Lent 3: What kind of Temple? A sermon by Kevin Bright

Exodus 20.1-17, 1 Corinthians 1.18-25, John 2.13-22

One of many frustrations in business, particularly with larger organisations is getting decisions made in good time. Often there are so many layers of bureaucracy to work through that you end up wondering exactly who is responsible for giving the appropriate authorisation. I know I get more like Victor Meldrew every day but the other thing that really winds me up is faceless corporations where you are a number in the system and they ask you to hold as they transfer you to their call centre!

Contrast this with the experience of the Israelites at Mount Sinai. They get their instructions direct from the CEO. Not Moses interpretation, no messengers, no prophets, and no preachers putting their own bias on his instructions here we find God speaking directly to his people. If they want a meaningful relationship with God, one which reflects his glory, then the Ten Commandments set out the essential ingredients for this.

Everyone will find something to challenge them here, and the most difficult challenges may change over generations. We might need to update our ideas about coveting what belongs to our neighbour I thought to myself yesterday as he took his convertible Porsche out of the garage for a spin in the Spring sunshine.

Possibly one of the biggest challenges of our generation, partly because of working practices which assume you are always available and partly due to economic pressures to minimise down time is finding ‘Sabbath time’. The priest and author David Adam says ‘that this must be the first generation which has sought to destroy the sanctification of time.’ It’s an elegant description of something which we will be much the poorer for if we lose, which risks breaking the natural rhythms of life which need to include stillness and rest as well as time set aside for God.

You’ll probably be aware that several people from our church will be confirmed on Palm Sunday this year, 3 weeks away, on 1^st April, April Fools Day. Paul’s letter talks about perceptions of foolishness and he was a living example of what it meant to be a fool for Christ. Saul of Tarsus was originally a strict Jew and Roman citizen, he persecuted the early church but eventually he gave all this up, taking the new name of Paul as he set about building up Christian communities. As a result the Jews turned against him and he suffered imprisonment at the hands of the Roman authorities. To any person who didn’t know about the compelling love of God through Christ he would have certainly appeared a fool but he knew he was doing the right thing and was happy to be called a fool for Christ’s sake.

If the Jewish authorities thought Paul a fool what label would they give to Jesus himself after his actions in the temple? If we saw this happening in a public place today we would be shocked but this wouldn’t come near to how the Jews felt as the man from Galilee who was challenging people to turn their values upside down was now doing the same thing with their tables, as well as tipping out coins and driving animals away.

It’s worth considering what the temple was and what it symbolised for the Jewish people in order to appreciate how truly shocking Jesus behaviour was. In several places it has been described as the beating heart of Judaism, their centre around which all else is organised. It was the place where the people could meet with their god, make sacrifices and receive forgiveness. It was the centre of Israel’s national and political life and the power of the Chief Priests extended far beyond its walls.

Isaiah had said the temple should be ‘a beacon of hope and light for the nations, the city set on a hill which could not be hidden’ but it had become a place of systematic injustice and corrupt economic gain.

Things had come to a head at the festival of Passover. Large numbers of people would travel long distances to attend and offer their sacrifices. Sometimes despite transporting an animal over a long distance the temple authorities would rule that it was of unsuitable quality to offer as a sacrifice and it would therefore be necessary to buy one from them as a replacement. This would test your patience in itself but as you reluctantly reach for your coin bag they advise you that it is not possible to use Roman coins with the emperor’s head on it that would be idolatry, but you are permitted to change your coins for special temple currency. Your early ‘Bureau de Change’ had arrived only it wasn’t being operated as an open commercial enterprise it was charging a margin to worshippers under the pretence of being part of their religion.  The crowds for the festival were being ripped off in the same way the some people propose charging 10 times the normal price for renting their flat out during this summer’s Olympics.

Jesus fully understood all this and more so his actions were not those of some madman. As Jesus had preached and acted out his ministry he felt called to be what the temple should have been for the people, particularly those disadvantaged and oppressed. He was offering them a new way which didn’t involve the temple building which had been carefully constructed over forty six years. He offered a new dwelling place for the glory of God and all could have access to God through him. Of course all this meant that he was set on a collision course with the authorities.

We can see the purpose in Jesus actions but can we still find ourselves in the story today? Can we feel that we’ve sometimes exploited the needs and lack of alternatives facing others? Or perhaps we feel that we are on the receiving end and wish that someone would stand up for our concerns.

I don’t think Jesus would be too interested if we told him that we feel we pay too much tax or that the neighbour’s cat keeps messing up our garden but I feel certain that he is still enraged when he sees the likes of Assad in Syria or Gaddafi before him in Libya living with every imaginable luxury whilst their own people suffer and are brutally oppressed when they speak out.

A lot of us will own up to getting grumpy and moaning about things we see and read about but how often is that translated into justifiable anger which motivates us to do something radical in an effort to make it better? I’m not suggesting that you storm into the offending organisation and start smashing the place up but I’m sure you will admit that it’s so much easier to shout at the TV than it is to take positive action.

Whilst I’m not entirely clear of the aims of the ‘Occupy’ movement in both London and New York, if their objectives included a debate about corruption and greed then they have achieved something. Their anger and frustration manifested itself in mostly peaceful action and their location between St Paul’s Cathedral and the London Stock Exchange highlighted tensions which resonate with the temple.

The encouraging thing is that many among us do ‘get’ the many reasons why Jesus was furious and we have some great examples of reactions to suffering and injustice here in our own church community. Where children are seen suffering and facing danger some collect for the Children’s Society, where we see injustice and suffering in the poorest parts of the world some collect for Christian Aid, where we care about local democracy and accountability some serve on committee’s and Councils, where ex-servicemen seem abandoned many help though the British Legion and Help for Heroes.

When we stop to think about it many of us are actually doing something to act against the things which seem wrong and unfair and in doing so we join our actions with the righteous anger of Christ.

God leaves us to decide what sort of temple we choose to be in. There’s the type that fits our convenience and self interest or there’s the one that he inhabits. If we feel we’ve slipped into the former, Lent offers an excellent opportunity to move back to the temple in which God dwells.

Amen

Lent 2: Stuck in the middle

Genesis 17.1-7, 15-16, Psalm 22.22-30, Romans 4.13-25,Mark 8.31-38

There are some parts of the Bible which can feel like a bad joke, moments when we wonder what on earth God is doing. Today’s readings are a perfect example.

Here is Abraham, who has been called by God to leave his settled existence in the city of Haran in Mesopotamia, to go out into the wilderness of Canaan and found a new nation with his wife Sarah. But they are childless, and Abraham is already 70 when the call comes. Sarah too is well past the age of childbearing. How can they be the parents of a multitude when they aren’t even the parents of one? Nonetheless, seduced by this promise, they go. But decades pass, and still the child doesn't appear. God keeps promising – today’s reading comes nearly thirty years after that first promise – but nothing seems to be happening.

What is God up to?

The truth is that Abraham and Sarah are about as unlikely a pair of candidates for the founding of a nation as it is possible to imagine. There must have been plenty of young, fit, and fertile couples in Haran who could have done the job far better. Why did God have to choose them, and put them and those around them through so much misery in the process? What is the point?

And then there is Jesus in our Gospel reading. There's nothing obvious about God's choice of him as Messiah either. Born to an ordinary family in an out of the way part of the nation, with no connections and no influence; who is going to listen to him? Why not choose someone with some clout to start with? If this is God's master plan, then it doesn't look very masterful.  Still, by hard work, courage and dedication Jesus has managed to build up a considerable following by the time our Gospel reading is set. He has healed people all over Galilee, been acclaimed as a teacher, wowed the crowds with his stories, touched the lives of many individuals. St Peter has just had a moment of revelation. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” he has exclaimed. Jesus’ mission finally seems poised for take-off.

But suddenly he starts talking about being rejected and being killed. What's gone wrong? Surely this can't be God's plan. What would be the point of all that earlier hard work if it ends on a cross? It makes no sense to Peter and he lets Jesus know what he feels in no uncertain terms. There was a widespread conviction at the time that God's Messiah would be a triumphant leader. Indeed that was one of the ways you could tell that he was the genuine article, the real Messiah, that he would be successful in his mission, that his enemies – the enemies of God – would all fall before him. Suffering and death were signs of failure. A crucified Messiah was a contradiction in terms.

With hindsight we know, of course, that Abraham and Sarah do indeed have a child in the end, and Jesus’ death on the cross is followed by the resurrection. But that is no comfort to Abraham and Sarah, or to the confused disciples at this point. As far as they can see, disaster is looming, and all their efforts have been for nothing. How stupid must Abraham and Sarah feel, repeatedly insisting that God has promised them a child at their age, when that child shows no sign of coming? And the disciples are surely starting to think they have been taken for fools by this man in whom they placed so much trust but who seems now to be hell-bent on a confrontation that is bound to lead to his death. No wonder they all run away when he is arrested.

What the Bible describes in these stories is an experience I suspect we have all had at some time, that moment , stuck in the middle of something, when we think, “What’s the point?” Perhaps we have been slogging away at some job which seems to be going nowhere, or fighting some battle which we are beginning to realise we will never win. We question why we ever started, how we were so stupid to ever think it was going to work. Cynicism and despair eat away at our energy, and it is tempting just to throw in the towel.

The Roman Christians St Paul writes to probably asked that question often.  There they are, living at the very heart of the Roman Empire, dealing daily with an oppressive regime the likes of which we can scarcely imagine, seeing their friends and family arrested and dragged off to die squalid, degrading and terrifying deaths in the arena. It must have often seemed to them that this new Jesus movement hadn’t got a hope in hell of surviving. There are so few of them, and the forces ranged against them are so great. And did it really matter anyway? Was this message really worth dying for, or was it all a waste?

Paul points them to these stories of Abraham, Sarah and Jesus to help them through these hopeless moments. Don’t read into what is happening to you a message that you have failed, or that God has, he says. God is still with you, just as he was with Abraham, Sarah and Jesus at their lowest moments. In fact, God’s choice of these unlikely heroes and the experiences they go through only serves to underline the fact that this is God’s work, not theirs. Through Abraham and Sarah he is showing that this nation is his gift, not something that they have earned or won for themselves. In Jesus’ willingness to face a humiliating death rather than go back on his message, he is demonstrating his absolute solidarity with those who most need him, those who are condemned and cast out.

Today's Psalm put it in a nutshell. “He does not despise … the poor in their poverty”  It's not just that he wants to help those who might, with a bit of a hand up be able to sort themselves out  and give something back to repay the investment. There is nothing calculating in his commitment. He does not despise the poor in their poverty, it says. Even if they are never going to amount to anything in the world’s eyes they are still precious to him. Again and again in the Bible we see God coming to people who are helpless; slaves and exiles, childless women, refugees, the discarded and discredited of the world, those who just don't count and don't matter to others. God is still committed to us even when we have nothing to offer, even if we will never have anything to offer. It’s not just the deserving poor he loves, but the undeserving poor too. He loves them, not because they can return his love, but precisely because they can’t, and so they need him all the more.

And it’s not just about poverty of material things either. It’s about poverty of spirit, poverty of aspiration, poverty of ability, poverty of hope, poverty of imagination – all the things that keep people down, the things that they may never be able to do anything about. None of these things is a barrier to God’s love.

Of course it is good if we come through, if we grow, if we succeed, if we find peace and the assurance that it has been worth the struggle. It is good to get to the moment of resurrection. It is good to discover that Sarah did, eventually, give birth. But those are Easter moments, and for now we are still in the midst of Lent, not sure what will happen in our own unfinished stories, not knowing if it will all come out right one day, still living with the questions and the doubts.

Yesterday quite a few of us went to visit Canterbury Cathedral. We heard about Thomas Becket, the medieval Archbishop who was famously murdered there by a bunch of knights who thought they were doing their king a favour. “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” he had exclaimed in exasperation, probably never intending that anyone would take him literally. But those knights had done just that, and soon Thomas lay struck down in the Cathedral and dying. What a singularly pointless way to go – all for what was probably a misunderstanding. After Thomas’ death the king repented, very publicly, in sackcloth and ashes, and the Cathedral itself became a centre of pilgrimage. Many people found strength or healing by visiting the site of his death. Much good came from his death, but Thomas didn’t know that as he fell and lay there dying. All he knew was that his life was being snuffed out on the cold stone, snatched from him for nothing, when he was unprepared.

In modern times too, many have died as political prisoners at the hands of unjust regimes – did they have any idea that their deaths were anything but a useless waste? Did they think that one day the cause for which they fought would triumph? They couldn’t know. They were stuck in the middle of the story, and I am sure that many have sat in prison cells wondering if their sacrifice had any point to it at all.

The good news for them, and for us too when we feel like that – stuck in the middle of a story we can’t know the end of – is that whether our lives end in outward success or failure, acclaim or ignominy, whether we achieve our goals or feel that we have never really amounted to anything in the world's eyes, we are just as precious to God, who "does not despise the poor in their poverty". Today, in mid-Lent, let’s not hurry on to the happy ending of Easter. Let’s take the time to realise that just where we are – even in poverty, of spirit, of money, of hope – God is with us and God loves us, and then perhaps we can let Easter come in its own proper time.

Amen

Lent 1: Seeing God afresh. A sermon by Kevin Bright

Mark1.9-15, Genesis 9.8-17, 1 Peter 3.18-22

I was listening to BBC London on Shrove Tuesday as I was driving home from work this week on and the discussion was about whether people still observe Lent.

Pancake Day still seems popular together with many pancake races all over the country but does it signify a final indulgence before a period of self denial and reflection or is it just a good reason for a bit of fun?

The Church of England commissioned some research sampling over 2000 British adults and discovered that over one fifth intended to observe Lent in some way though around one third of them hadn’t decided what they would give up or take up when the survey was conducted around 10 days prior to Ash Wednesday.

Women were more likely to observe Lent than men (27% versus 20%), with age-based observance peaking, perhaps surprisingly, among the 18-24s (30%). Does this suggest that Lent is making a comeback?

Of the 68% planning to observe Lent in 2012 who had also got as far as deciding what they would do the most popular choices were as follows

 ■Try to do more positive/kindly acts (21%)

 ■Give up chocolate or other treats (17%)

 ■Stop shopping for non-essential items (17%)

 ■Give money to charity (10%)

 ■Take up doing something spiritual like praying or reading the Bible (9%)

 ■Stop swearing (9%)

 ■Give up alcohol (8%)

 ■Cut back on social media/gaming (7%)

 ■Volunteer for a charity (7%)

 ■Stop smoking (6%)

 ■Something else (4%)                                  

The radio programme read out all sorts of calls, emails, texts and tweets saying what people were planning on giving up or doing, one even stating that he was giving up religion for Lent!

The clear message is that many people want to use this point in the Christian calendar as a catalyst for something positive. Giving up booze or treats can only be a good thing but having regained our self discipline we often find that we can go further and deeper and ask ourselves really challenging questions like what am I here for, what really matters to me?

In Mark’s gospel we heard ‘as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart’. What could that mean? In physical terms I can only imagine the clouds and skies parting to reveal something otherwise unseen. The imagery might be a starting point but we need to go much further than that to realise that it’s about a whole new dimension in our relationship with God. It’s challenging to find the right words because it can be a personal thing but some may have glimpses in such moments as when they suddenly realise that God has a purpose in their life, for others it may come from a sense of knowing that they are truly loved by God in the same way that Jesus heard at the time of his baptism.

As we go through lent let’s heighten our awareness of those moments when heaven is torn apart for us, when we can see things afresh, often uncovered by breaking the routine that allows us to relax into our indulgences.

Mark’s gospel points the way. Its direct punchy style is like a shaft of sunlight highlighting a single object. Our attention is focussed on Jesus and what Lent can be about for those of us too absorbed in daily routines to see it for ourselves.

Jesus urges us to draw closer to God when he invites us to ‘repent and believe in the good news’. At the beginning of lent this might mean stop doing what you know is wrong or get off your backside and do those things you keep meaning to get around to and do it because you trust in me and believe that I am the good news.

When we travel back to the events in Genesis we find more reasons to trust God as we hear how he makes his covenant with creation after the flood, not just with Noah and his descendants, not even all future human beings but with every living creature. It’s a reminder to us to look beyond ourselves, beyond the human obsessions expressed through our media and rediscover the connection between humanity and all else God has made.

When I was quite a bit younger I went camping in Australia with some locals who had become friends. They told me that wherever possible if you get bitten by a spider try and catch it so you can get the correct anti-venom, particularly if it’s a funnel web spider mate. I awoke in the early hours of one morning to feel something quite big crawling across my face, not being sure if he had bitten me whilst I slept I thought I’d better catch him or her so I closed my hand around the creepy intruder and found my torch. As I gingerly opened my hand I was relieved to see that it was the largest cricket I’ve ever set eyes upon, with some relief I flung it out into the night and tried to get off to sleep. 

I was reminded of these events when I read the part where Mark tells us that Jesus ‘was with the wild beasts’. I suspect that there were hazards above and beyond poisonous spiders and the thought of living outdoors for 40 nights with wild animals prowling around is hardly one that would let most of us get a good nights sleep. There is a sense that Jesus is plunged into a time where the safety nets of dwellings and people to protect him have been removed. With all else stripped away he is back to the state where he must rely upon God, trust him and accept his will.

We know that it goes against our natural instincts to move away from what we know, what we feel safe with even when called to do so but Jesus shows us that at certain times it is the right thing to do.

Whilst Mark’s gospel doesn’t talk of fasting nor of specific temptations as Matthew and Luke do we hear a confident sounding Jesus arrive in Galilee to begin his ministry after his time in the desert. It is clear that time spent in the wilderness offers us potential to grow closer to God if we are prepared to let go of some of our routines and make time where we can be open to his message.

For most of us entering the wilderness will not mean camping out in the cold but we will need to find space where pretence fades away and honest vulnerability becomes possible. Public image will become unimportant and we will find freedom to confess the sometimes complicated and messy reality that is our lives. Maybe the temptations we have to overcome should focus more towards our fundamental attitudes, for example our inclination to turn a blind eye to the needs of some, or our willingness to exploit each other.

Of course some of our wildernesses are not of our own choosing. Wildernesses are thrust upon us or it may seem we are thrust into them. Challenges in life can often make us see how vulnerable we are, and whilst it’s not always obvious at the time, we will come to a point where it is clear that we worship a God who keeps his promises.

We know from experience that our faith does not spare us suffering and distress but we also know that our path has been trodden by Jesus before and that he is still there to share it with us today.

My prayer is that Lent will be a journey where the heavens may be parted for each one of us, that we may see God afresh and arrive at Easter knowing that like Jesus, we are God’s beloved children and with us he is well pleased.

Amen

Beloved dust: a sermon for Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday 2012

Ash Wednesday is good news – in some ways it is the service in the Church’s year which I think is the most hopeful of all. I know it might not seem like it on the surface.  It’s not a cheerful occasion, to be sure. We are reminded in no uncertain terms in our readings and in our prayers of the darkest realities of human life – our vulnerability and fallibility, the sheer scale and complexity of the mess we can get ourselves, each other and our world into, and how hard it is to get ourselves out of those messes on our own.  We are reminded of our own mortality too. “Dust you are and to dust you shall return” are the traditional words that accompany the imposition of ashes.

So why is it good news?

It is good news because when we accept those truths we discover that there are a whole lot of other truths which come with them. 

When I accept the truth that I have done wrong, I can also discover the truth of God’s reaction to my sin  – not condemnation and abandonment, but love and forgiveness and healing. There’s no way to know that while I am still pretending to be perfect and hoping no one will spot what I am hiding.

When I accept the truth that I don’t know it all and can’t do it all, I can discover the truth that, actually, I never needed to. I don’t need to be superhuman. I don’t need to be God. Someone else has that covered.

And when I accept the truth that I am dust, and will come in the end to dust, I can discover that I am part of the earth, part of creation. That is good news, because, when we look at the Bible we discover that this creation of his is God’s delight. He declared it to be good, he loved it so much that he sent his son to be part of it, alongside us in our vulnerability and frailty, to suffer and to die with  us.  I may be dust, but I am beloved dust, dust that God breathed his own life into.

This week we have all been reminded in the starkest way of the fragility of life as we have heard of Malcolm Fox’s sudden and unexpected death. When such a thing happens it tends to make us all feel a bit more insecure than usual, if we are honest. We like to feel powerful and in control – immortal and above the vagaries of disease and injury - but the truth is that we aren’t. Ash Wednesday reminds us, though, that in our powerlessness, in our weakness, even in death, we are held by the hands of God in absolute and ultimate safety. Yes, we are dust, with all its limitations, but we are beloved dust and that is truly liberating.

Amen

A glimpse of glory

Sunday before Lent 2012          Breathing Space

 Mark 9.2-9

Today’s Gospel story, the story of the Transfiguration is always read on this Sunday in the year. It is the last Sunday before Lent begins. For the next six weeks or so, the Church’s mood is reflective and penitential – a time when we let ourselves become aware of what needs to change in us and in the world. Jesus turns his face towards Jerusalem, but just before he does so his followers have this vision of glory. It is the calm before the storm, the glimpse of heaven before the horror of the abyss. But we might very reasonably ask what good it is does. When Jesus hangs on the cross what difference will it make to Peter, James and John to have seen this?

The answer to that question is, apparently, none at all. It certainly doesn’t seem to have any effect on the way they respond. They all run and hide. They are in despair. It is not until after the resurrection that they talk about this episode, that it starts to make any sense to them. It doesn’t sustain them through the tough times at all – they don’t even mention it. When they most need it seems to have been wiped from their memories.

So what is the point of it at all? It doesn’t even seem to advance the plot.

To understand this tale we have to remember is that Mark isn’t just telling a story in his Gospel. He is telling a story for a particular group of people in a particular setting at a particular moment. The Gospels are not like books we might buy from a bookshop now, written for anyone to read, aimed at anyone who is prepared to pay for them, an unknown audience. They are very specific messages for very specific people. Mark knew the community or communities for which he was writing – he may have even been part of them – and that shaped what he said and how he said it. So when we hear the stories of the Gospel, we are hearing a story within a story. We shouldn’t just imagine the people and events that are described in them – Peter, James and John - we should also imagine that first audience sitting listening to them.

Let’s imagine that they are here with us too – sitting in these empty seats, an invisible congregation. They are living in the late 60’s AD, against a backdrop of considerable chaos and suffering. Some of them were originally Jewish, but now they are being expelled from the synagogues and from the communities they have grown up in. It’s a time of great tension for Judaism. Rebellions against Roman rule are breaking out, which will eventually lead to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Boundaries around the faith are being drawn ever more tightly, and these Jewish Christians are now beyond the pale. Others in this audience have Gentile backgrounds, but their lives are no easier. Under the Emperor Nero Christians are being persecuted. He blames them for the great fire of Rome in AD64 and many are being arrested and killed, burned alive to light up his evening entertainments. It is dangerous being a Christian. All the time our invisible audience is thinking “is it worth it?” “Am I risking my life, my family, my future for a lie?” They probably don’t feel noble or heroic, just confused and uncertain, mired in the squalor of fear. They easily forget what it was that drew them to this faith in the first place, and often feel like turning their backs on it.

So Mark tells them this story, a story about people who also felt like that – Peter, James and John – the first leaders of their church, so they will know they aren’t alone in that. When they saw Jesus arrested and killed, it made no sense to them, despite the fact that they had also seen the glory of God, not just in this vision on the mountaintop but also as Jesus had healed and taught. They had seen his love and his power, but still they fled in the opposite direction as fast as their legs would carry them when things started to go wrong, and felt that it had all been a waste. Only later, when they experienced the risen Christ did they start to see things in a new light. They discovered that death and disgrace don’t have the last word. They just seem to because they shout so loud.

We may not suffer the kind of persecution those early Christians suffered, but my guess is that all of us sometimes ask their questions when we struggle. “Is it worth me trying to act with integrity in a world which often seems to prefer to reward dodgy dealing and selfishness? Is it worth me trying to bring reconciliation between those who are at loggerheads? Is it worth me putting myself in the firing line, when I’ll probably get no thanks for it? Is it worth me trying to build up my community when the vast majority of people would rather just slump in front of the telly?”

Doing right doesn’t always feel right, but it always is right, and this story reminds us that though pain and sorrow have the loudest voices, they do not always tell the truth. It is God whose truth we really need to hear: “this is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.” In the silence tonight, let’s ponder the times when we have found it hard to know that, and pray for those who may be struggling to hear it today. Amen

Second Sunday before Lent 2012: Words of God

 

John 1.1-14, Proverbs 8.1, 22-31

I wonder what Jasper’s first words were. Can you remember? A wise midwife once told me to make sure my children’s first word was “Daddy”, so that that was what they would call out in the middle of the night…

It is exciting for parents when their children start to talk, whatever they say. Those early words are an important clue to their personalities, to their likes and dislikes, to what they are thinking. Actions matter too, of course, but words help to explain those actions. I know that Jasper is chattering away very well now, and that means you are getting to know him in a different way. If children aren’t able to communicate for some reason, it can be intensely frustrating for them. Not being able to talk, whatever age you are, can make you feel isolated. It’s much harder for people to know you if you can’t express yourself. Words matter.

Our Gospel reading today had a lot to say about words, or rather about the Word. It’s a reading we are more used to hearing at Christmas: it’s traditionally the final reading at Carol services, and it’s read at Midnight Mass too. That’s because it is John’s account of the coming of Jesus into the world. He doesn’t give us stories of shepherds and angels, or wise men and stars. He launches straight in with a piece of poetic theology in an attempt to capture what this man Jesus meant to those who had lived alongside him.

And John describes Jesus first and foremost as God’s Word. As I’ve said, words are ways of expressing ourselves, so John is telling us that Jesus was God’s expression of himself. In what he said and did, he showed what God was like, what mattered to him, what he cared about. John is saying here, “if you want to know God, look at Jesus – the word that sums him up.”

It is an extraordinarily powerful thing to say, especially as actually, there wasn’t anything very obviously special about Jesus. He wasn’t some kind of superhero, just a first Century Palestinian Jew from an artisan family in an ordinary village. There was no halo. There were no choirs of angels or processions of trumpets going before him. But John seems very convinced that God was speaking very powerfully through Jesus, and he gets that certainty from the fact that he was drawing on the stories of those who had been Jesus’ first followers, those who had lived alongside him and travelled with him. We don’t think John knew Jesus himself, but he would have had contact with those who had known him, and they could testify to the fact that knowing Jesus had transformed their lives. Many of them went on to face persecution and death because of their determination to live out and pass on the message they had learned from Jesus, so we can see how deep an impact he’d on them. You don’t take those risks for something you aren’t convinced of. In this flesh and blood, vulnerable human being, they’d had seen a love that they had never imagined, an acceptance which healed them. They had been drawn together into a community where it didn’t matter whether you were rich or poor, male or female, what you had done, or who you were – you belonged. They’d had a glimpse of the divine, something utterly beyond them, and they knew it. They didn’t understand it and they couldn’t explain it. But they knew it.

In Jesus they had seen God’s priorities – the priorities expressed in the Old Testament – lived out. There was a passion for justice, loving care and respect for those whom life had trodden down. That’s what brought Jesus into conflict with the authorities and got him crucified. In an age when might was right a Word that spoke out for the voiceless – the poor, the disabled, the outcast – wasn’t going to be one that those in power would want to hear. 

So here was God, they felt, embodied in human form. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

And the first reading we heard, from the book of Proverbs, essentially says the same thing in a slightly different way. It introduces us to Wisdom, personified as a woman, present with God from the beginning, sharing in his work of creation, present among human beings, close to them - “delighting in the human race”. God isn’t sitting on a cloud in the sky looking down on the world with disapproving judgement, says Lady Wisdom. He, and she, are right there in the thick of the world, rejoicing in it.

Now, all this is very well – lovely images, beautiful words – but what has it got to do with Jasper and his family today? What has it got to do with the rest of us, come to that?

It is this.

The God who spoke through Lady Wisdom, the God who spoke through Jesus, the Word made flesh, has not fallen silent now. He still speaks. A medieval mystical writer called Meister Eckhart once said “All creatures are words of God.”* Each of our lives can speak of God, passing on something of his love to others if we let that happen.  “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,” said John. Translated into plain English that means, if we want to be a part of what God is doing we can be. We can live as part of God’s family. We can show his family likeness in the things we do. When we love others, when we speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves, as Jesus did, we are being words of God to the world.

Today, as we bring Jasper for baptism, we are asking not just that God would bless him, but that through him God would bless us too. That he will be God’s word, that his life will count for something and make a difference.

To do that, though, he is going to need all the support he can get, so that his life can speak loud and clear of love and justice. He needs people to talk to him in order for him to learn to speak in the ordinary sense, people to tell him stories and read him books, talk to him about the world around him and build up his vocabulary. He also needs to hear the words of God before he can be a word of God himself. That involves all of us playing our part – his parents, his godparents, his family and friends, and the church too. We need to make sure he hears that he is loved and welcomed, so he can grow up to love and welcome others. He needs to hear that what he does matters, so he can grow up to act with integrity. He needs to hear that when he gets things wrong it isn’t the end of the world, that he can be forgiven, so he can learn to forgive others too.

The Bible says that Jesus was, supremely, God’s Word to us, but it also says that each of us is a word that speaks loud and clear too. Let us pray that the story our lives tell is one that helps Jasper and all God’s children to grow as they should.

Amen

*German sermons DW53

Third Sunday before Lent: That hunted feeling...

 Mark 1.29-39

“Simon and his companions hunted for Jesus…”

I don’t know what your reaction was when you heard those words from our Gospel this morning, but mine was a feeling of tremendous sympathy. There’s something very poignant about this story. Jesus has begun his ministry in a whirlwind of activity in Capernaum. It all starts with Simon Peter’s mother in law, laid up with a fever. Jesus heals her, lifting her up not just physically but spiritually and emotionally too, giving her back her life. It’s a very personal favour, helping out a friend. But of course, everyone else gets to hear of it, and Jesus is besieged. By evening “The whole city was gathered around the door” says Mark. That has to be an exaggeration, but that’s how it feels. In Jesus’ world, what help was there for those who were sick or troubled? Precious little. Life was precarious, especially for those who were poor to start with. When word got out that here was a healer who could raise a woman from her sick bed just like that, no wonder people flocked to Jesus. And he responded. “He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.”

Finally, when the last patient went away healed, Jesus could rest. And then, in the early morning, we are told, while it was still dark, he crept out of the town to find some space to pray, some time to be with God. It was still dark, and no one saw him go. But as soon as dawn came, so did the next wave of sick people wanting his help. The disciples didn’t know what to do, but they knew that Jesus would. They were riding high on a wave of excitement. So out they go, and they hunt him down. The Greek word Mark uses is the same one you would use of hunting an animal, pursuing it until you catch and kill it. They don’t just look for him; they hunt for him, without any apparent thought for what his needs might be. And when they find him they tell him “everyone is searching for you…” Who is this “everyone”? Didn’t he have the “whole city” at his door the day before? Didn’t he work his way through every disease this town could throw at him then? Where have these people come from?

The fact is that human need was endless then, just as it is now. Anyone who works in any sort of public service – teachers, medical staff, social workers, emergency services - will know that. The job is never done. You can help one person, but there will be another and another and another coming along behind them. If you do something well, you can be sure that you will be expected to repeat the miracle, and do it better, and faster, and probably for less money next time…If you fail, it won’t escape attention. Everyone has an opinion on what you are doing. We’ve all been to school, so we think we are all experts on education. We’ve all been ill, so we know how the NHS should be run. We feel free to sit on the side lines, to criticise and demand. Today is Education Sunday, a day when we are asked especially to pray for those who work in that particular part of our public service – if you are a teacher or work in a school, thank you for all you do. We do know how hard it can sometimes be.

Those in other jobs are also hounded by the demands of work, of course, especially in the current financial climate. There is always pressure to do more with less, to work ever faster and smarter. It is easy to find yourself looking constantly over your shoulder, having to stay ahead of the competition all the time.  And whatever we are doing, if we have a conscience we want to be doing it well, not letting others down, working with integrity.

For those who have no work the pressures can be just as bad; despite what the tabloid press says, life on benefits, for the vast majority of people, is extremely tough. It can be frightening, humiliating and depressing.

And working or not, any of us can find ourselves beset with family struggles, health problems and a host of other worries which drive us to despair.

Sometimes we all feel hounded by our responsibilities, hunted down.  A pack of demands bays at our heels, and we don’t know where to turn to get away from them. All we want to do is sit and rest for a while. And that is where we find Jesus at this very human moment, hunted down by people who want one more healing, one more word of advice, just a minute of his time…

We could just stop there, and this story would have given us something precious to take away. Sometimes it is enough simply to recognise that Jesus has been where we are. We can see his footprints in our own human lives. But if we read on we discover that as well as sharing our exhaustion, Jesus’ example can also help us to deal with it, because somehow, from somewhere, he finds the strength not only to continue with his work, but also to broaden it. “Let us go on to the neighbouring towns,” he says “so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”  When I hear that response I think to myself, “Whatever Jesus was on, I need some of it too…!”

The clue, I think, is in what Jesus is doing when he is discovered by Simon. He hasn’t got up in the early morning to worry, or to plan, or to get some other jobs out of the way. He has got up in the morning to pray. It is prayer which is the key to the way he copes with pressure. That probably doesn’t sound very exciting or revolutionary, but it is true.

My experience is that churchgoers often have a very ambivalent attitude to prayer. Many people feel it is something they ought to do – like going to the gym or cutting down on cakes – but somehow they don’t get around to it. Praying at services is one thing, or in desperate situations, but regular prayer is really for the professionals – “say one for me, vicar!” People are often rather coy about prayer, as if it is an odd thing to do. And does it really matter that much? Will it really make such a difference?

According to Jesus, and looking at his example, yes, it will. Not because it will magically solve our problems, but because it will help us to see them in a new light, to set them in a new context. When we are feeling hunted, in particular, it seems to me that prayer can do two things which nothing else quite achieves.

Firstly it reminds us, quite simply, that God is there. When Jesus prays he re-discovers again and again that he doesn’t have to fight singlehanded against the powers of darkness. He gives himself permission to need help, and to ask for that help. When we pray we do the same, and that’s tremendously liberating. I don’t have to save the world. I don’t have to have all the answers. I don’t have to know what to do. I can acknowledge my limits with great gratitude and relief.  Prayer helps us to cut ourselves some slack. Our hands can only hold so much – that’s how it should be – so we put ourselves, and those things which are hounding us, into the hands of a God who has no limits.

The second thing that happens when Jesus prays is that he draws on the strength of a whole community of faith. I say that because at this time the normal practice of prayer, which I am sure Jesus followed, was to pray seven times a day, using words from the Bible, Psalms and set prayers. Of course people also simply poured out their hearts to God in extemporary prayer too, but the backbone of private devotion were these common prayers that were laid down and shared. Christians carried on with that pattern, and they still do. In monasteries there is a daily round of prayer, starting with Matins in the early hours and going through to Compline, which finished – completed - the day’s prayer.

You don’t have to be a monk or nun to pray in this way, though, and there are countless simplified and shortened versions of these daily forms of prayer around. I’ve included some in the leaflets on prayer on the table at the front.  So long as whatever you do suits you, becomes familiar - and you don’t beat yourself up if you don’t always stick to it - it will do fine.  Praying this way - leaning on an inheritance of faith and using words that reflect the struggles and the wisdom of those who have gone before you – reminds you that you aren’t ploughing a lonely furrow. You are slipping into a tide of prayer, like a river which flows on taking you with it. It isn’t the only way of praying – prayer can take many forms – but it is particularly valuable in those hunted moments, when you have nothing left of yourself to give.

If you have been watching the Sunday evening drama “Call the Midwife” you’ll have seen this sort of prayer in action. The programme is about a young and not particularly religiously minded midwife in the 1950’s who finds herself, more or less by accident, working in a nursing order of Anglican nuns in the slums of the East End of London. Time and again she comes to the end of her tether, weighed down by the pain and squalor she encounters. How can these nuns have endured it for decades, delivering babies through the Blitz, facing the suffering around them day after day? The answer gradually becomes clear to her. Punctuating each day, there is prayer, come what may. If they can gather together they do, but if not they pray alone, in the words they know their sisters in the convent are also using. It is an anchor that holds them, a context into which to put all the burdens of the day, a reminder that, whatever has happened, God is still there, and so are others.

In prayer we tell ourselves the truth; that we are not alone, that it isn’t all down to us. When the hounds of overwork, unrealistic expectation, failure or fear have hunted us down and got us cornered, alone and afraid, it is prayer that holds us steady, and prayer that will put us back on our feet again.

Amen

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01b2w74

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Call-Midwife-True-Story-1950s/dp/0753823837

“Call The Midwife: A True Story Of The East End In The 1950s” by Jennifer Worth.