St Michael's Sermons

Sunday 19 February 2012, The Word, Colossians 1:15-20, John 1:1-14, Bruce

2012-02-18T13:05:00.001-08:00

In a late change to the running order for our service today, I reinstated the second verse of our last hymn. We will now sing “At his voice creation sprang at once to sight”. Jesus is The Word, the logos, the revelation of God. He is the image, the eikon, of God. “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Creation is the solidified expression of who God is. Except that for many of us, creation is like lava flows – cold solid rock that only in our imagination reminds us of the fire and passion and love of our Father God. Many look at the state of the world, this whole world system, and see chaos and disorder and lack of harmony, and find it hard to see an all-wise all-loving all-powerful God at the back of it. Paul explains: Romans 1:¹⁸ “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. ²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” It is not a big step from there to “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him.”

And thus Jesus comes as light into our darkness. The process of creation that he began is continuing, and so he constantly refers to himself as doing the work that his Father has given him (John 5:36). He is the living expression of the love of God that led him to give his Son so that everyone who believes in Jesus should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). He is The Word, the continuing point of contact between us and our Father God. I suggest that this plays out in three ways, the Word, the World and in Worship.

The Word, the written scriptures, are not themselves divine, but they point us to the Living Word himself. The stories and teachings contained in this book are a gateway to the experiences of others who have encountered God. As we listen or read, we understand more and we allow our thinking to be shaped so that we become more like Jesus, the living Word. Just to play a cd or mp3 recording of the scriptures is like giving our minds and souls a refreshing cleansing bath that transforms us. “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Philippians 4:8” You cannot dose yourself with anything better than the Word of God, even if you do not understand or retain every single sentence.

The World, itself, as we have seen points us to the reality of God. The problem is that our view of creation has become distorted. We were placed here to cultivate and tend to creation, to be the park-keeper in the garden but we have come to view all of creation as there for our personal benefit. This extends to our treatment of other people, so that we are perpetrators of evil as well as innocent victims. We are part of the problem. Thus Jesus, The Word, comes “to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace though his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:15-20). As our relationship with Jesus grows and deepens, so we see God’s blessed hand revealed in all of creation around us. “Heaven above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green; Something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen.” (G. W. Robinson) This is a process, not an event; as we grow in confidence in Jesus, so he allows us to encounter more of the pains and difficulties of this fractured creation. In our prayers and practical works we seek for his kingdom to come, his will to be done, and we as we do this we grow in perseverance and character. We learn to view The World through lens of The Word who created it and has redeemed it though his blood.

Worship is our proper response. Peter writes “ ³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead ... ²⁰ He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. ²¹ Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.... ²³ For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”

It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty,
that we should at all times and in all places
give thanks unto thee,
O Lord, holy Father,
almighty, everlasting God,
through Jesus Christ thine only Son our Lord.

May the red hot lava of God’s love for the world flow in our praises and worship as we encounter the living Word and grow in him. As we read or listen to his word, or as we walk in the wonders of creation, or as we gather to sing, read and worship together, let us be open for all that all that he has for us, open for all that he would teach us, open for every person who would seek after him, and open to follow him wherever he leads us.

Discussion Starters

1. What have been the most important ways that you have learned about God?

2. In what ways has your experience of God grown recently, and how?

Sunday 12 February 2012, 1 Corinthians 14:26-40, Matthew 18:15-20, Bruce

2012-02-11T15:27:00.000-08:00

In Matthew 22 we read that “³⁷ Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'

³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment.

³⁹ And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.'

⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

There is debate about how often Paul quoted directly from the words of Jesus, but my contention this morning is that Paul’s teaching to the Corinthian church is very much in the spirit of these words. Jesus singles out two commandments from the Hebrew scriptures (Deuteronomy 6:5 & Leviticus 19:18) that encapsulate all the teaching we have about how to live. Although they are two, they work together and in keeping one we find ourselves keeping the other.

How do we love God? By trust, by faith, by expressing worship and adoration. This is our main purpose and excitement. After all, we have a brief time on earth to practice, but then we have all eternity to join in the songs of the angels and all those who have gone before us, singing Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, as we gather around the throne. O praise ye the Lord! Praise him in the height. And in doing this, we show his love for those he has placed us to live amongst.

Therefore it mattered that in the church in Corinth they were more interested in displaying their own apparent knowledge or wisdom. It mattered that in the communion services they displayed wealth and privilege and boorish manners. It mattered that in their worship they acted in ways that seemed completely out of touch with the surrounding culture, thus setting up barriers and making it more difficult for outsiders to come in. They were not open for all.

We have seen over previous weeks that God has given to each one of us at least one gift of the Holy Spirit for the common good, that we are to see ourselves as different members of one body with our own unique part to play, that the gifts we are given are a mix of what we would consider natural and supernatural, but that they are given to build up the church, and of greatest importance that none of this has any use if we do not love. We have observed that the sometimes puzzling gifts of prophecy and speaking in tongues seem to have been overused in unregulated ways so that worship would remind one of a kindergarten, and would hinder outsiders from encountering God and growing in him. My understanding is that Paul wants to encourage responsible use of these gifts, but only in ways that show love and respect for God and concern for the outsider.

Now we come to Paul’s summary of his careful argument over these three chapters, and we note two principles.

First, All Involved. “When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of revelation, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.” This does not sound like the way that we run a Parish Communion, with pre-chosen and carefully rehearsed hymns, readings and a sermon planned in advance, with certain authorised people to “preside” at the Lord’s Table. I wonder if I call for a show of hands – what shall we sing next? Does anyone want to share a thought that has come to them while they were reading the scriptures? Have you felt when praying that God has a message to pass on to us? I could come among you now with the hand-held microphone. I wonder how we would respond to that?

The reality, however, is that we have probably selected this style of worship as it is what we are most comfortable with. To gather several dozen people and engage in collective worship almost necessitates a certain degree of formality. We should be aware, however, that this style is not the only one, and it has not been specially commanded by God. It can even be a stumbling block to outsiders. Imagine introducing the concept of eating to someone who has never seen it. If you take them to a formal dinner with special etiquette, where there are frequent stylised toasts, and it is made obvious if you use the wrong cutlery, they may be put off. They need to know that there is also a family Sunday lunch, and a casual supper around the kitchen table. We do all of these, but at different times. We should consider carefully the extent to which our ways of worship show love for God and for our neighbour.

One way that we try to live these words out today is to consciously do church in different ways at different times. Paul’s command that we all take an active part in worship makes sense when we meet in smaller groups of eight to ten people; we can all have our voices heard and make a meaningful contribution. This is not a different church from our Sunday service, or an extra activity to be shoe-horned into our busy schedules, but the flip side or completion, just as the two great commandments are to be taken as one. I will be delighted to discuss with you further how you could take this thought forward.

The second thought is that in our openness to all, we have order, a proper sense that we are acting in submission to God, and for the good of others. It is possible that you have nodded through the talk of tongues, revelations, prophecy and the rest because you cannot see how it is relevant to you, but you are very interested to hear what I will say about women in church. I would merely urge that you spend time asking God to help you be open for all that he has for you in the area of spiritual gifts. You might otherwise be in the position of a driver who is unaware that there are fourth and fifth gears to be used, or a cook who knows about the hotplate but is ignorant of the oven. No wonder we sometimes wonder, in the deepest recesses of the heart, if being a Christian is all it is cracked up to be.

Just as driver revels in the use of fifth gear but should not exceed the speed limit, and the cook should enjoy the use of the oven but take care not to burn everything to a crisp, so worship should be exciting, joyous, honouring to God and a blessing to all who attend, whether regular attendees or visitors. Paul sets some guidelines to help us. He encourages use and experimentation with spiritual gifts in worship, but always in the context of order, courtesy, mutual understanding and submission. He also talks about the conduct of women in worship. It seems that many people feel very happy to bring their preconceived ideas to these verses.

These verses read very strangely to us in the 21^st century west, and are controversial. We need to be aware of their cultural context, and also the ways that we are influenced by our own culture as well.

There are some in the worldwide church who would interpret them to mean that women should literally refrain from speaking in church, meaning to take part formally in the service. We should note however that Paul talks in chapter 11 of women being careful to cover their heads when they pray or utter prophecies – and this may well indicate that women did take a part in worship services. This has obvious relevance as the debate continues about women bishops in the Church of England, and as we note that all the folk going forward for various forms of ministry in this church community are women.

It has been pointed out that these verses make perfect sense in a community that has carried on the synagogue practice of seating men and women on opposite sides of the meeting. It may very well be that there was a problem at Corinth with engaged, inquisitive women throwing questions and comments across the room. In a culture much more akin to what we see today in the near east than to our own, this would have been profoundly shocking. Put this together with unbridled and unwise use of the good gifts of the Spirit that God has given to us, and a general free-for-all at the Eucharist, and we can imagine that love for God and for neighbour would possibly have seemed to be at a low ebb.

Let us seek to be open for all that God has for us and for all who seek him. Let us be Christ centred, personally seeking to be individually disciples, resolved to use the gifts he has given us to be servants of others, striving to do all that we can to build up the community of believers, and passionate to see others brought in to know his love.

Questions to promote discussion

1. What do you imagine would have struck you as most strange about worship services in Corinth? And do you think they would think of ours at St Michael’s?

2. What makes it easier for you to take part in worship?

3. Thinking more widely, how much do you know about the spiritual gifts that you have received through the Holy Spirit? Have you taken a test yet?

Sermon for Sunday 5th February 2012 – 1 Corinthians 14:13-25 (and beyond a little)

2012-02-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

Why come to church? We, God’s people assemble for one purpose – to worship God. Yes?
We come to worship Him by our prayers and singing (v. 15) by the teaching and preaching (v.3). Worship should result in bringing glory to God and a blessing for God’s people (v.3), and fear and conviction for sinners (vv. 23-25). But for these things to happen, Jesus Christ must be Lord of our lives, and we must yield to the Holy Spirit. If we come to church to display our spirituality, we will not only miss blessing ourselves but also cause others to miss the blessing. We come to honour Him. We also come to edify each other. A key word in this chapter is edification (vv 3-5, 12, 17, 26), which means ‘building up’. A worship service should lift up the Lord and build up
the saints, not puff up the participants.

We are all aware of the many different languages throughout this world. Indeed you only have to pause for few minutes and listen to people walking by in Park Street speaking, to realise that we have Polish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Asian, South African dialects going on in Camberley. One could say we need a present day Pentecost in Camberley, another Paul speaking in ‘tongues’ proclaiming the good news to all in Camberley’s Park Street. It’s certainly a challenge for churches in Camberley. How do we help the people from foreign lands express their faith in Camberley?

While I was working in other countries throughout the world, I encounter many different languages but I made sure I could order steak and salad and four white wines in the language needed that day. I hasten to add that the four white wines were not just for me! But most of the time we would get by with sign language and our crude attempt of speaking in the language and English.

The disciples were the first to speak in tongues on the Day of Pentecost. People often think that on that day the disciples were speaking human languages, because the people could understand what they were saying. The passage in the book of Acts writes about the many languages that were spoken on the day by the disciples. But there had to be something more than that because there were two different things taking place that day: the miracle of speaking and hearing: The first was the speaking in tongues. The second was the enabling of some to understand(interpretation) the tongues. Not everyone understood the tongues, because some onlookers made fun of the disciples and accused them of being drunk (Acts 2:13); this clearly shows that they did not understand the tongues. And the ones who did understand the tongues were bemused because each one heard only their own native language not the languages of the other people (v. 6). Each person who heard, the disciples praising God in their own language and they could not figure out how this was possible. Sometimes this happens today. The miracle was in the hearing of the people.

Speaking in tongues has been talked about in Christianity for thousands of years. Yet with all the talk about speaking in tongues, few understand what it's all about. It is the least understood subject among believers. People will be surprise to find that the Bible mentions speaking in tongues thirty-five times. That is a lot, so this subject should not be cast lightly aside as unimportant to the Church. God does not fill His book with things of minor importance.

Many people inaccurately define speaking in tongues as "speaking gibberish" or "talking nonsense." The truth is, speaking in tongues is the most intelligent, perfect language in the universe. Why because it is God's language.

What language do you suppose people speak in heaven? Languages are given their name
based on the countries they come from. For example, English comes from England. Spanish comes from Spain. Italian comes from Italy. Tongues are the heavenly language. It is what is spoken in heaven; the only difference is that the people in heaven understand what they are saying. Here on earth Paul says, "For anyone who speaks in tongues does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understand him; he utters mysteries with his spirit" (v.2).

Jesus says that those who believe in Him will "speak in new tongues" (Mark 16:17). The word "new" means appearing for the first time. No one hadspoken these languages before. It is only appropriate that "new tongues" should be spoken by those of the "new birth." It is natural and normal to speak in the language of your birth. We are born again from above, we therefore should speak the language from above - that language is called "new tongues."

Why speak in tongues? Paul writes, "He who speaks in tongues edifies himself...I would like every one of you to speak in tongues" (1 Corinthians 14:4, 5). With this positive statement about tongues, why do so few Christians speak in tongues? The answer could be because there is very little sound, logical and scriptural teaching as to the scope and value of speaking in tongues.

So what does ‘speaking in tongues’ do for us, for you and me? It does exactly what the bible says it does. ‘He who speaks in tongues edifies himself." The word "edify" means to "build up" or "charge up"--much like charging up a battery. We all need a spiritual charge. All of us at times
feel spiritually drained. One of God's ways to charge your spirit is through speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues is the physical, biblical evidence that one is baptised in the Holy Spirit. We should not settle for anything less than the scriptural evidence.

In our passage today, Paul is talking about public ministry gifts that are manifested in the church. He is not talking about tongues as the initial sign of the baptism in the Spirit, nor is he talking about tongues as a private, devotional, prayer language. You can recognise this by simply looking at the language Paul uses concerning speaking in tongues. In this chapter he calls
speaking in tongues "different kinds of tongues" (see 12:10, 28). "Different kinds" means "not the usual." The usual kind of speaking in tongues is a language no man understands or interprets. However, speaking in "different kinds" of tongues enables the speaker or someone else to recognise the meaning of the tongue and thereby interpreting it.

So when Paul ask the question, "Do all speak in tongues?", he is referring to the public manifestation of tongues which enables a person gifted in interpretation to speak out the meaning of the tongue. Not all have been given this gift of "different kinds" of tongues.

In 1 Cor 14, Paul corrects the misuse of tongues in the church. He tells them to stop the practice gathering "the whole church [so] everyone [can] speak in tongues" (v. 23). This clearly shows us that everyone in the Corinthian church was speaking in tongues. Most of them should have allowed those gifted in the "different kinds" of tongues to exercise their gift, and the rest should simply "keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God" (v. 28).

Now, there seems to be an acceptance in many churches that charismatic gifts like prophecy
and speaking in tongues are for today. But are we actually seeing a desire to exercise them? How many of those who believe in the gifts of tongues actually pray in tongues every day? How many prophesy? I want to suggest that there is a discrepancy between Paul’s Church and the Church today, and I believe we’ve subconsciously believed certain untruths. The first is that the manifest
presence of God is an optional extra for God’s people. And the second untruth is that the gifts of the Spirit are optional extras for God’s people. Both of the untruths are refuted by Scripture. God’s gifts are for all his people and God wants each of us to have a desire to receive and use them.

The Gift of Tongues is for all and God is willing us to use the gift to edify ourselves and others as well as to worship Him and bring Him glory. A gift for private and individual use as well as for Corporate use and when used in a church setting should be used with caution and care – being sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Whether private or corporate to edify – build up. Should be not be exercising the Gifts of Tongues and Interpretation today? The Heavenly Language is not something we should be afraid of – indeed we should embrace the fact that God want to speak to us as individuals as well as a corporate body. However, we should always ensure that we enable God to speak without hindrance from ourselves. AMEN.

Sunday 29 January 2012, 1 Corinthians 14:1-12, Bruce

2012-01-31T14:54:00.001-08:00

Dear Lord, help us so to encounter you, that we may daily grow in faith, hope and love, open for all that you have for us, open for all that you would teach us, open for all who seek for you, and open to follow you wherever you lead us.

To encounter God and grow in him ... This expresses the heart of what we think God is calling us to do and to be here at St Michael’s. Jesus says in our gospel reading “I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known...” (John 17:26) Jesus makes himself known by his Holy Spirit who lives in us, and helps us to work with him by giving us gifts of the Spirit.

We have given ourselves the task of looking at these through the lens of Paul’s writings in 1 Corinthians 12, 13 and 14. Paul says that he does not want them to be ignorant of “spirituals”, and over three chapters lays out both general principles and particular practice. In chapter 12 we saw that the gifts are many and various. Every Christian has at least one. We do not all have, or have to have, the same gifts. Some seem to our eyes to be “normal” or explainable – teaching, caring, administration, etc. Some seem supernatural, outside of our experience and hard to explain – miracles, healings, prophecy, discernment of spirits, tongues. The key principle is that we are all one body, and each of us has our unique and essential part in helping the whole organism to thrive. In chapter 13 we learn that it is all about mirroring the self-giving love of God – there is no place for selfish ambition or grasping for position. And now in chapter 14 we turn to a detailed discussion of tongues and prophecy.

I want to ask three questions this week:

What is this passage really about?

Why all the talk of tongues?

What should we be doing?

What is this passage really about?

All through the letter we have been hearing of the need for maturity, to go along with wisdom and abilities. Put basically, the Corinthian Christians need to grow up! A primary school in Essex has been giving elocution lessons to eight year olds; there has been a noticeable improvement in reading and writing skills since they started. The youngsters have also being going home and correcting their parents. How like the young to know all the answers, and not be slow to tell us.

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” ~Mark Twain

We saw this last week in chapter 13, “when I was a child, I thought like a child, reasoned like a child ...” and so on, and we will find that he mentions this in the second portion of chapter 14, and Kim will talk about it next week: “stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.” (13:20)

So this is about encountering God for real, and growing in him.

Why all the talk of tongues?

Speaking in tongues, sometimes called glossolalia, occurs when someone speaks words that they do not naturally understand, being led or helped by the Holy Spirit. It is mentioned in the Acts as occurring at Pentecost when the Spirit came upon the disciples (Acts 2), on a group in Caesarea converted when Peter preached to them (Acts 10), and on another converted in Ephesus when Paul brought them to faith (Acts 19). In addition, something about the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the new Christians in Samaria was so noticeable and impressive that a local holy man called Simon tried to buy the gift, thus inventing the sin of simony (Acts 8). Each of these occasions is subtly different, and there are records of thousands of others who came to faith with no mention at all of speaking in tongues, backing up what Paul has said, that we each receive a gift or gifts of the Spirit, and that speaking in tongues is one of them.

As you read the New Testament, you will notice that this is the only passage which gives teaching about speaking in tongues. This has led some to speculate that the church in Corinth was unique in the way that they related to or employed this gift of the Holy Spirit. Some have speculated that Paul was trying to stop or tone down their use of tongues, that it was a fundamentally pagan practice that had crept in to this one church, otherwise Paul and other writers would have mentioned it in other places. Therefore, it is argued, speaking in tongues was not a marked feature of other first century churches.

I take the opposite view. It does seem that the Corinthians spoke in tongues a lot. They seemed to have seen it as a badge of spirituality and a mark of honour. Their services seem to have been noisy, boisterous and undignified. The problem, however, was not their use of tongues, but their immature, selfish way of being. They took what was arguably a normal feature of Christian worship in the first century, and magnified it and warped it to their own ends.

We could compare this with teaching about Holy Communion. This book is the only one that gives direct and specific teaching about Communion. One explanation would be that the Corinthians were recently converted from paganism, and were engaging in this strange practice that was not a feature of other churches of the time; therefore Paul has to write to them about it. The other explanation would be that every church celebrated Communion, but that it was the Corinthians who were taking things to extremes, missing the point, acting in unloving and immature ways, and needed to be corrected.

What should we be doing?

We should follow the way of love. This means that we want to do all in our power to bless and help others around us and to build up the church. This means that we seek for the gifts that God is giving us, so that we can be useful in the service of our dear Lord Jesus. Every time that we voice the words “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” we are asking God to show us his will and help us carry it out.

There are two opposite extremes to avoid. One would be to act as we can imagine the Corinthian church did, shouting in unknown languages in ways that are off putting and strange, revelling in a spurious spirituality that obscures the love and self-giving nature of God. Many of us have perhaps heard of, or experienced Christian worship services that have seemed alien and even threatening. Speaking in tongues may have been a feature of these.

Another extreme would be to close our minds and hearts to the possibility that God might want to give us the gift of speaking in tongues or prophesying, so that we are not “open for all that he has for us or would teach us, or to follow him wherever he would lead us”.

We should have the innocent joy of a young child running for an embrace, and the wise all encompassing love of a grown-up.

Let us be eager to have spiritual gifts, and especially those that God is giving to each of us, to build up his church.

SUNDAY 22 JANUARY 2012. THE GREATEST GIFT OF ALL. LOVE 1 Corinthians 13: 1 - 13 John 17 : 20 – 26 Robert

2012-01-21T15:51:00.000-08:00

This is the third in our series of sermons on the Gifts of the Spirit, and we are studying Paul’s 1^st letter to the Corinthians chapters 12 to 14. Today we look at possibly the best known of all the chapters in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 13 – Paul’s great hymn to love, as it has often been called. Two preliminary points...........

1. One of the difficulties about speaking about ‘Love’ in the English language is that it can have various meanings. ‘I love strawberries and cream’. ‘I love you’. ‘I want to make love’ – random examples with very different meanings.

Paul is writing in Greek, and the Greek language has different words for different types of ‘love’ and you will find more about that on the study sheet. But throughout his letters, Paul uses a special and rare Greek word which has come to sum up what Christians mean when we say that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and love our neighbour as ourselves.

This word for love does not describe an intimate personal relationship. It is not in the least sentimental. It is not concerned at all with the way we feel. For example, when we are told to ‘love our enemies’ there is no expectation that we should ‘feel good’ about them – only that we should long for and pray for their highest good, rather than their destruction.

Paul’s native religious language is Hebrew – he describes himself as a Hebrew through and through (Phil. 3:4). Now the Hebrew language does not deal much in abstract concepts or principles in the way that Greek does. Its words tend to be ‘action words’. And so Paul has found a Greek word that concentrates on what love does in action – not some abstract concept of what love is, let alone what love feels like. And this chapter is not about lofty principles, let alone about our fickle and often fragile feelings. This chapter is about what love does and does not do – how love behaves in practice.

2. The love that Paul is talking about in this chapter describes the love which God has for us. God does not feel sentimental about us. His feelings for us do not waver. His love for each one of us is so great that every minute of every day He longs and works for our highest and greatest good. He sends his Spirit down upon us to urge us to make right decisions, to guide us through every circumstance of life. He rejoices with us when we rejoice, and weeps with us when we weep. It is, when necessary, tough love. When we sin, He grieves and knows that we shall probably have to live with the consequences. But when we repent and ask for forgiveness, it is gladly given, and we start again. He is a God of faith, and hope, and love.

And the highest and greatest gift that God can give us through his Spirit is the gift of that same love. We can reflect, in our lives, the same love that God has for us. That is what this chapter is about. This love is the highest gift of all, and the gift without which all the others are worthless, because we are being freely given by God’s Spirit, to live out day by day, that very same love which God has for you and me. What a privilege! What a calling! What a challenge!

Some people think ‘Oh! Love is easy – surely it comes naturally’. But is isn’t easy at all. It can be the hardest thing of all – much harder than speaking in tongues, or prophecy or miracles – or other more spectacular gifts of the Spirit. God calls us to love with the same love that He has for us – and (speaking for myself) I don’t think God finds that very easy sometimes. With that as introduction, let’s look at this great chapter, under three headings: It is love alone that counts. It is love alone that triumphs. Love alone endures.

1. It is love alone that counts

Verse 1...‘If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.’

The Corinthian Church thought of themselves as very spiritual Christians when they spoke in tongues. Now speaking in tongues probably sounds fairly exotic to many Christians, but let’s be clear that it is lovely, precious gift of prayer which is of infinite blessing to many, many Christians. It can be the way God’s Spirit comes to our help when we simply run out of words, or our anxieties and problems simply can’t be adequately expressed in words. Let me say clearly that your Christian life could be infinitely enriched by this gift. But you can’t earn it, you can’t make it happen, it is God’s gift which he shares out by his Spirit as He sees fit. But if a Christian, let us say, speaks out in Church in tongues (as happened in this Corinthian Church) and thinks he is being super-spiritual, but without love in his heart, it would amount to no more than a discordant clash – out of tune and without harmony. It would not be a word from God.

Verse 2...‘If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.’

The spiritual gifts of prophecy, and wisdom and knowledge, and the faith that can move mountains, are likewise good and wonderful and infinitely desirable gifts. I suspect (indeed I venture to say, I know) that there are those here this morning who have the potential to develop all these gifts. We need to pray all the time that God will reveal to each one of us what gifts the Spirit wants to develop in us. We need a faith that is more adventurous, more willing to let God take full control of our lives. But the Corinthian Church seems to have had all these wonderful gifts, yet it was a divided church that seemed to lack the one crucial ingredient that would have brought it all alive – love. It was like an orchestra where every instrument was playing a different tune and not listening either to the conductor or to each other.

Verse 3...‘If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing’.

Let’s consider just two examples which may spring to mind, whether or not they are exactly what Paul had in mind when he wrote these words.

Firstly, our church and the church world-wide and the whole Christian mission everywhere depends on our financial support as well as our prayers. Likewise, when there is a disaster somewhere in the world, an appeal goes out for practical aid – food, shelter, clothing, and practical assistance. Again, we may know personally someone who is in need of help, whether financial or practical, and we respond to the best of our means and ability. In due course, we shall be asking for financial support to renew our church building – indeed sacrificial giving. But God is not looking so much at the amount, as at the spirit in which we respond and give. God showers everyone of us so incredibly generously with goodness, love and grace. Our giving must be the response of love to God’s amazingly generous love for us. If we really understand and appreciate the depth and wonder of what God has done for us, we will respond with all the love in our hearts. That is what will count.

Secondly, as we look back at the history of the church over 2000 years, we rightly celebrate those who have been martyred for their faith. it’s a big ask, isn’t it, to enquire whether they died with the kind of love I have been describing in their hearts. But their great role model (and ours too) is Jesus on the cross, who seemed more concerned with forgiveness for the soldiers and the fate of the criminals on either side of him, than he was for himself. The role model is there – it is love alone that counts.

2. It is love alone that triumphs

Verses 4-7..‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres’.

Here is that Christian love in day to day action. Here is how love behaves in practice. God goes on loving us despite all the provocation we give him, and so must we. God’s love does not fly to the heights and then sink to the depths along with circumstances, and vary according to how others treat us. Love acts – it does not re-act as we are constantly tempted to do. It does not speak or act for effect, for show. It does not keep a mental note of other people’s past failures, so that old sins can be produced at the drop of a hat when we feel defensive or criticised. Love perseveres, believes the best not the worst, doesn’t dwell on the past, but hopes for better things in the future. Every phrase would warrant a sermon to itself. Love triumphs over all the odds.

3. Love alone endures

In verses 8 – 12, Paul contrasts the other Gifts of the Spirit which he has listed with love, and shows that it is love alone which will last for ever. We are on a journey of faith (a bit like growing to full maturity) which finds its fulfilment when we meet the Lord face to face and ‘know, even as we are fully known’. What gifts of the Spirit will we need then? All the spectacular ones which the Corinthian Christians prized so highly will have become redundant.

Just three will remain. Faith, by which Paul means that personal trust in God which will never die, rooted in the cross of Christ. Hope, by which Paul means that nothing of eternal value will ever come to an end, but all that is best and good and holy will find its place in the heavenly city through which runs the onward flowing river on whose banks is the tree of life, which is for peace and the healing of the nations, and where God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Have a look at Revelation chapter 21 and 22.

But above all, eternally there shines the love of God like an everlasting light, which we have sought, however dimly, to reflect in our day to day lives, and which now finds its eternal fulfilment.

So, yes, this love can be hard to sustain in thought, word and deed, but it is the one Gift which controls everything worthwhile and gives it its value. God gives to every Christian the Holy Spirit who comes bearing wonderful gifts. But Paul’s magnificent exposition in this chapter rings down the centuries. Seek out all the gifts God gives you and put them to the fullest possible use. But over-arching them all is the greatest gift of all – the one which lasts for ever – the gift of love.

Sermon for Sunday 15 January 2012 – 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31a and John 14:15-21, Kim

2012-01-14T13:22:00.000-08:00

A little ago a decision was made to decorate. The room we were going to decorate was gloomy, in need of a lift, so we decided to go for a creamy yellow. Decision made? Don’t you believe it! The range of creamy yellow is unbelievable – ‘sunrise’, ‘narcissus’, ‘laughter’, ‘buttermilk’, ‘wicker’. Ivory’, lemon zest’, to name but a few. These were all shades of yellow, yet they were all different, each with its own subtle shade.

It doesn’t take much to see where I am going next, does it? Unity in diversity – what the church is all about, or at least what it should be. We’re all Christians – Anglican, Roman Catholics, Baptist, Methodist, Salvation Army, house church, and countless others – but we each have our own distinguishing characteristics. Within each denomination and individual fellowship, the same applies: an enormous variety of gifts, temperaments and experiences represented in every one of them. Is that a weakness? It can be, if we let it divide us, but it should be quite the opposite: a source of strength as we celebrate our unity in diversity. Imagine if there were just one shade of yellow – what an infinitely poorer place the world would be. So, with the church: we all profess Christ is Lord and all seek to follow him, but I doubt any two of us are the same. Thank God for that wonderful, astonishing and enriching diversity!

The church is God’s idea. But more than that, the church is also God’s people. To help us grasp this point, the apostle Paul in our first reading gives us the picture of the human body. He says that the church is the body of Christ: ‘For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.’ (1 Cor. 12:12).

And being part of a body – the Body of Christ – means being a member – we are given membership status. Such membership, of course, is meaningless, for belonging to any organisation should mean being involved and playing a part, all of which is worth bearing in mind when it comes to being part of the Church. We may carry the label ‘Christians’ but that by itself means nothing. We need to meet together, worship together and work together, united in the common cause of Christ. We need to offer not just our money but our time and effort, looking for ways in which our gifts can be used for the good of all. Above all, we need to make time for one another, so that we are not simply members on paper but a family in practice. To be a Christian means to be part of the body of Christ. Are we fulfilling our role within that?

Just think for a moment of your body - there are lots of different parts - hands, feet, eyes, ears, nose, legs, arms etc. Each is different from the rest, yet each is needed for the special thing only they can do. Paul says it is the same in the church. Though we’re all different, each of us come together to form the body, the church. Each of us has gifts, things given by God to be used for his glory and the good of others.

One could be forgiven to thinking that Paul was thinking about Halloween, as he describes these freaky bodies, it’s the stuff of horror movies: It would be like the whole body being an eye. Just one big eye. It would be great for seeing, but it wouldn’t be able to hear or speak. Or imagine another body made up of just one big ear. The hearing would be great, but it couldn’t smell anything.

In our bodies, God has arranged all the various parts to work together, and it’s the same in the church. God has brought each of us here to be a part of this church so that as we work together, we can glorify God and help each other live for God. We need each other, we need the gifts God has given us, serving and working in so many different ways - each playing our own special part. So are you playing your part? Are you using your gifts and talents and abilities through the church? Do you know what your gift/s is/are? It might be in reading the Bible reading of the day, so that we share in the readings; it could be in singing in the choir; or praying; or hospitality; or visiting someone; or encouraging people; or teaching the Bible to the children and young people; or administration; or wisdom in decisions and serving the tea and coffee... we could go on and on...

We’re in this together - as someone once said, church is not a spectator sport. ‘If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.’ God also calls us the work in unity with each other and our gifts. Realising that our gift is no more important than the gift of someone else. My leading the word zone is no good to anyone if you are not here to hear it, I need you to listen and prayerfully respond, just as you need me to lead the zone so you can respond! I need Jane and Carole to make me a cup of tea, and Sarah to read the Bible reading. Different people, serving in different ways, all very much needed, all important. No gift is better than the other. And if you feel that you don’t have a gift or you, for one reason or another can’t do anything. Well, take some time out to discover the gift/s God wants you to have. And remember if you can’t physically do something you can pray. Prayer is essential for the running of any church. It is the life line between God and his people. If you are not sure what to pray for, ask Bruce or someone else if there is anything you can pray for.

Above all we should encourage each other to use the gifts that God has given us so that all the pieces of God’s jigsaw can be joined together to the Glory of Him. Amen.

Sunday 8 January 2012, Gifts 1, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, Mark 16:9-20, Bruce

2012-01-10T08:13:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the first in a series of six sermons on the theme of Spiritual Gifts. As the PCC considers the next steps in the Renewal Project, we have come to realise that there is a wealth of untapped potential amongst us. There are many tasks to be undertaken to help God’s kingdom as it is expressed in this church family of St Michael’s to grow, and to fulfil our purpose, to “Encounter God and Grow in Him”. Many will fear that I am about to appeal for money, but there is a more basic appeal than that. “What can I give him, poor as I am. If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb. If I were a wise man, I would do my part. Yet what I can, I give him, give him my heart.” The thought here is that each of us has been given a gift or gifts which we can use in God’s service and for the blessing of others.

When I mention the term Spiritual Gifts, many of us will think of the Greek word charismata, and perhaps of sections of the church known as “charismatic”. With this may come images of enthusiastic, relatively unrestrained worship, perhaps even “happy clappy”. We may express a preference against this, in the same way that we might not like incense or long serious sermons. Anything to do with Spiritual Gifts may seem to need a health warning!

First, charismata does not mean “spiritual gifts”. It means “gifts of grace”, or “unearned gifts”. I hope that we escaped from that Christmas trap of giving only because it was expected of us, or from that childish way of thinking that we are in some way “entitled” or “due” a present, especially if we have been good. In Christian terms, we have not been good, but God chooses to shower charismata on us, including eternal life (Romans 6:23), the calling to be his (Romans 11:29), and specific answers to prayer (2 Corinthians 1:11). There is also the major meaning of the gift of an ability, talent or calling that we can use in his service, and we will talk about that more in just a moment.

Second, in 1 Corinthians 12:1, Paul is not talking about charismata. He actually says that he does not want us to be ignorant about pneumatikos – that is “spirituals”. Nearly every translation gives this as “spiritual gifts”, and the AV used to put the word “gifts” in italics to show that they were supplying it.

One thing to say is there is a lot in the bible about spiritual gifts and the fact that God is a gracious giver. There is another Greek word (dorea) that I just don’t have time this morning to go into. The point is that Paul is not giving us a recipe, a law report, a GSCE specimen answer that can be learned off pat and reproduced exactly. Rather, he is opening the door for us to a wonderful world of possibility.

Also, we are being reminded that these are gifts “of the Spirit”. The “grace gifts” (charismata) are described as “spiritual gifts” precisely because they come from God, they are given by the Spirit. We often start a service with the words “The Lord is here: his Spirit is with us.” Although there are normal aspects of organising and planning, work and activity, to run a church or put on a service, we need to remind ourselves that this is pre-eminently a supernatural, spiritual exercise. Everything that we do is at the guidance of and made possible by the active participation of God the Holy Spirit. “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints ...” On this Sunday when we remember the baptism of Jesus Christ, we remember especially that the Holy Spirit descended upon him. It was almost as if Jesus could do nothing until baptised, immersed, plunged into the Spirit. Neither can we. The Gifts of the Spirit, the pneumatikos are not a side issue of interest only to a few who “like that sort of thing”: they are central to our Christian walk. If we want to Christ Centred, then we need to be filled with the Spirit of Christ. Our Gospel reading is considered by some to be added at the end of Mark; the point is that the supernatural activities recorded there seem to have been regarded as commonplace in the early church.

The Corinthians have written to Paul about pneumatikos, spiritual things or spiritual gifts. We do not know precisely what they asked, but Paul is careful to steer a course that will help them to agree and be united. He is teaching us how to handle difference. A basic point seems to have been how to recognise others as truly Christian. The temptation is to only recognise others who believe and act as we do, as truly Christian. There may be some here who would visit other Christian assemblies here in Camberley this morning and wonder if this is really Christian worship. (They might think the same of us!)

So the first point is that if anyone says that Jesus is Lord, this can only be by the Holy Spirit. No matter how hard it is to believe of some folk, they are to be counted as “one of us”. This does not mean that we should refrain from disciplining those who live flagrantly immoral lives. It does not mean that everyone is automatically saved: the Lord knows those who are his and will have the final word. Our part is to love and accept. If there are those who cause us grief, then God’s Spirit works this together for good to help us to grow into the image of his Son.

The second point is that there is one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and this one God bestows different kinds of gifts charismata, different kinds of service (diakoniai), and different kinds of working (energemata). God makes every snow flake unique, we make ice cubes. The armed services put everyone in identical uniform, God delights in our differences. He gives to each of us a unique palate of talents and abilities and sets us loose.

Every single one of us has been given the manifestation of the Holy Spirit – he has left his mark on us, and we have gifts and abilities to be used for the common good. Paul now lists nine gifts or abilities, and we should remember that this is not the GCSE pass list – it is not set in stone. You will find in the study material references to other lists.

Kim is going to talk next week about how we function together as part of the body, and Robert will speak in a fortnight about the essential quality, love, without which all our gifts are worth nothing.

In view of the time this morning, I am only going to review six of the nine gifts listed. I will come back to prophecy, tongues and interpretation of tongues in three weeks time. I remember being asked on our first ever Alpha course: “Vicar, do you speak in tongues?” I will give you my answer then. It does seem to me, though, reading what Paul has written to the church in Corinth, that there were those who spoke in tongues a lot, and others who were possibly quite dubious about it. Pauls widens the scope of the discussion.

He is talking about gifts, service and working, the activity of God in and through his Spirit-filled people. Some are given a message of wisdom, others a message of knowledge, but always by the same Spirit. Faith comes as a specific gift, to believe something that is not obvious or easy. Someone else may receive specific gifts of healings (note that no-one in scripture is said to have the Gift of Healing in a general way). Someone else may receive Workings of Powers: what we might call miracles, but is really only God rearranging his creation. Discerning of Spirits is the ability to see what is truly of God in a situation or person; it goes beyond common sense.

All of these are work of the one and same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines. There are many more examples on the study guide of different ways that God can use us.

I hope that you are as excited by this as I am. When we doubt our abilities, or feel that we do not have much to offer, how wonderful it is that God gives us the gift of eternal life, the presence of his Spirit, and then gives to us, every single one of us, gifts and abilities with which to bless and help others and serve him.

I wonder what your giftings are? You may be very aware and have thought about this a lot. You might be asking for the very first time. Over the next few weeks and months, let us travel together to discover what God has for us and where he is leading us.

PLEASE CONTACT office@stmichaelscamberley.com IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE SENT THE STUDY GUIDE

Sermon for Sunday 1st January 2012 - Kim

2011-12-30T13:40:00.000-08:00

Galatians 4:4-7 and Luke 2: 15-21 - New Beginnings
Still waters, we are told, run deep. They also have another quality: the ability to reflect. Both those qualities, though in a somewhat different sense, are evident in the example of Mary at the birth of Jesus, and we do well to ponder them.

For a start,there was the natural euphoria of giving birth and of holding her child close for the first time, but, alongside that, there was more. There was the memory of Gabriel, telling her that this child was the Son of God, and then, as if to confirm it, the coming of the shepherds, no doubt blurting out their story of angels praising God and directing them to where a Saviour, the Messiah, had been born. She could so easily have been carried away by it all in such a way that she scarcely gave a thought to what was happening, but she didn’t – she stored these things up in her heart, pondering what they might mean. In other words, she looked deeper, beneath the surface, and she reflected on what God had done in her life. She made time to consider and to understand.

Do we do that today? Christmas is an exciting time for us too, though for different reasons. It’s an occasion for partying and celebrations, for family reunions and get-togethers, for giving and receiving presents, laughing and making merry. And why not? – those all bring some welcome happiness in the bleakest of years. Yet, how many of us pause to reflect on what it’s ultimately all about, on what we’re celebrating and why, on the thing God has done for us that gives the season its name. It’s good to make time for fun and celebration, but, above all, we should make time to think and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas, for then we will truly find something
worth getting excited about.

But what about last year, what did God do for you last year? Yes, we celebrate Jesus’ birthday on Christmas Day and last night no doubt a drink or two was raised to the New Year – maybe you went back over the last year and celebrated all that God has done for you, as I did thanking and celebrating all, the good and the bad. When I look at the fact that God planted a seed of vision for this church, long before I came here and how He has blessed us over the years with an ability to put across what we envisage His church to be like when the renewal work has finished with other people, I find that amazing, exciting and celebrate that He has done this with our help. I celebrate that He has blessed us with lots of angels who donated money to get the project to this point of being able to think about raising the money, to implement God’s vision for this Church and all of us and the community of Camberley. That God has chosen this
time, with you all and me in it- to be part of that vision – working together to fulfil His purposes in our lives and in His church. I find that amazing and exciting and scary, a bit of a tall order, with questions like ‘what can I do’? ‘How are we going to get 2.6million?’ With doubts that we will do it! I’m human. But amazed, excited and think it’s worth celebrating. Don’t you?

And, ‘It’s from the old I travel to the new’- so runs the popular hymn of Sidney Carter – and those words perfectly capture a truth at the heart of the Gospel passage: that in Christ we see a new beginning. Yet, read the account of Jesus’ presentation at the temple,(Luke 2:21 onwards) and you could be excused for thinking that nothing was going to change after all. Jesus was brought according to the Law of Moses; presented at the temple as it is written in the law of the Lord, and
a sacrifice offered as prescribed in the law of the Lord. It was only when they had done everything the law required that Mary and Joseph felt able to return home. Maybe people might be thinking ok, we’ve got planning permission but nothing is going to change, after all, we’re in a recession. Who’s going to throw money at an old church? Where are we going to get the people needed? People have better things to do with their money and their time! It is only when we lay all things before God, including the doubts and apprehensions, and ask/allow Him to move that change occurs, that things beyond our dreams start to happen. Jesus said, ‘Trust in God, trust also in me.’ ‘If you have faith as big as a mustard seed,….you can move mountains and raise
lots of money’. I’m paraphrasing a bit here. You get the drift?

But do not be fooled, however, for once Jesus began his ministry it became clear that he brought a decisive break with the old. ‘You have heard it said’, he told the crowd, concerning various points of the law, ‘but I say to you’, after which he set out a new and revolutionary interpretation of established wisdom. This was a break with the past, a parting of the ways between old and new, but it was not a complete parting, for he was also able to say, ‘Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; 'I have come not to abolish but to fulfil.’ From the old had come something new.

Turn from the birth to the death of Jesus, for thirty-three years later he was
presented to God in Jerusalem once again, only this time there were to be no sacrifices offered on his behalf – he WAS the sacrifice! Here, supremely, is the Christ who brings new life out of old, transforming what has been into what shall be. He continues to do the same in our lives today, taking what we are and reshaping our lives day by day into a new creation. He will take our doubts and turn them in belief. He will take this building (the old) and transform it into the church for the future people of Camberley (the new). He will need our help, all of us, to do it. As we hold out our arms of trust toward Him – He will guide us through all the complexities, upheavals, disappointments, failures, attacks from the enemies, doubts. He will strengthen us when we will feel drained and he will give us courage. (the old). He will rejoice with us when things go well and comfort us when they don’t. He will provide all the necessaries and the
money for the Renewal of St. Michael’s. (the new). Why? Because He loves us and the people outside, He cares about the future for us and this church. Because He wants to use us, scary though that is; (the old) for His Glory (the new). That’s a cause of celebration at the beginning of a New Year. Isn’t it? The question is ‘what do we need to change about ourselves- doubts perhaps. ‘What can we give, what can we do to help with this project.’

Let’s pray: Father, as we stand at the beginning of a New Year, help us to seek you in all that we do. Help us to cast all our doubts and fears on you. Help us to Trust you in all things. Help us to look to ourselves and ask you to show us, our part in this wonderful renewal plan you have for each of us and the church of St. Michael’s. Help us to learn to lean more on you and less on
ourselves. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

SERMON FOR SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 2011. CHRISTMAS EMBRACE Romans 1 : 1 – 7 Matthew 1 : 18 – 25 IMMANUEL – GOD WITH US, Robert

2011-12-18T06:14:00.000-08:00

“The virgin will be with child, and will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Immanuel – which means, ‘God with us’ (Mat. 1: 23)

As Christians, we know that God is always with us, and always has been. God has never been confined to heaven, however much some have tried to keep him safely in an insulated box. But when the prophets, like Malachi, (Mal 3:1), foretold that: “Suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple” – there was inherently the certainty that God would come to his people in a highly specific way, and at a specific time and place. But would he come in judgment or in mercy? As it turned out, the answer was both.

And everything that Isaiah and Malachi and the other prophets had glimpsed from afar, found its fulfilment in a way that was focused and specific in a way few, if any, could have imagined – although how remarkable it is to read Isaiah chapter 7, and wonder at his insight and spiritual discernment, whatever at the time he might have been expecting or hoping for. “The virgin will be with child, and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14)

I think you will probably agree that, when we think of God, we find ourselves imagining him as “sort of everywhere” but with multi-dimensional hearing-aids which enable him to tune in to our prayers. But this! - (‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us...’) – this is something quite different. If you want to know a technical theological term to describe it, it is sometimes called the ‘scandal of particularity’. No other religion in the world has anything remotely like it, and they would regard it as both ridiculous in principle and deeply offensive to their deepest held convictions about God – hence the word ‘scandal’. And it is ‘particular’ because it homes in on a particular and identifiable event in time and place.

Everything that the Old Testament had expressed about God and his relationship with us humans; everything that the Old Testament had prophesied and to which it pointed – had now become filtered and focused down into one pinpoint of accuracy. The whole reach and majesty and breath-taking risk of God’s plan for us, had become focused down into a new-born baby.

When we read that this new-born baby is to be called ‘Immanuel’ – it means ‘God is with us’, not in some general sense, but in a strictly particular and personal way. God came down to us in a new-born baby. And if that sounds absurdly miraculous, so indeed is the whole Christian story. There is no other religion in the world remotely like it. It is totally unique.

WHY DID GOD COME TO US IN JESUS?
What was the purpose of this breath-taking event? As the Christian year goes by, we shall discover a wealth of meanings – forgiveness, judgment, faith, hope and love – which we tend to group together under the general term ‘Salvation’.

HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN?
But at Christmas, we begin at the beginning – and we begin with an embrace – an embrace between a mother and her child.

Some while ago, plastic bags from W H Smith carried a quotation from the American author, John Cheever. It says: ‘I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss – you can’t do it alone.’

Virtually all the great artists of the past, especially in the great medieval centuries, had a go at painting Mary with Jesus. Each had a vision which was unique and beautiful and full of meaning. But what I find intriguing is that (to my knowledge) not one of them quite dared to go as far as to portray Mary doing the most obvious act of all – kissing Jesus. (The closest that comes to mind is John Everett Millais in his 1849 painting of ‘Christ with the Holy Family’ when Jesus was a young boy. And that caused spluttering outrage to the Victorian viewers!). And from the same group as Millais, we have, of course, Christina Rosetti’s famous poem/hymn ‘In the bleak mid-winter’ - with its verse:

Angels and archangels/ may have gathered there
Cherubim and Seraphim/ thronged the air;
But his mother only/ in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved/ with a kiss.

It seems to me that artists have almost always represented the feelings of the wider church in maintaining an instinctive reserve about the relationship between Mary and the baby Jesus. Jesus is held slightly apart, representing his divine status over against the human Mary. It is a psychological step too far for the embrace to become too intimate. Surely you must maintain a pious barrier, (expressed in churches as that between nave and sanctuary). You don’t even get what we would call a ‘cuddle’ and Mary’s expression is ‘holy’ rather than ‘motherly’.

Indeed the Christian doctrine of the incarnation is expressed in the New Testament in ways which rightly stress his divine nature. “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him” (Colossians 1:19) being a model example. It was crucial to the Christian Gospel that Christ must be fully divine, for if he was not God, he could not have won our salvation. It took the Greek Church over 300 years to work out how to express this, while maintaining also his full humanity. As we say in the Nicene Creed, Christ is ‘Very God of very God...being of one substance with the Father..’

GOD WAS IN CHRIST – RECONCILING THE WORLD TO HIMSELF (2 Cor 5:19)
So, with that in mind, let’s come back to the kiss. You can’t do it alone. There was much to unfold as the Christian story continues, through teaching and healing, to the cross and the resurrection. But where did it all begin – and without which none of the rest would have had the life-changing meaning we give to it?

My thought for you this year about the wonder and miracle of Christmas is that – when Jesus was born to Mary, and amid all the stage set of ox and ass, shepherds and wise men, something very intimate occurred which was of crucial significance to the whole world – then, now and forever. Humanity, expressed in Mary, kissed God. And God did what he had come to do; – in Mary, God kissed us. And all the rest is talk and Christmas presents! Immanuel – God is with us indeed.
Robert

Sermon for Sunday 11 December 2011 – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 and John 1:6-8, 19-28 -Positive or Negative?

2011-12-10T16:17:00.001-08:00

Every time we open the newspaper, turn on the radio or TV, we are faced with negativity. War, famine, economies collapsing, fights, unrest, redundancies, illness, death, etc. All negatives about our world, our country, our town and there may well be some of us who are or who know of someone who is struggling at the moment, despondent, depressed, feeling down.

I think that most people would prefer to hear or see, or be positive. After all, we are Christians who believe what we read in the creeds: We believe in One God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God… We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord the giver of life….. we make positive assertions of what we do believe. So when I read today Gospel reading and feeling a little down, it was the words, no, not, neither, nor that jumped out at me. Negative words – not something that jumped out of me in the past when I’ve read this passage before - an unusual text because of the negative statements.

For the people who had come across John the Baptist for the first time, these negative words would have been important as they tried to figure out who John was. After all, the people whom John baptised had not heard of the Baptism of Jesus. So one can understand that there was some question about who was superior, John or Jesus.

Mark Gospel account gives a brief statement that John baptised Jesus. In Matthew we read of the hesitancy of John to baptised Jesus, John wanting Jesus to baptise him. Now as we read the John’s version of the event, we find a number of negatives to emphasise that John was inferior to Jesus. Interesting isn’t it. The question ‘Who are you?’ is asked twice. ‘What do you say about yourself?’ So ‘Who was John the Baptist?’

Through all of these negatives, we do get a picture of who John is. He is not the light. The Gospel makes it clear that Jesus was the light of the world. John confesses he is not the Messiah. He is asked if he is Elijah and John says ‘I am not’. Are you a prophet? ‘No.’ He replies. It is fascinating to read this negative portrayal of who John the Baptist was. John defines himself with negative statements rather than positive ones. It was a challenge for John to affirm who he was, just as it is for us, by stating the negative, what we are not. When looking as to whether I should be ordained, I could think of 109 reasons (negative ones about myself) as to why I shouldn’t but only two (positives) as to why I should. I’m guessing that we all have or do say more negative things about ourselves than we do positive.

So what statements can we say that Jesus is not? Well Jesus was not a great teacher. Many people will argue that Jesus was not the Son of God, but will admit that he was a great teacher. C. S. Lewis, pointed out the folly of such logic. Jesus said ‘I and the Father are one’ and ‘If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.’ If he said that and it wasn’t true, then C. S. Lewis says that Jesus would have to be insane, there are a few people who say they are God, but only Jesus said it, and it was true. Either he was who he said he was or he was an insane person. He couldn’t have been a great teacher and not be the Son of God. For He was not just a great teacher.

He was not just a human being. He was an extraordinary person, but not just a human being. The people who lived with him day by day came to the conclusion that Jesus was not just a human being. Peter blurted out, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of God!’ They knew he was not just human.

He was not the expected Messiah.’ Perhaps a shocking statement, but what I mean is that he was not the messiah the people expected. They expected a military Messiah who would overthrow the Roman government, but Jesus was not that Messiah. They expected a Messiah who would re-establish Israel in the greatness of David, but Jesus was not that Messiah. He was not the expected Messiah. He was a suffering servant.

‘Who are you?’ is asked three times in this passage about John. There’s a challenge. Who do we define who we are as Christians by using negative statements? We usually define ourselves with positives statements like, ‘My name is…’ or my job is…’ but if anyone asks us to describe ourselves or do something invariably we would say something negative like ‘I’m not as young as I used to be so I wouldn’t be asked to do that’, or ‘I couldn’t make tea because I’m so clumsy, I’d break all the cups.’ Implying a negative about ourselves. You are never too old and so what is you break a few cups. BUT

Christians are not afraid. When the angels came, they said, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy which shall be for all people.’ When we have Christ in our hearts, we no longer have to be afraid. Christians are not alone. We may have no family left on the earth, but we are not alone. Christians are not without faith. We have faith in God. We may not be able to explain what it is, but we know we are not without faith. We are not without hope. We might feel hopeless. Christians are not without love. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes him will not perish, but have everlasting life. Christians are not lost. We may be like sheep who wander off, but we have a Good Shepherd. That Shepherd will leave the ninety nine and come to find us! And that Shepherd knows the way home. Christians are not condemned. The world might condemn us,

So if we are not all those things listed above. We are able to share our faith, share our love, share the joy of the true meaning of Christmas, able to forgive anyone, able to be patient or wait for the unfolding of God’s plan for ourselves, the renewing of ourselves, for we are a work in progress. We are able to have faith in God that He will enable us to complete the Renewal Project that He started in 2007.

There will always be times in our lives when the chips are down and we are despondence, or we take three steps forward and nine back. When the project won’t go the way we think. BUT as we are not alone, nor condemned, nor without love or hope, forgiven we can begin the work God has given us to do. For we have a great High Priest who is there waiting for us to reach out to him. As Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica, ‘always be happy. Never stop praying. Give thanks whatever happens. This is what God wants for all of us in Jesus Christ. (I Thessalonians 5:16-18).

Grant, O Lord, that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts, and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Questions:

Who are you? And why are you here today?
Why is Christmas so important to you?

3. Advent is a time to stop and prepare for the incarnation of Christ. Are you stopping to prepare and if you are can you share what you are doing with your group? It may help others.

4. We all have a calling to be and do. Do you know what yours is and are you doing it?

Sunday 4 December 2011, Romans 15:4-13, Matthew 3:1-12, Bruce

2011-12-03T18:09:00.001-08:00

A man offers to paint the Vicarage at a very reasonable price. He can do this because he waters the paint down as much as possible and slaps it on quickly. As he finishes, it rains heavily and washes all the paint off. The vicar leans out of the window and shouts “Repaint! And thin no more!”

Both our readings are about how you think, and therefore how you act.

The biblical word for a change of thinking is Repentance. This is not to turn over a new leaf, orto try to give up things that we do that we know are bad. That would not be an unworthy objective, but the experience of ourselves and countless others is that we are unable, of ourselves, to suffiently reform our lives.

What we need is a completely different world-view, a fresh take on reality. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Ronald Weasley comes to believe that he has perfect luck and is bound to succeed. Consequently he loses all his nerves and finds himself unbeatable at quidditch. He was not suddenly more skilful. The only thing that had actually changed was his perception of himself.

In this season of Advent, we are invited to consider how we live, and to order our lives in the light of the coming of Christ. This radical thought gives us such a changed world view, that all else pails into insignificance.

Money is not the most important thing in the world. Neither is your career. Nor, dare I say it, is your happiness. The central fact is that God has made this world, and that he himself has entered it in the person of his son, Jesus. Jesus died and rose again, and he will come again to judge the heavens and the earth. He calls us to mingle our lives with his, and to recognise and give him glory for all that he has created and shares with us.

At the beginning of Romans we read that God’s wrath rests on those who look at the wonders of creation and fail to see God in it. From that act of wilful blindness starts a downward spiral into selfishness and isolation, that leads to all the evils of this world. Now in chapter 15 Paul is bringing together the threads of his arguments, especially that in Jesus we have become a new humanity people of radically different backgrounds and cultures are made one.

In particular the task of praising the one true God, which has been the special preserve of the Jews with their heritage of temple and scriptures, now is shared with the Gentiles, and Paul brings forward several scriptures to demonstrate this. The key task of confessing with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and of believing in our heart that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9), is all that we need, but it is also the one thing that really do need. This is the change of viewpoint, the new way of thinking.

There are lots of factors that influence us. In the time of Paul and the early church it was about keeping the Sabbath, whether a man was circumcised, to what extent it was necessary to keep the Jewish law. Today the questions that occupy us have changed, but we are gripped by the exciting fact that Jesus is alive and he is central to us, to the church, to the whole universe.

How is this seen?

Paul says it is revealed in how we accept each other. We have the same mind as each other, because we all have had our thinking changed to be like Christ’s. What the NIV calls a ‘spirit of unity’ in verse 5 is actually ‘the same mind’ among ourselves, as we follow Christ Jesus.

I wonder if Paul is acknowledging that this is not always easy? It is, in fact, excruciatingly difficult. He says that we will need endurance and encouragement. Why? Because other humans can be so infuriating. The polite, well-bred thing to do is to gently withdraw from those who irritate us. But that is not an option if I am truly Christ-centred, and if you are truly Christ-centred. I cannot just take my ball away to find another game. In real life, this means that we have to be prepared to express our different viewpoints, but always with humility and with a willingness to listen as we would like to be listened to. In Rome the Christians of Jewish background and the Christians of Gentile background needed the scales to fall from their eyes so that they could realise their essential oneness in Jesus. The result, Paul says, is ‘that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

As we accept one another, just as Christ has accepted us, then we bring praise to God. The Choir pray regularly ‘that what we sing with our lips we may believe in our hearts, and what we believe in our hearts we may show forth in our lives’. This means that we are kind and loving and accepting to each other, just as Jesus is kind, loving and accepting of us. This lifts the words that we say and sing from being merely doggerel to being the motive power to praise God, live holy lives and become those of whom it is said: ‘Behold how these Christians love one another.’

But how?

First, we dwell on the scriptures. Second, we open ourselves to the power and work of the Holy Spirit – John said that we would be baptised in the Holy Spirit and in fire.

I think this means that as we spend time thinking about the encounters of God’s people with him, and allow ourselves in turn to encounter God through his Spirit, so we are changed. We find that the promises made to the patriarchs, made through the prophets, made through the apostles, are coming true in our lives today. First we are changed in our thinking, we are led to repentance. Then we find that we are being changed in our attitudes and our behaviours.

‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.’

Advent Sunday 27 February 2011 1 Corinthians 1:3-9, Mark 12:24-37, Bruce

2011-12-03T18:08:00.000-08:00

On this Advent Sunday, as the lights shine on the tree, our thoughts turn to pantomimes. At the beginning of Sleeping Beauty, the princess is visited by the fairies, who bestow gifts that will stand her in good stead.

In exactly the same way, Paul writes the Christian community at Corinth. He describes them as the “sanctified ones” (i.e. saints), those who are holy, who call on the name of the Lord Jesus.

He wishes them grace and peace. He give thanks for them (eucharises for them), because they have received grace from God, i.e. his unearned kindness and favour, and God has given them gifts of speech and knowledge.

In our baptism service today we do something very similar for Reuben. We pray for the blessing of God upon him, and we welcome him into the fellowship, the family of God, which finds its local expression here in an ordinary parish church.

How can we say this about a child? How can we speak of new birth, of repentance, of discipleship, in the life of one so young? Is there not a touch of unreality about this? Are we turning the event into a pantomime?

If it all seems unlikely, consider how Paul could say this about the Christians at Corinth? They were a fractious lot. Paul has to write frequent appeals for them to show forth in their lives what they apparently believed in their hearts. As a result, we get teaching about those who think they are better than others, those who are living together unmarried and worse, how to do Communion, how to worship, most importantly how to love, and the resurrection hope that is firmly promised to each one who has answered the call of Jesus. In the midst of all this, the fact remains that they are the saints, and that God has chosen to show them grace.

There is a “not yet” and there is a “now”.

The “not yet” involves the day of the Lord Jesus. It will be the day of his Coming, of his Advent. We should not fear that day of judgement, because God is calling each of us to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus, and to receive his grace and his peace. There is not a single person here that God is not reaching out to. He loves every single one. And to each one of us who responds, he chooses to show his kindness. It will not depend on how well you live. The Corinthians would have failed that test; we fail that test. God gives us all that we need.

That is because there is a “now”. We are each called into fellowship with Jesus. This means to actively share our lives with him now, today. Eternal life, if you like, has started already.

So the vision we have for Reuben is not that we baptise him today, and then wait ten, twenty or more years, to see what he does about it at some time in the distant future when he grows up. There is that aspect to it, and it will be a joy and a privilege to follow him in the future. Will he be a member of a youth group here at St Michael’s? Will he be used to going through one of the three doors into the new annex for different clubs and activities? Will he arrange to be married here at St Michael’s? Will he use the gifts of speech and knowledge to become a vicar? Or an estate agent? All this lies in the future.

The fact remains, though, that we mark the start of his Christian pilgrimage now, today. Carried and nurtured by his parents and godparents, he is on the journey today, and we travel with him.

Jesus wants to share Reuben’s life today, every day, just as he does for each of us and all of us. There is so much I could say, and want to say. Today marks the formal beginning of a journey of faith, of life-long learning. Will you join us, and especially Reuben, as we travel and explore together?

Sunday 20 November 2011 1 Corinthians 11 Liquid Church – Word Zone, Anne

2011-11-19T07:06:00.000-08:00

Ever had one of those days when you can’t do anything right and everyone is quick to tell you?

The members of the church in Corinth were having one of those days … a letter had arrived from Paul and it did not make for happy reading. And some of the congregation were, well frankly, feeling a bit miffed – that sort of embarrassed, defensive indignation that you feel when you’ve been found out, because the truth really does hurt.

You see, they knew they were having problems. No one would have denied that; no one could agree on anything and someone had written to tell Paul. A real mixed bunch they were: different nationalities, from different religious backgrounds, those who preferred one person’s preaching and those who preferred another’s, some wealthy and well-heeled and some poor (Sounds like the 21^st century not the 1^st Century!). Like children in a school playground, they were splitting into cliques and the bickering, oneupmanship and boasting were getting the upper hand. And we won’t even talk about some of the X rated immoral stuff going on.

… and the one thing they all seemed to have in common was collective Amnesia.

Brains are funny things, amazing and yet infuriating. We’ve all had that experience of going upstairs to get something really important, only to get to the top to find you’ve forgotten why you’re there. And then you come back downstairs to retrace your steps and suddenly it pops back into your head. Brains are designed to remember but also to forget otherwise our heads would be cluttered with useless information and we wouldn’t be able to function. Occasionally it goes wrong though. But a whole community forgetting the most important thing at the centre of the life of that community? And hardly anyone seemed to notice? Now that’s strange.

You see the words and actions should have reminded them; they should have been the memory trigger. Each time they shared in the Lord’s Supper, the words should have been the clue: “The Lord Jesus on the night be was betrayed, took bread, and when he gave thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you: do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11.24).

Now if I say to you cast your minds back to 1988, what can you remember? You are probably struggling to recall anything but you might already have words going through your head. Words phrased into questions such as ‘How old was I then?’ How old were the childen? Where was I working? Or what year was I in school? Or maybe you weren’t even born then! And even single words can connect us with memorable images and feelings. In 1988, one word became synonomous with a terrible, sad disaster – ‘Lockerbie’. Even if you weren’t born then, the replaying of the TV images and the mention of the name helps us to have a collective memory of the horror of that Pan Am flight.

Words are powerful memory triggers and yet they didn’t seem to be for the members of the congregation in Corinth. Even though the length of time between Christ’s last supper and the time they were celebrating communion wasn’t very long (about the same time as between 1988 and now), they had forgotten. They had forgotten how the words linked them back to that Last Supper. They had forgotten how the words linked them back to Christ’s death on the cross – to his body given in that ultimate act of love; they had forgotten how the words linked them back to that ultimate act of self-giving. The breaking of the bread and distributing to each of them should have reminded them of the most intimate sharing in and participation with Christ. As they took the bread and broke it, that should have reminded them of the fellowship they share as members of the one body of Christ. “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor 10.17 New Revised Standard Version)

But they had collective amnesia … they had forgotten and they were busy pursuing their own interests. The Lord’s supper in Corinth was a ‘bring and share’ – without the share part. The big houses of well-off members of the congregation were great places to worship together; big, and spacious with atriums and dining rooms. The small congregation could meet together in relative comfort. But the well-to-do arrived first and started to eat and to drink and drink. So by the time the poorer members arrived the food had all but gone, and some were already drunk. Imagine arriving at someone’s house for dinner, you’ve been told to arrive at 8.30pm and everyone else arrived at 7.00pm. You’re really looking forward to the meal and the company only to find when you get there, everyone’s finished and already snoozing on the sofa! You’d feel unwelcome and very uncomfortable.

In Corinth the very act of worship that could have been the focus of unity had become the focus of division because the congregation had failed to recognise the character of the church or themselves, as the body of Christ. If they had, that would have prevented the socially and economically priviledged members acting independently.

Life in the 21^st Century doesn’t seem so different. Our society is as diverse as 1^st century Corinthian society and in our Church, in our congregations we have people from different ethnic and denominational backgrounds, and different social and economic backgrounds. The words should have reminded the Corinthians of the life they were called to live together in Christ, to love one another. And by God’s grace, we too are are part of that same body. The words can remind us that we too are called to live together in Christ. At the end of his letter, Paul urges the Corinthians to “Do everything in love” (1 Cor 16.14). As we come together in Communion this morning, as we hear the words, as we think back to that last supper we remember that we are all members of the one body; Christ died not just for me, or you, or him or her but for us.

Questions

1. Our Church is ‘Open for All’. What do you think this means? The Church in Corinth appeared to be ‘Open for All’ but there were divisions within the community. Can we learn anything from their behaviour about ourselves or can we learn what to avoid?

2. Paul talks about receiving communion in an ‘unworthy manner’ (1 Cor 11.27). In Corinth this meant treating the less well off badly. Are there any modern day parallels in our church?

3. He offers 2 solutions – ‘a man ought to examine himself’ and anyone who participates should recognise ‘the body of the Lord’. What does he mean ‘recognise the body of the Lord’? (1 Cor 10.16-17 and 1 Cor 12.12-31 might give some clues)

4. If the Corinthians had not been abusing the Lord’s Supper, we might not have had these words which we still use in Communion today. Can you think of situations where unexpected good had come out of something bad?

Sermon for Sunday 13th November 2011 -1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11 and Matthew 25: 14-30 The ‘Day of the Lord’ – Be Prepared. Kim.

2011-11-19T06:58:00.001-08:00

Many years ago, I would look after my Grandparents dog Maxi, their garden and chickens, the plants while they went on the annual two weeks to Margate. The first time I looked after the place, I was rather casual with the plants, watering only sporadically, it at all. A couple of days before they returned I noticed that the plants weren’t doing well: the leaves were yellow and wilted. Frantically I watered them several times a day and prayed! Thankfully they revived. But I learned my lesson. On all their subsequent holidays, I was more careful and prepared to carry out the plant task diligently. I knew I would be held accountable upon their return.

‘Be prepared’ – two words that all Scout, Guides, Beavers, Brownies, past or present, will have indelibly printed on their minds. In theory, they should never be caught short, ready instead to respond to every eventuality. But life, of course, has a habit of catching us on the hop, and although that can be a problem, it is also a blessing. Imagine how dull life would be if we could know everything that was going to happen and had exhausted life’s ability to offer new horizons and experiences.

It is not just life, however, that can surprise us but, above all, God. Take, for example, his coming to the world in Christ. For years, the people of Israel had looked forward to his coming, yet when the moment arrived many failed to see it. They thought they understood what God would do and were unprepared for anything else. The words of Paul to the Thessalonians suggest that we can do much the same. At first sight, Paul seems concerned simply with the return of Christ, but that is to miss the point, for he goes on to stress that we do not know when that day will be, or what it will involve. We should live each day in a sense of expectation, recognizing that God is at work in a host of ways, constantly able to surprise us. Do that and whenever Christ comes we will be ready to meet him. Strictly speaking, we cannot be prepared for the unexpected, but we can be open to the possibility that God may speak to us and work through us in ways we have not even begun to imagine.

Be prepared! Proper preparation for the coming of Jesus takes into account that HE WILL COME AS A THIEF IN THE NIGHT FOR SOME, BUT NOT FOR OTHERS... It will be a surprise for many but for all who heed the warnings of Scripture, it will not be a surprise. They will be ready for His coming even though we do not know when it will be. FOR SOME, AN INESCAPABLE DESTRUCTION...He will come when people are feeling safety and peace. Not in troublesome times, but in peaceful times. Yet many Christians seem to think He is coming whenever there is tribulation. But when he comes it will be with sudden destruction like the woman in labour. There will no time to escape. This day will be one of glory for those who are ready.

Paul tells the Christians of Thessalonica and us how they can be prepared. He makes contrasts between the believer and the non-believer by using words like light and darkness, night and day, sleep and watch, drunk and sober. We should live like sons of the day, be watchful and sober. We should be children of light because we follow Jesus who is the light of the world. As we are now in Jesus, and have cast off the works of darkness, we should walk in the light. We should be watchful because we do not know when He will return. Our watchfulness is to include praying, repentance, building up our relationship with him – strengthening ourselves in the Spirit so that we won’t faint or become weary. Being of sober-mind, circumspect, watchful – looking out for the enemy and holding fast to the truth and take seriously the promise of the Lord’s coming. We should be ARMED AND WAITING... in all seriousness putting on "the armour of God". Such as the breastplate of faith and love because faith and love protect our hearts from much evil and faith comes from the word of God, and love comes from Him who is the Word. We should put on the hope of salvation as a helmet which protects our mind from much fear and doubt. We will be COMFORTED AND EDIFIED...We are to comfort one another - With the comfort we each receive from God - With the comfort of our hope we have in Christ - We are to edify (build up) one another, a goal we are to pursue.

When we look at Matthew 25, we see it is divided into Parables and it talks about The Judgement of the Nations. It too, talks all about Being Prepared. The first Parable is about Ten Bridesmaids and the second the Parable of the Talents. When Jesus Christ returns, it will be a time of separation: the wise will be separated from the foolish, the faithful servants from the unfaithful, the blessed (sheep) from the cursed (goats). The wise virgins had oil and were prepared to meet the Bridegroom. Many people profess to be Christians but do not have the Holy Spirit and are not born again. They may mingle with the saved, but they are not really one of them; and they will not enter into the marriage feast.

His coming also means evaluation. As we wait for the Lord to return, we must invest our lives and earn dividends for His glory. Christ gives us opportunities that match our abilities, and the one-talent servant is just as important as the five-talent servant. The tea and coffee maker is just as important to the working life of this church as the Vicar. The key is faithfulness, for God measures us against ourselves and not against the other servants. So whatever we do, we must do to the very best that we can, always remembering that we did it for the Lord as well as others around us. But are we afraid to step out by faith and take some risks for God? Are we prepared to come out of our comfort zones?

When Christ returns, it will be a time of commendation. We will be surprised to learn about ministries we performed that we thought were insignificant but that He will reward. This parable is not teaching salvation by good works. Christ’s sheep know that they are sheep, but they do not always realise what their service means to Christ. We will experience some surprises in that day!

As George Morrison once said ‘Great services reveal our possibilities; small services our consecration.’

"Preparing for the Day of the Lord" cannot happen without diligent application of God's Word and active participation in the Lord's church. Are we using the gifts and talents that we have been given? Are we preparing enough for Christ’s return? Have we got in the habit of putting things off?

We are the children of the day and light, we are sober and watchful, we are wearing faith, love, and hope, our eternal destiny was God’s salvation, we know Christ died for us and we know we will live eternally with other believers and live eternally with Christ. In knowing all of this, brings responsibility, we have a responsibility to make sure others, non-believers are aware of their true destiny. Amen.

Questions:

1. How do you feel about the fact that Jesus will one day return? (Does it frighten you, why? Are you looking forward to it? Why? etc.)

2. "Preparing for the Day of the Lord" cannot happen without diligent application of God's Word and active participation in the Lord's church. Are you using the gifts and talents that you have been given? If not would you like too?

3. Are you preparing enough for Christ’s return? If not, how can we help you to start being prepared?

4. Have we got in the habit of putting things off? How can we help you get started?

5. Do you let others know you are a Christian, and why? Would you like to?

Sunday 6 November 2011, 3rd Before Advent, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Matthew 25:1-13, Bruce

2011-11-19T06:57:00.001-08:00

It’s great to have a celebration. Yesterday Sir Alex Ferguson marked 25 years in charge at Old Trafford, and the crowd sang “every one of us loves Alex Ferguson”. That is how we feel whenever we say the Creed. “He is seated at the right had of the Father, he will come to judge the living and the dead.” “I believe ... in the resurrection of the body.” The “coming of the Lord” is meant to encourage us.

^“13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.” There is always sadness at a death, and at a funeral. We might very well grieve, and it is right that we do so, but we are not without hope. It is always easier when we believe that the one that we have lost shares our hope in the resurrection.

Paul is addressing a pastoral problem. The first generation of Christians have staked all on Jesus Christ, who has died and risen again for them, gone into heaven where is praying for us, and from whence he will come to meet his faithful ones, his saints. But what will be the fate of those who die before Jesus comes? Will they be left out? Certainly not, and they will not be shunted into second place by we who are still alive when Jesus comes. Jesus said in John 14 that in his Father’s house there are many rooms, literally inns or temporary resting places; those who have gone before us are said to be sleeping, and they will awake on that special day. Interestingly, after a betrothal ceremony, the bridegroom would say to his betrothed: “I am going to prepare a place for you, and when I have done that, I will return to take you to my Father’s house to be with me.” There would then be a delay before the bridegroom returned, but you had to be ready.

In giving his answer, Paul also spells out the Christian hope that we all share. It is the summit and completion of the Christmas and Easter story. Without the coming of Jesus, it would all be in vain, as if you cook a splendid meal but do not get it to the table, or carefully select a special outfit but never go to the wedding to wear it. The Christian faith sees all of human history heading to this climax, where Jesus gathers in all of his own, to be with him for ever.

What will it look like?

The word translated here as “coming” is parousia, which also means presence. Tom Wright argues that we should see this as a political comment that Jesus is lord of all, taking the top spot from Caesar. When royalty comes to a province, it is a mighty occasion as the one they only ever hear about at a distance is now visible and exercises his/her power in person. So a citizen of Thessalonica or Philippi would look forward to this royal visitation. I wonder if there would have been a special loo? When Jesus comes we will meet him, and be transformed to be like him; we will be given our resurrection bodies. This is such a remarkable prospect that it is described at the very edge of language. We will “meet him in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17), “we will all be changed— ⁵² in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet” (1 Corinthians 15:51), he “will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). This is the glorious prospect for all those who have been chosen, clothed and conjoined. This is what it means to be included in the number of the saints – those who belong to God. This is what we included ourselves in, when were baptised and confirmed; this is what we affirm whenever we take communion: Jesus died, is risen, and will come again – for us, each of us.

Many are troubled at the thought of the end of the age, and the possibility of wrath and judgement. The good news is that God has sent Jesus to provide for us a certain way through to eternal life with him. To trust him is not just an intellectual puzzle or a choice to be made between competing possibilities. It is an unconditional offer by Jesus of all that he is; it is a proposal of undying love. But for some, there seem be other priorities that get in the way.

In a slightly different context, Jesus tells the story of the ten bridesmaids. There role seems to have been different to a bridesmaid’s role today, and involved lighting the procession with a flaming torch. No-one knew when the bridegroom would reappear, and they all fell asleep. Interestingly, like those who sleep in Christ, when the shout goes up, they wake and are caught up in the festivities.

Only then does it become apparent that there is a difference. Some have taken the proceedings seriously, and invested time and money in preparations – they have bought a reserve supply of oil. Others have been more cavalier. Perhaps they wondered if the groom would ever appear? Perhaps they meant to get around to making preparations, but there was always something else that seemed more important (does this remind us of seed sown in weed infested ground?)? Perhaps secretly they were not keen on the whole enterprise anyway (although they seem to be genuinely upset to be left outside)?

As in most parables told by Jesus, there is one main point and we are not well advised to labour each detail to have a special meaning. Jesus himself tells us to keep watch, to be ready.

Paul tells the Christians in Thessalonica to be encouraged, but also to spur each other on lives that bring honour to God. At the end of chapter three he writes “¹² May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. ¹³May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.” And earlier in Chapter four he continues that we should live as sanctified ones – saints- given over to the service of God. “...make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, ¹² so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”

There is a clear distinction to be made between the saints, the sanctified ones, and those who are “outsiders”. There is also the clear implication that we are not happy that there are any “outsiders” – we are open for all to be included.

This leads directly to our present passage: “¹³ Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death...” No, we want to be fully informed about our birthright, that we have been born again into a new and living hope, that Jesus is coming for us and we are going to live with him forever, together with all those who have ever loved him. Is this not something that we should encourage each other with?

Discussion Starters

1. What, in your opinion, are the main reasons that Christians can live discouraged, unhappy lives?

2. How does Paul writing to the Thessalonians seek to raise their spirits?

3. What is the main thing that you take from this passage?

4. How can you use this passage to encourage others?

FURTHER STUDY

1 Corinthians 15:50-57 New International Version (NIV)

⁵⁰ I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ⁵¹ Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— ⁵² in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³ For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

⁵⁵ “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”

⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God! He gives us the

victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Philippians 3:19-21 New International Version (NIV)

¹⁹ Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

The problem of the delay of the parousia is a modern myth. The problem is caused by liberal Christianity’s no longer believing in the resurrection, which means that the weight of God’s activity is pushed forward in time. There’s not much evidence that the early church was anxious about this. First-century Christianity didn’t see itself so much as living in the last days, waiting for the parousia, as living in the first days of God’s new world. We are still awaiting the final outworking of what God accomplished in Jesus, but there are all kinds of signs to show that, though the situation is often bleak, we are in fact on the right road. Tom Wright

In N.T.Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope (p. 128), he notes that the Greek word parousia “is usually translated “coming,” but literally it means “presence”-that is, presence as opposed to absence.” He goes on to discuss two meanings of the word in non-Christian contexts which would have influenced the Christian understanding (page 129):

The first meaning was the mysterious presence of a god or divinity, particularly when the power of this god was revealed in healing. People would suddenly be aware of a supernatural and powerful presence, and the obvious word for this was parousia. Josephus sometimes uses this word when he is talking about YHWH coming to the rescue of Israel. God’s powerful, saving presence is revealed in action, for instance when Israel under King Hezekiah was miraculously defended against the Assyrians.

The second meaning emerges when a person of high rank makes a visit to a subject state, particularly when a king or emperor visits a colony or province. The word for such a visit is royal presence: in Greek, parousia. In neither setting, we note, obviously but importantly, is there the slightest suggestion of anybody flying around on a cloud. Nor is there any hint of the imminent collapse or destruction of the space-time universe.

Wright then applies this meaning to the Parousia of Christ, saying that the Early Christians believed that while Jesus was present in spirit, he was absent in body, and they waited for Christ to come in body and make his powerful presence known to the everyone. Secondly, the Early Christians were evidently proclaiming that Jesus was the true Emperor of the world, who would soon rule not in absence but in person, and that Caesar was a “sham”.

Farewell to the Rapture
(N.T. Wright, Bible Review, August 2001. Reproduced by permission of the author)

Little did Paul know how his colorful metaphors for Jesus’ second coming would be misunderstood two millennia later.

The American obsession with the second coming of Jesus — especially with distorted interpretations of it — continues unabated. Seen from my side of the Atlantic, the phenomenal success of the Left Behindbooks appears puzzling, even bizarre [1]. Few in the U.K. hold the belief on which the popular series of novels is based: that there will be a literal “rapture” in which believers will be snatched up to heaven, leaving empty cars crashing on freeways and kids coming home from school only to find that their parents have been taken to be with Jesus while they have been “left behind.” This pseudo-theological version of Home Alone has reportedly frightened many children into some kind of (distorted) faith.

This dramatic end-time scenario is based (wrongly, as we shall see) on Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, where he writes: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God. The dead in Christ will rise first; then we, who are left alive, will be snatched up with them on clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).

What on earth (or in heaven) did Paul mean?

It is Paul who should be credited with creating this scenario. Jesus himself, as I have argued in various books, never predicted such an event [2]. The gospel passages about “the Son of Man coming on the clouds” (Mark 13:26, 14:62, for example) are about Jesus’ vindication, his “coming” to heaven from earth. The parables about a returning king or master (for example, Luke 19:11-27) were originally about God returning to Jerusalem, not about Jesus returning to earth. This, Jesus seemed to believe, was an event within space-time history, not one that would end it forever.

The Ascension of Jesus and the Second Coming are nevertheless vital Christian doctrines [3], and I don’t deny that I believe some future event will result in the personal presence of Jesus within God’s new creation. This is taught throughout the New Testament outside the Gospels. But this event won’t in any way resemble the Left Behind account. Understanding what will happen requires a far more sophisticated cosmology than the one in which “heaven” is somewhere up there in our universe, rather than in a different dimension, a different space-time, altogether.

The New Testament, building on ancient biblical prophecy, envisages that the creator God will remake heaven and earth entirely, affirming the goodness of the old Creation but overcoming its mortality and corruptibility (e.g., Romans 8:18-27; Revelation 21:1; Isaiah 65:17, 66:22). When that happens, Jesus will appear within the resulting new world (e.g., Colossians 3:4; 1 John 3:2).

Paul’s description of Jesus’ reappearance in 1 Thessalonians 4 is a brightly colored version of what he says in two other passages, 1 Corinthians 15:51-54 and Philippians 3:20-21: At Jesus’ “coming” or “appearing,” those who are still alive will be “changed” or “transformed” so that their mortal bodies will become incorruptible, deathless. This is all that Paul intends to say in Thessalonians, but here he borrows imagery—from biblical and political sources—to enhance his message. Little did he know how his rich metaphors would be misunderstood two millennia later.

First, Paul echoes the story of Moses coming down the mountain with the Torah. The trumpet sounds, a loud voice is heard, and after a long wait Moses comes to see what’s been going on in his absence.

Second, he echoes Daniel 7, in which “the people of the saints of the Most High” (that is, the “one like a son of man”) are vindicated over their pagan enemy by being raised up to sit with God in glory. This metaphor, applied to Jesus in the Gospels, is now applied to Christians who are suffering persecution.

Third, Paul conjures up images of an emperor visiting a colony or province. The citizens go out to meet him in open country and then escort him into the city. Paul’s image of the people “meeting the Lord in the air” should be read with the assumption that the people will immediately turn around and lead the Lord back to the newly remade world.

Paul’s mixed metaphors of trumpets blowing and the living being snatched into heaven to meet the Lord are not to be understood as literal truth, as the Left Behind series suggests, but as a vivid and biblically allusive description of the great transformation of the present world of which he speaks elsewhere.

Paul’s misunderstood metaphors present a challenge for us: How can we reuse biblical imagery, including Paul’s, so as to clarify the truth, not distort it? And how can we do so, as he did, in such a way as to subvert the political imagery of the dominant and dehumanizing empires of our world? We might begin by asking, What view of the world is sustained, even legitimized, by the Left Behind ideology? How might it be confronted and subverted by genuinely biblical thinking? For a start, is not the Left Behind mentality in thrall to a dualistic view of reality that allows people to pollute God’s world on the grounds that it’s all going to be destroyed soon? Wouldn’t this be overturned if we recaptured Paul’s wholistic vision of God’s whole creation?

[1] Tim F. Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, Left Behind (Cambridge, UK: Tyndale House Publishing, 1996). Eight other titles have followed, all runaway bestsellers.

[2] See my Jesus and the Victory of God (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1996); the discussions in Jesus and the Restoration of Israel: A Critical Assessment of N.T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God, ed. Carey C. Newman (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999); and Marcus J. Borg and N.T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), chapters 13 and 14.

[3] Douglas Farrow, Ascension and Ecclesia: On the Significance of the Doctrine of the Ascension for Ecclesiology and Christian Cosmology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).

CELEBRATION OF ALL SAINTS. 30th OCTOBER 2011. THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. Revelation 7 : 9 – 17. Matthew 5 : 1 – 12 Robert

2011-10-28T13:40:00.001-07:00

SAINTS IN ST MICHAEL’S

Do we have any saints here in St Michael’s? Hands up?? The word ‘saint’ has come to mean ‘super holy’ so any reticence on your part is understandable! Let’s go back to the New Testament. Virtually all the major letters that Paul writes are addressed to the ‘saints’ who are in Philippi, Ephesus, Colossae, Rome, Corinth etc, by which Paul means the whole church.

The word he uses means ‘separated out’ for a special purpose. For example, the metal used for a sacred cross to adorn a church has been chosen, separated out, and used for a very special object, and therefore has become different from metal used to make an object for everyday use, even though it has the same physical properties. Prayers are said over it, and it is dedicated for sacred use.

Similarly for people. A person can be chosen and set aside for a special purpose, although that person remains fully human. So in the Christian sense, a ‘holy’ person is someone who has put their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. Someone who has crossed a line and begun a new life, dedicated to their Lord, belonging to him, adopted into his family.

This is ideally symbolised in the sacrament of baptism, when you die to the old life, and rise again to begin a new life in Christ. But most Christians cross that line in other ways too – through a conversion experience, through a personal decision, or through a gradually growing conviction which leads beyond the point of no return. So a ‘saint’ is a person who knows they have crossed that line and put their whole trust in Christ, and are now dedicated to pursuing the new life in the Holy Spirit, which has been given to them.

Hopefully, with that definition, most – if not all – of us could put our hands up with some degree of confidence….?

In several of his letters, Paul also adds another phrase ‘Called to be saints’. That means that we not only have the status of a saint, set aside or dedicated to God, but also called to live out that dedication in everyday life. We are to live up to our call, and grow in that new life day by day, right up to the end of our lives.

So, if you are a Christian, seeking day by day to live the life God has called you to, and becoming ever closer to Christ, then Tuesday – All Saints Day – is your Festival Day and my Festival Day. A day we are, in fact, celebrating today while we are all together and can make most of it.

There should be a great sense of rejoicing and praise together – and especially praise to God because we are not sanctified by our own efforts, but because God has graciously called us to be a chosen people, who have no human merit of our own but owe everything to the mercy and grace of God. Praise God!

So if Paul was writing to us and I was reading out his letter this morning, he would write: ‘Paul, to the saints gathered to worship today in St Michael’s, called to live out your faith and dedication – greeting. Be encouraged. Be challenged. Rejoice in your faith as every saint should, and give thanks and praise to God who has called you.’

SAINTS DOWN THE CENTURIES.

But, of course, today we don’t just think of ourselves. Mention of Paul reminds us that behind us stand a vast host of Christians who have gone before us in the faith. Starting with the apostles on the day of Pentecost, we think of all the countless saints who have put their faith in Christ – often at huge personal cost – and have left us great examples to live up to.

One of the most encouraging, and often challenging, ways to stimulate our Christian lives is to read the biographies of great Christians – whether ancient or modern. If you have never read the biography of a great Christian from the past, I would really encourage you to do so. And next time you are in London, go to Westminster Abbey and look at the statues over the great west door, placed there some years ago, and which are of 20^th century Christian martyrs from across the world. It’s well worth discovering who is represented there and finding out more about them. These are great Christians from the recent past who have come out of the great tribulation, as Revelation puts it, and are now among the great host of heaven. They are an inspiration.

In the letter to the Hebrews, Chapter 12, the writer paints a picture which I find very encouraging. We are the pilgrim athletes – perhaps marathon runners – in an Olympic stadium. And filling the stands are all the Christians who have gone before us, and as we enter the stadium – perhaps weary and a bit doubtful and struggling – they are clapping and cheering, and urging us on towards the finishing line. We are not alone in our Christian race, we have the backing and the prayers of the whole communion of saints who have gone on before us.

They have been true to their calling and have run the great race, and have now handed on the baton to us. And our responsibility is to carry it faithfully forward, and hand it on to the next generation, lest the wonderful good news should be lost or forgotten.

SAINTS ACROSS THE WORLD

There is yet a third dimension to All Saints Day. We think not only of ourselves and those who have gone before us. We think also of all the other Christians across the world now. We live our Christian lives in relative ease and with so many benefits and privileges. But if we start to think and pray across the globe, how many of our brothers and sisters in Christ are living and worshipping today as tiny minorities in often hostile environments, and frequently in fear of attack or even death. We are part of a vast company of Christians alive today, with whom we join in celebration and worship, and we pray very specially for those who are persecuted for their faith; those who are poor and hungry; those who are homeless and despairing; those who have lost loved ones and are in mourning; those who are sick in body, mind or spirit. They are all our brethren in Christ and our thoughts and prayers go out to them today – our brothers and sisters.

Let’s draw all these threads together by reminding ourselves of the characteristics of those whom Jesus called ‘Blessed’ in our Gospel reading from Matthew 5. People who are:

Poor in spirit – who know they have no virtues to commend themselves to God and rely simply on his grace

Those who mourn

Those who are meek – not filled up with pride and seeking only their own ends

Those who are merciful – not keeping lists of wrongs and resentments and (being forgiven ourselves) know how to forgive others

Those who are pure in heart – pure in the sense of having an undivided, undiluted faith and trust in God and seek to live in ways that please him

Those who are peacemakers – those who bring reconciliation and not conflict or revenge

Those who are persecuted because of who they are and because of the Lord they proclaim

Those who are insulted and falsely accused because they stand up for their Lord and proclaim (like the prophets of old) a message of truth and righteousness which people don’t want to hear.

As we rejoice in the whole company of the saints, across the ages and across the world, we need to hold up as a banner over our heads those beautiful qualities which Jesus commended, that we too may be blessed in our celebration.

Sunday 23 October 2011, BIBLE SUNDAY, Colossians 3:12-17, Matthew 24:30-35, Bruce

2011-10-22T14:13:00.000-07:00

Today we celebrate Bible Sunday, and so our focus is on the Word of God.

Jesus says in our gospel passage that his words will never pass away. It is these words that give us life and hope. They are what turn our dreams and longings to be like Christ into the reality of a life shared with him.

Our passage from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Colossae starts half way through the argument. Based on the supremacy of Jesus Christ, who died for us and was raised for us, we have been given a new life in him. Because Jesus died, we can consider ourselves to be dead as far as sin is concerned. Because Jesus is alive, we can enjoy the new life of Christ right now. It is as dramatic as changing sides in a war; not just a new uniform but a new set of loyalties and ways of doing things.

This might all sound too good to be true, and we can seriously doubt how effective we can be at living a life in Christ and for Christ. But here are three C’s to help us.

The first is that you have been CHOSEN. God wants you in his kingdom, in his family, and he has set you apart and you are dearly loved. For every Christian who feels in any way tempted to doubt or give up, there is this assurance that it is God’s idea that you should be his and he is on your side.

The second is that we are CLOTHED. Not only has God our Father given to us a not-guilty pass that say that we are righteous, but he has also given us a new set of heart attitudes to wear. Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, forbearance, forgiveness, all of which are summed up in verse 14 as love. This leads us to a peaceable attitude that is shown in the way that we live common lives, approach decisions, make unity a priority, and look for reasons to be thankful for each other. It is a familiar message; it is repeated in the bible a lot. This is partly because in that world the weak and those with disabilities were left to their fate; humility was a weakness and pride was a virtue. It is also because to live such a life of love does not come naturally to humans.

In order to put on a life of loving attitudes, we need also to be changed on the inside. This is the work of the Holy Spirit of God, but also dependent on what we take into ourselves. Within us we are to let indwell the message, the word, the logos of God. Just as our love is shown in the unity in which we live, so we are to engage with the word together. Practically, in those days, they would have heard the word read to them collectively, as not all could read and hand-written copies were scarce. To study the bible is therefore a joint effort. And so we are CONJOINED.

The members of a diet club meet to encourage each other and give each other tips; this is not a substitute for making careful choices during the week about what they will eat, but they draw strength from each other, and are spurred on by the thought of being weighed in front of everyone next week. In contrast, we give ourselves and each other a much easier time. We are tempted to view the reading of the bible as a useful extra, which we might (or might not) fit into our busy schedules.

But, Paul says, there is so much that we can do to help ourselves and each other.

We can teach and learn through the songs we sing. We can memorise scripture so that it comes back to us in times of need. We can read and ponder it so that the underlying patterns and meaning start to influence our thoughts and actions.

This is not new. Generations of Christians have determined to read the scriptures in order every day. A feature of the monastic life was to recite the psalms, sometimes on a monthly or weekly cycle, in some cases even on a daily basis. (It is possible that this is where the rosary originated).

We can engage in bible study. There is a wealth of books and internet sites available that cover every subject, every book of the bible and in a variety of styles to suit every person, no matter how much or how little knowledge we feel we have. It is never too early to start this. It is never too late. We do this because our lives are centred on Jesus, and we are his disciples. It is not the job of the clergy to beat the bible into you! Rather, we exist to help you in your exploration and search.

As we see from our passage, we will do best at this when we band together. Over coffee afterwards, I long to overhear conversations going into what this or that passage means, how we have been helped in a particular situation by particular story, and so on. Difficult as it is, I really do believe that we should all aspire to be part of a group that comes together to help us to live the Christian life, and this must involve study of the bible.

The welcome result of this is a growing awareness of God and thankfulness to him. We can teach and admonish each other. This means that in everyday life we can seek to apply what we have been reading to real life situations. WWJD is not just something that enthusiastic teenagers wear on their wrist; it is an attitude of life as we face decisions. From my knowledge of the bible, what is the best way to do this, make that reply, plan that purchase, and so on? And we can be open to give and receive advice and encouragement. We seek God together in the everyday. In this sense we are conjoined. We may not always realise the extent that our lives are connected and mutually dependent. Just as God is One but also Three, so we are individuals loved by God and called to follow him, but we are also bound together in our shared experience of him.

So you can see again that Christ is at the Centre, that we are each called to be a disciple, that we find ourselves discovering the ways that we can help and serve each other and the wider world, that we are building community together, and we are impelled to share this with those around us.

Chosen, clothed and conjoined, we have a lot to be thankful for!

Discussion Starters

1. Reading Colossians 3, what reminds us of Christian life today, and what stands out as radically different?

2. What is the most helpful way that you find the word (message) Christ dwelling among us?

3. What do you miss most or feel that we could most usefully seek to bring in to help us grow together in understanding and living God’s word?

4. How do you respond to the idea that we should “do all in the name of the Lord Jesus”?

5. What would you like others to join you in giving thanks for? And what would you like to share with others for prayer?

Sermon for Sunday 16 October 2011 – I Thessalonians 1:1-10 (Matthew 22:15-22) – The Model Church! Kim

2011-10-15T16:07:00.000-07:00

Paul’s description of the believers in Thessalonica suggests that they typify an ideal congregation. Every chapter in 1 Thessalonians ends with a reference to the return of Jesus Christ, and that truth is applied to daily living. An eager looking for His return is an evidence of salvation, a motivation for soul winning, and an encouragement for holy living. This truth is a comfort in sorrow and encouragement to have more confidence in the Lord.

These letters were written to real people who were experiencing real problems in a world that was contrary to their Christian faith, no different to us today then! One could say they were written to assure the people of his love and concern for them. To remind them of the doctrines of the Christian faith, (particularly with reference to Christ's return). To encourage them to live holy lives and to correct some weaknesses in the church. Is this not what we need today for ourselves?

At least four times in this first epistle, Paul gave thanks for the church and the way it responded to his ministry. What characteristics of this church made it so ideal and such a joy to Paul's heart? It was what every church should be.

They were/we are an elect people. "...called out of darkness into His marvellous light." (1 Peter 2:9). God chose us in Christ before we were born. Even before the foundation of the world. They were/we are in the world but we are not of the world. These saints were at Thessalonica but in Christ. We saints are in Camberley but also in Christ. To the Spirit they were/we are saved when we responded to His call and received Christ. To the Son they were/we were saved when He died for us on the cross. Different eras but still the same in Christ.

Paul prayed for them always with thanksgiving because of their work of faith. As we know faith is shown by works. Works cannot save but saving faith will lead to works. He gave thanks for them because of their labour of love. As Christians they had a new motive for living and so do we. Paul gave thanks too for their patience of hope - the lost person is without hope -the believer has endurance because he has hope in the soon return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Evidence of salvation is always shown by faith, hope, and love and these folks had these evidences in their lives. They were exemplary people. They were good examples to all believers because they followed their spiritual leaders and in doing so they also followed the Lord because they heard the Word, welcomed it, believed it, and suffered for receiving it into their lives. They had a far-reaching testimony. They were enthusiastic and evangelistic people who were witnesses by their walk and by their talk which was the Word of God and the faith is what they talked about wherever their faith led them. They were missionary people. They were witnesses. Guess what folks? We are all that too. Aren’t we?

They were an expectant people. The second-coming of Christ is the theme of the book and they show us how we should wait for the return of Christ. Waiting involves activity and endurance. The saved are serving the living God and rejoicing. The return of Christ must not simply be a doctrine in our creed, but it must be the impulse in our daily lives. In other words, 'we must not just talk it, but we must live it every day of our lives.' And remember that Jesus will deliver us from the wrath of tribulation/trials.

Paul remembered this church, and he gave thanks for their spiritual characteristics: They were elect; exemplary; enthusiastic; and expectant. But churches are made up of individuals. When we speak of the church, we must never say 'they' but we should say 'we'. We are the church! That means that if you and I have these spiritual characteristics in our lives, then our church will become what God wants us to become. Perhaps we need to take a personal inventory of our lives to determine whether or not we are what God desires us to be.

If Paul’s description of the believers in Thessalonica suggests that they typify an ideal congregation. Then shouldn’t we ask ourselves these questions?

Are others thankful for me? Paul was grateful for their faith, hope and love, and that these Christian qualities revealed themselves in work, labour, love and patience. Can others tell that we belong to God? Are they thankful for our spiritual growth?

Is God’s power seen in my life? This comes when you receive the Word of God by faith and allow the Spirit of God to minister to you heart. It also involves suffering for the Lord and letting Him give you His joy.

Do I make it easier for others to talk about Jesus? Some believers are such poor examples as Christians that their lives give unbelievers an excuse for rejecting Jesus. But the Thessalonian Christians made it easy for Paul to preach the gospel! Their testimony had gone before him and met him whatever he went.

We here at St. Michael’s have been given the responsibility of sharing the good news of Jesus with the people of Camberley and in particular the people of St. Michael’s Parish. We have to imitate the Thessalonian Christians. We have to make it easier for unbelievers to find Jesus. We have to let the people of Camberley know that we are committed to bringing God kingdom here on earth that we are preparing to take on a large scale project to renew the building of St. Michael’s, as well as ourselves, in order that this church is not only around for another 100 years but around for the people of Camberley to use, to be part of, to belong to but more importantly to join us in our vision to renew this building, themselves and also to bring in the kingdom for His glory. I guess the question is – Are we the elect, the exemplary, are we enthusiastic enough and are we expectant enough? Are we confident enough to be ready for His return, but also are we confident enough that He will complete the works He has given us to do? Amen.

Questions:

Are others thankful for me? Is God’s power seen in my life? Do I make it easier for others to talk about Jesus? Only each of us can answer these for ourselves but what, hinders you from being enthusiastic or expectant? Give thanks for all those you have helped or inspired you.
How does it feel to hear that God has a plan for you in life in general, in the Renewal Project? Do you know what His plan for you is? Do you want to know? If you do, ask someone to pray with you, that you will hear from Him.
Do you feel that God doesn’t have a plan for you? Why is this? (i.e. I’m not able to get around, I don’t have a lot of free time, or I’m over whelmed with things at the moment). What are you going to do about it?
What gifts, or skills do you have that may well be useful to God and the people of Camberley, St. Michael’s.

Sunday 9 October 2011 Suffering Church Sunday

2011-10-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

For Suffering Church Sunday we have used http://www.barnabasfund.org/_images_files/content/SCS/Sermons_and_Bible_Studies/SCS-2011-sermon-outline.pdf

and are grateful to them for their input.

Sunday 2 October 2011, Trinity 15, Philippians 3:4b-14, Matthew 21:33-46, Bruce

2011-10-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

Last Monday evening the Planning Committee of Surrey Heath Borough Council voted unanimously to pass the application for the new annex to be built to St Michael’s. The work can now pick up to plan and raise the money to carry this project forward. Many of you will be aware that we have been working on a scheme of four phases – the roof, the spire, the interior and the annex. We have much to be thankful for, while also being aware that the hard work starts now!
While being thankful, consider this – that a brand new building will not, of itself, bring in the kingdom of God. Even if you were able to write me a very large cheque this morning, and thus enable us to all that we aspire to, if all that results is a gin palace, a monument to our hard work, then it profits us nothing.
A man called Stephen Covey wrote “The main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing”. Our main thing is not to build buildings, nor to restore them or conserve them. Our main thing is not to sing worshipful music (if we can all agree what that would be), to preach inspiring sermons or to arrange beautiful flowers.
Our main thing is to know Jesus Christ.
The good news for each of us this morning is that we can have a personal relationship with that man who walked on this earth 2000 years ago, and is alive today and sharing god’s love with us.
But there is a problem.
We get in the way.
The church is seen to be full of people who judge, and look down on others. We are seen to be those who have the answers, which we seek to impose on others. “Yes, you can come to God”, we seem to say, “but first, here are some rules you must keep, some life styles you must adopt, so that you can join our club.”
In Paul’s day, it was bound up with keeping the Jewish Law, but at the same time “bolting on” a faith in Jesus. He is able to say that by the standards of his time he was living an exemplary life, almost above blame; he was so zealous that he was being commended for doing terrible things in God’s name – persecuting the followers of Jesus. But now he can say that everything he worked so hard for before in the spiritual life he now counts as dung, preferring to a righteousness that comes from trusting Jesus.
And he wants to know Christ. He wants to experience the power of God in his own life, the power that raised Jesus from the dead, and the power that took difficulty and suffering in this world and transformed them so that God’s kingdom could come, his will be done here on earth. When each difficulty comes, have a choice. We can push it away, saying in effect that God has slipped up in allowing this to happen. Or we can embrace it, looking for the way that God is working all things together for the good of his elect. We can know the joy that comes from seeing God at work, transforming our character as we go through trials. We can encourage each other as we travel together with God.
Knowing you, Jesus, knowing you, there is no greater thing ....
And yet we find that our relatives, our friends, our colleagues and our neighbours do not always see this. They see instead the church.
Children love to explore the world, looking at and touching, taking apart and rearranging. Someone once said that we give children toys to distract them from the real world and stop them learning.
In the same way people instinctively want to connect with God, to find their way to Christ, and we give them instead the church.
Now I am in favour of church, I like church. I also like Marmite. I prefer beer.
Yeast extract is a by-product of brewing. In Burton in the 19th century they brewed all different beers, and the dark salty residue came in different flavours and textures. One brave, or fool-hardy, soul tried tasting the sludge, and even spread it on his bread; Marmite was born. It became very popular, and soon a purpose built factory was established to market what was now a standardised product that some people hate, but others love.
The point is that we are, so to speak, the brewery. If our main business is brewing beer, why are we bothering so much about marketing Marmite? I am not knocking church. Some people love it and some people hate it. There are great benefits in our buildings, liturgy, synods, and all the rest. They are no substitute, however, for knowing Jesus Christ, and growing in him. There is the real issue of the times when the church has been caught out as hypocritical, apparently tolerant of child abuse, cravenly supporting rulers of this world in their godlessness. If you have been tempted to see church as a disappointment, a grind, an imposition, a weight that saps your energy ..... that is not the church as Jesus sees it – his body here on earth. He faced all manner of difficulty and opposition in his time here on earth, as evidenced in the parable recounted in our second reading; he embraced the cross on our behalf. Love so amazing, so divine, demands our souls, our lives, our all.
In all humility we come to Jesus, we ask him to fill us with his Holy Spirit, we continue in our quest to encounter God and grow in him.

Discussion starters
1. Paul listed all the things that he might have been proud of, but which he now saw as worthless. What are the things that you have been tempted to rely on instead of trusting in Christ?
2. What, for you, is the main thing in following Christ? What are the distractions that are not bad in themselves but distract us from following Christ?

Sunday 25 September 2011, St Michael, Harvest, Back to Church Sunday Philippians 2:1-13, Matthew 21:23-32, ROMANS 10:9, Bruce

2011-10-02T12:17:00.000-07:00

A vicar’s daughter watched her father preparing a sermon. “How do you know what to say?” she asked. “God tells me”, he replied. “Then why do you keep crossing things out?”

There are various sorts of sermons, and today I want to try to preach a traditional text. This differs from a Theme sermon (today we will look at the theme of Giving), or an Expositional sermon (today we are going to expound Philippians 2, verse by verse, clause by sub-clause).

In Romans 10: 9 Paul says “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Paul has never been to Rome. All through his letter to the church there, Paul has been talking about faith as the foundation of our relationship with God, and here he summarises the whole thing in one verse. It does not matter if you come to church regularly or hardly at all, if you come from the chosen race or not, know your bible inside out or are just starting to explore what it says, feel you are living a good moral upright life – or not .... All that matters is that you publically declare your faith in Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that he has been raised from the dead. Everything else will follow from that.
This is a good text to preach here at St Michael’s at St Michael’s tide. Everything we do is shaped by our desire to Encounter God and Grow in Him – both for ourselves and to help others. Each of us is on a journey of exploration and discovery, but the turning point comes when we encounter God in his Son Jesus Christ, when we see how this historical life lived 2,000 years ago has a direct relevance to our own lives today.
There are many ways that we can be led to this encounter. Some of these are stories we were told in Sunday School, reading the bible, singing hymns, or being a member of a local Christian community. Some of us have found that life-events, both happy and sad, have drawn us closer to God, while others have found they have made us question, doubt, and feel further away from faith.
A key factor is our response to Creation and the beauty of nature all around us. Paul goes so far as to say that the inner state of our hearts and minds towards God is revealed by the way that we respond to all that he has created.
We read in Romans 1: 18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
This is why Harvest is so important. It is our opportunity to remember where all our good things come from, and to give thanks to God who has so richly blessed us. I love the nature programmes on television, and the stories about all that we discover about genetics, string-theory, the exploration of space, the amazing way that life has developed here on earth. I love to hear about true scientists, whose minds are open as they seek to understand the mysteries of creation. I fear for those who say, in effect, we have explained it all (or are confident that we will soon be able to), and we do not see any room for God in that picture. They are, I am sure, good and moral people, but in denying the Creator, they are claiming the right to think as God for themselves; they are repeating the folly and sin of Adam and Eve in the garden, and they are starting on a road to ruin that will lead unstoppably to a denial of all that God is, and to all the evils and cruelties of our world today. G. K. Chesterton said “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing – they believe in anything.” To be thankful is to express faith. If Jesus is the whole of the pyramid, and faith in his cross and resurrection are the pinnacle, then the broad base is to value and give thanks for all that he has created. To do anything less is to walk in to find a tidied house and beautifully prepared meal, and say “O, that’s a stroke of luck!”

So, to confess that Jesus is Lord is to acknowledge him in every part of our lives and to see his hand in everything around us. It is to marvel that, as we read in Philippians 2, his Lordship derives from a humble obedient heart that laid aside the privileges of equality with his Father and became actually part of the creation. This is a greater mystery than the science we discussed before. He humbled himself even to death, the ultimate degradation that we find in the created order, but he also was raised as living human body and is in the heavenlies right now praying for us.

The point of this is that Jesus is acknowledged as Lord – the one that we obey. We believe in the God of creation, whose Son Jesus died for us and rose again, and we find ourselves therefore obeying him. Anything less than this is to acknowledge him as a teacher or a moral example, or someone to be respected. But, Paul says, what flows from this is a loving life that puts others first, where God is at work helping us to be no longer conformed to a rebellious world system that does not acknowledge God, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may prove what the will of God is for us, and do it.

In this short treatment I am not able to address all the questions that spring from this; that is what our different groups give us an opportunity to do, and you are warmly invited to join us at one of them. One question, however, is what about those who do not confess Jesus as Lord, or believe in his resurrection? What about those who make themselves subject to wrath?

Looking at our gospel passage, we can see that there are those who are determined to be, in effect, their own Lords, and they have made up their minds. It does not matter if a prophet like John or the saviour himself comes to them; they already know an answer that suits them. But Jesus goes straight on to tell the story of a son who changes his mind and decides to fall in with his father’s wishes. In the same way the invitation is for each and every one of us this morning, to confess that Jesus Is Lord and to trust him in our hearts; let us ask God for the gift of faith and understanding, so that we may be truly open for all that he has for us, and encounter him for ourselves.

Discussion Questions
1. Jesus is Lord: what impact does this have on your daily life?
2. How would disbelieving in God as Creator lead to disobedience and evil living?
3. If a particular culture or belief system suggested that you do something wrong, how would you respond in the light of Paul’s teaching?
4. How might the resurrection of Jesus lead us to re-evaluate the whole of creation and our place within it?

Sermon for Sunday 18 September 2011 –Matthew 20:1-16 and Philippians 1:21-30 - Kim

2011-10-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

In this parable we see Jesus telling us something about everyday life and each of Jesus’ parables are either from the market place, the farm, the family. You could say that today’s parable is about salaries, wages, and a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, it’s about the daily or hourly income. People always get tense, anxious and nervous when you talk about money, salaries, and income.
After reading this passage three times I asked myself what is the purpose of this parable? I believe the key to the story is the contrast between those who came at the last hour and those who came at the first hour. Regardless of when they clocked in, all were given a full day’s wage.
Those who were given a full days wage at the last hour felt that their wage was undeserved, unearned and a wonderful gift from the owner. The wage was a gift, a surprise, a wonderful delight. And there are Christians who feel that God’s generosity to them is unearned, undeserved, and they are surprised at the generosity of God. Such Christians have this attitude that life has been a wonderful gift from God such as these workers who came to work for only one hour and had received a full blessing from God.
Meanwhile, there are other religious people who were there at six o’clock in the morning and they worked all day long. They were born into the Christian faith; they were baptised into the Christian faith; they went to Sunday school; they went to Youth Group; they did confirmation; they were part of the fabric of the church; they sang in the choir; they served on The PCC; they came to church every Sunday. And they knew in their hearts that God owed it to them. They had the inner attitude: if anyone deserved to be blessed by God, they did because they had been faithful to God and his church all of their lives. God: I deserve your blessing. I have earned your blessing because of my faithful behavior to you and the church throughout the years.
Jesus said those who are last with an attitude of thanksgiving shall be first, and those who think they are first shall be last.
Tell me what did you do yesterday to deserve to be given the gift of life today? What did you do yesterday that was so good that you deserved to live today? To wake up, brush your teeth, have breakfast, see your family, come to church, be with nice people: what did you do yesterday on Saturday that you deserved to be alive on Sunday?
What about the young man who watched the marathon runners run passed him and then he leaps out of the crowd and runs towards the finishing line which was about a mile out from the end. As he was handed a medal another gentleman who had finished alongside him complained saying that the young man only ran the last mile, he doesn’t deserve a medal. The young man did get a medal and later that week; his picture was in his local newspaper. Several months before this young man had is left foot amputated after a car accident, he was a keen runner and even though the marathon runners had worked hard and trained well for the event and deserved their medals. For this young man, with a false foot, that one mile would have seemed like a marathon to him – that’s why the organisers allowed him a medal.
So it is with life and everything in life: life, the abundant life, and eternal life are free gifts of God to us, and we do nothing to deserve or earn them.
Jesus was telling the people around him that the parable was about salvation and that it was available to everyone, sadly he knew that only a few would take up his offer. When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, he paid the price for salvation for anyone who believed in him. It is his to give to anyone who comes to him. Some people accept Jesus, and have the joy of working for God for many years. Some people put off accepting Jesus until late in life, even until they are about to die. They only get to serve the Lord a short time. God makes salvation available to us all.
Today, our western ‘celebrity’ culture favours those who manage to push themselves to the front, whether it’s people with the most obvious talent or the stars with the busy agents. Sadly, that can spill over into the life of the church: famous leaders and preachers get attention and the ‘ordinary’ Christian becomes a passive spectator. We need to remember that there are no such people as ‘ordinary’ Christians. In the renewal of all things which Jesus spoke about, all sorts of people will stand out as the real heroes and heroines of faith, though nobody has ever heard of them before. They will be the ones who, whether for five minutes or fifty years served God with total and glad obedience, giving themselves completely to holiness, prayer, and the works of love and mercy. Such people are the pure gold of the church. But, so often, gold remains hidden and takes some finding.
God has called us to have an attitude of being humble, and thankful for our relationship with Him and not resentful of others who claim Jesus as Lord late in life. We should seek to work with Jesus to bring others to a relationship with him, to be humble enough to be the seed planters and allow others who will reap the reward of our sowing, to rejoice. To be humble enough not to want to covert another persons’ gift; but to be thankful for His many blessings bestowed on us.
Gracious Lord, help us to be humble enough to take whatever place we are given, and zealous enough to work wholeheartedly for your glory where and when you call us. Amen.
Questions:
1. How does Matthew 20:1-16 relate to today?
2. Have you been tempted to want to covet another persons’ gift, or position or property?
3. How do you feel that you may be one of the last?
4. Have you been treated unfairly? What did you do about it?

Sunday 11 September 2011, Romans 14:1-12, Bruce

2011-09-10T17:05:00.001-07:00

On Tuesday 11 September 2001 I was standing in our hall just after lunch when my sister rang me from New York to tell me that she was alright. I mouthed to Hannah to turn on CNN, just in time to watch the second jet collide with the Twin Towers. 9/11 stands as a symbol of the extremities that men will go to, to inflict terror and pain and attack those they hate and feel enmity to.
Our passage today might seem trivial; it talks about how to respond to vegetarians.
Of course there is a context. Paul has never been to Rome, and as far as we know was not writing to deal with specific problems or questions. Rather he is setting out his understanding of the faith in a general way as he would explain it to any new, unknown, group of people. He can imagine the church will have believers converted from within Judaism, and also believers who have come from a pagan background. People who might be bitter enemies, or at least feel that their culture and religion should lead them to follow separate lives, are now counted as part of the same family.
In Romans 1:5 Paul says that his main function is to call Gentiles to the “obedience that comes from faith”.
The rest of chapter one explains how humankind chooses to be disobedient. Chapter two imagines the Jewish converts all smiling and agreeing with Paul’s condemnation of Gentile sinners, so he turns to them and says that in judging others they are revealing themselves also to be sinners liable to judgement. The truth is that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:23,24) Chapter four confirms that the Old Testament teaches through the example of Abraham that we are saved only by faith in the cross and blood of Jesus, and God’s love will see us through judgement now that we are in his family.
If we are freely forgiven, do we still need to be obedient? Yes of course, and we find in chapters six, seven and eight that obedience comes from responsiveness to God’s Holy Spirit. We find ourselves wanting to do the things God wants us to, and we have a growing understanding “that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) Even when we cannot understand God’s purposes, as in the case of his people Israel who seem to have fallen away, we see that God is always merciful, calling us back to him.
In view of God’s mercies, therefore, we present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God, giving ourselves to living God’s will and building up his body here on earth – the church. We each look out the gifts that we have been given and employ them in the service of others. We let love be without pretence. We submit ourselves to the governing authorities. We owe no debt but to love others as ourselves, which is perfect obedience, and the keeping of the law.
Question. How do we respond when people in close proximity live in ways that seem to cut across each other? How do we cope if people are living in opposite ways? If one is being obedient, does this mean that the other is being disobedient?
And so to vegetarianism, but not as we would understand it today. In the ancient world it was customary to invoke the gods on every occasion. In the marketplace a prayer to an idol would have been offered when meat was butchered and sold, in as routine a manner as we would use gloves and careful germ-free wrappings today. It was what one did. To a faithful Jew this would be abhorrent, especially as the meat would probably not have been killed in a kosher manner with all the blood drained out. The most effective way to keep to the strict dietary laws was never to eat meat if you did not know where it came from. You therefore tended only to eat vegetables in public. Some parts of the early church, especially those from a Jewish background, seem to have carried these ways into the Christian fellowship.
Others however were convinced that there is only one God, who has set us free from the Old Testament food laws. As idols are worthless, it really does not matter what prayers have been muttered over them. God has given us good meat to enjoy and give him thanks for. It becomes almost a badge of faith to eat the meat.
This might still seem arcane and remote from everyday life today, until you consider that there is growing pressure in our society to make all meat halal, that is, slaughtered in accordance with Muslim sharia law, with prayers said and possible issues of animal cruelty. (For more information see http://barnabasfund.org/Should-Christians-eat-halal-meat.html)
So two Christians have opposing stances, both based on a desire to be obedient to God and both based on their understanding of scripture. They are not bad people. They are good people trying to live well.
For Paul, the guiding principle is to build up our brothers and sisters. This is based principally on our love for each other, as spelt out in recent passages of scripture. It is based also on the firm understanding that we will each face judgement. God looks upon each one who has come to a faith in Jesus with love and has promised us eternal life, but we will also answer to him for our actions, our thoughts and our motives. We do not answer to each other. In chapter two Paul rounded on the upright, good-living religious types who looked down on their obviously sinful, pagan neighbours. Jesus warned us against inspecting other’s eyes for tiny specks when we have telegraph poles sticking out of our own eyes.
Some people find clear direct rules very helpful. This talk of being led by the Spirit sounds much too relaxed, diffuse, and unclear. Paul say that to live a life that seeks to be dependent on the promptings of God is to be truly strong.
As we each seek to be renewed, so we will find that we are truly Open For All. This is more than leaving the church unlocked, taking seriously the needs of those with mobility problems, providing free wifi, or any other surface things. Deep down, we realise that we are loved and accepted by God, without reserve, whoever we are and whatever we have done. He loves us. He loved us before ever we started to show signs of belief.
And we love each other. Deep down, we reflect God’s love that has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given to us (Romans 5). We love each other. We love the people of Camberley and beyond, whether they come here or not, whether they live tidy, organised lives or not, whether they are respectable or not. If ever we catch ourselves thinking or saying “You should not be doing that”, we are becoming someone’s judge, rather than the one who loves and accepts them.
Out of love I will fit in with the one who wants to eat salad or steak, I will sing Gregorian chant or the latest raucous chorus, I will have a glass of wine or have only water, I will do all I can to pass on the love and acceptance that God has so generously extended to me. This is the true obedience that we are called to. It might just change the world.
Questions
1. Do you consider yourself to be strong or weak, in the matter of rules and codes of behaviour?
2. How might “accepting one another” contribute to building up the life of the church, and perhaps of our society?
3. Which of the five core values of St Michael’s do you think might have been referred to in this sermon?

Sunday 28 August 2011, Trinity 10, Romans 12:9-21, Matthew 16:21-end, Bruce

2011-08-27T15:28:00.001-07:00

I had a conversation yesterday with someone about how to whistle. Famously you put your lips together, but not everyone finds it easy to make a noise. And how do you learn to dance? You can read about it, talk about, be shown it and guided through it, but some people ‘get it’, and many more don’t. It is true of riding a bike or even learning to walk; little ones pretend, or ‘glide’, emulating what they see others doing.
In the same way it is difficult to learn to love. Paul says love should be sincere. The word he uses, anupokritos , is used six times in the bible, of faith, of wisdom, and especially of love. It is related to hypocrisy, a pretence or acting out of something untrue, and it means to be without pretence or dissimulation, or falseness.
There all sorts of reasons to pretend to love. I have not been watching the series about the Borgias on television, but it seems obvious that if you are not a Christian but want to be promoted within the church, you need to give the appearance of loving. Robert Browning imagines a smiling Spanish monk, who says to himself about another brother:
Gr-r-r — there go, my heart’s abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God’s blood, would not mine kill you!
Then again, you might consider that politeness is the opposite of love. There is a theory that America is a well ordered society because so many people carry guns; the result is that you are careful not to insult others because you might end up in a duel. If this is true, it is not that you feel affectionate towards others but that you are afraid of death. We do something similar in polite society when we obey the rules of courtesy to avoid giving offence and facing social death, or at least embarrassment. We even say there are things we should not discuss, such as politics or religion, or money; we are really offering an outer pretend image of ourselves so that the real us inside is not revealed. This is the opposite of the Christ-like, all-accepting love which we can never earn or deserve but which he chooses to lavish on us.
So our passion, our prayer is to learn to love. We catch the flavour of that from the second half of the verse: Hate what is evil, literally shrink from it. Imagine the most revolting thing, that the sight or smell of repulses you. That is how we are to respond to evil, at an instinctual level. Like Joseph fleeing from Potiphar’s wife, we run screaming from all that is evil. In the same way, we find ourselves responding in our deepest beings to God’s generous love. Do not try to love, we do not need to act lovingly, we just find ourselves acting out of love.
Who can be like this? Those who are led by the Spirit, who offer their bodies as a living sacrifice, who are thrilled to find themselves to be part of the body of Christ.
What does this love look like?
Mary Hinkle Shore comments: “Surrounded and upheld by this undeserved and steadfast love, then, the community of Jesus Christ practices love. "Let love be genuine," Paul says in Romans 12:9a, and then he spends the rest of the chapter describing sincere, non-hypocritical love in various spheres of the Christian life. The imperatives in this reading relate to four circles of relationships: (1) kinship within one's own Christian community, (2) hospitality to "the saints," that is the Christian community beyond one's own closest brother and sisters in Christ, and to strangers, (3) blessing directed to one's enemies, and (4) peaceable interactions with everyone.”
First, we live as brothers and sisters within the Christian community. We prize every opportunity to go beyond the conventions of mere politeness, to know each other as we really are, and to love each other anyway. As John Ortberg says, everybody is normal until you get to know them. The number of times that folk leave a church or group because they cannot get on with others – that’s the whole point of offering our bodies as a living sacrifice. We are devoted to one another in love. We honour one another. We serve each other with enthusiasm and joy. We care for each other when suffering and sickness come. It is the difficulty, the near impossibility of this, that drives us to our knees in prayer, leads us to meditate on the lessons God is teaching us. The main reason that folk come to trust in Christ is that they encounter communities of folk who are truly, sincerely, living out this life of love. They are Christ centred, passionate about learning from Christ as disciples, motivated to serve Christ’s body the church as ministers, determined to do all they can to build up the community, the koinonia, which is the body of Christ, and motivated by Christ’s love for all to share his love with others by engaging in evangelism. As we look around at the family that God has placed us in, we will be doing what it says on the tin if we stop merely acting in a loving manner and just live the life of the Spirit, whose fruit is love.
Of course, God’s love reaches out beyond our immediate circle. Paul spent time and energy raising money for the church in Jerusalem of which he was not a part. We respond to the needs of others outside our close fellowship, although in a very small way. 97% of our income is spent on the work of St Michael’s; the remainder is our share with mission partners across the world. Some are good causes but a bit anonymous, such as the Bible Society or Tear Fund. Others we have good relationships with such as Connect or CYFC locally, or the Macau Prison Fellowship. We would like to do more, as the proper response to love. As we grow in this area, so we will each perhaps be able to contribute more and find that our meagre offerings are multiplied across the world.
God’s love reaches out to his enemies, and so does ours. In work situations, in families, in the roads where we live, even perhaps in church, things are said and done that are deeply upsetting. We can try hard to respond lovingly, but we will fail. We can admit our inability to love, and surrender the situation to God, asking him to sort things out. We give up the right to demand justice, knowing that our God will do this in his own time and in his own way. We seek to treat our enemies with genuine loving kindness and care, even if this causes them a burning sense of embarassment.
Finally, a sincere love is Open for All. There are no limits and no conditions. Broadcasters and supermarkets try to get us into their clubs or families to promote loyalty and stop us going elsewhere. God causes the rain to fall on the righteous and unrighteous alike, and loves everyone. In embracing Jesus Christ, we are embracing not just those people who are like us or see things our way. We are finding that we love the foreigner, the person who is much poorer (or richer) than we are, or who has a disturbingly different lifestyle.
There is a complete abandonment, an extreme commitment in all this, to no longer be conformed to this world’s way of thinking but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. It is the determination to put the will of God in our lives above all else. This was what frightened Peter and led him to remonstrate with Jesus.
God give us grace to respond to his mercy, to trust in him, to allow his kingdom to come in our lives, and to respond with sincere love for him and every else.

Sunday 21 August 2011 Trinity 16 Romans 12:1-8, Matthew 16:13-20, It’s your body we want. Bruce

2011-08-22T15:32:00.000-07:00

There is a deliberate mistranslation in the first verse of our reading from Romans. In the original Paul urges the brothers to respond to God’s mercy; in this latest update of the NIV the translators have take the view that Paul would have addressed himself today to the brothers and sisters. At the same time they have corrected a glaring error in the earlier version, which read “offer your bodies as living sacrifices”. This narrowed our understanding of what Paul was trying to say. So my first point, slightly at a tangent, is that translations are an embodiment of the Word. We do not worship the text and read it only the original languages, and brook no alterations. Rather we see Jesus as the Messiah, the embodiment of the promises of God, and the words of this book as the record of different people’s dealings with him. They are inspired by God and point to the truth of God, and we depend on them absolutely, but each generation has to wrestle with their meaning.
Our reading starts with the word “therefore”, and so we should see what it is there for. Paul has been explaining for eleven chapters how merciful God has been, how we are brought salvation as we trust in Christ, as we allow his Spirit to guide us, as we depend on his promises. Even in the admittedly difficult case of the nation of Israel who seem largely to have rejected Christ, Paul argues that God is full of compassion and mercy.
Therefore, in view of God’s mercy, we should offer our bodies, each of us as individuals, as a living sacrifice. In chapter six Paul reminded us that we should each offer our bodies in service to God, or we would find ourselves forced to serve a different master – sin. So your body is important. Do not be fooled by the thinking that suggests that the body is merely a husk, of no importance, while your soul, the inner you, will live forever. Understand that your body means all of you, your personhood, and you cannot separate these things out. Who you are on the inside, in the realm of your thoughts, is reflected on the outside in your actions. In Romans 1, we are told about how people rejected the truth about God, and this led to the degrading of their bodies, which led in turn to their minds being darkened. In chapter four we read of Abraham who had faith, even though his 100 year old body was as good as dead. I heard about a man who apologised to his pastor: “I cannot get to church on Sunday, but I will be with you in spirit.” The pastor replied: “It’s your body I want, not your spirit.” A dear lady I knew in Woking used to urge us to pray and pray, but then she would add that we needed to put legs on our prayers; in other words what we think and pray is important, but so are our actions. It is of crucial importance that Jesus was born into a body, lived a real life in his body, acted only obedience to his Father; his body died and was buried. On the third day his body was raised to new life and is now in the heavenlies. This is our incarnation, salvation faith. Romans 8: 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
Paul urges us to get this new perspective. We are in one sense passive in this process. This another of the NIV’s debateable translations, and perhaps should better be read as “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed, by the renewing of your mind.” People are concerned that if they start to investigate spiritual things they will end up being brain washed. The opposite is true! Those who do not believe the truth end up believe any old thing. Even Christians who have not firmly made the choice to serve Christ as Lord find themselves, as Robert reminded us recently, blowing like feathers in the wind. The messages we receive from parents and others, the power of advertisements, the need to keep up with the Joneses, the desire to get ahead, all these and many others, conspire to warp our thinking. It is not very different from chapter one, where Paul reminds us that all that we need to know about God is revealed in nature, but that we substitute our own versions of the truth and therefore are led astray. We sometimes seem helpless to serve God as we would like, in an echo of chapter seven. How can we change ourselves?
We cannot. We lack the power. But we can be led by the Spirit of God. We can offer our bodies to him, and allow him to work in us. This is our spiritual, or logical, or reasonable service. In other words, it takes no intelligence at all to live a sinful life that we are coerced into. Rather, we make a deliberate, informed choice, out of the freedom that the Holy Spirit brings us, to follow Christ. In contrast to the puzzles we might have about God’s will as revealed in the previous three chapters, here we are invited to test out on a daily basis God’s will in the minutiae of everyday life.
The bible has lots of advice about how to use your body. At various times we are told about our eyes, tongue, ears, hands, feet, and reminded to live pure lives because our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.
In this passage I think it is important that we are told to offer our bodies as a “living sacrifice”. In other words, we each offer ourselves, and together constitute the body of Christ in this place. We make Jesus real and present by the way that we live.
Obviously this has implications for how we get along. “Do not be high-minded, thinking above yourself, but think with sober judgement.” In other words, there is a sort of madness that can infect us, where we see ourselves as more important than we really are. Paul says that the sober judgement that comes from self-offering leads to that same saving faith that we share with Abraham. We discover new ways to use our bodies in God’s service. The gifts he gives us of prophecy, faith, service, teaching, encouragement, giving, leadership or showing mercy, are all intended to be used by us to build up the body of Christ. I might have started out wanting to preach because I enjoy being in front of people, but I have to learn that it is a privilege to serve in this way and, as we will find out from verse 9 next week, if I preach with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am nothing.
Similarly, if I do not take my part in serving, out of a misplaced sense of modesty and not wanting to put myself forward, I am neglecting the gifts and calling that God has given to me, to each one of us.
Each of us is called, urged, to respond to the mercies of God, to allow him to begin that process of changing us to be like Jesus, and to take our place in the renewing and building up of his body, the church.

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 – Sermon for 14 August 2011 - Kim

2011-08-17T17:44:00.000-07:00

Paul has a habit in saying NO. We know that we died to sin and that we do not need to live in sin any longer. Paul tells us to say NO to sin and temptation. Simple! So when Paul asks "Has God rejected his people?" I like his equally blunt answer: "No!" But Paul did not make this statement easily. He struggled with the objection that this gospel entails, betraying his heritage and his nation. I can see him sitting there weighing up the situation: the Jews have turned their backs on the Messiah ‘Has God abandoned Israel?’ Then Paul answers a resounding NO. But at his first answer it was somewhat limited: he is an Israelite. He knows that he has not been abandoned and other Jews like himself who have responded to the gospel are a remnant of Israel who has listened to God. But Paul is also unsettled about the notion that all the rest could be thought of as abandoned. We see hints of this in his words in 11:2a: ‘God has not abandoned his people whom he foreknew.’ How could/can God choose people and then write them off? God is a God of compassion and promises, isn’t He?

The expressions, "by no means!" or "absolutely not," which are in our bibles, are an emphatic denial which Paul utters nine other times in Romans after posing a ludicrous theological question (such as, in 9:14, "Is there injustice with God?"). Although Paul treats the questions as empathetic, still he makes us consider them, just for a moment, so he can show how crucial is their denial. We need to know why the question is so important, if we are to know why the emphatic denial is utterly crucial, for Christians and Jews alike.

Paul will have no part in a theology that implies God will not keep promises. If God will not prove faithful to promises made throughout Israel's history, Christians have no good reason to expect God will keep the ones made to us through Christ in the past or even today. God’s fidelity remains a bedrock in Paul's theology, something he learned early as a Jew and had confirmed through his encounter with Christ.

Paul poses his key question ("Has God rejected his people?") after having summed up the situation as similar to one described in Isaiah, where God waits patiently for a disobedient and unresponsive people. Paul doesn't develop much of an argument in response to the question. It's pretty simple for him. God cannot have rejected the people "whom he foreknew" (11:2), simply because "the gifts of grace and the calling of God are irrevocable" (11:29). Paul can confidently claim that "all Israel will be saved" (11:26) and will experience "full inclusion" (11:12) in God's salvation. This is good news for all people in this world. There is hope for everyone. God will wait for us, however long it takes. You might be thinking ‘He’s not going to get me!’ ‘We’ll see!’ All people will be saved. God is faithful.

Paul’s road to towards these confident assertions is out of the struggles he had with God and scripture. The same struggles we have today, when faced with a difficult situation or two similar situations and the outcome of both is different. When we search the bible for answers and find ourselves at odds because our hearts knows something of God but scripture is pointing us to something else and we struggle to find peace. To find answers. If claims about God’s fidelity and less-than-satisfying arguments about the details of God’s master plan concerning Jews who have not embraced Jesus cause Paul to struggle, why should we expect to have all our questions answered for us. Why should God just give us everything on a plate.

It’s about living with the tensions and promises of God. If you read all of Romans 11, you will read that Paul informs his readers that they would never be able to figure out what God was up to, and he called this situation a ‘mystery.’ Paul is referring to something that makes no sense on the surface but will finally one day, when God's purposes have been worked out. This mystery involves the ‘disobedience’ in which, Paul believed, some of his contemporary Jews dwelled. It involves the ‘disobedience’ of people today and as a result, the salvation of all is reliant on God's mercy and grace.

Paul's main emphasis, once again, is on God. The conclusion of the "arguments" laid down throughout Romans 9-11 comes in 11:32. However God works, and for whatever reasons God works, God works so that God "may be merciful to all" (11:32).All the handwringing in these Roman chapters, aren't just about figuring out "the status of the Jewish people"; it's about reaffirming that God calls people, all people, out of wrath, judgment, and sins, to prove God's righteousness and loyalty.

Once again we find a passage primarily about God's faithfulness, less about the successes and failures of people's faith. God is merciful.

Anyone who has presided over the funeral of a child or helped a person through a difficult situation knows how this works. We can't pretend to know all the answers, and we often make things worse by trying to explain things. But we can, we must! trust that God will be merciful. Why do we trust in this mercy? Because, ‘the gifts of grace and the calling of God are irrevocable’ and in the end, God is merciful. We might not understand how everything will work out, but God will see to it. Faith rests on hopes like this.

The bedrock, anchored in the faithfulness, the love, the mercy of God should be the central movement of any sermon. There are plenty of other things that life throws our way to make us doubt them. But we do ourselves no favours in trying to make theological sense of our circumstances and our future unless we have a God whose character rings true to statements like these.

The main point Paul says is ‘when it comes to accomplishing salvation, everything is in God's hands, not in ours, not in the hands of the church, nor in those of Israel.’ In God’s hands.

The theology of Romans magnifies God’s grace and extols His sovereignty. We should never lose the wonder of our salvation or the greatness of God. No matter how deep the valley, or difficult the battle, a vision of greatness puts joy in our hearts and strength in our soul. God knows what he is doing even if we don’t fully understand it.

7 AUGUST 2011. MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICES. -Romans 10: 5 – 15 Matthew 14: 22 – 33 - Robert

2011-08-17T17:42:00.000-07:00

If you found today’s Epistle from Romans Chapter 10 more than a little difficult to follow, you are in good company! In his commentary on this letter, William Barclay (for example) writes: “It is agreed by all commentators that this is one of the most difficult and obscure passages in the letter to the Romans. It seems to us that what we have here is not so much a finished passage as the notes for a passage...(with) a kind of telegraphic quality...”

It is part of a longer argument designed to demonstrate from the Old Testament that the way to a right relationship with God is through faith in Christ, and not through rigid obedience to the Jewish orthodox law. And the word I would use as the key to understanding it for our purposes this morning is the word ‘CHOICE’.

A key passage which Paul draws on here is in Deuteronomy Chapter 30, verses 11 & following. In our Church Bibles it is starkly headed ‘The Offer of Life or Death’. (Have a look in your own time and you will see just how it relates). In the situation Paul was facing, you could not have both salvation through faith in Jesus and salvation through correct observance of the Jewish Law. You must choose. One way leads to life – the other to death.

1,200 years before, Joshua had called the Israelite people to make a choice which rings through the Old Testament. He called the people to renew their covenant with God and cease all worship of other pagan gods – because you cannot have both. ‘Choose this day whom you will serve’ he cries. (Joshua Chapter 24). And in a verse inscribed on a chalice Barbara and I were given for our wedding, Joshua declares in 24:15: ‘But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.’

Or let me take you to a service of baptism in the 2nd century as described by St Hippolytus of Rome. It is dawn on Easter Day, and the candidates have completed three years of preparation. They go down to the water, which he says should be pure and flowing. And there each candidate makes their choice. First they renounce evil saying: ‘I renounce thee, Satan, and thy service and all thy works.’ They are then anointed with the oil of exorcism. Then each turns to the east and affirms his or her faith and commitment to God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Then they go down into the water and are baptized. Then they come up out of the water and are confirmed and receive communion. They have made their choice. You can see the parallels with our services today when adults are baptized and confirmed in the same service. Our liturgy today is based as closely as possible on that of Hippolytus. It is a service of clear choice and commitment.

Now this kind of choice (or something very similar) is exactly what Paul is describing here in Romans 10 verses 9 to 13. It doesn’t matter who you are, Jew or Gentile, you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead, and so enter into an exclusive relationship with God, and the promise is that ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’ (v.13 quoting Joel 2:32). To do that means breaking with the past and starting afresh. You have chosen the way of life.

How do we apply this today to ourselves? First of all, we affirm that it makes no difference at all who we are. In this passage the distinction is between Jew and Gentile. For us the distinctions will be different but no less clear. Paul says in verse12: ‘The same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him’ whoever they – or we - are.

I find that people tend to fall into two categories. Some feel instinctively that they are not good enough for God to bless them – possibly because they are conscious of some wrong-doing or possibly just because it is a first natural reaction. Others are the opposite, and feel that, basically, they are good people leading good lives, and that, provided they don’t do anything too way out, they will be able to call on God for help as and when needed.

But it’s clear that there is no distinction between the greatest sinner and the most upright citizen. Each of us has a choice to make. A choice that originates in the heart and mind, and then expresses itself in words as we confess our faith.

Whether it is in the context of a great cathedral or church service, or in the quiet of our own prayer-time, we begin (as those Christians I described have from the very beginning) with renouncing everything that stands in the way of our Christian faith or in opposition to it. Everything that in practice claims first place in our lives and therefore displaces Jesus from prime position.

Then, (metaphorically) we turn to the east where the sun rises and gives life to the world, and confess our faith in Christ, who died for the forgiveness of our sins, and rose from the dead to give us hope for the future and the assurance of eternal life, and put our whole trust in him as our Lord and Saviour.

That is the choice every Christian has to make. Perhaps it is in the context of a church service, perhaps quietly at home; perhaps in a clearly defined moment which we will always remember, perhaps more gradually over a period of time, but underlined in ink (so to speak) by a conscious and deliberate prayer.

Just as those first Christians struggled between the pulling power of the Jewish Law and faith in Christ, so our struggle today is generally between our Christian faith and the pulling power of the secular world with its different priorities, values and way of life. We are called to choice, not to a vain attempt to hover between the two – a feather for each wind that blows (as Shakespeare so neatly puts it). We have to live in the secular world and its culture without allowing its values to topple Jesus from this throne in our hearts, in our minds and in our daily living. As hard for us today as it was for those first Christians to whom Paul was writing in his letters. We are not called to be ‘hoverers’ but to make Christian choices.

But the rewards are immeasurable once that choice is made and renewed day by day. When the risen Christ is enthroned in our lives, our lives are filled by his Holy Spirit, who brings us faith and hope for the future, and love, and all things beautiful and truly desirable.

And, in the light of this, I ask again – how does this apply to us today? The news is full of financial crisis which will probably affect our lives and may well become a source of real anxiety in one way or another. We await to see the full impact and what it will mean for each of us. In Luke chapter 12 Jesus says to us: “Watch out! Be on your guard... for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he goes on to warn about the fate of those who store up material things but are not rich towards God.

To some, the idea of taking refuge in a spiritual relationship with God will seem simply escapism. – a comfort blanket. But, on the contrary, to me these words are a crucial reality check. What is the more important? When we choose our priorities in life, that choice will determine everything else. Do we store up treasures on earth or in heaven? Again it comes down to choice. And when we choose to put God first, and our faith in Christ as our first priority, and seek first the kingdom of God, the practical result is that other things – although very important – fall into their right place. We have chosen the way of life, not the way of death.

And when times are hard, the Lord of our lives comes to us (as he did to those disciples on the lake) and meets us in the storms of life. And in those times of confusion, doubt, fear and anxiety, he has a clear command: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” That is when you know you have made the right choice, because the presence, the love and the guidance of the Lord far outweighs anything this world can offer. Today we join with those disciples in the boat as we worship him and say “Truly, you are the Son of God”. As Isaiah had said long before and Paul quotes him here: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring us such good news!”

Sermon for Sunday 31 July 2011 - Anne

2011-07-30T08:44:00.000-07:00

Romans 9: 1-5
All roads lead to Rome! The masterpieces of civil engineering, like spokes of a wheel, connecting the outer cities of the Empire to the hub at the centre, to where it’s all happening in 55AD - the information super-highway of the first century, global networking before the terms ‘global’ or ‘networking’ were ever invented. And Paul used them to spread the gospel throughout Greece and Asia Minor and to send letters to the scattered congregations of new believers, including the one in Rome. And let’s face it, Paul knew a thing or two about roads – after all, he’d had an amazing life-changing encounter with Jesus on the one to Damascus.

In America, near Boston Massachusetts, in the village of Lexington, the road divides into two at the village green. At the fork in the road, 236 years ago the British took the wrong fork to come unexpectedly face-to-face with the American patriots. In the panic, the first shots of the American Revolution rang out across the green and the rest, so to speak, is history. Incredible consequences – all because of a fork in the road. Perhaps satellite navigation or a road map would have helped.

The Israelites had all the navigational aids; they had the road map to heaven. They had the adoption – God’s children, part of his family; they had the covenant promises given to Moses, to Abraham, and to David; they had the law – God’s own words to guide and instruct them; they had the Temple – God’s house, a place to speak to Him and to worship and praise Him, and they had the glory and the blessings. They received all the privileges of being chosen, of being close to God – of being a people intertwined with the life of God.

So why is Paul full of sorrow, of inconsolable grief? How did he get from the exaltations he expressed of nothing being able to separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus, to this? From the dizzy heights of the expression of love to the depths of sorrow and unceasing grief? A grief expressed even more vividly when he says he would wish to be separated from the very thing he said he could never be separated from; he would be cut off from Christ for the sake of his own people. This is a man who loves the family he is part of; a man who would sacrifice his own salvation for the salvation of his kin.

But they had the road map – didn’t they?

Satellite navigation systems have a habit of guiding drivers up the most unsuitable roads. Newspapers often report stories of lorry drivers being directed up impossibly narrow tracks or people blindly following the instructions bringing them perilously close to the edge of a precipice. Satellite navigation seems to send us into a state of ‘suspended reasoning’ where all commonsense, all rational thought seems to disappear. We say to ourselves ‘follow the instructions, keep on track’ and in following we seem to lose our sense of focus, our overall sense of direction, the big picture. We miss the obvious and then things don’t quite go according to plan.

The Israelites might’ve had the road map, but at the fork in the road they took the road away from faith in Christ. In the detail of keeping the faith given to them in the promises and the covenants and the law, they had lost the big picture and Paul was sad. His brothers and sisters, his contemporaries, his people, rejected the gospel message; they didn’t have faith in the Son of God. They didn’t recognise Christ, the Messiah, even though his flesh was their flesh and his human nature came from them. Paul says the people of God are like an olive tree, but some of the natural branches, the Israelites, have been broken off because of unbelief. God’s self-giving love is expressed completely in Jesus and faith in him marks out the true people of God … therefore the Israelites blessings were incomplete.

Does this mean that God’s promises have fallen short? How can we trust God if he has broken his promises to his chosen people? If the ‘chosen people’ have chosen the wrong road, then it’s gone seriously wrong, hasn’t it? Has God changed his mind?

Or maybe, he’d just planned it that way. The Israelites knew all about the love and mercy of God. They’d taken the wrong fork in the road before, but God worked His plan, even through their disobedience. In the desert they’d worshipped idols and complained about the state of their diet and God had shown mercy and some did reach the Promised Land. The Old Testament is full of stories about how God saves and redeems His chosen people; He doesn’t let them down, even when they disobey, even when they go they’re own way. But the law was intended to be temporary – to guide the people of Israel until Christ came and when the promises made to Abraham, Moses and David came to fruition in Christ. In Christ, God revealed His once and for all, saving plan. Later in the letter to the believers in Rome, Paul’s anguish is played out and all is not lost. This was God’s plan all along. The rejection of the gospel message meant the gentiles got to hear the good news, God’s saving plan was open for all, and those Roman roads became the conduit to all nations. And Paul’s own conversion is testimony that Israelites also came to faith. This was part of the bigger picture; this was the part the Israelites didn't see.

In our lives we like to be in control, to know the plan. At the moment, lots of us are busy preparing for a holiday and that’s stressful at the best of times. We have to think ahead and sort out a destination, then make sure the travel arrangements are ok and the dog or cat’s booked into their holiday home, and then in the few weeks running up to the holiday, make sure all the washing’s done, and we have enough of that crucial medication to last a fortnight, and then finish the packing. And then, finally, we relax because it’s all sorted and under control – phew, breathe a sigh of relief. But … then… a volcano in Iceland erupts. And suddenly all the planning in the world, all the decisions, all the stress, counts for nothing. That feeling of ‘it’s not fair I’ve been looking forward to this all year’ or ‘it never goes right for me’ all those ‘I had it all under control and now I haven’t’ sort of emotions come to the surface. We try to put it right by complaining … loudly, trying different airlines, different airports or we look at the wind forecasts to predict when we can get away (have we ever looked at the wind forecasts before?). Oh yes, and then.. if we remember or when we are really desperate ... we might pray to God – God please sort this out! We hate to lose control because we lose our sense of direction and we cannot predict what the outcome might be. But we only have part of the story – the bit that is our microcosm of the bigger picture, the bit maybe where Cinderella’s still in the kitchen doing all the work – we can’t see the part where she goes to the ball or tries on the glass slipper.

But God knows the whole story – he sees all the parts of the picture. It’s His plan – it may not look ‘right’ to us but He loves us and through His mercy we can trust in Him, despite how it looks.
Maps are intricate things. Opening a neatly folded Ordinance Survey map reveals the landscape, bit-by-bit; each new segment reveals something about the rest. As each piece is unveiled we get a different perspective on what we’ve already seen and on what’s to come. Looking at a single segment, we can never know each meander, each tiny track or lane, the intricate detail and interconnectedness, or know where each fork in the road goes.

In the village of Lexington, the road divides into two at the village green but the triangular-shaped green is actually bordered by three roads. Coming down Massachusetts Avenue, to pass the green, the road builders ensured that whichever fork you take, you might end up at a different point but on the same road.

Sunday 17 July 2011, Romans 8:12-25, Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, Bruce

2011-07-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

What is going on?

A child gets upset with its parent and screams “I hate you! You don’t love me! My life is terrible!”

News Corp, deadly prison break in Mexico, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Israel and occupied territories, Tibet, second Japanese nuclear reactor closed down, eight European banks failed a stress test, last heir to the Hapsburg Empire has died, Colin & Chris Weir have won £161m, Italian MPs approve a tough budget, Kurdish rebels kill 13 Turkish soldiers, troops kill Kashmir ‘militants’, Afghan blast kills five civilians, Citigroup profits jump as bad loans turn good ....

Some people face seemingly impossible choices, as Abram did when commanded by God to take his son Isaac for sacrifice.

How are we to make sense of all that is going on the world? So much beauty, so much love and joy, but at the same time so much pain and bewilderment.

Does it mean that all that we see around us is meaningless and random? Should we abandon our trust in an all-loving, all-powerful Father? Or should we retreat into a siege mentality that takes great comfort in the beliefs and practices of our faith, but fails to see how they connect with the realities that we see around us each day?

Jesus and Paul in our readings today show us a different way.

Jesus paints the vivid picture of a farmer subject to industrial sabotage; he has planted wheat and an enemy has also scattered darnel seed, a weed, to clog up the crop. This is a merciful and encouraging parable; Jesus is telling us that there will be a good crop, but that we cannot tell what it is before the final harvest. Judgement will come, and it is a good thing that murder, rape, selfishness, theft, lying, and all the rest will not be left unpunished. Salvation will come for all who have responded to God’s kind offer of eternal life. We, however, do not know or cannot tell who will fall into these categories.

What we do know, however, is that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who are led by the Spirit of God. We are Spiderman, not Batman: in other words, we do not strap Christianity on like a set of useful gadgets, but we live the life that wells up within us. Paul addresses all of us who would like to come through the judgement: if we have the Spirit in our lives, then we are children of God and we will live forever, because we are united with Christ. Everything that is true of Christ is true of us. He will live forever, so will we. He calls God “Abba, Father”, so do we. He reigns in glory, so do we, at least in principle, in foretaste. Colin & Chris Weir have won £161m; it very probably is not in their bank accounts yet, but they have already started mentally spending the money – they are counting on it. In the same way we are basing our whole existence on being united with Jesus; his Spirit buoys us and comforts us and encourages us. We are one with him.

This means that we are one with his sufferings. The scripture tells us that Jesus suffered and died on the cross for us, once, at a particular moment in history, and our forgiveness and new nature comes to us from that bright flash of salvation history. In a real sense, however, his sufferings go on, in the face of every starving child, abused wife, unjust legal decision, tsunami and earthquake. The whole of creation, marvellous and wonderful, is out of sorts, is imperfect, falls desperately short of what God created it to be.

We do not fully understand why this has been allowed. However, the fact that we feel concern, sorrow, outrage, shame, desperation, is a confirmation that we are truly human. We are echoing the love and concern of our God, who sent his Son, and of Jesus who freely chose to come, and of his Spirit, who feels with us a longing, and an agony to see this world remade as it truly should be.

The word for this is hope, a certainty that God will cause things to turn out well, even though we do not know all the details. It is again to be fully human. It is why stories and films point (nearly) always to the happy ending – we cannot help ourselves, it is the way that God has made us and the way that we have been remade in Christ.

What can we do about this? In one sense, nothing, but to rely upon the work of God’s Spirit in our lives. In another sense, there are tried and tested ways that we can live and walk in the Spirit.

Members of the Community of Aidan and Hilda live by a ten point way of life.

Point 6: Care for Creation
We affirm God's creation as essentially good, but spoilt by the effects of human sin and satanic evil. We therefore respect nature and are committed to seeing it cared for and restored. We aim to be ecologically aware, to pray for God's creation and all his creatures, and to stand against all that would seek to violate or destroy them. We look upon creation as a sacrament, reflecting the glory of God, and seek to meet God through his creation, to bless it, and to celebrate it.

Point 4: Spiritual Initiatives Through Intercession
The Community affirms a world view that recognises the reality of the supernatural and of spiritual warfare. As Cuthbert and others 'stormed the gates of heaven', so we also need to engage in and to become familiar with intercessory prayer. We do not project on to the supernatural what belongs to the sphere of human responsibility. We affirm national initiatives in intercessory prayer.

We can make a difference. This may be in the relatively small ways, becoming a FairTrade Church and paying attention to recycling. It will be in the bigger ways, by committing ourselves to individual and corporate prayer, to see God’s kingdom come, his will be done, on earth, here, now, as it is in heaven. This is to live in hope.

Discussion Starters

1. What novel or film sums up for you a “happy ending”?

2. For you, is this world more a hopeful place or a place of concern?

3. What does it mean to you to be “led by the Spirit”?

4. What particular concern, personal or global, would you like others to join with you in prayer about? Do it now.

Sunday 10 July 2011, Romans 8:1-11, Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23, Talking about Finance, Bruce

2011-07-12T16:17:00.000-07:00

This week I am preaching a sermon in three parts, and I give you full permission not to listen to it, or at least to be selective. Ear plugs may be of some use.

The passage in Romans 7 last week expressed graphically the fact that we know the theory that we are forgiven and accepted in Christ, and yet we find ourselves seemingly helpless to stop ourselves doing sinful things. The good news, Paul tells us, is that we do not have to stop ourselves sinning – we rely upon the Holy Spirit to live with and in us. He sets us free. Do you know the difference between Batman and Spiderman? Batman wears a suit and straps on gadgets to help him be a superhero. Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider – it’s in his blood. We have Christ within us, living the Christian life, not merely bolted on.

Next week we move to the second part of Romans 8. If Christ is in us, we are led by the Spirit as children of the living God. We are family. We share in the running of the family. We saw when we looked at the early church in the book of Acts that a key aspect of being Christ’s is our koinonia, a Greek word that can be translated as fellowship, sharing, participation.

So this is the earplugs moment. I am going to talk about money. If you are a visitor, or still considering whether you would like to be a member of this part of Christ’s family, the church, please feel free to stare into space, update your Facebook status, tweet, or otherwise pass the time. I will alert you when I am finished.

I last did a talk like this at All Saints Tide, when we were facing a £20,000 deficit on the year. I commented on the generosity of folk, but how that the number of people in planned giving had decreased. As a result, several large donations came in and the eventual shortfall was much smaller. The evidence of the first six months is that people are being very generous, but costs are going up, and we again face a substantial deficit on the year. Please therefore take a moment; if you are not a member of Planned Giving, you could make a real difference by joining. Many of us facing straightened circumstances, but you might be in the blessed position that you have the ability to give more than you are giving at the moment.

Earplugs can come out now.

A farmer went out to sow his seed. This raises questions for me.

Did he set out to carelessly waste 75% of his seed? Or did he realise that 30% of 25 is 750, 60% is 1,500, and 100% is 2,500?

More importantly, how can we prove to be good soil? How can we be the ones who hear the word and understand?

Answer: we cannot. But we can open ourselves to the Holy Spirit. We can allow him to motivate and guide us.

When events seem to conspire to prevent us taking notice of God and his word, like birds pecking away the good seed off the path, the Holy Spirit comes to help us stop, listen, and receive the word.

When things seem to get worse precisely because we are following Christ, when we face trouble and persecution, the Spirit helps us to trust God more rather than to walk away.

When we get caught up in the worries of life and the deceitfulness of wealth, when we are either struggling for more money, or so comfortably well off that our latest hobby, sport or pastime is filling all of our time and attention and taking all of our energy, the Holy Spirit helps us to maintain a proper perspective and to seek after the simple life.

Jesus says: Those with ears, let them hear.

Discussion Starters

1. “Christ is in you”. What does this mean to you?

2. What do you think it means “to be in the realm of the flesh”? (Romans 8:8)

3. What does it mean to you to be “good soil”?

4. Pray for each other, to be effective partners and sharers in the Spirit.

Sunday 3 July 2011 Thought for the Day - The Besom Broom, Anne

2011-07-02T16:09:00.000-07:00

“Besom” - a broom, especially one made of a bundle of twigs tied to a handle.

My birch twigs see all the dark corners of people’s lives;

where the detritus of life gathers,

where the dirt sullies the sparkle and sticks – like glue.

But I don’t just see … I make changes,

I sweep into those places where people struggle to be someone,

to be something or even just to be.

I sweep where the history of grime affects the present;

where people struggle to keep on top of everyday living,

where people feel the world is against them,

where people can't afford to start afresh.

Why bother, you might ask?

You’ll only have to brush again next week?

Or maybe you’ll have to go and brush somewhere else?

But, even that temporary respite gives comfort.

Knowing that someone wants to sweep away your suffering,

and knowing that someone cares, makes a difference.

My birch twigs though are useless individually,

but collectively, working together, they hook onto the dust,

marshalling it away from the edges, into neat little piles.

Backwards and forwards, side to side,

sweeping away the past – tidying –

giving the opportunity for someone to launch into a different life,

to make a fresh, clean start.

Sometimes, I hear people saying things like:

“that broom is wonderful – a miracle tool – what a difference!”

or “Look how clean that floor is”

“Is it the twigs, how they are arranged round the handle?”

or “Is it because it’s eco-friendly and made with all natural materials?”

No … of course not. You see, I am just a broom,

useless by myself…useless without the one who wields me,

the one who transforms my inert, spikey, brittle twigs

and round, wooden handle into something useful.

The one who knows where I need to go,

the one who guides me,

the one who turns me in the direction I need to follow,

who gently encourages me to get alongside,

the one who creates the real sparkle,

the real light to lighten up those dark places,

the one who cleanses and refreshes.

And who is it?

He’s the name above all names: -

the one who heals outcasts,

the one who touches lepers,

the one who speaks to the unspeakable

He’s the one who we serve to serve others.

He’s the one who says:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will

find rest for your souls.”

Sunday 26 June 2011 Romans 6:12-23, Matthew 10:40-42, Bruce

2011-06-29T07:30:00.001-07:00

An escaping prisoner emerges from his tunnel, shouting I’m free! I’m free! That’s nothing, a passing little boy says, I’m four!

Jesus said that we he had come that we might be free, that we might have life and have it to the full. The honest truth is that many regard religion as something that constrains and restricts us. They fear that they will get a good telling off if they come too near. When we first hear the good news about Jesus, as Paul for instance outlines it in the first five books of his letter to the Romans, we can be filled with joy and exultation, just as we read in chapter five. The reality is that as we progress in the faith, we seem trapped in the wet long grass of our fears and inadequacies. We know we should be holy and loving like Jesus, but we are painfully conscious of the fact that we are not, and furthermore we fear that others are also conscious of this fact about us as well. In the film, Private Ryan is saved, but he seems to spend the rest of his life enslaved to guilt and regret, as he strives to be worthy of the sacrifices made on his behalf. This is not the Christian view of how we live our lives.

Don’t you realise, Paul says, that when you enter the Christian faith, you are entering into a real relationship with God? Jesus is sending his Spirit to live within you. Your baptism symbolises your burial in the tomb with Christ, and your rising to new life with him. He is reminding us that this is not just theory; it is a living experience as we see ourselves as the essence, the reality of God in everyday life.

So what is going on? Here is the paradox. You find true freedom in service. A lovely motorcar is fulfilling it’s purpose when speeding along the motorway. A bird finds freedom in soaring into the heights. We find freedom in fulfilling our purpose and vocation, which is to serve God.

We were created to live out the words “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth”, in us. From the beginning, though, we have echoed the disastrous choice made by the first humans, that we want our kingdom to come, our will to be done. Even when we are doing things for others, it is because in some way it pleases us and meets our needs. Thus Paul reminds the Christians in Corinth that if they speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and do all manner of good things, but have not love, it is worse than useless.

Thus we find ourselves to be slaves to sin. This simply means that we constantly fall short of the high ideal that we find in Christ and that we set ourselves; that we find that every act and motive is in some way polluted; that every time we see a line drawn that we should not cross, we cannot help ourselves from wanting to cross it, if only to prove our own independence and autonomy.

But not now! We are dead to sin. If you lose your memory, you cannot remember things. If your hand is cut off, you cannot use it to pick things up. If the part of us that delights in independence and selfish actions has died, we no longer have to do wrong things.

The problem is that the part of us that delights in sin has not realised yet that it is dead, and we ourselves need constantly to be reminded. I am told that amputees often imagine feelings in the limb that they no longer possess; it gives them pain, or it itches. It takes a while for the reality of their sad loss to sink in.

In exactly the same way, we carry on like headless chickens, acting as if we are sinners even when we are not. We say things like “I cannot help being grumpy, it’s just my way”, or “nobody’s perfect”, as if this absolves us from the need to strive to live sin free lives.

Sin is optional. We have a choice. As we realise that we are alive in Christ and his presence is in us, so we find ourselves naturally walking in step with his Spirit, aware of his promptings, conscious of what will please him. In other words, we find our true freedom in deliberately learning to be slaves of Jesus. Our slavery to our old master, sin, stopped when we died (it is almost a comical picture of the furious master whipping a dead slave). We have begun our new lives of service to our new master, and we are free.

How does this work exactly? Paul says that we have come to obey from our heart the pattern of teaching to which we have been committed.

Obedience is key. We long to obey in every detail.

Heart is paramount. As we learn who Jesus is, we fall in love with him and seek to please him.

Teaching is essential. How can we obey God if we do not know about him? We can find it hard to love him if we have not been helped to understand more about him.

But we need all three. Obedience on its own is impossible. If we feel that we are failures, obedience leads us down that spiral of defeat and guilt that robs us of joy and assurance – we become de-motivated sad folk. If we feel that we are good at being obedient, we become puffed up and arrogant, and generally difficult to know – people do not see Jesus in us.

We need all three. I meet countless people who have warm, spiritual feelings about God; these do not seem to have any practical effect on how they live their lives, however, or motivate them to work to change the world for the better.

We need all three. I meet folk who love God and want to serve him, but are woefully ignorant of who God is or what he is like, or how he wants us to live. They therefore find themselves believing the wackiest things, following the strangest notions, and then saying “Well of course, I knew all along that religion is harmful or untrue”.

Two out of three will not do. If you know your bible and love God but are disobedient, you will be disappointed and guilty. If you know your bible and are obedient but do not love, you will be hard-hearted and like a Pharisee. If you love God and seek to be obedient but do not study the scriptures, you will be prey to cults and easily led astray.

Paul says that we receive the teaching, we read the word, we study the scriptures, we learn the truth that makes us free. As we encounter Jesus, the living Word, in his word, so we find ourselves drawn to love him and to want to please him, and we find ourselves unconsciously echoing the words of Jesus: “I delight to do the Father’s will”, “I do what I see my Father doing”, “I speak the words my Father gives me to speak”.

Let us count on God’s fatherly goodness, the forgiveness he gifts us in Christ, and the presence of his love-shedding Spirit in our lives. Let us rely on it the way that we rely on the unseen money that drops into our bank accounts; we issue cheques or flash plastic and things happen. In exactly the same way we adopt our roles as members of God’s household, and liberated slaves of Christ, walking with him through life.

Discussion starters

1. How does it feel to be a slave? What difference does it make to you to be alive in Christ?

2. Given that all three, obedience, heart and teaching are essential, which do you struggle with most?

3. Pray for each other in the group, for a fresh encounter with God, to grow in him, to fully realise all that he has done and is doing in you.

Sermon for Sunday 19th June 2011 – TRINITY SUNDAY – Matthew 28: 16-20, 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13, Kim

2011-06-25T11:39:00.001-07:00

Today’s Gospel passage makes me smile. The disciples met Jesus up on a Galilean mountain and it was a joyful reunion. Then Jesus gave them marching orders to go out into the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit—some of the most familiar verses in the entire New Testament—what we’ve come to call The Great Commission.

And Matthew includes these three little words that make it all make sense, to me anyway:

“But some doubted.” Devout Jews that they were they knew, from the time they could talk, the Shema: “Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God is one God!” They knew this truth about God inside and out.

But here they were, gazing at this one they’d experienced as human, like them, but had come to believe, in some undeniable way, was divine. And there he was, talking about sending them something called “the Spirit.” Even for those who may not have been as mathematically gifted, it was easy to figure out that comes to three, not one. And so, understandably . . . some doubted.

Today is Trinity Sunday, the one Sunday of the entire church year when we do not start our Sunday morning consideration with the teachings of Jesus or the words of the scripture text, but with a very difficult teaching of the church: the Doctrine of the Trinity. You know, God is three in one, but really one even though God is also three? And hopes for ease of understanding are not buoyed when one cracks open the commentaries and reads opening sentences like: “There are some themes for preaching that are both daunting for the preacher and puzzling for the congregation.” Or, even when the preacher turns to the timeless writings of Church fathers, like Augustine, who wrote in his great and cumbersome work, The City of God, these helpful statements: “The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. The Son is not the Father. The Father is not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the Son.” And, finally: “There is Only One God.”

And some doubted. And you can see why. See, we believe in a three-in-one God, but the word “trinity” does not occur anywhere in holy scripture, and while there are texts that hint at some kind of Trinitarian doctrine, there’s nothing in all of scripture that defines this essence of God.

So it turns out, that on Trinity Sunday it’s not our job to explain the essence of God, a mystery if ever there was one. Instead, it’s our job to learn the essence of the one in whose image we are created, and then live with brave abandon into the essence of who we’re meant to be.

And who we’re meant to be, according to the little picture of God we can see, the little picture we’ve decided to call “the Trinity,” is a people whose basic character is defined by relationship.

The essence of God and who we’re meant to be! When we the Gospel for today and apply it to ourselves, I ask which of us haven’t at some time wished we could have a time over again; that we could undo some thoughtless and angry word, some rash commitment or unwise judgement, or some careless mistake? Do those lines sound familiar? Certainly not the essence of God. The good news of the resurrection is different. Why? Because it continues to change lives in the present, each day offering hope and new beginnings to believers across the world. Easter Day may be over, but we cannot consign the message it proclaims to the past. It is still good news, today and every day! It’s still the essence of God.

Did you know that the power used to keep televisions and electrical appliances in the UK on standby for just one day would be sufficient to provide electricity for a small town? It’s a sobering thought isn’t it, all that power going to waste, achieving nothing.

Perhaps equally sobering is the thought that we as individual Christians and, together, as a Church, might be guilty of wasting a different sort of power – the power of God. ‘You will receive power,’ said Jesus, ‘when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.’ The essence of God. What he envisaged there was the power of the Spirit so flowing through us that we shall make a difference to the world we live in, changing lives through our work and witness. Some, of course, do just that, but, all too often, our efforts are devoted simply to keeping our own affairs ticking over. We look to our own journey of discipleship, our own relationship with Christ, and no further. As churches, we look inwards rather than outwards, concerned with serving our numerous committees, maintaining the fabric and supporting church events. Instead of surging out, God’s power becomes trapped in an internal loop. It is as though we are put on standby, rarely if ever used for the purpose we were designed for. If the power stored in all those appliances on standby could meet the needs of a small town, so the power at our disposal could meet the needs of the world, if only we had the will and courage to release it. Being the essence of who we’re meant to be.

And with all these essences of God, we understand the truth that Augustine articulated: There is only one God. Creator, redeemer, sustainer, a God who relates to our world in many different ways and at the same time is, in essence, the very embodiment of loving relationship.

Characteristics that seem in conflict instead exist in creative community, divine presence, three in one, offering us the challenge of taking all the beautiful parts of who we are as diverse and multi-faceted expressions of God’s creation, somehow recognising the very essence of God imprinted on each one of us and living with courage into the kind of community God models for us. That is, living out the image of God, in which each one of us, different as we are, was lovingly made. Our job is to learn the essence of the one in whose image we are created, and then live with brave abandon into the essence of who we’re meant to be.

Prayer; Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as we learn more and more of your essence, help us to abandon ourselves in you so that we can become the people you want us to be. Amen.

Questions:

1. How do you feel about the fact that God has commissioned you to be the essence of God? (Essence being made in His image, being transformed into His likeness, knowing that He working on us as you read this. To carry out to others His word, to be His hands, feet, heart etc.)

2. Do you know what God has commissioned you to do for Him? Has He given you a particular gift or talent or vision? Are you using it?

3. Pray for each other that as you grow in Him that you will be released to be the person He wants you to be.

PENTECOST. 12 JUNE 2011. PENTECOST. Acts 2: 1 – 21 John 7: 37 – 39, ROBERT

2011-06-25T11:36:00.000-07:00

Today we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, first at Pentecost, but ever since in the life of every Christian. But the problem is that we can find it difficult to understand the Holy Spirit and his work in our lives, and even more difficult to visualise this mysterious presence and power. So today I offer three pictures which I hope may help.

1. First Picture. If you drive out of Guildford on the A3 at night, you will see Guildford Cathedral standing proud and magnificent on the top of Stag Hill - looking indeed even better than it does in daylight - because it is floodlit. When I was a member of the cathedral chapter, I can remember the floodlights being installed and the enormous difference it made. There was a ceremony to mark the switching on - which was in a way like a sort of Pentecost, because suddenly out of the darkness the building appeared, illuminated in the most beautiful way by this brilliant light. What was previously barely visible now shone clearly and in glory.

Now you are not supposed to look at the floodlights! If you do, all that happens is that you are blinded and can see nothing at all. Christians sometimes want to see the Holy Spirit - to get a grip on this member of the Holy Trinity who seems so hard to imagine, or picture in the mind. But on the whole the Holy Spirit doesn’t want you to look at Him. Like the floodlights he directs your attention away from himself, and on to Jesus, whom he illuminates in a bright and beautiful, if challenging, light. Jesus tells us in John 16:14 that ‘When the Spirit comes, he will glorify me.’ So when Jesus becomes real for us, that is the work of the Holy Spirit shining his light so that we can see him clearly. And when that happens, as Jesus continues in that passage, the Spirit convicts us of sin, and righteousness and judgment. The Spirit urges us to look at Jesus, and believe in him, and give our lives to him. Jesus emerges out of the shadows of history and imagination. Jesus lifts off the pages of the New Testament, and becomes real and alive and present, and his presence leads us to the point of decision – either of faith and commitment, or of rejection. So imagine the Holy Spirit as a floodlight that reveals Jesus to us and leads us to faith. The Holy Spirit is God’s gracious gift to every Christian, so we need to pray always for his light and his guidance.

2. Second picture. Spiritual birth. In John 3:3 Jesus said: “Unless a man is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “You must be born anew by the Spirit” Jesus tells Nicodemus, “The wind blows wherever it will. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.” You can’t see the wind. You can only observe and feel its effect. When I was in the garden this past week, I could see the trees around me swaying to and fro. I could hear the rustling of the leaves and branches. I could feel the wind blowing on my cheek. I couldn’t see the wind. But I could see and feel its effect and its work only too plainly.

You can’t see the Holy Spirit. But you can see and feel him at work. Jesus compares him to the wind that stirs up spiritual life within you. You feel dissatisfaction with things as they are. You hear whispers of spiritual gold. Sometimes inspite of yourself, you know there is something you must do. There is a prayer to be said, that must be said now. There is a decision to be made that must be done now. There is something in your life which you have known in your heart must change for some time, but now you know for certain that you have to do it, and do it before the wind has blown on and past and left you. There is an act of faith and commitment to be made, and now is the time - there is an imperative about it - because the wind of the Spirit is blowing now - now and not yesterday or tomorrow.

And if you go with the Spirit and do not resist, you find yourself emerging into another world - you are born into the world of the Holy Spirit - where Jesus is Lord, and stands illuminated. And you blink and realize that everything that was hazy and unclear before, you suddenly see clearly, and now you know what you must do in response.

Your life has been touched by the Spirit. That is certain because otherwise you wouldn’t be here now. Whether willingly or not, and whatever our motivation, we are here this morning by the Spirit’s appointment. He has something to say to us. There is something He wants us to do. Listen and he will tell you. The wind blows - the light shines and illuminates Jesus. And we ought not to go home until we have heard his voice and obeyed. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Behold today is the day of salvation, as St Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 6:2.

3. Third picture. It is the day of Pentecost, and the disciples are together in a room praying. And the wind blows, and the fire descends, and the Spirit is poured out, and they are thrust out of the room and on to the streets, proclaiming the great things God has done in Jesus in languages they didn’t know they could speak.

What happened that day was marvellous and miraculous, and would it might happen this morning as well. But the significance of the day of Pentecost did not lie so much in the miracles - the Spirit had come on individuals to do miraculous things for centuries - but on whom the Spirit came.

The prophecy of Joel was being fulfilled at last, as Peter makes clear in his sermon, which he quotes in our Epistle from Acts 2. The Spirit was being poured out, not just on one or two privileged prophets for a specific time - but on everyone who heard the message. Old men and women; young men and maidens, said Joel, irrespective of position or privilege or class, age or status. And even more importantly, irrespective of race. The story of the Acts of the Apostles is the story of the Spirit being poured out on Jews and then Samaritans and then Gentiles, until Paul can write (Gal 3:28) that we have all been made to drink of the same Spirit, and have become heirs to God’s promises - Jews and Gentiles and Barbarians, male and female, slave and free. No-one is now excluded from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That was what was different about the day of Pentecost. A whole new era in God’s work began that day, and continues today. We live in the age of the outpouring of the Spirit.

We are God’s people, gathered here this morning to celebrate that day when the Holy Spirit fell on everyone who believed in Jesus as God’s chosen Saviour and Lord, crucified, risen and glorified. They saw at last the truth about Jesus, as he was illuminated in their minds by the Spirit. The Spirit brought them to the point of faith and personal commitment. He blew into their lives, challenging, convicting, urging, warning, encouraging, guiding, bringing to personal faith. And as we celebrate Pentecost by opening our lives prayerfully to the wind of the Spirit this morning, so we come to new birth - new life - because the wind that the Spirit breathes is the very life of God himself, and so we are filled with the divine life through the Spirit’s breath - eternal life - real life at last. The wind of which Jesus speaks is the breath of life.

So we pray today that the Holy Spirit will breathe, and infill our lives in every part with the life of God. We want to pray this morning that the Spirit will bring us to new birth, new life, a new future full of hope. Come, Holy Spirit, - refresh and renew our lives today, and make us your witnesses that Christ may be proclaimed and glorified here in Camberley as we all - from every church - are filled with the Spirit, and proclaim the great things God has done for us. May we see the fruit of Pentecost in our own personal lives, in our churches, in our town, and in our world, until Jesus is acknowledged as Lord in all the world, and the Spirit’s work is complete at last.

I want to suggest a very simple discipline. Will each of us pray every single day: “Lord, today I open my life to the Holy Spirit. Fill me today with your Spirit.” Just that. If we will – every one of us and without fail – pray that prayer every day – then let’s see what will happen! Let’s see what great things God will do in our lives, in our church, and here in Camberley.

Discussion

1.Do you find these pictures helpful? Which one helps you most, and can you explain why?

2.Have you ever felt the Holy Spirit touch your life in a very special way? Did it have a lasting result? Can you share the experience and its consequences with the group?

3.Can you suggest ways in which the Holy Spirit might infuse a greater spiritual life into our Church and guide us into the future? Discuss.

Sunday 29 May 2011, 6th of Easter, Acts 17:22-31, John 14:15-21, Bruce

2011-05-28T14:46:00.002-07:00

Welcome to Athens, the Areopagus – the Hill of Mars, from where you can see the Acropolis and all the temples laid out before you. Paul points over the head of the crowd of listeners and announces that it is all a waste of time. It is as if he had walked into the pulpit of Westminster Abbey and proclaimed that all religion is bunk, or into the Houses of Parliament and said that democracy stinks. It is a challenge and a confrontation.

But they had invited him. Paul has been hurried away from Thessalonica and Berea because his preaching was leading to riots and putting him in danger, so he is parked safely in Athens, waiting for Silas and Timothy. Without his minders, he is soon up to his old tricks, having loud conversations in the synagogues and market places, telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

Athens was well known as a place of philosophical and theological dispute. There were jokes about it, and even Luke writing in Acts seems to expect us to give a wry grin as he refers to it. They were always at it. Some of it was high-minded and serious, and some of it was conducted on the level of Newsnight, the Moral Maze and a Five Live phone in. There were various strands of thought. Epicureans resembled what we later call Deists: yes, there probably are gods, but they are remote and unconcerned with our everyday lives. Stoics, like some other pantheists, thought of God as the inner divine essence within our world. Both can lead to atheism - (God or the gods are so distant that they may as well not exist, or they turn out to be metaphorical projections of our feelings of wonder), or to relativism – (the gods are so far away that all religions are just vague approximations, or they are so present that all religions are different expressions of ‘the divine’). In other words, you can effectively live your lives day by day as if the gods do not exist

One thing all the Greeks agreed on is that the mind and the soul are essential and real; the body and the material world are ephemeral and to be discarded. A by-product of that thought was that it therefore did not matter what you got up to in your body, because ultimately it did not matter. Into the midst of this comes this stranger with his strange message. To talk of the resurrection of the body was novel and to some extent ‘icky’. So Paul finds himself, as it were, with the microphone in his face and his 30 seconds of fame to explain what he is about.

This is possibly the only sermon recorded in Acts addressed to an audience not familiar with the Jewish faith and inheritance. It is Jesus for the Gentiles. Where to start?

Paul begins with their culture. They are seeking after God. Their lives are shaped by the presence and fear of demons, different sorts of gods, who can rule their lives. Everything they do is regulated by religious practices, and there are gods and goddesses for everything. Just in case they have missed one, they have their altar “To the Unknown God” – pointing out their unfilled search to know God. How lucky for you, Paul seems to say, that I am here to fill in this gap and show you the truth.

First, these temples, where you offer up your sacrifices and serve the ‘gods’. Unnecessary. God does not live in houses, and he does not need our service. Rather, he is the one who gives us life and serves us. In another context Paul might have said “In the beginning God created ...” and “consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air”.

Second, you Greeks think yourselves so superior. But God has made us all as one race, with shared concerns and values, and above all that we should seek him and find him. The one thing we all have in common is a sense of incompleteness, a desire to be in some way whole.

Third, this is not an impossible search. God is near to each of us. Paul quotes Aratus, one of their own poets who had written in Athens 300 years before, that “in him we live and move and have our being, we are his offspring”. He might as well have taught them to say “Our Father ...”

I wonder how this was being received. Luke gives us no clue whether people were nodding in agreement, smiling in pleasure, or shaking their heads, perhaps in puzzlement or anger.

Paul ploughs on. This is not just conjecture or theorising. We are not debating this as if it were an economic fallacy or whether such and such a football club is really the greatest. This matters.

The economic decisions you have made to invest gold and silver and labour in these ways need to be rethought, precisely as a result of what you believe about God. Your freedom to make decisions and live your life according to you own lights is only an apparent freedom, because God is going to judge the world. You need to live different lives.

This is good news. There is so much that is wrong in our world. So many war-lords seem to escape for so long, there is so much violence and injustice, the innocent always seem to suffer. The good news is that we do not live in a world governed by the whims of distant unconcerned godlings. Nor do we inhabit a universe of blind chance and coincidence. God is going to put things right, and he will do it when he comes to judge the world by the man he as specially chosen for the task, and he has proved it by raising this man from the dead.

Got him! Paul has said out loud the scandalous, preposterous thing that they have brought him here for. Like a talk show host or interviewer, they have secured the sound bite, and now predictably they can mock him and take his argument to pieces.

Except that there are those, even from within the inner circle, who cannot help themselves responding to the truth. They find their hearts “strangely warmed” within them. They must find out more.

They are on their way to discovering what Jesus promised to all who seek him and find him. Jesus is alive and encounters us today. He promised that he would ask the Father to send the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, his very Presence, so that we might discover that “in him we live and move and have our being”. Jesus said that we would realise that we are in him, and he in us. God is no longer a theory but our own heart’s experience, what one writer described as “the life of God in the souls of men”.

In the next fortnight, as we go through the Ascension and prepare for Pentecost, let us spend time seeking God, asking for his Spirit, rejoicing that Jesus has promised to be with us.

You could start by memorising and repeating these words: “You are in me, and I am in you.”

Discussion Starters

1. What similarities do you see between Paul’s world and our own, and what differences?

2. When faced with those who deny the existence of God, or say that all religions are the same, what reply would you give?

3. “You are in me, and I am in you.” What difference does this make, or could this make, in your life?

Sermon for Sunday 22nd May 2011 – Acts 7: 55-end and John 14: 1-14, Kim

2011-05-28T14:46:00.001-07:00

About 400 years, ago, the world of medicine was plunged into controversy by an English physician, William Harvey, who contradicted the establishment by suggesting that blood is pumped from the heart to the lungs, back through the heart and then out via the arteries before returning to the heart through the veins. His theory was spot on, but at the time it aroused many protests from medical, scientific and religious ‘authorities’. At around the same time, Galileo was having his problems because of his hypothesis that the earth orbits the sun rather than vice versa. So shocking was this considered that he was forced to recant and he was put put under house arrest for the remainder of his life. Each of these two men, however, continued with their work, refusing to sacrifice their beliefs despite intolerable pressures to do so.

There are parallels here with the story of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. On trial for his faith, it must have been tempting to tone down his message, even opting for secret discipleship. For he knew well enough the consequences should he refuse to back down. Yet instead he spoke out boldly, conscious that many would take their lead from him. Had he and others like him given in and denied their faith, who can say where the Church would be today – the gospel message could have died an early death back in Jerusalem. Although there have been occasions in recent years where Christians have been killed for their faith, it is unlikely that any of us will ever be called upon to die for our faith but how ready are we to live up to it in a skeptical and sometimes hostile world?

Have you ever been banned from something? Maybe a youth or football club, a pub, shop, Church? I was banned once. It was during the Apartheid era in South Africa. Not only was I banned, I was blacklisted along with others from entering other countries that had disassociated their country from South Africa. I was almost arrested whilst visiting my Uncle and Aunt who lived in Durban because I had walked on a beach that was deserted (it was early in the morning) – and as the signs were in Afrikaans – I did not know I was walking on a beach designated for black men and women and had argued with the Policeman telling me off for doing so by saying that I believe all human beings were equal regardless of their skin colour. I wasn’t arrested and the ban did not prevent me from carrying on my work – as F1 Motor Racing did not get into political matters of other countries, although it did and does have its own politics. It did not stop the F1 Family from entering and building a school in the Red Brick Township outside Kylami despite much opposition from the authorities. But had trouble stirred – who knows what may have happened. Had there been a race in India and we had gone there, we would have been refused entry into that country and not allowed to race. Not quite the same situations as Stephen or William Harvey or Galileo encountered but a small point in that our belief/trust in someone or something can lead us into trouble.

Should we have gone to South Africa in the first place knowing the views of that country’s government and knowing that we could get into trouble there, even arrested? If we had not gone would we have been turning our backs on the very people we, the F1 family, had sought to help through employment and building and giving? We certainly would not have had the experience of seeing happy smiling children spontaneously burst into dance to no music after the opening ceremony. When one of our colleagues, asked ‘where was the music?’ a townswoman turned and said, ‘When God does a miracle the music comes from here – pointed to her forehead’. The experience of being in South Africa brought home to me how easily people close their ears, eyes, their minds, and their hearts to what they would rather not hear, see, think or feel. Don’t think I’m condemning, because I’m not, I am as guilty as any. We all have opinions from which it is hard to shift us, however open we may think ourselves to be. Like those who listened to Stephen as he testified to his faith, we shut out anything that challenges our preconceived ideas, preferring to silence it rather than face its challenge. It may be, of course, that our point of view it right all along; it may equally be that it is wrong or in need of modification. Unless we are willing to listen, we will never know.

In our Gospel reading Jesus has just had the Passover meal with his disciples. He has washed their feet in an act of servanthood. He has foretold his betrayal which Judas will soon perform. He has predicted Peter's denial. He has told them he is leaving. But he adds this word of hope: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many rooms. I go to prepare a place for you and will come again and take you to myself. So that where I am, you may be also.

Jesus was telling his disciples and indeed us today that if we believe in God and also in Him, if we TRUST in Him, then all will be well, we won’t be alone, for God will send us His companion the Holy Spirit and more importantly, His Spirit will live within us. To help us to spread the Good News, to be the people He has called us to be, to do things and be in situation we would not necessarily put ourselves in, to stand firm, like Stephen, William Harvey and Galileo in the face adversity and even danger. Even more wonderfully, one day we too, like Stephen will be able to see the Glory of God and Jesus standing at His right side.

Stephen, William Harvey, Galileo and the Formula 1 Family stood firm on their belief that what they had said and done was right and true. William and Galileo suffered hardship, Stephen was stoned to death, we may suffer some hardship of some kind for being followers of Christ or we may find ourselves outside our comfort zone, but the hardship will be nothing compared to the suffering Jesus went through on the Cross. One thing is for certain, hardship has a way of getting our attention. Pain slows us down. Very few of us, after facing a trial, come out the same way we entered in. Jesus understood this and attempted to prepare his disciples for the road ahead. If you are suffering some kind of trial or hardship are the moment, remember that just as Jesus prepared the disciples for the time ahead, He will prepare us and be with us throughout, because He loves us and wants us to be with Him in heaven.

‘His Spirit will live within you, and you will do great things in my name, and you may be challenged by others’, said Jesus. ‘Then we’ll all be one, Father, Spirit, Son – together for eternity.’

Questions:

Have you ever been ridiculed or criticized for your faith/belief in God or something/someone? How did it make you feel? How do you feel about it now?
In the reading of John 14: 1-14, why do you think Jesus’ disciples were confused about where he was going?
In what ways do we see the Father in Jesus?
How does Jesus use thus very brief conversation to prepare his disciples for his departure? Specifically, what kind of hope is he giving them?

Sunday 15 May, Easter 3, Acts 2:42-47, John 10:1-10, Bruce

2011-05-14T15:35:00.001-07:00

If a policeman finds me letting myself into church by the front door, he will probably realise that I am the vicar. If he finds me climbing in through a side window, he will look at me with suspicion. Jesus carries on his fierce debate with the Pharisees from the previous chapter: they claimed to be able to see while refusing to accept Jesus as coming from God. He had come to his own, but they had not received him. Therefore, Jesus says, they are blind to spiritual realities. He continues that they are false shepherds, only out to plunder the very sheep they should be protecting. The test is whether the sheep know the voice of the shepherd. Jesus is the one whom we hear and follow. He is the one who brings us abundant life.

But how is that life to be lived. How are we to encounter the Shepherd?

In this Easter season we remind ourselves that Jesus is risen; he is alive and with us. We can know him. We can learn lessons from the Christians in the earliest days of the church. On the day of Pentecost 3,000 people received the word and were baptised, and were added to the Christian community. How did the apostles handle this situation? How did they act as shepherds to this burgeoning new flock?

The starting point is the people. We are told that they “devoted themselves”, they continued steadfastly in four activities that helped them to live with the risen Christ. These were the Apostles’ teaching, the fellowship, breaking of bread and the prayers. As we saw last week, our hearts burn within us when we encounter Jesus through his word, and we this is reinforced when we break bread in obedience to his command.

Now we take it a step further as we observe how the earliest church operated. They met in the temple and also in their own homes. They met every day. They were open to experience the presence of God in their daily lives, and this filled them with fear or awe – they were not just going through the motions.

They met to hear the Apostles’ teaching. Of course they did, for they had been born again by receiving the word and responding in faith; the obvious way to grow was to continue to be taught the word. How did they do this? There may have been occasions where several hundred or even thousand folk gathered together, but it is much likely that they gathered in smaller groups. Households were larger in their culture than is typical today, with several generations sharing a compound. It is quite likely that the Apostles went around visiting households, but it is also likely that heads of households were gathered together for instruction, and they then went home to share the good news with the members of their extended family. We live this out to some extent when we gather in small groups during the week. We share the word on the Lord’s day and gather in smaller groups to reflect on it together. When we discuss the word we are often amazed at how much we already know; we have been receiving the Apostles’ teaching through private reading of scripture and through hearing it expounded publically. Please pray for those who have a teaching ministry within the church; it is their duty and privilege and charge to so explain and teach the word, that we are each enabled to take part in sharing the Apostles’ teaching when we gather in small groups.

They devoted themselves to the koinonia, the fellowship/ sharing/ communion. They made a real effort to get under each others’ skin, to walk in each others’ moccasin (so to speak). In other words, to live a life in relationship with God requires us to seek to live in community with our brothers and sisters in the fellowship. It is lovely gathering on a Sunday, but hopefully the numbers are such that we have the experience of visiting a small town or village - we sort of know folk, sometimes by name, more by sight, but we do not really ‘know’ them, nor they us. And this is the point. Jesus came that we might have life to the full, and this means to be immersed, baptised, into the Triune God. We are also immersed, baptised, into the lives of all the others whom he has called into the family. This is not always easy or automatic. It was not so in New Testament times; we have the writings of the Apostles to attest to that, and it is not easy now. We live pressured, over-busy lives, and the Lord seems to delight in calling people to follow him who are far from perfect, and whom we often find it difficult to like. When the pressure is on, the temptation is to loyally keep coming on Sundays, but to regard the small group as a bolt-on extra that we can let go. Some groups cannot get together physically each week but stay in touch by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. The writer to the Hebrews warned us not to neglect meeting each other. Or I could tell the joke about the tray. We need to devote ourselves to the fellowship.

They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. They consciously obeyed the command of Jesus to remember him in broken bread and shared wine. In our day we speak of this as holy Communion, or Fellowship, thus emphasising that the shared bread is on one level a parable of our broken, shared lives, and the koinonia that we have just been speaking of. We do this sometimes with the formality of an army mess dinner, and sometimes like a picnic in the park with the children running around. But we do it as they did.

They devoted themselves to the prayers. I am sure they prayed as individuals at home, but they also gathered together for prayer, every day. Jesus said that wherever two or three gathered in his name he would be present.

As they met in their small groups and experienced the presence of the Shepherd among them, and as they shepherded each other, so the presence of Christ leaked out, as it were. He brought about situations where people kept asking what was going on, and the Apostles and others found themselves merely explaining what God was up to, and the church continued to grow.

Discussion Starters

1. The believers felt four things were essential – teaching, fellowship, braking of bread and prayers. Which of these do you find most helpful, and which least?

2. What is the best thing recently that you have read in a book or heard in a talk that you can share, and therefore fining yourself passing on the Apostles’ teaching to others? (NB Not every book or sermon does this! How can we tell?)

3. Jesus came that we might have life and have it to the full. What three things can we do at St Michael’s to help others to encounter God and experience life to the full through him.

SERMON 8 MAY 2011. Acts 2: 14a and 36 – 41 Luke 24: 13 – 35 THE ROAD TO EMMAUS. ROBERT.

2011-05-06T03:18:00.000-07:00

“They asked each other, ‘were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road, and opened the scriptures to us?’ (Luke 24: 32).

Surely the story of the appearance of Jesus to the disciples on the road to Emmaus is one of the most evocative and moving stories in the Bible. Certainly it is to me. It strikes me as so real that as I listen I feel as if I am there. And what makes it practically jump off the page for me is that it is so much more than just the telling of something that happened all those years ago. It speaks to me afresh every time I hear it or read it and actually touches my life today.

I feel as if the risen Christ has been released from the tomb so that he can walk alongside me as I walk the dusty road of life. The risen Christ walks beside every Christian every day, although mostly we don’t recognise him or realise he is there. But there come those precious moments of recognition which change our lives.

What are our ordinary Christian lives actually like in practice? Perhaps yours are different, but for most people I think we tread life’s road believing we are heading roughly in the right direction. We know what Christian values and principles are and try our best to follow them. A lot of the time we don’t actually do very well, and sometimes we fail spectacularly. We try to pray and read the Bible and come to church and communion, and sometimes we feel enriched and our spiritual lives deepened, but by no means always. Generally, there are not many angels such as those whom some saw at the empty tomb. Not many voices from heaven or blinding revelations. Probably there are actually times when we find ourselves wondering whether it’s all true. And all the time, the resurrection is right there beside us on our path, and we don’t see it.

A modern version of this experience I’m trying to describe has been written in a different way, and has become famous as ‘Footsteps in the sand’. It will almost certainly be known to you, so I won’t re-tell it now, but if you don’t know it, I have placed some copies on the table at the back of Church for you to take.

But I would be surprised if, for most of us, there were not those occasional moments of recognition that make sense of all the rest. Again, it may not be an angel or a voice from heaven, but a moment of recognition when suddenly everything makes sense, falls into place, and we find ourselves saying ‘Yes – it’s really true! Now I know that everything Jesus taught us is true; that goodness, truth and beauty, light and resurrection really are the key to everything else.’ That moment of recognition may not last long, and can disappear as suddenly as it came, and we can’t quite get it back again. But, for that moment, we have seen the heavens open and the fog lifted and we know that – whatever may happen – nothing is ultimately in vain. And as the 14^th century anchoress and mystic Lady Julian of Norwich wrote in her Revelations of Divine Love: ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’ (Her feast day, incidentally is actually today, and if you have never read her classic writings called ‘Revelations of Divine Love’ and available in paperback, may I most thoroughly recommend it).

Anthony Bloom, the late – and great - Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Archbishop for Europe wrote about his life changing conversion in these words: “While I was reading the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, before I reached the third chapter, I became aware of a presence. I saw nothing. I heard nothing. It was no hallucination. It was a simple certainty that the Lord was standing there and that I was in the presence of him whose life I had begun to read with such revulsion and ill-will. This was my basic and essential meeting with the Lord. Christ was the Risen Christ for me because, if the one who had died nearly two thousand years before was there alive, he was indeed the Risen Christ. I discovered then something absolutely essential to the Christian message – that the resurrection is the only event in the Gospel which belongs to history not only past but also present. Christ rose again, twenty centuries ago, but he is the risen Christ as long as history continues. History I had to believe - the resurrection I knew for a fact ...because it was a direct and personal experience.”

Bruce spoke last week of the importance of reading the Bible, and here’s a powerful illustration of one very important reason why. There come times as we read the scriptures when the Risen Christ stands there beside us, as he did beside those two disciples, and our hearts burn within us as he opens the scriptures to us. Should it be that you have never known the Risen Christ standing alongside you and opening the scriptures to you, then what an amazing reason to ponder the scriptures more often, more prayerfully, more expectantly.

I will tell you about my own essential meeting with the Risen Christ. It was in July 1959 and I was sitting in a Christian conference and the speaker was telling us how we could find a real, living faith. And at the end, he called us to prayer and invited us to follow in our hearts the type of simple prayer you will find in almost any booklet introducing the Christian faith. In the powerful silence before he started, I was totally aware of that presence – of the Risen Christ beside me, more vibrantly real than anything I had ever experienced in my life. And, as I followed the prayer, I knew that my life was changing for ever.

So if you have been told many times that it’s important to pray and make space in your life for quiet meditation, here’s a powerful incentive. The Risen Christ who stands alongside you has the opportunity to make himself known as he did to those two disciples, and turn their sorrow and bewilderment into a joy that would be eternal.

In the case of those disciples, the Risen Christ made himself known in the breaking of bread. Jesus has promised that, whenever two or three are gathered in his name, he is there in the midst. We meet here this morning in his name, and we believe he is indeed here among us, ready to accept our worship, answer our prayers, and reveal himself to us one of us – meeting us at our point of need, whatever that may be for each of us today.

So, we may be certain that, as we come to communion this morning, and receive the bread and the wine, the Risen Christ is there in our midst, ready and longing to bless, to guide, to re-order our lives, and lead us forward into the future with new hope and strength. Whether or not we are physically or mentally conscious of that living presence, he has promised that he is here. We can share with him in prayer our deepest needs, fears and longings. Perhaps as we leave church this morning we will find ourselves saying to each other: ‘Did not our hearts burn within us this morning as we sensed the presence of the living Lord?’

As Peter proclaimed on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came, ‘Be assured of this; God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.’ And all those who believed and turned to Christ in faith were filled with the Holy Spirit and recognised the Risen Christ, who came into their lives as Lord and Saviour.

So the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus can be as true and real for each of us today, as it was for them. The Risen Christ walks beside us. He reveals himself as he interprets the scriptures to us as we read. He meets us personally as we pray in quiet and in faith. And he makes himself known in the breaking of bread. Let us ask him to reveal himself to us personally today and meet us at the point of us our deepest need, and we will know in our own experience that Jesus is indeed risen from the dead, and dwells in the lives of all who turn to him in faith.

Discussion

1. Do you find the idea of the Risen Christ walking beside you helpful in your Christian life and experience? If you have personally experienced Jesus in some such way, can you share it with the group?

2. The sermon focuses on three ways in which we can experience the Risen Christ (a) reading the bible (b) prayer (c) Holy Communion. Which do you personally find most helpful and do you know why?

3. In what other ways and circumstances might we experience Him?

4. How can we best find the necessary space in our lives to be close to the Risen Christ? How will this vary at different stages of our lives?