You have to go there to be there

Completely and utterly forgot to record this!  Oh well...

Have you been on holiday yet? We’re off again next week, to a family wedding in Germany.
This time, we are going to drive across northern France, instead of going through Belgium.

We both love our trips in the motor home, but we both hate the long, dreary drives across Belgium to get to where we’re going in Germany!
It is always a long, dreary day.
It always rains, seemingly.
The traffic round Brussels is always dire.
Robert drives,
I knit or doze,
we listen to podcasts and music
and, of course, stop every few hours.
But oh, how I wish, sometimes, that we could get there without the long journey!
I want to be there without going there!

And I am sure that anybody who has travelled with children longs and longs for the journey to be over,
whether it’s by car, train or aeroplane.
You long to reach the resort, and if you could,
would get there without having to go there.

It’s the same if we’re learning a new skill, or a new subject at school.
We don’t start off being brilliant at it.
Our first attempts to speak a foreign language sound like baby talk!
Our first knitted strip is going to be uneven and full of holes.
We have to learn and study and practice, and in the end we get good at it.
I wonder if you’ve been watching the Commonwealth Games as much as we have this week,
and thinking about how much the athletes have had to train to be able to qualify for the Games.
I remember in my skating days how hard one had to work for what felt like very minimal improvement;
and we didn’t train nearly as hard as the elite skaters have to.

And it’s the same with faith, which is what our Bible readings this morning are all about.
You don’t start off being a person of terrific faith –
you have to learn how.
We all hope to be brilliant Christians, but it takes time, and it takes practice.
You can’t be there without going there!

I have often said that these Sundays in Ordinary Time are when we discover whether what we think we believe actually matches up to what we really do believe.
And our readings this morning are the absolute epitome of that.
All our readings emphasize faith, but slightly different aspects of it.

Isaiah, for instance, is talking about repentance:

“Do you think I want all these sacrifices you keep offering to me?” asks God. “I have had more than enough of the sheep you burn as sacrifices and of the fat of your fine animals. I am tired of the blood of bulls and sheep and goats.”

And then;
“When you lift your hands in prayer, I will not look at you. No matter how much you pray, I will not listen, for your hands are covered with blood.”

In Isaiah's day his day, people worshipped other gods,
gods who didn't actually require you to do more than perform the sacrifices and rituals.
But for God, our God, this was not enough.
God demanded –
and still does demand –
a lot more than that:

“Wash yourselves clean. Stop all this evil that I see you doing. Yes, stop doing evil and learn to do right. See that justice is done – help those who are oppressed, give orphans their rights, and defend widows.”

You can't just go on as you were and then come to the temple to do your sacrifices.
This will not work.
Remember Psalm 51;
“The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
We need a complete change of heart,
to turn right round and go God's way, not ours.
This is called repentance, of course –
not so much about being sorry, although that can be part of it,
but about a complete change of outlook.
And then, according to Isaiah:

“Come now, let us argue it out,”
   says the Lord:
“though your sins are like scarlet,
   they shall be like snow;
though they are red like crimson,
   they shall become like wool.
If you are willing and obedient,
   you shall eat the good of the land;
but if you refuse and rebel,
   you shall be devoured by the sword;
   for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

It is about an attitude of the heart.

The letter to the Hebrews shows us how this faith works out in practice;
we are reminded that
“To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.”

Abraham, we are told, was promised a wonderful inheritance.
God promised to make his descendants, quite literally, more numerous than the grains of sand on the seashore.
He was going to be given a wonderful land for them to live in.

Now, at this stage, Abraham was living very comfortably thank you, in a very civilised city called Ur,
and although he didn't have any children, he was happy and settled.
But God told Abraham that if he wanted to see this promise fulfilled he had to get up,
to leave his comfortable life,
and to move on out into the unknown,
just trusting God.
And Abraham did just exactly that.
And, eventually, Isaac was born to carry on the family.
And then Isaac’s son, Jacob.
And we are told that, although none of them actually saw the Promised Land, and although the promise was not fulfilled in their lifetimes,
they never stopped believing that one day, one day, it would be.
Their whole lives were informed by their belief that God was in control.

This sort of faith is the kind we'd all like to have, wouldn't we?
Wouldn't we?
Hmmm, I wonder.
In our Gospel reading, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the Kingdom.”
That's great, isn't it?
“Your Father is pleased to give you the Kingdom.”

Well, it would be great, but then he says, “Sell all your belongings and give the money to the poor. Provide for yourselves purses that don't wear out, and save your riches in heaven, where they will never decrease, because no thief can get to them, and no moth can destroy them.  For your heart will always be where your riches are.”

That's the bit we don't like so well, do we?
Like Abraham, we are very-nicely-thank-you in Ur,
comfortably settled in this world,
and we don't want to give it all up to go chasing after something which might or might not be real.
This is the difficult bit, the bit where what we say we believe comes up against what we really do believe.

It's like I was saying earlier, we would like to be there –
wherever “there” is –
without the hassle of actually going there!
We want to have all the privileges and joys of being Christians without actually having to do anything.

Of course, in one of the many great paradoxes of Christianity,
we don't have to do anything!
We can do nothing to save ourselves!
It is God who does all that is necessary for our salvation.

But if we are to be people of faith, if we are to be of any use to God,
our faith does, or should, prompt us to action.

First of all, then, our faith should prompt us to repent.
To turn away from sin and turn to God with all our hearts.
It's not just a once-and-for-all thing;
it's a matter of daily repentance, daily choosing to be God's person.

And as we do that, our faith grows and develops and strengthens to the point where, if we are called to do so,
we can leave our comfort zone and try great things for God. As Abraham did, and as Jesus calls us to do.

We aren't all called to sell our possessions and give what we have to the poor –
although a little more equity in the way this world's goods are handed out wouldn't be a bad thing;
look how 25% of the world consumes 75% of its production,
or whatever the figures actually are –
I may be being generous on that one.
We are all called to work for justice in our communities,
whether that is a matter of writing to our MPs if something is clearly wrong,
or getting involved in a more hands-on way.

Some people –
maybe some of you, even –
are or have been called to leave your home countries and work in a foreign land to be God's person there,
whether as a professional missionary, as it were,
or just where you are working.
Others are asked to stay put, but to be God's person exactly where they are –
at school,
college,
work,
home,
at the shops,
on the bus,
in a traffic jam,
on social media...
everywhere!
Being God's person isn't something that happens in church on Sundays and is put aside the rest of the week.

It isn't easy. It's the every day, every moment hard slog.
The times when we wish we could skip over all this,
and be the wonderful faith-filled Christian we hope to be one day without the hard work of getting there!

Sadly, it doesn't work like that.
We don't have to do all the hard work in our own strength, of course;
God the Holy Spirit is there to help us, and remind us, and change us, and grow us as we gradually become more and more the people God designed us to be.
But God doesn't push in where He's not wanted.
If we are truly serious about being God's person,
then we need to be being that every day.
Each day we need to commit to God, whether explicitly or implicitly.

Jesus reminds us that this world isn't designed to be permanent.
One day it will come to an end, either for each of us individually,
or perhaps in some great second coming.
Scientists tell us it will be very soon now, as climate change runs out of control.
But whichever way, it will end for us one day,
and not all of us get notice to quit.
We need to be ready and alert, busy with what we have been given to do, but ready to let go and turn to Jesus whenever he calls us.

None of this is easy.
Being a Christian isn't easy.
Becoming a Christian is easy,
because God longs and longs for us to turn to Him.
But being one isn't.
Allowing God to change us,
to pull us out of our comfort zone,
to travel with Him along that narrow way –
it's not easy.
But it is oh, so very worthwhile!
Amen.

Thirsting for the Word

Good morning, Church. For the benefit of those who don’t know me, my name is AnnabeI, and I’m M’s daughter and M’s older and wiser sister. I’ve been a Methodist preacher for thirty years now – it’s a long story, but basically at the time, the church where we worshipped in London was what they call a Local Ecumenical Project, both Anglican and Methodist, and when the time came to answer God’s call, it turned out to be becoming a Methodist preacher. Which turned out to be just as well when the Anglicans unilaterally pulled out, leaving us as a Methodist congregation only.

Anyway, I can’t tell you how pleased I am to be here with you this morning, having worshipped here on and off for the past 65 years. I was a very small child indeed when I first sat in the family pew down there, and my brother C wasn’t much more than a baby – M hadn’t even been born then. And although I haven’t lived here much since I was ten years old and went off first to boarding-school, and then to work first in Paris and in London, I have frequently worshipped here down the years, and always love it when I do come. And I have always loved looking at the statues carved into the pulpit – I have always felt sorry for the dragon, he looks so uncomfortable with St George treading on his wing like that!

And there is St Wilfred with his Bible, and two other saints round the other side that you can’t see from our pew. My father, who I know you will remember, said that when he was a small boy, he used to think St Wilfred was carrying a petrol-can rather than a Bible, so that he could come to the aid of stranded motorists – probably a good idea in his boyhood, when petrol stations were few and far between and the tanks on cars smaller than they are now.

Talking of my father, he used, you might remember, to have a fairly bottomless stock of Bible jokes and anecdotes, and one of these was that he said that if you asked him whether he preferred Martha or Mary, he would reply:
“Before dinner, Martha;
afterwards, definitely Mary!”

Me, I’ve always felt a bit sorry for Martha.
There she was, desperate to get all these men fed,
and her sister isn’t helping.
And when she asks Jesus to send her in,
she just gets told that Mary has “chosen the better part”.

Yet it was Martha who, on another occasion, caused Jesus to declare:
“I am the resurrection and the life.
Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
And Martha herself gave us that wonderful statement of faith:
“Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah,
the Son of God,
the one coming into the world.”
Martha was seriously a woman of faith.
And she wanted to show her love to the Lord by providing him and his disciples with a really good meal.
Maybe she overdid it –
the Lord might have preferred Martha’s company,
even if it did mean dining on bread and cheese, and perhaps a few olives.

The family at Bethany has many links in the Bible.
Some people have identified Mary as the woman who poured ointment all over Jesus’ feet in the house of Simon the Leper –
and because he lived in Bethany –
Simon the Leper, that is, not Jesus –
some people have also said that he was married to Martha.
We don’t know.
At that, some people have said that Jesus was married to Mary;
again, we don’t know.
What we do know is that Martha and Mary were sisters,
and that they had a beloved brother, called Lazarus.
We do know that on one occasion Mary poured her expensive perfume all over the feet of the Lord –
whether this was the same Mary as in the other accounts or a different one isn’t quite clear.
But whatever, they seem to have been a family that Jesus knew well,
a home where he knew he was welcome,
and dear friends whose grief he shared when Lazarus died,
even though he knew that God would raise him.
Lazarus, I mean, not Jesus, this time!

In some ways the story “works” better if the woman who poured ointment on Jesus’ feet in the house of Simon the Leper and this Mary
are one and the same person,
as we know that the woman in Simon’s house was, or had been,
some kind of loose woman that a pious Jew wouldn’t normally associate with.
Now she has repented and been forgiven,
and simply adores Jesus, who made that possible for her.
And she seems to have been taken back into her sister’s household, possibly rather on sufferance.

But then she does nothing but sit at Jesus’ feet, listening to him.
Back then, this simply was Not Done.
Only men were thought to be able to learn,
women were supposed not to be capable.
Actually, I have a feeling that the Jews thought that only Jewish free men were able to learn.
They would thank God each morning that they had not been made a woman, a slave or a Gentile.
And even though St Paul had sufficient insight to be able to write that “In Christ, there is neither male nor female, slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile”,
thus at a stroke disposing of the prayer he’d been taught to make daily, it’s taken us all a very long time to work that out,
and events in the United States would show we haven’t really worked it out yet!­

Anyway, the point is that Mary, by sitting at Jesus’ feet like that,
was behaving in rather an outrageous fashion.
Totally blatant, like throwing herself at him.
He might have felt extremely uncomfortable,
and it’s quite possible that his disciples did.
Martha certainly did, which was one of the reasons why she asked Jesus to send Mary through to help in the kitchen.

But Jesus replied:
“Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Mary, with all her history, was now thirsty for the Word of God.
Jesus wanted to be able to give Mary what she needed,
the teaching that only he could provide.
He would have liked to have given it to Martha, too,
if only Martha could be persuaded that they’d be quite happy with bread and cheese, and perhaps a few olives.
But Martha wasn’t ready.
Not then.
Later on, yes, after Lazarus had died, but not then.

In many ways, Martha and Mary represent the two different sides of spirituality, perhaps even of Christianity.
Mary, wrapped up in sitting at the feet of her Lord, learning from him, listening to him,
was perhaps so heavenly-minded she was of no earthly use.
Martha, rather the reverse.
She was so wrapped up in doing something for Jesus
that she couldn’t see the importance of taking time out to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen.
Or if she could, it wasn’t something she wanted to do while there was work that needed to be done.
She expressed her love for Jesus by wanting to feed him,
wanting to work for him.

All of us, I think, are like either Martha or Mary in some ways.
Many of us are more or less integrated, of course,
finding time both to sit at Jesus’ feet in worship, adoration and learning,
and time to serve Him in practical ways,
mostly through working either in the Church or in the Community.
Others of us are less balanced.
We spend our time doing one or the other, but not both.
Mind you, it usually balances out within the context of a church;
the people who do the praying and listening,
the people who do the practical jobs that need to be done around the place,
and the people who do both.
And perhaps in an area, too, it balances out,
with some churches doing more in the way of work in the community than others,
but perhaps less in the way of prayer meetings,
Alpha, or similar courses
and other Bible studies.
And so it goes on.

But, you know what? Just look at the first reading this morning, from Paul’s letter to the Colossians. This letter may well have been written in about 62 AD, so probably less than 35 years since that evening in Bethany. People who had known Jesus as a human being would still have been alive. Maybe even Mary, Martha or Lazarus was still alive. They might have remembered that evening, Mary, sitting at her Lord’s feet with the men; Martha, bustling about in the kitchen and wishing for another pair of hands to help dish up. We’re not told what Lazarus was doing, or even if he was there, but if he was there, he was probably sitting at Jesus’ feet with his sister.

And yet, only a few years later, Paul writes of Jesus: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible,” and “in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

Imagine – all the fullness of God sitting in your living-room eating olives! It kind of blows your mind, doesn’t it? And yet, this was what Martha and Mary experienced, and learnt to believe that Jesus was “the son of God who has come into this world”.

And, of course, the even more extraordinary thing is that we, too, can know Jesus, if not eating olives in our sitting-room, exactly, yet still alive and living within us – indwelling us, they call it – through the power of his Holy Spirit. Indwelling us, delighting in us, loving us, growing us, changing us, helping us become, day by day, more and more the person we were created to be.

You know this, of course. And you know, too, how easy it is to slip away from being God’s person, how it’s a commitment you have to keep on making, not just the once.

The first time you make such a commitment is huge – and, by the way, if you never have, you really do have nothing to lose by saying “Yes” to Jesus,
deciding to be God’s person,
deciding that what you say and do here on a Sunday
should carry over and be part of who you are during the week, too.
Truly, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!
But the point is, even if you first consciously made that commitment, as I did, over fifty years ago, you know how you slip away, usually quite unintentionally, and have to keep on coming back and back. But the Jesus who let Mary sit at his feet, who reminded Martha that she, too, could, and should learn from him, the Jesus in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell – that Jesus will always, always, always welcome us back! Amen.

Who is my neighbour?

This story that Jesus told is perhaps one of the most famous. The phrase “Good Samaritan”, and even “Samaritan” have entered our language with very different meanings to the original. A Good Samaritan, these days, is anybody who helps someone else without thought for the consequences. The Samaritans are an organisation to help people who are feeling suicidal, just a telephone call away. And we know we are all supposed to be Good Samaritans and help people in need.

Down the years people have liked to think the priest and the Levite were too holy, too concerned with their religious duties, to stop and help. The man might be dead, so if they touched him they would become unclean and unable to fulfil their Temple duties. We assume that they, like many of the religious leaders Jesus wasn’t too happy with, strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. They tithe cumin and mint, but don’t help their elderly relations. And so on. But the text doesn’t say that. It just said they passed by. Quite apart from anything else, they were coming from Jerusalem, so if they had had Temple duties, they had finished them.

It’s possible, isn’t it, that they were afraid of an ambush. Perhaps the brigands who had attacked this man were lying in wait to attack anybody who came over to see if they could help. Perhaps the man wasn’t really injured at all, but lying there as bait to attract helpers. Perhaps they thought he was just sleeping off drink or drugs.

We don’t know, because Luke doesn’t tell us. Either way, the Priest and the Levite didn’t do what had been expected of them. They didn’t stop to help the man. We have no way of knowing their motives, and I suspect it would be a plan not to speculate too much.

And then along comes the Samaritan. Luke doesn’t say he is good. Perhaps he wasn’t. Perhaps he was a con-man, or a thief. Perhaps he beat up his wife, or raped prostitutes, or perhaps he really was good, trying to be God’s person to the best of his ability, trying to get on with everybody, ignoring the very real theological differences that separated the Samaritans and the Jews. We are not told. We have no way of knowing. All we are told is that he was a Samaritan.

In John’s Gospel, we are told that Jews have no dealings with Samaritans, but in fact there was some overlap. Jesus and his disciples were able to travel through Samaria without much problem, and this man seems to have been able to travel through Judea. Luke, who after all was himself a Gentile, doesn’t seem to have seen all that much difference between the two communities, although the Samaritans do seem to have been outsiders as far as the Jews were concerned. Whether they saw the Jews as outsiders is debatable.

Anyway, as we all know, the Samaritan either doesn’t think of the possibilities of an ambush, or if he does, it doesn’t worry him. Perhaps he was part of the ambush party, and came back to see whether the victim had died. We don’t know. We are not told. What we are told is that he tends the man as best he can, and then takes him to the nearest inn.

And here is the fourth person who doesn’t act as expected. The innkeeper seems quite happy to take in the wounded man and look after him. Even with the money the Samaritan leaves with him, that would be expecting a very great deal of the landlord of a roadside inn. The landlord would have expected to provide drink, a meal, and perhaps a bed for the night – arguably on straw in a common room, or perhaps a private room for the very rich – but not nursing care and tending someone who would be helpless for many days. He was an innkeeper, not a nurse! But, we are told, the innkeeper took in the sick man and cared for him. The innkeeper, too, was a “Good Samaritan” if you like, only he was probably Jewish!

So then, what is it all about? What does it mean for us? I think that, before we see if we can answer these questions, we need to look a bit at the context of the story. You see, Jesus doesn’t just tell it in a vacuum – we know why he tells it. A teacher of the Law – and Luke is far more likely to talk about teachers of the law, or scribes, than he is about priests or Levites, either – anyway, a teacher of the Law comes to Jesus with a trick question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He’s hoping Jesus will give some kind of controversial answer and get himself into trouble, but Jesus always does seem to see through this sort of question and turns the question back on the scribe: “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”

Now, first of all you notice that the lawyer asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Not gain it, or receive it, or even earn it, but inherit it. It looks as though he reckons he’s probably already right with God, so when Jesus asks “How do you read it?” he is ready with the conventional answer:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbour as yourself.”

Now, we know from elsewhere in the Scriptures that this was a pretty conventional thing to say – devout Jews said it on their deathbeds, even! At least the first part of it. And Jesus is reported as quoting it to the rich young ruler in the other gospels. But this lawyer doesn’t get told to sell all he has and give it to the poor – he gets told “Do this, and you will live.”

Well, he’s not satisfied with that; he asks a follow-up question to try to get Jesus into trouble. “Well, who is my neighbour, then?” Who do I have to be nice to? Who can I get away with not being nice to? Maybe he should have phrased his question “Who is NOT my neighbour?” as that’s what it would seem he wanted to know.

So Jesus tells the story and, at the end, as you know, he asks “Who was the neighbour to the man that fell into the hands of robbers?” and the lawyer replies, “The one who cared for him.”

And Jesus tells him to “Go and do likewise!”

So what does it mean for us? I don’t know about you, but if I see someone lying on the ground, hurt, I’m far more likely to walk away sharpish, maybe dialling 999, but I’m very unlikely to stop and help. I’m not a trained nurse, and can’t be doing with drunks and so on. But perhaps you are good at that sort of thing? The priest and the Levite ought to have been – Jewish law commands that they have compassion on the sick and injured every bit as much as we Christians are expected to. We don’t know why they didn’t stop, and the story gives us no hints at all. Jesus is normally quite good, at least in Luke’s version of events, at telling us what the characters in his stories are thinking and feeling, but not in this case.

You will have heard, as I have, many, many sermons on this passage, telling us that we need to look out for those less fortunate than us. We need, in fact, to love other neighbour as we love ourselves. And we will have been told that our neighbour includes absolutely everybody; “The creed and the colour and the name don’t matter”, as the hymn says. And of course that’s true. But we are human, and often and often we fail to even notice a problem, never mind do something about it.

But then, there is the undoubted fact that many of us do not love ourselves. Facebook, recently, has had a plethora of memes reminding us to look after ourselves first so that we can look after others, and I sometimes find that uncomfortable, having understood – I was going to say having been taught, but I think it was me picking it up wrong – having understood that we were not supposed to want our own wants or to be anything less than content with our current lot, even if we were standing up to our neck in icy water! But one meme I liked reminded us that if we are on an aircraft and the oxygen masks come down, we should put our own mask on so that we can then help the person next to us with theirs.

The thing is, we can’t love our neighbour unless we are comfortable with ourselves, unless we have got ourselves right with God, unless we have allowed God to love us and heal us and start on the very long job of making us whole.

But if we can do that – I know I often say we need to let God work in us, but I’ve been realising lately that I am very bad at doing this. However, if we can, even for mere moments, then we will begin to be comfortable in our own skin, to value ourselves and to value our neighbours. And not only that, but to notice when they need something. It mightn’t be much – but how much do we actually notice other people. Bus drivers, for instance? Are they just remote figures behind a screen, or do you wish them good morning when you get on, and perhaps thank them when you get off? Supermarket checkout staff, too, are human beings…

Of course, “compassion fatigue” is very real; every other ad on television seems to want us to give three pounds a month to some charity or other, often with pictures of starving babies or cute snow leopard cubs. If one gave three pounds to every charity that asks, we’d soon go broke! Obviously sometimes we will both want and need to give – incidentally I do hope you are sponsoring Robert who is running for the Methodist charity All We Can this morning, but that’s beside the point – we probably donated something to one of the various charities helping Ukrainian refugees, for instance, and there are other global crises when giving money to the relevant relief organisation is the right thing to do. But at times it seems everybody wants a piece of the action! And when whatever the latest crisis is is happening at the other side of the world, it’s awfully difficult to remain engaged. These are not people we know, they are just people on the telly.

And yet God loves each and every one of them, just as He loves each and every one of us. And you can be very sure that, if you are wanted to be a neighbour to one of them, God will let you know. And also, give you the gifts you need to be able to be that neighbour! Amen.

Church Anniversary

 

It was, apparently, 65 years ago, in March 1957, that the foundation stones of this building were laid. I am not sure when the actual first service was held in the building, but I imagine it must have been in 1958 or 1959. A very long time ago! But I am told that the reading from John’s Gospel that we have just heard was used at that service, specifically focussing on verse 36: “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”

“Look, here is the Lamb of God!”

I wonder, if someone were to ask you what you meant by church, how you would answer? Most people who don’t go to church would probably say “That building on Brixton Hill”, or something similar. We, who belong to a church, would be more likely to say “The people of God”. We would probably talk of Brixton Hill Church and its buildings, rather than Brixton Hill Church and its people.

Mind you, having said that, buildings are not unimportant. Yes, we’ve learnt how to manage without, during the pandemic – but it’s not the same! And I don’t know if you’ve ever visited a really old church – I know some of the former King’s Acre people visited my family’s 13th-century church in Sussex a few years ago. I’m going to be preaching there in a couple of weeks and am really looking forward to it. Anyway, the point is, in a really old church, or a Cathedral, especially in those chapels in a Cathedral that have been set aside for private prayer, you get the feeling that it has been “prayed in” over the years. You become aware of God’s presence in the building. Perhaps you do here – I know I do, sometimes.

Of course, any building requires a great deal of upkeep – Cathedrals have, sadly, had to start charging people who only want to look round, rather than attend public worship, because they cost so much to maintain. Even a relatively modern building like this one takes a great deal of maintenance – Robert has been having an awful time lately chivvying the builders who have been repairing it, just ask him!

But most of us would, I think, agree that while a church meets in a building; the church is more than the building. Much more. People talk, of course, about “going into the Church” when they mean getting ordained, or, occasionally, entering religious life as a nun or monk. But basically we are the Church.

The Girls’ Brigade used to sing

“I am the Church,

you are the Church,

we are the Church together.

All who follow Jesus,

all around the world,

we are the Church together”.

And they were not wrong. We, God’s people met here, this morning, or following on the Livestream, we are the Church. Well, we are part of the Church!

And what we are part of is known as the Church Militant – the Church here on earth, fighting against evil. The larger part is known as the Church Triumphant, the saints in glory. The ones who fought the good fight, kept the faith, and who lived and died as God’s people.

Of course, the Church here on earth is far from perfect. Never has been. Even back in the 1^st century AD St Paul was having to write to the Church at Philippi and tell two of the women there, Euodia and Syntyche – or U-Odious and Soon-Touchy, as I have heard them called – to try to resolve their differences and to work together, and asked others in the church to try to help them do so. And, as we heard in our first reading, St Peter found it necessary to remind his readers that they should “Rid themselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.”

Church squabbles are nothing new! As our own history will soon tell us, if we look back – and I’m not going to go into any details, you know them as well as I do!

But although we are far from perfect, we know that the Church is also a place where Jesus is. The Church is also a place where Jesus is. “Look,” said John the Baptist, “There is the Lamb of God.” As I just said, in many, if not most, churches you can come in and feel that this is a place that has been prayed in, a place where God has been at work, a place where God is. It is a place of healing, a place of power. A place where, as St Peter reminds us, we are being built into “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.”

That’s pretty amazing, right? But then, there are people, we know, who feel that just attending public worship on a Sunday morning is enough, they don’t feel any need to take it further. I hope that’s not you – for you have, I promise you, nothing to lose by saying “Yes” to Jesus, to deciding to be God’s person, to deciding that what you say and do here on a Sunday should carry over and be part of who you are during the week, too. Truly, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

So we know that the Church is God’s people meeting together – or even not meeting together, for we remain God’s people during the week, when we are apart. We know, too, that the Church is a place where Jesus is, where we can say “Look, here is the Lamb of God”. At least, I hope and pray that this is as true of us as it is of many, if not most, Churches.

But there is another definition of “Church” that I’d like us to look at this morning, and that is, “The Church is the only organisation that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.”

“The Church is the only organisation that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.”

Sometimes we’re apt to treat the Church as though it were our own private club, a place where we meet our friends, a place where we receive the spiritual food we need, a place where we can worship God in the way that most appeals to us, and so on. In other words, it’s all about us! And, of course, in many ways it’s always going to be like that. We are inherently selfish creatures, and God has provided us with our churches for our own comfort and renewal. But nevertheless, it is still true that we should be looking outward, rather than inward. We should be reaching out into the community, loving people into the Kingdom of God – as, indeed, I think we are doing with our youth work and our Pop-In club, although much of our community work has been lost during the pandemic. But God will build it up again.

And you note that I said God will build it up again – we are not required to do it without help. St Peter reminds us that we are being built into a holy nation, God’s own people, not just for our own benefit – although I am sure that, too – but also “in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”

“In order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”

Jesus reminded us that when the Spirit came, we would be his witnesses throughout the world. Not that we could be, or that we ought to be, but that we would be. And so we are. If we are truly God’s people, then we are his witnesses, whether we’re here in Church, or out shopping, or at work or school. I know that, many years ago now, when I first encountered people who were consciously Christian, I really wanted them to like me. Quite the wrong reason for “inviting Jesus into your heart”, as we called it, but hey. Jesus is bigger than our wrong reasons! These young people – for we all were young then, very young – probably had no idea how attractive they were, but Jesus knew!

So, anyway. The Church is more than its buildings, nice though they are. The Church is more than professional Christians – clergy and so on. The Church is more than its people. The Church, too, is more than a base for reaching out into the community. All of these things are true. All of these things are part of being Church. But I would suggest that the main definition of Church, the one we want to look to on this Anniversary Sunday, is that it is a place where Jesus is. Jesus told us that where two or three are gathered in his name, he is there in the midst of us. And that is Church. A place where, I hope, we can look up and see the Lamb of God. Amen!

x

Trinity Sunday 2022

The text of this sermon is more or less the same as the one I preached here.

No difference

 

We were in Jerusalem, in about 40 AD or thereabouts – very thereabouts, I suspect. And it was all very well, we thought, to be a follower of the new way, the way of Jesus, who was called the Christ – but hang on a minute, some of the believers aren’t Jewish! Surely they must be Jews first and Christians, as they are beginning to be called, afterwards? The followers of Jesus are a subset of Judaism no? Not a religion in their own right?

Well, that was the thinking. But then there was Peter, arguably the leader of this new cult, who had only been and gone and baptised some Gentiles without first converting them to Judaism, hadn’t he? What had he been thinking?

And, as we heard in our first reading today, they confronted him. And Peter explains what had happened. He had been staying with Simon the Tanner in Joppa, and had gone up on the roof to pray – or perhaps have a nap, who knows – and he had a vision or a dream of a great sheet full of the sort of animals he wouldn’t have dreamt of eating – pigs, shellfish, insects, and so on. I’ve never watched “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here,” but I gather the contestants on that have something called a bush tucker trial, which presumably involves eating things they wouldn’t normally think of as food – insects and so on. Well, this was Peter’s bush tucker trial, if you like, and he was told, in his dream, to choose something and eat it…. So, Peter explains, he refused, he doesn’t eat unclean food, but in his dream he was told not to call anything unclean that God had created. Three times. And then the envoys from Cornelius arrived and Peter realised that this was the Holy Spirit at work to persuade him to go and visit Cornelius.

If you read the original account, earlier in Acts, he is more than a little condescending and obviously thinks himself rather better than these mere Gentiles. He realises, he said, “that it is true that God treats everyone on the same basis.  Those who fear him and do what is right are acceptable to him, no matter what race they belong to.”

Yeah, big of him! All the same, for Peter this was a huge concession. And just as he begins to tell them about Jesus, and, if Luke’s report is accurate, gives an excellent summary of the Good News: How God sent Jesus to heal and to overcome the devil, and how he was put to death, but raised – and Peter stresses that he witnessed that, and that he ate and drank with Jesus after he was raised – almost before he finished giving that summary, the Holy Spirit falls on Cornelius and his household, and they begin to praise God and to speak in tongues. So, as Peter so rightly says to the Jewish believers in Jerusalem, “who was I, then, to try to stop God!”

And the Jewish believers realised – or began to realise, is probably more accurate – that the Good News was also for the Gentiles, not just the Jews!

Peter, being Peter, is on record as having had trouble really hauling this in – Paul says in his letter to the Galatians that at one stage he had to remind him that he totally could eat with Gentile believers. But you can’t really blame him – he had been taught, from earliest childhood, to thank God each day that he wasn’t a Gentile, a slave or a woman. And then suddenly all this is turned upside down – it’s never easy to really shake off your early training, is it?

Paul, who was better educated than Peter, doesn’t seem to have had nearly as much trouble shaking off his early prejudices, and is on record as having written that “there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus.”

“You are all one in union with Christ Jesus.”

Isn’t it a pity we don’t believe him! Oh, we say we do, we pay lip service to it, and I expect most of us consciously try to live that way. But you only have to look at the headlines to see how little we believe it! Look at what has been happening in America these past few weeks, where it looks as though some states will be allowed to have control over women’s fertility, and not allow women to have any say in their own bodies. There are so many issues there we’d be here all morning if I were to go into them, but I will just say that while I know most of us, me included, would really rather people didn’t have abortions, let’s be realistic – there are always going to be times when it is the least worst option, and there are always going to be women who are desperate not to have the baby they have conceived. And it’s not our place to judge these women, but I’m sure we would all rather they could have safe, hygienic abortions and not put their lives at risk.

Look at what is happening in Northern Ireland, where the two tribes – basically represented by Sinn Féin and the DUP, although the divide is deeper than that – simply cannot work together to form a government. This has happened in other countries, too – Belgium, for instance, was without a government for some years because its two tribes couldn’t work together. It’s not that many years since there were dreadful massacres in Rwanda because the two tribes there couldn’t find a way of living together.

Arguably one of the worst is the way governments in Europe, including our own, have been falling over themselves to provide safe havens for Ukrainian refugees. Now, it’s right and proper that they should, and it’s gratifying that so many people have been willing and able to open their homes – but why only Ukrainians? What’s wrong with Afghan refugees, may I ask? Or Syrian ones, come to that? Or from various African countries facing famine or war?

Yes, we all know the answer to that, don’t we? Race and religion! But it goes to show the unthinking prejudices we all have, the way we “other” people who are different to us in some way. Of course, we are always going to associate mostly with people who are more like us – we have more in common with people who come from the same sort of background, went to the same sort of school, enjoy the same sort of hobbies. Christian folk may well prefer the company of other Christians. That’s okay. What’s not okay is when we consider people who aren’t like us as other, as different and strange, as less than we are – or perhaps, if they are celebrities, as greater than we are.

Remember Shakespeare’s Shylock? Shylock was Jewish, and because of that was treated as less than human by his contemporaries. Which he, not unnaturally, resented: “I am a Jew.” he said. “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?” 

Shylock felt himself Othered. People didn’t consider him quite human because he was Jewish. Rather like the first Jewish believers didn’t consider the Gentiles quite human, and couldn’t understand why they should be accepted into the fellowship.

I remember when, as quite a small girl, I was invited to lunch in the holidays with a schoolfriend, whose family were Catholic, and my mother being terribly anxious lest I comment on the food, as it was a Friday and we would undoubtedly be served fish. Quite why she thought I would, when I liked fish, I can’t imagine – and anyway, by then Vatican II had happened, and fish wasn’t served. But it turned these people into Others, strange people who ate fish on Fridays because they had to, not because they wanted to. And I know that in Northern Ireland the Protestants are taught to regard the Catholics as Other, and vice versa. This is, of course, one reason why they sometimes have trouble working together, never mind their very deep political differences.

But “We are all one in union with Christ Jesus.” And if that is too difficult for us, let’s remind ourselves of what Jesus said in our Gospel reading today: “And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.”

“If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples”. 
 “We are all one in union with Christ Jesus.”

One definition of love I rather like is “That condition where the happiness of the beloved is more important than your own.”

“That condition where the happiness of the beloved is more important than your own.” That sounds very much how God loves us, and it is of course, how God expects us to love others. “Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth.”

But, of course, we can’t do that in our own strength. If we try, we are just setting ourselves up for failure, and we’ll find ourselves othering those who are least like us, no matter how hard we try not to. They don’t do things like we do. But if we truly allow God to fill us with the Holy Spirit, to grow us and change us and continue to make us into the person we were created to be, then gradually, among other changes, we will learn to see everybody else, no matter their race, colour or creed, no matter how differently they do things, as just like us, as people for whom Christ died, as people with whom “We are one in union with Christ Jesus”.

I know it’s not too easy to “let go and let God”, as they say; we are all too apt to take ourselves back again and end up with the old selfish ways. But God is always there waiting for us to realise – or nudging us, so that we do realise – and bringing us back to be cleansed, healed and made whole again. Thanks be to God! God is good! (all the time! All the time! God is good).

x

Peter and Mary

 

Hallelujah! Christ is risen! This year, as every year, we have made it through to Easter Day and we celebrate with the Risen Christ.

For us, it is something we have always known, ever since we knew anything at all about the Christian faith. God raised Christ from the dead. Christ is risen. But it was far otherwise for the earliest disciples. I’ll come back to the gospel account in a minute, but let’s just look at our first reading, from Acts.

I expect you know the context of Peter’s speech here, but just in case you’ve forgotten, or can’t quite place it for a moment, it’s when he goes to visit the Roman centurion, Cornelius. Now, Peter is in no doubt at all that Jesus has been raised; he not only saw Jesus, but walked and talked and ate with him. Jesus had forgiven him for denying that he knew him, and Peter had also been in the Upper Room at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came, and had been one of the first to explain to the crowds what was happening.

But for now, he is staying with Simon the Tanner, in Joppa, and after lunch one day he goes up on to the roof to have a nap. Or a time of prayer, but I rather think he falls asleep. And he has an extraordinary dream – there is a sheet full of the sort of animals he wouldn’t ever think of eating – pigs, and rats, and things like that. I’ve never watched “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here,” but I gather the contestants on that have something called a bush tucker trial, which presumably involves eating things they wouldn’t normally think of as food – insects and so on. Well, this was Peter’s bush tucker trial, if you like, and he was told, in his dream, to choose something and eat it…. And he refuses, but the voice that told him to choose something now tells him not to call anything unclean that God has called clean. Eventually, he gets the message, and when he wakes up, Cornelius’ envoys are waiting to ask him to come.

Peter would not normally have dreamt of going to a Gentile’s house – yuck! That would have made him totally unclean. But after his dream, such timing, he dare not refuse, and when he gets there he realises what’s happening, and, rather tactlessly, exclaims that he now realises “that it is true that God treats everyone on the same basis. Those who fear him and do what is right are acceptable to him, no matter what race they belong to.” Yeah, big of him! Still, for Peter, who even years later still had trouble eating non-kosher food, that was a huge concession. And he goes on to give the excellent summary of the Good News that we heard read. How God sent Jesus to heal and to overcome the devil, and how he was put to death, but raised – and Peter stresses that he witnessed that, and that he ate and drank with Jesus after he was raised.

Because Peter was, after all, one of the first to see Jesus. But not totally the first. I love the account in John’s gospel; John isn’t known for personal glimpses the way the other gospels are, but this whole account sounds as though it was taken from a very early source – you know, of course, that the gospels were not written down for several decades after the Resurrection, but obviously took their material from earlier works, either written or oral. Perhaps John himself, or even Mary Magdalen, told this story!

It’s the details – Mary, coming early in the morning, probably around 5 am, to finish embalming the body, and finding it not there. And she runs to tell the others, and Peter and John come, and look inside, and they see that, although there is obviously no body in there, the actual grave clothes in which it had been wound are still there, with the headpiece separate. You couldn’t actually do that without disturbing them, surely?

Peter and John head off back to the others, but Mary stays, still in tears because she needs to be by the body, or at least by the tomb, to get her grieving done. And when a man, whom she assumes is the gardener, asks her what’s wrong, she says again, “Where is he? Have you moved him? Where did you put him? Please tell me, please?”

And then the man suddenly says, in that well-known, familiar, much-loved voice: “Mary!”

And Mary takes another look. She blinks. She rubs her eyes. She pinches herself. No, she’s not dreaming. It really, really is! “Oh, my dearest Lord!” she cries, and flings herself into his arms.

We’re not told how long they spent hugging, talking, explaining and weeping in each other’s arms, but eventually Jesus gently explains that, although he’s perfectly alive, and that this is a really real body one can hug, he won’t be around on earth forever, but will ascend to the Father. He can’t stop with Mary for now, but she should go back and tell the others all about it. And so, we are told, she does.

So Peter and Mary both knew, from their own knowledge, that Jesus was raised from the dead in a physical body they could hug, and walk and talk with, and eat and drink with. We know from some other accounts that there were some differences and not everybody recognised him at first, which isn’t too improbable when you think how difficult it is, sometimes, to recognise people out of context – if you meet your hairdresser in the street, for instance.

And if you thought Jesus was dead and buried, how very difficult to recognise him when he came and walked along with you, as he did to Cleopas and his wife that same evening.

So all right. But then, why does it matter? It is something that happened two thousand years ago, isn’t it? Long ago in history.

Well yes, it is. But it is also central to our faith. St Paul says, in his letter to the Corinthians, that if Christ hasn’t been raised, then he – Paul – is a fraud, our sins are not forgiven, and we might as well all go home and eat chocolate! As it is, because Christ has been raised, our sins are forgiven! And we can have life, abundant life. And, it appears, that just as Christ was raised, so shall we be raised from death – our bodies will obviously wear out or rust out one day no matter what we do, and while we may be given “notice to quit”, as it were, it may happen very suddenly. But we believe that because Christ was raised, so we, too, shall be raised to eternal life with him. And we will be changed.

I like to wear a butterfly brooch or two on Easter day, because, for me, butterflies are a symbol of the Resurrection. Butterflies, as you know, start off as caterpillars, and, when they have reached a certain size or body weight, they pupate; they wrap themselves in leaves or silk or something and become what’s called a chrysalis, and eventually, all being well, a butterfly emerges.

That isn’t just a matter of hibernating, like a dormouse or bear; to become a butterfly, caterpillars have to be completely remade. While they are in the pupa, all their bits dissolve away, and are remade from scratch, from the material that is there.  It’s not just a matter of rearranging what is there,

it’s a matter of total breakdown and starting again. The caterpillar more-or-less has to die before it can become a butterfly.

That is seriously scary. Especially as something of the same sort of thing happened to Jesus, before he was raised from death, and may well happen to us, too. We will be remade and raised in some kind of spiritual body, so St Paul says.

And one reason we have eggs at Easter, whether the ordinary kind, or chocolate ones, or both, is that an egg is also a symbol of resurrection. We eat our breakfast eggs and enjoy them, but if an egg is fertilised and incubated, it goes on to hatch out into a bird – the bird grows from scratch inside the egg, but then has to peck its way out, or it will perish.

Christ has been raised, and we will be raised.

And we believe, too, that because Christ was raised, we can be filled with his Holy Spirit, just as the disciples were on that long-ago day of Pentecost. So we don’t have to face going through the transformation that will occur all by ourselves; the Holy Spirit will be with us, strengthening us and enabling us to cope. Not just when we have died, but here, now, today. As we allow the risen Christ more and more access to us, through the Holy Spirit, we will be changed and grown more and more into the person God created us to be.

Hallelujah! Christ is risen. Amen.

What a waste!

The gospel story that we have just heard read, of Jesus being anointed Mary at Bethany, is a very familiar one. So what's it all about?

There are slightly different versions of the story in each of the four gospels, which reflects the fact that those who made the gospels wrote down what was said and taught in their particular fellowships, and from their particular collections of "The sayings of Jesus", or whatever unofficial manuscripts were floating around their church.

Matthew's and Mark's stories are the most similar. They set the episode in Bethany, at the house of Simon the Leper. A woman wanders in off the street, pours the ointment over Jesus' head and, for all we know, wanders straight out again. Tradition has it that she was Mary Magdalen, but we don’t know that. The disciples and others gathered there go: "Oh, what a waste! If she didn't want it we could have sold it and given the money to the poor." Jesus tells them to be quiet, because the woman was anointing his body for burial and what she did would be remembered for ever. As, indeed, it has been.

John's gospel, the version we just heard read, however, stays in Bethany, but John says that Jesus was staying with his friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus, and that it was Mary who upended the ointment all over him. Some people have used this to reckon that Martha was married to Simon the Leper, or indeed, to reckon that Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalen were the same person. Again, possible, but we don’t know that.

Luke might possibly be talking about a different episode, because his version takes place in a Pharisee's house, and the woman is definitely a hooker, and she pours the stuff all over his feet, not his head, and Jesus said that only goes to show how much she knows God has forgiven her.

Anyway, that's the basic story, one way or another. But what's it about, and what has it got to say to us today?

First, then, what is the story about? Well, I think it's about extravagance. Those alabaster jars were incredibly precious. If you were lucky enough to have one, it was your most precious thing and you guarded it with your life, practically. It could only be opened by breaking it, so it couldn't ever be used again. You didn't go pouring the contents all over the head of passing prophets, no matter how charismatic.

So when the disciples said, "What a waste!" they seriously meant it. The jar was broken, it was no use any more. The ointment was poured out, and that in itself was costly enough. Mary had given her most precious thing to Jesus, and from everyone else's point of view, it looked like a terrible waste. They couldn't even make use of the gift by selling it and giving the money to charity. It was all gone. What a waste.

You know, the more I read this story, the more it reminds me of God. You see, Mary was frantically extravagant and wasteful. But so often, God's like that.
Think of the story of the wedding at Cana, right at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. When they ran out of wine, towards the end of the festivities, Jesus provided some more. But he provided far more wine than anyone could drink. I worked it out once that the six stone jars he had filled would hold about eight hundred bottles of wine. You'd need a white van to bring that lot back from Calais, and I should think the Customs would be taking an intelligent interest in you! And even the host at the party almost said “Serving the best wine now, when we’ve all had more than enough? What a waste!”

Or think of the story of the feeding of the five thousand. Actually, one of the gospels, Matthew, I think, says that the five thousand was only the men, and didn't count the women and children, which would have made it more like thirty-five thousand. Anyway, when Jesus provided lunch for them, and he certainly did count the women and children, even if nobody else bothered, it wasn't as though there was only just enough to go round; there were twelve huge basketsful left over. Enough for each disciple to take one home to Mum. So perhaps that wasn’t a waste....

Or what about our natural world? How many different species of flowers are there? Scientists know that they don't know. And animals, too, come to that. I read in the paper a few years ago that they have just discovered about three totally new species of antelope in the jungles of somewhere like Vietnam; somewhere in south-east Asia, anyway. And nobody knew they were there except God. What a waste!

Think of reproduction, too. All the waste that goes on. The millions of baby fish that are hatched, so that a few may survive to adulthood. Birds nest every year, but I read somewhere that only about two of all the offspring a bird hatches in the course of its life reach an age to reproduce. That's sad, of course, but not if you think of those birds that do reproduce as exceptions and the normal life-span of a bird is from hatching to fledging. What a waste, though.

The millions of sperm male mammals produce so that one, just one, can fertilise an egg. All this fuss they're making about male infertility, these days, but most men are still producing about 60 million sperm each time - and they don't think that's quite enough!

On a larger scale, think of all the stars in the night sky, or those pictures of distant galaxies you sometimes see from the Hubble telescope when it comes on "The Sky at Night" or Horizon. I wonder how many of those stars have planets on them like ours, and how many of those planets have life on them, and how much of that life is intelligent and knows its Creator. We're not going to know this side of heaven, but God knows.

Why am I tempted to say "The truth is out there!"?.....

But, seriously, for all we know, beings that are five feet square, one inch thick, and ripple might be worshipping God right now this minute in some far-off galaxy. And we fuss about people whose just happen to come from a different tribe. Ah well.

And if we are the only life in the cosmos, intelligent or otherwise, what does that say about God? All those universes and stars and black holes and pulsars and quasars, just for God, and for us, to enjoy looking at? A waste?

Even on this earth things are pretty incredible. Have you ever flown over London in an aeroplane on a clear day? Or looked at Google maps with the satellite view – all those houses, all those cities – you can look at all sorts of random places on Google Maps if you want, places you might never have otherwise known about – but God always knew. God knows the people in those houses, walking along those streets, driving those cars.

God is seriously incredible. And God doesn’t waste things. We, in our human selves, tend to think “What a waste!” when we see the massive over-production of Nature, or when people are extravagant.

But God loved us so extravagantly that all that love, all that knowledge, all those galaxies were given up and God came to earth as a human baby. The Truth really was Out There, but came down to Here.

As Jesus. Needing to learn everything from scratch. Needing to be fed, and have his nappies changed. Growing up as an ordinary human being in an ordinary family. In a provincial town in a colony of one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen. When God became a human being, it was a thorough job!

And this human being, who was also God, and who had the potential to be worshipped by beings who are five feet square, one inch thick, and ripple, is sitting having dinner with his friends. If Mary caught a glimpse, the tiniest, tiniest glimpse, of the wonder and the majesty of God, and had the slightest inkling of who Jesus is, then no wonder only her most precious possession would do.

She, of course, is far from being the only person who ever responded so extravagantly to God. Look at Mary the mother of Jesus. Her "Yes!" to God was really extravagant – she risked total ruin, including of her reputation. Supposing Joseph had repudiated her on the grounds that she was not chaste? He could have done so, and then where would Mary have ended up? On the streets, most likely! It didn't happen, but it could have. That's extravagant!

At that, look at Joseph’s response. He had a hard choice to make – he was seen as a “man of God”, and properly he should have repudiated Mary. I don’t think it made it much better that it was God who had impregnated her, either! But he chose to risk his reputation and his position in the community by marrying her anyway. That’s extravagant!

Look at Peter and John when they were first hauled before the Sanhedrin. Not only did they refuse to stop preaching the word, but they then went home and prayed for more boldness to do it more forcefully. That's extravagant! But it was very far from being a waste.

Or what about St Paul? Think of how he focuses on all the hardships he has undergone in order to keep on doing what he does, in other words, preaching the Good News. That's extravagant! But it was very far from being a waste.

Or what about all those men and women who have laid down their lives for the sake of the Gospel. Some of them went to the other side of the world; others stayed at home. We know some of their names; others are known only to God.

People like George Muller, who gave up the life of a rich playboy to look after orphans in Bristol? Or Eric Liddell, who abandoned being an athlete to go to China for God. Or Gladys Aylward, who was turned down by the missionary society that sent Eric Liddell, but who went anyway, independently, and saved the lives of hundreds of children, and now even has schools named after her!

Or even Florence Nightingale, who was baulked in her first ambition to serve God through the church, because in those days the Anglican church did not allow women to do anything except sit on their behinds and listen. Anyway, we all know how Florence Nightingale eventually decided to serve God, and the result.

The people who have responded in that way down the years are legion. They heard God, and responded extravagantly. It may be that the world thought they were wasting their lives, but for them, only the most extravagant response would do.

Today is called Passion Sunday, a day on which historically we remember God’s extravagance in sending Jesus in to this world to die on the Cross for us. And when we recall, too, through this story of Mary anointing Jesus, some of humanity’s response to this.

A waste? Perhaps. But for Mary, only her absolute prize possession would do for the One who had brought her beloved brother back from the dead. And at that, she probably felt it was not enough.

What is our response today to God’s extravagant love? What is my response? What is yours?

Second Chance

There had been an atrocity.

Some people from Galilee had been making their sacrifices in the Temple when they had been murdered by Pilate’s officials

and their blood had been mingled with that of the sacrifices,

something that, to them, would have been really badly upsetting.

So some people who had heard about this went to Jesus and told him about it, and said, “But were these people worse sinners than most Galileans?”

Jesus said, “No, of course not, any more than those who were killed when that tower collapsed at Siloam were any better or worse than anybody else.”

We hear of so many atrocities week by week, especially now with this war in Ukraine;

and of course there are the minor tragedies nobody knows about except those directly involved –

someone dying of a heart attack in their 30s, for instance,

or killed in a road accident.

When someone close to us dies, it’s always sad, even if their life was obviously over and you wouldn’t wish them back.

“No,” says Jesus, “they were no better or worse than anybody else.”

But then he seems to contradict himself, because he adds, “if you do not turn from your sins, you will all die as they did.”

“If you do not turn from your sins, you will all die as they did.”

First, he makes it clear that there is no rational explanation for these tragedies.

He doesn’t say, “It was God’s will.”

The Galileans killed by Pilate were victims of the Roman government’s whims.

It could have been anybody offering sacrifices that day.

And the people killed by the tower?

It could have been anyone who happened to be standing there.

It's not about God's will.

It appears to be random –

it looks to me as though Jesus himself didn't really know why such things happen, and perhaps it's never going to be something we really understand this side of Heaven.

Those people who tell us we must praise God for disasters which, I am sure, break God's heart, are talking through the back of their heads.

We can praise God in tragedies, and during them, sure, but not and never for them.

Jesus is saying that it’s not about cause and effect.

Were those who died worse sinners?

No, but if you do not turn from your sins, you will all die as they did..

Jesus is telling us to look at our own lives –

don’t speculate about others.

What about your life?

What about mine?

We can spend so much time trying to explain things –

so much time worrying about other people’s lives

that we forget to pay attention to our own lives with God.

Maybe these deaths should be an alarm call, Jesus said.

After all, the war is in Ukraine, for reasons that Vladimir Putin appears to consider right and proper, and everybody else thinks is awful,

but there have been wars all over the globe, whether declared or not, for most of human history.

Today it is Ukraine –

will it be our turn tomorrow?

And even if it is not –

there is always the car accident,

the heart attack,

the diagnosis of a fatal illness….

Then, then in response to those unanswerable questions,

in response to the warning, “if you do not turn from your sins, you will all die”,

then Jesus told them a parable about a fig tree.

A parable about destruction?

A story of punishment for those who failed to repent?

There have been fig-tree stories like that, haven’t there?

Jesus himself, according to St Matthew’s gospel,

once cursed a fig-tree that bore no fruit.

And in that passage in John 15, Jesus reminds us that branches that bear no fruit are pruned and disposed of.

John the Baptist says something very similar.

It’s a very common metaphor in the New Testament.

But this story is a little different.

It starts off the same way –

the barren fig-tree that hasn’t produced a single fig for three years or more.

It’s taking up valuable space in the garden and, what’s worse,

it’s leaching the soil of valuable nutrients but not giving anything back.

I don’t know if you’ve ever eaten fresh figs –

my parents had a huge fig-tree in the front yard of their old house,

just by the garage,

and in the height of summer it grew so big and shady that it made it quite difficult for my mother to get her car out.

The funny thing is, I don’t remember it having any figs when I was a child,

but in recent years it’s had a lovely crop.

Fresh figs are delicious, although you mustn't eat too many at once,

and often they are quite expensive in the supermarkets.

I did once manage to get a punnet of them fairly cheaply in a Turkish supermarket, but that was only once.

They can cost up to 50p each in Tesco's, and I don't buy them often!

So I can quite see that the owner was really disappointed and frustrated that the tree simply wasn’t producing any.

“Let’s cut it down and get a new one!” he said.

But the gardener, who loved his garden and loved his trees, said,

“No, hang on, let’s give it a last chance.

If I dig around it, loosening the soil, and put in lots of manure,

it just might produce some figs this year.

If it doesn’t, I agree, it’s finished.”

And there the story ends.

The implication is that the tree will be given another chance,

another year to bear fruit.

But only another year.

What we need to know is, is this a threat or a promise?

Do you have a supermarket loyalty card?

I do, and I've learnt over the years to save the main vouchers I get to use to pay for channel crossings and things like that.

And every so often, I get an e-mail from Tesco's reminding me to use them up before they expire.

If my vouchers expire, they are no good to me, but if I use them while they are still in date, I can get some great bargains.

And the fig tree was given an expiry date, if you like.

One more year....

Some people, I know, see it as a threat.

“Shape up, or else!”

But I'm not sure that it is.

I think it is more of a promise:

“How can we best help you become the person –

or the tree –

that you were meant to be”.

The gardener is going to do some serious work on the tree,

give it lots of manure and so on, to try to

help it to bear fruit.

The tree isn't just left to get on with it –

that, we know, hasn't worked.

Jesus reminds us, too, that we need to turn from our sins. To repent.

All of us need to repent.

What do you suppose he means by this?

We tend to think of repentance in terms of being sorry,

of thinking that we must be dreadful people, even if we aren't.

But while being sorry can come into it, it's more about changing direction, about going God's way. It is about turning from our sins.

When Robert and I are driving around in our mobile home, we often have the satnav on to tell us what way to go,

and if we miss our turning, or take the wrong road out of a roundabout, or something, the machine is apt to say, in its computer-generated voice,

“Turn around when possible”.

But we aren't turning round just to retrace our steps;

we are turning round so that we can go in the right direction.

We're apt to think of judgement in terms of prison sentences or fines, aren't we?

We think of judges as though they were all magistrates or county court judges.

But actually, there are many different sorts of judges.

When I was skating competitively, we sometimes took tests to see whether we had reached the required standard,

and if we had not, as was usually the case,

we were told we needed to try again another time.

We weren't being condemned or anything –

we just hadn't reached the required standard this time.

If we competed, we would be ranked against others who had entered, and the judges would put us in order –

but no condemnation on us for coming last, which we usually did.

At a flower show, the judges decide whose flowers, or vegetables, or cakes or jam or whatever, is the best in that particular class;

again, no condemnation for those who don't win, although no point in entering if you don't want to win.

And some competitions are referred to as “trials”, but they have nothing to do with justice and judgement, but to see who is best –

often dogs, in this case, working with sheep or working as gun-dogs.

Which dog can do it best?

Which needs a bit more practice?

And those who don't succeed this time go away and practice and work really hard and they hope that next time they will succeed.

They are free to try again as many times as they like.

Repentance isn't about looking at the past and saying “Oh dear, oh dear, how dreadful!”, it's about looking to the future and seeing what God is doing.

It's about going God's way.

Of course, we do need to take stock of our lives,

make amends when necessary, and ask for God's forgiveness.

But we mustn’t get stuck there.

That is not real repentance.

To repent is to turn back to God, to seek the best God has to offer – the grain, wine and milk, as the prophet put it in our first reading.

God has something in store for us in our future.

God will give us gifts for our future.

God will be there with us and for us in our future.

To repent is to change our minds and recognize these things.

It is to turn towards the future with faith, hope, and love.

The fig tree was to be given another chance –

but so much more than that!

It was to be given special love and care and attention to help it grow figs again.

Not just: “Shape up, or else,”

but “Let’s see what we can do to help you bear fruit again!”

“Seek the Lord while he may be found,
    call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way,
    and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

“Let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,

and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon!”

We have to return to the Lord,

but God is going to do everything possible to enable that to happen!

To enable us to turn towards the future with faith, hope and love!

Amen.