Tag: spiritual disciplines

Circuit Lent Sermon Series 5: Corporate Disciplines, James 5:13-20

James 5:13-20

Rule Of Life. From rawpixel.com. Public Domain.

We come to the fifth and final sermon in our Circuit Lent Sermon Series. It began by asking what the purpose of Lent was and answered by saying it was about reorienting ourselves towards Jesus. It continued in the second week by examining our relationship with God, something I looked at in terms of friendship with Jesus.

But to grow and maintain that relationship requires we adopt virtuous habits – or ‘spiritual disciplines’ – that help us tune into God better. And so over the last two weeks the series has been about inward and outward disciplines. Those are often disciplines (or habits) that we practise on our own. In this final week, we look at habits we exercise together – corporate disciplines.

Today, we are going to explore four corporate disciplines that help us draw closer to God in Christ.

Firstly, guidance:

Road Sign at pxhere.com. Public Domain.

Are any among you suffering? They should pray. (Verse 13a)

Perhaps we think of guidance as an individual discipline, and it certainly is that as well. If we are serious about following Jesus, we shall want to know his direction for our own lives.

But it is also something we need to do together. Not only are our brother and sister Christians involved in discerning our individual guidance (as we shall see), we also need to seek guidance together for our life as the church. Is that not what this church did under my predecessor’s leadership when you went through the process that Methodism calls Our Church’s Future Story?

And just because this church did that a few years ago doesn’t mean we can now not worry about God’s continued guidance. We always need to be like ancient Israel in the wilderness, who followed God’s presence as seen in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. It is a continuous process.

So what are helpful ways of discerning God’s guidance together? One author described it like this. He spoke of a harbour that was treacherous for boats to navigate safely, due to rocks. However, the harbour authorities had cleverly erected three lights. If the three lights were lined up as seen from a boat, then that boat was on the right course to make harbour safely.

He then suggested that Christian guidance is like that. For major decisions, we need three ‘lights’ to line up. They are the teaching of Scripture, the counsel of wise friends, and circumstances. It is the Enemy who wants us to rush our decisions. In contrast, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is full of grace, mercy, and love, and he is happy for us to test out things to be confident of his guidance.

An old acquaintance of mine used to say that any time she thought God was asking her to do something, she would reply ‘No.’ Why? Because she knew that if it truly were God, he would ask her again.

Let’s be serious about seeking God’s guidance together, but let’s also take the time to line up our harbour lights.

Secondly, worship:

Vibrant worship experience with raised hands by Caleb Oquendo at pexels.com. Public Domain.

Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. (Verse 13b)

God is always worthy of our songs of praise. (I shall say something separate but related about cheerfulness in the next point.) Whether we are cheerful or sad, we can know his faithfulness in his goodness in creation and his love for us in Jesus. We may have our doubts and our questions, but God continues to be faithful, even when we don’t understand him. We may only understand later, but as an act of faith we continue to praise and worship him.

Worship can also be individual, but it is powerful when we gather together and worship as a corporate body. We bring our differing gifts and use them to worship, because we share in common the truth that God has redeemed us in Christ and his saving death on the Cross.

Therefore, let worship be a commitment and a priority in our lives. Let us not make feeble excuses to avoid assembling together as the Body of Christ in worship. None of that ‘It’s raining so I won’t bother coming to church’ talk. That doesn’t honour God. How much is he worth? What about those in other countries who travel many miles over poor roads and possibly in dilapidated vehicles to come together as God’s people and praise his holy Name?

God is worthy of our worship. It is our sign of allegiance. I am fond of pointing out that the Greek word most commonly translated ‘worship’ in the New Testament is one which literally means, ‘To move towards and kiss.’ But this is not a romantic kiss. It is the kiss of allegiance. Think in our culture of a new Prime Minister or a new bishop being appointed. Each of them has to go and see the King and ‘kiss hands’ as a sign of loyalty to the monarch.

Worship is how we do that, and particularly at the sacraments. Remember that we get that word ‘sacrament’ from the Latin ‘sacramentum’, which was the oath of allegiance that a Roman soldier took to the emperor. At the sacrament this morning, we pledge again our allegiance to Christ. That is what worship is for us, and it is at its most powerful when we do so together.

Thirdly, celebration:

Aftermath of a festive celebration scene at freerangestock.com. Public Domain.

Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.

Those words again, but this time I want to major on the words ‘Are any cheerful?’ Just because we believe in the majesty and the holiness of God, we do not need to excise joy from our common life as the church.

And just because we rightly weep with those who weep, it does not mean we should not also rejoice with those who are rejoicing. And that is what celebration is about.

Is it not wonderful to hear how God is working in our lives? Is it not a cause of great joy to know that God has answered a prayer, that he has provided for a need, that someone has cause to know that he has come near to them?

But do we give opportunity for that? One of my past churches did, in a very specific way. They designated one Sunday a month as ‘Testimony Sunday’, and there was a part of that service on that day where anyone who had a testimony of God having been at work in their lives could come to the front and share that briefly with the congregation. We laughed, clapped, and sang together in response. It built up our sense that God was very much alive and active. Therefore, it built a heightened atmosphere of faith in the church.

Would it not be good to do something like that here? Maybe we too could do it in the morning service. At the very least, let me encourage you to write up accounts of what Jesus has done recently for you and send them in to be published in the church magazine. Perhaps that could be part of the appeal for articles every time we are putting together the next newsletter. Please tell the church family how God has blessed you lately.

Doing things like this encourages people. It lifts a sense of gloom and replaces it with light. It builds up the church. Don’t you think we’ve had enough discouragement in the church in recent years and decades? Don’t you think that God is still in the business of being God and of transforming lives for the better?

Then let us tell our stories. And therefore, let us celebrate together.

Fourthly and finally, confession:

Reconciliation, Coventry Cathedral at geograph.org.uk. © Copyright David Dixon and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. (Verse 16)

You might think that after all the talk of guidance, worship, and celebration, it’s a bit of a downer to conclude with confession. Dave, if you want joy in the church, why do you now end on a note of misery?

But actually, this is not about doom and gloom, even though we are sorrowful for our sins. Look at the context. This confession is in the context of seeking healing. And while I am not for one moment saying that all sickness is caused by sin, what I do see here is that confession removes barriers to blessing. Unconfessed sin gets in the way of God’s work. It is a blockage. We confess our sins at least in part so that God’s grace may flow with less hindrance among us. Living with unconfessed sin is a sure way to block the blessing of God in our lives, so let us confess as a way of removing the blockage.

Here’s another thing, though: I’m listing confession as a corporate discipline. Isn’t that a bit alien for Protestant Christians?

No, not at all. For one thing, it’s by no means accidental that we include the confession of our sins and the assurance of our forgiveness in our corporate acts of worship. Not only will each of us individually have failed Jesus in the seven days since we previously met, we also sin together and therefore jointly need confession and forgiveness.

Moreover, there are biblical examples of God’s people confessing their sins together, not least when they as a body have gone seriously astray from their Lord.

But it is also helpful sometimes for an individual to confess to another Christian. I am not advocating Catholic-style confession, because I have serious reservations about what is prescribed in that form in response to confession. Nor do I think there is something priestly about ordination, because all Christians are priests before God: we all have access to him through Jesus Christ.

Yet it can be healing to say in confidence to someone we trust – and yes, this can be someone who is in a pastoral relationship with us – I have messed up badly, and I need to know the forgiveness of God. Without giving concrete examples that would betray confidentiality, I can assure you that as a minister I have had people come to me and confess the darkest of sins, some of which they have lived with for many decades. To let them know that they are forgiven is to see a burden fall from them and to release them into new freedom in Christ.

Now perhaps I hope you see why I say confession is not in the final analysis about doom and gloom: it leads to the joy of the Gospel.

Conclusion

And the joy of the Gospel is where all these spiritual disciplines lead us. Whether inward or outward, solo or corporate, the cultivation of virtuous habits that enable us to tune in more to Jesus can only lead us to the abundant life he came to bring.

So let us use these time-honoured practices of the church to set our minds on things above and let our lives be shaped by Jesus.

You know the old adage beloved of computer programmes, ‘Garbage in, garbage out.’ Let’s stop feeding our minds with garbage, feed them instead with the goodness of Jesus, and instead live ‘Goodness in, goodness out.’

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Lent Sermon Series 4: Outward Disciplines

Matthew 4:1-11

New readers start here: in our circuit sermon series so far, we have begun by asking what the point of Lent is, and answered that by saying that it is to do with reorienting ourselves towards Jesus.

In the second week, we took that further by asking what our relationship with God looks like.

Then last week, this week, and next week we’re looking at various spiritual disciplines that we can use to tune into Jesus and the will of God better. After all, since he draws us into a relationship of friendship, we shall be keen to know what he says and what he cares about.

Last week’s set teaching was on what we call ‘inward disciplines.’ This week we turn to what are classified as ‘outward disciplines.’ And to do that, we’re taking the familiar story of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness that we usually read on the First Sunday in Lent, not the Fourth. But we’re not going to look at it in the conventional way, where perhaps we look at the meanings of the three temptations, or we highlight the way Jesus fasted and quoted Scripture. There was material about both of them in last week’s reflections, in any case.

This week, we are asked to think about four outward disciplines that help us focus on Jesus. There is no single Bible passage that refers to all four, but this one gets as close as any.

Firstly, submission.

Submission by ucumari photography. CC 2.0.

Jesus submitted to the Father’s will when he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness (verse 1). In fact, ‘led’ is altogether too weak a word. This is not on the same level as the inane ‘I feel led’ conversations of some Christians – you know, ‘I feel led to buy a Mars bar,’ and so on.

No: Jesus was ‘thrown out’ into the wilderness! The Father made his will known very strongly here – and Jesus submitted to it.

Not only that, Jesus submitted to human beings, not least in his trials and execution.

Here is an important Christian discipline: to submit to God and to one another. We submit to the will of God. We also submit to one another, for Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:21 to be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Now some of you may be listening to this nervously, knowing that there is a bad form of submission. There are terrible stories coming out of some churches where abused wives were told by pastors to go back home and submit to their abusive husbands. Those same churches never challenged the husbands, and in some cases covered up for them. Please do not hear me as approving of anything remotely like that. It is evil. It should be reported to the police.

So what is godly submission actually about? It is a discipline that is designed to counter the selfishness of ‘me first’, which is so contrary to the way of Jesus. Jesus gave up the glory of heaven and – as Paul says in Philippians 2 – made himself nothing, and took the form of a servant, becoming obedient even to death on a cross.

Let that be a challenge for Lent and for the whole of our Christian lives. How am I putting the will of God before my own will? How am I preferring others to me? This is what submission is about.

Secondly, solitude.

Public Domain image

Jesus goes to the wilderness alone. This is a solitary act of discerning the Father’s will and battling evil spiritual forces. It is something he would practise during his ministry when he took himself off on his own to pray.

There is much that the Bible teaches us about being together as the People of God: we are the Body of Christ and we all need each other. We worship together. We have fellowship and study the Bible together.

But we also need solitude. Every one of us needs those times when it is just ‘God and me.’ I need to relate to God myself. I need to know the voice of his love for me. I need to know what he is saying to me. I need to tell him what is on my mind and heart. Much as I need other people, I cannot rely on them to do the spiritual life for me.

This has all sorts of surprising benefits. Our willingness and ability to practise solitude with God contributes to the other side, where we relate to others. True solitude makes us better at fellowship! Being present with God enables us to be present with others. The great German Christian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that you cannot practise true fellowship unless you know how to practise solitude with God.

So this is not a call to go off and live in a remote place as a hermit. Nor is this a call to enter some kind of spiritual loneliness. The truth of Genesis 2 remains that God says it is not good for us to be alone. We need helpers.

Perhaps we don’t like the thought of solitude with God because we might feel spiritually exposed. But that is a good thing. Because solitude does not expose us before a vengeful, angry God who wants to fry us at the first opportunity.

No: we enter solitude with a God of mercy, grace, and love. And if in that relationship he highlights something uncomfortable in our lives, it is so that he can heal it and we can draw closer to him.

Let us ask ourselves how we set aside time to be in solitude with God.

Thirdly, simplicity.

Simplicity by Premier Photo. CC 2.0.

I think we can reasonably infer that – apart from the story we read where Jesus puts the devil in his place – he inevitably practises the spiritual discipline of simplicity. This is bare bones living. Just what Jesus needs, and no more.

We know that soon after this, Jesus will make simplicity of lifestyle a virtue for his disciples when he tells them not to store up treasures on earth but in heaven. Later in his ministry he will send his disciples out two by two to nearby villages ahead of his arrival, and he will instruct them not to take with them more than they need.

I can remember a big emphasis in the church when I was in my teens that promoted the slogan, ‘Live simply so that others can simply live.’ The trouble is, there is no set level below which we are living simply and above which we are living greedily. We each have to discern this prayerfully and thoughtfully.

You can even see different responses among the disciples of Jesus. On the one hand, think of the fishermen who left their nets and their family businesses to follow him. But also think of the wealthy women in Luke 8 who funded a lot of Jesus’ ministry, having stayed put.

Simplicity is not only about being able to give generously to others, it is also about being content. Look how stressed many people become because they are not content, and because they are sucked in by the advertisers and influencers. What kind of witness is it to show such people that you can have peace of mind without that strain and hassle?

Our television has had a particular fault for a while, and at the beginning of the year I suggested we look for a new one in the sales. We found a good model that would do everything we wanted at nearly £200 off the list price. However, Debbie then raised some questions and doubts about the wisdom of proceeding then and there. So we decided to be content with the current TV, despite the issue.

Where is Jesus calling us to practise the discipline of simplicity so that we have more to give or so that we can exhibit the peace of contentment?

Fourthly and finally, service.

Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org
A disgruntled gouty man ringing a bell for his servant who is just leaving the room. Etching. CC 4.0.

I said in the introduction that no single Bible passage covers all of the four outward disciplines, and this is the one I cannot really infer from the account of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness. Although if I were pushed, I would say that it follows from the discipline of submission with which we began!

But we know that in any case Jesus had much to teach about this later. You have only to go on to Matthew 20, where two of the disciples, James and John, get their mother to speak to Jesus and ask that he grant them the privilege of sitting on his right and his left in his kingdom. Jesus uses that faux pas to teach that in his kingdom leaders do not lord it over others, but serve, just as he came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

If we want to become like Jesus, then we need to imitate him. In a sense, that’s what we’ve been talking about with all of these spiritual disciplines: do what Jesus did. As the saying goes, it isn’t rocket science.

And nowhere could it be plainer than in this discipline: service. Jesus served people when he healed them, when he gave his time to them, when he taught them. For Jesus, live was not gimme, gimme, gimme: it was, what can I give to others?

Now while this attitude is still widely admired in our society, it is also true that it is perhaps more admired in the breach. So much of our language is about us wanting our rights and wanting what we deserve.

Jesus, though, shows us a different way to live. In fact, not simply different: it’s in an opposite spirit. Serve.

We might not like the word ‘servant.’ We think of people who had an inferior status, whether we are the generation that watched Upstairs, Downstairs, or the generation that watched Downton Abbey.

And it’s worse if we think of the word ‘slave.’ Not only do we have the terrible history of slavery in the world, we have recent examples of modern slavery, such as the appalling case in the news the other day of the woman who enslaved another woman for twenty-five years and treated her with unbearable cruelty.

We cannot control how others treat us. But Christianity is not about upping our social status anyway. And in any case, God will be pleased with us and will affirm us and reward us if we follow in the footsteps of Jesus by taking the decision to serve others. And as we do so, we shall become more like him.

Which is our goal. Isn’t it?

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Lent Sermon Series 3: Inward Disciplines

Sorry there was no sermon on Sunday: I had the week off. As a belated substitute, here are the outline study notes I wrote for our Circuit Lent Course for the third week.

Scripture

On study:

General Introduction

Watch this video clip from Father Ted:

Do you see Lent practices as useful disciplines or pointless self-punishment?

Fasting and Prayer

Read Isaiah 58:1-14 and Matthew 6:1-18. Why do you think people fast (apart from medical reasons)?

What is it linked with in Matthew 6:1-18?

How does it relate to our lifestyle in Isaiah 58:1-14?

Meditation

Read Psalm 1 and Psalm 143.

Watch this video and follow the discussion questions provided. (This forms an entire session on the ancient Christian meditation practice Lectio Divina.)

Study

Read Ezra 7:8-10 and 2 Timothy 2:14-15.

Study: it sounds like this is for academics! But all Christians can study the Bible, and it doesn’t have to be in an academic way. Experiment (with others?) with Ignatian Bible Study using the material on this webpage.  

You could also get hold of some Bible reading notes from Scripture Union and try them out. See what others think.

If you want to look deeper, borrow a Bible commentary from a preacher or minister. Use it to look at a well-known passage.

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The Good Shepherd, John 10:11-18 (Easter 4 2024)

John 10:11-18

The story is told about a group of tourists on a coach in the Holy Land.

“Oh, look,” said one excitedly, “There is a flock of sheep on the hillside. Doesn’t that make you think of all those lovely Bible passages about the sheep and the Good Shepherd?”

“Yes,” replied another, “but why is the shepherd following them shouting at them and beating them?”

The tour guide interjected. “That’s not the shepherd,” he enlightened them, “that’s the local butcher.”

On this Fourth Sunday of Easter, the Gospel reading is always a part of John 10, where Jesus says he is the Good Shepherd. The Lectionary being a three-year cycle and with us currently being in Year B, we get the second of three chunks this year, so we’re not picking up the passage right at the beginning.

Of course, this chapter is much loved, and over the centuries Christians have taken much comfort from knowing that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. I have, for one, not least when I was struggling with the pain of the neck injury that prevented me from taking my A-Levels.

But although it is comforting, it is not entirely cosy. As well as the comfort, there is also challenge in these famous words of Jesus.

Firstly, the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep:

11 ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

We are used to hearing that Jesus died for us, as he says here. But have you noticed how this is different from other New Testament passages? This does not couch things in terms of Jesus dying for our sins – there are plenty that say that – but as Jesus dying to protect us.

Why? The sheep need protection from the wolves, and a hired hand will not stand in the wolf’s way.

And why would Jesus say this? Because he knew there were plenty of wolves in his day, and plenty of religious leaders who would only act as hired hands who did not care for the sheep.

Indeed, you only have to go back to John chapter 9 to find wolves or hired hands in the form of those Pharisees who objected to Jesus healing a blind man on the Sabbath. They would rather sling the healed man out of the synagogue than accept that they had created rules which went beyond God’s commandment to honour the Sabbath.

In fact, you could probably say that the expression ‘Good Shepherd’ was a polemical one. It had good Old Testament precedent in Ezekiel where God says that he himself will shepherd his people, because those who were supposed to do so were not. Jesus aligns the leaders of his day with those whom God condemned six centuries earlier.

Today, some wolves are easy to spot, like millionaire TV evangelists telling poor people that their way out of poverty is to give to them in order to be blessed financially by God.

But others are less easy to spot. Like those who alter our doctrines or undermine the Scriptures, while sounding plausible and intelligent, but falsely claiming that only their view is intellectually credible. At this point, true shepherds have to protect the flock, even if it is costly.

Jesus the Good Shepherd laying down his life for the flock specifically protects his people from the wolf-like claim that lusting after power and force are the ways to change things for good in the world.

What is this like? I turn to someone who, if you know little about him, might seem an unlikely source. Many of you will remember the 1960s folk singer Barry McGuire, most famous for his membership of the New Christy Minstrels, his song ‘Eve of Destruction’, and his association with the Mamas and the Papas – the line in their song ‘Creeque Alley’ that said ‘McGuinn and McGuire were just getting higher’ was about him and Roger McGuinn of the Byrds.

Well, a few years after that, Barry McGuire found his freedom not in drugs but in Jesus Christ. And in one concert, he talked about the death of Jesus as being like a shock absorber, absorbing human lawlessness. He then said that when Christians experience the shock of evil in this world, we have two choices: we can either get mad, or we too can absorb the shock to protect others.

Secondly, the Good Shepherd knows his sheep:

14 ‘I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep.

What makes for a true sheep-shepherd relationship? Mutual, personal, intimate, knowledge.

It is thus not enough for us to say we are religious. All sorts of people believe in God – even the devil, as the New Testament tells us. And we know that religion can be co-opted by politicians and others who use it to cultivate influence and power for themselves, rather than knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Similarly, it’s not enough to be a churchgoer. It’s possible to participate in religious practices and rituals without having a personal connection with Jesus the Good Shepherd. The outward form only has meaning if there is an inward reality.

To know the Good Shepherd means to recognise that he knows us just as deeply as he knows the Father (verse 15) – as one song puts it, ‘You know me better than I know myself.’

And in response, we engage with him, and we listen to him. As far as we know how, we put aside the existing filters we place on the world to hear him for who he is, rather than squeezing him into our preferred mould.

This becomes particularly important when we are considering the ethical implications of knowing the Good Shepherd. If we lean politically to the right, we may hear more Jesus’ call to personal morality. If we lean to the left, we may more easily hear his call to social justice. But Jesus gives us no such either/or options. It’s both/and.

Therefore if we want to draw closer to the Good Shepherd – and why wouldn’t we want to be nearer to the One who repeatedly said ‘Peace be with you’ after his Resurrection? – we need to invest in the spiritual disciplines. Prayer and Bible reflection in church, in small groups, and alone. Making sure we put into practice what we have heard. Reflecting on how we are progressing as disciples. The sacraments. And so on. All these help us to know more closely the Good Shepherd who knows us better than we know ourselves.

Thirdly and finally, the Good Shepherd has other sheep:

16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 

Now before anything else let me knock on the head the idea I have often heard about this verse, namely that Jesus is opening up the possibility that there are many ways to God, in its most crude form the notion that all religions lead to God.

This is not what he is saying when he says he has other sheep not of this sheepfold. We can see that from the fact that he goes on to say that he wants to bring the other sheep into the one sheepfold under him, the one shepherd.

It would also be crazy to suggest that Jesus advocates a multi-faith route to God from a verse in John’s Gospel, where elsewhere he says he is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no-one comes to the Father except through him.

Sure, the Gospel may present as many different facets of one diamond, but ultimately there is only the one Gospel: that there is a new king or Lord of the universe, his name is Jesus, and he reigns in love and mercy, not by brute force and power.

So no: by bringing the other sheep into the one sheepfold under the one shepherd here, Jesus is anticipating the Gentile mission. Gentiles will be ‘grafted in’ to the people of God, as the Apostle Paul put it in his Epistle to the Romans. The population of the sheepfold is going to increase, because Jesus has made that possible by laying down his life as the Good Shepherd.

But how was the Good Shepherd going to bring other sheep into the sheepfold? That was going to happen after Pentecost, when the Gospel would be preached in Jerusalem, in Samaria, and later to the ends of the earth. The responsibility is delegated, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to those who draw close to him.

A legend tells of Jesus returning to heaven at the Ascension and being quizzed by the angels.

“Master,” asked one of the angels, “what happens to your mission now that you have returned here to heaven?”

“I have left that in the hands of my followers,” replied Jesus.

“But won’t they mess it up, Lord? Won’t they fail you, won’t they lose courage, won’t they forget what they’re meant to do? What is your Plan B?”

Jesus replied, “I have no other plan.”

In conclusion, perhaps what sums this all up quite well is the thirteenth century prayer of St Richard, Bishop of Chichester. I’m sure you know it or will recognise it:

Thanks be to you, our Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which you have given us, for all the pains and insults which you have borne for us. Most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother, may we know you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly, day by day. Amen.

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Discipleship and the New Creation, John 1:29-42 (Ordinary 2 Epiphany 2 Year A)

John 1:29-42

I once said of John’s Gospel that John won’t settle for one meaning of a word when ten will do. It’s a Gospel packed with symbolism, even in the literal stories.

And that’s true in our passage today, from the very first words of it: ‘The next day’ (verse 29). There is a whole series of references in the first two chapters of his Gospel to time: this is the first of three times John says ‘The next day’ (also in verses 35 and 43). So they are days two, three, and four of a week.

Then chapter two opens with ‘On the third day’, a phrase that has meanings all of its own when you know about the Resurrection. But if you add it to the first four days we have a week in the life of Jesus.

Now is John just showing us what a typical week in the ministry of Jesus was like? No. A Gospel that has begun with the words ‘In the beginning’ and then alludes to seven days is telling us that these are not seven days of creation, but seven days of re-creation, as Jesus has come to make all things new. These stories are telling us some of the ways in which Jesus brings salvation by making the old, decaying, sin-afflicted creation new.

In today’s reading, we see the part that discipleship plays in the new creation. We see two gifts God gives us, and two responses he calls us to make in order that we may be true disciples of Jesus.

Of the two gifts the first is the Lamb of God. Twice in our reading John the Baptist tells his disciples, ‘Look, the Lamb of God’ (verses 29, 36). Of course, by ‘Lamb of God’ he means Jesus.

And in the first of those two references, John the Baptist goes further:

‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’

‘Takes up the sin of the world’ is arguably a better translation: Jesus the Lamb takes up the sins of the world like he takes up the Cross. He takes them up onto himself. The very thing which has been wrecking creation, namely sin, is taken out of the way by the One who will die at the time of the Passover lambs. Instead of Israel being passed over for death because her homes were marked with the blood of Passover lambs in Egypt, now anyone marked with the blood of the Lamb of God is passed over, too.

Not only are they forgiven, but their sin is removed because the Lamb of God has taken it up. This is the first gift of a discipleship for a new creation. People are made new as sin is taken up from them by Christ.

‘If anyone is in Christ – new creation!’ wrote the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians. We are made new at the Cross, and creation is taken in the direction of newness rather than decay by the removal of our sins.

What is the application for us? Well, obviously praise and rejoicing. But we will come specifically to application in the two responses in a few moments’ time.

The second of the two gifts is the gift of the Spirit.

32 Then John gave this testimony: ‘I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptise with water told me, “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptise with the Holy Spirit.” 34 I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.’

Put simply, the Holy Spirit is permanently with Jesus and Jesus will give the Holy Spirit permanently to his disciples.

If the first gift, Jesus the Lamb of God, removes sin from us and from creation, then the second gift, the Holy Spirit, enables us to live in newness of life following that. The Holy Spirit brings the power to live like the new creation is here.

But of course we know that’s a battle. Paul has a wonderful passage on this in Galatians chapter 5 where he talks about living in the flesh versus living in the Spirit. ‘Flesh’ here is not our bodies but our sinful human nature that does not want to do the will of God. He says, you won’t win the battle just by keeping the Law, the religious rules. It’s no good just applying willpower, because you will fail. Instead, he says, you crucify the flesh as you live by the Spirit and keep in step with the Spirit.

So how do we live by the Spirit who has been given to us? By adopting lifestyles that are hospitable to the Holy Spirit. Historically, Methodists have called these the ‘means of grace’. These days, Christians more often call them ‘spiritual disciplines’ or ‘spiritual practices.’ A church leader from Portland, Oregon named John Mark Comer has a course to help groups of Christians learn and practice the disciplines so as to be open to the Spirit. It’s called Practicing The Way. The course teaches each practice over a four-week period, and that includes putting it into practice. Were I remaining here longer I would be introducing this big time, but instead I commend it to you for personal study and house groups. (It’s free of charge.)

These, then, in brief, are two gifts of God that work to bring in the new creation. We have Jesus the Lamb of God who removes all the old creation sin to give us and the world a new start. And we have the Holy Spirit, who helps to live in a new creation way.

But I also said there were two specific examples of our response in the passage. What are they?

The first of the two responses is being wih Jesus.

When John the Baptist identifies the Lamb of God for a second time, two of his disciples leave him to follow Jesus, and the earliest expression of that following Jesus is wanting to see where he is staying (verses 35-39). In other words, they want to be with Jesus.

If you are going to follow someone you had better get to know them, and that’s what happens here. Sure, there is a lot of work in the world with which the Christian needs to get on with, but none of that kind of following Jesus makes any sense unless we have spent time with him, getting to know him and his ways.

That’s why you can’t choose between prayer and action as a Christian. Prayer feeds action. We need time with Jesus and then time in the world. Some people disparage prayer as ‘wasting time with God’, but it’s the best waste of time you can ever fritter away.

How might we do this? Don’t just speak to him, listen as you also read the Scriptures prayerfully. Learn not only to be alert for what he wants you to do, but also be open to him disclosing his heart and his passion to you.

You can be with Jesus on your own. You can be with him in the company of a small group or of a congregation. It’s best to be with him in all of those permutations.

But whatever you do and however you express it, make sure that spending time with Jesus is a priority, because it sets you up for following him in the world. And it gives you the agenda for your part in God’s new creation.

The second of the two responses is bringing people to Jesus.

40 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (that is, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus.

We don’t read much about Andrew in the Gospels, but on those rare occasions when he does become centre-stage in the narrative he’s often bringing people to Jesus. As well as this incident, he also brings the boy with the five fish and two loaves to Jesus, and he brings some Greeks who want to see Jesus.

Andrew is the quiet evangelist. Not for him the crowds to teach and preach to like Jesus. But he knows he has encountered someone special in Jesus and he wants other people to know. He doesn’t always know a lot, but he knows enough to say, ‘We have found the Messiah’ and encourage others to try him out, too.

What Andrew does (and quite consistently here) is like the modern-day Christian who knows that Jesus would make a difference in the life of a friend and invites them to come to church.

Simple invitations. Not grand sermons. Not great intellect. Just someone who has had a transforming experience of Jesus Christ and realises that many people need him. This is the chance for others to find who can release them from the deathly habits of the old creation and bid them come into the new creation.

Conclusion

From ‘In the beginning’ at the opening of Genesis to ‘In the beginning’ at the opening of John’s Gospel: we jump from creation to new creation.

How this world needs to be made new. Disciples whose old ways of sin have been lifted off them by Jesus the Lamb of God and have been given the powers of the new creation in the Holy Spirit are part of Jesus’ plan to make all things new. We can get our bearings for following Jesus from being with him, and we can invite others into his saving presence so that they too might be renewed and signed up for the work of God’s kingdom.

It therefore just remains to ask: what part is each of us playing?

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Passion Sunday: Framed By The Cross, John 12:1-8 (Lent 5 Year C 2022)

John 12:1-8

You don’t have to be around my family long to find those of us who are passionate about photography. My daughter and I share a love for it, and it all began with my late father. He wanted to document his time doing National Service with the RAF and got the bug there. Belatedly, at the age of 21, I caught it off him. In his later years, few things gave him greater pleasure when we were with him than seeing our daughter’s latest photos.

So when Dad died, one of the things we spent some money from his estate on was a family portrait session at a studio we knew of in a nearby village. After the session, Debbie and I returned to the studio a week or two later to choose the photos we wanted.

But it wasn’t just about choosing the photos: we also had to pick frames for them from a selection we were offered. Some choices were easier than others: a portrait of our dog, who is predominantly black in colour, was paired with a black frame. It wasn’t always as straightforward as that, as we considered both the content of the photo and the colour of the wall where it would hang.

Our reading today has a frame. At the top and the bottom, the beginning and the end, we find the Cross of Christ. We have it in the beginning with the reference ‘Six days before the Passover’ (verse 1). For in chapter 19, as the Passover lambs die, so too will Jesus (John 19:14), the Lamb of God (John 1:29). Then near the end, Jesus says that Mary anointed him for his burial (verse 7). Who knows, perhaps she took what was left of the perfume she used here to the tomb.

The Cross frames our story. What Jesus has recently done for the siblings Lazarus, Martha, and Mary by raising Lazarus from the dead (verse 1) will be ratified by the Cross. Ultimately, it is the source of all our blessings.

And within that frame, we see in Lazarus, Martha, and Mary fitting responses to all that Jesus has done for them. The brother and his two sisters are all here examples of responding to the grace of God. They are examples of true disciples.

So in what ways do they respond to Jesus, and what can we learn from them?

Martha is first up in the text. John writes of her, ‘Martha served’ (verse 2).

This is very different in tone from Luke’s story of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42), where we read that Martha was ‘distracted by serving’. Here it’s different. She is serving as her way of playing a part in honouring Jesus with this dinner.

Jesus had raised Lazarus back to life with no pre-conditions, but here is the natural response of someone like Martha. What can she do in gratitude? She can serve Jesus. On the surface it’s just a meal, but in John’s Gospel where even the most literal things are also symbolic, we see here an important spiritual principle for all of us.

We too have freely received from Jesus without any preconditions. He went to the Cross for us and offered us the forgiveness of sins. We owe him everything – and we cannot pay it. But we can offer to serve him in grateful response for all he has done for us. If we truly count our blessings we don’t merely end up writing a religious shopping list. Instead the cumulative effect of all those blessings is for us to say, ‘How can we show our gratitude?’

Serving Jesus is an obvious way to show our gratitude for the Cross and all it contains. And so we ask questions in prayer: ‘What do you need me to do, Lord? What would please you?’

Sometimes it will be obvious what we can do. There will be a presenting need. At other times we need to wait and seek God in prayer to know how he would like us to serve him. When the answer comes, it may be something we find pleasing or it may be something we find difficult.

It comes back to the Covenant Service, doesn’t it? ‘Christ has many services to be done. Some are easy, others are hard.’ For me, responding to the call to ministry was part of my way of serving Jesus in response to all he has done. Sometimes it’s rewarding and thrilling, but on other occasions it’s dull, depressing, or even frightening. But I carry on because this is a way in which Christ has shown me (and the Church) that I can serve him in response to his great love for me.

Can each of us name ways in which we are called to serve Christ in response to his grace and mercy to us?

Lazarus is next. ‘Lazarus was among those reclining at table with [Jesus]’ (verse 2)

‘Reclining at table’? Put out of your mind a typical dining table. In particular, stop thinking about Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper, where it looks like Jesus and the disciples are sitting down to a meal in the way we would.

Instead, remember that a Middle Eastern table was close to the floor. In order to eat, you would lie with your head near the table and your legs away, supporting yourself on your left elbow while using your right hand to take food. That is what ‘reclining at table’ was like.

And the point here isn’t that Lazarus is lazily enjoying the food and the company while the women slave in a hot kitchen. It’s more that this is a picture of intimacy. Perhaps on a day when we celebrate Holy Communion, intimacy at a meal table has special significance.

And so again, we have a response to what Jesus has done here. Jesus has brought his friend Lazarus back to life. In response, Lazarus wants to get close to him. You can imagine that Lazarus will be getting to know his friend Jesus better as they eat together.

We too can draw near to Jesus in response to all the wonderful things he has done for us. Don’t we want to know someone like that better? This is why we pray. This is why we read our Bibles. This is why we gather for worship. This is why we eat in his presence, not only in ordinary meals but also at the Lord’s Supper. It’s all about getting to know better the One who has been so full of love for us, sinners that we are.

Sometimes when a preacher reminds us to pray, read our Bibles, worship, and take the sacraments it sounds like a sergeant-major barking orders. But that isn’t the reason for doing these things. All these so-called ‘means or grace’ (or in other traditions ‘spiritual disciplines’) are there as ways of coming close to Jesus.

So I’m not going to harangue you today about your personal devotions. But I am going to say this: let’s ponder all that Jesus has done for us, and let that motivate us to use the means he has provided to come close to him.

Finally, the star of the show (well, apart from Jesus, of course): Mary. We know how Mary responds to all Jesus has done for her, Martha, and Lazarus:

Then Mary took about half a litre of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. (Verse 3)

If Martha responds by serving and Lazarus by intimacy, then Mary responds by giving. Her giving is generous and perhaps sacrificial. But it is so beautiful that ‘the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.’

That’s what true giving from the heart to Jesus in response to his love is like. There is a beauty about it. Mary is not paying a tax. Nor is she settling a bill. She is responding from the heart to the grace and mercy of Jesus. And everyone present can smell the fragrance.

Not only that, but we can also say her giving is prophetic. In the next chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus will wash his disciples’ feet. But Jesus’ own feet don’t get a wash. Not that he needed to be washed clean of sin, of course. But his feet have already been washed here by Mary, who has anointed him for burial (verse 7) after the Cross.

The one who doesn’t understand this is Judas, whom John tells us is a taker to the point of being a thief (verses 4-6) rather than a giver.

Now when Christians give, we do not ultimately give to the church, we give to Jesus. When we give, we do not pay a subscription that entitles us to benefits from the church, we give as an act of gratitude and worship because Jesus has done so much for us and our lives are framed by his Cross. Some of you will recall that’s why I never refer to ‘the collection’ in a service: I talk about ‘the offering.’

I know I’m saying this at a time when giving of the financial kind is especially hard. Inflation is at its worst for thirty years and is poised to get worse; and on Friday we saw our energy bills leap by 54%.

But nevertheless we can ask the general question about giving. And we ask it not in a way that is designed to inflict guilt on people: rather, we say, have we truly taken into our hearts and minds the lavish and outrageous grace of God in Christ who went to the Cross for us? Have we caught a vision of just how much God loves us? In gratitude, what can we give of our money, time, talents, possessions, indeed of our very lives?

Can we make the atmosphere fragrant with the scent of our giving?

So – Passion Sunday, when we start to see that the Cross of Jesus frames not just this reading but our whole lives: can we sense how broad and deep and high the love of God for us is in Christ?

And if we can, then like Martha can we show our gratitude in serving, like Lazarus can we show our love in drawing close to Jesus, and like Mary can we demonstrate our response to that love in generous giving?

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Second Sunday in Lent: Worship in the Wilderness – A Simple Journey

This week we consider how the spiritual disciplines Jesus used in the wilderness are ones we can use to put him first in our lives.

Luke 4:1-13

One of the regular moans I always used to hear in churches was older people complaining that younger people lacked discipline. It used to be accompanied by comments regretting the abolition of National Service. Well, the latter is fading into distant memory now – even I am too young to have been ‘called up’.

But what strikes me is that a place where we really could do with more discipline is in the Church. I would say that discipline is a required characteristic of a Christian disciple. I say that because Jesus in his life exhibited serious discipline. And we are called to imitate him.

Nowhere is the discipline of Jesus more apparent than in the story of the wilderness temptations. On a day when in our series we’re thinking about the simplicity of the wilderness journey, I want to show you how spiritual discipline is at the heart of that simplicity.

Those who teach about spiritual disciplines such as Richard Foster and the late Dallas Willard talk about ‘disciplines of engagement’ and ‘disciplines of abstinence’. The disciplines we see in Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness are very much disciplines of abstinence, where he puts aside something for a season to concentrate on God.

Here, then, are three disciplines of abstinence that helped Jesus focus on his Father and which also help us to focus on our God.

The first, then, is simplicity itself.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness (verse 1)

Jesus leaves behind civilisation with all its trappings to go to a stark place where he will concentrate on his Father. In church history, we’ve seen the Desert Fathers, monks, and nuns, and especially hermits, do something similar.

Sometimes the cares of this world and its trappings get in the way. People make demands on us. Possessions distract us. Money worries or tempts us. It can be good to put these things to a side for a limited period to focus on prayer. And by doing so we are making a radical statement: ‘Lord, you are more important to us than money, work, and possessions. You are Number One in my life.’

How do we do it today? It can be helpful as part of our simplicity to travel to somewhere else so that we don’t have those material distractions in front of us. There aren’t too many deserts around here, but we have plenty of heathland.

For those of us who have a smartphone, then it is probably a good idea to turn off all the notifications and perhaps put it on Airplane Mode.

Clear your diary for a few hours, or a whole day if you can. Get as far away from material clutter as you can. Take a Bible. Listen to God and read the Scriptures. Pour out your heart to God about all things large and small. Have a notebook so that you can write down your impressions of what God says to you in your conversation.

Amazingly, you will still have distractions! Your mind will run off on all sorts of tangents. At that point, it is worth remembering the Apostle Paul’s example when he said ‘We take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ’ (2 Corinthians 10:5). Do that either by writing down the thought in your notebook so that you can return to it at a better time or turn the thought into prayer.

The second discipline of abstinence for a simple journey is solitude.

It’s apparent from the story that Jesus went alone into the wilderness. Leaving the Jordan also meant leaving people behind.

Solitude is different from loneliness. Solitude is where we lay aside the distractions of people (even loved ones) with their requests, requirements, needs, and demands, to put God first and foremost in our life. Solitude is thus a clear choice, whereas loneliness is more something that happens to us, and is usually experienced as something unwanted and not chosen.

We have experienced a lot of aloneness this last year due to the pandemic. Some of us have experienced that as deeply unwanted loneliness. Others of us, especially those of us who get energised by being alone, have managed to make it into an experience of solitude, even solitude with God.

The last thing I want to do in talking about this is to diminish the sense of loneliness that many people have experienced in the last year. But I do want to challenge those of us who love our social lives and maybe even like to be the centre of attention. For the discipline of solitude is one that says we are willing temporarily to put aside the people who energise us and the people we love to concentrate on our Father in heaven. Solitude is a time when I confess that I am not the centre of the universe and I am not to be everyone’s centre of attention. Rather, our God is to be the centre of our attention. The act of prayer in solitude is thus an act of worship, acknowledging that God the Father is on the throne, not me.

Yes, as I said, you may need to have your smartphone with you when you go off for your time with God in case there are family emergencies, but the discipline of solitude is there to emphasise by physical act that our God comes first before every single other person, even those we love the dearest.

A married couple I know only committed themselves to Christ and to Christian faith in their adult life, several years after they had married. The point came when, a few years after becoming Christians, one day the wife confessed to the husband: ‘There is someone I love more than you.’

After the shocked silence she added, ‘It’s Jesus.’ Her husband was thrilled.

I am not suggesting we neglect our loved ones. But relationships have been so elevated in our society to the point where people expect their spouse or partner to provide for their needs in a way they can’t, namely in a way that only God can. We need to redress that imbalance, that idolatry. Solitude with God is one way of doing that.

The third discipline of abstinence practised by Jesus in the wilderness is, of course, fasting.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

This is the one we expect to hear about in Lent. It’s the discipline on which all our ‘giving up something for Lent’ is based. And although these days that has also been turned around into a positive idea of taking up something good for Lent, I suggest that taking up something rather misses the point of giving up something.

For one thing, maybe we want to take up something because we can’t face giving up something. If we recognise that tendency, we should be concerned.

But for another, taking up something overlooks the whole idea of disciplines of absence, which is to say that God is more important to us than our possessions, than people, and – in the case of fasting – food.

That’s why fasting is connected so much to prayer in the Bible. When we fast and pray we are saying to God, you matter more to us than even the food that keeps us alive. And what’s more, it is more important to us to hear you speak and see you do something about this issue we are bringing to you in prayer.

Now I am aware that there will always be people for whom it is medically questionable to fast. I am not going to ask anyone to do something that their doctor would say was inadvisable or dangerous.

But fasting does say something important to a society like ours that is so obsessed with consumption. Because of that, I do support the idea of extending the notion of fasting from food to other things. What has gained too much of our affection in place of God and needs to be put back where it belongs? Do we need to fast from Netflix or Spotify? What is that thing of which we say, ‘I can’t get enough of this,’ and which therefore needs putting back in its place below the throne of God by fasting from it?

To conclude, the purpose of spiritual disciplines is to cultivate in thought and action the core Christian confession that Jesus is Lord. The disciplines of abstinence we have thought about today are ways of doing that.

This is not about being a killjoy. And it is not about expecting everyone to become a hermit. It is about pursuing disciplines that put created things and people in their right place under the reign of Christ, and cultivating those disciplines so that they become ingrained as virtuous habits in our lives.

May God grant us the grace to live a disciplined life of love and faith in his Son.

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Sacred Rhythms

We’ve just started a new course at Knaphill: Sacred Rhythms is a DVD course that abbreviates the book of the same name by Ruth Haley Barton, an American retreat leader and spiritual director. I’ve been reading her regular emails from The Transforming Center for some while. I’m about half way through the original book.

Why are we doing it? Because people asked at our annual meeting in the Spring for teaching on prayer. Barton says something striking about that: it is young Christians who typically do not ask how to pray, because they get on with it. As we become more mature, we hit  more obstacles in prayer and realise we don’t know what we thought we knew. Ironically, it is the more experienced Christians who may have to come to the point of honesty, asking, “Teach us to pray.”

We had an excellent first meeting this week. The opening chapter or session locates ‘desire’ as a way into discovering why we need to develop the habits of spiritual disciplines that form a rule of life, in which we focus on Christ.

That sounds strange, even wrong, at first. However, Barton begins from the times in the Gospels when Jesus asks needy people like Bartimaeus questions such as, “What do you want me to do for you?” We could come up with selfish answers to that, or the question could expose honourable desires. Yet even if we come up with answers from sinful motives, these are exposed in the light of Christ and that is a first step to coming into a better place. Like Bartimaeus, we may need to ‘throw off our cloak’ to press towards what God has for us – we may need to let go of certain things that are not always sins in order to walk in the way of Christ.

At this early stage, I recommend the course to you.  As a taster, here are the opening three minutes of it.

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Sermon: Making Adversity Work

This will be my first sermon back after the sabbatical. I wrote this at the end of January (hence some of the references!). It will appear on the blog Monday 4th May, to be preached on Sunday 10th, the latter being the date I start back.

Text: John 15:1-8

One of my favourite stories is the one about the little girl who asked her mum whether all fairy stories end with the words, ‘And they all lived happily ever after.’ “No,” replies her mother, “Some end with, ‘When I became a Christian, all my troubles disappeared’.”

Jesus’ teaching in John 15 explicitly refutes the idea that the Christian life may be lived without suffering or difficulty. In the image here from a vineyard, each branch is either cut off or pruned. I am no gardener, but neither procedure sounds painless!

Whatever the joys and pleasures of our ultimate destiny when we are raised from the dead to life in God’s new creation, life now unavoidably includes uncomfortable and painful seasons. Some of those times, says Jesus, are actually brought by God for our good.

As Adrian Plass has put it, “Each day is a choice between what you don’t want to do and what you really don’t want to do.” The challenge for Christians is to make those hard circumstances count positively for the kingdom of God.

To do that involves grasping two things mentioned in these verses: what God is doing (pruning) and what we need to do (abiding in Christ).

Pruning 
I am no gardener. I can think of few things that bore me more than gardening. So metaphors in the Bible like this one of God pruning the branches of a vine don’t sit easily with me. Give me a pair of secateurs and I’m more likely to injure myself than accomplish anything worthwhile.

But I do realise that an image of pruning has something to do with cutting away in order to promote health. And on that simple level, I can understand the notion of God pruning us in a spiritual sense. Much as we might prefer God not to, I believe it’s often God’s way either to cut something out of our lives in order for us to grow in the life of the Spirit, or to allow something to be removed from us, so that we are challenged to focus on those things which are truly important.

We may protest about the difficult seasons of our lives – well, I do – but they may sometimes be seasons of the Spirit. Sometimes a bad experience is something to resist and protest against, but not always. God works for good in all things with those who love him, who are called according to his purposes, as Paul says in Romans 8:28.

Whenever an adversity comes into our lives, we have a choice as to whether we will seek the purposes of God in it. Endurance and perseverance are character-building qualities. I do not mean that we should embrace injustice or seek out bad times – that would be perverse – but I do think there is a call not just to look for easy ways out but seek what God is saying and doing in that environment.

So a pruning experience can be a stripping away of things that get in the way of our faith. It can be the removal of hindrances, or of accretions that are weighing us down.

I said in a sermon elsewhere just before my sabbatical that the atheist bus campaign with its slogan, ‘There’s Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life’ looks a bit sick at a time of economic recession. To tell people whose jobs and homes are under threat or even disappearing just to ‘stop worrying and enjoy [their lives]’ is unbearably smug. We Christians are not exempt from the economic downturn, despite what the odd prosperity gospel idiot might say. And without in any wanting to minimise the pain for those who are feeling its effects, the differences for Christians are these: our sense of worth is not in our job, but in being loved by God. Our security is in God, not our ability to generate wealth.

Back in January, Debbie spent a weekend away at the annual Children’s Ministry conference in Eastbourne. I juggled preparing and conducting services with childcare that weekend. We fitted in various fun things, including visits the children wanted to their favourite shops – Claire’s Accessories in Rebekah’s case, Waterstone’s bookshop in Mark’s, and Millie’s Cookies for both of them.  But nothing really made up for the absence of Mum, even though she rang each day to speak to them and say goodnight to them. On the Saturday tea-time when Debbie phoned, she told Rebekah that she had bought some presents for them. Rebekah’s reply was devastating and moving:

“Mummy, I love presents, but I’d rather have you.”

When God prunes us, not only is it a time of removing sin from our lives, it’s a time when he pins us back to that question: would we rather have him than all the goodies?  The writer to the Hebrews calls us to ‘lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely’ (Hebrews 12:1), and sometimes the ‘weights’ are not sin. Good things can weigh us down. When God prunes us to make us more holy, he is sometimes asking us whether we want him more than the goodies.

It isn’t that God is a killjoy. The same passage in 1 Timothy where he tells the wealthy not to put their hope on the uncertainty of riches, he tells them to trust in God ‘who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment’ (1 Timothy 5:18). God not only understands we may enjoy certain things, he made them for our enjoyment. But he will not permit these created things to be his love-rivals for our affections. And for that reason he will sometimes prune us of good things.

So when we enter a season of our lives when the good life seems to be disappearing, we need to seek God in prayer about it. Is this something evil that should be opposed, or is God pruning us so that ‘we may perfectly love [him]’?

Abiding 
Just as ‘pruning’ was a difficult image for a non-gardener like me, so ‘abiding’ is an awkward one for somebody who was never good at Biology or Botany at school! For Jesus is using an image here of the branch remaining on the vine. He’s talking botany.

One one level, it’s absurd: how can you tell a branch to remain or abide in the vine? It just happens. Well – it happens, provided the flow of sap to the branch remains. In the physical world, neither the branch nor the vine are conscious beings, and so cannot be given commands or expected to choose certain actions. The idea of a branch choosing not to remain connected to the vine is ridiculous.

And it’s similarly ridiculous for the Christian disciple to contemplate not being vitally connected to Christ. Yet Jesus urges his followers to remain, to abide. Of course, the analogy is limited, but maybe that’s the point: we humans are foolish, and easily detach ourselves from the source of spiritual vitality and health. When the flow of sap stops, the branch falls off, or needs cutting off.

As I said near the beginning, the choice is being cut off or being pruned. Each is painful. But assuming we have chosen pruning and are willing to endure that for the sake of greater spiritual fruitfulness, then how do we ‘abide’ while God ‘prunes’?

Not surprisingly, this comes down to a disciplined approach to the spiritual life. Regular habits of prayer and meditation on the Scriptures are essential parts of this. Yes, it can be difficult to find time, but we make time for food even when we have to eat on the run, and it’s critical that we make time for these habits, without which we shall starve. We don’t all need to do them first thing in the morning, as some books tell us, but we do need a time.

The disciplines are not merely personal and private, though. Even prayer and biblical meditation need not be solo practices. Often they are helpful done in fellowship with others. The ‘sap’ doesn’t always come to us directly; sometimes it arrives through others.

Then, there are those practices which we are used to conceiving of in a corporate form: worship and the sacraments. We don’t sit in private cubicles at worship and Holy Communion; we are deliberately together to encounter God within us and among us, and to build each other up.

But we can’t even stop there. Abiding in Christ involves not only receiving the sap, it means allowing it to work. So prayer, Bible reading, worship and taking the sacraments are not simply passive practices. They are meant to lead to action. Spiritual nourishment is designed by God in such a way that it is health-giving when put into practice. It decays without use. We need to respond to what we are given. This means there are both public and secret disciplines.

The public practices are by nature fairly obvious. They involve every way we demonstrate the love of God in Christ to others. So pastoral care within the church, when done in response to God’s love, is a spiritual discipline. So is care for the poor, praying and campaigning for justice. Evangelism, too.

Then there are the secret responses we make, the ones where Jesus condemned those who did them for show as having already received their reward in public adulation. Giving to someone in need. Or fasting as a sign that something was so important it was worth going without the basics of food in order to underline prayer. And some forms of prayer itself are best done secretly rather than showily.

Abiding in Christ is everything we do to keep in tune with him and sustained by him. Sustenance involves taking something into us, and some of the disciplines I’ve mentioned are blatantly ones where we put ourselves in a position to receive from Christ. 

Others, though, are about the outworking of what we have received. Jesus expects much of those to whom much is given. Some Christians emphasise prayer, others action, but both are priorities. Abiding in Christ is a matter of both receiving from Christ and giving back to him and others.

Both the receiving and the giving are practised in easy times and hard times, when life and faith are going well, and when we are facing opposition and even undergoing pruning. They are, after all, disciplines, not just activities we engage in because we feel like it.

Many are the ordinary routine actions of life that we maintain regardless of whether we feel like doing them, but we continue with them for the sake of our well-being and the flourishing of others. So are the spiritual disciplines of abiding in Christ, too.

I’ve heard some people speak about marriages as if marriage ‘didn’t work’ – implying that marriage was something that happened to them. But relationships take work and effort, and our spiritual relationship with Christ doesn’t just happen, either. It does happen to us in the sense that God makes the first move towards us. Furthermore, his approaches are sometimes of a ‘pruning’ nature.

But it then requires faithful response from us, through good times and bad. And that’s what abiding in Christ is all about.

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