Sunday 29 September 2013, ST MICHAEL, Genesis 28:10-17, Revelation 12:7-12, John 1:45-51, Bruce

Welcome to a sermon in three acts.  It concerns a troubled youngster, an old dreamer and an apocalyptic messenger.

When we meet Jacob, he is in trouble.  His name, Jacob, means deceiver, trickster, cheat, someone who pushes his way in.  At his mother’s instigation, he has managed to supplant his older brother and fool his aged father into giving him the blessing – that is, making him the heir.  This is true of Isaac’s earthly wealth, and it is true of that other blessing Isaac has to pass on, the promise given to his father Abraham that through them that they would inherit a land, have many descendants and be a blessing to the whole world.  His brother Esau wants revenge and is biding time till the aged Isaac dies and won’t be around to protect Jacob.  And so Jacob has been sent away to a far country to marry, make his fortune and stay out of harm’s way.  We can imagine that he is perhaps lonely, afraid, disappointed.  His grand plan to be the inheritor of his father’s wealth seems to have come to nothing.  He is a failure.

As he travels, he lies down to sleep and he dreams.  He sees a stairway linking heaven and earth, and angels going up and down it.  At the top he sees the Lord, who speaks to him.  God repeats the triple promise of land, descendants and blessing, but there is a difference.  Always up to now it has been the promise given to his grandfather Abraham, and to his father Isaac; now, for the first time, Jacob hears the promise given to himself personally.  It is for him.

Does Jacob believe and understand the promise?  No, I do not think he does.  We find out more in three weeks when we meet Jacob again on 18 October, and see his name being changed to Israel – watch this space!  So Jacob does not “get it” now, but he does seem to realise for the first time that there is more to reality than he has been aware of up to now.  The place where this occurs will always be special to him as a special location where heaven and earth seem to be linked.  Jacob called the place Bethel, which means “house of God”.  George MacLeod, the founder of the Iona Community, called Iona a “thin place”, with only “a tissue paper separating heaven and earth.”  Many of us feel the same way about a special place like St Michael’s.  Prayer and worship have been offered here for 162 years.  It is only a building, and we can and do worship God anywhere.  Nevertheless we rejoice at the special places, filled with memories, that can help us to connect with God.

Someone who seems to have been worshipping God under a fig tree was Nathanael.  Rabbis of the period were known to sit under fig trees as places of contemplation and to discuss God’s word.  We will miss the first sermon here – that a man called Philip started to follow Jesus, went to his friend Nathanael to tell him about it, did not seem to be making any headway, and was reduced to issuing the invitation “Come and see”.  It is a great text about sharing our faith; we do not need to preach but merely to encourage folk to come with us, to “Encounter God and Grow in Him”.

So Nathanael comes.  Jesus comments that here is a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit.  In other words he is not a Jacob, a deceiver, trickster, supplanter.  He is rather an inheritor of the blessing promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (named changed to Israel).

“How do you know me?” Nathanael asks.  “I saw you under the fig tree.”  Jesus’ reply seems to make a big impression on Nathanael.  Did he feel Jesus had some divine, mystical ability to see at a distance?  Some have wondered if he was studying the passage about Jacob and his dream, and he is amazed that Jesus should refer to it, but this is conjecture.  Whatever the reason, Nathanael has come and seen, and recognised that Jesus “is the son of God, the King of Israel”.  Jesus replies that there is more to come.  What looks like an ordinary, everyday meeting between some people is in fact another “thin space”, there are angels at work.  Jacob had seen angels uniting heaven and earth in his dream.  Jesus says, in effect, that in me you will experience heaven and earth united, God’s kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven.

I wonder if you begin to see a theme emerging.  In the communion prayer we say “therefore with angels and archangels and all the powers of heaven, we find a voice to sing your praise”.  We are inhabiting that thin place, where heaven and earth are joined and we unite with all the saints of God to sing praise and worship.  But we are also celebrating that we are in the presence of God and his angelic messengers when we are at home watching tv, putting children or grandchildren to bed, out shopping, working at the computer or work bench, gardening or sitting at a loved one’s sick bed.  If we could just cultivate that ability to see and experience, we could encounter God and grow in him, ourselves.

As we turn to Revelation, we remind ourselves that it is telling a simple story, but in a dramatic and imaginative set of ways that can leave us breathless.  We might take a theme at a Liquid Church or Messy Church such as prayer; then the different zones or stations might present it in a variety of different crafts or activities that help us to fully engage with it and understand it.  In a similar way John the Divine tells the story of Jesus overcoming the evil one by allowing himself to die, and how our suffering here on earth is part of that heavenly victory, but he does it in a series of visions that seem to happen at the same time – clouds, angels, seals, trumpets, beasts.  It begins with Christ the risen exalted Son of God, and ends with Jesus welcoming us into the garden, the new heaven and earth, where there is no more sin, illness, crying or death.

To follow Jesus is not to adopt a Christian lifestyle or a specific set of morals.  It is not a bolt-on, an optional extra for some people who “like that sort of thing”, but which we can choose to do without if we so please.  When we meet Michael in Revelation 12, and also in Daniel 7, he is the warrior prince, protecting the Israel of God, defeating the enemy of God’s people.  There are books to be read and sermons to be preached about Revelation, and it is all to encourage us and firm us up in our faith.  The good news is that the battle has been fought and won, and the devil has been defeated.  This is pictured for us as Michael and his armies winning though in heaven, just as Jesus has overcome by shedding his blood on the cross, and as the martyrs have overcome by their steadfastness. The focus is not on Michael or his angels but on Jesus, the lamb who has shed his blood for us.

But the battle continues in real time, as it were.  The defeated foe has been thrown down here to earth, and we are the latest generation to find ourselves in the front line.  We get knock-backs.  Loved ones fall ill. Relationships crumble and lovelessness seems to abound. Governments, employers and human institutions seem to treat us in inhuman and ungodly ways.  We fight back with the word of God and with our testimony of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts.  The harder the fight, the more that we are driven towards God.  The greater the hardship, the more we encounter God and see him changing our character to be more in the image of his Son.

We might find ourselves under a fig tree, as it were, meditating on a passage of scripture.  We might become increasingly aware of the two worlds that we are called to inhabit, surrounded by heavenly messengers, and in that way come into the presence of Jesus the Son of God.  We might discover that Jesus is that “thin place”, that in him heaven and earth are united, in him we are made one with our Father God.  We might let him into our hearts.

Discussion Starters

1.     How much do you know or recall about the life of Jacob?  (Genesis 25-49)

2.     What experiences have we had of “thin places”, locations or occasions that have helped us experience the reality of God?

3.     “Rejoice you heavens, but woe to the earth …” (Rev. 12:12)   Are you more likely to be found rejoicing or in woe, or both?  What are your reasons and your requests for prayer?

Sermon 22nd September 2013. Luke 16: 1-13 Anne

There’s always a villain in a good story - wicked stepmothers, Sheriff of Nottingham…..  So, who’s the villain in this story Jesus tells to his disciples? He them about a dishonest manager.  He’s the sort Del boy would probably admire, not maybe quite up to the standard of the wheeler-dealers we’re used to reading about in the press, but nonetheless, he’s a scoundrel.  He’s losing his job because he wastes his master’s possessions, and he’s not too keen on the prospect of having to do a job that’s too physical (he’s not strong enough to dig) or on doing anything that might damage his pride (he’s too ashamed to beg).  So he tries to save his skin, to make friends and influence people, by using his boss’ money.  After all, he needs to secure his future.  He calls in the people that owe his boss money, and does deals with them.  “How much do you owe?” he asks the first one, “Nine hundred gallons of olive oil”, he replies.  “Take your bill” he says, “sit down quickly and make it four hundred and fifty”.  That would be a real result if you owed the debt and you would want to return the favour – you’d want to welcome the manager into your house.  You would be indebted to him.

I don’t know about you, but with stories like this, I want to read on to the end to hear what happens to the villain; to when the villain gets his or her comeuppance because then the moral of the story becomes clear just as the baddies get what’s coming to them.  But hang on … something’s not quite right in this story … something shocking happens … this scoundrel’s plan actually succeeds!  His boss, the one whose estate he’s mismanaged, the one whose wealth he has just shared out to feather his own nest, commends him, “because he acted shrewdly.”  That doesn’t make sense.  This is the manager who disseminates his master’s investment portfolio to protect his own future!  You wouldn’t want this guy looking after your pension plan (half of it might disappear) and yet here’s his boss commending him, as if he were some sort of business genius!  

But then what’s even more shocking is that Jesus says this dishonest manager is more shrewd in dealing with the world than the believers, the people of light.  Puzzling isn’t it… Jesus tells a story about a dishonest manager and then praises him and commends him to us – and implies that we should act like him! 

In his parables, Jesus uses illustrations from everyday life, but they don’t always portray normal everyday actions – it’s not unusual for Jesus to tell stories where the unexpected happens, where he connects the ordinariness of everyday life with the extraordinary nature of God.  He often leaves his listeners pondering on the meaning – and this parable certainly needs a lot of pondering.  It has the reputation of being the most confusing of them all!  One commentator calls it “the problem child of the parables!”  So, if we’re confused, that’s normal – everyone else reading it this morning probably is too!  I know of at least 6 other newly ordained curates who are preaching on this passage this morning.  We sat together last Thursday lunchtime on our first curates’ training day together, debating the meaning of the parable.  We all had different ideas about the manager’s actions; we wondered how the story would have sounded to the first listeners; we thought about how the parable fitted in with the rest of Luke’s Gospel and even discussed the nuances of 1^st century financial systems.  We all agreed too that in 3 years time, when this reading comes up in the cycle of readings again, we’re all booking a holiday!  But, joking aside, despite our different ideas, we all came to a similar conclusion.  We came to the same end, but not necessarily by following the same route.  One route might be …

…to consider, that maybe what Jesus says, isn’t quite as shocking as it first sounds.  The master commends the manager, not for his dishonesty, but for his ‘shrewdness’.  Jesus is not saying, “be dishonest like this manager”, he’s saying, “be shrewd like this manager”!  Hmm … still sounds a bit dodgy to me.  But maybe that’s because today, if we call someone shrewd, it can have negative connotations.  To be shrewd is sometimes interpreted as being crafty or canny, but a shrewd person is really someone who’s good at judging a situation; it actually means astute or wise.  So, maybe this parable should be called the Parable of the Wise, Dishonest Manager.

But what is he doing that’s shrewd, that’s wise?  In his precarious position, he uses what he has, to secure his immediate future.  He manages the resources he has at his disposal to secure an earthly home.  How much more then, should God’s people, be shrewd in using their resources for God’s purposes, to secure their eternal future, their eternal home?  Jesus says, if we cannot be trusted with worldly wealth, we cannot be trusted with true riches. 

Every morning on Radio 5Live there’s a programme called “Wake up to Money”; it’s a programme about the financial markets and the economy.  The title of the programme, “Wake up to Money”, is clever.  It’s a play on words – the programme is on in the early morning (it starts at 5.30am), but it also means “to be savvy about money” to be aware.   And as a group of assistant curates sitting round discussing this parable, we all came to the conclusion that Jesus was telling a story urging us to “Wake up to money”.  “Wake up to how we use what we have”.  Be shrewd, get real, we’re in a world full of the stuff – we can’t operate without it, so as people of the light, how do we deal with it – how do we deal with ‘worldly wealth’?

Well, not as the Israelites did that’s for sure.  Approximately 750 years before Jesus shares this parable with his disciples, the prophet Amos warns the Israelites about their behaviour, about how they’re dealing with their worldly wealth.  As a society, they’ve never had it so good; the country was going through a period of relative economic and political stability and yet they were exploiting the poor, and businessman and traders were cheating in the marketplace.  So Amos warns them, and us, of the consequences.  To treat others badly, by using what we have to exert power in our relationships, offends God and he will not trust us with true riches.  As people of the light, we serve God.  And serving God means that loving others, not money, is always the bottom line.  Therefore, we should be using our worldly wealth, whatever it is, to bless others.  Not just as individuals, but as a church community and as a society. 

It’s difficult – we don’t always know where our money is going or how it’s being used.  The Church of England having shares in a company that backs the payday loan company Wonga, is a prime example of how we get it wrong!  In our own parish, the statistics from the 2011 Census paint a picture that may surprise you.  9% of the population are on out of work benefits and shockingly, 12% of children are defined as living in poverty.  To be a child living in poverty is tough, it means you don’t go on school trips, or to the Arena for a swim; you don’t have your friends round for tea or go on holiday.  We can speak out against such social injustice, we can speak out against payday loans, we can support credit unions, we can buy ethically produced goods.

Money is powerful – it can ensnare us, but if we serve wealth for its own sake, we will be poor, even though we are ‘rich’.  But if we serve God and shrewdly use what we have for his purposes, he will give us the greatest treasure.  He will give us true riches.  We will enjoy the blessing of life with Him … and that life promises peace, forgiveness, justice and joy.  So, let’s wake up – let’s wake up to money!

Questions

1.         Is there really a ‘villain’ in the story and if there is, is it the ‘rich man’ or the manager?  You            might want to consider what it means to be a ‘rich man’ in the Gospels.

2.         What do you find challenging about the Parable of the Shrewd Manager?

3.         Walter Brueggeman says that in the Gospels “letting go is to have and keeping is the way            to lose”.   What do you think this means?  Why is ‘letting go’ so difficult?

4.         How would you define ‘wealth’?  Is it more than money?

Statistics taken from:

http://www.cofeguildford.org.uk/parish-life/parish-spotlights/

Sunday 15 September 2013, Luke 15:1-8, Bruce, All that’s missing is ewe

(A sermon for the Word Zone at Liquid Church)

What was special about that sheep? 

Was he (or she) especially cuddly, like a pet?  Or particularly meaty, and so would give succulent lamb chops?  Or perhaps with lots of wool?

No.  The reason the sheep or lamb is the centre of the story is that it is lost.  All of a sudden it has become the centre of attention for the shepherd.  The sheep is lost and there is no alternative for the shepherd – the sheep must be found.

In the same way the coin really matters.  It seems almost certain that the set of ten coins was a headdress presented to a woman when she became a bride.  To lose one coin was like losing a wedding ring.  She was compelled to find it.  Every piece of furniture was moved, every corner was swept, she kept looking and looking until – she found it.

What is the point of the stories?  That God is a God who rejoices when what is lost is found, when what is bound is released.  We rejoice today at the news that the Archbishop of the Niger Delta, the Most Revd Ignatius Kattey, has been released.  In the same way, God rejoices when we turn to him.

There is a challenge though.  God is most welcoming to every sinner who repents.  This does not mean that in a syrupy way he will accept any and every one without question.  Those who persist in sin and enjoy sin do not see themselves as lost.  Indeed they are usually the first to be upset at any suggestion that they need to amend their ways.

But God rejoices over each and every sinner who repents.  Each of us who would like to be good, who wants to turn away from being evil and self-centred, who is seeking after God: each and any of us who realises that we are lost will be found.

Not everyone believes this.  Jesus told these stories (and the one immediately after this about a son who ran away) precisely because he was being criticised by some so-called righteous folk who disliked the people he was mixing with.  As far as they were concerned, there are some people who are better than others.  People like ‘us’ do not mix with people like ‘them’.  Not so!  Jesus makes this very clear.  God chooses whom he will welcome and accept, and he seems to want to accept everyone.  The only people who seem to be outside of this acceptance are those who see themselves as so good and upright that they do not need to accept the forgiveness that he offers.

There is another group who struggle to accept Jesus’ message.  Often I meet people who say, in effect, I would like to start coming to church when I get my life sorted and I am living better.  In other words, I am a bit lost at the moment but when I find myself and get my act together, then I can come to Jesus.  The problem is that we are lost and we cannot find our way back with outside help.

The step forward comes when we accept that we are lost, and allow Jesus to find us.

It can be as simple as praying a prayer, asking Jesus to reveal himself and to forgive us and to come into our lives.  Then, Jesus tells us, the celebrations start!

Discussion Starters

1.     But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered,  Who do you think these are, today?
2.     I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent.  What do you think this means?
3.     there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God  Who do think is doing the rejoicing?  How can we join in?

Sermon 9th September 2013. Deuteronomy 30 : 15 – 20 Luke 14 : 25 – 33 Choices and Priorities. Robert.

If I had to sum up in one phrase the essential theme of the two readings this morning, it would simply be ‘choices and priorities’, so that’s the title and theme I have chosen for today. Choices and Priorities.

In our first reading,  Moses is coming to the end of his long life, having led the Israelites for 40 years across the Sinai desert, they are now on the verge of entering Canaan, the land that God had promised them. God is not going to allow Moses to cross the Jordan into Canaan himself, but he will climb Mount Nebo, and from that vantage point he will see right across the plain, and laid out in front of him, stretching to the sea, is this fertile land that God has promised them – a land which the Old Testament poetically describes as ‘flowing with milk and honey’. It will bring material riches, but with that will come the temptations common to any materialistically rich society, then as now:  – we think we are self-sufficient, that we have no need of God, and that the good times will last forever. There will also be the strong temptation to be seduced to worship false gods – in our case what we simply categorise as ‘Mammon’, and in the case of the Israelites, the local Canaanite gods whom they believed to be responsible for ensuring a good harvest and material prosperity.

And so Moses calls the people together before he dies, and issues a challenge and warning in the strongest possible terms. It is the choice, he says,  between life and death, blessing and curse, prosperity and destruction. If they will love the Lord their God with all their heart, and worship and serve him alone, they will be blessed and prosper. But if, in their prosperity, they forget the Lord who brought them there and begin to rely on their own strength and fall into the false worship of the land they inhabit, they will reap the bitter fruit of that way of life, which will lead them to destruction. They are called to choose – to determine their priorities – there is a way that leads to life, and there is a way that leads to death.

We ourselves live in a country and culture which has largely forgotten God, and believes that what matters most is material well-being, and relies on its own strength and wisdom. Moses’ challenge and call to choose could have been spoken by any 21^st century prophet – and we should take heed. A society that fails to put God first, and follow the two great commandments to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves, is inevitably heading for disaster. The call to obey those two great commandments which we rehearse at the start of every Communion Service can seem like a formality. But it is, in fact, a ringing call to remember our calling – and to restate our choice and priority – to worship God alone and to walk daily in his commandments – to choose life and not death.

In our Gospel reading from Luke 14, Jesus issues a similar challenge – he calls for our total focused allegiance and trust in him, whatever the cost.

We have at this point just to pause briefly to understand the use of the word ‘hate’ in verse 26.... The language is Greek but the thought is Hebrew (or its very close relative, Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke). It is a language which expresses itself in vivid contrasts and, for those of you who like grammar, a language which does not have a passive tense, so every contrast appears to us overstated and extreme. It is a way of making a point very strongly, without taking the verb in its full literal sense.

Jesus is calling for total allegiance to himself, and this will often bring conflict which can penetrate even into close family bonds. We would express the thought in English perhaps something like this. ‘If you hear my call and choose to follow me even to death, the result may be a rift even in close family relationships’. Some of us will have experienced that for ourselves, and currently many are experiencing it only too painfully in Muslim communities.

Now we need to put this saying of Jesus into context. Jesus is not in the least like the kindly guru with long hair, cuddling children and feeding birds, as he is sometimes portrayed. If you come to the church hall to watch the showing of the 1964 film by Pasolini ‘The Gospel according to St Matthew’ on Monday evening 28^th October, you will see a very different Jesus from that Victorian-type parody.

Jesus came in the great tradition of the Old Testament prophets, who were called by God to pronounce God’s condemnation on Israel both in its social injustice and in its religious institutions. But if the people would hear the message and heed the call, then God would be merciful.

Jesus came with the good news of the advent of God’s Kingdom in himself, calling people to repent and believe the good news. But he came with a new covenant which would replace the old religious order, and therefore from day one of his ministry – and while we read how ordinary people heard him gladly – those who represented the status quo and the religious organisations both feared and loathed him and it wasn’t long before they began to plot his death.

Jesus was therefore inevitably a divisive figure – you either heard him gladly and followed him with complete loyalty, or you were totally opposed to him and wanted to silence and destroy him. And that division could strike at the heart even of friends and family. It was, of course, not Jesus’ intention that this should be so, but it was inevitable.

Jesus is now on his way to Jerusalem where he knows full well that the powers that oppose him will triumph, and he will be the subject of a show trial and an arbitrary and cruel death sentence. The pressure is on, and the tension is rising with every day that passes. We have to try and imagine the experience of this last terrible journey on Jesus, resolutely making his way towards a horrific climax, and the urgency of his call to the crowds travelling with him. ‘Make up your minds!’ is his call. If you decide to believe in me and be my disciple, be aware of the cost – the cost to yourself, and possibly also to those around you. To believe in me and be my disciple is the way to life and true fulfilment. But sit down and count the cost, because it could cost you everything – even your life.

Even as I speak, Christians in Syria, Egypt and other parts of the world are dying terrible deaths for their faith in Christ. He has never promised an easy option. How great is the pressure to convert to Islam when you live as a Christian in Syria where fanatical Muslim rebels have come across from Iran; how great is the pressure to take the easy option and convert to Islam when you are part of the Coptic Christian Church in those parts of Egypt under the control of the Muslim Brotherhood.

For us, how easy quietly to disguise our Christian identity when we want discretely to be absorbed into secular British life. How hard for those especially in public life, whether celebrities, captains of industry or armed forces, politicians or others in the public eye, to admit to a true Christian faith, when they know they will be quietly, if not publicly, mocked, and their words and actions closely observed so that any slip or action perceived to be out of line with the media’s warped view of Christianity, can be pounced on.  There is no bar to being a full-hearted Christian in Britain today, but it can come with a cost, and – as Jesus predicted – lead to division within families as with work colleagues, friends or neighbours.

So, as I suggested at the start, it comes down to choices and priorities. Moses issued a clear and urgent challenge. So did Jesus. As Moses’ successor Joshua was to restate that challenge later: ‘Choose you this day whom you will serve...’ (Joshua 24: 15)

The commentator William Barclay writes of a man meeting a University professor. When he heard the professor’s name, the man said: “Oh, my friend Tom was one of your students” – to which the professor replied: “Tom attended my lectures, but he was never one of my students.”

There are many, many people who profess Christianity and attend Church, but they are not real disciples. The challenge “Choose you this day whom you will serve” is the call from Jesus to commit your life to him totally and whatever the cost. Count the cost, and then make the decision. If you say ‘Yes’ to that call and challenge, the result will be life, not death; a blessing not a curse; fulfilment not frustration; a new life, not a slightly mended old one. Jesus is no man’s debtor. He is the bringer of good news. He comes to set us free. Believe it – and say yes to his call.

Joshua ended his challenge “Choose you this day whom you will serve..” with a clear commitment of his own: “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord”.

In today’s world, this is not a game, it has consequences. How will you answer Jesus’ call to be his disciple – whatever the cost – not just in name, but in reality and in truth, in life and in death? Listen to his call, count the cost, and say Yes. Perhaps as you come up to communion or for a blessing this morning, you will just quietly and prayerfully say ‘yes’ to Jesus.

Discussion

1. Both readings call us to stark choices and big commitments which set the disciple of Jesus apart from others. How do you view this? How far do you see your Christian faith as setting you apart from normal worldly values and ways of life, or as integral to the normal British way of life? Do you think the relationship between the two has changed over the course of your lifetime?

2. We have become a multi-cultural, multi-faith society. Do you have experience (directly or indirectly) of Christian faith causing division within a family or community? Do you see any possible solution?

3. How can we best respond to the suffering of Christians and others in the Middle East in the face of the situation in Syria, Egypt and parts of Africa such as Nigeria?

SERMON FOR Sunday 1st September 2013 Young People's Camping Weekend

LEFT OUT – Jesus doesn’t leave anyone out and neither should we.

Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’ Luke 14: 12-14

Make sure a selection of people have been given invitations.

Look what I have! I received an invitation to a party. It is going to be a really great party. Listen to this, ‘You are invited to a party at St. Michael’s Church hall on Friday 6^th September at 6.30pm.  There will be games and fun for all ad plenty of delicious food.’

Did you receive one of these invitations? You didn’t? I wonder why you were left out? How does it make you feel to know that you were left out of what promises to be a great party? Are your feelings hurt? Do you wonder why I got an invitation and you didn’t? it isn’t a very good feeling to be left out, is it?

Do you ever leave someone out when you are having a party or doing something special? So you only invite your very best friends? Do you perhaps leave out the child who doesn’t have much money and wears old clothes? Or maybe you leave out the child who is physically handicapped and has to get around in a wheelchair. Maybe you leave out the child who isn’t very smart and the others kids make fun of him. Maybe you leave out the child whose skin is a different colour. Maybe you don’t invite a child because others do not like them and you don’t want to be singled out for inviting them. Maybe there is someone at work who is annoying and no-one gets on with them. Maybe no one invite them for a drink after work.  Or maybe you don’t think it is the right thing to give someone begging on the streets anything!  How do you think those children/adults feel when they are left out?

You probably know how they feel – most people at one time or another will have been ‘left out’ of something, somewhere in their life time.   So knowing what it feels like, why do we leave people out or walk on by a person who is in need?

Jesus commands to love as he has loved. How did Jesus love? He loved until it cost him. He loved all the way to the cross and death. That is love. If he had stopped loving before Calvary then it would not have been love at all. It would have been only for what he could get out of it. But love, in the sense that Jesus means, is loving even when it means undergoing suffering for the sake of the other. That is real love, loving for the good of the other. Like hugging a tramp or extending a hand of friendship to the family in your road who every Friday night has one or the other child brought home by the police and who are notorious for drinking  and being anti-social at all hours. That is precisely how Jesus explains his love in the next line of the Gospel you chose. Jesus said,

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)

Again and again we give God all sorts of reasons to turn his back on us but he keep on loving us because he made a covenant with us, not a contract. You can use all sorts of legal means to wiggle your way out of a contract but a covenant is irrevocable. That is precisely the love of God we see for us in his covenant with us. And he expects us to do the same to others we meet on our journey in life.Don’t let anyone you meet miss out on being made welcome in God’s kingdom here on earth.

Today Jesus is saying that when we are having a party, we shouldn’t just invite our best friends or the most popular kids in school. In fact, he said that we should be sure to invite the very ones that we might leave out – the poor, the crippled, the homeless, the drunk, and those who are less fortunate than we are. He said that if we only do good things for whose who can do good things for us that we already have our reward, but if we do good things for those who cannot do good things for us in return, that we will receive out reward in heaven. Would you rather be rewarded now, or in heaven? If you want to be rewarded in heaven, be careful who you invite to your next party.

Prayer:

Dear Father, help us to be loving and caring toward those who may not have as much as we have, or are different from us in some way. Help us to include them in the special things that we do. In Jesus’ name, AMEN.

Oh, by the way, you know this invitation I told you about? It isn’t a real invitation. I just made it up to help us to understand how it feels to be left out. It feels pretty good to know your haven’t been left out, doesn’t it.

Questions:

1. What are the things that stop you from reaching out to those in need? (for instance – man begging in the street – you walk on by because he probably on drugs or drink – if I give him money – he will spend it on that).
2. Sometimes events of the past stay with us in later life. Being left out or teased because of some problem or illness. (Alison Teague had very severe eczema all over her body – people would call her scabby and never invited her to events and often singled out other who spoke with her). Such scars can prevent us from coming forward or being the friend to another – someone once said (can’t remember who) ‘that scars are reminders of where we have been and not where we are going’. Maybe there are scars that that needs Jesus’ healing touch. Pray for each other that Jesus will heal and enable you to reach out and touch others in a way that lead them to Jesus and His kingdom.

Sermon 11 August 2013. The Journey of Faith and Hope. Robert Hebrews 11: 1 – 3 & 11 – 16 Luke 12: 32 – 40

More or less every day when I pick up the post from the door-mat, there’s one thing I can be quite sure of – there will be at least one and probably more than one expensively produced brochure inviting me to sign up for a cruise or other kind of holiday to some exotic locations, beautifully illustrated with pictures of a dream world of luxury. There is obviously a huge market for travel abroad, while the traditional holiday locations which served Britons for generations – Blackpool, and Margate for instance – now languish unloved and unvisited. Many of us have developed an insatiable appetite for stretching our horizons.

This is not a new phenomenon, although Abraham would not have been acquainted with a cruise liner. Very roughly 4000 years ago when Abraham was 75 years old, he and his family were living in what the Old Testament calls Ur of the Chaldees (you need to have Genesis chapters 11 and especially 12 to hand to understand what is happening here). Ur is in what was then called Mesopotamia, now Iraq, and part of the ‘Fertile Crescent’ where the great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, flow down towards their confluence.

Abraham was called by God to leave his home and settled agricultural way of life, and become a traveller -  a nomad - seeking a new home to which God was calling him. And in order to get there he had to become a more or less permanent ‘camper’ – living in tents. They made their way up river north-west for a distance of some 500 miles – as the crow flies, considerably more if he you are following a river on foot.

Later they travelled south down the Jordan valley for another 500/600 miles as the crow flies, until they reached Canaan, which was to become God’s promised land for Abraham’s descendants.  God had promised Abraham a son and heir even though he and his wife Sarah were, in human terms, beyond child-bearing age. Abraham obeyed God’s call and went on this extra-ordinary journey because he had complete trust that God would fulfil his promise, and that Abraham would found a great nation.

So this was not only a huge exotic adventure in terms of travel, but it was a spiritual journey of trust and promise as well. It was undertaken in faith and in hope that God had a purpose for their lives, a spiritual destination, as well as a geographical one. Indeed, the writer of this letter to the Hebrews wants to emphasise that journey’s end for Abraham – because of his faith – was not an earthly place. His true home was going to be in heaven. It’s important to remember for every Christian that when we talk about ‘home’ it’s not just some place in the UK. We are travelling towards our true home which is in heaven, where God has prepared a place for us.

When I read this passage, my mind travels straight to John Bunyan’s classic ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’. Our spiritual adventurous travel journey is not over until we have crossed that final river, and been welcomed home on the other side. It’s a vital help to put these enticing travel brochures that come through the letter box into a better perspective. It also draws us to our Gospel reading this morning, where Jesus tells us to build our treasure, not in earthly coin, but to concentrate on building treasure in heaven, our true home. And where our treasure is, there will our heart be also.

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So we need a very different kind of travel brochure. No matter how young or old we may be, we are on a spiritual journey. And God’s Holy Spirit gives us strength every day for that journey. We can’t say ‘We’re too old to change’ because Paul rightly tells us in 2 Corinthians 4: 16 that “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day,” as the Holy Spirit gives us strength to grow in faith, in Christian knowledge, in character, and in lives that shine with the light of Christ.

This Christian travel brochure tells us not to be too settled where we are; not to become stale and too content with the familiar routine. We have so much yet to learn; so much to grow; so ambitious to travel spiritually closer to God in our relationship through prayer, through study of God’s Word, through worship and sacrament; through experience and character building. We still have far to go..

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All this sense of moving forward and adventure in faith and hope can be applied to our church just as much as to our individual spiritual lives. Some of the brochures and reports recently about the renewal project refer back to what was called my ‘challenge to the church in 2006’. I’ll tell you what I had in mind. It seemed to me that the interior of our lovely church was becoming just a bit shabby and showing its age. If you were going to a hotel, for example, you might look at it and say ‘It needs a make-over – it needs freshening up.’ And I had a picture in my mind of this building re-decorated, with new comfortable seats, with a lovely new floor, and with new lighting which would not only help us see better, but which would highlight the most beautiful features – the roundels, the roof and so on instead of just pointing downwards.

And I thought that we would be so proud of the beautiful church we have, that it would rejuvenate us all spiritually, and draw us all together, and bring in new members. The building can go on a spiritual journey as well as the individual, and the one can inspire the other. I still like to think that this is possible.

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So August is the month for holiday travel. But we need a spiritual travel catalogue as well with dreams to be fulfilled. If Abraham can start at 75, we can hardly say we are too old and set in our ways! That’s why, for the writer to the Hebrews, he is a role model, a hero to be followed, not literally, but in his spiritual openness, and total trust in God, believing that what he had begun, God would bring to fulfilment beyond his dreams. And our Gospel for today ends with a vital call to be alert, and never fall back into just going through the old routine. Not only is that the road to spiritual deadness and decay – (there is a true saying that you can’t stand still as a Christian, you either move forward, or you fall back) – but we must remain alert because we know neither the day nor the hour of the Lord’s return, and who would want to be found spiritually sleeping? Don’t go to sleep spiritually in August – make preparations for a new spiritual travel adventure. Last Tuesday was the Feast of the Transfiguration – one of the very greatest spiritual experiences Jesus ever had. With God, spiritual adventures lead to wonderful new blessings and experiences. Get the new spiritual travel brochure – and sign up immediately!  Don’t miss out!

Discussion

1.  Do you sometimes feel that your spiritual journey has come to a standstill and that you are still at the same place as you were, say, a year ago? If so, discuss how you might get moving again.

2.  What might your spiritual travel brochure contain to entice you to travel?

3.  Do you think the church building needs to make a spiritual journey too? In what ways? How might this help you and others on your journey?

Sunday 4 August 2013, Colossians 3:1-11, Luke 12:13-21, Bruce

Who would like the secret of being rich?  How many of us have received a letter or an email from a wealthy resident of an African country who has money in a sealed account that they want to get out of the country?  If you give them your bank details they promise to send you a large amount of money, some of which you can keep?  Years ago there was a spate of round robin letters; send the letter to ten friends, £10 to the name at the top of a long list and in a month or so thousands of pounds will be sent to you.

When a voice in the crowd calls out to Jesus to help him in a family dispute about an inheritance, we are treading on familiar ground.  The closest of families can be divided by fallings out over money.  The reality is probably that there was distrust there before, and our attitudes are revealed – brought to the surface – by how we respond to material things.

So Jesus tells a story.  The rich man obviously feels he is giving himself good advice.  He seems to have large estates and he is maximising his potential for earnings, savings and growth.  He is future proofing himself.  Or so he thinks.  He makes no reference to God or the needs of others; it is all about him.  He thinks that life – true life – consists of an abundance of possessions, and he is wrong.  He thinks that he is rich, but he turns out to be poor.

Jesus is not against eating, drinking and being merry; in fact he is frequently criticised for enjoying food drink and company.  He is concerned that we encounter God and grow in him.

Paul takes up this theme in his letter to the Christians living in Colossae.  Where is Jesus?  He is seated at the right hand of God (3:1).  He is also in us, the settled promise of glory to come (1:27).  Paul follows on from Jesus’ story about a man who set his heart only on earthly things with the advice that we set our hearts on “things above”.

What does this mean?

I do not think it means that we should be “so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good”.   “Above” does not mean vertically higher.  The same word is used by Jesus when he says that we should be “born from above”; it is a struggle to translate and is often rendered as “born again”.  I suspect that the meaning is something like be “born from the other”.  And here in Colossians Paul is telling us to live our lives with reference to “the other”.

The other?  We live in two overlapping worlds.  How can we explain this?  On 1 September 2006 I set off on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostellar.  But the truth is that the pilgrimage really started the year before, when the decision was made to go.  For months I carried on everyday life, but part of me was researching, planning, preparing.  I was rubbing cream on my feet, buying maps, calculating distances.  I was thinking and praying like a pilgrim.

I suspect something similar happens when a wedding is announced.  The bride seems to enter a dual universe where life continues as normal, but at the same time every decision is made with reference to the approaching nuptials.

Much more significantly, when we were baptised, each of us entered into a new world where Christ reigns supreme but where we also live amongst those who do not acknowledge this.  There is a temptation to go with the rich farmer and live only on an earthly plane, laughing off any concept of the spiritual having any effect on the way that we live or make decisions.

There is an equal temptation to retreat into a spurious spirituality, a parallel world that has no contact with or relevance to “real life”.  Put bluntly, our worshipping life here can be separated from what we do at home, at school or at work.

However, we are servants of Jesus.   ^“For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.”  (1:16)  God “has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death”. (1:22)  We are to celebrate “the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (1:27)  Again and again we see this apparent paradox of Jesus bridging any gap between heaven and earth; simultaneously he is Lord of all.

If Jesus unites heaven and earth, then so do his followers.  We are called to walk with him and in him, open for all that he has for us.  We are learning fresh ways to think and plan and evaluate.  Suppose you are given a luxury world cruise to look forward to.  But you have already made a reservation at digs somewhere cheap.  Is it not time to cancel that reservation? 

There are those who contend that we are merely highly evolved animals.  If that were true, then our chief preoccupations would properly be procreation and nutrition.  In fact we are more caught up in the corruption of the world as we carry our interest in money, sex and power to ever greater heights, or depths.  Our task is to live in this creation, revelling in it and enjoying it as a gift from our Father God, giving him thanks and praising him for it.  This is to honour the first commandment, to have no other Gods before him. 

Our temptation is to find ourselves taking some aspect of the creation and placing it at the centre of our thoughts and desires, so that our whole being revolves around it.  This is to break the second commandment and to become idolaters.

How can we become rich towards God?  Open your eyes to all that he has given you.  Receive gladly forgiveness, a home in glory, and the freedom to choose now the life of the kingdom.  Paul says that he continually asks “God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God” (1:9,10).  That is something that God does in us and for us.

Later he says “ Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.  And be thankful.  Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.” (3:15,16)  That is something we can do, choosing to school ourselves to follow him in a daily, hourly pattern of praise and thanksgiving and openness to his word.