Today is the Feast of St Bartholomew – sadly remembered over the past 400 years only for the terrible massacre in 1572 of Protestants in Paris and the French provincial cities, when some 5,000 Protestant Huguenots were slaughtered in their homes and in the streets, by French Roman Catholics, apparently on the orders of the Queen Dowager, Catherine de Medici.
Perhaps it is chiefly remembered for this because we actually know nothing about Bartholomew, who is named in the New Testament as an Apostle but not mentioned thereafter – EXCEPT that tradition tells us that he is the same person who features in John’s Gospel under the name Nathanael. I won’t go into the reasons for this, but it explains why – on St Bartholomew’s Day – we have a Gospel Reading which features Nathanael, and this is a chance to look at a very unusual and interesting passage of John’s Gospel – and one I have never preached about before – so here’s my chance!
I think you will agree that it’s quite a curious interchange between Jesus and Nathanael and actually worth a closer look. And it’s worth a closer look because the author of this Gospel never gives you information just for the sake of giving you information. There’s always more behind it and you are meant to look beyond the surface and at the deeper significance.
There are a number of crucial differences between John and the other three Gospels. One is that each incident is described as a ‘sign’ which leads beyond itself. Great examples would be the healing of the man born blind. John devotes the whole of chapter 9 (where the other writers would have described the incident in a few verses), and whereas it is no doubt a wonderful miracle, the point John wants us to understand is that we are all naturally spiritually blind - until Jesus gives us sight, and then we can recognise him for who he is. Similarly, the raising of Lazarus is meant to tell us that Jesus is the one who can bring life out of death for each one or us. Or the feeding of the 5,000 tells us how, as in today’s service, Jesus can be for us the Bread of Life. So we are meant to look beyond the surface if we are to get John’s message.
So we can be sure that Jesus’ meeting with Nathanael is not taking up space in John’s Gospel just for our interest. There is something important here that John wants us to understand. What can it be?
Let’s begin by noticing that the call of the disciples in this Gospel is very different from the way it is described in the other three. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus calls them from their place of work and asks them to follow him. The key is that a disciple is a ‘follower’ of Jesus, and obviously, by implication, their message is that we, too, should become followers of Jesus. Jesus is quoted as saying, for example, that whoever does not take up his cross and follow him is not worthy of him.
In John it is different. The key to being a disciple is that they recognise him for who he really is – the Messiah, the Christ, the One whom the prophets foretold.
Earlier in this chapter, John the Baptist has said at Jesus’ baptism “I have seen and testify that this is the Son of God”. And the next day, he sees Jesus passing and cries out: “Look, the Lamb of God”. Now, obviously, hundred and hundreds of people saw Jesus passing by or otherwise during the course of his ministry. Most saw simply a man – perhaps a very special and gifted and holy man – but only a few saw the reality, that this was the Son of God.
Among them is Andrew who rushes off to find his brother Simon and says: “We have found the Messiah”. (1:41). The next is Philip (1:45) who finds Nathanael and says: “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
Nathanael is more than sceptical at first, but when he sets eyes on Jesus, he too is gifted with spiritual recognition and proclaims (1:49): “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”
So, for John, the key to being a disciple (whether then or now) is whether you recognise Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, as did John the Baptist, Andrew, Philip and Nathanael.
And John is implicitly posing the question to us: What does it mean to recognise Jesus as the Son of God? It certainly means more than saying the words in the Creed – anyone can do that. It is a recognition that comes from within and at root it is a gift from God. It is a recognition that goes far beyond what most people see – the man teaching and performing miracles, or for us, the man whom we read about in the pages of the New Testament.
The verb ‘to find’ is used several times in this passage. Andrew finds Simon; Philip finds Nathanael. We use that word sometimes about God or Jesus. We sometimes say that a person has found God. But we don’t mean it in the normal sense, because God is not lost. God is here constantly, but we don’t recognise him – we don’t see him – or understand his presence. It needs that spark of recognition that is a gift. We talk about a person finding Jesus, but Jesus is with us always – he doesn’t need to be found. He needs to be recognised, and that is a gift.
We cannot argue ourselves or anyone else into the Kingdom of God, but we can pray for that gift – that gift of recognition that Nathanael was blessed with. We can pray for it for ourselves – and we can pray for that gift of recognition for other people. And the phrase that John uses in this chapter is “Come and see”. Jesus says it to two disciples in 1:39. They ask significantly, in effect, where do you live? And Jesus says – as he says to us – come and see where I live! Philip’s reply to Nathanael’s sceptical “Can anything good come out of Nazareth” is not to argue with him, but simply to say: “Come and see!”.
This is how evangelism works best. If someone is sceptical about Jesus, ideally we invite them to Church and say: “Come and see for yourself! Find out if you recognise Jesus and find him as your Lord and Saviour.”
The problem, of course, is that the Church has to fit the description. It has to be a place where Jesus is worshipped and made so real and relevant, that he can be recognised. We have to think and pray very hard about that – as does every Church everywhere, all the time. Can we fit the bill?
Let me read you a short extract from a commentary on this passage where the writer is talking about how a church moves forward into the future. He writes: “When I was serving a 100 year old congregation (like us), a mission congregation started up less than 2 miles away (like, say, the Beacon). Within 5 years they had grown larger than us and completed a building programme. A major difference between us was that the ‘mission church’ was looking ahead to the greater things God was going to do with their congregation. The ‘established church’ tended to look to the past at the good things God had already done. Even when members of the ‘established church’ were asked “are the best years for this church ahead or behind you”, and they answered ‘ahead’, that wasn’t the way they talked or acted about their future. It is hard to move into the future when you are looking backwards. And you can’t invite someone to be part of the past. You can invite them to be part of your future.” Now I do believe that we are now looking to the future in a very positive way, but you can see the danger with a church with a long tradition. When we invite people like these disciples to ‘Come and see’ we must be inviting them to be part of our future, not our past.
At the end of this reading from John Chapter 1, Jesus refers back to the Old Testament, and the passage he has in mind is the one we read as our first reading today. Jacob has a dream where heaven is opened and God is (as it were), recognised, and there is a ladder with angels ascending and descending. Now that door in heaven is open once again because God’s Son has come down to be among us – and, as John says in the opening passage of his Gospel – we can “behold his glory, glory as of the one and only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
We shall be exploring over the coming months this theme of how can we create an environment in which Jesus can be seen and recognised in his glory. Too often our problem is that we are too busy, too pre-occupied, too diverted even to look properly, let alone see through the surface and recognise Jesus.
Now Jesus sees potential in Nathanael because he sees him sitting under a fig tree. This seems very strange to us, because we don’t know our Old Testament, and hence miss John’s symbolism. In Micah and Zechariah, for example, to sit under a fig tree is to be in a place of peace, a place of contemplation, meditation, essentially a place of ‘space’(Hebrew- Shalom). How often we talk about our need for a’ bit of space’ – meaning a time and place free from stress and distraction and busyness. John places Nathanael in a place of focused peace of mind. Hence John is telling us that it is not surprising that, when confronted with Jesus, he instantly recognises him for what he is – the Son of God.
We are in too much of a hurry to understand who Jesus is, and what is his will for our lives and for our church. We need ‘space’ and time and peace. When the various plans for St Michael’s are presented to us all on 3rd October, if we’re not careful we will immediately start to discuss, compare, debate, come to conclusions. I suggest that what we shall need most is silence and space, to give us time – perhaps a good length of time – when we can be still, and wait and pray, until we hear the heavenly still small voice telling us what to do.
So Nathanael turns out to be quite an influential role model. Because he occupies a place of peace and space, he recognises Jesus as the Son of God. That is God’s gift to him as it can be to us. Because he recognises Jesus for who he is, he is naturally a disciple – a Christian – someone who has seen Jesus. And once you have seen Jesus for who he is, you have seen God, and your life will never be the same again.
He can speak to us down the ages to where we find ourselves today, because – as John explicitly tells us (20:31) - “These things are written - (John has written this chapter) - that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name.”
DISCUSSION
1. When you read this passage from John Chapter one, what strikes you about the encounter between Jesus and Nathanael? Do you think it has relevance to you now?
2. When you read about Jesus in the Gospels, have you ever had that special moment of recognition that the Son of God is present with you as you read?
3. Do you manage to find the ‘space’ to think and pray through issues, and hear the voice of Jesus giving you guidance?
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Sunday 17 August 2008 Rhythm of Life 2: Leviticus 25:1-7, Luke 6:1-5 Bruce
Welcome to the second of two sermons on the theme of the Rhythm of Life, looking at the need for balance in all that we do and all that we are. Last week Melanie gave new insights into the 23rd Psalm, how the shepherd rules over the flock, but also gives rest and protection.
This week we look at the key principle of Sabbath. I wonder what this word conjures up in your mind? When I was 19, I was an impoverished bank clerk in Woking, and gratefully accepted invitations for Sunday lunch. One lovely couple regularly entertained me, but it could be quite tense. They were wonderful parents, who lavished love and attention on their children, while giving them safe boundaries. On the Sabbath day, however, no ice creams could be purchased, and no ball games played outside; they must sit quietly because it was the Lord’s Sabbath. Needless to say, they spent considerable periods of every Sunday afternoon remonstrating with bored, upset youngsters.
We find the Sabbath in the fourth commandment, in Exodus 20:
8 Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
9 Six days you shall labour and do all your work,
10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.
11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
We see from the very first chapter of the bible that God rules this world through order: day and night, days of the week, seasons of the year. This extends to our relationships with each other, with God and with the world of work. Once a week a day was to be set aside as a day of rest; as we read from Leviticus, every seventh year was to be set aside. If you read on, you will see that after every seven periods of seven, i.e. after 49 years, the 50th year was to be a year of Jubilee, when debts and leases were cancelled.
The principle here is that all of our relationship with God and existence in this world is to be balanced, ordered, and that we should know rest and peace. We might refrain from our legitimate work, but in so doing we trust our God that he will provide for all our needs and care for us. As we honour the Sabbath, we demonstrate that we are God’s.
This is worked out in various ways throughout scripture. It might be through a day spent in quiet and contemplation, with time to give ourselves to our chief purpose here on earth, that of worshipping God – a preview of our occupation in heaven! We also have time for deepening and enriching our relationships with those around us.
The language of ‘rest’, of Sabbath, is also used of the gift by God of a land for the people to inhabit; remember the three promises to Abraham: land, descendants and a relationship of blessing. The people would not inherit the blessing by their own efforts, but by trust and willingness to receive what God had in store for them; to use the language of last week’s sermon, they could choose to follow the shepherd in the ‘ways of righteousness’ and to the ‘still waters’. This is rest, Sabbath. It is all about the goodness of God, and his desire to provide for us all that we need.
And yet my good friends in Woking had managed to take this expression of goodness and freedom and make seem harsh and restrictive. How does this happen?
Of course, it says it in the bible. And yet this is where we must take care to read the scriptures, and remember some simple guidelines. For instance, something can be biblical but not necessarily scriptural. To put it another way, the Old Testament was written for us, but not about us. We learn from it and are guided by it, but we read it with care. In some parts, the most questionable actions or beliefs are recorded for us to learn from, so that we can live better; we do not have to copy them. In other cases, commands that were good and helpful in a particular situation can be seen not to apply for all time and in every place. There is very often room for disagreement and debate, and that is where we need to know the scriptures well and seek to be mature. To use a familiar phrase, we want to encounter God and grow in him ….
Sometimes we can use a scripture that is very helpful to us. When reformers were trying to help children who were working seven days a week, they railed at the owners of the mills and factories that they must give their workers the biblical day of rest. Alongside this, they founded the first Sunday Schools, where children could be given the first rudiments of a more general education. From this came the institution the British Sunday, which has faded into memory so rapidly.
It could be argued that this well intentioned movement caused a great harm, giving to generations of children (and perhaps older people as well) the unintended message that God and the church are all about restriction and coercion: fun has been outlawed!
Jesus tackles this issue head on; he is the key to understanding God’s will and purpose in this and every subject. He knows and acknowledges the Old Testament strictures, and claims the right to reinterpret them. Just as Yahweh God has set the bounds on all creation and ordered the lives of humankind by giving the Sabbath, Jesus reveals himself as the Lord who can do the same in our lives. It is part of the gradually revealed picture of Jesus as fully human and fully divine. He is the one who says ‘Come to me and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28). On another occasion he says bluntly that the Sabbath was instituted for our benefit, not the other way round. (Mark 2:27). Everything that God does is love, and he has given us himself, his name and his rest so that we might be blessed and helped.
The writer to the Hebrews goes further: our whole life is now one big Sabbath. Where the Israelites were promised a land, we have an inheritance of a relationship of love and trust because of Jesus. He is the Good Shepherd. We are invited to enjoy the forgiveness of our sins, the provision of our daily needs, a growing and deepening relationship of love with God our Father and with each other. This is the true Rest, the true Sabbath that he wants us to enjoy.
We can make living the Christian life such hard work. Why can we not stop, wait, accept, delight, in God?
To be practical, each of us must prayerfully work out how to spend Sundays. For some, it is quite acceptable to play sport, go shopping. Others will choose to fit these activities into the other six days of the week. Some have no choice but to work, and we are grateful for those who provide essential services.
May I offer some general principles to help you? The Sabbath is God’s gift to bless you and enrich your life. It is symbolic of your whole life lived in trust. It can be very helpful to have a special day when we devote ourselves to building and deepening good relationships with family, neighbours and friends. By hosting a barbecue or going visiting, you may be keeping the Sabbath in its true spirit and intention.
Worship is not an optional extra or leisure choice, to be put alongside all the others. If you are not ill or required to work, you should expect to be in church. Even if there are some Sundays that are more appealing than others, your presence here deepens and enriches our corporate experience of God. It is a shame when not all the family can get to the gatherings.
Worship and our gathering together is designed by God to be a blessing to us and an enrichment. If that is not your experience, may I encourage you to pray for the service leaders, for those who choose the music and the singers and musicians who practice and prepare so hard to help us in our worship? Pray for yourself and all the rest of us to have a living, fresh experience of God’s love, that gives a glimpse of the glories of heaven where we will experience true Rest and joy for ever.
We can make living the Christian life such hard work. Why can we not stop, wait, accept, delight, in God?
Questions
1. When did you last sit in complete silence and experience peace?
2. What for you is the heart, the essential factor of Sabbath?
3. What ways could you work (!) with others to better experience the Rest that God has in mind for us?
This week we look at the key principle of Sabbath. I wonder what this word conjures up in your mind? When I was 19, I was an impoverished bank clerk in Woking, and gratefully accepted invitations for Sunday lunch. One lovely couple regularly entertained me, but it could be quite tense. They were wonderful parents, who lavished love and attention on their children, while giving them safe boundaries. On the Sabbath day, however, no ice creams could be purchased, and no ball games played outside; they must sit quietly because it was the Lord’s Sabbath. Needless to say, they spent considerable periods of every Sunday afternoon remonstrating with bored, upset youngsters.
We find the Sabbath in the fourth commandment, in Exodus 20:
8 Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
9 Six days you shall labour and do all your work,
10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.
11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
We see from the very first chapter of the bible that God rules this world through order: day and night, days of the week, seasons of the year. This extends to our relationships with each other, with God and with the world of work. Once a week a day was to be set aside as a day of rest; as we read from Leviticus, every seventh year was to be set aside. If you read on, you will see that after every seven periods of seven, i.e. after 49 years, the 50th year was to be a year of Jubilee, when debts and leases were cancelled.
The principle here is that all of our relationship with God and existence in this world is to be balanced, ordered, and that we should know rest and peace. We might refrain from our legitimate work, but in so doing we trust our God that he will provide for all our needs and care for us. As we honour the Sabbath, we demonstrate that we are God’s.
This is worked out in various ways throughout scripture. It might be through a day spent in quiet and contemplation, with time to give ourselves to our chief purpose here on earth, that of worshipping God – a preview of our occupation in heaven! We also have time for deepening and enriching our relationships with those around us.
The language of ‘rest’, of Sabbath, is also used of the gift by God of a land for the people to inhabit; remember the three promises to Abraham: land, descendants and a relationship of blessing. The people would not inherit the blessing by their own efforts, but by trust and willingness to receive what God had in store for them; to use the language of last week’s sermon, they could choose to follow the shepherd in the ‘ways of righteousness’ and to the ‘still waters’. This is rest, Sabbath. It is all about the goodness of God, and his desire to provide for us all that we need.
And yet my good friends in Woking had managed to take this expression of goodness and freedom and make seem harsh and restrictive. How does this happen?
Of course, it says it in the bible. And yet this is where we must take care to read the scriptures, and remember some simple guidelines. For instance, something can be biblical but not necessarily scriptural. To put it another way, the Old Testament was written for us, but not about us. We learn from it and are guided by it, but we read it with care. In some parts, the most questionable actions or beliefs are recorded for us to learn from, so that we can live better; we do not have to copy them. In other cases, commands that were good and helpful in a particular situation can be seen not to apply for all time and in every place. There is very often room for disagreement and debate, and that is where we need to know the scriptures well and seek to be mature. To use a familiar phrase, we want to encounter God and grow in him ….
Sometimes we can use a scripture that is very helpful to us. When reformers were trying to help children who were working seven days a week, they railed at the owners of the mills and factories that they must give their workers the biblical day of rest. Alongside this, they founded the first Sunday Schools, where children could be given the first rudiments of a more general education. From this came the institution the British Sunday, which has faded into memory so rapidly.
It could be argued that this well intentioned movement caused a great harm, giving to generations of children (and perhaps older people as well) the unintended message that God and the church are all about restriction and coercion: fun has been outlawed!
Jesus tackles this issue head on; he is the key to understanding God’s will and purpose in this and every subject. He knows and acknowledges the Old Testament strictures, and claims the right to reinterpret them. Just as Yahweh God has set the bounds on all creation and ordered the lives of humankind by giving the Sabbath, Jesus reveals himself as the Lord who can do the same in our lives. It is part of the gradually revealed picture of Jesus as fully human and fully divine. He is the one who says ‘Come to me and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11:28). On another occasion he says bluntly that the Sabbath was instituted for our benefit, not the other way round. (Mark 2:27). Everything that God does is love, and he has given us himself, his name and his rest so that we might be blessed and helped.
The writer to the Hebrews goes further: our whole life is now one big Sabbath. Where the Israelites were promised a land, we have an inheritance of a relationship of love and trust because of Jesus. He is the Good Shepherd. We are invited to enjoy the forgiveness of our sins, the provision of our daily needs, a growing and deepening relationship of love with God our Father and with each other. This is the true Rest, the true Sabbath that he wants us to enjoy.
We can make living the Christian life such hard work. Why can we not stop, wait, accept, delight, in God?
To be practical, each of us must prayerfully work out how to spend Sundays. For some, it is quite acceptable to play sport, go shopping. Others will choose to fit these activities into the other six days of the week. Some have no choice but to work, and we are grateful for those who provide essential services.
May I offer some general principles to help you? The Sabbath is God’s gift to bless you and enrich your life. It is symbolic of your whole life lived in trust. It can be very helpful to have a special day when we devote ourselves to building and deepening good relationships with family, neighbours and friends. By hosting a barbecue or going visiting, you may be keeping the Sabbath in its true spirit and intention.
Worship is not an optional extra or leisure choice, to be put alongside all the others. If you are not ill or required to work, you should expect to be in church. Even if there are some Sundays that are more appealing than others, your presence here deepens and enriches our corporate experience of God. It is a shame when not all the family can get to the gatherings.
Worship and our gathering together is designed by God to be a blessing to us and an enrichment. If that is not your experience, may I encourage you to pray for the service leaders, for those who choose the music and the singers and musicians who practice and prepare so hard to help us in our worship? Pray for yourself and all the rest of us to have a living, fresh experience of God’s love, that gives a glimpse of the glories of heaven where we will experience true Rest and joy for ever.
We can make living the Christian life such hard work. Why can we not stop, wait, accept, delight, in God?
Questions
1. When did you last sit in complete silence and experience peace?
2. What for you is the heart, the essential factor of Sabbath?
3. What ways could you work (!) with others to better experience the Rest that God has in mind for us?
ST MICHAEL’S 27 JULY 2008 UNDERSTANDING THE NEW TESTAMENT Robert
2 Peter 3: 14 – 18 John 20: 24 – 31
1.UNDERSTANDING ITS DIVERSITY
2.UNDSTANDING ITS LANGUAGE & MESSAGE
3.READ, MARK, LEARN & INWARDLY DIGEST
UNDERSTANDING ITS DIVERSITY
The New Testament is not one block of Holy Scripture in the way it appears in copies of the Bible. 4 Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, 21 Letters, and (at the end) the vivid but (to 21st century eyes strange) Book of Revelation. So not the sort of book you buy in a shop and read from beginning to end in a logical sequence. It is a collection, written over many years by many different authors, from different stand-points, with different purposes in mind. Don’t start at the beginning and attempt to read through to the end!
FOUR GOSPELS. These tell the story of the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. They are called Gospels because the word means “Good News” and they represent the basic message of the Christian faith. The Christian Faith centres not on a body of doctrine or code of conduct, but on one Person – Jesus – and without these accounts, Christianity would not exist because we would not know his story. They all claim (explicitly or indirectly) to be or at least represent eye-witness accounts of Jesus’ ministry and the manner of his death and resurrection.
They are unsigned and it is tradition that has assigned authors to them. Mark written first. It is the shortest and perhaps most dynamic and vivid. It is more about actions than words. Matthew and Luke clearly had Mark’s account in front of them when they wrote, and often quote him verbatim or with small variations. They have their own standpoint because they are addressed to different readers – essentially Matthew to Jewish readers, and Luke to Greek and other Gentile readers. Both seem to have in front of them another source in addition to Mark – a collection of the sayings or teachings of Jesus, from which they choose selections of his words and teaching.
John stands apart. He does not refer to Mark as his source. The Greek style is markedly different and more philosophical. Much more space is given to recounting just a few incidents and miracles, with interpretation and – towards the end – a long account of what Jesus said to his disciples at and after the Last Supper. Over the centuries people seem to have always been drawn to John’s account, perhaps because it quotes Jesus’ words in such detail and length. But you read the other three if you want the overall synopsis of his life and ministry.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. This is written by the same author as the third Gospel, Luke, and continues the story of how the Christian Church was formed at the Day of Pentecost, and how it broke away (under the leadership of St Paul) from its original Jewish base, and (as we would say now) ‘went global’ and began to become the worldwide community of faith that (for example) we now see represented by bishops from all over the world at the Lambeth Conference. It is a great story and an exciting read.
- 2 -
21 LETTERS. These are mostly written by Paul (at different times, from different places, and for different reasons), but some are by other authors whom it is hard to identify by name in most cases. Probably all of Paul’s letters will have been written some time before the Gospels. The Gospel story of the life of Jesus, and the stories of what he said and did would have been passed on orally through sermons and teaching in groups for a generation, and it was when the first eye-witnesses began either to die naturally or through martyrdom, that they realised that it was essential that orderly accounts be written down.
They are written to ‘Churches’ in different places, and (being a well taught congregation) we all know that a ‘Church’ is the people, not the building. In those days there were no church buildings. Sometimes he writes with encouragement, sometimes with criticism, always with advice which is well worth reading.
Because he was writing to address such specific circumstances and often (as we say) ‘on the hoof’ dictating at speed, the sentence construction can become difficult, and the thoughts they contain (Peter tells us) sometimes hard to understand. But they contain the godly wisdom that underlines so much Christian teaching down the ages. But try to understand the context into which they were written, and the problems he was addressing – and read them as letters – not as polished doctrinal theses.
REVELATION is (as they say) a ‘one off’ (using very different Greek from eg: John’s Gospel and the 3 letters which carry the name ‘John’, so certainly not written by the same person as wrote the 4th Gospel or the three letters under John’s name). But actually belonging to a category of prophecy which was common at the time and well accepted in the Jewish world. It draws on the Book of Daniel but great guidance is needed before dipping in too far, as it has been used to underpin endless cults and false prophecies down the centuries, and is impossible to be taken literally.
So –take time and care to understand the way the New Testament is made up, its variety, its types of writing, its diversity, and it will add immensely both to your enjoyment of an amazing collection of literature and to your understanding. Who would think, for example, that we could read personal letters written two thousand years ago? It is very exciting.
UNDERSTANDING ITS LANGUAGE AND MESSAGE
Some people read the New Testament because they enjoy the beauty of its language which is often poetic in character and beautifully constructed as language. Those people will always like what we call the ‘Authorised Version’ which was a new translation from the original Greek into English, commanded by King James 1st after the death of Queen Elizabeth, and printed in 1611.
What most people don’t know is that the language was consciously old-fashioned even in 1611. The language was intended to impart a rather ancient solemnity to the text and would have been a little difficult for ordinary people to understand
- 3 -
even then. Bear in mind that Shakespeare was still very much alive in 1611 and was still writing plays. It is fascinating to imagine how different the Authorised Version would be if Shakespeare had been asked to do the work. His language was entirely different – very lively, vivid and including many new words in common speech and indeed it seems many he more or less invented. It would have brought the text to life is a quite different way – perhaps rather like the very modern new translations that are published especially for young people today.
But, however beautiful the cadences of the Authorised Version, what we are concerned with today is UNDERSTANDING the New Testament and its message, and for that we really do need a modern translation. Here in St Michael’s we use the New international Version (NIV) which is a good, conservative version for most of us to use. More modern translations include the Good News Bible, and the New English Bible which was produced in the 1970s and was intended to replace the Authorised Version, but has never really caught on. There are many others – shop around, and find one that you find easy to understand. If we are to live the Christian life today, we need to know what the New Testament actually says and means.
READ, MARK, LEARN & INWARDLY DIGEST
Who remembers the Prayer Book Collect for Bible Sunday (2nd in Advent in those days)? A little exercise in memory – if I stop in the middle who can tell me what comes next...?
‘Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning; grant that we may in such wise hear them – read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ.’
In order to understand the New Testament, and live by it, we need not only to understand how it came to be written, and understand the language, we need more – read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.
So (if by chance you don’t already do this), obtain a good modern translation which you find easy to understand. Get hold of some good notes or commentaries to help you. Make time as a priority for regular prayerful reading of short passages, followed by reflection and prayer.
Then comes the further step. Mark and Learn (yes, often by heart is really helpful) and inwardly digest – which means allowing the meaning to seep deep into your system and your daily life, so that you not only read the scriptures, but live by them. There lies the makings of a Christian life!
DISCUSSION. Discuss which versions of the Bible you find most helpful; whether you use Bible Reading notes or commentaries and, if so, which ones you find helpful; and what it means in practice to ‘inwardly digest’ Holy Scripture.
1.UNDERSTANDING ITS DIVERSITY
2.UNDSTANDING ITS LANGUAGE & MESSAGE
3.READ, MARK, LEARN & INWARDLY DIGEST
UNDERSTANDING ITS DIVERSITY
The New Testament is not one block of Holy Scripture in the way it appears in copies of the Bible. 4 Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, 21 Letters, and (at the end) the vivid but (to 21st century eyes strange) Book of Revelation. So not the sort of book you buy in a shop and read from beginning to end in a logical sequence. It is a collection, written over many years by many different authors, from different stand-points, with different purposes in mind. Don’t start at the beginning and attempt to read through to the end!
FOUR GOSPELS. These tell the story of the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. They are called Gospels because the word means “Good News” and they represent the basic message of the Christian faith. The Christian Faith centres not on a body of doctrine or code of conduct, but on one Person – Jesus – and without these accounts, Christianity would not exist because we would not know his story. They all claim (explicitly or indirectly) to be or at least represent eye-witness accounts of Jesus’ ministry and the manner of his death and resurrection.
They are unsigned and it is tradition that has assigned authors to them. Mark written first. It is the shortest and perhaps most dynamic and vivid. It is more about actions than words. Matthew and Luke clearly had Mark’s account in front of them when they wrote, and often quote him verbatim or with small variations. They have their own standpoint because they are addressed to different readers – essentially Matthew to Jewish readers, and Luke to Greek and other Gentile readers. Both seem to have in front of them another source in addition to Mark – a collection of the sayings or teachings of Jesus, from which they choose selections of his words and teaching.
John stands apart. He does not refer to Mark as his source. The Greek style is markedly different and more philosophical. Much more space is given to recounting just a few incidents and miracles, with interpretation and – towards the end – a long account of what Jesus said to his disciples at and after the Last Supper. Over the centuries people seem to have always been drawn to John’s account, perhaps because it quotes Jesus’ words in such detail and length. But you read the other three if you want the overall synopsis of his life and ministry.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. This is written by the same author as the third Gospel, Luke, and continues the story of how the Christian Church was formed at the Day of Pentecost, and how it broke away (under the leadership of St Paul) from its original Jewish base, and (as we would say now) ‘went global’ and began to become the worldwide community of faith that (for example) we now see represented by bishops from all over the world at the Lambeth Conference. It is a great story and an exciting read.
- 2 -
21 LETTERS. These are mostly written by Paul (at different times, from different places, and for different reasons), but some are by other authors whom it is hard to identify by name in most cases. Probably all of Paul’s letters will have been written some time before the Gospels. The Gospel story of the life of Jesus, and the stories of what he said and did would have been passed on orally through sermons and teaching in groups for a generation, and it was when the first eye-witnesses began either to die naturally or through martyrdom, that they realised that it was essential that orderly accounts be written down.
They are written to ‘Churches’ in different places, and (being a well taught congregation) we all know that a ‘Church’ is the people, not the building. In those days there were no church buildings. Sometimes he writes with encouragement, sometimes with criticism, always with advice which is well worth reading.
Because he was writing to address such specific circumstances and often (as we say) ‘on the hoof’ dictating at speed, the sentence construction can become difficult, and the thoughts they contain (Peter tells us) sometimes hard to understand. But they contain the godly wisdom that underlines so much Christian teaching down the ages. But try to understand the context into which they were written, and the problems he was addressing – and read them as letters – not as polished doctrinal theses.
REVELATION is (as they say) a ‘one off’ (using very different Greek from eg: John’s Gospel and the 3 letters which carry the name ‘John’, so certainly not written by the same person as wrote the 4th Gospel or the three letters under John’s name). But actually belonging to a category of prophecy which was common at the time and well accepted in the Jewish world. It draws on the Book of Daniel but great guidance is needed before dipping in too far, as it has been used to underpin endless cults and false prophecies down the centuries, and is impossible to be taken literally.
So –take time and care to understand the way the New Testament is made up, its variety, its types of writing, its diversity, and it will add immensely both to your enjoyment of an amazing collection of literature and to your understanding. Who would think, for example, that we could read personal letters written two thousand years ago? It is very exciting.
UNDERSTANDING ITS LANGUAGE AND MESSAGE
Some people read the New Testament because they enjoy the beauty of its language which is often poetic in character and beautifully constructed as language. Those people will always like what we call the ‘Authorised Version’ which was a new translation from the original Greek into English, commanded by King James 1st after the death of Queen Elizabeth, and printed in 1611.
What most people don’t know is that the language was consciously old-fashioned even in 1611. The language was intended to impart a rather ancient solemnity to the text and would have been a little difficult for ordinary people to understand
- 3 -
even then. Bear in mind that Shakespeare was still very much alive in 1611 and was still writing plays. It is fascinating to imagine how different the Authorised Version would be if Shakespeare had been asked to do the work. His language was entirely different – very lively, vivid and including many new words in common speech and indeed it seems many he more or less invented. It would have brought the text to life is a quite different way – perhaps rather like the very modern new translations that are published especially for young people today.
But, however beautiful the cadences of the Authorised Version, what we are concerned with today is UNDERSTANDING the New Testament and its message, and for that we really do need a modern translation. Here in St Michael’s we use the New international Version (NIV) which is a good, conservative version for most of us to use. More modern translations include the Good News Bible, and the New English Bible which was produced in the 1970s and was intended to replace the Authorised Version, but has never really caught on. There are many others – shop around, and find one that you find easy to understand. If we are to live the Christian life today, we need to know what the New Testament actually says and means.
READ, MARK, LEARN & INWARDLY DIGEST
Who remembers the Prayer Book Collect for Bible Sunday (2nd in Advent in those days)? A little exercise in memory – if I stop in the middle who can tell me what comes next...?
‘Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning; grant that we may in such wise hear them – read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ.’
In order to understand the New Testament, and live by it, we need not only to understand how it came to be written, and understand the language, we need more – read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.
So (if by chance you don’t already do this), obtain a good modern translation which you find easy to understand. Get hold of some good notes or commentaries to help you. Make time as a priority for regular prayerful reading of short passages, followed by reflection and prayer.
Then comes the further step. Mark and Learn (yes, often by heart is really helpful) and inwardly digest – which means allowing the meaning to seep deep into your system and your daily life, so that you not only read the scriptures, but live by them. There lies the makings of a Christian life!
DISCUSSION. Discuss which versions of the Bible you find most helpful; whether you use Bible Reading notes or commentaries and, if so, which ones you find helpful; and what it means in practice to ‘inwardly digest’ Holy Scripture.
Saturday, 19 July 2008
Sunday 20 July 2008 Bible Overview 3: Exile to John the Baptist. Melanie
Key events in the return from exile to John the Baptist
539 BC Cyrus decreed that Jews could return to Jerusalem and rebuild temple.
Haggai and Zechariah (prophets) urged people to rebuild temple.
Continual trouble between returned exiles and Jews who had stayed in Jerusalem.
Malachi (prophet) rebuked the people for misuse of the temple.
Nehemiah appointed ruler of Judah. Helped to rebuild wall of Jerusalem.
Ezra brought a Law Book to Jews in Jerusalem as a guide to life – later known as Pentateuch.
Those who had never been in exile cut themselves off – formed Samaritans. Built a rival temple. Led to lots of distrust of outsiders. Whilst those who returned from exile continued traditions of circumcision, keeping Sabbath, Synagogues
Greek rule under Alexander (336 BC)
Palestine came under authority of Seleucids – Antiochus IV.
Antiochus IV attacked Jerusalem; Forbade Jewish festivals; ordered copies of Law to be burnt; had pagan altars set up; Tried to force Jews to adopt Greek rule.
Hasidim Jews rebelled along with Judas Maccabeus– Maccabean rebellion.
Judas Maccabeus eventually entered Jerusalem and rededicated Temple.
Hasidim Jews split to form Pharisees and Saducees (Hasidim Jews became Pharisees).
Some other Jews formed own groups in desert (Essenes).
Roman rule
Roman Empire gradually took over all Greek controlled areas.
Octavian became ruler and took name of Augustus Caesar. Augustus reigned until AD14.
At about this time John the Baptist emerged from the wilderness, proclaiming the One who is to come.
We can only begin to imagine the chaos present in the country at the time. The Jewish people were split into several factions. The country had been ruled by Greeks and Romans. There had been oppression of the Jewish race by Antiochus IV. Above all there must have been a complete mistrust of foreigners and exiles.
Perhaps here we have a message for the church today. The church that is here for gathering exiles. Those exiles who have been made exiles by the force of our society – those who are rejected and labelled as outsiders. This includes the poor, and inevitably in this week of Lambeth we would think of gays and lesbians.
But the category of exile also includes those whom the world may judge normal, conventional, establishment types. The failure of old values and old institutions makes many people experience themselves as displaced people – anxious, under threat, vigilant, ill at ease and so in pursuit of safety and stability and well being that is not on the horizons of contemporary society.
Our ministry then cannot be about maintenance. It must also be about gathering, about embrace, about welcoming home all sorts and conditions of people. The church must have a ministry for being a place of home; a place for the mother tongue; a place of basic soul food; of old stories; of being at ease, and known by name; of belonging without qualifying for membership. This gathering is a crucial ministry amongst both the visibly excluded, but also amongst the visibly included who know themselves to be marginalized and powerless and under threat.
Welcoming in those on the margins is not the way of the world. But it is an alternative that lives on the lips of the church. And when we engage it again, we will be filled with energy and courage and generosity, enough to risk and to resist and to wait with eager longing for the Messiah who is to come.
Questions
How can the church be a place that welcomes exiles?
The Jewish people split into many factions – are there parallels today?
Who are the present day prophets?
539 BC Cyrus decreed that Jews could return to Jerusalem and rebuild temple.
Haggai and Zechariah (prophets) urged people to rebuild temple.
Continual trouble between returned exiles and Jews who had stayed in Jerusalem.
Malachi (prophet) rebuked the people for misuse of the temple.
Nehemiah appointed ruler of Judah. Helped to rebuild wall of Jerusalem.
Ezra brought a Law Book to Jews in Jerusalem as a guide to life – later known as Pentateuch.
Those who had never been in exile cut themselves off – formed Samaritans. Built a rival temple. Led to lots of distrust of outsiders. Whilst those who returned from exile continued traditions of circumcision, keeping Sabbath, Synagogues
Greek rule under Alexander (336 BC)
Palestine came under authority of Seleucids – Antiochus IV.
Antiochus IV attacked Jerusalem; Forbade Jewish festivals; ordered copies of Law to be burnt; had pagan altars set up; Tried to force Jews to adopt Greek rule.
Hasidim Jews rebelled along with Judas Maccabeus– Maccabean rebellion.
Judas Maccabeus eventually entered Jerusalem and rededicated Temple.
Hasidim Jews split to form Pharisees and Saducees (Hasidim Jews became Pharisees).
Some other Jews formed own groups in desert (Essenes).
Roman rule
Roman Empire gradually took over all Greek controlled areas.
Octavian became ruler and took name of Augustus Caesar. Augustus reigned until AD14.
At about this time John the Baptist emerged from the wilderness, proclaiming the One who is to come.
We can only begin to imagine the chaos present in the country at the time. The Jewish people were split into several factions. The country had been ruled by Greeks and Romans. There had been oppression of the Jewish race by Antiochus IV. Above all there must have been a complete mistrust of foreigners and exiles.
Perhaps here we have a message for the church today. The church that is here for gathering exiles. Those exiles who have been made exiles by the force of our society – those who are rejected and labelled as outsiders. This includes the poor, and inevitably in this week of Lambeth we would think of gays and lesbians.
But the category of exile also includes those whom the world may judge normal, conventional, establishment types. The failure of old values and old institutions makes many people experience themselves as displaced people – anxious, under threat, vigilant, ill at ease and so in pursuit of safety and stability and well being that is not on the horizons of contemporary society.
Our ministry then cannot be about maintenance. It must also be about gathering, about embrace, about welcoming home all sorts and conditions of people. The church must have a ministry for being a place of home; a place for the mother tongue; a place of basic soul food; of old stories; of being at ease, and known by name; of belonging without qualifying for membership. This gathering is a crucial ministry amongst both the visibly excluded, but also amongst the visibly included who know themselves to be marginalized and powerless and under threat.
Welcoming in those on the margins is not the way of the world. But it is an alternative that lives on the lips of the church. And when we engage it again, we will be filled with energy and courage and generosity, enough to risk and to resist and to wait with eager longing for the Messiah who is to come.
Questions
How can the church be a place that welcomes exiles?
The Jewish people split into many factions – are there parallels today?
Who are the present day prophets?
Saturday, 12 July 2008
SUNDAY 13 JULY 2008 BIBLE OVERVIEW – 2 Acts 7:37-53, Matthew 23:29-36 Robert
This is the second of five sermons in which we are attempting to give an overview of the Bible. That’s quite a task, but we’re going to give it a go! Last Sunday Bruce began an overview of the Old Testament: ‘From Abraham to Joshua’. This week we are looking at the great central part of the Old Testament and the title is ‘From Joshua to the Exile’. So prepare to leap through about 600 years in a few courageous bounds!
I need to begin by saying that the great pivotal point of the Old Testament is the Exodus. God saw an undistinguished slave people in Egypt, and decided to deliver them from slavery and take them through a long journey until they found their homeland. It is so significant for the Jewish people because it defines their existence as a distinctive people; their relationship with God their Deliverer; Moses as the great proto-type of the leader they were always hoping would come again, and that act of rescue is ritually remembered and re-enacted every year in the Passover. It is so significant for the Christian because it is the model from which our own story of salvation takes its origin. We are very ordinary people, in slavery to sin and the powers of evil, and God through Christ comes to our rescue, sets us free, and leads us across our own Red Sea and on our own journey through to the homeland he has promised. That is the Christian’s salvation history writ large for us in a huge visual aid.
But Moses, who has led God’s chosen people across the Red Sea to freedom, and through the arduous years in the wilderness, dies before he can complete the journey. It falls to Joshua to complete the task, and lead the people to occupy the land of Canaan, the land which God had promised.
But this relatively small strip of land to the east of the Mediterranean is prized land because it is highly fertile. It is right in the middle of what historians and archaeologists call the ‘Fertile Crescent’ running in a crescent shape from modern day Iraq, Jordan and Egypt round to modern day Turkey in the north. It includes a great plain which was known as the bread basket of the Middle East. Many believe it was there that ancient people first began to grow crops and settle as an agricultural people rather than hunter-gatherers.
So it was always going to be the object of fierce competition – as indeed it remains today. Nations to the north and west from Syria to Assyria to Babylonia to Greece to Rome all sought to conquer it. And from the south, the great enemy was always Egypt. This promised land was a small country, ‘boxed in’ in the middle of all the great military powers who eyed it greedily from all sides.
The Israelites could never defend it in their own strength. They relied on God’s help, and the great question which was to hang over their nation during all these centuries was whether they could keep their side of the covenant God had made. Could they keep his commandments and rely on his power, rather than their own resources? Or would they rebel against the God who had saved them from slavery and made them free, and pursue their own ends, and find themselves, as a result, inevitably crushed between the great competing world powers? Sometimes they veered one way and sometimes another. Overall the lesson is painfully clear – when they ceased to rely on God, they became over-confident, self-reliant, broke his commandments, and disaster invariably followed.
And I don’t see this, myself, as God’s directly punitive action, let alone revenge. I see it as the inevitable consequence when a person or a nation or a church becomes proud and over-confident, turns away from the living God, and begins to live in its own strength. It is a fact of life. The wages of sin is death – not because God wills people to destruction – but simply because that is the final payout.
To follow the story through this period briefly goes as follows.
The twelve tribes occupied the promised land of Canaan not, initially, as a single nation, but as a loose confederation. This is the picture we see in the Book of Judges. There was nothing resembling a central government or organisation – the tribes largely went their own way. But when there was an outside threat, God raised up a charismatic leader who rallied the tribes (much as a romanticised history of Scotland sees a charismatic leader arise from time to time, and unify the different clans to fight a common cause against the English enemy).
But the surrounding nations were more cohesive, and they had central leaders who were kings. And after some 200 years, there arose a groundswell of opinion that Israel, too, needed to become a nation like those around it, and they wanted and needed a king who would form a central government. The leading prophet Samuel was highly sceptical of this desire, as he foresaw that behind it lay the desire to become like all the other nations, relying on human structures and military might, rather than on the power of God who had brought them to this land. No doubt the memory of that glorious conquest of Canaan under God and Joshua was, by this time, becoming something of a distant memory, and they were already becoming (so to speak) infected by the pagan outlook (not to say pagan rituals) of the native population who still remained in great numbers. What God thought of this desire for a king is neatly summed up in 1 Samuel 8:7 where He says to Samuel “They have rejected me as their king!”
But Samuel was persuaded and (with God’s guidance) Israel acquired its first king – Saul. After a bright start, he became a disaster, and Samuel quietly (and under God’s specific guidance) anointed the young shepherd boy David, to be king in Saul’s place.
We have no time to relate the story, but David became Israel’s greatest king who went down in their history as the model to whom they always looked back (however marred his character). Whenever times were hard for the next thousand years and more, they looked, prayed and hoped longingly for another David. What they imagined, of course, was another such great military leader – what they never dreamt of, was a son of David who looked or acted like his true successor - Jesus.
David was succeeded by his son, the great king Solomon, who built the temple. He was a great king, but in practice he was simply a copy of the great oriental rulers. Magnificent, lordly, worldly, with his army and his horses, and his myriads of concubines and wives. The very model of an magnificent oriental despot. It was the height of Israel’s worldly power and glory, and the brink of the precipice.
History bristles with tales of great rulers who sons cannot match them, having grown up in splendour without responsibility, pride without wisdom, power without experience, and who inevitably lead their people into catastrophe. So it was to be with Solomon’s son Rehoboam.
Solomon was hardly in his grave before rebellion broke out, and the result was that the kingdom split into two. The ten tribes to the north of Jerusalem declared independence and thereafter are named in the Bible as Israel. The two remaining tribes grouped around Jerusalem – Judah and the tiny tribe of Benjamin - remained under sovereignty from the capital Jerusalem and thereafter they are called in the Bible Judah.
To cut a long story short, the kingdom of Israel to the north comprising those ten tribes were attacked in the 721 BC by Assyria (the great world power of its day), the people taken away into exile and never heard of again. They literally disappeared off the face of the map. By New Testament times, this area of land is known as Samaria. The great Old Testament prophets (such as Amos and Hosea) had declared with great passion that this was bound to happen, because these people had forsaken God and his covenant, indulged in appalling social injustice, and forfeited their right to his protection.
Over the next hundred and fifty years, the southern kingdom of Judah lives on, sometimes rallying its faith and finding in God its great God and Saviour, and sometimes straying far away and finding itself in mortal danger. The crunch came in the year 586 BC when the Babylonians captured Jerusalem and took all the Jewish inhabitants away into captivity in Babylon where they remained for the next 50 years. Eventually they are allowed to return, rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple, and a new era dawns. That’s the cliff-hanger for next week, and the end of today’s history lesson.
But overarching it all, we have two readings today from the New Testament, which are angry commentaries on this long saga of God’s people. They tell us that, throughout this chequered history, God had constantly sent prophets and leaders, who had listened carefully to what God was saying, and told the people in no uncertain terms what they needed to do to repent, turn back to God, worship him in the right spirit, rely on him for salvation rather than their own armies, and avert disaster. On and on God had pleaded with his people. These terrible catastrophes, and all the suffering that went with them, need not have happened if only they had listened.
But sadly these prophets sent from God had consistently been ignored, laughed at, persecuted, imprisoned and often killed. That is the message that overhangs all the historical story I have been telling. And, of course, the message both of Stephen and of Jesus is only too plain. God’s people are repeating the same terrible mistake. God has sent his only Son – the greatest prophet, leader and saviour of all – and, instead of listening and responding, the people had conspired to have him falsely tried, tortured and crucified. And the inevitable result was to follow – within 30 years or so, Jerusalem and its Temple would be destroyed by the Romans, and it would not be long before the Jewish people would be expelled from the land God had given them for the next two thousand years. The lessons of Israel’s long history had not been learned.
The two readings Bruce has chosen for today to sum up this period of Jewish history are angry tirades against the religious leaders, the religious establishment, and all those who kept to the law, but failed to listen to God who was speaking to them through the Holy Spirit. It is summed up by Stephen in one blistering verse – Acts 7: 51: “You are just like your fathers. You always resist the Holy Spirit!”
Now I am very aware that my time is up, but I find it impossible to leave it at that point without asking where we stand today. What is the application of this message? Is it possible that our religious establishment is equally resisting the Holy Spirit and courting disaster?
We look out on a world struggling with great issues of war and peace, great riches and great poverty; a western world becoming ever more secular and an eastern world becoming ever more militant. If ever there was a need to proclaim the Gospel, it is now. People we know everywhere struggle with their finances, with their relationships, with their children, with authority, and overall hangs the fog of confusion and the hope of salvation. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was never so relevant and potentially powerful. The Holy Spirit urges us forward.
And what do our church leaders do? They argue among themselves about whether women may become bishops, when all around us (and indeed in our own congregation) we see women manifestly anointed by the Holy Spirit for ministry within the church of God. Do we follow where the Holy Spirit leads? Or do we insist on sticking by our traditions?
And now comes the Lambeth Conference, where our church leaders will spend their time arguing about homosexuality! It’s difficult to think of a worse or more negative advertisement for the Gospel and the Church.
It’s significant that both issues, at root, are about sex, which seems to obsess the church and become the worst of sins. But doesn’t Jesus always demonstrate his greatest compassion for our outward sinful natures, while reserving his fiercest condemnation for the spiritual and inner sins – pride, hypocrisy, passing judgement on others while failing to deal with the planks in our own eyes, and our own lack of self-discernment, faithfulness and love for God?
If ever there was a failure to read the signs of the times, it is now. If ever there was a failure to listen to the Holy Spirit, surely we see it as our leaders argue among themselves while the world waits for the message of salvation. Surely they should be uniting in sending out a massive message of encouragement to the church to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ – who, to the best of my knowledge – said nothing about either issue.
I have opened up a huge subject without the time to explore it even superficially, and for that I apologise. But if we are to learn the lessons of the Old Testament, and pay attention to Stephen’s and Jesus’ condemnation “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” “You always resist the Holy Spirit!” Then it is time to pray earnestly for our church and its leaders. The Old Testament teaches only too clearly the fate of those who maintain their traditions and will not listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
-----------------------------
1. How did you react to the debate in General Synod concerning women bishops, and the surrounding publicity?
2. How can we best pray for the bishops as they attend the Lambeth Conference?
3. How can we best be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and avoid the temptation to resist what he is saying?
4. What do you think the Holy Spirit is saying to us at St Michael’s now?
I need to begin by saying that the great pivotal point of the Old Testament is the Exodus. God saw an undistinguished slave people in Egypt, and decided to deliver them from slavery and take them through a long journey until they found their homeland. It is so significant for the Jewish people because it defines their existence as a distinctive people; their relationship with God their Deliverer; Moses as the great proto-type of the leader they were always hoping would come again, and that act of rescue is ritually remembered and re-enacted every year in the Passover. It is so significant for the Christian because it is the model from which our own story of salvation takes its origin. We are very ordinary people, in slavery to sin and the powers of evil, and God through Christ comes to our rescue, sets us free, and leads us across our own Red Sea and on our own journey through to the homeland he has promised. That is the Christian’s salvation history writ large for us in a huge visual aid.
But Moses, who has led God’s chosen people across the Red Sea to freedom, and through the arduous years in the wilderness, dies before he can complete the journey. It falls to Joshua to complete the task, and lead the people to occupy the land of Canaan, the land which God had promised.
But this relatively small strip of land to the east of the Mediterranean is prized land because it is highly fertile. It is right in the middle of what historians and archaeologists call the ‘Fertile Crescent’ running in a crescent shape from modern day Iraq, Jordan and Egypt round to modern day Turkey in the north. It includes a great plain which was known as the bread basket of the Middle East. Many believe it was there that ancient people first began to grow crops and settle as an agricultural people rather than hunter-gatherers.
So it was always going to be the object of fierce competition – as indeed it remains today. Nations to the north and west from Syria to Assyria to Babylonia to Greece to Rome all sought to conquer it. And from the south, the great enemy was always Egypt. This promised land was a small country, ‘boxed in’ in the middle of all the great military powers who eyed it greedily from all sides.
The Israelites could never defend it in their own strength. They relied on God’s help, and the great question which was to hang over their nation during all these centuries was whether they could keep their side of the covenant God had made. Could they keep his commandments and rely on his power, rather than their own resources? Or would they rebel against the God who had saved them from slavery and made them free, and pursue their own ends, and find themselves, as a result, inevitably crushed between the great competing world powers? Sometimes they veered one way and sometimes another. Overall the lesson is painfully clear – when they ceased to rely on God, they became over-confident, self-reliant, broke his commandments, and disaster invariably followed.
And I don’t see this, myself, as God’s directly punitive action, let alone revenge. I see it as the inevitable consequence when a person or a nation or a church becomes proud and over-confident, turns away from the living God, and begins to live in its own strength. It is a fact of life. The wages of sin is death – not because God wills people to destruction – but simply because that is the final payout.
To follow the story through this period briefly goes as follows.
The twelve tribes occupied the promised land of Canaan not, initially, as a single nation, but as a loose confederation. This is the picture we see in the Book of Judges. There was nothing resembling a central government or organisation – the tribes largely went their own way. But when there was an outside threat, God raised up a charismatic leader who rallied the tribes (much as a romanticised history of Scotland sees a charismatic leader arise from time to time, and unify the different clans to fight a common cause against the English enemy).
But the surrounding nations were more cohesive, and they had central leaders who were kings. And after some 200 years, there arose a groundswell of opinion that Israel, too, needed to become a nation like those around it, and they wanted and needed a king who would form a central government. The leading prophet Samuel was highly sceptical of this desire, as he foresaw that behind it lay the desire to become like all the other nations, relying on human structures and military might, rather than on the power of God who had brought them to this land. No doubt the memory of that glorious conquest of Canaan under God and Joshua was, by this time, becoming something of a distant memory, and they were already becoming (so to speak) infected by the pagan outlook (not to say pagan rituals) of the native population who still remained in great numbers. What God thought of this desire for a king is neatly summed up in 1 Samuel 8:7 where He says to Samuel “They have rejected me as their king!”
But Samuel was persuaded and (with God’s guidance) Israel acquired its first king – Saul. After a bright start, he became a disaster, and Samuel quietly (and under God’s specific guidance) anointed the young shepherd boy David, to be king in Saul’s place.
We have no time to relate the story, but David became Israel’s greatest king who went down in their history as the model to whom they always looked back (however marred his character). Whenever times were hard for the next thousand years and more, they looked, prayed and hoped longingly for another David. What they imagined, of course, was another such great military leader – what they never dreamt of, was a son of David who looked or acted like his true successor - Jesus.
David was succeeded by his son, the great king Solomon, who built the temple. He was a great king, but in practice he was simply a copy of the great oriental rulers. Magnificent, lordly, worldly, with his army and his horses, and his myriads of concubines and wives. The very model of an magnificent oriental despot. It was the height of Israel’s worldly power and glory, and the brink of the precipice.
History bristles with tales of great rulers who sons cannot match them, having grown up in splendour without responsibility, pride without wisdom, power without experience, and who inevitably lead their people into catastrophe. So it was to be with Solomon’s son Rehoboam.
Solomon was hardly in his grave before rebellion broke out, and the result was that the kingdom split into two. The ten tribes to the north of Jerusalem declared independence and thereafter are named in the Bible as Israel. The two remaining tribes grouped around Jerusalem – Judah and the tiny tribe of Benjamin - remained under sovereignty from the capital Jerusalem and thereafter they are called in the Bible Judah.
To cut a long story short, the kingdom of Israel to the north comprising those ten tribes were attacked in the 721 BC by Assyria (the great world power of its day), the people taken away into exile and never heard of again. They literally disappeared off the face of the map. By New Testament times, this area of land is known as Samaria. The great Old Testament prophets (such as Amos and Hosea) had declared with great passion that this was bound to happen, because these people had forsaken God and his covenant, indulged in appalling social injustice, and forfeited their right to his protection.
Over the next hundred and fifty years, the southern kingdom of Judah lives on, sometimes rallying its faith and finding in God its great God and Saviour, and sometimes straying far away and finding itself in mortal danger. The crunch came in the year 586 BC when the Babylonians captured Jerusalem and took all the Jewish inhabitants away into captivity in Babylon where they remained for the next 50 years. Eventually they are allowed to return, rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple, and a new era dawns. That’s the cliff-hanger for next week, and the end of today’s history lesson.
But overarching it all, we have two readings today from the New Testament, which are angry commentaries on this long saga of God’s people. They tell us that, throughout this chequered history, God had constantly sent prophets and leaders, who had listened carefully to what God was saying, and told the people in no uncertain terms what they needed to do to repent, turn back to God, worship him in the right spirit, rely on him for salvation rather than their own armies, and avert disaster. On and on God had pleaded with his people. These terrible catastrophes, and all the suffering that went with them, need not have happened if only they had listened.
But sadly these prophets sent from God had consistently been ignored, laughed at, persecuted, imprisoned and often killed. That is the message that overhangs all the historical story I have been telling. And, of course, the message both of Stephen and of Jesus is only too plain. God’s people are repeating the same terrible mistake. God has sent his only Son – the greatest prophet, leader and saviour of all – and, instead of listening and responding, the people had conspired to have him falsely tried, tortured and crucified. And the inevitable result was to follow – within 30 years or so, Jerusalem and its Temple would be destroyed by the Romans, and it would not be long before the Jewish people would be expelled from the land God had given them for the next two thousand years. The lessons of Israel’s long history had not been learned.
The two readings Bruce has chosen for today to sum up this period of Jewish history are angry tirades against the religious leaders, the religious establishment, and all those who kept to the law, but failed to listen to God who was speaking to them through the Holy Spirit. It is summed up by Stephen in one blistering verse – Acts 7: 51: “You are just like your fathers. You always resist the Holy Spirit!”
Now I am very aware that my time is up, but I find it impossible to leave it at that point without asking where we stand today. What is the application of this message? Is it possible that our religious establishment is equally resisting the Holy Spirit and courting disaster?
We look out on a world struggling with great issues of war and peace, great riches and great poverty; a western world becoming ever more secular and an eastern world becoming ever more militant. If ever there was a need to proclaim the Gospel, it is now. People we know everywhere struggle with their finances, with their relationships, with their children, with authority, and overall hangs the fog of confusion and the hope of salvation. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was never so relevant and potentially powerful. The Holy Spirit urges us forward.
And what do our church leaders do? They argue among themselves about whether women may become bishops, when all around us (and indeed in our own congregation) we see women manifestly anointed by the Holy Spirit for ministry within the church of God. Do we follow where the Holy Spirit leads? Or do we insist on sticking by our traditions?
And now comes the Lambeth Conference, where our church leaders will spend their time arguing about homosexuality! It’s difficult to think of a worse or more negative advertisement for the Gospel and the Church.
It’s significant that both issues, at root, are about sex, which seems to obsess the church and become the worst of sins. But doesn’t Jesus always demonstrate his greatest compassion for our outward sinful natures, while reserving his fiercest condemnation for the spiritual and inner sins – pride, hypocrisy, passing judgement on others while failing to deal with the planks in our own eyes, and our own lack of self-discernment, faithfulness and love for God?
If ever there was a failure to read the signs of the times, it is now. If ever there was a failure to listen to the Holy Spirit, surely we see it as our leaders argue among themselves while the world waits for the message of salvation. Surely they should be uniting in sending out a massive message of encouragement to the church to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ – who, to the best of my knowledge – said nothing about either issue.
I have opened up a huge subject without the time to explore it even superficially, and for that I apologise. But if we are to learn the lessons of the Old Testament, and pay attention to Stephen’s and Jesus’ condemnation “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” “You always resist the Holy Spirit!” Then it is time to pray earnestly for our church and its leaders. The Old Testament teaches only too clearly the fate of those who maintain their traditions and will not listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
-----------------------------
1. How did you react to the debate in General Synod concerning women bishops, and the surrounding publicity?
2. How can we best pray for the bishops as they attend the Lambeth Conference?
3. How can we best be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and avoid the temptation to resist what he is saying?
4. What do you think the Holy Spirit is saying to us at St Michael’s now?
Thursday, 10 July 2008
Sunday 6 July 2008 Bible Overview 1: Abraham to Joshua Genesis 12:1-9, Acts 7:1-8 Bruce
Welcome to a new series about the bible, 66 books that form a library telling the story of God and his love for the people of this world. In this first week, we look at the first six books in particular, though the story of Abraham. There is an old saying: “The New is in the Old concealed, the Old is in the New revealed”. In the Acts, in the New Testament, Luke manages to tell the whole of Old Testament history. So we find Stephen on trial for his life, and he starts his defence with the story of Abraham. (The bible starts with the Creation and the first eleven chapters of Genesis lay out the ancient origins of the world. God designed a perfect garden where he could live in fellowship with humankind, but we made that impossible.)
In chapter 12 we meet Abraham who receives a call, and three specific promises from God. The promises are:
1. Land
2. Descendants
3. a Relationship of Blessing.
We follow Abram (his original name) around the Fertile Crescent from Ur to Haran, where he seems to settle for a while, and then on to Canaan. He arrives in the land of promise, but does not settle down, wandering all his life, so the first promise is as yet unfulfilled. God refers to the sinfulness of the inhabitants of the land, and that the time is not yet right for the “sin of the Amorites “ had not yet reached full measure. Abraham eventually has a son Isaac, and a grandson Jacob (who name is changed to Israel). So the second promise is fulfilled, but there have been difficulties on the way! Israel has 12 sons, of whom Joseph is one, and they end up in Egypt. Through amazing circumstances Joseph ends up as Prime Minister, in virtual charge of the nation; God sends the blessing. So ends the book of Genesis.
400 years pass and they are slaves! God sends Moses to lead them back to the land of promise. We follow the Exodus, as God delivers his people with a mighty hand. He gives them the Law by which they can live as his people. But all is not well! You can take the people out of Egypt, but you cannot so easily take Egypt out of the people. All three of the promises are in doubt. Are they ready for the Land; do they really want it? Will they survive in the wilderness, or will Abraham be left with no descendants? Are they so sinful that God cannot live in their midst? They spend 40 years in the wilderness, and God does live them, but elaborate arrangements must be made for forgiveness of their sins - hence the regulations in Leviticus and Numbers. Many times they doubt that God is on their side, and he must deal with their doubt and unbelief (read Psalm 95).
At the end of the 40 years, God recaps all that has gone before, and gives them the Law a second time (the literal meaning of Deuteronomy). The book finishes with the song of Moses and warnings about obedience. It is under the leadership of Joshua that the people eventually begin the conquest of the land God has promised. The book of Joshua records these, but worryingly gives hints that the people may not always be obedient. This will put at risk their occupation of the land, the future of the people of Israel, Abraham’s descendants, and their relationship of blessing with God.
It can be helpful to keep in mind the three promises to Abraham while reading this part of the bible (Genesis to Joshua). Genesis is pre-eminently about whether Abraham will have descendants; Exodus about whether God will deliver his people and fulfil his promise to give them a land of their own; Leviticus and Numbers about how the people of God can enjoy a relationship of blessing. Deuteronomy and Joshua set the scene for the ongoing story that will play out in the times of the Judges, Kings and Prophets, that will culminate in the Exile. In the New Testament we are given to understand that the promises still hold, but they are to be understood in new and wider ways (see the Magnificat and Benedictus).
Notice that Abraham was a pilgrim and wanderer all his days. The Israelites were always to remember their humble beginnings (My father was a wandering Aramean …), and they were never to claim a settled life as of right. Our imagery of the Christian life as a pilgrimage is rooted in the life and wanderings of Abraham, as processed by John Bunyan.
Abraham was a man of faith. In Genesis 15 we read that God promises Abraham an heir; “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” Abraham is in this sense the “father of all who believe”, and Paul looks back to this episode in Romans 4. We are each offered a relationship of blessing with God, because of our relationship with Abraham’s great Heir - Jesus, as we share in the same faith in God’s mercy and calling.
Abraham was not perfect. He was a man of passion, who made some doubtful choices. It is a principle of reading scripture that the author may have a view, but is not afraid to report the truth about his characters, warts and all. Similarly, Moses has lapses. We can still be inspired and instructed by their lives, and seek after a similar walk with God.
May I encourage you to get to know these stories, revel in the strangeness of visiting alien cultures and learning how they lived, but also to seek to encounter the living God as they did, hear his call and follow him wherever he leads.
Questions
1. What is your favourite part of the bible, and especially of the first six books?
2. The Baptism service talks of our pilgrimage of faith. What parts of Abraham’s journey has a resonance in our lives?
3. What verses from the New Testament do we know that refer to the stories in the Old Testament?
In chapter 12 we meet Abraham who receives a call, and three specific promises from God. The promises are:
1. Land
2. Descendants
3. a Relationship of Blessing.
We follow Abram (his original name) around the Fertile Crescent from Ur to Haran, where he seems to settle for a while, and then on to Canaan. He arrives in the land of promise, but does not settle down, wandering all his life, so the first promise is as yet unfulfilled. God refers to the sinfulness of the inhabitants of the land, and that the time is not yet right for the “sin of the Amorites “ had not yet reached full measure. Abraham eventually has a son Isaac, and a grandson Jacob (who name is changed to Israel). So the second promise is fulfilled, but there have been difficulties on the way! Israel has 12 sons, of whom Joseph is one, and they end up in Egypt. Through amazing circumstances Joseph ends up as Prime Minister, in virtual charge of the nation; God sends the blessing. So ends the book of Genesis.
400 years pass and they are slaves! God sends Moses to lead them back to the land of promise. We follow the Exodus, as God delivers his people with a mighty hand. He gives them the Law by which they can live as his people. But all is not well! You can take the people out of Egypt, but you cannot so easily take Egypt out of the people. All three of the promises are in doubt. Are they ready for the Land; do they really want it? Will they survive in the wilderness, or will Abraham be left with no descendants? Are they so sinful that God cannot live in their midst? They spend 40 years in the wilderness, and God does live them, but elaborate arrangements must be made for forgiveness of their sins - hence the regulations in Leviticus and Numbers. Many times they doubt that God is on their side, and he must deal with their doubt and unbelief (read Psalm 95).
At the end of the 40 years, God recaps all that has gone before, and gives them the Law a second time (the literal meaning of Deuteronomy). The book finishes with the song of Moses and warnings about obedience. It is under the leadership of Joshua that the people eventually begin the conquest of the land God has promised. The book of Joshua records these, but worryingly gives hints that the people may not always be obedient. This will put at risk their occupation of the land, the future of the people of Israel, Abraham’s descendants, and their relationship of blessing with God.
It can be helpful to keep in mind the three promises to Abraham while reading this part of the bible (Genesis to Joshua). Genesis is pre-eminently about whether Abraham will have descendants; Exodus about whether God will deliver his people and fulfil his promise to give them a land of their own; Leviticus and Numbers about how the people of God can enjoy a relationship of blessing. Deuteronomy and Joshua set the scene for the ongoing story that will play out in the times of the Judges, Kings and Prophets, that will culminate in the Exile. In the New Testament we are given to understand that the promises still hold, but they are to be understood in new and wider ways (see the Magnificat and Benedictus).
Notice that Abraham was a pilgrim and wanderer all his days. The Israelites were always to remember their humble beginnings (My father was a wandering Aramean …), and they were never to claim a settled life as of right. Our imagery of the Christian life as a pilgrimage is rooted in the life and wanderings of Abraham, as processed by John Bunyan.
Abraham was a man of faith. In Genesis 15 we read that God promises Abraham an heir; “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” Abraham is in this sense the “father of all who believe”, and Paul looks back to this episode in Romans 4. We are each offered a relationship of blessing with God, because of our relationship with Abraham’s great Heir - Jesus, as we share in the same faith in God’s mercy and calling.
Abraham was not perfect. He was a man of passion, who made some doubtful choices. It is a principle of reading scripture that the author may have a view, but is not afraid to report the truth about his characters, warts and all. Similarly, Moses has lapses. We can still be inspired and instructed by their lives, and seek after a similar walk with God.
May I encourage you to get to know these stories, revel in the strangeness of visiting alien cultures and learning how they lived, but also to seek to encounter the living God as they did, hear his call and follow him wherever he leads.
Questions
1. What is your favourite part of the bible, and especially of the first six books?
2. The Baptism service talks of our pilgrimage of faith. What parts of Abraham’s journey has a resonance in our lives?
3. What verses from the New Testament do we know that refer to the stories in the Old Testament?
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Sunday 29 June 2008 1 Kings 19, Luke 23 Melanie
I don’t know what you think about abstract art. Some people love it, others hate it, but children sometimes have the clearest perspective.
A grandmother once told me that her grandson best summed up her feelings about abstract art. They were looking at a painting with a wild mish-mash of colours and he asked, "What's that?" She said, "It's supposed to be a cowboy on his horse." "Well," he continued, "Why isn't it?"
The passages we heard today are like a piece of abstract art; a man praying as he nears the end of his life; a cup. Another man on a mountain surrounded by earthquake, wind and fire.
And the title of the painting is freedom.
Our human minds struggle to understand, to make links between the images, to discern, to penetrate what the artist means, to make some sense of seemingly random pictures.
First there is the cup. What does it hold? Does it contain all the emotions and events in life?
Does it contain wine? The wine of the Passover meal?
Then there is the silence of the mountain. Silence in which God speaks. Silence that comes deeply into the human spirit, that gives the meaning to speech, and yet creates richer silences.
Then there is the word 'freedom' boldly proclaimed at the top of the picture. What do we mean by freedom?
Abandonment, letting go, loss of control?
Always though to be free means to start from somewhere where we are not free. How can we be free unless we are first attached? Attached to something, by even the slenderest of threads, yet by that one thread still held, still fixed, until we find a way to cut the thread and be free.
And so the man in the garden prays. He prays to be released from this cup, the cup that holds so much. The cup that is full of joy, sorrow, blessing, praise, death, life, sickness, health. The cup that holds all things together.
The cup that is so full that we can scarcely begin to understand its contents. The cup that takes every ounce of energy to speak about.
The man on the mountain continues to wait. He listens to the howling wind, splitting and shattering rocks, breaking and destroying mountains.
He watches the earthquake tear into the landscape, ripping apart centuries of geology, bringing man made structures crashing around him.
He smells the fire, smoke reaching into every inch of earth, flames spreading talons near and far.
Yet still he waits. He waits in the silence, the silence where sorrows and joy emerge from their hidden place, the silence where the overflowing cup looks him in the face.
Then the voice of God in the silence, searching, probing, seeing to the depths of the soul and the cup of life - once safely hidden, now frighteningly displayed - vulnerable raw and exposed.
No wonder the man in the garden pleaded that the cup be taken away. Which of us could face the intensity of the cup?
The temptation is to run, to run from the silence, to run from self confrontation, to run from speaking about our inner life; to find a place of safety, away from the fire, the earthquake, the wind, a sacred place where we are not exposed. Not in a garden, or on a mountain - little to protect us from the cup of life there.
But here was God, in a place that was exposed, raw, vulnerable.
The still small voice of God
A still small voice offering what?
Perhaps a way to cut the thread
To cut the thread that attaches us to human fears
of exposure, vulnerability.
God's still small voice, that offers us the chance to abandon our deepest selves
to cut the thread that ties us to the cup of life
to experience the very deepest joy
that we will never experience in our life on earth
To come close to true freedom, abandonment, freedom to rejoice beyond the cup of life.
But without the cup, would we have reached freedom? Probably not.
Without experiencing the vulnerability of being human, would we have heard the voice of God?
The cup and the silence, these are two key shapes that have been with me through the last 5 years
Drinking from the cup has been hard, painful. This chalice that I was given five years ago
as I began this final stage of the journey to ordination has often challenged me, frequently hurt me, many times seemed an obstacle to me. I often echoed Christ's words “Father, take this cup from me.”
Then there has been the silence. All that has been left when words seemed shabby, helpless; when sentences seemed impossible.
And yet, out of this has emerged freedom, abandonment, joy, (or as I interpret it, trampolining, juggling, unicycling), all from the cup of the Passover and the silence and the voice of God.
And so the picture takes shape, the kaleidoscope of images - at first random - now begin to have a pattern.
The garden, the mountain, the earthquake, the wind, the fire, the silence, the cup.
Abandonment and freedom in Christ - freedom to rejoice.
A grandmother once told me that her grandson best summed up her feelings about abstract art. They were looking at a painting with a wild mish-mash of colours and he asked, "What's that?" She said, "It's supposed to be a cowboy on his horse." "Well," he continued, "Why isn't it?"
The passages we heard today are like a piece of abstract art; a man praying as he nears the end of his life; a cup. Another man on a mountain surrounded by earthquake, wind and fire.
And the title of the painting is freedom.
Our human minds struggle to understand, to make links between the images, to discern, to penetrate what the artist means, to make some sense of seemingly random pictures.
First there is the cup. What does it hold? Does it contain all the emotions and events in life?
Does it contain wine? The wine of the Passover meal?
Then there is the silence of the mountain. Silence in which God speaks. Silence that comes deeply into the human spirit, that gives the meaning to speech, and yet creates richer silences.
Then there is the word 'freedom' boldly proclaimed at the top of the picture. What do we mean by freedom?
Abandonment, letting go, loss of control?
Always though to be free means to start from somewhere where we are not free. How can we be free unless we are first attached? Attached to something, by even the slenderest of threads, yet by that one thread still held, still fixed, until we find a way to cut the thread and be free.
And so the man in the garden prays. He prays to be released from this cup, the cup that holds so much. The cup that is full of joy, sorrow, blessing, praise, death, life, sickness, health. The cup that holds all things together.
The cup that is so full that we can scarcely begin to understand its contents. The cup that takes every ounce of energy to speak about.
The man on the mountain continues to wait. He listens to the howling wind, splitting and shattering rocks, breaking and destroying mountains.
He watches the earthquake tear into the landscape, ripping apart centuries of geology, bringing man made structures crashing around him.
He smells the fire, smoke reaching into every inch of earth, flames spreading talons near and far.
Yet still he waits. He waits in the silence, the silence where sorrows and joy emerge from their hidden place, the silence where the overflowing cup looks him in the face.
Then the voice of God in the silence, searching, probing, seeing to the depths of the soul and the cup of life - once safely hidden, now frighteningly displayed - vulnerable raw and exposed.
No wonder the man in the garden pleaded that the cup be taken away. Which of us could face the intensity of the cup?
The temptation is to run, to run from the silence, to run from self confrontation, to run from speaking about our inner life; to find a place of safety, away from the fire, the earthquake, the wind, a sacred place where we are not exposed. Not in a garden, or on a mountain - little to protect us from the cup of life there.
But here was God, in a place that was exposed, raw, vulnerable.
The still small voice of God
A still small voice offering what?
Perhaps a way to cut the thread
To cut the thread that attaches us to human fears
of exposure, vulnerability.
God's still small voice, that offers us the chance to abandon our deepest selves
to cut the thread that ties us to the cup of life
to experience the very deepest joy
that we will never experience in our life on earth
To come close to true freedom, abandonment, freedom to rejoice beyond the cup of life.
But without the cup, would we have reached freedom? Probably not.
Without experiencing the vulnerability of being human, would we have heard the voice of God?
The cup and the silence, these are two key shapes that have been with me through the last 5 years
Drinking from the cup has been hard, painful. This chalice that I was given five years ago
as I began this final stage of the journey to ordination has often challenged me, frequently hurt me, many times seemed an obstacle to me. I often echoed Christ's words “Father, take this cup from me.”
Then there has been the silence. All that has been left when words seemed shabby, helpless; when sentences seemed impossible.
And yet, out of this has emerged freedom, abandonment, joy, (or as I interpret it, trampolining, juggling, unicycling), all from the cup of the Passover and the silence and the voice of God.
And so the picture takes shape, the kaleidoscope of images - at first random - now begin to have a pattern.
The garden, the mountain, the earthquake, the wind, the fire, the silence, the cup.
Abandonment and freedom in Christ - freedom to rejoice.
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