The Queen in her broadcast for VE Day ended by saying, “our streets are not empty, they are filled with the love and the care that we have for each other”.
I do not know if it is because we are an Island nation or because we belong to a generation of parents, grandparents and great grandparents, who lived and fought through two World Wars, but on the whole the people of these islands are amazingly resilient in the face of great adversity.
We have all hoped and prayed for an end to this Pandemic and the many restrictions and hardships it puts upon so many. To go freely about our daily lives again, to visit friends and families, cuddle our grandchildren, plan our outings and holidays, shop and travel without social distancing. We all realise now that these are not things that are going to happen ‘any time soon’, perhaps some never again as we have previously done them.
We enjoyed our first Zoom Service on Sunday morning which was a joyful occasion with a very good ‘virtual’ congregation, and it may well be the first of many with the Bishop of London warning that it maybe next year before some churches return to services as we used to know them. Yet as I have said before, and as Father Peter alluded to in his sermon on Sunday, we the people are the ‘living stones’ that build our church and where ever and how ever we come together, that is where ‘our church’ shall be, living and even growing.
It is that ability, whatever the situation, to make the best of it and to find the love and generosity of heart to do even more unto others than we would expect for ourselves. The examples over these last few months have been too many to count, with many making that greatest of sacrifices of putting down their lives for the sake of others. We as Christians, and that is not to belittle any other faith, have the greatest example of that true love and self sacrifice, in our Lord Jesus Christ, and I know that our Queen, as Head of our Church, sees that love reflected, directly and indirectly, in the love that she, and all of us, witness in our Island Country day by day through these difficult times.
Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Confession:
Christ died to sin once for all, and now lives to God. Let us renew our resolve to have done with all that is evil and confess our sins in penitence and faith.
Most merciful God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we confess that we have sinned in thought, word and deed. We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves. In your mercy forgive what we have been, help us to amend what we are, and direct what we shall be; that we may do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with you, our God. Amen.
Almighty God, who forgives all who truly repent, have mercy upon you, +pardon and deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and keep you in life eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
.
Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth.
Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father, we worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory.
Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world: have mercy on us; you are seated at the right hand of the Father: receive our prayer.
For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.
Let us pray
Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ have overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: grant that, as by your grace going before us you put into our minds good desires, so by your continual help we may bring them to good effect: through Jesus Christ our risen Lord, who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
Acts 7: 55-end
Acts 7: 55-end
When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’
57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59 While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ 60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he fell asleep.
This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God.
1 Peter 2: 2-10
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says:
‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’
Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,’
and,
‘A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.’
They stumble because they disobey the message – which is also what they were destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John Glory to you, O Lord.
John 1: 43-end
John 1: 43-end
The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, ‘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.’ ‘Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?’ Nathanael asked. ‘Come and see,’ said Philip. When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, ‘Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.’ ‘How do you know me?’ Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, ‘I saw you while you were still under the fig-tree before Philip called you.’ Then Nathanael declared, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.’ Jesus said, ‘You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig-tree. You will see greater things than that.’ He then added, ‘Very truly I tell you, you will see “heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on” the Son of Man.’
This is the Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
Sermon
My head is buzzing, ideas are whizzing around inside my brain, and there isn’t enough time or space to get them all down on paper. Some weeks, the process of writing a sermon is slow and laborious, but not today. So much has moved on in just 7 days. On Thursday just gone we launched our telephone sermon option for people who cannot access the internet (020 8016 2474). After a successful Zoom Patronal get together last Sunday, we launch today our first Zoom act of worship. We have gone from a dry written sermon to a multiplicity of ways of sharing in worship, and it is very exciting. In addition, on Wednesday of last week, the House of Bishops allowed a slight relaxation of our churches’ closure, with permission to live stream acts of worship from inside our buildings, as long as only two people are present, and suitably distant from each other. The ways of keeping in touch with each other and of sharing worship together are increasing daily.
This is exactly what the writer of 1 Peter is talking about when he uses the image of “living stones”. Christ is that first, all-important living stone, the cornerpiece, the foundation of all that God is building in his Church, but we his people are also living stones, built up into an ever-expanding building for worship and for witness. However separated we are, we can come together to praise our God, to pray together and individually, and to share our joy in Christ. However separated we might be, we can still show in acts of love and generosity what Christ has done for us and how God’s world ought to be.
This building, so full of opportunity and challenge, does not get built without its tragedies. The death of Stephen is one such awful event, when stones are used not to build up, but to destroy. Just as the water of baptism talks of life and death, so stones were very much part of the Early Church’s suffering. Stephen was not the only martyr to be stoned and the apostle Paul and his companions on their missionary journies were frequently chased out of town by stone-throwing mobs. The writer to this group of churches in northern Turkey very deliberately uses this image to redeem those murderous stones that were used against Christians, stating that Christ himself was rejected as a useless part of the building of Israel, yet in resurrection he proves himself to be the most important part of God’s universe. What is so marvellous is that we are included in that living stone, part of the fabric, a piece of the whole. Resurrection includes us in God, totally, and that is wonderful.
However, our buildings are solidly locked this morning, and will remain so through this week. There will come a time when they will re-open for private prayer, but we may well have to sit tight for many more weeks before full congregational worship will restart. Therefore, this living building which offers prayer and worship to Almighty God will have to be active in different ways.
One positive part of the national lockdown has been the safe removal of 90% of rough sleepers from our streets, into the warmth and safety of unused hotel rooms across the country. The night shelter project was drawn rapidly to a close as this process happened, but the charity with which we work in providing these shelters continues to meet with these people, to support them into longterm accommodation, to restore their documentation and benefits or to get them back in contact with their families. The work of Glass Door, St Mungo’s, the Salvation Army and many more charities working with the homeless carries on, day by day, with case workers making remarkable progress, and food banks supplying meals and other practical support. In an article in Thursday’s Guardian, it was reported that of the over 500 homeless people now in hotels in London, many had tested positive for Corvid 19, but none had died – testimony surely to the skill and professionalism of their support teams.
Today is also the start of Christian Aid Week, when normally we would be out inviting people to share in the work of Christian Aid with disadvantaged people across the world, but this year we can ony do this online, via the Just Giving pages set up for our congregations (https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/the-barn-kew & https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/st-lukes-kewor by phone: 02075232493 ) Please share this with your with your family and friends – many lives depend on our generosity.
The Kew Neighbourhood Association is providing much-needed support for vulnerable people here In Kew. They are blessed with a large number of volunteers, but they need our prayers for their continued efforts.
The Richmond FoodBank is continuing to operate, delivering hundreds of food parcels and frozen meals every week across the borough. If there is anyone you know who needs this service, which is free to anyone who cannot afford to buy food, please encourage them to ring 0808 2082138 Monday-Friday, or 8940 0274, and help will be arranged as soon as possible. Donations of food or of cash are always welcome: visit https://richmond.foodbank.org.uk/give-help/donate-money or phone 8940 0274, and surround your generosity with prayer for all those involved in this critical work in our borough.
The one major difficulty we have during this time of lockdown is actually telling people what we are doing as God’s people and how they can get involved. We start with prayer, which must undergird all that we do, but the example of Philip in today’s Gospel reading is perhaps the most helpful in this. Nathanael responds as an old curmudgeon when Philip says that Jesus is from Nazareth – Nathanael was from the neighbouring village of Cana, and old rivalries run deep. “Come and see” says Philip, drawing Nathanael out of his aloof reticence and into the very presence of God. As Nathanael meets Jesus he sees immediately that this is the Messiah – and it was Philip who gently encouraged him to encounter Jesus. We are called to do the same today, but we cannot bring people with us to church on Sundays for the time being. So we have to be creative. Share sermons or acts of worship via email with your friends. Like and retweet or share our Facebook and Twitter pages. Make sure that people know that support is available and there are opportunities for worship for everybody – the glory of the internet is that anyone can access what we are providing from anywhere in the world. Just because our buildings are closed does not preclude us from inviting people to meet the risen Jesus – “come and see” can easily become “join us online” or “read this” or “listen to this”.
Living stones, alive to God, growing together, worshipping, prayerful and outward-looking – all of that is encompassed in what we have read this morning. May God give us grace this week, like Philip, gently to offer a meaningful encounter with the risen Jesus to all with whom we are in contact. And may almighty God keep us and bless us through these difficult and uncertain times. Amen
The Sick: Julia Holboro, Annie Kunz, Luci Mitchell-Fry,
Joan Pritchard, Johanna Procter, Kevin Willoughby, Max Weston
RIP Mary Smith, Revd Peter Holmes, Pattie Johnson, Norma Williams
Prayers – with thanks to Ben Worsley
Prayers
Dear Lord, we thank you for all the people who have risked and sacrificed much to provide us with all the privileges we have in Britain today. We pray for those still sacrificing, risking, and striving to make it better for everyone. We pray for clarity and reassurance in this time of uncertainty and we hope people use their power and privilege to help our communities to be safe and well. Our reflections go especially to those gone before us, for the lives of those we remembered this Friday gone.
They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.
I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.
Lord in your mercy hear our prayer.
We pray for our local community. We confess our own failings and lack of compassion and love. We thank you that you forgive our failings and ask us to rise us up in your grace. Our community in this time is important. It brings us together, helps us and teaches us to care. We can see many great examples around us. Shopping for others. Stepping to the other side of the path. Talking over a hedge. Ringing someone for a chat. Help us to create a better community. We thank you for; Peter, Michael and Richard who are working hard at keeping us together when we are apart.
Lord in your mercy hear our prayer.
At a time when people question the relevance of the church, give us the presence to be a witness in the world.
Prayer of Abandonment
By Charles de Foucauld
Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures – I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul: I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.
Lord in your mercy hear our prayer.
We pray for the comfort and healing of those who suffer in body, mind and spirit;
Alan Hay, Julia Holboro, Annie Kunz, Luci Mitchell-Fry, Joan Pritchard, Johanna Procter, Kevin Willoughby, Max Weston. Give them courage and hope in their troubles. And we pray for the dead, Mary Smith, Revd Peter Holmes, Pattie Johnson, Norma Williams. Please bring peace to those left and help them remember the bright sparks of the life once lived.
Lord in your mercy hear our prayer.
Merciful Father, accept these prayers for the sake of your Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen
The Peace
The risen Christ came and stood among his disciples and said, “Peace be with you.” Then they were glad when they saw the Lord, Alelluia. The peace of the Lord be always with you: and also with you.
Be present, be present, Lord Jesus Christ, Our risen high priest;
It is indeed right, our duty and our joy, always and everywhere to give you thanks, almighty and eternal Father, and in these days of Easter to celebrate with joyful hearts the memory of your wonderful works. For by the mystery of his passion, Jesus Christ, your risen Son, has conquered the powers of death and hell and restored to women and men the image of your glory. He has placed us once more in paradise and opened to us the gate of life eternal. And so, in the joy of this Passover, earth and heaven resound with gladness, while angels and archangels and the powers of all creation sing for ever the hymn of your glory.
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. +Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.
As our Saviour taught us, so we pray
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
The God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the eternal covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight; and the blessing of God almighty, + the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be with you and those you love, today and always. Amen.
10th May is the start of Christian Aid Week, when normally we would be out inviting people to share in the work of Christian Aid with disadvantaged people across the world, but this year we can ony do this online, via the Just Giving pages set up for our congregations:
My grandmother used to have lots of little sayings. One of which springs to mind today:
“Patience is a virtue, possess it if you can; Seldom in a woman, but never in a man!”
I am not sure that this is politically correct these days. But I do know that, like many people, I am getting very fed up with the current situation and cannot wait for it to end. The increase in traffic as I take my morning walk shows that many people are just getting out and about to do whatever they regard as important. But we do need to keep patience.
I was thinking about Terry Waite yesterday. Terry was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs. In the early 1980s he successfully negotiated the release of hostages in Iran and Libya. However, because he made use of certain American assistance, the people with whom he negotiated lost faith in him. In 1987, during negotiations to release other hostages in Lebanon he was himself taken hostage and was in captivity until 1991. He spent nearly four years in solitary confinement, not knowing what his future held, receiving brutal treatment.
The thought of so long on one’s own would be pretty daunting in itself. But Terry Waite did not come out of it all a bitter man. He had managed to keep an inner resolve to have no regrets and no self-pity and to manage the anger he felt at his situation. And, while he admitted that he sometimes had struggles with his faith, it endured and brought him through. He told himself that he had to realise that this situation was his life at that moment, that he should not be defeated and not feel sorry for himself. He told himself to use his imagination and to use that imagination to keep his brain working. And ultimately, he found that he developed an inner peace and a greater degree of contentment than he could have thought possible. After his release he spent the rest of his working life involved in charity work and looking after the interests of other people.
Lots of us are struggling at present. But we will come through this. As Michael said on Tuesday, God is with us through thick and thin, every day and for eternity.
Now, hymn verse for today:
Father, hear the prayer we offer; Not for ease that prayer shall be, But for strength that we may ever Live our lives courageously.
Parishes of St Philips and All Saints Kew with St Luke’s Kew
Where all God’s Children are Welcome
Section 1: Acts 7: 55-end
Prayer: Open our hearts, loving God, to the actions of your Holy Spirit, so that we may read with understanding, and be enabled to put into practice all that we learn. Amen
Read the passage through twice:
When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’ At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him,dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he fell asleep.
Background
As the Church in Jerusalem grew, the apostles found themselves carrying out practical tasks rather than preaching, so they appointed 7 deacons to look after the everyday needs of members of the community. Stephen was one of these 7 deacons, but his practical functions didn’t prevent him from preaching. This got him noticed by the religious authorities, who hauled him up before the Sanhedrin for questioning. Stephen, in his defense, gives an impassioned speech which outlines how the entirety of Jewish history was leading up to the arrival of Jesus Christ, and that he was the promised Messiah.
Some questions
There is something terrifying about mob justice. Why had Stephen managed to enrage the members of the Sanhedrin to this extent? Is this a religious reaction or a guilt reaction?
Stephen has an ecstatic vision of God in the midst of all this hostility. Can that still happen today?
Why is Stephen’s vision a step too far for the Sanhedrin?
Has Stephen sought martyrdom? He is remembered as the first Christian martyr – could he have avoided it?
Why is Stephen described as “full of the Holy Spirit” as he sees the risen Christ in glory. Surely he would be Spirit-filled at all times?
In terms of Jewish law, Stephen’s death is not legal. Can passion and justice be reconciled?
There are many parallels between Stephen’s death and Christ’s, even in the words he uses as he dies. Is this deliberate? If so, why?
The euphemism “he fell asleep” seems clunky in the narrative, but it stems from the words that Stephen cries out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”. These come from Psalm 31:5, and were part of the night time prayers of Israel and are included in Compline today, the last office of the day. They also echo the words of Christ on the cross in Luke 23: 46, so again Luke is drawing parallels between the two deaths.
The idea of death as a sleep before waking with the last trumpet is deeply embedded in our attitudes to death and in our culture – it is present in Hamlet and in a lot of English poetry. How helpful is it?
Is Stephen’s death a tragedy or a triumph? Or both?
Is martyrdom something to be sought or avoided?
Are there any parallels here between this story and our current circumstances?
Read the passage through again, out loud if possible
Review
What has this passage taught you about
God?
Jesus Christ?
The Church?
Our current situation?
Prayer: Almighty God, may we be ever filled with your Holy Spirit, ever willing to speak of Christ, and always ready with words of comfort and challenge to a world that craves your presence. Amen.
Section 2: 1 Peter 2: 2-10
Prayer:
Read the passage through twice:
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says:
‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’
Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,’
and,
‘A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.’
They stumble because they disobey the message – which is also what they were destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Background
We read further this week in the general letter to the churches in modern day Turkey. This letter would have shared around the congregations from Sunday to Sunday, and possibly copied out so that the community had its own copy. The writer assumes a level of knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures, quoting from several sections of Isaiah and Psalm 18, as well as making a drawn-out allusion to the prophet Hosea. It shows how the Early Church was still quite Jewish in character, but writing its own, new way of interpreting the Word of God.
Some questions
Like last week, the images come thick and fast. We move from newborn babies requiring simple milk to living stones which become a living building, a holy priesthood, a royal nation and finally the people of God.
There is a clear expectation of progress, of learning in the Church – St Paul uses the image of baby milk too in his letters, usually to upbraid his readers that they have not moved on from easy subjects to more weighty matters. Do you feel that you are making progress in your faith? Are you better informed about God, about prayer, about the Kingdom of Heaven than this time last year? Are you more confident in your faith today?
This strange plant, from southern Africa, is called a Living Stone – examples can be found in the Princess of Wales Conservatory in Kew Gardens. It seems to hold little interest, but it divides quietly and regularly, to become quite a sizeable plant, given the right conditions.
The writer did not have this plant in mind when he wrote about living stones – he was imagining the Church as a dynamic building, with Christ as the cornerstone. Christ is the first living stone and we, re-created in his image, become living stones. Individual stones, by themselves, are of little value, but built together they form a visible structure for all to see. The living building gives shelter and context, a safe space and a worshipping space which is always expanding. Is our church congregation as dynamic as the writer implies it should be?
The first quotation is from Isaiah 28: 16 – 17, in a context of rebuilding the nation after its rebellion and sin against God.
The Psalmist is talking about God turning the tables on human expectations in the context of worship – the once rejected stone has become central to the Temple’s structure.
The second quotation from Isaiah casts God as the stumbling stone, the one on whom the corrupt nations of Judah and Israel will fall.
The writer has pulled together three different strands of thinking about God – the God who restores, the God who challenges and the God who brings humanity near to him in worship – all in the person of Christ, who is the “living stone”. Thus, Christ is projected backwards in Jewish history – it was Christ who rebuilt Israel, Christ who built the Temple, Christ who challenged corruption and an unjust society.
We are made living stones, like Christ – are we therefore called to do those same things that Christ has done through history?
But there is much more for the Christian: “you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession”. The Jews were God’s chosen people – now it is followers of Christ. The royal priesthood goes back to Melchizedek, King of Salem (the city state that preceded Jerusalem) who met Abraham after a battle with 7 kings. The royal tribe of Israel was the tribe of Judah. The priestly tribe was Levi. In Christ these two tribes are united into one function, which we share as Christ’s followers – priests and kings in God’s holy kingdom.
What are priestly functions?
What are a king’s functions?
Do these two sets of functions operate alongside each other, or are they mutually exclusive?
The final sentence is the most moving of this entire passage. The prophet Hosea was called to take a wife who would be unfaithful to him. They gave their children prophetic names, one of which was “not a people”. Hosea challenged the nation to return to God simply by calling out his child’s name. But now we are a people, the challenge has been reversed in Christ. We who were outside God, not part of his people or possession, are now, in Christ, very much included in God.
Do you feel included in God? Even in the current circumstances?
This text is supposed to be deeply comforting and seriously encouraging. Do you feel comforted and encouraged by it? Would you offer it to someone who was feeling vulnerable?
Read the passage through again, out loud if possible
Review
What has this passage taught you about
God?
Jesus Christ?
The Church?
Our current situation?
Prayer: Almighty God,in Christ you have lavished all the riches of your love upon us. Give us grateful hearts and active souls, that we may worship you as we ought, and serve you daily in your world. Amen
Section 3: John 1: 43-end
Prayer:
Read the passage through twice:
The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, ‘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.’ ‘Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?’ Nathanael asked. ‘Come and see,’ said Philip. When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, ‘Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.’ ‘How do you know me?’ Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, ‘I saw you while you were still under the fig-tree before Philip called you.’ Then Nathanael declared, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.’ Jesus said, ‘You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig-tree. You will see greater things than that.’ He then added, ‘Very truly I tell you, you will see “heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on” the Son of Man.’
Background
This happens very early in Jesus’s ministry. The day before, he had been baptised by John the Baptist, and had called Peter and Andrew to be his disciples. The process of building a group of disciples continues, with Philip & Nathanael being added to the number. The location is in the north of Israel, near the Sea of Galilee.
Some questions
Was Philip a random choice of disciple by Jesus, or was it planned? If so, how did Jesus know to call him?
Philip appears to be convinced that Jesus is the Messiah from the start – what has brought about this conviction?
Philip’s first instinct is to tell his friend (?) Nathanael about Jesus. How likely would it be for you?
Nathanael is very dismissive of Philip’s suggestion (he comes from the neighbouring village, Cana cf. John 21:2), but Philip perseveres. There is great value in “come and see” – as long as the experience lives up to the invitation. Would you happily say, “come and see” when inviting a friend or neighbour to church with you?
What exactly does Jesus mean when he describes Nathanael as “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit”?
How is it possible for Jesus to have seen Nathanael “under the fig tree”?
This remark convinces Nathanael – why? Would it convince you?
Both Philip & Nathanael respond very positively to Jesus. What does this suggest about these first contacts? What sort of impression must Jesus have made on everybody he met?
To what is Jesus referring when he talks of “heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending”? (Think Jacob’s dream….)
In the presence of Jesus, God connects with humanity. Worship, understanding, healing, peace all become possible. Is that your experience? Or is it limited to Sunday worship?
Who comes out of this better: Philip or Nathanael?
Can any of this help us in our current situation?
Read the passage through again, out loud if possible
Review
What has this passage taught you about
God?
Jesus Christ?
The Church?
Our current situation?
Prayer: Loving God, you reach out to us in love and generosity. Help us today and always to be open to your calling, and always to be willing to introduce others to your loving care. Amen.
