Trinity 3 18

 

Ezekiel 17.22-end, Mark 4.26-34

 

Do you remember the Sycamore Gap tree, felled overnight last year in a completely baffling act of vandalism? I’d be surprised if you didn’t. It unleashed a huge wave of outrage and grief, and quite a lot of arguments about why we seemed to care more about this tree than the millions of people whose lives were destroyed by hunger and war every day.

That was a fair challenge, it seems to me, and yet, the loss of the tree, that particular tree, seemed touch a very deep nerve.

Trees are powerful like that. They figure in many different faiths and mythology. Norse myths tell of Yggdrasil, the world tree. The Buddha sat under a Bodhi tree and gained enlightenment, and of course the Bible starts with trees – the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What was it about the Sycamore Gap tree, though, which people found so powerful? It wasn’t an especially old tree, like those ancient yews which can often be found in churchyards, and which might be thousands of years old. It was planted, deliberately by the landowner only about 150 years ago. It wasn’t a rare tree either. The vicarage garden is full of sycamore seedlings, from the trees just beyond its boundaries, lodging themselves all over the place and putting tap roots down to Australia if I don’t spot them quickly enough. Frankly, if they want a replacement they can come and take their pick… It wasn’t even an English native tree. Sycamores were only introduced to England in Tudor times.

 

It was, it seems to me the fact that it stood alone, in that gap between the hills, strong and upright. You couldn’t miss it if you were there. It cried out to be photographed, and it was, thousands of times as well as appearing in feature films. People noticed it, proposed under it, celebrated births and mourned deaths under it. It was often described as iconic in the days after it was felled; its destruction seemed to symbolise the destruction of something far wider, and the fact that seedlings and cuttings have been grown from it a symbol of hope, and a refusal to accept that destruction. The first seedling was given to King Charles, as if those who did so were making a link between the tree and the spirit of the nation.

 

That’s something that the people of the Bible would have recognised, something which Ezekiel, in our first reading, was drawing on. He  was writing for a people in exile, a people who thought that they had lost their place in God’s heart and in his plan. They thought that the family tree of Israel, had been cut down at the roots, and was gone for ever. Not so, says Ezekiel. The kingdom of Judah, as they knew it, may have been destroyed, but God is more than capable of growing it again, he said, from the smallest of cuttings, and see it grow into a great cedar, the mightiest of trees. His vision is about restoration and hope, and it was a vision that was cherished in the centuries that followed, nurturing a belief that  Israel would eventually be recognised and honoured again, looked up to, just like a noble cedar of Lebanon would be, no matter how many foreign armies conquered it.

 

At the time of Jesus, yet another of those conquering armies had taken over Israel. Once again the nation was humiliated. That’s why Jesus’ message that a new Kingdom, the Kingdom of God , was coming was so welcome, and why many  people were so willing to acclaim him as the Messiah, the anointed one who would bring all this to pass.

 

But there is a twist in this story, a twist in the way Jesus tells his parable of the kingdom. The tree Jesus talks about isn’t a cedar of Lebanon. It isn’t even a 70 foot high sycamore. It’s a mustard tree. The precise identification is something biblical scholars argue over, but it’s probably a plant called Salvadora Persica, which is a scraggy, sprawly shrub that grows pretty well everywhere in the Middle East and right across to India. It isn’t fussy about where it grows, and will even grow in salty soil. In Israel it gets to a couple of metres tall, and left to its own devices can grow into dense thickets. It harbours plenty of wildlife, just as Jesus’ parable says, and has various medicinal and food uses, including making toothbrushes by shredding the ends of its fibrous twigs – it’s sometimes called the toothbrush tree – but there’s nothing very splendid about it. It might even turn into a bit of a nuisance if it is growing in the wrong place.

 

Jesus is very deliberately subverting the image of the noble cedar, the symbol of strength. His vision of the Kingdom of God isn’t of something outwardly impressive, all power and glory, but of a stubborn, wild, weedy, tangly shrub, which pops up wherever it wants to.

 

I can imagine a lot of scratching of heads at this. What’s the point of this kingdom if it is so – literally – weedy? If you are looking for something to symbolise your kingdom, something that will look good emblazoned on the armour, you’re not going to choose the mustard tree. And yet, this is a tree which persists. It survives. It welcomes. It provides many things, for many species – space, safety, nourishment - even toothbrushes.

 

What is Jesus telling us about God’s kingdom, God’s work, here? First, that it is God’s work, not ours. This is a tree which grows of its own accord, where it wants to. Second, this parable tells us that God can be at work in the most unlikely of places. He doesn’t need a carefully curated space. He shows up in people and in situations that may seem ordinary, or unattractive or even inconvenient to us. His kingdom doesn’t announce itself with trumpets and a golden glow of glory. Far more often it comes quietly, and is noticed only with those who have eyes to see it. Third, this parable says that the hallmark of God’s work is that it is always hospitable - it welcomes and includes. There is room in it for everyone, something it can give to everyone, if they are prepared not to turn their noses up at something so humble.

 

A faith which is focussed on tidying people up, sorting them out, controlling what they do and say and think may seem appealingly neat and controllable, but it isn’t the kind of faith Jesus came to share with us. He came to bring us life in all its fullness, life that affirms and welcomes the messy realities of life, that is less concerned about how it looks, and more concerned with making sure that everyone knows they are welcome and can belong. That “family tree”, that place of healing, and nourishment, belonging and connection truly is the greatest tree there is.  

Amen

 

Trinity 3 18

 

Ezekiel 17.22-end, Mark 4.26-34

 

Do you remember the Sycamore Gap tree, felled overnight last year in a completely baffling act of vandalism? I’d be surprised if you didn’t. It unleashed a huge wave of outrage and grief, and quite a lot of arguments about why we seemed to care more about this tree than the millions of people whose lives were destroyed by hunger and war every day.

That was a fair challenge, it seems to me, and yet, the loss of the tree, that particular tree, seemed touch a very deep nerve.

Trees are powerful like that. They figure in many different faiths and mythology. Norse myths tell of Yggdrasil, the world tree. The Buddha sat under a Bodhi tree and gained enlightenment, and of course the Bible starts with trees – the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What was it about the Sycamore Gap tree, though, which people found so powerful? It wasn’t an especially old tree, like those ancient yews which can often be found in churchyards, and which might be thousands of years old. It was planted, deliberately by the landowner only about 150 years ago. It wasn’t a rare tree either. The vicarage garden is full of sycamore seedlings, from the trees just beyond its boundaries, lodging themselves all over the place and putting tap roots down to Australia if I don’t spot them quickly enough. Frankly, if they want a replacement they can come and take their pick… It wasn’t even an English native tree. Sycamores were only introduced to England in Tudor times.

 

It was, it seems to me the fact that it stood alone, in that gap between the hills, strong and upright. You couldn’t miss it if you were there. It cried out to be photographed, and it was, thousands of times as well as appearing in feature films. People noticed it, proposed under it, celebrated births and mourned deaths under it. It was often described as iconic in the days after it was felled; its destruction seemed to symbolise the destruction of something far wider, and the fact that seedlings and cuttings have been grown from it a symbol of hope, and a refusal to accept that destruction. The first seedling was given to King Charles, as if those who did so were making a link between the tree and the spirit of the nation.

 

That’s something that the people of the Bible would have recognised, something which Ezekiel, in our first reading, was drawing on. He  was writing for a people in exile, a people who thought that they had lost their place in God’s heart and in his plan. They thought that the family tree of Israel, had been cut down at the roots, and was gone for ever. Not so, says Ezekiel. The kingdom of Judah, as they knew it, may have been destroyed, but God is more than capable of growing it again, he said, from the smallest of cuttings, and see it grow into a great cedar, the mightiest of trees. His vision is about restoration and hope, and it was a vision that was cherished in the centuries that followed, nurturing a belief that  Israel would eventually be recognised and honoured again, looked up to, just like a noble cedar of Lebanon would be, no matter how many foreign armies conquered it.

 

At the time of Jesus, yet another of those conquering armies had taken over Israel. Once again the nation was humiliated. That’s why Jesus’ message that a new Kingdom, the Kingdom of God , was coming was so welcome, and why many  people were so willing to acclaim him as the Messiah, the anointed one who would bring all this to pass.

 

But there is a twist in this story, a twist in the way Jesus tells his parable of the kingdom. The tree Jesus talks about isn’t a cedar of Lebanon. It isn’t even a 70 foot high sycamore. It’s a mustard tree. The precise identification is something biblical scholars argue over, but it’s probably a plant called Salvadora Persica, which is a scraggy, sprawly shrub that grows pretty well everywhere in the Middle East and right across to India. It isn’t fussy about where it grows, and will even grow in salty soil. In Israel it gets to a couple of metres tall, and left to its own devices can grow into dense thickets. It harbours plenty of wildlife, just as Jesus’ parable says, and has various medicinal and food uses, including making toothbrushes by shredding the ends of its fibrous twigs – it’s sometimes called the toothbrush tree – but there’s nothing very splendid about it. It might even turn into a bit of a nuisance if it is growing in the wrong place.

 

Jesus is very deliberately subverting the image of the noble cedar, the symbol of strength. His vision of the Kingdom of God isn’t of something outwardly impressive, all power and glory, but of a stubborn, wild, weedy, tangly shrub, which pops up wherever it wants to.

 

I can imagine a lot of scratching of heads at this. What’s the point of this kingdom if it is so – literally – weedy? If you are looking for something to symbolise your kingdom, something that will look good emblazoned on the armour, you’re not going to choose the mustard tree. And yet, this is a tree which persists. It survives. It welcomes. It provides many things, for many species – space, safety, nourishment - even toothbrushes.

 

What is Jesus telling us about God’s kingdom, God’s work, here? First, that it is God’s work, not ours. This is a tree which grows of its own accord, where it wants to. Second, this parable tells us that God can be at work in the most unlikely of places. He doesn’t need a carefully curated space. He shows up in people and in situations that may seem ordinary, or unattractive or even inconvenient to us. His kingdom doesn’t announce itself with trumpets and a golden glow of glory. Far more often it comes quietly, and is noticed only with those who have eyes to see it. Third, this parable says that the hallmark of God’s work is that it is always hospitable - it welcomes and includes. There is room in it for everyone, something it can give to everyone, if they are prepared not to turn their noses up at something so humble.

 

A faith which is focussed on tidying people up, sorting them out, controlling what they do and say and think may seem appealingly neat and controllable, but it isn’t the kind of faith Jesus came to share with us. He came to bring us life in all its fullness, life that affirms and welcomes the messy realities of life, that is less concerned about how it looks, and more concerned with making sure that everyone knows they are welcome and can belong. That “family tree”, that place of healing, and nourishment, belonging and connection truly is the greatest tree there is.  

Amen

 

Trinity 1 2024

 Deut 5.12-15, Mark 2.23-3.6

 

 

One of the most famous images in Western Art isn’t painted on canvas or hanging on a gallery wall. It is painted on a ceiling, high above its viewers. It was painted, rather reluctantly, by an artist who had at first refused the commission because he said he thought of himself as a sculptor, not a painter. He was only persuaded when he was told he could have free rein over what he painted. The result were the extraordinary frescos painted by Michaelangelo in Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, and in particular, the one I am thinking of,  the Creation of Adam, the first in a series of images inspired by the book of Genesis.

 

Everyone recognises it, even if they don’t know anything about art. Most people don’t even need to see the whole picture to recognise it. Just the outstretched hands of Adam and God, almost, but not quite, touching. It’s so famous that it’s been turned into a meme, altered, and captioned  in all sorts of ways over the years. I’ve seen versions where Adam is holding a pin card reader out to God, or where Adam and God are stroking a dog, photoshopped between them with the caption “And God said, ‘Let there be a good boy’ and there was a good boy”. And those are just some that can be shared in a sermon without getting me into lots of trouble.  It might all seem a bit irreverent, but in a way, those meme makers are doing exactly what the image meant them to, pondering what might be happening in that encounter with God, in that small space between God and humanity as they reach out to each other.

 

What brought that image into my mind today was a curious coincidence in our Bible readings. I doubt it was the main reason for these passages being chosen, but it caught my attention. Today’s Old Testament and Gospel reading both talk about outstretched arms or hands.

 

In the Old Testament reading, God calls the people of Israel, coming to the end of their wandering in the desert, to remember that it was he who rescued them from slavery in Egypt, “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm”. That’s why they must keep the Sabbath holy. It’s a weekly reminder that it wasn’t their actions which brought them their freedom, but God’s. Keeping the Sabbath, ceasing from work, helps us to see that we aren’t indispensable, that the world can turn without us, that we can’t do it all, have it all, save ourselves, however clever or hardworking we are,  and more than that -  we don’t have to. It reminds us that we are still loved and worthwhile even if we aren’t doing anything, if we can’t do anything, that we are loved and worthwhile in God’s eyes simply because we exist.

 

That’s a huge relief - especially for someone about to retire! - but more seriously, it ought to prompt us to think carefully about our attitudes towards anyone who finds themselves unemployed or underemployed or facing barriers to work. The phrase “hard-working families” is everywhere as we approach a General Election, and I hate it for the way it disparages families, and single people, who would  love to have a job but can’t find one, people whose disabilities, or society’s attitudes to them, are barriers to work, people whose caring responsibilities mean they can’t earn a wage, asylum seekers who want to work, but aren’t allowed to. Valuing people only or mainly for the work they do is damaging and it runs completely contrary to how God sees his creation.  

We matter to God because we are, not because of what we do.

 

That’s underlined in the Gospel reading. The Pharisees are watching Jesus like hawks, waiting for him to slip up. First, they spot his disciples picking heads of grain as they walk through a wheat field on the Sabbath. But it’s not stealing or damaging the crop that bothers them. That doesn’t seem to be an issue at all. It’s that they are working on the Sabbath, because plucking grain, even just a head or two of wheat, is work – harvesting – in their minds. Jesus has an answer for that, drawn from the story of King David,  and they can hardly argue with David, a great hero to the Israelites. But when a man comes to Jesus in the Synagogue on that same Sabbath day who has a withered hand they think they’ve got him bang to rights. They don’t see the man, whose “withered hand” would have made it very hard to live a normal life; he doesn’t seem to count. All they see  is an opportunity to denounce Jesus.

 

And that’s where the second outstretched arm in our readings comes in comes in. “Stretch out your hand” Jesus says, inviting this man to do what he hasn’t been able to do perhaps for years, maybe never. The man stretches out his hand, and as he does he is healed by the power of God, by that outstretched arm which saved the Israelites from slavery.

 

The Pharisees are outraged, but perhaps triumphant too. Jesus has just given them a stick to beat him with, and they go straight off to conspire with the Herodians, supporters of King Herod, who also want to get rid of Jesus. Normally these two groups were at loggerheads, but “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”, as they say.

 

Jesus knew that they would react this way. He knew it would cause outrage that he had healed someone on the Sabbath. But he saw someone in need, and knew that his need was more important than the heartless interpretation of the Sabbath laws which the Pharisees demonstrated. “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath”, he had said, and here was a perfect illustration of that.

 

Those of you who took part in our Lent Course this year may remember that we spent some time thinking about the word “Tend” as we considered our calling as a church to care for others, to tend those around us. Tend, I explained, came from a word that meant “to stretch out”. Tents are made of stretched out material. Tendencies are things we have a leaning towards.  We pay attention to things and people that matter to us, leaning or stretching towards them. Tendons allow our limbs to stretch out, as this man does to Jesus, and finds, for the first time in we don’t know how long, that his tendons work.

 

He can only do this, though because Jesus “tended” to him, paid attention, noticed him, and valued his need for healing above the rules he had grown up with, and the risk of providing his enemies with ammunition against him.

 

This is what that Sabbath is really meant to be about, says Jesus, a day when bodies and minds and spirits broken by the weight of unrealistic expectations can be healed, and a world which values people solely by their economic activity challenged. It’s a day when we practice this idea, so that we can take it with us into the rest of the week. The Sabbath, kept properly, reminds us that whether we are able bodied or disabled, working or not working, we matter to God and are loved by him. It invites us, week by week, to stretch out to God, as he stretches out to us.  

Amen

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trinity 1 2012

 

 

Genesis 3.8-15, Mark 3. 20-35

 

…And they all lived happily ever after… Most good fairy tales end with a marriage, a long awaited union of two souls who have found each other after many trials and tribulations. they stroll off into the sunset together into a life which we are left to assume will be coated with magic dust forever after, a model of peace and harmony. But Life isn’t a fairy tale, and the Bible, thank goodness, recognises that from the outset. Our readings today are perfect examples of its realistic view of the trials and tribulations of family life. 

 

In our first reading, the gloss of true love has worn off pretty quickly for Adam and Eve. She may be the only girl in the world and he may be the only boy, but that doesn’t stop them falling out almost as soon as they have got together, amid bitter recrimination. The Bible tells us that Adam was with her when the serpent tempted her to eat the forbidden fruit, but did we hear him trying to argue her out of it? Not a bit of it – he was quite happy to join in, munching away with enthusiasm, and was just as responsible as she was. Now that God is confronting them, though, it is a different story. He doesn’t just blame her, he blames God as well. “The woman that YOU gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit from the tree…” This couple have no sooner found paradise than they have lost it.

 

And then in our Gospel reading we see another family having one of those little moments most families would rather the world didn’t witness. A son gives his family the brush off in a way which makes me wince, as a mother myself.  “Who are my mother and brothers?” he says, ignoring them in favour of the friends he has gathered around himself. The problem for us is that this particular son is Jesus himself. If you are looking for a poster-boy for traditional family values, Jesus isn’t the obvious choice, and his treatment of his anxious family here underlines that. He doesn’t seem ever to have married. He doesn’t appear to care about what would have been considered his sacred duty to continue the family line, and his message throughout the Gospels is consistent with what we see here. Family can mean something far bigger than simply those to whom you are related to by blood or marriage.

 

The early church seems to have been equally sceptical of conventional family relationships. That was partly because they thought Jesus was going to come back at any moment. If you were married, you should stay married, and live faithfully and lovingly with your spouse, but if you were single, St Paul said, better to stay single like him. But another important factor was that choosing to follow Jesus had cut many of them off from their families and communities – they’d had to create new networks of support among their fellow Christians, and some had never had a secure place in a family. Enslaved people, unsupported widows and orphans, people who were on the margins, were particularly drawn to Jesus, and to those who later preached and lived his message of inclusive love. Traditional family life, wasn’t nearly as high on their agenda as many Christians like to think.

 

So what are we to make of all this? Should we be throwing away all our family ties? I earnestly hope not, because I am rather fond of mine, but this story is a reminder to us that the Bible doesn’t put family or marriage on a pedestal. What matters in the Bible isn’t what form a household takes – Biblical households were as varied as modern ones – but what happens within that household, the quality of relationships, the love that is shown by its members, or the lack of it

 

That was something, of course, which Jesus was passionately concerned about. His central message was about love – whether within or outside family life – valuing others as the precious children of God which they really are. He treats those who are weak and vulnerable in his society’s eyes with particular care and honour, welcoming children, healing the sick and disabled, making it clear that they are not burdens but equals. He calls his followers to take seriously their responsibilities to those who depend on them – supporting elderly parents, not casually divorcing unwanted wives who will have no way of providing for themselves.

 

His attitude to women was especially unusual in his time. In a culture where they were largely confined to the home, Jesus encourages them to take a full place as his followers. A woman at a well in Samaria, or Mary of Bethany, resisting her sister Martha’s call to leave the theological discussion to the men, and come and peel the potatoes, Jesus praises and affirms them. “There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it shall not be taken away from her.”  

 

Jesus is deeply concerned for families in the Gospels. After all, families are the context in which most people live most of their lives, whether they are under one roof or scattered far and wide. But the focus of Jesus’ concern isn’t on the outward appearance of the family – what shape it takes, whether it conforms to the patterns his culture expected it to. It is the inner, real experience of the people in it that he cares about. Families, then as now, could be wonderfully supportive and liberating, or they could be prisons in which the God-given gifts of their members withered and died.

 

That’s why Jesus reacts as he does to this visit from his own family which we heard about in today’s Gospel reading.  Opposition to his message is starting to mount. He is challenging the religious leaders, and they don’t like it. They accuse him of being inspired by Satan, not by God, and the rumour on the streets is that he has gone mad. His notoriety is bringing shame on his whole family and in an honour-based culture where conformity was highly valued, that was a serious matter. They come, says the Bible, intent on restraining him – the word that is used implies force. They want to drag him away, and put a stop to his preaching. Perhaps we can sympathise – they are bound to be anxious. But just because they are his family, even if they are motivated by care as well as shame, that doesn’t mean they are right. Children aren’t the possessions of their families. They are God’s gifts to the world, with callings and tasks of their own, and Jesus is the prime example of this. He needs to resist the temptation to fit in with the wish of his family that he should come home, keep quiet and do his duty as a good son, because if he does that he will have to abandon his message and his ministry.

 

Of course, there are times when we should listen to those nearest and dearest to us – they may be telling us things we need to hear – but we also have to learn to trust ourselves and our own ability to hear the voice of God, which calls out to us “Where are you?”, that voice which calls us back to himself and, back to ourselves too, to become the people he created us to be, each with unique gifts to give to the world, and a job to do. Families which encourage every person to heed that voice, will be ones which are indeed richly blessed, and the source of rich blessings to others too.

Amen

 

 

Trinity 1 2012

 

 

Genesis 3.8-15, Mark 3. 20-35

 

…And they all lived happily ever after… Most good fairy tales end with a marriage, a long awaited union of two souls who have found each other after many trials and tribulations. they stroll off into the sunset together into a life which we are left to assume will be coated with magic dust forever after, a model of peace and harmony. But Life isn’t a fairy tale, and the Bible, thank goodness, recognises that from the outset. Our readings today are perfect examples of its realistic view of the trials and tribulations of family life. 

 

In our first reading, the gloss of true love has worn off pretty quickly for Adam and Eve. She may be the only girl in the world and he may be the only boy, but that doesn’t stop them falling out almost as soon as they have got together, amid bitter recrimination. The Bible tells us that Adam was with her when the serpent tempted her to eat the forbidden fruit, but did we hear him trying to argue her out of it? Not a bit of it – he was quite happy to join in, munching away with enthusiasm, and was just as responsible as she was. Now that God is confronting them, though, it is a different story. He doesn’t just blame her, he blames God as well. “The woman that YOU gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit from the tree…” This couple have no sooner found paradise than they have lost it.

 

And then in our Gospel reading we see another family having one of those little moments most families would rather the world didn’t witness. A son gives his family the brush off in a way which makes me wince, as a mother myself.  “Who are my mother and brothers?” he says, ignoring them in favour of the friends he has gathered around himself. The problem for us is that this particular son is Jesus himself. If you are looking for a poster-boy for traditional family values, Jesus isn’t the obvious choice, and his treatment of his anxious family here underlines that. He doesn’t seem ever to have married. He doesn’t appear to care about what would have been considered his sacred duty to continue the family line, and his message throughout the Gospels is consistent with what we see here. Family can mean something far bigger than simply those to whom you are related to by blood or marriage.

 

The early church seems to have been equally sceptical of conventional family relationships. That was partly because they thought Jesus was going to come back at any moment. If you were married, you should stay married, and live faithfully and lovingly with your spouse, but if you were single, St Paul said, better to stay single like him. But another important factor was that choosing to follow Jesus had cut many of them off from their families and communities – they’d had to create new networks of support among their fellow Christians, and some had never had a secure place in a family. Enslaved people, unsupported widows and orphans, people who were on the margins, were particularly drawn to Jesus, and to those who later preached and lived his message of inclusive love. Traditional family life, wasn’t nearly as high on their agenda as many Christians like to think.

 

So what are we to make of all this? Should we be throwing away all our family ties? I earnestly hope not, because I am rather fond of mine, but this story is a reminder to us that the Bible doesn’t put family or marriage on a pedestal. What matters in the Bible isn’t what form a household takes – Biblical households were as varied as modern ones – but what happens within that household, the quality of relationships, the love that is shown by its members, or the lack of it

 

That was something, of course, which Jesus was passionately concerned about. His central message was about love – whether within or outside family life – valuing others as the precious children of God which they really are. He treats those who are weak and vulnerable in his society’s eyes with particular care and honour, welcoming children, healing the sick and disabled, making it clear that they are not burdens but equals. He calls his followers to take seriously their responsibilities to those who depend on them – supporting elderly parents, not casually divorcing unwanted wives who will have no way of providing for themselves.

 

His attitude to women was especially unusual in his time. In a culture where they were largely confined to the home, Jesus encourages them to take a full place as his followers. A woman at a well in Samaria, or Mary of Bethany, resisting her sister Martha’s call to leave the theological discussion to the men, and come and peel the potatoes, Jesus praises and affirms them. “There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it shall not be taken away from her.”  

 

Jesus is deeply concerned for families in the Gospels. After all, families are the context in which most people live most of their lives, whether they are under one roof or scattered far and wide. But the focus of Jesus’ concern isn’t on the outward appearance of the family – what shape it takes, whether it conforms to the patterns his culture expected it to. It is the inner, real experience of the people in it that he cares about. Families, then as now, could be wonderfully supportive and liberating, or they could be prisons in which the God-given gifts of their members withered and died.

 

That’s why Jesus reacts as he does to this visit from his own family which we heard about in today’s Gospel reading.  Opposition to his message is starting to mount. He is challenging the religious leaders, and they don’t like it. They accuse him of being inspired by Satan, not by God, and the rumour on the streets is that he has gone mad. His notoriety is bringing shame on his whole family and in an honour-based culture where conformity was highly valued, that was a serious matter. They come, says the Bible, intent on restraining him – the word that is used implies force. They want to drag him away, and put a stop to his preaching. Perhaps we can sympathise – they are bound to be anxious. But just because they are his family, even if they are motivated by care as well as shame, that doesn’t mean they are right. Children aren’t the possessions of their families. They are God’s gifts to the world, with callings and tasks of their own, and Jesus is the prime example of this. He needs to resist the temptation to fit in with the wish of his family that he should come home, keep quiet and do his duty as a good son, because if he does that he will have to abandon his message and his ministry.

 

Of course, there are times when we should listen to those nearest and dearest to us – they may be telling us things we need to hear – but we also have to learn to trust ourselves and our own ability to hear the voice of God, which calls out to us “Where are you?”, that voice which calls us back to himself and, back to ourselves too, to become the people he created us to be, each with unique gifts to give to the world, and a job to do. Families which encourage every person to heed that voice, will be ones which are indeed richly blessed, and the source of rich blessings to others too.

Amen

 

 

Trinity 1 2024

 Deut 5.12-15, Mark 2.23-3.6

 

 

One of the most famous images in Western Art isn’t painted on canvas or hanging on a gallery wall. It is painted on a ceiling, high above its viewers. It was painted, rather reluctantly, by an artist who had at first refused the commission because he said he thought of himself as a sculptor, not a painter. He was only persuaded when he was told he could have free rein over what he painted. The result were the extraordinary frescos painted by Michaelangelo in Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, and in particular, the one I am thinking of,  the Creation of Adam, the first in a series of images inspired by the book of Genesis.

 

Everyone recognises it, even if they don’t know anything about art. Most people don’t even need to see the whole picture to recognise it. Just the outstretched hands of Adam and God, almost, but not quite, touching. It’s so famous that it’s been turned into a meme, altered, and captioned  in all sorts of ways over the years. I’ve seen versions where Adam is holding a pin card reader out to God, or where Adam and God are stroking a dog, photoshopped between them with the caption “And God said, ‘Let there be a good boy’ and there was a good boy”. And those are just some that can be shared in a sermon without getting me into lots of trouble.  It might all seem a bit irreverent, but in a way, those meme makers are doing exactly what the image meant them to, pondering what might be happening in that encounter with God, in that small space between God and humanity as they reach out to each other.

 

What brought that image into my mind today was a curious coincidence in our Bible readings. I doubt it was the main reason for these passages being chosen, but it caught my attention. Today’s Old Testament and Gospel reading both talk about outstretched arms or hands.

 

In the Old Testament reading, God calls the people of Israel, coming to the end of their wandering in the desert, to remember that it was he who rescued them from slavery in Egypt, “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm”. That’s why they must keep the Sabbath holy. It’s a weekly reminder that it wasn’t their actions which brought them their freedom, but God’s. Keeping the Sabbath, ceasing from work, helps us to see that we aren’t indispensable, that the world can turn without us, that we can’t do it all, have it all, save ourselves, however clever or hardworking we are,  and more than that -  we don’t have to. It reminds us that we are still loved and worthwhile even if we aren’t doing anything, if we can’t do anything, that we are loved and worthwhile in God’s eyes simply because we exist.

 

That’s a huge relief - especially for someone about to retire! - but more seriously, it ought to prompt us to think carefully about our attitudes towards anyone who finds themselves unemployed or underemployed or facing barriers to work. The phrase “hard-working families” is everywhere as we approach a General Election, and I hate it for the way it disparages families, and single people, who would  love to have a job but can’t find one, people whose disabilities, or society’s attitudes to them, are barriers to work, people whose caring responsibilities mean they can’t earn a wage, asylum seekers who want to work, but aren’t allowed to. Valuing people only or mainly for the work they do is damaging and it runs completely contrary to how God sees his creation.  

We matter to God because we are, not because of what we do.

 

That’s underlined in the Gospel reading. The Pharisees are watching Jesus like hawks, waiting for him to slip up. First, they spot his disciples picking heads of grain as they walk through a wheat field on the Sabbath. But it’s not stealing or damaging the crop that bothers them. That doesn’t seem to be an issue at all. It’s that they are working on the Sabbath, because plucking grain, even just a head or two of wheat, is work – harvesting – in their minds. Jesus has an answer for that, drawn from the story of King David,  and they can hardly argue with David, a great hero to the Israelites. But when a man comes to Jesus in the Synagogue on that same Sabbath day who has a withered hand they think they’ve got him bang to rights. They don’t see the man, whose “withered hand” would have made it very hard to live a normal life; he doesn’t seem to count. All they see  is an opportunity to denounce Jesus.

 

And that’s where the second outstretched arm in our readings comes in comes in. “Stretch out your hand” Jesus says, inviting this man to do what he hasn’t been able to do perhaps for years, maybe never. The man stretches out his hand, and as he does he is healed by the power of God, by that outstretched arm which saved the Israelites from slavery.

 

The Pharisees are outraged, but perhaps triumphant too. Jesus has just given them a stick to beat him with, and they go straight off to conspire with the Herodians, supporters of King Herod, who also want to get rid of Jesus. Normally these two groups were at loggerheads, but “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”, as they say.

 

Jesus knew that they would react this way. He knew it would cause outrage that he had healed someone on the Sabbath. But he saw someone in need, and knew that his need was more important than the heartless interpretation of the Sabbath laws which the Pharisees demonstrated. “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath”, he had said, and here was a perfect illustration of that.

 

Those of you who took part in our Lent Course this year may remember that we spent some time thinking about the word “Tend” as we considered our calling as a church to care for others, to tend those around us. Tend, I explained, came from a word that meant “to stretch out”. Tents are made of stretched out material. Tendencies are things we have a leaning towards.  We pay attention to things and people that matter to us, leaning or stretching towards them. Tendons allow our limbs to stretch out, as this man does to Jesus, and finds, for the first time in we don’t know how long, that his tendons work.

 

He can only do this, though because Jesus “tended” to him, paid attention, noticed him, and valued his need for healing above the rules he had grown up with, and the risk of providing his enemies with ammunition against him.

 

This is what that Sabbath is really meant to be about, says Jesus, a day when bodies and minds and spirits broken by the weight of unrealistic expectations can be healed, and a world which values people solely by their economic activity challenged. It’s a day when we practice this idea, so that we can take it with us into the rest of the week. The Sabbath, kept properly, reminds us that whether we are able bodied or disabled, working or not working, we matter to God and are loved by him. It invites us, week by week, to stretch out to God, as he stretches out to us.  

Amen

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pentecost 2024

 

 

Acts 2.1-21, John 14.8-27

 

Pentecost is traditionally the time when the Church recalls and celebrates the Holy Spirit descending in power on the disciples as they waited in Jerusalem. Jesus had called them to take his message out into all the world. They didn’t even know how to begin, but the Spirit swept away their questions and propelled them out into the streets; they couldn’t do this, but God could.

 

This isn’t the first time the Bible talks about the Holy Spirit, though. The Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, is full of the Spirit. The Spirit hovers over the waters of chaos at the beginning of creation, and it fills the prophets with the knowledge of God’s word. The Gospels, too, tell of the Spirit overshadowing Mary when she hears she is to bear God’s son, and descending like a dove on Jesus at the moment of his baptism. The Spirit is everywhere in the Bible, not seen, but very much felt in people’s lives, the transforming power of God, God’s “here and now” presence in his creation. People may struggle to describe the Spirit, but the Spirit’s actions are life-changingly real to them.

 

In the story we heard from the book of Acts today, the Spirit comes like a rushing wind and flames of fire, but it also brings the rather puzzling gift of speaking in unknown languages. Visitors from every corner of the world hear the message the disciples proclaim and understand it, as if it is being spoken by a native speaker, someone like them.

 

Who are these people? Some may have grown up in other faiths, but felt drawn to Judaism – the proselytes the story refers to - but many came from Jewish ex-pat communities, founded over the centuries around the ancient world. Some of them, though not all, may have spoken or read Hebrew, but their first language, the language they used day to day, was whatever the majority around them spoke – Parthian, Phyrgian, Libyan, or whatever. And however devout they were, their way of understanding and practising their faith would have evolved over time too.  It’s the same for migrant communities everywhere. They may look back to their countries of origin with nostalgia and affection, but when they go back they often find they don’t really fit in any more. They’ve changed and so have the communities they came from.

 

Language is often a symbol of that gulf. Second generation migrants don’t tend to be “at home” in their parent’s language. It’s not their mother tongue anymore. And that doesn’t just mean their vocabulary changes. Our mother tongue, the language we learn first, both reflects and shapes the way we think. We sometimes say, “I know where you’re coming from”, if we think we understand someone,but it’s only really true if we come from the same place ourselves, sharing a language, a background, a culture, similar life experiences.

 

Whether they expected it or not, these visitors “from every nation under heaven” almost certainly felt a long way from home in Jerusalem, further from home than they expected, maybe a bit homesick  But in the midst of this alien land, they were transported right back to the deserts, mountains, pastures, coastlands, of the land of their birth when they heard their own language spoken, and not as if in translation, as a second language, but as if by someone who came from there too.

 

That’s the point of this detail of the story. It isn’t just there to amaze us. The author doesn’t even try to explain how it could happen. He is trying to tell us a deeper truth about the God whom he follows and serves; the truth that God is at home with us, each of us, with us, wherever we are from, wherever we are, wherever we are going.

 

God is at home with us because we are his creation. According to Genesis 2, after God had made a person out of the dust of the earth, he breathed his own breath – a word that can also be translated as Spirit – into that person to bring them to life. And that same Spirit still dwells within us. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, we are told that the Spirit prays within us “with sighs too deep for words”. We don’t have to struggle when we can’t find the words to express ourselves to God, because God already knows us; his Spirit is there in the depths of our being; God knows us better than we know ourselves.

 

The belief in a God who speaks our native language, who knows “where we are coming from”, who speaks from the depth of our experience is a huge comfort, of course. But it doesn’t just affect our personal spiritual lives, giving us comfort and reassurance. It should also affect the way we look at the world around us. That’s because if I believe that God speaks in my mother tongue – the native language of a 64 year old, white, Englishwoman from Devon, a priest, wife and mother, with my own particular life story – then I have to believe that God also speaks in your mother tongue, from the depth of your experience too, and that you therefore have wisdom I need to hear, coming from a perspective that I don’t have.

 

It's often tempting to think that the answers we’ve discovered to life, the universe and everything, the solutions we’ve found to the problems that beset us, should apply to everyone else too. If they aren’t like us, then they should be, and we will do our best to make sure they become so, even if it means doing a violence to their own sense of self. It’s the essence of colonialism, the belief that we know better than others what will make them happy and successful – or even that we know what “happy and successful” looks like for them. It can lead to all sorts of problems when we think like that, especially if we have power, as we try to squash others into our mould. A belief that God may be speaking in someone else’s mother tongue challenges us to listen, deeply and humbly, for their sake, but also so that we can hear the wisdom of God that speaks through their lives and experiences.

 

Today, and every day, God speaks in the mother tongue of each of us, knowing “where we are coming from” because that’s where God comes from too. We may sometimes feel alienated or out of place, as if we don’t fit in the world. We may feel like strangers, or be treated as if we don’t belong. We may treat others like that too. But the Pentecost calls us to see that God is at home in each one of us. And that changes everything, just as it did for Jesus first followers on that Day of Pentecost, long ago.

 

I’d like to finish with a sonnet by Malcolm Guite, written for this day, which reminds us of that God whose “mother tongue” is love.

 

Pentecost - a sonnet by Malcolm Guite

 

Today we feel the wind beneath our wings
Today the hidden fountain flows and plays
Today the church draws breath at last and sings
As every flame becomes a Tongue of praise.
This is the feast of fire, air, and water
Poured out and breathed and kindled into earth.
The earth herself awakens to her maker
And is translated out of death to birth.
The right words come today in their right order
And every word spells freedom and release
Today the gospel crosses every border
All tongues are loosened by the Prince of Peace
Today the lost are found in His translation.
Whose mother-tongue is Love, in every nation.

 

Amen

Pentecost 2024

 

 

Acts 2.1-21, John 14.8-27

 

Pentecost is traditionally the time when the Church recalls and celebrates the Holy Spirit descending in power on the disciples as they waited in Jerusalem. Jesus had called them to take his message out into all the world. They didn’t even know how to begin, but the Spirit swept away their questions and propelled them out into the streets; they couldn’t do this, but God could.

 

This isn’t the first time the Bible talks about the Holy Spirit, though. The Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, is full of the Spirit. The Spirit hovers over the waters of chaos at the beginning of creation, and it fills the prophets with the knowledge of God’s word. The Gospels, too, tell of the Spirit overshadowing Mary when she hears she is to bear God’s son, and descending like a dove on Jesus at the moment of his baptism. The Spirit is everywhere in the Bible, not seen, but very much felt in people’s lives, the transforming power of God, God’s “here and now” presence in his creation. People may struggle to describe the Spirit, but the Spirit’s actions are life-changingly real to them.

 

In the story we heard from the book of Acts today, the Spirit comes like a rushing wind and flames of fire, but it also brings the rather puzzling gift of speaking in unknown languages. Visitors from every corner of the world hear the message the disciples proclaim and understand it, as if it is being spoken by a native speaker, someone like them.

 

Who are these people? Some may have grown up in other faiths, but felt drawn to Judaism – the proselytes the story refers to - but many came from Jewish ex-pat communities, founded over the centuries around the ancient world. Some of them, though not all, may have spoken or read Hebrew, but their first language, the language they used day to day, was whatever the majority around them spoke – Parthian, Phyrgian, Libyan, or whatever. And however devout they were, their way of understanding and practising their faith would have evolved over time too.  It’s the same for migrant communities everywhere. They may look back to their countries of origin with nostalgia and affection, but when they go back they often find they don’t really fit in any more. They’ve changed and so have the communities they came from.

 

Language is often a symbol of that gulf. Second generation migrants don’t tend to be “at home” in their parent’s language. It’s not their mother tongue anymore. And that doesn’t just mean their vocabulary changes. Our mother tongue, the language we learn first, both reflects and shapes the way we think. We sometimes say, “I know where you’re coming from”, if we think we understand someone,but it’s only really true if we come from the same place ourselves, sharing a language, a background, a culture, similar life experiences.

 

Whether they expected it or not, these visitors “from every nation under heaven” almost certainly felt a long way from home in Jerusalem, further from home than they expected, maybe a bit homesick  But in the midst of this alien land, they were transported right back to the deserts, mountains, pastures, coastlands, of the land of their birth when they heard their own language spoken, and not as if in translation, as a second language, but as if by someone who came from there too.

 

That’s the point of this detail of the story. It isn’t just there to amaze us. The author doesn’t even try to explain how it could happen. He is trying to tell us a deeper truth about the God whom he follows and serves; the truth that God is at home with us, each of us, with us, wherever we are from, wherever we are, wherever we are going.

 

God is at home with us because we are his creation. According to Genesis 2, after God had made a person out of the dust of the earth, he breathed his own breath – a word that can also be translated as Spirit – into that person to bring them to life. And that same Spirit still dwells within us. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, we are told that the Spirit prays within us “with sighs too deep for words”. We don’t have to struggle when we can’t find the words to express ourselves to God, because God already knows us; his Spirit is there in the depths of our being; God knows us better than we know ourselves.

 

The belief in a God who speaks our native language, who knows “where we are coming from”, who speaks from the depth of our experience is a huge comfort, of course. But it doesn’t just affect our personal spiritual lives, giving us comfort and reassurance. It should also affect the way we look at the world around us. That’s because if I believe that God speaks in my mother tongue – the native language of a 64 year old, white, Englishwoman from Devon, a priest, wife and mother, with my own particular life story – then I have to believe that God also speaks in your mother tongue, from the depth of your experience too, and that you therefore have wisdom I need to hear, coming from a perspective that I don’t have.

 

It's often tempting to think that the answers we’ve discovered to life, the universe and everything, the solutions we’ve found to the problems that beset us, should apply to everyone else too. If they aren’t like us, then they should be, and we will do our best to make sure they become so, even if it means doing a violence to their own sense of self. It’s the essence of colonialism, the belief that we know better than others what will make them happy and successful – or even that we know what “happy and successful” looks like for them. It can lead to all sorts of problems when we think like that, especially if we have power, as we try to squash others into our mould. A belief that God may be speaking in someone else’s mother tongue challenges us to listen, deeply and humbly, for their sake, but also so that we can hear the wisdom of God that speaks through their lives and experiences.

 

Today, and every day, God speaks in the mother tongue of each of us, knowing “where we are coming from” because that’s where God comes from too. We may sometimes feel alienated or out of place, as if we don’t fit in the world. We may feel like strangers, or be treated as if we don’t belong. We may treat others like that too. But the Pentecost calls us to see that God is at home in each one of us. And that changes everything, just as it did for Jesus first followers on that Day of Pentecost, long ago.

 

I’d like to finish with a sonnet by Malcolm Guite, written for this day, which reminds us of that God whose “mother tongue” is love.

 

Pentecost - a sonnet by Malcolm Guite

 

Today we feel the wind beneath our wings
Today the hidden fountain flows and plays
Today the church draws breath at last and sings
As every flame becomes a Tongue of praise.
This is the feast of fire, air, and water
Poured out and breathed and kindled into earth.
The earth herself awakens to her maker
And is translated out of death to birth.
The right words come today in their right order
And every word spells freedom and release
Today the gospel crosses every border
All tongues are loosened by the Prince of Peace
Today the lost are found in His translation.
Whose mother-tongue is Love, in every nation.

 

Amen

Easter 6 2024

 

Easter 6 2024

 

Abide, abide, abide… You can’t miss that word in today’s Gospel reading. It follows on from last week’s Gospel reading when Jesus compared God’s people to a vine. If you remove the branches from the main stem, the vine can’t bear fruit, and the branches will die. They need to “abide in the vine” so that the sap can run through them.  

 

Abiding might not sound like the most exciting word in the dictionary. It is literally static, about staying put, about a God who is just there, about us just being there with him.  But often just being there for someone is the most important thing we can do, and that others can do for us. When we are going through tough times, it’s the people who are there for us, noticing how we are, keeping step with us, waiting with us, who are most helpful, not the ones determined to fix us or save us or find solutions.  But abiding is just as important in happy times too.

 

Abiding is the essence of friendship.  You don’t go for a coffee with a friend armed with an agenda to work through – that would make it a business meeting. You probably don’t have any particular outcome in mind. It’s just about being together, abiding with one another.

 

In the very first story in the Bible, the story of Creation we meet a God who just wants to be with his creation, and in particular with the man and woman he has made. He comes looking for them in the garden as he strolls around in the cool of the evening, enjoying the world he’s made. He doesn’t seem to have any particular job for them. He just wants to be with them. He calls out “where are you?”, but there is no answer, because they are hiding from him, ashamed because they’ve eaten from the one tree he has told them not to. It’s a moment of deep tragedy, as that easy sense of “abiding” is lost. God’s commitment to them and love for them never alters, but from then on, it’s as if their relationship with him is changed. They can never quite trust that God really wants to be with them. Why would he, when they have let him down?

 

The disciples Jesus is speaking to in the passage we heard are about to illustrate that pattern perfectly. This passage comes from Jesus’ long conversation with them on the night before he dies, at his Last Supper with them. Soon he will be arrested and tried and crucified. And far from abiding with him, they will all run away, but of course three days later they will discover that their desertion isn’t the end of the story, that he is still with them, that his abiding friendship for them hasn’t been destroyed and never can be. We may wander off. We may hide. We may try to cut ourselves off from God, but God never cuts himself off from us.

 

The first reading too, is about abiding. It’s part of a much longer story, and probably doesn’t make much sense unless you know the context. It’s from the Acts of the Apostles, the stories of the early Church as it formed in the months and years after the Ascension of Jesus. A man from Caesarea has sent messengers to Peter, one of the early leaders of the church, asking him to come to visit him and tell him about Jesus. The problem is that the man, Cornelius, is a Roman, and not just a Roman, but a Roman Centurion, part of the occupying army, and, of course, he is a Gentile, not a Jew. He sounds like a good egg. He prays and he gives generously to the poor, but he hasn’t been brought up to observe the Jewish laws around things like food. If Peter goes to visit him, what will he be confronted with? What if Cornelius offers him a bacon butty when he gets there? What if there are statues of other gods in the house. Romans normally had an array of household deities in domestic shrines and there’s no indication that Cornelius didn’t.

 

But just before the summons to Cornelius comes Peter has had a vision, a vision of a great sheet of animals being lowered down from heaven, every one of which the Jewish law said was unclean. In his vision, though, God tells him to kill and eat them. Peter is disgusted at the thought, and proceeds to try to tell God that he can’t because God has forbidden him to…To which God replies that as he is God, that’s really up to him, isn’t it…?

 

The vision is a challenge to Peter, but also a reassurance. Maybe God’s love is broader than he has imagined? Emboldened by this thought, he sets off for Cornelius’ house. He thinks he’s taking God to them. He’s excited to start them off on their journey of faith.  God is already there. He’s barely opened his mouth to explain the basics of the faith to them, when the assembled household are all filled with the Holy Spirit, just as Peter and his fellow disciples were on the Day of Pentecost. Whatever reservations he has had melt away, and Peter not only spends that day with them but several more. He abides with them, with all the cultural challenges that brings, because he sees that God abides with them too.

 

These are readings which challenge us to consider abiding in all its forms. Who do we abide with, stick to, commit ourselves to? Who do we struggle to abide with, to be around? We sometimes say “I can’t abide so and so. They really irritate me” – we reject any connection with them. Why is that? What does it tell us about them, but more importantly what might it tell us about ourselves?

How do we feel about “abiding” generally? Do we have itchy feet, a restless sense that we always want to be somewhere else, or are we content to be where we are and look for God within it? It’s appropriate that it’s today that we receive the record produced by the Sevenoaks Decorative and Fine Arts Society today of our church. This building, and all it contains is itself a testimony to centuries of “abiding”, of people who committed themselves to maintaining this building as a place of prayer and peace, and to finding God in the community of those who shared Seal Church with them, abiding with one another, with all the challenges that can bring.

 

But most of all, it seems to me, these readings ask us to think about the God who abides with us, and invites us to abide with him, because that’s what the Bible tells us he wants. He starts out trying to abide with his people in the Garden of Eden, goes on to wander the world with them, abiding with as they get into and out of slavery in Egypt and assorted other disasters. He abides with them when they let him down. He abides with them through the words of his prophets, calling them back to him. Finally, and for Christians most perfectly, he abides with us in Jesus, who “became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth”.

 

In him we see God where God always wanted to be, not a distant monarch, not a terrifying judge, not just a provider of things, a fixer of things, but a friend who walks with us on our journey, just being there, a companion, who broke bread with his disciples and is found in the bread we break together too, someone who calls us into a community of abiding, enduring, lasting love.

Amen 

Easter 6 2024

 

Easter 6 2024

 

Abide, abide, abide… You can’t miss that word in today’s Gospel reading. It follows on from last week’s Gospel reading when Jesus compared God’s people to a vine. If you remove the branches from the main stem, the vine can’t bear fruit, and the branches will die. They need to “abide in the vine” so that the sap can run through them.  

 

Abiding might not sound like the most exciting word in the dictionary. It is literally static, about staying put, about a God who is just there, about us just being there with him.  But often just being there for someone is the most important thing we can do, and that others can do for us. When we are going through tough times, it’s the people who are there for us, noticing how we are, keeping step with us, waiting with us, who are most helpful, not the ones determined to fix us or save us or find solutions.  But abiding is just as important in happy times too.

 

Abiding is the essence of friendship.  You don’t go for a coffee with a friend armed with an agenda to work through – that would make it a business meeting. You probably don’t have any particular outcome in mind. It’s just about being together, abiding with one another.

 

In the very first story in the Bible, the story of Creation we meet a God who just wants to be with his creation, and in particular with the man and woman he has made. He comes looking for them in the garden as he strolls around in the cool of the evening, enjoying the world he’s made. He doesn’t seem to have any particular job for them. He just wants to be with them. He calls out “where are you?”, but there is no answer, because they are hiding from him, ashamed because they’ve eaten from the one tree he has told them not to. It’s a moment of deep tragedy, as that easy sense of “abiding” is lost. God’s commitment to them and love for them never alters, but from then on, it’s as if their relationship with him is changed. They can never quite trust that God really wants to be with them. Why would he, when they have let him down?

 

The disciples Jesus is speaking to in the passage we heard are about to illustrate that pattern perfectly. This passage comes from Jesus’ long conversation with them on the night before he dies, at his Last Supper with them. Soon he will be arrested and tried and crucified. And far from abiding with him, they will all run away, but of course three days later they will discover that their desertion isn’t the end of the story, that he is still with them, that his abiding friendship for them hasn’t been destroyed and never can be. We may wander off. We may hide. We may try to cut ourselves off from God, but God never cuts himself off from us.

 

The first reading too, is about abiding. It’s part of a much longer story, and probably doesn’t make much sense unless you know the context. It’s from the Acts of the Apostles, the stories of the early Church as it formed in the months and years after the Ascension of Jesus. A man from Caesarea has sent messengers to Peter, one of the early leaders of the church, asking him to come to visit him and tell him about Jesus. The problem is that the man, Cornelius, is a Roman, and not just a Roman, but a Roman Centurion, part of the occupying army, and, of course, he is a Gentile, not a Jew. He sounds like a good egg. He prays and he gives generously to the poor, but he hasn’t been brought up to observe the Jewish laws around things like food. If Peter goes to visit him, what will he be confronted with? What if Cornelius offers him a bacon butty when he gets there? What if there are statues of other gods in the house. Romans normally had an array of household deities in domestic shrines and there’s no indication that Cornelius didn’t.

 

But just before the summons to Cornelius comes Peter has had a vision, a vision of a great sheet of animals being lowered down from heaven, every one of which the Jewish law said was unclean. In his vision, though, God tells him to kill and eat them. Peter is disgusted at the thought, and proceeds to try to tell God that he can’t because God has forbidden him to…To which God replies that as he is God, that’s really up to him, isn’t it…?

 

The vision is a challenge to Peter, but also a reassurance. Maybe God’s love is broader than he has imagined? Emboldened by this thought, he sets off for Cornelius’ house. He thinks he’s taking God to them. He’s excited to start them off on their journey of faith.  God is already there. He’s barely opened his mouth to explain the basics of the faith to them, when the assembled household are all filled with the Holy Spirit, just as Peter and his fellow disciples were on the Day of Pentecost. Whatever reservations he has had melt away, and Peter not only spends that day with them but several more. He abides with them, with all the cultural challenges that brings, because he sees that God abides with them too.

 

These are readings which challenge us to consider abiding in all its forms. Who do we abide with, stick to, commit ourselves to? Who do we struggle to abide with, to be around? We sometimes say “I can’t abide so and so. They really irritate me” – we reject any connection with them. Why is that? What does it tell us about them, but more importantly what might it tell us about ourselves?

How do we feel about “abiding” generally? Do we have itchy feet, a restless sense that we always want to be somewhere else, or are we content to be where we are and look for God within it? It’s appropriate that it’s today that we receive the record produced by the Sevenoaks Decorative and Fine Arts Society today of our church. This building, and all it contains is itself a testimony to centuries of “abiding”, of people who committed themselves to maintaining this building as a place of prayer and peace, and to finding God in the community of those who shared Seal Church with them, abiding with one another, with all the challenges that can bring.

 

But most of all, it seems to me, these readings ask us to think about the God who abides with us, and invites us to abide with him, because that’s what the Bible tells us he wants. He starts out trying to abide with his people in the Garden of Eden, goes on to wander the world with them, abiding with as they get into and out of slavery in Egypt and assorted other disasters. He abides with them when they let him down. He abides with them through the words of his prophets, calling them back to him. Finally, and for Christians most perfectly, he abides with us in Jesus, who “became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth”.

 

In him we see God where God always wanted to be, not a distant monarch, not a terrifying judge, not just a provider of things, a fixer of things, but a friend who walks with us on our journey, just being there, a companion, who broke bread with his disciples and is found in the bread we break together too, someone who calls us into a community of abiding, enduring, lasting love.

Amen