Sermon 17th September 2006

Peter: right and wrong

One of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur, continues our study of the gospel of Mark. Today's reading is from Mark 8, verses 27-38

A brand new Vicar arrived at a new church. Unfortunately, almost as soon as he arrived, several old members of the congregation died. Consequently in four weeks he did eight funerals. He did not have time to prepare his Sunday Sermons. So he used the sermon from the Sunday before - 3 more times. The PCC went to the Bishop complaining that the new Vicar had used the same sermon 4 times in a row. The Bishop asked what the sermon was about. The PCC couldn't remember; they scratched their heads and ummed and aaghed, but they really couldn't remember. The Bishop said, "Let him use it one more time."

I was tempted to follow that Vicar’s example, because this is the second time I’ve preached on this passage this year, but I decided against trying to get away with it! With most sermons, one of the main difficulties is trying to decide what to leave out; it’s usually possible to preach several different sermons from the same passage.

The story told in today’s reading from Mark, Peter’s great confession, was a turning point in Jesus’ ministry. It became clear from that moment onwards that Jesus was treading the road of the Cross and teaching his disciples what his calling was to be – suffering.

The key verse here is verse 31, “He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.” But would the disciples really understand what Jesus meant?

A verse a bit earlier in chapter 8 hints they would probably miss the point. In verse 21, Jesus said to them, “Do you not understand?” The context there was about bread and the disciples’ complete inability to understand the spiritual points that Jesus had been making; they just didn’t understand. They kept on missing point, and so our Lord again and again had to explain to them what was going on. With the benefit of nearly 2,000 years of hindsight it’s easy to be critical of the disciples, to wonder how they could have missed the point so often, but we need to ask ourselves – Do we sometimes miss the point? Do we sometimes fail to recognise who Jesus is? It is very easy to mistake Christ’s identity.

So Jesus asked, “Who do people say that I am?” And the disciples reported the general reaction, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." This tells us a good deal about the way that Jesus was perceived by the people. Not ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, not a comfortable, cosy friend; no, they saw him as one of the wild prophets who had stood up and spoken God’s word fearlessly against wicked and oppressive kings. Jesus was acting as a prophet; not simply one who foretold the future, but one who was God’s mouthpiece against wickedness and injustice in high places.

Now at that time many Jews believed that the arrival of God’s chosen one was imminent, the Messiah who would rescue the people from foreign oppression. And as Jesus went around teaching and healing people, perhaps the disciples were beginning to think that Jesus was something more than a prophet, perhaps he was the chosen one. And then came the critical question, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter responded with the wonderful answer that we are given here, “You are the Christ.” (In Hebrew the Messiah.)

Now Matthew’s Gospel gives a fuller account of these events, and I’m going to follow the precedent that Adrian set last Sunday and also cross-refer to Matthew’s account. After Peter gave his answer, Jesus congratulated him for what he had said, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not overcome it.”

Now, there has been theological disagreement over what Jesus meant when he said, “(O)n this rock I will build my church.” Some argue that Peter’s confession of faith was the rock on which Peter would build his church, but most commentators now agree that Peter himself was the rock on which Jesus said he would build his church. What an amazing compliment for Peter – to be told that he would be the rock upon which Jesus would build the church. It is easy to get Jesus’ identity wrong, but Peter had got it very, very right! But in a moment, we shall see how he went on to get things very, very wrong. Even the disciples, who had been travelling around with him and seen at first hand what he had been doing, struggled to grasp his real identity.

Now after Peter had come out with his declaration, Jesus told them not to tell anyone. Why did Jesus do this; what is the reason for what has sometimes been called the Messianic secret? Jesus knew that the disciples needed to be educated into what Messiahship meant before they could let the announcement go out, “Here’s the Messiah!”

Remember how on Palm Sunday the people in Jerusalem got it wrong. They thought, “Here’s the liberator, marching in to overthrow the Romans.” It’s very easy to mistake Christ’s identity. The disciples had to learn the nature of Christ’s Messiahship.

If Jesus asked us the question, “Who do you think that I am?” how would we answer. A lot of people say that he was a good man, perhaps even a prophet of God, but the Son of God, the Messiah, that’s going a bit too far. A lot of people say they try to live by his teaching, but believing in the Resurrection is going over the top. There’s a famous passage in a book by C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity that responds to this type of thinking. I’ve quoted it before, but several years ago, and I think it’s well worth repeating, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

“Who do you say that I am?” It’s very easy to mistake Jesus’ identity. It’s also easy to mistake his mission, to get wrong what Jesus came to do. So, in verse 31 Jesus began to teach them what his mission was about; that he must suffer, be rejected and killed and then rise again from the dead. As soon as he had confirmed to the disciples that he was the Messiah, he had to explain to them what his Messiahship meant. To the Jews of Jesus’ time the person of the coming Messiah gathered around him a whole aura of triumphalistic nationalism and associations that went way beyond the OT prophesies. The Messiah was a mighty military figure who was going to liberate them politically. He would fulfil all the people’s dreams, the dreams of a people who had been dominated by the Babylonian, the Persian, the Greek and the Roman Empires in turn. He would restore the chosen people of God to their rightful place in the Sun. That the Messiah would be very different came as a shock, even to his disciples who must already have worked out that Jesus was no figure of revolutionary violence. But to learn that the Messiah was going to suffer was too much. It was certainly too much for Peter who took Jesus aside and rebuked him. Peter wasn’t going to allow the Messiah to suffer, but Peter had got it very wrong. And Jesus in turn rebuked Peter in very strong terms; “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

It was a tremendous rebuff for Peter. One moment he was Peter, the rock upon whom Jesus would build his church, the next moment Jesus was calling him Satan. Perhaps Jesus was remembering an earlier time in his life, when Satan tempted him in the wilderness. “Throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the Temple,” the voice of the tempter said, “and win the world through signs and wonders. You can avoid the pain of the Cross. All Jerusalem will be amazed.” Jerusalem did figure in Jesus’ plans: Jesus had set his face towards Jerusalem, but he made it plain enough what Jerusalem would mean; he wasn’t going to allow Peter, no matter how well-intentioned he was, to sidetrack him from the way of the Cross. To preach the message of Christ without the Cross would be a bit like writing a biography of Christopher Columbus without mentioning America, or making a documentary on Winston Churchill without referring to the 2nd World War. The Cross is absolutely at the centre. It has to be. Jesus must suffer. Yes, of course, the resurrection is there too; without the resurrection the Cross would be a tragedy, but Jesus said that he would defeat death and after 3 days rise again. But the Cross had to come first.

Do we sometimes forget the centrality of the Cross? From time to time Christians do slip away from the Cross. For example, prosperity teaching has sometimes gained adherents in many parts of the world. A lot of this teaching is based on taking OT verses out of context such as “the LORD your God will make you most prosperous”; these verses do appear in the OT, but they need to be balanced with the rest of the Bible. Such teaching ignores the fact that many godly OT figures suffered, in particular Job, and also it forgets the Cross. For there on the Cross, we see Jesus stripped of everything. There was no prosperity there.

But I suspect that prosperity teaching isn’t the type of trap that we’re likely to fall into here. We’re more likely to think that it’s a trap that other Christians, particularly Christians from the USA, are more likely to fall into. But I don’t think we can afford to be complacent. Our Christianity can quite easily become a comfortable Christianity. OK, we don’t necessarily believe that God will bless us materially, but our Christianity may have become undemanding and comfortable. We too need to ask ourselves whether we are in danger of losing sight of the Cross. Perhaps, like Peter, we do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.

“Who do you say that I am?” Have we got Jesus’ identity wrong? Jesus is not merely a good man, a man who set us a good example to follow. Jesus is the Son of God; God the Father sent him to suffer for our sakes, to die on the Cross and to rise again from the dead. And even if we already accept that, are we sometimes tempted to choose the easy way, rather than the way of the Cross. Has our Christianity become too comfortable?

Let us pray. Father, you sent Jesus to be the Messiah, to die for us and to rise again. Help us to recognise who he truly is, and to be willing to follow him wherever he leads us.

Sermon from 10th September 2006

Racial Justice Sunday

Adrian Parkhouse, one of our Lay Readers, continues our study of Mark’s Gospel. Today’s reading is Mark 7: 24-30: 1.

We are reading Mark’s gospel. Chapter 7 – but only the second week for us: not because we are going at pace, but because we started at verse 1 of chapter 7. Last week Cameron took us through Jesus’ confrontation with the Pharisees and teachers of the law, a primary point of which was Jesus’ criticism that they had “put aside God’s commands and obey[ed] the teachings of men” (v.8). The contrast between following “tradition” and following faith.

This week I want to concentrate on just one of healing miracles recorded in our reading – that of the daughter of the woman. It is a short story; the sort of story that you can speed through while reading the chapter as a whole; the sort of story that as you read it might make you think, “sounds a bit odd – but it turned out all right in the end, so I’ll carry on”. It’s that sort of story. I should also mention that when you do stop to look at in more detail it is the sort of story for which it helpful to have 3 hands and a working knowledge of the comedic works of Monty Python.

The relevance of Monty Python is obvious, but I ought to explain the need for 3 hands (or special dexterity with one foot perhaps?): the story is told not only by Mark but also by Matthew, and while Matthew’s account is basically the same he adds a little detail omitted by Mark. So one hand in Mark 7 and one in Matt 15 might be helpful. And the third hand might want to be turning over John 4, not because it is the same story but because there are interesting elements in common between the meeting of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well in Sychar and the events we look at today.

2. Our story starts where Cameron’s left off with a less explicit example of Jesus choosing to flout the man-made rules of tradition. For a religious Jew to choose to go on retreat in the area of Tyre and Sidon was like the chairperson of Gamblers Anonymous choosing to go to Las Vegas for “a few days rest”. If we were unsure before, the recent events on the border between Israel and Lebanon probably mean that we can now identify this area as lying on the Med. coast in that border region. In Jesus’ time it was an area populated by non-Jews.. It was not a place a religious Jew would choose to frequent because it would mean associating with these Gentiles and they were one of the classes whose company was regarded as “unclean”. But Jesus went; and it seems went on retreat – to a house where he wanted to know where he was.

3. But his plans were thwarted. “He could not stay hidden.” In particular one person who found him was the “Syro-Phoenician woman”; a Gentile, born possibly in the north of what is now Lebanon; some translations say she was a Greek; Matt describes her as a “Caananite” – both terms being generalisations to describe a foreigner, both having the potential for insulting insinuation. You might think of words that we might use to describe foreigners which may similar potential? And she was a woman. The circumstances are different from Jesus starting the conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, but again he put himself in the position of dealing with someone who was potentially “unclean” to the religious Jew on two counts: her background and her gender.

4. Mark’s account is now very curt. Matthew reveals slightly more of the events. In particular we learn that she began by crying out “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!” to which Jesus did not respond. Instead his disciples begged him to send her away on the basis of the fuss she was creating. Then we have the exchange much as Mark records it.

What about that exchange? “Let us first feed the children. It is isn’t right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs”; “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s left-overs” [NIV “First let the children eat all they want, for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs.” “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.”]

How comfortable so you feel about this? What is going on?

5. I want to suggest 3 things are highlighted from these events:

• First [fittingly on a day with 2 baptisms] we see a parent’s, a mother’s, love at work. I reckon that we know of 4 occasions when it seems that Jesus cured a child at the request of a parent – 2 for a mother and 2 for a father. Of course others bought people to Jesus (the centurion and the friends with the bed) – but no surprise that parents feature more often? We know that few of us are – or had - perfect parents, but the bond of love from parent to child is potentially very special, onerous but special.
From Matthew’s version I think we can also see that the relationship gives an opportunity for finding faith. In her first approach (“Son of David…”) there is a sense of the Gentle woman repeating what she has heard others say - a bit like the Pharisees following the traditions and teachings of men – “this is the formula that will get me what I need”; but then in the argument with Jesus, she has to put it her own way, she has to own her own needs, she has to express what her heart is desperate for. There is no rubric to repeat here, no formula; she could retire hurt or tell Jesus how very important this is to her. From her head to her heart: from tradition to faith?
• Second “now for something completely different”. I was touched at how my 8-11 yr old SS class enjoyed a reading of the classic “10-minute argument sketch”. No time to read it here but you know it anyway? [read a bit?].
Do you think the woman argued with Jesus – or at least persuaded him to alter his mind? It seems that way to me – although I have found it very difficult to find any commentator that agrees with me. Not sure why – it is not a unique occurrence in scripture: Abraham jolly nearly saved Sodom from destruction by persuading God to reduce the number of righteous men that would be enough from an opening bid of 50 down to 10. Here the woman seems able to persuade Jesus that it is not too early for him to share the love and grace of God with people other than the Jews – whatever Jesus may have felt about his primary plan. In the case of both examples, it is notable that the pleader is arguing for something that is in line with God’s intentions – to be merciful, to share the gospel of grace with every race, with every individual. So these are not cases of arguing and persuading God against his will; these are cases of deep, deep concern finding resonance with what is ultimately God’s will. A lesson perhaps for prayer?
• And lastly – and significantly today, which is Racial Justice Sunday in the calendar of many churches – the juxtaposition of the Gentile and Jesus and his extension of the gift of healing towards her, reminds us that whatever our background, whatever our race, whatever our tradition, whatever our colour, we have no monopoly of God’s grace. His good news in Jesus that all people may find peace with Him is for all people. No barriers. No one send away.
We may wonder how anyone could think differently? On good days we realise that in modern day London in particular, we are blessed with the experience of many races, many backgrounds, many contributions to the life of the city of the country. But sometimes we forget that our experience is a very privileged one in all sorts of ways. [Conversation with my Hungarian dental nurse] But I have also painted a very rosy summary of the way it is. All around us, possibly in the experience of some here, race, background or colour of skin continue to be a regular cause of discrimination.
On holiday I had time to think about various matters and being in the US to compare things there with here. One thing I thought was that this area was very lucky to have its “Churches in HH” body which enabled the various churches co-operate on many matters. But I noted that some churches in the area were not included in that body – notably the various black-led congregations. I wondered why and realized how little I knew of those churches. Thinking wider I recalled that I had spoken about a year ago – on the same Sunday a few weeks after the July bombs in London. The burden of my prayer then was that I would be able to overcome the fear that had dogged me since those incidents by learning more about Islam and the position of Islamic people in this country. I have made some progress but have stalled and am aware that my opinions – my fears – are still fuelled by ignorance, so that I am able to base my responses on matters that are primarily abut me and mine.
Arguably if there was anything wrong with Jesus’ reaction to the woman it was because his priorities were focused so closely on the mission he knew he had to fulfill. It took an understanding, an insight into the pain and anguish of the woman for him to re-focus on his Father’s wider love. Maybe our focus needs widening too?

Sermon from 3rd September 2006

As many people are away and because children's church takes a break, we tend not to post sermons over the summer.

Now things are relatively "back to normal", we resume regular weekly postings.

Our Vicar, Cameron Barker, introduced a new series of study - from Mark's gospel. Here is his sermon, based on the reading from Mark 7: 1-8.

Apologies to members of the medical profession present – & anyone facing surgery; but here’s a list of 5 things that you’d least want to hear whilst on an operating table.

- First & most obvious: anything at all; but if you did, then

- That heart’s beating is putting me off: can’t we stop it?

- I wish I hadn’t forgotten my glasses;

- At least that scalpel is sharp: don’t worry about the rust;

- And; better save that stuff. We’ll need it for the autopsy.

My point is that the best jokes are usually the ones that need the least explanation – because people ‘get’ them without needing to be told any more. Unfortunately, the same thing can’t be said of today’s Bible passage – which really does need quite a lot of explanation!

The good news is that Mark, the author of the gospel that we’re starting to look at in this new series, knew that. As we heard, he at least tried to explain these foreign Jewish religious practices. He needed to explain them because most of his original readers were non-Jewish. But Mark wrote for people in the middle of the First Century – who were more familiar with such practices than we are. We’re going to have to work much harder today to understand what this story’s really about. In the end, though, exactly the same point needs to hit us between the eyes too.

The choice of medical jokes wasn’t a coincidence. As we will see, this is a heart issue – so much so that one writer entitled his commentary ‘does Jesus need to give you a heart attack?’! It’ll take us a while to get to that question, and we’ll have to work on past today’s reading too. But 1st we need at least a brief introduction to this gospel, seeing as how we haven’t been following it so far this year.

So: just about all scholars today are agreed that Mark was the first to write down the story about Jesus – some time around 55 AD. It’s also not controversial to say that Mark himself probably wasn’t a disciple of Jesus. He was close to the action he wrote about, though. The early church in Jerusalem met in Mark’s mother’s house. It may well have been that Jesus ate the Last Supper there too. Mark also appears *as 1 of Paul’s travelling companions *in the book of Acts. Mark & Paul didn’t always see eye to eye, though! But Mark stayed a close friend of Simon Peter; & it’s likely that Peter himself was the main source for Mark’s book.

Mark was probably living in Rome by this stage, so that’s most likely where he wrote his gospel. He did aim his account specifically at a Roman, so non-Jewish, audience – & that’s clear from his very first sentence. Romans were people who liked getting straight to the point, as Mark did: ‘This is the Good News / The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God’. That’s how Mark began, in 1:1; & he then carried on writing in a way designed to hold a Roman’s attention. Your average Roman liked a short, action story, so Mark’s the shortest of the gospels. E.g. he recorded no less than 18 miracle stories about what Jesus did – as against just 4 full-blown parables that he taught.

In that sense, today’s reading isn’t an average sample of Mark. As we’ll see in the coming weeks, Mark usually told stories that spoke for themselves, & then let them do that. But today we have at least been introduced to 1 of the key themes in this gospel. It isn’t always in the foreground, but this is an important feature of Mark. It’s the ever-growing conflict between Jesus & the religious leaders of his day – which, in the end, directly resulted in Jesus’ death.

Jesus’ death is of course another major theme in Mark, as it is in all 4 gospels. Mark, though, spent about a 3rd of his book writing about the last week of Jesus’ life. He began building up to that from the middle of chap. 8 – so we’ll be getting to it quite shortly in our series. What we need to be aware of today is the role that this conflict would go on to play in Jesus’ death. So, it will help to know now that this wasn’t the first time in Mark that the Pharisees & teachers of the law had come to check Jesus out. It also happened earlier in Mark’s story, & with pretty much the same result.

The Pharisees & teachers of the law heard about what Jesus was doing – & so they came from Jerusalem to see it for themselves. It must be said that they appeared to have come with the intention of finding fault. What Jesus was reported to be doing and saying fundamentally challenged their religious system. It was quite different to the very tight laws they insisted people live by. Jesus was about God doing new, different, and exciting things in the here & now – showing people what God’s kingdom looked and felt like. Of course these leaders couldn’t challenge Jesus directly about that. Instead, they found fault with his disciples – for whom he was responsible as their leader.

The fault they found with Jesus’ disciples in Mark 7 had nothing to do with hygiene! This wasn’t about whether the Pharisees thought that their hands were clean enough to eat with. It was about whether Jesus’ disciples were being good enough Jews. If they were, they would have washed their hands in the right ritual way before they ate – which they obviously didn’t. Now if you’re wondering which book in the OT will tell you how to do that, don’t bother: it’s not in there! None of these practices that Mark mentioned in vs. 3 and 4 are from the OT. They’d been developed over time, and were part of Jewish tradition in Jesus’ day.

That kind of thing does happen, of course – in any religion. Practices develop over time, and become part of the way that things are done. I wonder if saying grace before we eat is a modern Christian equivalent of this ritual washing. There’s good reason in the Bible for us to do it: Jesus gave thanks for his food & drink. But what’s our motivation for doing it? Is it a genuine sign of how thankful we are to God for what he’s given us? Or is it just something that we do because that’s our time-honoured religious tradition?

That’s a question it’s worth asking ourselves, because the answer does matter! These traditions were really important for the Pharisees – and they all had historical roots. What Jesus questioned, though, was what their motivation was. Was it about honouring and obeying God – or just about keeping up the traditions? Jesus was in no doubt about the answer to that question; & he left the Pharisees in no doubt about his view either! Quoting the prophet Isaiah, he told them in v 6, ‘You’re hypocrites’! Jesus accused the Pharisees of playing a role rather than being the real deal. With their mouths & their actions they seemed to honour God – but in reality their hearts were far away from him.

Going now beyond our reading Jesus gave a very specific example of what he meant. He showed how it’s possible to set aside God’s commands by sticking to traditions. In God’s law there is an absolute duty to honour our parents. In Jesus’ time there was a religious tradition that allowed people off that hook in a particular way. If people told their parents that they’d promised an amount of money to God, they didn’t have to give any to their parents. Was that how God wanted people to behave? Absolutely not, as anyone whose heart was for God would know. So this religious tradition in effect allowed people to disobey God.

Going back to the business of ritual washing, Jesus didn’t say it was in itself a way of disobeying God. What Jesus questioned was the Pharisees’ underlying assumption for insisting on people doing it. The Pharisees believed that not washing properly made people unclean before God. There’s a story about a rabbi who was excommunicated for persistently not washing in the right way. But, as Jesus explained later in this chapter, external things can’t & don’t make people unclean, though. What matters much more to God is what’s on the inside. That’s what really makes us unclean – or shows that we are: what’s on the inside.

It’s a whole different way of looking at life & humanity that Jesus introduced. For the Pharisees & traditional Judaism it was about avoiding anything or anyone who could make you unclean. The assumption was that if you did the right things – in the 1001 ways set down in all the regulations – people could keep themselves in God’s good books. But of course we can’t – ever! God sees everything about us; even the bits we’d rather he didn’t! We can’t hide anything from God. He knows even the thoughts of our hearts; and as Jesus pointed out, those are the problem, usually!

If you’ll allow some toilet humour, whatever goes into us from the outside comes out again in some way. That can’t make us unclean, or clean before God. What does make us unclean before God is what’s inside us to start off with. That’s the problem, & that’s where the problem works out from – the inside. In vs. 21 Jesus spelled it all out. It’s on the inside that we have the idea to do things that make us unclean before God. It’s on the inside that we excuse our-selves in advance for taking what’s not ours; or having an affair; or being greedy – or whatever else on this list is our own particular failing. And even if we don’t act on those thoughts, let’s at least be honest about having them.

That’s what makes us unclean before God – the reality of what we’d really like to do. God knows what we’re like: he made us; and in his son he has experienced the invitation to sin that we receive every day. God knows that we each have a heart-problem – so that’s why he came to give us the heart attack that we need! Way back in OT God said that one day he’d give people new hearts – hearts that are for him, rather than for sin. Jesus came to show how it was possible to live with this new heart. Then he died to give a new heart to whoever will accept God’s offer of one.

So, do you need Jesus to give you a heart attack? What is on your inside? Forget for a moment about the outside: even if you behave very well, that’s not fooling God! Do you need a new, God-given, God-focused heart? It is on offer today: you only have to ask. Maybe you’ve received a new heart already. Well, you need to go on bringing it to God each day for him to renew your motivation. Living the Christian life really isn’t about doing the right thing. That is important, of course. But what’s more important is having the right reason to do the right thing. So that’s what any Christian needs to be honest with themselves about, day in & day out. It’s the state of our heart that interests God – & God alone can put that right. So let’s pray that he will …

Sermon from 23rd July 2006

FINAL INSTRUCTIONS

This is our Vicar, Cameron Barker's, sermon from last Sunday 23rd July which concludes our study of Paul's letter to the Colossians:

“There are two things to do about the Gospel – believe it & behave it”. Two months ago I began this series by quoting those words of Susanna Wesley, the mother of Charles & John. I said that they were the best possible headline summary of this letter we’d be studying until the summer. And now that we’ve got to the end of our Colossian series I see no reason to change my mind. “There are two things to do about the Gospel – believe it and behave it”. And this letter has shown us how to do both better: how to believe more surely & how to behave more faithfully as Christians. In that first sermon I also quoted Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham. He suggested that this letter is like a flower that gradually unfolds to reveal the full extent of its beauty and depth. Again, I think that’s exactly what we have seen as we’ve studied Paul’s letter to this young church. And I have to say that by ending the series as I began it I’m only copying Paul’s own example – from this letter! If the words we’ve heard sound familiar that’s because Paul has come full circle. Apart from the personal greetings that follow this passage, these are the final things Paul wanted to impress on his readers. And, as we’ll see, they are pretty much the same things as he wanted to impress on them at the start! Mind you, Paul has taken his readers on quite a journey between the parallel beginning and ending. He began with that great opening passage of prayer and thanks to which we’ll return later. Then he went straight into one of the best explanations in the whole NT of who Christ is & what he’s done for all people. Paul rightly set the person & work of Christ in the widest possible – & mind-blowing – context. The picture that we used to help us imagine ourselves in comparison to Christ was of us as ants in the largest building we could envisage. And yet we heard how this Christ died on the cross, so people as insignificant as us could be reconciled to God! That cosmic, eternal truth is God’s big secret – which has now been made known to all people. Adrian spoke about this secret, & Paul’s own role in making it known as widely as possible. Then Paul came to the meat of his letter to these young believers. But, as we saw, he had first had to lay out these foundations of the Christian faith, to remind the Colossians of what they believed and why. This wasn’t a church that Paul had founded, or taught, directly himself. It had been planted by Epaphras, a man from this area who had come to faith through Paul’s preaching in nearby Ephesus. But now people were raising questions about how solid the Colossians’ basis for belief was. Paul didn’t ever tackle those issues head-on in his letter. Instead he wrote to the Colossians in the most positive fashion imaginable. Again and again Paul stressed what they’d been taught, & why it was trustworthy and true. And because it was trustworthy and true he also emphasised how they were to behave in the light of it. You see, Paul also knew that there are only two things to do about the gospel – to believe it & behave it. So, having reminded the Colossians of what they believed and why, he went on to how they were to behave because of what they believed. The first area of the Colossians’ behaviour to be impacted was about what they believed. They – and we, of course! – weren’t to allow anyone or anything to distract them from what they knew to be true. Christ was – and is – the ultimate reality. He was – and is – all. He was – and is – in charge of all things, because he’s the one for and through whom all was made. ‘You don’t need a telescope a micro-scope, or a horoscope to realise the fullness of Christ’, remember! So even though other philosophies may sound attractive, we must put them in the context of Christ to see how genuine they are. Christ is the head, & the reference point – and here’s the proof: no matter what others claim, Christ alone is the one who can help us to live God’s way. Living God’s way was the subject of the next 2 sermons in our series. They both had the title, ‘New life, new lifestyle’. Paul said that since we have been freely given this new life in Christ, we must now live his new lifestyle. So he first tackled the whole area of our human desires. The image he used for that was of clothes. Paul’s instruction to these young believers was to take off their old clothes, & to put on the new set that Christ provides. The applications list – to negative feelings, to speech & to sexual conduct – was typically Paul. It was ‘just’ illustrative of some of the areas that came readily to mind. It wasn’t, and isn’t, meant to be the complete set. Rather, these are the sorts of issues that most Christians need to work on. Paul’s intention was to give the Colossians – and us – the basic principles that we can apply when needed. And the same is also true of the positive advice that Paul had for the Colossians, and for us. For every negative emotion or behaviour that Christians must put off, there’s a positive God-given quality that we’re to develop instead. But again we saw how these are just examples of what we can do, rather than everything we have to. We were also reminded that both parts of this process are only possible with Christ’s help. But Paul assures us that Christ is more than willing to help us to become more like him. And, in fact, he has already given us his help – in one another! Last week we studied two other main areas where we are to live out the new life in Christ: at home and at work. We saw how Paul was, in fact – contrary to popular belief – a social revolutionary in his approach to family life. He said that in Christ women, children & even slaves have rights, not just responsibilities. Paul made men see that in Christ they were answerable for their actions towards their wife, children & slaves. In the context of his time this was truly staggering. But for Paul the context of Christ was what counted. And the context of Christ is that he is the boss, of everyone and everything. So Christians are to work for Christ, at work and at home. Paul’s bottom line is that we are accountable to Christ for what we do with his new life. This whole adventurous & ever-deepening journey through Colossians has now brought us in a full circle. Paul began by assuring the Colossians of his prayers for them, which were marked by thanksgiving. Now, as he ended, Paul urged them to pray too. Their prayers were, like his, to be constant – and constantly marked with thanksgiving. Paul had reminded the Colossians of plenty of the reasons that they could give thanks. All of them – Jew & Gentile, slave and free, men and women, adults and children – had been freely given new life in Christ. Insignificant as they were, Christ the maker & ruler of the universe had died for them. They knew God’s secret, and now had true life in him! Of course the reality of Christ had to transform their life in the present. They were to behave the gospel as well as to believe it. But they were to long and pray for others to be transformed by God’s secret too. So, Paul didn’t just ask the Colossians to pray & give thanks for themselves. He urged them to pray for him, just as he prayed for them. As we’ve been reminded, Paul was in prison when he wrote this letter. But what’s amazing is that Paul didn’t ask the Colossians to pray for his release. Instead he asked them to pray that he would do more of what got him into prison originally! Paul asked them to pray for opportunities for him to preach about Christ – and that he would take them with the best of his God-given abilities. More than ‘just’ ask them to pray for his work for Christ, Paul asked the Colossians to join in with it! He didn’t want them to rush to him in Rome, though – but rather to do God’s work where they were. Paul told them to be wise in how they acted towards those who didn’t believe in Christ. Paul wanted the Colossians to see their contact with non-Christians for what it was – as a great opportunity to share the good news about Jesus. They were to make the most of those opportunities – which is also great advice for us in our year of growing outwards. How, though? How can we make the most of our contact with non-Christians? Part of the answer to that is in Paul’s final words to the Colossians – and there’s much we can learn from the rest of his letter too. But let’s focus on what we’ve heard today, and think about what being wise might mean. I’m reminded of the words of Francis of Assisi (I think): ‘Go and preach the gospel; and, if you have to, use words’. The reality is that the only Bible that most non-Christians will read is the lives of Christians. If we act in a way that’s inconsistent with our declared faith people will notice, and question the reality of what we say we believe. Paul had one last, & very specific, piece of advice for the Colossians. It was about how they spoke to non-Christians. Their conversation was always to be pleasant & interesting – literally ‘salted’ in Greek. In other words, the Colossians weren’t to parrot ‘right’ answers, using words that nobody else does. Instead they – and we, of course! – were to listen to what people had to say, and respond to it genuinely and honestly. Paul assumed that if Christians do live out Christ’s new life then others will want to know what it’s all about – and we must be ready to tell them!In this area of their life – as in all the others he’d written to them about – Paul wanted the Colossians to grow to the maturity that Christ expects from his followers. It was the sort of maturity that Paul modelled himself – in his praying, in his thanksgiving, in his behaviour, in his speech & in his letter-writing. For Paul it really was all about Christ: being reconciled to God through him, being changed into his likeness, living every area of life for him, and then sharing with everyone else the good news of what God has done.Paul was passionate about the person and work of Christ. It had transformed his own life, & he longed for that to be so for others. He longed for it to be ever more true of the Colossians, & for them to help it to be true for others also. So Paul ended as he began, with this encouragement to pray, give thanks & live the gospel of Christ. Paul wanted the Colossians to believe the gospel. He helped them do so better in his letter. But he also wanted them to behave, or live it. He helped them to do that more fully by what he wrote too. Finally he reminded them of God’s call to share Christ’s good news with all. Our call today is the same: to believe, behave & share. Let’s pray we’ll now do so better…….

Sermon from 16th July 2006

CHRISTIAN HOUSEHOLDS

(Colossians 3:18-4:1)

Our Vicar, Cameron Barker, talks about our responsibility as Christians.

It’s definitely time for a poll! So, put a hand up, please, if you’re married … Keep that hand up, and add another; or put one up, if you are a parent … I know this is getting complicated, but stick with it. If you’ve got both hands up, stand up; if you’ve got one hand up, add another; or put one up if you have a parent …Now this is really challenging: if you’re standing with both hands up, wave your arms if this next one applies to you; or apply the same principle & do whatever you need to show that you’re either an employer or an employee … As I thought, then: this sermon really is for (just about) everybody here! Thanks for joining in, and do now get comfortable. Today we’re going to be thinking about the next stage of what Trevor spoke about here last week. The title he gave his sermon on the passage he spoke on from Paul’s letter to the Colossians was ‘New life, new lifestyle’. The particular application last week was how Christians are to live out their new lifestyle in their social relationships. This week we’re seeing how Paul then moved on to the new lifestyle that Christians are to live out at home. Before we get to that, though, let me point out the obvious difference between the context that Paul wrote into in the 1st Century and our context today. There was a clue in the last question of the poll, when I asked who’s an employee or an employer. Fortunately, slavery is a thing of the past for us. So we need to apply Paul’s comments on slaves & masters to the realm of work today. But for Paul’s original readers, slavery was very much part of their everyday reality. Slaves were integral to just about every area of the 1st Century Roman world, & so many homes would have had them. We may not like it, but that is how it was! Of course there would have been slaves in many Christian homes, as there were in other homes. What was different, though, was that slaves were welcomed into the church on the same basis as everyone else. Paul often stressed – and meant – that in Christ all people are the same: Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free. That, in fact, was exactly what Paul was writing about here! It was all about the difference that being in Christ was, & is, to make to every area of a Christian’s life! That difference was – & is – to show up in a Christian’s social relationships, as we saw last week. And that difference was – and is – to show up in a Christian’s home life, as we’re seeing today. But first, a word of warning. This could ‘just’ sound like a set of rules – for which Christianity is wrongly infamous. In the early part of his letter Paul first laid down the ground-work for all this advice about a Christian’s conduct. This section of his letter is about how Christians are to live in response to who Christ is & what he’s done for us. This is emphatically not a set of rules to live by in order to make yourself a Christian. It is a set of rules to live by if you are a Christian – because of the difference that Christ has made in your life. This new lifestyle comes with a new life in Christ; the new lifestyle doesn’t cause the new life. So what does this new lifestyle look like at home – and, for us today, at work? It starts with the marriage relationship, because that’s the basis for everything else that happens in the home. And once again we have to deal with the bad press that Paul usually receives for what he wrote here. Both GNB & NIV use the word submit, which is anathema to most of us today. But I’ve got to say that it’s anathema because of the way the word has been used – yes, usually by men – rather than because of what Paul meant by it. The Greek word that Paul used describes what that takes place between two equals. It’s about the role that each person chooses to play for the benefit of both. And it must be said that Paul was being hugely radical by using such a word for what happens between a husband and wife. In Paul’s day, wives, children and slaves had no rights at all! And men had no responsibilities towards any of them! A man could beat his wife, child or slave, or sell them, or kill them, and face no consequences. Again, we may not like it today, but that is the way it was. So we need to hear how radical Paul was being by writing how and what he did. First he stated the fact that in Christ men do have responsibilities toward their wives, children, & slaves. Men were – & are – answerable to God for their conduct towards them. But then he also stated that wives, children and slaves have rights themselves! As I say, that was deeply radical – even revolutionary – in his time. And don’t forget that this deeply radical revolution was brought about by the person and work of Christ himself. He (Christ) has set the example of giving up rights & taking on responsibilities for the benefit of others. And anyone, like us, whose life and eternal destiny has been transformed by Christ, must now live a transformed life – in their home. So, if you’re a wife, in Christ you have the responsibility to submit to your husband – & you have the right to be loved in return. It may well be better to use another word instead of ‘submit’ because of its negative connotations. Other Bible translations use ‘respect’ instead – which may help. Remember this is about wives and husbands being equal. It’s not about being a doormat. It’s about what you choose to do as an equal in the context of who takes the ultimate responsibility for the family; & that should be the husband. If you’re a husband, in Christ you have the responsibility, then, to love your wife! That may sound simple, perhaps; but think of who has set the example of how to love! It’s Christ we husbands we need to look to, just as our wife is to. We are to look to Christ on the cross, giving up his life for us. If we husbands did love our wife that way then respect (or submission) wouldn’t be a problem. We would not even dream of demanding that our wife did something that wasn’t the very best for her. Nor would we dream of being unforgiving, of holding grudges, or being harsh, with her either. Not if we live out the new lifestyle of love and forgiveness that we have in this new life in Christ. Of course there’s so much more that could be said, about the nature of both Christian submission and love between husband and wife. But we need to move on, to the next issue of life at home – & that’s relationships with children. Again, note how radical Paul was being just by writing to children as members of the church in their own right. In Christ children do have the responsibility to obey their parents. But, in return they have the right to expect not to be irritated by their Christian parent, so they don’t give up! The Greek word Paul uses for obey – of both children and slaves – is a much less equal one. That is only right, as children are not, & should not, be in a position of equality with adults. Absolutely children have rights, and they must be safeguarded – by Christians above all. But something has gone badly wrong when a 10-year-old child threatens to report a Headteacher to the police for stopping them from walking away from being disciplined. That happened recently at a school I know – and it’s far from uncommon nowadays. Children do need to obey authority, or we land up with a society that Tony Blair rightly says lacks respect. Of course, the society Paul wrote to was very different. So parents, & fathers in particular, needed to hear his advice about not irritating – or provoking – their children. That’s just as good advice to parents today. One commentary I read suggested no less than 10 ways that parents can provoke their children! They range from being over-protective, to not setting any boundaries; from being overly critical to neglect. Again we don’t have time to go into them in detail – but, children & parents, hear & remember this principle. In Christ, children have the responsibility to obey parents; in Christ, parents have the duty not to provoke children. And there’s plenty of food for future thought in both areas. The final area of Christian home-life that Paul addressed was relations with slaves. As I say, the application of these principles for us must be to the world of work – whether as employer or employee. But for Paul’s original readers in Colosse this was a real, live issue. Some people think that Paul wrote about this in greater detail because of the case of Onesimus. We can read more about that in Paul’s letter to Philemon. It’s about how a Christian master was to deal with a Christian slave who had run away & wanted to come back. As we might expect, Paul urged them to sort it out in Christ. And that’s also the context in which Paul set his advice to masters and slaves here. Again, what mattered most to Paul was who and what both masters and slaves were in Christ. Their new lifestyle had to reflect that new reality. So, slaves had the responsibility to work as loyally and as faithfully as they could – at all times. Not just when their human master was watching, but when he wasn’t. Slaves were to do their work as if they were working for Christ himself. He was – and is – the one who will reward us. It’s pleasing him that counts, no matter what sort of boss we have, or are. And yes, maybe this is partly the root of the Protestant work ethic – but there are worse ethics to have! We’re to work for Christ as our boss! If we are the boss, then Paul’s words to the masters are for us to hear. Bosses have the duty to provide what is fair and right – for their slaves or employees. No human is the ultimate authority: that is Christ’s role! Being a Christian doesn’t excuse being an unfair or bad boss any more than it excuses poor work by employees. As Paul said, God judges us all by the same standard. And so we’re all to do the very best that we can, as employers or employees. That too is part of living the new life that we’ve been given in Christ. Christ is the boss, so we’re to work for him with our whole heart, whether we’re an employee or employer. Once again, there’s so much more detail that we could go into on this area. But I hope you’ve noted the principle – & so can work out what it means for your own life. If you’re a Christian I hope you can – and will – work out what it means for you at home, and at work. These principles apply to us today as husbands & wives, as children & parents, and as employees & employers. What they tell us is how we are to live for Christ in all those situations. If we’re a Christian then we have been given a new life in Christ. Now we have to live it out – at home & at work. So, wives, do respect your husband; husbands, do love your wife; children do obey your parents; parents don’t irritate your children; at work, work for Christ – as an employee or an employer. And do it all for Christ because of what he has done for you. He has given you a new life: so now live his new lifestyle, at home and at work. Let’s pray …

Sermon from 16th July 2006

CHRISTIAN HOUSEHOLDS

(Colossians 3:18-4:1)

Our Vicar, Cameron Barker, talks about our responsibility as Christians.

It’s definitely time for a poll! So, put a hand up, please, if you’re married … Keep that hand up, and add another; or put one up, if you are a parent … I know this is getting complicated, but stick with it. If you’ve got both hands up, stand up; if you’ve got one hand up, add another; or put one up if you have a parent …Now this is really challenging: if you’re standing with both hands up, wave your arms if this next one applies to you; or apply the same principle & do whatever you need to show that you’re either an employer or an employee … As I thought, then: this sermon really is for (just about) everybody here! Thanks for joining in, and do now get comfortable. Today we’re going to be thinking about the next stage of what Trevor spoke about here last week. The title he gave his sermon on the passage he spoke on from Paul’s letter to the Colossians was ‘New life, new lifestyle’. The particular application last week was how Christians are to live out their new lifestyle in their social relationships. This week we’re seeing how Paul then moved on to the new lifestyle that Christians are to live out at home. Before we get to that, though, let me point out the obvious difference between the context that Paul wrote into in the 1st Century and our context today. There was a clue in the last question of the poll, when I asked who’s an employee or an employer. Fortunately, slavery is a thing of the past for us. So we need to apply Paul’s comments on slaves & masters to the realm of work today. But for Paul’s original readers, slavery was very much part of their everyday reality. Slaves were integral to just about every area of the 1st Century Roman world, & so many homes would have had them. We may not like it, but that is how it was! Of course there would have been slaves in many Christian homes, as there were in other homes. What was different, though, was that slaves were welcomed into the church on the same basis as everyone else. Paul often stressed – and meant – that in Christ all people are the same: Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free. That, in fact, was exactly what Paul was writing about here! It was all about the difference that being in Christ was, & is, to make to every area of a Christian’s life! That difference was – & is – to show up in a Christian’s social relationships, as we saw last week. And that difference was – and is – to show up in a Christian’s home life, as we’re seeing today. But first, a word of warning. This could ‘just’ sound like a set of rules – for which Christianity is wrongly infamous. In the early part of his letter Paul first laid down the ground-work for all this advice about a Christian’s conduct. This section of his letter is about how Christians are to live in response to who Christ is & what he’s done for us. This is emphatically not a set of rules to live by in order to make yourself a Christian. It is a set of rules to live by if you are a Christian – because of the difference that Christ has made in your life. This new lifestyle comes with a new life in Christ; the new lifestyle doesn’t cause the new life. So what does this new lifestyle look like at home – and, for us today, at work? It starts with the marriage relationship, because that’s the basis for everything else that happens in the home. And once again we have to deal with the bad press that Paul usually receives for what he wrote here. Both GNB & NIV use the word submit, which is anathema to most of us today. But I’ve got to say that it’s anathema because of the way the word has been used – yes, usually by men – rather than because of what Paul meant by it. The Greek word that Paul used describes what that takes place between two equals. It’s about the role that each person chooses to play for the benefit of both. And it must be said that Paul was being hugely radical by using such a word for what happens between a husband and wife. In Paul’s day, wives, children and slaves had no rights at all! And men had no responsibilities towards any of them! A man could beat his wife, child or slave, or sell them, or kill them, and face no consequences. Again, we may not like it today, but that is the way it was. So we need to hear how radical Paul was being by writing how and what he did. First he stated the fact that in Christ men do have responsibilities toward their wives, children, & slaves. Men were – & are – answerable to God for their conduct towards them. But then he also stated that wives, children and slaves have rights themselves! As I say, that was deeply radical – even revolutionary – in his time. And don’t forget that this deeply radical revolution was brought about by the person and work of Christ himself. He (Christ) has set the example of giving up rights & taking on responsibilities for the benefit of others. And anyone, like us, whose life and eternal destiny has been transformed by Christ, must now live a transformed life – in their home. So, if you’re a wife, in Christ you have the responsibility to submit to your husband – & you have the right to be loved in return. It may well be better to use another word instead of ‘submit’ because of its negative connotations. Other Bible translations use ‘respect’ instead – which may help. Remember this is about wives and husbands being equal. It’s not about being a doormat. It’s about what you choose to do as an equal in the context of who takes the ultimate responsibility for the family; & that should be the husband. If you’re a husband, in Christ you have the responsibility, then, to love your wife! That may sound simple, perhaps; but think of who has set the example of how to love! It’s Christ we husbands we need to look to, just as our wife is to. We are to look to Christ on the cross, giving up his life for us. If we husbands did love our wife that way then respect (or submission) wouldn’t be a problem. We would not even dream of demanding that our wife did something that wasn’t the very best for her. Nor would we dream of being unforgiving, of holding grudges, or being harsh, with her either. Not if we live out the new lifestyle of love and forgiveness that we have in this new life in Christ. Of course there’s so much more that could be said, about the nature of both Christian submission and love between husband and wife. But we need to move on, to the next issue of life at home – & that’s relationships with children. Again, note how radical Paul was being just by writing to children as members of the church in their own right. In Christ children do have the responsibility to obey their parents. But, in return they have the right to expect not to be irritated by their Christian parent, so they don’t give up! The Greek word Paul uses for obey – of both children and slaves – is a much less equal one. That is only right, as children are not, & should not, be in a position of equality with adults. Absolutely children have rights, and they must be safeguarded – by Christians above all. But something has gone badly wrong when a 10-year-old child threatens to report a Headteacher to the police for stopping them from walking away from being disciplined. That happened recently at a school I know – and it’s far from uncommon nowadays. Children do need to obey authority, or we land up with a society that Tony Blair rightly says lacks respect. Of course, the society Paul wrote to was very different. So parents, & fathers in particular, needed to hear his advice about not irritating – or provoking – their children. That’s just as good advice to parents today. One commentary I read suggested no less than 10 ways that parents can provoke their children! They range from being over-protective, to not setting any boundaries; from being overly critical to neglect. Again we don’t have time to go into them in detail – but, children & parents, hear & remember this principle. In Christ, children have the responsibility to obey parents; in Christ, parents have the duty not to provoke children. And there’s plenty of food for future thought in both areas. The final area of Christian home-life that Paul addressed was relations with slaves. As I say, the application of these principles for us must be to the world of work – whether as employer or employee. But for Paul’s original readers in Colosse this was a real, live issue. Some people think that Paul wrote about this in greater detail because of the case of Onesimus. We can read more about that in Paul’s letter to Philemon. It’s about how a Christian master was to deal with a Christian slave who had run away & wanted to come back. As we might expect, Paul urged them to sort it out in Christ. And that’s also the context in which Paul set his advice to masters and slaves here. Again, what mattered most to Paul was who and what both masters and slaves were in Christ. Their new lifestyle had to reflect that new reality. So, slaves had the responsibility to work as loyally and as faithfully as they could – at all times. Not just when their human master was watching, but when he wasn’t. Slaves were to do their work as if they were working for Christ himself. He was – and is – the one who will reward us. It’s pleasing him that counts, no matter what sort of boss we have, or are. And yes, maybe this is partly the root of the Protestant work ethic – but there are worse ethics to have! We’re to work for Christ as our boss! If we are the boss, then Paul’s words to the masters are for us to hear. Bosses have the duty to provide what is fair and right – for their slaves or employees. No human is the ultimate authority: that is Christ’s role! Being a Christian doesn’t excuse being an unfair or bad boss any more than it excuses poor work by employees. As Paul said, God judges us all by the same standard. And so we’re all to do the very best that we can, as employers or employees. That too is part of living the new life that we’ve been given in Christ. Christ is the boss, so we’re to work for him with our whole heart, whether we’re an employee or employer. Once again, there’s so much more detail that we could go into on this area. But I hope you’ve noted the principle – & so can work out what it means for your own life. If you’re a Christian I hope you can – and will – work out what it means for you at home, and at work. These principles apply to us today as husbands & wives, as children & parents, and as employees & employers. What they tell us is how we are to live for Christ in all those situations. If we’re a Christian then we have been given a new life in Christ. Now we have to live it out – at home & at work. So, wives, do respect your husband; husbands, do love your wife; children do obey your parents; parents don’t irritate your children; at work, work for Christ – as an employee or an employer. And do it all for Christ because of what he has done for you. He has given you a new life: so now live his new lifestyle, at home and at work. Let’s pray …

Sermon from 9th July 2006

The New Life-Shape

(Colossians 3:1-17)

One of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur continues our study of Paul’s letter to the Colossians.

New life, new lifestyle. That’s a very brief summary of what Paul wrote to the Colossians in the first 17 verses of Chapter 3. New life, new lifestyle. I suspect that some of you will know that this summary, New Life, New Lifestyle, isn’t original - it’s the title of a book written about 30 years ago by well-known Christian writer, Michael Green, and it sums up Paul’s message very neatly.Paul is drawing a sharp distinction between the old and the new, the old ways that Christians should leave behind and the new ways they should follow. As Christians we belong to God’s new world, the new creation that God is bringing in to replace the present world that is doomed to decay and ultimately to perish. However, we are living in a time of overlap, a time of overlap between the old creation and the new creation. Christ through his resurrection has overcome death and brought us back to God, but the old world is still around us. One day Jesus will return and heaven and earth will be joined together for ever in the new creation. But that hasn’t happened yet. We are still physically living in the old world, even though at the same time the good news is that if you are a Christian you already do belong to that new world. We are still in that period overlap; we have a foot in both worlds.Yes, we do have a foot in both worlds, but our final destination as Christians will be God’s new world. And what should that mean for us? Paul starts his answer to this question in verse 1, and The Message version of the Bible translates what Paul says in very clear terms; “So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it.” And Cameron said something similar last Sunday, “If you are a Christian you have received Christ Jesus as Master. So now live him.” Paul is saying that we should let the new life be the governing principle of our existence. Learn to think about the things that are above, to see things from Christ’s perspective. And what Paul writes in this Chapter flows from this. “You have new life in Christ: adopt a new lifestyle. New life, new lifestyle.”There then follows in the next part of Chapter 3 a list of do’s and don’ts, what the heading in the NIV calls “Rules for Holy Living”, and this list follows on from what Paul said in the first few verses of the Chapter. We have new life in Christ, so how should we live in our new lifestyle? Now Paul isn’t being legalistic; he isn’t saying that you become a Christian by obeying a strict set of rules. We become Christians by accepting Jesus into our lives and by deciding to follow him. Jesus has rescued us from the idea that we have to reach God by our own efforts. But as a response to what Jesus has done for us, we should want to live lives that are worthy of him. So, what does Paul have to say about the hallmarks of a new Christian lifestyle? The picture that Paul uses is that of taking off old clothes and putting on new ones. In verses 9 and 10, Paul says, ”Do not lie to one other, for you have taken off the old self with its habits and have put on the new self...” In the early church, it was common practice for a candidate for baptism to take off the old suit of clothes they were wearing and then, after coming up from immersion, they would be a given a new set of white robes to wear, to signify the purity of the new life they were now entering.The point that Paul is making is that there are certain patterns of behaviour that may be acceptable in the world, but Christians need to take off the old clothes, the old patterns of behaviour, and put on new clothes, new patterns of behaviour. Paul will have more to say about the new clothes later on in the passage, but initially he concentrates on the old clothes to be got rid of. Firstly in verses 5-7 he deals with sexual morality, and secondly, in verses 8-10 he deals with speech. In verse 5 he says, “You must put to death, then, the earthly desires at work in you, such as sexual immorality, indecency, lust, evil passions and greed, (for greed is a form of idolatry).”The catalogue of sexual misbehaviour includes both actions and thoughts. Fidelity in marital relationships is of course vital, and clearly sexual promiscuity has no part in a Christian’s life. But it’s not just actions that Paul is concerned about. We may pat ourselves on our backs because we don’t commit adultery, but what about our thoughts? What do we fill our minds with? Now, it’s important to remember that it’s not a sin to be tempted. Jesus was tempted, yet he never sinned. Temptation only becomes a sin when you give into it. Martin Luther said, “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.” You can’t stop the Devil from suggesting thoughts, but you can choose not to dwell or act on them. There is a big difference between physical attraction and lust. God has given us hormones, and you can find someone attractive without choosing to sin by lusting. Lust is a deliberate act of the will where you fill your mind with what you would like to do with your body. So-called adult movies and pornographic Internet sites, including the legal ones, fuel lust and so should be given a very wide berth.Paul is just as concerned with the sins of speech as he is with sexual sin. Paul was not a single-issue campaigner. Paul treats speech every bit as seriously as sexual morality. He puts it very bluntly in verse 8, “But now you must get rid of these things: anger, passion, and hateful feelings. No insults or obscene talk must ever come from your lips.” And in verse 9 he emphasises one particular danger, “Do not lie to one another…” God is a God of truth, and if we aren’t truthful we can do immense damage to the credibility of the Gospel.After listing his two areas of don’ts, Paul moves on to his do’s, but the do’s and don’t are two completely separate lists; they are in fact closely linked, as Tom Wright points out in his commentary as follows; “Paul is, of course, concerned for the individual behaviour of every single Christian. But, even greater than this, he is concerned for the well-being of the community as a whole. Sexual misbehaviour can tear a community apart (people often pretend that it’s a purely private matter, but it seldom if ever really is); so can malicious and abusive speaking.”In verse 11 Paul moves on to the well-being of the community, that is how we live together in the Church. “As a result, there is no longer any distinction between Gentiles and Jews, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarians, savages, slaves and free men, but Christ is all, Christ is in all.” We don’t live our new lives in isolation; we live our new lives and new lifestyles as part of God’s people. The new life is about unity, about Christians coming together in love. The divisions of the old life must be banished, whether social, cultural, geographical, class or whatever. And in verses 12-17 Paul sets out his list of do’s. So far we’ve concentrated on the don’ts, and sometimes people accuse Christians of being negative, killjoys who want spoil people’s fun without anything positive to offer. Paul makes it clear that Christian faith is positive; Christ calls Christians to a life of love, peace and thanksgiving.So let’s look at what Paul tells the Colossians to clothe themselves with in verses 12-14: Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness and love. What a list - and what a great challenge! Paul isn’t writing about a wishy-washy wimpish type of peace wherever everyone is scared to say boo to a goose. To the contrary, Paul is using initiative-taking words. To achieve unity, we need to be active in what we do. Compassion and kindness are what’s needed to counter the apathy that will walk by on the other side of the road. Humility is the opposite of pride; pride means we don’t really care what happens to others, only what happens to me; true humility means putting others first. Gentleness doesn’t mean being a soft touch, but in this context it means restrained strength, strength that is used with compassion. Patience isn’t merely the lack of complaint; it’s steady persistence in the face of all the difficulties that life may throw at us.But Paul understands the overlap that we’re still living in; the new world hasn’t yet fully come and we’ve still got a foot in the old world. And that is why we also need to be tolerant with one another and forgive whatever grievances we may have against each other. “You must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you,” Paul urges them. God has forgiven us; that’s why we’ve been able to take off the old clothes and put on the new ones. Disagreements and disputes will still arise in the church, and how we handle them is crucial. John Wesley and George Whitfield were two very great evangelists, and in the 1700s their preaching brought about tremendous revival here and in the USA. But they had a serious doctrinal disagreement. Yet despite their deep personal disagreement, they managed to keep their own relationship going, and John Wesley preached at Whitfield’s funeral. However, their followers weren’t always so gracious. There’s a story that one of Whitfield’s supporters came up to him and asked, “Do you think that we will see Mr Wesley in heaven.” Whitfield replied, “No, I don’t.” Whitfield’s follower beamed with approval at this reply until Whitfield continued, “Mr Wesley will be so close to the throne of God that we will be too far away to be able to see him.” He knew that, despite their differences, they were both Christians.And Paul continues in the same vein. Put on love, he says. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Let the word of Christ dwell in your hearts, and be thankful. And in verse 17 he concludes, “Everything you do or say, then, should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus…” Jesus is central. The peace that we have is in Christ; the unity that we have is in Christ. We Christians can indeed be one, but only if we are united in our Lord Jesus Christ.The standards that Paul sets are high, and it is easy to think that you can never attain them, or to fall short of them. If you feel that, then you are in good company. Every Sunday we say the Confession because all of us fall short of God’s standard. If I claimed one Sunday that I didn’t need to say the Confession because I hadn’t sinned during the past week, I would be a liar. We can’t do it on our own. And that’s why we have each other. Paul urges us to keep our minds fixed on things in heaven, not on things that belong to the present world of change and decay. It’s worth noting that Paul wants us to use our minds, to think. Paul isn’t telling us to have nice warm feelings about each other and God. Paul wants us to think, rather than simply going with the flow of the world. Paul wants our minds to grasp the truth that Jesus has died for us, and that he has given us new life. And once our minds have grasped this truth, our hearts will follow.Let us pray. Father, help us to set our minds and hearts on the things that are in heaven, not on earthly things. Help us to live new lives that are worthy of you, clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. May we be united in our love for you and each other. Amen.

Sermon 2nd July 2006

FREEDOM CALLS!

Our vicar, Cameron Barker's sermon based on the reading from Colossians 2: 6-23

‘You don’t need a telescope a microscope or a horoscope to realise the fullness of Christ.’ I just love the way that the Message version expresses this truth from today’s passage: ‘You don’t need a tele-scope a microscope or a horoscope to realise the fullness of Christ.’ That was the key message that Paul wanted to communicate to the Colossians. Above all, Paul wanted them to know who & what Christ is. They needed to know that beyond any doubt – because only then could they live securely as who and what they had become in Christ. In many ways this follows straight on from the passage we looked at here 2 weeks ago. Adrian spoke then about secrets – & how God’s big secret has been made known to all people. God’s secret is, of course, Christ – the person whose amazing true identity we looked at the week before. The Colossians – and we – can know who Christ is without needing a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope. In Christ, God isn’t so far away that we need a telescope to see him. In Christ God isn’t so small that we need a micro -scope to see him. In Christ, God isn’t so mysterious that we need a horoscope to understand him. No: in Christ, God’s secret has been made known to us in all its fullness! For Paul, those truths had huge implications for how the Colossians were to live. Again from the Message: ‘My counsel for you is simple & straightforward: Just go ahead with what you have been given. You have received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You are well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. Quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving’. These verses at the start of today’s reading really do set the agenda for the rest of Paul’s letter. Up to this point he has been doing the theory work, as it were. Now it’s time for the practicalities. What does all this mean for the Colossians in their everyday lives? How are they to live in the light of what they now know about God’s secret? How are they to go ahead from here? What are they to do? Well, it is quite simple & straightforward: they are to carry on with what they know to be true. They have received Christ, as any Christian has. Because of who Christ is, their faith has a sure foundation – as any Christian’s does. As any growing Christian has, they have put roots down in Christ. So, all the key elements are already in place. Now they, & we, are to live him – securely, certainly, & boldly. And that will begin, and continue, with thanks because of who Christ is and what he’s done for them, and us. Now it is very likely that Paul wrote this next section of his letter to help the Colossians stand firm in their faith. All the scholars are sure that the Colossians were in danger of being led astray by false teachers. In this passage Paul was exposing what these false teachers were up to. But the feature that stands out here is just how positively Paul did it. He wasn’t being defensive about the Christian faith. Quite the opposite! He urged the Colossians to stand firm by being completely sure about what they believed & why. That pattern begins from the very start of our passage. It’s because the Colossian live in union with this Christ that they can ward off all attempts to kidnap their minds! It was not that Paul was against philosophy per se. He could be quite a philosopher himself in fact, when that was needed. What he was against was any philosophy that didn’t come from Christ. In particular, Paul was against any philosophy that claimed that it had the weight of the universe behind it. If it didn’t come from Christ, it simply couldn’t have! For Paul, Christ was simply everything. And anything that didn’t come from him was worthless in comparison to him. You see, Paul knew that the fullness of God himself was & is to be found in Christ. As the one who made the whole universe and everything in it, Christ is in charge of the lot! Anything else can, by definition, only be second-best. And why settle for 2nd-best when you’ve been given the best, Christ himself? Why would we want anything less when God’s best, Christ himself, lives in us? If anyone else tells us that there’s something better – as they were trying to tell the Colossians – we can know that that’s not true! In his commentary Tom Wright says that the Colossians were under pressure from Jewish influences. Such people were saying the Colossians needed to be circumcised in order to be truly spiritual. Well, Paul was having none of that, even though he’d been born a Jew himself. That old, outward sign of God’s covenant was no longer necessary – because in Christ God had given something even better. Once again from the Message: ‘If it’s an initiation ritual you’re after, you’ve already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ.’ And we must note how positively Paul expressed all these truths. To help the Colossians stand firm against wrong teaching, Paul didn’t combat the error so much as to say again what Christ had done for them! And so he continued in that positive vein in vs. 13 of our passage. Here’s how the Message version puts it: ‘When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive – right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant cancelled and nailed to Christ’s Cross.’ Again and again, Paul stressed just what Christ had done for the Colossians – which is just what he’s done for us, of course. It was by knowing those truths that the Colossians - & we - could stand utterly sure in their faith. So, if anyone started on at them about their religious observance, they knew how to reply to that too. It wasn’t about what they did or didn’t eat or drink. It wasn’t about what festivals they did or didn’t keep. Such things had only ever existed to point forward to the reality that was to come. Now that the reality himself had come in Christ, they didn’t need the shadows any more. And anyone who said that they did was out of touch with the only one who mattered – Christ! Now it is fair to say that the Greek text is very complex as Paul wrote about these matters. If you read the different versions of the Bible you’ll see that the translations of this passage are quite different. But the fundamental points that Paul was making shine through every time – it is all about Christ! It’s about who he is; it’s about what he has done; it’s about the difference that he, & he alone, makes. And anyone who claims to have visions; or to speak with angels; or to have found a better way; can’t possibly be right if what they say is out of tune with Christ. You see, it’s only Christ who holds together his body, the church. It’s Christ who supports and nourishes his body. It’s Christ who makes his church grow in the ways that he wants and needs it to. It’s his body. He died to bring it into being as the people who love, serve and worship him. We exist for him. He’s the head; he’s in charge; he’s the one who counts. It’s to him, & to him alone, that we must look for everything we need to live and grow and develop. Of course there are other alternatives around that seem more attractive. I recently read how cool people think it is to be spiritual, in any way other than being a Christian. It’s cool to be into New Age philosophy, where we are all god. It’s cool to be a Buddhist; or into meditation; or yoga; or to follow the teachings of some far-off ashram. But, in Paul’s words, these are only human teachings. They are simply modern variations on the themes that Paul addressed in his own day. They fail to deal with the one who’s in charge of them all because the fullness of God is in him – Christ! By now it should be clear which of the mission-shaped values this passage speaks to us about. This is all about both knowing who God is, & then living it out. The person of the Trinity who’s primarily in view here obviously is God the Son. But learning about any member of the Trinity tells us more about each of them. A passage like this reminds us of who God is as Father, Son and Spirit. Knowing who God is & what he’s done for us could and should spill over into thanksgiving – which is part of a life of worship. And from our thanks our lives could and should then be shaped by the reality of Christ that has literally brought us to life. The Christian life is fundamentally like riding a bicycle – go forward or fall off! Paul urged the Colossians to move forward in their faith so they didn’t fall off. In Christ they had a secure base from which to move forward in the right direction – upwards in him. The context that Paul urged them to move forward in was in the face of false teaching. That tempted them to head in a different – and wrong – direction. He did that positively, by reminding them time & again of who Christ is and what he had done for them. As the Colossians knew that they could be secure enough to stand on what they knew to be the truth. Now I’m not particularly aware of any false teaching about, or not of the sort that the Colossians faced. Of course we face many alternatives, of the sort I’ve already mentioned. The philosophy of post-modernism tells us that there is no such thing as absolute truth. But the gospel says there is: Christ himself is the absolute truth. Anyone who calls them -selves Christian has to believe that because of what the Bible says about who God is as Father, Son and Spirit. So that’s what we’re to stand firm on, the truth that we have been taught and know. That’s what we’re to move forward in, with how we live our lives as worship of this God. The fact is that ‘You don’t need a telescope a microscope or a horoscope to realise the fullness of Christ.’ That truth is there for all to read and see and know and experience. Christ is simply everything. He has done everything for us by dying on the cross – which fact we’ll celebrate later at Communion. So the advice is simple: go ahead with what you’ve been given. If you are Christian you have received Christ Jesus as Master. So now live him. Be deeply rooted in him. Be well constructed on him. Live him in how you work and play. Live him no matter what fancy ideas other people may have. Live him with thanks because of what he’s done for you. And know that in Christ all the fullness of God lives in you. So let him be what he is – your head in all things. And let him grow you as he wants.

Party in the Park Sunday 25th June 2006

The service that was held before the Party in the Park

Sermon from 19th June 2006

... And Paul's purpose?

One of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, continues our study of Paul's message to the people of Colosse - our key reading is Colossians 1: 24 – 2:5

“So naturally we proclaim Christ! We warn everyone we meet, and we teach everyone we can, all that we know about him, so that if possible we may bring every man up to his full maturity in Christ Jesus” Col 1: 28 (Phillips)1.

One side of a conversation: Another glass of champagne? Thank you - most kind. A very good party./ I don’t think we have met? I am Adrian ..and you are?/ Saul did you say?/ Paul. I am so sorry. No, no, of course it matters, very remiss of me It is so noisy/ Pardon – what was that about playing poohsticks?/ Oh, the acoustics… absolutely, as soon as you get over 5 people in here you can’t here a thing./ Where are you from?/ Tarsus? Can’t say I know it. But do you live in Rome now?/ Is it a nice apartment?/ “House arrest”? Golly that must be inconvenient. And what exactly do you do? Freeze the action.There is a leading question to ask the apostle Paul: what exactly do you do? It’s the question Paul answers in the passage we read today in our studies from Colossians. What did he do?We are going to look at his answer – but the purpose of the little device at the start of this talk was to emphasise that I want us to look at from the outside, as the listener, as the other party to the conversation. We are the person at the party. And I want to identify how we respond, how we react to what Paul writes. And the experiment, the game if you like, doesn’t depend on whether we are church-going regulars, or come here only occasionally or even never before today. Your response, your reaction is equally important as any other – in the game it counts the same.So let’s play.2. First: how do you feel about knowing a secret? If somebody tells you that they are about to tell you a secret, does your heart race with excitement or with dread? Do you look forward to acquiring the status of a confidante, someone trusted with special knowledge; or are you fearful that you can not bear the responsibility – that any moment you are bound to blurt it out?Or how do you feel about being party to solving a mystery. Can you see yourself in a deer-stalker as Sherlock Holmes or with the coiffered moustache of Hercule Poiret. Or does this sound like too much hard work, using too much brain-power? Would you prefer things to presented to you on a plate?[Take a show of hands: secret-likers; mystery-likers]Paul describes his job as if it the task of the detective in the final scene – where with the people gathered in the room he is able to explain what has been happening all along: so that the mystery is unfolded and the secret disclosed.What is the mystery? What is the secret (our translations use either word – and the word “hidden” - interchangeably)? It is something which has been hidden for “ages and generations”; it is something which is “rich and glorious”..[How are you feeling now?]. It is Christ (2:2): it is Christ in you (1:27); it is Christ the hope[/sharer] of God’s glory (1:27); it is Christ in whom are found all treasures of God’s wisdom and knowledge (2:3).3. How do you feel about that then – as the other person at the party? Go on you can be honest here? The secret been disclosed, the mystery is now out in the open: the secret is Jesus. How do you respond?I learned this week that this word “mystery is used quite a lot in the New Testament. The Greek word is “musterion” and it means a special sort of secret, a special mystery. It is a secret waiting to be discovered and told; it is a mystery waiting to be explained. It is temporarily a mystery; it has a solution. It is not closed off, not just for those who are members of the secret clan: it is available to be explored by everyone who wants to stop and explore. Do you remember Jesus explained to his disciples why he had to teach in parables? It was because the people, unlike the disciples, did not “have the secret of the Kingdom of God” (Mk 4:11) and were not ready to have the mystery explained to them?So Paul’s job was to present this mystery to the world. Last week we heard part of that mystery, how Jesus had turned us from being God’s enemies to being God’s friends – but now Paul takes us further: the mystery is now “Christ in you”! What’s that all about then? Does it bring back to you mind Jesus’ own words before his death: words like the promise of the Spirit of truth: “[Then] you will realise that I am in my Father, that you are in me and I am in you.” Jn 14:20.How do you respond to that? The secret is that Christ is in us! How we react may depend how often we have heard it? If never before, then quite fairly, because I am not Paul, you may say, what on earth are you talking about? At the other end of the scale some of us have heard it so often that we are “over-familiar” with it – and we take it for granted as we move on to something else. OK but pause a moment here with this mystery: take on board that the friendship with God won for us by Jesus was not intended to be picked up, explored, discovered and then discarded, leaving us as unchanged as if it had been a story from a novel or a moving film; rather Paul was teaching that it was just the start of the exploration. It allows us to experience God in our very lives; it allows us to open ourselves to be changed by God; it empowers us to live the lives we know He wants us to live. In the chapters that follow, we are going to see what that involves, what kind of behaviour, what kind of emotion, what kind of response God wants. And we can not do it on the back of a half-remembered, echo of an experience, when we learned a secret, briefly, for a moment, a long tome ago. We can do it only with Christ, the Holy Spirit, in us. It is a living thing.4. What about this bit of Paul’s job: “we proclaim/preach him, admonishing /warning and teaching everyone…that we may present everyone perfect in Christ”. Presenting everyone perfect! How do you respond to that? What a responsibility for a teacher to take.Think for a minute of someone who has taught you something important. Perhaps having just repeated Paul’s explanation of his method of proclaiming, admonishing and teaching, my thoughts go back to two saints from my early days here: to Dora Billington who was reknowned for proclaiming God’s love to everyone she met, as much on the 68 bus as here; and to Raphael’s great grand-mother Raphealita, whose kitchen was filled with children and grandchildren and friends and acquaintances of every hue and every background. Quite a bit admonishing went on; a lot of loving and, for me a lot of learning. These people had Christ in them; these people were people who committed to presenting me and those they served perfect in Christ (bringing us to “full maturity”).5. Can I grab a visual aid here? [A baby] Here is a little learning machine – programmed to learn, every day something new. When does it stop being like that? When is it that we “know everything we need to”? Even if we not so arrogant to sat it like that, why is it that we take new things and bend them to fit our approach, to make least resistance to the flow of life styles. When and why might we lose the desire to learn? When and why might Paul’s promises of the taste of glory, of understanding and wisdom and knowledge, not cause us to want more of Christ in us? How and why might we not want to be brought to perfection?6. Big questions that I won’t answer here. I will note that in the context of our theme of mission this year, this passage offers a strong model of the “discipling” value: that our job is not just to convince and convert but to bring to perfection and to full maturity. Like the guy at the party, the surrounding noise may distract, the alternatives available may attract – that is our call. On the other hand this talk of Christ in us, this talk of the hope of glory, these words of the treasures of treasures of wisdom and knowledge, this invitation to maturity, may cut through the room and find our hearts. Maybe we recognised the truth of it in others – in those old teachers or in those around us now – maybe in ourselves. If so, if we want to take it further, you know where Cameron is, you know where I and Trevor are, you know the other folk who lead house groups in the Church – or if you don’t, ask. Let the conversation carry on outside the party.

Sermon from 11th June 2006

The Supremacy of Christ

Our Vicar, Cameron Barker, continues our study of Paul's letter to the Colossians - our key reading being Colossians 1: 15-23

This is one of those occasions when we simply have to – so please do join in!

The only way to begin is with a brief visualisation exercise. So, make yourself comfortable, and feel free to close your eyes if it helps … Now picture in your mind the biggest shopping centre you’ve ever been in! Now make it 2x the size – or even 3x. Try & imagine the Mall of America, near Minneapolis - which is big enough to have a whole fun-fair inside it! And, before you start thinking about whether this is your idea of a dream or a nightmare, imagine that you are the size of an ant in that space! How vast does that make it? And how small & insignificant does that make you in the great scheme of things? What does that feel like ... ?

Hold onto those thoughts as you open your eyes, and as we begin to look into Paul’s words to Christians in ancient Colosse. You see today’s passage is on that sort of scale. It really is time for Paul to get down to the serious business that his readers needed to hear. In the first 2 sermons in this series we’ve seen how Paul adapted the formalities of 1st-C letter-writing for his own spiritual purposes. He had introduced himself, & identified his readers. He’d thanked God for them; & he’d told them what he’d been praying for them – which was in itself amazing. But even that prayer pales in comparison to what we’ve heard today – which is one of the greatest passages about Jesus in the entire New Testament.

It may (or may not) have been an existing poem or hymn that Paul borrowed - but that doesn’t matter. What matters is the content and what it tells us about who Jesus is. And its jaw-dropping nature begins with the very first words: “Christ is the visible likeness / He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God”. In other words, we might not be able to see God – but we can know exactly what he’s like. When we look at Jesus we can see who God is! The fullness of God himself – everything he is – was and is to be found in Jesus. Jesus is not some 2nd-rate imitation, or own-brand version; he’s the real deal! Jesus is the image, the exact likeness, of the God who made the entire world.

And that’s the subject Paul immediately moved onto next - the relationship between Christ and creation. Jesus is the 1st-born in the sense of having priority over everyone and everything that’s ever been born or made! It’s not that he himself is a created being. In fact, everything in heaven & on earth – everything we can see and everything we can’t see – was made through him. And, more than that, they weren’t just made through Christ: they were made for him! ‘Christ existed / He (Christ) is before all things & in / union with / him all things / have their proper place / hold together.

Paul may have been writing to combat false teaching that the Colossians were being subjected to. But, rather than taking that as his main focus, Paul concentrated on who Christ is. He emphasised the positive, re-stating the truth the Colossians had already been taught – that this was & is who Jesus is. Jesus wasn’t – and isn’t – just 1 spiritual guide among many that we can learn from. He is God; he existed before the world began; it was through him that the world was made; and he’s the one who holds creation together now. Jesus is, quite literally, the only reason that we are alive. It’s hard to be more positive than that; & it’s hard not to be in awe of the one of whom all that is true.
But there’s so much more to who Jesus is! From creation Paul moved swiftly on to God’s re-creation – the church. Christ is the head of that too. He’s the beginning of it, and the source of the church’s life. By his own resurrection he is the first-born from among the dead. That gives him first place – i.e. supremacy, authority – over all things in the church just as he has them over everything in all creation! And note too how God’s plan is surprisingly much bigger than we often realise. Jesus’ death & resurrection wasn’t just designed to bring the church into existence. It was, & is, God’s plan to reconcile, to bring back to himself, every- thing in the whole universe – things in heaven & on earth!

The scale of it is truly staggering. When we put ourselves into this scenario it is like being an ant in the hugest-ever building! The reality of both who Christ is and also what he has done by his life and death literally dwarfs us. Who are we? We live more than 2 000 years after Jesus’ birth as a human being; & who knows how long after the world was made through him. Our life-span isn’t even equivalent to the blink of an eye in eternity. Even our greatest achievements can’t put a dent in the course of human history – let alone that of the universe! And then compare that to who Jesus is, and to what he has achieved by his life & death – supremacy over both creation & re-creation.

It is – or it should be! – enough to make us feel very lost in the vastness of it all. But, fortunately, every good mall has boards up for us to go and look for the ‘You are here’ sign. Having set Christ in the widest possible perspective that he deserves, Paul then provided such a board for us.
Yes, we are meant to be humbled by contemplating who Jesus is. But we are then also meant to see where we fit into God’s plan. And we do: each 1 of us! We might only be a tiny part of the universe – but we are a part. So we are each part of what God wanted to reconcile to himself. When Jesus died on the cross he had you in mind just as much as he had the reconciliation of the rest of universe.

It’s an amazing thought; & it’s one that requires a response. So have you responded to God’s offer of reconciliation with himself? Paul wrote to a group of people who had already done so – but even then he didn’t mince his words. He pointed out that the Colossians had once been far away / alienated from God. They had been his enemies because of the way they had thought and acted. But, by accepting that the death of this Jesus had been for them, they had been reconciled to God, & become his friends. Now they - & whoever else makes the same decision they had – can be holy in God’s sight. We can stand before God himself, & be acceptable to him – because this same Jesus, who’s supreme over all creation, died for us!

As the modern Message version of the Bible puts it: ‘You don’t walk away from a gift like that!’ This is God’s gift to the whole of his creation: it’s the offer of reconciliation to himself through the death of his eternal son. Of course we don’t have to accept his offer. But if we don’t then we are choosing to remain alienated from God. How much better to become God’s friend, though, and be reconciled to him. How much better to accept that this Jesus, who is God, for & through whom the world was made, died for us. And if you’ve not yet done so, why don’t you do that today?
Today we’ve already welcomed some1 into the company of those who have accepted God’s offer and become his friends. Through Thanksgiving / Baptism Eloise's / Beatrice’s family have committed themselves to bringing her up in the Christian faith that’s based on these truths. What they know – as anyone who’s made this commitment does – is that this is not a 1-off experience. Paul also reminded the Colossians of that – that the proof of the pudding is in the eating of it. They must continue in their faith, holding firm to the eternal hope that is integral to Christian faith. They – & we – have been given a sure foundation in what God has done thru’ Jesus’ death. Now they - & we - must live it!

By now regulars here may be wondering which mission-shaped value this passage particularly points us to. The obvious 1 is the discipleship value, of course. Any church that wants to be mission-shaped must encourage people to encounter Jesus for who he is. Christians need to know that Christ is the one for and through whom the world was made. We need to know that he is the Son of God, who was born as a human being. We need to know that he died & rose again so we & all creation can be reconciled to God. We need to know that he is the head of the church and the source of our life. And we need to live out those truths and the hope that they bring, no matter what.

Another important part of the mission-shaped discipleship value is being active in calling others to faith in Jesus. And that’s the very subject Paul that returned to at the end of this wonderful passage about who Christ is. He’d begun on the greatest scale imaginable – creation itself. He’d set out Jesus’ role in that – and then also in bringing about God’s re-creation through his own death and resurrection. Then he’d narrowed the focus down, to help his readers realise God’s care for them. And then, finally, he told the Colossians how the gospel that had come to them was the same gospel that was preached throughout the world.

That was Paul’s job as an apostle – to preach this good news about Jesus to as many people around the world as he could. He did an amazing job of it, & set an inspiring e.g. for us. It’s also the duty & the joy of all Christians to tell others about the amazing offer that God makes to all people everywhere. We’re to tell every1 about who Christ is – that he’s the one for and through whom the world was made. We’re to tell them that he is the Son of God, who was born as a human being. We’re to tell them that he died & rose again so we & all creation can be reconciled to God. Then we’re to invite them to respond to God’s offer to end our enmity toward him & accept his friendship.

Of course it’s a big – & scary – job. But put it in the sort of perspective that Paul did in this passage. Just think of who Christ is – the exact likeness of God, the author of creation. Think of all that he gave up to become human. Remember how he died on the cross so you could become God’s friend. Consider how through his resurrection Jesus made it possible for you to live eternally. Hold onto that hope no matter what. Go on living as a disciple of Jesus. & go on telling others who don’t know about this amazing offer that God makes in and through his son. It’s good news. We may all be insignificant; but we are each part of the creation that God wants to reconcile to himself through Jesus. So let’s live it & share it as humble, grateful people.