The Ethiopian Eunuch

“Here is some water. What is to keep me from being baptised?”

This is an odd little story, the one we heard from Acts, isn't it? I wonder who these people were, what they were doing, and, above all, why it matters to us this morning.

Well, finding out who these people are is probably the least difficult part of it. The man was, we are told, a eunuch who held a high post in the government of the Queen of Ethiopia. Now, we do know a little about her – her official title was Candace, or Kandake, or even Kentake – nobody is really sure, but if you know somebody called Candace, that's where the name comes from. Anyway, this one was called Amanitore, apparently, and her royal palace of Jebel Barkal in the Sudan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Her tomb is also in the Sudan, in a place called Meroë. Confusingly, the area that our Bibles call “Ethiopia” or “Kush” is actually in what is now Sudan, and present-day Ethiopia was then the Kingdom of the Axumites! Anyway, the Queen isn't important, except that you should understand that she was a ruler in her own right, not just a regent – Amanitore, for instance, was co-ruler with Natakamani, who may have been her husband, but was more probably her son. The Candaces were very powerful, and could order their sons to end their rule by committing suicide if necessary. So a senior treasury official in her government would be a pretty high mucky-muck back then.

We know rather more about his employer, though, than we do about the treasury official himself. He might not even have been a Kushite, which is the more proper term for Ethiopians back then – the word “Ethiop” in Greek basically just means someone from sub-Saharan Africa. He probably was a eunuch, though; many people in positions of authority were, in those days, rather like in the Middle Ages in this country they were usually in holy orders of some kind. Basically they were people who were celibate, for whatever reason, so as not to have divided loyalties between their job and their families – with all the stuff one hears about work-life balance, and the sort of hours people who work for American companies are expected to put in, maybe they had a point! Anyway, our friend was probably a slave, or at least born into slavery, and brought up to eventually get this high and trustworthy position. There is, of course, plenty of form for this – look at Joseph, who was sold into slavery in Egypt but ended up as a hugely influential administrator in Pharoah's court.

And the same was true for this man. We don't know his name, which is unfortunate as I don't like to keep referring to him as “The Eunuch” as though it were the most important thing about him, so let's call him “The Treasurer”. He was probably born into slavery, maybe into a family who belonged to the Ethiopian court, and raised from an early age to serve the Royal Family. I have no idea what sort of education he would have had, but he obviously was an educated man; he could read, which was not very usual in that day and age, and what is more, he could read Greek or Hebrew, I am not sure which, but neither could have been his first language.

And when we meet him, he has just been to Jerusalem to worship God. Again, I have no idea how he became what's called a God-fearer, a non-Jew who worships God without converting to Judaism, but he could not have been a convert, or proselyte as they were known, because he was a eunuch, and the Old Testament forbids anybody mutilated in that way to enter the Temple. And now he is on his way home – he must have been a pretty high-up official to have been allowed to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, don't you think?

I wonder whether he bought his copy of the Book of Isaiah during his visit? I don't know whether it was in the Greek translation known as the Septuagint, or whether he had been able to read Hebrew and buy one of the Hebrew versions. Jewish men could all read, because they were expected to read the Scriptures in their services, but elsewhere the skill was not that common long before printing was even thought of, when all manuscripts had to be copied by hand. So a copy of the book of Isaiah would have been very valuable. And he had one, and was reading it during his journey, but not really understanding what he read, and doubtless wishing for someone to come and explain it to him.

That someone turned out to be Philip the Evangelist. Now, this isn't the Apostle Philip, the one who tends to be partnered with Bartholomew in the lists of apostles; he's a different Philip. We first meet this one early in the Book of Acts, when the gathering of believers is getting a bit large, and the Jewish and Greek believers are squabbling over the distribution of food. Philip and seven other people were appointed deacons to sort it out for them. Philip would have been Greek – it's a Greek name – but he might also have been Jewish, since he was fairly obviously resident in Jerusalem around then.

He, incidentally, is the chap who ends up with four daughters who prophesy who entertains St Paul on his way back to Jerusalem later on in Acts.

But for now, he is wanted on the old road between Jerusalem and Gaza and, prompted by the Holy Spirit, he goes there and walks alongside the Treasurer in his carriage – I expect the horse was only going at walking pace. Back then, the concept of reading to yourself was, I believe, unknown, and everybody always read aloud, even if only under their breath, so he would soon have known what the Treasurer was reading, and was intrigued:

“Do you understand what you're reading?” This man, an obvious foreigner, someone who obviously wasn't Jewish, probably didn't know the traditions at all – what on earth was he finding in the book?

And the Treasurer admits that yes, actually, he is a bit lost.... and Philip explains it all, and explains about how the prophet was referring to Jesus, which of course meant explaining all about Jesus. And so the Ethiopian challenges him: “Okay, there's some water. Any reason I shouldn't be baptised?”

He couldn't be accepted in the Temple as a Jew – would these followers of the Way – they were barely called “Christians” yet – would they accept the likes of him, or was this going to be another disappointment? I can hear a challenge in his voice, can't you? The Authorised version, which I know some of you still like to read, claims he made a profession of faith, but apparently that's not in the earliest manuscripts available and has been left out of more recent translations.

“Why can't I be baptised?” Well, there was no good reason. Jesus loved him and died for him, and Philip knew that, so he baptised him. And then left the new young Christian to cope as best he could, while the Holy Spirit took Philip off to the next thing.

It is a strange story, and I know I've spent rather a long time on it, but it intrigues me. You can't help comparing it with the story of Cornelius, a couple of chapters later. Cornelius, too, is an outsider, a member of the Army of Occupation, a Gentile – but he, too, loves God and wants to know more. And Peter is sent to help him, although Jewish Peter needed a lot more persuading than Greek Philip to go and help. And again, it is clear that God approves, and Cornelius and his household are baptised.

The thing is, this was an age when the Church was gaining new converts every day – three thousand in one day, we're told, after Pentecost. How come these two are picked out as special?

I think it's because they are special. These are the outsiders, the misfits. They aren't your average Jewish person in the Holy Land of those days. Cornelius is a member of the hated Roman army; but at least he lives in Caesarea and might have been expected to pick up one or two ideas about local culture and so on. But the Treasurer? He is not only a Gentile, but of a completely different race, and a different sexuality. A total and utter outsider, in fact.

But he is accepted! That's the whole point, isn't it? There was nothing to stop him being baptised. The Holy Spirit made it quite clear to Philip that this man was loved, accepted and forgiven and could be baptised in the nearest puddle. Or perhaps there wasn't a puddle - he would have had water with him in a carafe of some kind, perhaps they used that!

How difficult we make it, sometimes. We agonise over who is a Christian and who isn't. We wonder what behaviour might put people right away from God. And sometimes we cut ourselves off from God by persisting in behaviour, or patterns of thought, that we know God doesn't like, and we aren't comfortable in God's company. And yet God makes it so simple: “Here is some water. What is to keep me from being baptised?” And the answer, so far as God is concerned, is “Nothing”. Anybody, anybody at all, who stretches out a tentative hand, even a tentative finger, to God is gathered up and welcomed into his Kingdom. I don't know what happens when it's people like Richard Dawkins who really don't want God to exist – I suppose that when people say “No, thank you!” to God, God respects their wishes, even if that means He is deprived of their company, which He so wanted and longed for.

The Treasurer, the Ethiopian Eunuch, was the most complete outsider, from the point of view of the first Christians, that it was possible to imagine. And yet God accepted him and welcomed him, and he went on his way rejoicing. We aren't told what happened to him. Was he able to meet up with other Christians? Was he able to keep in touch with the early Christian communities and learn more about early Christian thinking? We don't know. We aren't told anything more about him – but then, I don't suppose Philip ever heard any more. Our Gospel reading minded us that unless you abide in Jesus you wither away – or perhaps more properly that your faith does – and perhaps that happened to him. We will never know. But perhaps he did abide in Jesus. Perhaps, even without fellowship and teaching and the Sacrament and the other Means of Grace we find so important, perhaps he still went on following Jesus as best he knew how. I hope he did. Maybe his relationship with God would have been purer and stronger than ours is, because there wouldn't have been anybody to tell him that he was doing it all wrong.

“Here is some water. What is to keep me from being baptised?” We have, I think, all been baptised; possibly as babies or perhaps when we were older – but what keeps us from entering into the full relationship with God that this implies? My friends, if there is something between you and God, put it down now – come back to God and rest and rejoice in Him. There are no outsiders in God's kingdom – everybody is welcome, and that includes you, and that includes me! Amen.

Palm Sunday 2012

I decided to do things a little differently this year, hence including the order of service as well as the meditations, so you can see how they fitted in!  At this particular church, the opening prayer and closing hymn of blessing are the same every week, and led by the worship leader. 

Opening Prayer led by Worship Leader

Introduction

Hymn: All glory, laud and honour

Reading: John 12:12-16

Prayer over the Palms:

Hymn: Make way, make way for Christ the King

Meditation 1:

Each year there are a few days’ holidays around Passover,

when as many people as possible go to Jerusalem for the biggest festival of the Jewish year.

This year,

you're going, too.

Perhaps you go every year,

or perhaps you can only go once every few years,

if you don't have much money.

Whatever,

this year, you are going to Jerusalem.

Perhaps you are travelling with a large party,

perhaps there are only two of you.

But today is the day you arrive at Jerusalem.

It's hot.

You're walking along,

a bit hot and rather thirsty,

and somewhat tired of walking.

It will be good to get into Jerusalem,

and to your room at the inn.

Suddenly, though,

there is a noise in the crowd.

What is happening?

Everyone has stopped moving.

But there are cheers and shouts going on.

What are people shouting?

Listen, a minute:

"Hosanna to the Son of David!

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest!"

What on earth are they on about?

What's going on?

People are pulling branches off the trees.

They're throwing down their cloaks.

Who is this person coming along, anyway?

It's someone riding a donkey.

How extraordinary.

Why a donkey, please?

How very undignified.

And yet everyone else is cheering him.

Oh well, why not.

"Hosanna", you shout,

joining your voice to everyone else's.

"Hosanna" .

And carried away by the emotion of the moment,

you throw your cloak into the road for the donkey to walk on.

Later, when the moment has passed,

you wonder what on earth it was all about.

Your cloak was torn by the donkey's feet.

It's dusty and spoilt from lying in the road.

Your new cloak,

that you had bought specially for the festival.

It's ruined.

And you were shouting and cheering like a mad thing.

How very odd.

Prayer (Thanksgiving)

Worship Group sang two songs, "Before Your Majesty I bow" and "You laid aside your Majesty", to lead us from the triumphal procession to the Passion.

Reading: Mark 15:1-15

Meditation 2:

Now it is two or three days later,

early in the morning.

You look out of your bedroom window,

and see that a massive crowd has gathered outside the governor's palace.

You step over, to see what all the fuss is about.

"What's happening?", you ask.

"Pilate's going to release a prisoner",

explains the knowledgeable one.

"Like every year.

This year it's going to be a chap called Barabbas,

you know, the terrorist."

"No it isn't," interrupts another person.

"There was a new prisoner bought in last night.

That teacher, the Galilean one.

You know.

They arrested him,

but I gather Pilate wants to release him."

"No way," says a third voice.

"The chief priests won't wear that.

They want him dead."

And then a hush.

Pilate appears on the balcony. A few quiet "boos",

but the crowd is fairly patient.

"Who shall I release to you?" he asks.

"Barabbas!" yell the crowd.

"We want Barabbas.

At first it is only a few voices,

but gradually more and more people start to shout for Barabbas.

"We want Barabbas, we want Barabbas!"

"Well," goes Pilate,

"Are you sure you don't want Jesus who is called the Christ?"

One or two people start to shout "Yes",

but you are aware that there are some heavies in the crowd and they soon shut up, and start the chant again:

"We want Barabbas, we want Barabbas!"

"Then what shall I do with this Jesus?" asks Pilate.

And the voices start, slowly at first,

but more and more people join in:

"Crucify him, Crucify him!"

And you find yourself shouting, too.

"Crucify him, crucify him!"

But why?

Normally you hate the thought of crucifixion.

The Romans consider it too barbarous for their own citizens.

Only people who aren't Roman citizens,

local people,

slaves.

Only they get crucified.

So why are you shouting for this man to be crucified?

Prayer of penitence and assurance of forgiveness

Hymn: My song is love unknown (H&P 173)

Reading: Mark 15:21-32

Meditation 3:

So they did crucify him.

There were rumours going round all night.

You didn't get any sleep; you kept hearing things

He was with Pilate.

With Herod.

They were going to let him go.

They weren't.

And now he is up there, being put to death.

Maybe he was no better than those thieves beside him.

Who knows?

You certainly don't.

Yes, he's suffering.

God, that must hurt.

Hope it never happens to me.

Shouldn't happen to a dog, crucifixion.

All the same, what does this mean?

Didn't he say he was going to destroy the Temple, rebuild it in three days?

Now he's dying; now he's up there, can't do anything about it...

Maybe he was all a big fake, not the great Teacher.

Such a pity. He could have been the Messiah, but......

that death?

Would the Messiah really die?

Prayer (Collect for the Day)

Hymn: When I survey the wondrous Cross

Reading: Mark 15: 33-39

Meditation:

Forsaken!

Forsaken by God.

Left alone, alone on the Cross to die.

And yet, and yet.

He feels alone, abandoned, forsaken.

And yet, and yet.

He suffers, suffers dreadfully.

And yet, and yet.

That cry, that cry when he died:

“It is finished! I've done it!”

A cry of triumph, of triumph over death.

Forsaken, yet triumphant.

“Surely this man was a Son of God”.

Prayers of Intercession

The Lord's Prayer

Hymn: Jesus is Lord, Creation's voice proclaims it 

(This was our wedding hymn, and it was our 33rd wedding anniversary yesterday, so I chose it, as I always do if I can at this time of year.)

Notices and Offertory

Closing hymn of blessing.

Butterflies

Today is all about butterflies! First of all, F is going to read us a story. It's a story you know very well – you probably remember it being read to you, or perhaps you read it to younger brothers and sisters, or to your own children. (F reads “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”).

So the caterpillar became a beautiful butterfly. But before he became a butterfly, there was an intermediate stage. He built a cocoon around himself. He became a pupa.

That isn’t just a matter of hibernating, like a dormouse or bear; to become a butterfly, caterpillars have to be completely remade.  While they are in the pupa, all their bits dissolve away, and are made from scratch, from the material that is there.  It’s not just a matter of rearranging what is there, it’s a matter of total breakdown and starting again. The caterpillar more-or-less has to die before it can become a butterfly.

That's really scary. But it's also very appropriate as we enter the season called Passiontide. Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

Jesus knows that he is going to die. He is dreading it. He was, after all, human. We wouldn’t like it if we knew we were to be put to death tomorrow. I once dreamed that I was going to be executed, and I can’t tell you how frightened I was! I was so relieved to wake up and find that it was all a dream.

The farmers were sowing their fields. Jesus knew, perhaps, that he would not live to see the crops grow. But he knew that they would grow. And, more importantly, he knew that they would not grow if they were not sown. If they remained in their basket, they might germinate, but they would rot away almost at once. Or, if they were kept in very dry conditions, they might remain viable for years, but nothing would happen.

The seeds had to die.

The birds, at that time and in that place, were building their nests and laying their eggs. But the eggs couldn’t remain as eggs – they would addle and be no good to anybody. The young birds had to grow inside the eggs, and then they must force their way out or they would die.

Jesus could see the caterpillars that were hatching from the eggs laid last year. He knew, I expect, that they had to become pupae before they could be butterflies.

Someone he knew had had a baby lately; Jesus remembered this: “When a woman is in labour, she has pain, because her hour has come.

But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. “

Jesus saw all this and knew that from seeming dissolution, God brought new life. He knew that he would have to die, so that new life could come.

Perhaps at that stage he didn’t really know how this would happen. He knew that it must happen, but not how it would.

We know that God raised Jesus from death, and because of that, we have eternal life. But that didn't stop it being really scary.

But this verse has become very important to me over the last ten days: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains just a single grain;
but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

What is going to happen to our Circuit with two of our Churches closing? What is going to happen to me? Where will I be worshipping this autumn? It's very scary, especially for the people of King's Acre and Railton Road – and, of course, it's dreadfully sad. I've been worshipping at King's Acre for well over thirty years now. But – what if, what if God is going to bring resurrection out of all of this? What if this Circuit needs to die in order to be raised to something better?

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains just a single grain;
but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

This is what I am taking with me into this Eastertide. When a caterpillar becomes a pupa, it seems as though it dies. But it is raised to new life as a butterfly. This Circuit is dying – my church is dying – but what is God going to raise it as? I am sad beyond words, but I'm also looking forward to finding out!

Ash Wednesday 2012

This year, New Years' Day fell on a Sunday, and so we went to Church. We were staying with my parents, and went to their village church; some of King's Acre have seen it. And I was very interested in what the vicar had to say in his sermon, because he said that New Year's Resolutions could be selfish. They could be all about you. I am going to give up smoking. I am going to lose weight. I am going to take exercise three times a week.... you know the scenario. How much better, he said, to resolve to be God's person, to resolve to put God at the centre of your life, to resolve to let God love you.

And isn't it the same about Lent? Perhaps you are planning to give something up for Lent – it might be chocolate, as a friend of mine does every year; it might be alcohol; it might be meat; it might even be social networking. But why? Why are you giving these things up, if you are?

When I was little, we were only allowed to give things up for Lent if we put the money we would otherwise have spent on them to a good cause. Which, since I found – and still find – it impossible to determine how much I might have spent on, say, chocolate, which I only buy irregularly anyway, since I found it impossible, I never gave anything up! And I am quite sure that, were I to give up social networking, I'd not spend the time in prayer or devotional reading, but faffing about playing computer games!

But self-discipline is a good thing. So we are told, and so it is, of course. But if it is all about you, all about me, that's not much good, is it? And, of course, as we heard in our reading, it's all too easy to do things for all the wrong reasons. If we start complaining about how much we're missing chocolate, or booze, or whatever it might be, that's not the idea at all. The idea is to keep it totally to yourself, don't let anybody know unless you have to. Keep it between you and God.

I personally prefer to do something positive for Lent, like reading a devotional book, or finding something to be thankful for each day, or something. But whatever you do or don't do, the idea needs to be that it brings you closer to God. And if it doesn't do that, if it doesn't work if you keep it secret, then leave it.

And so we turn to our liturgy for tonight. The beginning of Lent always feels so solemn and penitential and miserable. But it shouldn't be like that, not really. The idea is to get right with God, not to wallow in our own sinfulness! And what could be nicer than being forgiven and cleansed, and at peace?

Confession isn't really about telling God the nasty things you've done, said or thought. It can involve that, of course, but I think it's deeper than that – it's about facing up to the fact that you are the sort of person who can say, do our think such things: I have to face up to the fact that I am the sort of person who will snap at her family, given the slightest excuse to do so, or that I tend to be very greedy and lazy, as you can doubtless tell just by looking! But without God's help I shall always be these things. God knows what I'm like – it's no surprise to Him. But I need to face up to the fact that I'm like that, and ask God to help me change.

And, of course, we need to let go of anything someone else has done that has hurt us, to forgive them. And that can be horrendously difficult, too, especially if you're still angry at them. Again, it's not really something you can do by yourself – you need God's help to do it. God can take the anger and the hurt and even the hatred, and transform it – but you have to be willing to give it to him, and sometimes you have to start by asking for help to make you willing to let go of it! That's all part of confession.

And sometimes, it's God himself who we need to forgive. Which sounds awful, but what about those times when something awful happens and we don't know why? I know there have been times in my life when bad things have happened, and I've been very angry with God. Who, thankfully, doesn't mind – admitting our anger is, as always, part of confession.

And sometimes, of course, it's ourselves we need to forgive. We find it very hard to accept we are the kind of person who can snap at others, or who can waste a lot of money in the shops, or on on-line gambling sites, and when we catch ourselves doing something like that, we feel we've let ourselves down, and we find it very hard to put it behind us and allow God to help us carry on. Again, admitting that is part of confession.

The second part, the repentance, isn't just about saying “Sorry” to God, although that's where it starts. It's about turning right round, and going God's way rather than our own way. This may well involve changes in our behaviour, but mostly it involves changes in our deepest being, in who we are, in what's important to us. And that doesn't happen overnight, of course, and won't happen at all without God's help.

We're not just telling God how ghastly we are and promising to change in our own strength. We're asking God to help us grow and change. If we try to change in our own strength, we shall surely fail. Sometimes we get it twisted, and think we have to make ourselves perfect before we can come to God – er no. We must come to God exactly as we are, and allow Him to come into our deepest levels and help us to grow perfect. It won't happen overnight, but as long as we are open to God, it will happen.

It occurred to me that sometimes we feel really weighed down with things that come between us and God – the old classic “Pilgrim's Progress” depicted the Christian as having to carry a huge burden which rolled away when he came to the Cross of Christ.

So what I've done is collected some stones – just ordinary stones from the beach – and I hope you took one when you came in. If not, get one now. The stones are to represent all that weighs down your relationship with God, whether it's a bad habit, an addiction you can't overcome, a personality trait you really dislike in yourself, or whatever. It doesn't matter what – you know, and God will know. So I want you to sit and hold your stone, we'll have a little time of silence and then the worship group will sing.

And when you know what your stone represents, you're going to give it to God! We'll collect the stones, and as you put them in the bowl, give God all the bad habits and the things that are worrying you and weighing down your relationship with him. And then we will gather round the table and receive the ashes on our foreheads if we wish, as a sign of repentance – and then receive Holy Communion as a sign that we are forgiven. And then, my friends, we can go into Lent rejoicing! Amen!

What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

We don't always remember this in our day and age, but Jesus was a Jew. This seems obvious when I say it, but we don't often think through the implications of it. And one of the implications is that every Sabbath day, he went to worship at the local synagogue, wherever he found himself. Normally at home in Nazareth, but when he was on the road, he went local.

And here, in Mark's Gospel, Jesus is at the very beginning of his ministry. Mark tells us that he has been baptised, and then gone into the desert to think through the implications of this, to work out what it means to be “God's beloved Son, in whom he is well pleased.” He was tempted, and learnt what was and was not the right thing to do with his divine power.

And then John, his cousin, was put in prison and Jesus knew the time had come to start his own ministry in good earnest. He came out of the desert, and picked up Andrew and Peter and one or two others – we know from John's gospel that Andrew and Peter had been followers of John before this – and then, on the Sabbath, he finds himself in Capernaum, about 20 miles as the crow flies from his home town of Nazareth. So they all go to the synagogue there.

Now, one of the things about synagogue worship was that – is that, I should say, as I understand it is much the same today – is that you don't have to have a trained preacher up there, but almost any adult – adult males, in many synagogues, but some welcome women, too – can get up on his hind legs and expound the Scriptures. And visitors were very often asked to read the Scripture passage for the day as a way of honouring them, and it was quite “done” to comment on it. You might remember Jesus goes home to Nazareth at one stage and is asked to read the Scriptures there, with rather disastrous results. But not on this occasion.

What happens here, though is equally unexpected. Someone with an evil spirit is there, and the evil spirit recognises Jesus, and causes its host to cry out, interrupting whatever Jesus was saying or reading, to cry out: “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

“What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

It's a good question, isn't it? What does Jesus want with us? Why does he come, interrupting our nice, peaceful church services? Why does he come, interrupting our nice, peaceful lives? What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

Of course, the answer is going to be different for each and every one of us. And yet there are some universal truths.

Firstly, I think, he answers “I want you to let me love you.”

To let him love us. That sounds as though it ought to be a no-brainer, but in fact, it can be very difficult to allow ourselves to be loved. And we tend not to look at it that way round, anyway. We think it's our business to love God – I am not quite sure what we think God's business is, but we don't always expect him to love us. And yet, how can we love unless he loved us first?

There's a story you may have heard before, told by the theologian and writer Gerard Hughes, in which he describes an image of God that many of us may have grown up with; a God who demanded our love and attention, and threatened us with eternal damnation if he didn't get it. And we ended up telling God how much we loved him, while secretly hating him and all he stood for, but terrified of not appearing to love him, because of the eternal damnation. We weren't told, or if we were told, we didn't hear, the first bit, which is that God loves us! God loves us so much that he knows quite well we can't possibly love him first. “We love, because He first loved us,” we are told. His love comes first. We need to let him love us. That's the first answer to the question, “What do you want of us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

“I want you to let me love you.”

And the second answer is “I want you to let me heal you.”

Healing. It's a bit of a vexed question, isn't it? We know that healings happened in the Scriptures, and we know that they can and do happen today, but we rarely seem to see any. We do see miraculous physical healings now and again, and we thank God for them as, indeed, we thank God when people are healed through modern medicine. But our bodies are going to wear out or rust out one day, whatever we do. We aren't designed to live forever on this earth, in these bodies, and they will eventually come to the end of their usefulness to us. But Scripture teaches that we will be raised from death in a new body, so it makes sense to me that the parts of us that make us “us”, if you like, are the parts that need healed. Our emotions, our personality, our memories. Things that have screwed us up in our pasts, that we find hard to get beyond. I believe Jesus always heals us when we ask, but we usually get the healing we really need, not necessarily the one we thought we wanted!

Also, while our language differentiates between healing and forgiveness, Jesus doesn't seem to so much. Remember the paralysed bloke whose friends let him down through the roof? Jesus' first words to him were “Your sins are forgiven!” which was what healed him. We need to be forgiven our sins, we need to be healed of being a sinner, if you like. We need to be changed into someone who can love God, and who can step away from sin – and we'll never do that without Jesus, let me tell you. We need to be healed so that we can become the person God created us to be. “I want you to let me heal you.”

“What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

“I want you to let me love you.

I want you to let me heal you.

And I want you to let me fill you with the Holy Spirit!”

To be filled with God's Holy Spirit. According to the Bible, this isn't an optional extra, it's an absolutely central part of being a Christian. Remember the believers at Antioch, who were asked whether they'd received the Holy Spirit when they were baptised, and they were like, “You what? What's the Holy Spirit?” and Paul had to re-explain the Gospel to them. It turned out they'd only got as far as John's baptism of repentance, not the baptism into a new life with Christ. So far as Paul is concerned, receiving the Holy Spirit is an absolutely central part of being a Christian.

Makes sense, really, when you think about it. Because if we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are filled with God Himself, and can be loved and healed and made whole, and God Himself can direct our lives, never forcing, never compelling, but always asking and reminding us, and enabling us. We need to be filled with God's Holy Spirit if we are to grow and change into the people God designed us to be.

“What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

Of course, at that time the question was inappropriate, as was the follow-on of: “I know who you are, the holy one of God!” because Jesus was only just at the start of his ministry. He wasn't ready to become universally known, and anyway, he could sense that that which asked the questions had no interest in wishing him well. So he did the only possible thing, which was to command the evil spirit to come out of its host, which it did, and when the host recovered, all was well. But, of course, stories like this spread around, and Mark tells us that Jesus' fame in the area began to grow.

“What do you want of us, Jesus of Nazareth?” The question still resonates down the years, and I think the answers are still the same as ever: “I want you to let me love you. I want you to let me heal you. I want you to let me fill you with the Holy Spirit.” What is your answer? What is mine?

Will you let Jesus love you? Will you let Jesus heal you? Will you let Jesus fill you with his Holy Spirit? Amen.

God's Extravagance

Some years ago now, when my daughter got married, my husband and I went to France to buy the sparkling wine they'd chosen for toasts and so on, and they ordered the rest of the wine on sale or return from Majestic or one of those. Of course, frantic panic and calculations about how much to get – but we all got it right, and there was plenty but not enough, as my daughter said, to be worth sending back! So we shared out what was left among the various families, and very nice it was, too! But wouldn't it have been awful if we'd got it wrong?

And, in our Gospel reading for today, that is exactly what happened The wine ran out. I gather that wedding parties in those days tended to go on for about three days, and it isn't clear at what stage the wine ran out; probably towards the end of the festivities. We aren't told why, either. Perhaps the wine merchant let them down, or perhaps her relations drank more than the bridegroom's family had expected, or perhaps they just didn't calculate properly. Who knows? Anyway,they ran out of wine. Total embarrassment and despair, and probably a great deal of fury going on behind the scenes.

But among the wedding guests were a very special family. Mary, the carpenter's widow from Nazareth, and her sons. Cana isn't very far from Nazareth, only about twelve miles, but that's quite a good day's journey when you have to rely on your own two feet to get you there. So it's probable that either the bride or the groom were related to Mary in some way, especially as she seems to have been told about the disaster with the wine.

And then comes one of those turning-point moments in the Gospels. Mary tells her eldest son, Jesus, that the wine has run out.

Now, as far as we can tell, Jesus is only just beginning to realise who he is. John's gospel says that he has already been baptised by John the Baptist, which implies that he has been out into the desert to wrestle with the implications of being the Messiah – and the temptations which came with it, and John also tells us that Simon Peter, Andrew and some of the others have started to be Jesus' disciples and had come with him to the wedding. But, in this version of the story, Jesus hasn't yet started to use his divine power to heal people and to perform miracles, and he isn't quite sure that the time is right to do so. So when his mother comes up and says “They have no wine,” his immediate reaction is to say, more or less, “Well, nothing I can do about it! It isn't time yet!”

His mother, however, seems to have been ahead of Jesus for once, on this, and says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you!” And Jesus, who was always very close to God, and who had learnt to listen to his Father all the time, realises that, after all, his mother is right and the time has come to start using the power God has given him. So he tells the servants to fill those big jars with water – an they pour out as the best wine anybody there has ever tasted. As someone remarked, right at the fag-end of the wedding, when people are beginning to go home and everybody has had more than enough to drink, anyway.

I don't suppose the bridegroom's family were sorry, though. Those jars were huge – they held about a hundred litres each, and there were six of them. Do you realise just how much wine that was? Six hundred litres – about eight hundred standard bottles of wine! Eight hundred.... you don't even see that many on the supermarket shelves, do you? Eight hundred.... I should think Mary was a bit flabber-gasted. And it was such good quality too.

Okay, so people drank rather more wine then than we do today, since there was no tea or coffee, poor them, and the water was a bit iffy, but even still, I should think eight hudnred bottles would last them quite a while. And at that stage of the wedding party, there's simply no way they could have needed that much.

But isn't that exactly like Jesus? Isn't that typical of God? We see it over and over and over again in the Scriptures. The story of feeding the five thousand, for instance – and one of the Gospel-writers points out that it was five thousand men, not counting the women and children – well, in that story, Jesus didn't provide just barely enough lunch for everybody, quite the reverse – there were twelve whole basketsful left over! Far more than enough food -all the disciples could have a basketful to take home to Mum.

Or what about when the disciples were fishing and he told them to cast their nets that-away? The nets didn't just get a sensible catch of fish – they were full and over-full, so that they almost ripped.

It's not just in the Bible either – look at God's creation. You've all seen pictures of the way the desert blooms when it rains – look at those millions of flowers that nobody, for a very long time, ever knew were there except God. Or look at how many millions and millions of sperm male animals produce to fertilise only a few embryos in the course of a lifetime. Or where lots of embryos are produced, like fish, for instance, millions of them are eaten or otherwise perish long before adulthood. And millions and millions of different plant and animal species, some of which are only now being discovered.

Or look at the stars – have you, perhaps, been watching this Stargazing Live programme this week with Brian Cox and Dara Ó Briain? All those millions upon millions of stars, many with planets, some with planets like our own that may even hold intelligent life..... God is amazing, isn't He? And just suppose we really are the only intelligent life in the Universe? That says something else about God's extravagance in creating such an enormous Universe with only us in it! Our God is truly amazing! And who knows, somewhere, in a galaxy far away, God might be being worshipped by beings who are far different from us – perhaps they are five feet square, one inch thick, and ripple! Or perhaps they are more like plants than like people.... who knows? Apart from God, nobody knows! But it's fun to speculate.

But there's a more serious side to this than just science fiction, much though I love it. The point is, doesn't an extravagant God demand an extravagant response from us? His most extravagant act, so far as we know, was to come down to earth as a human being, a tiny baby, born in an obscure village in a dusty corner of the world, totally helpless, totally vulnerable.... our own celebrations of Christmas, no matter how over-the-top, don't even begin to come close!

And yet our response is, so very often, "meh!"; lukewarm! We tend to give God the minimum, rather than the maximum – that's much too scary! And yet we're told that the measure we give will be given back to us, pressed down, shaken together and running over! As the response to our Psalm reads, “How abundant is your goodness, O Lord.”

We hold back. We follow God only a little bit. We don't dare give the full tithe, the full ten percent, because we think that in times of recession we can't afford to. Or we think it doesn't apply to us. Well, I'm not one to preach prosperity theology, but God does promise all sorts of blessings on us, material or otherwise, if we bring in the full tithe.

Or, perhaps we do follow God whole-heartedly – but we see Christianity as a matter of judgementalism, of a God who seeks excuses to condemn people, rather than excuses to forgive them. We see people proclaiming in the media, or on Facebook, or elsewhere that God hates a given group of people – usually gay people, or women who have abortions. Such nonsense – how can he hate those he came to die for? He may or may not approve of their actions, but – well, he doesn't approve of everything we do, either. We too are sinners, and know that we are!

Would our extravagant God, the one who produced eight hundred bottles of top-quality wine at the tail end of a party, would that God really be mean-minded? Yes, we have seen from Scripture that God can be extravagant in his judgements as well as in his gifts, but not, normally, against people who are trying to follow him as best they know how. It is those who turn against God, who follow false gods, and who, worse still, encourage other people to do the same, they are the ones who come under judgement.

Sometimes, though, we can't respond extravagantly to God's extravagance because we are afraid to allow God to be extravagant with us! Maybe we'd be asked to do something we really don't want to do.... or live somewhere we don't want to live, or.... you know the scenario. But, my friends, if an extravagant God calls you to do something extravagant for him, won't he give you extravagantly, abundantly, the strength and, yes, the desire, to do it?

Jesus came, he told us, so that we can have life, and have it abundantly! Abundantly. Are we allowing God to be extravagant in our lives? Am I? Are you? Amen.

Echoes - Matthew chapter 2

This is an edited version of a sermon first preached some years ago. It doesn't feel right to just preach on the Epiphany without mentioning its aftermath.

The story of the coming of the Magi and the flight into Egypt, from Matthew’s Gospel, is really rather strange.

It’s certainly not found elsewhere;

in fact, Luke’s version of events is so different you sometimes wonder whether they are talking about the same thing.

Here we are, in Matthew,

finding the Holy Family living in Bethlehem,

fleeing to Egypt,

and then settling in Nazareth,

well out of reach of Herod’s descendants.

But Luke tells us that the family lived in Nazareth in the first place,

went to Bethlehem for the census,

and, far from avoiding Jerusalem,

called in there on their way back to Nazareth!

And, indeed, went there each year for the festivals –

I wonder, don’t you, whether they stayed with Mary’s cousin Elisabeth

and whether Jesus and John played together as children?

Not that it matters.

We all rationalise the two stories into one,

and add our own extraneous bits –

the ox and the ass, for instance,

are figments of people’s imaginations, not part of the Luke’s account.

Even the stable – the manger may well have been separating the dwelling-house from the animal-house, rather than in a separate stable as we envisage it.

But from Matthew’s telling of it, the Holy Family lived in Bethlehem anyway and didn’t need to use a stable!

And they were probably astrologers, not kings,

and Matthew doesn’t actually say how many there were!

He doesn't even specify that they were male, although they probably were. The word “Magi” just means “wise ones”.

And do you really think people kept bursting into song,

like they do in Luke’s gospel?

I rather think that Luke, like Shakespeare, was writing what he thought they ought to have said, rather than what they actually did say!

But both Gospels –

for both Mark and John choose not to start with Jesus’ birth,

but at the start of his ministry –

both Gospels agree that Jesus was born to a virgin,

was conceived in her by the Holy Spirit in some way we simply don’t understand.

And they both agree that he was born in Bethlehem,

to a mother named Mary and a father named Joseph.

Both gospels also provide a genealogy for him,

tracing him right back to Adam in St Luke’s case,

and only as far back as Abraham in St Matthew’s case!

And occasionally tracing by different routes.

And both agree that the baby Jesus was visited by outsiders, by people who were not from the religious establishment of the day.

The shepherds were apparently outsiders, not accepted in Jewish society.

And the Magi, of course, were foreigners, outsiders, not even Jewish.

Similarities, differences – it doesn't really matter, as I said.

The Bible people were not writing to modern standards of historical accuracy, but they are still telling us true stories, however they might vary in detail.

It’s what they are telling us that matters, not the historical details!

Have you ever noticed, too, that Luke’s version of events is from Mary’s point of view, but Matthew is telling us it from Joseph’s?

Luke shows us Gabriel going to Mary and saying “Hail, thou that art highly favoured;

blessed art thou among women!”

But Matthew shows us Joseph’s reaction to the news that Mary was expecting a baby and it wasn’t his –

he could have discarded her publicly and left her with no other resource than to go on the streets.

But he didn’t.

He decided he’d end the betrothal quietly, with no public scandal.

And then he listened to the angel who said that he should marry her anyway.

I think I rather like Joseph, don’t you?

He comes across as someone who’s willing to listen,

and to change his mind.

He comes across as someone who listens to God,

and is prepared to accept that God speaks to him in dreams.

In our reading today, again, Joseph listens.

He acts on what he hears –

he takes his family and flees to Egypt,

and when he is told it is safe, he brings them home again,

only to Nazareth, not Bethlehem.

But this whole story that we heard read to day has echoes in the Old Testament, doesn’t it?

And it echoes down the years.....

There is Israel going down into Egypt

and being called up out of Egypt in the Exodus as God's son (hence the quotation from Hosea in verse 15),

but we also have echoes of when Pharaoh tried to kill Hebrew infants

which led to Moses being hidden the bulrushes.

Jewish legends about this event also have dream warnings

just as we have here

and I expect Matthew knew about them when he was writing the story.

At that, wasn’t there another Joseph who knew all about hearing God’s voice in dreams?

What these echoes do is to root the story in history.

The provide a setting for Jesus, if you like.

Sending Jesus wasn’t just something God decided to do totally randomly –

he was firmly rooted in the history of the Jews, who were expecting a Messiah.

Matthew, who is thought to have been Jewish, is trying to show how the Scriptures led down to this moment.

Rather like, if you will, when Jesus explained the Scriptures to Cleopas and his wife on the road to Emmaus, so they were able to see that they pointed to Jesus, and to the Resurrection.

For Matthew, all the Scripture quotations act as proof that Jesus is who He claimed to be.

It’s not the sort of thing scholars nowadays consider proof,

but that doesn’t matter.

For Matthew, as for all Jewish scholars of the time,

that was how you proved things:

was there a relevant quotation in the Scriptures?

He wants to set the Messiah in context.

And showing that history is repeating itself:

a new Pharaoh killing the babies, a new Joseph listening to dreams, a new journey into Egypt, and a new Exodus out of it.

And it echoes down to our own day, doesn’t it –

refugees, people fleeing in terror of their lives, genocide....

it never ends.

The magi –

wise men, astrologers, it’s thought –

came to Bethlehem to worship the new-born infant,

and we are invited to do the same.

But we don’t just worship him as a baby –

it’s not just about watching a child grow and develop, and applauding when he does something really clever, like I do with young James.

Actually, he has learnt to applaud himself when he's done something he considers clever, but never mind that now.

No, worshipping the Baby at Bethlehem involves a whole lot more than that.

It’s about worshipping Jesus for Who He became, and what he did.

We kneel at the cradle in Bethlehem, yes –

but we worship the Risen Lord.

We celebrate Christmas, not just because it’s Jesus’ birthday,

although that, too,

but because we are remembering that if Jesus had not come,

he could not come again.

And he could not be “born in our hearts”, as we sing in the old carol.

We worship at the cradle in Bethlehem,

but we also worship Jesus all year round,

remembering not only his birth,

but his teachings,

his ministry,

the Passion,

the Resurrection,

the Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

And we worship, not only as an abstract “Thing” –

what was that song:

“I will celebrate Nativity, for it has a place in history....” –

it’s not just about worshipping a distant divinity,

but about God with us:

Emmanuel.

Jesus, as a human being, can identify with us.

He knows from the inside what it is like to be vulnerable, ill, in pain, tempted.....

From the story of the flight into Egypt, we see him as a refugee, an asylum-seeker, although he was just a baby, or perhaps a small boy at the time.

From the story that Joseph chose deliberately to settle his family in the sticks, far away from civilisation, we see Jesus as living an ordinary, obscure life.

His father, Joseph, was, we are told, a carpenter, although in fact that’s not such a great translation –

the word is “Technion”, which is basically the word we get our word “technician” from.

A “technion” would not only work in wood,

but he’d build houses –

and design them, too.

He was a really skilled worker,

not your average builder with his trousers falling off.

Jesus would have been educated, as every Jewish boy was,

and probably taught to follow his father’s trade.

After all, we think he was about 30 when he started his ministry,

and he must have done something in the eighteen years since we last saw him, as a boy in the Temple.

God with us:

a God who chose to live an ordinary life,

who knows what it is to be homeless, a refugee;

who knows what it is to work for his living.

Who knows what it is to be rejected, to be spat upon, to be despised.

Who knows what it’s like to live in a land that was occupied by a foreign power.

This, then, is the God we adore.

We sing “Joy to the World” at this time of year, and rightly so,

for the Gospel message is a joyful one.

But it is so much more than just a happy-clappy story of the birth of a baby.

It is the story of the God who is there.

God with us.

Emmanuel. Amen.