Children's Talk - Lent 1

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

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

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

This can be a good discipline, but of course it can just be done for the sake of doing it!
I don't know if any of you know the children's author, Noel Streatfield?
She wrote a lot of books for children,
the most famous of which is called Ballet Shoes.
Well, she and her sisters grew up about a hundred years ago,
and in their family, as in many others,
it was assumed that nobody would want to eat sweets or cake or jam during Lent, so they were never served!
So even if you had wanted to eat them, you couldn't have done so.
And I don't really see what good that did, as it wasn't a voluntary thing,
and just made the children dread Lent each year.

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

Some people take on something extra during Lent.
Perhaps they go to a study group, or read a bit of the Bible every day,
or spend time visiting someone who isn't well, or something.
Or maybe you could do something like remembering to say "Thank you" to God for something every day.
One year I did that; every day, I wrote on my blog something I felt thankful for.
It was surprisingly difficult to do, too, to find something different to say “Thank you” to God about every day.
I’m doing it again this year, but it really isn’t easy.

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

Glimpses of Glory

Our broadband was down the day I was preparing this, so I wasn't able to save a copy in the "as written" format; this is the formatting I use when I'm actually preaching, as it's easier to read ahead and not sound as if I'm reading it!

Readings
Old Testament: Exodus 34:29-35
Gospel: Luke 9:28-43

I wonder how many of you are going to be hooked on the Winter Olympics,
which started in Canada yesterday?
I know we’ll be watching a lot, especially the ice-skating,
and even more especially the ice dancing, which is our sport.
The athletes are going out for their moment of glory.
I know what it is like –
not the Olympics, of course, but lesser competitions.
You spend hours and hours choreographing your routine –
Robert and I have been doing that just this morning –
and practising it.
You focus on the tiniest of movements –
an arm here, a leg there –
to make it look exactly right.
On the day, you spend a long time getting dressed
and putting make-up on,
and glitter,
and everything to make sure that when you are out there on the ice you look fantastic
and you skate your best.
It is your moment of glory,
the reward of all the months of training,
day in, day out,
that you’ve put into it.

But while you are training,
there are great long periods of time when nothing much seems to happen,
when the routine feels as though it’s an end in itself rather than a means to an end.
There are long months when the competitions feel a long way away
and you are plodging on, seeming to make no progress whatsoever.
And then suddenly someone says how much you’ve improved,
or you suddenly realise how much more you can do than when you were preparing for this competition last year,
and it all feels worth while again.

But isn’t it the same with our Christian lives, too?
We plod on, dutifully using what John Wesley called “The means of grace”,
that is, the Sacrament,
public worship,
the Scriptures,
prayer and so on,
and yet nothing seems to happen. 
Sometimes it feels as though our relationship with God is all down to us, not to God,
and doubts set in. 
But then, just sometimes, God breaks in and we get a glimpse of his glory. 
I know that has happened to me, and I hope it has happened to you.
 
In our readings today, various people get glimpses of God’s glory.
 
Firstly, Moses and the Israelites. 
Moses is spending time in the mountains with God. 
This passage is set shortly after that infamous episode with the golden calf,
and I think the authors are trying to emphasize that it is God, Yahweh, who is in charge,
not Moses, not a golden calf, nor anybody else. 
So Moses’ face shines when he has been in God’s presence, as he is speaking with God’s authority. 
The Israelites caught a glimpse of God’s glory. 
And we are told that Moses did, too;
he was allowed to see just the tiniest shadow of the back of God –
as though God had a human form, but then, he was told,
he couldn’t see the face of God as he wouldn’t live through the experience. 
Nobody can, nobody except Jesus. 
We can only come to God through Jesus;
more of that in a minute. 
The Israelites could only see God’s glory reflected in Moses’ face, and it scared them. 
Moses, who hadn’t at all realised anything was different,
had to put a veil over his face while he was among them, so as not to scare them.
 
The New Testament reading set for today, which we didn’t read,
points out that Moses was able to take the veil off, eventually, because the glory faded. 
Moses was back among the people, involved in the every-day tasks of running the Exodus,
and gradually the glimpse of glory that he had had,
and that he had passed on to the Israelites,
faded.
 
Okay, fast-forward several hundred years to the time of Christ.
This time, it is Jesus who is going up the mountain and he asks his friends James, Peter and John to go with him.
I don't know whether Jesus knew what was going to happen,
only that it was going to be something rather different and special,
and he wanted some moral support!
And so the four friends go up the mountain -
and suddenly things get rather confused for a time,
and when it stops being confused,
there is Jesus in shining white robes talking to Moses and Elijah.
 
Peter, of course, babbles on about building shelters,
but more to reassure himself that he exists, I think, than for any other reason.
And then the voice from heaven saying "This is my Son, listen to Him".
In other words, Jesus is more important than either Moses or Elijah, who were the two main people, apart from God, in the Jewish faith.
To good Jews, as James, Peter and John were, this must have almost felt like blasphemy.
No wonder Jesus told them to keep their big mouths shut until the time was right,
or he'd have been stoned for a blasphemer forthwith.

 Peter, for one, remembered this momentous day until the end of his life.
Years and years later, he -
or someone writing in his name -
was to write:
"For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he received honour and glory from God the Father
when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, `This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.'
We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven,
while we were with him on the holy mountain."
 
For Peter, James and John, it was to be proof that Jesus is the Messiah, and through all the turbulent times that followed they must have held on to the memory of that tremendous day, when they saw a glimpse of God’s glory in Jesus.
 
But they, too, had to come down from the mountainside and carry on,
and immediately they are confronted with a crisis:
a child who has been brought to the disciples for healing, but nothing has happened. 
In this version of the story, Jesus sounds almost cross –
well, you can’t blame him, can you? 
He was probably tired after being on the mountain,
and rather wanting a quiet supper and his bed,
and now the disciples were all talking at once, explaining how they’d tried to cast out this demon,
and the boy’s father is adding to the confusion, and yadda, yadda, yadda….. 
Basically, back to normal! 
We know from other accounts of this story that afterwards Jesus tells the disciples that they can only cast out that sort of demon with prayer and possibly fasting. 
 
So it seems that glimpses of God’s glory are very rare, and the normal gritty, hum-drum, everyday life is the norm. 
And that’s as it should be. 
You can’t live on a mountain-top all the time, you’d get altitude sickness! 
If you were on holiday all the time, you wouldn’t appreciate the rest and relaxation that being on holiday brings. 
It’s not much fun waking up and knowing you have no work to go to and, when you get up, the big excitement of the day will be deciding what to have for supper! 
We are never quite sure where God is in all of this. 
 
But God is there. 
Those very special glimpses of his glory, such as Moses saw,
such as Peter, James and John saw, are just that:
special.  They happen maybe once or twice in a lifetime, if that. 
But God is there, acting, working in our lives, even if we don’t always recognise Him.
 
Like the story my father tells of the time there was a big flood, and people had to climb up on to the roofs of their houses to escape.
One guy thought this was a remarkable opportunity to demonstrate, so he thought, God’s power, so he prayed “Dear Lord, please come and save me.”

Just then, someone came past in a rowing-boat and said “Climb in, we’ll take you to safety!”

“Oh, no thank you,” said our friend, “I’ve prayed for God to save me, so I’ll just wait for Him to do so.”

And he carried on praying, “Dear Lord, please save me!”

Then along came the police in a motor-launch, and called for him to jump in, but he sent them away, too, and continued to pray “Dear Lord, please save me!”

Finally, a Coastguard helicopter came and sent down someone on a rope to him, but he
still refused,
claiming that he was relying on God to save him.

And half an hour later, he was swept away and drowned.

So, because he was a Christian, as you can imagine, he ended up in Heaven,
and the first thing he did when he got there
was go to to the Throne of Grace, and say to God,
“What do you mean by letting me down like this?
I prayed and prayed for you to rescue me, and you didn’t!”

“My dear child,” said God, “I sent you two boats and a helicopter –
what more did you want?”
 
When we pray for someone to be healed, quite often we want to see God intervening spectacularly, like the disciples expected to see with the boy with a demon from today’s reading. 
But most often what happens is that the person gets well slowly, with or without medical intervention. 
After all, if you think of it, there’s a limit to what medicine can do. 
My father had his hip replaced a few years ago, and I was amazed to learn that, when he came home from hospital a week later, he no longer needed a dressing on the wound. 
It had healed up really fast. 
“Aren’t surgeons amazing!” he said, and, indeed, they are. 
But all they could do, no matter how experienced, was sew up the wound, and encourage it to heal –
they can’t actually make the flesh grow back together again.
That has to be left to natural processes –
or is it God? 
 
I believe God is involved in healing, whether it is by direct, supernatural intervention,
or, more usually, through the normal processes of one’s immune system,
aided by medical or surgical intervention when necessary. 
But those glimpses of glory that I started with –
when you realise that you are making progress in your chosen sport or hobby, or when you are out there competing –
I believe those times, too, are from God.
 
I think, then, that what I want to leave with you today is this:
as we go into Lent,
which is a time when we are apt to think about God, and our relationship with Him,
perhaps a little more deeply than at other times of the year,
let’s be on the lookout for touches of God in our everyday lives. 
They don’t have to be spectacular, they probably won’t be. 
But each of them is a little glimpse of glory.  Amen.

The Body of Christ

“One fine day it occurred to the Members of the Body that they were doing all the work and the Belly was having all the food. So they held a meeting, and after a long discussion, decided to strike work till the Belly consented to take its proper share of the work. So for a day or two, the Hands refused to take the food, the Mouth refused to receive it, and the Teeth had no work to do. But after a day or two the Members began to find that they themselves were not in a very active condition: the Hands could hardly move, and the Mouth was all parched and dry, while the Legs were unable to support the rest. So thus they found that even the Belly in its dull quiet way was doing necessary work for the Body, and that all must work together or the Body will go to pieces.”

“Now you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it”.
“You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.”

The story I shared with the children earlier is much older than St Paul. Aesop, who wrote it or collected it, is thought to have lived around 600 BC, and it may be much older still. St Paul, who was an educated man, probably knew it, and thought of it when he drew the analogy about our being parts of the Body of Christ.

St Paul was, of course, writing to the Church in Corinth, and it looks as though the people there had got themselves into a bit of a muddle about who was the most important. Some people thought they really didn’t matter very much. Other people thought that everybody else should be just like them. Still others thought that people with smaller roles to play in the Church didn’t matter as much as they did.

I suppose we know this reading well enough not to fall into those traps, do we? Or do we? I am not sure that I do – I find it all to easy to think I don’t matter very much, and nobody will miss me if I don’t go to Church this week. Well, unless I’m preaching, of course; I think people might just notice if I didn’t turn up when I was supposed to be taking the service. But if St Paul is right, then it does matter.

This last week, one of my teeth fell out; now, you would think a tooth wasn’t very important in the way of things; I can manage perfectly well without it. But I do miss it – there’s a funny gap in my mouth, and it feels strange.

And think what it is like if you don’t feel very well. You might have a tummy-ache or a head-ache, but all of you feels rotten because of it. Or, perhaps more to the point, if you’ve injured yourself in any way. A couple of years ago I sprained my left thumb; not badly, but you know what sprains are like, they go on hurting longer than you would believe possible! Anyway, the point is, I hadn’t realised quite how much I used my left thumb, until quite suddenly I couldn’t. And do you know, the simplest of tasks were quite beyond me – I couldn’t even do my trousers up, and had to wear pull-ons for a few days! I couldn’t drive, because I couldn’t change gear or use the handbrake. I couldn’t even read comfortably. We simply don’t realise how necessary various body parts are until suddenly we can’t use them! And think how much attention they take up when they are hurting – you can’t think about anything else! Our body parts matter, and we matter as parts of Christ’s body.

We mustn’t ever think – and this, I think, is one of the points St Paul was trying to make – that we don’t matter, that we’re less important than other people in the church. We do matter. God has led us to this church for a good reason, and even if all we do is come faithfully on Sundays and then go home again, we matter. We are part of the Body of Christ. And you never know who looks out for you each week. If nothing else, you are praying for us, and those of us who, right now, have a more visible role to pray, we need your prayers.

So we mustn’t fall into the trap of thinking we don’t matter. As St Paul says, the ear can’t say that it’s not a part of the body just because it isn’t an eye.

But do we fall into the trap of thinking that everybody else must be just like us? St Paul enquires, forcefully, how we think a body could see if it was all ear. Or how it would smell if it was all foot.... well, perhaps not quite that, but you know what I mean.

But we have problems with that, sometimes, too. Particularly in terms of how we worship. It’s all too easy to assume – and quite often we don’t even really know that we have assumed – that our particular way of being a Christian is the only right and proper way. Other people may think very differently to us; their worship may feel quite different; they may use slightly different faith language, and perhaps have different ideas as to what salvation is all about. But they are still part of the wider Christian family, and we need to accept them as such. Of course, nothing wrong in talking to them, trying to find out where they’re coming from, where you agree, and where you agree to differ; but we need to accept people from other branches of Christianity as equals, as Christians, as other parts of the Body.

I’m thinking rather of Haiti when I say this. You may remember how, just after the earthquake had happened, an American telly-vangelist caused widespread outrage by suggesting that the people of Haiti had made a pact with the devil some two centuries ago, and this was God’s judgement. A singularly unhelpful comment, particularly as the people of Haiti had done no such thing, but the current population was and remains worried because every one of the capital’s 81 Catholic churches was destroyed. And quite apart from anything else, what sort of picture of Christianity does it give to the world at large? Fuel for the Richard Dawkinses of this world, again.

Fortunately, over and against that, there has been the terrific reaction of the global Christian community with aid and money and people to help. Not just Christians, of course – we don’t have a monopoly on helping out in disasters! But many Christian agencies had workers already there in Haiti, loving and caring for the poorest people in the Western Hemisphere. And, indeed, several of them lost their lives in the earthquake. They didn’t see the Haitians as any different to them, despite the fact they don’t always express their faith quite the way we do. They saw them as part of the Body of Christ, and were there to help a part that was in particular need. And is in even more need now.

And then, of course, there is the third temptation, that St Paul describes as the hand saying to the foot “I don’t need you – you’re not a hand!” We must be careful not to think of those who do less important jobs – or perhaps don’t do very much at all in the Church – as less important or, worse still, unnecessary.

That’s where Aesop’s fable comes in, of course – the body parts thought that the stomach was quite unnecessary, but they soon found out differently. Now, Paul’s readers would probably have known the fable just as well as he did, being educated Greeks, and probably smiled rather wryly when it was read out to them, realising exactly where Paul was going to go with this one. Because yes, all parts of the body matter, and we can’t manage without each other. If all you can do is pray for your leaders – then get praying! The church couldn’t function without your prayers, any more than my body can function if I don’t eat properly.

Of course, Paul’s analogy isn’t totally accurate; after all, we grow and change, and our role in the Body of Christ changes during the course of our lives in the way that body parts don’t. And change happens, whether we like it or not.

But by and large it is still true. We are the Body of Christ, and individually members of it. And that applies globally as well as locally. Right now, it is the people of Haiti who are hurting very badly, and who need our help. Who knows, some day in the future, if it will be they who are helping us, after some disaster our other?

Those, of course, are the obvious conclusions we can draw from Paul’s passage; this is what he was trying to say to the Corinthians, and, down the centuries to us. But I think there is still some more.

I think perhaps these days it’s easier for us, with the development of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and so on. I know some of you are on Facebook – I’ve been playing Scrabble with you, rather badly – and I expect you agree with me that it’s a wonderful way of being in touch with people without having to stay in touch with them. We are connected. If my friend X posts that her daughter has just had a baby, I can rejoice with her. If, on the other hand, Y posts that his mother has just died, I can share in his grief and send my love and sympathy – and if it’s someone I know well, or who lives close by, I can offer practical help, too. And I can giggle with Z over something amusing his child said, or a ridiculous situation they found themselves in.

The point is, we are all connected. Not all of my Facebook friends would call themselves Christians, although many do. Some of them I’ve never met, other than through a shared interest or hobby. Others are close friends who I see often, or members of my family. One of the best things has been getting to know a cousin – well, she’s married to my cousin, actually, not related herself – who I’ve never actually met as she lives in South Africa, but we’ve chatted frequently and I feel like I know her.

The poet John Donne famously said that “No one is an island”. We are all inter-connected, all parts of the Body of Christ. I venture to say that, even of those who don’t call themselves Christian, because they are connected to me, and I hurt when they hurt, and rejoice when they do.

Now, obviously I’m not saying we should all join Facebook – I’ve just spent the past ten minutes saying that we’re all different and what suits one doesn’t suit another! But what I am saying is that these days, it is possible to be linked with people you’ve never met, who live 6,000 miles away, and still count them as dear friends.

“Now you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.” None of us is more important than anyone else; we all matter. We all belong. This is even truer today than it was in St Paul’s time. And I, for one, thank God for it. Amen.

Let us pray:

Teach me, O Prince of Peace:
to see humans where once I saw soldiers,
to see people where once I saw victims,
to see creatures of God where once I saw enemies,
and to see the conflict that simmers in my own heart
as clearly as that which scars the world.

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