Salt and Light

 

Children's talk:

When it's really dark outside, what do we do?
We turn on the lights, and we draw the curtains,
and we are all snug and cosy indoors.
Here in London, we don't often see it being really dark, unless there's a power-cut, because of the street lights and all the lighting up.

Sometimes, when Robert and I are travelling in our motor home, we park up in a town where they switch the street lights off at midnight.
And sometimes we park up in an area where there aren’t any street lights at all!

And it does get really, really dark.
What if you were out then?
You'd be glad of a torch or a lantern so you could see where you were going, wouldn't you?
And you'd be glad if someone in the house you were going to would pull back the curtains so you could see the lights.

In our Bible reading today, Jesus says that we, his people, are the light of the world.
He didn't have electric lights back then, it was all candles and lanterns.
But even they are enough to dispel the darkness a bit.
And when lots of them get together, the light is multiplied and magnified and gets very bright,
so people who are lost in the dark can see it and come for help.
Which is why, Jesus says, we mustn't hide our light.
We don't have to do anything specific to be light, but we do have to be careful not to hide our light by doing things we know God's people don't do, or by not saying “Sorry” to God when we've been and gone and done them anyway!

---oo0oo---

Main Sermon:

“You are the salt of the earth;” says Jesus,
“but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?
It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.”

“You are the salt of the earth;
but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?
It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.”

Salt.
These days it's often considered a bad thing,
as too much is thought to be implicated in raised blood-pressure, and so on.
But back in the days before refrigeration and so on,
salt was vital to help preserve our foods.
Even today, bacon and ham are preserved with salt, and some other foods are, too.

Salt is also useful in other ways.
It's a disinfectant;
if you rinse a small cut in salty water –
stings like crazy, so don't unless you haven't anything better –
it will stop it going nasty.
And if you do have something that has gone nasty,
like a boil or an infected cut,
soaking it in very hot, very salty water will draw out the infection and help it heal.

Salt makes a good emergency toothpaste, and if you have a sore mouth for any reason, you should rinse it out with hot salty water and it will help.

But above all, salt brings out the flavour of our food.
Processed foods often contain far too much salt,
but when we're cooking, we add a pinch or so to whatever it is to bring out the flavour.
Even if you're making a cake, a pinch of salt, no more, can help bring out the flavour.
And if you make your own bread, it is horrible if you don't add enough salt!

Imagine, then, if salt weren't salty.
If it were just a white powder that sat there and did nothing.
I don't know whether salt can really lose its saltiness, but if it did, we'd throw it away and go and buy fresh, wouldn't we?

And Jesus tells us we are the salt of the world.
Salt, and light.

But how does this work out in practice?
I think, don't you, that we need to look at our Old Testament reading for today, from Isaiah.

In this passage, Isaiah was speaking God's word to people who were wondering why God was taking no notice of their fasting and other religious exercises.
And he was pretty scathing:
it's no good dressing in sackcloth and ashes, and fasting until you faint, if you then spend the day snapping at your servants and quarrelling with your family.
That's not being God's person, and that sort of fast isn't going to do anybody any good.

Jesus said something similar, you may recall, a little later on in this collection of his sayings that we call the Sermon on the Mount:
“When you go without food, wash your face and comb your hair, so that others cannot know that you are fasting—only your Father, who is unseen, will know.
And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.”

It's what your heart is doing, not what you look as though you are doing that matters!
Isaiah tells us what sort of fasting God wants:
“Remove the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice, and let the oppressed go free.
Share your food with the hungry and open your homes to the homeless poor.
Give clothes to those who have nothing to wear, and do not refuse to help your own relatives.”

This is what God wants.
It's not just the big picture, you see.
Yes, maybe we are called to be working for the rights of oppressed peoples everywhere – not sure where the most urgent need is just now, but, sadly, it seems inevitable throughout history that whenever two tribes try to share a territory, there will always be friction, whether it is the Muslims and Hindus in India and Pakistan, or Greeks and Turks, Tutsi and Hutu, Loyalists and Nationalists in Northern Ireland, or Palestinians and Israelis.
Throughout history it has been the same –
and that it has not been very much worse has been down to the efforts of God's people,
often unsung,
often not thanked,
often, even, persecuted and tormented for their efforts.
But they have been there, and they have helped.
And God knows their names and has rewarded them.

But it's not just about the big picture, is it?
I wonder why some so-called Christians can’t see that; why they insist on oppressing people, despising those who are less well off than they are, or whose ancestors weren’t born here, or who express love in a different way, or, or, or….

But it's about the little things we do here at home, every day.
We can't always take homeless people into our homes, although some do –
but we can give to the food bank, either in cash or in kind.
There is a food bank each week at Brixton Hill,
a place where people can go to pick up necessary supplies,
and maybe find out what benefits they are entitled to and how to claim them.
If you wanted to volunteer, if you can spare a few hours on a few Wednesdays, you would be very welcome!
But maybe we should also be asking our MP awkward questions about exactly why, in 2026, our food bank is so necessary!
Why are people so poor that they need to choose between heating their homes and feeding their children?
This has been going on for far too long now, and the people who need to make use of the food bank, or of Brixton’s soup kitchen, have increased in number year by year.
Something is very, very wrong.
I would blame Brexit, but the soup kitchen was set up in 2014, long before then!

It’s part of what our being salt and light to our community is all about.
Not just doing the giving, not just helping out where necessary –
that too, of course, and it’s very necessary.
But asking the awkward questions,
not settling for the status quo,
making a nuisance of ourselves, if necessary,
until we get some of the answers.

It's not always easy to see how one person can make a difference.
Sometimes, I don't know about you, but when I watch those nature documentaries on TV
and they go on about how a given species is on the brink of extinction and it's All Our Fault,
I wonder what they expect me to do about it, and ditto when we get programmes about climate change and all the other frighteners the BBC likes to put on us.
But it's like I said to the children –
maybe one little candle doesn't make too much difference in the dark, except for being there and enabling us to see a little way ahead.
But when lots of us get together, it blazes out and nothing can dim it.
One person alone can't do very much –
but if all of us recycled,
and used our own shopping bags,
and public transport when feasible,
drank water our of the tap, rather than out of a bottle,
tried to avoid single-use plastic as much as possible,
and limited our family sizes;
if everybody did that, there would soon be a difference.

Obviously you don't have to be God's person to do such things.
The food banks are secular, although I’m sure our volunteers from the church would happily explain what our church is all about, if asked.
Community outreach isn’t restricted to churches, though – Windmill Gardens has all sorts of activities, including a community club, and I’m sure you will know of ones in Stockwell, too.

But we, God's people, should be in the forefront of doing such things,
leading by example,
showing others how to help this world.
Historically, we always have been.
But sometimes the temptation is to hide in our little ghettoes and shut ourselves away from the world.
It's all too easy to say “Oh dear, this sinful world!”
and to refuse to have anything to do with it –
but if God had done that, if Jesus had done that, then where would we be?

We don't bring people to faith through our words, but through what we do.
As St James says in his letter, it's all very well to say “Go in peace;
keep warm and eat your fill,” to someone who hasn't enough clothes or food, but what good does that do?
That person won't think much of Christianity, will they?

It’s about walking the walk, far more than talking the talk.
Some years ago now, I heard of a woman who was unexpectedly widowed, and left with something like four children under four.
Her local church rallied round and supported her, not with Bible quotes or prayers –
although I’m sure they did pray for her –
but with practical help, getting her shopping for her, babysitting when she needed a break, that sort of thing.
And that woman came to faith, not because of what that church said, but because of what it did.

Another example is a church in America somewhere –
I don’t remember where –
that wanted a youth group and started to pray for one.
And one day, a group of rather rough young people came to the pastor and asked whether they could hold some kind of memorial for one of their number who had died of a drugs overdose,
and whose parents had instantly taken his body home for burial.
The pastor agreed, and the young people sat in the church talking about their friend,
sharing memories and generally beginning to come to terms with his loss.
And then that church’s hospitality committee gave them lunch.
One of the young people, saying thank you, added wistfully, “I do wish we could eat like this more often; it reminds me of my grandmother’s cooking!”
“Well, of course you can,” said the hospitality leader.
“We’re here every Sunday, so come and join us!”
There was no pressure on those young people to tidy up and look respectable, no pressure to attend services or “turn to Christ”.
Only steady love and hospitality, and accepting them for who they were.
I don’t know whether any of them did find faith, but I’d be very surprised if at least one or two didn’t. And isn’t it nice to hear positive things about churches in the USA! Makes a change….

Ordinary Time,
and we are in a brief bit of Ordinary Time before the countdown to Lent starts,
is the time when what we say we believe comes up against what we really believe,
and how we allow our faith to work out in practice.
It's all too easy to listen to this sort of sermon and feel all hot and wriggly because you're aware that you don't do all you could to be salt and light in the community –
and then to forget about it by the time you've had a cup of coffee.

It's also all too easy to think it doesn't apply to you –
but, my friends, the Bible says we are all salt and light, doesn't it?
It doesn't say we must be, but that we are.
It's what we do with it that matters!
We don't want to be putting our light under a basket so it can't be seen.
And if, as salt, we lose our saltiness –
well, let's not go there, shall we?

Many of us, of course, are already very engaged in God's work in our community, in whatever way –
I’ve already talked about the food banks and community clubs,
and there’s youth work, and so on.

The question is, what more, as a Church, as a Circuit,
could we or should we be doing?
What should I, as an individual, be doing?

And that's where we have the huge advantage over people who do such work who are not yet consciously God's people –
we pray.
We can bring ourselves to God and ask whether there are places that need our gifts, whether there is something we could be doing to help, or what.
Don't forget, too, that there are those whose main work is praying for those out there on the front line, as it were.
And even if all we can do is put 50p a week aside for the food bank,
and maybe write to our MP every few months and ask why we still need food banks in this day and age and what they, and the rest of Parliament, are doing about it –
well, it all adds up.

Because I don't know about you, but I would rather not risk what might happen if we were to lose our saltiness.
Amen.

The Presentation of Christ in the Temple

 

This Sunday is one when the Church traditionally celebrates the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, which is the story we heard in our Gospel reading today.

It wasn’t supposed to be special or rather, no more special than it would be for any family bringing their first-born to the Temple.
The first and best of everything belonged to God, you see, so the tradition was for parents to “redeem” their six-week-old baby by either paying a small sum of money or sacrificing a pair of pigeons.
Prayers were said, and Elijah was invoked.
This was the tradition.

And then Mary, Joseph and the baby would return to Nazareth and get on with their lives, probably in a bustling, multi-family household with aunts and uncles and cousins, and, in due course, brothers and sisters for Jesus.

Because the Bible takes it for granted that lives were lived far more in community than they are nowadays, we tend to think of the Holy Family living in a splendid bubble of isolation.
We tend to think of them as travelling alone –
just Mary, Joseph and the donkey –
but of course they would have gone to Bethlehem with a group of other travellers;
it wasn’t safe, else.
And realistically, the manger would have been on the step separating the animal part of the house from the human part,
and there would probably have been a great many women,
mostly relations, helping Mary with the birth and afterwards.
We don’t think of animals as sharing living-space with humans, as we only do that with our pets,
but of course the cattle and horses or donkeys would have helped keep the house warm in the winter, and was the norm back in the day.

So, anyway, they go to the Temple, just like any other family.
But then it all gets a bit surreal, with the old man and the old woman coming up and making prophecies over the child, and so on.

Actually, the whole story is a bit surreal, really.
After all, St Matthew tells us that the Holy Family fled Bethlehem and went to Egypt to avoid Herod's minions,
but according to Luke, they're just going home to Nazareth –
a little delayed, after the census, to allow Mary and the baby time to become strong enough to travel,
but six weeks old is six weeks old,
and it makes the perfect time for a visit to the Temple.
The accounts are definitely contradictory just here,
but I don't think that really matters too much –
after all, truth isn't necessarily a matter of historical accuracy.

Come to that, I don't suppose Simeon really burst into song,
any more than Mary or Zechariah.
Luke has put words into their mouths,
rather like Shakespeare does to the kings and queens of British history.
Henry the Fifth is unlikely to have said “This day is called the Feast of Crispian” and so on,
or “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”,
but he probably rallied the troops with a sentiment of some kind,
and it is the same here.
Zechariah, Mary and Simeon probably didn't say those actual words that Luke gives them, but they probably did express that sort of sentiment.

Although I often wonder why it is that when Jesus reappears as a young man, nobody recognises him.
We don't hear of an elderly shepherd hobbling up to him and saying “Ah, I remember how the angels sang when you were born!”
But perhaps it is as well –
it means he had a loving, private, sensible childhood.
Which, I think, is partly why we see so very little of him as a child,
just that glimpse of him as a rather precocious adolescent in the Temple.
He needed to grow up in peace and security and love, without the dreadfulness of who he was and why he had come hanging over him.

But on this very first visit to the Temple,
he can't do more than smile and maybe vocalise a bit.
It is Simeon we are really more concerned with.
His song, which the Church calls the Nunc Dimittis,
after the first two words of it in Latin, is really the centre of today's reading.
He is saying that now, at last, he has seen God's salvation, and is happy to die.
The baby will be “a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of God's people Israel.”

“A light to lighten the Gentiles”.
This is why another name for this festival is Candlemas.
Candlemas.
In some churches, candles are blessed for use throughout the year,
but as we are no longer dependent on candles as a light source, it might be more to the point to bless our stock of light bulbs!
Because what it's about is Jesus as the Light of the World.
A light to lighten the Gentiles, certainly,
but look how John's Gospel picks up and runs with that.
“The Word was the source of life, and this life brought light to people.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.”
And John's Gospel also reports Jesus as having said:
“I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will have the light of life and will never walk in darkness.”

Jesus is the Light of the World,
and that's part of what we are celebrating today.
We rather take light for granted, here in the West, don't we?
We are so used to being able to flick on a switch and it's light
that we forget how dark it can be.
Sometimes when we are travelling in our motor home, we park up in a town or village where they switch the street lights off at midnight, or even in a place where there are no streetlights, and it can get very dark indeed.
As, indeed, it can here on the rare occasions we have a power cut.
We end up relying on an emergency lantern, or on the torches on our phones, but very often we light a candle.

Candles don’t provide very much light, of course –
you can't see to read by it very well, or sew,
or any of the things people did before television and social media,
or, come to that, before houses were lit by electricity.
Although back in the day, you had what were called Tilly lamps if you didn’t have electricity –

[The Swan Whisperer] remembers them from his earliest childhood, and remembers the poles to carry the electric cables being erected.
It must have made a huge difference.
We always had electricity at home, but I remember visiting a cottage which was lit by gas.
And in our earliest camping days, before we had the mobile home, we used to be lit by torches or a Calor-gas lantern.
And it made it very difficult to do much after dark – there were no backlit tablets back in the day!

But even a candle, a tea-light, can dispel the darkness.
Even the faintest, most flickering light means it isn't completely dark –
you can see, even if only a little.
And sometimes for us the Light of the World is like that –
a candle in the distance, a faint, flickering light that we hardly dare believe isn't our eyes just wanting to see.
But sometimes, of course, wonderfully, as I'm sure you've experienced, it's like flicking on a light switch to illuminate the whole room.
Sometimes God's presence is overwhelmingly bright and light.

And other times not.

This time of year is half way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.
It's not spring yet, but the days are noticeably longer than they were at the start of the year.
There are daffodils and early rhubarb in the shops,
and the bulbs are beginning to pierce through the ground.
The daffodils are even out in some parks, although in my local park, Windmill Gardens, they are still only in bud.
The first snowdrops are out – I’ve not seen them myself, but friends have posted pictures on social media.

In the country, the hazel trees are showing their catkins,
and if you look closely at the trees,
you can see where the leaves are going to be in just a few weeks.
We hope.
In one of my favourite books, a character says she likes February because it is light enough to go for a walk after tea.
The days are definitely getting lighter, slowly but surely – last week [The Swan Whisperer] and I and one of our grandsons went for a walk at about 4:30 and it was definitely still light-ish, even at the end of our walk.

And tomorrow I have to go to the dentist at 5:00 pm, which I am not looking forward to,

but I hope that I’ll be able to walk up there in, if not full daylight, at least twilight.

Candlemas is one of those days we say predict the weather –
like St Swithun's Day in July, when if it rains, it's going to go on raining for the next six weeks.
Only at Candlemas it's the opposite –
if it's a lovely day, then winter isn't over yet,
but if it's horrible, Spring is definitely on the way.
The Americans call it “Groundhog Day”, same principle –
if the groundhog sees his shadow, meaning if the sun is out, winter hasn't finished by any manner of means,
but if he can't, if the sun isn't shining, then maybe it is.
Maybe I hope it will be cold and wet tomorrow and I’ll have to go to the dentist on the bus….

So it's a funny time of year, still winter, but with a promise of spring.
And isn't that a good picture of our Christian lives?
We still see the atrocities, the mass deportations in America, the shootings of innocent people by ICE agents, the wars and insurrections in too many parts of the world to name.
We still see that we, too, can be pretty awful when we set our minds to it, simply because we are human.
We know that there are places inside us we'd really rather not look at.
It is definitely winter, and yet, and yet, there is the promise of spring.

There is still light.
It might be only the flickering light of a candle in another room, or it might be the full-on fluorescent light of an overwhelming experience of God's presence, but there is still light.

The infant Jesus was brought to the Temple, and was proclaimed the Light to Lighten the Gentiles.
But, of course, that's not all –
we too have that light inside us':

you remember Jesus reminded us not to keep it under a basket, but to allow it to be seen.
And again, the strength and quality of our light will vary, due to time and circumstances, and possibly even whether we slept well last night or what we had for breakfast.
Sometimes it will be dim and flickering, and other times we will be alight with the flame of God's presence within us.
It's largely outwith our control, although of course, by the means of grace and so on we can help ourselves come nearer to God.
But it isn't something we can force or struggle with –
we just need to relax and allow God to shine through us.
Jesus is the Light of the World, and if we follow Him, we will have the light of life and will never walk in darkness.
We will, not we should, or we must, or we ought to.
We will.
Be it never so faint and flickering, we will have the light of life.
Amen.

Paul and the Fishermen

 

Today is Burn’s Night, when people traditionally eat haggis, neeps and tatties – that’s swede and mashed potato to you and me – perhaps with a whisky sauce! It’s also, and rather more relevant to our purposes, the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul, whose story you heard in our first reading. And, coincidentally, the Gospel reading set for today, which is also the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, is about Jesus calling his disciples on the Sea of Galilee.

Last Sunday, we heard John’s version of the calling of the first disciples, which was very different to this week’s story; not a fish or a net in sight! But nevertheless, it was about calling. And this week’s gospel is about calling – and St Paul was also called to follow Jesus. So I want to talk about that call.

I’m not talking about a vocation here – this isn’t about a call to become a preacher or a worship leader, or another role in the church which might or might not require training. I will just say that if you do think God might be calling you to some such role, go and talk to Revd Rita about it; it’s always worth exploring. But what I want to talk about today is our call to follow Jesus.

St Paul, as you probably know, was born a Roman citizen. However, he was also Jewish, born to a very observant Jewish family. He was known as Saul – Paul is the Roman version of his name – and at first, as we know, he was very against the new movement that was arising within Judaism, people following what was known as “The Way”, insisting that the Messiah had come, had been crucified, and had been raised from death. Saul, as he then preferred to be known, was very against this; this was not how good Jews behaved. And when they stoned Stephen to death, he was standing there looking after the cloaks of those doing the stoning, and reckoning they were doing the right thing. However, Stephen, with his final breaths, was given grace to pray “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!”

And God answered that prayer most wonderfully. We have just heard the story of how Jesus met Saul on the road to Damascus, where he was headed to try to disrupt a cell of believers, because the believers had scattered after Stephen’s death, as it was no longer safe for them in Jerusalem. And Jesus meets with Saul, and says, basically, “You might as well give in, mate; you can’t escape from me and you’ll only hurt yourself if you try!” And Saul, blinded by his vision, and wondering what on earth has just happened, allows himself to be led into the city, and three days later, Ananias comes and lays hands on him, and the scales fall from his eyes, and he can see. Wasn’t Ananias brave? He does object, when God tells him to go and lay hands on Saul, that Saul is known for persecuting the followers of the Way, as the believers were known then, but he believes God when he’s told that it’s okay, Saul is, or will be, one of them now.

Saul is promptly baptised – possibly by Ananias – and then disappears for a year or so; possibly into the desert to study and learn all he can about this Jesus who has claimed him for his own.

And then, of course, he becomes one of the greatest ambassadors for Christ that the world has ever known, and we still have the letters he wrote to the young churches in the area, which are basically God’s word to us today.

And then, a few years earlier, Jesus had called his disciples; we do know that most of them were called from among the local fishermen, although there was also Levi, the collaborator, and Simon, the resistance fighter – I wonder how many snide remarks were passed. I hope the others didn’t have to spend too much time calming things down.

The thing is, when Jesus called, the fishermen left their nets and followed him. Jesus, at that time, was not yet an itinerant preacher – that came later. He had begun to preach that the Kingdom of God was at hand, but he was based in Capernaum where he had taken rooms.

All the gospels agree that this is a very early stage in Jesus’ ministry.
They place it almost immediately after he returns from being tempted in the desert, where he’s wrestled with the temptations to misuse his divine powers, and has become a lot clearer about who he is,
and what he’s been called to do.
I’m not sure how much he actually knows, at this stage, of what lies ahead, but he does know that he is to preach that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and, like all the preachers and teachers of his day,
he is gathering disciples to help him with this task,
perhaps helping with their physical needs –
Judas, you may remember, kept the communal purse –
and learning from him all that they needed to know in order to spread his message.
Although, as we know, it wasn’t until after the Holy Spirit came, at Pentecost, that they were truly able to understand and to spread the good news of the Kingdom.

But that came later, and it was that Holy Spirit who enabled Stephen to make the speech to the Sanhedrin – the local Supreme Court – that enflamed them so much that they ordered his death. And then it was the same Holy Spirit who enabled Saul to respond to the vision on the road to Damascus, and to be baptised after Ananias had been used to heal his blindness.

But the point is, all these calls – the people involved changed. The disciples left their fishing-nets and followed Jesus, becoming “fishers of people” – helping people find peace, forgiveness and a real relationship with God. What we call “being saved.” Saul, calling himself Paul as he needed his Roman citizenship to do what he did, travelled widely, bringing the good news of Jesus to all he met – the ultimate “fisher of people” if you like.

We are not, of course, all called to be evangelists! Paul makes that quite clear in his letter to the Corinthians and elsewhere. But Jesus does call each and every one of us to follow him.

For most of us, following Jesus won’t involve leaving what we are doing, our homes, our families, our jobs, and so on. We are asked to stay exactly where we are – but, once we say “Yes” to Jesus, things change.

Sometimes it is our behaviour which changes –
perhaps we used to get drunk,
but now we find ourselves switching to soft drinks after a couple of glasses.
Perhaps we used to gamble,
but suddenly realise we haven't so much as bought a Lottery ticket for weeks, never mind visiting a bookie, and those apps on our phone remain unopened!
Perhaps we used to be less than scrupulous about what belongs to us, and what belongs to our employer,
but now we find ourselves asking permission to use the office wi-fi or printer.

Very often these sorts of changes happen without our even noticing them.
Others take more struggle –
sometimes it is many years before we can finally let go of an addiction, or a bad habit.
But as I've said before, the more open we are to God,
the more we can allow God to change us.
Sometimes, of course, we cling on to the familiar bad habits,
as we don't know how to replace them with healthier ways of acting and thinking, and find it too scary to trust God to show us the way.
But perhaps it isn’t just our personal behaviour that changes.
Maybe we find ourselves getting involved in our community in a way we hadn’t been before.
It will be different for all of us, but we will probably find ourselves, in some way, walking alongside the poor and marginalised in our society.
   
But, you might be thinking, what’s she talking about? I answered Jesus’ call some twenty, thirty, forty or even fifty years ago now! Yes, so did I! Nearly 54 years ago, if I’m accurate! That is scary!

But the thing is, although the call is for a lifetime, it’s a call that is renewed, time and time again. After all, we are very inclined to wander away from God, to go our own way. We reduce Christianity to rules and regulations, rather than a relationship – it’s much easier, that way! A relationship with the living God is scary stuff!

It's easy to fall out of the habit of allowing God to touch you and change you.
I know I have, many times.
The joy of it is, though, that we can always come back.
We aren't left alone to fend for ourselves –
we would always fail if we were.
We just need to acknowledge to ourselves –
and to God, of course, but God knew, anyway –
that we've wandered away again.

That's a bit simplistic, of course –
there are times when we are quite sure we haven't wandered away, and yet God seems far off.
But I'm not going into that one right now;
nobody really knows why that happens, except God!
But for most of us, most of the time,
if we fall out of the habit of allowing God to touch us and heal us and change us,
we simply have to acknowledge that this is what has happened,
and we are back with him again.

Simon, Andrew, James and John left their nets to follow Jesus. Paul stopped persecuting Christians, and became one of them; he left a settled life for one of constant travel and frequent persecution.
We aren’t all called to leave where we are and what we are doing –
in fact, few of us are.
But we are all called to follow Jesus!
It is a call that is renewed yearly, weekly, even daily!
Not all of us are called to be evangelists, but we are all witnesses to Jesus.

That, by the way, is a function of being Jesus’ person;
he told us that when the Spirit came we would be his witnesses –
not that we would have to be, or that we ought to be, but that it would happen as part of receiving the Spirit.
If we are truly following Jesus, if we are truly his person, then we are witnesses to him, even if we never mention our faith out loud.
His Spirit shines through us.

Of course, none of us is perfect.
The Bible is full of examples of when Simon Peter got it wrong –
most notably when he panicked when Jesus was arrested and tried, and pretended he’d never met him.
But he was forgiven, and restored, and he went on to become one of the greatest leaders the Church has ever had.
Sure, he wasn’t perfect, even then –
he and Paul squabbled about how far people who weren’t Jewish should be allowed into the Church, and under what conditions –
but “the big fisherman” was definitely a great leader.
He became the person God had created him to be, and fulfilled the role God called him to fill, even though he was far from perfect.
Paul, too, knew that he wasn’t perfect, but he, too, became the person God had created him to be, and fulfilled the role God called him to fill.
These two men have probably had more influence over the church than any other two in history, excepting only Jesus himself!

We are not all called to be leaders, but we can still become all that we were created to be, because we can all be forgiven and restored and enabled.

They left their nets to follow Jesus.
It’s not what we leave, if we leave anything, that’s important –
it’s that we follow Jesus.
Amen.

Come and See

 Yet again, a "sustainable sermon", with the references to current affairs updated.  Last preached here.  Please note the video will be better quality from this church than from Brixton Hill - they've been doing it longer!

The Baptism of Christ

Once again, this is a "sustainable sermon", and the text is broadly the same (although I may have changed a few things on the fly) as that found here.

Gold, frankincense and myrrh

 

The text of this sermon is substantially the same as the one I preached here, although there are some minor changes.  And I added in a bit, too, so you might want to listen... 

Hanging in there

 

There is a video recording of the service, but I can't make it link.  Search for "Brixton Hill Methodist Church", and 14 December - the service starts at 20 minutes in.

Today is the third Sunday in Advent.
We’ve lit three candles in our Christmas Countdown –
er, I mean Advent Wreath.
Christmas is coming –
only another fortnight!
I expect you’ve already had some Christmas cards –
we have.
And maybe you’ve already been to a Christmas party.
Robert had one during the week.
Maybe you’ve even finished all your Christmas shopping, and feel yourself well organised. I sort of am, except for working out who is cooking what on Christmas Day itself.
But in the Church, it isn’t Christmas yet.
Not for another two weeks!
Even though King's Acre is having their carol service today.
Technically, we are still in the Season of Advent, and the lectionary tells us that this week we look at John the Baptist.
You may have looked at him last week, too;
traditionally on the second Sunday in Advent we look at his role as a prophet. Today, however, we look at his role as the Forerunner, the one who came to prepare the way for Jesus.

Now, you know who he was, of course.
Just to recap on his life and times,
he was Jesus’ cousin, born to Zechariah and Elisabeth in their old age.
He was the unborn baby who “leapt in the womb” when Mary, carrying Jesus, came to visit Elisabeth.
We know absolutely nothing about his childhood, how well he knew Jesus, whether they played together as kids, or whether they only saw each other once a year when the holy family went up to Jerusalem.
What we do know is that, when he grew up, John disappeared off into the desert for awhile, to study and pray –
whether alone, or with a community such as the Essenes,
we also don’t know.
When he came back from the desert, he was a prophet,
just as Luke alleges that his father foretold:
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
by the forgiveness of their sins.“

For the people of Israel, that was rather exciting.
They hadn’t had a prophet for many centuries, not a proper one.
And John looked the part.
He dressed like a prophet, in camel-hide clothing.
He ate locusts and wild honey, just as they expected a prophet would do.
He gathered a small flock of disciples around him.
And he preached God's message:
"Repent and be baptized and get ready for the coming of the Kingdom!"
Well, you can imagine, the crowds absolutely flocked to hear him!
Better than the cinema, this was –
such an excitement.
But what they wanted was to see the prophet.
They didn’t really want to hear what he had to say.
Few of them were really willing to repent,
to turn right round and go God's way.
Not even the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law.
Not that they interfered with him, mind you –
could have been nasty, if they had.
But they didn't want to know!
Very frustrating.

But there were the other kind of people, too.
People who really did want to listen to John,
to hear what he had to say and to act on it.
People who came to him, asking to be baptized in the river Jordan.
And one day, his cousin Jesus comes to him and asks for baptism.

And at that moment, John knows that this is the One he has been waiting for, the One for whom he has been preparing the way.
And yet he wants to be baptized - surely not!
Surely it should be he, Jesus, who baptizes John?
John's always known that when the Messiah came,
he wouldn't be fit even to undo his shoes and wash his feet,
slaves' work, that.
John mutters something to this effect,
but Jesus says, "No, let's do this thing by the book!"
And as he enters the water, the Holy Spirit comes down on him in the shape of a dove, and a voice speaks from heaven,
"Behold my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased!"
And John says, so we are told, “He must increase, and I must decrease”, and he spends his time pointing people to Jesus,
as well as preaching the message of repentance,
of turning round,
of going God’s way.

And then John preaches against scandal and sleaze in high places once too often,
and the powers-that-be have had enough,
so they put him in prison to try to shut him up.

And then the doubts start.
Is Jesus really the one God was going to send?
Could John be mistaken?
This is his cousin, after all –
Aunty Mary’s son.
John had thought so, but everything’s gone so totally pear-shaped he can’t be sure of anything any more.
So he sends one of his disciples to ask Jesus,
“Are you the one who was to come,
or should we expect someone else?”

Jesus sends John a message of reassurance:
“Go back and report to John what you hear and see:
The blind receive sight,
the lame walk,
those who have leprosy are cured,
the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
and the good news is preached to the poor.
Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”

In other words, “Hang in there, mate, you’re doing great!”

And then Jesus tells the crowd that John is just about the greatest of God’s servants that there ever has been, or ever will be –
yet while he’s on earth,
even the least of those in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he is.

Sadly, as we know, it all ends tragically –
the king’s wife seizes the opportunity to have John killed,
and he is beheaded.
Jesus is devastated by the loss of his cousin,
and goes off by himself to pray,
but the crowd follow him and he has to feed them all,
and then he sends the disciples off ahead, because he really, really, really wants to be alone with his Father to try to come to terms with John’s death –
and ends up walking across the lake to join them, later on!

I love this story –
the affection between the cousins,
the respect that John had for Jesus,
but the fact that John was also human enough to doubt,
and secure enough to express his doubts.

Because we all have our doubts, from time to time, if we’re honest.
And that’s as it should be.
There are times, and I wish they came more often,
when God is as real to us as bread and butter,
when we couldn’t doubt his existence and his love for us
if we were paid to do so.
But at other times, all trace of God seems to vanish from the universe.

Perhaps dreadful things happen, either personally or on the world stage –
I remember hearing someone on “Thought for the Day” saying,
on the 14th September 2001,
that the smoke rising from the collapse of the World Trade Centre seemed to come between her and the face of God.
I knew exactly what she meant!
And for John the Baptist, it was personal circumstances –
being thrown into prison, deprived of his whole reason for being,
which at that time was to preach repentance and to baptise people.

John is actually quite a good model of what to do when doubts strike.
He does absolutely the right thing –
he goes to Jesus and asks, outright.
And Jesus reassures him.
But the interesting thing is that Jesus actually reassures him by saying “Look around, and see what’s happening!
Look for the signs of the kingdom!”
He doesn’t just say “Yes, of course I’m the Messiah, you silly little man!”
Or even, “Don’t worry, mate, I’m the Messiah!”
What he does is say, “Look, see what is happening, see how the blind receive sight”, and so on.
And maybe that is his answer to us, too, when the doubts happen,
when we wonder whether it’s really a load of nonsense,
whether it’s just wishful thinking.
Look around and see the signs of the kingdom.

And sometimes, when we doubt,
it’s good to come back to those lovely words from Isaiah 35.
For me, this is one of the most lyrical and beautiful passages of the Bible.
So often, if I’ve been praying for my church, or in a time of darkness, I’m drawn back again and again to these words:

“The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendour of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendour of our God.”

And so on –
I’m tempted to quote the whole thing,
but we’ve already heard it once this morning!
It is such a wonderful promise that,
no matter how black the present may seem, things will get better.
One day.
Maybe not in this life, but one day.

Of course, sometimes it happens that external circumstances get worse and worse.
John was in prison, and would soon be executed.
We see all sorts of crime and injustice, terrorism and hostage-taking, mistrust and suspicion.
We reckon bad things always happen in threes, which is superstition, but it does seem that way sometimes!
And yet, and yet, and yet –
there are signs of the Kingdom of God.
Sometimes very tiny signs –
parents bringing their children to baptism,
a young couple choosing to be married in church,
even what I’ve heard described as “random acts of senseless kindness!”
I personally think beauty is a sign of the kingdom –
whether beauty in nature,
or in music,
or in words, like these words from Isaiah.
I don’t believe that there’s beauty where the Kingdom isn’t!

And, of course, at this very dark time of year,
we rejoice that in a very few days we will be at the solstice
and the days will start to lengthen.
It’s no accident that the early Church fathers put the festival in which, above all, we celebrate the coming of the Light of the World
at the very darkest time of the year.

Jesus sent a message to John urging him to hang in there, not to despair, for there were signs that the Kingdom of God was coming.
And we, too, can hold on to those signs in the middle of our busyness in the run-up to Christmas,
perhaps in the midst of sorrow or despair, perhaps even in the midst of happiness and excitement.
The Kingdom of God is coming, the Light of the World will come, and there are signs of hope.
Hang in there!

It's what you do with it that counts.

 The recordings are from two services; firstly an abridged version for Night Prayer on 15 November, and then the longer version for 19 November.

I often quail when I’m faced with a very familiar Gospel story to preach on,
as I never know whether I shall be able to say anything that you haven’t heard a million times before.

This story is a very old friend –
most of us, I expect, have known it since our nursery days.
Indeed, it is –
or used to be –
often employed by teachers and so on to push children on to practice and work hard.
If God has given you talents, they say,
then you must work to make the absolute very best of them.

But, of course, it isn’t so much about talents in that sense –
although it can be taken that way.
It’s about money.
Or at least, in Jesus’ story it’s about money.
I think it’s also about other things, too,
but we’ll come to that in a minute.

A talent was serious money back then.
Maybe about twenty years’ wages for your average labourer;
maybe more.
Serious money.
So the master was not messing about when he asked his slaves to look after it for him.
One slave was given five talents, another two and the third just one.
I suppose in these days they would be share portfolios,
and the slaves would be young investment bankers or stockbrokers or something like that.

In many ways, I prefer Luke’s version of this story,
where each of the slaves are given the same amount of money,
and come back with different amounts.
But today we have Matthew’s version set in the lectionary, so let’s go with that.
The master goes away, for whatever reason, and shares out the money.
And then he goes away, and doesn’t come back and doesn’t come back.
Maybe he is away for months, maybe years, maybe even a decade or more:
the text just says “A long time”.
And while he is away, things happen.
The first and second servants both go into business for themselves using their unexpected capital.
Perhaps they deal on the stock exchange.
Perhaps they open up a business of some kind –
a restaurant, say, or buying and selling houses.
We’re just told they traded with their money.

I expect they made themselves seriously rich, too.
They would have felt able to pay themselves a good salary,
while all the time preserving and adding to their Master’s capital.

But what of Number 3?
He’s quite comfortable already, thank you.
He has a good, secure job;
he would really rather be employed by someone than go into business for himself.
It doesn’t occur to him that, of all the slaves,
he was the one chosen to see what he would do,
whether he would have the courage to invest that capital.
And in any event, he doesn’t have that sort of courage.
Supposing something went wrong and he lost it all?
The consequences don’t bear thinking about!
Better play safe.
Very safe.
Not the bank –
not with the current banking crisis, just look at Northern Rock!
Okay, maybe his money would be safe,
but he wouldn’t be comfortable thinking about it, just in case it wasn’t.
Better just dig a hole in the ground and pretend you’re planting carrots or potatoes.
So that’s what he does;
the sort of moral equivalent of putting it into
old sock under his mattress, or in his underwear drawer.
And he gets on with his life.

And then, one day, the Master comes back.
I wonder whether they had ever really expected that he would,
or if they had almost forgotten they weren’t in it for themselves.

And the first and the second servant come swanning up with all the trappings of wealth –
chauffeur-driven Rollers,
Philippe Patek watches,
Louis Vuitton briefcases,
noses down in the latest top-of-the-range smartphones,
and, finally, able to present the Master with
share certificates
and bank statements
and other records of profit and loss to show him that they had each doubled their investments.

The Master is delighted.
“Well done, you good and faithful servant.” he says to each of them.

“You’ve been faithful in little things” –
not that little;
a “talent” was, as I said, serious money –
“now you’ll be put in charge of great things.
Enter in to the joy of your Master!”

And then along comes the third servant.
On a pushbike.
And he presents his master with a filthy dirty and rather crumpled envelope containing the original bankers’ order.
“I couldn’t face it, Master!” he explains.
“supposing it had all gone wrong
What would you have said to me?
You’re very harsh, and you do like your people to make you lots of money,
and I was too scared to try.
So I have kept it safe, and here you are!”

And the Master is seriously annoyed!
“Oh, look here!” he said.
“So you didn’t want to play the stock market or start a business, okay,
but couldn’t you at least have put it on deposit somewhere for me,
so I could have had the interest?
Just not good enough, I’m afraid.
Take him away!”

This story takes place in God's country, the Kingdom of Heaven.  I often think that Jesus struggles slightly when talking about the Kingdom,
trying to find an illustration that would make sense to his hearers,
talking of the tiny grain of mustard seed that grew to become
a huge shrub,
or the tiny bit of yeast that was needed to make the dough rise.
And as I'm sure you know, these stories didn’t say to us quite what they said to Jesus’ first hearers,
as mustard was a terrific weed, like stinging-nettles,
and nobody in their right mind would plant it deliberately.
And yeast –
or sourdough, more probably –
was not really associated with people of God,
since what you had at the holy feasts was unleavened bread,
which was then, by association, considered slightly more “proper” than ordinary bread.
And the thought of a woman baking it may well have turned people up a bit –
women tended to be rather “non-persons” in those days.

And, actually, it’s the same here.
Particularly for the third slave –
you what?
He should have put his money in the bank​?
To earn interest?
I don’t think so!
Jewish people in that time and place took very seriously the commandment that “thou shalt not lend out thy money upon usury”.
So here is the master telling the slave that he should have done just that?
Yikes!

So what does it all mean?
This whole story comes in a section of teaching about the End Times,
something we don’t really like to think about these days.
Jesus has been saying that nobody, not even he, knows the day and hour –
there will be all sorts of signs and symbols and symbolism, but they don’t necessarily mean anything.
And people will say “Oh, Jesus is coming on this date,” or “the end of the world is coming on that date”, but not to believe them.

He says nobody knows when it will happen –
and these days, increasingly, it’s or even if it will happen –
but the idea is to be prepared.
“Who,” Jesus asks,
“are faithful and wise servants?
Who are the ones the master will put in charge of giving the other servants their food supplies at the proper time?
Servants are fortunate if their master comes and finds them doing their job.
You may be sure that a servant who is always faithful will be put in charge of everything the master owns.”

And the Gospel for last week –
although you may not have thought about it as it was Remembrance Day –
was the story of the wise and foolish virgins,
and whether you would rather be with the wise virgins in the light,
or the foolish virgins in the dark....
well, not quite that, but you know what I mean.
Again, the sensible girls were prepared and ready –
the silly ones hadn’t even thought they might need to light lamps if it got late.

So again, Jesus is trying to draw pictures of things that don’t go into words very well;
he’s trying to make his hearers understand what it’s going to be like,
when he himself doesn’t have a very clear picture of it.
But one thing he does know –
we need to live as if he were never coming back,
but be prepared for him to return any second now!
It’s one of those Christian paradoxes that our faith is so full of.

It’s not just about what we do with our money, or with our time –
although obviously we need to make sure we are good stewards of both.
It’s maybe more, I think, about what we do with our relationship with God.

We are all, I expect, Christians here;
all people who enjoy a reciprocal relationship with their Creator.
And some people make the most of it!
Most of us do, I am quite sure.
We make a point of learning who we are, so we can be honest with God,
we make a point of learning from the Bible who God is,
and making a point of developing the relationship by spending time with God each day.
We don’t find it easy –
nothing worthwhile ever is easy –
and, of course, the ones who are really expert at it tend to make it look easy, which tends to make us feel inadequate.
But, of course, most of what we do to grow as a Christian is actually done by God;
our job is to be open to being grown –
and to use the “means of grace” that we have been given to do that.

But there are others around –
not here, I don’t suppose, not for one moment –
but I’m sure we know people who joyously responded to God’s call upon their life –
and then got stuck.
Didn’t grow, didn’t, maybe, even want to grow and change.
Stayed as baby Christians, still drinking milk when they should have been weaned on to meat, as St Paul puts it.
And maybe, one day, they will have to explain themselves, too.
“You had all these opportunities to become the person you were meant to be, but you wasted them.
Why?”

The good slaves, in this story, took what they were given and doubled it.
The bad one didn’t want to know, and buried his money.
It’s a picture –
and only a picture –
and must be taken alongside the other pictures we have of the end times.
But nevertheless, it is a picture we probably need to take seriously.
We need to allow God to work in us, to make us the people we have the potential to be, and maybe even to make us more than that.
We need to become what we can become, in God.
Much has been given to us already;
now we need to be open to God working in us.
Amen.

Lazarus and the Saints

 You will find the text of this sermon, which I have only slightly adapted, here  Tonight's service was on Zoom, so no location details!

Bible Sunday and Black History Month

 

This was shorter than usual because we were celebrating the end of Black History Month, so needed to make sure we didn't overrun too badly.  Which we didn't!

Today, we are celebrating the end of Black History month, 2023.
I hope that most of our liturgy is reflecting that, and we will have some more contributions to our celebration later on in the service.

It’s also Bible Sunday;
when I was a girl, this was celebrated during Advent, but they changed the calendar around some years ago now, so now it’s celebrated on this Sunday.
I had to learn the collect, the special prayer for the day, off by heart when I was a schoolgirl!
I used to love “help us so to hear them, to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them….”

And it’s that which we have to do with the Scriptures, isn’t it?
Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them,
until they become part of us, part of who we are, part of our lives.
We are told to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly!

But, having said that, we do have to be aware that our reading of the Bible is always going to be flawed,
we’re always going to read it through the lens of our own prejudice,
our own experience, our own political viewpoint.
Or, if we read with the help of a daily commentary, of that commentator’s prejudice, experience, political viewpoint, and so on.

But, by and large, we want to internalise Scripture;
to let it dwell in us richly.
And I rather think the passage that [the reader] read to us earlier is one that we really need to internalise: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

Love.
Of course, there are all sorts of different kinds of love, and our English language, unusually, doesn’t have different words for the sort of love we give to our parents, our partners, our children, our friends, even strawberries or our teddy bear!
Greek does, which is helpful, and the word it uses for loving God is “agape”;
it’s not used anywhere else.
St Paul gives that wonderful definition of agape love in his letter to the Corinthians, you may remember:

“Love is patient;
love is kind;
love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.
Love never ends.”

Pretty amazing, really.
This is the sort of love that Jesus was talking about, when he told us to love God with all of our being, and to love our neighbours as ourselves.

We need to be centred on God, not on ourselves.

But how do we do that?

After all, most people manage pretty well without God, and even those of us who try to be God’s people spend vast swathes of time doing other things,
sleeping, for one, or cooking, or working….

We are, of course, still God’s people while doing all those things,
but it’s not often at the forefront of our minds!

In John’s first letter, he equates loving God with loving our neighbour,
saying, basically, you can’t have one without the other.

“Those who say, `I love God', and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars
for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen,
cannot love God whom they have not seen.
The commandment we have from him is this:
those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”

But then, just to get us even more confused, he says
“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God,
and everyone who loves the parent loves the child.
By this we know that we love the children of God,
when we love God and obey his commandments.”

So for John, loving God and loving our neighbour,
our brothers and sisters,
are one and the same thing.
And, indeed, that God's love for us is first and foremost –
our love for God is just a response to that.

And I think he's probably right.

We love, we are told, because God first loved us!
The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

And without God, our human loves can be desperately flawed.
Parents can be overly possessive of their children, not allowing them to grow and develop in their own way;
I don’t need to tell you how often romantic love can go wrong;
and even friendship can be more about excluding another person or group of people than anything else.

But if Love is the most important commandment in the Bible, then we mustn’t exclude anybody, for whatever reason.
Not even if they hold views we find abhorrent.
It’s not always easy, of course –
how do we pray for politicians whose views we loathe?
And how easy is it to forgive, and to love, those who have rejected us for whatever reason?
I know my experience is peanuts compared to what many of you have gone through, but I was rejected by my peers at boarding-school a lot of the time, and those were not always happy years.
And even though we are all friends now, over 50 years later, I still have to bite my tongue on occasion!
Loving and forgiving those who have hurt us, or those whose views we find abhorrent, or those who have inflicted gross damage on the world –
it really isn’t easy.
And I really think it’s only through God’s help that we can.

We are, we are told, to love our neighbours as ourselves;
and sometimes that is a case of “pity the poor neighbour”.
We are often either totally self-absorbed, or we fail to value ourselves as we should.
And, there again, it’s only through God’s help we can .


Just as we can’t love God without God’s having first loved us, so we can’t love our neighbours, or ourselves, without God’s help.
It’s all one, really.
We need to allow the word of God to dwell in us richly, to allow God the Holy Spirit to indwell us;
we need to allow the Spirit to grow us and change us and teach us to love.
Amen.

Terrorism, or what?

 

I ad-libbed the children's talk which makes up the first part of the recording.

What an incredibly nasty Gospel passage was set for today! I don’t like it one little tiny bit. But it’s there, it’s in Matthew’s Gospel, and it’s our Gospel reading for today, so we had better look at it, I think.

A king is holding a wedding-feast for his son. And, one presumes, his daughter-in-law, but she isn’t mentioned! I believe even in Orthodox Jewish weddings to this day the bride and groom celebrate separately, so perhaps that’s not as surprising as it sounds.

What is surprising, though, is that people didn’t want to come. The King sent out his servants to call them in, and they refused. And then when they were asked a second time, they even beat up the servants and killed them. So the King, in retaliation, sent his soldiers to burn down the city, and gets the servants to invite a whole different set of people, “good and bad alike”, who all jump at the chance to visit the royal palace. Or who are too scared not to, by that stage. But then, there is one bloke who isn’t properly dressed, and doesn’t justify himself, and isn’t just asked to leave, as you might expect, but bound hand and foot and cast into outer darkness.

Well, what’s it all about? The thing is, people tend to see the King who throws the party as God inviting everybody in in place of the Jews who refused Jesus’ invitation, and then the ones who are invited later are the ones who, like us, have said “Yes” to Jesus. But all that violence in the middle? Doesn’t sound like the Jesus I know, does it you? And what of the guy who was thrown out for not wearing the right clothes? Maybe he’s the one who tried to get in on his own merits, without putting on “the garment of salvation”.

But this story, with blood and gore everywhere, with the King seeming to be happy to kill everybody and burn their towns, even while letting the feast get cold – what is that saying about God, if we look on the King as representing God? What does it say about the Kingdom of Heaven?

St Luke, and some of the non-canonical Gospels, the ones that didn’t make the cut, tell the story in a very different way, where the party-giver is definitely God, there are no reprisals for those who chose not to come, but then the gaps are filled with anybody and everybody, no matter who they are, no matter what their physical condition. All are welcome. Now, that version of the story is giving a very different picture of God. So what’s Matthew trying to say. Why is his version the kind of image of God that can really damage our mental health, leaving us worried and fearful of “doing it wrong” and being thrown out. Or which can make us justify hating groups of people who are not like us. Or can make us justify using violence in God’s name.

Ah, but think a minute. Matthew is Jewish, writing for Jewish believers. And what was their experience of kings? Not the King of Heaven that we associate with kings – but the puppet kings installed by the brutal Roman regime. Maybe this story can be read another way. The king is brutal, so violence and killing become the norm in that society. Maybe the one who refused to wear a wedding garment, and who refused to justify himself, and who was bound and violently cast out – could that, could that, do you think, be Jesus? That is, after all, what we are told happened to him. He was the one who stood silently in front of his accusers, refusing to justify himself, and who was bound and taken to the shameful death of the cross.

If you have ears to hear, said Jesus, then hear. Maybe many of his followers were unwilling to see such a story as anything other than a picture of God at his most vengeful; maybe they liked seeing God like that. Maybe you do, too? One trouble with seeing God like that is that it makes salvation be down to us, not down to God. If we get it wrong, we’ll be chucked out.

Although one way of seeing the wedding garment, is the salvation that comes from God. We need to acknowledge that we can do nothing of ourselves to save ourselves, and we need to put on the “wedding garment” that Christ provides for us. We can’t be, and won’t be, accepted on our own merits. Acceptance is through Christ, and is unlimited. We will, of course, receive due recognition, I am sure: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” – but it is through Christ we gain admittance to God’s country.

You can look at the story either way, of course. But all that violence – isn’t there enough violence in the world these days without having to see the rather cartoonish violence in the story Jesus told. As so often, it’s over the top – Jesus spoke Aramaic, which is a very over-the-top language. The king wasn’t very likely to abandon his feast, go and kill those who had killed his messengers and burn their towns to the ground, and then come back and expect to find his feast just as he had left it, after all!

St Paul, in the part of the letter to the Philippians that we also read earlier, reminds us that we should be filling our minds with “those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honourable.” This doesn’t mean, of course, that we must close our eyes to the horrors that go on in this world – God forbid!

Even Paul is at his most practical at the start of the chapter, urging two of the stalwart women who run the church to get over themselves and sort out their differences, and he asks the bearer of the letter, and some of the other elders of the church, to help them do that. We’re not told what they were disagreeing about – whether it was an important point of doctrine, or just whose turn it was to arrange the flowers that week, or what was to be on the menu for the communal meal at Pentecost. Even the little things can assume undue importance at times!

But then he reminds us that we need to be joyful always in our union with Christ, and not to worry about anything. Well, that’s easier said than done, for a start! But the point is, Paul says, pray about it. Pray about the issues, bring them to God, being thankful that God is there to listen and to help. And you listen too, in case God wants you to be part of the answer to your prayer, as does often happen. And the more we can leave the issues with God, and focus on the good things, the more we will experience God’s peace.

Now, the word usually translated “peace” comes from the Hebrew word Shalom. And Shalom means far more than peace as in an absence of worry, although that too. It’s more than just an absence of war and quarrels, although them, too. It’s about wholeness. About things being the way they ought to be, but so seldom are.

The way things ought to be. Wholeness. Reconciliation, not just within families, within the church, between denominations, between nations, but reconciliation between people, God and nature. Wholeness. And it’s the wholeness of creation, the wholeness of ourselves within it. That is the sort of peace that Paul says will “keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”.

Now, you know as well as I do that we live in a broken world. The horrendous conflict that has suddenly sprung up, yet again, between Hamas and Israel over the past few days is just one of the many conflicts going on around the world. The war between Russia and Ukraine is still ongoing, even though the latest conflict has knocked it off the front pages. Afghanistan is still refusing women basic rights over their own bodies, as are parts of the USA, but Afghanistan goes further and refuses them most of their rights as human beings.
There is still trouble in Syria… and so it goes on.

And then there is the brokenness of God’s creation: climate change, pollution, extinctions and so on.

Nevertheless, St Paul says to pray, to thank God, and then to fill our minds with “those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honourable.”

I’m not entirely sure that Jesus’ story in our Gospel reading comes under that heading! But if the person thrown out in chains for not wearing a wedding garment is Jesus, as there is a strong argument that he is, then that is something we can focus on.

The thing is, I think, that we need to be aware of the evil, bring it to God in prayer, and then put it aside for now. We need to listen to or read the news, of course we do, and pray as we read or listen, but we shouldn’t wallow in it! When our friends on social media post something that means they need our prayers, we should pray at once, so we don’t forget, and then move on. We need to be disciplined about the rabbit-holes we fall down on-line – some, of course, are wonderful, but others, not so much! And so it goes. Common-sense, really, but how many of us have any common sense? And we need to focus on peace, pray for peace, yet still aware that there will probably be no peace in our lifetimes.

And as for the story Jesus told – let’s not wallow in the bloodthirstiness and the nastiness, but let’s focus on the solitary figure, silent, bound, and cast out – for it is through him that we can know God as our heavenly Father, and experience his peace and wholeness. Amen.

With thanks to Nathan Nettleton of the South Yarra Community Baptist church in Melbourne, Australia, whose sermons, as published on Laughingbird.net, helped me enormously with this sermon.

Together in His name

“Where two or three are gathered together in My name,” said Jesus, “there am I with them.”

I expect you know that the Gospels were only written down about 50 or 60 years after Jesus’ death.
A lot of things happened during those years, of course,
and although we know how accurate oral transmission can be,
there are a few places where it looks as though an extraneous passage got inserted.
I don’t quite mean extraneous, I don’t think –
but a passage attributed to Jesus that perhaps wasn’t what he actually said,
but what the early Church thought he ought to have said.
And part of the passage we heard just now is, I think, one of those passages, mostly because it talks about the Church, a gathering of Christians –
and such a thing didn’t exist in Jesus’ day.
But whatever, it got into our Bibles, so we need to read it and learn from it.
And although my text is, as I said at the beginning, “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I with them,” we do need to look at the whole passage, as “a text without a context is a pretext!”

The first part does seem, at first reading, extraordinary, though.
We know from elsewhere that Jesus tells us never to put limits on our forgiveness.
We know we must forgive, or it’s impossible for us to receive God’s forgiveness, we block ourselves off from it.

And we are told never to judge.
We’re told to sort out what’s wrong with ourselves first –
you remember how Jesus graphically told us to remove the very large log from our own eyes before we could possibly deal with the tiny speck that bothered us in someone else’s.

But we are human.
No matter how much we want to love our neighbours as ourselves, it’s difficult.
It’s easy enough to love suffering humanity en masse, to send a text to a certain number to give three pounds towards relieving some kind of community suffering somewhere else.
It’s easy enough to throw an extra box of tea-bags into the food bank box at the supermarket, or to donate to homeless charities.
It’s even relatively easy to do small things to lower your carbon footprint –
to take reusable produce bags to the supermarket, to be scrupulous about recycling, and so on.

Now, don’t get me wrong, all these are good and right and proper things to be doing, and we should probably all do them more than we actually do.
But they are all relatively easy –
the difficult bit comes when we have to start interacting with other people, and loving them.
“To love the world to me’s no chore.
My problem is that lot next door!”
That’s when we’re apt to forget to be loving, when we are apt to go our own way, when we’re apt to hurt people, most probably totally unintentionally.
The careless word, the accidental insult –
or even, sadly, the intentional one.

Now, obviously, if we realise we’ve hurt someone,
the thing to do is to apologise at once.
Sometimes there are times when we don’t really want to apologise –
they started it, it was their fault.
Well, even if it is, we are the ones who need to apologise, if only because it makes us bigger than them….
Well, perhaps not for that reason, but you know what I mean.

But what if it is they who hurt you?
The human thing to do is to hit out and hurt them back, but we’re not supposed to do that, and with God’s help we won’t.
This passage tells us what to do –
first, go and explain what has gone wrong,
and if they agree and apologise, all is well and no harm done.
Then you take a couple of friends along to witness that you had a problem and to try and help you be reconciled,
and then, finally, take it to the church.
The church, note –
not the world!
And then, the passage says, if they still won’t listen,
let them be to you as a tax gatherer or a gentile.
Which, on first reading, sounds as if you should shun them completely,
which was how Jewish people of the time behaved towards them.

But that’s not what Jesus did!
Remember the story of Levi, who was a tax collector, and Jesus called him to become one of the disciples.
Remember Zaccheus, who resolved to pay back anybody he had cheated after Jesus loved and forgave him and went to eat with him.
Remember how many times he talked with, and healed, Gentiles, non-Jews, people who observant Jews would have nothing to do with.

So what is the church to do with those who won’t see that they’ve hurt someone, or if they do see it, don’t care?
From Jesus’ example, it looks as though we have to go on loving them, trusting them, and caring for them.
Heaven, as one paraphrase puts it, will back us up.
Obviously, there are very rare occasions when steps have to be taken,
if a child or a vulnerable adult is at risk, for example,
but mostly things can be put right without that.
And even when steps do have to be taken –
and the Methodist church has systems in place to organise such steps,
so our safeguarding people know what to do –
we still have a duty to love and care for the perpetrator.

Now, the next part of the passage is really not easy to understand.
If, says Jesus, or the Church speaking in Jesus’ name, two or three agree on anything in prayer, it will be granted.
But we know that, with the best will in the world, this doesn’t always happen.
We have all seen times when our prayers, far from being answered,
appear to have gone no further than the ceiling.
But then again, were we only looking for one answer to our prayer?
Were we telling God what to do, as, I don’t know about you, but I find I’m rather apt to.
Were we just talking at God, and not trying to listen,
trying to be part of what God is doing in the world?
All too easily done, I’m afraid.

But the final sentence –
ah, now that brings hope.
“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

You see, in the Jewish faith, you need what’s called a minyan, a minimum of ten people –
in many traditions, ten men, not people.
If there are only nine of you, you can’t go ahead with the service.
But not for we Christians.
We know that even if there are only a couple of us,
Jesus will be there with us and enabling our worship.
I think I told you that last time I was with you, when the congregation was rather smaller than usual because of the Cup Final!
But Jesus was definitely with us.


“Where two or three are gathered together in My name,” said Jesus, “there am I with them.”

I don’t know about you, but I found that to be very true during the pandemic, during those long, weary months when we weren’t allowed to meet together, and when we could, there were huge restrictions.
Last time I preached on these passages, it was, I think, the first Sunday we had been allowed back to church in five long months.
We had to sign in, and in some churches we even had to book a seat!
We had to sit miles apart from anybody except our own families, we had to wear masks, we weren’t allowed to sing, or to take an offering (there was usually a box by the door for those who had brought one), or even share the Peace or make our Communions as we were accustomed to do.
But it was a lot better than not meeting at all, which had been the case for so many months, and was to be again the following winter.

Many of us lost loved ones during that hard time, either to Covid-19 or to other illnesses.
Many of us had Covid ourselves, and although some recovered quickly,
others, myself included, were still feeling the after-effects a good two years later.
Many of us had mental health issues during that time.
Many, if not most, of us wondered where on earth God was in all this.

But God was there.
There in the many different ways we struggled to be church together –
the recorded services, the Zoom services, eventually, the livestreams.
Some of those continue to this day –
we now have two Zoom services weekly in the Circuit, the Wednesday evening Compline and the Sunday evening service which, although it is Clapham who run it, welcomes any of us who care to log in.

But most of this is, we hope, ancient history.
There may or may not be another pandemic in our lifetimes –
I hope and pray there won’t be.
Eventually, there will be one, of course;
but I hope not for a long while yet!
But what is total, current, today’s news, is that Jesus is here with us, right now this minute.
We are gathered together in his name, and he has promised that where two or three –
or a dozen or so, in this case –
are gathered together, he is there with us.

We have been told what to do if we have a problem with someone else who refuses to acknowledge it, or to clear the air.
Although I’ll just remind you here that Jesus said that if you know someone has a problem with you, or you with them,
you really ought to make it right before you come to the Lord’s table together.
But that, as this passage points out, isn’t always practical.
All we can really do is pray for God’s grace.
It’s not as if church quarrels were anything new –
even St Paul has to tell two of the women in the church at Philippi to get over themselves and get their acts together!
They happen.
They have always happened.
And they probably always will happen.

But Jesus is there with us, no matter how many people’s backs we’ve put up.
Jesus is there with us because we are gathered in his name.
And this, of course, means we can’t actually exclude anyone!
How can we be gathered in Jesus’ name and exclude anybody from that gathering?
We can’t, of course.
Not even people like tax-gatherers or pagans!
Jesus would never have turned his back on such people unless they had made it very, very, very clear that they wanted nothing at all to do with him, and how can we do differently?

“Where two or three are gathered together in My name,” said Jesus, “there am I with them.”
And it doesn’t matter what we are doing in His name,
whether we’re attending public worship,
or visiting someone who is ill,
or helping at the food bank,
or any other form of community service.
Or even being at work or school, or at home.
If we do it in Jesus’ name, and if there are other people involved, he is there in the midst of it all!

Amen. 

Moses in the bulrushes

 

I think I remember first hearing the story of Moses in the bulrushes, which was our first reading today, when I was in primary school! I imagine you did, too, most probably. It’s one of the first Bible stories we ever learn.

It’s an important story, as Moses was an important person – so important, in fact, that he was one of those who visited the transfigured Jesus on the mountain-top, along with Elijah. God made it clear then that it was Jesus who we are to listen to, Jesus who has superseded both Moses and Elijah, Jesus who is God’s beloved son.
But Moses, like Jesus, wasn’t born to greatness. In fact, rather the reverse. The Israelites, at that time, were living in Egypt – you might recall how they moved down there at Pharaoh’s invitation, and that of his right-hand man Joseph. And at first they settled down, and built farms, and lived their lives according to God’s word as it was then understood, and all went swimmingly. They grew, and they prospered.

Meanwhile, however, the Pharaoh grew old, and died, and a few generations later a new Pharaoh ascended the throne, and this Pharaoh had never heard of Joseph, and didn’t really want to, either. He was concerned, because here was this enormous group of people who weren’t Egyptian at all, living in the middle of Egypt and it was possible – although not probable – that they could overturn his throne. Pharaoh wasn’t having that!

So he got together with his advisors, and they pretty much enslaved the Israelites, demanding – and getting – forced labour from them to build things and carry burdens, work in the fields, and so on. They didn’t build the pyramids – the pyramids existed long before Joseph went to Egypt – but they did build a couple of towns, Pithon and Rameses. But the harder the Egyptians forced them to work, the more children they had, and the more they prospered.

So the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, were told they must kill any boy baby that was born to an Israelite woman, although they could let the girls live. But the midwives were not about to do that, and ignored their instructions. And when summonsed to explain themselves, they said blandly that all that work in the fields meant that the women had a very easy time giving birth, and the babies in question had been born long before they got there! And the children of Israel became stronger and stronger and more and more numerous.

So Pharaoh got very cross indeed, and ordered that all baby boys must be thrown into the river, there either to drown or to be eaten by crocodiles, or both. But it still didn’t stop the Israelites.

The Bible doesn’t give the names of Moses’ parents; they are just referred to as a Levite man and a Levite woman. This means they were both descendants of Levi, one of Jacob’s sons. The Levites, traditionally, end up being the tribe that is responsible for Temple worship and so on – not the priests, but the worship leaders, if you like. I don’t know if they had that role back in Egypt, but it seems significant that Moses should be a Levite.

This couple had two other children that we know of; a girl called Miriam, and a boy called Aaron who was a few years older than Moses, so presumably born before the edict to kill the male babies was made. And then Moses arrives.

I wonder whether Moses’ mother knew what she was going to do if she had a boy. I expect she was praying and praying that it be a girl, and then it wasn’t. Disaster! What on earth was she going to do? How could she give up her beloved baby to be killed?

We aren’t told that she prayed, but I’m sure she did. And she was able to hide the baby for three months, but babies are not an easy thing to hide, and eventually she realised she simply couldn’t. But she had been plotting and preparing. Her baby must go in the river, okay. But she wasn’t going to let the authorities throw him in – instead, she would put him in herself, in a basket she had spent time weaving from rushes, and covering it with pitch so it would be waterproof.

And she took the basket, with Moses in it, down to the river herself. Her heart must have broken as she placed it tenderly in the reed-bed. She had done what she could, complying with the letter of the law, if not the spirit. Only God could help her baby now.

She didn’t dare hang about to see what would happen, but her daughter Miriam could lurk discreetly, pretending to be playing, perhaps.

And what does happen is that Pharaoh’s daughter comes down to the river to bathe, with all her attendants. And she hears the baby crying, and sends one of her women to go and see what the noise is. And the woman brings back the baby in his basket.

Pharaoh’s daughter – we don’t know her name, either; the Bible is so bad at giving women names – is entranced by the baby, and even though he’s obviously a Hebrew baby, she wants to keep him for her own, as though he were a stray puppy or kitten. But the baby is getting hungry now, and howling, and his sister, very bravely, comes up to the women and says “I know where there’s a wet-nurse, if you want one for the baby!”

The wet-nurse is, of course, her own mother, who has just that very day put the baby in the river. And Pharaoh’s daughter says “Ooh, yes please!” and so the family end up moving into the palace, albeit into servants’ quarters, and Moses is brought up as befits a royal child.

There are some obvious parallels with Jesus here, aren’t there? The humble parents, the oppressed people, the edict to kill the baby boys. Ironic, perhaps, that Mary and Joseph fled into Egypt to keep Jesus safe!

Meanwhile, Moses grew up as a child of the palace, although he obviously did know he had Hebrew roots, as we learn later in his story. But Jesus, we hope, had a happy and serene childhood in Nazareth, treated no differently from other boys his age, playing with his friends, going to school, and only very gradually learning that he was different and special as he grew up.

I’m not sure, by the way, whether he knew what Peter’s answer to the question “Who do you say that I am?” was going to be, as we heard in our Gospel reading. Did he already know he was the Messiah? He obviously knew he had a special calling from God, that he was God’s beloved son – but, the Messiah? Peter’s answer was very definitely God’s voice to him. Yes, you are the Messiah. But he asked the disciples not to say anything, as he didn’t want to be elevated to the status of a political leader, which is what they had always imagined the Messiah was going to be.

Moses, as we all know, led his people out of slavery and to the very boundaries of the Promised Land; Jesus wasn’t about overthrowing the occupying power, or really anything to do with politics; he brings us out of slavery in a totally different way – the slavery of sin, as the Bible calls it.

But Moses’ story has more to teach us than just the parallels with Jesus. It’s about God’s wonderful provision for his people.

It must have been so awful for Moses’ mother, mustn’t it? She knew she had to put her precious baby into the river; he could be – and probably would be – swept away and drowned, or eaten by crocodiles, or both. But she was also placing him into God’s hands, and God wasn’t going to let him be swept away or eaten. God saw to it that it was just at that precise moment that Pharaoh’s daughter and her attendants came down to bathe. And just at that precise moment that the baby woke up hungry.

And so Moses was saved from the crocodiles, and grew up a child of the palace.

Jesus, too, was saved from the edict that all baby boys be killed; his parents listened to the angel who warned them, and took him to Egypt, where they stayed until that Herod died, and then resettled in Nazareth, where Jesus grew up as a normal village child.

I wonder how God provides for you and me? We are probably not going to be leaders of our people, but we are still God’s beloved children. And St Paul reminds us that “God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus”.

We didn’t read the passage from Paul’s letters set for today, as it would have made the service too long, but it was that bit from the letter to the Romans where Paul reminds us that although we are one body in Christ, we are all different, and God has given us all different gifts, which we should not be shy about using.

I am sure that almost all of us, looking back, can see times when God provided for us – I know I can, several times, over the course of my life. Sometimes it was using decisions I made; other times it was the right person in the right place at the right time, and so on. And I expect – although I don’t actually know and don’t especially want to know – there have been times when I’ve been the right person in the right place at the right time. And I’m sure there have been times when you have, too.

Pharoah’s daughter was in the right place at the right time. So, of course, was Simon Peter, to tell Jesus that “You are the Messiah, the holy one of God!” I pray that all of us may be the right person in the right place at the right time – and I think I pray that we’ll never know it, as then we might think it was we who did it, not God! Amen.