The Sunday clergy dread preaching on.... I get the feeling that I may well have preached this all before!
Trinity Sunday
How does the Trinity help?
Today is Trinity Sunday, so I am going to talk about the Trinity. But I am not going to try to explain the nature and meaning of ‘God in Trinity’. I am not going to tell you that God is like a Shamrock with three leaves, or explain one of the Church’s profoundest teachings using the image of a Triple Decker chocolate bar or of toothpaste with three stripes in - all of these things do not do justice to the depth and wealth of theological thought around what exactly it means to describe God as ‘The Holy Trinity’
Neither, you will be pleased to know, am I going to try and explain any of this theological discussion around themes such as ‘what is the trinity’ or ‘how do the persons of the trinity exist together’ nor will I be exploring the words ‘consubstantial’ and ‘co-eternal’.
The reason I won’t be looking at the doctrine of the Trinity is because, if we’re honest most of us, myself included, would say that the idea of the Trinity is somewhat confusing, that phrases describing God as ‘three in one and one in three’ leave us feeling a bit bemused. Many of us get by without ever really considering what it might mean to describe God as ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’, or ‘Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer’ as some prefer to say. The doctrine of the ‘Trinity’ is not first and foremost in our minds when we turn up at Church to worship God, a God who we strive hard to understand even at the simplest level.
This doesn’t mean I think that the idea of the Trinity is unimportant or irrelevant - just that greater minds than mine have made attempts to explain the meaning of the Trinity and have done a much better job of it as well.
This doesn’t mean either that I find the idea of the Trinity boring or unhelpful, on the contrary I believe that God being revealed as Trinity, as ‘three in one and one in three’ is the most exciting thing about Christianity - it makes our faith a dynamic, awe-filled experience - it offers a very different way to understand and know God to most other systems of belief.
It’s just that I don’t want to talk about doctrine and theology - I want to say a little bit about why I get excited about the God of the Bible - about God who is revealed as one and three persons - about a God who is too big for even our imaginations to contain. I don’t want to talk about the nature and meaning of the Trinity, I want to talk about what we can learn from the very idea of God as Trinity - a very different theme.
So, what can we learn from the Trinity? Well first and foremost the Trinity teaches us something about the importance of relationships. It tells us that the first thing that ever happened in the universe wasn’t creation, or a cosmic battle between Good and Evil. The first thing that happened was a relationship, the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I’m not going to try and explain how this happens - but it strikes me as foundational to our understanding of the foundation of God - that God lives in relationship.
This should influence how we feel about ourselves. We are made, says the Bible, in God’s image. If we are made to reflect God then being in relationship is part of who we are – we’re not made to stand alone or to struggle by ourselves, we are made to share - to live in community, to relate to one another and to live in the love of God.
In the light of this our relationships take on a whole new dimension - no wonder Jesus said it was important to love our neighbour as ourselves - because in doing that we are reflecting the very nature of God. If we take this seriously we have to value the relationships we have, our friendships, our neighbours, those who go to Church with us, even those we do not like or who think differently from us - even our enemies. We are called to live in relationship with them, we are called to live in love with all people. This is no small thing - it is the very foundation of who God is and who God has made us to be.
The second thing that the idea of the Trinity has to teach us is about the importance of integrity. Integrity is a word that has been made very popular in the past few years - I’ve seen books on it by psychologists, business writers and Christians. It’s a trendy word. But don’t let the fact that it’s overused distract us from its importance. God lives in integrity. That means that thought there are disparate parts within the Trinity, though we describe God as being ‘in three persons’ God is still one, God is still ‘whole’.
Integrity means being whole, it means bringing together all of our internal parts and reconciling all our differences. I know of some Christians who faithfully attend Church, they say all the right things - they are models of ‘perfect Church members’ but when you look at how they act they seem to be different people away from the life of the Church. It’s not that they are bad or deliberately rebelling but that they do not apply their faith to the rest of their lives.
They may be managers who don’t always do what is best for their employees, they may fiddle their accounts, they may not stand up for what is right when pushed into a corner. Whatever the situation, what is lacking is integrity.
Faith should not be a part of our lives, but the whole of our lives. Integrity means we reflect God’s nature as we apply the whole of our lives to being like and loving like God. It means we consider our bodies, minds, hearts and souls to all be in the service of God. It means we give our all to God and seek what is right for ourselves and for others. It means learning to be whole.
My third point about what the Trinity can teach us is this - it’s a mystery. We have to know when to give up trying to understand things that are beyond us. We ask questions of God, about God and because of God and it is perfectly right and proper that we do so. No, more than that, it is good and we should always be applying our hearts and minds to search for truth. Ultimately, however, there is a time to give up - to cease asking questions and just accept that some things are as they are, and there’s no changing them and no understanding them. This is a difficult point to reach, but one which we all need to get to at sometime - it is an acknowledgement of our humanity - that we are finite, limited by our time, place and nature. It also means letting go and letting God - of resting in the knowledge that God is bigger than all of this.
The Trinity teaches us that, when it comes down to it, God is God. God is beyond our grasp, beyond our imaginations and our plans, beyond what we want God to be. God is unknowable, and yet God allows us to glimpse what he is really like - God allows us to use names like Father, Mother, Friend, Companion exactly because he understands our limits and wants us to realise that he is without limit. The names and ideas we have about God are only glimpses, we have to realise that God is a mystery which we will never fathom.
My prayer for all of us is that we will grow in our understanding of this God who is trinity and that the hallmarks of our Fellowships will be tolerance, love, a quest for truth, wholeness of life and a willingness to let God be God.
And to God who is ever Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to whom all power, might, mystery and majesty belong. To God alone be glory in our lives and in the Church. AMEN
Friday, 13 June 2008
Sunday, 11 May 2008
A Sermon for Pentecost
Year A Pentecost (2008) RCL Principal
Jesus Loves the Church
I recently found myself in a conversation with a minister who is Chaplain to an Anglican Church in Paris. There were lots of good things that came out of that conversation, but quite early on in the process he came out with something that really made me think. He said ‘I love Church, Church is why I get up in the morning.’
It’s not a sentence I hear very much. Not even for those of us whose life and ministry is lived around the Church…
Actually perhaps for those of us who are involved in the Church to a greater degree we are more likely to criticise and complain – to be honest – because we have invested so much in the life of our Churches.
I promise you, you never want to spend any great length of time in a room full of Clergy. Except our own Team Clergy, of course, who seem to have the gift of laughter and support to an unnatural degree…
But back to this who idea of loving the Church. What does it mean?
Well, for some people it is a love of the building and the history of these wonderful treasures which are the Parish Churches of England. And I don’t mean that with any sense of irony. I believe that the physical plant, the buildings, the bricks and mortar, or stone, or whatever, are a gift – they are visible signs of devotion to God throughout our land, they are places of prayer, they are sacred spaces, they say to the communities around us that faith endures. These buildings offer us great mission opportunities, they offer us potential for hospitality, they offer the chance for people to be rooted in the community through the good and bad times of life. I can see why people love these buildings.
But it’s not enough.
Some people love the traditions of worship, both ancient and modern, that are a part of the life of the Church. For many ‘Church’ is what you do on a Sunday, usually with a bit of music, a bit of Bible, a bit of a sermon (and/or a snooze depending on how good the preacher is), a bit of prayer, and with luck a bit of coffee at the end and nice biscuits – or even cake (hooray!).
And there’s lots to love – we have hundreds of years of heritage in our prayer books, with the services that we use now in Common Worship stretching back with a 2000 year heritage. Our Sunday worship can lift us to the heights of heaven and – at its best – can draw us to the throne of God where worship is offered eternally to the great ‘I AM’. The beauty of words and music, the depth of the liturgy, the opportunity for stillness and silence, the sense of being in God’s presence and of encountering our living and active God can inspire a great amount of devotion and affection in us.
But it’s not enough!
And others would point to the fellowship of the Church, to the feeling of family and togetherness that is a part of the life of our Parish Churches. I am constantly bowled over by the sense of welcome and care in our Churches, and believe our genuine openness and hospitality is a manifestation of God’s grace in our congregations and beyond.
In fellowship we can find a sense of identity, of being loved and forgiven, of sharing and healing and compassion and love.
And together we find strength, supporting one another and encouraging one another to grow and to act to change the world as Jesus calls us to. Together we can speak out against injustice, against those things which harm or destroy. We can change the world, together.
But it’s not enough…
Loving our building, no matter how wonderful it is. Loving the services on Sunday, no matter how uplifting and enjoyable they are. Loving the fellowship, no matter how welcoming, embracing and inspiring it is. None of this is enough to live and die for.
Yet that’s what Jesus did.
Jesus lived and died for the Church. He is Lord of the Church. The Church, the Bible tells us, is his bride, that is how much Christ loves the Church. We are told in St Paul’s letter to the Corinithians that we are the body, we are Christ to this world, and Jesus is our living head.
Now, that’s the reason I get up in the morning.
But what does this mean? Well our reading from Acts for today stops short of giving us the whole Chapter. If we were to carry on we would hear in verse 41 of Chapter 2 that three thousand were added to the Church after that amazing experience – but if we read through from the next verse, verse 42 to the end of the Chapter we would hear this
42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds* to all, as any had need. 46Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home* and ate their food with glad and generous* hearts, 47praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
What set the first Church apart at birth was not just the wonderful experience of Pentecost – of the great signs and wonders of that outpouring of the Spirit – but the everyday lives they led. These were people dedicated to lives of prayer, of worship, of sharing together. They were generous hearted, and open in a faith which was part of their homes, their work, their whole lives.
There was no part of their lives that they didn’t allow the Spirit to touch or to change. In many ways after the show of Pentecost, they settled down to lives of everyday devotion. There is that ongoing touch of the Spirit that changes everything they are a part of.
It is that touch of the Spirit that makes the Church the body of Christ, that binds us together like sinews and tendons and muscles and bone and flesh bind us each together. It’s that absolute devotion to God and to one another that should be the hallmark of Christ’s body, of our Church.
And it is that which is our calling today, and in our time that same Spirit is still on offer, we all have the Spirit in us, but we have to ask if we are really allowing God to work in us. Perhaps even more challenging is asking whether we are I excited about being a part of the body of Christ in this place. It’s a question I have to ask of myself every day – I so often try to carry on in my own strength and then realise that it is only with God that any of this is possible.
This Pentecost we have the opportunity, as we do every day, of allowing God to work in us and to allow God’s Spirit to strengthen us, to embolden us, to free us from the fear that can come when we think about how people might react to our Christian faith. The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to the Church in order that we might be built up together and that together we might change the world.
I believe that if we can trust in the Spirit, if we can be bold in our proclamation of Jesus Christ, if we are true to our calling as Christians to make Jesus known then we too can change the world. Rather than our concerns about our building, or services, or even the sense of fellowship that we share, if we were absolutely committed, in partnership with God through His Holy Spirt, then perhaps when the history books are written about the Church of this generation then it may say about us - And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Pray God it might be so. Come Holy Spirit. Amen.
Jesus Loves the Church
I recently found myself in a conversation with a minister who is Chaplain to an Anglican Church in Paris. There were lots of good things that came out of that conversation, but quite early on in the process he came out with something that really made me think. He said ‘I love Church, Church is why I get up in the morning.’
It’s not a sentence I hear very much. Not even for those of us whose life and ministry is lived around the Church…
Actually perhaps for those of us who are involved in the Church to a greater degree we are more likely to criticise and complain – to be honest – because we have invested so much in the life of our Churches.
I promise you, you never want to spend any great length of time in a room full of Clergy. Except our own Team Clergy, of course, who seem to have the gift of laughter and support to an unnatural degree…
But back to this who idea of loving the Church. What does it mean?
Well, for some people it is a love of the building and the history of these wonderful treasures which are the Parish Churches of England. And I don’t mean that with any sense of irony. I believe that the physical plant, the buildings, the bricks and mortar, or stone, or whatever, are a gift – they are visible signs of devotion to God throughout our land, they are places of prayer, they are sacred spaces, they say to the communities around us that faith endures. These buildings offer us great mission opportunities, they offer us potential for hospitality, they offer the chance for people to be rooted in the community through the good and bad times of life. I can see why people love these buildings.
But it’s not enough.
Some people love the traditions of worship, both ancient and modern, that are a part of the life of the Church. For many ‘Church’ is what you do on a Sunday, usually with a bit of music, a bit of Bible, a bit of a sermon (and/or a snooze depending on how good the preacher is), a bit of prayer, and with luck a bit of coffee at the end and nice biscuits – or even cake (hooray!).
And there’s lots to love – we have hundreds of years of heritage in our prayer books, with the services that we use now in Common Worship stretching back with a 2000 year heritage. Our Sunday worship can lift us to the heights of heaven and – at its best – can draw us to the throne of God where worship is offered eternally to the great ‘I AM’. The beauty of words and music, the depth of the liturgy, the opportunity for stillness and silence, the sense of being in God’s presence and of encountering our living and active God can inspire a great amount of devotion and affection in us.
But it’s not enough!
And others would point to the fellowship of the Church, to the feeling of family and togetherness that is a part of the life of our Parish Churches. I am constantly bowled over by the sense of welcome and care in our Churches, and believe our genuine openness and hospitality is a manifestation of God’s grace in our congregations and beyond.
In fellowship we can find a sense of identity, of being loved and forgiven, of sharing and healing and compassion and love.
And together we find strength, supporting one another and encouraging one another to grow and to act to change the world as Jesus calls us to. Together we can speak out against injustice, against those things which harm or destroy. We can change the world, together.
But it’s not enough…
Loving our building, no matter how wonderful it is. Loving the services on Sunday, no matter how uplifting and enjoyable they are. Loving the fellowship, no matter how welcoming, embracing and inspiring it is. None of this is enough to live and die for.
Yet that’s what Jesus did.
Jesus lived and died for the Church. He is Lord of the Church. The Church, the Bible tells us, is his bride, that is how much Christ loves the Church. We are told in St Paul’s letter to the Corinithians that we are the body, we are Christ to this world, and Jesus is our living head.
Now, that’s the reason I get up in the morning.
But what does this mean? Well our reading from Acts for today stops short of giving us the whole Chapter. If we were to carry on we would hear in verse 41 of Chapter 2 that three thousand were added to the Church after that amazing experience – but if we read through from the next verse, verse 42 to the end of the Chapter we would hear this
42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds* to all, as any had need. 46Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home* and ate their food with glad and generous* hearts, 47praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
What set the first Church apart at birth was not just the wonderful experience of Pentecost – of the great signs and wonders of that outpouring of the Spirit – but the everyday lives they led. These were people dedicated to lives of prayer, of worship, of sharing together. They were generous hearted, and open in a faith which was part of their homes, their work, their whole lives.
There was no part of their lives that they didn’t allow the Spirit to touch or to change. In many ways after the show of Pentecost, they settled down to lives of everyday devotion. There is that ongoing touch of the Spirit that changes everything they are a part of.
It is that touch of the Spirit that makes the Church the body of Christ, that binds us together like sinews and tendons and muscles and bone and flesh bind us each together. It’s that absolute devotion to God and to one another that should be the hallmark of Christ’s body, of our Church.
And it is that which is our calling today, and in our time that same Spirit is still on offer, we all have the Spirit in us, but we have to ask if we are really allowing God to work in us. Perhaps even more challenging is asking whether we are I excited about being a part of the body of Christ in this place. It’s a question I have to ask of myself every day – I so often try to carry on in my own strength and then realise that it is only with God that any of this is possible.
This Pentecost we have the opportunity, as we do every day, of allowing God to work in us and to allow God’s Spirit to strengthen us, to embolden us, to free us from the fear that can come when we think about how people might react to our Christian faith. The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to the Church in order that we might be built up together and that together we might change the world.
I believe that if we can trust in the Spirit, if we can be bold in our proclamation of Jesus Christ, if we are true to our calling as Christians to make Jesus known then we too can change the world. Rather than our concerns about our building, or services, or even the sense of fellowship that we share, if we were absolutely committed, in partnership with God through His Holy Spirt, then perhaps when the history books are written about the Church of this generation then it may say about us - And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Pray God it might be so. Come Holy Spirit. Amen.
Saturday, 10 May 2008
This Month's editorial
Newsletter article for May:
There are lots of funny (both in the amusing and peculiar sense) ideas of what or who the Holy Spirit – or Holy Ghost in older versions of our Bibles and Services – is. Some I have spoken to actually seem to think that God seems to hang about wearing a bedsheet and floats over services and some people think that the Holy Spirit is a religious version of ‘Santa’s little helper’ who zips around the place helping people do good things.
But when the Bible talks about the Holy Spirit it means God. We talk about God as ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’ not as three different Gods all trying to share a small house in heaven, but because it’s the only way our limited human words can describe someone who is bigger than our minds can ever grasp. When the writers of the Bible talked about the Holy Spirit they thought in terms of God being active in people’s lives and the only word they could think to use was ‘spirit’ – suggesting someone who you couldn’t see, but was still there.
At this time of the Church’s year, the season we call Pentecost, we remember that God is still active in people’s lives, and that when we are open to God he will actually make a difference in our lives. On the first day of the Church we read, in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, that God inspired people to speak in different languages and to share the excitement of the new life which Jesus offers – this was such an amazing experience for all concerned that three thousand people joined the Church on that one day. The writers described it as the Spirit of God being ‘poured out’ – that God was at work even though he couldn’t be seen.
Saturday, 3 May 2008
Ascension Day Sermon
Ascension Day 2008 Year A RCL
Acts 1.1-11
Luke 24.44-53
Goodbye, God bless
Ascension day seems a funny day to celebrate. A strange time to have a feast (which of course our Communion is here this evening)! Because, if you think about it, it’s a celebration of something quite difficult.
Have you ever had that feeling of saying goodbye to someone that hurt so much it made you ache? Sixteen years ago Jo and I, who had had an on-off relationship for a few years, found ourselves living in London and York, and at the end of a weekend together we would have that awful goodbye as one of us got onto a train to leave our respective cities. It was probably this ache, this loathing of separation that meant that she came out with the best proposal ever – oh well, we might as well go for it then.
I’m sure for all of us we can understand that pain, perhaps in a smaller or greater degree. Saying goodbye to someone we care about, letting go of them and trusting for both their well-being and the well-being of your relationship with them can be difficult.
It should, to a certain extent, have been the same for the disciples, having had the pain and despair of losing Jesus which was replaced by the joy of the resurrection and the days they got to spend with Jesus afterwards, they were again losing him. Ok, so this time there wasn’t the agony of seeing him suffer, nor was there the same kind of fear that they had experienced before their encounters with Christ – the fear of being caught, the fear of dying, perhaps even the fear that it might all have been a waste of time. But at the same time, Jesus was leaving, and they had no idea when he was to return. There was the promise of his return, but though they hoped for its immanence they had no date, no time, and no firm promise that it would even be in their lifetimes.
So this feast is a strange celebration. We celebrate the loss of Jesus from the Earth – the end of his earthly bodily ministry.
BUT – if we read the Gospel for this evening again we don’t actually get the feeling that the disciples were particularly glum! In fact the reading we had from Luke’s Gospel, chapter 24 ends with these verses (V 51-53) “While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple blessing God.”
Not the actions of those who were filled with despair – so either Luke was an early example of a spin doctor – pretending all was well when it wasn’t – or there was something else happening to the disciples – or Apostles as they are now rightly called, being those sent out by Jesus.
What happened? Well the promise of Jesus return obviously did offer some hope and comfort, and they knew – it had been proved to them – that Jesus was a man of his word. He’d said he was to be raised from the dead, and he was – obviously a fella you could trust.
But more than that they were now people of purpose. People who knew their calling, who knew what they were to do, who knew that God had a task for them – and would equip them to fulfil it.
Before being taken to be with God (however that was accomplished – and I don’t really think it is worth spending time arguing about the world being round and surrounded by space and wondering where Jesus went etc etc – life’s too short to worry about some things… ) Anyway, before Jesus went to be with God he charged the Apostles with being witnesses to the ends of the earth. Those are the exact words from Luke’s account in the book of Acts. Witnesses – those who had seen and who were to proclaim the good news that Jesus himself had proclaimed, those who were to live and act as Jesus had, those who were to be Christ-like in the world.
And not only that – this sense of purpose came with another promise – one we read about at length in John’s Gospel – the promise of ‘power from on high’ – the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, the comforter, the advocate, the helper. The Spirit was to be poured out in a new way, a way that would give authority and power to their message and that would equip them for all they were to do. It was this power that would sustain them through all they faced, it was this power that would assure them of the reality of the presence of God, it was this power that would make it possible for them to go to all places and preach the Good News of Jesus Christ.
And they held to that promise, and after some gentle prompting by a couple of (euphemistically named) ‘men in white robes’ (Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven…?) they returned to Jerusalem to await the fulfilment of this promise.
That is why they weren’t torn by this parting – Jesus was leaving, but he was staying, the Spirit would bring that sense of Christ into every moment – just as he had said it would. And so they waited.
Perhaps, if they were anything like me, the waiting was the hardest part. Perhaps not – after all, they were in the temple continually blessing God. They allowed this promise to sink into their hearts, and they waited. And we know the end of their waiting, we will celebrate it in just ten days on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit was poured out, not just given but lavishly shared with signs and wonders, making everything the Apostles and the early Church was to accomplish possible.
Yet today – how many Christians are filled with that joy? How many of us find ourselves continually blessing God? We are those who know the promise, who in our baptism and our Christian life have the gift of God’s Spirit every day. We have the same potential to change the world, to live in the joy and wonder that was promised by Jesus so long ago.
Yet we are so often the ones who seem to mourn Jesus loss. We are the ones who seem to feel separated and distant from him… It’s true it has been many years, and Jesus hasn’t returned, it’s true that the history of the Church has not always been illustrious or uplifting – but it is equally true today as it always has been – Jesus has not left us alone. If we are open to the life of God, open to his Spirit, then we too can know the fullness of what Jesus promised, and we can have the assurance that one day we will see God face to face.
But it means we have to trust, to rely on faith, to be willing to do what God would have us do. It means, sometimes, waiting on God and listening for the voice of God. It means being willing to move, perhaps to change, and to take risks of faith.
All of this, though, can lead us to a greater joy, an enlarged faith, a sure and certain hope, and a life filled with the love and grace of our powerful, loving, intimate and awesome God. This is the reason we celebrate on this strange day – and I hope every day in our Christian lives.
Amen.
Acts 1.1-11
Luke 24.44-53
Goodbye, God bless
Ascension day seems a funny day to celebrate. A strange time to have a feast (which of course our Communion is here this evening)! Because, if you think about it, it’s a celebration of something quite difficult.
Have you ever had that feeling of saying goodbye to someone that hurt so much it made you ache? Sixteen years ago Jo and I, who had had an on-off relationship for a few years, found ourselves living in London and York, and at the end of a weekend together we would have that awful goodbye as one of us got onto a train to leave our respective cities. It was probably this ache, this loathing of separation that meant that she came out with the best proposal ever – oh well, we might as well go for it then.
I’m sure for all of us we can understand that pain, perhaps in a smaller or greater degree. Saying goodbye to someone we care about, letting go of them and trusting for both their well-being and the well-being of your relationship with them can be difficult.
It should, to a certain extent, have been the same for the disciples, having had the pain and despair of losing Jesus which was replaced by the joy of the resurrection and the days they got to spend with Jesus afterwards, they were again losing him. Ok, so this time there wasn’t the agony of seeing him suffer, nor was there the same kind of fear that they had experienced before their encounters with Christ – the fear of being caught, the fear of dying, perhaps even the fear that it might all have been a waste of time. But at the same time, Jesus was leaving, and they had no idea when he was to return. There was the promise of his return, but though they hoped for its immanence they had no date, no time, and no firm promise that it would even be in their lifetimes.
So this feast is a strange celebration. We celebrate the loss of Jesus from the Earth – the end of his earthly bodily ministry.
BUT – if we read the Gospel for this evening again we don’t actually get the feeling that the disciples were particularly glum! In fact the reading we had from Luke’s Gospel, chapter 24 ends with these verses (V 51-53) “While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple blessing God.”
Not the actions of those who were filled with despair – so either Luke was an early example of a spin doctor – pretending all was well when it wasn’t – or there was something else happening to the disciples – or Apostles as they are now rightly called, being those sent out by Jesus.
What happened? Well the promise of Jesus return obviously did offer some hope and comfort, and they knew – it had been proved to them – that Jesus was a man of his word. He’d said he was to be raised from the dead, and he was – obviously a fella you could trust.
But more than that they were now people of purpose. People who knew their calling, who knew what they were to do, who knew that God had a task for them – and would equip them to fulfil it.
Before being taken to be with God (however that was accomplished – and I don’t really think it is worth spending time arguing about the world being round and surrounded by space and wondering where Jesus went etc etc – life’s too short to worry about some things… ) Anyway, before Jesus went to be with God he charged the Apostles with being witnesses to the ends of the earth. Those are the exact words from Luke’s account in the book of Acts. Witnesses – those who had seen and who were to proclaim the good news that Jesus himself had proclaimed, those who were to live and act as Jesus had, those who were to be Christ-like in the world.
And not only that – this sense of purpose came with another promise – one we read about at length in John’s Gospel – the promise of ‘power from on high’ – the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, the comforter, the advocate, the helper. The Spirit was to be poured out in a new way, a way that would give authority and power to their message and that would equip them for all they were to do. It was this power that would sustain them through all they faced, it was this power that would assure them of the reality of the presence of God, it was this power that would make it possible for them to go to all places and preach the Good News of Jesus Christ.
And they held to that promise, and after some gentle prompting by a couple of (euphemistically named) ‘men in white robes’ (Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven…?) they returned to Jerusalem to await the fulfilment of this promise.
That is why they weren’t torn by this parting – Jesus was leaving, but he was staying, the Spirit would bring that sense of Christ into every moment – just as he had said it would. And so they waited.
Perhaps, if they were anything like me, the waiting was the hardest part. Perhaps not – after all, they were in the temple continually blessing God. They allowed this promise to sink into their hearts, and they waited. And we know the end of their waiting, we will celebrate it in just ten days on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit was poured out, not just given but lavishly shared with signs and wonders, making everything the Apostles and the early Church was to accomplish possible.
Yet today – how many Christians are filled with that joy? How many of us find ourselves continually blessing God? We are those who know the promise, who in our baptism and our Christian life have the gift of God’s Spirit every day. We have the same potential to change the world, to live in the joy and wonder that was promised by Jesus so long ago.
Yet we are so often the ones who seem to mourn Jesus loss. We are the ones who seem to feel separated and distant from him… It’s true it has been many years, and Jesus hasn’t returned, it’s true that the history of the Church has not always been illustrious or uplifting – but it is equally true today as it always has been – Jesus has not left us alone. If we are open to the life of God, open to his Spirit, then we too can know the fullness of what Jesus promised, and we can have the assurance that one day we will see God face to face.
But it means we have to trust, to rely on faith, to be willing to do what God would have us do. It means, sometimes, waiting on God and listening for the voice of God. It means being willing to move, perhaps to change, and to take risks of faith.
All of this, though, can lead us to a greater joy, an enlarged faith, a sure and certain hope, and a life filled with the love and grace of our powerful, loving, intimate and awesome God. This is the reason we celebrate on this strange day – and I hope every day in our Christian lives.
Amen.
Sunday, 27 April 2008
A sermon for Easter 6
Keep my commandments
One of my favourite cities is York, we have great friends there and Jo (my wife) even lived there for a while. So whenever I have the opportunity we go back there, and usually visit the place where Jo worked - a place called the Spurriergate centre – a church that has been converted into a coffee and bookshop, with various fair trade items on sale as well. It’s a Christian Centre which does meals and coffee as well as having the shop and offers befriending, prayer and counselling opportunities for those who drop in.
The last time I visited I noticed, for the first time, as I sat there drinking my fairly traded coffee that painted up on the wall by the entrance were the ten commandments – this piqued my interest so I looked at the details there on the wall next to the commandments, where a small card offered some explanation as to the meaning and purpose of those parts of the church that had been left in situ in this café. I discovered on reading about the building that at some time (I’m not good on dates) it was a requirement for all Churches to have the ten commandments painted on the wall – usually behind the Altar – for all to see. These commandments had been kept as an original feature of the building and I wondered what the shoppers and visitors must have thought to have these ten commandments looming over them as they munched their way through their baked potatoes, carrot cake or whatever.
It seems that the ten commandments have lost a lot of their impact on today’s world. We rarely use them in services as we used to, they are rarely taught about, and though there is a lingering memory of them amongst most people, and they are usually part of the school RE syllabus, the 10 commandments as traditionally known have very little influence on our world today.
Which brings me to Jesus saying at the start of today’s gospel reading. “If you love me, keep my commandments”. Which should lead us to the question – what commandments? The ten commandments? Another set of rules and regulations? All of the commandments in the Old Testament (there are over six hundred apparently).
As a Jew, Jesus would never have thought in terms of there being anything called ‘the ten commandments’. For him, as for any follower of the Hebrew faith, there was the law, the prophets, the histories and wisdom in the Scriptures. And the law was that which every good Jew sought to live by – not any one part of it, but all of it. It wasn’t for the sake of rules and regulations, though some lived by the letter of the law, but the law existed to offer a discipline and guidance in living a life acceptable to God. It was the springboard for a good life, not the whole of it.
That’s why Jesus never refers to the “10 commandments” or offers any teaching on what is known as ‘the decalogue’ specifically – though he refers to ‘the law’ frequently. Jesus didn’t want to offer rules and regulations, but guidance, principles to live by.
And if we search for rules and regulations in the teaching of Jesus we will be sadly disappointed. Most of his teaching is done in stories, and the times he does offer specific teaching he is often responding to a specific question for a particular reason – and even then Jesus doesn’t always give a straight answer… Jesus offers so much more than a list of things we must and must not do.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I wish the Bible were a rule book, sometimes I wish I could just open it up and find an exact text to answer each situation. Sometimes it would be an awful lot easier if it were just a long list of ‘thou shalt’ and ‘thou shalt not’ – with a nice index at the beginning to make looking up the crucial rule for each situation easier.
But the message of the Gospel, I believe, is that rules and regulations are not to be the way of those who follow Jesus. It’s harder work than that, we no longer have tablets of stone with rules engraved upon them, instead, through faith, we are called to allow God’s law to sink into our hearts, and to make decisions based not on commandments but on faith.
This is freedom, freedom from those things which constrain us – but at the same time it is a great responsibility. It means thinking, searching, questioning, praying our way through life. This must be firmly rooted in a life of faith and of reading our Bibles and seeking out the deeper truth therein. To some this approach might seem frightening, but actually it opens us to living as God would truly have us live, rather than in slavish obedience to a book of rules.
This principle isn’t something that is new, that I have made up this morning - St Paul himself says ‘all things are permissible, though not all things are helpful’ – and as we read through his letters we are given not laws to replace the law, but Paul’s own response to questions asked him, to particular difficulties faced by the Churches that wrote to him. Paul does not set down his own words as rules to be obeyed, but as his own interpretation of the principles laid down by Jesus. This is why St Paul is so concerned that we learn to discern for ourselves the will of God, to be open to God’s leading.
Rules and regulations are the province of the ‘religious’ rather than the ‘faithful’. In our reading from Acts we have St Paul addressing the Athenians, explaining that being religious isn’t enough, and pointing to the unknown God made know in Jesus Christ. It is because we have his example that we are called to copy Christ and to have a relationship with him, a relationship of faith, rather trying just to follow rules.
So when Jesus is talking about commandments, he is talking about the principles of faith, of serving God, of loving God and of obeying God’s higher laws – laws of love, of humility, of service, of giving. There are no rules and regulations for this, there is no list of commandments. We gain the principles from studying the Bible and seeing both what Jesus says and does.
And so, we work with the principal of ‘the Golden rule’ – of doing to others as we would have done to us. We work with that wonderful, all embracing summary of the law by which Jesus sets all the standards – Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. We remember that Jesus says, just a few verses before today’s reading – a new commandment I give to you, love one another as I have loved you.
But to really learn to live like this we must be open in our faith, open to the work of God’s Spirit in our lives, and willing to study the Bible and learn God’s ways. In some ways the rules and regulations are the easier route, but in the end, allowing God to write his laws in our hearts will open us up to the freedom that comes from knowing and doing God’s will. I pray that for all of us, every day we get a little bit closer to that goal, as we pray ‘Thy will be done’ in each one of our lives. Amen.
Saturday, 26 April 2008
Meeting God
Team Evening Worship
April 20th 2008
Matthew 7.7-12
John 14.8-14
Meeting God
Where do you find God?
Where in the last week, or month, have you found God? Or felt God to be with you in a special way? Or seen the hand of God at work?
Perhaps you want to share something? Lets encourage one another with our experiences?
I honestly don’t think we talk enough about where God, and indeed where we have felt God isn’t in our lives. We are encouraged in Scripture to build one another up, Ephesians 4 verse 29Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen
We should share the Good news with one another, not just the Good news of salvation, but the good news of God at work now in our lives and in our hearts. We must, says the Bible, encourage and admonish one another with our actions and our words. Colossians 3 gives a long list of what we should and should not be doing as Christ’s body, those who have been raised from the death of sin to the new life of Jesus Christ…
And when we do this, in meeting together we meet with God. We believe, of course, that God is with us in all of our lives, but there are times when God needs us to listen to him to open ourselves to him – and one of those times is when we give ourselves to him and to one another in worship together.
But to return to my core theme for this evening, I want us to think about where we meet God. In what ways does God speak to us today in our lives.
This morning in the baptism that took place here I talked about finding the way which Jesus offers us through study of our bibles, through prayer and worship. But there are opportunities for God to speak to us in every part of life. Or rather, God will take every opportunity to speak with us that he can!
I don’t usually say things in Latin, but I have found a phrase in reading a book by the late Bishop Hugh Montefiore which says something very profound:
omnis revelation secundum modum recipientis – any translations? Well, Montefiore says this means ‘the mode of divine revelation is always accommodated to the assumptions of those who receive it’. Or perhaps it would be better say – if we are open to it, God will speak to us in a way we understand!
Perhaps even more clearly:
Matthew 7
7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
If we long to meet with God, God will meet with us!
As God’s people we should be open to God’s touch in every part of life, especially, perhaps, in the places where we wouldn’t expect it. If we remember the parable of the sheep and Goats in Matthew 25
I think there is some confusion as to how we expect God to speak to us. When people talk of meeting God we often hear quoted the story of Elijah on the run in 1 Kings 19.9-13 where God appears…
The word translated in our version of the Bibles as gentle whisper is elsewhere translated as ‘still small voice’ or, I’m told perhaps more accurately ‘the sound of absolute silence’.
We do need to still ourselves before God, to take moments of silence. In a busy world full of other voices which clamour for our attention the very act of slowing can often be a physical and spiritual form of turning towards God and allowing him to speak to us. I have to admit that I feel somewhat hypocritical saying this on one of the busiest and most chaotic days I have had for a while, and that, to be honest, as a Clergyperson I don’t tend to model stillness and silence terribly well. Yet I appreciate the value of silence of taking time to pray, and will sometimes make a point, no matter how busy I am of taking time to pray and read and just to be before God. I think our lifestyle in this day mediates against this and the very act of stopping is a counter-cultural statement!
But, and I hope some of you will find this encouraging, silence is not the only way that we meet with God. God will meet us in our singing and worship in Church (yes, I do believe that God is sometimes allowed a part in the life of the Church!), God will meet us as we reach out to the needy in his name and for his sake, God will meet us as we share the Good news of Jesus with friends, neighbours and work colleagues, God will meet us as we exercise, drive, relax, work, play, pray, eat, dance, sing, hold our children or the ones we love, as we think, read, laugh and cry.
But we must have that grounding in Christ in order to do that.
When Philip asks ‘show us the father’ in John 14, which was one of the readings set for this Sunday, we can almost see Jesus rolling his eyes as he responds in verse 9 "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father...
If we are going to meet God we need to do so through the one who is the way to the Father, Jesus Christ our Lord. We need to be grounded in him in order that we may meet God through Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
As we look at this passage from John 14 I want to try and answer a question that comes up again and again when people read these words of Jesus. At the end of this passage Jesus says in verse 14 ‘whatever you ask in my name I will do’ – and people often seem to think that this means the prayer for a nice new shiny black leather jacket or a car, or a house or health or wealth will be answered as long as we do this in faith and tag a phrase like ‘in Jesus’ name’ at the end.
Nonsense.
When Jesus talks of asking in his name, he means that we adopt his name for ourselves, or that we align himself with his will and his way of doing things. To take on the name of someone in days past meant to completely subjugate oneself to their will. So when in a movie we hear ‘open up in the name of the king’ it is being said by someone who has the absolute authority of the king, authority given to them by virtue of the fact they are acting in place of the king and entirely within the will of the ruler whose name they speak on behalf of.
It’s the same with God, if we want to meet with him and we speak in the name of Jesus, its not about having a magic phrase or formula which can give us what we want. It’s about aligning ourselves with him and his will. It means that when we pray ‘Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done’ we are opening ourselves up to being a part of that happening. we are giving ourselves to working to the aim of God’s reign coming to earth and his will being foremost on earth just as it is in heaven!
So we come here to meet with God, and we pray in the name of Jesus in order that we may know his will and live his way. If we want to grow in our faith we must give ourselves completely to him, if we want to meet with the father we must ask, and we must seek, and we must knock on the door of heaven. The barriers to God speaking to us aren’t usually put up by God! More often than not they are to do with our own sinfulness, with issues we need to hand over to God and stop holding on to so tightly, with our lack of expectation that God wants to speak and to act within our own lives.
If we want God to speak to us, in this service, in our churches, in our lives, then lets expect him to, and lets give him leave to do so. Lets make time to be with God, lets long for God to speak to us, and lets listen when he tries to, whatever way he might decide to do so. And lets listen to each other, for in hearing how God is working in our lives we can be encouraged and built up in Christ, and knowing where we feel the strain, where we need help we can pray for one another and help one another in Christ’s name.
May God meet with you tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day, and always….
April 20th 2008
Matthew 7.7-12
John 14.8-14
Meeting God
Where do you find God?
Where in the last week, or month, have you found God? Or felt God to be with you in a special way? Or seen the hand of God at work?
Perhaps you want to share something? Lets encourage one another with our experiences?
I honestly don’t think we talk enough about where God, and indeed where we have felt God isn’t in our lives. We are encouraged in Scripture to build one another up, Ephesians 4 verse 29Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen
We should share the Good news with one another, not just the Good news of salvation, but the good news of God at work now in our lives and in our hearts. We must, says the Bible, encourage and admonish one another with our actions and our words. Colossians 3 gives a long list of what we should and should not be doing as Christ’s body, those who have been raised from the death of sin to the new life of Jesus Christ…
And when we do this, in meeting together we meet with God. We believe, of course, that God is with us in all of our lives, but there are times when God needs us to listen to him to open ourselves to him – and one of those times is when we give ourselves to him and to one another in worship together.
But to return to my core theme for this evening, I want us to think about where we meet God. In what ways does God speak to us today in our lives.
This morning in the baptism that took place here I talked about finding the way which Jesus offers us through study of our bibles, through prayer and worship. But there are opportunities for God to speak to us in every part of life. Or rather, God will take every opportunity to speak with us that he can!
I don’t usually say things in Latin, but I have found a phrase in reading a book by the late Bishop Hugh Montefiore which says something very profound:
omnis revelation secundum modum recipientis – any translations? Well, Montefiore says this means ‘the mode of divine revelation is always accommodated to the assumptions of those who receive it’. Or perhaps it would be better say – if we are open to it, God will speak to us in a way we understand!
Perhaps even more clearly:
Matthew 7
7"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
If we long to meet with God, God will meet with us!
As God’s people we should be open to God’s touch in every part of life, especially, perhaps, in the places where we wouldn’t expect it. If we remember the parable of the sheep and Goats in Matthew 25
34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'God can surprise us, if we let him! If we are living those lives which we are admonished to live by St Paul in the letter to the Colossians chapter 3, or in Chapters 4 & 5 of Ephesians then we will find ourselves receptive to his grace and his touch.
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
I think there is some confusion as to how we expect God to speak to us. When people talk of meeting God we often hear quoted the story of Elijah on the run in 1 Kings 19.9-13 where God appears…
9At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.
Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ 10He answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’
Elijah Meets God at Horeb
11 He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; 12and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 13When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’
We do need to still ourselves before God, to take moments of silence. In a busy world full of other voices which clamour for our attention the very act of slowing can often be a physical and spiritual form of turning towards God and allowing him to speak to us. I have to admit that I feel somewhat hypocritical saying this on one of the busiest and most chaotic days I have had for a while, and that, to be honest, as a Clergyperson I don’t tend to model stillness and silence terribly well. Yet I appreciate the value of silence of taking time to pray, and will sometimes make a point, no matter how busy I am of taking time to pray and read and just to be before God. I think our lifestyle in this day mediates against this and the very act of stopping is a counter-cultural statement!
But, and I hope some of you will find this encouraging, silence is not the only way that we meet with God. God will meet us in our singing and worship in Church (yes, I do believe that God is sometimes allowed a part in the life of the Church!), God will meet us as we reach out to the needy in his name and for his sake, God will meet us as we share the Good news of Jesus with friends, neighbours and work colleagues, God will meet us as we exercise, drive, relax, work, play, pray, eat, dance, sing, hold our children or the ones we love, as we think, read, laugh and cry.
But we must have that grounding in Christ in order to do that.
When Philip asks ‘show us the father’ in John 14, which was one of the readings set for this Sunday, we can almost see Jesus rolling his eyes as he responds in verse 9 "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father...
If we are going to meet God we need to do so through the one who is the way to the Father, Jesus Christ our Lord. We need to be grounded in him in order that we may meet God through Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
As we look at this passage from John 14 I want to try and answer a question that comes up again and again when people read these words of Jesus. At the end of this passage Jesus says in verse 14 ‘whatever you ask in my name I will do’ – and people often seem to think that this means the prayer for a nice new shiny black leather jacket or a car, or a house or health or wealth will be answered as long as we do this in faith and tag a phrase like ‘in Jesus’ name’ at the end.
Nonsense.
When Jesus talks of asking in his name, he means that we adopt his name for ourselves, or that we align himself with his will and his way of doing things. To take on the name of someone in days past meant to completely subjugate oneself to their will. So when in a movie we hear ‘open up in the name of the king’ it is being said by someone who has the absolute authority of the king, authority given to them by virtue of the fact they are acting in place of the king and entirely within the will of the ruler whose name they speak on behalf of.
It’s the same with God, if we want to meet with him and we speak in the name of Jesus, its not about having a magic phrase or formula which can give us what we want. It’s about aligning ourselves with him and his will. It means that when we pray ‘Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done’ we are opening ourselves up to being a part of that happening. we are giving ourselves to working to the aim of God’s reign coming to earth and his will being foremost on earth just as it is in heaven!
So we come here to meet with God, and we pray in the name of Jesus in order that we may know his will and live his way. If we want to grow in our faith we must give ourselves completely to him, if we want to meet with the father we must ask, and we must seek, and we must knock on the door of heaven. The barriers to God speaking to us aren’t usually put up by God! More often than not they are to do with our own sinfulness, with issues we need to hand over to God and stop holding on to so tightly, with our lack of expectation that God wants to speak and to act within our own lives.
If we want God to speak to us, in this service, in our churches, in our lives, then lets expect him to, and lets give him leave to do so. Lets make time to be with God, lets long for God to speak to us, and lets listen when he tries to, whatever way he might decide to do so. And lets listen to each other, for in hearing how God is working in our lives we can be encouraged and built up in Christ, and knowing where we feel the strain, where we need help we can pray for one another and help one another in Christ’s name.
May God meet with you tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day, and always….
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
Palm Sunday 2008
Year A Palm Sunday 2008
Matthew 21.1-11
What did they think they were doing?Matthew 21.1-11
As we hear again the familiar story of the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, as we imagine the crowds pressing against him, the shouts, the palm trees being stripped of leaves, cloaks laid on the ground. As we imagine the air ringing with the sound of acclamation ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’. As we see this rag tag collection of ordinary people, along with prostitutes, tax-collectors, fishermen, labourers, fanatics, religious types following this odd figure seated upon a donkey, a beast of burden. As we wonder at the adulation of the crowd and the song of people we should ask ourselves – what did they think they were doing?
Jesus came into Jerusalem, we are told, on this wave of popular support. But they were an odd group to have considered taking on an occupying army, if that is indeed what they expected to do. I mean, if they were declaring Jesus king, as the inference of their words seems to do, they weren’t really equipped to deal with the Roman soliders that would be quick to put down such an insurrection.
Many seem to have been caught up in the moment. They just let things get away with them, perhaps. Wow, there’s something going on lets join in – perhaps no more thought than that, no consideration of the consequences of what would happen if the Romans took umbradge – just going with the flow, enjoying the moment, doing what everyone else is doing.
Others perhaps had a desire for change, Jerusalem was a powder keg waiting to explode. There was massive dissatisfaction with the Roman invasion, and with the puppet king Herod and with the religious authorities who seemed intent on keeping the status quo, an uneasy balance always being held, trying not to upset the apple cart and cause the Romans to undertake drastic military action.
Maybe some believed that the Jewish authorities had too much invested in the way things were, that the power of the Sanhedrin and the scribes and the pharisees was tied up with the structures Rome had imposed. There would almost certainly have been a contingent in Jerusalem as Jesus entered the city who saw the religious leaders as corrupt, concerned more with the niceties of religious observance than the true message, as they saw it, of liberation from oppression and the independence of the state of Israel, God’s chosen people.
And perhaps also there were those who believed in this strange, enigmatic, disturbing person whom they proclaimed king, the one who they believed was God’s chosen one, come to take his rightful place as part of David’s line, to declare himself king and rule over God’s people – calling them back to faithfulness and the message of truth proclaimed in scripture and through the prophets.
But still we come back to the question – what on earth did they think they were doing? What did they expect to happen after this triumphal entry into Jerusalem? Did they think they’d go along with things and see what happened, or was there some bigger picture they saw this all fitting into?
We’ll never know. What we do know is that the crowds, probably made up of very similar people, were very different just a few days later when Jesus was found outside at the judgement bench on the stone pavement – or gabbatha – and was being shown to the crowds. When Pilate asked them if they wished for Jesus to be released, they called out for a murderer, one involved in sedition and rebellion, a man called Judas Barabbas. Instead of crying out for the one they called the Son of David, they called for his death by crucifixion. And as he was led out to die he was humiliated, spat upon, laughed at and pitied in various measure by those who had proclaimed him king just a few days previous.
We can speculate as to why this change, as to what expected in the first place on that first Palm Sunday. We can consider the fickle nature of crowds, and what it is that makes men and women act with a mob mentality. We can consider the expectations and hopes and fears of those pilgrims in Jerusalem for Passover who seemed to change their opinion of Jesus so quickly from adulation to condemnation. All these questions and more come from today’s story.
But perhaps the real question comes back to us.
After this season of Lent where we have been encouraged to take time to reflect, to open ourselves to God’s vision and his light shed upon our lives, we should ask ourselves what exactly it means to us to proclaim Jesus as Lord – which is what we do here week by week as we gather in worship.
What exactly do we think we are doing here?
Why do we come to Church? Why do we call ourselves Christians? What does it mean to say that Jesus is King?
Each one of us will have our own motivations, our own history, our own reasons. Just like the crowd on that first Palm Sunday we might be here for many different reasons.
Do we do Church out of habit? Are we just drawn along with the crowd or because its what we’ve always done?
Is it because we expect something more from the Church itself? To be the upholder or moral or certain political standards? To comfort us with a sense of certainty or solidity, trustworthiness or reliability?
Is it because we see in the Church the potential for change, to bring about a new way, to bring about new life and to live and proclaim the Gospel?
Is it because we follow Jesus? Because we seek to live by his values no matter what comes, to share his good news whatever the cost?
There are many good reasons to be a part of this worshipping community, to support this Church and to be a part of many hundreds of years of tradition and history that have been a part of this life. To share in the prayers and the hymns which have made such a rich tapestry of faith over so many years. To be those who live by certain Gospel standards, of love and faith and truth and honesty and hope.
But in the end all that we do comes back to this calling to follow Christ. And to be faithful to Christ in all that we do and say and think and are.
This Holy Week may we see again our calling to be those that cry hosanna as Jesus enters our lives as king, and to remain with him through the betrayal, the pain and the suffering which he went through until we too share in his joyful resurrection. May we be those who come to share Christ. Amen.
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