The First Sermon for St John The Divine

Well, this is it, my opening sermon.  Don't get too excited, it won't win any preaching awards, nor lead to revival in BC, but I wanted to be clear and straightforward for my first Sunday serving in this place....

It will be available as a podcast soon (oooh, I hear you say, or maybe not)

Warning, I may have used the opening story before....

Hosea 11:1-11

Colossians 3:1-11

Luke 12:13-21

Eat Drink and be Merry ?

A priest takes up his new role as rector of a parish. All seems well during his first Sunday service and as people start leaving the minister says goodbye at the door and has the usual 'lovely sermon', 'thanks for joining us', 'welcome', 'glad to have you on board' etc from those leaving, until about ten people along a dishevelled looking man says 'long winded', and 'dreadful voice' and then wanders off back into the church. A few more folk shake hands and say farewell with 'thank you for your words for today', 'good to have you here' etc and the same chap returns saying 'boring', 'what have we done?', 'dreadful sermon'.

It happens two or three times, a dozen or so of the congregation come by offering welcome, with this chap returning and saying very negative things. At the end of the welcome following the service the new minister goes to the vestry and the Associate Priest asks 'so how was your first service, then? To which the priest answers 'it was great, though there was this one guy who seemed very strange.' “Oh, says the Associate, don't worry about him, he just goes around repeating what other people are saying.”

Hope I don't that kind of reaction....

I should say 'hello I'm Alastair and I will be your Rector for today... and hopefully a number of days to come” It is a huge privilege to be here, and to have the responsibility for serving you as your Incumbent, and to support you all in your ministry to this local community, and to the city of Victoria. It is a joy for me to be able to share worship with you and to offer some thoughts and teaching to you. In short, I am very pleased to be here, and I look forward to getting to know you and to being your minister.

So, you are probably wondering what your new Rector has to say for himself. I did wonder whether to hijack this sermon and take this time to say something about myself, but actually I want to start as I mean to go on and to offer some thoughts from the Scriptures set by the Lectionary for this Sunday. Also, you have plenty of time to hear about me, and you will discover that sometimes this pulpit, or the front of the dais, or wherever can take on something of a confessional aspect on my part – because I am sharing this journey with you. I am not standing here as the expert with all the answers, but as a fellow pilgrim on this strange, wonderful, disturbing, exciting, hopeful, life giving journey which is following Jesus, on being a person who is struggling with, celebrating and embracing the life of faith. So you`ll get to hear plenty about me. I look forward also to hearing your stories in these coming weeks and months.

When I read the lections for this week, and as I started to really think about how I might start my preaching ministry with you good people of St John the Divine I had a couple of reactions. One was oh yes, what a great set of readings, the second was that if I wasn`t careful I could easily come across as somewhat negative and grumpy as I tried to share something about these passages, particularly the Gospel reading for today.

What I mean by that is, for instance, that when Jesus is asked to sort out a problem for a person in the crowd – when he says tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me – Jesus says no, I am not going to do that for you. It would be too easy to apply that to a discussion on the role of a new Rector.

It`s true that I don`t come to sort everything out and I am not a miracle cure to what we might feel ails the Church! I heard Larry`s excellent last sermon ( http://podOmatic.com/r/lEywnE)  and this passage fits beautifully with the idea of the rescuer, victim and persecutor. The kind of game playing, as Larry called it, that Jesus refuses to join in with! I could take that as foundation for my thoughts today and say that I won`t be the rescuer, should anyone feel in need of it! This may be true, but firstly you had a very good sermon on this two weeks ago and secondly what I am sure you would want to hear is what we are going to do, not what isn`t going to happen.

So what I want to do is ask some questions. Questions that I hope will characterise our life as a Church, and our own individual walk as Christ followers.

My first question is `where is God in this` I don`t mean in a simplistic `God turns up at the end of the parable`kind of way – but to ask something which we should ask about every part of our lives. In what way is God active in the whole thing, and in what way do we include God in our activity.

It strikes me that before the shocking denoument of this parable, where the `rich fool` as he is often called is struck down by a God who challenges the man`s self obsession – before that moment God is quite obviously, and deliberately, excluded from the story. In sharp contrast to last week`s passage from Luke`s Gospel where Jesus teaches the prayer we call `the Lord`s Prayer`, the rich man is not content with `daily bread` but stores up treasures for himself. He is concerned not just with fulfilling his needs but with getting as much as he can. He way well have done this through wise stewardship and thoughful planning, though it seems much more likely that is was just `luck` as the passage says `his land produced abundantly`. For this provision there is no gratitude, just a consolidation of the man`s own wealth. And in response to this bounty is not to give thanks to the giver, nor to use it in provision of others, but for this rich man to turn inwards.

`I will say to my soul, Soul you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry`

One writer, Robert Hamerton-Kelly says this turn of phrase is no accident. The word translated `soul` is the greek word `psyche`- the man – with almost comic effect -formally addresses his own ego! There is no acknowledgement of a world beyond himself, but only of his own self-sufficiency, and a sense of self congratulation and, indeed, selfishness!

The result of this, in Jesus` parable is God`s direct, even vengeful, intervention. And a word of condemnation `You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be

So where is God in all this.

God is there in the challenge to us, as we engage with this scripture, to consider whether we include him in our lives – not just in our church, but in our attitude to the things we own, to the things that fill our lives, our time, our families.

God is the there in the challenge for us to look beyond ourselves, both in the sense of being ourselves open to the need to engage with the other – in the form of neighbour, colleague, friend and stranger and in the form of the God who wishes to be a part of our every day. Another recent lection, the Gospel for July 14^th just gone, sums up this outward looking attitude. Luke 10.27, a young man`s summary of the law to Jesus

`Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind and love your neighbour as yourself`.

In that summary we have balance between loving God with all that we are – intellect, emotion, soul, alongside loving our neighbour, and having an appropriate love for self! It should not be one at the expense of the other. But that may well be a sermon for another time!

But as we are challenged to look beyond our own internal world, we are challenged also as a church community to do the same. And this is my challenge to myself and to each one of us at the start of my service here in Victoria!

There is a phenomenal amount that St John the Divine can be pleased about in the way that this Church community engages with the world around, in the care and compassion that characterises so much of the activity and life of this parish. There is much to celebrate and give thanks for in the shared life and spiritual growth that this parish Church has obviously enjoyed over some years. This is much that is good in St John`s. There is so much going on that I find inspiring, exciting, and I have no doubt enjoyable too! Enjoyable is good, fun is good, inspiring and exciting is good!

But we cannot as a community, as the pilgrim people of God afford to rest on our laurels, to consider ourselves a `successful church`. I know there are things which we want to address and explore as a church in the coming weeks and months. I know there are issues, ideas, concerns and hopes. I`m glad I can be here to share these things with you, as you will all no doubt – as is says in investment advertisements - `past performance is no guarantee of success` we cannot just look to the past, to what we have achieved before and what we have done – but together we will, I hope, discern where God is leading us as his people serving downtown Victoria and one another in this body of Christ.

I believe that God is calling us together to continue to engage with our faith in worship, prayer, learning, wrestling with and understanding Scripture. I believe that God is calling us to engage with one another in this community and to continue to be a place where all are welcomed, embraced and have a place in our life together.

I believe that God is calling us to be a people who share our bounty with others. Who continue to reach out to the people beyond our walls and who help the needy, speak out for the oppressed and powerless, and seek the welfare of all.

I believe that God is calling us to challenge ourselves to grow, to be faithful, to be loving and to be willing to follow where Christ leads. And in all of this I believe the Spirit of God will be the life affirming, live giving inspiration that will help us do and be these things.

And so I will say again that I am very pleased to be a part of this next stage of the life of our Church of St John the Divine, Victoria. I look forward to being with you, to sharing all that is to come, and to laughter, life, love and faith held in common and enjoyed.

May the love of Christ dwell in us richly, and may we Christ indeed be all and in all for us.

Amen.

A Sermon For Pentecost

Woohoo - it's celebrate Church day!

Here are my thoughts and words from this morning, at least the script - there was a fair amount of departure from said script!

Year C Pentecost (2013) RCL Princpal

Acts 2.1-21 

Genesis 11.1-9

John 14.8-17,25-27

Celebrating Church

Today is a celebration – a day to celebrate Church!  Not a phrase we use very much – hooray let’s celebrate Church is not the usual attitude I have experienced in my years of ministry.  And for those of us in the business of leading within the Church our minds are more often than not on ‘how’ we are doing Church in any given week and how the component parts are going to fit together when we get there!

It’s not often, I suspect, that any of us really think about what it means to be Church and why we ‘do’ Church.  We just get on with it – sometimes struggling, sometimes anxious about what is going to happen.

So to hear the stories of Scripture – the amazing start of the Church at Pentecost, or Jesus talking in terms of doing things greater than him through his Spirit – seems a bit distanced, a bit abstract… not really the kind of Church that we are used to.

But WHY NOT?

Why should the Church not be filled with the same life and excitement, the same peace, hope, love, faith, grace and wonder that we hear about in the stories of Jesus’ relationship with his friends?  Why are we not filled with the power and the worship and dedication that we see in this story of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the first Pentecost? After all, we have the same relationship with Christ. He is alive, and we are called to follow him and know him in our every day lives, to talk to him in prayer, to worship and obey him.  Jesus is here with us- we may not see him but he is! And we certainly have the same Spirit – the one who came as what appeared to be tongues of fire and like rushing wind, who inspired the apostles to speak in many languages and to proclaim the truth of faith – who transformed them from a fearful huddle into a group boldly sharing the life of Christ and who changed Peter from the faltering, stumbling, often blustering one who denied into one who would preach with such authority that three thousand would be added to the believers’ numbers that day!

Why aren’t we like that?  Well the truth is that even for the first apostles and those early Church members it didn’t stay like that.  Pentecost, the outpouring of the Spirit with signs and wonders soon became the everyday life of prayer, worship and sharing that we read about at the end of the chapter – the bit just after the reading from Acts we heard today.  We are told that they dedicated themselves, 

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.

So the Church began to establish itself.  They met to pray, they learned to share, they supported and loved one another.  This is the honeymoon period of the Church, they are learning what it means to be Church, they are enthused and excited – but they are winging it, they don’t have a plan, they don’t have structures or any aims beyond growing in faith.  By the time we get to Acts chapter 6 they appoint Deacons to serve at table in the sharing of meals and of resources, they start to have a weekly pattern of worship and the Church starts to spread across the Roman world, learning to incorporate different types of person – slaves, soldiers, tradespeople, families, even eventually becoming the official Religion of the empire.

And as that happened the structures we recognise start to appear.  But they did keep this enthusiasm, they committed themselves to meet together, to share, to pray, to learn from the teachings of Christ, and to have fellowship.  Everything the early Church did was rooted in these things.

So we celebrate Pentecost in order to remind us of the wonder of that first flush of the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit, and that way that inspired women and men to work together to grow in faith and to continue that wave of the Spirit – living, proclaiming and being the Gospel.

But we have to ask, and it is a hard question, why are we so far from that kind of expression of Church?  Yes we have two thousand years of experience (good and bad) since then, yes our world is different – but we have the same God, the same Spirit, the same saviour.  Have we tamed the Church, contained the wild and unpredictable Spirit within our buildings: quenched the fire and sheltered ourselves against the wind?

There is still much that this passage of Scripture has to say to us, there is still a challenge and hopefully, an inspiration within these verses.

First of all the promise of the Spirit is still real – still on offer, perhaps not being poured out as was the case in those first days, but promised to us in Baptism.  If we were to carry on with this passage we would read that the family of the Church had an ongoing commitment in which they were sustained – the Holy Spirit was not just for the big stuff, the wonder and ‘wow’ of Pentecost, but was alongside the believers as they learned what following Christ together meant. 

But in order to draw on the Spirit they had to meet together, together – we know how hard it is to get people to travel beyond their village boundaries to worship, but it is part of our calling as God’s people, God’s body, to be united and share together in worship.  Jesus didn’t pray ‘father I pray that they will meet in individual groups dotted around the country, as you and I do’ – he prayed ‘Father I pray that they will be one, as you and I are one.’  The reason for encouraging our parishes to meet together more frequently is NOT because it makes the life of the clergy easier – but because meeting together is what the Bible says we should do.  And when we do, we are encouraged, we grow in faith and we learn to love one another as Christ has called us to.

The story of Pentecost reminds us that the Church was, and should be, radically inclusive.  The Spirit gives different languages in this story so that none miss out on hearing the message.  Now I know that our Churches feel they are welcoming – and you are, you are lovely people/  And yet there is so much more we need to consider if we want to include the 96% of people in our country who have little or no contact with Church.  We need to consider whether the hymns and music that we enjoy are the kind of thing that anyone outside of the Church would get, or enjoy, or feel a part of.  We need to consider whether the words we use are understandable to those who have not heard of prayer books or bibles, and think about how we include them.  We should ask ourselves about whether a world which rarely uses books, where being handed a book or books and bits of paper is completely alien, is well served by all that we give out when people arrive, should we consider again the option of screens, or other ways of encouraging worship.  It is all very well saying “It’s good enough for us” or “I like it as it is.” But the Church is only ever one generation away from extinction, are we going to be the last generation?  We should consider whether our welcome, and our refreshments, are not just ‘good enough’ but make a statement about generosity and hospitality?  And we as a Church need to think whether we are truly able to cope with those who are truly different, those of different colour, or sexuality, or tattoo’d and pierced, the single parents, those who don’t ‘quite know how to behave’?  Do we reflect Christ’s values of being open to the outsider, the stranger, the difficult and the disturbed or would we rather Church stayed as it is for as long as we are a part of it?

And another thing we can take from the early Church, another challenge – they GAVE freely, they shared their money, nothing was withheld.  Now, there’s a lentil eating, kaftan wearing hippie inside me which says “wow man it would be so cool if we all lived in like a totally big house and shared everything.” But common sense prevails and I realise that the commitment was to give – and our own Churches need that.  It is our Christian responsibility to give to the life of the Christian community.  I know I don’t say that enough, but we should be making a significant contribution to the life of the Church if we expect our Churches to continue to stay open and to serve our communities.  We need to consider our priorities and ask whether we give generously in the way that the Bible expects us to.

And the last Challenge I want to consider from this story and that is who is given the Holy Spirit in this Pentecost account?  Well Peter and the Apostles at the start, but the Spirit is poured out on ALL – the work of the Church then proceeds apace and the Church grows exponentially – and though there are leaders and teachers, the work of the church, the ministry of the church, the life of the Church is sustained and maintained by the whole Church.  It is all God’s people that make Church possible – when each one is open to the life of the Spirit, then the Church grows.

We all have a part in the life of the Church.  We all have a responsibility for living and sharing the life of Christ.  It is not the province of ministers, Clergy or lay, or churchwardens or PCC members to ‘do’ church for us.  We are all one in Christ Jesus, called to his body.

So even as we celebrate we are challenged to devote ourselves again – to be devoted to learning from and about Christ, to be devoted to fellowship: meeting and working together, to be inclusive and completely welcoming,  to be devoted to giving and generous with our finances, time and energy and to be filled with the Holy Spirit that each one of us might find our part in the life of Christ and in the work of the people of God.

Thank God for the Church! Amen.

A Sermon on Trusting God and being honest...

Lent 2 (2013) Year C RCL Principal

 Genesis 15.1-12,17-18

Philippians 3.17  -  4.1

Luke 13.31-35

Honesty and Trust

If someone came to the Rectory telling me that they hear the voice of God, I must admit that I would think the worst.  Just as if someone approached you telling you that they had conversations with the almighty then we might feel a little disturbed.   This is not the kind of person we want to sit next to on the bus….

BUT  Imagine what it would be like if we could talk to God freely and hear his voice!  If we shared such an intimate relationship with God that we were able to sit and chat and be chatted to in return.

That’s the kind of relationship that we are told Abram (he’s not yet Abraham in the passage we heard this morning, his change of name by divine deed poll comes later on) had wit God.  It’s almost chatty, and at times is quite forthright and perhaps even a little bit cheeky.  If we know the story of Sodom and Gomorra we would know that Abram negotiated with God that the Lord would spare the city if a certain number of righteous people could be found – and Abraham pushes his luck – and he knocks God down, we can imagine with a bit of a glint in his eye, and with God responding with a kind of humourous exasperation – to one righteous man. 

That is not to say that Abraham forgets his place: when God seems to ask for the sacrifice of Isaac, on whom all the fulfilment of God’s promises hangs, Abraham prepares the altar. But the ability to whinge at God, or even to question God, is one that Christian piety has rather bred out of us.  And this is the relationship that Abram had with God – a freedom, and openness, a relaxed attitude.  It didn’t distract from the worship, the awe and the respect he showed to God, but there was an ease about it that is inspiring and wonderful.

And this relationship is made possible by Abram’s honesty, by the fact that when God promises a reward to Abram in a vision Abram doesn’t grovel, he doesn’t worship, he doesn’t fall down – he responds to God with complete candour.  “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue to be childless…”

Abram tells God what really matters – he doesn’t beat around the bush (that doesn’t come until Moses!).  Abram let’s God know his deepest longing – no fluff, no diversions, straight to the point.  I don’t know about you but when I pray I sometimes fall into the trap of ‘O Lord you are so great and wonderful, and if you could just do this or this…’ Worship becomes a way of twisting God’s arm.  Sometimes prayer becomes a shopping list, or a bargaining session – well Lord if you’ll just do this then I promise I will do this, and if you’ll just do this then I will  etc etc’;

And God responds to Abram’s honesty by making a promise, that if Abram will trust then this deepest desire will be fulfilled – more than that, Abram’s descendents will be as numerous as the stars in the sky…  And Abrams’ response – this is perhaps the most amazing part of the story – verse 6 of Chapter 15 of Genesis ‘…he believed the Lord: and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.’. The enormous compassion of God in responding to what Abram desperately wants is matched only by Abram’s trust that God will deliver it. God sees his trust and “reckons it to him as righteousness”

This relationship is one of mutual trust, one of giving, of listening, of responding.  And to show just how solemn this trust is we have a ritual that was considered one of the most binding and important symbols of a contract that was possible in those days.  By cutting animals in half and walking between them a person was saying that they would keep their half of a contract, they would be bound to their promise, or allow themselves to be slaughtered like the animals they walked between.

And God passes through these carcasses in the form of a flaming torch and a smoking fire pot.  God is the one who makes this binding agreement, to give Abram the land which was to become Israel.  God responds to Abram’s trust and to his faith and to his honesty by piling on love, by graciously giving to Abram all he could long for.

And this theme of trust carries on in the passage from St Paul’s letter to the Phillipians that was our other reading for this week. Philippians picks up the theme of trust in God’s promises. Just as Abram trusts that God will give him a son and a land and an inheritance as incalculable as the stars in the sky, so, Paul urges his readers, we too have to trust in the bigger promise.

Paul offers harsh criticism too those whose trust is not in God, but whose ‘minds are set on earthly things’, as he says.  He actually calls these people ‘enemies of the cross’.  It’s a difficult thing to hear, particularly if we are trying to be as honest as Abram – for if we are honest we will probably all say that perhaps we are a little to focussed on the things of the world, and not really as open to God’s ways as we should be.

But that honesty is the basis for a relationship of trust with God.  If we trust God enough to confess our own lack of faith God will respond to that trust.  Apparently, this willingness on the part of God to accept our trust in him as the equivalent of actual goodness is an abiding characteristic of God. We see it over and over again, not least in Jesus’s response to the penitent thief on the cross.

So we have these two themes of trust and of honesty.  In our relationship with God one begets the other.  If we will be open with God then God can be open with us.   God will not turn his back on us, he will always give us the benefit of the doubt, no matter how inadequate our trust feels. 

And God will respond – we may not hear his voice, or see visions, or feel led to cut up animals – but our faith will grow, our closeness to God and to other Christians will grow.  And if we learn to listen we will hear the voice of God – through the Bible, in the traditions of the Church, through the teaching and words of fellow Christians, and sometimes in the blinding insight that seems to come from out of nowhere.  God will speak to us in so many little ways – and as we grow in faith we will learn to hear him more and more.

And so let’s begin by being honest with God about what we long for, and by being honest about our lack of faith and our need for God’s help.  Just as God does not laugh at Abram’s longing for an heir, so he does not laugh at our needs and desires. But their fulfilment will be his doing, not ours. Abram has the extraordinary and terrifying privilege of seeing the signs of God as he commits himself to his promise.

Now if we ask if God is still willing to keep his promises to us, we only have to remember that we have seen the Son of God allow himself to be slaughtered like Abram’s animals to fulfil that promise. May we all learn to trust in that promise more and more.

Sermon for Christmas 1

Yes it has been a while, but I thought that as I have managed to breathe a little life into New Kid on the Blog (the Mothership of my blogging world) I should really add something here.  There's lots of stuff I said I would put online, some thoughts on silence, my notes on Social Media Spirituality etc and maybe I will get them here, or maybe put them straight onto New Kid - but for now here is my Sermon, preached this very morning and written just hours ago (a sermon about which I got quite excited, as I grabbed my Greek Lexicon and looked up various words) - some thoughts about today's set reading for Colossians...

Year C Christmas 1 2012

1 Samuel 2.18-20,26

Psalm 148*

Colossians 3.12-17

Luke 2.41-52

Striking Images

One of the things I love about the Bible is the rich and varied images that leap out of the pages whenever and wherever I read it.  From what we might call the ‘mythologies’ of the Creation stories in Genesis 1 & 2, Noah and the Ark, Jonah and the Big Fish to the vivid visions of Daniel, or Ezekiel and St John’s Revelation with creatures covered in eyes or wheels within wheels.  And in between all of that we have poetry, some of it pretty fruity if you read the Song of Songs anytime, we have sublime expressions of what it means to be human, and of both the joy and despair of the human condition in the Psalms, we have earthy wisdom with some very down to earth imagery in the Proverbs & Ecclesiastes – for instance “a fool returning to folly, is like a dog returning to its own vomit” (Proverbs 26.11)

And then there’s Jesus whose storytelling was rich and filled with ideas and images, many rooted in everyday life yet with a twist, gave new insight into a Grace filled world which is intruding into this one, a world called the Kingdom of God, filled with feasts and rulers and sparrows and trees and so much more.  Jesus’ images have stuck in our collective consciousness and our language, even in the meaning behind the images has been lost – sheep and goats, prodigal son, good Samaritan… the list goes on and could get very long indeed.

And then we have Paul and the other letter writers of the early Church, recycling ancient concepts and ideas from Jewish and Greek philosophies and traditions.  They use age old titles and ideas to talk of Jesus and of this new way, this following Jesus way, what came to be known as the Christian Way.  Rich ideas such as Jesus the High Priest, building on the image of the Lamb of God, talking of the Church as the body, or of following God’s way as being like an athlete. 

Paul, and those who wrote the letters ascribed to him, (and Colossians, from which today’s reading comes is one of those letter where authorship is disputed) but the New Testament epistle writers were masters (or mistresses) of wordcraft – they had to write concepts which had never been writer, explain ideas that made use of existing philosophical and religious concepts whilst at the same time broke out of any existing belief or faith system.

The use of words in our Bibles is very carefully done.  In the Epistles there is not a concept or idea in there that isn’t meant to be there – either by the hand of the author or by Divine intervention, or both…  And this long preamble is to say that the images in these five verses are, for me, some of the most wonderful images that we have from the Pauline or Pseudepigraphal letters.  I want us to spend some time looking at three, rich, warm, powerful and thought provoking images – though I will refer to others from this short passage… today’s reading, Colossians 3.12-17 – three images

Clothing

Ruling

Dwelling

Here’s the passage again, it bears repeating:

¹² As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. ¹³Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord^* has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. ¹⁴Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶Let the word of Christ^* dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.^{* 17}And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Paul is keen on the image of Clothing – let Christ be as close as the clothes you wear it says in Romans 13.14 which was probably Paul’s last letter and in his first, passionate, letter to the Galatians, Chapter 3 verse 27 has Paul saying ‘as many have been baptised into Christ have been clothed with Christ.’  It’s a wonderful image of intimacy and closeness, and a sense of being surrounded by Christ in the same way that we are surrounded by the clothes we have on. 

If we are clothed with Christ there are some other things, it says in this letter, that we should clothe ourselves with alongside this too - compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience it says in verse 12 and even more in verse 14 ‘Above all, clothe yourselves with love’. 

It’s important, I think, to note that this is an active process, something you must choose to do.  It’s not offered as an option, though, this is something that goes with being a follower of Christ.  And it begs the question if we are not compassionate, kind, humble, meek and patient then in what way are we clothed with Christ too – these are his attributes, they should be ours.  And above all this we put on love – love which is tough, forgiving and giving, which mirrors the love of Christ.  Love which seeks the best for and in other people, that loves God, neighbour and self as the greatest commandment instructs us to.  Love which makes everything complete and whole.  God’s love.  We have to put it on, and just like the clothes we choose to wear every morning we have to choose to put on these clothes too.

The second image that strikes me is the ruling – or βραβευέτω (brab –yoo-o)  determining, or deciding, as the Greek says. (Yes these images were so striking I felt I had to look up the Greek they were originally written in, just to be sure I’d got something approaching the right idea.)  In this context we are to let the peace of Christ determine or decide or rule our hearts.  And that peace isn’t just a bit of quiet, or an absence of conflict, it is a deep and powerful peace – a peace of eternity. Again the Greek is εἰρήνη,  \{i-ray'-nay} a word with layers of meaning, external peace, in the world around, in oneself, between people, but also a peace of salvation and assurance, of fearing nothing from God and being content on earth.

If we truly held on to that peace then our Churches and our world would be significantly different.  We would be seeking always to be at peace with one another and to recognise the grace that has been given to us, holding on not to the things around us, but to the deepest truth of the life and love of God. 

And there’s something quite telling about the fact that we must allow this peace to rule in our hearts.  Perhaps the writer is reminding us how quick we are to actively resist this type of peace, and that we have to let go, perhaps to submit and allow this state of peacefulness, and the longing for this peace, to be that which determines and guides our hearts.

And last, but not least.  The third image which has grabbed me from this passage is the one that made me want to do such an indepth Bible study in this short time here today. It’s a beautiful and deeply powerful image found in verse 16.  This time it takes the theme of allowing something to happen – not active, like clothing ourselves, nor submissive like being directed – this is something else, something wow…

¹⁶Let the word of Christ^* dwell in you richly, or in the Greek

ὁ λόγος τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐνοικείτω {en-oy-keh'-o} ἐν ὑμῖν 

Again, I’m not trying to impress or befuddle you but I want to point out one word in that sentence – as well as dwell, which is enoykeho – there is this word we have heard again and again over Christmastime – logos, in fact it means (as you will all know) … word…. Jesus is the logos we read of in our Carol services, in our Christmas Night services and throughout this time and through the Christian year when we use the words from John chapter 1 – In the Beginning was the word. 

Now the important thing to remember, and some of you will have heard me say this before, is that a logos, a word, was considered in the philosophy of Jesus’ time not just to be something said and lost – but an integral part of the speaker.  A word remained part of you even when it was out, it contained something of the essence of you.  And so when the eternal Word is spoken by God in that well known passage, then it, or he, is something of the essence of God.

So letting the word dwell in you richly, as that wonderful phrase says, is allowing the essence of Christ to inhabit you.  And just as the Word being made flesh to dwell amongst us in John 1 changed the world so the Word of Christ dwelling in us will change us, and change the world around us.

And it’s both active and passive – allowing the word to dwell, to influence, to motivate and transform – to welcome the word into our hearts and minds, and to be changed by Christ in us.  And then everything we do – from the love we show to our family and friends, to the compassion we reach out with to the needy and stranger, to the lives of prayer, worship and service we lead – all of it will indeed be done in the name of, and with the power of Christ.  May the Word of Christ Dwell in you richly, indeed….

The Ten Commandments... parts Five & Six

Yes, it has been a while, and I have lots of stuff I could be posting - but as I had a specific request to put the text of a talk I did this evening on line here it is....

I should say that the version I did this evening had a fair amount of improvisation around this text, particularly towards the end when my prepared notes became a bit sporadic...

Ten of the Best –

the 10 Commandments for today

Respect….

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said ‘That about which you cannot speak, is that about which you must remain silent’… Time to sit down then, maybe….

Nahhhhh, when has not knowing something ever been a barrier to a good sermon…. so here we are Commandments 5 & 6 (at least in the Jewish and Protestant translations of Scripture) are  - 12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.  13 “You shall not murder.

or in the King James version, which has a certain sonorous note which I always appreciate

12Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.  13Thou shalt not kill.

OK, we are at the half way point of our jaunt through the 10 Commandments and (just like last year)  I have an advantage that none of our other speakers have – I’ve heard the others.  I’ve also heard the feedback, both good and bad, regarding David Gunn-Johnsons’ thoughts on the first two commandments and Martin Shaw’s reflections on three and four.  And I’ve heard the comments on style and delivery too, so I hope I shall be clear and audible, with conviction and some relatively meaty content!  When I said it was an advantage having heard the other two and the feedback, I might have been overly optimistic… Maybe the stakes, and expectations, are higher…

One thing I am surprised that neither of our previous speakers did is to take the cop out option that most speakers use when trying to break ourselves in gently to a subject matter.  To begin with the question ‘Why’?  Why are we looking at these ten commandments?  What are they for?  Why do we still refer to them with such reverence when they clearly were written in a very different context, in a very different time for a very different people?   

It’s not really a cop out, asking why we are doing something is often a good way to get to grips with its usefulness and purpose – which isn’t a bad description of what PCCs should be about… though often why isn’t a part of our discussions at all and we start off with the premise ‘but we’ve always done it like this, or that, or the other’.

Anyway, why the ten commandments.  As it was my choice it’s my responsibility, at least to some degree, to justify this theme for our Lent talks this year.  First of all though I would like you to talk to one another – we’ve not done a lot of that this time round in our Lent talks – I would like you to think about why the ten commandments may still be important for today in our walk with God in Christ.  Of if that seems a bit abstract to you – just speak for a minute or two to your neighbour about why your are here tonight, why you’ve come to this (and indeed the others if you came to them) Lent group on the 10 Commandments.  You won’t have to share your reasons with me or the whole group, so say whatever you like about why you are here, or what you wish you were doing instead!!!

Anyone want to share? 

Well I will share – I’m here because I want to deepen my faith and to learn more, and to grow in knowing God.  It’s been an interesting couple of weeks and I have learned from both of our speakers, and been challenged, and heard things which made me uncomfortable and things which have strengthened my own faith.  I believe that Christian faith is strong enough to stand scrutiny, and that God is greater than any challenge, intellectual or otherwise, that I can offer.  I long for my faith to grow – or as the father of the desperately ill boy said to Jesus in Mark’s Gospel Chapter 9v24  – Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!

I agree that holding fast to a simple faith is important for each one of us and commend a childlike faith, but not a simplistic or a childish faith.  I echo what Martin said to Brian last week when he said that what we might describe as simple faith is more complex than we probably give it credit for!  And I know that the approach to faith that all of you have in this room is to approach it with thought and care and to  seek to nurture your own faith in heart and mind.  It is my privilege as a minister to have a small part in that, and I hope that I help rather than hinder this process!

Well, I know that it caused some upset in one of the villages in our Mission Community that I chose this theme of the ten commandments because they are watching the DVDs from J John on the same subject and don’t see why we should do it again.  In response to that I say, terrible as it might be to hear it, J John does not have all the answers, nor the only way of looking at these words which have enlivened and enthralled scholars, priests, monarchs and peasants over thousands of years.  The two speakers we’ve had already have given us radical and very different ideas which have come from the springboard of our first four commandments.  Scripture is piled with layer upon layer of meaning and depth and looking at things twice with very eyes and a very different approach offers a chance for us to deepen, rather than narrow, our understanding.

So, back again ‘why’?  Well, in our first week we did hear some consideration to this question albeit implicit in what David  said rather than explicit perhaps…. 

These commandments, known as the Decalogue, the ten words, are foundational.  They are the basis of legal and ethical systems which have evolved in our own county and through western (and I use the word advisedly) ‘civilisation’ to form a framework for society. 

There’s something of a misunderstanding that the Jewish faith takes these ten words as importantly as the Christian tradition has – as far as any faithful Jew is concerned there are not ten commandments, there are 613, with no one or ten taking precedence.  The law is the law.  A whole tradition, or in fact one could say, THE whole tradition of Jewish faith exist around the interpretation and living under, within, inspired and guided by the commandments.  Alongside this are books and books of guidance and debate on what the law means and how it should be applied.

Why is this important, you may well ask, well it’s because this isn’t a set of rules you get marked on, “worshipping other Gods ‘tick’ name of the Lord ‘tick’, adultery ‘tick’ etc etc” but the whole of the law is concerned with the whole of life and with the way we turn to God and to one another in everything we do.  It goes back to the Shema, the foundation of Jewish Faith, and the first half of what we call ‘the summary of the law’ as Jesus used it! Deuteronomy 6 verse four says Shema Y’Israel = 4 Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one.

and carries on in verse 

5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

All of the Law is about obedience to the God revealed as ONE, the God of Israel who has claim on every part of life and therefore should be loved with every part of oneself.  It’s all about relationship with him – not a set of rules to be obeyed but a way of living that will bring about closeness.

Look at this way – I am married to Jo, and very fortunate I am too, and because I want to be close to her I am not making romantic relationships with anyone else.  I try and do my bit around the house, take time to be with her and the children, cook and do washing up not because these are the rules of the house or a series of demands put upon me but because by doing so harmony, intimacy, closeness, trust and a wealth of other good things comes from that.

That’s how a faithful Jew looks at the law.  It’s holding up the ideal way to live in order to grow closer to God. 

There’s also a phenomenal misunderstanding that because of this law and because we as Christians know forgiveness through Jesus there is a lack of Grace and forgiveness in Judaism.  That is absolutely not the case – because the law is given for the benefit of humanity then there is a desire to be in relationship with God and a sense of grace and forgiveness comes from the foundational premise that God wants to be in relationship with humanity – which is why God made the covenant, and the law which is the outworking of that covenant.  But that’s another discussion. 

I just wanted to say that we look at these commandments because they are the foundation of our Christian Faith, because when the Church began it didn’t separate from our Jewish roots, it grew from them.  This stuff is the stuff that Jesus knew, and believed, and taught and learnt from and shared and expanded on.  

So there’s my reasoning, well the start of it… and of course there is one thing, as highlighted in the sermon I heard on Sunday and by David in our first week together

‘And God said…’

I don’t know how God said, and I don’t want to enter into a debate on the inspiration of scripture – in fact I found the reminder that inspiration isn’t a one off event, but that the Holy Spirit works to inspire through, with, within Scripture every time we open in prayerfully asking for God’s word to come out of these words… But anyway, God said these things,  as our reading from Exodus 20, which was last Sunday’s Old Testament Lesson reminded us, God chose to speak for our benefit, and these commandments we are considering are a part of that.

OK, so we have two commandments that might on the face of it seem pretty unrelated.  Or at least the common link seems only to be that they’re in the Decalogue…. Honour your father and your mother…. and You shall not kill…  Is this where I regret bunching them together in twos just to get through the ten in five weeks.  Probably!

It might help to look at where we are in the commandments – we have had the first four which seem to be about God… One God to worship, no idols, take care of the name of God which is entrusted to you and keep the Sabbath.  These four seem to be particularly focussed on keeping our attitude to God in the right place. 

It now seems we move into six commands which are much more about our relationships with each other.  Honour mother and father, don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, don’t covet.  These are very human things… and yet it’s not another, different approach – it’s building on what has gone before, just as the rest of the law will build on this initial revelation…

For those of you who like the prayer book from 1662 or who have been listening closely in our Parish Communions during Lent we have our Lord’s summary of the law…taken from Jesus’ words in Matthew 22

Our Lord Jesus Christ said:

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord;

and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,

and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,

and with all thy strength.

This is the first commandment.

And the second is like, namely this:

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

There is none other commandment greater than these.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Lord, have mercy upon us,

and write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee.

Did you notice that connecting sentence…

And the second is like, namely this

Somehow our relationship with others is bound up in our relationship with God – or even more tellingly, our relationship with God is bound up in our relationship with others! 

We have a direct connection with God in the way that we act towards others.  That’s why David Gunn Johnson could talk of the phrase ‘MY communion’  being so comical and inaccurate – there is no such thing as making ‘my communion’ – it can only be OUR communion – with God and with one another.  If it’s only about me and what I get and my spiritual fix then it isn’t communion at all, it’s a kind of religious self-help…

Some of you will remember in our talks last year the repeated phrase, and I know it was oft repeated because I was one of those that repeated it, that Israel’s faith, life, governance, temple, family life, the lot were and are all bound together.  There is no part of life that God is not the ruler of.  That’s why the prophets were constantly going on about justice and love and compassion being as important, no MORE IMPORTANT than paying the right temple tax or saying the right words.  Jesus carried on that prophetic tradition in his critique of the religious authorities that could tithe the herbs from the garden yet had no compassion on the poor and needy.

And all of that starts here.  There isn’t actually a difference between the God bit of the first four commandments and the person bit of the next six.  In fact even to describe them as such is to create a false dichotomy between them.  It’s all one.

If there’s only one thing, one message, that sticks with you from the many years I hope to be here, let it be this.

It’s all about relationship!

Our faith, the one passed down to us over centuries is about our relationship with God and with one another.  And that summary of the law, for me, crystalises the whole of the faith I hold so dear.

Which is why we have these commandments…

Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the Land which the Lord your God has given you

and

You shall not kill….

These are commandments about respecting, honouring, caring for, protecting the other… as an expression of our love for one another and for God. 

But why do mum and dad get singled out for a special mention?

In Jewish thought procreation was a sharing in God’s constant activity of creation.  That meant that it took three to make a child – mother, father and God.  As such parents expressed something of the nature of God in the very fact of being parents.  But it wasn’t just parents, as we read the teachers and interpreters of the law that came later we see that carers of all kinds are included in this – grandparents, step parents, adoptive parents, uncles, older sibling, the lot.  Because it’s not just the act of making a new life that is God-like it is the nurture and care of that new life which reflects the essence of God’s relationship with humanity – and as Christians we would add is a reflection of God’s relationship with himself in trinity.  But that’s a thought for the Sunday after Pentecost, I think…

And as for honouring – what do you think that means?  It’s not a phrase we use very much these days….the Hebrew word we translate as honour in this case is Kabed – a wide-ranging verb; no one specific behavior is commanded but it contains within it respect, esteem, concern for, affection, love, consideration, appreciation, nurture, forgiveness.  It’s also an active thing, doing things which honour another person… and by honour another person you give them dignity as well as gaining dignity in your active honouring of them. 

It’s an active verb, something that is done not felt – something that adds to life, something that causes a growth in relationship, that adds to the fabric of life, that builds up relationship for the one who is honoured and the one who offers such honour….

But in essence there is a command here that is meant to be about the very fabric of society…. when we are bound together in honour we create a strong world, a strong society.  The second part of the command reflects this ‘that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you’.  It’s not a threat  as in ‘you won’t be here long if you don’t do it’ but a recognition that this honour will make your culture, your nation strong – honour begins at home!  It’s meant to add not just to the relationship in a family but to the tribe, the culture around it. 

When people ask why western society feels so broken, and what is lacking in our ‘modern’ world I’m not sure that ‘honour’ is a bad response.  As we no longer ‘honour’ our parents and carers that culture of respect, love, trust and dignity is lost and the fabric of society becomes threadbare and hard to hold together.

As an extra factor too, it’s important to note the fact that there’s a command to honour Father and Mother, which is quite radical in a patriarchal world…  Having read this passage time and time again it struck me for the first time as I prepared this talk that in the midst of cultures that were overwhelmingly patriarchal or matriarchal the Biblical Jewish culture has a sense of balance and mutuality that is out of place, prophetic, radical in so many ways.  This, of course, stretches back to the principle of ‘In the image of God He created them, Male and Female created He them”

And the theme of respect, and of honour is carried on in the second of tonight’s commands.  You shall not kill, or you shall not murder…

Now this is a thorny one, and one which I could spend a long time on, in fact I’ve deliberately not left myself lots of time to do this  translating Hebrew לֹא תִּרְצָחlo tirṣaḥ), this command is a moral imperative  against unlawful killing resulting in bloodguilt. The Hebrew Bible contains numerous prohibitions against unlawful killing, but also allows for justified killing in the context of warfare, capital punishment, and self-defense.

The concern is again about respect – that others are not to have their life taken away from them.  We can argue about whether tirsah is killing per se or the specifics of murder, but the context of scripture seems to say it is about wrongful killing, and the rest is open to interpretation!  And always will be, as those who think they’ve got scripture all tied up, sorted out and ready to go, have probably missed the point!

Much more could be said, but in essence our relationship with one another is how our relationship to God is worked out.  1 Jn 3 etc…. How can we love God who we can’t see if we don’t love our neighbour who we can… WHO is my neighbour, another debate and so it goes on… probably why Jesus answered in parables…

I hope this gives you a glimpse of the importance of all these commandments, but the importance of their interconnectedness too!  We cannot compartmentalise faith, the commandments remind us that it is all mixed up together, holistic in the most positive and challenging way.

Looking at these commandments in this way is part of a process where we engage heart, soul, mind and strength in wrestling with the truths of our faith.  If we are seeking a faith that is simple not simplistic, childlike but not childish it will take some work, it may well be hard, it may be challenging, it may be disturbing – but it will also be life giving and life affirming.  Like Jacob who wrestled at the brook of Jabbok with a mysterious figure we are told was ‘an Angel’ we too need to wrestle with the deeper truths of our faith and as we ‘wrestle’ with God we too need to grasp hold of this faith and say boldly ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me’ and God will indeed bless us as our search bears its own rewards.

Don't Waste Time On End Times....

4 Before Advent (2011) Year A RCL Principal

Micah 3.5-12 / 1 Thessalonians 2.9-13 / Matthew 24.1-14

The End Is Nigh!

You have to feel sorry for Harold Campion.  Perhaps you heard his name on the news back in May when on the 21^st of May this chap predicted with absolute certainty that the end of the world was coming and that the world would be destroyed, the dead would rise from their graves and the faithful would be raised to heaven by way of the Rapture.  When it didn’t happen he quickly revised his calculations, said his Biblical Mathematics had been wrong and proclaimed with the same absolute certainty that the end of the world would come on the 21^st of October.  Did you notice it?  Nor did I?

Though he has done the same thing twice before this year – proclaiming without a shadow of doubt that the end of the world would arrive on May 21^st 1988 and September 6^th 1994.  As the head of Family Radio, a Christian Media Ministry broadcast all over America, Camping has now retired from his public ministry and has since been heard to say that no one does know the day or the hour of the return of Jesus – finally admitting what Jesus said a long time ago a few verses later than today’s reading in Matthew 24v34 “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

These predictions of the end of the world have provided fodder for both fundamentalists and comedians over many years!  There used to be rather grey looking individuals that would wander up and down places like Oxford Street in London wearing sandwich boards or holding up placards which told us ‘the End of the World is nigh! Or there were folk who would stand on the streets of Cambridge on a Saturday or who would proclaim at speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park ‘Repent, Jesus is coming’.  Maybe they still do, though we don’t hear much of it these days. 

Books have been written with titles like ‘The Late Great Planet Earth’ and ‘Arise and Reap’ which have told those who have read them that we are living in the end times, and Jesus is coming back soon.  Well, one day they will be right – the Bible says that Jesus will someday return and – in the words of Mother Julian of Norwich – ‘All will be well and all manner of things shall be well’.  But those who seem to fixate on working out exactly how the words of the book of Revelation fit into the present age seem to be missing the point – how are we living here…

When we pray in the words Jesus taught us, the one prayer he gave us to say, we say ‘Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ – that’s not just about the time when Jesus will return and the kingdom will come in all it’s fullness – it’s also a statement of hope that God will bring His reign to the earth NOW, and a statement of our willingness to be involved in that.  Jesus soon goes on in that prayer to ask that we know forgiveness and share that forgiveness with others, that we have the food we need for each day, and that in trials we will stand firm.  Any understanding, hope, faith we may have for heaven coming to earth must be grounded in lives of love and service here on earth.

Look at today’s lesson from Matthew Chapter 24, for instance.  Jesus says that life will become very difficult indeed for those who follow him – and hints of needing to endure to the end, but he doesn’t obsess about what that end will be, he talks about needing to remain faithful. 

Now when Matthew is writing – we reckon about AD 70 or later – the Church is being torn apart by persecution, many are abandoning faith, the Jewish people are on going to be decimated by the Romans and sometime after, or even just before, the Gospel is written down and made available the Temple in Jerusalem will be destroyed.  Jesus’ words about the destruction of the temple stand out in the mind of the writer as he is compiling his writings and stories to make up the Gospel and it’s those words that open our Bible passage, Mt 24:

¹As Jesus came out of the temple and was going away, his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. ²Then he asked them, ‘You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’

Jesus could see that time would come when the political intrigue that the leaders of Israel were involved in would eventually bring about chaos and destruction for Israel.  And he warns his followers that a time will come that being faithful to his message will endanger their wellbeing, indeed even their lives.

But Jesus has one message: “Stick with it, don’t be distracted”  - don’t listen to false prophets, don’t get caught up in worrying about the end, don’t allow the disloyalty and hatred of others make you give up.  Stand firm in the face of persecution, live with hope, but don’t live just for the end – as no one knows when it will come….

Common sense tells us that to live for something that might happen is a recipe for disaster.  We worry, we fret, we get nervous, or we constantly look forward without seeing where we are or where we should be going.  Jesus doesn’t want his followers to be distracted – as he says earlier in Matthew’s Gospel ‘where your treasure is, there will your hear be also’ or, in other words, what you think is important will be what you focus on…

I honestly believe Jesus wants us, his Church, to focus on one thing… and that is summed up at the end of the Gospel reading we heard just now, in Chapter 24 verse 14 he says:

And this good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world…

That’s the focus we should have in the Church today!  We call it Mission – and part of that mission is evangelism, sharing the good news of the kingdom.  And it IS Good News – that amidst the turmoil of this world, even when there are wars and violence, natural disaster, strife and hatred, even then Jesus is with us.  Even in the worst that this world has to offer Christ offers us his strength, his love, his hope, his faith – through his Holy Spirit he has promised to be with us, and if we were to go to the very end of the Gospel we would read Jesus’ parting words to his disciples.  Words that we call the Great Commission, when Jesus instructed his disciples, and through them instructs us, to carry on his work of making the Good News real in everything we do and we say.  In loving God and our neighbour, and learning to love ourselves as God loves us.  In speaking the truth even in difficult situations, in standing up for what is right even when it is not the trendy, easy or popular way.  In keeping Christ as the absolute centre of our lives and as the basis of our worship and living.

This is what we are called to focus on, this is where our heart should be – rather than winding ourselves and others up about when the end of the world might be coming or not, and exactly what form it is going to take, we should focus on our calling as Christ’s people to share this good news, in word and action, in silence and in service and we should always keep in mind these words which we call the Great Commission:

Matthew 28.19-20

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’