Sermon 15th February 2015

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker,  preaches. The reading is from Isaiah chapter 58.

Picture this scene – as best you can. It’s mid-1983; and the South African sky is growing ever darker with the wings of chickens coming home to roost. We’re in Apartheid’s most desperate days. Across the land smoke rises daily from the segregated black townships where people are being shot, tear-gassed, beaten or arrested by the riot police. In less than 12 months people sat in this room will be conscripted and sent not ‘to the border’ but into those townships. There they will carry out that same oppression, instead of it being done in their name.

Not tonight: tonight about 200 of us are happily singing choruses at the national Christian Evangelical student conference. Of course we’re all white: it would be illegal for any not-white person to be in this room – except as a domestic. And we are staying in the conservative rural Transvaal, after all! The room then goes dark, so we can pray, and listen quietly to what God is saying to us as His student people. After a while, from the back a voice begins to speak: “Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins.”

I wasn’t familiar enough with the Bible back then to know that we were hearing Isaiah 58 being read out. But hairs stood up on the back of this student-radical neck, as God’s voice poured condemnation after condemnation on a society that claimed to be His, yet kept behaving quite so appallingly. “Day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practised righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God”. I can’t begin to tell you the firestorm which followed that session; but it’s not the point for us in Herne Hill in 2015. What might be the point could rather be read from what has happened in, and to, South Africa in the 30 years since that night, perhaps! And that may just tell us something really important about God’s Word too!

Now to be clear, I’m not saying that God gave these words to Isaiah just so that they could be applied in South Africa so many centuries later! Of course God’s first message was to the people of Isaiah’s time. What God can, and does do, though is to speak into new situations in new ways; through words that He’s spoken through before. Our task, I think, is therefore to be listening out for that; and especially so when it’s all happening in rather more whispered tones than that trumpet sound which was heard in 1983. God is more than capable of moving people in His right directions by steady streams of gentle, but firm communication along the same constant lines. And that’s what we’ve been experiencing in Herne Hill over quite a number of months now, I’d say.

As we’ve worked our way through this Discovery process, so much of our Sunday learning has paved the way for this series that ends today. All those sermons are posted on our website, for any who want to track this journey that began with John’s first letter. Paul’s letter to Christians in ancient Ephesus was followed by all of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount; and then we had lots of Old Testament Minor Prophets. 2014 ended by revisiting the Christian basics, before we spent January with Jesus in Luke’s Gospel. It’s not hard to see from that combination how God’s plan encompasses the whole of His creation; from the beginning of time; or that the practical detail of faith is to be worked out wherever we are; daily; honestly; by those who believe in God; and therefore have experienced what it means to be loved and blessed in ways that we truly don’t deserve.

Now if all this doesn’t turn into an aim “To be a blessing to our neighbourhood by enabling and supporting activity to build community and to meet needs in partnership with others; and to create a sustainable mind-set and momentum in the parish which will continue to attract volunteers and resources to show and share God’s love” then I don’t what ever would! That was, and is, of course the concluding recommendation made by the Discovery working party. It was adopted wholeheartedly by the PCC, on behalf of both churches; believing that this is what God has been saying to us over a number of years; and wanting to be obedient to Him.

To say it again, it’s a Report that’s well worth reading in its entirety, if you haven’t already. It’s on our website as well as being in printed form in both churches. It has a line which says that what this will take to make it a reality is a new mindset. So we need to generate and sustain enthusiasm for community action among the congregations – and that is very much what this series is aiming at: to change our mind-set. Today’s passage from Isaiah has at least two important parts to play in this on-going process, I think. The 1^st is to challenge where the limits of our faith are; and the 2^nd is to challenge how widely we look to show and share God’s love.

No Bible passage ever sits in isolation of course. I’ve been taught – and believe – that in order to understand what God’s saying through it today, we need to know what it meant to its original hearers. So it’s time to pause, and put Isaiah into some sort of context, then; if only briefly! It’s a big book; in every sense of word; and it raises big issues; and questions! The key headline is that Isaiah covers three eras of Old Testament history. At the start, once-united kingdom had been split in two. Part 1 of Isaiah deals with events when the Assyrians were the dominant local power. It was they who destroyed the Northern Kingdom, Israel, and did serious damage to the Southern one, Judah, at the end of 7^th Century BC. God had much to say about the meaning, and message from these events, not least through the prophet, Isaiah.

In Part 2 we find God addressing issues experienced by His people more than century later! Here they are in Exile – yes, in Babylon, early in the 5^th Century BC! As we heard last week, God was also at work through Jeremiah in those days; and there was much needing saying. The aim was for God’s people to be ready to try again, to live as His people in His land when this Exile ended, after God’s promised 70 years. And that’s the time – after their return home – which God addresses through Isaiah in Part 3 of this book. Chapter 58 is solidly in that final part – when God’s people are back home, and are trying to work and live out what they need to; albeit not doing it so well, this passage suggests!

There’s so much more that could be said; but the only thing to add is the parallel that most commentators draw. They point out the sense in which the situation of post-Exile Israel is most similar to now. God has done part of what He promised; but we’re still waiting for the rest of it. Then He’d brought them home from Exile; but the Messiah was nowhere in sight. Now, Jesus has brought in God’s kingdom on earth; but he’s not come back to complete it. And, as we’re waiting, things aren’t quite working out as we expected or hoped; and that’s making for all sorts of struggles, and problems; where we’re not getting it right; and, if we’re being honest, we know that. So does God: far better than we do, actually; but we still try to fool Him, sometimes at least; and He’s not having it; as this passage in particular makes very clear. God has said what He expects; and anything less won’t do; and it doesn’t fool Him.

It’s in that context, then, that this part of Isaiah has at least 2 important parts to play in this on-going mind-set-changing process. As I said, the first is to challenge where the limits of our faith are; and the second is to challenge how widely we look to show, and share God’s love. Something else that’s written in the Discovery report is that, “Most of all, the Community Action (Steering) Group will need the congregations’ time and energy.” You see, if we are to do anything that’s worthwhile, lasting and has a significant impact in this place in God’s name, then it’s going to take lots of person-power! And it can’t – and shouldn’t – ‘just’ be the same small number of people trying to do more and more.

Everyone, says God through Isaiah, everyone is to live out their faith. It’s not something that for just a few people; it’s for all who claim to be His people. And there aren’t any no-go areas with God either: heart; mind; money; time; work; family; sex; words; actions; we’re to let Him into the lot! Or that’s the theory, anyway; but it’s one that we’re meant to be working towards day by day as we are reshaped, into the likeness of God’s Son, Jesus. And He knows the difference between us saying it and meaning it, these words remind us! Part of the proof is in the doing of it, of course; and there will be opportunities aplenty for that, promise. But 1^st we’ll each have to want to do it – not to try and fool God; but as an outworking of our faith; and a change of mind-set is indeed what is often needed!

Part of the changed mind-set that’s needed, I think, is how widely we look to show, and share God’s love. We may not live in 5^th Century Israel, or in Apartheid South Africa; but there are plenty of people not too far from here who need to know, and share God’s love. The 1^st phase of the Discovery focus has been on the Milkwood area deliberately for that reason, and very rightly so. Yes, there are other people and places, both near and far, that need to know and share God’s love. But this is the place where God has put us to be His church; so it’s here that we are starting; by being His blessing to this community. Who knows where it might go from here; or what impact it may have over the next 2; 5; 10; 20; or 30 years; if we each live out faith here!

The series is over (and so is this sermon, very nearly.) But, in one sense, it’s only that the next phase of this journey is just beginning. Next, in Lent we’ll have a chance to think about how the classic spiritual disciplines can keep our journey on track. Beyond that, we’ll be journeying onwards with Jesus, to help us to learn how to live for, and in, him. The challenges will keep on coming; no doubt including about the (lack of) limits of faith; and how widely we look to show, and share God’s love. Hopefully those challenges will both change mind-sets in all the ways that is needed; and spur more and more of us on to loving Godly action. You see, this is a journey that can only continue if all of us push on with it together; as God’s people; working at being His blessing; showing and sharing His love to this community. And so now let’s ask for God’s grace and strength to do just that: in His name; for His glory …