Christ the King

Today is the very last Sunday of the Christian year, and it is the day on which we celebrate the feast of Christ the King.

I wonder what sort of images go through your head when you hear the word “King”. Often, one things of pomp and circumstance, the gold State Coach, jewels, servants, money…. and perhaps scandal, too. What do you think of when you think about a king? The modern monarchy is largely ceremonial, but I tell you one thing, I’d rather be represented by a hereditary monarch who is a-political than by a political head of state for whom I did not vote, and whose views were anathema to me! But it hasn’t always been like that.

We think of good, brave kings, like Edward the Third or Henry the Fifth: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”. We think of Elizabeth at Tilbury: “Although I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, I have the heart and stomach of a King, and a King of England, too, and think foul scorn that Parma, or Spain, or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm.” Or Richard the Lionheart – I’m dodging about rather here – who forsook England to fight against Muslims, which he believed was God’s will for him. Hmm, not much change there, then.

But there have been weak kings, poor kings, kings that have been deposed, kings that have seized the crown from others. Our own monarchy is far from the first to become embroiled in scandal. Think of the various Hanoverian kings, the Georges, most of whom were endlessly in the equivalent of the tabloid press, and cartoonists back then were far, far ruder than they dare to be today. You may have seen some of them in museums or in history books. The ones in the history books are the more polite ones.

But traditionally, the role of a king was to defend and protect his people, to lead them into battle, if necessary; to give justice, and generally to look after their people. They may have done this well, or they may have done it badly, but that was what they did. If you’ve read C S Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy, you might remember that King Lune tells Shasta, who is going to be king after him:
“For this is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there's hunger in the land (as must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land.”

And when we think of Christ as King, we come up against that great paradox, for Christ was, and is, above all, the Servant King. No birth with state-of-the-art medical facilities for him, but a stable in an inn-yard. No golden carriage, but a donkey. No crown, save that made of thorns, and no throne, except the Cross.

And yet, we know that God has raised him, to quote St Paul, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” Christ was raised as King of Heaven.

And it is the Kingdom of Heaven that he preached while he was here on earth. That was the Good News – that the Kingdom of God is at hand. He told us lots of stories to illustrate what the kingdom was going to be like, how it starts off very small, like a mustard seed, but grows to be a huge tree. How it is worth giving up everything for. How “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

Jesus does lead us into battle, yes, but it is a battle “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” And through his Holy Spirit, Jesus gives us the armour to enable us to fight, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, et cetera, et cetera.

Jesus requires that His followers forgive one another, everything, all the time. Even the unforgivable things. Even the abusers, the tyrants, the warlords…. Even Osama bin Lade! We may not hold on to anger and hatred, for that is not the way of the Kingdom.

In our Gospel reading this morning Pontius Pilate clearly wondered what it means to name Jesus as King.

Pilate, who served the most powerful king in the world, knew what a king was. He knew about the power that a King has, the authority that he wields, the unquestioning obedience that he demands, and the power that he has to compel that obedience should it not be volunteered.

Pilate was a creature of his time, one who knew and accepted the rules – one who in fact was charged with making and enforcing the rules, and while he, like people today, sought to use those rules to his advantage, he knew what the consequences of ignoring or scoffing at the rules were.

One of the rules that Pilate was called to enforce was the rule that anyone who claimed to be a king, anyone who dared to set themselves up as an authority over and against the lawful authority of Caesar, was to be executed.

It was a rule that Pilate had no scruples about enforcing. It was a rule that he had enforced thousands of times throughout Galilee.

And so when Jesus is brought before Pilate the charge that is laid against
him is that he is a revolutionary – that he is one who unlawfully claims to be the Messiah, the King of the Jews.

The very idea that the bruised and beleaguered man that stood before him could be taken for a king must have seemed ridiculous to Pilate. He knew what Kings acted like. He knew what they looked like. He knew what even those who pretended to be kings acted like and looked like. And Jesus was not like that!

As we have seen, Jesus’ Kingdom is not of this world. He is the king who rides on a donkey, the king who requires his followers to use the weapon of forgiveness, the king who surrendered to the accusers, the scourge, and the cross.

But he is also, and let us not forget this, he is also the King who was raised on high, who triumphed over the grave, who sits at the right hand of God from whence, we say we believe, he will come to judge the living and the dead.

So are we going to follow this King?

Are we going to turn away from this world, and its values, and instead embrace the values of the Kingdom? I tell you this, my friends, most of us live firmly clinging to the values of this world. I include myself – don’t think I’m any better than you, because I can assure you, I’m not, and if I didn’t, Robert soon would! We all cling to the values of this world, and few of us truly embrace the values of the Kingdom.

But if Christ is King, since Christ is King, then we must be aware that he is our King. If we are Jesus’ people – and if you have never said “Yes” to Jesus, now would be a terrific time to do so – if we are truly following Jesus with our whole hearts and minds, then let us remember our King calls out to us from the cross and invites us to follow him and to pray fervently for the coming of his kingdom –
• a kingdom which welcomes those whom the rest of the world might find most unlikely followers,
• a kingdom in which we can ask for forgiveness from those whom we have hurt, and come to forgive those who have hurt us.

As we reach the end of one church year and look to the beginning of a new one, may the one whom we know to be King of the universe and ruler of our lives guide us in our journeys of welcome and forgiveness that our churches may include all whom God loves, and our hearts may find healing and wholeness. Amen!

Lazarus and the Saints

Our Gospel reading today concerns the raising of Lazarus. You know the story, of course – Lazarus was the brother of Martha and Mary, and Jesus seems to have been a frequent, and beloved, visitor to their home in Bethany, just outside Jerusalem. It’s possible, if not probable, that he stayed there most years when he came up to Jerusalem for the Passover, and they certainly seem to have been among his closest friends.

Anyway, Lazarus falls ill, and they send to Jesus to come and heal him. But Jesus, unaccountably, delays for another two days. And when he does set out to go there, the disciples are rather worried, as they fear for his safety. But he explains that Lazarus has died, and God wants him raised from the dead.

And when he gets to Bethany, both Martha and Mary disobey tradition, and come out to meet him. Normally, relatives of the deceased were expected to stay seated on low stools while the visitors came to them to offer their condolences – it’s called sitting shiva, and I understand it’s done in Jewish families to this day. Anyway, Martha and Mary run out to meet him, Martha first. Jesus has this wonderful conversation with her which culminates in him saying to her, “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. Do you believe this?” and Martha replying with that wonderful declaration of faith: “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” Martha said this. Martha. A woman – and not only a woman, but a traditional woman, usually more concerned with getting a meal for Jesus and the disciples than in learning what he had to say! It’s amazing.

Anyway, then we come to the bit we just read, where Mary comes out to Jesus in her turn, and Jesus weeps at his friend’s grave. And then he calls for the stone to be rolled away and Martha, wonderful, practical Martha, complains that it’s going to ponk quite dreadfully after four days.... but the stone gets rolled away, and Lazarus comes forth, still wrapped in his graveclothes.

Now, it’s a wonderful story, and I expect you, like me, have heard many great sermons and much wonderful teaching on it. But the reason why we had it this morning is because today is All Saints’ Day, when the church is asked to celebrate those who have gone before into glory. What is sometimes known as the Church Triumphant; we here on earth being the Church Militant. And tomorrow is the Feast of All Souls, when many churches will have special services to commem­orate those among them who have died during the year, although some will concatenate the two and have the service today. Some churches, particularly Anglican ones, will have invited the families of all those who have been bereaved – probably known because the vicar took the funeral – to come to church either today or tomorrow to commemorate their loved one. Rather a nice idea, I think. In France, All Saints’ Day is a Bank Holiday – well, this year it will be All Souls’ Day, of course, as All Saints is a Sunday! Anyway, the tradition there is to take flowers – usually chrysanthemums – to put on your loved ones’ graves.

But All Saints itself is about life, not death. Jesus said “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.”

It’s a funny word, “saint”, isn’t it? We seem to give two meanings to it. It seems to me that there are two sorts of saint. The first is a Saint with a capital S. These are often Bible people, like St Paul, of course, but there are also lots of Saints who were, in life, totally dedicated to being God’s person. To the point where, very often, they got into serious trouble, or even killed for it. There was St Polycarp, who was put to death, and when he was given a chance to recant, to say he wasn’t a Christian after all, he said very firmly that he’d served God, man and boy, for something like eighty years now, and God had never let him down,
so if they thought he was going to let God down at the last minute, they’d another think coming. Or words to that effect.

There were Saints Perpetua and Felicity, her servant. Saint Perpetua was a young mother, whose husband and father both roundly disapproved of her being a Christian, and Felicity, also a Christian, was expecting a baby when they were taken and put on trial. They were left until Felicity had had her baby – a little girl, who was brought up by her sister – and then they had to face wild beasts in the arena. And so went to glory.

There are lots of other saints, too, whose story has come down to us. Although sometimes their stories are rather less exotic than we once thought. St George, for instance, the patron saint of England: he was born in Cappadocia of noble, Christian parents and on the death of his father, accompanied his mother to Palestine, her country of origin, where she had land and George was to run the estate. He rose to high rank in the Roman army, and was martyred for complaining to the then Emperor about his persecuting the Christians – he ended up being one of the first to be put to death.

And his dragon? Oh, that was a bit of a misunderstanding. The Greek church venerated George as a soldier-saint, and told many stories of his bravery and protection in battle. The western Christians, joining with the Byzantine Christians in the Crusades, elaborated and misinterpreted the Greek traditions and devised their own version. The story we know today of Saint George and the dragon dates from the troubadours of the 14th century. Of course, you can look at it, as they did, in symbolic terms: the Princess is the church, which George rescued from the clutches of Satan. I imagine football fans often see places like Brazil or Argentina as the dragon, especially during the World Cup!

But not all Saints belong to the dawn of Christianity. There is Thomas More, for instance, who was put to death by Henry the Eighth as he wouldn’t admit that the King’s marriage to Katharine of Aragon was valid, or that the King was Head of the Church. And in our own day, Mother Theresa looks likely to be made a saint, if she hasn’t been already, although she died in her own bed. She has been beatified, which is the first stage towards being made an official Saint You don’t absolutely have to be a martyr to be made a Saint, although it helps.

So, anyway, those are just a very few of the many “Saints” with a capital S. No bad thing to read some of the stories of their lives, and learn who they were, and why the Church continues to remember them.

And then, of course, there is the other sort of saint, the saint with a small “s”. St Paul often addresses his letters to “The Saints” in such-and-such a town. He basically means the Christians. Us, in other words. We are God’s saints. We are the sanctified people – sanctified means “being made holy”, or being made more like Jesus.

And you notice that it is “being made holy”, not “making ourselves holy”. We can do nothing to become a saint by ourselves! We can’t even say that God has saved me because I believe in him – our salvation, our sainthood, is a free gift from God and we can do nothing to earn it, not even believe in God! We aren’t saved as a reward for believing – we are saved because God loves us!

We believe that, like Lazarus, we shall be raised from dead. But unlike him, we shall probably be raised to eternal life with Jesus, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. And we are also told that Jesus came so that we might have life, and have it abundantly. That applies to the here and now, too, not just pie in the sky when we die! Our whole lives now have that eternal dimension. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we won’t experience great sorrow here – sadly, that is part of human existence. And I don’t think it means that we can live just as we like, doing whatever we like, because God has saved us. Rather to the contrary, I think personal holiness is very important. We need to do all we can to avoid sin. Jesus shows us in some of his teachings what his people are going to be like: poor in spirit – not thinking more of themselves than they ought; mourning, perhaps for the ungodly world in which we live; meek, which means slow to anger and gentle with others; hungry and thirsty for righteousness; merciful; pure in heart; peacemakers and so on.

St Paul gives other lists of characteristics that Christians will display; you probably remember from his letter to the Galatians: Love, joy, peace, patience and so on. And he gives lots of lists of the sort of behaviour that Christians don’t do, ranging from gluttony to fornication. Basically the sort of things that put “Me” first, and make “me” the centre of my life.

But the wonderful thing is that we don’t have to strive and struggle and do violence to our own natures. Yes, of course, we are inherently selfish and it’s nearly impossible to put God first in our own strength. But the whole point is, we don’t have to do it in our own strength. That is why God sent the Holy Spirit, to come into us, fill us, and transform us. We wouldn’t be very happy in heaven if we were stuck in our old nature, after all!

But if we let God transform us, we can have abundant life here on this earth, and then we leave our bodies behind and go on to be with Jesus. And that, we are told, is even better!

Jesus asks us, “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. Do you believe this?”

Can we reply, with Martha, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”

Looking for God

Our two readings today are both about people who can’t find God. Firstly Job, and then the man who we call “The rich young ruler”.

So, Job. It's a funny old story, isn't it, this story of Job. Do you know, nobody knows anything about it - what you see is totally what you get! Nobody knows who it was written, or when, or why, or whether it is true history or a fictional story - most probably the latter!

I did read that they think the first two chapters are incredibly ancient. That figures, actually, since the picture of God that we see in it is also very old - the sort of super-King holding court among the angels, and Satan not even being the Devil yet, just one of the many beings who had the right to God's ear. Rather like the earthly kings of the time, no doubt.

The source I was reading seemed to think that the poetry chapters were more recent, but even still, nobody knows who wrote them, or when. Even still, "more recent" is a relative term! The Book of Job is incredibly ancient, or parts of it are. And so it makes it very difficult for us to understand. We do realise, of course, that it was one of the earliest attempts someone made to rationalise why bad things happen to good people, but it still seems odd to us.

I think one of the oddest things is that picture of God as almost an earthly King, with his court around him. And Satan as one of the heavenly beings belonging to that court.

The story first of all establishes Job as really rich, and then as a really holy type - whenever his children have parties, which they seem to have done pretty frequently, he offers sacrifices to God just in case the parties were orgies! And so on. Then God says to Satan, hey, look at old Job, isn't he a super servant of mine, and Satan says, rather crossly, yeah, well, it's all right for him - just look how you've blessed him. Anybody would be a super servant like that. You take all those blessings away from him, and see if he still serves you! (Wealth was considered to be a sign of God's blessing).

And that, of course, is just exactly what happens. The children are all killed, the crops are all destroyed, the flocks and herds perish. So then Satan says, well, all right, Job is still worshipping you, but he still has his health, doesn't he? I bet he would sing a very different tune if you let me take his health away!

So God says, well, okay, only you mustn't kill him. And Job gets a plague of boils, which must have been really nasty - painful, uncomfortable, itchy and making him feel rotten in himself as well. Poor sod. No wonder he ends up sitting on a dung-heap, scratching himself with a piece of broken china!

And his wife, who must have suffered just as much as Job, only of course women weren't really people in those days, she says "Curse God, and die!" In other words, what do you have left to live for? But Job refuses, although he does, with some justification, curse the day on which he was born.

Then you know the rest of the story, of course. How the three "friends" come and try to persuade him to admit that he deserves all that had come upon him - we've all had friends like that who try to make our various sufferings be our fault, and who try to poultice them with pious platitudes. And Job insists that he is not at fault, and demands some answers from God! And that’s where we came in. Job feels he can’t find God to get the answers from!

“If only I knew where I could find God,
I’d pound on the door and demand a hearing.
God would have to listen to me state my case
and argue my innocence.
Let’s see what God would have to say to that!
Then I could get God’s answer clear in my head.

Would God simply pull rank and rule me out of order?
I don’t think so. Surely God would listen.
Surely if an honest bloke like me gets a fair hearing,
God would judge in my favour
and clear my name once and for all.

But I can’t find God anywhere.
I look up, down, forwards, backwards – nothing.
I think I catch a glimpse to the left, but no;
I rush to the right, but God vanishes like a mirage.”

We know what happens in the end, of course – God does eventually answer Job, and, in some of the loveliest poetry ever written, tells him that he’s all wrong. He’s looking in the wrong place. He’s looking at all his problems and trying to find a reason for them, but where he should be looking is at God, at his Creator:

“Do you give the horse its might? Do you clothe its neck with mane?
Do you make it leap like the locust? Its majestic snorting is terrible.
It paws violently, exults mightily; it goes out to meet the weapons.
It laughs at fear, and is not dismayed; it does not turn back from the sword.
Upon it rattle the quiver, the flashing spear, and the javelin.
With fierceness and rage it swallows the ground; it cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.
When the trumpet sounds, it says "Aha!" From a distance it smells the battle, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.
Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads its wings towards the south?
Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes its nest on high?
It lives on the rock and makes its home in the fastness of the rocky crag.
From there it spies the prey; its eyes see it from far away.
Its young ones suck up blood; and where the slain are, there it is.”

Wonderful stuff, and it goes on for about three chapters, talking of the natural world and its wonders, and how God is the author of them all. If you ever want to rejoice in creation, read Job chapters 38, 39 and 40. And at the end, Job repents "in dust and ashes", we are told, and then his riches are restored to him. Job was looking at his problems, not at his Creator.

And so we turn to the Gospel reading, the story of the rich young ruler. Well, All three gospels tell us that the person who came was a rich man, but Matthew tells us that he was young and Luke tells us that he was a ruler. He was probably a ruler in the synagogue. So we call him the rich young ruler.

Anyway, he comes running to Jesus just as he – Jesus – is about to leave town. (Running? They didn't run in those days once they were grown up!) I wonder why he left it so late? Perhaps he really didn’t want to ask. If he was a ruler in the synagogue, he probably thought he ought to know better than this travelling preacher who has come to town. Or perhaps he was held up by looking after business – people with a lot of money do seem to have to spend an awful lot of time looking after it. But whatever, he comes racing up, falls at Jesus’ feet, and addresses him as “Good Teacher!”

Jesus fends him off by saying “No one deserves to be called ‘good’ except God”. But he sees that the young man is in earnest – he really does want to know how to gain eternal life. He is looking for God.

So Jesus answers, “Well, you’ve been brought up in the synagogue, you’re a good Jew, you know the Commandments, don’t you?” And he quotes: “‘Don’t murder; Be faithful in marriage; Don’t steal; Don’t tell lies about anyone; Don’t cheat anyone; Treat your parents with respect.’ ”

The man replied, “Teacher, I’ve kept all these rules, ever since I was a youngster.”
Jesus looked him straight in the eye and, filled with love for him, he said, “You still haven’t found what you’re looking for though, have you? Come and follow me and you’ll find it. First though, go and flog off everything you own, give the proceeds to charity, and then, with all your investments in heaven, you’ll be free to find it.”

And we are told that the man went away, very sad, because he was very rich. Even though he saw his riches as a blessing from God, the rich young ruler was looking at his money, his property, his business, not at his Creator.

Both Job and the rich young ruler were looking for God. Job couldn’t find God because he was looking at his problems. The rich young ruler couldn’t find God because he was looking at his money.

What are you looking at that comes between you and God? What, if anything, is stopping you from finding God?

In or Out?

So which football team do you support? Or do you prefer rugby, or cricket – what’s your sport, and who’s your team? Do you play for a local team? Or did you, when you were younger?

It’s great being part of a team, isn’t it? Or perhaps being part of a group, or a gang of friends. At least it can be. But suppose you are left out? Suppose you’re the one who is always the last to be chosen because you’re hopeless at games? Suppose you’re the one they jeer at and laugh at?

Here’s another suppose. Suppose you were part of a group whose function in life was to do nice things for people – perhaps you did shopping for old people, say, or you knitted blanket squares for charity. And your group got together each week to catch up on what you’d been doing, and perhaps have a meal together, or generally have a bit of fun together. You’re a group, a gang, and it shows. People know who you are. They like you.

But then supposing you suddenly discovered that someone else was doing the same nice things as you were. The specky, nerdish kid that nobody likes. He was also fetching shopping for old people, or knitting blanket squares for charity, or whatever it was.

I wonder how you’d react. Would you think, oh, that’s nice, good for him. Or would you think, here, how dare he? He’s not one of us, what does he think he’s doing? We’re the only ones who do that job!

I think both Jesus and Moses came up against this attitude in our readings today. “How dare they! They’re not part of our group – tell them to stop!” For Jesus, it was when one of the disciples discovered that someone else was casting out demons in Jesus’ name, but it wasn’t anybody they knew and, as far as they were concerned, he had never met Jesus and he wasn’t One of Them. “We tried to make him stop,” explains John, “but he wouldn’t!”

But what was Jesus’ reaction? “"Don't stop him. No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down. If he's not an enemy, he's an ally. Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it that God will notice.”

And something very much the same has happened in our Old Testament reading, too. Moses has got fed up again – Moses frequently gets fed up! This time, the children of Israel have been grumbling because they don’t like the food. God has been supplying them with Manna – nobody knows quite what that was, but it was a basic food source for them while they were wandering in the desert. Anyway, although they hated being in slavery in Egypt, they are beginning to miss all the fish, and the melons, the leeks, the cucumbers, the onions and the garlic. Well, I don’t blame them, really – I think I’d miss those things if I couldn’t have them! But not worth being a slave for! Anyway, God is a bit cross with them and says that okay, they want meat – fine, he’ll give them so much meat they’ll get sick and tired of it! At this stage, Moses doesn’t know how on earth God plans to do this – later, we learn, it was flocks of quails, which are a type of rather delicious game bird – and it all seems a bit much, so he gets his 70 elders, his team leaders, together to pray. And while this is happening, the Holy Spirit falls on the elders, and they begin to speak forth God’s word.

This was unusual in those days – the Holy Spirit didn’t come to people as a matter of routine, in the way that he does today, so when it did happen, it was thought to be a mark of God’s favour. And there are two of the elders who, for whatever reason, haven’t joined the gathering. Their names are Eldad and Medad, and they have stayed in the camp – but because they are elders, the Holy Spirit has also fallen on them. Oh dear. So, of course, someone comes running up to tell Moses, and his heir, Joshua – the same Joshua for whom the book of the Bible is named – says “Well, aren’t you going to stop them?”

Moses, I think, roars with laughter. “Are you jealous for me? I wish that all God's people were prophets. I wish that God would put his Spirit on all of them.” A wish that, of course, came true at Pentecost.

But do you see? It’s all about wanting to exclude people, isn’t it? They’re not part of the gang, so they can’t do what we do. They mustn’t be allowed. They must stop casting out demons in Jesus’ name, or they must stop speaking forth God’s word in prophecy.

Oh dear.

Not good.

Well, yes, we know that in theory, but do we know it in practice? It’s all too easy to exclude people, isn’t it? For a wide variety of reasons. Primary school kids sometimes form gangs whose whole idea is to exclude the opposite sex: No Girls Allowed; No Boys allowed. That’s relatively harmless, of course – but then you get the ones who exclude people whose skin colour is different, or who perhaps have some kind of disability. Or who are of a different religion – it is a very short step between reckoning that they’re mistaken in what they believe, to reckoning they, themselves are bad people for believing it.

None of this is nice; it’s the road to ethnic cleansing, to genocide, to the Holocaust. A road humanity has trodden all too often, and will probably tread all too often in the future.

But almost worst is when it happens in the Church. You will probably know better than I do the story of what happened when Black Christians first came over to this country with the Empire Windrush and its successors, and it’s not pretty. But that’s not the only form of exclusion, even if it is the most obvious one.

It’s what about the other Christians? People who worship God differently. People, who perhaps, disagree with us about certain issues. We are altogether too apt to say “Well, if you don’t agree with me, you’re not a Christian!” I know I’ve been guilty of that in my time. We try to limit God – who is in, who is out? Who’s in God’s gang?

But God doesn’t. We’re not Christians because of what we do or don’t believe; we’re Christians because God loves us and has sent his Son to die for us. We have responded to that, but that’s not what has saved us – God has!

There is a man in America1 who, for a variety of reasons, has decided to spend this year worshipping in a different church every Sunday, not just Christian churches, either, but Jewish and all sorts. I’ve been following his blog for the last couple of months; I can’t remember how I first found it. It’s fascinating reading his journal, and watching his faith grow and develop. A couple of weeks ago he went to a church that he found constraining – they were, for his taste, too negative, too full of “Thou shalt nots”. And after some thought – and argument with people from that church who commented on his reflections – and a Sunday spent worshipping in a Church that was rather more to his taste, he has this to say:

“I don't care who you are, what you've done, who you voted for, how often you read the Bible, or what your political stance is on gay marriage or abortion. I don't care if you are gay, straight, or bisexual. I don't care if you've had sex with a thousand people or you're forty years old and saving yourself for marriage. I don't care if you are Methodist, Catholic, Muslim, or you sat next to me at the Church of Scientology. GOD LOVES YOU. Not because of what you can do for him, but because he's freaking God, so he doesn't need you to do a damn thing. He loves you because he made you. He created you to be the jacked up person you are, and he loves you in spite of your flaws. You're the Prodigal Son. So am I. And God is running toward us with open arms. Nothing else matters except his desire to welcome us back home. And he's waiting. Despite the thousands of rules Pharisees will lay on you to convince you that you're unworthy of God's love, God says you are worthy because of the sacrifice Jesus made two thousand years ago. Period. Bottom line. End of story.”

To which I could only respond: “Amen!” And, that being the case, how dare we exclude anybody? They may not worship God the same way we do; they may look different, or behave differently. They may have quite different views about all sorts of issues that we think are important. But, as Jesus said, “Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it that God will notice.”

And then Jesus went on to give a warning: “On the other hand, if someone –however insignificant they might seem – is believing in me and you put up a road block and turn them back, you’ll be made to pay for it. You’d have been better off being dumped in the middle of the bay wearing concrete boots.”

You see, it does matter. We are all part of God’s kingdom, and woe betide us if we try to exclude anybody, or try to make someone else feel they don’t fit in. God is Love – and woe betide us if we try to cut anybody off from that love. Just because they aren’t on our team doesn’t mean they’re rubbish players!

1 http://stevenfuller.blogspot.com

Mary

Yesterday, in some parts of the Christian Church, was a major festival in the Church’s calendar. It’s what’s called the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and celebrates the belief that her body, as well as her soul, was taken to heaven after she’d died. Or possibly even before, it’s not clear. Either way, it’s a very old tradition, going right back to the early years of Christianity, even though there’s nothing about it in Scripture. And even those Christians, like us, who don’t necessarily subscribe to that doctrine, do still consider 15 August one of the Festivals of Saint Mary.

And even though we Protestants don’t really think about Mary much, the fact that she’s such an important figure in so much of Christianity means she’s probably worth thinking about from time to time.

So what do we actually know about her from the Bible, as opposed to tradition? She first appears in our Bibles when Gabriel comes to her to ask her if she will bear Jesus, and, of course, as we all know, she said she would, and Joseph agreed to marry her despite her being pregnant with a baby he knew he wasn’t responsible for. I do rather love Luke’s stories about Mary – how one of the things the angel had said to her was that her relation, Elisabeth, was pregnant after all those years. And, as we heard in our reading, Mary rushes off to visit her. Was this to reassure herself that the angel was telling the truth? Or to congratulate Elisabeth? Or just to get away for a bit of space, do you suppose? We aren’t told. But Elisabeth recognises Mary as the mother-to-be of the promised Saviour, and Mary’s response is that great song that we now call the “Magnificat”. Or if it wasn’t exactly that – that may well be Luke putting down what she ought to have said, like Shakespeare giving Henry V that great speech before Agincourt – it was probably words to that effect! I think she was very, very relieved to find the angel had been speaking the truth, and probably did explode in an outpouring of praise and joy!

And later, in Bethlehem, when the shepherds come to visit her, we are told that she “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”

The next time we see Mary is when Jesus is twelve and gets separated from them in the Temple. I spent a lot of time with that story when Emily was a teenager – how Mary and Joseph say to Jesus, “But why did you stay behind? Didn’t you realise we’d be worried about you?” and Jesus goes, “Oh, you don’t understand!” – typical teenager!

We don’t see Joseph again after this – tradition has it that he was a lot older than Mary, and, of course, he had a very physical job. It wasn’t just a carpenter as we know it – the Greek word is “technion”, which is the same root as our “technician”; if it had to do with houses, Joseph did it, from designing them, to building them, to making the furniture that went in them! And tradition has it that sometime between Jesus’ 12th birthday, and when we next see him, Joseph has died.

But we see a lot more of Mary. She is there at the wedding at Cana, and indeed, it’s she who goes to Jesus when they’ve run out of wine. And Jesus says, at first, “Um, no – my time has not yet come!” but Mary knew. And she told the servants to “Do whatever he tells you”, and, sure enough, the water is turned into wine.

There’s a glimpse of her at one point when Jesus is teaching, and he’s told his mother and brother are outside waiting for him, but he refuses to be diverted from what he’s doing. And, of course, it could have been that it was just random people who said they were his relations to try to get closer to him.

We see Mary, of course, weeping at the Cross – something no mother should ever have to do. And Jesus commending her into the care of the “beloved disciple” John. And, finally, we see her in the Upper Room in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit came.

That’s really all we know about her from the Bible, but other early traditions and writings, including some of what’s called the apocryphal gospels – they’re the ones that didn’t make the cut into the New Testament as we know it – tell us a bit more. They tell us that her mother was called Anne and her father was called Joachim, and that she was only about 16 when Gabriel came to her. One source has it that Anne couldn’t have babies, and when Mary finally arrived, she was given to be reared in the Temple, like Samuel. And traditional sources also tell us that she went to live in Ephesus, probably with John, and died somewhere between 3 and 15 years after the Crucifixion, surrounded by all the apostles. And that her body was taken up to heaven, which is where we came in!

Well, so far, so good, but how did they get from there to the veneration of her, not to say worship in some cases, that we see today? This may be something you find difficult to understand – I certainly do – and that’s okay. We aren’t required to do more than honour her as the Mother of our dear Lord; we mention her when we say the Creed, of course, and there are lots of churches dedicated to her. My parents’ church in Clapham – some of you have been there – is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, as are loads of other churches around the world.

But we do not think of her as quasi-divine in some way. We do believe that Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, not by ordinary human means, but that this was something that happened in time, not in eternity! She became the Mother of God – she was not the Mother of God before Jesus was born.

It’s been fascinating, reading up on all the various Marian theologies to prepare this sermon. I don’t propose to go into them now – I don’t understand some of them at all, and anyway, it would take too long. It would appear, though, that while veneration of Mary is very ancient indeed, the theological study of her is comparatively recent. Actually, theology isn’t quite the right word, given that that is the study of God - I think the technical term is “Mariology”. And when it spins over into giving Mary that worship that properly belongs to God alone, it becomes “Mariolatry”.

I wonder, though, just how it happened that veneration of Mary became such a thing among Roman Catholic Christians. Orthodox Christianity also venerate her, but make it quite clear that she is not divine – the distinction, sometimes, among Catholics gets a bit blurred. One theory I have heard put forward is that she gives a female aspect to Christianity, which may or may not be lacking from the Trinity. Well, if that is so, how come Protestant women have managed without for so many generations? (I added something here which I only thought of the night before I preached about goddess-worship, and maybe it carried over - people were used to worshipping a Mother goddess).

We Protestants, of course, do have a choice – there is a tradition of venerating Mary in some parts of the Protestant Church, but it is far from compulsory. We honour her as the Mother of our dear Lord – and we honour her, too, for her bravery in saying “Yes” to God like that. After all, had Joseph repudiated her for carrying someone else’s child, she could have ended up on the streets!

As for the Assumption – well, who knows? Some Catholics think she was still alive when that happened, but the official position is unclear. The Orthodox call it the Dormition, or falling-asleep, and celebrate her death, but they, too, believe her body was carried up to heaven. But I am amused to learn that in Italy, the day is called “Ferragosto”, and is far older than Christianity – it was originally a festival of the goddess Diana, and became a public holiday during the reign of the Emperor Augustus! We Christians do like to take a pagan festival and turn it into something else, don’t we?! (And goddess-worship, perhaps!)

But what, then, can we learn from Mary? We don’t tend to think of her very much, at least, I don’t. But there is that incredible bravery that said “Yes” to God – and remember, she didn’t know the end of the story, not at that stage! There are times I wonder what she must think of it all! But she was totally submitted to God in a way that very few people can claim to be.

And, of course, there is what she said to the servants at that wedding in Cana - “Do whatever He tells you”. And that’s not a bad motto to live by, either: Do whatever Jesus tells you. Amen.

Commissioning Service, 9 August 2009

A was commissioned as a Local Preacher on Sunday 9 August, and asked me to preach at the service, which I was delighted to do.

From Deuteronomy chapter 33 and verse 27: “Underneath are the everlasting arms”. “Underneath are the everlasting arms.”

I think this verse is one of the loveliest in the Bible, particularly on an occasion like this. For while we as a circuit are rejoicing in the admission of a new local preacher – something that really doesn’t happen very often, according to our Plan the last time was in 1997, so you see, it is very special – I expect A has rather mixed feelings. Joyful, yes, certainly, but who could blame her if she also felt rather scared? I know I did, when I was accredited all those years ago. Quite apart from the practical considerations – I remember worrying about how on earth I was going to say “With God’s help I will” several times without sounding like a complete plonker? – those promises? Am I ever going to be able to keep them? For the rest of my life? Okay, one can resign as a local preacher, but few of us do; we are aware that this call is for life. Whether or not we go on to ordained ministry, as some of us do, or whether we stay ministers of the Word, our calling as one of Mr Wesley’s preachers – I like that description of us – is for life! That’s scary. And then there’s that sneaky feeling we all get – at least, I get, and I’m sure I’m not the only one – that somehow or another They, whoever They are, will discover I’m nothing but a great fraud!

Well, of course I am. We all are. If you think preachers, or even ministers, are anything other than ordinary people with ordinary emotions who get just as cross and tired and fed up as you do, think again! We’re exactly the same, it’s just that this is the work God has given us to do, whereas you will have been called to do something different. It’s like that great myth we perpetuate on our children that there is a such a thing as a grown-up! We go on feeling exactly the same inside as we did when we were 12.

But the thing is, whatever it is we are called to do, whether that is preaching, or teaching Sunday School, or being on the Church Council, or doing flowers, or whatever, we can only do it with God’s help. Actually, really, even though we might make a pretty good job of being human by ourselves, if we are to be fully and truly the people God designed us to be, we need God’s help to be that.

About ten days ago I went up to Trafalgar Square. You might know that there is a project going on at the moment where ordinary people spend one hour on the Fourth Plinth, doing whatever they like up there. I went up because a Methodist minister planned to celebrate Communion that day, which duly happened and was very moving. But the point is, because people are standing up on that plinth for an hour at a time, day in and day out for several months, they have put a safety-net round it. And when I saw it, I thought, “Underneath are the everlasting arms!” If a person were unlucky enough to fall off the plinth, he or she wouldn’t fall far, because of the safety net. And it’s the same, I find, for me as a preacher, and I’m sure A will find the same, too. She probably already has found it!

You see, all we have as preachers is words. Sometimes we’re happy with our words; we know our thoughts have lined up correctly and make sense. Perhaps we even have three points beginning with the same letter! Other times, though, we know we’re struggling. We aren’t at all sure that we have teased any sense at all out of the passage; our arguments don’t hang together. Did we start a red herring and not come back to draw it into the rest of our thoughts at the end? Isn’t it most frantically dull? I remember once that I was about to preach on the fruit of the Spirit, and it was an all age worship service, and I wasn’t any too sure about the sermon as it was. I’d bought a bowl of fruit along to act as a visual aid – and the last straw was when I sat on the banana in the vestry! I burst into tears and said “I can’t go on, I can’t do this!” but, of course, I had to. And do you know, it wasn’t that bad?! Fifteen years or so later I can laugh about it, of course, but it wasn’t funny at the time. But underneath were the everlasting arms – and God took that squashed banana, and the words of that sermon, and lifted them and did something with them, as I have to trust he does with all my sermons, and as all of us preachers have to trust he does, week after week. Underneath are the everlasting arms. My job, A’s job, is to supply the words – and to let God take care of the rest. One minister once pointed out to me that even that isn’t always the case, as God sees to it that people only ever hear what He wants them to hear, anyway! Underneath are the everlasting arms.

Like many of us, I have magnets on my fridge. Some are a bit random, but I have six butterflies that I found in one of those kitschy shops they used to have in Clapham. I like the butterflies, because they remind me of growth and change, and how scary that can be. As you know, a butterfly, like many insects, starts life as a tiny caterpillar, and then pupates and becomes something quite different, before it is born anew as a butterfly. The actual butterfly bit is a very tiny part of its life; some species last no more than a day or so, if that. Mayflies, for instance, don’t even have mouths – all that they are interested in is reproducing themselves, finding a mate, laying their eggs, if female, and then dying. And the whole cycle takes two years or so to fulfil.

And when they actually go to become a butterfly, or mayfly, or dragonfly, or whatever insect they are due to become, the caterpillar has to pupate. That isn’t just a matter of hibernating, like a dormouse or bear; they have to be completely remade. While they are in the pupa, all their bits dissolve away, and are made 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 insects are quite literally born again!

Wouldn’t it be frightening if that sort of thing were to happen to us? Of course, in one sense it will, after we die, when we’re told that we will be raised in a new body. But it’s not necessarily about death. In our Gospel reading, Jesus says “The person who loves his life will lose it, while the person who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Now, I don’t really think that this means quite what it says on the tin – what sort of God would we serve who condemned us to lose a life we loved, but to keep one we hated? In Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, you often used very exaggerated expressions – if you wanted to say you preferred apples to pomegranates, for instance, you would say that you loved apples, and hated pomegranates. Remember how God allegedly said “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated”. Same thing – just meant Jacob was the chosen one, not Esau. And it's like that when Jesus says “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

He doesn't mean to actually hate them, of course – how could he? Not when he tells us to love one another! But the idea is to put Jesus first.

And similarly, in this passage, he doesn't mean it's wrong to be happy! We aren't meant to hate our lives and loathe ourselves – again, how could we, when we are commanded to love our neighbours as we love ourselves? It's fine to be happy, it's fine to enjoy life, it's fine to love, and to be loved. But, if we are to be Jesus’ people, we do need to keep a light hold on things. And we need to be prepared to change and grow, as God calls us. If our caterpillar never turned into a pupa, it would never turn into a butterfly, either.

Today is a major step for A along the path that God is leading her. It’s a happy, wonderful occasion. It can feel quite normal, too – you know you’re doing the right thing, the thing God wants for you. It’s normal. But at the same time, it’s a step into the unknown, a step in the dark. I remember feeling that I wasn’t ready to be launched on to Full Plan yet; I couldn’t do it all by myself. But I didn’t have to, and A won’t have to. Underneath are the everlasting arms.

Pray for A, and for me, and for the other preachers in this circuit. We need your prayers, in fact, we rely on them. We know we are doing the work God has for us, and in that we rejoice – but we are still ordinary human beings, and we still need your prayers.

My father tells a story of a man who fell down a cliff, but was lucky enough to catch on to a tree-root part of the way down. And he was stuck, and scared, and in danger. So he prays “Is anybody out there?” And the voice comes, “Yes, I am God, and I am here. Just let yourself fall, and I will catch you!”

So the man thinks about it for a few moments, and then he calls out “Is there anybody else out there?”

I imagine that for A right now this minute, it feels as though she’s about to step off a cliff! But underneath are the everlasting arms, and God will catch her, as he caught me, as he has caught so many of us. Amen.

Come and Rest

I don’t know about you, but, especially at this time of year, when I greet people and say “How are you?” I tend, more and more, to get the response: “I’m really tired!” or “I’m exhausted!” or something stronger. People just seem to be tired all the time, have you found that? Perhaps you feel really tired all the time? I have several friends who have, or who have had, that most distressing syndrome called myalgic encephalitis, or ME, the main symptom of which is extreme exhaustion – and I mean, totally extreme, where you can’t even chop up vegetables for supper because your arms are so weak. And others, who don’t have that condition, but who are nevertheless frequently so tired they don’t know what to do with themselves. I get like that sometimes, I know!

Modern life is incredibly stressful and tiring. People are so scared of losing their jobs that they are working as many hours as they possibly can, arriving early and leaving late, as though by working longer hours they’re actually being more productive. Of course, what really happens is that they get more and more tired, and their work becomes less and less good, so they have to spend longer and longer doing it, and get more and more tired.... and so on.

And this has led to shops being open later and later, so the people who work in them don’t get to go home, either. Of course, supermarkets employ people on shifts, and many students and, perhaps, those who look after children all day, are glad of an evening shift or two to help the budget. But again, people end up really tired, mistakes get made, and tempers get frayed.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus and his disciples were really tired, too. The disciples had just been out on a mission, and were longing to tell him all about it. Jesus himself was tired and sad because his cousin John had just been put to death by the King. So they were in dire need of a rest and a breather. And Jesus said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Sadly, they couldn’t have as long a rest as they would have liked, because the crowds followed them and needed to be fed. And, in the bit of the story we didn’t read, Jesus feeds the five thousand, and then, absolutely desperate for a bit of time alone with his Father, to come to terms with what has been happening just lately, sends them on across the lake ahead of him, and then he comes to join them by walking across the lake.

Jesus himself would have been seriously in need of some time of quiet – if it was like Mark portrays it in his gospel, it was non-stop hustle, hustle, hustle. He was constantly on the move, healing people, performing miracles, and so on. And all his plans for a breather never seem to work out – when he went home for the weekend, the people of his home town were all, “well, who do you think you are, then?” and sneering at him, even, so Luke tells us, going so far as to throw stones at him. When he goes off with his disciples right outside Jewish territory, a woman comes to him to beg him to heal her daughter. When he goes off with them for a bit of quiet, as in this story, so that they can all rest and recharge their batteries after a busy mission, the crowds follow him, and, at the end of our reading we are told that wherever he went, sick people were brought out to touch him, and all who touched him were healed.

Whew! No wonder he badly needed time alone with his Father! And, I think, we could do a lot worse than follow his example. “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Yes, this is going to be one of those sermons, reminding us to use what Wesley calls “The means of grace” which God has placed at our disposal. And, heaven knows, I need to hear it just as much as you do! It’s one of those guilt-producers, isn’t it – no matter how great our prayer-life may be – and, trust me, mine isn’t! – we always feel that we ought to be able to do more.

The thing is, though, that when we are very tired – and who isn’t, these days? – prayer can feel almost impossible. But Jesus shows us that it is just when we are tired that it’s most important. And the other thing is that there are plenty of resources around to help.

It is one of the things that I regret, that when I was a young Christian, that I was never really taught about different ways of prayer. They just told me I needed to pray and to read my Bible – as, indeed, I do need to – but they didn’t tell me about the different ways that this could be done. My model ended up being that of the public prayer meeting. Now, nothing wrong with that, of course – it’s an excellent way to pray, but it turned out not really to suit me. I was delighted – surprised, but delighted – when I found out that there were other ways of praying that could be used.

In fact, there are whole libraries of books out there explaining different ways of praying, from the “lectio divina” of the Benedictines, reading and meditating on a Bible passage, allowing God to speak to you through it, via the “sanctified imagination” of the Ignatians, where you imagine yourself into the scene, right up to just sitting and being in God’s presence. Not just letting your mind wander, but staying focussed, being aware of your body and your breathing, and of God’s presence. Contemplative prayer, they call it. And there are even Christians who practice what they call Christian meditation, which is basically like any other form of meditation, only using the word “Maranatha”, i.e. “Come, Lord Jesus”, to focus on, rather than a Hindu word. There is a group that meets each week at Clapham Methodist Church if you are interested in trying that out for yourself.

Or you can use a rosary – John Wesley did, so there is good precedent! While I was researching for this sermon, I discovered there is also something called Anglican prayer beads, which are four sets of seven beads, divided by four larger beads, with a cross on the end – the idea is you develop your own way of using these for prayer, perhaps praying a Bible verse on the larger beads, and then something like “Lord Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, Saviour” on the smaller ones. Or a holding cross, which is wonderful when you are ill and tired and too weak to pray – you can just literally cling to the cross of Christ! But again, you can develop your own ways of praying with it. Talking of visual aids, many people light a candle at the start of their prayer time, and I don’t know about you, but sometimes I use a candle flame to help me focus in prayer, particularly in a quiet service with lots of space for private worship in it. Music helps some people, too – hymns, or choral music, or even plainsong.

The point is, prayer is a bit like exercise – one size doesn’t fit all. You know that the best exercise for you is the one you like and will actually do, and the same applies to spiritual exercises. It’s well worth spending some time researching different ways of prayer that different groups of Christians have found helpful. There are plenty of sites out there to help. My particular favourite is a site called Pray as you Go, which provides, for each day of the week, a 15-minute podcast that you can download on to your mp3 player and listen to when convenient. It starts with some music – usually a hymn or psalm, often from another culture – and then a guided introduction to prayer. Then there is a scripture reading, and a very brief meditation on the reading, which is then repeated, and a few moments more of the day’s music before the podcast finishes with the Grace. Rather good to listen to on public transport, I find.

But there are plenty of other resources out there. I recommend a New Zealand site called Liturgy – don’t worry, I’ve got all these written down if you want a copy to have an explore for yourself – which has links to daily readings and prayers, and to other sites such as Benedictine Nuns singing the Offices of Lauds and Vespers – again, rather wonderful to listen to. There are also links to morning, afternoon and night prayer if you are the kind of person who finds a written liturgy helpful – the prayers and psalms change from day to day.

Talking of listening, if you don’t go on-line much or at all, don’t forget the weekly Choral Evensong broadcast on Wednesday afternoons on BBC3 at 4:00 pm, and repeated on Sundays, also at 4:00. We listened last week, as it was from Winchester Cathedral, and a friend of my daughter’s is one of the professional choristers there. They call them Vicars Choral, which is rather grand.

The point is, it doesn’t actually matter how you pray! Whether you use your own words, or other people’s, or none at all; whether you prefer to listen to music or to sing yourself; whether you use a rosary or prayer beads or whether those do simply nothing for you. What matters is that we spend time with our Lord, that we go by ourselves with him to a quiet place and rest awhile. It’s worth trying out a different way of praying from time to time.

After all, as we grow and change – and I hope we are all growing and changing, and allowing God to mould us into the people He created us to be – a way of prayer that was perfect for us some years ago might well not be quite such a good fit now, and something that seemed not even to be prayer back then might turn out to be the exact thing your spirit has been craving! And if it doesn’t work for you, if you find that you can’t use a given method to get and stay in touch with God, that’s fine, too. There’s plenty of other ways! What matters is that we pray, not how! And may God the Holy Spirit help us and guide our prayers.

Resources

Pray As You Go – Daily prayer for your MP3 player.

Liturgy NZ "Virtual Chapel" – Collection of resources for daily prayers, including links to sung offices.

Oremus.org - More resources and links for daily prayer

Anglican prayer beads, with links to how to make them.

Choral Evensong on BBC Radio 3 at 4:00 pm on Wednesdays, repeated 4:00 pm on Sundays.

Holding crosses - £4.99 each from here; you can also get them from the gift shop at Westminster Cathedral, but they are £6.99 there!

Rosaries can be bought in Brixton Market, among other places.