The Significant Other
Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing (John 15.5)
What has made you what you are?
No, let me rephrase the question: Who has made you who you are?
Humans are social creatures. Our personalities and characters are shaped by two forces, nature and nurture. Nature, being our genes, nurture being the way we have been brought up and the continuing influence of other people of our lives, indeed on our very self perception. Foremost amongst these people are our parents but we can all identify others who have had profound influences on our lives. These are what sociologists and psychologists call our ‘significant others’. Whether, through these people we have become the people God originally intended us to be is another matter.
The Christian faith teaches us that God has provided the means for our salvation and healing through a Person. All religions have sacred books of scripture, rules and ethical systems, hierarchies, doctrine, ritual and liturgy. Christianity has at its heart a person – Jesus Christ – not a sacred book, or a set or rules, or a hierarchy, or ritual or liturgy.
And it teaches that what matters fundamentally is a relationship with Jesus Christ. Just as we have been shaped by the influence of our parents and all those ‘significant others’ in our lives, so God has planned that we will likewise be fully shaped into the people we are intended to be, by this relationship with Jesus.
This is what Jesus means when he says that we must abide in him. Abide is one of those words which can have several meanings but here it means ‘dwell with’. So to abide in Christ is to dwell with or even in Christ, and to open ourselves up for Christ to dwell in us.
So let’s reflect for a few moments on what it means to ‘Abide’ with and in Christ, and to let Christ ‘abide’ in us.
First, we must understand that this abiding is possible because of the life and death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. For only then could he send the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit, who the New Testament writers affirm as a Person, who will bring Christ to us and us to Christ.
Secondly, in our individualistic age, we also need to understand that Christ abides as much in the Community or Fellowship of Christians as in individual Christians. Jesus himself said ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them’ (Matthew 18.20). When a child is baptised, he or she, comes to dwell in a Community in which Christ abides, even when he or she cannot make a conscious profession of faith. There is some evidence that historically, Christian missionaries baptised whole communities and families together. (Acts 16.27-34)
So, crucial to our abiding in Christ are an openness to the Holy Spirit and a commitment to the community to which Christ has called us and in which we work out our Christian discipleship. It is this abiding in Christ, through the Holy Spirit and the Christian Community that provide the key to unlocking the meaning of the Bible for each generation, time and place.
To abide in Christ is also to take prayer seriously. I have mentioned before that prayer is, must be, more than asking God to change things for the better. Origen, one of the early Christian thinkers, said that we don’t pray in order to get benefits from God but that we might become more like God. We don’t pray to fulfil our wants and desires but that those desires might be transformed into the will of God – so we can then pray ‘Your Will be Done’. I would want to say that we pray in order that Christ might abide in us and we in him – then the Kingdom can become real on earth. This kind of prayer needs preparation and it needs stillness and it needs reflection. It is seeking to cultivate the closer presence of Christ which we then take with us into the busyness of our everyday lives. Too often we fill our prayer times with words when we ought simply to be abiding in Christ. There is a story of an elderly woman who once asked by a zealous minister if she said her prayers. Well, she replied, it’s like this. I sit and knit and look at him. And he looks at me. And that, minister, is how I say my prayers.
To abide in Christ is also to hold in our minds and our hearts that we are the current chapter in the continuing story of God at work in the world. It is a story, a good and indeed crucial and pivotal part of which has been set down in the bible, but it is a story which has continued down the centuries, and which is unfolding every moment. It is God who is the author and Christ who is the foundation stone of this great story and we become part of it as we let God work in our characters through the draftsman-ship of the Holy Spirit. We let the Holy Spirit work in us by entering into a dialogue with God, with the world, and with the bible. As we read and reflect upon the words of scripture, bringing our selves and our world to the conversation so we come to know the concerns of God, and the so the story unfolds.
To abide in Christ is to let Christ continue his work of healing of people and institutions through us. Our work is not only to bring individuals to the knowledge of and trust in Jesus. It is to cooperate with Christ in labouring for the making real the Kingdom of God here and now on earth. God so loved the world and so must we. He sent his Son, and we must play are part in continuing that story. Such a view is very much the ethos of organisations like Christian Aid.
So we abide in Christ by being open to the Holy Spirit, by being part of the community to which God has appointed us, by spending time in prayer and working for the Kingdom and by being part of the next chapter of the story of salvation, the genesis and pattern of which we read in the Bible, most specially in the Gospels. But most important of all, whatever factors have gone into making us what we are, let us make Christ the most Significant Other in our lives for that is abiding in Christ.
EASTER EGGSHELLS
A sermon for all of us - not just the children - so whatever age, don't think it too childish - you might find yourself challenged!
Today is the greatest day of the Christian year – that’s why churches are so beautifully decorated today for a festival and a celebration. A celebration of Jesus who had died on the cross now being alive – for ever – he cannot die again.
Some of you have given chocolate eggs as presents today, others have received them. Perhaps you have had one before breakfast? But what have they to do with Jesus?
Eggs were given around the time of Easter long before people had heard about Jesus. This is spring time and eggs are all part of spring – with its promise of new life.
When the first missionaries came across this custom they thought it would be a good way of explaining the new life that Jesus brings – so they kept it as a Christian celebration.
So how does an egg help? Who likes these kinds of eggs – boiled, scrambled, fried, omelette, lots of uses. But what do we have to do with this egg to eat it – more than just taking the paper off!
It has to be broken.
But what could come out of an egg? So long as we don’t eat it?
A chick, new life, from a fertilised egg.
And the chick looks really very different to what we find in an egg if we break it.
This helps us to understand something about Jesus.
His life had to be broken for new life to come out. He had to die on the cross before he could receive this new life. And isn’t it interesting that his friends did not at first recognise him! He looked somehow different to their eyes.
He had become different and after a while they could see him no more – for in his new body he does not need to be seen to be real. He isn’t tied to time and space like us.
But lets think about something.
Remember, the chick has to break the eggshell for it to have new life.
God wants us all to have new life – like Jesus. But, like the chick, we need to break out of our shell.
And that means we have to take a risk and let go of the things which give us security. Sometimes we don’t want to change, even if it for the best.
The question on this Easter Sunday is. Are we ready to risk our shells be broken ready for the new life that Jesus wants us to have.
That will mean many different things for each of us.
God knows what it is for you.
God is calling us out of our safety shells into a whole new way of living, trusting in God with our heart and soul and mind and strength and loving one another.
That may mean some of our habits and fears, like shells, have to be broken before we can live our new lives.
The good news of Easter is that Jesus has already broken through the shell of sin and death which keeps us trapped,
so if we hold on to him, he can bring us through the shell breaking and out into the light and space of day – a daylight which lasts for ever.
Sunday 15th March 2009
Barriers to mission
Many people still kindly ask how we are finding things here in the North East. I always reply positively. Sometimes people ask if we miss anything. I don’t know about Mari but there is one thing I miss. Now don’t get me wrong, but what I miss is the English pub! Its nothing to do with the availability of alcohol. Rather its because of the ambiance. I have to confess (if that’s the right word) to have never gone into a bar here. I certainly wouldn’t take Mari in. Bars here seem to be places where men go to drink as much as they can. They are not the places of relaxation and sociability that I am used to. I feel that if I went into one all eyes would turn on me and once known as English, well, that would be even more difficult. Please contradict me afterwards if you want, I’m willing to learn.
Mind you in any country I would find it very hard if not impossible to go into a betting shop. I have never been in one and it would take an awful lot to get me over the threshold.
Now I tell these two things to make a point which I shall return to in a moment.
Today’s Gospel reading is the well know account of Jesus going into the temple and turning over the tables of the money changers and driving out the animals that were being bought and sold. Jesus is angry. He does not seem to get angry about the things the respectable and religious people get upset about. No, he gets angry about the respectable and the religious people who use their respectability and their religiosity to exclude others. His harshest words were for the Phariesees. On one occasion he likened the Pharisees to whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead (Matthew 23 27” “And he said, ‘Woe also to you scribes! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them. Luke 11 46). He was angry at the hardness of heart of those who criticised him for healing on the Sabbath. (Matt 12.9ff) As he was at the men who brought the woman caught in adultery and wanted him to agree to them stoning her.
So what was going on in the temple that caused such anger. It wasn’t the trade as such, it was the exploitation of the pilgrims who came to make sacrifices. They were obliged to buy animals from the authorised dealers for sacrifice. Any of their own were almost inevitably condemned as impure by the priests so they had no choice. And they had to use temple money – other currencies were tainted. And all of this went on in the court of the gentiles – which was as far as they could go anyway – so that’s the only picture they had of the temple life. What angered Jesus was not just the trade or the apparent exploitation – but the fact that people’s access to God was being restricted and limited by the ecclesiastical gate keepers. Soon, he prophesied the temple would be no more anyway. It would be no longer necessary to gain access to God through the temple. Access to God would be through Jesus himself and incorporation into his body. So, in effect, by taking away the need for the temple Jesus was claiming to be destroying it. Later this would be used in evidence against him.
Diocesan Synod met on Friday and Saturday. On Friday evening there was a presentation on Mission. It was very interesting. Mission is about bring people to God by bringing them into the presence of Jesus Christ. There was a discussion about this and we heard of different ways of being a mission church, starting with our own personal lives. I started to make some connections with today’s gospel reading. And I thought, we don’t require people to buy sacrificial animals, nor use a special currency but are there any ways in which unconsciously we might be restricting peoples access to God. Now you could say – Well, the church is open, and we make people welcome and that is true. So why don’t more people come. We were told on Friday that this credit crunch is supposed to be making people re evaluate their lives and their priorities. We are also told that there is a great spiritual hunger out there. But something stops people coming to church. Why? We really do need to think about it. Is it a class thing? Or a historical thing? Is it a liturgy or a music or a building thing? Or is it a fear of being judged or having to subscribe immediately to some alien creed? Or what? I’m giving it a lot of thought but alone I cannot see it. I once read that for some, stepping over the threshold of the church is like stepping over the threshold of the betting shop, or the local bar would be for me. I know it seems a bit stretched to say that but I think its worth pondering. We know we would welcome anyone who came and we have a lot to offer. It may not be our fault but that is perhaps not the perception of those who do not know us.
This is all proving a big challenge for me. Jesus is not likely to walk in through that door and sweep away the new pews – that’s not the point. But what would he say?
This is a lovely church with great ambience, in which we have invested a lot of money and effort. It has a real feeling of being a place of prayer. So we want people to come to enjoy the building but also because we hope they will encounter God here in Christ and in the fellowship we share. How can we get them to come in; how can we attract people and give them a reason and a desire to cross the threshold without fear or anxiety. Perhaps this can inform our prayers in the weeks and months ahead.
O, and here’s a postscript: Let’s also invest time and effort in building our relationship with God, and in our prayers – that as Christ’s living Church, made up of his people, we might extend the walls far out into the community and world.
Sunday 8th February
(Third Sunday Before Lent)
Knowing
Since November I have met, a good number of folk in both St James and St Marys. Some I have been ‘introduced to’ by someone else. Also one or two have said, ‘I must introduce you too .. so and so. Sometimes someone will say ‘Have you not met so and so’ yet?’ And often I know of people through what others have said about them. When I have met them I sometimes get a completely different impression. It always so important to meet people in the flesh as it were.
The passage from Isaiah begins – ‘Have you not known? Have you not heard?’. This is the prophet speaking forth God’s words. And he goes on to share the characteristics of God. He sits above the circle of the earth, to him we are like the grasshoppers. He stretches out his hand and forms the heavens, he makes princes and world rulers as nothing. He does not faint or grow weary, his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Those who wait on him shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles. Have you not heard? An d this God is a God who waits to be introduced, then makes himself available to us. We know this because of Jesus.
It is a rather staggering thought is it not? Our God is not a far off Olympian hero, or an impersonal deity above and beyond the changes and chances of creation. No, our God, came to share what it is to be human, living and dying – took and transformed in himself – all the pain and hurt and sin and anger and despair on the cross.
We see the very nature of this God in our Gospel reading today. Jesus heals Simon’s mother in law and all the others who flocked to his door. Jesus could not do other than heal those who came to him. Physically and mentally. Our reading stops just before Mark tells of a Leper coming to Jesus and saying, rather pathetically really, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean’. ‘Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touch him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean’ (Mark 1.40) He could not do other than meet simple trusting need like this, even when he knew people would talk about him as a wonder worker, then all people would want him for was to heal them. They would come to experience miracles and not listen much to his message. When you read the stories of Jesus note how many times, especially in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus tells those he has healed to tell no one. He said the same to the leper. But as I said it was in his very nature to heal the sick – for God the Father was his very nature. We often say that Jesus is Godlike. But in fact it’s the other way round. God is Christlike.
That gives us the key to understand the rest of the bible – as it chronicles God’s slow unveiling of himself to a people sometimes unwilling to hear. God is Christlike, and that is the open secret of the Christian faith.
That is what we know; but knowing involves encounter – as I said right at the beginning. It is encounter with the living God that is at the heart of Christianity. It is to that end that we have the bible; it is to that end that Christ came. It is to that end that he sent the Holy Spirit. That is the end of religion. It is the knowing which arises from this encounter that gives power to the faint and strength to the weak, which causes us to mount up with wings like eagles, to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint. It is the knowing which can cut through the darkness of despair or self doubt, or failure or sin.
This knowledge obviously goes beyond knowing about. As I said I can know about Mrs x or Mr y but until I meet them I do not know them. We read of many occasions when Jesus took himself off to be on his own with his Father. ‘In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went into a deserted place and prayed’ (Mark 1.35) It is through such prayer that knowing comes. It takes time and there are no short cuts. If Jesus needed it then surely we must also need it but how seriously do we take this? Our very being seems to tell us that we must be doing things, using our time productively, not ‘wasting time’.
But this is a very western and very recent thing. Indeed we even fill our prayer time with words asking for this and that rather than simply being with God in stillness and silence – whatever our equivalent of early in the morning in a deserted place might be.
Jesus time of prayer was cut short however. His disciples found him and told him the people were clamouring to see him. Jesus knew this was because he was seen as wonder worker, a curer of illness and madness. But, he said to them, we must move on to the neighbouring towns ‘that I might proclaim the message there – because that is what I come to do’ (Mark 1.2) To proclaim the good news. Now he asked his disciples to do the same.
So what does that mean to us. I think it means that, firstly we each need to respond, in our own unique way, to God’s invitation to a personal encounter. Which means taking prayer seriously, finding our own ‘early in the morning deserted place’ – not literally I guess- but time and place set aside. Because then we begin to walk with him – and it shows. And secondly it means acting as a good host – by which I mean introducing people to Christ, in whatever gentle way seems best. To Christ,. who is our hope and our strength, our life and our joy.
Sunday 31st January 2009
Candlemas
Today is candlemas. Or, to give it its full title: the festival of the presentation of Christ in the Temple. It was customary for mother and child to go to the temple at the appropriate time after childbirth. It was considered that a first born male belonged to God and the parents had to make an offering of money to the priests in thanksgiving that he had entrusted them with this precious responsibility. That was one of the reasons. The other reason was that Mary had to mark the time when her period of ceremonial uncleanness after a birth had ended. That required the sacrifice of a young lamb or pigeon. That they brought a pigeon tells us that Jesus family weren’t wealthy. It was while they were in the Temple that they encountered Simeon and Anna.
Simeon and Anna were people of expectancy. They were both very old. They had been waiting and praying for a long while for the coming of the Messiah. They had spent a lot of time in the Temple, And they were able to recognise him when they saw him; they were open and sensitive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
Simeon would have always held on to the traditional Jewish expectation that the messiah would bring about a liberation from the people’s enemies and a restoration to grandeurs of King David’s reign. But when he spoke he spoke not his own words but the Holy Spirit spoke through him. And he painted a rather darker picture than the people would have expected.
This Messiah would lead his people, yes, but it would be to no easy or superficial triumph. This child would grow to be the centre of a real storm and controversy. He would reveal the secret dispositions of many hearts, he would be the cause of the rising and falling of many, and would also bring piercing grief to his mother. Yet he would be a light to lighten the Gentiles and he would be the glory of God’s people, Israel. The feast of candlemas has grown out of this talk of Jesus being a light to the world.
He would be the cause of the falling and rising of many. Many people have pondered this saying and have suggested that it means that some would fall and some would rise - through the response they made to the coming of the Messiah. He would challenge people and bring them to a point where they had to make a decision.
Candlemas marks the end of the Christmas season. Next week we begin to look towards Ash Wednesday and Lent. and later, the events of Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. For that is where his path will take him. He will fall and he will rise. Perhaps this is what Simeon is talking about when he says Jesus will cause the fall and rising of many. Note that he doesn’t say the fall of some and the rising of others! The fall and rising of many. I agree with those who, believe this saying means that many will fall before they will rise again. This fits better with the gospel message. Many will pass through the valley before they can ascend to the hill. Even Jesus best friends needed to go through failure before they could rise.
Peter had to learn about his true self when he denied any knowledge of his lord and friend on the eve of the crucifixion. Later he had to accept Jesus’ forgiveness and know his own weaknesses. (He had to learn these things before he could be a leader of the church). And Jesus himself trod the same path. There could be no resurrection before there had been the crucifixion.
So for those who are not life’s successes or high flyers, those who have tried and failed, those who are the little people, the poor of the land, those who have known sickness and suffering, betrayal or rejection, in short for those who have fallen, or who are fallen, here is the joy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because its only in our weakness that we can really be open to receive God’s grace in all its fullness . Paul boasted that it was in his weakness that lay his strength. It gave room for God and it gave glory to God. This was the glory of God’s people Israel when they were true to their calling. The prophets of the Old Testament knew that without God Israel was nothing, just a small nation state surrounded by hostile Kings. The Prophets of the Old Testament knew that when Israel relied on her own military strength alone she would inevitably fall. AS she did.
And God’s people today, are, as St Paul puts it, those who, like Abraham put their faith and trust in God alone – often against all odds. As Christians we believe this was shown absolutely and fully in the Person of Jesus Christ.
Jesus was in himself the perfect embodiment of Israel as God wanted her to be. Those who trust in Jesus are, says Paul, the new Israel. And this is a spiritual rather than an ethnic or geographical nation. It transcends political boundaries.
Let’s finish by reflecting again on the fact that the path to deep knowledge of God and of his things will often open up to those who for whatever reason must tread the path of suffering or failure. And it will open up to those who become aware of the poverty of their real nature: their pride, their self reliance. Such can seem like a fall but it is only then that we can be lifted up and put in the right place.
Finally, two points to ponder:
At this time of the year we become aware of the light beginning to gain on the darkness. And we know that there would be no light if there were no darkness – because it would be a meaningless concept.
There is a Chinese prayer about someone who asks God for success and happiness right away. It does not happen, at least right away.
I asked the Lord for a bunch of fresh flowers but instead he gave me an ugly cactus with many thorns. I asked the Lord for some beautiful butterflies but instead he gave me many ugly and dreadful worms.
I was threatened. I was disappointed, I mourned.
But after many days, suddenly, I saw the cactus bloom with many beautiful flowers, and those worms became beautiful butterflies flying in the spring wind.
The Kingdom of God
25th January 2209
Third Sunday of Epiphany
This week saw the inauguration Barrack Obama as president of the United States of America – arguably the most powerful position in the world. On him rest the hopes and expectations, realistic and unrealistic of many millions of people. Whatever else you can say about him it has to be said that he is no mean intellect. Already he has written a number of books in which he has outlined his political and religious and ethical position. He is an accomplished writer but also he is an inspiring speaker. To hear him speak, and even better to see him speak conveys a lot more information than just to read his books. This is always the case. The spoken word conveys so much more than the written word.
Those who met Jesus encountered the living word of God; in person. So they could listen to his words and the words he emphasized for added meaning, they could see his facial expressions, his mannerisms in the context of their culture – all of which would affect they way they understood the words themselves. Jesus wrote no books, he left that up to his followers and what was eventually written down was written in order to convey the total truth about Jesus – using words to convey what went beyond words.
St Mark tells us tha Jesus began his ministry, in this way -
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news* of God,*15and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near;* repent, and believe in the good news.’* “ Mark 1.14-15
We can only guess the tone of his voice, or the words he emphasised. But he was proclaiming that the kingdom of God had come near and it was good news. Let’s put the emphasis on the word God. So we read ‘The kingdom of GOD’ is near. It may be that the church has, since the days of Constantine put a lot of emphasis on the word KINGDOM – with all its connotations of power and authority. One modern writer prefers to use the word kindom, rather than kingdom – as in family and relations, rather than monarch and subjects. And he quoted a number of Jesus’ sayings which imply a spiritual kinship.
What is it about the kingdom of GOD that is such good news.
For a start it is a good idea to contrast the kingdom of GOD with the kingdom of THIS WORLD. or the kingdoms of MANKIND. Have you noticed how much of Jesus teaching was ‘countercultural’ – it went against peoples suppositions and expectations. God’s kingdom is not like the kingdoms mankind has created. ‘My ways are not your ways’ says the Lord. Jesus, in calling people to repent was calling them to turn to God’s ways – and he was going to show them just what those ways were, just what God was like. The kingdom of GOD. For people had ideas about God, but they were coloured by selfishness, power politics, empire building, ethnicity and often by simply projecting on to God the ways of human beings. There was, and is, a tendency to create God in our own image and enlist him on our side. But the kingdom o f God is different. We know this because of Jesus.
Actually this was beginning to be realised long before Jesus came to show us the face of God. Take the story of Jonah. We all know it. Jonah and the Whale – or, more accurately, Jonah and the big fish! God told Jonah to go and tell the inhabitants of Nineveh to repent. Nineveh was a foreign city. Why, wondered Jonah, was God giving them the chance to repent. So he ran away to a far off city called Tarshish. A great storm arose and he ended up being thrown off the ship on which he had sought escape. He was swallowed by a great fish in which he spent, so we are told Three Days (now there’s a time to conjure with). Then he was spewed out and found himself back where he had started.
God asked him again and this time Jonah obeyed. Ninevah was huge city but Jonah travelled the length and breadth of it. ‘Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown’ he trumpeted. He still hadn’t quite got the hang of it – he seemed to be rejoicing that God was going to visit this great city with fire and destruction. But the people of city took notice. they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. And God, we are told relented. Because God is like that. Jonah however was not best pleased. You can read the story for yourselves. But to summarise it Jonah went off in a great sulk. God wanted to know what was wrong. ‘Look’, said Jonah, (and I’m paraphrasing here) ‘this is why I tried to flee to Tarshish. I knew you would relent – I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.’ (Jonah 4.2) So annoyed was he that he wanted to be left alone to die. He could not be doing with this merciful God. ‘Come now’ said God,’ Why should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?’
Jonah learns his lesson. God is not like us .His ways are nor our ways and our ways are not his ways. God is not like that and Jesus did not fulfil peoples’ expectations so in the end they crucified him because they wanted God to be as they wanted him to be, not as Jesus had shown him to be. But of course God has the last word. And it is word of gracious love. It was this that the disciples whom Jesus called had to learn – and it was hard for them. But learn it they did and it was through them that we know about this Good News today. They responded to the call – and although at times they were a bit like Jonah – in the end they came to understand. Now it’s up to us.
Sharing the News
Sunday 17th January 2009
Epiphany 2
The old adage ‘no news is good news’ was laid aside this week. The story of the safe landing of the passenger plane in the Hudson river and the survival of all the passengers was a really heart warming story. Some have called it miraculous. Yes, it was a miracle insofar as it made us pause and stand in awe of such a wonderful event – for that is what a miracle is. But it was the result of a professional pilot’s quick thinking and response and this, in turn was a result of his training:. He was prepared for such an eventuality.
We hear the word miraculous used to describe many of the acts of Jesus, many of which are described in such a way as to imply a stretching of what was seen as the natural order of things. How else can the wonder people felt about him be communicated? Clearly there was something about Jesus which was out of the ordinary. Jesus certainly warmed the hearts of many who heard him speak and witnessed his healings. His lifestyle and his effect upon people flowed directly from his constant and intimate contact with his Father.
The incident on the Hudson River was good news. And people have loved to share the story and talk about it. Now I can’t help thinking here – what about the Good News of Jesus Christ? Is that something we love to share and talk about. Have we become so familiar with it, has it become such a routine that it has lost its edge. It is lasting Good News because it speaks of a rescue plan for the whole of humankind. It is for all and it is for eternity. Jesus opens up for us the very heart of God.
Our Gospel reading today is the story of Phillip. He has just encountered Jesus. What does he do? He wants to share what has happened. So he goes and finds his friend Nathaniel and tells him; ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ (John 1.45) Nathaniel’s response is less than enthusiastic. He listens to his own prejudices. ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ he asks? Phillip is not to be put off. ‘Come and see’, he says. Nathaniel goes with him and is overcome by his personal encounter with this man who sees what is within him. We don’t hear of Nathaniel in any of the other Gospels. But the fact that in John’s Gospel his name appears to be linked with other important apostles has led many commentators to wonder if this is not Bartholemew – one of the twelve – by another name.
Be that as it may it is Phillip’s willingness to tell his friend about Jesus –, and Nathaniel’s subsequent personal and life changing encounter with Jesus that I want us to consider this morning.
But first I want to remind you of the Old Testament reading – the well known story of the young Samuel, who hears God’s voice but doesn’t at first recognise it. It takes the wisdom of old Eli who eventually tells him to go and lie down again and when he hears it again to respond with the words ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening’. Eli can be seen as standing, today, for the Church, for the tradition which bears the stories of God and his ways. Samuel stands for the possibility of personal encounter with the Spirit of God. Both are needed. Eli is needed to interpret what is happening, to see that here is a message from God. Samuel has to have the personal encounter. And so is God’s will done. In our Christian lives we need the teaching and understanding and tradition of the Church but we also need to take time to listen to a personal word from God. Remember Samuel was told to go and lie down and listen. We could see that as a message to us that we must ‘lie down’ – if not literally, then by taking time out to be quiet, prayerful and reflective.
Nathaniel is an example of a pious, God fearing Israelite, who, good as he is stands incomplete, and who must be willing to pass beyond his cultural hang-ups and intellectual prejudices. (Are there any bells ringing – how many people today are critical of the church and its history) It is Jesus who is the key to the heart of God – we read this in the Book of Revelation. It is through relationship with him that we are transformed. Like all relationships it takes time and effort. We need to seek his presence, and to spend time in it. In so doing we will find ourselves being made like him – increasingly ready and able to deal with the challenges and opportunities of life. I suppose we could say- like Captain?? It was through his spending time in training that he was able to deal so brilliantly with the failure of the aircraft engines. Without that investment of time he may well have struggled to cope. Likewise we must invest time in prayer and meditation if we are to be effective and attractive and ‘miraculous’ Christians.
But back to Philip and Nathaniel. This, as I have said, is an archetypal story of evangelism. We are encouraged, as members of the Church – the Christian Community if you prefer – to respond ourselves to Jesus’ personal invitation and get to know him. Then we will be both willing and able to share that with others, and invite them to ‘some and see’ for themselves. Not just to come and see how friendly we are, or what good worship we have, or what good works we do – although these are good things – not just to come and join or church and participate in our religion – but to come and meet Jesus himself.
That Poster Campaign - Don't worry about it
Sunday 11th January 2008 (The Baptism of Christ)
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You may have heard this week of an advertisment being displayed on buses in London. Sponsored by the British Humanist Society, it reads 'There is probably no God. So stop worrying and enjoy yourself.'
There are those who have little or no time for God, and there are those, especially some in influential positions in the national press and television who like to make little of the church. Often these people remain wilfully ignorant of the true Christian position and criticise what they do not really know or understand. But it has to be said that sometimes Christians are their own worst enemies, in the things they say and the way they behave and most of all in their judgmentalism and emphasis on guilt. Perhaps this is what lies behind the humanists view that God makes people anxious and miserable and stops enjoyment. It hardly needs to be said that I, and hope all of you, have found much to the contrary. We want to respond to all this negative propaganda but how can we begin? Well, by keeping hope alive, knowing that God is not and never can be diminished. G.K. Chesterton once said "Three times in history people said that Christianity is going to the dogs. And three times it is the dog that has died'.Negative adverts like that are not really going to put anyone off God who wasn't already off God.
We could pray that actually they might make people think about it all - perhaps for the first time.
I think its best not to rise to the bait and just continue to live loving and compassionate and faithful lives, as millions have done, and still do, and will continue to do. Our best response is to try to be, in our own lives, as true as possible revelations of Jesus Christ to the world today - that's our calling. We have just celebrated Epiphany - the revelation of Christ to the visiting Wise Men. Today's Gospel reading is of another revelation. Jesus is baptised by John. He is revealed as God's Son by Water, Word and Spirit.
Some people have asked why Jesus needed to be baptised if he was himself without sin. Jesus came not just to show us the way, but to lead us, by example. Humanity needs to pass through baptism. Jesus therefore needed to pass through baptism. Jesus is seen as the new Moses Remember how Moses led the escaping Israelite slaves on the road to freedom - passing through the water of the Red Sea - a kind of baptism - and to the beginning the journey to the Promised Land. In the same way Jesus will lead his followers out of slavery to all those things which would keep us away from our true happiness. Like Moses Jesus leads the way from the despair of the old to the hope of the new. But we have to pass through the waters, of baptism and of circumstance.
Then there is the voice. The voice of God, God the Father who speaks of Jesus as his beloved Son. Nowhere in the bible can we find the word Trinity - but here we have an early hint that God is Trinity. Because the passage goes on to speak of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus. Here then is a new revelation of God: as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
As the Spirit comes to him so Jesus begins his ministry - by allowing the Spirit to lead him into the wilderness. And throughout, Jesus is guided by the Holy Spirit. He promises this same Spirit to those who will follow him. It is this Spirit 'who' gives life, energises, communicates, opens up, convicts, comforts and strengthens. In his letter to the Galatians, St Paul talks of the fruit of the Spirit as being the beautiful qualities of love, joy,peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self control. How can such characteristics be a target for criticism.
Believing in nothing is to believe in anything - to be led by passing fashions and shaped by economic forces - prey to any who would manipulate. But that's an unfair caricature of a humanist who would claim to believe in humanity and human freedom. But I believe that full humanity and true freedom are actually inherent in the Gospel. Real and full humanity. I recently read a book called Humane Christianity - it was a celebration of Anglicanism. At its heart, the Anglican church (of which the episcopal church is of course a part) has the belief that God's plan is for a fulfilled humanity. A fully human being is the glory of God. Its just that Christians believe the way to fullfilled and complete humanity and a just and truly peaceful society is through looking beyond humankind to the loving and gracious God revealed in Jesus Christ. It's this we have to live and share with the world around us. We ask therefore for the Spirit which can give us the confidence and the courage to be not just a witness to but an epiphany to the true God.
When all is said and done we simply step forth in faith, despite the best efforts of those who would oppose us. So I finish with a quote from one of my favourite books. It's written by Margaret Craven. It's called "I heard the owl call my name'.
'There was one more thing the teacher felt his duty to inform the young vicar. He might as well know, right now, that as for himself, he was an atheist: He considered Christianity a calamity. He believed that any man who professed it must be incredibly naive.
The young vicar grinned and agreed. There were two kinds of naivety, he said, quoting Schweitzer; one not even aware of the problems, and another which has knocked on all the doors of knowledge and knows man can explain little, and is still willing to follow his convictions (to follow his Saviour) into the unknown.'
The Word made flesh – Redeeming Relationship
Sunday 4th January 2009 (2nd Sunday of Christmas)
St James Cruden Bay
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If asked what has been the most important thing in their lives, I guess many people would respond by referring to a person, or more specifically, a relationship with a person, past or present. We are who we are because of people who have been important and influential in our lives. You don’t need to answer out loud but just reflect for a moment on who has shaped who you are.
A life can be transformed by a good and loving and accepting relationship; it can be devastated when a relationship goes bad, or ends; when friends fall out,or loved ones pass away. We are human because we live in a network of relationships which have helped to create and shape the kind of people we are.
The transforming power of relationship is most certainly known by the God who created us . Throughout the Old Testament we read of God seeking to form a relationship between himself and the people we call the Hebrews or Israelites. The trouble, time and time again, was that the people kept ‘hardening their hearts’ and turning away from God, and rejecting God’s eternal advances. They ignored the words he spoke to them through the prophets and went their own way – most of the time. Sometimes, when things went wrong they would run back to God, but it didn’t last. Yet God never gave up. His desire was to woo his people back to him. And he had a plan, a plan which could only be fulfilled in the fullness of time, when humankind had reached a stage in their religious evolution, and, out of the Jewish nation would come a certain young woman who would say yes to his astonishing request.
Many of the Old Testament prophets inadvertently predicted something like it. But humanly speaking they could never have imagined. Ezekiel proclaimed these words as coming from God:
I will give them a new heart, and put a new Spirit within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and they shall be my people and I will be their God (Ezekiel 11.19-29)
And God would give humanity a new heart in a way no one had fully forseen. He would do it by walking again among us – as he is said to have done in the Garden of Eden. Only this time he would walk among us in human form. The writer of Hebrews wrote:
Long ago, God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being (Hebrews 1.1-3)
And this is just what St John said.
‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God ….And the word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a Father’s only Son. (John 1.1 & 14)
God, in his wisdom, knew the power of relationship. But it needed to be a real relationship (no one can have a meaningful relationship with tablets of stone, words in a book, or a computer screen) and it needed to be a right relationship (based on love and acceptance rather than fear or coercion). In Jesus, therefore, God offered and continues to offer a real relationship and a right relationship. Through the life, teaching, action and death of Jesus, God showed his true character and made salvation real and it becomes real to anyone who ‘receives’ Jesus. (Note John says received HIM, not an idea or a concept or value system but HIM – it is very personal). To receive a person is to enter into a relationship with that person. This is how our salvation is worked out, here on this earth, in this place, at this time.
The relationship offered to humankind through Jesus is, or should be, one of spiritual intimacy, which heals all the destructive and wrathful images which humans have historically projected on God – sadly, still do. It is with sadness that we have to note that even,the church, from time to time, has forgotten its Lord and has reverted to an earlier, pre Christ-like, view of God and used it to justify violent behaviour.
Now, its not too difficult to envisage the disciples in a relationship with Jesus. It was real and it disturbed them when they were comfortable as well as comforting them when they were disturbed. But what about us? He does not physically walk among us- certainly not in any way we can naturally recognise. He did, however, promise to be with all those who seek him. The Bible talks of this happening through the Holy Spirit, God at work in the world today.
In one of his last conversations with his disciples, Jesus says,
I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me and I in you. (John 14.18-20)
This promise, I believe, is for all who seek him. So we can perhaps pray that we might begin to ‘see’ him – with our inner eye. We spend time in prayer and meditation; we read and reflect upon the Scriptures, and it is through these things, and the tradition of the church and the fellowship of other Christians that we begin to enter into that relationship with Christ that will undoubtedly begin to transform our very beings. (if we want it, that is!)
To seek a personal relationship with Christ, the Word made flesh, is well and good, and an essential first step for a full Christian life. But if it stops there it remains a selfish denial of the very reason the Word became flesh in the first place. For we are called upon to reflect that relationship with one another and out into our community and the wider world. For in a sense the Word is still being made flesh – in you and me. God dares to expect that others might see him in us. You have probably heard these words of St Theresa of Avilla:
God has no hands but our hands to do his work today
God has no feet but our feet to lead others in his way.
God has no voice to tell others how he died
And God has no help but our help to lead them to his side.
New Year is a time for resolutions. Perhaps we might resolve to seek to grow our relationship with Christ and build good relationships with one another, within and outwith the church. Relationship rather than ritual, dogma or creed is how we can best do our part in bringing about the new heart – within ourselves, each other and the other communities in which we live our lives.
Christianity is more than giving mental or even moral assent to a set of beliefs and values. It is about living lives and forming relationships which embody and continue today the work of Christ – The Word made Flesh.
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