Sermon 18th May 2014

Today, our Honorary Minster, Gill Tayleur, preaches based on the reading from Hosea 1, chapters 1 and 2. 

“I’d rather see a sermon

than hear one any day;

I’d rather one should walk with me

than merely tell the way.

The eye is a better pupil,

more willing than the ear;

Fine counsel is confusing,

but example always clear.

And the best of all the preachers

are those who live their creeds,

For to see a good in action

is what everybody needs.”

That’s the first verse of Sermons we see, by Edgar Guest, an American poet from the last century. Edgar Guest thinks the best sermons are seen, lived out. And that’s exactly what happened with the words spoken by the prophet Hosea.

Hosea was a prophet in the Northern Kingdom of Israel from about 750 BC up to and including the time of Assyria’s destruction of Israel in 722 BC. So Hosea was a contemporary of Amos, and they were addressing the same corrupt and idolatrous Northern Kingdom during the last decades of its existence.

Like most of the minor prophets we’re learning from this term, Hosea had a message from God for His people. Unlike the others though, God asked Hosea to not just declare God’s word to the people, but to live out a dramatic and shocking illustration of it. A Sermon we See, as Edgar Guest put it.

The introduction to the book of Hosea in the Kingsway Life Application Study Bible explains it well: God told Hosea to find a wife, and told him beforehand that she would be unfaithful to him, an adulteress and prostitute. Although she would bear many children, some of these offspring would be fathered by others. In obedience to God, Hosea married a woman called Gomer. His relationship with Gomer, her adultery, and their children, became living, prophetic examples to Israel.

Because this tragic love story tells the human tale of a man and a woman, but also tells of God’s love for his people and their response. A covenant, a binding agreement of love and commitment, like marriage, had been made between God and his people Israel and God had been faithful to them. His love was steadfast and his commitment unbroken. But his people Israel, like Gomer, were adulterous and unfaithful, spurning God’s love and turning instead to false gods.

In the book of Hosea, we read of God’s pain and anguish. We also read his warning of judgement, and then his reaffirmed love and the offer of reconciliation to his people.

Let’s quickly run through what’s in the 14 chapters of this book of Hosea. It begins with God’s instructions to Hosea about getting married. After his marriage to Gomer, children were born, and each was given a name signifying a divine message of judgement for Israel’s unfaithfulness to God.

The first was Jezreel,

the place where the kings of Israel and Judah, the Northern and Southern kingdoms, had been killed, and a place of desolation for God’s people. The second child was called Lo-Ruhamah, meaning ‘not loved’. And the third was called Lo-Ammi, meaning ‘I am not your God’. There is a dreadful progression in the sequence of these names.The first announced a future when Israel would have to live without a king, the second a future without God’s compassion, and the third a future without God himself. That’s all in chapter 1.

Then in chapter 2, as predicted, Gomer left Hosea to pursue other men,in adultery and prostitution. But Hosea (whose name means “salvation”) found her, and redeemed her,

which means bought her back when she was offered up for sale. He brought her home again, fully reconciled, in chapter 3. Images of God’s love, judgement, grace and mercy were woven into their relationship.

Next, God outlined his case against the people of Israel – their sins would ultimately cause their destruction and would rouse his anger, resulting in punishment, in chapters 4 to 13.

But even in the midst of Israel’s immorality and infidelity, God was merciful and offered hope, expressing his infinite love for his people and the fact that their repentance would bring about blessing in the end (in chapters 11 and 14).

And so the book of Hosea dramatically portrays God’s constant and persistent love. Hosea willingly submitted himself to what God asked of him, and bore the repeated pain and heartache of the betrayal of his wife and people. Hosea gives us this lived out picture

of the gravity of unfaithfulness to God, and of God’s extraordinarily faithful love regardless.

Hosea was a living picture, a shocking picture, designed to jolt the people out of their complacency. Imagine Hosea the prophet, the Godly man, walking round the town, with his wife, widely known and recognised as an adulteress and prostitute, and with children

that everyone knew weren’t his, they were from her ‘affairs’. Imagine them being seen in the town, him faithful, devoted, attentive, loving, and her blatantly and unashamedly betraying him again and again. It must have been shocking to see! That poor man, being married to that woman! And it was designed to be shocking, a shocking illustration of the people’s relationship with God – to make them think, that’s what we’re like, what I’m like, with God.

They – and we – want to think everything’s fine between us and God, that all’s well, but seeing Hosea and Gomer showed them that maybe it’s not. It’s really not. It showed them that their sin wasn’t trivial, but was in fact a gross act of betrayal.

Maybe we need to be shocked out of any complacency we’re in this morning too. The lesson of Hosea for us today is twofold:

Our turning away from God is so much worse than we like to think.

But God’s love and longing for us to come back to him is so much greater than we think.

God’s love and longing for us to come back to him is so much greater than we think.

Come back to God! That’s the message of Hosea: Come back to God!

First, our turning away from God is so much worse than we like to think. The people of Israel in Hosea’s time were unfaithful to God very literally. They worshipped false gods like Baal,

and worshipped idols. They said they’d come back to God but were insincere, only wanting his blessing when they were in trouble (ch6). Their leaders were corrupt and sought alliances with Assyria & Egypt in pursuit of military power, which compromised their dependence on God. The people of Israel turned away from God very literally.

We’re not like that! We haven’t forsaken God, we don’t worship idols! No, but what do we worship? What do we put first in our lives? What do we pursue, and love? Is it really God first and most?

Surely for most of us, what we love most is ourselves, me! Our greatest driving force is our own pleasure, our own fulfilment, our own comfort. We put most energy into being as successful and prosperous as we can. We want a nice home, with nice things in it, nice clothes, a smart car, or the latest gadgets, TV or phone. Those are the things we work hard for, and that’s how we spend our money, on ourselves and our loved ones. And it’s how we spend our time, on ourselves. On the pursuit of pleasure and leisure. What I enjoy, what makes me feel good, what makes me fulfilled.

Ultimately, for most of us, most of the time, it’s true to say that my life is about me, it’s self centred. Oh we like having God on the sidelines for when we need him, “help!” but often even those help prayers are about our wants and fulfilment, as we ask him to bless us. And we have the audacity to be angry with him when we don’t get what we want.

That’s how we may feel about God, that we want him to bless us, to give us what we want

and we’re annoyed or upset when we don’t get it, when life doesn’t go our way.

But how does God feel about me and us? The message of Hosea is that when we are unfaithful to God and turn away from him, or insincere when we come back to him,

God is hurt, wounded, deeply upset, feeling angry and betrayed, as Hosea did

about his unfaithful wife Gomer. Our sin is not only breaking God’s commands, It’s breaking his heart.

Because God loves us, every single one of us. It is an astonishing, unfathomable truth, that the God of all creation – think how enormous is the known universe, all billions and billions of light years big – that that all powerful creator God, knows and loves each one of us teeny human beings on planet earth. Loves not just in a general or distant way, but closely and intimately as a husband loves his wife.

He sent his son Jesus to die for us rather than give up on us. And he longs for us to come back to him when we go our own way away from him.

Let me read some verses in chapter 2, follow along if you have a Bible to hand. It’s about God’s love for his people, about how much he wants them – us – to come back to him.

It’s couched in the language of husband and wife. ch 2 v 14 - 20

So I am going to take her into the desert again; there I will win her back with words of love. 

 I will give back to her the vineyards she had and make Trouble Valley a door of hope. She will respond to me there as she did when she was young, when she came from Egypt. 

 Then once again she will call me her husband — she will no longer call me her Baal. I will never let her speak the name of Baal again. At that time I will make a covenant with all the wild animals and birds, so that they will not harm my people. I will also remove all weapons of war from the land, all swords and bows, and will let my people live in peace and safety.

¹⁹ Israel, I will make you my wife; I will be true and faithful; I will show you constant love & mercy and make you mine forever. I will keep my promise and make you mine,
    and you will acknowledge me as Lord.

There in verse 14 it says God is going to speak to his people tenderly, with words of love. We are all guilty of having loved other lovers more than God. We’ve chased our own happiness, success, leisure and pleasure rather than loving and serving God. We, like Gomer, have run away from his love and been unfaithful. But God hasn’t turned away from us. He wants to take us into the desert, to be alone with us, to speak tenderly to us. Literally, the Hebrew says,

so that he can speak “to her heart”. He speaks words of love to allure you, to woo you,

to entice you and win you back. Go and listen to him. Don’t think that you are too ugly

or too rotten. He knows that his wife is unfaithful. That’s mercy: God wooing a wife of unfaithfulness.

Then in verse 15 we read that God promises her hope and safety. “I will give back to her

the vineyards she had  & make Trouble Valley a door of hope.” Trouble Valley is where Israel was first unfaithful to God in the promised land. Just after Israel entered the land, a man called Achan kept forbidden booty and caused the defeat of Ai. It was disastrous. But now God promises that if his unfaithful wife, that is unfaithful people will come home to him, it will no longer be a valley of trouble, but a door of hope. She will come home to rich vineyards, to peace and safety.

And the third thing God does is renew their marriage in love and faithfulness. He says, we’ll have a fresh start! Things will be right between us. In verse 16 she calls him her husband and no longer speaks of her previous lovers.

                                                                       

This is the gospel story in the Old Testament. Come back to God! God comes to woo us tenderly to himself. He promises the fullest hope and safety. He offers a fresh start and an intimate relationship of love.

God offers this close loving relationship – not based on a naive estimation of what we’re like -  the whole point of Hosea is that God doesn’t give up on his wife of unfaithfulness and prostitution! God offers us this relationship, and in the context of that love relationship, we’re to put him first. To love, serve and worship him every single day. To pursue him, his kingdom values, how he wants us to live, first. To give the best of our time and energy and money to his purposes. To have him at the centre of our lives rather than ourselves. Not our pleasure and leisure, but his service.

Each of us will know the ways in which we’re unfaithful to God, and how we’re to change

and live changed lives when we come back to him. This morning, let us hear the pain and upset our unfaithfulness causes God, and his call to come back to him. Let us hear and let us respond.

I finish with a few more verses from Hosea, chapter 6, God speaking to his people – this is the Good News Version:

What am I going to do with you? Your love for me disappears as quickly as morning mist; it is like dew that vanishes early in the day. That is why I have sent my prophets to you with my message of judgement and destruction. What I want from you is plain and clear: I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices. I would rather have my people know me that burn offerings to me.”

“I want your constant love.” Let’s pray...

Sermon 11th May - St. Paul's Annual General Meeting

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, preaches - based on the book of Nehemiah.

Today being AGM Sunday means that everything needs to be cut short. Yes, that even includes the sermon-starting joke. But that’s especially appropriate on this day: well, after all, we are talking about the man who’s remembered as being the shortest in the Bible: knee-high-miah, of course!

Now, I very much hope that by time this short talk is done you will have many good and positive reasons to remember (and thank God for) Nehemiah. Whatever his stature, he was a true spiritual giant. Above all, Nehemiah shows just what a healthy dose of Godly determination, mixed with focused prayer, and a willingness to use your skill-set, can accomplish. Under his leadership the walls around Jerusalem went from being a pile of torn-down rubble to a solid defence against all-comers. It might not have been what we would call a big city – but that wall had no less than 10 gates in it. The job itself was done in very short order too: in just 52 days. And the archaeological evidence for the truth of that being what did actually happen is still in the walls for all to see.

Now I’d imagine that if the name ‘Nehemiah’ did ring any bells in your head, they would probably be about walls. Chances are that you might be more vague about when this rebuilding was done, though; and also about what else he accomplished. The only way to address the latter is to read this whole book for yourself – as I hope some will now want to do. For further reading, I’ll also point you to the blog for last week’s sermon (if you missed it). That gives at least something of the context of this amazing story, though even in a full-length sermon it did all have to be somewhat abbreviated.

Today all I’ll do is give the year that this story began: 445 BC. This marks the 3^rd, and final, part of the return to Judah after a 70-year exile in Babylon. It’s about this time that what we call the Old Testament stopped being written, because this was when the age of prophecy ended. God’s people had gone back home, just as He had promised; the Temple was rebuilt (as we saw last week); next, as we’ve just heard, it was the walls; and finally it was the people who were put right before God. That story is what’s told in the second half of this short book. We learn there that it was a combination of Nehemiah and Ezra who accomplished it (which is why these 2 are 1 book in the Hebrew Bible.) All was then ready for God’s Messiah to appear; and so the waiting began ...

It’s when it’s set in that context that we can see what a big deal Nehemiah’s achievements were. What’s perhaps most amazing was that he was ‘just’ an ordinary person. Most of the people who did great things for God in the Old Testament were prophets, priests, or kings, usually ones who’d been singled out by/for God. At the start of this book we read about someone doing an ordinary job in exile (serving his foreign emperor). He was the one who heard about a problem that really grieved him – unrepaired walls back at home – and he then pleaded with God to be allowed to fix it! Nehemiah gave up a relatively comfortable and safe life (as a cup-bearer), because he knew that he could do the job that was required.

If there sound like several sermons in there alone, that’s about right. The learning from Nehemiah is worth a series of its own; so there’s more reason to read and learn from this book – as we all can do. Yes he clearly had gifts; but what stands out above all is Nehemiah’s Godly determination, mixed with focused prayer; and those are virtues that anyone can choose to apply, to whatever their circumstances. It’s certainly what Nehemiah did: after persuading the Persian emperor to let him take a group with him, he arrived in Jerusalem; first he defined the scale of the problem; then he got on and fixed it; involving as many others in the work as he could; and he didn’t let anything, or anyone get in the way of that!

You’ll have to read the detail of that for yourself: but it is both impressive, and instructive. His plan to get people to work on the wall by their homes was a master-stroke! And that’s only the 1^st half of this book! If anything, what follow is even more impressive and instructive. Having got the Number 1 priority job done, against all sorts of opposition, external and internal, Nehemiah didn’t stop! The next stage of the Godly process was to start ensuring that the work would endure – by re-populating Jerusalem. At the same time, in partnership with Ezra the priest, he reminded people what it’d all been about in the first place. So there was an extended public reading of the Law, with invitations for people to sign up to live by it. That was set in the context of a big party, at the heart of which was God. Confession and repentance was big part of that; and it all culminated in a rededication of the rebuilt walls, at sound-levels that were apparently heard for miles around!

And there is still more to Nehemiah: lots more! There isn’t time even to headline that now, though, because we need to get specific about this has to teach us in Herne Hill. As I said last week, this series is about 2 things: first it’s ensuring that we have learned the lessons which we think we have in getting to where we are now; and second it’s asking what God is saying to us about where we go from here. The AGM is well timed, then, because it should help us to do all that (even in mid-May!)

Last week we began with simple lesson from Ezra: God must come, and be 1^st. My suggestion for today is another simple one: we’ve got to keep on going! Yes, we can – and we should – celebrate where are now. But God has got to be at the heart of that celebration too. We must also protect where we have reached, by putting the right walls around it. All who worship here are invited to contribute to that process, with God at the forefront of our minds. Whoever we are, we can all be determined to persist; to pray; and to do what we know we are able to do. Amazing things can, and will, happen, and more quickly than may believe – if we do each learn, and apply, these Nehemiah lessons. The key question for each of us of course is: will we? Let’s pray that we do ...

Sermon 4th May 2014

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker,  preaches - the reading is from Ezra.

May-Day Bank Holiday weekend definitely requires a light-hearted, worker-centred start that also fits the launching of a new series. So here’s a quick straw-poll that’s just for fun (mostly!)

Here’s how this one works: I’m going to say a number of people’s names. Put your hand up if you know something about that person; and keep it up as long as you keep knowing about each name (or put it back up when you do know again). And don’t be surprised if you do know lots of them: that’s more or less the point of this exercise! So, here we go, then: Fidel Castro; Winston Churchill; Albert Einstein; Sigmund Freud; Mahatma Ghandi; Mikhail Gorbachev; Che Guevara; Adolf Hitler; John F Kennedy; Martin Luther King; Nelson Mandela; Chairman Mao; Karl Marx; Mother Teresa; Emmeline Pankhurst; Ronald Regan; Joseph Stalin; Margaret Thatcher; Desmond Tutu; Queen Victoria; Malcolm X; and, finally, before your arms tire out: Ezra!

OK so the last name is the odd one out; but mostly in the sense that all the others were from the 20^th Century. Most of us recognised most of those names because these are the people who have significantly shaped the world as we know it today. That may have been a positive or a negative shaping; but our lives wouldn’t be as they are if any of these people hadn’t existed. And we know that, because we recognise these names; and between us we could probably say rather a lot about each of them, I reckon – with the exception of Ezra! But of course the aim is that by the end of today we will all know plenty about him; and why he truly belongs on list like this. But for now most of you probably just have to trust me on that.

Today we are beginning a new series, on at least some of the Bible characters who together are known as the Minor Prophets. In most lists there are 12 Minor Prophets, and they are the last 12 books of the Old Testament. So neither Ezra nor Nehemiah are included on those lists – but they are in our series. In fact, for centuries this week’s main focus (Ezra), and next’s (Nehemiah), were combined in one book; so it all risks getting bit confusing. You will hopefully understand, then, why I need to sound something like a lecturer today. There is lots of factual information that we need to grasp; and my guess is that most of us don’t have those facts in our minds already.

Apologies if that’s not true of you, and do say so afterwards. Assuming that most of us do have significant information gap, though, where to begin is the key question. It might be most helpful to start with why the preaching group thought that this would be a good series for us to do. It’s not ‘just’ that we tend to focus our preaching on the New Testament – though that’s certainly true to say. It’s quite right too that we should give most attention to God’s work in and through His Son. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection were literally eternity-changing events. If that list of significant names had to be restricted to one entry, it would surely only have Jesus on. But of course Jesus didn’t appear in an historical, or spiritual, vacuum. Centuries went into God’s preparation of the world for the ministry of His Son; and that is the story which is told in what we know as the Old Testament.

Of course there’s more to the Old Testament than that. The people – and peoples – who appear in it were encountering God in their present. Yes, some of them became aware that God was in the process of doing something far bigger that what they could see or understand. Some of them spoke, or wrote, about that; but even then they didn’t ‘get’ it – not least because they couldn’t, until God did it for real. In any case, their focus very understandably, was mostly on what God was doing with and through their own immediate circumstance. They, like us, were most interested in what God was up to in what was happening in their life and time; and that’s exactly what attracts us now.

The preachers, and the leadership team, are very aware that in many ways we’re entering a new phase of our life in this parish. Of course that particularly applies at St Paul’s, but it’s not ‘just’ about the completion of that redevelopment. We have spent quite some time on all of our buildings, both in terms of what we can realistically use, and in what we need to be able to do God’s work in this place in this time. It may have taken longer than we hoped, or expected; but our reflection is that as well as doing lots of God’s work in the processes themselves we have learned, and are learning, many Godly lessons along the way. The aim is that this series will now help us to do two things. First is to review those lessons, and to be sure that we really have learned them fully and properly. The second is to invite God to show us His way forward, on into this next phase of His work here.

So: what have we learned; and what do we need to learn? The way that we’re going to answer those questions is by looking at the life, time, and circumstance of these particular prophets. Those are hugely varied, as we’ll discover along the way; between them they cover a vast swathe of Bible, and human, history; some 350 years, during which so much happened. But what they all have in common – and what matters most for us – is that these were the people who were trying to hear, and respond to, God in all of their different situations. That, then, is the key strand that links together all that we will do here between now and the Summer. It’s entirely coincidental (if you believe in such things!) – that our Bishop will do a visitation here during this time; and that we will formally have to adopt in his presence a Mission Action Plan, which sets out what we are doing in God’s Name and why in this place: watch this space for details of all that, then!

This reviewing, and looking ahead, journey starts here, today with Ezra. His is the 1^st of these books in the Bible in term of the order that they’re in; it’s far from the first in terms of the historical story, though! So this is a good time for us to remember that the Bible is, in fact, a library of books, of very different types of literature. It’s not one big story that begins in Genesis and ends in Revelation. So if you missed the series that we did on Bible literature in 2012, it’s all available on our website. Be sure to have a read, then, to help understand what we are (and what we aren’t) learning from here. You see, the prophets didn’t ever aim primarily to record factual history. Their job was rather to help people to understand what God was saying and doing, and what responses He required from His people, in the circumstances of their time.

Ezra is one particular case in point of that. His task when he wrote (as most scholars agree that he did do) wasn’t to set down exactly what happened when, where, and how at this crucial time in Israel’s history. It was rather to explain what God was saying and doing, and what He required of His people in these circumstances. So we really need to know what those circumstances were, then. Ezra helpfully put enough detail in at the start, in just the few verses that we read, for any historian to put it all together. This can only be a whistle-stop tour of that, but we’ll likely get much more detail in the weeks ahead. For now, we need to go back to when David was king of one-nation Israel, in about 1 000 BC. Even before he died there were fights about which of his many sons should be the next king, and very soon the nation split into two parts. Then there was Israel in the North, with its capital in Samaria, and Judah in the south, based around Jerusalem – and plenty of fights between the two nations.

Not surprisingly, God had opinions on all that was going on in both nations; and He expressed them, not least through the prophets, both Major and Minor. That’s not for today, though. Our whistle-stop needs to leaps on, to 720 BC when the northern kingdom (Israel) was wiped out for all time by the Assyrians. Judah continued, and confusingly, in time then became known as Israel. But Judah didn’t do too much better in God’s eyes, and, in 586 BC, was itself overthrown, by the Babylonians. They tore down the Temple in Jerusalem, and carted most of Judah’s population off into exile – just as had been prophesied by Jeremiah. And now, as Ezra picked up the story, the Persians had taken over from the Babylonians. Jeremiah’s threatened 70 years of exile finally were finally almost over. Israel (Judah) was being allowed to go home; but to what sort of future?

At first it all seemed about as good as it could be. Cyrus sent them on their way in 537 with his blessings, and provisions; but it wasn’t long before trouble started again! Although the returnees had started rebuilding the Temple very soon after getting back, opposition meant that work was stopped – for 10 whole years. Another change of king saw it get restarted; but the job wasn’t finished until 516 AD. Those processes are all detailed in Ezra’s short book, and I’ll encourage you to read it through. When you do, you’ll surely spot that although he wrote about these events, Ezra wasn’t involved in them himself at this stage. He didn’t return to Jerusalem until about 458, when he was sent as leader of another group. He, they had a particular, very specific mission for the next phase.

That mission is again detailed in the book itself. But what we need to grasp to understand it properly is just what a difficult situation Ezra and co came back into. The 1^st wave went back to a place that’d been flattened. Israel could only survive if it was a vassal state of the Persians. They had no king any more; and they never would do again; the Temple was destroyed, so there was no focal point for worship, and what they re-built was very much a second-class affair. Whatever they wanted to do was opposed by the people who’d been left behind, and had got used to the way things were. To some extent things had moved on in the 50 years that followed before Ezra’s return; but there was still remarkably little when he arrived.

In exile Israel had begun to try and understand what had gone wrong to get them in that mess; and how to avoid that fate in future. That was all theory, which was all it could be until the time when they actually went back; and it was largely Ezra who led the working of it out in practice. His name means ‘help’ – and that’s exactly what he did! He was a priest, a scribe, an expert in the law, a leader trusted by the Persians; someone whose life was dedicated to serving God and His people. He was sent to teach people God’s Word; not least because he didn’t just know it and believe it, but lived it out. His job was to shape and administer a new national life for Israel’s new circumstances; and he did it so effectively that it impacted the nation for centuries.

There clearly isn’t time to detail that now; but, for what he did and how he did it, Ezra truly belongs on any list of society-shapers. First he led the nation in repentance for their age-old sins of idolatry and intermarriage. He then shaped the practical living out of whole a new allegiance to God’s Law; how it was taught; and how the Sabbath was observed. What resulted from Ezra’s tireless work was the sort of firm faith that survived centuries of international politics being played out on Israel’s soil. It carried them through it all as people of faith, even while God appeared to be silent for the 400 years before prophesy re-appeared in the person of John the Baptist. And, although we might perhaps not have known it before today, Ezra was key in all of that being so.

Well, the whistle-stop tour is nearly over; but I hope it’s left you appreciating an amazing, faithful, determined, and, above all, Godly man. I also hope that you’ve noticed along the way what we might learn from this in Herne Hill. It’s not a very complicated lesson; and I’d say that it is what has kept us going through all the years and work in getting us to here. It’s about putting, and keeping God 1^st. What we do, and how we do it, has been, and has to keep on being, about what He wants: 1^st and last. Our journey onward from here isn’t set in the context of being given a second chance; but it is about us living in faithful obedience to the God to whom we owe our all. So, as we head into the next phase of that, may that thought, and that motivation, be at the core of it, and us: it really is all about Him. And so now let’s pray that it, and we, will be ...