Tag: sacrifice

Journey To Jerusalem 5: The Blessings Of Unity, Psalm 133 (Lent 6 Palm Sunday)

Psalm 133

1 How good and pleasant it is

    when God’s people live together in unity!

‘God’s people’? If you know this psalm in older versions of the Bible you will know this verse as ‘How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity.’ Strictly, that is an accurate translation. But today, with the concern for inclusive language, just to render it as ‘brothers’ would in the eyes of many exclude women. We want to get the same truth across in a different way. 

But the choice here of ‘God’s people’ as a modern substitute loses the emphasis on family. ‘Brothers and sisters’ would be better, maybe ‘siblings’, depending on your views about transgender and non-binary. 

Because it really is a miracle sometimes when brothers and sisters live together in unity! How many of you fell out with your sisters or brothers when you were young? My sister and I certainly did. It took growing and maturing, perhaps also along with a shared faith, to leave our childhood squabbles behind. 

You would hope, then, that in a church, a gathering of those who are brothers and sisters in the family of God, that there would be the mature love for one another as we are bound together in unity by the love of God in Christ. 

But you know and I know that it isn’t always true. Many churches are more like the childhood siblings engaging in petty arguments. People fall out with one another. They make disparaging remarks about someone behind their backs. Strong personalities clash and neither side backs down. Gossip. Negative comments are repeated without checking whether they are true. 

You may think this all sounds trivial. It isn’t. This immature and cavalier attitude to our unity destroys the church, because it undermines our very identity as those who are united in Christ. Habits like gossip are cancer in the church. 

What can we do about it? Jesus had a fair bit to say about how we handle our differences, and we could consider them some time. At one church in a past circuit I made it a rule that no-one could bring a complaint about someone to the Church Council if they had not already tried to talk it over with the person they were unhappy with. I did so, because someone drove a couple out of that church by orally attacking them at the Council without warning. 

But the Psalmist doesn’t offer solutions here. Instead, he (most likely it was a man in that society) offers a compelling vision of what unity among the believers looks like and accomplishes. There are two images he gives us that make us want to aspire to greater unity in the faith. They are the oil on Aaron’s beard and the dew on Mount Hermon. Put like that, they sound culturally alien to our world today. But it’s quite easy to see what the Psalmist is getting at, and as a result we can be inspired and challenged by the vision he puts before us. 

The oil on Aaron’s beard

2 It is like precious oil poured on the head,

    running down on the beard,

running down on Aaron’s beard,

    down on the collar of his robe.

Aaron, the brother of Moses, and his male descendants were set aside to be the priests of Israel. For this they were anointed and consecrated with holy oil poured on their heads. Therefore, when the psalmist says that the unity of God’s family is like the oil on Aaron’s beard he is saying that unity is a priestly thing for the whole family of God. 

But what would it mean for us as the family of God to be priestly? Are we to offer sacrifices? Well, not in the sense of sacrifices for sin. They are all fulfilled, completed, and replaced by the death of Jesus on the Cross. We can, however, offer sacrifices of praise, according to the New Testament. 

That will also include making personal sacrifices for one another in Christian love. I saw that at my first theological college when a student from South East Asia lost her mother back at home and a bunch of students, who mostly didn’t have much money, rallied around to make sure she had her return air fare. I saw it in my last circuit when a Nepalese church member was made stateless and the church rallied around to make sure he could afford to apply for British citizenship. We even got that campaign into the local press and gained community support. 

But the other ongoing part of the priest’s life is prayer for the people of God. And that’s also where we as brothers and sisters in the family of God can be priestly together. It is our privilege to bring one another to God in prayer. 

Yes, of course we all have direct access to God in prayer through the Cross of Christ, and you might therefore wonder why we would ask someone else to pray for us. However, this is about mutual support as part of our unity in Christ. Sometimes there are other ordinary tasks in life that we can normally accomplish but where we need someone else’s help from time to time, especially if we are feeling weak. Prayer is no different.

This came home to me with some force in one pastoral situation at a former church. One lovely couple really did have what the late Queen once called an ‘annus horribilis’, a terrible year. In the space of twelve months, they both lost both of their parents, and then a beloved uncle also died. Five close bereavements in a year. Can you imagine the toll it took on them? 

In one conversation, the wife shared with me that this was a season where she found it hard to pray, but she was glad to be carried by the prayers of the church. That’s the oil on Aaron’s beard: a priestly ministry of prayer for one another that enhances our unity. 

One other comment on this theme is to point out that you will note I am talking about praying for other Christians, not praying against them. There are some Christians who default too quickly to the latter, effectively using prayer as a way of cursing their brothers and sisters. There are limited extreme circumstances where we might pray against the influence of a brother or sister Christian, but usually it is where they are damaging the unity of the church. 

I had one such instance early in my ministry where one of the church organists deliberately sided with a couple who were stirring trouble in the congregation. I learned that the organist and the husband in the couple were both Freemasons in the local lodge. They carried a greater loyalty to one another there than to the church. (There are other reasons to say that Freemasonry is incompatible with Christianity, not least the way it makes human merit rather than divine grace the way to salvation.)


Eventually, I was driven to extreme prayer about the organist and I prayed, ‘Lord, please either change him or move him. I’d far rather you changed him, but if he will not change then please move him.’ A week later, he and his wife put their house up for sale and a few months later they moved a hundred miles away. 

But as I say, prayers like that are the exception. Normally, the oil on Aaron’s beard means that we are blessing one another in prayer and thus deepening our unity together in Christ as his family. 

The dew of Hermon

3 It is as if the dew of Hermon

    were falling on Mount Zion.

For there the Lord bestows his blessing,

    even life for evermore.

It’s time for a bit of geography. Mount Hermon is in Lebanon, to the north of Israel. The climate is not quite as hot. Unlike peaks in the Holy Land, Mount Hermon is a place where snow can settle at the top. It thus generates cool water in a way unknown in the Promised Land. The dew on Mount Hermon is thus a symbol for being refreshed. 

There is a link, says the psalmist, between our unity as believers and experiencing a sense of refreshment in our lives. When we are one in Christ, we pull together, and we look out for one another. 

It’s something we have experienced in the last few weeks. Both ministry and life in general have been profoundly affected by the damage that was caused to the manse and the necessary measures while it has been repaired. Having had to live a distance away has not only meant the strange combination of doing more decamping than you would for a self-catering holiday but less than a full house move, the extra travel combined with road works and road closures to negotiate on our routes has made for getting in substantially later at night and leaving for meetings significantly earlier in the morning. You will not be surprised to know that one effect upon us of such an arrangement has been an increased tiredness. 

We have therefore been so glad when people in the churches and circuit have shown particular understanding of our situation. People have not asked more of us than they had to. Some specifically told us not to worry about certain regular commitments for the duration. These attitudes have refreshed us. They have helped us cope with a difficult situation. I can think of other appointments I’ve been in where people would still have wanted their pound of flesh out of me, regardless. 

And you know what? When members of the church family decide they are going to do things that refresh others it draws us closer together. The opposite pulls us apart. 

Therefore it’s worth us all pondering what we can do to refresh our brothers and sisters in the family of Jesus. Is there a way we can show understanding to someone in difficulty? Is there someone carrying a burden where we can take some of their load? Is there somebody having to cope with a challenging situation where a gesture of service would make a difference to them? 

Actually, let me suggest to you a simple prayer we can pray each day. In fact, this one goes wider than just refreshing our brothers and sisters in Christ: there are no boundaries to it. But it will bless the Body of Christ and engender deeper unity when applied there. The prayer is this:

Lord, please show me who I can bless today.

It’s really that simple. Imagine the effect if we all prayed that every day. Imagine what kind of a spiritual family we would become. 

Then put it together with the priestly actions indicated by the oil on Aaron’s beard where we are praying for each other and sacrificing for each other. Can you have a vision for the kind of community we would grow into? Can you envisage what it would be like for strangers to encounter a spiritual family like that? How might they react? 

Yes,

How good and pleasant it is

    when God’s people live together in unity!

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Paul’s Favourite Church 4: Shining Like Stars (Philippians 2:12-30)

Philippians 2:12-30

I’ve talked before about how my late father was an amateur astronomer, and how he shared his love of the subject with me as a child. I never picked up his level of interest, but he was understandably proud of one of my sister’s boys who went on to study astrophysics as part of his first degree.

But I still have fond memories of gazing up into a clear night sky with him, while he pointed out various constellations, and the names of the stars.

When my daughter as a teenager started asking me the same questions when we were walking home at night from her youth club, I installed an app on my phone that we could point to the sky and it would show us what all the stars and constellations were.

And recently my wife has been noticing these heavenly objects when we have been out on late night dog walks. So for her birthday I bought her a planisphere, a printed resource that helps you identify the planets and the stars.

I still get a thrill – and a poignant memory – when I see Orion or The Plough. I often think of Psalm 8 and get a sense of wonder and even of worship:

3 When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?

In today’s passage Paul doesn’t call us to gaze in wonder at the stars but figuratively to emulate them:

Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky (verse 15b)

In the world, our calling is to shine like stars in a dark sky. We are to be those points of light in the darkness. Rather than just moan about all the darkness around us, we get on with shining with the light of Christ.

We do this, says Paul, under his call to

continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.

God has saved us for a purpose. He has made us new. Now we live out that newness of life – but not on our own, because God is at work in us to make it possible. And this will make us like shining stars in the darkness of the world.

So what qualities does Paul say will enable the Philippians to shine like stars in their dark world? I think we’ll find that things haven’t changed that much.

Firstly, kindness:

14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’

Well, that should be a shoo-in, shouldn’t it? Don’t grumble or argue.

Unfortunately, it isn’t in some churches. It is more widespread than some of us would like to believe, especially when we tell ourselves that our churches are friendly and welcoming.

Now I freely admit that as a minister I am sensitive to this one, because we church leaders are often the target of the grumbling, when people don’t like what we do or what we don’t do. You may know the old joke where the question is: ‘What’s the favourite Sunday lunch in a Christian household?’ The answer? ‘Roast preacher.’

And I also know that some of this grumbling comes our way because in these days of declining and aging congregations, people pin massive hopes on a new minister being the one to turn around the losses. Which is why at one previous circuit welcome service I quoted the famous line from Monty Python’s Life Of Brian: ‘He’s not the Messiah, he’s just a very naughty boy.’ The job of Messiah was taken two thousand years ago.

I’m also sensitive to this, though, not for the barbs thrown at people like me, but because in my position I hear the stories of those who have left a church, having been wounded by cruel words and actions. Do you know the damage caused by a harsh word in church?

More positively, did you notice just how highly Paul rates the idea of avoiding grumbling and arguing? He says it contributes to us being ‘blameless and pure.’ So often when we think about what makes us blameless and pure we think about the avoidance of certain ‘big’ sins, not least those involving sexual impurity. And I’m certainly not denying that these things are important.

But here, Paul says that if we want to be ‘blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation’’, then saying no to grumbling and arguing in the church is also part of this.

And doing this also makes us shine: we become ‘without fault in a warped and crooked generation’. A Christian community that chooses kindness over harshness will stand out in society. Indeed, we shine like stars in the dark sky.

When we are among our friends outside the church, can we truly say that the congregation we belong to is such a wonderful place of kindness and care, where people are not ripped apart by the words of others but rather are built up? Wouldn’t it be great if our churches were known in their communities as the places where people receive kindness?

Secondly, faithfulness:

Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky 16 as you hold firmly to the word of life.

Faithfulness – to the Gospel: ‘hold firmly to the word of life.’ This isn’t just an internal thing in the church, by the way: it’s also outward-facing, since it can also be translated, ‘hold out the word of life.’ In the church and in the world, we are called to hold faithfully to the Gospel, because that will make us shine like stars in the dark sky.

For too long now, we have heard church leaders say that we should adapt our message to the society we live in, because parts of it are unacceptable today. But the moment we just make Christianity like a religious version of the wider culture, then there is no longer any reason to join the church. Why join something that is just like how you are already, anyway? There is no point.

No: the only hope for the church to be like shining stars in the dark sky is if we keep to the Gospel, even and especially where it differs from the culture in which we live.

And if you don’t believe me, then listen to the respected historian Tom Holland. He has been on quite a journey in his thinking and in his life. In 2016, he wrote,

It took me a long time to realise my morals are not Greek or Roman, but thoroughly, and proudly, Christian.

He realised that we owe the good things in our society to our Christian foundations and began an excursion into the message of Christianity.

Recently, he has publicly urged churches to ‘keep Christianity weird’, and to ‘preach the weird stuff’. All those crucial values we cherish actually have their basis in the weird stuff of Christianity like the miraculous, not least the resurrection, ascension, and second coming of Jesus.

The church leaders and members who trumpet how the resurrection is just a way of saying someone stays in our memory, or that the ascension is a fairy-tale and the second coming is science fiction are not doing the church any good at all. They are doing the church a grave dis-service. They are removing all power from the Gospel and leaving it like a limp lettuce leaf.

If anyone comes into your church’s pulpit and starts preaching this stuff, do not just dismiss it and say, ‘It’s interesting to hear diverse opinions’, or ‘Let’s live with contradictory convictions.’ No! See them for what they are: wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Let’s stay faithful to the Gospel in all its weirdness: that’s where the power to transform lives is.

Thirdly, service:

Here I’m thinking of what Paul says at the end of the reading about Timothy and Epaphroditus. Paul says that Timothy will be concerned for the Philippians’ welfare, that he doesn’t spend his time on his own interests, and he has a track record of serving (verses 20-22). Epaphroditus, who didn’t enjoy good health, almost died for the Gospel and risked his life to help Paul (verses 26-30).

It’s not enough to be ‘nice’, which might be what you would think had Paul stopped after his admonition to avoid grumbling and arguing. A faith based on Jesus, who suffered and died on the Cross, cannot be reduced to ‘niceness.’ Timothy and Epaphroditus, with their modelling of selflessness and sacrifice, show such a faith in action.

People like Timothy and Epaphroditus are true Christian heroes. These are the kind of people we rightly celebrate. We write books about them. We use them as sermon illustrations! They are exceptional.

But why are they exceptional? Isn’t their example simply what should be the Christian norm? Aren’t their lives of service, sacrifice, and risk-taking the natural consequences of Jesus’ teaching and example?

And if they are, then why aren’t more of us like them?

Is it that it’s easier and more comfortable to opt for niceness rather than sacrificial servanthood? Have we bought into ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ but not the rest of him? Are we keen to scoop up the blessings of faith while not taking the responsibilities and the challenges?

Jesus certainly shone like a star in the dark sky, and so as we work out our own salvation, that is going to involve beginning to imitate him. That’s what Timothy and Epaphroditus did. They found ways to imitate Christ, and in doing so they shone brightly.

So I wonder in what ways Jesus is calling us to imitate him? Who are we being called to serve, as Timothy did? For whom are we being called to take risks, as Epaphroditus did?

And let’s remember that both of these men had their frailties. We read explicitly here that Epaphroditus had his health issues. We read in other New Testament Epistles that Timothy was timid. These were not people who were somehow genetically wired to be heroes. They had the same imperfections and weaknesses that we have.

Much as we might like to believe otherwise, the New Testament doesn’t have two categories of Christians: the ordinary ones, for whom a fairly modest standard of lifestyle is required, and the keen ones, who are held to higher standards, and in whose reflected glory we can bask. Jesus never made divisions like that.

The call to kindness, to faithfulness to the Gospel, and to sacrificial service is for all of us. Do we want to shine like stars in the dark sky? Or do we want our light to be snuffed out?

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Mission in the Bible 5: The River from the Temple (Ezekiel 47:1-12)

I’m back, although not fully recovered yet. So here is a slightly shorter than usual Bible talk. Please excuse the regular water-sipping in the video!

Ezekiel 47:1-12

If you ask most average Christians what the main purpose of the Church is, the most popular answer is, worship.

But in this life that is at best an incomplete answer. It may be true in the life of the world to come, but right now there is more than worship to do as the Church. There is mission as well as worship.

Look in our passage how the living waters, the river of God, ultimately coming to symbolise the Holy Spirit, may start flowing at the Temple in Ezekiel’s dream but they don’t remain there. They flow out to bless the surrounding world.

Let’s look at the flow.

Firstly, in the river beginning at the Temple, mission starts at the place of sacrifice.

Ezekiel’s dream or vision is of a rebuilt Temple after the return of Israel from exile in Babylon. It was the centre of worship and the place of sacrifice. Therefore, this vision says that sacrifice is not just about the benefits for the personal worshipper. It goes out and beyond.

As Christians, we see this most clearly in the Cross of Christ. His death ends all need for sacrifices for sin. It was the ‘one full, perfect, and sufficient oblation’ as the Anglican Book of Common Prayer puts it.

We receive the benefits of the Cross when we come to faith and when we confess our sins every week. It is comforting and healing to know that this is the sign of God’s enduring and faithful love for us, the love that anchors our lives.

But for Ezekiel, the river of life begins at the place of sacrifice. And for Christians, the Cross also means that God will pour out his Spirit, and when he does the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice will be seen as not merely for us but for the whole world. It is what happened at the first Christian Pentecost. The Spirit falls, Peter preaches the Gospel, people of many nations hear, and thousands profess faith.

The first thing to remember, then, is that our blessings are not for us alone. That’s why I can’t stomach attitudes to church that sound like consumerism: what’s in it for me? What do I get out of this, never mind anybody else? Perhaps one of the classic examples is the older person in a declining church who says, ‘All I care about is that this church is here to see me out.’ That is a selfishness that cannot sit in front of the Cross of Christ.

Secondly, also in the river beginning at the Temple, we see that mission is launched in worship.

The river of God, the water of life, the Holy Spirit, does not simply bring joy, refreshment, and power to worship. The river flows from the place of worship to the world.

Again, there’s a challenge to our consumer attitudes to church. Worship is not just a personal bless-up. Yes, there are times when God blesses us graciously out of his sheer love for us. And sure, we often come in great need of blessing ourselves. But worship is not fundamentally a ‘getting’ experience. It is a giving experience. And it takes us beyond Sunday, into Monday and on from there.

What happens on Sunday is part of what equips us for Monday. That’s why an organisation like the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity came up with something called ‘This Time Tomorrow’, where a church member is interviewed in the Sunday service, asked what they will be doing in twenty-four hours’ time, and how people might best pray for what they will be doing then.

Or come with me to an American church that has, over the exit from the building, put the words ‘Servants’ Entrance.’ We go out from worship on mission in the world, showing God’s redeeming love in our words and our deeds.

The Holy Spirit is always thrusting us out into the world with the love of God. In the Gospels, after Jesus has his amazing spiritual experience at his baptism, he next goes into the wilderness. Some English translations rather tamely translate the Greek to say that the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, but it’s actually more forceful than that. In at least one of the Gospels, the writer literally says that the Holy Spirit threw Jesus out into the wilderness. The ‘throw’ part is related to where we get our word ‘ball’, and it makes me think of a cricketer in the field on the boundary, positively hurling the ball all the way back to the wicketkeeper with considerable force.

You and I have come to worship today for a purpose. Yes, we may need some blessing or comfort, but what we haven’t come for is, so to speak, just to be tickled by God. We have come to encounter the Holy Spirit, who will energise us for our daily witness in the world.

Thirdly, in the river flowing from the Temple, we see that mission is to transform creation.

The river gets deeper and deeper, even to the point where no-one can swim in it. And for someone like me who can’t swim at all in the first place, that’s scary!

But it’s scary in a good way. What we see here is the awesome power of God transforming creation. Take the reference to life teeming in the Dead Sea, where the extreme saltiness is usually a killer. I visited the Holy Land in 1989, and on the day we went to the Dead Sea, some of my friends got into the water and floated – I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of that there. But for me, the salt was so intense even in the air that my eyes stung and I couldn’t even look in the direction of the water to see my friends, let alone take photos on my camera. And I am a keen photographer.

That’s how salty it gets there. So for Ezekiel to see the salt water become fresh and be filled with fish and other creatures is an image of a miracle.

Then look at the trees on the riverbank, which bear fruit every month rather than every year, whose ‘fruit will serve for food and … leaves for healing’ (verse 12). Reading that from a New Testament perspective makes us think of the way this passage is an inspiration for the Book of Revelation, where trees line not a river but the Holy City, and whose ‘leaves are for the healing of the nations.’

Yes, there are marshes where nothing changes, just as there are many who are resistant to the Gospel of God’s grace in Christ that calls everyone to repentance and faith in Jesus. But overall what we perceive in Ezekiel’s vision is a foretaste of the day when God will make the new heavens and the new earth, where everything that is broken in creation is healed, where relationships with God and one another are reconciled, and where all pain, war, and suffering is abolished.

What does that mean for us? It means that our encounter with the Holy Spirit through the Cross of Christ and through worship throws us out into the world as bearers of God’s love in a multiplicity of ways. The Holy Spirit sends us to call people back to God through Jesus. The Holy Spirit sends us to be people who heal relationships. The Holy Spirit sends us to be people of peace, not violence. The Holy Spirit sends us to bring good news to the poor and the wounded. The Holy Spirit sends us to restore broken creation, not because we are afraid of what will happen to this planet, but because we are full of hope about God’s good intentions for his creation.

When we come to worship each Sunday, the presence of God equips us for these tasks. When we leave gathered worship each Sunday, we go as commissioned officers of God’s kingdom.

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New Year, New Commitment (Methodist Covenant Service) Romans 12:1-2

Romans 12:1-2

Artificial Intelligence – or AI for short – has been much in the news lately. It’s a form of technology that seeks to think better than humans and act more skilfully (or at least quickly) than humans. Even as I type the words of this sermon, the word processor is periodically predicting which words I am typing, or even which are the next words I am typing. If I like what I see, I can hit the Tab button on my keyboard and it will confirm the suggestion.

If you want to experiment and have a bit of fun with this, then you can find an AI tool on the Internet called ChatGPT. I registered the other day, and decided to play by giving it a specific task: write me a sermon for a Methodist Covenant Service.

You know what? It did. What a time-saver!

But I had a reservation. It used the words of the Covenant Prayer as the text for the sermon, whereas a Christian sermon must have Scripture as its text. So I tried it again, using these verses from Romans.

It worked again. I am sure some of you would like the results. But it was only a three-minute sermon. Even my Catholic friends, who are used to homilies, not sermons, might consider that too short. It made the odd good general point, but didn’t flesh it out to make it practical.

So for the time being I will not be replaced by a computer, and you will have to accept the three points I want to make about our commitment to Christ from Romans 12:1-2.

Firstly, why does God call us to commitment?

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy … (verse 1a)

‘Therefore’: we need to refer to what Paul has written up to now in the letter. In view of the first eleven chapters. But fortunately Paul sums up those eleven chapters as ‘in view of God’s mercy’.

Paul has been talking about God’s merciful plans and actions towards a human race that has spurned his love and his laws. Despite all human beings having grounds to believe in God’s existence and despite his chosen people being given his laws everyone has sinned.

But God has given up his Son, even to death, that we might be forgiven our sins and put right with him. And God has given us his Spirit, so that we can live a new life. God has done all this for us in his mercy.

In fact, strictly what Paul says here is not ‘God’s mercy’ but ‘God’s mercies’, because time and time again God is merciful to us. We respond to his mercy by giving our lives to him. But then we fail and sin again. Yet he continues to forgive us when we come in repentance. If Jesus teaches us to forgive ‘seventy times seven’, how much do we think God will forgive when we seek his mercy?

He shows mercy upon mercy. Truly, his mercies are new every morning.

Yes, of course God is our Judge. Of course, God is holy. But he has shown his intentions towards us in his deeds of mercy. When we renew our covenant with him today, we are responding to his mercy, not his severity.

Today is a day when we rejoice in how merciful God is towards us, and we say that because of his mercy, we joyfully give ourselves to him  all over again.

Secondly, what kind of commitment does God seek from us?

… to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. (Verse 1b)

In the original Greek of the New Testament, it’s not just the adjective ‘living’ that applies to the word ‘sacrifice’, it’s all three adjectives: living, holy, and pleasing [to God].

Somebody once said that the problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar. And maybe that’s a clue to what this is about. We need to offer ourselves daily to God. Jesus spoke about taking up our cross daily and so each day we say afresh to God, ‘Here I am, please use me for your kingdom today.’

Then we are a holy sacrifice, because we are offering ourselves not only to do God’s work but to do God’s work in God’s way. We’ll never say that the means justifies the ends. We’ll avoid manipulating people. We’ll examine our motives the best we can. And our goal will be God’s glory, not our own.

And it’s also a pleasing sacrifice to God. This is our invitation to put a smile on the face of God. It is to ask ourselves, what can we do that we know will please God? The Bible is full of thoughts about what the Lord loves: if we look those up we will start to have a good idea of ways in which we can lay down our lives, our talents, and our possessions to bring God joy.

Thirdly and finally, how do we work out that commitment?

2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

On Friday, I read a brilliant essay[1] by James Cary, who is a TV comedy scriptwriter and also a Christian. He begins with a quote: ‘Politics is downstream from culture’ and explains how our politicians only really put policies into practice that derive from our wider culture.

The problem, he says, is that our culture is now hostile to Christianity, because the Church has abdicated the rôle she had centuries ago as a patron of the arts and culture, especially since the Reformation, when only the word mattered, and visual things became under suspicion.

So it’s very dangerous today for the Christian in Paul’s words to ‘conform to the pattern of this world’, because if we do we will take on values that are opposed to Christianity. Yes, Christians need to start influencing our culture again by producing artistic works that are shaped by the Gospel,  but even before that we need to make sure that our own thinking and living is shaped by the Gospel. We need to heed Paul’s call to ‘be transformed by the renewing of [our minds].’

It’s absolutely urgent that we let the Gospel shape our minds. That’s why we need to be reading our Bibles daily and pondering what we need to do in response to its teaching. That’s why we need to read good quality, thoughtful Christian literature rather than trashy magazines or watching junk TV. It’s why younger generations need to reduce their intake of social media in favour of prayer.

I’m not saying we should never consume lighter forms of art and culture. But I am saying that it is crucial we take deliberate steps to renew our minds according to the ways of Christ. If we’re not deliberate about it, then we shall end up no different from the wider world.

And every day that goes by, it becomes more crucial to renew our minds. How about we make 2023 the year when we make major strides in that cause?

[1] James Cary, Getting Upstream (Or A Call To ‘Once Upon A Time’) n.d., available for a donation towards his writing at https://jamescary.substack.com.

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

Mark 10:35-45

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Firstly, Jesus talks about suffering.

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

‘We can,’ they answer,

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

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

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

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

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

Secondly, Jesus talks about serving.

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

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

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

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

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

Thirdly and finally, Jesus talks about sacrifice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

What do you ask for in your prayers?

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Take Up Your Cross (Covenant Service, Mark 8:27-38) Ordinary 24 Year B

Mark 8:27-38

We’ve had some very hot weather this week and it feels like it will be quite a while before the central heating has to go back on.

Nevertheless, I would guess that by a month’s time it is likely that many of us will have warmed up those radiators again.

Well, this is the point in Mark’s Gospel where the heat starts to turn up. Up until now, Jesus has certainly had criticism and opposition from the religious establishment, some of it serious, but mostly he has had a positive reception from the crowds in the north of the country. Now, as he begins the journey south to Jerusalem, he warns his disciples of what is to come and what it consequently means to follow him.

We come to this annual Covenant Service (although thanks to COVID-19 it’s our first for two years) as people who, like Peter, confess that Jesus is the Messiah. We know and accept the later story that Peter found hard to accept, about Jesus going to the Cross and rising again. These things are the Good News that are the basis of our commitment to Jesus.

In the light of that, it seems appropriate on a day like today to explore Jesus’ statement that

‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’ (Verse 34)

What do those three elements of discipleship – self-denial, taking up the cross, and following Jesus – entail?

Firstly, self-denial.

I have an amateur theory that in our society self-denial is for others, but self-fulfilment is for us. We can applaud the sporting hero who has endured years of disciplined training at the expense of other comforts along with a diet few of us would wish to eat when they end up winning a gold medal at the Olympics.

But for many of the rest of us, the exhortations to success are different: follow your dreams! Base your career on your passion! You must be personally fulfilled sexually!

Now it isn’t all wrong, because we are expected to use our gifts and our resources in the service of God, and the Covenant Service has a balance between ways of serving we will find personally rewarding and other ways we will find difficult. But the problem with our society’s values is that these things are usually expressed in very self-centred ways, and that’s where it’s wrong.

Today is a day when we say to Jesus that we are willing to deny ourselves for the sake of the gospel, because he did precisely that. He gave up the glory of heaven for earth, and life as part of a poor family, at that.

Today is a day to ask ourselves some questions. One is, what have I given up for Jesus? Because if I haven’t given up anything for him, I have barely accepted what it is to be a disciple.

And another question is whether Jesus is asking me to give up something for the sake of his kingdom now. It isn’t always bad things he asks us to give up. Sometimes it’s good things. We may look down on the Roman Catholic insistence on celibacy for their priests, but I know a Methodist minister who said to me he knew in his case that to fulfil his call to ministry he would have to give up all hopes of a wife and family. That was the only way he could answer the call.

So – where are we denying ourselves like Jesus for the sake of God’s kingdom?

Secondly, taking up the Cross.

We must not water this down to the saying, ‘Everybody has their cross to bear.’ This is not about the general suffering of the world, dreadful as that is.

This is about being willing to suffer for Jesus. Christians from the days of the apostles to our day have known that the call to follow Jesus risks martyrdom. Not only did many of the first disciples lose their lives due to their faith, the same happens today. In India under a militant Hindu nationalist government. In Pakistan and Iran under the influence of extremist Islam. In Cuba, North Korea, and China under Marxist governments.

We may be grateful that these are not the conditions in which we live out our faith, but we should not be glib. Even if we do not risk martyrdom, we know that there is at least a secondary application of Jesus’ teaching, the one brought out in Gospels other than Mark, where Jesus is recorded as referring to taking up our cross daily, and that’s our willingness to suffer for our faith.

The late John Stott put it like this:

The place of suffering in service and of passion in mission is hardly ever taught today. But the greatest single secret of evangelistic or missionary effectiveness is the willingness to suffer and die. It may be a death to popularity (by faithfully preaching the unpopular biblical gospel), or to pride (by the use of modest methods in reliance on the Holy Spirit), or to racial and national prejudice (by identification with another culture), or to material comfort (by adopting a simple life style). But the servant must suffer if he is to bring light to the nations, and the seed must die if it is to multiply.[1]

I wonder what Christian faith has cost any of us? If over a period of time we haven’t lost something significant from our lives then we need to reflect how serious we are about being a disciple of Jesus. Because it cost him everything.

Thirdly, following Jesus.

So what does it mean to follow Jesus? Perhaps that’s a strange question for many of us when we’ve been Christians for many years?

I see it as encompassing two things: imitating Jesus and going where Jesus goes (although arguably the latter is part of the former).

Here’s why I say following Jesus involves imitating him: it’s because that’s what disciples of rabbis did two thousand years ago. Disciples sought to copy as best as possible their master’s lifestyle – right down to some precise and even private details! To follow Jesus is to say, I want to be more like him. Today is a day when we pledge that.

But as well as doing what Jesus did we need to go where Jesus went – and go where he is going today, by his Spirit. In other words, there is not just the general imitation of his character (which is challenging enough!) but the openness to the specific directions he gives for each of us.

What do I mean? Questions like these: is Jesus calling us to go to the poor with his love in a particular way? Is he calling us to move home or to change our job? Is it as simple as Jesus wanting us to change where and how we are doing voluntary work in the church or the community? It can be small things as well as big things.

For me, I remember being clearly called away from leading a church Bible study group which I greatly enjoyed to serve a Youth For Christ centre committee instead. Both were rewarding, but I knew my time at the Bible study group had finished, and I was filled with a desire to move on.

In conclusion, all of these three callings as a disciple are deeply challenging. The self-denial of giving up cherished things. The taking up of the Cross in being willing to suffer for our faith. Following Jesus by doing what he does and going where he goes. It’s a tall order.

But Jesus points us to a future

‘when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels’ (verse 38)

and while he talks about it in the context of those who are ashamed of him, the positive converse of this is that here is the great joy and glory to come for those who love and serve him.

So have a vision today not only of the challenge it is to follow Jesus but also of the rewards in the age to come. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews wrote about Jesus,

‘For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.’ (Hebrews 12:2b)

Let us take up the cost of discipleship with one eye on the joy and glory set before us.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1023823078452194&set=gm.6304018576305311

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