I’m continuing my practice of recording my sermon videos using minimal notes rather than a full script. So once more there is no complete text to follow the video. Feel free to watch the video a second time to get the detail!
Harvest Sermon: Reversing the Curse (Genesis 8:15-22)
A brief apology for omitting one technical step in my set-up before recording the video this week which led to the focus being on my bookshelves and not on my face. I didn’t have time to re-shoot. However, you may consider it an improvement!
If I turned up this morning with all three volumes of The Lord Of The Rings, opened one of them at random, and read to you about the battle of Isengard, you might think it was interesting but how much sense would it make to you?
If you saw on the stage a scene from Romeo and Juliet where the two lovers are professing their devotion to each other but you knew nothing about the hostility between the Montagus and the Capulets, what meaning would you draw?
And if the first instalment you ever watched of Eastenders was Dirty Den serving divorce papers on his wife Angie in a Christmas Day episode one year, might you ask yourself, ‘Well, what led to that?’
These things don’t make much sense on their own, do they?
Yet that’s exactly how we often treat the Bible in church. It’s why I like to preach on a sequence of readings from the same book if I can. That’s why many of my sermons and videos in recent weeks have been from the Gospel according to Mark.
But on a special occasion like today we have to break the pattern and it means taking a passage out of nowhere. If only this week’s reading from Mark had been suitable!
Now you will recognise some of the context of Genesis 8 immediately. You will realise this is the end of the Flood, and that’s useful for understanding these verses, but we’ll need to set it in a wider story. This passage makes more sense in the context of what has already happened earlier in Genesis, and in the context of the great story that all the books of the Bible in their vast diversity combine to tell.
Putting it in that wider context, I’m calling this story of harvest and other good things one of ‘Reversing The Curse.’
The key reference here is not so much Genesis 6, where the story of the flood begins, although that is relevant. The big connection is with Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve fail to follow the terms and conditions on the apple and the tree of life. That poetic story of human sinfulness contains references to the damage that sin causes. It isn’t just that it fractures our relationship with God, it also damages our relationships with other human beings and so men dominate women (which only comes in the curse). Our connection with the wider creation also takes a hit. We see hard, physical toil at work as one sign of the curse, and we see the pain of childbirth as another. In the words of Bob Dylan, ‘Everything is broken.’
The flood in Genesis shows then that the problems in the Garden of Eden have escalated to the whole human race. This is the point where wickedness is in such a frenzy that God resorts to drastic measures.
But now, after the flood, God expresses his deepest desire, which is for salvation rather than judgment, and it’s a salvation that reverses all the curses of sin – the breaks with God, one another, work, family, and creation. And so we heard at the end of the reading,
21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
22 ‘As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.’
Despite ‘every inclination of the human heart [being] evil from childhood’ God will seek to save people from sin. One day it won’t be Noah’s burnt offerings of clean animals and clean birds (verse 20), God will take sacrifice for sin into his own being in the Person of his Son.
The brokenness between human beings is something God longs to heal, too, and we get a fresh start in this story with Noah’s family. They are far from perfect, and soon even righteous Noah himself causes embarrassment for his sons by getting drunk.
And as God shows this preference for salvation, the other ruptured parts of existence are up for healing, even if they are not mentioned here. If work now brings toil and pain, then it is a Christian call to work to heal that. Right now in golf, the Ryder Cup is underway between the USA and Europe. Samuel Ryder, who donated the gold trophy, was a Christian entrepreneur, who pioneered paying sick pay to his employees, not wanting anyone to go penniless because they were too unwell to work.[1]
Other Christian business founders have done similar things down the years. You’ve probably heard the stories about George Cadbury and Joseph Rowntree, but you can add to that list people such as Sir William Hartley the jam-maker, William Colgate, Henry Heinz, Henry Crowell the co-founder of Quaker Oats, and in more recent years Anthony Rossi, the founder of the Tropicana drinks company. All said that their Christian values should imbue their businesses and make things good and honest for their employees and their customers.[2]
The response to the curse of pain in childbirth mentioned in Genesis 3 is found in many ways, as Christians get involved in medicine, in pregnancy crisis centres, and in adoption and fostering agencies.
But by now you’re probably thinking, ‘This is all very well but I came to a harvest festival! Where’s the harvest theme in all this?’ It’s there at the climax of the reading. Verse 22 again:
22 ‘As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.’
Harvest is all of a piece with this. God with his desire for salvation is not content to look at a broken world where people do not have enough to eat, whether it is a crisis, ongoing unemployment, steeply rising energy bills, or the damage of climate change, especially in the developing world.
And that calls all of us to involvement. We cannot leave things as they are. We cannot tolerate unjust suffering and the treatment of human beings as just some kind of collateral damage in a wider political project.
Remember, God’s final word is not judgment but salvation. And salvation is not just a private spiritual knees-up between me and God, it is the remaking of the whole broken creation. So God lays it out that this means a good and steady source of food for all (seedtime and harvest), facilitated by a balanced climate (cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night).
Therefore, when we bring our harvest gifts today and we dedicate them to Woking Food Bank, we are not just saying that we are grateful we can enjoy our food. We are saying that, but we are saying much more.
As we have laid our gifts before the Lord this morning, I believe we are saying this: we will not rest while people do not have the harvests that we have. We will give. We will pray. We will campaign and we will act. And what we shout for in the larger world we will show in our smaller worlds, by our acts of hospitality.
Because the will of God is one where not only the rich can feast, but that all can be invited to the feast of the kingdom. Every time we come to Holy Communion we look backwards to the Cross where we are put right with God, forwards to the wedding feast of the Lamb, and to the present where the Holy Spirit enables us to become junior partners in the work of God.
And within all that, harvest festival is a pledge of allegiance to the kingdom of God. As the Holy Spirit helps us to co-operate with the will of God, we promise our own parts in the remaking of the world:
- Our witness to the redeeming love of God in Christ that brings sinners into fellowship with him;
- Our experience of reconciliation with one another which we put into practice to help heal other relationships;
- Our efforts to return purpose and wholeness to the drudgery of work;
- Our concern to be pro-life, not just from conception, but all the way to the grave;
- Our campaigning and our lifestyle that seek to ensure all have a climate in which they can grow a healthy harvest.
For that is where the divine promise we read today of seedtime and harvest, summer and winter belongs in the great story of God – in a story in which our God is making all things new.
[1] https://licc.org.uk/resources/the-ryder-and-solheim-cups-golfing-for-gods-glory/
[2] https://issuu.com/salvationarmyuk/docs/wc_15_august_2020_web
Video sermon And Text: Active Patience (Second Sunday Of Advent)
This week, having realised that the copyright fears that led me not to post my videos these last couple of weeks were groundless, I’m going to give you both the video and the text of my talk.
In my teens, one of my favourite pop songs was ‘I’m Not In Love’ by 10cc. It was cleverly arranged and produced, and it had wry and touching lyrics that even clicked with a fifteen-year-old.
However, I heard both the single version and the album version on the radio. The single was a four-minute butchered edit of the full six-minute album track, and so I saved my pocket money to buy the album.
The album – ‘The Original Soundtrack’ – also contained much darker material, not least a song called ‘The Second Sitting For The Last Supper’ in which the band mocked the Christian hope of Christ appearing again in glory.
Two thousand years and he ain’t come yet
We kept his seat warm and the table set
The second sitting for the Last Supper
It’s a hope for which many people mock us. It’s a hope with which numerous Christians struggle.
Perhaps sometimes it touches on those never-quite-disappeared childhood traits, remembering the times as little ones that we sat in the car while our parents drove, and within five minutes were asking, ‘Are we there yet?’
The third chapter of 2 Peter can give us help in understanding God’s purposes and responding appropriately. What these verses tell us is that when we understand God better, we shall also understand better how to live.
So firstly, understanding God better:
8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
This verse, which takes some words from a psalm, tells us two things about God which get taken up in the next two verses. If a thousand years are like a day to the Lord, then he acts over a long period of time. But if the reverse is also true, that a day is like a thousand years, then God also acts suddenly and quickly.[1]
We see the long-term patience in verse 9:
9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
The slow – to our eyes – acting of God is a mercy to the human race. He doesn’t want to wrap things up without people having a full opportunity to repent and put their faith in his Son, Jesus.
So if someone mocks us as Christians for the fact that Jesus has not returned, we can remind them that he is hanging back to give them the chance to hand over their lives to him. ‘Why hasn’t he come?’ we might reply. ‘Because he’s waiting for you.’
They may or may not appreciate that answer! But it is consistent with the merciful and gracious character of God. The offer of salvation is not a quick, instant, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it event. It is there on the table and stays on the table even for the most recalcitrant of sinners.
God is patient. Jesus hasn’t forgotten to come again, because he hasn’t forgotten the sinners he loves.
But as well as the long-term patience of God there is also his ability to act suddenly and quickly. Verse 10:
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.
God may be patient, but he will not suffer mocking. He will ‘come like a thief’. Christ appearing again ‘like a thief [In the night]’ is a common New Testament image for his return in glory. No-one expects that a thief is coming: you need to be prepared in order to avoid suffering loss.
It’s no good, then, having a casual attitude to God which says, ‘I’ll live just how I like, and then I’ll repent at my leisure on my deathbed.’ That is to treat a patient and merciful God with contempt, and to forget that he is also holy.
And – although in some cases it can be emotional manipulation – the old line of the evangelists that asked, ‘If you were to be hit by a bus tonight, do you know what would happen to you eternally?’ makes a good point to those who would be casual with God and disregard the fact that he can act suddenly and quickly.
So I think we can put these two apparently contradictory elements of God’s character together and see where that leaves us with our Advent hope. God is patient, because he longs for everyone to repent. Yet he will not be mocked by those who treat him casually, and one day he will come both suddenly and quickly. He will even do that before the end in individual people’s lives.
Therefore secondly, we look at understanding better how to live:
Just as there were two elements to understanding God better, so there are two corresponding ways to live in the light of that as we await our Advent hope of Christ’s appearing again in glory.
In response to God’s sudden and quick action, not least in his glorious return, we read verses 11 to 13:
11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.
Forty years ago, I went to Spring Harvest for the first time. On the first evening, a preacher named Stuart Briscoe said that he believed in 2 Peter 3 when he saw the atomic bomb fall on Hiroshima. Then he knew it was possible for the heavens to be destroyed by fire and the elements to melt in the heat (verse 12).
But we do this a dis-service if we think that Christ’s sudden and speedy return is only about destruction. For we go on to read of the hope expressed elsewhere in the New Testament, not least by Paul in his letters and John in Revelation, that Christ’s goal is to bring ‘a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells’ (verse 13).
This is why Christ will come again in glory: to bring a new creation, where righteousness dwells.
And so the way to live in the light of that is to live in righteousness now. Christ calls us to live now as a sign of his new world that is coming. Live according to the new creation, not the surrounding culture.
What would it mean to live in righteousness now? Well, the English word ‘righteousness’ might be a little misleading here. Often we take it just to refer to matters of personal morality. But the Greek word means not only personal righteousness but social righteousness – justice, if you will – as well.
So our personal moral conduct needs to come more closely in line with what Jesus calls it to be. But so do our actions in society.
Abraham Kuyper was a Dutch Christian theologian and politician – in fact, he became Prime Minister. He put it this way:
‘There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!’
Is there any part of our lives where we don’t want Christ to cry, ‘Mine!’?
And then there is the way we live in response to the patience of Christ. This comes at the end of the reading:
14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom that God gave him.
‘Our Lord’s patience means salvation.’ As we saw earlier, that patience means salvation in the opportunity for repentance, and so another way we live in the light of Christ’s coming is to offer the Gospel.
But it’s also the climax of our own salvation. For our salvation is not just the forgiveness of our sins through the Cross, it is also the transformation of sinful lives by the Holy Spirit into those that live righteously as we’ve just been saying.
And it is also that our salvation will be completed when Christ appears in glory. For when righteousness dwells, sin will be abolished. Peace will reign. All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well, as Mother Julian of Norwich said. This is part of our great hope.
To conclude – Christ’s appearing in glory seems to be a long time coming, but it is because God is patient. The chance is there for repentance, and the Church must announce that.
But Christ will still come suddenly and quickly. Let us be prepared by living according to the pattern of his great future.
[1] My understanding of these two contrasting elements is owed to Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians Volume II, pp376-8.
Video Sermon: What Is Your Verdict On God? (Joshua 24:1-28)
We’re jumping from Joshua 3 a week ago to the final chapter today. Why? I suspect it’s because many people are uncomfortable with the Book of Joshua.
I offer some brief responses to those concerns in this video, and then I go on to the way in which Joshua prosecutes for a verdict from Israel in favour of renewing their covenant with God.
Finally, there are some prayers for Remembrance Sunday.
Video Sermon: How Do We Understand The Presence Of God?
Continuing with the story of Moses and the Israelites, this week we arrive at Exodus 33:12-23.
However, rather than explore this story, I’m taking up one important theme in it – the presence of God – and giving a sketch of that subject as it appears through Scripture.
I hope you find these thoughts helpful in your own life.
Moses, the Burning Bush, and the Name of God
Here’s this week’s video. I discuss the famous story of Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-15) and explore what God reveals about himself when he answers Moses’ request to disclose his name.
Sabbatical, Day 61: Not Perfect, Just Forgiven – Or More?
I’m going to raise a theological issue in a moment. Please don’t go away. It doesn’t require (many) long words, and it’s about an important issue in Christian life and witness. It’s something I’ve had in the back of my mind for a year or two, but never thought a lot about. But it has come up again today while I’ve been reading Tim Keller‘s ‘The Reason for God‘, and it’s rather more important than the continued slow broadband speeds I’m trying to diagnose here. (Something like 200k speed instead of our usual 1.8 meg or so. I’m currently running a full virus check as part of PlusNet‘s faults procedure.)
So here’s the issue. What do we expect of Christian behaviour? Twenty years ago at theological college, I was in conversation with a tutor. I don’t remember the topic, but I must have expressed some disappointment about church life in a placement. He replied, “David, never forget that the church is a company of sinners.”
And I wanted to reply, “Yes, but …”. We are a company of sinners, but I don’t like that most cheddary of Christian slogans, ‘Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.’ It seems to be an excuse for all sorts of unacceptable conduct. (Says he who is the chief of sinners. But I don’t want to excuse myself, either. I’m too good at rationalisation.)
The difficulty surfaced again when I read Eugene Peterson‘s book ‘The Jesus Way‘ in 2007. Much of that book is routine wonderful Peterson, but I found one part awkward. In using the example of King David’s life, he rightly trumpets the extraordinary grace of God in bringing forgiveness after forgiveness. And again, I thought, “Yes, but?” The grace of God is truly astonishing. How he picks up people like me, dusts us down and sets us on the road again is staggering. My ‘but’ was that I wanted to read something about transformation. If it was there, I missed it.
And that is the one area where I have struggled with Keller. There are so many riches in ‘The Reason for God’. I loved the passage on page 57 where he said that the problem with Christian fanatics isn’t that they are too serious about the Gospel, it’s that they aren’t serious enough, because they act like Pharisees rather than those who know grace. I also appreciated the fact that he tackles so many of the popular objections to faith, including the one where people rightly say that the behaviour of Christians doesn’t always compare favourably to that of non-Christians.
Now Keller rightly says that Christianity isn’t about moralism. It is – again – about grace. He also says the Christian faith has theological resources for understanding, if not expecting this dilemma. We can expect non-Christians to live outstanding lives, because (using the Calvinist term) he bestows ‘common grace’ on all. We all have the image of God in us, however damaged, is how I would put it. On the other hand, Christians are still sinners. So in believing the best about non-Christians and the worst about Christians (something we rarely do in the church), we need not be surprised if people who do not share our faith outshine us at times.
I am refreshed by the way he consistently goes back to grace. I think he is a shining example of not shooting down those he disagrees with in some crude culture war. Yet I think non-Christians have a point about expecting Christian conduct to be better, even without misunderstanding our message as one of moralism.
I have wondered whether Keller and Peterson’s Presbyterian traditions have anything to do with this. I’m thinking of the debates at the Reformation about justification. Essentially the Reformers separated justification and sanctification, whereas the Catholics conflated the two. Thus the Reformers, in emphasising their difference from Rome, stressed justification as being by the free grace of God through faith in Christ. Sanctification, in the sense of holy living, is also by grace through faith, but the Reformers wanted to separate it out as clearly as possible in order to deny any possible thought that good works merited salvation. So I would suggest it’s possible for someone in a strongly Reformed background to end up emphasising justification (in a Protestant sense) and underplaying sanctification. Might this explain Keller and Peterson?
The weakness I can immediately see in my argument is that the theological college tutor I mentioned was a Methodist. For Methodism has a subtly different tradition here, as I understand it. Wesley was with the Reformers in preaching that sinners were saved entirely by grace through faith in Christ and his atoning work on the Cross. But he moved onto sanctification much more quickly than the classical Reformers did. If you had faith, then (as in Galatians 6), that ‘faith worketh by love’: it was evident in a new lifestyle. The new lifestyle did not save you, but it was the evidence of having received salvation. It was gratitude for salvation, not the cause of it. It was a sign of the Spirit’s work of assurance, which was more than the objective promises of Scripture that the Reformers had stressed. With a theological heritage like that, then whatever one might think about Wesley’s controversial doctrine of Christian Perfection, you will not settle for ‘Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.’
So do the likes of Keller and Peterson allow us to be too easy on ourselves, or is that just the wonder of grace? Does Wesley lead us into moral self-flagellation, or is he simply calling out the cost of discipleship? And for those of you who might know Keller, Peterson, Presbyterianism in general or Wesley better than me, have I misread them at any key point? I would be very interested to read your comments, because – as I said in the opening paragraph – this is an important issue in Christian life and witness. For it is about the nature of salvation and a proper portrayal of Christianity to the world.
As Dr Frasier Crane used to say, “I’m listening.”
We finally moved
Long time no blog. It’s three and a half weeks since we moved and finally we’ve nearly unpacked everything. A combination of moving with two small children plus having to move rather closer to the date I was beginning ministry here have had their effect. Just got to set up the hi-fi now, I think.
It’s a much smaller house. We knew that, of course. We’d been Mr and Mrs eBay for several months prior to the move. Some much-loved old possessions had to go. In my case I said goodbye to over a thousand vinyl LPs. Some I sold, others had to go to the dump.
But the house has been beautifully decorated and refurbished. A working party from one of my churches removed all the prickly plants from the garden to make it safe for our children. Some basic food and drink was here for us to see us through our first few days. They even bought some toys to amuse the kids while the removal men did their work.
We’ve also found them to be uncommonly principled and generous in what they pay for expenses, too. The circuit stewards (don’t worry if you’re not a Methodist, it’s simply the senior ‘lay’ office in a Methodist circuit) had told us repeatedly that they look after their ministers.
We’ve also found it to be a lovely area for bringing up the children. The area where our manse was situated in the last appointment was pretty grim. In the Old Testament ‘salvation’ can mean being brought into a spacious place: the house here may not be spacious, but the area has that feel. We feel peaceful about our children being here.
So if I think of the move as also being a spiritual journey what have I learned so far from it? A number of things:
I’ve learned to do without some cherished possessions. However I shouldn’t sound too virtuously ascetic there, because we were able to buy a new digital SLR camera, so I can revive an old hobby. I had had to sell my old film SLR gear.
Then there is the love we have received. It’s been amazing. The mantra we kept hearing, “We look after our ministers”, had been hard to believe before we came, mainly due to previous bad experiences, where much was trumpeted and little delivered. I have to learn not to let old scars damage the way I treat new people. I thought I was better at that than I obviously am.
Not that I am expecting a picnic here. I am clearly in a different spiritual tradition to at least two of the three churches I am serving, but we’ll see how it goes. We firmly believed God had led us to accept this appointment, and we wait to see some of the reasons why he brought us here. Watch this space.
Big Circumstance 