Wednesday 30 January 2008

Sunday 27 January 2008 Luke 11:1-13 The Power of Prayer to Change the World. Bruce.

Welcome to the last of our series on discipleship, Following in the Footsteps of Jesus. We have been looking at ten areas that concern the Christian who wants to follow Christ. Before Advent we looked at:

· CARE FOR CREATION
· COMMUNITY ON THE PILGRIM ROAD
· RHYTHM OF PRAYER, WORK & RECREATION
· ABSORBING THE SCRIPTURES
· SIMPLE LIFESTYLE
· HEALING FRAGMENTED PEOPLE AND COMMUNITY
· OPENNESS TO GOD’S SPIRIT
· MISSION

Last week Robert preached on UNITY.

Which is ironic as I come to look at this passage on prayer. If you gather a representative group of Christians from different churches and say “Our Father”, you can never be quite sure of the result.

Is it Our Father, which art in heaven? Or Our Father, who art in heaven? Or since 1980, Our Father in heaven… ? And there are various permutations after that.

If you compare the version from today’s Gospel with the more familiar one in Matthew 6 (page 970), you will see at least two versions in scripture. The two gospel writers each have their own interests and ways of telling the story, of course, but it may be enough to imagine that Jesus will have given this teaching on many occasions, and perhaps did not feel the need to stick to a precise script.

In other words, the Lord’s Prayer was not originally a piece of liturgy to recited, but a pattern for engagement with the Father, for us to live in the same way that Jesus lived.

Boiling the concerns of Jesus down to the basics, they seem to have been: Father, Name, Kingdom, Bread, Forgive, Temptation. It would be good to devote a few moments to each one.

Jesus taught us to call God our Father. Everything springs from relationship. The serpent tempted Eve in the Garden: “Did God really say? God does not want the best for you…” But Jesus had no doubt that Father is absolutely for us, on our side, wants the best for us. The best of human fathers, Jesus says, will let their children down, but they do their best; if that is so, then how much more can we trust Our Father to less us? And if it is all about relationship, there will be ramifications which we will return to.

To hallow God’s name is to honour him, to worship him, and to seek to lead lives that do justice to his name. It is not just to refrain from cursing, but to positively live in ways that powerfully suggest that God is at work. We do not need to protect his name, but our desire is to see him praised.

And then Jesus tells us to pray for the kingdom to come. We struggle to understand scripture unless we come to terms with the ancients’ conception of two worlds, above and below. Everything here on earth has its counterpart above. Our army prevails if the battle is going well in the heavenlies. If there is peace and order in heaven, then it should be so here on earth.

But it is not.

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, and there are holocausts today. The heart of faith is change; the world is not perfect as it is, and we cannot rest. An article in the Church Times tries to explain the continuing popularity of Songs of Praise on BBC on Sunday evenings. The Dean of Windsor suggests: “There is, deep down in each human being, some spiritual impulse and energy that is constantly yearning and aching for a fuller life and a better world.”

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Kaj Munk was a Danish priest martyred by the Gestapo in 1944. He wrote: “Our task today is recklessness. For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature… we lack a holy RAGE - the recklessness which comes from the knowledge of God and humanity. The ability to RAGE when justice lies prostrate on the streets and when the lie rages across the face of the earth… a holy anger about the things that are wrong in the world. To RAGE against the ravaging of God’s earth and the destruction of God’s world. To RAGE when little children must die of hunger, when the tables of the rich are sagging with food. To RAGE at senseless killing of so many and against the madness of militaries. To RAGE at the lie that calls threat of death and the strategy of destruction peace. To RAGE against complacency. To restlessly seek that recklessness that will change and seek to change human history until it conforms to the norms of the Kingdom of God. Remember the signs of the church have been the Lion, the Lamb, the Dove and the Fish, but never the Chameleon.”

Ray Simpson is the Guardian of the Order of Aidan and Hilda, based on Holy Island. He writes: “The purpose is ‘to overcome evil with good’ (Romans 12:21). No initiative to change what is wrong can succeed unless it begins in a Godward movement of the heart – and that is intercession. Intercession is not just something we say, not even just what we do – it is an outpoured life. Christ ever lives to make intercession (Hebrews 7:25). Christ is the head of the body of which we are each a member; thus, as we unite ourselves with him, we too share in this outpouring of lived prayer.”

Give us our bread for today … We are commanded to ask God for what need. Food, shelter, health, every thing, comes from him and we seek him for it.

And I know there are problems with this.

There is a persistent suspicion that prayer does not “work”. It does not do what it says on the tin. We ask ourselves “Are we “making it up”? Talking to ourselves?” Does God answer prayer?

Yes, but God is not a slot machine. When we pray, God is moved; but he is not at our beck and call. We are not doing magic, so that if we get the words and actions just right, we can guarantee the required result. I have been helped by reading the book “God on Mute” by Pete Ward, which I have found humbling, instructive and above all encouraging.

I really believe that God can and does answer prayer. Not every prayer immediately, perhaps, and not always to our preferred timescale. But I trust him. At the heart of this is to desire what God desires. Prayer is not to be learnt and recited by rote, but to be lived.

Not every prayer that Jesus prayed was answered. Jesus prayed for unity, and we are still waiting to see an answer to that prayer.

Jesus prayed in the garden that the cup of suffering might be taken from him; but he went forward to the cross anyway, believing it to be God’s will.

Forgive, as we forgive … There is no escaping the call to relationship, to encounter God and grow in him. It is because we yearn for perfection, and are so aware of our shortcomings, that we hardly dare to believe that we can be accepted into the Father’s love. And only when we have been received and welcomed and forgiven so undeservedly do we find a space to accept and forgive ourselves, and to accept and forgive others. Our relationships on earth can begin to reflect something of the quality of the love and grace that are the reality of heaven.

Lead us not into temptation. Or do not lead us to the time of trial. We are to pray this because the Christian life is not a magic carpet ride to heaven. We hope and pray for the best, and often get it, but we know that this life is often a vale of tears. Jesus lived his life according to this pattern.

As an example, consider him in the Garden of Gethsemane. On this occasion he does not pray: “Our Father, who art in heaven”, but “Abba Father, everything is possible for you.”

He makes himself the answer to his prayer, replacing “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” with “not my will but thine be done”. Instead of “lead us not into temptation”, he has told the disciples to stay awake and pray so that they will not fall into sin.

He does not pray for bread, but perhaps he is aware that he is offering himself as the bread that will be broken for many. He does not pray “forgive us our trespasses”, but he is soon to say “Father, forgive them ...”. He does not pray “deliver us from evil”; he is about to deliver himself into hell.

There is much more I would like to say. Our readings over the next few weeks will use the Lord’s Prayer as a reference point, giving us time and space to pray the prayer, study the prayer, live the prayer.

The PCC is leading us in a project to renew St Michael’s. What sort of people does our Father God want us to be? What needs to be changed in us, so that we can bring in necessary change to his world? Wherever we find ourselves on our pilgrimage now, what are the next, small, tremulous steps that we can take, on the road to be more like Jesus?

Please join me as I seek to discover a deeper relationship with the Father, to align earth and heaven, to rely upon him to provide all that is necessary, and to avoid temptation. God does have power to change the world, and he does it in response to our prayers; he does it by changing us.

Sunday 20 January 2008

18 JANUARY 2008 JOHN 17: 13 – 26 IN THE STEPS OF THE MASTER:UNITY. ROBERT

Between October and Advent last year we ran a series of eight sermons on the theme of the Christian Pilgrimage, which we called FOLLOWING IN THE STEPS OF THE MASTER.

We looked at the Christian life in terms of a journey (rather like John Bunyan in Pilgrim’s Progress) and took as our inspiration the life and spiritual example of Jesus.

Advent, Christmas and Epiphany have intervened, but today and next Sunday we complete the series. Today the theme is UNITY. Next Sunday the theme will be THE POWER OF PRAYER TO CHANGE THE WORLD.
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If we see ourselves as Christian pilgrims, it stands to reason that we travel better if we walk together rather than singly, and that we make every effort to be in harmony, otherwise the journey is hindered instead of helped.

If we look carefully at today’s Gospel Reading from John chapter 17, we see further very important reasons for Christians, and the Christian Church in general, to be united. This Gospel passage is part of an enormously important and deeply moving prayer which Jesus prayed, and which is recorded for us. At its heart are the following words from verse 20: “I pray for those who will believe in me...that all of them may be one....” (in other words, totally united in heart, mind and action).

And we need to note the reasons Jesus gives for this impassioned plea.

Jesus wants us to be united in the same way as He is united with God the Father. “That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me, and I am in you.” It is impossible to think of a more fundamental reason for Christians living together in unity and harmony than that. When we place our faith in Christ, we become one with him in the deepest sense, and so we are caught up eternally in the perfect union that exists between Christ and God the Father. There can be no greater incentive for us to put aside our differences, and live and work together for the sake of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. St Paul calls the Church ‘The Body of Christ’.

Jesus prays that we may all be one “so that the world may believe...”. A Church that is disunited must be ineffective in mission. We need to keep asking ourselves ‘How do we look to the world outside? When people look at the Church, do they say to themselves – what a wonderfully loving and harmonious group of people! I want to join them! In this prayer of Jesus you will have noticed that Jesus says that Christians are ‘in the world’ but ‘not of the world’. When we become Christians we are not suddenly transported to heaven. We go on with all the same relationships and problems, but we become new people. And at the heart of that ‘newness’ is love. One of Jesus’ last commands to his disciples was: “Love each other as I have loved you.” (John 15:12). Why should people want to join us if we look just like secular organisations or their work-places – competitive, and marked by criticism, gossip, envy and the rest? We need to be radically different – and at the heart of that difference is harmony created by love.

So there is a huge onus on us to be in unity and love, one with another. And we mark this each year with a special week of prayer for Christian Unity in January.


We need to look at this in practical terms at three levels.

The first is the personal. Are we at odds with someone – or some people – in our own Church or Christian circle? So far as in us lies, we need to put it right. At the heart of our service of Holy Communion is the stated requirement for us to be at peace with God, and at peace with our neighbour. The ‘Peace’ is intended to be much more than a British polite handshake. It is intended to be symbolic of a deep harmony and Christian love. We need to examine ourselves and, if necessary, repent and take practical action to put our relationships right. Not easy – but highly necessary. Each one of us needs to think, to look, and to pray.

The second concerns our Church. We have very necessary, important and ambitious plans for this year. They are all part of our essential mission to the world on behalf of Christ. We will not accomplish them unless we are all totally united. Now that is actually very difficult. It won’t come naturally. But it can come super-naturally if we all commit ourselves to pray.

The third concerns the worldwide Church. We need to work and pray about how the Churches in Camberley can unite to bear witness to our faith and to Christ so that we become much more effective in mission than we are at present.

And 2008 is the year of the Anglican Lambeth Conference. The Anglican Communion is deeply split – especially between the African and American Churches on the issue of homo-sexuality. It promises to be the most difficult and contentious conference imaginable. And it promises to be an absolutely dreadful advertisement for the Christian Church and for Christ himself. The media will have a feast – and none of it will be good. It will serve only to bring the Church and the Gospel into disrepute. We need to pray for our Church Leaders, for love and listening and understanding, and – above all – for the Holy Spirit to give humility and discernment.

Each sermon in this series has a Key Verse. This week’s is from the letter to the Colossians 1: 19,20 – and with this I close. It reads: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Christ, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

We need to have always in the forefront of our mind the cost of peace, reconciliation and harmony. Christ died on the cross to bring us together in faith and love and peace. What Christ went to the cross to bring together, let no man put asunder.


QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
Do you agree that Christian fellowship and unity are vital? Or is being a Christian more a matter of personal faith and individual pilgrimage?
Does Unity mean mainly agreeing with everybody, or is there a place for honest disagreement? What should we do if there is?
Thinking about St Michael’s, how can we get to know, understand and love each other better? Consider the place of small groups, prayer meetings, personal hospitality, special events, and setting aside Thursday as a day of fellowship and prayer. This is a time for new year resolutions – is there some action or commitment you think you should make?
Do you think the major building and other necessary works planned for this Church will bring us closer together, or tend to divide us? How can we make sure it is the former?

Which of the arguments for Christian Unity do you find most convincing? Does it lead you to any specific conclusion or course of action?

Monday 14 January 2008

Sunday 13 January 2008 Epiphany 2: The Baptism of Christ; Matthew 3:12-17; Melanie

So Jesus goes out, and gets baptized.
Why would Jesus go and do that?
Why go to a river and be immersed?
Get wet, when he wasn't even dirty?

What's the point? Seems like wasted energy. Going to a river, stuck way out there
on the far side of the wilderness.

What could Jesus be thinking? Why should he even care? What good does it do?

With galaxies to energize, constellations to choreograph,
With worlds to ignite, and worlds to incinerate,
With shooting stars to hurl around for sheer fun,
With all the pyrotechnic possibilities at his disposal,
Why would Jesus go to a river and be baptized?

The answer is so simple, it almost takes your breath away'. Jesus knows that water is powerful

There is something powerful about water.
The world saw it several years ago with the Tsunami in South Asia.
The US saw it in the aftermath of devastating hurricanes.
We saw it here over the summer last year.
Who could have imagined that water could be so powerful?

Yet here we have a throng of people from all walks of life coming to the water.
People who have made a pilgrimage into the wilderness to see a travelling preacher wearing
a coarse camel's hair tunic with a leather belt

People came because they were ready to listen to a new voice.
And this was a powerful voice.
Then one day it happened... Jesus. The request for baptism
John' s initial reluctance-then acquiescence

Finally the dramatic climax:
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. Heaven was opened
The spirit of God descended like a dove and lighted on him
A voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, Whom I love', with him I am well pleased'.

This was the start of Jesus three years of public ministry.
He was no longer one of the crowd in the Temple at Jerusalem; no longer listening to other rabbis in synagogues; now he announced to the world that he would fulfil all righteousness.

John the Baptist had foretold his coming; now through this act of baptism, Jesus was confirming that his ministry had begun. And all through the symbol of water

This changed everything!
Jesus' baptism ushered in a new baptism; Christian baptism became not just a washing away of sin but a baptism that brings the power of the Holy Spirit and a special relationship with God.

All of this happened at the start of Jesus work.
This was his commissioning service.
Now, almost twenty centuries later when someone is baptized in the church, whether infants or adults
it is no different. We still have work, we are receiving our commission.

If that sounds a bit scary, there is one more piece of good news about your baptism.
Remember that picture at the Jordan. There is the crowd, John, Jesus, and the dove - the Holy Spirit.
Don't forget the dove. From this moment on, Jesus and his ministry are empowered by the living presence of the Holy Spirit..

In just a few weeks time it will be the 29th anniversary of my own baptism. It was a special occasion.
I was 13 years old, and as I look back on it now I find my emotions welling up , words choke on the way out.

Not because of some warm fuzzy, “isn't this a nice family picture” kind of feeling, but because this is when the church gets dangerous.
This sets someone on a journey that has the potential to change the world

And maybe because it is so dangerous
So threatening
So radical
That people either flee the church as they get older
Or they weep when they have the opportunity
to reaffirm their baptismal vows

Who knew that water could be so powerful?

Trick question : The church has always known !

Sunday 6 January 2008 EPIPHANY Ephesians 3:1-12 Matthew 2:1-12 BRUCE

Depending on our point of view, we might feel surprise, bemusement, or even outrage at this story.

In Matthew chapter 1 Jesus’ genealogy includes foreign women of doubtful origin. Then a betrothed virgin was found to be with child. And now these foreigners, astrologers, appear to offer worship.

Questions that arise are:

Who is God?

What is he up to?

Why is this baby significant?

The Gospel starts with Jesus, descended from Abraham, in whom all the nations of the world would be blessed. The Gospel ends with Jesus sending his disciples out into all the world to make disciples of all nations, teaching and baptising, and he is with us!

The wise men appear: what do they say to us?

1. Shift from spectator or speculator to participant

2. Shift from the theoretical and general to the specific.

Lesslie Newbigin has written about the scandal of particularity:

THIS baby, of THESE parents, living in THIS town. God’s love reaching out to the whole world is made real in this happening.

It is not the good life that Jesus lives or his teaching that impresses: initially, we are called to worship this helpless babe, who must be nurtured and protected.

All of the trajectory of human history, Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, all narrows down to this one individual, in whom is fulfilled the promise and the mission of the nation of Israel.

This uniquely defines our faith in Jesus, that we are anchored to historic occurrences that have a global, timeless significance.


Yes, we face the questions raised in our sermon from last week about why God can allow suffering for some, and choose to bless others.

But we do this in the knowledge that our God has subjected himself to the same limitations, and ultimately ended his earthly life on the cross.

And it was through the Gentiles that God has made this known.

Herod was a foreigner, also from the east, (well, south east actually) but refusing to recognise and acclaim the true King of the Jews.

The wise ones have responded to the summons. Following the star prophesied by Balaam so long before, when he declined to curse the nation of Israel at the invitation of another foreign king, they have come.

We humbly bow before Jesus, acknowledging that we could never have worked this out for ourselves, and that all we can do is receive his grace. We are those who have heard his call and responded. That is the definition of church.

Paul writing to the Ephesians expands this thought. Our shared reaction to the babe of Bethlehem, our decision to devote our lives to him and to live in community with him and with each other, creates another scandal that rocks the heavens.

Through the good news about Christ, the whole of human kind has been invited to join God’s family. Within the company of those who have received him, all barriers have been broken down. We are brothers and sisters. The way that we get on together in love proclaims to the whole cosmos the wisdom and rightness of our God.

This epiphany, what kind of people does God want us to be?

Those who are searching and seeking, questioning, self giving, responding, taking part.

Friday 4 January 2008

Sunday 30 December 2007 Matthew 2:13-end Melanie

Susanna and Jehoiachim were young parents, both twenty three years old, just getting started in life together. They had one child, little Davey, who at eighteen months had learned to walk and was getting into everything, was putting sentences together in strange ways, his soft, high pitched little voice giving a musical lilt even to the Aramaic gutturals. A healthy, happy child, he was the delight of their life. They named him David because they lived in the ‘city of David’, as their village was called, located a few miles south of Jerusalem.
Late one night while everyone was sleeping, the king’s soldiers surrounded the village, and at first light they came into town. They ordered all parents with small children into the village square, made a search to ensure that none remained, and without a word killed every boy younger than two years old. ‘Orders’ they said.
After the horror of that day had receded enough for the villagers to take account, they discovered that twenty one children had been killed.
It is a cruel world, and such things happen. In our time thousands of babies have been napalmed, gassed, starved, and shot down by the order or permission of unfeeling governments. But human beings are resilient creatures, and after periods of numbness, anger, bitterness, and acceptance, Jehoiachim and Susanna were able to pick up the pieces of their life and go on. Without hostility or condescension, they rejected the ‘explanations’ of the tragedy from well meaning neighbour theologians, having no answer to the question articulated for them in their own Bible prayer book, ‘My God, my God, why?’ (Ps 22.1). They even began to find new meaning in synagogue worship.
Until one day when they discovered that on the crucial night before the slaughter of the baby boys an angel had come from God to warn one family to flee. It turns out that God had arranged for Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus to escape and that they had been secure in Egypt. The little boy Jesus was alive and well, but not their little Davey.

When we read Matthew’s story in this way, it raises all sorts of ethical questions for us today. If God does indeed work in this way, and warn people of danger, is it right that only one family be warned?
Would any of us, with this information, share it with just one family and not with the other twenty one?
It also makes us think about other miracle stories – the healing of the blind person is wonderful, unless it is heard from the perspective of all those blind people in the world who were not healed.

Of course there are several responses.

Some people might say that if God had warned all the parents in Bethlehem, Herod would have grown suspicious and may have killed everyone in the village. Although what happened was bad, it was not as bad as it might have been.
Others might say that God was speaking to everyone in the village, but only Mary and Joseph were sensitive enough to hear God’s voice.
Still others might say that of course all this stuff about miracles is just part of the oral tradition of the Bible, and is a way of explaining what couldn’t then be explained through science. We don’t need such language of miracles today.

What all these responses have in common is the taking of the language of miracle stories as objective, true – in the sense that they would be true stories that we would read in the newspaper today.
The story that I quoted at the beginning of the sermon transposes Matthew’s story into a reported incident – a newspaper story.
Matthew’s story though is much more of an insider story. It tries to convey the idea that the God was at work in preserving the life of Christ for his future mission. This is the point, or the truth of the story.

The question we are faced with is not, do miracles happen? Or why should they happen?
But should this story be read as an objective account – a reported happening? Or should it be read as an insider language – to confess the church’s faith that God was at work and active in the birth of the Messiah.

Ultimately the decision is down to each individual. As I commented a few weeks ago in my sermon, Christ bears many interpretations, and we can’t expect him to tell us which one he likes.
However we choose to interpret this story in Matthew, we watch in awe at God acting in history. The transforming grace of God becoming human never loses its mystery and majesty – and that is a vital part of our own journeys in faith.
God works through a family of no real importance in their own society – through an unnamed woman on the edge of society.
God’s saving work for the world begins with this insignificant couple, and yet contains within that family all the dignity and greatness of God incarnate.
This may be the true miracle of Matthew’s gospel – that God is an incoming God,
Prepared to dwell with the most humble
Prepared to live a life of wandering and insecurity
And yet through that, is able to point to a deeper reality beyond anything that we can experience on earth
The reality of God exalted, divine, majestic,
in the shape of a baby.
Amen

December 2007 Fourth Sunday of Advent Kim

One of the most memorable movies I have seen is the film of Charles Dickens’s novel ‘Little Dorrit’. It is actually two films, both very long. The two films do not follow in sequence, telling the first and the second halves of the story; instead, each film shows the whole drama, but from a different point of view. First we see the action through the eyes of the hero; then, in the second film, the same story through the eyes of the heroine. A few scenes are identical, but in the second film we understand many things that had not been clear the first time around. Like seeing with two eyes instead of one, the double movie enables the viewer to get a sense of depth and perspective on the whole dramatic story.
The story of Jesus’ birth in Matthew’s Gospel is seen through the eyes of Joseph; in Luke’s Gospel, we see it through Mary’s. No attempt is made to bring them into line. The central fact is the same; but instead of Luke’s picture of an excited Galilean girl, learning that she is to give girth to God’s Messiah, Matthew shows us the more sober Joseph, a caring, thoughtful and was somewhat older than Mary, discovering that his fiancĂ©e is pregnant. He did not seem to be an impetuous person but decides to quietly call off the wedding. He considered what to do about the situation and while doing this, the angel brought him guidance ‘in a dream’. As a result of this he had enough faith to go ahead with the wedding as planned. The only point where the two stories come close is when the angel says to Joseph, as Gabriel said to Mary, ‘Do not be afraid.’ These are important words for us, too in today’s world. It is fear that stops us from being the people that God wants us to be and stops us from doing his work. ‘What if I fail?’ ‘What if they turn against me?’ ‘What if’ can stop us dead.
Fear at this point in Matthew’s story is normal. For if people had found out that Mary was pregnant by someone other than Joseph, Mary would have probably been stoned to death and her baby with her and for centuries now many opponents of Christianity, and many devout Christians themselves, have felt that these stories are embarrassing and unnecessary, even untrue. We know (many will say) that miracles do not happen. Remarkable healings, perhaps; there are ways of explaining them. But not babies born without human fathers. This is straining things too far.
Some go further. Theses stories, they say, have had an unfortunate effect. They have given the impression that sex is dirty and that God does not want anything to do with it. They have given rise to the legend that Mary stayed a virgin for ever (something the Bible never says; indeed, here and elsewhere it implies that she and Joseph lived a normal married life after Jesus’ birth). This has promoted the belief that virginity is better than marriage. And so on.
It is of course true that strange ideas have grown up around the story of Jesus’ conception and birth, but Matthew (and Luke) can hardly be blamed for that. They were telling the story they believed was both true and the ultimate explanation of why Jesus was the person he was and is.
They must have known that they were taking a risk. In the ancient pagan world there were plenty of stories of heroes conceived by the intervention of a god, without human father. Surely Matthew, with his very Jewish perspective on everything, would hardly invent such a thing, or copy it from someone else unless he really believed it? Wouldn’t it be opening Christianity to the sneers of its opponents, who would quickly suggest the obvious alternative, namely that Mary had become pregnant through some more obvious but less reputable means?

Well, yes, it would; but that would only be relevant if nobody already knew that there had been something strange about Jesus’ conception. In John’s Gospel we hear the echo of a taunt made during Jesus’ lifetime; maybe, the crowds suggest, Jesus’ mother had been misbehaving before her marriage (7.41). It looks as though Matthew and Luke are telling this story because they know rumours have circulated and they want to set the record straight.
Alternatively, people have suggested that Matthew made his story up so that it would present a ‘fulfilment’ of the passage he quotes in verse 23, from Isaiah 7:14. But, interestingly, there is no evidence that anyone before Matthew saw that verse as something that would have to be fulfilled by the coming Messiah. It looks rather as though he found the verse because he already knew the story, not the other way round.
Everything depends, of course, on whether you believe that the living God could, or would, act like that. Some say he couldn’t (‘miracles don’t happen’); other that he wouldn’t (‘if he did that, why doesn’t he intervene to stop genocide, famine or wars?’). Some say Joseph, and others at that time, did not know the scientific laws of nature the way we do – though this story gives the lie to that, since if Joseph hadn’t known how babies were normally made he would not have had a problem with Mary’s unexpected pregnancy.
But Matthew and Luke do not ask us to take the story all by itself. They both ask us to see it in the light of the entire history of Israel – in which God was always present and at work, often in very surprising ways – and, more particular, of the subsequent story of Jesus himself. Does the rest of the story and the impact of Jesus on the world and countless individuals within it ever since, make it more or less likely that he was indeed conceived by a special act of the Holy Spirit?
That is a question everyone must answer for themselves. But Matthew would not want us to stop there. He wants to tell us more about who Jesus was and is, in a time-honoured Jewish fashion; by his special names. The name ‘Jesus’ was a popular boys’ name at the time, being in Hebrew the same as ‘Joshua’, who brought the Israelites into the Promised Land after the death of Moses. Matthew sees Jesus as the one who will now complete what the law of Moses pointed to but could not of itself produce. He will rescue his people, not from slavery in Egypt, but from the slavery of sin, the ‘exile’ they have suffered not just in Babylon but in their own hearts and lives.
By contrast, the name ‘Emmanuel’, mentioned in Isaiah 7:14 and 8:8, was not given to anyone else, perhaps because it would say more about a child than anyone would normally dare. It means ‘God with us’. Matthew’s whole Gospel is framed by this theme: at the very end, Jesus promises that he will be ‘with’ his people to the close of the age (28:20). The two names together express the meaning of the story. God is present, with his people; he doesn’t ‘intervene’ from a distance, but is always active, sometimes in most unexpected ways. And God’s actions are aimed at rescuing people from a helpless plight, demanding that he take the initiative and do things people had regarded as (so to speak) inconceivable.
This is the God, and this is the Jesus, whose story Matthew will now set before us. This is the God, and this is the Jesus, who comes to us still today when human possibilities have run out, offering new and startling ways forward, in fulfilment of his promises, by his powerful love and grace. This is the God and this is the Jesus, who wants to be allowed to come into the situations and events, the relationships, our work, in our lives, so that He can make a difference. Dare we, this Christmas, allow Him to do so? Go on I dare you! Let’s see what happens!

Carol Service Sunday 16 December 2007 Who can you trust? Bruce

Have you noticed how the familiar Christmas traditions are falling away? For years we have had a new instalment of the Lord of the Rings, but that is over now. Last year we had the Chronicles of Narnia. This year, by contrast, we have the Golden Compass, based on the novel known in the UK as Northern Lights, the first in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman.

Tony Watkins writes: “A child who is separated from his or her parents in some way, perhaps because they are dead, is caught up in a great adventure, faces great dangers and must shoulder immense responsibilities. It’s familiar fare in children’s fiction – Harry Potter, the Baudelaire children, the children who go to Narnia, even the Famous Five – and some of these heroes and heroines are among the most memorable characters ever written. The best of them are stories about growing up. Think of how much Harry has learnt and how he has matured by the end of J.K. Rowling’s seventh book, for example. (By contrast, it is one of the reasons why the Famous Five are not great heroes and heroines – they never change.) In the minds of many people, Philip Pullman’s Lyra Belacqua has a place with the best of them.”

When we meet her, Lyra is living with benevolent but rather remote Oxford dons, and looking for freedom. She encounters the mysterious Mrs Coulter, who takes her to a parallel world, on a quest.

She encounters the Magisterium, which stands for a repressive religion (for Pullman – all religion, including soviet communism)

She also encounters protectors and mentors like Lord John Faa & Farder Coram, who offer r benign, supportive and caring authority; an invitation to grow up at her own speed.

Contrast to the Magisterium & Mrs Coulter

Question: whom do we trust?

Can we trust God in the garden that he has the best interests of the man and woman at heart?
Can we trust God to keep his promise to Abraham?
Will God fulfil his promise to provide a successor to King David?
Can we trust the account of the virgin birth?
Can we trust Herod, that he really wants to worship the infant king?
Can we trust that Jesus is the light of the world?
If we trust in him, will we really become children of God?

According to Philip Pullman, you cannot trust in a harsh authoritarianism. Ironically, it is the paternalistic care we see in Lord John Faa & Farder Coram that is nearest to a Christian understanding of who God is and how he cares for us. It is the way that the Christian church should always have acted towards its members, and usually does.

Specifically, the birth of Jesus is an invitation to us to respond to the love of God.

By our worship, we acknowledge him as king and lord.

Not just to adore a baby, but marvel at who this baby grew up to become, and all that he achieved for us. In particular, when we fail to live our lives in accordance with his just and right laws, he himself died and rose again to bring us forgiveness, new life and a place in his family. To all who receive him, he gave the right to become his chidren.
Pullman is right that we need to be free of authoritarianism in order to truly grow up. But as with Lyra, maturity is not found in willful independence but in a relationship of trust and love with a benevolent father figure, God himself.

Sunday 16 November 2007 10.30am Matthew 11:2-11 Melanie

We can almost touch the frustration that John feels at the beginning of this passage. ‘Are you the one who is to come’? John asks of Jesus. He is confused – who is this person? where does he fit? Does he have anything to say to John?
They are questions that we all struggle with. Even today, we ask the same questions of Christ. Who is this? Where is he coming from? Does he have anything to say to me?
We expect answers – as John did. We expect an answer to our question – are you the one who is to come?
And yet, as with John, the answer to the question remains obscure. Christ remains the totally enigmatic face on the wall, the cross, the bread and wine. Silent signs, as silent as he was before Pilate, consistently refusing a straight and simple answer. We can't feed him questions like a computer and receive tidy, systematic replies. He won't let on: we can shout and wave our arms at that icon, and it stays the same, a dark expressionless face that gives us nothing but itself to think about. We can shout and wave our arms at each other, appealing to Christ, and when we turn to him, all we meet is silence, a kind of annihilating judgment on all we say. Christ can bear all sorts of interpretations, and we can't expect him to tell us which he likes.
But interpret him we must. We're constructive, imaginative beings, after all, and we can't escape from language, so we must talk.
One thing interpretations and visions of Christ have to do with is reconciliation – our reconciliation with ourselves and each other and God.
Perhaps this is what John was looking for as he sat in prison – a way of finding reconciliation within himself, and reconciliation with God. Reconciliation often happens at key points in our lives. Dame Cicely Saunders, who founded the hospice movement, writes that reconciliation of our inner selves and reconciliation before God are often key at the end of a life. And yet, it doesn’t have to wait until then. The main task in any life is to find integration – the bringing together of what is scattered and diverse and forming a whole. Perhaps this was what John was seeking as he sat in prison – a means of making sense of his life, of regaining his identity, and reassuring himself that his life had made sense and been of value.
Perhaps it is something we all seek as we ask questions of this enigmatic figure in front of us. Seeking ways of reconciling our inner nature; reconciling ourselves to God.
Seeking reconciliation though from someone who provoked so much conflict in his life sounds paradoxical.
Time and again Jesus’ presence evoked conflict and contradiction. Even in his healing ministry there were voices of dissent; he was thrown out of the synagogue in Nazareth; crowds tried to stone him. Yet he never abandoned the precarious frontier where all dualities meet. He inhabited the nerve line of paradox and contradiction. We forget that Jesus knows contradiction, paradox and pathos from within. Both human and divine he lived an existence of two worlds – a divided, and yet completely whole existence.
Despite the tension of the frontier he inhabited, he always kept his dignity, balance and poise. This must have been the fruit of the thirty years of solitary interior work before he emerged in his public mission.
Whilst being a voice of conflict, Christ also occupied a frontier that was of greatest possibility and renewal. I imagine this is true in our own lives too. Those around us who occupy positions in areas of conflict and contradiction are often those to whom we turn in order to have some insight into reconciliation.
Think of Nelson Mandela – a man who was at the heart of enormous conflict in his country, and yet who now occupies a prophetic role in terms of reconciliation.
Or Gordon Wilson, the man who after the IRA bombing at Enniskillen publicly forgave the bombers, saying that "I bear no ill-will, no grudge".
Or Julie Nicholson, the parish priest who stepped down after she struggled to forgive those who had killed her daughter in the 7/7 bombings in London.
From my own conversations with other people, I know how much her own struggle has spoken to others also battling with reconciliation.
Perhaps the secret to this gift of reconciliation lies in the fact that unless we explore the silent and hidden places of our own hearts first, we are hardly in a position to find much of an echo in the hearts of others. The interface between the inner and outer worlds is almost like a two way mirror. To maintain a solid connection with the poor, the marginalised, the outcasts around us, we need to be always in touch with those within our own lives, We must always be trying to find and verify our own authentic voice while we fulfill the role of being a voice for those who cannot, or will not, speak out their own truth.
In a wonderful book called Near occasions of grace, the author says that he feels that the outer poverty, injustice and absurdity we see when we look around us mirrors our own inner poverty, injustice, absurdity. The poor man or women outside is an invitation to the poor man or woman inside. As we learn compassion and sympathy for the brokenness of things ; When we encounter the visible icon of the painful mystery In 'the little ones' ; then, if we have built bridges between the inner and outer, if we have learned to move between action and contemplation, then we'll learn compassion and sympathy for the 'little one', the broken one within ourselves. We' ll realise that you are a poor person too. (Rohr, Richard, Near occasions of grace, Orbis, 1993 p 108, I09) cited p 82.
John may have seen this gift in Christ – the ability to stand in the middle of contradiction, and yet to offer reconciliation to others. Although Christ’s reply is evasive, he does respond with a reference to the Isaiah passage that we had read today:
The blind receive their sight,
The lame walk,
The lepers are cleansed,
The deaf hear,
The dead are raised,
And the poor have good news brought to them.
There is an inner harmony here – a reconciling of people within themselves.
Did Christ see an inner disharmony in John that made him respond in this way? Or was the response intended for a wider audience? We shall probably never know this side of heaven.
We do know that Christ offers to bring a wholeness that cannot be found anywhere else.





Rowan Williams quotes a poem :
You shall know him when he comes
Not by any din of drums
Not by anything he wears,
Not by the vantage of his airs ;
Not by his gown,
Nor by his crown,
But his coming known shall be
By the holy harmony
That his presence makes in thee.

Advent calls us to be reconciled to each other; reconciled to ourselves. But the only way we can reach this true reconciliation is through turning to Christ, and continually saying along with John the Baptist ‘who are you? ; are you the one who is to come? ; can you speak to me ? do you have a word of healing or wholeness for me?’
It is a reconciliation that has high rewards – because it gives us a freedom that anticipates the striving for the coming of the kingdom.
So this advent we look ahead for a coming Christ who will offer reconciliation and peace in the transforming message of the incarnation.
Amen



We can almost touch the frustration that John feels at the beginning of this passage. ‘Are you the one who is to come’? John asks of Jesus. He is confused – who is this person? where does he fit? Does he have anything to say to John?
They are questions that we all struggle with. Even today, we ask the same questions of Christ. Who is this? Where is he coming from? Does he have anything to say to me?
We expect answers – as John did. We expect an answer to our question – are you the one who is to come?
And yet, as with John, the answer to the question remains obscure. Christ remains the totally enigmatic face on the wall, the cross, the bread and wine. Silent signs, as silent as he was before Pilate, consistently refusing a straight and simple answer. We can't feed him questions like a computer and receive tidy, systematic replies. He won't let on: we can shout and wave our arms at that icon, and it stays the same, a dark expressionless face that gives us nothing but itself to think about. We can shout and wave our arms at each other, appealing to Christ, and when we turn to him, all we meet is silence, a kind of annihilating judgment on all we say. Christ can bear all sorts of interpretations, and we can't expect him to tell us which he likes.
But interpret him we must. We're constructive, imaginative beings, after all, and we can't escape from language, so we must talk.
One thing interpretations and visions of Christ have to do with is reconciliation – our reconciliation with ourselves and each other and God.
Perhaps this is what John was looking for as he sat in prison – a way of finding reconciliation within himself, and reconciliation with God. Reconciliation often happens at key points in our lives. Dame Cicely Saunders, who founded the hospice movement, writes that reconciliation of our inner selves and reconciliation before God are often key at the end of a life. And yet, it doesn’t have to wait until then. The main task in any life is to find integration – the bringing together of what is scattered and diverse and forming a whole. Perhaps this was what John was seeking as he sat in prison – a means of making sense of his life, of regaining his identity, and reassuring himself that his life had made sense and been of value.
Perhaps it is something we all seek as we ask questions of this enigmatic figure in front of us. Seeking ways of reconciling our inner nature; reconciling ourselves to God.
Seeking reconciliation though from someone who provoked so much conflict in his life sounds paradoxical.
Time and again Jesus’ presence evoked conflict and contradiction. Even in his healing ministry there were voices of dissent; he was thrown out of the synagogue in Nazareth; crowds tried to stone him. Yet he never abandoned the precarious frontier where all dualities meet. He inhabited the nerve line of paradox and contradiction. We forget that Jesus knows contradiction, paradox and pathos from within. Both human and divine he lived an existence of two worlds – a divided, and yet completely whole existence.
Despite the tension of the frontier he inhabited, he always kept his dignity, balance and poise. This must have been the fruit of the thirty years of solitary interior work before he emerged in his public mission.
Whilst being a voice of conflict, Christ also occupied a frontier that was of greatest possibility and renewal. I imagine this is true in our own lives too. Those around us who occupy positions in areas of conflict and contradiction are often those to whom we turn in order to have some insight into reconciliation.
Think of Nelson Mandela – a man who was at the heart of enormous conflict in his country, and yet who now occupies a prophetic role in terms of reconciliation.
Or Gordon Wilson, the man who after the IRA bombing at Enniskillen publicly forgave the bombers, saying that "I bear no ill-will, no grudge".
Or Julie Nicholson, the parish priest who stepped down after she struggled to forgive those who had killed her daughter in the 7/7 bombings in London.
From my own conversations with other people, I know how much her own struggle has spoken to others also battling with reconciliation.
Perhaps the secret to this gift of reconciliation lies in the fact that unless we explore the silent and hidden places of our own hearts first, we are hardly in a position to find much of an echo in the hearts of others. The interface between the inner and outer worlds is almost like a two way mirror. To maintain a solid connection with the poor, the marginalised, the outcasts around us, we need to be always in touch with those within our own lives, We must always be trying to find and verify our own authentic voice while we fulfill the role of being a voice for those who cannot, or will not, speak out their own truth.
In a wonderful book called Near occasions of grace, the author says that he feels that the outer poverty, injustice and absurdity we see when we look around us mirrors our own inner poverty, injustice, absurdity. The poor man or women outside is an invitation to the poor man or woman inside. As we learn compassion and sympathy for the brokenness of things ; When we encounter the visible icon of the painful mystery In 'the little ones' ; then, if we have built bridges between the inner and outer, if we have learned to move between action and contemplation, then we'll learn compassion and sympathy for the 'little one', the broken one within ourselves. We' ll realise that you are a poor person too. (Rohr, Richard, Near occasions of grace, Orbis, 1993 p 108, I09) cited p 82.
John may have seen this gift in Christ – the ability to stand in the middle of contradiction, and yet to offer reconciliation to others. Although Christ’s reply is evasive, he does respond with a reference to the Isaiah passage that we had read today:
The blind receive their sight,
The lame walk,
The lepers are cleansed,
The deaf hear,
The dead are raised,
And the poor have good news brought to them.
There is an inner harmony here – a reconciling of people within themselves.
Did Christ see an inner disharmony in John that made him respond in this way? Or was the response intended for a wider audience? We shall probably never know this side of heaven.
We do know that Christ offers to bring a wholeness that cannot be found anywhere else.





Rowan Williams quotes a poem :
You shall know him when he comes
Not by any din of drums
Not by anything he wears,
Not by the vantage of his airs ;
Not by his gown,
Nor by his crown,
But his coming known shall be
By the holy harmony
That his presence makes in thee.

Advent calls us to be reconciled to each other; reconciled to ourselves. But the only way we can reach this true reconciliation is through turning to Christ, and continually saying along with John the Baptist ‘who are you? ; are you the one who is to come? ; can you speak to me ? do you have a word of healing or wholeness for me?’
It is a reconciliation that has high rewards – because it gives us a freedom that anticipates the striving for the coming of the kingdom.
So this advent we look ahead for a coming Christ who will offer reconciliation and peace in the transforming message of the incarnation.
Amen