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
Sunday, 20 July 2008
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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