Friday, 9 October 2009
We have a new website
Please note that the Hollinsend Methodist Church website has been moved to http://www.hollinsendmethodist.org.uk/
Sunday, 24 August 2008
The Moment of Decision
Exodus 1.8 - 2.10
Romans 12.1-8
Matthew 16.13-20
Today's Old Testament reading from Exodus seems to be a mixture of history and legend. On the one hand it says that the Israelite people were more numerous, or in danger of becoming more numerous, than their Egyptian hosts. On the other hand it says that there were only two Israelite midwives. Even if we take them to be the chief midwives of a nationwide team these two statements simply cannot be reconciled! Two people could not possibly have headed up the vast army of midwives which such a large population would have required, especially in the days before a modern health service.
Against this slightly muddled background, the charming story of Moses being rescued from the bulrushes helps to explain both his name and his origins, as an Egyptian prince of Hebrew descent. The story also explains how God is able to work through human history because human beings work alongside him to ensure that the right thing can happen. If Moses' mother and sister had not used their initiative, even God could not have helped him to survive.
Besides being an example of faithfulness in action, the story is also an example of racial and religious cohesion and tolerance. Pharaoh's reaction to the hard working migrant workers is to see them as a threat, not least because their birth rate is higher than that of the indigenous population, but his daughter refuses to share her father's prejudices. She doesn't see Moses as yet another frightening statistic to be combatted but only as a vulnerable child in need of care.
Sadly, later in his life, Moses would indeed become a threat to her compatriots, first when he killed an overseer for abusing a Hebrew slave and then when he brought the waters of the Red Sea crashing down on the Egyptian army as they pursued the escaping nation of Israel. But, nothwithstanding the way things ultimately turned out, the princess's instinctive reaction was still the right one. We should treat our fellow human beings as our brothers and sisters and offer them protection and help when they are in trouble. If her father had taken the same attitude, Moses and his God would never have caused the Egyptians any trouble at all.
When he grew up and fled into exile, Moses underwent a complete makeover. First he tried to change himself, from a prince turned rebel and murderer into a peaceful and obscure shepherd. But then, when he encountered God at the burning bush, he found that what was really necessary was for God to transform him and empower him to undertake his true calling, which was to use his knowledge of the Pharaoh's court to help God liberate the people of Israel from oppression. He had to make himself a living sacrifice, giving up the quiet life which he had craved with his wife and her family in the desert in order to become a prophet and community leader.
Peter's "burning bush" moment came at Caesarea Philippi, when Jesus took his disciples away from the frenzied activity of his ministry in Galilee so that he could challenge them to think about all that they had seen and heard. Who did they suppose that he was? Ducking the question by telling him what other people were saying was not what Jesus wanted from them. So it is that Peter was forced to confront the truth, not just about Jesus but also about himself. For if Jesus is the Messiah, God's anointed leader of the human race, Peter must be the first shepherd of his flock - the rock around which the new Christian community could establish itself. Like Moses he was challenged to become a community leader.
Each one of us is called, in a similar way, to put our lives, our experience and our gifts at God's disposal. This is the essence of real worship. "To work is to pray."
Romans 12.1-8
Matthew 16.13-20
Today's Old Testament reading from Exodus seems to be a mixture of history and legend. On the one hand it says that the Israelite people were more numerous, or in danger of becoming more numerous, than their Egyptian hosts. On the other hand it says that there were only two Israelite midwives. Even if we take them to be the chief midwives of a nationwide team these two statements simply cannot be reconciled! Two people could not possibly have headed up the vast army of midwives which such a large population would have required, especially in the days before a modern health service.
Against this slightly muddled background, the charming story of Moses being rescued from the bulrushes helps to explain both his name and his origins, as an Egyptian prince of Hebrew descent. The story also explains how God is able to work through human history because human beings work alongside him to ensure that the right thing can happen. If Moses' mother and sister had not used their initiative, even God could not have helped him to survive.
Besides being an example of faithfulness in action, the story is also an example of racial and religious cohesion and tolerance. Pharaoh's reaction to the hard working migrant workers is to see them as a threat, not least because their birth rate is higher than that of the indigenous population, but his daughter refuses to share her father's prejudices. She doesn't see Moses as yet another frightening statistic to be combatted but only as a vulnerable child in need of care.
Sadly, later in his life, Moses would indeed become a threat to her compatriots, first when he killed an overseer for abusing a Hebrew slave and then when he brought the waters of the Red Sea crashing down on the Egyptian army as they pursued the escaping nation of Israel. But, nothwithstanding the way things ultimately turned out, the princess's instinctive reaction was still the right one. We should treat our fellow human beings as our brothers and sisters and offer them protection and help when they are in trouble. If her father had taken the same attitude, Moses and his God would never have caused the Egyptians any trouble at all.
When he grew up and fled into exile, Moses underwent a complete makeover. First he tried to change himself, from a prince turned rebel and murderer into a peaceful and obscure shepherd. But then, when he encountered God at the burning bush, he found that what was really necessary was for God to transform him and empower him to undertake his true calling, which was to use his knowledge of the Pharaoh's court to help God liberate the people of Israel from oppression. He had to make himself a living sacrifice, giving up the quiet life which he had craved with his wife and her family in the desert in order to become a prophet and community leader.
Peter's "burning bush" moment came at Caesarea Philippi, when Jesus took his disciples away from the frenzied activity of his ministry in Galilee so that he could challenge them to think about all that they had seen and heard. Who did they suppose that he was? Ducking the question by telling him what other people were saying was not what Jesus wanted from them. So it is that Peter was forced to confront the truth, not just about Jesus but also about himself. For if Jesus is the Messiah, God's anointed leader of the human race, Peter must be the first shepherd of his flock - the rock around which the new Christian community could establish itself. Like Moses he was challenged to become a community leader.
Each one of us is called, in a similar way, to put our lives, our experience and our gifts at God's disposal. This is the essence of real worship. "To work is to pray."
Monday, 18 August 2008
Breaking out of the prison of the past
Genesis 45.1-15
Romans 11.1-2a & 29-32
Matthew 15.21-28
The writers of this passage wanted it to be clearly understood that God works in human lives and human history, and that events which seem tragic and troubling to us in the present moment are sometimes part of - or can be woven into - the longterm out-working of God's purposes for us. There is a danger here, of course. People of faith will always try their hardest to look back on what has happened and impose a pattern on random events so that they seem to make sense and prove that God was with us all of the time, shaping the way things turned out. But I think that is to misunderstand how God works through history. We cannot absolve ourselves of all responsibility when things go wrong simply by imagining that they are part of some grand scheme of which we are totally unaware - although they may be, and how else are we to make sense of the Cross? However, the truth is more complicated than that. God is like a master weaver, patiently mending the broken threads and putting right the mistakes which the apprentices make as they contribute their share to the big picture. And we are the apprentices, of courses. Our task, like that of Joseph, is to remain faithful to the work of bringing order and harmony to creation, and to continue looking for ways of serving God by helping to bring all things together for good.
We must not assume, however, that there is only one God-given shape which events can take if they are to be made perfect. God's future is constantly shifting, like a kaleidoscope, as current events make their impact on the pattern. It is neither possible, nor even desirable, for God to unpick the mistakes we make. He can only put them right by incorporating them into the pattern in such a way as to minimise the damage we have caused and bring as much good out of them as possible. This is why what seemed like a God-given opportunity, for the children of Israel to move to the land of plenty in Egypt and prosper there in spite of the famine, would later turn into a nightmare of oppression from which they had - in turn - to be rescued again.
Paul describes the process whereby we are given access to the pattern-making, and therefore the freedom to make mistakes and change the big picture, as being imprisoned by God. At first sight this is a shocking idea and we might be tempted to dismiss it as contrary to God's loving nature. But we should bear with the idea, for it merits further examination.
Paul's point is that, although the freedom to do what is right seems like a wonderful gift, human nature makes it absolutely certain that we will in fact go wrong. However, Paul is not blaming God for giving us too much freedom, and therefore causing us to become imprisoned - like naughty children who are given to much leeway by their parents - in a nightmare of our own making. He is merely noting that the unique freedom - to change the course of events - which is enjoyed by human beings inevitably brings its own down side. As we choose to make bad decisions, that freedom to choose rapidly turns human life into a prison where we are repeatedly hemmed in and punished by the consequences of all our earlier mistakes until the freedom that we seemed to have at the beginning turns out to be an illusion.
It is this kind of reasoning which infuriates atheists. Why do bad things happen if there is a good God? they ask. 'Because we all have freewill,' the believer replies. And this draws the retort, 'So why does a good God allow freewill if it is so corrosive and harmful?'
One possible response to the atheist is that life is unavoidably complicated, and believing in God does not remove the complications. But that is not Paul's answer. His answer is that God has himself provided a solution to the problem in the person of Jesus, who gives us the power we need to break free from the prison created by our mistakes.
In the passage from Matthew's Gospel we see a snapshot from life's rich tapestry in which a gentile woman is caught in the act of changing the big picture, but not this time by her mistakes but by her insistent pleading for help. Challenged by her great faith, Jesus changes his original plan - to work only with the people of the lost house of Israel - and heals her daughter. Does this mean that Jesus, too, had been a prisoner of the moment - trapped by narrow prejudices which made it seem as though the people of Israel must be rescued before he could reach out to others? Does he, at this moment, break free from these confines and grasp a wider vision? Or, as seems more likely, is he simply pointing out that - in order to undo the mistakes of the past - it is necessary for him to begin remaking the picture at the most logical place, rather like someone sitting down to do a jigsaw puzzle and working outwards from the corners instead of starting with the sky.
Romans 11.1-2a & 29-32
Matthew 15.21-28
The writers of this passage wanted it to be clearly understood that God works in human lives and human history, and that events which seem tragic and troubling to us in the present moment are sometimes part of - or can be woven into - the longterm out-working of God's purposes for us. There is a danger here, of course. People of faith will always try their hardest to look back on what has happened and impose a pattern on random events so that they seem to make sense and prove that God was with us all of the time, shaping the way things turned out. But I think that is to misunderstand how God works through history. We cannot absolve ourselves of all responsibility when things go wrong simply by imagining that they are part of some grand scheme of which we are totally unaware - although they may be, and how else are we to make sense of the Cross? However, the truth is more complicated than that. God is like a master weaver, patiently mending the broken threads and putting right the mistakes which the apprentices make as they contribute their share to the big picture. And we are the apprentices, of courses. Our task, like that of Joseph, is to remain faithful to the work of bringing order and harmony to creation, and to continue looking for ways of serving God by helping to bring all things together for good.
We must not assume, however, that there is only one God-given shape which events can take if they are to be made perfect. God's future is constantly shifting, like a kaleidoscope, as current events make their impact on the pattern. It is neither possible, nor even desirable, for God to unpick the mistakes we make. He can only put them right by incorporating them into the pattern in such a way as to minimise the damage we have caused and bring as much good out of them as possible. This is why what seemed like a God-given opportunity, for the children of Israel to move to the land of plenty in Egypt and prosper there in spite of the famine, would later turn into a nightmare of oppression from which they had - in turn - to be rescued again.
Paul describes the process whereby we are given access to the pattern-making, and therefore the freedom to make mistakes and change the big picture, as being imprisoned by God. At first sight this is a shocking idea and we might be tempted to dismiss it as contrary to God's loving nature. But we should bear with the idea, for it merits further examination.
Paul's point is that, although the freedom to do what is right seems like a wonderful gift, human nature makes it absolutely certain that we will in fact go wrong. However, Paul is not blaming God for giving us too much freedom, and therefore causing us to become imprisoned - like naughty children who are given to much leeway by their parents - in a nightmare of our own making. He is merely noting that the unique freedom - to change the course of events - which is enjoyed by human beings inevitably brings its own down side. As we choose to make bad decisions, that freedom to choose rapidly turns human life into a prison where we are repeatedly hemmed in and punished by the consequences of all our earlier mistakes until the freedom that we seemed to have at the beginning turns out to be an illusion.
It is this kind of reasoning which infuriates atheists. Why do bad things happen if there is a good God? they ask. 'Because we all have freewill,' the believer replies. And this draws the retort, 'So why does a good God allow freewill if it is so corrosive and harmful?'
One possible response to the atheist is that life is unavoidably complicated, and believing in God does not remove the complications. But that is not Paul's answer. His answer is that God has himself provided a solution to the problem in the person of Jesus, who gives us the power we need to break free from the prison created by our mistakes.
In the passage from Matthew's Gospel we see a snapshot from life's rich tapestry in which a gentile woman is caught in the act of changing the big picture, but not this time by her mistakes but by her insistent pleading for help. Challenged by her great faith, Jesus changes his original plan - to work only with the people of the lost house of Israel - and heals her daughter. Does this mean that Jesus, too, had been a prisoner of the moment - trapped by narrow prejudices which made it seem as though the people of Israel must be rescued before he could reach out to others? Does he, at this moment, break free from these confines and grasp a wider vision? Or, as seems more likely, is he simply pointing out that - in order to undo the mistakes of the past - it is necessary for him to begin remaking the picture at the most logical place, rather like someone sitting down to do a jigsaw puzzle and working outwards from the corners instead of starting with the sky.
Monday, 11 August 2008
The Sound of Silence
1 Kings 19.9-13
Romans 10.5-11
Matthew 14.22-33
A few weeks ago the administration of a town somewhere in England changed from Labour to Liberal Democrat, and with the change of administration came a change for the voluntary and community sector, too. The new Council decided that, while community work is valuable it isn't an immediate priority. It was suggested that there was almost a surplus of community work going on in the town, made possible by the good times when the City benefited from a lot of grant funding. Now that the grants are being targeted elsewhere, it was suggested that the time might have come to let things return to normal and allow some of that community work to wither on the vine.
Coupled with endless delays and complications in releasing what little grant funding remains, and continued debate about what it can - or cannot - be spent on, this suggested that lean times might lie ahead. The only way that most community work can continue in these circumstances is if organisations can win contracts to deliver services to the community or attract small grants from charities and foundations.
Many of the staff and trustees of one local organisation are people of faith, Christian and Muslim. Some of them fell to hard prayer, hoping that God would show them a way forward. They submitted various tenders for pieces of work that they might do. Letters and emails were sent to councillors, MPs and the other powers that be, imploring their help and arguing the case for their community work to continue. And, against this backdrop, they waited for God's will to be made known.
I'm not quite sure what they were hoping for - a change of earthquake proportions in the Council's policy, perhaps? The wind of new contracts filling their sails and helping them to continue on their way? Fire burning up all the sloppy thinking which suggests that much of what passes for community work might be unnecessary and expendable, that getting rid of it won't bring hidden costs which the Council eventually has to pick up anyway, and that many community organisations aren't serving a real need but are really just self-perpetuating?
This isn't to suggest, by the way, that even sloppy thinking cannot contain a grain of truth. Doubtless there are some community organisations, and some pieces of work, which need reviewing to see if they have served their purpose. The sloppiness creeps in when it is suggested that any organisation which cannot mostly fund itself, or sell its services to someone or other, is probably past its sell-by-date. But that is a digression.
The point of this story is that God was not in the earthquake, wind or fire. The Council hasn't changed its mind. So far the organisation I mentioned has only won one or two contracts which, by themselves, are not enough to fill its sails and keep it moving forward. And there has been no refining fire. Although the Council is reviewing the community work that happens at the moment, by the time they have completed their review much of the work may well have ceased for want of funds.
So where is God in all of this? Perhaps God doesn't believe that community work is a priority, either. Perhaps he has more pressing prayers to answer. Or perhaps we just have to accept that God's answer isn't always in the earthquake, wind or fire - big events that turn things around in a spectacular fashion. Perhaps God is in the still, small voice.
The hymn talks about 'a still small voice of calm' as if God's silence were actually a cause for peaceful, calm repose and serenity. But that's not a very accurate translation, and it certainly isn't how people feel in that vulnerable community organisation. A more accurate translation is 'the sound of sheer silence'. That's what the answer to the prayers of those community workers and volunteers actually sounds like - the sheer silence of rebuke, or emptiness, or aloneness.
Of course, in the great scheme of things community work really is of relatively low significance. What about all the people waiting for answers to their most urgent prayers about the war in Georgia, or about illness, personal loneliness and the difficulties of coping with rampant food and energy inflation, or who are simply praying that they might survive the impact of real earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires and other emergencies? How many times do they, too, hear - or seem to hear - the sound of sheer silence?
It seems to me that we do a disservice to faith and religion if we pretend that the answer to prayer is always loud and clear. Sometimes we find ourselves, like the disciples, in the boat - being tossed about by the wind and the waves, by the storms and tempests of life - and either God seems to be asleep, or else far away and unable to help us.
Elijah the Prophet had derided the prophets of the false god Baal because their prayers and incantations were not answered, whereas his prayer was answered - and in the most spectacular fashion. A storm blew up out of nowhere, seeming to begin in a tiny, distant cloud. And an enormous bolt of lightning brought a thunderbolt from heaven to light the fire for his sacrifice. Yet, if Elijah felt any pride or sense of achievement, this is the moment when it was dispelled. On Mount Horeb he discovered that sometimes God answers our prayers with the sound of sheer silence!
In the moment of victory Elijah had triumphantly ordered the crowd to murder the unfortunate prophets of Baal. Doubtless he felt at the time that they had sealed their own fate by praying to a god who does not answer prayer. Now he discovers that humility and graciousness would have been a more appropriate response, for even the one true God sometimes answers our prayers with the sound of sheer silence.
But then, in apparent contrast with Elijah's sense of desolation, we have the witness of St Paul. When we're in trouble of any kind, Paul says that we should not say in our hearts, 'Who will ascend into heaven...to bring Christ down [to help us].' Nor should we say, 'Who will descend into the abyss...to bring Christ up from the dead [to save us].' This is because we don't have to go in search of him. Even in the sound of sheer silence the Word - that is the wisdom of God, and the proclamation of God's love revealed in Jesus - is always very close to us, part of us in fact, not only on our breath but also in our hearts.
Paul is very sure that we should have no anxieties. In any situation, so long as we continue to say - and to believe - that Jesus was raised from the dead, we shall be saved. And we won't be put to shame - like the Prophets of Baal - by appearing to have our prayers unanswered. How does this bold claim match Elijah's experience, and ours sometimes, when prayers seem to be answered by the sound of sheer silence?
I would suggest that these two, apparently contradictory, experiences are reconciled by the story of Jesus' death on the Cross. Jesus' death seemed to be the moment of defeat for all that he represented. His cry of dereliction, 'My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?' was met with the sound of sheer silence. No doubt the onlookers concluded either that Jesus had been deluded all along about his intimate relationship with God, or that the God he was calling to didn't exist or wasn't interested in him. In that moment, his situation was not unlike that faced by the Prophets of Baal, and like them he met an untimely death - taunted and despised by his opponents because his prayer was not answered.
Of course, there the similarity ends. The Prophets of Baal died there and then, and their cause in Israel died with them. Despite immediate and continued setbacks, the battle to overcome the false worship of fertility gods took a decisive turn that day. Whereas, in an unforeseen event that must have seemed about as possible as a thunder storm on a clear day on Mount Carmel, Jesus was raised from the dead. His desperate cry from the Cross was answered with the sound of sheer silence. He died and was buried. His disciples fled. Apparently his cause had been defeated. But not so! For on the third day he was raised from the dead, as the promise that - even when our prayers are met by the sound of sheer silence - we are never alone, for the Jesus who felt abandoned on the Cross is always with us, in our hearts and on our lips.
Matthew's story about Jesus walking on the water reads a bit like a resurrection story. Alone in the boat, battered by waves and with the wind against them, the disciples think that God is not going to answer their prayers. When they see Jesus coming to join them, walking on the water, they're not reassured. Instead, they think they are seeing a ghost and they cry out in fear. That might be because they don't recognise him through the mist and spray, but it might be because they think he is already dead.
Be that as it may, when Jesus comes to join us on our storm-tossed journey through life he does so as the risen Jesus, bidding us to take heart and not to be afraid. And the message of the risen Jesus is not that we can expect a calm crossing, easy sailing with clear blue skies, but that we must be faithful. Even when our problems and difficulties are met with the sound of sheer silence we must not doubt, for he is with us.
This story is evoked in the film 'The Truman Show', where the hero Truman - played by Jim Carrey - is an actor in a film within a film. At one point he tries to ride out a storm in a yacht and the god-like director of the film tries equally hard to make him turn back. But Truman won't do it. He lashes himself to the boat and says that he would rather die than give up.
In a sense, that is what Jesus is calling us to do - to lash ourselves to the boat and keep on going, come what may, except that - in the Gospel story - it isn't God who is trying to overturn the boat. Instead, God is with us - in Jesus - holding out his hand to catch us when our fear overwhelms us and we think we are about to drown.
Because he has endured the Cross for our sakes, because he has overcome that sense of abandonment and desolation which we all sometimes feel, we need not fear the storm. Like a swimming instructor waiting to catch us as we take our first faltering strokes through the water, Jesus is always there for us - even in the sound of sheer silence.
Who knows what the Simon and Garfunkel song 'Sound of Silence' means. But these words from the song could echo the sentiments of Paul, and the words of Jesus to Peter on the Lake.
"Silence like a cancer grows.
[So] hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you."
Romans 10.5-11
Matthew 14.22-33
A few weeks ago the administration of a town somewhere in England changed from Labour to Liberal Democrat, and with the change of administration came a change for the voluntary and community sector, too. The new Council decided that, while community work is valuable it isn't an immediate priority. It was suggested that there was almost a surplus of community work going on in the town, made possible by the good times when the City benefited from a lot of grant funding. Now that the grants are being targeted elsewhere, it was suggested that the time might have come to let things return to normal and allow some of that community work to wither on the vine.
Coupled with endless delays and complications in releasing what little grant funding remains, and continued debate about what it can - or cannot - be spent on, this suggested that lean times might lie ahead. The only way that most community work can continue in these circumstances is if organisations can win contracts to deliver services to the community or attract small grants from charities and foundations.
Many of the staff and trustees of one local organisation are people of faith, Christian and Muslim. Some of them fell to hard prayer, hoping that God would show them a way forward. They submitted various tenders for pieces of work that they might do. Letters and emails were sent to councillors, MPs and the other powers that be, imploring their help and arguing the case for their community work to continue. And, against this backdrop, they waited for God's will to be made known.
I'm not quite sure what they were hoping for - a change of earthquake proportions in the Council's policy, perhaps? The wind of new contracts filling their sails and helping them to continue on their way? Fire burning up all the sloppy thinking which suggests that much of what passes for community work might be unnecessary and expendable, that getting rid of it won't bring hidden costs which the Council eventually has to pick up anyway, and that many community organisations aren't serving a real need but are really just self-perpetuating?
This isn't to suggest, by the way, that even sloppy thinking cannot contain a grain of truth. Doubtless there are some community organisations, and some pieces of work, which need reviewing to see if they have served their purpose. The sloppiness creeps in when it is suggested that any organisation which cannot mostly fund itself, or sell its services to someone or other, is probably past its sell-by-date. But that is a digression.
The point of this story is that God was not in the earthquake, wind or fire. The Council hasn't changed its mind. So far the organisation I mentioned has only won one or two contracts which, by themselves, are not enough to fill its sails and keep it moving forward. And there has been no refining fire. Although the Council is reviewing the community work that happens at the moment, by the time they have completed their review much of the work may well have ceased for want of funds.
So where is God in all of this? Perhaps God doesn't believe that community work is a priority, either. Perhaps he has more pressing prayers to answer. Or perhaps we just have to accept that God's answer isn't always in the earthquake, wind or fire - big events that turn things around in a spectacular fashion. Perhaps God is in the still, small voice.
The hymn talks about 'a still small voice of calm' as if God's silence were actually a cause for peaceful, calm repose and serenity. But that's not a very accurate translation, and it certainly isn't how people feel in that vulnerable community organisation. A more accurate translation is 'the sound of sheer silence'. That's what the answer to the prayers of those community workers and volunteers actually sounds like - the sheer silence of rebuke, or emptiness, or aloneness.
Of course, in the great scheme of things community work really is of relatively low significance. What about all the people waiting for answers to their most urgent prayers about the war in Georgia, or about illness, personal loneliness and the difficulties of coping with rampant food and energy inflation, or who are simply praying that they might survive the impact of real earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires and other emergencies? How many times do they, too, hear - or seem to hear - the sound of sheer silence?
It seems to me that we do a disservice to faith and religion if we pretend that the answer to prayer is always loud and clear. Sometimes we find ourselves, like the disciples, in the boat - being tossed about by the wind and the waves, by the storms and tempests of life - and either God seems to be asleep, or else far away and unable to help us.
Elijah the Prophet had derided the prophets of the false god Baal because their prayers and incantations were not answered, whereas his prayer was answered - and in the most spectacular fashion. A storm blew up out of nowhere, seeming to begin in a tiny, distant cloud. And an enormous bolt of lightning brought a thunderbolt from heaven to light the fire for his sacrifice. Yet, if Elijah felt any pride or sense of achievement, this is the moment when it was dispelled. On Mount Horeb he discovered that sometimes God answers our prayers with the sound of sheer silence!
In the moment of victory Elijah had triumphantly ordered the crowd to murder the unfortunate prophets of Baal. Doubtless he felt at the time that they had sealed their own fate by praying to a god who does not answer prayer. Now he discovers that humility and graciousness would have been a more appropriate response, for even the one true God sometimes answers our prayers with the sound of sheer silence.
But then, in apparent contrast with Elijah's sense of desolation, we have the witness of St Paul. When we're in trouble of any kind, Paul says that we should not say in our hearts, 'Who will ascend into heaven...to bring Christ down [to help us].' Nor should we say, 'Who will descend into the abyss...to bring Christ up from the dead [to save us].' This is because we don't have to go in search of him. Even in the sound of sheer silence the Word - that is the wisdom of God, and the proclamation of God's love revealed in Jesus - is always very close to us, part of us in fact, not only on our breath but also in our hearts.
Paul is very sure that we should have no anxieties. In any situation, so long as we continue to say - and to believe - that Jesus was raised from the dead, we shall be saved. And we won't be put to shame - like the Prophets of Baal - by appearing to have our prayers unanswered. How does this bold claim match Elijah's experience, and ours sometimes, when prayers seem to be answered by the sound of sheer silence?
I would suggest that these two, apparently contradictory, experiences are reconciled by the story of Jesus' death on the Cross. Jesus' death seemed to be the moment of defeat for all that he represented. His cry of dereliction, 'My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?' was met with the sound of sheer silence. No doubt the onlookers concluded either that Jesus had been deluded all along about his intimate relationship with God, or that the God he was calling to didn't exist or wasn't interested in him. In that moment, his situation was not unlike that faced by the Prophets of Baal, and like them he met an untimely death - taunted and despised by his opponents because his prayer was not answered.
Of course, there the similarity ends. The Prophets of Baal died there and then, and their cause in Israel died with them. Despite immediate and continued setbacks, the battle to overcome the false worship of fertility gods took a decisive turn that day. Whereas, in an unforeseen event that must have seemed about as possible as a thunder storm on a clear day on Mount Carmel, Jesus was raised from the dead. His desperate cry from the Cross was answered with the sound of sheer silence. He died and was buried. His disciples fled. Apparently his cause had been defeated. But not so! For on the third day he was raised from the dead, as the promise that - even when our prayers are met by the sound of sheer silence - we are never alone, for the Jesus who felt abandoned on the Cross is always with us, in our hearts and on our lips.
Matthew's story about Jesus walking on the water reads a bit like a resurrection story. Alone in the boat, battered by waves and with the wind against them, the disciples think that God is not going to answer their prayers. When they see Jesus coming to join them, walking on the water, they're not reassured. Instead, they think they are seeing a ghost and they cry out in fear. That might be because they don't recognise him through the mist and spray, but it might be because they think he is already dead.
Be that as it may, when Jesus comes to join us on our storm-tossed journey through life he does so as the risen Jesus, bidding us to take heart and not to be afraid. And the message of the risen Jesus is not that we can expect a calm crossing, easy sailing with clear blue skies, but that we must be faithful. Even when our problems and difficulties are met with the sound of sheer silence we must not doubt, for he is with us.
This story is evoked in the film 'The Truman Show', where the hero Truman - played by Jim Carrey - is an actor in a film within a film. At one point he tries to ride out a storm in a yacht and the god-like director of the film tries equally hard to make him turn back. But Truman won't do it. He lashes himself to the boat and says that he would rather die than give up.
In a sense, that is what Jesus is calling us to do - to lash ourselves to the boat and keep on going, come what may, except that - in the Gospel story - it isn't God who is trying to overturn the boat. Instead, God is with us - in Jesus - holding out his hand to catch us when our fear overwhelms us and we think we are about to drown.
Because he has endured the Cross for our sakes, because he has overcome that sense of abandonment and desolation which we all sometimes feel, we need not fear the storm. Like a swimming instructor waiting to catch us as we take our first faltering strokes through the water, Jesus is always there for us - even in the sound of sheer silence.
Who knows what the Simon and Garfunkel song 'Sound of Silence' means. But these words from the song could echo the sentiments of Paul, and the words of Jesus to Peter on the Lake.
"Silence like a cancer grows.
[So] hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you."
Sunday, 27 July 2008
Discerning Good and Evil
1 Kings 3.5-12
Romans 8.26-39
Matthew 13.31-3, 44-52
The wisdom of Solomon is proverbial. But he did not ask God for wisdom. He asked only for "an understanding mind able to discern between good and evil." God was so impressed by Solomon's selflessness and maturity that he gave him the gift of wisdom too.
It would be nice to be guided by wise leaders, wouldn't it? One of Gordon Brown's difficulties is that on television he appears less wise than he apparently is in person. Someone commented that, at an award ceremony this week for former members of the Women's Land Army, he was dignified, relaxed and good humoured. He gave a short speech, without any notes, in which he said just the right things to impress everyone there and he captured precisely the mood of the occasion.
But, unlike Tony Blair, he cannot do this in front of the cameras. Tony Blair always looked assured and at ease on television. Love him or hate him, he often found just the right thing to say, whereas Gordon Brown looks wooden and uncomfortable, both on television and at Prime Minister's Question Time in Parliament.
Yet, who is the wiser of the two? The man whose hubris convinced him that he could pull off the invasion of Iraq, or the iron chancellor who presided over so many years of economic prosperity and - at the same time - managed to ease the burden of debt for poor people in Africa? It is Gordon Brown who often seemed better able to discern the difference between good and evil, which is why - in the end - he was able to ease his rival out of the way. How odd then that he now seems unable to govern people in the assured way that Solomon did.
I mustn't be partisan, so it's only fair to say that David Cameron and George Osbourne have their own approach to wise leadership. Barak Obama is interested in it, too. It's called 'libertarian paternalism', but that's just a complicated way of saying that they hope to nudge or influence people into making wiser choices. For instance, one way of nudging us towards better behaviour would be to give us a discount off our council tax if we agree to have our bins emptied less often. Another idea is to give us a cooling off period before we are allowed to borrow money. They also want our electric and gas bills to tell us how much the average customer pays, and to go back to the old system of giving tax incentives to couples who get married. All of these ideas do seem sensible, especially from a Christian point of view, but they're not exactly earth shattering. They won't deal with anti-social behaviour, knife crime or binge drinking. They don't really compare with the wisdom of Solomon.
But then perhaps we expect to much from our politicians. Some people have had to put up with leaders who were not only unwise but who could not discern the difference between good and evil at all, and who plunged their countries into turmoil as a result. Examples which come to mind are President Mugabe in Zimbabwe and President al-Bashir of the Sudan. And then there is Radovan Karadzic, a man so obsessed with ancient myths - about the little Serbian nation being threatened by the peril of Islam - that he was prepared to sanction mass murder, rape and ethnic cleansing in order to create a pure Serbian state. Shamefully, Western diplomats parleyed with him - trying to work out a peaceful way of meeting his absurd demands. They included top-ranking politicians like Lord Carrington, Lord Owen, Lord Hurd and Sir Malcolm Rifkind. And equally shamefully, Christian monks have been some of the people who helped him to evade capture, which just goes to prove that it isn't only leaders who need to pray for wisdom and discernment.
One of the hallmarks of democracy is that we all have a part to play in making decisions, so we all need to able to discern between good and evil. And, in the life of the Christian community, we also need to be able to make wise choices that will help to build up the church, sustain its mission and proclaim the gospel. The problem, as always, is knowing the right thing to do. The Bible points us to the need to rely on prayer - in other words, to immerse ourselves in a relationship with God so intimate and strong that God's discernment of right and wrong will soak into our perception too.
Romans 8.26-39 is a beautiful summary of the unbreakable power of God's love, from which nothing can ever separate us. But this protection does not seem to be available to everyone. The passage begins by narrowing its focus down to those who have been called by God and who have received the gift of his Spirit, which overcomes our own weakness and gives us the discernment to know what God wants us to do. However, Paul seems to be saying that only the elect - chosen by God before the beginning of time - can enjoy this gift and experience this indestructible love.
At first sight, this would seem to be completely contrary to the teaching of the Methodist Church but, in his Notes on the New Testament, John Wesley argues that Paul is only describing here the step by step process by which God calls all human beings to follow him, because he has always intended the whole human race to be in the same kind of perfect relationship with him as Jesus, so that Jesus might be the firstborn Son of a very large family. Therefore, says Wesley in his commentary on this passage, all human beings have been justified by Jesus' death and the possibility of completely discerning God's mind, or being glorified, is also open to absolutely everyone.
When Paul talks about people being 'elect', Wesley says that the 'elect' doesn't mean an exclusive club of pre-determined lucky winners. It means everyone who has identified themselves with his chosen people - that is to say, everyone who has freely chosen to put their faith in Jesus. And Wesley justifies this claim by pointing out that, just as in the old covenant with Israel the Chosen People included everyone - good and bad alike, so God clearly chooses to include everyone in the new covenant, just so long as they are prepared to put their trust in Jesus.
You may think that Wesley is forcing Paul's words to fit his argument here, and that Paul actually did believe God has chosen some people to receive the Spirit, through faith in Jesus, and so to be able to discern the difference between good and evil and enter into a loving relationship with him, while others will never have that gift or enjoy that love and were never even intended to be part of God's People. Paul was certainly disappointed that so few Jewish people had adopted the Christian faith, and his talk of people needing to be chosen or elected by God in order to be put right with him, might be part of his explanation for why Jesus was so unpopular with his own countrymen and women.
But perhaps the difference between Paul and Wesley is not so great as it seems. Predestination - the idea that some people are destined before their birth to be in relationship with God while others are already destined to reject him - is not really about our freedom to choose. It's about God's ability to know, before they happen, what choices we will make.
The famous theologian Jurgen Moltmann has said that God is the Future, the destination to which everything in the universe is travelling, and he has argued that God has not yet made up his mind about that future. It's still wide open to change and development, and God still wills all things to opt into it and share the future with him. That's pretty much what John Wesley was arguing nearly three hundred years ago. But perhaps that's not incompatible with arguing that some people will still decide not to be part of the future and sometimes even we can glimpse who they might be.
Last week I heard a detective talking about cold cases on the radio. Cold cases are unresolved ones where the trail for evidence seems to have gone cold but, of course, new DNA evidence is allowing some of those cases to be reopened. He talked about the people who committed these crimes and he said that, broadly speaking, they fall into two groups. There are the people who feel guilty and troubled about what they have done, and who are always looking over their shoulder expecting to be caught. They are, perhaps, the sort of people who - no matter what they might have done in the past - are capable of changing and seeking redemption. But then, he said, there is another group who feel no remorse at all, because they convince themselves either that they never even committed the crime in the first place or that it wasn't their fault. 'If you really believe that you never did anything wrong, then you never have to worry about it,' he said. Perhaps that's how one murderer managed to be so surprised when he was finally arrested. 'You must be joking!' he told the arresting officers, even though the DNA evidence was stacked against him.
One suspects that Radovan Karadzic had convinced himself that he was innocent too, even while he was authorising his generals to shell civilians or carry out massacres. Despite all the reports to the contrary, he denied that he was doing anything wrong and portrayed himself as a man of culture, a poet and a healer who cared about the well being of other people.
Is that the kind of person who might be predestined to remain outside God's wonderful love? According to Wesley and Moltmann, even when people have convinced themselves that they are innocent of terrible crimes we can't say for certain what the future holds for them. Having to face a war crimes tribunal in the Hague is unlikely to bring Karadzic to his senses, but who can say what encountering the love of God might do?
The Kingdom parables in today's passage from Matthew's gospel do give us a hint as to what to expect from an encounter with God's way of doing things. The parables of the mustard seed and the yeast have the same message as the parable of the sower. They remind us how much can be achieved, even by a very small nucleus of people, if they are inspired and guided by God's Spirit and act in God's power. We don't need the majesty of Solomon, or even the influence and status of a councillor or MP in order to influence the community in which we live. We can all subtlely act for good in the choices that we make and the causes we support and, in so doing, we can make a difference out of all proportion to our size as a Christian community - like a tiny lump of yeast mixed into three measures of flour or a tiny mustard seed growing into a huge bush where birds can hide and build their nests.
But then the next set of parables makes a different point. Is the person who finds the buried treasure, or the merchant who finds the pearl, meant to represent the ideal disciple, someone who hears the message of God's amazing love and devotes their whole life to following him? Or are the treasure and the pearl meant to represent you and I, diamonds in the rough whose true worth will only be recognised when we are discovered by someone who has as much discernment and love in their heart as God? Like the merchant or the treasure seeker, is God prepared to give up everything he has in order to save us from getting lost, because - being a true expert in human nature - he recognises our ultimate value? Or are the pearl and the treasure meant to represent things like the ability to discern good and evil? It's something that might not be immediately obvious to everyone, but it really is one of the most precious gifts we could ask for or hope to possess.
And, then, there's the story of the net full of fish - a story that is acted out in some of the traditions about Jesus. Is this another reminder of the openness of God's future. The fisherman in the story hasn't gone out looking for just one special kind of catch. He isn't using a pot or a line, with a particular kind of lure or bait to attract a particular species. Instead he's trawling for fish or reeling in an enormously long drift net, and as a result he scoops everything out of the water indiscriminately. We would now say, perhaps, that it's not a very environmentally friendly way of fishing. In fact, there is no attempt here to discern good from bad, edible from inedible, valuable from worthless. The fisherman simply winches in the lot, sails back to shore, and then gets his staff to sort the catch on the beach. The good fish are kept and the useless ones are thrown away.
This story is not unlike the story of the wheat and the tares. It could be seen as a warning that if we are worthless God's love will be withheld from us, but I think it's a story which bears out Wesley and Moltmann's understanding of God's grace. God has limitless ambition. He has chosen to save everything, if he possibly can. So he has set out to catch us all in his net, in the hope that - as the future unfolds - we will all discern where truth, goodness and value lie and commit ourselves to live for him. Then, all being well, none of us will need to be thrown away.
God is like an antique's dealer who has gradually amassed treasures old and new - things which other people might have felt were past their best, or out-of-date, or unlikely to catch-on, but which the dealer saw would be of lasting value. Like the fisherman, the antique dealer's motto is to hang onto things to see how they turn out over time.
But, of course there are bound to be some failures - some fish that simply never grow to the right size or some antique things that never become marketable. So we are reminded to make sure that we have understood all this, and that we really can discern the mind of God, and the difference between good and evil.
Romans 8.26-39
Matthew 13.31-3, 44-52
The wisdom of Solomon is proverbial. But he did not ask God for wisdom. He asked only for "an understanding mind able to discern between good and evil." God was so impressed by Solomon's selflessness and maturity that he gave him the gift of wisdom too.
It would be nice to be guided by wise leaders, wouldn't it? One of Gordon Brown's difficulties is that on television he appears less wise than he apparently is in person. Someone commented that, at an award ceremony this week for former members of the Women's Land Army, he was dignified, relaxed and good humoured. He gave a short speech, without any notes, in which he said just the right things to impress everyone there and he captured precisely the mood of the occasion.
But, unlike Tony Blair, he cannot do this in front of the cameras. Tony Blair always looked assured and at ease on television. Love him or hate him, he often found just the right thing to say, whereas Gordon Brown looks wooden and uncomfortable, both on television and at Prime Minister's Question Time in Parliament.
Yet, who is the wiser of the two? The man whose hubris convinced him that he could pull off the invasion of Iraq, or the iron chancellor who presided over so many years of economic prosperity and - at the same time - managed to ease the burden of debt for poor people in Africa? It is Gordon Brown who often seemed better able to discern the difference between good and evil, which is why - in the end - he was able to ease his rival out of the way. How odd then that he now seems unable to govern people in the assured way that Solomon did.
I mustn't be partisan, so it's only fair to say that David Cameron and George Osbourne have their own approach to wise leadership. Barak Obama is interested in it, too. It's called 'libertarian paternalism', but that's just a complicated way of saying that they hope to nudge or influence people into making wiser choices. For instance, one way of nudging us towards better behaviour would be to give us a discount off our council tax if we agree to have our bins emptied less often. Another idea is to give us a cooling off period before we are allowed to borrow money. They also want our electric and gas bills to tell us how much the average customer pays, and to go back to the old system of giving tax incentives to couples who get married. All of these ideas do seem sensible, especially from a Christian point of view, but they're not exactly earth shattering. They won't deal with anti-social behaviour, knife crime or binge drinking. They don't really compare with the wisdom of Solomon.
But then perhaps we expect to much from our politicians. Some people have had to put up with leaders who were not only unwise but who could not discern the difference between good and evil at all, and who plunged their countries into turmoil as a result. Examples which come to mind are President Mugabe in Zimbabwe and President al-Bashir of the Sudan. And then there is Radovan Karadzic, a man so obsessed with ancient myths - about the little Serbian nation being threatened by the peril of Islam - that he was prepared to sanction mass murder, rape and ethnic cleansing in order to create a pure Serbian state. Shamefully, Western diplomats parleyed with him - trying to work out a peaceful way of meeting his absurd demands. They included top-ranking politicians like Lord Carrington, Lord Owen, Lord Hurd and Sir Malcolm Rifkind. And equally shamefully, Christian monks have been some of the people who helped him to evade capture, which just goes to prove that it isn't only leaders who need to pray for wisdom and discernment.
One of the hallmarks of democracy is that we all have a part to play in making decisions, so we all need to able to discern between good and evil. And, in the life of the Christian community, we also need to be able to make wise choices that will help to build up the church, sustain its mission and proclaim the gospel. The problem, as always, is knowing the right thing to do. The Bible points us to the need to rely on prayer - in other words, to immerse ourselves in a relationship with God so intimate and strong that God's discernment of right and wrong will soak into our perception too.
Romans 8.26-39 is a beautiful summary of the unbreakable power of God's love, from which nothing can ever separate us. But this protection does not seem to be available to everyone. The passage begins by narrowing its focus down to those who have been called by God and who have received the gift of his Spirit, which overcomes our own weakness and gives us the discernment to know what God wants us to do. However, Paul seems to be saying that only the elect - chosen by God before the beginning of time - can enjoy this gift and experience this indestructible love.
At first sight, this would seem to be completely contrary to the teaching of the Methodist Church but, in his Notes on the New Testament, John Wesley argues that Paul is only describing here the step by step process by which God calls all human beings to follow him, because he has always intended the whole human race to be in the same kind of perfect relationship with him as Jesus, so that Jesus might be the firstborn Son of a very large family. Therefore, says Wesley in his commentary on this passage, all human beings have been justified by Jesus' death and the possibility of completely discerning God's mind, or being glorified, is also open to absolutely everyone.
When Paul talks about people being 'elect', Wesley says that the 'elect' doesn't mean an exclusive club of pre-determined lucky winners. It means everyone who has identified themselves with his chosen people - that is to say, everyone who has freely chosen to put their faith in Jesus. And Wesley justifies this claim by pointing out that, just as in the old covenant with Israel the Chosen People included everyone - good and bad alike, so God clearly chooses to include everyone in the new covenant, just so long as they are prepared to put their trust in Jesus.
You may think that Wesley is forcing Paul's words to fit his argument here, and that Paul actually did believe God has chosen some people to receive the Spirit, through faith in Jesus, and so to be able to discern the difference between good and evil and enter into a loving relationship with him, while others will never have that gift or enjoy that love and were never even intended to be part of God's People. Paul was certainly disappointed that so few Jewish people had adopted the Christian faith, and his talk of people needing to be chosen or elected by God in order to be put right with him, might be part of his explanation for why Jesus was so unpopular with his own countrymen and women.
But perhaps the difference between Paul and Wesley is not so great as it seems. Predestination - the idea that some people are destined before their birth to be in relationship with God while others are already destined to reject him - is not really about our freedom to choose. It's about God's ability to know, before they happen, what choices we will make.
The famous theologian Jurgen Moltmann has said that God is the Future, the destination to which everything in the universe is travelling, and he has argued that God has not yet made up his mind about that future. It's still wide open to change and development, and God still wills all things to opt into it and share the future with him. That's pretty much what John Wesley was arguing nearly three hundred years ago. But perhaps that's not incompatible with arguing that some people will still decide not to be part of the future and sometimes even we can glimpse who they might be.
Last week I heard a detective talking about cold cases on the radio. Cold cases are unresolved ones where the trail for evidence seems to have gone cold but, of course, new DNA evidence is allowing some of those cases to be reopened. He talked about the people who committed these crimes and he said that, broadly speaking, they fall into two groups. There are the people who feel guilty and troubled about what they have done, and who are always looking over their shoulder expecting to be caught. They are, perhaps, the sort of people who - no matter what they might have done in the past - are capable of changing and seeking redemption. But then, he said, there is another group who feel no remorse at all, because they convince themselves either that they never even committed the crime in the first place or that it wasn't their fault. 'If you really believe that you never did anything wrong, then you never have to worry about it,' he said. Perhaps that's how one murderer managed to be so surprised when he was finally arrested. 'You must be joking!' he told the arresting officers, even though the DNA evidence was stacked against him.
One suspects that Radovan Karadzic had convinced himself that he was innocent too, even while he was authorising his generals to shell civilians or carry out massacres. Despite all the reports to the contrary, he denied that he was doing anything wrong and portrayed himself as a man of culture, a poet and a healer who cared about the well being of other people.
Is that the kind of person who might be predestined to remain outside God's wonderful love? According to Wesley and Moltmann, even when people have convinced themselves that they are innocent of terrible crimes we can't say for certain what the future holds for them. Having to face a war crimes tribunal in the Hague is unlikely to bring Karadzic to his senses, but who can say what encountering the love of God might do?
The Kingdom parables in today's passage from Matthew's gospel do give us a hint as to what to expect from an encounter with God's way of doing things. The parables of the mustard seed and the yeast have the same message as the parable of the sower. They remind us how much can be achieved, even by a very small nucleus of people, if they are inspired and guided by God's Spirit and act in God's power. We don't need the majesty of Solomon, or even the influence and status of a councillor or MP in order to influence the community in which we live. We can all subtlely act for good in the choices that we make and the causes we support and, in so doing, we can make a difference out of all proportion to our size as a Christian community - like a tiny lump of yeast mixed into three measures of flour or a tiny mustard seed growing into a huge bush where birds can hide and build their nests.
But then the next set of parables makes a different point. Is the person who finds the buried treasure, or the merchant who finds the pearl, meant to represent the ideal disciple, someone who hears the message of God's amazing love and devotes their whole life to following him? Or are the treasure and the pearl meant to represent you and I, diamonds in the rough whose true worth will only be recognised when we are discovered by someone who has as much discernment and love in their heart as God? Like the merchant or the treasure seeker, is God prepared to give up everything he has in order to save us from getting lost, because - being a true expert in human nature - he recognises our ultimate value? Or are the pearl and the treasure meant to represent things like the ability to discern good and evil? It's something that might not be immediately obvious to everyone, but it really is one of the most precious gifts we could ask for or hope to possess.
And, then, there's the story of the net full of fish - a story that is acted out in some of the traditions about Jesus. Is this another reminder of the openness of God's future. The fisherman in the story hasn't gone out looking for just one special kind of catch. He isn't using a pot or a line, with a particular kind of lure or bait to attract a particular species. Instead he's trawling for fish or reeling in an enormously long drift net, and as a result he scoops everything out of the water indiscriminately. We would now say, perhaps, that it's not a very environmentally friendly way of fishing. In fact, there is no attempt here to discern good from bad, edible from inedible, valuable from worthless. The fisherman simply winches in the lot, sails back to shore, and then gets his staff to sort the catch on the beach. The good fish are kept and the useless ones are thrown away.
This story is not unlike the story of the wheat and the tares. It could be seen as a warning that if we are worthless God's love will be withheld from us, but I think it's a story which bears out Wesley and Moltmann's understanding of God's grace. God has limitless ambition. He has chosen to save everything, if he possibly can. So he has set out to catch us all in his net, in the hope that - as the future unfolds - we will all discern where truth, goodness and value lie and commit ourselves to live for him. Then, all being well, none of us will need to be thrown away.
God is like an antique's dealer who has gradually amassed treasures old and new - things which other people might have felt were past their best, or out-of-date, or unlikely to catch-on, but which the dealer saw would be of lasting value. Like the fisherman, the antique dealer's motto is to hang onto things to see how they turn out over time.
But, of course there are bound to be some failures - some fish that simply never grow to the right size or some antique things that never become marketable. So we are reminded to make sure that we have understood all this, and that we really can discern the mind of God, and the difference between good and evil.
Thursday, 24 July 2008
When a Little Produces a Lot
Isaiah 55.10-13
Romans 8.1-11
Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23
We haven't seen much snow for a long time but we do get plenty of rain, don't we? It might not be as much fun as the sunshine, but it does help the plants to grow. Most vegetables, for instance, need plenty of water in order to grow big and strong. God's word has the same effect. It stimulates spiritual growth making us more rounded people, closer to the image of God.
Of course, the rain which stimulates the growth of vegetables and garden flowers also helps the weeds to grow, which is not a good thing. Fortunately, the word of God is not like this. It doesn't cause the indiscriminate growth of good and bad things. Instead, it tends to suppress what is bad and promote what is good.
The Prophet Isaiah gives too examples of bad plants and two examples of good ones. The cypress tree was valued because its timber was highly valued in the ancient world. It was used, for instance, to make the coffins of the pharaohs. The myrtle was sometimes waved by worshippers during Jewish festivals. It was prized because it made a sweet smelling oil used in medicine and in perfumes, and also a drink. What, though, was so wrong with thorns? The Bible gives them a very bad press and yet their wood was often burnt during sacrifices because of its sweet smell, and honey money from the nectar collected by bees feeding on the blossom of thorn or acacia trees is highly prized for its flavour. Perhaps the problem with thorns is simply that they are prickly. Or, more likely, Isaiah is using the word thorn as a synonym for briers or brambles - which also have sharp prickles or thorns, and which grow like weeds, choking out other plants. Wild brambles often have very small fruit, unlike cultivated blackberries. Either way, what God wants is to encourage in us those things which will bring a rich and fruitful harvest, making us better and more user-friendly people.
Romans 8.1-11 uses the image of dying to our old life, and rising to a new and fuller life in Christ, to express the same idea. With God's help we can root out those parts of our nature which would otherwise choke out the more selfless, gentle and loving side of our personality and help us to flourish and become more rounded and complete.
Jesus' parable of the sower, in Matthew 13, is a story which vividly illustrates the tremendous effectiveness of God's message. No matter how much of the work is wasted - because the message falls on deaf ears or on barren hearts and minds - there will always be a good harvest because, when it does take root, it has a tremendous impact on the life of the responsive hearer. It leads them to do different things from what they might otherwise have done, and to influence countless other people by their words and actions.
On the face of it, today, religion - and Christianity in particular - doesn't have much influence on the life of our nation and our city. But, actually, that's not the case., because religious people make up the majority of those who volunteer for charitable or community work, and who join in any efforts to make the world - and their neighbourhood - a better place. That means our influence is out of all proportion to our numbers, and the harvest of goodness that results is still something to be amazed at and to celebrate.
For Matthew this message is simply too obvious. He looks, like Mark, for a hidden meaning. Each element of the story takes on a special significance for him, because it represents one of several different responses to God's message - ranging from indifference, through an initial enthusiasm that doesn't last, to a response that is deep-rooted and enduring.
We all know that Matthew is right when he identifies these different ways that people respond to the message. But it isn't quite so obvious that the number of people in whom the message takes root is necessarily always going to be so large. Matthew was living in a situation where the Church was rapidly expanding. While that is still true in many places around the world it doesn't reflect our experience.
It's easy to get dispirited when our efforts seem to reap so small a harvest. That's why Jesus' original point - about the huge impact that a few dedicated people can have - is so important for us today. Like us, he was living in circumstances where the number of faithful followers of God's word was quite small. Unlike us, he knew that - nevertheless - they could change the world.
Romans 8.1-11
Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23
We haven't seen much snow for a long time but we do get plenty of rain, don't we? It might not be as much fun as the sunshine, but it does help the plants to grow. Most vegetables, for instance, need plenty of water in order to grow big and strong. God's word has the same effect. It stimulates spiritual growth making us more rounded people, closer to the image of God.
Of course, the rain which stimulates the growth of vegetables and garden flowers also helps the weeds to grow, which is not a good thing. Fortunately, the word of God is not like this. It doesn't cause the indiscriminate growth of good and bad things. Instead, it tends to suppress what is bad and promote what is good.
The Prophet Isaiah gives too examples of bad plants and two examples of good ones. The cypress tree was valued because its timber was highly valued in the ancient world. It was used, for instance, to make the coffins of the pharaohs. The myrtle was sometimes waved by worshippers during Jewish festivals. It was prized because it made a sweet smelling oil used in medicine and in perfumes, and also a drink. What, though, was so wrong with thorns? The Bible gives them a very bad press and yet their wood was often burnt during sacrifices because of its sweet smell, and honey money from the nectar collected by bees feeding on the blossom of thorn or acacia trees is highly prized for its flavour. Perhaps the problem with thorns is simply that they are prickly. Or, more likely, Isaiah is using the word thorn as a synonym for briers or brambles - which also have sharp prickles or thorns, and which grow like weeds, choking out other plants. Wild brambles often have very small fruit, unlike cultivated blackberries. Either way, what God wants is to encourage in us those things which will bring a rich and fruitful harvest, making us better and more user-friendly people.
Romans 8.1-11 uses the image of dying to our old life, and rising to a new and fuller life in Christ, to express the same idea. With God's help we can root out those parts of our nature which would otherwise choke out the more selfless, gentle and loving side of our personality and help us to flourish and become more rounded and complete.
Jesus' parable of the sower, in Matthew 13, is a story which vividly illustrates the tremendous effectiveness of God's message. No matter how much of the work is wasted - because the message falls on deaf ears or on barren hearts and minds - there will always be a good harvest because, when it does take root, it has a tremendous impact on the life of the responsive hearer. It leads them to do different things from what they might otherwise have done, and to influence countless other people by their words and actions.
On the face of it, today, religion - and Christianity in particular - doesn't have much influence on the life of our nation and our city. But, actually, that's not the case., because religious people make up the majority of those who volunteer for charitable or community work, and who join in any efforts to make the world - and their neighbourhood - a better place. That means our influence is out of all proportion to our numbers, and the harvest of goodness that results is still something to be amazed at and to celebrate.
For Matthew this message is simply too obvious. He looks, like Mark, for a hidden meaning. Each element of the story takes on a special significance for him, because it represents one of several different responses to God's message - ranging from indifference, through an initial enthusiasm that doesn't last, to a response that is deep-rooted and enduring.
We all know that Matthew is right when he identifies these different ways that people respond to the message. But it isn't quite so obvious that the number of people in whom the message takes root is necessarily always going to be so large. Matthew was living in a situation where the Church was rapidly expanding. While that is still true in many places around the world it doesn't reflect our experience.
It's easy to get dispirited when our efforts seem to reap so small a harvest. That's why Jesus' original point - about the huge impact that a few dedicated people can have - is so important for us today. Like us, he was living in circumstances where the number of faithful followers of God's word was quite small. Unlike us, he knew that - nevertheless - they could change the world.
Sunday, 6 July 2008
True Religion
Zechariah 9.9-12
This passage is part of the answer to those critics who claim that religion causes hostility and aggression. While it is true that religion is often used as an excuse for aggressive behaviour, the Prophet Zechariah makes clear that the true mark of religious leadership is a resolute determination to see peace prevail. Not only does the true leader choose to ride on a humble beast of burden, but he also cuts off the chariot and the bow, and positively commands peace. He may choose humble symbols like the donkey, but his aim is a worldwide dominion of peace. In other words, true religion is - by definition - almost aggressively peaceful.
Romans 7.15-25a
The great difference between Christianity and its sister religions, Judaism and Islam, is that while Christianity recognises that holy laws are good in principle, it also recognises that human beings cannot rise to the challenge of being holy - at least not without divine help. There is something about human nature which makes us incapable of doing good even when we know what is right and we want to do it. And, of course, sometimes we don't know what is right anyway, or we believe we are doing right when we are actually doing wrong. It's also possible to have the best of motives and the worst of outcomes.
It is Jesus who rescues us from this predicament. His death shows us that God loves us and is ready to forgive us despite our weakness. But Jesus' death is more significant even than that. Paul explains in his letter to the Church at Rome how we can identify ourselves completely with Jesus' death by crucifying our self-centered self with him and making ourselves his slaves, instead of slaves of human nature, rising to new life in him.
Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30
Religious people may not be responsible for all the hostility in the world, but they can be contrary and hard to please. One vicar, or minister, is criticised for preaching badly even though he's a tireless visitor, with an exemplary pastoral ministry. The next vicar or minister is criticised for spending too little time visiting even though she spends many hours crafting wonderful sermons. Even Jesus encountered exactly the same problem.
If only religious people would relax into the sort of childlike attitude that Jesus describes in his prayer. If we adopted his gentleness and humility we could find rest in him and let go of our constant striving to outdo other people and our critical and fault finding attitudes.
This passage is part of the answer to those critics who claim that religion causes hostility and aggression. While it is true that religion is often used as an excuse for aggressive behaviour, the Prophet Zechariah makes clear that the true mark of religious leadership is a resolute determination to see peace prevail. Not only does the true leader choose to ride on a humble beast of burden, but he also cuts off the chariot and the bow, and positively commands peace. He may choose humble symbols like the donkey, but his aim is a worldwide dominion of peace. In other words, true religion is - by definition - almost aggressively peaceful.
Romans 7.15-25a
The great difference between Christianity and its sister religions, Judaism and Islam, is that while Christianity recognises that holy laws are good in principle, it also recognises that human beings cannot rise to the challenge of being holy - at least not without divine help. There is something about human nature which makes us incapable of doing good even when we know what is right and we want to do it. And, of course, sometimes we don't know what is right anyway, or we believe we are doing right when we are actually doing wrong. It's also possible to have the best of motives and the worst of outcomes.
It is Jesus who rescues us from this predicament. His death shows us that God loves us and is ready to forgive us despite our weakness. But Jesus' death is more significant even than that. Paul explains in his letter to the Church at Rome how we can identify ourselves completely with Jesus' death by crucifying our self-centered self with him and making ourselves his slaves, instead of slaves of human nature, rising to new life in him.
Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30
Religious people may not be responsible for all the hostility in the world, but they can be contrary and hard to please. One vicar, or minister, is criticised for preaching badly even though he's a tireless visitor, with an exemplary pastoral ministry. The next vicar or minister is criticised for spending too little time visiting even though she spends many hours crafting wonderful sermons. Even Jesus encountered exactly the same problem.
If only religious people would relax into the sort of childlike attitude that Jesus describes in his prayer. If we adopted his gentleness and humility we could find rest in him and let go of our constant striving to outdo other people and our critical and fault finding attitudes.
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