Sunday 19 August 2012 Isaiah 55:1-13, Mark 5:21-43, Bruce

There is so much to make us afraid.  Here in our gospel reading we meet two people who are in terrible circumstances.

First, Jairus.  He is a ruler of the synagogue.  He is someone of importance.  His problem is that his 12 year old daughter is at the point of death, and he decides to approach Jesus.  A question that comes to my mind is that the little girl has been alive for as long as the diseased woman we are about to meet has been ill.  Is this a coincidence?  Is there a suggestion that the girl has been ill all these years, but now has taken a decisive turn for the worse?  Also, we know that Jesus has been in dispute with religious leaders in quite a few synagogues.  What has been the stance of Jairus up to now?  Has he been forced into a rethink and a climb down?  Is this bravery or desperation?

The good news is that he has come down to the lakeside where Jesus has just got out of the boat after travelling back across from Decapolis, and he has found his way to Jesus and humbly made his request and Jesus has agreed to come!  The not so good news is that the crowd wants to come too, and as they press through the narrow streets progress is slow as Jesus is mobbed.  Will they get there in time?  Does Jesus understand the gravity of the situation, just how ill his daughter is?

It gets worse.  Jesus stops for a chat.  And so we meet our second character.  The unnamed woman has been subject to internal bleeding for 12 years.  This is painful and debilitating, but in their culture it was also isolating.  In Deuteronomy 15 we read that any woman with a discharge of blood is ceremonially unclean for as long as it continues.  Anything she touches or sits on is ceremonially unclean.  Anyone whom she touches is unclean until nightfall.  No wonder the woman disguises herself and creeps up on Jesus, as it were.  In her desperation she clings to the possibility that Jesus can make her whole.  In the anonymity of the crowd she reaches out to touch the hem of his robe.  She knows instantly that she has been healed.  But so does Jesus.  He amazes his disciples by demanding to know who has touched him.  In the midst of this rugby scrum he is aware that a healing event has taken place.  And he stops.  We learn here that the power of God is not a mechanical thing where we say our prayers, and either an answer pops out or it doesn’t.  The woman had imagined that there would be power in merely touching Jesus, but Jesus is only interested in making a relationship with her.  It is Jesus who is important here, not the precise words we use or the actions we take.  We might even argue that the woman had a muddled and incorrect attitude, but that does not matter.  She was reaching out to Jesus, and he reached back out to her.  “Daughter, your faith has healed you.”

We can imagine that Jairus was aghast through all of this.  His own daughter is dying.  The moments are ticking away.  This woman with her terrible condition has touched the holy man Jesus and made him ceremonially unclean, so does that mean that Jesus will be disbarred from helping?  He is taking time to listen to the woman; trembling – she has fallen at Jesus’ feet and told him “the whole truth” – she’s giving him her whole medical history!

And then the worst possible outcome – messengers arrive to say that it is too late, his daughter is dead.  It is time to give up.  It has all gone horribly wrong.

Jesus overhears this.  “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”  The man’s fears had led him to put his trust in Jesus in the first place, and Jesus now invites him to redouble that trust.  Not in the reputation of Jesus, or stories he has heard about him.  Jesus is here, and says “trust me”.  This is that fruit of the Holy Spirit that we call patience, or perseverance or longsuffering.  We believe in God, at least on some level, or we would not find ourselves here.  But there are times when that faith is tested almost, it seems, to destruction.  We catch something of the flavour of that when Harry Potter is at his lowest ebb in the forest after visiting Godric’s Hollow, expressing his frustration at the clues that his mentor Dumbledore has left him to follow: “Look what he asked of me, Hermione!  Risk your life, Harry!  And again!  And again!  And don’t expect me to explain everything, just trust me blindly, trust that I know what I am doing …”  In that great morality tale, Hermione can only respond of the dead Dumbledore: “He loved you” Harry.

If you remember, the big question that Mark poses to us again and again is “Who is Jesus?”  We saw in chapter four that the despairing disciples assumed that they would all drown when their boat was caught in a storm, but Jesus was there.  The man possessed by a Legion of demons found deliverance when he encountered Jesus.  The woman in her pain, shame, fear and desperation has found an answer to her fears in Jesus.  And now, in the midst of his greatest trial, which seems to be getting worse, Jairus is being invited to find out for himself who Jesus is.

Jesus leaves the crowd behind and heads for the home of Jairus, only to find another crowd waiting.  The professional mourners are in full flow and there is a racket.  It is obvious from the other gospel accounts that she really was dead, although Jesus has used the metaphor of sleep to affirm that she will be raised.  The crowd take the metaphor literally and laugh at him.  Jesus despatches all of them, and the six of them gather around the girl’s bedside: Jesus, Peter, James, John and the two parents.    Talitha is, I understand, a word for a young lamb or goat – he quite literally calls her a kid, and perhaps there was a twinkle in his voice as he said it: “Get up, kid!”  And she does.  She does not just lie there, taking it easy, but she bounces up and starts roaming around.

Jesus makes two requests.  They are cannot expect to keep the news that she is revived secret, but they are not to talk about the details of what happened in that room.  And will they please give this hungry young girl something to eat!  Jesus was always practical.

Just as the disciples were in the boat, just as the crowds were in Decapolis after the deliverance of Legion, just as the woman was after being healed of her issue of blood, so the parents and the disciples are completely astonished.  The answer to the big question “Who is Jesus?” will always have the effect of stretching us, astonishing us, making us re-evaluate and revise all of our ideas and priorities.  God help us never to lose that ability to be surprised and elated by what God can do.  God prevent us from ever settling for the humdrum, familiar, tame excuses that our religion can offer, to insulate us from encountering God and growing in him.  At the times when circumstances seem most against us, be open for God to intervene and reveal himself in the freshest, most relevant manner.  Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.

There is much to puzzle us and frighten us in this life.  But we are not following clues left by a dead mentor (as was Harry Potter).  That same Jesus that we have been reading about is here – what do we reply to the words “The Lord is here”?  By his Spirit he is present in every believing heart, and he wants to touch us and bless us this morning.  As we gather round his word, as we join together in prayer, as we break bread and drink wine in obedience to his command, so may we be open for all the he has for us this morning.

Questions

1.     In Hebrew thought, death and disease were things that cut us off from God.  What do you find that seems to separate you from contact with God?

2.     What did the disciples learn, do you think, from these two episodes?

3.     If you could touch the Lord, as it were, what need would you bring to him right now?  Who will pray with you about this?

Sermon for Sunday 12 August 2012 – Mark 5:1-20

We all will, from time to time experience the pain of loss grief, and even despair. Very often we put them into a secret corner of our own heart. In a sense is it a place of death, sometimes literally and more often metaphorically. It’s a place we go to when hopes go unrealized and when dreams remain unfulfilled, when reality disappoints, the loss of a loved one, loss of employment, loss of a pet, loss of a relationship, loss of dignity, loss of respect. And throughout our lives we will break ground in this corner and in this corner we sew in reminders, knotted pieces of thread that remind us of regret, betrayal, lost health and disillusionment. They make up the ‘unusual’ patterns on the patchwork quilt of our lives. In this corner holds many of our most treasured memories. And we are often tempted to live in there, but God wants us to explore the rest of our patchwork quilts, and sent Jesus to enable us to do that.

When we bury what’s lost, a vacuum is created and demons can enter in. The names of some of these demons are Cynicism, Bitterness, Unforgiveness, Anger, Apathy, and Addiction. Demons are more than psychological problems.

And if these demons take over our lives, we find ourselves living in this corner—all alone, surrounded by vestiges of life but not life itself. We are accompanied only by a “Legion” of demons. We are like the man in in the Bible passage. The demons had given him superhuman strength but had left him a human wreak: naked, isolated, self-destructive, and alone, with no income or family. The man had abandoned himself from all that life could give him.

Many of us try to liberate ourselves by binding the demons, trying to limit the control they have over us. We put our efforts into work, exercise, or hobbies. We take up a new cause or enter a new relationship. Some of us try to escape in fantasy through the internet, identifying with a sports team, or reading fiction. Some of us attempt to use positive thinking to bind the demons and gain control back of our lives.

But all of these strategies eventually fail, because the Strong Man hasn’t been bound. In Mark 3 Jesus tells a little wisdom parable. Unless the Strong Man is first bound, one can’t plunder the Strong Man’s house. One of the central messages of the Gospel of Mark is that Jesus Christ—especially in his death and resurrection—has bound the Strong Man, and has come to plunder his house. We are the reward of Jesus’ liberating mission. He came, in the words of Luke 4:18, to provide “release to captives; to let the oppressed go free.”

And so if we hope to be free from the demons in the secret corner of our patchwork quilt, Jesus himself must enter in. He is like the Sheriff in an old Western movie who says to the Outlaw, “There isn’t enough room in this town for the both of us.” This is why Legion says to Jesus, “What have you to do with us? Don’t torment us! Send us into the pigs.” In Jesus’ eyes (Gods) we are more important than animals.

There isn’t enough room in the Demoniac of Mark 5 for both Legion and Jesus, and so Jesus casts out the demons, heals the man, and thereby saves him. Jesus’ binding of the Strong Man allows him to plunder the Strong Man’s house, to set the captive free. And so Jesus fulfills another of his wisdom parables: unless a seed enters the ground and dies, it cannot bring forth life in other seeds. And unless Jesus enters our secret hidden places of our hearts, we cannot hope to move from death to life.

Bringing life out of death is costly, and Mark depicts it through the image of Legion driving 2000 pigs to their deaths. The townspeople didn’t want to pay the cost. Hearing of these events, they come to Jesus and the Liberated Man. But instead of rejoicing in his freedom, they calculate the economic consequence those 2000 pigs. They decide it’s too expensive and ask Jesus to leave. But Jesus is the shepherd who is willing to risk ninety-nine secure sheep in order to find only one who is lost. One dysfunctional, demon-possessed man was more important than a thousand animals. He’s willing to pay the price for our liberation. People are more important than animals.

Are we willing to pay the cost—individually and as the church? Are we willing to invite Jesus into our individual secret hidden corners of our hearts and let him heal us—even if it costs us letting go of demons like Cynicism and Unforgiveness? And are we willing, as a church, to pay for even one sheep to be found, one captive to be set free—even if it costs us 2000 pigs? Because at stake is not just our own freedom, but that of the entire world. In a startling departure, Mark tells us that Jesus doesn’t forbid the Liberated Man from speaking of his liberation. Rather, Jesus sends him back into his community to testify of what God has done for him. Releasing him back to be the person God wanted him to be in the first place. He was able to be reunited with his family again, able to do a work to support his family, able to speak of the love of God.

Jesus took a naked, wild man out of his mind, and healed him and now we see him sitting, fully clothed and coherent. God can do this for anyone today. We are never too far gone for God's saving power. That man didn't have to have a psychiatrist. Thank God for psychiatrists, but he didn’t need one. That man did didn't have to have a medical doctor. Thank God for medical doctors, but that man didn’t need one. He didn’t have to have Prozac. I won’t thank God for Prozac. All he had to have was Jesus. And they came out. The people saw this man, this maniac who would strip off all of his clothes and run naked through the streets. This man who no man could tame, who cried night and day, who cut himself and mutilated his own body, this man who was deranged and driven by demons, allowed Jesus to deal with him. When Jesus got through with him, the people saw this man sitting quietly at the feet of Jesus. He was clothed and in his right mind. The people did not like what they saw and hear and they asked Jesus to leave so Jesus told the man to go home and tell his folk what had happened to him. I want you to know there's nobody anywhere--there is no one who is beyond the touch of Jesus! Let’s allow Him to bind the things that impede our progress in our journey of faith. For we cannot tell what we have not experienced and when we allow Jesus to heal us – not only are we “free”, we are able to shall what God has done!

Questions

• How are you trying to battle demons instead of letting Jesus the Plunderer liberate you?

·         Do you fully appreciate Christ's Lordship in your life? Have you fully appropriated His enabling power in your life? Do you share with others what great things He has done in your life?

·         Are there times when you doubt God's sovereign power? Is He really in control over death, disease and demons?

·         What do you do when people want to be left in their sin? When they reject the salvation that Christ has offered to them?

• Pray Psalm 30, asking to be one who has been liberated to live beyond the secret hidden place in the patchwork quilt of your life.

SERMON 5 AUGUST 2012. JESUS LORD OF WIND AND WAVES.

Psalm 107 : 1 – 3 & 23 – 32                               Mark 4 : 35 – 41            Robert

As we have progressed in this series on Mark’s Gospel, we have found that Jesus has demonstrated the impact of God’s Kingdom – his sovereign reign on earth – through his teaching and a series of miracles which Mark has arranged to show us that God’s kingly rule through Jesus extends into every aspect of human life. We have seen Jesus healing people who are sick from various afflictions, casting out unclean spirits, demonstrating his power over every manifestation of evil or sin, restoring the outcast and those on the margins of society to their rightful place in the community, and pronouncing the forgiveness of sins to those who come to him for help. And in all these the characteristic of Jesus that has come through perhaps most forcefully, in addition to his love, compassion and power, has been his authority. His authority manifested in his teaching; his authority manifested in his confrontations with the secular and religious authorities; his authority in his victory over Satan and all his works. We have seen how Jesus embodies the complete love and power of God, and how that results in God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.

Now in this Gospel passage this morning, we find him exercising that same complete authority over the powers of nature. “Even the wind and the waves obey him.”

In the opening verses of his Gospel, Mark has let us into the secret of who Jesus is and that he has come to bring God’s kingdom on earth. But we have privileged information which is not available to the disciples or the crowds, even to his family, let alone his opponents. So they see a wonderfully powerful teacher from God. They see a man who can heal sick people, and drive out unclean spirits. Now the disciples see Jesus commanding the wind and the waves. It makes them very awestruck and indeed frightened, but so far they have not fathomed who he really is.

From our privileged position, knowing that it is God himself who is being fully revealed in Jesus, the story we have just read adds a new dimension. So far every action and miracle has concerned people – people in every kind of need. Now we see his power and authority extend into the physical world of nature. To heal a sick person is one thing. To command the wind and the waves is another.  As we read in Psalm 107, everyone familiar with the Hebrew scriptures knew very well that God is Lord of all creation. But to see that power and authority being exercised before their eyes in the person of Jesus was a revelation.

We can understand the meaning of this event in two ways, and they are both important. First, let’s consider what the story tells us (so to speak) on the ‘outside’. God has a plan to restore order, peace and salvation to the whole of creation – not just to people.

We can easily slip into thinking of the Christian faith in very individualistic terms. My life has gone wrong and I do not live in the way God truly wants me to live. So I can go to God through faith in Jesus, as an individual, and find forgiveness, restoration, new hope, new life, and a future that extends even beyond the bounds of death into heaven. And all of that is entirely true and to be embraced with all our hearts. But God’s plan is bigger than that – bigger than the individual. God’s plan is for the restoration of the whole of his wonderful creation.

In his letter to the Romans (chapter 8) Paul tells us “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time....for the creation was subjected to frustration...(but) in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

So its not only humans who need to be ‘saved’ but the whole created order, and in Jesus there is God’s plan not just for a lot of individuals, but for the earth itself to be restored and re-created according to God’s wonderful purpose. This should, in the first place, broaden our horizons and enlarge our vision. God’s whole world is precious to him and he means to restore it to order and beauty. And this should not only broaden our horizon and enlarge our vision, it should be the motivation behind our stewardship of our world. We are not simply trying to save our earth for our own selfish purposes, but to co-operate with God’s Holy Spirit in fulfilling God’s mission to his creation. Sadly, the Christian Church has been very slow to grasp this, and Christian interest in saving our planet has tended to be dragged by the coat-tails of the secular world into tending our precious world, rather than being in the lead because of our immense vision of God’s saving purposes in Jesus for the whole creation. Our vision is too small because our faith is too individualistic. In this story of a fishing boat on the sea of Galilee, we see a glimpse – a foretaste – of what God means to do in the fullness of time. “Even the wind and the waves obey him.” Calm, order, beauty and peace are to be restored. In the opening chapter of the letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes these astounding words: “God made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times have reached their fulfilment – to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.”

The second way in which we can look at this story, is to look beneath the surface. If we have been so far looking at this miracle event through a telescope, what happens if we take a microscope? What do we see? Although we see disciples who lack faith and find Jesus’ power intimidating, they have in fact been rescued from a deeply serious and even life-threatening situation. Jesus has brought calm to their frightened senses, and serene water to bring them safely to harbour.

If Jesus can do that to our physical environment, what can he do when our lives are hit by storms of a different kind? The sea of Galilee was well known for its sudden violent storms that seemed to come from nowhere, and there are times when our lives are hit by unforeseen storms which may not be physical but nevertheless shake us and threaten us severely with stress and potential life-changing threats.

Although he wasn’t at the helm, in effect Jesus was in control of the boat, and – yes – in answer to the disciples’ doubts and questions, he did care very much about them and whether they were going to drown in the storm. And although they begged him to help more through fear than through faith, he made sure that the boat could be steered safely to land. Hopefully we, who know better than they do, who Jesus is and what he can do for us, can do better than that. We know that he cares for us and we know that we can approach him in faith, and ask for help. It may not be that the storm suddenly disappears, but his presence in our boat (so to speak) means that he rides the storm with us, and that he has the power and authority to see us through to the other side, wherever that may be.

It may not be that every problem is instantly solved, or every closed door flung open, but rather that – as we face all that life may spring upon us – we have beside us in our boat a companion who is the Lord himself, who will not desert us or leave us cope alone, and that –on the far side of the storm – there will be new hope, a new dawn, a new future, perhaps not of the kind we can presently imagine, but Jesus has the authority to bring us eventually to a safe harbour, and in the meantime we have beside us one whom even the wind and waves obey. The disciples had many and unexpected trials and suffering to face which at this point they could not begin to imagine. But as they travelled in the company of Jesus, they were to discover that even death itself was not the final enemy, but the prelude to resurrection.

In the words of one of many people’s favourite hymns: ‘What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear....take it to the Lord in prayer.’

Discussion

1. When you read this story, does it carry a particular message for you which you feel able to share with the group?

2. How far do you think the Christian Church should be specifically involved in the search  to solve the planet’s environmental problems? Should it be a priority? If so, why? How might the Church as a whole (and locally) be more involved?

3. Do you think it’s right to pray for the weather to change for a particular event/purpose? If so, how might such a prayer be framed? How do you feel if your prayer isn’t answered in the way you hoped?

Sermon Sunday 22 July 2012, Isaiah 6:1-10, Mark:1-20, The Soil and the Seeds, Bruce

Mark’s first example of Jesus’ teaching – the parable of the sower. But not even his disciples understand and he has to explain.

Welcome to the seventh in a series of sermons exploring the first eight chapters of Mark’s stories about Jesus.  We have seen that the crucial question is “Who is Jesus?” and after that, how will we respond to him?  While we were told in the first verse of the first chapter that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, this is not widely known, and puzzlingly Jesus does not seem in a hurry to reveal who he is.

There is currently a programme on ITV inviting us to vote for the Jesus we want ... the soulful Jesus, the acting Jesus, the rock-star Jesus.  We saw last week that Jesus, as he really was, upset his family, who thought that he was mad, and the teachers of the law, who thought that he was in league with the devil.

We saw also last week that Jesus recruited twelve of his followers to be with him, and then to go out preaching the kingdom and to drive out demons.  They were to continue and expand his work of preaching the kingdom and summoning people to obedience.  Anyone who obeys the will of God is a family member - his “brother, sister or mother”.

And then he tells the parable of the soils.  A casual reading of the parable would suggest that Jesus is telling us to be careful to avoid being shallow soil or weedy soil.  Instead we are to be good soil and bear fruit.  You know the sort of thing: buck up your ideas and pay attention, or Satan will whisk my words from your minds.  Well, if you are expecting a lecture this morning, then you can relax, as I suspect that Jesus is doing something different here.

Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, has just appointed his twelve apostles, and he is here alerting them (and us) to the fact that it will not all be plain sailing.  Jesus himself has experienced great success in preaching, healing and delivering folk from the power of Satan, but he has also encountered unbelief, disobedience as the people he healed refused to keep quiet, as uncontrollable crowds have mobbed him, and as his family and the religious authorities have rejected him.  

So Jesus tells a story about a familiar scene - a sower and his seed.  This matters to his hearers because if there is no harvest, there will be nothing to eat.  The seed is the word of the kingdom.  This is problematical to his first century hearers, almost politically incorrect.  Surely a kingdom is brought in by might or political power?  This is precisely the route that Jesus rejected in his confrontation with the devil.  The sowing of seed appears weak and vulnerable, but actually there is great power in the growing thing.  Plants can break up concrete and transform landscapes.  So the word, proclaiming that God is King and announcing that we must fall into line with this and obey (believe and repent), is the way that Jesus will transform the world.

This parable is a parable about parables.  You will observe that in many reading schemes the middle section is missed out:

Mark 4:11-13

11 He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12 so that,

“‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,  and ever hearing but never understanding;

otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”

13 Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?

Jesus has obviously been reading Isaiah 6,

Isaiah 6:9-10

9 He said, “Go and tell this people:

“‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’

10 Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.

Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts,

and turn and be healed.”

We love to sing of the grandeur and holiness of God: “Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes”.  There is a mystery that God will not overrule us or force us to believe.  If we are determined not to believe, then he reserves the right almost to cooperate with us in allowing us to reject him.  To those on the outside (remember last week?), God’s ways look mysterious and forbidding.  To any who are seeking after good, he reveals himself and welcomes us in.  Some people would like to select a different Jesus who makes no demands and is a gentle comforting presence.  The parable suggests that we come to Jesus as Lord, master, boss, ready to it in with his will.

The reality is that we do not understand God, but that we know that he is good.  The reality is that God is in charge, but we do not always see it now.  The reality is that Jesus ached to see his Father’s will done here on earth as it is in heaven, and gave his life to achieve that.  The reality is that we encounter many setbacks and disappointments but we are confident that there is good soil and God will reap his harvest.

• And so it is true that we share God’s love with some folk and they appear totally oblivious.  
• It is true that if we are determined to live linked to Jesus we can expect to be ridiculed or treated badly (but we do not face the depth of persecution endured in some cultures, and we also should not go out of our way to provoke trouble).  
• It is undoubtedly true that as soon as anyone starts to follow Christ, all sorts of distractions come in the shape of a new demanding and rewarding job (or perversely the loss of our job), in a new relationship (or the break up or lack of an existing one), in hobbies and pastimes that are good in themselves but take our time, energy and money, forcing Jesus into second or third place.  People we thought were our friends (even within the church) seem to act in ways we find hurtful and we are smothered by our feelings of resentment.

Who here is good soil?  I do not know.  Most of the time not me, as I struggle with all the temptations and distractions that are common to us all.  The good news is that these problems seem designed to help us to develop perseverance, and this leads us to develop a character like Jesus, and this gives us hope, and this does not disappoint because God has taken the initiative to pour his love into our hearts by his Holy Spirit.  (Romans 5)  If you want to be good soil, then you can be, and will be as you allow him to work in you.  It is not a matter of you choosing Jesus but allowing him to choose you and make you special.

Discussion Starters

1. What do you receive as the primary meaning of the parable of the soils?
2. If asked “Who is Jesus for you?”, what response would you give?
3. When facing problems and difficulties, does it make easier o more difficult to follow Jesus?
4. How does this drive our prayer lives?

Sermon for Sunday 15 July 2012 Mark 3:13-35, REJECTION AND VICTORY, Bruce

Mark names 12 ‘Apostles’ appointed by Jesus, and makes their function clear. They are to be his close companions, and his ‘missionaries’. Jesus has now attracted such publicity that his own family has become involved. They are as dumb-founded as everyone else and conclude that he is ‘out of his mind’. The religious experts attempt to brand him as an agent of Satan, but are conclusively rebutted. Jesus has bound Satan (the ‘strong man’).

Are you in or are you out?  In this passage Jesus has contact with five groups of people - the crowds, those he calls as his apostles, his family, the teachers of the law, and us.

We have seen in previous weeks that Jesus has become famous far and wide for proclaiming that the kingdom of heaven is near and that we should repent.  He has demonstrated the power of God’s in-breaking kingdom by healing the sick, cleansing lepers and driving out demons.  In a society where there is no medical understanding as we would be familiar with it, crowds of people flock to be with Jesus and be blessed by him.

He chooses twelve - a significant number.  We today are not so caught up with the meaning and importance of numbers, but choosing twelve was almost a political statement that Jesus was restoring the wholeness, the completeness of the ancient nation of Israel.

And who were these twelve?  Peter, the leader, went on to betray him.  James and John are firebrands - warm-hearted people who always seem to be starting fights.  Matthew (if he is the same person as Levi) is a tax collector working for the Roman regime while Simon is an anti-Roman revolutionary.  And Judas ….

The twelve are far from ideal specimens, and any competent selection process today would filter them out.  Yet these are the people Jesus chooses to help him bring in the kingdom.. They are chosen to do two things.  They are to be WITH him.  They will live, walk, talk, sleep, breath with Jesus for the next three years.  And they are to be SENT OUT by him to preach and drive out demons.

After making his selection, Jesus hits a familiar problem.  A crowd hears that he is in town and mobs him and his disciples to such an extent that they cannot even get a meal.  To his family it must have seemed that religious zeal and devotion had tipped over into hysteria and delusion.  What was strange and wonderful when Jesus was a boy of twelve now seemed dangerous and embarrassing.  For his own protection they needed to take charge of him.  Have we come to terms yet with the fact that Jesus is not just a polite, gentle teacher who will do a little to make this world a little bit better?  Jesus is in fact a revolutionary, come to announce a new world order, where God is in charge.  He is not a comfortable person to have around.  All of our actions, our habits, our attitudes, are held up for examination and challenge.  If Jesus is in our lives, if we are encountering him and growing in him, then we cannot just carry on as before in the same comfortable way.  That is why some people would like to cordon Jesus off into a safe, manageable place where he is a teacher or a good moral example.

Others, of course, would like to reject him entirely.  The teachers of the law cannot deny that Jesus is performing powerful works of deliverance and exorcism.  As they cannot admit that his power has come from God, they are forced to postulate that Jesus instead is motivated by the power of the chief of the demons.  Jesus demolishes this first with common sense - if Satan is fighting Satan, then God’s kingdom must indeed be coming.  But second Jesus was proclaimed in chapter one by John the Baptist as the more powerful one who was to come, and revealed in the wilderness as the strong man who overcame the devil and his temptations; faced with the vanquishing of Satan, the only correct conclusion to draw is that Jesus the strong man has arrived.

Verse 28 is important.  We can be forgiven all our sins, and every slander we utter.  There is no limit to God’s forgiving grace, except in one case.  Those who see God’s forgiving grace and call it evil miss it.  They are in the position of one who will not receive a life-giving operation from the most gifted surgeon because they are self-deluded that the surgeon is a cold hearted killer.  They have placed themselves outside the circle of God’s grace.

Also outside are Jesus’ family who have now arrived at the house.  They send a messenger in to summon Jesus, who is seated inside with a circle of people around him.  Time for another shock.  In a society where loyalty to family is one of the highest ideals, Jesus cuts his family completely, saying that those who do his Father’s will are his true family.

Robert spoke last week about openness to God’s ways, and the implications that this has for the renewal of our building.  This week we see that underlying that, is the call to be with Jesus and share his life, and to be sent by him to preach and share his power with those around us.  We are to encounter him and grow in him.  We are to be a growing community of faith, open for all.  We are to live and breath his kingdom come, his will being done, on earth and in us, as it is in heaven.  The only response to the news that the kingly rule of God has arrived is to want to fall into line with it.

Discussion Starters

1. Who do we feel most sympathy for in this story - fallible disciples, sceptical and embarrassed family members or scandalised religious traditionalists?
2. What are some of the ways that we can experience being WITH Jesus?  Discuss how we can experience this today.
3. What does it mean to you to be SENT BY Jesus?  Discuss how this might work out in your circle of friends and acquaintances.
4. Do you submit to Christ as Lord?  Where do these words come from, and how do you respond to them?

SERMON 8 JULY 2012. THE SPIRIT OF THE LAW NOT THE LETTER. Exodus 20 : 1 – 17 Mark 2 : 23 – 3: 6 Robert.

This summer we are preaching a series of sermons on the first half of Mark’s Gospel, and this is the 5^th in the series. It features a clash between Jesus and a sinister combination of religious and political leaders, which ends with them making the first moves in a plot to kill him which will eventually culminate in the crucifixion.      Word has reached the religious establishment in Jerusalem that, up in Galilee, there is a totally unauthorised teacher and healer, in the style of the prophets of old, who is behaving as if he has been specially anointed by God to bring in God’s sovereign rule on earth, and is attracting to himself vast crowds and enormous popularity. This is deeply offensive to the established religious leaders from whom he has no mandate, and politically dangerous as it could threaten the delicate balance that preserves a finely drawn line of semi-independence from Rome.

It seems that they send a delegation up to Galilee to see what is happening and put a stop to it. We are beginning to see them challenging Jesus’ authority and actions at every turn, and when their challenges fail to stop him in his tracks, they begin to consider more drastic ways to get rid of him.

From our point of view as readers, it’s interesting that Mark has several times drawn our attention to the authority of Jesus’ teaching, but for the moment we mostly learn about his teaching – not in records of his preaching – but in pithy replies to the challenges of his opponents.

The two incidents we are looking at today both concern Sabbath observance. In our first reading from Exodus 20 we heard the familiar recital of the ten commandments. There we learn that the Sabbath (Saturday) must be a day of rest for the Jewish people, and therefore they must refrain from ‘work’. So the obvious question arises ‘What constitutes work?’.

Over the years the Pharisees had progressively drawn up more and more complicated and intricate rules about what you could and could not do on the Sabbath. The rules ran to at least 39 regulations which were very restrictive indeed. Their purpose, of course, was to try and interpret God’s will for the Sabbath, so that God would be pleased to see his people observing the Sabbath correctly.  To their eyes, Jesus and his disciples could be seen flouting some of the finer points of their complicated rules, and the question Jesus is effectively posing is: have they lost sight of the spirit and intention of God’s Law in the mass of practical, detailed rules and traditions? Were they failing to see the wood for the trees?

This, of course, has implications for us. But before we get to that, we need to note that it had very practical implications for the early Christian church members for whom Mark was writing.

The early church had mixed congregations of Jews and Gentiles. The ordinary Gentile had never observed the Sabbath. The Romans and Greeks normally worked to a seven day week, interspersed with various holidays in honour of their many gods. Christian slaves had no holidays at all. So the Jewish Sabbath ceased to be observed by the new Christian church at a very early date. They met for worship whenever it was possible on Sundays, because this was the day of the Lord’s resurrection. Often worshippers could find time to meet for worship either early in the morning or in the evening. But there remained for some years groups of Christian Jews who wanted to insist that, for the Christian, there remained under the new covenant an obligation to observe the Sabbath. Paul writes about this very strongly in Romans 14, where he argues effectively that there is absolutely no obligation on the Christian to observe the Sabbath. But as it remained a point of contention at the time Mark was writing this Gospel, Jesus’ words and actions will have re-assured Gentile Christians.

But over the centuries of course, the kind of restrictions that applied to the Jewish Saturday Sabbath now applied to Sundays. Some periods of Christian history have tried to apply very strict rules indeed, and over time the argument has swung to and fro, the latest being over the question of Sunday trading. But whereas there is much to be said for a day of refreshment, re-creation and rest on one day in every seven, - a family day -  there is nothing in the New Testament to say that this is in any way obligatory. So passages like these which deal with Sabbath observance have continued to have relevance. Perhaps two points remain open to debate:

1. The first goes back to the creation story, and suggests that life at its best has a natural rhythm, and that six working days followed by a day of rest (whatever day that is) fits best with our life’s rhythm and contributes to our health and well-being.

2. The second is that traditionally the Christian Church has met for worship on Sundays, and that a State which claims a Christian heritage should try and make it possible for as many Christians as possible to be free to attend worship at some time on that day.

But we must now go on to consider more generally the main points of principle which arise from the two incidents in today’s Gospel reading. Jesus is effectively saying : Can you not see that – in me – God is opening up a new era, a new covenant, the kingdom of God, and that the old rules and traditions must not be allowed to get in the way.

It’s easy for us to be critical of the Pharisees for attacking Jesus with their rigid traditional regulations. But is it not true that, over centuries, the Christian Church has also built up great rafts of rules and traditions about how things should be done, and  how easily these can also inhibit the work of Jesus through the Holy Spirit?

Even I can remember the time when it seemed almost mandatory that Church services should be held at certain set times, and should be done in precisely the way the Prayer Book dictates. People sat in their traditional seats and wore clothes deemed proper and fashionable for church.  If children were allowed at all, it was only under strict rules of behaviour and noise. And this would be defended by what the New Testament calls the ‘traditions of the elders’. ‘When I was young .....!’ By definition, this would exclude many people, and arguably still does. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,  these traditions and rules have gradually loosened. The wind of the Holy Spirit – the wind of change – has blown through the churches, and the fresh air that we see Jesus insisting upon in these Gospel stories, has allowed many new forms of worship and freedom of expression.

When we consider the proposals for the renewal of this church building, the first essential is to rid ourselves of traditional ideas about what a church building should look like. We believe that God wants to do something new. It mustn’t be dictated by the ‘traditions of the Pharisees and the elders..’ The church building and complex must serve the needs of those in Camberley now, and be a place which is attractive, welcoming and fit for purpose. A church building is no more than a space for worship and fellowship. It can be in almost any conceivable shape and format. There are no rules in the New Testament or the teaching of Jesus!

What that shape and format should be are proper matters for debate and decision. But if we start by making assumptions based on tradition – or even preference based on tradition – we are trying to restrict the work of Jesus in the Spirit in just the way the Pharisees are in these stories.

This month the General Synod of the Church of England will be debating whether women can be consecrated as bishops. The fact is that – over many years now – we have seen the manifest work of the Holy Spirit calling women to ordained ministry. Who would oppose this manifest work of the Holy Spirit, clear for all to see? Surely only those whose theology of priesthood is rooted in tradition, or those whose theology of the church is rooted in tradition, or those who fear the implications of change from the accepted norm. We need to take great care that we are not found to be opposing the work of the Holy Spirit, for Jesus calls that blasphemy.

Many more examples come to mind but the principles at work in these two stories are clear enough. The Pharisees sincerely believed they were pleasing God by adhering strictly to the commandments as they had received and interpreted them. But Jesus is Lord over all these rules and regulations. The wind of the Holy Spirit must be allowed to blow through the church, and we must pray for discernment to know what is of the Holy Spirit, and what is no more than the latest human fashion.

Our situation is not the same as that described in today’s Gospel but the principles are. Discernment is stated by St Paul to be one of the principal gifts of the Holy Spirit. We need to pray deeply and often for that gift. But the starting point is the fresh and open mind that is not ruled by the past, but open and expectant that our God will do a new thing in our lives, and in our church.

Discussion.

1. Discuss how your own ideas about ‘Sunday Observance’ have changed (or not) over the years. What do you think are the most important principles at stake?

2. When considering proposals about re-ordering the interior of St Michael’s and the building of a new hall, how far do you think traditional layouts and uses are important? What do you think are the essentials which need to be preserved?

3. It’s easy to confuse the latest fashion or idea with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. How do we seek to tell the difference?

Sermon for Sunday 1st July 2012 – Isaiah 42:1-9 and Mark 2: 1-17 – Jesus brings us forgiveness of sin.

Question: Are we Sinful Enough to need Jesus? Mark 2:17says “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."  So is sin like a disease? Well we know that if we lie, one or two things will happen. We will either get found out right at the beginning or we will follow it with another, then another, then it becomes a headache remembering all the others lies that in the end you become overwhelmed and stressed out that it can lead to all sorts of sickness.  It begins to consume our every waking hour. And as we know stress can lead to problems with the heart for instance.  We also know that if we do something unhelpful or wrong, we can seek forgiveness. If we wish to be forgiven, we must first recognise our need of forgiveness and believe that Jesus can and will forgive.  One could leave the sermon at that. Or not.

But If we look at the passage, we see that although Jesus has be given the power, the authority to forgive sins, and indeed was doing so, it provoked an outcry from the teachers of the law, the Pharisees so much that a delegation of religious experts was sent up from Jerusalem to find out what this travelling preacher and miracle worker was up to. The teachers of law pointedly questioned what Jesus was doing, even saying Jesus was blaspheming. ‘Who can forgive but God alone’. They were not happy and as we continue to read Mark’s gospel , we will encounter other times when Jesus annoyed the teachers of the law just for doing what the Father had asked. Despite their complaining Jesus not only healed people but Jesus also forgave people of their sins, because God has given Jesus the right to do this. Mark tells us that everyone is ‘amazed’ or ‘astonished’. This probably upset the teachers of law more than anything else because the people were showing ‘faith’ in Him. 

Because we know the whole story about Jesus on how his obedience led Him to His death on the cross, It is easy when reading verses like these about the scribes and Pharisees to shake our heads and tut in disapproval at their misguided attitudes, yet to do that is to make the same mistake they did: to find fault. How often are we guilty of just that – swift to see the worst, slow to see the best; eager to criticise, reluctant to praise? We ignore a thousand good things and focus instead on one bad point, we destroy and undermine rather than build up and encourage, yet so often the faults we dwell on are trivial compared to our own.

Perhaps more disturbing still is that this response came from the overtly religious, those who believed themselves to be right with God. In similar fashion, the church across the years has frequently been associated with narrow and nit-picking, attitudes rather than a joyful celebration of all that is good. We should not let such a carping and negative spirit find a place in our lives , for not only does it causes pain to other; ultimately it makes us the biggest losers, blinding us not only to one another but, above all, to God himself.

To seek forgiveness requires faith (1-5). The paralytic and his 4 friends showed Jesus their faith. They made the effort to bring their friend to Jesus and not only that in seeing that the crowds were blocking them from the house, they doubled their efforts, going through the roof. The friends demonstrated their love of a friend and they had faith enough to not just carry their friend but to go the extra mile.

Verses 6 and 7 tell us that Forgiveness comes from God alone. God is the one our sins offend, and only he can declare us forgiven. The scribes are right in their theology, but wrong in their application; Jesus is not blaspheming because God has given him the authority to forgive sins. They had not remembered the Isaiah  passage where we read; ‘Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight. I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations’.

Forgiveness is more important than physical healing (8-12). Forgiving sins is a hard thing to do. When we annoyed or angry, it’s the last thing we want to do is blow the other person up. We end up blowing ourselves up.  Mark points us to the authority of Jesus' healing of the paralytic and to his authority to forgive sins. Jesus' forgiveness of sins points to the future healing of all believers and while healing, is miraculous, it’s actually less a miracle than forgiveness.

                                        

One of the most important qualities for a doctor is empathy – the ability to identify with someone else’s feelings. For example, if a paralysed man was brought to you, would you know if his deepest need was God’s forgiveness? If you saw a crowd of well-known ‘sinners’, would you be able to tell whether they were really seeking God or not? Clearly, the ‘teachers of the law’ (really, experts in religion) did not. When Jesus acted in empathy, they thought that they heard blasphemy. When they heard his words of forgiveness, they thought that only God could speak such words. Ironically, they were right – these were God’s words.

Mark points out that Jesus has the desire to forgive those who know they are sinners (13-17). For Jesus calls people who are disliked to follow him (13-14). Levi works a toll-booth for Herod at the border town of Capernaum. He is an important tax collector – not well liked then because tax men made a living by going over their quota of taxes; they turned over the quota to the king, and kept whatever else they could make. The tax profession was seen as greedy, traitorous, and dishonest. But Jesus knew this man was in need of a doctor, one who could forgive him and be seen to as his friend. The teachers of the law had no empathy with the crowd of tax-collectors either. The teachers of the law considered the tax-collectors greedy, money-making, and unscrupulous. And perhaps they were right. But as Jesus told them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.’

Jesus offers his friendship and forgiveness to sinners of all kinds (15-17). Jesus is "the friend of sinners", which he shows by eating with them and letting them follow him. The scribes see themselves as different from these sinners, and question Jesus' decision to associate with them. Jesus came to heal the sick and to forgive sinners.  This implies that the scribes simply don't recognise their own sin, and remain unforgiven. Again those with ‘orthodox’ religious views criticised Him.

So who do we identify with most in these stories?  The paralytic and his friends, who would dig through a roof to get to Jesus?  Levi, who would leave behind his lucrative dishonest career and invite his outcast friends to Jesus?  Or the scribes, who constantly question the motives of people who reach out to sinners and extend God's forgiveness?

Jesus said I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Amen.

Questions:

So who do we identify with most in these stories?  The paralytic and his friends, who would dig through a roof to get to Jesus?  Levi, who would leave behind his lucrative dishonest career and invite his outcast friends to Jesus?  Or the scribes, who constantly question the motives of people who reach out to sinners and extend God's forgiveness?

What stops us from forgiving others?

If sin can causes us harm – why do we feel the need to carry it around for a while before giving it to God and asking for forgiveness?