Doing it God's way

You know, I feel very sorry for Moses. There he is, doing his best to lead his people to the Promised Land, and what happens? They do nothing but grumble! They keep telling him they'd rather be back in slavery in Egypt, thank you very much, quite ignoring the fact that when they were in slavery, they hated it! But first of all they didn't have anything to eat, and then, when God provided manna for them – and nobody knows what manna was, exactly, only that it was edible and tasted good – they got bored of it, and wanted meat, so God sent quails for them. And now here they are grumbling because tonight's camping place doesn't have any fresh water for them. Moses is very fed up, and also slightly afraid of a riot and stoning, so God intervenes and tells Moses to hit a certain rock with his staff and water gushes out. And the people of Israel stopped grumbling, until the next time!

They were never contented. And nor, in many ways, were the Pharisees from our Gospel reading. They were not bad people, of course; they really did want to follow God, but they had misunderstood what was wanted, and thought that in order to be God's person, you simply had to follow the law absolutely exactly. To help them do that, they had added some incredibly detailed “what ifs” and “in this case yous” to the Law. The Law, as interpreted by the Pharisees, provided for every single detail of life, and if you failed to keep it absolutely perfectly, then, they thought, God wouldn’t want to know you.

Well, that was all very well. The Pharisees meant well, of course, but they were, quite without realising it, imposing impossible burdens on people. It was quite impossible to keep the Law in their way. And the Pharisees themselves made one very big mistake: they rated keeping the Law more highly than human relationships. They were more concerned about the way people obeyed, or did not obey, the Law than they were about who people were, and how they were hurting, and why. And, of course, somewhat inevitably, they tended to be rather proud if they managed to live as they thought right, and then they looked down on those who didn't live as they did, believing God would exclude them.

And they find Jesus' teachings very unsettling, especially when he starts telling them they're being totally hypocritical, fussing about how many mint leaves to tithe but ignoring people who are in need. Unsettling and disturbing. So they ask Jesus by whose authority he is speaking.

Now this was a trick question, of course. If he claimed a human source for his authority, they could discredit it. If he said it was just his own thoughts, or, worse, if he claimed it came from God, they could stone him for a heretic. It could be that some of them genuinely wanted to know, but many would have hoped he'd blunder. But he didn't. He turned it back on them – okay who gave John the authority to baptise? And that, too, was a trick question. If they said John's authority was from God, Jesus could legitimately ask why they hadn't believed him, and if they said it was merely human, well, what would the people think – they believed John was a prophet sent from God, and weren't going to stand for the Pharisees telling them different!

And then Jesus tells them the lovely little story to show how it's not always the obvious people who are first in line for the kingdom of God. The two sons, one seemingly more than willing to help his father in the vineyard, the other with some excuse or other not to. And then the role reversal, the first son failing to go, despite having said he would; the second son finding he was free after all and going to help. And he was the one who found favour with his father that day. “For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.”

And if you didn't believe John, Jesus implied, you aren’t going to believe me, either!

So what do these readings have to say to us this morning?

I think it's very much about our expectations. What do we expect from God? The people of Israel expected God, through Moses, to provide for their every want. Not just their every need – which he manifestly did – but their every whim. They wanted leeks and onions and all the delicious food they'd left behind in Egypt. They wanted to be free, but they didn't want to pay the price of that freedom! They wanted to be in the Promised Land already, without having to travel there, if that makes sense. And whenever things got slightly uncomfortable for them, they grumbled and moaned and whined – on one occasion, you may remember, they even went so far as to worship another god in the shape of a golden calf. They wanted God to do things their way.

And the Pharisees also wanted God to do it their way. They wanted God to say they were doing it right, their tithes and their keeping the law in infinite detail would make things all right. God would, they hoped, accept them because they kept the Law. Which was all very well, but not when it turned into that they hoped God would reject those who didn't keep the Law! They definitely wanted God to do it their way!

I have a horrid nasty feeling that we are all too apt to do this, too. I know I do. It would be nice to be able to manipulate God, to make God do things our way. In many ways, it would be nice to be able to take responsibility for our own salvation. We can't, of course, any more than the Pharisees could. They tried to be saved by keeping God's law exactly perfectly, just as we try to assume we are saved because we have committed ourselves to be Jesus' person. But they weren't, and we aren't. We are saved by God's grace alone, and we can do nothing to change that.

That sounds as though I'm preaching about predestination and stuff like that. I'm not. As Methodists, we believe that everybody needs to be saved, and that everybody can be saved, can know they are saved, and can be saved to the uttermost. But the point is, while I know that God has saved me, whatever I might mean by that – and I don't always know, so don't go asking me – I know that God has saved me, but I have no way of knowing about you. You know, yes. You know, and you will doubtless tell me, that God has indeed saved you, but I have no way of knowing unless you tell me. And you have no way of knowing about anybody else, and nor do I.

We can't make God do things our way. We'd like it if people were only saved if they prayed the sinners' prayer, or whatever, and then expressed their faith exactly like we do. Human nature, that is. The Israelites wanted God to do things their way, to provide all sorts of delicious food for them whenever they wanted it, not just camp rations. They wanted to have arrived in the Promised Land without having to go there.

We have to remember that it was the son who worked in the vineyard who did what his father wanted. The father still loved the son who changed his mind and didn't go – that was never the issue. He still loved him, but he wasn't best pleased about it, all the same.

So what is it God wants us to do? Obviously to believe, to have faith. And to stop trying to manipulate him! It really isn't easy. I was upset by something earlier this week, and found myself praying, “Lord, if you do that, I'll never speak to you again!” What I should have been praying, and what God gave me the grace, eventually, to be able to pray, was: “Lord, if you want to do that, you're going to have to change me to enable me to accept it, because I certainly can't right now!” I dare say God could manage very happily if I never spoke to him again – but I'm not sure I could!

Seriously, though, it can get like that, can't it? Another rather silly example – someone on Facebook posted a comment that I considered judgemental, and I was going to post “Judge not, that ye be not judged” on his status, when I realised – or God pointed out to me, whichever – that if I did that, I'd be being just as judgemental as I was planning to accuse him of being! Oops!

It isn't easy to do things God's way, rather than to try to make God do things our way. That is always the temptation – I know it's one of my persistent temptations, and I shouldn't wonder if some of you share it. We want our own way; we think we know how the world should be run, and we think God is very silly not to see it the same way as we do. Okay, when I put it like that, it sounds ridiculous – but isn't that exactly what the Israelites were doing? What did God think he was doing, they wondered, making them camp here where there wasn't any fresh water? Isn't it exactly what the Pharisees were doing? What did God think he was doing, they wondered, sending this laughing young man to tell them they'd got totally the wrong idea about God?

The good news is, of course, that we can catch ourselves doing it, and repent. I don't mean having to grovel and tell God how awful we are – often, it is enough just to laugh at ourselves. “Oops, I did it again!” as the song says... And if we can and do commit ourselves to doing things God's way, then next time we try and do it the other way round, we might catch ourselves just that wee bit earlier.

And yes, sometimes it isn't at all easy. If things look as though they might be going in a direction we would hate – illness, a threatened job loss, whatever it might be – it's not at all easy to say to God, “do it your way. Thy will be done!” Often we know God's going to have to change us before we can accept it.

But we do, in the end, have to say “Thy will be done!” to God. If we keep on and on saying “Do it my way!” eventually God might just take us at our word – and leave us to get on with it. And, as I said, I don't know about you, but I don't think I could cope with a universe without God, could you? Amen.

Not helping!

Poor old Peter – he never seemed to be able to be right for very long, did he? In the passage from Matthew that was set for last week – did you hear it, I wonder – he was the one who proclaimed that Jesus was the true Messiah, the Son of the Living God. But now we see him getting it wrong. He was only trying to help, but somehow it didn't work.

Jesus was telling them that he was probably going to have to die, and Peter says “No, I won't let that happen!” And Jesus is so tempted – supposing Peter did fight? I wonder, what would have happened – not that we are ever told that. Peter did have a sword, we know – he had it in the Garden of Gethsemane. Unusual for a fisherman to have one, but Peter did, and he may well have known how to use it. But probably he would have been overwhelmed and died, and the result would have been the same. All the same, it must have been so heartwarming for Jesus to know he had a friend who was prepared to put his life on the line. But no – Jesus mustn't listen. This was the voice of the tempter, always so near, so insidious, so tempting.... “Get thee behind me Satan!” he says. “Peter, you're not helping!”

Peter was trying so hard to help, but really, he wasn't helping at all.

That happens sometimes. I asked the children earlier to try to remember a time when they had tried to help and it all went wrong. Or perhaps you can remember such a time? You thought you were being helpful, but you weren't.

I think this happens to us as Christians far more than we really care to think about. We think we are being helpful, showing others about how lovely it is to be a Christian, but really, we are putting people off.

Take one example, for instance – street preachers! Now, you know and I know that it takes a very great deal of courage to go out there and proclaim your faith in the middle of the street, to hordes of shoppers who haven't the time or the energy to listen, or to commuters who just want to get home and put their feet up. But why is it that so often you listen to what they have to say and cringe? All too many seem to think that the Good News is that you are a sinner and God is going to condemn you! Is that helping?

I remember once I'd had to go up to Oxford Circus to buy something – I can't now remember what – and there was a street preacher who had decided, for some reason, that all the people going shopping were there just for their own selfish pleasure and started berating them for consumerism. I was very tempted to point out to him that he really didn't have a clue, but didn't. I expect he went home very pleased with himself, but was he helping? I don't think so!

But there's me being judgemental, and that won't do, either. I am as bad as any – I try to preach love, not judgement, as you know, but is what I preach reflected in my own life? I don't think so! Well, not all the time, anyway. It's so not easy to get it right – often, we want to comfort a friend, for instance, but what do you say? So often, whatever we say is wrong!

I'm sure you've found this as often as I have – a well-meaning friend tries to comfort you when you're upset, but actually makes things worse! I know sometimes being told that God will never fail me or forsake me really hasn't helped when it's felt that this is exactly what has just happened! I know, obviously, that God hadn't failed me or forsaken me, but at the time, it felt like it! But sometimes people simply won't acknowledge the reality of our feelings: “Oh no, you don't feel like that”, or “Oh no, you don't believe that!” It doesn’t help. I remember once being told, by someone who really ought to have known better, that if I didn't find God's promises true – I forget which one I was complaining about – there was something wrong with me!

Well, quite probably there was – but it really didn't help for the person to say so. God doesn't always work in ways that are as straightforward as we would like to believe, does He? The Holy Spirit is a rushing mighty wind, not an electric fan. Or, if you like, he is not a tame lion! God does exactly what God wants, and because He sees round corners in a way that you and I simply can't, we don't always know what's going on. And being told that if we believe thus and so, or pray in these words rather than that, then our pain will wrap itself up into a nice little ball and go away really isn't helping!

We will see our loved ones again in Heaven, no doubt – but that doesn't help when we want to see them fit and well here on earth, does it? The thought that we will, one day, see them again is a great comfort once the worst of the pain is over, but it's no comfort at all when there is a great big black hole in the middle of your life where they once were!

Of course, we have all mouthed pious platitudes at friends in trouble – I know I have. And I don't suppose it helped, any more than it helped when friends mouthed pious platitudes at me! The Bible may say thus and so, but in the real world, people have feelings and emotions and although God simply adores us, he never promised we wouldn't have trouble and pain. Nor did he promise that we would be aware of him while we were having it – only that he would never fail us or forsake us. And he did promise that he would work all things for good to those who love him, but he didn't promise that would exclude the bad things!

I think a lot of the time it's because we don't know what on earth to say! We want to make ourselves feel better by clinging to the truths – and don't get me wrong, of course they are truths – that we have found in the Bible. But sometimes it's just simply the wrong thing to say. Or perhaps it's the right thing to say at the wrong moment! Someone whose marriage is in dire trouble simply doesn't need to hear that Christians shouldn't divorce – they need to be loved and held and allowed to cry. Someone who finds themselves unexpectedly pregnant doesn't need to hear that Christians shouldn't do sex when they're not married.... bit late for that, I should think! Again, we need to learn how not to be judgemental – and oh, how hard it is to learn that!

And perhaps we need to learn how not to give advice! Often, the best answer to “What should I doooooo?” is “What do you think you ought to do?” or “What choices do you have?” Usually, I think, people make the wisest choices when we help them find out for themselves what to do, rather than tell them!

I seem to have got a long way from Peter, but it's all part of the same thing, really. “Lord, I'll never let this happen to you!” Peter was in denial about what was to happen. How often we deny what our friends are feeling, we tell them they don't feel like that, or worse, that they are wrong to feel like that. Oh, I've been there and done that – obnoxious little prig I was, when I was younger! Probably still am!

Peter wanted to make himself feel better, as much as Jesus: look how supportive I'm being! But that wasn't what was wanted just then. What Jesus needed, arguably, was a shoulder to cry on, or even someone to buy him a pint and let him have an hour or so to relax and forget about what was looming. Denial didn't help. The wrong kind of being supportive didn't help. Tempting Jesus to look for a way out of it didn't help. Peter was trying to be helpful, but in the end, he was not helping!
This is all very depressing, really! I'm sure we've all remembered occasions that we look back on and cringe at what we said to someone that really didn't help, that made matters a great deal worse! But that, of course, is not what I want to leave with you today. Yes, the street preachers I started with need to learn where people are, not where they think they are, so they address themselves to the problems people are actually facing, not what they think they ought to be facing. Yes, we need to learn how not to be judgemental, how not to give unwanted advice, how not to try to make ourselves feel better by regurgitating the “Christian” answer to a problem that really doesn't address how our friend is feeling.

But the point is, we are human, and we're always going to get it wrong some of the time. And the One to whom we go for forgiveness when we do get something wrong is also the One who will help us and enable us to get it wrong less often. God the Holy Spirit can, does and will help us to get it right.

Look at Peter again. This is the same man to whom God gave the knowledge that Jesus was – is – the Messiah, God's anointed one. This is the same man who denied Jesus three times. This is the same man who leapt over the side of his boat to swim to the shore to greet the risen Lord. And this is the same man who was anointed so powerfully at Pentecost that one sermon converted three thousand people!

If God can use Peter, despite Peter's propensity for putting his foot in it, God can use us. And that's why we shouldn't despair when we find we are not helping – we should, instead, ask God how we can help. And listen to the answer! It isn't always the obvious “Christian” thing – in fact, very often it isn't. Perhaps, if people don't tend to come to us for support and reassurance, they have learnt they won't find it from us. But as we make ourselves more and more open to God; as we learn that we don't have to be perfect, we just have to be Christians; as we learn more and more to listen to God and to expect the unexpected, so people will come to us more and more. Amen.

Children's Talk: Not helping

So, you younger ones.
Do you have to help at home?
What sort of jobs do you do?
Perhaps you make your own beds,
or keep your bedrooms tidy,
or do you help Mum in the kitchen?
Some of you older young ones do the cooking sometimes, I know –
I heard all about that delicious roast chicken.....

When my daughter was little, she had to keep her room tidy,
and she had pet mice,
so she had to keep their cage clean
and make sure they had enough food and water and so on.
And later on she used to cook sometimes –
she's a great cook, and I love going to meals round at hers.
When I was a little girl, we had to make our own beds and help with the washing-up after meals –
my parents didn't have a dishwasher back in those days.

But sometimes, when you try to help, things go wrong, don't they?
I remember several dropped plates when I was trying to dry the dishes –
that wasn't very helpful.
And I vividly remember burning a panful of sausages beyond recall, which was also not helpful –
I didn't know how to cook them, and guessed wrong.

Can you think of some times when you tried to help and it all went wrong?
In our reading, Peter was trying to be helpful, and it didn't quite work.
And I'll be looking at some more ways in which we can be unhelpful in a little while, after the music group has led us in worship!

Waving or drowning?

These are two very familiar stories we've heard read this morning, aren't they? The story of Joseph and his – I was going to say his technicolour dreamcoat, but that's Andrew Lloyd Webber, not the Bible! And the story of Jesus walking on the water, which is the one episode that people who know nothing of Jesus seem to know about.

So anyway, Joseph. Talk about dysfunctional families – his was the very worst. His father had been a liar and a cheat, as had his maternal grandfather. And Joseph himself was the spoilt favourite – his father had two wives, you may remember, Rachel, whom he loved, and Leah, whom he didn't but was tricked into marrying anyway. He also had a couple of kids by Leah's and Rachel's maids, Bilhah and Zilpah, but Rachel, the beloved wife, had had trouble conceiving, so Joseph and his full brother Benjamin were very precious, especially as Rachel had died having Benjamin. He, it seems, was still too young to take much part in the story at this stage, but Joseph was well old enough to help his brothers – and, we are told, to spy on them and sneak on them to his father. And stupid enough to boast of self-important dreams.

It's not too surprising that his brothers hated him, is it? Obviously, he didn't deserve to be killed, but human nature is what it is, and the brothers were a long way from home and saw an opportunity to be rid of him. At least Reuben didn't go along with having him killed, although he did sell him to the Ishmaelites who were coming along.

Joseph has a lot of growing up to do, and we all know the story of what happened and how, in the end, he was able to forgive his brothers and help save them from famine.

Let's leave him for the minute, though, and go on to this story of Jesus walking on the water. This is the thing that everybody knows about Jesus, that he walked on water, and even those who don't realise that the Jesus who walked on water is the same Jesus whose birth is celebrated at Christmas know “walking on water” as some kind of metaphor for the divine.

But there's more to the story than that, just as there is more to Jesus than someone walking on water! Jesus didn't go much for spectacular displays of his divine power – that wasn't what he was about at all. In fact, you may remember that he refused to be tempted in that way when he was being tempted in the wilderness. He mostly kept who he was to himself, until the right time came.

And now it was the right time to join the disciples. He had told them to go on ahead while he stayed behind to pray, and at some time in the wee small hours he was ready to join them. They should have been at the far side of the lake by now, but they were up against a contrary wind. I've never been to the Sea of Galilee, but I'm told by those who have that the storms can blow up very suddenly, and the disciples, although experienced fishermen, were struggling slightly.

And then, here is Jesus, walking towards them on the water. Most of them are terrified, except for Peter, who says, “Lord, if that's really you, order me to come out on the water to you!”

And Jesus tells him to come, and he comes, and then he finds he really is walking on the water, and panics. Peter is a strong swimmer, he didn't really need to panic, but in the dark and the cold and the confusion.... well, Jesus grabs him and they get into the boat – and then suddenly it's calm and quiet.

Now, I don't know any more than you do whether this is a true story or not. It almost sounds as though it was a dream; or perhaps it was a legend that got into the story of Jesus at an early stage. Or perhaps it really did happen. At this distance, it doesn't matter; what does matter is that the story got into our Bibles, and so God means us to learn from it!

But what? What can we learn from either this story or the story of Joseph? In a way, the Joseph story is easier.

I am very blessed; I belong to a wonderful and close family. Last Sunday, I had the privilege of witnessing my grandson's baptism – he has a wonderfully close family on both sides, and, as his other grandmother said, a fairly uncomplicated one – only one branch where people have married more than once and had more than one family.

But I know how lucky and blessed we are. It's very unusual – all too many families these days aren't close, don't enjoy spending time with each other, and are what might be classed as dysfunctional. Sadly, even within our church family. We do like to put on a happy face when we come to church, pretend everything is lovely, even when it isn't.

But God sees behind the happy faces to the heartbreak behind. God knows that not all families are happy ones; not all parents can be kind and loving, no matter how much they might want to be. Not all husbands and wives can get along together. And so it goes on.

But when we look at the story of Joseph and his family, we can see that this doesn't actually matter to God. These people became God's chosen people, the twelve tribes of Israel. God used them in spite of how dysfunctional, how disorganised, how downright cruel they were.

The story of Jesus walking on the water is, I think, more about Peter than it is about Jesus. If Jesus is who he says he is, then suspending the laws of nature is reasonable. But for Peter, fallible Peter – the one who, if he could get it wrong, did get it wrong – for Peter to walk on water is not reasonable. And Peter panicked and nearly drowned, and Jesus had to rescue him.

I was going to say that Peter is the most human of the disciples; I think, perhaps, it is that he is the one we read most about. We know when he puts his foot in it and says the wrong thing. We know when his faith fails him. We know when he panics and nearly drowns – or, indeed, when he panics and denies Jesus.

And yet: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”

God chose Peter long before Peter chose God! Jesus knew that Peter was the one chosen to carry on the work after he, Jesus, had been raised to glory, even perhaps at at time when Jesus had only the faintest inkling of what lay before him.

God used Peter, even though Peter was so human and fallible. And God used Joseph and his family, even though they were so awful. And God can use you, and God can use me.

But.

And there always is a “But”, isn't there?

God couldn't use either Joseph or Peter as they were. Joseph had to grow up and stop being an immature brat. As you probably remember, we're told that he was accused of rape and left to languish in prison for several years, during which time he did grow up, and became an invaluable administrator and was thus able to help organise famine relief when it became clear that there was to be a massive famine. He matured enough to forgive his family, and to help them all settle in Egypt where, for several generations, they were happy and comfortable.

And God couldn't really use Peter the way he was, either. Peter was transformed, of course by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Not that he would claim to be perfect, even then, but he became someone God could use.

And you and I, we need to be transformed before God can use us. We need to allow God to work in us, to renew us, to make us into the person he intended us to be.

But the good news is, of course, that we don't have to be perfect! It doesn't matter what our family background is. It doesn't matter how chaotic our lives are just now. What does matter is our openness to God, and our willingness to be transformed.

I'm not sure how much, if anything, Joseph knew of God, other than as the sender of dreams. His transformation was a slow and painful process. Ours may be, too – but I'm sure of one thing, and that is that the more we are open to God, the more we commit ourselves to being God's person, the more honest we can be with ourselves and with God about how chaotic our lives are and how badly we get things wrong, then the easier it is for God to transform us.

And, of course, we don't have to wait for that transformation to have fully happened before God can use us! We can still be used, ready or not. And God does use us, sometimes, often even, without our knowledge. But never, I think, without our consent. Amen.

God gets involved

One of the joys of preaching at two different churches on consecutive weeks on consecutive readings is that you can use the same introduction as you used last week! Which is my fairly standard Abraham introduction, but still...

I wasn't here last week because I was at Mostyn Road, and so I don't know what A focussed on. But I had a look a the story of what's called “The Binding of Isaac”, when Abraham nearly sacrifices Isaac but doesn't at the last moment. Our Old Testament reading for today, follows more or less straight on from there, and tells how God provided a bride for Isaac to help fulfil the promise that Isaac would be the father of many nations.

Scholars seem to think that these stories of Abraham,
which had been an integral part of the Jewish tradition,
were collected together and written down during the 5th and 6th centuries BC –
this, you remember, was when the Israelites were in exile,
the Temple had been destroyed,
and they had no king of their own.
Only a very few Israelites were left in Jerusalem,
and they had rather lapsed from their traditions and practice.
So the various stories were collected and written down,
possibly somewhat haphazardly, in case it should all be lost.

Abraham himself is thought to have lived in the early part of the 2nd millennium BC. Apparently the earliest he could have been born was 1976 BC and the latest he could have died was 1637 BC.
This was in the Bronze age –
he would have had bronze tools, not iron, and possibly still a flint knife.

When Robert and I were in Italy at Easter-time,
on Easter Monday we went to the town of Bolzano,
where they have the museum where the body of Oetzi, the ice-man, is stored.
You may remember that he was found in the Alps about 20 years ago,
having been preserved in a glacier for over 5,000 years.
The point is, this was even longer ago than Abraham –
he only had a copper axe, as they hadn't discovered about bronze yet.
But the things that were found with him – his axe, his coat, his trousers, his bow and arrows, his knife and so on,
you could see just how they were used, and he was really a person just like you or me!
That makes Abraham feel less remote, as he, too, would have worn clothes we recognise, and carried tools we'd know and so on.

Abraham had felt called by God to leave his home-town of Ur in the Chaldees, which in his day was allegedly highly civilised.
They had, apparently, nineteen different kinds of beer and a great many fried-fish shops, if you call that being civilized!
However, they did enjoy other kinds of food, such as onions, leeks, cucumbers, beans, garlic, lentils, butter, cheese, dates, and the occasional meal of beef or lamb. Just the sort of food I like!
There was wine available, to make a change from beer,
but it was expensive, and drunk only by the rich.
They played board-games,
enjoyed poetry and music, which they played on the lyre, harp and drum,
and were generally rather well-found, from all one gathers.

The only thing was that without many trees in their part of the world,
they had to do without much furniture,
and tended to sleep on mats on the floor, for instance, instead of beds.
But definitely a sensible and civilised place in which to live.
When you hear it described, it doesn't sound all that remote, does it?
They were people like us, and had similar tastes to us.

But Abraham had felt called to leave there,
and to take his family and household and to live in the desert.
And there, eventually, long after Sarah had given up all hope of having a child, Isaac was born.

And now Isaac has grown up and Sarah has died, and it is time for Isaac to marry. Abraham is urgent that he marry a woman from his own tribe, not a local Canaanite woman, who wouldn't have known about God, so he sends his servant back to Ur, to find a suitable relation for Isaac to marry.

The servant explains, rather earnestly, how he asked God to show him which the right woman was – would she offer to draw water for his camels, or not? That wasn't an easy task – camels, which can go four or five days without water, like to drink A LOT at one time, so she'd have needed a fair few bucketsful!

Rebecca's family would have liked a few days to get used to the idea, but the servant says he needs to get back as soon as possible, and Rebecca agrees to leave next day. So she and her various maidservants – one of them may have been her old nurse – got packed up and ready, and set off. And eventually they get home safely, and there is Isaac coming to meet them. And they get married, and live more-or-less happily ever after!

We sometimes get alarmed about arranged marriages these days; we know that in those communities where they're still more-or-less the norm, things can go horribly wrong – think of those so-called “honour killings” we hear so much about! Even in this day and age, it isn't always easy for someone to escape an abusive situation if they don't know where to go. But as I understand it, an arranged marriage can be every bit as happy and as successful as one where the bride and groom have chosen one another; we all know that you have to work at being married, whether you knew your husband for years beforehand or whether you met him a few days or weeks before the wedding – or even at the wedding!

I think Rebecca was very brave going off with Abraham's servant like that; she had no way of knowing who or what was awaiting her at the far end of the journey. The servant had bigged up Abraham's – and thus Isaac's – wealth, and had given her lots of gold jewellery, but was he telling the truth?

But one thing stands out about this story and that is that God was involved from beginning to end! And God led them all to a happy ending.

I wonder how much we actually believe that God is really involved in our lives? I know we say we do, but these Sundays in Ordinary Time are very much places where what we think we believe tends to come up against what we really do believe! After all, not all of our stories have happy endings, do they? Some do, many do, and for these we give thanks, but what happens when they don't?
Does God get involved in our lives? And if so, how does this work, and how can we work with God to ensure a happy ending?

Well, the Bible definitely tells us that God is involved in our lives, and I am sure most of us could tell of moments when we were perfectly and utterly sure of this. But equally, most of us could tell of moments when we really struggled with it! Where was God when this or that bad thing happened? Does God really care?

Many of us have lived through enough bleak times to know that one comes out the other side. We know that, when we look back, we will see God's had upon it all. God may not have led us to a happy ending, exactly, but we can see how God has worked all things together for good for us.

It's not a matter of God waving a magic wand and producing the happy ending we want; we all know God doesn't work like that. And it's not a matter, either, of God having set the future in stone so that nothing we can do can change things. Nor is it a matter of God simply sitting back and letting us struggle as best we can, although everybody feels at times that this is what is happening.

It's more as if God is working with us, moment by moment. Sometimes we – or other people – do things that mean the situation can't come out as God would have wished. God has a detailed plan for creation, but his plan for our individual lives isn't – can't be – mapped out in moment-by-moment detail since we are free to make our own choices. But God truly wants the best possible life for each one of us. The idea, I think, is to stay as close to God as possible, trying to be aware of each moment of decision and what God would like for us to do.

But, of course, as St Paul points out in the letter to the Romans, that isn't actually possible! We're a bit crap at actually doing the right thing, no matter how much we know we want to! It was impossible for Paul to keep the Jewish law in its entirety, no matter how much he wanted to. And although we know we're, and I quote, under grace not under the law, we do tend to find it easier to try to follow a set of rules and regulations than to follow Jesus! And, of course, we don't follow those rules and regulations perfectly – how could we?

But Jesus points out that his burden is light! Sometimes we don't feel as though it is. “Come unto me all you who are burdened, and I will give you rest!”

I am sure Abraham's servant must have felt incredibly burdened when he went back to Ur to find Rebecca. But the servant, at least, spent his time moment-by-moment in God's presence. He trusted that God would lead him, step by step, to the right woman and that God would bring the whole journey to a happy conclusion. “Come unto Me all you who are burdened, and I will give you rest!”

Abraham's servant trusted God. I wonder how much we trust God? It isn't always easy, is it. Last week's story, how God asked Abraham to kill Isaac, was very much about trust. Abraham didn't even argue with God – he just went ahead and did as he was told, leaving it very much up to God to do the right thing! Even Isaac didn't struggle – he was a young man at that stage, not a small boy, and he could easily have overpowered his elderly father. But no – he allowed himself to be bound and laid upon the altar. And God did do the right thing, as it were, and produced the ram.

And now God did show the servant his choice of wife for Isaac. And so was born the Kingdom of Israel. We never know the consequences of our choices – they may be far more far-reaching than we expect. But we do need to practice involving God in our everyday lives, otherwise, when the crunch comes, we'll find it much harder than it need be to rely on him. “I will give you rest,” says Jesus, but if we don't know how to come to him for that rest, how can he give it to us? Amen.

Abraham and Isaac

Our Old Testament story is a very strange one, isn't it? The editors of Genesis explain it away as “God testing Abraham”, but although they might think God is Like That, I'm not at all sure I do!

Still, it is very much a part of the story of Abraham, so we must look at it. Scholars seem to think that these stories of Abraham, which had been an integral part of the Jewish tradition, were collected together and written down during the 5th and 6th centuries BC – this, you remember, was when the Israelites were in exile, the Temple had been destroyed, and they had no king of their own. Only a very few Israelites were left in Jerusalem, and they had rather lapsed from their traditions and practice. So the various stories were collected and written down, possibly somewhat haphazardly, in case it should all be lost.

Abraham himself is thought to have lived in the early part of the 2nd millennium BC, somewhere between 1976 BC and 1637 BC. This was in the Bronze age – he would have had bronze tools, not iron, and possibly still a flint knife.

Robert and I went to Italy over Easter this year, and on Easter Monday we went to the town of Bolzano, where they have the museum where the body of Oetzi, the ice-man, is stored. You may remember that he was found in the Alps about 20 years ago, having been preserved in a glacier for over 5,000 years. The point is, this was even longer ago than Abraham – he only had a copper axe, as they hadn't discovered about bronze yet. But the things that were found with him – his axe, his coat, his trousers, his bow and arrows, his knife and so on, you could see just how they were used, and he was really a person just like you or me! That makes Abraham feel less remote, as he, too, would have worn clothes we recognise, and carried tools we'd know and so on.

Abraham had felt called by God to leave his home-town of Ur in the Chaldees, which in his day was allegedly highly civilised. They had, apparently, nineteen different kinds of beer and a great many fried-fish shops, if you call that being civilized!

However, they did enjoy other kinds of food, such as onions, leeks, cucumbers, beans, garlic, lentils, milk, butter, cheese, dates, and the occasional meal of beef or lamb. Foods that you and I enjoy to this day! There was wine available, to make a change from beer, but it was expensive, and drunk only by the rich. They played board-games, enjoyed poetry and music, which they played on the lyre, harp and drum, and were generally rather well-found, from all one gathers.

The only thing was that without many trees in their part of the world, they had to do without much furniture, and tended to sleep on mats on the floor, for instance, instead of beds. But definitely a sensible and civilised place in which to live. When you hear it described, it doesn't sound all that remote, does it? They were people like us, and had similar tastes to us.

But Abraham had felt called to leave there, and to take his family and household and to live in the desert. And there, eventually, long after Sarah had given up all hope of having a child, Isaac was born.

And now this. Now the demand to give up Isaac, to sacrifice him to God. What should Abraham do? What could Abraham do, being the kind of person he was? He wasn't perfect – he had been known to tell lies when things got awkward; he had tried to bring God's plan for him into being himself by conceiving a child on his servant Hagar. No, he wasn't perfect, but what he was, was someone who really wanted to follow God, and to do what God wanted. And now, it seemed, God wanted him to sacrifice his only child. What of the promise to make his descendants a great nation? But if God said to do it, Abraham did it, to the best of his ability.

Child sacrifice was, of course, not unknown in that era and that region, and some scholars even think that it was not unknown among worshippers of God, although it's explicitly and emphatically forbidden in the various books of the Law. The Israelites were not to copy their neighbours' bad example! Deuteronomy 12, verses 30-31 says: “After the Lord destroys those nations, make sure that you don't follow their religious practices, because that would be fatal. Don't try to find out how they worship their gods, so that you can worship in the same way. Do not worship the Lord your God in the way they worship their gods, for in the worship of their gods they do all the disgusting things that the Lord hates. They even sacrifice their children in the fires on their altars.”

Anyway, Abraham and Isaac – who, by the way, wasn't a small boy by then, but probably a young man – go off with the servants up to the mountain to sacrifice. Traditionally, they went to where the Temple would later be built in Jerusalem, where the Dome of the Rock is now. At least, that's what Jewish scholars say – Christian commentators have thought it was more probably Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified. The Bible isn't exactly clear, but it's in that sort of area, anyway. And Abraham causes the servants and the animals to wait behind, while he and his son go and worship, “and then we will come back to you.” Note that “We”; we'll come back to that!

And Isaac asks where is the animal for the sacrifice, and Abraham says that God will send one – but he binds Isaac and puts him on the altar. You notice, Isaac doesn't struggle – or we are not told if he does – but accepts his fate as from God. And then, just in time, the angel intervenes and the ram is sacrificed instead of Isaac.

Well, it's a very extraordinary story! What was Abraham thinking? What was Abraham thinking God was thinking? God had promised him that he would be the father of many nations – but Isaac had not yet married or had a child, so if he was killed, that would be the end of the line!

Of course, the traditional Christian interpretation of this story is stated in the letter to the Hebrews, chapter 11, verses 17-19: “It was faith that made Abraham offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice when God put Abraham to the test. Abraham was the one to whom God had made the promise, yet he was ready to offer his only son as a sacrifice. God had said to him, 'It is through Isaac that you will have the descendants I promised.' Abraham reckoned that God was able to raise Isaac from death – and, so to speak, Abraham did receive Isaac back from death.”

Abraham may well have thought that God might provide a last-minute substitute for Isaac, or, failing that, would return Isaac from the dead. Remember that he said to his servants that “We will come back”, not “I will come back.” He trusted God.

The story is, of course, considered to be a picture of the Atonement, too – God sacrificing his own son, Jesus, in place of humanity. And Isaac, like Jesus, went more-or-less willingly to his death. And where Jesus was raised, Isaac was given the ram as a substitute.

Of course, there are many other ways of looking at the Atonement, and frankly, this one is one that I don't find says anything to me at this stage in my Christian journey. It is part of the truth, of course, but not all of it. I prefer those parts of the truth that focus on God's love, rather than on God's judgement. But it's there, nevertheless, and it is part of it.

I said at the beginning that the stories had probably been written down during the Exile, and it's also interesting to read what some of the Jewish fathers have made of it. One writer reckons that actually, Abraham was testing God, not vice versa! This, after all, is the Abraham who had pleaded with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah – it's like he went off and did what God was asking without arguing in order to put pressure on God to do the right thing, as it were, and send the ram! After all, he doesn't even say “You what? But you told me Isaac was to be the father of many nations!” He just went off and obeyed what he believed God was asking him to do.

And that, of course, is the important thing that I wish to leave with you this morning. We have just begun the very long haul of Ordinary Time that goes on until the end of November. And while, during the first half of the Church's year, we look at the life of Jesus, his birth, his teachings, his death, resurrection and ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, during this second half of the year, what we are basically looking at is our faith, and what happens when what we believe comes up against what we think we believe!

And that's what happened to Abraham. He was asked to trust God even for the life of his only Son, the Son that God had promised would father many nations.

Of course, that test, if that's what it was, didn't come out of the blue. Abraham had had long practice in believing God, in trusting him, from moving out of Ur of the Chaldees, through the promise of a son – and the failure to trust that led him to conceive Ishmael – and the birth of Isaac, and so on. He was used to trusting God, and so when the crunch came, he was able to.

Are you used to trusting God? If and when the crunch comes in your own life, will you still be able to trust him? Job, you may remember, said he would go on trusting God even if it killed him. And trusting God has killed many, many people down the centuries, the martyrs who preferred to die than to renounce their faith. Could you trust God when the crunch comes? Can I?

I tell you one thing; we may or may not be able to, but we certainly won't be able to if we don't practice trusting Him in our everyday life! Amen.

The Sheep

Here in London, we probably don't think much about sheep, do we?
Okay, we might wear wool clothes, or eat curry mutton or roast lamb,
and we might use a lanolin hand-cream when our hands are dry and chapped, but by and large, we don't think much about where these things come from.
About sheep.

It's very different when I go and visit my family in Sussex,
because my brother is a shepherd,
and so sheep loom pretty large in our lives down there.
They are silly creatures, really –
very few brains!
Usually they follow a leader, and the trick is to become their leader.
An Australian sheep-farming friend of mine likes to enter her sheepdogs in trials, and she comments that
“Sheepdog trialling is a tricky sport.
Sheep have this amazing ability to bring Humans and Dogs completely undone.
Experienced triallers know that no matter how good the dog and how good the handler it only takes ONE sheep to bring the whole show down.”
Yes, that makes enormous sense to me.
One sheep finds a hole in the fence, and they are all through it,
and have all wandered off where they ought not to be....

These days, shepherds don't stay with their flocks 24/7 the way they used to;
time was, they would often live in caravans on the Downs with their sheep, who could wander almost at will during the day, and then be fenced in, or “folded” into a corral with hazel hurdles, at night.
The shepherd lived there with them, and knew the sheep intimately.

That's less easy to do these days, with bigger flocks;
and the development of electric fences means that there is no need for the shepherd to be there 24/7,
although during the lambing season, my brother will get up several times in the night to check the ewes,
and has been known to sleep on a camp-bed in the shed with them!

In Bible times, it was more traditional;
the sheep would be folded at night, gathered into fenced-off areas,
and the shepherd would lie down at the entrance to guard the sheep.
And in our reading, Jesus likens himself to that shepherd:
“I am the gate for the sheep!”
He contrasts himself with those who climb over the hurdles,
or who get into the fold some other way –
the thieves, those who would steal the sheep.
Or perhaps in our day we might think of people's dogs left to run loose –
you wouldn't believe, or perhaps you would, the amount of damage a couple of dogs can do.
Not good.

Sheep do tend to know their shepherd.
My brother's 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.

And Jesus tells us, in our reading, that the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

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.

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.
Some years ago now, there was an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease,
and as part of the effort to control this,
you were only allowed to move your livestock to another field with government permission.
My brother's sheep became stuck in their field,
long after they had exhausted all the grass,
long after they should have been moved.
And they wanted out, and couldn't understand why they were not moved, to the point that they would run up to any and every car going past, asking to be moved, even cars they would normally ignore like my father's.
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 no matter 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.

In our reading from Acts, the believers were going through one of those times when God was so close to them, when new believers were coming in all the time, when life was simply ideal.
They lived together, they shared everything in common.
It was idyllic, and, of course, it couldn't last.
Ethnic tensions crept in between the Jews and the Greeks;
there was that dreadful time when Ananias and his wife pretended they'd given their all to the church, when they hadn't at all.
It wouldn't have mattered –
nobody was making them give anything at all, never mind all they had –
but to lie about it?
They paid a fearful penalty.
The community was wonderful while it lasted, but it didn't, couldn't, last.
I wonder whether they felt they were failures when it all broke up, when they started to be persecuted, when things basically went wrong –
or did they accept that things happen, and that God still loved them?

Jesus says "My sheep know My voice".
It is a given.
There are no ifs, buts and ands.
He says "My sheep know My voice".
We do hear His voice, and know it.
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.

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.
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.