Second Chance

There had been an atrocity. Some people from Galilee had been making their sacrifices in the Temple when they had been murdered by Pilate’s officials and their blood had been mingled with that of the sacrifices, something that, to them, would have been really badly upsetting.

So some people who had heard about this went to Jesus and told him about it, and said, “But were these people worse sinners than most Galileans?”

Jesus said, “No, of course not, any more than the people who were killed when that power station collapsed at Didcot were any better or worse than anybody else in the area.”

Well, actually, he didn't say “When that power station collapsed at Didcot”; he said “When that tower collapsed at Siloam”. But it's the same principle, isn't it? Buildings collapse. Terrorists attack. Kids get stabbed. We hear of so many atrocities week by week, and of course there are the minor tragedies nobody knows about except those directly involved – someone dying of a heart attack in their 30s, for instance, or killed in a road accident.

“No,” says Jesus, “they were no better or worse than anybody else.”

But then he seems to contradict himself, because he adds, “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did!”

“Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did!” First, he makes it clear that there is no rational explanation for these tragedies. He doesn’t say, “It was God’s will.” The Galileans killed by Pilate were victims of the Roman government’s whims. It could have been anybody offering sacrifices that day. And the people killed by the tower? It could have been anyone who happened to be standing there.

It's not about God's will. It appears to be random – it looks to me as though Jesus himself didn't really know why such things happen, and perhaps it's never going to be something we really understand this side of Heaven. Those people who tell us we must praise God for disasters which, I am sure, break God's heart, are talking through the back of their heads. We can praise God in tragedies, and during them, sure, but not and never for them.

Jesus is saying that it’s not about cause and effect.

Were those who died worse sinners?

No, but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.

Jesus is telling them to look at their own lives –

don’t speculate about others.

What about your life?

What about mine?

We can spend so much time trying to explain things –

so much time worrying about other people’s lives

that we forget to pay attention to our own lives with God.

Maybe these deaths should be an alarm call, Jesus said.

Then, then in response to those unanswerable questions,

in response to the warning, “Unless you repent, you will perish”,

then Jesus told them a parable about a fig tree.

A parable about destruction?

A story of punishment for those who failed to repent?

There have been fig-tree stories like that, haven’t there?

Jesus himself, according to St Matthew’s gospel,

once cursed a fig-tree that bore no fruit.

And in that passage in John 15, Jesus reminds us that branches that bear no fruit are pruned and disposed of.

John the Baptist says something very similar.

It’s a very common metaphor in the New Testament.

But this story is a little different.

It starts off the same way –

the barren fig-tree that hasn’t produced a single fig for three years or more.

It’s taking up valuable space in the garden and, what’s worse,

it’s leaching the soil of valuable nutrients but not giving anything back.

I don’t know if you’ve ever eaten fresh figs –

my parents had a huge fig-tree in the front yard of their old house, just by the garage,

and in the height of summer it grew so big and shady that it made it quite difficult for my mother to get her car out.

The funny thing is, I don’t remember it having any figs when I was a child,

but in recent years it’s had a lovely crop.

Fresh figs are delicious, although you mustn't eat too many at once, and often they are quite expensive in the supermarkets. I did once manage to get a punnet of them fairly cheaply in a Turkish supermarket, but that was only once. They can cost up to 50p each in Tesco's, and I don't buy them often!

So I can quite see that the owner was really disappointed and frustrated that the tree simply wasn’t producing any.

“Let’s cut it down and get a new one!” he said.

But the gardener, who loved his garden and loved his trees, said,

“No, hang on, let’s give it a last chance.

If I dig around it, loosening the soil, and put in lots of manure,

it just might produce some figs this year.

If it doesn’t, I agree, it’s finished.”

And there the story ends.

The implication is that the tree will be given another chance,

another year to bear fruit.

But only another year.

What we need to know is, is this a threat or a promise?

Do you have a supermarket loyalty card? I do, and I've learnt over the years to save the main vouchers I get to use to pay for channel crossings and things like that. And every so often, I get an e-mail from Tesco's reminding me to use them up before they expire. If my vouchers expire, they are no good to me, but if I use them while they are still in date, I can get some great bargains. And the fig tree was given an expiry date, if you like. One more year....

Some people, I know, see it as a threat. “Shape up, or else!” But I'm not sure that it is. I think it is more of a promise: “How can we best help you become the person – or the tree – that you were meant to be”. The gardener is going to do some serious work on the tree, give it lots of manure and so on, to try to help it to bear fruit. The tree isn't just left to get on with it – that, we know, hasn't worked.

Jesus reminds us, too, that we need to repent. All of us need to repent. What do you suppose he means by this?

We tend to think of repentance in terms of being sorry, of thinking that we must be dreadful people, even if we aren't. But while being sorry can come into it, it's more about changing direction, about going God's way.

Sometimes, when Robert and I are driving around in our mobile home, we have the satnav on to tell us what way to go, and if we miss our turning, or take the wrong road out of a roundabout, or something, the machine is apt to say, in its computer-generated voice, “Turn around when possible”. But we aren't turning round just to retrace our steps; we are turning round so that we can go in the right direction.

We're apt to think of judgement in terms of prison sentences or fines, aren't we? We think of judges as though they were all magistrates or county court judges. But actually, there are many different sorts of judges. When I was skating competitively, we sometimes took tests to see whether we had reached the required standard, and if we had not, as was usually the case, we were told we needed to try again another time. We weren't being condemned or anything – we just hadn't reached the required standard this time. If we competed, we would be ranked against others who had entered, and the judges would put us in order – but no condemnation on us for coming last, which we usually did.

At a flower show, the judges decide whose flowers, or vegetables, or cakes or jam or whatever, is the best in that particular class; again, no condemnation for those who don't win, although no point in entering if you don't want to win.

And some competitions are referred to as “trials”, but they have nothing to do with justice and judgement, but to see who is best – often dogs, in this case, working with sheep or working as gundogs. Which dog can do it best? Which needs a bit more practice?

And those who don't succeed this time go away and practice and work really hard and they hope that next time they will succeed. They are free to try again as many times as they like!

Repentance isn't about looking at the past and saying “Oh dear, oh dear, how dreadful!”, it's about looking to the future and seeing what God is doing. It's about going God's way. Of course, we do need to take stock of our lives,

make amends when necessary, and ask for God's forgiveness.

But we mustn’t get stuck there.

That is not real repentance.

To repent is to come to our senses,

to change our mind,

and to face the future with a sense of the hope, love and companionship that God offers to us in our lives.

God has something in store for us in our future.

God will give us gifts for our future.

God will be there with us and for us in our future.

To repent is to change our minds and recognize these things.

It is to turn towards the future with faith, hope, and love.

The fig tree was to be given another chance –

but so much more than that!

It was to be given special love and care and attention to help it grow figs again.

Not just: “Shape up, or else,”

but “Let’s see what we can do to help you bear fruit again!”

“Seek the Lord while he may be found,
    call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way,
    and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

“Let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,

and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon!”

We have to return to the Lord,

but God is going to do everything possible to enable that to happen!

To enable us to turn towards the future with faith, hope and love!

Amen.

Scrolls and Bodies

 For the children's talk, I told them Aesop's fable of the Belly and the Members:

"One fine day it occurred to the Members of the Body that they were doing all the work and the Belly was having all the food.  So they held a meeting, and after a long discussion, decided to strike work till the Belly consented to take its proper share of the work.  So for a day or two, the Hands refused to take the food, the Mouth refused to receive it, and the Teeth had no work to do." 

 at which point I stopped, and asked the children what they thought would happen in a day or so.  "I think," said a 10-year-old, "That the person would die!"  I said they certainly would if they persisted, but before that time:

But after a day or two the Members began to find that they themselves were not in a very active condition: the Hands could hardly move, and the Mouth was all parched and dry, while the Legs were unable to support the rest.  So thus they found that even the Belly in its dull quiet way was doing necessary work for the Body and that all must work together or the Body will go to pieces."

I then added that no matter how young they were, they were still a very necessary part of the Church, and not to let anybody ever tell them different.  Nor, I said, addressing the whole church, are you ever too old!

Two interesting readings today, I thought. Firstly St Paul, talking about the Body of Christ, and then Jesus, reading the Scriptures in the synagogue in his home town.

So, St Paul. The story I told the children earlier is a very ancient one; it dates back to a fable by Aesop, Aesop is thought to have lived around 600 BC, and the story may be much older still. St Paul, who was an educated man, probably knew it, and thought of it when he drew the analogy about our being parts of the Body of Christ.

St Paul was, of course, writing to the Church in Corinth, and it looks as though the people there had got themselves into a bit of a muddle about who was the most important. Some people thought they really didn’t matter very much. Other people thought that everybody else should be just like them. Still others thought that people with smaller roles to play in the Church didn’t matter as much as they did. But there would have been educated people in the congregation, who would have known the story, and nodded wisely as they realised where Paul was going with this. Yes of course, all parts of the body are necessary. Yes, the stomach may appear to do nothing, but you see how far you get without any food! And Paul takes this and runs with it: the foot is just as much a part of the body as the hand is; the eye just as much part as the ear. If the whole body were just an ear, how would you smell? If the whole body was an eye, you wouldn't be able to hear! And so on. His point, of course, is that all parts of the body are equally necessary and important, and if we are the Body of Christ then we are all equally necessary and important.

Then we have this story of Jesus, fairly early in his ministry, going home for the weekend, and on the Sabbath Day, he goes to the synagogue with his family, and because he’s home visiting, they ask him to choose the reading from the prophets. So Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah, the bit where it says: “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn.” So far so good. But then he says “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Our reading ended there, but I expect you remember what happened next – the people were outraged. They knew this young man, they'd known him from a small child, ever since his family had settled there when he wasn't much more than a baby. “He’s only the Carpenter’s son, Mary’s lad. These are his brothers and sisters. He can’t be special.” And they were offended, so we are told. They even went so far as to try to kill him for blasphemy, but he escaped and went away.

Once upon a time, two men were talking in the pub, or their club or somewhere like that. One of them told how he had been lost in the Sahara desert. I don't know what he was doing in the Sahara desert in the first place – perhaps he was an aviator whose plane had come down, as so many did, or perhaps he was an explorer, or perhaps he just thought he knew better than anybody else. Well, anyway, he was lost, and dying of thirst, and he knew that, barring a miracle, he wouldn't make it home. So he prayed to God to save him.

“Oh,” said his hearer. “And what did God do? You obviously were saved, as you're here to tell me the story.”

“Actually, God didn't;” said the first man. “Just at that moment a caravan came past and helped me, so you see, God didn't need to save me.”

Now, we can see, can't we, what our hero couldn't – that it was God who sent the caravan at just that moment. But he didn't expect God to work in that way, so he didn't see it.

Similarly, the people of Corinth couldn't always see how God was working in and through other people in the church – people with, perhaps, different views on how things should be done. We know from later in the letter than some people were bothered about eating meat that had previously been offered to idols, and others reckoned that, as the idols had no power, it didn't matter. We know they argued about sex, whether within or outside of marriage. We know they argued about all sorts of things, but for Paul, what mattered was that they were all part of the church, and God could and did work in and through them.

The people of Nazareth had no idea that God was coming to earth in the person of the young man they'd seen grow up from a baby. Do we have definite ideas about how God works, I wonder? Do we expect to see God working in the ordinary, the every day? Or do we expect him always to come down with power and fire from Heaven? Do we expect Him to speak to us through other people, perhaps even through me, or do we expect Him to illuminate a verse of the Bible specially, or write His message in fiery letters in the sky?

We do sometimes, because we are human, long and long to see God at work in the spectacular, the kind of thing that Jesus used to do when he healed the sick and even raised the dead. And very occasionally God is gracious enough to give us such signs. But mostly, He heals through modern medicine, guiding scientists to develop medicine and surgical techniques that can do things our ancestors only dreamed about. And through complementary medical techniques which address the whole person, not just the illness. And through love and hugs and sympathy and support.

We do need to learn to recognise God at work. All too often, we walk blindly through our week, not noticing God – and yet God is there. God is there and going on micro-managing His creation, no matter how unaware of it we are. And God is there to speak to us through the words of a friend, or an acquaintance. If we need rescuing, God is a lot more likely to send a friend to do it than to come in person!

And conversely, we need to be open to God at work in us, so that we can be the friend who does the speaking, or the rescuing. Not that God can’t use people who don’t know him – of course He both can and does – but the more open we are to being His person, the more we allow Him to work in us, to help us grow into the sort of person He created us to be, then the more He can use us, with or without our knowledge, in His world. Who knows, maybe the supermarket cashier you smiled at yesterday really needed that smile to affirm her faith in people, after a bad day. Or the friend you telephoned just to have a catch-up with was badly needing to chat to someone – not necessarily a serious conversation, just a chat. You will never know – but God knows.

We are, of course, never told “what would have happened”, but I wonder what would have happened if the people of Nazareth had been open to Jesus. He could have certainly done more miracles there. Maybe he wouldn’t have had to have become an itinerant preacher, going round all the villages. Maybe he could have had a home. I think God may well have used the rejection to open up new areas of ministry for Jesus – after all, we do know that God works all things for good.

Another story: Once upon a time there was a big flood, and people had to climb up on to the roofs of their houses to escape. One guy thought this was a remarkable opportunity to demonstrate, so he thought, God’s power, so he prayed “Dear Lord, please come and save me.”

Just then, someone came past in a rowing-boat and said “Climb in, we’ll take you to safety!”

“Oh, no thank you,” said our friend, “I’ve prayed for God to save me, so I’ll just wait for Him to do so.”

And he carried on praying, “Dear Lord, please save me!”

Then along came the police in a motor-launch, and called for him to jump in, but he sent them away, too, and continued to pray “Dear Lord, please save me!”

Finally, a Coastguard helicopter came and sent down someone on a rope to him, but he still refused, claiming that he was relying on God to save him.

And half an hour later, he was swept away and drowned.

So, because he was a Christian, as you can imagine, he ended up in Heaven, and the first thing he did when he got there was go to to the Throne of Grace, and say to God, “What do you mean by letting me down like this? I prayed and prayed for you to rescue me, and you didn’t!”

“My dear child,” said God, “I sent you two boats and a helicopter – what more did you want?”

What more indeed? You, and I, and each and every one of us here is part of the Body of Christ. We cannot say that we have no need of each other. We cannot say that they have no need of me, and we most certainly can't say that we don't need you! But we also need to be aware of God at work in our world. Do you remember what happened to the people of Nazareth?

Nothing. That's what happened. Nothing at all. God could do no work there through Jesus. Okay, a few sick people were healed, but that was all. The good news of the Kingdom of God was not proclaimed. Miracles didn’t happen. Just. . . nothing.

We do know, of course, that in the end his family, at least, were able to get their heads round the idea of their lad being The One. His Mother was in the Upper Room on the Day of Pentecost. James, one of his brothers, was a leader in the early church. But were they the only ones? Did anybody else from Nazareth believe in Him, or were they all left, sadly, alone?

I think that’s an Awful Warning, isn’t it? If we decide we need to know best who God chooses to speak through, how God is to act, then God can do nothing. And God will do nothing. If he sends two boats and a helicopter and we reject them because we don’t see God’s hand at work in them, then we will be left to our own devices. As the people of Nazareth were. Amen.

The Baptism of Christ

This Sunday, the Church celebrates the baptism of Christ.
St Luke tells us how Jesus came to John to ask for baptism.
Unlike some of the other Evangelists, he doesn’t mention John’s making a fuss and saying

“Oh, oh, it ought to be you baptising me, not the other way round!”
But he does mention the voice from heaven, saying

“You are my Son, whom I love;
with you I am well pleased.”

For Jews, baptism was really a matter of washing.
They had –
and still, as far as I know, have –
a way of washing in their ritual baths,

which made them no longer unclean.
But it was not, I believe, until the time of John the Baptist

that baptism was linked with repentance.
John had one or two things to say to people who wanted baptism without repenting,

baptism without tears, if you like,

calling them “a brood of vipers”,

and reminding them that just because they were children of Abraham didn’t mean they were excused from bearing “fruits worthy of repentance.”
In other words, they had to show their repentance by the change in their lives, and their baptism was to mark this fresh start.

Now for me, at least, this raises at least two questions.
Why, then, was it necessary for Jesus to be baptised, and, secondly, what about our own baptism?

Why did Jesus have to be baptised?
He, after all, was without sin, or so we are told,

so he, alone of all humanity, did not need,

and never has needed, to repent.
But when John queried him, so St Matthew tells us,

he said “Let it be so now;
for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.”
In other words, let’s observe all the formalities,

don’t let anybody be able to say I wasn’t part of the religious establishment of the day.

And, of course, one other very good reason is that it was an opportunity for the Father to proclaim Jesus to the crowds thronging the Jordan.
John probably baptised hundreds of others that day, I shouldn’t wonder, with Jesus waiting his turn very patiently.
But it was only when Jesus rose up from the waters of baptism

that God sent the Holy Spirit upon him in the form of a dove, and said, out loud,

“You are my Son, whom I love;
with you I am well pleased.”

God proclaimed Jesus as his beloved Son.

And then what?
No triumphant upsurging against the occupying power,

no human rebellion.
Not even a triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
No, what awaited Jesus after his baptism was forty days in the desert,

and an almost unbearable temptation to discover the depths of his powers as God’s Son, whom God loves,

and to misuse them.
And it was only then, after Jesus had wrestled with, and conquered, the temptation to misuse his divine power,

that he could come back and begin to heal the sick,

raise the dead,

restore sight to the blind

and preach good news to the poor.
And gather round him a band of devoted followers, of course, and all that.

Well, so much for Jesus’ baptism;
what about ours?

For many Christians, baptism does seem to be very similar to John’s baptism, a baptism of repentance, of changed lives,

a signal to the world that now you are a Christian, and plan to live that way.
But for a great many more Christians, baptism is something that happens when you are a tiny baby, too small to remember it.
That’s usually the case for Methodists and Anglicans, so it applies to us.
I was baptised as a baby and so, very probably, were you.

Now, some folk say that being baptised as a baby is a nonsense,

how can you possibly repent when you are an infant in arms,

and how can other people make those promises for you?

I think it depends very much on whether you see baptism as primarily something you do, or primarily something God does.
The Anglican and Methodist churches call baptism a Sacrament,

and you may remember the definition of a Sacrament which is

that a Sacrament is the outward and visible sign

of an inward and spiritual grace.

The other Sacrament that Methodist churches recognise is, of course, Holy Communion.
The Catholic church recognises at least five more,

but as I can never remember all of them off-hand, I won’t start listing them now!
The point is, that a Sacrament is a place where we humans do something and trust that God also does something.
When we make our Communion, we believe that we are meeting with Jesus,

communicating, if you like, in a very special way

during the taking, breaking, blessing and sharing of the bread and wine.
And in baptism, we believe that God comes and meets with us in a very special way, filling us with the Holy Spirit.
Yes, even babies –
do you really have to be old enough to be aware that you are doing so in order to love God?
I don’t think so!
You certainly don’t have to be aware to be loved by God,

and that’s really what it’s all about.

You see, baptism, like Communion, is one of those Christian mysteries, where the more deeply you penetrate into what it means,

the more you become aware that there’s more to know.
You never really get to the bottom of it.
St Paul goes off in one direction, talking about baptism being identifying with Christ in his death.
I’m never quite sure what he is getting at, when he says in the letter to the Romans,

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death?

Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

I may not have totally understood Paul there –
who does? –
but it’s nevertheless part of what baptism is all about.

Another part of it is, indeed, about repentance and turning to Christ.
For those of us who were baptised as infants,

someone else made promises on our behalf about being Jesus’ person, and we didn’t take responsibility for them until we were old enough to know what we were doing,

when we were, I hope, confirmed.
We confirmed that we were taking responsibility for those promises for ourselves,

we became full members of the Church and, above all,

we received, once again, the Holy Spirit through the laying-on of hands.

And so it goes on.
But it’s all very well me droning on about baptism and what it really means, but what is it saying to us this morning?
For some of us, our baptism was more than six decades ago, after all!

For some of us, it may have been a lot more recent, but you may well not remember it, even so!

Well, first and most importantly is that baptism is important for Christians,

as important as the Sacrament of Holy Communion.
So if for any reason you never have been baptised,

and you know that you want to be Jesus’ person,

do go and talk to Andy or someone.
The same applies if you haven't yet been confirmed, but feel you are ready to become a full member of the Church and ready to take responsibility for those promises they made on your behalf.

There's a new course starting very soon, and I'm sure you'd be most welcome to take part, even if you then decided it wasn't for you just yet.

Have a word with Andy about it.

That wasn't meant to be an advertisement, by the way; just thought I'd mention it – it'll doubtless be mentioned again in the notices!

But for the rest of us, for whom our confirmation is nothing more than a memory, and baptism not even that, so what?
What does it mean for us today?

I think that, like so much that is to do with God,

baptism is an ongoing thing, not just a once-for-all thing.
Yes, we are baptised once;
St Paul reminds us that there is one baptism,

just as there is one faith, and one Lord.
But when Martin Luther was quite an old man,

and the devil started whispering in his ear that he was a rotten human being and God would cast him out, et cetera, et cetera, you know how he does,

Luther threw his inkpot at the spot where he felt the voice was coming from, and said: “Nonsense!
I have been baptised, and I stand on that baptism!”
Even though that baptism had been when Luther was a newborn baby,

he still knew that its effects would protect him from the assaults of the evil one.

As, indeed, it does for us.
There are times when life seems to go very pear-shaped, aren’t there?
Times when it feels that God has forgotten us, that we are stumbling on alone, in the dark,

totally unable to see where we are going.
Whether that is true for us as individuals, or as a church, these times are very hard to deal with and to understand.
All we know is, they happen to all of us from time to time, and we simply can’t see the reason from this end.

Of course, we know intellectually

that God hasn’t in the least bit forgotten us.
Some folk say these times of darkness are when God is testing us,

but I’m not sure it’s even that.
It’s some part of the pattern that we don’t understand,

can’t see what is happening,

and tend to try to rationalise.
I do believe that one day we’ll know what it was all about,

and see how it fitted in.

But when I am going through one of these dark patches, it is to this lovely passage in Isaiah that was our first reading that I most often turn:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name;
you are mine.

When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,

they will not sweep over you.

When you walk through the fire,

you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.

For I am the LORD, your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.”

It’s a lovely passage to learn by heart, to say to yourself in those dark watches of the night when you are lying awake, worrying.
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name;
you are mine.”

In some way we know that our baptism was part of that.
As I said earlier, it’s what they call a mystery;
we’ll never know the whole truth of how it works, only that it does!
Jesus came for baptism to John, and from his baptism he was sent into the wilderness to wrestle with one of his bad times –
the other, as we know, was in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was crucified.
And if Jesus can have bad times, then it’s all right for us to, I reckon!

In the Isaiah passage I just quoted, it's when, not if!

When you pass through the waters,

when you walk through the fire.

The bad times will happen, they happen to everybody.

But we will not be swept away, we will not be burnt, God will be with us.
Life doesn’t have to be perfect, and nor do we, before we can remind ourselves that God loves us.

Of course, that love isn’t just warm fuzzies;
it’s about going out there and doing something.
Christian love is something you do,

not something you feel.
But in the dark watches of the night, we need our warm fuzzies.
And I think God knows that,

which is why there are those lovely passages in Scripture about how much he loves us, about how he protects us and cares for us.

Let’s sing that lovely hymn, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy”

to affirm that love.
It’s number 416.

Reassurance

Today's Advent Liturgy in the New International Version reads, in part:

“He will stand and shepherd his flock
    in the strength of the Lord,
    in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they will live securely, for then his greatness
    will reach to the ends of the earth. And he will be our peace
    when the Assyrians invade our land”

I don't know about you, but I find that prophecy strangely comforting in these dark days!

“He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.” “And he will be our peace when the Assyrians invade our land.”

However, as we all know, a text without a context is a pretext, so rather than just taking the words as a lovely Christmas prophecy – which of course, on one level, they are – let's look a bit deeper and find out a bit more about Micah, and what he was talking about.

Micah was a prophet in 8th-century Judah, more or less a contemporary with Isaiah, Amos and Hosea. As with so many of the prophets, the book starts off with great doom and gloom.He prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem,particularly because they were simply dishonest and then expected God to cover for them: “Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money. Yet they lean upon the LORD and say, Is not the LORD among us? No disaster will come upon us.” But Micah said, “Well, actually....” As one modern paraphrase puts it: “The fact is, that because of you lot, Jerusalem will be reduced to rubble and cleared like a field; and the Temple hill will be nothing but a tangled mass of weeds"

An archaeologist called Roland de Vaux has excavated village sites only a few miles from where Micah is thought to have lived, and he has something very interesting to say: “The houses of the tenth century B.C. are all of the same size and arrangement. Each represents the dwelling of a family which lived in the same way as its neighbours. The contrast is striking when we pass to the eighth century houses on the same site: the rich houses are bigger and better built and in a different quarter from that where the poor houses are huddled together.”

During those 200 years, Israel and Judah had moved from a largely agricultural society to one governed by a monarchy and with a Temple in Jerusalem. The distinction between the “Haves” and the “Have nots” had grown, as it does still today. But Micah tells the powerful ones – the judges, the priests, the rulers – that God doesn't prop up any so-called progress that is built on the backs of other people. For God, justice and equality matter far more than progress or growth. But God's people disagree, and they try to stop Micah, and other prophets, telling them God's truth; they only want to hear comforting, agreeable prophecies about how their crops will flourish and there will be plenty of wine!

But when Jerusalem has been destroyed, when her people have been carried off into exile, then a day will come when a new leader will be born to them, a leader who will “stand and shepherd his flock in the days of the Lord”, and “who will be our peace when the Assyrians invade our land.”

I expect you realise that these prophecies were often dual-purpose; they did and do refer to the coming of Christ, of course, but they also often referred to a local event, a local birth. We don't know who Micah was originally referring to, who would be born in Bethlehem, but we do know that, for us, these prophecies refer to Jesus.

“He will be our peace when the Assyrians invade our land.” These days we worry rather more about Syrians than about Assyrians – whether we are concerned about the number of refugees seeking asylum here, or whether we are more concerned, as we should be, about how relatively few our government is allowing in. Some people, I know, worry that we shouldn't allow them in in case they turn out to belong to Daesh and want to commit acts of terrorism, but those are the tiniest of tiny minorities among those fleeing Syria.

We call them “migrants”, lumping them all under one umbrella. The term is supposed to be neutral, less laden with emotional baggage than “refugee” or “asylum seeker”. It isn't, of course, because people then talk about “illegal immigrants” or “economic migrants”. And it's noticeable that if we Brits go to live abroad we aren't called migrants – I did the whole economic migrant thing back in the 1970s, when I went to work in Paris for some years after leaving school, but nobody called me a “migrant”, economic or otherwise – I was an expatriate! And people talked about cultural exchange, and our young people learning about different lifestyles, and so on, and it was all considered a Good Thing.

And, of course, many of your families, and perhaps some of you are the first generation who did so, many of you came over here to work and contribute to our society and learn about our way of life – and have enriched this country beyond all measure! Maybe you can remember the bewilderment of arriving here, not too sure of your welcome, not too sure what life in this cold and rainy land was going to be like.

Even if someone does make it across the Channel, their problems aren't yet over. They aren't allowed to work while their claim for asylum is being processed, and although they do get an allowance, it really isn't very much. Not really enough to live on, and certainly not enough for a comfortable lifestyle. And if they are found not to be in imminent danger of death back home, they are thrown out again, and if that's on their records they can't really go and try their luck somewhere else in Europe.

I don't know what the answer long-term is. The politicians will have to work that one out between them. But we need to pray for all migrants, and do what we can to help. That may be only donating a few pounds to the Unicef appeals that we see daily on our televisions, or we may be called to do something more “hands-on”. Whatever, though, we mustn't think of it as someone else's problem!

Because Jesus will be our peace, so Micah tells us. If we believe Matthew's account, he was himself a refugee for awhile, when they fled to Egypt to avoid Herod's troops. As I understand it, God won't necessarily keep the bad times from us, or protect us from what lies ahead, but Jesus will be there with us in the midst of it all. And I, personally, find that reassuring.

Our Gospel reading, too, told of someone who badly needed reassurance. Mary has just met the angel and been told that, if she will, she is the one who will bear God's son, and she has said “Yes”. But it's early days yet – there aren't any physical signs that she is pregnant, she has never slept with a man, what is it all about? But one thing the angel had told her, that she hadn't already known, was that her cousin Elisabeth, surely far too old to be having babies, was six months gone. So Mary goes off to see Elisabeth – incidentally this, for me, is one of the pointers that she was living in the Jerusalem area at the time, whether at Bethlehem or Jerusalem itself – tradition has it that she was ­one of the temple servants – because she would never have been able to travel all that way between Nazareth and Jerusalem on her own.

Anyway, she arrives at Elisabeth's front door, and there is Elisabeth with a large bump, and Elisabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, confirms all that the angel had said. And Mary bubbles over into love and joy and praise, and even if the words of the Magnificat are what St Luke thought she ought to have said – rather like Henry the Fifth's speech at Agincourt being what Shakespeare thought he ought to have said, rather than what he actually did say – even if they are not authentic, they are probably very close to reality! We sung a metrical version of her song just a few minutes ago. And it reminds us that God is turning accepted values upside-down by having His Son born to a virgin mother in a small town in an occupied land.

“Tell out, my soul, the greatness of his might!
Powers and dominions lay their glory by.
Proud hearts and stubborn wills are put to flight,
the hungry fed, the humble lifted high.”

In the culture of the day – as in ours – it was thought that prosperity was a sign of God's blessing, and poverty rather the reverse. But no, that was not what Jesus was, or is, all about. Instead, he himself was born to an ordinary family that, within a couple of years, was fleeing for its life into exile, and when they did dare go home, they didn't dare go back so near Jerusalem, but moved up to the provinces.

Mary was so brave, saying “Yes” to God. I don't know how much she understood, but of course Joseph could – and seriously considered doing so – have refused to marry her, and then where would she have been? But the angel reassured Joseph, and Elisabeth reassured Mary. All was not totally well, but God was with them.

And that's the message to take into this Christmas, isn't it, as we stand on the brink of another war, against an enemy we cannot defeat – for even if we destroy Daesh, as we destroyed Al Quaeda, there will be another group, and another.... all may not be totally well, but God is with us. And God's son, Jesus, will be our peace when the Assyrians invade our land. Amen.

Becoming ourselves

This is similar, but not identical, to the sermon preached on this Sunday three years ago.  In view of the tragic events in Paris which took place on Friday, 13 November, it did change a bit.



I also unexpectedly preached a children's sermon, which I didn't record.  I asked them to tell me the story of the Good Samaritan, which one of them did, very efficiently, and then I reminded them that a Samaritan was a person of a different race and often Jewish people hadn't wanted to know about them.  But I said the point was, he had helped, and when they saw  upsetting news stories on television or in the papers, always to look for the helpers - the police, the fire service, the ambulances, and the ordinary people, like you and me, who are helping - because that's what Jesus would do. 

“So, friends, we can now –

without hesitation –

walk right up to God, into “the Holy Place.”

Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice, acting as our priest before God.

The “curtain” into God’s presence is his body.

So let’s do it –

full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out.

Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going.

He always keeps his word.”

That's a modern translation of part of our first reading today,

from the letter to the Hebrews.

I don't know how much you know about this letter;

it's thought to date from around the year 63 or 64 AD,

before the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed

and before the Eucharist became a widespread form of Christian worship.

Nobody knows who wrote it, either;

arguments about its authorship go back to at least the 4^th century AD!

Probably one of Paul's pupils, but nobody actually knows who.

The Temple in Jerusalem is still standing when this letter is written.

The author uses it to contrast what used to be –

in the olden days only the High Priest could go into God's presence,

and he had to take blood with him to atone for the people's sins and his own.

Nowadays, it is only Christ, the great High Priest, who can go into God's presence –

but he can and does take us with him.

We can go with Jesus into the very presence of God himself, confidently,

just like you'd walk into your own front room.

The thing is, of course, that it's all because of what Jesus has done for us.

We can't go into God's presence, as the prayer says,

“trusting in our own righteousness”.

If we are to go in with any degree of confidence,

it is because of what Jesus has done for us,

arguably whether or not we recognise this.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Christ takes us in there in his own body.

I don't know about you, but for me that rather helps clarify what St Paul said about our being part of the Body of Christ –

and in that Body, we can go into God's presence.

There is nothing we can do to make it any easier or any more difficult;

it is all down to Jesus.

We are made right with God by what Jesus has done, end of.

It isn't about whether we have confessed our sins –

although I hope we have faced up to where we have gone wrong.

It isn't about whether we have accepted Jesus as our Saviour and our Lord –

although I very much hope we have done so.

Neither of those things will save us.

Only God will save us –

and as soon as we reach out a tentative finger to him,

and sometimes even before, he is there,

reassuring us that we are loved,

we are saved,

we are forgiven.

The trouble is, all too often we focus on sin as though that were what Christianity were all about.

We even tend to think the Good News goes

“You are a sinner and God will condemn you to hell unless you believe the right things about him.”

Erm, no.

Just no.

We do things like that.

We are quick to condemn, especially people in public life.

Just read any newspaper, any day.

We are slow to forgive –

we don't believe people can change, we keep on bringing up episodes in the lives of our nearest and dearest that might have happened a quarter of a century ago!

But God is not like that.

God is love.

God is salvation.

We don't have to do anything, only God can save us.

Yes, following Jesus is not an easy option, we know that.

If we are Jesus' person, we are Jesus' person in every part of our lives –

it isn't just something we do here in Church on Sundays.

It affects who we are when we are at work,

or at home with our families,

or going to the supermarket.

It affects what we choose to do with our free time,

who we choose to spend it with –

not, I hope, exclusively people who think the same way as we do.

You see, the thing is, you never know exactly what God's going to do.

An acquaintance of mine is a fairly well-known author whose books have been published both here and in the USA.

She is just a little older than I am, and three years ago she announced on

her blog that she had met Jesus and was now a Christian.

You don't really expect people to become Christians just before their 60^th birthday, but it happened to her.

God reached out to her and, as she put it, everything changed.

Yet she was still herself.

Another fairly well-known author –

well, well-known to me, anyway,

but if you don't read science fiction or fantasy you'll not have heard of either of these lovely women –

confirmed in the comments on this blog that she, too, is a believer,

although you couldn't have actually read some of her books and not realised that.

And one of her comments read, in part:

“I'm still who I was, probably more so. . . . I was scared of the other –

of becoming the cookie fresh from the cutter, just like every other cookie.

But individuality and diversity appears to be built in to the design concept.”

Individuality and diversity appear to be built into the design concept.

Yes.

God has created and designed each one of us to be uniquely ourselves.

When we are told that we will become more Christ-like as we go on with Jesus,

it doesn't mean we'll all grow to resemble a first-century Jewish carpenter!

We will, in fact, become more and more ourselves, more and more who we were intended to be.

Incidentally, my friend is now in urgent need of our prayers as her husband, another fantasy and mystery author, who is a very great deal older than she is, has had a stroke and is now in a care home.

So we will remember Robin and Peter in our intercessions later.

Salvation comes from God, through nothing you or I can do, although we are, of course, at liberty to say “No thank you!”

But if we say “Yes please”, as I suspect most of us here have said, at one time or another, then everything changes.

I've spoken before, although not, I think here, about the consequences of healing.

For make no mistake, my friends, when God touches our lives, things change.

Sometimes it is our behaviour which changes –

perhaps we used to get drunk, but now we find ourselves switching to soft drinks after a couple of glasses.

Perhaps we used to gamble,

but suddenly realise we haven't so much as bought a Lottery ticket for weeks, never mind visiting a bookie!

Perhaps we used to be less than scrupulous about what belongs to us, and what belongs to our employer,

but now we find ourselves asking permission to use an office envelope.

Very often these sorts of changes happen without our even noticing them. Others take more struggle –

sometimes it is many years before we can finally let go of an addiction, or a bad habit.

But as I've said before, the more open we are to God,

the more we can allow God to change us.

Sometimes, of course, we cling on to the familiar bad habits,

as we don't know how to replace them with healthier ways of acting and thinking, and that's scary.

But the point is, when God touches our lives, things change.

They changed for my friend, I know they changed for me,

and they will have changed for many of you, if not all of you, too.

So where does this leave our reading?

Jesus, in our gospel reading, reminded us that we mustn't go running this way and that way,

convinced of doomsday scenarios every time we hear a news bulletin.

Yes, the world as we know it is going to end some day –

it wasn't built to be permanent, just ask the dinosaurs!

We don't know how and why it will end;

in my youth, I would have assumed it would end in a nuclear war that would destroy all living things.

These days that is less probable,

but what about runaway global warming or an asteroid strike?

Or just simply running out of fossil fuels and unable to replace them?

The answer is that we simply don't know.

Unlike the first Christians,

we don't really expect Jesus to return any minute now –

although I suppose that is possible.

We do, however, accept and appreciate that this world is finite and that one day humanity will no longer exist here.

And we mustn't be scared all the time, either.

Yes, our news headlines can be very scary –

but isn't God greater than terrorists?

Isn't God greater than Islamic State?

And we musn't get bogged down in details, either.

There has been such a silly row in the USA this week because Starbucks haven't put Christmas symbols –

not Christian ones, but snowflakes and so on –

on their red cups this year.

Too silly – the God we worship is so very much bigger than whether or not a corporation has decorations on its cups.

There are many good reasons not to go to Starbucks, but that really isn't one of them!

And what about the rows in this country about people who chose not to wear a poppy, or how deep the Labour leader bowed when he laid his wreath.....

It is all so unimportant when we are also taught that we will be raised from death and go on Somewhere Else.

We don't know what that Somewhere Else will be like,

nor who we'll be when we get there –

although I imagine we'll still be recognisably ourselves.

But we do know that Jesus will be there with us,

and that we will see Him face to face.

But eternal life isn't just pie in the sky when you die, as it is so often caricatured.

If we are Christians, we have eternal life here and now;

so often, it's living it that's the problem.

So I'm going to conclude with part of the quote from Hebrews with which I began:

“Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice,

acting as our priest before God.

The “curtain” into God’s presence is his body.

So let’s do it –

full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out.”

Let's do it!

Amen.

Change happens

Today's readings are all about change. Things changed for Job, and things changed for Bartimaeus.

So, then Job. It's a funny old story, isn't it? 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 person – 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.

Here's just a tiny bit:

“Do you give the horse its might?

Do you clothe its neck with mane?

Do you make it leap like the locust?

Its majestic snorting is terrible.

It paws violently, exults mightily;

it goes out to meet the weapons.

It laughs at fear, and is not dismayed;

it does not turn back from the sword.

Upon it rattle the quiver, the flashing spear, and the javelin.

With fierceness and rage it swallows the ground;

it cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.

When the trumpet sounds, it says "Aha!"

From a distance it smells the battle, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars,

and spreads its wings towards the south?

Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes its nest on high?

It lives on the rock and makes its home in the fastness of the rocky crag.

From there it spies the prey;

its eyes see it from far away.

Its young ones suck up blood;

and where the slain are, there it is.”

Wonderful stuff, and it goes on for about three chapters, talking of the natural world and its wonders, and how God is the author of them all. If you ever want to rejoice in creation, read Job chapters 38, 39 and 40.

My father is on record as saying he wants Job 39 read at his funeral.

Anyway at the end, as we heard in our first reading, Job repents "in dust and ashes", we are told, and then his riches are restored to him.

But would even more children and riches really make up for those seven children who were killed? I doubt it, which is one of the reasons it’s probably a story, rather than actual history. But the point I want to make this morning is that God intervened in Job's life, and things changed. At first they changed for the worse, but then they changed for the better.

And the same thing happened to Bartimaeus, as we heard in our Gospel reading. Jesus touched him, and his life was changed beyond all recognition. In John's version of the story, we're told a little bit about the consequences of the healing. For Bartimaeus life changed immediately. My sister-in-law, who is blind, says that not only would he have been given his sight, but he would have been given the gift of being able to see, otherwise how would he have known what he was looking at? He wouldn't have known whether what he was looking at was a person or a camel or a tree, would he? But he was given the gift, so he knew.

And he could stop begging for his living, he realised, and he went and did whatever the local equivalent of signing-on was. And, of course there were lots of mutterings and whisperings – Is it him? Can't be! Must be someone new in town, who just looks like him!

“Yes, it's me,” explains Bartimaeus, anxious to tell his story. “Yes, I was blind, and yes, I can see now!”

“So what happens?” ask the neighbours.

“Well, this bloke put some mud on my eyes and told me to go and wash, and when I did, then I could see. No, I don't know where he is – I never saw him; Yes, I'd probably know his voice, but I didn't actually see him!”

And the neighbours, thinking all this a bit odd, drag him before the Pharisees, the religious authorities of the day. And they don't believe him. Not possible. Nobody born blind gets to see, it just doesn't happen. And if it did, it couldn't happen on the Sabbath. Not unless the person who did it was a sinner, because only a sinner would do that on the Sabbath – it's work, isn't it? And if the person who did it was a sinner, it can't have happened!

They got themselves in a right old muddle. Now we, of course, know what Jesus' thoughts about healing on the Sabbath day were – he is on record elsewhere as pointing out that you'd rescue a distressed donkey, or, indeed, lead it to the horse-trough to get a drink, whatever day of the week it was, so surely healing a human being was a right and proper activity for the Sabbath. But the Pharisees didn't believe this. They thought healing was work, and thus not a proper activity for the Sabbath at all.

So they decided it couldn't possibly have happened, and sent for Bartimaeus's parents to say “Now come on, your son wasn't really blind, was he? What has happened?” And his parents, equally bewildered, say “Well yes, he is our son; yes, he was born blind; yes, it does appear that he can now see; no, we don't know what happened; why don't you ask him?” And the Bible tells us they were also scared of being expelled from the synagogue, which is why they didn't say anything more.

Actually, they must have had a fearful mixture of emotions, don't you think – thrilled that their son could suddenly see, scared of the authorities, wondering what exactly Jesus had done, and was it something they ought to have done themselves, and so on. And, of course, wondering how life was going to be from now on. Very soon now, their son probably wouldn't need them any more; now he was like other people, he could, perhaps, earn a proper living and even marry and have a family.

So the authorities go back to Bartimaeus, and he says, “Well, how would I know if the person who healed me is a sinner or not? All I know is that I was blind, and now I can see!” And then they asked him again, well, how did it happen, and he gets fed up with them going on and says “But I told you! Didn't you listen? Or maybe you want to be his disciples, too?” which was, of course, rather cheeky and he deserved being told off for it, but then again, I expect he was still rather hyper about having been healed. And he does go on rather and tells them that the man who opened his eyes must be from God, can't possibly not be, and they get even more fed up with him, and sling him out.

And then Jesus meets him again – of course Bartimaeus, not having seen him before, doesn't actually recognise him – and reveals himself to him. And Bartimaeus worships him.

But life for Bartimaeus had changed beyond all recognition.

Change happens. This has been a year of enormous changes for Robert and me, some of them good, and some of them less good. Robert has retired, which has meant enormous change for us both; we have had a new kitchen installed, and we have bought ourselves a motor home. That's all good change, although very stressful while it was happening. And it was a very sad change when my parents sold their home of nearly sixty years to move into a smaller house in the village. As my mother says, although they have settled down, it isn't home, and they feel as though they are permanently staying somewhere.

Like many people, I don't respond well to change. I get very stressed and cross, and I feel rather sorry for Robert and the rest of my family who have put up with me this year.

But the thing is, we often don't have a choice about changes. They happen. In our two readings, life changed enormously for two people. And these changes were instituted by God himself into their lives. In the end, it was a change for good for both of them, but it must still have been enormously stressful while it was happening.

Not all change is from God, of course. But with any change, whether we instigate it, or whether it seems to come on us out of the blue, we can't see the long-term consequences. We don't know what is going to happen, as we can't see the future. We can't see round “The bend in the road” as one author put it.

But God can. Nothing that happens to us can surprise God, as God sees all times as now. When we say “No” to God, when we block God from acting, God always has a plan B. God knows – but does not influence – how we are going to react.

And when changes happen, when we are overwhelmed by change, that is when we can most trust God. God can see round that bend in the road. Good things may be on the way, as they were for Bartimaeus, as they were for Job, or bad things may be about to happen – as, indeed, they did to Job for a time. But either way God knows, and God will be there with us through them. Even when it feels as if God's just slapped us in the face and left us to cope. That's only what it feels like, not what really happened.

So, of course, we need to practice trusting God while things are on a fairly even keel, so that when the upheavals happen – and they will – when they happen, we can go on trusting God, and knowing that God is with us, even in the midst of the storm. Amen.

Who do you think you are?

I first made friends with her in 1958. She and I were at primary school together, and then at secondary school, and although we grew apart and have led very different lives, we have remained in touch, and have lunch together every six months or so. And last time we had lunch together, we agreed that where our primary school had fallen down was in teaching mathematics. We were very badly taught. “And,” said my friend, who remembers everything, “We were told to ask if we didn't understand, but if we asked, we were told we hadn't been listening properly!” And it wasn't until I started to try to teach my daughter the rudiments of numbers that I discovered that, despite a quite good maths O level, I was fundamentally innumerate, and hadn't much idea of how numbers worked.

But the point is, when we were told off for asking, despite how often we were told to ask, we became afraid to ask. And in our Gospel reading today, we see Jesus teaching his disciples, privately, away from the crowds. And they, too, reacted with fear, and were afraid to ask him what he meant. We then see them fighting among themselves, and, finally, learning something of what it means to be first.

Fear

So first of all, Jesus tries to tell his disciples about his forthcoming death and resurrection, but apparently the didn't understand and were afraid to ask. Afraid to ask? I wonder why they were afraid. Do you suppose they thought Jesus might be annoyed with them for asking?

I don't think he would have been. I think if the disciples had said, “Look here, what are you talking about?” he would have tried to explain more clearly. And this might have avoided some unpleasant misunderstandings, like when Peter says, “No, no, I won't let that happen!” which was so totally not what Jesus wanted or needed to hear at that moment that it felt as though the evil one was tempting him.

So why do you think they were afraid to ask? I wonder if it wasn't that they were afraid of appearing total pillocks in front of the others. Everybody was thinking, “Well, I don't know what he's on about, but everybody else obviously does, so I'm not going to be the one to make a fool of myself by asking!” I have a feeling we may all have been there and done that at times – I know I have! You really don't know what the other person is talking about, but you don't like to ask for fear of appearing an idiot.

I don't know where that particular fear comes from – it may be down to early experiences at school, like mine in the maths class. If you ask, you are told off for not having listened properly; if you don't ask, you are assumed to have understood even if you hadn't. And when nobody else asks for clarification, you think you must be the only one who didn't understand!

But in a way, this is a form of pride, isn't it? We are too proud to ask; we're afraid of looking silly in front of other people.

Fighting

So the disciples reacted with fear, and then they started fighting among themselves, arguing about who was the greatest. Well, we know that Jesus was very unimpressed by this, and so, of course, it's not something we ever do.

Is it?

Are you sure?

The thing is, we might not argue about who is the greatest, as we know that's not what Christianity is all about, so what we then do is pride ourselves on how humble we are, what good Christians we are, how we don't ever put ourselves forwards.... Or maybe we boast about our children. Some years ago, you may remember, there was that excellent comedy sketch series called “Goodness Gracious Me”, with Meera Syal and Sanjeev Bhaskar – you know, the famous “Going for an English” sketch. But that wasn't the one I'm remembering here, but the two mothers who keep making ludicrously exaggerated claims about how well their sons are doing. Competitive mothering – or competitive grandmothering – is very definitely a thing! I even find myself doing it with my own daughter: “Well, of course, dear, you were potty-trained before you were two!”

And we have probably all met the sort of Christian who just mentions in passing that they are fasting for Syria, or have donated twenty toothbrushes and six blankets to the collection point in Venn Street – do it, please do do it, but don't talk about it! Or so Jesus said. He pointed out, do you remember, that the people who made a great show of being holy, or of giving alms, already had their reward. “But your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you openly!”

It's all about pride. Again. In fact, this whole passage is about pride. It was pride which kept the disciples from asking Jesus what on earth he was talking about. And it was pride that caused them to argue and fight about who was the greatest – and you will notice that they didn't answer when Jesus asked them what they had been talking about! But he knew. And he began to teach them what it meant to be first.

Being First

‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’

‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’

This, then, was Jesus' teaching about being first and greatest. Again, this doesn't seem to say much to us – we know all this, don't we? We've heard these teachings since we were in Sunday School. Of course we try to be last of all and servant of all. We're the ones you find arguing in the kitchen that of course we'll do all the washing up, all by ourselves, and then we'll sweep the floor and everybody else should go home.... and if people take us up on it, we grumble loudly that we're the only person who every does anything around here, and go around in a delightful glow of martyrish self-pity.

It's pride, all the way. C. S. Lewis said that pride was the central sin of humankind, and that the prouder we are, the more we dislike pride in others. I quote: “In fact, if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, 'How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me, or show off?' The point is that each person's pride is in competition with every one else's pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise.”

And Lewis goes on to point out that it is pride that comes between us and God: “In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that – and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison – you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”

St James, in our first reading, said something very similar: “But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.” And he goes on in that vein: “And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.”

Again, pride. It seems to be at the root of all human evil. The disciples were too proud to ask Jesus what he was talking about. They claimed to have been afraid to ask, but it was probably a fear born of pride. Then they started bickering about who was the greatest, like small children. And then Jesus taught them that they must be the servant of all, and welcome small children in His name. But that, too, so easily goes wrong and becomes a matter of pride.

So what can we do about it? I suppose the first thing is to admit it, to confess it, if you like. But it's the most difficult sin to confess, because it's the one we are most unaware of. And if we do become aware of it, we start being proud of that awareness. You remember Jesus' story of the pharisee and the tax collector, how the Pharisee spent his prayer-time thanking God for how much better he was than other people, and especially than that tax-collector? Well, I read a story about a Sunday-school teacher who taught that story to her class, and said, “Now, children, let us thank God that we are not like that Pharisee!”. Which was all very well until I found myself thanking God that I was not like that Sunday-School teacher....

And it was, we are told, the tax-collector, who contented himself with praying: “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!” who went away right with God.

Pride is a horrible vice, and I am inclined to agree with Lewis that it is the antithesis of Christianity. It is often the basis of all other vices. Of course we can, must, and should rejoice in our achievements – but having succeeded in whatever it was we set out to do doesn't make us a great person!

We are all sinners, saved by grace. And that is the thing, isn't it – saved by grace! No matter how proud we are, no matter how much we secretly – or openly – want to be the greatest, no matter how much we dislike looking foolish, the moment we turn to God, the moment we stop looking at ourselves and start to look at God, in that moment we are forgiven. And with God's help, and only with God's help, we can overcome our pride. It's not a matter of behaviour – it never is. It's about allowing God to change us, to re-create us, to help us grow into the person we were designed to be. After all, as Aslan said to one of the Kings of Narnia, being human “is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the head of the greatest emperor on earth.” Amen.