Becoming Human

Genesis 2:18-25

The Old Testament reading today was about God, and a Man, and, ultimately, a Woman.

It starts when God had nearly finished His creation. In this version, he hasn't made humankind as male and female, but he has made all the animals birds and the first Man. And the Man is in the Garden, but he is alone. God shows him all the animals and all the birds, and gets him to give them names. There are horses to ride, to help with hunting. There are cattle to milk, and to pull the plough, and to give meat and leather. There are sheep to provide wool, milk and meat. Goats, too, provide milk. Then there are chickens and ducks of various kinds for eggs. There are deer for hunting, and other game, too – even wild boar, although perhaps not domesticated pigs. There are cats to catch mice. But there are no companions. Even the dogs, faithful and friendly as they are, helpful in the hunt as they are, aren't real companions. They don't think the same way as Man does.

“Well,” says God, “If none of these will do – and I quite see that they won't – there is only one thing for it!”

And he causes Man to sleep and from his body creates Woman. The perfect companion to Man, who will work alongside him. Together they will create and raise children. Together they will run their home, perhaps doing different things, but alongside one another, equal with one another. In each generation, the man will leave his parents' home and make a new home with his wife.

Or that was the general idea! Of course, we know that on one level these are only stories, what we call creation myths to explain the origin of humans, and of our relationship with God. We know that humankind originated in Africa's Rift Valley, not in the Middle East. We know that farming, which did originate in the Middle East, came only after who knows how many generations of hunter-gatherers. We know that animals have different names in different languages, and the universal Latin names were only given in the last century or so. We even know that these stories were not written down until comparatively late.

But on another level, of course, they are profoundly true. They are about us, and about our relationship with our creator. In the next chapter, we learn about how it all went horribly wrong, how humanity disobeyed the creator and has never been really comfortable with him, or with itself, ever since. Again, stories that explain this that are, on one level, only stories and on another level profoundly true.

And it did go horribly wrong, didn't it? Because the Woman was created last, after all the animals and birds, and after the Man, she has been seen down the centuries as somehow inferior; her role, instead of being different-but-equal, was seen as very much there to serve. Not helped, of course, by the misapprehension that she was just the soil in which a man planted his seed, rather than contributing equally to the genetic material of the next generation.

And the picture of marriage that was painted in these stories hasn't quite worked out, either, has it? Jesus said, in our gospel reading, that Moses had had to allow a law permitting divorce because there were times when it simply didn't work out. But how many women have been able to leave a husband who abused them, physically or mentally? In how many cultures has the man been able to get a divorce on a whim, but a woman must stick to her marriage no matter how ghastly it is. Quite apart from anything else, throughout much of history the only alternative has been a life on the streets.

Even today in the United States there is a worrying trend to try to take control of a woman's fertility away from her, and place it in the hands of men, as though it wasn't her own body. In some states they are trying to make it illegal for a doctor to say if there's something wrong with the baby she's carrying, in case she should decide to have an abortion – but of course, they aren't, as far as I know, making appropriate provision for care and support of badly disabled children. You remember the row the other week when a senator blithely repeated that old, and untrue, chestnut that you can't get pregnant from being raped. Sigh....

It all sounds frightfully doom-and-gloom, doesn't it? I don't mean to sound that way, because, of course, there are so many cases when things have gone right, when people have been happily married for years, supporting one another and alongside one another, just as seems to be the Biblical ideal. I only have to look at my own parents, who, three weeks ago, celebrated 60 years of married life together, and got a card from the Queen. Which is pretty amazing really – not the card from the Queen bit, of course, but the rest of it.

But I'm also sure that, if you asked them, they would say – reluctantly, as that generation doesn't really care to speak of its faith – that part of it has been their kneeling together side-by-side in worship several times a month in Church. Part of it. And I'm not saying you can't have a successful marriage without being a Christian, which would be an extremely stupid thing to say and easily disprovable; I am, however, saying that I am sure this is part of it.

But it's the same for all of life, really. We make a pretty good job of being human without God, but we seem to make a much better job of it with God.

On the other hand, we have done some dreadful things in God's name – crusades and jihads being the least of them. Those abuses of women I just talked about? Done in God's name. Slavery – done in God's name. Even apartheid was originally set up in God's name; people genuinely believed that God wanted people of different skin colour to live separately. 

And from that, a small step to thinking that they are somehow different or inferior.

Ridiculous to our modern way of thinking, of course, but I'm sure you will tell me that the effects of such thinking linger on to this day. And think of the cultural damage that missionaries, no matter how well-meaning, have done – it's only really in the last twenty or thirty years that we have begun to hear hymns that have their origins in other cultures.

I could go on and on. And that's just humanity in general. Shall we come to us in particular? Hmmm, let's not, and say we did! I don't know about you, but I don't like facing up to the fact that I'm not perfect, and that I have to admit that to myself in God's presence. But why would I be special? Humankind, down the years, has done some appalling things. We read of appalling atrocities in our newspapers every morning – some of them, alas, done in God's name, even today. I am not different or special. It's only through God's grace that I haven't done dreadful things, and at that, maybe I have. Not newspaper-headline dreadful, but hurting people, putting myself first all the time, that sort of thing.

Because that's what it's all about, isn't it? About putting ourselves first, which all of us do, all the time. It's only natural. Look at a baby asleep in its pram – it doesn't have the first idea that the world doesn't revolve around it, with people running to do its bidding whenever it expresses displeasure at its current state! My little grandson is just over two, and is only now beginning to learn this. He has to learn to share his toys and to take turns; he is learning, slowly, that when Mummy or Daddy are working at home and the door is shut, they can't give him their attention – but that doesn't stop him asking, sometimes.

As we grow up, we are supposed to learn that the world doesn't revolve around us. But our natural inclination is always to put ourselves first. And yet we know, from the Bible and other sources, that this isn't really the way to true humanity, true happiness. We just think it is.

One of the quarrels I have with evangelical Christianity is that it does make the good news start “You are a sinner!” And my sermon today has done that, rather, hasn't it?

But, of course, that's not where I want to leave it. We all know we are sinners, we know that we're always going to put ourselves first if we get half a chance, and sometimes we do dreadful things, even if we say it's in God's name. We know that.

But we also know that we are saved. That God loved his creation so much that he came down to live as one of us. He knows what it's like to be human. And his death in some way assures us that we are loved and forgiven. And the Holy Spirit indwells us, if we allow him to, and enables us to live far more in the way that God intended – in harmony with ourselves, with each other, with our world, and with God. Amen.

Wisdom

Jesus says: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

Wisdom says: “Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and you will live.”

“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

“Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and you will live.”

They sort of resonate, don't they? At least, they do for us, since we are used to thinking of bread and wine as the Body and Blood of Christ when we make our communions; and however we understand it, we are used to hearing “This is my Body, given for you,” and “This is my Blood, shed for you,” every time the Sacrament is celebrated.

So when Jesus talks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, we don't really turn a hair. But it was very different for his first hearers – they would have had no idea that he would take the Jewish Friday-night ritual and lift it and transform it into something very different, yet essentially the same. For them, when he said, “You must eat of my flesh and drink of my blood,” what they thought was cannibalism.

And, of course, that was seriously offensive to them, as it would be to us.  Perhaps even more offensive than it would be to us, since we have no taboo against eating blood.  But the Jews, like the Muslims, do have a terrific taboo against it, believing that the “life is in the blood”, and so to them it is probably not only unheard-of to drink blood, but rather sick-making, too.  Whereas other cultures – the Masai – certainly, drink blood as a matter of routine.  And even we have our black puddings, although I think we’d blench at being offered a nice warm glass of fresh blood.

And, of course, there are things that we wouldn’t normally think of as food that other cultures eat routinely – think of the Chinese and their dogs and snakes, for instance.  Or even the French with their snails, which are actually delicious if you like garlic butter!  And I know that many West Indians follow the example of the Jews and Muslims and eat no pork, and probably feel rather sick at the thought, just as I expect Hindus do about eating beef.

I expect you remember that Jack Rosenthal play, “The Evacuees”, where the two Jewish children are presented with “delicious sausages” for their supper and expected to eat them.  And although they’ve been told and told that as it is a national emergency, they may eat food that is normally forbidden, they simply can’t bring themselves to try.  The taboo against eating pork runs so deep, for them, that they simply can’t overcome it.

And Jesus’ followers certainly felt most uncomfortable at his words.  To start with, they simply couldn’t understand what he was on about:  “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  Visions, there, of Jesus cutting great chunks out of his arms, I shouldn’t wonder.  Or of people cutting up a dead body and preparing to eat it – in some cultures, that would be considered quite normal, and the correct way of honouring the dead, but not for the Jews, any more than for us.

We know, from later on in that same passage, that many of Jesus' followers found the whole thing too hard to stomach, quite literally, and abandoned him, and it appears that the rest of his followers stayed on in spite of, not because of, what he had said.

In fact, what Jesus had said appears very far from wise. But to those of his followers who did stay with him, and so down to us, it does echo, doesn't it, with the passage from Proverbs:

“Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and you will live.”

Wisdom, here, is personified as a woman. There is a lot more about her in the Bible, especially in Proverbs Chapter 8, of which we read only a small extract this morning. Listen to this, for instance:

“Her income is better than silver,

and her revenue better than gold.

She is more precious than jewels,

and nothing you desire can compare with her.

Long life is in her right hand

in her left had are riches and honour.

Her ways are ways of pleasantness,

and all her paths are peace.

She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her:

those who hold her fast are called happy.”

And then again:

“All the words of my mouth are just;

none of them is crooked or perverse.”

“I love those who love me,

and those who seek me find me.

With me are riches and honour,

enduring wealth and prosperity.

My fruit is better than fine gold;

what I yield surpasses choice silver.

I walk i the way of righteousness,

along the paths of justice,

bestowing wealth on those who love me

and making their treasuries full. . .”

The old testament writers tend to personify Wisdom, and even to identify her with God. Lady Wisdom, or Sophia, to use the Greek term, is very definitely one aspect of Who God is. Incidentally, it can sometimes be instructive to pray to God as “Lady Wisdom” - don't if it feels really awkward and unintuitive, but it is a valid form of address and some people find it helpful.

But what is the point of all this? What does it say to us this morning?

Well, I am irresistibly drawn to the first chapter of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians:

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
    the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.  Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,  but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”

“For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”

To the Jews, what Jesus said about eating his flesh and drinking his blood seemed the height of foolishness – and of disgustingness, too! Yet more foolish, perhaps, was that the Messiah, God's chosen one, should die a criminal's death – not just killed honourably in war, but put to death like a common criminal.

And yet, and yet. The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom; the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

It is only when we come to God in our weakness that God can act. If we try to know best, if we forge ahead without seeking God's will, then we will very probably come to grief.

I come back so often to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was so dreading the Cross – well, who wouldn't? He begged and prayed that he wouldn't have to go through with it, and it took him a long time, and an enormous struggle with himself, to come to the place where he could say “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.”

That may have seemed a foolish decision – the disciples certainly thought it was. How could it work for their teacher to allow himself to be put to death? How, indeed, could it work to eat his flesh and drink his blood? But the foolishness of God was wiser than human wisdom, and through the Cross, the ultimate foolishness, if you like, through the Cross we are saved. And through eating his flesh and drinking his blood in the Sacrament, and the other means of grace, of course, we learn to know him, and are made more like him.

There are many, many examples of what seems like foolishness by our standards that turned out not to be so when measured by God's. People like George Muller, who founded homes for orphan children in Bristol, and who was resolved not to ask anybody for help but to wait until God laid it on their hearts to do so. God always did, and people always responded – sometimes not until the very last minute, but I gather they simply never went hungry! The Overseas Missionary Fellowship, to this very day, doesn't publicise specific needs, and although there's a link on their website to enable you to give, if you wish, they don't push it. They trust God for all their income, even today.

So do we trust God's foolishness or do we try to rely on our own wisdom? I know I am far more inclined to rely on my own so-called wisdom; I'm always quite sure I know better than God! But I also know that I can't see round corners the way God can. What might seem the ultimate in foolishness to me may well turn out to be the best thing that could have happened!

“Come,” says my Lady Wisdom, “eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and you will live.”

So – shall we be wise with the wisdom of God? Shall we let go and trust God, or do we want to keep on knowing best? I know what I want to do, which is to trust God to be wiser than me. I don't always succeed, but that's what I want. What about you? Amen.

Mary Magdalene

Today, July the twenty-second, is the Feast of St Mary Magdalene, if you are the sort of church that celebrates that sort of thing. Which we aren't, of course, but nevertheless I can't resist having a look at Mary Magdalene today, because she is such an intriguing person. We know very little about her for definite:

Firstly, that Jesus cast out seven demons from her, according to Luke chapter 8 verse 2, and Mark chapter 16 verse 9.

From then on, she appears in the lists of people who followed Jesus, and is one of the very few women mentioned by name all the time.

She was at the Cross, helping the Apostle John to support Jesus' mother Mary.

And, of course, she was the first witness to the Resurrection, and according to John's Gospel, she was actually the first person to see and to speak to the Risen Lord.

And that is basically all that we reliably know about her – all that the Bible tells us, at any rate.

But, of course, that's not the end of the story. Even the Bible isn't quite as clear as it might be, and some Christians believe that she is the woman described as a “sinner” who disrupts the banquet given by Simon the Leper, or Simon the Pharisee or whoever he was by emptying a vial of ointment over his feet – Jesus' feet, I mean, not Simon's – and wiping it away with her hair. Simon, you may recall, was furious, and Jesus said that the woman had done a lot more for him than he had – he hadn't offered him any water to wash his feet, or made him feel at all welcome.

Anyway, that woman is often identified with Mary Magdalene, although some say it is Mary of Bethany, sister to Martha and Lazarus. Some even say they are all three one and the same woman!

So if even the Bible isn't clear whether there are one, two or three women involved, you can imagine what the extra-Biblical traditions are like!

Nobody seems to know where she was born, or when. Arguably in Magdala, but there seem to have been a couple of places called that in Biblical times. However, one of them, Magdala Nunayya, was on the shores of Lake Galilee, so it might well have been there. But nobody knows for certain.

She wasn't called Mary, of course; that is an Anglicisation of her name. The name was Maryam or Miriam, which was very popular around then as it had royal family connections, rather like people in my generation calling their daughters Anne, or all the Dianas born in the 1980s or, perhaps, today, the Catherines. So she was really Maryam, not Mary – as, indeed, were all the biblical Marys.

They don't know where she died, either. One rather splendid legend has her, and the other two women called Mary, being shipwrecked in the Carmargue at the town now called Saintes-Maries-de-la-mer, and she is thought to have died in that area. But then again, another legend has her accompanying Mary the mother of Jesus and the disciple John to Ephesus and dying there. Nobody knows.

And there are so many other legends and rumours and stories about her – even one that she was married to Jesus, or that she was “the beloved disciple”, and those parts of John's gospel where she and the beloved disciple appear in the same scene were hastily edited later when it became clear that a woman disciple being called “Beloved” Simply Would Not Do.

But whoever she was, and whatever she did or did not do, whether she was a former prostitute or a perfectly respectable woman who had become ill and Jesus had healed, it is clear that she did have some kind of special place in the group of people surrounding Jesus. And because she was the first witness to the Resurrection, and went to tell the other disciples about it, she has been called “The Apostle to the Apostles”. So what can we learn from her?

Well, the first thing we really know about her is that Jesus had healed her. She had allowed Jesus to heal her. Now, healing, of course, is as much about forgiveness and making whole as it is about curing physical symptoms. Mary allowed Jesus to make her whole.

This isn't something we find easy to do, is it? We are often quite comfortable in our discomfort, if that makes sense. If we allowed Jesus to heal us, to make us whole, whether in body, mind or spirit, we might have to do something in return. We might have to give up our comfortable lifestyles and actually go and do something!

What Mary did, of course, was to give up her lifestyle, whatever it might have been, and follow Jesus. We don't know whether she was a prostitute, as many have thought down the years, or whether she was a respectable woman, but whichever she was, she gave it all up to follow Jesus. She was the leader of the group of women who went around with Jesus and the disciples, and who made sure that everybody had something to eat, and everybody had a blanket to sleep under, or shelter if it was a rough night, or whatever. Mary gave up everything to follow Jesus.

Again, we quail at the thought of that, even though following Jesus may well mean staying exactly where we are, with our present job and our family.

But Mary didn't quail. She even accompanied Jesus to the foot of the Cross, and stood by him in his final hours. And then, early in the morning of the third day after he was killed, she goes to the tomb to finish off the embalming she hadn't been able to do during the Sabbath Day.

And we know what happened – how she found the tomb empty, and raced back to tell Peter and John about it, and how they came and looked and saw and realised something had happened and dashed off, leaving her weeping in the garden – and then the beloved voice saying “Mary!” and with a cry of joy, she flings herself into his arms.

We’re not told how long they spent hugging, talking, explaining and weeping in each other’s arms, but eventually Jesus gently explains that, although he’s perfectly alive, and that this is a really real body one can hug, he won’t be around on earth forever, but will ascend to the Father. He can’t stop with Mary for now, but she should go back and tell the others all about it. And so, we are told, she does.

She tells the rest of the disciples how she has seen Jesus. She is the first witness to the Resurrection, although you will note that St Paul leaves her out of his list of people who saw the Risen Lord. That was mostly because the word of a woman, in that day and age, was considered unreliable; women were not considered capable of rational judgement. At least Jesus was different!

So Mary allowed Jesus to heal her, she gave up everything and followed him, she went with him even to the foot of the Cross, even when most of the male disciples, except John, had run away, and she bore witness to the risen Christ.

The question is, of course, do we do any of these things? We don't find them comfortable things to do, do we? It was all very well for Mary, we say, she knew Jesus, she knew what he looked like and what he liked to eat, and so on.

But we don't have to do these things in our own strength. The Jesus who loved Mary Magdalene, in whatever way, he will come to us and fill us with His Holy Spirit and enable us, too, to be healed, to follow Him, even to the foot of the Cross, and to bear witness to His resurrection. The question is, are we going to let him? Amen.

Grief, healing and resurrection

 Note to self: Do check you have all the pages of the sermon before you leave the house.  It doesn't do to find the last 150 words or so are Not There!


“Your daughter is dead.  Why bother the Teacher any more?”
“Your daughter is dead.  Why bother the Teacher any more?”  Jairus was bringing Jesus to his home, to heal his daughter.  Not such a little girl now; she was twelve years old, probably expecting her parents to start thinking of a husband for her within the next couple of years – her culture, you were more or less grown-up at 13.  And then she fell ill.  Seriously ill.  The doctors were shaking their heads; nothing they could do.  

But there was this Teacher, Jesus of Nazareth they called him.  He was beginning to get a reputation locally for healing, as well as teaching.  What had Jairus to lose?  “When he saw Jesus,” we are told, “he fell at his feet.  He pleaded earnestly with him, ‘My little daughter is dying.  Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.’”  And Jesus agrees, and goes with him.

And while this is happening, here is the other person to be healed that day.  The one for whom twelve years was not so much a lifetime as a life sentence. The one with the haemorrhage. Twelve years of constant nagging, dragging pain. Twelve years of constant blood loss, of constantly feeling unwell, of constantly being tired and anaemic.
 
And nothing was helping. She’d spent all her money on seeing doctors, but they hadn’t been able to help, and the problem was, if anything, growing worse. She was becoming weaker, and knew that soon she would be too weak to carry on. Her life, too, was drawing to a close – and it may well be that she was profoundly grateful that it was happening.

But then, a rumour swept through the crowds. Jesus of Nazareth was visiting Capernaum today! Everybody had heard of Jesus of Nazareth. He had done some spectacular healings. Maybe, just maybe....

He was coming to look at Jairus’ daughter, the rich man’s kid.  Jesus wouldn’t look at the likes of a poor old woman, no doubt. She didn’t have any money. She didn’t have clout, like a synagogue leader. She was just a lonely old woman.

But the crowd was so huge that Jesus could barely walk up the street. The disciples were going, “Excuse me, excuse me, make way there now, oh would you please shift your – er – yourselves”, but progress was very slow. And the woman, caught up in the crowd, suddenly plucked up the courage and just, with one finger, touched his cloak.

And Jesus felt it. In all the crowd, with people everywhere, jostling and rubbing up against him, he felt that one deliberate touch. "Who touched me?" he asked. We aren't told the tone of voice he said it in. Sometimes, preachers seem to reckon he was irritated, angry even. I don't think so. I think he was full of compassion and love. He knew. He may not have known who she was, but he knew why she was hiding.

And yes, he did have time for her.  It wasn’t about money.  It wasn’t about social status.  It was about compassion.  And also, of course, it was about knowing that she was now well, that she could resume her rightful place in society.  That she would no longer be poorly all the time.  So he lifts her up: “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

And then they come out of Jairus’ house to tell him that it is too late.  “Your daughter is dead.  Why bother the Teacher any more?”

But Jesus was undaunted.  He grabbed his three closest associates and told everybody else to butt out.  And he reached out to her and held her hand. "Get up, little one!" he said. And she did. She woke up, yawned, and stretched, for all the world as if she had just been enjoying a lovely, refreshing nap. "Get her something to eat," Jesus said, what could be more practical? And he didn't want her surrounded by the media of the day all yelling at her and stressing her out, either, so he suggests the parents don't tell anybody.

Well yes.  And the story is a lovely, hopeful story  –  and we, here at King’s Acre, are having our antepenultimate service before we are closed down.  What has this story to say to us today, as we grieve for the death of our church?

It is about faith, of course.  It’s about not losing hope.  About not despairing.

Jairus must have despaired when they came out to him and told them  his daughter was dead.  Or perhaps he despaired before that, when the doctors told him there was nothing more they could do.  

The woman must have despaired long since, when the bleeding simply would not stop,  when the naggy, draggy pains in her uterus wouldn’t go away.  Maybe she had been a young woman, looking to start a family.  That wasn’t going to happen now.  She despaired.

But Jesus didn’t despair.  Not ever.  Not even in the Garden of Gethsemane.  It was pretty close, I think.  “ ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,’ he said to them. ‘Stay here and keep watch.’  Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. ‘Abba, Father,’ he said, ‘everything is possible for you.  Take this cup from me.  Yet not what I will, but what you will.’”

“Not what I will, but what you will.”  I wonder how much struggle it took for Jesus to get to the place where he could say that.  Quite a lot, I shouldn’t wonder.  It isn’t easy, is it?

I know when this thing of King’s Acre closing was first mooted, my immediate reaction was, “Look here, God, if you do that, I’m never speaking to you again!”  Mind you, on sober reflection I decided I couldn’t actually cope without God, so I changed it to, “If this is seriously what you want to happen, please make me willing to accept it!”

I do wish he’d hurry up!!!

Seriously, though, it’s all very well, isn’t it, reading these stories and thinking about them, and reminding ourselves that we do not need to despair.  Right now, I don’t know about you, but for me right now that feels like rather a huge ask.  

And yet the rational part of me knows  –  not just believes, KNOWS  –  that God is going to bring something great out of this.  I don’t know what, yet, and it is not yet time to even think of finding out.  But we know, as St Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans, that God works all things together for good for those who love him.  We also know that there is resurrection.  Even in nature.  Jesus said that if a seed didn’t fall into the ground and die, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  And look at caterpillars.  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.

I wonder what sort of butterfly we will become.  What sort of fruit we shall bear?

We don’t know yet.  And maybe now is not the time to find out.  Now, and these next two Sundays, is a time for grieving.  We need to grieve.  We need to acknowledge our emotions, our sadness, our anger, our whatever else we may be feeling.  That’s okay, and it’s right to be sad  –  even Jesus wept, you may remember, when his friend Lazarus died, even though he then went on to raise Lazarus from death.  He had no thought that there was anything wrong with grief.  Yes, he removed the mourners from the little girl’s bedroom, but that was basically so she wouldn’t be frightened when she woke up.  There was nothing wrong with grieving for her death.

But within all that we also need to be aware that there is hope.  There will be resurrection  –  perhaps not of King’s Acre as we know and love it, but of something.  In the Psalm we had for our first reading, we were reminded that:
“weeping may stay for the night,
   but rejoicing comes in the morning.

And the Psalm finished on a hopeful note, too, didn’t it:
“You turned my wailing into dancing;
   you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent.
   Lord my God, I will praise you for ever.”

Today we grieve, and it’s right and proper that we should.  But there will be resurrection.  God will remove our sackcloth and clothe us with joy.  It may not happen this month, maybe not even this year, but one day it will happen.  The woman who was bleeding had to wait for twelve solid years.  I don’t for one moment think we will have to wait so long  –  some of us can’t, anyway.  Let’s be on the lookout for it, whenever it happens!  Amen.

God's In Charge

It's a funny old story, isn't it, this story of Job. Do you know, nobody knows anything about it – what you see is totally what you get! Nobody knows who it was written, or when, or why, or whether it is true history or a fictional story – most probably the latter! Apparently, The Book of Job is incredibly ancient, or parts of it are. And so it makes it very difficult for us to understand. We do realise, of course, that it was one of the earliest attempts someone made to rationalise why bad things happen to good people, but it still seems odd to us.

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

And that, of course, is just exactly what happens. The children are all killed, the crops are all destroyed, the flocks and herds perish. And Job still remains faithful to God: “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

So then Satan says, well, all right, Job is still worshipping you, but he still has his health, doesn't he? I bet he would sing a very different tune if you let me take his health away!

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

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

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

Which, in the end, he gets. But not totally satisfactory to our ears, although they really are the most glorious poetry. We just had the first of the three chapters this morning, but Job chapters 38, 39 and 40 are the most glorious celebration of God's creation that there is! My father, indeed, says that when he dies, he wants Job chapter 39 to be read at his funeral, and I don't blame him, it really is lovely! Sit down and read them sometime, when you want to be cheered up!

But, of course, God's creation can be a frightening and terrible place sometimes – there are earthquakes and tsunamis and volcanoes and storms.... and in our second reading, there was a storm.

I've never been to the Holy Land, but some years ago now a minister in this circuit did go, and he said that while he was there, just such a storm blew up on the Sea of Galilee! He said he really understood this particular story for the first time ever.

The disciples were with Jesus, of course, but Jesus was asleep. He'd been teaching all day, and may well have been very tired. Or perhaps he felt a bit seasick, who knows? Whatever, there he is, curled up in the stern, head on a pillow, snoring. Well, we aren't actually told he was snoring, but people do very often snore if they fall asleep in uncomfortable positions – you should hear my grandson when he falls asleep in his pushchair! So Jesus might well have snored. Whatever, there he is, fast asleep....

And a storm blows up.

I don't know why the disciples were so scared; after all, Peter and Andrew and James and John were all fishermen, and knew all about Lake Galilee, so you would have thought they would have been able to cope. Perhaps the non-fishermen among them were frightened and hampering the fishermen in their work. Perhaps it was a smaller boat than they were used to, and the Bible does say that it was beginning to fill with water. Anyway, whatever, they are terrified. So they do the most sensible thing they can; they go to Jesus and wake him up, asking for help. And Jesus tells the winds and waves to be still. And they are still. The storm stops. The wind drops. The sun comes out. And Jesus says, “What were you so afraid of? Where is your faith?”

Now, that seems a nasty thing to say. After all, the disciples had seriously thought they were all going to drown, including Jesus. But the point was, he had been with them. They could have trusted him, in spite of appearances.

When it comes to God's creation, we are not in control. The disciples weren't in control of the weather conditions on the lake. And God reminds us in the book of Job that we aren't, either:

‘Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water?
Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, “Here we are”?'

But God is in control. God is always in charge, even when we are not. That's sometimes a comforting thought when things happen that are beyond our control. God is still in charge.

The Bible promises, in Romans chapter 8, that God works all things for good to those who love him.

Mind you, sometimes – frequently – it doesn't feel like that. When bad things happen, when someone gets a really nasty illness or dies out of time, when a relationship ends, when they close down your church, sometimes it feels as though God has kicked you in the face. But I've found, over the years, that most of the time that is not what has happened, only what it feels like. If I've gone on trusting God, and gone on trying to be his person in spite of everything – and right now this is being horrendously difficult for me – then I've usually found that in the very end God has worked things out. As I'm sure will happen this time, although I do wish he'd hurry up! God is never surprised by what is happening; God can always work things out, and will always work things out for good.

Now, some people have said that because God is always in control, and because he always does work things out, we should praise him and thank him even for the bad things. I don't see how we can do that – I mean, we know that God's heart breaks when a child is killed on the roads, or when an earthquake devastates a country. How are we supposed to give thanks for things that make God Himself weep?

I don't think it means that. I think it's more about having a thankful heart. About acknowledging God's good gifts to us. About – okay, if you like, about counting our blessings. We can't, and I don't think we should, thank God for the dreadful things – but we can be aware that God is there, in the midst of the dreadful things, and we can certainly thank him for that. We can be aware that in all things God does work for good for those who love him. And I think, too, we may ask to be shown exactly how God is working whatever dreadful situation it is for good.

The book of Job is an attempt to show why bad things happen to good people. And the only answer it can really come up with is that God is in control, and we are not.

It isn't always easy to let God be in control. Even our dear Lord struggled with it in the Garden of Gethsemane. But in the end he came to the place where he could say “Do it your way. Your will, not mine, be done!” and the result was that all the things we mean by the Atonement were able to happen.

It isn't easy. But when we have a God who controls even the winds and the waves, when we can trust him, when we can say “Your will, not mine, be done!”, then, I am sure, that in the words of Julian of Norwich, all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well. Amen.

Pentecost 2012

Between writing this on the Friday and preaching it on the Sunday we watched a television programme about a whole fieldful of skeletons discovered in Peru, so that was mentioned in context, as was a discussion we'd had about the trees on Clapham Common and their regeneration since the Great Storm of 1987!
 
Do you follow football? I know some people do. I don't, personally, but it's actually quite difficult to be totally ignorant of it! For instance, I do know that last week, Chelsea were playing Bayern Munich in the final of the UEFA cup, and Chelsea won on penalties. And I remember another UEFA cup final some years ago, which also starred Bayern Munich, who were playing, I think it was Manchester United. Anyway, Bayern Munich were winning and winning, and the poor Manchester United fans were quite despairing, and then suddenly, in the final moments of the game, Manchester United scored twice to win, quite unexpectedly. Somehow the spirit had come back into the team, and they were able to turn certain defeat into victory.

Also last Saturday it was the final of the Heineken Cup, and because Ulster were in the final, Robert treated himself to a ticket and went, but Ulster were never going to win, and were, in the end, very soundly thrashed. Robert said that the Ulster fans were leaving in droves before the match had even finished. The spirit had gone out of them.

It was like that for the field of bones in Ezekiel's vision. No spirit. Not even any flesh.

Can you imagine a field of bones? We’ve all seen skeletons on television, of course, and some of us may have visited ossuaries on the continent, which are usually memorials to soldiers who fell in the first world war, and they put the bones of soldiers who have got separated from their identity into the ossuaries to honour them. And the older ones among us may remember seeing pictures of a huge pile of bones in Cambodia after the Pol Pot atrocities of the 1970s.

I think Ezekiel, in his vision, must have seen something like that. A huge pile of skulls and bones…. “Son of man, can these bones live?”

And, at God’s command, Ezekiel prophesied to the bones, and then he saw the skeletons fitting themselves together like a jigsaw puzzle, and then internal organs and tendons and muscle and fat and skin growing on the bare skeletons. I’m sure I’ve seen some kind of computer animation like that on television, haven’t you? But for Ezekiel, it must have been totally weird, unless he was in one of those dream-states where it’s all rational.

But once the skeletons had come together and grown bodies, things were still not right.

It must have been a bit like those television programmes where they take someone's skull and build it up with clay to show you what they might have looked like – they never look very like anything, because they are not alive. There is no life in their eyes, no spirit.

And when they first started doing those CGI programmes about dinosaurs, the models were never very alive or realistic, although they've improved in recent years. But the early programmes had no life in them.

And that’s what Ezekiel saw in his vision – there were just so many plastic models lying there, no life, no spirit. Ezekiel had to preach to them again, and they eventually came to life as a vast army.

And then Ezekiel was told the interpretation of his vision – it was a prophecy of what God was going to do for Israel, which at the time seemed dead and buried. God was going to bring Israel back to life, to breathe new life into the nation, and put His Spirit into them.

Of course, the reason why this has been chosen as the Old Testament reading for today is that it is Pentecost. The day we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. The birth of the Church.

It was, of course, a Jewish festival. Even today it is still celebrated – they call it Shavuot, and according to a Jewish friend of mine, what you do is eat cheesecake – don't know why you should do that, but it is apparently the tradition to do so. The festival celebrated the coming of the Torah, the Law of Moses so it was a very appropriate day for the Holy Spirit to come.

But I wonder what it would have been like, up there in the upper room. They'd been told to wait, but they had no idea what they were waiting for. They had said a final goodbye to Jesus; they knew that if and when they would see him again, it would be very different. And they had been told that the Holy Spirit would come. I wonder what they thought that meant. Perhaps some gave up and went home, in despair. But a good 120 of them waited and waited, and when the day of Pentecost was fully come, the Spirit came.

It must have been a pretty dramatic visitation. The tongues of flame, the rushing mighty wind. And the immediate explosion of praise, and when they ran out of words those other words, words of praise that, in this instance, turned out to be words in "in our own native language?

Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs – in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." Thus the bystanders. They might not have seen the tongues of flame, or heard the rushing mighty wind, but they certainly saw the results.

Some were puzzled – were these people drunk, or what? So Peter, glorious, wonderful Peter, who never used to be able to open his mouth without putting his foot in it – they used to say he only opened his mouth to change feet – Peter jumps up and lets out this terrific bellow which shuts everybody up, sharpish. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no," he goes, "we're not on the sauce – come off it, it's only nine a.m., what do you take us for?" And he goes on to explain that this is what Joel was talking about, this is what they'd all been expecting. And, as you know, he preached so powerfully, and God's presence was so overwhelming, that three thousand people got converted that day alone!

Thus the story. We know it so well, don’t we? Every year, this passage from the book of Acts is read. We could probably quote a great deal of it off by heart, and the bits we can’t quote – all those nationalities, I can never remember them without looking – we know what they say, even if we don’t know the words!

One way of seeing it is that it’s the Church’s birthday. The day we celebrate the anniversary of the explosive growth from a tiny handful of believers – barely over a hundred – to several thousand, and on down the millennia to the worldwide organisations and denominations that is the Church today. But there again, that’s just history, rather like we celebrate our own birthdays.

Pentecost is more than that. I think that much of it is one of those things that doesn’t go into words very well – what is officially called a “mystery” – the Church’s word for something that words can never fully explain.

After all – a mighty wind, and what looked like tongues of fire? We know the damage that both wind and fire can do; we've seen it all too often. 1987 was a long time ago now, but I still remember clearly the devastation caused both by a fire at King's Cross Underground Station and a huge gale that destroyed vast swathes of woodland. Even today you can still see traces of the damage it caused, if you know where to look.

But the wind and flame from God were not sent to destroy, but to cleanse, to heal, and to empower. Some of the empowerment was pretty spectacular – the speaking in other languages, the healings, the preaching that brought thousands to Christ in one go.... some of it, of course, would have been less so. And then there were the other side-effects – the changes in people’s character to become more the people God meant them to be. The fruit of the Spirit – Paul, in his various letters, reminds us both of the various gifts he saw in use (the tongues, the prophecies, the healings and so on) and the fruits he saw develop in people’s characters: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control".

But above all, the Spirit gives life. Jesus said “I am come that you may have life, and have it abundantly!” In Ezekiel's vision, the Spirit of God breathed into the dry bones and both clothed them with flesh and then brought them to life.

For Ezekiel, it was a vision that God would breathe new life into the people of Israel.

This year is so horrendously difficult for us all, having to leave the churches that have been home to us for so many years. We don't know what the future holds, nor where or how we shall celebrate next Pentecost. Except I think I shall eat cheesecake – I like that idea!

But seriously, God is still God. The Holy Spirit still gives life. It's so sad, and scary and horrid – but God hasn't gone away. And the Spirit that inspired Peter's preaching that sunny morning in Jerusalem will lead us and guide us and give us life. God knows where we are needed and wanted, and will lead us there. Amen.

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.