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Second Sunday of Advent
Readings: Isaiah 11. 1-10; Psalm 72. 1-7; Romans 15. 4-13; Matthew 3. 1-12 (view all)
I wonder how your Christmas preparations are going so far? Have you put your tree up? (It’s wonderful to see the amazing tree decorated here at St Edeyrn’s.) And how is your Christmas shopping going? Are you pretty much sorted, or haven’t yet even begun?
Each year, for me, Christmas seems to sneak up on me. We’re coming up to the beginning of December one second, and then suddenly there are only a couple of weeks left in which to sort everything. Of course, everything seems even more of a blur this year because of our new arrival, Thea.
The season of Advent in the Church calendar invites us, not just to prepare our houses, our pantries and our gifts ready for Christmas, but to also give some thought to preparing our hearts as well for the arrival of Christ.
The task given to John the Baptist, who appears in this morning’s gospel reading for the first time this Advent, is to “Prepare the way of the Lord” amongst the people. And in today’s collect, which we’ve just prayed together, we asked for God to ‘purify our hearts and minds’ in order that ‘we might be ready to receive him [Christ], who is our Lord and our God.’
So what does it mean for us to prepare our hearts and minds this Advent? And how can we, as Christ’s Church, be ‘ready to receive him’ when he appears?
I wonder if you are familiar with the famous song, ‘What if God was one of us?’, sung originally by Joan Osborne in the nineties, and then later covered by Prince among others.
A recurring question which often occurs to people is just that — ‘if Jesus were to appear in today’s world, how would we respond?’ Would his message prove popular amongst people in today’s world? Or would people think he was insane and have him placed in a secure hospital, or locked up in prison for breaching the peace?
There is, of course, a third option which I fear might actually be most likely — that if Jesus appears and walked among us today, it is just possible that our world may not even notice him at all. That we would be far too distracted by the busy pace of our world to give him our attention. That he would be just one voice among many others, particularly in this election season, who are all promising, persuading that their plan is the right one for our future. That we would be far too distracted by everything else which is going on in our live.
Because we live in a world which is full of things which are designed to distract and subdue our attention. It was famously suggested by Karl Marx that ‘religion is the opiate of the masses’, that is, a distraction to subdue and pacify, but our world today is full of so many different shiny distractions that I’m not sure religion can even claim that central a position.
In contrast to the commercialised, secular form of Christmas which our society celebrates, Advent, on the other hand, is a call to stop and wait. To strip away our distractions and take inventory of the state of our hearts and minds, the state of our souls.
The season of Advent prompts us to ask this question — how ready are we to receive Jesus in our lives?
This is what is behind the central word in the message of John the Baptist, and later Jesus himself — the word, ‘Repent’. ‘Repent’, John tells the people, ‘for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ In other words, ‘Stop! Look! Put down your phone, your tablets and your other devices and turn your attention here! Don’t miss the incredible thing which God is doing right here, right now!’
This is a plea for attention, but it is also a plea for a deeper level of engagement. A challenge to re-assess our lives and bring our priorities in line with God’s. An encouragement to those whom the prophet, Isaiah, calls the poor and the meek, and a difficult message for the powerful and the self-righteous.
For those who, like the Pharisees and Sadducees whom John addresses, appear to
First Sunday of Advent
Readings: Isaiah 2. 1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13. 11-14; Matthew 24. 36-44 (view all)
One question a lot of people have asked over the last few weeks is ‘how are you sleeping?’. The good news is that like her sister, Thea is already a pretty good sleeper and is settling down okay, at least at night.
But certainly in the first couple of weeks, both Amy and I still had that classic ‘new parent’ look, with our eyes glazed over, not really sure whether we’re awake or asleep.
In today’s readings for Advent Sunday, we are introduced to the great Advent imagery of the Old and New Testaments — contrasting themes of darkness and light, night and day, and in particular, sleeping and waking. The prophet Isaiah, the apostle Paul and Jesus himself warn us ‘wake up’ and be prepared for Christ’s coming.
So what does it mean for us today to live as ‘Advent Christians’, to be those who are awake in a slumbering world?
For Isaiah, in our Old Testament reading, to be awake is about renewing our vision. In Isaiah’s time, the great promises of God given to the Hebrew patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, had been forgotten. And so, with the most vivid, provocative prophetic imagery imaginable, Isaiah sets out to re-awaken a new vision of God’s coming kingdom.
Similarly, in our world today, much of the great optimism of the late 20th century has been eroded. In the 90s, we felt that unrivalled positive progress was possible, indeed inevitable — diplomatic stability, economic growth and technological advancement. And yet now, much of that optimism has been eroded, and the world seems a much darker place once again, our future much more uncertain.
In a world of gathering shadows, where can we turn for guidance? To find a new vision of our future? For today’s world, the vision of Isaiah and the Old Testament prophets could not be more timely.
In the shifting sands of a rapidly-changing world, here is solid ground. A promise of peace which can be trusted, when swords will be beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks. A new imagination, which if we take it to heart, will light a path leading us to God’s kingdom fulfilled. To the arrival, and the return, of Jesus Christ.
The Advent season brings both Christ’s arrival in history and future return, together into one theme of waiting and anticipation. As we hear the words of the prophets foretelling Jesus’ first coming, and as we prepare ourselves to celebrate his birth over two thousand years ago, we also build our anticipation of his future return in glory.
A return that Jesus himself, in our gospel reading, warns his disciples to be awake to, and ready for. ‘Keep awake’, he tells them, because to encounter him, to follow him, is to be woken up from the slumber of business-as-usual and set on a new path towards God’s purposes.
To be an Advent Christian today is to be similarly awake. To be awake in a stumbling, sleepwalking society, to the great story of salvation. To be awake to, and live into, God’s plans for our world today.
In today’s epistle, Paul provides us with a picture of what this means practically, to be daytime people rather than people of night. This means living our lives with discipline and purpose, seeing them as training for eternity. Sleepwalking through business-as-usual is no longer possible, because we have been awoken to something far greater.
One commentator, von Balthazar, puts it like this: ‘He [Paul] does not devalue earthly things: eating and drinking continue but not ‘carousing and drunkenness’’; marriage continues, but without ’sexual excess and lust’; work in the fields and at the mill remains but ‘without quarrelling and jealousy’. Earthly life is regulated and restrained, reduced to necessities, when one expects God.’
So we are to focus on the essentials, to live simply and purposefully towards the Advent, the arrival, of Christ. To make him our compass, and his kingdom the ultimate destinatio
18th Sunday after Trinity
Readings: Genesis 32. 22-31; Psalm 121; 2 Timothy 3.14 – 4.5; Luke 18. 1-8 (view all)
At six years old, our daughter Evie has incredibly advanced negotiation skills. Including that most frustrating, but often effective skill — the ability to nag.
When she wants something, she will quite happily nag away. Sometimes she will just repeat the same request over and over. Sometimes she will let you think that you’re off the hook and then, when you least expect it, bring the subject right back round to her original request. She will quite happily keep going for what seems like hours until, more often than not, I give in, or, unfortunately, lose my rag entirely with her.
No parent enjoys being nagged, and yet this is precisely what Jesus seems to tell us to do with our Heavenly Father in today’s gospel parable. And no child enjoys being patient, and yet patience in prayer is another key theme of today’s readings.
So what does it mean to be persistent in prayer? Does God even answer our prayers? And, when we are in desperate straits, facing impossible circumstances, how can we draw on our faith to sustain us?
In some ways, this morning’s gospel makes things seem very simple. If you want something, then pray until you get it. And if, like the widow, you aren’t getting a response, then just keep nagging until you get what you want.
In many ways, this reflects the mindset of our world today. Our brains have been formed by our ‘Amazon Prime’ culture to expect instant gratification, so we end up treating God in the same way. Often people I speak to have left their faith because it doesn’t provide them with the instant gratification that receive from other, more worldly, pursuits. Or more justifiably, because they have suffered incredibly difficult circumstances, and feel God has failed to protect them or their loved ones.
And yet real life just isn’t like our parable. Jesus makes clear that God is not the unjust judge. Instead, the true life of faith, is much more nuanced. We can relate much more instead to the experience of Jacob.
Jacob, at wit’s end, wrestles with God all night. ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me’, he says. This is the kind of gritty spiritual struggle which feels much more true to the struggles we face in our lives.
We wrestle with questions and doubts, struggling to discern the right path forward when one simply doesn’t seem visible. Just like Jacob, we walk away wounded, hurting, in need of healing. But in our wrestling, in our brokenness, God is present with us.
Ultimately Jacob’s story is one of redemption. In fact it is a microcosm of the much larger story of Israel’s redemption, and of the world’s redemption through Christ. God could have abandoned Jacob. He’d made his fair share of mistakes and probably deserved whatever he was going to get.
Yet instead, God remains with him, wrestles with him, blesses him with a new name, Israel, to replace his previous tainted one. And in the morning, the two brothers are reconciled and make peace.
This is the God who, in the words of the Psalm, watches over us without sleeping. The God who is not always able to give us what we want, but will ultimately give us all we need, and more than we could ever deserve. The one who is the ‘keeper of our souls’.
So how can we find the resources we need to keep us going when we, and those dear to us, are stuck like Jacob in seemingly impossible circumstances? Perhaps the most practical advice lies in the mentor Paul’s words to his young protege Timothy.
We can draw on the tradition of our faith, the great story of redemption, to take heart, to aid our discernment and to challenge our mistaken assumptions. When we immerse ourselves in God’s story, and truly inhabit his words of salvation, then we can stand firm in our identity as God’s children, even when all around us is shaken. And, trusting that our God is good, unlike the judge in our parable, we can persever
14th Sunday after Trinity
Readings: Amos 8. 4-7; Psalm 113; 1 Timothy 2. 1-7; Luke 16. 1-13 (view all)
As a Minister, I find myself sitting in on plenty of meetings — from church councils to school governors, and from Diocesan committees to ecumenical meetings.
One thing I’ve noticed which is becoming increasingly common, and rightly so, is for meetings to begin with declarations of conflicts of interest. Members are asked to think carefully about their different business interests, in order to ensure that any decisions are properly considered and not skewed by outside influences.
It is this concept of the conflict of interest that defines one of the most well known sayings of Jesus, in today’s gospel reading:
No slave can serve two masters… You cannot serve both God and wealth.
So, how can we avoid a conflict of interest in our own lives? How can we get our priorities right when it comes to God and money?
Alongside a challenging statement, in today’s gospel we also find a challenging parable about a master and a manager. Although the manager is entirely dishonest and despicable in his actions, there is one thing he has managed to get right.
He has realised that all the money in the world is worth nothing, if in the process we are left isolated and lonely. So, in reading, we are provoked to think about what the point of our wealth actually is — to step back and decide what is most important.
Often in life we can very easily float along, buying into the priorities of our wider culture, without really thinking through the implications of our decisions. But ultimately this leads to the kinds of exploitative use of money, which the prophet Amos calls out in our Old Testament reading —behaviour which leaves the land in ruin and the poor even poorer.
Sadly it was similar short-sighted decision-making which, in many ways, brought about the financial crisis of 2008. And on an individual level, we can often fail to think critically about our spending decisions: For instance, continuing to buy sweat shop clothes because they work out cheaper for us in the short-term; or contributing to the destruction of our environment by buying products packaged in large amounts of single-use plastic.
I’m not just saying all this to give us a good moral beating, so we promise to try harder — it’s to illustrate a deeper point which today’s gospel passage reveals.
This is it: Our resources follow our vision. Or put another way: our spending follows our seeing.
If our sight is focused on our personal, physical wellbeing, then our spending, our bank balances, will follow. If, however we have caught a greater vision, a picture of God’s kingdom, then the way we use our resources will shift. We realise that we are not our own masters, but entrusted as managers — or stewards — of God’s resources.
In his letter to Timothy, Paul shows how this kingdom vision is not just about the church, but about the whole of society, as he implores us to pray for our political leaders. Paul’s vision is a world where weare able to live in peace and dignity, in right relationship with one another and with God. A vision which, he tells us, God desires for everyone — rich and poor. A vision which is worth investing in.
If, like the prevailing culture, we are sleepy and short-sighted, then we continue to use our money in the same way as everyone else. But as we wake up to God’s kingdom vision — as we take the long view — we begin to invest what we have, our money as well as our time and efforts, in ‘the true riches’ which Jesus talks about.
We begin to invest in our relationship with God which will last into eternity, and in our relationships with others and with our world. We begin to look around more and more for ways to use what we have to usher the reality of God’s kingdom into the present.
So, I wonder, are we willing to catch this vision — to see higher and further, in order that our spending might follow?
Instea
11th Sunday after Trinity
Readings: Sirach 10. 12-18; Psalm 112; Hebrews 13. 1-8, 15-16; Luke 14. 1, 7-14 (view all)
Amy, Evie and I have just returned from a really lovely couple of weeks in Italy, including a wonderful couple of days in Florence. We stayed in an amazing, historic hotel right in the centre of the city with a wonderfully decorated room (it’s the first time I’ve ever taken a photo of a hotel bathroom ceiling!)
Something you always worry about when abroad is the hospitality that you will receive, especially when struggling with a language barrier. But the welcome and the hospitality we received in Florence was amazing, and made our visit to the city something really special.
‘All are welcome’ — words we sang a few moments ago in the modern hymn, ‘Let us build a house’, by Marty Haugen. But words which are very often much easier to say or sing than they are to live and practice.
So, as we reflect on this morning’s readings, how can we practice welcoming hospitality to others, especially those who are different from us? How can we truly ‘welcome all’?
In our gospel reading, Jesus is invited to a dinner party at the house of a local dignitary — one of the leaders of the Pharisees. And it’s here, as they observe Jesus and Jesus observes them, that he challenges them about the quality of their hospitality and their welcome.
Where they have become obsessed with position and status, Jesus challenges them to practice hospitality which is characterised instead by humility and service. And where they have limited their welcome to those they have deemed ‘worthy’, Jesus challenges them to welcome ‘the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind’ — those who couldn’t ever afford to repay the favour.
Let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live, a place where saints and children tell how hearts learn to forgive.
At the heart of Jesus’ challenge is the observation that, for these guests, their relationships have become conditional on the reward they bring. Rather than an informal gathering of friends, you can imagine this as the kind of tense, competitive dinner where the great, the good, and those aspiring to be like them, are all vying for position and status.
Rather than truly loving relationships, instead this set of relationships around the table has been reduced to a set of transactions — with each person trying to improve their place, and the host trying to earn favour from their guests.
And in today’s transactional, consumerist culture, this caution is more relevant than ever. In our lives, it can be so easy for our hospitality, our community, our friendships, to be reduced to consumerist transactions — conditional on the potential return, whether this is an increase in status, in popularity or in opportunity.
I certainly find this trap so easy to fall into in my own life.
I can find myself subtly managing which friends to invest in based on those I need or want to get something out of, rather than those who might need my care and support. I can find myself engineering my facebook profile, so that it shows only the best bits of my life, but none of the worst, and competing for my posts to get the most ‘likes’.
And in the life of the Church, we can easily fall into the same approach, saying to ourselves, ‘Well, we’re not likely to see them on a Sunday, so why bother?’
But God’s way, the way of Christ’s kingdom, is about unconditional love and welcome, about hospitality offered to those who could never pay it back. It’s about giving without ever expecting to receive in return, about emptying ourselves rather than increasing our status.
This is the picture of God’s upside-down kingdom which we find in our reading from Hebrews as well as our first reading from the Wisdom of Sirach. This is a rare, but valuable, opportunity in the Sunday lectionary to get a glimpse of one of the books of the Apocrypha, outside of the normal historic canon of scripture.
Eighth Sunday after Trinity
Readings: Genesis 15. 1-6; Psalm 33. 12-22; Hebrews 11. 1-3, 8-16; Luke 12. 32-40 (view all)
I wonder what you would do if I asked you to draw God? When I was about twelve or thirteen, my RE teacher, perhaps short of ideas for activities for us to do at the end of the year, asked us to do just that, to take a blank piece of paper and draw ‘God’.
As you can perhaps imagine, there were more than a few pictures of old, bearded men lounging on clouds, as well as a plenty of other eclectic images.
It was just a task given on a whim, but the memory has stayed with me because I’ve become more and more convinced that the image we have of God matters. If, as many people do, we imagine God to be a harsh, authoritarian ruler, or as a distant, but generally gentle, grandparent, then this impacts the way we live our lives — our choices, our actions, our faith.
So, how can we cultivate a healthy understanding of who God is? And what does it mean to live a life of faith?
In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus provides his disciples with two familiar pictures of what God is like. The first is of a Father — he tells them,
Do not be afraid… for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
And the second is of a Master, whose servants are waiting up for him to return — but this master, when he returns to find them ready, is the one who brings them into the dining room and serves them, instead of the other way around. Jesus shows us this through his life and death — the one who came to serve, rather than to be served himself, and to give his life for us.
These aren’t images of a distant god, who is uninterested in us, or an authoritarian god who subjects us to deprivation or punishment in order to ‘toughen us up’.
And yet, so often, we can allow our image of God to become twisted — a tragic event happens in our lives, or we see the sheer injustice of a world full of natural disasters, and we ask, ‘Is God punishing us? Does he want us to suffer? Does he even care about us at all?’ Even if we have been churchgoers for a long time, or for our whole lives, we can find ourselves in a crisis of faith.
In this morning’s Old Testament reading, Abram, whose name later became Abraham is at a crisis point, doubting God’s promises and in need of reassurance.
He has left his old life behind, including a place in his father’s house and his ancestors’ religion, in order to follow a new God, YHWH, who has spoken to him and promised him a new life, a new home, and a new family. And yet his destination still seems a long way off, and the challenges ahead seem insurmountable — so God offers him reassurance, and renews his promises with him.
‘Abram,’ God says,
Look towards heaven and count the stars… so shall your descendants be.
And we’re told that Abram chose to believe, and step forwards once again in his journey of faith.
The author of the book of Hebrews draws on Abraham’s story in order to teach us about the nature of faith. For them, Abraham is a defining person of faith — someone who kept on ‘by faith’ no matter the barriers he faced.
And they write that faith is about two things: ‘faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.’ Put another way, faith is about believing God’s promises, and the gift of seeing things from his perspective.
When we understand that God is actually truly good, then we can believe that ultimately he has only the best for us and for his world. And when we can see through God’s eyes, with his kingdom vision, we can let go of where we are now in order to journey towards the incredible plans that God has for us.
We can live now, in the light of the eternity to come.
Martin Luther King, Jr. is credited with saying,
Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.
And in those crisis points in our lives, we face a choice — to believe God’s promises, to believe he
The Seventh Sunday after Trinity
Readings: Ecclesiastes 1. 2, 12-14; 2. 18-23; Psalm 49. 1-9; Colossians 3. 1-11; Luke 12. 13-21 (view all)
This week we had one of those days in the year which every household dreads — Car MOT day.
Because you never know how much the bill is going to be, whether they’re going to find something wrong which you hadn’t noticed or weren’t prepared for. And you find yourself asking, ‘Will there be enough in the bank account to cover it, or will it go on the credit card? Have we budgeted enough?’
‘How much is enough?’ — this is often our question when it comes to money, especially since we live increasingly in a world of consumerism, where we’re bombarded with messages telling us we need more.
So what does a Christian attitude to wealth and money, grounded in Jesus’ teachings, look like in today’s world?
Rather than focusing on the scarcity of resources, or what might happen tomorrow, how can we live our lives grounded and rooted in the generosity of God? Is it possible to live a different kind of life, set free from financial worries in order to live simply and love generously?
There are perhaps two opposite, but compelling impulses in our lives when it comes to money:
The first is like the greed of the farmer, who wants to store up as much as possible so he is able to enjoy it for himself — some of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, may be able to relate to this.
The second, though is about needing security and control — similar to my own worries about getting the car serviced, we worry whether what we have will be enough, and whether we will be ok if something unexpected happens.
Both impulses are the same, though, in their result — when we indulge them, they both can ultimately only lead to a life of worry, selfishness and obsession.
Instead, as followers of Christ we are called to place our financial dealings in the context of our relationship with God. As Paul writes to the Colossians:
Set your minds on things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.Colossians 3.2
Faith in Christ negates both our greed for more, and our desire for control — because firstly, like the greedy farmer, when we die we can’t take our wealth with us! As the unnamed Teacher warns in our passage from Ecclesiastes:
Sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it.Ecclesiastes 2.21
And secondly, even in the uncertainty of our world, we Paul assures us our lives are hidden with Christ. Ultimately, in every way that really matters, for all time and all eternity, Jesus Christ has made us safe — we have died with him, in order that we too might be raised with him.
We can attempt to plan for every earthly eventuality, we can manage every penny as carefully as possible, we can take out every possible insurance policy. But no matter what we do, no matter how much we have, ultimately as human beings we cannot save ourselves — only God in Christ can save us, and has saved us, by his cross and resurrection, in order to bring peace over all our earthly arrangements.
So, how then are we to live, as those who are raised with Christ?
We are to clothe ourselves with a new way of living, a new set of attitudes, a new set of priorities, which are vastly different to those of our world. We are to live in the world in a new way, freed to live more simply, to love more generously, to hold what we have lightly, with a firm grip instead, on Christ and his kingdom.
As one author wrote of the early Christians:
‘For [they] are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe… They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are un
Fourth Sunday after Trinity
Readings: Deuteronomy 30. 9-14; Psalm 25. 1-10; Colossians 1. 1-14; Luke 10. 25-37 (view all)
I wonder when you last ‘passed by on the other side’? I’m sure it isn’t the most recent time, but the time that’s foremost in my memory is from a month or so ago.
I was taking Evie to school, with my mind on everything I needed to get done before the day started to prepare for the various meetings, visits and services that were in my diary for that day. And as I walked back to the car, I was vaguely aware of another parent who was stood by their car, talking on their phone, and noticed they had a flat tyre.
Now, I could have stopped to help, but I rationalised to myself that they were clearly already on the phone to someone to sort it out, and it would just be extra embarrassment for the vicar to have noticed it, and would they even want help anyway when they could clearly sort it for themselves? And I had so much that I needed to be getting on with anyway, so I continued to the car and carried on my way.
Perhaps it’s even worse when it’s someone like me, a priest who is supposed to model a selfless life. But I’m sure that, if we’re all honest with ourselves, we can think of plenty of examples where we’ve ‘passed by ‘on the other side’, as our gospel reading this morning describes it in the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan.
So, as we consider this morning’s readings — how can we learn to love our neighbour more fully as Christ has taught us?
In the example of neighbourly love that Jesus chooses, he paints a picture of a new kind of people who will go out of their way to love others. When the Samaritan crosses the road to help, he also crosses a vast cultural divide — the divide between Samaritan and Jew — pushing aside generations of stereotyping and enmity between the two groups.
Jesus, the one who, through his own self-giving, crosses the divide between God and humanity, calls for a movement of boundary crossers, who will put the love of God and others ahead of themselves.
But this kind of love is so hard! And I find myself wanting to sympathise with the Priest and the Levite (that is a temple assistant). They had lots of good reasons to pass by — the body on the roadside could have been a plant by robbers to trap another traveller, and contact with the dead body would have made them ceremonially unclean, and disqualified them from their temple duties.
For them, if was a difficult choice, between duty and compassion, and in the end the road was just too wide to cross.
However, it is the boundary-crossing love of the Samaritan which lies at the heart of gospel. As Paul opens his letter to the newly established church in Colossae, he is delighted that as their faith is just beginning to grow, so too is their love for others. This love is the first fruit of the Christian life, that as we grow in wisdom to discern God’s will for our lives, we are led into ever deeper compassion for others.
There are so many things that can prevent us from crossing the road — like the others in the parable, it might be our fear of being exploited. Or it might be our own prejudices, the stereotypes which our culture has painted for us which need to be challenged and dismantled. Or perhaps, and this is the big one for me, it might be our insecurity — the worry that our intervention might be rejected, that we won’t know that right thing to say at the right moment, that we might hinder more than help.
Jesus finishes his parable with a question,
Who was a neighbour to the man?
While the answer is obvious, the question reveals an interesting concept — that our neighbours are not given to us, but those we choose. Whether on our street, at work and study, or in our social lives, we choose our neighbours by choosing to be there for them when they need us, by crossing the road, by closing the gap between them and us.
And it is this boundary-crossing love which is so despe
Third Sunday after Trinity
Readings: Isaiah 66. 10-14; Psalm 66. 1-8; Galatians 6. 7-16; Luke 10. 1-11, 16-20 (view all)
I remember when I was about 8 or 9, and the internet revolution was just beginning, one of my friends invited us to his birthday party at a ‘cyber cafe’ which was just opening in town.
Now, living in Aberystwyth, we had never had a cyber cafe before, or seen anything like it — and I have a pretty overactive imagination anyway — so this picture developed in my mind of this incredible, science fiction style, virtual reality place that looked like the inside of a space ship, and was full of incredible games to play. But of course, when I arrived I had to work hard not to show my disappointment, that it was pretty much just like an ordinary cafe with a few computers and games consoles set up.
We had a really good time, and it was lots of fun, but the reality just didn’t match the picture I’d built up in my imagination.
Often when we read scripture, we find ourselves overwhelmed with stories and images of salvation and transformation, words like those in this morning’s Psalm which celebrate God’s great saving power and mighty deeds. And yet we live at a time when the Church is facing more and more challenges, and reaching less and less people, when the response in our society to the good news of Jesus Christ seems overwhelmingly negative.
So, how can we be good news to those around us? What does it mean to share with God in his kingdom harvest?
Jesus tells his disciples that,
the harvest is plentiful…
In the person of Jesus Christ, God’s kingdom is drawing near, bringing freedom, healing, new life to all those who draw near. So the seventy are appointed to go ahead of him, two-by-two, into the towns and villages, to proclaim his arrival — as heralds of the good news that the Saviour of the world is coming to visit in the flesh, in person.
They are sent out in pairs as they are, with ‘no purse, no bag, no sandals’, forced to rely on God to provide, to open doors for them in the communities they are going to reach, to open hearts ready to receive them and their message. And they find themselves able to work astounding miracles, healing the sick and sharing good news.
‘The harvest is plentiful…’ — and yet, today it is usually the second half of the verse which grabs our attention:
…but the labourers are few.
Often when we think about mission, about sharing good news, about bringing social transformation, often we find ourselves intimidated — the reality simply doesn’t match the picture that today’s gospel paints for us, it is often hard work for very little fruit. We become jaded by the negative experiences — when we try to speak about our faith and the response is negative or belittling, when family after family come forward for baptism and don’t return, when we put all our energy into big projects and plans which don’t work.
In a world where it can often seem like no one is listening to the voice of the Church, sometimes we attempt to shout even louder, trying to compete with all the other voices in our society which are vying for attention. Or we just give up, and stop trying altogether.
And yet Jesus’ method of choice isn’t about shouting louder — there is no great ‘Billy Graham’ crusade, no stage show with sound and lighting, no supply train following on behind them — just ordinary people, sent in pairs to go and love others. Jesus sends them as they are and he sends us as we are, not for what we can bring with us, not for what we can do on our own, but for what he can do in us by the power of his Spirit when we trust him and rely on him.
As Paul writes in this morning’s epistle, ‘You reap whatever you sow.’ When we sow in resentment, negativity, suspicion, we shouldn’t be surprised if that’s what we reap, but instead ‘if [we] sow to the Spirit, [we] will reap eternal life from the Spirit.’ If we truly believe that God is at work in our world, that Jesus
Second Sunday after Trinity
Readings: 1 Kings 19. 15, 16, 19-21; Psalm 16; Galatians 5.1, 13-25; Luke 9.51-62 (view all)
A sermon for the first Eucharist of the Revd Matt Davis as priest, and the Revd John Thorne as deacon.
Well, I thought that with Matt priested and John now a deacon, I would be able to sit back and relax this morning, but instead I’ve ended up as the ‘guest preacher’. Let me explain: A couple of months ago, I told Matt that, as is the tradition for a new priest’s first Eucharist, he could invite anyone he wanted to preach this morning.
So he went away to think about it, and a week or so later came back and asked me! I have no idea how far down the list I was, I don’t want to know, but if this morning’s sermon isn’t any good, it’s entirely Matt’s fault for asking me.
If it’s a good one, however, it will be of course be entirely down to the skill of the preacher!
What me standing here does highlight, though, is how easy it is for us to get lulled into a sense of routine in our life as a church, and in our individual Christian lives. Each Sunday the preacher stands up, some Sunday’s they’re better than others, but life goes on anyway, and the routine continues.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of routine — rhythms of prayer, worship, fellowship that keep us going and sustain us in our faith.
But at the same time, it is true things can all too easily become stale and mundane — as we go through the motions week after week, we can lose sight of the wonder that perhaps drew us to Christ in the first place. We can plod along, autopilot engaged, and in the process miss some of the incredible opportunities that God has for us in our lives.
So, why should our faith be more than routine? How can our eyes be opened this morning to the wonder of following Jesus, and the incredible opportunity that faith in Christ presents to us? How can we live for more?
Well, if we are to do this, we must take the challenging words in this morning’s gospel seriously — to follow Jesus with everything we have, without holding back, ahead of our need for warmth and shelter, even ahead of our family relationships.
He tells us,
No one who puts a hand to the plough, and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.
What an intriguing picture, and one that we can easily make sense of — one person this week, when I mentioned this in conversation, said ‘of course, otherwise you’d get wiggly lines!’
But Jesus is actually making a reference, the same way we might reference a film or a book, to a story that those around would have known well — the calling of Elisha in our Old Testament reading.
Elisha and his master, Elijah, lived in an age of half-hearted worship — where there were plenty of prophets and priest floating around, but their allegiance to the King and their political ambition took precedence over doing God’s will. We’re told at one stage that Elijah is the only faithful one left.
But Elijah is getting on a bit, he’s coming to end of his life, and needs an apprentice — someone who will follow his example and take over his ministry once he is gone.
In which case, Elijah could not hope for a better, more dedicated, apprentice than Elisha. We see the first sign of this when he is called to follow — he is ploughing in the fields along with many others, and not only does he not look back, but he destroys all his equipment so he couldn’t go back even if he wanted to! The animals are slaughtered and eaten, using the plough and the yoke, as firewood.
In fact, Elisha’s name would go down in the history books for his whole-hearted devotion to his master, and it is because of Elisha’s whole-hearted passion, that he inherits all of Elijah’s prophetic gifts.
So, Jesus tells those who would be his disciples, you must have the devotion of Elisha, and even more besides.
It is so easy, in our lives, to allow our identity as Christians to be part of who we are, without allowing it to be