Sermon 21st March

Today our Vicar, Cameron Barker, preaches based on the reading from John 12:1-8.

This may not perhaps be the most typical of sermon openings, I realise: but, who remembers 'The Matrix' films? Specifically, does anyone recall 'that' scene from the first film – the one with the woman in the red dress?!

The reason for bringing that to mind isn't what may seem the most obvious one! It doesn't matter if you've not seen the film, or don't remember this scene. What's important is to know how that particular scene concludes. First, there's the revelation that the stunning woman is actually an Agent in disguise, who's out to kill the film's hero. Then, as some may remember, it turns out this has happened inside a computerised training programme. So Neo's instructor can have the action frozen at that exact point. With everyone and everything stationary he can then drive home all the relevant lessons for Neo's survival when he does enter the matrix itself.

Imagine the possibilities if real life worked that way! As we all know, though, life isn't like that! We can't click on an 'undo' button to rectify a mistake we've made, or recall words that we wish we hadn't spoken. Nor can we just stop the action of our life where it is, in order to learn whatever we may need to from what we've just done, seen, or heard. Modern technology may enable us to pause films, or video clips. And of course, we've always been able to do that by using our imagination with literature. But we aren't able to stop and review our own lives in this way. However, there are times when that is the best course of action to take with literature or images. We do sometimes need to freeze the action where it is, and then try to put ourselves on the inside of it.

Again, this isn't standard preaching practice here; but I do think that today's Gospel story invites us to do exactly that with it. In our Lent quest to prepare for Easter, this is a perfect piece of action to freeze-frame. In so many ways it's a very ordinary story, of the kind that most of us could so easily be involved in, on almost any given day. Yes, there is cultural adjustment needed if we're to make full sense of what happened at and around Jesus' anointing. But this is a story essentially all about disappointment, tension and conflict. Here we can see conflicts of purpose, intention, of motivation, understanding, and of action – and how people dealt with those (or didn't) in a common social setting. If we freeze this action there are challenges for us at every stage about how to live out faith when we face similar situations ourselves.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, we know that this was a truly significant time for Jesus. The disciples may not have grasped it at the time; but we, with Jesus, know what will happen at the Passover in 6 day's time. So we know that this should be a very special time for them, with so little time left before Jesus' death. It's also set in a very special place – in Bethany; in the home of Lazarus and his sisters. Not only are these good, long-standing, friends gathering for a meal – which in itself was a key expression of closeness. These are people who have been through an extraordinary experience together – and so have much to process.

After Easter we'll spend several weeks on the details of Lazarus' brush with death at some time before this meal.
That will be the basis on which we'll examine some of the traumas that we have been, and are going through as a church. For now we can take it as read that these people had more than a passing acquaintance, and so should have been enjoying a meaningful evening together. But this is far from that! The air crackles with tension – and that's just on the obvious surface! So lets freeze this action: put yourself in a room full of unspoken tensions and underlying conflicts – and think for a moment about how you deal with being in that scenario ...

Actually, once we move a few frames on, it may be better to start outside the room! That's where Martha is most of the time: she has likely overseen the preparation of this special meal, if not cooked it. Now she's helping to serve it, rushing about as always. We know that from the other times we've met Martha in the Bible: she's always on the go! She'd probably like nothing better than to stay in the room with the others; but she feels she can't. And how often are you in that position: wishing that you could do something that you would really enjoy, but feeling that you aren't able to? How do you cope with that kind of tension? Does freezing this part of the story change that for you? ...

Now, feeling tense already, look at what Mary does in the next scene. She's your sister: you love her, really; but she hasn't helped you in any way with the meal. In she swans, though, with this perfume: you know it's worth over £10 000 in today's money. She goes straight up to Jesus, and pours loads of it, over his feet! If anything, it's meant to go on his head, really. And she's not done yet either! Once the whole house reeks, she undoes her hair, and wipes Jesus' feet with it! That's the modern equivalent of your smart hostess taking off her skirt and dancing on the dinner table! Freeze the scene again. How are you going to deal with the embarrassment, resentment, the anger, and yes, the jealousy that you very likely feel? Is it time to speak up; or are you just going to let it stew? ...

Either way, somebody beats you to it in a matter of a few more frames. Let's freeze the action again at that point, and put ourselves in the shoes of a disciple. It's Judas, the most 'proper' of the disciples who has spoken out. Maybe he's just being the spokesperson, saying what you would have if he hadn't got in first. Is that your main objection to what has happened, though? Does the waste of so much money in this way anger you? Would it have been better being sold, and the money given to the poor? Or are you suspicious about Judas' true motives? Do you, like the gospel writer, and presumably Jesus too, know that Judas is being self-righteous, self-serving, deceptive? This is, after all, only a minor foretaste of what's to come from Judas. He has a far greater betrayal than theft in mind. So how do you feel, being around a person who's behaving like that? What are you going to do or say about it, either now, or perhaps later? ...

The next frame freeze is with somebody else once again in centre-stage. This time it's been Jesus himself, telling us to leave Mary alone. She has just done something very special, he says. Yes, he's conceded that in some ways it wasn't meant to happen tonight. But we obviously haven't grasped what he knows is coming all too soon. He's been talking about his own burial. This is preparation for that, he says. How can that be, though? He's so young; surely he's hardly started his work? He can't die now, can he? There's so much that he hasn't told us, or explained yet. We need him to lead us, to show us, and to keep on doing what we can't. So what are we going to do with all this confusion, frustration, and additional tension? Is it time to ask serious question about the big picture; or let it keep on churning away inside?

Perhaps it's a good thing that there aren't any more scenes in this story to freeze and examine, though. That's probably more than enough conflict and tension to be processing for one day ...

This is obviously an exercise that we can't do full justice to in the setting of a sermon. But I do hope that it's given you more than a flavour of what's possible for us. Lent is a good time to try different methods of Bible study and exploration. This kind may not work for you, perhaps – even with a good story like this. But we won't know until we try it! The point is that we all need to find ways to engage both with particular stories, and also with the wider story of the Bible. The most crucial part of the whole Bible story is about to reach its dramatic climax. Without the story of Easter we have no story to live by, or to tell others about. We do have the good news of Jesus' death for us, and his rising to life, though. But time's now starting to run out to get ready to hear it again afresh, and then to live it in all its glorious fullness!

In one way that's not true, of course! We can engage with the story of Jesus' death and resurrection at any time. But for those of us who follow the pattern of the church year, this is the time that's specifically set aside for doing this. And it's too good an opportunity to miss – not least because we do never know what may happen! That is one of the lessons that I've re-learned from my own recent medical adventures. Another reality that it also reminded me of is that if it's real then faith must be integral to every part of life. That means when times are bad as much as when they are good – and at all points in-between too!

Reading a story like today's challenges us, I think, to work out what being in relationship with Jesus means no matter where we're at. It means doing it if we're busy and stressed like Martha; it means doing it if we're extravagant and riskily flamboyant, like Mary; it means doing it if we're conflicted and confused, like Judas; it means doing it if we're just watching everything happen around us, like the disciples. It means dealing with the disappointments, tensions and conflicts that are inevitably part of everyday life. It means doing it in the context of who Jesus is, and what his purpose is. And, as I'm sure you well know, that isn't often easy to do! But the story of Easter means that we're never without hope, or help. So, at least be encouraged by this encounter today. Risk taking the next step, and let this wonderful story transform every part of your life, including the disappointments, tensions and the conflicts, the good and the bad. And now let's pray that God will use it do just that ...

Sermon 14th March 2010

Today's sermon is delivered by one of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur, and is based on the reading from Luke 6: 17-36

Jesus' Hard Teaching

I’m going to start by asking four questions. So, here they are - the four questions:

1. Would you like to be rich?
2. Would you like to be well fed?
3. Would you like to have a happy life?
4. Would you like to be popular?

I suspect that if we answered the questions honestly, we would answer all of them “Yes”! Most of us would like to be rich, well fed, happy and popular. They seem to be fairly natural desires, don’t they? And that’s why this teaching from Jesus is so startling. He turns our ideas upside down.

Look at vs 24; “But woe to you who are rich.”
And vs 25, the first half; “Woe to you who are well fed now.”
And vs 25, the second half; “Woe to you who laugh now.”
And finally, vs 26; “Woe to you when all men speak well of you.”

What Jesus is saying is very hard hitting. If you are well off, well-fed, happy and popular, take care! Jesus is challenging the world view that all that counts is wealth, comfort and popularity. Jesus is challenging the view that all that counts is the material world; we need to look beyond earthly comfort to the eternal realities. So let’s have a closer look at what Jesus said, his four promises and his four warnings or woes.

In verses 20-26, we have four couplets, each couplet containing a promise matched by a warning. And by looking at each couplet, we can learn four important characteristics about what it means to be a Christian.

The first couplet is in verses 20 and 24:
20. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”
Contrast that with:
24: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.”

I think it’s important to note that Jesus did not say that poverty, or hunger, or sadness or persecution are good things. So what does “Blessed are you who are poor” mean?

In the parallel passage in Matthew the blessing on the poor reads, “Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor.” (Matthew 5:3). Accordingly some commentators suggest that that Jesus did not mean physical poverty as such, but poverty in spirit. Indeed poverty in spirit is something Christians should aim for. We need to recognise that the world with all its riches can never satisfy us. We need to acknowledge our complete and utter dependence on God.

So does that let those of us who are wealthy in earthly terms off the hook? I suspect not. There is a strong link in Jesus’ teaching to material wealth. Riches can be a hindrance to being part of the Kingdom of God. We can get so focussed on our money, on our wealth, on the comfort it brings, that we can neglect the bigger picture. There’s no use being economically rich, if we ignore the eternal. And the more you have, the easier it is to fall into that trap.

Let’s now move on to the second couplet, in verses 21 and the first part of 25.
21. “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.”
Contrast that with:
25. “Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.”
Again, in the parallel passage in Matthew’s Gospel, there is a slightly different blessing; “Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires,” or, as other versions of the Bible translate it, hunger and thirst after righteousness.” As with the previous couplet, there are some commentators who argue that Jesus was talking about spiritual hunger. And indeed spiritual hunger is also a vital part of being a Christian. A Christian is characterised by a hunger for more of Jesus, a hunger to be more like Jesus, a hunger to follow him more closely. It’s a hunger that is in stark contrast to what worldly people are hungry for. They think that the things of this world can satisfy one’s hunger – food, possession, sex, friends. If you can get the right things in the right packaging, then you can get total satisfaction here on earth.

But ‘No’, says the Christian. There are many good and wonderful things in the world, but no, the world can never fully satisfy us. A second characteristic of a Christian is a hunger for Jesus.

A third characteristic of a Christian is tears. Let’s look at the third couplet:
21 (2nd half): “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”
Contrast with:
25 (2nd half): “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.”

As we look around the world and see all the wars going on, the terrorist bombings, the child abuse and all the other signs of evil, we will mourn; we will weep when we see all the evil in this world and the pain and suffering it causes. Mourning the evil in this world is a third characteristic of a Christian, but only when combined with a realisation that we are also part of the problem. Evil isn’t just out there; it’s also in here. If we want a world free from evil, that would be a world without us too. Christians shed tears for the sin in the world, but also for the sin in ourselves.

And now on to the fourth couplet, and a fourth characteristic of being a Christian – rejection.

22: “Blessed are you when men hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.”
Contrast
26: “Woe to you when all men speak well of you...”

Again what Jesus is saying seems counter-cultural. Jesus is saying it’s better to be rejected than accepted. It’s not rejection for being an annoying pest or brat; it’s rejection because of the Son of Man, Jesus. For a Christian, it’s rejection because of a desire to be approved by Jesus rather than being approved by other people. Some of us may be able to testify to that in our own experience. Nevertheless, Britain remains a fairly easy place to be a Christian in. Yes, there are potentially worrying developments with militant atheism of the Richard Dawkins variety gaining increasing confidence, but Britain is still a relatively comfortable place for a Christian. However, in many parts of the world Christians are willing to die for their faith. Six Pakistani Christians working for World Vision were murdered last week. Some 500 Christians were massacred in Nigeria last weekend. And these are just two of many examples of what Christians in some parts of the world face.

Four characteristics of a Christian: poverty of spirit, hungering after Jesus, tears for the evil in the world and in ourselves, and rejection. Now I could stop there, but if I did, I think I would be in danger of over-spiritualising what Jesus said, particularly in the first two couplets. Yes, of course poverty of spirit and hunger for more of Jesus are key characteristics of being a Christian. Yet when Jesus said, “Happy are you poor,” and “Happy are you who are hungry now,” the plain meaning of the text indicates that he was also referring to people who were actually poor and people who were literally hungry.

Jesus’ coming heralded a new way of doing things. He was going to turn the world upside-down, and that meant good news for people who hadn’t had good news for a long time; the poor, the hungry, those who weep and those who are rejected. Jesus was going to reverse the values that put the rich at the top of the pile and the poor and hungry at the bottom. Jesus honoured those who had very little and suffered in this life, and he promised them a future reward; he promised them that their service would be recognised, perhaps not in this world, but in the next, in heaven.

Now, it’s very tempting to dismiss this as ‘pie-in-the-sky when you die’. Karl Marx called religion the opiate of the masses, because the rich and powerful used the promise of heaven and the threat of hell to keep the poor in line. Philip Yancey, in his book The Jesus I Never Knew, rebuts this train of thought. He points to songs written by American slaves which proclaim their future hope, songs with words like ‘Swing low sweet chariot, comin' for to carry me home’ and ‘When I get to heaven, goin’ to put on my robe, goin’ to shout all over God’s heaven’.

If the slave masters had written these words for the slaves to sing, it would have been an obscenity. But these words came from the mouths of the slaves themselves, people who had no hope in this world, but a sure and certain hope in the world to come. So how did it help them – to believe in future rewards? It confirmed to them that God hated the evils of slavery, the back-breaking labour and the cruel punishments that slaves had to face. It confirmed to them that God is a God of justice, that one day the proud and arrogant will be cast down, and the humble raised up and the hungry filled with good things. It confirmed to them that no matter how bleak things may look, there is no future in evil, only in good.

These words of Philip Yancey reminded me of an occasion when Gill and I visited a small church in the township of Edendale in South Africa, near Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal. It was 1987, the state of emergency was at its height; the police and army ruthlessly suppressed black protests against apartheid, and there was also a lot of violence going on between the ANC and Inkatha, a Zulu political party that was secretly backed by the SA government. Humanly speaking there was little hope for the worshippers at that church; no one could have foreseen that three years later Nelson Mandela was going to be released and that things were going to change. Those were very dark days in South Africa. And at the end of the service, the small congregation sang,
“Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! We're going to see the King.
No more crying there, we are going to see the King
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! We're going to see the King.
No more dying there, we are going to see the King
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! We're going to see the King.”

It was a very moving experience. Gill and I were able to drive away from the township and fly back to England, but the worshippers in Edendale remained trapped in the pain, poverty, suffering and violence of apartheid South Africa. But the worshippers that Sunday in Edendale had an unbelievable joy; they knew that Jesus offers a promise of wholeness and peace that this world can never offer. They knew, despite their agony, that Jesus promised them a time of reward.

For those of us who live in peace and comfort, the promise of a future reward doesn’t have quite the same attraction. The church in Edendale knew poverty, they knew hunger, they knew tears and rejection – and yet they rejoiced. But if I’m honest the focus for me is not on these four things, but on the comfortable life, the prosperous life. I’m so absorbed in this life, that I forget the eternal life.

Let’s not be content with a rich, comfortable life. Let’s not be content with a worldly, satisfied life. Instead, let’s look beyond the things of this world, and look to the eternal values of Jesus.
Let’s pray:

Forgive us when we focus too much on the things of this life;
Forgive us when we become so addicted to them that they become more important than you.
Lord Jesus, we acknowledge that you are at the very centre of everything.
Please help us to keep you at the centre of our lives.
Amen.

Sermon 7th March 2010

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, preaches based on the reading from Luke 6: 1 – 11:

Disputes over the Sabbath

“Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath; to do good or to do evil,
to save life or to destroy it?” Luke 6:9

1. My opening question is probably capable of being answered positively only by those in the congregation who are in their 60s. It is: is there anyone here who would describe themselves as having been either a “Mod” or a “Rocker”? Mods and rockers were a youth phenomenon of the early to mid-60s – eclipsing Teddy-boys, only to themselves eclipsed by hippies. Rockers wore black leather and rode motor bikes; mods dressed in sharp suits, (am I imagining the Parka jackets?) and were clean cut, riding Vespa scooters. Rockers listened to American rock-and- roll; mods to R&B and British “beat”. What they had in common was a tendency to rally at the same seaside resort (eg Margate, Clacton, Brighton or Hastings) and fight. “What is happening to the youth of today?” must have been a phrase commonly used by shocked and appalled Middle-England. Little did it know what was to follow!

My brother was a mod: not, I think, a very professional one (though I was quite small at the time); but he had a Vespa scooter in the garage, his hair was floppy and slicked-back, his suits were quite “sharp” (judged by the standards of a sleepy market town), and if he came back at nights, he came back late and I was left to struggle to switch off Radio Luxembourg in our shared room bedroom

David’s mod-era is as much as I can claim to having a revolutionary in the family.

2. There is a whiff of revolution in the air in our Gospel reading. If you had read on from the passage on which Adjoa preached last Sunday, you will have started to notice the straws in the wind that over the period of Jesus’ teaching ministry would come together to create the whirlwind that was Holy Week. The initial admiration of his home synagogue turning to “furious anger” and a threat to his life; growing wonder among the people at His teaching and his actions; balanced by growing criticism from the religious establishment – how can he purport to forgive sins? What is his authority? What is he doing, eating with tax-collectors and sinners? – a scepticism that leaks even into the crowds as, in the passage immediately before today’s, they query “Why don’t your disciples do what the other holy men do, and fast and pray?” – which draws from Jesus a reply which makes quite clear that he is teaching about something new which is different from the old; something fresh which can not simply be incorporated and folded into the staleness of what is now; any more than you can use a piece from a new coat to patch an old one without ruining both or put new wine into old skins without losing everything.

3. And, for now, this theme of new coming up against old, of revolution, comes to a crescendo in the debates about Sabbath observance. To us – living in a largely secular society when Sundays may, for most, be only slightly, if at all different from Saturdays [see this morning’s Radio 5 phone-in] - this may seem a curiously inconsequential, unimportant issue – less significant perhaps than some of those points which have already arisen for argument: surely that point about Jesus’ authority to forgive sins or the question why he went to outcasts and sinners – surely, they are more critical to have answered than this conflict over what can be done or not done between the hours of sunset on a Friday and Sunset on a Saturday? Why not get into a rage about the important issues?

Understanding the reason why this incident is so significant may help us understand a lot more of the New Testament – since both Jesus and the early-Church had to deal with similar issues – and may, perhaps, bring us a little closer to understanding the revolutionary that is Christ.

4. I have struggled to identify “a rebel” in my family. No surprise then that I have a lot of time for the Pharisees. I like to know where I am. Let me approach it this way: How many of you drive? How many of you drive without due care and attention? Is that a traffic offence? [s.3 RTA] How many of you have driven while using a hand-held mobile phone? Is that a traffic offence? [Road Vehicles (Construction Use) Amendment(no.4) Regs.2003] How many of you have driven while playing with your Satellite Navigation? Is that a traffic offence? [Depends whether it is a hand-held device – or whether you driving without due care]

You see I think it is helpful to know that it is an offence, not just that it may be an offence to use a mobile when driving. I think it is more helpful than being uncertain about whether you may be committing the offence of driving without due care and attention.

And the Pharisees and their predecessors agree with me. They say: OK the 4th commandment seems quite clear (“Observe the Sabbath and keep it holy…the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to me. On that day no-one is to work…”Ex 20: 8-10) - clear like “driving without due care”: but what does “no work” actually involve? It would help they say, if we clarify matters, so then people know what they can and what they can’t do. And so over the centuries, among some of the Jewish schools of study, other laws were developed which said more specifically what you could and couldn’t do: I read that the Talmud, still influential over orthodox Jews, has 24 chapters concerning the detail of Sabbath observance. At about Jesus’ time the Pharisees taught that “no work” covered 39 specific prohibitions; and some teachers provided yet further guidance, so that the Pharisees watching Jesus’ disciples knew that “rubbing an ear of corn in the hand” was equal to “threshing” equalled “work – banned on the Sabbath; and also that “plucking the ear by hand” equalled “reaping” equalled “work – banned. So tey could say confidently to the disciples’ master: “you’re nicked mate!”

And healing too – unless necessitated by imminent death (not the case here – cf the account in Matt 13) – equalled “work”.
5. Useful? Because of the clarity? Actually, no. Two prime dangers: the first is that laws beget laws. You have a law and then you need an exception. Eg “no mobile phones – except 999 calls” and here “no work – except to save a life”. And the exceptions grew: so you could do some work within the “home”: so extend the definition of home to include your street – or now (as in parts of London) create an “eruv”, within which certain work may be done. So the laws lead to casuistry and the helpful guide is lost. In fact, the problem is that the law which was intended to guide you and help you, becomes something that can only trip you up. You can only get it wrong. That’s what Paul was saying at in his letter to the church in Rome when he endorses the holy nature of the Law but compares how it reveals our sin, whereas faith in Jesus makes us new.

And the second danger is that our response to God becomes dominated by adherence to rules and the reason for the rules is lost on us: the Law was given to point us to God, to help lead lives which were pleasing to Him; but if our religion is reduced to the observance of rules in the fear of losing our chance of holiness, then we have lost our way.

6. That was the revolutionary’s message on these two Sabbaths: human need is more important than religious ritual and regulation (that was the lesson of David and that of the healing of the shrivelled hand); and that the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath – ie his authority is beyond that of the Sabbath laws – concentrate on Him. Discomfortingly revolutionary if you rely on observance as a measure of fulfilment; discomforting if you judge others by the yardstick of conformity; discomforting if you seek the comfort of legalism as an alternative to a relationship with the Lord of the Sabbath.

Compare this teaching with Jesus response to the query as to the most important command: love the Lord you God (the Lord of the Sabbath); love your neighbour (human needs).

7. There is an irony that during Lent when many of us are undertaking special observances, particular small disciplines, that the CofE Lectionary takes us to a story apparently critical of observance. Perhaps it is important to close by making the point that both Jesus and the other NT writers are clear that the Commandments and the Law are inherently good and observance is encouraged: but they are equally clear that what God desires is a faithful heart living according to the promptings of his Holy Spirit. So happy Lent observance, may the Holy Spirit be party to your disciplines and may they bring you close to God.

Sermon 28th February 2010

Today one of our Lay Readers, Adjoa Andoh-Cunnell, preaches based on the reading from Luke 4:14-21

`I was in Manchester on Shrove Tuesday. It had been raining pretty much continuously all the time I’d been there. I’d spent all day at the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre, while
hopeful young auditionees came to perform their modern and classical pieces in an extremely hot dark room in front of a panel of us from RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art).
While we tried to be as far from Simon Cowell and his gang on the X factor as possible in the way auditionees were treated, after 8 hours of being bludgeoned by daring sweary modern
pieces, wailing Juliet’s and shouty Macbeths bemoaning their fates, we were losing the will to live.
So I squelched back to the hotel in a daze, tried and failed to get online for 2 hours, and resigned myself to grumpily eating a whole bar of Green and Blacks Milk chocolate, because tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and chocs are off the menu till
Easter Sunday, and it’s the closest I’ll get to pancakes in this hotel!
Hmm? What a strange way to prepare for Lent, for this time of reflection and meditation. Joylessly munching my way through
a bar of chocolate in order to prepare for Lenten denial. Have many of you here like me, given up something for Lent? What does it really mean?
What is this denial about? To reflect Christ’s fasting for 40 days in the desert?
Is it to help us register how many of our brothers and sisters are doing without things we take for granted? Is it to give us a sense of discipline, a way of showing our willingness to do without? If God asks it of us? Or is it, that rather than simply being a time of denial, Lent could be seen as a time of preparation for action where ‘doing without’, translates into getting ready to ‘do’?
Perhaps it is all of these things. So why am I talking about Lent in the context of today’s passage where Luke writes about Jesus announcing who he really is in His home Synagogue in Nazareth?
Well although this episode in Jesus’ life is told us in Mark’s gospel and in Matthew’s, only in Luke is it the first detailed action that we get to know about after Jesus emerges having rejected the devil’s temptations during his 40 days in the wilderness. I wonder what that time in the desert did for Christ and how we see its effect in the Synagogue this Shabat and what we can learn from that.
It can be awkward being public about who we are in our faith in our work context. Or in our social context. In this morning’s reading Luke writes of Jesus being public about who he is in his home context. It’s risky; it can be risky unto death as we see from the reaction later in the chapter of
Jesus’ local community, when their scoffing at him leads eventually to a reaction so hostile that they attempt to throw him off a cliff. It’s interesting to reflect that at the beginning of this chapter when the devil in the desert tries to get Jesus to prove who he is, in an act of tastelessness in the extreme, he takes him to the
highest point of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, a huge high building and says at verse 9 “If you are God’s son throw yourself down from here”
And yet here when Jesus declares himself the Messiah in another temple his listeners are the ones who want to throw him from a great height!
Jesus knows who he is, he does not need to test his heavenly father and now he is here ready to proclaim his identity in the temple at Nazareth.
Sometimes, to be true to our faith, to proclaim and to live by the values of our faith, can be costly. Doing God’s work, can be a provocation to those who would not have God’s kingdom around them, who would rather their own power than God’s power. We can see it in the reaction of totalitarian regimes to the preaching of the Gospel today. We can see it in the response of the Pharisees to those followers of Christ who challenged the traditions of Judaism, like Paul, declaring that Christ had replaced living under Jewish law with living under the Grace of God. It was no longer about an outward show of following the rules, but about what was in your heart and how that radically changed the way you lived your life in the love of God.
What a challenge to the authority of the Jewish Religious Leaders!
And so it was in the Temple in Nazareth that day.
How bemusing and then enraging it must have been for many in that temple to hear the local boy, the carpenter’s son, proclaiming himself to be the longed for almighty Messiah.
How incomprehensible. How dare Jesus, brought up in Nazareth arrive in the Synagogue on the Holy Sabbath, read from the venerated words of the prophet Isaiah;
“The spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty
To the captives and recovery of sight to the blind;
To set free the oppressed and to announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his
people.”
Jesus rolls up the scroll. Sits down and with everyone looking at him says to them
“This passage of scripture has come true today, as you heard it being read.”
What would they have understood from that comment?
The spirit of the Lord is upon me He has chosen me to bring good news to the poor Sent me to proclaim liberty me to set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people.
It’s all about me, all about this Jesus!
If we read to the end of the passage at verse 30 we find that Jesus talks of prophets not being welcome in their home town, he talks of the Jewish prophets Elisha and Elijah and God’s
healing through them not coming to God’s chosen people, the Israelites as expected, but to Gentiles. His fellow Nazarenes, Jews, God’s Chosen People, are insulted, incensed! Was Jesus saying Gentiles were more worthy than them, was he setting himself above them?
Imagine it’s me looking each one of you in the eye and saying to you it’s me
Not you, God’s spirit is on me…it’s uncomfortable listening isn’t it?
In order to be who he truly was, to be authentic, to live in the light of God’s spirit upon him, Jesus suffered, in that instance the hostility of his town, and later death on the cross. If being the Messiah didn’t keep Jesus immune from suffering in his own life on earth, then it may prove a comfort to us when we find ourselves in hard places.
Philip Yancey in his book ‘Reaching For the Invisible God’ quotes the theologian, Augustine who wrote;
‘Man’s maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast;
that the Bread (of life) might hunger,
the Fountain thirst,
the Light sleep,
the Way be tired on its journey;
that the truth might be accused of false witness,
the Teacher be beaten with whips,
the Foundation be suspended on wood;
that Strength might grow weak;
that the Healer might be wounded;
that Life might die.”
In living such a life Jesus has a profound understanding of every human emotion from the greatest joy to the darkest sorrow. As Yancey puts it ‘I cannot learn from Jesus why bad things occur – why an avalanche or flood decimates one town and not its neighbour’ ‘but I can surely learn how God feels about such tragedies. I simply look at how Jesus responds to the sisters of his Good friend Lazarus, to a widow who has just lost her son, or a leprosy victim banned outside the town gates. ‘Jesus’ concludes Yancey, ‘gives God a face, and that face is streaked with tears.’
This same Jesus who suffered, who gave God a face, announced the reality of who he was in that Nazarene Synagogue, and through all his subsequent teaching and healing.
Can the time of Lent help prepare us to announce who we are as Christians in a new way this year? Can we in Christ move towards a more sensitive understanding of the needs of the world around us? It may cost us, as it cost Christ, and perhaps more than doing without our favorite treats for Lent. But our faith is not just about who we say we are, it’s also about how we live who we say we are. This year Christian Aid is encouraging us in their Lent ‘Count
Your Blessing campaign’, to count our blessings (the opposite of denial you might think) where we acknowledge all the good things we have been blessed with in our lives. Yes material things certainly, but also a health service, friendships, safety from war, freedom to worship and so many others things. This morning we remember the blessing of marriage for Eric and Betty Baxter who were married at St Saviour’s fifty years ago this week. We remember the blessing of the 45 years that Sister Enid Johnson, buried on Friday, was a member of this congregation and we reflect on the 10 year blessing of the Cameron as our vicar and the Barker family in the Parish of Herne Hill and we wish that their trip to South Africa will be a further blessing for them.
And so in counting our blessings perhaps we will be prompted into action. That is Christian Aid’s hope.
Perhaps our action will be to share the blessings we have with others.
Maybe through donating to the work of organisations like Christian Aid.
Perhaps by buying Fairtrade goods instead of our usual brands.
Or giving gifts through the Good Gifts network, like a goat for a
family or contributing towards a bike for a midwife, Perhaps we’ll support the work of the Kabanda trust in Uganda, Or the continuing aid work in Haiti. Or perhaps we’ll get involved in writing letters of encouragement to Christians locked up for their faith, or perhaps we’ll sponsor a child with limited life chances because of poverty.
We could count our blessings in Lent in preparation to do God’s work, just as Jesus was in the desert for those 40 days we mirror in Lent, and then began his work. Lent preparation, be it through denial, reflection, or meditation on our blessings, can be a preparation for action.
What could our action be as Christians this year?
How will we announce by what we say and do that we are Christ’s followers? God’s children?
Perhaps we’ll ‘give up’ some free time to visit someone we know who lives alone or who is ill or housebound?
Perhaps we’ll give up time to God in prayer, or in service to the church here, Organising the Christian Aid Parish collection this
year? Coffee rota, chair rota, flower arranging, playground duty, joining the prayer team to name but a few. And perhaps we’ll reflect on Jesus’ preparation in the desert for the action of the rest of his life, his teaching, his proclaiming of the Gospel, his revelation of who he truly was, in his life, his death and his resurrection, the Messiah.
So the gift for us in this Lent time, of stepping out of our regular day to day lives, may perhaps be for us all to take the opportunity to own who we really are, if we have given our hearts and our lives to God. Maybe our giving up this Lent may be to give up the façade of being anything less than Christ’s followers. Maybe we’ll come to own ourselves as Christians to the extent that we can look into each others eyes, into our own eyes in the mirror, into the eyes of our colleagues, or our loved ones, friends and neighbors and announce:
Yes, the spirit of the Lord is upon me.
I am here to do his service, I am here to bring His Kingdom to the world around me in whatever way he sees fit to make it happen. I am here even to suffer for my Father’s sake and yet continue to
serve and praise him. He has indeed chosen me to bring good news, to proclaim liberty, to set free the oppressed, to announce his saving Grace for all peoples. Perhaps we’ll glory in saying:
I belong to the Maker of Heaven and Earth, whose face is streaked with tears at the suffering of his people. Perhaps this Lent we will claim that belonging, count our blessings place ourselves alongside those suffering, understand Christ is alongside us in our suffering and prepare to be about our father’s business, proclaiming the good news of his gracious love.
Maybe the end of Lent this year will be more than a return to the Fairtrade chocolate Egg, perhaps we’ll surprise ourselves by the way in which we announce our faith, in a new found sharing of God’s blessings. That’s my prayer for us.
Amen.