Month: May 2013

Through the Bible in a Year – May 21st

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Sa 12-13; Heb 12-13; Psalm 30

As we have seen, the letter to the Hebrews is most strange to our ears. We rarely if ever hear preaching based on it – and that is our loss. For it is deep and rich scripture. In places terrifying, challenging, but also immensely practical.

Here in Chapter 13 we find immensely rich council for the people of God. ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers . . .’ How much of our Christian life is lived in direct contradiction to the teaching of Jesus – ‘when you throw a feast, do not invite your friends . . .’ [It is interesting to note that one of the top hits on Luke 14:12-14 is entitled ‘What does it mean?’, when the meaning is as plain as day]

Christian Life is only Christian life as it takes for its sole point of reference the Life of Jesus. The one who loves his enemies and dies for those who hate him. The one who comes into the world as a stranger. How often have we thrown parties for those who cannot pay us back, those we do not know, those we invite not because we know they will charm our table, but because we who have no charm to speak of have been fed at his? Who do we invite to sit and eat at our table??

Through the Bible in a Year – May 20th

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Sa 9-11; Heb 11; Psalm 28-29

Contrary to that visible King – that which we see securing us – we are to Learn ‘Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things NOT seen’

Faith as the 11th chapter of Hebrews sets out to describe is summed up in many examples – Abraham – who ‘set out not knowing where he was going’ – Moses who ‘persevered as though he saw him who is invisible’

This is where the age old false dichotomy between ‘faith’ and ‘works’ is resolved. For ‘faith’ is not a set of beliefs – but a Setting of a Life towards something. It is Evidenced in Living Towards God’s Kingdom. As one of my mentors puts it, it is living a life that would make no sense at all, if God did not exist.

Living by faith is perfectly expressed in Isaiah 50:10 – Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant,
who walks in darkness and has no light, yet trusts in the name of the Lord and relies upon his God? – It is Jeremiah buying the potters field. It makes No sense at all to those who watch on – but it is Life to those who walk without light except that of faith.

Ordination Sermon

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Sermon on the occasion of the Ordination of Jo Fielding to Priesthood in the church of Christ – PENTECOST 2013

Texts
Jeremiah 1:4-9
Psalm 33
John 21.15-29
‘Do not be afraid’

In a few moments time, +Kelvin will ordain Jo to the Sacred ministry of Priest, a Priest in the church of Christ. Priesthood only makes sense in the context of God’s people, And Jo, you may well look at the church today, and think ‘what on earth am I doing here??’ I hope you do.

One of the things that seems to pass pretty much unremarked in this well known gospel incident, where Peter encounters the risen Christ, is that Jesus refers to His people as Sheep . . . feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep. It is all too easy to Romanticise sheep, but only someone with no experience of them can do so. It is an unpromising metaphor!

I have several shepherds in my family, English Lake District Hill farmers . . . – and from personal experience I know that there is nothing at all romantic about working with sheep. Sheep are ignorant, they are willful,  they require you at times to be up in the night at times risking life and limb to rescue one that has got into a jam, they are remarkably unbiddable, and above all they are easily scared by anyone and anything. Sheep are Full of fear, and although I have never myself witnessed it, there are those who say sheep run West every morning at the alarming sight of a strange ball of fire rising on the Eastern horizon

So Sheep is not a flattering metaphor for the people of God, but in that we are fearful, it is perhaps the truest. For of all human emotions, fear is probably the most powerful, the most prevalent and the one which drives so much of what we do, albeit usually at a deeply unconscious level . . . and the people of God are not immune from the human condition in this respect.

The OT in pretty much its entirety is a testament to the ignorance, the unfaithfulness, and the wilfulness of the people of God. Why are they unfaithful? Why are they willful? Why are they unbiddable – because they are afraid . . . But let us not deceive ourselves playing silly games over the uniformity of the two testaments. There is a remarkable uniformity between the children of Israel, the disciples, and the infant church to which Paul writes – a remarkable uniformity of . . .  well for want of a better word ‘sheepness’, frightened ‘sheepness’.

I had thought to begin this sermon with the parable of the talents and focus on the third slave – the one who is afraid – but of course to speak of ‘talents’ is itself an all too easy way to evade that primordial fear. ‘OUR talents’, so we tell ourselves ‘make us safe’. We may well think, we need a talented person. We need someone we can all take confidence in!! Send us someone to get us out of this mess!!

We also hear the cry in the church, Send us Strong leaders. Send us someone with a track record in growing the church. Send us someone to save us, for we are afraid!! And ignore what God has done. And ignore the gospel – that God Has Sent His only son into the world. It is an odd thing that the Church in its fear ignores Jesus Christ and the salvation he has wrought, and His promise to build the church.

. . . but don’t go feeding us the strong medicine of the gospel – don’t make us face the Living God. If we truly understood ordination, we might well say – whatever you do, don’t send us a Priest. Indeed the people of God in one way or another will always try to stop a Priest being a Priest

One of the key reasons we should require our priests to be faithful in the reading of Scriptures, is so that they are under no illusions about the people whom they are called to serve . . .

But, God be praised, the Scriptures are an even more consistent testimony to the long suffering God who has called them into being, who breathes his Spirit upon them, and who calls some of their number to the sacred ministry of a priest.

Some of their number. The other reason we require our priests to be faithful in the reading of Scripture is that they never forget, they too are sheep. Where does Christ look for shepherds?? Amongst the sheep, Amongst the wilful ignorant unbiddable and the fearful – ‘but I am only a child!’ Wails Jeremiah. Yes, the priest must also read the Scriptures to unmask her own tendency to conspire with the people of God – it was after all Aaron who made the golden calves and such ministry goes on unabated to this day in the church. No – Priests come from the sheep and they need to be alert to that.

There is a foolish tendency to imagine that the disciples ‘Got it’. That following the resurrection they were so brim full of the Love of God, the realisation of what the resurrection meant, that now Peter ‘gets it’ Now he understands. But the evidence of the New Testament suggests not. Peter, however boldly he proclaims the gospel at Pentecost  – is afraid of the implications of the gospel – as we read in Galatians 2, he separates himself from the Gentile believers – Aaronic ministry continued

And Jesus sees this in Peter – listen to His words. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ Peter, you weren’t prepared to lay down your life for me, and even at the end, after you have been following me however many years I choose, you will have to be taken unwillingly to die for the sake of my name and to glorify God. Peter, called to feed the sheep, is a sheep to the last . . . as the people of God, we’d love to see ourselves in a more favourable light, We are deniers of the truth – And Jesus reinforces the point – placing the one who denied him at the front of the line where we can all see him, if we but looked. Peter is chosen that we do not get above ourselves, that we do not think that it is about us and our skills, our abilities, our knowledge – Or even, and Peter is the best example of God – our ‘desire to lay down our life’. Peter is chosen to remind us that it is All about the Glory of God, as Peter’s death will be, and as I pray, your priesthood will be, Jo

Yet despite the overwhelming evidence of Scripture and the history of the church, regarding the church and its leaders – we still run away from it. The Spirit of Aaron is not dead. We may Romanticise the Priesthood, – and perhaps more so on a day like today.- Ah, the sacred ministry of the Priest . . . how Wonderful . . . Romanticism is utterly out of place – it is a horrible sign that we are avoiding Christ – that we do not believe – we haven’t looked the cross in the face.

And then again we run away as I have suggested by imagining that it is all about the competence of the one  called – I think on this second point it is instructive that those elements of ministry which are the strict preserve of the Priest, require no skill set whatsoever. Blessing the people, pronouncing absolution of sins, baptising, and presiding at the Eucharist. At the heart of Priesthood is something which requires nothing in terms of skill, learning, training, natural gifting – and everything in terms of giving yourself.

The Carmelite nun, Ruth Burrows speaks of the Christian life, that life which is focussed in the Priesthood, in these terms – It is as if we carefully craft a life – we work hard at it, we bring all we have to it and then – as if it were a most beautiful vase we carry it up a steep mountain to proudly show it to God, only to get to the top of the mountain and discover that God is not there, and that God is down the mountain, down a steep and perilous path, down somewhere we cannot see, and that we have a choice – we can seek after God, or we can stay on top of the mountain. but to seek after God requires us to lay all that hard worked, that beautiful vase, al that learning, all those skills, to lay them down. As a priest presides at the Eucharist, they do just that. Lay down all their skills, learning, accomplishment and risk themselves, entering the Holy of Holies, seeking out the living God – the one whom no one can see and live  – and what is more – to lead the people of God to that place. To pick up the Cross.

And so we run away, or to use Burrows’ metaphor, we stay in the light of the things we believe we can trust – we hold on to our skills or Romanticism, we strive to be Strong leaders precisely because we are running away from the Cross of Jesus.

God in his mercy is weakening his church, precisely that he might be its all in all – but we do not believe. We do not believe that death is the door to life – we are afraid precisely because of the Cross of Christ. Even though it is often on our tongue – we reduce the Cross to a metaphor, or a doctrine. ‘The Cross is about God’s Love for the world’ – a subtle means of romanticizing the Cross – or a doctrine – ‘God was in Christ reconciling himself to the world’ – Yes it is Scriptural, but it is also dissociated from the Reality of the Cross, which is a first century Jew, nailed to a piece of wood, naked, flogged, gasping and dying . . .

it is no wonder that the Church is always to be found running in the opposite direction, but in a few minutes we are going to Ordain Jo to hold the gaze of the people of God on that reality in ministry of Word and Sacrament to say ‘Behold, your God’- to embrace it in her life, and bid God’s people to follow.

Of course – like the prophet Jeremiah she may well say – Who? Me??

‘Now the Word of the Lord came to me’ – How fine that sounds – There I was just enjoying life and ‘the word of the Lord came to me . . .’
‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, That’s nice 🙂 but we don’t follow the path of what is unfolding : before you were born I consecrated you; Hang on a minute . . .! Isn’t this something I choose??? I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’

Perhaps THE clearest sign that someone is truly called of God to the ordained ministry is that they are running like hell for the exit . . . At least it shows that they really have encountered the Living God . . . you realise that you may after all end up . . . like Jesus. [Another cause for romanticism – ‘Ah, you want to remind people of Jesus? You want to be like Jesus . . .???]

‘a naked, flogged, gasping and dying first century Jew, cruelly nailed to a piece of wood’ by whom? By the people of God’

As a priest you are to hold the crucified one before the eyes of the church. And we may well not thank you for it – so you need to hold it before your own eyes day after day after day. For this is the pattern of your ministry. People today may well wish you every success in your ministry – but what are we the sheep looking for??

What does success look like – ‘If only Jesus knew what we knew’ ‘If only Jesus had access to our skills our wisdom’ ‘If only Jesus got it . . .’ is the translated bleating of so many of the sheep

‘It is finished’ he said – and there was no-one there – there at the zenith of his ministry – the sheep had all scattered. There is Successful ministry – There is God reconciling himself to the world. There is The Priest

As a priest called to be with God’s people – your greatest challenge is that it will often be God’s people who don’t want you to follow that path. Who desire to be part of something which soothes our fears – something which makes us sure we are on the winning side – Like Peter they will say  “This must never happen to you . . .” Where have we heard this voice before??? Look! You need to turn stones into bread – here’s a book to show you how – Go on a course in “How to Throw yourself down from the Temple” – that will get the crowds flooding in – actually if you want, we can sit you at the feet of many who ‘for a fee’ can show you how you can rule the world . . . Just whatever you do, don’t turn us to face the Crucified one . . . Don’t be a Priest . . . be a manager, be a good pastor, be the sort of person everyone can admire and love . . . but don’t be a Priest. So today the Church also calls you to make vows – that you not forget that you are a Priest, to hold your gaze on the crucified one, and to promise to hold ours there also, even though we may not thank you for it, or indeed wish you success . . .

I said at the outset, that we might well look at the church today and think ‘Crikey’ – Actually perhaps there is no better time to be ordained – when all our earthly resources are spent, when all our attempts to save ourselves have come to nothing, perhaps when fear is at its height. When the vase we have carefully constructed is shown to be fit for nothing. I close with a brief thought, an image and a word from the Scriptures.

Firstly a word from the Psalms – Facing the Cross – confronting our weakness, the word of the Gospel is the same – ‘Do Not be afraid’. 18 Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love . . . to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. The Lord will deliver your soul from death, he will keep you alive in famine.

Then from my Tutor in Christian Ministry who when pushed to give a visual metaphor for the Priesthood said ‘The one Stood at the head of the line of God’s people at the Colisseum’ It is a picture of utter vulnerablilty and requires no skill, no gifting, just devotion to Christ – ‘Do you Love me?’ is the only question Jesus asks Peter. Not ‘can I trust you not to get it wrong again?’ Not ‘can you build a fine church for me’ – That is not what Christ requires of you – Jesus himself has promised to build the church . . . He asks ‘Do you Love me?’ That is Enough – That is Everything
Amen

Sermon for Pentecost 2013

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Sermon for PENTECOST 2013

Genesis 11.1-9
Acts 2:1-21
John 14:8-17, 25-27

‘They were all together in one place’

As some of you know, this past week I have been traveling a fair way in order to get to know our Diocese a little better in my capacity as Vicar General. I spent time with the clergy and key lay leaders in Central Archdeaconry, and also visited Oamaru. In between I went on a rather long detour, North over a fortunately warm and sunny Lindis Pass, and on past Aoraki, Tekapo, on into Canterbury on what I hoped wasn’t a wild goose chase.

Just before leaving the UK I was present at the formation of a new Christian community in the far south west of Wales, and I had received an email from them asking if I might make contact with a couple from Hororata who had visited the community on a recent visit to Wales. So I drove on into the night, to draw up at a small cottage, weary from travels to meet two complete strangers, with whom I had shared the scantest of email dialogues.

There was an almost instantaneous connection between us. We shared in a meal and long conversation – we prayed the Night Office of Compline and in the morning shared in breakfast before once more praying together. It was for a few brief hours, Life in common, Life together. What made this connection possible?

Several years ago, I went to the best bible study I have ever been to, given by the Biblical Scholar Margaret Barker. The theme was the Covenant, but what really stuck with me was a comment she made. She said, ‘there is something about a Christian – you can always recognise one – a certain light’. Well as the other night we shared in faith, we prayed together and she took my daughter Rose, then studying theology at university under her wing, and encouraged her in her studies. Again someone I had never before met, someone whom I have never met since – but a very natural and rapid affinity. And something I have found to be true wherever I have been – that when I meet a fellow Christian, connection is easily made, deep and not readily forgotten. A shared Life.

A few weeks ago I preached on what is the sign that we are Christian. As I said, Jesus says the Outward evidence is this Life together, this love for one another that transcends everything else. But what we may ask is it that Creates this common Life, and what is its essence?

Today is one of the Principal feasts of the Church year. The feast of Pentecost – the Celebration of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the gathered disciples of Jesus – sometimes celebrated, not unreasonably as the birthday of the church, and our gospel reading is flanked by two readings about people ‘together in one place’. In the reading from the Book of Acts, and from Genesis we hear of people and a common life – but with radically different foundations, and thus radically different outcomes.

Of course it is easy to see points of conversation between the two readings. In both we have a multiplicity of tongues. But in one case these cause radical division, in the other they are transcended to create a new unity. In one case people are separated by their diverse cultures (language is both the mother and the child of culture), in the other language and culture is transcended to create a new humanity.
In one a people try to come together to make a life for themselves, apart from God, in rivalry to God. ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves . . .’ What a universal theme this is – the human desire to build a monument to its own significance – to make a life, a name for itself. To be able to stand back and say ‘Look what we have done!’ Reading as I have this past couple of weeks of the rapid acceleration of Climate change – those words – ‘Look what we have done!’ I suspect will come to have the hollowest of rings.

But over and against that human effort to make a life for itself we hear of the Gift of New Life, poured out at Pentecost. A Life that does not lead to division, but a life that transcends divisions. A life we do not build for ourselves, but a deep and rich life that is the Gift of God. And we must say at the outset that this is a life that transcends All human boundaries. The announcement of the Gospel creates a new community drawn from all the different nationalities gathered that day in Jerusalem. Discovering that in all that united them in Christ, those things that divided them became of much less significance. They did not allow the diversity of their cultures to stand as a means for ignoring the command of Christ, to Love one another.

And here I have to say that in the long term in the Anglican Church of Aotearoa / New Zealand, we cannot rest content with a three tikanga structure, for the life of Christ transcends cultures. Very briefly, we see this fight going on in the early church, when Peter comes to Galatia, out of fear he allows his Jewish culture to triumph over the life in Christ and does not share in table fellowship with the Gentile Christians. The church if you like tries a two tikanga structure, and everyone loses.

For many years now, I have supported a missionary organisation, Operation Mobilisation. At the heart of the missionary work has been ships – at present the Logos Hope. Upon these ships, Christians from all over the world come together in community to share in the good news of Christ and take it all around the world. Of course these enterprises are not all sweetness and light, but those aboard are compelled by the love of Christ and his command to love one another for the glory of God. Christ before culture. Christ before whanau, Christ before family, Christ transcendent, Christ over all.

And herein is the key – this shared Life – this One life that is poured out at Pentecost.

We remember from last week, Jesus commands his disciples to wait – stay here in the city – and so we hear ‘they were all together in one place’ – Obedient to the command of Christ. For all their fear, for all that they could not have fully understood what was happening, for all the threat of persecution from their fellow Jews, their Love for Jesus kept them there. ‘Jesus has commanded us to stay here, so we stay here’. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. – If you love me? This is the essence. What is the question that Jesus asks Peter,? What is the only thing Jesus is interested in in that encounter on the shore? What is the One thing he keeps asking? Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you Love me? And each time when Peter responds ‘Yes’, Jesus issues a command. If you love me, you will keep my command. Why do we as Christians Love our enemies? Why do we forgive seventy times seven? Why do we obey Jesus? Because we Love him.

‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. Keep my commandments – stay here in the city – And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever – until you have been clothed with power from on high.
What made that instant connection with strangers possible? Why do we recognise Christians when we are in their company even though we may well come from culturally diverse backgrounds? What is the connection? The Holy Spirit – the fruit of a shared love of Jesus.

they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; The lives we try and make for ourselves, like the tower of Babel involve hard work, striving after . . . after what? Security. Looking around and thinking we are alone we seek security; let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’

Ultimately this always leads to division – for we are eternally securing ourselves against the other, the rich against the poor. the strong against the weak, we seek security in family only for that too to become a source of disappointment, all of it ultimately a securing ourselves against the Life of God in Christ – Yet the other night I met two complete strangers – people whom everything in my basic animal instincts teaches me to be on my guard against. ‘you do not know them. How can you trust them? They are not like you?’ All we had in common was a love for Jesus. And in that we found a deeper richer security than anything we could possibly have built for ourselves.

All together in one place – all of them, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs
From this completely diverse group of people, God creates his new humanity, founded on love for Christ, obedience to his commands and the grace and strengthening of the Holy Spirit. So that just a few verses we read . . . All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Do we know that fellowship in Christ? It is my prayer that a a church we will more and more discover the truth that He is our Life

At the end of Peter’s speech as we heard it today, he quotes from the prophet Joel “All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. All who love Jesus will discover the Salvation Life – a Life that transcends all boundaries, as God in Christ, sending the Holy Spirit has as it were transcended his own.

Amen

Through the Bible in a Year – May 19th

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Sa 6-8; Heb 10; Psalm 26-27

1 Samuel 8 is one of the key turning points in the biblical narrative. Samuel has ‘ruled’ over Israel as Prophet. Speaking the words of the Lord – but now the people for all their talk of devotion to the LORD, hanker once more for ‘security’. Something more sure to them than having to live in the radical freedom before Him to which God has called them.

As they longed for Egypt – a longing which keeps recurring – so too they long not to be unlike those around them. They long Not to be distinct. They want a King like all the other nations – even though as Samuel reports to them how they will be in servitude to their rulers . . . something which in these dying days of democracy we are beginning to learn is true of all forms of rule. He will tax you, he will take the best of all you have . . .

How unlike the King who is to come – the one who comes amongst us as one who serves. ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God’.

The false King takes in exchange for a false security – a freedom that is no freedom at all. The true King Gives, of his very being to set us free . . . a freedom we still live in fear of. How long will we so willfully persist?

Through the Bible in a Year – May 18th

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Sa 3-5; Heb 9; Psalm 25

One of the strange gifts of the scriptures is that none of us as the people of God can be under any illusion as to how we consistently foul it up.

In the days of Eli the priest we read ‘The word of the Lord was rare in those days’. And for all people post comforting biblical verses on Facebook and the like (and note it is always such verses, not discomforting verses), we might well say, ’twas always thus’. It is hard to look at the world around us and see evidence of the live giving word of God. Certainly visions are not widespread.

So it is in this context that the child Samuel hears the voice of God – and it even takes Eli the priest three attempts before he realises that this is a long forgotten voice in the night. But this voice does not bring a word of comfort in the modern sense of the word. Yes it is a ‘comforting’ word, but only in the sense of one that strengthens – that speaks into the utterly dissolute situation and calls the prophet to strong action.

Our narrative continues with the capture of the Ark – unthinkable. But God will not be without witnesses and if the people of God will not witness to his Glory, then he will allow himself to be put in the hands of wicked men, that his glory may be revealed. And so, the Ark is placed in the presence of Dagon, the Philistine Idol – and the idol is shown to be ‘as nothing’ before the presence of the Lord.

So in an age when the word of the Lord was rare, one will come who is content to be betrayed into the hands of wicked men – to become the place of atonement (the cover of the Ark) – and thereby he ‘disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them’

Through the Bible in a Year – May 17th

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Sa 1-2; Heb 7-8; Psalm 23-24

Perhaps the dominant theme of the epistle to the Hebrews is that of the Priesthood of Christ, one without beginning or end, like that of Melchizedek. It is interesting that the writer reaches back in the history of GOd’s people to a time before the formal establishment of the sacrificing priesthood, to Melchizedek, one who offers bread and wine . . .

Throughout the Old Testament, there is an ongoing critique of the Aaronic priesthood – which culminates in Jesus’ conflict with the Temple authorities. It is Aaron after all, the first High priest, who causes the Israelites to sin by creating the Golden calves. Warning there surely and a Powerful one to all those of us who are involved in the leadership of the church in an age which like the city of Athens is full of Idols, many of which we worship within the church.

Throughout the Old Testament it is the prophets who lead the critique of the priestly cult and their forerunner is Samuel. And so the story of Samuel begins in the context of the sacrificing priesthood. [It is I think important to note that for all the two books of Samuel are focussed on the rise and fall of David, its roots are to be found in this critique of the sacrificing priesthood]

And so as often happens, when God seeks to raise up a faithful one, one is born beyond human hope, by the intervention of God most High, to Hannah. And so Samuel is born and in the early years of his service we are introduced to the degenerate ministry of Eli and his sons – the reverberations of which will continue to be felt for many years. At its heart is indeed that which brings Satan down – ‘Why then look with greedy eyes on My sacirifices and My offerings – the offering of My people Israel?’

The first temptation was to take that which belonged to God, to seek to be like him, Satan fell from heaven we are told because of his desire, his lack of humility, his thirst for that which was not his – Jesus comes to us at the end ‘as one sho does not consider equality with God something to be grasped . . .’

Through the Bible in a Year – May 16th

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 9; Heb 5-6: Psalm 22

‘imitators of those who through faith and patience inherited the promises’

It is in such passages as today’s reading form the Hebrews that we dicover a unity in the Scriptures – all of the Scriptures pointing to the same End – which is the person of Christ Jesus. We have the words of Psalm 110, the Royal psalm which speaks of  ‘a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek’ – itself a backward reference to the encounter of Abraham with Melchizedek in Genesis 14. Then again we hear of Abraham, or rather of God’s promise to Abraham and a reference ot the incident in Genesis 15 when God puts Abraham to sleep to bless him – ‘swearing by himself for he had no-one greater by whom to swear.

Hebrews is scattered with pictures of those who have endured to the end. But supremely it is a witness to The Faithful One – Jesus Christ – ‘who learned obedience through what he suffered’. This suffering as we considered yesterday is not the suffering which is the common lot of all humanity, it is the suffering which we undergo when who we are in Christ comes into conflict with the world in which we live, exemplified Perfectly in the crucifixion of Jesus.

What is more there is a strange note here which we might miss – that Jesus ‘learned obedience through what he suffered. It was not that he suffered because he was obedient, but that he learned obedience through what he suffered. In our suffering for the faith we share, as we exhort one another, we grow in obedience – and thus Christ becomes our source of Salvation.

For it is obedience that we are to learn. St Paul as he opens his gospel to the Romans, describes it in terms of the Obedience that comes through faith. Jesus warns those around him ‘why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?’ To listen to these words of Jesus is to suffer if we love him? ‘Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say?.

All to often as Christians we imagine faith as something in our head – whereas it is nothing less than obedience to Christ, the faithful one – who through His obedience has opened a new and living way.

Through the Bible in a Year – May 15

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 7-8; Heb 3-4; Psalm 20-21

As we saw yesterday, the Letter to the Hebrews is shrouded in mystery. It also is one which more than any other is full of warnings against falling away, a common theme throughout as we shall see, as we find in today’s reading.

But more than that, perhaps more than any other letter it emphasises the importance of relationships within the church in terms of strengthening faith.

When we consider how being part of the church is significant to our faith often we may think of this in terms of the support we receive when we pass through difficulties which are the common lot of all people. But here in the letter to the Hebrews we discover something far more significant – that of mutual ‘exhortation’ to stand firm in faith. Yes we mature in faith as we grow older, or at least we should, but the essence of that faith remains the same. All too often ‘maturing in faith’ becomes a means by which we in effect ‘turn away from the living God’. In the midst of looking after one another’s wounds common to all, we may well let this slip. As we shall see, the Hebrews clearly were under tremendous persecution for their faith, something we in the Western church know little if anything of.

In the absence of such difficulties we suffer for our faith, the common difficulties of life are intensely magnified. Did not the Hebrews also go through these things as well? Yet their concern is for ‘holding our first confidence firm to the end’.

When we face troubles in this world, common to us all, it is all too easy to lose sight of that which unites us to our brothers and sisters in Christ. In our culture, the Individual reigns supreme, and for many in the church, faith has disastrously become a matter of private belief. the Epistle to the Hebrews is strong meat for such a culture of accommodation in the church.

Through the Bible in a Year – May 14

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 6; Heb 1-2; Psalm 19

As we read the Scriptures, we keep coming to the realisation that there is much in them which is beyond our ken. Over and again we find references to people or places, events or practices about which we know nothing.

One good example of this is the Letter to the Hebrews. In its ascription immediately we come upon a problem, for unlike Paul’s letters, there is no greeting, or sense of to whom it is written. All that is clear is that there must have been a group ‘in the early church’ who went by the name ‘Hebrews’.

It is hard to discern who they were. There is evidence to suggest that they are to be distinguished from ‘The Jews’ in the gospel of John. Also that they were more closely associated with the Samaritans – which may of course give another more than interesting twist on Jesus’ parable . . .

Within First Century Judaism there were many groupings, some of which are very familiar, others of which are known to specialist scholars, and we may perhaps presume that there were other groups also. Certainly the material in this book is of a very different flavour to the rest of the New Testament, perhaps with the exception of Revelation and Jude. Certainly also, we know that the early church was a place of enormous disputation. Why else would Paul have to write the letter to the Galatians, for example?

The letter to the Hebrews was only grudgingly given a place in the Canon of Scripture, but that it has we ought to be thankful. For herein lies a beautiful mysterious vision of a Christianity that allows more than most writings in the NT, the gospels excepted, for the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God into our present reality. The book of Hebrews dramatically broadens our understanding of our faith, if we will but let it.When was the last time you sat through an intensive study of this book??

And we should dwell herein, for perhaps above all books in the New Testament, again excepting Revelation and the gospels, its theme is Christ – the one who is the reflection of God’s glory, the exact imprint of his being, the one who sustains all things by his powerful word, the one who is More Excellent.

It is also to run up against our own ignorance, and challenges our easy assertions that we Know, that we See. And perhaps for that above all we should give thanks.