Sermon 16th October 2016

Today, one of our Assistant Ministers, Ben Hughes, preaches. The reading is from Psalm 22: verses 1-11.

Crying out to God

Where is the centre of the Universe?

·       You might say – the Universe is too big to have any centre as such.

·       Or give an answer as a kind of idea or concept - personal freedom or democratic rights.

·       Some might say the centre of the Universe is my home – where I live or the things that interest me most!

·       Some might say I don’t know and do not care!

·       Some even might say Loftus rd or HIghbury.

A second question – What in our view is the turning point in history of world?

·       The age of industry?

·       Commerce?

·       The printing press?

·       21^st century communications?

Last question - Who was or is the most important and influential human being to ever exist?

I shall leave that one open

My answers to those questions and in my view is embedded in the psalm 22 – the one I have chosen for you this morning –

If there is such a thing as the centre of the Universe then it is the point in Calvary where theses prophetic words ‘My God my God why you have abandoned me’ are cried out by Jesus – That is the moment in time where everything unfolds from – and where everything before that is sucked into.

And it is a critical moment because it could have gone either way – the weight of all wrong doing falling upon one man - Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ cry from the cross taken is prophetically taken from this Psalm – and is like a pebble thrown into a pond – or better still - a clap of thunder reverberating out from a centre of a dry valley – this cry – these words from the cross – ‘My God My God why have you abandoned me’ is also perhaps the centre time itself and the point where the old order ceases and the new order begins.  

This cry from the cross is also the point where Jesus becomes fully human – abandoned by God – His father in Heaven -  and vital rejection, necessary so that Jesus can legitimately represent all our human suffering. The cry from the cross is therefore the point where real creation that is born in the suffering of a broken world as it mirrors our own sufferings that form and make us. This cry, this howl, ‘jump-starts’ the engine of the cross – a power that continues today and the one that we are all part of here this morning!

The Psalm is also written by a person in crisis!

The words are soaked in trauma, pain and loneliness.

Verse 11 “Trouble is near and there is no one to help me” –

Think of the worst moment you have had and then add a bit more and then a bit more and even a bit more – that is the context of this psalm – it is one of the ‘balm psalms’ to soothe our own pain and hurt!

They are also the words of a person who is being bullied and mocked.

Verse 7 – “People make fun of me – you rely on the Lord – why does he not save you”.

We have been bullied or bully – we can identify with this psalm as strength to stand up to bullies and or reminder to stop our own bullying.

And this Psalm describes the worst type of loneliness – the awful belief that God has left you behind – the sense that God no longer cares about you and has abandoned your spirit to the grave. But it reassures too that such is a lie and not to be believed!

I could carry on in the vein towards the end of this sermon – but we know well by now that our God is not a sugar daddy God and that life is tough. As Christians we should by now understand the universal equation: - that we will suffer in this life because of sin and the sins of others!   

So we could all leave here this morning thinking “well Ben – your sermon has really cheered me up! Thanks for that”!

But I am not going to leave it at that because there are also some wonderful truths embedded in this psalm as well that will improve and help the way in which we can communicate with God. Jesus knew exactly what he was doing when he chose the words of this Psalm. It was not a mistake!

So what are these other truths!

Well it is twofold – One, it introduces that idea that we can talk to God in the first person and two, it introduces the idea of ‘My God’ – or in other words – anyone’s God!

With the words ‘my God’ – it means that God becomes a ‘personal’ God which actually means: God is interested in each one of us for whom we are.

This is a massive quantum shift in belief and faith now as then as it systematically introduces the idea that God is for all people not just for a chosen few.– it is not ‘their God’, ‘His God’ ‘ the people’s God’ but ‘my God’! And that ‘my God’ is a God for the people of all nations! And for sinners too!

The ‘my’ is your personal invitation from Jesus to you - to accept the cross in your life!

And it is ‘My God My God’ not ‘me God me God’ – that is a different thing!

Next this Psalm introduces the legitimacy for talking to God rather than about God –

This Psalm marks a seismic  change in the old testament because the psalmist is now speaking to God!

Yes there are examples of people praying to God before this Psalm even using my or our God – but up to then it was considered blasphemy to talk to God directly. You could not look upon God – we know that form Genesis and Moses – the idea that you could address God directly was risky stuff and was the prerogative of the priests and Pharisees who could stone you on the spot!

The point about talking to God rather than about God is sometimes still with us today – as a  Church  we risk becoming pontificating and top heavy the kind of ‘let me tell you about Jesus and the wondrous works of God’ etc -  rather than spiritually alive places of worship where people meet with God and God with them!

The manner of some Victorian type hymns– singing about God is very different from engaging with God by singing to God as a prayer. Yes there is a place for both but it is best to be aware!

And flattery - God knows exactly what He is and what He can do and does not need our flattery to get by – what he wants  instead is what this psalm indicates – is living working first person  relationships with his children  and Himself as Father – which was why he risked his own son to make that happen. Talking about God skirts the issue and makes it all a bit comfortable.

And in crisis – talking about God doesn’t really ‘cut the mustard’ – does it? – it only takes you so far?  – do not get stuck in religion like crows around graves –  but get moving – get praying – sing songs of praise and make your faith work for you and for the world.

A retired navy Chaplain who ministered during the Falklands war   said to me  – during peace time Navy people just want to hear about God – they want reassurances and insurances -  they want God at arm’s length –  all ‘tickety boo’ –was his expression. During conflict, particularly in battle – people suddenly  start talking to God ––in fear and suffering they - shout and scream to God – their prayers are direct often using very un-worshipful language too-  they  cry out for help and it is at that point that the real ministry begins.

We could wait for a crisis to shake our faith and perhaps that is the usual way?

In my own faith - I was transformed gradually from a person brought up as Christian from home and school – knowing about God and sometimes talking about Him and always hearing what He could do etc –the change, when I started instead to speak to God in prayer directly – that was where I began to experience about a living relationship with God and for me it was a gradual process.

So we can learn from this psalm how to make our faith personal and it can teach us to talk, walk and trust in the  God in a new way.

Finally the psalm reminds is to preserve despite mockery and bullying – not just from people but from the devil too!

CS Lewis says that the Christian believer says to God:  ‘thy will be done’ and God says to the non - believer ‘thy will be done’ – people will and are allowed to go their own way – hard as it is for loved ones - you can  only pray for them. The unrepentant are not going to understand your faith and they will laugh at you. So leave them to it and pray for them - let them mock and laugh, block and slander – us – we just carry on – have the faith to believe that God will sort things out.    

Also Never  believe the lie  that God is  not interested in you - or the ‘I am too much of a sinner for God to even look at me let alone hear what I say’ – do not accept that  kind of stuff! It is not true – Also do not believe that God cannot hear you because he is too busy with more important things going on – as impossible as it may seem and it is a matter of faith of course – God hears your every word and knew you before you were knitted together in your mother’s womb.

Verse 9 The Lord has brought me safely through birth – and I add – so why should God give up now on you?

To end this sermon – I want to remind us of the role of the great advocate – the small voice the wailing wind –the Holy Spirit –

Learning to speak to God increases our awareness of the Holy Spirit – as we participate in a two way conversation with God – the Spirit is in fact interceding for us! The working of the Holy spirit – the charismata – the grace, is another sermon but the outpouring of the Holy spirit comes by personal      ‘my’ invitation and is enabled through the sanctification of Christ. 

And the work and gifts of the Holy Spirit - again another sermon for another day – are free - but consider this now!  In John’s Gospel – Jesus describes the spirit as a wind that ‘you hear the sound of it but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going’ he says too that a wind can blow softly on a cheek or can have the force to tear down a house. Be aware, do not deny the force that is the Spirit but be expectant at all times because that quiet still gentle breeze touching you cheek might suddenly turn into thunderous wind that takes you up in its arms!

So– do not be afraid – there might be times when you feel abandoned and the intensity of suffering too acute to bear – but God will never forsake you when you call upon him – Speak to God as a father in the first person and do not be ashamed to say ‘my God’.  God wants to hear from you and He will always give you what you ask for. Call on Him in person – be intimate and in return listen to His words – be expectant and be surprised in both joy and in tears – because if God is for us who can be against us!

Amen 

Sermon 9th October 2016

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Adjoa Andoh-Cunnell, preaches. The reading is from Psalm 146. 

So lets start by singing and standing :Allelu Allelu Alleluia!
Praise ye the Lord!
.........
Anyone know why we started with that church work out?
Of course Psalm 146 which we’re looking at today is the first of the last 5 psalms, 146 through 150 known collectively as the Hallelujah psalms - since they all begin and end in Hebrew with the phrase Hallelujah!
As that song neatly explains the translation of Hallelujah is - Praise ye Hallelu the Lord jah which is a shortened version of the sacred name for God that cannot be pronounced according to Jewish tradition.
What do we think the writer of these Psalms may be trying to tell us by praising the Lord at the beginning and the end of the psalm?
Perhaps that at the beginning and end of everything we are to praise God Of everything..... In all circumstances..
I had cause to cry Hallelujah recently...
As some of you may know I live in a 1964 ex council townhouse, garage at the bottom, flat roof on the top...
Well by May this year our flat roof was giving us the added bonus of allowing it to rain outside and inside our house..specifically just behind the wardrobe

in the corner of our bedroom, where it was hard to get a bucket and where the wallpaper was beginning to peel from the previous times it had rained before we noticed our special inside rain....
So in the end we had to bite the bullet and get a new roof - flat rooves may be great in the holy land but in rainy England they need replacing quite a lot I have now discovered..
Anyhow to look on the bright side we thought we’d copy our neighbour and get a skylight put in as well, because the great thing about flat rooves with skylights, is that you can climb out onto them and the views from round here over London are spectacular.
So one new roof with skylight later, eek! - last month I decided to take advantage of a particularly scorching afternoon to climb out onto this new roof complete with sunbed, iphone, iPad, cushions, suncream, snacks and drinks, and a good book.
The view was clear and breathtaking, and I cried out my first Hallelujah to have a roof that no longer gave us inside rain, but instead gave us a beautiful view of the city we love.
At around 8pm as the sun dipped, I decided it was time to go down and lugged all my bits and pieces over to the skylight and proceeded to clamber down the ladder, planning to haul various bits & pieces in with me.
As I reached over for the biggest item, the folded sunbed, the ladder, of course it did, lurched away from under me and I just had time to grab the lip of the skylight as it crashed to the landing floor some 10 feet below.

As the ladder fell the dog shot downstairs where she remained, no rushing off to tell anyone “what Lassie she’s trapped in the mineshaft..” No handy husband at home, no handy children, just me swinging precariously from a brand-new skylight..doing my best Simone Beiles impression...
I should add, being a 1960’s town house, built when open plan was all the rage, meant that should I drop, I wouldn’t simply and on the landing below, but would hurtle past it and down the open plan staircase, crashing into the iron frame piano sat at the bottom, into the living room.
Not good - so to my second cry of Hallelujah - at the beginning and end of everything requires the psalmist - Hallelujah this time for the lip of the skylight from which I was swinging, combined with the Hallelujah cry of “help Lord I can’t hold on for much longer, what with my dodgy shoulder and the fact that I am very scared of dropping and doing severe damage to myself against the piano and being licked mercilessly by the bewildered pooch as I lie there.
Then a third Hallelujah, for the collected essays of Raymond Chandler lying on the top of a pile of books on the bookcase on the landing, under the skylight.
So skylight me hanging stairs piano bookcase, pile of books.
I wasn't tall enough for my dangling feet to reach the bookcase, but I could just get the toes of one foot to that pile of books -
please Lord don't let the pile tip off onto the floor,

please Lord if I swing along and swap feet and get the other foot to the doorhandle of the bathroom, don't let me fall, let me get the bathroom door open, help me balance on the lintel and clamber down the bannister - Hallelujah for Raymond Chandler and his essays, for the bathroom door handle being easy to open with a foot and all the other helps that got me back onto the landing..
Hallelujah!....Only to realise that guess what - all my stuff ,iphone, iPad etc, was still on the roof and I had to climb back up the ladder to get them and then again to wipe off the grubby hand prints and ladder skids on the new paintwork..but thats another story...
So why am I sharing with you my tale of rooftop scary-daring-do?
Well I suppose because Psalm 146, my chosen Psalm for this series, calls on us to praise the Lord in all things, and in all things it is sometimes hard to see what is praiseworthy.
At the beginning of this selection from The Psalms Cameron told us that the psalms are to help us to engage with God, in our circumstances as they are. He spoke of the 4 psalmist cries of “You’re great”; “Help!”; “I trust you”; or “Thank you
and of the length of time, centuries, over which the psalms were brought together into one book. Psalms, songs that touch the heart in a way that only a piece of music or a song may touch us at a very deep level.

As we reach the last 5 psalms in the collection we meet with a psalmist, mature in faith, who has reached a place where they are wholeheartedly able to embrace that praising of God in all circumstances.
We do not know who the psalmist was who wrote these last psalms. We do know that no psalm that is labeled as a psalm of David contains the phrase Hallelujah. So probably not David then. It is thought most likely that this psalm was written after the Babylonian exile; so after the children of Israel had suffered a great deal and for many years. The Psalmist was then perhaps a believer in the God of Jacob, mature in faith from the experience they had lived through, a believer who understood what it was experience the blessing of God in hard times.
The late Chinese church-planter, Watchman Nee, titled a sermon of his on Jesus’ Feeding of the 5000, “Expecting the Lord’s Blessing”.
Watchman Nee, or to give him his Chinese name Ni Tuosheng, talks of the extraordinary nature of our creator God, of a power and an understanding so far beyond what we can imagine, that we frequently shrink God to human size rather than letting God be God and all that comes from him.
Ni’s main point was that
“The meeting of need is not dependent on the supply in hand, but on the
blessing of the Lord resting on the supply...divine activity that is not based on human activity...(but is) a working of God that is not based on our work....

He cannot do the unexpected for us while we are expecting results in proportion to our own arduous efforts.... [His blessing] is expecting Him to work out of all correspondence to what we might reasonably expect.”
He asks,“Do we really prize the Lord’s blessing?”.
Those with children at the Greycoat Hospital will recognise the sentiment in the school motto God Give The Increase, from 1 Corinthians 3:6,
‘I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.’
Do we really prize that blessing, that godly increase?
Do we praise our heavenly Father for it?
In ‘The Message of Psalms’ Michael Wilcock paraphrases verse 2 as
“I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath”.
This feels like a rich paraphrase full of determination, Wilcock adds that this psalmist’s
‘hallelujahs are not empty-headed repetitions, triggered by certain kinds of atmosphere or music. Nor are they songs for the good days only.. (the psalmist has)...learned to look for the facts behind the appearances, and to see the Lord at work in everything: the sun that is always shining, even if it is behind the clouds or on the other side of the world.’
The psalmist makes this determined resolve to “praise my Maker while I’ve breath” because, as verses 7-9 clearly show, the Lord’s people are not exempt from difficult trials. They are oppressed, hungry, imprisoned, blind, bowed down, strangers, fatherless, and widowed. There are wicked people in the world who persecute them (v. 9).

Prizing the Lord’s blessing, seeing every blessing and trial coming through His loving hand, praising my Maker while I’ve breath.
Can we do this?
Can we move God-ward through all that life sends us, can we hold to the mature psalmist’s confidence in the Creator beyond our understanding, and have faith in the sunshine behind the clouds, like Moses, like Martin Luther King, knowing that the promised land is there even if we cannot see or fathom it?
You may be in the grip of Hurricane Matthew like the poor people of Haiti, with over 900 people dead, or off on a wonderful trip, young and full of hope the future rolling out ahead of you.
You may be mourning the loss of a beloved as we are mourning our dear Betty Baxter or // welcoming the arrival of a new baby// welcoming into our church family two little girls, as we are doing this morning with Matilda and Beatrix.
We may be stunned by the cruelty and unfairness of what life is throwing our way, we may worn down by relentless struggles,
We may be overwhelmed by unexpected joy and love,
Nevertheless in the depth of our sorrows and our joys, our faith will mature as the psalmist’s has,
our faith will sustain & embolden us as it sustains & emboldens the psalmist.

And we will grow in that faith through daily praising our unwavering God at all times and in all circumstances - mirroring His love for us at all times and in all circumstances.
That unchanging, unwavering and eternal nature of God, His unswerving presence from before the creation until the end of time is captured in verse 10 of this Hallelujah Psalm’s
10 The Lord is king forever.
Your God, O Zion, will reign for all time.
Praise The Lord.
In the eternal nature of God is found the confidence and the comfort of the Psalmist
There is a wonderful four-year-old video of a journey from face to space that went viral after being posted on Facebook, on the 'The Science World' page in April this year.
A woman is lying on a sunny lawn gazing up at the sky. The camera begins on her face zooms out so you can see her lying on the lawn and then keeps zooming out. We see the the lawn and house, then street ,then the area of town, the whole town, the whole state, the whole country, then the whole planet and then galaxy after galaxy after galaxy, further and further back, earth a distant disappearing point of light and on and on through milky ways and galaxies revealing the universe, one billion light years away from Earth.. At this point the journey is reversed slowly zooming in through the light years

through the galaxies, milky ways, our solar system, the earth, the continent the country, the region, the town, the area, the street, the house and garden, the lawn, the woman, and closer into her face, into her eye and closer still, through the retina and on and on through cells and molecules down to minute detail until uncannily it looks as if we are again one billion light years away viewing the distant galaxies. It was created by astrophysicist Danail Obreschkow at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research at the University of Western Australia and it is well worth a watch.
Beyond its technical brilliance, it is a very moving piece of footage, it made me think about the oneness of God’s unfathomable extraordinary creation.
It made me think about the blink of an eye that is the breadth of our lives seen from God’s perspective and yet the minute detail in which he created and knows us - every hair on our head we are told.
God creator and holder of the universe, and yet as we begin to discover more about the nature of God’s creation, the more extraordinary it is, as witnessed recently by the Rosetta space probe, travelling for 12 years through space, sending back mind-blowing images and information about the worlds beyond and by its brilliant recent landing on a hurtling comet. Thinking of that probe and of that video makes this Psalm sing out
3 Don't put your trust in human leaders; no human being can save you.
4 When they die, they return to the dust;
on that day all their plans come to an end.

5 Happy are those who have the God of Jacob to help them and who depend on the Lord their God,
6 the Creator of heaven, earth, and sea, and all that is in them.
God is unchanging always present, beyond our imagining and yet our closest most intimate companion, the tiniest molecule in the human body and yet a billion light years away. Where else would we put our trust and our incomprehension?
As the psalmist encourages we are to depend entirely not on human leaders but on the Lord our God.
Does that mean we are to seize up, cease all activity, disengage with the world, because all is in God’s hands, so we don't need to lift ours to help others or be open to receive their helping hand?
Does that mean since we are living according to the will and plan of the creator of the universe, that when we reflect on the arrival of Hurricane Matthew, the unravelling of Syria and the dreadful news from Aleppo, the flood of refugees from the middle east, South East Asia, Africa, we again drop our hands and shrug, it is God’s will.
Surely not.
Reflecting on the devastating 2004 Tsunami as it was happening, Australian Theologian, Bill Loader observed

‘Insurance policies would call this "an act of God". For some this would have to be, since God is "in control". True, the notion that all is planned gives comfort to some. It is a kind of fatalism. I can begin adjusting. I can let things be. I can't change them. But it makes as little sense to claim that God sends tsunamis as it does to claim that God sends invading cancer.’
Loader argues that our hearts cry out to God in times of great sorrow or suffering not because we think God sends tsunamis or cancer, but because in God, is our way of speaking of the things that touch us most profoundly.
He writes
‘we want to cry out to God and cry out with God. We want to believe that God is not disinterested. It is a conversation of the soul, our deep inner being. O God, hear our grief! O God, help these people! O God help me!’
Loader calls that yearning, that need to cry out, ‘compassion, the very being of God.’
It is perhaps through that godly compassion he writes of, that we connect to a deep love for other people and for our world; a love that joins us to each other and to God. God in the tiniest moment of a life and God beyond the furthest reaches of the galaxies.
In that compassion and love we see God and it is in resistance to that compassion and love, that we understand sin.

In the moments of deepest pain, of loss, of vulnerability in our own lives, in the lives of those around us and in the world beyond us, we reconnect to what really matters and in the end that is about connecting to God.
O God, hear our grief! O God, help these people! O God help me!’
I wonder if the psalmist writing these final Hallelujah psalms, a mature believer now, had reached that moment of connection with God?
A connection borne out of deep vulnerability, suffering and endurance that brought the Psalmist to a place of God’s compassion and love?
The place that enables them to praise God in all things, to understand that our help lies in God alone, to understand that we are to connect with God’s creation with that same love and compassion as our ever faithful creator. Just as God
7 upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.
so should we
just as
The Lord sets prisoners free,
so we should work for the freedom of the imprisoned to live the life of abundance they were created for,
8 Just as God lifts up those who are bowed down,
so should we

just as God
9 watches over the foreigner
and sustains the fatherless and the widow, so should we
just as God
frustrates the ways of the wicked.
so should we.
Here is our role model, the one who made us, the universe and everything in it, our mentor, our guide, our beloved.
The One with whom we connect, the one to whom we cry out, the one who sustains us through everything, the one to whom we offer continuous praise in all circumstances, in all our sorrows and all our joys.
Prizing the Lord’s blessing,
seeing every blessing and trial coming through His loving hand,
and in our cries to God, connecting with his love and compassion for the world.
So my prayer is that we may all in faithful confidence be able to assert
I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath.
For everywhere we are at home with the maker of all things.
Hallelujah!
Praise ye the Lord!
Amen.