A sermon from Joe - Trinity Sunday Sermon - Mark Chapter 1 verses 1 to 13

Today is Trinity Sunday so firstly I’d like to say a few words about the Trinity and what it means. I’d then like to look at the Trinity in the Old and New Testaments, particularly focusing on the ministry of Jesus and finally look at how we can come to know the Trinity in our own lives.

Several years ago I remember talking to my son Tom when he was about 12 and he asked me to explain the Trinity to him. You’re going to have to help me with this Lord I thought and the idea of a childs puzzle came into my mind.

It was an old fashioned wooden puzzle in the shape of a triangle and it had 3 pieces and for some reason it was green.

I told Tom to imagine this puzzle in his mind. I said the puzzle symbolised God and He was made up of 3 persons. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So God is three persons in one being.

Another way to think of the Trinity is as water, H2O. Water can exist as liquid water, or as ice, or as steam. They are 3 manifestations of the same thing. They are all essentially water albeit in 3 forms.

The idea of the Trinity is rooted in scripture, in the bible. It’s not a clever idea theologians have concocted. Rather it is what scripture reveals about the nature of God in both the Old and New Testaments.

Thus for instance starting with the Old Testament in Genesis chapter 3 just after Adam and Eve’s fall, we read; “The Lord God said ‘the man has now become like one of us knowing good and evil.’

Notice the word us, plural. God is referring to himself as we, not I.

Similarly in Genesis chapter 11 in the story of the Tower of Babel we read; The Lord said ‘come let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other .’

Again notice the word us.

And in Isaiah chapter 42 which is a prophecy about Jesus, we read; “Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my spirit on him.”

This passage encompasses Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God the Father is speaking of His son Jesus, the servant and His Spirit which He will put on Him.

Likewise in the New Testament there are several references to the Trinity in the gospels and in Paul’s letters.

 So for instance in the run up to Jesus’ birth Luke tells us that the angel Gabriel says to Mary; ‘the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.’ Father, Son and Holy spirit are all present as Jesus comes into the world.

Perhaps the most poignant place we see reference to the Trinity is at the’ crucifixion where Jesus says ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Of course Jesus is quoting from Psalm 22, but he is referring to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit who cannot share fellowship with Him as he carries the sins of the world upon his shoulders – your sins and my sins.

So we see God revealing Himself throughout scripture, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

However the most obvious place we see God as three persons is in the life and ministry of Jesus and it’s this I’d like to look at now.

In today’s reading  we see Jesus (God the son) being baptised and God the Holy Spirit descending upon him as God the Father speaks. This is an important passage as it marks the start of Jesus’ ministry having been empowered by the Holy Spirit.

In order to understand what is happening here and to understand something about the life and ministry of Jesus it is helpful to refer to what Paul tells us about Jesus in Philippians chapter 2.

Paul tells us that; ‘Christ Jesus, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;  rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!

What Paul is saying here, is that Jesus, although he was God, made himself nothing by taking on the nature of a servant. In other words Jesus chose as a human being to live his life in total reliance on God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. He laid aside his own power as God and chose to live in humility and obedience to the will of his Father and to rely on the Holy Spirit to empower him.

At any time Jesus could have chosen to abandon his earthly mission and to take up his power and position in heaven as God the Son, but that was not the way he chose. He chose the path of obedience and submission, confined to the body of a man, in order to save us.

It’s interesting that immediately after today’s gospel passage Jesus is lead by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. And the first temptation the devil tries, is to get Jesus to use his own power to turn stones to bread. Jesus refuses because as a servant he has chosen to lay aside his own power and to rely on the Holy Spirit.

So in this passage today from Mark’s gospel we see Jesus being empowered by the Holy Spirit to start his ministry.  Having been led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted and having overcome his temptations, Luke tells us that Jesus returns to Galilee “in the power of the Spirit.”

The power that Jesus exhibits during his life on earth – the power to heal and deliver people comes from the Holy Spirit.

Therefore it is no surprise when we read in Luke chapter 4 of Jesus telling the audience in the synagogue in Nazareth "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind.”

So Jesus starts and fulfils his earthly ministry using not his own power, but the power of the Holy Spirit.

There’s an interesting little verse in Luke chapter 5 where we are told;” the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick.” So we see the power of the Holy Spirit was present for Jesus to heal the sick.

Of course we must never forget that although Jesus chose to lay aside his own power and become like a servant, he is as Paul puts it, “in very nature God.” His character is that of God. He expresses perfectly God’s character.

As Rowan Williams puts it, ‘He is perfect love made flesh and bone.’ So we see him pouring out his life in love towards those he encounters, healing them, delivering them and speaking words of truth and life to those who will receive them.

Jesus lives in a relationship of perfect love with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. He expresses his love for them by his submission and obedience. He in turn receives and shares their love and power which pours out of him and touches the lives of those around him, inviting them to share in this relationship.

Prior to his ministry on earth Jesus was omnipresent and omniscient. As God he was everywhere and he knew everything. Nothing was outside his sight or his knowledge. But as a human in addition to laying aside his power, he also laid aside his omnipresence and omniscience, and was confined to a human body during his time on earth.

Thus when for instance when the lady in the crowd touches his robes and is healed he doesn’t know who it was that touched him. When talking about his second coming he says he doesn’t know that day or hour. He limited himself for a season to living in a human body.

This is why we frequently see Jesus retiring to lonely places to pray for guidance. For instance before he chooses the 12 disciples he spends the whole night in prayer asking His Father who he should choose. And in John’s gospel Jesus says that he only does 

what he sees his father doing.

He needs to spend time with his father in order to know what to do each day.

Jesus entire ministry and life on earth is lived in obedience and submission to, and reliance on God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, and in the gospel reading today we see Jesus, God in a human body, being anointed by the Holy

Spirit to start that ministry and receiving confirmation from God his Father that he loves him and is pleased with him.

Why is this important for us to understand?

Well I think it’s important as Paul tells us that we are to be like Jesus, to be conformed to his likeness.

Jesus’ life is an example to us of how we should live our lives – in reliance on God the Father and God the Holy Spirit through the sacrifice of God the son. And what we see Jesus doing we should also do.

Of course we won’t live perfect lives as he did, but as we rely on God for guidance and the Holy Spirit to empower us, we should be able to do the same type of things he did. 

As we come to know God and are filled with his love and his power, that love and power should also flow out of our lives.

This is why Jesus sends his disciples out to do the same works he has been doing – to heal the sick and to cast out demons, and he is able to say to them; “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

By choosing to live his life as a servant and relying on God the Father and God the Spirit, Jesus has set us a pattern and an example that we can follow albeit imperfectly.

Personally I don’t find the Trinity that strange a concept. God enjoys relationship within the Godhead. He exists in a perfect relationship of love. The Father loves the son who loves the spirit and so on. All three persons of the trinity are in perfect agreement and accord and most amazingly they want to share that relationship with us.

That’s why God has created us. To share in a relationship of love with Him, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and for that relationship to spill over into the lives of those around us.

It’s significant in today’s gospel reading that John the Baptist came to prepare the way for Jesus and urged people to repent and it’s significant that Jesus was baptised prior to starting his ministry.

If we want to enjoy a relationship with God, if we want to receive revelation of who He is, the precursor to that is repentance followed ideally by baptism or confirmation – some public confession of faith.

So when John the Baptist called the crowds to repent and baptised them, he was preparing people’s hearts to be able to receive Jesus.

They were to clean up their lives and to turn away from what they knew to be wrong and turn towards God. Their baptism was a public sign they were willing to do this.

Jesus will come into our lives when we invite him but only if we are prepared to repent, to turn away from what we know to be wrong and to turn towards God. And when we do this we too will receive revelation of God and come to know him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In the name of the living God

Amen.

A sermon from Joe - Parable of the Sower Matthew 13 verses 1 to 9 and verses 18 to 23

Let’s briefly picture the scene portrayed in the parable of the sower.

A farmer is going out to sow some seed in his field. He scatters the seed liberally by hand throwing it from side to side and it falls in different places. Some seed falls on the pathway that goes round or through the field. Here the soil is hard and compacted. Many feet and hooves have walked over it and the seed can’t penetrate the hard soil. The birds soon come and eat it up.

Some seed falls where there is only a thin layer of soil with rock underneath. The soil is warm and the seed sprouts quickly. However there’s insufficient depth for the seed to put out decent roots and insufficient soil to hold moisture, so the heat of the midday sun scorches the plants and they wither.

Some seed falls in the field where the ground has been cultivated but it falls amongst weeds and thorns. These compete for the moisture and sunlight and the resulting plants are stunted and fail to crop properly.

However some seed falls into good soil. Here there is sufficient space, depth and moisture for the plants to establish themselves and they bear much fruit.

Firstly who is the farmer or sower portrayed in the story, the one who scatters the seed?

Well the farmer can be seen as Jesus and the parable then relates to how the Jews of his day would receive his teaching.

However equally the farmer can be viewed as any christian who is prepared to tell others the good news about Jesus and his kingdom. It may be a preacher or teacher but equally it may be a lay person or even a child who shares their faith with a friend, neighbour or work colleague.

The important thing is that whoever it is, he or she sows seed.

How do we sow seed? Primarily with words but also by our actions and the lives we lead.

When we tell others about Jesus however inept we may feel or however basic our theological knowledge the 

Holy Spirit can use our words to make an impression on someone.

 Part of the work of the Holy Spirit is to convict people of their sin and to encourage them to believe in Jesus. As we speak out, the Holy Spirit takes our words and encourages our listeners to repent and believe.

Paul says in his letter to the Thessalonians ; “We know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you,  because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. “ So Paul proclaimed the gospel but it was the Holy Spirit who brought his words alive and impacted the hearts of those who received his message.”

  

So the farmer’s job in the parable is to sow the seed, but he can’t make the seed grow. Only God can do that.

Likewise we of ourselves can’t touch or change someone’s heart. Only God can do that. But we are asked to scatter seed, to be willing to speak honestly and openly about our faith in Jesus and to demonstrate his love with our actions.

Of course our actions and lives also speak to others and can reinforce or negate the words we speak about our faith. If people are drawn to something of Jesus they see in us, they are much more likely to listen to what we say about our faith.

Alternately they may disbelieve what we say because our lives don’t match the message we are proclaiming.

The main part of the parable of the sower deals with the reception the gospel will find when it is proclaimed and this will depend on the condition of people’s hearts.

Jesus identifies 4 heart conditions which hearers of the gospel are likely to exhibit.

The first condition is hard heartedness – the seed which falls on the path. The hard hearted person is like compacted soil – very tough to break through. Thus although he or she hears about Jesus the words make no impression. They are spiritually blind and don’t understand them and probably have no desire to understand them.  A hard hearted person is likely to be proud and unable to see their need of Jesus.

In the gospel stories the Scribes and Pharisees were hard hearted. Although they heard Jesus words and saw the miracles he did they were unmoved.

Notice that this seed which falls on the path gets eaten by birds.

Jesus makes reference to birds a few times in the gospels and on occasion they symbolise the devil and his demonic host.

So Jesus explains in verse 19 that the birds symbolise the evil one who comes and snatches away what was sown in the hard hearted person’s heart.  The devil is actively opposing the work of the sower. He doesn’t want to leave any seed on the path in case with rain the soil should soften and it might start to take root.

So there is a spiritual battle going on around the sower. The Holy Spirit will help us to convey our message but the devil will oppose our message.

This is perhaps something we lose sight of sometimes. The devil is anxious to ensure that people remain spiritually blind. The last thing he wants is for people to repent and believe in Jesus because he knows if they do this, his hold on their lives will be broken.

Paul tells us in Colossians that the person who receives and believes the gospel message is rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into Jesus’ kingdom. Satan’s hold on a person’s life is broken when they come to believe in Jesus, when the seed of God’s word takes root deeply in their lives.

The next heart condition identified by Jesus is shallow heartedness – the seed that falls on rocky places.

The shallow hearted person hears the word and receives it with joy but since he has no root he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes he quickly falls away.

The shallow hearted person apparently embraces Christianity, but when the going gets tough he or she quickly falls away. The trouble with the shallow hearted person is that their response to the gospel is superficial. It doesn’t involve genuine repentance and a change of heart, so the shallow hearted person is not truly converted. The roots of God’s word in them only penetrate the surface of their being.

God wants us to receive the message about his kingdom whole heartedly. The shallow hearted person receives the message half heartedly.

God is waiting for us to reach a point where we genuinely and truly want Him in our lives, where we are hungry for him, where we are prepared to put our old lives behind us and find a new life with him.

This is why the gospel frequently finds a more favourable response from people on the fringes of society, people in prison, people who have lost everything, people who feel worthless and people who are in despair. 

Such people are often hungry for God and his word finds a ready home in their hearts.

And this is why Jesus mixed with those on the fringes of society. The religious leaders and the self righteous rejected him but prostitutes and sinners welcomed him.

The next heart condition Jesus identifies is the pre-occupied heart – the seed that falls among thorns. Jesus tells us the thorns are the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth which choke the seed so it becomes unfruitful.

This is quite an interesting condition as it is one that particularly affects Christians. The seed here has fallen on good soil but it is competing with other plants that steal its light, water and nutrients. There is perhaps the potential for this seed to become fruitful but for that to happen the thorns need to go.

Personally I think that having a pre-occupied heart is a problem for many Christians in the West. We can lead such busy lives that God gets smothered by our other concerns – work, family, hobbies, money worries etc.

These things eat into our time and God gets pushed to the edge of our lives. We find that we don’t have time to read our bibles regularly let alone have a quiet time. Church going sometimes gets put on the back burner as we seek to cram everything into our packed lives. We profess faith in Jesus but our lives really aren’t very fruitful. We find that God seems distant and church activities become just another thing to do.

For Christians the remedy for this type of pre-occupied heart is to acknowledge that we are getting our priorities wrong and to say sorry to God.

We will need to make a determined effort to uproot the weeds that we have allowed to grow in our lives and to put God back at the centre of our lives again. To choose to make time to read our bibles and to spend time talking to God in prayer. To choose to come to church and to become involved again. To choose to put God before other things which eat our time and even perhaps some family demands on our time.

Then once again we will start to become more fruitful.

Sometimes the weeds that choke us can be recurrent worries, for instance about money, about our families, our health or what the future holds. I know from personal experience that these can be very hard to cope with. We tend to become introverted and inward looking and even depressed.

The real problem here is a lack of trust in God. We need to recognise that worry and anxiety achieve little and to learn to trust God, to recognise that He is in control of our lives and that He is good and loving and kind. 

We then need to learn to lay these concerns at his feet and trust Him to deal with them in his own time so that we can once again look outwards towards the needs of others.

Sometimes we may need God to speak directly into our lives to allay a specific fear or worry that could otherwise choke our fruitfulness.

Several years ago God reassured me about my health after I’d had a lump removed from under my arm. He spoke to me through Psalm 41 and told me that He would protect and preserve my life, that He would not abandon me to the power of my enemies, that He would help me when I was sick and restore me to health.

God can do the same for you if you have a recurrent worry that is choking your fruitfulness.

The last heart condition identified by Jesus is good heartedness. The person with a good heart hears the word and understands it and produces a crop yielding many times what was sown.

The person with a good heart studies God’s word and puts it into practice. The more they study and apply it the more it takes root in their lives and the more fruitful they become.

Several years ago when I was at St Phillips church in Tunbridge Wells I met a retired couple who visited our church as part of a Walk Kent mission. They came to our house group and shared something of their life with us. They’d both become Christians quite late in life but now they were retired they devoted their lives to God’s service.

Every morning they’d read 7 chapters of the bible aloud to each other, working their way through from Genesis to Revelation. This struck me as an awful lot but they’d done this for a few years now and as you can imagine they both knew their bibles exceedingly well.

After this they both go to separate rooms and pray, particularly asking God if there was anything He wanted them to do. Frequently they’d pray about church based events and things which were going on. If they felt there was anything specific they should go along to they’d write it down and then compare notes. If they were in agreement about anything they’d do it.

They said their retirement was the most exciting time of their lives. For instance they’d both felt God wanted them to go to America so they’d gone, trusting Him to provide the money which He did.

But the thing which really made an impression on me was their fruitfulness. They told us lots of stories where they had been in the right place at the right time and had helped numerous people to find a relationship with Jesus. They said it was as if God planned their lives each day. They did their best to be where God wanted them to be and God would provide the people to cross their path.

The soil of their relationship with God was deep and very fruitful.

So the question we need to ask ourselves is what sort of heart do we have, and where do we fit into this 

picture of different soil conditions? Are we hard hearted or shallow hearted. Do we have pre-occupied hearts or good hearts, and how much fruit are we producing in our lives.

And what can we do to make our own hearts and the hearts of those we love a more fertile place for God’s word to take root and flourish in.

Well I think there are a couple of things we can do.

Initially untruth hardens people’s hearts. For instance if someone believes that God doesn’t exist, or that the bible is a fairy story they are likely to dismiss the gospel. Their heart will be hardened against it.

The antidote to untruth is the truth which we will find encapsulated within the pages of the bible.

Paul tells us that all scripture is God breathed. God has breathed life into scripture.

If you’re concerned that your heart may be hard, I’d suggest reading the gospels.

The other great antidote to a hard heart is prayer. Just as the constant drip of water can soften hard soil, so can sustained and regular prayer. We need to pray for our families and friends and neighbours that God will soften their hearts and open their eyes so that his word can take root in their lives.

And finally as Christians we need to guard our own hearts and make every effort to not allow weeds to grow because we can be sure if we do that our fruitfulness will suffer.

In the name of the living God. Amen.

Sunday 9th July 2011 - Isaiah Ch 48 verses 1 – 6 & 17 – 22; Matthew Ch 11 verses 16 – 19

Our two readings this morning were chosen by the Liturgical Group of the Church of England, the body who 

choose the readings set for each day, because they complement each other and also shed light on each other. 

It is one of the basic principles of interpreting the Scriptures that we don’t just take single verses or even whole passages of Scripture and expect to get an accurate and helpful interpretation without looking also at their context and comparing them with other passages that deal with the same subject or issues.  

 Why? Well because the danger – and it is a very great one and, sadly, common one – is that it is all too easy to get a lop-sided or even quite perverse understanding of single verses and even whole passages if we do not. There are, sadly, those who, instead of wrestling with the difficult or unpalatable passages in the Scriptures, prefer to base their understanding of what the Scriptures say and, more worryingly, what they then believe and do as a result, on those verses and passages that they like or which suit their particular agendas. I have seen a lot of this in my time and could give you several examples: but just one - briefly to illustrate this error - will suffice this morning. It struck me as I was pondering these readings this week that is very topical, having already made inroads from America into some British churches.

It is to do with the fanatical and unquestioning support which some large Fundamentalist Christian churches and organisations are giving to the state of Israel based upon an ill-informed and biased reading of the Old Testament. (Please understand, I am not about to preach politics from the pulpit and I am definitely not anti-Semitic: I merely want to illustrate how very dangerous is bad or biased interpretation of the Scriptures we read Sunday by Sunday and, I trust, day by day.)

The mantra of this group is ‘Israel, right or wrong’, and is based upon one or two verses in the Book of Genesis alone. It completely disregards not only other verses in that book but other books of both the Old Testament and the New. These include our passage from Isaiah this morning. The point, quite simply, is this: 

In Genesis Chapter 12, God says he will bless Abram’s ‘seed’, i.e. those descended from him and who continue in the faith; and he will curse those who try to destroy them.        Now these Fundamentalists or, as I prefer to call them, these ‘Irrationalists’ - there being nothing wrong at all about keeping to the fundamental tenets of orthodox Christian belief informed by the Scriptures and correctly interpreted - have used this verse not only to condone Israel’s oppression of Muslims and Christians in Israel and Palestine but even those Jews in Israel and elsewhere who are trying to bring a just peace to the region.

 We have to look at such a verse in context and in comparison with other verses and books of Scripture. And what the context and other Scriptures tell us is that God’s blessing of Israel is conditional upon their faithfulness to him and upon their keeping of his commandments. Indeed God sent the prophets, like Isaiah here, to remind them of that deal or ‘covenant’ because they had kept on breaking it: they had not kept the commandments; they had not treated properly the poor, the sick, the widowed, the orphaned, the ‘strangers within their gates’; they had not been faithful to God; and they did not listen to the call to repent. (v1, v2, v18). The prophets also reminded them that the perfect or perfected Jerusalem was to be built by God and in his time plan, not theirs. This then is the danger when some charismatic personality comes along and interprets the bible in a bad or biased way. This was not what I was planning to speak about this morning but it is so important that you understand how easy it is for heresy and horror to arise. If you come across this erroneous teaching with any friends or acquaintances, please feel free to give them my number.

But, as I said at the beginning, these passages do complement each other and shed light on each other. V4 and v18 illustrate the people’s characteristic unwillingness to listen to God and his messengers, and to obey him. And this is exactly the same situation Jesus finds – illustrated in verses 16-19, and of course in so many other passages! - when he, God himself in human form, comes to earth to call them to repentance and to be reconciled to him.

Now our Gospel reading has in fact been shortened by the Liturgical Commission because they did not want to upset you with what Jesus was saying to those who refused to listen to his message. If you read on, the whole passage is verses 16 – 24, its warnings among the most sober and serious words Jesus ever spoke. 

I’ll leave that to you to follow up during the week.  Just to say that, thinking of context, you need to bear in mind that he is speaking to his very own neighbours and community here: there is a very real sadness and disappointment in his warnings to those who had seen the wonderful things he had done, who had heard his wisdom, witnessed his life and lifestyle, and yet, allowed their obstinacy, their own agendas, to rule them. We come across such people of course today; people who won’t receive the Good News of Jesus. People who think they are self-sufficient; people whose agendas are too full or too busy or too different from Jesus’ to want to listen to what he has to say. As Jesus puts it so tellingly in the parable about the selfish rich man in Hell, those blinded by selfishness and greed would not repent ’though one rose from the dead.’ V17. And such people are never satisfied; they will always find fault with the message or the messenger. V18 (Deut 21: 18 – 21 people describing Jesus in terms of the ‘rebellious son’ who must be put to death for leading people away from God. See how easy it is to turn the Scriptures against even God himself if he threatens our most cherished prejudices!)

But Jesus’ answer and our answer to those who will not listen, who do not think they need to be forgiven by God, who think they are good people and do not need to repent, who are righteous in their own eyes – whether they be members of the Church or not - is the same. V19. Just take a genuine look at Jesus and at what he did; look at his explanation of what he did; look at what happened to him and why – and why he did all that he did for you personally. And then take an honest, clear-headed look at yourself – setting your prejudices and your agendas and your fancy notions about yourself apart for a moment; and I hope that you will be able to say to yourself in the words of that great hymn about God’s ‘Amazing Grace’,  ‘I once was lost, but now am found; was blind but now I see’.  

Romans Chapter 5 verses 1 – 11 1st Sunday in Lent 2011

Everyone has different ideas about what Christianity is all about – what its purpose is; what its goal is. As you know, there are many ‘denominations’ – different groupings of Christians who prefer to think of and practise their religion in different ways. The sad thing of course is that such divisions tend not only to create very unchristian attitudes between the different groups, they tend also to create more divisions –divisions within the divisions! (We should note that the New Testament makes no mention of ‘denominations’: instead, it speaks only of ‘the local church’ and of ‘the universal church’.) Indeed, Jesus’ famous ‘high priestly prayer for his disciples in John chapter 17 is a prayer for unity - ‘I pray, Father, that they may be one’. It was as if Jesus knew full well the destructive power personal tastes and preferences can and do exert within religion.

If we ask ourselves what is the purpose and goal of Christianity – I mean on an everyday, practical basis - on this question Jesus and the NT writers agree:       it is to become more like Jesus through a personal relationship with him, to be in him and for him to be in us. The exercise of faith is not just intellectual, it is practical, it is personal, it is relational.

So let us for a moment put away our preconceptions as to what we think the goal and purpose of Christianity is and let’s see what Paul has to say. I realise that some people aren’t very keen on some of the things Paul has to say about Christianity. It is very easy to claim that some 2000 years and a very different culture from ours means that we can take him or leave him as we wish – and of course he’s not here to argue! – but given the depth of his relationship with Jesus, the faithfulness with which he adheres to Jesus’ teaching as we encounter it in the Gospel records, and the sheer wisdom of his arguments, I always find myself far more sceptical of Paul’s detractors, their all too often predetermined and self-indulgent agendas, than I am about the authenticity and integrity of what he has to say. 

This is not just because my interests, training, and experience lie in theology and in the Middle East; it is because I know what people with agendas can be like. There is an arrogance about much ‘modern’ Western theology –by theology I mean talking about God and about us in relation to him - that should cause us to question the agendas and motives behind it. I am not saying that Paul has said the final word in every subject he touches on, or that he is not sometimes difficult to understand, or that 2000 years and a different culture do not pose problems for us: but, simply casting Paul aside because we deem his insights irrelevant to our modern way of life or thinking is, I believe, not only a short-sighted and naive approach but also a spiritually dangerous one. 

There are, if you look closely, some fascinating parallels between this arrogance - this ‘we know better than you because we are culturally and politically more advanced than you’ - in such modern western theology and the West’s attitude to Middle Eastern countries and culture generally. But I will leave that to my study leave lectures next month!

I have said on other occasions that Jesus is quite clear in his teaching about what is the purpose and goal of his coming to earth (his incarnation), of his sacrificial death, of his reconciling us to God, and of his founding his Church – the ‘body’ of those who belong to him. He wants us to know God as Father, he wants us to know the Father’s love; and he wants us to allow his Spirit to live in us so that we become more like him. 

In short, he wants us to know that fullness of life, that peace –which comes from knowing we are reconciled; and that joy – which comes in his service; service which, if faithful, will involve our suffering for his sake.

Now with this teaching of Jesus’ in mind, let’s compare it with what Paul says here.  I think you will be surprised by just how much Paul and Jesus agree.

One thing we must first understand though is this: because God loves you and me and wants us to become more like Jesus, he is much more interested in our character then he is in our comfort. Yes, he wants us to know his peace and his joy; but these things simply are not possible unless we are also willing to suffer for his sake. But ‘suffering’ is not a popular subject, especially, we might well add, in the Western Church. If we examine what people in the West think about the goal and purpose of Christianity, suffering is certainly not the first thing which comes to their mind! Comfort? Yes. Community? Yes. Consolation? Yes. Curiosity even? Yes! But character-building through suffering for Jesus’ sake is something that only mature and maturing Christians realise and indeed welcome?

Let’s turn to these verses. The first verses 1& 2 remind us that because of Jesus and through Jesus we have the right to approach the very presence of God himself. We are at peace with him; we are no longer in a state of enmity on account of our sinfulness because Jesus has reconciled us to God though his sacrificial death – a point Paul reminds us of later in verses 6, 8, & 10. This new status we receive as a result of God’s grace. It is a status unearned, undeserved, unobtainable except through grace – God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. It is something in which we put our faith – a reasoned and reasonable faith based on the reliable and reassuring evidence of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. But it is also something to be celebrated (‘boasted in’ NRSV) because our hope is in the sure promise of God and in sharing his glory.

But ‘that’s not all’ v3, we may actually boast in, i.e. celebrate, our sufferings for his sake. Why? Well because v4 sharing in his sufferings produces in us a Christ-like character; a character of such depth and quality as assures us of the truth of Jesus’ promise of eternal life (our hope) and is reassured by the experience, through suffering for Jesus’ sake, of the deep love of God for us.

This is not all in the head - some cold, clinical intellectual assent to an idea or a concept. God is not a proposition to be proved; no, he is a person to be encountered. In the historical Jesus we encounter the one who embodied God; in the risen Jesus we encounter proof that God’s promise of the hope of eternal life is true; and in the spirit of Jesus who lives in hearts that will make room for him, we may encounter such love for us as confirms that hope.

I love these passages in Paul’s letter to the Romans. They are at one and the same time shocking reality checks about us but also tremendous encouragements and reassurance about God’s incredible love for us; love shown, principally, in sending his son Jesus to reconcile us to him in an act of the most costly love. It is passages like these – so wonderfully perceptive both about God and about humanity - that not only anger the atheist scientists like Dawkins and Hawkins or the humanist Libertines like Hitchens and Christopher Fry but also destroy the ridiculous caricatures of Christianity they insist on presenting. Verses 6 – 11 are a reminder in the most unflattering words of the painful truths about humanity, yet also of the amazing rescue operation mounted by God for us through his son. To paraphrase what Paul is saying here – the truth about ourselves is unpalatable, ues; but now, through Jesus, we are not only saved from our just deserts, we are reconciled to God, we have been offered new life, and we have every reason to boast of (to celebrate, to proclaim) this wonderful liberation, this amazing grace.

A few words about suffering to finish. What can the Christian say and do? The first thing to say is that while we cannot know the reasons or answers ‘Why?’ to specific cases of suffering – at least not in this lifetime, there are some things we can rationally and reasonably say.                                                        First, that the answer given and repeated in verses 6, 8, and 10 shows that God’s concern for our suffering and his deep love for us is not in question.      Secondly, the proper Christian response to the suffering of others is to share that suffering in as full and selfless a way as possible.                                        And, thirdly – and this is perhaps the most contentious point – you and I cannot grow to maturity in Christ, we cannot become more like him, unless we are prepared to share his sufferings – which means both to share the sufferings of others (my second point) but also to suffer for his name’s sake, that is, to stand up for him and be counted. I know that’s a tough order in this world in which we live, a world which increasingly tries to mock or marginalise Christians; but the reward of doing so is immeasurably more than any reward this world can offer or any pain or persecution it can throw at us.

Doctors and psychologists have long considered the role of suffering in personality and behaviour generally. Even in personal suffering – pain, loss, or whatever, it is the way people react to suffering that is important: not only this, but the evidence strongly suggests that whilst it is not suffering itself that makes a person grow as a person, a person does not grow as a person without suffering. Comfort does little or nothing to create character.

Suffering without the knowledge of God’s love and the experience of the love of others – of family and friends – tends to produce bitterness and resentment. But a relationship with God gives us a sense of proportion about our suffering – as it does everything in life. He wants us to know his love, his peace, his joy, his hope; and all these so much so that we can even ‘boast in our sufferings’.

The Christian’s goal is to become more like Christ; our purpose is to serve his purposes – whatever they may be. This is the way to that fullness of life Jesus promised. It is something to consider very deeply in this season of Lent.       

Christmas Midnight Mass 2010

I don’t know if any of you managed to see any or all four of the episodes of the BBC’s ‘The Nativity’ this week. It did get a very good press overall – except, I saw, on the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science website, where it seems, sadly, from reading the members’ comments there, to have thoroughly spoilt a number of atheist or anti-theist Christmases this year.

Tony Jordan, of Eastenders, Hustle, and Life on Mars fame, who wrote the mini-series, says that he was so fascinated by the story of the Nativity that he spent some two years writing his dramatic presentation of it. He wanted to show, he said, how seemingly ordinary people might have reacted to the extraordinary and miraculous events that befell them -those events that are recorded in the gospel infancy narratives – the accounts of Jesus’ birth.

The story he presents is told from a very human perspective, but he takes seriously the original narratives themselves: he recognises that the gospel writers approach the fact of the incarnation from different points of view and with different audiences and priorities in mind; and so there is a blending of the gospel story in order to give a broader and deeper picture of the incarnation –  one of the main reasons why the Church chose to accept not just one but four ‘Gospels’ to be included in our New Testament.

The mini-series is very powerful, both visually and verbally – more so, of course, than any crib scene or talk from a clergyman could ever be! And so, if you havn’t yet seen it yet, I do thoroughly recommend it to you.

Most interestingly, Tony Jordan actually has a stab – a very good stab in fact – at answering the question ‘Why?’ Why did God, in one of his forms of being God, choose to become one of us? Like all good and helpful theology (talking about God and us in relation to him) the question is put and answered simply (i.e. straightforwardly) and in terms that ordinary people can understand.

In one brief but very important scene, Peter Capaldi and Jack Shepherd, who play Balthazar and Melchior, two of the three ‘Magi’, are discussing on their way to Bethlehem the significance of the event – God sending his son - and why God might consider this necessary. Melchior asks Balthazar how he views God. Does he see him as a presence, an intellect? And did God just create the world and then move on, or did he stay and watch over his creation?

Balthazar replies that the days of God’s intervention seem to have long gone; that whilst Jewish history tells stories of God’s intervention as he tries to get them to understand and obey his life-giving and life-enhancing laws, that was all in the past. But then Melchior suggests that the Jewish idea of God as Father is actually hugely significant, and that such an intervention is both natural and logical. He asks Balthazar, ‘But isn’t that how you would deal with a child? - the Father’s nurture and constant presence teaching them to make their way in the world, making rules, so that when the time comes he can let them go? Just because the Father no longer intervenes does not mean he is no longer there.’ And then he adds, ‘What if the child appears to have lost its way; to have forgotten the things he was taught?       ‘The Father would intervene’, replies Balthazar.   ‘

Wouldn’t you?’ says Melchior.

And you know, I cannot think of a simpler, more logical reason for the incarnation and explanation of it. Yes of course it is a huge mystery - how God by the operation of the Holy Spirit is able to so combine with Mary that he, and not some new person – as would be the case were Joseph involved – is able to be born in human form. But the orthodox Christian understanding of the incarnation remains by far the most logical and fair reading of the evidence available to us – which must include the testimony and ministry of Jesus himself, and of course his resurrection as the cornerstone of our belief about who Jesus was. It also is in perfect harmony with the belief that God is love.

It is from the fact of the incarnation and the biblical record – the old testament and the new - that we may 

believe with confidence the answers we have been given by God to those two great questions Richard Dawkins says are fundamental to our understanding of life and our place in it and yet remain still so elusive to biologists. ‘How did life begin’, and ‘What is consciousness?’

Sadly, somehow I think that the first chapter of St. John’s Gospel and Tony Jordan’s, ‘The Nativity’ are unlikely to be on Richard Dawkins’ reading and viewing lists this Christmas. But if you make them yours, I am quite sure that the God whose birth as a human-being we remember and celebrate tonight, will bless you with insight and understanding about who he is, about who you are, and about the kind of person he calls you to be through faith in his son.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Matthew Ch 4: 12-17 ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.’

The warning of an approaching object or event is always important. We need to know what’s coming, what danger it poses, what action – perhaps evasive action - we need to take: and that of course is true whether we are talking about a tsunami or a visit from the mother-in-law. We need to know in order to be able to take effective action to respond to that object or event.

Sometimes the truth about approaching events or objects is kept from us, even deliberately, and they come upon us as a complete surprise. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami – one of the most devastating natural disasters in recorded history – was a surprise that should not have been a surprise. Had governments and businessmen listened to and acted upon the very clear warnings from scientists, even in the weeks and the days and the hours before it struck, it is certain that far, far fewer people would have been killed. But in the event, commercial greed won the day and over 230,000 people died.

In Matthew’s Gospel, the approaching event of such life-saving and life-changing significance, is the proclamation by Jesus of the coming of the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ and of the action he expected people to take on hearing about its approach. He wanted them to know. And even though this message of his with, on the one hand its invitation to life and freedom, and on the other its warning of impending disaster and death, was central to everything he had to say and teach, few people really grasped what it was all about. Just as they fail to do today; which is why we need to remind ourselves or perhaps, in some cases, to understand clearly for the first time his wonderful invitation and his dire warning.

 It is difficult in our modern West for people to appreciate the importance and the urgency of Jesus’ message because there is so much that blinds us to it: so many have been taken in by the attractions of the worship of wealth, of status, of success, and even self-worship, that his is not a message they want to hear: or at least whilst they may welcome the invitation, when they hear of the warning, well, it falls on deaf ears. And of course it has always been so when God, or his prophets, or his Son have spoken: there have always been those who cannot or will not see the light of his truth because they prefer the darkness of their situation. This is why we who call ourselves Christians are required – and it is a requirement, not an optional extra – to bring his light into the lives of others, into the lives of those who walk in such darkness. And the argument for that, for doing so, for bringing his light into the lives of others, is quite simply and none other than the Second Commandment - ‘to love our neighbour as ourselves’.

In Jesus’ day, anyone hearing talk of the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ would immediately know that this meant revolution: it was a term that was used to speak of God coming to the aid of his chosen people in order to restore their political fortunes, and with God as the true king. But now here was Jesus not only announcing that the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ was approaching but, as we soon learn in his ministry, that it was he who was God’s unique agent in bringing about this longed-for kingdom. 

However, the people also soon learned from him the uncomfortable and unpopular truth that not only was his kingdom very different in nature from the one they were hoping for but also that entry into this kingdom came not by right but by repentance. For those who had not obeyed God’s commandments, for those who had twisted religion or justice to their own advantage, for those who served the gods of money and materialism, they had better get their act together and ‘repent’, says Jesus. Yes, God invites you into his kingdom; yes, God is merciful and always willing to forgive – whatever our track record; but, says Jesus, we must ‘repent’ before it is too late. V17.

The trouble with this word ‘repent’ is that it is often misunderstood. People think that it is all about ‘feeling bad about ourselves’. It isn’t. It doesn’t mean that. It means ‘changing direction’, ‘turning round and going the other way’. We may well feel bad about we have done, or, just as importantly, what we have not done in order to show our love for God and neighbour, but how we feel isn’t really the important thing. It is what we do that matters, and what we do for him.

Jesus knew that his contemporaries were going in the wrong direction by seeking man-made political solutions to their problems rather than God’s solutions to their problems; and that on both a corporate and a personal level. Is it not alarming that in our day, politicians and businessmen increasingly try to exclude the Christian religion – on which our laws and customs concerning the treatment of people in this country are based – from the public arena; even from having any voice in the running of our society. And so we have seen increasingly over the last few years Christian men and women – magistrates, counsellors, doctors, nurses, and others forced out of their jobs for beliefs that are entirely in accordance not only with God’s revealed words about humanity and society but also with sheer common sense – by which I mean the rational and reasonable findings from empirical evidence; evidence that is refuted not because it is at odds with the facts but because it is at odds with certain dogmatic views and opinions – no more! – which are seen as having the greater authority in how we should lead our lives today. It is those such as these magistrates, counsellors, doctors, nurses, and others who are the true successors of the prophetic tradition, and in faithfully following Jesus calling us as individuals and as a society back to these words of our gospel reading.

This is why Jesus and Matthew (and St. Paul) make it quite clear that such disregard of God’s laws, such determination to find solutions to life’s problems without him will inevitably end in disaster – as happened in AD 70 with the fall of Jerusalem. For each one of us today we have to ask, in the light of Jesus’ call to repentance, some soul-searching questions of ourselves. We ask such questions not simply because we want to get right with God but because it was Jesus who put us right with God. He did so by offering himself to die on the cross and in so doing take away the barrier of sin that separates us from God. We ask such questions out of our love for him and for what he did for us. What we do for him demonstrates the authenticity of our love: when we turn from our sins and begin to go in the right direction we show true repentance.

So, what am I doing to extend the rule of the Kingdom of Heaven in God’s world? Have I accepted his invitation to new life and freedom, and ‘repented’, turned away from, those other gods I am tempted to worship or which seem still to have such a hold on my priorities in life? Am I actively seeking to bring the light of his gospel into the lives of my neighbour – whoever that may be? Am I willing to, have I, stood up for him and the values and principles of his kingdom publicly, unashamedly, sacrificially? Or am I actually still rather getting in the way by what I say and do or don’t do, thus preventing his light from shining in the darkness?

None of us is perfect and none of us can ever serve him perfectly: yet he is delighted when we take the smallest step in faith. He will give us everything – and I mean everything – that we need in order to serve him faithfully and effectively. Jesus, then and now, is not looking for good people but for effective disciples. In my experience those who are more concerned about their own imagined goodness are usually of little use to him; equally so I have found that his most effective disciples often struggle with flaws of character and behaviour which they know full well are a real issue. But that does not prevent them from giving themselves in faith, warts ‘n’ all, in his service and allowing him to sort out those flaws which we all of us have. Many of you know  or have heard of Dave Carter, a reformed East End villain who set up and runs the Drop In Centre in the Medway towns for the homeless and variously needed. He is by no means perfect; I have found him crying over a harsh or inappropriate word he has just used, knowing how this has let his Master down. But that doesn’t stop him from carrying out the wonderful work he does. Why? Because he knows that forgiveness is possible and that his Master is both immensely gracious and patient; a Master whose work is far more important than his being overly concerned about any goodness or respectability of his own.

The great mistakes are either to think that being good is all that God is interested in – and how it makes me smile inwardly when I listen to the self-styled ‘good’ defending their self-styled goodness! -  or that we are not good enough for God. He calls anyone and everyone (inclusion or inclusiveness were God’s ideas long before they became New Labour policies!); therefore he thinks that through faith in his Son, we are good enough. Why? Because faith in his Son shows that we know that we are not good enough, but also that we trust that he can and will change us for the good if we let him. As always, the choice is ours. ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’, the kingdom and its King who offer forgiveness and life, life in all its fullness, life everlasting. Repent; welcome him into your life; make room for him; serve him; speak of him; stand up for him. 

Don’t leave your neighbour in the dark.