Tag: Jesus

Argh! I’ve got the Son of God sitting right there on my sofa and I haven’t hoovered!

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A little sermony something on Mary and Martha (Luke 10.38-end)

Let’s start with what I’m not going to say:

1. I’m not going to say that this story is an argument against hospitality and a criticism of those who give their time and skill in the service of others: the coffee makers, the cake bakers, the washer-uppers…. not least because I’d probably never again be brought a drink after the service!

2.  I’m not going to say that the story means simply that housework is bad and self-indulgent religious experiences are good.

3. I’m also not going to say that it’s a simple contrast between ‘being’ and ‘doing’, between the interior life of faith and the outward expression of that faith in actions that serve others.

So, if I’m not going to say that this story is about any of those things, what is it about?

First it’s about expectations.

To sit at the feet of a Rabbi was what you did if you were planning on becoming one – you learned the stories of the faith, and you learned to share them, to interpret them for others. You learned the faith so you could teach it.  And in those days, a woman could not become a Rabbi, so there was no point in Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet.  Martha would have seen it as being (at best) self-indulgent and (at worst) cringe-makingly arrogant and inappropriate.

But Jesus says that Mary is, in fact, in precisely the right place, and defends her right to be there. Why?

1. Because Jesus seems to have a rather different attitude to women than most of his contemporaries – briefly, he seems to treat women simply as human beings.

2. He knows that women will be the sharers of the faith – they are already disciples, and by the end of the gospel accounts of his life, death and resurrection, they are also revealed as apostles (the very first apostles, in fact).  Just think first of the Samaritan woman at the well whose testimony brought her whole city to faith in Jesus, and then think on to the women in the garden who first brought the good news of the resurrection.

3. Because God does unexpected things.  He calls Galilean fishermen to be great preachers. He calls tax collectors to be ministers. He calls women to be apostles.  God is clearly incapable of pandering to stereotypes and working purely within our expectations. God does unexpected and odd things, and gives us new and exciting directions to go in and gifts to explore. Just because you’ve always done the washing up or the flower arranging doesn’t mean God can’t call you to lead the intercessions. Or the other way round.  Just because we might not fancy ourselves as apostles doesn’t mean that God shares our narrow expectations, and he may well put opportunities in front of us for the sharing of the faith in word and in deed.

The second thing this story is about for me is quite simply this:  Jesus has come to Mary and Martha’s house. The Son of God, the Messiah, the Second person of the Trinity, is sitting in their living room !!!! I do know that tea making ad washing up are important, but really, what could possibly be more important than the fact that The Son of God has come to my house and he’s come to see me!

When the woman at Bethany annointed Jesus’ feet with perfume, and Judas accused the gesture of being wasteful, Jesus said to him, “You will always have the poor with you, but you won’t always have me.”  He might well say the same to Martha in this story: “There will always be housework to do, but you won’t always have me right here, with you.”  And it needn’t just be housework either, or any other gender-stereotyped activity – it could easily be mending your fishing nets, or making good that hole in your boat.  And if you want to bring it up to date I’m pretty sure we could all add our own list of things that get in the way of us actually spending time with the God who’s come all this way just to be with us.

Spending time with God is incredibly important. The busier you are, the more precious a gift that time is.  Learning the stories of the faith and learning to articulate them for ourselves is equally an incredibly important process, and the less confident we are about it, the more we need to be given space to ask the questions, and the encouragement to share our doubts and ideas.

Serving God is also incredibly important, and we know that when we serve one another, when we offer hospitality to one another, when we metaphorically or actually wash each other’s feet, it truly is Christ we are serving.

But the flip side of that is that Jesus, here among us isn’t only our guest, and our action and busy care are not the only ways that we can serve him.  He is also our host, for it is his world in which we dwell.  Martha sees Jesus sitting in her living room and treats him as a guest, asking herself how she can serve him, faffing around and not actually spending time with him.  Mary sees Jesus sitting in her living room and treats him as a host, asking what he wants to give to her, what wisdom and grace he has in store for her.

It may be a case of “Do not ask what you can do for God, but ask rather what God can do for you.”

We need to do both, to be both. But if we never give ourselves time to stop and bask in the presence of God who has come all this way, in the incarnation, to be with us and among us, then we’ll never have sat still long enough for him to give to us whatever gift it is that he’s brought, just for us.  And we are, after all, what he came for.

What do those words look like in real life?

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A sermon for Epiphany 4 (C) 2013: Luke 4.14-21 & 1 Cor 12

I wonder how many of us have ever had that feeling after reading or hearing a Bible passage, that it was ‘all about me’ – you know, that feeling that it was somehow either fate or God’s plan that that particular reading was read on that particular day, with you sitting there hearing it, and realising how much it applied to you? That it challenged you in just the way you needed to be challenged? That it brought you the exact words of comfort that you most needed to hear? That it gave you that bit of guidance that set you on the path that God had in mind for you? Often it’s bible passages that are very familiar to us that can strike us differently and unexpectedly at such moments. We may have heard a verse a hundred times, but the hundred and first time  it hits us between the eyes, and we think, ‘That verse was written for me, today.’

Jesus must have had that feeling a lot. While he was in the wilderness he had relied hugely on scripture – as a witness to God’s enduring love and faithfulness – to withstand the temptations of the Devil.  Now, he’s back in civilisation, in fact, he’s back in his home town, and it’s another well-known passage from the Hebrew Bible that happens to be set for that day, and Jesus is the one whose turn it is to read.

Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit – still from his baptism, and then again from his wilderness experience. And he reads Isaiah’s words ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me’ and knows at once that this passage doesn’t just feel like it’s written for him. It really is for him, and about him.  It’s another of those moments (and those moments are now coming thick and fast in Jesus’ life) when his sense of identity as the Messiah is deepened, strengthened, broadened.  Those words from Isaiah are for him. They are part of what will help him set the agenda for the next three years  – for the whole of his earthly ministry.

So what Isaiah goes on to write next is of crucial importance, because it’s Jesus’ manifesto, it’s his vocation.  He is to be one who brings good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed, and who is to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

So, Jesus reads the words of Isaiah, and already as he reads it seems as if some of the congregation realise that there is more going on here – that this is more than just another reading, this is something else. He confirms it – his first sermon begins by telling the people that Isaiah’s prophecy is now being fulfilled . In him.  No wonder all their eyes are fixed on him.

These are the words that turn Jesus turns from carpenter’s son to Rabbi, from local boy to itinerant preacher and healer, from ordinary man to Son of Man. These are the words that set him on his way. These are the words that must have reminded him, again and again, of the nature of his calling: freedom, healing, the favour of the Lord, good news…. These are the words that come to life in Jesus’ own life, and these are the words that he uses to start his work of transforming the world. It was as if he said to the people gathered in that Nazareth synagogue, “You’re about to see what Isaiah’s words look like in real life.”

It seems right that Jesus’s ministry begins in his own home town, especially since Nazareth wasn’t a particularly important or nice town, it was no Jerusalem, it had no track record of producing great leaders and teachers. It was ordinariness itself.  It is in keeping with the God who chose to become a human being that he also chose to set out the manifesto of the Messiah in a downmarket provincial town, and that the people who heard it were just those faithful gathered that particular Sabbath.

There are Nazareths all over the world. Certainly all over England. Ordinary places, full of ordinary people, who know that all the exciting things happen Somewhere Else, and who do not expect the Messiah to appear in their midst.  If that’s us, then this gospel reading should stir us up a bit.  Especially if we put it together with today’s epistle, which speaks of the church as the Body of Christ.

Why? Because in the gospel reading we start to see the first stage of Jesus’ transformation – the body of Christ gradually turns from being the physical body of a carpenters’ son and eventually becomes the metaphorical worldwide body of the church, who meets in Christ’s name and undertakes to continue his work.  There is absolutely continuity between the work of God that Jesus started and the work of God that we are supposed to be doing, right now. If Isaiah has set out Jesus’ manifesto, then he’s also set out ours.

And that’s another reason why it’s good that all this happened in Nazareth.  Because Nazareth is here. It’s Huntingdon, it’s St Neots.  It’s all the places that most people would say probably aren’t the centre of the universe.  An ordinary place is where Jesus started his work, and this ordinary place is where we are to begin our work.

Jesus went out from that place and spent three years seeking out those who needed healing, three years proclaiming the good news, three years helping people find freedom from the many things that were oppressing them, and ultimately on the cross, enacted the good news of the sacrificial love of God in his own body, experiencing death so that we could might never be captive to it again.

But it starts here.  In the place that we are. In these familiar streets, with these familiar people.  So it is also our calling to proclaim the good news we have heard, and not only that but to live it out, as Jesus did. To be people, and to be a church, which will bring healing, peace and reconciliation, that will fight for justice and freedom for those who are oppressed in any way, or held captive by their own condition or by the actions of others, that will show by how we live that this is the year of the Lord’s favour, that God’s love for the world is real and active, and that his blessings are manifold.  We, too, need to show the world what Isaiah’s words look like in real life.

This is what it means to be the Body of Christ.  No less. But crucially it is by being who we are, in our ordinary situations, that we can do this best.  Jesus’  manifesto was made public in the most ordinary place. So, in whatever ordinary places we find ourselves today and tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year, let us pray that God would help us to see how we might be the Body of Christ and continue Christ’s work of transformation, healing, renewal and love in our ordinary corner of the world. For when we do that, there are no ordinary places, and there are no ordinary people.

The Baptism of Christ (Luke 3.15-17,21-22)

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John the baptist’s job – his entire vocation – was to prepare people for Jesus’ arrival, to sow the seeds about baptism, about repentance, and about the coming kingdom.  I read the verses 15-17, and think, on Jesus’ behalf, “So, no pressure then?”

Four verses later, Jesus is there, and his first act is to submit to John’s baptism. Not because he has sinned, but because it’s the right way to start his ministry.  All that pressure, all that expectation. All that taking on the identity of the Messiah, but knowing that you’re not going to be quite what everyone’s hoping for.  All that promise. All that that work to do. No wonder Jesus needs to be baptised before he starts doing it all.

And he would be glad that he did.  Because when Jesus left the water, he heard the most wonderful words:

“You are my son, my beloved, and with you I am well pleased.”

If you’re the Messiah, if you’re confronted by all that pressure, all that expectation, all that promise, all that work to do, what you need most in the whole world is to know that you are loved, not because of what you have achieved, nor even because of what you will go on to achieve, but simply because you exist.

Every child needs to hear those words. And I tell every parent that as they bring their children for baptism.

And Jesus needed them too.

In the strength of those words, he faced temptation in the wilderness, beating the Devil hands down.

In the strength of those words, he emerged from his ordinary family to embrace Isaiah’s prophecy and announce the manifesto for his mission – to bring release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favour.

In the strength of those words, he went three years of ceaseless ministry, healing, teaching, embracing, arguing, challenging, and bringing life and love to those who needed it most.

In the strength of those words he walked the Way of the Cross, and accepted the suffering that was God’s love for the world, written in blood.

If anyone needed to hear those words, it was Jesus.

You are my son, I love you, and I am pleased with you.

But those words were not just for him. They are for all of us. We are not the Messiah. We do not have to face the Devil in person, we do not have to work miracles, we do not have to bring the dead to life.  But whatever we do face today, this week, over these next months, we need a safe place to stand, something to hang on to that is utterly reliable.

Today, we can put our own name on the front of God’s affirmation.  Because, like Jesus, we’ve lived half a lifetime or more, but today is the first day of the rest of our life. And we have God’s affirmation not because of what we have done, nor because of what we will do, but as a free gift, in the strength of which we can face whatever life will bring us.

 

A harvest poem? Halfway through October? Isn’t that a bit late?

church resources, hymns, Other cool stuff, poems, random thoughts

Had a request for a harvest poem. Not sure this really works, but hey, it’s a work in progress.

We bring our gifts:
The first-fruits of our labour,
or perhaps the spare we do not need,
(an offering to mitigate against our greed).

To the church we bring them,
and into the hands of Christ we place them,
and we say, ‘Take this,
and do with it some miracle:
Turn water into wine again,
or multiply my loaves and fish
to feed a crowd again.’

And Jesus takes them from our hand,
this fruit of the ocean, this product of the land,
and blesses them, accepting back
what always was the Lord’s.
Our gifts will fill the lack
of hungry people,
putting flesh on words
of charity, and making folk
in our small corner of the world
more equal.

We know there is enough for everyone.
But once the leftovers are gone –
taken to the homeless, hungry poor –
what of those twelve empty baskets standing idly by?
Can there yet be more
that we can ask our Lord to multiply?

Into those baskets therefore let us place ourselves,
those parts of us that need transforming,
grace and strength and healing,
the gifts in us that need to be increased and shared
with a greater generosity than we may be prepared
to offer on our own account.

For we are God’s rich and splendid bounty,
seeds, sown and scattered by the Lord in every place.
the human race:
the crowning glory
of the ever-evolving creation story.
We thank the Lord
that he does not just separate wheat from tare,
but takes our very best
then turns us into far more than we are.

Camels and needles – Mark 10.17-31

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It’s another of those gospel readings that’s slightly odd and difficult to understand, and in which the bits we do understand make for challenging reading.

First, I’m not going to explain away the thing about the camel going through the eye of a needle by saying that ‘the eye of the needle’ was the name of one of the smaller gates into the city of Jerusalem, large enough only for a camel on its own, not one laden with possessions. This may well be the case, but it’s not the point. At least, I don’t think it’s the point.

So what is? Well, there are a few things that are well worth pursuing.

Let’s start with what Jesus says just after the camel bit, namely that what looks impossible turns out not to be, because God is not limited by what we can imagine, and by what we think the normal rules set out.  ‘For people it is impossible, but not for God, everything is possible for God.’ The other famous time in the gospels which talks about what is possible and what is not is when the angel speaks to Mary in Luke chapter 1 – the proof that God can do the unlikely thing of giving her a child while she is still a virgin is that God has already given a child to her elderly cousin Elizabeth, after years of the older woman and her husband trying to conceive. ‘For nothing will be impossible with God,’ concludes the angel.  We might well try and find ways of explaining away that bit of divine intervention too – many people do – but sometimes the gospels do present us with a miracle. Jesus does them all the time. If God can perform the miracle of a virgin birth, which human beings consider to be impossible, perhaps he can also thread camels through needles, and indeed grant a place in heaven to someone rich.  Indeed, anything is possible with God.

So far, so good.

So is the rich man doomed or isn’t he? He certainly seems to think so, as he goes away despondent. But is he really?  Remember that lovely line, ‘Jesus looked at him and loved him,’ or words to that effect. Is the rich young man, whom Jesus loved, condemned by his wealth, or is there something less simplistic going on?

Remember the famous phrase, that money is the root of all evil?  I can see some of you longing to correct me, that it is not money itself, but the love of money that leads us into sin (that’s from 1 Timothy chapter 6). Perhaps it is not ownership of wealth itself that is problematic,  but rather the miserliness and selfishness that clings onto it, that will not let it go, that gets obsessed by it.  Is Jesus testing the young man’s ability to let go?  To be generous?  Contrast this story with the encounter between Jesus and Zaccheus: the man was a crook, but Jesus did not ask him to sell everything he had and give it to the poor – Zaccheus himself demonstrated that he was no longer a slave to his money by repaying with interest the people he had defrauded, and by making a generous donation to the poor from what was left over. But at no point did Jesus require him to give everything.

So why does he ask for such an enormous act of generosity and selflessness from this young man in today’s gospel?  Is it at least in part to test the man’s attachment to his wealth?  That’s certainly part of is. Great wealth brings great responsibility. All of us here are wealthy in comparison with so many of our brothers and sisters in Christ across the world.  We all bear great responsibility in the way that we use and spend and give away our wealth, and we all need to spend time thinking about praying about how our possessions and our money can be a blessing to ourselves and to those around us, to God’s church, to the charities that are close to our heart, and to God’s world and people. The more we have, the more decisions we are called to make when it comes to how our generosity is going to find expression.

All of that goes without saying, but it’s not all that is going on.  Remember how the story starts. The man approaches Jesus, and asks him what he must do to get to heaven. When Jesus replies, reminding him of the commandments, the young man is able to reply that he’s always kept them all. Unlikely? Maybe, but even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he really has led a super-virtuous life, it does rather seem as if the man is asking the wrong question. If he’s kept all the commandments, the likelihood is that he already thought he’d done enough to earn his way into heaven. Was he asking just to be sure? Or to get a nice pat on the back from the traveling Rabbi? Or was it yet another trick question, and had the young man been put up to it by the Pharisees? We don’t know.

But what we do have is Jesus’ answer. He loves the young man, but takes his question at face value. You want to guarantee yourself a place in heaven? Well, the price is more than you thought. In fact, it’s more than the law demands. Jewish law had plenty in it that encouraged, even demanded generosity but it didn’t ask people to give everything. What Jesus is saying is that getting a place in heaven isn’t something that is a matter of dotting every i and crossing every t. You can’t get to heaven by keeping your nose clean and obeying the law. He deliberately asks what feels unreasonable and unjustifiable because getting a place into heaven isn’t about reason and justice, it’s about the generosity and mercy and grace of God.

That’s why Jesus’ response to the young man only makes sense in the light of what he goes on to say to the disciples: all things are possible with God. We don’t know what became of the young man. We hope that he reflected on his wealth, and learned how to be generous, to exercise good stewardship over this possessions, to sit more lightly to them, to use them for good. But like so many of the walk-on characters in the gospels, as far as we know we never see him again.

But that’s not the end of the story. Not for him, and not for us. Because a young man who thinks he’s done everything right is like a red rag to a bull for Jesus.  Even though the young man is probably a very nice chap, his attitude is that of a pharisee-in-the-making: he thinks everything is about keeping the law, and that if he tries really hard and ticks all the right boxes, he’ll be OK. That’s how the Pharisees knew were they were in the religious and social pecking order. That’s how they could be confident about their status before the people and before God.  But that wasn’t how Jesus saw them.

The reading ends with ‘the first shall be last and the last shall be first’. If this is a parable about the relationship between our earthly life and the life of heaven, then I’m strangely comforted by it. The rich young man, by the miraculous grace and mercy of God, may well find himself in heaven when he dies. But he’ll find himself there not at the head of the queue, having earned his place, but somewhere in the crowd, perhaps towards the back, with the poor and destitute going in ahead of him.  And that is the real test for him.  When he sees that his place in the earthly pecking order doesn’t translate into the life of heaven, will he still want that eternal life that he was pestering Jesus about? That’s Jesus’ test. And it’s a test to any of us who have things that we cling to here, any of us who have ideas about our status, our importance.  Any of us who fall into the trap of trying to earn our way into God’s favour.

Eternal life, a place in heaven, involves being willing to relinquish any kind of status, either in terms of what we’re born into, or what we’ve earned. Quite simply, we can’t take it with us. If there’s a hierarchy in heaven at all, Jesus is quite clear on how it goes: the first shall be last and the last shall be first.  We may read this story and imagine that the young man’s moment of choice was in his conversation with Jesus: will he give everything away to buy his way into heaven or won’t he?  But in reality the man’s true moment of choice comes much later. When the time comes for him to find out if he made the cut, if he was good enough, if he really did earn his place, he’ll find that God isn’t sitting in state like a judge at all, but instead is welcoming all and sundry, including the unwashed, the repentant tax collectors and prostitutes, the lowly, the poor and the lame.  Does the young man want to join the queue behind them in order to receive the mercy that God is offering so freely?  That’s the real test of whether he’s willing to give up everything.

But, you know, it wouldn’t do him any harm to start practicing while he’s still alive.

Amen.