Category: Main Service

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The many voices of the Bible

9th Sunday after Trinity, 2025. Year C.

Preached at St Barnabas, Pitshanger Lane.

Readings – Jeremiah23:23-29; Hebrews 11:29-12:2 & Luke 12:49-56.

Our reading from Luke might strike us as being unusual language from Jesus, and yet this episode appears in all of the synoptic gospels.  Jesus is making an emphatic point about the necessity of remaining alert and expectant for events that are to come. 

In doing so he uses the apocalyptic language that we also find in the Old Testament used by the prophets, especially when they are warning of the fate that will befall Israel as a result of its unfaithfulness towards God – a fate realised in the Babylonian sack of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple.

It can at first feel jarring when we encounter passages like this, which seem at odds with Jesus’ normally more measured way of speaking, and with his emphasis on love and peace as the key to the Kingdom, rather than violence and division. 

But he is speaking here with a purpose, because he is trying to shock his audience out of their assumptions about what they think is God’s eschatological plan.  He knows that their wish for a military messiah who will confront the hated Romans is a route that will lead to death and the destruction of Israel.

When he talks about the division of families against themselves, he is quoting from the prophet Micah, who is speaking about this previous destruction of Israel.

He is speaking prophetically – he knows that his message is not one that will be received openly by many, but rather only by a few.  It will set people against each other.  It will cause division, because it is a message that is hard, while appearing simple.  There will be many who prefer what they think of as the easy route.  But this is a necessary message that he is bringing.  He is impatient to deliver this message, to have it taken up by humanity.

The language of division that he uses is a familiar one to us today, as we live in a world which seems to be more and more reverting to nationalism and tribalism.  And yet Jesus is not seeking to use the language of division and othering to further his aims, instead he is being honest when he admits that the truth will cause division – that there will be those who refuse to accept the truth because they are unable to adjust or change, or admit that they were wrong.

A superficial reading of Luke 12 can allow us to portray Jesus as an apocalyptic judgemental figure, dividing us into the saved and the damned.  Other extracts of the Gospels can help support this view.  Many Christian leaders throughout history have leant into this idea of the final judgement where the righteous will be saved (normally themselves) and the others will be damned.  They will say that there is a single route to righteousness, and we must all follow it to be saved.  All too often though, they want us to listen to what they are saying, and not what God is saying.

But we have to read the Gospel, and indeed the whole of scripture, in its totality, not picking on the bits that we want to listen to.

The Bible is not a self-help manual, with a simple remedy for the human condition or a ten-step programme, logically arranged to take you in a straightforward and logical progression from discontent to contentment.  

Instead the Bible is the product of that innumerable cloud of witnesses that the writer of Hebrews invokes.  It is a myriad of stories about people and their relationship to God, each told in a different voice, and each testifying to a different experience of God. 

Few of these stories have happy endings.  There is no simple remedy for the broken-ness of the world.  These people may have had faith in God, and God certainly had faith in them and in his covenants with them, but ultimately they are still trapped in sinfulness. 

They cannot lift their heads up high enough to see that it is not their own salvation that is the end-goal, or the salvation of Israel, or the salvation of humanity, but the salvation of all of creation that is the goal and that God is asking up to partake in. 

But God never gives up, and ultimately, in the faithfulness of his Son, who is faithful to death, in that faith, all of creation is reconciled to God.

Because Jesus isn’t just some wise-man dispensing philosophical one-liners about being nice to each other.  Jesus is King and Prophet, the Messiah, the Son of God.

Jesus is very aware that he is part of God’s overarching salvation work that permeates the whole story of creation.  The secret to life isn’t just being nice to each other.  The secret to life, true life, is God, because life isn’t just a transient existence between what we perceive as our birth and our death.  Life is us being invited by God to partake in God’s salvation story.  And that salvation story is not just us ensuring that we, individually, will be saved.  Yes, God loves and cherishes each of us individually, but he also loves and cherishes all aspects of his own creation, and we are called into his work of salvation for all of creation, not just for ourselves.

And as Jesus warns us here, aligning ourselves with God’s plans for creation runs the risk of causing friction, dissent and disagreement.  Not because God is looking to create disorder or disharmony – exactly the opposite.  God is looking to bring everything into harmony with Him.  No, it is because we seem to be so often naturally disinclined to act in a way that brings us into harmony with God.  It is in our God-given nature to be rebellious, because God created us free-willed, not as slaves or servants.

God did not choose to populate his creation with puppets, but with free creatures.  It is more pleasing to God that we should choose to be good and faithful, than that we should be compelled to be.

What does this mean for us as God’s creations.  It certainly does not mean that there is one ‘right’ way to live – a single formula which if only we all followed, we would all be righteous.  Scripture shows us a wonderful set of stories about people and their relationships, good and bad, with God.  It shows us that God values our diversity and our differences.  The Bible is not simple.  In some respects, it is not helpful.  The Bible, like Jesus, rarely, if ever, provides straightforward answers.  What it does is affirm that the questions that we ask are questions which we should be asking of God and of ourselves, because we can see that faithful people have been asking these questions of God for all of history. 

Each of these people is faithful in their own way, because God has created us all wonderfully diverse, and that creation is fundamentally and essentially good in every way.  Like all of creation, we will be perfected when creation is returned to the state that God created it in, but that perfection will be a perfection in diversity and community, not a perfection in unity and uniformity.  Just as the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father, so too we are not each other, but each are uniquely ourselves, fearfully and wonderfully made by God, individually loved and cherished by him.

Jesus’ warning is valid though, even for us today.  As a church, as Jesus predicted, we are divided by many things.  We seek out prophetic voices, but we must take care, as God warns Jeremiah, to discern between the prophet who just has a dream, and the one who has God’s word faithfully.

Jesus says that he has not come to bring peace to the earth, but rather it is the case that the earth is not fully prepared to hear of the peace that he brings because it is too radical a type of peace, that we are unable to comprehend the full strain that such a peace will put upon us.  We are not able to change ourselves enough to embrace the peace that he brings, and instead we demand peace on our own terms, which is just division against someone else, further off.

But Jesus has come to us, and has given us a taste of that peace.  Only in Jesus can we see the peace that he brings; the peace that is harmony and rightness, not just with each other, but with God and all of his creation. And in us, in his church, we are the harbingers of the Kingdom that will come.  We are the clouds in the west, that foretell the rain tomorrow, or the wind from the south that foretells the heat to come.  We are called to be faithful to God, as he is faithful to us, so that all may see the signs of the Kingdom to come.

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Main Service Sermons

Faith and certainty

2nd Sunday of Easter, 2025. Year C.

Readings: Acts 5:27-32 & John 20:19-31.

I don’t know how many of you here today are amongst those who have driven the almost 300% reported increase in viewing of the film Conclave over the last week.  If you haven’t you may yet come to it in the next couple of weeks – it is, as far as I can tell with just one irritating and probably irrelevant factual error, as good a documentary on the process of selection of a new Pope as you can get.  And beautifully shot as well.

It is interesting to contrast the speed with which the Roman Catholic church moves to select a new supreme pontiff with the long deliberations that the Church of England is undertaking to select a new Archbishop of Canterbury, especially if you consider that Archbishops of Canterbury normally have a scheduled retirement date, and popes tend not to.  Is speed of selection an advantage in this process, or a problem?  It certainly emphasises the difference between the role of the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury that the Church of England and Anglican Communion seem to think that they can happily function without Canterbury for 6 to 9 months, whereas the Roman Catholic Church, at least in modern times, keeps its periods of sede vacantia to a few weeks.

In both cases of course, the intention is that the Holy Spirit should point the way towards someone who is most suitable to lead this part of the church at this time.  This is not a naïve expectation.  Of course this is a group of human beings, with a greater or lesser degree of representation of the whole of body of Christ.  These are people with agenda and politics.  We no longer just chose at random who is going to lead the church, as the apostles did when they looked to fill Judas’ place on the twelve, although even they narrowed it down to two, presumably equally qualified, candidates.  These are people who are of their time and place.  But that is the whole point.  The church exists in time, not in eternity, and the electors of the church are people of their time.  Their role, at its best, is to discern the person whom the Holy Spirit is calling at this time and in this place to be the person who can best lead the church as they see it.  Obviously they are not perfect – that would be two great a burden to place on anyone.  Bad choices are made.  But sometimes it is easier to see issues in hindsight and from outside than it is in the moment of history.  

It is a process built on trust – our trust in our representatives that they will listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, and their trust in the person who they chose, that they will chose someone who will lead in humility and wisdom.  Pope Francis, it seems to be generally agreed, was a good choice by this standard.  He rewarded the trust placed in him, not by being perfect, but by being humble.  Trust is a word we will come back to later.

One of my favourite scenes in Conclave is the sermon that Ralph Fiennes’ character delivers as Dean of the College of Cardinals before the conclave starts, where he says ‘Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.’  This is something that I have observed for myself in the debates that are currently raging in the Church of England.  There are a great many people who are absolutely certain that they know what God’s will is, and that therefore there can be no compromise or accomodation.  

He then goes on to say that ‘Even Christ was not certain at the end.’, which is something that I am not sure I do agree with, both trivially because to see crucifixion as Christ’s end is to completely ignore the resurrection and ascension and eternal existence, but also more fundamentally because while a superficial reading of the passion narrative might indicate doubt on Jesus’ part, a deeper reading of it shows that he is completely certain in his faith in God the father, and in God’s promises to him.  He does not necessarily understand how those promises will be fulfilled but he is certain in his faith in God, and we ourselves are saved by that faith that Jesus has in the father.  We are saved not by our own works or deeds or actions but by the faith of Jesus Christ.

How does this sit with our gospel account of Thomas that we just heard.  It is common to have poor old doubting Thomas held up to us as an example of lack of faith.  Is that what John is telling us here?  He ends the chapter after all, saying that this whole account is so that we may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.  Thomas himself, when confronted by the risen Jesus, acclaims him as ‘my messiah and my God’ – he becomes the first person to hail Jesus unambiguously as divine.  And Jesus says that those, like us, who do not get to stick our fingers in his wounds, but still believe, as to be praised even more.  Is certainty to be exalted over doubt?

Peter is similarly uncompromising when he declares in our Acts reading that “We must obey God rather than any human authority.”  that might seem to be an uncontroversial position, that we have a duty as Christians to do what God commands us to do, rather than submit to human authority.  

Indeed, a couple of weeks ago you would have heard me preach exactly that point, that we should be recognising Jesus Christ as our ultimate authority in all things.  A single sermon though, like a single verse of scripture, is not something that necessarily allows for examination of a nuanced point of view.  I agree with Peter that we must obey God rather than human authority, but we have to ask ourselves what does obeying God look like?  Are God’s wishes always clear and unambiguous.  Always certain?  Should we allow ourselves room to doubt ourselves in how we hear God’s command?

I ask myself, does God order us to force our beliefs on others?  Does God order us to loudly and ostentatiously demand the right to wear a crucifix at work?  Does God order us to picket abortion clinics and demand an absolute right to harass vulnerable women making one of the most difficult decisions of their lives?  Some would say that we should, that this is what Christian witness is all about.

On the other hand, did Jesus go to the cross raging and cursing?  Did he stand before Pilate demanding his rights?  Did he condemn those who condemned him?

Or did he go to his death humbly, but with certainty?  Not certainty that he would not suffer.  Not certainty that God would raise him.  Not certainty that he understood God’s plans and mind.  But certainty that God had called him to be faithful even if that meant that he had to suffer and to die, and certainty that he would be faithful to God’s covenant with him that by going to this death, God’s will would be done.

In Francis, the Holy Spirit gave us a pope who showed what humility can look like, even in the powerful, in life as well as in death.  

Let us obey God, but let us do so in humble faith, always doubting in our own strength and certainty.

Amen

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Main Service Sermons

Mission here and now

17th Sunday after Trinity, 2023. Year B.

Readings: James 3:13—4:3, 7-8a & Mark 9:30-37.

The epistle of James is not one of the better known of the books of the New Testament.  This is unfortunate because James is a key figure of the early church, and his letter provides a unique view on early Christian theology.

One of the possible reasons why James is so ignored, especially in protestant circles, is because it can easily be seen as contradicting Pauline theology, and proposing a doctrine of works which the early protestants associated with the excesses and abuses of the Roman Catholic church of their times, rather than a doctrine of salvation by faith alone, that Luther and the other protestant founders found in Paul’s letter to the Romans.

This is a somewhat simplistic reading of both epistles though, and also very rooted in the context in which Luther found himself.  If we look back to the original context of the epistles, I think we can recognise that Romans is far from the academic theological treatise that it is sometimes claimed to be.  

Instead it is, like all of Paul’s epistles, written at a particular time, to a particular church and for a particular reason.  In the case of Romans, it is the only letter written to a church that Paul did not found, and therefore lacks some of the more personal and pastoral content that his other letters contain.  

This is not a church that Paul has particular influence over, or that he is admonishing or teaching.  Instead, this is a long established and influential church of its own, being present in the capital of the Roman empire, but one which we now think probably had deep divisions, following Claudius’ expulsion of the Jews from Rome.  It is likely that many gentile Christians remained in Rome, and when the Jews returned after the death of Claudius, there may have been rivalry between the two groups on who was going to lead the Roman church.  

Certainly it was a church with a strong Jewish character, which is why Paul is so keen to stress his Jewish credentials in the letter, and also why he spends so long in justifying why and how gentile Christians can be included as those justified in the eyes of God.  

Faith is key to this, not just the faith or faithfulness of those gentiles, but also the faithfulness of Christ to both the ancient covenants and to the wishes or will of God.  This faithfulness of Christ, the Jewish messiah, is the key bridge that allows him to justify both Jews and gentiles, and Romans is a long and carefully reasoned letter to persuade the Jewish Christians of this.

This Jewish Christian faction or party is one that Paul has locked horns with many times, and its leader was James, who wrote our epistle.  James, also called the Just and the brother of Jesus, was the leader of the Jerusalem church up until his martyrdom at the instigation of the high priest some time in the sixties AD.  He is the James who presides at the council of Jerusalem and proposes the compromise that allows Gentile Christians to avoid having to follow the whole of the Mosaic law.  He was widely regarded by all the Jews as a pious and devout man, which may have been why it took so long for the authorities to move against him.

We think that the church in Rome was probably started by Jewish Christians from Jerusalem who followed many of James’ teachings, which is why Paul needs to go to such pains to assure them of his Jewish Christian roots, given what seems to have been a history of antipathy between him and James.

James, from his letter, has a theology that seems more rooted in the gospel teachings of Jesus about living a righteous and just life, rather than some of the more spiritual theology of Paul’s epistles.  

This seems entirely appropriate for someone who was one of Jesus’ disciples as well as his brother, and whose congregation was mainly Jewish, and therefore inhabited the same culture as Jesus was preaching to.

James therefore is almost certainly one of the disciples that we hear about in our Gospel reading today, arguing over who amongst them was the greatest.  It is possible indeed that James would have been establishing a case for himself, given his relationship with Jesus.  We never find out unfortunately what other criteria are being advanced?  Length of acquaintance?  Miracles worked?  Lepers healed?  Closeness of friendship?

What we do know is that Jesus uses this to teach them something of the nature of Christian leadership and behaviour.  Christian leadership is about service, to each other and to the world.

The disciples have faith in Jesus – they have given up their families, the livelihoods and their homes to follow him as teacher, prophet and messiah.  But that faith in him is not yet translating itself into the behaviour that Jesus expects of them, and Jesus is always very clear that words without action are not sufficient.  The repentance that he is calling all people to is a physical repentance, a turning round of their lives.

He is also clear that it is not about putting ourselves first.  A superficial reading of some of Paul’s writings can make us think that our personal salvation through faith is important, but I think Jesus is making it clear that we are to put others before ourselves.  Our role as Christians, as leaders, as lights to the world, is to put the needs of the world first, and ourselves last.

Mission, literally going out, is what being a Christian is all about.  God doesn’t help us by waiting for us to come to him.  Instead he sends his son to become one of us, live amongst us, become human, while still at the same time remaining God.  In the same way, we are called to go out into the world, meet people where they are, live amongst them, while still at the same time remaining distinctly Christian.

James is the first to admit that this is difficult.  We are still profoundly human, and therefore we carry all the troubles and weaknesses of being human with us.  We should rise above them through the grace of Christ, but all too often we fail.  We should and would like to be recognised as Christian by our actions, and bear witness to the gospel in all that we do, but unfortunately we have in the past and continue to fall short.

Our response to this though should not be to withdraw from the world, or hide ourselves from it, but to redouble our efforts, admit our shortcomings, ask for forgiveness.  Whatever the world asks of us, we should do twice as much for the joy of life in Christ.  

As an example, given our gospel reading, when we seek to welcome children amongst us, we would like to be trusted as Christians that we would only every thing to treat them as Jesus commands us in the gospels, as our neighbours and fellow citizens of the kingdom, but historically all to often we have failed in this, and abused positions of power and privilege.  The response to this is not denial and secrecy, but should be to embrace safeguarding not as a chore, or a secular imposition, but instead an expression of our common failings and repentance, and of our determination to live a gospel-inspired and Christ-like life in the future.  We should rejoice in the opportunity to demonstrate to the world what the kingdom will look like, where all are valued and respected equally.

What then is our mission as a Christian community?  What are our values, and how will we live out these values, not here in this building on a Sunday morning for an hour, but for the other one hundred and sixty seven hours of the week in the world that we have been sent into, to be a light to?

Next weekend we have a chance to think, debate, meditate and pray on what our mission is, not just individually, but as a community.  How are we going to be that city on a hill, the light on the lampstand?

It is easy to be overwhelmed when we think about Christian mission.  The world is a big and broken place, and we seem few and poor in comparison.  We are not called upon to do this alone though.  There are I think two considerations that we need to remember as we prepare for next weekend.

First we are called to do this as a community by God, and God will always be there to help and support us.  Nothing that we do will bear fruit without God, although God will work through us, as he worked through his Son.

Secondly we are in the context that we are in, alongside many other churches in contexts both similar and very different.  We have the gifts and skills we have in the place we are, and we should be seeking not to emulate others but to serve God in the way best suited to us.  

We are blessed with many gifts amongst us, gifts of money, time and skills.  Empathy, love and understanding, Talking, listening and doing.  We are called upon to grow the kingdom of God, let us do so with a vision that is bold and clear and Christlike.

Amen.

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Main Service Sermons

Speaking truth to power

7th Sunday after Trinity. Year B.

Readings: Ephesians 1:3-14 & Mark 6:14-29.

John the Baptist always seems to be a rather marginal figure in the modern church given how prominent he is in the gospels.  

We probably know more about him than any other figure apart from Jesus.

Unlike the disciples, we get an account of his miraculous birth and parentage, we get constant updates on his provocative and impactful mission, and we get an account of his death.

Born only a few months before Jesus himself, he obviously hits the ground running in order to fulfil his scriptural role as the voice crying in the wilderness.

By the time Jesus is ready to undertake his ministry, John already has a large and dedicated following for his message of repentance symbolised by a ritual of baptism.

Indeed, it seems like Jesus is waiting for John to lay that ground work, to make smooth the way of the Lord.

One of his first actions after all is to go to John and undergo this ritual of baptism that John has been using.  No, surely, to wash away his sins, but more to show that he is building upon the foundations that John has laid.

Not that this stops John’s followers from remaining a distinct and at times antagonistic group from those following Jesus. 

The message that John was giving was obviously distinctive enough that disagreements like this could break out.

John was a prophet in the great tradition of old testament prophets.

A biblical prophet is not someone who predicts the future – that is a more modern usage of the word.  A biblical prophet is someone who publicly declares God’s truth.  Often this does involve speaking of the future, but normally only of immediate consequences of anticipated, current or past actions, not grandiose predictions of the end of the world.

The important thing that a prophet is doing is warning people that their actions are not righteous, not in accordance with the way we should be behaving if we want to be true to God.

And often prophets are warning those in power.  Prophets are the antidote to the corrupting influence of unchallenged power.  

A particularly apposite example from the old testament is the prophet Nathan, who lived in the reign of King David.  When David sleeps with Bathsheeba and then has Uriah the Hittite killed, in order to be able to marry her, Nathan is on hand, using a parable, to get David to admit that what he has done is wrong.  It is to David’s credit that he doesn’t punish Nathan for his truthfulness.

John is in a similar position with Herod.

This is not the Herod of the nativity – who was Herod the Great.

This is Herod Antipas, one of his many sons, who ended up as ruler or Tetrarch of Galilee.  It’s the same Herod that Jesus is sent to by Pilate, presumably because, coming from Galilee, he is one of Herod’s subjects.

The Herod who executes James and imprisons Peter is yet another Herod – Herod Agrippa, who was his step-nephew, and brother of Herodias.

And this was the nub of John’s problem – Herod had married Herodias who was both his step-niece, and also his step-brother’s ex-wife.  And not because his step-brother was dead – this was no levirate marriage where a brother marries his brother’s widow in order to provide for her.  That would have been fine under the law.  No, the brother, also confusingly called Herod, was still alive.

So John very publicly called out Herod for marrying Herodias on two counts – she was his niece and his still-living brother’s divorced wife.  Unlike Nathan, he doesn’t seem to have done it with a subtle parable, but then he wasn’t a court prophet so probably didn’t have the level of access that Nathan had to David.  No, he has done it publicly, and Herod has had him thrown in jail for it.

Herod though seems to be content to stop at this though – he recognises that John is a prophet, and righteous and holy.  It is an interesting observation that he enjoys his sermons, even if he doesn’t understand them.  It feels like Herod is guilty mainly of falling in love with someone that he shouldn’t have, although that is a failing in someone in a position of authority like Herod, and if you want to go and read more of the history of the period, you will see that his love for and marriage to Herodias is the root of events that lead to his downfall, and probably a lot of grief for his subjects as well.  

Herod feels like he was a weak ruler – wanting to rule wisely and well, but not able to do so because he couldn’t control his passions, and maybe wasn’t as clever as his father, although also not as cruel as well.  Certainly he gets trapped into making rash promises and then isn’t strong enough to refuse to honour them when they lead to the execution of an innocent man.

Herodias his wife emerges as the villain of the piece, maybe in an echo of the relationship between Ahab and Jezebel.  It is she who wants John to die for what he has said.  Is this the action of a cruel and vindictive woman, or is it someone who is constrained by her time and culture, someone who despite her royal upbringing is fated to be defined by who she is married to, and therefore for whom the validity of her marriage is core to her existence?  By criticising this marriage, is John striking at her very sense of being?  Is this why she is so vehement that he should die?  Do her motives come from a place of weakness rather than cruel strength?  We will never know.

Whatever the motivations, the outcome though is very definite – John’s speaking of truth to power leads to the ultimate sanction for a prophet – his own death.  Speaking truth is dangerous, both in biblical times, and in modern times, as the modern prophets and martyrs Janani Luwum and Oscar Romero could testify, along with many others. 

Speaking these truths is what we are all called upon to do as Christians, wherever we find ourselves.  In every interaction we have, in our families, amongst our friends, in our workplaces, even, or most especially here in church, we can always be aware of behaviour that is wrong, where people are abusing their positions of privilege and power to take advantage of others, or demean them, or aggrandize themselves.  To behave in a way that is not kingdom-affirming, that doesn’t conform to the gospel message of love, harmony and equality before God.  And we can take that opportunity to remind people gently, calmly, lovingly, that there is another way, a better way, a way that affirms the God-given dignity of all human beings.  And filled with the Spirit, our words will be heard.  Maybe not acted upon today.  Maybe not for years.  But those words will be heard.

Amen

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Main Service Sermons

Foolishness in Corinth

Third Sunday in Lent, 2024. Year B.

Readings: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 & John 2:13-22.

“For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God”, says Paul to the Corinthians.  It is “A stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles”.

The passage we have just read follows from his opening appeal to them to heal their divisions, and stop the factional infighting that he has heard is plaguing their church.

Corinth in Roman times was a wealthy and outgoing trading city, but unlike some of its neighbouring Greek cities, not one with the confidence of antiquity in its culture, because the ancient Greek city was completely depopulated and destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC, and the city we know of from Paul’s letters was only refounded by Julius Caesar in 44 BC, so maybe only 90 or 100 years before Paul was writing his letters.  

So the Corinth he is writing to is a young, brash city still trying to assert its identity amongst its older, more established neighbours, with a population drawn from many different cultures.

And it’s important to remind ourselves that Paul’s letters are pastoral letters – he is always writing in response to a specific situation in a specific place at a specific time.  

The advice he gives is rooted in scripture and his theological thinking, and deeply inspired by the Holy Spirit, but we can’t just take it wholesale and apply it verbatim to another situation.  

In the same way that Paul sifts through the Jewish scriptures that were written for other people at other times in other contexts and creatively reinterprets them in the light of the Cross, so we too have to do the same with his writings, in the light of our context, with our knowledge of the scriptures, and listening to what the Holy Spirit is saying to us.

And to do this in a way that is inspired, that is filled with the Holy Spirit and is true to the whole message of the Gospel from incarnation to crucifixion to resurrection is not simple or easy.  

Anyone who says that understanding and interpreting the Bible is easy is either a saint, or hasn’t been reading their Bible with enough attention.  

The Bible is a complex body of writing, appearing at times to be contradictory, often saying things we don’t want to hear.  It is written in many voices, each reflecting their own understanding of God.  It is hard to understand.

God isn’t trying to make things hard for us, he sent his only Son to die for us after all, but the proper working of his creation as he intended it is too vast and complex for us to easily understand.  

It is his unending love for us that is what leads him to the progressive revelation that we can see at work in the Bible, showing us what we can understand, and then as we grow in the Spirit, revealing the next step of the Gospel message.  

God doesn’t call us to him, He comes to us and walks with us as we progress towards him, however slowly.

The Corinthians come over as brash and cocky in their attitude to life.  A real bunch of know-it-alls.  It feels at times like they have the outward confidence or even arrogance of those who deep down are very insecure about themselves and their place in the world.

The Greeks and Romans amongst them probably included many who had had a good education by the standards of the time in rhetoric, grammar and logic.  The Jews probably included many who had completed much study of the Jewish scriptures.

Paul comes amongst them to preach the Gospel, and he admits elsewhere he is not handsome or prepossessing, he doesn’t speak like a great orator or debate with the eloquence of a leading advocate.

And he says many of them form a low opinion about him and his message because of this.  They think they are more learned and intelligent than him, and they listen to other Christian missionaries who are more to their liking – smoother, more glib, maybe giving a simpler message.

But Paul’s message to them in this passage is that all their learning is of no use to them when it comes to understanding the Gospel message.  Indeed, he tells them, it is actively hampering them from understanding it and becoming one with Christ.

Rather than being rich in learning and wisdom, they are impoverished spiritually.  And they don’t even realise it as they indulge in their petty squabbles.

Because the Gospel proclamation, the message of the Cross, is not something that can be accessed through knowledge or philosophy.

Those amongst them who were students of Greek philosophy might have listened to accounts of Jesus’ teaching and nodded approvingly at some of his parables.  

There a whole strand of literature today still that tries to recast Jesus as some sort of wandering Jewish stoic philosopher, whose simple message was wrapped in a load of religious mumbo-jumbo after his death by his followers to build a sort of religious Ponzi scheme.  

But to do this means we have to ignore a lot of what Jesus said and did because it doesn’t fit into this conceptualization.  

And it becomes hard to explain why the Romans would crucify a wandering philosopher, and requires a complete denial of the resurrection entirely.  

And it reduces Jesus to just another man, whose words we can pick and chose, take or ignore.  

It falls into the trap of all humanism, that there is no baseline truth against which everything else can be measured.  Everything, every experience and every truth just becomes relative.

Maybe this is why Paul so rarely refers to Jesus’ teachings and parables, because he is working so much amongst Gentile populations who too easily seize upon the philosophical teaching, and Paul wants to bring them to a more spiritual understanding.

For the learned Jews amongst the audience expecting the Davidic Messiah of Daniel or Ezekiel or Enoch – the Son of Man coming to God on a cloud of glory, having brought all the world under his rule, then Jesus’ death on the cross is even more of a stumbling block.  The Messiah, taken by Gentiles, broken and tortured, and then hung on a tree, the curse of God in the Mosaic law.  Such a man could never be the Messiah, surely.

But Paul is saying to them that they have things back to front.  They cannot come to Christ through their traditional knowledge and learning, through the categories that they have always thought in.  

The cross has changed everything, he says.  All their previous knowledge and understanding needs to re-evaluated and placed into that context.

They must come through faith, and then, in the light of that faith, they can re-use their knowledge and reason to truly understand the message of the cross.  

The message is not written on the outside of the curtain, but rather on the inside, and we must pass through that curtain so that we can see it from within, and only then will we be able to start reading the true message.  

As he says, the message about the cross is the power of God to us who are being saved.

The disciples in John’s story bear witness to this.  They hear Jesus’ words – “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up”, but it is only after he has been raised from the dead, in the light of that re-understood faith, that they remember that he said this and they believed the scripture and the word he had spoken.

Time and again in the Gospels, we see that despite their faith, their understanding is lacking.  And at times, we also see that despite their knowledge of Jesus, their faith can be lacking.  

But, God has come and met them where they are, and walking alongside them in the poverty of their understanding and faith, he helps them and guides them, so that their knowledge increases their faith, and their growing faith informs their knowledge, so that that increased knowledge can in turn move them forward on that journey of faith.  

It is not a single revelation, but a continuing cycle of growing and understanding and believing.  A cycle that all of us, as disciples of Christ, should be in, and continue to be in throughout our lives, hopefully always humble in the poverty of our human faith and understanding.

Let us pray.

God of understanding and wisdom.  We come before you conscious of our own limitations of wisdom and faith.  Walk with us this Lententide as we seek to follow you more fully in the humility of our faithful witness.

Amen

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Main Service Sermons

The sovereignty of God

Twentieth Sunday after Trinity, 2023. Year A.

Readings: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 & Matthew 22:15-22.

There aren’t many people who enjoy paying taxes, so I guess it’s disappointing that Jesus doesn’t use this exchange to provide us with a sound basis for a religious exemption from taxation.

Even if we may not enjoy paying taxes though, much of modern taxation is something that has a moral and ethical basis in principles of either charitable redistribution from the wealthy to the poor, or as insurance, where we all pay for things like a health service that we hope we will rarely need to use, but have the comfort of knowing is available and accessible if we do need it.

Ancient taxation rarely had that sort of moral aim and was normally purely a way for the rulers to support themselves to enjoy a standard of living that greatly exceeded that of the ruled who were paying for it.  

And Roman tax gatherers were notorious for their greed, rapacity and corruption. Taxation was to be a source of dissent and rebellion throughout the Roman Empire for its entire history.  In first century Judea though, the issue of Roman taxation carried extra, religious weight as well.

The historian Josephus tells us that there was a rebellion in 6 AD over the introduction of Roman taxation after the death of Herod the Great led by another Galilean, although called Judas rather than Jesus.  

The trap the Pharisees are laying is to see if they can get this new Galilean troublemaker to also come out, in public, as an opponent of Roman taxation like his predecessor, and give them ammunition to maybe denounce him to the Roman authorities.

Taxation is a very concrete expression of sovereignty.  I encountered an example of this in my job a few years ago with one of our customers, a Native American tribe that were operating a casino on their tribal reservation, which is permitted even in US states that don’t permit gambling because the supreme court ruled that tribal reservations are sovereign territory, outside of the control of the states that they were physically located in.  This customer wanted us to add in a software check for online wagers to see if the online wager was being placed while the player was standing on tribal land, because if so, they refused to pay the state gambling tax on those wagers.  The cost of implementing the check was far higher than the amount they would save, but it was a matter of principle – paying the state tax could be taken as an admission that the state had sovereignty over them.  That was something that they were unwilling to risk.

For religious Jews of the time, who believed that they were a nation that was ruled directly by God, paying Roman taxes could similarly be viewed as denying the divine authority of God.

In addition, there were the Roman coins themselves, which had to be used to pay Roman taxes.  Roman coins, like the denarius that Jesus requests, carried the image of the emperor – Tiberius at this point, although undoubtedly there were still plenty of coins with Augustus’s image still on them as well.

Obviously having an image is bad enough, given the second commandment, but around that image would have been the words ‘Tiberius Augustus, Son of God’, which just compounds the blasphemy for a monotheistic people.  How can a mere man claim to be son of God?

So for observant Jews, even handling such money would have been idolatrous.  It is not to the Pharasee’s credit that they are able to produce such a coin here, in the Temple courtyard, in the house of God.  Not permitting such idolatry in the Temple is why there were money changers in the Temple for Jesus to throw out, so that only coins that conformed to Jewish law were present in the temple.  Jesus turns them out because they are profiteering from the ordinary people, not because he objects to the temple coinage itself.

So here we have a question posed to Jesus where the ‘correct’ religious answer is fairly obvious, if somewhat dangerous.  

Is Jesus just cleverly equivocating to avoid being entrapped and having a premature end brought to his ministry, rather than standing up for what he believes in?

Or is he actually answering a completely different question; the more interesting question that he wants to answer, like a good modern politician?

Jesus’ main message in the Gospels is pretty clear – the Kingdom of God has arrived.  It is here and now.  Most of his listeners don’t understand this because they are looking for a different manifestation of the Kingdom of God.  So he has another message for those people who are seeking to establish the Kingdom through violence and rebellion against the Romans.  

He warns them again and again, in parables and in apocalyptic visions, that the outcome of violence will be destruction and devastation for everyone.  In Jesus’ time this might just be an accurate assessment of the power and brutality that the Roman state could bring to bear, but it is also a timeless reminder that violence will always create more violence.  The zealots are hoping that God will intervene to bring them victory, but Jesus is here to warn them that God wants a kingdom built on love and sacrifice instead.

Jesus’ message is that the Kingdom of God is already here, and yet, 2000 years later, we look around us, and it sometimes seems that we are increasingly far from the full manifestation of that kingdom.  We know that we are called to inhabit a liminal place – we are called to work in and towards a kingdom that is here, and is also yet to come – but sometimes that work can feel very unrewarding and unproductive.

The very fact of the incarnation tells us that the kingdom of God is a kingdom of this world.  

It is not a kingdom that is a reward for us in heaven after we are dead.  

It is not a kingdom that is only found within the walls of the church for two hours on a Sunday morning.  

It is a kingdom that must and will transform the everyday world around us, inside and outside of these walls.  Jesus tells the Pharisees that we should return to the world what is the world’s and to God what is God’s.  This is obviously a false dichotomy, because the world is God’s anyway; but what Jesus is also saying to us here is that we should be in and part of the world rather than trying to withdraw from the world.  

The way of the Essene or the hermit or the cloistered monk or nun may be a worthy way of life and means of worshipping God, but God demands more than worship from us.  He demands that we should go out into the world, in the footsteps of his Son, and be the kingdom in the world.  Jesus doesn’t call all of us to give up everything of the world for him either.  Some, like the disciples, are called to give up everything and follow him.  But the tax-gatherer, to use an appropriate example, is merely called to be honest and open in his dealings when gathering tax.  That itself would have been behaviour so unusual as to have been a strong witness.  The Kingdom that Jesus promises is not a place of self-denial or joylessness.  Instead it is a great feast, where all are welcome no matter who they are, and where all are seated with equal honour, and where no one is forced to serve another, but all share and help one another willingly.   A feast where we don’t exploit one another, or God’s creation.

That is the kingdom we are called to bring in.  Our two hours on a Sunday morning in this building are a time to recharge our spiritual batteries – the other 166 hours a week that we spend outside this place are where we are called to discharge those spiritual batteries, and give to the world.

Amen

8 am version

The Pharisees are posing a question to Jesus where the ‘correct’ religious answer is fairly obvious, if somewhat dangerous.  Is Jesus just cleverly equivocating to avoid being entrapped and having a premature end brought to his ministry, rather than standing up for what he believes in?

Or is he actually answering a completely different question; the more interesting question that he wants to answer, like a good modern politician?

Jesus’ main message in the Gospels is pretty clear – the Kingdom of God has arrived.  It is here and now.  Most of his listeners don’t understand this because they are looking for a different manifestation of the Kingdom of God.  So he has another message for those people who are seeking to establish the Kingdom through violence and rebellion against the Romans.  

He warns them again and again, in parables and in apocalyptic visions, that the outcome of violence will be destruction and devastation for everyone.  In Jesus’ time this might just be an accurate assessment of the power and brutality that the Roman state could bring to bear, but it is also a timeless reminder that violence will always create more violence.  The zealots are hoping that God will intervene to bring them victory, but Jesus is here to warn them that God wants a kingdom built on love and sacrifice instead.

Jesus’ message is that the Kingdom of God is already here, and yet, 2000 years later, we look around us, and it sometimes seems that we are increasingly far from the full manifestation of that kingdom.  We know that we are called to inhabit a liminal place – we are called to work in and towards a kingdom that is here, and is also yet to come – but sometimes that work can feel very unrewarding and unproductive.

The very fact of the incarnation tells us that the kingdom of God is a kingdom of this world.  

It is not a kingdom that is a reward for us in heaven after we are dead.  

It is not a kingdom that is only found within the walls of the church for two hours on a Sunday morning.  

It is a kingdom that must and will transform the everyday world around us, inside and outside of these walls.  Jesus tells the Pharisees that we should return to the world what is the world’s and to God what is God’s.  This is obviously a false dichotomy, because the world is God’s anyway; but what Jesus is also saying to us here is that we should be in and part of the world rather than trying to withdraw from the world.  

The way of the Essene or the hermit or the cloistered monk or nun may be a worthy way of life and means of worshipping God, but God demands more than worship from us.  He demands that we should go out into the world, in the footsteps of his Son, and be the kingdom in the world.  Jesus doesn’t call all of us to give up everything of the world for him either.  Some, like the disciples, are called to give up everything and follow him.  But the tax-gatherer, to use an appropriate example, is merely called to be honest and open in his dealings when gathering tax.  That itself would have been behaviour so unusual as to have been a strong witness.  The Kingdom that Jesus promises is not a place of self-denial or joylessness.  Instead it is a great feast, where all are welcome no matter who they are, and where all are seated with equal honour, and where no one is forced to serve another, but all share and help one another willingly.   A feast where we don’t exploit one another, or God’s creation.

That is the kingdom we are called to bring in.  Our two hours on a Sunday morning in this building are a time to recharge our spiritual batteries – the other 166 hours a week that we spend outside this place are where we are called to discharge those spiritual batteries, and give to the world.

Amen

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Main Service Sermons

Now, and yet to come

Ascension Sunday, 2022. Year C.

Readings: Acts 16:16-34 & John 17.20-26.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our refuge and our redeemer. 

Ascension Sunday is one of the two liminal points in the church calendar, the other being Holy Saturday.   Like Holy Saturday we are caught between despair and joy.  I don’t know if the despair felt less for the disciples on Ascension day than it had done on Good Friday – obviously witnessing Jesus coming in glory to the father must have been a much more uplifting experience than seeing him flogged, tortured and nailed to a cross.  But at the same time, the sense of loss must still have been extreme.  The kingdom had come with Jesus, and then been snatched away from them on Good Friday, only to return triumphant on Easter Sunday.  Now, a mere forty days later, Jesus was leaving them again.  They would be excused for being overwhelmed by the speed at which events were taking place, and confused as to how all this fitted in with the prophecies that they had been brought up with, and those that Jesus had told them as well. 

Why, I imagine they must have thought, why do we have to wait? 

And that is the question that we are still asking ourselves. 

We also live in a liminal point.  The kingdom is here, amongst us, and yet it is also yet to come. 

Why are we still waiting for the coming of the kingdom?  Why is the whole world not yet transformed by the glory of God into the creation that was originally intended?  Indeed, as we look around, we could be forgiven for feeling that the state of creation is regressing, rather than advancing. 

Paul, cast into prison with Silas, would undoubtedly have agreed.  Why is everyone resisting the good news so hard.   

Much of Paul’s theology revolves around demonstrating that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed Messiah, but that the consequence of that messianic revelation is not what he and the other Jews had expected it to be. 

Because Paul focusses in on how Jesus’ death and resurrection have affected us, especially us Gentiles who are not part of God’s covenants with Abraham and Moses, because of his focus on the traditional western Christian themes of atonement and substitution, I feel we can have an unhelpful and possibly unhealthy concern about our personal salvation. 

And yet Jesus says, in John’s words, ‘I ask not only on behalf of these (the disciples at the last supper, excluding Judas who has already left), not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word (that’s us), that they may all be one.’ 

And later – ‘The glory which you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.’ 

So we are all in this together.  God’s kingdom will be a community. 

That isn’t to say that we will lose our individuality, but our individuality will be less important than our commonality.  Not a message that chimes with 21st century western thought.  

And God loves all of his creation, no matter how flawed and broken it is. 

There can be a temptation to see this life as a time of trial, a test almost, that we have to pass in order to get into heaven.  

But God never intending this world to be a test for us.  He created the world good and whole, and made Adam and Eve to enjoy it in his own image and glory.  The world was created to be enjoyed and cared for, by us.  Not because God needed to create it, but because he chose to create it and us, and to share his love with us 

That creation went wrong, and God seeks, through us, to repair and restore it.   

Progressively he has sought to repair it, through his covenant with Noah, through his covenant with Abraham, and his covenant with Moses.  Each time, we have proven to be more stubborn than God hoped we would be, and so creation has proved more difficult to fix. 

Finally, God played his trump card.  He would himself intervene to save creation, by sending his Son to show us what the right creation looked like.  In Jesus, we would be able to see the glory of God, and would know what we were originally called to be. 

And in addition, Jesus would call in all the negativity of creation, all the darkest emotions of anger and hatred, let them do their worst on him, and then three days later, show that they had no power at all over God. 

But showing that these forces of evil are powerless against God doesn’t make them go away.  And there is still evil in the world, as we can see all around us.  

These forces still have power over us, especially if we try to resist them in our own power, rather than trusting in God. 

These powers throw Paul and Silas into jail.   

It is characteristic of this liminal time that we live in, that they, like Peter on another occasion, escape, but many other apostles and Christians did not escape.  Why are Peter and Paul saved, while James for example, is cast into prison and executed? 

Why are nineteen innocent children killed by a deranged teenager in Texas?  I say deranged, but is that the explanation?  Speaking of evil isn’t very fashionable at the moment – we try to find reasons for things, excuses from childhood or upbringing.  Nurture over nature.  And certainly circumstances can cause us to be broken; can tempt us to do the wrong thing.  Adam and Eve certainly discovered that.  Their nature was good, but circumstances and others tempted them to do wrong.  But even if it is all circumstances, we can still talk of evil pervading the world, even if it is of our own making. 

But why is it there?  Why create a creation with the capacity for wrong? 

God doesn’t have to explain himself to us.  It may be a miracle that recued Paul and Silas from prison, but it wasn’t a miracle that put them in prison.  God didn’t beat and imprison them, we did in our pride and arrogance and self-indulgence.  Yes, God permits us to be who we are, and we can ask other questions about why that is, but God does not compel us to be sinful.  We do that to ourselves. 

We, in a wide sense, permit our self-indulgence of wanting to own guns become more important to us than the Gospel message of caring for others.  We may say that here, in this country, we don’t, but we are all one before God.  We cannot just turn our backs on the sins and suffering of others.  We are all in this together. 

So the question is not why we are still in this liminal period of waiting for the fullness of the Kingdom of God. 

We are still in this period because creation still needs to be remade, and God, who made us as the crowning glory of his creation, wants to glorify us yet further by making us part of the remaking of creation.  Not in a narrow, you broke it, you own it way, but because he wants to reaffirm us as the image of God. 

We are part of the problem, and part of the solution.  Certainly not the whole solution – only God can show us what the true rightness of creation is, which he did in his Son. 

So we do not know why we wait for the coming Kingdom, but we do know that it is also already here, in the person of Jesus Christ.  

We do not know why we wait, but we do know that while we do, we are not passive observers, but active participants. 

We do not know why we wait, but like the disciples, we wait in the knowledge that God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son.  We know that the outcome is settled, the victory is won, the new creation will come. 

Amen. 

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Incarnation and temptation

First Sunday of Lent, 2022. Year C.

Readings: Romans 10:8b-13 & Luke 4:1-13.

May these words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

The incarnation is a uniquely Christian religious concept.  Plenty of other religions have or had stories of men becoming gods, or gods assuming the shape of men, but I know of no others that have, as one of their central stories, God becoming man.  Jesus was the word made flesh.  Not pretending to be a man, or seeming to be a man, but actually a man.  And a man who allowed himself to be beaten and whipped and put to death.  In Jesus, God experiences humanity as we experience it.

Despite this, scripture and tradition are clear on one thing though – Jesus was without sin.  Jesus is man as God originally intended man to be; the second Adam.  The book of Genesis shows us the solution to the inconsistent triad – an all-loving God was all-powerful in creating a world without suffering, but we chose to use our divine gift of free-will to create pain and suffering in the world.  God’s solution to this is not to remove free-will.  It is to give us the law, the prophets, and finally his own Son to lead us on the path of redemption and salvation.  He first attempted to make us sinless by making us innocent of sin, but once we had fallen, the only way back is for us to confront our sinfulness.

Jesus may be without sin, but that does not mean that he is without temptation.  Adam was tempted, and temptation is part of our pre-Fall humanity, so Jesus shares that temptation with us in his full and complete humanity.  In Matthew’s gospel, we read of the sort of temptations that Jesus was prey to.  The bible personifies this temptation both here and in Genesis as the work of the devil, elsewhere called the Satan – the adversary or the accuser.  But this is not some external agency working on us – our temptations come from within us.

Jesus feels three temptations. 

The first is hunger and thirst, understandable having spend forty days and nights fasting.  His temptation is to use his power to turn the stones into bread to satisfy his own needs.  His response is that physical nourishment is worthless without spiritual nourishment as well.  Fasting can be a good discipline for our minds and bodies, although we should also reflect on the luxury that we have to chose to fast, compared to those who have no food.  Today we are thinking of those in the Ukraine denied access to food and water; but for tomorrow we will need to think about the dire impact this war will have on food supplies for the whole world.

The second is to tempt God – to push him and see how he will react.  Surely God will save us, we might cry ourselves.  God will save us, but our ways are not his ways.  Jesus tells his adversary  not to put God to the test – a double edged message.  In our inhumanity to each other, we are constantly putting God to the test, defiling that which He made in His own image.  God forgives us in his infinite mercy and grace, but actions have consequences, even if their sinfulness is forgiven.

Thirdly he is tempted by worldly power.  We can see what the results of that temptation are, right now, in the destruction of the Ukraine and the impoverishment of Russia.  One man, surrendering to a temptation like that, is leading millions of people into starvation, ruin and death.  The ancient world had no shortage of similar tyrants.  Jesus refuses take on such worldly power at the price of becoming a slave to such worldly power.

In each case, Jesus is offered an easy solution to the world’s problems.  He can solve world hunger with the wave of his hand.  He can rule the world as a benevolent tyrant.  But complex problems are not solved by easy solutions, and human sinfulness and the consequent fallenness of creation is a complex problem. 

We are faced with an escalating war where we have no idea what the outcome or consequences will be.  There are plenty of people offering solutions, or telling us what should have been done different to have stopped it happening, but the reality is that this is a complex problem, created at its heart by human greed, pride and ambition.  In this Lenten season let us examine ourselves, and try to hold ourselves to account and resist such urges in ourselves, trusting not in ourselves, but in God.

Amen

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Russian invasion of Ukraine

This sermon was delivered the Sunday after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The Gospel appointed in the lectionary was the transfiguration, which was what the sermon was therefore originally going to reference.

Readings: 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36

This week has been a week where writing a sermon in advance has felt like a futile activity, events have been changing so fast.
A week ago, I was reading the passage in the lectionary for this Sunday, and thinking about the transfiguration, and what I could say about it.
The week before that, I was talking to someone over dinner, an ex-politician, and he was advancing the view that the church (and I think he meant specifically the Church of England) shouldn’t get involved in politics.
I guess he would prefer if I did just give a sermon about the transfiguration, why Moses and Elijah were there, what Peter was thinking of when he offered to build huts for them, and all those sorts of things.
But the Church can’t not talk about politics, for several reasons.
The first is that the Church has been a political captive ever since the 4th century AD, when it became the state religion of the Roman Empire. As a result of that bargain, it became a part of the apparatus of government, and has been ever since. Sometimes the church becomes fatally compromised; or, as in the case of the Russian Orthodox Church, the state church becomes a direct tool of state power and oppression. In England, fortunately, these days are behind us; but it still feels two-faced when governments demand the church not get involved with politics whenever it dares to voice an independent point of view. Governments – and leaders – are not always right
The second is that politics – which means the affairs of the village, the poleis in Greek – has always been something that the Church has cared about. Christianity is not a metaphysical religion – it is not about personal enlightenment and one’s own journey. Christianity is about a people who have been chosen by God to make God’s world right again, not by individual effort, but by being a community of God, attempting to live in harmony with God and in the way that God always intended us to live. Politics is the management of the affairs of a community, and the Church is a community, within a community. We are not called to personal salvation, we are called to be a light to the world, so that all the world may be saved. That is a political matter.
The third is that Jesus was political, and if we are called to live our lives like Jesus, that means we must be political too. If Jesus were not political, the Romans would never have bothered to execute him. They didn’t care about Jewish accusations of blasphemy – they cared because he was a threat to their power.
But if we are called to be political, we need to be very careful how we are political. As Christians, we should not articulate a Christian political message because we are socialists or Marxists or communists or capitalists or any other -ists. We need to articulate a definitively Christian political view – one that is rooted in the scripture and in Christ as revealed in the scriptures and in the Holy Spirit.
To come back to my original sermon, what can the transfiguration tell us about the events in Ukraine? What might one, and just one, distinctively Christian political take on the week’s events look like?
A common first question might be – where is God in all of this?
And the answer, as always, is everywhere.
God is in the suffering and the pain, the dying and the mourning, just as God is in the joy and the happiness when things are going well.
We cannot blame God for the sufferings of Ukraine. He is responsible, in the sense that he is responsible for all of creation, but the suffering of Ukraine is inflicted by people on other people.
We cannot blame God for our faulty exercise of our own free will, for our arrogance and pride. It is God who will hold us responsible for those sins.
When we seek a theological response to a war, we should look at Jesus’ actions and words in the Gospels.
Jesus is unconcerned about the word of the law. Putin’s attempts to hide behind hollow legalism or interpretations would be met with the same scorn that Jesus addresses to the pharisees and scribes.
For Jesus, it is about intent – it is what is on the inside that matters, not what is on the outside.
We are all created in the image of God, and therefore when we oppress another person, or ourselves, we are oppressing God as well.
And God affirmed the closeness of this relationship when he chose to become man, and live amongst us.
Indeed, for much of his earthly ministry and life, Jesus appeared almost entirely human. Were it not for his actions it would be hard to see him as God. But he was God, and because of that, wherever he went the sick were healed, the excluded were welcomed back by him, the unclean were made clean.
But occasionally, he allowed his full glory to show though, and this account of the transfiguration is one of those times. Here, on the mountaintop, he allows Peter, James and John to behold his glory. This surely is what John is remembering when he writes in his gospel ‘he dwelt amongst us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son’.
But this vision of glory is brief. For most of his ministry, both leading up to this point, and then from here on, as he turns his face to Jerusalem, and his degradation and slaughter at the hands of the authorities, he lives as one of us.
He suffers alongside us, and takes on our pain and sorrow. Everyone in Ukraine who suffers in agony or mourns or trembles in fear at what the future holds has Jesus alongside them, also suffering in agony, or mourning, or trembling in fear and begging God to save him from death.
The transfiguration sits at the centre of Jesus’ earthly ministry – a brief glimpse of the true glory of God, in the same way that Jesus’ earthly ministry sits at the centre of history – a brief glimpse of the coming kingdom of God.
We are shown the vision, and then, all too soon it is taken away from us. Why?
The kingdom of heaven is not within our power to bring in.
Why did not Jesus appear in glory to the powers of the world of that time – to Pilate, and Herod and Caesar himself?
Because those people, who thought they had power, and abused the power that they had, did not truly have power to change the world. The only power that they had was the power to abuse and denigrate and destroy. The same power that Putin now flaunts and abuses.
True power belongs to God, and we cannot exercise that power.
God calls us not to power, but to powerlessness. He calls us not to exercise power over others, but to refuse to do so. He calls us to live as examples, as lights to the world, but not in pride, but in humility.
All we can do as Christians is to say that the exercise of power to compel others is wrong, and to model an alternative way of living – a way of love and rightness in relation to each other and God. A way that we will fail in, because we are human, but will keep on trying in despite our failure, because we have the example of Jesus in front of us.
Jesus came to those who were open to hearing the voice of God. Not the powerful, or the self-righteous, but the weak and the humble. Not the clever, but the naïve.
The kingdom is not about us changing the world, but about God changing us. As Paul says, we are transformed from one degree of glory to another.
There is a temptation to want to solve something like the war in Ukraine, but we cannot solve the problems of the world by force, only by example. Example is slow – it won’t stop suffering and pain and death right now.
You could say that his is a totally naïve view, and it is, but that doesn’t necessarily make it wrong. Situations like Ireland and South Africa show us that the best path to peace and righteousness is dialogue and forgiveness.
Not that I am saying that inaction is the only theological or Christian response. Jesus wasn’t a knee-jerk pacifist – he knew how broken the world was. But we need to realise that when we take action, we exert power over others, and when we exert power over others, we often hurt them, and we hurt God. Death and destruction are never the will of God. We may feel that we have to act, in order to prevent what are atrocious crimes against humanity, but we have to understand that there is peril in exercising power, and we have to prayerfully weigh up and accept our responsibility for that exercise of power in the eyes of God.
Amen.

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Main Service Sermons

Anticipation and expectation

Third Sunday of Advent, 2021. Year B.

Readings: Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18

This week, we have reached the third Sunday of Advent. Traditionally, having considered the patriarchs and the prophets on the previous two Sundays, we now focus in on John the Baptist, as the herald of Jesus’ earthly ministry.
Advent shares a liturgical colour with Lent, and is also intended as a time of reflection. Historically it was, like Lent, a time for fasting, as an aid to that reflection, which would have made the festival of Christmas that follows it all the more exciting. The twelve days of feasting and revelry that followed Christmas itself was the high-point of the medieval year – the necessary counterpoint to the cold, wet, dark days around it. The focus of Advent though is very different from Lent. Advent is a time of expectation. And that expectation is threefold.
We are joining with those who historically were living in expectation of the coming of their Messiah, an expectation that was met on that first Christmas millenia ago.
We are living in the anticipation of the final arrival of the Kingdom, when Jesus will come in the glory of the Father to renew all of creation. We don’t know when that day will be, but we do know that it will come and that on that day we will be renewed as well.
And finally we are looking forward to our Christmas present, and probably Christmas presents, building up to our festival of Christmas which binds those two appearances together, the past and the future.
There is a temptation to only look backwards at Christmas. The accoutrements of the season tend to reinforce that temptation. We surround ourselves with nativity scenes and familiar rituals. We exchange presents, hopefully in memory of St Nicholas, that belligerent champion of orthodoxy at the council of Nicea, rather than Santa Claus the chubby moral judge or Father Christmas, the pagan avatar of fertility and rebirth. Christmas is a time when we indulge in recreating the rituals and mystery of our childhood.
In itself, that is no bad thing. But if that is all we are doing, then we are missing half the message. John the Baptist is quite clear when he talks to his listeners about this. They cannot retreat into the past, and rely on their history. If they think that they are privileged because they are the heirs of God’s covenant then they may be sorely disappointed. God can raise up new children for Abraham out of the stones on the ground. God’s covenant is a two way street – both sides must be faithful to the promises that they have made.
Thus far, John has not said anything that many of his listeners would have found out of the ordinary. First century Judea was a hotbed of eschatological expectation. Since the return from exile in Babylon, the Jews had waited expectantly for the return from spiritual as well as physical exile – to feel once again the presence of God amongst them in the temple. The temple was rebuilt, more glorious than ever, but they still suffered under the rule of the gentile – first the Greeks, and now the Romans. Their own leaders had been corrupt and self-serving. The Pharisees preached that the way to return to God’s grace was to purify the whole nation, for everyone to follow the priestly codes so that everyone would be pure and clean in God’s eyes. They sought by this to prove to God that they were following their side of the covenants that God had made with their ancestors.
The Essenes on the other hand had retreated into the desert. They saw no hope in trying to purify the whole nation – instead they would become an Israel within Israel – a core of true believers that would be worthy of a renewed relationship with God. Fixing all of Israel, let alone all of creation was too tall an order.
John the Baptist probably came from this Essene tradition – we have very little description of their beliefs and customers – only a description by the historian Josephus and what we can glean from the Dead Sea Scrolls. But if he did, he certainly seems to be much more outwardly focussed than the mainstream Essenes. He goes among the people, calling them to repentance and baptising them with water, in preparation for one who will come to baptise them with fire and the Holy Spirit.
And he is practical as well. When he baptises tax collectors, he merely admonishes them not to over-collect their taxes to line their pockets. When soldiers ask him what they should do, he tells them not to extort money from people and falsely accuse them – soldiers of the time obviously often abused the power and authority they had over people.
He anticipates Jesus in this practically. He is not calling on these people – despised collaborators who the Pharisees and Essenes regarded as unworthy of God’s love and forgiveness to give up their professions, but he is asking them to do their work fairly, and to treat other people honourably. In a foretaste of the marvellous event the we will celebrate in two weeks, God does not distain the messy realties of creation, but seeks to engage with them, and work through them. Even tax collectors can do God’s work, he says, if they repent and amend their ways.
John’s message is that coming into God’s grace is not something that will happen just by looking backwards. The past is important. Being the children of Abraham is important, because God is faithful to his covenants. But the covenant wasn’t just there for Israel. God made that covenant so that they could be an example to the world. And they are not all being fruitful in that covenant, and those that are not fruitful and not fulfilling that covenant. They are falling back on the comfort of the past.
Fruitfulness in the present is important as well. God wants to work through us who are his creation, in his creation, for the purpose to finally fulfilling his creation. He does not need us, but he wants us, to be fruitful in the here and now. Not in an unreasonable manner. He is calling us to be fruitful in what we do in our everyday lives. Fruitful in our honesty, in our graciousness, in our compassion for others, in our love for others which is the reflection of God’s love for us.
But most importantly, John the Baptist also looks to the future. He is lucky in this, in a way. His eschaton, the fulfilment of the divine plan for creation, is close at hand. The coming of Jesus that he announces is soon fulfilled, although he himself does not live to see that Pentecost baptism with fire and the Holy Spirit that he describes.
We have a harder time in some ways. We also look forward to an eschaton, a revelation of God’s outworking in creation. We work towards that fulfilment of God’s promise, that creation will be remade anew and in the perfection that God always intended. We do not know when this will come. Like John, we will probably not live to see it in this life. But in looking forward to Christmas – in keeping this season of Advent as a season of expectation and preparation, we remind ourselves that God so loved his creation that he became part of it, and that he continues to be part of it with us, working alongside us, in everything we do, so that in everything we do, no matter how humble, or mundane, we are bearing witness to the glory of God through his creation.