2nd Sunday of Lent 2018

by church news | Mar 4, 2018 | Sermons

Mark, in his hurry-along Gospel, does not spell out the temptations that Christ overcame in the wilderness, after his baptism.  But today, we read of a very specific temptation, that makes Jesus turn on a praised disciple and suddenly identify him as a source of base human thinking rather than a fully worked through divine course of action.  What is the problem?

The problem is, if we read the text of Mark exactly as the lays the story out, this morning’s passage comes immediately after Peter has publicly acclaimed Jesus as the Messiah.  All this is going on in Caeserea Philipi, a long way from Jerusalem, safe from Pharisees and Sadducees, Herod’s spies and Roman troops.  Jesus can speak freely with his friends, and they can speak freely with him.  In this place of security and openness, Jesus extracts from his disciples just what conclusions they have come to about him, hence Peter’s declaration, and then proceeds to enlighten them on the consequences of that knowledge.

With information comes responsibility, with freedom comes responsibility.  The disciples now know for certain that they are living in the presence of God’s Messiah, which explains everything that has happened up to this point, and they do not want to loose any of it.  Life with the Messiah is amazing – healings, confounding the Pharisees, great stories, mystical encounters on mountains and lakes – and nothing is going to take that away from them.  Suffering and death do not feature on their agenda, and Peter tells Jesus that in no uncertain terms.

That is where Jesus cracks.  That is what makes Jesus turn to this fine friend, this man who has publicly acknowledged Christ’s Messiahship, and address him as Satan, the great deceiver, the Father of Lies, he who would have taken the throne of heaven for himself.  Peter has not yet had his mind transformed, he is still thinking in human terms, and has not yet grasped the full extent of the divine plan.  And what is that divine plan?  To suffer, to die and to rise again.  To take divine love to the very edge of human understanding, and transform it into redeeming love.  To take creative love into new spheres of joining the eternal and the finite, the uncreated and the created, so that death has no power, and only unconditional divine love is revealed and known.

Now I can quite see that Peter hadn’t got his mind round that, but did Jesus really have to be that brutal?  Could he not have let him down gently?  Would that not have been the path of love?

What we see in that moment when Jesus turns to Peter and calls him Satan is a revelation of the divine and the human operating hand in hand.  The human reacts sharply and aggressively, the divine counteracts the temptation with power and insight.  Self-centred human patterns of thought have to be replaced with divine, outward-facing love, and that is a hard lesson for Peter and all the disciples to learn.

It is worth wondering how much of the following discourse the crowd understands, let alone the disciples.  They know what Jesus means by “take up your cross”, as they had no doubt seen the condemned being lead out to a place of crucifixion, bearing the cross piece on their shoulders.  That would be sufficient to make them shudder, but for that to be their daily reality, while following this Messiah – that is even harder.

“Take up your cross” remains one of the hardest sayings of Jesus.  Down through the centuries, people have struggled with it, tried to make sense of it, even taking it literally for one bearded American in the 70’s, who walked around with a cross on his back for several years to try to get to the heart of what Jesus was saying.  I’m not sure how far he got, though, because the cross he was carrying was never going to be the cause of his death, in the way that it would be for Jesus on that first Good Friday.

We can spiritualise it – “it’s all about spiritual life and death, not an actual cross” – we can rule it out as irrelevant after 20 centuries – “no one is crucified any more, and most countries have outlawed the death penalty” – we can take a psychological approach – “ the death-inducing weight of guilt and shame” – we could even go with Albert Camus, from his Mythe de Sisyphe, and claim that there is joy in carrying the means of our death, as it affirms that we are currently alive and free.  (Sisyphus, founder of Corinth and one of the most scandalous rogues of Ancient Greece, was condemned by the Gods to push a heavy stone up a hill, only for that stone to hurtle back down to the bottom as soon as Sisyphus got it to the summit.  Camus argues that Sisyphus was happy in the moment that he reached the top of the hill with his boulder, before it cascaded down again.)

But this is Lent, and we should not be playing around with “human things” but diving deeply into the divine.  As he speaks these words, Jesus has already taken up his cross.  For him, it may be several years before he physically does that, but in his mind, in his attitudes, in his knowledge of God’s love, he is already carrying the means of his death, so that the whole created order may have new life in him.  During his life, during his ministry, he carries his cross.  When he feeds the multitudes, he carries his cross.  When he heals the sick, he carries his cross.  When he challenges the Pharisees, he carries his cross, and no one, especially not Peter, is going to tell him to put it down.

That is where we are today – seeing the cross for the first time in Jesus’s ministry – and understandably the immediate human reaction is to say “no, never!”  But the divine reaction is “yes, always” and for that we bow at Jesus’s feet and worship.

Having done that, we are called to look at ourselves and admit to all the things that we know we ought to do, but our humanity backs away from.  We may not be as defiant as Peter, we may simply tuck things away at the bottom of the “to do” list, but do them we must, or talk to that person we must, or share that burden we must, or take on that responsibility we must.  Christ was able to carry his cross because he was confident in his Father’s love and in the good purpose of his Father’s plan.  Christ also shared his cross with his Father, praying ceaselessly to align himself completely with the will of his Father.  Our prayer needs to be as fervent as Christ’s, our watching needs to be as intense as Christ’s, so that we are fully aligned with our heavenly Father’s intentions for us and for his creation.

Our Lent Appeal for the work of Glass Door with rough sleepers is still open – donate, knit, make a difference.

Our Lent groups are challenging our basic Christian assumptions – get involved.

Our Holy Week journey is planned – get on board, with your cross on your back and your sights set on Jerusalem where we will find the joy, the acclamation, the betrayal, the denial, the suffering, the death and ultimately the joy of resurrection, once again.

19 Trinity 2017

by church news | Nov 1, 2017 | Sermons

Another sermon, another history lesson – that’s why you value Patronal Festivals so highly – visiting preachers never indulge in history.

We have got used to alternative coins and notes being in circulation at the same time, as new ones are introduced and the old ones phased out.  Thus, circular pound coins are now only accepted at banks – which is why the Church will still accept them – and the new Janes (£10) are gradually populating our wallets, as the cash machines are stuffed full of them.

Consider, then, the complications of living in Jesus’s time, when there were three currencies, actively and legitimately being used in Israel.

There was the standard shekel, for every day use, but if you needed to buy a pair of doves for a sacrifice at the Temple, those shekel had to be exchanged for Temple money – money that was deemed holy, so never left the Temple precinct. We know this from the Palm Sunday accounts of Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers when he entered the Temple after his donkey ride into Jerusalem.  The third coinage was a specially minted Roman piece, that had to be used to pay the Emperor’s  tax, or tribute.

It is this third coin which is under debate in our Gospel passage, it is this specific imperial tax which is being discussed, and which the Chief Priests, Pharisees and supporters of Herod – who probably hated each other deeply in normal circumstances – get together to try to trap Jesus.  They think that they have him on the horns of a dilemma.  If he says, “Don’t pay the tax”, they can legitimately turn him over to the Romans as a revolutionary.  If he says, “Pay the tax”, then they can turn the people against him, and accuse him of being a Roman quisling.  They are so proud of themselves, as they march up to Jesus in one of the Temple courtyards, and lay their trap in front of him.

Jesus’s answer is masterful, from many standpoints.  It begins by throwing the spotlight back on his hunters, because Jesus hasn’t got one of these special tax coins in his pocket.  The Pharisees have to fish around in their money bags to get hold of one to show him.  Now, many have taken this to mean that Jesus didn’t have any money at any time, and that we too should eschew all cash and wander this world, living on other people’s generosity, as he did.  This is a false conclusion.  Jesus and the disciples did have money – they kept it in a bag which Judas Iscariot looked after – they just didn’t have a Roman tax coin in there.  Why not?  Because they had already paid the tax?  No, because they were good Jews, and they would not have about their person a coin which broke one of the commandments.  Not only was it a Gentile coin, but it had a picture on it – that of Tiberius Caesar, and a Latin inscription to that effect.  Now, by asking his accusers to show him one of these coins, Jesus gently points out that these heroes of the Law were quietly breaking it by having such an object in their purse.  First hypocrisy exposed!

Then comes the killer line – “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  “Pay the hated tax”, says Jesus, “get it out of your system, out of your money bag, because then you can get on with giving yourself fully over to God.”  In paying our taxes, we are merely contributing to the common good, which is only right and proper.  But there is much more to be done in this world than to pay our tax.  One coin, Jesus suggests, is all that belongs to Caesar.  Everything else belongs to God, and we must give him back our tribute, our participation in his generosity.

So, where do we go now?  We agree to pay our taxes, and we set out on the road to give back to God everything that he has given to us.  Where do we start?  God has given us everything – our life, our world, our families, our skills, our money, our time, our church – what can we possibly give back to him who supplies everything to us?  What would God do with it?  We can see that our taxes go towards the NHS, education, roads, social care etc etc.  What about what we give back to God?  Where does that go?

Well, how about a trip back in time?  To the time of the prophet who calls himself Isaiah, during the Jewish exile in Babylon.  It is his words that we read first this morning, and they are astonishing.  This Jewish prophet is delivering words from God to the new King of Babylon, one Cyrus, King of Persia.  How did this happen?  Did the prophet nip round to the palace, and sound off in the inner courtyard?  Unlikely.  Did he stand up on a street corner, and launch into these extraordinary words?  Probably not.  This would have been uttered during synagogue worship, late in the evening, after work, and only Jews would have been present.

And what does the prophet say?  That Almighty God, the one true God (or, as the Jewish exiles would have called him, the God of Israel) was going to use this new king to bring about his purposes in the world.  It has been hard enough to come to terms with exile.  Hard enough to learn that they can still pray to their God, in a foreign country, with their Temple and religious system lying in ruins back home.  But to discover that their God is going to use a Gentile ruler to perform his will on earth must have been mind-blowing.  Their God is getting bigger and bigger by the day.  He is now the God of the whole world, of the universe, and he is able to use anyone, Jew or Gentile, to bring about anything that he wants.

We can usefully learn that lesson all over again, today.  We are not the only people that God can and will use in this world, in this community, to bring about what he desires.  God would love it if the Church were at the forefront of everything, but the world is bigger than us, and our broken, separated state enfeebles us to intervene, sometimes.  But we are called to explore what it means that the things of God are to be given back to him.  King Cyrus, back in the 6^th century BC, was called to restore the people of Israel to their own land, and to allow them to take all the treasures of their Temple with them.  And he did!  We today are called on to look not just at what we would call our own, but at everything around us, as a source of worship, prayer, generosity and challenge.  God can, and will, use anything at our disposal, for his good purposes.  Thus, God gave us brains and tongues and hands and eyebrows to communicate, to work through problems, to share what we know with those who do not yet know it.  God gave us hearts of love and eyes to see other people and other things, so that love can pour forth from us to them.   God gave us time, time to work, time to sleep, time to eat, time to do whatever we want, while also having time to spend with others, to help others, to support others, to encourage others.  God gave us skills – different ones to each one of us – so that we can put up shelves or grow plants, or paint walls or organise events.  And God combines that love, that time, those skills, that awareness of the world together with his Holy Spirit to send us out to bring about his purposes – that people will live together well, that people who have little will have so much more, that people who are excluded will be brought into the whole, that people who are weak are made strong.  It is so much more than money.  In fact, Jesus only talks about money for Caesar, not for God.  Everything, including money, is to be given back to God.

Jesus passes through this potential trap with grace and a bigger picture of God than the Pharisees and supporters of Herod had ever considered.  Their God had just got a whole lot bigger.

May we, as we give back to God this morning our worship and our prayer, our cash and our time, discover just how amazingly huge our God is, and just how much he demands of us.  We cannot be half-hearted in response to the God who has put us in this amazing world.  We cannot begrudge anything to the God who has redeemed us by the life, death, and resurrection of his own Son.  We cannot skimp on our generous response, when God has poured his Spirit into our hearts, to enable us and provoke us to use our brains, our skills, our time, to fulfil his good purposes on this earth.  May we know joy, day by day, as our God gets bigger before our eyes, and may we respond with ever greater gratitude in all the multitudinous ways that God has put at our disposal.

17 Trinity 2017

by church news | Oct 14, 2017 | Sermons

What is it about vineyards and the Bible?  They are all over the place.  People plant them, steal them, neglect them, rescue them – all sorts of different efforts are made to keep them and avoid the ultimate disappointment of losing one.  Israel is compared to a carefully planted vineyard, and depending on its behaviour, those vines are successful or given over to briars and wild animals.  Jesus uses several vineyard examples for the Kingdom of Heaven, and goes so far as to say that God the Father is the vinedresser and he is the true vine.  So why?

If you think about it, it is obvious.  They didn’t have tea, and they hadn’t discovered coffee, whisky wouldn’t arrive for many centuries and lemonade was a glint in no one’s eye.  Wine was the drink that was safe, that could be kept from month to month, year to year, and supplemented the local water supply all year round.  The wine they made was thin, low in alcohol, bitter – Hannibal and his men used it to crack heated rocks as they crossed the Alps with their elephants – one up from vinegar sometimes, but essential.  The village vineyard was necessary for the maintenance of life in the area.  If the vineyard failed, the coming year would be very difficult indeed.

But the image of the vineyard is stronger than that.  Vines are temperamental things.  They love nothing better than growing tendrils for miles, twisting up together over a long stretch, putting out big leaves and generally creating chaos.  Vines take a lot of work.  Through the wonders of Radio 4, I can reliably inform you that a vineyard of 1500 vines takes three months to prune, which they do between December and April, so that the vines can start growing again once the spring warmth returns.  And once growing again, tendrils have to be cut back, leaves which could obstruct sunlight from bunches of grapes have to be removed, and new shoots vigorously discouraged.  The person who looks after a vineyard is very busy indeed, and necessarily a micro- manager.

All the stories of vineyards in the Bible use this daily care as an image of the loving care of Almighty God for his people, one who is interested in the smallest details of their lives as well as the big picture.  Which is why the disappointment of the owner of the vineyard can be so great, when the grapes go wild, or the harvest is not handed over.  All that has been invested in the crop is to no avail, all that love and effort gone to waste.

But there is something else going on in the story that Jesus tells about the vineyard.  Firstly, the landowner is an absent landlord, a reflection of a much-resented trend in Israel at the time of Jesus.  Rich people were buying up land and living off the profits, in Rome, in Athens or in Alexandria.  The idea of the village vineyard was threatened by these practices, and the future of some villages was in doubt.  Now that does not give the tenants who have worked the vineyard all year the right to abuse the landowners slaves, and certainly no reason to kill the son and then claim the inheritance on the demise of the landowner.  But it does talk of distance, of a divergence of priorities between the landowner and his tenants.

So look again at Jesus’s audience: chief priests and the elders of the people.  Look again at the chapter number: 21 – this is going on just after the first Palm Sunday, in the Temple courtyard, in the middle of Jerusalem.  This is Jesus setting a challenge to the religious and political leaders of his country – “dare to arrest me, dare to put me on trial” he is saying, as he starts his parable with the exact same words as Isaiah 5.  The chief priests knew exactly what he was up to – in Isaiah, one crop of wild grapes is sufficient for the destruction of the vineyard, but in Jesus’s parable, there is a string of slaves sent to the vineyard to bring back its harvest – the tenants of the vineyard have had time and opportunity to give their due payment to the owner, but have refused each time, and now murder is on their minds.

Jesus has the chief priests exactly where he wants them – reacting strongly to a parable that is as much about themselves as it is about the rest of Israel – and so, in the Temple precincts, he talks about a new temple, a new building, with him as its head and strength, the one on whom the new building will depend for its stability and endurance.  And this is too much for the chief priests, but that Palm Sunday crowd still surrounds the Messiah, and they are not letting any religious leaders get anywhere near their hero.

But what about us?  We have not rejected the overtures of the landowner.  We have come to worship, we are here, offering the best of ourselves in our praise and adoration, seeking God’s help through prayer, desirous of meeting him once again in bread and wine.  How do we fit into this parable?  In many ways, we don’t.  It is not about us, rather, it is for those who would obstruct the ways of God and keep to themselves the power and the access to the generosity and fullness of God.  It is up to us to ensure that that never happens – welcome, openness, generosity, sharing – they all prevent any desire to cling on to what we have in Christ, as what we have is too precious to do that.

The parable does speak to us about the endless love of God, his grace in waiting and waiting for us to produce the fruit of care, support and encouragement that he expects from us.  The parable suggests an expectation of harvest from us, his people, an expectation that should not be disappointed.

So what do we take away this morning?  We could leave the parable and concentrate on what Paul has to say to the Philippians, which is both wonderful and mind blowing.  Or we could look afresh at what Jesus has to say about the new temple that he is building, for we are a part of that, built on the foundation of the life, death and resurrection of Christ.  How do we fit in to this structure?  Are we pulling our weight?  This building, this new temple, is dynamic, ever-changing and growing as God’s love transforms us day by day.  There is a lot to do here, and it will happen if we pull together in prayer, in imagination and in a full deployment of our God-given skills.

May God give us grace to bring forth good fruit, and to be active labourers in his vineyard, to his praise and glory.