Talks and Sermons

One day you are going home

2012-02-05T07:44:00.001Z

2 Corinthians 4:16-5:5

"Lord, help me to see this world with your eyes. Otherwise I might value what you despise and despise what you value."

Who likes going camping? Tell us the worst thing that has happened to you when you've been camping!
There is one purpose for camping: and that is to make you appreciate home far more.

The first day is OK. It is exciting. You set up the tent. You boil the kettle on the gas. You explore the campsite. You get told off by the campsite official because your tents are 5.99 metres apart and not 6 metres apart. And you cook the sausages.
Actually we usually stumble at the first stage: the setting up the tent. I have a tent: would you please set it up!
But by the end of the a couple of days, you are usually cold, wet, tired, dirty, the blow up mattress refuses to stay blown up, the battery has run out, the gas has given up the ghost, and you are fed up of living on cereal and soggy bread. [the first time we went camping as a family - May bank holiday (i.e. end of April). We retreated to a pub; another time flooded out]
But the camping trip has achieved its aim. You want to go home!

Paul describes our life here as being like on a camping trip. He talks about us living in an earthly tent. "Now if we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands" (5:1) And Paul knew a bit about tents. He was literally, by profession, a tentmaker.

It’s great fun. When my nephews and nieces come and stay, they and our children want to sleep in the tent.
But it is nothing compared to being at home.
Of course, when we go camping, we do everything we can to make camping comfortable. What can we get .. caravans! We take a large kitchen plastic bin with us; we tie washing lines between trees; we've got this really impressive gas cooker. And then there are the tents themselves. They can be rather grand. There was one that we saw that was like a teepee with a conservatory added. We go camping with some friends from London: every year they turn up they seem to have bigger tents. Next year they’re planning to go into competition with Palace of Versailles.
But however big, however grand, however comfortable, tents are fragile things. They are not built to last. You only need a medium sized storm and most of us are in trouble.
And the problem comes when people go camping and spend so much time making their tent as comfortable as possible that we forget that there is such a place as home.

And living in this world is a bit like camping.
Most of the time we are busy making our tents so nice that we forget we are camping. On Thursday Alison and myself walked round Glasswell's looking for stuff to make our tent nicer; or perhaps I should say envying stuff that would make our tent nicer.
But then there are occasions when life gets stormy; and Paul says that when that happens Christians do not get discouraged because - well, we're camping and we should expect it. And it is not home. In fact, he says, we should welcome the troubles and difficulties and heartaches because they remind us that we are only camping here, and that one day we're going home.

Last week I spent some time with the family of a young woman who were keeping vigil with her as she was dying. As a result when I went home I dreamt quite a bit about death. Someone kindly prayed that God would take those dreams away. I thought afterwards that that was not what I really wished. What I wished instead was to have the dreams but also to have the courage to face up to the fears, together with Jesus, that those dreams were causing in me.

One of Paul's problems was that he was the sort of camper who went about the site saying this is a great campsite, and we should respect the campsite authorities, but remember it is not home. And there were those who hated it when he talked about home; they said it was pie in the sky, and he should be talking about how to make the camping experience better. But he went on insisting that we are just camping, that we don't need to worry too much about how attractive or comfortable our tent is, that we will face troubles while we are camping, and that we should long for home and for our Father God who waits for us.
There are of course people today who say that the most important thing in life is making your tent good, and your camping life as comfortable as possible.

Ajith Fernando, a Christian leader from Sri Lanka who ministers to the urban poor, writes:
"The church in each culture has its own special challenges—theological blind spots that hinder Christians from growing to full maturity in Christ …. I think one of the most serious theological blind spots in the western church is a defective understanding of suffering. There seems to be a lot of reflection on how to avoid suffering and on what to do when we hurt. We have a lot of teaching about escape from suffering and therapy for suffering, but there is inadequate teaching about the theology of suffering ….
The "good life," comfort, convenience, and a painless life have become necessities that people view as basic rights. If they do not have these, they think something has gone wrong …. One of the results of this attitude is a severe restriction of spiritual growth, for God intends us to grow through trials."

How is our tent making getting on? We put a great deal of effort into making it good, but it is just a tent.

I finish with a story. Actually it is a story told by Billy Graham when he went in January 2000 to speak at a lunch. He was struggling with Parkinson's disease.

He said, "I'm reminded today of Albert Einstein, the great physicist who this month has been honored by Time magazine as the Man of the Century. Einstein was once traveling from Princeton on a train when the conductor came down the aisle, punching the tickets of each passenger. When he came to Einstein, Einstein reached in his vest pocket. He couldn't find his ticket, so he reached in his other pocket. It wasn't there, so he looked in his briefcase but couldn't find it. Then he looked in the seat by him. He couldn't find it. The conductor said, 'Dr. Einstein, I know who you are. We all know who you are. I'm sure you bought a ticket. Don't worry about it.' Einstein nodded appreciatively.
"The conductor continued down the aisle punching tickets. As he was ready to move to the next car, he turned around and saw the great physicist down on his hands and knees looking under his seat for his ticket. The conductor rushed back and said, 'Dr. Einstein, Dr. Einstein, don't worry. I know who you are. No problem. You don't need a ticket. I'm sure you bought one.' Einstein looked at him and said, 'Young man, I too know who I am. What I don't know is where I'm going.'"
Billy Graham continued, "See the suit I'm wearing? It's a brand new suit. My wife, my children, and my grandchildren are telling me I've gotten a little slovenly in my old age. I used to be a bit more fastidious. So I went out and bought a new suit for this luncheon and one more occasion. You know what that occasion is? This is the suit in which I'll be buried. But when you hear I'm dead, I don't want you to immediately remember the suit I'm wearing. I want you to remember this: I not only know who I am, I also know where I'm going."

Living this life is like living in a tent; don't get discouraged when bad things happen - it reminds us that we are camping, and it is all part and parcel of camping; and one day you're going home.

1 Timothy 2: on prayer, unity and the role of women in church

2012-01-28T23:32:00.000Z

1 Timothy 2:1-15

Timothy has been urged to hold on to faith and to keep a good conscience.

Now Paul turns his attention to the God who desires all people to be saved.

Salvation is the big idea which controls this passage. Paul begins by speaking about the God who desires for all people to be saved (2:4), he speaks of the one mediator between God and men (2:5), and he finishes the chapter speaking about how specifically women will saved (2:15) - which is really rather odd.

And it is important to remember that for Paul salvation is both a moment, when a person is saved and passes from death to life, but it is also a process. So, for instance, in 1 Timothy he writes, "Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers." (1 Timothy 4:16)

And it is important that we hold this big idea in mind as we look at a passage about which there are fundamental disagreements.

There are three sub-themes in this chapter

Prayer
The peaceful life
The role of women in the church

PRAYER

Paul urges us to pray for all people and especially for leaders so that we might lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

There are two possible ways to read these verses.

The first is that we are to pray for all people and leaders, so that we can lead peaceful and quiet lives, with the assumption from the following verses that, as a result, the work of the gospel can advance. That is how I have always read these verses.

However, I think on reflection, there is a different way to read them: We are to pray for all people and for leaders, that they might be saved, so that - as a result - we will lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

In other words, the peaceful and quiet life is not a condition for the advancement of the good news about Jesus. It is the result. It is the fruit of salvation. God's desire is that all people will be saved so that we can live peaceful and godly lives.

And that ties in with experience. Often the gospel is most readily accepted when people are not living peaceful and quiet lives. It often is most easily received when there is mild persecution of the church. And often it is when people and particularly rulers turn to Christ that societies begin to be transformed.

And Paul continues this theme of prayer by turning his attention specifically to the men in the congregation in Ephesus.

He wants them to pray. It is interesting that he urges the believing men to pray.

Often it seems to be women who pray easier than men. In prayer meetings there will usually be more women than men. That may say something about our prayer meetings, but it may also say something about men. Men prefer to do something, to be in control, or at least pretend that we are in control. We don't like to ask.

My son gave me a mug for Christmas. I'm fairly protective of it, because it says 'Dads' on it! Underneath the word 'Dads',it has the words, 'Proudly refusing to ask for directions since 1648'. And men typically are not very good at talking face to face with each other, and I wonder whether we are all that good at talking face to face with God. Having said that, we do as a rule find it easier to talk about something, usually when we are working together on something.

But Paul says, 'No; you men have also got to pray'.

So I urge the men here to pray. We meet for breakfast. We should also be praying together. And we are told what we are to pray for: that all people, especially leaders, will be saved.

We have, as a church, seen a significant growth in numbers attending some of our services. That is very exciting. However I am less encouraged when I think through how many people have actually been converted, how many people started coming as non-believers but have now turned to Christ.

And the problem is that we are trying to do this all by ourself. But we can't. We need God. It is God who desires all people to be saved, and it is God who converts. We can preach, we can invite people along to church, we can talk with them about faith, but it is God who does the work. Only he can change a person's mind and heart. And so we really do need to pray. And I know that happens in homes, in our services and home groups, but I would ask - if you are able to come - that you do try and make the parish prayer meeting.

2. THE PEACEFUL LIFE

This is a sub-theme running through both through this chapter and through the letter.
We have seen that one of the fruits of salvation is that we live peaceful, quiet, godly and dignified lives.

And so it is obvious that Paul desires the men to lift holy hands (the custom was for people to pray with their hands raised - it was rather a good custom because it prevented people from praying really really long prayers! - and Paul is saying that these hands need to be hands that have been given to God) without anger or quarrelling (v8), and that the women are not to be trying to outdo one another in their outfits or accessories (v9).

I read an article in the Times (6th January 2012) which was helpful. The writer was having a go at all those people who dissed women for having breast implants. She wrote,
"The simple point is that if beauty (along with youth) is power, then the loss of beauty and youth is the loss of power. To seek beauty — exchanging an ugly nose for a pretty one, say — is to seek power in life, or to try to retain power."
And so, she continued, you cannot blame women for desiring cosmetic surgery.

That is the way of the world. But the church really should be different. The men should not be arguing, trying to get one over on their rivals and competitors; and the women should not be seeking to outdo one another.

If people are to be saved, then there has to be a unity among the believers, and that means that we need to be willing, whether we are men or women, not to try and retain power, but to give it up so that others can grow. Otherwise the visitor coming in is going to feel the tensions as we posture in front of each other and they are going to say: 'this salvation should lead to peaceful and quiet lives, and yet look what these Christians are like. I want none of it'.

And so Paul says to the men, 'stop playing this power game; what really matters is prayer and having holy hands'; And he says to the women, 'stop playing the power game; what really matters is what you do, 'the good works' (v10). And he urges them to be submissive.

Of course, this means that there needs to be a bit of humility and submission, by both men and women. We need to recognise that because we are beloved by God we have nothing to prove; we need to be prepared to stop thinking that we know all the answers and that everyone else needs to listen to me (and I include in that our theories about the roles of men and women). And we need to realise that fighting for status in the church, or for the status of a group of people over against another group of people in the church, is anathema to the gospel.

3. THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN CHURCH

And here we have two options, both of which, in my view, could be justified biblically.

The first view is that Paul is stating an eternal truth in verse 12. Women should not teach in church, or in any context where there are men. They should remain silent. The only people who they are permitted to teach are other women, girls and boys who are not yet considered adult (which, at the time, was about age 11). And Paul says that there are two reasons why women should not exercise authority over a man. Number 1: Adam was formed first, and number 2: it was Eve, the woman, who was deceived.

As an aside, I would point out that if we do take this line we need to be consistent. I was brought up in churches which did not permit women to exercise authority, but which did permit them to teach. And yet Paul writes, 'I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man' (and he is talking about men and women and not husbands and wives; we know that because later Paul talks about the role of widows in the church).

The second view, which you will realise is the one that I adopt, is that Paul is not laying down an eternal truth but is speaking to a specific church in a specific context. The fact that women were taking authority roles in the church of Ephesus, and that the men were opting out, was causing scandal in the wider society (just as it would do in say Saudi Arabia today). Also it seems that some of those women were 'gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not' (5:13).

You see, and here I come back to the big idea of chapter 2, Paul's desire was God's desire: that all people should be saved. And so for Paul there could be no scandal which would prevent people hearing the good news and coming to Jesus. We are to give the adversary 'no occasion for slander' (5:14), and the reason, for example, that there are such strict requirements for the person serving as an overseer (bishop) is so that, 'he must be well thought of by outsiders' (3:7)

But what then of the reasons that Paul gives for his prohibition on women teaching in 2:13-14? Are they not for all time? Adam was formed first and then Eve. And it was the woman who was first deceived by the serpent.

And if you simply look back to creation, then there really are no grounds for interpreting this passage in any other way than as a universal prohibition on women teaching or exercising authority in a church context. Clearly in creation there is a hierarchical order: man first, then woman. And men, despite what people would love to believe today, are generally physically bigger and physically stronger than women. And quite simply, if not held back by law or by gospel. they will use that strength to get what they desire. And so, for example, in the part of North London where we used to live, in many communities the men were non-existent in family or community life. Why? Because they could always find someone who would let them have sex when they wanted sex, but otherwise they lived exactly as they chose, taking no responsibility for their children or for the mothers of their children.

But Paul does not simply look back to the creation. He looks forward to the day when we all will be saved. He writes in verse 15 that 'she' (woman, eve) will be saved through childbearing - if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self control'. The second part is very similar to the instructions that he has given the men in verse 8, that they should lift up holy hands. But the bit about being saved through childbearing .. Is he saying that they will be kept safe in childbirth? Unlikely, and it is not true. Is he saying that they will be saved by having children? But that is a denial of justification by faith and by the fact that there is one mediator who gave himself as a ransom for all. So the option that many commentators take is that they will be saved through childbearing, through the birth of a child - the mediator himself, Jesus Christ.

In other words, even in the context of the Ephesian church where Paul insists on a strict division in the role of men and women, he looks forward to the day when we will be fully saved. Elsewhere the bible describes that day as a new creation, when all will be one in Christ Jesus and there will be neither male nor female (Galatians 3:28), when people will not marry or be given in marriage 'for they will be like the angels' (Matthew 22:30 cf Luke 20:36), and we will all be sons of God (Galatians 4:4f).

And my own view, for what it is worth, is that we can read the prohibition on women teaching and exercising authority in 1 Timothy 2 as cultural. The church can be the anticipation of that new creation; Christ has defeated the curse (and part of the curse was the statement to Eve, 'Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you' (Genesis 3:16).

Indeed, I would go further, and argue that in our own society today, for churches to restrict the role of women is as much a scandal in the biblical sense of the word (meaning stumbling block) for people to come to Jesus to be saved as it would have been, in Ephesus, for women to have been exercising positions of authority.

So there you have it: one take on 1 Timothy 2! As I said earlier, I know that some people here will take a different approach.

But what I do hope that we can agree on is what I would identify as the big idea of the chapter: That we are to pray for people to be saved because 'God our Saviour desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth' (2:4) that we are to live lives that are of complete integrity to that good news, and not do anything that might prevent people from coming to Christ. (2:4).

How to become radiant

2012-01-21T10:47:00.001Z

2 Corinthians 3:7-18

We are looking through the book of 2 Corinthians. And forgive me for spending a bit of time explaining a bit about the background to 2 Corinthians

It is a letter written by Paul to the church in Corinth. It is possibly 2 of Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth put together.

It is principally a defence of his ministry.
It is the most personal of all the letters. We glimpse Paul the man. He shares some of his deepest trials and some of his most profound experiences.

But if it is a defence of the messengers, it is even more a proclamation of the message and the person who the message is about. And so, in our reading next week, we have those fantastic words: “For what we preach is not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor 4:5).

So Paul defends his ministry

He affirms that he is trustworthy.

His accusers were saying – we see this in chapter 1 – that he had said in an earlier letter that he was going to come and visit them (it is possible that chapter 13 might be part of that earlier letter). But in chapter 1 Paul says that although he wanted to come and visit them, he knew it would be a painful visit. He would need to come to bring discipline to the church. It appeared that the Corinthian church was tolerating a sin (probably of a relationship issue – it appears that a man was living in a relationship with his father’s wife cf 1 Corinthians 5:1), and the church was proud of it, because it showed that they really were free from the requirements of the Old Testament law. The problem, says Paul, is that that sort of behaviour is not loving because it is not right, and because it is making the church an object of ridicule – and so causing people not to listen to the message and come to Jesus.

And Paul was angry. And because of that, even though he had said that he would come and visit the church, he knew he had to wait and not come. And in fact it seems that that was wise. The church listens to what he says, exercises discipline, and the people involved repent. And now in 2 Corinthians 2, Paul urges them to welcome those people back into the fellowship.

But Paul is saying, ‘I am trustworthy. Even though I said I would come and did not come, it was because I loved you, and there are times when love requires us to break our word'. Interestingly he goes on to say that God never breaks his word. When God says ‘yes’, he means ‘yes’.

He affirms that he is competent

His accusers are saying that Paul is not a real apostle. They want leaders to be leaders. They need to be charismatic, impressive, miracle workers and successful. They need to come with letters of recommendation from other churches, saying how impressive they are. And Paul, they say, just doesn’t fit the bill. He is not up to the job.

And much of the letter is Paul’s response to those who say that he doesn’t behave like an apostle. 'No', he says, 'I don't have letters of recommendation. Why? Because you are my letter of recommendation. You came to faith through my ministry. And I love you.' And that really is the best letter of recommendation: the life of a believer.

Ignatius [Epistle to the Ephesians, 10] writes, "Give unbelievers the chance of believing through you. Consider yourselves employed by God; your lives the form of language in which He addresses them. Be mild when they are angry, humble when they are haughty; to their blasphemy oppose prayer without ceasing; to their inconsistency, a steadfast adherence to your faith."

And his answer in the later part of the letter, as we will see, is that actually it is our weakness and our dependence on God that qualify us for ministry - for then our competence does not lie in our own ability, but in the power of God. And ultimately it is God who calls and God who equips. Paul writes in 3:5, “Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant.”

He affirms that when it comes to preaching Jesus he is bold.

His accusers are saying that the reason he did not come to Corinth to personally challenge the church, or that – for instance - he doesn’t demand the rights of a senior church leader (such as a higher salary from them), is because he is a coward.
Paul replies and says that the reason he didn’t come to Corinth and that he does not wish to overburden the church financially is because he loves them, and he is not in the business of lording it over them.

In fact, here – and we finally get to our passage today – he says he is bold in his preaching: 'Since we have such a hope we are very bold' (3:12). And he explains why he is bold (later on in chapter 11 he tells us what has happened to him, the cost he has had to pay, because he is bold for Jesus).

As an aside, it is very easy to accuse our bishops and public church leaders today of not being bold. Why don’t they denounce Islam? Why don’t they tell it as it is? Why don’t they publicly say that there is only one way to salvation and that is through Jesus Christ? Why are they so wishy washy?

Well actually there are reasons. Not every community in our country is like Bury St Edmunds. There are places where there are deep deep rifts running within communities and the serious threat of violence; and there are times when a love for people means that we have to restrain what we say. Not because we are not passionate about Jesus. Not because we do not wish moslems, or atheists, or the millions who have been deceived by our secular western values to find Jesus. No, there are other ways of doing that: more costly ways than standing on a pedestal and denouncing them out there and being called bold by the in-crowd. It is the way of our friends who chose to move from Norwich to Leicester so that they could live among people of other faith, and so that they could befriend them, care for them and be cared for by them, and so that they could talk with them and share with them about Jesus. That takes far more courage, and is far more costly.

And that is the sort of courage, of boldness that Paul is speaking about.

And Paul here continues and explains why we can be confident in Christ, and why we can be bold in our speaking and living.

He writes, ‘Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold’ (2 Corinthians 3:12)

Our hope is the hope of Glory.

Do you see how glory saturates this passage?

And Glory here is so physical. It can be touched. It could be seen on the face of Moses after Moses had been speaking with God.

I wonder whether, after our times of prayer and bible study, after receiving communion, our faces are radiant. If they are not, we should be praying that they will be. There are some people who read the bible and after they’ve read it, their faces become colder and harder and sterner. If that is the case, then ‘our minds have been made dull’ (3:14), we are reading it wrong, we are encountering our demons through its pages and not the Lord of glory.

Paul compares the ministry of Moses with the ministry of the Lord.

The ministry of Moses brought glory, astonishing glory. It says that the people could not look on the face of Moses because it was so glorious (3:7). I find it very difficult to look into the face of one who is both absolutely pure and who can see right through me. I want to look and I want to turn away at the same time. That was how it was with Moses.

But the glory on Moses’ face was transitory. It faded. It was a sign that it was not a permanent ministry, that it pointed forward to something else. And that was why Moses wore a veil (3:13). Both so that people would not see the fading glory and as a way of showing the people that they were separated from the presence of God.

And so the ministry that God gave through Moses was a ministry – which although glorious - actually brought condemnation. It was a ministry of the letter, of external law. It showed us simply how far we had fallen from God, the extent to which we are sinners. It was a ministry that ultimately brought death. But it was also a ministry that pointed forward to something different, to something new.

But that is not our ministry. Our ministry is a ministry of life. It is a ministry of freedom. It is not a ministry of the letter but of the Spirit. We are not teaching a law, a list of do this and do that and you will get to God; be obedient, be good, be generous, be kind, be self-controlled and disciplined and God will like you, and things will go well for you and you’ll go to heaven; be bad and God will hate you and bad things will happen and you’ll go to hell. That way leads to proud faces, crushed faces, tired faces, anxious faces, defiant faces – it does not lead to radiant faces.

But the ministry of the Spirit is different. It comes when we turn away from the rule book and we turn to the Lord Jesus, to the one who loves us, who died for us, who gives us his Spirit. And his Spirit will come and live in us. And the law of God, the ways of God, the wisdom of God, the love of God, will be poured into our minds and our hearts.

And we do not need to be like Moses. We do not need to put a veil over our faces, because this glory will never fade away. If we continue to look to Jesus that glory will never fade. It is permanent. The ministry of the Spirit will not lead to death, but to life.

If you are a Christian, and you have spent much time with Jesus, looking at the Lord, it will show. It will show in your face.

It showed in the face of Stephen when they were about to stone him: ‘He had the face of an angel’.
It showed in the face of a Christian lady who I met in Nottingham many years ago. She had been a police officer and had gone to a call out at a bank. She walked in and was smashed over the head with a stick. For 12 years she had been paralysed from the neck down. We went with a home group to sing carols at her bedside. And although she experienced great pain, her face shone.
It showed in the face of an elderly priest in the St Petersburg seminary. He had been sentence to hard labour in the gulags for 10 years, not once, not twice, but three times. He could have been so bitter and twisted, and yet his face shone.
There is such a thing as the beauty of holiness.

Paul went to hell and back. He had to defend his ministry against those who said that he could not be trusted, that he was not confident, that he was a coward.

He didn’t defend his ministry because he was worried about what they said about him; he knew that the only thing that matters is what God thinks about us. That is part of the freedom that he writes about in v17. But he defends his ministry passionately because the message that he had been entrusted with mattered desperately.

He was abused, he was beaten up, he spent many years in prison, he was stoned (on several occasions) and left for dead, and finally he was executed. But he could write this, “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit”. (2 Corinthians 3:18).

on Icons: their origins, meaning and use

2012-01-16T23:19:00.001Z

THE ORIGINS, MEANING AND USE OF SACRED ICONS

For two years my wife and I had the great privilege to live in the Orthodox Theological Academy in St Petersburg. We were sent from 1993-1995 by the Church Mission Society, an Anglican mission agency, to establish links with the Orthodox Church which was beginning to emerge from 70 years of persecution under the communist regime.

When we went, I had a very western and Protestant suspicion of icons; and yet by the end of our time I had come to cherish both icons and the tradition for which they stand. I could, did and do now venerate icons (the Orthodox make a clear distinction between the veneration of an icon and the worship which is due to the divine person which they may represent). Occasionally, when I am away from home, I may take out a photograph of my wife and kiss it. I do not confuse the photograph with her, but it is a way of expressing my love for her.

We became very aware of how significant icons were to the people among whom we prayed. We were taken to icons that ‘wept’ and to miracle working icons (I never was completely comfortable with that!). We heard stories of how God had brought about great deliverance through icons, and about the part that they played in the history of Russia.

And we also shared in the horror of those we were among when we heard about the destruction of the churches and of images venerated by the faithful for hundreds of years.

Video clips of the destruction of the Church of Christ the Saviour and icons http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoAEKHBtNIA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b23cMUwxjcw

This is an attempt to give a glimpse into the origins, meaning and use of sacred icons. It is by no means original, although may contain some original ideas. This was initially presented as a lecture at St Edmundsbury Cathedral. I have tried to use images which are in the public domain. However, if images that are not have crept in, I apologise, and sincerely hope that people will go to the sources of the documents to which I draw attention, where these images can be seen clearly.

The first part considers the earliest origins of Christian icons, and the second part considers four icons in detail: an icon of Christ, of Mary, of the descent of the Holy Spirit and of the Trinity.

INTRODUCTION TO THE EARLY IMAGERY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH:

The first Christian images appear about 200AD. They are found mainly in the catacombs and on sarcophagi (from 230). There are also the remarkable images from the church at Dura-Europos, which we can date with some confidence at about 230AD.

But we can go back a little further: The earliest Christian symbols seem to be the image sign of the Tau-rho and Chi-rho

An example from the Gospel of Thomas of the tau-rho being used in the word stauros, cross. Larry Hurtado argues that this is a sign that is used to refer to the crucified Jesus.

[see The staurogram in early christian manuscripts: the earliest visual reference to the crucified Jesus? Larry W. Hurtado, accessed at http://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/1204]

THE VERY FIRST IMAGES

Symbols:

For instance: the chi-rho, anchor, fish, ship and dove

Sign images:

People and stories: often associated with catacombs. Images of salvation from the Old Testament dominate: Daniel, Noah, Jonah. Also Christ healing the paralysed man and the raising of Lazarus. [The catacombs and sarcophagi of C4th multiply miracles of Jesus]

Faithful: Adoration of the Magi [catacombs, C3rd Sarcophagus?]. Orants (people with their hands raised in prayer), communal meals (these are often ambiguous. They could refer to multiplication of loaves, to last supper or to heavenly banquet), fish and loaves, baptisms (again, these are ambiguous: do they show us the baptism of Jesus or of a new disciple?).

Early images of Jesus

Based on Christian Iconography, A study of its origins, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969, Andre Grabar, http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Iconography-W-Lectures-Bollingen/dp/0691018308

The Good Shepherd [in ancient Roman art the figure of the shepherd carrying a lamb was a symbol of philanthropy]. To the left: Good Shepherd, Vatican museum, late C4th

The philosopher. Christ is represented in the same way that ancient philosophers were represented in pagan images. [The church moved away from representing Christ as a philosopher, and focused instead on the pastoral images and on the image of the Saviour. In more recent times there has been a resurgence of the wisdom tradition, and people are rediscovering Christ the philosopher. This could be a positive impulse driven by a desire to make the teachings of Christ known in a multi-faith world, but it could also lead to a downplaying of the uniqueness of Christ for our salvation]

The clean shaven and young Jesus (Grabar shows how the earliest Christian images were using the language of images of the time, and often the hero figure was represented in pagan art as a child).

The semitic Jesus, with beard (this image is taken from a wall painting in the the Commodilla Catacomb, C4th)

Grabar is open to the suggestion that there might be some connection with the historical Jesus (or that some of the images of the apostles are connected with the historical apostles. The earliest known images of Peter and Paul appear around C4th).

He quotes Eusebius (263-330), who was no fan of images: “They say that the statue is a portrait of Jesus .. Nor is it strange that those of the Gentiles who, of old, were benefited by our Saviour, should have done such things [that is, erected statues], since we have learned also that the likenesses of his apostles Paul and Peter, and of Christ himself, are preserved in paintings, the ancients being accustomed, as it is likely, according to a habit of the Gentiles, to pay this kind of honour indiscriminately to those regarded by them as deliverers.” (Historiae ecclesiasticae, VII xviii; Quoted Grabar, 68)

The apocryphal Acts of St John the Evangelist (C2nd) speak of how an image was made of St John the Evangelist, although in the Acts of St John, the apostle disapproves of images and forbids the veneration of images.

There is also the tradition, although purely based on a legend, that when Veronica offered Christ a towel on his way to the cross, the imprint of his face was left on the hand. And so it became known as the image of The Saviour, not made with human hands.

Certainly by early C5th, image makers grew increasingly conscious of the idea of a more personal image of Jesus, and Augustine and Chrysostom speak of the multiplication of images.

One of very few surviving pre-iconoclastic icons of Jesus (from St Catherine’s monastery, Sinai)

As the images multiplied, so different traditions began to develop. For instance the Constantinople tradition is more severe, while the Russian tradition is much softer. But there is, within all the traditions, a faithfulness to a particular image.

WHY DID THE EARLY CHURCH NOT USE IMAGES?

1. Reluctance to use images, based on the Jewish prohibition on images

2. Eschatological hope. If the return of Christ was imminent, why was there a need for images?

3. The early Christian communities were often poor (compare poverty of images in Christian church with complexity of images in Jewish synagogue at Dura Europus)

4. The early Christians may have used more images, but these were destroyed in the period of the iconoclasts.

WHY DO CHRISTIAN IMAGES APPEAR IN THE 3^rd CENTURY AND FLOURISH FROM THE 5^th CENTURY?

1. Grabar argues that they were there from the beginning, but become much more popular as Christianity grew in significance and began to compete seriously with other religions.

2. My own suggestion is that they appear with the theological focus on Christology.

The theology of icons is tied in with the theology of the incarnation. We cannot make any representation of God because God is unseen and beyond all our categories. But if Jesus Christ was God made flesh, then he can be portrayed in an image.

The period of Iconoclasm and destruction of images (730-787AD), ended with the 2^nd Council of Nicaea)

“... we declare that we defend free from any innovations all the written and unwritten ecclesiastical traditions that have been entrusted to us. One of these is the production of representational art; this is quite in harmony with the history of the spread of the gospel, as it provides confirmation that the becoming man of the Word of God was real and not just imaginary, and as it brings us a similar benefit. For, things that mutually illustrate one another undoubtedly possess one another's message. ... we decree with full precision and care that, like the figure of the honoured and life-giving cross, the revered and holy images, whether painted or made of mosaic or of other suitable material, are to be exposed in the holy churches of God, on sacred instruments and vestments, on walls and panels, in houses and by public ways; these are the images of our Lord, God and saviour, Jesus Christ, and of our Lady without blemish, the holy God-bearer, and of the revered angels and of any of the saintly holy men. The more frequently they are seen in representational art, the more are those who see them drawn to remember and long for those who serve as models, and to pay these images the tribute of salutation and respectful veneration. Certainly this is not the full adoration in accordance with our faith, which is properly paid only to the divine nature, but it resembles that given to the figure of the honoured and life-giving cross, and also to the holy books of the gospels and to other sacred cult objects”.^[13] (2^nd Council of Nicaea)

St. John of Damascus. In his treatise "On the Divine Images" he writes: "If we've made an image of the invisible God, we would certainly be in error... but we do not do anything of the kind; we do not err, in fact we make the image of God incarnate Who appeared on earth in the flesh, Who in His ineffable goodness, lived with men and assumed the nature, the volume and the color the flesh.”

"Since the invisible One became visible by taking on flesh, you can fashion the image of Him whom you saw. Since He who has neither body nor form nor quantity nor quality, Who goes beyond all grandeur by the excellence of His nature, He, being of divine nature, took on the condition of slave and reduced himself to quantity and quality by clothing himself in human features. Therefore paint on wood and present for contemplation Him who desired to become visible."

FOUR ICONS FROM THE POST ICONOCLASTIC PERIOD

[I am focusing on the four icons which Henri J.M. Nouwen selects in his book, Behold the Beauty of the Lord, Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, Indiana; http://www.amazon.com/Behold-Beauty-Lord-Praying-Icons/dp/0877933561 The following comments use some of his notes as my starting point for reflection.]

1. Rublev’s image of Jesus: the Saviour of Zvenigorod

Nouwen draws our attention to the fact that the icon is damaged, and the image scarred. And yet despite the damage that humans have done, there is something still astonishingly powerful about this image.

The face is shown as having a long nose and small mouth. The icon does not portray exactly the historical person, but the person as they are when glorified. The long nose and small mouth were seen as ideal characteristics, and the pinnacle of human beauty.

Christ is shown as having a thick neck. This is the image of the breath of God. He turns towards the observer. You look at him, but actually he is looking at you.

He wears a blue covering over a red undergarment. This is similar in Rublev’s icon of the Trinity (see below). Red is often the colour of martyrdom and blue the colour of divinity.

When looking at this icon, the observer is struck by the eyes, which see you, the observer, but which also see GodThey are also often struck by the mouth, which is the centre of the image. It is small, closed and beautiful (at first you think that Christ has his tongue out, but on closer inspection realize it is his top lip). Even though he is silent, he speaks. Often icons of Jesus show him with an open bible and a text, often with the words: ‘Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden’, or ‘Judge not that you be not judged, for the judgement you give will be the judgement you receive’)

2. Images of Mary

There are three different types of icons of Mary, 'the mother of God', or God-bearer, which find their roots in early Christian images (for many Orthodox a denial that Mary is the 'mother of God' is heard as a denial that her Son was truly God)

1. Virgin of the sign

Image of unknown woman and child from catacomb of Cimitero Maggiore, Rome. Note how the C13th icon of our lady of the sign from Yaroslavl follows the very early tradition.

2. Hodegetria
The Virgin of Tikhvin. She points to Jesus.

3. Virgin of tenderness

The Virgin of Vladimir is one of the best known examples of this style. Mary regarded as Holy Protector of Russia, partly because of the icon. Notice the similarity in this style with the with the pagan sarcophagus, S, Sebastiano, Lapidary Museum (right).

This is one of the most venerated Russian icons, which originated in Constantinople. In about 1131 the Greek Patriarch gave the icon to the Grand Duke of Kiev. The icon was moved to Vladimir and then to Moscow. For an account of how a tradition and legend grows up about an icon, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theotokos_of_Vladimir

Reflections on the icon.

1. The robe/mantle. She is robed in red. Red is the colour of martyrdom. The mantle with the stars point to Mary’s virginity, suffering and the fact that she is ‘God-bearer’ (theotokos)

2. The eyes: There is a profound sorrow in her eyes which reflects the pain which she had to bear: the scandal surrounding Jesus’ birth, the misunderstanding and at times, sense of rejection, that came from his ministry, and of course the pain that came to her from his death on the cross. Perhaps there is also the pain that she sees when she looks out at the world.

In Vassily Grossman’s, Life and Fate: Viktor’s mother says: “I’m used to looking into people’s eyes for symptoms of diseases - glaucoma, cataract. Now I can no longer look at people’s eyes like that; what I see now is the reflection of the soul. A good soul, Vityenka! A sad, good-natured soul, defeated by violence, but at the same time triumphant over violence. A strong soul, Vitya!” (ch 19)
The eyes look in to herself: “Mary pondered these things in her heart”. In the Feast of the Nativity we sing: ‘Why do you wonder, O Mary, and why do you ponder so within yourself?' The icon gives a sense of profound stillness
But the eyes also look out, but not at you the viewer. Henri Nouwen, in Sacred Images, writes of how he, as a child of our psychologised society, longs to be looked at. As he stands in front of this icon, he wants Mary to look at him. But she doesn’t. She does not look at you the viewer, but she does see you. She is looking at your heart. And there is a profound challenge to us: what does purity see when it looks in your heart?

3. Her hands: Her right hand is supporting the child, while her left hand does not point to the child, but invites us to come closer to him. This is not exclusive between mother and child. Many images we observe from the outside. What makes this different is that the viewer is invited to be part of this.

4. The child: At first we think that this icon is about Mary. But the more we look at it, the more we realize it is about the child. He is fully robed in gold. His face, while being that of a young man, also reflects timelessness and wisdom. His arms embrace her neck (they are well out of proportion). She does not hold him. He holds her. His eyes look to her eyes. Her mouth is almost an extension of his mouth, and her head is an extension of his head (the way that the golden ribbon on the edge of her mantle merges with the royal robe of her son; the thickness of his neck). He is the one who breathes life into her.

In fact Mary always appears with Jesus (apart from historic icons, and icons in which she is praying to the Saviour)

So what is going on here?

At a simple level, this icon says something about mother and child, and particularly mother and son. The relationship between a Russian mother and her son could, we discovered, be quite complex. But it is more than an icon to stand in front of with a prayer list, or an icon to process around a city. It is a window into eternity. It is an invitation to communion, to intimacy with God.

It reveals the eternal relationship between the Mary, the God-bearer, and her son. We might pray to Mary, but what Mary is saying is that we should come to her son.

Mary is revealed as the type, the image, of the church, the people of God (cf Revelation 12).
She hears the word of God, she obeys, Christ is born in her. The church, beloved of Christ, is the focus of his gaze. He looks and he sees. The task of the church is to know him (and to know him is to love him), to be still in him, to suffer, to invite people to come to him.

3. The icon of the Descent of the Holy Spirit (15^th Century Russian)

We cannot separate icons from the worshiping community, the church.

1. The layout of the Orthodox Church

Porch - place of outsiders, narthex - place of catechumenates, nave (navy, ship = ark) - place of faithful, sanctuary - place of God.

The liturgy is a drama. It tells the story of creation, fall, redemption and salvation.

There are three movements:

1. A movement of closing and opening of the doors to paradise (the central ‘royal doors’). Vespers begins with the doors open; they close, and they remain closed until Jesus goes into the sanctuary and communion is distributed. The gates to heaven and intimacy with God were closed at the fall, but are now opened with the death and resurrection of Jesus.

2. A movement of divine grace: the small entrance (gospel), and the great entrance (elements). Both come out from the sanctuary to the people and back into sanctuary. It represents the self-offering of God.

3. A movement of the faithful: from the porch, through the narthex, to the nave and the place of receiving communion in front of the royal doors, which are now open. God and man meet at the royal doors surrounded by the iconostasis. The faithful on earth and the saints in glory gather together.

2. The Iconostasis

There is a pattern to the iconostasis. In this portable iconostasis (Russian mid C16th), the top row is the row of prophets who ‘presage’ Christ. The middle row is the festival row (the Holy days of the church, beginning here with the birth of the Virgin and finishing with the Trinity), and the lower row is the deisis row: a row of icons of saints facing in to Christ the ruler of all with their hands raised in prayer.

Sometime there is a fourth row, called the local row, in which icons of the saints who are important for that church are located.

We are focusing here on the festival row. This is the row of icons which tell the story of Christ. There is not a pattern that all follow. However, they often begin with the annunciation (or conception of Anna) and end with the Trinity or transfiguration or assumption of Mary (these three icons speak of the final communion of God and humanity)

The icon of the descent of the Holy Spirit draws on earlier graphic traditions. There is, for instance, an image of Aristotle surrounded by a semi-circle of disciples. Early cathedral churches would also have had the bishop seated on a throne at the apex, and the clergy seated in a semi-circle in the sanctuary (still reflected in the shape of many of our chapter houses). In this early wooden icon from Mt Sinai, we see the Holy Spirit proceeding from Christ.

Looking at the 15^th Century Russian icon we notice that it appears that the disciples are meeting in the open air surrounded by buildings. This is a traditional way of presenting what is going on in a building. An inverse perspective is also used. The figures of the disciples get larger the deeper you go into the picture.

At the top of the image is a circle. God is often represented by this circle, and you will notice that in other icons, such as the transfiguration, the circle is often depicted behind Jesus on the mountain top, and in the icon of the harrowing of hell, the circle is behind Jesus, but now right among us.

The rays represent the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, and you can see small tongues of fire on the head of each of the disciples.

This icon is not a depiction of the actual events of the first Pentecost (which, from the account in Acts 2, was quite chaotic), but at the inner meaning. God for us, who became God with us in Christ, is now God within and among us. The Spirit comes and the apostles confess Jesus as Lord, cry out Abba Father; they are given words to speak, wisdom to guide their decisions; the Spirit empowers them to forgive sins and bring good news of God’s love.

But first, the Spirit creates the church.

We live in a world of individualism. I worry about my prayer life, my ministry, my fruitfulness, my faith. Here it is very different. The 12 (although we note that the 12 include Paul, Luke and Mark - Pentecost is an event which transcends time and is for the whole church) are shown both in community and in their individuality and uniqueness.

On the left are Peter, Matthew, Luke, Andrew, Bartholomew and a very young Thomas

On the right are Paul, John, Mark, Simon, James and Philip

Each is an individual and each has story to tell. For instance the four gospel writers and Paul hold a bible in their hands.

But if they are shown as specific individuals, they are united not by the compatibility of their personalities, but by the absent but present centre, and by the rays of divine Spirit.

Standing at the door, and holding in his towel 12 scrolls is the figure of Cosmos, who now represents the multitudes who come on the day of Pentecost. He stands outside, and ‘represents all the people living in darkness to whom the gift of the apostles teaching has been brought’. (Henri Nouwen). The white of the scrolls is in contrast to the black behind him. [In icons, black is the symbol of death and sin and the tomb. It can also be the symbol of the place of meeting with God].

4. The icon of the Trinity

The church followed a very ancient tradition which saw the three visitors to Abraham in Genesis 18 as the three persons of the Trinity. That is represented in both early writings and also in early images. The image to the left is a wall painting on catacombs under the Via Latina, Rome.

Over time those images became more complex.

However, Andrei Rublev (c1360-c1427) gave the image a profound simplicity as he focused on the three figures.

These three figures are angels representing the three persons. This is the nearest that traditional iconography comes to representing the Father (elsewhere His presence is represented by a hand reaching down from the sky or the divine circle.)

However, the angel on the left represents the Father. He is wearing gold. Behind the angel is a house: ‘In my Father’s house are many rooms’. Behind the angel representing the Son (wearing the red of martyrdom and the priestly stole) is a tree: the tree of life, the tree of the cross. Behind the Spirit, who wears green, is a rock: the wilderness, the place of meeting with God.

And yet, although there are differences in the figures, there is also a unity. They are the same age; they have the same face and hairstyle (apparently quite a chic hairstyle in Byzantium!)
They all wear the blue of divinity, and hold a staff of authority.

This is not a static icon. There are movements within the icon.

There is a movement of love. The son and the Father gaze at each other. The Spirit looks at the Father, but also has that inward look that we have seen above.

There is a movement, a circle, of submission. The Spirit and the Son incline their heads to the Father (and the tree and the rock are inclined toward the house)

There is a movement, a circle, of blessing, beginning with the hand of the Father, going through that of the Son and proceeding out to the observer through the Spirit. .

And this is where this icon becomes so powerful. Rublev uses an inverted perspective, so that the focus of the image is not in the distance (as we are normally used to see), but in the person standing before the icon. This is not just an image of three, but an image of four. The observer becomes the fourth person. They can stand outside, or they can join in with the movement of submission, and in the movement of blessing, as they draw near in surrender. The small opening in the table around which the figures are seated indicates that this is a tomb, and offerings for the deceased would be placed in that opening. As we come forward to offer ourselves and to receive from the cup (and the outline shape of the Father and Spirit make the shape of a chalice in which we find the Son), so we too are invited into this relationship of love.

CONCLUSION: What do icons mean for the faithful?

For believing Orthodox, the images represented in the icons are not just images, but ‘re-present’ the person who they depict. When one stands in front of an icon of the Trinity, one stands in the presence of the Trinity.

But the images and icons that we have looked at are also:

A witness to the reality of the incarnation. They are only possible because God became flesh, and therefore can be represented.

Icons are a witness to how God can use matter. Because the invisible became visible and God became matter and used matter to save us, so things of matter can acquire the power to bring his salvation to us.

Icons are a witness to the tradition of the church: to the scriptures and writings and traditions of the church. Much more recent art rejoices in the triumph of individualism. I am invited to stand before an empty canvas and express myself. But painting (it is called ‘writing’) an icon is of a completely different order. The writer has to follow tradition: prepare themselves with particular prayers, use a well established formula of wood and paints, and follow the tradition for the particular icon which they are writing. There is a place for some individuality, but it is limited. Icons are a witness to the fact that the church, the people of God throughout time and space, is a bigger reality than any individual.

Icons are a witness to another world: a world of beauty (although we might find the figures strange, to the classical world the figures represented humanity at its most glorious), and of intimacy with God. They also witness to a world that is so much bigger than the world that we conceive of around us. The flat perspective that we find in many icons, and certainly the reverse perspective that we have seen, take us through the image to a world that either goes beyond us for eternity or grows bigger and bigger. And yet it begins with a concrete person, Jesus Christ. CS Lewis imagines this in an astonishingly powerful way in his The Last Battle. As the children journey further and deeper into the real Narnia, beyond the last battle and the final judgement, so they discover it gets larger and larger. This makes the world of the tardis look positively tame

Icons are not just a vision of another world. They are a window and a door into that world. As we stand and pray to the reality of Christ represented in the image, so that world breaks into this world. We glimpse that world, but we are also offered an entry point into that world. In the end it really is all about communion, a relationship, with God.

on joy, worship and meeting Jesus

2012-01-06T15:35:00.001Z

Matthew 2:1-12

Listen to a version of this talk

O Lord my God, if what I say is of me, then I pray that it will be forgiven by both you and by those who belong to you; but if what I say is of you, may those who belong to you receive it, delight in it and drink fully of it, that we might become more fully yours. We pray this in the name of your Son, Jesus. Amen.

There is something that has bugged me in the way that Matthew tells this story.

He writes, ‘When they saw the star they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him’. (Matthew 2:10-11)

Why do they rejoice when they see the star and not when they have entered the house and see Jesus?

But Matthew is telling us something that is quite important.

The wise men rejoice (literally, the Greek is ‘rejoiced exceedingly with a great joy’) when they see the sign pointing to Jesus. But when they see Jesus, they worship.

And in case you think that I am making a big thing of something very little, look at Matthew 28.

In Matthew 28, some of the women have come to the tomb where Jesus was laid after his death. They see that the stone has been removed, and an angel speaks to them. And in verse 5 the angel says, ““Do not be afraid .. Jesus is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him. Now I have told you.” So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell the disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them .. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshipped him.”

It is exactly the same. There is joy when they hear the message that Jesus is alive, there is joy at the sign pointing to Jesus. But if you notice, there is worship when they come face to face with Jesus.

I think there are other places which speak of the joy which comes when we realize that Jesus is near:

Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.”

1 Peter 1:8f, “Though you have not yet seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

There is a difference between joy and worship.

Joy is an emotion. It is a gift which comes from God. It is, certainly in the context that we are looking at here, a result of revelation – when God has shown us something in our head or in our heart. And here God has shown something, revealed something to these people, and they respond with joy. (cf note the connection between joy and revelation in Luke 10:17-21

Worship however is bigger than joy. It is a choice, a decision, an act. It may spring from an emotion, and godly joy certainly should lead to worship. But worship is not an emotion. It is an act. It is the act of meeting with Jesus.

And the act of worship of the wise men was to come into the presence of the king, to kneel before the baby, Immanuel (‘God with us’) and to offer themselves and to offer their gifts to him.

And the act of worship of the women at the tomb of Jesus, when he came to them, was to fall down and clasp his feet.

The act of worship is a response, not to the message of Jesus, but to a meeting with Jesus; to a meeting with the one who is more beautiful, more holy, more powerful, more radiant than anything or anyone that we can imagine

For the wise men, the knowledge that Jesus was near came through a star which broke all the rules. It was a quantum star; it appeared and then disappeared, and then came to rest over a house in Bethlehem. I like that.

Astrologers are people who believe that our fate is determined by the position of the stars. They try to work out what our destiny is. 99% of what goes for astrology today is rubbish. 1% is evil. The story is told of the local paper which had a horoscope column. The person who wrote it went on holiday, so one of the other journalists stepped in. He started to write the usual stuff, ‘Today you will meet a tall dark handsome stranger’, and so on. But he got bored. So for one star sign he wrote, ‘The woes of yesteryear will appear as nothing compared to the disaster which will befall you today’. The switchboard was overwhelmed and he got the sack.

Astrology will never work because reality is bigger than all our rules and laws and predictions. Science is only as good as its last observation. If, for instance, the next person who came through that door was wearing a blue sweater, and the next and the next and the next; and if the next million people came through that door wearing a blue sweater, we might start to predict that the next person coming through the door will be wearing a blue sweater. And indeed they are, and the next million are, and it becomes an established rule, an established law. And a genius comes up with a theory as to why that might be, and we develop those theories, and we have a scientific law: ‘People who walk through that door wear blue sweaters’. And then someone walks through the door wearing a red sweater. I love it. Reality is always going to be bigger than our rules and our laws.

And this star which appears and disappears, breaks the rules. It points to a reality that is bigger than what we can begin to imagine about the stars.

And when the wise men see this star resting over the place where Jesus lay, they were filled with joy. They knew that they were right; they knew that this was the place.

For us, the knowledge that Jesus, the Son of God, the one who gives life and whose kingdom is one of justice and peace and joy, is alive and is near may come in many ways.

It may come as a result of a long search, and much thinking. It may come as a result of a remarkable event which breaks all the rules: a miraculous healing, an astonishing answer to prayer, an experience of God, a dream or a vision. Yancey writes of a middle aged woman from a strict moslem background who had dreams and visions for a period of 14 years before she finally surrendered to Isa, Jesus.

But the main way that Jesus has revealed to us that he is very near is through his word and his promises.

The Psalmist writes, ‘Your testimonies (meaning law or ways) are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart’. (Psalm 119)

And on the day of his resurrection, Jesus walks with two of his disciples. They do not recognize Jesus. They think he is dead, and they are profoundly depressed. But Jesus gives them an impromptu bible study. He shows them that the Messiah had to suffer before he entered into his glory. And later they speak of that bible study. They said, Even though we did not recognize him .. “were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)

At the beginning of this New Year, read the bible.

The words of the bible point us to Jesus.

Peter writes, We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts .. (2 Peter 1:19)

Try to read a passage each day. Use notes if that helps. If you say that you will, but don’t manage to do so, don’t give up. Maybe read through what you have missed (a sort of binge-reading), or simply go to where you should be, and come back to the bit you missed next year! A number of people said that they did read through the New Testament last year and that they found it tremendously helpful. We’re going to have the same readings on our notice sheet as last year, so if you didn’t do it then, you can do it this year. And if you did read through the New Testament, read it again. Or read the psalm or the Old Testament reading for the day. If you want joy, real joy, then get to know your bible; get to know the promises and the testimonies of God. And ask God to help you understand what you are reading. Work at it. The wise men saw the star, but they had to follow the star to find the place where Jesus lay. And they first went to the wrong place. And Paul writes to Timothy about what is written in the bible, “Think about these things, for the Lord will give you insight into all of this” (2 Timothy 2:7). Indeed there are times when the harder that we need to think or reflect, the greater the joy when we realize what the passage is actually saying.

But, and there is a big BUT, never get so hung up on the sign, or on the bible, that you do not actually go in to meet Jesus. Don’t stop with the joy!

I belong to a tradition which stresses the fact that our worship is a response to the love of God and involves everything that we do, our whole lifestyle. (cf Romans 12:1ff). Worship really is a 24/7 event.

But Matthew reminds us that worship can also be an act, a moment which shapes and defines us: who we are, how we will live, and what our destiny will be.

The wise men would not have been so wise if, having got to the end of their journey, they saw the star over the place, they rejoiced and then turned round and went home.

The women would have been very foolish if, having heard the message that Jesus was alive, and having been told that they would meet him in Galilee, they had rejoiced but simply gone home.

And do not spend your time studying the bible, making new connections, receiving great joy as you uncover new things, but never actually meeting with Jesus. Don’t be like miners digging for that seam of gold that they know is down there, but constantly getting waylaid by little crystals that are glistening along the way.

Do not be like the people to whom Jesus said, “You diligently study the scriptures thinking that in them you have eternal life. These are the very scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life”. (John 5:39)

Of course we will not fully meet with Jesus until we see him face to face in heaven. Then we will be taken fully out of ourselves and we will worship him. He will be our joy, our peace, our everything.

But, even though we cannot meet him here in the same way that the wise men at the birth or the women at the tomb met him, we can still meet him. There is a place for the act of worship.

It can be here in church, when we silently kneel before him, or when we come up to receive communion and invite him to come and live again in our deepest being.

It can be as we walk or drive home after this service, and give ourselves to Jesus. It can be at home, when we kneel down beside our bed and surrender ourselves to him.

We meet him in those acts of worship, when having heard about him with joy, that he is so very close, we respond to his presence and kneel down before him, offer him all that we are and all that we have, and invite him to come beside us to be our friend, to lead us as our Lord, to be beneath us as our rock, to surround us as our protector, and to come into our very being as our life. We worship when we ask him to shape our mind that we might think like Jesus, to melt our heart that we might love like Jesus, and to mould our wills that we might live like Jesus.

A talk for a crib service

2011-12-24T12:10:00.000Z

Jesus' birthday party

You are a King. You’ve had a baby. He or She is going to be the next ruler. You want to celebrate their birth. You are going to have a party.

Because you’re a big King and you want people to know how big you are, you throw a big party: big parade; a big palace, amazing fireworks, glamorous VIP’s, lavish gifts.

You’re a bigger King. You’ve had a baby. He or she is going to be the next ruler. You want to celebrate their birth. You are going to have a party.

Because you’re a bigger King and you want people to know that you are bigger, you throw a bigger party: a bigger parade, a grander palace, more amazing fireworks, A-list glamorous VIP’s, astonishingly expensive gifts

You see, in our world, the bigger the king, the bigger the party: you need to show people how big you are.

So what if the one born is the Greatest of kings .. the King of kings and the Ruler of rulers.

What a party!!

And yet Jesus, the Son of God, the King of kings, was born in a cowshed, to a couple of peasants, and the visitors were some shepherds and some odd people from the East.

Why?

The answer is simple: God did not need to show anyone how big he was. He does that every day when we look at this creation. He chose instead to show how great his love for us is. Jesus came into the mess of a stable, into the mess of our world, to save us from the mess of our lives.

And because of that, today millions and millions of people celebrate his birthday. Today his birthday party is far bigger than that of any other ruler. It is a party that has a parade of millions singing his praises; his palace is the universe; the fireworks can be seen every night when we look up in the sky; everyone is invited; and we don’t just give him gifts, those who receive his love him give him their lives.

Welcome to Jesus’ birthday party. Happy Christmas.

A Christmas message 2011

2011-12-17T12:41:00.000Z

The light shines in the darkness

When Jesus was born that first Christmas, it was dark

He was born to a people under foreign occupation

The law of God, all that was right and true, had been trampled underfoot.

Evil and fear and death ruled.

It seemed as if God, if he existed, had abandoned them.

But then, John writes, ‘The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world’. (John 1:9)

For many people, particularly this year, things can feel quite dark

• Anxiety overwhelms you: exams, someone you love is sick; maybe you are facing serious illness

• Financial worries – not sure whether you will get a job when you leave school; you’ve been made redundant; not sure about your job; the pension is not going quite as far as it used to; and people talk about economic melt down and a repeat of the great depression.

• Facing Christmas alone – someone has walked out on you; you’ve been bereaved; the children have moved far away

• Deep disappointment – with a god who we professed to believe in, with others, or maybe with ourselves. We know that we’ve deluded ourselves. We’ve let others down: there have been too many compromises. We think back to the dreams, to the pledges and vows and we look at the reality. And we consider our lives and we realise that we don’t know where we are going. We are lost.

When Jesus was born a star appeared.

The nearest star (apart from our sun) is 4.2 light years away: that is only 25000 billion miles away. The furthest known star is a mere 78000 billion billion miles away.

Stars are phenomenally bright. We think our sun is fairly bright. But this year they have discovered a star, estimated to have a mass 225 times larger than our sun. They’ve called it by the very special name R136a1! It is 8,700,000 times brighter than our sun. But we can’t see it – unless we have an amazingly powerful telescope. Why? Because it is 165000 light years away - a billion billion miles away!

So even though these stars are phenomenally bright, if you are in the middle of London, you won’t even see them.

If you are in one of the villages near Bury St Edmunds, you might see them shine quite clearly

But it was when we were out in a remote part of Tanzania, and looked up, that we saw the most astonishing night sky.

You can really only see a star when you are prepared to turn off all the lesser lights, to go out into the darkness, to accept the darkness, and to look for the star.

When Jesus was born, a star appeared.

The thing was, nobody saw it. Oh they saw it up there, but they didn’t actually see it. Nobody except some wise men. But they were looking for it.

They had read the ancient Jewish scriptures, and they had come across prophecies that a star would arise which would announce the birth of a king, who would be born to rule the earth.

And so they set out on a journey to ‘follow’ this star – to see where it would lead them. And eventually, after turning again to those same ancient Jewish scriptures, the star led them to Bethlehem, and to the place where Joseph and Mary were staying, and it led them to Jesus.

And when they came to Jesus, those wise men did something astonishing. They stopped looking up at the stars, and they looked down at a different star. They stopped following the stars, and they began to follow a different star. Not a star up there, but a star lying in a cattle feeding trough. And they offer him gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. And they kneel down and they offer him themselves.

Very few people saw the star in the sky.

Very few people saw that the baby in the manger was the ‘true light’ come into the world.

The problem is not that the evidence is not there.

The problem is that we are not prepared to go out into the darkness to look.

There are several ways of dealing with the darkness.

The first is to celebrate darkness: to honour all that is shameful and evil, all that strips people of dignity and value and respect and life. It is to say that there is no god, no ultimate value, no final judgement – and basically whatever you want to do, whatever drive is in you - do it – providing you are not caught out. It is the ‘eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die’ philosophy.
It is also the ultimate form of escapism.

The second is to pretend that the darkness does not exist. It is to pretend that I will never die, to sentimentalise death to death with wishful thinking: ‘Oh they are going to be with granny’. And this denial of the darkness is to pretend that I never sin (well not in the ways that matter). It is to clothe myself in a righteous morality that can be so shocked when others fall (but of course loves to talk about it), without seeing the filth that is in me. Jesus spoke to people like this. He called them ‘white-washed tombs’. They looked great on the outside, but inside they were dead.

There is a third way. It is much harder, but far more honest. It is to go out into the darkness and to look: to look at death and to realise what death is. One of the things that I admire about the new atheists is that they are prepared to look death and non-existence in the face. My challenge to them is that they then do not live the logic of that reality. But if we are to go out into the darkness we also need to be prepared to look at the darkness that is within us – the fears and anxieties that drive us or paralyse us, the lusts that make us treat other people or objects as things that exist to satisfy our desires, the self-centred pride that means that we think that we are the most important thing in the universe, the sentimentalism which weeps at films but hasn't got time to visit our elderly shut-in neighbour, the judgementalism and unforgiveness, the cold heart. To go out into the darkness, is to realise that the darkness is there, and that it has a dreadful hold on us.

And if, this Christmas time, we are prepared to look beyond the fairy lights on the Christmas trees, beyond the glitter and the tinsel, and all the things that this world offers – and if we are prepared to go out into the darkness, and look, we might just, like the wise men, glimpse the glory of a star.

Because the message of the Christmas is that the darkness does not have the final word.

There is a star. Not a star up there in the sky; but a star which is described by Peter as the word of God, a star which ‘rises in our hearts’ (2 Peter 1:19)

It is hard to see, but not impossible.

Some people suddenly see it. It is like a star exploding into existence. Those are the people who are dramatically converted. For many others this star just gets gradually brighter. They know they couldn’t see it, but now they do.

But however it happens, we become aware that there is something more powerful than the darkness; that God exists and he has not abandoned us; In his love, he has stepped into our dark world; Another name that Jesus was given was Immanuel, and Immanuel means ‘God with us’. We hear the message that because of Jesus we are forgiven. And we hear the message that death is not the end – not because we wish it to be so – but because Jesus Christ rose from the dead. And we hear the message that this Jesus is alive and that we can know him, as those wise men knew him.

At first this light seems very faint, but as we focus on it we realise that it is brighter than all those stars put together. It is, in fact, the source of all light, of all creation, (even of the Higs bosun!). And when the sun has ceased shining and when all the stars up there have been extinguished, this light will continue to shine. This is the light that is the life-source for all things.

At first this light seems so far away – thousands of light years away - but as we focus on it we realise that it, that he, is closer to us than our very breathing.

And I urge you to be like the wise men; to have the courage to go out into the darkness and to look for the star; seek Jesus, the true light that came into the world; and when you see him, I beg you, for the sake of your eternal soul, welcome him, kneel down and offer him yourself.

In our fear, he offers peace

In our guilt and shame, he offers us forgiveness and a new start.

In our emptiness, he offers fullness

In our confusion, he offers focus and identity

In our meaninglessness he can bring purpose

In a world that offers us no hope, no future, he can offer us an eternal destiny

In a world of death, he alone can offer us life.

In our darkness, he really does offer light and joy.

How to read the book of Revelation

2011-12-14T13:08:00.098Z

Revelation 12

Guidelines for reading the book of Revelation

· Revelation is revelation! However it is not just about a revealing of the future. It does do that. But it does much more. It is about a revealing of the reality behind the present. It draws back the curtain so that we can see what is really going on. It is a bit like watching a Punch and Judy show. A child, who is completely wrapped up in what she is seeing, will think that that is all that there is. But we know that if someone pulls away the curtain below the stage, we would see what is really going on.
Now I am not saying that we are simply puppets being manipulated by some celestial puppeteer. But I am saying that behind this current reality there is a greater reality.

So, for instance, the Christians of John’s time were a tiny minority people in a very hostile world. They lived in a state that demanded your ultimate allegiance, and an emperor who claimed to be divine. They were part of a community that was being crushed by her oppressors, and they themselves were being imprisoned, tortured, fed to the lions and used as human torches – to entertain others.
But through John, God pulls the curtain away and shows them a bigger picture: of a world that is beyond time and space, where God and the Lamb reign, where thousands upon thousands worship, where a battle has been fought and won – ‘by the lamb who was slain’, but that – for a short time – the earth has become the scene of this celestial battle. And he shows how their prayers matter; and he shows that there is a meaning to the sufferings, and there will be an end to the sufferings, and that God’s justice and mercy and kingdom will triumph.

· Revelation tells us one story from many different perspectives. We get several series of sevens through the book of Revelation: seven churches, seven seals, trumpets, thunders, bowls and angels with seven plagues - the seven bowls of God’s wrath. And people ask, 'are we meant to read the events of those different sevens as subsequent to each other? Are there first the disasters of the seven seals, and then the seven trumpets and so on?'

But John does not say, ‘after this, came that’, but ‘and then I looked’. In other words, ‘I looked at it from this angle, and then I looked at it from that angle’. And so I am persuaded by those who argue that we are not talking about subsequent events, but rather about the same events from a different perspective.

And so I would currently argue that chapters 2-3 of Revelation are speaking of the same experience within time that chapters 4-16 are speaking. But they present it in very different ways. And each of the three series of sevens looks at the same reality from a different perspective. So the seven seals present that reality from the perspective of the saints; the seven trumpets from the perspective of the proclamation of the gospel; the seven bowls from the perspective of the final judgement on the beast and his followers.

Chapters 17-19 are different. I suspect that they are speaking of the very end, and of the coming of the beast (the anti-Christ), 'who once was, now is not and will come' (Revelation 16:8), and his acolyte (we've been introduced to the beast and his acolyte in Revelation 13). He will reign for a short while. But then, in chapter 19, the beast and his armies are defeated by the one who is Faithful and True. Chapter 20 (in my understanding) speaks of the same events, but looks at them from a different perspective: once again, at the end of time, just before Christ returns, there will be a dreadful battle before he triumphs.

· Revelation uses apocalyptic language. That is a particular style of language which transcends any specific time or culture.

The danger is that it makes Revelation both hard to understand, and also a fertile playground for those who would come up with loopy and sometimes even dangerous interpretations. One man who used to come on and off to my previous parish was totally obsessed with the meaning of all the numbers in Revelation (gematria), and used to argue for some of the oddest things. We are specifically warned about interpreting the obscure by the even more obscure, and about 'speculations' which do not produce faith or love (1 Timothy 1:3f).

But there are many controls.
First, we need to test our interpretation of Revelation over against what we are told elsewhere in the bible. So, for instance, Jesus speaks of the end of time and space as we know it, and he says that nobody knows when it will be, and that it will be sudden and unexpected. And Paul, Peter and John speak of ‘the last days’, of how the spirit of anti-christ is present in the world, and that we will see many speak and in the act in the spirit of the anti-christ, but that towards the end there will be the great Anti-Christ, and a time of suffering for the people of God. And they speak of how Christ will then return and establish his Kingdom.

Second, John himself tells us the meaning of particular symbols (in Revelation 1, he explains the 7 stars and the 7 lamp stands). But, for instance, we need to know that 7 is the number of completeness, the divine number, and that 6 is therefore the human number (Revelation 13:18). So the significance of the number of the beast, 666 – as, one of my tutors said – is that it is God’s way of blowing a raspberry at the devil. It is the purely human number. It is not 777!

Or if we take the number 12: it is the number of the church (12 tribes, 12 apostles). 144000 is 12000 x 12000, the numerical number of the church (Revelation 21:12-21)

Third, the Old Testament really helps. What of 3 1/2 - whether days, months, years? 3 ½ is half of 7. It is a way of saying ‘a significant time, but a short time’. 3 ½ lunar years is 42 months or 1260 days. But the imagery of 3½ has already been used. It is another way of saying, ‘a time, times and half a time’, which Daniel tells us is the length of time that the saints, the people of God will suffer at the hands of their persecutors (Daniel 7:25; 12:7).

Or to take another example. In our reading, we learn of a ‘red dragon’ who tries to devour the child: that is no more China than it is Montreal. ‘Red’, we have seen earlier, (Rev 6:4) is the colour of the one who would strip peace from this world. And the dragon? It is the same word that the Greek version of the Old Testament, which John would have used, used for ‘serpent’ (Genesis 3:1) or ‘Leviathan’ (Isaiah 27:1). The dragon is satan (cf Revelation 20:2). And in chapter 13 we read how the dragon summons the beast and his assistant, and the beast exercises the authority of the dragon. But notice in Revelation 13:11 how one of the beasts is described: ‘It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon’. In other words, the dragon and his beasts try to imitate God and the Lamb. But when the beast speaks, then you will know him.

Christians throughout the ages have tried to identify the beast. He has been identified with Nero, certain popes, Oliver Cromwell, Mao, Stalin or the spirit which says that it is all about money. Well, maybe, but the fact that the end has not come suggests to me that they were not the beast, even if some of them spoke or acted in the spirit of the beast (which is the spirit of the anti-Christ). And we do need to be aware. I heard that spirit speak last week: when I was at a meeting and ethical investment was mentioned. Someone said, and knowing them I’m sure they didn’t fully mean it, ‘investment is too important today for us to worry about ethics’. But the spirit of the beast is the same as the spirit of the anti-Christ – it speaks against God and against Jesus Christ, and it denies that Jesus Christ is the son of God or that he came as a human being (1 John 2:18-23; 2 John 7). And maybe we will see many mini-beasts in our world, before the last mega-beast appears.

Or another example. In chapter 12, we are introduced to a woman: ‘clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet’. We are, of course, not to take that language literally. Instead we think of other places in the bible where that sort of language is used. And so we remember Joseph saying how, in one of his dreams, ‘Behold the sun, the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me’, meaning his father, mother and eleven brothers (Genesis 37:9). It is the first time that the people of God, for that is what the family of Jacob was, are described as sun, moon and stars. Or we think of the lover saying to the beloved, ‘Who is this who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun’ (Song of Solomon 6:10). The early Christians quickly connected the lover with Christ, and the beloved with the beloved of Christ, the bride of Christ, the church – the people of God. So the woman is the church, the people of God. There are, of course, fascinating connections between the woman and Mary, and you may wish to do your own study by looking at how John uses the word ‘mother’ of Mary in John’s gospel (cf. John 2:1-5; John 19:26-27).

But that brings me specifically to chapter 12. The focus here is on the woman, the church, the people of God. She begins the chapter (vv1-6), and she ends the chapter (vv13-17).

And this woman gives birth to a child ‘who will rule all the nations with an iron sceptre’. That is language which comes from Ps 2:9, and it is language that is echoed again in Revelation 19:15, when John speaks of the one who is faithful and true, whose eyes are blazing fire, and who has on his head many crowns. It reminds us of the one we met in Revelation 1. It is language that is used of one 'like a son of man', the Lamb on the throne, who carries this name, ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords’ (19:16)

In 12:17, it speaks of her other children (v17): ‘Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring – those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus’.

This woman is the church, the true and faithful Israel, the people of God. She is the community who gives birth to Jesus, the Christ. He was promised to the people of God in the Old Testament; he was born a descendant of the great king of

Israel

(the star of David); he was born of the people who were faithful to the promises of God. But since then, the woman has had more children, as people have become part of that community (Revelation 12:17). And this woman is later described as the new Jerusalem, the holy city, the bride of Christ (Revelation 21:2).

One of the big themes that we find in Revelation is that it challenges the idolatrous claims of this world.

The ancient world claimed that Roma, the city of the emperors, was the new queen of gods and mother of the world’s saviour. She is the new 'Egypt', 'Babylon', the seat of human power which has set itself up against God. And Roma is the city of the emperors, the city of power, the place where it all happens. She is described as ‘the woman clothed in purple and scarlet’ (Revelation 17:4; 18:16). But how does a woman clothed in purple and scarlet compete with a woman ‘clothed with the sun and with the moon under her feet and a crown of 12 stars on her head’

And what of the claims we make for our great civilisations today? What about these words?

“One hand in the air for the big city,
Street lights, big dreams all looking pretty,
no place in the World that can compare,
New York!!!!
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
There's nothing you can’t do, Now you're in New York!!!
These streets will make you feel brand new,
the lights will inspire you,
Let's hear it for New York, New York, New York”

The challenge is simple. Where do you look to for the fulfilment of all your hopes and dreams: New York, London, Brussels or the new Jerusalem, the city of God?

The woman in chapter 12 is the church. Over against her stands the dragon, satan, who wishes to devour her child when he is born. There are echoes of King Herod and the slaughter of the innocents here. But the child is snatched up to God and to his throne. That is all this particular chapter tells us of the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus!
The woman then flees to the wilderness. She will be there for 1260 days. It means, as we have seen, ‘a short while’. She will be kept safe, but her children will suffer.

And the reason that the children of the woman will suffer? It is because the dragon, the serpent, satan has been thrown down to earth. He has no one to welcome him in heaven, but while there are people willing to receive him on earth, he leads the earth astray (v9); he is the accuser of the brethren (v10); he is filled with fury (v12); he wants to sweep the woman away (v15); he is enraged at the woman and makes war against her offspring (v17).

In many parts of the world believers suffer for their faith. That is usual. Jesus said that if they hated him, they will hate his followers (John 15:20); Paul wrote that all who wish to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (2 Timothy 3:12). Our situation is unusual, and we should not be surprised if the situation here rapidly degenerates and faithful Christians find themselves in prison because they seek to obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

But while her children might suffer, the church as a whole will be kept safe. From one perspective she 'flees' to the wilderness (v6); from another perspective, the eagle lifts her and carries her to the place prepared for her. The Old Testament speaks of how God rescues his people from the ‘dragon’ of Egypt by bringing them out on eagle’s wings (Exodus 19:4; Deut 32:11). The wilderness was the place of God's guidance, provision, testing, purification and protection. And when the flood threatened to sweep them away, the earth itself intervened to rescue them. Perhaps there is some reference here to the crossing of the red sea; or to the fact that God’s creation groans and struggles against satan, and longs to be set free (Romans 8:20-21).

What we have in Revelation 12 is picture language for how God will preserve and protect his people. Not from evil. It seems, from my reading of Revelation, that at the physical, visible level, the situation will get worse and worse for believers. There will come a point when it seems that humanly speaking the church has been defeated. But even then God will have kept for himself two witnesses, and when it seems that even they have been crushed, God himself will intervene (Revelation 11:1-13).

But that is not the whole picture. If we remove the curtain, the we see God at work. God is protecting his church. Protecting her from faithlessness, from denying him, from giving way to evil. He will even use the time of suffering to purify his people. And when God does intervene, and time and space as we know it will come to an end, then the church – the people of God – who have been preserved both here on earth and in heaven, will be presented to Christ as a spotless bride.

So what is Revelation saying to us?

1. Remember that we worship and serve God and the lamb. The book begins with a vision of Jesus Christ; chapters 4-5 give us a vision of the one on the throne and of the lamb, and chapter 20 give us a vision of the one who is 'King of kings and Lord of lords'.

2. Don’t be surprised when suffering because of your faith comes. We are told that it will, and it may get worse

3. This is a call to hold firm to the end, and to defeat the lies of Satan and of all who would speak for him by holding firm to the truth of Jesus and to the victory of the cross. As John writes, and these echo the words spoken to the faithful church in Smyrna, “They have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death” (Revelation 12:11)

4. This is a call to look to the future: to the glorious vision of the day when heaven and earth are joined together, when God will be present with his people, when he will wipe away every tear. Why tears? Because his people have been to hell and back. But they will be his people and he will be their God (Revelation 20-21).

Other notes (with significant guidance from John Sweet’s commentary on Revelation)

1. The wilderness: where God’s people were guided by cloud and fire, nourished for 42 years with manna, after escaping from dragon Egypt. The place of

Israel

’s first love for Yahweh (Jer 2:2 cf Rev 2:4). A place prepared: cf John 14:2

2. The war in heaven is not military but moral and legal.

It is a war in heaven over the fate of man. (cf Jude 9; Satan and Michael disputing over body of Moses). Satan is the accuser. Satan has his place in heaven as a kind of ‘public prosecutor’ (Zech 3:1ff); in rabbinic thought he is the ‘attribute of justice’ in God over against the ‘attribute of mercy’. But he is also agent provocateur (1 Chron 21:1; Job 1,2). He ends up as personification of enmity to God and his people, leader of all powers of evil: deceiver, accuser and destroyer of men – instigator and punisher of sin.

But because he represents justice he cannot be removed by military force – there is conflict in heaven. While there are sinners to be accused, and while there are sinners who will welcome him, he has his place. [Is this why human beings may not blaspheme even the devil – Jude 9?]

3. Michael: Christ defeats Satan at the cross. Michael and the angels claim that victory. The saints have conquered ‘by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony’.

Michael was the most important figure in contemporary Judaism after God (Dan 10:13,21;12:1). For Christians, Christ replaced Michael

4. V10: ‘Now’ – pointing to the cross as the turning point of history. Christ is appointed to God’s right hand, but on earth the susurping authorities must still be fought.

5. Why does the victory in heaven bring woe on earth? (v12 cf 11:14):

Because sin has consequences: its own inbuilt consequences and the wrath of God. For John it is also Satan’s wrath (v12). This wrath must run its course, and the brunt is borne by Christ’s brethren, by those who maintain his testimony (might this be what Colossians 1:24 is referring to?)

The earth-dwellers delight in the sufferings of the church (11:10), but it is – in reality – their deadliest plague. What will happen to this planet when you erase the name of God, the people of God, and the things of God?

Malcolm Rogers

St Mary’s and St Peter’s churches

14 December 2011

The light shines in the darkness

2011-12-11T16:19:00.002Z

A talk at the Hospice light up a life service.

It is when things are at their darkest that the light shines brightest.

When Jesus was born, that first Christmas, it was dark

He was born to a people under foreign occupation

The law of God, all that was right and true, had been trampled underfoot

Evil and fear ruled.

It seemed as if God, if he existed, had abandoned them.

But then, John writes, ‘The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world’. (John 1:9)

It is when things are at their darkest that the light shines brightest.

When Jesus was born, a star appeared

A star is phenomenal light, billions of miles away. The nearest star is 4.2 light years away, a mere 25000 billion miles away.

You can only see a star when you are prepared to go out into the darkness, when you are prepared to turn off all the lesser lights

· If you are in London, you can hardly see the stars

· If you are in one of the villages near Bury St Edmunds, you can often see the stars quite clearly

· But it was when we were out in a remote part of Tanzania, and looked up, that we saw the most astonishing night sky.

Why? Because when things are at their darkest that the light shines the brightest.

Many of us here will have had our lives plunged into darkness:

The one who meant everything to us, who literally ‘lit up our day’ has been taken from us.

In the words of WH Auden,

“The stars are not wanted now, put out everyone;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun .."

But it is when things are at their darkest that the light shines brightest.

And I pray that you, in the darkness, have begun to see some stars:

The stars of family, of friends, maybe even of strangers who have gathered round us, and shown us compassion and given us support.

And today we celebrate another star: the star of the hospice, of the love and care of staff and volunteers

But there is a different star that is shining.

It seems very faint, but as we focus on it we realise that it is brighter than all the other stars put together. It is, in fact, the source of their light.

It seems billions of light years away, but as we focus on it we realise that it is both further away than we can imagine, and yet closer to us than we can possibly conceive.

And I urge you to look at Jesus, the light of the world.

In a world of fear, he offers peace

In a world of emptiness, he can bring fullness

In a world of confusion, he gives us focus and identity

In a world of meaninglessness he can bring purpose

In a world that offers us no hope, no future, he can offer us an eternal destiny

In a world of death, he alone can offer us life.

It is when things are at their darkest that the light shines brightest.

on the End of the World

2011-11-26T16:28:00.003Z

Listen to this talk

We are looking at 2 Peter 3

It is an appropriate reading for today, Advent Sunday. We prepare to celebrate Jesus' first coming, and we look forward to Jesus' second coming.

And in chapter 3 Peter focuses on one particular promise: the promise that one day this current heaven and earth will face judgement, come to an end, and be replaced with a new heaven and earth, the home of righteousness (3:13)

We may believe that the world is going to end. Scientists tell us that in about 4 billion years this planet will be burnt up by an expanding sun. But the idea that Jesus will return, and that there will be a new heaven and earth (in which stars do not turn into red giants on us) belongs to the realm of Bermuda triangles, UFO's and little green men. It's there for odd people walking about with billboards, which say, 'the end is nigh'.

And anyway, Jesus said that he would return, and the first Christians expected that he would return. But after 40 years, or after the apostles had died, or after 2000 years, how can we possibly believe such a promise.

It is one of the hardest Christian teachings to believe. If we did a poll here, I suspect that over half of us would say that we are unsure about the teaching of the second coming of Jesus, of a final judgement, and of a new heaven and earth. It is one of the teachings that we put in brackets.

It is of course incredibly hard to imagine.

There are pictures of Jesus descending from the heavens to the earth, of him coming back to Jerusalem, of all people seeing it happen. Perhaps it will be televised or we’ll see it as a webcam. And it doesn’t work for me.

But we do not need to be too literal in our imagination. What we are talking about here is the end of space and time as we know it. And we can only think and speak in terms of the space and time as we know it. That is why we talk of Jesus being 'up there' or 'in our heart'. And so the images we are given in the bible are picture language - trying to explain something that is beyond our understanding in terms that we do understand (that is also how I understand the creation stories): and when, after the end, we look back, we'll be able to look again at the pictures we were given in the bible and we will be able to say: 'yes, they make sense'.

And Peter here urges us not to give up on the promise of God that one day all that seems so solid to us will be destroyed, and that there will be a new heaven and earth, the home of righteousness.

And he asks us to remember five things.

1. The promise of God

The idea of the promise of God, and the word of God, is big for Peter.

In 1:4 he writes, 'He has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires'.

And then, a little bit later, he speaks about the prophets. They did not speak on their own understanding, but they were men who spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (1:21)

And now in 2 Peter 3:2 he says: 'I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets'.

And the prophets spoke about the day of the Lord: a day of dreadful judgement on a world that had rejected God; and they spoke of the future kingdom of God - when God will reign, when all would acknowledge and know him, and there would be peace and justice on earth.

2. Peter reminds us of the power of God's word

By God's word the heavens exist and the earth was formed (v5); by God's word the heavens and earth are being kept before that final day of judgement (v7)

This echoes an argument that Jesus had with the Sadducees. They did not believe in a resurrection. Jesus tells them that they are wrong, 'because you do not believe the scriptures or the power of God'

3. Peter reminds us that God’s timing is not ours.

Peter quotes Psalm 90:4, “For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night”

A man who read this passage was quite amazed and talked to God about it. "Lord, is it true that a thousand years for us is like one minute to you?"

The Lord said yes.

The man said, "Then a million pounds to us must be like one penny to you."

The Lord said, "Well, yes."

The man said, "Will you give me one of those pennies?"

The Lord said, "All right, I will. Wait here a minute."

We do not understand the timing of God. It is not our timing. It is much much bigger.

God is Lord of time. Remember how, in the Old Testament, on one occasion the sun stood still; and on another occasion a sundial went backwards. And I know of two people who have both told of experiences that they have had when time stopped and even went back.

So the bible speaks of the days between the resurrection of Jesus and his second coming as the last days. To us they may last 2000 years or 2 million years, but if to God they are the last days, then they are the last days.

And Peter warns us that, in God’s timing, that day will come ‘like a thief’.

Jesus also spoke of that day, the day when the Son of Man would be revealed, when he would come in judgement, as being like a thief coming in the night.

And Jesus and Peter are telling us to beware, and not to be complacent.

There was a report on the news about a 16yr old house burglar who, as part of his sentence, had to write to his victim. His letter was intercepted before it was sent. Instead of saying sorry, he wrote to tell the owner of the house that he was an idiot. He said, ‘You should not have left your front window open”.

And Jesus says, ‘Be prepared. There is a day when history as we know it ends. It will come in my time, and it will come suddenly and unexpectedly’

4. Peter reminds us of the patience of God.

This is mentioned twice: 2 Peter 3:9,15.

This is the reason, says Peter, why God takes his time in coming. There have been and there are times in particular places where believers have suffered dreadfully. They must have prayed that this judgement would come, that God would step in and deliver them. And nothing happened.

At the time that Peter was writing many of the Christians were suffering dreadfully. Peter himself would be executed, crucified upside down. But Peter had begun to realise that the return of Jesus could be quite some time.

That is why in 1:15 he speaks of the need to remind Christians of 'these things'.

And most people assume that that was the reason why the gospels were written. At first those who were with Jesus told stories of Jesus, and they thought that Jesus would return in their lifetime. But as they grew older, and as they realised they would die before Jesus returned, so they began to write those stories down. and we now have the gospels. And again, many people say that when Mark wrote his gospel, he was writing down the stories that Peter told him.

And here in ch3, Peter reminds the believers that the reason God is delaying is because of his patience. He knows those who are his, even those who have not yet been born, and he is giving us more time, because he wants all to come in. And he is giving you and me more time: time to repent, time to turn to him and to seek him.

5. Peter reminds us of the judgement of God

‘The earth and everything done in it will be laid bare’ (v10)

Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi, wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the London riots earlier this year.

“[The rioters] are the victims of the tsunami of wishful thinking that washed across the West saying that you can have sex without the responsibility of marriage, children without the responsibility of parenthood, social order without the responsibility of citizenship, liberty without the responsibility of morality, and self-esteem without the responsibility of work and earned achievement.

What has happened morally in the West is what has happened financially as well. Good and otherwise sensible people were persuaded that you could spend more than you earn, incur debt at unprecedented levels and consume the world's resources without thinking about who will pay the bill and when ….

There are large parts of Britain, Europe, and even the United States where religion is a thing of the past, and there is no counter-voice to the culture of buy it, spend it, wear it, flaunt it, because you're worth it. The message is that morality is passé, conscience is for wimps, and the single overriding command is "Thou shalt not be found out."

But if we live like that, we will get a shock. There will be a day when everything is stripped bare.

Vassily Grossman’s Life and Fate. (3 weeks to read, 3 weeks to recover). In one episode the Jews have been ordered into the hut next to the ‘bathhouse’, the euphemistic word for gas chamber. They have all been ordered to strip.

“When a man has no clothes on, he draws closer to himself. ‘God, the hairs on my chest are thicker and wirier than ever – and what a lot of grey!’ ‘How ugly my fingernails look!’ There’s only one thing a naked man can say as he looks at himself: ‘Yes, here I am. This is me!’ He recognizes himself and identifies his ‘I’, an ‘I’ that remains always the same. A little boy crosses his skinny arms over his bony chest, looks at his frog-like body and says, ‘This is me’; fifty years later he looks at a plump, flabby chest, at the blue, knotted veins on his legs and says, ‘This is me”

When we are stripped, everything is laid bare. Whispered words, actions, the motives behind our actions, thoughts: the true ‘I’ will be revealed.

George Whitefield, a man who God used to bring revival both here and in America, said, “When I die the only epitaph that I desire to be engraved upon my tombstone is "Here lies George Whitefield; what sort of man he was the great day will discover."

So we are reminded of these 6 things: the promise of God, the power of God, timing of God, patience of God and the judgement of God.

And Peter asks, ‘in light of this, what kind of people ought we to be?” (v11)

He answers his own question: “You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming” (v11); and in v14 he writes,

“So then, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with God”

One of the privileges of my job is that of being with people as they are dying. We pray that they will be at peace: at peace with themselves, having made peace with those closest to them, and their peace with God. It can be a time of great healing, a time of confession, a time of letting go of hurts and a time of hope.

The tragedy is that we do not need to wait for our death bed to sort ourselves out with God (and it is not worth assuming that you or I will get that chance). But if we lived like that, in the light of our own death, and in the light of the final judgement, if we learnt to be honest with ourselves, others and God in the light of what he has said, we would know so much more peace in this world. And the great thing is that with God we do not need to pretend to be better than we really are - we can be completely honest, about our desires, our failures, our mistakes - and yes he may rebuke us but he will do it in love.

St Peters vision

2011-11-24T00:15:00.000Z

St Peters vision at St Peters Church by vicar@stmarystpeter.net

We seek to worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, teach the bible, grow people in faith, love and understanding, equip people to serve, and make Jesus known.

We aim to do this at St Peter’s by being a community of Jesus Christ, submitted to His Word and serving His world

Our vision is to be a united community, of all ages, meeting together on the first day of the week, focussed on Jesus Christ.

Our vision is to listen to Him, receive from Him and be equipped to live as His body in this place: an open, loving, welcoming, forgiving, growing, empowering, serving and witnessing community.

We long to be a people who are open to God’s word: gathering together expecting to meet with and hear from the crucified and risen Lord Jesus. We long for our worship to be real, relevant, exciting and life-giving. We long for our teaching (whether in age relevant groups, or preaching) to be biblical, stimulating, comforting and challenging, envisioning and equipping. We long that our communion, celebrated on Sunday, will be lived out in our relationships, service and witness during the week.

We long to be a people open to God’s world: serving our neighbourhood and beyond by prayer, witness and practical service.

We recognise that we face a number of distinct issues
1. Because St Peter’s is off the beaten track and is not in the centre of a natural residential unit, most of our new contacts do not come from passers by, but from friends bringing friends.
2. We have a current concern that we do not have many families with younger children. We recognise that it is God who gives growth, but we will make an effort to reach out to younger people.
3. Although we long for people to join our community, our deeper desire is that people will meet with God. Our first prayer when visitors come is not that they will join us, but that in their worship with us they will recognise that God is in our midst.

Practical focus

1. Worship
We will work at our Sunday service, and particularly our all age services, so that they are more accessible for people to bring friends. We will work to develop links between the service and those who go to Little Fishes. We will explore the possibility of running ‘messy church’
2. We will work on our communication: improving our noticeboard, website and communications (electronic and paper).
3. We will seek to put on more social events (as bridge events, enabling people to invite friends to come into contact with the church community), including a summer fayre in 2012. We will seek to set up a small group with responsibility for coordinating such events.
4. We would love to see St Peter's becoming a church building which is there for a local community; and for people who worship at St Peter's to increasingly serve God in their homes, workplace and community. We will explore the idea of trying to link St Peter's with a particular area of our parish, so that people see St Peter's as 'their' parish church; also of developing links with the Hyndman Centre; and we will explore what gifts people have to offer.

Our three great needs

2011-11-05T10:58:00.000Z

Hebrews 7:15-28

According to Hebrews we have three great human needs

our need for purification – so that we can stand in the presence of God
our need to live the good life – perfection
our need for eternal life

PURIFICATION

We are cut off from God because of sin.

I wonder whether you have ever been in a situation where you are seriously underdressed.

You come to the front door in your torn jeans and dirty T-shirt, and it is the Bishop.

What you need is a good scrub up.

We cannot come into the presence of God with our metaphorical torn jeans and dirty T-shirt. We need to be scrubbed up.

And with God it is not about something on the outside. We need to be purified within. We need a deep clean.

When we stand in front of God, he sees us as we are. What is inside us becomes completely transparent: the laziness, the resentments, the selfishness, the arrogant pride, the lack of love and hard-heartedness, the fears that drive us, the unforgiveness and jealousy which cripple us.

And if it stayed like that, God would take one look at us and walk away. He would say, ‘I didn’t make you like that; I didn’t create you to live like that’.

And we would want him to walk away. There is no way we can cope with something like that.

So most of us keep God at arms length. We might use the language of God; we might like religion; we might make up our own god; we might cry out to God when there is no other option, but most of the time we want to keep God at a distance.

What we need, if we are ever to approach God, if we are going to begin to get to know God, to become friends with God – is a good scrub up. A scrub up, not on the outside, but on the inside.

The book of Hebrews is good news, because it tells us that the scrub up is possible. We can be purified.

That is what all this stuff about priests and sacrifice is about (vv26-27).

In the Old Testament, the people would take an animal, bring it with them into the temple, into the presence of God, would lay their hands on it and then kill it. It was a way of saying to God that they recognised that in his presence they deserve to die. And in that way, and only in that way, could they stay in the presence of God.

But, says Hebrews, there was a problem with the sacrificial system. It was only temporary. The sacrifices needed to be repeated, day after day (v27).

They were a bit like a patch up job on a suit that is falling to pieces. There is a hole - you stick a patch on it. Another hole – you stick a patch on it. The problem is that the holes are appearing faster than we can put patches on.

People sometimes think: Do I need to say sorry and make some sort of payment to God after every sin. Well in the Old Testament the answer was ‘Yes’. Theoretically you needed to make a sacrifice after every sin. That might just be OK for sins that are actions; but how does that work for sins that are about us having a wrong state of mind?

So although the Old Testament sacrifices point us to a God who longs for us to be in his presence and who provided us with a way of being in his presence (after all, it was God who gave the sacrificial system), – it was only provisional.

And that, says Hebrews, is where Jesus comes in. God sent him as a new high priest, not like the priests of the Old Testament.

They were appointed because the law said that the children of Aaron should be priests. He was appointed because God said so, and God swore it with an oath.

And Jesus made a sacrifice of a completely different order to the Old Testament sacrifices. He sacrificed himself, and because he was perfect his sacrifice was ‘once and for all’ (Hebrews 7:27). It never needed to be repeated.

As an aside what we do here today in communion is not a sacrifice. That is why I prefer to call the table not an altar but the Lord’s table. We remember that sacrifice; and we receive from Jesus the benefits of his sacrifice.

And so the person who comes to Jesus, who – as it were – lays their hands on Jesus, identifies themselves with Jesus (we do that through faith and baptism), has been purified. We have been ‘justified’, declared clean, declared righteous. At one level we haven’t changed. We still do filthy stuff. But we ourselves have been changed. The real ‘us’. We are no longer filthy. We have been washed, scrubbed up, by Jesus.

We stank, but God has poured precious perfume all over us: so that we smell with the beauty of Jesus.

We are in dirty rags, but God has given us a radiant robe which covers everything.

So when he looks on us, he looks on Jesus.

And so we can stand confident in the presence of God. We do not need to keep God at a distance. We have been purified.

PERFECTION

Our second great need is to live the good life.

Story of three ambassadors: A local radio station asked them what they would like for Christmas. They broadcast the answers. The Chinese ambassador said, ‘I would love to see peace on earth’. The American ambassador said, ‘I would love to see an end to world poverty’. The British ambassador said, ‘A small box of jellied fruit would be lovely’.

Our problem is that when we go to Jesus we do not ask big enough.

We might ask for help in a particular situation, for something, for a bigger house, for success in a project, for a holiday. Maybe we ask him to give us someone to go through life with us; for children; for healing, for wisdom. Many will ask for freedom; many will will ask for enough food to feed their family; others will ask for strength – to get through today and the next few days; for justice – to have their fair share, or to be vindicated; Maybe we ask for peace – so that we wake up in the morning and are not knotted up. Maybe some ask God to take them out of the hell that life seems to be. I think of the person who said, ‘I tried to take my life three months ago, and I wish I had succeeded’.

We ask for those things, but actually what we really want are not necessarily those things. What we really desire is an absence of pain and of conflict and of a paralysing fear. What we desire is love, fulfilment, goodness, peace, joy and significance.

What we really desire is to live the good life.

The priests in the Old Testament pointed to this good life. They taught the law, and the law showed how the good life was to be lived in a particular situation. But, as with the sacrifices, there was a problem. The priests may have taught the good life, but they were unable to live the good life. They were sinners just like the people. And so in v18, Hebrews says, ‘The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect’).

But says Hebrews, another came who did live the good life. ‘He has been made perfect for ever’ (v28). So if we wish to live the good life, we need to go to him. We need to go to Jesus.

There is so much more to say, but I will refrain!

ETERNAL LIFE

Hebrews speaks a great deal about death.

It speaks in ch 2 of the devil who held the power of death, but his power was broken when Jesus suffered death on the cross. And as a result Jesus has freed ‘those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death’ (Hebrews 2:15).

This does not mean that Christians will not fear death.

But it does mean that our fear of death does not need to control us. We do not need to be slaves to our fear.

In the Old Testament the priests offered sacrifices, but they were temporary; they taught the good life but they were unable to live it; they declared a God who was eternal, but they were weak and they died.

Jesus was different. He made a sacrifice that was eternal; he taught and he lived the good life. And he lived ‘an indestructible life’ (v16). He died, but death could not hold him. And 3 days later he rose from the dead, and he ‘lives forever’ (v24).

We need:

Purification – so that we can stand in the presence of God

Perfection – to live the good life

Eternal life

The Old Testament priests were often very helpful, but they cannot give us that.

The ‘priests’ of today– GP’s, counsellors, teachers or tutors, agony aunts, bloggers, opinion writers – are often very helpful, but they cannot give us that.

But if you want to be made clean, so clean that you can stand in the presence of a perfect God; if you want to learn to live the really good life; if you desire to be set free from the slavery to the fear of death, and to live the perfect life for ever – turn to Jesus.

He is at the right hand of Father God and he is praying for you.

“Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him”. (v25).

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+7%3A15-28&version=NIV

On the gospel and suffering for the gospel

2011-10-23T06:30:00.002+01:00

2 Timothy 2:1-7

A prayer: 'Father God, help us to think about this passage with our mind and heart, and give us, we pray, that which you promise: true understanding. Amen'

Paul, in prison for his faith and facing imminent execution, writes to Timothy, his apprentice.

He gives Timothy this final charge. But it is not just to Timothy. It is to any minister of the gospel. It is to the church.

The Church has been entrusted with a message. It is a message about Jesus Christ (we read it in v8: that the Galilean carpenter was the eternal son of God, that he died and rose again; that he is Saviour and Lord); and it is that in Jesus we preach repentance from sins for forgiveness, new life, justice, hope and peace.

Paul, in these 2 little letters, urges Timothy to guard this message, to preach this message and – here – to pass on this message.

It is an open message: 'What you heard from me in the presence of many witnesses'. Nothing is hidden (cf the gnostics; secret clubs with secret knowledge); and it is plain.
And just like a runner with the baton in a relay race, so Paul has handed the message to Timothy, so Timothy is to entrust the message to the next generation.

This message can be declared in prose, poetry, parable. It can be whispered, spoken, acted, sung, danced, shouted. It doesn't matter. What matters is that it is THE message of Jesus Christ that is passed on.

And Paul warns Timothy that this gospel task involves suffering.

Paul knew all about suffering. He is in prison facing execution.
Why? What awful crime has he committed? Theft, murder; has he incited rebellion against the Roman authorities?
Far from it. Paul is in prison because he persists in proclaiming the message that Jesus is the Christ, God's anointed ruler.

And so, in v9, he talks of suffering for the gospel.

If we look at this sociologically, Paul suffers because he proclaims that Jesus is Lord – and that, of course, is a challenge to anyone or anything else which claims ultimate allegiance of our life – whether a political authority, a person or a custom.
But if we look at this theologically, he suffers because the world is hostile to God, and it wihosted its anyone who comes in the name of God.

So Paul prepares Timothy for the suffering which lies ahead. It is part of being a Christian. 2 Tim 3:12 tells us that if we wish to live a godly life we will be persecuted. It is part of the work of preaching the message of Jesus.

But Paul points out that suffering for something is not unique to the Christian. He reminds Timothy of three people who suffer in different ways

The soldier.
Prepared to put up with astonishing hardship, to face physical pain for the sake of the war of the commanding officer. The soldier is focussed on his task. He does not get entangled in civilian affairs: it is pointed out that those who are about to go over the trenches do not complain about the taste of the coffee, or the fact that the beds are hard. They want to know whether they can trust their c/o, [whether their weapons will work, whether they know what they've got to do] and whether they will live or die.

Of course we live in the world: there is a time for making the living conditions, the trenches, a bit more attractive or more comfortable. But – taking the example a bit further -we are not to forget that this is a trench. It is not home. As Christian believers we live in enemy occupied territory, and our task is to both suffer like soldiers and to fight for our commanding officer who desires its liberation.

The athlete.
Elsewhere Paul uses the example of the athlete as the person who disciplines their body, and who perseveres to the end.
Here he talks of the athlete as someone who suffers because he competes according to the rules. In other words Paul is saying here that we will suffer because we seek to live according to divine rules and not human rules.

And that means that we fight with weapons of truth, love and service and self-sacrifice.
So, for example, when we are reviled, we do not revile back. We bless our enemies, and we do good to those who persecute us
The only offensive weapon that we have is the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. We do not fight by taking up the sword. We fight by preaching Jesus. We fight by spending time in prayer.

The hardworking farmer.
They suffer because they get up early in the morning, work physically hard, and go to bed late at night.
And this is a call to anyone who would be a minister of the gospel: to work hard.

But in using these three examples of people who suffer in order to stiffen Timothy's backbone, Paul is also encouraging him:
The soldier suffers to please his commanding officer. It is relational. How much more should we be prepared to suffer for our Lord and Saviour.

The athlete suffers in order to win the prize. How much more should we suffer to earn the prize, the 'well done good and faithful servant' of our master; the prize of eternal life.

The farmer suffers in order to share in the harvest. How much more should we suffer for the joy of seeing men and women come to know God, of becoming citizens of heaven, of sharing in forgiveness and the holy spirit and of the hope of heaven.

Finally, there is a danger that we try to do all this in our own strength, and so one final thought from the passage.
In verse 1 Paul writes, 'Be strong in the grace that is yours in Christ Jesus'. In other words God has already given you the strength to do this. You're not being asked to grit your teeth and go for it – like going to the dentist. We have one beside us, who has already strengthened us. We turn to him for strength.

on God's love for you

2011-10-14T11:34:00.001+01:00

2 Thessalonians 2:13-17

Paul gives thanks to God for the believers in Thessalonika

He encourages them to stand firm

And he prays that they and he might have ‘eternal encouragement’ and be strengthened in every good work and deed.

Why?

Because they are loved by God.

He says it twice in a very few verses.

v13 ‘brothers and sisters loved by the Lord’

v16, ‘God our Father, who loved us’.

God is love.

God created a world not because he needed to, but as an expression of his love.

And God created you and he loves you.

He loves you whether you love him or not. Indeed, we are told that the love of God is shown in this: that he loves us long before we loved him.

John 3:16

Romans 5:8

That is very good news, because if God’s love for us was dependent on our love for God, we would be in trouble.

God loves you. You are not the product of blind forces of chance, or of physical regularities, which were catapulted into existence by a mindless big bang. You are not living in a universe which is a slave to the little law of evolution (the survival of the fittest) and the big law of entropy (that one day everything will break down into nothingness). You are part of something that has been deliberately shaped, a creation, by a God who is love.

And because God loves you, you matter. You matter eternally.

Of course at one level that is what we want to hear. We want to hear that we are loved. And there is a danger that the good news of Christianity that we preach is simply a message that says to people: ‘God loves you, so you are OK’

But that is not the love of God.

Because God loves you, ‘he has chosen you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit’.

Because God loves you, he is not prepared to see you or me remain as we are.

We have cut ourselves off from God by living as if we are the centre of the universe.

We thought about this a couple of weeks ago:

We live in me-centred universes. We live as if it is all about me: my comfort, my holiday, my pension, my stuff, my family, my country. And if there is a God, or a force out there, who we say, ‘loves me’, then we think that means he simply exists to make me happier or more fulfilled or more content. And when he doesn’t come up with the goods, we decide – in our self-centred arrogance – that either he does not exist, or he does not love me.

God loves you. And because he loves you, he is not prepared to put up with you or me as we have become. He looks at us as we live me-centred lives, as we try to grab the never-never, as we destroy this planet, as we destroy each other, and as we destroy ourselves. We need to be saved, and because God loves you, he is going to save you.

God loves you. He is the ultimate jealous lover. God could never be OK with the so-called ‘open marriage’. He is not content for us to be like a faithless husband or wife, carrying on an affair with someone else.

Because he loves you, he is not prepared to share you with anyone or anything. He is not prepared to share you with something that will ultimately let you down, because he knows that only he will never let you down; he is not prepared to let us settle for anything less than complete truth, and absolute beauty and perfect love, and he is complete truth, and nothing or nobody is as beautiful as him, and nothing and nobody can love us as he can.

It is a frightening, but an awesome thing, to allow oneself to be brought into the hands of a God who loves you.

And Paul speaks of how he has a glorious destiny for us. ‘That you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ’. When Jesus was baptized, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love’. Because God loves you, his plan is that you should become like his Son Jesus, and that you should share in his glory.

So God, in his love calls us to him. He calls us by means of the message of the gospel (v14). Gospel simply means good news. And the good news is the message of Jesus Christ: that Jesus was God’s son, that because we were lost in the my-centred world, he came among us and lived a totally God-centred life, even though it meant he would be crucified. He died for us; he rose from the dead and is alive; He is in heaven now, and with us by his Spirit; and one day he will return (the book of Thessalonians is about that). The good news is that through faith and trust in Jesus, our sins are forgiven, we can begin to change and become like him, and by faith and the work of the Holy Spirit, we can stop being me-centred and begin to become God-centred. The good news is that our eternal destiny is glory with him.

The birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus is God’s love dance for you; the good news of Jesus is God’s love song for you.

It is the song of a parent for a lost child, calling them back home.

It is the song the father of the prodigal son sang each night as he prayed his son home.

It is the song of the lover for the faithless beloved.

It is the invitation to stop jiggling by ourselves, and to begin to really dance with him.

It is the invitation to share a life with God of utter intimacy and love and overwhelming joy. We catch tiny glimpses of that here and now; we will fully know it then.

The problem is that although God has called, has sung the song to us, we are like little children when they think they are going to be asked to do something they do not want to do (like go to bed). They put their fingers in their ears, and they sing their own song loudly. We block out the message.

But God loves us, and so – and this is for those who have ears to hear: if you hear what I am saying then you are blessed indeed – because he loves us, he removes our fingers from our ears, and we begin to hear. And we realize that the very fact that we are hearing the message is because he loves us: ‘Because God chose you to be saved’.

In other words, when we answer his invitation to dance by joining in that dance; when we answer his song of love with our song of love, we realize that it is actually his Spirit dancing in us; his Spirit singing in us.

God loves you. That is why Paul urges his readers to stand firm in that love – not a ‘there, there, everything’s OK’ paracetamol kind of love; but a fiery jealous life transforming love. A love that was crucified for us, and which asks us to crucify ourselves for him – so that we might share in his glory.

God loves you. Not even time and death can separate you from his love (there are very close similarities between these verses and Romans 8:28-30). This is our hope; this is our eternal encouragement.

So I pray with Paul that we may know the encouragement of the Holy Spirit now, and in the awareness of the overwhelming, life transforming love of God, be strengthened in every good deed and word.

Battle of Britain service 2011

2011-09-15T12:37:00.001+01:00

2 Kings 6:14-23; Mark 8:22-30

Today we honour the men and women who fought in the Battle of Britain: those who were up in the air, the ground crews, observer corps, those who defended the airfields, those who provided practical and logistical support, the families and many others, military and civilian. We give thanks for their commitment, courage and hard work.

The fact that our celebrations still include a church service means that we have not forgotten that this was not simply about we have done. We recognise that behind the reality of human history there is another reality, an eternal reality - and we give thanks to God for his merciful act of deliverance.

Our reading from the OT today speaks of a moment when a man who could only see the physical reality, had his eyes opened and he saw the eternal reality.

There are elements in the story that are familiar.

An enemy intent on invasion and occupation.

An enemy with a strategic objective. Israel has a secret weapon. It had a code name ELISHA. Elisha was a prophet. And we are told that God revealed to him the plans of the king of Syria, and Elisha then passed that intelligence on to the king of Israel. So when the Syrians sent out a raiding party, someone was waiting for them. And Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, got angry. He said, ‘’Who is telling the king of Israel our battle plans?”. And his advisers said, ‘Nobody. The problem is Elisha’. So the Syrians realise that they are going to have to neutralise Elisha before they can attempt to occupy Israel. So they send a ‘great army’ to get him.
An enemy who had the overwhelming odds on their side: they have everything going for them: numbers, initiative and technology. I mean, they don’t only have horses, they have chariots.
And there is, in this story, as there was 71 years ago, a miraculous delivery

Our reading from the Old Testament reminds us that there is another way to look at the world - it is not just about what we can see physically.
It reminds us that behind the ebb and flow of human affairs, of history, there is a bigger picture, a deeper reality, and a greater purpose.

The fact that we do not usually see it does not mean it is not there. It means that we are blind.

Elisha’s servant was blind. He sees the Syrian ‘great army’ surrounding the city. Humanly speaking the situation is hopeless. But there is another dimension; there is a bigger picture. And so Elisha prays that God will open the eyes of his servant. And the servant begins to see: not the physical reality but the eternal reality. Yes, the city is surrounded by Syrian horses and chariots. But they are surrounded by the divine horses and chariots of fire.

There are moments in our lives when we occasionally glimpse that there is something more, more than what we can see, feel, hear, touch or smell. We often dismiss those moments - put it down to something we have eaten. But sometimes they are so real (a vision, a dream that comes true, an audible voice when no-one is there, the sense of a presence with us) that we cannot dismiss them. That is because ‘God’ as the writer to the Ecclesiastes says, ‘has put eternity into the heart of man’.

And our reading from the NT is also about vision. It tells how a blind man receives his physical sight, but then goes on to tell us how another person, Peter, receives his spiritual sight. One man begins to see physical reality; the other man begins to see the eternal reality.

People could see with their physical sight that Jesus was remarkable. He did astonishing things. So much so that they said that he must have been one of the prophets of old reborn, or John the Baptist come back from the dead. But when Jesus says, ‘Who do you say I am?’, Peter suddenly sees. Not the physical reality, but the spiritual reality. Jesus was not Dave, God’s repeat channel. Jesus was the one who the prophets and John the Baptist looked forward to. He is the Christ, the one who God sent into the world to be the ruler of the world and ruler of the affairs of men and women. He is the one whom history is all about. It is not about our kingdom, but his kingdom - a kingdom of worship and joy, of rightness, of mercy, of justice, of love and of peace.

And although we may not have the same vision that was granted to Elisha’s servant, by faith in this Jesus we can begin to see.

So when our enemies surround us, when our problems are overwhelming, when it seems hopeless - look out: we are not on our own. I suspect that it was not insignificant that at a time of national crisis as the Luftwaffe threatened to annihilate the Royal Air Force, our leaders and our people turned to God.

And when we suffer defeat, we do not despair because it is not the end. His kingdom will come.

And when we face evil - we do not need to meet evil with evil. It is very easy to do that. Someone loses it and you lose it. The whole thing escalates. There are times, of course, when because we love we have confront evil with force. World War 2 and the Battle of Britain seem to me to be one of those occasions when there was no other option. Not to have resisted evil would have been an evil. But there are also times when, because we see that there is a bigger picture, we can afford to do the counter-intuitive thing and meet evil with love.

And when death approaches: if what we see with our physical eyes is the only reality, then it is the end. That is what makes the self-sacrifice of people with no faith so astonishing. It really is the ultimate sacrifice. But if we begin to see the bigger picture, what is death? Jesus died, but he rose again. Because of him it is simply the stepping out of the frame from one picture into the much bigger picture.

And when we are victorious or triumphant, we can afford a reticent humility. Why? Because we know that we have not done it in our own strength. We know that there is a bigger picture. And that means that like Elisha with the captive Syrians, we can be gracious in victory.

And when we meet to worship God: how many people are there here? 300/400? There are far more than that. Look up. Those angels represent the countless thousands who are here with us: of angels and beings more wonderful than we can conceivably imagine; of saints, of men and women made perfect. ‘We are surrounded by a great host of witnesses’. In fact they do not join us when we worship, but we join in their worship.

A couple of weeks ago a few of us were shown round the former ops room in the Guildhall. Rooms like that around the country were critical to the Battle of Britain. You could have the most advanced planes and the most gifted, courageous and committed pilots, but if you didn’t know where to send them when they went up, you were lost. The Battle of Britain was won partly because we had a right vision.

And if our society is going to be genuinely transformed, if we are going to learn to live by trust and not by regulation, if we are to realise that there is far more to live for than money and as big a pension as we can get, if families and communities are going to come alive, if we are really going to do something about the 30% of people in this world who will not have a decent meal today, if we are not going to give into fear and retreat behind our barricades, or if we are going to love our neighbour even if it means that we have to pay a price, then we need a right vision. We need to see the bigger picture. We need to see the world in the light of eternity and in the light of God.

There are times when I fear that that as individuals and as a society we are losing sight of God; we are becoming blind.

And if that happens, we will continue to go through the motions and send up the metaphorical planes, but if we don’t have the vision we won’t win the war.

It is a great gift when God opens our eyes and allows us to see: not just physical reality, but eternal reality. It is also a gift which he longs to give. All we need to do is to ask him, because we need vision.

We’re about to sing some great words by Blake.
The first verse is based on a legend that Jesus, after his resurrection, came to England. And the literal answer to the question of the first verse, ‘And did those feet in ancient times walk upon England’s mountains green’ is no!

But this is a vision. Blake, possibly with the help of the legend, sees something else. He sees with his physical eyes ‘the pleasant pastures’ and the ‘dark satanic mills’. But he sees it in the light of Jesus Christ, ‘the countenance divine’. He sees the crucified and risen Lord Jesus standing over and above and around all of this. He sees Jesus reigning and Jerusalem, the city of God, where there is life, light, joy, harmony, beauty and love, established even here.

This hymn has established itself deep within our national psyche. But I wonder if we are really aware of what we are singing. Because the second verse is an invitation to full-bodied Christian commitment. It is an invitation to make a commitment to be led by this vision of ultimate reality, to give our everything, and with God’s help - the bow, arrows, spear and chariot of fire - to live and work for the fulfilment of this vision: that Jesus Christ, the lamb of God, may be all in all.

On Freedom and Love

2011-08-12T17:25:00.000+01:00

1 Corinthians 10:23 – 11:1

This seems a very obscure passage. Should Christians eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols?

It is not the burning issue of today

The burning issue of a few days ago was literally a burning issue: riots in the streets of our cities. Groups of young people out on the street – not protesting about a political issue but trying to get stuff for nothing and, as two 18 year old girls said, ‘having a laugh’ at the same time.

The thing that makes this so sad is that, in parts of our society, we have young people who are profoundly lost. Yes, it may be because there is little respect for authority; it certainly is due to the significant breakdown in family life. But on the other side, it is also because here are people who do not know to live for.

We are offered freedom. The freedom to live as we want, to do what we want, to go where we want, to have what we want. There are no limits.

That is true in the virtual world. We really can build a universe around us. We can be super-hero, have astonishing powers, the most amazing body, fight wars and never die.

But it is not true in real life. If people try to live that sort of freedom in real life, then what happened last week will happen. And when people begin to realise that it is not true, that you are not all powerful, or invulnerable, and that you cannot simply have what you want, they become angry or disillusioned. And many people cease to live – oh we live biologically, our hearts beat and our lungs go in and out: but our dreams and aspirations shrivel and become nothing. We live for that minor promotion, the bigger house, retiring at 65 or going on the next holiday.

And that brings me back to eating meat sacrificed to idols!

The Christians in Corinth had bought into the dream of freedom. 1 Corinthians is a reply by Paul to an earlier letter which the Christians in the city have written to him. In it they make certain statements. One of those is in quotation marks in our reading, ‘I have the right to do anything’.

In one sense they have realised the astonishing freedom that they have in the gospel.

In Romans, which was written when Paul was probably in Corinth, he tells us that we are forgiven because of Jesus. We do not need to keep the law to be forgiven. We do not need to counterbalance our offences against God by doing good things for God. We do not need to earn brownie points to make ourselves acceptable to God. We cannot. But if we put our faith in Jesus, who paid the penalty for our sin, we are forgiven.

And Paul goes further. He says that when we were baptised, we were united with Jesus on the cross. In other words, he died, and we died with him. We have therefore already died to this world, and we have died to the laws of this world. It has no hold on us. Not only that, but as believers we have the Spirit of God. It is the same Spirit who gave God’s law in the past, but – says Paul - we are to be guided by the Spirit and not by the law.

So, say the Corinthian Christians, we are not under the law. ‘We have the right to do anything.’

And as a result, in the church in Corinth, there were serious problems. There was sexual immorality, and there were divisions. And here, in our verses, we read of one of those divisions.

It is about eating meat sacrificed to idols. If you were a Christian in Corinth 2000 years ago, should you buy meat or eat meat which had come from the local pagan temples, and which had therefore been sacrificed to idols.

And the church was divided into the non-eaters and the eaters.

The non- eaters say: ‘Christians must not eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols. If you do you are, in some way, affirming the worship of the idol; the meat is contaminated and you are spiritually harming yourself by eating it’

And because they often did not know where meat came from, many of them were vegetarians. And they would be horrified if they saw other Christians eating meat which they knew had been sacrificed to idols.

And the eaters say: ‘Everything belongs to God; we are heirs of Christ and all things belong to us; idols are nothing – and this is meat in the market. It is meat. It is part of God’s created world that has been given to man and woman to enjoy and delight in – and it can be received with thanksgiving and be eaten’.

For us, it is not the issue of eating meat sacrificed to idols.

But there are many other issues that are similar. Should Christians shop on Sunday? If Christians are visiting in the far east, should they buy a statuette of the Buddha because it looks nice? Should they then display it? Should Christians make use of money that has come from the lottery? Should Christians listen to particular kinds of music? I was speaking with one man who loved his Wagner (the composer, not the X factor finalist from last year). But then someone told him about the influences on Wagner’s life, and about how Wagner’s music had been used. And he started to think, ‘Should I listen to this music?’ Certainly, in my parents’ generation, evangelical Christians were not expected to go to the cinema or theatre, and certainly not to dances; they were not expected to listen to jazz or to popular music. Or, to bring it closer to the issue in 1 Corinthians 10, given the state of factory farming, should Christians be vegetarians?

The people who had written to Paul belonged to the liberal, freedom, party. And here they are saying, ‘We have the right to eat meat sacrificed to idols’.

So how does Paul respond, and how does his reply help us in the decisions we need to make?

He affirms the Christian’s right to eat all food, whether offered to idols or not.

v25: “Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it’.” It is a quote from Psalm 24, and was used by Jews as a grace before meals.

It is a very important statement. There is nothing off limits to a believer.

In 1 Timothy 3, Paul speaks of those who ‘forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer’ (1 Timothy 4:3-5)

Paul affirms each individual believer’s freedom to make the decision about whether they eat or don’t eat for themselves.

Believers are free to eat. They are also free to not eat. He makes it a conscience thing.

In Romans 14, he says, ‘Those who eat meat do so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God, and those who abstain do so to the Lord and give thanks to God .. If anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean… so whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God’

There is a profound principle which should underlie much of our practice as Christians. St Augustine said, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity”.

There are some things that are far more important than the specific issue of eating meat offered to idols.

We are not saved by whether we eat meat or don’t eat meat. We are saved by putting our faith in Christ.

The key issue for Paul is whether

WE DO WHAT WE DO TO THE GLORY OF GOD.

‘So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God’ (11:31)

Let’s put ourselves in the place of the carnivores in Corinth.

Do we eat meat because we could not cope without meat?

Do we eat meat sacrificed to idols to show that we have a superior faith to those who do not?

Do we eat meat sacrificed to idols because we do not want to stand out from everyone else, and be different?

If those are our reasons, then we are not eating to the glory of God. We are eating to satisfy our very non-spiritual passions: our passion to satisfy a human craving, to be seen to be superior or not to stand out for Jesus.

So how do I eat to the glory of God? Combining this passage with 1 Timothy, I come up with 4 questions:

1. Do I receive this with thanksgiving.

Have we/can we say thank you to him for it?

I would encourage you to say ‘grace’ before meals. It is about saying thank you to God for what you are about to eat. They do not need to be long – in fact I would not recommend long graces, although perhaps not as short as Andrew used to make grace. We prayed: ‘Thank you Lord Jesus for our food. Amen’. His grace became: ‘Jesus, food, Amen’.

2. Can I live without it? If you can’t live without it (exclude things like water and food), then you are not actually free. The way to know whether what we do is to the glory of God or not is whether we have the freedom not to do it.

That is why Lent, or other periods of abstinence, can be so helpful. At those times we say: For the sake of God, I’m going to be vegetarian – to show I don’t need meat; I’m going to refrain from alcohol; I’m going to refrain from sexual intimacy.

By refraining, we are saying this thing is not the most important thing in the world. I am free to live without it.

3. Am I living in a way that is in accordance with what Jesus said about how a particular gift that God has given is to be used?

The obvious one here is the gift of sex. It is a gift, but it is not to control us. And the place for sexual intimacy is in the marriage relationship between man and woman. And I am aware of the cost that means for people who are single, whether that is because they haven’t met someone or because they are gay. But despite what society says, sexual intimacy is not everything. You are not half a person because you are a virgin or celibate.

4. Do I wish to honour God in the way that I use this particular gift?

There are many different styles of music. I don’t think that there is a particular Christian style of music. What I do know is that some classical music honours Jesus and some shames him; some R&M seriously dishonours him, some honours him. It is about how we use it.

The freedom we have is the freedom to live according to the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God longs to give glory to God.

WE DO WHAT WE DO IN LOVE

Love of neighbour is more important than your own individual freedom.

We see that very clearly here: The meat eaters are condemned by Paul not for eating meat, but for eating in a way that will unsettle other Christians. They are not taking into account the concerns of other believers. Their right to eat has become more important than their responsibility to love.

Don’t do something if you know it will offend another person – simply for the sake of asserting your freedom to do it. If you think it is OK to do your main shop on a Sunday, but if you know that it offends many brothers and sisters, don’t just do it to show that you are superior to them.

V29 is quite complicated: ‘For why is my freedom being judged by another’s conscience? If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for’? Three different commentaries: three different views. But I take it to be saying, ‘Don’t end up being denounced for something that is OK to do. Don’t do it on that particular occasion’.

When Alison and myself lived in the seminary in

Russia

we used to play cards with each other. But we soon realised it was a big ‘no no’ for Orthodox Christians. So if we were playing, and people came into our room, we quickly covered them up. We did not wish to make it an issue.

Many American Christians come to the UK and are horrified that Christians here drink alcohol. So if you know that they won’t like it, put the alcohol away. If it becomes an issue then of course you need to say what you think, but don’t make it an issue – because it is not the most important thing.

Perhaps it might be the same if we go to an American home and discover a gun lying in a drawer!

Interestingly, there was an occasion when, in love for others, Paul did make eating an issue. It was when Peter refused to eat with Gentiles because he was scared of what the Jews would think of him. Paul challenges Peter – rightly so: because there food was being used to break fellowship and not create fellowship.

So we do what we do to the glory of God; we do what we do in love; and there is a third principle which should control our actions. We do what we do in order that OTHERS MAY BE SAVED.

V32: Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God – even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they will be saved.

Do not let your freedom cause others not to listen to you when you speak of God. As Christians we know that a printed bible is a book like any other book. What makes it special is the message. We do not worship a book. So we write in our bible, we put it on the floor, we throw it away when we get a new one. We are free.

But if you are speaking with a Muslim friend, and they see you toss the bible to one side, they would be horrified. To them it shows immense disrespect to God. And I suspect that they would not listen to you.

We must respect the customs of others: that is particularly true if we are crossing cultural barriers. I think it is Bede who records the story that when the church sent envoys about 1200 years ago to this land, they invited the local leaders together. But as the leaders approached, the bishop did not stand to greet them. He remained seated. They took this to be the height of rudeness, and they rejected him and his message. Of course he was free to sit, but do not let your freedom be used to turn others away from Jesus.

And yes you are free to go to the cinema and theatre; you are free to watch what you want – provided it is done to the glory of God (and that is quite a big proviso) – but do not let your freedom lead others into sin. And maybe you are big enough to watch an X rated film for cultural purposes and not for titillation, but what does that say to the person who is watching it with you? And even though we know that Sunday is not the Sabbath and, as Paul writes very clearly in Colossians 2:16-23 we are not to judge one another about how we treat ‘special’ days or Sabbaths, I wonder what it does say when people see us doing our regular weekly shop on Sunday.

Peter writes, ‘Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honourable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us’ (1 Peter 2:12)

So the Corinthians were right. They were free to do what they wished.

And the anarchists in our congregation can sit up because I am going to say something very radical here. As believers we do not and we should not obey the law of the land simply because it is the law of the land. We are free to disobey! But we do not loot shops – not because the law says that if you do you will be put in prison; but because we are controlled and guided by the Spirit of God and of love. And there are times when - because we are under the authority of the Spirit of love - we may have to disobey a law of the land, even though we recognise that the authorities are put in place by God, and so we may have to go to prison.

And so we can say to a people who desire freedom that they will discover true freedom not by becoming slaves to their passions and lusts, but by receiving Jesus Christ

The Corinthians were free to do what they wished. But they also needed to be reminded that there is, at least this side of heaven, a more important principle than the principle of freedom. It is the principle of love.

It was St Augustine who said, ‘Love God and do what you will’. Of course, because we are sinful, we may say that we love God but we do not love God. So we need the law of God to guide and direct us. We need the law of the land to restrain us. But they will pass away. And one day we will discover the absolute freedom to love which is ours as believers in Jesus.

Reflections on Jeremiah, Exile and Exodus

2011-07-05T10:28:00.000+01:00

Jeremiah 31:15-26

Jeremiah had a tough job: locked up, mocked, conspired against, dropped in a pit, treated as a traitor. Described as the ‘weeping prophet’.
Occasionally had a good dream! (v26)

This part of dream begins with another person weeping
Rachel weeping in Ramah
Ramah was 5 miles out of Jerusalem. It was significant because it was the town that the Nebuchadnezzar gathered all their prisoners from Jerusalem before taking them into exile in Babylon.
Rachel - mother of Joseph; grandmother of Ephraim - and Ephraim made up the largest part of the population of Judah
So Rachel - symbolically Israel - is weeping for her children. Why? They have gone into exile.

This verse is used in another place in New Testament. Matthew 2:18 - when Herod slaughters the baby boys under the age of 2 when Jesus was born. It is used of the weeping mothers of Bethlehem. And Matthew is likening the slaughter of the children in Jesus time to the exile of Jeremiah’s time.
These are the sorts of things that happen when a godless ruler rejects God. The consequences are devastating.
Whereas the weeping in Jeremiah is caused by a separation by distance, the weeping in Matthew is caused by a separation caused by death.

There were two dominant experiences in the history of Israel - the Bible constantly returns to these.

Exile: being sent away - suffering the alienation, the separation caused by punishment for sin. The first exile was that suffered by Adam and Eve when they rebelled against God and were cast out of the garden.
Since then we have been in exile - separated from God, under the curse of God. That is why God seems so distant; why life can seem so futile and empty and, at times, simply a bit of a slog; why we suffer death.

But the situation here is not hopeless
Far from it: Jeremiah speaks of a ‘hope for your future’ (31:17)

And what we see here is the hope of return, the hope that God will bring his people back.

That brings me to the second dominant experience in the history of Israel.
The experience of Exodus. When God brought the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt into the promised land. And now, God says, that the people are again in slavery, he will once again bring about a new Exodus - a new act of deliverance for them.

Four things I note about how God does this.

1. Through a true, genuine repentance (vv18-19)

Recognition that the situation that Israel is in is a result of sin (v18). They’ve stopped playing the blame game; they’ve accepted responsibility for what has happened. It is not because God is unjust. It is because they have sinned.
Recognition that only God can bring them back (v18b). They cannot save themselves.
Genuine shame for sin (v19)

2. Call to respond to the love of God (v20)
Amazing verse. The parent - whose anger is an expression of their love
Why should we come back to God? Because he loves us.
And he goes on loving us - even at the same time as punishing sin.

For us as Christians, we see that even more clearly in Jesus. Jesus is the embodiment of both the anger of God against sin, and the love of God.

3. Call to return (vv21-22)
The people are in exile. They are to note how God brings them back - they are to see the marks, so that when they wander again in the desert they will again see markers and come back.
Note v22: Faithless Israel is again purified, and the verse about a woman embracing a man is about Israel once again embracing the God who has already embraced her.

This is a picture of intimacy - this is what God longs for us

4. Promise of abundance (v23-25)
Promise of return - a new Exodus
Place of prosperity (v23)
Place of righteousness (v23)
Place of harmony (v24)
God will satisfy the weary

This was an astonishing promise for a people who had just been taken into exile.

But it is also a promise for us
Jesus says, ‘Come to me all you who are weary’
Weary of carrying burdens you were never meant to bear; weary of exile - of alienation, worn down by life and by death

For us it also involves:
Repentance - and realisation that we can only come back to God with God’s help
Recognition of the love of God
Act of return: the path back to God for each of us will be different: for some it will mean saying sorry to another person; letting go of a hurt (handing it to God and letting him deal with it); act of obedience; new ‘vow’ that needs to be made to God, surrender of an area of our life; a decision to put worship of God at the centre of your life; an act of submission, humbling ourselves and crying out to God - recognising that we cannot save ourselves.

This passage is very similar to the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15).
Here it is Rachel’s children, in a far away land, called to return home
There it is the story of a son who rejected his father and chose to go into a self-imposed exile.
For him, it involved repentance, shame and realisation, a decision to return - and a journey back home

But what he did not expect was the response from his Father.
A father who loved him, and welcomed him back
A father who gave him everything.

And even though as Christians we live as exiles, because of Jesus we have both the hope of abundance, of full reconciliation, of an end to the alienation and separation caused by sin and death; and we also have the promise of the presence of God now. We have been forgiven, we are welcomed and embraced - and in turn we embrace our God.

A talk on the occasion of the wedding of Philip Taylor and Maaike Schoute

2011-06-24T14:49:00.000+01:00

A talk on the occasion of the wedding of Philip Taylor and Maaike Schoute

Based on Psalm 84

Many congratulations

Today is a day of great joy. We delight in your love for each other and in your delight in each other.

Psalm 84 speaks of a journey

Today marks the beginning of another journey.

I say ‘beginning’, even though you have been together and been committed to each other for some time, and God has blessed you with Noa. But it is a new beginning.

A new beginning with a new identity: Maaike literally has a new name; but it is a shared name. People will see you in a different way; literally as part of each other.

A new beginning with a new role in society: up to now your love has been about a personal commitment that you made to each other. Now you’ve gone public. It is something that is bigger than either of you or both of you – and it will make you bigger people.

Today God crowns your relationship.

People often speak of marriage as being ‘proper’. It is what is meant to be. And that is right. There is a degree of obedience to God in marriage. Marriage is – according to the Bible and Christian tradition – the right place for sexual intimacy; and marriage offers the right place for the bringing up of children.

And as you take this step of obedience, God crowns your relationship.

The first thing that you do as a married couple is to pray.

One of the prayers in this service asks that your love for each other will be a crown on your heads.

In the Orthodox church, a crown is held over the head of bridegroom and bride

The Bishop of London spoke at the royal wedding of how every wedding is a royal wedding.

In marriage God created man and woman together to rule this creation for him.

It is the beginning of the journey of your married life together.

A journey of growing together: our prayer is that you will grow in your love for each other more and more.

Involves giving: We give precious gifts to those we love. Today you give each other a wedding ring. But you give something far more precious, because as you give that ring you give yourself with it. You belong to each other.

Involves building each other up: honouring them, saying thank you; praising them – time to be romantic.

Involves forgiving: I am always slightly concerned when couples tell me that they do not have arguments. It reminds me of the person who said, “In our house we do not have arguments. Instead we store up resentments and grudges; stockpiling them for the time when we have our domestic nuclear Armageddon”. Forgiving is about choosing to forget. I like story of person who said to wife, ‘Don’t you remember when your husband did that.’ She replies, ‘No’ ‘I can specifically remember forgetting that’.

The Bible gives great advice on this:‘Don’t let the sun go down on your anger’.

Involves communication: sharing your plans, hopes and dreams; but also sharing your hurts, struggles and disappointments. And that needs time. There is no such thing as quality time without quantity time.

And yes there will be times of great joy: gift of Noa

But there will also be times of dryness, ‘valleys of Baca’ experiences.

And that is where the vows are very profound. Because they speak not only of health but of sickness; they speak not only of riches, but of poverty; they speak not only of the better times, but the worse times. And the call is to continue to trust in God and to be faithful to the covenant you have made.

And the promise is that the valleys of Baca, the dry places, will spring into life again.

But this is a journey with a goal

Not just a journey to grow together in love; to increase in your delight in each other; to have a family and to grow that family – but God has called you together so that, for the next – we pray - 40, 50, 60 years, you will continue to be travelling companions on the same journey that the author of Psalm 84 was on.

He was on a literal journey to the temple, to Jerusalem. But it was a journey to the place where God is king, of security, kindness, honour and abundance – the place of intimacy with God.

My prayer is that you will continue on that journey towards God. And as you travel you will discover more and more of what is in the heart of God, of his love for you, of his glorious destiny for you and of the eternal kingdom where Jesus reigns as King.

There will be times when the journey will involve tedious plodding, seemingly unendurable pain (like preparing to swim in the Triathlon), and at times in your relationship with God you may have to go through a few dry valleys. But there will also be moments of great rest and peace and that there will be, I pray, a deepening longing for God.

This journey towards God is the journey which will give your lives together their ultimate meaning and destination.

It is the reason I believe, that God, in his love, has called you together.

And our prayer is that as you journey together:

You will not lose sight of the purpose of your journey, of why God has called you together

You will not lose sight of the one who is beside you on the journey. In Prince Caspian, the children are seeking Aslan, but gradually they begin to realise that Aslan is the one who is running beside them.

God will bring you to that ultimate wedding banquet when Jesus is united with his bride, the church

You will know deep joy, peace and blessing – and that many will be blessed through you.

Save yourself from this corrupt generation

2011-06-19T16:27:00.000+01:00

Acts 2:37-47

Peter, in Acts 2:40, urges the people who listen to him: ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation’

How could he say that? How can you call any generation corrupt?

It is very simple. Peter is speaking to a generation which has crucified the Son of God.

Some people here may be landlords. I don’t know whether you ever have any problems getting rent. If you do, God knows what it is like!

Jesus tells a story about a vineyard. The owner gave it to some people. He said to them, ‘Look after it for me. Care for it, enjoy it. All I ask is that you remember that it belongs to me, that it is my gift to you, and give me what is mine when I send my messengers to you for the rent. The owner goes away. Some time later he sends a messenger. The tenants beat up the messenger and send him away with nothing. The owner sends another messenger. The tenants do the same thing to him. Finally the owner says, ‘I will send my own son. He will come with my full authority. They will respect him’. But when the tenants see the heir they say, ‘The owner is a long way away, and the owner is powerless. This is the owner’s heir. Let’s kill him. If we kill the heir, then the vineyard will come to us.’ And so they kill the son.

The people kill Jesus because they prefer a God who is distant and powerless; they prefer a God who started the whole show off in the beginning, but who is now so old and frail that he is irrelevant. They think that if they ignore the messengers of God and kill the Son of God, then God will go away.

It is the greatest act of forgetfulness, rebellion, self-centred pride, evil and stupidity that any person could commit: to kill the Son of God.

And Peter says to the people he is speaking to. “What do you think you were playing at? This Jesus, who you crucified, God has raised from the dead - and has made him Lord and Christ: the ruler of this world”. And he urges them, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation’.

Why? It was corrupt. It was God-hating and God-denying, and it was facing the dreadful judgement of God.

That of course was then.

Peter would never say today, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation’. This is billboard, religious nutcase stuff. After all it was not us who crucified the Son of God.

I wonder ..

Yes, many people may say that today’s generation is a corrupt generation. People speak of broken Britain. Look at how money rules everything, at the rates of family breakdown, binge drinking, at the social injustice when we have so much and others have so little, at the rape of the environment, at the neglect of the vulnerable elderly (particularly those who have no money), at child abuse, at the sexual licence which has lost all sense of the dignity of the human body as created by God.

Usually when people talk about this generation being corrupt, the emphasis is on the ‘this’. ‘Of course, when we were brought up it was much better....!’

But Peter’s call for people to save themselves from a corrupt generation is a call to all people at all times. He is telling us to save ourselves from a generation which is in rebellion against God; to save ourselves from a God denying and God killing generation.

We were not there when Jesus was crucified. But if we had been, I suspect we would have been with the people: with the crowd calling for his crucifixion or with the leaders demanding his execution, or with the soldiers carrying out their orders and the sentence of death. Or maybe you think you would have been one of the disciples - but they were betraying him, denying him or tripping over one other in their haste to leg it to safety when he was arrested.

We are as much the tenants in the vineyard who kill the son and heir as that generation or any other generation.

In his 1983 acceptance speech for the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn recalled the words he heard as a child, when his elders sought to explain the ruinous upheavals in Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” He added, “If I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: ‘men have forgotten God.’”

• we live in a world which has chosen to forget God

• we live in a world in which everything has to begin with me and my experience, and we say that because we cannot see God there is no God.

• we think that without God we are the creators, masters and mistresses of all this. We claim to be able to turn on life or turn off life. That is a bit of a joke. If one medium sized rock hit this planet from outer space and ushered in a new ice age, it would probably be the end for our race.

• we think that without God we can do what we like when we like. We usually add some proviso, ‘providing we do not hurt anyone else’. But actually if hurting someone else means that I get on in life, then so be it. You only need to watch the Apprentice to see that, or to speak with those whose lives have been shattered because someone has chosen to betray that trust, or to listen to people saying that they will go on strike because their pay or pension is threatened.

• we justify our denial of God by saying that belief in God causes conflict. 71% of Britons agreed with a statement that said that religious beliefs ‘promote intolerance, exacerbate ethnic divisions and impede social progress’. But it is tribalism which causes conflict and the answer to tribalism is not less God but more of the living God.

But belief in the living God is not an optional extra.

And a people who reject the living God put themselves in exactly the same place as the generation which crucified the Son of God.

What no generation, tribe or family can cope with is someone who claims to be the Son of God, who claims that this world and all the people in it belong to him, that he speaks the very words of God, that his life is what life is all about and that one day he will judge the world and its rulers and its ways.

Of course, if there were any grounds for believing that he is mad, then we will laugh at him, lock him up and feel much more comfortable. ‘He’s only a harmless idiot’.

But if you can’t do that: if people look at the way he lives and say, ‘I can’t fault that’; if he speaks in a way that has such authority and does things that are - to say the least - astonishing, and if people start to listen to him and follow him, then we have a choice. Either he is who claims to be, the Son of God, or he is not and he has to go.

I like to think that if Jesus was living among us today we would not crucify him. I like to think that we would never do that to anyone. We might arrange for him to have his head kicked in. We might put a petrol bomb through the door of the place where he was sleeping. We might arrest him,and just happen to find him hanging from one of the beams in his cell. But we wouldn’t crucify him.

The offence of the corrupt generation was not the actual act of the crucifixion of Jesus.

The offence of the corrupt generation is that it rejects God; it tells God: ‘We do not need you or want you’. It grabs the gifts that God give us, but shuts out the giver. [Peter as a child shutting door in face of person bringing present].

The offence of the corrupt generation is that it looks in the face of the one who is absolute love and beauty and light and completeness and power and truth, and it spits in that face.

This is the generation of which you are a part. You’ve been born into it. You’ve drank from its values all your life; you’ve accepted its assumptions as your assumptions. You are completely and totally part of it. And you need to save yourself from it. Because otherwise you face a dreadful judgement.

I hate being a non-conformist. I hate standing out. But here I have no option. Peter is calling you and me to become different. If we go along with the crowd, we are lost. We have to make a personal decision.

So Peter calls people to repentance: a change of heart and mind; to stop being controlled by the assumptions of this world and to stop living for this world; and to start living for God in obedience to Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

He calls people to be baptised: The New Testament teaches us that baptism is an act of obedience, and also an act of identification with Jesus and his people.

Because he was baptised, when we are baptised we are united to him.

And so the old way of life is washed away, and we are united with Jesus. In the Orthodox church, when a person is baptised they are given a new name. It is a picture that we become, in baptism, completely new people. ‘If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation. The old has gone; the new has come’ (2 Corinthians 5:17)

And Peter promises that the person who repents and who is baptised will receive the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of the living God, the Spirit that was in Jesus, will come and live in them.

Making that choice to receive Jesus as the Son of God and as your Lord and ruler is one of the bravest decisions that you will ever have to make. You are choosing to opt out of our God denying, me-centred society, and choosing to opt-in to the God-centred society. You are saying that you are not prepared to put your experience at the centre of your life - and you are going to put Jesus Christ there instead. You are saying that you choose not to put the God-denying assumptions of our society or our generation at the centre of your life; you are not prepared to put your own comfort at the centre of your life; but that you will put God at the centre of your life. You are saying that you will still live as a member of this society, under its laws - where they are right and honest - but you are going to be different.

Did you notice how, having urged people to save themselves from a corrupt generation, the new community of the church is described? It is grounded on the apostles teaching, it is a community where people deny themselves for the sake of the other, where they remember Jesus death and practice hospitality, and in which they put worship, praise and prayer at the centre.

So with Peter, I urge you to save yourself from a corrupt generation.

Repent: Change your mind. It is a conscious decision. Change the direction of your life.

If you haven’t been baptised, be baptised - as an act of obedience; and as an act of saying that your old life has been washed away, and that you now intend to live as a new person alive to Jesus. And if you were baptised as a baby or as an adult, but now realise what it is all about - Rejoice. But begin to live your baptism. Live as someone who is dead to the things of this world; and live as someone who is alive to God.

And you will be forgiven; and you will receive the Holy Spirit, the life of God to come and live in you. Instead of being a God-denying person, you will become a God-filled person.

How does this happen?

Through prayer. My personal prayer:‘God, make me a Christian’;

I will pray a prayer and invite you to say ‘Amen’. But then please come and speak to me. Tell me, ‘I want to be baptised; I want to be confirmed; or I have already been baptised and confirmed, but I wish to make a public reaffirmation of faith’.

The story of the vineyard which Jesus told does not end with the son being killed. It ends instead with Jesus saying, ‘What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others’.

The judgement on this God forsaking, God denying, God killing generation is coming. It will be dreadful. For the love of God, by the love of God, save yourself from this corrupt generation.

The Gospel and social justice

2011-06-13T10:18:00.001+01:00

Luke 4:18-19

I long for us to be a community of people who preach the gospel, the good news of Jesus, and who are committed to social justice.

There does not need to be any separation

The logic of the gospel demands social justice

We were lost. We were cut off from God.

We were created by God to live in a relationship of love and trust with him. We were created by God to love others as we love ourselves.

But we do not. We chose and we choose to reject his love. We choose to rebel against him, and to live for ourselves by ourselves.

In the beginning it was not our human nature which made us turn against God and to live for ourselves. It was our own wilful decision. Genesis tells us of Eve, as she looked at the fruit which God had expressly commanded her not to eat: ‘When she saw that it was good for food, and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom .. she took and ate it’. And that event is repeated moment by moment in each of our own lives, by our own decision: we live for what satisfies the body and what delights the lust of the eyes. And we seek a wisdom which does not begin with fear of and obedience to God.

When the rubber hits the road, we live for ourselves and not for God. We live to ensure that our life – and, I suspect, the lives of those who most affect us – are as comfortable as possible. We live by the Self Interest Now (the SIN) principal.

We are sinners. We are in rebellion against God. We have messed up this world, we have messed up human society, we have messed up other people, we have messed up ourselves. And please do not point the finger. Do not blame others: God, your genes, Eve or Adam, your parents, politicians, the church, ‘wicked’ people out there. There is only one person who you can blame. If you truly loved God and if you truly loved your neighour as yourself, it would have made an astonishing difference to this world, and to the people around us. But you do not, and I do not. And because of that, because we have taken the love of God and trampled on it, and spat on it, we face the prospect of dreadful judgement and eternal shame.

And in our spiritual blindness and our spiritual deafness we have become either judgemental and proud, looking down on others, thinking why can’t they be as capable or as moral or as responsible as me - or we become paralysed by a dreadful sense of fear-full inadequacy and powerlessness. And we have become deaf to the cries of others, either through our fear or through our pride.

BUT GOD – and the gospel, the good news, begins with this: BUT GOD. But God showed his love for us in this: It was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us. God gave his Son, and Jesus gave up everything, including his life, in order that we might be reconciled to God.

It is because of God that we can be here today.

It is because of God that we can stand before him forgiven;

It is because of God that we can know him and grow in a relationship with him;

It is because of God that we can share in the Holy Spirit;

It is because of God that we have not a destiny of shame, but a destiny of glory.

We did nothing to deserve or merit this. God does it all. All we need to do is respond and receive. That is what faith is: it is trusting God that what he has said and what he has done is sufficient.

Here is £5

Take it. It is a gift. You did not deserve it; it is not yours by right; you have not earned it. All you can do is receive it or reject it.

You might want to blank me – pretend that I am not here and that this is no gift

You might say, ‘I don’t trust you. There is a twist here. Take it back’

You might say, ‘I’m wealthy enough. I don’t need it. Take it back’

You might say, ‘Why me? I’m not sufficiently worthy. Take it back’

Or you might simply say, ‘Thank you’ and receive it.

God offers us far far more in Jesus. And his gift is available to each of us. And there are no twists or ties with his gift. He offers us the Holy Spirit, his life to come and live in us. We did not earn the Holy Spirit; we did not deserve the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is a totally free gift.

So what has the gospel got to do with social justice?

In some ways are we not saying that the gospel has very little to do about justice? If it was all about justice, then we are lost.

I love telling the story of the woman who was having her portrait painted. She said to the artist: ‘Young man, I demand justice’. He replied, ‘Madam, it is not justice you need, but mercy’.

And for us, it is not justice that we need but God’s mercy.

And yet there is another kind of justice that we are called to show. It is a social justice - based on the second command, ‘To love our neighbour as ourself’. It is about seeing each person as made in the image of God, as having an eternal significance, as having a divine dignity, as mattering as much as we do.

You see I think that we do not, because of our sinful nature, think like that.

Aristotle once said that some people are born to be slaves.

And I suspect that even if we would never say it, we might agree with him.

I think that most of us make the assumption that if we are wealthy and privileged and in a position of power, we have worked for it, we have earned it, we deserve it, and it is our right.

Equally there is the assumption that most of the poor are poor because they deserve to be poor.

We look at a person and we think: that person or that family are poor because they are undisciplined, sexually irresponsible, lazy and they spend what money they have on non-essential things. If they were sensible, like me, they would pull themselves up by their bootstraps. They would get on their bike and go out and work. They wouldn’t waste their money on drink or smoking or the lottery or unnecessary gifts. I do it, why can’t they?

I thank God with everything that I have that he did not look at me and say that.

Instead, when Jesus came he declares that the Spirit has anointed him to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind and release for the oppressed.

He came for the people we might call the ‘worthy’ deserving poor –the handicapped or oppressed;

He also came for the ‘unworthy’ undeserving poor – the prisoner.

And God, we are told, identifies himself with the poor.

Proverbs 14:31 states, “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honours God”

Proverbs 19:17, “He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord”

And in with Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus identifies himself with the poor, the naked, the imprisoned, the sick and the stranger. And he says that if we are blind or deaf to such people, then we are blind or deaf to him.

And although Matthew 25 is talking specifically about how we relate to other believers, the parable of the Good Samaritan makes it clear that this attention to the poor, this love is to be shown to all – even those who we would despise.

Tim Keller, in his book Generous Justice tells the story of a single mum with four children who began to attend their services. She had severe financial problems. The deacons in the church visited her and gave her some money to pay off her bills. She accepted. I quote, ‘Three months later it came out that, instead of paying her bills with the money we had been giving her, she had spent it on sweets and junk food, had gone out to restaurants with her family multiple times, and had bought each child a new bike, Not a single bill had been paid, and she needed more money. One of the deacons was furious, “No way do we give her any more,” he said to me, “This is the reason that she’s poor – she’s irresponsible, driven by her impulses” (p42)

Here is someone who clearly did not deserve to receive any more gifts. And yet...

The logic of the gospel is this:

We deserved judgement.

We deserved condemnation.

We had chosen death.

We deserved shame.

And yet Christ came for us – and as an act of astonishing grace, he gave us – at immense cost to himself – forgiveness, acceptance, the Holy Spirit, new life and the hope of glory.

Jonathan Edwards spoke of ‘the rules of the gospel’. By that he meant the logic of the gospel. He reasoned, “If you are a sinner saved by grace, how should that influence your civic life? Your attitude toward the poor?”

We are called to be like the Father in the story of the Prodigal Son reaching out in love to the undeserving son. But so often we are like the older brother in that story, outraged by the behaviour of our younger brother, comfortable in our moral superiority, and even more outraged at the astonishing grace of our Father.

Keller continues the story of the mum. The church was all for wiping their hands of her and her kids. “Look at what she does with our generosity”. But he insisted that one of the senior leaders went with him to meet her. They talked about the money, and she said, ‘I’m sorry. I feel so bad about the way that the children are being brought up. I never have any money to buy them anything nice. When I received your money, I wanted to do nice things with them, and buy them new things’. And as people began to listen to her, they began to understand, they realised that they were dealing with far more than a simply irresponsible mum being driven by her undisciplined impulses. They were dealing with someone who was messed up and at her wits end, who was a victim of a system which favoured the rich and that meant she had to borrow money at exorbitant rates of interest, and with someone who didn’t know how to handle money. So they sat down with her and they starting working with her on how to handle money and how to pay off her debts. They started to love her – even though she had done nothing to deserve it.

I long to see people living out of the logic of the gospel, in the power of that same Spirit which anointed Jesus.

Preaching good news: the good news of a God who loves us and who offers us forgiveness and the Holy Spirit and the Kingdom of God, even though we have done nothing to deserve this.

This is what comes first in Luke 4:18-19: the preaching, the proclaiming. That is why the priority of the church has to be to speak and to declare this good news.

Living as the community of good news:

Jesus in the Spirit, not only proclaimed it. He lived it.

And as people on whom the Spirit has been poured out, we are called to live it. To support each other as we work together to live the logic of the gospel. We together are the church. So the church is there when you join in an existing work or set up a new project: whether it is working for the advancement of the gospel in Tanzania, or to rescue women from sexual exploitation in the Philippines, or with carers for the severely disabled, or with the vulnerable elderly, or those in debt, working with the schools – not just the schools that our children go to, but the schools in the needier areas of our town and county, or with those who are trapped in cycles of debt, or those in prison or in hospital (appeal for wheelchair pushers), or in providing a home for a teenager who has lost the plot.

Let’s use the Hyndman Centre. It is a tremendous resource. I long to see it not simply as a resource for outside groups to hire, but as a resource that church members can use to develop ministries of social justice here for Bury.

Living in the power of the same Spirit that anointed Jesus:

Our society has lost its way in giving.

In days gone by, we could say to people that they should give to the poor because it was their duty to do so.

Today that argument carries little weight.

And so, in order to persuade self-centred people to give to people with whom they will never come into contact, our society tells “a sort of long, sad, sentimental story”. We see them in the videos for comic relief. There are several versions of this story: ‘Imagine what it would be like to be in her situation – to be far from home, among strangers’; or it might be ‘Because she might become your daughter in law” or “because her mother would grieve for her”. [Rorty quoted Keller p81].

But if we are depending on such stories in order to get us to give of our money and time, then what happens is that each story has to move us or shock us more than the previous story, if it is to have any impact.

But the Christian who has said ‘yes’ to the astonishing free gift of forgiveness and the Holy Spirit really does have a new motivation. That same Spirit which impelled Jesus in love to come from heaven for the poor, the prisoner, the disabled and oppressed, is working in us.

As the Scottish preacher, McCheyne, put it: ‘Oh my dear Christians! If you would be like Christ, give much, give often, give freely, to the vile and poor, the thankless and the undeserving’.

on Glory

2011-05-21T09:58:00.000+01:00

John 17:1-5

We are people who crave glory.

It is very hard to define glory. But if it is hard to define, we have an intuitive understanding of what it is. We can glimpse it and we want it. It is about having your name in lights. It is about receiving honour and recognition and praise and worship and adulation – all rolled into one.

We love it when others recognise us – when they recognise our value, our uniqueness, our achievement, our success, our victory.

We love it when we are lifted up and honoured.

It is why people dedicate hours of their life to training. So, for instance, swimmers will spend 6 or more hours each day in the pool. Why? For the possibility of the glory of winning.

It is why we put ourselves forward for competitions or auditions: so that we might get the chance to shine and to be recognised.

It is also why 22 million of us will watch something like the final of the X factor: the glory for the winner at the end. And the thing that makes us really sad, is that we support one or other of the contestants - so that if they win, we share in their glory – even though we have done nothing apart from slob on a sofa with beer and kebab, or some cheese and wine (depending on your taste!).

It is the same as when we support a team - we share in the glory of the goal, or the victory (although that doesn’t explain why people support Ipswich). Tomorrow there will an open top bus parade through the city of Manchester: people will be on the streets glorifying their team and sharing in that glory.

It is also why we don’t put ourselves forward on the public stage. I’m OK when I have a role to play, but in other contexts I’m a bit of a disaster. And if we are honest, it is not that those of us who are shy, who don’t like the limelight, are not putting ourselves forward to avoid glory. Far from it. We just fear that if we were in the limelight they would laugh at us and not praise us. So we play safe.

We crave glory – and yet, the strange thing is, when glory comes, it is so short, so brief. We are on top of the world for an hour, a day, even several days – and then .. reality hits.

Or putting this in a different way, I wonder what you glory in?

It is the thing you take most pride in, the thing that you really want to most talk about (even if you don’t). For some, it is themselves – their appearance, their ability, their stuff, their career, their achievement. Others glory in something outside of them: whether it is their beloved or their children, their team, their business, their church, their teacher or leader, their country. Others will glory in physical power and status, in their ability to get what they want, in wealth.

When it comes to what we glory in, we need to be careful of a double danger.

i. The danger that we will only stand if that in which we glory stands. If it falls we fall.

ii. The far more serious danger, which is that we become like our gods. We become like the thing in which we glory.

So what is going on here when Jesus prays, at the beginning of this prayer in John 17, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you … And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed’?

Is he simply doing what we do: seeking glory for himself? Or is there something else going on. And if Jesus prays to be glorified, can we pray to be glorified?

The Bible teaches that God is the source of all glory. All glory comes from Him and belongs to him: 1 Chron 29:11 “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours”..

CS Lewis said, “A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.”

The Bible teaches us that God’s glory fills the earth – if only we would open our eyes and see. When Isaiah has a vision, he sees the angels. “And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."Isaiah 6:3)

Thomas Merton wrote, ‘By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green. The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.’

And John 12:41 says that the Prophet Isaiah was able to speak of God because he saw God’s glory.

And the Bible teaches us that God’s glory is, at times, so real that it can be touched.

Ex 16:10 While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the LORD appearing in the cloud.

Ex 24:16 To the Israelites the glory of the LORD looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain.

Ex 33:18 Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory."

And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."

Ex 40:35 Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. (cf 1 Kings 8:11)

So what is Jesus doing, praying that his Father will glorify him?

Should he not simply be praying that God his Father will be glorified, that all people will see the glory of his Father?

But for Jesus, his hour has come.

He is praying for something that he really did have. He is praying for the glory which he had with the Father in the beginning, before the world existed (John 17:5)

Jesus Christ was a human being. If you analysed a sample of his DNA it would have been exactly like yours or mine. But Jesus Christ was different because there was a dimension to him which could never be analysed, but which controlled everything that he was and did, at a far deeper level than his DNA. He was the unique eternal Son of God – sent by the ‘only true God’.

John has made that very clear as we read through the gospel: ‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God .. the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory of the only Son from the Father’.

John the Baptist says, ‘I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God’

And Thomas, the doubting disciple, declares, ‘My Lord and my God’.

And just keeping to these 5 verses, Jesus, we are told, has authority over all flesh.

He even has it in him to grant life: he is the source of life and he gives eternal life to all who the Father has given him

And so when Jesus prays to be glorified, he is asking his Father to give to him that which he had at the beginning.

It was the glory that the disciples glimpsed when Jesus turned water into wine (John 2:11).

It was the glory that the disciples glimpsed when he raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:4).

It was the glory that the disciples began to see at the transfiguration (2 Peter 1:16-17)

It was the glory that the world was going to see when he rose from the dead.

Now, now that Jesus hour has come, now that he has done all that he was called to do, he prays that his Father will glorify him with the glory that he had with him before the world existed.

Jesus can pray to be glorified because he has glorified the Father on earth by ‘accomplishing the work’ which the Father had given him (John 17:4)

Jesus lived the life that God had called him to live. He accomplished the work. It is the same word that Jesus uses when he talks about doing the work that God had given him to do (John 4:34; 5:36). It is the same word that Jesus uses just before he dies, when he cries out, ‘it is accomplished’ (John 19:30 – although most of our translations use the English word ‘finished’). And in living a completely God centred, God directed, God focused, God driven life Jesus both gave glory to the one to whom all glory belongs, and he reflected that glory.

You see people and things are glorified to the extent that they fulfil their purposes with relation to God.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul speaks of the glory of different bodies: He talks of the glory of the sun and of the moon and of the stars; the glory of heavenly bodies and the glory of earthly bodies (1 Corinthians 15:40-41).

Everything that God has made has its own glory. It is a reflected glory, just as the moon reflects the light of the sun, so each created thing reflects the glory of its creator. A stone has its own glory. A big stone, a mountain, has its own glory. A tree has its own glory. Animals have their own glory. And human beings have their own glory: ‘What is man that you are mindful of him .. you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour’.

And we make known that glory when we recognise that our glory depends on him. As Augustine said, “We give glory to God when we say, ‘You made me and not I’”.

We make known that glory when we live in the way that we were made to live.

When the sun shines it shows the glory of God; when grass grows and gives off its CO2 it shows the glory of God; when new born lambs jump in the fields they show the glory of God; when we live – when we really live, in the way that we were created to - praising God for his glory, responding to his love with love, joyfully submitting to him, trusting him in dependence, loving and serving him and one another and his creation - recognising that all glory belongs to him – we show the glory of God. That is why Irenaeus said that ‘the glory of God is a human being fully alive, with their face turned to God’.

And that is why the Bible tells us that we can share in the glory of God – by looking at the glory of God, by looking at the man who did do that, who did live the fully human life, by looking at Jesus Christ. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit”. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

He asks the Father to glorify him, so that he might glorify the Father (John 17:1)

All glory belongs to the Trinity, to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And in John 17 we get a glimpse into the inner life of the Trinity. Obviously this is far beyond our human understanding. But what it seems in the Trinity is not that the Father says, ‘I’m the main one and the Son and the Spirit need to glorify me’, but that it is so arranged that when one of the Trinity glorifies the other, then they themselves are glorified.

So Jesus seeks the glory of the one who sent him (John 7:19 cf John 8:50-54).

And listen to this: John 13:31 ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once’.

And Jesus talks of the Spirit, how the Spirit ‘will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you’.

It is very hard to separate the love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, from the glory of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father loves the Son and so wants glory for the Son. The Son loves the Father and so longs for glory to go to the Father. The Spirit loves the Son and longs for glory to go to the Son. And in seeking the glory of the other, the one who they love, they find their own glory.

And so Jesus says, a little later in this prayer, ‘The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one ..’ (John 17:22)

So do we begin to see it?

Do you crave glory? It is OK to crave glory. But whose glory do you crave, and from whom do you crave glory?

Glory is like all the gifts of God. It is like life, or love, or possessions, or peace, or joy. If you try to grab hold of it for yourself, you will lose it. If you give it away you will gain it.

The world tries to gain glory by seeking its own glory, when in fact the way to gain true glory is to give glory to another.

That is why churches should be marked by people who are not seeking their own glory, their own interest, but the interest and the glory of others.

But above all churches should be marked by people who are seeking the glory of the Father, and the Son and the Spirit, who is the source of Glory and who is the most Glorious.

And if, with Jesus, we do choose to glorify – through our words and our actions - the One who is most glorious, we begin to share in that glory. We begin to share that glory today. But we can look forward to that day when we will be fully glorified. We will stand in front of him, and we will receive the highest of accolades. It comes from the One who really matters, the one who loves us. And he will say, ‘Well done you good and faithful servant. Come and share your master’s happiness’. Or perhaps that could be reworded: ‘Come and share your master’s glory’.

Paul writes in Romans 8:30, ‘And those whom God predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified’.

For those who wish to consider this subject further, CS Lewis preached an exceptional sermon, called The Weight of Glory.