How are you doing with the presents? Got them all wrapped yet?

What a job! Trying to hold three different bits of paper together at the same time as cutting the sellotape; sticking the sellotape onto one finger and trying to fold everything back up, only to discover that a bit of the tape has stuck to the paper and ripped it! Then there’s the present which turns out to be just a little too big for the largest sheet or roll of wrapping paper you could find. Wrapping presents is a real bind!

And when you have wrapped everything,  you sit back a look at your endeavours and it’s still pretty obvious what most things are – it isn’t easy to disguise the shirt with the collar which sticks up above the rest of the pack, a tennis racket is a tennis racket even inside Christmas wrapping, a bottle of wine is a bottle of wine however you try to wrap it – and a
mountain bike – well what else could it be?

It is a wonder that anyone is surprised by the presents that they get. And yet we are, aren’t we. There is always something that comes as a complete surprise – even if we’ve given everyone a list of what we want, we still get that present or presents which are impossible to guess from their wrapping. We look at them and wonder what they might be.

Often the surprise is fantastic. Something really special. But sometimes the surprise is negative. …

As a teenager in the 1970s, I set my sights on a lovely pair of cowboy boots that had good 3” high heels and platform soles. I think that they were bright orange in colour. I told my parents about them and they assured me (suprisingly) that my boots would be waiting for me on Christmas morning.

As teenagers are wont to do, I slithered downstairs on Christmas morning, trying not to betray my excitement. Mum and Dad had always said no to the clothes I wanted before.

When we started opening the presents, I was immediately aware that I was probably going to be disappointed. There were no presents large enough. Still I maintained a slim hope that perhaps the boot calves had been folded over to get them into a smaller box. But no, when I opened the present from Mum and Dad, there were a pair of boots, ankle-height elasticised slip-on boots with half inch heels. It felt like they had reinterpreted my request to suit themselves! I don’t think I wore those boots more than once. I was deeply disappointed!

As Israel waited for its Messiah it had a very definite idea in mind what that Messiah would be like. The trouble was that when that Messiah arrived he did not fit their idea of a Messiah. God’s gift to Israel was not what it wanted.

Israel had chosen to listen to the bits of the bible it wanted to hear. It created a concept of a Messiah who was a powerful and dynamic king. A Messiah who would rid them of the oppressor, a military Messiah, a powerful leader who would free them from the yoke of oppression. ‘No,’ says Jesus, ‘I am here to inaugurate a different kingdom, a kingdom built on justice for all, and peace and healing for the oppressed.’

The thing with God is … that we can never pin God down. We think we have listened. We form our ideas of what God wants, or what God is doing. And then, hey presto, God does something different. We’ve tried to understand what he wants and yet again we’ve been trapped by our own ideas and our limited understanding of God.

It is wonderful when God surprises us with something new, something different. … The incarnation of Jesus, was one of those occasions – perhaps the most important of them.

In Jesus’ life and death he turned convention on its head, he disturbed the status quo, and out of a shameful death brought new life and hope to the world.

Jesus is God’s present to us this Christmas. But don’t go thinking that you’ll necessarily get the present you’ve asked for! Jesus at work in our lives is more disturbing, more exciting, more wonderful than we can anticipate. If this baby was a surprise and a shock for those waiting for a Messiah, his life was even more so, and the manner of his death was the final shocking surprise.

When Jesus came in his glory, it wasn’t as a king robed in finery on a golden throne. It was naked, dying, with a cross as his throne. In Jesus’ death shame became glory. We look back with gratitude and celebrate a king born as a baby who is finally crowned king with thorns and with a cross for a throne.

I was disappointed with my boots back in the 1970s, but I have never been disappointed with Jesus. Occasionally confused, sometimes disturbed, sometimes bewildered, but following his lead has taken me all over the place, and he continues to change and challenge me.

We can look back with gratitude to those days when Christ was here on earth; we can express our love of our Lord. But for those who lived through those days, weeks and months of Jesus’ ministry and the week surrounding his death, they were full of shocks and surprises.

Our God is a God of
surprises. He wants to surprise each of us with his presence this Christmas time.

Mary’s Journey

I have spent time living in South West Uganda and I have returned there on a few occasions. Since 1994 when I first travelled to Uganda, I have been to Kisoro, right on the border with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo 5 times. and I am delighted to name their current Bishop as an important personal friend.

The Christmas story seems to be full of journeys – starting, seemingly with Joseph and Mary travelling to Bethlehem with a donkey, the journeys of shepherd and wise men follow before the Holy Family travel as Syrian refugees to Egypt to avoid persecution.

Today’s gospel focuses on another journey that is perhaps often overlooked … but more of that later. ….

People in Kisoro and the districts around spend a lot of their waking hours travelling. Here, below, are two of the journeys they make on a regular basis. ….

The first is to get to church.

Most of us rely on clocks or watches to sort out when to leave for church – in the past we relied on bells to tell us that the service was due to start. And in those days most of us would have walked to church – perhaps a few hundred yards at the most.  …… In Kisoro, 10 minutes before the service starts drums begin to play under a tree outside the cathedral.

In 1994 virtually no one had a watch and people would start walking to the cathedral when they heard the drums.

At the start of the service there would be perhaps 30 or 40 people in church – the services would last perhaps 2 to 22 hours and by the time the sermon was well underway (usually something that lasted at least 3/4 hour) the congregation would have swelled to over 700. Most people had heard the drums and then had a 45 minute to an hour walk to get to church.

That is quite a journey for a Sunday morning. ……….. However, it is nothign compared with the journey that many children and women still have to make in the territory around Kisoro.  …… A journey to fulfil a more basic need – the need for water.

In 1994, for the first time, I met children who had to walk a 12km round trip each day before going to school – the outward 6km was relatively easy for the jerry cans were empty – the return journey was more arduous – up hill with full 5 gallon jerry cans. As churches in Ashton-under-Lyne, we’ve been able to be part of a continuing process of making this a thing of the past, but there are still today children and adults that make that kind of journey each day to collect water. It is still shocking!

What’s the worst journey you’ve ever experienced?

Was it a long car journey and did you get stuck in traffic? Was it a train journey that seemed never ending. Since being in Uganda my attitude to what counts as inconvenient in my travel arrangements has changed. But I still manage to get impatient. Many of us will be travelling this Christmas to see friends and family. Some of us, long distances.

Luke reminds us that Mary travelled with haste to spend time with her relatives. She’d just been visited by the Angel Gabriel. She’d accepted a role which could only mean that she would be ostracised by her community, a role which might mean the loss of her fiancée – being pregnant when Joseph knew that the baby was not his.

Was she afraid? You bet she was. Where did she turn? To someone she thought might understand. Someone who was also having a child in strange circumstances.

Can you imagine how she was feeling? This journey she took from Nazareth to the hill country of Judaea would have been a long one. 50 to 60 miles – a pregnant woman travelling alone – not even a railway system to take the strain. Can you imagine what it was like, walking all that way? How long would the journey have taken on foot? What dangers would she have faced? Why did she leave Nazareth in haste? Had people found out? Was she at risk of being stoned (for that was the punishment for women who had sex outside wedlock)? What would she have been thinking during the days that she was travelling?

How will I be received? Will they understand? Will they too condemn me? … So much time to think!

What must it have felt like to hear Elizabeth’s welcome: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb?”

The immense sense of relief – someone understands.

We know the story so well that we can easily miss the strength of the different emotions that Mary must have felt – fear of what others might say and do, joy at Elizabeth’s acceptance and love.

Is it surprising that she bursts into song? One of the most enduring songs of worship.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my
Saviour; he has looked with favour on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed; the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

There are many journeys in the Bible – many have this element of fear attached to them, with questions in the mind of the traveller about how they will be received.

Do you remember Jacob wrestling with God because he does not want to face his brother who is ahead of him on the road?

Or what about the Prodigal Son – wandering home wondering how he would be received?

In both cases the welcome they received far exceeded their expectations.

We’re often told that we can look on our lives as a journey. Its particularly true at Christmas time – whether in reality when we visit friends and relatives, or in our minds and hearts as we revisit significant events in our lives.

For some, Christmas holds out the promise of joy or the promise of renewal; for others, the journey through our memories is long and arduous, and like those Ugandan children we carry heavy loads. The journey brings back feelings of loneliness, of loved ones who have died, relationships which have gone sour. The journey through this Christmas period can be both light and dark, a mixture of joy and sorrow.

As Mary travelled the difficult road south to Judaea, she discovered not the blackness of despair but the joy of acceptance. Elizabeth shared her experiences and rejoiced with her in God’s involvement in her life.

Both Elizabeth and Mary can be models for us this Christmas – Elizabeth offering love and acceptance, offering hospitality, challenges us to make our homes ones of welcome – places were the weary and heavy laden traveller – the one struggling with life or the burden of unwanted memories – can find a resting place of love and care.

Mary encourages those of us struggling with this season to take risks in sharing our fears, our hurts, the loneliness of our journey, with others who will understand. Mary encourages us, perhaps above all, to know that however long or tortuous our journey, just like those Ugandan Christians at the cathedral in Kisoro, when we approach

the communion table we receive God’s loving welcome – we are at home.

I tried learning to sail once. 4 lessons in tiny topper dinghies at Gorton Reservoirs, in the evenings after work.

One of those evenings there was no wind. As you might be able to imagine, it was a frustrating experience. A lovely location, bright evening sunshine, blue sky and no clouds. But we could do nothing – the sails were limp and the boats would not move. …. It was a beautiful evening, but so deeply frustrating.

The truth is that – beautiful calm seas and lakes only exist when there is no wind! Ultimately calm seas mean no sailing, no progress.

Zephaniah’s prophecies in the 3 chapters of his book include images of a storm wind sweeping away everything in its path. Just like a tornado lays everything waste. … The storm is raging around God’s people. And at the end of a series of verses of vivid and dark imagery comes the passage we read this morning. Zephaniah is lifting the hearts of his people:

Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!
The Lord has taken away the judgements against you,
he has turned away your enemies. The Lord is in your midst.
Do not fear, O Zion; the Lord God is in your midst.

‘Do not be afraid. Be encouraged’, says Zephaniah, ‘God is with us. The storm is over, the dark times are coming to an end’.

We read similar upbraiding words from Paul in Philippians. ‘Rejoice, don’t worry’, he says. These might seem to be unrealistic, unreasonable words for Paul to say – how can we rejoice when times are hard? Paul cannot seriously expect us to rejoice when we are worried about our health, or about our families.

Yet Paul himself was in prison as he wrote Philippians. He is able to say later in the chapter we have just read, that he has learnt to be content in all situations – whether hungry or well-fed; in both difficult and good times.

That’s as it maybe, but how do you feel when you’re struggling and someone says to you, “Just rejoice, don’t worry! Pray about it – it’ll be OK!” ……….. If it wasn’t for the fact that we know Paul was in prison, we’d think he’s saying that Christian life should be about sailing through troubles as though on a calm sea – life should be wonderful!

But as I discovered on Gorton Reservoir, calm water does not allow progress or learning or growth. And in life, even those of us fortunate enough to live relatively peaceful and stable lives know that progress, or growth occur only through facing the challenges that life brings our way. It’s great at times to experience calm waters but we know that choppy waters will come whenever we experience the wind in our sails.

Perhaps we can take the analogy about sailing a little further?

When Paul talks of God’s peace, he is not suggesting something like the beautiful stillness of a lake on a summer evening. He’s thinking much more of something like the eye of the hurricane. That elusive place in the middle of the storm where the sea is calm. Paul has learnt in the middle of the storms and difficulties of life to rejoice because he has found God’s peace. He longs that those who read this letter will experience the same peace.

Zephaniah has a similar image in mind – that in the midst of all the turmoil surrounding Israel, they can be confident because God is with them.

However, in our Gospel reading, John the Baptist seems almost as though he is the hurricane, ripping through the sin and hypocrisy of his day and pointing forward to Jesus who will strip away the chaff and gather those faithful to himself, just like a farmer will gather wheat into the safety of the barn.

It would be nice to be able to say, as we approach Christmas, that we are filled with God’s peace, but the truth may well be far from this. Worry and fear, darkness and depression sit so close to us at times, and Christmas can for some of us be the most difficult of times. Some of us have lost those dear to us at or around Christmas time in previous years. Christmas is promoted as family time, yet so many of us are lonely and will be lonely over Christmas. The circumstances that surround us and the emotions that we feel can be like a storm raging around us. Our emotions feel out of control. And circumstances feel as though they will destroy us.

Zephaniah’s promise is that God is with his people, ‘with us’. … At Christmas we celebrate ‘God with us’, Emmanuel.

John the Baptist tells us that when Jesus comes he will gather his own and keep them safe like wheat stored in a barn. ……  However we are feeling, God is with us, at the eye of the storm, longing to reach out to us with his love and peace. Promising that he will never leave us alone.

And what some of us need to hear more than anything else are God’s words of comfort as we struggle through difficult times.

Others of us, however, need to hear the challenge that these words of comfort can bring. We need to reach out to the lonely, those struggling with fear and worry, those who feel their loss most deeply. Because as we do so we begin to make God’s promises tangible, we give them a human form.

So if the challenge is appropriate for you, what can you do? What can we do this Christmas? It might mean helping in one of the hostels for the homeless over the Christmas period. It might mean giving sacrificially to a caring charity. It may be as little as inviting someone to share your Christmas meal.

The challenge is to be part of God’s mission. For some, to receive the gift of God’s love and peace through friends. For others to heed the challenge: to get into the boat with those caught in the storm.

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.