Sermon from 19th October 2008

Today's sermon is from our newly ordained minister, Rev. Gill Tayleur, and is based on the reading from Matthew 22: 15-22



“Have you stopped beating your wife?!” (or let’s say your spouse)

“Have you stopped beating your spouse?!”
Well, have you, yes or no?...

It’s a great trick question!
If you say yes, it sounds like you have stopped, but you used to beat her.
If you say no, it sounds like you still do beat her. A trick question.
Jesus faced a trick question in the passage I’ve just read from Matthew’s gospel.
“Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” was a very clever trick question designed to trap Jesus.
The people asking it thought they’d force Jesus to say something that was either treasonous (to Caesar)
or offensive (to Jews).
Either way would get him killed.
Yes or no, it was lose lose.
But before we look more closely at this trap, let me give a little background about paying taxes to Caesar.

Remember the Romans had invaded Palestine about 90 years before.
First they had their own man in as ruler, then later used Herod as a local king. As occupying forces the Romans were hated. That’s not surprising.
Neither is the fact that the taxes they imposed were hated.
The Jews hated paying their taxes because they were a reminder and symbol that they were oppressed by Rome, by the Roman Emperor Caesar.

They also hated the tax because it went straight into Caesar’s own coffers. Some of it paid for pagan temples and some to the decadent lifestyle of the Roman aristocracy.
So the Jews hated what their tax would be spent on.

The Jewish people also hated this tax because they had to pay it with a particular Roman coin.
These coins had two very offensive things on them: a picture of Caesar’s head and an inscription.
Jews weren’t allowed to put pictures of people, human faces, on their coins, but of course Caesar had his image stamped on his coin.
And the inscription read “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus”.
The coin described the Emperor Caesar as the son of a god!

These coins were so offensive to the Jews that for normal everyday money, other coins were minted.
Other coins without the image or inscription, out of deference to how the Jews felt about them.
But they had to use these coins with the image and inscription, for paying their direct tax to Caesar.
(There were all sorts of taxes to be paid on all sorts of things, but just the direct tax for Caesar needed these special coins with his head and the inscription. So the people had to exchange their ordinary coins for the special ones, and often got ripped off as they did so. Another reason for hating this tax.)

So the Jewish people truly loathed this tax.
But there was a group of them who hated it even more than the rest.
The Pharisees. The Pharisees were an ultra religious group, who said the only king they recognised was God.
And they vehemently opposed Roman occupation and Caesar’s rule.
Most of them opposed Jesus too, as he didn’t obey the minutiae of the Jewish laws like they did.
And because Jesus associated with notoriously bad people.

So the Pharisees didn’t like Jesus. At least that’s what we might have said about them a week or so before the events we’re looking at today. At this stage in the story, now, we might say they hated Jesus!
A few days ago, Jesus had come into Jerusalem riding on a donkey to the acclaim of the crowd – Palm Sunday. In a few days time, he was going to be crucified – Good Friday.
But we’re in the days in between, during which Jesus has upset the Pharisees and other religious leaders repeatedly. He has cleared the temple, saying it was corrupt. He has told parables against them, showing them up for not accepting him as the Messiah sent by God. At the end of the previous chapter of Matthew, we read the chief priests and Pharisees looked for a way to arrest him – they wanted him out of the way!
But they couldn’t because the crowd thought he was a prophet. The crowd loved him.

The Pharisees couldn’t arrest him, so they had another idea: a trick question that would be a trap. A trick question that meant if he gave one answer they could have him arrested for treason. And if he gave the other answer the crowd would turn on him. Either way they’d get rid of him for good. A trap.

Just as the Pharisees plotted to get rid of Jesus, so did the Herodians. The Herodians were a political party who supported Herod’s rule under Rome. They hated Jesus because they were afraid of the political instability he might bring. On Palm Sunday the crowds had been stirred up, thinking he was going to start a revolution to overthrow the Roman occupation. If there was any such trouble, Rome would clamp down on it harshly, and the stake the Herodians had in Herod’s rule, would be gone. Alternatively, if it turned out that Jesus did have the power to overthrow Roman rule, then again, their own power base would go. So the Herodians wanted to get rid of Jesus, like the Pharisees did.

Herodians and Pharisees were usually enemies, but on this occasion they got together to trap Jesus.
So they dreamed up their trick question. They asked, “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” This was indeed a trick question. If Jesus said yes, it was right to pay taxes to Caesar, the Pharisees would say he was opposed to God, the only true king. And the crowd would be up in arms, probably stone him, for they hated paying the tax. If Jesus said no it wasn’t right to pay taxes to Caesar, the Herodians would have him charged for rebellion. There had been Jews who’d revolted against Roman rule and taxes before, and faced the death penalty. Saying no would be very dangerous indeed. So Jesus would be in big trouble whatever he said, yes or no. Lose lose. A very clever trick question.

So what does Jesus do? First he lets them know he sees through -their cunning plan. “You hypocrites! Why are you trying to trap me?” He sees straight through them to their motives, and lets them know it. The Pharisees weren’t really motivated by love for God’s laws. The Herodians weren’t really motivated by love of Rome’s justice. They just wanted to trap Jesus.

Then he asks them to show him the coin they use for paying the tax. Which they do. I quote Tom Wright’s description of what happens next:

Jesus takes the coin from them, like someone being handed a dead rat. He looks at it with utter distaste.
”Whose is this... image? And who is it who gives himself an inscription like that?” He’s already shown what he thinks of Caesar, but he hasn’t said anything that could get him into trouble. He has turned the question around, and is ready to throw it back at them.

“Caesar’s” they reply. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” He counters their challenge with a sharp challenge in return. Were they compromised? Had they really given their full allegiance to God? He has outwitted them and they know it. They slink off.

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
The word translated “give” here, is really more of a “give back” or “give what is owed”. It’s the word used for paying a bill or settling a debt.

So what did Jesus think was owed to Caesar? And what to God?
What did Jesus think was owed to Caesar? Well he recognised that they, and we have a responsibility to give to those who govern, what they legitimately ask for. Responsibility to obey the laws, to pay taxes for the benefits and services we receive. We’re to complete our tax returns honestly, to fulfil our responsibilities as citizens. Our allegiance to God includes our allegiance to the state. They’re not in opposition to one another.

What did Jesus think was owed to God? Later in this very chapter in Matthew, in verse 37, Jesus said to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind. In other words, love God in every way we can, to the full, in every part of our lives. There’s no separation between the spiritual and the non-spiritual. Remember the reading we had last week, about Jesus healing on the Sabbath? He wouldn’t let doing God’s work be limited in the ways the religious leaders wanted. He wouldn’t let them try to keep God in a box. No, Jesus made it clear that God’s in charge of everything. He’s in charge of ALL of our lives.

So the question is, is He? Is God in charge of every aspect of our lives?...

Is he in charge of our jobs? Of what work we do, and how we do it? Whether we work for a company, or someone else, are self employed, or work at keeping our home or family running. Are we honest at work? Do we work hard, do our best? Are we a pleasure to work with? What is there in our working life that needs to be brought under God’s control?...

Is God in charge of our relationships? Are there relationships where we habitually lose our temper, get violent, or take advantage, or lack humility or compassion?... Are our sexual relationships under God’s control, or are we doing the wrong things with the wrong people, or with pornography? What is there in our relationships that needs to be brought under God’s control?...

Is God in charge of our time? Do we resent the demands other people make on our time? How little time we have to ourselves or to relax? Or maybe the opposite: do we waste too much time on our own pleasure, rather selfishly? Maybe we think we deserve it – back to Cameron’s sermon of two weeks ago about wrongly thinking we have ‘entitlements’ before God. We don’t. What is there in how we spend our time that needs to be brought under God’s control?...

Is God in charge of our money? Are we generous givers? Or do we spend too much on ourselves? Money is a big issue right now, isn’t it with the financial crisis looking to affect all of us in one way or another, bigger bills to pay and maybe worse. But is God in charge of how we spend or save or give away money? What is there in how we spend our money that needs to be brought under his control?...


Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and God what is God’s. ALL of lives need to be brought under God’s control. A few days after this episode with the Roman coin, Jesus was killed. He gave up his life, for us. And we’re about to celebrate, yes celebrate! in Holy Communion, the fact that by his death on the cross, we are forgiven. He literally gave everything for us, and so we owe him everything. Our lives, our jobs, our relationships, our time, our money, our homes, literally everything!

We can’t fool or trick God any more than the Pharisees and Herodians could trick Jesus. He knew their real motives, and God knows ours. God knows exactly what we’re up to. He knows where he’s in charge and where he’s not. And his forgiveness, his grace, and his love are ready and waiting, available, to welcome us as we come and bring our whole lives under his control. So shall we do that?

Then let’s pray...

Sermon 12th October 2008

Today our Associate Vicar, John Itumu, preaches about Jesus, the rejected stone, from the Gospel of Matthew 21:33-46

As we heard last Sunday, Jesus endeavoured to relate his teaching to the lives of the listeners – he didn’t just do abstract teaching. He preferred to use memorable and short, sometimes graphic stories called parables. He was a master story teller. Public teaching in his day was a crowded and competitive ground with hundreds of wandering rabbis, teachers – and all of them were men of exceptional abilities. Jesus however taught with exceptional results. Stories seize our imagination and help us to reflect. No wonder one of the gospels (Mark1:22) reports that people recognized immediately that he was different from other rabbis.

And so this landowner prepares a vineyard (parables were drawn from local examples that listeners could identify with) and rents it out to some farmers. Historians tell us that that a vineyard was a long term investment with someone having to wait for at least four years before fruit could be picked. The farmers/tenants would have been required to pay the landowner a fixed proportion of the proceeds.

And so at harvest time this landowner sends his servants to collect his fruit and the tenants repeatedly reject all of them. They respond dramatically with beating, stoning and even killing them. Twice he does this but with the same result. The landowner finally even sends his own son, in the hope that the response will be different but to no avail. They kill him too. Now this parable clearly verges on the absurd.

And we might ask; how stupid was this landowner to send his servants repeatedly and not take notice of their mistreatment? Why did he not taken action at the first instance? Did he not think the same fate could befall his son? Why? These and other questions emerge as we try to make sense of the account. However please remember, it is only a parable, a riddle. His listeners, the Jewish leaders, would have immediately recognized this imagery as between God and his people Israel; actually God and them! V45 records that when they heard this parable, they knew he was talking about them.

There is also a famous story in the OT (2 Samuel 7) which they would have particularly made connections with. It is where God through a prophet called Nathan had made a promise to King David, their ancestor. David wanted to build a temple for God - to put the Ark of the Covenant (the box where the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments resided).

God had said to David, through Nathan, that he would not be the one to build a temple for him. His offspring, his successor would build a temple, right wrongs and establish a kingdom. But even more importantly, this kingdom would last for ever. This meant that generations of Davids, yet unborn would carry this promise. V16 Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me.

This lasting guarantee to David made the Jewish community to be a community of hope. A hope that believed, confessed and trusted that God would keep his promise of righting the world and all this through a historical agent, a human being. They had been waiting, a long time for this deliverer, a messiah. For many years they been exiled in Babylon and now after coming back home were under the colonial yoke of the Romans. They desperately needed their kingdom back. Who was going to be the deliverer?

Well Jesus was the deliverer, but remarkably different. He hadn’t asked his people to rise up in arms against this oppressive regime. He had come to usher in a different sort of a kingdom whose membership criteria were repentance and faith in him. And in this parable he doesn’t leave any doubt that he was the last in the prophetic line up lasting many generations. The Jesus is the rejected son. Certainly many, the crowd, according to v46 perceived him as a prophet. But the chief priests and Pharisees didn’t like this and they sought a way to arrest him.

Just a few days before, he had presented himself as a king, riding on a donkey and with people singing hosanna…; which was in fulfilment of a prophecy by Zechariah some 500 years before. He had then violently driven out moneychangers and sellers from the temple precincts quoting prophet Jeremiah (7:11) and declaring the temple ‘his house’. Little did they know that his action symbolized the judgment to come and which actually happened when the temple was destroyed by the Roman forces after defeating the Zealots in AD70 under the command of Titus Flavius.

It needs to be said also that this vineyard language was already familiar to Jewish hearers listening to Jesus. They had heard it all before. It was read to them in the synagogues:

Psalm 80:8
You transplanted a vine from Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it
Jeremiah 2:21
I had planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock. How then did you turn against me into a corrupt, wild vine?
Ezekiel 19:10
Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard, planted by the water…
This was familiar language!

This parable condemns the Jewish leaders’ failure to seriously engage with the teaching of Jesus, even to recognize him as ‘the one’ to whom all the Torah prophecies pointed. In the history of Israel, God had used prophets to communicate to his people. And in this parable is a clear message of God’s repeated appeal to his people, through his prophets. Not once, not twice but they all receive similar response, rejection. In short Jesus is saying to the Jewish leaders and his listeners very bluntly, you have rejected me.

And to conclude the parable, he introduces yet another twist to it – often seen as a parable within a parable; only this time he quotes directly from the Jewish scriptures Psalm 118:22-3. The story of a rejected son becomes that of a rejected stone.

He tells them;
The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this
and the doing is marvellous in our eyes

This phrase is one of the most repeated in the bible, Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17, Acts 4:11 and 1 Peter 2:7. Such repetition by different authors must mean that it is significant enough to warrant the mention. In fact this phrase has even attracted interest from beyond Christendom. In the passage Jesus makes it very easy and obvious for his listeners to see the connection: The rejected son -->The rejected stone –> all these refer to the same person, Jesus. The compound parable comes full circle. Jesus is the rejected one.

The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;

Yes the Chief priests and Pharisees may have rejected him but God nevertheless has purposed that Jesus becomes the cornerstone. The cornerstone of what? The cornerstone of the foundation of their lives; that on which all humanity stands. The key-stone on which human beings should build their lives; that which holds all things together. If they have rejected the cornerstone, how would they build their lives? How foolish for them to ignore such a basic requirement for their lives! Jesus, the rejected son – the rejected stone!

So I ask a question that is probably rather obvious; is Jesus the one who your life is built on? Do you know this Jesus? I ask this because that is what we are about here in the parish of Herne Hill. We have a parish motto which states that …our aim is, in God’s strength to bring Jesus to the centre of our lives and to the heart of our community.

Allow me a few comments about this Jesus before I stop. We live in an age of religious pluralism. People love to discuss religion, even hear about the religious experience of others. It's fascinating. Sometimes we even learn something to incorporate into our own life.
Suppose you found yourself in such a discussion and made a contribution in the line of: Well Jesus was a Jewish teacher and wonder-worker. He lived in Palestine about 2000 years ago and taught a way of love and truth. His wisdom was unsurpassed. Even in his dying he never gave in to the lower instincts of anger and revenge. His teachings and example can have a tremendous influence in your life.

What do you think the response would be?
Tolerance. Compassionate interest, perhaps. Certainly nods and smiles of respect. And then a comment like, well, if it works for you, fine. You have your inner experience. I have mine. Lets go for lunch.

But what if in the same discussion you used the words of Paul when he debated with Stoic philosophers at the Aeropagus in Athens (Acts 17)
He said:
We are God’s offspring…and he commands that all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed – Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.

Now that is disrespectful of other religions, it is unacceptable and impolite dialogue, even an uncivilized opinion for the times we live in. And friends, that is why Jesus is offensively unique in this pluralistic age. He is not in competition with anything. He is not one of the ways to the truth. He is the way, the truth and the life. He has no equal. He is the beginning and the end. And on him our lives and wellbeing depend. He is the cornerstone! He has made an escape for us from God’s judgement by offering to die in our place. V44 …but anyone on whom this stone falls will be crushed.

Now I am aware all this might sound naïve and arrogant. Last Monday, the Pope criticised our modern culture that glorifies pursuit of wealth with reference to the current global wave of bank collapse. He got interesting rejoinders one which dared him to show how the word of God could pay for heating and fuel bills, because only then could this person accept God as the surest reality.

But Jesus, as C. S. Lewis famously wrote, with the kind of things he did and said makes him either the Son of God (God made flesh) or else insane or evil, and certainly not a great human teacher. He is the cornerstone. The choice is yours and mine.

To those who have never considered this Jesus seriously, I warmly invite you to do so. You will be pleasantly surprised, as I was years ago to realise that it was the missing link in my well lived life. He won’t drop money to pay fuel bills but he will fill you with inexpressible joy. He will fill you with contentment. You think you’ve had a good life so far? He will usher you into a life that will really be worth living. He says in John 10:10 that he came so that you and I may have life to the full. He does not disappoint. That is something worth exploring.

To those who have made a commitment to Jesus, I leave you with the question, is Jesus still the cornerstone of all the facets of your life? Is he the cornerstone on a Sunday afternoon/Thursday morning; at work, with friends, while travelling? Attending church is a profitable thing, but no guarantee that Jesus is the cornerstone of one’s life and this is worth a thought. Let us pray.

Sermon from 5th October 2008

Today our Vicar, Cameron Barker's sermon is based on the gospel reading from Matthew 20: 1-16

I'd like to begin, if I may, with a quick straw poll. Put your hand up, please, if you agree with any of the following statements:

“You get what you pay for ...”;
“There is no such thing as a free lunch ...”;
“No pain, no gain ...”;
“You must claim what you are entitled to ...”;
and, “You get what you deserve in life ...”.

Thanks for co-operating – and wasn't that interesting! It wasn't surprising, though. So your responses encourage me to tell you a true story that I read this week. It's about a brave preacher who rewrote another parable Jesus told, the one (wrongly) known as the Prodigal Son. Hopefully you know this story, about the young man who demanded his inheritance from his father? To keep it short, he went off and blew it all on high living, and landed up quite literally in a pigsty. Then he realised that he'd be better off if he was his father's servant. So he hurried back home – where he was greeted like royalty by his father. His older brother wasn't very impressed, you may recall – and he let their father know about it in no uncertain terms!

Well, this preacher made some changes to the end of the story. As he told it, when the younger son got home, his father agreed with him! He didn't deserve to be treated any better than a servant. So he wasn't! And his first job was to wait on his well-behaved older brother for the party that his father then threw for him. In this version, it was the older brother who was given the new clothes and fancy ring. And as the preacher said that, someone in the congregation began to applaud. And then they called out, “Quite right: that's what should have happened!”

And if we're honest there's probably part of us that agrees with that person. Why should that younger brother have been treated any other way after he had behaved as he had? He didn't deserve to be welcomed back, did he? Of course he didn't – which is precisely the point that Jesus wanted to make by telling that parable, of course! And it's not very different to the point that Jesus wanted to make by telling the parable that we've heard today either.

Before we get to the details of this particular story, let me say bit a more about parables in general. We have covered this ground here before, not least because Jesus told so many parables. It was, in fact, his most favoured method of teaching. The 4 gospels record no less than 34 different parables of Jesus, told in some 55 settings. Jesus told parables to his disciples, to huge crowds, and even to (or against) his opponents. Jesus always had a good story to tell. It was usually based on every-day life, even if the details were often deliberately exaggerated. But that story invariably turned life as people understood it on its head. Of course Jesus' hearers could simply take the story at face value, and walk away unaffected. But if they thought about what they had heard, they soon realised that it shook the very foundations of their world-view.

That is certainly true of today's parable too; but there are a few more general points that I still need to make. The first, and most important, is that Jesus' parables were usually about the Kingdom of God. That's how today's parable began, you note: “the Kingdom of Heaven is like this ...”. We know – or we should do by now – that the focus of Jesus' ministry was to teach and show the Kingdom of God. That is why he was born – so that people could see and know what life is really like when God's in charge. And, above all, Jesus came to die so that people like us can enter the Kingdom of God now, and live there eternally. So it's crucial that we grasp just how differently the Kingdom of God works.

That's where this series began, you may recall. It started with the need for us to change our whole outlook on life. As Jesus said, we must become like little children if we are to enter the Kingdom of God. In very real way we need to be completely re-educated if we are to grasp and understand God's ways. And the method that Jesus used to do that was by telling parables about how the Kingdom of God works. So that's the point that we have to look for when we study any of Jesus' parables. What does this tell us about the nature of God's Kingdom? We can afford not to focus on the detail of the story itself – and indeed sometimes it's better not to!

That's very much the case in this parable too. What kind of businessman so badly under-calculates the amount of labour that he needs? And, even if we are not business people ourselves, we know that the economics in this story just plain don't work! It would be madness to pay people a full day's wage for just an hour's work! So we'd quickly get ourselves into trouble if we saw this as Jesus trying to teach God's view of employment practices! That wasn't what he was trying to teach, though. Mind you we do have to work a bit harder to get Jesus' real point here than we sometimes do – because of our own world-view.

That's what I was trying to get at at the start. Most of us do actually think that we get what we deserve in life. We like to think – and often with good reason – that we earn what we get paid. We're skilled people; we've trained; we work hard; we give a lot of time and effort to our jobs: our pay is our reward for that – and it should include bonuses, holidays, and the occasional perk. We're entitled to those, we think. That makes most of us rather like the workers who were hired first in Jesus' story. OK, they might have been unskilled labourers, who didn't own their own land. But they got themselves to the market-place early so they could be hired. They took the work that was on offer, even for minimum wage. And then they did put in a full 12-hour day in the hot sun. In short they had earned those wages: they were entitled to them because of their efforts.

The same couldn't be said of those who'd been hired later in the day – not those taken on at 9; or at 12; or 3; and definitely not those employed at 5 o'clock! So we can understand the outrage of those who had worked all day. It wasn't fair! Yes, they were paid what they had been promised, and had agreed to. But if others were paid the same amount for doing so much less work, why shouldn't they get more? Surely they were entitled to more? That's what they thought – and so that's what they said to the landowner in Jesus' story. And most of us would, I think, stand right behind them too.

But the landowner saw things rather differently. It was his money; he could do what he liked with it: he wasn't being unfair, to any of the workers. He'd offered those who had worked all day the going rate; and they had accepted that. Then he had paid them that: “fair exchange, no robbery”, as the saying goes. All he'd said to those he had hired later was that he'd do right by them; and he had. They were not complaining about what they had got; and why should they? They'd done rather nicely, thank you. The problem, as it so often is, was in the eyes of those others. They didn't like what the landowner had chosen to do. And, as I say, we can easily understand that – because we are the sort of people who work hard all day long! And we don't like others getting more than they deserve if we don't!

As so often, Jesus' simple little story reveals what's in the depth of our own hearts. And that's not often a pretty sight – though you're free to tell me that I'm wrong about your heart! In this case it shows what we often really think about where we stand with God. Of course the landowner in this story represents God, and we are those workers. So it particularly speaks to those who've been Christians for a long time – and very specially to those in full-time Christian work. We can so easily slip into thinking that we are doing God this huge favour, for which he really ought to pay us rather well. It might usually be well hidden, but in our hearts there is this idea that we have earned what we get from God – like those who worked all day long. And nothing could be further from the truth!

The reality is that God doesn't owe any of us anything at all! If we focus on the workers who were paid what they were owed in this story, we'll have missed the point of it. The real point is made by those who were paid for a full day when they had worked so much less. The fact is that none of us could ever earn our way into God's Kingdom. It just isn't possible, not if we lived and worked tirelessly for God for a thousand years! Our entry into the Kingdom of God doesn't depend at all on what we have done for God. It depends entirely on what He has done for us, in and through the death of His son, Jesus Christ. The only way we can enter God's Kingdom is by receiving it as a gift.

The word we're looking for is 'grace'. It may not be a word that we think about very often – though if you listen out for it you'll hear it far more often than you may believe. Grace sums up what God has done for us by allowing us into His Kingdom at all. None of us, not one, deserve to be there; we haven't earned it; and we can't. It's God's gift to us, that costs us nothing at all – because it cost Him literally everything. And, by its very nature, “God's grace is given to people who don't deserve it – and I am one of those people”. That statement is true of me, but it's actually a quote from the best book on grace that I have ever read, by Philip Yancey: 'What's so amazing about grace?' It's easy to read, but is devastatingly direct about who and what we are, and what God is like.

All it takes is the sort of honest look at ourselves that this parable demands that we take. Whenever we start to feel smug about our own goodness, we need to take a long, hard look in the mirror. And then we will be reminded that we are who and where we are only because of God's grace. That's why I always use those words of invitation to Communion that so many of you have commented on. Each one of us can only come to the Lord's table, as we will do later, because Jesus died for sinners like you and me. No goodness, or hard work, of our own gives any one of us any right to come. We all come in weakness, not in strength, each one of us needing God's mercy and help. And it is by God's amazing grace alone that any of us are welcome, at his table or in his Kingdom.

That truth is to be at the heart of our lives, day in and day out. Don't ever lose sight of it, no matter how long you live the best life that you can for God. Of course that is what we are supposed to do – live for God. But keep reminding yourself that all that you do for Him is only in response to what He has already done for you. So don't ever allow yourself to slip into the kind of thinking highlighted in this parable – and please don't let me do it either! Instead, keep on thinking, “grace”. Keep on thinking about God's wonderful gift to you – and how it comes to you for free, at the cost of the life of God's Son. And so let's pray ...