St. James the apostle

 

Sunday 25^th July – James the Apostle.

Jeremiah 45: 1-5. Jeremiah prophesies disaster for the Jewish people because of their inability to represent God’s love and justice in the land. That raises an interesting point of whether God actively “breaks down and plucks up” or simply withdraws his protection of the Jewish people from the attentions of powerful and malign nations. The Hebrew scriptures strongly suggest the former. The Christian revelation says that while God is involved at every level of pain, suffering and disaster, free will dictates that there are lines and constraints that cannot be transgressed in this life, even for God.  

Acts 11:27 – 12:2. This reading mentions the murder of James almost in passing by King Herod who must have been feeling very threatened by this new movement that followed another “King of the Jews”. A famine is also predicted and as I have said before, while we have no control over what happens to us we have choices over how we react. The churches subsequently and effectively rallied around to support the impoverished churches in the Holy Land where the church was born.

Mark 6: 14-28. We’ll never know whether this was the sole action of a proud and pushy mother or whether James and John put her up to it. Jesus’ reaction to the brothers suggest the latter and anyway it provides a wonderful introduction for Jesus to express the nature of true Christian ministry which is one of service and not lording it over the church. “Servant leadership” as it is known in the church is however a difficult balancing act to achieve convincingly.

 

To be honest the most enduring visible legacy to St. James in Europe is undoubtedly the Way of St James across Northern Spain to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela which traditionally houses his remains.  Known as the Camino, this is on our bucket list for when we retire

Of course, Santiago simply means St. James in Spanish and I remember visiting the cathedral under acres of scaffolding and the iconic incense burner (Thurible) was out of commission.

How his remains got to Spain from the Holy Land after James was put to death by the sword is another matter but sometimes, I think it is better to give in to romance and mystery.

But, for modern Christianity it is in that little exchange between Jesus and James and John’s mother that introduces a quite profound insight into how Christian leaders are required to relate to their flock that is the most important thing.

On their behalf their mother is asking for a seat at the high table, security and position, and from that place can then Lord it over all the other disciples which understandably upset everyone.

I would summarise the reply that Jesus gave as saying that the first quality needed in leadership in the church is humility and collegiality. Listening to others with respect, acknowledging that they may have something vital to contribute to the discussion and that all of us are never too old to learn.

A “first amongst equals” if you will.

That may still lead to respectful disagreement, but you must be able to listen all the same.

Advancement and the pursuit of prestige and power for its own sake are not hallmarks of Christian ministry.

You work for the good of your community, the best you can, with the gifts that God has given you, and hope that people trust and follow you, if for no other reason, because they realise that you are not in this for yourself or for money.    

This also accounts for the way that Kings in the Hebrew scriptures are also routinely referred to as shepherds.

Shepherds are necessary and there to guide and protect their flock, so while they occupy that position in society the role is softened, with the message that the king is there for your collective benefit.

How this is worked out in the three biggest apostolic churches of the world, Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican is interesting.

The Anglican model of synods with separate houses of clergy and laity and , all starting with the PCC as the first rung on that ladder in its modern form has both strengths and weaknesses, but the prime mover for that system is trying to balance the need for leadership with the need to show that we are humbly going forward together, listening to each other, noting our differences with respect.

As our joint PCC’s start again after a difficult year in September lets be mindful that we are one community – a community of equals – with designated and assigned roles within that community of equals and to keep the show on the road we need lashings of grace and patience with others that we may disagree with, always mindful that we are only here at all because we are members of one family – the universal church – the one Holy, catholic and apostolic church and in the eyes of Christ we are all viewed equally, loved passionately, and no matter who you are, if you were the last person alive on earth, Jesus Christ would and did lay down his life for you.   

God's plumb line

 

Sunday 11^th July – 6^th after Trinity – Proper 10

Amos 7: 7-15. The plumb line means that God is going to establish a standard of behaviour and will no longer be indifferent to how people live. We don’t know if Amos directly prophesied Jeroboam’s violent death but according to 2 Kings 14:29 Jeroboam died a peaceful death after ruling Israel for 41 years. We do know however that the Northern Kingdom of Israel was laid waste by the Assyrians in 721 BC which would accord with his prophesy against Israel.

Ephesians 1: 3-14. “Blessing” in Greek is both an act of praise or thanksgiving or an act of bestowing a gift on another, so God is to be blessed for God’s blessings. The gifts bestowed are redemption, forgiveness, wisdom and faith and the only appropriate response to that is one of giving thanks and praise. This should prompt us to recall that the chief end of human life according to the Westminster confession (1646) is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Mark 6: 14-29. This longest piece in the gospels not directly about Jesus is drawing a parallel between the deaths of both men at the hand of weak vacillating leaders who left to their own devices would have spared them but under the influence of other circumstances order their executions. Speaking truth to power has always been a dangerous thing to do and having friends in high places (Herod respects John) never guarantees your safety.

 

Honesty and integrity and treating your fellow men and women with justice and as equally loved by God have always been highly prized human attributes and especially within the house of Israel (at least to each other) these are the foundation stones of what honouring and praising God looks like in practice.

 

It is a commonplace in the Bible that a love of God and a pure religious cult must go hand in hand with a just society purely because it was revealed early on that this is what God wants and prizes.

 

But it was a fact that no matter how correct the religious worship was and how strictly the sacrifices to God were conducted, Israeli society at the level of both the societal and the personal level had become corrupt.

 

Injustice, cheating, lying and exploitation had become commonplace and the message given to Amos the prophet was that God was not going to tolerate it any more from what was after all his chosen people.

 

A plumbline is a piece of string with a weight on one end and was used to measure how straight walls were – and the plumbline God was dropping into Israelite society was the law, or Torah.

Measure up to that or face the consequences was the basic message revealed to Amos, because actions have consequences.

 

The actions of powerful men and women like Herodius, Herod and Pilate have far reaching life-ending consequences for which they should have been held to account in this life but will have to account for before God.

 

And that is the same for all of us on a personal level of private morality, and the more power you wield, the higher up you are in the pecking order, the more your decisions and morality impinge on ever more people so your honesty and integrity become even more important.

 

What we do know is that the Northern kingdom of Israel was wiped off the face of the earth by the Assyrians in around 722 BC.

 

Were the Assyrians an unknowing instrument of God. That is unknowable but the Southern kingdom of Judah must have looked at what happened to their brothers and sisters to the North and shuddered.

 

Did it make them think about their own actions and morality? Probably, in the short term but humans are flawed beings, prone always seek the easiest most expedient way so even if it did produce a sudden burst of moral probity I dare say it wouldn’t have lasted very long – and historically of course we know it didn’t last.

 

Of course, when the time was right God dropped another plumbline into human society, his son Jesus Christ.

A definitive once for all standard against which all things can be measured and found wanting.

 

Jesus Christ is the eternal revelation of the truth about God and his moral rectitude and wisdom shines as an everlasting light to the world at large and for his followers like us a paragon of virtue to emulate and use as an example of how to live a godly life.

 

Jesus was immersed in God’s grace and lived out of that grace. That is the example he left us. Love God and love your neighbour as yourself.

 

Just like our Jewish antecedents we fall and fail often but in the light of the revelation in Christ we also know that if we repent (turn our lives around) there is forgiveness and mercy and eternal life.

This is why we praise God. His love, forgiveness and redemption are revealed to us in Christ. We are blessed in Christ and we praise God for that blessing.       

The example of St. Peter

 

Sunday 27^th June – Commemorates St. Peter

Ezekiel 3: 22-27. The resonance with St. Peter is I think the similarity to Peter being unable to speak up and denying even knowing Jesus when Jesus was arrested (as well as the incident from Acts 12 which is our second reading today) yet subsequently becoming a vocal and articulate preacher of God’s truth at Pentecost and other occasions enabled by God’s Spirit.   

Acts 12:1-11. A story of an angel helping Peter to escape Herod’s clutches. An angel is a messenger from God doing God’s bidding or delivering a message from God. Understood literally this would be a marvellous act of God, understood more metaphorically a message that God is on the side of Christ’s disciples against all that would try and hinder the spread of the gospel.

Matthew 16: 13-19. The famous incident when St. Peter accurately proclaimed the truth that Jesus was “the Christ” (anointed one or Messiah). Jesus knew that this truth was revealed to Peter directly via the Holy Spirit and told him so. Peter is known as the rock on which the church will be built though whether it is Peter personally or more generally “faith in Christ” that is the rock on which the church will be built can be argued either way.

 

Having St. Peter as your patron is quite a boon because he was “very human” had lots of flaws, got things wrong sometimes and could be difficult (coming into conflict with St. Paul at one time)famously denied Christ at one time but despite all of that came good in the end.

It was Peter that accurately proclaimed Jesus was the “Messiah” or Christ that Israel had been waiting for.

It was Peter who was the spokesman for the fledgling Christian community at Pentecost.

It was Peter who walked on the water, let his gaze slip, and started to sink, and had to be rescued by the strong arm of Jesus.

And perhaps it is this last example that chimes with me most when thinking about the Raleigh Mission Community and today St. Peter’s in particular, aswe are named in his honour.

All the while Peter keeps his eyes fixed firmly on Jesus he could walk on water.

But he was distracted and battered by a boisterous wind as the king James Bible puts it and he took his eyes of Jesus, became frightened and started to sink.

It was then that Peter cried out to Jesus to save him and Jesus stretched out his arm and helped him into the boat.

If we imagine ourselves as St. Peter who has been battered by a boisterous wind and may have had our faith knocked, to save ourselves we need to cry out to Jesus to save us and he will stretch out his arm to us to lead us to safety.

Seeking Jesus’ help is the only way to steady ourselves and our church when we have been rocked.

Look around you at the people sitting to your left and your right, in front of you and behind you.

We are Christ’s body on earth so pray for this church for our well-being and flourishing.

Keep the people around you on your heart as you come to receive Jesus in communion.

Pray to God to inspire and guide us by his Spirit through the choppy waters and reveal to us our direction.

We are a praying church. We pray to God spiritually and physically communicate with him as our central act of worship which are both ways of cementing our relationship with Him and just as importantly with each other.

It is together as a united church that we express the will of God.

United in Christ under the patronage and example of St. Peter we are able to present a united, happy and flourishing body of Christ to the world.

Pray for the ways means and ideas of how to successfully present Christ to our community and to be able to identify and meet its needs in ways that are particular to us.

God won’t ask us to do anything that is beyond us, but we must ask in Spirit and truth for direction to steer this boat in the direction or directions that God has identified in his wisdom.

As I have said before, this is not my church, neither is it your church, it is God’s church to do with and direct as he sees fit.

     

 

Calming the storm

 

Sunday June 20^th – Trinity 3 – Proper 7

Job 38: 1-11. Is there no point to the human quest for knowledge? The point of chapters 38 to 41 is to state that humans are not able to see things from God’s standpoint. We couldn’t make any sense of reality even if we could. The quest for knowledge and for answers to the most perplexing questions of human existence must never be discouraged but our intellects are tiny when measured against an infinite universe and God deals compassionately with humanity despite our inhumanity to each other.

2 Corinthians 6:1-13. We are working together with Christ to bring the salvation of the world wrought by God in Christ, so we are ministers of that good news. Our work is part and parcel of the saving revelation in Christ – co-workers in fact. Paul describes the ups and downs of that ministry – the truth of it in God’s eyes and the slanders that come our way. The power of the gospel is from God but its credibility owes much to its ministers.

Mark 4: 35-41. Jesus shares our predicament amidst the storms of life, but this parable tells us that Jesus can do something about them as well. That Jesus was sleeping presents us with a picture of someone at total peace, even in the face of a storm. The parable offers us not simply a strategy for coping but the promise of salvation.

 

 

It is a truth that we no control over what happens to us – good or bad – but we do have a choice over how we react to things.

The most powerful book I have ever read that makes that so apparent is a book by the psychologist and Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl. I’ll read from the very end of the book about how the prisoners behaved towards each other.

“In the concentration camps, in this living laboratory we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine and others like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself. Which one is actualised depends on decisions not on conditions.

Our generation is realistic for we have come to know man as he really is. Man is that being that invented the gas chambers at Auschwitz, but he is also that being that entered the gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s prayer or the Shema Israel on his lips."

That, for me is a 20^th century re-telling of the stilling of the storm. The storm of the gas chambers couldn’t ever have been envisioned by Jesus, but he fully understood mankind so he understood the potential for those and a million other storms in our lives.

He knew our need to see and know a greater reality, a greater love and acceptance, that could absorb and transcend such horror.

That is the message of the cross and resurrection. That horror was absorbed and turned to joy.

We can choose what to do in the face of the storms of life.

We can let them overwhelm us and we end up fearful and drowning, alone in a cold uncaring universe, victims of chance and circumstance or we can choose to have faith that there is someone there, who understands, a friend who loves us, who has felt what we are feeling, and can lift us out of the storm.

Someone who is at one with God and can ultimately lead us to safety. This is the power of the gospel.

Those of us who share this faith can choose to share that with others and by doing so we can be Christ to others.

It is within our gift to be that helping hand, the steadying support, the bringer of the comforting word, a protector.

We are in that case working in co-operation with Christ as his co-worker. Christian means I suppose a little Christ.

You do hear people saying, usually clerics like me, talking about doing God’s work but every Christian that is kind and shows concern, either material or spiritual for their fellow man and woman is doing God’s work.

Bringing in the kingdom in our own small, humble but very important way. Paul calls it being Christ’s body here on earth.

Amen.

 

Happy to be religious

 

Sunday 16^th May – Easter 7

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26. The idea behind choosing two candidates and then casting lots was to give the casting vote to God in who would lead the new community. Though we never hear of Matthias again, his role is probably symbolic – twelve reflecting the twelve tribes of Israel so stressing the continuity of the church with ancient Israel.

1John 5: 9-13. A simple message with enormous implications. “Life” is in Jesus.  God raised him to eternal life and believing this we inherit eternal life by believing in his “name”. Jesus Christ – Joshua Messiah - God is salvation, the anointed one.

John 17: 6-19. The prayer “that they may be one” is used by ecumenists to push for reunification of the churches but is surely a forlorn task in the world where there are thousands of different denominations. And we must remember that this cause would not have been in the mind of the person that wrote it. He had in mind spiritual union between believers and God. I suppose he would have taken for granted that ecclesial unity was a forgone conclusion and would inevitably flow from that prior union. But of course, it hasn’t and you might argue that this was inevitable because of human failings, but nevertheless the notion of spiritual union – gets much better traction in Eastern Christianity where it is the explicit goal of human life – union with God – also called theosis. 

  

A common position for people to take nowadays is to say they are “spiritual but not religious”

What this means in practice is that they are attracted to some concepts culled from such diverse beliefs as Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, new age, or perhaps Christianity in a pick and mix kind of way but don’t subscribe to any particular religious faith.

This handily doesn’t bind them to any particular ethical standards of behaviour or moral codes and they don’t need to involve themselves with any community. They have beliefs that make no demands on them at all while giving themselves an airy mystical glow.

But I am unashamedly religious.

The root of the word religion is mostly understood as meaning to “bind together” which I understand as meaning you have a unified world-view held together with common morals and values together with the need to relate to each other in all our intrinsic God-given differences.

So I have no qualms about describing myself as both religious and spiritual, because the two are two sides of the same coin.

I am indebted to the Bishop of Oxford John Pritchard who I knew years ago when he was the Archdeacon of Canterbury (incidentally , if you want someone to blame, it was John who encouraged me to seek ordination in the first place) who writes engagingly about how we live faithfully as Christians and our starting point is when we try and get our heads around being in union with God.

Because whatever we do in our everyday Christian life depends on that fundamental relationship with God which in Christianity is three persons, Father Son and Holy Spirit. They are as the Eastern church describes it as a divine eternal dance and when we come into that relationship with God we enter that dance.

Clumsily, and not knowing the tune or the steps at first, but as in any dancing you learn through practicing the steps over and over again.

It starts with being fascinated by God who we have learned to call Father. God cannot be smaller than infinity. God imagined the universe into being and sustains it by his thought. This is God beyond creation who nevertheless invites creation to join in the dance of Love for love’s sake. Our vision of God is enlarged by scientists, enriched by artists and deepened by theologians.

We then become friends of Jesus Christ, in the way described recently in John 15. We inherit that privilege of intimacy in ways described variously as being “in Christ” or “knowing Christ” or “receiving Christ” or Christ living in the believer

As present day believers in Christ John says that we are just as much like the keystone cops as the first disciple’s were, running around without much clue but if we keep an eye on what our best of friends was doing we may become a little less erratic.

That leaves the Holy Spirit. Pray daily that you will be full of the Holy Spirit so you can live in God’s world with God’s help. A punctured football can’t bounce, or if it has a slow leak – which we all do. But an inflated ball will bounce high and be fit for purpose.

We can’t live a Christian life in our own strength. We need to face God and draw on his limitless life.

We need to have our lives turned towards God as our consistent point of reference. Living as a Christian is this world we need to remind ourselves of the presence of God without being unduly pious. Just looking in the direction of God for just a moment before we make decisions puts things in perspective, reminds us who we are and who we serve and allows God’s Grace to work through us.

Having our lives turned towards God begats an attitude of life and disposition of the heart that turns our life around until it become just “who we are”.

 

A friend of God

 

Sunday 9^th May – Easter 6

Acts 10: 44-48. The very start of the Christian story charts the fact that Jews and gentiles were entirely equal in the new church, that God showed no partiality. This must have been so attractive for the “God-fearers”, gentiles who were attracted to Judaism but were hitherto always on the outside looking in. The building blocks of the new community of equals were being put in place.

1 John 5: 1-6. Whoever is born of God “conquers the world” in this passage. What does this mean? To me this means that the world, and everything in it is intimately connected to God, is not our enemy and we can commune with God through the stuff of ordinary life. “Water and the blood” are indicative of the baptism and crucifixion of Jesus, incorporation and identification with humanity followed by his sacrifice on behalf of humanity, mirrored in the church’s rites of Baptism and Eucharist.

John 15: 9-17. Friendship was given much greater importance in the ancient world that it seems to receives today. Being a friend of Jesus is a radical thing because friendship is based on having an equal relationship – not as a master and slave or teacher and pupil. Friends have no secrets from each other and shares everything he has with his friends even his privileged access to God.

 

Saying you are a friend of God or a friend of Jesus is a truly radical thing because as Jesus himself explains to his disciples, friendship is a relationship of equals. Not like a master and slave – that isn’t a relationship of equals – but friendship is a special thing that was previously bestowed on few people in the Bible. One of the most notable was of course Abraham.

I have been lucky enough to visit the tomb of Abraham in Hebron in the Holy Land and over it the building is both a mosque and a synagogue. The mosque is named after Abraham and is called the Haram El-Khalil – the mosque of the friend of God.

Think about the qualities of true friendship. A relationship of equals, not based on any notion of gain or exploitation. You enjoy their company just for who they actually are, not for what you can get from them. You don’t have to hide any secrets from them. They don’t mind sharing things with you. They want the very best for you and are not in competition so that they rejoice and celebrate with you when you do well and love greatly.

With that picture of true friendship, now read verses 13 to 15 again and imagine Jesus is saying them to you directly because Christianity really starts to transform a person when it becomes personal.

¹³ No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵ I do not call you servants^[a] any longer, because the servant^[b] does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.

What do we have to do to be recognised as a friend of God? Jesus makes that plain.

“Love one another as I have loved you”

Now as Nat King Cole once beautifully sung – “Love is a many splendored thing” it has so many facets and is rich and multi-layered.

Think of the lovely hymn to love Paul gives us in 1 Corinthians 13 and we need to look no further than John’s gospel itself to have it made plain that in plain terms – God is Love.

And yes, love can be expressed carnally as well as the Song of Songs makes clear but can’t be reduced to being just that.

Love is also service and self-sacrifice – not particularly sexy at all but absolutely necessary and meets us at the point of need.

Love is profligate, audacious, forgiving and gives us a status in God’s universe as a child of God.

And who doesn’t love their children? Happy is any parent whose children grow up to also become their friends.

This is the privileged position that anyone holds who tries to love as God loves us all.

Becoming a friend of God through his Son Jesus Christ we enter a divine dance with our creator. Keep close to God as we have heard in our gospel reading last week about the vine and the branches. Commune with God often, talk to each other often in private and corporate prayer so you keep that relationship open, and fruitful.

What you gain is a new kind of security, not based on what other people may think about you, but what the king of kings thinks about you.

You are loved, go and love likewise. 

 

I am the true Vine

 

Sunday 2^nd May – Easter 5

Acts 8:26-40. Luke had already stated (1 verse 8) that Jesus promised that the disciples would be witnesses to him in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and “the ends of the earth”. The Ethiopian eunuch is exotic enough to represent the ends of the earth to Luke’s readers. Here we also have Isaiah 53 quoted and applied to Jesus and the baptism and gift of the Spirit is affirmed.  The “Ethiopian” was on his way to Jerusalem to worship and was reading Isaiah so was he Jewish or at least a God-fearer? We’ll never know and the fact that he is a eunuch, so not acceptable to Jews in religious worship is made nothing of in this story which may be another sign of Christianity breaking through Jewish cultic barriers.

1John 4:7-21. This is a sublime and liberating doctrine equating God with love and provides a theological underpinning of Paul’s hymn to love in 1 Corinthians 13. There exists a gritty subtext of course that this love was not due to those who had split away from the main church this letter is addressed to. Those who had “gone out” from the community in chapter 2: 19. Notwithstanding this contextual point, it remains an inspiring piece of writing.

John 15: 1-8. Another of the “I am” sayings of Jesus in John’s gospel that emphasises our reliance on God and which simultaneously presents Jesus as the image of God. So far so good and comforting, but there is a sterner side to this parable. Vines grow slowly, typically taking three years to bear fruit and in the meantime careful tending and pruning were needed.  Jesus himself was subject to the same process he says so we are not above it. Happily, in Greek the word for pruning also means cleansing, so instead of being simply lopped off and thrown into the fire, that leaves open the path of cleansing by baptism and then repentance and ultimate forgiveness.

 

In John’s first letter we have a sublime piece of writing that equates God with Love. In the Acts reading we have someone wanting to be baptised into that Love.

And in the gospel reading we have a story about people growing in that love to better reflect God’s light and love.

So it is a story of being inspired by and attracted to God.

Then Demonstrating that we want to be incorporated into that love signified by Baptism.

And then instruction on how to live and grow in the faith into which we have been baptised.

I will assume that everyone is here of their own free will so you are attracted by God. I will also assume that almost everyone has been baptised, so the real lesson today is about how to grow in our faith.

In the “I am the true vine” saying we have that lovely conflation of Jesus as God incarnate so the words, while being the words of Jesus are actually also the words of the Father. This is made clear in John 17 when Jesus says that “I and the Father are one”.

We can stay close to the Father by staying close to the son. We drink from the well of the Spirit that proceeds from the Father that keeps us close to the Son.

We keep close through Private and public prayer, good works, engaging with the Spirit through study of scripture, and communing with God in the public act of Holy Communion.

Through those practices you are abiding in Christ and through those practices you will bear fruit.

I’ve said before that was a point of difference with my training vicar many years ago when he said to me that all you are asked to do by Christ is remain faithful. But I always maintained that keeping the faith wasn’t the desired end product. You are expected to bear fruit. That is the goal of the Christian life.

And in case we need a prompt, Paul kindly lists some fruit of the Spirit in Galatians and they are,

²² By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

These are how Jesus recognises his followers because as Jesus said “By their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:16) not by their appearance or their claims but by their fruit.

Admittedly that can also be a bit scary as well because so many of us are prone to introspection and are quite self-depreciating so we’ll often beat ourselves up by telling ourselves that I am not growing in love or joy or self-control or whatever but if we are asking the question of ourselves we are at least acknowledging the demands of Christ and their authority and if we can recognise where we are found wanting, we fall back on the repentance and forgiveness of God which is plentiful.

We worship and commune often with a great and good God who wills our salvation.

He will never give up on us so let’s not give up on ourselves.  Trust in God’s prior acceptance of you through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and stand on that firm rock. Then keep as close as possible through prayer and worship and good deeds and you will grow into the person you were created to be.

 

The name of Jesus

 

Sunday 25^th April – Easter 4

Acts 4:5-12. A man was healed by the “name” of Jesus and we are saved by his “name”. Names in the ancient world carried meaning and power so let us look at the name of Jesus. Jesus is the Greek rendition of Jesus’ actual name which was Joshua and Joshua means “God is salvation”. Although some Christians see this as a proof text proclaiming the uniqueness of Christ (effectively only Christians can be saved), this cannot overrule the universality of God’s healing love for the whole world, which He loves in all its pluriform diversity of religious practice and belief.

1 John 3: 16-24. Everything that flows from the name of Jesus, in terms of his life and teaching, which in shorthand we say is “love” is to be emulated by believers. In the East this is known as Deification and in the West as sanctification, both really meaning “growing into the likeness of Christ”.

John 10: 11-18. Building on the assertion that God is salvation Jesus invokes the “I am” mode of speech which in Judaism is the name of God. (See Exodus 3:14). God/Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep of his own accord. A perfect gift offered to God to cement an eternal relationship between God and humanity.

 

 I am going to talk about names. Because in the Acts reading a man was healed by the “name” of Jesus and in 1John we are to believe in the “name” of Jesus.

I know everyone here is well informed, but even intelligent and well-informed people can miss obvious things hidden in plain sight right in front of us.

The thing is of course that “Jesus” was not his actual name. This is a Greek rendition of his actual name which was “Joshua”.  

And Christ wasn’t his surname either. Christ isn’t a name – it is a title, again Greek, which translates the word Messiah which means the anointed one.

As Christ is a title that’s how you see Jesus Christ and Christ Jesus or Jesus the Christ in our Bibles.

Why this matters is because in the Acts reading we read that we are saved by the name of Jesus.

Saving and healing are the same word in this passage, and of course even in English the root of our word salvation is to salve, like a healing balm.

So what does Joshua mean? It means literally “God is salvation”

Through Jesus we have an access point to the healing will and purposes of God. And healing lies no-where else but with God.

Jesus is a conduit for the love of God to be revealed fully to the world and in John’s first letter we are instructed that our personal mission as followers of Christ is to grow more Christ-like in our lives, thinking and actions.

We don’t do this in a vacuum of course. We have Christ as the shepherd of his flock guiding us every step of the way so we don’t get lost or separated from the others.

Our compass is his life and actions of course, so we have to try and understand and then emulate those actions.

Understanding the principles that guided Jesus and building them into our lives is a life-long task and we all fail often. But even though we fail, we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again – I feel a song coming on……

How can we be sure that Jesus is the true template and guide for our lives though?

Well, primarily because God raised him from the dead which was God sending a very clear message that everything that Jesus claimed about himself was true and he was indeed the image of the invisible God.

In his gospel, John neatly conflates God and Jesus by putting the words into Jesus’ mouth “I am the good shepherd” and here I need to speak about names again.

“I am” is also the name of God revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14.

As Archbishop Michael Ramsey said many years ago. God is as Jesus is. You want to know what God is like? His character, purpose, message for the world – look into the heart of Jesus and there you’ll find it.

We know God is love because Jesus was love.

We know God loves mercy and forgiveness because Jesus loves mercy and forgiveness.

We know God’s character is one of humble self-giving sacrifice because that is what Jesus’ character is like.

Jesus leads us into the heart of God, and it is God’s will to heal and save us all. Understanding the name of Jesus leads us to know that God’s will is perfectly represented in and through his life. “God is salvation”.

 

The power of the resurrection

 

Sunday 18^th April – Easter 3

Acts 3: 12-19. In this speech given to the witnesses to the healing of a lame man, Peter attributes the healing to the name of Jesus whom he calls “the author of Life” and places Jesus firmly within the Jewish revelation. Jesus is the glorious servant of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is the author of life alone that has the power and authority to give, sustain and restore fullness of life.

1 John 3: 1-7. John here appears to contradict himself with purporting to uphold the sinlessness of believers when he had already said in chapter 1 verse 8. “Those who say they have no sin deceive themselves”. You could say that what we have is the reality of the situation clashing headlong with the aspiration that we are all automatically perfected. But then of course, Paul manages to meld those two contradictory thoughts together by saying that while we all sin, our righteousness is “reckoned to us” by God – declared righteous even when we are not as Paul says in Romans 4.

Luke 24:36-48. Luke is not interested in Paul’s assertions of “spiritual bodies” (1 Corinthians 15:4) and asserts in accordance with classic Jewish thought that the resurrection is very physical. Our whole created selves are raised in a very physical new earth. That juxtaposition only serves to deepen the mystery of the resurrection. The risen Jesus of course subsequently does vanish. Trust that the author of life cannot die, and in whatever form we are raised – we are risen indeed.

 

The resurrection. Human language struggles to describe it and human thought to grasp it.

It is not simply a physical event, as if Jesus came back to life to live until he died a natural death.

Nor is it a simply a spiritual or psychological event, as a ghost or simply alive in his disciple’s memories. It is of a completely new and different order of things

The effect of which is to really know that after death our loved ones are alive in some new order of being. For what happened to Jesus is what happens to us all.

Our own human experiences of death are no less strange or indescribable than that of Jesus’ disciples.

I remember after Alexandra, my first wife died, I was woken by the sound of Alex calling my name – I heard her distinctly - from the next room and I got up and answered the call.

Now Louise will doubtless tell you, as a doctor, that such occurrences are surprisingly commonplace, but that doesn’t diminish the power of the event. It is how that event touches you.

I remember also being fixated with the sight of a Heron on the river Tees that ran by the vicarage as being somehow representative of her and being set free. That too was quite a powerful experience. People who have lost loved ones will re-count their own stories of otherwise odd, seemingly silly events that they dare not tell many people in case they get laughed at. The power lies in the meaning you attach to these things – it is as if, the person, or God himself, is trying to contact you, to comfort you, conveying the message that the person is alive but unseen.

Another unexpected gift of the death of a loved one is a much greater compassion, a knowledge that you didn’t have before. You have touched something fundamental about the universe and out of that experience can come a kind of personal resurrection – a re-birth  of your own soul. True resurrection is not simply what happens when you die, it is the fundamental nature of life itself.

Of course I did many funerals before Alex died and I’m sure I was competent but afterwards there was a different quality to those encounters. I could really speak to people about death because I could speak out of personal knowledge and there is no substitute for that..     

The power of the resurrection is an energy, like wind blowing, or water running or light shining that can transform the consciousness of people.

It is the power of transforming love, lifting up, raising up, making things new and this power the disciples felt in the here and now. And we can too.

If someone asks, did the resurrection really happen on the third day?

We answer yes.

First the Spirit of God raised Jesus and communicated that fact to the disciples.

Then, the new reality dawns and a tremendous surge of spiritual transformative energy is released into the world and the Disciples were born again with the energy of Jesus flowing through them.

The truth of the resurrection is lived by believers transformed by the power of Christ’s victory over death.

There is nothing to be gained by arguing over how the gospels don’t agree with each other or Paul may contradict Luke or vice versa.

Something wonderful happened that was, as we see almost indescribable. Our loved ones are alive. We will meet again and until that time we live in the power of the resurrection now.

 

Learning from experience - bathed in prayer

 

Sunday 11^th April – 2^nd of Easter

Acts 4: 32-35. A highly idealised view of what the church may have looked like in the first few weeks after the resurrection but it obviously didn’t catch on and this form of community life is only practised, even half closely, in Monasteries and convents nowadays. Though note that if we take Luke literally the charity only extended to fellow Christians. A more modified generosity and  charitable frame of mind is now the norm based on the understanding that we are all made in the image of God.

1John 1:1 – 2:2. We live in a world far removed from the understanding that animal sacrifices atone for anything, but if we understand sacrifice as a free will self-offering to God as a gift (The original impetus) and understand that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:19 we shuffle closer to the full import of the cross for Christians which John concludes was for the “whole world”.

John 20: 19-31. There is no need to wear Lucan glasses and see this giving of the Spirit as some kind of prelude to Pentecost. For John this is an equivalent story and is reminiscent of God breathing the breath of life into Adam in Genesis. The episode with Thomas is to illustrate the nature of resurrection faith. Thomas says he will only believe when he can see and touch Jesus’ wounds but when given the chance to do so, he acknowledges Jesus as his “Lord and God” before actually doing so. Jesus then blesses all people who will do the same thing, believe without seeing.

 

One of the failings of the human mind is to be captured by an “all or nothing “ overly literal attitude to rules and regulations more suited to small extremist cults than a religion that aims to change hearts, minds and perceptions on the world-wide stage.

In the book of acts we have Luke’s account of a situation in the early church that could only have lasted a few weeks or months before proving completely unworkable.

I mean how would it feel if I said that in order to become a Christian, or member of this church you had to sell your house and give that and all your money and possessions to the PCC to do as they wished with it?

And if you refused and held back even a part of the money the penalty was death? That was what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in the next paragraph.

What we are seeing and reading here is the start of a process of working out  how high ideals translate when the rubber hits the road of real life.

The real take-home message from this passage is that honesty, both personal and financial is of paramount importance. The real sin of Ananias and Sapphira  was in attempting to lie and defraud the church.

Personal integrity – My word is my bond – is essential for any family including the church family to thrive.

Another notion you can take from this is that all my possessions are on loan to me – that fact that no material possessions are intrinsically or eternally mine should guide our thinking sitting alongside a natural generosity to those less fortunate than ourselves is guided by the knowledge that we are all children of God, but that differences in natural attributes, upbringing and education, and good old-fashioned good fortune, leads to natural and different outcomes for people.

You cannot legislate for equality of outcome, but you can try and legislate for equality of opportunity.

We are also minded to always be kind and generous to the poor whilst at the same time noting that Jesus said “The poor you will always have with you” in Matthew and Mark because poverty is relative. This to me is the guiding principle of the welfare system – to make sure there is always a safety net against destitution – completely in line with Christian principles.

On the wider spiritual canvas you will note that in John’s gospel Jesus breathes the spirit into them and that earlier in the same gospel (16:13) says that “the Spirit will guide you into all truth”.

That says to me that the truth is not presented fully formed but we are guided through the realities of life towards the truth of any situation.

Life experience moulds us but as Christians our life experience should be bathed in prayer that we learn from the right lessons from life.

In this respect all experience is beneficial to our spiritual growth. Good experience and bad experiences together. In fact we learn more from bad experiences than the good ones.

This is how we should relate to St. Paul saying that he rejoices in his sufferings – that is a profoundly Christian attitude to life – that all human experience can lead us further into the mystery of Christ.

And we really can say along with St. Paul in Romans “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.    

 

"And they were afraid" -The empty tomb in Mark's gospel

 

Sunday 4^th April – Easter Sunday

Acts 10: 34-43. Peter’s speech in the house of the centurion Cornelius is significant as it marks the expansion of the Christian message outwards from its Jewish roots to the wider world. All the elements of early Christian preaching are there. It is a message for the whole world (v34) though its roots are in Israel (v36), Jesus was raised on the third day and ate and drank with his chosen witnesses. There is a command to preach and that Jesus will judge the living and the dead, and we have forgiveness of sins.

1 Corinthians 15: 1-11. Paul’s account of the good news of the resurrection being relayed first to Peter, then the twelve (although presumably 11?) and then to 500 people (otherwise unknown accounts) and to James (this makes sense as he led the early church in Jerusalem) ends with Paul placing his own conversion experience on the same level as the other aforementioned “sightings”. This mixing of the physical and spiritual, and placing them on the same level emphasises the mysterious nature of the resurrection where categories break down and are unable to be investigated by historical methods but only by the dramatic effect it had on the witnesses.

Mark 16: 1-8. Enigmatic, sparse, lacking in any details of any resurrection “appearances” (verses 16-20 were added by an editor afterwards so disturbed were they by the lack), this for me just adds to the mysteriousness of the resurrection, so much is unknowable and defies description. My favourite explanation for the sudden end sentence “and they were afraid” is that the next chapter in the story has to be written in and through the lives of the people who believe and want to follow Jesus Christ. We are all the final chapter of Mark.

 

Mark’s gospel is the original and therefore oldest gospel, so naturally the early church wanted something much more concrete to help with their spreading the gospel so they helped Mark out by adding the five verses they thought the gospel lacked which had appearances of Jesus and words of instruction.

It was deemed too detrimental to the evangelistic cause to have a gospel that ended with the words “and they were afraid” so they decided to help Mark out and provide the ending he had obviously and bafflingly left out.

But Mark’s gospel was written well after the events they describe and Mark was a skilful and punchy writer. There must have been method in what he wrote.

Those words “And they were afraid”, could easily have been “and they were confused, befuddled, doubtful” which I’m sure they were as well.

Mark emphasises the mysteriousness of what they found, a situation that confounded all expectations and they were unable to compute the full extent of an empty tomb.

We have all the other resurrection accounts in the other gospels, and the result of the resurrection led to the other letters and writings in the new testament, a result which was extraordinary but in Mark we have a vital element of all this that we always need to bear in mind.

The resurrection defies historical investigation and accurate description. We can see that in that no two accounts agree on the details.

We can agree on is that the effect on the lives and the faith of people who encountered the resurrection was profound – earth shattering – and the good news of this revelation spread like wildfire. But it was not just the extent and speed of the spread it was its staying power.

2021 years later, the church still survives against all the odds, is still the most widespread faith on earth, and is still sustained by the life and death of Jesus but also and uniquely by what happened on that first Easter Sunday.

The ultimate and best proof of the resurrection is a changed life of a Christian believer.

The best explanation I have ever come across about the ending of Mark’s gospel is this. Yes, there is meant to be a next chapter of his gospel but that chapter is written not in words on a page but is lived in the changed lives of Christian believers.

Hundreds of millions of Christian lives, over many centuries, including ourselves, inspired by the Holy Spirit are the final chapter of Mark. It is a chapter that never ends.

The church is the ultimate proof of the resurrection. We go through good times and not so good times. Years of plenty and lean years, but on we go in the power of the Holy Spirit sent by the Father at the request of his son Jesus Christ, who lived, died, was raised and lives through us – his body on earth.

Easter Sunday is a time of Joy, rejoicing and gratitude for the revelation that we are loved by God and our lives do not merely exist between our births and our deaths but all life is lived against an infinite horizon in which all time and all life finds its eternal place in God – the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

Amen

Which procession are we in?

Sunday 28^th March – Palm Sunday  

Isaiah 50: 4-9a. A reading that has always been applied to the sufferings of Christ as part of the “servant songs” in Isaiah. It is very human and speaks of his face, cheeks, beard and face being abused. But the servant is content to know that God is on his side and he bids us “Let us stand up together”. Does he mean himself with God or does that invite us to solidarity with Christ in his suffering? I prefer to think it is the latter.

Philippians 2: 5-11. It is thought that this piece of Paul’s letter may be a pre-existing early Christian Hymn. Whatever the truth of that, this is the basis of much theologising about the “self-emptying” of God called the apophatic tradition or the way of negation where God cannot be described positively but only by saying what God is not!

Mark 11: 1-11. According to the aforementioned Marcus Borg, what we have here is a carefully planned counter demonstration to the other procession of Pontius Pilate that would have entered from the other side of the city. That theme of careful planning is supported by the fact that he then went to the Temple and looked around but it was late and few people were around. The “cleansing of the Temple” could wait until a time when there would be more of an impact the next day. The tone of Jesus’ triumphal entry is one of a man of peace, who would save people (Hosanna means “save us”) not by violence but by peaceful sacrificial means.

 

 What we have today is the best documented counterdemonstration in history – a counter demonstration that was carefully planned to have a massive impact on the Jewish people.

Jesus had pre-arranged the use of a colt, with a coded form of words to use it, and supporters were primed with branches and cloaks to welcome this charismatic preacher and miracle worker into the city.

I say counterdemonstration because it was supposed to contrast directly with the spectacle of Pontius Pilate arriving in Jerusalem up from the coast, where he lived at Caesarea Maritime.

His procession would have been a magnificent spectacle of armed men on horseback, with gleaming armour and swords and spears, arriving with great pomp and a show of strength to impress the local population and instil enough fear to deter any anti-Roman trouble in Jerusalem at the time of the Passover.

By deliberate contrast Jesus rode on the back of a Colt to indicate that he came in peace, and rather than instil fear he evoked love and hope.

Hosannah means something like “Save us!” and they look forward to the coming Kingdom, being ruled by God rather than a collaboration between the Roman Empire and local Jewish collaborators.  

Jesus wanted to make a splash and having entered Jerusalem, note that he went into the Temple. He didn’t disturb the money changers then, he just looked around saw what the situation was and went home because it was late, there would have been hardly any people there and the impact wouldn’t have been so great had he made a fuss then.

Jesus decided to delay making a scene until the Temple was packed the next day and no-one could fail to notice so the turning over of the tables in the Temple could wait for a more opportune moment.

Jesus knew exactly what he was doing and what impression he would leave on the pilgrims in Jerusalem. He wanted to leave nobody in any doubt as to his intentions and that he stood for peace, mutual love, freedom and respect, justice and mercy – in direct contrast to the Roman occupying force that ruled through force of arms.

The two processions into Jerusalem – Pilate’s and Jesus – revealed two different approaches to life – the way of love and the way of force, characterised in religious terms as the Kingdom of God versus the kingdoms of this world, represented in this instance by Rome.

Palm Sunday sets up the final week – which we now know as “Holy Week” when everything that Jesus stands for will be directly challenged by the Roman/Jewish authorities acting in tandem to preserve the status quo.

This final week will come to a head on Good Friday when finally the powers that be, will think they have got rid of Jesus for good and consigned him to the dustbin of history. Or that is what they thought.

The question for all of us is the same now as it was then. Which of the two processions are we in, Which one do we want to be in?

Amen  

 

Jesus our great high priest

 

Sunday 21^st March – The fifth Sunday of Lent

Jeremiah 31:31-34. Jeremiah looks forward to a new covenant (an agreement between God and his people) that is better than the agreement that the Israelites broke. This law would be written on our hearts and all would know God. But in the cold light of day have we really been any better at following the law of love than the Israelites were? This is more like a precious hope that all mankind will love what God commands and desire what he promises, a state of union only really ever fulfilled in Jesus Christ himself

Hebrews 5: 5-10. Any high priest has to be chosen and anointed, be able to empathise with human weakness and represent humanity before God and his role is to offer sacrifice. This is all based on the original model of priesthood of Aaron. The once for all nature of a more perfect priesthood is derived from the example of Melchizadek, who is superior because he blesses Abraham the progenitor of all God’s people. Because he is chosen and anointed by God, fully identified with those he represents through suffering, He is able to offer the one perfect sacrifice for the salvation of all.

John 12:20-33. The hour of confrontation with the world has come. Only those who are willing to give everything up can see eternal life. Unselfish sacrificial living isn’t about denying or destroying yourself, it is about discovering your true self – the part that looks like God and living out of that consciousness. I take this to mean that people closest to the divine in this life see the truth much more clearly than others. This passage ends with Jesus proclaiming that when he rises from the dead he will draw “all people” to himself.

 

 What do we mean when we say, as Hebrews says, that Jesus is our great High Priest?

The high priest in Jewish religion is the man chosen and appointed by God to make sacrifices to God on behalf of the all the people to atone for their sins and make us "one with God".

Of course, there were many high priests and they had to make repeated sacrifices but in Jesus Christ we have one eternal high priest who made one once for all sacrifice and of course that one sacrifice was of himself.

So after Jesus Christ there is no more need for the Temple or the high priest or a sacrificial cult any more. Jesus is both the high priest and the sacrificial offering all in one. But Hebrews adds another ingredient to the mix to supplement the picture taken from the Jerusalem Temple

And so, we again see our old friend Melchizadek, priest king of Salem, from Genesis 14, given as an example of the mysterious eternal nature of Christ.

Melchizadek steps out of the pages of Genesis and disappears again just as suddenly with no genealogy or back story. From this the Jews considered him eternal. He is the King of Salem which means “peace”. The king of peace appears from no-where bearing gifts of bread and wine and blesses Abram.  

Abram in return gives him a tithe of all that he had. This is the first mention of tithes in the Bible and tithing is what you give to God.

Put all this together and you can see why the early church made such a big deal of Melchizadek, even though he only appears for four verses in Genesis.

Jesus can represent all humanity because he is human and his humanity was made perfect through suffering and he fulfils this role eternally.

This is what is meant by the verse that says that Jesus is a high priest according to the order of Melchizadek.

When we come to what our great high priest says in John’s gospel about loving and hating our life we have to be so careful that this is read and understood in the whole context of scripture that life is God given and human lives are very good.

The essential spiritual difference between, as Jesus says using typical Semitic hyperbole, is between complete self-centredness “loving your life” – believing that you are the crown and focus of all creation and everything and everyone only exists for our personal benefit and “losing your life” which is a lack of this egocentric worldview and seeing the truth of life which has God as the unifying source and centre of life and we learn a proper humility in the face of this truth.

This can be hard work. Of course, there has to be a reasonable amount of self-interest and natural ego to live at all.

But at the same time we all recognise people when it goes too far and they become unbearable.

The Love principle leads us to see the divine spark in all things and that self-centredness and self-sufficiency have very narrow limits. Love always draws us outward to embrace things and people outside our need for them on a purely utilitarian basis.

As we all know, love, in Christ’s own estimation is to embrace even our enemies which has to be the hardest commandment to follow or even think possible to follow. But that is the direction of travel. We see all people as part of the whole, as collaborators and teachers, not just as competitors or opponents.  

This is how we are to live our lives in the Christian tradition. But what about people who don’t do any of that or can’t see the point or never heard it in the first place. Well, it is hugely important that Jesus also says that “in the end I will draw all people to myself”.  

All People. Whenever that happens, presumably after death then the lessons of love will have to learned quickly by everybody but to participate in the life of Christ now while we are very much alive, we are bound to start embodying it now.

The church is the vehicle for exploring and encouraging that journey and we are all on a different point on that journey towards the truth. But this is a marathon, not a sprint and we are all just by being here showing that we are all off the blocks and wanting to walk in the same direction.

I want to encourage anything that helps in that journey and once the restrictions are hopefully behind us I fully intend starting and encouraging  sustainable spiritual practices and prayer as a way of life for all of us to help us on that journey.