The Word as a Wordle for Easter 5

Here is a wordle of tomorrow's Gospel reading from John 14:1-14.  The reading isset in the context of a very real questioning about what Jesus was doing, talking about dying, when His ministry seems to be flourishing. Jesus speaks into the fear of His closest friends, He speaks peace into their troubled hearts.

Everything is up for grabs, 'Show us the Father' says Philip. Who is this Jesus after all? He behave and speaks and acts like God and then speaks of it ending not in triumph but disaster and death.

The wordle reminds me, that Jesus calls us to know the Father, but He does so in the middle of everything that makes our lives - in the middle of life's joys and tragedies. To fundamental questions about life and faith, Jesus comes back with words that echo the words of God to Moses at the burning bush when he reveals His every essesnce... I am...the way, the truth, the life. To know Jesus is to know God Himself.

We can know God in Jesus Christ, but how do we show Him and His heavenly father to the world? By listening to the questions that the world and her people are asking and not just speak of but act showing the love of God...

Listen to His voice

Here's the sermon preached by our budding ordinand Ben Masters, based on this morning's Gospel reading from John 10:1-10...

The other day I was working with a roofer, I mentioned that one of my customers was religious.  “I hate religious people,” he said, “the other day I went to a funeral, and the vicar want on about shepherds, and sheep, such rubbish I never heard!  Pete my friend, who has known me a little while piped up with a cheeky smile, “You know Ben is going to train to be priest!?” The look on the roofers face was priceless!  It did set me thinking though, for the passage I had been given to preach on was about shepherds and sheep.

This morning’s gospel reading tries to get us to understand a little bit more of what Jesus is like.  A poet will use simile and metaphor to convey a stronger and more definitive point, and so it is here with Jesus.   In 1st Century Palestine a shepherd went before his sheep, leading them and calling them with his voice.  The voice of the shepherd comes up a lot in this passage, the voice, not the words, not the nice collection of little phrases, the voice, for the voice connects the listener with the speaker.  As we gather here today in church, listen for the voice of Jesus, quiet your hearts and minds, as we partake in the Eucharist, and in the singing of hymns and speak the words of the liturgy.  The voice of Jesus speaks today, here and now.  He speaks forgiveness and hope, He calls for repentance and trust, his voice comforts the downtrodden and weary.  He speaks in the Eucharist, an outward sign of an invisible grace, where in laying down his life he brings abundant life.  He speaks in the gospel reading, he speaks in the children’s laughter and he speaks in our pain.  Listen for the voice of Jesus.  

 
So we hear the voice of the good shepherd, a shepherd who leads his sheep to better pastures.  The voice calls us to follow, to follow the shepherd who knows what is best for us, to follow him when the sun is shining down on us, when the rain is falling in torrents, when the stones hurt our feet, when we can’t see where we’re headed, and can’t remember the way we have been.  We are to follow him when darkness enshrouds us, when we reach the mountain tops and the view takes our breath away, when success lands at our feet. We are to follow him. Follow in the dust of his shoes. Knowing that he laid down his life,  that he has walked the path we have walked, he has felt our joys, our highs and our lows, he has wept with the mourning, laughed with those who were laughing, he worked as we work, he got splinters in his hands! This shepherd we follow laid down his life, died, went to the darkest depths, and rose to life on that Easter Sunday morning.   The marvellous and wonderful thing about the call to follow is that it is for everyone, it is for the youngest to the oldest, it is for the weak and for the strong, it is for the happy, and for the sad, it is for the lovely and the not so lovely.  The call of Christ is for everyone.  I urge you now to consider this call, whether for the first time or for the thousandth time, the call of Christ is as relevant today as it ever will be.  Follow the good shepherd.  

 
As we follow, as we walk in the dust of his shoes, we begin to know our shepherd, “I know my own and my own know me” says Jesus in the gospel reading.  In the building trade, and other professions one learns their craft by watching, being with, and emulating what the teacher is doing.  The learner becomes apprentice to the teacher.   As we listen to Jesus voice, follow on the path he leads we are apprentice to him, learning his ways.   Things are a bit different as his physical presence is not with us, but as Teresa of Avila said, “Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours.”  So we learn to follow Christ from those who have trodden the path a while longer than us, do you struggle knowing how to pray? Find someone who has got an idea.  If you don’t know one end of the Bible from the other, get alongside someone who knows a little more, the path we walk is not one we walk alone, we walk it together.   Each week, gathered together here and across the globe Christians gather together to celebrate, to worship, and to encounter the risen Jesus, there is something in this experience that also helps us to know more of the “good shepherd”.
I have spoken quite explicitly about our need to listen to the voice of Jesus, follow him, and know him.  Yet, something greater, more exciting, more surprising perhaps is that the shepherd we follow, is the shepherd who “brings” his sheep not yet of his fold, to himself, he goes to find the one that is lost when the ninety nine remain.  He longs to bring us from death into life,   the one who made us, and fashioned us, and knows us, wants to bring us into his fold, into his kingdom where we can be who we were made to be.  He meets us where we are,  I heard it put like this once:

 
“I am the good shepherd,” says Jesus so that shepherds will understand,

“I am the true vine” so that gardeners will understand,

“I am the light of the world” so that electricians will understand,

“I am the way,” so that search and rescue teams understand,

“I am the truth” so that politicians will understand,

“I am the life” so that undertakers will understand,

“I am the alpha and omega, the first and the last” so that historians will understand,

“I am the bread of life” so that bakers will understand,

“I am the living water” so that plumbers will understand,

He is “the righteous one” so that lawyers will understand,

“The cornerstone” so that builders will understand, “I am“ says Jesus. 

 
Izzy is going to be baptised this morning, baptism being another outward sign of an invisible grace, in that in baptism we die with Christ, and so we are raised to life in Christ.  What has baptism, got to do with our gospel reading? Baptism is the start of the road, is the bringing into the fold, where the baptised begins their journey of faith and discovery, together with the church.  It’s the start of our listening to the voice of Jesus, it is the start of our following Jesus, and the start of our knowing him more intimately. 

 
It is quite apt that we had a reading from acts, where we hear of the early church, working out what a church is like, where as part of following Jesus, how this expresses itself in the community.  This is as relevant to us here today as it was then.  For we need to ask ourselves, not just individually, what does following Jesus look like in church? We have a great tradition that forms our expression of worship, but I am not just talking about the worship on Sundays, I am talking about church, on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, Thursday Friday, even Saturday.  How do we live as a church community that expresses our faith, not just inwardly but in how we live, on a day to day basis?

 
As we come near to the close hear the words of Jesus, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” To hear the voice of Jesus, to heed his call, and to follow in his footsteps, beginning to know him is where we begin to live an abundant life, a life full of love, of grace, mercy and forgiveness. Let us pause for a moment to reflect - listen to the voice of Jesus follow him, and know him,

Sunday Podcasts - yes 2!!!

Here are not one, but two Sunday Podcasts with sermons from 1st May based on John 20.19-31 and this week's based on Luke 24.13-35. Click the bible references to reread the passages. Sit back, and enjoy!

From Jerusalem to Leverstock Green

We spent Friday undertaking an unenviable task - sorting the loft. it is an unenviable task because when we arrived here we were 2 and a bit, and now we are 5 (6 if you count the dog!) and with a boarded loft this end and no boarded loft at the other, we needed to sort with a motto - if in doubt throw it out.

Sorting stuff was was a bittersweet experience - there were records, books, photos, keepsakes, mementos - there were things that brought back good memories, there were things that reminded me of people no longer with us, there were things that reminded me of how far I have journeyed on life since. The sorting made me look back and caused a number of different emotions to surface.

Then yesterday morning I was at Leverstock Green School celebrating the history of the life of the school in this community as part of the 200th anniversary celebrations of the National Society which was set up to promote religious education in this country. It was wonderful to go and see photos and records and stories of the school over different eras of it’s past and to celebrate the journey the school has been on over the years and the impact that the it has made on thousands of lives in this community.

In this morning’s Gospel reading we encounter two people, full of memories about the past, overflowing with emotion, contemplating the journey their lives had taken them on as they travel from Jerusalem to Emmaus.

This story deals in things we know and can grasp and understand - it happens on the way to Emmaus from Jerusalem - roughly equivalent if we were to walk from here to St Albans Abbey, about 6 miles. We are told one of the key players is a man called Cleopas. He’s not one of the 12 disciples, but might have been part of the very earliest of churches. And the other? One of us perhaps?

We know something that they don’t.  As they walk the two travelers are joined by a stranger. THey fail to recognize him as the risen Jesus. Was that because it was so unlikely? So unexpected? Were they so wrapped up in their grief. But would we recognize him? Jesus promises to walk with us, to be with us wherever we go but do we recognize him?

Cleopas and the other disciple are asked by their traveling companion to explain why they are looking sad. Their hope is gone.  So Cleopas explains about the things that had taken place.  ‘We had hoped...’ said Cleopas.  As he retells of Jesus alive, crucified, dead and buried, so they tell of crushed hopes and trodden down dreams with him and for themselves. Gone. But notice, as they unfold the top news story of the day, they describe Jesus as a great prophet, but fail to grasp something crucial - his divinity - He is the Son of God. They had missed something crucial.

By ourselves, through own intelligence, our philosophy, science, our own reasoning we discover much about our lives and the world, but all in all we cannot fully grasp God fully, really truly is using these alone. God is beyond us. We need him to reveal himself to us alongside us.

This weekend we have been celebrating the life of Leverstock Green school in the context of the wider bicentennial celebrations for the National Society. We have been celebrating and giving thanks for the life of a school that has walked alongside this community for over 160 years through tragedy and joy. What we celebrate this weekend is not the buildings, but the people who have walked alongside sometimes unseen, as fellow pupils of the school as well as staff and support staff. It is their presence, commitment and care that is remembered long after the buildings are forgotten because it is that which shapes us as people and has transformed our future.

The stranger walks alongside Cleopas an the other disciple and us and opens the scriptures to them. He reveals the big story of God’s love for creation contained in them, and reaching it’s fulfillment in and through his messiah, his chosen one. Even then they did not fully grasp why this was the most important walk of their lives.

Later, as they share a meal at which the stranger takes bread, gives thanks for it and blesses, breaks and shares it. Suddenly it dawned on them who the stranger is. It is their Master raised from the dead. Jesus himself had had walked alongside them and had revealed God’s promise of new hope and resurrection life to them, but not in the Temple, not in church, but in the ordinary things of life - a walk, a meal, a chat, a growing friendship...

This is such a contemporary story. We make our way through life accompanied by all sorts of people - family, friends, teachers, strangers. Some of the journeys are joyful some are tragic. Jesus comes alongside each of us on life’s journey. He doesn’t force his way into the conversations, but listens attentively to our stories and then asks us what we are saying and where we are going. Some of these journeys will encourage us to ask big questions about life and faith.

Jesus meets us this morning wherever we are on our journey. As we read the Bible he helps us understand the extent of God’s love for us as all. As we break bread and share wine Jesus transforms our hurts to hopes, our sorrow to joy, our death to his risen life. As we leave here he meets us again in the ordinary things in life - a walk, a chat, a meal a growing friendship. In all these Cleopas and the other disciple found themselves filled with faith. As we journey from school to college, to work, to family, to friends in all the ordinary things of life, walk alongside us O unexpected Jesus and share with us the things of God and fill us with faith and hope. Amen

The Word as a Wordle - The Emmaus Road

This Sunday's Gospel reading is one that I would take to a desert island if I could. It is the story of the encounter on the Emmaus road.

I remember it being taught passionately when I was doing my ordination training. The story is significant for in the encounter that these 2 have withe the Risen Christ, the scriptures are opened and they are interpretted by Christ and He demonstrates, He reveals how those scriptures point to Him.

Christ as the key to scripture. The whole of scripture. He unlocks the revealing of God's purposes that those stories reveal. It is Christ who lovingly demonstrates God's call to us - I love you. I want to be with you. WIll you be with Me? God's longing for us as a lover for His beloved is revealed again and again in history, but it is Christ who is not only that supreme demonstration of God's love, but also the means to grasping and experienceing it fo ourselves. He offers us 'zoe' - with-God-life...

Not only are the scriptures 'broken open' and the truth of God's love revealed, but bread is broken. It is in the context of a meal that this stranger on the raoad is revealed. The stranger took bread, blessed and broke it and shared it - the actions that the earliest churches will have recognised as Jesus' reinterpretation of the passover meal. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26,

23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, ²⁴and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ ²⁵In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ ²⁶For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

~~~~

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’ Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. 

~~~

Having wordled the reading I am really struck by the way that the significant word that sticks out is 'things.' What things?
1. The arrest, trial and death of Jesus
2.  The hope they had that God's Messiah was finally here in Jesus of Nazareth
3.  The perceived failure of the mission of Jesus of Nazareth
4. The prophesied suffering of the Messiah
5.  The passages of scripture, how the Bible itself as one long love story between God and humanity reaches it's climax in this man Jesus.

And these things are revealed in the normal stuff of life - in grief and tragedy, on a walk, in conversation, in a meal, and between friends and strangers.

Thomas - the greatest apostle of them all

Victor Meldrew’s cry of “I don’t belieeeve it!” from the hugely popular tv series “One Foot in the Grave” struck a reassuring chord with many in this country, characturing perfectly the now infamous British reserve!  People who loved the series found an ally in him, through his frustration with the modern world, it’s technology, and with life especially in retirement.  His catch-phrase would most often get an airing when he was forced to face the things he disliked, distrusted, and doubted.  It didn’t matter whether that was people or things that make the contemporary world much more immediate, perhaps even things that you and I take so much for granted, like the telephone.  His quiet frustrations turn so quickly to ‘I don’t belieeeve it!’ exposing what he really felt.

It’s true though.  W e don’t like to show others that we cannot cope with life.  So often the life we show the outside world day to day with our work colleges, family and friends, is often one of calm in controlness.  But from time to time we can have our feathers ruffled by the simplest things like a conversation with a friend, an article in the newspaper, or the video not working, and it’s then that we show that underneath we maybe struggling to make sense of our world with it’s changing patterns of family life, society, values, politics and dare I say faith.

Belief and uncertainty or doubt are the yin-yang, the polar opposites, of all of our lives at one point or another. Many who are desperate to believe to share religious faith, wrestle with doubt, question reality, and yet can’t bring themselves to put to one side something so dearly cherished. Many cannot live with faith and yet cannot live without it.

But is doubt a bad thing?  Personally, I see doubt as not only healthy but essential to the Christian life. If more religious people doubted, perhaps the world would be a slightly saner place?

Even as I speak there is news of yet another Iraqi suicide bomber blowing himself up along with any fellow Iraqi or Coalition forces unfortunate enough to be within striking distance. I wonder how many suicide bombers would blow themselves up if they doubted the promises of a martyr’s paradise?

The opposite of doubt is certainty, and yet there can be no room for it in any religion. Give a man or woman certainty and there can be no room for faith, for faith is hope in what is not seen. We can live faith for it is open, endless and eternal. Does not ‘hope spring eternal’? Give certainty and we risk sowing the seeds of arrogance, bigotry, and fundamentalism.

Those with faith, I believe stand much more chance of living in harmony because they recognise within others a seeking after truth and a quest for answers to those illusive eternal questions; the truly faithful recognise that faith is but a tradition to build on and live by.

This Sunday's Gospel reading mentions Thomas - one of Jesus’ 12 disciples - encounter with the Risen Christ.  Imagine the scene, he, like the other disciples, was suddenly thrown into fear and confusion after the man he knew to be God’s son and capable of the most amazing miracles who was set to re-establish Israel both politically and spiritually on the world stage - driving out the Roman occupiers of the land and restoring the eternal presence of God with His people - this man had been captured, arrested, and condemned to death on the cross.  His mission, his vision all had gone wrong.  The day after these terrible events, other disciples of Jesus come excitedly shouting about having seen him alive.  For Thomas, all talk of Jesus his leader, Master, saviour and friend, rising from the dead was just cheap talk, a slap in the face, bittersweet words of comfort in the face of shocking grief.  Could you blame him for doubting?  I certainly can’t.

Thomas is also known as the greatest disciple.  He later meets with the risen Jesus himself, seeing the scarred body with his own eyes and touching it with his own hands.  There is no question, this is Jesus.  Thomas who has withheld himself utterly from the hope Jesus offers, imprisoned by doubt, gives himself utterly, and finds himself freed and he utters the profoundest statement of faith - my Lord and my God, as in the risen Jesus Thomas recognised both.  Thomas finds faith, through belief transformed by doubt.

There are many today who stand at the threshold of faith and say with Victor Meldrew and St. Thomas - I don’t believe it; who ask the profoundest questions; is it all true?  Can we believe it?  The Risen Jesus does not ask any of us to believe in him.  If we begin to explore the depths of the Christian faith we are not suddenly asked to sign on the dotted line in blood assenting to believing everything about the faith - we are not asked by Jesus to verify or falsify what the Bible says as FACT.  Neither though can we simply place what the Christian holds dear into the same category as belief in Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy, beautiful stories that enrich but do not change our lives.  Jesus says to us as he said to Thomas and those first disciples ‘Come follow me!’ and that means you if you have lots of faith or little; with questions answered and thousands not.  Faith is not about certainty or lack of doubt, but it is about hope and the future.  Hope is what Thomas saw in the Risen Jesus - my Lord and my God - and it is what he offers us when we come to him in honest doubt today.  So what about the Christian faith, can any of what we claim be true - I don’t believe it, but I have faith that it is.

A six-year-old girl writes a letter to God. And the Archbishop of Canterbury answers

This is lifted directly from Damien Thompson's religion blog in the Telegraph blog and I had to share it because it moved me to tears...

~~~~~~

There’s a charming article in today’s Times by Alex Renton, a non-believer who sends his six-year-old daughter Lulu to a Scottish church primary school. Her teachers asked her to write the following letter: “To God, How did you get invented?” The Rentons were taken aback: “We had no idea that a state primary affiliated with a church would do quite so much God,” says her father. He could have told Lulu that, in his opinion, there was no God; or he could have pretended that he was a believer. He chose to do neither, instead emailing her letter to the Scottish Episcopal Church (no reply), the Presbyterians (ditto) and the Scottish Catholics (a nice but theologically complex answer). For good measure, he also sent it to “the head of theology of the Anglican Communion, based at Lambeth Palace” – and this was the response:

Dear Lulu,
Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –

‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.

Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.

But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’
And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off.

I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lors of love from me too.
+Archbishop Rowan

I think this letter reveals a lot about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s sort of theology – more, indeed, than many of his lectures or agonised Synod addresses. I’d be interested to know whether readers of this blog think he did a good job of answering Lulu’s question.

But what the letter also tells us is that the Archbishop took the trouble to write a really thoughtful message – unmistakably his work and not that of a secretary – to a little girl. “Well done, Rowan!” was the reaction of Alex Renton’s mother, and I agree.

~~~~~~

Well done Rowan indeed! This letter reveals the profoundest of theologies expressed in the simplest of terms. It is written from the heart and from a father whose son will continue to ask the same profound questions that we all do from time to time...

Maundy Thursday - Wordled

 


















 
John 13.1-17,31b-35

Jesus Washes the Disciples’ Feet

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God,got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.’ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you?You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am.So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

The New Commandment

When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

~~~~~

Above is the reading set for Maundy Thursday and a Wordle of it too. Stand out words from the wordle are: wash, Jesus, God, one, also, know, Lord and especially feet.

Our feet are ususally covered these days by shoes and socks. There is still culturally a stigma about our feet. We don't like people touching them and in certain cultures to show the soles of them is the height of rudeness. Yet Jesus the servant Lord is the one who knows this and still washes them also because God made them.

Spiritual Indigestion

I am not really a fan of sweets, never have been. I like a few varieties and like to eat them very very occasionally, but I guess that’s just me. One day, when I was in my early teens I went out for the day with a friend of mine. We went in to town and then to the cinema. Now he was a big sweet fan, and pretty much from the moment of leaving the house he was tucking into minstrels, sherbert lemons, jelly babies et etc etc. Having trawled around town checking out the local record shops, we got to the cinema for the film we were due to see. Popcorn, fizzy drinks and more sweets and chocolate were purchased with hard earned pocket money and we settled down to watch and to munch.

As the film went on, I began to feel more and more unwell. By the time I got to bed that night I had chronic stomach ache, a racing pulse and I generally felt terrible. My parents were worried, to be honest, so was I. It was only at bed time, as I complained about how I felt, that my mum asked me what I had eaten over the course of the day and out came the al a carte menu of sugary treats. Ah, said my mum, that’ll be it... She disappeared and reappeared with a fizzing glass of liver salts. I discovered I was not dying, but suffering from chronic indigestion and was it any wonder?

In a way, we’re all a bit Woolworths aren’t we? We like our sweets, we like to pick and mix some of the key aspects of our life. We call it individuality, we say that these choices define who we are as people and they help us to stand out from the crowd whether that’s music, fashion, politics or whatever.

The same is true of religion. I wish I had a pound for every time I heard someone say “I believe in God but I don’t come to church” or some such. We like the idea of faith in God, the idea of a relationship with Him, but we don’t want the responsability. We like God but don’t want Him messing with us or our lives. We believe we can believe in God but we can pick and mix if we wish to live His way or not, a sort of a la carte Christianity that fits our lifestyle or the lifestyle of our friendship circle or culture, where the Ten Commandments have become Ten Moral suggestions - like by laws that get changed. Friends, this is not a new way to think. Jesus encounters it in this morning’s Gospel reading and it only leads to spiritual indigestion.

In Jesus day, a good, religious, God fearing person, would do all they could to keep the law of Moses and even the interpretation of those laws by rabbis which were held in high regard. The Pharisees almost made a profession of strict law keeping. They felt that if everyone would strictly observe religious law, the world would be a better place. And as true as that sentiment might be -- it simply didn't work! Jesus, on more than one occasion, as in this morning’s reading, pointed out that the law keepers of his day usually missed the point of God's law.

Last week Jesus began teaching us from the brown muddy plain about a new holiness using salt and light as images - calling us to preserve the good in the world around us, to add flavour and seasoning and to allow that in our lives to shine out and impact the world around us This morning He talks about many different aspects of this new personal holiness, but he begins with three reinterpretations of the the OT Law, four commandments of a new morality, of a new personal holiness that would have left those Pharisees standing speechless! And if we listen closely, they will leave us speechless. Listen:

1. "Call someone a fool and you'll go to hell!"
2. "If you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you've committed adultery... you would be better off to rip out your eye!"
3. "The ancients allowed people to divorce -- I say, NO DIVORCE!"
4. "Don't take any oaths -- you shouldn't have to -- if you love God, your word is good!"


"Is he serious?" No doubt they wondered. I can relate -- can't you? What's your reaction to Jesus' words? I have to confess that I share in some of the "jaw dropping" that must have taken place that day. But, just in case people began to look for "wiggle room", Jesus drove home the last nail. "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." These verses in today's Gospel only make sense to me including a verse left out of today's Gospel reading - verse 48 about the call to perfection.

This is what God wants from us - perfection. Nothing like aiming high eh Lord? And yet what Jesus asks of us is not about taking a bit of this or a bit of that, or watering stuff down, but keeping focussed on a healthy spiritual diet based on the love and forgiveness of God.

Perhaps the words of Paul in the epistle reading can help. Here's a rephrasing of what he said to the Corinthian church. "I couldn't really talk to you in spiritual terms because you are so focussed on the things of Earth. You are so hooked into this world that you don't 'get it' when it comes to spiritual things. We can talk all we want, but only God can really bring about spiritual growth."

In order to aim for Godly perfection, to go for spiritual growth, to avoid spiritual indigestion we will need to be open to the fullness of the love of God in our lives, to know His forgiveness for us and of us.

Wait now! Don't let that slip by too quickly. Are you aware of the depth of God's love for you? Have you allowed the fullness of the love of Christ to penetrate your life? To know His forgiveness through His death and resurrection?

It is only the deep love and grace of God that can give us the power to see the world and the people in our lives with God’s eyes. To know that the keeping of these spiritual imperatives will be hard, But... It is the love of God that, in His timing, brings healing and forgiveness to the mess we so often make of our lives -- and allows us to let the perfect love of God come into and through our lives for others.

To be perfect -- as God is perfect, is not so much a matter of keeping the law of God as it is embracing and being embraced by the love of God. It's about being inspired by Jesus’ forgiveness and love, his Spirit lives inside of us so that we live a righteous and holy life. The generous forgiveness of God lives inside of us; the love of Jesus lives inside of us; therefore we want to live and strive for a lives of righteousness, of right relationships with all people around us. And in those right relationships, we find the personal holiness of God. Jesus aims high and so must we. Once you have embraced the love of God you can let it go -- to others. Amen.

~~~~~~

This is a version of what I preached today - 13/02/11

Fraud - a Biblical mandate,,,

Here's a version of my sermon for tomorrow based on Luke 16:1-13...

Money – most of us think it’s the key to everything. Success, happiness, a stress free life, but if we’re not careful it can also open the door to ruin, deception, corruption and greed. Jesus has much to say to us about our attitude towards wealth and stewardship – 19 of His 38 recorded parables are on the misuse of money and possessions, its an issue of fundamental importance to the Kingdom. Its not that Jesus is against us owning things - its just that He is against things owning us.

This morning’s Gospel contains probably one of the most difficult of Jesus’ parables to understand. At first sight it looks as if Jesus is condoning corrupt practices, but when we look a bit closer we realize He’s not, and what is actually being applauded is the steward’s change in attitude.



This parable takes full account of the commercial practices of the day – when many of the estates and businesses were owned by absentee landlords and looked after by stewards whose job it was to provide a reasonable return for the owner. In this case it was a business where merchants received goods on credit, and since Jewish Law prevents the claiming of interest from fellow Jews, the profit from such a transaction were in commodities like wheat and oil.



Although the steward was entrusted with the estate - given latitude to do with the owners resources as he wished and to profit from the way he invested his master’s wealth – he owned nothing of what he managed. But one of the surprising things about this story is that the hero seems to be a crook – a crook who has been found out.



The owner had received complaints that his steward was squandering away his property – so he called him to account and when he was found wanting, promptly told him that he was heading for the high jump.



Here the Hebrew word used for “squandering’ is the same as that used in the story of the Prodigal Son – to describe self indulgence - when the younger son wasted away his inheritance. Jesus’ parable shows us what happens if we fail to use our resources in the right way before God.



Like the steward, we have free access to use and profit from the gifts and resources God provides for this world, but own nothing of what we manage and like the steward we too fall far short of what is required.

The unjust steward was too proud to beg and didn’t relish the thought of doing manual work, so he decided on another course of action, to make friends with the people who were in debt to his master. He used this last opportunity as the legal manager of the owner’s business to meet with some of his masters customers, to give them very significant discounts, so that they will show him favour when he is in need. Here Jesus tells us that we have to be alert to the workings of this world and the opportunities we are given, “...For in dealing with their own kind the children of this world are more astute than the children of light...” 



The story also illustrates the wisdom of spending money with an eternity in view using our wealth to help those around us. “...Use worldly wealth to win friends for yourself so that when money is a thing of the past you may be received into an eternal home...”



The biggest thing about handling God’s resources is the attitude of our hearts. It determines how wisely we use what we have been given. When we borrow something from someone, such as a car, we tend to use it more carefully, work harder to look after it, we know it doesn’t belong to us and that we will be accountable for how we use it. Jesus tells us we need to apply that same attitude to all of God’s treasures that we handle.


The steward saw the urgency of the situation and changed his behaviour. Instead of investing in his present situation he started to invest in his future. Jesus also tells us that stewardship is not just about the big picture. If we are faithful with a little God knows we will be faithful with a lot. If we can be trusted with looking after one lost sheep, maybe eventually we will be trusted with caring for a whole flock. Here we have a man who found himself, came to his senses, and changed his direction and life. He didn’t put his head in the sand, but decided to act for his future well-being, he realized he was a slave to the wrong master, “...No servant can serve two masters – you cannot serve God and Money...” 



Jesus reminds us that our commitment to God must be greater than any other commitment in our lives. Jesus is looking for single minded people - people totally dedicated to God - whose main purpose in life is to serve Him.

As Christians, our first priority should be using the resources that God gives us, to and through his church in the first instance, but are we? Our expenditure per week is £1,344 with 63% of those costs being my stipend, pension, housing & contributions to my ongoing training and the training of new clergy and us paying our part of the cost of running the diocese. And yet our forecast income is £1163 per week, a shortfall of £181. We are not living extravagantly. The issue is not a need to make efficiency savings. The issue is that the money we spend comes from nowhere else. These resources are God’s and we should ask Him for them, but we should also act wisely with the resources He shares with us.

Where does our confidence for living come from - our bank balance or from God? Has money got greater control over us than we are prepared to admit?

A well known speaker stood up in front of a group of people and held a £50 note in the air, “who would like to have this £50 note?” he said. Hands started to go up, “I will give this to one of you,” he said, “but before I do, I am going to crumple it up”, which he did. “Who wants it now?” Again, hands went up. Then he dropped it on the floor, stamped on it, and made it dirty, “Now who still wants it”, he said, still hands went up. “Today”, he said, “we have learnt a very valuable lesson. No matter what I do to this money, we still want it, because it has not lost any of its value - its still worth £50.”

Many times in our lives we will be dropped, crumpled, ground into the dirt, by the decisions we make, and the situations that come our way. But no matter what happens to us, we will never lose our value in God’s eyes. To Him we are still priceless.



Do we value God as much as He values us? Does God take first place in our hearts? Do we serve God or money? We are all guilty of squandering the wealth we’ve been entrusted with. The question is what are we going to do about it? Are we going to wait till the last minute, like the unjust steward, or change now?



Jesus calls us to use our gifts and resources wisely – and in a way that will honour God and ourselves. To invest in the ways that will lead us to Him and eternal life. Its God who puts the money and resources in our hands – so lets make sure we use them for His glory.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, Lost Job, Lost House... - a sermon on Luke 15:1-10

It doesn’t happen very often thankfully, but once in a while some of our neighbours go away. It’s a nice house, big garden, swimming pool. Perhaps I should clarify... When the neighbours go away they leave their teenage children. Now a bit of basic maths for you - teenagers + empty house + swimming pool X alcohol, music and summer nights = PAAAARTY! Now this doesn’t happen very often but there have been a handful of times when I have grumbled like the old man I am becoming... There will be this sort of partying in heaven says Jesus when one who was lost to God returns...

I hate losing things. I live by a very special filing system which is far from infalible! When things are lost, it induces a sense of blind panic in me and utter relief on recovering the item in question. Jesus tells stories this morning that I think I can identify with - losing things. Important things...

These stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin are preludes to perhaps Jesus’ greatest story of loss and recovery. You know the one. It tells of a lad who loses himself; of an older brother who loses his temper and sense of values and of a good father that never loses hope... a Heavenly Father that trusts that things that once were lost, people who once were lost can still be found... Recognise it yet?


In the story of the lost sheep, it is clear that all 100 sheep are owned by the shepherd. As the flock makes it’s way across the barren wilderness the shepherd notices that one sheep is missing. He leaves the 99, taking an enormous risk in trusting they will be safe, and makes his way in search of the one.

But we all too easily miss the scandal. Jesus has been openly criticised for spending time with sinners by the scribes and pharisees. They loved God and lived in hope of the coming Messiah. Their job was to interpret the Law of Moses for keeping it would prepare the way for His coming. They criticised Jesus because in him they saw one of their own and yet here he is fraternising with sinners like leather tanners, tax collectors women and shepherds. But the scandal deepens... ‘Which one of you,’ says Jesus referring to the Pharisees, has one hundred sheep...’ Jesus is inviting them to identify with a shepherd, a sinner!

Jesus carries on speaking to the scribes and pharisees, ‘... Or what woman...’ Jesus now calls them to identify themselves with a woman, any woman, about whom they prayed each day, ‘Thank you Lord of the Universe, that you did not make me a woman...’ But this woman knows the value of what she is searching for - a silver coin. She lights a lamp and sweeps in the darkness and dirt to find her life and livelihood.

I am often asked things like - I have lost my job, please pray for me. My wife has cancer and I am frightened of losing her, please pray. I have lost my faith - if there is a God pray for me. I feel so lost and afraid please pray for me. I have lost my house please pray... In the stories that we hear Jesus tell today, we have an assurance that he is never indifferent to these contemporary pleas in their lostness.

Jesus doesn’t so much as teach about the scope of God’s love reaching out to those traditionally outside it’s orbit, namely to tax collector and shepherd, rather he gets the pharisees to empathise with the lost, and to ram the point home - Jesus models it by eating and speaking with them at table.

Friends, God is a God who doesn’t sit distant from us and condemn us, but when we are a long way from him, he comes to us. He sits and shares food and conversation with us. When we are lost he hunts us out. He searches high and low in the darkest and most unlikely corners of the universe til he finds us. How does that sort of seaching love make us feel? If someone goes out of their way to see me, to speak to me, I want to make sure that I stop what I am doing, face them and give them my full attention. So it with Jesus. God loves the world, love me so much that he sends me Jesus... God loves me so much that he went out of his way to search me out... I should give him my full attention.

One of the most wonderful experiences we had in New Zealand was stopping by the side of the road, and as we stopped watching a shepherd and his dog herd the sheep. The dog did not run barking after the sheep, but rather as the sheep wandered off, the dogs watched intellegently and intently, then they ran like hell to get in front of the sheep and they lay down across the path the sheep were wandering so when the sheep did wander that way they were gently turned back onto the right path. We are called to a double repentance, a double determinedness to live God’s way - by listening to Jesus, for that sends heaven partying, and the experience of being found by God’s never ending love for us in and through him.

Jesus invited the Pharisee and scribes to identify with his search for those who are lost and his joy and finding those who are currently unaware of God’s love for them. What would church be like if we did the same - going out of our way to meet with and share God’s love with those who are currently unaware of His it where they are? For that’s what Jesus does. He doesn’t ask us to go to him. He comes to us. This is what he calls us His church to do - to emulate his example and the example of his Father. If we are to be a church at all - this must lie at the heart of what flows out of our meeting with Jesus as sinners around this table sharing bread and wine. To go out of our way to meet people where they are to talk with them, to help them to listen to Jesus and to encounter his love for them, returning rejoicing.

Jesus doesn’t ask us to be like the pharisees - already aware of how they think God wants them to look - with the clothes of righteousness and an air of supercilious faith. Rather Jesus asks go with others just as you are, to be with him and to be found by him, to spend time with him, to listen to each other and especially to Him, and to rejoice with the whole of heaven as we seek to discover anew what it means to be loved by Him.

The challenge for our mission to care for the lost, all those we encounter in our daily lives and all those we seek to bring back to the sheepfold on Back to Church Sunday, but not just then. For seeking out the lost does not in the least need any book to be burnt, It does not ask us to rebuke, to admonish or even look down upon anyone, for that was not the way of Christ. It calls us to this: First, think and pray; Second, run like hell; and third, be found lying about.For the lost, it is a precious and costly gift to be found at the right time in the right place. “Rejoice with me,” says Jesus, “for I have found . . . that which was lost.” Amen.

I am indebted to Fr. Simon Rundell's sermon on the same passage for inspiration which can be read here.

Lost....

I never watched Lost when it was on. I regret that I have to say. From what I know about the series I think I would probably have loved it. On of the questions that recurs unsaid and unanswered throughout the series is which of the characters is lost - physically, religiously, spiritually and emotionally speaking...

Jesus speaks of things lost in the Gospel reading for Sunday. How does it feel to lose something precious, lifegiving, lifestyle providing as a sheep, a gold coin, our freedom, sanity, love, life... Why are we not searching for God in the same way - groping around in the dark corners, scouring the thickets of the hillside for Him?

What is it about modern living that consigns the need for God to the dusty and darkened corners of our living rooms?

Here's the Wordle followed by the reading from Luke 15:1-10...

Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’

3 So he told them this parable: ⁴‘Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? ⁵When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. ⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” ⁷Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

8 ‘Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” ¹⁰Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’

Jesus Needs You

When a Government wishes to increase the number of recruits for the Armed Services, the advertising campaign is based on the threat posed to the country or its values. ‘Your Country Needs You!, was the most successful poster campaign of the first world war. Modern day advertising is to recruit people to volunteer by appealing to their sense of adventure and excitement. There is never a footnote on the poster “Soldiering may be dangerous to your health”

Jesus was different. When an enthusiastic young man ran up to Jesus and said “I‘ll follow you wherever you go” Jesus stares back and retorts, ‘Foxes and birds have the comfort of hole and nest; I don’t have even that, and neither will you. Go home and think some more about discipleship” This does not sound like a winning formula for church growth.

Discipleship is costly in any era. In the past century i.e. the 1990s more Christians have died for their faith than in all the centuries before put together.

Statues of 20th Century saints and martyrs were erected in St Albans Abbey to mark the millennium. They include Mother Theresa. One of them Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor lived in Germany during the regime of Hitler.

Bonhoeffer was part of the resistance to the Gestapo, and though he lived in America for a short time and could have avoided persecution, he chose to go back to Germany to encourage others in Germany especially in the Church not to crumble before Hitler and his Government. Eventually he was arrested, along with other members of his family and placed in a concentration camp. Bonhoeffer was executed on April 9th 1945 just a few days before the concentration camp was liberated by the Allies.

While in the camp he wrote papers and letters about the theology behind martyrdom - these were smuggled out by guards who liked him. Later they were put in a book called ‘The cost of Discipleship’ Jesus, in our passage of scripture today is talking about the cost of Discipleship.

Bonhoeffer believed we live in a time of ‘cheap grace’ and easy beliefs. He argues that cheap grace is the deadly enemy of the Church. Cheap grace given away at cut prices The Sacraments, forgiveness of sins, the consolations of religion are showered with generous hands without asking questions or fixing limits

Cheap grace is forgiveness proclaimed as a general truth without stressing repentance. God’s love is taught as a general concept of God without stressing that God’s love wants our salvation. True grace is Costly – it is free because the account has been paid in advance by Jesus but not cheap. It is treasure hidden in a field – for the sake of it a person will sell all he has. It is a pearl of great price that a person gives their all to possess It is the kingly rule of Christ for which a person will pluck out an eye if it causes him to stumble. It is the call of Christ for which the disciples left their nets to follow him. It is so magnificently summed up in the Methodist Covenant Prayer:

In am no longer my own but thine. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will: put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you;
let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things let me have nothing;
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.

True grace can be costly. Jesus doesn’t want to con his followers into believing it will be easy - it will be fulfilling - it gives us inner peace, pardon, the power of the Holy Spirit - eternal life but could be difficult. Jesus drives the point home with three Cannot statements

1. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his
wife and children, brothers and sisters- yes even his own life- he cannot be my disciple. This must have been shocking to those who heard it - it is shocking to us. We are to love family. Marriage and family are the good gifts of God. He means we should never love our relatives or ourselves more than Him. This is part of the cost many Christian workers pay is terms of time spent with family, or finance or promotion so fulfilling the call to missionary work.

2. If anyone does not carry his cross and follow me he cannot be my
disciple. This too would be very shocking to the crowds. After all, unlike us, many of them may have witnessed what Jesus here described: a condemned criminal bearing his own cross through the streets of a town to a place of crucifixion. Jesus is saying you may suffer for your faith. Jim Elliot had a passion to take the gospel to the Auca Indians of South American. He flew with a missionary pilot deep into the jungle. They landed their plane near a river. Their reception was violent and the Auca Indians killed them. An investigation showed that there was a gun in the plane that had never been used. They had come in peace. Jim Elliot had written in his journal these words “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose”. Jim’s and the pilot’s death became the seeds of more missionary efforts. Eventually the Tribe of Aucas were won over. Later, Elizabeth Elliot, Jim’s widow would baptise in the river where her husband was killed, the man who fired the fatal arrow.

3 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything. They
cannot be my disciple. This is a long way from what is called prosperity gospelfv - where faith will automatically give you health and wealth. Jesus had just re-enforced the point with two stories “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ The issue was not whether or not he should build the tower, the issue is to be prepared before beginning. The issue is not do with building or not or waging war or not... It’s to do with being aware of the costs from the outset.

Have you assessed the cost of being a disciple? When you, however and whenever you said your yes to Jesus, did you realise that suffering, poverty and losing all relationships were on the cards? It’s not too late to walk away... no strings attached.

Being a disciple is nothing to do with the warm fuzzy feeling, it is nothing to do with being (or being seen to be) good or holy, it is nothing to do with just coming to church. Being a disciple is all about listening to, learning from and living and loving like Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t say that you cannot be my disciple - all are welcome. He just asks us to give him our all. Amen.

~~~~~~~~

Oh, I am back off hols and that is a version of what I'm preaching tomorrow... :-)

The Fourth Monkey in the Wringer

Things don't always go as well in life as they should. Whilst I believe that I should make a decision and live with it's consequences, there are times when it would be wonderful to be able to pause the live action, or rewind a little and redo, unsay, undo whatever it is.

In those situations, I am one of those people that plays a situation over and over and over again in my head to see if I can discern a better way of playing it, or when I am feeling at my lowest, to bathe in my own self-pity and guilt.

I had a phone call earlier in the week from a senior colleague. They left a very cryptic message on my machine about a letter that they had had sight of. Now experience say that no one writes to senior colleagues unless there is trouble. The message said no more what the letter was about, and I went into a flat spin...

What had I done? What had I not done?? Who had I offended??? I went through the catalogue of recent events in my head, file by file examining each. Had I behaved honourably? There was a wrenching knot in my stomach. This self examination went on into a sleepless night... A colleague on twitter described that night accurately as '...the Cloud of Unknowing and what it does to our grave imagination that hurts most...' So right.

I expected the colleague to call me back the next day to disambiguate the issue. I heard nothing. The creeping dread in me continued to rise towards paranoid levels. Perhaps understandably... I was more wound up that the proverbially tightly coiled spring...



Finally I heard from the colleague. I listened to the issue in question and tried to explain how the way they had left me hanging had made me feel.

What do I feel? The sense of panic laced fight or flight is still subsiding. My gripe is to do with the 'gut-wrenching notknowingness' of what the issue was about and the power dynamic that that created. None of us like being scrutinized for our motives but this situation got me prepared to be scrutinized and ready to fight or flee from the conflict to come.

So are you with me? I feel abused. I don't like things being held over my head. My guard is up. I am ready for whatever is going to be flung at me...


And then Jesus wanders into my consciousness... Do not be worried or afraid. Believe in God. Believe also in me. Do not be troubled little flock it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom... How can I not worry Lord? How can I not be concerned for my own welfare, for my and Your reputation, for anyone else in this scenario??? Don't worry? You must be joking...

No He's not. Despite having upturned every stone in my life over the last 48 hours, and now subsequently feeling exhausted mentally, spiritually and physically, I realise that Jesus is right on so many levels.

I shouldn't worry. What's done is done for good or bad. It cannot be undone. Hurts can be healed. Cracks can be repaired. But going over the past again is not going to help. Forgiveness can be offered and received.

Jesus reminds me though that God and His kingdom are also at the heart of this emotional car crash. The fact that I am not blameless and that I am perfectly capable of hurting and failing others and myself blinded me to the presence of God in my life and indeed all around me.


All too often I am the fourth monkey: see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil, and see no God. That's me. I had failed to see the hands of God continuing to hold me, indeed us all, in good times and in times of fight or flight. After all, I regularly pray: Your Kingdom come, Your will be done... why not in this situation too?

As a Christian I believe that God is there for me, irrespective of whether I deserve His presence or love. He's there, not because of me, but because of His never ending love for me. Despite the mess I make of my life, of others lives, or others make of mine, He is there holding, embracing and giving the tools to rebuild and repent by the power of the Holy Spirit.

How does this monkey feel now? At peace. My guard is down and I am open to seeing the future that the God who hold me in his hands is constantly opening up before all of us.

The Parable of the Rich Fool

Shaun Attwood moved to America in 1991, initially visiting family just after finishing a business degree at Liverpool University. He came from small town Cheshire, and everything felt so big in comparison: the houses with swimming pools, the roads, the cars. He started working long hours as a commission-only stockbroker, earning nothing for the first few months. Over five years, his gross commission rose to more than $500,000 a year. He was the top broker in the office and had his own staff. Then he retired to trade his own capital online and earned even more. He moved to a million-dollar mountainside home complete with swimming pool and whirlpool bath. But he wanted more.

When he moved Shaun also took his love of the rave scene and drugs with him. His goal was to make enough money to bring Manchester's rave culture to Arizona. He threw raves across the desert region. He invested in club drugs. He went from being a normal lad from a working-class Cheshire town to living a Pulp Fiction lifestyle. The police knew about him and started a wire tap and eventually arrested him five months later. He was sentenced to nine and a half years in jail, of which He served almost six. In the 26 months while He was waiting to be sentenced, He went to the notoriously tough Maricopa County jail in Arizona. The gangs there had more control than the guards, and inmates were murdered. He says that this sequence of events over almost six years changed him as a person. He tells his story in schools and prison. He says of himself, as a stockbroker who threw raves and invested in club drugs, he landed himself in jail and deserved punishment. As horrendous as it was, I'm glad I went through the experience. Even though I'll always regret the effect it had on my family, how my world came crashing down, I don't resent what happened to me – if anything, I'm grateful for the new direction it has given me.

The teaching of Jesus in this morning’s Gospel doesn’t in some senses get more contemporary does it? For it is Shaun Attwood’s story, Nick Leeson’s story, but in many ways it is also my story as I long for a new Amazon Kindle e-reader or iPad or car or house or whatever it is.

This morning’s Gospel sits in a section where Jesus is journeying to Jerusalem and has been teaching about what it means to be a disciple. Jesus has just given us teaching about being faithful to God even in the face of persecution and then from the crowd is called out this facile question centred not on faith, but a family inheritance dispute.

Seeing the deeper issue (and Luke’s Jesus constantly warns against having too much and also God favouring the poor), Jesus warns then against all kinds of greed, and I start to feel uncomfortable. My problem is money. It's not that I don't have enough. It's just that I often think, and believe, and act like I don't have enough – enough money, enough time, enough stuff. More than that, I live in a culture that regularly tells me that I don't have enough. Television advertising and the internet all not only tell me that I'm insufficient, incomplete, and not quite right on my own, but they also promise me that if I only buy the product they're pushing – be it a tube of toothpaste, new laptop, or better car – then I'll be complete. Our culture unequivocally equates consumption with satisfaction, possessions with happiness, and material wealth with the good life.

And here's my problem: all too often I believe it. Don't get me wrong, I know it's not true. More than that, I know it's a downright lie. And I take as evidence not only the multiple biblical prescriptions warning about greed, but also all the studies that measure national happiness where the UK, one of the wealthiest countires in the world, ranks towards the bottom ten percent with regard to reported happiness. Further, in my own life I know that I have a lot more money and stuff now than I did ten years ago and yet in some ways I am no more happy than I was then. So I know that as a rule happiness doesn't make a person happy, and yet deep down I still secretly believe that I'll be the exception to that rule.



And then Jesus tells the parable of the rich fool and I feel scared. I identify with the rich guy. After all, he's not a cheat, or a thief, or even particularly greedy. He's just worked hard and made a lot of money, like most of us dream about. His mistake, in the end, doesn't have to do with the wealth; rather, he goes astray by believing that his wealth can secure his future, can make him independent – from others, from need, from God. And I catch myself dreaming that, too: "If I just had a little more in the bank, or if the this were paid off, or if the cash for the kids' university education was already saved,...everything would be okay." The allure of money is that it creates the illusion of independence. It promises us that we can transcend the everyday vulnerabilities and needs that remind us that we're mortal, created beings ultimately and always dependent on others and, most especially, on God.

The lip-smacking self-preoccupation of the rich man is what Jesus is ultimately warning against. He refers to himself eight times in two verses! 'What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them, and I will say to my soul: "My soul, you...".' God has provided him with land that produces so much, and yet God is not forgotten, he doesn’t even feature on this guys horizon.

Friends this is not, as Luke’s Jesus would like it to be, a ‘give all of your money and possessions away and especially to the church, and then you will find God’ sort of sermon but it’s not. Having possessions is fine says Jesus as long as they don’t get in the way of discovering true riches in God.

We have pretty much bought into the cultural assumption that equates money with personal worth and yet Jesus says our to riches should be found in God. Instead of filling our lives with stuff that has no intrinsic value other than the value that we give it, God challenges us to fill our lives with things that have eternal value. It’s not the wealth that Jesus has a problem with, it’s the fact that accumulating it outwardly reduces inwardly the God shaped space within us and if that space is filled already - when we need to show or receive love, when we long for a sense of inner peace - it passes us by and does not even feature on our landscapes. How do we earn the richness of God? You can’t. We cannot earn his favour or presence or love. Thank God we can’t because he longs to give it free of charge to us. The richness he longs for us to have costs us nothing but cost Him everything. To receive those riches, to know that we are loved eternally, to know that we can be forgiven for the car crash that we so often make of our inner as well as outer lives - we just need to sincerely ask Him to give it to us. This isn’t God and possessions fighting it out in capitalist democracy because God might be out of a job, no, it’s the story of a God waits and who will gladly put us together again when the beautiful palace we make our lives to be all too often comes crashing down. Friends we need to be people who are rich in God. So don’t buy an iPad, buy some I-God time - in prayer and in hearing of his love in the stories in the scriptures and rediscovering His eternal love for each of us.