Church Anniversary

 

It was, apparently, 65 years ago, in March 1957, that the foundation stones of this building were laid. I am not sure when the actual first service was held in the building, but I imagine it must have been in 1958 or 1959. A very long time ago! But I am told that the reading from John’s Gospel that we have just heard was used at that service, specifically focussing on verse 36: “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”

“Look, here is the Lamb of God!”

I wonder, if someone were to ask you what you meant by church, how you would answer? Most people who don’t go to church would probably say “That building on Brixton Hill”, or something similar. We, who belong to a church, would be more likely to say “The people of God”. We would probably talk of Brixton Hill Church and its buildings, rather than Brixton Hill Church and its people.

Mind you, having said that, buildings are not unimportant. Yes, we’ve learnt how to manage without, during the pandemic – but it’s not the same! And I don’t know if you’ve ever visited a really old church – I know some of the former King’s Acre people visited my family’s 13th-century church in Sussex a few years ago. I’m going to be preaching there in a couple of weeks and am really looking forward to it. Anyway, the point is, in a really old church, or a Cathedral, especially in those chapels in a Cathedral that have been set aside for private prayer, you get the feeling that it has been “prayed in” over the years. You become aware of God’s presence in the building. Perhaps you do here – I know I do, sometimes.

Of course, any building requires a great deal of upkeep – Cathedrals have, sadly, had to start charging people who only want to look round, rather than attend public worship, because they cost so much to maintain. Even a relatively modern building like this one takes a great deal of maintenance – Robert has been having an awful time lately chivvying the builders who have been repairing it, just ask him!

But most of us would, I think, agree that while a church meets in a building; the church is more than the building. Much more. People talk, of course, about “going into the Church” when they mean getting ordained, or, occasionally, entering religious life as a nun or monk. But basically we are the Church.

The Girls’ Brigade used to sing

“I am the Church,

you are the Church,

we are the Church together.

All who follow Jesus,

all around the world,

we are the Church together”.

And they were not wrong. We, God’s people met here, this morning, or following on the Livestream, we are the Church. Well, we are part of the Church!

And what we are part of is known as the Church Militant – the Church here on earth, fighting against evil. The larger part is known as the Church Triumphant, the saints in glory. The ones who fought the good fight, kept the faith, and who lived and died as God’s people.

Of course, the Church here on earth is far from perfect. Never has been. Even back in the 1^st century AD St Paul was having to write to the Church at Philippi and tell two of the women there, Euodia and Syntyche – or U-Odious and Soon-Touchy, as I have heard them called – to try to resolve their differences and to work together, and asked others in the church to try to help them do so. And, as we heard in our first reading, St Peter found it necessary to remind his readers that they should “Rid themselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.”

Church squabbles are nothing new! As our own history will soon tell us, if we look back – and I’m not going to go into any details, you know them as well as I do!

But although we are far from perfect, we know that the Church is also a place where Jesus is. The Church is also a place where Jesus is. “Look,” said John the Baptist, “There is the Lamb of God.” As I just said, in many, if not most, churches you can come in and feel that this is a place that has been prayed in, a place where God has been at work, a place where God is. It is a place of healing, a place of power. A place where, as St Peter reminds us, we are being built into “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.”

That’s pretty amazing, right? But then, there are people, we know, who feel that just attending public worship on a Sunday morning is enough, they don’t feel any need to take it further. I hope that’s not you – for you have, I promise you, nothing to lose by saying “Yes” to Jesus, to deciding to be God’s person, to deciding that what you say and do here on a Sunday should carry over and be part of who you are during the week, too. Truly, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

So we know that the Church is God’s people meeting together – or even not meeting together, for we remain God’s people during the week, when we are apart. We know, too, that the Church is a place where Jesus is, where we can say “Look, here is the Lamb of God”. At least, I hope and pray that this is as true of us as it is of many, if not most, Churches.

But there is another definition of “Church” that I’d like us to look at this morning, and that is, “The Church is the only organisation that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.”

“The Church is the only organisation that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.”

Sometimes we’re apt to treat the Church as though it were our own private club, a place where we meet our friends, a place where we receive the spiritual food we need, a place where we can worship God in the way that most appeals to us, and so on. In other words, it’s all about us! And, of course, in many ways it’s always going to be like that. We are inherently selfish creatures, and God has provided us with our churches for our own comfort and renewal. But nevertheless, it is still true that we should be looking outward, rather than inward. We should be reaching out into the community, loving people into the Kingdom of God – as, indeed, I think we are doing with our youth work and our Pop-In club, although much of our community work has been lost during the pandemic. But God will build it up again.

And you note that I said God will build it up again – we are not required to do it without help. St Peter reminds us that we are being built into a holy nation, God’s own people, not just for our own benefit – although I am sure that, too – but also “in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”

“In order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”

Jesus reminded us that when the Spirit came, we would be his witnesses throughout the world. Not that we could be, or that we ought to be, but that we would be. And so we are. If we are truly God’s people, then we are his witnesses, whether we’re here in Church, or out shopping, or at work or school. I know that, many years ago now, when I first encountered people who were consciously Christian, I really wanted them to like me. Quite the wrong reason for “inviting Jesus into your heart”, as we called it, but hey. Jesus is bigger than our wrong reasons! These young people – for we all were young then, very young – probably had no idea how attractive they were, but Jesus knew!

So, anyway. The Church is more than its buildings, nice though they are. The Church is more than professional Christians – clergy and so on. The Church is more than its people. The Church, too, is more than a base for reaching out into the community. All of these things are true. All of these things are part of being Church. But I would suggest that the main definition of Church, the one we want to look to on this Anniversary Sunday, is that it is a place where Jesus is. Jesus told us that where two or three are gathered in his name, he is there in the midst of us. And that is Church. A place where, I hope, we can look up and see the Lamb of God. Amen!

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Trinity Sunday 2022

The text of this sermon is more or less the same as the one I preached here.

No difference

 

We were in Jerusalem, in about 40 AD or thereabouts – very thereabouts, I suspect. And it was all very well, we thought, to be a follower of the new way, the way of Jesus, who was called the Christ – but hang on a minute, some of the believers aren’t Jewish! Surely they must be Jews first and Christians, as they are beginning to be called, afterwards? The followers of Jesus are a subset of Judaism no? Not a religion in their own right?

Well, that was the thinking. But then there was Peter, arguably the leader of this new cult, who had only been and gone and baptised some Gentiles without first converting them to Judaism, hadn’t he? What had he been thinking?

And, as we heard in our first reading today, they confronted him. And Peter explains what had happened. He had been staying with Simon the Tanner in Joppa, and had gone up on the roof to pray – or perhaps have a nap, who knows – and he had a vision or a dream of a great sheet full of the sort of animals he wouldn’t have dreamt of eating – pigs, shellfish, insects, and so on. I’ve never watched “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here,” but I gather the contestants on that have something called a bush tucker trial, which presumably involves eating things they wouldn’t normally think of as food – insects and so on. Well, this was Peter’s bush tucker trial, if you like, and he was told, in his dream, to choose something and eat it…. So, Peter explains, he refused, he doesn’t eat unclean food, but in his dream he was told not to call anything unclean that God had created. Three times. And then the envoys from Cornelius arrived and Peter realised that this was the Holy Spirit at work to persuade him to go and visit Cornelius.

If you read the original account, earlier in Acts, he is more than a little condescending and obviously thinks himself rather better than these mere Gentiles. He realises, he said, “that it is true that God treats everyone on the same basis.  Those who fear him and do what is right are acceptable to him, no matter what race they belong to.”

Yeah, big of him! All the same, for Peter this was a huge concession. And just as he begins to tell them about Jesus, and, if Luke’s report is accurate, gives an excellent summary of the Good News: How God sent Jesus to heal and to overcome the devil, and how he was put to death, but raised – and Peter stresses that he witnessed that, and that he ate and drank with Jesus after he was raised – almost before he finished giving that summary, the Holy Spirit falls on Cornelius and his household, and they begin to praise God and to speak in tongues. So, as Peter so rightly says to the Jewish believers in Jerusalem, “who was I, then, to try to stop God!”

And the Jewish believers realised – or began to realise, is probably more accurate – that the Good News was also for the Gentiles, not just the Jews!

Peter, being Peter, is on record as having had trouble really hauling this in – Paul says in his letter to the Galatians that at one stage he had to remind him that he totally could eat with Gentile believers. But you can’t really blame him – he had been taught, from earliest childhood, to thank God each day that he wasn’t a Gentile, a slave or a woman. And then suddenly all this is turned upside down – it’s never easy to really shake off your early training, is it?

Paul, who was better educated than Peter, doesn’t seem to have had nearly as much trouble shaking off his early prejudices, and is on record as having written that “there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus.”

“You are all one in union with Christ Jesus.”

Isn’t it a pity we don’t believe him! Oh, we say we do, we pay lip service to it, and I expect most of us consciously try to live that way. But you only have to look at the headlines to see how little we believe it! Look at what has been happening in America these past few weeks, where it looks as though some states will be allowed to have control over women’s fertility, and not allow women to have any say in their own bodies. There are so many issues there we’d be here all morning if I were to go into them, but I will just say that while I know most of us, me included, would really rather people didn’t have abortions, let’s be realistic – there are always going to be times when it is the least worst option, and there are always going to be women who are desperate not to have the baby they have conceived. And it’s not our place to judge these women, but I’m sure we would all rather they could have safe, hygienic abortions and not put their lives at risk.

Look at what is happening in Northern Ireland, where the two tribes – basically represented by Sinn Féin and the DUP, although the divide is deeper than that – simply cannot work together to form a government. This has happened in other countries, too – Belgium, for instance, was without a government for some years because its two tribes couldn’t work together. It’s not that many years since there were dreadful massacres in Rwanda because the two tribes there couldn’t find a way of living together.

Arguably one of the worst is the way governments in Europe, including our own, have been falling over themselves to provide safe havens for Ukrainian refugees. Now, it’s right and proper that they should, and it’s gratifying that so many people have been willing and able to open their homes – but why only Ukrainians? What’s wrong with Afghan refugees, may I ask? Or Syrian ones, come to that? Or from various African countries facing famine or war?

Yes, we all know the answer to that, don’t we? Race and religion! But it goes to show the unthinking prejudices we all have, the way we “other” people who are different to us in some way. Of course, we are always going to associate mostly with people who are more like us – we have more in common with people who come from the same sort of background, went to the same sort of school, enjoy the same sort of hobbies. Christian folk may well prefer the company of other Christians. That’s okay. What’s not okay is when we consider people who aren’t like us as other, as different and strange, as less than we are – or perhaps, if they are celebrities, as greater than we are.

Remember Shakespeare’s Shylock? Shylock was Jewish, and because of that was treated as less than human by his contemporaries. Which he, not unnaturally, resented: “I am a Jew.” he said. “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?” 

Shylock felt himself Othered. People didn’t consider him quite human because he was Jewish. Rather like the first Jewish believers didn’t consider the Gentiles quite human, and couldn’t understand why they should be accepted into the fellowship.

I remember when, as quite a small girl, I was invited to lunch in the holidays with a schoolfriend, whose family were Catholic, and my mother being terribly anxious lest I comment on the food, as it was a Friday and we would undoubtedly be served fish. Quite why she thought I would, when I liked fish, I can’t imagine – and anyway, by then Vatican II had happened, and fish wasn’t served. But it turned these people into Others, strange people who ate fish on Fridays because they had to, not because they wanted to. And I know that in Northern Ireland the Protestants are taught to regard the Catholics as Other, and vice versa. This is, of course, one reason why they sometimes have trouble working together, never mind their very deep political differences.

But “We are all one in union with Christ Jesus.” And if that is too difficult for us, let’s remind ourselves of what Jesus said in our Gospel reading today: “And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.”

“If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples”. 
 “We are all one in union with Christ Jesus.”

One definition of love I rather like is “That condition where the happiness of the beloved is more important than your own.”

“That condition where the happiness of the beloved is more important than your own.” That sounds very much how God loves us, and it is of course, how God expects us to love others. “Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth.”

But, of course, we can’t do that in our own strength. If we try, we are just setting ourselves up for failure, and we’ll find ourselves othering those who are least like us, no matter how hard we try not to. They don’t do things like we do. But if we truly allow God to fill us with the Holy Spirit, to grow us and change us and continue to make us into the person we were created to be, then gradually, among other changes, we will learn to see everybody else, no matter their race, colour or creed, no matter how differently they do things, as just like us, as people for whom Christ died, as people with whom “We are one in union with Christ Jesus”.

I know it’s not too easy to “let go and let God”, as they say; we are all too apt to take ourselves back again and end up with the old selfish ways. But God is always there waiting for us to realise – or nudging us, so that we do realise – and bringing us back to be cleansed, healed and made whole again. Thanks be to God! God is good! (all the time! All the time! God is good).

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Our Doctrines

 

The text of this sermon is substantially the same as found here.

Going to Emmaus

The text of this sermon is substantially the same as the one I preached here.

Peter and Mary

 

Hallelujah! Christ is risen! This year, as every year, we have made it through to Easter Day and we celebrate with the Risen Christ.

For us, it is something we have always known, ever since we knew anything at all about the Christian faith. God raised Christ from the dead. Christ is risen. But it was far otherwise for the earliest disciples. I’ll come back to the gospel account in a minute, but let’s just look at our first reading, from Acts.

I expect you know the context of Peter’s speech here, but just in case you’ve forgotten, or can’t quite place it for a moment, it’s when he goes to visit the Roman centurion, Cornelius. Now, Peter is in no doubt at all that Jesus has been raised; he not only saw Jesus, but walked and talked and ate with him. Jesus had forgiven him for denying that he knew him, and Peter had also been in the Upper Room at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came, and had been one of the first to explain to the crowds what was happening.

But for now, he is staying with Simon the Tanner, in Joppa, and after lunch one day he goes up on to the roof to have a nap. Or a time of prayer, but I rather think he falls asleep. And he has an extraordinary dream – there is a sheet full of the sort of animals he wouldn’t ever think of eating – pigs, and rats, and things like that. I’ve never watched “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here,” but I gather the contestants on that have something called a bush tucker trial, which presumably involves eating things they wouldn’t normally think of as food – insects and so on. Well, this was Peter’s bush tucker trial, if you like, and he was told, in his dream, to choose something and eat it…. And he refuses, but the voice that told him to choose something now tells him not to call anything unclean that God has called clean. Eventually, he gets the message, and when he wakes up, Cornelius’ envoys are waiting to ask him to come.

Peter would not normally have dreamt of going to a Gentile’s house – yuck! That would have made him totally unclean. But after his dream, such timing, he dare not refuse, and when he gets there he realises what’s happening, and, rather tactlessly, exclaims that he now realises “that it is true that God treats everyone on the same basis. Those who fear him and do what is right are acceptable to him, no matter what race they belong to.” Yeah, big of him! Still, for Peter, who even years later still had trouble eating non-kosher food, that was a huge concession. And he goes on to give the excellent summary of the Good News that we heard read. How God sent Jesus to heal and to overcome the devil, and how he was put to death, but raised – and Peter stresses that he witnessed that, and that he ate and drank with Jesus after he was raised.

Because Peter was, after all, one of the first to see Jesus. But not totally the first. I love the account in John’s gospel; John isn’t known for personal glimpses the way the other gospels are, but this whole account sounds as though it was taken from a very early source – you know, of course, that the gospels were not written down for several decades after the Resurrection, but obviously took their material from earlier works, either written or oral. Perhaps John himself, or even Mary Magdalen, told this story!

It’s the details – Mary, coming early in the morning, probably around 5 am, to finish embalming the body, and finding it not there. And she runs to tell the others, and Peter and John come, and look inside, and they see that, although there is obviously no body in there, the actual grave clothes in which it had been wound are still there, with the headpiece separate. You couldn’t actually do that without disturbing them, surely?

Peter and John head off back to the others, but Mary stays, still in tears because she needs to be by the body, or at least by the tomb, to get her grieving done. And when a man, whom she assumes is the gardener, asks her what’s wrong, she says again, “Where is he? Have you moved him? Where did you put him? Please tell me, please?”

And then the man suddenly says, in that well-known, familiar, much-loved voice: “Mary!”

And Mary takes another look. She blinks. She rubs her eyes. She pinches herself. No, she’s not dreaming. It really, really is! “Oh, my dearest Lord!” she cries, and flings herself into his arms.

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

So Peter and Mary both knew, from their own knowledge, that Jesus was raised from the dead in a physical body they could hug, and walk and talk with, and eat and drink with. We know from some other accounts that there were some differences and not everybody recognised him at first, which isn’t too improbable when you think how difficult it is, sometimes, to recognise people out of context – if you meet your hairdresser in the street, for instance.

And if you thought Jesus was dead and buried, how very difficult to recognise him when he came and walked along with you, as he did to Cleopas and his wife that same evening.

So all right. But then, why does it matter? It is something that happened two thousand years ago, isn’t it? Long ago in history.

Well yes, it is. But it is also central to our faith. St Paul says, in his letter to the Corinthians, that if Christ hasn’t been raised, then he – Paul – is a fraud, our sins are not forgiven, and we might as well all go home and eat chocolate! As it is, because Christ has been raised, our sins are forgiven! And we can have life, abundant life. And, it appears, that just as Christ was raised, so shall we be raised from death – our bodies will obviously wear out or rust out one day no matter what we do, and while we may be given “notice to quit”, as it were, it may happen very suddenly. But we believe that because Christ was raised, so we, too, shall be raised to eternal life with him. And we will be changed.

I like to wear a butterfly brooch or two on Easter day, because, for me, butterflies are a symbol of the Resurrection. Butterflies, as you know, start off as caterpillars, and, when they have reached a certain size or body weight, they pupate; they wrap themselves in leaves or silk or something and become what’s called a chrysalis, and eventually, all being well, a butterfly emerges.

That isn’t just a matter of hibernating, like a dormouse or bear; to become a butterfly, caterpillars have to be completely remade. While they are in the pupa, all their bits dissolve away, and are remade from scratch, from the material that is there.  It’s not just a matter of rearranging what is there,

it’s a matter of total breakdown and starting again. The caterpillar more-or-less has to die before it can become a butterfly.

That is seriously scary. Especially as something of the same sort of thing happened to Jesus, before he was raised from death, and may well happen to us, too. We will be remade and raised in some kind of spiritual body, so St Paul says.

And one reason we have eggs at Easter, whether the ordinary kind, or chocolate ones, or both, is that an egg is also a symbol of resurrection. We eat our breakfast eggs and enjoy them, but if an egg is fertilised and incubated, it goes on to hatch out into a bird – the bird grows from scratch inside the egg, but then has to peck its way out, or it will perish.

Christ has been raised, and we will be raised.

And we believe, too, that because Christ was raised, we can be filled with his Holy Spirit, just as the disciples were on that long-ago day of Pentecost. So we don’t have to face going through the transformation that will occur all by ourselves; the Holy Spirit will be with us, strengthening us and enabling us to cope. Not just when we have died, but here, now, today. As we allow the risen Christ more and more access to us, through the Holy Spirit, we will be changed and grown more and more into the person God created us to be.

Hallelujah! Christ is risen. Amen.

What a waste!

The gospel story that we have just heard read, of Jesus being anointed Mary at Bethany, is a very familiar one. So what's it all about?

There are slightly different versions of the story in each of the four gospels, which reflects the fact that those who made the gospels wrote down what was said and taught in their particular fellowships, and from their particular collections of "The sayings of Jesus", or whatever unofficial manuscripts were floating around their church.

Matthew's and Mark's stories are the most similar. They set the episode in Bethany, at the house of Simon the Leper. A woman wanders in off the street, pours the ointment over Jesus' head and, for all we know, wanders straight out again. Tradition has it that she was Mary Magdalen, but we don’t know that. The disciples and others gathered there go: "Oh, what a waste! If she didn't want it we could have sold it and given the money to the poor." Jesus tells them to be quiet, because the woman was anointing his body for burial and what she did would be remembered for ever. As, indeed, it has been.

John's gospel, the version we just heard read, however, stays in Bethany, but John says that Jesus was staying with his friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus, and that it was Mary who upended the ointment all over him. Some people have used this to reckon that Martha was married to Simon the Leper, or indeed, to reckon that Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalen were the same person. Again, possible, but we don’t know that.

Luke might possibly be talking about a different episode, because his version takes place in a Pharisee's house, and the woman is definitely a hooker, and she pours the stuff all over his feet, not his head, and Jesus said that only goes to show how much she knows God has forgiven her.

Anyway, that's the basic story, one way or another. But what's it about, and what has it got to say to us today?

First, then, what is the story about? Well, I think it's about extravagance. Those alabaster jars were incredibly precious. If you were lucky enough to have one, it was your most precious thing and you guarded it with your life, practically. It could only be opened by breaking it, so it couldn't ever be used again. You didn't go pouring the contents all over the head of passing prophets, no matter how charismatic.

So when the disciples said, "What a waste!" they seriously meant it. The jar was broken, it was no use any more. The ointment was poured out, and that in itself was costly enough. Mary had given her most precious thing to Jesus, and from everyone else's point of view, it looked like a terrible waste. They couldn't even make use of the gift by selling it and giving the money to charity. It was all gone. What a waste.

You know, the more I read this story, the more it reminds me of God. You see, Mary was frantically extravagant and wasteful. But so often, God's like that.
Think of the story of the wedding at Cana, right at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. When they ran out of wine, towards the end of the festivities, Jesus provided some more. But he provided far more wine than anyone could drink. I worked it out once that the six stone jars he had filled would hold about eight hundred bottles of wine. You'd need a white van to bring that lot back from Calais, and I should think the Customs would be taking an intelligent interest in you! And even the host at the party almost said “Serving the best wine now, when we’ve all had more than enough? What a waste!”

Or think of the story of the feeding of the five thousand. Actually, one of the gospels, Matthew, I think, says that the five thousand was only the men, and didn't count the women and children, which would have made it more like thirty-five thousand. Anyway, when Jesus provided lunch for them, and he certainly did count the women and children, even if nobody else bothered, it wasn't as though there was only just enough to go round; there were twelve huge basketsful left over. Enough for each disciple to take one home to Mum. So perhaps that wasn’t a waste....

Or what about our natural world? How many different species of flowers are there? Scientists know that they don't know. And animals, too, come to that. I read in the paper a few years ago that they have just discovered about three totally new species of antelope in the jungles of somewhere like Vietnam; somewhere in south-east Asia, anyway. And nobody knew they were there except God. What a waste!

Think of reproduction, too. All the waste that goes on. The millions of baby fish that are hatched, so that a few may survive to adulthood. Birds nest every year, but I read somewhere that only about two of all the offspring a bird hatches in the course of its life reach an age to reproduce. That's sad, of course, but not if you think of those birds that do reproduce as exceptions and the normal life-span of a bird is from hatching to fledging. What a waste, though.

The millions of sperm male mammals produce so that one, just one, can fertilise an egg. All this fuss they're making about male infertility, these days, but most men are still producing about 60 million sperm each time - and they don't think that's quite enough!

On a larger scale, think of all the stars in the night sky, or those pictures of distant galaxies you sometimes see from the Hubble telescope when it comes on "The Sky at Night" or Horizon. I wonder how many of those stars have planets on them like ours, and how many of those planets have life on them, and how much of that life is intelligent and knows its Creator. We're not going to know this side of heaven, but God knows.

Why am I tempted to say "The truth is out there!"?.....

But, seriously, for all we know, beings that are five feet square, one inch thick, and ripple might be worshipping God right now this minute in some far-off galaxy. And we fuss about people whose just happen to come from a different tribe. Ah well.

And if we are the only life in the cosmos, intelligent or otherwise, what does that say about God? All those universes and stars and black holes and pulsars and quasars, just for God, and for us, to enjoy looking at? A waste?

Even on this earth things are pretty incredible. Have you ever flown over London in an aeroplane on a clear day? Or looked at Google maps with the satellite view – all those houses, all those cities – you can look at all sorts of random places on Google Maps if you want, places you might never have otherwise known about – but God always knew. God knows the people in those houses, walking along those streets, driving those cars.

God is seriously incredible. And God doesn’t waste things. We, in our human selves, tend to think “What a waste!” when we see the massive over-production of Nature, or when people are extravagant.

But God loved us so extravagantly that all that love, all that knowledge, all those galaxies were given up and God came to earth as a human baby. The Truth really was Out There, but came down to Here.

As Jesus. Needing to learn everything from scratch. Needing to be fed, and have his nappies changed. Growing up as an ordinary human being in an ordinary family. In a provincial town in a colony of one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen. When God became a human being, it was a thorough job!

And this human being, who was also God, and who had the potential to be worshipped by beings who are five feet square, one inch thick, and ripple, is sitting having dinner with his friends. If Mary caught a glimpse, the tiniest, tiniest glimpse, of the wonder and the majesty of God, and had the slightest inkling of who Jesus is, then no wonder only her most precious possession would do.

She, of course, is far from being the only person who ever responded so extravagantly to God. Look at Mary the mother of Jesus. Her "Yes!" to God was really extravagant – she risked total ruin, including of her reputation. Supposing Joseph had repudiated her on the grounds that she was not chaste? He could have done so, and then where would Mary have ended up? On the streets, most likely! It didn't happen, but it could have. That's extravagant!

At that, look at Joseph’s response. He had a hard choice to make – he was seen as a “man of God”, and properly he should have repudiated Mary. I don’t think it made it much better that it was God who had impregnated her, either! But he chose to risk his reputation and his position in the community by marrying her anyway. That’s extravagant!

Look at Peter and John when they were first hauled before the Sanhedrin. Not only did they refuse to stop preaching the word, but they then went home and prayed for more boldness to do it more forcefully. That's extravagant! But it was very far from being a waste.

Or what about St Paul? Think of how he focuses on all the hardships he has undergone in order to keep on doing what he does, in other words, preaching the Good News. That's extravagant! But it was very far from being a waste.

Or what about all those men and women who have laid down their lives for the sake of the Gospel. Some of them went to the other side of the world; others stayed at home. We know some of their names; others are known only to God.

People like George Muller, who gave up the life of a rich playboy to look after orphans in Bristol? Or Eric Liddell, who abandoned being an athlete to go to China for God. Or Gladys Aylward, who was turned down by the missionary society that sent Eric Liddell, but who went anyway, independently, and saved the lives of hundreds of children, and now even has schools named after her!

Or even Florence Nightingale, who was baulked in her first ambition to serve God through the church, because in those days the Anglican church did not allow women to do anything except sit on their behinds and listen. Anyway, we all know how Florence Nightingale eventually decided to serve God, and the result.

The people who have responded in that way down the years are legion. They heard God, and responded extravagantly. It may be that the world thought they were wasting their lives, but for them, only the most extravagant response would do.

Today is called Passion Sunday, a day on which historically we remember God’s extravagance in sending Jesus in to this world to die on the Cross for us. And when we recall, too, through this story of Mary anointing Jesus, some of humanity’s response to this.

A waste? Perhaps. But for Mary, only her absolute prize possession would do for the One who had brought her beloved brother back from the dead. And at that, she probably felt it was not enough.

What is our response today to God’s extravagant love? What is my response? What is yours?