STUDY QUESTIONS - John 14 ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life’

STUDY QUESTIONS - John  14 ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life’

1. Despite the comfort and assurance offered by Jesus in this passage, its unequivocal exclusiveness – his claims both about himself and about his being ‘the only way to the Father’ – some people do find a touch disturbing if not indeed very hard to accept. Why is this so and how would you reassure them about the wholly inclusive nature of Jesus’ exclusive claims?

2. Can you pick out in the passage the claims, direct or indirect, which Jesus makes about his identity that support the doctrine of the incarnation – that Jesus was ‘God come in the flesh’?

3. Is Jesus saying here that there is nothing good in other religions? Can you think of some of his encounters with gentiles during his ministry? What bearing do these have on our understanding of those of other religions or those who have not heard the Gospel? What can WE do about it?

4. In what ways can our preconceptions about God and about how He acts or ought to act affect our understanding of God’s self-revelation in Jesus? How strong an influence are other world views, religious, scientific, cultural, or otherwise on our faith? How might these adversely affect our call to evangelise, for example?

5. Why is doubt the easy way out? How can we guard against it?

6. Why are we in many respects in a more advantageous position then the disciples to understand who Jesus was and the purpose of his coming?

7. Doing ‘greater works than these’ and ‘asking anything in my name’; how do you understand these phrases in this passage? What does it mean and require of us to share in his ministry of reconciliation?

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY 11TH November 2013

REMEMBRANCE  SUNDAY 11^TH  November 2013

As we gather here today our thoughts and thanks quite rightly will be foremost for those who have given their lives in previous conflicts; for today is their day when we remember the sacrifice of their deaths, sacrifices made in order that you and I might enjoy the freedom to live and to live in freedom. It is a day which, if we are truly grateful, ought to prompt us to honest reflection about how we choose to use that freedom; to repent of misuses of that freedom and actively to seek out ways in which we might employ our gifts and talents, experience and expertise, in sacrificial service of our fellow human beings.

But our thoughts and prayers must also be for the living, for those fighting, even as I speak, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, facing every day the prospect of sudden death. I can remember myself, as a young rifle platoon commander in Northern Ireland some 30 years ago now, what that felt like before each and every patrol or ambush. Of course, in your early 20s, you think not only that you are infinitely better than the enemy, you also tend to believe yourself indestructible. Yet talking with some riflemen, recently returned from Afghanistan, the nature of the conflict there, together with the sophistication of the enemy’s devices now, serve to produce a feeling of utter vulnerability: no matter how well trained, how professionally competent, the spectre of imminent death or terrible injury looms exceedingly large in their thoughts.

Now I am not here to speak on the pros and cons of our military presence in Afghanistan; I am here to invite you to ‘remember’ with real gratefulness the sacrifice of all those who have given their lives in the fight against evil, and to encourage you to pray, not only for all those currently fighting against evil but also, and perhaps especially so, for all those who are doing so but struggling; struggling, that is, with the moral issues and choices they face each day, or just with their being there, because the world and the morality of its politics today make so many of the choices our service personnel have to address far less black and white and a great deal more complex than in most previous conflicts. So for them our prayers today and everyday are immensely important.

Our Gospel passage this morning gives us a real sense of what terrifying uncertainty and the prospect of imminent death or loss of friends is like. However, at the same time it also offers to all of us, whatever we are facing in this life in terms of trials or terrors, loss or loneliness, or just trying to make sense of this life and our place and part in it, a source of security, comfort, purpose and hope; something which then enables us to become realists about this life and about what happens thereafter. I say ‘realists’ because the source of this information is Jesus himself, the one whom Christians believe – on the basis of the evidence of his birth, life, death, and resurrection – to be exactly whom he claimed to be - our Creator God come in person as one of us in order to save us. This ‘saving’ is not from trials or terrors or wars, but rather from sin and from ourselves. He does this in order that we might become people fit for heaven. 

Indeed, as Jesus states very clearly here, he is the only way to heaven, inviting all who hear this to put their faith and hope of eternal life in him.

But as we can see from this passage, still his own disciples did not really or fully understand who he was and what he was about. It was only after his resurrection that it all fell into place for them and they understood, at last, just who it was they had been with for those two or three years.  The evidence for the resurrection is still there for all to see but, sadly, will never be sufficient for those who are predisposed, for whatever reason, not to see it.

But this morning just put yourselves in the position of his disciples there. How sad, how bewildering, how terrifying it must have been for them: things looked very bleak indeed. Jesus understood this and as a good, strong leader must, encourages and rallies his disciples for the tough tasks ahead. How are they to calm their hearts for the future with all its present fears and uncertainties? For being associated with Jesus would come to mean, as in many countries it still does today, the prospect of torture and death. 

Well, they are to trust; to trust in God and in him.v1 ‘Trust in God; trust also in me.’

Yet it seems their trust in God is perhaps a little shaky, a little vague, to say the least. 

Jesus, in inviting them to put their trust in him, effectively challenges them to regard him as they would God himself. Now that is some claim!

Jesus then says that he is going to prepare a place for them and that he will return for them, comforting them with the information that there is space enough in ‘my Father’s house’, a reference of course to heaven. But here again we are challenged with this very exclusive idea that it is Jesus who is able to prepare us a place in Heaven. Why? 

Because it is, v2 ‘my Father’s house’.

Then comes this note of reassurance v4 ‘You know the way to the place where I am going’, which seems to suggest, does it not, from Thomas’ reply, that Jesus has misjudged his disciples. At one level it is obvious that they don’t think they know the way! But again Jesus is asking them to trust him: it is precisely, he is saying, because they know him that they therefore know the way.

Poor Thomas v5 is still mystified. The Gospels reveal him as a loyal and courageous disciple but one liberally endowed with misapprehensions and doubts – just another typical middle-of-the-road Anglican churchgoer really!

And then in v 6 Jesus answers Thomas’ question with perhaps the most clear and audacious statement in the Gospel records Jesus makes about himself. ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ Jesus is the way to God precisely because he is the truth of God and the life of God. He may properly be called ‘God’ because he is God’s gracious disclosure of himself in human form – as v7 makes clear.

To many people today such an exclusivist claim to being the only way to God is anathema: and of course if we prefer the secular dogmas of so-called inclusiveness or our own imaginings on this, then we will find Jesus’ teaching here hard to swallow. I would just say this: it is so important we look at the life and the credentials of those who argue against the teaching of Jesus and ask ourselves who, on the balance of evidence, is more credible? I realise that the ‘all roads lead to Heaven’ or ‘all religions are fundamentally the same’ assertions can seem very comforting, and they have some very colourful and attractive celebrities who advocate them; but study their credentials before you decide, and compare them with the credentials of Jesus. Our Heavenly Father is loving and merciful, and will never turn away anyone who genuinely seeks to be with him: but whoever they are, whatever their religion to date, and whatever their track record, Jesus says they may only come through him.

Something of these great truths and hard facts are perhaps illustrated if I briefly recount a little incident from the jungle. Some of you know that I am a qualified jungle warfare instructor – a very useful training I have found for surviving in the Anglican church – and one day on my instructor’s course we were out doing a map reading exercise. If ever there is a test of faith, it has got to be map reading and compass work in the jungle. I remember our instructor stressing that to get from point A to point B that afternoon there was only one way. ‘Gentlemen, you may choose to take a short cut or you may choose to take the scenic route; neither of these will get you to your objective by the right time - if at all. There is one way only, and you miss it at your peril.’

Well, if you sympathised with Thomas, here now is Philip. In spite of everything they have seen and heard, these disciples are still hanging on to their preconceptions and their safe assumptions about Jesus, preconceptions and assumptions which combine, as they still do for people today, to blind them to life’s greatest spiritual realities. The disciples did not have all the advantages that you and I have, if only we will take advantage of them – the New Testament and the Holy Spirit. Of course, the resurrection changed all that for them; but if we are sincere in our seeking after the truth about this life, its purpose, and our destiny, then it is surely the utmost folly to subordinate the teaching of Jesus about these things to our own or others’ limited imaginings.

There’s more than a hint of sadness, I think, in the words of Jesus in v9 as he realises that he has more work to do in order to convince them. And I suppose it warns us that spiritual insight and spiritual maturity are not so much a matter or product of a length of time as they are of a willingness to set aside one’s prejudices and to be open to knowing Jesus as Saviour and Lord.

Jesus continues, asking them to believe what he has said to be true v11 and then, in appealing to them to have faith in him, turns the focus in these last verses to the fruitfulness that believers will have when they do seek to serve him. When you and I unashamedly make known the truth and the love of Jesus to others – that he is the way, the truth, and the life; when we take on the role of Good Samaritan and give the glory for our good works to God; when we self-sacrificially support the poor or our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ, we demonstrate something of the truth of v12. The contrast here is not between the works Jesus did and the works his disciples will do after his death and resurrection, but between the works Jesus did and the far greater works he will do in and with his disciples from the Day of Pentecost onwards.

You and me he calls to join him in his continuing work of reconciling people to their Heavenly Father through him. He is the way, the truth, and the life: he longs for all to know this, and he calls you and me to make him known to them.

THE ‘I AM’ SAYINGS OF JESUS - ‘I am the True Vine’ John Ch 15 vv 1 – 8

THE ‘I AM’ SAYINGS OF JESUS  - ‘I am the True Vine’ John Ch 15 vv 1 – 8

Did you know that farmers and Jesus have something very important in common; they share a common goal, a common hope. Now, you’ve all heard, I’m sure, those jokes that start, ’What’s the difference?’ For example, ‘What’s the difference between an elephant and a post box?’ To which the answer, for those of you who havn’t heard it, is, ‘Well if you don’t know, you’re certainly not posting any of my letters!’ But this isn’t a ‘what’s the difference’ question; it’s a ‘what do they have in common?’ question. And the answer is that they are both extremely interested in fruitfulness.

Just as the farmer wants to see his orchards produce apples, his fields corn, barley, wheat or whatever, his cows milk, so Jesus wants to see spiritual fruit from his followers, his disciples. The goal of our discipleship is, first and foremost, fruitfulness.        As I have said on so many occasions, the Gospels teach us quite plainly that the goal of discipleship is not goodness but effectiveness: any goodness in you or me of any value in Jesus’ eyes, any goodness worth having at all, will always be as a consequence of our being effective disciples for his name’s sake.   And in our Gospel passage this morning, which contains the next in our series of Sunday morning talks on the ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus in St. John’s Gospel, 

Jesus here explains not only the key truth that fruitfulness is the goal of discipleship but also here he explains how such fruitfulness may be achieved.

So it really is a very appropriate topic on the occasion of our Harvest Festival, when we come together to thank God for all his gifts and blessings of creation, for the fruit of our labours, and to sing that great pride-busting, humbling Harvest hymn which reminds us that ‘all good things around us are sent from Heaven above’, that we are reminded too that we are each one of us called by Jesus, in whatever work or season of life, to be fruitful for him to God’s glory.

The picture or metaphor Jesus uses here is that of the vine which was used in the Old Testament to describe the people of Israel. But always and consistently the prophets were calling them to repentance because they were not producing the fruit God wanted. And Jesus takes up this picture and claims to be himself the ‘true vine’.

So let’s see what this passage has to tell us about Jesus, about you and me in relationship to him and to each other, and about what it involves and requires of you and me to fulfil our calling to be fruitful, to be effective disciples. 

Our passage is in two intricately connected parts (verses 1-8 and verses 9-16) which inform and comment on each other. Both sections speak of ‘remaining’ or ‘abiding’: the first, of remaining in the vine (vv 4-7), that is, Jesus; the second, of ‘remaining’ in Jesus’ love (vv9-10); both parts hold up ‘fruitfulness’ as the disciple’s goal (vv 5,16); both tie such fruitfulness to prayer (vv 7-8, 16). Both sections are designed to move the listener or reader away from the old covenant to the new covenant in Jesus, from Israel as the vine to Jesus as the true vine. Remember, as we learned at the outset of this series, John is writing primarily to help Jewish converts grasp the fundamental and liberating truth that Jesus is the fulfilment of God’s dealings with his people, and therefore to move away from relying on the old practices. Also, Jesus moves our understanding of our relationship with him from that of ‘servants’ to ‘friends’.

Taken together then, as they are supposed to be, these two sections help us to appreciate more deeply the relationship between Jesus and his disciples, and between Jesus and you and me. Our relationship with Him is defined but not exhausted by such terms as obedience, perseverance, revelation, and love: it is this picture or metaphor of the vine which helps us to understand that this relationship with him includes fruitfulness, dependence on him and on each other, vital union with him and with each other, and the uncomfortable one – pruning; pruning away what is diseased or non-fruit-bearing in order to make us more like Jesus.

Again, as with the bread of life metaphor we looked at a couple of weeks ago, there is nothing in this passage about the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion – though many have claimed it in order to support some of their interpretation of Holy Communion. The simple truth is that John is speaking here of the union of believers with Christ, apart from whom they can do nothing effective as his disciples. This union, originated by him and sealed by his sacrificial death for us, is completed by our responsive love and obedience. It is the very essence of Christianity. There are, unfortunately, so many things that the Church and culture have tried to make of Christianity and for various reasons. Sometimes they have tried, with good intentions, to change, develop, or improve it; or, misguidedly, tried to make it easier for people to accept by watering it down or accommodating it to the prevailing culture; or to discredit it: but any understandings of 

Christianity which place greater weight on any such additions or subtractions tend by and large to undermine fruitfulness. Such and such may be our time-honoured custom or comforting habit, but do these things make us more effective disciples? Do our preferred ways of ‘doing Church’ help or hinder others to learn of God’s truth and love for them?

Let’s take a closer look at some of the verses. Sadly, we do not have time to delve very deeply in a short Sunday morning talk but, as with the other talks, this talk will be on our website, together with study questions; and after half-term there will be an evening Study Group if you have been unable to attend the afternoon one on Tuesdays here in the snug New Room in church.

Notice v1 . Although the Son’s role is central, the Father’s is not mere background: it is He who trims and prunes the branches, which is of course a necessary operation in order to produce new, more, and more abundant growth. I know we don’t like being told that we need pruning: there is always the tempting and comforting thought that, in terms of our discipleship, ‘Well, you’re really not doing too badly’ – if only in comparison to some others! And there will always be some kind and comforting soul around to confirm my view of myself, my character, my good works, or my achievements. But be careful; flattery is not the same thing as encouragement: and we all of us need to spend quality time with him, listening to his loving and gentle voice explaining where and why some pruning is necessary if we want to be fruitful for him.                          

V2 Jesus is the vine; you and I are the branches. The branches derive their life from the vine; the vine produces its fruit through the branches. But then comes the pruning and the cutting off of the dead wood. In short what Jesus is saying here is that fruitfulness is an infallible mark of true Christianity; there are no true Christians without some measure of fruit. This is hard-nosed, challenging teaching: Jesus did not suffer from the Anglican sin of ‘niceness’. Coming to church, being baptised, reading your bible, believing that there is a God, are all worthless unless we are producing fruit. Ninety year olds can produce fruit; children can produce fruit: paraplegics can produce fruit; terminal cancer patients can produce fruit. What matters is the state of the soil in our hearts. 

V5 We see here that the branch’s purpose is to ‘produce much fruit’. What is the fruit we are to produce? Well, I think we must envisage a tree or bush that has the potential to produce a whole range and variety of fruits. Let’s not try to restrict or confine possibilities but expand them! So we are talking about: the Fruit of the Spirit, Christian character, love for others, but above all – if we remember the calling God gave to the Israelites – to be ‘a light to the Gentiles’. And if we take into account Jesus’ teaching elsewhere about the purpose of discipleship, this ‘fruitfulness’ concerns at heart the making known of Jesus to others who know neither his truth nor his love.

In verses 7, 8, and 16 we see that any such fruitfulness is the consequence of obedience to Jesus’ words, prayer in Jesus’ name, and offered to the glory of the Father. So when we are examining or testing whether or not any claim to fruitfulness is genuine, we need to apply this three-stemmed litmus test: is it a consequence of faithfulness to Jesus’ revelation (his words), of prayer in Jesus’ name, and to the Father’s glory?  Why is this necessary? Well because, sadly, there are often too many things that the Church and Christians do that do not pass this test: rather, they are the product of purely human invention and pride or cultural and worldly pressure. Jesus makes the point here too that such fruitfulness in believers is one of the ways that Jesus Himself glorifies his Father.

I said that the second section (vv 9-16) is really a commentary on and expansion of the first 8 verses. A very important thing we need to grasp here, something that is frequently mentioned in chapters 13 – 17, is that the relationship Jesus has with his Father is the example or paradigm for the relationship He wants between us and him. This is why prayer is so important in the Christian’s life: we need to get to know God better and to discover what it is He wants us to be doing as Jesus’ disciples. And Jesus in this second section moves into a deeper presentation of God’s love for you and for me: the agricultural metaphor is very useful, but on its own it cannot express adequately the wonderful truth that ‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you’. 

Then, in v12, we see explained the imagery of the vine as it touches upon our relatedness with one another. 

So in effect what these 16 verses are is a picture, an unpacking, and an application of the two great commandments, a kind of loving that necessarily contains a profound element of self-sacrifice. And in v 11 is surely, what I would want to call, the ‘break through truth’ for anyone’s understanding of why the two great commandments are so important and why  the very best and most rational and sensible goal in life, the true and only happiness worth having, is to become a disciple of Jesus.

Finally, together with this self-sacrifice, we see, from the idea of the disciples’ ‘going out’ and producing ‘fruit that will last’, that the fruit Jesus has in mind is primarily the winning of new converts to him. Above all else this is fruitfulness, this is the goal of discipleship, this is what genuine, effective, and joy-giving Christianity is all about.

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. When you hear or read this metaphor of the vine, what thoughts and feelings does it create in your mind and heart? Do you find it helpful or encouraging?

2. When you think of the vine metaphor and its branches, how far do the branches stretch?

3. The vine expresses our relatedness and interdependence? In what ways is, can, and ought this to be shown and practised?

4. Can you think why Jesus places such emphasis on ‘fruitfulness’ and on evangelism (telling others about Jesus) in particular?

5. How does having the objective of ‘fruitfulness’ help my own spiritual growth and maturity?

6. In what ways are we tempted not to bother about ‘fruitfulness and fall back instead on our own private spirituality?

7. Why is prayer central to discipleship?

8. What is the point of our ‘fruitfulness’ being ‘to the glory of the Father’?

9. Why is self-sacrifice at the heart of the Christian understanding of love?

10. In what way has this passage of Jesus’ teaching encouraged you? 

  

John 10 verses 1 to 10

This week we’re continuing our series on Jesus I am sayings in John’s gospel and looking at Jesus’ claim to be the gate for the sheep which you’ll find in verses 7 and 9 of today’s gospel reading.

Firstly in order to understand these verses its helpful to know a bit about Jewish sheep farming.

Initially sheep were kept in large folds along with several other flocks. The Gatekeeper mentioned in verse 3 was the person in charge of this fold.

The Gatekeeper obviously knew the shepherds of the different flocks and allowed them access to the fold to collect their flock.

Unlike in this country shepherds didn’t drive their sheep but called them.

The sheep learnt to recognise their shepherd’s distinctive call and then followed them.

So if the shepherd wanted to lead his own flock off to some pasture he’d call them out of the fold from among all the other sheep, and recognising his call they’d scurry off after him.

Sheep were often kept for milk and wool production so they tended to live a lot longer than they do in this country today, and over time would develop a close bond with their shepherd, who would name them individually.

At night the sheep would sleep in a stone enclosure with no roof which was open to the elements. The shepherd would lie down and sleep across the entrance to the enclosure thus becoming the gate.

Obviously if someone tried to climb over the wall of the enclosure they were up to no good.

Having become experts in Jewish sheep farming we can now look at the passage.

Firstly this teaching of Jesus comes immediately after he has healed a man who had been blind from birth.

This man has been hauled in for questioning by the Pharisees, and has told them that Jesus is the one who has healed him and that he couldn’t have done this unless God was with him.

The Pharisees take exception to this and throw him out of the temple.

This man finds Jesus and tells him what happened and then comes to believe in him.

Some Pharisees watch the man’s encounter with Jesus and Jesus then addresses this teaching partly to them.

The Pharisees as religious leaders were meant to look after God’s flock but they weren’t doing a very good job, and it is the Pharisees and religious leaders that Jesus is calling thieves and bandits.

They were robbing the Jewish people of the spiritual care and direction that they deserved and which it was their job to provide.

They have just expelled this man who used to be blind from the temple when in fact he is a child of Abraham – one of the very sheep they should be looking after.

Now this shepherd and sheep imagery that Jesus uses is extremely significant.

God himself is portrayed as a shepherd in the Old Testament.

The most obvious example of this is the 23^rd Psalm which we all know – the Lord is my shepherd.

David describes God as a shepherd who leads him and cares for all his needs.

There is another passage in Ezekiel chapter 34 where God says; “As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep... I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down declares the Sovereign Lord.”

So, by portraying himself as a shepherd Jesus is again using the language and imagery of God himself.

In verse 6 of today’s reading John tells us “Jesus used this figure of speech with them but they did not understand what he was saying to them.”

The Pharisees and those listening don’t understand that Jesus is claiming to be the Shepherd spoken of in the Old Testament so from verses 7 to 18 he spells out clearly what he is saying

Initially in verse 7 he tells them that he is the Gate for the sheep and then of course in verse 11, which Mike will look at next week, he tells them plainly that He is the Good Shepherd.

But what does Jesus mean when he says he is the Gate for the sheep?

Basically he is saying that he is the only way into the kingdom of God.

The only way we can become one of God’s sheep and gain entry into his flock and his kingdom is through Jesus.

Now why is this? Well the reason is quite simple and its because we all need a saviour – someone who can save us from our sins – and Jesus is the only one who can do this.

Mankind’s fundamental problem is sin. We all sin – we all do things we know we shouldn’t and we all don’t do things we know we should.

We fall short as in an arrow falling short of a target.

We have a tendency to lie, to cheat and to steal. We can hate others and can hurt others by our words and actions.

No person apart from Jesus has lead a sinless life.

Because we sin we are cut off from God who is perfect.

One day we’d like to go to heaven – a perfect place – but if God was to let imperfect people into heaven it wouldn’t stay perfect very long.

Jesus took our sins upon himself on the cross and paid the debt we owe for hurting others and offending God.

On the cross he did everything necessary for us to be put right with God and one day to be made perfect – just as God is perfect.

As we come to acknowledge that we do sin and that we do therefore in fact need a saviour – we should come to Jesus, to acknowledge our need for forgiveness and to invite him wholeheartedly into our lives.

If we do this sincerely we become one of his sheep and enter into his sheepfold.

Jesus is the gate for the sheep because it is only through his death and resurrection that we can be reconciled to God.

Once we become his sheep we are to follow him and the way we do this is by knowing his voice as it says in verse 4.

Knowing his voice involves both hearing and recognising his voice.

As Christians we can sometimes hear God’s voice but not always recognise that it is Him speaking to us.

Sometimes this can be because God’s voice is very loving and encouraging and we miss recognising it because we can’t believe that God can be that kind and generous and patient towards us.

Our own condemnatory voice which tells us we are hopeless or useless or we’ve messed up again, can drown out God’s gentle encouraging voice.

As we come to understand God’s love for us we are better able to recognise his voice as he speaks to us lovingly and positively, as a parent to his beloved child.

How does God speak to us? The answer is in all manner of ways.

He can speak to us through the bible. As we read a verse or passage we can see something in it that touches our own situation and speaks to our heart.

He can speak to us through our own thought voice, the voice we use when we speak to ourselves. He can speak to us through an inner conviction that we should do something or go and talk to someone.

He can speak to us through other people. Sometimes this can be in normal conversation when something someone says really strikes a chord in us.

Sometimes this can be when we pray with another Christian about a problem or situation we’re facing.

As two or three pray together God can give one of you some insight or a bible verse or a picture that throws some light on the situation.

I remember praying with a man I knew at my previous church. He was a lorry driver and he knew that God was calling him to some form of ministry.

He was desperate to know exactly what it was and he was becoming very frustrated that it was taking a while to find out.

As we prayed together I had a picture in my minds eye, of this man who was pushing with all his might against this huge wheel which was slowly moving along.

The man was exhausting himself as he pushed but the wheel wasn’t moving any quicker. 

Basically God was saying to him that his plan for his life was unfolding and all would be revealed in good time.

His straining to know what lay ahead wouldn’t make things go any quicker.

That man has been a church army minister in Scotland for about 10 years now and was recently ordained.

God can speak to us through dreams or visions, like he did to Peter or sometimes he can even speak to us audibly like he did when Samuel was a child.

The reason I ended up doing my Reader training was because God spoke to me very clearly and unexpectedly one evening about going to an Arrival Day which is the first step in Rochester 

Diocese towards some sort of ministry.

God can speak to us in all manner of ways to guide us, to encourage us, to deliver us from fear and to bless us, as we seek to love and bless those around us.

Our part is to step out in faith and obedience to what we believe he is asking us to do. As we seek to walk in obedience to him and follow him we will hear and learn to recognise his voice.

Of course there are other voices that do not belong to God and we need to be very wary of these because if we follow them we will be led astray and find our faith undermined.

If we read our bible and become familiar with what it says we can test whether what we are hearing is in accordance with the scriptures.

God also of course gives us his Holy Spirit who may cause us to feel uneasy if we hear something that doesn’t sound quite right.

Sheep can tend to be a bit dim and without a shepherd would find life very difficult. They are short sighted and totally defenceless against predators. They are prone to getting stuck in fences or wandering off and getting lost.

When this happens, all they can do is to bleat loudly and wait for their shepherd to come and help them.

The best thing a sheep can do therefore is to try and stay close to its shepherd who will lead it to fresh pastures and protect it from harm and predators, and who will care for its day to day needs.

I don’t know how you feel about being compared to a sheep but perhaps its not such a bad analogy.

We can’t see what the future holds or protect ourselves from what life may throw at us. We are prone to ending up in difficult situations or getting stuck in life, sometimes even addicted to things which we find very hard to break away from.

We all need the help of a shepherd when we’ve got big decisions to make and we don’t know which way to turn, and especially when life goes pear shaped and we can’t see our way out.

Jesus says in verse 10 of today’s reading that he came that we may have life, and have it abundantly.He is the one who will provide us with all that we need as we follow him.

Under his care and provision we can experience the best that life can offer.

Jesus alone can provide us with eternal security, perfect guidance and real purpose and meaning to our lives.He alone can truly set us free from addictions and fear and sickness.

If you haven’t yet put your life in his care and entered into the sheepfold through him and become one of his sheep and you want to, he is just a prayer away.

He is eager to welcome you into his flock if you will acknowledge your need for him and you are prepared to follow him.

Lets end with a few moments of quiet

Just close your eyes and express whatever is on your heart to Jesus and if you want to, invite him into your life to lead you and to be your shepherd. Amen

THE ‘I AM’ SAYINGS OF JESUS - 1. THE BREAD OF LIFE

After last week’s brief introduction, we begin this morning our look at the first of the ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus in St. John’s gospel. ‘I am’, says Jesus, ‘the bread of life.’ The passage or ‘discourse’ containing this first saying stretches from verse 22 of chapter 6 to verse 58. 

The questions we need to ask ourselves are these. What does Jesus actually say here about himself? What did he mean by it? And what is its significance for you and for me in terms of our understanding of Jesus and our discipleship of him?

Now of course anyone is free to make of what is said here whatever they like. Indeed that is not just a modern phenomenon in our increasingly self-oriented society where people will make of something whatever pleases or suits them, it has been true, sadly, even of very influential people within the Church herself and throughout her history. This very passage has been interpreted by certain wings of the Church to justify certain developments in faith and doctrine, creating new mythologies about the sacraments and about the eucharist or Lord’s Supper in particular. 

The fact that these developments have caused over the centuries not only great divisions but horrendous loss of life ought at the very least to warn us about ‘reinterpreting’ or ‘developing’ understandings and practices of the Christian faith which have little or no justification from what Jesus actually said or did. 

As I hope you will be able to see, it was precisely because Jesus saw that this was going on in his own day – that people were misunderstanding what it was God wanted from them in terms of their religion – that he gave this piece of teaching that we are looking at this morning.

Sadly, already well before the end of the first century, when John was writing, people were reverting to the comfort blanket of ritual rather than developing right relationships in the practice of Christianity, at the same time creating out of the sacraments, such as baptism and the eucharist, something that simply was not there in the teaching of Jesus. ‘Do these rituals, say these words, and all will be well.’

The sacraments fairly soon began to be seen as ‘efficacious’, that is, possessing in themselves the means of God’s grace, rather than, as Jesus taught, quite simply ordinances or practices designed to lead people to a closer relationship with him, and through this to more faithful and effective discipleship. 

We can see Jesus getting increasingly frustrated with the crowd who keep asking him, ‘What must we do to perform the works of God?’ The crowd have it in mind that as long as they perform certain rituals or practices and keep certain rules, all will be well. What they cannot see is that the ‘works’ God wants them to do are those inspired by belief in Jesus and by a loving response to his agenda.

The mistake we all too often make is thinking that because we have come up with an idea for a good work it must be what God wants; when actually what God wants is for us to first work out with Jesus what it is he wants us to do.

The Church often fails in its calling to discipleship because Christians plan their agenda of good works without actually first consulting Jesus through prayer and bible study; often, I am sorry to say – but I have to say it – with results that do not bring glory to God or enable other people to appreciate something new of his truth and love.  

If I may just quote from a prayer in the 1662 Prayer Book that makes this very point; ‘Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works...... and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’ 

This is why the Christian engages in good works; not to glorify ourselves – perish the thought! Not even simply to help those in need; but to ‘glorify our Father which is in heaven’. That is to say, that people must be made aware in some way or other of the motivation for our good works. And such works are best and most effectively done when they are done in relationship with Jesus and out of evident, demonstrable, love for him.

I don’t want to say any more about ‘good works’ at this point except that, just as the sacraments are not of themselves means of grace or in any way sufficient to bring us to eternal life but simply ways of leading us to a closer relationship with Jesus, so ‘works’ or ‘good works’ are not in themselves capable of gaining us acceptance by God unless they are unashamed expressions of our faith and love for Jesus and designed to bring glory to God.

So, when Jesus says ‘I am the bread of life’ here, he is not talking about the future Lord’s Supper or eucharist. He is talking, using the highly appropriate metaphor of eating, about the fundamental necessity of our having a personal relationship with him through faith, a relationship which leads to eternal life.    

 And yet because people have read into it, for their own purposes – political, emotional, cultural, or whatever, far more than the words allow, the eucharist has become, for some, far more than was intended when Jesus introduced it; indeed a reversion to the very reliance from which Jesus was trying to wean his audience! The fact that you or I may like ‘doing church’ in a particular way that suits us does not mean that it is necessarily correct or what our Lord intended. Indeed we ought always to be questioning how we ‘do’ church and if how we do it is not only deepening our faith and making us more effective disciples but also helping others to come to an experience of God’s love and knowledge of his truth.

 By this I mean that the way we do church can sometimes – more often than we perhaps care to realise – get in the way of our being or becoming more effective disciples of Jesus and also of helping others to come to know him. That we happen to have done church in a particular way all our lives, or that we can point to certain long standing traditions or practices, or that we can name certain eminent churchmen on our side is not the point. 

This was so largely the obstacle that Jesus faced and was tackling here in this discourse. His audience had certain agendas, religious and political, that were effectively preventing them from understanding who Jesus was and what was their proper response to him.

If we come to Jesus or to Church with a particular agenda – however hallowed by tradition, however emotionally uplifting, however righteous it seems in our own eyes, it makes it more difficult for us to hear what Jesus actually tells us and expects of us. And the Church as a whole at times in different periods of its history has been astoundingly successful at creating an institution and practices that have not served well the task her Founder gave her. 

This is why understanding correctly passages like this is so important.

To make it lot easier I am going to tell you now the essential point that Jesus makes here. But this doesn’t mean you may then doze off for the remainder!

This passage has been argued over and interpreted in many different ways depending on the prejudices and agendas of different scholars. Essentially what we need to understand though is that Jesus is not here talking about the eucharist or about how the bread and the wine of communion become his flesh and blood. 

Yet nor, as some on other wings of the Church have claimed, may we deduce from this that the eucharist is unimportant. What he is saying here is that what you and I need, indeed must have, in order to discover real life in this world and everlasting life in the next is him, the real ‘bread of life’ v35, which, or who, is appropriated by faith v47. We must appropriate him into our innermost being. ‘Eating’ the flesh of the Son of man is a very striking metaphor to express this, and really not so bizarre. 

After all, we say that we ‘devour’ books, we ‘swallow’ stories, we ‘drink in lectures’, we ‘chew over’ a problem or matter.

Now when we remember that Jesus was trying to get the people to move away from trusting in rituals to forming relationships as the true and only way to know God; and given, as we discovered last week, that John’s Gospel is essentially an evangelistic tool to help the Jews of the diaspora come to belief in Jesus , what this metaphor does, in a very down to earth sort of way, is to link Jesus in their minds with the manna from heaven in the wilderness, verses 31 & 49, and to Moses v32, but in such a way that they are left in no doubt that Jesus is here claiming to be superior to both! 

And if the Jewish readers had observed or heard of, as almost certainly they would have, the commemorating of the last supper with its breaking and sharing of the bread, they would be able to see in this metaphor of bread and flesh not only that Jesus himself is now the central object for a person’s faith in God but that he fulfils the sacrificial necessity fundamental to our understanding of Christianity as well! 

He is the bread that fulfils in our earthly and heavenly lives: he is also the atoning sacrifice for our sins who makes eternal life possible for us – indeed for the whole world v51. So all this talk by Jesus about being ‘the bread of life’ is not John introducing or justifying the eucharist, the Lord’s Supper; rather, the eucharist, as it was and ought to be understood and practised, is about what John is describing here in chapter 6: that knowledge of Jesus, in the believer’s personal relationship with him, is what is supremely important and what the euchaist points to and encourages in the believer.

You see, already when John was writing, the danger was, then as now, that people believed the Lord’s Supper to be a rite which, by their mechanical repetition of receiving bread and wine, secured them salvation, eternal life; a sort of magic formula almost! The same can be said today about baptism – judging by some people’s commitment to their promises after the baby has been ‘done’ – as a kind of one-off insurance policy. 

John seems to share the frustrations of Jesus that people are hoping to get away with going through the motions of ritual rather than welcoming the risen Jesus into their lives and allowing him to change them. And of course the Gospel is not just about receiving eternal life it, is about gaining freedom from sin for his service, service that leads, as Jesus promises, to ‘the reality of life’.

Unfortunately, as the years went by, the sacraments came to be understood by many as conveying grace in themselves – eat the bread and God’s grace is conveyed to you; once again the rituals taking the place of the relationships. Of course human beings find the doing of ritual easier than the making of relationships – it’s less messy, less risky: yet this was the very thing Jesus was trying to drum out of them. 

Move away from reliance on your rituals; those days are passed, a new world, a new creation is here. 

But the Church has preferred its rituals and effectively reversed Jesus’ teaching. As someone once put it, using Jesus’ first sign or miracle at Cana to illustrate such ecclesiastical revisionism, ‘Jesus performed the miracle of turning water into wine; but the church has performed the greater miracle of turning it back again!’.

The comfort blanket of ritualised religion is no substitute for a living personal relationship with Jesus through prayer, bible study, and active discipleship. It is not that we are not free to chose from the many different ways in which we may meet with Jesus and worship him BUT that these must not become ends in themselves, nor must they delude us into thinking that being baptised, attending church, taking the bread and the wine, or singing hymns - whether ancient, modern or both, will in themselves gain us eternal life. 

It is only as these things lead us into a deeper personal relationship with Jesus himself that we are saved.  So in answer v29 to the age old question ‘what must we do?’ Jesus replies ‘believe in him whom he has sent’. And then v40  [READ] This essentially symbolic nature of ‘bread of life’ and related expressions in this discourse is disclosed by the mingling of metaphorical and non-metaphorical elements. 

Jesus is the bread of life, but it is the person who ‘comes’ v35 and v 37 to him who does not hunger, not the person who eats him. Similarly, it is the person who ‘believes’ v35 in him who does not thirst, not the person who drinks him.

There is so much more that we could say about and learn from this passage – and I am sure we will be able to do so through the bible studies and notes in due course - but I want to end by saying a few words about our last verse v51. 

Certainly v51 calls to mind the institution of the eucharist; but the focus here is not on the taking of or the efficacy of the bread and the wine: the focus is squarely on Jesus as the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. ‘the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.’ 

It is as you and I, indeed as anyone, place our faith in Jesus that we are reconciled to God, forgiven all our sins, and granted the gift of eternal life. What can we do but thank and praise and serve him in all that we do in this life: this is ‘glorifying our Father in Heaven’, this is discipleship.

THE ‘I AM’ SAYINGS OF JESUS - 2. THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

I am sure that most of you here have seen William Holman Hunt’s painting ‘The Light of the World’ representing the words of Revelation 3: 20. 

It’s a wonderfully romantic vision of Jesus in all his Pre Raphaelite splendour holding a very Victorian looking lantern and preparing to knock on an overgrown and long unopened door of a house in a little clearing. The closed door represents ‘the obstinately shut mind’ and there is no handle on the outside because, as Holman Hunt often had to explain, it is up to you and to me to open the door of our own lives to Jesus from the inside. The original resides in Keble College, Oxford, and a later version in St. Paul’s cathedral.

This morning we are considering the second of the ‘I am sayings’ of Jesus in John’s Gospel, a series of astounding claims on the part of Jesus which, when properly understood, answer any questions there may be about his true identity. Not only that, but the answers serve also to put the reader or listener firmly on the spot, forcing him or her, you and me, to make a decision about Jesus. 

The ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus leave us no room for sitting on the fence: indeed as Jesus himself says elsewhere, (Matthew 12: 30) ‘those who are not for me are against me.’ We cannot be disinterested; we cannot be indifferent to Jesus and his claims upon us. Jesus calls everyone to make up their minds about him and then to act upon their decision. The choice is ours.

Now if we have read the prologue to John’s Gospel (chapter 1), we have already learned that the ‘life’, Jesus, the Word of God, was ‘the light of men’/of mankind, of humanity – whichever you prefer! This light picture or metaphor is steeped in Old Testament allusions: for example - Psalm 27 ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation’. Psalm 119 ‘The word of God is a light to guide the path of those who cherish instruction’. 

Indeed our gospel passage this morning shows very clearly the intimate connexion there is between God’s light and God’s word. Isaiah 49 ‘The servant of the Lord was appointed as a light to the gentiles that he might bring God’s salvation to the ends of the earth’. The dawning of the promised light in the coming of Jesus is already a significant theme in John’s Gospel; but we are told too that this light is in mortal combat with darkness – the darkness of evil and of human pride.

John here, wanting to combat his Jewish readers’ attachment to their received traditions (Remember, he was writing his Gospel with them particularly in mind), portrays Jesus as the true light of the world, a claim that must challenge the claims today of atheists and secularists who believe that this light should be kept well out of politics and even indeed of morality. And although you and I, as Jesus’ disciples, called to be ‘light to the world’, his light, will find it increasingly difficult and dangerous to do so as atheism and secularism increase their atrophying stranglehold on the life of this country, we need to remember chapter ; that ‘the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.’

 So the next time you are faced with a challenge or an opportunity to be the light of Christ in a situation at work or at leisure, remember that his light is unquenchable; you are already on the side that has won the war against darkness. The Devil is beaten but he won’t lie down just yet; and there are many who either knowingly or unknowingly still play by his rules and desperately need to see God’s light and to learn of his love for them. 

Again, as we learned in John’s letters, that confidence assuring truth that ‘He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world’. We have a lot going for us! Don’t be duped or deceived by the lotus eaters in the media and elsewhere who claim that God is no longer relevant to the life of this country, to your life: they are, though they don’t know it, a dying breed.

For Jesus to make a claim like this was indeed nothing short of blasphemous: but he doesn’t let the statement just hang there on its own; there is an immediate consequence to recognising that Jesus is the light. 

It requires that we follow him; and as a result we shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life, i.e. the light that produces life – or genuine living; not the poor but temptingly attractive substitutes offered by the world, by those opposed to God and his kingdom, to which we all too easily give in and allow to rule us.

This is really as far as the theme of ‘the light of the world’ is taken in this chapter and the interest now turns to the authority of Jesus in making such a claim. But one thing we really must learn from this passage – verses 28, especially 31, 51, 52, 55 is how intimate and important is the connection between God’s light and God’s word. 

You see, we cannot walk in the light of Christ unless we have first opened the door of our lives and invited him in to banish the darkness and the artificial lights flickering away there with all their deceit and inherent danger; and we cannot walk in the light of Christ unless we submit our lives – our priorities, goals, and principles to the light of his word, allowing it - proactively rather than just by wishful-thinking accident! - to ‘direct and rule’ our hearts and minds. 

Now I know some people think that bible study is an optional extra, something for the ‘keenies’, the bible-bashers, or the professionals; but to expect to walk in the light of Christ without spending time mining the riches of his word is like trying to sew without needles, bake without flour, or play golf without golf balls. 

We simply cannot do it. You and I are called to be salt and light in the world. But we cannot know how to be these things effectively unless we steep ourselves in God’s word.

Another thing one can perhaps glimpse from this passage is just how debilitatingly strong can be people’s attachment to tradition and custom. Even when presented with the truth and with compelling evidence for the truth, they still refuse to accept Jesus. Why? Because their minds have become so calcified, so cemented, by their prejudices and preferences, they will not recognise the truth even when he is standing in front of their noses. 

As I have said before, I simply do not buy the argument that ‘I would believe if Jesus were here now’ or ‘I would have believed had I been there with Jesus’. Whether a person accepts Jesus as Saviour and Lord depends upon their openness to the truth and their readiness to welcome it even at the cost of everything that has sustained them spiritually or socially up until ‘seeing the light’ – to use that little phrase in jest, as many do - not realising that the joke is actually on them!

But just look at these claims of Jesus: no wonder he offended the religious establishment! ‘I am the light of the world’ v12, ‘whoever keeps my word will never see death’ v51, ‘Before Abraham was (before he existed) I am.’v58.

In Ch 9 you can read about the outworking of Jesus’ claim to be the light depicted in a miracle by which a blind man is made to see, while others who think they see remain blind to the light. It is actually one of the funniest pieces of theatre in the whole bible – the newly seeing blind man innocently showing up the religious experts. 

Do read it; it will certainly raise a smile, I’m sure.

‘I am the light of the world’, says Jesus. Do you know this light from personal experience? Is it burning strong in your life and so making a difference in the lives of those to whom you are his light? 

Or has the light grown dim and do you therefore need to refuel? Remember! He stands at the door and knocks. Whether we welcome him and his light in or back in is our choice entirely.