Sermon 19th July 2009

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, preaches. His sermon is based on the reading from John 10:1-15

GOOD SHEPHERD

Have you heard the one about the blonde, who was so tired of all the blonde jokes that she dyed her hair brown? Not long afterwards, she went for a country drive. There she came across a shepherd herding sheep across the road. Stopping her car to watch this sight, after a while, she said to the shepherd, “They are just so cute. If I guess how many sheep there are here, can I keep one?” Thinking he couldn't lose, he replied, “Sure!” She blurted out, “352”. Amazingly, it was the right number! He was stunned, but kept his word and allowed her to pick out a sheep. After a good look she finally chose the cutest one. He looked at her and said, “If I can guess what colour your hair really is, can I have my dog back!” Of course I hope that nobody is offended by that story. I'm sure we'd all do far better ourselves; but it's probably still fair to say that we're not a church full of sheep experts. Do tell me if I'm wrong, but I suspect that this extended – not to say sometimes confusing – allegory that Jesus used doesn't easily resonate with many of us. We city-dwellers have to work quite hard to grasp what he meant by it – and we may think it's not even worth the effort. Of course I think that it is worth it; but we must begin where most of us are – which is a place of ignorance about this imagery. It must be said, though, that recognising this fact puts us in a better position than Jesus' original hearers. As John tells us in verse 6, they didn't 'get' it either – albeit for different reasons to us. That's why Jesus tried again to explain what he meant, in the rest of today's passage and beyond. It may not help us too much perhaps. But it did enable them to understand Jesus better – even if some of them didn't like what they then heard. We can see that from their reactions in verse 19 - which picks up one of the consistent themes in John. Right from the beginning of his gospel, there's this growing conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders. Jesus' words in chapter 10 are set in that context – coming, as they did, right after he had healed the man born blind. The Pharisees had investigated that miracle – and hadn't liked what they had heard, or seen! As so often, Jesus had turned the tables on them; and now he even used this picture against them! And here's the first point of our potential ignorance that we need to address. We may be familiar with the Old Testament idea of God as shepherd of his people – from Psalm 23, for example. But we need to know too that the Old Testament also pictures God's appointed human leaders as shepherds. Jesus' main point here was that he was the Good Shepherd. But the clear implication of that was that the shepherds before him had failed to do what God had wanted them to! Of course, Jesus didn't mean that the Old Testament prophets had failed. But he did mean not just the false messiahs of recent years, but also the Pharisees! They weren't 'just' passively failing in their job of Godly leadership of, and care for, his people. Jesus even accused them of actively being thieves and robbers! We must be careful, though, not to think that this passage is mainly about Jesus condemning the Pharisees. As we can see, Jesus' emphasis is on himself; on who he is; on what he can do; and on what he will do. And all that, as so often with Jesus, is good news for us. What appears to be the highlight here is Jesus' promise in verse 10, that he has come to give us life, in all its fullness. That's in stark contrast to the thieves and robbers. They came, as Jesus also said in verse 10, to steal, kill and destroy. Jesus' wonderful promise to us here, of abundant life, is just one way in which he proves that he is God's shepherd. But, at this stage I need to sound another note of caution, though – based not least on what Simon Gillebaud said last week. It's very easy for us to read words like this, and think that this is all about what Jesus can do for us. But it very definitely is not about us! It is all about Jesus; and so that's the focus that we need to keep as we study it. Jesus began then by saying, in verse 2, that he was, and is, the true shepherd of God's people. Unlike the robbers, he could, and did, enter the sheepfold the right way – through the gate. It's worth explaining at this point what his hearers would all have known. There were at least 2 types of sheep-folds in Jesus' day. This was the kind found near a town, where a number of flocks would be kept overnight. It had a gate, and often a keeper, who would let the shepherds in to get their sheep. Even if he didn't know the shepherd, all the gate-keeper had to do was to watch the sheep's reaction to the one collecting them! As I'm assured is still true today – not least by our own John Itumu – sheep do respond to the voice they know, and run from those they don't! There's even a true story of a sheep being brought into court in Australia to prove who owned it by whose voice it responded to! A true shepherd doesn't need to claim, or drive, his sheep. He calls them: they know him, so come to him – and then they follow him. These are tests of ownership and care that Jesus passed with flying colours then – just as he does today. What this challenges us with is how we respond to Jesus as our shepherd. We may not like seeing ourselves as sheep – stupid animals, as we think of them. But it's a good biblical picture – which reminds us of our need to be cared and provided for. We often prefer to think of ourselves as strong, independent, able to look after ourselves – as we can, in many ways. But as we'll see there's one crucial way in which we can't do that for ourselves. Even if we could, though, there's a key challenge for us here about how we recognise Jesus' voice as our shepherd. And, if we do, do we follow where he leads, in faith and trust in his goodness? As I say, Jesus' hearers couldn't grasp what he meant in these first 5 verses. So Jesus tried again, by picking up a different aspect of the shepherd image. This time, Jesus referred to himself as the gate (or 'door' in other translations) of the sheepfold, in verses 7 and 9. We could be confused by this mixed metaphor – unless we realise that Jesus was referring to a different kind of sheepfold here! This was the much more rough and ready type, used far from the village. It just needed to be an enclosed space, of rocks or thick bush, with a narrow entry. There wasn't any gate, or anyone to watch it: that was the shepherd's job! He was the first line of defence, lying across the entrance to guard it from any attackers. This was who Jesus then said he was: the gate. Anyone who came in through him would then be saved, he said – in other words, they'd be kept safe. And, once in, they'd have the freedom to eat and drink, to come and go in safety – to live this abundant life that Jesus offers. Part of the shepherd's job is to find not just a safe place for his sheep but also the food and water they need. Sheep can't do that for themselves – which is why they need a shepherd! And the way in which that is true of us is entry into God's Kingdom. The Bible tells us that we can't get in by ourselves, because of our sin that separates us from God. But Jesus is the gate: he is the way to God, and to the abundant life of his kingdom. The first question for us, then, is whether we have accepted Jesus' offer of entry. That has got to be our starting place, because all else then follows from there. So, in the picture-language of this passage, have you come to Jesus as the gate through which alone you can enter God's kingdom? Have you accepted that he must do for you what you can't do for yourself? If not, what better time to do that than right now? It's very simple: if you want to receive this abundant, eternal, life that God offers at no cost to us, just ask Jesus to let you in. All we have to do is believe that Jesus is who he says he is. And if you have already done that, the question is whether you are living the abundant life God wants you to? Are you eating and drinking and safe – and, crucially, following where the Good Shepherd leads? This is God's free offer to us through Jesus. But let's be clear about what it has cost him. Being the gate was hazardous. It meant literally fighting off wild animals, like wolves or lions, as well as human enemies. No wonder then, that hired shepherds would run at the first sign of danger! These aren't their sheep; they don't care enough to give their own life for them. And why should they? It's only a job, not worth paying that high a price for. Again, that's in stark contrast to Jesus, the real shepherd – whose life is the sheep. As he went on to say, this is the kind of shepherd that he is. He is the gate, guarding and controlling the entrance to the fold. And he is, as he said more than once here, willing to lay down his life for his sheep. That's what he indeed did, to secure our entry into God's kingdom. Jesus laid down his life – by his own choice – so that people like us can be put right with God. He did it to give us this full, abundant life. He did it – as I have often said before – not because we deserve it, or because we are worth it. He did it because this is what God is like; this is how much he loves us. It's this love, this generosity, this goodness that we will celebrate at the Lord's table later. How can we not respond to this amazingly generous offer, of life through Jesus the gate, the good shepherd, who gave up his life for us? For you, is it a case of accepting his offer of life today? Or of living the abundant life that he died to give you? Or might it be that you need to hear his voice and obey it? Whatever it may be, my prayer is that we will each respond to our Good Shepherd today. So let's pray ...

Sermon 12th July 2009

Today, we were joined by Simon Guillebaud, founder and leader of the Great Lakes Outreach, a Christian Mission in Burundi and one of the overseas charities that our Parish supports. He spoke about the exciting range of missionary work they are doing in challenging circumstances.
His inspirational book, "For What It's Worth" is available from the Parish Office for £7.99. Please email hernehillparish@googlemail.com to order a copy. You can also visit the Mission's website: www.greatlakesoutreach.org where you will find several of Simon's sermons that you can listen to online or download. Titles like: "Can we change the world?" Why can we change the world? "How to change the world".

Sermon 5th July 2009

Today, Adjoa Cunnell ,who is training for ministry, preaches based on the reading from John 2:1-11

The Wedding at Cana

Wedding arrangements can be a big deal. I have to confess, at my own , as I processed up the aisle here at St Saviour’s, in my frock, completely upstaged by my children, my dad on my arm, Howard suited and booted waiting with Cameron in full regalia at the alter…. the main thought in my mind was “Hurrah! I don’t care if you’re having the chicken, the salmon or the vegetarian option, my phone is now officially switched off!!” Probably not the ideal uppermost thought to have on your mind on your big day, but the preceding months had been busy and stressful as I’m sure many of you who have prepared for your own wedding or who have helped family and friends prepare for theirs will know! So as I say, Wedding arrangements can be a big deal and if they go wrong they can add a rather sour note to what should be an incredibly joyful day. I think ours went off pretty well in the end, everyone got to eat one option or another…..We’re still married. But whether teetotal or not, I’m sure we can all imagine the frantic family at that wedding in Cana, how embarrassing, how shaming; Mary perhaps sidling up to Jesus at the wedding that she, he, his brothers and disciples had all been invited to, Mary perhaps looking a little panicky, whispering to her son ‘They have no wine left’ (They have no more wine). Disaster! Jesus come to the rescue!

On first looking at this passage I found it curious that of all the Gospel writers, only John tells us of this miracle. And why is it the first one he tells us about,?

I was struck, by that driving force in John’s Gospel, his concern, his passion that we understand who Jesus is. That’s his focus and so out of all the miracles Jesus performed, John chooses to tell us only about the ones he feels help our understanding of Jesus’ identity, as he says in John 20; 31
‘…these have been written in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through your faith in him you may have life’ Rpt.
‘…these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name’ Rpt.

It is no accident that in this whole Gospel we see Mary here and only once more, at the foot of Jesus’ cross. It is no accident that Jesus reply to her is ‘my time has not yet come’, the time of his crucifixion and resurrection and it is no surprise that this all takes place on the third day after the disciples have been gathered together, reflecting forward to Christ’s rising from the dead on the third day. In the miracle of the Wedding at Cana John is pointing us towards Jesus’ promise to us of a new abundant life if we have faith in him.

And this is not the promise of an insubstantial man. John makes it clear from the outset of his Gospel that Jesus is of God, verse one !

‘In the beginning the Word already existed; the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’
‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God , and the Word was God.’

And then he takes us on journey of understanding. First part of Verse 14
‘The Word became a human being, and full of grace and truth, lived among us’
‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only(Jesus), who came from the Father full of grace and truth.’

Then at verses 17 & 18 John begins to show us the different way in which after Christ’s time on earth, God is now relating to us

‘God gave the Law through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.’
‘No one has ever seen God. The only Son who is the same as God and is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.’

‘For the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No-one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.’

So we begin to understand that Jesus
1) ‘is the same as God’.
Because
2)‘In the beginning he already existed’,
and then
3)‘He became a human
And
4) ‘He brings with him Grace,’ which is that love from God that loves us whether we deserve it or not, simply because we are his creation,
and
5)‘Jesus brings with him Truth’, wisdom direct from God, not explained by the Law of Moses or by the priests, Truth from the actions and teachings of Jesus, direct from God.
If we want to know God, look at Jesus. This is who promises us a new life in him.

And so we come to the Wedding at Cana.
Having gathered together his group of disciples what will Jesus do? The ‘Same as God a human being’! What will his first public action be…wow!
It could be calming a raging sea, stopping a volcano from erupting and wiping out a town, raising someone from the dead, healing a dying child, casting out demons…..or it could be Sorting out the catering at a wedding party
On the face of it…. a bit of an anti climax. The first miracle? Are you sure Gospel writer John?
Well yes he is.

Mary’s faith in Jesus
‘..do whatever he tells you.’ She says to the servants
her faith brought new life to the Wedding, our faith in Jesus can bring new life to us and we in turn can bring new life to the world around us.

Reflecting on the meaning of this first miracle, the turning of the water into wine, Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1928-1942 concluded
‘we are to take the water of life as we find it, and convert it into wine. Our lives and circumstances may seem incapable of fulfilling a divine purpose; yet it is through these (our lives and circumstances)that the divine purpose is to be fulfilled…It is not too much to say that the main business of the Christian life is to go through the world turning its water into wine.’

‘…the main business of the Christian life is to go through the world turning its water into wine.’

At Ashburnham last weekend, Andrew Rumsey came to talk to us, you may remember him preaching here not so long ago. Well last weekend he reflected on the sense of calling or vocation that the bible says all of us have, what Archbishop Cosmo called our ‘divine purpose’. We are all created in God’s image to steward the earth, to take care of it and to see that it and all its inhabitants flourish. But if we’re Christians part of our divine purpose is also to be a witness, in the way we live, to the healing/rescuing power of Christ’s love in a wounded world. My theology lecturer on the reader course I’m doing, very lovely, bit scary, big brain, says our only calling as Christians is ‘to make God’s love known in the world.’
It means we’re not to be exclusive in our faith. We are to live in the world, engaging with people and places and events, but in everything following the example of Christ’s love.
Do we follow what the Lord requires of us, as in Micah 6:8
‘to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God’?
Are we the ones who are courageous enough to go against the flow sometimes and speak up when we sense things around us not happening as God would want?
Do we challenge BNP activists?
Do we say no to Nike and Primark because of the way they exploit child labour?
Do we forego our L’Oreal beauty products because of their connection to Nestle and that company’s exploitation of 3rd world mothers with their baby milk products?
To make God’s world flourish sometimes means the love we show is tough love. It’s hard to be the only one saying this doesn’t feel right, we must find another way.

In John 10:10 Jesus says
“I have come in order that you might have life – life in all its fullness”.

‘I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.’

How do we encourage that fullness? If we think back to the 6 stone water jars at the wedding, each one is described as being able to hold a hundred litres of water, twenty to thirty gallons that’s 600 litres 120-180 gallons of top quality wine Jesus provides the party with, life in all its fullness, indeed. And why 6 jars? Well the Jews believe 7 to be the perfect number, so 6 is an imperfect number, it falls short, like the BNP, like Nike and L’Oreal and Primark and Nestle…and like us, so here we see Jesus transforming the imperfection of 6 jars of water, to the perfection of God’s wine, offering a life in all its fullness, brim full! And that is what Jesus came to do with our lives, to fill them brimful with the wine of his love, and we, in that love. are called to be his witnesses, his hands and feet, called upon to be that transforming agent in this imperfect world , to make real in our world God’s perfect Kingdom in all its fullness.

In John 13:34/35 Jesus says
‘…love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.’

‘Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’

Paul says in Ephesians 2.10
‘God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus he has created us for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared for us to do.’

‘ We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.’
‘
We are called to love and to do good deeds, works.

I know I’m saying it easily up the front here and I know it’s not always easy to be the person who makes the change in a situation. Andrew asked us last weekend to look at ourselves and ask
‘Do I make people shrivel up by what I say or do I make them flourish, do I look after the things I have or do I waste them.
I would add, would everyone know that we are Christ’s disciples in the deeds works we do, in the way we love the world around us. Jesus says ‘As I have loved you, so you must love one another’ not that we should love the world around us because the world deserves it, rather we should love the world around us because we are loved, through Grace, loved by God whether we deserve that love or not.
That’s powerful love. Love that changes peoples lives. Brings them to a new life. It’s the kind of love I saw in South Africa, when I was there recently. There was an organisation called Learn to Earn, working in the black townships of the Western Cape, a Christian organisation who believe they are to be God’s Hands and Feet. So they are based Khayelitsha and Hermanus townships where the unemployment rate is between 28 % and 32 %, with 82% of the unemployed under the age of 40. Where many people living in corrugated iron shacks, with no sanitation, running water or electricity. And Learn to Earn trains and supports people into work, placing them with companies, supporting them in their own businesses and even starting up LtE companies. They say ‘Our vision is to see the injustices committed in the past, in South Africa, as well as in the rest of Africa, reversed. Through providing a programme that recognises human dignity and the human right to live a meaningful life, we aim to assist individuals to regain their self-respect. We do this by empowering them to provide for themselves and for their families.’ I went to Khayelitsha to meet some of the people being trained, and getting jobs. I met the women who sew bags like this one, who from these sales are feeding their families, sending their children to school and even to college. That’s how Learn to Earn are turning the water of those peoples lives into a wine filled future, full of hope and possibility. This bag is God’s wine.
We may not all be able to make such dramatic changes in the lives of others but we can pray for God’s strength to guide us in how we relate to other people, how we spend our money, how we behave at work, how selfless we are, how generous, how much we take notice of others around us who may not be in our ‘circle’. God loves us. God’s gracious love is to be shared like wine and we are here to extend the wedding party in all its rich ness to all of God’s creation in all we do as individuals and as a parish. If we are committed to Christ’s mission in our lives we can be alert for the whisper in our ear like Mary at the wedding, In God’s strength we can make the party flourish as God’s loving agents for change, pouring the wine of God’s heavenly Kingdom all around us. That’s my prayer for us all this morning. Amen

PARISH WEEKEND AWAY 26th -28th June - ASHBURNHAM SERMONS

The fourth and final sermon from our guest speaker, Andrew Rumsey:

COME TO ME

Matthew 11:16-19; 25-30

Just recently, I was strolling past Thresher’s Off Licence in Crystal Palace, as two delivery men were unloading a pallet piled six feet high with cases of wine and corseted with shrink wrap. They’d managed to haul it off the pavement with their pallet trolley – you know the things…explain... But the load had been badly stacked and was listing precariously. As it began to topple, they hurried round, trying to kind of hug it upright, like a glassy-eyed companion.

Sensing the call to assist, I sped over to offer a reassuring presence or see if anyone needed a pastoral chat. It seemed not, so I joined them in their doomed attempt to hold up the leaning tower of Pinot Noir. Several others gamely did the same, but we all got glued in the same dilemma, where we couldn’t push the straining boxes back but, equally, daren’t let them go. So we simply stood there, wheezing, in what you would have to call a stalemate, or an impasse.

Presently, a passer-by sidled up and, with the wisdom of experience, said, ‘lads, it’s not going to work - you’ve just got to let her fall’. He was right, of course. However reluctant we were to admit it, our tipsy cargo needed to collapse. So, on the count of three, we dove out of the way, and the bottles, sensing their moment had come, tumbled and shattered, spilling the wine like blood into the gutter.

By the time of Jesus, the Jewish law – the law of Moses – had become an impossible teetering burden on those who tried to follow God.

Read Luke 11v46.

They didn’t have pallet trolleys, but they had yokes, those heavy wooden beams laid on the shoulders of oxen or men and women, to enable them to carry their load. And in Galatians 5 Paul calls this legal burden a yoke of slavery – as if God’s people are stuck in the street trying to hold up an impossible load that sooner or later is destined to fall. Try as they might to live a righteous life, they were trapped, one way or another, by its cumbersome demands. Paul, who, as a former Pharisee, was in a position to know, despaired of ever being able to carry this ‘yoke of slavery’. ‘I can will what is right’, he wrote to the Romans with disarming frankness, ‘but I can’t do it’.

I love the honesty and the realism of this passage. Some people say it is describing the dilemma of the person before they come to Christian faith, but I don’t. I think this is exactly how it is all the way along!

And as we come to our final session we are inevitably brought back to where we started – with all that prevents us skating as freely as we could, all that stops us resting our full weight on Christ, stops us being fruitful – stops us doing all that we could, all that we should be for God.

‘Inside each of us there is a tangled knot of fear, laziness and pride’ (John V Taylor) and we are held back by it. There is a crack or a hole in the centre of our life that runs through the rest of everything we try to do.

Make hole and tear out of diagram.


The sheer battle to be righteous without the grace of God can be seen everywhere in the present time, not least by environmentalists. My Father-in-law and his wife – Green Party – you can never do enough – can never make the grade, how to deal with guilt... (Socialism faced the same issue).
Very often, without any way of redeeming human weakness, you fall back on idealism. (My favourite example of this has to be the ill-fated Cambridge Green Bike scheme of the early nineties…)

And then into our dilemma come John the Baptist and Jesus, with a radical and outrageous challenge to this dilemma. John calls everyone – religious or not, righteous or unrighteous, to repent in the river – to mourn for the almighty mess that they’d got themselves into. For not bringing shalom to the earth, for not being holy as God was holy.

And Jesus teaches about God’s rescue, not among the religious and the righteous, but among the very people who, if you like, have let the leaning load crash to the floor. Those who have given up the fight to be righteous – the drunkards and the prostitutes and so on.

Read Matt 11:16-19

Now it’s not easy to see who the children here are meant to represent, but most scholars think Jesus is describing himself and John: John as the mourner with his solemn message repentance, and Jesus as the musician, who seemed keen to speak of God’s kingdom as if it were a wedding feast, and mixed with those who didn’t know when to stop. Read v19. Interestingly, a ‘glutton and a drunkard’ is a term used in the book of Deuteronomy (21v20) for a rebellious son – one who deserves to be stoned to death. Their accusation against Jesus is not just a complaint about the company he keeps, but it’s a capital charge against him, as someone who deserves the full penalty of the law to be laid on him.

No matter the allegations against him, wisdom, says Jesus is vindicated by her deeds. Wisdom, you might remember, was one of the main ways the Old Testament used to describe God’s revelation in the world. In the deeds of Jesus, God is truly revealing himself to the world. Which is what Jesus goes on to explain in the second section of our reading – verses 25-30 – read v27.

As the one who reveals God to people, Jesus those to come to him who are weary of their heavy burden.

And in this we may include not only those straining to hold up the toppling load of the Jewish law, but all who struggle with living in an imperfect and sinful world. It includes all those who struggle with the dilemma that Paul so perfectly describes in our Epistle reading - the inner conflict between good and evil, which is nearly as old as creation, and doesn’t stop when you become a Christian, let me tell you. In some ways it becomes much harder.

In which case, the question has to be asked: how is Jesus’ yoke light and easy? If his yoke and ours is the cross, how is that light and easy? If I’m honest, this is a question I struggle with whenever I read this wonderful passage.

Group work – 15 mins

In what ways is our church’s calling and mission held back by our own fears or problems?
How is the yoke of Christ easy and his burden light?

Feedback

But if we are to understand it, we have to consider 2 things – the burden to be carried, and the yoke we use to carry that burden. The cases of wine, and the pallet trolley, if you like.


Firstly because he lightens the burden to be carried. Not unlike the wise workman on Westow Hill, he looks at the creaking tower of wine and says, in effect, this lot isn’t going to stay up – you’ve got to let it go. This is pretty much what Jesus is getting at when he talks about destroying the temple – remember the disciples walking round, looking at the huge stones and Jesus says, like a wise workman: ‘this is going to have to come down’.

Instead of shoring up a leaning tower, Jesus speaks of a new Temple, his own body – direct and personal contact with God. If you want God’s Sabbath rest, don’t go to the Temple, come to me. Come to me. And if you want to learn how to live God’s way, love him with all that you’ve got and love your neighbour as yourself. Do these and you will live. So in this sense, Jesus’ yoke – the law of love - is a perfect fit for human beings created in God’s image. It’s simple – a child could do it.

Secondly, his yoke is easy precisely because it is his yoke, not ours. It’s made with the strong oak of his righteousness, rather than the woodwormy chipboard of our own. His is a yoke that is strong enough both to meet the demands of God’s law and bear the weight of our failure to do so.
This is what Paul is driving at in Romans 7 – he is saying effectively I know what’s right, but I can’t do it – who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

For Jesus does what we cannot – lives a righteous life – and then gives us his righteousness, his yoke. Not only that, but he pays the penalty for living an unrighteous life – he becomes the rebellious son – the glutton and the drunkard - who bears the penalty of the law, and he accepts that death – our death. The impossible burden of our sin is laid on him, and his light burden of righteousness is laid on us.

It’s as if someone had come up to us in the street wheeling an empty trolley and said – ‘leave this lot with me, lads - you take my trolley instead’. (Pause) ‘But Lord, if six of us can’t hold up this lot, you’re not going to manage on your own’ ‘Leave it with me. It’s got to fall. Let it fall on me’. And the wine topples and shatters and spills like blood into the gutter.

Each of us carries a yoke – each of us has a way of trying to haul around what needs to be hauled around. And each of us has a choice – to take on Jesus’ yoke, which brings rest for our souls - or take on some other yoke, which does not.
Your burden may be one of responsibility for someone else – a loved one or an unloved one, the burden of a heavy workload, the burden of past mistakes that you drag around with you like Marley’s heavy chains. It may be the burden of ill health or depression, or addiction. Each of our burdens is personal and private and particular to us. But be encouraged that we all bear one and we must all choose whose yoke we use to carry it.

If we place Christ and his righteousness at the centre of our lives, in the bull’s eye of our target, the very holes and tears in our lives (chart), the weak points, become the means of his grace. Because they become the places where we learn to depend on him.
The places where the handrail disappears are the places where we learn to rest our full weight on him, and find that he bears us up.

Leonard Cohen:

‘Forget your perfect offering; ring the bell that still can ring: there’s a crack- a crack! In everything That’s where the light gets in’

Christians believe that, in Christ, the old creation is remade – this is what we call resurrection. Paul names Christ ‘the new Adam’ precisely because he repairs what Adam undid. If any one is in Christ, writes Paul to the Corinthians, there is a new creation! NIV reduces the meaning to ‘he is a new creation’; the Greek says effectively if anyone is in Christ – dash) new creation!

By resting our weight, not on our own achievements but on his, by first answering his call ‘come and see’, ‘follow me!’ we discover our true calling. By embarking upon the adventure of faith in Christ, we simultaneously embark upon the journey of self-discovery.

God’s good purpose for the world is that each of his children reflects his image and becomes all that they were created to be – and this is fulfilled in Christ, who offers himself on our behalf – to bear what we cannot.

Pray/sing

PARISH WEEKEND AWAY 26th - 28th June - ASHBURNHAM SERMONS

The third sermon from our guest speaker, Andrew Rumsey:

COME AS YOU ARE

John 15:1-7
Say Psalm 90 together

Read excerpt from My Cat Jeoffry

How can you and I be like Jeoffry? This is our task in the hour or so before lunch – to consider how what we do with our lives can respond wholeheartedly to God, even in the smallest detail.

Recap

The first and outer ring was our call as humans to subdue the earth – to take responsibility for it so that it may flourish and be fruitful. The middle ring is our specific call as Christians to bear witness to Christ – so that all people and things might be brought back into fruitful relationship with him.

Now we are going to home in on the centre of the circle, the question mark about what we are meant to be doing. What is my call as Andrew, or Chloe or whoever….

Discovering our own purpose in life involves deepening our relationship with ourselves and with God. The God who created us (first circle) – and made us to be creative like him, and to take responsibility for the earth; the God who calls us in Jesus Christ (second circle) to live a particular way of life, according to his new commandment of love, through which others also will come to know him; and the God, lastly, who made you as you (middle circle) – with all your strengths and weaknesses.

These are the three rings of the target which hopefully enable us to pinpoint our personal vocation.

And whilst we’ll be darting around scripture a bit, our starting point today is found in Jesus’ advice to the disciples about bearing fruit. Read John 15v8.

Like the relationship between a gardener and a vine or a rose, God’s intention for us is that we might become fruitful under his care and attention, that in becoming followers of Christ we might be all that we can be, that we can flourish as men and women. As we saw last week, the flourishing of creation is God’s good plan. So, the centre of our target is what we might call personal fruitfulness.

According to scripture, the call to work (by which I don’t just mean paid employment but all the tasks that fill our day) is basically good; the idea that we should have a purpose and a job to do is affirmed by God as part of the goodness and givenness of creation. As we saw last week, God gives man a job to do as soon as he has created him – to fill the earth and subdue it. The second account of creation in Genesis 2 says much the same thing – read Gen 2v15 – God put Adam in the garden to till it and keep it. And this basic goodness of work is affirmed throughout scripture, right down to Jesus’ own profession as a carpenter and his apostles’ work as fishermen and tax collectors.

But in Genesis we also see that work is affected by the fall of man – Adam’s sin. In Gen 3 we read that a sense of the drudgery of work is part of God’s judgement on Adam; that the good earth is also cursed because of his sin, and God says to him:

Read (v17c) ‘…in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life…..up to v19.

A sense of the weariness of work comes through these verses; work becomes labour.

[I was trying to think this week what was the hardest or worst job I ever did. And I think it was working as a kitchen porter in a hotel…]

Psalm 90vv9-10 – weariness of toil is part of being under God’s judgement

Scripture suggests that the toiling aspect of work – its drudgery – is part of the fall and therefore needs redeeming and rescuing from what Paul calls its ‘bondage to decay’, just like any other area of life – just like the world itself. And the call to those who are in Christ is to find freedom and redemption within the drudgery and labour that comes our way. The question, of course, is how?

I was joking before coffee that I might not feel called to bath the children, but I still had to do it. While writing these talks I came across this quote by the great protestant reformer Martin Luther, from the year 1522, where he said ‘God and the angels smile when a man changes a nappy’. I took that as a word from the Lord that even this was part of his will for my life. Like any word from the Lord, though, I am testing it thoroughly and awaiting further confirmation before I obey it…

In a similar vein, William Tyndale, the man who first translated the Bible into English, wrote in the 14th century that ‘if our desire is to please God, pouring water, washing dishes, cobbling shoes and preaching the word is all one’.

Both of these men were working out St Paul’s advice to the Corinthians church ‘whatever you do, do it to the glory of God’. The same sentiment is contained in the lovely George Herbert hymn… Teach me, my God and king - read verse?

And this has to be our first step to redeeming work:

1) To do all things for God’s glory as creatures made in the image of God (outer circle) who have dominion over creation.
In this way we subvert the jobbiness of work and return to work’s original, creative purpose.

Read Wendell Berry quote

Isn’t that wonderful? Christ, St Paul tells us in Colossians 1, is the firstborn of all creation, the one in whom all things hold together, and so, in him, we can do all things for God’s glory - even the dullest and most unpleasant tasks.

The New Testament is very strong on this – and to our ears quite controversially so. Even slaves, Paul says, can find freedom within their chains. Later in Colossians (3) he writes… read Col 3:22-4v1.

This is a fascinating passage: Paul is realistic about the working situations of his own time, however undesirable they might be. And within that both slaves and masters are to serve God within that work, as if they were serving Christ, and aware that each will be judged by God according to how they have done so.

There are doubtless many things about our work which future generations will look upon as unfair and appalling – Christians are called to work within the system as it is, and transform it from the inside out – by serving Christ in our work and at the same time, letting his righteousness transform the structures we work within.

More and more people are facing exploitation in their work at the moment – employers know that people are so keen to keep their jobs that they are squeezing them tighter and tighter, for less and less.


2) As for the second way to redeem work comes from a bit of scripture I stumbled upon by accident.

Not far into Wales from England is a charming village called Crickhowell, where several generations of my family are buried. Here, an inscription commemorates my forbear Walter Rumsey, who died in 1834. Under his name, is engraved a quote from the Psalms: Mark the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace. Trusting that this was a sentiment volunteered by his family and not Walter himself, you read on: Also of Anne, relict of the said Walter Rumsey…‘She hath done what she could’.

At first view, this glaring contrast with her stainless spouse looks like a rather unkind slight, a sort of glossed-over version of ‘poor dear’. That is, until you notice that it, too, is a direct quote from scripture (Mark 14v8), being Jesus’ words of rebuke to the dinner guests who moan about the woman pouring the jar of costly perfume over his head. ‘Let her alone’, he growls, ‘She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial’, adding that her action will live on in memory wherever the good news is proclaimed.

Suddenly Anne, relict of Walter, emerges from the shadows: not as a paragon, perhaps, but someone who did what they could. Someone who, given their lease of life and aware of its constraints, invested each opportunity with devoted, even extravagant, attention. The more you think about it, the finer an epitaph it becomes. After all, much of the time I don’t do what I can: I avoid the possible task by pondering on what I would do if things were different.

The woman is commended by Jesus for doing what she could with what she had. And I think this apparently offhand phrase contains a great deal of wisdom for us.
Doing what you can is a great motto to take through life. Do what you can with circumstances as they are. Make the most of every task, however small.

All too often I don’t do what I can: I’m either thinking of all the things I would like to do if only – if only I didn’t have to do this, this and this – if only I had more time, if only the children didn’t need bathing, if only someone was there for me. I have probably wasted years thinking this sort of thing. The fact is that life is just as it is and no different – no better and no worse.

Finding the call of God within life as it is requires us to do no more and no less than what we can. Doing what we can is both an opportunity and a restriction.

I know that many of us have very frustrating and limiting restrictions on what we can do – persistent ill health or disability; immigration control issues that forbid is from working as we would like to; retirement and all that brings; personal needs and problems that limit what we can cope with emotionally. These are all very real and each of us has different ones. There are plenty of things I wish I could do and which I could if circumstances were different – I’m sure it is the same for you.

Doing what we can means accepting that I can’t do what I can’t do – what I might want to do but life simply doesn’t allow it. But equally it means rising to the challenge of what I can do. With the time or strength or freedom I do have – I can do this…or this… or this…. And I should do what I can with immense devotion, even extravagance, and do it as if I was doing it for Christ himself.

So redeeming work means doing everything for God’s glory, and it means doing what we can within the opportunities and restrictions life places upon us.
Group work: 20 mins

Do you see your everyday work (paid or otherwise) as part of your Christian calling?
If so, in what ways?
If not, why?
How can you exercise dominion over it?
What are some of the things which prevent us from doing what we can?

Feedback


3) Thirdly, we should aim as far as possible to do what we are.

By this I mean that we should try to shape the responsibilities and the work we have around the talents that have been given to us. This is an obvious but really important point. Ideally we should both do what we can and do what we are. You and I have been given a unique combination of talents and characteristics which have immense potential.

In as far as you are free to decide, make your decisions about work according to how they fit with what you know you can do well and what you love to do, what you care and feel passionately about; what you find satisfying and fulfilling. To focus in the fruitful things in your life rather than the fruitless ones.

Read Ex 31:1-6.

Bezalel, about whom we know nothing more, is called by name to do what God has skilled him to do. He is an artist and he will serve God by being artistic. Now you can bet that Bezalel also had his limitations. When Moses visited him and said ‘ok Bez, this is what the Lord wants you to do, Bezalel replied ‘you’re joking aren’t you? Have you seen this pile of washing? You do know that Mrs B and me aren’t getting on at the moment, don’t you; you do know that I have 13 children…and only three fingers, etc etc’. There will have been things in Bezalel’s life that did limit what he could do, but he was still called to do what he was, to make the most of his gifts.

If we can do what we are without restriction we are very blessed indeed; there are proportionally very few people who have the luxury of doing what they love to do and be paid for it. But that doesn’t mean that each of us cannot also pursue doing what we are, within the choices that are available to us.

Quite often that has to happen outside work – so that the things we love to do are in our spare time. But that also redeems the jobbiness of our work – it refreshes us so that we can face the things we wish we didn’t have to do. In whatever time you have, think how you can do what you are; how the gifts God has given you can flourish, knowing that God has also called you by name.

When God calls people it is with a good purpose, it is so that the whole earth might be blessed and be filled with his glory. You have a vital part to play in that. So, as we close, hear the words of Christ to his disciples:

Read John 15:1-2, 5, 8-9.

Prayer ministry for our personal calling

PARISH WEEKEND AWAY 26th - 28th June - ASHBURNHAM SERMONS

The second of Andrew Rumsey's sermons for adults on our Parish Weekend Away. Genesis 1:26-31

COME HOME - THE CALL TO BE HUMAN AND HOLY


Well I trust you have had a good and refreshing night’s sleep… You know, they say that if all the people who fell asleep in church on a Sunday morning were stretched out, end to end…they’d be a lot more comfortable.

But it isn’t Sunday morning, and you have a gruelling day of intensive teaching to go before then….

I don’t know if you told people the truth about where you were going this weekend – your work colleagues and so on? I shan’t ask.

Yes, we’re going away for the weekend, for more church – it’s a bit like a two-day long service… Great! But it is, isn’t it. You wouldn’t live like this every day, but a bit of intensive church is a great thing.

We had a notice in church the other week about an all-day tea at someone’s house, which the local churches together were organising as a fundraiser for Christian Aid. That would be just a bit too much heaven, don’t you think? After the sixteenth cup, at, say 3pm…so..(despairing)…another drop?
Thankfully, our first calling is to be human. Our original vocation, as far as the Bible is concerned, is to do and be what people were created to do and be in the beginning.

And so, after last night hearing the call of Christ to come and see, the first thing to do is, if you like, to come home. To look at our origins, our spiritual roots.

Vocation is a word that has become limited to certain careers, which perhaps go a bit deeper than the word ‘job’, which implies something we do just to earn money. But the Bible suggests that it is not just teachers and doctors and priests who have a vocation, but every human on earth.

The very idea of vocation infers that someone is calling us and it presupposes a sense of purpose in life. One of the earliest and most important is the call of Abraham in the book of Genesis. Abraham is called by God to leave his home and go on a journey to a new land, where he will become a great nation, so that all the nations of the earth may be blessed through him.

The idea of God vocation or calling us is central to scripture, and I want to suggest that there are three basic callings which we share as Christians and as men and women, each of which relates to the other.
And I’m going to depict this as three concentric circles, like in a target (draw it?). Today, we’ll consider the first two of those, which are the frame within which our personal vocation can be found.

Draw chart

In this session we’ll deal with the outer and middle rings of the target, then after coffee we’ll go for the bull’s eye.

We discover our original purpose or vocation by returning to the creation stories of Genesis. I love the creation account in scripture. It’s so exuberant, so deliberate. Other creation myths in the ancient world had the gods making the earth for their food - easy to swallow until you get to the indigestible bits, like Croydon - or as a disinterested spin-off from their wars in heaven, the Genesis account is focused and highly personal: it sounds like a peculiarly dangerous sort of fun: divine ice-skating!

And we should return to the creation story very regularly in church life – for it is like coming home – coming back to remember where we start from. So let’s listen again to the first mention of men and women in the Bible:

Read Genesis 1:26-31
I heard someone recently say that this is where we find conclusive proof that God was British – he finishes this remarkable act of abundant creation, steps back, and says ‘very good’. Something of an understatement, isn’t it, really. It’s as if he has just pruned his roses – very good, hm.

Three main things we learn from this passage, which first tell us who we are, then what we are to do:

1) That humankind is made in God’s image
2) That we are given dominion to rule over his creation
3) That we are to be fruitful

God makes humankind in his own image (v26) – he makes us a little like him; this is humanity’s basic dignity and glory – we aren’t just anyone, we are made in the image of God, and this image, though marred by Adam and Eve’s fall still remains. There is an immense amount more we could say about what it means to bear the image of God – some of which we may come to later. But for now we simply need to hear that this is who we are…

This basic vocation for men and women, who are made in the image of God, is to have dominion over the earth, to be Lords to the earth as God is Lord to us – not to hate or abuse it, but to take responsibility for it.

The call to be fruitful and multiply in v28 is directly followed by the call to subdue the earth: man is to fill the earth in order to subdue it, to be the stewards, the landlords of creation, so that both might thrive together.

You know the old joke about the man tending a beautiful garden in the spring, and the vicar walks by and says Good morning, lovely day – and what a beautiful garden! Isn’t God’s creation wonderful! And the gardener says ‘yep, but you should have seen it before I came along’. There is the sense in these verses of a partnership – that the world is a garden which will become fruitful under our care, but which needs to be subdued, to be mastered.

My father was a great gardener and as he gardened there was a sense that both he and the earth flourished as a result. But it’s not just for those who garden or delve the soil: the vocation is for all people, whatever they do.

And this sense of responsibility for the world was summed up in the Hebrew word Shalom, which we often translate as our rather thin word ‘peace’, but better means something like wholeness’. Our Psalm says that the Lord blesses his people with Shalom, and this word means a deep sense of peace or wholeness with our selves, with our neighbour and with our earth. When we say peace be with you, we are doing far more than saying ‘hello’, we are reminding eachother of our calling to be peacemakers – those who restore the earth to shalom, to wholeness.

When the risen Jesus greets his disciples, notice, this is what he says – ‘peace be with you’ and the traditional Jewish greeting takes on a whole new and deeper meaning – now that Christ is risen, all things will be brought to healing and wholeness, all things will be brought out of their bondage to decay.

Now this vocation is not specific to Christians, it is given to all people – it is what humans are for – to reflect the image and glory of God and make something of the world we have been given; to make things good, to make things flourish. So when others in our world are also working for shalom – we can agree with them, work with them and share a common purpose.

And you and I can consider this in everything we do, of course – how we cook and shop and speak. Do I make people shrivel up by what I say or do I make them blossom? Do I look after the things I have or do I waste them? Am I a good landlord or a neglectful one? In all of these ways we answer our call to dominion.



Group work – 20 mins

What does the call to have dominion over creation mean for us?
How has that dominion been abused?
In our parish?
How can our church show this dominion?

Feedback


Second ring: Sent out to make disciples

So our first vocation is to be human – which means to take responsibility for the earth, which we are in charge of, under God.

The middle ring on our target is the specific vocation of the church. Those who have heard the call of Christ – come and see, and who are coming and seeing, and trying to follow him…

There are many places in scripture where our calling to be church is expressed, but perhaps the most important are the three great commissions – those passages in the gospels where the risen Christ commissions his disciples, gives them their task.

The three accounts vary –

1) John 20vv21-23 (sent out in peace and power)
2) Luke 24:45-48 (witnesses)
3) Matthew 28-19-20 (make disciples)

So while the language varies, the commission is the same. Those who obey the call to follow Christ are led out into the world to be witnesses to Christ for the sake of the world.

This is because Christ is the God-appointed way in which the whole earth will be brought back into shalom, into fruitfulness with its creator. This is what we might call a temporary vocation – after all, there’ll be no need for mission in heaven, and presumably we shall be busy tending his new creation. As the prophet Jeremiah writes: read Jeremiah 30v34

a) By holiness

While our first vocation joins us with all humanity, this second one calls us out, calls us to be distinctive and different – even peculiar in certain ways. There are two qualities above all that this requires of us. The first is the Bible’s own word for the distinctiveness of God’s people - holy.

Read 1 Peter 2:9 – holy people, so that you may proclaim the mighty acts…

Read Leviticus 19v2.

I wonder what you think of when you hear this passage. Are you holy? What does holiness mean to you? Ask for ideas?

Holiness is one of those rather daunting churchy words isn’t it. Whatever it might mean, most of us are pretty sure we aren’t it.

But holiness is not glorious isolation from the world, but it is the distinctive way in which Christians are called to live within the world, where, Jesus says, we are meant to be like the salt of the earth, to bring out its true flavour. As one writer has put it, ‘holiness is attained by the spirit in which we fulfil the daily obligations of life in its simplest and commonest details’ (J.H.Hertz). Repeat.

Having just given the daunting OT command ‘you shall be holy just as I am holy’ this is how the Lord goes onto explain what holiness involves to Moses

Read Leviticus 19vv9-16

Holiness is really very earthy – literally earthy – for our Lev passage suggests that farmers can show holiness in the way they plough a field, making sure to leave some wheat at the edges of a field so that the poor can help themselves to it. Holiness is displayed in the way we use money – not dealing falsely or defrauding anyone, including the Inland Revenue. So holiness is there in your tax return, in your gardening, in the way you treat the disabled. Far from being other-wordly, holiness is as practical as potatoes.

In the teachings of Jesus and the laws of the Old Testament, holiness appears in acts of everyday selflessness and generosity – in short, in the way we love our neighbour, and treat them as we would wish to be treated ourselves. So simple, and yet actually so very, very demanding.
Read v18 – you shall not bear a grudge against any of your people – how many of us are right now harbouring grudges towards others?

And because the Lord knows we cannot be holy as he is holy without his help, his essence, his spirit at work within us - that is what he gives us. His holy – spirit, who is the power given his disciples so that they may be witnesses for Christ.
The spirit is mentioned in all three great commissions – he is the only way they are going to be able to fulfil this impossible vocation.

And we need to ask for the spirit’s help on a regular basis – for the very practical and everyday things of life. As you encounter a situation where you think you might need to act differently from the world around you, just utter a quick prayer inside – ‘Lord, help me to be holy as you are holy’. That’s all you need to do.

Ask yourself, even in the simplest tasks, how can I do this in a holy way? How can you mow the lawn in a holy way? – it may sound bonkers, but that is basically what Leviticus is asking you to do.

You know when you’re washing your car, you can count on at least one waggish neighbour saying ‘you can do mine as well if you like’. How about next time they say that, instead of replying ‘you must be joking’ you say ‘if you like’. That’s holiness. It’s distinctive, it’s different, it may make you look slightly nuts, but it can also change the world around you.

Holiness is about what you and I do each day. The Bible often uses examples from farming because that is what most people did all day. You and I aren’t likely to be ploughing fields next week, but we may be in Sainsbury’s, or Gatwick, we may be writing a report or looking after our friends’ children. How can you transform those commonplace things by simple acts of holiness, where we love our neighbour as ourselves?

b) by love

Holiness is distinctiveness, for God’s sake – so that we may witness to who God is. And basic to this call, according to Jesus, is the way in which his followers love eachother.

This is his new commandment, specifically given not to the whole world, but to his followers. By this shall all people know they are his disciples.
Our witness should be obvious by our love – they’ll know we are Christians by our love, goes the old chorus. How does that make you feel? Is that what most people think of when they think of the church, I wonder?

Jesus appears to ask the impossible of his followers, that they should direct people to Christ and make disciples of all nations, by living out the life that he has lived, and, if necessary, dying for him. And again, because this is an impossible task, he promises the Holy Spirit.

Read Luke 24vv48-9.
The Spirit, it seems, will enable us to love the things and the people we should love, he will enable us to do impossible things – indeed he says in John 14v12 that we will even do greater things than he because of the Holy Spirit’s presence.

So we have two callings: to ‘make shalom’ in God’s earth as stewards or landlords of creation. This we share with all people. The second is a distinctive call, which sees us set apart in order to be witnesses to Christ in holiness and love, so that the first calling may be fulfilled – and each person come to know their true identity and role as people made in God’s image.
So then, these are our tasks in the midst of our secular society: and they are a good pattern for our decision-making as a church and as individual Christians. They mean that there are many things in which we will find common ground with others, plenty that we support and which we can work together on. They mean that there are also ways in which we have to part company with the world, even for the sake of the world. Where we need to be different - even difficult, sometimes.

The fact is, of course, that we spend much of our lives doing things that may not seem to fit into either of these vocations. All sorts of things we do may seem to fall outside the target. If, for example, at the children’s bathtime, I said to Rebecca, I’m sorry love, I really don’t feel called to help tonight. It’s not really gospel work…’, then I would get short shrift - and quite rightly.

But, as we shall see after coffee, everything we do can and should be done for God’s glory, and can bear witness to him, by the way in which we carry it out.

In the next session, then, we’ll look next at the inner ring of the target – the calling that is specific to us as individual Christians.

But for now we recognise that each one of us is called by God, not just the obviously holy or gifted ones among us – you are chosen by God and called by him to lead a fruitful life – that is your job! ‘You did not choose me’, says Jesus to his disciples, ‘but I chose you to go and bear fruit. Fruit that will last.’

PARISH WEEKEND AWAY 26th - 28th June - ASHBURNHAM SERMONS

At our Parish Weekend Away at Ashburnham Place, our guest speaker was Andrew Rumsey.

Here is the first of his sessions for adults. His focus was on the passage: 1: John (29)35-42

COME AND SEE

Pray

Just before Christmas, my wife Rebecca and the children and I were invited by Andy & Rachel Griffiths (whom you may have come across) to spend Boxing Day ice skating at Somerset House, just by the River Thames. As you may know, there has been ice skating there for some years now and it’s become something of a London tradition. So we eagerly accepted – and… it’s just possible I may even have said something to Andy about being, whilst not an expert on the ice, something not far off. The truth was, of course, that I had only tottered onto the ice once before, about 20 years ago, so these were rash words, which I came to regret.

And so it came to pass that, in the bitter cold of Boxing Day we went skating and, one by one onto the crowded rink, I waved off my wife and children - who seemed to take to it as if they’d been born on ice. I, however, hadn’t, and suddenly felt massively uncertain. It was so slippery!

Of course it was – ice is slippery, but I hadn’t been prepared for quite how slippery it was. And I don’t mind admitting that I was terrified. For the next half hour, clutching onto the hand rail I gingerly slithered around the perimeter, whilst all around me happy skaters whizzed and pirouetted quite naturally. And whenever one of my own children glided elegantly past, I clung onto them and ‘now are you sure you’re alright, it’s very slippery, hold on to me…etc’ rather like Nemo’s dad in Finding Nemo, if you’ve ever seen that film – projecting his own fears onto his children.

When our time was up, the feeling of coming off the ice and back onto the friction and grip of the pavement, was just wonderful – putting on your normal shoes - suddenly all one’s confidence and control came flooding back. Familiar territory.

Now as we start our weekend away together in the green and pleasant surroundings of Ashburnham Place, our Christian faith may seem like a comfortable pair of shoes that we put on again. It’s familiar territory – we’ve been this way before – songs we know, Bibles, (open hands) great...

I have a feeling, though, that the writers of the four gospels – and indeed Jesus himself - want us to see faith as far more risky and exciting than that: an adventure, if you like – a journey into the unknown, a trip out onto the ice…

And I wanted us to start this series of talks tonight with this passage from John 1, because it concerns the call of Christ to the first disciples to step out into the adventure of faith; and to follow him. And it is this word call or calling that we shall return to in each of our talks over the next two days, as we consider our vocation – which is the same root word as calling – our vocation as humans made in God’s image, as the Church of Christ, and as individual men and women with different gifts and circumstances.

Now I’m aware that we’re arriving tonight after busy and maybe stressful days; we’ll be far fresher in the morning, so I’m going to spare you anything too lengthy this evening. But I just want to give some thoughts from this first chapter of John that will help give us some directions for the journey.

The occasion in our reading is just after Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist. Now although John doesn’t describe this event in detail (unlike M, M & L), in the previous few verses, we hear John spotting Jesus as the one on whom he had seen the Holy Spirit descend (which, you’ll remember, happened at Jesus’ baptism). It’s like he’s exclaiming: ‘Him! He’s the one I was telling you about – that’s him, there’.

And the next day he spots him again:

Read v35-37

The two who heard John say these things were, we read, his (that is, John’s) disciples – they had probably been baptized by him and followed his teaching. In other words they knew him and trusted him what he said. And, like John, they were looking for the Messiah. So when John says ‘that’s him’, they take him at his word and go after Jesus.

That phrase “following Jesus” just about sums up what it means to be a Christian. They are the words of the risen Jesus to Peter at the end of this gospel – ‘follow me’, and they are his words to at the beginning.

To be a Christian is to follow Jesus – it’s as simple and as costly as that.
And these two disciples decide to do it, there and then. They follow Jesus and, as they do so, they have this highly significant and actually rather amusing conversation…

Read v38a.
Jesus turns round, sees them following, and speaks his first words in this gospel ‘what do you want (NIV)/what are you looking for (NRSV)?’ he asks them.

This is a lovely line - how do you imagine Jesus saying this? Like those two first disciples, we tend to follow Jesus at a discreet distance: close enough to see what’s going on, but not close enough to be too challenged.

They’re skirting around him - trying to suss him out. But the trouble is, he has this habit of turning around to see us and asking “what do you want?” - “what are you looking for?”

We might imagine him turning round and asking the same question of us this evening: what do you want?
(squint sideways) Are you following me…?
What are you looking for, coming on this weekend… ‘

Take a few minutes’ silence for personal reflection

Read v38b.
Now then. Think of all they could have asked him: think if Jesus asked you that question all the things you could ask? ‘I’m after the meaning of life’ they could have said, or ‘why is there so much suffering in the world?’. But no. They ask instead for his address. Read v38 (er...where are you staying…it doesn’t actually say ‘er’, that’s just how I imagine them saying it…)
But, as strange as it may seem, their question is the right one. These two aren’t seeking abstract answers to big questions, they are seeking Jesus – to be with him, to know him, to follow him. So they need to know where he is.

Where are you staying? The word for staying [‘abiding’] is the same one as Jesus uses later on to describe how he lives with the father and within us by the Holy Spirit. J15:5; 14:16 - it’s the same word. Abiding, staying. Jesus abides with God the Father and if we want to know God, we must follow the one who is the way to the Father.

Read v39 - ‘“Come”, he replied, “and you will see”’.
Have you ever had that sinking feeling when you’re lost in London and you wind your window down to ask for directions and give you such a long-winded explanation, you know you’ll never be able to remember it. Give example… Well, Jesus doesn’t give us a long list of directions - he escorts us - says “you’re looking for God? Come and see.

Come and see. These three words are crucial to understanding what it means to be a Christian. And although it’s taken me several hundred words to get around to it – these three little words are all you need to remember from this evening: come and see.

Christian faith is something we ‘see’ – something we understand, only when we come, when we come – when we start to follow Jesus. It is not a case of having all the answers to all the big questions sorted out beforehand – that would be ‘see and come’, wouldn’t it. Get it sussed and then follow me.

But no, it’s come – start the journey and, on the way, you will see. Faith often begins as a kind of holy hunch – an inkling; a sneaking suspicion that this way of Christ is the way of life. It becomes the hunch that we would stake our life on.

Read vv40-42a.
And so, Andrew - one of the two who have followed Jesus - becomes the first evangelist, simply by sharing with his brother Peter who he has met.
Read v42b
And so it is that Simon is also introduced to Jesus and gains a new name - Peter - the rock on which the church would be built. And it is from these simple encounters – where ordinary people like you and I decided to follow Jesus - that the church grew - and brought us here this evening.

Come and see. Now, it’s the coming that takes the faith – the stepping out of the boat, the decision to follow that strange star to Bethlehem, the choice to abandon your fishing nets – to come and see the kingdom of God. This is the adventure of faith – and it is not unlike stepping out onto the skating rink.

To their friends and family it may have seemed as if the disciples were launching out onto dangerously thin ice in following Jesus. But of course ice isn’t always thin. In the frost fairs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the River Thames was frozen so solid that horses and carts were driven across it.

On my ice rink at Somerset House, it helped to realise there was firm ground beneath the slippery surface. And as I tottered around hopelessly, I finally swallowed my pride to ask one of the stewards the obvious question – how on earth do I do this?

She told me that I needed to gradually rest my weight on one skate and then the other – to get used to the fact that the ice would bear my weight. And so I did, and it did. By the end of the hour I was certainly no threat to Torville and Dean, but had begun to see that, with a lot of practice, this new way of travelling might be not only possible, but also rather exciting, and exhilarating.

Now what I have been wondering ever since Christmas is this: whether as Christians we actually rest our full weight on the skates of faith. Whether I as a Christian ever really rest my full weight on the skates.

Too often we manage by clinging to the handrail or trying to walk on the ice as if it is just like the pavement. But it isn’t. It’s not like any other way and the only way to do it is to put your full weight - first on one foot and then the other – and finding that it does hold you up.

I’m constantly having to re-learn how to ice skate in faith. If you fear you’re losing the knack, it’s best to try again in small ways in order to gain confidence.

[I’ll give you a tiny example from my life: our old car’s suspension went in December and we had to have it fixed. Paid out lots of money and, lo and behold, on the way back home the problem was still there and the Volvo creaking and groaning over every bump.

Not a huge deal, but just the sort of everyday costly frustration which we all face and which just winds us up beyond belief. I wasn’t going to spend Christmas worrying about it, so decided to use it as a test case for my faith. Rather than getting wound up I am handing the matter to God and just trusting him with it. Each time I feel that tight pang of irritation or worry about it, I hand to him again.]

Now in that tiny area of my life I am living entirely by faith – resting my weight upon God. I know it’s a silly example, and of course I try to do this in the bigger areas of my life too, but honestly, it feels quite like skating, I feel a little shaky and out of control.

Imagine how it would feel to extend this to your whole life, to take off your comfortable old shoes, to lose the familiar grip and friction beneath you and launch yourself out onto the ice. Often we’re challenged to have faith when our familiar handrails (money, relationships, work and so on) disappear and we have no other choice than to trust. More and more of us are experiencing this at the present time. But in some ways it is even harder to have faith when the handrail is still there to clutch on to. When we can get round the rink by other means. And if that is you, can I challenge you this weekend to step out in faith, because Christ can bear your weight and hold you up.

Now, as Jesus said to his disciples ‘I have many more things to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.’ So sleep well, and we’ll continue the journey tomorrow. Let us pray.

Lord Jesus we thank you for your call on our lives.
We thank you for bringing us safely here to Ashburnham this weekend.
We ask that each of us might learn that faith in you can bear our whole weight. We ask that, in response to your call, that we would come and see. Amen.