Tag: persecution

Sermon: It’s Not The End of the World, Luke 21:5-19 (Ordinary 33 Year C)

Luke 21:5-19

Do you want to predict a date for the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ? If so, I understand there is a website that logs all the various dates predicted by different people. You can look on that website, pick your own date, and join that happy band of heretics.

Some read Bible passages like today’s reading and assume this is about Jesus prophesying his return. They look beyond the verses we have read to verse 27, where Jesus says,

At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

They then assume this is about the Second Coming.

Having done that, they then get tied up in knots, thinking that Jesus said he was coming soon, but got it wrong.

Not so.

Because this episode is not about the Second Coming. We heard right at the beginning that it’s about the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, which would happen approximately forty years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. That’s what the disciples asked him about in verses 5 to 7.

And that’s why the heading of this passage in the NIV is misleading. It says, ‘The destruction of the temple and signs of the end times.’ There are no ‘signs of the end times’ here.

But what about all that ‘Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory’? Nope. Jesus is quoting from Daniel 7. In that passage, the Son of Man does indeed come in a cloud with power and great glory – but not to earth. He comes into the presence of Almighty God, the Ancient of Days. It is about his arrival in heaven. In New Testament terms, that’s the Ascension.

It’s not the end of the world.

What our reading today does for us is tell us how to live as Christians during difficult times in history. For sure, the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple would have felt like the end of the world to pious Jews like the disciples, but Jesus says it isn’t. And he tells them how they should live for him in cataclysmic times. Much of what he foretells here is fulfilled in Luke’s second volume, the Acts of the Apostles.

I don’t know whether we are living in cataclysmic times, but we are living in times of great uncertainty and potential peril. Therefore, we too can learn from Jesus here about how to live as his disciples when our world is being upended malicious and unstable world leaders, by economic convulsions, climate change, and more.

How might we live when things are bad, even if it’s not the end of the world? For in such times there will be serious pressures to face. Jesus here refers to opposition to our faith (verse 12), division that even extends to our families (verse 16), and outright hatred (verse 17).

Here are three qualities that stand out from Jesus’ teaching that we would do well to embrace:

Firstly, discernment:

Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, “I am he,” and, “The time is near.” Do not follow them. (Verse 8)

How do we ‘watch out’ to avoid deception? How do we discern between what is of the Spirit of God, what is of the spirit of the age, and what is from a malicious spirit?

Well, Jesus has just spent three years grounding the disciples in his teaching, and that’s where we need to begin. Nothing less than a deep commitment to the Scriptures, remembering that their central focus is Jesus, will do. It is the sheer biblical illiteracy in our congregations that has left us so vulnerable to being blown every which way in recent times.

One of my previous congregations did a survey of everything about the Sunday morning experience, from arriving at the church building to departing. That included the worship, and one of the shocking discoveries was the number of church members who never read the Bible for themselves between Sundays, and only ever hear it once a week in the service.

Is it any wonder with practices like this that people get deceived by the world? An appealing and emotional story will tempt people away from Christian truth. Congregations that just want things kept as simple and unchallenging as possible and then wonder why they lose their young people to the YouTube videos peddled by atheists. The dilution of Christian truth leads people into error.

Only this week the Methodist Church reported about a church in Stoke-on-Trent that celebrated the Hindu Diwali festival, on the basis that Diwali is a festival of light and Christian too believe in the light and hope of God. The similarities, however, are superficial; the differences are significant. It’s honourable wanting to stand against racism. It was diplomatic of them to make it a community event and not a religious service. But it’s misleading to suggest a serious parallel between Christian and Hindu beliefs, and that the Holy Spirit was present when the work of the Spirit is to point to Jesus, not to a multiplicity of Hindu deities.

This is why I now have two of my churches starting to study a Bible Society resource called The Bible Course. It will help them see the overarching story of Scripture and help them to interpret the Bible sensibly.

Let me ask you what you are doing to get your faith rooted in the Scriptures, and focussed on Jesus? It’s something worth doing both on our own and in groups together. It’s critical to our discernment at all times, but it is all the more important in turbulent seasons.

Secondly, testimony:

12 ‘But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. 13 And so you will bear testimony to me.

Here’s one of the elements of today’s passage that was, as I said earlier, fulfilled in the Acts of the Apostles. Things got sticky for the early Christians on several occasions. They were hauled up before the authorities on trumped-up charges, much as Jesus had been.

And this pattern has continued through history. The Christian message rubs people up the wrong way, especially those who have so much to lose. And when the world is convulsing and people are under pressure, they sometimes look for scapegoats. We can’t rule that out happening to us at some time, even if we have many more freedoms than so many of our Christian brothers and sisters around the world.

Jesus says, when the pressure is on, you will bear testimony to me. Our lives will show how much of Jesus we have. Our willingness to speak for him when there is no advantage in doing so and perhaps even significant disadvantages is a commentary on our faith.

Our testimony comes not only in words in a courtroom, but in our deeds. The world will see whether our words and deeds match up.

And the focus of our testimony will not be ourselves, rather it will be Jesus. A testimony is not the preserve of those with a dramatic conversion story. Our testimony is our account of what Jesus means to us, and what he has done for us. Every Christian, whether their life has been dramatic or mundane, has something to say on that subject.

Thirdly and finally, endurance:

17 Everyone will hate you because of me. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 Stand firm, and you will win life.

Going back over thirty years to when I was a probationer minister, a report on my progress one year that my Superintendent Minister wrote about me said, ‘David needs to learn that ministry is a marathon, not a sprint.’ I had seen the need for change in the churches, and I saw it as urgent, but I was trying to rush things that would take a long time if they were to be done at a deep level and with substance. Eventually, I came to describe my work as like seeking to change the direction of an ocean liner: a task that takes time to achieve.

Likewise, over the years, I learned that the life of Christian faith itself is a marathon and not a sprint. We are in it for the long haul. ‘Stand firm, and you will win life,’ as Jesus says here.

Now I think that’s good news to us when we are seeking to live out our faith when the world is in tumult. How we would love to change things quickly.

I think we are particularly prone to that temptation in our technological society. We expect to be able flick a switch, press a button, click or tap on a link and things will change. O that it were so simple. But it’s not.

I believe that often God’s word to us in difficult seasons can be simply put: ‘Keep on keeping on.’ Remain faithful to Jesus. Obey the Word of God. Continue to do the Christian basics: worship, prayer, fellowship, discipleship, being the salt of the earth and the light of the world, speaking for Jesus, resist being squeezed into the world’s mould, be open to the Holy Spirit. And seek God that he will bring the change that is needed in his time and in his way.

It’s not glamorous, it’s not flashy, it can be mundane rather than exciting. But it’s the right thing to do. And we leave the consequences to God.

Conclusion

One time when I was young, my father said to me that there were times when he wondered what on earth he and my mother had done by bringing my sister and me into this world. There are times when I, as a parent myself, have wondered the same. COVID. A warmongering Russian President and an American President who caves into him. Will my son end up being conscripted one day?

These are the times for me to remember the Christian basics. Be discerning through fidelity to the Word of God. Maintain witness, even under pressure. And just keep on keeping on in the everyday one-foot-in-front-of-the-other tasks of Christian endurance.

May we all stand together in this calling.

Remember: it may not be the end of the world now, but we are Resurrection People. In the end, Jesus wins.

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Jesus, the Good and Faithful Shepherd: Psalm 23 (Easter 4 Year C)

Psalm 23

Today, on a day when one of my churches celebrates its Church Anniversary, is a good day to consider the theme of God’s faithfulness. ‘Great is thy faithfulness,’ indeed. And when we come to the Lectionary today with Psalm 23 about the Lord being our shepherd and we also read from John 10 where Jesus is the good shepherd, we have an appropriate theme for considering God’s faithfulness. The Lord, our Good Shepherd, is the epitome of divine faithfulness.

And as we reflect on that now, we are going to recognise God’s faithfulness in the past, present, and future. Yes, Psalm 23 is written to express these truths to individuals, but they also work in terms of God’s faithful love to his people corporately, the church.

Firstly, we consider God’s faithfulness in our anxiety:

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3     he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.

As I wondered over the last few days what held some seemingly different ways here in which God provides for our needs, I came to the conclusion that the common thread was that these were all situations that can promote anxiety in us, but that God in his faithfulness gives us what we need, our anxiety subsides, and we learn to trust more in him.

Anxiety is there when we lack something, be it necessary income or food. I know that when my grandfather was out of work for five years in the depression of the 1930s, my grandmother would go without a meal herself for the sake of the children and would be on her knees praying that God would provide what they needed as a family. We know there were times when even at the very time she was praying someone would anonymously leave a food parcel by the front door.

Today, we live in a world of anxiety. You will all have seen the discussions  in the media about the rise in mental health issues, especially since the Covid pandemic and particularly among younger people. Prescriptions of the relevant drugs are on the increase, and costing the NHS more, leading some politicians to make cruel statements about over-diagnosis of certain conditions.

It is something I recognise in myself. When something troubling happens, my body reacts in negative ways before my mind gets the chance to analyse whether the presenting issue really is so bad after all and whether there is a solution anyway.

We are not immune from a corporate anxiety in the church, as we worry about the future.

It is surely, though, part of the Good News we offer to the world as the church today that the Lord our Good Shepherd is faithful to us in our anxiety.

In recent weeks, the Bible Society released a report that claimed there was what they called a ‘quiet revival’ of faith among young adults. There are probably many reasons for this, including a rebellion against the atheism of their parents. But could it also be true that as they were notably afflicted by the anxiety of the Covid pandemic as I said, that a Gospel which emphasises a Good Shepherd who is faithful to the anxious, who enables them to cast all their cares on him, is appealing to them?

So on a day when we rejoice in God’s faithfulness to us, let us consider how that might be a relevant message to new generations.

Secondly, we consider God’s faithfulness in our darkness:

4 Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

Now I know we’re used to hearing not the words ‘the darkest valley’ but ‘the valley of the shadow of death’, but ‘the darkest valley’ is increasingly thought to be the best translation, and that surely includes ‘the valley of the shadow of death.’ In the very darkest times of life, the psalmist says, God is with me and he comforts me. For the psalmist, the experience of darkness does not mean that the light is absent. Jesus the Light of the World is still present with us even at the worst of times. No wonder we often read this psalm at funerals.

Perhaps this is one of the deepest examples of the fact that Jesus is Immanuel, ‘God with us’, as the Christmas stories tell us. He came to share human life, and did so to the very worst, when he suffered that cruel and unjust death on the cross. And because he was later raised from the dead, he can be with us in our darkness.

And that is the simple promise: he is with us. Often in our dark times that’s all we want and all we need. Clever explanations can wait. The people who come up to us and blithely tell us that everything happens for a reason are no help at all. What we need is presence. And we get that from Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

We may say, ‘But God is silent!’ Yet he may be the silent friend who is just sitting with us in our sorrows. Are they not sometimes the best comforters? But simply by being there, Jesus the Good Shepherd is our comfort. He does not have to shout from the rooftops, and if he did we would probably not be able to cope with it. For his presence now shows that he has conquered death, and in our bleakest time that may be all we need to know.

You may have heard preachers talk about the medieval mystic Mother Julian of Norwich. In her lifetime she witnessed the devastation of the Black Death, and at one time, around the age of 30, she was so ill she thought she was on her deathbed. But she recovered – or was healed – and afterwards wrote down her account of some visions she received from God when she was close to death. Out of that experience came perhaps her most famous words: ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’

That is the testimony of one who knew the presence of the faithful Good Shepherd in the darkest valley.

And that too is part of what we proclaim to the world. Jesus suffered and died in the very worst way, but he was raised from the dead, and will faithfully accompany all who trust in him in even the worst seasons of their lives.

Thirdly and finally, we consider God’s faithfulness in our mistreatment:

I’m avoiding the word ‘persecution’ here. It is that for millions of our brothers and sisters around the world, but for those of us in the west, the opposition that comes our way is really not strong enough or fundamental enough to warrant the word ‘persecution.’ So I have settled on ‘mistreatment’: that may not be a perfect word, but I hope you get my sense, when the psalmist says,

5 You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.

We do face opposition and ridicule, and occasionally some forms of discrimination because of our faith. Many older Christians grew up in a society where there was more common acceptance of values that had some connection to the Christian faith, even if the faith was only honoured more in the breach. But that common acceptance and understanding has not been present in our society now for some decades. So it shouldn’t be surprising that when we are explicitly faithful to Jesus Christ today, that will sometimes attract enemies to us.

What we have here is that in the face of the ridicule and humiliation that comes with being treated unjustly for our faith, Jesus the Good Shepherd in his faithfulness to us honours us. That’s why there is a table for us in the presence of our enemies. That’s why the psalmist speaks of having his head anointed with oil: that was what happened to the honoured guest at a banquet.

So, when elements of the world turn against us – and they will, from time to time – God in his faithfulness still dignifies us with honour. He values our costly witness. He is proud of us when we stand up for him and it hurts. He knows when we have paid a price to stay faithful, and it doesn’t go unnoticed.

Naturally, we would like the situation remedied. Sometimes we shall get justice in this life, but not always. If what happens is we simply get the strength to stay true to Jesus under duress, we can be sure that there is another and greater banquet coming in God’s New Creation when he will prepare a feast for us and honour those who have continued to say yes to Jesus even in the most demanding circumstances.

In conclusion, what is our response? The final verse of the psalm gives us a pointer:

6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
    for ever.

Here we have in summary this promise that the Good Shepherd will faithfully continue to be with us, as his goodness and love pursue us. The believer ‘will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever’ – that is, we shall do all we can in response to live in the presence of God. Yes, God pursues us, but also yes, we pursue God in gratitude for his faithful love. In worship, prayer, and Scripture, both together on Sundays and in small groups, and on our own during the week we seek to draw close to the presence of our faithful God.

But not only that: the ‘house of the Lord’ language should not deceive us into thinking this is purely in the context of the church building or merely of overtly religious practices. Since Jesus is accessible everywhere since the Resurrection and Ascension, we can live in his presence everywhere, too. And so our pursuit of the God who has already pursued us is an activity and a discipline that we follow not only in the church but also in the world. Yes, we ask, how would Jesus want me to love him in the church, but also, yes, how would Jesus want me to love him in the world?

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Love Your Enemies, Luke 6:27-38 (Ordinary 7 Year C)

Luke 6:27-38

The older I get and the longer I preach, the more I collect a list of subjects that are awkward to preach on. Prayer – because which of us can say we pray enough? Evangelism – because we know we struggle with that. Giving – because it’s often thought unseemly to talk about money.

I think I might add today’s theme to that list. Who wants to be told to love their enemies? Wouldn’t many of us rather turn up the dial on the furnaces in Hell for those who hate us and hurt us?

I may be doing some of you an injustice. Perhaps you have only serene and beatific thoughts about your enemies. But not all of us do.

I have certainly had to wrestle with this text this week. I contemplated getting out an old sermon on the passage and just modifying it. But the best one I found was tied to a particular item in the news at the time.

And so instead I bring to you the three questions that have been at the heart of my struggle to submit to the words of Jesus here this week:

Who is Jesus addressing?

Who are the enemies here?

How do we love our enemies?

Firstly, then, who is Jesus addressing?

I ask this question, because sometimes Christians want to apply Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (as it is in Matthew’s Gospel) or the Sermon on the Plain (as it is here in Luke) in a rather flat way to national life. They want to make the teaching of Jesus into national policy.

But that is not what Jesus is doing here. He has no vision for a Christian nation. There is no such thing, in contrast to aspirations from Christians on both the right and the left of politics. The Christian nationalists in the USA who have swung behind Donald Trump misunderstand the Gospel itself when they think they can make America more Christian by gaining political power and passing certain laws. That is legalism, not the Gospel.

And of course it’s rather awkward for some of their politics to find that the Jesus they invoke in their prayers taught some things that really don’t fit their political vision at all, not least here. They would probably dismiss this as ‘dangerous woke nonsense.’

But the Christians on the left of the political spectrum who might leap on Jesus’ teaching here and campaign for a nation state that is committed to pacifism are equally wrong. You cannot force the teaching of Jesus on those who do not bow the knee to him as Lord.

I do not say that to justify warmongering nations. Of course not! But we need to recognise that the group of people Jesus is addressing here is his disciples. When you read the Sermon the Mount or the Sermon on the Plain you realise Jesus is talking to his disciples. However, others are listening in.

Hence, in other words, Jesus addresses his followers, who together form a colony or outpost of his kingdom in the world. But others are listening in and watching us. The world will notice how we respond to the challenging teaching of Jesus, such as we find here.

So it’s important for us to get a handle on what it means to love our enemies, because the world knows that Jesus taught this, and it is watching to see how his disciples live it out. We will damage Christian witness if we ignore it, or if we explain it away.

Yes, even in these times when religion is less popular, the world is watching Christians. Just consider the damage to the Church of England caused by the safeguarding scandals lately. A recent survey showed that now only 25% of the population consider it trustworthy. For those of you who grew up thinking the church was a respected institution, please consider that.

Let’s take the challenging teaching of Jesus seriously, then. Including this ‘love your enemies’ stuff.

Secondly, who are the enemies here?

We begin to answer that by saying, it is anyone who hates us.

They may hate us for our faith. We know that millions of our brothers and sisters around the world pay a massive price for their faith, sometimes the ultimate price. In the last week, there have been reports that terrorists beheaded seventy Christians in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Not a week goes by without news of a similar atrocity or other forms of persecution against Christians appearing in my email inbox.

Our enemies may hate us, regardless of our faith. Some of the context here may well be Jesus imagining what the occupying Roman soldiers did to ordinary citizens. Yet we are not simply citizens of our nation, we are citizens of heaven, and our calling is not only to live by the laws of the land (insofar as our faith allows us) but to live by the law of God. In a properly constituted society we may wish to have recourse to the law against such people in order to protect others, but we are called to guard our hearts against hatred.

Or we may simply here be dealing with people who are not naturally in our orbit – our family, our neighbours, our colleagues, our friends, and so on. I say that, because of the way Jesus mentions giving to beggars (verse 30). We would not naturally label beggars as enemies in the conventional way. Yet Jesus calls us to show generous love to them, too.

And this example may have something to teach us about the recent public argument between JD Vance, the new American Vice-President, and Rory Stewart, the former British MP. Vance claimed,

There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world.

Vance seemed to imply that love of people further from us, especially around the world, came a distant last, and he based it on the Catholic concept of ‘ordo amoris’, which says there is an order or sequence of who you love. He probably misrepresented Catholic teaching, and Rory Stewart fired back at him, accusing him of a ‘bizarre take’ on the Bible, which was ‘less Christian and more pagan tribal’. Heaven only knows where Mr Vance would put loving your enemies. A distant last, at a guess. It may be natural and easiest to love those who are nearest to us first, but Jesus upends so many social conventions, and we need to listen to him.

Thirdly, how do we love our enemies?

Jesus sets out the range of what he calls us to do in verses 27 and 28, before he gives any specific examples:

27 ‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

How do we do this? I just want to give you a few examples.

In one town where I served, a bookshop in the High Street began overtly promoting occult books and practices associated with them. Many Christians faced with such a situation would have defaulted into aggressive protest mode. They would have organised petitions and boycotts and maybe contacted the local media. They might have requested a meeting with the manager and angrily demanded the withdrawal of the books. They might have gone on a prayer march and cast out demons.

But not the group of Christians who discovered this incident. They turned to prayer, but not of the angry kind. Instead, they prayed that the bookshop would be blessed. If the bookshop were blessed, they might not need to resort to promoting spiritual darkness.

These Christians had been influenced by a preacher who once said, ‘In the celestial poker game a hand of blessings always outranks a hand of curses.’

Or take the experience of one of my relatives many years ago. He was dating the girl who would later become his wife. However, his girlfriend’s mother disapproved of him. He wasn’t good enough for her daughter, in her opinion. His job did not rank as highly professionally, and he was less educated than the girlfriend.

My relative shared his frustrations about this with a friend at church. And his friend made a suggestion.

‘When you leave your girlfriend’s house each evening, say ‘God bless you’ to her mother. You won’t be able to feel mean towards someone you are blessing.’

My relative bristled at the idea. But he tried it – starting by saying it through gritted teeth. But eventually – it worked. Blessing changes relationships for the better.

One last story: one year while I was training for the ministry in Manchester, a married student and his wife invited me (still single then) to their flat to celebrate my birthday. My birthday meal? Beans on toast!

My friends offered to call a taxi for me to get home, but I declined and chose to walk back.

Big mistake. For on the journey back to the hall of residence a teenage thug mugged me, breaking my glasses and causing minor damage to my eyes.

Another student, himself a former solicitor, took me to the police station and stayed with me while I was interviewed and made a statement.

While I am sure this teenage thug was known in the locality, no-one was ever arrested.

However, people asked me what I would have done if the criminal had been. Would I, as a Christian who believed in and preached forgiveness, have pressed charges?

My answer was that provided I was sure no hatred remained in my heart towards the mugger, then yes, I would consent to the laying of charges. For me – and you may see this differently – this held together both the call to love and forgive my enemy and the need to uphold justice and protect other members of the public.

Conclusion

There may be one final question nagging in our minds: why should we love our enemies?

Because, says Jesus, this is what God is like. As he puts it:

Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

We have been brought into the kingdom of God by divine mercy towards us who were his enemies due to sin. Yet God still loved us, his enemies, to the point of his Son dying on the Cross.

If we are to respond in gratitude and imitate our Saviour, then we too shall learn to show practical love to our enemies.

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Holy Week Meditations 2024: Isaiah’s Servant Songs (3) Isaiah 50:4-9

Session 3
Isaiah 50:4-9a

Each day so far we’ve had to ask who the servant is in each passage. On Monday, the servant was Israel, the People of God. Yesterday, the servant was the prophet.

Today, it’s fairly easy to see that once again the servant is the prophet who is bringing this message. And so, following the pattern of the last two days, we will consider the relevance of this passage to the prophet, to Jesus, and to ourselves.

We’ve observed that Isaiah 40-55 belongs to the time when Israel was in Babylonian exile. It’s a section of the book that brings hope to a desolate people. It may date to ten or twenty years before they began returning home to Jerusalem and Judah, thanks to the policies of King Cyrus, whose Persian Empire would conquer Babylon.

But even though these chapters bring a message of hope right from the beginning – if you don’t know ‘Comfort, comfort my people’ at the beginning of chapter 40 you will at least know that Handel quotes it in The Messiah – it still takes a while for a positive message to have a healing effect on a discouraged and downcast group of people. They are ‘weary’, we learn in verse 4.

And their Babylonian captors haven’t yet given up all their old tricks, because we read in verse 6 about how the prophet has been beaten, had his beard pulled out, and subjected to mocking and spitting.

What does it take to be a faithful servant when we are surrounded by darkness and people struggle to hear and accept God’s good news? That’s what this ‘Servant Song’ is about.

Again, I am picking out three elements. Not three ‘C’s this time, like the commitment, call, and covenant of chapter 42 on Monday, or the call, crisis, and cure of chapter 49 yesterday, though. This time, it’s three ‘H’s.

Firstly, hearing:
Listen again to verses 4 and 5:

4 The Sovereign Lord has given me a well-instructed tongue,
    to know the word that sustains the weary.
He wakens me morning by morning,
    wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed.
5 The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears;
    I have not been rebellious,
    I have not turned away.

If the prophet is to have a ‘word that sustains the weary’, he must hear from God. He is in communion with God ‘morning by morning’ and it is a listening time: the Sovereign Lord ‘wakens [his] ear’ and ‘opens [his] ears’. God is saying, ‘Listen,’ and so I expect the prophet is silent in the presence of God to hear his word. If the word is to sustain the weary, then it needs to come from heaven.

We know Jesus took time out for prayer. He escaped from the crowds and those who would value him for being busy to spend time with his Father. Often that meant going to solitary places. Sometimes we read that he spent the night in prayer.

For us, I will not dare to suggest that we don’t pray, but I will venture the thought that for many of us prayer is a shopping list and a monologue. It is all us talking. I for one am by no means always good at leaving space and time in silence for God to speak to me during a time of prayer.

And we model the monologue approach to prayer in our Sunday services. If a preacher has a time of silence during prayers, I can assure you some people will feel uncomfortable, and may even tell the preacher afterwards.

If we approach God through Scripture and worship, though, we can tune into him. Yes, the distracting thoughts will still come our way when we are silent – so we take them captive by writing them down and leaving them for another time so we can return to silence.

And then should it be so very surprising if a heavenly Father wants to speak to his children? And should it surprise us also if when he speaks he not only has something for us but also something that will bless others in need?

Secondly, humility:
Babylon may soon be facing military defeat at the hands of Persia, but that doesn’t change its behaviour now for the better:

6 I offered my back to those who beat me,
    my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;
I did not hide my face
    from mocking and spitting.

If God’s prophet is mistreated like this, then that too will have a negative effect on captive Israel’s morale. It may even be designed to have that effect.

But the prophet does not fight back. He bears his unjust suffering. He doesn’t even hide from it.

It’s easy to see the parallels in the life of Jesus here, especially in Holy Week, how he didn’t fight his tormentors. Surely indeed he could have called down fire from heaven against them, but he declined to do so.

This is tough for us. If we are attacked with words, we often become defensive. We justify ourselves, and we fight back with our own words. If we are physically attacked, we will resist as much as we can. If we are strong enough, we may overpower and disarm our assailant. Who wants to be hurt?

Into this dilemma let me offer you the words that a friend of mine once said on this subject. John was an Anglican priest from Kenya. He was used to inter-racial and inter-tribal tensions, as well as religious conflict. John said,

‘If I am persecuted for being a black man or for being a member of the Kikuyu tribe, I will fight back. But if I am persecuted for being a Christian, I will not resist. The way of Christ involves suffering for him.’

I wonder what you think of that. Does he have the balance right? Whether he does or not, it is clear that in the face of difficulties for our faith and opposition to it, we are called to a gracious humility in the Name of Jesus.

Thirdly, hope:
God’s people may be short on hope, but the hope which sustains the prophet is not the short-term, quick-fix variety. They’ve had enough of that from false prophets. How I hope our political parties will resist that approach whenever the General Election is called.

The prophet goes in for a longer-term hope that is based on the character of the God in whom he trusts. Listen again to verses 7 to 9:

7 Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,
    I will not be disgraced.
Therefore have I set my face like flint,
    and I know I will not be put to shame.
8 He who vindicates me is near.
    Who then will bring charges against me?
    Let us face each other!
Who is my accuser?
    Let him confront me!
9 It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me.
    Who will condemn me?
They will all wear out like a garment;
    the moths will eat them up.

When it comes down to it, the prophet believes in a God of justice who will vindicate the righteous and the innocent, and who will oversee the downfall of the ungodly and unjust. That isn’t a five-minute job, but it is the right long-term hope. And of course, he and his ministry was proved to be right, and also Babylon fell.

Jesus entrusted himself into his Father’s hands at the Cross. He committed his spirit into his Father’s care before he died. And on the third day, he was vindicated like no-one else ever has been.

When we face discouragement, or when those around us cannot drag themselves out of a pit, we too would do well to set aside the hopes in a quick fix and instead base our hopes on the solid truths we know about the character of God. His love. His justice. His grace.

These truths will stand for ever and will strengthen us to stand in hope.

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Seven Churches 6: Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-13)

Revelation 3:7-13

One of the discussions Debbie and I have been having lately has centred around the fact that next March our daughter reaches the age of 21 and what we might do to mark that occasion.

It’s less of a milestone now, since 18 became the age of majority in the UK. (I think I’m right in saying it’s still 21 in the USA, though.) So our daughter will probably not recognise the old ditty,

I’ve got the key of the door, never been 21 before! 

The traditional gift of a key or a key pendant when someone reached 21 signified them becoming an adult and now being responsible enough to have an actual key. Doors opened for them both literally and metaphorically.

In our passage, Jesus is the One who has the key to the door, spiritually:

These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. (Verse 7)

‘The key of David’ alludes to a messianic prophecy in Isaiah 22:22:

The one with the keys, the steward of the household, had authority both to allow and to prohibit admission to the house itself … As the successor to the Davidic kingdom, Jesus has authority to give access, not to the physical Jerusalem, but to the New Jerusalem and the presence of God.[1]

And Jesus explicitly says he has opened the door for the church at Philadelphia:

I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. (Verse 8a)

When we use the metaphor of a door being opened, it is often to mean that an opportunity has presented itself for us. It’s not unusual for Christians to read about the door Jesus has opened for the church at Philadelphia and think that Jesus has given them a particular opportunity. Indeed, I recall reading many years ago the book ‘God’s Smuggler To China’ and learning how this verse encouraged the author that there was an opening to smuggle Bibles into communist China. It’s a thrilling story.

But the original context here does not indicate that Jesus is presenting an opportunity to the Philadelphian church. Remember, he has the key of David, which opens up citizenship of the New Jerusalem and a place in the presence of God.

And that key of David opens the door to three blessings for the church at Philadelphia. There are no criticisms or rebukes of this church, unlike most of the others, just blessings of grace.

Blessing number one is affirmation:

8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

Philadelphia is not a big, strong church. Their city is fragile, and so are they. The city had been devastated economically by the Emperor Domitian. Although they were loyal to the emperor, he had taken over half their vineyards to grow grain that would feed the Roman army. Philadelphia depended economically on their vineyards. This was a devastating blow.[2]

Jesus explicitly says he knows the church has ‘little strength.’ Perhaps they are a mixture of those who have weathered the economic storm and those who have been plunged into financial difficulty and poverty. They are not glamorous. But Jesus loves them. He is pleased with them.

Why? They have access to the presence of God through Jesus and in response to that they have engaged in good deeds out of gratitude, they have kept his word because he is trustworthy, and they have not denied him, despite strong social pressures.

A church doesn’t have to be big and trendy to be loved and cherished by Jesus. If we are small because we have been unfaithful, that is one thing. But if we are small, despite celebrating Jesus who opens the door to God’s presence by his death and resurrection, and if we respond to that in gratitude with our deeds, and faithfully keep God’s word even when it is costly, then you can be sure he is pleased with a congregation like that.

It’s not for us to worry about whether we have flashy programmes, big budgets, and eye-catching publicity. We only need to concern ourselves with whether we are doing good because Jesus has been good to us, and whether we are remaining faithful to his word, because we know he has the words of eternal life and it is therefore worth sticking with his ways, even when society doesn’t like them.

Blessing number two is vindication:

9 I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars – I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you.

The church in Philadelphia is under the cosh. At a guess, what has happened is something like this. Whoever first took the Gospel to that town probably followed the example of the Apostle Paul and shared the message first of all in the local synagogue. You may recall that Paul said that the Gospel is first to the Jew and then to the Gentile, and there are several examples of him pursuing this strategy in the Acts of the Apostles.

But what typically happened was that some responded positively and others with hostility. Some Jews would believe that Jesus was their Messiah, but others would react angrily. Maybe that is what has happened in Philadelphia. The church is suffering unjustly. What does Jesus say to them?

Effectively, his message is, leave this with me. I will sort it out. It’s a version of Paul’s counsel in Romans 12:19, where he quotes Deuteronomy 32:35,’Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.’ No fighting back. No violence in words, thoughts, attitudes, or actions. Leave it in his hands.

My last but one appointment was a mismatch. I certainly made some mistakes there, but from the beginning my gifts were not what several of the more vociferous church members wanted, and it became a painful experience. The trouble was, it was a lovely area to live in and the children had settled in happily to an excellent primary school. But we had to make the painful decision to leave.

When we did so, a friend who at the time was the URC minister of an ecumenical church in the circuit had words for me that I have never forgotten. He pointed me to the opening of Psalm 35:

Contend, Lord, with those who contend with me;
    fight against those who fight against me. (Verse 1)

That’s what I needed to do. Ask God to sort it out. It was no use me getting worked up about it. If I tried to sort it out, then even my purest motives for justice would have been coloured by the emotions of my pain. Best to leave it to God.

It didn’t mean that things were fixed quickly. I know that, because a few months later I was asked back to conduct the funeral of a saintly church member. I was still subjected to nastiness.

But leave it to God. Hand it over. In time, he will sort it out. It is not for us to set the timetable for his justice.

Whenever we are picked on for our faith, let us ask God to contend with those who contend with us. He can do so with pure love. Even his wrath is an expression of his love.

Blessing number three is preservation:

10 Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.

What is this hour of trial that will test the inhabitants of the earth? I don’t think it can be a reference to the Last Judgment. That could hardly be construed as a test. It sounds more to me like a time of general suffering in the world, as opposed to the specific suffering for faith in Jesus that we considered in the last point. I suspect this is the suffering to which all people are vulnerable, from ill health to natural disasters to war and so on. Certainly God uses such times to test people and perhaps to see whether such times will lead people to call out to him.

Christians were not exempted from COVID. Christians are not being spared in Israel and Gaza, or in Ukraine. We are in the thick of these things just like everyone else. In what sense does God preserve his church, then?

Well, it’s not that we are miraculously protected from the suffering of the world. We do not get an escape route in the way that some Christians read Revelation and other New Testament texts to believe that we shall be ‘raptured’ to heaven before the so-called ‘Great Tribulation’ comes on the earth.

But God will always preserve his church. Remember that Jesus said the gates of Hades would not be able to withstand the church. Hades is the place of the dead. Death cannot destroy the church. We are resurrection people!

But neither will death destroy the church on earth. Many of the churches in Revelation disappeared years and centuries later. Places that became strongholds of the church in her early centuries, such as North Africa, are now deserts for Christianity. Yet even though the church may be crushed in some places, she blossoms and flowers elsewhere. In our day, the western church may be in trouble, but the church is growing in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and south-east Asia amongst other places.

To the world, the church of Jesus Christ is the jack-in-the-box that will not stay in the box. To our enemies, their efforts to destroy us are no better than a game of Whack-A-Mole. Hit us in one place, we pop up somewhere else. God will always preserve us. His church is central to his eternal purposes.

Whatever discouragements we face, let us never forget that.

In conclusion, Christ’s faithful church receives many blessings, even in times of trouble: affirmation, vindication, and preservation. How might we respond? Jesus says,

11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.

Keep on keeping on. Continue to be faithful to Jesus’ word.

Simply said and sometimes less simple to put into practice, I know. But let us remember God’s grace and mercy to us in Christ. Let us remember the blessings he promises his faithful people that we have thought about today.

And let those things motivate us to depend on the Holy Spirit to hold on in faith and await Christ’s blessings.

[1] Ian Paul, Revelation (TNTC), p106.

[2] Op. cit., p105.

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Remembrance Sunday: Realism and Hope, Luke 21:5-19 (Ordinary 33 Year C)

Luke 21:5-19

It’s hard to avoid the idea that we live in tumultuous times. Vladimir Putin has on more than one occasion threatened the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine or against Ukraine’s supporters. Our economy is going into a recession. Nurses are relying on food banks to make ends meet. Some food banks are running out of supplies. And don’t get me started on the turnover of Government ministers and Prime Ministers. We have had no peace since COVID.

In our reading, Jesus speaks to disciples and others who he knows will also face tumultuous times. Despite popular opinion (and the headings in the NIV) he is less speaking about the end times of all history and more prophesying what life will be like forty years hence when Rome crushes Jewish resistance and destroys the Jerusalem temple – an event that would feel like the end of the world to his listeners.

And here we are on Remembrance Sunday when we remember the slaughter of World War One, the so-called ‘war to end all wars’, and the Second World War, twenty-odd years later.

What Jesus teaches here helps us live through such crises. For sake of simplicity – and I confess it has been ‘one of those weeks’ again – I am taking my points from Ian Paul’s excellent article on this passage.

He makes six points. Yes, six – but they are each brief and to the point. Here goes.

Firstly, however big the catastrophe, God’s purposes are bigger. It’s natural to be frightened, to despair, to ask questions, and to consider desperate actions. But nothing knocks God’s purposes off course. God prevails. God has more free will than any of us, including those who use their free will for the most unspeakable evil.

Whether it’s the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, the Cuban missile crisis, or the threats of a little despot in Moscow, God always holds the trump card. His kingdom has come and is coming. He will prevail. Keep your faith in him.

Secondly, don’t be surprised if we’re picked on.

12 ‘But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name.

Jesus prepares his listeners for possible persecution. We know that a few years before Rome took down the Jewish revolt there was the great fire in Rome, and the Emperor Nero made the Christians into scapegoats. It is a regrettable but common action by evil people to pick on minorities and victimise them or pass the blame.

In our day we have seen similar things happen, where minorities have been targeted. Only on Wednesday this past week, the fast food chain KFC mistakenly sent a promotional message out in Germany that said this:

“It’s memorial day for Kristallnacht! Treat yourself with more tender cheese on your crispy chicken. Now at KFCheese!”

That their systems should accidentally put together the anniversary of the destruction of Jewish synagogues and other organisations, marking the time when it was no longer safe to be publicly Jewish in Germany, is an horrendous reminder of evil regimes picking on minorities.

True Christianity will always be a minority. If we are pursued unjustly, let us not be surprised. But as with catastrophes generally, let us remember that God is sovereign and in charge. We may or may not escape trouble, but he will bring good out of it.

Thirdly, give testimony to Jesus. If we do end up on the wrong side of the authorities or of those wielding power, do not be ashamed of Jesus.

13 And so you will bear testimony to me. 14 But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. 15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict.

Trouble becomes our opportunity to tell that powers that be that their only hope of salvation is not in their own might but in Jesus Christ and him crucified. The power of the Holy Spirit comes to us in our difficulty and inspires us with divine wisdom. This may or may not help us in the short term, but be sure that the testimony will be there for the long run and be recalled down the generations. Our words are not just for our contemporaries.

Fourthly, stay rooted in Jesus.

8 He replied: ‘Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, “I am he,” and, “The time is near.” Do not follow them. 9 When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.’

Of course I hope we’d stay rooted in the teaching of Jesus anyway, but all sorts of people make outlandish claims that exploit a time of crisis or catastrophe. That does mean they are sound or true. Jesus and his teaching remains our plumbline all that is good, beautiful, true, and worthwhile.

Fifthly, expect division.

16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 Everyone will hate you because of me.

When the pressure is on it will be on everyone and it will come close to home, even into the home. Remember how before the Berlin Wall fell people did not even know whether they could trust members of their own family, because they might be members of the dreaded Stasi. They could be reported to the authorities and imprisoned.

You may say this is not good news, and it isn’t, but what Jesus does here is he prepares us. Don’t be surprised by these terrible things, he says. This is why it is important to stay rooted in him and his teaching. If you don’t, then you will succumb to the pressures and may turn. But if you do stay rooted in Jesus, then you have a solid basis for holding firm even in the face of the worst betrayals.

Sixthly and finally, endure to the end.

18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 Stand firm, and you will win life.

When our kids were at school, it was recognised that the renewed emphasis in recent years on exam success – plus, I would suggest, the pressures of pushy middle-class parents – meant it was important for the school to teach them how to be resilient.

You hear a lot about resilience today. There has been so much talk about mental health issues resulting from the COVID-19 lockdowns. You can find all sorts of practitioners offering to teach resilience to adults as well.

And Jesus calls his followers to a spiritual resilience. Stand firm, he says. Other parts of the New Testament make similar calls on Christian disciples. To be faithful is to stand firm. Be resilient in your faith.

And although Jesus doesn’t explicitly say so here, the assumption in the New Testament about standing firm is that like all the difficult things we are called to do as Christians, we are promised the help of the Holy Spirit in fulfilling what Jesus calls us to do.

It doesn’t mean we won’t be knocked down. It does mean we shall keep getting back up to our feet.

Conclusion

You may think that I am painting a gloomy picture. What I want to do is bring before you a vision of realism combined with hope.

The famous writer on business leadership, Jim Collins, spoke about what he called the ‘Stockdale Paradox.’ This is how Carey Nieuwhof paraphrases it:

Jim Stockdale was an American Vice Admiral captured and imprisoned during the Vietnam War. He was held and tortured for seven years.

Stockdale said the first people to die in captivity were the optimists, who kept thinking things would get better quickly and they’d be released. “They died of a broken heart,” Stockdale said.

Instead, Stockdale argued, the key to survival was to combine realism and hope.  In Stockdale’s words:

“This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end–-which you can never afford to lose–-with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

There is no getting around the fact that catastrophes in life are grim. We cannot afford to play pretend under the pretence of hope.

But as Christians we do have good news for those seasons. God is still in charge of the universe, and his Spirit enables to continue witnessing to Jesus and enduring in faith.

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From Crowd Member To Disciple, Luke 14:25-35 (Ordinary 23 Year C)

Luke 14:25-35

Last week on the video and then in person at Knaphill (in front of my new Superintendent Minister) I said that a statement on the Methodist website claiming to sum up the good news was a half-truth at best. The words were,

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

I said that wasn’t the good news according to Jesus, who tended to say things such as ‘Repent and believe the good news’. Yes, it’s true that God takes the first step in loving us before we ever deserve it, but if it is to mean anything we need to respond. And that can be costly.

We see something similar in today’s reading. Here there is a crowd travelling with Jesus but he says that if you want to become a disciple, there is a price to pay.

And that’s a clue. The issue is, am I in the crowd or am I a disciple? To be in the crowd you just have to hear the attractive message that God loved us before we ever loved him and be intrigued. But if you want to be a disciple, then you have some big decisions to make in response to that love.

The story is told of a child who asked, “Mummy, do all fairy stories end with the words ‘And they all lived happily ever after’?”

Mum replied, “No, some end with the words, ‘When I became a Christian all my problems disappeared.’”

What do we need to weigh up if we are to be a disciple, rather than a crowd member? Three things:

Firstly, the Cross.

26 ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even their own life – such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Carrying the cross is paralleled with hating your own life. Because ‘carrying our cross’ doesn’t mean enduring whatever pain comes our way through life, it means being on the way to die. In Jesus’ time, someone carrying their cross was on their way to execution. Their life had effectively ended.

I think it was Winston Churchill who said there was a difference between something that was worth living for and something that was worth dying for. And a politician of a very different hue from Churchill, namely Tony Benn, took this further when he said that he preferred those who had a belief worth dying for to those who had a belief they thought was worth killing for.

And I wish I didn’t have to say this, but that is what Jesus says. Being his disciple involves being willing to die for our faith.

Of course, we frequently remark on how grateful we are that we don’t have to face that choice in our society, and we certainly should be grateful. For in one sense we are a minority, an abnormality. Historically and in the present day there are so many societies where faith in Jesus and in his teaching is seen as a threat that millions of our brothers and sisters live with this reality on a daily basis.

Each week I receive an email from Christian Solidarity Worldwide in which they urge Christians to pray and act for those suffering for their faith around the globe. In the last week we have been praying for Christians in Pakistan who are falsely accused of blasphemy against the Islamic prophet Muhammad, a crime that carries the death penalty. People with petty disputes against someone try to invoke this law.

And we have also been praying for those who have been forcibly ‘disappeared’ by government forces or terrorists around the world. These have included Malaysia, Peru, Nigeria, China, and other places. Some of these people have been missing for years.

Is our faith worth dying for?

Secondly, counting the Cost.

Here is a quotation from the tourist guide to St John’s College, Cambridge, referring to its magnificent chapel:

The 19th century chapel was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, apart from the tower which was an afterthought made possible by a former member of St John’s called Henry Hoare, who unfortunately died before he could pay for it all!

Similarly, Jesus talks about working out whether you can afford to pay for a tower before you build it, or a king calculating whether he can afford to wage war against another king. He concludes,

33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.

There is going to be a cost if we decide to follow Jesus. Although John Wesley found that some of his converts became better off because they gave up spending money on worthless and unhealthy things, nevertheless the way of Jesus has a cost.

It will call us to be more generous with people in need.

It will sometimes have a negative effect on our popularity, because people will mock Jesus and anyone who follows him.

It may have a cost in the world of work or even a social organisation where following Jesus may involve taking an ethical stand. We might have promotion blocked. We might not be able to hold office.

It may have a cost when family members or friends think we are crazy and dissociate themselves from us.

So, Jesus says, if you’re going to move from the crowd to the disciples you’d better count the cost.

Right now, many of us are counting the cost quite literally as we face a level of inflation that we haven’t seen for decades and wonder what the coming winter has in store for us. We are trimming the fat from our budgets, and cutting our energy use as much as we can. These are sensible things to do.

And if we do that in the economic world, should we not also do it in the life of the Spirit? What will we need to give up in order to follow Jesus?

Thirdly and finally, the Commitment.

What Jesus says at the end about salt losing its saltiness (verses 34-35) is a matter of commitment, not chemistry. As one scholar puts it:

The final saying about saltiness makes less sense to us than to Jesus and his audience, since we cannot quite imagine salt becoming unsalty. But salt from the Dead Sea was in fact a mixture of all sorts of things, salt itself only being one ingredient. If the salt crystals themselves were dissolved away, then the remaining residue would be useless, fit for nothing.[1]

So what is Jesus saying to us when he warns us not to let the salt lose its saltiness? He’s saying, don’t let your faith in Jesus get dissolved in the wider culture. It’s a call to retain a commitment to our distinctiveness as Christians.

As faith in Jesus began to spread across the Roman Empire, there were certainly situations where the temptation before the disciples was to dissolve their commitment in order to have an easier or a quieter life. One example was that under Roman law, Judaism had some special privileges which were not extended to the followers of Jesus. If they wanted an easier life, they could roll back all their emphasis on Jesus and just say they were good Jews. That’s what the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament is all about, and it’s why the writer reminds them of the supremacy of Jesus.

Or another temptation was when good Roman citizens, whatever their religion, were enjoined to burn a pinch of incense to the emperor and say the words, ‘Caesar is Lord.’ Surely just saying that once every now and again would be harmless? But it was a denial of who Jesus was, so to do it would be to dissolve their Christian faith. They had to resist, whatever the cost.

Today we face our own temptations to dissolve our commitment to Jesus so that we fit in with society. It can come in various forms, urging us to change our attitudes to money and possessions, to career and ambitions, to sex and relationships.

And sometimes people in the church tell us that the best way to reach people today for Christ is to adapt our faith to today’s standards. But given what Jesus says here about the risk of salt losing its saltiness, we have to say that such a strategy is spiritual suicide. Jesus calls us to a distinctive commitment.

Conclusion

You know, I wrote this sermon with a heavy heart. Not another one where I’m talking all about the cost and the sacrifice of following Jesus? Surely there is some good news somewhere rather than having to proclaim something that can sound so austere?

But the reality is our own culture is moving further and further away from Christianity as its basis. We do need to be aware of dangers that may soon stalk us.

But beyond all that is that this call to costly commitment is only in the light of the costly commitment Jesus gave to us. It does us no harm to remember the Gospel message that Jesus gave up the glory of heaven for an obscure life and death on the Cross.

May the Holy Spirit grant us courage when the only response of gratitude we can show is one that involves us paying a high price.

[1] https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/the-costly-grace-of-following-jesus-in-luke-14/

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Good News in a Bad News Story (Mark 6:14-29) Ordinary 15 Year B

Mark 6:14-29

I expect that, like me, most or all of you have been besieged in the last few years with scam messages – some by phone, some by email, others by text message.

The other day my mobile phone began ringing and it identified the calling number as being in Czech Republic. I have no connections with that country. At a push, I could name one or two of their footballers, but that’s about it. So I ignored the call.

It nevertheless went to my voicemail, and I later retrieved a message accusing me of misusing my National Insurance number and demanding I press 1 on my keypad to speak to an officer. Well, not likely! And all the more so, given that much of my work in the Civil Service was to do with National Insurance numbers! I can’t say I lost any sleep over it.

But sometimes these messages hope to trick people by playing on a possible sense of guilt. That’s certainly the idea behind those messages which say they’ve loaded software on your computer and they know all about your viewing of pornographic websites. The criminals hope that someone who has done that will be so terrified that they will be duped into the scam.

When there is lurking guilt over our past actions, all sorts of things can trigger a response of fear. I think that’s what happens in our reading when Herod Antipas hears about the ministry of Jesus. He thinks that John the Baptist, whom he ordered to be beheaded, has been raised from the dead (verses 14-16) and perhaps he’s come back to haunt him or expose him.

This is not the same Herod as who tried to kill the infant Jesus – that was the so-called Herod the Great. This is one of his sons. Herod Antipas proved to be every bit as ruthless as his wicked father, but he didn’t have the same political skill. He wasn’t actually a king, but he liked to be known as one – hence ‘King Herod’, as Mark calls him, is an ironic title. He also loved luxury and magnificent architecture. Jesus summed up his character in Luke’s Gospel when he called him ‘that fox’[1].

If you want an example of his lack of political skill, the divorce which John condemns morally here got Herod into trouble politically as well. His first wife, whom he so cruelly dumped for his sister-in-law, was the daughter of Aretas, king of Nabatea, a region east of the Red Sea. Aretas took out reprisals against Herod, inflicting a crushing military defeat on him in AD 36. Three years later the Emperor Caligula had had enough of Antipas, and he banished him and Herodias to Gaul (modern-day France)[2].

Ultimately, the life of Herod Antipas is a story of someone who was never willing to be free of his baser instincts. They harmed him and others. Imagine the innocent people killed when Aretas took out his reprisals – all because Antipas wouldn’t control his lusts. Imagine the pain of John’s disciples and family at his execution, because Antipas wanted to suppress his conscience and also made such a foolish vow in front of witnesses to his daughter.

When we would rather pursue our own selfish desires there are costs not just to ourselves but to others as well. It’s surely clear that one of the reasons for the huge rates of family breakdown in our society is to do with that. I know the situation is more complicated than that, but by way of illustration consider this: Becky more or less forgot Father’s Day this year. Why? Because she had planned to go out that evening with five friends. None of those five friends had a father living at home, and so Father’s Day just wasn’t on their agenda, and hence Becky, mingling with these friends, forgot too. Obviously, I don’t know why all her friends’ parents split up, but inevitably I wonder.

The life of Herod Antipas, then, is a sombre warning for us about what life looks like and what life leads to when we live without the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Sin has devastating consequences. If we cherish our sin above other things, we wreak havoc in our lives and the lives of others, both those close to us and strangers.

And that’s without even talking about the eternal consequences of choosing sin over grace. In some respects the consequences in this life can be variable. Depending on how just the society is and how much power the offender has, someone may or may not get away with brutality or slavery to one’s own senses and appetites.

But eternity is different. There, a verdict is certain and so is a sentence. It involves eternal separation from God, the source of love, truth, and beauty. What kind of existence would that be?

But while that sentence may be certain it is not inevitable. What Herod Antipas needed was grace. It was tantalisingly close to him, if only he had accepted it. John the Baptist’s call to repentance was the call to put himself in the place where he could receive the free and unmerited grace of God. The ministry of Jesus that he heard about and which evidently troubled his conscience would have done the same, only more.

When we struggle with unhealthy desires, or with good desires gone bad, there is a remedy, and it is the grace of God. For in Christ God looks at each of us with favour yet in the full knowledge of our sin, providing forgiveness at the Cross. There is hope for us when we struggle with our besetting sins. There is hope for those who are addicted to their passions. That hope is found only in Jesus. To him we turn in our own need; to him we point when others are in similar need.

So, if one thing we learn from history in this passage is about our need of grace, what might we learn from the context of the reading?

You see, all we’ve done here is read this particular episode. But this story is the filling in a sandwich, something Mark does quite a bit. He puts one narrative inside another. So, if this is the filling, we need to look at what forms the slices of bread.

The filling ends with the decapitation of John, his head presented on the same kind of platter from which Herod’s dinner guests had been eating, and then we get the grief of John’s disciples as they bury his body (verses 28-29). The taste of the filling is pretty horrible.

It makes us think of persecutions right up to this day, where evil regimes and organisations seek to ‘decapitate’ a movement by targeting its leaders[3]. Only the other day I read the story of how the Chinese police had arrested the pastor of a church under false charges of fraud, so that he was removed from his congregation. It used to be that the Chinese authorities targeted the unregistered churches, but now they are also going after the churches that registered with the government as well.

And every week, my prayer email from Christian Solidarity Worldwide documents similar stories around the world – from obvious places like China, North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran to Nigeria, Mexico, India, Sri Lanka and many other nations.

We often give thanks for the freedom with which we can worship God, but we live in a generation where across the world there has never been more persecution of those who own the name of Christ. It’s something the first readers of Mark’s Gospel would have understood well, living in Rome where Claudius had expelled Jews, including leaders of some early Christian groups, and where Nero was using the Christians as scapegoats. Many of them would face the same fate as John the Baptist.

As I said, it’s an ugly filling to the sandwich. It’s enough to cause despair.

But that’s why you need the slices of bread on either side. Because Mark has sandwiched this inside the account of Jesus sending his disciples two by two on mission to villages to proclaim and demonstrate the kingdom of God. In verse 13, immediately before our reading, we hear that they cast out many demons and healed a lot of people; in verse 30, the verse immediately after our reading, they return to Jesus and tell him all their amazing stories.

Therefore if the filling of the sandwich is a sombre warning that being a disciple can come at a terrible cost, the bread of the sandwich tells us that no matter what happens, no matter how much evil forces seek to decapitate the kingdom of God movement, the mission always goes on. God will not allow his mission to be defeated by the forces of evil.

Here is the good news for the faithful believing church. Whatever attempts are made to curb the influence of the Gospel, be it secular opponents, hostile groups from other religions, or even those within the church structures want the Gospel to capitulate to modern cultural norms, the assurance here is that the Gospel will prevail. We could lose our leaders, we could lose our buildings, we could lose our finances and charitable status, but Jesus will never stop building his church.

This apparently gruesome tale, then, is a good news story. There is good news for God’s faithful people even in the face of opposition and suffering. And there is good news for sinners who will cast themselves upon the mercy of God in Jesus Christ.

[1] Luke 13:32

[2] On Herod Antipas, see James R Edwards, The Gospel According To Mark, p184.

[3] I take this idea from Ian Paul’s blog post What Is God Doing During The Beheading Of John The Baptist?

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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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