Silly Sheep

“My sheep know my voice,” says Jesus. “My sheep know my voice”.

My brother is a shepherd, so I always love preaching on the shepherd texts in John’s Gospel. His sheep are fairly brainless, as sheep go, but they do eventually learn to recognise his car, and that of the other shepherds, and their response to those cars is quite different from their response to, say, my father’s car. They know when they see those particular cars, they’ll get fed, or looked at, or moved to a new pasture, or something nice.

However, some years ago now there was a foot-and-mouth epidemic, and you weren’t allowed to move your stock at all without permission. So the sheep were stuck in one field, from which they had eaten all the grass, and were bored and restless. Sometime around then, we drove past in my father’s car, and their reaction was as if we had been my brother – they came rushing up, bleating, hoping for something nice to happen.

This Gospel reading always reminds me of that incident. Jesus says "My sheep know my voice". My brother's sheep obviously did not know who was their shepherd, and were quick to run after any passing car or person who might have been able to move them to another field. Normally they knew, but because they were stuck and hungry and bored, they wanted anybody or anything to be their shepherd.

So I wonder, how is it that we know the Shepherd's voice, and what does it mean in practice?

How is it, then, that we know the Shepherd's voice. I think there are two reasons. The first is that He speaks to us; the second is that we listen to Him.

He speaks to us. Well, in one sense that's somewhat of a no-brainer, as the Americans so graphically put it. We are told, from our earliest days as Christians, that God speaks to us through the Bible, and through other people, and even, although we must be careful, through our own imaginations. But being told it and knowing it seem to be two different things! Of course, there are times when we hear the Shepherd's voice so clearly, times when we know we are His, held in His arms - or round his neck, the way shepherd today will still carry a young sheep. It is, my brother tells me, far and away the easiest way to carry a sheep, but it does make nasty stains down the front of your jacket!

Sorry, that was a diversion, where was I? Oh yes, we have all known times when we hear the Shepherd's voice so clearly, but, of course, we have all known those other times, too; times when God seems far away, when our prayers go no further than the ceiling, when, so far from hearing God's voice, we wonder whether, in fact, our whole faith has been based on a delusion! I'm sure we've all been there and done that, too!

Now, it's traditional to be told that when those times happen, it is our fault. We have stopped listening, we are told, we have gone our own way, we have sinned. And, of course, some of the time that is exactly what has happened, even if some preachers do make it sound like God isn't talking to us any more because we've offended him! I think, rather, it is we who cannot hear the voice of God when we are uncomfortable in God's presence. But usually when that has happened we know that is what the matter is, and sooner or later we admit this to ourselves, and to God, and things come all right again.

But some of the time, with the best will in the world, we know we have not sinned, and it really doesn't seem to be our fault. Times when everything goes pear-shaped, and you wonder where on earth God is in the middle of it all? And part of you knows that this is exactly where God is - in the middle of it all - but that part is operating on sheer faith. You can't sense God's presence, or hear the Shepherd's voice at all, no matter how hard you listen.

It happens to all of us, probably more often than we care to admit. Again, preachers have various explanations for it, and you've probably heard them as often as I have. That God is testing our faith, as though God didn't know how strong our faith actually is. Actually, of course, God does know, but we don't necessarily, and it can be a salutary shock to us!

The thing is, of course, that we don't understand, can't understand, why these things happen. God is God, not just another person like us, and it's not possible to understand. We don't know why we suddenly seem to lose the ability to hear God's voice, and why, even worse, we suddenly seem to lose all sense of God, and seem to simply be going through the motions.

The fact that it's almost universal, that almost every Christian goes through it from time to time must mean that it is normal. But I don't know why it happens, and I don't altogether accept the explanations as to why. I think it's just "part of the human condition", or, if you prefer, "part of the mystery of faith", and we must accept it as such.

There are times when we just don't understand what God is doing, and that's okay, too. My brother had a very good reason that year for not moving his sheep to a new field, no matter how much he wanted to move them, and how much they wanted to be moved. He wasn't allowed to by the Government, because of foot-and-mouth precautions. And you try explaining that to sheep! And since God is even further beyond us than we are from real sheep, how could we be expected to understand what constraints He has?

Sometimes, of course, the matter seems urgent, when we want to know what God wants us to do, and yet God simply doesn't seem to answer. The more we pray, the less we know what to do, and the quieter God seems to get. It's so frustrating! And we rage and rampage and know no peace.

Or those times when something simply dreadful has happened - when someone has died prematurely, or killed in an accident, or beaten up by thugs, or any or all of the dreadful things that can and do happen nowadays. We wonder where on earth God is, we ask how a loving God can allow such dreadful things to happen, we cannot hear God's voice.

In our reading from Acts, the believers in Joppa were despairing – Tabitha was dead. Tabitha, who had been the first to lead her community in good works – how were they going to manage without her? Where was God in this? The voice of the Shepherd seemed to have disappeared from their universe.

But they sent for Peter, who brought them God’s voice, and who brought healing to Tabitha, enabling her to carry on with God’s work.

This is rare, of course. Mostly, when people die, they stay dead! We grieve, and we know that God grieves with us, even though sometimes it feels as though all trace of Him has vanished from our universe.

Jesus says "My sheep hear My voice". It is a given. There are no ifs, buts and ands. He says "My sheep hear My voice". We do hear His voice. Even when we think we don't. Often, when seeking guidance, we know in our hearts that a given path might probably be wrong. Or wrong for us, if not intrinsically wrong. And when something dreadful happens, it is God's heart, I think, which is often the first to break.

We, of course, behave like sheep from time to time. We think we do not hear the voice of the Shepherd, so we rush after any and every passing thing that looks as though it might be the Shepherd. Just as my brother's sheep ran after my father’s car, hoping that we were coming to move them to a better field. Is this the right Shepherd, we ask ourselves, rushing to find out. And sometimes, in the process, we get ourselves badly lost. We find that the better field was no such thing.

But remember our Lord's story about the lost sheep? When we do get lost, we can trust the Good Shepherd to pull on Barbour and Wellies forthwith, and head out to find us. "No one will snatch them out of my hand," Jesus said. And earlier in the chapter, in the part we didn't read, he reminds us that not only do we know him, and hear his voice, but he knows us: "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father."
So even if we, or someone we care about, has gone off down the wrong track and got lost, we can trust the Good Shepherd to come and find us again.
Because the Good Shepherd, Jesus tells us, is come "that they may have life and have it abundantly". Abundantly.

So when we get to a time where we seem not to hear His voice, a time when we look round and He seems to have vanished, let's not panic. Let's not assume it was all our fault - it might have been, but not necessarily. Let's not abandon all idea of Christianity, of churchgoing, of being God's person. Instead, let's sit and wait, calling out to God in prayer, but accepting the silence, trusting that one day the Good Shepherd will come and find us, and say "There you are! Come on, I'll take you back to the rest!" Amen.

Thomas gives permission

Today is one of those rare Sundays when we have the same Gospel reading every year;
the story of Thomas.
Doubting Thomas, we call him in the West, which is really rather unfair of us, as if it were the only thing about him that mattered!

This story, of course, begins on the evening of the Resurrection.
According to John's account –
and yes, it does differ a little from some of the other accounts, as he puts in far more detail –
the first person to have seen the risen Jesus was Mary Magdalene.
She had gone to the tomb very early,
and found that it was empty.
And while she was weeping quietly in the garden,
Jesus had come to her and reassured her.
Peter and John had also seen the empty tomb,
but had not yet met with the risen Jesus,
and the account isn't terribly clear as to whether or not they realised what had happened.

Anyway, that evening the disciples are together,
and Jesus comes to them, as we heard read.
He reassures them,
and reminds them of some of his earlier teachings,
and then, apparently, disappears again.

But Thomas isn't there.
We aren't told whether he hadn't yet arrived
or whether he had just left the room for a few moments,
gone to the loo, or to get pizza for everyone,
or something similar.
But whatever, he misses Jesus.
And, of course,
he doesn't believe a word of it.
The others are setting him up.
Or it was a hallucination.
Or something.
But it couldn't possibly be true.
And for a whole week he goes round muttering,
while the others are rejoicing.
Goodness, he must have been cross and miserable,
and the others must have been so frustrated that they couldn't help him.

And then Jesus is there again,
with a special word of reassurance,
just for Thomas.
He gets his side out, showing the wound.
Perhaps Thomas would care to touch it?
This isn't ectoplasm,
it's proper flesh.

Thomas can take Jesus' hand again,
just as before.
And Thomas bows down in awe and worship.

So what can we learn from the story of Thomas?
I personally find the story a very liberating one.
From Thomas,
I learn that I have
permission to wait,
permission to doubt,
and permission to change my mind.

Firstly, then,
Thomas tells us we have permission to wait.
That sounds odd,
but don't forget it was a whole week until Jesus put him out of his misery.
It must have been a pretty endless time,
feeling sure that his friends had got it wrong,
wondering who was going mad,
them or him.
But Thomas put up with it.
He didn't abandon his friends,
he didn't run off and do something different.
Instead, he stayed with them and put up with the pain and confusion and bewilderment,
and ultimately Jesus put everything right.
The Lectionary celebrates this every year on this Sunday;
it is the anniversary of the day when Jesus came to Thomas and put it all right for him.

A whole week, though.
Imagine that.
It must have felt like an eternity of doubt,
of confusion,
of bafflement.
The others were all totally convinced they’d seen Jesus,
and as far as Thomas was concerned, they’d all run quite mad.

So often we want things now.
If we are unwell, or grieving,
we want instant healing –
we want the confusion to be resolved.
What was that old prayer:
"God, give me patience, and I want it now!"
An addict trying to give up cigarettes or drink or other drugs
wants the craving to go away.
Someone who is ill or injured feels terrible and longs to feel better.
We don't like to experience bad feelings, obviously,
and we want them to go away. Now.
We also don't like to watch someone else experiencing bad feelings.
We might try to deny their feelings,
telling them they don't feel like that.
Or we might try to tell them they are wrong or wicked to have those feelings.
I’ve heard people say that if we have asked for healing,
we should then proceed to deny we feel ill!
A friend of mine is grieving for the loss of a loved one,
and one of the things she is finding most difficult is those well-meaning people who tell her she should be “over it” by now.

It is hideous horribly difficult to watch someone else suffer,
and we develop these strategies of coping so that their suffering doesn't rub off on us.
Also, of course, we don't like to have negative feelings because somehow we think we are failing as Christians when we do.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s gone to Church in a bad mood but with a sweet smile pasted on, and a “Fine, thanks!” in response to anybody who asks how we are.
We don’t like to admit we aren’t feeling wonderful –
in fact, we may even have been told, as I have in my time, that it’s a sin to feel less than one hundred percent on top of the world one hundred percent of the time!

I think one of the things the story of Thomas gives us is permission to have bad feelings.
Permission to feel confused, or angry, or bereaved, or muddled, or ill, or craving, or whatever.
Permission to wait to feel better, to allow it to take its time.

Thomas also tells us we have permission to be wrong, and to doubt.
Thomas was wrong.
He thought that Jesus had not been raised.
But it wasn't the end of the world that he thought so.

All too often, I think that if I am wrong,
if I am mistaken,
if I make a nonsense of something,
it is the end of the world.
I confuse making a mistake with a deliberate sin,
and think that God and others will condemn me for it.
But no,
look what happened to Thomas.
Far from being condemned,
Jesus comes to him specially to prove he is alive.
To show Thomas that the others hadn't gone totally mad.
Jesus was extra specially kind to Thomas.

It is encouraging, isn’t it?
We’re allowed to doubt –
it’s not the end of the world if we find something difficult to believe!
So often we try to suppress our doubts,
to pretend that we believe everything we’re supposed to believe, all “our doctrines”,
feeling that if we wonder for one minute we’ll be condemned.
Or maybe our experience of Christ’s love is so very different from that of our neighbour’s that we wonder if it’s really valid at all.
Or perhaps we don’t feel comfortable with the way another church worships, finding it too liturgical and formal or too uncontrolled and informal,
and we wonder if it’s really a valid form of worship at all.

The thing is, when that sort of thing happens,
when we suddenly wonder whether our faith is all a big nothing,
or when we wonder if we’ve got it right,
then the story of Thomas tells us not to worry.
As the prophet Isaiah tells us,
“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying,
‘This is the way; walk in it.’”
“This is the way; walk in it.”

It’s okay to experiment with our faith, with our expression of our faith, and even, sometimes, with our whole lifestyle.
After all, if our faith doesn’t actually affect the way we live, it’s not much good –
but maybe we have allowed it to affect us to the point that the only people we know are Christians,
maybe even Christians who think exactly the same way we do?

The point is, if we get it wrong, Jesus will come to us, as he came to Thomas, and help us get back on track.
The Good Shepherd doesn’t hesitate to put on his Barbour and Wellies and go to find us if we get ourselves a bit lost.

So Thomas gives me permission to feel awful and
permission to make mistakes and to doubt.
But it would be wrong to leave it at that,
without looking briefly at the third permission Thomas gives us,
and that is to change our minds.
The thing is, Thomas was mistaken when he believed that Jesus had not risen from the dead.
Okay, fine.
But as soon as Jesus showed him he was wrong,
he changed his mind.
He fell down and worshipped the risen Jesus.
He felt ghastly for the whole week between Jesus' appearing to the rest of them, and Jesus appearing to him.
And that's okay.
But when Jesus did appear,
he forgot all about feeling ghastly,
he didn't get cross and go "Where were you?" or anything like that.
He just fell down and worshipped the risen Lord.

It doesn't matter if we feel awful for any reason.
It doesn’t matter if we get it wrong.
What does matter, though,
is if we are given the opportunity to correct ourselves,
or to put things right,
and we fail to take it.
Thomas didn't do that.
Thomas admitted he was wrong,
and he fell down and worshipped the risen Lord.
When we are shown, as Thomas was,
that we have made a mistake,
the thing to do is to put it right.
They do say that the person who never made a mistake never made anything, and that's very true.
But the point is, it is only by correcting our mistakes that we can make progress.
If we stay stubbornly convinced that we are right, and everybody else is wrong, we won't get anywhere.
We won't be freed to go on with Jesus.

Thomas is supposed to have gone on to found the Church in India.
He couldn't have done that if he had gone on being convinced he was right and everybody else was wrong.
He admitted he had been wrong,
and thus was free to put it behind him and go on with Jesus.

This appears horrendously unfinished - I had to ask the Holy Spirit to quickly dictate a final paragraph, which was something like:

Is there anything you need to put right and put behind you to enable you to carry on with Jesus?

I do find this story of Thomas so very encouraging. It shows us that it's okay to feel awful, and not to feel better at once; it's okay to get things wrong, and to doubt, and, above all, that when we do get it wrong, we can put it right and carry on with Jesus. Amen.

What a waste?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Even on this earth things are pretty incredible. Have you ever flown over London in an aeroplane on a clear day? Or looked at Google maps with the satellite view – Street view is good, and fun – this is us – but I like the satellite view, largely because one photo was taken right in the middle of Emily’s wedding..... But the point is, all those houses, all those cities – you can look at all sorts of random places on Google Maps if you want, places you might never have otherwise known about – but God always knew. God knows the people in those houses, walking along those streets, driving those cars.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Temptation

It's difficult, isn't it?
There you are being offered a box of chocolates, and you simply can't resist!
Or it's late, and you're tired, and it's a whole lot easier to get a take-away than to cook supper.
Or you're in the supermarket, and there's a wonderful-looking cheese-encrusted loaf that seriously calls your name....
or they have a special offer, buy one and get one free, on Ginsters' Cornish Pasties.

And if you need to watch your weight as much as I do,
you'll know these aren't totally great food choices!
But they are sometimes very tempting ones!

Okay, so eating the wrong sort of food can scarcely be called a sin!
It might be preferable to nibble on grapes rather than buying Lindt truffle eggs at 50p a throw, but that’s all!

But sometimes we find it easy to be tempted to do wrong.
Perhaps we're tempted to use our bodies in the wrong way,
or worse, to misuse other people's bodies.
Or to misuse other people full stop –
Jesus reminded us that if we were angry with someone,
we needed to express our anger in such a way that it didn't destroy the other person, or put them down.
Jesus tells us that we are to treat other people with the greatest possible respect for who they are –
physically, emotionally and spiritually.
And the rest of the New Testament makes it clear that we aren't even supposed to think unkind things about other people,
which it's very hard to do at times!
We can be tempted, too, not to get involved when a friend needs help or a listening ear;
we can be tempted to ignore it when someone in the church is in difficulties.
We can be tempted to steal –
even a few minutes' of our employers' time to make a personal phone call or answer a personal e-mail.
Although, of course, most employers do allow a reasonable amount of that, but not all.

And some poor folk are addicted to things, drink or drugs or gambling or cigarettes or something –
and it's terribly hard for them to resist the temptation to indulge their habit.
I know –
I'm addicted to cigarettes.
Oh, I've not smoked for almost exactly 16 years, but I'm still addicted,
and one puff and I'd be back to 40 a day in no time at all.
On the other hand, I can claim no virtue for not being addicted to gambling –
it simply doesn't interest me and I've never seen the point!

Different people are tempted to different things.
I know that when I read today's Gospel,
I often wonder what the problem was –
what are these so-called temptations?
But to Jesus, they were very real, and very urgent.
He was being tempted to misuse his divine powers, to go for cheap glory rather than the way of the cross.

I don't know how many of you enjoy the Harry Potter books and films –
I love the books, although I’ve only seen a few of the films;
I do prefer reading to watching when it comes to fiction.
But sometimes, when I read about the way they use their wands, I wonder why they bother –
I mean, whatever is the point of using magic to draw the curtains, for instance;
can't they just pull them by hand or with a cord, like everybody else?
Jesus did miracles, sure, but they weren't like that.
They weren't just to avoid bother, or to get something more easily.
That's why it was wrong for him to turn the stones into bread –
it would have been a cheap magic trick and would have done nothing to enhance God's glory.

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

We read Luke's account, and it just sounds as though Jesus shook his head and said, "No, it's written: you shall not live by bread alone!"
But it can't have been that easy, can it?
If it were, it wouldn't have been worth worrying about.
It's like I have no interest in going to a casino,
or in playing games of chance –
it just isn't my scene, so I'm totally not virtuous if I don't do it!
But for someone who finds that sort of thing the most enormous fun, it must be enormously tempting:
"Oh, go on then;
you never know, you might win!
Just buy that scratchcard.... who knows, it might be the one!"
And so on.

Jesus was also tempted with riches and power beyond his wildest dreams –
at that, beyond our wildest dreams, if only he would worship the enemy.
We can sympathise with this particular temptation;
I'm sure we all would love to be rich and powerful!
But for Jesus, it must have been particularly subtle –
it would help him do the work he'd been sent to do!
Could he fulfil his mission without riches and power?
What was being God's beloved son all about, anyway?
Would it be possible to spread the message that he was beginning to realise he had to spread
if he was going to spend his life in an obscure and dusty part of the Roman empire?
And again, after prayer and wrestling with it, he finds the answer:
“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”
Let the riches and power look after themselves;
the important thing was to serve God.
If that is right, the rest would follow.

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

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

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

In the world of Harry Potter, magic is sometimes used for personal comfort and to save time –
look at Mrs Weasley cooking by magic,
and Fred and George teasing Ron and Harry because they have to prepare the Christmas Brussels sprouts using a knife,
instead of just being able to wave their wands at them.
And Harry, on his 17th birthday, using magic to fetch his spectacles from the bedside table just because he could!

Jesus wasn't like that.
His powers weren't to be used to save him discomfort, even death.
They were only to be used at God's command,
to heal the sick,
raise the dead,
and cast out demons.
There were no short cuts.
He had to go to the Cross,
to walk the way of Calvary,
to be put to death.

Mind you, in the very end, so did Harry, of course.
You remember how he has to die,
and then has the choice whether or not to go back and save his world.
He had to die first, though.
He is a picture of Christ, dying for his world to be saved.
Rather like Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
But in our world, unlike in Harry’s,
there simply aren't any short-cuts.
Jesus couldn't use his powers for his own glory, his own comfort,
and certainly not to save his own life.

And we can't, either.
And I don't know about you, but sometimes I find the traditional things preachers tend to say about this story rather irritating.
They point out that temptation does go away if you don't give into it,
and that help is available to help us resist.
Well, yes –
if it's something like an addiction –
been there, done that, when I was giving up smoking,
and I know I couldn't possibly have done that without God's help.
And if there is time, we can often decide that we won't do whatever it is we are being tempted to do, whatever it is.
But far too often, the temptation to do or say the wrong thing happens so quickly,
there simply isn't time!
before you know it, you've snapped at someone,
or you've got engrossed in something at work and missed the train you'd earlier promised to catch.
Or whatever.

I'm not quite sure what you're supposed to do then....
except know that God does change us, slowly,
as we walk more and more in His way,
as we get more and more used to being His person all the time,
not just on Sundays or whenever we happen to think about.

Earlier, I said to the young people that it didn't matter much what Lenten discipline you chose as long as it was something to help you come nearer to Jesus, to become more Jesus' person.
And that's true for all of us.
This season of Lent is about becoming more and more Jesus' person.
We aren't required to be perfect –
although when we do mess up, we're required to try to put things right as far as possible.
But we are expected to be open to being made more and more perfect!

Jesus was tempted in ways that we may not be.
But we are all tempted, we all have our own weak spots.
Mine are different to yours, but I have them, and so do you.
But with God's help we can fight them,
we can gradually gain ground over them.
And Lent is a terrific time to increase our spiritual discipline to help us do just that.
Amen.

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.