Isaac and Ishmael

This was a repeat of this sermon from three years ago.  Obviously things were changed slightly to reflect current events, and also because today is Eid al-Fitr, which needed to be mentioned.  But the text is largely the same.

Put Right with God

I wonder whether you can remember when you first made a conscious decision to be Jesus’ person?

I know some people can’t remember, they have been Jesus’ person all their lives and it would never have occurred to them to do otherwise. And some people know that once upon a time they were not Christians, but their journey to God was such a slow, gradual and yet purposeful one that they can’t point to a given day when they were a Christian, yet were not the day before.

And others have a definite date that they can point to and say “Then. That was the day I became a Christian.” I sort-of have that. In many ways the second Sunday in October, the best part of fifty years ago, was the day for me, but in fact, there was a lot of stuff that went before it, and a great deal more that came after it. It didn’t happen in a vacuum, although it felt a bit like that at the time.

I was just a child then, eighteen years old and on my own in Paris. I was rather lonely and having trouble making friends, and my grandmother suggested I went along to the English church to see whether they had any activities for young people. They most certainly did, and it didn’t take long for me to hear a sermon on “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.....”. And this was obviously the thing you did if you wanted to be accepted by this group of people..... so..... I’m so glad God is gracious and loved me anyway!

But the reason I’m raking up ancient history like this is that when you had become a Christian, as it was called, you were expected to attend the weekly Bible Study as well as the more formal teaching sessions which took place on a Wednesday. The Bible Studies were small discussion groups, people roughly the same age, peer-led. The minister stayed away, on the grounds that people needed to learn to read the Scriptures for themselves, not just be taught what to think. And it was noticeable that, very often, if we had got stuck with something, he would talk about the very thing we’d got stuck on in the Wednesday teaching sessions.

This form of studying the Bible was new to me – attending Bible Study and prayer meetings – the two tended to merge, rather – was not something that was done at the school I attended, or at my parents’ church. So I can still remember the very first passage I ever studied with my contemporaries, and do you know, it was that very passage from Romans that we’ve just heard read. We used the Good News Bible, only back then it was only the Good News New Testament:

“Now that we have been put right with God through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He has brought us by faith into this experience of God's grace, in which we now live. And so we boast of the hope we have of sharing God's glory!”

“Now that we have been put right with God through faith” The trouble is, all those years ago I got the emphasis wrong! I thought it was my faith that mattered, not God’s promises. I thought this was something I had to do, that I had to desperately manufacture faith, and never doubt, not for a single, solitary minute!

Wasn’t I silly! It is, of course, what God does that matters. We believe that God will put us right with him, and so God does. The technical term, which some translations use, is “justification”. All that really means is being put right with God. All the nasty squirmy bits of ourselves that we really don’t want God to look at too closely – and that, come to that, we don’t actually want to look at too closely ourselves – they are – not swept away, sadly, much though we might like that to happen. Quite the reverse; they are brought out into the light so that we can look at them and God can look at them and say – okay, that needs to change. And then, if we are sensible, we allow God to change us.

That, of course, is a very long process, and will probably never be completely finished this side of heaven. That’s what we call “sanctification”, being made holy, being made whole, being made more like God, being made more into the person we were created to be. But the point is, God doesn’t make us wait until we are perfect before he will put up with us. All the nasty squirmy bits, what the jargon calls “Sin”, God decrees they no longer exist. They do, of course, and we deal with them in due course, but the point is, they no longer come between us and God.

I once read a definition that I found really helpful. Suppose there was a law that said you mustn’t jump in mud puddles. Well, who can resist jumping in mud puddles? But you end up no only guilty of breaking the law, but also covered in mud. When we are put right with God – justified – we are declared “not guilty” of breaking that law. And as we become made more into the person we were created to be – sanctified – it is as if, with God’s help, we washed off the mud.

Like all analogies it’s not perfect, but I found it helpful, back in the day, and offer it for what it’s worth.

But I really do think the most important thing that I’ve learnt in all the years since that first Bible study, so long ago, is that I don’t have to do the putting right! As I said earlier, I got the emphasis all wrong, and thought it was all down to me. I ended up thinking I had to be perfect because Jesus died on the cross for me, and how ungrateful would it be ever to sin again?

But it’s not like that. Our salvation doesn’t depend on what we do. We all need to be saved, and we all can be saved – these days, I’m not entirely sure what I mean by “saved”, and it’s one of those words that I suspect we all interpret slightly differently, but that doesn’t matter. The point is, we don’t have to – and, indeed, we can’t – save ourselves. God does that. All we have to do is to reach out, to say “Yes please!” and accept what is on offer. “Listen,” says Jesus, according to the book of Revelation, “Listen! I stand at the door and knock; if any hear my voice and open the door, I will come into their house and eat with them, and they will eat with me.”

Of course, one shouldn’t really take a verse out of context like that, but it is a helpful illustration. All we need do is open the door to Jesus – and then let go. Then we are put right with God by faith, we do have peace with God, and we can relax and allow God to re-create us into the person we were designed to be. That bit isn’t always easy – far from it – but it’s worth it.

Those who know me well know that I often have an illustration of a butterfly somewhere about my person. That’s because it reminds me of how God is working, and will continue to work, in my life. Think how a butterfly is made. How does it start life? And how does it go on? The actual butterfly bit, the beautiful bit, is a very tiny part of its life; some species last no more than a day or so, if that. Mayflies, for instance, don’t even have mouths – all that they are interested in is reproducing themselves, finding a mate, laying their eggs, if female, and then dying. And the whole cycle takes two years or so to fulfil.

And when they actually go to become a butterfly, or mayfly, or dragonfly, or whatever insect they are due to become, the caterpillar has to pupate. That isn’t just a matter of hibernating, like a dormouse or bear; they have to be completely remade. While they are in the pupa, all their bits dissolve away, and are made from scratch, from the material that is there. It’s not just a matter of rearranging what is there, it’s a matter of total breakdown and starting again.

It’s just as well, I think, that butterflies and the like aren’t sentient. Imagine how awful it would be if they were aware what was going to happen to them! Think how terrified you’d be if you knew it was going to happen to you. To be completely remade into something utterly different. Something so different that it uses a totally different medium to move about in, the air. Caterpillars are creeping creatures, that move on the earth and on plants, and the larvae of things like mayflies and dragonflies are water insects, that can’t breathe in the air. Even more different!

And yet, we believe that something of the sort is going to happen to us one day, when we die and are raised from death into our new life. To a certain extent, of course, that happens, and is happening right now, here on earth, which is why God has already started to work in us and to make us into the person we were created to be. But how much more work will need to be done on us before we are perfect! I know John Wesley believed that Christians could be perfect, but I also know I’m very far from! And God still needs to do a great deal of work on me before I fulfil my potential.

But the thing is, and that’s where I got stuck as a young woman, we don’t have to do it. And we don’t have to wait until it’s done before we can get on with our lives as Christians, as God’s people. We have been put right with God through faith, and now have peace with him through our Lord Jesus Christ. So we can get on with our lives. Amen.

Going to Emmaus

So, it is Easter Day –

well, it isn’t, of course, but in our Gospel reading it is still Easter Day.

And all of Jesus’ disciples and friends are confused and sad –

many of them haven’t really heard about the resurrection,

or believe it if they have heard it.

Everybody is scared –

will they be next?

Will the authorities clobber them for being part of Jesus’ retinue?

Anyway it’s all over now.

The Teacher is dead.

And something weird has happened to his body.

Maybe it’s time to go home, to get on with their lives.

Cleopas certainly thinks so.

He doesn’t live very far from Jerusalem –

only seven miles.

High time he was going home.

So he and his companion –

who may well have been his wife –

pack up and go home, sadly, tiredly.

And Jesus comes and walks along with them, but they don’t recognise him.

But they start talking and he asks why they are so sad.

What has gone wrong?

And when they say, “Crumbs, you must be totally out of the loop if you haven’t heard;

what stone have you just crawled out from under?”

he goes through the Scriptures with them to show them that this wasn’t disaster, it wasn’t the end of the world, but, quite the reverse, it was what had been planned from the beginning of the world.

And when they get home, they invite this stranger, this wonderful person who has brought them hope, to stay for supper.

And part-way through the meal, he takes the bread and blesses it –

and they know who He is.

It is Jesus!

And then he is gone.

But they know.

And they know they must tell the others, too,

so as soon as they’ve finished eating, they get up and go back to Jerusalem.

Seven miles;

a couple of hours’ walk.

Not so bad early in the day, when they were fresh –

but after supper, when they were tired?

And when they get to Jerusalem, they hear that Simon, too, has seen the Lord, and that he is really risen.

And they share their story, too.

---oo0oo---

In a lot of ways, this story poses more questions than it answers.

Who were Cleopas and his companion?

Have we ever heard of them before?

Why didn’t they recognise Jesus?

I don’t know who Cleopas was;

but it’s possible that the companion was his wife.

Certainly a former minister of mine thought so, and would use the text “Jesus himself drew near and went with them” whenever he preached at a wedding.

But I noticed awhile back, when reading John’s Gospel that one of the few women named is a Mary, the wife of Clopas.

Clopas, Cleopas?

Same person, do you think?

So is he walking with his wife, Mary?

I think it’s significant that they weren’t in the main group of disciples;

Cleopas wasn’t part of “The Twelve”, still less part of the very close group around Jesus.

But they were followers, fellow-travellers.

The wife was one of the group of women who kept the whole show on the road, I expect, probably seeing to it that everybody ate,

and that nobody got too dirty

and everybody had a blanket at night,

if there wasn’t a convenient place to stay.

But they weren’t in the close group.

Which, I think, shows us that Jesus was and is anxious for all his followers, not just the big names!

Sometimes it feels difficult, doesn’t it –

there we are, small churches in a small circuit,

in a country that doesn’t “do” God very much,

and is apt to be a bit frightened of those who do...

but Jesus himself draws near and walks with us,

even if we don’t always recognise him.

I wonder why they didn’t recognise him?

The text says “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”,

as though it was done on purpose.

Did the risen Lord look so very different from him as they’d known him before?

Or was it just that he was out of context, as it were –

look how it isn’t easy to recognise someone you only know slightly,

your hairdresser, for instance,

or the guy who shoves trolleys around at Tesco’s,

if you meet them on the bus.

You know you know them, but you can’t think where from,

and what is their name?

Or had he the hood of his cloak up, so they couldn’t actually see his face?

But eventually he does something so familiar,

the taking of the bread and blessing it,

that they can’t help but recognise him.

Of course, they may not have been present at the Last Supper –

as far as we know, it was only the Twelve who were –

but they would have seen Jesus do this at almost any meal they took together.

It was a part of a normal Jewish evening meal,

especially the Friday-evening Sabbath meal.

It would have been well familiar to them.

And so they recognised Jesus, knew it was true –

he had risen, he wasn’t dead any more –

and then he wasn’t there any more, either!

I wonder, too, whether when Jesus opened the Scriptures to them,

he wasn’t opening them to himself, just as much.

He had told the disciples, frequently –

although often only the smaller group –

that he was to rise again, but it must have been well scary for him.

We saw in the Garden of Gethsemane how awful it was for him, the whole prospect of death on a Cross,

with no real assurance that God would raise him.

He knew, he believed –

but what if it wasn’t so?

What if he really were just deluding himself?

We all get moments of doubt like that, don’t we?

What if the whole God thing is just a delusion,

dreamed up by human beings to help us cope with the nastinesses of life?

But Jesus was vindicated.

He had been raised.

And maybe, just maybe, when he opened the Scriptures to Cleopas and his wife, he was reminding himself, too!

Yes, this was what it said, and this was what it meant!

How lovely to know for certain!

We can’t know for certain yet, and we often doubt.

That’s okay –

if we knew for sure it would be called certainty, not faith!

But so often, when we get to the shadowed places, the awful times, when God seems far away and maybe summer and daylight will never come, then Jesus himself draws near and walks with us.

We don’t always recognise him, of course;

in fact, very often we don’t even know that he is there.

I don’t know about you, but I’m very bad at recognising Jesus!

But sometimes a friend or even an acquaintance will say something, and you know that it is from God!

Don’t ask me to explain how you know, you just do!

Been there, done that?

Yes, I thought some of you would have!

And there are times, too, when we don’t recognise Jesus at the time;

things are just too awful for that.

And yet, when we look back, we see that he was there, all the time,

just that we didn’t recognise him.

Maybe he was there in the tissue a friend offered us to mop up with, the shoulder offered to cry on, the hand-clasp in the darkness.... but he was there.

Remember how Jesus wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus,

even though he was about to raise him from the dead?

There are times, I think, when all God can do is to weep with us, or to share in our frustrations, or even to act as a receptacle for our anger.

But at least he is there doing that.

I remember when the daughter of an acquaintance was killed in a dreadful accident some years ago now, her father said at the funeral “Thank God for a God to be angry with!”

Jesus himself drew near and walked with them.

It’s not just in the bad times, of course –

them too, but in the good times, too.

And perhaps in the indifferent times, the time when life goes smoothly and the days slip past too fast to count.

Jesus is there, I think, in a piece of music that lifts our spirits,

like the Hallelujah Chorus or some other favourite piece.

Jesus is there when we are getting ready to go on holiday, or share a family celebration.

When we are looking forward to things, when we are dreading them.

Jesus himself drew near and went with them.

If we are Jesus’ people, then we need to learn to be aware of his presence with us.

It’s not always about feeling –

we don’t always feel his presence, and that’s as it should be.

As I said, if we were certain, they wouldn’t call it faith.

But if we believe that Jesus is present with us all the time –

even when we’re in Tesco’s, even when we’re at the office or washing-up the supper dishes –

then how are we going to live?

There was once a monk who served God in a community of brothers, and he was called Brother Lawrence.

And he learnt over the years that God was just as real and there whether he was washing the dishes in the community kitchen, or whether he was on his knees in the chapel.

He wrote about it, and developed a correspondence with other people who wished to find this out for themselves.

You may have come across his writings yourself;

he was called Brother Lawrence.

As he explains, staying aware of God’s presence is far from easy, but it doesn’t matter if you make a nonsense of it –

you just come back to remembering as soon as you realise you have forgotten.

The Jesus who walked along the road to Emmaus with Cleopas and his wife also walks with us while we’re doing the washing-up or reading our e-mail.

So –

do you stay aware of that?

I know I don’t, not as much as I should!

Maybe we should all make more of an effort to stay aware of God’s presence with us at all times.

Even when we can’t see Him, even when it feels as though all trace of him has totally vanished from the universe.

There are all sorts of methods you can use to help with this –

making a point of a quick prayer when you put the kettle on, for example, or whenever you get up to go to the loo at work.

Even just “Lord, have mercy” or “Into Your hands”.

There has been a discussion on one of the book groups I belong to on Facebook about the amount of times a day children at boarding-schools were expected to pray –

space for private prayer in the mornings,

Grace before and after every meal,

corporate prayer in Assembly, probably twice a day....

and so it went on.

Not that the children probably appreciated it at that age –

I know I didn’t –

but if you think about it, a routine like that does structure pauses into your day to be aware of God.

Jesus himself drew nigh and went with them.

Two ordinary Christians –

well, they weren’t even that, of course, as the name wouldn’t be coined for awhile, but you know what I mean.

They weren’t part of the inner ring, they weren’t special.

They were ordinary people, people like you and me.

And Jesus himself draws near and walks with us, too.

Hallelujah.

Amen.