Sermon from 19th November 2006

Our Vicar, Cameron Barker, ends our study of Mark's gospel based on the reading from Mark 12: verses 28-34 - The Greatest Commandment

Well, you’ve obviously already decided what you’re taking with you, then! … Your blank faces make me suspect that you don’t yet know, though. So did none of you have the news on before church, then? So, do you really not know?

In that case I had better do as I was told, and read out this letter that arrived yesterday. It’s from the Prime Minister …

“Dear Rev Barker,

I don’t doubt that this will be hard news for you, and your congregation, to hear, but I’m sure that you will all understand the need for it to happen.

As my government always does, we have listened to the opinion of the Great British People. We have now decided to act on it, for the good of the whole country. Sir Elton John’s proposal is the only way for us to go if we are to avoid further serious religious intolerance, and even violence. So, from midnight on Saturday, 18th November 2006, all organised forms of religion will be banned, with immediate effect.

People who break this banning order will be punished on the spot. From this Sunday, anyone who enters a church building to attend public worship will be followed home. They will then be given precisely 5 minutes to pack one small bag, before their home and all the rest of their belongings are confiscated. They will all have been warned about these consequences. So they really can’t complain if they choose to bring this fate on themselves by breaking this new law.

Please read this letter out to anyone who’s foolish enough to be at church this Sunday. You will be watched, to make sure that you do so. If you obey, you will be allowed an extra 5 minutes to pack your own bag before the Vicarage and all its contents are confiscated.

Yours sincerely,

Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, MP, PM:

PS Good luck with finding a new career.”

That scenario is, of course, purely fictional. But the issue that lies within it isn’t, though. If you had just five minutes to pack one small bag before losing everything else you own, what would you put in it? I think you’d find that what you took would show what’s truly important to you. In a real crisis, that is what shows up: what we value most highly. So, what would that be for you? …

It’s an exercise that’s worth doing at some point, because of what it will reveal. And if you need any encouragement to do it, then think of this Bible story. Jesus wasn’t facing a crisis exactly, or not immediately. But he was invited by this teacher of the law to say what was at the core of his life. Jesus’ answer, as we’d hope, is very revealing, and we’ll think about it in some depth today. But first we need to look back a bit, to put this passage in its context in our series.

Today we reach the end of our series from Mark. It has, as Adrian pointed out last week, taken us down some of the highways and byways of the middle phase of Jesus’ ministry. We haven’t really explored the main highlights – though of course each event has been important in its own right. Together they have added up to give us a better picture of who Jesus is, and exactly what he was born to do.

Hopefully we now understand better why Peter responded as he did when Jesus asked the disciples who he was. In that exchange, which was in this series, Peter said: ‘you are the Messiah / Christ.’ Peter was right, of course, even if that was all too rare an event. More often in the past few months we’ve seen how the disciples were usually wrong. They didn’t often understand what Jesus was on about, no matter how hard he tried to explain things to them. But maybe that will have encouraged us, as people who don’t always get it right, who don’t always understand.

We have spent much of this series learning about the disciples’ various failings, and hopefully learning with them. But maybe we’ll have been encouraged more by some of the other people we’ve met in recent weeks. There have been sick people – people in all sorts of need, themselves or members of their family, or friends. We’ve seen how Jesus met those needs, undramatically but decisively. No, we’ve not heard what difference it made to the rest of their lives. But that’s typical of Mark’s gospel – he told stories that speak for themselves, and then let them do just that.

Mark wrote for a Roman audience, remember – for people who liked action more than words. So, in Mark, Jesus is always moving on, to the next encounter – be it with friend or foe. And that’s been another constant in our series – the presence of foes. Right from the start, there has been an underlying tension. Jesus has been in constant conflict with the religious leaders of his day. By his words and deeds Jesus challenged much of what they believed and taught about God – and they didn’t like it! Each step of this journey has taken Jesus closer to Jerusalem, to the seat of that religious power. And now that he’s arrived there Jesus has absolutely no intention of avoiding the inevitable confrontation.

This question that the teacher of the law put to Jesus was the last in a series of debates Jesus had in Jerusalem. Each was with a representative of a different faction of the religious leadership. All of Jesus’ questioners were hostile – apart from this one. Mind you, in their accounts Matthew and Luke say he was out to trap Jesus too. But this answer Jesus gave was genuine, and that’s what’s important for us as we reach the end of our series. Today we’re going to leave Jesus just days before his death. It was a death he knew was coming. As we’ve been reminded in this series, it was a death he was born to die – not for himself, but for us. And, as he faced it, he was asked what’s most important.

Now it must be said that this was a rather lawyer-like question! Somebody has calculated that by this time there were about 613 Jewish laws – so rather more than the 10 that Moses started with! What this lawyer wanted to know was how Jesus prioritised all these laws. He didn’t have a problem with the answer he got. In fact, in a rather lawyer-like way, he even agreed with Jesus – though he added another thought of his own too. But do I wonder if he, or anyone else listening, truly grasped what Jesus meant – as he spoke these words in the shadow of the cross.

On the face of it, Jesus’ answer to the question was very simple. It was also, typically, rather creative of him: Jesus combined 2 OT quotations that hadn’t been put together in this way before. By doing that Jesus made a key point that we mustn’t miss when we apply what he said to our lives. But above all we must apply it based on the context in which Jesus spoke: the context of his own death. The question Jesus was asked was: ‘Which commandment is the most important of all?’ He replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ And then he went on, unasked, to add the second: ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’

As I say, on the face of it, that’s a very simple answer. But if we stop and think about what it truly means the implications are staggering. We like to think of love as a feeling, which of course, it is! But it’s so much more besides, as Jesus’ words here tell us. Jesus didn’t say that we’re ‘just’ to love God with all our heart. No, the greatest commandment is to love God with all of us – heart, soul, mind and strength! Love is a choice: it’s making a set of obedient decisions to do and say – and even think! – the right, Godly things always. And that means doing it when we don’t feel like it, or even want to! Yes, it can be hard; yes, it can be costly – as Jesus knew very well; and yes, as he showed, it is possible.

We must realise that it’s not some ethereal, other-worldly kind of loving that Christians are called to do! By adding in that second part of his answer, Jesus made it clear that our love for God is also to be seen in how we love other people! Those 2 dimensions can’t be separated in the kind of way that some people wish they could be. As another NT writer pointed out, how can we say that we love God, who we haven’t seen, if we don’t love the people who we can see? Simply put, we can’t! A Christian’s love for God can and must be seen in how we love others – and that is also a matter of making hard, costly choices of obedience.

Jesus knew about making hard, costly, obedient choices out of love for God and other people. All along the way to Jerusalem he knew that he was going there to die for us. Each time he was invited not to – even by the words of his disciples – Jesus made those hard, costly choices to love God and love us with all his heart, and all his soul, and all his mind, and all his strength. For Jesus that meant going to the cross. In his great love for us he died so that we can know and live in God’s love. Our love for God, then, and for his son, Jesus, and for 1 another, is our response to his love for us.

Our love for God and for each other must also, then, be worked out in practical ways. That’s a fitting note on which to end our final series of the year. Throughout this year we have been focusing on how we can be a more mission-shaped church. We’ve spent some time thinking about the values that any church must have if it’s to be shaped for mission. In this series we’ve thought more about Jesus’ mission itself – to bring in God’s kingdom. Now it’s almost time to bring the 2 strands together. Christmas isn’t ideal for doing that, so instead we’re aiming to do it in January.

Inside your service sheet you should have found a sheet that invites you to think about 2 key practical questions. How can we love God better as a church? And how can we love our neighbours better as a church? What we want are practical ideas for doing so that we can discuss at our next Listening Day – and then do. There are lots of ways in which we’re doing those 2 things already: but are there other ways that you can think of, and will get involved with?

You see, we are the church. We are the people who are to love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind and with all our strength. And we are the ones who are called to love our neighbour as ourselves. So how are we going to do that? How are we going to tell and show other people the good news of God’s love that we see in the life and death of Jesus? Is that as important to you as it should be? If so, how will you love God and your neighbour? Let’s pray …

Sermon from 12th November REMEMBRANCE DAY

One of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, preaches on The Parable of the Tenants in the Vineyard from Mark 12:1-12

1. We are nearing the end of our Autumn studies in Mark – just one more to go and we will have travelled the bye-ways of the gospel account and launch into the celebration of Advent. I say the “bye-ways” since, while the passages we have looked at will have been familiar, we have avoided the high-lights and the headlines. We have generally looked at the meetings, the conversations, the one-to-ones; we have tended to avoid the dramatic and the public.

This week is a good example: we left Jesus last week answering the desire of the beggar to see. The blind man who had insight, who saw in the itinerant teacher “the Son of David”; and had the determination to follow his instinct. That was in Jericho – en route for Jerusalem. That was ch.10. And now in ch.12 we have arrived. Our study has by-passed the excitement of the entry into Jerusalem, coats and straw and palms strewn across the path by the excited crowd; we have missed the intensity of emotion there and the day after when Jesus returns to the Temple and turns over the tables of the money-changers and the benches of the dove-sellers: “Scripture say, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for the nations? But you have turned it into a thieves’ kitchen!”

2. For caretakers (or perhaps now they are “facilities-operations managers”?) this is a very difficult time of year. Nor are their problems eased by the effect of global-warming. They are no-one’s friends. You see the only thing that is predictable about the weather at this time of year is its unpredictability. In office buildings of any size the chances are that the caretaker must predict tomorrow’s temperature today and set the controls the night before. Will he permit heating or air-conditioning? Will it be warm, will it be cool? How quickly will it change? By 11a.m. his in-box will be full of complaints from around the office: “too cold”, “too warm”, “there’s a draught”, “I feel ill”, etc. A difficult time of year. Of course one way to alleviate the problem is to create smaller units and to allow co-workers to maintain their own environment. Give them the thermostat and the air-conditioning control for their patch. It can be expensive but it is, I understand, shown to save a great deal of discontent. Nor need it be expensive, since studies show (I read in the Wall Street Journal to it must be so!) that it is not necessary for the thermostat or the air-conditioning controller to contain any working parts or to be connected to anything else in the system for the same sense of well-being to pervade the office! Simply create the illusion of control and people can be happy. Control, of some things at some level, is important to us.

3. The chapter break at the start of ch.12 is artificial. From v.27 of ch.11 to the end of ch.12 Mark is concerned to explain the challenges to Jesus raised by various members of the variety of ruling groups in Jerusalem at the time: the groups “in control” (subject to Roman oversight). As we will see next week, Mark’s account is balanced – Jesus recognised that his challengers were not all bad. But in general terms we get the impression of an alliance of people – Pharisees, Sadducees (not often agreeing about much!), Herodians (pro-Roman), scribes, priests, elders – concerned not to weigh the authority of Jesus – not to test it, not to hear his teaching and assess it in the light of history and scripture and tradition - but concerned only to undermine it.

The first question they asked was direct: what authority do you have for what you are doing? Jesus did not give a direct answer – he instead asked then what they thought of the ministry of John the Baptist, was it divinely-inspired or only human? They could not answer: to have done so was politically impossible for them. That was Jesus’ point: if I tell you the truth, you won’t want to understand me – what would you do? Their question was not – like the plea of the blind beggar – founded on a desire to know but a desire to trap. Their time for that would come a few days later.

Their second question follows our passage: a political one now – should we honour God or Caesar? “Give to God what belongs to God.” Then finally, before we trespass on next week’s passage, a theological question about the practicalities of resurrection: irrelevant says Jesus, you don’t understand: “God is not God of the dead but of living men!”

4. And in the midst of these debates, a story. A parable. Mark tells us, after the first argument: “Then he began to talk to them in parables”. I love that! Do you remember Jesus told his disciples that he taught the crowd with simple stories because otherwise they could not grasp the story: I understand that. And the story here has a very clear meaning: the crowd would have recognised the allusion to Isaiah 5, the prophecy which describes the people of God as the vineyard “the Garden of His delight” and God “looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress”; the tenants/the farm-workers were the rulers, those (apparently) in control; the servants were the prophets, ill-treated and ignored; until “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved” ; who was treated worst of all - killed and his body bundled over the wall of the vineyard to rot. Of course a prophecy of what would happen a few days later. But the story is about the tenants: about their motive – a simple one – to keep control: “Let’s kill him and the inheritance will be ours.” And the story is about owner: that is not what happens. He will destroy those with the illusion of control and to their surprise what they rejected becomes the key for the future.

5. So control, or, more accurately, the illusion of control, becomes a barrier to considering the teaching of Jesus? I have a lot of time for the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the teachers of the law et al. I am comforted that Cameron’s passage next week bears out that they were not all bad. Those who responded to Jesus’ teaching – and we know there were some and would be more (eg Saul) showed tremendous courage in risking the apparent control they had.

Personally I am a cautious person; I avoid making decisions where I can and, where I can’t, I make them very slowly. I am a year older this week (as is the Vicar). I think all the important decisions that I made in my life were made 30 years ago. I admire those of you who can delay finding a life partner until your 20s or even later! I would (and have no desire to!) have no idea!

Perhaps more seriously, today I am conscious of the enormous courage – because of the extraordinary impact on them and the environment they “controlled” - of those who gave up so much in deciding to fight for their country.

In other words I enjoy my “the illusion of control”. It may be different that that of the Pharisees but not wholly so. And so the question I ask: is how my reaction to Jesus’ teaching is conditioned by this illusion of control?. Is my response constrained by my desire to stay in charge of my vineyard? Is it easier to ignore the challenge, than to risk the change? And bear in mind that one of the decisions I made 30 years ago was that the claim of this Son was a good claim – that I should order my life to reflect His love to me. So if I am aware of not wanting to lose control of my vineyard – how much more difficult must it be more for those who may be faced with that sort of decision now? How many folk hear the claims of Jesus, know how real they feel but then assess the consequence on the ambit of their control – or their apparent control?

Looked at from the other end, how important it is for the Church in explaining the message of Christ to realise that proclamation is only part of what we are about – another part is to assist its acceptance – to help the tenants understand what is involved on living with the owner at home. Amongst other things that involve the Church living a life that impresses with the reality of God’s love; and (to pinch JB Phillips translation of Paul’s words) that it is not a matter of words but the power of Christian living.

6. A few of us met this week to consider how we might prepare for the Parish “Listening Day” planned now for 27 January. Cameron will touch on this next week – but for now one of the questions we want to be thinking about beforehand is “how can we make more of a difference in the life of our Church and in our neighbourhoods?” How can our church life encourage us our individual lives to be more “out of control” and more of a witness of living under God’s control – so that others will perhaps be encouraged to take the risk, to recognise their control is illusory, that God is master of their vineyard, as of everybody’s, and that giving up control, while involving change, may be easier than they think.

Sermon from 5th November 2006

A blind man sees

Here is Sunday's sermon from Trevor Tayleur, one of our Lay Readers. It is based on the reading from Mark 10:46-52.

Beggars are a familiar sight in London, and indeed in most big cities throughout the world.
And I know many of us feel uncomfortable when faced by a beggar; awkward questions go through our minds about how we should react to the person in front of us. But however we react, I suspect very few of us ever think that we can learn something of value from the beggar. But that’s not necessarily the case, and today we can learn a lot from the example of Bartimaeus, the blind beggar whose story we heard about in today’s Gospel reading from Mark.

But before we look at the story of Bartimaeus, it would be helpful to put it into context. Over the past couple of months, we’ve been looking at a critical stage of Jesus’ ministry. And it’s also become a bit of a habit to refer to politics, sport and religion in sermons as well. A few weeks ago Adrian analysed England’s prospects in the next Rugby World Cup, and this afternoon’s international against the All Blacks will give us an idea whether England are on the right track. But today is also the 5th November, Guy Fawkes, and this gives me the chance to talk about politics. Because Guy Fawkes was involved in a plot to blow up Parliament and overthrow the government of King James I 401 years ago. But today I’m actually not going to talk about politics, other than to observe that throughout human history there have been plots and conspiracies to overthrow governments. And many of Jesus’ followers believed that they were going to be part of such a plot, one that would drive the Romans out of Jerusalem. But they were wrong.

Jesus had told his disciples who he was, & why he had been born as a human being. He was the Messiah, God’s chosen one, but he hadn’t come, contrary to the expectations of many his would-be followers, to drive out the Roman oppressors. As Cameron explained last Sunday, Jesus had been born to die, to die so that he could open the way back to God for all people for all time. But the disciples had struggled to understand what he meant. Jesus couldn’t have been clearer; he had told them explicitly that he was going to be betrayed, he was going to be killed and rise again to life. Yet the disciples kept on getting it wrong, and Jesus had to keep on telling them what was going to happen. Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem to die; he knew what was going to happen, and he knew that it was going to happen soon. Jesus’ enemies were plotting to get Jesus killed. As for the disciples, they couldn’t believe that Jesus was going to die; that simply did not fit in with what they hoped and expected would happen. Yet the disciples carried on following him. And it was on the way to Jerusalem that Jesus and his disciples came to Jericho, and met Bartimaeus, the blind beggar. And it turns out that Bartimaeus was the one who could see the truth; while the disciples groped around in the dark not sure what to think, Bartimaeus had the vision to put his trust in Jesus.

Towards the end of our passage, in verse 51 Jesus asked Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?" I used to be puzzled by Jesus’ question. “Isn’t the answer obvious?” I thought to myself. Of course he wanted to be healed, he wanted to be able to see. And indeed that is how Bartimaeus answered the question; “Rabbi, I want to see."

But on further reflection I realised the answer wasn’t so obvious after all. Imagine the scene. In many cities in today’s world you will see people sitting by the roadside asking for money; “Got a few coins for an old soldier?” “Spare some change for me, sir?” are familiar pleas all over the world. And if you were to go up to a blind beggar and ask, “What do you want me to do for you?” the answer would come back, “Please can I have some money.”

Now Bartimaeus didn’t have much of a life. But at least he had a routine and was able to survive. He had probably got used to it, and probably knew a few other beggars with whom he chatted from time to time. It wasn’t a great life, but it was the one he knew. And then Jesus arrived on the scene. And when Bartimaeus heard the news he began to shout out; "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Perhaps at that moment Bartimaeus was simply after some money, hoping that Jesus would be more generous than the average giver. Or perhaps Bartimaeus was already hoping for something more. We can’t be sure, but we do know that he was determined to bring himself to Jesus’ attention. He had already realised that there was something special about Jesus.

Bartimaeus had to struggle to make himself heard. Jesus was being followed not only by his disciples, but also by a large crowd of people. It was Passover the following week, and traditionally people would travel from far and wide to Jerusalem for the festival. Some of those people gathered around Jesus, perhaps hoping that he was the Messiah who would drive the Romans out. It was a time of great excitement for the crowd, but they were probably less than excited when a blind beggar started calling out to Jesus. Now in London today many people tend to be embarrassed by beggars, and avert their gaze as they pass by. But the crowd in Jericho showed no such restraint; they rebuked him and told him to shut up. But Bartimaeus didn’t give up, and Jesus told the disciples to call him.

Mark portrays a stark contrast between the disciples on the one hand and Bartimaeus on the other. The disciples hadn’t really understood what Jesus was about, but somehow Bartimaeus had recognised who Jesus was. “"Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"” he called out. “Son of David” wasn’t just simply a name for Jesus; it was a Messianic title and already Bartimaeus was showing faith in Jesus. Also, he was recognising his predicament, his need for mercy. I don’t know whether he had fully realised what Jesus could do for him, but he knew that Jesus was special and could help. And Bartimaeus provides an example that we would do well to follow.

The disciples kept on missing the point, and I’ve already said that more than once today; they probably had visions of glory, that Jesus would drive out the Romans and that they would have positions of power once that had happened. But Jesus wasn’t that sort of Messiah. As Cameron said last Sunday, Jesus was born for one reason above all others – and that was to die, to die to open up for us the way back to God.

But are we also in danger of missing the point? For many of us life is fairly comfortable. We live in a city that is wealthy; occasionally something happens that disturbs our complacency, such as the 7/7 bombings last year. But normal service soon resumed, and life for many has continued much as before. In good times it’s very easy for us to become self-sufficient, and God only becomes a spiritual 999 emergency number we call in a crisis. Bartimaeus’ needs were obvious, ours may often be less so. For those of us who are Christians, we have accepted that Jesus died for us and so we have been restored to a relationship with God. But that’s not the end of the story. As Cameron said last Sunday, the challenge for us is to live and grow in that relationship, to serve others, just as Jesus did. And to do that, we have to remember that we need God’s mercy and to acknowledge that day by day.

And for those who haven’t yet made that first step of commitment to Christ, Bartimaeus can also provide a model to follow. Like Bartimaeus, you need to acknowledge that you need God’s mercy, that you need help. Bartimaeus didn’t allow the jeers of the crowd to put him off. He knew that he needed Jesus’ help, and he was ready to seek Jesus out. And Jesus was willing to help him.

And so Bartimaeus came face to face with Jesus, and Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” Once again Mark is setting up a contrast between Bartimaeus and the disciples, because earlier in the chapter Jesus asked two of his disciples, James and John, exactly the same question. We read in verse 35 that James and John approached him and said, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask." And Jesus asked them, "What do you want me to do for you?" And they replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory." They wanted glory, they wanted status in Jesus’ Kingdom. They still hadn’t realised that Jesus had to die, and that they needed mercy.

So let’s think about Bartimaeus’s reply to Jesus’ question, “What do you want me to do for you?" What does a beggar usually want? Bartimaeus could have replied, “Please could you spare some money for me.” But Jesus’ question went deeper than that. Beneath the surface of Jesus’ question was another question, “Do you, Bartimaeus, really want to give up begging? Do you want to have to live a different type of life, to work for living rather than sitting by the roadside day after day, pleading to passers-by for money?

Bartimaeus by then had realised that Jesus was offering more than money, and asked to see. He was taking a bit of a risk, because he was moving out of his comfort zone. He could have gone on begging; he could have stuck to the life he knew; despite all its hardships, he was able to eke out an existence of sorts. Instead he took the chance of a lifetime and asked to see. And he clearly believed that Jesus could help him, for Jesus said to him, “Your faith has healed you.” And what happened next? “Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.”

Mark offers Bartimaeus to us as an example to imitate. He recognised who Jesus was; he was a person of faith – he believed that Jesus was willing and able to heal him. He threw his beggar’s cloak aside; he was willing to accept the new life that Jesus offered and followed him. Bartimaeus left one life behind, and started a new life. He didn’t know all that it would entail, but he was willing to step out in faith. He didn’t use his blindness as an excuse, a safety blanket that he could cling to rather than leaving his comfort zone.

“What do you want me to do for you?” Is Jesus also asking us that question? Even if, unlike Bartimaeus, our lives are relatively comfortable, is there something that is holding us back? Sometimes, deep down, we want to serve God in a new way, to do something different. There are many ways in which we can serve God, but it’s easy to become stuck in a rut. Is there something new that we want to do for God, a new role that we could take on in the church or in the local community? Or do we think that God wants us to serve him in a completely new way, even in a different part of the world? We might doubt our abilities, and think that we’ve got little to offer God. But look at the example of Bartimaeus, the blind beggar who lived in Jericho nearly 2,000 years ago and who still provides an example for Christians today to follow. Jesus didn’t think Bartimaeus wasn’t good enough. Everyone, even those who are normally excluded from society, is welcome in God’s kingdom. Bartimaeus had the faith and courage to allow Jesus to change his life. Are we willing to allow Jesus to change our lives?
Let’s pray.

“What do you want me to do for you?” When Jesus asks us what we want him to do for us, help us to respond in the way Bartimaeus did, with courage and faith. Bartimaeus followed the road that Jesus took Help us to follow the same road, for there is no better road to travel on. Amen.