of us here who are Christians rejoice in the way you put that love into practice in such distinctively Jesus-shaped ways. I pray that many of us will learn from your example and be inspired by you.

And in doing so, may the Jesus you love and serve gain all the glory.

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