Can you see?

 

The service begins about 7 minutes into the recording.

The Mothering Sunday talk is recorded directly below the recording of the main sermon

This is a very splendid story in John's Gospel, although it's rather long, which is why I divided the reading into two bits.
It's not just about a healing, it's about what happened afterwards.

We start with the man born blind,
and first of all the disciples want to know why this had happened.
We all want to know why, don't we,
when dreadful things happen.
Why was this child born disabled?
Why have so many people died in avalanches this year?
Why are there such widespread floods across Europe?
Why did so and so get cancer?
Why did so and so get cancer and then get better,
when someone else couldn't get better, and died?
And so on and so forth.
It's human nature.
Even though we sometimes know the answers, or at least part of them –
the avalanches and floods are caused by exceptionally heavy rain and snow, arguably caused by global warming;
that person shortened their lifespan by smoking.
And so on.
But other times there seems to be no reason for it.

And so the disciples ask Jesus whether the man's blindness was some kind of punishment for him, or for his parents.
I wonder if the parents were asking, too:
“Why us?
What did we do wrong?”

But Jesus said no, it wasn't anything like that, but to show how he, Jesus, is the Light of the World.
And he proceeds to heal the man.

Now, all the Gospels tell of Jesus healing a blind man, sometimes called Bartimaeus, but this is the only one that takes it further, and looks at the consequences.
You see, after all, if your life is touched by Christ there are, or should be, consequences.
If nothing changes, was it a real touch?

For the blind man –
and let's call him Bartimaeus for now,
as it makes life easier with pronouns and such –
life changed immediately.
My sister-in-law, who is blind,
says that not only would he have been given his sight,
but he would have been given the gift of being able to see,
otherwise how would he have known what he was looking at?
He wouldn't have known whether what he was looking at was a person or a camel or a tree, would he?
But he was given that gift, as well.

And he could stop begging for his living, he realised,
and he went and did whatever the local equivalent of signing-on was.
And, of course there were lots of mutterings and whisperings –
Is it him?
Can't be!
Must be someone new in town, who just looks like him!

“Yes, it's me,” explains Bartimaeus, anxious to tell his story.
“Yes, I was blind, and yes, I can see now!”

“So what happened?” asks the neighbours.

“Well, this bloke put some mud on my eyes and told me to go and wash,
and when I did, then I could see.
No, I don't know where he is –
I never saw him;
Yeah, I'd probably know his voice, but I didn't actually see him!”

And the neighbours, thinking all this a bit odd, drag him before the Pharisees, the religious authorities of the day.
And they don't believe him.
Not possible.
Nobody born blind gets to see, it just doesn't happen.
And if it did, it couldn't happen on the Sabbath.
Not unless the person who did it was a sinner,
because only a sinner would do that on the Sabbath –
it's work, isn't it?
And if the person who did it was a sinner, it can't have happened!

They got themselves in a right old muddle.
Now we, of course, know what Jesus' thoughts about healing on the Sabbath day were –
he is on record elsewhere as pointing out that you'd rescue a distressed donkey,
or, indeed, lead it to the horse-trough to get a drink,
whatever day of the week it was,
so surely healing a human being was a right and proper activity for the Sabbath.
But the Pharisees didn't believe this.
They thought healing was work,
and thus not a proper activity for the Sabbath at all.

So they decided it couldn't possibly have happened,
and sent for Bartimaeus's parents to say
“Now come on, your son wasn't really blind, was he?
What has happened?”
And his parents, equally bewildered, say
“Well yes, he is our son;
yes, he was born blind;
yes, it does appear that he can now see;
no, we don't know what happened;
why don't you ask him?”
And the Bible tells us they were also scared of being expelled from the synagogue, which is why they didn't say anything more.

Actually, they must have had a fearful mixture of emotions, don't you think –
thrilled that their son could suddenly see,
scared of the authorities,
wondering what exactly Jesus had done,
and was it something they could have done themselves, and so on.
And, of course, wondering how life was going to be from now on.
Very soon now, their son probably wouldn't need them any more;
now he was like other people, he could, perhaps, earn a proper living and even marry and have a family.

So the authorities go back to Bartimaeus, and he says,
“Well, how would I know if the person who healed me is a sinner or not?
All I know is that I was blind, and now I can see!”
And then they asked him again, well, how did it happen,
and he gets fed up with them going on and says
“But I told you!
Didn't you listen?
Or maybe you want to be his disciples, too?”
which was, of course, rather cheeky and he deserved being told off for it,
but then again, I expect he was still rather hyper about having been healed.
And he does go on rather and tells them that the man who opened his eyes must be from God, can't possibly not be,
and they get even more fed up with him, and sling him out.

And then Jesus meets him again –
of course Bartimaeus, not having seen him before,
doesn't actually recognise him –
and reveals himself to him.
And Bartimaeus worships him.

Then Jesus, the Light of the World,
says that he has come so that the blind may see,
and those who see will become blind –
looking hard at the Pharisees as he said it.
The Pharisees are horrified:
“What, are we blind, then?”

And Jesus says, “If you acknowledged that you were blind, you, too, could be healed.
But but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains!”

That's the thing, isn't it –
the Pharisees wouldn't admit they needed Jesus.
They wouldn't admit there was anything wrong.
Jesus has picked up on this before –
you remember the story he told about the Pharisee and the tax-collector,
and the Pharisee was too pleased with himself to be able to receive God's grace.
The tax-collector knew he was a rat-bag, and thus God could do something.

We know that bit.
We know that we need to acknowledge our need of God before God can act –
we must make room for God in our lives.
But when we have done that,
and God has touched us, in whatever way,
things change.
For Bartimaeus, it was about learning to live with his sight,
and about dealing with the issues that it raised.

I wonder what it is for us.
For make no mistake, my friends, when God touches our lives, 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 an office envelope or to log on to the Wi-fi.

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.

The point is, when God touches our lives, things change.
They changed for Bartimaeus, I know they changed for me,
and they will have changed for many of you, if not all of you, too.

But 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.

It can be scary.
Bartimaeus was scared, and with some reason
as his healing ended up with his being chucked out of the synagogue.
That was relatively mild compared with what has happened to some of Jesus' followers down the years, though.
But then, we always seem to be given the strength and the ability to cope with whatever comes.
It’s not necessarily true that God never gives us more than we can handle, but what is true is that we don't have to cope alone.
God is there, not only changing us,
but enabling us to cope with that change.

And we are changed and grown, and God gets the glory!
Because it's not just about what happens to us –
although, human as we are, that's the bit we think about most.
It's also about showing God's glory to the world,
showing people that Jesus is the Light of the World.
As happened when Bartimaeus was healed;
as may well happen if and when God touches our lives.
Amen.

---oo0oo---

What day is it today?

Mothers’ Day –

is the wrong answer!
At least, it might be Mothers’ Day out in the world,
but here in Church it’s Mothering Sunday,
and that, in fact, is only tangentially about human mothers!

Today is the fourth Sunday in Lent, and it’s long been known as Laetare Sunday, or Refreshment Sunday –
it’s half-way through Lent, and in days when people kept it rather more strictly than they do now,
it was a day when you could relax the rules a little.
And the tradition grew up that on that day,
you went to the mother church in your area –
often the cathedral, but it might have just been the largest church in your area.
Or sometimes, it might have been the church where you were nurtured and taught as a child, before you left home.
I have had the honour and privilege of preaching at my own “mother church” in a Sussex village, and I love to visit there when I can.

Families went together to the local cathedral, if they lived near enough;
sometimes even whole congregations went together,
and it became traditional for servants to have time off to go home and see their families on that day and go to church with them,
if they lived near enough.
In the Middle Ages, servants may only have got one day off a year,
and it was, traditionally, the 4^th Sunday in Lent.
Many servants had to leave home when they were very young –
only about 11 or 12 –
because their parents simply couldn't afford to feed them any longer.
And, indeed, many of these children hadn't known what a full tummy felt like until they started work.
But even so, they must have missed their families,
and been glad to see them every year.

And today is also a day for remembering God’s love for us.
We’re having the readings for the Fourth Sunday in Lent today,
but if we’d had the traditional Mothering Sunday readings,
we would have heard Jesus weeping over Jerusalem:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem!
Your people have killed the prophets and have stoned the messengers who were sent to you.
I have often wanted to gather your people, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.
But you wouldn't let me.”

The image of Jesus as a mother hen!
What we remember on Mothering Sunday isn’t just our mothers,
although that, too,
but above all, the wonderful love of God, our Father and our Mother.

Tempted and Fallen

 

Children's talk:

Today is the first Sunday in Lent.
Lent is the time when we prepare for Easter.
But Easter is still a very long way away,
it isn't happening until April.
We get just over six weeks to prepare, which is quite a long time, really.
At Christmas, we only get four weeks,
can you remember what that time is called?

The thing about Lent is that it's traditionally been a time of fasting.
This means some kind of physical deprivation,
to help you with your spiritual preparation.
Some people find that not eating sweets, or meat, or fizzy pop –
booze if you're grown up –
or something like that helps them to be more spiritually aware,
and more ready to think about Jesus at Easter.

In many churches they don't have flowers in Lent,
to remind us that this is a special time.
And then we appreciate the Easter flowers all the more.
And in churches where they have different colours on the communion table or the minister's robes at different times of year,
during Lent and Advent it's purple.

This can be a good discipline, but of course it can just be done for the sake of doing it!
I don't know if any of you know the children's author, Noel Streatfield?
She wrote a lot of books for children,
the most famous of which is called Ballet Shoes, and is still a very good read, even though it was written a long time ago.
Well, Noel and her sisters grew up about many years ago;

their father was a vicar,
and in their family, as in many others,
it was assumed that nobody would want to eat sweets or cake or jam during Lent, so they were never served!
So even if you had wanted to eat them, you couldn't have done so.
And I don't really see what good that did, as it wasn't a voluntary thing,
and just made the children dread Lent each year.

My mother used to say that if you give up something for Lent,
you ought to put the money you save aside,
and give it to Children in Need or a similar charity,
so that you aren't just doing it for yourself.
She has a point!

Some people take on something extra during Lent.
Perhaps they go to a study group, or read a bit of the Bible every day,
or spend time visiting someone who isn't well, or something.
Or maybe you could do something like remembering to say "Thank you" to God for something every day.

I try to do that on social media every year, but it is surprisingly difficult to do, too, to find something different to say “Thank you” to God about every day.

The thing is, it doesn't really matter what Lenten discipline you choose, as long as it's something that helps you come nearer to Jesus.
If it doesn't, don't do it!

Main Sermon:  

The first reading today was about a man, and a woman and God.
The man and the woman don't have names –
later on, they are called Adam and Eve,
but at this stage they don't need names.
They are just Man and Woman.
They are the only Man and Woman that exist –
God hasn't made any more, yet –
so they don't need names.
Man can just go, “Ummmm”
and Woman will know he's talking to her.

God has made the Man and the Woman, and put them in a garden,
where there is plenty of food to eat for the picking of it.
It's lovely and warm, so they don't need clothes,
and in fact they are so comfortable with themselves and with God that they don't want clothes.
There are animals to be cared for, and crops to be tended,
but the work is easy and pleasurable.
And all the fruit in the garden is theirs, except for one tree,
which God has told them is poisonous.
If they eat the fruit of this tree, God said, they'll die.

Well, so far, so good.
But at this point, enter another player.
The serpent.
Now, the Serpent is God's enemy,
but the Man and the Woman don't know that.
They think the Serpent is just another animal.
Now Serpent comes and chats to Woman.

“Nice pomegranate you've got there!”

“Mmm, yes,” says Woman.

“Look at that fruit on that tree over there, though,” says Serpent.
“That looks well tasty!”

“Yes, but it's poisonous!” explains Woman.
“God said that if we ate it, we'd die, so we're keeping well clear of it!”

“Oh rubbish!” says Serpent.
“God's stringing you a line!
It's not poisonous at all.
Thing is, if you eat it, you'll be just like God,
and know good and evil.
God doesn't want you to eat it,
because God doesn't want any rivals!
Go on, have a bite!
You won't regret it!”

So Woman has another look at the tree,
and sees that the fruit is red and ripe and smells tempting,
so she cautiously stretches out her hand and grabs the fruit,
and, ever so tentatively, takes a tiny bite.
Mmm, it is good!

So she calls to Man, “Ummm, hello?”

“Mm-hmmm,” calls Man, looking up from the game he was playing with his dogs.
“What is it?”

“Come and try this fruit,” says Woman,
and explains how the Serpent had said that God had been stringing them a line,
and how good the fruit tasted.
So Man decides to have a piece himself.

But it's coming on to evening,
and at evening, God usually comes and walks in the garden,
and Man and Woman usually come and share their day.
But tonight, somehow, they don't feel like chatting to God.
And those bodies, the bodies they'd enjoyed so much,
suddenly feel like they want to be kept private.
They look at one another, and both retreat, silently, into the far depths of the garden, grabbing some fig leaves to make coverings for themselves.

Presently, God comes looking for them.
“What's up?
Why are you hiding?”

“Well,” goes Man, “I didn't want to face you, 'cos I was naked.”

“Naked?” says God.
“Naked?
Who told you you were naked?
You've been eating that fruit I told you was poisonous, haven't you?”

“Well, er, um.”
Man wriggles.
“It wasn't my fault.
That one, the Woman you gave me.
She said to eat it, so I did.
Wasn't my fault at all.
You can't blame me!”

So God looks at Woman, and says, “Is this true?
Did you give him the fruit?”

Woman goes scarlet.
“Well, it was Serpent.
He said you, well, that the fruit wasn't poisonous.”

But, of course, the fruit had been poisonous
It wasn't that it gave Man and Woman a tummyache or the runs;
worse than that, it poisoned their whole relationship with God.
They couldn't stay in God's garden any more.
Serpent was going to have to crawl on his belly from now on,
and everyone, almost, would be afraid of him.
Woman was going to have awful trouble having babies,
and Man was going to find making a living difficult.

But God did show them how to make warm clothes for themselves,
and didn't abandon them forever,
even though, from that time forth, they weren't really comfortable with God.
Well, that's the story, then, that the Israelites used to explain why human beings find it so very difficult to be God's people and to do God's will.
And it shows how first the Woman and then the Man were tempted, and fell.
They had tried, although they didn’t know it, to settle for something less than God, for human knowledge and ambition.
They thought they knew better than God.
At least, though, they didn’t think that they didn’t need God, as all too many people do today!
The man and the woman fell.
But Jesus resisted temptation.
You may remember that he was baptised,
and there was the voice from heaven that said
“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
And then Jesus went off into the desert for six weeks or so,
to come to terms with exactly Who he was,
and to discover the exact nature of his divine powers.

It must have been so insidious, mustn't it?
"Are you really the Son of God?
Why don't you prove it by making these stones bread?
You're very hungry, aren't you?
If you're the Son of God, you can do anything you like, can't you?
Surely you can make these stones into bread?
But perhaps you aren't the Son of God, after all...."
And so it would have gone on and on and on.

But Jesus resisted.
The way the gospel-writers tell it,
you would think he just waved his hand and shook his head and said,
“No, man shall not live by bread alone!”
But that wouldn't have been temptation.
You know what it's like
when you're tempted to do something you ought not –
the longing can become more and more intense.
There are times when you think,
Hmm, that'd be nice, but then you think,
naaa, not right, and put it behind you;
but other times when you have to really, really struggle to put it behind you.
“If you are the Son of God....”

The view from the pinnacle of the Temple.
So high up.... by their standards,
like the top of the Shard would be to us.
"Go on then –
you're the Son of God, aren't you?
Throw yourself down –
your God will protect you!"
The temptation is to show off, to use his powers like magic.
Yes, God would have rescued him, but:
“Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
That's not what it's about.
That would have been showing off.
That would have been misusing his divine powers for something rather spectacular.
It would have been settling for something less than the best God had for him.

Jesus was also tempted with riches and power beyond his wildest dreams –
at that, beyond our wildest dreams,
if only he would worship the enemy.
We can sympathise with this particular temptation;
I'm sure we all would love to be rich and powerful!
But for Jesus, it must have been particularly subtle –
it would help him do the work he'd been sent to do!
Could he fulfil his mission without riches and power?
What was being God's beloved son all about, anyway?
Would it be possible to spread the message that he was beginning to realise he had to spread
if he was going to spend his life in an obscure and dusty part of the Roman empire?
And again, after prayer and wrestling with it, he finds the answer:
“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”
Let the riches and power look after themselves;
they are not God.
The important thing was to serve God.
If that is right, the rest would follow.

You may remember that Jesus was similarly tempted on the Cross, he could have called down the legions from heaven to rescue him.
But he chose not to.
It wasn't about spectacular powers –
often, when Jesus did miracles,
he asked people not to tell anybody.
He didn't want to be spectacular.
He'd learnt that his mission was to the people of Israel,
probably even just the people of Galilee –
and the occasional outsider who needed him, like the Syro-Phoenician woman, or the Roman centurion –
and anything more than that was up to his heavenly Father.

And, obviously, if the "anything more" hadn't happened,
we wouldn't be here today!
But, at the time, that wasn't Jesus' business.
His business, as he told us, was to do the work of his Father in Heaven –
and that work, for now, was to be an itinerant preacher and healer,
but not trying deliberately to call attention to himself.

And a few years later, Jesus was crucified.
It is, I think, far too complicated for us to ever know exactly what happened then,
but it is safe to say that a change took place in the moral nature of the universe.
St Paul expands on this idea in our second reading.

Paul compares and contrasts what happened to the first Man, Adam, with what happened to Jesus,
pointing out that sin came into the world through Adam, which poisoned humanity’s relationship with God,
but through Jesus, we can receive the free gift of eternal life, and thus restore our relationship.

Of course, it’s never as easy as that in practice.
You know that and I know that.
Can we really live in a restored relationship with God?
All the time?
Twenty-four seven?
Well, maybe you can, but I find it very difficult indeed!
We know we’re apt to screw things up in our relationship with God.
Usually because we screw things up in our relationship with other people, but not always.
Sometimes we just screw ourselves up!
We don’t take the exercise we promised ourselves.
We lounge around all day and don’t get on –
so easy to do, I find, when the weather is as awful as it’s been lately, don’t you agree?

But the point is, Paul seems to think that we can live in a restored relationship with God.
And so does John, when he reminds us that
“Those who are children of God do not continue to sin, for God's very nature is in them;
and because God is their Father, they cannot continue to sin.”
He also, of course, reminds us that if and when we do sin, we need to confess our sins and we will be forgiven.
We need to look at ourselves honestly, and admit not only what we did, said or thought,
but that we are the kind of person who can do, say or think such things.
And allow God not only to forgive us, but to help us grow so that we will stop being such people.

John Wesley very much believed Christian perfection was a thing.
He didn’t think he’d attained it, but he reckoned it was possible in this life.
He preached on it and it’s one of the sermons we local preachers are supposed to have read –
you can find it on-line easily enough.
Anyway, what he said about perfection was that it wasn’t about being ignorant, or mistaken, or ill or disabled, or not being tempted –
you could be any or all of those things and still be perfect.
Wesley reckons that the closer we continue with Jesus,
the less likely we are to sin.
I believe he didn’t consider that he’d got there himself, but he did know people who had.
He said even a baby Christian has been cleansed from sin,
and mature Christians who walk with Jesus will be freed from it, both outwardly and inwardly.
I hope he’s right....

But the point is, it’s not something we can do in our own strength;
we have to allow God to do it for us and in us.
The first Man and Woman listened to the serpent, and destroyed their –
and our –
relationship with God.
Jesus was able to restore that relationship through the atonement.
And because that relationship is restored, we can be indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and made whole again.
Let’s not settle for anything less than the best God has for us! Amen.

Listen to Him!

 

This sermon is substantially the same as that preached here, although I'm not sure how closely I stuck to my script - I had technical issues today!

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.