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BIble Study Notes for Sunday August 26th

Texts

1 Kings 8:(1, 6, 10-11), 22-30, 41-43

Ephesians 6:10-20

John 6:56-69

(You might like to read all three passages first to get a feel for how they might fit together)

The theme of this week’s service is ‘Holding Fast to Christ’ – and we are going to focus on the reading from Ephesians

Read through each text slowly, whilst everyone else listens – (not following in your own bibles) – asking ‘what catches your attention in this passage? Does it leave you with questions?’

[At whatever point you have but a few minutes left for Study, Make sure to leave time at the end to read through in this way at the end – ‘What is Christ saying to his church in these verses?’ is there a message for us at St John’s? Respond in prayer]

Questions

1.  First we note that the Lectionary has omitted Ephesians Chapter 5 vs 21 – Chapter 6 vs 9 inclusive. Take time to read these verses.

1.1.What does it mean to be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ

1.2.How does being subject to one another fit with contemporary understandings of human life?

1.3.Sunday evenings reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews says ‘Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls and will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with sighing—for that would be harmful to you.’ Such words seem out of place in an non hierarchical society. Is hierarchy one way in which the practice of Christian faith is counter cultural here in New Zealand, or does the church need to learn from the wider world?

1.4. Jesus does not do away with heirarchy, he radically subverts it – those who lead must serve, giving their lives for the flock. We submit to his rule – he is LORD. We readily concur that we can serve Christ in serving one another – is it true that we submit to Christ in submitting to one another?

2.   The text we are reading is headed ‘The whole armour of God’

2.1.Without re reading the text ask ‘In what sense do I feel I need God’s armour?’

2.2. What reasons does Paul give for the requirement to put on ‘the whole armour of God’? (remember Paul’s admonition to ‘live as wise . . . for the days are evil’ in last weeks reading Ch5 vs 15-16)

2.2.1.What does Paul mean by: ‘the wiles of the Devil’ (indeed do we believe in the devil?); ‘the rulers, the authorities, … the cosmic powers of this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places’

2.2.2.What does it mean to say that our struggle is not against enemies of flesh and blood but against these ‘Powers’?

2.2.3. Jesus and his contemporaries believed that the material world was suffused with the Spiritual and that all physical things which in a sense had a life of their own (politics, economics, the law), were in some sense ‘governed’ by spiritual forces. So Jesus confronts religious, economic and political ‘powers’ and triumphs over them by the cross (Col 2:15). The best known example of this is Mammon – the power of money. Jesus sees this as so powerful he understands that it stands as a False God – You cannot serve God And Mammon.

2.2.3.1.‘We are hopelessly naive about such things’ – Discuss

2.2.3.2.‘The world’s complete inaction over the coming environmental collapse is a clear sign that humanity is held captive by such powers’ – Discuss

2.2.3.3.‘The philosophy called humanism has long been a suitor to man’s pride. It boasts in his natural strength and wisdom, and woos him with promises of grand accomplishments now, and heaven later. God himself has scattered such Babel-builders and proclaimed his pre-eminence for eternity. Confounded for ever be such sons of pride, who trust in the powers of nature as though man with his own bricks and mortar of natural abilities were able to make a way to heaven!’ William Gurnall – The Christian in Complete Armour. ‘We are ignorant and naive about spiritual forces and powers because we have made too much of ourselves and have a poverty stricken view of the majesty of God’ – Discuss

2.2.3.4. ‘[Christianity as properly understood] is subversive relative to every kind of [such] power. . . There is a radical incompatibility between money and Christ. Jesus recommends to his disciples that they have none. Paul shows that it is there simply to be given away. James argues that the money heaped up by the wealthy inevitably results from theft that victimizes the worker. Money is in itself a force of deviation. It is one of the main objects of covetousness . . . the root of all sins and evils’ Jacques Ellul – The Subversion of Christianity ‘Our naivety regarding Money has in large part led the church to its current state’ – Discuss

3.  Paul’s remedy is ‘Be strong in the LORD and in the power of His might’

3.2. Why is this necessary, given the nature of the ‘powers and principalities’

3.2.3.He says once again that ‘the days are evil’ vs 13 cf

3.3. In what sense is Wisdom, as we discussed it last week Key to our proper understanding?

3.4.We are then counseled to put on the armour of God – [you may wish briefly to think about David rejecting the armour of Saul but coming at Goliath, in the name of the LORD] – the armour has six elements – Discuss what each one means – what is anything does its ‘armour equivalent’ – belt, breastplate etc. suggest?

3.4.3.Truth

3.4.4.Righteousness

3.4.5.Readiness to proclaim the gospel of peace

3.4.6.Faith

3.4.7.Salvation

3.4.8.The Word of God

Bible Study notes for Sunday August 19th

Texts

1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14

Ephesians 5:15-20

John 6:51-58

(You might like to read all three passages first to get a feel for how they might fit together)

This week we will look in brief at the first two

The theme of this week’s service hasn’t yet been chosen by the All-age worship team, so for the purposes of our study we shall keep in mind “Christ Jesus, who has become for us Wisdom from God” (after 1 Corinthians 1:30)

Read through each text slowly, whilst everyone else listens – (not following in your own bibles) – asking ‘what catches your attention in this passage? Does it leave you with questions?’

[At whatever point you have but a few minutes left for Study, Make sure to leave time at the end to read through in this way at the end – ‘What is Christ saying to his church in these verses?’ is there a message for us at St John’s? Respond in prayer]

Questions

1. Solomon asks for the gift of “an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil. We understand a little later that this is called ‘wisdom’ (vss 12, 28)
   1. What do we think of when we think of wisdom?
   2. In what sense is Solomon’s request ‘Wise’ in and of itself? Does our answer suggest a different quality to Wisdom than common understandings of it
   3. What does it suggest is a particular characteristic of Wisdom, given that Solomon must ask for it?
   4. The French philosopher and social theorist, Michel Foucault spent many years investigating the idea of ‘common sense’ down through the ages. He showed that ‘Common Sense’ is invariably the thinking of those who control the levers of economic power. In what sense does Solomon’s request reveal the Wisdom of God at work acting against such ‘common sense’?
   5. TS Eliot writes this :- The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,

e.The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.

o perpetual revolution of configured stars,

o perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,

o world of spring and autumn, birth and dying

The endless cycle of idea and action,

Endless invention, endless experiment,

Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;

Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,

All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,

But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries

Bring us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust. (Opening stanzas of ‘The Rock’)

We live in an age supremely of ‘information’  – we Know Everything – ironically in a time when according to some, humankind may be about to eradicate not only itself but also much of the rest of the Created order from the face of the Earth. ‘Wisdom’ in Scripture is supremely linked to the Creator (Seen most clearly in Proverbs Chapter 8) Do we find ourselves in agreement with Eliot? Do we live in an age lacking in Wisdom?

1.         St Paul writes ^‘Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, ¹⁶making the most of the time, because the days are evil.’
   1. In the light of the one who has become for us ‘Wisdom from God’, what does it mean to live ‘not as unwise, but as wise’?
   2. This passage from Ephesians begins ‘Be imitators of God therefore, as dearly loved children’.
      1. Why does Paul say, ‘As dearly loved children’
      2.  Reflect on the passage given. How does Paul’s counsel relate to being ‘dearly loved children?’
      3. iii.  What does the phrase ‘the days are evil’ mean. Are ‘the days evil’?

iv. Throughout Scripture foolishness is seen as the opposite of Wisdom – ‘The fool says in his heart, there is no God’ – Given that, what does v17 suggest is the nature of Wisdom?

1. Given that? Is it reasonable to suggest that it is only in relationship with God that we can be Wise? Reflect on John 1:12 – ‘Jesus has become for us ‘Wisdom from God (1 Cor 1:30)’(I take it as given that one can be in relationship with God and act like a fool 🙂 – that is not what is being asked here)
2. 2.  If that is the case, how does it affect our understanding of the relationship between our Christian Life and the World?

Sermon for Sunday August 12th – 11 after Pentecost – SERMON RECORDING

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
John 6:35, 41-51

‘Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind’
Romans 12:1

“All this stuff about Loving your enemies and doing good to those who hate you, is not only an offence against reason, it is also morally reprehensible. It is immoral. True morality calls us for us to defend ourselves against our enemies, and kill them if necessary”

These are the words of Christopher Hitchens, an English writer and commentator and also a leading light amongst the so called new atheists, famous for his last published work, ‘God is not great’. A man of some learning, and unlike one or two others of the new atheists, say  the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, a man who has a pretty thorough grasp of theology and what Christianity is really about. Of course one might add that Hitchens died not so very long ago and make some joke about him getting a bit of a shock, but that is really just a silly game.
Because, what Hitchens reminds us of, is that very often, if you want to discover the truth about something, find a well educated and informed opponent of it. Someone who in a sense has staked their all on it being wrong, because such a person may take you far closer to the truth of the matter often than some of the movements most ardent advocates. Hitchens like the philosopher Nietzsche despised Christianity, because at the level of human rationality, he saw what it was about, the to him debasing and humiliating notion, that a human could only be fully human in complete surrender to God, to become the servant of one whose ways are mysterious to us, whose actions often seem capricious and who seems at once to completely affirm the dignity of the human whilst systematically undermining it by calling for our absolute devotion.
Of course like all the new atheists, his understanding of Christianity isn’t perfect, he does in effect set up a straw man and then blow it away, but his understanding of Christian faith is a lot closer to the truth than the understanding of many many Christians, especially in the west. Hitchens’ Straw man of Christian faith was a lot more substantial than many Christian’s version of faith.

The theme of our service today is ‘Unreasonable faith’ – because that is precisely what we as Christians have and HItchens saw that. Yet for many, certainly outside the church and indeed a good few inside, there is a ‘Reasonable Christian faith’ – the sort of Christian faith that is all about the values of polite society justified should you need it, in the person of Jesus the wandering sage – who talks about those highest of human aspirations ‘Love’ Peace, Kindness etc. The Jesus says ‘you know how you want peace, I want the same thing too, being kind to one another is a good idea, so I’m glad you agree with me on that. A Christian faith that ulitmately has no need for Christ, so full of its own proud Reason is it.
This Jesus of this ‘faith’ is utterly Reasonable, he fits beautifully into our world and makes us feel good about our noble aspirations for life, he doesn’t in any sense disturb us.  He is the fulfillment of all that is best in us – but he is a Fake. He is a ‘Jesus’ created by the world to keep him in his place, to stop him stirring things up. He is a ‘Jesus’ conformed to the World. And he bears absolutely no relation to the Jesus of the Gospels

Imagine for a moment that you are out in town, say in the Octagon and you meet someone who has set up a little soap box, perhaps in front of the cathedral (can we imagine that?) and is loudly, but not too loudly, declaiming. ‘Love is the answer!’, ‘Murder, adultery, lying and stealing are Bad things!’ Be at Peace with one another, Love one another.’ Well I guess you will probably think him slightly eccentric, but you’ll be glad he is confirming your sense of what is good and right and wrong and I guess almost everyone else will think the same thing. All of that fits within our Reasonable understanding of the World. Christian faith we will think is the most utterly reasonable thing, and for the life of the world we can’t understand why churches are full to overflowing.
Yet, reasonably then, what is the point of going to church to hear what we already believe to be true, to confirm you in your view of the world – we may as well go play golf, and of course Jesus would be very happy, because you would be happy and that is all that this Reasonable Jesus cares about, he doesn’t demand our worship – he just wants us to try to be good and kind . . . the Fake Jesus, that is.
But the Fake Jesus, does not exist. If we can drag ourselves away those fondly imagined strolls round a golf course, or tramps up a hill, or wherever we were with the Fake Jesus, and back to the Octagon, the scene has changed, all of a sudden someone is saying “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The vast majority of people would be Disturbed by such a person – we’d be calling for the Emergency Psychiatric service. “What do you mean – you’ve come down from heaven? You’re flesh and blood like us – hey don’t I recognise you – weren’t we at school together Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Are you Nuts?? Fetch back that Jesus who told us to be good! We liked him! [Actually the real Jesus Never told anyone to be good – indeed he said only God is Good]

No one is Good – try that for a comforting thought, or something to make Christianity credible to someone in the modern era. No, We have to face up to it. Jesus is the most utterly unreasonable and disturbing presence the world has ever known. Not because he is a teacher of timeless ethical truths, such a person disturbs nothing. No he is Utterly unreasonable and Utterly disturbing because he is the one who came down from heaven – the Incarnation of the One who created the world, breaking into the world to put into effect through his own death and resurrection the recreation of the World. He comes to announce the disturbance to end all disturbances – the end of the world as we know it – to pronounce it to be under God’s Judgement and to declare the New Creation, made present in him, there and then, Here and Now.
In the three years of Jesus’ ministry, nothing less is happening than God’s New Creation, walking the Earth in flesh and blood and everything is being forced either to conform to that which is amongst them, or to reject it. There is no middle ground – we either Crown him as King, and submit to him, or we Crucify him. This indeed is the very choice that is put to us all by Pontius Pilate – ‘Here is Your King’ And Jesus continues to force this issue on us. “Whoever believes Has eternal Life”  The real Jesus is Alive and Disturbing us now. The Fake Jesus? – well “Resurrection?? Come on!  No he was a good person, just like me, but he is long dead and the world has moved on’ . The Fake Jesus is long dead and the world goes on. Whereas the Truth of the gospel is that the World came to a grinding halt when Jesus rose from the dead – the World was pronounced dead – he has moved on, down through the years and so comes over and over and over to disturb us, to say our lives and the life of this world is under the final judgement of God and that God’s New Creation is present in Him – to call us – to Force us to choose.

We don’t like the idea of being forced to choose, but as I said last week, this is not a religious game. This is Life and Death. David Chose the path of Death as we heard, ‘the sword shall never depart from your house’ And so all hell breaks loose and Absalom his beloved son is murdered.
When we meet with the Risen Jesus, he disturbs us. We are Forced to choose – to choose to put our life into his hands for whatever he wants to do with it. When Jesus says ‘Follow me’  – he doesn’t say ‘Please’. It’s not a request, it’s a command. He confronts us with the terrifying truth that this Christian Life is not about us, it’s about Him. So we try to reject it. We nail this Life to a cross, kill our enemy, kill the one who is disturbing our comfortable lives and then , don’t you know it He is raised from the dead! There is no escaping God’s new Creation made visible in our Risen Lord and all people everywhere are forced to choose, either to conform to God’s Future, or to perish with the World that is already pronounced dead.

And here is the rub, that all those who choose to conform to that Life, find themselves in exactly the same position, rejected by the old order that is passing away,  we find the world trying to do exactly that which it did to Jesus, to do to us, to try and keep us in our place, playing the game by the rules the World sets for us.
And when authentic faith comes along – when the Spirit of Christ is alive and active in his people, then the World stops looking on the church as a kind if slightly dotty maiden aunt who can be consigned to a rest home before she expires, and starts to realise that it has a fight on its hands. Think for a moment – if you asked someone you knew who wasn’t christian if nailing Jesus to the cross was reasonable, I guess they’d probably say – ‘Oh, folk were so barbaric then  – it was a terrible thing to do’ But Christian faith says that the death and resurrection of Jesus was The Most Reasonable Event in History. Christian faith takes what is in the understanding of the world a dreadful immoral act, and makes it the lynchpin of all of History. So much for Morality. If we think that it is very unreasonable to kill someone for what we call Christian faith, then it is clear we don’t understand our faith at all. This is why I say it is worth listening to Christopher Hitchens critique of Christianity. In a real sense he got it and it appalled him. ‘Hate you enemies, kill them if necessary’. As far as the World is cocerned that is the Reasonable thing to do

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 41Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” Tell us some nice moral platitudes Jesus, tell us not to murder or lie or steal, tell us not to murder or commit adultery as Moses did, don’t bother us with this bread of heaven nonsense 42They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Look you son of a carpenter, don’t come around claiming you are from heaven, we know you – we know where you fit, get back in your box kid. ANd they nailed him to a Cross, and put him in a tomb and rolled the stone across and said, well that’s seen to him! Let’s get back on with our lives.
The other night William Willimon talked about a play where a man, Mr Smith, commits suicide – he wants more than anything for his life to end. So he shoots himself. The scene goes blank. But then the lights come up. The man is sprawled on the floor and behind him is a figure behind a desk with a large filing cabinet. Mr Smith, to his horror finds he is not dead – ‘Gabriel’, says the figure behind the desk, ‘bring me the file on Mr Smith. Mr Smith if you’d like to take a seat, we have all the time in the world’ There is No escape from the One who lives for ever, the Real Jesus.

The fake Jesus of Reasonable faith, we can and should put in a box and forget about. If that is our Jesus, then the sooner we abandon him the better.  For, the Real Jesus they put in a tomb – the scene went black – and then there he was again, Utterly unreasonably Alive for Ever – saying then, saying now “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” And so as his Unreasonable people, we Choose Not to play golf or go for a stroll  – but to come to this Strange building, engage in practices that make no sense in a world which thinks it is its own life, which thinks it will go on and on – and to Receive Eternal Life afresh in Word and Sacrament. To be conformed to Him.

Sermon for Sunday August 5th – 10th after Pentecost
2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a
Psalm 51
John 6:24-35

‘The Serving Heart’

‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?” Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.”
Matthew 7.21-23

This week we have been especially blessed here in Dunedin by the ministry of William Willimon, a Bishop and teacher of the United Methodist Church in Alabama who has been the guest lecturer for the Thomas Burns memorial lectures. If you haven’t heard him yet, and I strongly recommend that you do, then he will be speaking 3 more times this coming week.

It was during his first lecture that as often happens with me, he said something that triggered a stream of thought that for a moment took me away from what he was saying. It’s a dangerous habit, losing concentration in sermons, God may get a word in edgeways! I remember that I was called to ordained ministry in that manner – so PAY ATTENTION 🙂
Well Will was talking about how the presence of Jesus is disturbing and how in the  modern world which we have designed to do away with the need for God, this is especially true. And I thought, ‘how true that is’ – about how when folk say to me, ‘so what brought you to NZ?’, and I say ‘the call of God’ – you can tell they’re disturbed – ‘it scares the hell out of them’, I chuckled to myself, and in an instant heard as clear as a bell the LORD say ‘and I hope it scares the hell out of you too!’.
It was a sharp and necessary reminder that we’re not here to play religious games, to please ourselves. No. This Life that we are All called into is Life and Death – it’s to do with Ark’s which Uzzah touches and perishes on the spot – it is to do with Ananias and Sapphira who don’t realise that Sin is Death – it is replete with the terrifying call to Be Holy, as He is Holy. It is to be called bay and into that which is utterly Strange and odd to us and most disturbingly, upon which we have to stake our all. And so I was reminded that the call to Priestly ministry, is an echo of Baptism to leave everything and follow Jesus and Him alone, and that should scare the hell out of us.

And if that comes as a shock, well Good and also, Bad – where have we been all these years if we think otherwise? Week by week by week we are immersed in this story – it’s all there, in the narrative of Scripture. We are given examples of the lives of those who are called to follow – of Peter, of Abraham and these stories are given to Orient our story with the Story of this Holy and perturbing God as they struggle to do – trying to deal with this Holy God, and getting it wrong with sometimes appalling consequences – Abraham who for fear of the Egyptians passes his wife off as his sister with terrible consequences for the Egyptians – the blasphemous words of Peter ‘this shall never happen to you’ and the Holy is revealed – ‘Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’ What are you trying to do, getting in front of me – get out of my way Peter – you don’t know a thing! Did we miss this? Have we been asleep? Well here’s another go, so Wake Up! We are called – and that should not evoke pride, but Holy Fear.

And we see this worked out in the story of David. HIs fall is Directly related to his loss of the Sense that his ‘work’ is Not about him, it is about the Holy and Strange God of Israel.     As the short lived dynasty of King Saul begins to crumble, Samuel announces to Saul ‘You have done foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which he commanded you. The Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel for ever, but now your kingdom will not continue; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart; – You haven’t done what God called you to – You’ve done what seemed good to you – the LORD is looking for a King who will only do what seems good to his LORD – someone after his own heart. And so David comes onto the scene. and we know his story – we know it so well – Goliath – triumph – Bathsheba – disaster – but have we really heard its message? I wonder. So schooled are we in breaking this huge story of God into little stories of David, we miss the thread that is running through the whole. We are all too aware of the sins of David – he commits adultery, he tries to manipulate Uriah the Hittite, he fails and so murders Uriah, he then takes Bathsheba to be his wife – we are so aware of his sins and then we hear David’s lament in Psalm 51 – Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight and we think ‘Huh?’ but what about poor old Uriah? What about Bathsheba, what about the child who dies as a result of all this [once again those who set the lectionary have chosen to spare us the full horror of what happens when the Life of God is denied – to our great loss] – we are so aware of his sins, that we completely miss his Sin – what is at the heart of it all? What is at the heart of it all?

But it is there in the text, clear as the day, if we will but read the whole story carefully. David as we know starts out well and time and time again – 6 times in all we read 1 Sam 23:2 ‘David enquired of the LORD’; 1 Sam 23:4 ‘David enquired of the LORD; 1 Sam 30:8 ‘David enquired of the LORD; 2 Samuel 2:1 ‘David enquired of the LORD’; 2 Samuel 5:19; 2 Samuel 5:23 ‘David enquired of the LORD. David’s heart is turned towards God and it is the heart of a Servant – What woulds’t thou have me to do? Over and Over again he asks ‘what am I to do?’ – and then a couple of weeks ago we read ‘Now when the king [the narrator suddenly calls him, The King] was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, ‘See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.’ Things are easy now – and now he can manage affairs for himself – his heart is no longer God’s – David’s heart is no longer turned towards his LORD, David is ‘The King’ . He asks himself – ‘What shall I do?’ – not asking ‘What would you have me do?’ No longer ‘inquiring of the LORD.’ And Nathan says – do whatever seems good to you – but the LORD steps in and sends Nathan back to David to try and keep him on track Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’ I Never told you to build me a Temple – why did this thought even enter your head? You think you know what its all about?? “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?” Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.” I never told you to do that stuff – get the hell out of here – says Jesus.

David’s Heart has turned – he does not enquire of the LORD, he does what seems good to him – and it is brutal. the opening verses of our Old testament reading Are Brutal – 26When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. 27When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.
David’s heart has turned – he has forgotten he is a Servant of the LIving God – and he is now serving himself – over and over again in this story of David Uriah and Bathsheba we read – and David sent  – he saw Bathsheba – he sent for her – he sent for Uriah – he sent Uriah – he sent for Bathsheba. Now he is no longer David the servant of God, now he is the king, who serves himself. And his Root Sin is Not the murder and adultery – it is that he has decided to live for himself – to take the apple which was not given.

It was a few years ago I learnt a couple of sharp lessons in this regard. The first happened on a family holiday in Bavaria. We were staying on a campsite and it being Bavaria, the word Campsite doesn’t really do it justice. It was sumptuously appointed and at the heart was a restaurant. It looked fabulous and I was a bit put off, and what is more the menu was in German and I hadn’t a clue. But we took the plunge – and walking in the door were met in impeccable English and menus in English – everything was done for our comfort – we were to be Served. And so the evening passed – my beer glass mysteriously kept refilling, my plate also.
Until pretty late on in the evening. I’d emptied my plate for the severalth time and for a moment, the waiters weren’t in sight. So I helped myself. {Echoes here of Saul}
Big Mistake. the Waiter appeared from nowhere wagging his finger – partly I guess out of shame – but I had broken the code. It was his place to serve, not mine.  Well that was how it was with God and David. David was to serve God, but God would serve David. He was Not to help himself – And through Nathan he gets told in no uncertain terms –  Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; 8I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and [I] gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. 9Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. NOw get the hell out of here – ‘the sword shall never depart from your house . . . because you have despised me’ I gave you everything you needed, but you are my servant – and you acted as if you could serve yourself.
This Christian Life  – this call to follow Christ – should scare the hell out of us – but all too frequently it doesn’t – we sleep walk  – we start off trying to do something for God, something he might appreciate – not asking, just doing, and then we end up doing something for ourselves. HOw many serve themselves under the guise of serving Christ, never having enquired of the Lord. Living as if it wasn’t God who provided, living as if God didn’t exist, and then we wonder why the sword never departs from our house. Doing what seems right in our own eyes – trying to please God, but never asking ‘what would you have me do’ – serving our own idea of God, not the God who speaks and Lives – serving ourselves.
And the problem, our problem David’s problem? David’s heart – he was no longer a man after God’s heart, it was all about David now –  and ‘The LORD sent Nathan’  We all need a Nathan- it is God who sends, not the king – the LORD sent NAthan who skillfully weaves the story of the lamb to unlock the blackness of David’s heart – David is undone by the story. David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; 6he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” And like a Spear Nathan comes back at him ‘YOU are the man’ Who is our Nathan – who unmasks the duplicity of Our hearts?

My second story concerns just this – just before I was ordained I found an excellent Spiritual director, an incredibly Godly and Wise woman – but I wasn’t aware just how good she was until one of my first sessions with her and, well she just undid me – she delved for the reality of my heart and I heard myself say ‘You know, I really think I would prefer to be right and God wrong’ YOU are the man – I was nailed – out of my own mouth, just like David and in that instant it was as if the ground was opening up under me to swallow me. She looked me in the eye and said – ‘You have some praying to do’. And that was it. Well God in his mercy brought me back to himself, but he’s had to do it more than once. ‘You see how it scares the hell out of folk when you say I called you? – I hope it scares the hell out of you too’.
God’s word tells us that there is nothing as deceitful as the human heart – in all of God’s creation, it is that one element that protects its own sovereignty like an angry mother bear with cubs – our hearts are actually the Centre of All that is Wrong in the world. We are called and Baptised and now our lives are entirely at his disposal – that is what Baptism means. It is THE Christian vocation – all that Priestly ministry is is a reminder to us all. This is about all of us. And None of us can be trusted to know the reality of our own hearts – this is why we cannot walk as Christians except together and in mutual accountability. It’s why the church must rigorously test any call to Ordination – and it is why we should be far far more careful with Baptism. Because this is a matter of Life and Death  – We are Servants of the Living God – we live for him alone, baptised as we are into our crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ, who only does what he sees the Father doing.

So we come to Him, with Hell licking at our tail we have to come to Him – the author and perfector of our faith – When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.’ Then they said to him, ‘What must we do to perform the works of God?’ What must we do to do the works of God – Lord, what would You have me to do? The question of Faith. It is the first question of Paul when he is converted on the Damascus road – it should be our only question – and Jesus reply? ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’ And what is it to believe in Jesus? To Love God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength – to wait on His word, to respond to his word, to live by his word – this word that has become bread from heaven for us.

I was reflecting with Jo the other day about that call which should scare the hell out of us, and together we wondered about how do we respond. Those words “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?” Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.” shake us – they remind us we are not playing religious games – this is Life and Death in the called into the Life and Death of the holy one of Israel – and that it is all too easy to get diverted by what seem good things for us to do. Actions we have chosen – and that faced with that what can we do but pray and pray and pray. We pray till we know we have heard the Lord, we pray with others to hear the Lord, we refuse to act unless we hear his voice of command, and then we pray Lord have mercy, lest we have mis-heard.

The story of Martha and Mary shows us this perfectly – it is not about the active versus the contemplative life – it is about the life of one who does what appears good in her own eyes and one who sits at the feet of Jesus, listening for his Word –  Truly there is need of only one thing, the Good and perfect life giving command of the God, Bread from heaven, and all those who desire it with all their hearts, from them it shall not be taken away. May God so deal with all our hearts that at the last day we hear ‘Good and faithful servant’ – and until that moment, let us remain alert – awake – paying attention to our LORD. Waiting on him with Glad and Obedient hearts

Amen

Sermon for Sunday July 22nd 2012
2 Samuel 7:1-16
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

‘the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him’

Earlier this week I was at a lecture given by our own Andrew Bradstock, who is Professor of Public Theology, about the place of theology ‘in the public square’, or about the validity or otherwise of the Religious voice when it comes to the issues of our day. Well it raised lots of issues for me, but one in particular was very pertinent to our readings today, that of the use of language.

Of course Christians have been told for a good number of years, that if they are going to be able to communicate their faith, they need to adapt their language to that of their hearers. ‘It’s no good’, we’re told, ‘using lots of religious words which mean nothing to many people’. Yet, alluring as such a statement sounds, it reveals a flawed understanding about the nature of language. For whilst too frequent a use of the word ‘propitiation’ or ‘eschatalogical’, might possibly lead to people changing the subject, and the very mention of Sin, hell and judgement may well not see you invited back to elegant dinner parties, actually the very fact that as Christians we use different words is a signifier that we are a people set apart – we are different. What we say and how we say what we say Should be a significant sign of our status as citizens of another city – in exactly the same way that all the nations of the world reveal who they are in their speech. Which is not surprising as we are all made in the image of God who is characterised as the God who speaks, and whose speech reveals his nature.

But of course we do share many words with those amongst whom we live – two thousand years of Christian life has meant that words have become part of the language of entire cultures. Thus words such as Love, as Forgiveness, as Justice, as Grace, as Mercy – and as Peace – have become words that those around us use. But herein lies the problem – for as societies have adopted words they have, as we all have a tendency to do, they have used them to their own ends, to their own purposes. In other words, we may well say the same word, but mean something very very different. That when a Christian uses the word Mercy, she has the image of Christ upon the Cross and the mercy of God in view, that when a Christian uses the word Justice, he has the Justice of God in view – revealed in Christ upon the Cross, that when a Christian uses the word Love they point to the cross and the Love of God is in view, that when we use the word ‘Peace’ . . . well you get the idea 🙂  – but such is not the meaning of these words in contemporary culture.
The language of Christians is shaped by the revelation of God in Christ Jesus, and if it is not, then it is not Christian language. [And indeed if I might digress slightly for one minute, I believe that IMMEASURABLE harm is done to the cause of the gospel by the church adopting the use that the wider society makes of words which we have bequeathed them.  In this regard, for example, I am always Extremely wary and concerned when Christians start throwing around the word Justice, both conservatives and liberals, who hijack it to their own ends – asking for either more harshness or more tolerance, using it to their own political ends in ways which are utterly divorced from that Justice of God which declares us Guilty of sin and yet Justifies us by faith in Christ]

And so it is with today’s subject – Peace. Peace, or to use the Hebrew Word Shalom as Andrew said in his lecture, is a word embodying a profound sense of human well-being, but one which can only be understood in the light of a way of life together which has God at its heart. Shalom, the Peace of the people of God which is taught in the Old Testament, is breathtaking in its scope – it transcends our understanding. I have spoken frequently about the Jubilee which Christ comes to fulfil – that Economic and Political vision which was so challenging that we cannot begin to have a degree of sympathy for the children of Israel in their failure to comprehend the word of the lord and live in obedience to it. It is an Otherworldly Peace. It is outside of our comprehension – it is as I say every week as I pronounce the blessing of God, ‘The Peace the passes all understanding’. And we find that so difficult not only to comprehend but to begin to imagine.
I remember noticing in my youth that my Vicar was obviously troubled by it and so when he pronounced the blessing he would say, the ‘The peace that passes understanding’, dropping the word ‘all’, as if to suggest that if we tried hard enough or we were intelligent enough we might perhaps get a grasp on it. But it is not just the Economic dimension of that peace that we cannot grasp, ‘that their might be no poor among you, it is also the Political, or perhaps to put it more helpfully, the Social dimension (for what is Politics if it is not the ordering of life together?). I remember once preaching on the theme of Peace, of Shalom as set forth in the Old Testament in terms of deep, rich and life giving relationships between the generations. Well I don’t know if I did a very good job – or perhaps the idea was too far fetched for one older member of the congregation came up to me afterwards and said – I’d have a lot more time for young people if they didn’t insist on playing on their skateboards on the road past my house! 🙂

Well without realising it, my brother, who was ironically a professor of linguistics, had put his finger on the problem. He was using the word Peace, in the way in which the world around us used it – he wasn’t using it Christianly. Now I don’t mean that he was being unChristian by not wanting the young people outside his house – that is not for me to judge – but that his use of the word Peace was that which our secular liberal societies hold up as the Goal – the guiding Principle of Life. That Each must enjoy the Liberty to do precisely what they want – With One restriction, that their activity must in no way impinge upon the Liberty of another. To express it in another way, that vision of Peace is that Everyone has a large enough Sound proofed room to be able to play whatever music they want at whatever volume they want. It is an ideal of peace which is hopelessly individualistic – that declares the cause of humanity to life together and to share life together to be a Hopeless pipedream, and leads to political agendas which serve one purpose alone, to prevent all conflict. No richer vision of human society than the right to do what we want provided we do not harm others – and that my friends really is an Ideallistic Utopia – for it is only possible if we are not human. So it must deny our humanity – it is not peace – it is actually a vision of Hell – of everyone keeping their distance for we cannot live together. It is a grotesque distortion of the Peace of Christ. That is the world in which we live

King David fell prey to such a misunderstanding. Mistaking absence of conflict for the Peace of God. There he was, he had taken the city of Jerusalem from the Jebusites and we read “the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him” The LORD had given him rest. David confused the absence of Conflict as Peace and not Rest – he thought he’d made it – he thought he’d made it – and then he cast around and Saw “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” David had it in mind to do something for God . . . the God who owns everything – ‘the cattle on a thousand hills are mine’. It is Ludicrous when seen like that – to do something FOR God – ‘what can I give him, poor as I am?’. God asks one thing of us – Love evidenced in obedience – that we so love him that nothing delights us more than to do his will. Whereas David fundamentally misunderstands who he is and who God is ‘Go and tell my servant David:’  Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? 6I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. 7Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” It is not your job to make a house for me David, rather I will make a house for you – the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. 12When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. David has foolishly thought that as King he was in charge – that he could do as he wished – that he could even do God a favour. And he had made a fundamental error, for the LORD had given him rest – but not yet PEACE. David might have sat back on his throne and thought ‘God is in his heaven and all is well with the world, now what can I do’ But when God is in his heaven and all is well with the world, there will be nothing unfinished – everything will be complete.

This was why the Prophets who spoke so much of the Shalom of God were always on the alert  – always alerting Israel, always denouncing its Kings for declaring their great political and economic projects, their millitary triumphs as The End, as if They ushered in the reign of God’s Peace, when there were poor in the land, when the hungry were unfed, when the blind could not see, nor the lame walk, when the dead were not raised. As God’s FInal prophet says – ‘why do you say Peace, Peace when there is no Peace?’.

I have alluded off and on to the Old Testament vision of God’s peace, Shalom. We see David himself does not recognise it and it is Nathan the prophet who speaks GOd’s words to him to keep him in his place. And here as in so many ways we Must recognise that the Life Death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. As St Paul says in our Epistle, that the peace of Christ makes us ‘members of the household of God, built upon the foundations of the Apostles and the Prophets’  That that Peace which Paul declares so beautifully in the epistle is the Fulfillment of the Old Testament promise of Peace. And, this is why the Peace of God which passes all understanding is NOT some disembodied Spiritual glow, some gnostic immaterial spirituality, only made possible because we have forgotten our roots, we have forgotten that the work of Christ is not to give us the warm fuzzies in good times and bad – NO!
HE is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups (Jews and Gentiles) into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. Our failure to recognise the peace to which we are called as the fulfillment of the Old Testament is a failure to recognise the peace of Christ – it is to re-erect the barrier of hostility, that has made that story ours and has grafted us into the rootstock of the Patriarchs and the prophets. The Peace of God, not a warm feeling – it is as concrete as the flesh of Christ, it is the Body of Christ – it is a New humanity, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets

When Jesus comes on the scene – as we read in our Gospel – things are far from that reality. The people were ‘they were like sheep without a shepherd;’ – Everyone doing their own thing – no ruler – no King, no shepherd of the flock – and so he began to teach them – to proclaim the Kingdom of God, the Peace of God. Not Yet had that peace come – but the signs of its coming in HIm continue – And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed – once more as a few weeks ago we read that Jesus and his disciples cannot get rest, they cannot eat together – that SIGN of the Peace of God – the Eschatalogical feast – Until ‘ on the night before he died’, when at last at supper with his friends he broke bread and gave it to them saying, take eat, this is my body given for you, and shared the cup of wine saying Drink this all of you, for this is my blood of the New covenant, shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Enacting the covenant by which he made Peace – making the two one – breaking down the hostility between Jew and Gentile – and between humanity and God.

You may have seen the theme of this sermon – Making Peace and wondered if I was ever going to talk about what we do in this regard. Firstly we must sit and ponder the error of David and the LORD’s question Are you the one to build me a house to live in? NO! One shall come from your line – He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. You are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

Christ has built the house, He IS the house – He is Our Peace, we do not make That peace that passes understanding, no – what is for us as St Paul goes on to say is to ‘make every effort to Maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace’ The peace that passes all understanding. This is no easy thing – for it involves us in building up our common life – in exercising all that is right and proper as the household of God, in doing Justice, Loving Mercy, Practising forgiveness, Loving one another as Christ has Loved us – holding before us Always, not the world’s view of these things, but the true meaning of these things as revealed in our crucified and risen Lord. And Living ever deeper into the reality of his Peace

This is the work of the church, these are our common disciplines that order our life together as members of the household of God, by the mercy and forgiveness and Love of God made present in Christ Jesus, the chief cornetrstone And the Dwelling place – in whom we are being built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God..

‘O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy peace’

Just doing some preparation for our Young Disciples group (which also has taken upon itself to ‘become’ our new Youth band!!).

Was thinking about being a disciple of Jesus and following Him, but perhaps in a sense a better image, at least for our self determining age is being a member of a body of Christ. Why? Well imagine yourself as a knee, or an eye, or a mouth, or a foot – what say do you have in where you go and what you do??

Reminded me also of that thorny doctrine of election – that the root story of election is of course the rescuing of Israel from Egypt. This is the foundational metaphor for ‘becoming a Christian’ – in other words being rescued from a life that is no life, to be given a Life and a Purpose, which are not your own.

The Israelites may well have been crying out for something to happen, a rather like a baby at the point of delivery – but to be expelled into the wilderness and there discover that they have been rescued by this strange God who now calls them to a new way of life which will reveal His life in the world . . .

Becoming like a child

Being Born again

Having to learn a Life which is Not yours, from scratch . . .

Seems a pretty good metaphorical way of thinking about the Christian Journey in its beginnings and onwards

Our Bishop, Kelvin Wright, has spoken of the future of our Diocese in terms of a wilderness time. Wilderness is a place where we receive our identity. Jesus in the Wilderness having been given his identity has it tested ‘If you are the Son of God’ (x3)

Perhaps we are all like our Young Disciples, learning afresh what it is to be a part of a body – given a Life and a Purpose which is not our own?

Just a thought

Sermon for Sunday July 15th – Bible Sunday
2 Ki 22
Col 3:12-17

“Let the word of Christ dwell among you richly”

Well today is Bible Sunday, or at least it is here 🙂 I have to say I was slightly taken aback when I discovered this, so used was I to having Bible Sunday as the Second in Advent and the words of Cranmers collect ringing in my ears in the run up to Christmas “BLESSED Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.” But disoriented as I am, I still think that it is more than worthwhile taking time to consider the place of the Bible in the church and in our faith as Christians.

And that place is not in the least insignificant – indeed I was glad to discover that St John’s was one of those increasingly rare churches where all the set scriptures were read at services, including the Old Testament, given that the move, even in those churches which call themselves ‘Bible believing’ churches is towards less and less Scripture in services. And when the Vicar reinstituted the Psalm at the morning service he wasn’t met with uproar at ‘yet more Bible’ 🙂 (Of course that could be because everyone here is just extremely nice and hospitable 🙂 ) Yet Christian faith has always been a faith rooted in Scripture. In the Koran, the Christians along with the Jews are set apart as ‘People of the Book’ – except of course that can give a false impression.

For we are very used to holding Books, Having Books. The invention of the Printing Press led to a very rapid change in the way that The Bible was perceived, because for the first time in human history, for the first time in the 3000 year old Judaeo-Christian tradition, it became possible for people to ‘have their own bible’. Although the zeal of the infant church saw a huge explosion in the publication of Books – which is why we have so many thousands of fragments of scripture, indeed whole books of the Bible from very early times – this was as nothing compared with what happened post Gutenburg, a publishing phenomon the like of which the world has never seen and even to this day, the Bible is the most widely published of all books by orders of magnitude, so that the BIble may be put into people’s hands . . .

But therein in a sense lies a supreme irony, for it could well be argued that that move was the one which led so many people to dismiss the Bible and its significance. Poring over it for themselves many began to pronounce judgement upon it – it didn’t DO as a Holy Book. It was full of unpleasant things that they didn’t much like – the God who was portrayed in its pages seemed rather uncultured and at times capricious – or at least to their eyes. And this practise continues to this day. I remember one of my Vicars in my early years pronouncing from the pulpit that at Theological college he and his fellow students had spent much time dismissing ever increasing parts of the Bible – until as he said they had reduced all that was of any worth to a few verses in St Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians – That, they had decided, was authentic Christian faith. And of course it must be said that there are many many more who have a negative view of the bible that is at best second hand. Their opinions are just those thye have absorbed from those around them – like the perpetual old saw about ‘The God of the Old Testament’, being a God you wouldn’t want to meet compared with the God of the New – who was all sweetness and light, revealed to us in Jesus – that fluffy bunny Jesus of my childhood Sunday school who always seemed to be wearing a white dress and surrounded by woodland creatures – or perhaps I’m getting him mixed up with a Disney movie. It was a long time ago :). As an Jewish rabbi once said – exasperated by his liberal Christian friends – the person who talks more about hellfire than anyone else in the Bible is actually Jesus himself. And so of course there have also been those, highly influential in many circles today, who want even to rewrite the Biblical picture of Christ. Separating out the Jesus of the Bible from the sort of Jesus we wanted – a pietistic Jesus. If you were a spiritual person you could avoid all the talk about sending the goats who didn’t feed the hungry to hell, or everlasting damnation as the Greek puts it – and if you were a nice liberal person you could ignore all the stuff about the need for repentance and being born again and taking up your cross . . . in other words you made up a Jesus to suit you. Rather like Narcissus looking into the water, all too often we looked into the BIble and saw our own reflection staring back at us. The Jesus who thinks like I do. The rather simplistic question ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ being rather simply answered – he’d do what my best self would do. In other words we are the centre of it all. We come to the bible with our views – our questions. We judge it according to the former and find it fails us with the latter.

But, as I have suggested, that attitude came about in many regards because the BIble was mass printed and therefore became an object of study for all, ‘you in your small corner and I in mine’ as the old children’s song goes. And Reading it and Alone is precisely not how we should come to the Scriptures. For they were written not primarily to us as individuals but as a people, and not to be read in our heads, but Heard.

For for most of human history the BIble was not read at all. The JEwsih Scriptures were kept on huge scrolls in the synagogue and the early Christian Scriptures followed in suit although they did herald the beginning of what we would call a book. They were the possession of the community – say the Church in Collossae to whom St PAul wrote, and they were copied for wider distribution, but to own books was to show yourself wealthy. As one Father of the church rebuked another – you have taken the bread from the mouths of many poor ‘for he saw he had many books’ – and Hearing is a different thing to reading. FOr a start to hear is something that happens in that dimension of time we call Kairos. It happens – i was sat in church and I heard . . . Much like St Augustine in the story of his conversion heard the word of Scripture being recited by children in a garden. Yes the words they spoke were ‘Take it and Read’, But augustine’s approach did not come anywhere near study at the outset – rather hearing those words he opened a Bible to where it fell open and read the first words presented there ROmans 13:13-14 let us live honourably as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. Well Given that Augustine had been making more than amplpe provision for the flesh – these words woke him up! He heard and obeyed. Indeed that is the sense in which Scripture is given, that we hear and respond. Again St Anthony of Egypt – who heard one day the words ‘Sell your possessions and give to the poor and you wil have treasure in heaven and follow me” – Well St Anthony did just that and unbeknownst to him was a starting point for the preservation of the faith through the Dark Ages, his actions leading in time to the founding of the monastic movement – which amongst other things was responsible for keeping the Bible as a public possession.

All of them revealing that the Word of God was meant to be heard – as Creation responded to the Voice of God – so we too the Creatures were created to respond to God speaking to us through the scriptures – to hear and to obey. The Word is Given that we might respond, and the word Obedience means ‘to have Heard’. Jesus in his teaching makes this very plain – the one who builds his house on the rock is the one who hears these words of mine and acts on them’. Now imagine how different it is if on the one hand we hear the Scripture say but once a week as we gather for worship – that is an Instant, a moment – what do we do? Well me may of course forget, but then we may not, we may respond. What the word does not allow is that we will go away and think ‘Shall I respond to this word or not?’ for that is to be as it were Master of the Word.

So like King Josiah – the young King – he is in the midst of a great Temple rebuilding project when if you like the Bible is found – quite possibly the book of Deuteronomy The high priest Hilkiah said to Shaphan the secretary, ‘I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.’ When Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, he read it. Then Shaphan the secretary came to the king, and reported to the king, ‘Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of the workers who have oversight of the house of the Lord.’ Shaphan the secretary informed the king, ‘The priest Hilkiah has given me a book.’ Shaphan then read it aloud to the king.
When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. Then the king commanded the priest Hilkiah, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Achbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary, and the king’s servant Asaiah, saying, ‘Go, inquire of the Lord for me, for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found; for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our ancestors did not obey the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us.’ In the Instant the rebuilding of the Temple grinds to a halt – God has spoken – The Word has gone forth. Josiah realises that he must respond.
It seems to me that in this age when so many have bibles and supposedly read them, the Response that the Word calls for is far more muted than in times past when people were like the young King Josiah cut to the heart by the Word. It is worth asking, when did we last change our ways because of what we read in the Scriptures or heard in church?
But that last point – in church brings me to the second way in which ‘having our own BIbles’ distorts how the word is received. The printing press in putting the bibles into everyones hands also led in no small part to the individualism of our age, where every person became there own authority. It is no small surprise that Protestantism is so phenomenally fractured as each person comes up with their own interpretation and so creates their own Church – ultimately the church of the alone, the church of the one.
When St Paul counsels the Colossians ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly’ he is asking us to ponder the word – chew it  – inwardly digest it as the collect has it – but together. Perhaps the Greatest and most significant loss in translating the bIble into English, and this is a modern problem for older forms of English did not suffer this lack, is that in the Scriptures, the word You, is almost always Plural, throughout the Scriptures. That we are addressed Primarily as the People of God through the Scriptures – so it is much better to render ‘Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly’ as ‘Let it dwell among you richly’ as is clear from the whole context – teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. The Word is given to the Church – The Word of God Written Gathers and indeed constitutes the Church – we are a people shaped and formed by this Amazing narrative. It shapes our liturgy and it is given to shape our common life together as do these words of St Paul  As God’s chosen ones, As his people holy and beloved, Declared Holy by his Word – not by our actions – it is all gift clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. There is no harmony singing alone – All of it about our Common life – what is the command to Love if it is not to do with our Common life – but how frequently in our self centered age it has all become about loving ourselves And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. HEaring the Word of God together – we become the Peaceful community. The Peace of Christ is not some existential feeling – rather it is the product of his word going forth into the hearts and minds of his people, who are called to the mutual forebearance, foregiveness and Love that creates the Peace of Christ.
We are to Hear the words of the Bible and that together. Perhaps there is no more significant way in which we can grow and develop in our common life as the people of God  than by together hearing the Word and responding to it, as His people have done all through the ages

Amen

Sermon for Sunday July 8th, 4th After Trinity

Sermon (LINK TO AUDIO)

2 Samuel 5:1-10
Psalm 48
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Mark 6:1-13

‘Truly I tell you, unless you are converted and become like little children,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Whoever becomes humble like a little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’

Just this last week I attended a symposium on Mental Health and theology at the University where amongst others, our own Jo and Jubilee were presenting papers. One of the wonderful things about it was spending time with folk who whilst not parading their struggles with depression and the like, did not hide them either. This admission of weakness quickly opened the door in conversation, and with complete strangers we were rapidly talking about deep issues of life and faith, rather than the usual topics with strangers – ‘the weather, where are you from and, what do you think of the new rugby stadium :)’ There was a tremendous and unusual openness – not sharing our difficulties in a sort of shared therapy session, but actually a deeper sharing of life made possible by the acknowledgement of weakness.

One of the gifts of the day was to listen to Mike Noonan – Mike is a member of the L’Arche movement, established by the Catholic Priest Jean Vanier. L’Arche communities are communities of the mentally and physically able, and the mentally and physically impaired. Of course those who are ‘able’ for want of a better word, serve the needs of those who are not – but the Essence of L’Arche is that this is a true community, where all are understood to be gift to the other – all have contributions to make and indeed that it is often those who on the surface look most to have their lives together who have most to learn from those whose disabilities may mean that they can do nothing for themselves. That those who are utterly dependent actually profoundly serve those who are utterly competent. To follow on a little from last weeks theme, those who seem to have it all, have nothing and those who seem to have nothing, have it all.

Well Mike didn’t give a paper – rather he told stories and one stuck particularly in my mind, a tale about the gift of weakness and how that invited others into a new understanding of life. A group of folk from L’Arche were going to Israel on pilgrimage. Whilst they had been airborne there had been a major security alert and so when the plane put down on the tarmac of Tel Aviv Airport, the passengers were ‘Welcomed’ by the sight of massed ranks of the Israeli army, wielding rifles, pointed towards them. One of their number, Graham, was severely learning impaired. As he walked off the steps from the plane, Graham, to the consternation of the community rushed towards all these guns trained on him – pushed them aside and began vigorously shaking the hands of the soldiers. For Graham looked at the world through the eyes of a child – he didn’t see that he was faced with hostility and fear – all he saw was a group of people who had obviously come to welcome him to Israel and he was happily expressing his joy at their welcome.

I wonder what the Israeli soldiers would have made of it, how they would have felt. Whether any were changed by the encounter with the childlike Graham and perhaps put down their rifles and their fear for good. Of course they like us are very well trained in fear and defense, unlike the one who is like a child. Indeed we are very fearful of such vulnerability. Childlike vulnerability scares us.  I remember not long after I’d had a period of being ill, meeting a very fearful individual, someone who was well known for using her strength and ability, to mask her own fears. She said of my time of disability ‘Ah Well – I guess that which doesn’t break you, makes you stronger’ – I bit my tongue, but actually what I wanted to say in response was – ‘Actually I’m beginning to understand that it is that which makes us stronger, that kills us in the end’

That human pathology, that is afraid of weakness, is what makes Jesus’ saying about becoming like a little child so terrifying to us. And Yet, Life being born again – another way of becoming like a Child. Graham, who was in many people’s terms a child in the body of a an adult, could see the Kingdom in a way most of us couldn’t being faced with a gun. He had no sense of shame or embarrassment – He was Perfectly himself – others may have been embarrassed by his action, but not him  – and in that moment, faced with unembarrassed humility, those who watched on and the Israeli soldiers were challenged to lay down their defenses – challenged out of weakness. And i many ways that is the ky challenge of the gospel to us who are Strong, Rich, Healthy – that it is in our weakness that the power of God is revealed. Graham in his action revealed a way of being in the world that unmasked its reality and challenged all those who looked on. Yet we are afraid of such vulnerability, of nakedness, of weakness – and our response is often one of embarrassment.

Which often extends to  the way we express our faith – I have spoken of our pathological need to mimic the world in terms of whom we appoint to positions of leadership, how it makes us feel safe to have those who are proven track leaders in the wider world, who have a line of glittering academic achievements behind them. One of the great challenges of the appointment of Bishop Justin to some is that his way of being in the world does not fit with what we have been led to expect – and indeed there are a good number who are privately fearful of the possibility that he will lead his flock into similar situations of vulnerability that he himself has walked this past 20 years.

All too often our embarrassment proves too much for us and we cover up – take for example in our reading from 2nd Samuel this morning. You will not be aware but the lectionary had taken a pair of scissors to the text of the story of David taking Jerusalem from the Jebusites – the text that someone was too embarrassed to allow us to hear was this  “The king and his men marched to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, “You will not come in here, even the blind and the lame will turn you back” —thinking, “David cannot come in here.” 7Nevertheless David took the stronghold of Zion, which is now the city of David. 8David had said on that day, “Whoever would strike down the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind, those whom David hates.” Therefore it is said, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.” As has been pointed out by many detractors from the faith there are many stories and words in the scripture which you wouldn’t want your elderly spinster aunt to hear, lest she be overcome by a fit of the vapours. The Bible, our ‘Sacred text’, the Word of God – is full of Murder, Rape, theft and politically unacceptable attacks on the lame and the blind (actually I typed blond here – and I’m sure you’d find something against blond people too if you were looking for it 🙂 ). For some reason or other these verses have been taken out of the text you heard. Now I think that this is just Wrong. For it assumes a) most Christians are biblically illiterate and won’t notice – b) that we have a right to change the story to fit our own petty morals and c) that our faith is actually NOT about the real world at all, that our faith is to do with a world where such things do not happen. We want a Nice and a Respectable faith – not one associated with embarrassing texts

One name particularly associated with this whole movement towards intellectual unembarrassment was the German theologian Frederick Shleiermacher. He grew up in an atmosphere of religious skepticism, and desired to express a faith in terms that were acceptable to what he called the ‘cultured despisers’. We may ourselves think this reasonable, but we ought to take more careful note of what was going on – for actually Schleiermacher’s project was in essence to create a faith which He himself could accept, having as a young man rejected orthodox Christian beliefs. His ‘cultured despisers’ were in fact a projection of his own inner rejection of faith.

In regard to all this fleeing from weakness and embarrassment, the Apostle Paul is a stinging rebuke. His entire agenda with the church in Corinth seems to be heading towards the passage we read from earlier, where he says “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” Paul’s consistent theme throughout the letters to Corinth is that humanly speaking he could boast in many many things – as many have noted for example, his letters often display a man of Exceptional intellect – here in our passage he alludes to the fact that he could allude to Spiritual experiences I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. 3And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— 4was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. Generally it is accepted that Paul is probably talking about himself, but he puts this into the third person – I am not going to boast about that – what will I boast about? So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, I will boast of that which the world in all its sophistication, and remember that cultured despisers of the gospel have Always been around – ‘I will boast of my weakness – so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.’ Unless you become like a little child . . .

Paul rejoices in the vulnerability of faith in Christ Crucified and refuses to know anything else except this disturbing image of a dead naked Jew, nailed to a Roman Cross as being the entire meaning of human Life and existence – so that Nothing gets in the way of his proclamation of Christ – as he says right at the beginning of his first letter to Corinth, trying to cajole them into fuller faith  Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: Remember who you were – not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are,  In the way Graham reduced to nothing the fear and histility of those Israeli soldiers. Remember your weakness – not many powerful, not many wise, not many of noble birth – by and large nothing, like the child, but CHOSEN. Why is Christian faith So counter cultural? Because we do not choose it – we are chosen – as we are, in foolishness and weakness, to reveal the life of Christ – for our faith is not about us – it is about Christ – he is the heart of our faith, and his life is its outworking – it is not about us – and Paul challenges us ‘Is Christ enough?’ – Or must we dress our faith up – seek to make it intellectually respectable – cover up the unmentionable parts, and in so doing obscure Christ, who comes to us in unmentionable childlike vulnerability.

But Simple faith and trust in him is actually not the easiest thing – it is not the refuge of the lazy or the thoughtless as some might make out – it requires us to be like children and That , for those of us who have spent years building our careful defences against vulnerability and weakness, is the hardest thing of all – because it leaves us as exposed as he was.

I don’t know if you noticed, but the gospel contains some very scary words – Jesus has returned to Nazareth and there he is confronted by the village community who look at him and say “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! 3Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” Just like Paul and the Corinthians, they had heard his reputation, but in the flesh?? This is just Mary and Joseph’s lad – who does he think he is – he has got above himself!! The people of Nazareth more than anyone knew the Human reality of Christ – perhaps apart from on the cross, he was never more vulnerable than before them – and then those Very Scary words “He could do no deed of Power because of their unbelief” Jesus, helpless. Jesus himself – the little child – Jesus, vulnerable – Jesus Himself – naked and unembarrassed – nothing in the eyes of those who knew him.

This is essence of lived faith and the meaning of the way of the Cross – that it is all about God, that no-one may boast – that Faith is Not a magic bullet – and that that is made clear as Jesus is with his own – He could do no deed of power. The way of weakness is not a formula for a successful life, but it is how the life of Christ is revealed amongst us. The Life of Christ For it is not about us – not about our lives – not about our achievements, not about our wisdom or strength – it is about Christ – and the power of Christ cannot rest in or on us – unless we let go of our own

Our faith really Is ‘All about God’ – we have no business trying to put anything in the way of his power, but in the face of human unbelief we understand the double side of what it means to be a child. We are invited to be like Graham – to a disarming vulnerability  and openness, but with no guarantee the world will lay down its weapons. Graham’s story could have worked out Very differently. ‘If anyone would be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me’

It is pretty much universally acknowledged, that it was Christendom which first created and then cemented into place a two tier expression of Christian life. There were those Christians who had ‘a vocation’ and those who didn’t.

This separation appears to have had its roots in the flight, out of the world and into the desert following the Constantinian settlement. Alert souls became aware that as Christian faith was normalised, all of life seemed to be ‘baptised’ and that this had a profoundly negative impact upon faithful Christian living. They thus had to leave the city, a world where to be Christian was synonymous with being a good citizen, and go out into the desert. Over the years, this separation became institutionalised in the Monasteries, which led in part to our contemporary understandings of ‘Clergy’ and ‘Laity’. Those who are called ‘into the church’ and those who are not. Such a view of Vocation also changed our understanding of Baptism.

Having baptised the world, Our Baptism became of little significance. It was reduced to ‘a public demonstration of faith’, or a family ritual. The end product was the same. Baptism no longer required a renunciation of the world – there was no need to leave anything behind. Thus 1700 years later, many contemporary candidates for Baptism, if they dream of going on to university and business career, with wonderful holidays and a rich family life thrown in for good measure, never imagine that Baptism might in any sense affect the story they hope to write for their life. And often, an emaciated theology does nothing to disrupt their fond imaginings, or indeed wake them from their slumbers once the Sacrament has been applied. We may well be in a post Christendom world, but our theology of Baptism is still mired in the Christendom way of thinking. Cheap Grace, Dietrich Bonhoeffer called it

Like couples who live together before getting married, the Before and the After of baptism, like the Before and the After of ‘The Big Day’, was and remains, demonstrably the same in most cases. In this respect we are completely blind-sided by arguments over ‘believer’s baptism’ vs ‘infant baptism’. There is little in the praxis or teaching of the church of whatever denomination, to suggest that Baptism requires to change the way we live out most of our lives, apart from a few moral injunctions. Having tacitly agreed this, we carefully arrange our theology to suit.

[Perhaps another time I may write a little more about how Theology is taken captive by our desire to ignore the command to follow Christ]

As a result of this we have those in the church who give up careers etc to ‘go into the church’, and those who don’t. That in itself is bad enough, but we then further compound the error by a way of thinking about the church that re-inforces the sense that this is the way it is to be. The role of the minister is to look after the flock by tending to various trials and traumas and teaching timeless spiritual truths to edify the soul, not to call everyone else similarly to leave the lives they have so carefully arranged for themselves and likewise follow Christ. In this, those of us who are ordained often conspire with the rest of the church in not rocking the Christendom boat . . . I mean “we can’t all leave our nets behind, can we!”

Yet Hearing the gospels, try as we might, we cannot avoid the radical nature of the call of Christ. To leave nets, to leave everything to follow Him – trusting that our Father in heaven will in truth provide all we need – “homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields, and with them, persecutions” (In other words physically and socially, not ‘spiritually’) . We cannot fail to note the radical discontinuity between the life of the disciple of Jesus of Galilee and its contemporary expression. We have developed a ‘spiritual’ gospel which requires nothing of us at all – which takes the ‘following Christ’ out of the ‘believing in Christ’. And where the church is wealthy this can  still be readily played out as if it was the honest truth and blessed by God, but where it is not, or where the money is fast running out, it is revealed for what it is, a Lie. And we all know where Lies come from.

BUT . . . WE CAN’T ALL LEAVE OUR NETS BEHIND! . . . can we . . . ? ? ?

Can we?

Seek first God’s kingdom, and all these things will be given you

Of course, Christendom is dead – even if many churches still only acknowledge this purely in theory and not yet in practise. Yet where the Christendom church has all but ‘croaked’ there are, here and there, signs springing up that the Life that is to be found in following Christ and trusting our Father to provide for our material needs. Interestingly and indeed encouragingly here in the Anglican Church in New Zealand, it is Bishops, the Apostles amongst us, called to embody the life and the mission of the church, who are making the headlines

First there were of course the Earthquakes in Christchurch, which apart from the desperate tragedy of so many deaths and the way in which lives have been scarred emotionally and permanently, has brought down the Cathedral of that city. Although demolition orders are now passed, still there are those who want this solid sign of God’s presence to be rebuilt. After all the city is Christ Church . . . but the church under the leadership of its Bishop, Victoria Matthews sees that God in the midst of this upheaval is about something new. As the old order is passing away . . .

Secondly in my own diocese, the effect of the Christchurch earthquake has been felt in terms of the financial cost of significant rises in insurance for church buildings, which may well be the final blow for some congregations, and on top of that the requirement for earthquake strengthening which may prove too much to bear for others . . . and we are few . . . Yet again in these events our Bishop, Kelvin Wright hears God speaking to his people, calling them to a deeper commitment to Christ as many of the last vestiges of Christendom are being swept away, all but overnight

The third Bishop, is only just this moment in post – the newest bishop in the world 🙂 – the new bishop of Wellington Diocese, The Right Reverend Justin Duckworth. Justin is not your typical episcopal candidate, and for those of you who are curious, I’ll leave you to use the mighty power of Google to find out more :). However one way in which Justin is untypical not only of many Bishops, but indeed of most Christians is the way in which he and his wife Jenny have for the last 20 years lived in a radical dependence upon God our father to provide. At the heart of their story which you can read about in their book, was a determination to follow the call of Christ. This led them to live and work amongst the urban poor and indeed more. They set aside their dreams, they set aside the typical life which anyone of their background would expect to be held by and largely be able to live out, of stable careers and trips overseas and more and trusted in Christ to lead them where he would and His Father to provide.

What they found was that their needs were taken care of. Not through lots of fat cheques falling through their letter box from those ‘working in the real world to support those called to mission’, (although I am sure there were a few of these), but by putting their work with young people and those in difficult circumstances first. Only then did they work out how best they could earn a penny or two around the fringes of this work. They put Christ at the heart of their lives and the work they needed to do to provide their basic needs was relegated to their spare time. In other words they turned inside out the way Christendom has taught us to live, which is first to look after your own needs, and then to do what you can to further the kingdom in your spare time. [Of course we have further diluted the call of Christ by a convenient theology which allows that Everything we do is part of God’s work in the world, but as I said, we like to shape theology to our lives rather than have to conform our lives to a new reality] They left their nets and found that as they concentrated on what Christ had called them to, God provided opportunities for work that fitted around their calling.

This seems to me to be a Very Clear Example of what Christ meant when he called us to ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you’. Such lives are rare, yet as I read the gospels I cannot help but think that they are The Normal Christian Life. It is only Christendom that has taught us otherwise – and by and large we have preferred the theology of Christendom to that of the Kingdom.

I hope you’ll join with me in praying for Justin today, and also Kelvin and Victoria, but also for ourselves, for Grace to follow Christ, putting down our nets, laying aside our own stories (many of which are amusingly and sympathetically parodied here 🙂 ), for the adventurous life of faith in Christ, to the greater glory of God our Father who will supply all our needs according to His riches in Glory.

(And there is more to that quote than meets the eye . . .)