Baptism and the Holy Spirit

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Today is the day that the Church celebrates the Baptism of Christ,

and when I first looked at the readings,

I quite thought I was going to be preaching on baptism.
But when you look more closely at the readings,

there is another theme that springs out –
and that is the Holy Spirit!

In our first reading, from Genesis, we are told that

“a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”
“A wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”
Other translations refer to the Spirit of God hovering,

or brooding,

over the face of the waters.
I rather love the image of brooding –
as though God’s Spirit were protecting the as-yet-unmade earth.

Then in our second reading, in Acts,

Paul realises that there is something missing in the believers at Antioch, and asks them whether they received the Holy Spirit when they were baptised.
And they are like, “Er, you what?”

not at all sure what he is talking about.
So he enquires a bit deeper,

and finds that they had not actually heard the full Good News about Jesus at all,

but had only got as far as John the Baptist.
So he has to give them a quick crash course on what salvation is all about,

so they can be baptised into Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit.

And our Gospel reading, of course,

is one of the passages that describes the baptism of Jesus,

and tells us that the onlookers,

or some of them, at any rate,

saw the Holy Spirit coming down on Jesus looking like a dove,

and they heard the Father speak from heaven:
“You are my Son, whom I love;
with you I am well pleased.”
Actually, Mark’s version, which is the one we heard today,

seems to imply that it was only Jesus who saw the Holy Spirit,

but other accounts say that the bystanders did, too.

In the beginning, God.
That says it all really, doesn’t it?
We know that God was responsible for the Creation of the World,

and that right there at the start,

the Holy Spirit was there, hovering, brooding, caring!

The Holy Spirit was there when the world was made.
The Holy Spirit was there when Jesus was baptised.
And the Holy Spirit came down on the believers, as we believe he still does today.
As Christians, we believe that the Holy Spirit is one of the Persons of the Trinity.
That is a rather formal way of saying it,

but it is one of those things that is difficult to put into words.
We worship one God, not three,

but we worship God the Father,

God the Son,

and God the Holy Spirit.
Or, if you prefer, God the Creator,

God the Redeemer,

and God the Sanctifier.

I don’t want to get into a long discussion of the Trinity here;
time enough to do that on Trinity Sunday!
All too easy to say the wrong thing.
All we really need to remember today is that the Holy Spirit is God,

just as the Father is God

and just as Jesus is God.
And that, when God works in us,

it is God the Holy spirit who “does the doing”, as it were;
someone once described him as “The executive arm of the Trinity”!

And we see Him “doing the doing” in our readings today.
We see Him hovering over the as-yet-uncreated earth,

brooding over it, protecting it.
We see Him descending on Jesus in the form of a dove,

affirming him and, I rather think, enabling Him for ministry.
And we see Him descending on those new believers in Acts, cleansing them, renewing them, gifting them and enabling them, too, to be Jesus’ people.

And, I hope, we see Him “doing the doing” in our lives today!

Earlier on, when I did that thing with the water,

it was a bit of a picture, wasn’t it?
First of all, I couldn’t pour water into the cup until I’d taken the lid off.
Then, there was rather a lot of stuff inside –
no room for any water.
Then, I needed to rinse the cup out before I could have a drink.
But once all that was done, the cup was fit for my use.
And that is what God the Holy Spirit did for the believers in Antioch –
through baptism, they were enabled to “take the lid off”,

be cleansed and made fit for service,

and then God could fill them and use them.

I hope we see Him cleansing us,

renewing us,

gifting us

and enabling us, too, to be Jesus’ people.
I hope we see those lovely characteristics that Paul described to the Galatians that a person who is filled with the Holy Spirit will have:
love,

joy,

peace,

patience,

gentleness,

goodness,

loving-kindness,

faith….

Not that we can probably see it in ourselves –
these qualities are always easier to see in other people than in ourselves.
But I hope we do see them in one another, too, and affirm each other in them.
After all, no matter how freely we are able to talk about our faith –
and for some of us, that comes easier than for others, I do know –
it is whether our lives match up to what we talk about that is important,

that either attracts or repels other people to Jesus.
If we say one thing, but do another,

then people are going to be turned off.
If we don’t behave the way Jesus describes His people as behaving –
always putting other people first,

always treating other people with the greatest possible respect for who they are,

not neglecting your family under the heading of “religious duty”,

and so on;
if we forget that, then maybe people will wonder whether faith is worth the effort!

I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if that wasn’t one of the reasons Paul recognised that the so-called believers in Antioch were actually nothing of the sort.
They were not allowing God the Holy Spirit to indwell them and it showed. Well, they couldn't, could they –

they had not heard of the Holy Spirit.
They weren’t acting like believers, if you like!
So Paul knew that something was wrong.
They were like the cup with the lid on –
there was no way God could use them.

Now, there are various ways we can react to this sort of sermon.
We can reckon it doesn’t apply to us –
God wouldn’t use us anyway.
But, in fact, that’s not true.
God can use you, wants to use you, and very probably already does use you, if you have made yourself available to be used.
If you are sincere in wanting to be God’s person, then God will use you.

You can also react to this sort of sermon by feeling guilty.
You feel that if only you were holier,

or more pious,

or a better Christian,

or even a better person,

God could use you more.
But that’s also not really a sensible response.
You see, it isn’t about you trying hard.
You don’t have to be perfect before God will come to you.
Rather the reverse –
after all, if you did have to be perfect,

that would rather negate the whole point of the Gospel!

My cup didn’t have to empty itself and clean itself before I could use it, did it?
I did all that.
And likewise, we don’t have to become perfect before God can use us.
All we have to do is to be willing to let God work in us,

be willing to co-operate with God, if you like.
God the Holy Spirit will, if we ask,

come and indwell us,

cleanse us,

fill us,

renew us,

make us whole –

and then we can be used.

God doesn’t just make us whole in order to use us, mind,

although that too.
God wants to make us whole so that we shall be whole.
Through the Holy Spirit, God makes us whole for our own sakes,

but by doing that, he enables us to be used.
We become the sort of person Paul described,

full of those qualities I mentioned earlier.
We leave behind the sort of qualities we aren’t supposed to have,

and develop the sort we are.

God the Holy Spirit was present at creation.
He, or She, if you like – the word used at creation, Ruach, is feminine –

was present when Jesus was baptised.
She was present when the believers of Antioch were baptised.
And She is present here with us, now, today.
Let us pray.

God our Father,

We confess that we have allowed ourselves to become empty,

Not filled with your Spirit, not fit for your use.

We pray that you will fill us anew, cleanse us, gift us, and make us whole, both for our sakes and so that you can use us in your service.

This we ask in the power of that same Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ your Son, who died for us.
Amen.

Be joyful always

I'm not putting the text up, as it was, in all but minor details, identical to that which I preached three years ago, which can be found here.



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Advent Sunday 2014

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So, Advent.

It’s almost an anomaly nowadays, isn’t it?
Out in the world, people are starting to celebrate Christmas already –
the shops have had their decorations up since the beginning of last month, or even earlier,

and the round of office parties, works celebrations, school festivities will be starting any day now.
And the endless tapes of carols and Christmas songs that are played in the shops, I should think they’d drive the shop assistants mad!

But here in Church, Christmas hasn’t started yet, and won’t for another four weeks.
We are celebrating Advent,

and it seems to be another penitential time, like Lent.
Those churches that have different colours for the seasons have brought out the purple hangings,

and many will have no flowers except for an Advent wreath.

But Advent is really a season of hope.
We look forward to “the last day when Christ shall come again”

to establish the Kingdom on earth.
We also look back to those who’ve been part of God’s story, including John the Baptist and Jesus’ Mother, Mary.

Today, though, our readings are about the coming King.

Our first reading, from the prophet Isaiah, tells how the prophet,

and perhaps the people for whom he was speaking,

longed and longed to see God in action.

“Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,

that the mountains would tremble before you!

As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil,

come down to make your name known to your enemies

and cause the nations to quake before you!”

Scholars think that this part of Isaiah was written very late,

after the people of Judah had returned from exile.
They would have remembered the stories of the wonderful things God had done in the olden days,

in the days of Abraham and Sarah,

of Isaac and Jacob,

of Moses,

and of David the King –
and then, they would have looked round and said

“But hey, why isn’t any of this happening today?”

They reckoned the answer must be because they were so sinful.

“You come to the help of those who gladly do right,

who remember your ways.

But when we continued to sin against them,

you were angry.

How then can we be saved?

All of us have become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,

and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

No-one calls on your name

or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us

and made us waste away because of our sins.”

It does sound very much as though the prophet were longing for God,

but somehow couldn’t find him, in the mists of human sinfulness and this world’s total abandonment of God.
You know, there’s nothing new –
we complain that people don’t want to seek God today,

and our churches stand empty,

but there was the prophet saying that thousands of years ago!

And, of course, as it turned out,

God hadn’t abandoned his people at all!
Jesus came to this earth, lived among us, and died for us,

and Isaiah’s people now knew the remedy for their sin.

But Jesus himself tells us, in our second reading,

that his coming to live in Palestine as a human being isn’t the end of the story, either.
Somehow, someday, he will come back again.
He obviously doesn’t know all that much about it while he is on earth,

and rather discourages us from speculation as to when or how.
But he draws pictures for us:

“The sun will be darkened,

and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,

and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.

“At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”

It is a scary thought, isn't it, with the world as unstable now as at any time in the past century.

What’s more today, as at no other time in history,

communications are such that if Jesus were to come back,

we’d know about it almost as soon as it happened –
look how quickly news spreads around the world these days.

Half the time you hear about it on Facebook or Twitter before the BBC has even picked up on it.
And Jesus' return would be something totally unmistakable.

But lots of generations before ours have thought that Jesus might come back any minute now,

and Christians throughout history have lived their lives expecting him to come home.
We have remembered Jesus’ warnings about being prepared for him to come, but He hasn’t come.
And we get to the stage where we, too, cry with Isaiah:

“Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,

that the mountains would tremble before you!”

Like Isaiah, we long and long to see God come and intervene in this world, and wish that He would hurry up.

And that’s perfectly natural, of course.
Some folk have even got to the stage of believing it won’t happen, and have given up on God completely.
But Jesus said it will happen,

and one has to assume He knew what he was talking about.

But that doesn’t mean that we can blame God –
if You had come back before now, this wouldn’t have happened.
Every generation has been able to say that to God,

and it’s not made a blind bit of difference.
So maybe there’s something else.

You see, in one way, Jesus has come back.
Do you remember what happened on the Day of Pentecost,

in that upper room?
God’s Holy Spirit descended on those gathered there,

looking like tongues of fire,

and with a noise like a rushing mighty wind,

and the disciples were empowered to talk about Jesus.
And we know from history,

and from our own experience,

that God the Holy Spirit still comes to us,

still fills us,

still empowers us.

One of the purposes of these so-called penitential seasons is to give us space to examine ourselves

and see if we have drifted away from God,

to come back

and to ask to be filled anew with the Holy Spirit.
Then we are empowered to live our lives

as Jesus would wish.

We don't have to struggle and strain and strive to “get it right” by our own efforts.
God himself is within us, enabling us from the inside.
Jesus doesn’t just provide us with an example to follow, but actually enables us to do it, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Robert and I very much enjoy ice dancing,

although we have never been very good, and as we get older,

we don't get any better, either!

Rather the reverse.

And no matter how hard we've worked, we've never been much good. But supposing somehow the spirit of a very good ice dancer could get inside us,

and actually make our bodies move in the right way,

and show us how it's done from the inside.

That would be so much better than anything our coach could tell us, or anything we can learn from watching videos.

We would be enabled to dance better.

And that’s what God does –
by indwelling us with his Holy Spirit,

He not only shows us what to do, but enables us to do it.

All of us will face the end of the world one day.

It might be the global end of the world, that Jesus talks about, or it might just be the end of our personal world.
We expect, here in the West, to live out our life span to the end, and many of us, I am sure, will do just that.
But we can’t rely on that.
You never know when terrorists will attack –
or even muggers, or just a plain accident.
We can’t see round corners;
we don’t know what will happen tomorrow.

But whether it is tomorrow,

or twenty, thirty, forty or fifty years from now,

one day we will die, and then, at last, we will meet Jesus face to face.
And we need to be ready.
We need to know that we have lived as God wants us to live –
and when we’ve screwed up,

as we always do and always will,

we’ve come back to God and asked forgiveness,and asked God to renew us and refill us with his Holy Spirit.

We can only live one day at a time, but each day should, I hope, be bringing us nearer to the coming of the King.
Amen.

Christ the King

 I forgot to record the children's talk, sorry.  Scroll down past it for the recording of the main sermon.

Children's Talk:

Okay, so who can tell me something about sheep? Why do farmers grow sheep? What do they provide? (Meat; wool). We don't see many sheep her in London, do we? Sometimes we see pictures of sheep in the Bible, often we see a shepherd carrying one round his neck, like a scarf. Well, my brother is a shepherd, and he tells me that this is one of the best ways of carrying them, only what the Bible doesn't show is the very nasty things they are apt to do all down your front while you are carrying them!

Shepherds have to look after their sheep all the time. They can get horrible illnesses – their feet can get dreadfully sore, and sometimes flies can lay eggs in them, and the maggots try to eat them. And the wool can get all icky and manky, especially around their tails, so the shepherd tries to keep that area clean, and often shorn.

And quite often, there isn't enough grass in the fields for them, so the shepherd comes round with a tractor and trailer every day to provide extra feed for them – and yes, the stronger sheep do push the weaker ones aside, just like sometimes at school the bigger kids push the little ones aside. And when that happens, of course, the teachers intervene to make sure the little kids are able to have their turn in the playground, or at lunch, or whatever.

But the people the prophet was talking to would have known about sheep more than kids in school, so his picture made sense to them. And when the Prophet said that God would send a King to be their shepherd and take care of them, who do you think he was talking about? Jesus, of course! And today is the day when we think extra specially about Jesus as King, and we remember that He is also the Good Shepherd. Amen.

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Main Sermon:
Today is the very last Sunday of the Christian year, and it is the day on which we celebrate the feast of Christ the King.

I wonder what sort of images go through your head when you hear the word “King”. Often, one things of pomp and circumstance, the gold State Coach, jewels, servants, money…. and perhaps scandal, too. What do you think of when you think about a king? The modern monarchy is largely ceremonial. Our Queen reigns, but she does not rule. All the same, I’d rather be represented by a hereditary monarch who is a-political than by a political head of state for whom I did not vote, and whose views were anathema to me! But it hasn’t always been like that.

We think of good, brave kings, like Edward the Third or Henry the Fifth: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”. We think of Elizabeth at Tilbury: “Although I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, I have the heart and stomach of a King, and a King of England, too, and think foul scorn that Parma, or Spain, or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm.”

Actually my favourite Elizabeth quote is when she was very ill, and one of her courtiers said to her, “Your Majesty, you must go to bed!” to which she replied, “Little man, one does not say 'must' to princes!”

Or we think of Richard the Lionheart – I’m dodging about rather here – who forsook England to fight against Muslims, which he believed was God’s will for him. Hmm, not much change there, then.

But there have been weak kings, poor kings, kings that have been deposed, kings that have seized the crown from others. Our own monarchy is far from the first to become embroiled in scandal. Think of the various Hanoverian kings, the Georges, most of whom were endlessly in the equivalent of the tabloid press, and cartoonists back then were far, far ruder than they dare to be today. You may have seen some of them in museums or in history books. The ones in the history books are the more polite ones.

But traditionally, the role of a king was to defend and protect his people, to lead them into battle, if necessary; to give justice, and generally to look after their people. They may have done this well, or they may have done it badly, but that was what they did. If you’ve read C S Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy, you might remember that King Lune tells Shasta, who is going to be king after him: “For this is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there's hunger in the land (as must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land.”

And when we think of Christ as King, we come up against that great paradox, for Christ was, and is, above all, the Servant King. No birth with state-of-the-art medical facilities for him, but a stable in an inn-yard. No golden carriage, but a donkey. No crown, save that made of thorns, and no throne, except the Cross.

And yet, we know that God has raised him, to quote our first reading, “from death and seated him at his right side in the heavenly world. Christ rules there above all heavenly rulers, authorities, powers, and lords; he has a title superior to all titles of authority in this world and in the next.  God put all things under Christ's feet and gave him to the church as supreme Lord over all things.” Christ was raised as King of Heaven.

And it is the Kingdom of Heaven that he preached while he was here on earth. That was the Good News – that the Kingdom of God is at hand. He told us lots of stories to illustrate what the kingdom was going to be like, how it starts off very small, like a mustard seed, but grows to be a huge tree. How it is worth giving up everything for. How “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

Jesus does lead us into battle, yes, but it is a battle “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” And through his Holy Spirit, Jesus gives us the armour to enable us to fight, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, et cetera, et cetera.

Jesus requires that His followers forgive one another, everything, all the time. Even the unforgivable things. Even the abusers, the tyrants, the warlords…. Even Jehadi John, and the other leaders of Islamic State.

And in that Kingdom of Heaven, he will judge the nations, so our reading tells us. We will be separated into the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. I gather that in ancient times, your flocks tended to be mingled, sheep and goats together, and sheep didn't really look like today's sheep, so it was not always easy to tell them apart at a casual glance. But the King has no problems; they are separated, the one group to be rewarded for the way they have fed the hungry, clothed the naked and so on, and the other to be punished for the way they have failed to do this.

It is often rather an awkward sort of passage for us, as we believe – and rightly – that salvation is by faith, we cannot earn it. No, of course we can't; it is God's free gift to us through Christ Jesus, we know that. But we also know that faith doesn't happen in a vacuum. If it means anything, it changes our lives. Things are never the same again.

We know all this. We have seen it happen, if not to ourselves then to our friends. We know all about the little voice that says “I need someone to go on Facebook and send a loving message to X”, or “I need someone to see to it that this church is kept clean and tidy”, or “I need someone to knit Christmas stockings and Easter bunnies for church funds”, or whatever. Even sometimes the bigger things: “I need someone to be a street pastor” or “I need someone to stand for election as an MP”.... we all know that voice.

Yet too often we ignore it. We go about our business as though we were no different from anybody else. We act as if the Kingdom of Heaven was something completely irrelevant to us. And worse, we act as if the King of Heaven was irrelevant. This poem was written sometime between 1603 and 1648 possibly by someone called Thomas Ford, and it is still true today:

“Yet if his majesty our sovereign lord
Should of his own accord
Friendly himself invite,
And say "I'll be your guest to-morrow night."
How should we stir ourselves, call and command
All hands to work! "Let no man idle stand.

Set me fine Spanish tables in the hall,
See they be fitted all;
Let there be room to eat,
And order taken that there want no meat.
See every sconce and candlestick made bright,
That without tapers they may give a light.4

Look to the presence: are the carpets spread,
The dazie o'er the head,
The cushions in the chairs,
And all the candles lighted on the stairs?
Perfume the chambers, and in any case
Let each man give attendance in his place."

Thus if the king were coming would we do,
And 'twere good reason too;
For 'tis a duteous thing
To show all honour to an earthly king,
And after all our travail and our cost,
So he be pleas'd, to think no labour lost.

But at the coming of the King of Heaven
All's set at six and seven:
We wallow in our sin,
Christ cannot find a chamber in the inn.
We entertain him always like a stranger,
And as at first still lodge him in the manger.”

“We entertain him always like stranger,

And, as at first, still lodge him in the manger”.

Must we? Shall we not follow this King, whose Kingdom is not of this world. He is the king who rides on a donkey, the king who requires his followers to use the weapon of forgiveness, the king who surrendered to the accusers, the scourge, and the cross.

Are we going to turn away from this world, and its values, and instead embrace the values of the Kingdom? I tell you this, my friends, most of us live firmly clinging to the values of this world. I include myself – don’t think I’m any better than you, because I can assure you, I’m not! We all cling to the values of this world, and few of us truly embrace the values of the Kingdom. We still lodge the King of Heaven in the manger. But He will forgive us as we acknowledge our failure and try again to embrace those values, which are so foreign to our own.

As we reach the end of one church year and look to the beginning of a new one, may the one whom we know to be King of the universe and ruler of our lives guide us in our journeys of welcome and forgiveness, that our churches may include all whom God loves, and our hearts may find healing and wholeness. Amen!

Remembrance Sunday 2014

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My father claims he has heard of a preacher who concluded his sermon on the Gospel passage we have just heard read by asking his congregation “Would you rather be with the wise virgins in the light, or with the foolish virgins in the dark?” which did not, of course, get the answer he was hoping for!

But the point of that reading, as, indeed, the point of the one from Thessalonians, is that we can't see the future. We can't see round “the bend in the road”. We don't know when we will die, or, indeed, whether our dear Lord will return before that happens. We have no way of knowing the future, and therefore, we need to be prepared for almost anything.

But today is Remembrance Day, when we think of the past, rather than the future. Never an easy day for preachers.

You know, of course, that Remembrance Sunday was instituted in about 1920, after the end of the First World War. That war, known then as “The War to end all Wars”, was seriously terrible for those who participated in it. Many millions of young men went to their deaths in the killing fields of France and Belgium, and barely a family in those countries that were part of it did not lose somebody. Both my grandfathers were involved in this war, and each lost a brother. In fact, one of my grandfathers was only just recovering from a serious wound when the news came through that his brother had been killed. The family could easily have lost both its sons. Indeed, many families did lose all their sons – it was a hard time. And the flu epidemic that came immediately after caused yet more deaths and unhappiness.

Those of you whose roots are in this country will have similar tales to tell, no doubt, and, indeed, some of you may have lived through the Second World War, in which so many civilians were killed and wounded, or at best lost their homes and livelihoods, in the Blitz. My father was at school when it started, and a member of the Home Guard, as many senior schoolboys were, but before it ended he was in the Army, and was wounded, and spent over a year in hospital. My aunt was working in a rather top-secret job organising the invasion of France. And so it goes on. There are things our parents’ generation just don’t talk about, since the horrors they lived through weren’t something to share with the next generation. My grandfather, the one who was not wounded in the first war, was career army, and saw service in the desert, I believe. He came through unscathed, except for breaking his leg in a trivial accident that had nothing to do with the war, and was glad of it as he took the opportunity of the enforced leave to visit his family, who had not seen him for four very long years. But many didn't survive – either casualties of war, or of the concentration camps. And I gather the years straight after the war were full of confusion and muddle, as countries tightened up their borders and decided who should, and who should not, live there.

But then, my generation grew up with the threat of the atom bomb over our heads; we knew, no matter how much our parents tried to shelter us, we knew about the Cold War, we knew that the Soviet Union was perceived as a threat, and that we would probably not live to grow up because someone would press the red button and the world would go up in what was called Mutually Assured Destruction. Right through the 1950s and 1960s we expected it to happen, almost at any minute. Then the United States was distracted by the Viet Nam war, and the Soviet Union by its war with Afghanistan, and then came 1989, and the end of an era.

And, of course, during that time there was also the Six Day war and the 1973 war in the Middle East, and the Falklands Conflict here, and some of you may have experienced wars of independence, or other wars, in your home countries. Peace is very rare and very precious, and it is amazing how much peace there has been in this country, relatively speaking, in my lifetime.

Of course, once we had got past 1989 and the Communist Bloc was no longer a threat, we had to look around for a new enemy. And we seemed to find it among some of the Muslim community. Hmmm – when you consider that they, as we, are People of the Book, and when you consider the results of anti-Semitism during the Nazi era in Germany, it strikes me that there is something wrong with this picture.

But then, people forget. There is a saying that if you do not remember the lessons of history, you are doomed to repeat them. Maybe we do. Our history in this 21^st century hasn't been exactly grand, has it? We have been pleased, this past couple of weeks, that our troops have finally left Afghanistan – but over 400 of them never will leave. And should they have been there in the first place? It's a vexed question.

But there was the invasion of Iraq, for which the atrocities of 9/11 were just a pretext. And now there is unrest in so many places in the near East – Ukraine, for a start. And Syria, life must be absolutely awful there. It doesn't seem five minutes since we were watching a documentary about education in Syria, and now children are probably very lucky if they get to school at all.

So, we wonder, where is God in all this? What have all these events to do with God? Or, indeed, why, as Christian people, should we be paying tribute to those who were involved in some of these hideous things – for whatever we our taught, our own side usually does just as dreadful things as the other side; well, we know that, don’t we – look at those soldiers who were convicted of torturing Iraqi prisoners. And who knows – they may just have been the tip of the iceberg. If there was a culture of treating your prisoners with disrespect.... and then people wonder why you get extremist organisations like Islamic State – I know, and I know you know, that the vast majority of Muslims feel just as much horror and despair about Islamic State as we do, but I can also see, and I expect you can, too, just how they got pushed into extremism by the behaviour of some of our troops, and the attitude of not only our troops, but also our governments.

It’s difficult, isn’t it. “Blessed are the Peacemakers”, said Jesus. But he also said that there would always be wars, and rumours of wars. We are told to make peace, even while we know we will be unsuccessful.

Robert and I visited New York less than a fortnight after the World Trade Centre was destroyed, back in 2001. We had planned our holiday months earlier, and decided not to allow terrorism and war to disrupt our lives more than was strictly necessary. Besides, what safer time to go, just when security was at its height?

Anyway, the first Sunday we were there, we felt an urgent need to go to Church, to worship with God’s people. Not knowing anything about churches in Brooklyn, we went to the one round the corner from where we were staying, which turned out to be a Lutheran Church. And I was glad we went – the people there were so pleased to know that people were still visiting from England. They knew they faced a hard time coming to terms with what had happened, and that the future was very uncertain, yet they knew, too, that God was in it with them.

And God is in it with us, too. Whatever happens. God was there in the trenches with those young men in the first War; God was there in the bombing and occupations of the Second War. God was there in the Twin Towers that day, and in the hijacked planes, too. God is there in Afghanistan, and Syria, and Ukraine, and South Sudan, and Palestine and all those countries where there is no peace, and life is very frightening.

We, who call ourselves Christians, sometimes refuse to fight for our country, believing that warfare and Christianity aren’t really compatible. I am inclined to agree, but for one thing – do we really want our armed forces to be places where God is not honoured? That’s the big problem with Christian pacifism – it leaves the armed forces very vulnerable.

But we must do all that we can to make peace. I don’t know what the rights and wrongs of most of these campaigns were. I do know, though, that people are suffering, through no fault of their own. People are still suffering in Dafur and Jerusalem and Damascus, and other places where they lost loved ones. They are still suffering in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are suffering in other places where Muslims are despised because of their faith – and, indeed, in places where Islamic State or Boko Harum has any say in the matter.

War causes suffering. It is never noble, or glorious, and I’m not quite sure whether it is ever right. Even if it is, it is horrible. And inevitable. And we Christians must do all we can to bring peace, and we must wear our poppies and remember, each year, those who had to suffer and die.

For who knows when it will be our turn? The foolish virgins in Jesus' story were the ones who reckoned it would never happen, and failed to make preparations. We must and will remember those who died in war, but we will also remember that we have asked God to be in control of our lives. So we must be ready for whatever He might ask us to go through. And always, always be prepared to help make peace. Amen.

What Belongs to God - a sermon for Freedom Sunday

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Please note that although this starts off the same as the sermon preached on this Sunday in 2011 and 2008, it finishes very differently.

Has anybody got penny on them? Or even a pound coin? Okay, whose picture is on the front of it?

We’re used to our coins, aren’t we – we barely even notice that they have a picture of the Queen on one side, and a few odd remarks in Latin printed round the picture. They basically say Elizabeth, and then DG, which means by God’s grace; Reg, short for Regina, means Queen, and FD means Defender of the Faith – a title, ironically, given to Henry the Eighth when he wrote a book supporting the Pope against the Protestant Reformation, long before he wanted to divorce Katherine of Aragon and had to leave the Catholic church.

When I was a little girl, though, before decimalisation, coins were even more interesting, as they didn’t all have pictures of the Queen on – the old shillings, sixpences, florins and half-crowns had often been issued during the reign of George the Sixth and pennies were often even older – it was not unusual to find penny that had been issued during the reign of Queen Victoria, even! My father used to make us guess the date on the coin, based on which reign it was, and if we were right we got to keep it. Not that we ever were right, so it was a fairly safe game for him, but it made sure we knew the dates of 20th-century monarchs!

Different countries have different things on their coins, of course; if you look at Euro coins, they have a different design on one side depending on which country issued them: the German ones have a picture of the Brandenburg gate, Austria has a stylised eagle; the Irish ones have a harp. Those Euro countries which are monarchies have a picture of their monarch on them, as we would if we joined the Euro, and the Vatican City ones have a picture of the Pope! I don't know what the newer Euro countries, like Estonia and Poland have, but it wouldn't be impossible to find out! That might be a nice game to play with my grandsons when they are a little older, perhaps – but they would learn them too quickly, I think.

This convention, of showing the monarch on your coins, dates back thousands of years, and was well-known in Jesus’ day. But unfortunately, this raised a problem for Jesus and his contemporaries, as the Roman coins in current use all showed a picture of the Emperor, and the wording round the side said something like “Son of a god”, meaning that the Emperor was thought to be divine.

You might remember how the earliest Christians were persecuted for refusing to say that the Emperor was Lord, as to them, only Jesus was Lord? Well, similarly, the Jews couldn’t say that Caesar was God, and, rather like Muslims, they were forbidden to have images of people, either. So the Roman coins carried a double whammy for them.

They got round it by having their own coins to be used in the Temple – hence the money-changers that Jesus threw out, because they were giving such a rotten rate of exchange. But for everyday use, of course, they were stuck with the Roman coins. And taxes, like the poll tax, had to be paid in Roman coins. You might remember the episode where Jesus tells Peter to catch a fish, and it has swallowed a coin that will do for both of their taxes. But that was then, and this is now.

Now, Jesus is in the Temple when they come to him – in the holy place, where you must use the Jewish coins or not spend money. “They”, in this case, are not only the Pharisees, who were out to trap Jesus by any means possible, but also the Herodians, who actually supported the puppet-king, Herod.

The question is a total trick question, of course. They come up to Jesus, smarming him and pointing out that they know he doesn’t take sides – so should they pay their poll tax, or not? If he says, yes you must, then he’ll be accused of saying it’s okay for people to have coins with forbidden images; it’s okay to be Romanised; it’s okay to collaborate with the occupying power. And if he says, no don’t, then he’ll be accused of trying to incite rebellion or terrorism.

So Jesus asks for a coin. I expect it was the Herodians who produced one – the Pharisees would probably not have admitted to having one in their pockets, even if they did. And he asks whose image – eikon, the word is – whose image is on the coin? And they said, puzzled, Caesar’s of course, whose else would it be?

And we all know what he said next: Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; give to God what belongs to God.

It’s kind of difficult, at this distance, to know what he meant. Was he saying we need to keep our Christian life separate from the rest of life? God forbid, and I mean that! If our commitment to God means anything at all, it should be informing all we do, whether we are at worship on Sunday or at work on Monday or out at the pub on a Friday! There is a crying need for Christians in all walks of life; whether we are called to be plumbers or politicians, bankers or builders, retired or redundant! Wherever we find ourselves, we are God’s people, and our lives and values and morals and behaviour need to reflect that.

So what is Jesus saying? It’s about more than paying taxes or not paying them. It’s not about whether we support our government or whether we don’t.

I think he’s saying that there doesn’t have to be a conflict. The image of Caesar is on the coin – but we, we are made in God’s image! If we were coins, the writing around us would say “A child of God”, not, as for the Caesars, meaning that we are gods ourselves, but meaning, quite literally, that we are God’s beloved children. There isn't really any difference between what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, because, ultimately, everything belongs to God.  Even the holy people, the Pharisees, had to use these coins when they went to the market.  There isn't really much difference.

Yes, we need to be good citizens – both Jesus and Paul make that clear, one way and another. And yes, that includes voting as and when we're entitled to do so, and paying such taxes as we rightfully owe, but it also includes making a fuss when things aren't going as they should.

For instance, why do we still need food banks and soup kitchens? I think it's disgraceful in this day and age, and I emailed my MP about it; of course I only got back the vague sort of answer that if and when his party came to power they would Do Something About It – I'd really like him to be asking Questions in the House every week or so to find out what the Government is doing about it.

And maybe we should be writing to him – or her, if you're up this end where it's Kate Hoey, rather than down my end where it's Chuka Umunna – about traffiking. As I said at the start of the service, we've been asked to think about that today, as yesterday was World Anti-Traffiking Day.

We've all read horror stories about people who came over here in all good faith, thinking they were going to be found a sensible job and somewhere to live, and then they found themselves enduring slavery, and worse than slavery. There was even a case here in Brixton, not just so long ago. And the people involved are afraid to get help, as they are here illegally, and may well have fled very difficult situations in their home countries. The people who offered to “help” them, quote unquote, were preying on their fears as much as on their hopes.

There was the case of the Chinese cockle-pickers, some years ago, in virtual slavery up in Morecambe Bay, who were forced to work when it wasn't safe and were drowned.

We have all read stories about girls forced into prostitution, and so on. And I have a horrible feeling that these ones are only the tip of the iceberg. We must and we will pray for these people, obviously, but also, if you even suspect anything like that is going on near you – report it! If you don't want to go to the Police, I'm sure Anti-Slavery International or Stop the Traffik would help – in fact, I recommend a visit to their websites as there is a lot of information on there, including ways in which we can help.

You see, there isn't really much difference, is there, between giving to Caesar what is Caesar's, and giving to God what is God's. These poor people are, each and every one of them, someone for whom Christ died. Someone who God loves so impossibly much he couldn't love them more. I'm sure God's heart breaks when one of his beloved children is sold into suffering, raped, beaten, overworked, not paid at all.... and I'm afraid it happens rather more frequently that we would like to admit it does.

One of my favourite books is called These Old Shades, and in it, a child character is taken to Versailles, where the King is holding court. And on the way home, the child says, “The King was lovely, just like on the coins”. I often wonder whether, if we were an image on a coin, people would recognise us. Perhaps, if we are whole-hearted about giving to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God, and recognising that really, there's very little difference, maybe they would. And in the meanwhile, let's do what we can to stop the injustices of our modern world. Amen.

Children's talk - two brothers

Unfortunately, I made a nonsense and failed to record the main sermon - probably just as well, since I hadn't much voice!  It is almost identical to the one I preached on this Sunday three years ago, the text of which may be found here.


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Once upon a time, long, long ago in a galaxy – well, a country, anyway – far away, there lived a man with two sons. Not unusual, of course – there are lots of people who have two sons, my daughter does. But these two boys, and their dad, feature in several of Jesus' stories.

Daddy was a farmer, we are told, and one morning at breakfast-time, he said to the boys, “Right, lads; busy day today, I'm going to harvest the big field. Either of you free to come and help?”

The younger boy shakes his head. “Sorry, Dad; I'm booked, I'm afraid. Told Sammy I'd go round to his today.”

“Not a problem,” said his father. “What about you, Joe?” to the older boy.

“Yes, I can come!” says Joe. “What time do you want me?”

“Oh, make it about 10:30, we'll be able to use you then. Great. See you later!”

All very well and normal, you might think. But then what happens? Joe, in the hour or so between the end of breakfast and 10:30, when he said he'd be at the field, begins to have second thoughts. It's a horribly hot day, he could go swimming with his friends; Dad wouldn't really mind, there were plenty of other helpers.... and eventually, his brother sees him heading off with his trunks and a towel under one arm, obviously not heading for the harvest-fields.

So the brother does a bit of thinking himself. Yes, Sammy was half-expecting him, but harvest was harvest, and it was pretty sure he'd be wanting to help his Dad, too. So he grabs a passing servant and sends him round to Sammy's with a message that he couldn't come, after all, and heads off down to the field.

Well, that's the story Jesus told. And one of the reasons he told it was to tell us that it's never, ever too late to change your mind, not in this life. If you've not been quite sure about God, about being Jesus' person, you can still change your mind.... it isn't too late!