Sermons from St Mary and St Peter, Bury St Edmunds

Parish AGM 2009

2009-04-24T17:15:00.002+01:00

2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2

It has been a very busy last 12 months. We have celebrated the 150th anniversary of St Peter's, and we have had the CL mission. Not to mention the pantomime.

One of the events that I found extremely helpful was Clive Paine's lecture on the history of St Peter's. The church was founded on the desire to further the mission of the church and the proclamation of the gospel. And the gospel has been preached at St Peter’s, and from St Peter’s for the last 150 years.

And that has continued: which is why it was appropriate to have a mission in 2008 - to declare the historic truths on which St Peter's was established, but their continued to relevance to people today.

And we need that.

We live in a lost world. The economic foundations in which we put so much trust are being shaken. People do not know how to think or feel anymore. So many of us are controlled by fear.

Lilly Allen: The Fear

The passage that I have chosen for this evening is from 2 Corinthians 5. It tells us why Paul and the early Christians put so much emphasis on spending time with other people preaching, urging, persuading them that we do not need to live this way

'We try to persuade others (v11) .. be reconciled to God (v20)'

And Paul gives four reasons for trying to persuade others

1. We know the fear of the Lord (v11)

We have been entrusted with faith and the message of The Faith.

We know, says Paul, that we will be held accountable for what we have done with the precious gift of the message of the good news about Jesus Christ.

And as a parish and as individual churches we have been entrusted with so much: our people, our buildings, our gospel heritage, and our resources. And we will be held accountable for what we have done with the things that God has given us.

The parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) is a parable about what we do with what God entrusts to us. We can use those things, or we can sit on them and lose them. The one who does nothing excuses himself by saying that he is fearful of the master. But the master rebukes him for being lazy. Paul in 2 Corinthians (and he is talking explicitly about what we do with the message of reconciliation) writes that fear of God will make us do something with what we have.

That is why I think that we need to do something with what we have.

It is why I am grateful to St Mary’s committee for having the courage to take the risk and appoint an Events and Visitor coordinator. At St Mary’s we have an amazing building, with about 11000 visitors each year. I think that we can build on that, not simply to increase visitor numbers at St Mary's and revenue, but to see how we can better promote the message of the gospel to visitors. There is a phrase that is doing the rounds of mission focussed churches: how to turn tourists into pilgrims

It is also why we need to do something about the Hyndman Centre. It is a great resource, but at the moment is mostly being used by groups as a venue. I would love to see us taking hold of our centre and using it to initiate community projects: so that what goes on is owned by one or more of our congregations, and is used as a way of both serving our neighbourhood and of building bridges with people in the community.

So the fear of God, the fact that each one of us will have to appear before the judgement seat of Christ, should drive us to seek to persuade others – not, in this case, because they will be judged but because we will be judged.

2. We are compelled by the love of Christ (v14)

We are talking here about a two-fold love

At an objective level we are talking about Christ’s love. Because Christ loves all people, I am compelled to persuade others. I do not try to persuade someone to be reconciled to God because I love them, but because Christ loves them. It does not matter if I do not get on with them or think they are beyond the reach of God - Jesus died for them.

That is why when we entreat people to be reconciled to God, we do so not on our own behalf. I do not urge you to be reconciled to God on my own authority. I do so, v20, on behalf of Christ. He died for you and he urges you to be reconciled with God.

Nevertheless, this love of Christ is also subjective. This love is the first of the fruits of the Spirit that will grow in the garden of the life of the Christian. It is this love that controls how we use the gifts of the Spirit. Paul in Romans talks of how God pours his love into our hearts, and in Ephesians, how he will fill us with his love.

We need to pray that God will give us this love: this love for him and this love for people. It is much easier to go out of our way to persuade someone to be reconciled to God if we love them.

And it is this twofold love: the objective love of Christ for all, and the love which Christ gives us - which I pray will drive us out to persuade people.

It is what drove people to found St Peter’s; it is what has driven people to preach on street corners (‘hell-fire corner’ – although that title should be a warning to us. We do not wish to be known as ‘hell-fire’ people, but as gospel ‘good news’ people). It is what drove people to faithfully serve, witness and preach in this place, to set up mission churches, to use innovation to promote the good news (magic lanterns).

And we need that drive, faithfulness and, at times, that innovation: film evenings, 5 o’clock services, dinner parties, fireworks, displays, exhibitions (LIFE exhibition, labyrinth), websites, twitter. We need to have the courage to try, even if we fail. But more than the innovation, we need the love

3. We look at people in a new way.

This is a central theme in these few chapters of 2 Corinthians. Paul contrasts what is seen with what is unseen.

Ch 3: we are people who are being transformed into the glory of Jesus because we are looking on him.
Ch 4: the people of this age are blinded by the god of this world. The only reason we can see is because God has shone his light into our hearts.
And Paul goes on to draw a line between the outer visible and the inner invisible. The outer is wasting away. But the inner will last (2 Corinthians 4:18)
Ch 5: continues and states that we walk (live) by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).
And in our verses Paul says that he is not interested what people think of him, but what God thinks of him.

We do not look for the visible but for the invisible.
We do not look at the outer but at the inner.
We do not look at the outward appearance but the heart (v12).

By visible, outer standards Christ was a failure. He was crucified.
But from God's viewpoint, from a faith perspective, Christ crucified is the fullest expression and greatest demonstration of the love of God, the wisdom of God and the power of God. Through Jesus death on the cross, men and women were reconciled to God, evil and death was defeated.

So, Paul goes on, we don't look at people from a human point of view (v16). We are not interested in how attractive they are, how old they are, whether they are male or female, rich or poor, black or white, educated or uneducated. We look at them with the eyes of faith.

People in Christ are new creations. On the outside nothing has changed, but they are new people. The tiny seed of eternal life has been sown deep within them. You'll never see it, even with the most powerful microscope, because there is nothing visible to be seen. But by faith we believe it is there. They are resurrection people.

And we look at other people, at our neighbours, at our colleagues, at the people who use the Hyndman Centre with new eyes. Maybe they are successful or failures in the world’s eyes. But Christ died for all. Each person, young or old, is a potential new creation, a potential child of God.

I am so grateful that we are able to look at things through the eyes of faith!

Humanly speaking we are a dead loss. We might have nice buildings, but they are dwarfed by the towerblocks of our multinationals, and shopping centres. Christianity is being rapidly sidelined. Despite the spin, the reality is that the churches that are declining in numbers (even our own figures show a decline of 1 person). Even those congregations or churches that are growing in numbers are often growing at the expense of others, not at the expense of non-Christians.

And yet – looking at it with the eyes of faith – we see a different picture. A God who transforms lives; A God who provides; a God who builds relationships; a God who gives hope.

And even if we do live in a time when it seems that the god of this age has all the trump cards, the light is still shining (2 Corinthians 4:16). Nothing can stop it. And we do not need to give in to despair, or to simply give up. God is still God.

4. We try to persuade others because 'we have been given the ministry of reconciliation'. (v4)

It is significant that v20 is written to the Corinthian church and to all the saints in Achaia. Paul writes, ‘We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God’.

I suspect that this is one of those places where Paul is saying to believers, 'live out this reconciliation'.

Don't talk it. Walk it.

We can say, 'Jesus died for me, and I have been reconciled to God'; We can say, 'I was an enemy of God, but now I am a friend of God'. We can say it, and the words will be meaningless. You may have been baptised; you may remember when you prayed 'the prayer'; you may have always come along to church; you may speak the right language - but if we continue to live for yourself and not for him (v15), we are not living as people who have been reconciled to God. We talk about it, but we have not received the reconciliation on offer.

So before we urge others to be reconciled to God, we need to examine whether we are just talking the talk, wearing the badge – or are we living the life.

Next year we look forward to two major events: the LIFE exhibition and the PASSION FOR LIFE mission. Both are great opportunities for helping us as we persuade others to be reconciled to God. But before we do that, we need to know that we are living as people who are reconciled to God.

The world needed to hear that message 150 years ago. And it needs to hear this message today. It is our task as a parish and as churches to live the message and to proclaim the message

Easter Sunday 2009

2009-04-09T22:20:00.002+01:00

2 Corinthians 5:14-6:2

Easter Sunday 2009

Happy Easter: Christ is risen!

So what? John tells us that John goes into the empty tomb, and that - although he does not yet realise that the scripture talks of Jesus' resurrection - he believes. And then it tells us that he and the others 'go home'.

The most significant event in human history has just happened in front of their noses, and the disciples look at it and go home.

I guess that they need time to work out the implications of what has just happened. And I also think that John is making the point that the event on its own will not change anyone. The thing that changes people is the coming of the Holy Spirit.

But Paul, writing between 15 and 30 years after the event has had time to think - and he is writing to the Corinthian Christians urging them to live in the light of the resurrection.

And for Paul in these verses, it comes down to how we view other people.

V16 is key: So from now on we regard no-one from a worldly point of view
Instead we regard people with resurrection shaped glasses

That is how we now look at Christ.
V16, ‘Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer’

Jesus disciples regarded him at the crucifixion as a major let down
Jews would have looked at Jesus on the cross and seen him as a man cursed by God
Paul had regarded Christ as an imposter, a fool.

But for those who look at Christ through resurrection shaped spectacles, they see love instead of powerlessness, victory over sin and death instead of failure, God’s wisdom instead of foolishness.

For society today it is not much different.

We look at people and what is important is your status, wealth, job, title, charm factor (Nigella Lawson's mother: told her daughter, 'People do not wish to be charmed, but to be charming. Your job is not to charm people, but to make them think that they are charming'.)
What is important is the amount of good or harm that you could do me. What is important is how attractive you are, how influential: and that depends on your age, your sex, the colour of your skin, your cultural background, your education, what you wear (Mark Twain, 'Naked people have had very little influence on society).

But for the Christian, the person who looks at people with resurrection shaped glasses, it is different.

Just as we do not regard Jesus Christ as the world regarded him, so we do not regard people as society regards them, but in view of the death and resurrection of Jesus:

So what does that mean? How do we regard other people in the light of the resurrection

1. WE REGARD THEM IN THE LIGHT OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST.
Paul writes that he is compelled by the love of Christ.

That means that we look at people as beloved by Christ:

That is the challenge. At the meeting about homelessness: one lady asked about the people who were legitimately excluded by existing hostels. What were we going to do about them?

The person who we would dismiss as worthless is beloved by Christ. Remember the sheep and goats of Matthew 25 (although that is talking in the context of the Christian community)

That is made clear in the emphasis that Paul puts on the fact that Christ died for all people (v14). This is dangerously close to the language of universalism – but v15 does talk about people who choose to no longer live for themselves but for him

So when we are tempted to dismiss someone, to consider them as worthless because they do not further our well-being or interests, or the well-being of others, we need to remember that nevertheless, here is a person for whom Christ died. Here is a person for whom God the Father was willing for his Son to die.

2. WE REGARD THEM WITH THE LOVE OF CHRIST.
When Paul says that he is compelled by the love of Christ, I do not think that he is just talking about something that is outside of him. I think he is talking of his own motivation. Christ's love has been poured into his heart, and so he looks at people as Jesus would look at them.

I guess the real challenge for me is to regard people with the same sort of love.

Sadly, the main reason that we do not wish to go out of our comfort zone to serve others or to tell them of the God who loves them, is because we do not actually love them ourselves.

And the resurrection and the coming of the Spirit and the pouring out of the love of God in our hearts are all connected. It is because Christ died and rose, that he can send the Spirit. And it is because of the work of the Holy Spirit among us and within us that we can begin to love with the love of Christ.

But we need to stay close to him, to spend time seeking him, to continue to be obedient to him, to allow his word to dwell in us - so that his love grows in us. We've been looking at the fruit of the Spirit. It is fruit; it grows. And the first of the fruits is love.

3. WE REGARD PEOPLE IN CHRIST AS A NEW CREATION
v17: 'Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!'

The old has gone: The life of death, with the old motivation and the old behaviour and the old desires and the old fears and the old destination has gone.

The new has come: the new relationship, the new family, the new motivation, the new power for living, the new ambitions, the new pattern of living, the new hope.

We are to regard ourselves in Christ as new people
The old you died with Christ.

When the Spirit made you alive in Christ, the new came.

So at one level, you are a dead person. At your baptism service you were united to Jesus in his death. Your baptism service was the funeral service of the late and very unlamented old you. It was the funeral service of the you who sought status, security, comfort, satisfaction for physical desires – before anything else; it was the funeral service of the great big 'I' that would put itself in the centre of each of our lives.

And we are to live as dead people - dead to ourselves: v15: 'And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again'.

So when selfish ambition rears its head; when lusts start to control; when fear begins to say obey me rather than do what is right, say to them, 'You are dead. You have no power over me. You died when Christ died on the cross'.

And we are to live as people of the new creation, as resurrection people: as people whose home is not here, but in the future resurrection.

So we do not seek the honours of this world but of that world - we look to see how we can please the one who loves us. And we are to live as people who are reconciled to God, who have been forgiven, who do have the Spirit - even when we do not feel it!

And we are also to regard others who are in Christ as new creations.
Recently at a meeting, where a man started grilling me about what I believed. I got the impession that he was trying to suss out if I truly was converted. I found that quite sad - fully understandable, I am an Anglican vicar - but still quite sad. I really do think that as Christians our default position should be that of trust. It is what I would call a hermeneutic based on 1 Corinthians 13 - a hermeneutic of love. 'Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres'. We take people at their word. If they profess Christ, we receive them as brothers and sisters.

So we are called to treat people in Christ as part of the new creation. They are part of the body of Christ, they will be transformed, they will be there in the resurrection

4. WE REGARD PEOPLE AS PEOPLE WITH WHOM GOD LONGS TO BE RECONCILED.
That is why we have been given the ministry of reconciliation. The task of the church, the people of God, is to bring people to God and God to people. We are the priests of the New Testament. And we do that by declaring the message of the cross and resurrection, the message of God’s love and of sins forgiven and of the gift of God’s new life to us (‘the righteousness of God’).

We urge people to be reconciled to God. We implore people to be reconciled to God.

But this is not just for non-believers

One of the things that struck me about this passage is that Paul appeals to the 'you' to whom he is writing, to people who he addresses in the next verse as 'fellow-workers'. He speaks to non-Christians and to Christians alike, and he urges us to be reconciled to God.

We have been cut off from God. We cut ourselves off from God, and as a result we were under the condemnation of God.

But God longs for reconciliation. And in sending Jesus, his Son, God has done everything necessary for us to be reconciled with him.
Christ 'died for all' (v14); 'God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them' (v19), 'God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God' (v21)

And so Paul implores us, 'Be reconciled to God'. Live it. Live 2 Corinthians 5:15

Don't take your conversion or your baptism or your right knowledge or your one-time experience of the Holy Spirit for granted. Don't presume on your role or your reputation in the church. It makes no sense claiming to be reconciled with God, if we are ignoring him. He does not want people who wear the marks of Christianity or speak the language of Christianity, but who do not live the resurrection life. He longs for people who know him, who love him, who long for him, who trust and obey him, who are growing in him, who praise and thank him - not because they ought to, or because words are put in their mouths, but because they choose to.

So even if you are a Christian, even if you received Christ many years ago, may I urge you to live as people who are reconciled with God. We need to learn to live the life of the new creation (story of girl who was deaf, who at age 12 received a cochlea implant and heard perfectly. But she needed to learn to listen)

Jesus Christ is alive.

We do not look at him as the world looks at him.

We do not need to look at people as the world looks at them.

Instead we can learn to look at people with resurrection shaped glasses

We look at people in Christ as part of God’s new creation, as resurrection people
We urge all people – including ourselves - to be reconciled with God, to live as friends of God and as resurrection people.

Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit.

2009-04-07T11:12:00.003+01:00

Good Friday 2009

Luke 23:46

[the final of seven meditations on the Seven last words of Jesus on the Cross]

And so we come to the end.

Jesus died as he lived.

The phrase, 'Into your hands I commit my Spirit' is a phrase that comes in Psalm 31. It was a Psalm that Jesus would have known well and would have prayed many times. The words would have sunk right into him, and become a part of his language and of his thinking – and so now, right at the end of his life, words that he has prayed so many times come through the pain into his mind.

Just as an aside, there really is a value in soaking ourselves in Scripture - in speaking verses and re-speaking them; in learning verses and re-learning them. In one convent where they recited the entire Psalter every week, someone asked one of the nuns, 'But isn't that boring'. She replied, 'Of course it is boring. But that is not the point'. The point is in letting the Word of God go deep within us, to live deep within us – so that we live it in our life, and at our death.

And Jesus lived this prayer in his life, and also in his death.

But Jesus adds something to the phrase from Psalm 31. He adds the word, 'Father'

Jesus calls God Father

He knew God as Father. He was aware of that from at least the age of 12 when Mary says to him, 'Your Father and I have been searching for you'. He replies, 'Did you not realize that I would be in my Father's house'. And Jesus is conscious of the presence of his Father, of the purpose of his Father, of the love of his Father. He says on one occasion: "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him," (Luke 10:22). Jesus prays to his Father in heaven, and when he comes to the garden of Gethsemane, even there he prays 'Father'.

And so now, right at the end of his life, he once again calls out to God as Father.

It is said that dying can be very lonely. Many people wish to have their family around them, but that is not always possible or desirable. Jesus was surrounded by people who were laughing at him or crowing over him. But now, right at the end, he is not on his own. He calls out to his Father.

Jesus entrusts himself to God

Some of you will have seen one of the programmes about the plane that crash landed on the Hudson River. The passengers who were interviewed talked about what it was like thinking that they were certainly going to die. Some said that that experience has changed their life. And it is a good spiritual discipline to face the reality of our own death, our own moment of death and what comes after.

Jesus at that moment entrusts himself into God's hands. It is what he has done all his life. This was a prayer that Jesus prayed now, but it was a prayer that he had lived. He lived in total dependence on God (even when it meant he had to go to the cross and to be crucified) and he died in total dependence on God.

This is not the end: this is a cry of hope

The pain is almost over. The task is finished. The job has been done. Jesus mission is accomplished.

Because of Jesus death, sinful human beings can be reconciled to God. There is the possibility of forgiveness, fellowship and a future in paradise. In Luke, we are told that the curtain in the temple was torn in two before Jesus dies.

So this is not the end. And it is not the end for Jesus. There is no reason to entrust ourselves into God's hands if there is nothing more.

There is a future: The Psalmist says (Psalm 31:14-15): "But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are my God'. My future is in your hands; deliver me from my enemies" (New Revised Standard Version).

And so we conclude:

Because of the events we remember today we can

Call God 'Father'. That is an immense privilege. The force that is behind the creation is not something that is blind. It is not someone who needs to be appeased, or who is completely arbitrary. It is not fate. It is someone who loves us, who has given himself totally for us and who invites us to respond to that love. And he is there for us whenever we choose to turn to him, in life and in death.
Entrust our lives to God. Obey his commands; receive his promises; trust him – even when it seems the last thing that humanly we wish to do.
Jesus invites us to trust ourselves into God's hands – not just at the moment of death, but each day. He teaches that we need to die to ourselves each day. Luke 9:23, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me". And in Luke 11:3, Jesus teaches his disciples to have that daily dependence on God. He teaches us to pray, "Give us each day our daily bread".
I suspect that one of the reasons that our lives can feel so shallow is because we do not trust ourselves daily into God's hands. We try to play safe; to plan for all contingencies. And yes, following Jesus may well lead us to the cross, but the more we do trust ourselves to him, the more we live. In Hebrews 12:2, we are told that Jesus went through with the cross 'for the joy set before him'.

That is why people are prepared to live for him and to die for him:

I often quote the story of Polycarp who was on trial for his life. All he had to do to save himself was to swear by the emperor. "But the proconsul was insistent and said: "Take the oath, and I shall release you. Curse Christ." Polycarp said: "Eighty-six years I have served him, and he never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?"" (The letter of the Church in Smyrna to the church in Philomelium)
Know there is a future – whatever the situation – even when it seems that everything has come to an end. Remember the thief on the cross. It was pretty hopeless for him, and yet he called out to Jesus.

So here, we come to the end. It is the end of our meditation, and it seems to be the end for Jesus. But it was not the end. And for the person who says 'Yes' to Jesus, who calls on God as Father, and who entrusts themselves into God's hands - whatever the situation, even when we are literally struggling for our last breath - it is not the end.

It is, in fact, the beginning. It may be Good Friday today, but Easter Sunday is just round the corner.

Gentleness

2009-04-06T16:01:00.002+01:00

Gentleness

Opposite of violent - cf 1 Tim 3.3, 1 Cor 4.21, and it is the opposite of self-assertion
Not a great quality today: don't see it with in the Apprentice; it is not recommended as the way to get on in business or in life.

But gentleness is not weakness. It is very close to meekness

Paul writes, 'by the meekness and gentleness of Christ' (2 Corinthians 10:1)

AND IF WE LOOK AT JESUS WE SEE WHAT THAT MEANS

Jesus says: Matthew 11:29 – 'Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden…'
And we see how he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey (Matthew 11:29)

He is making a very political statement.

But John explains this in John 12:12-16. The 'great crowd' (this is the crowd that wanted to make him King in John 6) are now acclaiming him as Messiah. Jesus does not refuse their acclamation. Instead he finds a donkey and sits on it. In other words he is saying, 'I am King, but I am coming not as a warrior, but in peace').

Someone said, 'People want to be lightly governed by strong governments'. I don't know whether that is humanly possible. But it is possible with God.

He is strong – the creator of all that is. He could demand absolute obedience and perfection from us. But he does not. He woos us, he grows us, he waits for us, he rebukes us, he sacrifices himself for us. He could be like a master with a slave, a ruler with a subject, a general with a private, a manager with an employee – but he chooses to be like a parent with a child. And he is so patient with us: we fall and we fall and we fall and we fall – and he still forgives and he still trusts. Love is ..

Paul starts to get this when he talks about his ministry among the Thessalonian Christians. He says, 'We were like a mother with her children ..' (1 Thess 2.7), and then goes on to talk about being like a father to children.

And in Galatians 6:1, he urges the Galatian Christians to restore the sinner 'gently' (Galatians 6:1 cf 2 Tim 2:25)

Of course being gentle with someone does not exclude discipline. Ask any parent or teacher. And there is a place for discipline with God. But the reason for the discipline, and the purpose of the discipline, is to restore and to heal. But the way that God exercises discipline is incredibly gentle:

Story of woman caught in adultery.

It is a great way to get things done.

That is why the bible says that we are to be gentle with non-believers (actually the one time Jesus was violent was not with outsiders, but it was when insiders were stopping outsiders from coming inside!).

Share the gospel: but do this with gentleness and respect.
We really need to hear this. Some go overboard and compel others to come in – and it puts people off. Others go the opposite way and say we must never try to proselytize.
"Civility, which I take to be a strong virtue and not simply wimpishness, requires that we not try to cram our beliefs down anybody's throats, whether we be Christian or non-Christian or even anti-Christian. But that we all try to articulate as persuasively as we can, what it is that we believe, of course in the hope that others will be persuaded."

Richard John Neuhaus in Rutherford magazine (Feb. 1993). Christianity Today, Vol. 40, no. 1

And so the bible commands us to be gentle (Ephesians 4:2); it calls us to pursue gentleness (1 Timothy 6:11); and it calls us to put on gentleness (Colossians 3:12)

So how can I grow to become gentle?

Spend time with God. It is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:23). We will become like the one who we spend time with.
Trust God, that he is in control: Phil 4:4-5.
Remove the I in our Christian service:

Helen Roseveare, a medical missionary in Africa, was the only doctor in a large hospital. There were constant interruptions and shortages, and she was becoming increasingly impatient and irritable with everyone around her. Finally, one of the African pastors insisted, "Helen, please come with me." He drove Helen to his humble house and told her that she was going to have a retreat—two days of silence and solitude. She was to pray until her attitude adjusted. All night and the next day she struggled; she prayed, but her prayers seemed to bounce off the ceiling. Late on Sunday night, she sat beside the pastor around a little campfire. Humbly, almost desperately, she confessed that she was stuck. With his bare toe, the pastor drew a long straight line on the dusty ground. "That is the problem, Helen: there is too much 'I' in your service." He gave her a suggestion: "I have noticed that quite often, you take a coffee break and hold the hot coffee in your hands waiting for it to cool." Then he drew another line across the first one. "Helen, from now on, as the coffee cools, ask God, 'Lord, cross out the "I" and make me more like you.'" In the dust of that African ground, where a cross had formed, Helen Roseveare learned the master principle of Jesus: freedom comes through service, and service comes by releasing our ego.

I hate saying this, but God does not depend on you. His kingdom does not depend on you. My nightmare re church falling to pieces.
Trust God's timing: pressures to impetuousness, forcefulness is the sense that we have to do everything now.
Know who you are in God: So often I lose gentleness when I feel that I am being belittled, taken advantage of, walked over, treated like a statistic – not treated as I deserve to be treated. Things that make me very angry are waiting in a queue (and the official is having a conversation with someone else), girl at desk of swimming pool (completely my fault!). I get angry with children when they fight each other – but it is a very different kind of anger. I know what I am doing. It is the difference between being angry and seeing red.

But actually I need to realize that my identity is tied up with God, with who he thinks that I am – and not here. We see that with Jesus as he kneels down and washes his disciples feet. John 13 says: 'Knowing that he had come from the Father and was going back to the Father, and that the Father had given him all things ..'
Know your weakness, because it gives you compassion for others: Hebrews 5:2 talks of the priest. And Hebrews goes on to talk about how Jesus can show compassion to us because he was human and because he was tempted just like us.

Gentleness in Gal 5:23 comes in between faithfulness and self-control. It is very easy to be faithful to Christ and to lose gentleness. It is very easy to be self-controlled and to become harsh with others.

Questions

How would you define a gentle person
What makes you see red?
How do you react when you are angry?
How do you react to someone who tries to compel you to do something?
Can you think of a gentle person who has influenced you?

Look at Philippians 4:2-7

How are joy in the Lord, gentleness, prayer, thanksgiving and peace connected?

6. It may be possible to be a minister and to strive for gentleness in your job, or to strive to be a gentle husband/wife/parent. How can one strive to be gentle if one is a lawyer, business woman, politician, soldier?

God, men and sex

2009-03-21T10:42:00.003Z

Story of vicar giving talk on sex at school. Couldn't write 'Talk on sex at school' in diary, so wrote 'Talk on sailing at school'. His wife was looking through his diary. Received phone call from head teacher: 'Your husband gave a very good talk.' Wife: 'Yes, I saw that in his diary. I am surprised. He has very little experience. He's only done it twice. The first time he was sick, and the second time his hat blew off'.

Important topic:

Society has a great deal to say on the subject of sex.

Sex is very much in the public sphere. Scenes that I suspect would never have been shown late at night even a few years ago are now shown well before the 9pm watershed. And as for the 9pm watershed, you-tube and I player now make that nonsense.

And I guess that the dominant view of society today is 'the four wedding and a funeral' attitude to sex: if you're married you ought to remain faithful (unless you have what is called an 'open marriage'); but otherwise it does not matter how many sexual partners, of whatever gender, you have (indeed it is a virtue to have had several), and it does not matter what you do – so long as both of you are consenting adults.

Indeed I would go further and say that in modern society to suggest that a particular sexual practice is wrong is in fact perceived to be an infringement of another persons' rights. And Christians have tacitly bought into that by retreating from talking about sex in the public sphere – partly because of the way that someone like Mary Whitehouse was slaughtered by the media.

And the main thing that society teaches about sex today is that you can have sex with whoever you want to, but if you are going to have sex, you need to have safe sex – wear a condom; and if you are going to have children you really should be in some sort of committed relationship.

If society is always talking about sex, in Christian circles we rarely talk about sex.

Within churches, particularly those which uphold the teaching of scripture and of the historic Church, we teach that the place for sexual intimacy is within marriage between man and woman, and we teach celibacy outside of marriage. But beyond that we are silent. We do not often speak – for very good reasons – about sexual desires – both positive and negative, masturbation, sexual practice, pornography, affair-proofing relationships, or dealing with singleness and celibacy.

And I will try not to be embarrassing, but I do wish to lift the curtain of silence just slightly on some of these issues

This is an area which destroys Christian lives.

Sexual sin destroys Christians. The New Testament is full of injunctions to keep ourselves pure, to keep the marriage bed 'undefiled' (Hebrews 13:4), to avoid even the hint of sexual immorality (Ephesians 5:3). There are 20 references to 'sexual immorality' in the New Testament.

It is not the only sin, it is not the biggest sin; but sexual sin destroys ministries and churches in a way that other sin does not; and it destroys partners, children and individuals in a way that other sins do not. It is one of Satan's favourite weapons.

In sinning sexually (1 Corinthians 6:18) we sin against others and we sin against our own bodies.

Sex is so powerful that when we have sexual intimacy with someone we become one with them. We might think that it is a casual one night stand, and after all we are men with desires – nobody will know – we're not getting it elsewhere - and she wants it – but it is not a casual one night stand. When we have sex we are united to someone, physically and spiritually (and that is not an excuse to have 'sexual relations' in the Bill Clinton sort of way). In any form of bodily penetration you become one with the other person.

If you have sex with someone, then that person has become part of you and you have become part of them – and the Holy Spirit, who lives in us, has less space to work in us.

Sexual sin shipwrecks Christian lives. But so does the guilt that comes from sexual sin, and to be totally honest, the false guilt that hangs around sex.

The Church has not been great talking about sex. The fact that monasticism became, after the 4^th Century, the ideal form of Christian life (and that most bishops came from the ranks of the monks) meant that the people who were the main teachers of the church had a very low view of sex. It existed, if it really had to, for procreation only. Otherwise it was wrong.

And many Christians have laboured under the burden that sexual desire is not good – and needs to be suppressed – and that we need to restrain ourselves from sexual activity.

1. SEXUAL DESIRE

We have been made as men and women and we have desires, including sexual desire.

1 Timothy 4:4-5 is key here. "For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by God's word and by prayer." Everything is right in its rightful place.

The desire for sexual intimacy is the desire to be fully part of someone else. It includes the desire to belong to someone else and to possess someone else, especially when that someone else is physically desirable, and is beautiful.

At its best, the desire for sexual intimacy is the desire:

to be free from ourselves. 'Hell', says Sartre, 'is the other person'. No. 'Hell', to quote Timothy Ware in The Orthodox Way (p35), 'is myself, cut off from others in self-centredness.'
to be profoundly creative. Sexual intimacy, can be, humanly speaking, the most creative thing we ever do.
for ecstasy: for the physical ecstasy that comes from the releasing of tension, for both men and women. But for more than that: for ecstasy at it's most profound, spiritual level. And the word 'ecstasy' comes from the Greek 'ek – stasis' (away from – movement), again reminding us that at the heart of ecstasy is a movement out of ourselves. True ecstasy comes when we let go and give.

The problem is that we live in a fallen society.

And the result is that our desires get mixed up and confused.

a) We desire each other and not God

Our first desire is meant to be for God: 'to love him and worship him for ever': to be part of God, to be possessed by him and to possess him; to be profoundly creative in him and to experience true ecstasy.

And yet straight after the fall, our desires are messed up

Genesis 3:16: "To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.""

So rather than desire for loving intimacy with God she desires her husband, who rules over her.

And this does not just apply to the woman, but also to the man: he desires her. We look at the Song of Solomon.

It is not wrong to desire another person; but it is second best to desire for God

b) Our desire for the other is perverted

Romans 1:24-27 applies to every person and is not just about homosexual practice:

"Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error." (Romans 1:24-27, NRSV)

This is not saying that it is wrong for a man to love another man. It clearly is not. Jonathan's love for David and David's love for Jonathan was clearly very deep: (1 Samuel 18:1; 20:17; 2 Samuel 1:27: "I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.")

What it is saying is that love must not give way to the desire to commit 'shameless acts', to the 'degrading of our bodies' or to the abandonment of 'natural intercourse'. Love needs to triumph over, what the Church Father's called, the passions

And if we are honest we can see how our desires are mixed up: and in particular how the desire for physical gratification of our sexual urges overwhelms the desire to love – and that leads us to give in to our lust (the desire to possess and take for myself)

And the result is that one of the most precious and healing gifts that God has given us can become one of the most self-centred and most destructive things that we ever do. It becomes a playground for the abuse of other people, for domination over other people, for the turning of other people into objects to satisfy myself; and it leads to the awful story of the concubine in Judges 19 – or to just take two stories that have been in the press this week – the taxi driver who has raped literally hundreds of women; or the man in Austria who turned his own daughter into a sex slave.

But just because sexual desire and sexual intimacy is abused, it does not mean that it is wrong. It needs to be received 'with thanksgiving and sanctified by the word of God and prayer'. In other words, it needs to be kept within the boundaries that God has given: marriage between man and woman.

But let us look at some of the other issues that I have mentioned.

2. MASTURBATION.

Masturbation is probably not ideal. It is a very individual thing and I think it is about the release of sexual tension: it is interesting how people talk about men having some form of cycle. Leviticus 15 talks about emissions of semen, with the result that the person is unclean until the evening when they should take a bath.

But it is not a big thing. Many Christians, especially young Christians, can get very hung up about this. I remember having a series of phone calls from a young man, who I never met, who was really hung up about the fact that he was masturbating regularly. Actually, by taking the pressure off him, by saying that it was not such a big thing, and not to be so hung up about it, really helped him to get the compulsion under control.

Of course there are the problems of the fantasies which come with it, but it can also be a release of the tension when no other 'legitimate' way is there (whether that is because one is single, or married but with little sexual intimacy in marriage)

However, it must not become controlling, and it must not take the place of physical intimacy if you are married.

Luther, I believe, spoke of masturbation as a 'puppy sin'. The only time that it is really condemned in the bible is in Genesis 38:9, where Onan 'spilled his semen on the ground' in order to avoid his responsibilities. Why for that? Because it affects other people.

3. PORNOGRAPHY

This is a much bigger issue, particularly today with internet pornography being so accessible – with absolutely no seeming accountability.

There is a real problem with pornography, because the images stick with us, and it effects how we see other people and particularly women

Some guidelines that have helped me:

If something is giving you a real problem, get rid of it. Your soul and your mind are more important than your laptop or PDA
Use passwords – Jesus Christ – although there is always a way around this
Remember that even if you go onto an incognito window, there is someone somewhere who is able to look at a list of all the sites that you have visited.
Remember that there is someone who is looking at what sites you visit
Be accountable to others

Pray for a Godly sorrow – so that what you see actually makes you feel physically sick and defiled.

Please, if this has become compulsive, if it is in danger of destroying you, do talk talk talk to others.

4. THE AFFAIR

If you are there, stop

If you have not been there, don't go there

If you have been there, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Of course it is exciting. Of course the sex is fantastic. Have you ever heard of an affair where the sex was not exciting?

It can only be for short while: one, two years. After that, it becomes normal.

The affair now was beginning to have some of the longueurs of marriage, but with none of marriage's reassuring safety and comfort. It wasn't only that the excitement had gone. It was difficult now to recall those first heady weeks when their affair had first started, impossible to recapture that mixture of sexual enthralment spiced with danger, the exhillarating self-confidence of knowing that a beautiful and successful woman found him desirable. Did she still? Hadn't it become a matter of habit for them both? Everything, even illicit passion, had its natural end. (PD James, A Certain Justice, p104)

It has nothing to do with love

About Dalgliesh's lovers: 'What, he wondered, had those carefully spaced encounters, both participants groomed for pleasure like a couple of sleek cats, to do with love, with untidy bedrooms, unwashed dishes, babies' nappies, the warm close claustrophobic life of marriage and commitment' (PD James, The Black Tower, p5)

It destroys your partner, your children and yourself

We need right thinking in this: we need to be led by our mind and not by our genitals. I like the story of the man who sees a woman walking down the street. He gapes. His friend says, 'Married with three children'. The man replies, 'I don't believe it. Not with that figure'. 'No', said his friend, 'not her; you'.

We need accountability to each other – and especially to your partner. I've had three occasions when people have come to me and said, 'I'm married – I want to be faithful to my marriage – but I'm in love with someone else'. I said very little, although did suggest that if at all possible they should talk it through with their partner. I don't know whether they did. But I do know that all three marriages survived, and I suspect that part of the reason was that the person was prepared to be honest.

We need the grace of God. Please do not presume that you stand. Gordon MacDonald, a well known Christian leader in the States, who wrote, 'Ordering Your Private World', said that he was asked, 'How would Satan destroy your ministry'. He answered – in all integrity - with the words, 'I don't know. But I know that it would not be through my private life'. Within a year, he was having an affair with his secretary.

Having said all of that, the affair is not the end. It was not the end for David in the OT; it was not end for MacDonald. It might seem to be the end – it might throw you into the pit – that is the judgement of God – but by his grace it does not need to be the end.

5. THE PRACTICE OF SEX

I have heard it said that with consenting couples, in the privacy of their own home, whatever they do is OK.

I do not think that is true. As I spoke earlier, our desires are mixed up. Some of our desires are good. Others are destructive.

For example, in my previous church in Holloway we had a shop opposite which sold bondage stuff. It offered to satisfy the desires of those who wished to dominate or to be dominated. But I do not think that that is healthy. The desire to belong to and be part of someone else is good. God made us to be in Christ and to have Christ in us. He made us together to be in Christ. But the desire to dominate and to be dominated is I suspect a consequence of the fall.

What we do in the bedroom needs to build up the other and not destroy; it is about growing the other and not shrinking them: it is about treating the other person as a human being made in the image of God and uniquely precious to him. .

So rape in marriage (the forcing of the other person to have sex) is wrong

Bondage is out – certainly if it goes beyond very mild fantasy play

And buggery is out: because it is abusive: one person dominating the other, even if it is with the consent of the other.

Sexual intimacy is about doing something that builds up both partners as children of God – which is why it has to be between man and woman, and why it really has to be face to face.

6. LOVING OUR WIVES

As a young curate, only just married, we ran in our house one of the Rob Parson's marriage enrichment courses. There were a quite a number of people who came. In it, Rob or Diane talks of the couple who could not make love because whenever he touched her she wanted to turn over and be physically sick. Suddenly one lady in the quite large group who was there with her husband said, 'that is how I feel when he touches me!'

Those of you who are married do not need me to tell you that there will be times when there is no sex in our marriages. That might be for many reasons: the birth of a baby, illness, change of life; it might be because there is something deeper going on; or it might mean that we have to look again at our relationship.

Those are the times when we need to really work out whether we are spending enough time with our wives, giving them quality time, showing respect and gratitude; There are times when we need to ask whether the romance or the vision has gone out of the relationship. If it has, it does not mean that it is time to trade her in for a younger model, but it means that it is time to work hard at your relationship.

And the physical stuff is important: the touching, the hugging – without the idea that there must be sex, however much we might desire that.

And there will be times when there is no sex – but it is not the end of the world, it is quite normal – and as the single person might say, 'Welcome to our world!'

7. BEING SINGLE/MARRIED AND CELIBATE

Sex, and sexual desire, is an amazing gift that God has given. But, despite what the world says, it is not what life is all about.

It is quite possible to satisfy those three deepest desires: for release from self into another, for creativity and for ecstasy, without sexual intimacy.

Jesus managed to do so; Paul managed to do so (he talks in 1 Corinthians 7 of singleness and celibacy as being a gift, indeed a gift that is greater than the gift of marriage, because it means that there is nothing in your way to making the first desire of your life – God); many many women and men of God through the ages have managed to do so. I think more recently of people like Mr Theresa or John Stott.

If we are single or if we are sexually frustrated, we do not need to be stultified human beings – even if society and the church might make us feel like that.

There is, of course, great cost in singleness, but also great opportunity.

Stott writes in his commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:4, "An additional paragraph is needed for those of us who are single and therefore lack the God-given context for sexual love. What about us? We too must accept this apostolic teaching, however hard it may seem, as God's good purpose for us and for society. We shall not become a bundle of frustrations and inhibitions if we embrace God's standard, but only if we rebel against it. Christ's yoke is easy, provided that we submit to it. It is possible for human sexual energy to be redirected ('sublimated' would be the Freudian word) both into affectionate relationships with friends of both sexes and into the loving service of others. Multitudes of Christian singles, both men and women, can testify to this. Alongside a natural loneliness, accompanied sometimes by acute pain, we can find joyful self-fulfilment in the self-giving service of God and other people" (John Stott, The Message of Thessalonians, p84f)

And I think that the bible hints that there will not be sexual intimacy, at least as we know it, in heaven.

Luke 20:27-40 states that there will be no marriage in the resurrection, and Galatians 3:28 talks of how there is no male or female distinction in Christ (in the same way as there is no slave/free distinction or Jew/Gentile distinction).

This is speculation. But if there is no sexual intimacy in heaven, it is because heaven is a place where our desires are rightly ordered, and where our desires are fully satisfied in the best possible way.

And so the desire for ecstasy in the richest sense of the word, to be creative in partnership with others, and to come out of ourselves and to be part not just of one other but of all others, will be fulfilled in heaven in a way that sexual intimacy can never offer. Because those desires are ultimately fulfilled when we are in God, when we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Those desires will find their richest fulfilment in that place where 'eye has not seen, or ear heard, or the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him'.

Life

2009-02-13T18:03:00.002Z

John 1:1-14

LIFE: What is life?

I make no pretence to be a scientist. Gave up on science when I realised I would have to learn the periodic table, and that there was no system to help me!

Wikipedia gives one definition of life: "A characteristic of self-organizing, self-recycling systems consisting of populations of replicators that are capable of mutation, around most of which homeostatic, metabolizing organisms evolve".

Is that all? I heard on Friday of a 12 year old boy who has just become a father with a 15 year old girl. Is the life that has been produced simply the product of unprotected sex or is it something more? And if it is nothing more, what right does that particular baby, that bundle of cells which sleeps, eats and cries have to exist? And if it ceases to exist, so what? We do not grieve a leaf that falls from a tree, and yet the biological process that worked within the leaf – of cells separating and reproducing - is exactly the same process that grew the baby within the womb of the 15 year old.

Dawkins, our favourite atheist, argues that there is no purpose in life. It is just one of those things that has emerged. It once was not; while it is, it is about the reproduction and survival of individual DNA; and one day it will not be. As Ernst Hemingway once said, 'Life is nothing more than a dirty trick. A short trip from nothingness to nothingness'

And yet I suspect that there is a voice in each of us which rebels against that. If evolutionary processes are the only and the final answer to the existence of life and of human beings, we need to ask ourselves why evolution has produced a creature that is able to ask, 'Why do I exist?' and which feels that it has in some way responsibility for all the other creatures?

There is something within us which says: 'That baby of the 12 and 15 year old really matters'.

John's gospel uses two words for life: psuxe – physical life, literally: the breath of life, and zoe – eternal life, life in all its abundance. I guess it is the difference between life, existing and real life.

Oscar Wilde: "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all".

Well our passage from John talks about the one who not only has real life, but who is real life. It speaks of the Word who was with God and who was God. And it goes on to say, 'in him was life'.

So what is this LIFE?

1. This life is inseparable from God. 'The Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning'.

Real life is God and is in God. Real life cannot be separated from relationship with God

That is why we are invited to become children of God. (John 1:12).

We are invited to come into the same relationship with God that Jesus Christ had. Although he has always been with God, and there has never been a time when he has not been, He called God Father. He is the 'One and Only Son of God'.

And through him, we are invited to become children of God. It is only as children of God that we can know, participate in this life

It is when we are united to God that we live.

It is when we are most like Jesus Christ, not only in what he did, but in who he was: the Son of God, that we live. Real life begins when we call God, Father.

We are most fully alive when we are in a right relationship with God, receiving what God wishes to lavish on us; delighting in doing what God wills in order to delight God.

That is why real Life begins on its knees

2. This life gives life to others: 'Through him all things were made; without him nothing was that has been made'.

Life gives life. That is true physically.

A cell that reproduces is alive. A cell that doesn't reproduce is dead.

And the Word is Life because he created all things:

The writer to the Hebrews states (Hebrews 11:3), 'By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible'. We call it creation ex-nihilo, 'creation out of nothing'.

This does not tell us how God created matter. It is stating the fact that God did create all that exists.

There will be a great deal about Darwin and the theory of evolution this year. Did any of you see the Attenborough programme on Darwin? It was brilliant. It is very hard to argue against that sort of evidence. But throughout the programme, Attenborough argued or implied that if Darwin is right, God does not exist.

I simply cannot buy that argument. Even if Darwin is right in everything, and we all come from a pre-historic protoplasm that lived in the sea – where did it all come from in the first place? Why do cells divide? Why do cells change and mutate? Why don't they break down instead of becoming more complex?

As I said, I make no pretence to be a scientist. But I do know that if I have a particular scientific theory of why the world is as it is now, of the scientific processes that are in the world, it does not exclude God. Even if the theory of an infinite number of parallel universes could be proved, it would not exclude God. God is big enough to work through any process we can possibly conceive

I am a creationist. Not in the sense that I believe in a 6 day 24 hour creation: I don't, and I am not persuaded that the bible asks us to do that. But I am a creationist because I believe that this world is a creation. It has been created. It has been – and continues to be shaped – by a creator, who gives life.

And God not only gives psuxe, physical life.

God also gives zoe, eternal life.

And we live when we share in that work of God.

Physically we are most alive when we give or preserve human physical life – even if it means sacrificing our own physical life. That is why so many people find that life without love is meaningless: and by love I do not mean that self-centred seeking for an experience to solve all my problems, but the willingness to lay down my happiness, my comfort, my life for another. To love really is to live. To give really is to live.

Spiritually we are most alive, when we present or preserve real life. Actually only God can give zoe, real eternal life, but we can pray for people; and like John the Baptist we can be a witness to this life, and we can share with others this amazing offer that Jesus gives: 'that to all who receive him, he gives to us the right to become children of God'.

It is one of the reasons why involvement in some form of evangelistic ministry, which can be incredibly costly, is also so life affirming.

Charles Spurgeon said, "Even if I were utterly selfish and had no care for anything but my own happiness, I would choose, if God allowed, to be a soul winner, for never did I know perfect, overflowing, unutterable happiness of the purest and most ennobling order till I first heard of one who had sought and found a Saviour through my means."

And I think it was CT Studd, who chose to give away his entire inheritance (and he inherited the family estate which was pretty significant) and who went as a missionary to China with CIM, who said: 'For sheer enjoyment and pure self-indulgence, give me soul winning any day'.

And we can and indeed are called to nurture each other in the faith. That is what two thirds of the New Testament is about: Paul, John and Peter urging the Christians to support each other in their Christian faith, to encourage each other, to build each other up, and to grow in faith and in understanding and in love. The church really is called to be the community of the living, of the really alive.

3. This life brings light. 'In him was life and that life was the light of the people'

This life is illuminating.

When Jesus came into the world he was the light. He made clear the truth about God, about life, about living, about our human situation and the human heart, about God's laws and the purpose God has for us and for this universe.

He made it clear not just in the words that he spoke, or the things he did, but in the very person who he was.

There was no confusion or darkness in him: no hidden motives or agendas, no dark side. He was Ronseal. What you saw was what you got.

And we are most alive when we are light in Christ. We are called to shine as children of light.

When we live the life, there will be no darkness in us: We are called to be transparent - to be onions and not oranges. When you take off the orange peel, you get something very different inside. When you peel an onion, you get onion. Of course, we – unlike Jesus - are sinful and mixed up. We are full of doubts, fears and inadequacies. I'm not suggesting that we wear our hearts on our sleeves at all times – but I am suggesting that we need to be honest with God, with each other and with ourselves. It's not the fact that we mess up that is the problem. We all mess up. It is the fact that we mess up and then cover up. We pretend to ourselves or to others that we are OK. I was told that John Stott, having been publicly praised before he spoke, replied by saying: 'If you could see into my heart, you would spit in my face'.

We are called to do the things of the light: to put away the deeds of darkness. There is no place for lying or cheating, for using or abusing people. There is no place for pride or envy or self-centredness. There is no place for greed or lust – which wishes to seize other things or other people for myself, to satisfy my desire.

And living the life means speaking light: speaking words that enable others to see the truth. And that can be the truth about God, about reality or about something that they are doing.

But before we all go off and tell each other a few straight home truths – may I remind us that we are called to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). That means I look at others as God looks at them. I look at others in the light of the truth that they are beloved by God, that God desires for us to become his and to grow as his children. And we need to treat people as adults, especially in our society today – not simply standing above them and telling them that they are wrong (it just doesn't work) - but standing alongside them, asking them questions, getting them to think.

When we live there will be light.

4. This life is often rejected: 'He came to the world and the world did not recognise him; he came to his own but they did not receive him'

And here is the mystery: Why should anyone choose to reject God?

The reason that the bible gives is very simple. It is the same reason that Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit. It is the same reason that the people of Israel rebelled against God. It is the same reason why we choose to silence God.

It is about sin and rebellion and pride and the putting up of false things in the place of God.

The awful truth about you and me is that we prefer darkness instead of light.

Why should I listen to God, why should I do what he wants, when I think I can be god myself – or at least think I can choose my god?

And when we do live the life, there will be times when we are rejected.

It is easy to point to Christians suffering in totalitarian countries

It is easy to point to where political correctness has gone mad

It is easy to point to how, in a nation of xenophobes, someone declaring God's love for all people will be persecuted.

But individuals here and now find that they are rejected when they recognise the reality of Christ.

We will be accused of betraying our family, or of trying to improve ourselves, if we start going to church

We will be accused of religious fanaticism if we start to read the bible on a daily basis, or join a homegroup

We will be ridiculed, or told that we are selfish, when we give our money away

We will be condemned as intolerant if we say we believe sexual intimacy outside of marriage is wrong

We will be accused of betraying our community if we welcome or befriend gypsies, homeless people, those with severe psychiatric needs, people on the child protection register or immigrant neighbours

We will be charged with being a hypocrite if we withdraw from something that friends are doing that is destructive and wrong

We will be charged as being inadequate or of needing a crutch if we pray

We will be accused of being eccentric and irrelevant if we become vicars (which is probably true!).

Jesus warns us that if we live for him, we will be hated.

This life is real life, but it is a life that is so often rejected.

5. This life is glorious: 'We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth'

Glory, light and life come together in Jesus.

Real life takes hold of ordinary life, physical life, grips it and transforms it into glorious life. That glory was seen in the life of Jesus Christ on earth. It was seen in his grace and his truth; it was seen in his relationship with his Father; it was seen in his love for men and women; it was seen in his works of power; it was seen in the cross and resurrection.

And we are invited to share in this glorious life.

To become children of God

To give life to others

To be light

To be rejected

To know the cross and the resurrection

Irenaeus, one of the very earliest bishops wrote, "The glory of God is a human being who is fully alive with his face turned towards God".

Baptism in the Holy Spirit

2009-01-09T21:39:00.000Z

Mark 1:4-11

We jump very quickly from the birth of Jesus, the coming of the wise men, to the baptism of Jesus.

But it is still about new beginnings.

Jesus at the beginning of his ministry comes to John to be baptised.

He identifies himself with John and with John’s message
He identifies himself with those who choose to be baptised

But there is much more going on.

And I would suggest at Jesus baptism,

1. Tears heaven open

2. Baptises people not with water, but with the Holy Spirit.

1. Jesus tears heaven open

As he is baptised, 'He saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove'. (v10)

It is a powerful image.

Because of our rebellion against God, our rejection of God, our self-centredness, our attempt to put ourselves in the place of God - a barrier has been placed between heaven and earth.

We may have an idea that heaven is there, but we cannot see into heaven. That is why our lives and our world are in such a mess. That is why we cannot see God. That is why when we pray, it can seem as if we are praying to a blank wall.

But when Jesus is baptised heaven is torn open.

It is because of:

i. Who he is - the Son of God (Mark 1:1). Christmas is about God knowing that we will never get to him, so he comes to us. He breaks through heaven to come to earth. And the voice from heaven confirms for us who Jesus is.

ii. What he does: especially here in his baptism. Here is one who – up to now - has never rebelled against God, never rejected God, who is learning obedience, and who has lived a life and will live a life that is completely God-centred

iii. The death of Jesus: Mark tells us that as Jesus dies, the curtain in the temple was torn in two. This was the curtain that separated the holy of holies, the place where God's name was said to dwell, from the rest of the temple. But when Jesus dies, that curtain is torn.

Heaven has been torn open; the curtain has been torn from top to bottom. The barrier that separated us from God has been pulled down.

Jesus stands between heaven and earth. Most of us will know the Salvador Dali painting of Christ on the cross suspended between heaven and earth. He is the bridge, he is the road. Because of him, and by putting our trust in him, we can again hear the voice of God the Father, we can know the assurance and the leading of the Holy Spirit, and we can begin to glimpse God.

2. Jesus is the one who baptises with the Holy Spirit

That is what John says about Jesus: 'I baptise you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit' (v8)

We can get too hung up about the experience of the Holy Spirit. We are tempted to say that what happens to me must happen to everyone else.

But we are all different, and God works in each of us in different ways.

For Jesus, the Spirit came as a dove - it is an incredibly gentle picture.
For the disciples on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit came as a violent wind and tongues of fire.
On another occasion, as the early believers were meeting together, the Spirit comes and the building is shaken.
For Cornelius, the Spirit came as Peter was preaching, and he and his household start to speak in tongues.

There is no single experience.

And we must be very careful that we do not knock the experience of others - or get worried if our experience is not the same as theirs.

What is important is not how the Spirit comes, but what He does.

And I draw out three things

i. It is the Holy Spirit who convinces us of our need to repent, to turn to God.

We need to hear this. Jesus did not command us to tell people that they are sinners. The people he condemns are the people who claim that they are not sinners and who tell other people that they are sinners.

We’re not commanded to tell people that they are sinners, but to tell people who know that they are sinners that there is the forgiveness of sins.

It is the work of the Holy Spirit to convince someone that they are a sinner.

He works in the hearts and minds of men and women, showing us our need to repent – so that repentance, when it comes, comes not from the outside, but from the inside.

It is the difference between saying sorry because we’ve been told to say sorry, and saying sorry because we really are sorry.

And when we have been baptised in the Spirit, he will continue to do that: ‘to convict us of sin’ (John 16:8), to show us those areas of our lives where we are living our way and not God’s way.

And it is the Spirit who helps us to see that we are not right with God and who gives us the longing to get right with God.

2. The Spirit assures us that we are children of God

The voice comes from heaven. It is the voice of the Father who speaks, but he speaks when the Spirit comes. It is almost as if the Spirit carries the voice of Father God.

Romans 8:16 tells us that the Spirit 'testifies with our spirit that we are God's children'.

And that is important.

We need assurance when we begin the Christian life.

When people become Christians they often become profoundly aware of God's presence, of a deep hunger to read the bible and of prayers answered in astonishing ways – it really is a sort of divine honeymoon period.

That is the work of the Holy Spirit.

And we need assurance to live the Christian life: when the bad and the sad things happen, when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We start to think, ‘Why me? Is this a punishment from God?’ Am I good enough? Have I been good enough? Am I too insignificant for God?'

But then we begin to become aware of someone with us who is far far greater than any situation, of someone who has told us that nothing in life and nothing in death can separate us from his love.

That is the work of the Holy Spirit

We need assurance when we get trouble for being a Christian, when we have to make a costly decision because we are trying to be obedient to Jesus, when we are criticised or ridiculed because of our faith, or when it seems so uncool to be a Christian.

We need assurance

So what is the answer to those who say that they have never known that assurance? What is the answer to those who say that have lost that sense of assurance?

For some the answer is, 'Wait. Live by faith. Believe his promises. Continue to call out to him’.

And when it seems as if God is not there, it really is not the time to give up on him. That is the time to remember the past, remember his promises and to cry out to him with more hunger and more longing.

With the Psalmist we say, ‘God, you did this in the past. God, you said this. Where are you now?’

But for others the answer is a question, ‘Do you seek God or do you seek an experience of God? Have you committed yourself to being obedient to him? Do you pray for God's kingdom to come? Do you give time to listen to God's word? The man or woman of faith is a man or woman who says, 'I will trust his promises and serve him whatever, even if God never makes himself known to me this side of death'.

And for all of us, I note that the voice came to Jesus after he had been baptised, the angels came to comfort Jesus in the wilderness after he had been tempted and the angel comes to strengthen Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane after he had prayed: 'Not my will, but yours be done'.

3. The Spirit leads us

Verse 12: 'the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness'.

The Spirit dismissed Jesus not to the still waters and green pastures, but into the desert.

The person who allows themselves to be led by the Spirit will not always go where they would choose to go.

But the Spirit leads us: both through the things that happen to us, and through guiding us in the decisions that we are led to take. We however, need to allow him to lead us. Paul urges us, ‘Keep in step with the Spirit’ (Galatians 5:25)

And in the end, the reason that Jesus was led into the wilderness was so that he could be prepared for the future. He was led into the wilderness not in spite of the fact that he was God's beloved Son, but because he was God's beloved Son.

So Jesus came to tear heaven open

And he came to baptise with the Holy Spirit.

We give thanks to God for that, and today I invite us to receive what God gives to us.

We do not need to live as if we are cut off from God.
We do not need to live as if there is no hope – there is a future, here and there.
We do not need to live as if we are simply a DNA code, a product of natural selection and random mutation, and no more.
We do not need to live as if we are on our own, with little purpose and no future.

But in order to do that we need God.

We need John’s baptism in water – for repentance.
We need Jesus’ death – for forgiveness
And if we wish to live this new life, we need to allow Jesus to baptise us with the Holy Spirit.

Christmas Carol service 2008

2008-12-21T16:58:00.001Z

At the heart of Christmas is a story.
It is a story that has an astonishing power.

It is the story of how the Son of God, the one who is bigger than the universe, beyond the universe, became a tiny speck within his universe; the one who created time, came into time. The Son of God, because he loved us – because he loved you - became a human baby born in a cowshed in Bethlehem 2000 years ago.

It is the story of how God in his love, reaches down to us.

We often think that we are closest to God when we are most god-like; when we are in control, confident, victorious. There is a great scene in one of the James Bond films (from the days when James Bond films were James Bond films). The villain's computer whizz kid assistant has just managed, amidst total chaos, to override Bond's override – and global destruction is imminent: and he stands up and raises his arms into the air and declares, 'I am invincible'. We think we are most god-like when we have those 'invincible' moments.

But of course, as our villain discovers, we are not invincible. As he declares himself 'invincible', gallons of quick freeze liquid pour onto him, and he is turned into a statue.

There are times when we are almost god-like: we create remarkable things: compose and perform beautiful music; design and build magnificent buildings; discover more and more of the remarkable truths of this universe. And at times we do wonderful things: we marvel at people who do acts that require the most amazing courage and self-sacrifice.

But if we are trying to become god-like, we have a very long way to go.

Although we live in an amazing world, and do amazing things, most of the time, we are blinded by our self-centredness:

My favourite story of 2008 is …

It is a picture of our world: the woman who wants to stay comfortable; the man who can't be bothered to help and the drunk who only wants to be pushed on a swing.

Our problems come because we have removed God and put self in his place. We are told, 'You are the centre of the universe. You deserve the best because – and I give thanks for this advert because it is the preacher's dream - you are worth it'. And so we have made ourselves god, our desires god, what other people think of us god, or our career god. And we end up destroying ourselves, other people and ultimately this planet.

The story of Christmas is that God in his love does not give up on us; because he loves us he reaches out to us in Jesus. If you love someone you want to be with them. God knows that we have been blinded by our self-centredness and are never going to get to him, so he comes to us.

"For God so loved the world that he sent his only son into the world .."

It is the story of how God in his love, rescues us.

The Son of God comes into human history in order to rescue us.

Yesterday we were given a guided tour of the air control tower at Norwich airport. There was very little going on: two light planes (puddle hoppers) landed, and the rescue helicopter took off.

Imagine. The ship has sunk. The man has been in the water for several hours. His strength is failing. But then the rescue helicopter arrives. A rope is dropped down. Someone with a megaphone calls out, 'Take hold of the rope. Climb up it. It is the way to life'. The man tries, but he falls. He tries again, but the waves knock him back. He gives up. All hope is gone. He is sinking. But then, one of the helicopter crew starts to lower himself down the rope. He plunges into the cold dark water; he grabs hold of the drowning man. As he pulls him up, he yells, 'Trust me; don't struggle'. And then he starts to climb up the rope, not on his own, but holding the man, hauling him to safety and to life.

At Christmas, Jesus Christ the Son of God, plunged into what can be a cold and dark world not just because he loved us and wanted to be with us, but in order to lift us up, to rescue us.

Maybe we do not feel we are metaphorically drowning
Maybe we do not feel we need to be rescued

But for those of us who know that we need God, who know that we are out of our depth, who know that we are blinded by our self-centredness, who know that we need forgiveness and that we need to see things in a new way, who know that we need a new power to live - the good news is that God came into this world in order to rescue us.

He comes to the broken hearted, to the poor and powerless, to those trapped by the past, to those who are in darkness. He comes for the parent who is at their wits end about their child, or for the child at their wits end about their parent. He comes for the one who has been made redundant and who does not know how they are going to pay the rent or the mortgage. He comes for the person who has lost the one who was dearest to them, without whom life seems empty and pointless. He comes for the one confused about their sexuality, or who longs to be desired but hates to be used. He comes for the one who has good intentions which are rarely fulfilled, for the lonely, the crushed, the exhausted, the fearful, the tired and confused.

He does not simply drop us a rope and tell us to climb up to safety. Most people treat religion as if it is the rope that they need to climb. He comes down to us to lift us up. All we have to do is to allow him to take hold of us and trust him, even when it seems that he has let us go.

I'm not saying that when we turn to him all our problems will be solved. I'm not saying that we will live lives purely motivated by love and not self-interest. There is a long way to go. But when we turn to him and allow him to rescue us, we will find there is hope. If we allow him to hold on to us, we will begin to discover a different focus for living, a different journey to go on, and a different motivating force. Putting it in more traditional language we will discover forgiveness, a growing friendship with God, peace in the difficult situations of life and hope for the future.

It is the story of how God in his love, reigns

The Christmas story is soaked in politics.

Who really reigns?

Is it Caesar?
Is it Herod?
Or is it the baby born in the stable?

It is a bit of joke to say that it is the baby born in the stable.

After all, it is Caesar who orders the people to be counted. It is Herod who orders the execution of the baby boys in Bethlehem. They have the power to decide who will live and who will die.

But the wise men recognise a far greater power in Jesus. They recognise, and it is an act of faith – because all they see in front of them is a powerless baby, that Jesus has power over life and death itself

And so they kneel before him.

The Christmas story is the story of the God who reigns: but he does not reign with a sword, but from a cradle and then a cross. He reigns in love. He claims that his way is the good way, the gentle way, the right way, the way that gives life and brings real freedom.

Yes, Jesus claims that there are consequences for rejecting his way, but he never compels us to obey his laws. He does not rule in that way. He always treats us as adults. He demonstrates his love for us and he invites people to choose to kneel before him; he invites people to choose to allow him to reign over them.

So I invite each of us to join with the wise men in kneeling before him. It doesn't matter whether we actually kneel, although the act of just kneeling – even beside our bed in the privacy of our home – can be helpful. What is important is what we say to him and to ourselves:

"Yes: I believe you are the Son of God, who loves me, who has reached out to me

Yes: I believe you came to rescue me. I need your forgiveness, I need your strength to live and I need your life.

Yes: I kneel before you, the one who really reigns. I choose to recognise your authority over my life and over this world, and with your help I will follow your way today, tomorrow, and for the rest of my life."

That is what changes lives: and that is the meaning and the power of the Christmas story.

The Four Last Things: Death, Judgement, Hell, Heaven

2008-12-03T18:14:00.003Z

2 Peter 2:4-10

This passage from 2 Peter talks of hell, punishment, judgement and destruction. Interestingly it talks about them in that order.

Hell. In this case, hell is the 'waiting room' for judgement.
It ties in with the pit of Revelation, in which the beast, the devil, is chained – released at the end of time – and then destroyed with its followers. (Ties in with Revelation 20)
The verses talk of the punishment and judgement of the ungodly, the lawless, the unrighteous: v9: "the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment"
And the verses tell us what happened to people at the time of Noah's flood and of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. They are an example of what will happen to the ungodly, the unrighteous.
And the verses talk of final destruction:

2 Peter 2:12 (NRSV) talks of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and who despise authority: "These people, however, are like irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct, born to be caught and killed. They slander what they do not understand, and when those creatures are destroyed, they also will be destroyed, suffering the penalty for doing wrong".

I wonder what you thought when you heard these verses read earlier? What are we to make of it all?

I suspect that for many, even within our churches, this teaching about hell, judgement and destruction is considered a bit of a joke: we think of the sandwich board man, or the street corner hell-fire preacher. And I am aware that this teaching has been abused in the past, and has been used to justify some of the most ghastly things – even the burning of those who held different ideas.

But that does not mean that we can simply swap passages like 2 Peter 2 for something different.

And we have done that.

There are four modern versions that I will mention:

We die and we all go to heaven (apart from the very worst)
And heaven? Well I quote from a best seller by Maria Shriver, wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but quoted by Tom Wright.

Heaven 'is somewhere you believe in .. it's a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk to other people who are there. At night you can sit next to the stars, which are the brightest of anywhere in the universe .. If you're good throughout your life, then you get to go to heaven .. when your life is finished here one earth, God sends angels down to take you up to Heaven to be with him … [And Grandma is] alive in me .. Most important, she taught me to believe in myself … She's in a safe place, with the stars, with God and the angels .. she is watching over us from up there …

'I want you to know' [says the heroine to her great-grandma] 'that even though you are no longer here, your spirit will always be alive in me'.

It is actually a very good description of what most people think we are talking about when we mention heaven. And it is astonishingly self-centred and self-serving. It is about me, being happy with the people who make me happy.

2. We die and become part of the universe

There is a well-known poem that was used at Princess Diana's funeral, and which is often asked for at funerals.

"Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain ..
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die."

Or there is Nick Hornby who wrote, 'It would be nice to think that I could hang around inside the stadium in some form, and watch the first team one Saturday, the reserves the next; I would like to feel that my children and grandchildren will be Arsenal fans and that I could watch with them. It doesn't seem a bad way to spend eternity … I want to float around Highbury as a ghost watching reserve games for the rest of time'.

I appreciate that for some, watching Arsenal for eternity could be a version of hell.

3. We die and we come back again in some form. What is known as reincarnation

4. We die and that is it. The John Lennon version, 'Imagine there is no heaven, no hell'

The problem is that there is a mile deep canyon between these theories and what Jesus taught.

Jesus in fact is the person who spoke most often about hell, judgement and destruction.

Why? Because Jesus was passionate that men and women should find God and find life. He gave everything for it. He left heaven for it. He gave his 33 years of life on earth for it. He died for it.

And Jesus knows how desperate our situation is. There is not reincarnation; when we die we will not be merged into the universe; when we die we will not automatically go up to heaven – even if we have been good all our lives (whatever that means).

We have rebelled against God – against 'the authority' (Pullman in his Dark Materials), and we are lost. We are the lost sheep of the story that Jesus tells. We are the son who has rejected his father, gone off to live in the distant land, and who is eating pig feed. We are Zaccheaus who has grown fat by milking others for himself, and yet who is up a tree. We are the self righteous, self satisfied Pharisee, who prays, but he prays to himself about himself for himself.

We are the ones for whom Jesus came to die.

Why, if our situation was not that bad, did Jesus need to die for us – and die in such an awful, literally God-forsaken way?

Jesus spoke of hell and judgement and destruction because there really are serious consequences for those who reject him and who reject God.

You see, when we reject him, we reject light and prefer darkness; we reject truth and prefer lies; we reject God's love in favour of our own stunted definition of love.

In rejecting Jesus, we choose to reject the one who can set us free from our slavery to our self-centred physical desires. They lead to destruction: it might be a dramatic destruction as it was for the people in Sodom and Gomorrah or the flood. But it could equally be destruction not by explosion but by implosion. By implosion I mean we gradually become nothing: we live enclosed self-centred worlds of self-pity, self-service, self-justification, that shrink in until they become zero. Like the talking beasts in Narnia who rebel against Aslan and become silent and dumb beasts; like granny in Roald Dahl's, 'George's Marvellous Medicine'; like the vision of what Voldemort becomes in Harry Potter – shrivelled up, beyond mercy and beyond pity.

One of the great men of God of the past said, 'Set your mind on hell and do not despair'. Hell is the eternal fire of God's consuming love that will burn up all that is not of him. Hell burns up all that is not love and life. It burns up all that denies what God is: all that stands against friendship, intimacy, warmth, trust, laughter, vision, healing, beauty, music, feasting, light and truth. The bible teaches that hell is eternal because God's love lasts forever. It does not teach, or at least I need to be persuaded that it teaches, that it is the individual soul that suffers for eternity. No, the final mercy of God is that after judgement there is destruction.

But Jesus came so that we might have life.

John 3:16 (NRSV): "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."

He offers life to those who know they are dead; hope to those who are aware that we are slaves to the corrupt desires of our sinful nature – that we do not do what we know God would want us to do; who are aware of the pride which makes us reject authority, and especially God's authority.

And he offers us a way out.

And so the last of the four readings speaks of heaven.

And notice that it is a very different vision to the vision of Maria Shriver. The bible talks of heaven as being up there, until the day when Jesus returns. And then we will not go up there, but he will come down here (along with those who have died) – to a radically transformed, transfigured creation: a new heaven and a new earth – not separated, but joined together. It is the vision of a new world, the Kingdom of God, space and time as we have never known them.

As the hymn we've just sung, Hark the Glad Sound, puts it,

"He comes, the broken heart to bind,
the bleeding soul to cure,
and with the treasures of his grace
to enrich the humble poor"

And our reading is the vision of a city [the bible starts in a garden and ends in a city]. And this city will be a place of light and life and fruitfulness. And at the centre of this city will not be us, not those we have loved, but God: "The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him".

Parable of the talents

2008-11-13T12:29:00.001Z

Matthew 25:14-30

This is a story told by Jesus known to many as the parable of the talents: and so we tend to think of it as speaking about gifts and abilities. It is, but it is about more than that.

Here is a person who is going on a long journey and who entrusts his wealth to his servants.

Jesus is the person going on the long journey. And he is the one who has entrusted his wealth to his servants. He is the Son of God. All things belong to him (cf John 16:15): This creation, material things: every mountain, every valley, every river, every ocean, every star; the possessions and things that we have belong to him; time belongs to him; creativity, music and art; people: family, friends, children; and of course our gifts and abilities. They belong to him and he has entrusted them to us.

It is a bit like parents going off for a week's holiday. They entrust their house into the hands of their older teenage son or daughter. 'Look after it; so that when we come back it is in good shape'.

1. JESUS GIVES AS HE CHOOSES

We read this and think, 'This is unfair. Why should some get 5 and some 2 and some only 1?'

To which the only answer is that this is the way the world works. There are some people who do seem to have far more of the world's resources than others - us, for example, by very virtue of where we live.

The hymn 'All things bright and beautiful' has a verse that we do not sing:

The rich man in his castle,

The poor man at his gate,

God made them, high or lowly,

And order'd their estate.

But it is true. What did we do to merit being born in our particular family, at this particular time, in this particular place? What did we do to merit your inheritance?

The danger comes when we start to think that what we have is ours by right, that we deserve it. Interestingly that is where the doctrine of reincarnation and Karma leads: My position in this world depends upon my virtue in the previous world. It might make sense, but think about it. It says that we deserve our privileged position in the world; it says that the poor deserve to be poor.

The bible never says that. When we start to think that we deserve what we have, or that because we have more than another we are better than them, or when we treat what we have (possessions or abilities) as if they belong to us – we are turning a blind eye to the fact that it is God who gives.

The person with one talent could have become a person with two and then four and then eight - and when there is no end to that process, it really does not matter whether you started with one or two or five.

This story does not tell us why there are haves and have nots. We look elsewhere in the bible for the answer to that question. But this story tells us that everything we have is gift: and that there is no reason for either pride or a sense of inadequacy because of our abilities or possessions; and that what is important is not what we have been given, but how we use what we have been given.

And although in this story it is the man with one bag of gold who is found wanting, I also know that it is true that 'to those whom much has been given, much will be demanded' (Luke 14:48), and so the fact that we today, in the West, are the haves – even in a time of recession - should make us tremble.

2. GOD IS LOOKING FOR FRUIT

Jesus is not looking for people who return what he gave to us untouched. He is looking for fruit.

It is a spiritual principle. God is looking for fruit. In the story of creation, when God created the world, he created trees and plants that bore fruit. He created animals that bore fruit. He created men and women and he commanded them, 'be fruitful and multiply'. And Jesus commanded his people to bear fruit; and he gives us his Spirit that produces in us fruits of love, joy, peace, patience and so on.

Jesus tells the story of a sower who sowed seed that fell on good soil, and it multiplied thirty, sixty, a hundred fold. And we are told how the Word of God grows and bears fruit.

God is into multiplication.

He says, 'Look what I have entrusted to you. How has it born fruit? How has it increased?'

People often think that we will be judged on the basis of the harm that we have done others.

But the judgment in this story is based on the good that we have not done: we have been entrusted with so much – what have we done with it?

Of course, if we think that the possession, or gift or ability, is ours by right, that it belongs to us, then we can choose to use it or not to use it. We can choose to work it, or invest it or bury it.

That was the issue here with the man who had one bag of gold. He claimed that the problem was that he was scared of the master: 'I was afraid', he said. The reality, Jesus said, was that he was not sufficiently scared of the master. If he had been, he would have tried to do something with the money – even put it in the hands of the bankers. It is a bit like a teacher giving homework. The child says, 'I was scared of you so I didn't do it.' That is not being scared of the teacher - that is taking the teacher for granted. If she had been scared of the teacher, she really would at least have tried to do her homework.

No, says Jesus, the real problem when we do not use the possessions and the gifts that God has given us for him is that we are wicked and lazy.

Wicked, because we think that it is our possession to do with as we wish. We reject the idea that it comes from God and belongs to God. We reject the idea that there is someone to whom we are in debt to, and accountable to.

And lazy: because we could not be bothered to do anything with what we have been given.

You have a natural gift and you do not try to use it; you have wealth and you do not use it - making more wealth, giving it away, whatever; you have ability and you do not use it; you have responsibilities and you run away from them; you have a message and you do not share it. Why?

Is it because you are scared - or is it because you are blind to the fact that it is God who has given you those things, and that you are accountable to him. Is it because you are lazy, and just don't want the hassle.

We've recently been round both County Upper and King Edward VI'th Upper School. Both of them had the same slogan on the wall: 'we do not expect you to be the best; we expect you to do your best'.

3. THERE IS REWARD AND PUNISHMENT

Humanly speaking this makes sense: if you have a gift or ability and you use it, it will improve and grow. If you do not use it, you will lose it.

And there is punishment: those who do not make use of the wealth entrusted to them for the master, will shrivel up to nothingness: beyond mercy and beyond pity.

But there is also a reward - for those who do use the wealth entrusted to them for the master.

There is the reward of his words: 'Well done good and faithful servant'

And there is also the reward of further growth. The one who has ten is given one more. In Luke's gospel the injustice is pointed out: 'But Lord', they said, 'he already has ten'. But Jesus is making the point that those who are faithful with what they have been given – whether large or small – will be entrusted with more. V29:"For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance".

I'd like to say one more thing. It might just have escaped your attention that we have a mission this coming week.

I have spoken in terms of possessions and abilities.

But there is another thing that this passage could be talking about: we have also been entrusted with a message – a message about the love of God; about the fact that in the person of Jesus, God has come and lived among us; that as a result of his death on the cross there is forgiveness and we can become friends of God; it is the message that Jesus rose from the dead, that Christ Lives and that as a result of his resurrection, sin and death has been defeated and there is a future hope. And it is the message that God promises to give to all who receive him the gift of his Holy Spirit, his presence.

We have the opportunity next weekend to share this message, in ways that I hope will be very easy. We have some great events, and some very gifted speakers who are able to present the message in a gracious but challenging way. Please could I urge you to make use of this opportunity.

It may be that you are not convinced yourself of the message and still need to think it through: please come along and listen and think and decide.

But if you are convinced of the truth of the message, may I urge you not to be like the servant with the one bag of gold who did nothing – because he said he was scared. Please come to the prayer meeting on Wednesday; and please pray and invite at least one person to one event, or to next Sunday's service. If they say 'no', that is OK – you've still done something, you've still made use of one small coin that our master has given us.

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY 2008

2008-11-04T23:12:00.001Z

2 Timothy 2:8-13

Today, probably in greater numbers than we have seen for many years, men and women, girls and boys are gathering to remember.

Most of them gather to remember history, and those who made history: for the majority of people, the stories of the two world wars are stories about other people who lived in other times. But for many of you here, it is far more personal. They are not stories about other people who lived in other times. They are stories about those you dearly loved, who were to you husbands and wives, fiancées and sweethearts, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, comrades and colleagues. And we give thanks to God for them and we honour them - as we give thanks to God for you and honour you.

But people are also gathering to remember those who fight today, and especially those who serve in military and civilian capacities, who have been wounded – physically or emotionally - or who have even given their lives, in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, the Congo and other parts of the world. This is above politics. Irrespective of whether we think a particular war is justified, these men and women, represented here by those of you from RAF Honington and USAF Lakenheath and Mildenhall, have answered the call of their country in being willing to lay down their lives for others. And we honour you and them.

So in villages, towns and cities, people have gathered round memorials to remember and honour such people. And many of those memorials, particularly those erected after the First World War, are in the shape of simple stone crosses.

And that is so very appropriate.

It is the cross that is the symbol, that tells the story of the supreme act of courage and self-sacrificial love; and it is the cross that is the symbol, that tells the story of our ultimate hope.

The cross tells the story of a man, Jesus Christ, who lived 2000 years ago, who chose to go through the most awful suffering in obedience to his Father God, and to give his life so that men and women could find forgiveness, reconciliation with God - peace with God, and new life.

It is the story of Jesus and the cross that has shaped the life of individuals and of our nation. It is the story of Jesus and the cross which has given us a framework for reflecting on events, which helps us to see them in true perspective. It is the story of Jesus and the cross which is our living example of all that is good and true, of virtue.

We get nervous of the person who triumphs by trampling over others.
We value those who lay down their life for their friends.
Why? Because virtue for us comes in the shape of a cross.

We are uneasy about the person who fights simply because they hate the enemy, or because they want revenge.
We value those who are prepared to give their lives for love of comrades or families or country.
Why? Because virtue for us comes in the shape of a cross.

The heroes of the Greeks and the Romans and Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were supermen trampling down their enemies. When Alison and myself visited Volgograd, known to us as Stalingrad, we saw the colossal monument to the Soviet fighters. It is of the motherland portrayed as a female warrior, brandishing a sword, calling her children to the fight, and crushing all who stand in her way.

Our heroes are far less spectacular, but far more extraordinary. They are not men trampling over others, but men like Lance Corporal Matthew Croucher who threw himself on a grenade in order to save the lives of his comrades. They are men and women who are willing to sacrifice themselves in order that others may live.
Why? Because virtue for us comes in the shape of a cross.

And the story of the cross is also a story that gives hope when all hope is gone. On the first Good Friday, when they crucified Jesus Christ, it seemed that lies, evil and death had won. It seemed that self sacrifice and love had been crushed.

But they hadn't: three days later God brought Jesus Christ back from the dead. And his followers touched him and ate with him - and history was changed.
And whatever happens, however bad it gets, however deep we sink, the cross tells us of a God who brings hope out of despair and life out of death.

We love stories when people snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat: when people win world championships on the last bend of the last lap of the last race. Well God is the one who snatched ultimate victory out of what seemed ultimate defeat. He gives us hope when all hope is gone. Desmond Tutu said of the bible: 'Don't give up! Don't despair. I've read the end. It's OK. We win!'

War memorials have come in many shapes: statues, stones, flames, walls, obelisks, even a doughnut(s)! I do understand in these days of aggressive secularism why modern memorials avoid the shape of the cross. I understand but I fear. The stone cross in the centre of the community was a symbol that the story of Jesus and the cross was somewhere, even if only nominally, at the centre of our nation.

But today there is no story at the centre of our national life. We honour courage and virtue, but we are in danger of losing the understanding of what courage and virtue really is.

So I finish with a plea and a challenge.

A plea that we do not allow the story of the cross - whether we personally believe it or not - to become more and more sidelined by the stories that glorify celebrity, or money, or possessions (the advertisements tell their own story), or power. For the sake of our children, and of our children's children, do not exchange - literally or metaphorically - the cross for something beautiful but meaningless or for a statue to superman.

And a challenge: to each one of us personally: to make this story of the cross, the Easter story, the central story in our own lives. This is what it means to, 'Remember Jesus Christ'. It is Jesus Christ, crucified but risen, who sets us free to love others so that we are prepared to suffer for their sake, and who gives us the hope of eternal glory.

And it is his story, the story of the cross and resurrection, that gives focus and meaning to our remembering of those who have laid down their lives - whether long ago or more recently - for the sake of others.

Bible Sunday 2008

2008-10-24T11:20:00.001+01:00

Psalm 119:9-16

Today is known as Bible Sunday, and we are looking at some verses from Psalm 119, the longest Psalm.

Psalm 119 is written by a person who is passionately devoted to the bible as the Word of God. It is interesting that as you look through these 8 verses, the word 'your' is used 10 times: 'Your word, your commands, your word, your decrees, laws that come from your mouth, your statutes, your precepts, your ways, your decrees, your word'

I say that he is passionately devoted to the bible as the Word of God, but that is not strictly true. For the Psalmist, the word of God was what we know now as the first 5 books of the bible. These are the laws and commands and decrees and statutes and precepts about which he writes.

For Jews who lived later, the word of God came to include all of what we call the Old Testament; and for Christians, the word of God comes to include what we know as the New Testament, the writings of the apostles and those who were with them.

And the reason that we accept the Old Testament as the word of God is because Jesus accepted the Old Testament as the word of God; and the reason we receive the New Testament as the word of God is because we receive the teaching of the apostles as authoritative, and the New Testament is the teaching of the apostles.

In other words, what the Psalmist says of the first five books of the bible, we can say of the rest of the bible - including these verses.

So what does the Psalmist say of the bible

1. He says that the Word of God brings great joy.

He delights in God's decrees (v16); he rejoices in following God's statutes as one rejoices in great riches (v14).

So often the attitude we have toward the bible is anything but that of joy.

For some, it is a book that is incomprehensible. They think, here is something we just don't understand: like when people read complicated poetry - it floats over our head.

To be honest, that is just not true. Maybe when all we had was the old version, which used 17th century English, glorious though it might be, it was difficult to understand. But today there are so many good modern translations, and also some excellent bible handbooks. If we wish to know what it means, we can find out.

For others, it is a book that is irrelevant: an outdated code of morality, a set of laws, telling us what to do and what not to do, written by people who lived in a far off place, in a far off time.

The problem is that unless we are someone who loves the history of religious ideas, philosophy or sources of trivia questions, the bible may be a best-seller, but it is a turn off. And if we do open the pages and start to read, then it may well seem hard to understand and irrelevant. It's a bit like when I've tried to read the Koran: I've got so far and given up (I have to say that I think the bible is objectively far more interesting than the Koran, because the bible tells a story)

But if we come to the bible, by faith, assuming that this is the Word of God, that it does - in its entirety - make sense, that this is God's wisdom, that it contains God's promises, that it points us to the one who can give us eternal life, and if we come seeking God and asking him to give us his Holy Spirit to help us to understand it and live it, then this book is not like any other book: this book is power, the Gk word is dunamis, dynamite.

Do you notice how the Psalmist says, 'How can those who are young keep their way pure? By living according to your word'. But then he says, 'I seek you with all my heart'. In other words, the bible on its own will do nothing. It is the bible with God that changes lives.

And when we get the bible and the Holy Spirit together, then this book is a light to our path; it is food for the heart and mind and soul. It is more precious than gold. It does bring joy and delight.

2. The Psalmist says that the word of God makes us pure.

'How can those who are young keep their way pure? By living according to your word'

For the Psalmist it was a matter of believing the promises of God and living the commands of God, of living the old Testament laws.

For the Christian, we have so much more. We still have the promises of God which we believe and we hold on to, but we do not need to keep the letter of the Old Testament laws, as the Psalmist did. Instead we are called to obey the Spirit who gave those laws and promises in the first place. They were good laws, they made sense for the Israelite nation, they embodied everything that is good and right and true, and they pointed forward to Jesus.

But for us, Jesus is the fulfilment, the embodiment of those laws: we interpret them through him.

So how do we keep our way pure; how do we get rid of the sin and rubbish in our lives, how do we become totally authentic human beings; how do we become transparently sincere; how do we become full of love?

The answer is the same as the Psalmist gave: by living according to God's word: by believing his promises, by looking to Jesus, by coming to him, by allowing his teachings to shape our inner being, by allowing his Spirit to live in us, by listening to what he says.

3. The Psalmist says that the word of God reveals God's ways

'I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways' (v15)

The bible is the story of God's love towards human beings. It begins with creation; it ends with the new creation. It is about the fall, the great disobedience, and God's rescue plan. It is about paradise lost and paradise gained. It is about the choosing of an individual and a nation to be the ones who bring God to the world. It is about human sin and rebellion against God, and how even the chosen nation rebelled against God. It is about how, out of that nation, a child was born, who was the Son of God. He died and rose again. He offered to people who put their faith in him relationship with him: new life in a new community with a new hope and a new destiny.

This is the story of the love of God, the justice and mercy of God, the purposes of God, the ways of God, the promises of God, the victory of God.

So this is the book that brings joy; that enables us to live pure lives; that shows to us the ways of God.

It is no wonder, the Psalmist finishes this section with a vow: 'I will not neglect your word'.

To reject or neglect this book is to plug our ears to the Holy Spirit; it is to silence God; it is to close off our life from ultimate joy and delight. It is like taking the gift of a £1million cheque, and either tearing it up, or putting it on a top shelf to gather dust.

I trust we do not wish to be like that. And there are three ways that the Psalmist shows that he has not neglected God's word.

- 'I have hidden your word in my heart': The easiest way to do that is to learn verses from the bible, by heart. It is a spiritual discipline, and it is very precious. I was on retreat this week, and decided to put this into practice: I learnt these verses. So I was able to think them through as I went for a walk; and one night when I couldn't sleep I was able to meditate on them. And if we have learnt scripture, when the enemy comes, when we are tempted, we can say to God: 'I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you'.

It doesn't need to be a long passage. It only needs to be one verse: 'I am the way, the truth and the life'. But to hide God's word in our heart is to know it, to live with it, to allow it to sink into our very being. And to those of us who preach the bible: we need to let it live in us. Read the passage on Monday. Learn it if possible. Let it sink in. Study it. Meditate on it. Live it. And then preach it.

- 'with my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth':

A great way not to neglect God's word is to speak it.

To speak it to ourselves: read it out loud. Listen to it being read on MP3 or CD.

To speak it in church: we speak the word of God; we sing the word of God. We're just sung, 'Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and light unto my path'. That is Psalm 119:105

To speak it in the world: that is the hardest. How do we speak and apply the teaching of the bible to our everyday life, to our colleagues and neighbours? It is a life-long learning exercise.

- 'I meditate on your precepts'.

We are called to meditate on the word of God: to think deeply about it. That is why we take time to read the bible. Many many people find it helpful to put aside time every day to read and to pray. That is where bible reading notes come in helpful. Personally, I've never found bible reading notes to work; I find that they are restrictive, and I much prefer following a pattern of reading that, for example, we have on our notice sheet: includes Old Testament, New Testament and Psalms.

Maybe you are someone who finds it difficult to make time every day. That is OK - so long as you give yourself other significant time to reading the bible and thinking it through.

There are so many things to help us: I've mentioned bible reading notes, commentaries - Tom Wright's series: 'Matthew for today'; study bibles; internet (but so easy to be distracted). So instead of flobbing in front of the TV, pick up the bible - read it.

And of course it does help to listen to what other people think. That is why we have bible study groups

May I urge you not simply to read this book, not simply to study this book so that you get it all right - may I urge you to read it and to study it, but more than that, to read it seeking God with all your heart, to read it as the Word of God - and then to live it.

If you notice, in v14, the Psalmist does not say, 'I rejoice in your statutes'. He says, 'I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches'.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God

2008-10-18T12:58:00.001+01:00

Matthew 5:8

As you will be aware, we've been going through the beatitudes. They're called the beatitudes because the latin for 'blessed' is 'beatus'. And the thing that has struck me quite forcefully this time is the fact they are about a present state, 'of being blessed', in view of what is going to happen in the future.

Imagine a baby born to a wealthy and loving family. Imagine the baby is hungry. Her hunger is taking her over. She has worked herself up into a state. She is screaming. You have a very unhappy baby. But an observer looking on, who knows the child's background, knows the child's destiny, knows that in a few minutes time mum is going to walk through the door, pick up the baby and feed her, could say, "What a blessed baby".

Blessing is not just about what we are feeling or experiencing now. The blessing that is being spoken of here is the blessing that comes when we see the complete picture.

At the moment we may be mourning – literally mourning the death of someone who we love. We may feel totally empty and abandoned. But we are blessed because there is a bigger picture. We may feel, be, the trampled ones in society – that was certainly true for the first Christians and it is true for many Christians today – but we are blessed because there is a bigger picture. We may be falsely accused by others, discriminated against, we may be the persecuted ones (I pray with all my heart that if there is ever a choice, the church will be the persecuted one and not the persecuting one) now – but we are blessed because there is a bigger picture.

In a few minutes time, the door is going to open, and mum is going to walk in. She will pick us up, bring us close to her and feed us. Isaiah 66:13: "As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem."

And at least three of the beatitudes are explicitly fulfilled in the last two chapters of the bible. The promise of 'a new heaven and a new earth' (Revelation 21:1); of a place where there will be 'no death or mourning or crying or pain" (21:4); and specifically – with our verse in mind today – Revelation 22:4 – "They will see his face".

So is it to be 'Pure in heart'

We are talking here about inward stuff

The word 'pure' in the bible is mainly used of silver or gold: pure silver, pure gold. It is authentic. Through and through gold. It is like an onion. If you peel of one layer of onion, what do you get underneath? Tomato? No! Onion!

And someone who is pure of heart is undivided. They are someone whose heart, whose inner being, total self, is totally authentic. There is no separation between heart and mind. The guts and the head work together: there are times when I act from here (the guts) and not here (the head) or vice-versa. Someone who is pure of heart, lives here and here. They are undivided. They are free from, as someone said, 'the tyranny of a divided self'. There is a call to prayer in the service for daily Anglican morning prayer that goes as follows: "The night has passed and the day lies open before us; let us pray with one heart and mind".

And someone who is pure of heart is utterly sincere. "Their very heart – including their thoughts and motives – is pure, unmixed with anything devious, ulterior or base". There is a transparency about them, an innocence; they are not one thing with one person and another thing with another person; they are not one person in the bedroom or on their knees and another person in the boardroom or behind a steering wheel.

And someone who is pure of heart has clarity of vision. We look at the world with a vision that has been made grubby with sin, self-centredness, self-interest, fear and pride.

Andrew asked us yesterday, "What's the right way up for the world?" How do you answer a 7 year old when he asks that? I said the world was like a football, and asked him where the top of the football was. He said, "It doesn't have a top". And yet, we live as if we are the top of the world.

I look at the world and at people from my perspective: do they threaten me or promise me good. I judge them by my standards. I evaluate them by their significance to me.

Jesus speaks about this quite a lot. He rebuked people for trying to take a small speck out of the eye of another person, without taking out the beam that was in ours. He challenges us to see right: to get the eye right (Matthew 6:22-23)

And that I think is why purity of heart and vision of God are put together: "Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God".

Jesus, as with all the beatitudes, is the one who shows us what it means to live the beatitudes. He was pure of heart. There was nothing dark in him. He had complete clarity of vision. And he saw God: he spoke with God, his father, face to face

It is when a person is pure in heart that they see reality as it really is. The grubby spectacles are taken off: we begin to see the universe not just as a space filled with floating balls, but as God sees it – as part of his creation, an expression of his power and love. We begin to see other people as God sees them – as men and women, girls and boys made in the image of God, uniquely precious and valuable. We begin to see situations as God sees them.

Oswald Chambers wrote, "Faith is the inborn capacity to see God behind everything, the wonder that keeps you an eternal child. Wonder is the very essence of life. Beware always of losing the wonder, and the first thing that stops wonder is religious conviction. Whenever you give a trite testimony, the wonder is gone. The evidence of salvation is that the sense of wonder is developing."

So how are we to become pure in heart?

A recognition that we are not pure in heart: Psalm 51 was written by David after he had murdered Uriah the Hittite because he desired his wife.
The prophet Nathan challenges David. David could have said to Nathan: "I am the ruler here. I do what I want". Many rulers have said that. But David recognised the truth that he has done wrong. And he is broken. And in Psalm 51 he confesses his sin before God.

The first step towards purity of heart is a willingness to take a long hard look at ourselves. David does not, in Psalm 51, simply say, "I did wrong in ordering the murder of Uriah". He looked deeper. He simply says, "Surely I was sinful from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me".

That verse has carried far more weight and far less weight than it should have done.
It has carried far more weight, because people have built on it doctrinal towers about the sinfulness of the act of conception and about the sinfulness of babies. And they have no foundation.

It has carried far less weight than it should have done, because this is about an experience of an individual who has been convicted of sin. He looks back over his life and he makes no excuses. He does not justify himself. He does not compare himself with others. Instead he sees that the pattern of sin, of disobedience, of self-centredness is repeated and repeated and repeated. And he is broken.

This verse is not here so that I can point the figure at someone else and say, "You are sinful from birth because in Psalm 51:5 David says, 'Surely I was sinful from birth'. This verse is here, in the Psalter, so that I can kneel alongside David, with no excuses, no self-justification, and say with him - from the earliest of days, I have sinned against God and I have done evil. I acknowledge that I am far from pure, and I seek forgiveness and mercy and the power to change.
Asking God for purity

David does not leave it there. He goes on to pray, "Create in me a pure heart, O God" (Psalm 51:10). It is the recognition that he cannot change himself. It is the recognition that only God can change his heart.

And to ask God to give me a pure heart, is the same as to ask God to give us his Holy Spirit, wisdom, grace, love, salvation. But we need to ask.
Living the word of God

Psalm 119:9 asks, "How can a young person keep their way pure?" And the answer comes, "By living according to your word."

And this is not just a question of obeying God's commands – but also of trusting his promises.

But a person who is serious about desiring a pure heart will, like the Psalmist, have a growing love for the word of God. They will have a desire to read it and to understand it and to encounter the God who speaks through it.
Looking to Jesus

We cannot see God this side of heaven. Some people may have part visions of God: Moses ('You cannot see me and live'), Isaiah, Ezekiel ('saw the likeness of the glory of the Lord'), Paul, John the divine.

We cannot see God fully this side of heaven, but we can still see God. Jesus says to Philip, 'Whoever has seen me has seen the Father'. So as we look at Jesus: as we seek him, discover about him, learn from what he said, trust him, commit our lives to him, obey him, come to him in prayer, wait for him – so he will come and live in us: and he will purify us from the inside.

I would like to say one final thing. I am not suggesting that as we grow in the Christian life, as God does purify our heart, we will have a clearer and clearer vision of God. There will be times when that vision does grow very bright True for people throughout the history of the church

[Aquinas: "All that I have written seems to me like straw compared to what has now been revealed to me."

Blaise Pascal and his famous note:

MEMORIAL

In the year of grace, 1654,

On Monday, 23rd of November, Feast of St Clement, Pope and Martyr,

and others in the Martyrology,

Vigil of St Chrysogonus, Martyr, and others,

From about half past ten in the evening until about half past

twelve,

FIRE!

God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, (Ex 3:6; Mt 22:32)

not of the philosophers and scholars.

Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.

God of Jesus Christ.

"Thy God and my God." (Jn 20:17)

Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except God.

He is to be found only in the ways taught in the Gospel.

Greatness of the Human Soul.

"Righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee,

but I have known Thee." (Jn 17:25)

Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.

I have separated myself from Him.

"They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters." (Jn 2:13)

"My God, wilt Thou leave me?" (Mt 27:46)

Let me not be separated from Him eternally.

"This is eternal life,

that they might know Thee, the only true God,

and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." (Jn 17:3)

Jesus Christ.

JESUS CHRIST

I have separated myself from Him:

I have fled from Him,

denied Him,

crucified Him.

Let me never be separated from Him.

We keep hold of Him only by the ways taught in the Gospel.

Renunciation, total and sweet.

Total submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.

Eternally in joy for a day's training on earth.

"I will not forget thy words." (Ps 119:16) Amen.]

But there will also be times when that vision grows very dim. That is not necessarily because of sin. Quite often it is at those times that we are called to live by faith, by faith in the promise of God that "The pure in heart will see God".

John writes in 1 John 3:2-3: "Dear friends, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears,
we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure."

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”

2008-10-05T20:26:00.001+01:00

Matthew 5:5

VERSION 1

"I had a lousy childhood. We had nothing. Never knew my father, and my mother had a stream of boyfriends. But I made it. Today I am at the top of my business, other people listen to me when I speak; I've just bought a fourth house - in New York.

I did it: I've worked hard; I've overcome the difficulties; I've made some cracking decisions and I've earned the respect and influence that I have. I firmly believe that you make yourself what you are. If you are quality it'll show. I don't like scroungers or layabouts: I'm not saying that bad things don't happen to good people, but you get what you deserve in life. Even this credit crunch: I'm OK. I've invested wisely; I didn't stretch myself too far.

You've got to believe in yourself, in your abilities. Nobody's going to help you. They want what you've got – they'll take it if they can. And nobody stands in my way. Three years ago someone tried to defraud me. It was the biggest mistake he made. I got the police to throw the book at him, and I made sure he went down.

I learnt quite early that people don't like conflict. That means that if you are prepared to stand up to people, you can usually get what you want.

I have my faults, I admit – but hey! What's life about? The girls love me anyway, and the wife – well, she stung me for £30 million. And last year I gave £150000 to the hospice. They named the ward after me. Without people like me, this country would be nowhere.

God? Yes, I guess I believe in God. He helps those who help themselves, doesn't he? I gave a grand to the church tower appeal in the village where I live. It's alright; you don't need to convert me. I'm one of the good guys

I'm going to retire in 2 years time. I've made enough, and I can put my feet up. It's all sorted. I've got this beautiful yacht: it cost me £20 million (less than the ex, and it doesn't nag), and I'm going to sail it round the world. I'm going to look after myself, don't you worry. I deserve it and I'm worth it".

VERSION 2

"I had a lousy childhood. We had nothing. Never knew my father, and my mother had a stream of boyfriends. She was not a great mum. It was rough, and I was screwed up. At one point I ran away from home, and ended up in a squat in Holloway.

I guess I could blame her, but she was really lonely, and she was desperate for love. I was difficult. I didn't help.

Anyway, I discovered I had a talent for business – I'm not going to tell you what I first did business in; I'm not proud of it - but I got a few amazing breaks. Do you know today we employ more than 30000 people? – and the thing that I am most proud of is that we have been able to set up a factory in one of those ghost towns after the pit closed 20 years ago. The staff there have done fantastic, the factory is flourishing and they've brought the place back to life.

God? I became a Christian many years ago. I was in a hotel in Manchester, and I picked up one of those Gideon bibles. To be honest, I was bored. I started to read, and as I read – and I don't know why apart from the fact that it was God – I understood it: it was about Jesus, a most amazing man – who loved people who were messed up and who died for me - and I wanted to find out more. Since then I made a commitment to him, got baptised and confirmed, and now he is my boss, my rescuer and my friend. I try to live in the way he wants me to live, which is not always easy. Someone tried to cheat us big time, one of the people I had trusted. I wanted the book thrown at him – but then was praying the Lord 's Prayer: 'Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us'. So I went round to his house and met him; we talked it through; I told him how disappointed I was: he'd let his family down, his colleagues down, himself down. I even said something about letting God down. But I said I would forgive him. We didn't press charges. I still don't know whether I should have done or not.

Biggest regret? That's easy. Seven years ago I had an affair. It was one of those stupid, stupid things. The marriage didn't recover. I hurt my wife so much, and the girl involved as well. It's not been great on the kids either. I know I said sorry to God, and although I find it very hard to believe I am forgiven, I trust him I am forgiven. But I still have to live with the consequences of what I did, and I suspect I will remain single for the rest of my life.

Yes, I may own one of the largest private companies in the country, but I'm also just the mixed up boy from Peckham to whom God gave one or two gifts, and who he reached out to in a hotel room in Manchester. I owe everything to him. I belong to him. I work for him. I depend on him. I try to see every person I deal with, employee, supplier, competitor or customer, through his eyes. They matter, as people, far more than the stuff I produce, or the profits I can make.

The future? Haven't a clue – it is in God's hands. I love what I do, but there will be a time when it is right to step back. I hope I can continue to serve - I'd love to do something back in Peckham. I'm also trying to rebuild my relationship with the kids. There are grandchildren now.

Death? I'm scared of dying. I've seen too many people die in not very nice ways, but I know Jesus will be with me when it happens. I love my life here, but he's promised he will come back, that we will be raised, there will be a new earth, and he'll be at the centre. I guess it will be a bit like this without all the rubbish – although to be honest I can't really begin to imagine it. But that's why I don't need to go everywhere now, see it all now, do it all now, or get all the stuff now. I can afford to wait. You may think I'm mad, but he said it, I trust him; it is my hope and it is my life.

The dream designer

2008-09-19T15:31:00.002+01:00

Fashion show

Congratulations to organisers. Bury St Edmunds answer to London's fashion week - thank you to the firms who have provided the clothes - and the models, look stunning.

One word of warning: Dave Barry said, 'The leading cause of death among fashion models is falling through street grates'. When I said that to Alison, she answered, ''Some hope!"

So what has a vicar got to say at a fashion show - especially a vicar who is so well known for his fashion-consciousness. At least his wife makes up for him. However I am being educated: I know now about colours - Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer - and styles and I know now not to wear socks with sandals. Although - in my more rebellious moments - I still do have some sympathy for Bruce Oldfield who said, 'I'm not that interested in fashion. When someone says that lime-green is the new black for this season, you just want to tell them to get a life'.

The vicar wishes to say two things:

FASHION MATTERS

Mark Twain said, in what is a remarkably astute observation, 'Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence.'

What we wear, whether we like it or not, speaks so loudly about what we think of ourselves and our place in the world, and they do affect how people react to us.

Several years ago I went with a small delegation with the Bishop of London to Moscow, where we were meeting with senior leaders in the Russian Orthodox Church. He asked that in Moscow we wore cassocks at all times in public. For someone who claimed that he did not care less what he wore, I was mortified.

I do not come from that part of the church that wears cassocks in the public arena.

I would be different.

I would be identifying myself with other people who wore cassocks.

But that was precisely why the Bishop was insistent. He wanted us to say to our hosts: "We identify ourselves with you. Even though for you, wearing a cassock in public may bring ridicule and rejection, and a few years ago could have meant that you were sentenced to labour camp or even to death, we are here to identify ourselves with you".

The clothes that we wear do identify us. They make a statement about who we think we are and who we think we belong to. The jacket and tie, jacket and no tie; the dress or jeans and t-shirt; the teenage uniform – the bare midriff, big belts, short skirts and leggings for girls; the pumps, hoody and long hair for boys; the Goth black; the Ascot uniform – actually written down this year (no bare midriffs and no bare shoulders); the cassock: they all make statements about who we think we are, who we think we belong to, and how we relate to the rest.

That is why Trinnie and Suzanne work. Changing what we wear does change how others see us, and therefore how we see ourselves.

A new outfit promises a new life: wear me and I will give you romance, sophistication, freedom, uniqueness, respect, beauty and power; wear me and I will make you desirable and lovely. Ralph Lauren said, 'I don't design clothes; I design dreams'

But although fashion matters, and it does make a difference, it is only a surface difference. It is not the real answer to our dreams.

You can have the figure of a Keira Knightley, and wear the dress of a duchess; you can have the physique of a David Beckham and wear a $10000 Hugo Boss suit, but they will not protect you from being broken, confused, mixed up, lost, guilty and ashamed.

2. WE NEED TO BE WILLING TO LOOK DEEPER.

Fashion, someone said, is our defence against nakedness. And here I do not just mean physical nakedness.

One of the very first stories ever told was the story of how men and women got their clothes!

Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. They were naked and they were not ashamed. They lived in freedom and love. They walked in the garden with God: they were right with him, right with each other and right with the world.

God told them that they could eat from any fruit in the garden. It was all theirs. The only thing forbidden them was to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But because the fruit looked good, and because they were told that if they ate it they would become like God without God, they disobeyed God and ate the fruit. The result: they saw that they were naked and they were ashamed. So they made themselves clothes of fig leaves and they hid from God.

Now I am not asking anyone to believe the story as a record of what happened, but I am asking us to listen to what it tells us about the human condition.

· We have rebelled against God

· We have tried to hide from him: we are naked in his eyes and in our own eyes - And we try to cover it up with fig leaves.

And the reason that we are putting this on is to say that fashion is OK and does matter, and can be great fun, and can - to some extent - change lives;

But we are also asking people to look deeper.

Later on in the year we will be having a series of events at which we will present the good news of the Christian faith.

It is good news.

A new outfit, new hairstyle, a makeover, is good news: it may make a new man or new woman of you, for a time.

But it is only God who can really make a new man or woman of you. It is only the dream designer who can fully satisfy the dreams that he has given us: dreams for love, belonging, uniqueness, beauty, peace, creativity, fulfilment, eternity.

The good news of the Christian faith is that - for those:

who have the courage to look beneath the fig leaves, who are aware of their rebellion against God, of the inner darkness and mess in their lives, and who are prepared to say sorry and throw themselves on God’s love because of Jesus, there is the amazing offer of forgiveness, an interior redesign job (illustration used in bible is that God will change our heart of stone and replace it with a living heart), a new life now, and the promise of dreams fulfilled.

St Peter's 150th anniversary

2008-09-05T18:46:00.004+01:00

MATTHEW 16:21-28

This weekend we celebrate St Peter’s 150^th anniversary. Congratulations.

It also happens to be Alison’ and my 17^th wedding anniversary today.

I do like the story of Pastor Jones who had heard that Ralph was celebrating his 50^th wedding anniversary, and so he decided to take advantage of using Ralph as a sermon illustration. He asked Ralph to come on stage and share some insight into how he managed to live with the same woman all those years.

Ralph turned to the congregation and said, "Well, I treated her with respect and spent money on her—but mostly I took her traveling on special occasions."

The pastor asked, "Trips to where?"

"For our 25th anniversary," Ralph answered, "I took her to Beijing, China."

The congregation nodded and murmured in appreciation. When things quieted down, the pastor said: "What a terrific example you are to husbands, Ralph. So, tell us where you're going now for your 50th anniversary?"

Ralph replied, "I'm going to go there again and bring her back."

Well anniversaries give us the opportunity to look back with thankfulness, and to look to the future trusting in God.

I guess when a church building reaches a particular age – and 150 is not bad – we need to recognise that in some ways the building is bigger than us. There is a heritage that we need to work with, just like a carpenter working with the grain of the wood.

And I am so grateful for the heritage that we do have here. A church building that is simple in design, uncomplicated, not fussy, that was built to be in the centre of the community to serve the community, and that is focussed on the reading and preaching of the word and the place where we gather to celebrate the Lord’s supper.

And I am grateful for the person in whose name this church building has been dedicated: Simon Peter – the disciple who first declared that Jesus really was the Son of God, and who went on to become the first president of the church.

And today I would like us to go back, not 150 years, but 2000 years – and look at that incident and also what happened afterward. It is an incident when Peter makes the great confession, and then makes the great mistake: both of which we can learn from (can be found in Matthew 16:13-28)

Peter’s great confession.

Jesus has asked his disciples: “Who do people say that I am?” They tell him: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah. And then he asks them: “And who do you say that I am?” And it is Peter who answers: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God”.

In other words he confessed that Jesus is not only God’s king in God’s world, but that Jesus is the unique expression of God on earth, the presence of God on earth. He is, as Paul says, ‘the visible image of the invisible God’.

And then Jesus says, ‘I tell you are Peter (which means rock), and on this rock (Peter) I will build my church’. And people argue whether Jesus means he will build his rock on the confession of Peter, or on the person of Peter.

But we do not have to decide. When Jesus changes Simon’s name and calls him Peter, what he is doing is linking Peter and his confession. Peter, in his role in the church, cannot be separated from his confession. Indeed, when Peter starts preaching someone other than Jesus Christ, preaches something that has not been revealed, he ceases – as we saw in our passage - to be Peter and becomes satan.

And when we as a community, who worship in a building which bears the name of Peter, preach Jesus, the Son of God, we are Petra, the rock, on which Jesus has founded his church. And when we as a community, cease to preach Jesus, the Son of God, and start to preach something else: our building, ourselves, what makes us feel good – we preach the words of satan.

This church has been known for its confession of Christ.

Its very existence stands as a witness to Christian worship.

Its name points people back to Peter and through him to Jesus

And for 150 years people have come in through those doors and confessed that Jesus is the Son of God, that he is Lord and Saviour

And for 150 years people have come in through those doors and worshiped Jesus, the Son of God, listened to Jesus, and received mercy and comfort and strength and purpose and grace from Jesus.

And for 150 years people have gone out through those doors and lived in the name of Jesus, under the Lordship of Jesus for Jesus.

And for 150 years people have gone out through those doors and declared to the world that Jesus is the Son of God

Some have not gone far – in fact just as far as where the double roundabout is, where they stood in the open air and preached – although it is sad that it became known as hell fire corner, rather than Jesus corner or salvation corner or resurrection corner. And a mission church was established.

And some have gone much further in the name of Jesus - most recently to India, to Ethiopia, and to Tanzania.

And it is with great joy that we today echo the words of Peter, and of those who founded this church, and of those who have worshipped in this place – and affirm the confession that Jesus, the Jew who lived in Palestine 2000 years ago, is the Messiah: God’s king come to claim God’s world, and that he is the Son of the living God.

Peter’s great mistake

When Jesus tells his followers that he is to go to Jerusalem to suffer and die (and to be raised from the dead), Peter tells Jesus that that must never happen to him.

Peter’s great mistake is THE great mistake.

It is the mistake that glory, praise, greatness and power is to be achieved through the things of this world – through self-assertion, money, influence and physical strength

It was Satan’s mistake. He saw glory and he tried to grab it.
It was Adam and Eve’s mistake. They wanted to become like God and they tried to grab it.

Jesus says: That is not my way. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (v24)

What does that mean?

The call to deny ourselves is not a call to a stricter asceticism; it is not a call to give up everything that is precious to us; it is not a call to feel guilty whenever we do something because we enjoy it. If it were saying that then we could always deny ourselves more. In fact a life of total self-denial in this sense would be pretty short: I would not eat or drink.
This call to deny ourselves is the call to put Jesus first: first before possessions, career, family and life. It is not necessarily a call to a greater asceticism, but to a greater devotion and obedience. It is about saying 'I will obey Jesus even if it means that I have to be crucified'.

And the call to take up our cross is the call to live as people who have been condemned to death by this world. A man carrying his cross was a man who had been sentenced to death. To take up our cross is to live as dead people to this world: dead to the trophies of this world, dead to the demands of this world, dead to the ways of this world.

Paul writes in one of the most important verses in the New Testament about what it means to live as a Christian, “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20

And as a community, which bears the name of Peter, we need to remember that we too are called to deny ourselves, to take up our cross and to follow Jesus.

The great mistake that so many church communities make is the mistake of seeking the trophies that this world offers - reputation and status and wealth - using the things of this world: celeb endorsements, high profile leaders, media management, the latest technology and the current fashion or style.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t make use of those things. I am just saying that if we think that those things will buy us success and glory, we have made the big mistake.

True success and glory comes when a community and a people deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Jesus.

This is not really the food and drink of birthday parties. It is hard stuff.

But it is so important.

True glory never comes to a person or community when they seek their own glory. Glory comes when we give glory to God and we give glory to others.

True praise never comes to a person or community when we seek praise or praise ourselves. True praise comes when we forget self and praise God and praise that which is worthy in others.

True greatness does not come through fame or reputation or achievement. True greatness comes when we learn to serve. It comes when we walk into a room of other people and do not think, ‘Here I am’, but ‘Here they are’. It comes when we pray for others in the name of Jesus, when we give to others in the name of Jesus and when we serve others in the name of Jesus. It comes when we kneel down and wash the feet of another.

True power is not measured in terms of the age or size of our church building, or in the number of significant people we have in our congregation, or in the wealth of our people, or in the number of our staff, or in the size of our band, or in the number of events in our programme, or in the ability of our ministers, or in the quality of our miracles. True power, the power that matters, comes when people give themselves in self-sacrificial love.

And the more that we are prepared to love others sacrificially – whether they are members of the congregation, visitors, people in the wider community – the more we will grow in true power

I came across a very powerful illustration of what this means. I quote, "At the close of a long day of speeches and music to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the coming of missionaries to the part of Africa that we know as the Congo Republic, an old, old man stood before the crowd and insisted on speaking. He soon would die, he said, and if he didn't speak, information that he alone possessed would go with him to his grave.

He said that when the missionaries arrived, his people thought them strange and their message dubious. The tribal leaders decided to test the missionaries by slowly poisoning them to death. Over a period of months and years, missionary children died one by one. Then, the old man said, "It was as we watched how they died that we decided we wanted to live as Christians."*

Those who died painful, strange deaths never knew why they were dying or what the impact of their lives and deaths would be. But through it all, they didn't leave. They stayed because they trusted Jesus Christ."

And, of course, the single greatest act of power: the defeat and destruction of evil and death, came from the greatest act of loving self-sacrifice: the self-sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross.

So on this, our anniversary, we give great thanks to God for the men and women who had the vision and then made possible the building of St Peter's. We give great thanks for the heritage of this place: rooted in the teaching of the bible. We give great thanks for the men and women, some of whom we remember, many of whom we don’t, who have worshiped and served and been sent out from this place.

And my prayer for the future of St Peter's is that

1. We will remain faithful to the great confession. So that when they ask, 'What is St Peter's all about', they answer, 'Oh, those are the people who believe that Jesus is the Lord, the Son of God, and they are the people who live as if Jesus is Lord'

2. This will be known as a truly great church: not great in the eyes of the world, but great in God's eyes - so that when the real story of Bury St Edmunds is told - the story that God sees, the story that will one day be revealed - people will be able to say, 'Yes, those were the men and women, girls and boys, who denied themselves and put God first, who lived as dead people to this world, who were faithful to his word, obedient even when it hurt, who went on trusting God even when he seemed absent, who allowed the Holy Spirit to work in them and who gave themselves in self sacrificial love. They really were - and are the great ones'.

* Leith Anderson, "Mystery Martyrs," Men of Integrity, (January/February 2004)

Self-denial and following Jesus

2008-08-30T15:17:00.002+01:00

Matthew 16:21-end

It’s a well known passage, and there is so much here. But this morning I would like us to look at a single verse in our passage.

Jesus said, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me'.

It is one of those verses that we think we ought to understand, but when we look at it more closely we realise that there is far more to it than we first thought.

So there are three things that we need to do:

1. To deny ourselves

I guess that this is the first step of commitment. If we commit ourselves to something then it means giving up other things.

The athlete training to win the gold will deny themselves the beer and the kebabs and the nights out with the lads, in order to keep fit and to get up in the morning to go for the two hour session in the gym.

The soldier preparing to go to war will deny him or her self comfort and ease in order to train so that they stay alive.

The young lawyer in the city will deny themselves any pretence to a social life, in order to devote 16 hours a day to work, and that goal of the partnership.

The weight watcher will deny themselves that second helping because of their desire to be able to see the scales

And the more important the thing that we are committed to, the greater will be the act of self-denial.

Parents will sacrifice themselves for their children

Sergei Nechaev was one of the early Russian revolutionaries. He is known as the man who wrote who wrote the Revolutionary Catechism in 1869. The first article goes: “The revolutionary is a dedicated man. He has no personal feelings, no private affairs, no emotions, no attachments, no property, and no name. Everything in him is subordinated towards a single exclusive attachment, a single thought and a single passion – the revolution.” (Quoted by Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy, Pimlico 1997: 133).

Nechaev is saying that because the revolution is so important, if a person wishes to be a revolutionary, they must deny themselves completely

And Jesus here is saying that if we wish to be his disciple, to follow him, then we must be willing to deny ourselves. We must be willing to put him first – before everything else

I have really struggled with this, trying to work out what it means in practice.

It is very easy to hear the call to deny ourselves as a call to a stricter ascetism. But it is not about that. It is not about fasting more, giving more, praying for longer in more uncomfortable positions. It is not a call to beat ourselves up or to feel guilty whenever we do something for our own enjoyment. It is not a call for us to withdraw into some strict coenobitic existence - to become a hermit.

If it were a call to a stricter ascetism, then when would we stop? We can always deny ourselves something more. Indeed, if Jesus is calling us to a life of total self-denial, then life would be very short.

The call to deny ourselves is not a call to a greater asceticism, but to a greater devotion, a great obedience.

There is a similar passage (Matthew 10:38-39), when Jesus sends out the 12 to preach and to heal. He says there, 'Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me'.

Jesus is not saying that we are to reject mother or father, son or daughter. He is saying that we are to recognise who is bigger than son or daughter, who gave us son and daughter, who loves son or daughter even more than we do; and he is saying that we need to put him first, to put love for him, before even our love for them.

So when Jesus says that we need to deny ourselves in order to follow him, he is saying that we need to be willing to put him before ourselves and before those things that we consider to be important: whether family or career or happiness or possessions.

There will be times when discipleship, obedience to Jesus is going to be very costly. There will be times when what I want is not what Jesus wants. And those are the times when I need to deny myself and put him first.

Peter has just learnt that. Obedience for Jesus means going to Jerusalem to be killed. Peter says to Jesus, 'That must never happen to you'. Jesus rebukes Peter and then says, 'You do not have in mind the things of God, but human things'.

And for us, increasingly, there will be a clash between what I want, and what reality TV, or the chat shows or the soaps tell me is acceptable and OK, and what Jesus wants. And today, there are many areas where the values of Christianity directly challenge the values of society: to name a few - what it means to be a success, how to become great, what sort of standard of living should I expect, how much do I give away, faithfulness in marriage and celibacy outside of marriage, respect for those in authority, and issues of justice, mercy and forgiveness.

The call to deny ourselves is not a call to a greater asceticism (although for some it might be). It is the call to put Jesus first before ourselves.

JC Ryle says, "The self must be daily crucified; the devil must be daily resisted; the world must be daily overcome. There is a warfare to be waged, and a battle to be fought. Never was there a truer word than the old saying, ‘No cross, no crown’".

2. Take up our cross

When we think of the symbol of the cross, we think about it in the light of Jesus' crucifixion.

For the Christian, living after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the cross is the symbol of obedience, of self-giving and of a love that conquers evil and death.

Jesus knew that he had to go to the cross. But his disciples did not. And when he said this, he had not yet gone to the cross.

For his listeners, a person who was carrying their cross was a condemned man: he was going to die, and who was going to die in pain and in shame. The cross, for them, was a symbol of death and shame. It was also a symbol of foreign occupation. Only the Romans crucified their criminals - and they reserved it for people who were not Roman citizens.

So when Jesus says to his disciples, and through them to us, that we must take up our cross, he is saying something about us choosing to live as people who have been condemned by the ruling powers - elsewhere the bible talks about the elementary forces of this world; and he is saying that we must be prepared to live as people who - as far as this world is concerned - are under the sentence of death.

This is not about involuntary suffering, although it might be about our attitude to involuntary suffering.

To take up our cross is about choosing to give up rights, ambitions and hopes for this world in this world. For people who have taken up their cross, the preservation of our life here is not high on the agenda. And it is also - and this is radical and needs to be heard correctly - not only about the giving up of our rights in this world, but about the giving up of the responsibilities that this world places on us.

So, for instance, we neither have the right to be rich, nor the obligation to become rich. Before the summer, some groups of workers were taking strike action for more money. In my more perverse moments, I sometimes think that Christians should be out there striking for less money. Paul talks about how he has learnt to become content with what he has. We do not have the right to be significant as far as this world is concerned, and nor do we have the responsibility, the requirement to become significant: we do not have to achieve great things in this world; we do not have to be extraordinary or unique. Paul in Romans commands us not to - 'conform to the patterns of this world'.

To the person who has taken up their cross, the rights, the rewards and the requirements of this world mean nothing.

The call to take up our cross is an invitation to freedom: not absolute freedom, as we will discover: but a freedom from the 'ought’s' and the 'should’s’ and the 'must's’ of this world.

And that moves us on to the third part of this verse:

3. To follow Jesus.

Baptism is a picture of all this - especially when a person is baptised by being immersed into the water.

In the baptism service we renounce the devil, we repent of our sins, we turn away from evil to Christ.

That is the denying part.

In the baptism service we are washed with water - and in many churches that is done through immersion - it is a symbol of death: that we are dying to ourselves and to this world.

That is what it means to take up our cross.

But then we come up out of the water to a new life.

And this is about following Jesus.

Paul says in one of the most important verses describing the Christian life (Galatians 2:20): 'I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me'.

We have chosen to give up our rights in this world, in order to have the right to become children of God.

We have chosen to give up our responsibilities in this world, in order to take on the responsibility to follow Jesus in this world.

We are invited to live by the Spirit of God and not by the spirit of the age. We are called to be controlled not by the law of the land, but by the law, the ways, of God (which incidentally tell us that we must honour world rulers). And through the Spirit we are to be controlled by faith, hope and love.

So we are called to deny ourselves (to put Jesus first), to take up our cross (to live as dead people to this world) and to follow Jesus.

The warning of these verses is that if we are not willing to deny ourselves and to take up our cross and to follow Jesus, if we are not willing to die to this world and the things of this world, then we will lose our life

The promise of these verses is that if we are willing to die to this world and to the things of this world, for Jesus, then we will find life.

Children of the kingdom and children of the evil one

2008-07-18T20:50:00.006+01:00

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

This is a challenging parable. It is not challenging in the sense that it is hard to understand. It is actually very clear, and Jesus tells us what it means. It is challenging in what it teaches us.

The good seed stands not for the Word of God, but for the 'children of the kingdom'. The bad seed stands for the 'children of the evil one'. It is, in this world, very hard to tell them apart. The commentators talk about a weed called darnel, which is virtually indistinguishable from wheat, until the ears form. It was actually a crime under Roman law to sow darnel among wheat as an act of revenge.

So these two: the children of the kingdom and the children of the evil one live together in God's world; they grow together in God's world; and it is only at the end of time that they will be separated.

There are a number of very clear - and quite difficult - principles in this story.

1. We are not all children of God.

Of course, to Jesus first hearers this would have sounded very obvious. They thought that as Jews they were children of the kingdom, and that the Gentiles were not children of the kingdom.

To us today, when often we hear talk about the universal fatherhood of God, this is very challenging. One of the most popular hymns that we sing begins with the words, 'Dear Lord and Father of mankind'. We say, 'We're all children of God.'

But that is not what the bible teaches. It is not what Christian tradition has taught. In fact, the bible teaches (and it is very clear on this) that even though we were created to be children of God, by nature we are not children of God. By nature we have become children of the evil one. Yes, we have been created by God: each one of us. Yes, we are unique and special. But no, we are not naturally children of God.

The amazing thing is that even though we are not by nature children of God, every single person is a potential child of God. John is so clear on this, when he writes at the beginning of his gospel (John 1:12): 'To all who received him [Jesus], who believed (put their trust) in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.'

So we are not all children of God. We need to become children of God.

That teaching can be misused. It often has been. It has been used to justify slavery, bigotry, racism and even genocide. And we need to move straight on to the second principal.

2. The decision who is and who is not a child of God is not one for us to make.

It has to be left to God at the end of time. The servants in the story ask the owner if they should pull up the weeds: 'No', he says, 'because you might pull up wheat as well'.

The history of the church is littered with the debris that comes when people try to establish a 'pure' church, a ‘believers’ church. They have tried to include the true believers and exclude the false believers.

But we can’t do it.

i) We will never be able to fully see into a person's heart

ii) We cannot see the end. Someone who seems to us totally beyond the reach of God turns to him at the end

Of course there are times when, as the church, we need to uphold church discipline. There are times when we have to say to a man or woman, 'what you are doing is incompatible with church membership’. There may also be times when people are excluded from fellowship or communion. But that does not mean we are in any position to condemn them as children of the evil one. No, in fact we are told that the reason for church discipline is in order to lead people to repentance.

Indeed, the principle of love, a love which ‘always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres’ (1 Corinthians 13:7), and a love which is the fundamental hermeneutic principal of the church, leads us to work for and hope for the best for all people.

Only God knows a person’s heart and only God knows the end. So it is only God - who delegates his authority to the Son of Man (there are many parallels in this passage with Daniel 7) - who can judge and who can separate.

3. There will be separation.

On the last day, ‘he will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil’ (v41).

Jesus in Matthew’s gospel speaks a great deal about judgement and separation.

This judgement will be based on whether we stand by Jesus or stand against him. It will be based on whether we stand beside the least of his brothers or sisters when they are in need, or whether we ignore them. It will not be about whether we called Jesus ‘Lord’, but whether we lived with him as Lord. It is not about believing in him with the back of our head; it is about whether we have followed him, trusted him, obeyed him, loved him and served him. It is about whether we have received him or rejected him. Judgement will rest on whether he knows us or does not know us, whether we are his or not his.

And I am talking about us, you and me. I am not talking here about other people: 'those who have never heard', ‘those who have been good Muslims or Hindus’, and so on. They're not the issue.

I'm talking about us: you and me who have heard. Coming to church is a dangerous thing to do. You cannot claim that you have not heard. We have been offered forgiveness and life. We have been offered the opportunity to follow Jesus. We have been offered the opportunity to become a child of God.

We are not in a position to judge whether someone else is a child of the kingdom or a child of the evil one. As I’ve said, the principal of love makes us always believe the best. But we are called to judge ourselves.

Let me repeat. It is not about how good we are, although our works will be judged and that which is good will stand; it is about which direction we are facing. Are we living for ourselves: for my family, my career, my safety and comfort, my hobby or cause - the key word is my - or are we living for Jesus, with Jesus. Because Jesus has promised that 'whoever comes to him, he will never turn away'.

4. There is a glorious destiny for the righteous.

Tom Wright, who I quote a fair bit, quotes a famous sermon from CS Lewis, who I quote even more often! In this sermon, Lewis declares that 'every human being, man, woman and child, you meet is someone who, if you saw them now as one day they will be, would either make you recoil from them in horror or would strongly tempt you to worship them'.

The righteous, we are told, will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

Remember the transfiguration: Peter, James and John go up a mountain with Jesus. And suddenly they see Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus, talk with him and reflect his glory. They were given a glimpse of what the Kingdom of the Father will look like in its glory.

I spoke a couple of weeks ago at an evening service about heaven. You can find it on the website, in a sermon on 2 Peter 1:13 If you think heaven is an other worldly place where we sit on clouds and play harps, please think again. Our Christian hope is the resurrection of the body: it is not about us going to another place. It is about heaven coming down to earth, and all that is rubbish here being gathered up and thrown out. There will be no cause of sin, no self-centredness that listens to the lies that tell us we can live without God, and there will be no evil. It is about this world being as it was meant to be. It is about us being what we were meant to be. It is about being with Jesus, being with Jesus’ people and about being like Jesus.

And as for the wicked .. I really do think that we should be very careful before we presume to pronounce on the destiny of 'all who do evil'. The passage here talks about them being gathered up, ‘thrown into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’.

Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego were thrown in the fiery furnace by Nebuchadnezzar. They came through it because one like a son of man was with them. Those who threw them into the furnace were burnt up.

We leave the destiny of the children of the evil one to the God of love, of justice and of compassion.

So four principles

1. We are not all children of the Kingdom

2. We are not to presume to judge who is and who is not a child of the Kingdom

3. There will be separation

4. There is a glorious destiny for the righteous

So what? I suggest three things

1. We need to judge ourselves.

Am I a child of the kingdom, or a child of the evil one? Do I pray, 'Your kingdom come?' or 'My kingdom come'? Have I come to Jesus Christ, the Son of God? Have I received him? Have I chosen to follow him?

Jesus said, 'Whoever comes to him, I will never turn away'.

2. We do not judge others.

We cannot presume to judge the eternal destiny of others.

I am not saying there can be no church discipline. There has to be, and the bible is clear about that.

But even if there is church discipline, even if there is discernment about what is and what is not godly, it is not our job to decide who is weed and who is wheat, who is a child of the kingdom and who is a child of the evil one. That is Jesus' job at the end of time.

3. And this is the emphasis of the parable - we need to be patient. The owner says, 'Let both [wheat and weed] grow together until the harvest'.

We look and see evil around us. We long for God to sort it out, to weed it out. And so we try to do so, our way - building the perfect church, crusading against the infidel, burning the heretics. They've all been tried.

We need to leave it to him. He will do the weeding, but he will do it in his way and in his time.

Prayer

2008-07-11T22:43:00.003+01:00

Matthew 6:5-8

It is very easy to turn prayer into yet another of those things that we do in order to make ourselves feel either good or at least not bad, or to make others feel good about us, or to impress God.

It is easy for prayer to become one of the most self-centred things that we do, and also one of the greatest burdens that we impose onto ourselves.

I hope that in these few short minutes as we look again at Jesus' teaching on prayer in Matthew 6:5-8, we will glimpse just how gloriously liberating prayer can be. It can set us free from self and free from the need to 'perform' in prayer.

Prayer is not always a blessing.

In the story that Jesus told about the Pharisee and the tax collector, the Pharisee went to the right place. He addressed the right God: he addressed God, the God of Abraham. He said, 'God I thank you that I am not like other people. I thank you that I tithe, that I keep the law, that I am very devout, and that I am not like sinners'. Jesus says, 'He may be addressing God but he is not praying to God. He is praying to himself'.

Prayer for him had become a curse

I remember watching a programme about Madonna. She was asked if she prayed. She said, "Yes: Before I go on stage, I get my crew around me and we pray, 'God, make them love me'."

But before we condemn that prayer, we need to compare it with our prayers.

So often we use prayer as one of the weapons in the armour of our self-centredness. Prayer is about me and for me. It is either about how I might manipulate the world so that it is better for me or for the people I love; or it is about how I might feel good.

And when that happens, prayer becomes a curse. In the words of Dallas Willard in his book on the Sermon on the Mount, The Divine Conspiracy, 'the ego swells and the soul shrivels'.

The religious leaders of Jesus' time used prayer as a way of impressing people. They prayed long, eloquent, and very orthodox prayers in public. They prayed to be seen and they were seen.

I sometimes find myself at the beginning of a meeting thinking: 'How am I going to pray in a way that will mean that I live up to people's expectations of me as a 'spiritual' leader?' Or I have to say grace at an official function: 'How am I going to pray so that they think me spiritual and witty and down to earth and erudite?' Or at a prayer meeting I think, 'I'm the vicar. People expect me to pray. But I don't know what to pray’. So I find myself making up words in order to impress. And I hear myself praying, and I think, 'You are not talking to God. You are talking to the people around you'.

And even when we are on our own and pray: it is very easy to feel inadequate or guilty. "I didn't do it right. I didn't pray for long enough. I didn’t say the right words. I spent most of the time thinking about my sister, or about what we were going to do on holiday". Actually distractions in prayer are usually quite helpful - perhaps that is what you should be praying for, asking God to bring his light and wisdom into that situation, so that his will should be done.

And often when I do consciously start to pray for others or for situations, I get overwhelmed: I think of them and the situations, a little voice says, 'You should have done this' or, 'You need to do that'. Instead of releasing burdens to Father God, I pick them up. So - and now I really am making a confession – When I am on my own I very rarely pray for other people or situations, unless those people or situations are already there on my mind.

I’m always really impressed by people say, 'I pray for someone every day'. That is lovely. But it does make me feel guilty. I feel I ought to do the same. But I don't think I pray for anybody everyday - not even my children. And actually I am not sure it matters, because Jesus prays for them everyday, and I pray that his kingdom will come.

Well, let’s look at these few verses, because they are very helpful.

1. They tell us that prayer is basically heart work, unseen work.

I've spoken about this before. The use of the word 'seen' and 'unseen' in these verses is fascinating.

If you pray to be seen you will get your reward in the seen world. If you pray to impress others, then you probably will impress others. You have your reward.

True prayer is about praying unseen to our unseen God, who rewards us - and the implication is that he rewards us with unseen rewards.

This does not mean that we must never pray in groups or with other people. The key thing here is motive: Are we praying to be seen? If the answer is, 'No, we're praying because we wish to seek God', but it so happens that we are seen, then so be it.

When King Darius ordered that nobody was to pray to anyone apart from him, Daniel did not pray with his window open facing Jerusalem, in order to be seen. He prayed, with his window open facing Jerusalem, because that was how he always prayed and he wasn’t going to change.

Jesus himself encourages his followers to pray together. But we need to remember that when that happens, we do not meet together to impress each other, but to encourage one another and to lay our burdens and our concerns at Jesus' feet.

And the good news is that what matters to God is not what we think of our prayers, or what other people think of our prayers, but the cry of our inner being to God for mercy.

It was the tax collector, who hid himself in a corner, beat his breast and prayed, 'God have mercy on me a sinner', who was heard.

2. They tell us that our Father in heaven knows what we need before we ask him.

Our Father in heaven knows that we need approval and recognition. He knows that we want to be loved. He knows that at times we are sick with anxiety for ourself or another person, or that we are worried about money. He knows that we long that our children grow into a liberating intimacy with him.

And prayer is not a telling God what we want him to do for us: 'God make them love me'. Prayer is an expression of real gratitude and praise to Him, and a releasing of those deep burdens onto His shoulders. 'Father I am worried about what will happen to the children and young peoples work in the church, but I am handing it over to you. Father I'm worried about our financial situation, and I hand it over to you'.

And the great thing is that God knows what we need even when we do not. Often we just don't know. When we are stressed there can be so much going on in our head that we do not know what to think. When we are depressed it is as if part of our mind has switched off, and we simply find ourselves unable to pray - with no vision and no hope. And so often we do not have the faintest idea about what we should be praying for.

But it doesn’t matter. Because God knows.

So I've begun to realise it doesn't matter that I'm not very good at praying for people or things; it doesn't matter that I personally can't do lists (I think that those of us who tend towards perfectionism will always find lists difficult - because they will never be comprehensive enough); it doesn’t matter that when I pray my words are pretty pathetic and mixed up.

Sometimes I think that is why God gives people the gift of tongues: a heavenly language, maybe a baby language - so that when you do not know what to say in English, you can say something and let the Holy Spirit pray in you and through you! It is why written prayers can be so helpful. It is why some of the greatest prayers are the simplest: 'Come Holy Spirit' or the Jesus prayer. It is why Jesus gave us the Lord's prayer. It is why people do resort to lighting candles or drawing pictures. They can all be different ways of crying out to God through the bedlam of thoughts that at times threaten to overwhelm us.

These verses teach us that it doesn't matter how we pray, because prayer is not about following a formula; it is not about what other people think of how I pray; and it is not about whether my words are up to scratch.

It is about an intimate relationship with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who loves us; it is about something that goes on at the unseen level; it is about bringing our thanks and burdens and concerns to him; and it is about praying that his kingdom will come.

But more of that next week.

Wedding address

2008-07-05T10:01:00.003+01:00

Colossians 3:12-17

Congratulations.

A great passage to choose, because it begins with God's 'yes' to his people: "Holy, dearly beloved, chosen".

God has given us so much: he has given us this life and love and each other. And even though we have walked out on him and badly messed things up, he has not walked out on us. He has given us Jesus Christ his Son, forgiveness, new life, hope of heaven. He has given us 'All things'.

And this 'yes' of God to his people is the starting point of all healthy relationships

1. It sets us free to love

Paul writes, "Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience"

Because God has said 'yes' to us, we can say 'yes' to each other. We don't need to prove ourselves.

I remember hearing a couple interviewed who had reached their 80th wedding anniversary. It was a record. He was asked the secret of the success of their marriage. He replied, "Two words .. Yes, dear".

But he is right. The secret of a healthy marriage is that it is built on both partners saying to the other, "Yes, dear".

It is about a commitment to each other - to build up and not to pull down (illustration of Rugby player and dodgy footballer; 'If you wish to be married to a princess, treat her like one'; honeymoon story)

And this is a commitment bigger than feelings: it is there when the feelings are there, but it is about a commitment even when the feelings are not there.

It is a 'yes' that gives itself to the other.

People say that marriage is about give and take: no, it is about give and give and give and give, and when you have given everything that there is to give, you give again.

It is about giving time: time to be together, to do what the other person chooses to do, to go where they would go. And yes it is about taking time to be romantic and intimate.

It is about giving emotional support: being there for the other, being open with the other - especially in the dark times. Many of us can be like vacuum cleaners that are never emptied. We take into ourselves all the rubbish, but never allow ourselves to be emptied out. And we eventually clog up. It really is all about 'communication, communication, communication'

It is about giving encouragement: 'You look good', 'you did that well'. Not taking the other person for granted

It is about giving yourself. In marriage, you cease to belong to yourself. You belong to the other person. They are quite literally, 'your other half'.

2. This love of God for us, this 'yes' of God to us, sets us free to forgive

"Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.

and Paul continues, "Forgive as the Lord forgave you". It is when I realise just how much I have been forgiven that I am set free to forgive.

Forgiveness is foundational to good relationships, and marriage is the ideal place to learn to say sorry and to forgive.

I don't know how you are with conflict.

Some people are eskimos. They freeze each other out.

Some people are cowboys. They throw cups of tea across the room

It doesn't matter that we get angry. What matters is what we do with our anger.

Someone said of their marriage: "We don't have rows. We collect grudges. We stockpile them in preparation for the domestic armageddon".

The bible says the opposite: "Do not let the sun go down on your anger"

And Ogden Nash reinterpreted the teaching of the bible on forgiveness:

"To keep your marriage brimming

with love in the marriage cup,

whenever you're wrong admit it,

whenever you're right, shut up"

How do we live this way? How do we remain rooted in the the 'yes' of God.

Paul gets practical and urges three things

1. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts

Let that awareness of the love, forgiveness, acceptance and purpose of God control your heart. We talk about letting Jesus come into our hearts. I'm not quite sure how you imagine that: my heart is a lump of muscle in here - but we know what it is saying: ask him to come and live in us, and to control our thoughts, our words and actions. That is the basis of real life.

2. Let the message of Christ dwell in your minds

Get to know and hold on to the good news of the love of God, of the presence of Jesus, of his word and his guideline for living.

Grow in your understanding. Remind one another of it. Meet with God's people. Encourage one another. Grow in obedience.

3. Give thanks

Give thanks to God for his 'yes', for each other, for the gift of the other. Thankfulness drenches this passage (v15,16,17)

Give thanks in the good time and the difficult times; when your prayers are answered and when it seems that your prayers are not answered.

Why? Because we are told that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose .. and that nothing can separate us from the love of God.

The Christian hope

2008-07-03T09:38:00.003+01:00

2 Peter 1:12-21

If I gaze into the crystal ball and tell you that in ten years time you will receive £200million pounds, what would you say? Would you believe me? What would you want me to do to prove that it was true? If you did believe me, would it make any difference to your life now?

Peter, in our reading, wants to remind those of us who listen to him that there is something amazing that is going to happen in the future. Far more amazing than being told you will receive £200m in a few years time. The amazing thing is this: that one day, it may be in our life time, it may well not be - but it will still effect us; one day Jesus Christ - the Son of God - will return to this world in glory and in power.

We don't know what it will be like. It will not be the end of space and time, because they were created by God and are good, but it will be the end of space and time as we know it. It will not be the end of heaven and earth, because they were created by God and are good, but it will be the end of heaven and earth as we know it.

Later on in this letter, and especially in chapter 3, Peter gives us a glimpse of the day when it happens. He writes (3:13), "But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells". It will be a place where things will be right. People will do the right things in the right way at the right time with the right people for the right reason. We will be right with each other, right with ourselves and right with God.

It is not about floating on clouds and playing harps. It won't be like that. I cannot think of anything more boring. Actually I can: an endless church service with endless sermon or endless singing. It won't be like that either! Boredom will be the last thing in this new heaven and earth. It will be a place of of laughter, of play, of work, of creativity and of responsibility, of new adventures; a place of constantly broadening horizons: there will always be more to know and to discover and to learn. There will be things to anticipate and to get excited about. There will be new things that make us nervous. There will be a myriad of new experiences, new adventures, new achievements, new places to go (I have no idea how we will travel) and new sensations. There will be music and football and dancing and rugby and beauty. There will be new people to meet - and each person we meet will be unique and totally free and fascinating and wonderful and they will bring to us something that makes us astonished at how we managed to live without them; and because we have eternity, we do not need to rush away - there will be time to be with people, to do things, to grow the old friendships. And to others, we will be the most amazing and unique and wonderful person that there could be. There will be this sense of intimacy, more profound that any current human experience, that we belong to others and that they belong to us, and that we belong to God and that he belongs to us. And as for the muck that is in us, the sin that wants to make us the centre of things and messes with and uses other people and things to satisfy our own desires; the sin that drags us down in guilt and despair and a sense of worthlessness - it will be gone. There will be no place for evil or mockery or abuse or violence. We will be set free to love and to live, as we were meant to love and to live. And we will grow older, but our bodies will not grow older as they grow older in this world - we will just grow stronger and wiser and bigger and freer. And there will be joy and there will be wonder and there will be praise that bubbles up from our deepest deepest being.

If your idea of heaven is clouds and harps or church services - then could I suggest two books that you could read. The first is called 'The Shack', by William Young; the second is 'The Last Battle', and in particular the last few chapters, by CS Lewis.

And right at the centre of this new heaven and new earth will be a person. This is the vision that we read in Revelation. It will be the person who made it all happen, without whom we would be excluded and who holds everything all together. This person will be like us, just like us - or perhaps it would be more correct to say that we will be like him, just like him. He will be very different from how he was when he lived on earth. 2000 years ago he had a body like us. But in this new heaven and earth, his body will be transfigured: he will be awesome and radiant.

Is it all pie in the sky? Is it all wishful thinking?

That is what many would tell us:

It is what Karl Marx said, when he said that 'religion is the opium of the people' - a drug to keep them subservient
It is what some of the teachers in the church to which Peter was writing were saying. They were the scoffers about whom Peter writes in ch 3:3-4: "Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation."

But Peter says there are two reasons why we can be convinced that this is not wishful thinking:

I'll take them in reverse order

1. Because it was what the prophets in the Old Testament spoke about.

They spoke about the day when the Lord would return. They spoke of the coming day when all that is evil would be judged and condemned, and when the Kingdom of God under the rule of the anointed one, would be established: Isaiah 9:6-7; 11:6-9; Ezekiel 47; Daniel 12; Joel 3; Amos 9. The list is endless.

And Peter says, These prophets were not the equivalent of our science fiction writers. They were not crystal ball gazers. The promises they stated were not the product of a wild imagination. They were speaking as God told them to speak:
Peter writes, v20-21 "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."

And he talks about this promise being like a small light that shines in the darkness (v19).

In our previous house in London we often had trouble with the pilot light on the boiler. You know what a pilot light is. It is that tiny light that is burning, so that when you turn up the power, the whole thing explodes into life. Our pilot light didn't work, so that when we turned up the power, nothing happened. The whole thing was dead.

Well, says Peter, the words of the prophet are the tiny flame in the boiler. If it is there, if those words have rooted themselves into us, then on the day when Jesus returns, they will flood our body with life.

The message of the prophets, says Peter, is completely reliable.

But the second reason, Peter says, this is not pie in the sky is

2. Because we saw the glory of Jesus (vv16-18)

"For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honour and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain."

I could say so much about this - but I'm not!

Peter is writing of the time when Jesus had just told his disciples that some them would not die until they had seen the Kingdom of God come with power.

A few days later Jesus takes Peter, James and John up the mountain and they see Jesus transformed, talking with Moses and Elijah. It was a glimpse of Jesus in his glory. It was a picture of Jesus, Lord of space and time. It was a glimpse of the new heaven and the new earth.

And so Peter emphasizes: We did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power - we saw it. And he is clearly talking about the transfiguration as an anticipation of the second coming of Jesus.

Our Christian faith is not just based on words, but on events: events that happened in history. Events that were witnessed by people like Peter.

We can experience the truth of Christianity for ourselves as we walk with Jesus Christ. As we put our trust in him, so we discover that he can be trusted.

We can experience Jesus Christ, but we did not see him or hear him. That is why we are so dependent on the first followers of Jesus, on people like Peter, James and John. That is why they are apostles, in a unique sense. That is why we read the bible - to remind ourselves of what he said and did; to remind ourselves that even though we did not see him or hear him, there was a bunch of people who did. And they wrote it down.

So we have a great hope: a hope based on the prophets in the old testament, and on the words that are written for us in the new testament. It is a hope that is far greater than anything that could be given us in this world or by this world.

1. It means we can face death with a quiet confidence. Many Christians say that they don't like the idea of the process of dying, but they are at peace because they know that they will be with the Lord. Peter knew that he would die in a dreadful way (Jesus had told him that), but he is still able to write: "I know I will soon put aside this tent in which I live"

2. It also means that we can face life with a quiet confidence: that our faith is based on facts; that this world is not all that there is; that there is something much much more real and solid - and that the way to live now is about reminding ourselves that there is a judgement and an amazing future.

Baptism

2008-06-20T19:21:00.004+01:00

Romans 6.1-11

The language of baptism is odd. We don't really have parallels.

It is not simply about joining a club: although when a person is baptised they become a member of the church

It is more than that.

Probably a better way of looking at it is in terms of citizenship ceremony.

We have some friends who came here as asylum seekers from Azerbaijan. Last year A and N went through a citizenship ceremony. They pledged allegiance to the queen, said they would follow the laws of this nation, and they became British citizens. As far as the law is concerned, they ceased to be Azerbaijani, and they became British.

I guess it is what would happen if there was such a thing as an adoption ceremony. The person adopted ceases to belong legally to one family, and they become members of another family. They are placed in a new set of relationships. They even take on a new name.

Baptism is like that - but it is in fact - bigger than both of those. The language that is used in the baptism service is not the language of leaving one to join the other; the language that is used is the language of being immersed into something.

The reason that fonts are so large is because in the past babies would have been dunked right into the water - and in many churches today adults, when they choose to be baptised, are immersed under the water

It is the language of death and resurrection.

And in baptism we are not just joining the church. It is quite literally the ceremony by which we die to ourselves and come alive to Jesus.

It is the ceremony in which we are literally immersed into Jesus Christ. Notice the language: we have been baptised 'into' Jesus.

And that means three things.

1. We are baptised into Jesus death

If we are 'in Jesus', then it means that as he died on the cross, we died with him.

Our old self dies in baptism

"For we know that our old self was crucified in him" (v6)

When we are baptised our old self - the self with its ego and pride and fear and self-centred hopes and ambitions, and its self-reliance - dies. It dies with Jesus

I look at Jesus on the cross and I say, 'There is Jesus dying for me'. But because I have been baptised, because I have been united into Jesus, I can also look at Jesus dying on the cross and say: 'There is my old self dying on the cross'.

Baptism is much more than saying: 'I am going to be a good person - be environmentally friendly - not abuse kids or vulnerable elderly people - give to charity'.

It is more than saying: 'I am going to be a good Christian - come to church regularly - read my bible - say my prayers - tell others about Jesus'.

Baptism is saying: 'I'm a dead person. Dead to me - to my efforts to be a good person or a good Christian - to my independence from God - to my self-appointed standards, to my self-reliance and to my self-interests'

In baptism our old self dies with Jesus.

2. We are baptised into freedom

Paul writes in v6: '... anyone who has died has been set free from sin'.

I remember several years ago, one of our children saying: 'Daddy, there are two mes: there is a me that wants to do right, and there is a me that does wrong. And they have a fight'.

Most of us know that experience. We wish to do right. We do not wish to take things out on our family or friends or colleagues; we don't wish to be knotted up by unforgiveness or jealousy or ambition. We do not wish to be prevented from doing what is right and true, because of the fear of what others will think of us. It is a particularly British paranoia. We do not wish to browse through those websites. We do not wish to be grumpy old or young men or women, constantly moaning and complaining. We don't wish to be caught up in gossip or consumerism.

The problem is that we are. We are, the bible puts it, 'slaves to sin'. And when we do it, we hate it and we hate ourselves.

Well, says Paul, 'remember that when you were baptised - as a baby or an adult - it doesn't matter - the body ruled by sin was done away with. It died with Christ. So you actually have been set free from the power and the condemnation of sin.

The problem is that the old me is like a headless chicken. It is very very dead - but it is still running around, pretending to be alive.

Paul says, 'Count yourselves dead to sin'. If we wish, deep in here, to follow Jesus, to do what is right by God, but we feel the pull of the old self-centred, self-reliant life, we need to say to ourselves: 'Malcolm, A, I, remember. The old you is dead. It has no power over me. It has no future. I do not need to give in.'

The baptised person has, in fact, been set free from slavery to sin.

3. We are baptised into a hope

If we are united to Jesus in his death - then says Paul - v5: 'we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his'

This hope is both future and present.

It is future because it is about what happens after death. Just as Jesus was raised from the dead, so we will be raised from the dead on the last day.

We live in hope. Death is not the end. It is not just the hope of meeting again after death; it is the hope that what is good and right and true in this world is not destroyed or lost by death. It is the hope that in the end love and life win.

But this is also a present hope

My guess is that many of us here have been baptised but we are living as if we have not been baptised, as if we have not been immersed in Jesus' death, as if we are not dead to sin, as if we have no hope.

We're like the bag lady of Kensington, who had lived on the streets for many years. She used to get hungry and people bought her food. But when she died they discovered that she was worth millions of pounds. A few years earlier a distant relative had left her the money: but she was so used to life on the streets she couldn't handle it, so she remained on the streets. She went on living her old life.

We've been given so much in our baptism. We have been offered forgiveness, freedom, a hope, new life, eternal life. The problem is that we have chosen not to live it.

My prayer for I and for A is that they will grow up knowing what they have received and living it. That will in many ways depend on you the parents and godparents. It is as you live the life that they will see what it is all about.

And my prayer for each of us is that we will live our baptism

Maybe today is the opportunity for us to renew again our baptism commitment. For some, it will be a personal thing. For others it may need something formal. That is why we have confirmation or the reaffirmation of our baptism vows. We publicly say, "This was said by me or for me at my baptism. Now I am going to say it and live it."

The great thing about our baptism is that we can begin to live it now or we can begin again to live it now - whenever now is. I pray that for A and for I, and for some of us who are a little older, today will be the now that matters.

"To us, for you"

2008-06-10T12:17:00.010+01:00

Ephesians 3:1-13

We've been looking through Ephesians. It is one of Paul's most important letters because it brings us nearer to the heart of the man than probably any other letter.

In chapter 1, he blesses God for the blessings that have been given us in Jesus: chosen, redemption, forgiveness, a destiny and an inheritance, and the Holy Spirit. He prays for the Ephesian Christians that they might know this destiny and inheritance and power available to them.

In chapter 2 he declares that we were dead, but that God made us alive in Jesus. We are saved by grace through faith. And he reminds the non-Jews: 'you were without hope and without God'. But Jesus Christ came, and in his body he took into himself Jew and non-Jew, and he created a new humanity, a new family - built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ. And through him, we both have access to God.

It is all very reassuring for me. Paul is a pastor with two congregations: Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. They are different. They meet in different places. They use a different language. They worship in different ways. They are also dismissive of each other. In fact, in their heart of hearts they are not really sure that the other congregation is really Christian. The Jewish Christians are not really sure that the Gentile Christians are 'proper' Christians because they have not been circumcised and because they do not keep the law. The Gentile Christians are not really sure that the Jewish Christians are Christians because they are a legalistic, exclusivist bunch. And Paul - he is in the middle. He longs to see them come together, not for his sake, but because it is only when they come together that God's plan for earth and heaven will come to fulfilment.

v10 is fascinating: "so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places". It could mean through the preaching of the church, but I think it means that the being of the body of Christ, the church itself - including Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free, old and new, traditional and modern, st peter st mary - is the ultimate expression of the wisdom of God.

And here in Chapter 3, Paul gets very personal. He is in prison. And he is writing to non-Jews, the Gentile believers - and he is saying to them: this stuff that I've been writing to you - this stuff about God creating a new humanity in Jesus, that it is for Jew and Gentile - that is why I am in prison. The Jews didn't like it. They rioted, they tried to lynch me - and because of that I am here.

But he goes on: I had to do it.

1. God revealed this to me (v3), and to the apostles and prophets (v5). It had to be by revelation because this is a new thing that God is doing.

He describes it as a mystery (v3), the mystery of Christ (v4), the mystery hidden for ages (v9). It is a mystery because it has been hidden. It is a mystery because it is not obvious. It is a mystery because we do not know how it works

But the mystery is this - and this is just one way that Paul summarises it - that the "Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise", through faith in the good news about Jesus Christ.

2. God called me to be a servant of this mystery.
I'm nobody - but for some reason known only to God - he called me to go to non Jews and to share with them the 'boundless riches of Christ' , and to make known to everyone (Jew and Gentile) the plan of God - to unite all things, all people, Jew and Gentile under Jesus.

And Paul finishes this section repeating what he has said earlier: through Jesus we all have access to God.

And Paul concludes in verse 13: "Don't get down because I am suffering - in prison. The reason I am suffering is because of God's calling to me. And that calling of God is your -Gentile - glory."

I long for men and women to be captured by the vision of this mystery.
To understand it with our minds, and to also understand it with our inner eyes.

1. It is the basis for authentic unity.

People try to build the house of unity on many foundations: civil rights and constitutions, law, education, technology, a political system - monarchy or democracy, tolerance, 'faith'. We don't need to knock them: the goal of what they are trying to achieve is profoundly right.

Our disagreement is in the way that unity is going to be achieved. The conviction of Paul is that true unity, which also preserves variety, is found when people respond to the good news of Jesus Christ and put their faith in him.

Of course, as the church we do not have the greatest of track records when we come to talk about unity. I am quite pleased that the early church was in just as big a mess as us.

It is all very well saying that in Jesus we find our unity, when we all disagree as to what it means in practice. But on this Ephesians is very helpful: the unity of the church is built upon the revelation to, and the foundation of, the apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone. Whatever else, our faith has to be true to the biblical revelation about Jesus. One of the answers to disunity in the church is clearer teaching.

2. It is the basis for self-sacrificial mission

There are four key words at the beginning of our passage: 'to me, for you'. (v2)
This revelation was made known 'to me, for you'

The thought is echoed twice
"I Paul a prisoner .. for you Gentiles" (v1)
"this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles .." (v8)

We need men and women of courage who have been captured by the message that all people can become fellow heirs with the people of God, members of the same body and sharers in the divine promise - through faith in Jesus Christ.

The reason that God reveals and that God calls is for the sake of other people. God never blesses a person in isolation from others. He blesses a person for the sake of others.

The reason that God has given us glimpses of understanding is not so that we can live a comfortable life in a little Christian ghetto blessing each other. It is so that we, at the right time and in the right way, 'with gentleness and respect' share with others the awesome mystery that in Jesus Christ there is access to God, forgiveness and new life, eternal life, for whoever comes to him. Even if it means we end up in prison accused of treachery.

This mystery has been given to us, not for us - but for others.

Doubly Mine

2008-06-06T21:58:00.015+01:00

A story of Jo and his boat (based on Ephesians 2:1-10)

Young Jo loved making things and he was very good with his hands. He decided to make a sailing boat. He searched for the right piece of wood. He spent hours shaping and crafting it. He smoothed it down, painted it and polished it. He found a stick that would do for the mast, and spent hours getting it just right. He stitched some material into sails.

When he had finished he held in his arms a work of art. He was so proud of what he had made. He was so proud of his boat. He calls her 'My Jewel'

He takes his boat down to the local park, where there is a lake. He puts My Jewel on the water. She sails beautifully, just as she was made to sail.

But then a gust of wind catches her and blows her towards the other side. Jo runs round the lake, but just as he arrives, two older boys snatch My Jewel from the water and run off laughing.

Jo tries running after them, but it is no good. He returns home broken hearted.

About a month later, Jo is walking past the local junk shop. He looks in the window. There, among the broken tennis rackets and cars and old tools, he sees a boat - his boat. My Jewel is battered: her paint is scratched, her sail is torn, and she has a price tag, £30.

Jo walks into the shop. "That's my boat", he said, "I made it. But some boys stole it." The shopkeeper is having none of it. "I don't care who made it. I paid good money for that boat. You can have it for £30 and not a penny less".

Jo didn't have £30. He had £12.37. He asks his mum for some money, but she things are tight. There isn't anybody else, so Jo has to work to earn his £30.

Jo cleans the neighbours cars; he cuts their grass; he cleans their windows. And everyday he walks past Junkies, gazes at My Jewel and says, 'I made you. You're mine'.

It cost him a great deal. When his friends wished to meet up in town to go to the cinema, Jo had to say, "No". When he was offered a ticket to the match to see his beloved team, he said "No": someone had offered him a job cleaning their garden that afternoon. Every penny was saved.

Finally, the great day comes. Jo has his £30. After school, he runs into town and, out of breath, he goes into the shop. He puts the money down on the counter. He says to the shopkeeper, "You wanted £30. Here is £30. I've paid the price. The boat is mine." The shopkeeper takes the money and gives him the boat.

Jo walks out of Junkies holding My Jewel tightly in his arms. And as he walks home, he looks at her and he says, "You're mine and you're mine. You're twice mine. You're doubly mine. I made you and I bought you."

But this is not the end of the story. Indeed it is really only the beginning. My Jewel was not made to be thrown in a junk shop. She was not made to lie in a cupboard. She was made to sail. So although Jo has great plans for what he intends to do with her, just for now he does some emergency repairs and then he takes her to the lake. And Jo says to My Jewel, "I made you to sail. Now sail. But sail for me".

Giving to God (2)

2008-06-06T21:43:00.003+01:00

LUKE 12:13-21

I begin with a reassurance: today is the last Sunday that we are talking explicitly about giving.

Our passage this week begins with a dispute about money, about a bequest.

But what is surprising is that Jesus refuses to take sides with the man who appeals to him, and in fact challenges him.

One of the things that I quickly learnt about my job is that sometimes people will come to me in my official role to ask me to support them in their dispute with another person. After a few disastrous sorties, I realised that you cannot do that.

And when we come to Jesus to enlist his support in a dispute, he will often challenge us to look further and to look deeper: to ask ourselves what is really going on.

And he does that here. He challenges the man to look at his motives. And he tells him the story of a fool.

The man in Jesus' story was a fool because he thought that life was about stuff.

Jesus says in verse 14, “Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions”

The man in the story was not a fool because he was rich or because he had had a windfall. He was a fool because he had not realised what life is all about. He thought that life was about having stuff and getting stuff. He thought in terms of £’s and possessions.

Jesus in the next few verses says, ‘Life is more than food’ (v23). Life is about the Kingdom of God (v31). It is about living in the presence of God, under the rule of God, in the strength of God. It is about loving, serving and giving (v33). To gain your life you need to give it away.

And we are fools when we make money our God.

It is a spiritual principal that we become like our gods. If we worship the god of money, we become like money: cold, hard and calculating.

Tom Wright says, "Those who worship money increasingly define themselves in terms of it, and increasingly treat other people as creditors, debtors, partners or customers rather than as human beings.” I would add that if those of us in the church, or those in the charitable sector, make money our God, we end up simply treating people as potential donors or benefactors rather than as human beings.

So Jesus warns the man: don’t make money your God. Money is not what it is all about.

And the man in Jesus’ story forgot that. He thought that wealth, stuff could bring him happiness and security. But it didn’t. He forgot that he had to die. He forgot that he would have to stand before God to give an account of his life. He forgot he couldn’t take it with him.

The man in the story was a fool because he thought that life was about me – me – me

V21 tells us, ‘He stored up things for himself’

There is a problem when we live like that: getting things, keeping things for ourself.

There is a problem for us personally.
Could I invite you to hold out your hand. Imagine that you are holding the most beautiful jewel. Admire it. Show it to your neighbour. Now look at the jewel in their hands. It looks bigger and better than yours. Watch out. They want it. So close your hands and hold onto it tight. Really tight. Don’t let go.

Now could I ask you to let go, and to give them the jewel that is in your hand.
Do you not see. We were not made to hold on to something so tightly. It literally knots us up. We were made to wonder, and we were made to give.

There is a problem for society.
One of the school assemblies that I sometimes do begins with me asking who wants a £2 coin. Of course all the children respond. So I put it down on the ground and say, ‘If (and I stress the word, ‘If’) I said whoever gets it can have it’ what would happen?

We have so much, especially here in the West. And yet we want more, we want newer, we want better. We fight with others for resources. It is reflected in our attitude to Eastern European migrants. When they first came over we said, ‘Oh no. They’re here to get our benefits. They’re here to take our stuff from us’. Now that they are leaving, we say, ‘Oh no. Who will do all the lousy jobs?’

Yes, we give away, but only when we don’t want the thing for ourselves. We give away our loose change; we give away something when we have got better. We take our unwanted clothes or stuff to the charity shop. We send our unwanted and out of date computers and medical equipment to developing countries. And we think we are doing good.

We try to store up things for ourselves, and we are fools.

The man in the story was a fool because he was not rich towards God (v21)

He’d had a windfall. A good harvest. It could have been a bequest, or free shares, or a bonus. But he forgot God

He didn’t recognise any obligation toward other people or toward God.

As a Jew he was called to tithe: to give away one tenth of his crop. It was a recognition that everything comes from God and ultimately belongs to God.

It is God who has given us everything: this creation, planet and life. It is God who has given us our particular start in life, our birth in this land at this time, with our skills and opportunities. We did nothing that influenced when we were born where we were born.

We like this man in the story, even when there are financial difficulties, have so many blessings.

For the Jew, tithing was a legal requirement. It was part of the law. If you obeyed the law, if you gave a tithe, you would be saved.

For the Christian, who knows that we are saved by faith in Christ, tithing is not a law. We do not need to tithe to be saved. But if we have been saved, if the Spirit of God is at work in us, then the spirit of tithing will be in us. We will recognise that everything that we have comes from God and belongs to God; and we will tithe, or at least be seeking to work towards that target, and once we've reached it, we won't stop.

I am drawing to a close.

Jesus challenged this man who came to him to reassess what was the most important thing in his life. He urged him not to be eaten up by money, or the desire for money. He challenged him to be not someone who got, but someone who gave.

I am not asking anyone to put an extra pound in the collection plate today. I am asking each of us to review seriously what we give, so that we can give generously in a planned way. Some people use envelopes. The person to speak to is Robin. Many people use standing orders. There are standing orders at the back of the church.

I am asking us to review our giving in the light of what we have seen these last three weeks.

1. We must not be fools – people who, in our wealth, think that wealth buys happiness and security, and so forget God.

2. Giving is an expression of our love. And as Paul makes it clear in 2 Corinthians 9:6-11, as we give we are enriched. Not necessarily with financial blessings (someone once said, "If you tithe I can guarantee you one thing. You will be ten percent poorer"), but with ‘a harvest of righteousness’.

3. Our giving to the church and to the work of Christian mission is the thermometer of what God means to us (not the amount, but what it cost you to give what you did give).

A wealthy man came to a minister and said, “I wish to make a donation to the church of £50. Is that enough?” No doubt he wished for the minister to commend him. But this minister was very wise, and very courageous. He simply said: “Yes of course it is enough, if you think that £50 for you is a true reflection of your commitment to, your dependence on and your love for God”.

May I invite you to think of what you give, and to reflect: Is it a true reflection of my commitment to, my dependence on and my love for God? Is it a true reflection of what Father God and Jesus Christ mean to me?

Giving to God

2008-05-23T13:41:00.002+01:00

1 Chronicles 29:1-20

Over the next few weeks we will talk, giving.

Why?

1. We haven’t spoken about giving seriously for three years: and giving is part of Christian discipleship – true when times are easy or hard
2. We face significant financial challenges as a parish. On the negative side, this year St Peter’s has a deficit budget of about £10k, and St Mary’s of £16k. Unless our income across the parish increases by about 60%, then come September 2010 we may find ourselves with one paid clergy and some office assistance. On the positive side, if we can increase our giving to the general fund by 60%, then we could be in a position to employ a second paid member of the clergy or a business manager for SM and a parish community link worker, and maybe even a young person for a year.
Today, we are looking at 1 Chronicles 29:1-20.

King David wanted to build a temple for God. However God had told him that he was not to do it, but that his son would. So David does all he can so that when Solomon comes to the throne, the building can start. He starts to build up the treasure chest. He gives of his own personal resources for the building of the temple, and he asks the people to do the same.

And there are three lessons about giving I’d like to draw from this passage

1. DAVID RECOGNISES THAT THIS WORK IS FOR GOD

He was building a temple, in which worship would be offered.

He was not building a palace or a barracks or an administrative centre or a soup kitchen or a university or a circus.

From a political point of view, it would have made much more sense for David to invest his money in those things.

But David chose to give his money to something that was completely God centred.

I don’t think that we have ever been able to say as clearly as we can today that when we give to the church we give because we believe that God matters

In the past, people could give to the church because it was the church which offered entertainment, music, community, pastoral care, counselling, historic continuity and the only real means of channelling money to people in need.

Today, that is not true.
If you wish to give for pastoral care or counselling, you can give to Macmillan nurses, hospital visitors Alzheimer’s carers group etc.
If you wish to give for community, you can give to one of the countless community groups.
If you wish to give to preserve historic buildings, the key stake holder these days is English Heritage. If St Mary’s ceased to be a place of worship, it would not crumble. It is of too great a historic significance. It would be taken over as a community resource.
If you wish to listen to great music, you can give to some of the many choirs here in Bury

Today, there is only one reason for giving to the work of the church: and that is because God matters to you.

Every £ that is put in the collection plate, or that is paid through standing order, is an act of rebellion.

You are saying: ‘Society does not think that God is important. I disagree. In fact, I am giving to the church because I believe that God matters; because I believe that the worship of God matters; the message that God has given to us in his Son Jesus, matters; and because the community of the people of God matters’.

I often say of my job that if God does not exist then I really am wasting my life: I could do far more for people and earn quite a bit more, by becoming a politician or social worker or teacher or whatever. And if God does not exist then money given to the church is wasted money. It would have been far better to give it to other good causes.

I was reading on the Telegraph website, comments on an article which stated that bishops earn less than experienced teachers, and vicars earn less than newly qualified teachers.

Someone had written: “One would hope that teachers are paid better than clergymen. Teachers prepare children to be productive adults and clergymen do, um, what is they do? OH! Obey some non-existent sky-god”

I am not asking you to give to the church because we look after a historic building, or provide pastoral care and a good community organisation. We do, but other people also do that.

I am asking you to give to the church because you believe that God matters, because you believe at the very centre of this universe, of this world, of history and of society is God.

And for that reason, the money that we give to the church is very special.
We say, and I echo David’s words in verse 1, “The task is great because this organisation, this body of people called the church, is not here for people but for the Lord God.”

2. DAVID ASKS THE PEOPLE TO FIRST CONSECRATE THEMSELVES TO GOD (V5)

It makes sense. If giving to the building of a temple in the Old Testament is quite simply because of God; giving in the New Testament to the work of the church, the people of God, is also because of God.

And so we will only give significantly to the church if we have committed ourselves to God.

It is a biblical principal.

1. We consecrate ourselves, ‘offer’ ourselves to God.

In 1 Corinthians 8:5, Paul writes of the Macedonian Christians, “Having given themselves first of all to the Lord, they gave themselves by the will of God also to us”

The person who consecrates him or herself to God recognises that they owe everything they are and everything that they have to God. They recognise that all their possessions come from God and belong to God.

David’s prayer in vv10-19 is the prayer of a man who has bowed before God.

“Yours is the Kingdom” (v11)
“Wealth and Honour come from you” (v12)

A young politician went to see Lloyd George to ask for high office. He said, “I am a self-made man”. Lloyd George replied, “Young man, you have just relieved the Almighty of an awesome responsibility”

David could have been like that. He could have claimed: “I am self-made. I was a shepherd, but I took my chances. I showed courage. I was single minded. I worked hard. I made wise decisions. I surrounded myself with good advisors. And now look at my kingdom and my wealth”.

David did not make that mistake.

“Who am I” he says (in verse 14), “and who are my people that we should be able to give so generously as this? We are foreigners and strangers on earth. Our days are like a shadow”

When we consecrate ourselves to God, we recognise that everything we are and everything we have: gifts, personality, contacts, opportunities come from him. And we give ourselves back to him.

2. We consecrate our money and the stuff that it gets us, to God.

It is hard to surrender our money and stuff to God.
We live in a society which tells us the more we have, the more we are; the better we have, the better we are.

Please don’t get me wrong: Wealth is not wrong in itself, and we thank God when he blesses people materially. Jesus was supported in his ministry by some wealthy women.

The problem comes when we think that this [hold up money] is mine. The problem comes when we have not surrendered it to God.

Having offered ourselves to God, we need to offer our money to God. We say with David, “It all comes from you and it all belongs to you. Help me to be thankful, but also help me to use it as you would use it, for your purposes”.

When that happens, there are two practical consequences:

1. We regularly, weekly, monthly, yearly, put aside a sum of money for God, for the work of the church. The biblical principal is a tithe, a tenth of what we get. It was an Old Testament principal that was endorsed by Jesus. For instance, look at Luke 11:42.

For the Christian, the tithe is a guideline. For many of us the tithe should be the beginning of what we give, particularly as our income grows. For a person on an annual income of £12000, £1200 a year is significant. For people on £50000 a year, £5000 a year is not quite so significant. We still have £45000 left.

Please don’t be legalistic about this. It doesn’t matter if at the moment we can’t afford to tithe, although I would hope we can make it our target. It doesn’t matter how we calculate our tithe. The important thing is that we have surrendered our money to God, and that we do put aside a significant sum of money regularly for the work of the people of God – the church.

2. Our relationship with God controls all our spending.

Again, there are no laws here. It is about obedience to him, and doing what seems to be sensible, right and loving.

Before, we might have said to ourselves: “I like that painting. I can afford it, so I will buy it.”
Now, we might say, “I like that painting. I can afford it. But actually I have three paintings already. It costs £600 and I think it is right to give £300 away instead.”

So David urges the people to first consecrate themselves to God, and then to think about their giving

3. DAVID AND THE PEOPLE ARE ENCOURAGED BECAUSE THE LEADERS SET AN EXAMPLE

Verse 9: We have numerous examples of the giving of others to inspire and challenge us

John Laing, founder of the building company, was well known for his generosity. When he died, he left a will of £340

Bishop of Stepney – told us that he would be giving 20%; I guess you could call that twithing:

Ever since university, both Alison and myself have tithed. I guess it is a habit we have got into. We’ve budgeted for it. It is not a strict tithe because it does not include other benefits that we receive, such as free housing. Each month, we give a sum of money to the church through standing order, plus a further sum to some friends working with Wycliffe bible translators in Senegal.

Yes, it has been tight, especially when because of children and the work we have chosen that Alison will not earn. There have been times when we haven’t been able to afford something, although very rare. But it has also meant that we have been so aware of the faithfulness of God. When we have really needed something we have been able to afford it. And I trust that our children are not going to be scarred for life.

And there are many people here who give sacrificially. In 2007 at SP, £22000 was donated by 20 people/families. It means that 20 people are giving over £1000 pa each to the church.

It isn’t just about generosity in terms of financial giving. So many Christian leaders are willing to work for a tiny salary in comparison to what ‘the world’ is offering. I was talking with a minister who is willing to work full time for £13k. At the moment, it is the only income she and her family have. Many people offer their services unpaid – whether in an official role or simply as a volunteer.

So I would ask you to follow the example of those who lead, and to use it as a benchmark for our own giving.

So three reasons for giving
1. It is about God
2. It is about first giving ourselves and all we have to God
3. Be encouraged by your leaders

It is part of my own experience, and I have heard it repeated over and over again, that when we dedicate ourselves and particularly our money to God, and when we start tithing, we are taking God seriously. We’ve actually shown that we mean business with God. And we discover that when we take God seriously, God begins to take us seriously.