Are you looking forward to Christmas – now there’s a sentence that can mean more than one thing!
Our link theme for the readings today is “Jesus who is to come”.
Last week in the morning we looked at Mark’s account of John the Baptist’s ministry, and today we look at the same events, through John’s eyes.
It’s all about looking forward, and being sure we’re ready for what’s coming. That’s why I said my opening question could have more than one meaning.
I will admit to having a certain sympathy with the humbug club, a group of self confessed grumpy old men from the Victory pub in Walton on the Naze, who are campaigning against Christmas.
“Against Christmas?” you exclaim, “how can the vicar be sympathetic to that”
Well, It’s because the Christmas these chaps are against is the one that starts just after Halloween (and don’t get me started on that) and is a purely commercial exercise. They are in favour of Christmas as being one day long, not three months.
You see I don’t look forward to that kind of Christmas, because it muddies the waters of the true meaning of the festival – not about material gifts and gastronomic excess, but about the gift of a child into poverty, who would live, die and rise again to redeem humanity.
Advent is about preparing for Christmas as in the 25th of December, the mass of Christ, the celebration of his birth but it is also about preparing ourselves for the second advent, the second coming, when there may not be another birth in a stable, but Jesus will return to earth one day. This is of course a good thing, and advent and Christmas are also about giving thanks and rejoicing in the wonderful provision our God has made for our salvation.
In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul also tells us to rejoice, pray and give thanks. In all circumstances to hold fast to what is good and to avoid evil, so that we may be found to be blameless at 'the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ', which liturgically is now not very far off. So on Christmas day, will you be ready to worship, or just ready to curl up in front of the telly? Of course Paul is clear that the coming of Christ will be a final historical event, not a repeatable act of worship. We vicars struggle sometimes to put across Christmas in a fresh way each year; with the Second Advent, we won’t have that problem!
I think it is very important to look carefully at Paul’s instructions at the end of 1 Thessalonians, which are after all given in the light of the coming of the Lord. We need to be certain we have read this chapter properly for lots of reasons. Some are to do with the theology of the end of the world, but in the time we have today I can’t cover all of that, so let’s focus on verses 16 to 18.
I had a friend a few years ago whose faith was very strange. When she fell over and broke her ankle she said “thank you Lord for that”. I asked her what she was on about and she pointed me to 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 18, so I duly went and read it
“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”.
The key word is the third one “in”; not “for”. My friend had a skewed vision of how God wanted her to behave; she thanked God that she had broken her ankle. What he was wanting her to do was to thank him for his saving grace, love and power, even though she had broken her ankle. This is no the same thing, is it?
Now obviously in retrospect we can often see that unfortunate circumstances are used by God to bring about the good things in our lives. For example if Ruth had not been off sick from work in 1992 I would never have met her and we wouldn’t be here today. I’m sure many of you can tell similar stories.
But if we’re thinking about advent, it’s not about what’s happening to us, it’s about what’s going to happen with God, and Paul wants his readers to be clear on what that is (hence the “thief in the night” stuff earlier in the chapter) and how they should prepare such that with the help of the Spirit they will be blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the gospel reading we continue the theme of authentic preparation for Jesus who is to come. John the Baptist is preparing the way, but now in John's version the story has been written in a completely fresh way. This is John the Baptist's only appearance in the fourth Gospel, save that the passage continues to verse 37 with the reference to Jesus being the Lamb of God, but that reference to the paschal lamb is about Easter rather than Christmas.
The Evangelist's theological statement about John in verses 6-8 is followed by a short narrative from verse 19 which expands a little on what we saw last week in Mark. Verse 19 looks aggressively anti-Jewish in style but the Greek word Ioudaioi can also be translated Judeans, which is more appropriate here as the priests and Levites in question come from Jerusalem, the capital of the province that the Romans called Judea. They would not actually have been sent by the Pharisees (v. 24) who were a lay group who had little political power, though much social influence.
When questioned, John came clean and said he was not the messiah (as he had disciples, there may have been people who thought he was). Nor was he Elijah, nor the prophet of Deuteronomy 18.15-19 who would be a successor to Moses. His only claim, through the words of Isaiah (40.3 again), is that he prepares the way for the messiah, the successor of Elijah and Moses. John, then, is very keen to make sure people get the right message about the messiah – that it’s Jesus who is to come, and not himself, and that the messiah will not be as people expect – the Lamb of God terminology we read later in the chapter can only have had sacrificial meaning for his original hearers.
The priests' question about why John baptises is odd. Why shouldn't he cleanse people with water in a ritual of repentance? Indeed if you go to Jerusalem today you will see many ancient ritual baths known as mikvahs – or to be more accurate, mikva’ot, in which Jews prepared themselves for a visit to the temple. In these, there is a sort of twin tub system whereby the worshipper walked down one set of steps immersing their body in water, before moving over to another compartment and climbing back out. So baptism, which just means, “dunking” in Greek, was not a new phenomenon; it’s just John’s was more specifically a baptism of repentance in the light of the arrival of God’s promised messiah. He also de-ritualised it by doing it in a river, not in a special bath.
This question of baptism was probably not a Jewish problem from around AD 28, so much as a Christian problem at the end of the first century: why should John baptise when – as we know – Christian baptism is the real baptism? Surprisingly there is no mention here of baptism in the Holy Spirit (cf. Mark 1.8) – we have to wait for John 3.1-10 for that – though John makes it clear that someone greater is about to come after him. And of course Jesus’ command to baptise in the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit re-aligned the parameters of baptism and made it a specifically Christian thing. Let’s not forget that some people in Acts 19 received the Holy Spirit after Paul prays for them and lays his hands on them, because they had only received the baptism of John.
So, Paul and John want their hearers to be ready for Christ’s coming; if we are more concerned about whether the tree, the turkey and the mince pies are ready, then we would do well to reconsider their words.
Not that we have anything to fear, but because God wants us to be ready, and as Paul says, “the one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it”.
Monday, 15 December 2008
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Lindsell and Stebbing December 7th Advent 2
Active preparation unites today's readings. In Isaiah a road is to be prepared for the king. In Mark, John the Baptist declares the need for repentance before the King comes.
Old Testament The original context for the prophecy of Isaiah 40.1-11 was exile in Babylon about 540 BC and the hope of return to Jerusalem (vv. 1-2) but as a reading for Advent, Isaiah's hope of salvation looks to the Christ. The original unspecified “voice” of verse 3 becomes in Mark's Gospel, John the Baptist.
The first image in Isaiah’s prophecy is of the land being smoothed for God's pathway, when 'the glory of the Lord will be revealed' – a line that always draws the musically inclined to the first part of Handel's Messiah. The prophet then reminds us of our mortality (Brahms' German Requiem according to my sources) but while we wither like grass, 'the word of our God will stand for ever'. Advent is perhaps a difficult time for some, especially if they have been bereaved this past year, and are dreading the first Christmas without their loved one; these verses can offer hope – things in our lives may change, but God’s word is always the same. And by the way that doesn’t mean that all my sermons are going to be the same as last Christmas.
The word here is the 'good tidings', the evangelion, which we translate as 'gospel'. Who is this word for? Well, for Isaiah it is to Zion – i.e. Jerusalem, but standing for the whole nation longing to return from exile.
And what is the message - that 'here is your God' (v. 9). This is the kind of God they were to expect; God comes as a warrior in verse 10 but Isaiah then uses conventional pastoral imagery to portray God's future care for his people (v. 11). So the Lord will come in power, but not without the gentleness and care of a shepherd.
For Mark, the message is also for Jerusalem, and the surrounding countryside, so perhaps not quite so wide in its scope at first glance, but really Mark’s point is that John’s words focus the coming of the Lord in power and with love as prophesied by Isaiah, on the coming of his cousin, Jesus as the Christ.
Mark 1.1-8 is about preparation too. The opening sentence tells us first what kind of literature we are about to read: gospel, good news. Although it takes the form of a narrative, it will not be an objective, chronological biography. While the book is about a historical figure and will be full of historical information, it is a news broadcast and the news is about a victory – euangelion is the word Rome used to announce an imperial victory.
Jesus is introduced in Mark 1 verse 1 as the Christ, which means 'anointed one' (messiah in Hebrew) and this places him in the context of Jewish messianic expectations. That verse also makes a bit of a nonsense the idea that Mark was trying to hide Jesus’ true identity. If he wanted to conceal it, why put it in the first sentence of your work?
The messiah is the anointed king of Israel. These expectations of a new, divinely appointed king frame many of our readings for this period before Christmas. 'Son of God' was an expression used of the Jewish king and could indeed be used of any of God's people. It does not necessarily at this point in the narrative refer directly to the divine son as in the second person of a trinity, but it would be wrong if we never read that sense back into these words. After the introductory sentence, there is no mention of Jesus, but because we have read the story before we know who John means when he speaks of “one more powerful than I”.
Before John is named, he is placed in the context of a divine plan. In Malachi 3.1 God announces that he is sending his messenger to prepare your, i.e. the people's, way. Mark combines this with Isaiah 40.3 prophesying that one from the wilderness will come to 'prepare the way of the Lord'. Clearly Mark understands John to be the messenger and Jesus now to be the Lord, kurios, the word used of God in the Greek Old Testament. Such a high christology shows that 'son of God' in verse 1 does imply divinity.
John appears in the Jordan valley, which is only just 'the wilderness' and it is certainly an exaggeration to say that all of Judea and Jerusalem went to hear him, but that exaggeration is perhaps justified in showing the impact of the message that John fore ran and foretold.
I do find the slightly different punctuation between the two passages intriguing. Isaiah’s sense is that the way for the Lord will be prepared in the desert, and so in Mark we have John – the voice – calling in the desert, but the way itself is not just in the desert by the time we get to Jesus. So John is himself (by being in the wilderness) fulfilling not just the voice role but the preparation too.
The dress and diet of John (v. 6) show him to be an Elijah figure (1 Kings 17 – 2 Kings 2). This is important because Elijah is said not to have died but to have been taken straight to heaven, so the belief grew that Elijah would return to earth to announce the beginning of the messianic age.
John is not Elijah, but he carries out Elijah's role. In order to prepare for this new event in Israel, indeed to prepare for a new Israel, John began a movement of national repentance with a ritual of mass baptism (literally a 'washing') in which people confessed their sins in anticipation of their forgiveness. This then is the heart of the preparation that Mark, in the mouth of John, calls his readers to.
But the one who is coming will wash them in the Holy Spirit, reflecting what we read about Christian baptism elsewhere in the New Testament. So the great story begins, although, in the spirit of Advent, we have to wait until after Christmas to resume Mark's narrative.
(using material from Rootsontheweb by Geoffrey Turner)
Old Testament The original context for the prophecy of Isaiah 40.1-11 was exile in Babylon about 540 BC and the hope of return to Jerusalem (vv. 1-2) but as a reading for Advent, Isaiah's hope of salvation looks to the Christ. The original unspecified “voice” of verse 3 becomes in Mark's Gospel, John the Baptist.
The first image in Isaiah’s prophecy is of the land being smoothed for God's pathway, when 'the glory of the Lord will be revealed' – a line that always draws the musically inclined to the first part of Handel's Messiah. The prophet then reminds us of our mortality (Brahms' German Requiem according to my sources) but while we wither like grass, 'the word of our God will stand for ever'. Advent is perhaps a difficult time for some, especially if they have been bereaved this past year, and are dreading the first Christmas without their loved one; these verses can offer hope – things in our lives may change, but God’s word is always the same. And by the way that doesn’t mean that all my sermons are going to be the same as last Christmas.
The word here is the 'good tidings', the evangelion, which we translate as 'gospel'. Who is this word for? Well, for Isaiah it is to Zion – i.e. Jerusalem, but standing for the whole nation longing to return from exile.
And what is the message - that 'here is your God' (v. 9). This is the kind of God they were to expect; God comes as a warrior in verse 10 but Isaiah then uses conventional pastoral imagery to portray God's future care for his people (v. 11). So the Lord will come in power, but not without the gentleness and care of a shepherd.
For Mark, the message is also for Jerusalem, and the surrounding countryside, so perhaps not quite so wide in its scope at first glance, but really Mark’s point is that John’s words focus the coming of the Lord in power and with love as prophesied by Isaiah, on the coming of his cousin, Jesus as the Christ.
Mark 1.1-8 is about preparation too. The opening sentence tells us first what kind of literature we are about to read: gospel, good news. Although it takes the form of a narrative, it will not be an objective, chronological biography. While the book is about a historical figure and will be full of historical information, it is a news broadcast and the news is about a victory – euangelion is the word Rome used to announce an imperial victory.
Jesus is introduced in Mark 1 verse 1 as the Christ, which means 'anointed one' (messiah in Hebrew) and this places him in the context of Jewish messianic expectations. That verse also makes a bit of a nonsense the idea that Mark was trying to hide Jesus’ true identity. If he wanted to conceal it, why put it in the first sentence of your work?
The messiah is the anointed king of Israel. These expectations of a new, divinely appointed king frame many of our readings for this period before Christmas. 'Son of God' was an expression used of the Jewish king and could indeed be used of any of God's people. It does not necessarily at this point in the narrative refer directly to the divine son as in the second person of a trinity, but it would be wrong if we never read that sense back into these words. After the introductory sentence, there is no mention of Jesus, but because we have read the story before we know who John means when he speaks of “one more powerful than I”.
Before John is named, he is placed in the context of a divine plan. In Malachi 3.1 God announces that he is sending his messenger to prepare your, i.e. the people's, way. Mark combines this with Isaiah 40.3 prophesying that one from the wilderness will come to 'prepare the way of the Lord'. Clearly Mark understands John to be the messenger and Jesus now to be the Lord, kurios, the word used of God in the Greek Old Testament. Such a high christology shows that 'son of God' in verse 1 does imply divinity.
John appears in the Jordan valley, which is only just 'the wilderness' and it is certainly an exaggeration to say that all of Judea and Jerusalem went to hear him, but that exaggeration is perhaps justified in showing the impact of the message that John fore ran and foretold.
I do find the slightly different punctuation between the two passages intriguing. Isaiah’s sense is that the way for the Lord will be prepared in the desert, and so in Mark we have John – the voice – calling in the desert, but the way itself is not just in the desert by the time we get to Jesus. So John is himself (by being in the wilderness) fulfilling not just the voice role but the preparation too.
The dress and diet of John (v. 6) show him to be an Elijah figure (1 Kings 17 – 2 Kings 2). This is important because Elijah is said not to have died but to have been taken straight to heaven, so the belief grew that Elijah would return to earth to announce the beginning of the messianic age.
John is not Elijah, but he carries out Elijah's role. In order to prepare for this new event in Israel, indeed to prepare for a new Israel, John began a movement of national repentance with a ritual of mass baptism (literally a 'washing') in which people confessed their sins in anticipation of their forgiveness. This then is the heart of the preparation that Mark, in the mouth of John, calls his readers to.
But the one who is coming will wash them in the Holy Spirit, reflecting what we read about Christian baptism elsewhere in the New Testament. So the great story begins, although, in the spirit of Advent, we have to wait until after Christmas to resume Mark's narrative.
(using material from Rootsontheweb by Geoffrey Turner)
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Stebbing and Lindsell Remembrance Sunday 08
This was partly lifted from Roots again (lack of time)
This year there has been a very successful charity song called “Hero” which has raised money for the Haig fund. It is most encouraging because it is from the X factor, and shows a desire among the young to continue to remember. At any victory celebration there must be two emotions: joy that the war is over and sadness at the appalling cost of that victory (which we express today). It used to be the custom on this day to focus on the two world wars of the twentieth century, but in a new century, and as time marches on, we acknowledge with sadness that there are still many conflicts in the world; there are still millions of victims and thousands of heroes and in any consideration of war, we must remember them too, pray for them and press for solutions to be sought. We may have different opinions here about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the faithfulness and courage of her majesty’s armed forces today in going to those places – as Lt Col Stephen Hughes from Stebbing Green has done, returning a couple of weeks ago to Basra, makes them all heroes.
One of the marks of a true hero is their willingness to lay down his or her life in the full knowledge of what will happen to them. Jesus died so that others may have life. St Maximilian Kolbe was interned in a concentration camp and voluntarily took on the death sentence of a young Polish Officer. Before the 2nd world war he had an extensive ministry across the world, setting up Franciscan communities – including one in Nagasaki, Japan. At his base in Poland he and his fellow brothers undertook publication work, including materials considered anti-Nazi. For this work the presses were shut down, the congregation suppressed, the brothers dispersed, and Maximilian was imprisoned in Pawiak prison, Warsaw, Poland on 17 February 1941. On 28 May 1941 he was transferred to Auschwitz and branded as prisoner 16670. He was assigned to a special work group staffed by priests and supervised by especially vicious and abusive guards. His calm dedication to the faith brought him the worst jobs available, and more beatings than anyone else. At one point he was beaten, lashed, and left for dead. The prisoners managed to smuggle him into the camp hospital. When he returned to the camp, Maximilian ministered to other prisoners, including delivering communion using smuggled bread and wine. In July 1941 there was an escape from the camp. Camp protocol, designed to make the prisoners guard each other, required that ten men be slaughtered in retribution for each escaped prisoner. Francis Gajowniczek, a married man with young children was chosen to die for the escape. Maximilian volunteered to take his place, and died as he had always wished - in service. In 1982 when Maximilian Kolbe was decalred a saint by Pope John Paul II in Rome, among the crowd in St Peter’s Square was Francis Gajowniczek, and his children and grandchildren. A very concrete example of Jesus’ words “Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” and also a clear example to today’s generation of the way that heroes of the faith end up as saints.
In these times of financial uncertainty it is particularly encouraging that Remembrance time remains a priority. For those who struggle financially it is tempting to think of ones self, not others. We might even be tempted to make a comparison between the daily news of financial losses and the reporting of war dead – thankfully now not every day, but still quite frequent. Both will bring a sense of hopelessness and despair to some, but there is a difference; shares do regain value, but dead soldiers don’t come home.
A sense of perspective then is helpful. We might be suffering, but that is nothing compared to those under fire now or in the past. We might have had to transfer our trusts and shares and savings to another bank, but that is insignificant when compared to soldiers of many armies in many wars since 1918 who had to transfer their trust from a dead officer to a new one who might only just be out of his teens.
The transfer of trust, while it sounds like a financial act really sums up the solution to some of the dilemmas we face at Remembrance time. How do we see an end to this violence? How can we find hope? Was the sacrifice of so many lives worth it?
Just as we might transfer our savings from one bank to another, to be a Christian means making a transfer of trust from humanity to God – from human power to the saving power of Jesus Christ.
There is always talk of sacrifice on Remembrance Sunday, and those who know me well will understand I’m not going to let the chance go to talk of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
This is not to disparage the sacrifice of the many who laid down their lives in the world wars. It may be true that the war to end all wars, which came to an end 90 years ago, didn’t fulfil its potential, but Europe would be a very different place today had not millions of people given their lives for the cause of freedom in two world wars. Individual bravery and sacrifice continues today – its not a co-incidence that medals given for bravery and valour are called crosses, for they echo and recall to mind the cross of Christ, its sacrifice and also its victory.
And that’s what we are transferring our trust into – the power of the cross, a once for all sacrifice that truly is the death to end death. Hope arises from the cross because Christ gave his life, and then overcame death itself in the resurrection; if we trust in the cross it is not to dwell upon death, but to know the power of the resurrection, and the love of God, poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Supremely, also, the sacrifice of the cross brought about reconciliation between humanity and God. Today as every Sunday we pray for reconciliation between warring nations and factions; without the reconciliation won by the cross of Christ this would be a futile exercise. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” – God sets the precedent in enabling us to be reconciled to him; the outworking of that reconciliation comes in he bringing of true peace – more than just an absence of war - to the conflict-ravaged places we see and hear about every day.
As Jesus said, “This is my command, Love each other”.
This year there has been a very successful charity song called “Hero” which has raised money for the Haig fund. It is most encouraging because it is from the X factor, and shows a desire among the young to continue to remember. At any victory celebration there must be two emotions: joy that the war is over and sadness at the appalling cost of that victory (which we express today). It used to be the custom on this day to focus on the two world wars of the twentieth century, but in a new century, and as time marches on, we acknowledge with sadness that there are still many conflicts in the world; there are still millions of victims and thousands of heroes and in any consideration of war, we must remember them too, pray for them and press for solutions to be sought. We may have different opinions here about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the faithfulness and courage of her majesty’s armed forces today in going to those places – as Lt Col Stephen Hughes from Stebbing Green has done, returning a couple of weeks ago to Basra, makes them all heroes.
One of the marks of a true hero is their willingness to lay down his or her life in the full knowledge of what will happen to them. Jesus died so that others may have life. St Maximilian Kolbe was interned in a concentration camp and voluntarily took on the death sentence of a young Polish Officer. Before the 2nd world war he had an extensive ministry across the world, setting up Franciscan communities – including one in Nagasaki, Japan. At his base in Poland he and his fellow brothers undertook publication work, including materials considered anti-Nazi. For this work the presses were shut down, the congregation suppressed, the brothers dispersed, and Maximilian was imprisoned in Pawiak prison, Warsaw, Poland on 17 February 1941. On 28 May 1941 he was transferred to Auschwitz and branded as prisoner 16670. He was assigned to a special work group staffed by priests and supervised by especially vicious and abusive guards. His calm dedication to the faith brought him the worst jobs available, and more beatings than anyone else. At one point he was beaten, lashed, and left for dead. The prisoners managed to smuggle him into the camp hospital. When he returned to the camp, Maximilian ministered to other prisoners, including delivering communion using smuggled bread and wine. In July 1941 there was an escape from the camp. Camp protocol, designed to make the prisoners guard each other, required that ten men be slaughtered in retribution for each escaped prisoner. Francis Gajowniczek, a married man with young children was chosen to die for the escape. Maximilian volunteered to take his place, and died as he had always wished - in service. In 1982 when Maximilian Kolbe was decalred a saint by Pope John Paul II in Rome, among the crowd in St Peter’s Square was Francis Gajowniczek, and his children and grandchildren. A very concrete example of Jesus’ words “Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” and also a clear example to today’s generation of the way that heroes of the faith end up as saints.
In these times of financial uncertainty it is particularly encouraging that Remembrance time remains a priority. For those who struggle financially it is tempting to think of ones self, not others. We might even be tempted to make a comparison between the daily news of financial losses and the reporting of war dead – thankfully now not every day, but still quite frequent. Both will bring a sense of hopelessness and despair to some, but there is a difference; shares do regain value, but dead soldiers don’t come home.
A sense of perspective then is helpful. We might be suffering, but that is nothing compared to those under fire now or in the past. We might have had to transfer our trusts and shares and savings to another bank, but that is insignificant when compared to soldiers of many armies in many wars since 1918 who had to transfer their trust from a dead officer to a new one who might only just be out of his teens.
The transfer of trust, while it sounds like a financial act really sums up the solution to some of the dilemmas we face at Remembrance time. How do we see an end to this violence? How can we find hope? Was the sacrifice of so many lives worth it?
Just as we might transfer our savings from one bank to another, to be a Christian means making a transfer of trust from humanity to God – from human power to the saving power of Jesus Christ.
There is always talk of sacrifice on Remembrance Sunday, and those who know me well will understand I’m not going to let the chance go to talk of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
This is not to disparage the sacrifice of the many who laid down their lives in the world wars. It may be true that the war to end all wars, which came to an end 90 years ago, didn’t fulfil its potential, but Europe would be a very different place today had not millions of people given their lives for the cause of freedom in two world wars. Individual bravery and sacrifice continues today – its not a co-incidence that medals given for bravery and valour are called crosses, for they echo and recall to mind the cross of Christ, its sacrifice and also its victory.
And that’s what we are transferring our trust into – the power of the cross, a once for all sacrifice that truly is the death to end death. Hope arises from the cross because Christ gave his life, and then overcame death itself in the resurrection; if we trust in the cross it is not to dwell upon death, but to know the power of the resurrection, and the love of God, poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Supremely, also, the sacrifice of the cross brought about reconciliation between humanity and God. Today as every Sunday we pray for reconciliation between warring nations and factions; without the reconciliation won by the cross of Christ this would be a futile exercise. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” – God sets the precedent in enabling us to be reconciled to him; the outworking of that reconciliation comes in he bringing of true peace – more than just an absence of war - to the conflict-ravaged places we see and hear about every day.
As Jesus said, “This is my command, Love each other”.
Saturday, 11 October 2008
Adriana and Nicky's wedding sermon
Not to be outdone by the Korean baptism sermon, here is an Italian version of the sermon from today's wedding, for the benefit of the bride's Itailian family
Voi sapete che è difficile pensare a una buona barzelletta sul matrimonio, quando la coppia prima che siete stati insieme per tutto il tempo che questi due -, ma io sono solo contento di avere avuto a qui. Così, invece di uno scherzo I'll iniziare con un punto di grave. Per guardare questi due in condizioni normali di vita quotidiana, si può dire per quanto tempo essi sono stati insieme? Pochi anni fa un uomo era in attesa di un amico in aeroporto. Come egli stava cercando per il suo amico, ha notato un uomo a venire verso di lui portando due sacchetti di luce. Egli ha osservato come l'uomo fermato per salutare la sua famiglia. In primo luogo egli motioned al suo figlio più giovane (forse sei anni) come egli stabilisce la sua sacchetti. Hanno dato reciprocamente una lunga e amorevole abbraccio. Poiché separati abbastanza per guardare gli uni negli altri il volto, il padre disse: "E 'così bello vedere voi, figlio. Ti ho perso così tanto!" Suo figlio sorrise un po 'timidamente, scongiurato i suoi occhi e dolcemente risposto, "Io, troppo, papà!" Allora l'uomo si alzò, guardava negli occhi del figlio più anziano (forse nove o dieci) e imbutitura, mentre suo figlio il volto nelle sue mani ha detto: "Stai già abbastanza il giovane. Ti amo molto, Zach!" Hanno abbracciato anche uno più amorevole, tenero abbraccio. Mentre questo stava accadendo, una bambina (forse uno-anno-vecchio) è stato squirming excitedly nelle sue braccia della madre, mai una volta che i suoi occhi poco al largo della splendida vista del suo ritorno il padre. L'uomo ha detto: "Ciao, bambina!" come egli ha preso delicatamente il bambino dalla madre. Ha baciato rapidamente il suo volto su tutti i detenuti e quindi la sua stretta al suo petto, mentre il suo dondolo da un lato all'altro. La bambina istantaneamente semplicemente rilassato e di cui la testa sulla sua spalla, immobile in puro appagamento. Dopo alcuni momenti, ha consegnato la sua figlia al figlio più anziano e ha dichiarato, "Ho salvato il meglio per ultimo", e ha proceduto a dare la propria moglie un lungo, appassionato bacio. Egli guardava in suoi occhi per alcuni secondi e poi silenziosamente bocca, "Ti amo così tanto!" Essi stared ad ogni altro gli occhi, grandi sorrisi trasmissione via IR a un altro, mentre si tiene entrambe le mani. Il astante poi realizzato totalmente assorbito come è stato nella splendida esposizione di autentico amore accanto a lui. Egli ha improvvisamente sentito a disagio, come se si trattasse di qualcosa di sacro invasori, ma è stato sorpreso di sentire la propria voce chiedere nervosamente, "Wow! Quanto tempo avete due stato sposato? " "Stato sposato dodici anni", ha risposto l'uomo. "Beh, allora, per quanto tempo sei stato via?" l'astante ha chiesto. "Due intere giornate!" è arrivata la risposta ... DUE GIORNI? Il astante è stato stordito. Con l'intensità del saluto, ha assunto l'uomo era stato fatto per almeno qualche settimana, se non mesi. Quasi offhandedly, sperando di porre fine alla sua intrusione con una certa parvenza di grazia l'astante ha detto, "spero che il mio matrimonio è ancora appassionato che, dopo dodici anni!" L'uomo improvvisamente smesso di sorridere. Egli guardò il astante dritto negli occhi, e con forza che bruciò a destra nella sua anima, ha detto una cosa che ha lasciato l'astante una persona diversa. Egli ha detto, "Non speranza, amico ... DECIDERE!" Ho letto un libro una volta da Bear Grylls. Potreste averlo visto in TV. Egli è stato il più giovane persona mai a salire l'Everest, che è piuttosto un risultato, ma mi ha scommessa non ha mai avuto per organizzare un matrimonio come questo! Ma il motivo per cui ho citato questo cap non è solo quello di confrontare i preparativi per l'arrampicata oggi con il mondo della montagna più alta. E 'anche perché nel suo libro sulla salita dà una definizione di impegno, che egli crediti a sua madre. Grylls ha detto la signora, "L'impegno è fare la cosa che ha detto che non avevo molto tempo dopo l'umore lei ha detto che ha lasciato in voi". Lei ha detto che nel contesto di arrampicata montagne, ma credo che si adatta molto bene con il matrimonio. Oggi è un giorno molto speciale, il culmine di mesi di preparazione, e, auspicabilmente, la fine di un tempo molto occupato. Ma in sostanza non è la fine, è l'inizio di una nuova vita insieme, come Adriana e Nicky hanno deciso di diventare marito e moglie. E la signora Grylls' dicendo si adatta molto bene, perché questo è un giorno meraviglioso, ma Adriana e Nicky dovrà affrontare molti giorni a venire, quando essi potrebbero sentire che il matrimonio non è una cosa meravigliosa, e che, mi auguro ricordare questo giorno come il tempo Essi si sono impegnati a fare qualcosa, anche se l'umore di un giorno di nozze non può durare una vita. Adriana e Nicky stanno andando a fare una alleanza insieme oggi, e noi siamo i loro testimoni. In questa alleanza si donano reciprocamente. Per una alleanza è di dare a l'altra persona, non da loro. È grave decisione che hanno fatto, e al quale ci accingiamo ad essere i testimoni. Molti di voi qui oggi possono sentirsi molto negativamente sul matrimonio come un impegno per tutta la vita, come mi delineando oggi, e in cui Adriana e Nicky sta per entrare. Riconosco i tuoi sentimenti, ma non ho scuse per celebrare il dono di Dio del matrimonio. Non so circa voi, ma nella mia famiglia celebrazioni di solito coinvolgere cioccolato in qualche modo o in un altro, così ho pensato che avevo alcuni mettono insieme oggi. Ma ho scelto questo tipo di cioccolato per un motivo particolare, che è quello che fornisce una eccellente illustrazione visiva per il matrimonio cristiano. La maggior parte delle barrette di cioccolato sono 2 dimensionale - piana, ma Toblerone ha tre lati. Questa è una buona immagine di come in un matrimonio fatta alla presenza di Dio, ci sono tre parti - il marito, moglie, e Dio, tutti lavorano insieme per rendere il matrimonio e la vita dando vita a lungo. Se vogliamo aprire il pacchetto vedremo che sotto il cartone abbastanza ordinario vi è una fascia d'oro, questo è un quadro di come prezioso Adriana e Nicky, e il loro matrimonio, è quella di Dio; egli tesori, e vuole essere parte di la loro vita, come egli fa per tutti noi. Abbiamo iniziato oggi, riconoscendo che il matrimonio è un dono di Dio. Si tratta di un dono ama dare, e vuole che noi di godere di essa! Ora quelli di voi conosce questa marca di cioccolato sarà consapevole del fatto che quando si riesce a passare la fascia a sé il bar è un intrigante forma, ma ha picchi e valli. Si tratta di una foto del alti e bassi della vita coniugale; i tempi che abbiamo già accennato, quando l'umore della celebrazione odierna sembra difficile da recuperare. Eppure, il bar continua ad avere tre lati, anche in trogoli; Dio cammina con noi nella buona e il duro volte, e se lasciamo che lui, Dio ci aiuterà a rendere grazie. La nostra lettura da Romani ci ha dato alcuni buoni posti per iniziare a fare questo. Ora ho fatto molto del fatto che il matrimonio è destinato ad essere lunga vita, così alcuni di voi potrebbero essere speranza per me e per la produzione di infinite Toblerone per illustrare questo. Purtroppo il bilancio non viene eseguito a ciò, ma devo dire che questo bar è un fine, il sermone è prossimo alla sua fine; si concluderà oggi, ma Adriana e Nicky dovrebbe essere fiducioso che oggi inizio darà loro un dolce matrimonio, pieni di cose buone, e alcune sorprese, ma non hanno nessuno dire che può contenere tracce di noci.
Voi sapete che è difficile pensare a una buona barzelletta sul matrimonio, quando la coppia prima che siete stati insieme per tutto il tempo che questi due -, ma io sono solo contento di avere avuto a qui. Così, invece di uno scherzo I'll iniziare con un punto di grave. Per guardare questi due in condizioni normali di vita quotidiana, si può dire per quanto tempo essi sono stati insieme? Pochi anni fa un uomo era in attesa di un amico in aeroporto. Come egli stava cercando per il suo amico, ha notato un uomo a venire verso di lui portando due sacchetti di luce. Egli ha osservato come l'uomo fermato per salutare la sua famiglia. In primo luogo egli motioned al suo figlio più giovane (forse sei anni) come egli stabilisce la sua sacchetti. Hanno dato reciprocamente una lunga e amorevole abbraccio. Poiché separati abbastanza per guardare gli uni negli altri il volto, il padre disse: "E 'così bello vedere voi, figlio. Ti ho perso così tanto!" Suo figlio sorrise un po 'timidamente, scongiurato i suoi occhi e dolcemente risposto, "Io, troppo, papà!" Allora l'uomo si alzò, guardava negli occhi del figlio più anziano (forse nove o dieci) e imbutitura, mentre suo figlio il volto nelle sue mani ha detto: "Stai già abbastanza il giovane. Ti amo molto, Zach!" Hanno abbracciato anche uno più amorevole, tenero abbraccio. Mentre questo stava accadendo, una bambina (forse uno-anno-vecchio) è stato squirming excitedly nelle sue braccia della madre, mai una volta che i suoi occhi poco al largo della splendida vista del suo ritorno il padre. L'uomo ha detto: "Ciao, bambina!" come egli ha preso delicatamente il bambino dalla madre. Ha baciato rapidamente il suo volto su tutti i detenuti e quindi la sua stretta al suo petto, mentre il suo dondolo da un lato all'altro. La bambina istantaneamente semplicemente rilassato e di cui la testa sulla sua spalla, immobile in puro appagamento. Dopo alcuni momenti, ha consegnato la sua figlia al figlio più anziano e ha dichiarato, "Ho salvato il meglio per ultimo", e ha proceduto a dare la propria moglie un lungo, appassionato bacio. Egli guardava in suoi occhi per alcuni secondi e poi silenziosamente bocca, "Ti amo così tanto!" Essi stared ad ogni altro gli occhi, grandi sorrisi trasmissione via IR a un altro, mentre si tiene entrambe le mani. Il astante poi realizzato totalmente assorbito come è stato nella splendida esposizione di autentico amore accanto a lui. Egli ha improvvisamente sentito a disagio, come se si trattasse di qualcosa di sacro invasori, ma è stato sorpreso di sentire la propria voce chiedere nervosamente, "Wow! Quanto tempo avete due stato sposato? " "Stato sposato dodici anni", ha risposto l'uomo. "Beh, allora, per quanto tempo sei stato via?" l'astante ha chiesto. "Due intere giornate!" è arrivata la risposta ... DUE GIORNI? Il astante è stato stordito. Con l'intensità del saluto, ha assunto l'uomo era stato fatto per almeno qualche settimana, se non mesi. Quasi offhandedly, sperando di porre fine alla sua intrusione con una certa parvenza di grazia l'astante ha detto, "spero che il mio matrimonio è ancora appassionato che, dopo dodici anni!" L'uomo improvvisamente smesso di sorridere. Egli guardò il astante dritto negli occhi, e con forza che bruciò a destra nella sua anima, ha detto una cosa che ha lasciato l'astante una persona diversa. Egli ha detto, "Non speranza, amico ... DECIDERE!" Ho letto un libro una volta da Bear Grylls. Potreste averlo visto in TV. Egli è stato il più giovane persona mai a salire l'Everest, che è piuttosto un risultato, ma mi ha scommessa non ha mai avuto per organizzare un matrimonio come questo! Ma il motivo per cui ho citato questo cap non è solo quello di confrontare i preparativi per l'arrampicata oggi con il mondo della montagna più alta. E 'anche perché nel suo libro sulla salita dà una definizione di impegno, che egli crediti a sua madre. Grylls ha detto la signora, "L'impegno è fare la cosa che ha detto che non avevo molto tempo dopo l'umore lei ha detto che ha lasciato in voi". Lei ha detto che nel contesto di arrampicata montagne, ma credo che si adatta molto bene con il matrimonio. Oggi è un giorno molto speciale, il culmine di mesi di preparazione, e, auspicabilmente, la fine di un tempo molto occupato. Ma in sostanza non è la fine, è l'inizio di una nuova vita insieme, come Adriana e Nicky hanno deciso di diventare marito e moglie. E la signora Grylls' dicendo si adatta molto bene, perché questo è un giorno meraviglioso, ma Adriana e Nicky dovrà affrontare molti giorni a venire, quando essi potrebbero sentire che il matrimonio non è una cosa meravigliosa, e che, mi auguro ricordare questo giorno come il tempo Essi si sono impegnati a fare qualcosa, anche se l'umore di un giorno di nozze non può durare una vita. Adriana e Nicky stanno andando a fare una alleanza insieme oggi, e noi siamo i loro testimoni. In questa alleanza si donano reciprocamente. Per una alleanza è di dare a l'altra persona, non da loro. È grave decisione che hanno fatto, e al quale ci accingiamo ad essere i testimoni. Molti di voi qui oggi possono sentirsi molto negativamente sul matrimonio come un impegno per tutta la vita, come mi delineando oggi, e in cui Adriana e Nicky sta per entrare. Riconosco i tuoi sentimenti, ma non ho scuse per celebrare il dono di Dio del matrimonio. Non so circa voi, ma nella mia famiglia celebrazioni di solito coinvolgere cioccolato in qualche modo o in un altro, così ho pensato che avevo alcuni mettono insieme oggi. Ma ho scelto questo tipo di cioccolato per un motivo particolare, che è quello che fornisce una eccellente illustrazione visiva per il matrimonio cristiano. La maggior parte delle barrette di cioccolato sono 2 dimensionale - piana, ma Toblerone ha tre lati. Questa è una buona immagine di come in un matrimonio fatta alla presenza di Dio, ci sono tre parti - il marito, moglie, e Dio, tutti lavorano insieme per rendere il matrimonio e la vita dando vita a lungo. Se vogliamo aprire il pacchetto vedremo che sotto il cartone abbastanza ordinario vi è una fascia d'oro, questo è un quadro di come prezioso Adriana e Nicky, e il loro matrimonio, è quella di Dio; egli tesori, e vuole essere parte di la loro vita, come egli fa per tutti noi. Abbiamo iniziato oggi, riconoscendo che il matrimonio è un dono di Dio. Si tratta di un dono ama dare, e vuole che noi di godere di essa! Ora quelli di voi conosce questa marca di cioccolato sarà consapevole del fatto che quando si riesce a passare la fascia a sé il bar è un intrigante forma, ma ha picchi e valli. Si tratta di una foto del alti e bassi della vita coniugale; i tempi che abbiamo già accennato, quando l'umore della celebrazione odierna sembra difficile da recuperare. Eppure, il bar continua ad avere tre lati, anche in trogoli; Dio cammina con noi nella buona e il duro volte, e se lasciamo che lui, Dio ci aiuterà a rendere grazie. La nostra lettura da Romani ci ha dato alcuni buoni posti per iniziare a fare questo. Ora ho fatto molto del fatto che il matrimonio è destinato ad essere lunga vita, così alcuni di voi potrebbero essere speranza per me e per la produzione di infinite Toblerone per illustrare questo. Purtroppo il bilancio non viene eseguito a ciò, ma devo dire che questo bar è un fine, il sermone è prossimo alla sua fine; si concluderà oggi, ma Adriana e Nicky dovrebbe essere fiducioso che oggi inizio darà loro un dolce matrimonio, pieni di cose buone, e alcune sorprese, ma non hanno nessuno dire che può contenere tracce di noci.
Monday, 6 October 2008
Lindsell and Stebbing, 5th October 2008
This in a way is the follow up to last month's Stebbing and Lindsell double header, ending as it does on the matter of my CLP project, which is why ther are differnt endings for each church.
On Wednesday evening at Stebbing, when we as a deanery welcomed Cilla in her new role as deanery priest, Bishop Christopher made the important point that God does not send us out to where he is not going, or instead of him, but he sends us out to proclaim his kingdom and his gospel – the heart of which is of course the fact that he is coming in power. God is not an absentee landlord; that’s what the incarnation is about – God became one of us to redeem us and transform our lives.
Absentee landlords were not popular in Palestine; many of Jesus' hearers will have been on the tenants' side, when he told this parable, at least until the murders start. In a society where people believed there was only a fixed amount of wealth, one person's wealth was another one's loss. The absentee landlord was making his wealth out of the labour of those who owned no land.
That’s a big difference for us; today I don’t think we do live as if there is a fixed amount of wealth; instead we live as if even the sky is not the limit to how much money and consequently how much material wealth – stuff – we can obtain for ourselves. But we do have absentee landlords of many kinds, and some of them I guess at the moment are finding their property devaluing pretty fast.
But we need to remember that Matthew makes no criticism of the people, the generators of the fruit, but only of those who govern them, the tenant farmers - a big challenge, then, to the prevailing attitude, and the opposite way round to the last vineyard parable we looked at a couple of weeks back from Matthew chapter 20. The main difference is the absentee landlord; the interpretation of this element in the parable seems to suggest that the Jewish people are in a new kind of captivity, held away from God. God's anger does not respond by destroying them, but by wrenching them away from their rulers and putting them in new hands.
By using this image to make the reference to Israel and its leaders implied by the 'vineyard' image, common in the Hebrew Scriptures, Jesus was creating unsettling juxtapositions. Was God understood to have been an absentee landlord? Perhaps people did feel God had abandoned Israel to its fate under the tyranny of Rome. If so, in whose hands had it been left? Are these tenants the Jewish leaders or Roman collaborators or both? Perhaps that dichotomy is reflected in the reality that both Pilate and Herod ended up bowing to pressure and condemning Jesus to death.
Matthew uses this parable to drive home again the growing opposition in his day between the emerging Jewish leadership and the Christian movement. God is the landowner, the slaves are the prophets and the son is Jesus. And after the destruction of Jerusalem, God's project has been put in new hands: the new people of God who comprise the Church. Interestingly Paul uses a vineyard theme in the letter to the Romans when he writes of the gentiles being grafted in to the plant that he sees Israel as.
How does this fit with the passage from Philippians? Perhaps the key is Paul's recognition that, despite having been in his pre-Christian past a member of the Pharisaic group that leads popular Judaism, he has nothing worth relying on other than Christ. He is a tenant who did not throw out the son, but welcomed him.
In Philippians 3.4b-14, Paul is engaged in argument with those who want the nascent Church to be more Jewish in its practice and observance, and uses the rhetorical device of pointing out that he himself is as Jewish as they come. The things he had no choice over – his circumcision, his language, his tribe, his ancestry – make him fully authentic. The choices he made – to become a Pharisee, to be zealous about the law, to oppose the early Jesus movement – showed his commitment to Judaism. No one could accuse him of special pleading, so his argument deserves a hearing.
In reality, however, all these things of which he has every right to be proud he regards as worthless. What he then goes on to say has been variously interpreted. He clearly suggests that the 'prize' – the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus – is still ahead of him. He hasn't yet reached his goal. He still needs to 'know' Christ by becoming like him in his death. But already he is content that he doesn't have to establish his own righteousness, because he has a righteousness that comes from God and is based on faith. These verses don't fit any of the neat theological schemes Christians are wont to adopt, but they do fit the common experience of Christian believers, that our salvation is both 'now' and 'not yet'.
LINDSELL I did say we would be taking our little questionnaires a little further, and this is the theme of that further work; where are we heading, what is our purpose and goal. I will take names of 4 or 5 people after the service today that would be willing to help me with this project.
STEBBING You may remember last month I asked you to consider some questions about your church; how you felt most blessed and what you hoped for in the future. Some of you shared with me after the service and that was a great blessing.
So for now let us rejoice that we, the church, are the people that God has entrusted his vineyard to, and let us reach out to him for the power, the grace and the love with which we can bear fruit. Let us remember that the vineyard is not to be identified with the church, but with God’s Kingdom, his world in the world.
On Wednesday evening at Stebbing, when we as a deanery welcomed Cilla in her new role as deanery priest, Bishop Christopher made the important point that God does not send us out to where he is not going, or instead of him, but he sends us out to proclaim his kingdom and his gospel – the heart of which is of course the fact that he is coming in power. God is not an absentee landlord; that’s what the incarnation is about – God became one of us to redeem us and transform our lives.
Absentee landlords were not popular in Palestine; many of Jesus' hearers will have been on the tenants' side, when he told this parable, at least until the murders start. In a society where people believed there was only a fixed amount of wealth, one person's wealth was another one's loss. The absentee landlord was making his wealth out of the labour of those who owned no land.
That’s a big difference for us; today I don’t think we do live as if there is a fixed amount of wealth; instead we live as if even the sky is not the limit to how much money and consequently how much material wealth – stuff – we can obtain for ourselves. But we do have absentee landlords of many kinds, and some of them I guess at the moment are finding their property devaluing pretty fast.
But we need to remember that Matthew makes no criticism of the people, the generators of the fruit, but only of those who govern them, the tenant farmers - a big challenge, then, to the prevailing attitude, and the opposite way round to the last vineyard parable we looked at a couple of weeks back from Matthew chapter 20. The main difference is the absentee landlord; the interpretation of this element in the parable seems to suggest that the Jewish people are in a new kind of captivity, held away from God. God's anger does not respond by destroying them, but by wrenching them away from their rulers and putting them in new hands.
By using this image to make the reference to Israel and its leaders implied by the 'vineyard' image, common in the Hebrew Scriptures, Jesus was creating unsettling juxtapositions. Was God understood to have been an absentee landlord? Perhaps people did feel God had abandoned Israel to its fate under the tyranny of Rome. If so, in whose hands had it been left? Are these tenants the Jewish leaders or Roman collaborators or both? Perhaps that dichotomy is reflected in the reality that both Pilate and Herod ended up bowing to pressure and condemning Jesus to death.
Matthew uses this parable to drive home again the growing opposition in his day between the emerging Jewish leadership and the Christian movement. God is the landowner, the slaves are the prophets and the son is Jesus. And after the destruction of Jerusalem, God's project has been put in new hands: the new people of God who comprise the Church. Interestingly Paul uses a vineyard theme in the letter to the Romans when he writes of the gentiles being grafted in to the plant that he sees Israel as.
How does this fit with the passage from Philippians? Perhaps the key is Paul's recognition that, despite having been in his pre-Christian past a member of the Pharisaic group that leads popular Judaism, he has nothing worth relying on other than Christ. He is a tenant who did not throw out the son, but welcomed him.
In Philippians 3.4b-14, Paul is engaged in argument with those who want the nascent Church to be more Jewish in its practice and observance, and uses the rhetorical device of pointing out that he himself is as Jewish as they come. The things he had no choice over – his circumcision, his language, his tribe, his ancestry – make him fully authentic. The choices he made – to become a Pharisee, to be zealous about the law, to oppose the early Jesus movement – showed his commitment to Judaism. No one could accuse him of special pleading, so his argument deserves a hearing.
In reality, however, all these things of which he has every right to be proud he regards as worthless. What he then goes on to say has been variously interpreted. He clearly suggests that the 'prize' – the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus – is still ahead of him. He hasn't yet reached his goal. He still needs to 'know' Christ by becoming like him in his death. But already he is content that he doesn't have to establish his own righteousness, because he has a righteousness that comes from God and is based on faith. These verses don't fit any of the neat theological schemes Christians are wont to adopt, but they do fit the common experience of Christian believers, that our salvation is both 'now' and 'not yet'.
LINDSELL I did say we would be taking our little questionnaires a little further, and this is the theme of that further work; where are we heading, what is our purpose and goal. I will take names of 4 or 5 people after the service today that would be willing to help me with this project.
STEBBING You may remember last month I asked you to consider some questions about your church; how you felt most blessed and what you hoped for in the future. Some of you shared with me after the service and that was a great blessing.
So for now let us rejoice that we, the church, are the people that God has entrusted his vineyard to, and let us reach out to him for the power, the grace and the love with which we can bear fruit. Let us remember that the vineyard is not to be identified with the church, but with God’s Kingdom, his world in the world.
Sunday, 28 September 2008
Michaelmas at Little Saling and Little Easton
I departed from the script in the morning at Little Saling, as it was a bit gung ho on first reading, and ad libbed a bit on the Lord of the Rings (as it was on TV last night).
Readings 2 Kings 6, 8-17, John 1 47 - the end
Have you ever heard someone exclaim to a friend, “Oh, what are you like?” This is usually an expression of exasperation and amusement, when its intended target has clearly shown what they are like by acting stupid!
Michael, whose feast, along with all angels we celebrate today, means, “Who is like God” in Hebrew. Some have concluded that the name refers to “one who is like God”, which may be at the origin of various sub-Christian and New Age ideas about Michael being in some strange sense divine.
But actually it’s a question, “Who is like God?”
In the Bible, when God intervenes supernaturally, as he does for Elisha in 2 Kings 6, he does so frequently by a means we might describe as angelic. “The angel of the Lord” has a key role in the annunciation to Mary - but was that God, or an angel? Was that God, or an angel that wrestled with Jacob? Was that God or three angels who visited Abraham? The line is sometimes very blurred, so Michael’s name gives us a clue as to how to think properly of angels – “who is like God?” – Angels show us a little of what he is like but our new testament reading fills out the answer with specific reference to how angels worship the Son of Man.
“Who is like God?” – Jesus, ands the angels give him honour and glory – the glory bit fits with the idea of showing who God really is.
Yet there is something that distinguishes this calendar feast from most others, because the person we remember and celebrate is not a human being, but a heavenly one. Michael may be famous for various supernatural appearances on earth but he never lived an earthly life. I enjoy the saint’s days in the calendar, but that is usually because I take heart and encouragement from the way God uses ordinary men and women in extraordinary ways. You can’t do that at Michaelmas, because Michaelmas is the season for looking to heavens for inspiration, and to build up our common faith. This is what Elisha did, and this is also what Jesus told Nathaniel he would one day do too.
But you know, the language of Scripture is coming to us with a radically different cosmology, compared to the scientific advances of the modern era. Many people of all ages struggle with the idea that heaven is “up there”, and so reject out of hand the Bible stories of angels and clouds and the like. Yet the angelic host that came to Elisha’s aid wasn’t like that; the army of the Lord simply appeared to those who were able to see them. This reading I guess is included in the lectionary for today because of Michael’s reputation as a warrior – in Paradise Lost it is Michael who takes on Satan in armed combat and wounds him. Famous images of Michael such as the statue at the end of Boulevard St Michel in Paris often depict him as a helmeted warrior, or fighting a dragon, as he is described doing in Revelation 12. Angels sometimes seem to get the job of God’s hit men, carrying out emergency work at a moments notice- actually scrub that, it make s them sound like plumbers!
So how is this festival relevant for us today? It has long been a tradition to ordain people at Michaelmas; indeed I went to such a service yesterday. I want to suggest that there are two simple ways we can draw inspiration from St Michael and all angels.
Firstly, remember the meaning of his name “Who is like God?” It is the task of the church today to live work and speak in ways that point to God. We need to remember that Christian means “Christ-like”, our evangelism should be founded on the church’s self definition as the body of Christ, a people seeking to be Christ-like, in our reverence for God and for Creation, in our care for the poor and the outcast, and in sacrificial living.
And secondly, and following on from that, there is a sense that we can be inspired by the angelic hosts – not to acts of physical violence against our perceived enemies, as might have been the case hundreds of years ago, but to a spiritual battle. When we despair at the state of the nation, with every report of knife crime or infanticide, when we weep at the injustices of Zimbabwe or South Ossetia or Gaza, we can be inspired also to pray, to invoke the power of God in these situations, to prevail upon him to send his angels, and to stand with the Lord of hosts against the power of evil.
In conclusion it is worth remembering that the purpose of any Christian festival is to glorify God, to point to Christ. That is perhaps the most powerful image from the New Testament reading. The angels are ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
While casting from our minds all thoughts of angels on escalators, let us consider what it was that angels – cherubim and seraphim - hovered over in the Old Testament – that’s rights, the Ark of the Covenant.
Jesus saw Nathaniel as a true Israelite, someone for whom the concept of the ark, the Law of Moses, the holy of holies, the presence of God in the Temple, would have been of the utmost importance, yet Jesus says it will one day be the Son of Man over whom the angels ascend and descend. In other words, Jesus Christ was to replace the things central of Jewish worship, with himself.
Who is Like God?
Jesus Christ.
Readings 2 Kings 6, 8-17, John 1 47 - the end
Have you ever heard someone exclaim to a friend, “Oh, what are you like?” This is usually an expression of exasperation and amusement, when its intended target has clearly shown what they are like by acting stupid!
Michael, whose feast, along with all angels we celebrate today, means, “Who is like God” in Hebrew. Some have concluded that the name refers to “one who is like God”, which may be at the origin of various sub-Christian and New Age ideas about Michael being in some strange sense divine.
But actually it’s a question, “Who is like God?”
In the Bible, when God intervenes supernaturally, as he does for Elisha in 2 Kings 6, he does so frequently by a means we might describe as angelic. “The angel of the Lord” has a key role in the annunciation to Mary - but was that God, or an angel? Was that God, or an angel that wrestled with Jacob? Was that God or three angels who visited Abraham? The line is sometimes very blurred, so Michael’s name gives us a clue as to how to think properly of angels – “who is like God?” – Angels show us a little of what he is like but our new testament reading fills out the answer with specific reference to how angels worship the Son of Man.
“Who is like God?” – Jesus, ands the angels give him honour and glory – the glory bit fits with the idea of showing who God really is.
Yet there is something that distinguishes this calendar feast from most others, because the person we remember and celebrate is not a human being, but a heavenly one. Michael may be famous for various supernatural appearances on earth but he never lived an earthly life. I enjoy the saint’s days in the calendar, but that is usually because I take heart and encouragement from the way God uses ordinary men and women in extraordinary ways. You can’t do that at Michaelmas, because Michaelmas is the season for looking to heavens for inspiration, and to build up our common faith. This is what Elisha did, and this is also what Jesus told Nathaniel he would one day do too.
But you know, the language of Scripture is coming to us with a radically different cosmology, compared to the scientific advances of the modern era. Many people of all ages struggle with the idea that heaven is “up there”, and so reject out of hand the Bible stories of angels and clouds and the like. Yet the angelic host that came to Elisha’s aid wasn’t like that; the army of the Lord simply appeared to those who were able to see them. This reading I guess is included in the lectionary for today because of Michael’s reputation as a warrior – in Paradise Lost it is Michael who takes on Satan in armed combat and wounds him. Famous images of Michael such as the statue at the end of Boulevard St Michel in Paris often depict him as a helmeted warrior, or fighting a dragon, as he is described doing in Revelation 12. Angels sometimes seem to get the job of God’s hit men, carrying out emergency work at a moments notice- actually scrub that, it make s them sound like plumbers!
So how is this festival relevant for us today? It has long been a tradition to ordain people at Michaelmas; indeed I went to such a service yesterday. I want to suggest that there are two simple ways we can draw inspiration from St Michael and all angels.
Firstly, remember the meaning of his name “Who is like God?” It is the task of the church today to live work and speak in ways that point to God. We need to remember that Christian means “Christ-like”, our evangelism should be founded on the church’s self definition as the body of Christ, a people seeking to be Christ-like, in our reverence for God and for Creation, in our care for the poor and the outcast, and in sacrificial living.
And secondly, and following on from that, there is a sense that we can be inspired by the angelic hosts – not to acts of physical violence against our perceived enemies, as might have been the case hundreds of years ago, but to a spiritual battle. When we despair at the state of the nation, with every report of knife crime or infanticide, when we weep at the injustices of Zimbabwe or South Ossetia or Gaza, we can be inspired also to pray, to invoke the power of God in these situations, to prevail upon him to send his angels, and to stand with the Lord of hosts against the power of evil.
In conclusion it is worth remembering that the purpose of any Christian festival is to glorify God, to point to Christ. That is perhaps the most powerful image from the New Testament reading. The angels are ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
While casting from our minds all thoughts of angels on escalators, let us consider what it was that angels – cherubim and seraphim - hovered over in the Old Testament – that’s rights, the Ark of the Covenant.
Jesus saw Nathaniel as a true Israelite, someone for whom the concept of the ark, the Law of Moses, the holy of holies, the presence of God in the Temple, would have been of the utmost importance, yet Jesus says it will one day be the Son of Man over whom the angels ascend and descend. In other words, Jesus Christ was to replace the things central of Jewish worship, with himself.
Who is Like God?
Jesus Christ.
Monday, 22 September 2008
Lindsell and Great Saling 21st September 2008
This is a bit cobbled together from Rootsontheweb and some other thoughts I've been having about the credit crunch. It's short because there was a baptism at Lindsell (the child's father is an investment banker, so the lectionary was truly inspired in choosing Matthew 20, 1-16.
'It's not fair!'
Mum had had enough. All she heard every meal time was 'It's not fair!', 'He's got more than me'. She decided to change things. Mum went into the kitchen and began to put her plan into action. She prepared the food and then put it out on plates ready for everyone.
'Dinner time', Mum shouted. The children ran to the table and jumped onto their chairs. Mum picked up baby James and fastened him into his high chair. Then she passed out the plates.
First James got his food. It was just the right amount for a baby boy. Next mum gave a plate to Grace who was four. She had exactly the same amount as James. Grace looked puzzled. Mum brought out Daniel's food. Daniel was eight. He had exactly the same amount as James. 'Mum that's not enough' Daniel moaned.
Mum turned, walked back into the kitchen and brought out 14-year-old Sam's food. He had exactly the same as James. 'That's not fair', 'I've not got enough', 'I want more' everyone shouted.
Everyone except James, who began to eat.
'I need more food than James,' Sam said. 'I'll be hungry if I only eat this,' Grace grumbled.Mum looked at all the children. 'I've given you all an equal amount haven't I? Is that not fair?'
'No' said Sam, 'I'm a lot bigger than the others so I need more food.'
'You're right' Mum replied 'equal amounts isn't fair here. Do you think I know how much you need and what is fair?' Grace, Sam and Daniel looked at Mum, 'Yes' they all chorused. 'OK then' Mum said as she walked into the kitchen and returned with enough food for everyone.
This week the news has been all about the credit crunch, with banks being taken over, Mortgage firms going under and insurance companies being bailed out. A cursory glance at any Western newspaper will tell you tales of woe, and of not enough money to go around. Times are looking a little fragile. So as we baptise young Freddy today, what kind of a world, what kind of a worldview, are we bringing him in to?
What does God think about the credit crunch? It is tempting to think that he is just gloating and saying “I told you so!”, but actually I think the message of today’s reading is that envy and greed and jealously – I want what they’ve got, and so on, run counter to the free gift of undeserved grace that God offers us in Christ; we do not deserve God’s Riches, but they are ours at Christ’s expense. Like the mother in that modern day parable, God knows what we all need, so we should neither gloat because we have more than someone else, nor, it seems, feel hard done by or jealous if we feel short changed.
However, of course, this parable is not about money, it’s about God’s generosity in his grace. He gives of that freely to all, whether on the day of their baptism or the day of their death. How we receive that grace – and pass it on to those in our care, will perhaps depend on how we think of God.
So do you think God is generous, or do you think he could give you more for your trouble?
Let’s not imagine for a minute that we can blame our generous God for the financial situation our society finds itself in – or at least the papers tell us we’re in it, there may be better qualified people than me who could comment on that later! As I have said, part of the love and justice of God is that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
God has a habit of turning our lives upside down, but that may be just to give us his point of view.
'It's not fair!'
Mum had had enough. All she heard every meal time was 'It's not fair!', 'He's got more than me'. She decided to change things. Mum went into the kitchen and began to put her plan into action. She prepared the food and then put it out on plates ready for everyone.
'Dinner time', Mum shouted. The children ran to the table and jumped onto their chairs. Mum picked up baby James and fastened him into his high chair. Then she passed out the plates.
First James got his food. It was just the right amount for a baby boy. Next mum gave a plate to Grace who was four. She had exactly the same amount as James. Grace looked puzzled. Mum brought out Daniel's food. Daniel was eight. He had exactly the same amount as James. 'Mum that's not enough' Daniel moaned.
Mum turned, walked back into the kitchen and brought out 14-year-old Sam's food. He had exactly the same as James. 'That's not fair', 'I've not got enough', 'I want more' everyone shouted.
Everyone except James, who began to eat.
'I need more food than James,' Sam said. 'I'll be hungry if I only eat this,' Grace grumbled.Mum looked at all the children. 'I've given you all an equal amount haven't I? Is that not fair?'
'No' said Sam, 'I'm a lot bigger than the others so I need more food.'
'You're right' Mum replied 'equal amounts isn't fair here. Do you think I know how much you need and what is fair?' Grace, Sam and Daniel looked at Mum, 'Yes' they all chorused. 'OK then' Mum said as she walked into the kitchen and returned with enough food for everyone.
This week the news has been all about the credit crunch, with banks being taken over, Mortgage firms going under and insurance companies being bailed out. A cursory glance at any Western newspaper will tell you tales of woe, and of not enough money to go around. Times are looking a little fragile. So as we baptise young Freddy today, what kind of a world, what kind of a worldview, are we bringing him in to?
What does God think about the credit crunch? It is tempting to think that he is just gloating and saying “I told you so!”, but actually I think the message of today’s reading is that envy and greed and jealously – I want what they’ve got, and so on, run counter to the free gift of undeserved grace that God offers us in Christ; we do not deserve God’s Riches, but they are ours at Christ’s expense. Like the mother in that modern day parable, God knows what we all need, so we should neither gloat because we have more than someone else, nor, it seems, feel hard done by or jealous if we feel short changed.
However, of course, this parable is not about money, it’s about God’s generosity in his grace. He gives of that freely to all, whether on the day of their baptism or the day of their death. How we receive that grace – and pass it on to those in our care, will perhaps depend on how we think of God.
So do you think God is generous, or do you think he could give you more for your trouble?
Let’s not imagine for a minute that we can blame our generous God for the financial situation our society finds itself in – or at least the papers tell us we’re in it, there may be better qualified people than me who could comment on that later! As I have said, part of the love and justice of God is that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
God has a habit of turning our lives upside down, but that may be just to give us his point of view.
Sunday, 7 September 2008
Lindsell and Stebbing 7th September 08
This is a bit of a weird text as it was an interactive sermon with questions. The readings were Romans 13, 8-the end and Matthew 18, 15-20
There was a rather pithy quotation in an article by Kris Akabusi in the Guardian, on the eve of the Olympics. He wrote, “The past is for reference, not for residence”.
It was written in the context of sportsmen and women looking onward and upward as they went into the Olympics, but I find it has an enormous resonance for the church.
Today we are going to be thinking about the past, the present and the future of our church, and I am going to ask you three questions in a while that will help us to understand what has happened here, what is happening, and what we would like to happen in the future.
First we are going to look briefly at two passages with enormous relevance for the church, because they tell us how to live as Christians together, and in the face of a hostile reaction from those around us.
That does not mean we are meant to be living in an ivory tower, cut off from the evils of the world, not does it mean that we are to assimilate entirely with the patterns of behaviour that society in general treats as normal.
Romans is Paul's letter of self-introduction to a Church he has never yet visited. None of the Gospels has yet been written, but the stories of Jesus are circulating among the Churches, and Paul is echoing one – his suggestion that love is the fulfilling of the law. Though it may be that he didn't get this from Jesus, but from his teacher Gamaliel, as it was a teaching not unknown among the rabbis.
Paul's concept of 'the flesh', or the sinful nature (verse 14) needs some understanding. For Paul, the flesh is the realm of rebellion against God. As I have said in another sermon recently, the term does not in itself imply anything specifically sexual or even necessarily specifically sinful. It contrasts with the realm of the spirit, which is where we encounter God. Christ has freed us to live in the realm of the spirit, but we still have desires for the realm of the flesh. Christ is our armour against them.
I think it is most significant that Paul uses the imagery of armour on more than one occasion in his letters; clearly he did not expect Christians to have an easy life. In Ephesians 6 Paul expands his metaphor, with detailed applications of the different elements of armour to elements of the Christian life; You may well remember he speaks of the breastplate of righteousness, but there is no armour for the soldier’s back; the armour of light is not designed for running away, but for advancing, advancing the Kingdom of God.
Matthew 18.15-20 is one of the gospel sections found only in Matthew, and reflects the context of the loose network of house churches and travelling preachers that seems to have made up Matthew's original readers. It was a community under pressure, facing opposition both from other Jewish groups and from Roman authorities, and it was coping with its own potentially volatile mix of Jews and Gentiles. Discipline mattered, and is here presented as stemming from Jesus himself. But it is ordered discipline, not the arbitrary whim of a leader or elder. The aim is restoration, and reconciliation of a comunity.
Matthew and Paul write for the infant church, which had its own issues, yet prevailed and was able with the help of God to spread the gospel beyond their own borders and ultimately over time around the world. We are the inheritors of their faithfulness, but also of their task of being the church for our generation. Like them, we may have our issues, but we also have much to celebrate!
Now, lets get to our questions. I have been brief, to allow you the space to think about these;
First, Remembering your entire experience at our church, when were you most alive, most motivated and excited about your involvement? What made it exciting? Who else was involved? What happened? What was your part? Describe what you felt.
Second, What do you value most about our church? What activities or ingredients or ways of life are most important? What are the best features of this church?
Finally, Make three wishes for the future of this church.
There was a rather pithy quotation in an article by Kris Akabusi in the Guardian, on the eve of the Olympics. He wrote, “The past is for reference, not for residence”.
It was written in the context of sportsmen and women looking onward and upward as they went into the Olympics, but I find it has an enormous resonance for the church.
Today we are going to be thinking about the past, the present and the future of our church, and I am going to ask you three questions in a while that will help us to understand what has happened here, what is happening, and what we would like to happen in the future.
First we are going to look briefly at two passages with enormous relevance for the church, because they tell us how to live as Christians together, and in the face of a hostile reaction from those around us.
That does not mean we are meant to be living in an ivory tower, cut off from the evils of the world, not does it mean that we are to assimilate entirely with the patterns of behaviour that society in general treats as normal.
Romans is Paul's letter of self-introduction to a Church he has never yet visited. None of the Gospels has yet been written, but the stories of Jesus are circulating among the Churches, and Paul is echoing one – his suggestion that love is the fulfilling of the law. Though it may be that he didn't get this from Jesus, but from his teacher Gamaliel, as it was a teaching not unknown among the rabbis.
Paul's concept of 'the flesh', or the sinful nature (verse 14) needs some understanding. For Paul, the flesh is the realm of rebellion against God. As I have said in another sermon recently, the term does not in itself imply anything specifically sexual or even necessarily specifically sinful. It contrasts with the realm of the spirit, which is where we encounter God. Christ has freed us to live in the realm of the spirit, but we still have desires for the realm of the flesh. Christ is our armour against them.
I think it is most significant that Paul uses the imagery of armour on more than one occasion in his letters; clearly he did not expect Christians to have an easy life. In Ephesians 6 Paul expands his metaphor, with detailed applications of the different elements of armour to elements of the Christian life; You may well remember he speaks of the breastplate of righteousness, but there is no armour for the soldier’s back; the armour of light is not designed for running away, but for advancing, advancing the Kingdom of God.
Matthew 18.15-20 is one of the gospel sections found only in Matthew, and reflects the context of the loose network of house churches and travelling preachers that seems to have made up Matthew's original readers. It was a community under pressure, facing opposition both from other Jewish groups and from Roman authorities, and it was coping with its own potentially volatile mix of Jews and Gentiles. Discipline mattered, and is here presented as stemming from Jesus himself. But it is ordered discipline, not the arbitrary whim of a leader or elder. The aim is restoration, and reconciliation of a comunity.
Matthew and Paul write for the infant church, which had its own issues, yet prevailed and was able with the help of God to spread the gospel beyond their own borders and ultimately over time around the world. We are the inheritors of their faithfulness, but also of their task of being the church for our generation. Like them, we may have our issues, but we also have much to celebrate!
Now, lets get to our questions. I have been brief, to allow you the space to think about these;
First, Remembering your entire experience at our church, when were you most alive, most motivated and excited about your involvement? What made it exciting? Who else was involved? What happened? What was your part? Describe what you felt.
Second, What do you value most about our church? What activities or ingredients or ways of life are most important? What are the best features of this church?
Finally, Make three wishes for the future of this church.
Sunday, 17 August 2008
Lindsell and Great Saling 17th August 08
This is a first, a sermon derived from a blog entry! It also owes a lot to the work of Morna Hooker, and is on the theme of Inclusion. The readings were Romans 11 and Matthew 15, 10-28
I watched "Make me a Christian" on channel 4 last Sunday night. It was quite good viewing but raised a number of concerns for me too.It's like a cross between "the Monastery", Big Brother, and Supernanny. The idea is that a motley selection of people of all ages and social backgrounds are mentored by a group of Christian ministers as they attempt to live a Christian life for three weeks.All the Biblical input was fine; the starting point was "God loves you, no matter what you've done".The mentors were then shown visiting some of the group in their homes to get to know them. This looked fairly innocuous to start with, but then the alarms went off because there was some pretty heavy insistence on change - removal of books and other items from houses and flats, and an enforced change in behaviour (in the case of a sexually promiscuous man).Now here's the rub; in real life, when dealing pastorally with someone new to the faith, you might want them to change certain things but (in my book) you wouldn't wade in quite so heavily, being instead a little more patient, loving and reliant on the power of the Holy Spirit and the prayers of the church, to transform the life of the disciple.In this show, though, the starting point is not a conversion to a living faith, but a TV camera driven decision to live by a set of rules; this is not the same thing. I don't think prayer got much of a mention last Sunday night, although Bible reading was high on the agenda.I guess the time constraints and what gets loosely referred to as “editorial control” have meant that things are hurried up, but in real life if I gave this kind of pastoral care to someone I wouldn't see them for dust! It may well be that this would be the case on the show were it not for the 15 minutes of fame that having cameras along will bring.What worries me most is that people like the participants - say "seekers" or whatever you want to call them, will watch this show and think that all ministers behave in this way towards their flocks. Nothing could be further from the truth from my perspective.Yet it wasn't that I disagreed with the aim - it was just the means that made me cross. In "Make me a Christian", what would be many church leaders' underlying personal beliefs and moral practices are dragged to the surface and put into practice jackboot style, for reasons of brevity and "to make good TV". We all wish things would move along faster, but it would be disastrous if we pushed them this hard in real life.Don't get me wrong, I do believe in the power of God to transform lives overnight, I just think that "Make me a Christian" is doing it the wrong way round and seems therefore to have shut God out of the process.
It is so important that we as churches find the right line between moral uprightness and a welcoming approach to outsiders.
And you’ll be glad to know it’s not a new problem; Paul agonised over the issue of the Jews in his epistle to the Romans.
In chapter 11.1-2a, 29-32 Paul spells out the problem that is so important to him. If the Jews have failed to respond to the gospel, does this mean that God has rejected his people? The fact that few Jews accepted the gospel was not only painful to Paul, but presented a theological problem: had God's promises failed, and was he unfaithful to his people? His readers might suppose that the fact that he, Paul, was preaching to Gentiles implied that God had abandoned Israel. Paul is adamant that this is not so; it is not God who is unfaithful, but Israel.
Moreover, there are still some Jews who have responded – Paul himself, for example! But he is not alone. His words echo those of Elijah, whose story is spelt out in verses 2b-4. A remnant has been chosen to be faithful.
Talk of a remnant might suggest a scaling-down of God's promises: never mind the many – a few, at least, will be saved. For Paul, however, the remnant is a promise of something greater. To me this is a great encouragement for the small church.
Israel's fall has led to salvation for the Gentiles (v. 11); the branches cut out of the olive tree can (contrary to normal horticultural practice!) be grafted in again (vv. 17- 24). God has hardened Israel for a purpose – to bring in the Gentiles – but that will bring Israel herself to repent. In the end, all Israel will be saved (v. 26).
So Paul ends triumphantly. Israel has not been rejected, for God is faithful to his words, and his gifts and calling are irrevocable. He is able to use even their disobedience for his purpose, so they are still in a mysterious way included in his plan.
Moving on to the gospel reading, Matthew 15 10-28 we can see that the theme of inclusion and welcome continues …Jesus' teaching in verses 10 to 20 arises from an incident described in verses 1 to 9, where some Pharisees object because Jesus' disciples do not wash their hands before eating. Their complaint had nothing to do with hygiene, but sprang from a concern about possible contamination of the hands by something regarded as 'unclean'. Jesus protests that the Pharisees are so concerned with their own strict interpretation of the law that they have lost sight of the law itself. He insists that what really defiles a person is the evil within him. The various forms of evil listed in verse 19 were all forbidden in the law. The declaration that, 'to eat with unwashed hands does not defile', accords with the law.
So far, then, Jesus is presented as orthodox. But how would Matthew's community have understood the saying in verse 10? Did it perhaps mean that it was permissible to eat foods that had been forbidden by the law? It is clear from Acts that this issue became an important one when Gentiles were converted.
Linked to this incident is the story of the Gentile woman who requests healing for her child. Jesus ignores her and the disciples want to get rid of her. Jesus understands his mission as to Israel alone (v. 24, cf. 10.5-6, 23), and refuses to help. 'Dogs' was a term typically used of Gentiles by Jews. Her answer outwits him, and he agrees to help her because of her remarkable faith. She has acknowledged him as 'Lord, Son of David', and persisted in the face of opposition: she is therefore allowed to share the children's bread.
The story would have been important for Matthew's community. Could Gentiles be included in the Church? Who do we include in our church?
In my ministry I have always sought to ensure that the boundary between “church” and “not church” is a blurry one, and so easier to cross. When new worshippers or just visitors come to us, how will we welcome them? I know I’m preaching to the converted when I assert that we would not as a first action make demands upon their moral lifestyle; it is God’s job to prompt people’s consciences; it is the church’s job to make sure they are listening to him and talking to him as an intimate friend and Lord.
The first step towards doing that is to do it ourselves; let us pray
I watched "Make me a Christian" on channel 4 last Sunday night. It was quite good viewing but raised a number of concerns for me too.It's like a cross between "the Monastery", Big Brother, and Supernanny. The idea is that a motley selection of people of all ages and social backgrounds are mentored by a group of Christian ministers as they attempt to live a Christian life for three weeks.All the Biblical input was fine; the starting point was "God loves you, no matter what you've done".The mentors were then shown visiting some of the group in their homes to get to know them. This looked fairly innocuous to start with, but then the alarms went off because there was some pretty heavy insistence on change - removal of books and other items from houses and flats, and an enforced change in behaviour (in the case of a sexually promiscuous man).Now here's the rub; in real life, when dealing pastorally with someone new to the faith, you might want them to change certain things but (in my book) you wouldn't wade in quite so heavily, being instead a little more patient, loving and reliant on the power of the Holy Spirit and the prayers of the church, to transform the life of the disciple.In this show, though, the starting point is not a conversion to a living faith, but a TV camera driven decision to live by a set of rules; this is not the same thing. I don't think prayer got much of a mention last Sunday night, although Bible reading was high on the agenda.I guess the time constraints and what gets loosely referred to as “editorial control” have meant that things are hurried up, but in real life if I gave this kind of pastoral care to someone I wouldn't see them for dust! It may well be that this would be the case on the show were it not for the 15 minutes of fame that having cameras along will bring.What worries me most is that people like the participants - say "seekers" or whatever you want to call them, will watch this show and think that all ministers behave in this way towards their flocks. Nothing could be further from the truth from my perspective.Yet it wasn't that I disagreed with the aim - it was just the means that made me cross. In "Make me a Christian", what would be many church leaders' underlying personal beliefs and moral practices are dragged to the surface and put into practice jackboot style, for reasons of brevity and "to make good TV". We all wish things would move along faster, but it would be disastrous if we pushed them this hard in real life.Don't get me wrong, I do believe in the power of God to transform lives overnight, I just think that "Make me a Christian" is doing it the wrong way round and seems therefore to have shut God out of the process.
It is so important that we as churches find the right line between moral uprightness and a welcoming approach to outsiders.
And you’ll be glad to know it’s not a new problem; Paul agonised over the issue of the Jews in his epistle to the Romans.
In chapter 11.1-2a, 29-32 Paul spells out the problem that is so important to him. If the Jews have failed to respond to the gospel, does this mean that God has rejected his people? The fact that few Jews accepted the gospel was not only painful to Paul, but presented a theological problem: had God's promises failed, and was he unfaithful to his people? His readers might suppose that the fact that he, Paul, was preaching to Gentiles implied that God had abandoned Israel. Paul is adamant that this is not so; it is not God who is unfaithful, but Israel.
Moreover, there are still some Jews who have responded – Paul himself, for example! But he is not alone. His words echo those of Elijah, whose story is spelt out in verses 2b-4. A remnant has been chosen to be faithful.
Talk of a remnant might suggest a scaling-down of God's promises: never mind the many – a few, at least, will be saved. For Paul, however, the remnant is a promise of something greater. To me this is a great encouragement for the small church.
Israel's fall has led to salvation for the Gentiles (v. 11); the branches cut out of the olive tree can (contrary to normal horticultural practice!) be grafted in again (vv. 17- 24). God has hardened Israel for a purpose – to bring in the Gentiles – but that will bring Israel herself to repent. In the end, all Israel will be saved (v. 26).
So Paul ends triumphantly. Israel has not been rejected, for God is faithful to his words, and his gifts and calling are irrevocable. He is able to use even their disobedience for his purpose, so they are still in a mysterious way included in his plan.
Moving on to the gospel reading, Matthew 15 10-28 we can see that the theme of inclusion and welcome continues …Jesus' teaching in verses 10 to 20 arises from an incident described in verses 1 to 9, where some Pharisees object because Jesus' disciples do not wash their hands before eating. Their complaint had nothing to do with hygiene, but sprang from a concern about possible contamination of the hands by something regarded as 'unclean'. Jesus protests that the Pharisees are so concerned with their own strict interpretation of the law that they have lost sight of the law itself. He insists that what really defiles a person is the evil within him. The various forms of evil listed in verse 19 were all forbidden in the law. The declaration that, 'to eat with unwashed hands does not defile', accords with the law.
So far, then, Jesus is presented as orthodox. But how would Matthew's community have understood the saying in verse 10? Did it perhaps mean that it was permissible to eat foods that had been forbidden by the law? It is clear from Acts that this issue became an important one when Gentiles were converted.
Linked to this incident is the story of the Gentile woman who requests healing for her child. Jesus ignores her and the disciples want to get rid of her. Jesus understands his mission as to Israel alone (v. 24, cf. 10.5-6, 23), and refuses to help. 'Dogs' was a term typically used of Gentiles by Jews. Her answer outwits him, and he agrees to help her because of her remarkable faith. She has acknowledged him as 'Lord, Son of David', and persisted in the face of opposition: she is therefore allowed to share the children's bread.
The story would have been important for Matthew's community. Could Gentiles be included in the Church? Who do we include in our church?
In my ministry I have always sought to ensure that the boundary between “church” and “not church” is a blurry one, and so easier to cross. When new worshippers or just visitors come to us, how will we welcome them? I know I’m preaching to the converted when I assert that we would not as a first action make demands upon their moral lifestyle; it is God’s job to prompt people’s consciences; it is the church’s job to make sure they are listening to him and talking to him as an intimate friend and Lord.
The first step towards doing that is to do it ourselves; let us pray
Sunday, 20 July 2008
Theo's baptism sermon, 20 July 08, Lindsell
This was the sermon I preached at the 9.30 communion service in Lindsell, at which Theo Hawkes was baptised by his grandmother. The reading was Mark 6, 30-44. I include a google translation rendering of my text for the benefit of Theo's Korean friends and relatives (no idea if the translation is any good though!)
What do sheep look like without a shepherd? Indeed what do any kind of farm animals look like if they are out and about and no one is looking after them?
The people who ran around the lake to catch up with Jesus would have been very tired and also a bit confused, especially if they were not from that area – they’d just run off into the wild countryside basically – Mark describes it a as “a remote place”. They only had one goal – to find Jesus. No wonder they were a bit confused. Never mind sheep, some of them might have been like headless chickens, running around all over the place.
Now I don’t know that much about sheep but I do know that when they are loose and not in the care of a shepherd there is a good chance some of them might get injured or stuck in a ditch. Or they might get thrown into a panic. Smaller ones and weaker ones are also vulnerable to attack from predators. Basically its not much fun to be a sheep without a shepherd.
And Jesus could see that, even though initially he’d taken his disciples away to get some peace and quiet. What a wonderful model of compassion, that even though Jesus wanted to get away from the crowds, when they followed him and got a bit lost he could see they needed sorting out, so he sat them down and held an impromptu teaching session – a bit like going for a walk and suddenly deciding to have a church service half way round. Since it was by a lake I suppose anyone who came to the communion at Center Parcs can get a picture of what the atmosphere was like. Although of course there were many more people there that day in Galilee – 5000 men to be exact, not counting their families. And they all got a fish supper, out of 5 loaves and two small fish.
So there is a famous miracle here, but let us not ignore the little miracles – that Jesus had compassion on the crowd and did not tell them to go away and leave him in peace, and also that Jesus’ disciples didn’t just laugh when he said to them “you give them something to eat”. It seemed like such an enormous task, but with the help of the Lord, it was done. In the feeding of the 5000 we have a foreshadowing of communion.
We are in for a treat today with a double whammy of sacraments; in a moment Cilla will be baptising Theo, and then later on we will have Holy Communion; that’s two chances we have to share in what God has imparted to us by his Spirit in these outward and visible signs of an inward invisible grace.
Children are quite often and quite rightly described as little miracles – though I guess there may be times – perhaps on international flights for example – that will and Suki might use other phrases to describe their kids. To be a godparent or a parent at a baptism is also a time to look out for little miracles happening to you. There is a challenge to the whole church today to offer love prayer and support to Will and Suki, and there is the chance for us all to renew our own baptismal vows, as Theo’s are made for him over by the font in a moment.
As we recommit ourselves to God, the little miracle is that we receive that grace new, that sense of his presence with us on the journey, to guide, uphold and strengthen us, to comfort and console us, and most of all to show us the ideal model of love.
These are all things that will come in handy for those charged with the spiritual and practical upbringing of Theo James Choi Hawkes. Bu they are also a great help to all of us who are already walking the path he is about to embark on.
So, as the 5000 received gladly the food that Jesus gave, let us have open hearts to receive his grace in these two sacraments today.
목자없는 양 같이 어떻게? 실제로 어떻게 어떤 종류의 농장 동물처럼 그들은 아웃 경우, 아무도 앉았네 약? 누구 몫 호수 주위에 사람들이 예수를 따라잡기가 약간 혼란에도 매우 피곤하고, 특히 그 지역 출신이 아니라면 그들은 - 그들은 기본적으로 시골를 야생에 도망하는 것 뿐이라 - 마크에 대해 설명이 a를 " 원격 장소 "합니다. 그들은 오직 하나의 목표가 - 찾아 예수님합니다. 과연 그들은 약간 혼란스러워합니다. 결코 마음을 양, 그들 중 일부 머리없는 닭처럼 될 수도 있었는데, 주위 사방에 흩어져를 실행합니다. 이제 그 정도에 대해 잘 모르겠 양 그런데, 당신은 알고 치료에없는 경우에 그들은 활보하고있는 좋은 기회 목사는 그들 중 일부가 부상을 당할 수도 또는 도랑에 갇혀합니다. 또는 그들이 던져졌을 뜰 수있을 공황합니다. 작은 것들과 약한 사람들이 포식자가 공격에 취약할 수있습니다. 기본적으로 그 양을별로 재미가없이는 목자합니다. 그리고 예수님을 볼 수있습니다, 비록 처음에 그는 그의 제자 카라벨을 좀 평온과 고요를 멀리합니다. 정말 멋진 모델과 연민을, 그것에도 불구하고 예수를 군중에서 멀리 떨어져있어, 그들이 미행하고있어 조금 잃은 그는 그들이 필요로 볼 수있습니다 정렬 아웃, 그래서 그들을 앉아서 토 즉흥 교육 세션을 개최 - 조금 그 때 갑자기 산책을 나가려고처럼 교회에 서비스를 절반 방법을 결정하는 회전합니다. 모르긴해도 때문에 호수는 사람에 의해 중앙에서 parcs으로 와서는 성찬식의 사진을 잡을 수있다 같은 분위기는 대체합니다. 물론 사람들이 많이 있지만 우리가 하루에 더 많은 사람들이 갈릴리 - 5000 정확하게는 남성이 아니라 그들의 가족 계산합니다. 그리고 그들은 모두가 물고기를, 저녁은 5 개 중에 2 개의 작은 물고기를 먹지 아니하였 느냐?합니다. 그래서 우리는 유명한 기적이 여기 있지만 작은 기적을 무시하지 말자 - 그것 동정심에 예수 께서 그들에게 말해주지 않았어를 내보내야 무리를두고 평화, 그리고 그 예수의 제자들이 웃음을했을뿐만 아니라 그는 그들에게 "당신에게가 그들에게 먹을 것을". 이런 엄청난 작업을 같았지만 주님의 도움을 받아, 그건 완료합니다. 수유의에의 5000 foreshadowing 우리가 성찬식을합니다. 우리는 오늘을 두 번 죽어라의 치료를 성사; 순식간에 baptising cilla된다 테오, 그리고 나중에 우리가 갖고있는 거룩한 성찬식; 그건 두 기회를 부여해야 하나님 께서 우리에게 무엇을 공유 아들의 영혼이 이러한 증상을 보이는 외부 및 내부 보이지 않는 유예합니다. 아이들이 자주가 있으며, 사실 제대로 표현이 작은 기적 - 비록 아마있을 수있습니다 타임스 - 아마도이 국제선 예를 들어 - 다른 문구를 사용할 수도 수키 의지와 그들의 아이를 설명합니다. godparent 또는 부모를가 침례는 또한 작은 기적은 일어나는 시간을 찾아보십시오을합니다. 오늘날 교회 전체에 대한 도전이 사랑의기도와 지원을 제공 의지와 수키, 그리고 우리 모두를위한 기회가 우리 자신의 세례 서약을 갱신으로 그를 위해 테오의 이상은 한 순간의 글꼴을 합니다. 하나님은 다시 우리가 우리 자신의 작은 기적은 우리가 은혜받는 새, 그 의식에 그의 존재가 우리와 함께 여행 안내, 유지 및 증진 우리를 편안함과 콘솔은 우리와 무엇보다도 우리에게 보여주 가장 이상적인 모델을 사랑합니다. 이들은 모든 것들이 들어와 편리하고 실용적인 교육에 대한 이들의 혐의를 받고 테오의 영적인 제임스 최 호크스합니다. '그들은 또한 우리 모두에게 큰 도움이 걷기에 대한 경로가 이미 그 사람은 약으로 새출발합니다. 그래서, 5000 접수로 예수 께서 기꺼이 음식을, 우리가 그분의 은혜에 열린 마음을받을 오늘이 두 성사
What do sheep look like without a shepherd? Indeed what do any kind of farm animals look like if they are out and about and no one is looking after them?
The people who ran around the lake to catch up with Jesus would have been very tired and also a bit confused, especially if they were not from that area – they’d just run off into the wild countryside basically – Mark describes it a as “a remote place”. They only had one goal – to find Jesus. No wonder they were a bit confused. Never mind sheep, some of them might have been like headless chickens, running around all over the place.
Now I don’t know that much about sheep but I do know that when they are loose and not in the care of a shepherd there is a good chance some of them might get injured or stuck in a ditch. Or they might get thrown into a panic. Smaller ones and weaker ones are also vulnerable to attack from predators. Basically its not much fun to be a sheep without a shepherd.
And Jesus could see that, even though initially he’d taken his disciples away to get some peace and quiet. What a wonderful model of compassion, that even though Jesus wanted to get away from the crowds, when they followed him and got a bit lost he could see they needed sorting out, so he sat them down and held an impromptu teaching session – a bit like going for a walk and suddenly deciding to have a church service half way round. Since it was by a lake I suppose anyone who came to the communion at Center Parcs can get a picture of what the atmosphere was like. Although of course there were many more people there that day in Galilee – 5000 men to be exact, not counting their families. And they all got a fish supper, out of 5 loaves and two small fish.
So there is a famous miracle here, but let us not ignore the little miracles – that Jesus had compassion on the crowd and did not tell them to go away and leave him in peace, and also that Jesus’ disciples didn’t just laugh when he said to them “you give them something to eat”. It seemed like such an enormous task, but with the help of the Lord, it was done. In the feeding of the 5000 we have a foreshadowing of communion.
We are in for a treat today with a double whammy of sacraments; in a moment Cilla will be baptising Theo, and then later on we will have Holy Communion; that’s two chances we have to share in what God has imparted to us by his Spirit in these outward and visible signs of an inward invisible grace.
Children are quite often and quite rightly described as little miracles – though I guess there may be times – perhaps on international flights for example – that will and Suki might use other phrases to describe their kids. To be a godparent or a parent at a baptism is also a time to look out for little miracles happening to you. There is a challenge to the whole church today to offer love prayer and support to Will and Suki, and there is the chance for us all to renew our own baptismal vows, as Theo’s are made for him over by the font in a moment.
As we recommit ourselves to God, the little miracle is that we receive that grace new, that sense of his presence with us on the journey, to guide, uphold and strengthen us, to comfort and console us, and most of all to show us the ideal model of love.
These are all things that will come in handy for those charged with the spiritual and practical upbringing of Theo James Choi Hawkes. Bu they are also a great help to all of us who are already walking the path he is about to embark on.
So, as the 5000 received gladly the food that Jesus gave, let us have open hearts to receive his grace in these two sacraments today.
목자없는 양 같이 어떻게? 실제로 어떻게 어떤 종류의 농장 동물처럼 그들은 아웃 경우, 아무도 앉았네 약? 누구 몫 호수 주위에 사람들이 예수를 따라잡기가 약간 혼란에도 매우 피곤하고, 특히 그 지역 출신이 아니라면 그들은 - 그들은 기본적으로 시골를 야생에 도망하는 것 뿐이라 - 마크에 대해 설명이 a를 " 원격 장소 "합니다. 그들은 오직 하나의 목표가 - 찾아 예수님합니다. 과연 그들은 약간 혼란스러워합니다. 결코 마음을 양, 그들 중 일부 머리없는 닭처럼 될 수도 있었는데, 주위 사방에 흩어져를 실행합니다. 이제 그 정도에 대해 잘 모르겠 양 그런데, 당신은 알고 치료에없는 경우에 그들은 활보하고있는 좋은 기회 목사는 그들 중 일부가 부상을 당할 수도 또는 도랑에 갇혀합니다. 또는 그들이 던져졌을 뜰 수있을 공황합니다. 작은 것들과 약한 사람들이 포식자가 공격에 취약할 수있습니다. 기본적으로 그 양을별로 재미가없이는 목자합니다. 그리고 예수님을 볼 수있습니다, 비록 처음에 그는 그의 제자 카라벨을 좀 평온과 고요를 멀리합니다. 정말 멋진 모델과 연민을, 그것에도 불구하고 예수를 군중에서 멀리 떨어져있어, 그들이 미행하고있어 조금 잃은 그는 그들이 필요로 볼 수있습니다 정렬 아웃, 그래서 그들을 앉아서 토 즉흥 교육 세션을 개최 - 조금 그 때 갑자기 산책을 나가려고처럼 교회에 서비스를 절반 방법을 결정하는 회전합니다. 모르긴해도 때문에 호수는 사람에 의해 중앙에서 parcs으로 와서는 성찬식의 사진을 잡을 수있다 같은 분위기는 대체합니다. 물론 사람들이 많이 있지만 우리가 하루에 더 많은 사람들이 갈릴리 - 5000 정확하게는 남성이 아니라 그들의 가족 계산합니다. 그리고 그들은 모두가 물고기를, 저녁은 5 개 중에 2 개의 작은 물고기를 먹지 아니하였 느냐?합니다. 그래서 우리는 유명한 기적이 여기 있지만 작은 기적을 무시하지 말자 - 그것 동정심에 예수 께서 그들에게 말해주지 않았어를 내보내야 무리를두고 평화, 그리고 그 예수의 제자들이 웃음을했을뿐만 아니라 그는 그들에게 "당신에게가 그들에게 먹을 것을". 이런 엄청난 작업을 같았지만 주님의 도움을 받아, 그건 완료합니다. 수유의에의 5000 foreshadowing 우리가 성찬식을합니다. 우리는 오늘을 두 번 죽어라의 치료를 성사; 순식간에 baptising cilla된다 테오, 그리고 나중에 우리가 갖고있는 거룩한 성찬식; 그건 두 기회를 부여해야 하나님 께서 우리에게 무엇을 공유 아들의 영혼이 이러한 증상을 보이는 외부 및 내부 보이지 않는 유예합니다. 아이들이 자주가 있으며, 사실 제대로 표현이 작은 기적 - 비록 아마있을 수있습니다 타임스 - 아마도이 국제선 예를 들어 - 다른 문구를 사용할 수도 수키 의지와 그들의 아이를 설명합니다. godparent 또는 부모를가 침례는 또한 작은 기적은 일어나는 시간을 찾아보십시오을합니다. 오늘날 교회 전체에 대한 도전이 사랑의기도와 지원을 제공 의지와 수키, 그리고 우리 모두를위한 기회가 우리 자신의 세례 서약을 갱신으로 그를 위해 테오의 이상은 한 순간의 글꼴을 합니다. 하나님은 다시 우리가 우리 자신의 작은 기적은 우리가 은혜받는 새, 그 의식에 그의 존재가 우리와 함께 여행 안내, 유지 및 증진 우리를 편안함과 콘솔은 우리와 무엇보다도 우리에게 보여주 가장 이상적인 모델을 사랑합니다. 이들은 모든 것들이 들어와 편리하고 실용적인 교육에 대한 이들의 혐의를 받고 테오의 영적인 제임스 최 호크스합니다. '그들은 또한 우리 모두에게 큰 도움이 걷기에 대한 경로가 이미 그 사람은 약으로 새출발합니다. 그래서, 5000 접수로 예수 께서 기꺼이 음식을, 우리가 그분의 은혜에 열린 마음을받을 오늘이 두 성사
Monday, 14 July 2008
Money - the Widow's mite, from 22 June 08
This sermon was preached at Little Saling and Stebbing.
The reading was the Widow's mite, from Luke 21, 1-4.
It might seem rather insensitive of me to be preaching about money in the current economic climate, and it might seem particularly insensitive of me to be preaching about giving to the church at a time when the papers are full of over the top headlines like “church in meltdown.”
Well, it may be insensitive, but I’m going to follow my calling and do it anyway, and the only apology I will make is if my sums are wrong.
There are lots of reasons to watch TV right now, tennis, football, cricket and the news, but there are still some toe-curlingly cheesy adverts to put us off.
One of my least favourite is the L’Oreal hair care range that has the strap line “because you’re worth it”. It just seems to encourage vanity and self-centredness.
There is a worth that we have though, of course – far more significant than the things that make us choose our shampoo; to God we are worth the death of his son to save us – that’s how much he loves us and how much each of us is worth to him.
Our gospel reading today shows us the response God wants us to give to this good news; last week at Great Saling Cilla was talking about that famous verse from Matthew 10; freely you have received, freely give. She said, I’m told, that if you feel you have received a lot from God, then you should give in proportion to that; if not, then not.
This is a challenge to the church, to be a place where people can receive abundantly from God, and so that verse is a good place to start when thinking about our giving.
Today I am going to be sharing some statistics with you, but also looking at the Scriptures too, as we consider our financial situation.
Money (or parting with it) is always a touchy subject at church. I have been here 21 months now and have never knowingly said a word about it from the pulpit.
In a way I am not being Christ-like in that, because 16% of the sayings of Jesus are about money – should I therefore not try to mirror that in my preaching, though I don’t know a congregation who could stomach a sermon on money every 5 weeks!
I found a website this week called “Global Rich list”. Using data from the World Bank, it enables you to calculate how rich you are in comparison to every other earner in the world, by typing your annual income. If you put in £20000 – about what we get as clergy, it transpires that we are in the top 4% of earners in the world. If you type in £50,000 you are in the top 1% of earners.
This is salutatory stuff in the context of the widow’s mite; Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on”
In relative terms – compared to the population of the world, we give out of our riches; even if you are on the dole – or jobseekers allowance as they call it today, you come out as in the top 14% of earners. I shall return to the dole later – and I don’t mean I shall be signing on!
It’s about commitment isn’t it? A commitment to God, expressed by a commitment to his church. Even if you have problems with the church – and by the way don’t believe everything you read about the Church of England in the papers at the moment, especially if Ruth Gledhill writes it in the Times - Christian giving is meant to be an expression of worship, an expression of our commitment to God; that widow at the Temple clearly felt she had freely received, so she freely gave, everything she had, as an act of commitment to God, even though everyone around her was being showy and probably looked down at her; she didn’t let that prevent her from dedicating herself to God.
And let’s be sure about one thing; when you give at church, it is a gift to God; you are not paying a subscription to be a member of a club, nor even really contributing to charity – we may be bound by charity law but churches themselves are not charities. So even if you think you haven’t freely received from the church, try to remember the things you have received from God, and give to him freely in return.
So, how much should we be giving?
Well, I am a fan of tithing – of giving away 10% of your income, purely because I have found it to be a practice that enhances my spiritual life and teaches me to be generous. Tithing in this country though is a bit like the crusades - a dark part of church history that we’d rather forget about. In centuries past, the monastic communities and later the clergy grew fat and rich on the tithes of poor parishioners. It was legally enforceable.
Now of course Christian giving is what we call in the jargon a freewill offering. Our epistle makes it clear that our giving should not be reluctant, but significantly nor should it be under compulsion. I cannot force anyone to give money (or more money) in church. The apostle Paul also complements Jesus’ point from Matthew 10 when he writes, “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly; whoever sows generously will also reap generously”.
We are giving out of our riches, yet our Lord calls us to the total commitment of the widow who gave everything. So does God want us to give all our money to the church now? Well, I’m not going to stop you but I doubt it.
A long time ago I heard a story about a rich Christian who was invited to speak about his life in church. He told how he had come into church as a young man and given his all – his last penny from his pocket in the collection plate, and how he had been so blessed by God by giving up everything that he had become rich. A little boy at the back of the church spoke up and issued the man with a challenge – “if you were so blessed by giving away everything, why don’t you do it again?”
If not everything – because it is hard to exist today without some money – then how much?
I don’t know your incomes, and so I can’t calculate your tithe, and so thought I’d try an experiment; I looked on the internet and discovered that the weekly jobseekers’ allowance – here’s where we get back to the dole – is about £60 a week for an adult over 25.
LITTLE SALING If you tithe that, it amounts to £6 a week, or less than one pound a day, which is £312 a year. And if you gift aid it the church can claim an extra 28p in the pound making £399 a year. I imagine that most of us are on incomes or pensions that are slightly higher than £60 a week, but how does £399 a year compare with your level of giving? If we have a congregation of about 12, each giving a tithe of the dole, in a year our total giving if it was all gift aided would be around £4800. I’ll leave you to go and check the figures from the APCM, to see how that compares with our current level of giving, and I will also leave it to you to consider prayerfully whether you are giving enough, in the light of 1 Corinthians 9, 11, “you will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion”, and the poor widow, who gave all she had to live on. Should you decide to increase your giving I’m sure Malcolm would be glad to hear from you.
STEBBING If you tithe that, it amounts to £6 a week, or less than one pound a day, so how does it compare with your level of giving? If we have a congregation of say 55 adults on a Sunday, each tithing the dole, that makes £ 330 a week, and an impressive figure of £17160 a year.
But our actual Sunday cash collections are averaging at around £375 a week at the moment, so obviously we are not all on jobseekers allowance here.
Aha, you will say, I give by direct debit or in the envelope scheme, I use gift aid
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that there is a good level of giving here. Indeed this parish is one of the very few in the diocese that raises its entire parish share without doing any fundraising. I put that down to your faith and to the sound biblical teaching you have had over many years in the past. Now however you will be aware I hope from Peter’s recent notices that we are running a little low on funds.
There is much to be glad about here. We are a growing and increasingly active church, so we use the building more frequently, so we have higher electricity and heating bills, and our ministry expenses are higher too. You might think we shouldn’t heat the building so much, but I would say that one of the many reasons why people who try our church out often stay is because this is a warm and comfortable environment. If you invited friends round to your house and wanted them to have a good time, would you keep your sitting room cold?
Our heating issues are compounded by the fact that at the beginning of May the boiler broke down and will need to be replaced at a cost of at least £5000. Don’t even get me started on the roof.
Our planned giving is also quite healthy. While I do not know their identities, I know that there are 39 people who give by envelopes, standing orders and direct tax efficient giving, with a total last year of £29, 816. I was very interested to learn however that if you take away the top 5 givers, you also take away £16, 149 of that total, so it seems we have a few very generous people and some others who give an average of £7 a week – just over the dole tithe. I guess we are all on an income of £60 a week or above, so I have to say that in a Bible – believing church like ours, we might expect the level of giving across the board to be higher. Quite apart form anything else if those top 5 tax-efficient givers were all out on a jolly and were killed in a train wreck, we’d be up the proverbial creek.
BOTH AGAIN I don’t like to increase giving by making people feel guilty. I believer the bible is clear in many places, not just our two readings this morning that giving is part of our worship, and you may not have been given the opportunity to think about that element of your faith for a while. If that’s you, or even if you just need reminding about why we give and what it is for, let’s read 1 Corinthians 9, verse 12 again.
“This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God”
So it’s not just Freely you have received, freely give, it is also love your neighbour.
I know the context of 1 Corinthians 9 is a one off gift Paul is seeking from the Corinthian to the Macedonian church, but I still believe the principles he applies are appropriate when we think about the way we worship with our wallets.
For Christians in the Church of England today, supplying the needs of God’s people has a number of applications;
For starters, the money you give to the diocese pays our stipend and provides training for us, and resources such as the vocations days, where people from across this benefice have been encouraged to listen to God’s calling on their lives, and the ministry leadership team conference that groups form Stebbing have attended in recent years.
And of course the churches in this benefice generally tend to be very generous to home and overseas missions and other Christian agencies like Bible lands, tear fund and so on.
I guess what I’m saying is we can overcome our reluctance to give to an institution by reminding ourselves that (even when it appears not to be the case) God is alive and well and active in and through that institution. I’m not just here because I think the Church of England is the best boat to fish from; I’m here because it’s where God called me and if he called me into it then I must believe he is here too.
He is here, and he definitely thinks we’re worth it
As a final thought, consider this, when we give our money to God’s church, we are worshipping - giving God his worth.
Think about how much you give - – what is God worth to us? When we give our offering we should be able to say to the Lord in our hearts, “I am giving this much, because you are worth it.”
The reading was the Widow's mite, from Luke 21, 1-4.
It might seem rather insensitive of me to be preaching about money in the current economic climate, and it might seem particularly insensitive of me to be preaching about giving to the church at a time when the papers are full of over the top headlines like “church in meltdown.”
Well, it may be insensitive, but I’m going to follow my calling and do it anyway, and the only apology I will make is if my sums are wrong.
There are lots of reasons to watch TV right now, tennis, football, cricket and the news, but there are still some toe-curlingly cheesy adverts to put us off.
One of my least favourite is the L’Oreal hair care range that has the strap line “because you’re worth it”. It just seems to encourage vanity and self-centredness.
There is a worth that we have though, of course – far more significant than the things that make us choose our shampoo; to God we are worth the death of his son to save us – that’s how much he loves us and how much each of us is worth to him.
Our gospel reading today shows us the response God wants us to give to this good news; last week at Great Saling Cilla was talking about that famous verse from Matthew 10; freely you have received, freely give. She said, I’m told, that if you feel you have received a lot from God, then you should give in proportion to that; if not, then not.
This is a challenge to the church, to be a place where people can receive abundantly from God, and so that verse is a good place to start when thinking about our giving.
Today I am going to be sharing some statistics with you, but also looking at the Scriptures too, as we consider our financial situation.
Money (or parting with it) is always a touchy subject at church. I have been here 21 months now and have never knowingly said a word about it from the pulpit.
In a way I am not being Christ-like in that, because 16% of the sayings of Jesus are about money – should I therefore not try to mirror that in my preaching, though I don’t know a congregation who could stomach a sermon on money every 5 weeks!
I found a website this week called “Global Rich list”. Using data from the World Bank, it enables you to calculate how rich you are in comparison to every other earner in the world, by typing your annual income. If you put in £20000 – about what we get as clergy, it transpires that we are in the top 4% of earners in the world. If you type in £50,000 you are in the top 1% of earners.
This is salutatory stuff in the context of the widow’s mite; Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on”
In relative terms – compared to the population of the world, we give out of our riches; even if you are on the dole – or jobseekers allowance as they call it today, you come out as in the top 14% of earners. I shall return to the dole later – and I don’t mean I shall be signing on!
It’s about commitment isn’t it? A commitment to God, expressed by a commitment to his church. Even if you have problems with the church – and by the way don’t believe everything you read about the Church of England in the papers at the moment, especially if Ruth Gledhill writes it in the Times - Christian giving is meant to be an expression of worship, an expression of our commitment to God; that widow at the Temple clearly felt she had freely received, so she freely gave, everything she had, as an act of commitment to God, even though everyone around her was being showy and probably looked down at her; she didn’t let that prevent her from dedicating herself to God.
And let’s be sure about one thing; when you give at church, it is a gift to God; you are not paying a subscription to be a member of a club, nor even really contributing to charity – we may be bound by charity law but churches themselves are not charities. So even if you think you haven’t freely received from the church, try to remember the things you have received from God, and give to him freely in return.
So, how much should we be giving?
Well, I am a fan of tithing – of giving away 10% of your income, purely because I have found it to be a practice that enhances my spiritual life and teaches me to be generous. Tithing in this country though is a bit like the crusades - a dark part of church history that we’d rather forget about. In centuries past, the monastic communities and later the clergy grew fat and rich on the tithes of poor parishioners. It was legally enforceable.
Now of course Christian giving is what we call in the jargon a freewill offering. Our epistle makes it clear that our giving should not be reluctant, but significantly nor should it be under compulsion. I cannot force anyone to give money (or more money) in church. The apostle Paul also complements Jesus’ point from Matthew 10 when he writes, “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly; whoever sows generously will also reap generously”.
We are giving out of our riches, yet our Lord calls us to the total commitment of the widow who gave everything. So does God want us to give all our money to the church now? Well, I’m not going to stop you but I doubt it.
A long time ago I heard a story about a rich Christian who was invited to speak about his life in church. He told how he had come into church as a young man and given his all – his last penny from his pocket in the collection plate, and how he had been so blessed by God by giving up everything that he had become rich. A little boy at the back of the church spoke up and issued the man with a challenge – “if you were so blessed by giving away everything, why don’t you do it again?”
If not everything – because it is hard to exist today without some money – then how much?
I don’t know your incomes, and so I can’t calculate your tithe, and so thought I’d try an experiment; I looked on the internet and discovered that the weekly jobseekers’ allowance – here’s where we get back to the dole – is about £60 a week for an adult over 25.
LITTLE SALING If you tithe that, it amounts to £6 a week, or less than one pound a day, which is £312 a year. And if you gift aid it the church can claim an extra 28p in the pound making £399 a year. I imagine that most of us are on incomes or pensions that are slightly higher than £60 a week, but how does £399 a year compare with your level of giving? If we have a congregation of about 12, each giving a tithe of the dole, in a year our total giving if it was all gift aided would be around £4800. I’ll leave you to go and check the figures from the APCM, to see how that compares with our current level of giving, and I will also leave it to you to consider prayerfully whether you are giving enough, in the light of 1 Corinthians 9, 11, “you will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion”, and the poor widow, who gave all she had to live on. Should you decide to increase your giving I’m sure Malcolm would be glad to hear from you.
STEBBING If you tithe that, it amounts to £6 a week, or less than one pound a day, so how does it compare with your level of giving? If we have a congregation of say 55 adults on a Sunday, each tithing the dole, that makes £ 330 a week, and an impressive figure of £17160 a year.
But our actual Sunday cash collections are averaging at around £375 a week at the moment, so obviously we are not all on jobseekers allowance here.
Aha, you will say, I give by direct debit or in the envelope scheme, I use gift aid
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that there is a good level of giving here. Indeed this parish is one of the very few in the diocese that raises its entire parish share without doing any fundraising. I put that down to your faith and to the sound biblical teaching you have had over many years in the past. Now however you will be aware I hope from Peter’s recent notices that we are running a little low on funds.
There is much to be glad about here. We are a growing and increasingly active church, so we use the building more frequently, so we have higher electricity and heating bills, and our ministry expenses are higher too. You might think we shouldn’t heat the building so much, but I would say that one of the many reasons why people who try our church out often stay is because this is a warm and comfortable environment. If you invited friends round to your house and wanted them to have a good time, would you keep your sitting room cold?
Our heating issues are compounded by the fact that at the beginning of May the boiler broke down and will need to be replaced at a cost of at least £5000. Don’t even get me started on the roof.
Our planned giving is also quite healthy. While I do not know their identities, I know that there are 39 people who give by envelopes, standing orders and direct tax efficient giving, with a total last year of £29, 816. I was very interested to learn however that if you take away the top 5 givers, you also take away £16, 149 of that total, so it seems we have a few very generous people and some others who give an average of £7 a week – just over the dole tithe. I guess we are all on an income of £60 a week or above, so I have to say that in a Bible – believing church like ours, we might expect the level of giving across the board to be higher. Quite apart form anything else if those top 5 tax-efficient givers were all out on a jolly and were killed in a train wreck, we’d be up the proverbial creek.
BOTH AGAIN I don’t like to increase giving by making people feel guilty. I believer the bible is clear in many places, not just our two readings this morning that giving is part of our worship, and you may not have been given the opportunity to think about that element of your faith for a while. If that’s you, or even if you just need reminding about why we give and what it is for, let’s read 1 Corinthians 9, verse 12 again.
“This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God”
So it’s not just Freely you have received, freely give, it is also love your neighbour.
I know the context of 1 Corinthians 9 is a one off gift Paul is seeking from the Corinthian to the Macedonian church, but I still believe the principles he applies are appropriate when we think about the way we worship with our wallets.
For Christians in the Church of England today, supplying the needs of God’s people has a number of applications;
For starters, the money you give to the diocese pays our stipend and provides training for us, and resources such as the vocations days, where people from across this benefice have been encouraged to listen to God’s calling on their lives, and the ministry leadership team conference that groups form Stebbing have attended in recent years.
And of course the churches in this benefice generally tend to be very generous to home and overseas missions and other Christian agencies like Bible lands, tear fund and so on.
I guess what I’m saying is we can overcome our reluctance to give to an institution by reminding ourselves that (even when it appears not to be the case) God is alive and well and active in and through that institution. I’m not just here because I think the Church of England is the best boat to fish from; I’m here because it’s where God called me and if he called me into it then I must believe he is here too.
He is here, and he definitely thinks we’re worth it
As a final thought, consider this, when we give our money to God’s church, we are worshipping - giving God his worth.
Think about how much you give - – what is God worth to us? When we give our offering we should be able to say to the Lord in our hearts, “I am giving this much, because you are worth it.”
Headship Sermon from last November
This is the sermon I preached last November setting out a stall on our understanding of Paul's theology of women and men and ministry. It may be of interest still, as the PCC has just voted out Resolution B, which effectively would have barred a woman from applying fro a job as incumbent here. I must apologise for the dodgy formatting, as this talk initially went our accompanied by PowerPoint slides, which I haven't worked out yet how to paste in, so you just have the texts from some of the slides.
As we begin our series on worship from 1Corinthians 11-14 this week we are going to look at a passage, which has had more interpretations of it published than I’ve had hot dinners. Indeed I’d expect there to be several different threads of interpretation running around your minds even now as we just get started. It might seem that the subject matter of the first half of 1Corinthians 11 is not to do with worship, but it does have serious implications for the worship life of any church, and especially our own.
For this reason I want to begin by reminding you of our Lord’s command, from the gospel reading.
Jesus said
“My command is this:
Love each other as I have loved you.”
In 1979 as Skylab fell back down to earth, a pub landlord in Devon found a small piece of scorched metalwork on waste ground behind a cheese factory. Because of media speculation he was already convinced that Skylab was going to fall on Devon, so of course he rushed off to the local paper with the story “Did a little bit of Skylab fall on Devon?” and he proudly displayed the artefact over the bar in his pub.
Well that sounds like a good story but it is in fact a wind up; the metalwork was made by one Paul Shackleton and with the help of colleagues they placed it in the path the landlord walked every day. He believed it because he was already predisposed to do so. His own convictions overrode any other information available to him. So far as we know he still thinks it is a piece of Skylab to this day.
Now that’s a funny story but it has a serious point. We are susceptible to influences – in society, church and even our families, which shape the way we look at things, the way we view reality and the way we live our lives. All of these things, being different for each of us, can lead us to hold different understandings about matters peripheral to the Christian faith.
We are going to begin with a little quiz
Which of these three words appears in the Bible?
TRINITY BISHOP HEADSHIP (THE ANSWER IS BISHOP)
If you doubt me then turn in your pew Bible to Titus chapter 1 verse 7, and read the footnote.
Now here is another word.
PROJECTION
Projection is something that happens when we meet something or somebody new. We project our understandings of life, relationships, ministry, the church, and so on, onto their lives, especially if they appear to be fairly similar to us. Mostly, this results in harmony, where the projection fits snugly into the reality.
However, since we first knew we were moving to Stebbing it was clear to us that there would be some projection going on that would in fact result in some difficulty, because of differing understandings of how men and women relate to each other in the church. Indeed I’m now fairly sure these inappropriate projections have been going on for some years, and have caused difficulty for some of you too.
Effectively it comes down to assumptions we make about other people – that because they go to the same church as us, sing the same songs and hymns as we do, reads the same Bible as we do and love the same Jesus as we do, they must believe everything we do as well about men and women, marriage and ministry.
But as we have been learning on our listening course, when we assume, we make an ass out of you and me.
And here are some more assumptions, which I’m sure no one here would make …
A man who wears a hat to prophesy in church appears to be a woman
A woman who does not wear a hat to prophesy in church appears to be a prostitute
But in first century Greece, the context in which the original readers of this letter lived, these assumptions would have been correct, according to the cultural norms of the day.
Here’s another one.
Semen is made in the brain
Crazy, you’d say, but that’s what significant numbers of Greek philosophers thought in the first Century.
And there are many other things that the Greeks took for granted which we do not hold true today, yet the fact that the New Testament Writers lived and wrote in a context such as they did means that when we read the New Testament we need to do so carefully. When I was at Bible College my lecturers often used to say a text without a context is a pretext for a subtext.
That means be careful when you read the Bible that you do not use passages or verses out of context to justify your theology, and be sure that you do not impose your world view onto the writers, who undoubtedly saw the world very differently; if we do this it is usually a sign that out interpretation of the Bible is coloured by what we already assume to be right.
When we make assumptions, they have consequences for our interpretation of what we read and hear.
Because the Greek worldview said that the brain was the source of man’s reproductive system, the head of the body became associated with the source of life. There are lots of other reasons why they thought this but we don’t have time to talk about them today because we would then be here all day.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 is using the image of the head as a metaphor to address the issue of people’s behaviour in church. Elsewhere he uses it to address the specific issue of marriage, but it is the same image in both cases. This idea has long had two possible interpretations, which hinge on the meaning of a single word. But before we come to that word we need to go back a bit.
Essentially as far as I can see, to cut a long story short, there are two ways of thinking about how men and women are meant to relate to each other.
Either, (A) when you read the account of creation of humanity in Genesis you conclude that male domination of women is part of the created order, or (B) following verses such as Genesis 3.16, you conclude that it is part of the curse of the fall.
Just as an aside we need to make sure we are clear that this verse doesn’t mean that if you had a particularly painful childbirth you are particularly sinful.
If you follow A, then it also follows that you consider male domination of women to be part of the natural order. If you follow B then it also follows that you consider male domination of women and society as a whole to be part of the fallen world, with no place in the Kingdom of God or the church.
Christians who have an understanding like A that I have just mentioned, will appreciate the difficulties that can arise when they project that understanding onto the life or ministry of a person or couple whose faith and ministry is built on the foundation of Galatians 3:28, that in Christ there is no longer male and female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus, and Joel 2:28, that God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh, on men and women, young and old.
Projection can’t focus if the understanding is not the same.
I did try quite hard to remain objective and impersonal here but I’m sure you don’t need to many nudges to work out that I’m reflecting on how our ministry – Ruth’s and my own, has been understood and accepted – or not – over the first year we have been here.
But it isn’t just about us; it’s about everyone here, every man and every woman.
I can’t force you to change your understanding of the Bible, but I would like this opportunity to show you how an understanding of how men and women relate as complementary equals can be drawn from the Bible. Not from a liberal approach, not by discounting difficult passages but by taking the Bible for what it is, God’s word for us today, and seeking to interpret these difficult passages in the light of the whole message of the Bible, the gospel, the power of God to save us through the cross, and enable us by the Holy Spirit to live as God’s people, in the Kingdom of Heaven that has come and is yet to come.
So let’s get back to that one word I mentioned a while ago
Kephale
This is where the idea of headship comes from; the Greek word kephale, meaning head.
Your understanding of how men and women are meant to relate to each other, in A or B from just now, will also hinge on what you think this word means.
Traditional conservative doctrine says that this word means “head” as in boss or authority, and that its use here and elsewhere in the New Testament denotes a relationship of authority, of a man over a woman, a husband over a wife.
However, evangelical scholars such as Tony Thistleton and Rosy Ashley have now realised that there is no established theological connection between “head” and “authority over”.
When “Head” had an authoritative sense in Hebrew – such as the head of a tribe – the translators of the Old Testament into Greek avoided using kephale, and instead used words that carry an unambiguous sense of leadership or rule.
The metaphor of “head” is not used anywhere in Greek outside the letters of Paul to describe the relationship between men and women, so the New Testament data is all we have to go on.
And if “head” doesn’t imply authority or “boss”, what can it mean? Well I’ve already mentioned another word that the Greeks associated with head – source.
Greeks thought that the heart was the part of the body associated with decision-making and reason and understood the head for various reasons to be the source of life.
Some traditional conservative interpreters might still be happy with this meaning, imposing an hierarchical structure onto the sequence of creation – that woman came after man and from man (man as source of woman), could still imply male superiority.
However there is no evidence from the Old Testament that the first thing in a list or sequence is necessarily to be understood as the dominant or most important one. After all, in Creation, man and woman are last; does that mean we are less important to God than the animals and trees he created before us?
I’m not supposed to be preaching on Genesis so I will try to stop there, but there are many more ways in which the account of creation can be read – faithfully, as the word of God, without implying authority for men over women.
Perhaps we need to return to our text to be reminded of this for Paul certainly seems to be talking about a source rather than an authority figure in 1 Corinthians 11 verses 11 to 12.
Yes, woman came from man – Eve was made from Adam’s rib – but ever since, man comes from woman in that we are all born from within our mothers’ bodies. And he gets back to the point with the end of verse 12, everything comes from God. To me this means the same as verse 3 – the head of Christ is God.
As I said before I cannot force you to change how you understand the right way for men and women in marriage and ministry to relate to each other; however as we reach the end of this marathon I want to show you a chart that will summarise the two approaches and will also make explicit the one I follow, if you haven’t already guessed it. (aargh chart won't paste, ed.)
When Paul uses the metaphor of the head in relation to how God relates to us and we relate to each other, his concern is not with hierarchy, but - especially in his words to the Corinthians who you may recall were not the most united, morally upstanding or harmonious church – with appropriate relationships.
Let us recall that in the Corinthian church both men and women were praying and prophesying in public worship. Let us be clear – this is one of the few things that all the commentators I read seemed to agree on – for the first century church prophecy was a way in which teaching was given to the people. For the reasons why this does not contradict the passages in Paul’s letters that appear to forbid women to speak or teach, see me afterwards.
Let us also remember, even if it confuses us, that, in common with the rhetorical approach prevalent in his day, sometimes in corresponding with churches that are dysfunctional – such as the one at Corinth, Paul rehearses their arguments before giving his response. With that in mind we might consider verses 1 to 10 to be the Corinthian position, which Paul then comments on in verses 11 to 16.
Anyway, the passage really is about worship, and about how a church that held in tension many complex cultural influences – Greek, Jewish, Christian and Pagan – should conduct itself in a way that glorifies God.
Let’s go back to those crazy assumptions we started with.
Effectively, rather than saying Women need to be subject to men and wear hats to show it, Paul is saying, when any of you stand up to pray or prophesy, make sure you are not wearing anything that may confuse or distract the rest of the church. In the clash of cultures between Greek and Jewish Christians that runs through lots of the New Testament, what people wore could be very confusing, added to which, women’s hair uncovered, for a first century Greek audience, was rather like the top shelf men’s magazines of today – an object of lust.
It is very significant I feel that the words “a sign of” in verse 10 are inserted by the translator, and do not appear in the Greek. A head covering is not therefore a sign of submission. Rosy Ashley concludes that in fact this verse is Paul giving women freedom to exercise a ministry that is not under the authority of anyone else, but “on her own head”
We must not pretend that this passage is easy to understand and I have only scratched the surface as a way of getting into this new series. I do not expect you ladies all to turn up next week in hats, not do I expect there to be no further baseball hats at the back, especially since the Greek text here referring to head covering is never clear whether it means a hat or long hair!
As I conclude let us remember these two important things
We live now in an environment of grace, not an environment of law; Paul’s exhortations to the Corinthian church do have relevance to us, but perhaps not the immediate applicability they may have been given in the past. God gives to his people gifts according to his will. Galatians 3:28 and Joel 2:28 show us that God does not have a glass ceiling for women – or young people for that matter, when it comes to the Kingdom of Heaven.
This is a series about worship, so we have started with a passage about worship; Paul is addressing a situation where prophecy and tongues were very prominent in church – Oh how I covet his problems sometimes!
I have outlined briefly two different approaches to this matter and I have I hope made it clear which one I think is right. However, I also wish to make absolutely crystal clear that if you do not hold the same understanding of human relationships as I do, there is still a place for you in this fellowship, your local church.
To reinforce that I end with a return to our first slide.
Jesus said
“My command is this:
Love each other as I have loved you.”
As we begin our series on worship from 1Corinthians 11-14 this week we are going to look at a passage, which has had more interpretations of it published than I’ve had hot dinners. Indeed I’d expect there to be several different threads of interpretation running around your minds even now as we just get started. It might seem that the subject matter of the first half of 1Corinthians 11 is not to do with worship, but it does have serious implications for the worship life of any church, and especially our own.
For this reason I want to begin by reminding you of our Lord’s command, from the gospel reading.
Jesus said
“My command is this:
Love each other as I have loved you.”
In 1979 as Skylab fell back down to earth, a pub landlord in Devon found a small piece of scorched metalwork on waste ground behind a cheese factory. Because of media speculation he was already convinced that Skylab was going to fall on Devon, so of course he rushed off to the local paper with the story “Did a little bit of Skylab fall on Devon?” and he proudly displayed the artefact over the bar in his pub.
Well that sounds like a good story but it is in fact a wind up; the metalwork was made by one Paul Shackleton and with the help of colleagues they placed it in the path the landlord walked every day. He believed it because he was already predisposed to do so. His own convictions overrode any other information available to him. So far as we know he still thinks it is a piece of Skylab to this day.
Now that’s a funny story but it has a serious point. We are susceptible to influences – in society, church and even our families, which shape the way we look at things, the way we view reality and the way we live our lives. All of these things, being different for each of us, can lead us to hold different understandings about matters peripheral to the Christian faith.
We are going to begin with a little quiz
Which of these three words appears in the Bible?
TRINITY BISHOP HEADSHIP (THE ANSWER IS BISHOP)
If you doubt me then turn in your pew Bible to Titus chapter 1 verse 7, and read the footnote.
Now here is another word.
PROJECTION
Projection is something that happens when we meet something or somebody new. We project our understandings of life, relationships, ministry, the church, and so on, onto their lives, especially if they appear to be fairly similar to us. Mostly, this results in harmony, where the projection fits snugly into the reality.
However, since we first knew we were moving to Stebbing it was clear to us that there would be some projection going on that would in fact result in some difficulty, because of differing understandings of how men and women relate to each other in the church. Indeed I’m now fairly sure these inappropriate projections have been going on for some years, and have caused difficulty for some of you too.
Effectively it comes down to assumptions we make about other people – that because they go to the same church as us, sing the same songs and hymns as we do, reads the same Bible as we do and love the same Jesus as we do, they must believe everything we do as well about men and women, marriage and ministry.
But as we have been learning on our listening course, when we assume, we make an ass out of you and me.
And here are some more assumptions, which I’m sure no one here would make …
A man who wears a hat to prophesy in church appears to be a woman
A woman who does not wear a hat to prophesy in church appears to be a prostitute
But in first century Greece, the context in which the original readers of this letter lived, these assumptions would have been correct, according to the cultural norms of the day.
Here’s another one.
Semen is made in the brain
Crazy, you’d say, but that’s what significant numbers of Greek philosophers thought in the first Century.
And there are many other things that the Greeks took for granted which we do not hold true today, yet the fact that the New Testament Writers lived and wrote in a context such as they did means that when we read the New Testament we need to do so carefully. When I was at Bible College my lecturers often used to say a text without a context is a pretext for a subtext.
That means be careful when you read the Bible that you do not use passages or verses out of context to justify your theology, and be sure that you do not impose your world view onto the writers, who undoubtedly saw the world very differently; if we do this it is usually a sign that out interpretation of the Bible is coloured by what we already assume to be right.
When we make assumptions, they have consequences for our interpretation of what we read and hear.
Because the Greek worldview said that the brain was the source of man’s reproductive system, the head of the body became associated with the source of life. There are lots of other reasons why they thought this but we don’t have time to talk about them today because we would then be here all day.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 is using the image of the head as a metaphor to address the issue of people’s behaviour in church. Elsewhere he uses it to address the specific issue of marriage, but it is the same image in both cases. This idea has long had two possible interpretations, which hinge on the meaning of a single word. But before we come to that word we need to go back a bit.
Essentially as far as I can see, to cut a long story short, there are two ways of thinking about how men and women are meant to relate to each other.
Either, (A) when you read the account of creation of humanity in Genesis you conclude that male domination of women is part of the created order, or (B) following verses such as Genesis 3.16, you conclude that it is part of the curse of the fall.
Just as an aside we need to make sure we are clear that this verse doesn’t mean that if you had a particularly painful childbirth you are particularly sinful.
If you follow A, then it also follows that you consider male domination of women to be part of the natural order. If you follow B then it also follows that you consider male domination of women and society as a whole to be part of the fallen world, with no place in the Kingdom of God or the church.
Christians who have an understanding like A that I have just mentioned, will appreciate the difficulties that can arise when they project that understanding onto the life or ministry of a person or couple whose faith and ministry is built on the foundation of Galatians 3:28, that in Christ there is no longer male and female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus, and Joel 2:28, that God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh, on men and women, young and old.
Projection can’t focus if the understanding is not the same.
I did try quite hard to remain objective and impersonal here but I’m sure you don’t need to many nudges to work out that I’m reflecting on how our ministry – Ruth’s and my own, has been understood and accepted – or not – over the first year we have been here.
But it isn’t just about us; it’s about everyone here, every man and every woman.
I can’t force you to change your understanding of the Bible, but I would like this opportunity to show you how an understanding of how men and women relate as complementary equals can be drawn from the Bible. Not from a liberal approach, not by discounting difficult passages but by taking the Bible for what it is, God’s word for us today, and seeking to interpret these difficult passages in the light of the whole message of the Bible, the gospel, the power of God to save us through the cross, and enable us by the Holy Spirit to live as God’s people, in the Kingdom of Heaven that has come and is yet to come.
So let’s get back to that one word I mentioned a while ago
Kephale
This is where the idea of headship comes from; the Greek word kephale, meaning head.
Your understanding of how men and women are meant to relate to each other, in A or B from just now, will also hinge on what you think this word means.
Traditional conservative doctrine says that this word means “head” as in boss or authority, and that its use here and elsewhere in the New Testament denotes a relationship of authority, of a man over a woman, a husband over a wife.
However, evangelical scholars such as Tony Thistleton and Rosy Ashley have now realised that there is no established theological connection between “head” and “authority over”.
When “Head” had an authoritative sense in Hebrew – such as the head of a tribe – the translators of the Old Testament into Greek avoided using kephale, and instead used words that carry an unambiguous sense of leadership or rule.
The metaphor of “head” is not used anywhere in Greek outside the letters of Paul to describe the relationship between men and women, so the New Testament data is all we have to go on.
And if “head” doesn’t imply authority or “boss”, what can it mean? Well I’ve already mentioned another word that the Greeks associated with head – source.
Greeks thought that the heart was the part of the body associated with decision-making and reason and understood the head for various reasons to be the source of life.
Some traditional conservative interpreters might still be happy with this meaning, imposing an hierarchical structure onto the sequence of creation – that woman came after man and from man (man as source of woman), could still imply male superiority.
However there is no evidence from the Old Testament that the first thing in a list or sequence is necessarily to be understood as the dominant or most important one. After all, in Creation, man and woman are last; does that mean we are less important to God than the animals and trees he created before us?
I’m not supposed to be preaching on Genesis so I will try to stop there, but there are many more ways in which the account of creation can be read – faithfully, as the word of God, without implying authority for men over women.
Perhaps we need to return to our text to be reminded of this for Paul certainly seems to be talking about a source rather than an authority figure in 1 Corinthians 11 verses 11 to 12.
Yes, woman came from man – Eve was made from Adam’s rib – but ever since, man comes from woman in that we are all born from within our mothers’ bodies. And he gets back to the point with the end of verse 12, everything comes from God. To me this means the same as verse 3 – the head of Christ is God.
As I said before I cannot force you to change how you understand the right way for men and women in marriage and ministry to relate to each other; however as we reach the end of this marathon I want to show you a chart that will summarise the two approaches and will also make explicit the one I follow, if you haven’t already guessed it. (aargh chart won't paste, ed.)
When Paul uses the metaphor of the head in relation to how God relates to us and we relate to each other, his concern is not with hierarchy, but - especially in his words to the Corinthians who you may recall were not the most united, morally upstanding or harmonious church – with appropriate relationships.
Let us recall that in the Corinthian church both men and women were praying and prophesying in public worship. Let us be clear – this is one of the few things that all the commentators I read seemed to agree on – for the first century church prophecy was a way in which teaching was given to the people. For the reasons why this does not contradict the passages in Paul’s letters that appear to forbid women to speak or teach, see me afterwards.
Let us also remember, even if it confuses us, that, in common with the rhetorical approach prevalent in his day, sometimes in corresponding with churches that are dysfunctional – such as the one at Corinth, Paul rehearses their arguments before giving his response. With that in mind we might consider verses 1 to 10 to be the Corinthian position, which Paul then comments on in verses 11 to 16.
Anyway, the passage really is about worship, and about how a church that held in tension many complex cultural influences – Greek, Jewish, Christian and Pagan – should conduct itself in a way that glorifies God.
Let’s go back to those crazy assumptions we started with.
Effectively, rather than saying Women need to be subject to men and wear hats to show it, Paul is saying, when any of you stand up to pray or prophesy, make sure you are not wearing anything that may confuse or distract the rest of the church. In the clash of cultures between Greek and Jewish Christians that runs through lots of the New Testament, what people wore could be very confusing, added to which, women’s hair uncovered, for a first century Greek audience, was rather like the top shelf men’s magazines of today – an object of lust.
It is very significant I feel that the words “a sign of” in verse 10 are inserted by the translator, and do not appear in the Greek. A head covering is not therefore a sign of submission. Rosy Ashley concludes that in fact this verse is Paul giving women freedom to exercise a ministry that is not under the authority of anyone else, but “on her own head”
We must not pretend that this passage is easy to understand and I have only scratched the surface as a way of getting into this new series. I do not expect you ladies all to turn up next week in hats, not do I expect there to be no further baseball hats at the back, especially since the Greek text here referring to head covering is never clear whether it means a hat or long hair!
As I conclude let us remember these two important things
We live now in an environment of grace, not an environment of law; Paul’s exhortations to the Corinthian church do have relevance to us, but perhaps not the immediate applicability they may have been given in the past. God gives to his people gifts according to his will. Galatians 3:28 and Joel 2:28 show us that God does not have a glass ceiling for women – or young people for that matter, when it comes to the Kingdom of Heaven.
This is a series about worship, so we have started with a passage about worship; Paul is addressing a situation where prophecy and tongues were very prominent in church – Oh how I covet his problems sometimes!
I have outlined briefly two different approaches to this matter and I have I hope made it clear which one I think is right. However, I also wish to make absolutely crystal clear that if you do not hold the same understanding of human relationships as I do, there is still a place for you in this fellowship, your local church.
To reinforce that I end with a return to our first slide.
Jesus said
“My command is this:
Love each other as I have loved you.”
13th July at Lindsell and Stebbing
This is my sermon from last Sunday. The reading was Romans 8, 1-11. There is a bit where I read from a book, the text of which is probabaly a bit long to quote on "Paper" without permission - sorry.
I promised my wonderful administrator Sue Shay that this sermon would have the Pet Shop Boys Boyzone, Veggie Tales and carpet bowls in it.
And it will, but let us not forget that it is a sermon on Romans chapter 8.
I am most grateful to Nigel Warren for his excellent talk on Romans 7 last week, and it falls to me to carry on with the first 11 verses of chapter 8.
Let’s just remind ourselves of verse 24 of chapter 7, which I will read in the New Living translation
Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
This has good news and bad news – we are miserable sinners, but God has saved us through Jesus Christ.
The trouble is, sometimes we get stuck on the bad news – cue the Pet shop boys;
When I look back upon my life It's always with a sense of shame I've always been the one to blame For everything I long to do No matter when or where or who Has one thing in common, to It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a sin It's a sin
As Nigel mentioned last week, the whole of the first 7 chapters of Romans is about how humanity has fallen in to sin, and consequence s of this fall.
Which is all bad news, but now at the beginning of Romans 8 is the triumphant conclusion to Paul's explanation of the way in which God reconciled men and women to himself through the death and resurrection of Christ.
What God's law had been unable to do, because of human weakness, God himself had now achieved, by sending his own Son to deal with sin. To do this, it was necessary for Christ to enter the sphere where sin was operating – the sphere of humanity: he therefore came 'in the likeness of sinful flesh, like us in everything except in not succumbing to sin. Those who are 'in Christ', who have been baptised into his death and resurrection (6.1-11), now share Christ's victory over sin and death, and the Spirit of God fulfils in us what the law required – true love for God – since the Spirit controls our actions.
Paul has a wonderful turn of words.
Chapter 8 verse one has an enormous “Therefore” - all that has come before this, all the expositions of depravity and sin, and human frailty, everything about how no one is righteous, how God is a just judge, and how we need to be justified like Abraham by faith, everything is leading up to the end of chapter 7 – the good news is that God has saved us from sin and death – all of that turns on the one word “Therefore …” It’s like a doorway to the next stage in Paul’s exposition of the Christian life through Romans.
And it is a very important Therefore, because it keeps us focused on the good news, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus – do you believe that?
I will readily admit that I don’t often talk too much about sin, but it is hard to preach on Romans and avoid that subject. The NIV uses the term “sinful nature” to translate the Greek word “sarx” which literally means “flesh”, as in the footnote. Unfortunately this has meant we tend to dwell excessively upon our sin, when reading this passage, instead of celebrating our redemption.
Paul contrasts life 'according to the flesh' and 'life according to the Spirit'. In Hebrew thought, there is nothing judgemental about the word 'flesh': it denotes weakness ('All flesh is grass', Isaiah 40.6), while 'Spirit' refers to the power of God.
To live 'according to the flesh', however, is to live as though temporary existence is all that matters, and to be concerned only with the physical, not with the spiritual. We need to get away from thinking about carnal lustful type sins when we hear this word, as Paul’s contrast is more than just sin vs. purity, it is the transient vs. the eternal, the finite vs. the eternal.
Flesh, inevitably, is doomed to die, whereas the Spirit is the source of life. It was the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead, and the same Spirit of power now at work in the lives of all who belong to him, will give life to them also.
Will give life to them also – a key phrase – there is no condemnation, even when we are battling, apparently against ourselves. That is at the heart of verses 5 to 8. It reminds me of a song from the 1990’s Christian band “Eden Burning” who characterised this inner struggle in terms of a joust – the fleshly and the spiritual inner man warring with each other inwardly.
Let me bring you up to date though and read you a paragraph from the book that David Gregory reviewed for us the other week, the biography of Shane Lynch, of Boyzone.
The chancer p196
Now not all of us have been as tied up the occult practices and rock and roll lifestyle as someone like Shane Lynch, but we all have our own inner battles, and these are the ones God wants to help us with. He wants our minds to be open to the guidance and control of the Spirit. This control is not by making us like automatons, but by influencing our decisions and behaviour so that our moral life is transformed – as Paul will say in Romans chapter 12, by the renewing of our minds.
The best way of ensuring we do continue to live according to the Spirit is not to cut ourselves off form the world, but to seek god, to listen out for his word to us daily, as we go through life.
The thing is, as soon as you think you’ve arrived and become static, you cease to be in touch with the Spirit, who wants to be refining us a little more each day. Once you say, “OK I’m sorted now,” you effectively stop that process.
And there are many elements of ordinary people’s lives that can make us fall into that trap.
Here is the Veggie Tales bit.
Another book I have read recently us this one, “Me Myself and Bob”, the biography of Veggie Tales creator Phil Vischer.
It tells of his early life, how he grew up in a Christian home, that was to become a broken home, and how he then retreated to his basement and his fascination with animation, resulting in a career in computer generated cartoons.
Phil began with a Christian approach – he wanted his company to be the Christian equivalent of Disney, but he freely admits in his book that he let his success run away with him, so that his decision-making was clouded by selfish desires and a lot of money!
Many of us have benefitted from the ministry of veggie tales over the years and so It was sad to learn that Phil lost control of it following a law suit that resulted from Bob the builder buying out Barney the dinosaur – see how quickly you get swallowed up in corporate dealings, even when you started off on the right foot.
Phil Vischer is a very self-effacing man, very humbled by his failures, yet also rejoicing gin the second chance God has given him – for a book about a venture that failed this is a pretty good read!
OK so we’ve had the Pet Shop Boys Boyzone, and Veggie Tales, that just leaves carpet bowls.
Well, when you bowl a wood, it has of course a bias in it, so that it does not go straight.
This is a picture, if you will, of the human condition; we have a bias in us which means we cannot go straight upon the path that God intended us to take.
If we try to go straight for the jack, we will veer off to the side. But if we are guided by the Spirit we will be able to overcome the bias – or rather Christ in us has overcome the human bias to sin – so that we can achieve our goal of a life the is led by the Spirit and proclaims the good news that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
I promised my wonderful administrator Sue Shay that this sermon would have the Pet Shop Boys Boyzone, Veggie Tales and carpet bowls in it.
And it will, but let us not forget that it is a sermon on Romans chapter 8.
I am most grateful to Nigel Warren for his excellent talk on Romans 7 last week, and it falls to me to carry on with the first 11 verses of chapter 8.
Let’s just remind ourselves of verse 24 of chapter 7, which I will read in the New Living translation
Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
This has good news and bad news – we are miserable sinners, but God has saved us through Jesus Christ.
The trouble is, sometimes we get stuck on the bad news – cue the Pet shop boys;
When I look back upon my life It's always with a sense of shame I've always been the one to blame For everything I long to do No matter when or where or who Has one thing in common, to It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a sin It's a sin
As Nigel mentioned last week, the whole of the first 7 chapters of Romans is about how humanity has fallen in to sin, and consequence s of this fall.
Which is all bad news, but now at the beginning of Romans 8 is the triumphant conclusion to Paul's explanation of the way in which God reconciled men and women to himself through the death and resurrection of Christ.
What God's law had been unable to do, because of human weakness, God himself had now achieved, by sending his own Son to deal with sin. To do this, it was necessary for Christ to enter the sphere where sin was operating – the sphere of humanity: he therefore came 'in the likeness of sinful flesh, like us in everything except in not succumbing to sin. Those who are 'in Christ', who have been baptised into his death and resurrection (6.1-11), now share Christ's victory over sin and death, and the Spirit of God fulfils in us what the law required – true love for God – since the Spirit controls our actions.
Paul has a wonderful turn of words.
Chapter 8 verse one has an enormous “Therefore” - all that has come before this, all the expositions of depravity and sin, and human frailty, everything about how no one is righteous, how God is a just judge, and how we need to be justified like Abraham by faith, everything is leading up to the end of chapter 7 – the good news is that God has saved us from sin and death – all of that turns on the one word “Therefore …” It’s like a doorway to the next stage in Paul’s exposition of the Christian life through Romans.
And it is a very important Therefore, because it keeps us focused on the good news, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus – do you believe that?
I will readily admit that I don’t often talk too much about sin, but it is hard to preach on Romans and avoid that subject. The NIV uses the term “sinful nature” to translate the Greek word “sarx” which literally means “flesh”, as in the footnote. Unfortunately this has meant we tend to dwell excessively upon our sin, when reading this passage, instead of celebrating our redemption.
Paul contrasts life 'according to the flesh' and 'life according to the Spirit'. In Hebrew thought, there is nothing judgemental about the word 'flesh': it denotes weakness ('All flesh is grass', Isaiah 40.6), while 'Spirit' refers to the power of God.
To live 'according to the flesh', however, is to live as though temporary existence is all that matters, and to be concerned only with the physical, not with the spiritual. We need to get away from thinking about carnal lustful type sins when we hear this word, as Paul’s contrast is more than just sin vs. purity, it is the transient vs. the eternal, the finite vs. the eternal.
Flesh, inevitably, is doomed to die, whereas the Spirit is the source of life. It was the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead, and the same Spirit of power now at work in the lives of all who belong to him, will give life to them also.
Will give life to them also – a key phrase – there is no condemnation, even when we are battling, apparently against ourselves. That is at the heart of verses 5 to 8. It reminds me of a song from the 1990’s Christian band “Eden Burning” who characterised this inner struggle in terms of a joust – the fleshly and the spiritual inner man warring with each other inwardly.
Let me bring you up to date though and read you a paragraph from the book that David Gregory reviewed for us the other week, the biography of Shane Lynch, of Boyzone.
The chancer p196
Now not all of us have been as tied up the occult practices and rock and roll lifestyle as someone like Shane Lynch, but we all have our own inner battles, and these are the ones God wants to help us with. He wants our minds to be open to the guidance and control of the Spirit. This control is not by making us like automatons, but by influencing our decisions and behaviour so that our moral life is transformed – as Paul will say in Romans chapter 12, by the renewing of our minds.
The best way of ensuring we do continue to live according to the Spirit is not to cut ourselves off form the world, but to seek god, to listen out for his word to us daily, as we go through life.
The thing is, as soon as you think you’ve arrived and become static, you cease to be in touch with the Spirit, who wants to be refining us a little more each day. Once you say, “OK I’m sorted now,” you effectively stop that process.
And there are many elements of ordinary people’s lives that can make us fall into that trap.
Here is the Veggie Tales bit.
Another book I have read recently us this one, “Me Myself and Bob”, the biography of Veggie Tales creator Phil Vischer.
It tells of his early life, how he grew up in a Christian home, that was to become a broken home, and how he then retreated to his basement and his fascination with animation, resulting in a career in computer generated cartoons.
Phil began with a Christian approach – he wanted his company to be the Christian equivalent of Disney, but he freely admits in his book that he let his success run away with him, so that his decision-making was clouded by selfish desires and a lot of money!
Many of us have benefitted from the ministry of veggie tales over the years and so It was sad to learn that Phil lost control of it following a law suit that resulted from Bob the builder buying out Barney the dinosaur – see how quickly you get swallowed up in corporate dealings, even when you started off on the right foot.
Phil Vischer is a very self-effacing man, very humbled by his failures, yet also rejoicing gin the second chance God has given him – for a book about a venture that failed this is a pretty good read!
OK so we’ve had the Pet Shop Boys Boyzone, and Veggie Tales, that just leaves carpet bowls.
Well, when you bowl a wood, it has of course a bias in it, so that it does not go straight.
This is a picture, if you will, of the human condition; we have a bias in us which means we cannot go straight upon the path that God intended us to take.
If we try to go straight for the jack, we will veer off to the side. But if we are guided by the Spirit we will be able to overcome the bias – or rather Christ in us has overcome the human bias to sin – so that we can achieve our goal of a life the is led by the Spirit and proclaims the good news that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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