A quick word of explanation - it's the nearest Sunday to the Feast Day of St Giles who whom our local Church is dedicated, so we have a special service to remember our 'Patron Saint' and to celebrate our Church life together. This one came after a fair amount of wrestling with the passage, and some help from Twitter friends (I go by @revdal on Twitter if anyone wants to follow, I will reciprocate). Anyway, I wanted to keep the usual Sunday readings rather than using the 'Common of the Saints' readings for 'Religious' (ie Monks) so I needed to think about the two. I have to say, as the first few paragraphs I hope make clear, there was a very natural link.
This one's not been preached yet, it may change in the telling.... If you say something in the next fourteen hours or so it may find its way into the final sermon, a work in progress!
Year B Proper 18 (2006) RCL Principal
St Giles’ - Open & Welcoming
So, who knows who St Giles was?
My first patronal festival here at St Giles means that I really felt I had to do a little bit of homework on who the great man himself was and why our Church might have been named after him in the hope that I could find something to say about him as we think on the part we have in this community and in our village. So I did a little bit of homework, and it turned out to be only a little as my first instinct was to turn to a book called ‘Exciting Holiness’ which said all I needed to get the thought processes going:
Giles was a hermit who died in about the year 710. He founded a monastery at the place now called Saint-Gilles in Provence which became an important place on the pilgrimage routes His care for the wounded and those crippled by disease resulted in his becoming the patron saint of such people both to Compostela and to the Holy Land., particularly of those with leprosy. Leprosy sufferers were not permitted to enter towns and cities and therefore often congregated on the outskirts, where churches built to meet their needs were regularly dedicated to Giles.
What made me stop and think was that we have a Church dedicated to someone known for his welcome and his care for those in need. For the outcast and the unwanted. Something I think is at the heart of what it means to be God’s people here in Kilmington. And in our welcome and care for our community I believe we build on the foundations of saints such as St Giles and their desire to reach out and to show the love of Christ to their community.
Having said that, though, a look at our Gospel – and it is that I want to preach on despite the excellence and value of our passage from the book of Proverbs– a look at our Gospel gives us more than enough substance for a whole raft of sermons. Though I will try not to stray too far over my self-allotted 10 minutes or so for this sermon.
It is a well known passage, the story of a Syro Phonecian Woman who approached Jesus with a request to heal her daughter, and was dismissed by him until she came back with the exquisite riposte ‘even the dogs get to eat the crumbs under the table’ – a phrase that has sunk deep into the spirituality of the English as our Prayer Book has included it as the foundation for what is known as the ‘Prayer of Humble access’. “We are not worthy even to gather up the crumbs under thy table” we pray in our Communion services as we recognise our own sinfulness and the response of God’s grace despite that sinfulness.
But it is an uncomfortable story, at least it should be if we look at it closely. We believe in a Jesus who said words that come up in so many of our services and sermons ‘Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.’ and a Jesus who welcomed and touched the outcast, the leper, the sinner – yet in this short passage we are shown a Jesus who rejects a woman because of her lack of status and her national heritage. He goes so far as to allude that she is a dog – ‘it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs’ he says in verse 27 of Mark chapter 7. Not terribly flattering, in fact downright insulting. But the woman does not leave it there and her quick response about being allowed to take the crumbs under the table causes Jesus to change his mind and offer healing to this woman’s daughter.
But this time it is not the woman and her persistence that I want to commend. I want to consider exactly what it is that Jesus did in that encounter.
Some preachers, and indeed many normal people I have met, contend that Jesus was testing the woman who came to him – that it was an attempt to elicit faith from her that would make the healing of her daughter possible – for again and again in the Gospels we have the refrain ‘your faith has made you well’ or ‘your faith has saved you.’
I have to say, that if this was Jesus’ aim it was done rather cruelly, by dismissing the woman and insulting her. Remember this was a woman who meant nothing in first century Palestinian society – she wasn’t a Jew, she was a woman and she had no husband or sons to give her value in society’s eyes. It was a case of ‘three strikes and you’re out’ for jewish society! She was consigned to widow-hood with an equally valueless daughter and wasn’t worth bothering with. If Jesus was testing her he did it by adding to her sense of worthlessness and lack of importance.
On the other hand, perhaps (and many find this hard to accept) Jesus made a mistake! Perhaps his understanding was that he had been called to bring the Jewish people back to God and that the Gentiles had no place in that plan. Perhaps at this juncture in his ministry he had to think again about the mission God had given him and reconsider his role over and above the calling to bring Israel back to God.
I find this far more plausible. And far more encouraging. And in keeping with the Gospel records with who and what Jesus was.
The main argument against Jesus making a mistake and having to correct himself is that he was God and therefore infallible. Yet the witness of our Scriptures is that though the people who knew him described him as God and worshipped him, they could also only talk about him as a man. And the teaching of the early Church was that in Jesus Christ we see someone who is fully God and fully human – someone who was, as the writer to the Hebrews says, exactly as we are, yet without sin.
And it is not for us as human beings to know everything! In fact, if we knew everything we would no longer be human but something else, some kind of super-human, or ultra-human, or something alien and beyond human.
This is not what the Bible says. Jesus was as we are. Those who shared his life saw him hunger and thirst, they saw him get tired, angry, confused about his mission and ministry, they saw him weep at the death of a friend. There is no picture of a serene Jesus wandering about Galilee with a sort of divine filofax the spelled out in advance what he would be doing each day (the seven visions before breakfast approach) and exactly how his mission was to develop. Our Biblical witness is of a Jesus who struggled, who felt pain, who was saddened. Who did everything we did, except sin.
And that perhaps is the crux of the issue, for many people confuse Jesus making a mistake with Jesus sinning. And my conviction is that Jesus didn’t sin, I believe wholeheartedly the Biblical witness, yet this story is given to us to show that he did make a mistake. Perhaps the sin would have been if he had continued to turn the woman away, if he didn’t listen to her response and refused to heal her daughter because of her status and her race. Yet Jesus heard, and his response is a telling on – ‘you have answered well’ – or to put it more colloquially, perhaps ‘good answer..’ The translation of the Bible known as the message, putting Scripture into contemporary language says this for Mark 7 29 & 30
Jesus was impressed. "You're right! On your way! Your daughter is no longer disturbed. The demonic affliction is gone.
Jesus sees a new aspect to his mission, to reach out to all people for God’s sake, and from this point in our Gospel he states his commitment to the world and not just the Jewish people.
I believe this is why the author of Mark’s Gospel follows this story with another encounter with Jesus where someone’s who has been deaf and unable to speak since birth has their ears and mouth opened ‘Ephphatha’ says Jesus – meaning ‘be opened’ – perhaps a reflection of his own experience in that previous encounter, as he found himself opened to the power of God’s work in the world.
So what can we learn from this today? Why go into so much detail with what is, in actual fact, quite a short story in our Gospels?
This story gives us a glimpse of what it is possible for us to be! If Jesus is always beyond us, never making mistakes, never having to change his mind – then we lose the fact that we are called to be like him and we constantly say to ourselves that is beyond our reach to be like Jesus. Again, this is not the message of the Bible, we are called to be transformed into those who are Christlike by the power of God’s holy Spirit. That is our calling as followers of Christ, and this story reminds us that it is possible and that we can make mistakes and seek to be those who are sinless.
This wonderful passage also reminds us to be open to the unexpected, and willing to change our minds, just as Jesus was and did. It reminds us that the movement from making a mistake to actively sinning comes from stubbornness and the unwillingness to see where God may be at work.
Lastly we are shown that in God’s scheme of things there are no outcasts, even those who society rejects, who have no apparent value are those who can receive God’s amazing, unmerited, overwhelming gift of love and life.
May we be those willing to learn, willing to accept our mistakes, and longing to be like Christ. Ephphatha – be opened. May we as those who are dedicated to Christ, and who have this wonderful church dedicated to St Giles, be opened to the love of God and be open to the needy, the poor, and those so in need of Christ’s life.
Showing posts with label Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jesus. Show all posts
Saturday, 5 September 2009
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Another sermon...
I went a bit mad this last Sunday and ended up doing three different sermons at three very different services, so here's the one from the 'main' morning service, based on the Gospel Reading for Trinity 3/Proper 8
Turning things around
Irishman walks into a bar with a pig under his arm ‘where did you get that’ asks the barman? I won it in a raffle’ replies the pig….
Firstly, I am allowed to tell Irish jokes because I'm Irish (kind of). Second, at the risk of taking one of my favourite jokes to bits too much, I like this joke because like all the best jokes it thwarts our expectations! Jokes are funny (if they are funny) because something happens that we weren’t ready for! Likewise the things which stick in our minds from the Bible are the things which turn the world upside down, that remind us that there is more to this faith business, and especially to this Jesus chap, than we could contain in all of our theologies, philosophies, traditions or ideas.
And if you need any proof of that, let’s look at the Gospel reading for today. It’s one of those familiar Gospel readings which we can loose the impact of because it is so well known to so many of us.
It is, of course, two stories, two events woven together, where each has an impact upon the other. They share a common theme as well as a common place – actually they share a number of common themes but I want to talk about one – the way in which Jesus does the unexpected, and makes people whole even as he makes other people uncomfortable as he does so.
Firstly we have Jesus crossing over the lake of Galilee where he has just come from the encounter with a demon possessed man who was known as legion. From that chaos he comes to a different type of chaos! The crowds are desperate to see him, they want to be near him but, it seems, are kept from getting too close by the disciples who find themselves on bodyguard duty! Still the clamour of the crowd surrounds him.
Into this clamour comes one of the local religious leaders – a man given the name Jairus. I say given the name because it seems to be a made up name meaning ‘one who will be enlightented’ or ‘God enlightens’ – a reference perhaps to the purpose of this carefully crafted story. Anyway, this man, this leader is obviously important enough, or distressed enough, to be let through to meet Jesus. And there is good reason for his distress, his daughter is sick, to the point of death, and he doesn’t know where to turn. Despite the suspicion towards Jesus that we have from many of the religious authorities it seems that some are open to the idea that Jesus may have something of God’s purposes about him. Or perhaps its just desperation…
Having said that, plenty of people turn to us in the church when they go through desperate times, many of who have very little understanding of our faith or of the Church and we would do well to learn from Jesus’ example. He went, no discussion, no questions, he went. He saw a need and responded.
But on the way something happens. A woman who had experienced bleeding for twelve years presses in and touches the hem of Jesus’ garment, or perhaps one of the tassles on his cloak that Jesus (as an orthodox Jew) would have worn. And at the moment she does this she is healed.
And in the midst of the crowd, in the midst of the clamour, in the midst of this urgency to get to this young girl’s sick bed, Jesus stops. He stops and takes time to talk to this woman who has sneaked up, probably hoping not to be noticed, he takes time to talk to her, to affirm her, and to send her on her way with a blessing.
I can imagine Jairus wondering what’s going on, and we catch a glimpse of the disciples’ exasperation at Jesus saying ‘who touched me?’ “Lord, not sure you’ve noticed by everyone and his mother are touching you at this particular moment – you are in the middle of a big crowd, lots of people are doing the touching thing.” Admittedly, that is something of a paraphrase by you get the idea!
But Jesus says ‘no, someone touched me’ not jostled, or bumped into, they touched me. And, I suspect somewhat anxiously the woman says ‘it was me’. And what does Jesus do? Does he say ‘OK, well that’s fine then, another one healed, hooray, lets move on’. No he takes time to tell this fearful woman that it was her faith that healed her.
For twelve years this woman had been excluded – her bleeding made her unclean so unable to worship in the synagogue that Jairus was a leader in. She would have been untouchable or whoever was near her would also be excluded from society until they went through certain ritual purifications. For twelve years (the same time as Jairus’ daughter had lived) this woman had either been scorned, or been invisible.
Jesus takes time for her.
I don’t think it’s labouring the point to really look at this. It’s in these moments that we see Jesus more clearly. In fact the miracle here is not so much that the woman’s bleeding was healed, but that Jesus heals her pain too, by taking that moment to affirm the faith she had. He doesn’t take the super-religious route of saying ‘you really shouldn’t have touched me because I am now ritually unclean, you know’. He doesn’t take the busy-ness route of saying ‘Well we have something very important to get to, so off you go’. Jesus doesn’t respond to the pressure around him to move on, even though there was an urgency in Jairus’ plea. Jesus recognises that God is in control, and meets each moment appropriately. Open to the touch of the Spirit Jesus takes time where needed to bring out faith in someone who was a write off in the eyes of the society around her.
And it doesn’t take much to realise that this is part of our calling as the people of Christ too! To resist the pressures of speed, urgency, agendas, time. To resist the pressure of the society around us and take time for faith – for our own faith, and to affirm the faith around us. And not just the faith of those who are in the club, or who we like, or who we would hope to draw into our fellowship. Our calling is to have eyes which see faith in the most unexpected and unlikely places, and to respond to that faith wherever and whenever it appears.
And then Jesus goes on to the place where he was originally headed, and does what he was planning to do, he prays for Jairus’ daughter.
But even here the unexpected happens. When told the girl has died, he dismisses that and says ‘she is not dead, but sleeping’. Of course, in a society such as Jesus’ where death was much more commonly seen, and most people would have experience of bereavement and loss, they would have been pretty much used to seeing death, and the idea that this girl was asleep was enough to make even the professional mourners laugh. But he takes no account of the laughter, and steps out in faith to touch this young girl and speak the worlds ‘talitha cum’ – little girl get up. He addresses her and she is brought from death to new life, he turns reality for that family and for that little girl upside down.
And this is what the word of faith can do. For the woman who had been without a life for twelve years, and for the twelve year old girl on the edge of death all their expectations are turned upside down.
That’s a real cause for rejoicing and for laughter – better than the best joke! That the word of faith, the right word in the right place, brings life and hope and love.
And again the parallels are obvious, these are stories given to us to encourage and inspire us, to enlighten our eyes of faith. We are called to speak faith into situations of hopelessness, to bring the life and light of Christ into all parts of our world. We risk being laughed at, we risk the scorn of those who see the world otherwise. We will need to resist the pressures of a world that is too quick to move on, or to write people off, but we are those who are to bring Christ, no matter what the cost, to a world so in need of him.
May God give us grace to speak faith into all life, and to know when to respond, and to hear his voice as he leads us from death to life, from despair to hope and from darkness to light. Amen.
Year B Proper 8 (2009)
Turning things around
Irishman walks into a bar with a pig under his arm ‘where did you get that’ asks the barman? I won it in a raffle’ replies the pig….
Firstly, I am allowed to tell Irish jokes because I'm Irish (kind of). Second, at the risk of taking one of my favourite jokes to bits too much, I like this joke because like all the best jokes it thwarts our expectations! Jokes are funny (if they are funny) because something happens that we weren’t ready for! Likewise the things which stick in our minds from the Bible are the things which turn the world upside down, that remind us that there is more to this faith business, and especially to this Jesus chap, than we could contain in all of our theologies, philosophies, traditions or ideas.
And if you need any proof of that, let’s look at the Gospel reading for today. It’s one of those familiar Gospel readings which we can loose the impact of because it is so well known to so many of us.
It is, of course, two stories, two events woven together, where each has an impact upon the other. They share a common theme as well as a common place – actually they share a number of common themes but I want to talk about one – the way in which Jesus does the unexpected, and makes people whole even as he makes other people uncomfortable as he does so.
Firstly we have Jesus crossing over the lake of Galilee where he has just come from the encounter with a demon possessed man who was known as legion. From that chaos he comes to a different type of chaos! The crowds are desperate to see him, they want to be near him but, it seems, are kept from getting too close by the disciples who find themselves on bodyguard duty! Still the clamour of the crowd surrounds him.
Into this clamour comes one of the local religious leaders – a man given the name Jairus. I say given the name because it seems to be a made up name meaning ‘one who will be enlightented’ or ‘God enlightens’ – a reference perhaps to the purpose of this carefully crafted story. Anyway, this man, this leader is obviously important enough, or distressed enough, to be let through to meet Jesus. And there is good reason for his distress, his daughter is sick, to the point of death, and he doesn’t know where to turn. Despite the suspicion towards Jesus that we have from many of the religious authorities it seems that some are open to the idea that Jesus may have something of God’s purposes about him. Or perhaps its just desperation…
Having said that, plenty of people turn to us in the church when they go through desperate times, many of who have very little understanding of our faith or of the Church and we would do well to learn from Jesus’ example. He went, no discussion, no questions, he went. He saw a need and responded.
But on the way something happens. A woman who had experienced bleeding for twelve years presses in and touches the hem of Jesus’ garment, or perhaps one of the tassles on his cloak that Jesus (as an orthodox Jew) would have worn. And at the moment she does this she is healed.
And in the midst of the crowd, in the midst of the clamour, in the midst of this urgency to get to this young girl’s sick bed, Jesus stops. He stops and takes time to talk to this woman who has sneaked up, probably hoping not to be noticed, he takes time to talk to her, to affirm her, and to send her on her way with a blessing.
I can imagine Jairus wondering what’s going on, and we catch a glimpse of the disciples’ exasperation at Jesus saying ‘who touched me?’ “Lord, not sure you’ve noticed by everyone and his mother are touching you at this particular moment – you are in the middle of a big crowd, lots of people are doing the touching thing.” Admittedly, that is something of a paraphrase by you get the idea!
But Jesus says ‘no, someone touched me’ not jostled, or bumped into, they touched me. And, I suspect somewhat anxiously the woman says ‘it was me’. And what does Jesus do? Does he say ‘OK, well that’s fine then, another one healed, hooray, lets move on’. No he takes time to tell this fearful woman that it was her faith that healed her.
For twelve years this woman had been excluded – her bleeding made her unclean so unable to worship in the synagogue that Jairus was a leader in. She would have been untouchable or whoever was near her would also be excluded from society until they went through certain ritual purifications. For twelve years (the same time as Jairus’ daughter had lived) this woman had either been scorned, or been invisible.
Jesus takes time for her.
I don’t think it’s labouring the point to really look at this. It’s in these moments that we see Jesus more clearly. In fact the miracle here is not so much that the woman’s bleeding was healed, but that Jesus heals her pain too, by taking that moment to affirm the faith she had. He doesn’t take the super-religious route of saying ‘you really shouldn’t have touched me because I am now ritually unclean, you know’. He doesn’t take the busy-ness route of saying ‘Well we have something very important to get to, so off you go’. Jesus doesn’t respond to the pressure around him to move on, even though there was an urgency in Jairus’ plea. Jesus recognises that God is in control, and meets each moment appropriately. Open to the touch of the Spirit Jesus takes time where needed to bring out faith in someone who was a write off in the eyes of the society around her.
And it doesn’t take much to realise that this is part of our calling as the people of Christ too! To resist the pressures of speed, urgency, agendas, time. To resist the pressure of the society around us and take time for faith – for our own faith, and to affirm the faith around us. And not just the faith of those who are in the club, or who we like, or who we would hope to draw into our fellowship. Our calling is to have eyes which see faith in the most unexpected and unlikely places, and to respond to that faith wherever and whenever it appears.
And then Jesus goes on to the place where he was originally headed, and does what he was planning to do, he prays for Jairus’ daughter.
But even here the unexpected happens. When told the girl has died, he dismisses that and says ‘she is not dead, but sleeping’. Of course, in a society such as Jesus’ where death was much more commonly seen, and most people would have experience of bereavement and loss, they would have been pretty much used to seeing death, and the idea that this girl was asleep was enough to make even the professional mourners laugh. But he takes no account of the laughter, and steps out in faith to touch this young girl and speak the worlds ‘talitha cum’ – little girl get up. He addresses her and she is brought from death to new life, he turns reality for that family and for that little girl upside down.
And this is what the word of faith can do. For the woman who had been without a life for twelve years, and for the twelve year old girl on the edge of death all their expectations are turned upside down.
That’s a real cause for rejoicing and for laughter – better than the best joke! That the word of faith, the right word in the right place, brings life and hope and love.
And again the parallels are obvious, these are stories given to us to encourage and inspire us, to enlighten our eyes of faith. We are called to speak faith into situations of hopelessness, to bring the life and light of Christ into all parts of our world. We risk being laughed at, we risk the scorn of those who see the world otherwise. We will need to resist the pressures of a world that is too quick to move on, or to write people off, but we are those who are to bring Christ, no matter what the cost, to a world so in need of him.
May God give us grace to speak faith into all life, and to know when to respond, and to hear his voice as he leads us from death to life, from despair to hope and from darkness to light. Amen.
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Sermon - the good shepherd
Apologies, forgot to post this one...
Easter 4 (2009) Year C RCL Principal
Shepherd and sheep
April has been, for me, a time of reflection and looking back at the last 6 months or so of my life and the life of these Parishes. The first Easter a minister gets to spend in his or her Parishes is a very important one, not only for the obvious reasons regarding what we all believe about Easter, but because the way we celebrate Easter reflects who and what we are as Christians in these fellowships of which we are a part.
So the celebration of Easter left me feeling tired, but very happy. Our celebrations were well attended, they were friendly and they were joyful. With the Annual Parochial Church Meetings that took place at around the same time I have had a time when I have given thanks both to God and to the many people who work so hard, and often without the thanks they deserve. to keep our Parishes not just going, but growing.
As I’ve said before, on the arrival of a new incumbent and there is some change in our Parishes and there has been over the past few months, and I have been pleased with all that we have achieved. There is so much to give thanks for, and so many good things happening in the Five Alive Mission Community. At the same time there have been hard choices to be made, and there will be more as we seek the best way in which to serve the Parishes which our Churches are placed in – and that brings me to the readings which we have for today.
Our faith should face us with some hard choices. Jesus pulls no punches when he demands our allegiance – we are to give ourselves wholly to him. We are like sheep, we need to give ourselves over to the care of the shepherd and allow him to guide us where we need to go – or it won’t be long before we wander off and become lost – God is gracious and will rescue us, but that’s another story.
I used to have a lecturer who said he disliked the word pastoral because he didn’t consider himself a shepherd and his congregation weren’t sheep. The fact he didn’t like the term ‘pastor’ made the fact that he taught Pastoral Studies quite confusing – but there we are. I have to say that I am happy with the idea of pastoring as it reminds me that we all have a tendency to be like sheep, and we need the guidance of a shepherd.
The teaching of the Church has been, and indeed is, that Christ is the shepherd and that we all are the sheep, but that within the Church authority is given through the orders of ministry to some to take on a little of Christ’s rôle as shepherd – namely Bishops, Priests and Deacons. This does not for one minute make any of us more important that other Christians, but recognises that, through God’s grace, leadership can be exercised within the Church. But we remember that it is Christ who is our good shepherd and all gifts and responsibilities come from him.
This leads us to our passage from the Gospel of St John which we are given for today. Jesus says very clearly that we are his sheep, and that we hear his voice. But that poses the question – how often do we hear his voice, and when he speaks do we listen.
Sheep are notably wilful and stupid creatures, I’m told. They are easily distracted and often get themselves into a fix whilst seeking out that extra juicy looking bit of grass or plant. In the time that Jesus lived he would have seen shepherds who lived with their sheep out on the hills and who devoted their whole lives to the care of these clueless animals. He reminds us that he is like that, willing to give of himself to keep us safe.
But in order that we might be kept safe we have a choice to make, will we listen? Will we take heed? Or are we so concerned with what I want, with the way I want to go, that no cajoling from the shepherd is going to make us do what we should. In the verses we have from John’s Gospel we see Jesus becoming impatient with those who refuse to see who he is and to believe in what he is. John’s Gospel begins with a statement that offers no doubt as to the identity of Jesus – that the is the human manifestation of the word that brought all life into being. Throughout the Gospel Jesus is constantly offering signs of his nature and power, as well as unequivocal statements about who he is – all of the I AM statements come from John’s Gospel (I am the vine, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the bread of life, I am the good shepherd etc etc). Yet there are still some who refuse to believe, who refuse to see the relationship Jesus has with his Father in heaven and who refuse to listen to him.
Of course the author or authors of St John’s Gospel don’t just recount these stories as interesting events in the life of Jesus – those who are unbelievers are included in the stories in order to encourage us to be believers, not to emulate the sceptics, the awkward, the ignorant, but to be faithful and learn to listen and obey the voice of the good shepherd. These stories are here to challenge and inspire us, they demand that we make the choice – that we either accept or reject Jesus.
What are we going to do?
This willingness to obey must be at the very centre of our Christian life. Are we willing to lay aside our own self-will and embrace the rôle of a follower of Christ, a servant of God?
So we are faced with a challenge, with a demand. But we are also offered in today’s readings, even the ones we haven’t had read to us, the other side of the Christian life – the touch of grace and God’s gentleness. Psalm 23, that wonderful well-known Psalm reminds us that the Lord is a shepherd to us, that when we do listen to him he leads us to pleasant places, he accompanies us through the worst parts of life and death, that he will bring us to a place of rejoicing and celebration. This is a reminder that obedience to God pays dividends, that we don’t indulge in this servanthood that Christ calls us to for the sake of suffering, but that through it we grow to be those who God can use, in whom the Holy Spirit can work and live and grow. We become those who in being drawn closer to God enjoy all the rewards of the life on offer from God.
And God will work in us, if we will open ourselves to him and listen to his voice. And in that he can even bring life out of death.
Perhaps we feel that we need some of that strength and power for ourselves in our Christian lives, perhaps we feel we need it in our Churches. The message is clear, in order to bring about that kind of miracle we need faith, we need to pray and we need to be listening to our good shepherd.
We are encouraged in our Bible readings and Psalms for today to make a choice. We are encouraged to choose Christ and to choose life.
Whatever we do, we must choose life.
Sermon - I am the vine...
Easter 5 (2009) Year B RCL Principal
As anyone who has talked to me about growing, sowing, weeding and reaping will know, I am not a gardener – and one of the attractions of moving to the Five Alive Mission Community was a generous offer by one of the parishioners in Kilmington to take care of the Vicarage lawn so that I didn’t have to make the time for garden upkeep.
So I will mow the lawn or strim if necessary – and I have started the process of clearing the new bit of Garden that we have been able to adopt at the end of the current Vicarage space. Having said this, the aforementioned garden care parishioner crept into our garden yesterday afternoon and did more with a proper strimmer in half an hour than I had managed in three hours the day before! The only other thing I will do in any garden is prune.
Well, not so much prune as hack, slash, clip, cut and slice. I have a bit of a reputation in my wife’s family – many of whom are keen gardeners – as somewhat over enthusiastic in my approach to pruning. In theological college I had a reputation for being ‘the Clematis killer of Westcott House’ after a very exciting session with some secateurs and the once bushy Clematis outside our flat. To be fair, the clematis grew back rather well, until it was blown down in the Winter gales a few years back – seven years after I left!
But the nurture, weeding and feeding of plants is beyond me, I’m afraid. I start out with good intentions and it all disappears. Give me a good bit of clearing to do, some chopping, preferably with a good bonfire at the end of it, and I’m happy.
But as any gardener knows, pruning – real pruning, thoughtful pruning – is an important part of the regime of garden care. It allows new growth, it prevents plants becoming misshapen, it helps guard against pests and disease, it removes dead and dying parts of a plant. As part of the whole regime, pruning is essential to the health of a garden.
And it is of course pertinent because of the Gospel reading for this morning, which begins with Jesus saying ‘I am the true vine and my Father is the vine grower’. And he goes on to use this illustration to talk of God’s relationship with us, through and in Christ himself. But more of that in a moment.
If you’ve heard the Gospel readings in the past few weeks, you might have notices that we have been looking through the ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus. We know them so well – I am the Good shepherd, I am the way, the truth and the life, I am the light of the world etc etc. These sayings are unique to the Gospel of John and quite deliberately link to the Old Testament where God describes himself to Moses when he speaks from the burning bush as ‘I am who I am’.
In John’s Gospel, when Jesus uses the phrase ‘I am’ it makes a statement not just about Jesus as a man, or a teacher, or a spiritual leader. It is meant to deliberately lead us to make the connection between this man Jesus and the fact that he is God. Just as in the very beginning of John’s Gospel we are told ‘In the beginning was the Word’ and it goes on to say ‘the word was made flesh and lived among us’.
John uses the ‘I am’ sayings very carefully and only seven times in his Gospel. When they are used they are to be taken seriously. They say something that is not just good advice, or comforting words, they seek to offer us the wisdom of God.
And so we come back to today’s reading. ‘I am the true vine.’ A strong image of life, and growth – something we are all to share in. ‘Abide in me as I abide in you’ Jesus commands, and later he says ‘I am the vine, and you are the branches.’
These are images of dependence, trust, intimacy and closeness. Not words we use a huge amount in the Church, actually – but here in the image of vine and branches, it is highlighted how close we should be to our Lord and Saviour Jesus. We are to be grafted in to him, dependant on him for our life and health, our very essence coming from him.
And like so many of these ‘I am’ sayings, this is a passage that challenges us to consider our relationship with Christ. Do we trust? Do we seek to be closer to Him? This is an intensely personal challenge – demanding that each one of us consider our own relationship to him – not as a Church, but as individual Christians.
And the consequences of allowing our relationship to wither are spelled out in strong and challenging terms. All who do not bear fruit in their relationship to the Vine, will be pruned, in a method that is reminiscent of my own approach to Gardening, they will be cut from the vine and burned.
Now I would counsel against taking that image too literally, but I would recommend that we take it seriously. We are called to bear fruit, living lives that show the love and grace of Christ, in order to Glorify God. We are called to be close to Christ and to grow in our faith in and love for him. We are called to live in Christ.
And we are called to live in Christ here and now, in our everyday lives, in the relationships we have, in our friendships, at home, at work, at play. This is the Christian life, to be in Christ. It is both a privilege and a responsibility.
And it is not one to be take lightly. Like a gardener God demands growth. He will prune, but like a Gardener God cares for, nurtures, feeds and protects us. In this very meal, this holy feast of Communion we are fed and nurtured in our Spirits through God’s grace and love. Meeting Him here in bread and wine, to be sent out again to live our lives, bearing the fruit of the true vine.
God is not a capricious gardener, caring only when it suits him, cutting on a whim. God is a gardener that takes time to look after each branch, bringing from it the best fruit it can bear. He allows us to grow in our own way – but he does demand that we grow and continue to grow.
And the challenge for us today is to consider our own lives, and the fruit we are bearing. To take seriously God’s calling upon our lives and to seek to be those people God wants us to be.
If we are willing to trust, to pray, to seek God’s will then he will care for us and help us to grow. If we are abiding in Christ then we will bear fruit, that is the way of vines, they bear fruit year after year, often for many years.
So let us pray that we will remain in Christ, and whatever may keeps us from growing, let us be willing to tackle it and with God’s help to deal with anything that prevents us from bearing fruit, fruit that will last.
Sunday, 6 July 2008
Year A Proper 9
Tricky Jesus
In my wife’s room as she was growing up there was a picture of Jesus surrounded by animals and children – a wonderful example of Victorian Kitsch, all soft focus and shiny blonde Jesus – around it was a line from a well known hymn which said ‘all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all...’
It was a meant to be a comfort, a picture of a Jesus who welcomed the vulnerable and who projected an aura of love and acceptance. It didn’t possess any particular artistic merit, but was unthreatening and warm.
I’m not sure what picture you have of Jesus in your own mind, perhaps you share such a ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ image, perhaps you have a mental image of the publicity campaign a few years back which had a picture of Jesus on a red background, looking remarkably like the Che Gevuara pictures which have adorned lots of student walls for the past thirty years or so which say ‘Meek. Mild. As If’ Or maybe an image of a man on a cross, or Christ surrounded by light rising into glory, or a Jesus who never blinks like Robert Powell in the Jesus of Nazareth TV series. I could go on and on...
But all of these pictures, whether you consider them good or bad images of Jesus, can’t really encapsulate this grace-filled, awe-inspiring, earthy, divine and human, disturbing and joyful man which we read about in the Bible. A Jesus who, on a regular basis, breaks free of our own stereotypes and preconceptions, our own prejudices and human limitations.
And it is this Jesus we encounter in our passage for today – a disturbing, challenging Jesus, a frank and forthright Jesus, perhaps even a slightly exasperated Jesus and yet also a Jesus who offers comfort and care for us.
If we look at the text itself we see many different aspects of Jesus’ character. We see him begining with a children’s saying in response to the pharisees criticism of him ‘we played the flute for you and you did not dance; we wailed and you did not mourn’. As far as his detractors were concerned, these strange teachers such as Jesus and John the baptist could do nothing right – if they were austere and aescetic they were miserable and were wrong, if they were open and welcoming, enjoying a party and spending time befriending people then they were equally wrong.
I must admit to being drawn more to Jesus’ model of reaching out myself – and it makes me smile when he is called a glutton and a drunkard – or ‘winebibber’ in the older translations of the bible! But there is a welcome and a joy in his reaching out to people that I believe that we are called to model as the church today!
In the text, though, Jesus is critical of those who are so negative towards his ministry. There is a sense of frustration in his pointed response, and it leads on to Jesus rather strong criticism of those who consider themselves clever and dismiss the truth by using complicated arguments: ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants’. There’s also a strong message to us no to veil the Gospel by clever argument, but by open and straightforward sharing of our faith to make real the good news of the kingdom of God by being open and straightforward ourselves!
Jesus continues saying that ‘no one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father exceptht he Sond and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him’. There is again a challenge for us to take up that call to reveal Christ in our lives and by our words and actions to live lives that draw others to getting to know Jesus, that we may be windows through whom Christ shines.
And having been so forthright in his speech, Jesus finishes this passage with words which console and offer a hope of comfort. ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest’. After these challenges, which apply not just to those original hearers, but to us today, we are given the reminder that the message that Jesus brings is one of life and freedom, rather than burden and struggle.
For those of us who follow Jesus, we are set free into the life which only he can bring. We no longer have the burden of living a certain way because we ‘should’ but of living life, as Jesus says in John’s Gospel chapter 10 ‘in all its fullness’. We are set free to live lives of joy, peace, hope, gentleness, self control, patience and more by the benevolent grace of the Spirit of God.
None of this is academic. This text isn’t here just so we can see different parts of Jesus character. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to know about Jesus I want to know Jesus – and in the same way that everyone we get to know has the capacity to surprise and challenge and disturb and inspire us, so it should be with Jesus. Then as we know Jesus more, we can call others to know this wonderful, difficult, grace filled person of God made flesh, Jesus Christ our Lord. As we read this passage we should be excited by the joy of calling others to know Jesus to. This passage doesn’t allow us to box Jesus up into nice easy categories, but serves to remind us of the fact that we who follow Jesus have still so much to learn about him, and that it is this Jesus we are called to share, that others may know the excitement of knowing him to.
May Jesus again refresh us as we see him anew and share his risen life with all those we know and those we meet.
Thanks be to God!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)