The Great Commandments

 I did actually leave a little more time between the prayer at the start and launching into it than can be heard on the recording - this is because I made a nonsense of the recording and had to concatenate the prayer and the main sermon, and cut it just too fine!!!

Today is called Bible Sunday, largely because of the Collect for the Day, which, when I was young, used to be the Collect for the second Sunday in Advent, but has since been moved!

“Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:
help us so to hear them,
to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them
that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word,

help us so to hear them,
to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them
that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word,

we may embrace and for ever hold fast the hope of everlasting life,” and so on.

I had to learn it off by heart as a schoolgirl!

I wonder, if you were asked,
what you would think was the most important rule in the Bible?
Some people would be horrified at the thought that any one rule could be more important than another,
as they would say that all the Bible is the inspired Word of God and we need to obey all of it –
and then they don’t, being perfectly happy to wear polycotton clothes or eat bacon and oysters.
Other people would pounce on their own pet hate, finding justification for it somewhere in the Bible, even if it is a bit of a stretch –
gay marriage, for instance,
or abortion,
or divorce,
Sunday trading or sex before marriage.

Still others would try to use the Bible to justify their political worldview, whether far right, far left, or somewhere in between.
Or to place perhaps undue emphasis on social justice,
or homelessness, or poverty.
But in our Gospel reading, when Jesus was asked what the most important rule in the Bible was, he replied that it was to love God, one’s neighbour, and oneself.
Love, for Jesus, was the most important thing.

Now, you know as well as I do that you’re apt to find whatever you look for in the Bible.
If you want to find a picture of God as determined to send people to hell at all costs, and only grudgingly accepting those who trust Jesus,
then it’s easy enough to find that.
If, on the other hand, you want to find a God who moves heaven and earth to save people, any excuse will do not to condemn someone,
then it’s easy enough to find that, too.
We have to accept that our reading of the Bible is always going to be flawed, we’re always going to read it through the lens of our own prejudice, our own experience, our own political viewpoint.
Or, if we read with the help of a daily commentary,
of that commentator’s prejudice, experience, political viewpoint, and so on.

But Jesus said that the greatest commandment is love.
Love God, love your neighbour, love yourself. Anything else is subordinate to that.

So what is he talking about, and how do we do it?
Our English language lets us down here, unusually.
Normally, as it has both Latin and German roots,
we have several synonyms for most words, words that mean the same thing, like illness, sickness and disease,
to name the one that is on top of most people’s minds just now.
But when it comes to love, it lets us down,
as we only have the one word that has to cover an awful lot of meanings,
from loving God down to loving cheese on toast,
including loving
our families,
our friends,
our pets,
our old teddy-bear,
our hobbies
and the person we're in love with!

In Greece they managed better, and had several different words!
There is “storge”, or affection,
the kind of love you feel for your child or your parents
then there is “eros”,
which is romantic love
“philia”, which is friendship,
and “agape”, which is divine love,
and this is the word that is used in this passage,
and is actually only found in the New Testament.

It is also, as you may or may not know, the word that St Paul used in that lovely chapter in 1 Corinthians,
when he talks of the nature of that sort of love:
“Love is patient;
love is kind;
love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.
Love never ends.”

One of the interesting things is that when Jesus reinstates St Peter after he has denied him, you remember, by the lakeside,
when he says to him “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
he uses the word “agape”.
Peter can’t quite manage that, so he, when he replies
“Lord, you know that I love you”,
he uses the word “philia”
in other words, “Lord, you know I’m your friend”.
Then when Jesus again asks him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”,
he again uses the word “agape”,
and Peter again replies using the word “Philia”.

And then the third time, Jesus himself uses the word “philia” –
which is why Simon Peter was so hurt.
He’s already said twice that he is Jesus’ friend,
why does he have to say it a third time?

Simon Peter found that committing himself to agape love,
to God’s love,
was pretty much impossible.
I’m not surprised, are you?

Let’s look at it again:
“Love is patient;
love is kind;
love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.
Love never ends.”

This is the sort of love that Jesus was talking about, when he told us to love God with all of our being, and to love our neighbours as ourselves.
We need to be centred on God, not on ourselves.

But how do we do that?
After all, most people manage pretty well without God, and even those of us who try to be God’s people spend vast swathes of time doing other things,
sleeping, for one, or cooking, or working….
We are, of course, still God’s people while doing all those things,
but it’s not often at the forefront of our minds!

Jesus said we need to love God, our neighbour and ourselves.
St John equates loving God with loving our neighbour,
saying, basically, you can’t have one without the other.
“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God
everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
God's love was revealed among us in this way:
God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.
In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us
and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.”

And a bit later on, he says
“Those who say, `I love God', and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars
for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen,
cannot love God whom they have not seen.
The commandment we have from him is this:
those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”

But then, just to get us even more confused, he says
­“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God,
and everyone who loves the parent loves the child.
By this we know that we love the children of God,
when we love God and obey his commandments.”

So for John, loving God and loving our neighbour,
our brothers and sisters,
are one and the same thing.

And, indeed, that God's love for us is first and foremost –
our love for God is just a response to that.

And I think he's probably right.
But it's not always easy, is it?

Again, I dare say we would find it easier if we were more aligned with God.
The trouble is, quite apart from anything else,
our human loves can be so desperately flawed.

You might think that there is nothing more wonderful than the love between parents and children
but how easily that love can turn into wanting to dominate the child,
to dictate how they should live,
what they should do,
which university they should attend;
which career they should follow;
and so on, often up to and including the type of person they would like them to marry….

And I don’t need to spell out just how easily romantic love can go wrong,
do I?

As for friendship, you would have thought it would be difficult for that to go wrong.
People tend to be friends because of shared interests
Robert and I have a great many very dear friends with whom we would not otherwise have anything in common, apart from our love of skating.
That is the thing that we are friends about.

But sometimes friendship can be more about excluding the other person, not including them.
Particularly among children, of course, but it can happen among adults.

Sadly, we see it a lot in the churches –
we exclude those who, perhaps, are not of the same denomination as we are, or don’t worship God in quite the same way.
Or perhaps we are Evangelical and they are not, or vice versa, so we tend to be sniffy about their way of being a Christian, and exclude them.

As I said at the beginning, we all read the Bible through the lens of our own prejudices,
and we are apt to exclude those who don’t read it quite the same way we do.

But if Love is the most important commandment in the Bible, then we mustn’t exclude anybody, for whatever reason.  Not even if they hold views we find abhorrent.

I don’t know about you, but I found it really difficult when Donald Trump was taken ill with Covid-19 the other week –
how do you pray for someone you are required to love,
but whose policies and values you really don’t like?
In the end, I just said “Oh well, God, you sort it out!”
because it was far too difficult to pray the way I knew I ought….
I sometimes have to resort to that when it comes to praying for our own Government, too!

We are told the most important thing is to love God, our neighbour and ourselves.
Now loving ourselves is, very often, the most difficult bit.
It's all too easy to have the wrong kind of self-love,
the kind that says “Me, me, me” all the time and demands its own way –
the absolute opposite, in fact, of the love that St Paul speaks about in 1 Corinthians.
You can't love your neighbour –
or God, either, for that matter –
if you are full of that sort of self-love.

But then there is the equal and opposite problem –
we don't value ourselves enough.
We don't really like ourselves, we have a big problem with self-image,
we are not what the French call “comfortable in our own skins”.

And often it is the people who appear most self-absorbed,
most unable to love others,
who are the most wounded inside,
and who are totally not comfortable with themselves.
And again, it is only through the love of God,
and by the power of the Holy Spirit,
that we can be made whole,
and thus enabled to love ourselves and other people, as we should.

So really, it's all one –
we love, because God first loved us
we can't love God without also loving our neighbours
we can't love our neighbours unless we love ourselves –
or, at the very least, have a healthy self-image,
which amounts to the same thing
and we can't love ourselves unless we are aware that God loves us!

So the important thing, as it always is,
is to be open to God's love more and more
to continue to be God's person
and to continue to be open to be being made more and more the person God designed us to be.
To be open to a different interpretation of the Bible to the one we grew up with.
To know that if we get love right, the rest will fall into place.
To know that be fully human is to be fully God's person.
Amen.

As we forgive...

 

I have to admit that the gospel passage set for today is not one of my favourites. I find it gives a very odd picture of God, as though God is only waiting for us to feel the slightest bit of resentment against someone as an excuse not to forgive us.

Well, that isn't like the God I know, so why did Jesus tell this story? We know from elsewhere, the Lord's prayer, for instance, that we need to forgive before we are forgiven, but why? What difference does it make to us?

Well, let's look at the story in context.

The story comes in a selection of Jesus' teaching, including the story of the lost sheep, and the bit where Jesus says what to do if someone sins against you. You may have thought about this last week: first of all you talk to them privately, then if they won't listen, you take someone else along for moral support, then you take the matter to the church, and if all else fails, you, quote, treat him as though he were a pagan or tax collector, unquote. Although given how Jesus was prone to treat pagans and tax collectors, loving them into the Kingdom of God, I don’t think he actually meant to shun them!

But then Peter comes along, probably in a tearing rage, and wants to know how many times you have to forgive someone. I wonder who'd been getting on his nerves! It sounds like someone had. And Jesus says, not just seven times, the way the Jewish law says, but uncountable times. Seventy times seven; you'd lose count long before you got that far. And then he tells this story.

So, what does this story mean?

I think we are supposed to see ourselves as the person who owed the king a fortune, and the other servant is someone who has hurt or upset us in some way. I suppose that Jesus is saying that no matter how much someone else may offend us or hurt us, it's nothing compared with how much we need God's forgiveness.

But then, what is forgiveness? In this context, it is described as letting someone off a debt. But, like everything to do with Christianity, there is a lot more to it than that. It is more than just allowing us not to pay the penalty for what we have done wrong. It has to do with healing and reinstatement and generally being made whole.

Because sin isn't so much about what we do – although that too, of course - but also about who we are. Let's face it, most of us here today would not go out and deliberately commit a dreadful sin, or not most of the time, anyway. But we know that deep down we are not whole. We are not perfect. We need God's grace, and his healing, and his love if we are to come anywhere near being the person he designed us to be.

For me, confession isn't so much a matter of saying "I'm sorry," but more a matter of facing up to who I am: yes I am the kind of person who would do this; no I'm not perfect; yes, I do need Jesus. And, of course, so does everyone else.

As I'm sure you know, most people who commit crimes seem to do so out of their own inadequacy. That doesn't excuse them, or anything, but it does help to explain it. Because we, too, are inadequate people, although possibly less inadequate than someone who goes round knocking old women on the head.

Everyone needs God. You do, I do, those who attack people simply because of the colour of their skin do. Because it is only through God that we can become whole people. And, just as we need to accept ourselves for who we are, so we need to accept other people for who they are. In fact more so, because while we can decide we need to change, and we can do something about ourselves, with God's help, we cannot make that decision for others. Other people must make their own decision. We can't force someone else to become a Christian, or to stop drinking, or lose weight, or come off drugs, or anything else. We can, of course, ensure they do no harm to others, and we can offer them opportunities to change, but we can't force them to.

You remember the story of the Prodigal son, I expect. The son who asked for his share of inheritance and went into the world to have some fun, and when he was in the gutter decided to go home again. And the father ran to meet him, and put on a massive celebration for him, and had obviously been longing and longing and longing for his son to come home again.

But the father couldn't make the son come home. He had to wait until the son chose to come home of his own free will. What's more, the son had to accept that his father wanted him home again. He could have said "Well, no, I don't deserve all this," and rushed off to live in the stables, behaving like a servant, although his father wanted to treat him as the son he was. The son had to receive his father's forgiveness, just as we do.

And don't forget, either, the elder brother, who simply couldn't join in the celebrations because he couldn't forgive his brother. How dare they celebrate for that lousy rotter! I don't know whether he was crosser with his father for having a party, or with his brother for daring to come home. I feel sorry for him, because he allowed his bitterness to spoil what could have been a good time.

And that is exactly what happens to us when we do not forgive one another. We allow our bitterness to spoil what could have been a good time with God.

So how do we forgive others? Sometimes it just doesn't seem possible that we can ever manage to forgive someone. But we must, or we can't make any further progress in our journey towards wholeness. Well, the only way I have ever found that works is to pray about it. God is a terrific person to pour all your bitterness and anger out on to. God can take it. And if you are really honest with him about your feelings, some surprising things can happen. You might find, for instance, that it isn't really the other person you are angry with, it is you. Or perhaps it's God himself you need to forgive, and that can be difficult, too.

I remember, years ago, being very angry with God after someone I loved had died in an accident – God could have prevented the accident, God could have healed her, and so on. I remember saying to someone that I hoped I managed to work through my grief soon because it would be nice to be able to pray about something else for a change!

The thing is, when we come to God and admit we are angry, or hurt, or upset, by someone or something that has happened, God doesn't tell us that we mustn't feel like that, or that we are very wrong to feel like that, or even that this isn't how we're really feeling. God isn't like that. God enters into our pain, and shares it. Oh, it might be pointed out that you are indulging in a fit of self-pity, if that's what is happening – all too easy, don't you agree! – but he does sympathise and he does listen.

And as we go on praying, something happens. We let go of the self-pity – that is always the first to go – and we gradually work through the anger, and the pain, and the sorrow, and, next thing we know, we have forgiven whoever it was we needed to forgive.

The acid test for me is if I can ask God to bless someone who hurt me, and mean it. And could I see them at a Communion service and wish them God's peace? It's surprising how often I can, if I have prayed.

So, then. We need to forgive other people, we need to forgive ourselves, and occasionally we need to forgive God himself before we can receive God's forgiveness. It isn't that God won't forgive us - heavens, God's forgiveness is as constant and unremitting as all of God's character – it is that we can't receive God's forgiveness if we are full of bitterness and pain and anger. There's no room to let God in if we are too busy holding on to our own feelings.

The debtor, in Jesus' story, hadn't really grasped what the King had done for him. He hadn't hauled in that he had been forgiven his debt. He went on acting as though nothing had happened, which is why he required his debtor to pay him back. He was too busy focussing on his own feelings, and hadn't really grasped that he was now free from debt, his burden had rolled away, so he should help other people lose their burdens.

It's only really when we are prepared to put our own feelings down that there is room for God to act. I remind you, too, that in our first reading Paul tells us not to be snooty about our brothers and sisters who are Christians in a different way from us, or who have scruples about things that we don't have scruples about, like sex or divorce, or same sex marriage, for instance. "Who are you to pass judgement on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand." In other words, what they do is none of our business, and we need not to judge them.

Basically, when it comes to other people, we must put down our own feelings and think of theirs. And that way, we make room for God to act.

So, is there anyone you need to forgive this morning? Do you need to forgive yourself? Do you need to forgive God?

You may have noticed that we haven't had a prayer of penitence yet. We're going to, now. Let's take a few moments of quietness, and then I'll lead us in prayer.

In peace, let us pray to the Lord.

Being Together

 I expect you know that the Gospels were only written down about 50 or 60 years after Jesus’ death. A lot of things happened during those years, of course, and although we know how accurate oral transmission can be, there are a few places where it looks as though an extraneous passage got inserted. I don’t quite mean extraneous, I don’t think – but a passage attributed to Jesus that perhaps wasn’t what he actually said, but what the early Church thought he ought to have said. And part of the passage we heard just now is, I think, one of those passages, mostly because it talks about the Church, a gathering of Christians – and such a thing didn’t exist in Jesus’ day. But whatever, it got into our Bibles, so we need to read it and learn from it.

It does seem, at first reading, extraordinary, though. We know from elsewhere that Jesus tells us never to put limits on our forgiveness. We know we must forgive, or it’s impossible for us to receive God’s forgiveness, we block ourselves off from it.

And we are told never to judge. We’re told to sort out what’s wrong with ourselves first – you remember how Jesus graphically told us to remove the very large log from our own eyes before we could possibly deal with the tiny speck that bothered us in someone else’s.

But we are human. No matter how much we want to love our neighbours as ourselves, it’s difficult. It’s easy enough to love suffering humanity en masse, to send a text to a certain number to give three pounds towards relieving some kind of community suffering somewhere else. It’s easy enough to throw an extra box of tea-bags into the food bank box at Tesco’s, or to donate to the Brixton soup kitchen. It’s even relatively easy to do small things to lower your carbon footprint – to take reusable produce bags to the supermarket, to be scrupulous about recycling, and so on.

Now, don’t get me wrong, all these are good and right and proper things to be doing, and we should probably all do them more than we actually do. But they are all relatively easy – the difficult bit comes when we have to start interacting with other people, and loving them.  “To love the world to me’s no chore. My problem is that lot next door!” That’s when we’re apt to forget to be loving, when we are apt to go our own way, when we’re apt to hurt people, most probably totally unintentionally. The careless word, the accidental insult – or even, sadly, the intentional one.

Now, obviously, if we realise we’ve hurt someone, the thing to do is to apologise at once. Sometimes there are times when we don’t really want to apologise – they started it, it was their fault. Well, even if it is, we are the ones who need to apologise, if only because it makes us bigger than them…. Well, perhaps not for that reason, but you know what I mean.

But what if it is they who hurt you? The human thing to do is to hit out and hurt them back, but we’re not supposed to do that, and with God’s help we won’t. This passage tells us what to do – first, go and explain what has gone wrong, and if they agree and apologise, all is well and no harm done. Then you take a couple of friends along to witness that you had a problem and to try and help you be reconciled, and then, finally, take it to the church. The church, note – not the world! And then, the passage says, if they still won’t listen, let them be to you as a tax gatherer or a gentile. Which, on first reading, sounds as if you should shun them completely, which was how Jewish people of the time behaved towards them.

But Jesus didn’t, did he? Remember the story of Levi, who was a tax collector, and Jesus called him to become one of the disciples. Remember Zaccheus, who resolved to pay back anybody he had cheated after Jesus loved and forgave him and went to eat with him. Remember how many times he talked with, and healed, Gentiles, non-Jews, people who observant Jews would have nothing to do with.

So what is the church to do with those who won’t see that they’ve hurt someone, or if they do see it, don’t care? From Jesus’ example, it looks as though we have to go on loving them, trusting them, and caring for them. Heaven, as one paraphrase puts it, will back us up. Obviously, there are very rare occasions when steps have to be taken, if a child or a vulnerable adult is at risk, for example, but mostly things can be put right without that. And even when steps do have to be taken – and the Methodist church has systems in place to organise such steps, so our safeguarding people know what to do – we still have a duty to love and care for the perpetrator.

Now, the next part of the passage is really not easy to understand. If, says Jesus, or the Church speaking in Jesus’ name, two or three agree on anything in prayer, it will be granted. But we know that, with the best will in the world, this doesn’t always happen. We have all seen times when our prayers, far from being answered, appear to have gone no further than the ceiling. But then again, were we only looking for one answer to our prayer? Were we telling God what to do, as, I don’t know about you, but I find I’m rather apt to. Were we just talking at God, and not trying to listen, trying to be part of what God is doing in the world? All too easily done, I’m afraid.

But the final sentence – ah, now that brings hope. “For where two or three come together in my name, I am there with them.”

You see, in the Jewish faith, you need what’s called a minyan, a minimum of ten people – in many traditions, ten men, not people. If there are only nine of you, you can’t go ahead with the service. But not for we Christians. We know that even if there are only a couple of us, Jesus will be there with us and enabling our worship.

And that, in these strange times, is very comforting. We haven’t been able to meet together for worship for so long – I was supposed to be coming to you on March the 29^th of this year, but of course I couldn’t. Couldn’t have, anyway, as I was ill with this wretched virus and couldn’t even get out of bed at that stage! And now it is September, five months later, and at last I can be with you. But we are still restricted, and if the pandemic gets worse again, we may well be stopped from meeting again for a time. But even if we have to restrict ourselves to our so-called “bubbles”, we know that Jesus will be there with us.

I noticed, didn’t you, how much God was there during the worst of the pandemic. The ministers of the various denominations, and often the congregation, too, worked so very hard to stream services so that we could join in from home. We sometimes watched three services in one day – the one David and his cohorts put on from the Southwark and Deptford circuit, then I very often watched the service my mother’s church put out – especially if my mother or sister were reading the lesson – and a couple of times watched the service from my daughter’s church, as she was terribly clever about mixing the choir’s solo singing so it sounded like the choir, and once one of my grandsons was leading the Lord’s Prayer. And I know there were many, many other services we could have watched – and an awful lot of people did, people who perhaps wouldn’t have dreamt of going to church under normal circumstances.

And there were – and still are – Zoom fellowship meetings, and on other platforms, people have met for worship from many different countries around the world. It is amazing how God has kept his people together in these difficult times. I do wonder, don’t you, what this is saying about being Church, not just in the middle of a pandemic, but going forward. Many churches, I think, will continue to stream their services as a matter of course. Many more will consider having their various committee meetings on Zoom, which, quite apart from anything else, means you don’t have to rush through your supper and have indigestion, and the meetings finish much earlier!

But, and of course there’s a but, because there’s always a but, this is reserved for those who have the technology to join in – not everybody has broadband at home, or unlimited data on their phones. In some countries, even having a phone would be a privilege. We say “This is where God was in the pandemic”, and I think that’s true – but we also have to remember those places where they really did have to rely on just their immediate families for fellowship, as there was no other option. And we know that, even if it was just a husband and wife together, Jesus was there with them. As he is with us now, and will be whenever two or three of us meet in worship. Amen.

Waving or Drowning

Unfortunately the recording stopped half-way through; I have no idea why.  There is, however, an extremely poor video here; I can't hear a word I'm saying, but that might be my headphones....But oh, it was good to be back in the pulpit after so long! 

These are two very familiar stories we've heard read this morning, aren't they?  The story of Joseph and his – I was going to say his technicolour dreamcoat, but that's Andrew Lloyd Webber, not the Bible!  And the story of Jesus walking on the water, which is the one episode that people who know nothing of Jesus seem to know about.

That story is particularly familiar to those of us who’ve been part of the Zoom worship, since we did a meditation on it the other week.

So anyway, Joseph.  Talk about dysfunctional families – his was the very worst.  His father, Jacob, had been a liar and a cheat, as had his maternal grandfather.  And Joseph himself was the spoilt favourite –his father had two wives, you may remember, Rachel, whom he loved, and Leah, whom he didn't but was tricked into marrying anyway.  He also had a couple of kids by Leah's and Rachel's maids, Bilhah and Zilpah, but Rachel, the beloved wife, had had trouble conceiving, so Joseph and his full brother Benjamin were very precious, especially as Rachel had died having Benjamin.

He, it seems, was still too young to take much part in the story at this stage, but Joseph was well old enough to help his brothers – and, we are told, to spy on them and sneak on them to his father.  And stupid enough to boast of self-important dreams.

It's not too surprising that his brothers hated him, is it?  Obviously, he didn't deserve to be killed, but human nature is what it is, and the brothers were a long way from home and saw an opportunity to be rid of him.  At least Reuben, and later Judah, didn't go along with having him killed, although they did sell him to the Ishmaelites who were coming along.

Joseph has a lot of growing up to do, and we all know the story of what happened and how, in the end, he was able to forgive his brothers and help save them from famine.

Let's leave him for the minute, though, and go on to this story of Jesus walking on the water.

This is the thing that everybody knows about Jesus, that he walked on water, and even those who don't realise that the Jesus who walked on water is the same Jesus whose birth is celebrated at Christmas know “walking on water” as some kind of metaphor for the divine.

But there's more to the story than that, just as there is more to Jesus than someone walking on water!  Jesus didn't go much for spectacular displays of his divine power – that wasn't what he was about at all.In fact, you may remember that he refused to be tempted in that way when he was being tempted in the wilderness.  He mostly kept who he was to himself, until the right time came.

And now it was the right time to join the disciples.

If you were here last week, you may remember that he had just heard of his cousin John’s death, but any attempt to get away for a bit to come to terms with it was foiled by the crowds, who came after him.  And he had compassion on them, we are told, and healed their sick, and then fed them with what looked like no more than a small boy’s packed lunch.

But he really did both need and want some time alone with God.  He had told his disciples to go on ahead while he stayed behind to pray, and at some time in the wee small hours he was ready to join them.  They should have been at the far side of the lake by now, but they were up against a contrary wind.  I've never been to the Sea of Galilee, but I'm told by those who have that the storms can blow up very suddenly, and the disciples, although experienced fishermen, were struggling slightly.

And then, here is Jesus, walking towards them on the water.  Most of them are terrified, except for Peter, who says, “Lord, if that's really you, order me to come out on the water to you!”

And Jesus tells him to come, and he comes, and then he finds he really is walking on the water, and panics.  Peter is a strong swimmer, he didn't really need to panic, but in the dark and the cold and the confusion.... well, Jesus grabs him and they get into the boat – and then suddenly it's calm and quiet.

Now, I don't know any more than you do whether this is a true story or not.  It almost sounds as though it was a dream; or perhaps it was a legend that got into the story of Jesus at an early stage.  Or perhaps it really did happen.  At this distance, it doesn't matter; what does matter is that the story got into our Bibles, and so God means us to learn from it!

But what?  What can we learn from either this story or the story of Joseph?  What is God saying to us in the middle of this pandemic, when our worship is not what we are used to, when we are a little unsure about even meeting together for worship in the first place?

Joseph must have wondered where God was in all this.  His life had been turned upside down in a matter of moments, from being the favoured, and favourite son, to being a slave.  He must have wondered where God was.

And similarly, Peter.  Peter is the one who wobbles between enormous faith – “Lord, tell me to come to you across the water!”– and then doubt and panic.  We know he is prone to panic – look how he denies Jesus at the end.  And he, too, must have sometimes wondered where God was, whether it was all a nonsense….

But we have seen God in this pandemic, you know.  We have seen how people who wouldn’t dream of going to church have been watching streamed services.  We have seen how some churches have picked up multinational congregations, almost, it seems, without trying.  Even at our own Zoom service, the other week,  R and I were in the Alps,and then there was a friend of G’s from New York and H and Y in Ghana…. And we were one, together, in worship.

We have seen, too, how people have scrambled to learn how to use modern social media to stay in touch, to worship together.  Think of the hundreds of thousands of ordinary clergy who have made a huge effort – and many are still making it – to get a worship service on YouTube each week, or even more often, for their own congregations and others.  And the many ordinary people who have learnt to record themselves leading prayer or reading Scripture, ideally without getting the giggles – my mother, who was one of them, said that was the most difficult part.

Oh yes, God has been there, and God has been doing extraordinary things with His Church.

Thinking about it, it’s not really a question of “Where is God in all this”?  We have seen God’s hand at work in so many different ways during this pandemic.  We have learnt that there are many different ways of being Church, not just gathering on Sundays, although that, too….

So the big question is, what next?  The pandemic is very far from over, and we may be closed down again at any time.  I know Kristin has been talking of restarting our Zoom worship meetings in September for the sake of those who still don’t feel able to come to Church.

I don’t know what the answer is.  I don’t know what God has planned for us in either the immediate or the long-term future.

But I do know that we need to be available for him to work through us.  Most of us, perhaps all of us, are available to him, of course, whether it’s about ringing up friends who still aren’t comfortable going out, or getting shopping for people, or sitting with those who have been bereaved, or those who have worked so hard to get the church as safe as it possibly can be for public worship.  But the thing is, whatever the future holds, we need to be allowing God to transform us even more fully into the people we were designed to be.

God couldn't use either Joseph or Peter as they were.  Joseph had to grow up and stop being an immature brat. As you probably remember, we're told that he was accused of rape and left to languish in prison for several years, during which time he did grow up, and became an invaluable administratorand was thus able to help organise famine relief when it became clear that there was to be a massive famine.  He matured enough to forgive his family, and to help them all settle in Egypt where, for several generations, they were happy and comfortable.

And God couldn't really use Peter the way he was, either.  Peter was transformed, of course by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  Not that he would claim to be perfect, even then, but he became someone God could use.

I'm not sure how much, if anything, Joseph knew of God, other than as the sender of dreams.  His transformation was a slow and painful process.  Ours may be, too – but I'm sure of one thing, and that is that the more we are open to God, the more we commit ourselves to being God's person, the more honest we can be with ourselves and with God about how chaotic our lives are and how badly we get things wrong, then the easier it is for God to transform us.

And it’s not just during a crisis like this one. Remember the old saying:

“God and the Doctor we alike adore
But only when in danger, not before;
The danger o'er, both are alike requited,
God is forgotten, and the Doctor slighted.”

We don’t want to be among those who have called on God in this crisis and then go and forget Him as soon as it’s over.  Not that I think any of us would do that – but maybe some of those who are just learning to value worship services, just learning to pray, might need our help to remain God’s people once life gets back to whatever passes for normal.

Of course, we don't have to wait for that transformation to have fully happened before God can use us!  We can still be used, ready or not.   And God does use us, sometimes, often even, without our knowledge.  But never, I think, without our consent.

Amen.

Thoughtful Thomas

For obvious reasons, this was not actually preached, other than in this video.

Gospel Reading: John 20:19-31

“Thomas, thoughtful though tentative, thinks through terrific tidings - takes time to trust - then, totally transformed, travels teaching truth.”

“Thomas, thoughtful though tentative, thinks through terrific tidings - takes time to trust - then, totally transformed, travels teaching truth.”

Thus a clergy friend of mine meditated on a statue of St Thomas in the church of St Thomas and St Andrew, Doxey, Stafford. I think it is a very good summary of our Gospel reading for today which, as every year, tells Thomas’ story.

The disciples are together, hiding from the authorities, in the evening of that first Easter Day when the Risen Lord appears to them, and reassures them. And then Cleopas and his wife come racing back from Emmaus to tell them that they, too, had seen Jesus.

But Thomas wasn’t there. We don’t know why, but he missed it. And he isn’t inclined to believe the others, thinking they must be deceived in some way. Well, you can understand it, can’t you? If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. If it were true, it would indeed be terrific tidings – but people don’t just come back from the dead! Not even the dear Teacher. Once you’re dead, you’re dead, thinks Thomas. How can you come back to life again? Surely this was wishful thinking on the part of the others? Surely a group hallucination? Surely they were mistaken, weren’t they? Weren’t they?

Thomas remembers the last couple of years, since he started being one of Jesus’ disciples. How they had travelled together, quite a large band of them, with a few women who saw to it that everybody had something to eat and at the very least a blanket at night. There was the time he had gone off with Matthew, on Jesus’ instructions, to preach the Good News, and they had had such a great time. And then it had all gone sour, and Jesus had been arrested, tortured, and crucified. But they were saying he was still alive? Not possible, surely. It couldn’t really be true, could it. But then, there had been those miracles, people healed – the time his friend Lazarus had died, and Jesus had called him to come out of the tomb, and he had come. Or when that little girl had died, only Jesus had said she was only sleeping. Or that time when…. Thomas goes on remembering all the times Jesus had healed the sick or done other miracles. But then, he couldn’t be alive, could he? And so on, round and round, on the treadmill of his thoughts.

This goes on for a whole week. It must have seemed an eternity to poor Thomas, with the others, although still cautious and hiding from the authorities – indeed, some of the fishermen were talking of going back to Galilee and getting the boats out; safer that way – the others, still cautious, yet fizzing and bubbling that the Teacher was alive!

A whole week. Right now, with lockdown, a week seems an eternity, doesn’t it? How long is it since we’ve been able to worship together in person? Three weeks? Four? I’ve lost track…. But it is definitely a long time. I can’t think of any other time in history when this has happened, except perhaps for Catholics during the penal times in 18th century Ireland. Or, perhaps, for the Presbyterians who went across the Atlantic on the Mayflower and its sister ships to escape what they saw as persecution in this country.

We are all, I know, longing and longing for lockdown to be over so we can meet up again, whether with family and friends or with our church families, or both. Modern technology means that we can at least stay in touch, even have video calls with our family, but it’s not quite the same, and, of course, as soon as you can’t have something, you want it badly! Even seeing the newest great-nephew on a family Zoom get-together made all the aunts and grandmothers want to cuddle him, which right now we can’t do.

Some of us may well have had this Covid-19 – the doctor thinks I have – and I must say I did feel very ill indeed for a couple of weeks, and longed and longed to feel better, as I am sure any and all of you who have felt unwell from Covid-19 or any other illness have done.

We look at the world around us just now – people at home, unable to visit their nearest and dearest; too many being ill, and too many of those dying. And I don’t know about you, but I have wondered where God is in all of this. Where is God when you need him? We want to see God’s face in this, to hear the reassurance that all will be well and all manner of thing will be well. We want the reassurance that God is truly there and hasn’t abandoned us.

But you see, Thomas shows us that this is okay. He had to wait a whole week until the risen Jesus came to him to reassure him – and a week can be a very, very long time! But that’s okay. We don’t have to get immediate answers; we don’t have to feel better at once if we are taken ill; we do, perhaps, have to be very patient while this lockdown goes on and on.

For Thomas, it took a week. That’s why we remember him on this day each year – Low Sunday, I was taught to call it – as it’s the anniversary of the day when Jesus did come to Thomas.

The disciples were still hiding from the Jewish authorities – they could easily have been picked up, arrested, and crucified in their turn. And this time, Thomas was with them. He was still doubtful, still not convinced – but Jesus came, specially for him. “Here, touch my scars, touch my side – it’s true, I’m alive, you can trust me!” And Thomas’ immediate response was to fall down in awe and worship.

And he was totally transformed. His doubts all fell away, as if they had never been. He knew Jesus forgave him for having doubted, just as he was to forgive Peter for having denied he knew him, just as he would have forgiven Judas for having betrayed him, had Judas been in any condition to receive that forgiveness. He was forgiven and transformed.

As we, too, can be. You know this and I know this, but sometimes it feels as though that knowledge is only in our heads, we don’t absolutely know it with all of us. Except when we do – and then we wonder how on earth we ever doubted, why we don’t always believe with our whole being. We have all had those mountain-top experiences, I expect – and we have all had our times of doubt and even disbelief. It seems to be normal and human. Thomas certainly didn’t believe that Jesus had been raised; it took a special touch from our Lord himself to convince him, as it sometimes does to convince us.

And Thomas was totally transformed, from doubter to staunch believer. And, what’s more, he then travels, teaching truth.

We have nothing in the Bible to tell us what may or many not have happened to Thomas after his encounter with the risen Lord. But there are various traditions, most notably that he went to India and founded the church there. They say he was martyred in Chennai in about AD72, having lived and worked in India for over twenty years, and some sources say his remains were brought back to Edessa, in modern Syria, although others think he was buried in India.

Even today, almost two thousand years later, there are Christians in India who trace their faith history back to Thomas’ ministry. How much of this is factual, and how much tradition, we don’t know. But given that so many Christians in India, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant, all trace their faith back to him leads me to suspect there might be something in it.

But whatever the truth, we know that Thomas travelled, teaching the truth about Jesus, teaching, as did many of the other apostles, proclaiming the Risen Christ, witnessing that he had actually seen and spoken to him, being filled with God’s Holy Spirit to proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven. He was totally transformed from the doubtful, worried disciple of that first Easter Day.

Most of us have been following Jesus for many years now. We too have been transformed, probably gradually over the years, to be more like the people we were created to be, the people God designed us to be. We, too, proclaim our risen Lord, not only – probably not even primarily – in words. And like Thomas, we sometimes take time to tentatively think through terrific truths, and we take time to trust.

And Thomas shows us that this is okay, as long as we don’t stop there. As long as we can accept that our first views may be wrong, and allow God to heal and transform us. And then, my friends, along with Thomas we too will be teaching the truth.

“Thomas, thoughtful though tentative, thinks through terrific tidings - takes time to trust - then, totally transformed, travels teaching truth.”

With thanks to the Rev Bill Mash for the meditation, which I have used with permission.

For God so loved the World

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,

that whoever believes in him shall not perish

but have eternal life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,

but to save the world through him.”

They are such familiar words, aren't they?

The absolute basis of our faith –

they are pretty much the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

But, of course, like all of these things,

it's really hard to unpack what it originally meant.

We all have our own interpretation, of course, and who's to say we're wrong?

But let's look at the whole passage, first of all,

before trying to look more closely at our text, since it's a well-known fact that “a text without a context is a pretext!”

Nicodemus seems to have been an older man,

prominent among the Jews,

a Pharisee.

Maybe the local equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury, or of Westminster.

Certainly well-known in his community,

and very much looked up to as a religious leader.

But, for him, something was missing.

He was beginning to realise, perhaps, that he was coming to the end of his life here on earth,

and wondering what his religion had to say about this.

And now there is this new young teacher going the rounds,

doing miracles,

really seems to be from God.

Nicodemus begs a very private interview.

He can't be seen to be too closely associated with Jesus,

although he does, in fact, stand up for him in the Sanhedrin,

and helps Joseph of Arimathea prepare his body for burial.

But at this stage he doesn't want to be seen to be too interested in what might, after all, prove to be another cult.

But it wasn't.

Jesus tells him that he doesn't just need to be physically alive,

he needs to be spiritually alive, too.

He must be born from above, born anew, born again –

the word used translates as all those things.

And Nicodemus doesn't understand.

Perhaps he's not really used to thinking in spiritual terms,

or perhaps it totally doesn't make sense to him.

So he blanks it.

“How can you enter your mother's womb a second time?”

But Jesus explains that this second birth is of the Spirit.

We need to be born spiritually, to recognise that we are more than just animals, to allow God's spirit to work in us.

And Nicodemus says, “Yes, well, how do you do this?”

and the answer, of course, is through Jesus.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,

that whoever believes in him shall not perish

but have eternal life.”

---oo0oo---

You note, of course, that this is all God's idea!

It's not something we humans can do.

We may or may not have our own interpretation of the phrase “Born again”, but I think we all agree that it's something that God does,

not some­thing that we do.

Had God not sent his only Son, Jesus,

then it would not be an option for us.

But Jesus came, we are told, out of God's love for us.

And our response must be one of believing.

Again, people differ, sometimes, as to what degree of belief actually “counts”, whether it is a mild intellectual assent,

or a total commitment to the exclusion of anything else,

or somewhere in between.

For some of us, “being a Christian” is kind of like being pregnant –

you either are or aren't, there's no two ways about it.

Others see it as a journey, a process,

starting, perhaps with a tiny step of faith,

an intellectual assent to the fact that God could exist,

that Jesus perhaps is God's son, and so on.

And gradually growing more and more into our faith,

going through various stages,

and gradually, perhaps over many years,

developing a mature and wonderful faith,

and becoming the sort of Christian we all look up to and admire!

It's a bit of both, isn't it.

Many of us will look back to a moment when we first said “Yes” to Jesus –

perhaps we even remember the date and the time!

For me, it was the tenth or the seventeenth of October, 1971,

I can't remember exactly which.

Sheesh, was it really that long ago – help!

But loads of people don't have a datable conversion –

it happened so gradually that they simply can't point to a date and say

“before then I wasn't a Christian;

after it I was.”

But even those of us who did have a definite date which they remember as their conversion, it didn't happen in a vacuum.

It might have felt, at the time, like a total bolt from the blue,

something totally unexpected,

but when you look back, it probably wasn't.

Let’s take John Wesley as an example.

We remember the date of his conversion, on 24 May.

Remember what he wrote:

“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street,

where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.

About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ,

I felt my heart strangely warmed.

I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation;

and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

A not untypical conversion experience, perhaps.

But Wesley was already a minister of the Church.

He had been on missionary trips in the USA,

and he had been searching and searching for the faith that he knew existed, but that he himself couldn’t find.

One of his counsellors –

I forget who, offhand –

had told him to “preach faith until you have it,

and then you will preach it because you can’t help it”.

So for John Wesley, that experience on Aldersgate Street was very much a part of his Christian journey.

Would anybody really say that before it he was not a Christian?

I don’t think I would, and I’m not sure that Wesley himself did, either!

And another thing to notice is that although Wesley was searching and searching for the personal faith he knew was a reality for so many,

it was, in the end, God who gave him that faith.

Wesley didn’t manufacture it himself.

He wasn’t working himself up at an emotional revival meeting.

He was just sitting listening to a sermon on the Epistle to the Romans!

And God acted.

I’ve seen that happen, too.

I remember once, many years ago, a group of us were sitting in a café,

singing Christian songs,

when quite suddenly the words we were singing became real to one of the group in a totally new and different way.

I’ve long since lost touch with that person,

and have no idea whether she still follows Jesus or not,

but I will not forget how it suddenly became totally real to her.

But that young woman had been coming to Church,

and joining in our fellowship, for several weeks.

I can’t remember whether she’d been a churchgoer at home, or university, or whatever –

this was in Paris, and a great many young people came to the church to meet other English people, and met Jesus when they were at it!

I did, myself, for that matter!

And for many years I assumed that I had not been a Christian before I went to that church,

and heard someone preach on “Behold, I stand at the door and knock”....

but, when I looked back, I realised that in fact,

I had experienced a call to preach some years earlier than that,

when I was about fifteen!

And I had been a regular attender at Church –

usually because I had to, because it was required when I was at school,

but also at the voluntary mid-week Communion services the school held occasionally, where I acted as a server.

I know my Confirmation was very real and special to me, too.

I reckon that what happened that October evening was a huge milepost on my Christian journey,

but it was a milepost on the road, not the start of that journey!

---oo0oo---

Of course, the start of a journey to faith is just that, a start.

Like Abraham and Sarah, from our first reading, we have to carry on.

Jesus told Nicodemus that we need to be born from anew,

but it’s always so sad when people have a baby who simply doesn’t develop and grow, but remains an infant throughout life.

As Christians, we need to be open to allowing God to grow and change us,

to become the people he created us to be,

the people he designed us to be.

Abraham was told to get up and move to the land God would show him,

and God would bless him abundantly,

in a way that perhaps would not have been possible had Abraham remained in Ur.

And we know how Abraham believed God,

and he and his brother Lot got up and travelled,

leaving a very comfortable and civilised life in Ur

to become nomads, travellers.

And were blessed enormously by God,

despite all sorts of trials and tribulations,

times when they lacked faith,

times when they sinned,

all sorts of awfulnesses.

But there again, it was God’s idea.

Abraham didn’t just suddenly decide that he’d abandon his settled life and go off into the desert in the hope that God would bless him for doing so.

God told Abraham to go, and that if he went, he would be made great.

---oo0oo---

Sometimes, we who are Christians forget that it’s all God’s idea.

We act as though our relationship with God depended totally on us.

It doesn’t.

It depends far more on God.

“For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world,

but to save the world through him.”

God has far more invested in the relationship than we do,

no matter how committed we are.

God loves us far more than we love him!

And God’s love is constant, unremitting, and never, ever grows cold.

We can be very variable in our faith, but God never changes.

There are times when we move away from God –

and you can practically see the Good Shepherd donning Barbour and wellies to go off in search of us!

Of course, there are those people who say “No” to God.

As C S Lewis once said, if people go on refusing to say “Thy will be done”, eventually God will, with great sadness, say “All right, have it your own way! Thy will be done!”

But that, I think, does not apply to any of us here.

We have said “Yes” to Jesus, we have said, like Martha, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, who has come into this world.”

And we know, deep in our hearts, that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,

that whoever believes in him shall not perish

but have eternal life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,

but to save the world through him.”

Thanks be to God.