Tag: kingdom of God

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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Following Your Calling (Mark 7:24-37) Ordinary 23 Year B

Mark 7:24-37

There is a meme on the Internet with these words: ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read on the Internet.’

It then claims that the quotation is from Abraham Lincoln – think about it!

One area where we should be very careful not to believe everything we read on the Internet is when all and sundry offer commentary on difficult Bible passages. And boy do we have a difficult passage this week. What does Jesus think he’s doing, speaking to the Syro-Phoenician woman like that?

27 ‘First let the children eat all they want,’ he told her, ‘for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.’

Well, the stupid and arrogant brigade are only too quick to tell you. They say that Jesus was a racist and that even he had to learn how to treat people of other races well from the woman.

Of course, what they’re really saying is, you should all be as enlightened as us!

When you get a difficult passage like this and when you come across Jesus saying strange and apparently disturbing things, the first thing you need to do is study the text very carefully. Jumping to conclusions just based on how it reads in English without checking with specialist biblical scholars is dangerous. So is reading it as if it’s a contemporary incident in our culture.

For one thing, racism as we know it didn’t exist in Jesus’ society. There were forms of prejudice, yes, but not in the way that we shamefully discriminate against another race or a person of different skin colour. Therefore, to assume that Jesus was being racist is a fundamental mistake.

In any case, this comes in a series of chapters in Mark where Jesus is criss-crossing Lake Galilee between Jewish and Gentile populations. He has healed a Gentile like the Gerasene demoniac. In the previous episode which we considered last week, he has brought down the barrier of the Jewish food laws. To make Jesus a racist against the Gentiles beggars belief.

For another, we need to look at translation issues. If we think Jesus is referring to the woman as some kind of feral dog, we are wrong. The word is not that for a wild dog but for a pet dog, a lap dog, a house dog. This story (in its form here in Mark and also in Matthew) is the only time that word is used. Everywhere else the word for dog is a street dog – but not here.[1]

What does this mean? Jesus is painting a rather more endearing picture of a family where the children give scraps to the beloved family dog. It’s rather more affectionate than that painted by those who jump in screaming, ‘Racism!’

Now granted, it’s still provocative in a way because it’s not what you expect Jesus to say in response to a request for healing, but that’s because what Jesus is doing here is speaking in the form of a riddle. It’s designed to elicit a response from the woman, and that’s exactly what he gets:

28 ‘Lord,’ she replied, ‘even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’

And by the way – did you notice how she said ‘the dogs under the table’? She had definitely understood Jesus to mean family pets, not wild dogs.

Jesus is saying something like this. My first calling is to take the kingdom of God to Israel, the People of God. I’m not concentrating on the Gentile mission, which comes after that.

Nevertheless, given the woman’s faith, he heals her daughter by expelling the demon. Even Jesus with his focussed calling on bringing the message of the kingdom to Israel recognises that faith exists outside Israel’s boundaries and on occasions like this he can flex his calling to bring the love of God to this woman and her family.

And having got to that point, I think we can now make a couple of applications from the story to our own lives.

Firstly, are you living out your calling?

Jesus was clear: his priority was to go to ‘the lost sheep of Israel.’ That was his focus. The good news of God’s kingdom had to come first to those whom God had made into his people over many centuries. They were the priority in his calling. For he was the Son of God, which means not only that he was divine, but also that he was the True Israel. He was fulfilling the destiny of Israel. So he had to come to them first.

This determined what he did and where he went. He knew this was his Father’s will for him.

Every Christian has a calling. It isn’t always to a ‘religious job’, such as being a minister. It can be to a certain profession or industry. It can be a calling in family life. It can be something we’re called to do in the church or the community. It can be about the use of a particular gift or talent.

If you don’t know what yours is, then pray about it. In the meantime, dedicate the gifts and resources you know you have to the service of God, and consider the maxim offered by the spiritual writer Frederick Buechner when he said that vocation was ‘where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.’

Once you do have a sense of calling, then the example of Jesus means that it becomes a significant factor in determining what you do and what you leave aside. It helps you when people ask if you will take on a responsibility, because you can consider whether their request matches your calling. If it does, then fine. If not, then the answer is probably ‘no.’

Actually, I suspect that many of us need to say ‘no’ a lot more in order to be able to fulfil our callings. We get more hooked into a human weakness of wanting to please people and remain popular with them than we do following the call of God on our lives.

A few years ago, a very popular book for businesspeople and leaders in society was a title called ‘Essentialism’ by Greg McKeown. Basically, it’s a book that teaches you to say ‘no’ to everything outside your calling. McKeown says that if you have doubts about whether something is consistent with your calling, then you should say ‘no’ to it. I wonder whether many of us in the church should listen to him.

Secondly, though, are you flexible about your calling?

I say that, because I think that’s what Jesus showed in this story. Yes, his calling was to the people of Israel, but here he was in a place where there was less likelihood of him being able to do that. Tyre was a Gentile town.

So although he’s trying to stay low profile and undercover, when the woman discovers his presence and brings her heart-rending request he certainly has the opportunity to meet her need with his divine compassion without adversely affecting his calling.

Therefore, although following our calling is usually pretty decisive, we need to listen to God for those occasions when we need to be flexible rather than rigid.

Jesus homed in on that here as he told his riddle and the woman showed evident faith in her response. When he sees that faith, he acts.

In other words, he knows that God is at work here. The Spirit of God has surely been working in the woman’s life, preparing her for what will lead to Jesus’ life-saving intervention.

That, then, gives us an idea about when to be flexible about our calling. It’s not simply that we have some down time and a gap in our diary so we can fit in one of the people who is regularly badgering us. Instead, it’s about discerning the work of the Spirit who is doing kingdom things and making kingdom opportunities available.

One good way of discerning whether we’re being called to flex our calling is by consulting trusted friends. If you start to get enquiries and requests from people for your time and what they want are things that go beyond your regular calling as you understand it, then it can be wise to take the details of those approaches to your spouse, or to some wise friends. Let them help you discern an answer to these questions: does this request constitute a reasonable flexing of your calling or will it distract you from your calling?

In conclusion, then, when we dig into this story and get beyond the superficial ways of treating it, what we discover here is that the example of Jesus is very practical for us living out our calling, whether he’s called us to serve him in the church or in the world.

He wants us to follow our calling with a passion, but also to listen carefully for those occasional diversions from the route when something else is required of us.

As we do this, the kingdom of God will advance.

And that’s what we want. Isn’t it?

[1] On this and the general thrust of this sermon, see Ian Paul, Did the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7 teach Jesus not to be racist?

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Video Teaching – Dealing with Unwarranted Abuse (Mark 3:20-35)

Mark 3:20-35

We hear so many stories of verbal abuse on social media these days. One story the week before last was about how the black English footballer Marcus Rashford suffered seventy cases of racist abuse following his team’s defeat on Wednesday night in the Europa League Final. I was pleased to read two days later that the people behind some of the anonymous accounts that sent the foul messages had been identified and the information passed to the police.

Religious people should be different. But too often we’re not. Today’s reading is a story of Jesus being on the end of abuse from his family and from religious leaders. His own family – the so-called ‘holy family’ – claim that ‘He is out of his mind’ (verse 21). Transfer the story into our society today and they’d be calling for the signature of two doctors so that he could be sectioned.

As for the religious leaders, well you can’t get much worse an insult than the one they dish out: ‘He has an impure spirit.’ Jesus calls this ‘blasphem[y] against the Holy Spirit’ (verse 29) – in other words, committing libel against God.

I’d love to tell you these problems don’t exist in today’s church, but they do. A school chaplain at a church school preaches a sermon in which he says you can dispute some teaching about LGBT issues, but you must love your gay neighbour as yourself. What happens to him? He is reported to the Government’s Prevent strategy by a member of staff as a potential terrorist and he loses his job.

I won’t give you any specifics for obvious reasons, but there has been the odd time when the vitriol against Debbie and me in the church has been so untrue and malicious that we would have been within our legal rights to sue people for libel.

So what do you do? Certainly there are times when it’s more dignified to say nothing, but on other occasions you still need to say something and keep on keeping on. Let’s look at the two things Jesus does here – one in respect to the religious leaders who libel him, and one in respect to his family who want him locked up in a secure unit.

Firstly, how does Jesus deal with the religious leaders? Put simply, he tells the truth. When he gives that spiel about how a house divided against itself cannot stand, he is following through some simple logic to show how ridiculous their claim is. It’s doing that which enables him to expose their real attitude of heart, which is that they might proclaim to be faithful to the religious traditions, but in reality they are enemies of God.

Sure, there are times to ignore your critics, as I said. On the Internet that’s often known as ‘not feeding the trolls’. And we know how Jesus kept silent through many of the interrogations when he was arrested.

But there are other times when we need to put these people right and expose them for who they are, because they are carrying out their nasty work in public and there is a risk of them influencing others for the worse. That’s what happens here – whereas when Jesus stays quiet at his trials it’s not in public.

This doesn’t guarantee that we shall be successful in persuading these people they are wrong. If they have hardened their hearts, they may remain intransigent as opponents and may continue to cause grief to us. We can’t force them to do otherwise.

But we can stay publicly faithful to the truth, so that onlookers who might not understand or who might run the risk of being deceived hear a clear testimony to God’s truth.

The example of Jesus here is that we have the courage to stand up for the Gospel and all its implications, and that we don’t let our enemies shut us up. Even those in the church.

Secondly, how does Jesus deal with his family? At first sight it’s not very charitable. When he’s told that his mother and brothers are outside looking for him (verse 32) he replies,

33 ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ he asked.

34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle round him and said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.’

Jesus redefines the family. He has a new family. It’s the family of God. Those who go in the way of the kingdom are themselves a family.

Jesus won’t let social conventions get in the way of him proclaiming and building the kingdom of God.

We know that later his brother James would lead the church in Jerusalem and his mother Mary would be revered in the church but these things didn’t happen because Jesus went home and played Happy Families. Instead, he stuck to his guns about the kingdom of God, even though at this stage they thought he was mad. But over a period of years they must have been persuaded. Had he given up on proclaiming the kingdom it wouldn’t have happened.

Sometimes we think that when we have a conflict or a misunderstanding with someone who doesn’t share our faith that the Christian thing to do is to compromise or to water down our faith. However, the example of Jesus here shows that’s the wrong thing to do. Stay faithful. Don’t be harsh or you’ll become like Jesus’ religious enemies. Live well for Christ.

So – these are the two strategies: speak the truth and live for the kingdom. There is no guarantee of success, as I said. Some of those religious leaders later plotted to have Jesus executed. I don’t know whether that school chaplain will get his job back.

But these are the right things to do when people defame our character because we are Christians. And if we don’t speak the truth and live for the kingdom we’ll sell Christianity and Jesus short.

Just remember that we believe in a God of justice who vindicates those who are unjustly treated. He may do that in this life, or it may wait for the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgement.

Let’s make sure with the help of the Holy Spirit that we don’t let Jesus down when people unfairly target us.

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A Day In The Life: The Kingdom Ministry Of Jesus (Mark 1:29-39)

This week, we look at what a typical day in the life of Jesus’ early ministry looked like, and how it pointed to the kingdom of God which he heralded. What does that mean for us?

Here’s the video, and the script of the talk follows as usual.

Mark 1:29-39

Although the Beatles had their wildly successful career while I was a child, I can’t say I listened to their music until I was a teenager and their songs came on the radio as oldies. At the time, I could warm to their melodic songs like Yesterday and Penny Lane, but I found some of their more experimental songs strange and even disturbing.

One example of the disturbing category for me was ‘A Day In The Life’. Not only was it filled with druggy lyrics and accompanying psychedelic arrangements, it ended with a strange section where the instruments of the orchestra kept accelerating in tempo until there was one final, aggressive piano chord, which eventually died away.

Some critics say that song was their crowning achievement. It just left me feeling troubled.

‘A day in the life.’ In our reading today, Mark edits together some typical accounts of Jesus’ early ministry to provide us with a sense of what a day in the life of Jesus during those first weeks and months of his mission in Galilee were like.

But it’s not just any old ‘day in the life of Jesus’. It’s very focussed. All the themes reflected here give pointers towards the coming kingdom of God which Jesus was heralding in his ministry. He said the kingdom had come near, and so in this typical day’s ministry we see glimpses of what is coming.

Firstly, healing:

29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. 30 Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. 31 So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.

Let’s leave aside any jokes about the greatest miracle here being that Simon Peter wanted his mother-in-law healed, let’s see this for what it is: a sign of the coming kingdom. As Jesus heals people, he shows that the coming kingdom is one where sickness will not ravage people, but that our resurrected bodily lives will be characterised by well-being in every sense.

How do we read this as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, and in a week when the number of deaths in the UK has gone past 110,000?

We remember that God’s kingdom is both ‘now’ and ‘not yet’. So we see signs of the kingdom when people are healed, but not all are healed. Death, the last enemy, has not been completely vanquished yet. But it will be when Christ appears again.

In the meantime, we pray for the sick to be healed, and we support them when they do not receive that healing in this life. We keep praying, we keep doing those things which make for health, but we leave the outcomes to God as his kingdom pierces this broken world.

Secondly, banishing evil:

32 That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all who were ill and demon-possessed. 33 The whole town gathered at the door, 34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.

Casting out demons is only something that very few Christians will probably undertake, and we should not underestimate it by mistakenly attributing all such incidents to mental illness or epilepsy.

But we are all involved in the battle against evil. We set ourselves against evil in society as we stand for justice. We seek to be a positive witness for goodness and truth in our daily relationships.

And of course we battle the evil that we find deep within ourselves, those things that we wouldn’t want other people to know about.

And yet sometimes the greatest help in our own inner battles is precisely when we do find a trustworthy friend with whom to share our struggles, and who can hold us to account.

We face all types of evil from social injustice to nasty neighbours to our own shame with the help of the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit is with us, among us, and within us to help us in the ministry of Christ. ‘More Holy Spirit!’ is a good prayer when we face evil.

Thirdly, intimacy with God:

35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. 36 Simon and his companions went to look for him, 37 and when they found him, they exclaimed: ‘Everyone is looking for you!’

Many preachers rightly say that Jesus’ priority of prayer is vital in his being equipped to show the signs of the coming kingdom, and they would of course be right. How does anyone – even Jesus – do the will of God without fuelling it in prayer?

But it is also a sign of the coming kingdom to pray, because when the kingdom of God comes in all its fulness there will be a closeness to God, who will no longer be distanced from us by sin or anything else. It’s worth therefore investing now in the practice of drawing near to him.

And no, not all prayer times are ecstatic, but that’s OK. Not all meals are memorable, but they all feed us. So in anticipation of the coming kingdom, prayer is a sign of the intimacy with God that is promised.

Fourthly and finally, there’s a theme that runs through all the three we’ve discussed so far. And that theme is service.

When Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is healed, her response is to serve (verse 31). When Jesus casts out demons, he commands them to be silent ‘because they knew who he was’ (verse 34) and had they blabbed who he was, people would not have understood that Jesus saw himself as the Messiah in terms of Isaiah’s Servant of the Lord, rather than a military leader. And true prayer is an act of service, because prayer reminds us that we are ranked below God, and owe him service.

Serving is a sign of the kingdom because it characterises the relationships of God’s kingdom. The kingdom of God is not a place where we seek to grab all we can for ourselves, it is somewhere that we say, ‘What can I give to others?’

Perhaps you know the old story wherein it was imagined that in both Heaven and Hell the occupants were given very long chopsticks with which to eat a meal. In Hell, people starved, because they only thought to try and feed themselves and the length of the chopsticks precluded that. In Heaven, however, everybody flourished, because people sat opposite each other and fed one another with their long chopsticks.

When we follow the pattern of Jesus by serving him and serving people, we are imbibing the culture of God’s kingdom. It’s an important way that we prepare for the life of the age to come – alongside our ministry to the sick, our opposition to evil in the power of the Spirit, and our fellowship with God.

May we more truly point to the coming kingdom through our lives.

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Zooming In On The Ministry Of Jesus

Here’s this week’s video worship. I discovered some good music this week for the confession, Lord’s Prayer, and blessing.

As usual, the text of the message is below the video.

Mark 1:14-20

Many of you know that I’m an amateur photographer. When I want to make a photo of an object that is a long distance away and I can’t physically get close to it, I use a zoom telephoto lens. I have two such lenses.

This first lens will go from making things about one and a half times larger than we naturally see them to about four times. This second lens is my monster and will make objects look between about four and ten times larger than our normal field of vision.

Our reading today is like the experience of zooming in closer on Jesus’ ministry. Here, he begins his public ministry, and we get to see him laying out the fundamentals of that ministry. In a week where we’ve seen the inauguration of a new American President, and where like many new Presidents, Joe Biden has set out his plans for his first hundred days in office to show what he hopes to be the important threads of his presidency, so here we see Jesus setting out the essential elements of his ministry.

Firstly, we see the context. This is the wide view.

14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee

Something is lost in the NIV’s translation here. It’s OK to translate the opening words as ‘After John was put in prison’, and we know from later in Mark that he was imprisoned. But a strict translation would say, ‘After John was handed over’. He has been handed over (or betrayed, possibly) to the henchmen of Herod Antipas.

One or two things flow from this. John has done his work of preparation. Now the stage is set for Jesus. Just as he has been handed over, so he hands over the public ministry to Jesus.

But also, the language of handing over will reappear in Mark and the other Gospels. For in Gethsemane, Jesus too will be handed over.

And so too may some of the first readers of this Gospel. It’s likely that Mark wrote his Gospel for Christians suffering under the persecution of Nero in Rome in the mid-sixties.

So the wide context of John handing over to Jesus is that the shadow of suffering for one’s faith is cast across the landscape. It’s present here near the beginning of the Gospel, and it doesn’t go away. With our comfortable life in the West we often don’t see this shadow, but millions of our Christian brothers and sisters around the world will recognise this, and we have a duty to stand up for them.

Secondly, we see the theme of Jesus’ ministry.

14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. [Italics mine.]

‘Good news’ here is a technical term. The Greek used here is the same as where the Septuagint, the famous Greek translation of what we call the Old Testament, speaks about reports of victory coming from a battlefield[i]. Similarly, when a Roman herald came to a town or village in the empire and said he was proclaiming good news, it was usually the news that Rome’s armies had won a great victory somewhere.

So when Jesus comes to herald ‘the good news of God’, it is a public announcement that God himself has won a great victory. The ordinary people will have received such an announcement with great joy.

But of course they will be disappointed. They will discover that Jesus does not herald a God who wins great battles by the force of his armies. No legions of angels appear to dispatch the hated Romans.

Instead, this Gospel which begins with the shadow of suffering introduces us to a God who wins his victories in completely different ways. He wins them not with violence but with compassion, as seen in the healing miracles of Jesus.

And he wins the greatest victory of all through suffering, as Jesus goes to the Cross, which becomes not a place of defeat but of triumph.

What an amazing message this is for those living under the shadow of unjust suffering as those Christians in Rome did. It is the same for those who suffer for the name of Christ today.

And what a confounding message for those in our day who cannot accept God unless he deals with pain and suffering in their prescribed ways. Loud and clear comes the message from the throne of the universe, ‘I do not do things your way. Learn what I am like and how I achieve the ultimate conquest.’

Thirdly, we get closer still to the action as we hear the content of Jesus’ ministry.

15 ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’

The time has come, the kingdom of God has come near. You bet it has. When Jesus says the kingdom of God has come near he means it has come close in a spatial sense. It’s close in physical distance rather than being close in time.

And that’s because the kingdom comes in and with him. So his arrival makes the kingdom near. And thus the time really has come. When God’s kingdom comes this close, it’s time to do something. This is the hinge of history.

In Jesus God is acting in kingly power. And while it’s good news, that God is doing this, it’s also why the necessary response is ‘Repent and believe the good news’.

Why? Plenty of people say they believe in Jesus. They believe he existed and they have a warm regard for him. But if we truly want to believe in him then we have to accept what he says here, which is that no belief in him exists without first being preceded by repentance.

And that’s because believing in Jesus requires conforming to the ways of God’s kingdom. Yes, God coming and acting in kingly power is good news for his people, but it isn’t as simple as booting out the enemies of God’s people. It also means God’s people need to polish up their act.

I wonder whether the Holy Spirit is prompting any of us in this way? ‘You say you believe in Jesus, well great – but are you conforming your life more and more to his ways and his pattern?’

Fourthly and finally, we zoom right in on the ministry of Jesus in the calling of the first disciples.

16 As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17 ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’ 18 At once they left their nets and followed him.

19 When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20 Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

Simon, Andrew, James, and John have missed out on the opportunity to be disciples of a rabbi. Those chances went to the bright lads. So they’ve gone off into their family businesses.

But here comes a second chance, and it’s a surprising one. Normally, a young Jewish man would ask a rabbi if he could apprentice himself to him. It wasn’t the done thing for a rabbi to come and call people to be his followers. But Jesus did that.

And the call was different in another way[ii]. The usual pattern was for a disciple to say that they were following Torah (the Jewish Law). They didn’t say they were following a person, not even an eminent rabbi. But Jesus is different. He’s on a different plane from the normal rabbis. To follow him is to follow the law of God, for he is the instigator of it.

Further, this was not to be some academic call to learn Torah and its meaning. It was a call to service: ‘I will send you out to fish for people.’ Thus, it’s possible for Jesus to issue this kind of call to anyone. No qualifications are needed.

And even more than this, it was a call to fellowship, for Jesus creates the beginnings of a community here. This is not an isolated individual call. This is about the making of a new community. Jesus calls all his people to that, too, for he is making us into a sign to the world of how human community is meant to be as he makes all things new. That’s why we have to dispense with all the ways in the church that we carry on as if we are just a club or a social organisation. Our destiny is far greater than such trivia.

So this is where we get to when we zoom in on the ministry of Jesus. In the shadow of suffering, God wins a great victory. Jesus calls us to a belief in him that requires aligning ourselves with his purposes. It involves loyalty to him, a commitment to service, and the building of a new community.

Is that what we are about in our churches? It needs to be, if we care about the kingdom of God.

[i] James R Edwards, The Gospel According To Mark, p24, discussing the meaning of ‘gospel’ in 1:1.

[ii] What follows is based on Edwards, pp49-51.

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Worship in the Waiting 4: Awe-struck anticipation, The Magnificat (Video devotions and text of sermon)

It’s the last in the Advent series. Here’s the YouTube of the entire devotions and below you’ll find a text version of the message.

Luke 1:39-56

You will know how many of the Christmas carols have alternative words. As a child, I always found it amusing to sing

While shepherds washed their socks by night
They watched the BBC.
The angel of the Lord came down
And switched to ITV.

Then there’s the Basque Carol, with its poetic narrative of Mary and the Annunciation, every last line being ‘Most highly favoured lady’ but sung by many as ‘Most highly flavoured gravy.’

And it’s that carol which builds on an image of Mary that our reading today of her great song, the Magnificat, challenges. We sing,

Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head

It feeds into this popular image of Mary as a sweet, demure teenage girl.

Sure, she accepts the will of God, but Mary is no passive believer who finds it easy to trust God. Before she gets to that stage, she questions the angel, just as Zechariah did when the angel told him that his wife Elizabeth would fall pregnant at an advanced age.

And here, when Mary rushes off to see her cousin Elizabeth and sings her song, we get feisty Mary. We get Mary the Revolutionary. We get Mary who sings of the radical kingdom her Son will bring in.

So on this Fourth Sunday in Advent, when we celebrate the obedient faith of Mary, let’s join with her in celebrating the world-changing nature of the coming baby and his coming kingdom.

Various writers from William Barclay onwards have talked about the Magnificat as a moral revolution, a social revolution, and an economic revolution. I’m going to follow them.

Firstly, a moral revolution. Mary consistently extols the humble in her song. ‘He has been mindful of the humble state of his servant’ (verse 48) and ‘he … has lifted up the humble’ (verse 52).

Now while ‘humble’ here may mean a humble social position, it also takes in those of a humble attitude and spirit. In doing this, Jesus reverses the values of his day and the values of our world. It is not the proud, look-at-me-and-see-how-amazing-I-am types that are exalted in his kingdom, but the humble.

Perhaps we shall see this mostly clearly in Jesus’ adult life when James and John squabble to have the seats either side of him in his kingdom. It becomes the time when Jesus teaches that servanthood is the sign of greatness.

Jesus comes to bring in a kingdom where it’s not all about me-me-me but about God and then others coming first. It’s the old saying that JOY stands for Jesus, then Others, then You.

How might we do that at Christmas? One (admittedly large) Baptist church in the United States has a campaign every year at this time called ‘Giving to Christ at Christmas’. Their senior pastor writes,

Over the years, the gifts given through Giving to Christ at Christmas have allowed [us] to help rebuild orphanages, supply relief to hurricane survivors in North and Central America, provide safe houses for girls rescued from human trafficking, and help the poor and needy in our city.

We express some of this through food banks and clothes banks. But not everyone can be involved in those and indeed the Knaphill clothes bank can’t operate at present in the pandemic.

So it’s worth all of us asking, how are we demonstrating Jesus’ moral revolution of humility by living for him and for others before ourselves?

Secondly, a social revolution. This rather follows from the moral revolution. It’s linked to it, because in verse 52 when God has lifted up the humble, it is preceded by saying that ‘He has brought down rulers from their thrones.’

In earlier generations this could be seen quite dramatically when a sermon in the pulpit of certain churches on Sunday could lead to a Government minister’s resignation on Monday. These days not even a thundering media campaign can dislodge some of our political leaders when their moral recklessness is exposed. Instead, we put them in Downing Street or the White House.

But kingdom power is still at work, because what we may not be able to change by public campaigning due to the declining influence of the church in society we can still alter by the power of prayer. When I see the wickedness of the Chinese government towards Christians, Uyghur Muslims, and the people of Hong Kong among others, I pray that God will put President Xi and his cronies on a slippery slope, as Psalm 73 says. The kingdom of God still rises up against social evil, it’s just that sometimes it does so in a subversive way.

And not only that, in dethroning rulers it correspondingly lifts up others.

A Christmas carol that has become increasingly popular in recent years is ‘O holy night’. I chose a version of it for our video carol service that was published on Friday, and was pleased to find one that contained this verse:

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is Love and His gospel is Peace;
Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother,
And in his name all oppression shall cease.

It’s French in origin, but when it was translated into English it became popular among American abolitionists. And even though the French poet who wrote the original words was an atheist and the American who translated it into English was a Unitarian, not a Christian, the words reflect the social revolution of the Magnificat. The early church understood this when it chose not necessarily to make its leaders solely from the educated, wealthy, and influential classes of society. Rather, some of the earliest bishops were slaves or former slaves.

Do we live out such a social revolution as Christians today?

Thirdly and finally, an economic revolution.

He has filled the hungry with good things
    but has sent the rich away empty. (Verse 53)

Two weeks ago, the BBC showed a piece about two ministers in Burnley, Pastor Mick and Father Alex, called Poverty and the Pandemic: Burnley’s Front Line.[i] There is an accompanying piece on the BBC website, entitled Burnley’s Pastor Mick – from dangerous drug dealer to lifesaver. It’s powerful, heart-breaking, and yet also uplifting coverage.

How so? Father Alex is the local Anglican priest, and Pastor Mick is from an organisation called Church On The Streets. He is a former drug dealer from a damaged background and a history of attempted murders, attempted suicide, and a wonderful conversion to Christ.

But in Burnley, a town of much deprivation, they have seen far worse damage from coronavirus than other places. As Pastor Mick tells the reporter,

“Politicians say that it’s a leveller, this coronavirus. It’s a lie, because if you’re poor you’ve got no chance.”

He and Father Alex pack boxes of food and other supplies for people, some of whom haven’t eaten at all. Mick takes volunteer NHS nurses with him to treat some medical conditions. He meets a woman with cancer who should have monthly blood tests but hasn’t had a test for six months due to the pandemic. Another woman confesses that her daughter has taken her own life. Others are short of basic household equipment, and Pastor Mick manages to find some for them. Another man is in debt to payday lenders, and over time Mick is helping him to get out of debt.

It is an utterly grim picture of life in Britain today. But it is uplifting, because here are Christians ‘filling the hungry with good things’. Pastor Mick says it is “the people of faith who are stepping in and making a massive difference”.

There is so much more I would like to relay to you of their stories, not least Pastor Mick’s account of meeting in adult life the man who began his descent into darkness through child sexual abuse.

But I’ll have to draw things to a conclusion here and just pose the question: this Advent, as we come so close to Christmas, are we being revolutionaries as Mary prophesied in the Magnificat? Are we part of a moral, social, and economic revolution in which God lifts up the poor and the humble and takes down the proud and the mighty?

Or are we just applying a religious veneer to our lives?

[i] The link takes you to the footage on iPlayer.

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Sermon: Holy Suspense (Advent Sunday)

As with last week and throughout Advent I won’t be able to post the video of my devotional talk for the week. However, here is the text as I explore the Lectionary Gospel (Year B) and tackle that sense of suspense and tension that confronts us at Advent and throughout our Christian lives.

Mark 13:24-37 NRSV

In the lead-up to family birthdays and to Christmas, there is a noticeable difference between the males and the females in my immediate family.

My wife and daughter cannot stand not knowing what their presents will be. They want to know in advance. In particular, I often subjected to intense lobbying from my daughter to know what we’ve bought her.

My son and I are different. Both of us are content to wait and find out on the day. That’s part of the pleasure for us. If we knew in advance, it would be an anti-climax.

Advent – and particularly Advent Sunday itself – is about how you deal with suspense. That’s why this week’s theme in the series I’m following is called ‘Holy Suspense’.

We are living in between times in a sense of tension and hope about what is to come, not satisfied with life as it is and longing for it to be different.

We are in the hour before dawn, the time when the temperature is usually at its coldest, but when the complete darkness begins to be replaced by a blue light. As twilight before dawn beckons, indirect light from the Sun below the horizon takes on a blue shade. It is sometimes called ‘blue hour’.

The ancient Celts used to talk about living in ‘The time between the times’, and while some of their expressions of that would not be helpful to us, I think we can at least affirm those words.

For that is where the holy suspense of Advent, in the hour before dawn, places us: in the time between the times.

But what times are we in between? There are two in Mark chapter 13.

You may be surprised to hear that, because for a long time people have wrongly assumed this chapter is entirely about the Second Coming and the events leading up to it. However, there is a real tension between two ‘comings’ in this chapter, and the Lectionary verses we have today give us the cusp between the two.

So – what is the first coming in Mark 13?

You might assume it is Jesus’ first coming, the Incarnation, the great event to which we are building up.

But you would be mistaken.

24 ‘But in those days, after that suffering,

the sun will be darkened,

   and the moon will not give its light,

25 and the stars will be falling from heaven,

   and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

26Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory. 27Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

Now some of you will jump on that language and say it’s talking about the Second Coming. My one-word answer to that is ‘no’, but bear with me as I explain what it is.

For one thing, language about the sun being darkened, the moon not giving its light, stars falling from heaven, and powers in heaven being shaken is not to be taken literally. This is neither Carol Kirkwood giving the weather forecast on BBC Breakfast, nor is it Brian May or Brian Cox describing an astronomical event on The Sky At Night. This is special language that we call ‘apocalyptic language’, which was a veiled way of speaking so that enemies like the Romans would not understand what they were on about.

But, you say, the verses go on to speak about the Son of Man coming in clouds and sending his angels to gather his elect from the four winds. That must be the Second Coming, mustn’t it?

Only if you don’t recognise your biblical quotes, I respond. ‘The Son of Man coming in clouds’ is a direct citation of Daniel chapter 7. In that chapter the Son of Man does indeed come in clouds – but not to earth. He comes to the Ancient of Days, that is, Almighty God.

It would seem therefore that what Jesus is talking about here isn’t his first coming, nor is it his return, but his ascension to the right hand of the Father, where, as it says in Daniel 7, he receives the kingdom.

And Jesus’ statement

30Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place

makes it quite clear he is talking about an event that is very close at hand, not in the distant future.

What then about the Son of Man sending out the angels to gather the elect? That surely is the evangelistic mission of the church that Jesus commissions his disciples to undertake. He gives that command just before he ascends, and it begins at Pentecost.

Hold onto those thoughts for a moment, while we ask – what is the second coming in Mark 13?

Well – er – it’s the Second Coming! Not that the Bible ever uses that expression. Normally it uses a word that means not ‘coming’ but ‘appearing’ or maybe ‘presence’. Jesus will appear again on earth after his ascension, and we need to be ready.

That’s why he tells the little vignette at the end of the reading about the master who goes away (the ascension again) and leaves his slaves in charge of his property. However, those slaves need to be ready for whenever the master returns. They don’t know when that will be, so they need to be ‘on the watch’ and ‘keep[ing] awake’ (verses 32-37).

That’s all rather more straightforward than what I called the ‘first coming’, isn’t it?

The only strange thing about as far as I’m concerned is that all of Jesus’ teaching in this chapter is a response to him prophesying that the Jerusalem Temple will be destroyed, and Peter asking him when this will happen and what the signs will be (verses 1-3). So why would Jesus go on to talk about his return in glory?

I think it must be something like this: Jesus has solemnly spoken about the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple as a sign of judgment. But he goes on to warn that a greater judgment is waiting in the wings for the end of time.

Right – now that I’ve outlined what I think is the right way to understand this passage, we can answer some practical questions about how we live during holy suspense.

For the suspense in which we live is this: at the ascension, Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Father and was given the kingdom of God. He reigns.

Yet not all is well, and we await his appearing (a.k.a. the Second Coming) when everything will be put under his feet.

Just as the Queen reigns but not everyone obeys the law of the land, so we live in a time like that. Jesus is in charge of the universe, but not everyone acknowledges that. Such a state of affairs creates a sense of tension for us as followers of Jesus.

Two applications, then:

Firstly, the gathering of the elect: because not everyone willingly lives under the reign of King Jesus we are given the Great Commission to proclaim the Gospel. In the Roman Empire when a herald came announcing ‘good news’ it was usually the good news of a new Emperor or of great victories.

Well, that is our message in the Great Commission. There is a new king on the throne, and his name is Jesus. What’s more, he has won the greatest victories of all time – over sin and over death.

As we live with this great tension between Jesus receiving his kingdom and it being completely fulfilled, we call more people to bow the knee to King Jesus.

Secondly, the slaves staying alert and awake in the master’s house: because Jesus will appear again and everything and everyone will acknowledge him as Lord and King, we need to be ready for that. In other words, we need to live as if that future is already here. The call to obey Jesus now is critical, because it’s the consequence of proclaiming the Good News that he is King and has won those victories over sin and death.

Now that creates more of the tension with the world we live in, where to live like that may not be popular. But discipleship is not an option. And if we proclaim to the world that Jesus is King, then a necessary part of our witness to back up our words is to live as if Jesus is King. Which he is.

To conclude: do we know what our present is on the Great Day of Christ’s Appearing? Yes and no. Yes, we know in general terms that his new creation will be full of truth, beauty, and love, and there will no longer be anything to spoil it.

But also no, because how can we imagine such a gift with accuracy and detail? We might just as well also be surprised.

What we know is that Jesus will reign without any further opposition.

Meanwhile, we live as citizens of his kingdom and proclaim his reign, even though that brings tension.

But one day, the suspense will be over and all will be well.

That is the Advent hope.

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Sermon: Life On The Frontline 5: The Frontline Cry (Kingdom Dreamers)

Whoops. I seem to have forgotten to upload two or three sermons lately. Sorry.

Anyway, here is tomorrow morning’s sermon as I preach again in the Life On The Frontline series at Knaphill Methodist Church.

Matthew 6:9-13 with Isaiah 29:13-24

Heaven
Heaven by Ozan on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

While walking down the street one day a corrupt Senator was tragically hit by a car and died. His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.

“Welcome to heaven,” says St. Peter. “Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we’re not sure what to do with you.”

“No problem, just let me in,” says the Senator.

“Well, I’d like to, but I have orders from the higher ups. What we’ll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity.”

“Really? I’ve made up my mind. I want to be in heaven,” says the Senator.

“I’m sorry, but we have our rules.”

And with that St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.

The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a beautiful golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him. Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people. They played a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and the finest champagne.

Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly guy who is having a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are all having such a good time that before the Senator realizes it, it is time to go. Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises.

The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens in heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him, “Now it’s time to visit heaven…”

So, twenty-four hours passed with the Senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realises it, the twenty-four hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.

“Well, then, you’ve spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity.”

The Senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: “Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell.”

So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell…

Now the doors of the elevator open and he’s in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above. The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulders.

“I don’t understand,” stammers the Senator. “Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there’s just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?”

The devil smiles at him and says, “Yesterday we were campaigning. Today, you voted…”[1]

Now, I find that joke rather delicious as we approach a General Election in six months’ time. But I didn’t tell it for political reasons this morning. I told it, because it assumes the traditional teaching that our destiny for eternity is either heaven or hell.

And that’s a mistake. The New Testament doesn’t teach that.

Really? Did you hear that right? The minister is saying that heaven or hell is not our eternal destiny?

Well, you did hear me correctly, but I still believe in ‘heaven and hell’. It’s just that I believe – as Tom Wright has put it – that ‘heaven is important, but it’s not the end of the world’.

N T Wright
The Rt Revd Tom Wright with new book by Gareth Saunders on Flickr. Some rights reserved

What the New Testament teaches is this: when we die, we rest in either Paradise or Hades. Jesus tells the repentant thief on the cross, ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise.’ In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, he envisions the evil wealthy man as suffering in Hades, the place of the dead. These are resting places, or waiting rooms, until our final destiny.

And our final destiny is not to float on clouds, plucking harps. The end of all things in the New Testament is God making all things new – the heavens, the earth, and our bodies. God’s kingdom in all its fullness constitutes a whole new creation. That’s why at the Last Day, we shall be raised from the dead physically. The idea that the physical and material doesn’t matter, and all that matters is our ‘soul’ is not originally a Christian idea: it comes from Greek philosophy, and from heresies that the early Church rejected. It’s why C S Lewis said that ‘Christianity is the most material of all religions’.

Now plug all that into the Lord’s Prayer, and especially into the lines

your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven. (Verse 10)

The first line – ‘your kingdom come’ – is explained by what follows – ‘your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’ When we pray for God’s kingdom to come, we pray for his will to be done here on this earth, just like it is in heaven, his dwelling-place. We are longing for that kingdom where heaven and earth have been made new, and human bodies made new in resurrection, and where God’s will is done as fully and wholeheartedly as it is in his immediate presence.

So if we want to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom, we do something like this. Knowing what we do of God’s will, we imagine what our world as we know it would look like if people were doing the things that give God pleasure.

That’s effectively what Isaiah does in chapter 29 that we heard read before the Lord’s Prayer. Isaiah imagines the dry land of Lebanon becoming fertile, even like a forest. He imagines deaf people hearing God’s message, and the blind seeing again. He envisions the humble and the needy having cause for great joy, instead of being trampled down by the unjust. In fact, he sees a time when such ruthless people will vanish, when mockers will be no more, and when there will be no more evil people manipulating the justice system to their own twisted ends. He sees shamed people standing in awe of God, and wayward spirits and habitual moaners accepting instruction (verses 17-24). All this imagining becomes a vision for the future, and therefore a captivating image to stimulate prayer, and ask God to bring these things about.

Now let’s plug all this into our lives today, because we can do something similar. And we need to, because one aspect of the poor reputation Christians often have today is that we are a bunch of moaners. We are the people who are only known for the things we are against, the things we complain about. One reason Christian MPs can have a hard time in Parliament is because they and their colleagues are subject to hectoring letters and flame-filled emails.

So – rather than just bewailing all that is wrong with our world (and I wouldn’t deny there is a lot that is at odds with our faith) – why don’t we instead start exercising a prayerful, holy imagination to conceive how we would long the world to be. Rather than railing against the way people use the Internet in negative ways, such as verbally attacking others, or accessing pornography, ask in the presence of God what the Internet would look like if it were used in a pure and kind way. Rather than sitting around as barstool Prime Ministers declaiming against a society that is obsessed with money, possessions, and buying the latest thing, prayerfully consider what our culture would look like if spirituality and relationships were dominating values, and the poor were not all derided as scroungers.

In short, for Christians to pray ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ is to serve notice on the ‘moaning minnies’ version of religion that we often serve up, and commit instead to imagining a better world, praying for it, and working for it in the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe that’s what Jesus wanted of his followers when he taught them the Lord’s Prayer.

And there is a specific application to make in this particular sermon and teaching series that we are following. We’ve been thinking about what we’ve called our ‘frontlines’, those places where we are no longer cossetted among our fellow Christians, but interact with those who don’t share our faith. It may be our workplace, our families, our next-door neighbours, or where we spend our leisure time, from the health club to the U3A.

Crawley U3A poetry group
Crawley U3A poetry group by George Redgrave on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

These locations, too, are often far from what we would ideally like them to be. Much as we enjoy the friendship of others there, these places may be centres of gossip, sharp practice, back-biting, and unjust behaviours. Even if it’s not that bad, they can become mundane and meaningless, and hence the parody of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs that we sometimes use to describe our paid working life: ‘I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go.’

So here we choose not simply to carp about the things that annoy us, or stay permanently on a downer about the people who get our backs up. Instead, we employ a holy imagination, and ask ourselves this question: ‘From what I know about Jesus’ teaching, what would this environment look like under the reign of God?’ And then we dream what it would look like.

And having established our ‘kingdom dream’, we then pray it: ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ Little by little, we shall see signs of transformation as we do so.

Now maybe asking us all to be dreamers – even kingdom of God dreamers – will not go down well in some quarters. Dreamers have a bad reputation. They are detached from reality; they are not practical people. And we have seen worldly dreamers who garner a bad reputation. You only have to think of John Lennon singing, ‘You may think I’m a dreamer’ in his execrable song ‘Imagine’ – a song where he exhorts us to ‘imagine no possessions’, all the while being filmed singing the song in his Ascot mansion. Any dream won’t do.

But kingdom dreams are wonderful things. It isn’t for nothing that the Bible often links dreams with visions. They can give direction. Used prayerfully, they can lead to transformation.

So – er – imagine that you are in Washington DC, and a great crowd has assembled to hear you speak. And as you speak your prepared words, you hear the Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson call to you, “Tell them about the dream!”

And you change your speech on the hoof to tell them about the dream. It won’t fire you for much longer, because soon you will be dead. For Mahalia Jackson actually called out, “Tell them about the dream, Martin,” and you are Martin Luther King, and your speech becomes “I have a dream.” It’s a kingdom of God dream, and it will inspire many to take the torch relay on from you.

This week, then, when you leave the service, I am sending you out to be dreamers. Dream what your frontlines would look like if they were under the kingdom of God, and then pray that God’s will may be done there.

Yes – dream sweet dreams. And change the world.

 

[1] From the Grove Books weekly email, 10th November 2014.

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Sermon: Acts – Who’s The Governor?

Acts 12:19b-25

Ted Robbins
Ted Robbins by Thwaites Empire Theatre on Flickr. Copyright Mike Johnson Mikeseye Photographic. Some rights reserved.

One of the things about having children is that whether you like it or not, you become acquainted with some of the television programming aimed at them. One of the shows to which I admit a sneaking fondness is called ‘The Slammer’. Ostensibly set in a prison – hence ‘The Slammer’ – inmates can earn early release by performing in a weekly variety show called ‘The Freedom Show’. In reality, these are of course stage acts, and they are participating in a talent show. The children in the audience choose the winner by the loudness of their applause. Those who do not win are condemned to stay and face mealtimes where they always eat the dreaded ‘sloppy poppy porridge’.

‘The Freedom Show’ is compèred by the prison governor, who is imaginatively known as ‘The Governor’, played by the comedy actor Ted Robbins. He is assisted a warder called Mr Burgess, who is like a watered-down version of Fulton Mackay’s character Mr Mackay in Ronnie Barker’s comedy series ‘Porridge’.

However, the Governor wants to be more than a compère. He hankers to be a performer himself, and makes a big entrance to ‘The Freedom Show’ every week, often dressed garishly in clothes such as a yellow dinner jacket and bow tie.

When he comes on, he has a catchphrase. He calls out to the children in the audience, “Who’s the Governor?” and the children shout back, “You’re the Governor!”

I don’t know why it makes me laugh, but it does. Anyway, “Who’s the Governor?” becomes a suitable catchphrase for this sermon. Who’s the Governor – Herod Agrippa or God? Let me place that in context.

Herod Agrippa has just suffered a damaging reverse. Having gained political capital by imprisoning and executing some of the early church leaders, he thought he was onto a winner when he had the apostle Peter put in his ‘slammer’, and scheduled for execution. No long years on Death Row in those days. But Peter had miraculously escaped, and Herod in his temper – having been publicly shown up by the power of God – had the guards executed in a moment of pique. This has come not long after Luke has also recounted in Acts the story of the prophet Agabus foretelling a famine, and the church at Antioch responding by organising a relief collection for the disciples in Judea.

So we’re about to see a contrast between the worst of human rulership and the best of God’s kingly rule. As we do this, we shall learn more how to pray and witness today, even in the face of adversity, and more about the true nature of the God we serve.

Here are three areas of contrast:

Firstly, compassion. What’s wrong with this picture?

Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon. So they came to him in a body; and after winning over Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, they asked for a reconciliation, because their country depended on the king’s country for food. (Verse 20)

What’s wrong is that in the Hebrew Scriptures, a king was to look after the people. To be in dispute over the need for food was not good. To withhold food even from those of another nation was not normal behaviour for a good king. But the people of Tyre and Sidon need to grovel to get what they need from Herod. This is not right.

We already know that this Herod was a violent man from his treatment of the church leaders, and perhaps this is no surprise for a man who was the grandson of the so-called Herod the Great, the man who ordered the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem, and who might better be called Herod the Terrible. The Herod of our story, Herod Agrippa, had also been educated in Rome, and was a friend of the Emperor Caligula, to whom he owed his power[1].

We don’t know what this unsavoury ruler was going to do about the request from Tyre and Sidon, because he doesn’t get the chance. All we do know is that he had consciously allowed an unjust situation to develop, and there was only any possibility of resolution because one of his officials, Blastus, had taken a chance. This meeting was not by Herod’s initiative. He had shown no interest in the welfare of these people.

We know enough about heartless tyrants in the history of the world and in current affairs. Starving a population is a tactic both ancient and modern. From ancient Assyria to modern Syria, this is a common practice.

Contrast this with what we have seen in the church not long ago in Acts. The prophet Agabus has appeared on the scene and prophesied a coming famine. But the response of the church is to organise support for those who will suffer the most. It is like a reflex action. Think of Joseph in Genesis storing Egypt’s food in the seven years of plenty before the seven years of famine, and you will see a similar approach.

Esther McVey MP
Esther McVey MP by the Department for Work and Pensions on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

What it comes down to is that while the tyrants of the world starve people into submission, the God of the Bible is compassionate, and his people are called to witness to that compassion by modelling it in their own behaviour. That is why it is good that we hosted the Runnymede Food Bank here for its first two years of existence. That is why it is also good that the growth of the food banks in our country, usually started by Christians, have become an embarrassing indictment against heartless government policies. When we see cases like that of David Clapson, the diabetic ex-soldier who was penalised by a Job Centre for missing an appointment, had his £71.70 benefits stopped, couldn’t then afford food or electricity, and died from a condition resulting from not being able to take his insulin because he couldn’t keep the fridge going, then it’s important that Christians witness to the compassion of God in the face of a serious lack in high places. Earlier this year, Esther McVey MP, the minister for employment, admitted

that the number of sanction referrals made by jobcentre advisers is part of a “variety of performance data” used to monitor their work.

Our witness to the God of compassion, who inspired Joseph to feed Egypt, Agabus to warn the early church, and Jesus to feed the multitudes, is needed more than ever today. How will you do it? Buying supplies for the food bank? Supporting a charity? Directly helping someone in need that you meet? It needs doing.

Who’s the Governor when it comes to compassion?

The second area of contrast is that of authority. There’s no doubt that Herod Agrippa enjoys power. We know what he does with it. It’s no surprise to see that he has an ego to match his sense of self-importance:

On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat on the platform, and delivered a public address to them. 22The people kept shouting, ‘The voice of a god, and not of a mortal!’ 23And immediately, because he had not given the glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died. (Verses 21-23)

Elsewhere in Acts, apostles like Paul are wrongly acclaimed as gods by adoring crowds, but they are always quick to deny it. Herod doesn’t. Was it all too appealing to him? He had turned up dressed in all his splendour, and had done everything to impress the need people of Tyre and Sidon with his status and power. It does him no good.

Corrie ten Boom
Corrie ten Boom on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

The Christian knows that the proper response in times like these is to do what Herod didn’t do, and to give the glory to God (verse 23), like the great Dutch Christian Corrie ten Boom. You may recall her story ‘The Hiding Place’, in which she and her family, including her sister Betsie, sheltered Jews from the Nazis and ended up in Ravensbruck concentration camp for their troubles, where Betsie died but Corrie survived. Corrie became a popular and famous Christian author and speaker, and as you can imagine, received much adulation. But she had a wise approach to the receipt of compliments: she described a compliment as like a bunch of flowers. She would say, “These smell nice, but they are for you, Lord.”

How might we approach a proper humility, then? There are some behaviours that look like humility, but aren’t. These include the so-called ‘humblebrag’, where we say something great about ourselves, but set it against a self-deprecating comment, yet really we are trying to tell people how wonderful we are. There is the wrong use of the word ‘humbled’ when we actually mean ‘proud’ – for example, “I am so humbled by the number of people who said they liked my sermon last week.” It’s OK to admit to excitement, but let’s not re-label pride as humility. There is the failure to take a compliment when God gave us the gifts – we need to remember Corrie ten Boom’s bouquet of flowers. Or there is the “All the glory goes to the Lord” school of hyper-spiritual sanctimoniousness. Again, Corrie ten Boom had the balance right.

There is a lovely quote from C S Lewis on the subject in his book ‘Mere Christianity’:

True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.

Who’s the Governor when it comes to authority?

The third and final area of contrast is that of judgement.

And immediately, because he had not given the glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

24 But the word of God continued to advance and gain adherents. (Verses 23-24)

Does this sound unlikely to you – that Herod was struck down, eaten by worms, and died? What if I told you that the Jewish historian Josephus records this incident, too? His account is different from Luke’s, but it is complementary. Where Luke says that Herod didn’t give glory to God, Josephus says he failed to rebuke the impious remark. And where Luke says that an angel struck Herod and he was eaten by worms, Josephus tells us that he was struck by severe stomach pains for five days, and then he died.[2] The one who judged violently and unjustly was himself judged.

We know the frustration and horror of looking on while the depraved thrive in power. We can name any number of wicked despots from the present day or the recent past. So too could the biblical authors. They wondered aloud why the wicked prospered, often at the expense of the righteous. They asked why God wasn’t doing anything. And of course we know that Jesus told stories like the parable of the wheat and the tares and the parable of the net which indicated that the separation of the good and the evil would not happen until the last judgement.

Yet here we see an example of judgement being executed in this life. So perhaps this is a time to remember that when we are dealing with the kingdom of God, we speak about it as being both ‘now and not yet’. There is a ‘not yet’ about the kingdom of God in that all will come finally and fully under God’s rule at the end of all things, after the last judgement. But we should not lose sight of there also being a ‘now’ element to God’s kingdom, in that we do see some examples of God reigning in kingly power and overthrowing wickedness, sin, and suffering in our own day and time. That seems to be what the early church witnessed when God sent his angel to strike down Herod Agrippa.

And there are examples from even the darkest times in recent history. Rees Howells, a Welshman deeply affected by the Welsh Revival of 1904-1905, and the founder of the Bible College of Wales, was deeply affected by spiritual awakenings he witnessed as a missionary in southern Africa. During World War Two he was led by Christ into a deep ministry of intercession, which you can read about in the classic book ‘Rees Howells Intercessor’ by Norman Grubb. While some of the story is a little strange, Howells and his colleagues prayed with passion and vigour throughout the war, sensing particular direction from the Holy Spirit at certain times to pray in particular ways for certain specific outcomes. The book is an astonishing account of how God led and answered their prayers, leading eventually to the downfall of the Axis powers. We can talk about the genius of military leaders, the inspiration of politicians, tragic tactical mistakes, and so on. But there is an obscure yet vital story to be made known about the spiritual dimensions of Hitler’s downfall through intense, committed prayer.

Given that, let us not lose hope when we pray for the needs of the world today and every day. We may have to wait, because God’s actions are ‘not yet’, but we never know when he might execute justice ‘now’. So if that is possible, why should we not in prayer ask him to be at work in our time, tipping the thrones of the unjust until they fall from their perches?

Remember this question: who’s the Governor when it comes to judgement?

And more generally, that should be a question to guide our lives: who’s the Governor?

[1] Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, p 383f.

[2] Op. cit.., p 390.

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