Blessed Are The Chrises

 

When I was an undergraduate in Bristol , there was a homeless chap who sat on the pavement outside Sainsburys begging. I initially ignored him but after passing Chris, that was his name, on a few occasions, I always made sure I bought him some food and something to drink which I gave to him on the way out.

I got to know him better as I started to volunteer at the local night shelter. He had been a bank manager, nice house, happily married. After a couple of wrong choices he found himself in financial trouble which led to him losing his home and his marriage. He didn’t like being homeless but I remember two other things that I learned from him:

1. Once, in my early days of getting to know him, he asked me for money and I refused and told him I would rather buy him food fearful of what he might do with the money. He became furious with me, 'How dare you judge me! Being poor and on the streets is bloody hard - if I choose to spend money given me to help me survive by drinking to blot out memories of being kicked and beaten by passers by at night or to cope with the cold I will! How dare you moralise over me! How would you cope?' He was of course right - how would I cope? I could not blame him

2. As I befriended him I realised Chris also had a kind of care-free lightness to him and the way he lived in the world. He hated being homeless but was also so pleased to be free of life and its trappings. One winter I turned up at the night shelter and serving him soup he said to me how he wished he had a winter coat. I had an old overcoat that was a bit tatty. It had belonged to my grandfather. I didn’t need it. I had another one. In the morning I gave it to him. I still remember him walking around the dorm pleased as punch because he would be warm.

Jesus says blessed are the Chris’ of the world. Blessed. Happy. This isn’t Matthew’s Jesus blessing those who acknowledge their spiritual poverty - their need of God being the gate way to the kingdom. Luke’s Jesus recognises that the good news for a hungry person isn’t spiritual wisdom - it’s bread. Luke’s beatitudes always bring me up short because I know who the poor are, who the hungry are, who the poor are and so do you.

Luke’s account of Jesus’ early life and ministry is almost breathtaking. In the previous chapters, Jesus is constantly showing God’s love to the outsider - people with unclean spirits, the lepper, the paralytic, to Levi the tax collector, the man with the withered hand and many others - restoring them to health but also to their communities. Outsiders become insiders in God’s coming Kingdom. Even in the synagogue, a few chapters previously, Jesus makes it clear that his ministry is fulfilling that of the prophet Isaiah;  to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ 

Jesus said, '...Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven...'

Earlier this year, the director of the World Food Programme said that some of the most deprived areas in the world had now reached a tipping point of having “zero” harvests left, as extreme weather was pushing already degraded land beyond use. He said that as a result, parts of Africa, the Middle East and Latin America were now so poor they were dependent on humanitarian aid.

Many news outlets talk every day about the poor… the poor quality of our roads; the poor quality of our water; the poorly funded healthcare being offered by much of the NHS; only occasionally they will talk about people pushed into poverty by climate change, war or lack of meaningful work.

But why Lord are the poor blessed? Or the hungry or the weeping for that matter? Conversely, why do you seemingly condemn the rich, the full and the laughing?

The poor rely on others for support and care. The hungry rely on others for food. Those weeping rely on others for comfort and consolation. And they know it. They are a sign and symbol of the life of faithfulness to God because their entire existence relies on the provision of others. They know how to ask. Their lives are open in supplication. 

Similarly the rich, the full and the laughing need not necessarily rely on anyone. The poor, the hungry and the weeping are a sign and symbol of a call to the life of faithfulness to God to the rich, because they have resources and do not know how to ask. They have no need. They need to learn to live lives open in gratitude.

Blessedness is nothing to do with what we possess. It is to do with what is our greatest possession. Jesus is not against wealth and satisfaction, but Jesus’ point is that God does need to be. And Jesus’ woes warn us of some of the barriers to living a blessed life - a life where God is at the centre.

So how do we live a blessed life? The prophet Jeremiah in our first reading points to being rooted in the Lord. To be rooted in the Lord is described as being like ‘a tree by water’ (v.8). We are blessed when we are rooted in Christ. This stems from a deep desire to know him and to have him in every part of our lives. It means we surrender and submit to God. God is the one who keeps us settled and grounded.

Paul writes to the Corinthians, as our second reading, that we worship Christ who ‘is proclaimed as raised from the dead’. We are rooted in the one who not only is alive, but also the one who gives life. When we recognise that we are the blessed people of God, we not only live a life that is blessed, we become a blessing to others. It is impossible to keep God’s blessing to ourselves – we desire to live and to give of ourselves with real generosity, that others may know God and his blessing. The challenge for us today is to live in the overflow of God’s blessing.

On Friendship - A Sermon on John 15;9-17

I like going to hear live music whenever I can. I know that some of you will dispute that it actually is music, but that’s a conversation for elsewhere! On occasion when I have headed into a venue I have come across another famous musician whose music I love, who has come to see the band that I have because they are also a fan. Those meetings have often only been fleeting, a thank you for their music, a photo, a hug. Other times that gratitude and fan-boying has led to something more and now I call a few of those musicians friends. I’ve transitioned from - thank you for the music - to how are you, do you fancy lunch sometime? And surprise surprise, our heroes are just normal people, with the same struggles and joys as the rest of us.

What kind of friendships do you have? You might be a friend of a local community group. Some people here are members of the Friends of St Thomas’. On Facebook, people probably ask you to be friends. You might, by virtue of membership, be a ‘Friend of the Earth’. You might still be in touch with a few friends from school, even if you haven’t seen them for years. Perhaps you have a weekly meeting with friends at the pub, or at weekends, with another set of friends, you go to watch your favourite sports team. Some friendships are deep and lasting and you pick up where you left off when you see each other, others come and go. There are different kinds of friendship. But I wonder as Jesus calls his disciples friends, what kind of friendship do you have with Jesus?

In John’s Gospel, we are now into what is known by some bible scholars as the farewell discourses (chapters 14-17) - in the convoluted language that the Gospel writer uses, Jesus prepares his disciples for his leaving of them; his return to be with God in heaven; and prior to that, the giving of the Holy Spirit to enable them to undertake all that he calls them to. These chapters of teaching, as we have them, happen round the table of the Last Supper. And maybe it is most appropriate, that as we gather for the Eucharist this morning, we hear them in a similar context.

‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you...'

Harper Lee is right - you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. And each of us here this morning knows the truth of that saying. At this point in what I preach I’d often tell you a short story or anecdote, something I’d read or heard, or something I’d found on the web to illustrate my point. I know friendships go deep. I wanted to illustrate that. I typed ‘friend’ into the search-bar of the BBC news website and up came 29 pages of stories of transformative, deep, and loving friendships - of friends who raised money for charity in memory of a friend who died; of German prisoner of war who found life-long friendship with a family in Devon; or places and spaces that are seeking to become accessible to all especially those struggling with dementia. Friendship cuts across age, gender, sexuality, race etc. 

The only person in the whole of the Bible who is called ‘the friend of God’ is Abraham. So for Jesus to call his followers friends and to entrust them with knowledge of God’s will and purposes is nothing short of remarkable and it reminds me at least of how extrordinary is Jesus’ love and trust of me, of you. And that friendship is based on life laying, of putting others' needs and desires before our own, it is not phylia (love between people) that Jesus speaks of here. but agape - servant-hearted, self-giving love.

The disciples haven’t chosen to be friends of Jesus. They did not choose him, but he chose them. As ever, the initiative is God’s: ‘not that we loved God but that he loved us’ (1 John 4.10). And the purpose of the friendship is that the disciples bear fruit. It’s not yet clear what this fruit will be at this stage. We must wait until after the resurrection and the giving of the Spirit to see that. But we are told what the mark of this fruitfulness will be: the love they will have for one another. Time and again through history, love for fellow human beings has been the touchstone of fruitful lives lived as friends of Jesus Christ. Tertullian, in the third century, imagined pagans looking at Christians and saying, ‘See … how they love one another.’ Would that it were always so.

So, what about us? A crucial question to ask when reading the Gospels is, ‘Where am I in this passage?’ The writer of the Fourth Gospel, in particular, has the ability to draw us into the narrative. We can imagine ourselves being there with the disciples, listening to Jesus. It might seem presumptuous to place ourselves alongside them. But they were a mixed bunch too: convinced believers alongside instinctive doubters, a betrayer and a denier thrown in; and that’s just the apostles, to say nothing of the many others – women and men – who formed the wider group of disciples. A motley crew of all sorts and conditions; why should we not place ourselves with them? 

If, then, we are there with the disciples, it is to us too that Jesus speaks those words. We are to keep his commandments, to love one another, to abide in his love and know ourselves to be his friends.

In Catherine Fox’s third novel, Love for the Lost, the central character, Isobel Knox, suffers a crisis in her life and seeks the wise counsel of her bishop. He asks her whether she sees herself as a child of God, servant of God or friend of God. As which of these do we see ourselves? Child of God? We are clearly part of God’s family, but children know their place. Servant of God? Servants are entrusted with important work but don’t know the employer’s mind. Or friend of God? Chosen, taken into confidence, and in a relationship so close that, like Abraham and like Adam and Eve in the garden, we walk and talk with God: the easy conversation of friends.

God chooses us not primarily as servants, nor even as children, but as friends. And God chooses not someone else but you and me. I wonder how, this week, we can see each other and all those we encounter, as those beloved and chosen by God and how will we demonstrate that love for us in our loving, of joyfulness, our peacemaking, patience with other, kindness to all, our always seeking the good, our gentleness and control of our emotions and perhaps above all in our faithfulness to those amongst whom we live and work - otherwise known as a our friendship.

Billy, Philip, and Water in the Desert.

Perhaps one of the most famous stories is of an invitation to Billy, a young farm boy, to drive a vegetable truck packed with youth to a tent crusade. He joined the others inside and the evangelist made such an impression that Billy felt called to become an evangelist, even though he had had very little formal education. Little did he know that he – Billy Graham – would preach to millions, including presidents and world leaders, and many churches would be reinvigorated by those who responded to his call to get out of their seats and come up front.

Probably our own encounters will not be so dramatic as that, but you never know what the God of surprises has in store for you. However, if the journey we take this week will forge a new friendship, give you fresh insight through a chance conversation, or simply bring solace or hope to a lonely person, that journey will have been worthwhile.

We catch up with Philip in this section of Acts after some extraordinary turmoil. Stephen, a Deacon in the early church, is seized and taken to the Sanhedrin, the Jewish High Council. There he testifies to Jesus in an extraordinary speech (you can read it in Acts 7 and 8) and he is stoned to death for his beliefs and this is witnessed by Saul, who we know better as Paul. Saul persecuted the early Christian community to the point where they scatter, but as they did, they continued to make Jesus known. Philip flees to Samaria - the home of the Samaritans (outsiders as far as the Jews were concerned) and many come to faith through him there. God then tells him to head south, on the desert road which is where we encounter him.

So we have heard the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch this morning. And it would be all too easy to preach something about the church being sent where the spirit wills and preaching the Gospel to those there especially the outsider like a eunuch. Standard stuff.

But that isn't quite what's going on here. The eunuch has status and authority as they hold charge over the Queen's treasury. In some senses in that sense they don't need of good news - they have status, wealth, and authority. Despite their status in the court, they were socially excluded because they are incomplete, they were considered to be less than human.

But there's more going on here still. The eunuch is already searching for God as they are reading about the silent sacrificial lamb in the prophecy of Isaiah, the lamb which is traditionally understood as the person of Christ.

The Lamb does not open his mouth and is silent but Philip opens his mouth and interprets the scripture for the eunuch. So far so predictable. You might now expect Philip to encourage his hearer to affirm a new faith in the Lamb of God at this point. But there's more going on here.

The Law says that eunuchs were forbidden from entering the Temple. The eunuch's searching faith was so strong that they were not only reading scripture but had gone to Jerusalem to worship, even though the Law designated them an outsider.

Guided by the spirit and by interpreting scripture, Philip extends a welcome to the excluded eunuch into the presence of God. Christ's tent is enlarged to include the excluded. But there's more going on here.

In response, the eunuch notices, that journeying along this desert road, there is water nearby. All that is needed for baptism. It is the eunuch who spots water in the desert. It is the eunuch who is thirsty for God's grace, having sought it perhaps after years of knockback & exclusion. And Philip's response? To oblige

And then I'm left wondering who includes who - eunuch or Philip? Who extends the tent of Grace? Philip interprets scripture and reveals Jesus to them. The eunuch seizes the opportunity and invites Philip to include them in the family of faith by Baptism. It is the eunuch who sees water along the desert road. They take hold of that hope in Christ with both hands. 

And then it got me thinking - I'm the father of an enby (non-binary) child. They have experienced exclusion from many sections of society and all sorts of institutions and especially the church.

How many times have they, despite it all, shown me water in the desert? How many times, as they have stood up for justice and welcome, not for them but for others oppressed & forced to the edge, how many times have they shown me the water of grace in places that seemed dry. dead, barren?

We, the church, continue to need the stranger, the outsider, the excluded to show us the water of grace on the road that is our life. We need to remember our Generous God, doesn’t just pour His love on those on the inside of the tent of faith, but the eunuch reminds us this morning, that God’s generous love is poured out and available to all.

I wonder what the same angel that sent Philip on that desert road, might be saying to us? We have been hearing wonderful stories about some of the outreach our parish is undertaking in recent weeks, and we will continue to hear those stories in the weeks to come. Those stories are designed to be an encouragement - to hear of the way that our church communities are responding to God's leading to make known the love of God in Jesus through friendship, fun, learning, community, and so on. But those stories about the work of these groups are encouragements to each of us to be generous with our hospitality - to encourage someone we know to come to something we are putting on and to experience friendship, fun, learning, community and so on and in so doing experience something of God through us. But it goes both ways - Philip interpretted scripture and the eunuch showed Philip the means of grace. The eunuch saw water in the desert and Philip baptised. The eunuch responded to what Philip shared and showed because they had been looking for years to be included in the community of faith and Philip responded to the request for baptism. Who might be searching like that, who we are already traveling with?

Pray - LIving God, Philip included the eunuch in the story of faith. The eunuch included Philip by revealing the means of Your grace. Keep us wide-eyed and open-eared to those we journey with - and when asked for an affirmation of faith, and to be included in God’s grace - let us say Amen.

Homo Sapien/Homo Fabula - a sermon for Passion Sunday

Clara Barton, was an American nurse. She began her career in hospitals during the American Civil War, but she also worked as a teacher, and a patent clerk. Since nursing education was not then very formalized and she didn’t attend nursing school, she provided self-taught nursing care. She became well known for doing humanitarian work and civil rights advocacy for the poorest and most excluded at a time before women had the right to vote. Following the end of the Franco-Prussian war, having seen first hand the extraordinary work of the International Committee of the Red Cross, she petitioned the US Government to recognise it. She was subsequently recognised as the founder of the American Red Cross.

Once, a friend of Barton’s brought up in conversation a cruel deed someone had done to her. Barton claimed she did not remember the deed done. Insistent, her friend exclaimed, "Don't you remember the wrong that was done to you?'

"No," she answered, "I distinctly remember forgetting that."

We’ve all heard the expression forgive and forget. We get the principle but can we get the practice as it were? It seems that Clara Barton managed to.

The new covenant that God speaks of through Jeremiah, which we heard about in our first reading,  is characterised by a relationship based on remembering and forgetting: remembering that all of God’s dispirited people are taken by the hand and married to God. It’s tender and beautiful stuff and God forgets all the times that they have been out of step with God and his will and purposes for them. The covenant is new because it is not linked to the activity of God at Mount Sinai or in freeing God’s people from slavery. It is new because God will make it with his much-loved people after they return from exile. After they make a choice to return to Him

‘...But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel… I will put my law within them, and I will write it on

their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people…’

Ben Bullock, an ex Burnley miner, moved to Dewsbury in 1868 and began selling boiled sweets in Dewsbury market. In 1876 he formed his own company and began increasing his range of products. One of these new products was the first example of lettered rock. Ben turned out his first batch of lettered rock which sold like magic at the West Riding markets but bigger things were yet to come. 'The discovery of a paper which could cover the sticks of rock and yet be removed easily coincided with Ben's decision to take a fortnight's holiday in Blackpool. Shortly afterwards a few hundredweight of Blackpool lettered rock was sent to the resort and the novelty so caught the public’s attention that the Dewsbury firm was inundated with orders from seaside resorts all over Britain. Ben Bullock's fame spread abroad and demands for lettered rock arrived from all over the world.

When you buy a stick of rock at the seaside it’s easily identifiable. Running through it is the name of the place to which it belongs: ‘Blackpool’, ‘Hunstanton’, ‘Brighton’. Wherever you break the rock, however much or little you eat, at every point it has its identifying feature - the name of the town where it was purchased right at its core. In the new covenant, God says that God’s law will be within people, written on their hearts, at their core – running through us like the name in a stick of rock.

Through Jeremiah, God promises that His covenant will become knowable. God becomes knowable through the Incarnation, in the person of Jesus. But through Jeremiah, God promises more. Even with the best teachers, preachers, prophets and priests, God’s people were not learning the lessons of the Law. The new covenant that God offers His people will require no work on the part of the people to receive or adopt it. God will write on their hearts; God will place it within them; God will write it at their very core - it will run through the people like a stick of rock.

Friends Passiontide begins today. What I’d like to do is encourage you to come and join us for as much of the worship as you possibly can. Coming and sharing in the worship of the church over the next fortnight is really important because we are telling each other of the suffering, death, and ultimately resurrection of Jesus once again. But we aren’t just retelling a story of tragedy and hope; of disappointment, death, and then life. Whilst this story does in many ways mirror that of our own human experience; as we retell the story of Passiontide, the story indwells us again, and we rediscover the power of the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus lying at our core, written on our hearts. We are after all, as the poet and novelist Ben Okri put it, not just homo sapien (wise people) but homo fabula (storytelling people).

As we retell and hear the story of God this Passiontide, God through Jesus places his covenant love written at our core every time bread is broken and scripture is opened. But we hear that story for a purpose - God’s covenants have always been marking out people as much loved by Him and calling them to live distinctively in and amongst the people they are set. As we live amongst people beset by tragedy, God’s love calls us to live as people of hope; as we live amongst people facing disappointment God’s love calls us to be people filled with abundant life.

Friends, return from the exile that our lives can some times feel they are, sometimes far from God, sometimes far from our neighbours and friends. Return. Hear the story again. Become homo fabula again. But don’t just hear the story - be the story. Live it.

The Bush, the Professor, and the Cross

I walk our dogs Pip and Peggy, usually early in the morning. We are taking the same route daily at the moment.

On the walk I pass the same things each day - people on their way to wherever; fellow dog walkers; immovables like street lights, bus stops and houses. I pass a coniferous bush on this route. It is pretty unremarkable as bushes go - it marks the boundary between the garden and pavement. Somehow on Thursday’s walk, it emitted a scent that was the essence of conifer - the dictionary definition of lively green freshness. It was so vivid an experience, that I was dragged from my audiobook, back into the present moment, to look at and marvel at it. The experience was arresting. Here was a bush somehow being the most perfect version of that bush that it could be at that moment - and all I could do was wonder.

I would love to be like that bush. Even for a moment - the most perfect version of myself - the way God longs for me to be - that I can. Perhaps you feel the same? I hope it doesn’t shock you at all that I am far from Christlike sometimes. All too often I succombe to living out versions of myself that I willingly put on like a favourite jumper, but that aren’t necessarily the best version of me. I sometimes live and minister from a place of the expectations that are put on me or that others say about me, or based on the images I have of myself from my past. We all do it. The cross that Jesus invites me and each of us to take up again this morning is both a sign post and a milestone - a signpost pointing us on from the decision that we each need to make about which version of ourselves we are going to live out today towards Christlikeness; and a milestone that starkly reminds us of that decision - marking that place or moment of change. Both direction and decision are Christ.

Throughout this chapter of Mark’s account of Jesus’ life, Jesus encounters hungry people: the crowd of four thousand, hungry to hear Jesus but without food; the Pharisees, hungry to discredit Jesus and to be right, demanding a sign; the disciples in the boat with Jesus crossing the lake, hungry to understand; the blind man hungry to have his sight restored. And Jesus meets us here this morning - part way through Lent, hungry to understand, hungry for a deeper knowledge, hungry that this gospel good news is true. Jesus points out that miraculous feeding, deeper knowledge, power, understanding and healing and restoration are all good but they are not a means to an end. They all encourage us to make an assessment of who Jesus is and the truth of what he teaches about God and the ways of the Kingdom - and then it’s about what we do as a result. We are called to follow To walk behind him, as was the traditon, and to do as he does, to speak as he speaks, to behave as he behaves. It is about a decision and a direction.

‘...‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it….

I heard a story about an American English professor from his student days - his own English professor had been an inspiring teacher. He wanted his professor to know how deeply his lectures had affected him so he went to his office one day to tell him. The professor asked the student whether he liked his classes, to which he replied with an emphatic yes! Well, why? asked his professor. There was powerful question. The student went on to speak of how his professor’s classes on Kafka has enabled more self discovery in him than three years in high school. The professor asked him what he had learned. He wanted to know how the lectures had deeply changed this student - it was a real question which deserved a real answer. ‘I guess the main thing I learned is that I am a complete idiot’ the student replied. Don’t feel bad, the preofessor relied, our country manufactures idiots. There’s no way you could have escaped it.’ So what do I do now, the student asked. How do I stop being an idiot? Just stop being one the professor replied.

That story and Jesus’ teaching and healing up to this point feel similar to me. What have you learned from my classes? I'm an idiot. What should I do? Stop being an idiot. What have you learned from my feeding of hungry people? You’re the messiah. So what should I do now, now that I know that? Follow me.

The thing is - stopping being an idiot isn’t an easy end goal, but you can do it with practise. Following Jesus isn’t an easy end goal, because it hit me as I read this this week. We haven’t listened to Jesus here at all have we? We haven’t practised.

Jesus tells his disciples, the crowd and us that to follow him in the Way, we need to deny ourselves. The issue is that that’s tough. Denying ourselves involves putting the needs and wants of others before our own. What we are good at is denying others. We catagorise people by their difference to the majority. We deny people who are different the rights and access available to the majority. We deny others their politics, their creed, their race, their gender, their sexuality, their age all too easily instead of denying ourselves to ensure their need to be in the reach of the love of God is met.

We all too often we take up the cross seeking to faithfully follow Jesus but instead we use it to crucify all those we deny. Instead of remembering God loves all - and so should we - we make the cross, a barrier not a bridge to God’s unconditional love for all. Come to join us we say - but I can’t because my wheelchair can't get in the building; I need large print orders of service; I am gay; I’m an ex con;  I don’t feel good enough; I’m not worthy; my child will be a distraction. We continually  try to make our buildings and resources physically accessible, but as someone once said - crossing the threshold of the door of the church is harder than climbing Mt Everest - especially if you feel you are not welcome the outside of it by the local or even the national church.

Oh, and one more thing. Notice, what Jesus says about the ownership of the cross we are to take up… not His, ours…

So I wonder what Jesus is asking of us as we take up our cross this morning? What am I denying in myself and putting to death on the cross, that will ensure that someone else’s needs are met? How am I using that cross as a bridge - to enable others to see and experience God’s love for them in my actions and words; is the cross I carry being twisted to keep some out - who is not here this morning from our wider community who could be but is excluded by me and my words and actions, or by us and our words and actions?

There's a thought. It's our cross. If we are serious about Jesus the miracle worker, teacher and healer and are convinced that God is accessible in a new way through Him - how can I go out of my way this week to use my cross to deny my need, and include someone. How can I use my cross this week as a bridge not a barrier to invite someone to join us. How can I ensure that as I carry my cross, others see Jesus in me and not just me.

Let us pray - this week - teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve; to give, and not to count the cost, to fight, and not to heed the wounds, to toil, and not to seek for rest, to labor, and not to ask for reward, except that of knowing that we are doing your will.

Salt Path Metanoia - Musings on Matthew 21:23-32

I am reading Raynor Winn’s memoir, The Salt Path. Just days after she learns that her husband Moth is terminally ill, their home is taken away through circumstances they could not have really prepared for and they lose their livelihood. And their response, before the bailiffs turn up, is to pack all they can into a rucksack each and walk the 630 miles of the South West Coast Path. It’s a story of love, of loss, of endurance, and of the healing sometimes contained in just putting one foot in front of another.

So often all of our lives can be like that? We make a decision or something happens that changes the direction of our lives completely. How did I end up here? What events, joys and sorrows led me to today? How will I navigate on from here into whatever lies ahead in tomorrow.

Jesus is confronted by the chief priest and the elders and is asked by what authority he is doing these things. I pondered this for some time this week. Am I interested in talking about authority or about these things. Which of the two do the chief priests have a problem with? Possibly both! In terms of the things that the elders might have an issue with, in previous verses Jesus has cleansed the Temple, entered Jerusalem proclaimed as messiah, he’s healed the blind and demoniacs and taught with much wisdom about the nature of forgiveness and the nature of the kingdom, and he has foretold the need for his death and resurrection. These things… We can’t hear the tone in the voice of the chief priests and the elders. Going backwards from this point you have to go back to chapters 15 and 16 to hear Jesus being asked similar questions by the chief priests or elders. I wonder if there is no sneering tone in their question. Those Pharisees and chief priests are me. They are you as Junior church leaders, as choir members, as sidespeople and welcomers. These chief priests and elders are trying to help God’s people go deeper into their faith with integrity. Sure, Jesus, has harsh words about them elsewhere, but I wonder if they are trying to work out who Jesus is because they see and hear some extraordinary things done at his hands - God must be with him. So their question, I think is not one of authority - they know that God is at work - it is the things Jesus is doing, teaching and foretelling that they have an issue with. But that’s not the heart of this morning’s Gospel.

Jesus said, ‘What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” 29He answered, “I will not”; but later he changed his mind and went. 30The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, “I go, sir”; but he did not go. 31Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said, ‘The first.’ 

There is a line in the Salt Path which has stuck with me. Raynor Winn, reflecting on what they are doing together and whether they have thought it through and she says, ‘...Do we have a plan?” “Course we do. We'll walk until we stop walking, and maybe on the way we'll find some kind of future…’ It sounds like no plan, a crazy plan. A non plan that just tries to escape the inevitability of terminal illness, of homeless, of tragedy. A non plan that will innevitably involve being confronted with all of those things and more. As the book goes on I know I will get a sense of what motivates Raynor and Moth to walk aside from avoiding the present.

In this parable, Jesus is asking similar questions in a roundabout way. Let’s do that, by noting what we don’t know. What we don’t know is if this behavior was typical of the sons or extraordinary. We don’t know what interaction or conversation the sons may have had with each other (or with their father) after their initial response. We don’t know what may have prevented (or enticed) either of the sons to act conversely to their earlier statements. And we don’t even know exactly why Jesus told this parable or why Matthew shared it.

What we do know is that the son who said he’d show up and work did not and the son who at first refused changed his mind and did. I guess you probably agree that “actions speak louder than words” and therefore believe that the first son, despite his abrupt, if not somewhat obnoxious, refusal of his father iis the one who “did the will of his father.” And we know that Jesus links this parable to the response of the tax collectors and prostitutes (shorthand for those considered beyond the pale of respectable society) to the good news of the coming kingdom.

A lot of what we don’t know has to do with motivation and circumstances, and this is true not only of our interactions with these characters but also of our interactions with each other. I don’t know what motivates many of you to come or – to not come to church. I don’t know what motivates one of you to give so generously and other who could easily do the same yet doesn’t. I don’t know what collection of experiences shape the religious and political beliefs that you hold. And so on and so on and so on.

We don’t know these things. We can have a good guess – just as we may guess about our questions related to the parable and its characters – we may make assumptions and judgments, but ultimately we don’t know. And that should introduce a modicum of caution, if not humility, in our judgments, again about these characters in the parable but even more about each other.

I wonder though whether this story of Jesus’ serves both to highlight the tension between Him and the religious authorities of his day and to build the case against those same religious leaders for their failure to answer Jesus’ question about John’s authority, their failure to accept John’s message, and their failure to recognize in Jesus as Messiah. But I wonder if this parable does also offer a word of surprise and hope.

Here are just a few. I hear in this parable the surprising possibility of hope that someone who has refused to listen to God may yet change his/her mind. Hope that it’s never too late to respond to the grace of the Gospel. Hope that one’s past actions or current status do not determine one’s future. Hope that even those whom good folk (and, lest we forget, the chief priests and elders were good folk) have decided are beyond the pale of decent society are never, ever beyond the reach of God.

If this is so, then no matter what may have happened in the past, yet God is eager to meet us in the present and offer us – indeed, secure – an open future. It is not too late. God is here, inviting each of us into the kingdom that not only lives out in front of us but has the capacity to shape our every moment from this one forth. This is something, I think, of what Paul Tillich meant with his phrase “the eternal now.” Each moment is pregnant with the possibility of receiving God’s grace, repenting of things we’ve done or were done to us, returning to right relationship with God and those around us, and receiving the future as open rather than determined. Like Raynor and Moth - all we need to do is walk into that future.

Friends, God’s promise about an open future shapes our present here and now. Friends, hear that -  God’s promise about an open future shapes our present here and now, but to begin to grasp that we each need to look inside ourselves for those things that are holding us back from receiving God’s promises. What things do we hold onto that make it difficult to believe and accept God’s forgiveness or to imagine that the future can be different than the past? We also need to look around us - there are some here who will vote Conservative and some Labour or Lib Dem. Brexiteers and Sceptics. There will be some here delighted at Watford or indeed even Preston’s losses yesterday, and some not, people who are optimistic about the future and those who are frightened, people who feel great about our the direction of travel of the Church of England in trying to prepare prayers to be used with faithful loving same-sex married couple and those who don’t, and so on. Look, I don’t know your motivations or experiences or you mine, but we do know that God is reaching out to each one of us this morning with the gift of acceptance and love and forgiveness that are the hallmarks of the kingdom Jesus proclaims.

We live at time of division. And without for a moment undervaluing the important values, beliefs, and concerns that underlie some of those divisions internationally, nationally and ecclesiastically but beneath all of those differences is a profound commonality - we are each a child of God whom God loves, adores, and is speaking to right here and now. And being reminded of that might we take a little more time to listen to each other, try to understand each other, and try to listen for God’s calling for ourselves and our community together, instead of isolation? That I believe is John’s way of righteousness - recognising that the path that we are on may not be the right future for us or each other, turning around, and walking back towards God and each other?

Love, Lies and Lent - a Sermon for the first Sunday of Lent based on Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

In the news this week we’ve heard that at least 47000 people have died as a result of the earthquake on the Syrian/Turkish border; that millions live in fear a year on from the Russian invasion of Ukraine; that a new Brexit deal for Northern Ireland is close to being struck in the midst of political tension; that Nigeria have gone to the polls to elect a new government still moving out of the shadow of military rule; that Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is the first to march at the Mardi Gras gay rights march. These and countless other stories have unfolded in the media glare and in dappled pools of sunlight heard only by the birds are all at their heart about life’s ultimate mystery - the nature of human relationships.

All human relationships are mysterious because they unfold a narrative of what binds and divides us which is centred on one emotion - love. That’s why those news stories move us. Grief erupts in tragedy because of love. We long for justice because of love. Love is the unifier. Love by it’s presence or absence transforms the human heart and will. It is humanity’s golden thread through our history - yet it remains an unfathomable truth.

What we hear as our first reading this morning is a telling of part of the story that binds and divides us. Genesis 2 and 3 are part of a story told by God to humanity which has three lines: I love you; I want to be with people like you; will you come and be with me? Told another way, these chapters are trying to explain the inexplicable - why are we here; why do we act and react the way we do with each other; why is there pain in childbirth etc?

It’s also worth flagging at this point a bit about the ‘Once Upon a Time’ sort of Hebrew used in the passage. Our lectionary compilers leave out the story of the creation of the woman made not as a helper (such a derogatory term) but an equal - bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. They also leave out the commentary about a man leaving his father and mother and clinging to his wife as one flesh (this text is not at all about marriage (biblical or otherwise and the word marriage is not used here at all.) Also the same word means ‘man’ and ‘husband’ and ‘woman’ and ‘wife.’ Being ‘one flesh’ is surely as much about husbands not mistreating their wives as themselves.

'... And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but 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...'

I love walking Pip our dog early in the morning. I love the silence, the fact that it is just her and me, I love the nature in which we walk and the route we take means we are surrounded by trees. What has struck me over the last few weeks is the number of very deep conversations I have ended up having with folks - the sudden death of a mother’s partner complicated by other issues; the cloud of dementia; the impact of bullying. All of these conversations have occurred between the trees.

Lent began on Wednesday as we stood at one tree - the palm - and marked ourselves with the kiss of God’s love and reminded ourselves of our mortality and need of Him. And here, we stand at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and look on over the weeks of our Lenten Pilgrimage. It would do us well to note that this story about fractured relationships finds it’s fulfilment in the realising of all our hopes and dreams at the foot of another tree - the cross - where all relationships are reformed. We could understand our craving relationship with each other and our wrestling with life’s temptations; and God reaching out to each of us in love - as all being outworked between these two trees.

In our school assemblies this week we talked about saying and doing wrong things and how we might lie to avoid the blame. This is all too a human trait - notice how the serpent subtly twists God’s words (Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?), and how the woman adds to the lie (God doesn’t prohibit touching the tree of knowledge.) Much spurious theology has been outworked from this story - but as equals, both woman and man are culpable for their actions. As we continue to journey between the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the cross - this remains true for each of us - we each remain culpable for our actions.

What is Jesus asking of us as we take these first steps in our Lenten pilgrimage? Our first reading reminds us that we are made for relationship equally with each other and our actions and words affect those relationships, and our Gospel reminds us that our actions (prayer, fasting, almsgiving, clothing the naked, visiting the sick or imprisoned) have eternal weight in that how we act and react affect our relationship with God.

The consequences of the actions at the tree of knowledge are being outworked in Ukraine as the actions of some lead to the death of others. I don’t mean that literally as would you Adam and Eve it - it’s only a story, but the corrupting of human relationships - the right of one to have power over another - is being outworked in Kyiv and the Donbas and ultimately has led to the need for gay right marches in the first place.

This Lent, Holy Week, and Easter, Walk with Jesus, learn from Him; seek to frame all of your relationships differently as he does because how we act and react with each other affect our relationship with God.