LUKE 3:1-6

Why was Luke so precise? …….. In the 15^th year of Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod ruler of Galilee, Philip ruler of Ituraea and Trachonitis, Lysanias ruler of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiphas. ……. Why was Luke so precise?

We know that he was a doctor, an ordered man, who at the beginning of his Gospel says that he’d decided to write a careful, orderly account for a friend Theophilus – so that he may know the truth concerning the things about which he had been instructed.

In the early chapters of his Gospel he is at pains to root the story of Jesus in the historical events of the day – its as if he=s saying, “This is not just a story – it’s the truth! I’m not just telling stories to encourage you – I’m telling it like it is! It’s true, God did really become human – I can date the story pretty exactly.”

There’s a danger that when we read the Bible we see it as a mixture of nice stories and good quotes. A kind of moral almanac which we can dip into when we feel the need. A spiritual help – keeping us in touch with God. And in one way the Bible is like this – but it is so much more.

The Bible is a historical document – not only telling stories, but interpreting them. It is the story of human history told from God’s perspective. One Hindu teacher said that it was not so much a religious book as “a unique interpretation of human history and God at work in it.”

So, Luke wants us to grasp that this is a historical story. But it seems to me that he has more than this in mind: it’s like the whole world is lined up at the start of our gospel reading – ugly and foreboding.

Tiberius – the head of the Roman Empire – who’d brought peace to the world – but peace at great cost in human life. No one dared challenge the power of Rome, & those who did … were crushed.

Pilate – manipulating governor – concerned to protect his own skin.

Herod and his family – half jews – not really concerned for the people they governed.

Annas and Caiaphas – high priests who should’ve been guarding their flock, but who were more concerned for their own status.

In the midst of all this power, and abuse of power, what is God’s solution? A mad man crying in the wilderness – John the Baptist clothed in animal skins. Not the solution we would have chosen – but perhaps this is Luke’s point. First, God is born as a baby in a stable, then he chooses as his herald an unrespected mad-man, then he comes healing and talking of a Kingdom that is not of this world, a finally he achieves his victory not in terms of political power, but by stretching out his arms on the cross.

God’s purposes are achieved not through physical or political power, but through the mad-man crying in the wilderness, through humility and suffering.

Luke wants us to know that it is through people like us. Those with no power, those with difficulties and problems, those even who feel that if people knew what we were really like they would think us mad! That God chooses to work. Here in the reality of our lives God will work – not just to make us feel good – but to reach out to others around us. It is us who are called to be prophets. It is us who are called to prepare the way, to clear the way so that Christ can come to others.

Sunday November 8th 2015 – Remembrance Sunday

The Gospel reading set for today in the church’s lectionary is Mark 1:14-20, where Jesus calls James and John to follow him.

There are many things in the world that change dramatically during their life cycle – caterpillars, tadpoles eggs, acorns, flower bulbs – all of them change into something else. One of Hans Christian Andersen stories also focusses on that
process of change – The Ugly Duckling.

A caterpillar changes into a butterfly or a moth, and acorn into an oak tree, eggs into birds, tadpoles into frogs or toads, a plain amaryllis bulb into a striking flower, and an Ugly Ducking into a Swan

Each grows to be very different. But their ability to change and grow doesn=t just appear from nowhere. The Potential is already inside of them.

Jesus choses James and John to follow him. They encounter Jesus and follow him and in doing so are changed for ever.

We don’t know that much about Jesus disciples. We do know that James and John were fishermen. We know that they were relatively slow learners and that on one occasion that asked Jesus to let them sit on either side of him when he came into his kingdom, that they were interested in power and places of honour more than they were in listening to Jesus. As Jesus says in that Gospel passage the places either side of him when he came into his kingdom were reserved for two thieves at the Cross.

James and John may not have been quick learners or good listeners but something about being with Jesus, something in this person, Jesus, changes James and John for ever. It doesn’t all happen in an instant, but it starts to happen as James and John listen to Jesus speak and when they see Jesus’ miracles. They are changed as he follows Jesus.

“James, John, I have a job for you, follow me,” Jesus says. “I can see the potential in you, I can see who you will become. I want you to be my fishermen now – only you’ll be catching not fish but men and women to be my followers.”

And we know how the story ends – these ugly ducklings of men become Swans, they become the most faithful of Jesus followers, one is martyred not long after Jesus dies, the other lives to a ripe old age and becomes bishop of Ephesus and writes letters which remind people that it is not power and influence that matter but love and service.

Jesus does not just call James and John. He calls each of us to follow him. Rough diamonds that we are, self-deprecating or over confident, strong or weak. All of us called to be his followers.

And, just like James and John, there is potential for change in each of us. Jesus can take us and transform us. We no longer need to feel that we are no good, we can admit to God our weakness and our failings and then God takes us as we are and makes something special. We no longer need to feel like the Ugly Ducking or the Caterpillar, for God in Jesus sees the Swan and the Butterfly that we really are – and as we give ourselves to God – he draws out all the good that is in us.

Perhaps this is a very important message for today. James died a martyrs death, John lived on into old age, and lived for Jesus, no doubt honouring his brother’s memory and calling on others to live lives of love and forgiveness. Perhaps it is no accident that John’s epistles major on these two themes. And so I’ll leave the last word with John – word that he remembers as being on Jesus’ own lips:

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:17)

6^th September 2015

Mark 7:24-37

Children and Dogs ….

In the light of the events of the last few weeks the Gospel set for 6th September makes uncomfortable reading. I wonder what you make of it? … What does Jesus mean when he talks about the children and the dogs? Does it sound racist? Was Jesus being racist? That seems to be a blasphemous question to ask. Doesn’t it? ……..

“First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

Why did Jesus say those words? Was it just rhetorical, aimed at getting the response it did? Was he just quoting a standard Jewish phrase? Was he, perhaps, working out his theology on the hoof? Learning as he went along? Applying what he had been taught by others and then discovering that it didn’t work or it was wrong, only realising as a result of this incident that his calling was wider than just to Israel?

On the surface, in the first instance, he seems no different from his disciples. … Was it the woman herself that changed his mind? ……. What was going on? ………….

We know that the Jewish establishment in Jesus’ day was concerned above all with purity. Last week we heard Jesus challenging hypocritical ritual purity laws. This week our gospel raises questions about racial purity. Just who does God see as his people. For many Jews the issue was clear – only the chosen people, only Jews. God wasn’t concerned for others, for the Gentiles.

Over past month or so, we have seen graphic images of refugees crossing the Mediterranean and we have heard reports of many being killed crossing the sea or in lorries in different parts of Europe. How should we respond to what we hear and see. There is a very strong lobby which wants us to be fortress Britain. We are too full says that lobby. We cannot take any more. Yet the figures are striking. Since the start of the Syrian crisis the UK has taken 216 Syrian refugees – 216 in 4 years. The camp near the channel tunnel has about 5,000 refugees wanting to come to Britain, that sounds a little more demanding. But the most astounding figure is the number of refugees who have been granted asylum in Germany in the past year – wait for it – ¾ million. Yes, ¾ million. In this context, what is our response to be, put up walls and exclude those most in need? Britain for the British! Fortress Britain. Keep everyone else out?

The rhetoric is disturbing – words like ‘swarm’ have been used, among others, which effectively allow us to ignore the true human stories of refugees and see them as a blight upon our lives – as animals (dogs) rather than people. Only the picture of the little boy dead on the beach has brought us up short.

When we read the Old Testament story we see that there was a constant tension in the life of Israel between those who believed that the Jewish race should be pure and ethnically ‘clean’, (whatever their reasons) and those who had a much broader vision. So Nehemiah and Ezra enact laws to prevent Jews marrying foreigners. Yet the stories of Ruth and Jonah, probably written at around the same time, suggest that God is interested in the outsider and the foreigner. Ruth, who became the grandmother of King David (the person who became the symbol for the nation of Israel), was a hated foreigner, a Moabitess. And in Jonah, it is Nineveh, the hated Assyrian enemy city, that repents.

Jesus grew up in a community for whom those issues of racial purity were very important. Israel for the Jews, no one else! That attitude would have been accepted as normal, an unwritten truth that the community accepted and which no one challenged. At some stage Jesus had to confront those attitudes in himself and his friends and family. Was this Gospel story the moment when it happened? …

Ultimately Jesus healed the woman’s daughter. But did he go through some sort of conflict within himself first? ……….. Does that help us when we grapple with our own feelings and ideas? Does it help to think of God/Jesus having similar struggles and overcoming them? Was this incident, for Jesus, just a little like the temptations in the wilderness – a real struggle? Or was it no more than the equivalent of swatting a fly? Easy? After all he was God, wasn’t he? Nothing too big or difficult for him!

But Jesus was a real human being who had to learn and grow just like us. The toddler who had to take his first steps, the five year old who had to learn to read. ……

We have a struggle to engage with now. It is a real struggle for the heart of our nation. Are we going to be xenophobic, focused only on ourselves or are we going to be the open, welcoming nation, that for much of our history we have been? ……

There are no easy answers, …. but I want to live in a country, in a world, where people matter; where we respond to real need with a generous and open heart. I want our children and other people’s children to grow up in a world which seeks to set aside prejudice and is open and welcoming.

In the churches of the Parish of the Good Shepherd, Ashton-under-Lyne this morning we bring a number of children to be baptized. The words of our baptism service talk about God’s blessing and love for those children. I want them to grow up in a world where people are valued for who they are. I want God’s love for them to be seen in those they encounter day by day. I want our lives to be attractive, drawing people into closer relationship with God.

There will be difficult choices along the way, but we will need to choose to be open, to place love and concern at the heart of our motives and actions. And as we do so we will begin to be a community that we can be proud of, a community that children that we bring to baptism can also be proud of.

In the Gospel readings over the past two weeks we have heard Jesus say these words: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” And over the Summer period the lectionary asks us to spend time in John 6. Sunday’s Gospel readings seem to have become repetitive – almost too repetitive. Why do we spend so much time focussing on this one chapter of John’s Gospel?

John’s Gospel does not have the story of the Last Supper and the institution of Holy Communion. Where the other Gospels focus on that story, John chooses to highlight Jesus washing his disciples feet. It is here, in John 6, a passage that commences with the feeding of the 5000 that John chooses to reflect on the importance of the Communion meal of bread and wine to his first readers.

We reflected in my post: “God loves and calls us all” ( http://wp.me/p45mBO-mw) that as physical beings we need food and drink to survive. John wants us to understand that our participation in Holy Communion is just as important to our survival as spiritual beings.

All of us, although we might not want to admit it, are really quite fragile. We all have needs and longings at the core of our being which need to be fulfilled. So many of us feel driven to try to fulfil these longings for significance, for meaning in our lives. It’s part of the human condition! We long for our deepest needs to be met and we search for ways to make this happen! These needs are spiritual – but in the end they are also physical. For when these needs are not met our physical well-being is compromised. We encounter and suffer from depression, or the stress we feel opens up the possibility of heart attack, or arthritis. The physical and the spiritual cannot be separated.

Jesus says to us all: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. … Whoever feeds on this bread will live for ever.” Or to put it more succinctly, “I am all you will ever need.”

John is so concerned that we grasp this message that he places Jesus cryptic words about Holy Communion alongside the story of Jesus meeting the physical needs of the crowd in feeding the 5,000. John is saying to us: “See, just as Jesus met physical needs he can meet spiritual needs as well.” God is interested in everything that makes up who we are, there is no distinction between physical and spiritual. In God’s eyes it is all one.

And John wants us to grasp that participating in a meal together is deeply significant for our spiritual and physical well-being. When we eat together, we do so much more that satisfy physical hunger and thirst. Eating together speaks volumes about our relationships. When we share a meal together we say very clearly to those we are with: “You are worth sacrificing time for.” When we invite friends round for a meal we really are valuing them. So often it is sharing a meal together that cements friendships and relationships – whether it be the marriage breakfast, or the business lunch, or any other kind of meal. Eating together either creates or cements those bonds of commitment.

So, when we share Holy Communion together we cement our relationship with God and our relationships with each other. We enact, in a way that physically affects us, the drama of Jesus’ death. We take into ourselves again the signs of that passion. We receive again the physical signs of God’s love for us and as we do so we are renewed and we’re strengthened for all that life can bring our way.

Jesus says: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” – John 6:35 .

These words from Jesus follow the story of the feeding of the 5,000. …

We have all probably experienced what is is like to be physically hungry. Just as those 5,000 who were fed by Jesus did. However, in the context of that miracle, Jesus talks about our hunger and thirst – not so much physical but spiritual.

Just as we feel hunger, all of us experience deep longings at the core of our beings which need to be fulfilled. Longings to be accepted, to be loved, to count for something, to make an impact, for others to see us as significant, as important or as strong.

Often these longings are well hidden away, but at times we encounter them in powerful ways. Perhaps in grief over the loss of a loved one, perhaps in the dark of the night when we are less in control of our emotions, perhaps at the point where everything seems to be going so well for us, yet something seems to be missing.

So many of us are driven to fulfil these longings for significance, for meaning in our lives. Perhaps we become workaholics, or we become demanding and jealous in our relationships, or we pursue success at the cost of everything else, or we turn to alcohol or drugs, or … some of us even go shopping.

And this is not a new problem – throughout the Old Testament – the people of Israel sought meaning, security and hope anywhere that they could. The prophets of old called their actions “prostitution.” For rather than being faithful to a God who had shown them immeasurable love, who had rescued them from slavery and had given them their own land, they wanted tangible security – gods that they could touch and feel. They sought solutions to their problems where no solutions would be found.

It’s part of the human condition! We long for our deepest needs to be met and we search for ways to make this happen!

Jesus says: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Or to put it more succinctly, “I am all you will ever need.”

All those desires for meaning, for hope, for significance, for love – those thirsts, those hungers. Pursue me, get to know me, spend time with me – and I will meet them. This is not just some idle promise made by a preacher looking for something to say on a Sunday evening. These are the timeless words of Jesus. They are Jesus promise to us.

And note: he doesn’t say “I’ll find you something to do for me, and then you’ll feel better” No, Jesus is talking about our very being, the very core of who we are, the bit no one else can see. Right at the core of who we are, that’s where Jesus will be – meeting our deepest desires for wholeness. And not just sparingly, but overwhelmingly, generously, and, just as in the story of the feeding of the five thousand, there’ll be plenty of leftovers, flowing out of hearts that are truly loved. For once we really know that we are loved, we can really begin to love others.

This is what Paul talks about in the Ephesians reading set for today. …

Out of the joy of knowing that we are loved will always come a response ….

Some of us will have seen an excellent example of being surprised by joy this week as we watched some of the celebrations of the England cricket team at what, I guess, for them, as well as for us, is an unexpected victory. The Guardian had some great photos – the great hug between Joe Root and Ian Bell after the winning run had been scored, the leap of joy by Joe Root when he scored the winning run. A jump that was high enough to see the stumps under his feet. Amazing natural responses of joy.

For Christians, there is also an overwhelming response of joy to the unbelievable truth that each of as individuals is loved by God and that  we together are God’s people, loved and accepted by him.  Paul says that the natural outworking of that joy is worship and loving service. We respond in worship and service. We use the gifts that God has given us as part of God’s on-going mission in the world. We give of ourselves to others, just as God in Jesus has given himself for us.

Jesus says: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” … In the Eucharist, I meet with you, I feed you. And in me you will find all that you need for life – and you are resourced to give of yourself to others in my church and in the world.

I want to leave you with Paul’s words from Ephesians …. as we read them, let’s remember that elsewhere in his letters Paul extends the list of gifts to include all kinds of ministry and service. And let’s hold one question in the forefront of our minds: ‘What can I/we do to respond in love to the God who loves me/us so much?

“When Christ ascended on high  … he gave gifts to his people. The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. … Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.”                                                (Ephesians 4.8-16)