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Mark 9 30-37

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

Who knows the name of the record first released by the Paragons in l967, it was a hit for the band Goldie in 1980 and was a chart topper for Atomic Kitten in 2002? You didn’t know I was so modern did you!

The answer is ‘The Tide is High’..altogether:
THE TIDE IS HIGH BUT I’M HOLDING ON
I WANT TO BE YOUR NUMBER ONE – NUMBER ONE.

Hold on to those words and imagine the scene.
Jesus and the disciples are walking down the road toward a village where they were going to stay for the night. The disciples have separated themselves from Jesus and have been arguing about something. When they reach the house Jesus asks them what they were arguing about. Now this is one of those rhetorical questions that we hear from Jesus a lot. It is kind of like when our parents caught us in the act of doing something bad and they asked “What is going on here?” Jesus knew what they were arguing about, but he wanted to see their reaction. Their reaction is like our reaction to our parent’s questionstunned silence. The disciples knew that they had done something wrong and they thought they hidden it from Jesus, but alas it’s hard to hide things from God. Jesus knows that they have been arguing about who is the greatest among the twelve. Who is going to be number one? Who is going to be top dog, Jesus right hand man? Jesus takes them and sits down with them in the house. This is the posture of a Rabbi a teacher, so in a way Jesus is saying “OK, Class its time for a lesson”, so we know what is to follow is important. Then Jesus once again, completely blows their minds. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Wow – I bet that went down like a lead balloon. I can imagine you could have heard a pin drop. This is not what they expected. People in Jesus time are just like people now; there will always be those who want to be the best. Those whose goal in life is to be the best in whatever occupation they have, and to rise to the top and be successful. Leonard Bernstein, composer of the music for West Side Story and other musicals, will perhaps be best remembered as a conductor of international renown. He worked with many famous orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic. On one occasion he was asked what he thought was the most difficult instrument to play. “Second fiddle,” the great man responded. “I can get plenty of first violinists, but I have a hard time getting someone to play second fiddle. Yet if no one plays second fiddle, we have no harmony.”

For most of us, our natural instincts urge us to want to play “first fiddle” – to do something that commands the maximum prestige, status and earning capacity. Who in their right mind would want to come second in any contest or, even worse, come last?

The Roman government was filled with people who competed with one another for power, and it was the same for the Jewish temple priests and now their teacher is telling them if they want to be top dog they have to be the flea. It doesn’t make sense, it is illogical. But then nothing in the Gospel is logical?

Jesus teaches that we have to work hard not to be the first, but to be the last and not just last, but to be a servant. We have a term that we use in ministry called servant leadership. It means that we should lead others not by bossing them around, but by humbling ourselves and leading by example.

Fifteen years ago I was ordained Deacon in Norwich Cathedral. Some of you came to the service. I wonder if you remember the sermon? It is indelibly stamped on my mind. Philip North asked if we remembered as children, what we wanted to be when we grew up. He didn’t have any takers for foot-washers. We see servant leadership when Jesus washes the disciples’ feet. Jesus wanted to show the disciples that they should go into the world and serve in whatever way was needed, even if it meant doing to lowliest job.
Jesus then says something else. He picks up one of the children in the household and says anyone who welcomes a child like this welcomes not only me but also God. We might think this is just another example of Jesus being kind and sweet. Perhaps we have pictures in our mind of children playing around Jesus and he is smiling at their innocence. We might think that Jesus is referring to the fact that we have to welcome the innocent children, but that is not the point Jesus was trying to make. In order to fully understand the significance of this act, we must first understand the status of children in the days of Jesus.

Unlike today, children in the days of Jesus were considered not just second-class citizens, but non-persons. Their social status was lower than that of women and even household servants. So Jesus is making a radical statement. He is saying that if you welcome this non-person, this lowliest of the lowly, then you welcome him, King of kings and Lord of lords. Jesus is putting himself at the same level as the lowest in society.
Of course it is not like that today, where on the whole children are treated with respect and often have a high status in the home. Some parents even move house to get the children into the best schools. Much sacrifice goes on in the home to give the children the best, they are of high status. So who would Jesus use today as his example? Who would fit the non-person, the lowest of the low criteria? Perhaps the homeless person on the street, the asylum seeker or the drug addict.

The reality is it is the poor, the different, and the marginalized wherever you might find them. Jesus is saying if you want to be truly great if you want to be number one then you must be welcoming not just to those on your same social level but to all people even the lowest of the low. Open your home, share your food, open your heart share your love and respect all people no matter how lowly they are. I know that times are different now and we do have to be careful, for sadly we live in a very different world today but the truth remains. We must be humble if we are going to be exalted. That is why you will see the Kings and Queens and Heads of State always leading a procession, and Bishops and Archbishops are always at the end of a procession. The place of the servant.

This leads us to the beginning of our reading from Mark; Jesus tells the disciples that he will be killed and then will rise again. Mark says that the disciples did not understand the meaning behind these words. They did not understand that Jesus had to humble himself even to the humility of the Cross in order to be exalted above every other name.

Sometimes we fail to fully understand what the cross means. We understand that “Christ died for our sins” but often we forget the meaning behind it. The disciples certainly didn’t understand the meaning behind it until Jesus had been resurrected, and then very slowly the penny began to drop.

They didn’t understand that since God is the greatest, God had to make the greatest sacrifice. God had to be the greatest servant. Jesus laid down his life on the cross for many reasons.

His display of ultimate servant-hood shows us that being a Christian is not about coming to church or donating money or even preaching a sermon, but it is service and if we want to be first for Christ than we must be prepared to be the last in this life. This is not what society teaches us. Society teaches us that we must work and strive to be the best, go to University, get a profession, so we don’t have to serve but so we can be served; Society urges us to fly first class not dish out soup in a Salvation Army mission.

Jesus did not have to be born in a feeding trough; he could have been born in a palace. Jesus did not have to be born to a poor working family; he could have been born to a king. Jesus did not have to walk around with 12 men from place to place often with no place to lay his head. He could have been chauffeured in a chariot. Jesus did not have to die a humiliating death on a cross; but the world changed because he did. The greatest moment in the history of the world was not a moment of grandeur and spectacle, but a humble, humiliating death on a cross. The greatest became last and servant of all.

If you ever go to a Hard Rock Café, you will see the waiters wear a cap and on the back it reads “Love All, Serve All”. What a perfect slogan for Christianity. That is what it is all about, if we boil it down to its most simple form. It is what Jesus wants from us, to love all and to serve all. If we want to do our best for Christ, If we want to be his number one then it is quite simple, we must humble ourselves and be last, welcome and serve the others first. Amen.

Let us pray:
Grant, O Lord, that what we say with our lips we may believe in our hearts, and what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

"Love all, serve all"

16th Sunday after Trinity

"Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ". (Romans 5:1)

There are not many things in this world that we would expect everyone to agree on. With our many different experiences of life and our many different outlooks on life, the population of the world is enormously diverse. We have different languages and different lifestyles and different religions. But I don't think we could find many on the planet who would not agree that peace is a good thing, something to be desired, something to be sought after.

Of course there are many kinds of peace; the word is used in a variety of ways. There is the peace that is the opposite of war, something we may take for granted in Britain but which is a real and desperate need for many people in many places. There is the peace which is the opposite of noise, again something we can take for granted in the countryside, but which many in our cities, and many with young families, long for. There is the peace of being totally at ease with someone, the absence of tension in a relationship, which we can find in a marriage or in a special friendship.

All of those kinds of peace are vitally important to us, all of them contributing to our human wellbeing. We need peace both in our world and within ourselves, and perhaps we can never hope to have one until we have the other, whichever way round you look at it. Peace is so obviously important to us that it seems amazing that as a species we humans constantly go to war, and build machines that cause disturbance, and create tension in our relationships with one another. History teaches us that we all want peace, but seem unable to do the things that create it. As Paul so honestly expressed it, we know what we want to do but find ourselves doing the thing that we don't want to do.

We all want to live at peace, we all long to experience peace, but still it remains so illusive. To bring this right down to earth and right up to date, let me share two very human stories that I read recently. Steve was a family man who was always kind and always punctual and always the first to help. He never said "no" to anyone. But underneath all the goodness that others saw in him, he was troubled and anxious. His father was a high powered lawyer made it clear that his son was a disappointment and that he would never amount to anything.

Steve may not have agreed - but somewhere deep down he came to believe him. And no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he put himself out, he was always left with the feeling that he should have done more and should have done better. In his search for a sense of peace he asked God to take away his sins, and perhaps he believed that God had taken away his sins but he always felt that he was a fundamentally bad person, and that his only chance at redemption lay in trying harder. This is not a happy story, for Steve died of a heart attack at the age of fifty.

Then there was Jo.

Jo seemed to have it all: a great career, great looks, and a wonderfully personality. She was the sort of woman who was envied by many people but at home, in the privacy of her own luxury flat, it was as if she became a different person. As soon as she shut the door, relieved from the pressure of keeping up appearances, she would head straight for the gin bottle. She knew that she was becoming addicted and she was smart enough to know that it was wrong, but it was only the drink that allowed her to escape from the enormous pressure she felt, pressure to keep proving herself, pressure to keep going. None of her many achievements brought her the sense of peace that she needed, and she died from the effect of alcohol before her fortieth birthday.

Now thankfully, these stories are not typical. In fact we might see them as extreme examples, but they do demonstrate that even those among us who appear to have all the advantages, who appear to be doing well and to have everything sorted, may actually be suffering from a desperate lack of peace, a desperate lack of contentment and well being in their lives. We all want to live at peace; we want it in the world around us, and in our relationships, and within ourselves, but for all of us it can remain so illusive. And how much effort and energy and indeed finance are used up in the effort to find it.

Now there is an obvious way for our thinking to go from here. We could say that in the church, we have the answer. We could say that we have the solution, in our scriptures and our Christian faith. That is true - but it can also be false. Why? Because you don't have to be part of a church community for very long to discover that its members are not all super-spiritual people who have all of their lives sorted and are totally at peace with themselves and with one another. In any church you will find the same kinds of behaviour that you will find anywhere else. There will always be those who will seek to justify themselves and make themselves look good. It can get even worse because there is the expectation that we have found peace and therefore that we should look happy and content and sorted.

A minister wrote a powerful book about how he had to resign from his church because he had committed the sin that proved unforgivable in his denomination. He went through a spell of depression. He claims that his congregation could forgive anything except this, for their expectations meant that they could not cope with someone who claimed to have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour but was not filled with joy every minute of every day. Life in the church can, for some people, bring more pressure and less peace than life outside of the church.

So having painted that gloomy picture, why do I also say that I believe the church does have the answer, the solution to the great human search for peace. It is because underneath all of the ‘stuff ‘ of life that we bring to it, the church is the place where we keep alive the message of scripture which tells us that peace is not our goal to be achieved, but is a gift to be received. "We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1)

That’s what Augustine was trying to say 1500 years ago when he wrote his famous prayer: “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” Pascal said the same thing when he commented that there is a “God-shaped vacuum” inside each man. We may try to fill that vacuum with the things of this world - money, sex and power - but the result is spiritual indigestion. Our stomachs are full but our hearts are empty. Where can we go to find the things we want more than anything else in the world? We can go to God, for in Him we find what we seek.

All kinds of people, with all kinds of need find their way into church during the week. Often they are just sitting quietly, enjoying the peace. But that is the feeling of the building - not the real thing. That is the gift from God, and is the liberating message that we come back to week after week, and day after day. Of course the church is full of messed up people. That is the whole point of it. Jesus himself said that he had not come for righteous people but for sinners. The thing that we have in common is not our long list of shining achievements, but our honest recognition that we need grace, and plenty of it, a recognition that frees us from the need to prove anything to anybody. For the wonderful truth this morning and every morning is that ‘We are accepted in the Beloved’. In other words God accepts us just as we are, warts and all, just because of Jesus and his love for us.
Amen

"Peace with God"

3rd Sunday of Lent ~ Romans 5:1-11

Matthew 22: 15-22

Some of you will remember the film ‘Chariots of Fire’, made back in the mid 1980s. The film is based on the story of Eric Liddell, a runner who competed in the Paris Olympic Games in 1924. Eric was one of the fastest runners of his day and was scheduled to compete in the 100 metre sprint. However, he was also a devout Scottish Presbyterian who believed in strict observance of Sunday, and when he discovered that the heats for the race were going to be run on a Sunday, he pulled out and refused to compete. Eventually he ran in the 400 metre race – a distance he had never competed at before – and surprised everyone by winning the gold medal.

The film dramatises the story a little. In actual fact Eric knew about the Sunday races months beforehand, but the film has him only finding out on the boat on the way over to Paris. The film also adds a dramatic scene where senior members of the British Olympic Committee, including the Prince of Wales, try to persuade Eric to compromise his principles and run in the race. But Eric Liddell refused, and spent that Sunday morning in church instead.

Whether or not we agree with Eric’s principles about the observance of Sunday, we can appreciate the difficult position he was in and we can admire his resolution to put nothing ahead of obedience to God’s commandments as he understood them. And this does raise the question of ultimate loyalty. If push comes to shove, what comes first: my loyalty to God, or my loyalty to my country?

Over in Iran right now a little drama is going on; a Christian pastor, Youcef, has been in jail for months, accused of the crime of apostasy – that is, of converting from Islam to Christianity. Apostasy is a capital offence in Iran and so Pastor Youcef has been on trial for his life. If he will renounce his Christian faith and convert to Islam he can go free; if not, dire consequences may be ahead for him.

This sort of conflict between loyalty to Christ and loyalty to those in civil authority is of course just ‘business as usual’ for Christians in much of the Islamic world, but we’re not used to the idea that it may become an issue for us here in Britain.

As we think about these questions, today’s gospel reading gives us food for thought. The scene is the Temple courts in Jerusalem, in the week before Jesus’ death and resurrection. Since he entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey a couple of days ago, the tension has been mounting between Jesus and the Jerusalem leaders – the priests, the Pharisees, and the political establishment. He has had a series of disputes with them and has told some parables which read like sharply-worded criticisms of them and their regime. Now, the leaders are going to try to trap Jesus by asking him some trick questions, questions to which he could easily give answers that would get him into trouble and arrested.

The first question concerns an issue dear to the heart of most of us - taxes! The Pharisees and the Herodians brought Jesus a question: “Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”

Just a couple of background points. First, the Pharisees and Herodians were political opponents. The Herodians were supporters of the family of King Herod; they were in league with the Roman occupation and as a result had gained a lot of advantage and wealth. The Pharisees, on the other hand, believed that it was totally wrong for God’s chosen people to be under foreign rule. So for these two groups to actually be co-operating against Jesus shows how dangerous they thought he was, and how desperate they were to get rid of him.

Second, the tax in question was imposed by the Romans on every adult in Judea. The tax caused wide resentment, as you can imagine. So this was not just an academic question the leaders were bringing to Jesus. If he said, “No, it is not lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar”, he would be declaring a rebellion against Rome, and there would be no way of avoiding violence and bloodshed. On the other hand, if he was claiming to be leading a ‘Kingdom of God’ movement, there was no way he could endorse the paying of taxes to Caesar. Thirdly, the coin in which the taxes were paid was a Roman silver coin. The head of Caesar was stamped on the coin, and also an inscription claiming that Caesar was the son of a god and supreme high priest. These coins had caused huge unrest in Judea. Jewish law forbad the making of graven images, and the head of Caesar on the coin was interpreted as being just such a graven image.

So how does Jesus respond to the question? Well, of course, he sees right through it; he knows they are trying to trap him. So he responds: “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites! Show me the coin used for the tax!”

This was very clever. First of all, by asking someone to show him the coin he was making it clear that he didn’t actually have any of that tainted Roman money on him. Would they own up to having Caesar’s money in their pockets? Jesus has made a point without saying anything. He’s said, “You’re trying to trap me into a position of disloyalty to God, but I’m not the one who’s carrying Caesar’s money: you are!”

The story continues: ‘“Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s”. Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s."

This is not just a clever, ambiguous reply that gets Jesus off the hook. It’s actually a profound theological principle that gives us a place to start when we consider the question of conflicting loyalties between God and the state.

On face value Jesus seems to be endorsing the tax – enough to get him out of trouble with the Romans, anyway. But then he goes on to say, “and give to God the things that are God’s”.
What are those things that belong to God? David says in Psalm 24 The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, so ultimately, God has a right to our unconditional loyalty and obedience.

But earthly countries do not usually like being put in second place, as Eric Liddell found out.
Tempting as it is to go further with this, I am not going to speculate this morning about what other specific issues might bring our loyalty to Christ into conflict with our loyalty to our country. I simply want to point out that, as our country and the other countries of the west become more and more secular, more and more Islamic led and less and less Christian,it is likely that there will be more issues on which we find that we are standing apart from our fellow-citizens. And when those issues arise, loyalty to Christ will demand that we continue to stand apart. We cannot sit on the fence - we will have to choose.
I leave you with a Jewish moral story:

A rich but miserable man one visited a rabbi seeking understanding of his life and how he might find peace. The rabbi led the man to a window looking out into the street and said “What do you see?”
‘I see men, women and children,’ answered the rich man.

The rabbi then took the man and stood him in front of a mirror. “What do you see?” he asked.
‘I see myself,’ the rich man replied.

“Yes”, said the rabbi. “It is a strange thing is it not? In the window there is a glass and in the mirror there is a glass. But the glass of the mirror is covered with a little silver and no sooner is the silver added than you cease to see others and you see only yourself.”

May God give us all the strength of will to speak out and to stand up for that which is right and true today and in the days to come.

"Render unto Caesar"

Psalm 23 John 10:1-10

No prizes for guessing the theme for this week then!
It’s all shepherds, sheep and lambs. Lots of picture language – and a little bit confusing.
We haven’t read the Psalm, but if you glance at it I am sure it will be familiar. Psalm 23 gives us the famous picture of the shepherd. In the gospel we have Jesus talking about himself as the shepherd and us as the flock.

We will start with shepherds. Both the psalmist and Jesus use shepherds as an illustration. The reason is fairly obvious because there were a lot of them about. Everyone would know what a shepherd looked like and what a shepherd did. I did wonder what would Jesus have used for an illustration in the 21st century. Certainly not everyone knows what a shepherd looks like or could identify with his example. Perhaps he would have said. " I am the Broadband provider – the only one that connects first time every time, I am free, I am always available," or maybe you have a better example.

Jesus chose shepherds - There is a lot of sentimentality surrounding shepherds and sheep. Do you remember the famous paining by Bernhard Plockhurst ‘The Good Shepherd’? His shepherd has long flowing fair hair, and he is wearing something resembling his grannie's nightdress, he is walking barefoot in the grass. There are similar pictures I am sure you can call to mind from Sunday School days of a fair haired, blue eyed shepherd surrounded by while fluffy lambs; but of course we know that shepherds were not like that; the lambs did not look like that; and had Jesus been like that he would not have been executed.

What do we know about sheep and shepherds?
Sheep are not adapted to heat and dryness, they are fragile. Their rough appearance is deceptive. Sheep are naturally defenceless and susceptible to parasites. They have to be watched continually, and they need protection at night. Sheep are short sighted. They can only see 6 feet ahead.

Perhaps now we can begin to understand why Jesus said that we are like sheep and he is our shepherd. However, we need to realize there is very little similarity between Palestinian and British shepherds.
Those shepherds were tough guys, willing to fight wild animals to protect their sheep; -willing to sleep rough under the stars. Psalm 23, the great shepherd psalm, gives us a bit of insight into the role of the shepherd. Shepherds in the east used to go in front of the sheep and lead them – not drive them from behind as our modern shepherds. Jesus our shepherd has gone ahead of us – he has faced the danger for us, he knows where the rocks and ravines are – if we follow we will be safe. Shepherds find good pasture for the sheep, and seek out clean water to drink. Jesus leads us to good pasture, - but sadly some Christians are spiritually starvin. We need to learn to feed on the word of God and drink the water of life.

Shepherds carry two pieces of equipment: a rod and staff. The rod is a short stick to ward off danger from other shepherds who might steal the sheep, and to protect from the wild animals. The staff or crook is not some fancy walking stick – but a long pole with a crook or hook on the end. This would hook around the neck of sheep that look like they might be wandering off, and when the sheep were going into the fold for the night the shepherd would lie down and look at them as they passed by. If he saw one that was injured or lame he could hook it out. Then he could treat the wounds with the oil and wine also mentioned in the Psalm. Wine would have been poured into wounds to cleanse, and the oil poured in to soothe. The other use for the crook is that of prodding and keeping them moving when they were flagging behind. There is a famous scene in the Bayeux Tapestry of a captain prodding his men with a spear - it is called ‘comforting the troops’. Just to complete the picture at the end of the Psalm there are the two sheepdogs, "goodness" and "mercy". They follow us all the days of our lives snapping at our heals when we might go astray. That’s what shepherds are like.

So Jesus returns once more to the shepherd and sheep illustration: – my sheep hear my voice –I know them and they follow me, and this time he ends with a spectacular promise to the sheep.

They do not exist as individuals they belong to flocks. Sometimes we might find ourselves in a flock we are not too keen on. You know how it goes – “These sheep are not quite like me; - I mean, just look at her wool; we didn’t have wool like that in my day, and just look at her lambs – totally out of control.” But like the sheep, we are not called to be isolationists, but called to be the people of God together – sharing our common life and faith.

Today we live in a society where family life around us is collapsing; children and teenagers are growing up with little moral teaching; violent crime is ever more commonplace, people are seeking alternative shepherds in the occult, in drugs, in terrorism and addiction. Many are becoming rich and self satisfied, with more power – while the poor are becoming poorer and more desperate. We who are in a safe flock, need to go out and find the sheep that are lost and bring them in. We don’t have to look far. Wherever we live we are surrounded by people of all ages and all types who are lost, wandering about in despair. They may try to hide it from themselves, and us, but it is real. Jesus intended his church to be one flock; we have made a bit of a mess of the original plan but it is never too late.

Jesus is the good shepherd but it is not enough just to hear his voice – we are called to hear and obey. We are called to follow; and what about the spectacular promise I mentioned earlier? Those who hear and follow the shepherd will be safe forever. He will look after them, and even death itself, the last great enemy, cannot harm them. Christian confidence about life beyond death is not a matter of wishful thinking or a vague general hope that things will turn out all right in the end. It is built on the promise of Jesus. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, however scary that seems, in order for there to be a shadow there has to be the sun. Not just the sun in the sky - but for us who believe, it is the Son of Righteousness – Jesus who is present in the valley with us.

So many analogies, so many pictures, so many challenges – we are the flock of God in this place, four congregations, one flock, being cared for by part time shepherds. We have a vacancy for a Shepherd and we put together the job description and advert.

What kind of shepherd/shepherdess do we really need? (Notice I did not say want!)

We have the divine pattern:
One who will lead from the front.
One who will feed the sheep with rich pasture from the word of God.
One that will offer the water of life.
One that will protect from the wild animals of false teaching and dodgy theology and the dangers of extremism.
One that will revive the soul of the churches.
One that will prod when needed, and seek out those who are hurting and damaged.
One who will bring the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
One who will know our name – call us out, give us work to do.

Not for us then the 30 year old man with 2.4 children and a wife who does not work. One who will be like the pied-paper of Repps, Clippesby Thurne and Martham gathering the young people into our churches, and comforting all the parishioners in the safety of their homes – at the same time keeping all of the flock satisfied and not changing anything? In reality we know that person does not exist.

So we pray for God to seek out the right shepherd for this flock.

May God give us the grace to hear, follow and obey
May God give us the grace and prayerfulness to seek and accept his shepherd for this flock.
May God give us grace. Amen

"The Lord is my Shepherd"

(The Fourth Sunday after Easter)

Matthew 13:24-43

The first thing this parable teaches us, is that good and evil will always be found together in the professing Church, until the end of time. The Church is a mixed bunch, a vast "field" in which "wheat and weeds" grow side by side. We must expect to find believers and unbelievers, "the children of the kingdom, and the children of the wicked one," all mingled together in every congregation in every church.

It has been like this for as long as the church has existed. It was the experience of the early church Fathers. It was the experience of the Reformers. It is the experience of the best ministers at this moment in time. There has never been a Church where there is all "wheat." The devil, that great enemy of souls, has always taken care to sow some "weeds."

Today’s parable like last week is about sower and seeds, but the focus is not about the crop but about an evil one who slipped into a farmer’s field under the cover of darkness and sowed weeds among the wheat. As the wheat began to grow, weeds popped up with it.

When the farmhands saw the weeds they were puzzled, so they said to the farmer, “Master, didn’t you sow good seed in this field? Where did these weeds come from?”

The farmer said, “an enemy has done this.” The farmhands quickly volunteer to come to the rescue.

“We will straighten things out, come on chaps let’s pull out those weeds!”

“Hang on” said the farmer. “That won’t work. If you pull out the weeds, you will pull up the wheat along with it. Let them grow together until harvest. Then, I’ll send out the reapers with the instructions to bind the weeds in bundles to be burned and to gather the wheat for the barn.”

This parable comes with an attached interpretation. Jesus explains that the one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The good seed represents the children of the kingdom and the weeds are the children of the Devil. At the end of the age, the angels will collect all causes of sin and evildoers and toss them into the fire, then the righteous will shine like the sun in God’s kingdom.

Well that sounds OK doesn’t it? it is very clear cut. There is good and there is evil. There is the good young man, Harry Potter and there is the evil wizard Lord Voldemort. There is Luke Skywalker and there is Darth Vader, Batman and the Joker, Cowboys in white hats and Gunslingers in black hats. We know this story. It is obvious who is wheat and who is weed. The wheat is the church and the weeds are those who fail to believe in Jesus Christ. I could stop here – but it is not as clear cut as that. As I said in the beginning, we are a mixed bunch. and it is NOT up to any of us to decide who is wheat and who is weed.

Just look at the church’s family tree: Noah was a drunk; Abraham was too old; Isaac was a daydreamer; Jacob was a liar; Leah was ugly; Joseph was abused; Moses had a stuttering problem; Gideon was afraid; Samson was a womanizer; Rahab was a prostitute; David had an affair and was a murderer; Elijah was suicidal; Isaiah preached naked; Jonah ran from God; Job went bankrupt; John the Baptist ate bugs; Peter denied Christ; The Disciples fell asleep while praying; Martha worried about everything; The Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once; Zaccheus was too small; Paul was too religious; and Timothy’s anxiety gave him an ulcer. Nobody is perfect. Someone said they would not come to church because it is full of hypocrites, that is true but there is always room for one more! Augustine said, "Those who are weeds today may be wheat tomorrow, or even the reverse.”

That is why Jesus taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”. This is a cautionary parable, warning us to beware of the weed pulling impulse – the moral need to improve the field based on our own limited judgement. That is why the farmer stopped the workers from pulling the weeds, for he knows our judgement is often faulty. Rather than pulling out weeds Jesus sought them out; rather than condemning them, he transformed them; he healed the sick, found the lost and extended forgiveness, turning peoples lives around.

The Russian writer and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, was arrested, sent to a forced labour camp in Siberia and eventually exiled from the Soviet Union. He witnessed cruel acts and experienced harsh punishment. He could have written about clear distinctions between people who were good and people who were evil, but instead he wrote these words. “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil does not pass through social class or political parties but through the human heart. There are weeds lurking in the best of us and wheat to be discovered in the worst of us."

May we all resist the temptation to rush to judgement, knowing that God can burn away the weeds in each of us and harvest what is good in all of us.

"Wheat and Weeds"

(5th Sunday after Trinity)

Once upon a time, we're told, George W Bush visited a home for those suffering from dementia. He enjoyed a brief exchange with one of the residents, who seemed to be fairly lucid, so he risked asking, “Do you know who I am?”
“No,” replied his conversation partner, “but if you ask that nice nurse over there I’m sure she’ll be able to tell you”.

Of course, even on a bad day, George W wasn’t really in need of information any more than Jesus is, in our gospel reading. But that doesn’t mean that the question is unimportant. Quite the reverse.

“Who do you say I am?”
In asking that crucial question, Jesus is doing all that he can to make the disciples think

I’m sure you’ve met the old advice for teachers: First you tell them what you’re going to tell them. Then you tell them. Then you tell them what you’ve told them. Put like that it raises a smile, perhaps – but adopted as a teaching strategy it’s unlikely to be successful. I’m sure we’re familiar with it, though teaching like that is simply the passage of information from one person to another, teaching that relies on the expertise of the lecturer and the passive openness of the listener, teaching that, if we’re honest, demands very little of those on the receiving end and, I suspect, may not have much lasting impact.

It’s horribly easy to fall into that sort of pattern when you are the one “up front” – but it really won’t do.
Contrast this with the sort of teaching that engages you fully, the teaching that begins by recognising the premise that to hear is to forget, to see is to remember and to do is to understand. Perhaps that isn’t the sort of thing you’d welcome week by week in your sermon slot, but I’m sure you’ve noticed before that when Jesus wants his disciples to really learn something, he doesn’t give them the answer straight away.

Often, of course, he tells them stories, stories which leave things open, so that the hearers need to work out not only the inner meaning but also its application for their own lives. Sometimes he asks them a direct question as he does today. His whole ministry is a story that points to his identity, and now Jesus wants to see if his disciples have learned the central lesson he came to teach.

“Who do you say I am?”

Who do you say I am?” Imagine Jesus asking you. I think it’s the most important question any of us will ever need to consider

“Who do you say I am?”

What would you answer?
Messiah?
Son of God?
Saviour?
Teacher?
Brother?
Friend?
Good man?
Innocent victim?
Colossal embarrassment?
Blasphemer?
Threat?
Disturber of my peace?

“Who do you say I am?”

This isn’t a question reserved for theologians, for priests, for the great and the good, or those who like that kind of thing. This is a question aimed at each one of us. It’s a question on which pretty much everything depends, for if we decide against Jesus, then there’s not much point in hanging around waiting to see what will happen next.

We can, of course, answer with our lips like dear Peter, quick to leap in with his extraordinary insight:
"You are the Messiah " – but then be as quickly disappointed when Jesus turns out not to be the kind of Messiah he expected and longed for.

That’s something I can sympathise with. I have my own preconceived notions of who Jesus is, based on childhood imaginings, on received wisdom, and some serious Bible study. Sometimes I think I know. Often I get it very wrong. I think Jesus should be over HERE doing THIS, when he is apparently over there doing something else, and I feel confused and at odds with him. That’s when I’m specially grateful for Peter – so proudly and gloriously wrong, but redeeming his blindness with the warmth of his love!

Listen to him, rebuking Jesus for telling his friends exactly where his path was leading. I wonder if you would have felt any different. Here’s that part of our gospel as it appears in theologian Eugene Petersen’s paraphrase, The Message:
" But Peter grabbed him in protest. Turning and seeing his disciples wavering, wondering what to believe, Jesus confronted Peter. "Peter, get out of my way! Satan, get lost! You have no idea how God works! Calling the crowd to join the disciples, he said, "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering, embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self Help is no help at all. Self Sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for? If any of you are embarrassed over me and the way I'm leading you when you get around your fickle and unfocused friends, know that you'll be an ever greater embarrassment to the Son of Man when he arrives in all the splendour of God, his Father, with an army of the holy angels."

Don’t run from suffering, embrace it.
You’re not in the driver’s seat. I am.

Gulp!

That’s not the sort of thing we want to hear, is it? We believe in self help, in independence, in clear rewards for effort and in prudent business practice. In fact, this invitation to embrace suffering is indeed deeply embarrassing for us, conditioned as we are to seek an easy path for ourselves and for our families. If this is what it means to be a disciple of Christ, then we want none of it? Discipleship is so akin to discipline, and that’s something we none of us enjoy. We would so much rather choose the easy way, the way of green pastures and still waters. The hard way is, quite simply, too hard.

Why go there?

We want Jesus to lead us to life, but we want him to clear the way and make it easy for us. We want to enjoy the glory, but skip the graft. But that is just where Jesus shone and where we must shine if we are to be his disciples. In the hard places, in the washing of feet and the carrying of crosses.

Christianity - not for the fainthearted!

So, though we might make a reasonable stab at answering that crucial question with our words, our actions too tell others just who Jesus is for us:
"Who do I say Jesus is when I cut in on someone in traffic?"
“Who do I say that Jesus is, when I ignore the Big Issue seller on the High Street?
When I fail to stand against injustice, at home or abroad?
When I put my own needs, or those of my family, ahead of the needs of my neighbour?
When I just can’t be bothered to go the extra mile?
When (to touch base just briefly with our New Testament lesson) my words are destructive and hurtful, not affirming and encouraging?
Who do I say that Jesus is, then?

If we are known as disciples, then our actions tell the world just who we say Jesus is as loudly as any declaration of faith, and sometimes they seem to be sadly at odds with our protestations here, Sunday by Sunday.

Think about that.

Of course, it’s fair to say that our understanding and our answer to the question will change and evolve through the years. The Jesus of my childhood was above all a best friend, someone who shared my pleasure in creation, someone who understood when I was sad or hurting, someone who laughed with me at the strangeness of the adult world, and, quite often, of the adult church as well.

Today when I seriously engage with Jesus, he is a rather different One, who challenges me to a larger vision, a deeper commitment – though he’s also the one who scoops me up and loves me whole when the struggle with myself and with life threatens to overwhelm me, who laughs gently when I tremble on the brink of behaving as if it were down to me to save the world!

Most of all, he is the one I love, the one who first loved me.

Perspectives matter, and Jesus will have different words, a different call for you, so that your answer to the greatest question may be nothing like mine.

But you must HAVE an answer. Jesus will not accept agnosticism from his friends. He confronts us with the reality of his presence in our midst. Coming among us, he invites us to be changed:

“Who do you say I am?”

He stands there, waiting for an answer. There’s no time like the present. We are each called to respond, and there’s no way to hide. It’s such a deceptively simple question, really, but it must be answered, not just with our words alone with our deeds as well, - a response of heart and soul - of total commitment – for what will it profit us to gain the whole world and lose our life?

"Who do you say I am?"

(St. Peter-tide)

Mark 1 9-15
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’
And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’
At some point in our lives most of us leave home, in today’s climate it is more difficult, and some have left and had to go back for financial reasons, but the desire to go is still strong. When we leave home we leave physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We leave those places that are familiar, comfortable, and predictable. Sometimes we can’t wait to leave. We’re ready to go. Other times we would rather not leave. Sometimes we choose to leave. Other times the circumstances of life push us out the door. Regardless of how or why it happens, leaving home is a part of life. It happens in lots of different ways and times.
For children it might be the first day of school or going to guide or scout camp. Young adults move out of their parent’s home to start college, university or to work away from home. The major decisions that bring us to the crossroads of life are also about leaving home.
Leaving home can be difficult, frightening, and risky. It invites us to change and opens us to new discoveries about ourselves. It challenges our understandings of where we find meaning, and security. Ultimately, leaving home is often the beginning of our spiritual journey and growth. We are more vulnerable to and in need of God when we leave home.
Leaving home is not, however, simply about the circumstances of life. It is the way of God’s people. Adam and Eve left the garden. Noah left his dry land home. God told Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Gn. 12:1). Jacob ran away from home fearing for his life. Moses and the Israelites left their homes in Egypt. And in today’s gospel Jesus is leaving home.
Mark writes “Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee” and he went to the Jordan River. He left his home and now he stands with John in the Jordan, the border between home and the wilderness. He is baptized, the heavens are torn apart, the Spirit like a dove descends, and a voice declares, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” From there “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.” Jesus may have been baptised in the river but His baptismal life is about to begin in the wilderness.
This story is not just about Jesus. It is our story too. God’s words referred to Jesus in a uniquely literal way, it was His Son he was talking to, but they also apply to each one of us. By the grace of God we are his beloved daughters and sons. If leaving home, getting baptized, and going to the wilderness was the way for Jesus then it is our way too. When we believe in Jesus and follow him we leave behind our old identity, and we are identified and we are claimed by God as his children.
That is what this holy season of Lent is all about. It is no coincidence that on Wednesday some of us were marked with ash as we remembered the dust of our creation, and today the gospel takes us to the wilderness. The two cannot be separated. Wednesday’s ashes lead us to wilderness soil. Lent is about leaving home and leaving home in Lent should take us to the wilderness.
The wilderness is an in-between place. We have left behind what was and what will be is not yet clear. In the wilderness we come face to face with the reality of our lives; things we have done and things we have left undone. This is where we face our fears, our hopes and dreams, our sorrows and losses, as well as the unknown future, the place where we face our temptations. The temptations are not about our behavior, breaking rules, or being bad. God does not tempt us to see if we will pass or fail. The temptations are for our benefit, not God’s. They are a part of our salvation. We leave home and experience wilderness temptations to discover our identity as a beloved child of God and that our only real home is with God.
Every Lent we enter wilderness and it is new territory for us. New challenges and new temptations. But we are never alone, the way has already been walked by Jesus. It is the way home, the way to God. We go to the wilderness with the knowledge and confidence that Jesus has gone before us. In the wilderness is where we surrender our self-sufficiency to God, our helplessness to God’s grace, and our guilt is to God’s compassion. Lent is a positive time and we should never try to escape or avoid the wilderness experience and like Jesus, go through it. We must face the temptations of doubt and wrestle with the wild beasts of fear, uncertainty, serious illness or bereavement, remembering that we are never alone. The angels that ministered to Jesus will be there for us. “Remember who you are,” is their message. “You are a beloved son of God. You are a beloved daughter of God. Some of you will know that I carry a piece of string in my pocket. I have had it since I started training for ordination 17 years ago! It has six knots tied in it. It is my homemade rosary. It gets mislaid, turns up in the washing machine, gets dragged out with a handkerchief but I still have it. Each knot represents a word. (miss out a knot for the ‘a’) Lord, have mercy on me a sinner. It keeps me connected to God and his grace. It might not be right for you but I would encourage you to join me. I have made a new one this year to keep me focused during Lent. One piece of string 6 knots as you work down the string to each knot say the words “I am a beloved child of God.” Then repeat “With me he is well pleased.” If two sentences seems a lot just stay with the one “I am a beloved child of God.” The angels will encourage us but sometimes it is hard to hear their voice, this way if you make one you will have a constant reminder of the message in the wilderness. Every time you find your piece of string, or seek it out, you will be reminded, encouraged and reassured.
With each remembrance of who we are the demons of doubt are banished and we are able to overcome temptations. With each remembrance of who we are, his beloved child, we take another step closer to God. That is the way through the wilderness of Lent and the wildernesses of life.
Remembrance after remembrance. Step after step. “I am a beloved child of God. With me He is well pleased.” Let that become our wilderness mantra. Let those words fill our minds, cross our lips, and occupy our hearts. The truth of those words is the way to our eternal home
Today is the first Sunday of Lent and a good opportunity to reflect on the good news that our lives proclaim. The good news is centred on Jesus – he was and is the good news that he proclaimed. He did not just talk about God, he was God, and he is God. He drew people to himself and they found life in him. That is our testimony too – when we recognize God in our lives, when we respond to him and relate to him we will find life in all its fullness, we will find our home in him.
One step at a time, step after step, remembrance after remembrance: “I am a beloved child of God. With me he is well pleased.”

1st Sunday of Lent

Things move at a pretty relentless pace in St. Mark’s Gospel – it’s a racy, breath-taking news commentary, rather than the carefully-crafted theological treatise that comprises St. John’s Gospel for instance. So, already, Jesus has become very popular with ordinary people. He is being followed everywhere He goes by large crowds. And already He has made bitter enemies amongst the local clergy, the Scribes and Pharisees. In our Gospel reading today the controversy is around table fellowship – who is invited to dinner. It’s still a bit of an issue for the Church today.

The Jews had very rigid rules about food – they still do, but this isn’t so much about the food as about the company. Interestingly, later on Simon Peter is hauled over the coals by Early Church members for eating with Gentiles, so the issue doesn’t go away. Paul reports a crisis in the church at Antioch when several leaders form separate tables at the fellowship dinner. Indeed, within our own recent history, it was at ‘lunch counters’ that the battles for racial equality often began. Who we eat with, who we welcome at our table, is important as Christians, so let’s look again at our Gospel story.

Jesus has recently called as a disciple a tax collector named Levi or Matthew. Jesus then goes to a dinner at Levi’s house. It’s important for us to get a sense of how tax collectors were regarded in first century Palestine. They were hated, firstly, as collaborators. They collected taxes on behalf of the occupying Roman Empire. But they were also hated because their own income came from extorting from the local population more than was required by the Romans, and keeping the difference for themselves. ‘Sinners’ was a word used to describe all of those who had been expelled from the synagogue for moral, ritual or legal reasons. These people were considered outcasts by observing Jews, but having dinner with people, table fellowship, was and still is a sign of acceptance. Why does Jesus accept these people? This question remains at the heart of the Christian Gospel. But before we answer it, let’s move on to the second area of controversy.

The issue is whether or not to fast. John’s disciples do, but Jesus’ disciples don’t. During His trials alone in the desert prior to His public ministry, Jesus fasted, but not during His work of healing and preaching the Good news of the Kingdom of God. What Jesus is saying is that there are times for fasting and times for feasting, partying and rejoicing. One doesn’t fast at a party, and during the time of Jesus’ incarnational life on earth, it is right for His disciples to rejoice at His presence with them. The coming of Jesus, and the joyful news of the Kingdom’s arrival are radically new and demanding forms of expression appropriate to a new age. Conversely, there are certain seasons of the soul and moments in the life of the Church when continuous banqueting would be inappropriate. As Jesus predicted, the days for fasting would come soon enough.

The closing part of today’s Gospel passage consists of proverbs about garments and wineskins. These proverbs refer to the arrival of something so vital and new that it cannot be contained in the old rituals and forms of piety. The Gospel writer is not attacking the old. Indeed, concern is expressed about the loss of the old garment and the old wineskin just as there is about the loss of the new. Each has its own integrity, but Christianity cannot be a compromise between old and new. No-one gains by pretending that Hanukkah is Christmas or that Christmas is Hanukkah. They are different, but each demands the respect of the other.

The key to all of this is found in the words of Jesus Himself. ‘I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners.’ The Authorised version of the Bible, translating differently and perhaps even with different theological intent, adds the words ‘to repentance’. I’m confident that the shorter text is the more authentic. You see, the whole point is that Jesus didn’t put repentance before acceptance. That’s what the Scribes and Pharisees found so offensive. If Jesus had just called on sinners to repent, he’d have been on secure ground. After all, that’s what all upright and law abiding citizens want sinners to do. Jesus’ offence is that He accepted sinners, He ate with them and socialised with them, before they’d repented.

It is to some of those who were outsiders to the law-abiding Jewish community, those who habitually broke the Law of Moses that Jesus says ‘Follow me.’ His mission is to them, and the way He fulfils it is by eating with them and associating with them and accepting them. The time of the Law of Moses is over; now is the season of new wine, and it requires new wineskins. The Law is the old wineskin, and the new wine is the Good News of the Kingdom of God.

Among Christians in the first century there was a variety of answers to the question of whether the Law of Moses was still obligatory for the followers of Jesus. Paul clearly believed that it was no longer in force, certainly for Christians who had not been Jews before they had been baptised. Mark seems to have shared Paul’s radical attitude. There is no minimum standard of entry into the company of Jesus, only the invitation issued by the host, and that invitation remains open to everyone.

Jesus’ exercise of this open invitation was one of the things that religious people found most offensive about Him, and some still do. Some churches and Christian communities still persist in imposing minimum entry requirements, particularly for sacramental gifts of grace like baptism. What we need to understand first and foremost is that none of us can ever ‘deserve’ God’s love for us. We can never earn our way into the Kingdom of Heaven by being good or obeying a set of rules. But, through Jesus, we have a free invitation into God’s Kingdom.

It’s the realisation of all that that means in terms of God’s overwhelming and transforming love for us that changes what we are and how we behave. God does the transforming, not us!

A New Way

Thoughts for the second Sunday before Lent

Matthew 16:21-28 b

Isn't it strange that princes and kings
And clowns that caper in sawdust rings
And common folk like you and me
Are the builders of eternity.

To each is given a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass and a book of rules;
And each must make, ere time is flown,
A stumbling-block or a stepping-stone.

This is a short poem from the book “Verses I Like” by Major Edward Bowes. What caught my attention in these lines, not that they are witty or that they rhyme but the fact that we are ‘builders of eternity.” We are given “a bag of tools, a shapeless mass and a book of rules.” Last week we were thinking about choice: - ‘what shadow are we casting?’ and in this poem we are reminded that we have a choice of what we can make. We can make ‘a stumbling-block or a stepping-stone.’

In the 16th chapter of Matthew we get a staggering look at the person of Simon Peter. In verse 13 we read about a glorious moment for him. Jesus asks the question, “Who do say that I am?” Peter answers Jesus correctly; he says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus celebrates this answer by blessing Peter. He tells him, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hell will not overcome it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Peter gets the keys to heaven. He gets permission to bind things up, and to throw into chains, anything he wants. He is allowed to set free, or to loose anything he desires as well. This is great power that Jesus bestows on Peter. And it goes straight to his head.

The schools will open again this coming week (hoorah). This is an exciting time and a scary time. It is the start of another school year, and for some it is another year of ridicule, and shame for others, for sadly bullying is a huge problem in our schools and always has been. But today it can go viral in an instant. Now if you make a mistake in the gym, or are not wearing the right uniform, wear glasses, come from an ethnic minority, or are in any way different, instead of just being a story that can be shared in the playground, or a harmless joke, there is fear it can turn into a YouTube movie. Here children are now forced to relive embarrassing moments over and over again because of the technology they possess in the palm of their hands.

That mobile phone that is also a camera and camcorder is power, the power to capture moments in life that a decade before would simply be a memory. Now though, they can last for a lifetime on the internet. Power can quickly go to people’s head because of these abilities. The internet would be really boring if You Tube ceased to exist, as some of it is interesting and entertaining. But it is only funny for those not involved.
The author of Matthew’s Gospel found this conversation between Jesus and Peter memorable enough to put it in the text today. He must have found something meaningful in knowing that Peter had put his foot in his mouth. There had to be a reason why this is important. It has stood the test of time, as we use, “Get behind me Satan!” in our vocabulary today. The reason lies behind Peter’s new-found power. We have to be careful what we do with power.

Peter is the rock that the church was built on. God decided that instead of using a nation to show the world what life following him would look like, He would use individuals who would come together to be the Church. They would work, worship, and pray together to make this world a better place and bring in the Kingdom of God. Peter was to be in charge, and they could bind and loose anything they wanted. If they wanted to bind up poverty, they could feed the hungry, they could offer up forgiveness. If they wanted to bind oppression, injustice, pain and sorrow they could demonstrate to the world the way to live and act. All that was available to Peter – he had the keys.

BUT the first thing Peter does with this new power was to rebuke Jesus. What changed? What made Peter move from this high moment to this low moment in two verses? The scripture tells us that “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” Notice that it is after Peter receives to keys to kingdom of heaven; after the disciples watch Peter being praised for calling Jesus the “the Messiah, the Son of the living God;” and after Jesus feels that the disciples finally begin to get what he is about, does he start to fill them in on God’s plan which would end in death and resurrection.

Peter hears Jesus say that he will go to Jerusalem to suffer and die. He completely misses the last part of the statement and he jumps to his own conclusions. He pulls Jesus aside and rebukes him. Just think how astounding that is. Peter 'rebukes' Jesus. He pulls him to one side and the conversation goes something like this: “Never, Lord. You are here to restore the Jewish Kingdom. We have this all figured out. We’ve seen you walk on water, feed 5,000 and heal the sick. When you go into Jerusalem we were thinking more of fire and brimstone raining from the sky. We want real Sodom and Gomorra stuff. You are not going to suffer and die, I won’t let that happen.”

Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” I have this picture in my mind of Peter just standing there with his mouth gaping open, stunned because Jesus had just told him off. Peter had made a huge mistake. He had recreated the original sin. He felt the keys of the Kingdom of God in his hand and he the power to bind and loose. They weighed heavy and he felt important. He felt powerful. He felt he was now on equal status with Jesus, the Son of the living God. With this new power the first way he uses it was to attempt to bind Jesus. He felt equal enough to Jesus Christ that he pulled him aside and stood up to him. Just as Genesis describes the original sin of Adam and Eve when they wanted to have the same knowledge as God, here is Peter already thinking he is God’s equal.

Here we are witness to Peter being brought down a rung or five from his loftily position. In this text there were two phrases that caught my attention. One was stumbling block, which is what Jesus calls Peter. The Greek word that the author of Matthew’s gospel uses for stumbling block is the word ‘skandalon’. It means a trigger or to trap. That part of a mouse trap you put the cheese on, is a skandalon. It is also means any person or thing by which one is drawn into error or sin, a stumbling-block in one’s life. This is how Jesus describes Peter. Four verses earlier he was the rock on which the church would be built and now he is a stumbling block for Jesus. Jesus renames Simon Peter; it means rock, but how Peter lived out his life would depend on whether he was a stumbling-block rock or a stepping stone rock.

Wherever skandalon is used it is always in reference to something or someone who gets in the way of God’s will. It is something that causes offense or causes others to sin. It is a false teaching or a wrong impression that pulls others away from God. We know what these things are in our lives. We have seen them before. The covers on our bed can trap us under them for hours on rainy Sunday mornings. I can feel God wants me to do something in my life but I end up saying . “I can’t do that God, that will never happen. ” I am sure we have thought or said similar things at one time or another.

Which brings me to the other phrase that stood out .“Never, Lord.” I am sure that when we say ‘never’ he laughs and says “just wait and see.” At the beginning of ministry training we were asked to share our ‘calling to ministry’ stories. People stood up and told their story. Many people in ministry today are in a second career. Over and over we heard people stand up and say that they ran from God for most of their lives. “Never, Lord. I’m not called into ministry. That is for someone else, not me.” But God’s will is stronger than ours and God usually wins in the end. Where we see trouble, the unknown, or a dead end, God just sees opportunity.

Peter closed his ears as Jesus told him what would happen to him in Jerusalem. He missed the part where Jesus says he will rise again in three days. As Peter tries to squash the painful reality of the crucifixion he misses out the glory of the resurrection too. If we close our minds off to the reality of what God is calling us to do then we too will miss out on the glory that waits on the other side.

A stepping stone is used to move a person from one place to another. It is something that takes us over rushing water or mud, and can safely move us to the other side. Sometimes these stepping stones can be awkward and we are filled with fear and trepidation. What we do with what we have been given is up to us. Jesus gives us directions “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”

Isn't it strange that princes and kings
And clowns that caper in sawdust rings
And common folk like you and me
Are the builders of eternity.

To each is given a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass and a book of rules;
And each must make, ere time is flown,
A stumbling-block or a stepping-stone.

Last week we ended with the question, "what shadow will you cast?" This week we have another question: what will kind of stone will you make?

A stumbling block or a stepping-stone?

Matthew 5:1-12

We don’t talk about saints very much in the Anglican Church. We leave that to our Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters.. There a certain suspicion in Protestantism about the saints. We are too afraid of making idols out of them, and so we acknowledge their place in ancient church history, but we don’t talk about them as much as we maybe should and we don’t talk much about wanting to be saints either. To be honest, sainthood sounds a little boring. I imagine a life of being perfect, and never having any fun.

But sainthood is a little more complicated than that. Martin Luther used to say we were all simultaneously saints and sinners. We were all trying daily to do the right thing, and yet all making the mistakes that every human makes. Even the great saints of history were human, and fallible, and imperfect.

I’m sure you’ve all heard the old spiritual, “When the Saints Go Marching in.” The chorus goes like this:
Oh, when the saints go marching in,
Oh, when the saints go marching in,
Oh, Lord, I want to be in that number,
When the saints go marching in!

Well, I don’t know about you, but I sure want to be in that number! On second thought, I think I do know about you, and I am pretty sure that you want to be included in that number as well. To be numbered amongst that great multitude of the saints who will go marching into God’s eternal kingdom of glory–that’s the only place anyone in their right mind would ever want to be when that day comes. But that will happen only if we are numbered with those saints. And that means we need to borrow a line from another song, well known song. “Signed, Sealed, and Delivered.”

Now of course there are saints’ days for all the big-name saints both in the bible and in our church history, many of which we try to celebrate during the year. But on All Saints’ Day, we remember the Christians who have gone before us who don’t have a day on the calendar and whose names may not be well known. But the Lord knows their names. He has not forgotten them, and they are with him.

This is what we celebrate today.

For most people, when they hear the word “saints,” they immediately think of certain individuals who have been canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. The word “saints” literally means “holy ones.” So then we have to ask: What do we mean by “holy”? To be “holy,” in biblical thinking, means “belonging to God,” to be “His.” “Set apart to belong to God.”

The amazing thing is, that we ARE “saints,” “holy ones.” But wait, you say: I know who I am, and I can tell you that I am not that holy!” and of course, - neither am I. I am a sinner, and so are you. So how is it that we sinners can get to be called “holy”?

It’s because we have been “set apart” to belong to God. This is not our doing, but His. He is the one who makes us holy. God has taken us rebels, sometimes by the scruff of our necks, and washed us clean. We don’t deserve it, we didn’t do anything to merit it. When we are Baptised God makes us His holy people. This is where we’ve been signed by the cross of Jesus, that invisible sign that marks us out as children of God, and we are sealed with the Holy Spirit when we receive our name in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We belong to God and He has placed his seal upon us and put his seal of protection on us. He will guard and keep us in the faith, so that the world cannot harm us. Oh, the world may persecute us–they may arrest Christians, they may even kill us–but they cannot separate us from the love of our God. They cannot strip us of our faith. They cannot take our eternal life from us.

And so, signed and sealed, we will, in the end, be delivered. That is the final outcome of our faith. God will graciously take us from this life to be with himself in heaven.

You will recognise in our Communion liturgy, there is that line, “Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven we laud and magnify your glorious name.” Yes, “with all the company of heaven.” They are the saints who have gone before joining us today–or rather, we are joining them, in their song of praise to God.

Most of you have heard the Beatitudes many, many times. They are attitudes we are encouraged to Be and they describe saintly lives:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Because we are familiar with them we often miss the point of what Jesus is try to tell us.
Listen to how these same verses are translated in a modern version, The Message:

You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are — no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

The saints are legendary — and yet they are people like you and me. Anyone who lives by the Gospel and tries to help others do the same falls into the “sainthood” category. As the little boy so astutely observed, when asked what a saint was, answered “the saints are the ones who the light shines through in the stained glass windows”.

God sent us here to make a difference, to make the world that much better, to be a saint. Contrary to public perception, that does not mean that you have to be canonized or immortalized in a statue in some cathedral. Sainthood is more ordinary than that. It is every day. It is going into this dark world and making it just a little bit brighter, by a word, by a deed, by simply following God’s call and letting the liberating message of Christ’s Gospel, the light of Christ shine through you.

All Saints Day

Mark 13. 24-37
Isaiah 64. 1-9

A monk comes to his Abbot seeking teaching. He questions the Abbot eagerly and impatiently, firing questions at him. But the Abbot says ‘Just look.’ The monk is very disappointed. ‘I’m always looking,’ he says sulkily. ‘No, you’re not,’ says the Abbot. ‘In order to look at what is here, you have to be here, and you are mostly somewhere else.’ This is an ancient story from the rule of St. Benedict.

Advent is a time to start preparing to meet God, and most of the readings suggest that this is, at best, a sobering prospect and, at worst, a positively terrifying one. So it is very tempting to feel that we ought to be very busy, so that God will notice and be pleased. Probably for most of us it actually is a very busy time, whether we want it to be or not, and the readings this morning just add to a general feeling of anxiety. There is something scary coming and we’re not quite sure what to do about it. Our instinct is to imitate Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army and run around shouting ‘Don’t Panic!’ I am sure that was the reaction from Jesus' disciples as they listed to his description of the coming of the Son of Man. Who is the Son? They suspect it is Jesus but they would have felt better if he had said as much. They begin to worry – are we among the elect or not? When Jesus gets to the practical advice it is very much like the Abbot at the beginning of the sermon.
Look, keep awake, be prepared. Jesus does not recommend any type of business, just watchfulness. It is not easy. It is far easier to see places where God is not rather than where he is. The people in the reading from Isaiah have come to see the world as empty of God. He has withdrawn from them, they complain. This is all God’s fault. If only he would rain down fire, and make the mountains shake with awe, then of course people would serve him gladly. ‘Lets-be-having-you’ they shout. Then they realise that God has not hidden himself from them but they had been too busy looking somewhere else, looking at everything but God.

It was Advent and Peter waited for God to come. He prayed every day. ‘God show me your face.’ Peter had tried to live a good life, and now he was an old man and longing for God to come. He still worked in the paper shop where he had worked for most of his life. Here he heard all sorts of conversations and met many people.

A single mum was telling a friend how she did not have enough money to buy presents for her child. When everyone else had gone, Peter said to her. ‘I heard what you said to your friend. I have a few toys on the shelves; they are not selling very well, go and pick anything you would like.’ She could hardly believe it for there were some wonderful things on the shelves. As she went away with her arms full, Peter was delighted. His reward was her smile.

Later that day, he caught a young lad stealing a magazine from the shelves. He was on the way out with the magazine up his jumper when Peter stopped him. He could have called the police or told the boy’s parents, but he saw the boy was poor and afraid and he felt sorry for him. ‘If you want a magazine and have no money, talk to me’ Peter said. ‘Magazines are soon out of date; I can always find one to give to you, but you must not just help yourself. Now take the magazine for free this time and remember to ask me in the future.’
The boy’s face changed from fear to a beaming smile, and he said thank you and ran from the shop.

An old man came into the shop and was saying how lonely he was since his wife died. This was going to a lonely Christmas. Peter said, ‘we always prepare for a friend at Christmas would you like to come?’ The old man smiled and said, ‘you have made me feel wanted. I would love to come.’

That night Peter prayed his Advent prayer, ‘God show me your face.’ In a dream God spoke to him and said. ’Peter today I came to you, and three times you made me smile. Grace and peace be upon you.’

We have been left in charge of this world, and we are accountable to God. He comes to see how we are dealing with his world. So we need to keep alert, keep watching so that we may be aware of his coming.

I leave you with a quote from Leo Tolstoy:

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

An Advent Story

I've noticed something about a lot of the bible passages we read in church on Sunday mornings. We always seem to be going back over ground we’ve already covered before? Here, once again, Jesus is calling someone to be a disciple. Today, it’s Levi, a tax collector. I know we’ve heard one of these call stories before, why do we need to go back to the beginning, to hear it again?

Jesus sees Levi sitting in his tax booth, and says to him what he always says in these stories: “Follow me.” And, like nearly everyone Jesus calls, Levi immediately gets up and leaves his trade and his source of income without even finding someone to cover for him, without so much as hanging a “Gone Fishing” sign on the door!

In the case of Levi, as with so many of the disciples, Jesus has called an outcast. To get some idea of how extraordinary this was we need to understand the role of tax collector for the Romans.
There was a poll tax which all had to pay simply for the reason of being alive, and a tenth of all grain and a fifth of all wine and oil and fish was taxed. Also an income tax which was one per cent of the annual income, and separate taxes for using roads and a cart tax where each wheel was taxed!

The system fostered exploitation by the tax gatherers. They could stop anyone on the road, make them unpack their bundles, and charge just about anything they wanted. If the person could not pay, they would offer to loan money at an exorbitant rate; they were trained extortionists. No wonder they were hated, they were the scum of society, and Levi even more so as he was a rich Jew working for the enemy. They were outcasts in the community.

Jesus said, "Follow me", and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. This was a decisive act. He gave up his business - there was no going back.

In a few minutes the whole town knew about low-life Levi's decision, and they could not believe it! Later we find him called Matthew, not Levi. Like Peter, it could be that Jesus changed his name, as Matthew means ‘gift of God.’ Jesus sought out a man no one else wanted, which would be one of the hallmarks of his ministry, as Mary Magdalene and many other men and women would attest.

Maybe the first lesson we need to learn over and over again is that Jesus calls unexpected people to be his disciples.

Workmen were seen dragging a huge marble block into the city of Florence, in Italy; it was to be made into a statue of a great Old Testament prophet. But it contained imperfections, and when the sculptor Donatello saw it, he refused it at once. So there it lay in the cathedral yard, a useless block. One day another sculptor caught sight of the flawed block. But as he examined it, there rose in his mind something of immense beauty, and he decided to sculpt it. For two years he worked on it. Finally in 1504, the greatest artists of the day assembled to see what he had made of the despised and rejected block. Among them were Botticelli, Donatello and Leonardo da Vinci. As the veil dropped to the floor, the statue was met with a chorus of praise. It was a masterpiece! The succeeding centuries have confirmed that judgment. Michelangelo's David is one of the greatest works of art the world has ever known.
Jesus saw in the flawed life of Levi, a Matthew, a disciple and evangelist, and he still sees men and women with his artist's eye today. The Scripture says, "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works" (Ephesians 2:10).

He sees in us what no one else sees.

Later, Jesus joins Levi at his house. Jesus and Levi and the other disciples and lots of tax collectors and sinners were reclining together at the table. The scene is one of festivity, of intimacy, and of merriment..

Maybe the second lesson we need to learn over and over again is that if we want to be in Jesus’ company we can expect to be surrounded by sinners. Look around - it is “us.”

Then Jesus becomes aware that some of the religious elite—Pharisees, are challenging the presence of the tax collectors and sinners—not to Jesus directly, but to his disciples. “Why?” they ask. “Why would Jesus eat with these people?

Maybe the third lesson we need to learn over and over again is that the welcoming ways of Jesus often make other people squirm. Maybe we don’t react like the Pharisees, but it is easy to fall into the trap of seeking out people like ourselves, where Jesus urges us to reach out and touch the unlovely - the leper in society. It was never going to be easy.

Jesus responds by asking. Who needs a house-call from the doctor, the person who is hale and hearty or the person who has a terrible cough and a fever? This is one of those beautiful moments when Jesus manages to disarm his opponents. You, he insinuates, are so clearly healthy! I will stay with these sick people.

Finally we come to the strange imagery as Jesus moves on to talk about the old and the new: garments and wine. In doing so he appeals to local knowledge and folk law. “No one sews a piece of unshrunk (or new) cloth on an old cloak; the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.” There are several ways of interpreting these sayings. I am going to go out on a limb and say, of all the words of Jesus, perhaps these shake up good church people more than others. It is easy to think Jesus is saying, that the old must be discarded and the new embraced, but the way I read these sentences contradicts that view. Jesus clearly is suggesting we embrace the new, the new wine, and he is clearly suggesting we maintain and protect what is old, the cloak, which he doesn’t want to tear. It’s not the age of something that should be the judge of whether we preserve it. It’s not whether something is new or old that determines if it is good. Rather, it’s the extent to which the new helps us to welcome in the Kingdom of God and to worship him. Both are of value in their own way.

Maybe the final thing that we need to hear over and over again is this: Look around you. This is no funeral. This is a wedding banquet and we are the beloved people of God. This is what the “new wine” is about ~ not so much the “newness,” as the “wine.” Wine, symbol throughout history and scripture of all that is delicious, all that is wholesome, all that lifts the spirits and gladdens the heart. Wine that is soon to be to us the blood of Christ bringing into our old life his new life. This, I believe, is what we need to remember most of all. This is why we tell the old, old, story again and again so that we’ll finally take this in, so that we’ll finally believe it.

Beauty in the Unlovely

Mark 2 13-22

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