Preaching Peace

Speaking the word of God

2011-11-20T15:30:00.000Z

Preacher: Peter

I was askedto speak today about speaking the word of God. Which made me think of all thedifferent, and often contradictory, ways in which I have heard that phrase “theword of God” used in the course of my Christian journey.

Forexample, in my years in a Free Evangelical Church, the sermon was oftenintroduced with the words: “and now our brother will bring us the Word of God”.This usually made me feel uncomfortable – how can the disorganised and let’s behonest rather commonplace thoughts of Mr ____ (much as I’m fond of him)possibly be described as “the Word of God”?! Anyway, surely only the Bible isthe Word of God?

Or I canlook further back to my years in a Pentecostal church, where it was expectedthat God would regularly speak through ecstatic Spirit-filled worship in wordsof prophecy or tongues and interpretation: God himself speaking directly to uswith words of encouragement or challenge or even angry criticism. Of coursethere’s plenty of scope for abuse here – the temptation use the overwhelming authorityof speaking the very words of God to browbeat your fellow Christians to comeround to your way of thinking is too much for most of us mortals to resist.

ThisPentecostal prophetic speaking was in tension with an equallycharacteristically Pentecostal emphasis on the Bible as the inerrant word ofGod. The Bible was very much on a pedestal, possibly even subject to idolatrousreverence, and of course inerrant scripture required inerrant interpretationfrom the preacher in his (and it always was a “his”) sermons. Anotheropportunity to browbeat your fellow Christians into submissive conformity.

So “speakingthe word of God” has been a slippery concept in my experience. But before wegive up on the idea all together, let’s go back to the bible itself in searchof some solid ground.

Acts 4:23-31

When they were released,they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the eldershad said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together toGod and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the seaand everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, yourservant, said by the Holy Spirit,

“‘Why did the Gentilesrage,

andthe peoples plot in vain?

The kings of theearth set themselves,

andthe rulers were gathered together,

againstthe Lord and against his Anointed’—

for truly in thiscity there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom youanointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and thepeoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined totake place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servantsto continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out yourhand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holyservant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gatheredtogether was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit andcontinued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Peter andJohn have just been released, after being arrested and threatened by thereligious leaders and told to stop talking “in the name of Jesus”. They go backto the Christian community who immediately pray for them. This prayer ishelpful for us today, because of the way it handles this concept of “the wordof God”.

They starttheir prayer by referring to writtenscripture as the word of God.They quote Psalm 2 as words spoken by the creator God, through the mouth ofDavid, enabled by the agency of the Holy Spirit. And they confidently apply thesewords of scripture to their own situation of besieging hostility, expecting Godto speak to them through this ancient text.

But theyalso pray that God will help them to “continue to speak his word with allboldness”. So here we also see the word of God as something that continues tobe spoken by Christians, especially in situations of persecution and propheticconfrontation with the authorities. This speaking is an act of witness,speaking “of what we have seen and heard” (v20).

We have acomplex dynamic process going on here – David speaks out his poetry, which iswritten down and incorporated in scripture, which generations later is read andmemorized and meditated upon by Jews who encounter Jesus and apply it to him.Under pressure of persecution they quote the written scripture as they pray forboldness to speak out God’s word, and later the whole story is written down andincorporated into scripture all over again. And finally, here am I reading itand speaking it again. The Holy Spirit is indispensably involved at every step,even – I hope – the last one.

Notice inthis passage the emphasis on obedient service – both David, past writer of theword, and the apostles, current speakers of the word, are described as “yourservants” (vv25,29). Notice also that both written and spoken “word of God” aredeployed in service of the same task – to bear witness to Jesus.

So Acts 4gives us a helpful model of how the written and spoken “word of God” can be deployedtogether by the church as tools for prophetic witness. As Lloyd Pietersen putsit: “The biblical text .. acts as a means of funding the prophetic imaginationof the church.”

Butquestions remain for me, and the “word of God” has an elusive quality. Do wechoose our scripture, or is it chosen for us? The boundaries of the ChristianBible are fuzzy, even today. If you open a Catholic Bible you will find aslightly different contents page than you would in a Protestant Bible. Goingbeyond that, how do we even choose whichsacred book? After all, we are not the only “people of a book” – there are manybooks in the world which people hold sacred: the Torah, the Koran, the Book ofMormon, the Tao Te Ching, the Vedas, the Lord of the Rings...

What aboutnovels or poems that move us and challenge us? Is God speaking to us throughthese – are these in some sense “the word of God” as well? Or music and songs?As The Hold Steady sing in “Stay Positive”: “the sing-along songs will be ourscriptures”. There’s a terrible danger here of straying into banalwish-fulfillment religion. Whatever I happen to find moving or comforting Icall “the word of God” for me.

OK I’mgetting lost again. Let’s turn back to the bible for a some guidance.

Hebrews1:1-4

Long ago, at many timesand in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these lastdays he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things,through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of Godand the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word ofhis power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand ofthe Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name hehas inherited is more excellent than theirs.

The unknownwriter of this particular piece of scripture tells us that God’s revelation isprogressive. God spoke through the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures, revealingmore and more of his character, but this self-revelation climaxed in thesending of Jesus his son into the world. Jesus is the ultimate self-revelationof God to us – God can do no more. John 1 gives us the profound idea that Jesus is the Word of God. God is thereand he is not silent (to quote Francis Schaeffer) – he loves to speak to us inwords that we can understand. He speaks, and what he speaks is Jesus.

Thisexplains why the Bible is our sacred scripture – it is the record of thedifficult, troubling, liberating, tragic, argumentative encounter betweenIsrael and the creator God, and the climax of that process in the life, deeds,teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The bible is sacred becauseof Jesus. And likewise, the word of God comes alive for us when we speak it –to each other, but also to the world at large in witness, but only if we bearwitness to Jesus. When we speak truly of Jesus, bearing faithful witness towhat we have seen and heard (as in Acts 4:20), only then is there thepossibility for us of speaking the word of God.

So the wordof God cannot be a “dead letter”, a book on a shelf. If it is to bring life itmust be handled, used, spoken out. How can we even begin such a task? What doesit feel like to “speak the word of God”? Is it even possible? I’m going tofinish by going back to a very ancient text from our Bible which I have foundhelpful when thinking about this.

Genesis 2:18-20

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; Iwill make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the LORD God hadformed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought themto the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called everyliving creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and tothe birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam therewas not found a helper fit for him.

This primalmyth comes down to us with a powerful archetypal image – the first man givingnames to all the animals. God makes “out of the ground” animals and birds, andbrings each one to Adam “to see what he would call them”.

We see Adamhere as the first poet. Good poetry names– it uses words to describe an experience that has perhaps never been describedbefore. But when you read it there is a shock of recognition and you think,“yes, I have felt that too, but never knew how to put it into words”. So God brings the animals to Adam sothat he can name them.

We also seeAdam as the first scientist, making an early start on the work of Linnaeanclassification, bringing orderly description to the chaotic appearances ofnature. Naming, classifying and describing open the way into a deepunderstanding of the structure and workings of God’s world.

Maybe Adamis also the first prophet. God shows something to Adam, and asks him to nameit. Think of the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures. God shows them things too –not animals and birds, but injustice, oppression, violence, idolatry, adultery,unfaithfulness – shows them clearly so that they can no longer be ignored, asksthe prophet to name these things, to speak out clearly and name them for whatthey really are. This is not word-by-word dictation, but nevertheless theprophet is truly speaking the word of God.

Whichbrings us back to Peter and John before the Council: “we cannot but speak ofwhat we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20), and what they have seen, above all,is Jesus. Their task is to name, tospeak out, what God has shown them – the wonderful words and deeds of Jesus. Let’spray that like them, God will enable us to “speak his word with all boldness”(Acts 4:29).

The word of God is not easily ignored

2011-10-23T15:30:00.000+01:00

Preacher: Veronica

Readings: Jeremiah 36:1-32 John 10:31-38

It’s a strange and almost comic story we just heard from Jeremiah. I like it particularly because as a writer myself, I see it as a story of the most drastic editing in history, followed by the writer’s revenge on the editor. But my reason for sharing it today is different. It’s that I think it links interestingly with what Jesus says in the other story we heard from John 10: ‘the scripture cannot be annulled’.

What did Jesus mean? Fundamentalists might say that it means the Bible is infallible, that it contains factually accurate history, and that its prophecies are literally being fulfilled for today which is, of course, the last days - it always is the last days for people who devote their energy to working out when the last days are.

But readers or hearers of the scriptures in Jesus’ day would not necessarily have thought of them that way. At this time the canon of scripture was still fluid. The final list of which books were authoritative was probably not fixed till the start of the rabbinic period, after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. So opinions would vary about which scriptures were valid - and even then, this would not have been thought of in terms of whether you could prove who wrote them, or how historically accurate they were. Rather, scriptures were evaluated in terms of how useful they were in directing everyday living and worship.

Actually, to be honest, Jesus is quoting and using scripture here in a way which would certainly not be recognized as valid by modern scholars. He quotes Psalm 82:6:

I say, “You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like mortals, and fall like any prince.”

In the context of the original psalm, God appears to be speaking to the ‘divine council’. This is a concept we also meet at the beginning of Job when ‘the heavenly beings’ come to present themselves before the Lord. Clearly this is a more ancient form of Jewish theology in which lesser gods, perhaps the gods of other nations, are subservient to the chief God, Yahweh. But Jesus takes this Scripture and uses it to talk about human beings, affirming the divine status of women and men made in God’s image. So actually he’s being very free and easy with Scripture, in a way reminiscent of other rabbis of the time.

When he declares that ‘scripture cannot be annulled’ (or ‘cannot be broken’), then, Jesus is not saying then that every scripture must be interpreted literally or even that every prophecy has a specific time in history for ‘coming true’. Rather, I think he’s saying that no part of scripture can be dismissed or discarded and that every scripture can be used to interpret the relationship between God and humans, and between us and others, at every time in history. In a sense he’s saying something similar to the modest claim of Scripture’s ‘usefulness’, made by Timothy about Scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16 :

‘All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness’

Scripture, then, does not have a ‘use by‘ date or a single use code. It is perennially relevant and will speak again and again to every new generation, though each generation may have to do some new interpreting. But I think there is a second sense in which Jesus means something like ‘scripture cannot be deleted’. To return to the story from Jeremiah, if God wants to say something to God’s people, a penknife and brazier job is not going to silence that message. Despite the king’s drastic editing, Jeremiah is able to reproduce word for word what God has said to him, and even add some more. And this is what I call the writer’s revenge.

Have you ever laboriously written a document on your computer and then found that with one misstroke of keys you deleted the whole thing? I certainly have. But I have found that if I started writing again immediately, it was remarkable how much of the original I could remember, sometimes word for word. I could recreate my writing without too much trouble - although I’ve never deleted a really long document or a whole book, which might be harder. And I don’t think this ability is exclusive to writers like myself.

How does this happen? It’s something about the ideas existing not just on the page or screen but in our own minds and hearts - so that the same mind and heart which produced the first version can reproduce the gist of it in the second version. It’s notable at the beginning of the Jeremiah story that there seems to be a time gap between Jeremiah hearing the word of God and writing it down with the help of Baruch. He is told to write down everything God said to him in the reigns of Josiah and Jehoiakim - a long period of oral testimony before he is instructed to write. The primary source, if you like, is the word which arises in Jeremiah’s consciousness, and the written form is secondary.

Of course if you believe that all of Scripture is directly dictated by God, so that the writer is in effect doing automatic writing, it’s simple - God just dictates the whole lot again. But this is not my theory of how Scripture came to be, and I don’t think it’s even something Scripture claims for itself. When 2 Timothy 3 says all Scripture is inspired by God, the literal translation is ‘All Scripture has the breath of God’. I think that’s wonderful - it suggests that Scripture is created by human beings, using their own insight and imagination and mental powers, but under the inspiration of God.

If the primary source of Scripture is the mind and heart of the writer, rather than the written text, then it is a lot harder to erase, because as an old song says about memories, ‘they can’t take that away from me’. Jeremiah himself describes the word of God as being like a fire in his bones (this is Jeremiah 20:8-9):

If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.

This speaks to me of God’s communication to humanity being a matter of passion - Jeremiah has to speak it out because he is passionate about what God is saying. And that of course is the mark of really good writing: a passion to say what you want to say. Could we also extrapolate from that and say Scripture is the product of God’s passion to communicate with God’s children? I think there is a case for this. Take Isaiah 42:13-14:

The Lord goes forth like a soldier, like a warrior he stirs up his fury; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes.

For a long time I have held my peace,

I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant (42:.13--14)

In Luke’s Gospel, Luke has a habit of pairing a parable with a male image of God, with another with a female image of God. Here Isaiah is doing something similar, pairing the image of God as a soldier with God as a woman giving birth. We Mennonites may have trouble thinking of God as soldier; but this is not someone controlling a drone bomber from a remote computer desk, it’s a man going into battle with passion for his cause, crying out his battle cry, perhaps fighting injustice and oppression. And in case that’s too destructive an image of God, it’s immediately balanced with image of a woman giving birth - crying out in pain, but also panting to deliver her long awaited baby.

These are images of God being passionate about letting people know what God feels about them, and what plans God has for them - a passion to communicate, which cannot easily be destroyed. And the word God speaks is meant to make us long with a passion for the same things God longs for: justice, peace and the wellbeing of the whole world. Then the word from God will inhabit our hearts, souls, minds and lives and will bear fruit.

‘Bearing fruit’ suggests a third aspect of Jesus’s saying: that the word of God is never spoken in vain. Which leads us to Isaiah again, in ch 55:10-11:

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it

In other words, prophecy is not given to confirm speculation about the future; it is given to accomplish change in the present. When Scripture is engraved on our hearts, it begins to effect real change in the world. Paul describes this process to the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 3:

...You are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts... for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life..

When the word is written on our hearts in this way, then we can become what James calls ‘doers of the word, not just hearers’.

So to recap: I think there are three things Jesus is implying here:

1. No part of scripture ever becomes redundant; it will always have new applications for a new situation.

2. Scripture, as the product of God’s passion for humanity, cannot be destroyed or blotted out so long as it lives in our hearts and lives.

3. The word of God, once spoken, will accomplish the thing it has been spoken to achieve.

All this brings the Scriptures off the page and into real life. It allows Jesus, in the story from John, to use a psalm verse rather freely to speak about his own unity with the Father. And it also allows us, following in his steps, to achieve the same divine status, as we are gradually conformed into the image of Christ. One of the best ways of conforming us into that image is for us to encounter Jesus in all of scripture, as Anabaptists have been doing for five centuries.

Facing Change: Mark

2011-07-24T15:30:00.000+01:00

Preacher: Peter

Readings

Acts 12.25-13.13

Acts 15.36-41

Col 4.10-11

Introduction

Change is not always something imposed on me from theoutside – a change in where I live or who I live with or how I earn a livingfor example. It can be even tougher to deal with an internal change – a suddenchange in my picture of myself, who I am, or what my future holds. I will be talking today about Mark, ayoung man we meet in the pages of the New Testament who suddenly, andirrevocably, lost his vision of hisidentity and his future, and replaced it with – what?

Mark’s background

At the time of our readings from Acts, John Mark was aneducated young man from a respectable and well-to-do Jewish family. His mother,Mary, owned a large home in Jerusalem - roomy enough for “many” Christians togather in for prayer (Acts 12.12). And his cousin Barnabas was a wealthylandowner and a Levite. He had a latin name (Marcus) as well as a Jewish one(Johanan), so was perhaps equally at home in the Jewish and gentile cultures ofhis day. It seems likely that in his youth he was associated with the circle ofJesus’ followers. If indeed he was the young man who fled naked from the mob inGethsemene (Mark 14.51) then he witnessed the terrible events of Jesus’ passionin Jerusalem.

Paul’s First Journey

We find him a few years later in the flourishing church atAntioch, having been collected from Jerusalem by Paul and Barnabas, clearlysingled out for great things. When the Holy Spirit calls the two apostles toset out on their first evangelistic foray into the Eastern Mediterranean,without hesitation they choose Mark “to assist them”. We can only guess at thequalities which led to him being selected by the great men: his educationperhaps, or his inter-cultural ease, or his youthful enthusiasm?

All goes well at first. They have a torrid time in Cyprus,confronting both black magic and Roman power, before they turn their eyes to biggerprizes and set sail for mainland Asia Minor.

And it’s here that Mark turns out to be a bigdisappointment, to himself probably as much as anyone else. He decides to goback home. We can only guess at his reasons. Was he shocked and a little scaredby the dramatic events on Cyprus? Was Paul proving difficult to live withday-in day-out? Was he just homesick? Or could you put a more simple, uglylabel on his behaviour – cowardice? He was given this amazing,once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, he thought he had the enthusiasm and energy andcourage for it, but when it came to it – he gave up.

A personal aside

It’s painful for me to think about Mark’s story, because itreflects my own. Aged twenty I was a medical student at Oxford University. I’djust been offered a place at Cambridge to do my clinical degree. A vision of agolden life lay before me, within my grasp. And for reasons which withhindsight now seem stupid or cowardly, I gave up. I’ve often bitterly regretted that foolish decision of myyouth. A wonderful opportunity which seemed to drop so easily into my hands,turned out to be strictly a one-off – once lost, impossible to recover.

God of Second Chances

But God is the God of second chances, right?

Barnabas seems to think so. He and Paul are back in Antioch,planning their second journey back to Asia Minor, visiting the churches theyplanted on their first trip, and perhaps planting a few more. Barnabas tellscousin Mark not to feel sad, he’ll have a word with Paul. After all, Paul’s agreat believer in God’s grace - he’s sure to give Mark a second chance. Hopeswells in Mark’s heart.

But it turns out Paul is also a great believer in assemblinga reliable team, and as far as he’s concerned Mark is tainted withunreliability. He’s not willing to take the risk.

Even worse, this leads to a “sharp disagreement”. Now Markhas dragged Barnabas into his failure. Thanks to Mark, Paul and Barnabas willnever work together again.

This is the crunch point, where Mark has to face the factthat he is not and never will be the great evangelist that he dreamed he would.And his future will not be what he imagined and dreamed of – sharing theapostle Paul’s great adventure, taking the gospel, in the face of terrifyingopposition, across the Roman Empire to Rome itself. That identity, and thatfuture, could have been, but now – thanks to Mark’s loss of nerve - never willbe. Nobody else did this to him, he did it to himself. And God is not going tomake everything all right and produce a second chance for him.

Yes, he goes off to Cyprus with Barnabas and does someuseful work. But it’s definitely small time, not big time. It’s not stormingthe Empire with Paul.

A corporate aside

I’m sure I don’t need to labour the resonance between thispoint in Mark’s story, and the point we find ourselves at in Wood GreenMennonite Church’s story. We had a vision of our identity and future that hasbeen shaken. We had a picture of our future stretching decades ahead, ofourselves in a warm ongoing relationship with the London Mennonite Centre and thatwonderful house on Shepherd’s Hill. And a sense of our own identity as a churchthat was both enabled and constrained by that relationship. That has all gonenow, and we are left wondering: what is our identity and future now?

So with this in mind, let’s go back to Mark, eating hisheart out over his lost opportunities....

Something else

....something else happens.

It often does.

Years later we find Mark, now well into his middle years, inRome, and – what a surprise this is! - reconciled with Paul. Paul is in prison,and Mark is one of his inner circle, one of only three Jewish friends standingalongside him in his trouble. Mark, says Paul, has “been a comfort to me”(Col4.11) and “is very useful to me” (2 Tim 4.11), and is the apostle’s trustedmessenger, running errands for him to places like Colossae. Paul, maybe humbleda little by his experience of imprisonment, has come to see that Mark has some valueafter all.

In Rome Mark is also highly valued by Peter, who regards himas “my son” (1 Pet 5.13). Andthrough this association, Mark finds himself engaged in a new task that heprobably never imagined in his enthusiastic youth. Irenaeus tells us that “aftertheir departure [ie the deaths of Paul and Peter] Mark, Peter’s disciple, hashimself delivered to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching”. So Markbecomes the writer of his gospel,a gloriously immediate, exciting and memorable piece of storytelling whichbelongs with the great works of world literature, and has arguably done more to acquant people withJesus down the centuries than even the apostle Paul ever did.

So Mark turned out to be an evangelist after all.

I take two things from this. Firstly: we don’t always value our own talents, we value muchmore highly the things that we find difficult, the skills that we struggle toacquire. My son Gavin has a gift for drawing, always has. From a young age hehas been able to draw a lifelike representation of pretty much anything you canplace before him. But he’s neverdone anything with it – my guess is that it comes so easily to him he hardlythinks of it as a talent at all. And I wonder if Mark was the same – thanks tohis privileged background he was always able to write, and write well. But inhis youthful idealism he didn’t want to be a writer, he wanted to be themissionary church planter – a vocation that, as it turned out, he was not so wellsuited for. Writing seemed too easy to be exciting. Even so, it turned out tobe his life’s work, the thing he was born for.

Secondly: Mark did not retreat into middle-aged cynicism. Iguess most of us have met people like this, who talk with world-weary irony oftheir own youthful idealism. Maybe I am sometimes tempted to talk like thatmyself. But Mark’s gospel, written in his fifties or even his sixties, is ayoung man’s book, and his Jesus is every inch the idealistic young man, rushinghastily from one confrontation with evil to another, not a minute to lose,burning with the urgency of his mission. Despite the bitter disappointmentsthat life, or more accurately Mark himself, had dealt out to him, Mark neverabandoned his youthful love for Jesus and enthusiasm to serve him. May I be able to say the same ofmyself. Amen.

Facing change: Lot and Hagar

2011-06-12T15:30:00.002+01:00

Preacher: Veronica

God called Abram from his home to a new land; Abram was old and he faced many difficulties but he was given a promise and a new name, and he eventually made it to the new land.

That’s actually got nothing to do with what I’m going to speak about today - it’s just by way of explaining why I’m not going to preach on Abraham. We all know the story too well, we’ve been reading it since Sunday school and whenever we want to think about going forward in faith, we turn to Abraham and come up with something everyone’s heard before. So I’m not preaching on Abraham, or even on Sarah, which would at least have the virtue of being less hackneyed.

Instead I want to look at two characters in the circle around Abraham; people who were caught up in his call and who had to uproot with him even though they themselves hadn’t had a special call from God. They were, if you like, the unwilling travellers in faith, who found circumstances overtaking them and responded to them as best they could.

The first of these characters is Lot. The earliest mention we have of Lot is in Genesis 11 where the Bible has him travelling to Haran with his grandfather Terah and his uncle Abram. There is no mention yet of a particular call to Abram and at this stage we might think of them as economic migrants, or indeed nomadic herders. However it’s also possible that Ur, where they originated, was a wealthy city and so they were in fact already well settled and lived an urban life. We know from Genesis 13, just before the passage we heard, that ‘Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold’ but we don’t know whether he already had all this wealth when he left Ur, or whether he acquired it during his stay in Haran. Lot may have followed him because his economic security was tied up with Abram’s. Ultimately we can’t tell whether Lot went with Abram willingly or unwillingly but every reference to the story elsewhere in the Bible refers to the faith of Abraham, not the faith of Lot. So we could see Lot as no more than a fellow traveller, in both the literal and political senses of that phrase.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. After a brief and not very happy diversion to Egypt, Abram and all those with him have arrived for a second time at the borders of the promised land. But Abram (who has not acquired his new name yet), and Lot seem to be in competition for the same grazing land. Fights are breaking out between Abram’s herders and Lot’s herders; you can just imagine what chaos must have ensued when they both tried to drive their animals onto the same land. A conservative government might have called it healthy competition, but it’s more like dog eat dog, or maybe sheep eat sheep.

Abram doesn’t want to be in conflict with his own nephew, so he suggests a solution. There is plenty of land open to them, so he suggests that they split up; and very generously, Abram gives Lot first choice of land. Now Lot, who is not renowned for his faith, probably has an eye to the main chance. So he takes a good look around and sees that the river plain is fertile and well irrigated. It’s a natural choice. But what the narrator knows, and we know, but Lot doesn’t yet know, is that Sodom, where he settles, is a place with a corrupt and callous culture.

A side note: before we get caught up in the usual stereotype of what Sodom’s wickedness consisted of, we should listen to a verse from Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 16:49

There’s absolutely no mention of homosexuality here, just a city that prides itself on its luxuries and comforts, and doesn’t give a fig about the plight of those of its citizens who are in need.

Back to Lot. We know very little about him, or how historically accurate the Bible stories of him are, but he strikes me as an example of one way to respond to change in our lives. He is the person who takes things into his own hands, who does everything he can to make the new situation as close to the old situation as possible. In Haran, or perhaps even back in Ur, he had fertile land and a good living. He is going to make absolutely sure that he gets the same in or near Canaan. In effect he’s saying, as I once posted in my Facebook status, ‘I like change, so long as it’s the kind of change I like’.

It’s a very understandable response; one which I am often guilty of myself. In my father’s speech at Ed’s and my wedding (which incidentally was written by my mother!) my dad said it was nice to be a complete family again. He was referring to the death of my brother in 1975, and saying that welcoming Ed into the family was like bringing things closer to what they used to be. Most of us, except those who have had bad old days, secretly would like to restore things to the way they were in the good old days.
As for myself, I had ten years in which I would go to the LMC for tea every Friday on my way to my therapist in Tufnell Park. This was my Friday routine, set in stone. When that therapist died and I went to a new therapist, the timing didn’t work out the same, because I saw her in the morning and it was just too late to get to the LMC for coffee. So I’m very pleased that I now see a therapist in Archway, at a time when it just works out for me to go to tea at the LMC after I’ve seen her. Things are almost back to the way they used to be. But I’m also aware that soon there won’t be any tea at the LMC to go to and I shall have to go to a café and be tempted by the cup cakes.

For many of us, when things change, our first response is to see how we can arrange it so that they end up not too different from the way they were before. But we need to bear in mind that for Lot, that meant he ended up in a place which was far more dangerous for him and his spiritual welfare, than if he’d just embraced change fully and gone into Canaan with Abram. And his subsequent history is no more edifying, involving drunkenness and incest with his daughters.

Now I want to look at our second character, Hagar. Can we have the first reading from Genesis 21 please?

Genesis 21:8-16

This is much later, when not only the promise of a land, but the promise of a son, have been given to Abram who is now called Abraham. Actually, prior to this, Abram has taken quite a Lot-like decision, in sleeping with Sarah’s servant Hagar and having a son with her, Ishmael. Because the promised offspring with Sarah had not turned up yet, he decided to take matters into his own hands. In fact this was Sarah’s own suggestion, but he didn’t have to listen to her.

So when we speak of the faith of Abraham, we need to remember that his faith was actually quite flawed. And indeed we see this earlier in Genesis 12, when he goes walkabout to Egypt instead of staying in Canaan, and pretends Sarah is his sister, to avoid the Egyptians killing him and taking her.

But now the promise has finally come true, Abraham has a son by Sarah. And according to which translation you follow, Hagar’s son Ishmael either ‘plays with’ that son Isaac, or ‘mocks’ him. If he is indeed teasing Isaac, then Sarah is understandably upset. But we know that Sarah has already resented Hagar for a long time; and to be fair, Hagar did invite some of this feeling by ‘looking with contempt’ on Sarah when she had a son and Sarah didn’t. So now Sarah prevails on Abraham yet again, forcing him to drive Hagar away into the desert.

Although Hagar has run away from Abraham and Sarah before, God met her in the wilderness, and she obeyed God’s call to her to return to them. It must therefore seem very cruel to her that God has now allowed her to be cast out of the very place she returned to in obedience to God. And whereas on her first time in the desert she found a water source, now she has only the limited supply of water she has brought, and a bit of bread. Also, when she ran away before, she didn’t even know yet that she was pregnant with Ishmael. But now Ishmael is a young boy, and she has no means of feeding him or giving him drink. All she can do is to watch him die - and since she can’t bear to do that, she hides him under a bush and walks away from him. Actually the timing’s a bit confused here, because Genesis 17 tells us that Ishmael is already thirteen when Abraham receives the promise of Isaac. Yet this later story suggests he is still a young child. But either way, there is no sustenance for him or his mother, and so she despairs.

Hagar’s response to unwanted change is to believe that nothing good can ever happen to her again. It’s a very understandable response: she has obeyed God in the past, even being willing to go back to an abusive situation, but now it looks as though God has abandoned her completely.

I can identify with Hagar’s response. In my teens and early 20s I visited regularly, and later worked in, a Lutheran conference centre where the staff lived and worked in community. It was there that I first got bitten by the community bug, and also learned about peace and justice issues. In the mid 80s, the Lutherans couldn’t afford to keep the place on any more, and they sold it to a consortium of Christian families who were going to run it as a commercial conference centre. This was a big bereavement for me, as it was a place that had been deeply significant for me and formed my faith in many ways. It also happened close to the time when the minister who had baptized me, who was also a big formative influence, died very suddenly on the street at the age of 57.

Several years later, after I had got married and moved to Muswell Hill, Ed and I discovered the Mennonites, and it was as if God had given me back the relationship to an intentional community, and the style of Christian faith, that I had encountered years before among the Lutherans. But now God seems to be taking away a huge element of that situation again. I could be pardoned, like Hagar, for wondering what on earth God is up to.

Change can be highly traumatic, especially when several changes come at once. Hagar had lost her job, her home and it seemed she was about to lose her precious child.

But now we’re going to hear what happened next.

Genesis 21:17-19

So God meets Hagar, for the second time. This time God provides for both her and her son, not only for their immediate needs but for their future. It may not be the future she has envisaged for him, but the earlier promises to her still stand; Ishmael is still a son of Abraham, and he has a place in God’s purposes.

We could see Hagar, then, as an example of despairing when unwanted change happens. Yet she finds that despite her lack of trust, God does actually provide for her both physically and spiritually. Change comes, but God remains faithful.

A side note here. I’m always a little suspicious when people or hymns declare that God never changes. It’s often an excuse for blocking any change in the way we worship or serve God. Actually the Old Testament is full of examples of God changing his mind, not least in the story of Abraham, where God agrees to spare Sodom if there are ten righteous people there. But one thing we can say is that God never changes in his or her loving attitude towards us. Sometimes God’s love may be expressed in events which seem negative to us - but it doesn’t mean God has stopped loving us. It may just mean God is giving us freedom to choose, or allowing us to have experiences that train us in Christlikeness.

Back to Lot and Hagar. What can we draw out of these two characters’ stories for ourselves? I think we can say that when change comes, whether we have chosen it or not, we need to accept it as change. We should neither try to minimise its impact as Lot does, or treat it as a catastrophe as Hagar does. The old hymn says ‘Change and decay in all around I see’, but I don’t see why we should have such a negative view of change. Why not ‘change and growth in all I see’? Maybe I’ll write a new version of that hymn with those words in it.

Genesis 13:5-13

Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, 6so that the land could not support both of them living together; for their possessions were so great that they could not live together, 7and there was strife between the herders of Abram’s livestock and the herders of Lot’s livestock...Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herders and my herders; for we are kindred. 9Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.” 10Lot looked about him, and saw that the plain of the Jordan was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar; this was before the Lord had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. 11So Lot chose for himself all the plain of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed eastward; thus they separated from each other. 12Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the Plain and moved his tent as far as Sodom. 13Now the people of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.

Ezekiel 16:49

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

Genesis 21:8-16

Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. 10So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” 11The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. 12But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. 13As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” 14So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.
15When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept.

Genesis 21:17-19

And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” 19Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.

Goodbye to the London Mennonite Centre

2011-06-05T15:30:00.001+01:00

Liturgy by Wayne

L: As we gather at the London Mennonite Centre for the last time as a congregation, our minds and senses are tuned to the many memories and senses which this place holds for us. We feel the ambience, we smell the fragrance, we see the beauty, we hear the sounds; people from the past materialize for us; we are fully present in this place.

1. Indeed, this is a special place for us. We have spent many hours in this space. Some of us have lived here. Many of us have worked here: in the garden we have mowed the grass, raked the leaves, tended the plants, trimmed the hedge, formed the stone walls, and done other tasks, both small and large. We have washed the floors and windows, we have cooked meals and we have repaired the complex.

2. Ah, the meals. House meals, church meals, communion meals and services, receptions, community events, seminars with food. We remember gathering in the kitchen with the smells and tastes and sounds of a community gathered around the table. Singing the grace, sharing the food, and sharing fellowship. Tea on the patio. Memories ...

3. And the garden. We treasure this peaceful and beautiful place. We have eaten, sat, walked, read, and prayed in it. We have struggled with others and God in it. Some of us came to peace with God and ourselves in it; the prayer hut was our companion.

ALL: For the life, beauty, peace, wonder, and memories of this space, we give you thanks.

1. Life transforming things happened here. That’s why we cannot easily leave this place. Late night discussions, parties, jam sessions, singing, all influenced us. Relationships were formed and deepened. Some of us were married here. Jocelyn Murray’s ashes are buried here. For others, there are rose bushes and trees in their memory.

2. A rowan tree for John Coffman, a may tree for Eileen Coffman, lime trees, an ash tree, rhododendron and azalea bushes, plus the abominable chestnut tree which makes such a mess on the patio. The smells of the fragrant lavender, roses, and rosemary linger with us, as do the chives and other tasty produce from the vegetable garden.

3. And don’t forget the birds and the foxes which freely roam these haunts. The tits, robins, woodpeckers, and wrens who nest here and raise their young. Their songs and sounds still inhabit this space and our memories.

L. “What is this place where we are meeting?” As the hymn suggests, this is more than simply a house. Indeed, for many of us, it is the community which we encountered here which made this a holy space, where we have encountered God in life-changing ways. God has spoken to us in this place through the people, the space, the teachings, and the numerous seminars.

ALL: God, for your grace and persistence in meeting and transforming us in this place, we give you thanks.

1. We remember the many people who have come through this place and whose memories and teachings continue to inform us. Quintus and Miriam Leatherman, John and Eileen Coffman, Alan and Eleanor Kreider, the Nelson and Ellen Kraybill, Mark and Mary Thiessen Nation, Vic and Kathy Thiessen; leaders of the Anabaptist Network, trustees, Colloque, the various hosts and hostesses, and numerous others. These people have enlarged our world view, and impacted us in ways we cannot fathom.

2. Through the presence of these many people and their teaching, we have learned how hospitality, theology, and discipleship are all woven together in your grace and love. God, you changed us through this, and blessed our lives abundantly. Ultimately, this is what is holy to us.

3. In this place the London Mennonite Fellowship had its roots and eventually became the Wood Green Mennonite Church. From this beginning grew a larger vision for an Anabaptist influence and presence in the U.K.; The Anabaptist Network was inaugurated as an expression of this vision.

ALL: God, in your grace you have led us through our birth, growth, and learning. We are humbled and awed by the many ways in which you have walked with us to this point. We give you thanks, and we praise you for your faithfulness.

L: Each painting or work of art in this building has special meaning for some of us. Fred Yokum’s art, the 50th anniversary quilt, “The Fruit of the Earth” dedicated to JD Graber, The piano dedicated by Minnie Graber, the wall hangings, Ian Pentney’s artistic impressions, and much more.

ALL: For every memory, we give you thanks.

L: These memories and relationships have influenced and shaped us. As we carry them forward, now an integral part of our personhood, they will also shape our future. But now we grieve the necessity of leaving this place. Yet leave it we must. We grieve this loss. (Silence)

ALL: God, we ask you to accompany us in our grief. Guide us as we integrate this loss into our lives. May we be faithful in this part of life also.

L: As the People of God undertook many journeys throughout history, we also undertake this next journey of our lives. We remember God’s faithfulness to us in the past, and believe that God will also be faithful to us in this coming chapter of our congregational life.

ALL: God, as you lead us, we will follow you faithfully. Help us to remember your mercies past and present, and to hope for your Kingdom coming to us in fresh breaths of your Spirit. We believe that Your will for us will be accomplished in our life together. Lead on, O King Eternal.

ALL: May all this, past, present, and future, bring honour to you, our God and Lord!
Amen and Amen.

Jephthah

2011-05-22T15:30:00.002+01:00

Preacher: Veronica

You may think I have chosen a very brutal Bible story to preach on this sad afternoon. It’s a story of a dysfunctional family, a wild and violent man, a rash commitment and above all a premature death. What can such an ancient story have to say with us? What redemption is there in this sorry tale? It is one of the Bible passages that feminist scholar Phyllis Trible calls ‘texts of terror’, stories where women are totally at the disposal of men. We struggle to find any good news for women, or indeed for men, in this text.

As a peace church we struggle with the idea of God’s Spirit inspiring Jephthah to military victory over the Ammonites. As Mennonites we may also shake our heads at his swearing an oath, even to God. But any Christians, Anabaptist or not, would struggle with the insane vow that Jepthah made to gain him victory. The King James translation has him saying that he would sacrifice ‘whatever’ came out of his house to meet him, rather than ‘whoever’ as we had in our reading. This suggests that he might have expected a calf or sheep to come out, which is possible as animals were often kept in the house. But I suspect the more modern translation we heard is more accurate, which means that he was prepared to perform human sacrifice. He probably expected to have to sacrifice a servant, but he should have thought that it could be a member of his family.

We may find Jepthah’s actions incomprehensible, but there are still ways they can speak to us. Jephthah thought he had to offer something to God in order to get something from God. Our own danger, especially in a church which emphasises discipleship, may be that we try to do the same. We know in our heads that we can do nothing to earn God’s grace, that Jesus, in the words of the letter to the Hebrews, has opened a ‘new and living way’ to God. But that doesn’t stop us trying to bargain with God. ‘If only we had prayed more’, ‘if only we had anointed her with oil one more time’, then God would have given the healing we longed for.

I remember when I was 20 or so resolving that I would pray all night for my brother who was having mental health problems. I lasted about half an hour before I fell asleep. And when he committed suicide at the age of 27, when I was 22, I felt guilty for years about not managing that time of prayer.

But to quote Job, ‘God gives, and God takes away’ and there is no understanding the mysteries of life and death. Which brings us to the heart of how I think this story can speak to us, and why I chose it for today, because it is the story of a premature death. Some commentators suggest that instead of sacrificing her, Jepthah dedicated his daughter to perpetual virginity. This would be a severe sentence in a society where the whole purpose of being a woman was to have children. But there is no evidence in the story for it. We could also plead that it is a legend, a story so old we cannot rely on its historical status. But that does not make it any less a text of terror, a story of undeserved, untimely, brutal death.

We have seen a lot of premature death in our congregation in the last eight years. There are many Bible passages that might comfort and console us, and I’m sure we will be turning to them as we mourn Lesley, who died on Tuesday. But sometimes when it’s hard, I find - and this may just be me - that a hard Bible passage can speak our grief for us in unexpected ways. I have often found reading the book of Job oddly supportive when I have been through hard times.

So at the very least, this text can tell us that the Bible is full of stories of grief and sorrow, and that we don’t need to hide our grief from each other or from God. As Christians we can read it alongside Jesus’ promise in Matthew that ‘not one sparrow will fall to the ground apart from your Father’, or as Luke tells it, ‘not one of them is forgotten by God’ - and ‘you are of more value than many sparrows’. Or in the words of Psalm 116: ‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones’.
I find it ironic that Jepthah’s daughter comes out of their house ‘with dancing and timbrels’, celebrating his victory. She thought she was about to receive good news, and instead she heard the worst news she could. I heard of my brother’s death on a day when I was preparing for my belated birthday party that night. I arrived at my college room with arms full of food for the party, and I saw my parents sitting there looking devastated. I have found it hard to have a birthday party since then. But there is never a good time for news like this..

Something that may horrify us even more about Jephthah’s story is that instead of blaming himself for his stupid vow, Jepthah blames his daughter for her own fate. Blaming ourselves when someone dies is a natural response, but actually it is also natural to blame others: the doctors, the family, even the person who has died. Sometimes, there really is someone to blame: a drunk driver, an abusive parent, occasionally a deliberate killer. And we may need to blame these people and get angry with them, before we can truly forgive. We are not mourning this kind of death today, but anger is a normal part of grief and we may need at some point to be angry. It’s all right to be angry with God. It’s all right to tell God we don’t understand what the [expletive deleted] God is doing. Jepthah was angry, but he directed his anger to the wrong place. We can direct ours to the God who takes away as well as giving, because God has taken all the blame already. He took it on a hot spring day in about AD 33 and there is nothing worse we can throw at him.

The third point of contact I see with this story is that Jepthah’s unnamed daughter had time to prepare for her death. It is a protracted rather than an instant, unexpected death. In some ways a quick death is easier. My mother, who is 96, would much rather go quickly than slowly, and while this would create problems for her family, I understand her wish. But she is 96. Jepthah’s daughter, since she was unmarried in a culture of marrying very young, might have been as young as 13.
Lesley, and her family, and this church, had time to prepare, as we did with Bernard and with Esther. That doesn’t make it any less hard. In some ways it makes it harder. We have to start our grieving before the person is even gone. But notice that Jepthah’s daughter asked for that stay of execution, so that she could have a time of saying goodbye to her friends. We may find it odd that she wanted time to ‘bewail her virginity’ but in her society, dying unmarried meant she was not fulfilling what she had always been told was her life’s purpose. Her friends would go on, get married, perhaps have children, but she was to die unfruitful.

I remember Lesley often saying she hadn’t yet found out what she was going to do when she grew up. We might think that now she never will. But I think she already had: her job was being Lesley, a highly intelligent and caring woman, who gave so much to so many people. People she met in her community health work, on mental health tribunal, in her Open University teaching; people she studied with, people in her family, people in this church. And I think on the whole it’s good that we had time to say goodbye to her. We have been able to find ways to support her on her journey, and to support her family who travelled it with her.

Finally, I want us to notice the last verse of our readings. ‘For four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.’ Even at the end of the story of Jepthah’s daughter, we still don’t know her name. But we know that she was remembered. As Bernard is, as Esther is, as Lesley will be, for the rest of our lives. Jewish people light a ‘Jahrzeit’ or anniversary candle every year for someone who has died, on the anniversary of their death. I remember my mother used to light one every year for her father, even though he had died decades before. We can perhaps find our own ways of commemorating Lesley.

One more observation. Last Sunday afternoon when we prayed at the hospice, both Judith and I both thought of reading out Psalm 139. I ended up reading it, and I missed out the verses we always tend to miss out, the ones about wishing God would kill God’s enemies, who are also the psalmist’s enemies. I understand why we leave these verses out, especially in a peace church. But I think maybe I should have read them. Because our enemies are not flesh and blood, but as Ephesians puts it, ‘the cosmic powers of this present darkness,... the spiritual forces of evil’. And as Paul promises the Corinthians, ‘[Jesus] will reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet [and] the last enemy to be destroyed is death.’

This was meant to be the first sermon in our series on Bible characters facing change. Actually I think it probably still is. The biggest change anyone can face is death. Lesley’s death is more important to our church than the possible loss of the Mennonite Centre, or all the others we are facing. But the good news is that death leads to life, because, to quote again from 1 Corinthians, ‘God... gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ’. No easy answers, just a promise. Amen.

Judges 11:1-11

Now Jephthah the Gileadite, the son of a prostitute, was a mighty warrior. Gilead was the father of Jephthah. 2Gilead’s wife also bore him sons; and when his wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah away, saying to him, “You shall not inherit anything in our father’s house; for you are the son of another woman.” 3Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Outlaws collected around Jephthah and went raiding with him.

4After a time the Ammonites made war against Israel. 5And when the Ammonites made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob. 6They said to Jephthah, “Come and be our commander, so that we may fight with the Ammonites.” 7But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Are you not the very ones who rejected me and drove me out of my father’s house? So why do you come to me now when you are in trouble?” 8The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “Nevertheless, we have now turned back to you, so that you may go with us and fight with the Ammonites, and become head over us, over all the inhabitants of Gilead.” 9Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me home again to fight with the Ammonites, and the Lord gives them over to me, I will be your head.” 10And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord will be witness between us; we will surely do as you say.” 11So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them; and Jephthah spoke all his words before the Lord at Mizpah.

Judges 11:29-33

Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh. He passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. 30And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, 31then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.” 32So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the Lord gave them into his hand. 33He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel.

Judges 11:34-40

Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. 35When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.” 36She said to him, “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the Lord has given you vengeance against your enemies, the Ammonites.” 37And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: Grant me two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, my companions and I.” 38“Go,” he said and sent her away for two months. So she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains. 39At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to the vow he had made. She had never slept with a man. So there arose an Israelite custom that 40for four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

Beloved

2011-05-01T15:30:00.000+01:00

Preacher: Gareth Brandt, Professor of Practical Theology, Columbia Bible College

OPENING

I feel almost apologetic, coming in as a guest speaker from another country and speaking on something as basic as what I want to present today. Will this be insulting to the congregation? If so, a 20 minute nap is not necessarily a bad thing on a Sunday morning! I am convinced however that many of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus have lost or at least partially forgotten the foundational truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ amidst all of our doctrinal and institutional deliberations. In fact, a focus on this centre may in fact help us not only with institutional deliberations, but also with a unique male and female spirituality, and our life together in church and community.

Herald Press just recently released my book on men’s spirituality. I need to state at the outset that I did not write such a book out of vast experience in men’s ministry. I simply come as one who has half a century of experience being a man and who has been on a quest to know what it means to be a spiritual man in the Anabaptist tradition. I will not be preaching on what it means to be a spiritual man. I want to begin with a more universal question. What does it mean to be human?

THE DESIRE TO BE LOVED [Luke 2:41-52]

I believe that all creation is inter-related and that all creation praises its creator, but that human beings have a unique relationship with their creator. Genesis 1:27 says that all humanity is made in the image of divinity. I also believe that God is in very essence, love. “God is love” is a foundational gospel truth. To love precludes that parties relate to one another; they are in relationship. To be human is to desire to be in relationship with those outside of our selves. As one who believes that God is creator, I believe that all humans desire to be in relationship with their creator.

We express this desire in different ways. Jesus’ desire to be in the temple as a boy was an expression of his desire for God because to the Jews of the ancient world, the temple represented the presence of God. To desire God is part of being human. God made us for relationship. This desire for love began with God’s desire to be in relationship with us. Love begins in the heart of God because God is love. We desire, we yearn, we hunger and thirst to be loved and to love God.

WE ARE NAMED AS BELOVED [Luke 3:21-22]

Thus we come to our key text for today. Other than the birth narratives in Luke and Matthew, the first event in the life of Jesus that is recorded in the Gospels is his baptism by John in the Jordan River. This baptism marks the transition from John’s ministry to Jesus’ ministry and from Jesus’ private life to his public life. It is a pivotal text.

Jesus hears the words, “you are my beloved son and I am pleased with you,” before he has done anything. He has not preached a sermon. He has not performed a miracle. He has not yet cast out any demons. He has not called any disciples. He has not made any friends with tax collectors or advocated for the poor and oppressed. Jesus was the beloved before he was anything. Knowing that he was the beloved of his father became the foundation for his ministry.

Desmond Tutu has said, “You don’t know anything if you don’t know you are beloved.” To know that we are loved unconditionally is at the core and foundation of our identity.

You may have heard other words from your father or others in your life. “You are a weakling. You’ll never amount to anything. You’re stupid.” But these voices are false. We are loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, bosses and friends ever had the opportunity to say anything about us. You are beloved before anything else. Henri Nouwen urges us to “listen to that voice with great inner attentiveness… Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved, you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply.”

How we experience being the beloved is where there is some gender difference. Women and men will experience being the beloved very differently. Men, in particular might find this a difficult experience. We won’t get into specific male problems here today in a mixed congregation!

When we are children it is easy to receive love, but as we grow older and more independent it sometimes becomes more difficult to be the beloved, but if we do not first experience being the beloved it will be impossible for us to love others truly and deeply.

CLAIMING OUR IDENTITY AS BELOVED [Luke 4:1-13]

Jesus has been given his primary identity as the “beloved” but immediately after the baptismal texts, the synoptic Gospel writers insert the temptation story. Satan tempts Jesus with alternative identities of self-sufficiency, popularity and power. The foundation of our identities continues to be threatened today.

The Anabaptists of the 16th century were also tempted in the midst of persecution. One of their leaders, Peter Riedemann, wrote from prison- “Love is like fire, which goes out before it really ignites if one puts too much wood on it. But once it really flares, the more wood one puts on it, the better it burns. It is the same with love. When it is first kindled, small troubles and temptations smother and hinder it; but when it really burns, having kindled the person’s eagerness for God, the more temptations and tribulation meet it, the more it flares, until it overcomes and consumes all injustice and wickedness.”

We too, like Jesus and the Anabaptists, are bombarded with the similar lies from the world around us- “You’re no good unless you can do this or be like this…” The truth is, “you are beloved before you are anything,” and as Jesus and the Anabaptists did, we can resist the lies of the evil one that contradict our God-given identity, and when we do, our love burns with holy flame!

SENT ON A MISSION TO LOVE [Luke 4:14-21]

Jesus’ mission is described in Luke 4:18 as he reads from the prophet Isaiah. His mission includes freeing the oppressed, binding up the broken-hearted, healing the sick, giving good news to the poor. Jesus’ mission is to love; to reveal divine love to humankind in the flesh. Jesus’ first acts in the Gospels are acts of compassionate love, and deliverance from oppression.

In Luke 4:19, Jesus proclaims the “year of God’s favour.” This is the year of Jubilee, when all slaves are set free and land is returned to its original owners, so that there would be equality, justice and shalom.

This is the mission that God gave to Jesus and now we also are invited to participate in this mission. But we, evangelists, social activists, church workers, parents, students… sometimes get so consumed with the mission that we burn out because we have forgotten our foundation, our inner core. We have “nothing left to give” because we have never been filled. Bernard of Clairvaux illustrates it by comparing a canal and a reservoir-

“If you are wise you will show yourself a reservoir and not a canal. For a canal pours out as fast as it takes in; but a reservoir waits till it is full before it overflows, and so communicates its surplus… We have all too few such reservoirs in the Church at present, though we have canals in plenty. ...they desire to pour out when they themselves are not yet inpoured; they are readier to speak than to listen, eager to teach that which they do not know, and most anxious to exercise authority on others, although they have not learnt to rule themselves.”

When are filled with the knowledge that we are deeply beloved we can reach out and love others with depth and authenticity. Our life, our love, is the greatest gift we can give to another. To know our selves as beloved is not for our own sake to enhance our “personal relationship with God.” We know ourselves as beloved so that we can fulfill God’s mission in the world. We know our selves as beloved for the sake of the other.

CLOSING

Both women and men need to hear, “You are my beloved son or daughter” even if it might be a unique challenge for men. The children in our families and in our church need to hear and experience “You are my beloved son or daughter.” The special love that Jacob had for Joseph is for all our children. The experience of being the beloved of God is closely linked to being the beloved of our parents or other adults. It is important for all of us to be grounded in this experiential knowledge that we are the beloved of God.

How can we truly and deeply love another if we have not ourselves experienced being the beloved? Being the beloved is the centre point where we are tethered in Christ so that we can face with courage whatever might face us tomorrow, this season or in the coming years.

Lent 3 – Trust God and tell the truth

2011-03-27T15:30:00.001+01:00

Preacher: Sue

Readings: Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; John 4:5-42

You can’t imagine how thirsty I was that evening – how thirsty we all were.

We’d been walking all day in the sun and the wind with hardly a pause. We were all parched and the children were crying.

Not for the first time, I couldn’t help wondering whether Moses really knew what he was doing.

OK, so life hadn’t been that great in Egypt but at least you always knew where your next meal was coming from. The work was hard, that’s true, but it got a whole load worse when Moses came on the scene – antagonised the Egyptians so they took it out on us. We cried out to God for help, for an easier life.

And then Moses has this great idea of leaving. And once it looked like enough of us were going to go, well we couldn’t very well stay could we? Didn’t feel like it would be very safe, just a few of us Hebrews left in amongst all those Egyptians. And what if they’d still expected us to fulfil the brick quotas with most of the workforce gone? So we had to go along with Moses.

But it was just one disaster after another, Moses clearly making it up as he went along. First of all the Nile. Well of COURSE there was a river in our way. What had he been thinking? Oh, and there was an army chasing us, so we got to choose between drowning or being massacred.

Well, at the last minute Moses got away with that – turned out there was a kind of marshy drier bit we could get across, being on foot, and the Egyptian army missed the way or were too heavy with all their horses or something and they drowned. Something like that anyway, I couldn’t really see what was happening. Anyway, we escaped by the skin of our teeth.

But then there we were in the wilderness. No water of course. Or at least there was but it was undrinkable – it was like Moses wanted us all dead. In the end he found some kind of wood that you can throw in and it makes the water drinkable after all. Desertcraft some people said – but his fancy desertcraft didn’t stop us getting hungry. But it was like Moses didn’t even notice – we always had to tell him what was wrong, tell him we were hungry, force him into doing something about it. In fact that time he didn’t lift a finger – we were just lucky to find some flaky stuff all over the ground the next day which it turned out we could eat – not exactly a varied diet but it kept the wolf from the door.

So there we were again on that evening, without water. It was just typical that Moses told us to camp where there wasn’t a spring for miles around. Moses is always going on about God leading us, God providing for us – but in that case how come we were in the middle of the wilderness AGAIN with not a drop to drink? I don’t think God’s with us at all. Don’t think God cares.

Although I must admit I did wonder whether God was with us, just for a while that evening. Against all the odds Moses was wandering around, so furious he was just kicking things and hitting rocks with his stick (well, that’s what I’ve heard, I wasn’t actually there) and as if by magic one of the rocks kind of split open a bit and water came gushing out, clear and cool and delicious and - well, we were all there like a shot as you can imagine and so Moses got away with it for another day.

Well, I hope you both recognised and didn’t recognise this story. Of course it culminates in the passage from Exodus 17 we’ve just had read, but it also presents a rather different version of the earlier chapters of Exodus. This is the Exodus story retold from the perspective of someone who longs for a comfortable life, who isn’t really up for radical change, who rewrites the past to justify their bad behaviour or at least to suit their current perspective – and who doesn’t like being hungry or thirsty, especially at the end of a long tiring day.

Which is probably why I found it so easy to get into character. This is me all over.

Or maybe there was something about the Israelites’ predicament that drew me in. They are on the move, travelling away from the settled and familiar (if, in their case, also nightmarish) but they are far from arriving, indeed they don’t really know where they are heading or how long it will take them to get there. Perhaps that sounds familiar… And in this kind of inbetween maybe it is easier to behave badly, to allow each fresh setback to pitch us into despair, to blame others and fail to notice what we have contributed to a problem or could contribute to resolving it.

In one way, or course, the Israelites’ concern is perfectly reasonable. Water is a basic human need.

But look at the way they react. They are straight into scapegoating-the-leader mode, refusing to share responsibility for taking sensible action as well as rewriting the story of their journey so far. "Give us water to drink," they say to Moses “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?"

One of the things I really appreciate about sharing in leadership in this church is that, whatever may flit through people’s minds from time to time in private, I don’t think I have ever been given the message that I – or I and my fellow elders – carry sole responsibility for resolving difficult situations or sole blame for things that go wrong. I think we can hope that if a few WGMC-ers had been around, they might have been saying to Moses, “we’re all very thirsty, what shall we do about it?” rather than demanding that Moses sort it out.

However, it’s not just scapegoating the leader and shirking responsibility that are the issue here. It’s also the way the Israelites rewrite the story of the Exodus in two ways. Firstly it’s not God’s gracious rescue of them from slavery, forced labour and persecution, in response to their cries of despair and distress, but Moses’ pet project. And secondly although they were happy enough to ask God to intervene back when they were in slavery, now they have escaped they question God’s faithfulness: "Is the Lord among us or not?"

And rewriting the story and forgetting God’s faithfulness are a temptation for all of us – or perhaps I just think they are because they are a temptation for me.

So, finally to arrive at some T words (following Chris’s challenge to give this sermon a title beginning with T to match Veronica’s sermon on temptation and Chris’s on transfiguration and transformation), I think this passage brings us some reminders about trusting God and telling the truth.

Since leaving Egypt, the Israelites had already three times experienced God’s intervention at a time of crisis: as they needed to cross the Nile to escape the Egyptian army, when there was no drinking water and when there was no food. Yet they couldn’t trust God in this new crisis… To pick up an idea from Chris’s sermon last week, it seems they’d experienced the potentially transfiguring moment without being transformed by it.

Last Sunday Jane encouraged us to remember times of transition and uncertainty and look there for signs of God’s presence and provision. I suspect that this is a good habit to cultivate – remembering God’s promises and provision not only in the bible but also in our own lives and drawing encouragement to trust God in new uncertainty.

And I think we should ask God – and perhaps, more scarily, each other – to keep us accountable for trying to be honest in how we tell our stories and the story of the church. There’s a temptation to tell the story in a way that makes us look reasonably good or at least justifies our weaknesses and failures.

Lesley touched on this in her sermon 18 months ago on the phrase from the Lord’s prayer, “forgive us our sins”. She talked about the way we all construct an internal narrative about ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with that; as Lesley says, it’s essential to our sense of identity, but here’s the risk: “we want to be the hero of the tale, so we explain things to ourselves in a way that shows ourselves in the best light. We do not believe we are sinful. We make excuses and justifications for our actions.” Lesley pointed out that for a murderer at a Parole Board one of the criteria for early release is “whether the person admits the crime, is remorseful and empathises with the victims”.

That made me wonder, if I was facing a Parole Board, would I pass the test of truly taking responsibility for what I’ve done over the years, the mistakes and cruelties, the cowardices and the lazinesses? Or would I tell it in a neat little self-justifying narrative?

And as we think about the future of the church and the choices that have brought us to this point, can we tell the story honestly? Can we recognise our shortcomings, personal or corporate, and acknowledge where others including God may have been right or wise or gracious while we were wrong or foolish or ungracious?

So if Exodus 17 reminds us to trust God and tell the truth, what about Psalm 95, presumably chosen by lectionary compilers for its apparent reference to the Exodus passage. Indeed it appears to retell that story. It rejoices at God’s care for his people as a shepherd dependable as a rock. But then it pulls itself up short – “O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness”. Well, that is clearly good advice which the narrator of my first few minutes would have done well to heed and which the writer of Hebrews underlines: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

But listen to the next bit. “Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not regard my ways." Therefore in my anger I swore, "They shall not enter my rest."

In our Exodus passage God doesn’t complain about the people’s lack of trust but just instructs Moses on find water from a rock. The people complain, Moses turns to God in frustration and God responds graciously and generously to human need.

The psalmist though knows how this pattern was repeated again and again in the Israelites wilderness wanderings and how, in two incidents in the book of Numbers (14 & 20) God does lose patience and warns that, as punishment first for the people and then for Moses and Aaron too, only two trusting and hopeful spies will still be alive by the time the Israelites make it into the promised land.

But it’s interesting that in retelling the story the psalmist is rather harder on the Israelites than God was at the time and shows God running out of patience much earlier than we see in Exodus and Numbers.

And there, I think, is another risk for us as we construct our narratives – sometimes we are much less gracious than God is. I think there’s a challenge here for us as we continue in uncertainty and enter a period of thinking about the church’s calling which will surely in part at least grow out of its story: while seeking to tell the story honestly, let’s also try to learn God’s graciousness with our personal and corporate failings. Let’s not be harder on ourselves, on others or on the church than God is.

Let’s turn finally to John chapter 4 with its rich resonance with the other two passages so resonantly through the theme of water and longed for refreshment.

In John 2, Jesus has been at the wedding of Cana where noone really gets his miracle with water and wine, much though the guests appreciate the fine wine, and then at the temple where noone really gets what his Father’s house is for, and then he’s had the night time conversation with Nicodemus who doesn’t really get what Jesus means by being born again.

And then in John 4 he finally meets someone who does get it. Admittedly it takes a while, but the Samaritan woman gets there. Maybe it’s the surprise of Jesus talking to someone who by being both female and Samaritan is doubly out of bounds for a Jewish man to talk to or maybe it’s the inspired twists and turns of conversation –but something brings the woman to a strong suspicion that she has just met the Messiah.

And just look at the change in her. We’re often told that the reason the woman has come to the well in the hot middle of the day and apparently alone, rather than in the cool of the morning or evening with the other women, is that she is a social outcast, probably connected in some way with the number of husbands she’s had. Maybe her husbands have divorced her because she’s been unfaithful (or just a bad cook?!) and the other women despise her for this – or maybe they’ve divorced her because she hasn’t been able to produce a child for any of them and her infertility hangs about her like bad luck or her grief makes her uncomfortable company.

Anyway, whatever the reason, she arrives outcast and alone and yet – and here’s a bit I’d never noticed or questioned before - somehow finds herself able – and indeed eager – to rush back to the village and talk to everyone, to tell everyone all about Jesus. And not only that, they listen, and rush out to meet Jesus for themselves. So the outcast apparently becomes reintegrated into society, accepted and even respected.

Lent 2 - Transfiguration

2011-03-20T15:30:00.001Z

Preacher: Chris

Readings: Gen 12:1-4a; Ps 121; Rom 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17 or Matt 17:1-9

I have titled the theme of my sermon today ‘Transfiguration’ following in line with last week’s sermon on the ‘Temptation’ of Jesus in the desert, since alliterative titles are clearly a vital and necessary sign of a holy and well-conceived sermon series. I leave it to next week’s preacher—Sue, I believe—to fall in line, making whatever wranglings of text or theology are necessary in order to come up with an appropriate T-starting sermon theme title.

So, as the title suggests, I am going to spend the sermon-minutes today reflecting and ruminating on the event of Jesus’ transfiguration. I would like to bring into the reflection the passages we have heard previously, detailing the Abrahamic story of God’s promise, the sacrifice of Isaac, and then Paul’s commentary in Romans on Abraham’s justification. I would also like to weave in elements of my own background and personal journey.

I am strongly drawn to images and stories of transformation. I am attracted by this idea that an object, a person, a life can, in a moment, become radically altered. The Bible is full of such moments, and we can read Jesus’ transfiguration in connection with them. Take Saul on the road to Damascus, when Jesus stopped him and said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting’. Saul was blinded by the vision of Jesus before him, the light of the world piercing his eyes, and for three days, Saul’s sight slept, as in a tomb, until one of God’s messengers touched him, and scales, like grave clothes, fell from his eyes, and he became Paul. I wonder what metamorphosis overtook him in that darkness, when the scales fell from his eyes—was it like coming out of the womb into the light of day for a second time? These moments of radical transformation are enticing in part because they involve a direct and seemingly sudden interaction between the human and the divine. Saul is at one moment Saul, an event occurs (really only covered in a few short verses), and Saul is now Paul. The whiplash must have been extreme.

And to continue the examples, prior to his own transfiguration, Jesus was already speaking about this Divine movement, a Divine change in being. The alternative Gospel reading for today was from John 3. To be honest, I dismissed it right out of hand, opting for the passage from Matthew, because John 3 more than any other passage of scripture recalls to my mind a childhood of Bible study, scripture memorization, conservative church culture, prayer meetings, accountability groups, mission trips, and Sunday morning services. Not that any of these things is in and of themselves bad—but they have collectively formed a system which I have found painful. So, John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son...’ etc etc is the sign and hallmark of my previous relationship to God. In John 3, Jesus also speaks about being ‘born again’. Thus:

3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.[a]” 4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit[b] gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You[c] must be born again.’

And therein lies the phrase that dominates evangelical Christian culture—to be ‘born again’. A re-birth; a literal renaissance. Change, transformation, transfiguration are bound up in notions of the kingdom of God; they are, as Jesus says, the entry points of the kingdom. So in the story of the transfiguration, Jesus’ final line is: ‘ 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”’ A momentous change has taken place, and Jesus points his disciples to a time in the near future that signals the start of a new order: when ‘the Son of Man has been raised from the dead’.—when a second, perhaps more mighty transfiguration has taken place (that of the revitalization of the dead body)—ushering in the Kingdom of God.

***

If you will indulge me for a moment, I would like to pull the schoolboy essay trick of quoting from the dictionary for some easy content. I, however, feel wholly justified in doing so since I spend several hours a day pleading with the Oxford English Dictionary to tell me the definitions of words that went out of fashion four centuries ago. Anyway, back to the topic at hand: definitions. I have been using a general vocabulary of change so far in this sermon—transformation, transfiguration, change, metamorphosis, but in the passage about Jesus, the Bible translation chooses to use the word ‘transfiguration’ (and, indeed, the word ‘transfiguration’ is so connected to this particular passage of Scripture, that one of its definitions is ‘the change in appearance of Jesus Christ on the mountaintop’. But its primary definition is: ‘transfiguration n. the action of transfiguring or state of being transfigured; metamorphosis.’ The noun form of the word is related to its verb ‘to transfigure’ which comes with its own definition: ‘to alter the figure or appearance of; to change in outward appearance; to transform’. I find the slight differences in definition to be quite interesting, as the two definitions appear to be in tension with one another. The verb ‘transfigure’ refers to outside shape—‘to change in outward appearance’. The noun—‘transfiguration’—however is glossed as a ‘metamorphosis’ which can involve more than a change in outward appearance, but is rather conceptualized as a ‘complete change’. In the span of time between verse one and verse eight, Jesus undergoes a radical experience. He is—the verb—transfigured. But perhaps the transfiguration—the noun— is about more than a change in outward appearance, and is in fact more representative of a culmination of all that’s gone on before rather than a sudden and momentary experience. The transfiguration then took place not instantaneously on a mountaintop but slowly, starting even at his birth, and continuing through his time of temptation in the desert, through his ministry, and here—on this high mountain—the change, which has been sub-ficial, sub-dermal, manifests itself in an awe-filled and luminescent moment.

I have, to this point, been spouting some rather disorganized thoughts about transformation and transfiguration—though the sermon may pass the T-in-the-title test, it likely fails the ‘three points and a conclusion’ test. But then, I am not sure that there are always clear points to be drawn from instances of change. We may be able to examine the causes leading up to it, or the effects proceeding from it, but the moment itself is often hard to pin down. I would now like to shift to a question: what about after the transfiguring event? Here I would now like us to recall the passages that were heard relating to Abraham.

The first Genesis passages concern God’s promise to Abraham—to make him a great nation, to bless him and through him, to bless all people. During the second passage we see God’s test of Abraham and the sacrifice—or attempted sacrifice—of Isaac. And finally in the Romans passage we hear Paul’s commentary on Abraham as a man justified by faith.

Kierkegaard in his short but powerful work ‘Fear and Trembling’ ruminates on the Abrahamic story and the Abrahamic journey of faith. It has been a few years since I have read the book, but one of the more striking ideas I remember from it is Kierkegaard’s assertion that the real test of faith for Abraham comes not from the ‘will he or willn’t he’ of the sacrificing Isaac bit, but rather the return to society—the coming down from the mountain, and the re-accepting of his son ‘with joy’ as Kierkegaard describes it. Or, the reintegration into life as it was before. While you may have been distracted by all that business going on in verses 1-18 of the Genesis passage, verse 19 is in fact a key phrase ‘Then Abraham returned to his servants’. Because that’s just it—no life can go on ‘just as before’ after such an experience. Something has fundamentally altered—something life altering has happened, has been done to Abraham. The angel stayed his hand, but what must Abraham think of a relationship with a god who would put him into such a situation in the first place? Yes, he has demonstrated a resignation of his will to the Almighty by going up the mountain, even by placing his son on the altar, but he demonstrates faith in the going down the mountain, in continuing onward. This is Kierkegaard’s admiration for Abraham: that Abraham could resign himself to God’s command and then receive Isaac back with joy. The mountain for Abraham is his own transfigurative experience.

I think the idea of transformation, even in a seeming instant, resonates with me because of my own experience of transformation. Indeed, I would imagine that all of us have experienced these moments which, like Jesus’ sudden change on the mountaintop, seem to clarify all that has gone before and significantly alter all that will come after. Personally, my own coming to terms with my sexual identity was just such a defining moment—in one moment a blithe asexual and in another moment a deeply frightened homosexual. The mental transfiguration that occurred felt like a mountaintop experience—not in the glorious sense as Jesus’ experience on his mountaintop but rather in a harrowing test sense as Abraham’s experience on his mountaintop. As I look back on that period of change in my life, I identify with Abraham’s transformative experience but also with Kierkegaard’s skeptical admiration. How can we understand change that is both monumental and painful, and can we continue to relate to God in the same way after the moment of transfiguration? In response to the second question, I think ‘no, change in ourselves alters our relationship to God’—but I do not think it must necessarily change our relationship with God. I am not ‘Christian’ in the same sense or even same terminology as I was two years ago—I do not seek to convert the masses, and, as mentioned, I have problems relating to standard tenants (and even verses) of evangelical Christianity. But at the same time, transformation has placed me in a new position to consider and relate with God.

One more thought before I conclude: I have been listening to many podcasts over the last three months since one of my jobs involves some fairly mindless work. Recently I’ve been listening to the speeches and sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr. through the Black Media Archive. I was listening to his speech to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1961, and he begins talking about an old order, represented by prejudice, racism, and injustice giving way to a new order, a time in which justice and civil rights will extend to the African-American community and the wider global community. But he says something very perceptive about the transition-ry period: he says that we must not walk with bitterness into the new age. That the pain caused by the old and reflected in the time of transition itself must be let go of if we are to walk unencumbered into the new. The change Jesus undergoes on the mountaintop is both figuratively and literally a ‘mountaintop experience’—a highlight, but prefiguring the dark road that lies ahead to the Cross, a time at which he chooses to release bitterness by saying ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ He is free to enter into death—but he is also free to enter into a resurrected life.

***

To conclude: transformation is both individual and social—Jesus, in a single verse, is transfigured. But he is also transfigured ‘before them’, that is, before the disciples. The change takes place or manifests itself in Jesus because the disciples are also experiencers and participants in it. And not just the disciples, but Elijah and Moses, as well. And the force and nature of the change is strong and overwhelming for the witnesses. Peter, no doubt shocked and confused, says the first thing he can think of: ‘I will build three shelters for you’. Not only is the statement just a bit, well, off—but it also misses the point. Jesus is transfigured, he becomes ‘white as the light’—the change is a visible one, one to be witnessed, not sheltered. The moment of change is, itself, a glorious moment, but it cannot be sheltered in the sense of hidden, nor can it be sheltered in the sense of contained, or maintained and perpetuated. A shrine to change somewhat misses the point.

So as we consider moments of change in our own lives, and as we experience this time of transition in the life of our church—notably in how and where we worship and in how congregational life will appear in the passing of the LMC and the arrival of a new centre, let us recognize that these moments are inspired and touched by the Divine. And that our responsibility is to enter into it with hands that are not clenched but rather open-facedly welcoming the new.

Lent 1 - Temptation

2011-03-13T15:30:00.002Z

Preacher: Veronica

Readings: see below

I hope you’ll forgive me for starting this sermon with ‘one of me pomes’ - a rare one that’s in rhyme and metre.

Deception

In Eden's sun the woman basks,
she works, plays, loves as each day asks
and knows not she is God's mirror and sign;
till, curving elegant his tail,
the serpent (who is surely male)
insinuates a lack of the divine.

'To be like God' - a worthy goal
for any self-improving soul,
an offer she, or man, can scarce disdain.
Poor Eve! Why won't she realise right now
she's able, strong and wise
with nothing but the choice of good to gain?

Yet still the priests perpetuate the lie
that led to Eden's gate
and raised the fiery sword our bliss to bar:
still women make the same mistake
and bow to some religious snake
who tells us we are not the gods we are.

This poem explores a favourite idea of mine about the story of the Fall. This is that the serpent is actually offering the woman something she already has. He holds out to her the chance to become ‘like God’ by eating the forbidden fruit; but in fact we have already heard in the first creation story in Gen 1, that she and the man are in the image of God. So the serpent’s trick - and we are told that he is tricky - is to make her think she is less than this, and has something to gain.

I also have another favourite theory - that the reason the serpent tries out the woman first rather than the man, is not just because she has only heard the command second hand, but because her instinct on acquiring this new knowledge is to share the fruit. If the man had taken it first, he might have decided to keep his new knowledge to himself, to get one over on his partner. It’s only a theory, and this is an ancient, mysterious story that has a number of profound things to say about human nature. But one thing it could be saying, based on my theory, is that when we are tempted or tested, it is often our best human qualities that are used against us. In fact in the story of Genesis 3, the goodness of humanity is the only weapon the serpent has, because at the point of temptation, humankind has not discovered its divided self, constantly torn between good and evil. All that humanity knows, before eating the fruit, is goodness.

Another profound thing the story says to me is that God gives humans radical freedom. God’s first words to the couple are words of permission to eat from every tree in the garden - except one. But God does not make it impossible for them to eat from the forbidden tree - all God does is to warn them that this would have consequences. Melvyn Bragg’s ‘In our time’ programme recently, was all about free will and whether it exists. I didn’t have time to listen to it all, as I had this sermon to write, but I heard enough to hear something about scientific determinism, and about Calvinism. Well, I don’t know much about determinism or Calvinism, but I fail to see how anyone could read the story of Eden and not think that human beings are made to have free will. There is a genuine choice before this primal human couple: they can trust God and do what God says, or they can try to get hold of something God has not, as yet, given them.

You could of course argue that ever since humankind first sinned, we no longer have free will but our actions are determined by our sinfulness. This seems to be what Paul is arguing in Romans 7:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Our will is compromised and we do not have the capacity to do everything the way we might like to do it. We can make a good choice over a particular action, but we clearly don’t have the choice to do everything right all the time - that is beyond human ability.

This might sound like determinism, but Paul makes it quite clear in this passage and elsewhere that in Christ we have freedom to make right choices. Also he suggests in Romans 2 that those who do not know God can still do good by the light of nature:

When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts (Romans 2:14-15).

So actually, Paul is quite clearly teaching freedom of moral choice even for those who do not consciously follow Jesus.
What does all this musing about determinism and free will have to say to our Gospel passage for the beginning of Lent - a passage so well known that at first I despaired of having anything new to say about it?

Let’s go back to that theory about the serpent using the woman’s good qualities against here. Satan (which simply means ‘the accuser’, or we might say ‘the counsel for the prosecution’), uses Jesus’ own divine status as God’s son, to try to distort the shape Jesus’ mission will take. The phrases usually translated ‘If you are the Son of God’, can also be accurately translated ‘Since you are the Son of God’. It’s as if Satan knows that since Jesus’ baptism, Jesus will have no real doubt about whether he is specially called by God. So rather than sowing doubt, what Satan is doing here is to take the benefits of being God’s son, and use them against him. The facts that God will feed Jesus, protect him and give him power, are not in themselves bad things. What is happening is that Jesus is invited to use them in ways that will completely skew the nature of his ministry, right at the start.

First Jesus is invited by Satan to use miracles as spectacular demonstrations of power, rather than what he in fact goes on to do, which is to perform miracles in response to human need. Likewise in the second temptation, he is invited to expect a life free of difficulties, where God will miraculously airlift him out of all dangerous situations; but in fact his mission will lead to torture and death, and he never loses sight of this. Thirdly, he is encouraged to use the methods of the world to rule the world, rather than using the methods of the upside-down kingdom, where the Son of God must endure death to win victory over the powers of death.

What is striking is that when Jesus has resisted these offers from Satan, all the gifts he has refused from Satan actually get given to him by God. The angels that Satan promised would catch him falling from the Temple, do indeed come along to comfort him and feed him, not in response to a reckless act, but in response to his human need. There’s an echo of the story of Elijah, Israel’s favourite prophet, being fed in the wilderness by ravens. Actually the word translated ‘ravens’ could in fact be translated as ‘foreigners’, which puts a whole new complexion on Elijah’s experience. And like Elijah’s crisis point, which comes after his triumph on Mount Carmel, Jesus’ crisis also comes after the high of his baptism. It’s been my experience that trials often come to us in the same way. When I was in my first term at university, I had a dramatic spiritual experience which some would call ‘baptism in the Spirit’. But very soon afterwards I had a big low, partly provoked by falling in unrequited love with a Jewish fellow student, who by the way is now a Buddhist lama. It sometimes seems that every new step we take in faith, has then to be followed by a situation where that faith is tested out - a bit like breaking in your new walking boots.

Jesus does resist all the temptations, even when Satan uses his own weapon of Scripture against him. And that’s another argument for free will: if he was predetermined to resist, it would hardly have been worth bothering to tempt him, and his apparent commitment to God’s way would not really be commitment at all. Jesus freely accepted the upside down way of the kingdom, where suffering is redemptive and apparent defeat is victory. And because he chose this way, as Paul says in the passage we heard from Romans 5, he was able to fulfil the call that other human beings, represented by Adam and Eve, could not. So he became ‘the second Adam’, the representative of humankind, who both shows the best that humanity can be, and suffers the worst that humanity can dish out.

So what about us? Are Jesus’ temptations peculiar to his role as Son of God? You might think the particular nature they take could only apply to Jesus as he starts his ministry. But I think they are ours too, as we are called to replicate the life of Jesus in our own lives. As we seek to follow him in living Christlike, cross-shaped lives, we will encounter similar challenges and questions. We don’t expect to turn stones into bread, but we may expect God to perform miracles for our own benefit, or to make people come to our church. Wouldn’t it be great if God performed some spectacular miracle of healing in our church and people heard about it and started flocking to our door? But they would be ‘rice Christians’, as the missionaries used to call them - they would have come to Jesus for what they could get, and not for love of God.

Similarly we don’t expect to be able to leap from the top of a building and have angels catch us. But we may expect comfortable lives in which God gives us everything we want at all times - witness the popularity of the ‘Footprints’ poem. It’s a clever poem, but the reality is that even if God is really ‘carrying us’ when times are hard, we will probably not know this and only have a sense of God’s absence. And perhaps there are times when God wants us to walk in the dark, having no light to guide us except our trust in God and our past experiences of rescue.

We don’t think God will let us rule the world, but some of us come perilously close to wanting to. One of the main things that first attracted me to Anabaptism was that Anabaptists did not believe we could change the world just by having more Christians in political power, or by organizing marches for Jesus and singing ‘Into our hands he will give the ground we claim’. We have had a succession of professing Christians in the most powerful job in the world, President of the USA - but did the world get transformed as a result? Did it ‘eck as like. Even now that we have a Christian president whose politics we might be more sympathetic to, his hands seem to be tied by other professing Christians who think he is the devil incarnate. It certainly doesn’t look as though Christians having political power is the route to the Kingdom of God.

So what can we do to avoid falling into these kinds of temptations? My poem suggests that if Eve had seen herself clearly as a person in God’s image, a daughter of God in fact, she might not have been so easily deceived. Likewise, Jesus’ answers to Satan is in effect: ‘I know I am the Son of God, I don’t need to prove it to you or the world, or even to myself. And I will fulfil my role as the Son of God in God’s way, not in the way of the world’.

For us this might mean realizing we are already walking miracles, through our creation and redemption in Jesus. We don’t need either to believe six impossible things before breakfast or to demonstrate six impossible things before lunch, in order to be signs of God’s kingdom to others. Nor do we need to have a successful, ‘victorious’ life in order to attract others to the Jesus we follow. Our victories may be small, hidden and unspectacular - indeed we may be called to witness to God through our brokenness rather than our prosperity. And if we are involved in the corridors of power in however small a way (and just about everyone has some power in their lives), we can choose to exercise that power sacrificially rather than use the conventional tools of powermongering.

Our power to withstand temptation may be limited - as Oscar Wilde said, ‘I can resist everything except temptation’. But the Spirit of Jesus lives in us, and is slowly transforming us into people who instinctively do good. In the meantime, both the story of the Fall and Psalm 32 which we read together, remind us that there is always forgiveness when we are ready to ask for it. In the Fall story, God does not in fact kill the first humans and thus wipe out the human race at its start. God forgives them and takes measures which will limit the amount of damage their sin does in the world, and enable them to live in a new, less than perfect situation. And as we know, God’s eventual solution is to identify fully with our sin and to break the power of violence by Jesus’ non-violent life, death and resurrection. Whatever we take up or give up in Lent, it is not to gain spiritual brownie points, but to make us more able to live our lives in the light of Jesus - to live a resurrection life.

Readings

Genesis 2:15-27 and 3:1-7

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. 16And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”...
...Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” 4But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Psalm 32

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
While I kept silence, my body wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them.
You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance.
I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.
Many are the torments of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.
Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

Romans 5:12-19

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— 13sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. 14Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.
15But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. 16And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. 17If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. 19For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4But he answered, “It is written,
‘One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 5Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle
of the temple, 6saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
7Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.’” 11Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Lent homily

2011-03-06T15:30:00.000Z

Preacher: Peter

Readings:
Jeremiah 6:10-15
Matthew 13:31-32
James 1:19-25

Well, we have come to the end of a fascinating and challenging journey – our sermon series on environmental issues. There have been many highlights, but perhaps my favourite moment was discovering during Jane’s sermon the other week that speaking about animals in church is “an abomination”. Anyway, if you want to review the excellent material that was presented to us, you can find most of it on our sermon blog.

So, I have somehow landed the awkward job of challenging us to actually do something about all this. As James said in our 3rd reading, hearing the message is all well and good, but it is critically important (unless we want to fall into self-deception) to act on what we have heard.

It seems to be human nature to ignore our prophets. As in Jeremiah’s day, we prefer to listen to the people who say “Peace, peace” even when there is no peace. In a recent interview James Lovelock, father of modern climate science, foretold the coming climate catastrophe in the starkest terms. Much of Europe Saharan by 2040. Britain a lifeboat for refugees from Europe. 80% of the world’s population dead of starvation by 2100.

The scale and seriousness of the current environmental crisis is enormous. It would be easy to despair - in fact James Lovelock does seem to have despaired. According to him climate change is now irreversible, and the best we can do is enjoy life while we still can. But we are Christians, and we believe in the God of hope. And the power of small beginnings. Jesus’s parable of the mustard seed encourages us not to despair, but to trust that God can use even seemingly insignificant acts of faith and discipleship to transform the world. In his book Planetwise, Dave Bookless quotes Nick Spence and Robert White: “Climate change is not one big, intractable problem but billions of tiny tractable ones.”

So my challenge, to myself as well as to you, is to do something small and mustard-seedy this Lent, a little gesture of love and care towards creation. Often our Lent disciplines are turned inwards towards self-improvement or a slimmer waistline. But this year maybe our Lent can look outwards, inspired by our sermon series to take on a discipline which, if only for a few weeks, will mean that we are living more lightly in God’s world.

There are plenty of places to go for ideas. Tear Fund are suggesting a Climate Fast for Lent this year, with all sorts of ideas. For example:
• Turn your heating down to 17ºC and wear more clothes.

• Cook simply with local and seasonal food.

• Save time and emissions by not ironing unless absolutely essential. (I’ve been doing this for years but perhaps for the wrong reasons!)

• Meatless Monday. If everyone in the UK gave up meat once a week, the emissions savings would equal taking 5 million cars off the road.

• Power down. Have a technology-free day. It cuts carbon and gives you space.

• Buy only products with little or no packaging.

• Pray every time you throw something in the bin.

• Give up baths for Lent (I know some of you probably do this already!) Take a quick shower instead.

• Learn how to sew, knit or darn, so you can make and mend rather than buy new.

• Start growing vegetables, herbs and fruit in your garden. If you don’t have one, use pots on a windowsill or in a sunny spot indoors.

Here’s something from the A Rocha website:

• Plant a tree. As well as sequestering some carbon you’ll be providing a little bit of habitat for birds and insects. If you have no garden or no space in your garden there are plenty of ways to fund or help with tree-planting further afield.

And a couple of suggestions inspired by Dave Bookless in Planetwise:

• Put the car away for Lent and walk cycle or bus instead. Or maybe if that’s too difficult enjoy a careless carless day just once a week.

• An Easter electric fast! Bookless describes how one year he and his family did without electricity and gas from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. This involved, among other things, going to bed when it gets dark or sitting chatting by candlelight, and going out into the garden to build a fire to heat the water for a morning cup of tea.

So you’re probably all hating me by now. No-one likes receiving smug suggestions for more righteous living. I suppose I guessed this might happen when I accepted this assignment.

No-one is saying you should do all these things – and some of them may well be part of your lifestyle already. But please think about using this Lent as an opportunity to respond creatively to all the thinking, preaching and studying we have done together over the last few months about our place in the community of God’s creation.

Wild Animals

2011-01-30T15:30:00.000Z

Preacher: Jane

I’d like to start with what according to Wikipedia is a famous, but possibly made-up, quote. The 20th century scientist and writer J B S Haldane was once asked what could be deduced about the mind of the Creator from studying God’s creation. His reply was “an inordinate fondness for beetles”. This relates to the fact that over a quarter of all known animal species are beetles - around 350,000 species. (And there are probably more as yet undiscovered.)

This is the final sermon in our series on Richard Bauckham’s book Bible and Ecology. Today we’re looking at a specific section of the book, which is actually about wild and domestic animals. There’s also more about animals elsewhere in the book, which other preachers have already spoken about. A more accurate title for today would be “some thoughts about wild animals – especially the dangerous ones – and about domestic animals”. Accurate but not very snappy.

I’ve found the book inspiring and thought-provoking. I particularly like the way Richard Bauckham looks at a range of scriptures, not just the more obvious ones, to show how God’s good purposes are for both humans and the non-human creation. But I’ve found today’s topic difficult to get to grips. I have some questions – for example about suffering and evil in the animal kingdom – which, as Bauckham puts it, are unlikely to be answered “this side of the end of history”. Bauckham points out that “the Bible is a book for humans” and that God has a relationship with the animals that we don’t know about and doesn’t need to be mediated by us. As we heard from Lesley’s sermon on the book of Job, recognising our lack of understanding about God’s creation can lead us to greater humility, and help us find our place alongside the other creatures God has made in the community of creation. Going back to Haldane’s quote, maybe God does have a special fondness for beetles - there are many things we just don’t know.

On the other hand, there are some wonderful things we can learn from the scriptures.

Reading: Isaiah 11: 1-10

This passage focuses on a particular group of wild animals – those that might harm people and their livestock. The background has been pointed out in previous sermons, especially Veronica’s. One of the worst consequences of the fall was ever-increasing violence, affecting both humans and animals and resulting in broken relationships. Following the flood, God makes a covenant not only with Noah but also with every other living creature on the ark. This includes measures that limit violence but don’t totally deal with it – including that humans are for the first time allowed to eat meat, although with certain restrictions, and animals will live in “fear and dread” of humans. It leaves the world a place in which two major fears for people are predation by dangerous wild animals and predation by invading armies.

Broadly-speaking there are two ways the Bible talks about dealings between humans and animals – one realistic, as in what I’ve just said about the aftermath of the flood, and the other paradisal, picturing in various ways a return to Eden or a new creation. Isaiah 11 is one of the most far-reaching visions of a new creation, looking forward to the peaceable kingdom of the Messiah. Through the knowledge of the Lord, the Messiah establishes justice among humans and peace with wild animals. The picture here is of things being put right, first among the Messiah’s own people, then spreading out to encompass all nations in universal peace.

A key feature is the establishment of peaceful relationships between wild animals and people (and people’s livestock). The passage isn’t primarily interested in the relationships between wild animals, but verse 7 makes it clear that carnivores have become herbivores and so that’s likely to make a big difference!

The passage talks about human children and young domestic animals – the most vulnerable - which no longer need fear wild animals. Likewise, wild animals no longer need fear people, as the human dominion commanded in Genesis 2 is exercised as it should be, in gentle and beneficial service, as Bauckham puts it. A little child can lead the wild animals, with no coercion, and they willingly follow.

Bauckham acknowledges the problems for modern readers in thinking about lions becoming vegetarians. (It’s one of the things the Wednesday homegroup has discussed.) It’s hard to see how this could work biologically, as lions and many other species are adapted to kill and eat other animals and can’t survive unless they eat meat. From our human perspective we might also feel that a lion that didn’t hunt other animals would have lost something of its essence, it’s lion-ness. Whilst writing this sermon I realised this doesn’t particularly bother me. On a purely practical level, in a world where scientists are working on making synthetic meat, I don’t think it’ll be too difficult for God to resolve this. And Bauckham reminds us that there are many things about the new creation we can’t comprehend, and it will involve a new creative act of God comparable to the wonders of the original creation.

But there’s another thing that I find more difficult. Science tells us that animals were eating other animals long before humans came on the scene and it’s difficult to square this with God’s command in Genesis 1. After God has created humans, Gen 1 vs 29-31 say “Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move on the ground - everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food’. And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” Bauckham says that this picture of animals and humans originally being vegetarian is idealised and should be seen as eschatological – in other words, I suppose, that hasn’t yet been a time that the world God created was very good in the way described here, but that these verses look forward to God’s ultimate plan for creation, a time when there will be no more violence and when all creation lives in harmony with God. I must admit I haven’t been used to looking at the creation accounts in this way and it challenges me to think again.

Mark 1: 9-13

Only Mark’s Gospel talks about animals being part of Jesus’ wilderness experience - “He was with the wild animals”, and Bauckham links this with the passage we heard from Isaiah 11. I once heard a comment about what I’m about to summarise that it might be stretching a point to build an argument from one word - “with”.

This may be a fair point, but I really like what Bauckham says. Jesus is baptised and designated the Messianic Son of God. I’m grateful to Chris for pointing out that the Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus in the form of an animal – a dove. I’m not sure what all the symbolism of this would have been to the original readers, but Jesus told his disciples to be “as innocent as a dove” and I think of it as a gentle, non-violent image. Then he is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to establish his relationship as Messiah with the non-human creation (Satan, wild animals and angels), before he establishes that relationship as Messiah with the human creation. Satan is clearly an enemy, angels clearly friends, but the wild animals are more ambiguous. Traditionally, as we have seen, they are enemies of people. However, the setting here is the wilderness, where the wild animals belong, as Sue pointed out in her recent sermon on wild places.

Bauckham says that the word “with” indicates Jesus’ peaceful presence, and has no sense of hostility. In Mark, “being with” is often used to describe a friendly closeness – for example of the disciples in Mark 3:14 “He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach…” and so on. Bauckham sees in Jesus “being with” the animals a foreshadowing of Isaiah’s peaceable kingdom. He points out that Mark could have viewed the ideal relationship between the Messiah and animals as being one of domination or of recruiting them to become domesticated – taming them if you like.

The Bible’s original readers would have had good reason to fear wild animals, so the promise of healing of the relationship between people and animals would be good news for people. And of course today in some parts of the world people still have cause to fear wild animals. For instance in the Sunderbans mangrove forests of Bangladesh around 50 people are killed every year by tigers. However, Bauckham points out that there’s been an enormous shift in the balance between humans and animals, and now it is overwhelmingly the animals that are threatened by humans. (Tigers, even those in Bangladesh, are gravely threatened and may soon become extinct in the wild.) But the good news of the reconciliation that Jesus brings is still good news in these changed circumstances. Bauckham suggests the way Jesus is “with” the animals in the wilderness can be a model for us – respecting animals to have independent value for themselves and for God and allowing them to live in peace in their own habitat. Interestingly, in the Sunderbans, there’s work going on which aims both to protect people and conserve the tigers – this seems to me an example of creative and practical peacemaking. One of the things in Bible and Ecology that I’ve been struck by is the recurring theme of violence and peace, and it seems to me that a Biblical understanding of God’s purposes for non-human animals fits very well with our calling to be a peace church. Having said this, we need to be wise. We can begin, in our limited way, to live lives that reflect God’s will for creation, but Bauckham warns people against trying to create utopias, which always fail. The full expression of the peaceable kingdom is for God to bring about.

Can we have our final three verses please?
Deut 25:4
Proverbs 12:10
Luke 6:3

So now we come to domestic animals. There is a wider discussion we could have about people becoming vegetarians, but that isn’t the main focus of the section in Bible and Ecology, and would need a whole sermon, or even a sermon series – so I’m not going to address that here.

Domestic animals are probably mentioned more than wild animals in the Bible – not surprisingly as they lived closely alongside Biblical people and were likely considered almost part of the household. Contrary to the view of some who are interested in animal rights today, the Bible doesn’t suggest that there’s anything wrong with the domestication of animals. In fact it seems to see a distinction between domestic and wild animals as being part of God’s intention. Accounts of the creation, flood, and the post-flood covenant all make a distinction between domestic and wild animals.

The Bible makes it clear that both humans and domestic animals are to benefit from the arrangement. The Hebrew scriptures contain specific instructions about looking after the welfare of domestic animals, such as the one we just heard – while the ox is threshing grain, it should be allowed to eat some of it. More generally, there are passages showing how people can relate to domestic animals in a way which mirrors God’s caring responsibility towards creation. Bauckham points out something I hadn’t seen before - about all those references to good and bad shepherds in the Bible. Although often given to illustrate human or divine leadership, they draw from an idea of a proper relationship between people and their domestic animals. Those passages wouldn’t make sense unless the readers understood what it meant to treat the flock well or badly.

I see Bauckham’s book as mostly about Biblical study rather than the nitty-gritty of our behaviour. But on the subject of domestic animals, Richard Bauckham is uncharacteristically forceful in condemning some of the things we humans do. Here’s one quote: “ …in the modern west, animal husbandry has largely been replaced by systematised brutality and exploitation quite unlike good farming practice in the past and in a different league of evil even from bad farming practice in the past. It cannot possibly be justified by reference to the Bible. Crucially, the Bible does not regard domestic animals as mere objects for people to use, but like wild animals, as subjects of their own lives.” This challenged me as, although I don’t normally eat meat, I eat dairy products and am therefore implicated in this systematised brutality, which I have chosen to ignore. Not many of us are livestock farmers, but by our choices as consumers we are linked to the systems of farming, for good or ill. Bauckham reflects on the Proverbs reading we just heard, to encourage us to use our ability to empathise to help us imagine something of what an animal’s experience might be. This may help us to act rightly towards domestic animals, and with true kindness and tenderness, in imitation of God’s character. There are resources to help us think further about this – for example the organisation Compassion in World Farming.

To conclude - something a bit more personal. Some of you won’t be surprised when I say I really like animals. That’s especially true of the cute and furry ones with big eyes, but I can even find beetles – and of course bats - fascinating. I’m not sure what Richard Bauckham would think of this, but one of the things I like about animals is that they make me laugh. One of my guilty pleasures is (very) occasionally watching television programmes like Planet’s Funniest Animals. But I also have a sense of wonder, of privilege and even awe in encountering wild animals – in real life or through books or films. What’s it like to be this slow loris – what’s going on in its head? What’s it like to be a penguin in an Antarctic winter – or even what’s it like to be the robin in our back garden? I think this is to do with what Bauckham describes as the value of otherness – recognising animals as distinct from us, having their own lives and their own value to God, and their own relationship to God. Contemplating this otherness, Bauckham thinks, might help people towards humility in recognising that it’s not all about us, what we achieve and control – and might also help us towards recognising the greater otherness of God, the creator and reconciler of all.

Wild places

2011-01-16T15:30:00.002Z

Preacher: Sue

Readings: see below

Today we continue our sermon series on creation and the environment, using Richard Bauckham’s book Bible and Ecology.

Creation - solidarity & care
Veronica started this series with a look at the Genesis 2 creation story. She pointed out that the man is made from the dust of the ground – just as the birds and other animals are a few verses later. Humans and all the other creatures are made of the same stuff – they are all part of the “community of creation” that Bauckham talks about throughout the book. And humans are commissioned to cultivate and preserve the earth – not to cultivate it intensively till it gives way to dustbowl and desert but to cultivate it in such a way that it is also preserved.

Flood – violence, chaos, creation re-made, violence contained
Veronica then looked at the flood and memorably observed that one of the main symptoms of creation’s gradual descent into corruption and alienation from God was that it was full of violence.

Bauckham defines the Flood as a kind of ‘de-creation’, a return to chaos. But at the end of the story there is a ‘re-creation’ in the covenant that God makes with Noah and his descendants and, significantly, with ‘every living creature that is with you’.

Creation – tenants and fellow-fillers
Wayne also talked about the “community of creation” and pointed out that it’s not just humans who are encouraged to “fill the earth”. The birds are also urged to fill the earth and the sea creatures the seas. We have to bear that in mind when we interpret ideas like subduing the earth and having dominion over it – as well as remembering that the earth belongs to God and we are merely tenants.

Job
Lesley looked at some passages from Job which remind us that we are simply a small part of God’s creation, a part about which God cares, no doubt, but part of the community of created beings, who are not less important. Our task is to respect them, to accept that God is working ultimately for our good (however painful and puzzling life may be at times) and join the divine resistance against the forces of chaos and destruction.

Sharing the earth
Then I looked at Psalm 104 and Matthew 6 which describe a community of creation which is abundant, ordered but diverse and beautiful. There is enough for every human and every creature as they all depend on a generous God and none takes more than they need. And the animals relate directly to God, they don’t have to go through humans as a kind of dominion-wielding earth-subduing middleman. God is at the centre here, with humans dependent on God just as the other creatures are and animals as creatures in their own right and “subjects of their own lives”.

Praising and mourning together
Chris echoed this when he spoke on the community of creation and how all creation praises & mourns together. He quoted Richard Bauckham: ‘all creatures bring glory to God simply by being themselves and fulfilling their God-given roles in God’s creation’. Chris described the rest of creation as not only a neighbourhood but also as neighbours – and fellow worshippers.

Chris gave examples of the obvious concrete interconnectedness of all creation, for instance in the way that greedy land use, intensive agriculture or overfishing on the part of humans have disastrous environmental consequences. But he also touched on the more puzzling question of the spiritual connection between human choices and consequences in the natural world. He highlighted the danger of talking too simplistically about these connections, for instance saying that hurricane Katrina was the consequence of the easy availability of abortion in America. Bauckham mentions the deep connection between physical, moral and spiritual orders in the biblical world view. But he doesn’t talk concretely about quite what he means by this – at least not here, but we’ll come back to this…

Alpha to Omega - the cosmic Christ
Veronica reminded us of the temptation to substitute “humanity” for “creation” as we hear or read Colossians 1, so that Jesus Christ is not the creator, firstborn and reconciler of all creation as the text tells us but just of all humanity. Bauckham talks about human fantasies of a world in which we have subdued nature, maybe even become completely independent of it. The vision of Colossians is the very opposite: all creation is integrated in Jesus Christ.

And Veronica’s sermon offered one way of dealing with Chris’s struggle with the questions about the fallen-ness of creation and what that means. According to Bauckham, the Bible does not really attempt to answer this question fully, but simply prophesies that through Christ the creation will be liberated from the evils that it now suffers. The bible focuses on the creation’s future, not its past.

Alpha to Omega – Jesus and the renewal of creation
Judith preached on Jesus and the renewal of creation, drawing on passages from the gospels, Philippians 2 and Revelation. Bauckham talks about Jesus’ calming of the storm which echoes God’s calming and containing of chaos at creation and the way God continues to confine chaos to create stability for creation, as seen for instance in Job and Psalms 89 & 104. It also gives a foretaste of transformed and peaceful relationships between humans and t non-humans in the renewed creation.

Judith reminded us that this will be a renewed not a replaced creation. She drew attention to the parallel with Paul’s words in 2 Cor 5, “So if anyone is in Christ – new creation! The old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new!” When someone becomes a Christian they are transformed and renewed now in the same way as the whole of creation will one day be transformed and renewed.

Wild places
And so we come to today’s theme, wild places. Jane will be preaching our last sermon in this series at the end of January when she will look at wild animals.

Let’s start with a reading from Genesis 2:1-15.

The garden of Eden
In this passage we are far from the extremes of wilderness we’ve just been thinking about. We’re in the garden of Eden, gentle, luxuriant, fruitful, beautiful. Bauckham suggests that in the bible a garden is usually a vegetable garden or an orchard, and with all the trees mentioned here, presumably this is an orchard. According to Bauckham, as they toiled away at ploughing, sowing and reaping, Israelites dreamed of being able to live from vineyards and orchards alone – much less hard graft, digging and bending involved. So in some ways this is the ultimate fantasy for an Israelite – a beautiful orchard planted by someone else with a little light pruning and maybe some gentle irrigation to be done from time to time and plenty of time to hang out enjoying the cool and beauty of the orchard. But there is more about this garden that is special.

Humans and nature – made for each other
In verse 5, there is no-one to till the ground. So God makes a man. Then God plants a garden, full of every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. And then he puts the man in the garden, to till it and keep it, and gives him permission to eat from all the trees but one. It’s a marriage made in heaven: the garden gets someone to care for it and protect it; the man gets a ready source of easy and delicious food. As Bauckham says, the garden and the man are made for each other. There’s a harmony and mutuality here that are lost with the man’s expulsion from the garden. Ever since then there’s been a potential tension between human beings taking care of themselves and taking care of nature. As technology becomes more powerful there is more and more scope for neglecting the care of creation as we seek to take care of ourselves.

Fear of wilderness?
So we have in Eden a clear illustration of the harmony and mutuality intended between humans and nature, but don’t we also find in the bible some more negative views of nature, in particular of wilderness? Indeed, Bauckham reports that some critics of the bible consider that its negative view of wilderness has contributed to our ecological crisis. Certainly the wilderness is the place where the Israelites wander frustrated for forty years, desperate to get away from its perils and into the safety of the promised land (Deut 8:15) . And the wilderness is what takes over after the disastrous fall of a once great city, the ultimate sign of failure and God’s judgment.

Before we go any further, I’d like to ask you to think for a moment about a favourite wild place – or if you don’t like wild places, a favourite place where you experience nature. Imagine yourself there. What is the weather? Who else is there? What else is there? What is it you like about it? Is there anything about it that is frightening or threatening? Now picture it in its extreme of bad weather – driving rain or snow and wind, storm & high waves, flood, extreme heat. How do you feel about it now? What do you long for in these extreme conditions?

And now let’s think a bit more about wildernesses and wild places in the bible. We started with a garden, God’s garden which for a time is also home, workplace and larder to the man and woman. As well as gardens and orchards we find in the bible arable land, land that can be grazed but not cultivated, forests, deserts and wasteland or wilderness. Bauckham suggests that anything other than garden or arable land is frightening for the Israelites, a place where they might encounter wild – and dangerous – animals. That some of us apparently feel differently reflects perhaps that over the centuries (particularly in the UK) we have “tamed” the wilderness and also live at a greater distance from it, often exiled from wild and raw nature in lives lived in paved streets, supermarkets and largely weatherproof homes. But for an Israelite the definition of wilderness is largely to do with survival: wilderness is desert where lack of water makes it hard for humans to survive and forest, where a hungry wild animal could also make it hard to survive…

So it’s not just expulsion from the garden that opens up a rift between humans and non-human creation. The Israelites’ pattern of agriculture also creates a division between hospitable productive land and inhospitable barren land. (Interestingly this isn’t quite a division between humans and non-human creation – in the hospitable productive portion of the land, domestic animals are included along with the humans. They too rest on the Sabbath and they too, in Nineveh (Jonah 3) are expected to fast and wear sackcloth as a demonstration of the city’s repentance.)

So in many ways the negative views of wild nature are a logical result of a life lived close to the land – and quite close to the edge too. Bauckham picks out a number of passages where the wilderness is described as an eerie threatening place but also one rich in other life, particularly bird life. Let’s hear an example.

Is 34:8-17

Celebrating wilderness
But I think we can also read this as a real affirmation of wilderness, one that it is important for us to hear today. The wilderness is not good for human beings – but that’s fine because they are not meant to be there. There are other creatures who do belong there and the wilderness is meant for them. I think this is a salutary message for a culture that all too easily thinks all the earth is there just for us.

Psalm 104 gives a similar picture. God gives different habitats & has different creatures in mind to occupy them. So for instance “the high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the coneys”. I think that’s important to hear in an age where human activity is destroying habitats directly by building on top of them or indirectly through climate change, pollution, fragmentation and so on. It challenges us to ask whether difficult-to-cultivate wildernesses are a technical challenge to be overcome by ingenious agriculture or development or are actually areas intended for other creatures to enjoy.

And there is affirmation in the bible of another form of wilderness too, the forest. The garden of Eden, the ideal garden and the place of perfect relationship between God and humanity and nature, is, according to Ezekiel 31, not only an orchard but also a forest planted by God. So God’s garden is also wild nature, in Bauckham’s words “the original, glorious heart of wild nature”. Along with Psalm 104 I think this tells us that however unnerving wild places may have been for the Israelites or may be for us, God delights in them. And, in the chapter where Isaiah imagines God’s people returning from exile, the blossoming of the desert wilderness is described in terms of a majestic forest growing up. Let’s hear the passage – and you’ll need to know that Lebanon and Carmel are famed for their lush forests and woodland.

Is 35

Notice the very strong echoes in verse 2 between the glory of the forest of Lebanon and the majesty of the woodlands of Carmel and Sharon and the glory of the Lord and the majesty of our God.

Conclusion
So all in all I think we can say that the bible is full of positive messages about wilderness. In God’s garden the man and the woman and comparatively wild nature dwell harmoniously together, each made for the other.

With the loss of this harmony, humanity’s relationship with nature becomes more fraught as people are haunted by fear of the wild animals which may roam wild places, but they still affirm the value of those wild places to God and to the animals to which God has given the wild places. And in visions of God’s future rescue of his exiled people one wilderness – the desert - is transformed into another wild place – the forest. So I think we can take from that a challenge to safeguard wild places as the rightful home of the species that live there and as parts of God’s much loved garden. And a calling to value wilderness for its place in God’s heart, for its value to other species and in its own right, not just for our enjoyment or recreation.

Gen 2:1-15
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2 And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. 4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5 when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6 but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12 and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.

Is 34:8-17
8 For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of vindication by Zion's cause. 9 And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulphur; her land shall become burning pitch. 10 Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; no one shall pass through it forever and ever. 11 But the hawk and the hedgehog shall possess it; the owl and the raven shall live in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plummet of chaos over its nobles. 12 They shall name it No Kingdom There, and all its princes shall be nothing. 13 Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches. 14 Wildcats shall meet with hyenas, goat-demons shall call to each other; there too Lilith shall repose, and find a place to rest. 15 There shall the owl nest and lay and hatch and brood in its shadow; there too the buzzards shall gather, each one with its mate. 16 Seek and read from the book of the Lord: Not one of these shall be missing; none shall be without its mate. For the mouth of the Lord has commanded, and his spirit has gathered them. 17 He has cast the lot for them, his hand has portioned it out to them with the line; they shall possess it forever, from generation to generation they shall live in it.

Is 35
1 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus 2 it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. 3 Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4 Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you." 5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6 then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; 7 the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. 8 A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God's people; no traveller, not even fools, shall go astray. 9 No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. 10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Praying the In-Between

2011-01-02T15:30:00.001Z

Preacher: Phil

I said this Sunday that my reflection was a 'sermon in a suitcase'. Like a lot of UK Methodist preachers (I was a Methodist before I became a Mennonite) I learned my craft from William Sangster whose idea of sermon preparation involved lengthy incarceration in the study. With my books in boxes and hours of worry about mortgages and removals my head was clearly not in the 'zone'.

But in a way the past weeks have been fruitful. Prayer has been hidden in the detail. Sometimes we talk about experience as if we could fast forward between one certainty and other and conveniently omit the messy middle part. Often the journey is as important as the destination. The way a decision is made is usually more important than the outcome. All of us know about the in-betweens. Degrees of homelessness. The frustration of hope. A lapsed friendship. The bundling together of life and death. Silence between the notes that create music. The pauses that make sense of a sentence. A mid-life crisis. Work left unfinished. Malachi to Matthew. A boat in a storm. The gap between 'our Father' and 'Amen'. Cross to Resurrection.

On Sunday it was Psalm 23 that was our in-between reflection. The Psalmist rejoices in the table of hospitality and the cup of life but this is a feast in the teeth of fear. It is a meal celebrated in the dreadful valley and in the presence of deadly enemies. The rod and staff offer further support but they are good for walking and hardly for standing still. Wilderness is the in-between place, but not a dwelling place. Only at the end is the in-between resolved in the Psalmists' tantalising, exhilerating 'forever'.

Christmas is for children?

2010-12-19T11:30:00.000Z

Preacher: Veronica

Readings:

Isaiah 11:6-9

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.

Matthew 18:1-4

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

‘The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes But little Lord Jesus no crying he makes’.

How many of you here hate that line? Me too. I think it’s a glaring example of docetism - the belief that Jesus wasn’t fully human but only appeared to be. After all we can’t have God becoming a real child, one who soils his swaddling cloths and yells for hours, can we?

And another thing: it seems to suggest that for a baby to cry is actually a bad thing. But surely crying is the God-given way for babies to communicate their needs. When a baby is suffering severe malnutrition, it stops crying because it no longer has energy to do so. A non-crying baby is not always a good thing.

The other Christmas carol line we all love to hate is that one from ‘Once in Royal David’s City’:

‘Christian children all must be Mild, obedient, good as he’.

Given that the only story we have of Jesus’ childhood is when he gives his parents the slip and goes missing for three days, this doesn’t seem a very accurate description of Jesus as a child, let alone a goal for Christian children to aim for. In a world of child abuse, parents are not always worthy of obedience, and mildness is not always the safest characteristic for a child to have.

So when Jesus called a child to himself and made that child a model for how his followers should be in the world, what aspects of children was he thinking of? The traditional answer is that we should have the innocence of children. I’m not sure however whether we really know what we mean by innocence. We’re very apt to confuse it with ignorance. Which reminds me of a description I once found in the diary of a Victorian gentleman:

‘At the breakfast was an ancient Vicar, who was interesting as a specimen of the fast failing school of “Evangelical” clergymen, the immediate disciples of Wesley and Scott; men who clung to and preached a few strong and effective tenets, and under the honest pretext of “knowing Christ alone”, remained ignorant of most other things.’

Perhaps the writer was a bit premature in proclaiming the death of Evangelicalism, but his comment is one that still rings bells today. Jesus called us not only to be innocent as doves but to be wise as serpents: there is no particular virtue in ignorance.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says explicitly in what way we should be like children to enter the kingdom of God:. He asks his disciples to become ‘humble like this child’. Children in his time had no social status until they were grown up. Child- centred education hadn’t been invented, and our idea that ‘Christmas is for the children’ would seem extremely strange to them, and not only because they would have no idea what Christmas is.

In the other Gospels, what it means to become like a child is left more open, but it’s always in the context of a discussion among the disciples as to who among them is the greatest. In fact in Mark, this incident is the place where Jesus utters his saying, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” So he’s focusing on the low status of children, the fact that they are dependent on others, that they are vulnerable and defenceless.

In other words, following Jesus is not a way to social respectability, to being looked up to by others, to exercising power over other people’s lives. It’s a way to being of no account, a way to service and suffering - the way that Jesus began to go even as a child when his family became refugees in Egypt.

But Jesus’ parables and sayings are always told in a way that leaves plenty to our imagination. So I don’t think it’s invalid to look at other ways in which children might be a model for our Christian life. I’ll just mention a few.

Children are trusting - and sadly that trust is often abused. Perhaps the worst aspect of cruelty to children is that they lose their implicit trust in adults who are meant to care for them, and become withdrawn from relationships. As adults too we may often be exploited, hurt or insulted. But perhaps Jesus asks us not to lose our trust as a result. Even in an untrustworthy world, we are to think the best of people and expect the best in people - because that’s the only way to get it.

Children are people of the moment. They get totally absorbed in the serious business of play. A normal, well looked after child might spend hours with a saucepan and a wooden spoon, or make a pebble from the beach their most treasured possession. They don’t , or shouldn’t need to, think about whether there will be food tomorrow or a place to sleep. And Jesus asks adults too, not to worry about tomorrow.

Children are intensely involved in the material world. It’s all fresh and new to them - in fact they see the world, as it were, with the eyes of God, as a creation with which God is ‘very pleased’. You’ll have to forgive me for turning yet again to Thomas Traherne, because he’s my hobby horse. Here’s his description of how he saw the world as a child, a vision which as an adult he struggled to recover:

'All appeared new, and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. I was a little stranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys. My knowledge was Divine. I knew by intuition those things which since my Apostasy, I collected again by the highest reason. My very ignorance was advantageous. I seemed as one brought into the Estate of Innocence. All things were spotless and pure andglorious: yea, and infinitely mine, and joyful and precious, I knew not that there were any sins, or complaints or laws. I dreamed not of poverties, contentions or vices. All tears and quarrels were hidden from mine eyes. Everything was at rest, free and immortal. I knew nothing of sickness or death or rents or exaction, either for tribute or bread. In the absence of these I was entertained like an Angel with the works of God in their splendour. and glory, I saw all in the peace of Eden; Heaven and Earth did sing my Creator's praises, and could not make more melody to Adam, than to me: All Time was Eternity, and a perpetual Sabbath. Is it not strange, that an infant should be heir of the whole World, and see those mysteries which the books of the learned never unfold?

'The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting. The dust and stones of the street were as precious as gold: the gates were at first the end of the world. The green trees when I saw them first through one of the gates transported and ravished me, their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap, and almost mad with ecstasy, they were such strange and wonderful things: The Men! O what venerable and reverend creatures did the aged seem! Immortal Cherubims! And young men glittering and sparkling Angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty! Boys and girls tumbling in the street, and playing, were moving jewels. I knew not that they were born or should die; But all things abided eternally as they were in their proper places. Eternity was manifest in the Light of the Day, and something infinite behind everything appeared which talked with my expectation and moved my desire. The city seemed to stand in Eden, or to be built in Heaven. The streets were mine, the temple was mine, the people were mine, their clothes and gold and silver were mine, as much as their sparkling eyes, fair skins and ruddy faces. The skies were mine, and so were the sun and moon and stars, and all the World was mine; and I the only spectator and enjoyer of it. I knew no churlish proprieties, nor bounds, nor divisions: but all proprieties* and divisions were mine: all treasures and the possessors of them. So that with much ado I was corrupted, and made to learn the dirty devices of this world. Which now I unlearn, and become, as it were, a little child again that I may enter into the Kingdom of God.'

Should we as Christians seek that same vision of the world as a glorious gift from God? If we believe God created it, then I think we should.

Finally, children are very ready to forgive. Children are wired for relationship, and a happy child will always put its relationship with caring adults above anything the adults may have done wrong or failed to do. Even the abused child still loves the parent or parents who have so betrayed the child. It’s as though children are programmed to love, which is one of the things that makes child abuse so harmful.

Centuries before Jesus came to us as a child, Isaiah’s vision is of a world where humans and nature are in harmony, where children can safely play with wild creatures, and where the way to wisdom is pointed out by a child. Or as Psalm 8 puts it, ‘From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’.

So instead of saying ‘Christmas is really for the children’, putting children (and Christmas) in a marked off compartment labelled ‘Not for adults’, perhaps at Christmas we should be watching children carefully and letting them lead us.

Advent and the environment - Alpha to Omega

2010-11-28T15:30:00.004Z

Preacher: Veronica

About thirty years ago there was a series in a radical Christian magazine called The Other Side. The series was called The Reversed Standard Version. Basically the writer took a well known passage of Scripture and changed it to mean what people generally seem to think it means. This in many cases totally reversed its true meaning. I found this a very enlightening thing to do. When I read what Richard Bauckham has to say on Colossians in relation to ecology, in his book Bible and Ecology which we are studying, I immediately had the idea of doing the same with the passage he quotes. So here is the Reversed Standard Version of Colossians 1.15-20:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all humanity; for in him all people were created, all people have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all people,
and in him all people hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in humanity. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself some human beings,
by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Thatʼs how Christians often appear to read this passage. Salvation is about rescuing a select few human beings from the dead world of this planet and taking them to heaven. The destiny of the non-human creation is to be burned up, or laid bare, according to how you translate one obscure verse in 2 Peter; and it will be replaced by a new heavens and a new earth.
Now letʼs hear what Colossians 1 really says - and while you hear it, Iʼm setting you a challenge: count how many times Paul uses the words ʻallʼ or ʻeverythingʼ, or the phrase ʻall thingsʼ :

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers— all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven,
by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Any answers? I made it eight, in five verses. This is a poem or hymn about the cosmic Christ, a Christ whose reach extends to all creation; and that is why Richard Bauckham, in Bible and Ecology, chooses it as a source for a biblical understanding of Christʼs relation to ecology.

Metanarrative

Bauckham begins with some background introductory remarks. He points out that most of the biblical theology of the created world is developed in the Old Testament, and is taken for granted in the New. Bauckham doesnʼt mention this, at least in the chapter weʼre studying today, but I would want to add that Jesus himself does often turn to the natural world for the images in his parables and teaching. As Thomas Hardy said in a poem about himself, ʻHe was a man who used to notice such thingsʼ.

What the NT does do is to give us a Christological, or Christ-centred, rendering of the OT theology of creation. In other words, the NT writers are re-reading the OT in the light of Christ, and in it they discover that Jesus Christ is intimately involved in the whole story of creation. Hence the repeating of ʻall thingsʼ in our Colossians passage - Christʼs work encompasses Godʼs whole creation, earthly and heavenly.

Bauckham sees this as part of a metanarrative, or overarching story, which is about the relationship between God, humanity and the rest of creation. This story is leading to a goal, and the goal is all of creation being taken into eternity. And this goal is being achieved through Jesus Christ, who is active both in the original creation and in the renewal of creation. As Revelation 22.13 puts it, ʻI am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.’

Lost narrative

Clearly this understanding of Christ’s role towards creation has not always been prominent in Christian thinking, in fact it’s been entirely obscured sometimes. This is because of the intrusion of philosophical ideas from other world views, in particular the world view of Plato, in the early centuries of Christianity. In Platonism, there is a strong dualism between matter and spirit, and spirit is always superior to matter. I’ve seen this expressed in another book as a simple diagram:

MIND SPIRIT = GOOD/IMMORTAL

BODY SEX = BAD/MORTAL

Now contrast the Christian view, based on Hebrew thinking, as expressed in another diagram:

MIND BODY SPIRIT = GOOD/TO BE RESURRECTED

When my friend Evelyn, who is normally quite prim and proper, saw this diagram she immediately asked, ‘Where’s the sex in the Christian one?’ Which is a pretty good question, so let’s add it in.

Early theologians tried to combat Platonism by a more biblical view of the goodness of material creation. But there is quite a lot of evidence that over the centuries, the battle was to a large extent lost. You only have to think of a chorus that used to be popular: ‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of his glory and grace’. What’s so wrong with the things of earth, which God has created, that turning to Jesus has to turn us away from them? This is exactly the criticism environmentalists have made of Christian theology, that it sets humanity in opposition to nature.

Bauckham says there is a modern version of Platonic idealism, which is our scientific quest to ‘conquer’ nature and bend it to our purposes. This creates a dualism of humanity versus nature, in which our goal is to become completely independent of nature, maybe by some form of everlasting artificial intelligence. In Bauckham’s words, ‘We should be deploying the Christian belief in the resurrection of the body against these anti-human technological aspirations’. Or to put it another way, ‘Salvation is not the replacement but the renewal of creation’.

Eco-narrative

Against this background, Bauckham explores the Colossian hymn as what he calls a Christological eco-narrative (sorry about all the jargon). It’s constructed in two halves, the first about the creation of all things in, for and through Christ, and then about the reconciliation of all things in, for and through Christ. The two parts parallel each other totally in language and structure, so that the scope of reconciliation is as wide as the scope of creation.

But this is not about some cosmic Christ figure set in eternity, but specifically about the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth, who embodies the universal in a particular human life. This Jesus shares God’s relation to the world: he is both creator and redeemer, and he has begun the reconciliation between God and all of nature. The key verse is, ‘through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross’.

Bauckham says this means that ‘the Gospel story - the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus - is focal and decisive for all creation. The fullness of God in him is the intensive presence of the God who fills heaven and earth. His sacrificial death identifies him with the whole of the suffering and perishing creation. His resurrection inaugurates the renewal of all creation’.
He goes on to list some ecological conclusions we can draw from this passage. Firstly, it gives a holistic view of creation, because all creation is integrated in Jesus Christ. Secondly, this vision relates to the actual human figure of Jesus, crucified and risen. This, he says thirdly, is the hidden mystery at the heart of creation. This mystery cannot be discovered in creation itself because creation is full of violence, but it can be seen in the way God transcends that violence in Jesus. By his non-violent, self-giving love, Jesus overcomes the violence of creation.

Fourthly, there is the mention of the ‘powers’ at the heart of the Colossians hymn. This is there to tell us that while earth may appear to be in thrall to powers of violence and injustice, they are in fact already conquered by the cross. And their conquest becomes a practical reality by God working through us as we seek to make a better world.

This brings him to the fifth point, which is really a question: is creation fallen? As modern people we now know that there was animate life long before humans emerged, so we can no longer hold to the idea that nature is corrupted because of some historic human action. In fact violence and death are integral to the processes of nature, and without them the evolution of species could not happen. So where did what we see as evil in nature, come from?

According to Bauckham, the Bible does not really attempt to answer this question fully, but what it does do is to prophesy that through Christ the creation will be liberated from the evils that it now suffers. It is focused on the creation’s future, not its past.
At this point we can turn to the other passage Bauckham examines in the first half of this chapter: John’s prologue to his Gospel.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life,
and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it....
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him...
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son,full of grace and truth.

All four Gospels begin by linking the story of Jesus to the story of the OT, but John goes back the furthest: to the beginning of Time itself. By starting his Gospel with the words ‘In the beginning’, he is offering us a way to read the Genesis story in the light of Jesus. He is also giving a nod to Proverbs 8, in which a figure identified as ‘Wisdom’ tells us:

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. When he established the heavens, I was there,
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master worker, and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.

Although this describes a created figure rather than an uncreated one, Wisdom in this context is often identified with ‘the Word’ who was with God and who was God in John 1. This is the Word who becomes flesh in Jesus: God incarnate entering into our created world, so that in the end our created world can be taken into God. Notice how that phrase ‘all things’ recurs in this passage: in both the creation and the Incarnation, Christ is related to the whole creation, human, animal and inanimate. This is the world which is to be redeemed, when in Bauckham’s words ‘creation finds its fulfillment in being taken into the divine life’.

Advent

Finally, Bauckham looks at some of the nature miracles in the Gospels, such as the calming of the storm, and at the wider meaning of the Kingdom of God in Jesus’ teaching. He points out that the phrase ‘the kingdom of God’ would have called out Old Testament echoes in the minds of Jesus’ hearers. There are parallels to it both in Isaiah, a book the Gospel writers quote a great deal, and also in the Psalms, which emphasize the kingship of God over all creation. For example in Psalm 95:

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed.
O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker

God is the King of all creation, and humans are invited to join in the praise which the animal and inanimate creation already offer. We are also told that creation looks forward to the coming of God to judge and rule the earth. Hereʼs part of Psalm 96:

Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord; for he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth.

So Jesusʼ nature miracles are a foretaste of the wholeness which will eventually come to all creation, and the Kingdom he proclaims is one that encompasses all creation. Which brings me to my conclusion, which I canʼt put better than Bauckham does: ʻWhen God does come to judge and to rule, all creation will rejoice at his adventʼ.

The community of creation - praising & mourning together

2010-11-21T15:30:00.003Z

Preacher: Chris

Bible reading: Psalm 148

This afternoon, we will be discussing the final section of the third chapter of Richard Bauckham’s book Bible and Ecology, in which he describes a ‘community of creation’ that both praises and mourns together. During the talk today I would like us to keep in mind the idea of testimony and counter-testimony, as it will be (hopefully) helpful in discussing what appear to be contradictory, even offensive passages. Indeed, I know I have been thinking about the idea of counter-testimony far too much since I first heard the term used. At the flat Tim and I have recently moved into, there were a few scattered dishes and cups that the previous tenant had left. I have a strange compulsion that insists on having matching plateware, glasses and so forth—it’s really weirded out a few of my flatmates over the years. So after a recent trip to IKEA in which we brought back six matching plates and six matching bowls and six glasses, I relegated the old plates and bowls to somewhere under the sink, only to be pulled out in times of dinner party desperation, and called these dishes the ‘counter-testimony’ plates as opposed to the ‘testimony’ plates and bowls which are easily accessible in the cupboards. Faith interacts with real life!

But that aside, I would like to open by re-considering Psalm 148. Baukham discusses the ‘community of creation’ and emphasizes the inter-relationship among humanity and ‘the rest of creation’. One of the ways in which this inter-relatedness is demonstrated is in the concept of ‘praising our maker together’—that is, all of creation joins together in praise: it is an act which unites the natural world. Baukham performs an extended close reading on Psalm 148, the one we read together just a short while ago. Baukham notes that the ordering of the psalm places human praise last, but he does not see this as a sign that human praise is somehow more valuable or necessary; in fact, any talk of valuation seems inapplicable. How are we to compare, for instance, the praise of a mountain—majestic, inanimate—to the praise of a ‘flying bird’? Or the praise of the stars to that of snow? Rather, the psalmist invites praise from the whole of creation, from the angels in heaven to the physical earth and the creatures—including humans—that inhabit it. This praise is not to be taken as some kind of animism that ‘attributes consciousness to all things’, but neither is it to be taken as mere ‘poetic fancy’. Instead, the metaphorical language of the psalm points toward a reality in which, to quote Baukham, ‘all creatures bring glory to God simply by being themselves and fulfilling their God-given roles in God’s creation’. Apart from its rather Lord of the Rings-like injunction (‘Put aside the Ranger. Become who you were born to be!’), Baukham’s statement implies a fundamental self-identity, a joy in creation, a joy in being created that all of creation shares. We join nature in praise, on one level, by simply being, but at the same time our being is not in a solitary or self-serving manner; rather, our being points to a being created—a relational existence tied to a creator.

Yet often we find ourselves distanced from a sense of unifying praise. At home group this week, we were talking about isolation from nature in the urban environment, how even the nature we do encounter is a permitted nature, formed and bounded by human strictures and desire. We permit a commons green to grow, but we place walking paths in it and restrict its shape by the presence of roads and fences. The landscape of allotments is at once natural—plants of all kinds grow in them and creatures make them their home—but at the same time they are a direct product of human conditioning and formation: we command the ground and order it to our using, which is perfectly understandable, but we risk suffering a separation from the land and creatures that, like us, embody or point to praise of God. To quote Baukham at length:

Before the modern period, the praise of all the creatures seems to have been more widely appreciated in the Church. The reasons why it has fallen out of most modern Christian’s consciousness must be urban people’s isolation from nature, which deprives them of a living sense of participation in nature, and the modern instrumentalising of nature, which turns it into mere material for human use. But these reasons also suggest how valuable it might be to recover a living sense of participation in creation’s praise of God. It is the strongest antidote to anthropocentrism in the biblical and Christian tradition. When we join our fellow-creatures in attributing glory to God, there is no hierarchy and no anthropocentricity. In this respect all creatures, including ourselves, are simply fellow-creatures expressing the theocentricity of the created world, each in our own created way, differently but in complementarity. As Psalm 148:13 says, in this worship God’s name alone is exalted: there is no place in worship for the exaltation of any creature over others. Moreover, to recognise creation’s praise is to abandon a purely instrumental view of nature. All creatures exist for God’s glory, and we most effectively learn to see other creatures in that way, to glimpse, as it were, their value for God that has nothing to do with their usefulness to us, when we join them in their own glorification of God.

We normally treat nature as a neighborhood—the physical space in which we conduct our individual and social interactions, but Baukham would press us to think of creation not only as a neighborhood but also as a neighbor. As the expert in the law who tested Jesus by asking ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life’ and then attempted to justify himself by asking ‘And who is my neighbor’ received a life-expanding answer to his question, so too perhaps we could benefit from probing the question of not only who, but also what is my neighbor. How do we treat the world around us in such a way as to acknowledge is co-adulation of the God which we, too, praise? We can—must, really—move beyond a view which simply asks ‘How can this matter before me be useful to me’ since this results not only in resource depletion, but a fundamental lack of respect for our physical reality.

The Bible records, as we have seen in Psalm 148, creation’s praise to its creator, and humanity is included or invited to enter this cosmic praise. Humanity becomes tied to a community through its shared praise. But just as we share in creation’s praise, so too we also share in its mourning. The Bible describes several instances in which nature is said to mourn—nature withers, it is blighted, it suffers destruction. But Biblical passages in the Old Testament connect ecological suffering with human behavior. That is to say, the Bible assumes, much more than we do today, a direct relationship between human action and natural suffering. It assumes humans exist in a tight-knit moral relationship with and to nature. Hence we find passages such as this one from Jeremiah 12:4:

‘How long will the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither? For the wickedness of those who live in it the animals and the birds are swept away, and because people said, “He is blind to our ways”’

Or this longer passage from Hosea 4:1-3:

Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites,
because the LORD has a charge to bring
against you who live in the land:
“There is no faithfulness, no love,
no acknowledgment of God in the land.
2 There is only cursing, lying and murder,
stealing and adultery;
they break all bounds,
and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
3 Because of this the land dries up,
and all who live in it waste away;
the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the fish in the sea are swept away.

This is pretty scary stuff. Human propensity toward evil results in even the fish of the sea being swept away. Nor is ancient Israel the only culture to make such a connection. In Shakespeare we often find evil deeds in the human realm reflected in the disorder of the natural world. After the murder of King Duncan in Macbeth, an old man comments:

'Tis unnatural,
Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last,
A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.
And Duncan's horses—a thing most strange and certain—
Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make
War with mankind. 'Tis said they eat each other.

In response to the unnatural murder of the king, nature reverses itself. The falcon, the chief aerial predator, is killed by an owl who normally hunts mice for its prey. And elegant horses suddenly ‘turn’d wild’ and reportedly begin to eat each other. Act 1, Scene 3 of Julius Caesar opens with ‘thunder and lightning’. Casca describes unnatural portents, foretelling the (unnatural) assassination that will occur within the ‘two hour’s traffic’ of the stage:

O Cicero,
I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,
To be exalted with the threatening clouds:
But never till to-night, never till now,
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction.

I could go on with several examples, in part because nature’s stormy response to the events of humankind is an effective way to increase dramatic tension on stage, but also because, to the Elizabethan mind, in a world in which all nature is ordered and intimately interconnected, the untimely death of a king requires a response from nature. So what are we to make of these passages—Biblical, Shakespearean or otherwise, which form a direct and uncomfortable link between human moral behavior and ecological disaster? Baukham is comfortable enough to say, though not in a terribly straight-forward manner: ‘The natural order and the moral order are by no means unconnected’, which he qualifies by examining Paul’s writing in Romans 8:19-23:

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the reaction waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning and in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

Creation suffers with us as we await redemption. To quote Baukham again:

Paul and the prophets share what Ellen Davis calls ‘the biblical understanding of the world, in which the physical, moral and spiritual orders fully interpenetrate one another—in contrast to the modern superstition that these are separable categories’. This is not to say that Paul or the prophets understood the connection between human behavior and ecological degradation in the way that we are now able to do, but what modern scientific knowledge makes possible is mainly a fuller understanding of how human physical behavior (burning fossil fuels, over-fishing the oceans and so forth) has extensive and destructive consequences for the ecosystems of the planet. For the ethical and spiritual dimensions that pervade such human behavior it is we who can learn from the biblical writers.

That is to say, science can instruct us in how precisely over-harvesting of oysters in the Chesapeake Bay (near my home), for instance, can lead to destructive environmental consequences. But Buakham points us back to a spiritual search for why such over-harvesting takes place.

To go on a bit of a tangent before closing: To be frank I have been a bit wary of aspects of our entire discussion of creation, especially in dealing with concepts such as ‘the fall’ or this idea that humanity’s moral choices are made apparent in the natural world. I am wary because of the way in which this thinking has been used to blame destructive natural events on certain groups. So, for instance, we have Pat Robertson blaming hurricane Katrina on the prevalence of abortion in America, and, as we discussed last January, sickeningly, the earthquake in Haiti upon a supposed pact the Haitians made with the devil. So I’m interested in probing this question of how we can say ‘humanity and the rest of creation are intimately linked’ because there is a logical benefit of argument in doing so, without wandering into territory in which ideas on teenage premarital sexual activity are bringing about natural disasters. Perhaps this is merely a matter of re-defining ‘moral choice’ away from, say, whether a woman decides to have an abortion or not or whether or not it’s okay for two men to love each other (gay people historically have also been blamed for natural disasters), and to a moral imperative more closely related to human interaction with the earth—how does our ‘need’ for fried (or raw, if you’re into that sort of thing) oysters affect the health of the Bay? Or, perhaps this involves bringing in counter-testimonies—the sun does shine, after all, on both the evil and the good.

It is difficult for me, at least, to fully conceive of being part of a community of creation. Life in London is a bizarre mixture of human manipulation of physical matter—the Tube, for instance—and patches of nature in a more traditional sense—Highgate Wood, etc. I recall a few weeks ago we read together a modernised form of Psalm 148, in which we said something along the lines of ‘Skyscrapers, praise the Lord!’ (or buses, trains and so forth). Sitting on the Tube to come over to the LMC today, I was thinking about this psalm for an urban environment. What does it mean, how can it possibly be that a community of creation can include something like a telephone pole? Does a bicycle or a Tube carriage join in praise of God? I’m not sure what to think, nor could I formulate anything overwhelmingly pointed to say in the trip from Goodge Street to Highgate, but I do think that our interactions with the material world, especially in an urban environment, require some understanding of urban landscape as, too, existing as part of our community of creation, even, paradoxically, as some of the very ‘urbanness’ we co-exist with is demonstrably harmful to other aspects of the material world.

To draw to a close, we have looked at how we are joined in and with the ‘community of creation’ in a shared way—in a sharing of praise together—as well as in a causal way—human actions bring about environmental consequences. As members of a community, we bear a responsibility to our neighbors, both human and non-human. Baukham’s most prescient point perhaps lies in his link between the liberation of creation discussed in Romans and Jesus’ discussion of the Kingdom of God. The realization of both events is set in the future, yet co-exist in the present, or we ourselves act to bring them about. As Baukham says: ‘We cannot achieve the liberation of creation but we can anticipate it’. In so far as humanity’s spiritual struggling ties into nature’s own suffering, we are incapable of setting nature free from its ‘bondage to decay’, yet like the Kingdom of God, we actively can be bringing it about.

The community of creation – sharing the earth

2010-11-14T15:30:00.002Z

Preacher: Sue

Readings: Ps 104, Matt 6:25-33

This is the fifth in our sermon series on creation and the environment and the fourth looking at Richard Bauckham’s book Bible and Ecology. The theme for today is “the community of creation – sharing the earth”.

Creation - solidarity & care

Veronica started this series with a look at the Genesis 2 creation story. She pointed out that the man is made from the dust of the ground – just as the birds and other animals are a few verses later. Humans and all the other creatures are made of the same stuff – they are all part of the “community of creation” that Bauckham talks about throughout the book. And humans are commissioned to cultivate and preserve the earth – not to cultivate it intensively till it gives way to dustbowl and desert but to cultivate it in such a way that it is also preserved.

Flood – violence, chaos, creation re-made, violence contained

Veronica then looked at the flood and memorably observed that one of the main symptoms of creation’s gradual descent into corruption and alienation from God was that it was full of violence.

Bauckham defines the Flood as a kind of ‘de-creation’, a return to chaos. But at the end of the story there is a ‘re-creation’ in the covenant that God makes with Noah and his descendants and, significantly, with ‘every living creature that is with you’.

Creation – tenants and fellow-fillers

Wayne also talked about the “community of creation” and pointed out that its not just humans who are encouraged to “fill the earth”. The sea creatures are encouraged to fill the seas and the birds to fill the earth. We have to bear that in mind when we interpret ideas like subduing the earth and having dominion over it – as well as remembering that the earth belongs to God and we are merely tenants.

Job

Lesley looked at some passages from Job which remind us that we are simply a small part of God’s creation, a part about which God cares, no doubt, but part of the community of created beings, who are not less important. Our task is to respect them, to accept that God is working ultimately for our good (however painful and puzzling life may be at times) and join the divine resistance against the forces of chaos and destruction.

So, now for today’s passages. Let’s start with Psalm 104, one of my favourite psalms.

Humans & animals – dependence & empowerment

It is full of a sense of right-ness and order and plenty. Every creature including humans has its place in connection with God, and the earth. I love the picture of the young lions roaring for their food from God, depending on God to keep the universe going and provide food for them. Not that this is a passive dependence. The lions may roar as they seek their food from God but they don’t just lounge around waiting for some tasty prey to drop from the sky – they are busy out hunting all night, the birds are busy building their nests and the people are busy going out to work all day. There’s a lot of purposeful and fruitful activity and freedom here which Bauckham calls empowerment.

Generosity and exuberance

Another thing I love about this psalm is the generosity and plenty of it all. God gives humans not only bread but also wine and olive oil. And Leviathan (maybe an untamed monster or maybe a real animal perhaps a whale) is apparently there partly just for the fun of playing in the sea.

Unique habitats

The psalm is full of good things in great variety and they all come from God. God gives different habitats & has different creatures in mind to occupy them. So for instance “the high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the coneys”, whatever they are. I think that’s important to hear in an age where human activity is destroying habitats directly by building on top of them or indirectly through climate change, pollution and so on. It challenges us to ask whether difficult-to-cultivate wildernesses are a technical challenge to be overcome by ingenious agriculture or development or are actually areas intended for other creatures to enjoy.

Animals subjects of their own lives

I guess some of you may be beginning to squirm as I drift towards anthropomorphism here. I admit that it is a huge temptation for me - for which I blame my father who made the most of my vivid imagination as a child to tease me into empathy for even inanimate objects - like a toy car limping along forlornly with a wheel missing.

But I call Bauckham to my defence! Bauckham does allow a little cautious anthropomorphism. It is, he says, the only way we can empathise at all with other conscious creatures. It’s not to say that it’s exactly the same for a dolphin to be excited or playful as it is for us – just that it’s reasonable to talk about a dolphin being excited or playful. So he suggests we can be a bit anthropomorphic so long as we still do our best to understand animals as animals and within their own world.

And I think a little cautious anthropomorphism will allow us to hear a message Bauckham sees here, that the animals in this psalm are all the “subjects of their own lives”. They are all busy being themselves and doing the things a bird or a lion or a Leviathan needs to do. And they relate directly to God, they don’t have to go through humans as a kind of dominion-wielding earth-subduing middle-man. God is at the centre here, with humans dependent on God just as the other creatures are. To use Bauckham’s terms, this is a theocentric vision, not an anthropocentric one. And God delights in all of creation – and the beauty of this psalm invites us to join God in appreciating and respecting our fellow creatures.

The specialness of humans?

But, you may be asking, aren’t we humans special in some way? Made in God’s image, don’t we have some special connection with God?

Well, in Psalm 104 there are only really two concessions to any kind of specialness for humans. One is the reference to cattle and crops which implicitly acknowledges that there are some animals and plants with which humans have a special relationship – which seems to be OK as God provides the plants for cultivation and the grass for the cattle. And the other is the very last verse we’re reminded that there are sinners & wicked people on the earth.

We may have another question as we read this psalm’s vision of a world where everything is working so well and every creature is apparently happy and well-fed. What do we make of this when we know full well that many people are NOT provided for, when in Haiti people weakened by years of not having enough to live on and months of post earthquake chaos are dying of cholera, or closer to home when failed asylum seekers in this country have to try to live on nothing?

That seems like a good point to turn to the words of Jesus in our Matthew passage.

In some ways we are very much in the same world here as we were in Psalm 104. The heavenly Father clothes the grass of the field with flowers and feeds the birds of the air.

What will we eat, what will we drink, what will we wear?

But Jesus knows his listeners are also wondering whether they will be clothed and fed. And for us too there may be real questions about how we will stay afloat financially, what will happen if we don’t find work or if we lose our jobs, how we will manage when we are too old to work and so on.

What does Jesus say to these worries? “If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you?” At first sight we may think that Jesus is saying “humans are more important than the rest of creation so God will take care of us”. But, following Bauckham, I think what he is actually saying is “God takes care of all of creation, even the bits we hardly notice or worry about, and that includes us”. Jesus does say that we are of more value than the birds but that’s not the reason we are cared for. The heavenly Father cares for us because we are part of creation and God cares for all of creation.

Of course, the birds’ dependence on God’s care is much more obvious that ours. The birds have to forage afresh each day; human beings can gather what they’ve sown and reaped into barns and then pretty well forget about depending on God till they’ve emptied the barn and are back at the beginning of the sowing and reaping cycle again the following spring. Or in our case we can just pop out to shop in Sirwan or Morrisons – making it even easier to forget our dependence on God. But, whether we have a job or not, a cupboard full of food or an empty bank account, we are dependent on God’s provision just as the birds are.

What about those who aren’t clothed and fed?

Jesus’ clear assumption is that God will always meet the birds’ needs and ours. And some of us may have stories of how God has provided just what we needed just when we were at our most desperate. But we could list plenty of examples where that isn’t true, perhaps even moments in our own lives. Human activity, agriculture, climate change deprive birds and animals of what they need to survive and populations plummet or become extinct. Millions of people live without access to adequate food, clean water, sanitation, clothing & shelter. Richard Bauckham’s take on this is that Jesus is assuming that the people of his time are living according to the OT law which is designed to ensure that even the poorest have enough to eat, for instance by tithing and leaving food in the fields for gleaners to gather up. There is enough for everyone so long as people obey these commandments and don’t greedily seize it all for themselves.

So what does this mean for those of us who may have more than we need to survive?

Well, that’s where I’d like to come back to my title for today: “sharing the earth”. Sometimes for other people to have what they need may require some action on our part, whether directly or through campaigning and humanitarian organisations or by lobbying governments for better sharing internationally. And it may also require us to demand less from the earth ourselves so there is more left for all our fellow creatures, the birds and the animals and other humans. We may need to accept a slightly less comfortable but more generous lifestyle for the sake of sharing the earth with the rest of the community of creation.

So I think Psalm 104 and Matt 6 have a key point in common. They describe a community of creation which is abundant, diverse and beautiful. There is enough for every human and every creature as they all depend on a generous God and none takes more than they need. Sometimes we find this kind of vision in prophecies of God intervening to put everything right some time in the future. The challenge of these passages is that they expect this vision to work here and now.

Job – Putting things in their place

2010-10-31T15:30:00.000Z

Preacher: Lesley

This is the third of our sermons looking at Bible and Ecology, following the book of that name by Richard Bauckham. Although, traditionally, our relationship to the natural universe is explored through the Creation narratives in Genesis Bauckham says that to get a balanced view of what the whole Bible says, we need to take a broader view and see what attitudes to Creation are revealed in other biblical scriptures. So today we leave the book of Genesis and turn to Job.

It might seem strange to think about Job when we want to discuss Creation. Last week at the weekend away we touched briefly on Brueggeman’s scheme for interpreting the old Testament scriptures: that they basically comprise Israel’s core testimony about God, but also there is a strand of counter testimony. The core testimony is that if God’s people remain faithful to God, obeying all the commandments, then they will be prosperous and happy. If they disobey God, they will have conflict and will lose the promised land.
We saw that last week in Psalm 139 “ You search

But there is another thread that we hear in the Hebrew Scriptures, We heard it last weekend in Psalm 88: “ I am desperate, your wrath has swept over me…O Lord why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me?”
Many of us have felt like that over the years, some more often than not. Job is a story which addresses the question of why do the innocent suffer. For it is true that a body of people, who live generously and avoid wasting money on unnecessary things, that strives to maintain relationships and to deal honestly, that does not gamble and not to overvalue material wealth will, as a whole, taken over generations, be prosperous and content. You can see this with the Dutch Mennonites and the Quakers.

But it doesn’t seem to work quite like that for individuals. This is a problem that every religion has to deal with if it believes in a god who is loving or at least just. The story of Job is a fable set in the time of the patriarchs and it seeks to address this question. Job, the righteous, rich man is seen to lose everything that constitutes wealth in his society – his flocks and herds and his many sons and daughters. Finally his health is affected.

Christians who are feeling that God has abandoned them or is even against them are often recommended to read the book of Job, as I was.

So then, imagine the suffering Christian reading through Job. First of all there’s God having a kind of bet with Satan that Job is not a good man only because he’s prosperous. Is my situation some sort of test like that. Then there are pages and pages to plough through of Job’s 3 friends insisting that he must have done something wrong because God doesn’t do things without a cause. These are punctuated by Job reiterating that he has lived blamelessly and calling for some way to put his case before God (that sounds better) Let’s skip some more of this stuff and then the young man Elihu saying that God is just and Job is too proud to listen to him,

At last after 37 chapters – a section headed ‘The voice of God’ Now, some answers for Job and perhaps for me.

So God answers Job out of the whirlwind. ”Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” ?

Reading Job 38 4-7

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone - when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?”

So here is God, the cosmic architect – building by a careful design that Job never knew anything about. But God is making Job face the reality of his own insignificance.

He goes on to question what Job knows about the control of the sea – a great symbol of chaos in the ancient world:

Reading Job 38 8-11

Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?—when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, "Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped'?

God goes on to point out that Job knows nothing about the dawn, which limits the wickedness that goes on in darkness and he asks about Job’s knowledge of the underworld.

Reading Job 38 16-18

"Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this.

God continues in the same heavily ironic vein to question Job’s understanding of light and darkness, of good and bad weather, controlling the stars. Job must be cringing by this time and the questioning of him may seem brutal, but God does not seem to be angry and the poetry shows the huge sweep of God’s imagination and power, in keeping in check all these powerful elements, in ways he cannot imagine. His only response must be humility before these majesties of the Cosmos.

These days we might say, “No I don’t know that, but I can look it up on Wikipedia.” Humanity as a whole does know a great deal more than could be known in the time of Job. But we don’t all know it by any means.

This reminds me of an argument I had with my Mum and Dad one day when I was a teenager. I happened to mention the limitation of the human brain and they both immediately declared that No the human brain isn’t limited. Maybe I remember it because they were both on the same side for once or because it didn’t seem to be rationally possible that any physical structure could be limitless.

The human brain contains trillions of neurons and a great deal of computing power. Peter can tell you all about that. But still no human being can know all human knowledge. Even what is in all our computers does not tell us all about the universe. Those who delve into its mysteries tend to become more humble before the awesome complexity of the Universe.

There are theories saying that we can never know all about the Universe, because that would entail knowing where each atom and electron and proton and quark is at any given time. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is a mathematical law which basically says if we know where an electron is, we don’t know when it was there and vice versa. In other words complete knowledge is a human impossibility. So we could say that God is the one who transcends the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. But even then, if we found some way of getting round the principle, we would still find more layers of stuff we don’t know. God is not just the God of the gaps, providing an explanation for what we don’t yet understand.

God hasn’t finished with Job. He then moves on and asks Job to consider 10 selected animals and birds. The questions are pretty much the same: does Job know, can he understand; can he control? But there is also whether Job can provide for these creatures, as God does. He starts with carnivores:

Job 38: 39-41

"Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens, or lie in wait in their lair? Who provides prey for the raven, when his fledglings cry to God, and wander about for lack of food?”

We often assume that knowledge means power and yet we can make deadly assumptions about the animal world. I heard last week that by the beginning of the 20th century, the large herds of antelopes and other big herbivores in Southern Africa were being wiped out through shooting and the encroachment of farming. So in many game reserves a policy of killing off all the top predators – lions, leopards, hyenas, cheetahs, wild dogs and crocodiles, for instance, was put into practice. But the herds did not recover and it was realized that removing predators affects the whole eco-system. We may be uncomfortable with the idea of God supplying prey for the lions. It summons up ideas of ‘Nature red in tooth and claw’ as Tennyson put it. But in the wild, predators don’t have any pride about what they catch. They just go for the easiest meal – the confused or abandoned young one which would not have survived or the old or injured animal. They don’t attack the breeding adults in their prime. But if the old and injured survive longer than they might, it means less food for all when the rains are delayed.

In Job, the words ascribed to God are closely observed descriptions of the way animals behave and especially how they care for their young. They are almost entirely descriptions of wild animals, stressing that their lives are completely independent of humankind and are not subject to human will:
“Is the wild ox willing to serve you; will he spend the night by your crib?”

The exception might seem to be the horse:

Reading Job 39 19-25

"Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with mane? Do you make him leap like the locust? His majestic snorting is terrible. He paws violently, exults in his strength, he goes out to meet the weapons. He laughs at fear, and is not dismayed; he does not recoil from the sword. On his back rattles the quiver, the flashing spear, and the javelin. With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground; at the sound of the trumpet he cannot stand still. When the trumpet sounds, he shouts ‘Hurrah! ' He smells the battle from afar, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.”

But this is a war horse - a stallion whose natural instincts are to fight. Humans could not force him to fight. The poetry makes it very clear that this is an independent being. There is no rider in this stanza; if it were not for the weapons rattling on his back, this could be a poetic description of the stallion going out to meet another horse challenging his dominance.

Some commentators see metaphors in these passages which apply to human beings, using them to underline humanity’s superiority to the animal kingdom. The commentary in my Harper’s study Bible, for instance says:
Underlying God’s comments here is his divine compassion toward the inferior creatures on the planet; he takes tender care of them. Therefore Job has no reason for charging God with unkindness toward him. Later The hawk and the eagle function by the natural power and instinct given them by God…Shall not humankind, the highest of God’s creation confess their own weakness and ignorance and give glory to the one who has made them?

I don’t think that it’s that complicated at all. This comes from the mindset that God could not be concerned about anything that isn’t to do with humanity. But there are no humans in all this vivid picture of the natural world. The seas and skies and land require no intervention from Job – even if he were able to affect them. Even closer to home, there is a whole section of the animal kingdom which goes it’s way without intervention by humanity. Not only does God care for each of these creatures – none of it for human benefit, but in the vivid descriptions of their independence and uniqueness, it is clear that God also loves them as he does humanity.
So not only is Job lacking in knowledge and power – humanity is not the only focus of God’s creation. He is just a created being, looked after by God amongst other created beings, which are not there for his benefit.

Job is speechless but God goes on to challenge Job to assume a mantle of power and to punish the proud and wicked. Of course Job lacks the power to rule even the human world.

God continues with a description of the great land monster Behemoth.

Reading Job 40 15-17, 19; 22-24

"Look at Behemoth, whom I made just as I made you; he eats grass like an ox. His strength is in his loins, his potency in the muscles of his belly! He stiffens his tail like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knotted together. He ranks first among the works of God, even his Maker can only approach him with a sword.
The lotus trees conceal him in their shade; the willows of the brook surround him. If the river rages, he is not alarmed; he is confident, even though the Jordan surges against his mouth. Can anyone capture him by the eyes, or pierce his nose?”

To us it seems like a hippopotamus – but this is more than any hippo we’ve seen on the documentaries. It is huge and not to be captured. At that time, the hippo was native to the Nile river in Egypt and there was much interaction with Israel. Though sometimes given the form of a God, it’s likeness was also worn as an amulet. But there are also pictures surviving to this day of Egyptian hippo hunts. It seems as if the writer of Job is using the form of the hippopotamus to indicate something much more.

Together with Behemoth goes Leviathan, who seems to be a great water monster modelled on the crocodile, but what crocodile was ever like this?

Reading Job 41 1-3; 13-15; 18-21; 31-34

"Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook, or tie down his tongue with a cord? Can you put a rope through his nose, or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he make many supplications to you? Will he speak soft words to you?

Who can strip off his outer garment? Who can penetrate his double coat of mail? Who can open the doors of his mouth? Terror is all around his teeth. His back is a row of shields tightly sealed together. His sneezes flash forth lightning, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. Firebrands pour from his mouth; sparks of fire leap out. Smoke billows from his nostrils, as if from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds. His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth.

He makes the deep boil like a cauldron; he makes the sea like a pot of ointment. Behind him he leaves a luminous path; one would think the deep had white-hair. On earth he has no equal, created as he was without fear. He looks down on all the arrogant; he is king over all who are proud."

These two monsters are supreme over land and water. This is not a return to the previous description of animals. These are mythical beasts of great strength – they cannot be wounded or subdued. Leviathan is found in Canaanite mythology as a personification of chaos. Here he is also king of all the forces of arrogance and evil that defy the creator.

One of the reasons people so frequently give for not believing in, or following God is ‘Why should God allow so much evil in the world?’ The book of Job asserts that yes, there is evil in the world, but, just as we heard that God contained the proud waves that would burst their banks, so God limits the forces of chaos and evil personified as Leviathan and Behemoth. Not only has God restrained everything that works against God in Creation, but Job 41 implies that eventually God will destroy them.

Job 41; 10-11

No-one is so fierce as to dare stir him up
But who can stand before my face
Whoever confronts me I will requite, for everything under the heavens is mine.

Isaiah 27, 1 explicitly says that at the end of time, God will destroy Leviathan.

By the end of God’s speech about Leviathan, Job has been thoroughly put in his place. Not only does he not understand the world and how it was made, he has been shown that God loves other creatures as much as humanity and provides for them as well. Job has neither the wisdom nor power even to rule humans, let alone the forces of the Cosmos. He may complain about evil in the world but is entirely ignorant of how God strives to force back and eventually overcome the forces of chaos.

The message is that Job is simply a part of a Creation he does not understand and over which he can claim no lordship or control. For us, whose power and knowledge have grown since those days, the implication is that if humans aspire to godlike creative power and challenge the divine order, then they share the arrogance of Leviathan and join the proud, over whom Leviathan is king.

I can’t finish there without telling the happy ending. Job’s honour was vindicated and he regained his health fortune – with even more flocks and herds than he had before. And once again he has seven sons and three daughters. So what has changed? This time, instead of the sons having feasts in turn in each others houses and inviting their sisters, the emphasis is much more on Job’s daughters. They are each named (names for women are not common in the Hebrew Scriptures) and Job defies convention by allowing them to inherit as well as their brothers. It is as if in seeing his place as just another creature in Creation, he has also recognized that all humans are made in God’s image – perhaps why there is an emphasis on the beauty of the daughters. Sadly, we don’t hear anything about Mrs Job, who also lost her prosperity and all her children originally and then may have had the task of producing another seven sons and 3 daughters. But perhaps that’s to ask too much of an ancient patriarchy.

We’ve learnt that God’s answer to why the innocent suffer is not a detailed explanation of God’s purposes and plans – we could not possibly comprehend it all. It is to be reminded that we are simply a small part of God’s creation, a part about which God cares, no doubt, but part of the community of created beings, who are not less important. Our task is to respect them, to accept that God is working ultimately for our good and join the divine resistance of the forces of chaos and destruction.

Our Creation Community

2010-10-10T15:30:00.001+01:00

Preacher: Wayne

Readings: Genesis 1; Psalm 36

From childhood, I have known about God’s creation being good; I was taught to enjoy it; I wanted to study and teach others this same appreciation. So I went to university and got a degree in biology and natural science.

Since then along the way, I received two responses from two groups, but it was the same question: “How can you?”
One = how can you be a Christian & study science? It will destroy your faith.
Other = how can you be a scientist and a Christian? They are incompatible. So many of my scientist friends heard from Xians that they were wrong.

How people read the Bible determines how they will respond to the questions of faith & science. Also effects how we answer the question of the relation of the human part of creation with rest of created world. That is today’s topic. As a congregation, we are studying Bible and Ecology, by Richard Bauckham.

As I understand it, the purpose of science is to describe what is seen, to describe how things work, such as discovering the hidden enzymes which are catalysts for some function of the brain, for example. It is objective. Some understand the Bible as also doing this and it does bring a person to one understanding of the Bible.

For me, the purpose of the Bible is to describe the purpose and the work of God, and our relationship with God. It calls for a faith perspective. I know this is too simplistic, but it is a beginning scheme to help us sort it out.

There seems to be a duality to the way we often see this issue, as if it must be one or the other. It cannot be both, we think. This poem (at end of script) by the British poet, Felix Dennis, describes a duality which is not meant to be in the Biblical accounts.

Key texts for today are Gen 1: 26-28. They describe the role of mankind in the relationships of creation. In the text there are 3 entities to be taken seriously: God, humankind, and the rest of creation. The most controversial term here describing our role is “dominion”.

In my experience I have seen three expressions of this relationship:

-James Watt, Sec of Interior under Reagan, and a professing Christian: human domination is for our benefit; therefore use it or lose it. Christ will soon return, & then opportunity gone. In this expression humankind is dominant over the created world. It is an over-under relationship.

-other activists reverse this order. They see Christians as being part of the problem. Christians like Watt exploit the created world’s resources and spoil it, using faith as an excuse. Many of these “green” folks therefore put animals first; we are to serve their needs. This is also an over-under relationship, with animals put on top.

-Kenton Brubaker, my professor at Eastern Mennonite University. His position was that we were one with creation, serving God as a whole. This is also the point of Bauckham. Humans are part of the community of creation, and to stress dominion diminishes this community.

To get to this point, we need to define the key terms:

-“fill the earth”: This is the same command as is given to animals. The land is assigned to both humans and animals, and humans are not to fill it in such a way that it is at the expense of the other animals. It is to be shared.

-“subdue”: When this word is used with the object “earth”, it has to do with occupy, or use. The land is not an enemy to be forcibly subjugated. Genesis 2 adds to this concept with the words “till and keep”, which seem to limit our use. A preserving element is included in our management of the earth’s resources.

-“dominion”: This is Mr. Watt’s text. The word has to do with rule, and, in this way, it is different than the role given to animals. In fact, this dominion is closely linked with our being made in the image of God. We bear the divine image, and in this way we use this role in a way which reflects God’s own rule over God‘s creation. That is an awesome responsibility, it seems to me. We are to manage on God’s behalf. “It is a delegated participation in God’s caring rule over His creatures”, says Bauckham.

Because we are so prone to forget God’s intention, especially when we become full of ourselves & think we have figured things out, there are limits to our rule. To quote Bauckham again, “Our rule is restricted (it is only over other living creatures), it is exercised within rather than over creation, it may not aspire to divine omnipotence, and, perhaps above all, it is exercised in relation to fellow-creatures.” We are limited in what we are asked to do.

There are other Biblical considerations to help us sort these things out, especially since we wish to take the Biblical account of creation seriously.

1.) As humans, we are part of the flow of creation, part of the order of creation. In that sense we are one with it. Not in the new-age sense of everything being a god, but in the sense of seeing creation as God’s good gift to us and to each other. We are linked to all of it in the best sense of the modern understanding of ecology; each part is related to the other and has a unique niche to fill. If we mess with one part, we influence the rest of creation in ways which can never be exactly measured or perhaps even known. We are part of a whole which we must take seriously. If we do not, we do so at our own peril.

2.) Did you notice the word “good”? After each segment of the creation drama, there are the words, “And God saw that it was good”. I think God had fun, and I believe that God continues to enjoy his created world. I also believe this phrase reflects the heart of God, & which we, as mirroring the image of God, need to imitate. It is indeed good, and we are good, at the very core of our being.

3.) As we humans are given the role of managing on behalf of God, it becomes very clear that God is the owner, & retains that role as owner. That has not been given over to us. Humans, on the other hand, remain simply tenants. Psalm 24, summarizes this clearly when it says “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it”. Humans are not demigods (small gods). We are simply tenants.

This theological concept of ownership is a thread which runs throughout the Bible, and undergirds our concern for the environment. This also is designed to lie beneath the concept of Land in Israel, as well as our offerings to God (first fruits). But so easily we forget.

This is rather heavy stuff. How then shall we begin to live within these all-encompassing life relationships? Without presuming to be complete, I offer a few suggestions. You can surely add to the list:

1.) Because we exercise dominion on behalf of God, not instead of God, we must know our own dependence on God. Only as we stay in rel with God & know our own dependence on God, each other, and the rest of creation can we rule effectively. In this way we participate in God’s created order & community.

2.) Appreciate the goodness of creation. We are part of that. Let’s rejoice and praise God as the rest of creation does. So let’s learn about it & enjoy creation with creativity. In that spirit I offer to lend my knowledge to lead a fieldtrip to see & enjoy some birds in the area. We will arrange the details & let you know.

3.) Be respectful of the created order. St Francis of Assisi called the flowers, birds, & animals his brothers & sisters. Francis tells them – including worms, fishes, wolves, lambs, & bees – that by their very existence they give glory to God. This deep respect and sense of community will lead to the next step:

4.) Let us do our part to keep & preserve this creation. This congregation takes this role more seriously than any other congregation I have participated in. Let’s keep it up. Perhaps we could even include teaching in that role, and inviting others to join us.

5.) Live humbly. What we know is very limited, yet what we do know can bring much joy. When Job was acting arrogantly, GOD asked Job whether he knew the foundations of the Earth and other secrets of creation. Let’s accept our finite knowledge and allow God to be the God of creation.

6.) Let nature be a mirror for us of the wholeness of creation & of God’s glory in it. Richard Rohr says there is a healing in our connection with everything that brings us to wholeness, if we allow it. He says that nature can bring that wholeness to us. And help us see God’s glory. He says it’s like the Celtic "knot" (*) which was found on crosses, gravestones, in manuscripts, and on jewelry. It was apparently their artistic way of saying that all is connected, everything belongs, and all is one in God.

That is how I wish to live. I invite you to join me in it. Amen.

Place a Mirror by a Tree
By Felix Dennis

Place a mirror by a tree;
Tell me now, what do you see?

Which of you will feed the earth?
Which of you contains more worth?

Which of you with sheltering arm
Keeps a thousands things from harm?

Which of you is nature’s bane?
Which is Abel? Which is Cain?

Which of you is God’s delight?
Which of you a parasite?

Place a mirror by a tree;
Tell me now — what do you see?

The Bible and Ecology (Richard Bauckham).

2010-09-26T15:30:00.002+01:00

Preacher: Veronica

Readings:

From Genesis 6

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth. Make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch... For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them.” Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.

From Genesis 9

God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

An old man was working in his garden, and a passer by began to admire it. ‘Isn’t it wonderful’, she said, ‘what God and you have achieved together’. ‘Ah,’ replied the old man, ‘but you should have seen the state of it when God had it to himself’.

This is the second of our sermons on the environment, and the first based on Richard Bauckham’s book Bible and Ecology. The main thesis of the book, is that the concept of ‘stewardship‘ which Christians often use to talk about our responsibility for the environment, is too narrow and takes too little account of the wider Biblical picture. Instead , Bauckham proposes the concept of ‘the community of creation’, a phrase I’m sure will come up frequently as we study the book.

For various reasons we are looking today at the second half of the first chapter, focusing on Genesis 2 and the Flood, and we’ll look at the first half, and Genesis 1, in the next sermon. Genesis 1 and 2 are of course alternative accounts of creation, but Bauckham thinks they harmonise with each other, rather than contradicting each other.

Solidarity

The first point Bauckham makes about Genesis 2 is that it affirms human solidarity with the rest of creation. The man, or to translate it literally, the ‘earth-creature’ is made from what you Americans call the ‘dirt’. In fact there is a linguistic link made in the Hebrew : the (at this point genderless) man is called Adam, and the name for the earth is ‘adamah’. One commentator rendered it as ‘God made humans out of humus’ (not hummus, I hasten to add!). Human beings are intimately linked to the ground we stand on.

If we read on we find that the animals too are made out of the ground, and presumably God breathes life into the animals just as into Adam. This chimes in with Bauckham’s interpretation of Genesis 1, where the structure suggests that humanity and the land creatures, made on the same day, are of the same kind. Humankind is ‘of the earth, earthy’ and there is nothing to suggest that there is anything wrong with that - in fact we know from Genesis 1 that it is ‘very good’.

One of the problems Bauckham sees with the stewardship model is that it sets humanity over against the rest of creation, with a special right to make use of it. This can easily lead to a human fantasy of taking complete control of creation. Indeed some modern scientists talk exactly in these terms, of being able to create artificial life, intelligence and even food, so that humanity is no longer dependent on the rest of creation but it is dependent on us. Genesis on the other hand sets out a situation in which human beings are intimately tied to the rest of creation, with God beyond both and keeping control of both.

This emphasis on our ‘earthiness’ is a valuable corrective to excessive ambition about controlling creation. I think it also speaks about what it means to be fully human. Nowadays we live largely divorced from the processes which bring us our food and our clothes. We have begun to live virtual lives - I now don’t even go to the supermarket to buy my food, I order it online. Genesis 2 tells us that it is inherent in humanity to need a relationship with the physical world around us, to feel its soil and to breathe its air. Not to do so is literally ‘unnatural’.

Job creation

Bauckham’s second point, and this is where we come back to the joke at the beginning, is that humans are given a task to do: to ‘till and keep’ the garden of Eden. There are two terms here, one meaning to cultivate, and one meaning to preserve. So humankind has a mandate to develop the land, but also a duty to keep it from destruction.

Adam’s task of tilling the earth, Bauckham says, gives him the right to usufruct - and no, I didn’t know what that meant either, so I looked it up. Apparently it means the right to derive profit or benefit from property belonging to another. So that’s your word of the day: usufruct. .If you remember nothing else from this sermon you can remember that.

Adam is mandated to enjoy the fruits of the land. But he is also to ‘keep’ it, and that means maintaining it in its fruitful state, and not exhausting it. To put it in a popular slogan, ‘Please leave this earth the way you would like to find it.’ You could almost say, if you only had Genesis 2, that the ‘earth-creature’ or human is created for the sake of the land, not the other way around (and this is my thought rather than Bauckham’s, so I hope I haven’t pushed it too far).

Man gave names

The third point is to do with Adam’s naming of the animals. This has often been interpreted to mean humanity has authority over the other animals and is allowed to use them for any purpose. This is the aspect of the biblical concept of ‘dominion’ that some environmentalists have a big problem with.

Bauckham however says that this is not the only and inevitable way to understand these verses. He sees it rather as the human recognizing the animals as his fellow creatures with whom he shares the world. The ‘dominion’ or rule that humans are given in Genesis 1 (and I’m sure we’ll hear more about this in the next sermon) is a role of responsible care, rather than one of exploitation. Remember that at this point in Genesis we are still in the situation where God has given every green plant to both humanity and the animals - meat eating is not in view. Eden is unambiguously a vegetarian state.

So we could see in these verses an acknowledgement that human life is inextricably bound up, not only with the soil we cultivate, but with the other animals - mammals, birds, fish, reptiles - who live on it with us. Our Genesis 1 task of being fruitful, multiplying and subduing or taking possession of the earth, is not meant to be undertaken at the expense of other creatures, but in harmony with them. Again we 21st century humans are quite divorced from this - for many of us the nearest we get to it is having pets in our houses and caring for them. And perhaps this too can be seen as an unnatural state.

Another try

This brings us neatly to the story of the Flood, which is a story of salvation not just for humans but for the animal creation, and indeed the plants that provide both with food.

We are used to defining the Fall as a single event described in Genesis 3 - whether we take that as a historical event or a mythical story expressing truths about the world. However Bauckham points out that as we read through Genesis 1-9, there is more of a gradual descent into sin, as human culture evolves with all its benefits but also its corruption. So by the time we get to the story of Noah, asour reading said, ‘the earth was filled with violence’.

‘Filling the earth’ was one of the commands, or you might call them blessings, given to humankind in the Genesis 1 account of creation. However instead of being filled with people, caring for the earth and enjoying its benefits, we find that what the earth has become filled with is violence. (This of course is very interesting from the point of view of a peace church, since it pinpoints violence as the core of disobedience to God. ) As Bauckham observes, one of the kinds of violence that has filled the earth is the killing of animals for food. This includes the animals killing other animals, which is not part of the original creation picture.

Noah, in Bauckham’s view, is the epitome of the responsible care that humanity was meant to have for the earth. He is succeeding where Adam failed. He is, if you like, the first conservationist: God’s rescue plan for Noah takes in not only human beings but the whole of the animal creation, and the plants that feed them. We don’t need to ask questions about whether there were fish or birds in the Ark, or whether the lions ate the lambs and how they kept the rabbits from taking over. It’s not necessary to take this literally, in order to learn from it how much God cares for creation.

Bauckham defines the Flood as a kind of ‘de-creation’, a return to chaos. But at the end of the story there is a ‘re-creation’, in the covenant that God makes not only with Noah and his descendants, but crucially, with ‘every living creature that is with you’. This is not however a complete return to Eden. In the covenant with Noah,God makes concessions to the way the world has become: we are allowed to eat meat, but not with the lifeblood in it - a rule both Jews and Muslims still keep today in kosher or halal meat.

God also proclaims that the animals will now fear the humans, and Bauckham sees this as a measure to protect humans from wild animals in this new, fallen world. Genesis 9 portrays a world in which the unrestrained violence that reigned before the flood is now kept within limits. So it is a better world, but it is no longer the ideal world that Genesis 1 and 2 describe. Indeed the Noah story can be seen as a salvation story, in which God redeems the creation: a salvation where the animal and vegetable world is saved along with its human inhabitants.

The final point Bauckham draws from this is to say that in our theology of the environment, we need to keep in mind both the ideal world of the original creation, and the real world, red in tooth and claw, that we are now living in. We need to know just how far the world is from what God intends for it; and to do that we also need to have a clear view of what it could be. Which returns us to the joke at the beginning again. God does not want to keep the world just for himself, but has chosen that the world should have human beings in it, with the responsibility of caring for it, not instead of God caring for it, but in cooperation with God’s care.

Joni Mitchell told us that ‘we are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden. But in fact we are earthdust - which does admittedly come from stars - we are fallen, and it’s God’s job to lead us to the new creation.

Matthew's gospel

2010-08-15T15:30:00.001+01:00

Preacher: Sue

Readings: Matt 5:17-22, 27-32 & 43-45, Matt 12:9-21, Matt 19:23-26 (see below for text)

So today we continue our sermon series on Jesus in the four gospels. And you will probably have figured out by now that the gospel for today is… Matthew.

Apart from reading through Matthew a couple of times, I also spent an evening with Peter re-watching Pasolini’s 1964 film, The Gospel According to Matthew. According to one website, this shows “a socially-committed, quasi-Marxist version of the Gospel preached by a harsh and uncompromising Christ who was in many ways a revolutionary and a provocateur not unlike Pasolini himself”.

Which takes me nicely to my starting point for this sermon. Pasolini painted a Christ “not unlike Pasolini himself”. And in trying to figure out what kind of Jesus Matthew’s gospel presents, I’ve found it hard to disentangle Matthew from Jesus. Is Matthew’s Jesus in fact “not unlike Matthew himself”? Is it, for instance, Matthew or Jesus who is preoccupied with the ways Jesus fulfils OT prophecy? Is it Jesus who is so keen on righteousness or is it Matthew?

Well, fortunately for us all, we have four gospels and four perspectives on the story and person of Jesus. In her very helpful introduction, Emily reminded us that we create our stories together, from our different memories, perspectives and interests. And the four gospel writers each have their own background, their own experience, their own questions and interests, their own intended audience. They highlight different aspects of Jesus’ life, knitting the strands together in different patterns.

But before we look at Matthew’s picture of Jesus, let’s deal with “Matthew” the evangelist. Who wrote this gospel? Well, there’s an early tradition that it was the apostle Matthew, but his name isn’t attached to the earliest manuscripts. And there are some reasons for thinking it wasn’t him. The gospel is usually dated after the fall of Jerusalem in AD70 and long enough after Mark wrote his gospel for a copy to have reached Matthew, maybe somewhere between 75 & 85AD. The apostle Matthew would have been pretty old by then, though it’s possible that he was still alive. Apparently there are a few misunderstandings of Jewish customs and literature, suggesting the writer may not have been Jewish – as Matthew was. (For instance the author tells us that Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey with her foal in tow, to fulfil a prophecy “Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey”, whereas someone familiar with Hebrew parallelism might have taken the prophecy as a poetic reference to just one donkey so wouldn’t have needed the foal to tag along too.)

Like Luke, Matthew draws heavily on Mark’s gospel and for me a more telling argument against the apostle’s authorship is that even the account of the conversion & call of Matthew is pretty much lifted verbatim from Mark. If I was using someone else’s accounts as one of my sources, I think I would want to write more personally when it came to the one bit where I was centre of attention.

So, it’s probably safest to say we don’t know exactly who the author of Matthew’s gospel is – but I’ll continue to call him Matthew anyway. There is a consensus that he was writing for Jews who were being persecuted for following Jesus.

But what about the central character in this book? What can we say of Jesus in this gospel?

Well, perhaps the first thing that strikes me is the position of Matthew’s gospel in our bible. It’s the first book of the NT & as such follows straight on from the last book of the OT. And the OT looms large in Matthew’s story. His genealogy of Jesus gives us a bird’s eye view of the whole of Jewish history from Abraham to Jesus, neatly divided into 3 chunks each of 14 generations, from Abraham to King David, from David to the exile in Babylon and from Babylon to Jesus.

Matthew shows Jesus’ significance in the story of Israel by having him round off the third chunk of fourteen generations. He also includes three women. In the midst of all the men we also find Rahab and Ruth, both Gentiles and Rahab a prostitute. So perhaps Matthew is saying: “don’t get all sniffy about the rumours you may have heard that Mary was pregnant with Jesus before she was married – we’ve had the whiff of scandal in our history before and Rahab and Ruth turned out to be great grandmother and great great grandmother to our great king David”.

And throughout the rest of the gospel the author is always at our elbow ready to point out that what Jesus has just said or done was “to fulfil what had been spoken through” some prophet. Maybe sometimes this is Matthew making sure we’ve noticed, as for instance when Joseph takes Mary and the infant Jesus to Egypt so that Hosea’s prophecy can be fulfilled when they are called back “out of Egypt”. But maybe sometimes this is a window into Jesus’ own thinking. In the reading we heard today, perhaps it was indeed meditation on the words of Isaiah that inspired Jesus to reach out to the bruised reeds and smouldering wicks of humanity he encountered yet to seek to do so gently and without fanfare.

Although Matthew stresses continuity with the OT, his story of Jesus is something new and different too. Jesus is the longed for Messiah, the son of David, the long-awaited king – but without the nationalism and militarism. He is a prophet – but not any old prophet, not just a servant of God faithful enough to be described in traditional Hebrew terms as a son of God. Matthew is at pains to make clear that Jesus is THE Son of God, declared so by a voice from heaven at his baptism and the transfiguration.

Of course Jesus’ own relationship with the OT is complex. He’s steeped in scripture and uses it, for instance, to put the devil in his place when he tempts Jesus in the wilderness. In our first reading he tells his listeners: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil.” And yet moments later he seems to be setting aside the law with the repeated formula “You have heard that it was said… But I say to you …”

I think there are two ways of reading this. One is to say that what Jesus is addressing is not what is written, the law itself, but what has been said about it over the generations. In a later chapter (ch 23), Jesus accuses the scribes and the Pharisees of making the law too burdensome. And there are several examples of the opposite too, like divorce which is OK so long as you give your wife a certificate of divorce, or the written commandment to love our neighbour which in popular tradition has somehow morphed into “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy”.

The law legislates for murder. Jesus is concerned about all broken and strained relationships, even about unvoiced anger in our hearts. The law wants us to tell the truth under oath, Jesus wants us to tell the truth always and keep our promises. In short, Jesus wants us to “be perfect … as [our] heavenly Father is perfect”. To which my first response is “but that’s impossible” (and as Veronica pointed out in her sermon on Jesus in Luke’s gospel, Luke’s version seems a lot less scary – “Be merciful as your Father is merciful”). But some of you will already be right there with a retort from Matthew 19’s story of the rich man for whom it is impossible to enter the kingdom of heaven - "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible."

Because Matthew’s Jesus can also be understanding, comforting and tender. In the first chapter Matthew links Jesus with Isaiah’s prophecy “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us.” Jesus promises that “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am with them”. And the gospel closes with another promise of with-ness: “remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

And the God who is with us knows us and cares about us. Jesus encourages his disciples to address God as “Father”, to pray to “our Father in heaven” knowing and trusting that our heavenly Father “knows what [we] need before [we] ask him” and that he values us more than many sparrows, none of whom falls to the ground without him noticing (ch 6 & 10).

When the disciples fail Jesus is quick to forgive. For instance Peter urges Jesus not to go to Jerusalem to “undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed”. Jesus responds with a stinging rebuke: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”(ch 16) But just a few verses later Jesus is hand picking 3 disciples to accompany him up a high mountain (where he will be transfigured) – and Peter is among them. And when Peter and the others are scared out of his wits, Jesus doesn’t scold them for their lack of understanding but touches them – this seems such an affectionate, tender moment to me – and tells them not to be afraid. (ch 17) Later Jesus describes Jerusalem as “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it ” AND then in the same breath says that he has often longed to gather her children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. So alongside the fierce purity of Jesus’ life and ethical teaching there is also the tender affection of a friend and a parent.

So let’s look a little more closely at the fierceness of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel. If you search through the gospels for examples of Jesus’ teaching about people or things being thrown into fire or outer darkness you’ll find, if I’ve counted correctly, two or three of these references in Luke, one in Mark and one in John but many in Matthew.

What are we to make of this kind of language? And why does Matthew insist on it more than the other gospels?

Well, this is probably a sermon topic in its own right so I will just make a few observations. Firstly, the images of fire and darkness sometimes occur in parables where the main point is not to tell us in detail what awaits a person who, for instance, doesn’t feed the hungry, give the thirsty a drink, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick or visit those in prison but to point us towards right behaviour – to urge us to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger and so on.

Secondly Matthew is shaped by the literary traditions of the time, including those of apocalyptic literature (like Revelation & parts of Daniel for instance) where the style of these passages would fit well.

I came across an interesting comment on the parable about weeds sown among the good seed, where the householder instructs “Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'” The writer, not Anabaptist as far as I know, suggests that this parable is non-violent, which seemed a bit odd at first sight. But I think he means that this parable reminds us that it’s not up to us to judge who or what is a weed and who or what is the good seed of the kingdom of heaven. We need to wait patiently for God to deal with this in due course, so the promise of the ultimate destruction of the evil elements is an encouragement to us not to destroy…

And finally let’s think about Matthew’s context. Writing after the fall of Jerusalem, he and the church he was writing for had already witnessed cataclysmic events right on their doorstep without having to get anywhere near the fire of judgment. And they were experiencing persecution, with the temptation to turn away from the faith for fear of torture or death. Could Matthew be trying to show that it would ultimately be even worse to fall away from the faith that to stick with it and be persecuted?

Well, I do think we can get a sense from each gospel of the pressing questions in the community for which the author wrote. In Matthew’s case one example is his apparent determination to tie up lots of loose ends to help with Christian apologetics in his day. For instance, the Messiah is supposed to come from Bethlehem but Jesus came from Nazareth – so Matthew makes sure we know that he was at least born in Bethlehem. Or there was a rumour that Jesus’ disciples stole his body while the guards were asleep by the tomb – so Matthew tells us this rumour was deliberately concocted by the priests and bolstered by their bribing the soldiers. So I don’t think it is too far-fetched to speculate that, for an audience that might be tempted to give up their faith, Matthew homed in on Jesus’ most “fierce” and fiery language to drive home a message about persevering in spite of persecution.

Well, there is much more to say, but you’ll be relieved to hear that I’m not going to say it. I’ll close with a summary of what has struck me most as I’ve spent a couple of weeks in the company of Matthew’s Jesus. I’ve seen a passionate, fierce and uncompromising man. He’s deeply concerned that his disciples should be truly righteous from the hidden places of their hearts to the action that flows out of their hearts, without attempting to rationalise or weaken that call to righteousness – there’s a challenge there for me and perhaps for others. I’ve been reminded, somewhat to my surprise, how many opportunities Matthew takes to point out that Jesus is special, not any old man of God, a prophet or a son of God, but THE Messiah, THE son of Man and THE Son of God. And I’ve seen Jesus also as surprisingly gentle and tender, encouraging us into a warm relationship with a heavenly Father who cares deeply for us.

Matt 5:17-22, 27-32 & 43-45

17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 21 "You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, "You shall not murder'; and "whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' 22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, "You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire.
27 "You have heard that it was said, "You shall not commit adultery.' 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell. 31 "It was also said, "Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' 32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
43 "You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

Matt 12:9-21

9 He left that place and entered their synagogue; 10 a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, "Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?" so that they might accuse him. 11 He said to them, "Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath." 13 Then he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him. 15 When Jesus became aware of this, he departed. Many crowds followed him, and he cured all of them, 16 and he ordered them not to make him known. 17 This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah: 18 "Here is my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. 19 He will not wrangle or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. 20 He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick until he brings justice to victory. 21 And in his name the Gentiles will hope."

Matt 19:23-26

23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, "Then who can be saved?" 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible."

Joint service with Westbury Avenue Baptist Church

2010-08-08T15:30:00.001+01:00

Preacher: Emily

Reading: Romans 12:1-8

Good morning – it is an honour for our congregation to join you this morning – in the midst of our sorrows and our joys and to spend time in the presence of God together.

Politicians promise us change – a new mandate, a new programme, a new path to prosperity and ease in our lives.
Businesses sell us change – the next health food, the newest gadget, the fastest app for our iphone, the hottest new fashion.
Technology urges us to continually communicate change - twittering and facebooking about the slightest change in our moods.

And religion makes sense and meaning out of change – so we have religious language for change like “conversion” or being born again and we have metaphors for change in all of the world’s great religions – from the story of exodus and the liberation of the Israelites in Judaism to the Buddhist tradition of awakening the mind from illusion to awareness.

And within our own Christian tradition, we have a rich sacred history which involves change –the mantle from heaven which radically reshaped the accepted social wisdom on Judaic kosher laws; Paul’s conversion experience on the road to Damascus, the transfiguration of Christ. And of course we have the person of Jesus – God’s great change who came into the world and radically restructured our understanding of the covenant relationship between God and the world – captured most poetically by the series of revelations in which Jesus says “you have heard it said...but I tell you”

When we consider how we experience God in times of change, I think there are two critical questions to consider –the first is - what kind of change are we talking about? And the second is - what was the catalyst for change?

Change is one of those tricky, bland words in our language in which the way that we react to the word depends largely on the context in which we hear it. “I just spilled something on my shirt and I need to go change” is likely to be heard, and emotionally responded to in a vastly different way than saying to your spouse “I think we need to change our relationship” or a boss telling an employee “I think we need to talk about changing your job”. Finding and experiencing God in the midst of change when change simply means adjustment or alternation – a minor amendment to the way things usually work – is not very difficult. But is when we use the word “change” to mean “upheaval”, “revolution”, “disruption” or “catastrophe” that change becomes not an irritation but a source of pain and anxiety.

What I want to suggest this morning, guided by our text from Romans is that God’s word for change is transformation. A change to our routines, our expectations, our accepted way of doing things that may be new, complicated, disorienting, even deeply painful but that represents an opportunity, however small, to orient our lives towards God and towards embodying the kind of change that God needs in order to bring creation and the people of the earth towards God’s good purposes for us.

Much of how we interpret and experience change depends on what the catalyst for change was – if the change came about as the result of our own choices and volition or if the change was forced upon us. Having a new baby or entering into a marriage both represent drastic change – and even transformation – in our lives but when these changes are the result of our own choice, we are able to accept these changes and integrate them into our own experiences. But when the change is forced upon us – when we are faced with the loss of a family member, the loss of our job, the loss of our home – in these spaces we are likely to experience change as a source of fear and anger.

In our reading from the book of Romans, Paul reminds us of the importance of acknowledging change and its power in our lives. “Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Here we are being reminded that not only is change inevitable but actively seeking change - in the form of transformation – is part of what we are actively called to do as Christian discipleships. The use of the word “renewing” suggests that this process of transformation is never fully complete – that we are always in the midst of the grand transformation project of building the kingdom of God here on earth.

Paul writes: “Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is...”. and I think Paul raises an important point here. It is very easy to look at a dramatic unwanted change – a break in the narrative structure of where we thought our story was heading – and then to passively put the blame on God. When someone suffers a change in their life that shakes the very foundation of their faith – when refugees are forced to flee from the country of their birth, when lives are lost in earthquakes and floods, when people experience loss that tears their certainty in the goodness of God – I do not think that we can stand by and simply say that these kind of changes are all the will of God. I do not claim to know the deep mysteries of what God is. But I do not believe that it is the will of God for people to suffer. And I think that Paul is encouraging us to make distinctions between human tragedy and the will of God. When Paul writes that we should “test” and “approve” what God’s will is, I think he is encouraging us to make a distinction between the changes in our lives that represent openings for transformation and the changes that are simply a tragedy that breaks God’s heart. Some changes might crack us open and empty us in order to offer opportunities for new growth and transformation. But there are some changes that we might be right to resist – to powerfully voice our opposition. Saying no – not to God but to human evil.

Paul also urges us to resist the urge to create unnecessary drama in the midst of change, writing “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith that God has given you.” I think that here we are being encouraged to distance ourselves from our very human need to make ourselves the centres of attention and to create unnecessary drama around the everyday changes.

In this spirit of humility that I think I should share a story with you about my attempt to write a sermon this week. At the moment, there is a high degree of change in my own life. For the most part, this change is change that I have chosen – I am trying to finish a PhD programme, I am preparing to move away from London and into New York City, I am preparing to teach three new classes in the spring, I am trying to be a good friend, a good partner, a good community member.

But I really believe that when we listen carefully, diligently, with intensity, we can hear what God is whispering in our lives. And this week, in the midst of the hectic, frantic schedule, I really wanted to create a space in which I could listen and hear what God wanted me to say to you this morning. I had really good intentions – and lots of ideas about where I could create a space in which I could relax for an hour and listen for the voice of God. I searched the internet in an attempt to find a labyrinth, I wandered into a number of different churches, I tried to find a convent. And my good intentions were thwarted at every turn! The convent was closed. The labyrinths required prior reservations. My attempt to commune with God in a garden was rained on. And my attempt to find God in the sanctuary of one of my favourite central London churches was interrupted by honking horns, tourists chatting with each other, mobile phones ringing, mobile phones being answered and tourists flashing photographs.

So this is the scene – I am running around London desperately seeking a place of purity, silence, stillness – something that fits the image in my mind of what holiness looks like. I am trying to hunt down God and I am being frustrated at every turn. I am aggravated with myself, with the general public and even with God. I was silently crying out to God “Can’t you see that I am making an effort here?” And then it hit me – the irony of this situation – that I was so committed to finding a place that was free of change so that I could hear what God had to say to me about change. I had been doing exactly the opposite of what I believe we are called to do – I was trying to retreat from the world entirely, to stop the messiness and unpredictability of life. All around me was change and yet I wanted to find some place easy – some place pure and quiet – where I could encounter God. The problem is – we don’t live our lives in these easy, silent, still places. Our lives are lived in the messiness, in the chaos, in the uncertainty – the ringing mobile phones, the honking of car horns, the sirens – we live our lives there. I had been praying “God take me someplace where I can find you” when what I needed to be praying was “God reveal yourself to me here”.

Finding God in the midst of the craziness, the madness, the frantic pace of our lives is both profoundly hard and amazingly easy. In the midst of my struggle to find God this week, to hear what God was saying to me, I didn’t find God in the hallowed halls of churches smoothed by decades of prayer. I found God in the friend who pulled my backpack out of my hands, handed me a cup of tea and said, “sit down. You look exhausted.” I found God in the haunting owl call in the middle of the night, I saw God in the red flash of the tail of our neighbourhood fox. I saw God’s name scrawled in the graffiti I couldn’t read, under the railway bridges where human creativity and the need to engage with color was evident. As I loosened my grip on where I thought God was supposed to be, it became easier to see God everywhere – in the clean water that flows out of a tap, in the sirens that mean that we have a functioning medical and police force.

We can embrace transformation. We can pray for the clarity and the courage to hear the still, small voice of God in the world around us. We trust that the One who is faithful will do this.

Returning to the words of Paul, we are counselled to recognize our roles to play as different members in the body of Christ. In times of painful change, we can reach out for each other and for God. In the midst of lives which can feel terrifying, full of deception, greed, manipulation, lies, we can hold the light for one another. We can fix our eyes on the light that is Christ and we can take a step forward. God is in the midst of the rubbish and the crowd. Sometimes we are called to stop and seek out that light and other times we are called to hold the light for one another.

I believe that God wills good for us, that the presence of God is our constant, our one sure thing in the midst of lives which are often chaotic. I pray that God grants us vision to glimpse the bigger picture, to see that the thread of our lives contributes to the woven tapestry of the whole world – to see that what looks like a knot or a frayed thread – a deadend – may be an opportunity for transformation. We believe that the one who is faithful will do this.

So I think that we pray for clarity, for the patience to see the bigger picture, the greater whole. But we also pray for the courage to resist, to rise up and firmly and boldly say no to some things so that, with the same measure of passion, we can say yes to other things. We pray for humility and courage in equal parts. We pray for the humility to allow ourselves to be bent but not be broken, to be pulled by tides we didn’t create and to be willing to be lost so that we can be found.

And we pray that wherever we find ourselves, we might have the assurance of knowing that the great changeless One is our comforter, our constant companion and our hope in times of change.

Alleluia, amen.

Mark's Gospel

2010-07-25T15:30:00.000+01:00

Preacher: Lesley

This is the second in our series taking an overview of the four gospels. Today I’m going to talk about the gospel of Mark. I didn’t just choose it because it’s the shortest one. I think Mark is a gospel which is particularly important for our times, as we’ll hear later.

I have a book that someone gave me called ’An Idiot’s Guide to the Bible’. It summarises many of the major themes in the books of the Bible. Looking at the section on the gospels, I found very few references from the gospel of Mark. Most of its examples were drawn from Matthew, Luke and John. That tends to be the way that the book of Mark is treated – as a less complex and therefore less valuable version of the gospel. But recently people are finding that Mark has hidden depths.

It’s widely accepted that Mark was the earliest gospel to be written and that the gospels of Matthew and Luke were elaborations on Mark’s version. A few scholars have thought that Matthew’s version came first, but I find it difficult to believe that the author of Mark would then pare down a more complex narrative or that Luke would have started with Matthew’s version, chucked out some stuff and inserted extra details into the description of events. It’s not an exact parallel, but it’s a bit like saying that ‘The Hobbit’ must have been written after ‘The Lord of the Rings’ because the Hobbit is shorter and contains some similar material!

Although the gospel never mentions who wrote it, writings from the early part of the second century name him as John Mark, who appears in Acts and some of the New Testament letters. He was the cousin of Barnabas and he went with Paul on his first missionary journey, but fell out with Paul by going home early. Later Barnabas took him under his wing and forged a reconciliation with Paul. Mark was a good friend and fellow-worker to both Paul and Peter in Rome. Peter’s first epistle describes Mark as Peter’s son. After their deaths it is said that he wrote down the substance of Peter’s preaching, so what we get coming through Mark is the dynamism and energy we can see in the descriptions of Peter in the New Testament. The content and order of Mark’s gospel follows that of Peter’s sermon in Jerusalem, recorded in Acts. So, if Mark wrote his gospel first then the order in Acts is copied from Mark and not the other way round.

We call it plagiarism today and I used to tell my Open University students that it is a deadly sin, but in those days it was perfectly reasonable to base your book on someone else’s. So Matthew and Luke wrote their gospels with the scroll of Mark open in front of them, adding another source the scholar’s call Q and bringing in other material from the oral tradition. Each of them tried to emphasise particular information that they wanted to convey to the particular readers they had in mind.

Mark does this too, of course, and it’s long been recognised that his version emphasises Jesus in action. It leaps straight in with ‘The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.’ There are no stories about Jesus’ birth. Mark seeks to emphasise that what Jesus did reveals him to be the Christ. It gives us less detail about Jesus teaching, but in general is less triumphalist than the other gospels. It is more critical of the disciples, including Peter, and talks of Jesus’ power being limited on occasions – for instance by people’s lack of faith, in Nazareth.

The additional details of events in Jesus ministry which aren’t necessary for the story show that it could well be the record of a first person account. For instance Mark said that when Jesus called them the disciples James and John left their father in the boat with the hired men, which Matthew and Luke don’t include. One intriguing detail comes in the Mark’s description of Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. He writes ”A certain young man was following him wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.” Some people believe that this young man was the author himself – or why include him? Acts 12 tells us that the early church met in the house of John Mark’s mother in Jerusalem and it may be that this is where the upper room was in which the last supper was held. I can imagine that young John Mark, having gone to bed while the Passover supper of Jesus and his disciples continued, heard this interesting group leaving, still singing psalms maybe, and decided to follow them wrapped only in a bed-sheet.

Mark is believed to have written his gospel in Rome, though some would see it written in a Palestinian setting, despite the fact that he finds it necessary to explain Jewish customs and words to those of his readers who aren’t Jewish. Most scholars agree that he wrote it about AD 65-70. And this dating is crucial to understanding the atmosphere in which it was written. The Roman historian Tacitus describes the emperor Nero blaming on Christians the fire that swept Rome in AD 64 destroying most of the city. Thereafter he extensively persecuted the Christians.

Tacitus wrote “Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.”

Christian tradition holds that Peter, and probably Paul, were killed in Rome during this persecution. Meanwhile, news was coming back to Rome of what was going on in the Jewish homeland. In 66 AD the first seeds of dissent about Roman authority and taxes, starting as a religious dispute between Jews and Greeks, began to grow into a full-scale rebellion against Roman rule. By 67 AD Nero had sent forces under the future emperor Vespasian and the war culminated in the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of its Temple in AD 70. At that time many Christians were Jews or strongly associated with Judaism. So you can imagine the terror of the church in Rome, subject to persecution there and fearing the destruction of the land that was the bedrock of their faith. We can see that Mark’s gospel was probably written in haste in an effort to record what Peter recalled of Jesus before there was no-one left who had known him and, perhaps, because Mark feared that he himself would be next to be killed.

Given this background, the urgency you hear in Mark’s gospel is understandable. Jesus is always doing something ‘ immediately’ He is a powerful decision-maker who cuts through confusion and doubt. On the other hand Jesus, as portrayed by Mark, is no stranger to grief and uncertainty. From the second chapter Jesus hints that there is a time that he will not be with them and throughout the book it becomes increasingly clear that that he expects to suffer and die, though he would rise again. His agony in Gethsemane is not relieved by any support from his disciples nor a comforting angel. His mockery of a trial and torture by the soldiers, his betrayal by a crowd that preferred an outlaw, are all stark and bitter.

Mark’s portrayal of the crucifixion is bleak and not at all triumphant. There is no caring conversation with his mother and favourite disciple, no forgiveness of his torturers or of one of the bandits crucified with him. There is an overwhelming sense of desolation and abandonment by God. And his last great cry is of wordless pain rather than surrendering his spirit to his Father. There is nothing of comfort here. It is raw suffering. Throughout the gospel, Mark shows Jesus as a man like any other (as well as the Son of God) and especially here at his crucifixion, as the forces of evil, pain and death seem completely to overwhelm him.

And perhaps it is here that Jesus comes closest to the readers for whom Mark wrote – facing loss, persecution and huge uncertainty. The crucified and abandoned Christ is near to most of us at some time of our life or another. Perhaps Mark’s gospel is especially relevant to us at this time of economic collapse, growing unemployment and ecological uncertainty, when some people may be feeling that God has abandoned them.

The gospel concludes with Jesus’ resurrection. Unlike the other gospels, though, the oldest manuscripts do not have either the shorter or longer endings which appear to have been added in later manuscripts, drawing from the other Gospels. In fact the original Mark’s Gospel almost certainly ends where our earlier reading finished – with the women too afraid and awestruck to tell anyone what they had seen.

Why should it end there? Where are the resurrection appearances of Jesus which the other Gospels and Paul’s letters, which were written before Mark’s Gospel, describe? It is a mystery. Perhaps the ending of the original manuscript was lost. Maybe Mark had to flee before he had finished it. Whatever the reason, his readers are left with a mystery and empty tomb and a strange message – a cliffhanger like the end of the episode in a TV series. Except that Mark never came back to write the final chapter.

For we who live in a world that has become more uncertain, this mystery may also be a common experience. What is going to happen, am I being led somewhere? Why do I have to suffer the way I do? Where is God in all this? One metaphor for this may be the desert experience that we thought about earlier. We may feel confused, alone, abandoned and in fear and pain. These things happen to all of us to some degree. I’ve been feeling a bit like that myself this weekend.

Up until Friday I thought I was going on a cruise to Iceland and Greenland in 2 weeks time with my sister. Then we found a couple of days ago that all the shore excursions seem to be fully booked. So we’re trying to find out whether that is really the case, whether there’s anything else we can do or whether we have grounds for canceling the trip. It’s all in the air at the moment.
Perhaps Mark deliberately left the end of his gospel up in the air, because he had sent the previous 15 chapters setting out Jesus’ remedy for difficulty, suffering and uncertainty.

In recent decades there has been a realization that despite his less literary Greek and his more direct and abrupt message, Mark has some useful things to offer. Some of you may know of Anabaptist fellow-traveller, Ched Myers. We’ve been lucky enough to have him preach here on the feeding of the 5000. He was talking about God’s economy of abundance set against human management of scarcity. He covers it in his book ‘Binding the Strong Man’, the political reading of Mark’s gospel. He understands Jesus as described by Mark as being in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets, standing up against the oppressive and godless political systems of his day, including the corruption of the official religious authorities, in defense of the poor and outcast. Despite his nonviolent resistance to these forces, in the end the powers conspire to destroy him. However, the call to radical discipleship lives on, symbolized by the empty tomb, where his followers today, as well as in the first century, are also challenged to become part of the story as Jesus goes before us to Galilee, the seat of his ministry. We are also called to radical repentance and a new lifestyle which looks towards the coming kingdom of God.

Another person who has written on Mark is the New Zealand theologian, Chris Marshall. He was a member of this church while studying in London and the PhD he then wrote was published as a study of the theme faith in the gospel of Mark.

He points out that faith is one of the key issues in this gospel. It starts with an uncompromising statement that Jesus is the Son of God – with which the reader must disagree or believe. The very first chapter sets out a summary of Jesus’ teaching in Galilee: ‘The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the good news.’ This is a statement of one type of faith which Mark addresses. It is the faith that saves. It is the belief and acceptance of Jesus’ proclamation of the dawning Kingdom of God. The response is a move away from former sinful ways of living and a commitment of trust in Jesus as the bringer of the Kingdom. This is shown in a lifestyle change to that of discipleship. Mark shows what is expected of disciples by the dialogue between Jesus and his chosen Twelve. Often in Mark, Jesus is exasperated by their lack of understanding or faith and in his instruction to them shows us as disciples how we also should believe and live.

The other kind of faith, which can be seen as different but sometimes overlapping the faith of discipleship is the faith of the petitioner. This is illustrated by our reading from Mark 9, in which Jesus, fresh from the mount of transfiguration, where he was revealed to Peter, James and John as the true Son of God, finds that the remaining 9 disciples had been having trouble casting out a demon of epilepsy from a boy who had been brought along by his father. Jesus talks about the importance of faith (and later of prayer) in casting out such demons. Further on he talks about the way that faith as small as a mustard seed will enable the believer to move mountains.

But such faith is often difficult for us. This passage in Mark has a sentence not found in the other gospels. But how often have I found myself, and I’m sure most other followers of Jesus, echoing the words of the father of the epileptic boy: “I believe; help my unbelief.” We want to believe in the power of God and we think we should ask for what God wants in this world, but we’re often paralysed. What if God doesn’t want us to be cured, or to get the job or home or partner that we want? What if God has different plans for me? We want to be able to pray with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, “Not what I want, but what you want.” We know we should pray in line with God’s purposes, but how can we know what these are? Mark gives us some clues. The epileptic boy’s father shows us some of this. First of all, he is acting for another, out of compassion. He asks Jesus’ help for ‘us’ – identifying himself with the boy’s plight. He asks Jesus for help rather tentatively ‘ If you are able…’ Jesus throws this back at him with the comment that all things are possible to the one who believes.’ The father understands this as highlighting his own need for faith and responds with the cry that believers have echoed down the centuries: “I believe, help my unbelief”.

This phrase shows that in Mark, faith is not a once for all possession, but that in every believer there is a tension between faith and disbelief and that we only maintain our faith by God’s grace. Faith, for Mark, only proves itself when tested. And of course one of the places it is most tested is in that experience of the desert, in which we may feel that we are holding onto faith by the slightest thread, or that if Christ did not hold onto us we would fall away.

Secondly it is a situation of total human powerlessness. Despite all his care and love, the father has been unable to help the boy, and nor can Jesus’ disciples. Many of Jesus’ miracles recorded in Mark have a similar context. Not only do people such as the paralysed man brought by 4 friends and let down through the roof, the faithful leper, and the woman with a haemorrhage have great need, they also suffer from social disadvantage. Even Jairus the ruler is helpless in the face of his daughter’s death. There is nothing humanly possible, and those involved need to recognize and accept their powerlessness in the situation.

Beyond this, in Mark’s gospel, those who would follow Christ in faith are called to put themselves in a situation of powerlessness, by renouncing their claim to security, status or control. The rich young man has to give up his wealth; the twelve are to leave everything to follow Jesus, to go off preaching in abject poverty and when they seek to rely on themselves or are terrified by the things like the storm that they cannot control, Jesus says that they are faithless. In this desert place of helpless confusion, fear or suffering, we are not supposed to seek to control the situation through human influence, but to trust in the power of our loving God.

This gospel writer doesn’t give us the explanations that Matthew or Luke do. But he shows that Jesus knows about our failure and unbelief as well as our success. Mark writes for ordinary, fallible followers who are finding themselves in situations of loss and persecution and who need strengthening by the story of the suffering Son of Man, whose suffering is an essential part of the story, but who also calls us to follow his example. The gospel ends, not with Jesus’ abiding presence but with his absence. The tomb is empty, but there is a messenger telling his followers that the Risen Christ is going before them to Galilee. This disturbing ending challenges us also to complete the story, to echo the desperate father ‘I believe; help my unbelief’ and in that faith to follow Jesus wherever he leads, even through the desert.

Jesus in the Gospel of Luke

2010-06-27T15:30:00.001+01:00

Preacher: Veronica

When Sue told me we were doing a series of sermons on Jesus in the four Gospels I immediately said, ‘Oh, I bagsy Luke’. It’s not only my favourite Gospel but has one of my all time favourite passages in all Scripture, the healing of the woman bent double which you’ve just heard.

What I hadn’t realized until I started reading up for the sermon, was that Luke is not only the longest of the four Gospels, but taken together with his sequel, the book of Acts, Luke is the most prolific writer in the New Testament - he wrote even more than Paul. And I also hadn’t realized what a tough task it is to preach on a whole Gospel rather than just one or two selected passages. What I’m going to offer, then, is no more than an overview. I do recommend you read right through Luke, which will only take you a couple of hours - but then I expect the three other preachers will also exhort you to read through Matthew, Mark and John, so please forgive me for that.

I want to keep the details of date, authorship etc brief cos that’s the boring bit. We know very little about who Luke was, although we do know he was a missionary companion of Paul (there are passages in Acts where he turns to the pronoun ‘we’ rather than ‘they’ which suggests he was there at the events described). There is strong Scriptural and external evidence, and tradition, that he was a Gentile - as far as we know the only Gentile to write Scripture - and that he was a doctor. His Gentile origin shows in the high standard of his Greek, although his writing also has many echoes of Jesus’ language, Aramaic, and of Hebrew. As for the date of the Gospel, it could be anywhere between the early 60s AD and the early 2nd century. You pays your liberal or conservative commentator and you makes your choice.

What is much more generally agreed is the driving purpose of Luke’s writing. One commentary I looked at was entitled ‘Luke: Historian and Theologian’. That pretty much sums up the general opinion. While he sets out his credentials as a historian in the preface which we heard, he is clearly writing history for a theological purpose. Some have classified his Gospel as ‘Heilsgeschichte’ or ‘salvation history’ - and I included that just so I could say ‘Heilsgeschichte’ which is a lovely word. But his interest is not just in the history of salvation, but in the character of salvation and its inclusive scope. In fact he is the only Gospel writer to use the word ‘salvation’ at all, and he has more instances of ‘save’ and ‘saviour’ than the others as well.

Of course the label of ‘salvation history’ could also be used, in different ways, of the other Gospels, with the relationship of theology and history varying. So what else is special about Luke?

In preparation for preaching today I re-read the whole Gospel, using one of those Bibles that has references at the head of each passage, showing where there are parallels to this story or teaching in the other Gospels - especially of course the other synoptic Gospels Mark and Matthew. And I was amazed at the number of passages in Luke that didn’t have any cross references at all, because the story was exclusive to Luke. In fact I developed a new TLA for my notes: ETL, standing for ‘Exclusive to Luke’.

Here’s a relatively short list of what we wouldn’t have if we didn’t have Luke’s account of Jesus’ life and ministry. We wouldn’t have several well loved parts of the Christmas story for a start: this includes the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth and the birth of John the Baptist, Mary’s visit to Elizabeth and her challenging poem the Magnificat which I think makes her the first New Testament prophet, the song of Zechariah, the angelic visit to the shepherds, the story of Simeon and Anna at the Temple, Simeon’s prayer which we call the Nunc Dimittis, and finally the childhood story of the boy Jesus cutting loose from his parents at the Temple and going to debate with the scribes and teachers.

That’s only the beginning. Without Luke we wouldn’t have Jesus’ manifesto from Isaiah 61 at the Nazareth synagogue. We wouldn’t know the names of prominent women who followed Jesus and financed him - in fact we wouldn’t know that they did. We wouldn’t have the parable of the Good Samaritan. We wouldn’t have the story of Mary and Martha’s dispute over the household jobs. We wouldn’t have the parable of the rich fool who planned bigger barns to store his wealth, but then died that night. We wouldn’t have the disciples questioning Jesus about the unmerited suffering of the Galileans Pilate killed, and his enigmatic answer. We wouldn’t have the healing of the ten lepers, of whom only one - a despised Samaritan -
returned to thank Jesus.

Nor would we have the parable of the shrewd manager, difficult and obscure as it is. I have my own interpretation which sees it as about God cancelling our debts to him, but I don’t have time to go into that here. Without Luke we wouldn’t have the parables of the rich man and Lazarus, the lost coin, the woman baking bread, the widow and the unrighteous judge, the Pharisee and the publican, and crucially the Prodigal Son. We wouldn’t have the story of Zacchaeus, which makes this the Gospel for short people. We would not have Jesus telling his hearers to take the lowest place at a dinner, or Jesus weeping over Jerusalem.

Nor would we know that Jesus was sent to be tried before Herod as well as the Sanhedrin and Pilate. We wouldn’t have Jesus on the cross saying ‘Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’; or his saying to the repentant thief next to him, ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’. And we wouldn’t have the full story of the walk to Emmaus, which if nothing else has given us the hymn ‘Abide with me’, and that would be a great loss to football and rugby fans.

In fact the amount of unique material in Luke is so great that I could use the whole sermon to list it and analyse it. Instead I just want to list a few of the major emphases in Luke, which are all clearly shown in the material that’s unique to him.

I’ve already mentioned the emphasis on salvation, which is a more explicit theme in Luke than in the others. Luke is clearly at pains to convey that this salvation is not for a chosen few. The invitation is to all. From the very beginning Luke is interested in Jesus’ interaction with all sorts of people. His birth is announced to lowly shepherds, and his genealogy goes not like Matthew’s version back to Abraham, father of the Jews, but to Adam, father of everyone - and from ‘son of Adam’ to ‘son of God’. In Luke’s account of John the Baptist’s work, Luke shows him giving socially and economically radical commands to those who follow him. And he also includes the end of the ‘voice crying in the wilderness’ prophecy about John, which reads ‘and all flesh shall see the salvation of God’, which is missed out in the other Gospels.

Throughout Jesus’ ministry in Luke we see him interacting with social outcasts of all kinds, from the lepers to the hated tax collector. Luke’s Jesus is a friend of the poor - indeed in the Beatitudes he blesses not the poor in spirit or those who hunger for righteousness but simply the poor and the hungry. Also only in Luke are these blessings followed by a series of ‘Woe’s to the rich and well fed - so Luke acknowledges that good news to the poor has inevitably to include some bad news for the rich.

Luke ‘s Jesus is also very much a friend of women, often in socially unconventional ways. He has a number of women’s stories not found elsewhere, including my favourite which I’ll come to in a moment. There is also a large number of occasions where when Luke tells a story or parable about a man, he immediately balances it with one about a woman. For instance, in the birth stories, he tells us about Anna as well as Simeon’. With the parable of the mustard seed he includes the parable of the woman baking bread, while the lost sheep is followed by the lost coin - both of these examples of a woman standing for God in a parable. In Luke, when Jesus says that he will give no sign except the sign of Jonah, he immediately starts to talk not just about Jonah’s mission to Gentiles, but about the Queen of Sheba’s visit to Solomon. It’s a great exercise to go through Luke looking for these man/woman parallels, and I’m grateful to Trisha Dale for first pointing it out to me.

It’s only Luke who records the conflict between Martha and Mary, in which Jesus commends Mary for sitting at his feet, in the position of a disciple or student, rather than worrying like Martha about the domestic stuff In my favourite, the Luke 13 story of the woman bent double, Jesus uses a unique phrase not found anywhere else in the NT - he calls her a ‘daughter of Abraham’. And that healing has always seemed to me to be a kind of symbolic raising up of women from a lower status, into being able to stand alongside men on an equal basis. I used to do a workshop on it where I read the passage and a poem I had written on it, while all the hearers stood in a circle with all the men bent double and all the women standing straight - which I won’t inflict on you today but which provoked some really interesting discussion. Luke also tells us another of my favourites, the anointing of Jesus’ feet by a sinful woman in Luke 7, which I’ve also written a poem about.

As well as the inclusiveness of Jesus’ call, Luke has a strong emphasis on the centrality of forgiveness. As we’ve seen already, he has several parables about forgiveness which others don’t record. And at the end of his version of the Sermon
on the Mount, instead of Matthew’s rather scary version: ‘Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect’, Luke has ‘Be merciful as your Father is merciful.’

Such radical openness and mercy, in Luke’s vision, can only be achieved by the infilling of the Holy Spirit. At the very start of Jesus’ ministry, Luke tells us that he returned from the desert ‘filled with the power of the Spirit’. This filling is not only the basis of Jesus’ ministry but it is available to us too as we follow him. As well as sending out the Twelve to teach and heal on his behalf, in Jesus later sends out the seventy, and this has a strong overtone of a mission to the Gentile nations as well as the Jews. And indeed Simeon has prophesied exactly this at the beginning, calling the baby Jesus ‘a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel’.

Luke’s Jesus also exhibits and calls us to a radical humility. He twice quotes Jesus’ saying, ‘For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted’. Only in Luke does Jesus’ say, in response to the dispute about who is greatest: ‘I am among you as one who serves’ , a saying which always reminds me of these words inlaid in the floor of the Chapel of Industry at Coventry Cathedral.

Jesus in Luke then, is the one who calls all, men and women, high and lowly, rich and poor - not only to be healed and cleansed by him but to follow him. He is the one who forgives lavishly. He acts in the power of the Spirit which brings healing to the sick and the oppressed and good news to the poor. One commentator says, ‘Whereas in Matthew the keynote may be said to be royalty, and in Mark power, in Luke it is love’ .

But Luke’s Jesus is not just a sort of hippy dropout preaching peace and love in a 60s sort of way - not that I have anything against hippies, I was one myself. With sayings like the ‘Woes’, his message is a challenging and sometimes frightening one. His view of salvation has scary economic consequences, as we see in his response to Zacchaeus promise to give back his ill-gotten gains: ‘Today salvation has come to this house’. In fact ‘Today’ and ‘now’ are words much more frequent in Luke than in other Gospels: he wants to proclaim that God’s salvation in Christ is for now, not for some distant heavenly realm in the future.

You can probably see now why Luke is my favourite Gospel. It’s a great Gospel for a feminist, as well as a short person; and I think with its challenge to fight social inequality, it’s probably a great Gospel for Anabaptists too.

The One Certain Thing

2010-06-13T15:30:00.002+01:00

Preacher: Emily

Our sermon series this summer focuses on the four gospels and I believe we are having a speaker each week who will focus on each of the gospels individually. This afternoon, I am going to frame our thinking about the gospels by presenting an overview of some of the common themes and values that run between them.

As many of you know, I am a PhD student in the study of religions at SOAS the school of Oriental and African studies in London. At the moment, I am one of the only people studying Christianity in a department with a heavy focus on Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. In theory, this is a wonderful opportunity for me to learn lots about many elements of different traditions.

In practice, this means that I am often trapped for many hours in small rooms with people explaining the minutia of the Yupdipthika, the classical salafiyya tradition in Egypt or the important contribution of Ibn Arabi in defining the ubermensch tradition. While I am sure that one day this will cause me to dominate a pub quiz if the topic is small esoteric aspects of eastern traditions, it actually means that I have alot of time on my hands to sit and think about how my faith tradition, Christianity, and my denomination, Anabaptism, and my research is very very different.

One person in my program searches for appearances of a character named Kapila in hundreds of Hindu texts. Unfortunately for him, Kapila is one character among thousands and sometimes appears as a demon, sometimes as a cow and sometimes as a human teacher. (I can see the looks on your faces beginning to resemble mine in the midst of these lengthy Kapila lectures so let me just say this - )

The fact that we have a tradition in which the same basic story of the one person – Jesus – is told from four perspectives, is a very useful and interesting contribution of the Christian faith. The story is part of our continuity – the bridge between how it all began and who we are now. Our sacred stories remind us of how it began and what that means for who we are now.
As you are undoubtedly aware, we have four canonical gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but these were not the only gospel accounts of the life of Jesus. They are just the final four that made the cut in the 4th century. In the apocrypha we have other accounts: Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of the Hebrews and others.

Beyond these, we have a tradition which is rich with other popular retellings. We have thousands of icons, paintings and sculpture in a variety of artistic mediums. We have literature ranging from The Last Temptation of Christ to Christopher Moore’s book Lamb: the gospel according to biff christ’s childhood friend. In movies we have The Passion of the Christ, Life of Brian, Jesus of Montreal among others. We have Clarence Jordan’s bluegrass Cotton Patch Gospels. We have Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell on stage.

As an amateur etymologist or simply word nerd – I find the word Gospel interesting as it points us back to the centrality of the story. Gospel comes from the words “god spell” or “good spell” – an English translation of the Greek euangelion. Good news. The story about god which casts a spell over us, which unites us and, at times divides us.....this is at the heart of our tradition. Some stories are so important, so powerful that we continue to retell them – to ourselves and to others. It is the Gospels that play this role in our faith.

As Mennonites, we believe that the story of what happens to us as a community is also important. We believe that what happens out there in the world, the way our stories intersect with other people’s stories is as important as our sacred story – so we take time each week to share stories, to create community, in our home groups and in church each Sunday. We don’t just rely on one of us – this is the strength of the Anabaptist tradition, we are a community of lay leaders. People from other traditions sometimes ask me, how it is that we trust people who aren’t the leader to tell the story each week and I think that the answer is that we trust multiple viewpoints of the same story. We believe that the story builds the bridge between the individual and the community, between the tradition and the present. We bear witness to the work of the Holy Spirit on earth by gathering each week to retell both our ancient story and the stories of our own lives.

Today, in the far off land of Wooster, Ohio in the United States, my ten year college reunion is taking place. I am not there obviously but this landmark anniversary has been the cause of much rumination for me lately. It’s ok that I am not there – the important thing about reunions is the chance to retell the story – the story of who we are and how we got that way. Sometimes it’s easier to tell it when you can smell the same cut grass, hear the same library chimes that help cast the spell of who we all were ten years ago. But sometimes it’s just the retelling of the story that carries us through.

So, as Mateo and I drove down the Eastern coast of the US last week, we dropped in for a visit on a variety of friends from my college days. Seeing dear friends again was a great joy and as we bask in one another’s presence, our conversation took a familiar path.....we told and retold many of the key stories in our history together. My friend Morgan and I sat on her porch in North Carolina and retold the story of the night we had spent outside in Palestine watching Israeli rockets overhead and pondering whether our optimism and pacifism would see us through the night. As Mateo and I attempted to calm her two hysterically crying twins, my friend Amal and I retold the story of the torturous joint book project where we met. The contexts of my friendships with these two women have changed but the joint story of our friendship has not. And so, as we attempt to catch one another up on the years that have come between, we keep returning to some of the same themes – the stories of how we met, the setting, the times that tested us, defined us. The stories are the measure of our friendship. We become connected when we tell and receive the stories of one another’s lives. We co-create common stories with our friends through shared life with them.

This is also the function of the four gospels. Our most sacred text is about co-creating a tradition by telling a story. Remembering the beginnings and the endings, marking the miracles, preserving the details. In telling the story we re-create our community. When we hear and retell the stories of the life of Jesus, we act as participants in a larger story that includes us too.

Setting

As Chris has very artfully demonstrated in pulling together a theme for today’s service – the setting of the story matters. Our Gospel writers were almost certainly based in different contexts with Matthew writing for a predominately Jewish audience, Mark writing for Romans, Luke for Greeks and John for Gentile Christians. And the settings between the four Gospel accounts do not always match – some have Jesus appearing after resurrection in Emmaus, others in Jerusalem. There seems to be a dispute as to the location of the Last Supper as where the bulk of Jesus’ ministry took place. But the four accounts do take place in concrete geographical space and the singular story takes this sense of place into account.

While the power of the psalms often recall more generic space – our psalm this afternoon recounted mountains, rivers and seas; the gospel accounts are typically quite specific. Our reading from Luke specifically locates the action in Jerusalem and the Mark passage notes both Jerusalem and Bethany. These details help to ground our experience of the story.

Each Sunday afternoon we gather in this space, this point defined by particular sounds, smells and, I would hasten to add, particular (cold) temperature. This locality is also part of who we are – our joint story specifically recalls this place. This space in this community and our LMC in Highgate are interwoven in the story of who this community is. In our liturgical intercession this morning, we concentrated on the context of our urban environment – recalling the spaces of community, the spaces of suffering and praying together for the wholeness and healing of this particular context. This too is part of the story of who we are as a congregation.

Our story as Christians and our story as a congregation is rooted in both an ancient story and a contemporary story – we are suspended between these two narratives, trying to live lives that are compatible with each.

Points of View

Many biblical scholars have made much of the significant differences between the synoptic gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke and the Gospel of John. Again with the background on words – the word synoptic literally means “seeing with the same eye” and refers to the fact that the gospel accounts of the Matthew, Mark and Luke seem to have much more in common than the account of John.

Depending on your particular upbringing, political orientation, literary preferences, you probably have your own favourite gospel. Some of the accounts focus more on parables, others take a more expository slant. Some emphasize the humanity of Jesus while others seem to concentrate more on his divinity.

Styles aside, the gospels cannot seem to agree on several points of data regarding Jesus....He performed either 29,23 or 10 miracles. He retold either 31,13, 37 or 3 parables. It is unclear exactly who carried the cross and who was there to witness the empty tomb. We are not sure exactly how involved Jesus was with exorcism or with interacting with scribes – accounts vary dramatically.

And all of this is really ok I think. Even the stories with which we are most intimate and familiar look different from different contexts and different storytellers. I think that a few of you may have been around to hear Mateo and I recount the story of how we met – a story which is consistent only in the most obvious of ways. We agree on who the central characters are and we agree that we met in a Spanish language class. Beyond that, there is discrepancy. We have not yet agreed on the canonized version of our story. And since Mateo is not with us this morning to guarantee that you hear his side of the story, I will just tell you this – in one account, the character of Mateo offers, with unrelenting enthusiasm, countless invitations to go on dates – all of which are soundly refused by the character of Emily who feels both burdened and secretly thrilled by the flirtation of this British stranger. In the other account, the character of Mateo helpfully and professionally points out a number of venues and public events which would be of mutual interest to both parties given their common interest in international public policy. Purely professional.

Two accounts – one story.

And more recently we have had to acknowledge a few other voices. On our most recent trip back to the States, we were attending the wedding of our friend Jenny. Jenny was actually in the class where we met – the only person that had a front row seat to our courtship back when we were (mateo) and (Emily) not (mateoandemily). Hearing Jenny’s account of our meeting story is therefore very intriguing to us. When I recently asked her what she remembered – she dramatically rolled her eyes and commented on how INCREDIBLY irritating we both were. “Mateo was constantly flirting with Emily” (I like this detail as it affirms my account of the story) but she continues “and Emily was pretending to need help in Spanish so she could keep leaning over and asking Mateo questions” (not my version of events). But Jenny, looking radiant in her wedding dress, brightens up and says “who would have guessed you would be married and here for my wedding? The whole story is just so unexpected!”
Indeed. And hearing Jenny’s account of the events enriches our own story. This is the value of the communal storytelling project.

The New Testament is a grand communal storytelling project – attempting to retell one of the most riveting and pivotal events in history. In a sense, the Christian story is a written account of the early community telling itself the story of itself. For there to be discrepancies in details is not an inconvenience, it is a richness, adding texture to the events. The Gospel of Matthew is the “thinking gospel” and concentrates on law, logic, order. The story of Jesus is the story of fulfilment of Jewish prophecy. The Gospel of Mark is the gospel of grace – the disciples are portrayed as hopeless, fumbling idiots and it empowers us by helping us to believe that if the disciples manage to be good followers of Jesus, so can we. The story of Jesus in Mark is the story of a person of action, Jesus acts in history and the disciples try to make sense of what it all means. The Gospel of Luke is the solidarity story – the place in which the most stories of solidarity with the poor occur. Jesus in this account is a philosopher and a teacher, an engaged activist on the side of the oppressed. And finally, the Gospel of John is the mystic story with high Christology and Jesus is the divine incarnation, the embodiment of God on earth.

This week, as a church community, we expect to hear news that will significantly shape our story. We are bracing ourselves for a twist in the plot; we are aware that there may be a possible change in the setting in our future. Regardless of what we hear, I believe it will be ever more important for us to keep telling each other the story – the story of who we are, the story of what we believe. And I know, we are up to the task.

Something I like about this congregation is that you appreciate a good story – and we have such rich story tellers amongst us – we have writers, and bloggers, we have film reviewers and theatre reviewers, we have people who sell books, we have actors. We are people who tell stories, people who can appreciate the power of a well told story.

I want to leave you with a poem called The One Certain Thing by Peter Cooley, poet from New Orleans, writing about the importance of language, words and stories. The poem is addressed to his children and is his attempt to explain how words preserve moments and people in time. When I first read it, I was struck by how this poem might also be applied to what might have gone through the thoughts of the gospel writers as they penned the words that became our canon. So when you hear it, I want you to ponder both of those directions.

The One Certain Thing

A day will come I’ll watch you reading this.
I’ll look up from these words I’m writing now—
this line I’m standing on, I’ll be right here,
alive again. I’ll breathe on you this breath.
Touch this word now, that one. Warm, isn’t it?

You are the person come to clean my room;
you are whichever of my three children
opens the drawer here where this poem will go
in a few minutes when I’ve had my say.

These are the words from immortality.
No one stands between us now except Death:
I enter it entirely writing this.
I have to tell you I am not alone.
Watching you read, Eternity’s with me.
We like to watch you read. Read us again.

A Salvation Journey

2010-06-06T15:30:00.000+01:00

Preacher: Barbara

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,
the Word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance
for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the Prophet Isaiah:
The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
And the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;
And all flesh shall see the Salvation of God.
Luke 3:1-6

Earlier this Spring I read Sue Haselhurst’s email to Wood Green Mennonite members and participants – a request for volunteers that would be willing to preach, lead worship, or help with other Sunday tasks. And, it was then I sensed it was the time to “take-up” once again – what has been a most meaningful part of my life: assisting in worship.

Since Wood Green offers a very different setting and style of worship (than to which I have been accustomed), I decided it would be less daunting to do one of the personal talks that was needed on June 6 or July 4 Communion Sundays.
And – that is what has brought me here today.

As Jeremy read in Luke’s Gospel: long ago, God’s messenger, the Prophet Isaiah, proclaimed the hope that all flesh shall see the Salvation of God. And, for our time together, I have chosen salvation as my theme.
And in conveying that message, I will share something of my life with you - a little from the beginning: how I came to know the God revealed in Christ, and the difference that makes in my life. And therefore the title: A Salvation Journey.

I first came to know Christ through –

● LOVING PARENTS.

Being born into a Christian home is one of life’s most precious gifts. I first came to know the Lord through my father and mother. As little children do – I learned from and was influenced by what I observed at home. The “faith and practice” of my parents, Willard and Elizabeth Barge, was a most positive experience – and became the foundation – the grounding – for my own life. And, though they are now both deceased – their “living” spirits remain as one of the greatest influences on my ongoing Christian walk.

Through them I came to know and to accept a life of obedience to the gospel. My parents were disciplined in the faith and dedicated to its practice. As many of you, we had our religious rituals. Ours included family devotions. Each morning we began with scripture reading and prayer before breakfast – followed by discussion around the table as we ate. With the focus being “the newspaper in one hand” – “the scriptures in the other” – our parents encouraged us to formulate “gospel application.” As you might imagine – especially if you knew Bill & Liz - those conversations were (at times) quite lively!

As a family we also attended worship every Sunday, as well as participated in special services and mission opportunities.

But more than those rituals – more than any theology my parents verbally shared – more than any “idea or conviction” they spoke aloud – it was watching them “in action” that helped me know God - and seek to follow God’s way. I saw the “good news” come alive as I observed them in their daily lives.

My parents were kind spoken, wrote letters and notes of encouragement, regularly invited persons to dinner, listened to others’ opinions, they championed the downtrodden, spoke out against injustice. They formed friendships with people of varied economic backgrounds, from other races and cultures, even from differing faiths. They were not perfect – sin-free – but they were faithful in spirit, peaceful in action, positive by nature, hospitable, forgiving, merciful, caring, and compassionate. In their lives, the fruit of God’s spirit was evident.

I was introduced to the gospel of Christ through the lives of my parents, and was transformed through its power.

As I reflect on their influence, I am reminded of the little verse by Edgar Guest, entitled:

Sermons We See

“I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day,
I’d rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way.
The eye’s a better pupil and more willing than the ear,
Fine counsel is confusing, but example’s always clear;
And the best of all the preachers are the ones who live their creeds,
For to see good put in action is what everybody needs.

I first came to know the Lord through my loving parents, and for that gift I will be eternally grateful.

I also came to know the Lord and to accept the way of Christ through –
● THE CHURCH.
My journey began with the Mennonite Church, a church that is very dear to my heart. My Mennonite ancestors – came from Germany to America – fleeing religious persecution and seeking freedom of expression and service in a new country. It is a Mennonite heritage that focuses on –
• OBEDIENCE - through discipleship
• SIMPLICITY - in all of life
• LOVE - manifest through service, missions, and a peace witness in the world –
- It is a heritage that is deeply rooted in my being, and even today remains a constant challenge to my living.

However – it was at a non-denominational church camp in the summer of 1957, that I made my first public commitment of faith. There “I was ‘saved’!” Those are the words I wrote in my little Bible, a gift from my Grandmother Barge. I remember that experience well.
I was ten years old – and away from family for the first time – excited and a little fearful – spending a week with other little kids from varied church backgrounds. And, on the last night of camp, a young evangelist spoke, and asked the questions: “Are you saved?” “Where would you be if you died tonight?”
At my little country church, Mt. Joy Mennonite, near Calico Rock, Arkansas – I had never heard it put quite that way. And, when I saw all the other kids going forward, I joined in. It was a big step for me: for I was “owning” my own faith – making my first “individual, personal” commitment.

Now – looking back – I am very grateful for the wisdom of that young preacher. For when he prayed with us that night – he instructed us to go back home, and visit with our ministers about the decision we made.

I did talk with my parents and my minister, Manasseh Bontrager, and three years later, on June 12, 1960, I was baptized and formally became a member of Mt. Joy Mennonite – even though I already was participating and serving in that tiny community of faith: teaching a Sunday School class for little children and helping my mother give flannel-graph programs on Sunday evenings (that was long before the days of personal computers and power-point).

A few months later, my family moved to Hesston, Kansas. It was there I met Darrell Jantz, a next-door neighbor, and classmate at Hesston College Academy. Darrell’s heritage is also Mennonite. And in 1963, we were married at Hesston Mennonite Church, by Peter Wiebe, pastor and influential mentor on my faith journey. Darrell and I remained members at Hesston Mennonite until we moved to Duncan, Oklahoma in 1969 (a community without a Mennonite congregation). The week we arrived we were invited to the First United Methodist Church, and were warmly welcomed into that family of faith.

Through forty years of membership in that particular body of Christ, my faith deepened, I was nurtured and mentored, and my “call” was crystallized. And, across those many years, I was continually challenged to serve, always coupled with opportunities for training and preparation.

I have found the United Methodist denomination to be inclusive in nature, outreaching in connectional mission, enriched through the vast diversity of its members, yet grounded in its living “core” – of Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Reason. The discovery of this quadrilateral – this “four-legged” foundation – has provided a necessary “balance” for my seeking – and has proved most instructive for my growing relationship with God through Christ. I have found it to be a most holistic way to discern God’s will – and to understand God’s claim and call on my life personally, and on our life together as the body of Christ.

I thank God for the Church universal – and for the Mennonite and United Methodist Churches in particular.

Through loving parents and through the church – through Bible study, prayer, worship – through conversations with family and friends; through good music, art and books; through glorious sunsets and mountain grandeur; through the lives and witness of those dedicated disciples who diligently work for justice and peace in this troubled world – and in a myriad of other ways – I have come to know God, and to accept the way of Christ and make it mine.
But a “salvation journey” is always an ongoing journey: mine has now brought Darrell and me to this new juncture – and to our move to London.

The desire to serve together as mission volunteers in a Mennonite Agency has been our long-held dream. Across the years, Darrell and I had visited several family members who were involved in such endeavors: my parents, Bill & Liz Barge here in London at LMC; Darrell’s sister and family, Clydene & Kermit Gingerich, at Woodstock International School in India; my brother and family, Nathan & Elaine Zook-Barge, in their MCC work in Central America. Spending time with them and learning of their ministries validated our own call.

Thus – with full support of our two children, we had started making more definite plans in order to be available upon our retirement. And, it all came to a “head” on August 4, 2009, when my brother Bernell Barge sent us the Mennonite Mission Network link for this immediate opening at the London Mennonite Centre. He added: “Aren’t you two ready? Check this out!” Indeed we were — and later that same night we emailed our application, and began the process of contacting our references. Following numerous phone interviews, with MMN representatives and with LMC Trustees, in late October we were asked to come.

Bringing closure to a 40-year career as an engineer and manager with an oil serving company in Duncan, Darrell retired at the end of that same month. And, at the end of November, I too resigned from my 16 years at a Disciples of Christ congregation, where I served as Director of Adult Ministries. And just before leaving the states, we transferred our membership back to the Hesston Mennonite Church, in Hesston, Kansas, where we will move after this assignment.

In the meantime, for these three years, we look forward to our ongoing “journey” with London Mennonite Centre and with you – the Wood Green Mennonite community of faith – to become immersed once again in an Anabaptist witness – and along with each of you, to continue to grow spiritually and serve faithfully.

As we attempt to follow God’s leading and will on this salvation journey, Darrell and I have found it requires embracing both the intrinsic “mystery” of it all, and the occasional “revelation” glimpses provided. But mostly, we believe it calls us to live and serve in a spirit of gratitude for the opportunities of the day – knowing that the Eternal One promises to be with us every step of the way.

The Gospel of Luke reminds us of our call: the invitation to join with the Prophet Isaiah, with John the Baptizer, with the entire band of travelers from across the ages – in helping prepare the way of Our Lord and proclaiming that God’s Salvation is for one and all.

Indeed:

A Salvation Journey is a life-long Journey!
Our Salvation has everything to do
with God’s amazing grace.
The purpose and joy of life
(Your life – My life)
Is to respond and serve in gratitude
All our days
For that most precious gift.
Amen!

Christian Aid Sunday

2010-05-16T15:30:00.001+01:00

Preacher: Sue

Readings: Psalm 67, John 14:23-29, Revelation 21:1-6, 21:10

“And now faith[fullness], hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” (after 1 Cor 13:13)

Of course that isn’t quite what 1 Cor 13:13 says (it talks about faith not faithfulness) – and 1 Cor 13 isn’t my text for today. But, unusually, I have a three point sermon and the points are faithfulness, hope, and love. They’re based on the lectionary readings for last Sunday when most churches marked Christian Aid Sunday but when we celebrated the visit of Alan & Eleanor Kreider and others who have been important in the story of the church.

So for us today is Christian Aid Sunday, a day to be reminded, as we asked in our opening prayer, of the reality of the world and the voices of those who are unheard.

So let’s take faithfulness, hope, and love in that order and start with faithfulness.

In our reading from John, Jesus tells his disciples “those who love me will keep my word” and “whoever does not love me does not keep my words”. And let’s remember that this passage comes from the time just before his death when Jesus is beginning to take leave of his disciples because he knows where his own keeping of the Father’s words will take him.

So at once we are faced with the challenge to be faithful, not just to say we love God, not even just to love God but to be faithful disciples, keeping the word of Jesus. If we love Jesus we will love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength, we will love our neighbour as ourself and we will love our enemies. We will seek to do what Jesus did and what Jesus said. As we remember God’s love for the poor in Christian Aid week, if we love God we will let ourselves be challenged, in the words of our opening prayer, to respond with compassion to what we hear from Christian Aid, in the news and from those we encounter face to face who have stories of struggle, and we will let ourselves be challenged to try to learn how to walk alongside the poor.

As Chris observed to me when he was preparing to lead this service, to some extent all of us have some awareness of this challenge whether at home or abroad – Matt and Emily have been experiencing this very vividly in Haiti, some work in the thick of deprivation here in London – and I think it is one of the strengths of the Mennonite tradition that the call to faithfulness and discipleship, to keep Jesus’ word, is woven right through its fabric.

So I’m going to move on from faithfulness to my next point and from John’s gospel to our next passage in Revelation which brings us a vision of hope.

Hope

Now of course over the centuries some Christians have been so focused on anticipating the new heaven and the new earth that they’ve felt free not to bother so much with praying and working for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, because one day God will bring in the kingdom himself, regardless of what we do. Jim Wallis has written about how Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God has been defused by a number of misunderstandings, one of which he call “futurising”. (The others are individualizing and spiritualizing.) Futurising focuses so much on the future end of time that it ignores the call to bring in the kingdom now. So the wonderful vision of these verses from Revelation can become a reason – or even an excuse – not to pursue God’s kingdom.

So in some ways I understand why today other Christians are reluctant to dwell on Revelation’s vision, in which this earth and this heaven pass away and are renewed in the coming of the new heaven and the new earth and a wonderful new order. They fear that this can feed complacency – “I don’t have to look after the planet, I don’t have to offer care and support to individuals who are struggling, I don’t have to bother about campaigns which can tackle the causes of some of those struggles. God will sort it all out in the end.”

But I think we need this vision for at least two reasons. Firstly these visions from Revelation and prophets like Isaiah are significant in shaping my view of what it would look like for God’s kingdom to come on earth as we so often pray that it will. Just last Sunday, for instance, we heard in the passage from Isaiah 65 about a Jerusalem where cries of distress and the sound of weeping will never be heard, where people will live such long healthy lives that “one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed”. In Isaiah’s vision there will be material comfort and security too - “they shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat”. And there will be no war, the cause of so much poverty and displacement throughout the world: “they shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.” (Isaiah 65:18-25).

In Micah 4 we find the same vision of peace where each household has the means to feed itself, neither starving nor depending on aid, where in the mountain of the Lord “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid”.

So, as the Christian Aid notes for today’s sermon remind us, in the Revelation passage “we see the completion of the perfect kingdom that Christ’s redemption work has made possible – the kingdom that is both now and yet to come. The city is a perfect society – vast and open to all, without pain, death or suffering. God and people dwell together because there is nothing to mar their relationship, or the relationships between people. And the city is full of abundant health,” with the spring of the water of life, the river of life, and the tree with leaves for the healing of the nations.

And I think these verses, these visions of the future fullness of God’s kingdom which now we see only in part, tell us so much about what God dreams of and what we can join with God in dreaming of. Alan and Eleanor Kreider talked last week about spotting where God is at work and joining with God in that. These passages give us important clues as to what it looks like when God is at work and they help us imagine how we can join with God in that work. Reading these passages we know even more keenly that Haiti’s experience of injustice over centuries and of disaster in the last few months is not what God dreams for Haiti. And reading these passages we see that the projects of Christian Aid and Outreach International are little foretastes of God’s vision for the whole world and steps along the way to that vision.

And secondly, I think we need the hope that our Revelation passage holds out in order to have a balanced faith and live balanced lives. Yes, Jesus calls us to faithfulness. But in the end it will be God who will make everything right, make everything new in a way that we could not even if all of us were to strain every sinew throughout every moment of our waking lives.

Some of you will know Tim Nafziger who worked at the London Mennonite Centre from 2004 – 2006 and now works for Christian Peacemaker Teams in Chicago. In a recent article for his blog for The Mennonite magazine, Tim talked about what he saw as a traditional dichotomy in the Mennonite church between peace and justice on the one hand and Christian conversion and day to day discipleship on the other. Tim said that he found in the Anabaptist movement in the UK a way of keeping the two together, “a charismatic vision of shalom that centered on God's vision for the redemption of all of creation, not just the soul and not just society”. So, Tim says, “peace and justice is at the center [sic – Tim is American after all!] of the gospel, right along side Christian conversion, community, discipleship and hope in the resurrection”.

And Tim warns against a theology that is so intent on peace & justice, or perhaps in the terms of my sermon today so intent on faithfulness, that it “can end up strident and triumphalist. We will shape the future! We will not be silent!”

“We forget,” Tim says, “that it is God, not us who will save the world. Each time our attempts to shape the future fail or even backfire miserably, we grow a little more brittle and a little more cynical.”

And that’s where it becomes essential to hang on to hope. We may face disappointment and failure, but if we know that it is God who will change the world and who will change us too, we can continue to hope.

So, Tim continues, “hope grounded in resurrection and Jesus’ triumph over death will not be so easily swayed by the latest political failures. It recognizes our need for personal liberation is as great as society's need for redemption.”

So on this Christian Aid Sunday, as we’re reminded of the needs of the world, I think we need to hold on to Jesus’ call to faithfulness but also to the hope that our future and the future of the whole earth and its peoples are in God’s hands.

Love

And so we come to love. Faithfulness, hope and love. And I’d like to take us back to our first passage from John’s gospel.

"Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them,” Jesus says.

There’s something very moving about the down-to-earth picture of Jesus and the Father coming to those who love Jesus and making their home with them.

It reminds me of the promise of Revelation 3:20 to the lukewarm, half-hearted church of Laodicea: “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” Or of the opening verses of John’s gospel “And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (NRSV) which some versions translate as “The Word became a human being. He made his home with us”

And I think this is also an important strand in our response on Christian Aid Sunday. It is good to work and pray faithfully and it’s important to live in the hope of the resurrection, knowing that it is God not us who will save the world. And it’s also good to feel the security and nourishment and intimacy of being loved by God, of sharing our home with Jesus and the Father. Indeed, the promise of the Father and the Son coming to make their home with us is followed almost immediately by the promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit.

"Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” So the Trinity of Father, Son & Spirit will make their home with us.

For some of you it will be very familiar to look at Rublev’s icon and to reflect on the way the space at the table seems to beckon us in to eat with the three figures, who may be Abraham’s mysterious three visitors or may be the persons of the godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But for others it may be new and for all of us, I think, it is good to remember that quite apart from our church community we are also invited into another community, the community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a community where we are loved and are at home and can be secure, with our hearts untroubled and unafraid.

So this Christian Aid Sunday even as we hear the call to faithfulness in keeping Jesus’ word let us also hold to the hope of the day when God will make all things new and put everything right. And let us also rejoice in the love of being included in God’s family as Father, Son and Spirit come to make their home with us.

The Prodigal Son

2010-03-14T15:30:00.001Z

Preacher: Veronica

Readings: Psalm 32, Luke 15 1-3, 11b-32

The taciturn old man had been to church while his wife prepared the Sunday lunch. When he came home, she asked him what the sermon had been about. ‘Sin’, he replied. ‘So what did he have to say about it?’ she asked. ‘He were agin it.’

Well, I hope we’re all ‘agin it’, but what does that actually mean? And how does that express itself in our lives? And is being ‘agin it’ enough? I’m going to explore these questions through the medium of probably the best known parable in the whole Gospels, a parable whose title has passed into our language and is used by people who may never even have read or heard the parable.

How can I possibly say anything new about this well known and well loved story? Maybe I can’t, but I will say what I can about it. And one thing I’ve noticed is that it’s usually preached to the wrong people. Or rather, only half of it is preached and it is preached to the people who actually need the other half.

This parable is a favourite for evangelists. What could be more stirring than the tale of a lost boy whose father welcomes him back with open arms before he’s even made his confession? So evangelists love to use it to call those who have wandered far from God and tell them there is a welcome waiting for them. And indeed there may be some in their audience who fit that category. The trouble is, when it’s preached to congregations of respectable Christians who have never wandered further than the corner shop, the preacher often still focuses on the younger brother, in the vain hope that there might just be someone who has strayed in by accident from the local crack house. Which there rarely is.

Yes, we are all sinners, and preachers are fond of pointing it out, but I can’t help feeling it’s a bit pathetic when we struggle to accuse ourselves of sin just so we can feel forgiven. I don’t know about you, but I became a Christian when I was 16, and I hadn’t had a lot of time to wander in the desert of sin. I hadn’t done the sex and drugs - I’d only managed a bit of rock and roll. My testimony would have been decidedly boring. In fact when writing on this in Bible notes I used the title ‘I was a teenage moralist’, which would also do as a titile for this sermon.

So when I was in a group studying the Prodigal Son, and was asked which character I identified with, I was quite clear - I knew I was the older brother. I’m very good at being ‘agin sin’, but not so good about welcoming the lost back home. In fact I have some sympathy with that Bible misprint where the story reads: ‘his father ran and put his arms around him and killed him’. If I’d been the father, that might have been what I’d do.

Not only that, but I’m often quite sure that I’ve been slaving for years for God, and that he hasn’t given me any credit for it, let alone a goat, should I want such a thing (although I like the sound of the new clothes and jewellery). I see others who have messed up dramatically, have done all the things which you’re not supposed to do, and have come back, or come for the first time, to God and made a new start - and I don’t rejoice with them, I envy them. As the song goes: ‘The best part of breaking up Is when you make it up’ - but how can you have the joy of making up when you never broke up in the first place?

The Prodigal Son is not actually a story about a lost son, it is about two lost sons - they are just lost in different ways. I may be wrong, and you are welcome to correct me, but I suspect the majority of us here are more like the elder brother than the younger. We have been brought up to be ‘agin sin’ and have either made our childhood faith our own, or been converted at a young age, and we really don’t feel particularly like prodigals. Part of us maybe even thinks we’d like a chance to go off the rails for a bit just to be welcomed back. A past boyfriend of mine told me I had just been good for too long - and that was in the early 80s, so I’ve been a good girl for a lot more years since then. Isn’t it time God gave me a little time off?

Jesus told this parable, of course, in the context of a society where the lines were very clear between ‘the righteous’ and ‘sinners’ - we may wonder why tax collectors were so frowned on, but in fact they were mostly crooked and acted pretty much as loan sharks do today. He is responding to the criticism that he spends too much time with the dregs of society. And the scribes and Pharisees who made that criticism, would have known very well that the sketch of the elder brother was a portrait of them. It’s not a very flattering portrait: he is self righteous, whiny, self- pitying and full of wild fantasies of what his brother has been getting up to, which perhaps in his secret soul he’d like to get up to as well. Notice that there is no mention of prostitutes in the younger son’s story, they are a detail the older son
has introduced..

The younger son is lost because he has essentially said he can’t wait for his father to die, so he can get the loot and live the life he’d like to live if his father weren’t around. His view of his father is as nothing but a restriction on his freedom to indulge himself. It’s interesting that his father complies with his request, and doesn’t even give him any warnings about the dangers and dissatisfaction of the dissolute life he is planning to lead. God give us freedom to get into whatever messes we want to - it’s just that some of us aren’t courageous enough to try them. Which shows that we don’t really believe in the father’s welcome back - we are still living in fear of punishment by God. I say this mainly about myself, not necessarily about you.

The elder brother is lost in a very different way. Yet his view of his father is actually quite similar to his brother’s: he sees the father as a hard taskmaster who expects total obedience and conformity and who is too mean to reward it with anything more than the minimum. When he discovers that his father is actually wildly, inappropriately generous, and not to him but to his wayward younger brother, he is a bit like Jonah when Nineveh repents: he goes into a total sulk and complains that it’s not fair.
Sibling rivalry rules!

Another parable that this reminds me of, is that of the Pharisee and the publican. No doubt the elder brother had spent years praying something like ‘I thank God that I am not like my feckless brother, but I do my duty by our father and do everything he tells me to’. To use the terms of Peter’s sermon last week, the elder brother is someone who insists on fasting when a feast is laid out, and thinks he’s virtuous by so doing.

If we Christians are often more like the elder brother than the younger, what is God’s word to us as the elder brother? Let’s look at what the father says: Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours’. In other words, he could have had a fatted calf or a new robe or ring at any time, but because of his narrow view of his father, he never asked. Yes, the best part of breaking up is when you make it up, and perhaps there has to be special rejoicing when the prodigal returns: ‘We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found’. But in fact there are other special joys in having led a long and faithful life under God and never rebelled.

Which is stronger - a marriage where there has been unfaithfulness but the straying partner has repented and come back, or a marriage where neither partner has strayed but both have spent years in resentment at being tied down and not being able to live their life in their own way? Probably the first, but actually the best is the one where both partners have always rejoiced in their partnership, been generous to one another, and felt free to make requests of their partner in full expectation that they’ll receive a positive answer.

The elder brother is actually just as rebellious in his own way. He serves his father, but there’s little evidence that he loves his father, or indeed expects and experiences his father’s love for him. He believes his father to be hard on him, is hard on himself, and so is inevitably hard on his erring younger brother. He doesn’t make a very attractive model to follow - for him discipleship is duty, and God is a grudging giver.

Being a person who is usually hard on herself, I find it easy to slip into this distorted image of God as someone who demands service but doesn’t give much in return. And of course when I think this way, I get harder on myself, harder on others, and generally less nice to know - and I can’t experience the love and lavish generosity of God. In fact I revert to being that teenage moralist who was so ready to look disapprovingly on her non-Christian friends.

Disapproving, of course, is a favourite pastime of many Christians, and I’m not accusing anyone here of being guilty of it. This is actually the least disapproving church I’ve ever been in. Perhaps it’s because we direct our disapproval against social evils like the arms race, rather than against our fellow human beings outside or within the church. Which may be healthier, but carries the same risk of our becoming people who condemn rather than convert.

I don’t actually like being the elder brother. It is quite a lonely place, and when I get older-brotherish, I am denying myself all kinds of gifts, spiritual and material, that God probably wants to give me. The party is actually open to all, whether we are like the profligate younger brother or the puritan older one; but some of us don’t go because we disapprove of parties.

An underlying theme of our sermons during Lent is the theme proposed in the Mennonite Leader magazine, which is about letting go and holding on. In the psalm we heard how the psalmist didn’t find relief till he let go of his concealed sin and opened up to God about it.. In the story of the Prodigal, which really ought to be called The Two Sons, the younger brother has to let go of his pride and independence and go shamefacedly back to his Father. He can do it because while he was eating with the pigs, he discovered a new view of his father: that his father is a caring, just employer who rewards his servants with enough food. When he gets back he discovers that his father is not only just but unrestrainedly loving, and that he is welcomed as a son not a servant.

The elder brother has to let go of his self-pity and his belief that he is a hard done by labourer who never gets anything. In the space of the parable, however, he can’t do it because he is still holding on to his view of his Father as a kind of sweatshop boss who is never satisfied. The parable ends there, and it is left to us to complete it in our own minds, and in our own lives. If we are elder brothers, we will never learn to be cared-for sons and daughters unless we let go of our narrow ideas of God and discover God as the good parent who is not only just but kind and overwhelmingly giving. And unless we receive that love of God for ourselves, we will be unable to give it to others. And as usual, I think I have preached this most of all to myself.

Feast and Sabbath

2010-03-07T15:30:00.000Z

Preacher: Peter

Readings: Psalm 63 (ESV); Isaiah 55

In Psalm 63, the writer juxtaposes images of scarcity and plenty to express his feelings about God. The wilderness of Judea, where even water (the most essential commodity of all) is in short supply, reflects his hunger and thirst for God’s presence. And remembering times past when he felt close to God reminds him of a lavish feast with “fat and rich food” (as the ESV has v5).

I like fat and rich food….

The culture of scarcity, where food and drink (not to mention clothes, shelter, means of transport, health) are in short supply for the great majority of ordinary people, is certainly the culture of the Bible, and indeed has been the culture of humankind in general throughout most of recorded history. My parents, coming to adulthood under rationing in the aftermath of the Second World War, were deeply marked by this scarcity culture, and to this day my mother is almost incapable of throwing leftover gravy away.

A pattern of scarcity and plenty, of fasting interleaved with occasional feasting, is deeply embedded in the Bible and in the Christian tradition. It is there from the beginning in the pattern of the week – 6 days of hard work and making do, followed by the feast of the sabbath – and in the great feasts of the Jewish and Christian traditions. At this very moment we are living through the fast days of Lent and preparing for the great feast of Easter.

In the post-war economic boom of the sixties, it seemed that here in the West we had finally abolished the old scarcity culture. Industrial mass production provided abundant good things - such as food, clothes, homes, cars, televisions – to ordinary people at affordable prices (or at least on easy terms). Fasting was over, as we established for ourselves a permanent feast.

But it is becoming clearer as the years go by that our declaration of permanent feast (at least for us in the West) is extremely dangerous – we are in danger of eating ourselves out of a planet. According to WWF 90% of the world’s large fish have already been fished out, and a group of experts recently warned that the world will run out of seafood by 2048. Deforestation in the Amazon is driven by our insatiable hunger for cheap beef, while the growing trade in bush-meat threatens many endangered species with extinction, including our closest relations the great apes. It seems we urgently need some self-imposed scarcity, before our feasting permanently damages the Earth’s capacity to sustain us and its other inhabitants.

Ursula LeGuin, my favourite sci-fi writer, and one of my favourite writers of any kind, wrote a wonderful utopian novel called The Dispossessed . She sets her story on two neighbouring worlds. One, called Urras, is lush, green, temperate, and abundant. The other, Anarres, is a dry, windy, desert world, that can barely sustain life at all. Against expectations, LeGuin places her utopian society on the desert world Anarres. Urras, the abundant world where there is more than enough for everyone, is a place of extreme wealth and poverty, of governments and stock markets, of armies and wars, police and prisons. In LeGuin’s vision, her little anarchist utopia requires a world of extreme scarcity to concentrate people’s minds on the essential things.

So perhaps scarcity is good for the soul….

But it’s possible to go too far in that direction. The 1987 film Babette’s Feast (dir. Gabriel Axel) is set in a deeply pious and ascetic community on the Danish coast. Two sisters take on a French maid, Babette, who is actually a highly skilled chef, but is reduced to preparing the sisters’ daily abstemious meal of dried fish or thin soup. When she wins a lottery prize, she spends the whole sum to produce one extravagent feast for the entire village. The film paints a lovely picture of this feast as a sign of grace, which breaks open lives frozen by long years of scarcity culture. Clive Marsh writes:

The practice of eating raises so many profound issues: whether to eat animals, how much to eat, how lavishly to eat, how much to spend on food, whether to eat alone, who to eat with, how much time to spend on such a seemingly functional activity. Babette’s Feast sharpens our engagement with such questions. And in its quiet, quaint, modest way it urges us to think about what we eat, where our food is from, who has prepared it, who we share it with (and why). And it confronts us with the possibility that the sharing of food in company, when time and care is devoted to the task of preparing and eating it, is a prime moment of divine disclosure in the contemporary world which we can only call “sacramental”.

Likewise, our reading from Isaiah 55 urges us to “eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” Isaiah’s feast (like Babette’s) is an image of God’s grace as a big meal for hungry people, given freely as a gift of love, not for purchase.

Jurgen Moltmann talks about the Sabbath as a feast of creation and a feast of redemption.

Every sabbath in time has an end. Every feast day becomes another working day. That is why Franz Rosenweig calls the weekly sabbath ‘the dream of completion, but only a dream’. Sabbath day, sabbath year, and Year of Jubilee point in time beyond the time of history, out into messianic time. It is only the sabbath at the end of history that will be ‘a feast without end’.

In the Bible’s vision, the sabbath is part of a pattern of scarcity and plenty. It’s the little feast day after 6 days of of hard work and short commons. But in our culture of permanent feast, when every day is a day of abundance, how can we make the sabbath different, except by making it a day of self-denial rather a feast day? Does this contribute to the difficult feelings that many Christians have about the sabbath? I know that for myself, too often the only way in which Sunday feels “special” is that it is a day of duties, rotas, and chores, at the end of which I feel tired and demoralized rather than rested and renewed.

I’m not sure that we are very good at doing sabbath in this church (or any church I have ever belonged to for that matter). The hard work – both in preparation and on the day – needed to put on this weekly “show” is running some of us ragged, and seems almost opposite to the ideal of a sabbath feast.

So maybe it’s time think again about how to pattern our week in a way that challenges the permanent feast of our culture, but also allows us to celebrate more truly the sabbath feast of God.

The way of the hen

2010-02-28T15:30:00.000Z

Preacher: Sue

Readings: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18, Psalm 27, Luke 13:31-35/Fair Trade fortnight

Early one Sunday morning in the mid 1970s I decided to give up on God. I was reminded of this as I prepared to talk about my spiritual journey at our homegroup earlier this week.

So why was I giving up on God and how did I imagine it panning out? In my early teens I’d had a period of searching for something. I’d bought a bible, read most or maybe even all of it, prayed pretty much every night, got confirmed and gone to church most Sundays. And it had made no difference to anything. I was tired and disillusioned. I thought I’d tried hard enough and it was time God put in a bit of effort. So, somewhere between the ages of 13 & 15 – I don’t remember clearly – I signed off with the words: “ I can’t hold on to you, God, you’ll have to hold on to me”. It wasn’t so much a prayer, more a letter of resignation. I certainly didn’t expect God to take any notice, and apart from becoming steadily less diligent & heartfelt in my religious practices I didn’t even take much notice myself. But the memory of that morning came back to me some years later when as a student I thought again about the Christian faith and found that it sounded true. And, given that I’m here today in a Christian community and in relationship with God, I guess you could say that God did hold on to me – and didn’t accept my resignation.

But maybe that explains why our reading from Genesis 15 was for some years one of my favourite bible passages. People who have looked at the customs of the ancient near east, that is Abraham’s time and culture, say that in his day two partners in an agreement (a binding covenant) would cut up animals, lay out the pieces and both ritually walk between them promising to keep the agreement or else let themselves be cut in pieces like the slaughtered animals.

In our passage God asks Abraham to get hold of a number of animals. This Abraham obediently does, and apparently he knows what’s coming next as he doesn’t stop there. He kills all the animals and lines them up ready for the covenant ritual. The scene is set for a solemn pact between Abram and God – but then as night falls and darkness closes in, Abraham falls into a deep sleep.

Now if I were about to make a binding covenant and stake my life on it, I think I’d want my covenant partner to be as fully engaged and committed as I was. If you compare it with a wedding, I think we would all want any prospective spouse to be not only physically present but also awake (and sober). So you might think that Abraham nodding off at this critical moment would be a bit of a showstopper. But it looks as though this is what God has had in mind all along. Because, in a dark rather spooky sequence, bordering on the nightmarish, as Abraham sleeps a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passes between the animal pieces. And verse 18 tells us that the covenant was concluded, even with Abraham asleep.

So for years this passage stood for me as an example right at the very beginning of the story of God with humanity of the way God does the bulk of the work, God holds on Abraham even when Abraham is fast asleep and not holding on to anything. Of course, it’s not all one-sided in the relationship between God and Abraham. In Genesis 18:19, for instance, we read that God expects Abraham to “charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice”. But it’s God who initiates the covenant and God signs up for the awful consequences of breaking the covenant without expecting Abram to do the same.

So Abraham depends on God and God holds on to Abraham. And Abraham embraces God’s promise and allows himself to depend on God.

We’ll come back to this passage in a moment but for now let’s think about our passage from Luke.

Here the Pharisees bring Jesus a warning that Herod is threatening his life. Jesus is not intimidated. On the contrary, he’s openly scornful of “that fox” Herod. Then he appears to run through his diary for the next few days, apparently checking how he is fixed for the proposed quick getaway. He makes his ministry sound just like anyone’s normal routine: “I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work”. It sounds almost comical – hmm, let me see now, I’ll just check my diary, oh, no looks like I can’t leave right now, I’ll be busy with demons and healings for the next couple of days.

But Jesus gives another reason for not running away: “today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem”. So it’s as if he is saying, oh, is Herod going to kill me? Well, in that case I’d better make sure I’m in the right place for him.

This seems to me to be a powerful way of responding to Herod’s threat. Jesus embraces the very thing that is supposed to scare him into backing off. So he’s taken away the only weapon against him; the threat is no longer a threat. He’s made the whole conversation low key and almost normal.

Sometimes in a day-dreaming kind of a way I try to come up with creative ways of responding in imaginary violent or potentially violent situations, in the hope that if and when I find myself in one I may find I have an approach up my sleeve that will help defuse things. And I feel there is a pattern in Jesus’ response that could help us respond when violence is threatened. But try as I might I can’t come up with a concrete example. The best I can do is recount a friend’s experience (as far as I recall it). Seeing two men squaring up to each other in the street, ready for a fight, she approached them and asked “Shall I call an ambulance now or afterwards?” I think she achieved the same effect as Jesus did. She reacted without anxiety, and calmly – and with humour – spoke as if a fight would be something quite normal which she would be prepared to deal with if it happened, which seemed to take the wind out of the men’s sails. At any rate, they never got round to fighting.

The next part of Jesus’ response to the Pharisees is just as striking. Here is Jesus as mother hen who longs to gather Jerusalem under his wings. It’s a wonderfully parental, even maternal, view of God. And surely Jesus is making a point by referring to himself as a protective hen just after describing Herod as a fox. The fox-hen relationship is a notoriously troubled one. It’s all about predator and prey, about eating and being eaten. So perhaps talking about fox and hen raises some questions. Of course, if I want a comforting parent, I’d rather have a protective broody hen than a wily fox who is out to kill. But in troubled times, maybe a fox would be a better ally? If I could be sure it would be on my side and not snapping and biting, maybe a fox would be a better deal.

I wonder whether Jesus is pushing people to think about what their priorities are and where their loyalties lie. Do they want to want to play it safe, covering their backs by allying themselves with the ruler who collaborates with Rome, who operates by force and the threat of force? Or do they want to flee to the hen who loves them and cares for them as a parent, who offers no violence and has no military power behind her?

And again I think there are some possible applications here for us. If we think about our focus for this service on fair trade, I think we may be able to paint some pictures that seem to match the fox/hen contrast. There are the large companies with vast global presence intent on profit and, in some cases, not afraid to play dirty to get it. You may have heard the news story this week about Reckitt Benckiser who have bent or even broken the rules in order to maintain profits from their product Gaviscon and thus driven up NHS bills. They are not largely in the same market as fair trade companies but give an example of ruthless business practice. And we could talk about fair trade companies as deliberately refusing this kind of ruthlessness, of taking the way of the hen. But I wonder if for Jesus’ hearers there is a bit more at stake in this question than there is for us when we decide to buy fair trade. It could have been risky for Jesus’ hearers to choose to align themselves with the hen Jesus rather than the powerful fox Herod. For them choosing to hold on to God would have required a willingness also to let go of the safety and security of being on the side that is armed, might even ultimately have required a willingness to let go of life, as Jesus himself was to do.

So let’s now look at these two passages together.

One gives us the God of the night vision, the smoking pot and flaming torch, the God who can promise whole swathes of land even though they are still inhabited. God takes an immense risk in making a covenant of love with imperfect humans who will fall short and disappoint in countless ways. And we could say that God is willing to accept the threatened penalty of death for breaking the covenant – but actually God has no intention of breaking the covenant, so God’s life is safe.

As for Abraham, to believe and trust God in spite of the evidence is to make a brave choice to hold on to God he hardly knows as yet. At the time he embarks on this journey with God, it probably looks highly unlikely that God will be true to his word. But if God does keep his promises, the rewards will be amazing – countless descendants settled in desirable lands with their rivals driven out. This is a powerful God who can be relied on to keep God’s people safe, will always intervene to make everything OK. Veronica looked last week at the way the tempter drew on an idea common in the bible, particularly in the Old Testament, that those who serve God will always be rescued, and that the worst things only happen to the wicked. And I think we can see this view here and in Psalm 27 which we read together.

But Veronica reminded us also of “the danger of quoting the Old Testament without reference to the new” and the Luke passage gives us another view of God and of how rescue and suffering play out. In this passage, Jesus casts himself not as the fox with strength and cunning to get his own way for himself and his allies but as the hen willing sit tight under threat, to gather her chicks under her wings and protect them with her own life. Here the threat to God’s life is real. God’s life will depend not on God’s own faithfulness to the covenant with Abraham but on how vigorously and violently Herod the fox and his allies decide to pursue the hen and her chicks. This shows us Jesus as a hen under threat from a fox but willing to face the threat rather than run away. I think this image is a good one to carry through Lent as we approach Easter and think about a God who hasn’t scooped us all up out of danger but has chosen, in Jesus, to join us in the midst of danger and suffering.

Perhaps this can help us think about the suffering we see round about us and in our midst. Jesus as mother hen protects us, cuddling us in under his wings, loves us and is willing to absorb the violence threatening the chicks to the point even of death. But by not countering violence with violence, by choosing instead the path of tender care, Jesus takes his followers too into a world where things won’t always go as we wish they would.

The people of Jerusalem wouldn’t let Jesus gather them under his wings – and maybe it was shrewd to choose instead protectors with armies to call on. So I think there is also a question for us here. Will we follow Abraham in depending on God, holding on to God and trusting God to hold on to us? And will we do that even if the promise Jesus holds out to us includes the call to renounce cunning and threats and alliances with the powerful but violent? And what might it look like today, what might we have to let go of, to follow the way of the hen not the way of the fox?

Love your enemies

2010-02-16T09:07:00.004Z

Preacher: Chris
Bible Readings: Matthew 5.38-45, Ephesians 2.14-18, (19-22)

Readings from Candide (Voltaire):

(From Chapter 3) [Candide] next addressed himself to a person who had just come from haranguing a numerous assembly for a whole hour on the subject of charity. The orator, squinting at him under his broadbrimmed hat, asked him sternly: “do you hold the Pope to be Antichrist?”

"Truly, I never heard anything about it," said Candide, "but whether he is or not, I am in want of something to eat."

"Thou deservest not to eat or to drink," replied the orator, "wretch, monster, that thou art! hence! avoid my sight, nor ever come near me again while thou livest."

A man who had never been christened, an honest Anabaptist named James, was witness to the cruel and ignominious treatment showed to one of his brethren, to a rational, two-footed, unfledged being. Moved with pity he carried him to his own house, caused him to be cleaned, gave him meat and drink, and made him a present of two florins, at the same time proposing to instruct him in his own trade of weaving Persian silks, which are fabricated in Holland.

(From Chapter 5) One half of the passengers, weakened and half-dead with the inconceivable anxiety and sickness which the rolling of a vessel at sea occasions through the whole human frame, were lost to all sense of the danger that surrounded them. The others made loud outcries, or betook themselves to their prayers; the sails were blown into shreds, and the masts were brought by the board. The vessel was a total wreck. Everyone was busily employed, but nobody could be either heard or obeyed. The Anabaptist, being upon deck, lent a helping hand as well as the rest, when a brutish sailor gave him a blow and laid him speechless; but, not withstanding, with the violence of the blow the [sailor] himself tumbled headforemost overboard, and fell upon a piece of the broken mast, which he immediately grasped.

Honest James, forgetting the injury he had so lately received from him, flew to his assistance, and, with great difficulty, hauled him in again, but, not withstanding, in the attempt, was, by a sudden jerk of the ship, thrown overboard himself, in sight of the very fellow whom he had risked his life to save and who took not the least notice of him in this distress. Candide, who beheld all that passed and saw his benefactor one moment rising above water, and the next swallowed up by the merciless waves, was preparing to jump after him, but was prevented by the philosopher Pangloss, who demonstrated to him that the roadstead of Lisbon had been made on purpose for the Anabaptist to be drowned there. While he was proving his argument a priori, the ship foundered, and the whole crew perished, except Pangloss, Candide, and the sailor who had been the means of drowning the good Anabaptist.

I think it’s quite clear, given the readings we’ve just heard, that point number one of my sermon is that should you consider yourself Anabaptist, as many of you do here today, it might be best for your physical safety to stay away from bodies of water, particularly during storms. In absence of that, try to stay away from ungrateful sailors.

So, In doing a bit of research for this sermon, I came across a question posed at, pardon the reference, cliffnotes.com—“the fastest way to learn”—that is, the fastest way to learn with you have a paper due in three hours and you haven’t started reading the book. The questioner writes:

“I'm reading Candide, by Voltaire, and one of the dudes is an Anabaptist. What's that?”

Cliffnotes.com kindly includes a paragraph about the roots of Anabaptism, referring to the Anabaptists as a “radical...sect” that believed in fully immersing adults during baptism. Being here today, most, if not all of us, contemplating the tea and biscuits we are about to consume once I finish rambling up here, we seem an innocuous group to bear the title “radical”, but there we have it—cliffnotes.com has declared the Anabaptists a “radical...sect” and we know, of course, that everything we read on the internet is true. During today’s sermon I want to dwell on the question of “radical” and how it applies to the call of Jesus in our lives—particularly in His call to love one another, exemplified through both love of neighbor and love of enemy, nicely outlined for us by the passage in Matthew and, somewhat surprisingly given his contentious relationship with the church, by Voltaire in these passages from Candide.

Now, I will admit that, being twenty-four and only having lived, on the whole, a rather sheltered life, my comments may come across as idealistic and may seem to gloss over or simply be unaware of the harsher realities of life. Nor do I pretend to offer any sort of conclusive or exhaustive pronouncement on the topic—it is too large, too wide, too deep to cover in a single sermon, or even a series of sermons; I simply add my voice to the millions who have spoken about it throughout the last two thousand years, some with great eloquence especially within the Anabaptist tradition. What I really want to puzzle out is, given that the Mennonite community places an emphasis on certain issues—justice, peace, community—how do we love those people or groups of people and organizations that come into conflict with our deeply held beliefs and values? In other words, what do we do/how do we treat/how do we love those with whom we find ourselves in opposition, either because we feel it our duty to defend some aspect of those around us—taking a stand on environmental issues, working for the protection of homeless individuals for instance—or because we ourselves personally feel threatened by the attitudes and actions of others. To put it one more way—how do we love those whom we morally oppose?

To give all of this questioning a concrete form, I’d like to employ an example culled from, yet again, the internet. Last week, one of my friends posted a link on Facebook to an article about the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the US military. Basically, for those of you who are British, the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy states that no openly homosexual person can serve in the US military, and servicemembers can be prosecuted and kicked out of the military if they are outed as homosexual. Aside from whatever you think about the US military, the policy sets up an unfair double standard and places homosexual servicemembers in often awkward and sometimes dangerous positions. Anyway, after reading this article, I looked at the comments posted below it, and was at times sympathetic and at times disgusted. One such comment read: “Homosexuality is as natural as any disease is natural. It should be treated as a disease.” So here is a concrete example of the questions posed earlier: how do I—how do we—treat this comment? My initial reaction is to be upset—very upset. I have seen in others, and in myself, the deeply sad and twisted psychological effects that comments like this one have on self-perception, emotional well-being, and social functioning. As Simone de Beauvoir writes in The Second Sex, “When an individual or a group of individuals is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he or they are inferior.” Beauvoir goes on to explain that “are inferior” means “have become”—the psychology of inferiority is such that people genuinely come to believe themselves to be inferior, a lesser form of human—a disease. As I said, my initial reaction is to be upset, angry, and defensive: the commentor needs to be set right—told what’s what—shown how he or she is flat-out wrong, and if the commentor doesn’t change his or her mind, then I should either wash my hands of the situation or pray the person will have a change of heart...while secretly hoping that the commentor wakes up one day to realize that she or he is gay and then has to deal with the implications of those kinds of comments—you know, that kind of response—something loving.

Clearly, such a response is not a good one; indeed, it explicitly runs counter to Jesus’ words that we heard from Matthew: “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” Note that Jesus does not say to pray for those who persecute you so that you can pray that one day they will suffer the bitter irony of having to eat their words; instead, His command is simply to love and to pray so that you may be children of your Father in heaven”—the offspring of, a reflection of a holy and loving God. But how are we supposed to love what we find distasteful? One answer is found in the injunction to “love the sinner, hate the sin.” Having been on the receiving end of that statement, I can say that I find it problematic, at best. We are, all of us, sinful creatures, all of us full of sin of different shapes and varieties, and attempting to, or telling others to, “love the sinner, hate the sin” involves carving out a piece of a person and putting it aside and saying “this section of you I cannot love” but “this part I can”, in which you end up trying to love someone that you have now effectively cut a hole into: you may now find that person more loveable, but they will most likely be feeling the unpleasant effects of the gaping wound you have created. And even moreso, in this day and age where we seem so obsessed with what we do—our activities, our achievements, our causes—making us into who we are, attempting to bifurcate someone into the sum of their actions (which we deem sinful) versus the sum of their being (which we deem worthy of love) can be often harshly and poorly received, not to mention that it perpetuates the division between actions and being. So, no, I am going to say that the call to love our enemies is more than a command to love the parts we find loveable, but rather a call to love wholly—a love entire, complete.

The fear, of course, is that by letting go—by not seeking immediate “correction” of wrong—we will be unable to see immediate retribution for the perceived wrong that has been committed—that justice will somehow slip by, unnoticed and uncaring. But what does Jesus say at the end of his comment on loving our enemies? “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” Whether there is justice that we see or whether there is justice that we do not see or whether there occurs nothing that we would define as justice is not the issue. The sun, we are told, rises on the evil and on the good; the rain is sent to the righteous and the unrighteous. In response to the Lisbon earthquake of 1755—we may wonder the same questions as regards the Haiti earthquake—Voltaire writes a poem:

What crime, what sin, had those young hearts conceived
That lie, bleeding and torn, on mother’s breast?
Did fallen Lisbon deeper drink of vice
Than London, Paris, or sunlit Madrid?
In these men dance; at Lisbon yawns the abyss.

Despite, as we have discussed, Pat Robertson’s comments, we cannot pronounce judgment on the destruction of Lisbon 255 years ago any more than we can pronounce judgment on the Haiti of today: the sun rises, and the rain falls, and we are challenged to accept this fact. Or, to return to Candide, James, the good Anabaptist, after saving the sailor, drowns, while the sailor is one of only three persons to survive the shipwreck. What is at stake then, is not the justice dished out upon evildoers—or those we perceive as doing evil—but our response. And here we reach one of the fundamental and most interesting points of Christianity—that God seems to be—again, this theme returns—not only concerned with our actions but also with our state of being, the condition of our hearts: we are to be forever conforming to the likeness and character of Christ, a likeness that said “Father forgive them” without being condescending, and a character that said “Turn the other cheek” and “pray for your enemies” and “bless those who curse you”.

There is another fear as well, one involving the nature of evil as being pernicious—an active sort of evil that must be continually struggled against (to use some Chinese terminology from the Cultural Revolution). If the unquestioning association of homosexuality with “disease” is allowed to continue, will not more people continue to suffer, more people continue to think of themselves as lesser members of society, more people continue to live in fear of being discovered and so on and so on? Where this answer lies in the call to love our enemies and the desire—even need—to struggle against encroaching evil, I do not know for sure—most of you are probably far better aware of the literature on non-violent resistance than I. But as Lesley said in her sermon on October 4—gmail’s archive feature is a wonderful tool, by the way—“I’m not so sure evil can be so powerful.” Or, as Romans 12:21 says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” In this passage, goodness is itself an active force, one that can counteract the destructive influence of evil, and so if we are actively seeking and actively doing good then there is a call to commit loving actions of the kind found in 1 Corinthians 13: “Love is patient”—so be patient; “love is kind”—so be kind; “Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs”—so keep no record of wrongs; “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

Returning to my earlier comments that our concern should not be that God punish evildoers but that our hearts be right before God, in thinking about the commentor, I wonder if I should be praying “God, change my heart.” I tried this, and found it very difficult to do, which, as I have discovered, my own reluctance to do a certain thing can often be an indication of the necessity of doing it. So I pray God teach me how to love in this situation and in similar situations in the future that I may be a reflection of your character on earth. A small prayer, but one that seeks to follow after Jesus in His quite radical command to love those we find unloveable.

Beware of ships at sea. Amen.

Creation Myths

2010-01-31T16:00:00.000Z

Used in Lesley's Creation and Faith sermon on 31 Jan 2010

Creation Myth of Ancient Greece

In the beginning, Hesiod says, there was Chaos, vast and dark. Then appeared Gaia, the deep-breasted earth, and finally Eros, ‘the love which softens hearts’ whose influence would preside over the formation of everything else.
From Chaos were born the gods Erebus and Night who, uniting, gave birth to Ether and Hemera, the day. Gaea bore Uranus, the starlit sky, who entirely covered her and she created the high mountains and Pontus, ‘the sterile sea’. Gaea united with her son Uranus and bore the 12 Titans and then the 3 Cyclops and 3 monsters.

Horrified by his all offspring, Uranus shut them up in the depths of the earth. Gaea plotted vengeance and produced a sharp sickle but only Cronos the last-born Titan would help. When evening fell Uranus, accompanied by Night, came to sleep with his wife Gaea. Cronos, who was hiding, mutilated him and cast his bleeding genitals into the sea, where they became a white foam from which the young goddess Aphrodite emerged. The drops of black blood from his wound seeped into the earth and produced the Furies, monstrous giants and tree nymphs.

Cronos liberated the Titans and they mated with each other and the primordial beings to produce many other gods and goddesses. The offspring of Cronos and his sister Rhea were Hestia, Demeter and Hera and the gods Hades and Poseidon, but Cronos swallowed each of his children as they were born.

Rhea sought help from Uranus and Gaea and when finally Zeus was born she presented Cronos with a swaddled stone to swallow instead of the baby. When grown up, Zeus persuaded the water nymph Thetis to give Cronos a draught so that he vomited up the stone together with his children, the gods. Cronos was cast out. Zeus and the other gods and goddesses fought long and bitter wars first with the Titans and then the giants. The Titans were defeated and chained in the abysmal depths of the earth.

The Titan, Iapetus, had 4 sons. One of these, Prometheus, had been neutral during this war and was admitted to the company of the Immortals. One tradition says that he fashioned the body of the first man with earth and his own tears and the goddess Athene breathed life into him. However, other sources said that this happened to replenish the earth after the Flood and that men came into being at the time the Titans ruled and enjoyed a golden age, but they angered Zeus. He ordered the first woman, Pandora, to be fashioned from clay. She opened a great vase from which terrible afflictions flew all over the earth, except for Hope, which remained.

Questions for Discussion

What sort of picture of divinity does this creation story give you?
ie. What are the gods/God like?

Was the creation an orderly process?

Does this story indicate a motive for the creation of the world?

What was the purpose for creating humanity?

In what order were things created?

If you believed this creation story how would it make you feel about the world and your role in it?

Native American Creation Myths

Native North Americans believe that everything in Nature is inhabited by a mysterious power which spreads out and influences other beings. The Algonquins call this power manitou, which means all magical powers from the lowest to the highest. Humans must get control of the small powers while trying to gain the favour of the higher powers which are intelligent spirits.

Pawnee Creation Myth

In the beginning Tirawa the great chief and Atira his wife dwelt in heaven. Tirawa gave tasks to all the other gods seated round them and a portion of his power because he wanted to create men in his image. Shakuru the sun was placed in the East to give light and heat and Pah the moon in the west to give light at night. He said to the evening star, ‘You shall stay in the west and all beings will be created by you.’ He gave roles and place to the morning and evening stars and those that support the sky.

Tirawa told the evening star to receive the clouds winds lightning and thunder. When the sky was entirely dark, Tirawa dropped a pebble and the thick clouds opened to reveal an immense expanse of water. Tirawa told the gods of heaven to smite the water with maces and the waters were separated to reveal the earth. On Tirawa’s order, the 4 gods sang of creation, bringing together the gods of elements and storms. causing a huge thunderstorm to split the earth into mountains and valleys. Singing of forests and prairies made another storm which left the earth covered in vegetation. At a third song streams and rivers began to flow and the fourth song enriched the world from germinating seeds.

Tirawa ordered the sun and moon to unite and they had a son – the first man -and the morning and evening stars together had a daughter. When they grew up, the woman was given seeds and moisture to make them grow, a hut and a hearth and the arts of fire and speech. The man was given male clothes, the weapons of a warrior, the knowledge of warpaint, shooting with a bow and arrow, smoking and the ritual of sacrifice. He was chief over the other men and women who were then created by the stars.

Questions for Discussion

What sort of picture of divinity does this creation story give you?
ie. What are the gods/God like?

Was the creation an orderly process?

Does this story indicate a motive for the creation of the world?

What was the motive for creating humanity?

In what order were things created?

If you believed this creation story how would it make you feel about the world and your role in it?

Babylonian Creation Myth

In the beginning, when sky and earth were nameless, there existed only Apsu (sweet water) and Tiamat, a personification of the tumultuous sea and also the blind forces of primitive chaos against which the organising gods struggled. All beings arose from the fusion of these two. First came Mummu, the tumult of the waves. The first gods were Lakhmu and Lakhamu – monstrous serpents who gave birth to Anshar, the male principle, and Kishar, the female principle. These are also respectively the celestial and terrestrial worlds. To Anshar and Kishar were born the great gods: Anu the powerful, Ea of vast intellect, together with the Igigi, who peopled the sky, and Anunnake, scattered throughout the world and the underworld.

These noisy gods disturbed their elders. Apsu complained to Tiamat that he couldn’t sleep and he talked of destroying them, though Tiamat wanted to give them a chance. Ea learnt of this, however, and seized Apsu and Mummu with magic incantations. This enraged Tiamat so she gave birth to an army of monstrosities and gave command of it to Kingu.

Ea got help from his father Anshar but the war went badly for them until supreme authority was given to one of the Igigi called Bel-Marduk, son of Ea. He killed Tiamat in battle and threw Kingu and Tiamat’s other followers into the infernal regions in chains.

Then Marduk decided to make a work of art with Tiamat’s dismembered corpse. From one half he made the earth and from the other the vault of the heavens. The earth was a round plateau bounded by mountains on which rested the vault of heaven. It floated on and was encircled by the Apsu from which came the springs which broke through the earth’s surface.

Marduk constructed a home for the gods in the sky, installed the stars which were their image and formed and regulated the heavenly bodies. From Tiamat’s spittle he made rain and created the great rivers. He made a house for himself and for all the gods to visit on the earth at Babylon. The gods rejoiced and made Marduk their king. For the pleasure and service of the gods, Marduk made humanity by moulding the body of the first man from the blood and bone of Kingu. Finally the myth mentions vegetation and animals, both wild and domestic. The creation was complete.

Questions for Discussion

What sort of picture of divinity does this creation story give you?
ie. What are the gods/God like?

Was the creation an orderly process?

Does this story indicate a motive for the creation of the world?

What was the motive for creating humanity?

In what order were things created?

If you believed this creation story how would it make you feel about the world and your role in it?

Maori Creation Myth

Io is known as the Supreme Being and, out of nothing, created the entire universe. He created Ranginui (Rangi) and Papatuanuku (Papa) - Sky Father and the Earth Mother, respectively. The sky and earth produced numerous sons while they were physically, “cleaved together in a procreative embrace.” The children were forced to live in the darkness since their parents blocked all the rays of the sun. They soon became distressed at the living conditions and gathered to decide whether to separate their parents or to kill them for more room and light.

The fiercest of the offspring, Tuma voted for death, while Tane wished to just separate the mother and father so that the earth will “remain close as our nursing mother.” Most of the sons, including Tuma, finally agreed with the plan for separation.

The children began to divide Rangi and Papa, and soon realized their task was very difficult. Tane finally succeeded as he placed his shoulders against the earth and his feet against the sky. He pushed slowly with both his upper and lower body with great strain, only pressing harder as the parents cried out for him to stop, and eventually the Sky and Earth began to yield. The Earth Mother and Sky Father bled and this gives rise to ochre (red clay), the sacred colour of the Maoris. Now that the separation was complete, there was a clearly defined sky and earth.

One of the offspring, Urutengangana, stated that there was one element still missing, and he urged his brothers to find the female element, ira tangata, to enable the creation of woman. The search spanned both land and sea, and finally Tane consulted his mother, Papa, for her advice and knowledge. The earth took pity on Tane and told him to search in a place called Kura-waka. Tane told his brothers. The children founnd the element in the Earth and dug it out to contribute in the creation of woman. The elder siblings shaped the body and the younger ones added the flesh, fat, muscles, and blood. Tane then breathed life into it, and created Hine-ahu-one, the earth-formed maiden.

Questions for Discussion

What sort of picture of divinity does this creation story give you?
ie. What are the gods/God like?

Was the creation an orderly process?

Does this story indicate a motive for the creation of the world?

What was the motive for creating humanity?

In what order were things created?

If you believed this creation story how would it make you feel about the world and your role in it?

Australian Aboriginal Creation Myth: The Dreamtime

In the beginning the earth was a bare plain. All was dark. There was no life, no death. The sun, the moon, and the stars slept beneath the earth. All the eternal ancestors slept there, too, until at last they woke themselves out of their own eternity and broke through to the surface.

When the eternal ancestors arose, in the Dreamtime, they wandered the earth, sometimes in animal form -- as kangaroos, or emus, or lizards -- sometimes in human shape, sometimes part animal and human, sometimes as part human and plant.
Two such beings, self-created out of nothing, were the Ungambikula. Wandering the world, they found half-made human beings. They were made of animals and plants, but were shapeless bundles, lying higgledy-piggledy, near where water holes and salt lakes could be created. The people were all doubled over into balls, vague and unfinished, without limbs or features.

With their great stone knives, the Ungambikula carved heads, bodies, legs, and arms out of the bundles. They made the faces, and the hands and feet. At last the human beings were finished.

Thus every man and woman was transformed from nature and owes allegiance to the totem of the animal or the plant that made the bundle they were created from -- such as the plum tree, the grass seed, the large and small lizards, the parakeet, or the rat.
This work done, the ancestors went back to sleep. Some of them returned to underground homes, others became rocks and trees. The trails the ancestors walked in the Dreamtime are holy trails. Everywhere the ancestors went, they left sacred traces of their presence -- a rock, a waterhole, a tree. For the Dreamtime does not merely lie in the distant past, the Dreamtime is the eternal Now. Between heartbeat and heartbeat, the Dreamtime can come again.

Questions for Discussion

What sort of picture of divinity does this creation story give you?
ie. What are the gods/God like?

Was the creation an orderly process?

Does this story indicate a motive for the creation of the world?

What was the motive for creating humanity?

In what order were things created?

If you believed this creation story how would it make you feel about the world and your role in it?

Creation and Faith

2010-01-31T15:30:00.001Z

Preacher: Lesley Misrahi

I was asked to step in because Lloyd Peterson wasn’t able to be with us today, so, in the spirit of recycling I have brought out and dusted off a sermon I first preached in 2001. I’m hoping that everyone who was there at the time was asleep – but stay awake now because I’ve got things for you to do later.

At that time, I was asked to talk about the conflict between science and the gospel and then I thought how very unsuitable this was because I‘ve been both interested in science and a believer since childhood and have never found them to be in conflict. At University I studied Maths, Microbiology and Community Medicine and did some research on viruses. Later I did a degree in Contextual Theology. Have I been deluding myself, I began to wonder by just keeping different ideas in separate boxes? There are other scientists in the church. Are they also somehow engaged in a process of double-think?

Our Western culture, in contrast to any that preceded it, is, in its public philosophy, atheist. Modern philosophy has driven a wedge between spirituality and theology on the one hand and the social and physical sciences on the other. In academic and public life what one believes about God is supposed to be a private matter that makes no difference about one's views on either the sciences or the political arena. So there are two worlds - the private world, in which one can be spiritual if one chooses and the public world in which a belief in God is neither necessary nor desirable. On the one hand we can say that something is right because it accords with something that is called an objective fact. On the other hand, there is a private world where what is good or right morally is a matter of personal taste.

Although there is a growing interest in spirituality these days, it has no difficulties in co-existing with the kind of scientific atheism I have described when it is a spirituality that does not deal with the material world and human society. But if it’s a spirituality that talks about God as the Bible does - the Maker and Sustainer of everything, who has specific purposes for the world and who has criteria for human actions as individuals or groups, then there can be some difficulty.

One of the reasons that people feel there is a conflict between science and faith is because prior to the development of science, anything inexplicable and mysterious tended to be explained in spiritual terms. So people everywhere have creation myths in which gods of some sort play a central role and many natural phenomena are explained in terms of the actions of gods. Thunder, for instance, was thought to be the voice of a god, rather than the vibration of air molecules caused by an electrical discharge. This way of thinking has been called the God of the gaps. God's action in the universe was seen as being to intervene at certain points, to do things that could not be explained by so-called natural laws. And because some things were inexplicable, of course there must be a God.
I was reminded of this by Wayne and Lois’s sermon a couple of weeks ago, when they talked about God standing in the gap in people’s lives, and their role in helping with this. That’s the sort of God of the Gaps I believe in.

However, as science has found explanations for more and more phenomena, including the origins of life and the universe itself, the gaps for which it is necessary to use God as an explanation become smaller and smaller and the God of the gaps gets squeezed out. Christians find themselves forced into desperate last-ditch stands to defend viewpoints which become increasingly unreasonable in the face of mounting scientific evidence. The best example of this is the evolution debate. Some Christians make me cringe when they seize upon the slightest area of controversy in Darwinism to try to destroy the whole edifice of evolutionary thought. They don’t understand how scientific debate works. Science does not proceed in a linear way without error, but by building one block of knowledge upon another. Sometimes those blocks don't fit together well; sometimes they are wrong and have to be torn down, or re-arranged, but the amount of credible evidence for the basic tenets of evolutionary theory amassed since Darwin's time is now enormous.

Such Christians are genuinely trying to defend their faith. But it ‘s a faith in the God of the gaps. They have fallen into a trap which is reinforced by some scientists such as Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan who are evangelistic atheists. It’s strange that both Dawkins and Creationist Christians seem to share the view that if scientific explanations can be given for natural processes then this rules out a theological description of the universe. Dawkins doesn’t believe in the God of the gaps. Well neither do I!

Fundamentalist assumptions about how God works in the world focus on the origins of the Bible. If we assume that God only usually intervenes in ways that defy our understanding then we will expect the Bible to have been dictated literally. We would not think that it could have emerged through the work of God in human society in ways appropriate for particular kinds of literature at certain points of history. We would expect only to see God at work in ways that were supernatural and without scientific explanation.

But this kind of literal dictation of Scripture is not a genuinely Christian view. The Moslems believe that the Koran was dictated to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel, from the original which is engraved in Arabic on silver tablets in heaven. And somehow the prophet, who was illiterate, managed to remember each chunk long enough to get someone to write it down later.

Christians have never believed that the Bible is like this. Otherwise we would not have dared to translate the literal word of God into so many languages. We would be studying it in ancient Hebrew and Greek. We understand that the Bible contains many different sorts of text, written by humans, under God’s inspiration for their time, but capable, through the interpreting power of the Holy Spirit, to speak to us in our time. Those with fundamentalist views understand parts of the Bible in the same way. They’re not advocating that we eat kosher or stone adulterers and most are not even insisting that women wear head coverings in church. But when it comes to Genesis the fear of losing the God of the gaps drives fundamentalist views about creation. The Creationists are saying that the world must have been made exactly as it says in Genesis – in 7 days, each of 24 hours, and by a process of direct creation of everything by God Otherwise, if the Universe, the world and the people within it came into being through the workings of natural law, they are afraid there will be no need for God at all.

But in trying to make it a book of science, which it isn’t, perhaps they miss the fact that there is a poetical story that can tell us a huge amount about who God is and what God’s purposes are.

To do this let’s have a look at some Creation Myths from different peoples throughout the world. Two of these are the creation myths of the Babylonians and ancient Greeks which some of the Biblical authors must have encountered. Others are from widely scattered parts of the world.

Divide into small groups of 4-5 people Each group to discuss one myth
Answer the questions together Appoint someone to feed back

Feedback answers to questions with flipchart. (Other people can read all the stories later)

The creation story in Genesis will be familiar to most of us. But let’s just hear it read again.

Read Genesis 1 (seven readers)

Think about it in contrast to the questions you answered of the other creation stories. (Plenary)

Many theologians agree that the at least one of the accounts in Genesis was written down to set the record straight for Jews coming into contact with the Babylonian religion. Creation in the Bible is full of beauty and order. God made the world, and it was good. Christians believe in a universe that is based on rational laws and one that does not keep repeating itself in endless cycles or changing irrationally at the whim of some spiritual being. It’s this very belief in a rational universe which allowed the development of science in the first place.

Most of the people who feel that there is a conflict between science and belief are neither good scientists nor good theologians. The so-called modern scientific viewpoint that has permeated our culture in fact goes back to the 18th century. Mathematicians such as Laplace believed that it was possible to explain the universe through knowledge of all the forces, bodies and particles in the universe and the mathematical laws which governed them.

This gave rise to a kind of hierarchy of explanation. So Physicists try to explain their observations of the universe in mathematical terms. Chemists increasingly understand the chemical interactions with which they work in terms of the interaction of the subatomic particles described by physicists. Biologists explain the workings of biological systems in terms of physics and chemistry. Then there are psychologists who try to describe the workings of the mind in terms of physiology, genetics and other biological disciplines.

This is called a reductionist philosophy, and the end of the endeavour would be to explain everything in the universe in terms of natural physical laws, expressed mathematically. As you can see, and as Laplace remarked, there is no need for God in any of this. Unfortunately, what this process does is to explain how, without explaining why. It is summed up by the phrase 'nothing but'. So a human being is nothing but a collection of chemicals. Our religious experiences are nothing but abnormal neurochemical processes. Yes, they may be these things, but this is not the full story.

Let me give you an example. We know that whales are supposed to be very intelligent, perhaps as intelligent as we are in different ways. Now suppose that a bicycle somehow falls off a boat and ends up at the bottom of the sea. The whales go to investigate it. They can use their knowledge of physical principles to understand how it works. The clicks and hoots and whistles resound about the ocean as the whale scientists hold a seminar about the nature of this strange object. They describe how if pressure is put in the same direction alternately on these two flat things here, then a circular motion is produced in this crank here and this motion is transmitted by means of a chain to the two circular objects. They could describe the chemical composition of the steel and aluminium and rubber and plastic. The only thing they wouldn't know was what it was for. Never having seen a road and being unable to conceive of beings like us that want to move about on it, they could understand everything about a bicycle, except its purpose. For that they would need a higher order of knowledge beyond the physics. chemistry and biology which they knew from the world they lived in.

In the same way, understanding the physical and chemical principles that determine the working of a car, say does not explain it as a mechanism. You can tell this if you ask yourself 'How do I know when the car is not working correctly?' The answer is when it does not fulfil its purpose in enabling me to bring the shopping home from Sainsbury's. In other words, we can describe the car's working in terms of physics and chemistry but these do not explain why the car exists in the first place and what constitutes going wrong. Only when we look at the original purpose of the mechanism can we say whether it is working properly.

The fact is, though, that while our culture in general sees science as having an answer for everything, and that rules out the need for questions of purpose and the existence of God, science itself is becoming less and less sure of its ability to explain things. The physicists have discovered that for extremes of speed and size, it is mathematically impossible to determine everything accurately. Godel's theorems now show that in any rigidly logical mathematical system, there will always be some things which cannot be proved or disproved. The reductionist philosophy is seen itself to be a myth.

If we are really going to understand the universe and our place in it then science with its reductionist tendencies is not enough, even to understand something as simple as a bicycle. We have to call in arguments about purpose, which we usually have only at the back of our minds because, for instance, we know quite well what a bicycle is for.

The same applies even more so when we speak about biological life. How do we know when an animal is sick? - when it cannot carry out its purposes of eating, sleeping, reproducing etc. Even though we may be talking about as a biological mechanism for purposes of scientific study, we know this in the back of our minds all the time. It is not sufficient to reduce everything to the laws of physics; we need higher orders of knowledge.

In particular, when we interact as humans, we are not dealing with each other as biological mechanisms. We aren't thinking to ourselves, 'Oh, he smiled, that means he moved this particular set of muscles in his face.' We can detect very subtle variations in the way people use their muscles in smiling. We have knowledge at an unconscious level, which we learnt the hard way as babies. We just know ' This is a really warm and generous person' or 'That smile seems a bit phoney to me.' So at the level of human interaction, purpose is the most important thing, far more important than our knowledge of somebody as a biological organism.

Mature human relationships are characterised by being reciprocal - they are intended to meet the needs of each person in an even-handed way. Immature relationships may not be like this. There may be efforts to dominate, seduce or exploit the other person. But in the kind of relationships that are acknowledged to be the best, there is a development of purpose that suits both parties. If we disagree, people talk about listening to each other - in other words trying to hear and understand what each other's purposes are. For true relationship to exist I must treat the other person in accordance with the purpose for which he or she exists and not as an object to be used for my own ends. Without such values, which cannot be inferred from the laws of physics or biological mechanisms, or any of the other facts about a person, human relationships become simply matters of mutual exploitation. The only way we can discover the other person's purposes is through communication. I have a strong belief that Jeremy is interested in film. Now you couldn't tell that to look at him, could you?

We've seen that understanding the components of the mechanism doesn't mean that we know all about it; we have to know its purpose. Is there any reason to suppose then that looking at the mechanism of the universe is going to enable us to deduce all the purposes for which it exists and to come to a full knowledge of the Creator? Just as we don't understand an individual without listening to his or her purposes, so we can only fully understand the world and its Creator through the communication of God’s character and purpose.

We can only know about the existence and purposes of God through communication with God. We can't expect to derive this knowledge from the reductionist processes of science because it simply does not deal in issues of purpose, which are the everyday commerce of our social life and especially of our relationship to God.

At that point we have to go beyond science and ask, is there a God; has he communicated with us? The answer is found in the testimony of believers throughout the ages. The Bible and the church's interpretation of it in its corporate and individual life are the record of part of that communication from God as to his purposes. The way in which we understand that communication of God's action and purposes is called faith. So Hebrews says. 'By faith we understand that the Universe was formed at God's command' And it goes on to describe so many faithful witnesses who testified by their faith to God's character and purposes. And whatever way God made the world and whatever the radical atheists may say about Christian belief, they cannot take away that experience.

So where does that leave us as Christians? Is there a conflict between science and the gospel? The answer is yes and no. We do not have to be at loggerheads with scientists over the how of the natural mechanisms in the world. And as scientists, Christians can help to discover the glories and mysteries of Creation. But when scientists begin to think that understanding how things work gives them an explanation of why they exist, they are arrogating to themselves both the province of theology. When biological explanations are put forward as if they define human actions, while leaving out human purposes that can respond to the will of God, then we have something to say.

And we believe that God has communicated the divine nature and purposes by being incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ. Our testimony is that God has both affirmed the value of the creation that he has made and developed a way for the whole of the natural universe to be reconciled to himself. God has become subject to those natural processes, even death, and has shown himself able to transcend them, through resurrection. Against arguments from social sciences that violence and force are an essential part of human society, we can set the intentions of the maker, who has called the church to demonstrate a radical alternative.

It’s not surprising that in a world that thinks that science has explained away everything, there’s often a loss of sense of purpose. We need to speak out boldly that God is not entirely separate from his creation, like a car mechanic who occasionally tweaks the mechanism to make it run a bit better. (If you do that too often by the way, you'll end up like my first husband who used to like to fix up his motorbike. He ended up on the side of the M4 in the middle of the night with a hole burnt through the cylinder head of the engine. That’s probably why miracles aren’t that common!)

We have on offer a life consistent with a scientific view of the world, but one in which there is purpose and hope, and in which it is possible to move beyond whatever limitations science would set for us, through the working out of the purposes of God.