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

I'm Sorry

Nabbed the text of this post from Revd Lesley's blog. It moved me. I needed to share it.

I once heard a story about a woman who was a high powered executive. She was planning to take early retirement and had been training for five years as a practitioner of a particular type of massage therapy. She was planning to practice this in her retirement as it gave her great pleasure and she had now mastered the art. These plans were thwarted when she tripped over a poorly laid piece of carpet in her workplace and damaged her knee, meaning that she could no longer do the massage, as she needed to be able to kneel for this particular therapy.

She sued the company, and it went to mediation, and the mediator asked her what she wanted. Her reply surprised him. She did not mention money, she said she wanted an apology, for them to acknowledge how badly this accident had messed up her life. The mediator encouraged the company to apologise, and reluctantly they agreed. When they met with her they said, 'We're sorry that your fall stopped your little hobby'. Needless to say she sued them for a lot of money and their failure to apologise cost them tens of thousands of pounds.

One of the best things that faith encourages us to do is to say 'I'm sorry, forgive me'. I consider myself able to say these words as I sit here now. But often the moment comes when I think to myself, 'Now I need to say sorry', and it is incredibly hard to say. The moment comes when I am still feeling angry, or hurt, or misunderstood. The moment comes when I am feeling abandonment fears. The moment comes when I am feeling lousy about myself and want to bolster my pride. The moment comes when I want to be held and reassured and I fear the impact of an admission of guilt.

My friend, the mediator, says he is often amazed by the power of an apology. I guess it is in hearing an apology that we feel no longer misunderstood and isolated. The other is no longer trying to get one-up, but has taken a stance that is one-down. It takes courage, though.

It also made me think of this song by King's X



The lyrics read:

If I hurt you, I
don't mean to
Please forgive me
Got no excuse

Over and over again
Over and over
Over and over again
I let you down

I will hurt you,
it's what I do
Please forgive me
You don't have to

Over and over again
Over and over
Over and over again
I let you down

Tears in heaven...

...seems and appropriate song to be playing today - the 5th anniversary of the 7/7 bombings in London.

I remember seeing the footage on the tv, seeing busses ripped open like sardine tins. Carnage. And I was nowhere near what was being shown on my tv.

How would I feel if caught up in it all? I have no idea, but I feel outrage at the fact that it could happen there, at Ground Zero, in Israel, Iraq or Afghanistan. The fact that we can do these things to one another in the name of religion or politics, or supposed freedom.

I am especially moved by the stories of people affected by this sort of tragedy and who find it withing themselves the power and/or need to forgive their perpetrators as the only way to move on and heal.

I was particularly moved by Gill Hick's story, from the Forgiveness Project website. She was caught in the blast on the Piccadilly line train and miraculously survived but lost both her legs due to the explosion.:

I wish the world would Stop – just stop and give us all the time to see what is happening. Why are we killing each other – everyday? It may sound naïve, simple, maybe too simple to take seriously – but – I don’t understand why we are ‘accepting’ and ‘tolerating’ war and destruction and famine and poverty and oppression. When will the final bomb explode? When will enough be enough?

The cycle has to stop – I can not hate the person who has done this to me; the cycle must end with me. I don’t see it as my place to forgive the act, yet I am compelled to understand – to offer an open heart, to try to hear and ask Why?

As I lay waiting, trapped in what resembled a train carriage – but was now a blackened, smoke filled indescribable ‘room’ of destruction and devastation – I was able to think. This period of time, some 40 minutes, was to prove to be the most insightful and blessed gift that I am yet to receive, apart from the ultimate gift of a second chance at life. As the blood poured from my body (despite the scarf I had tied on each leg as a tourniquet to stem the flow) I felt incredibly weak, fighting to hold on, to survive. There were two voices holding a very powerful, conflicting conversation in my head – one voice willing me to hold on, to remember those who love me and need me here, the other calling me softly to let go, to drift away into a peaceful deep and permanent sleep. Both sides were stating their case – asking me to choose between life and death. I thought about all the things that mattered to me –my then partner and now husband Joe, my brother Graham, my family, my dear friends – I wanted to spare them this pain. They gave me the strength to choose life. I made a decision and the conversation ended. I wasn’t going to die in the carriage, not there on that day; I had to wait for a light.

Help did come and each person who ’saved’ me did so not knowing who I was. It didn’t matter if I was rich or poor, black or white, female or male, muslim or jew, religious or not – what mattered to each of them – the police, the ambulance, the paramedics, the surgeons, the nurses –was that I was a life that hung in the balance, a life they were so desperate to save. I arrived at the hospital as ‘One Unknown’ – an estimated female.

When I awoke I was euphoric to be alive and to have survived. I feel like a very blessed person – filled with emotions of love and compassion and joy. I am able to appreciate life – but a different life than I had before, one that is rich and fulfilled and not consumed by anger and hatred.

I am committed to building Peace – to endeavour to eradicate ignorance in the world and to encourage mutual understanding. I don’t want to accept terrorism, we all deserve to live in a world that is not plagued by war and famine and poverty and oppression. We can change that – each and every one of us – each ‘one unknown’.

She has discovered an ability that most of us crave. To find our lives over-flowing with compassion and joy. This I believe is the power of forgiveness, the power to recognise each other not as 'unknown' but known to each other, and for those of us of faith, by God... Not the God of terror, or in whose name war is waged, but the God of love who accepted death, and transformed it into life and hope. I believe that every time that someone carries out an act of violence on another, on one of God's children... there are tears in heaven...



Forgiveness lies at the heart of the teaching of Jesus Christ. I hope and pray that I too might forgive like Gill Hicks.