Children of God

Isaiah 61:10 – 62:3 (page 621 in our pew Bibles) An expression of pure joy in what God has done and the need to show the world. This piece exudes happiness and contentment in what God has done and hope in what he will do,

Galatians 4: 4-7 (Page 974 in our pew Bibles) Paul rarely mentions the birth of Jesus but here he does in order to emphasise that Jesus was born just like every other human and just like every other Jew born under the law and had therefore been circumcised.

Luke 2: 15-21 ( page 857 in our pew Bibles)The great revelation of Jesus’ identity was given to the ordinary working people of Israel – the shepherds and they reflect the joy that Isaiah describes.

If both Isaiah and the Lukan story want to convey the huge excitement that people felt over what was doing we turn to Paul in Galatians to get a handle on what it was that people were supposed to be getting excited about!

Jesus was born an ordinary Jew in very lowly circumstances which was heralded mainly by shepherds who were also socially of very low estate.

But he was being heralded because Jesus  had another identity and role as well. And in fulfilling that role, as redeemer, he would win something wonderful for all people.

In this first Sunday after the Christmas story was announced and celebrated we now discover what it meant for every one of us on a personal level.

First of all Jesus was born as one of us so that he could redeem all of us. It would have been no good if Jesus was just a demi-God who God raised from the dead – He had to be fully human to make clear that resurrection is the gift that all other human beings have in store for them as well. The message is clear;

God the Father raised a human being from the dead. This means that;

God the Father can raise you, a fellow human being, from the dead.

This is personal and intensely relational.

In this life we are all members of a biological family; we are Mothers or Fathers, sons or daughters, aunties and uncles, nephews and nieces. How well those families function is another matter but we are all as human beings members of a biological family.

The incredible message of Christianity is that we are all potentially members of another Family – a much bigger family.

We all become children of God when we believe that Jesus is the Son of the most high, and Jesus in his humanity is also our brother.

Jesus is our brother alongside all other Christians who become our brothers and sisters in this world-wide family.

When we believe God sends his Spirit into our hearts, the same Spirit that Jesus had in his heart and leads us to call God “our Father”.

We are no longer slaves to death or sin or any other human construction – we are alive in God. We know true freedom when we know God as our Father.

This is the one truly liberating message of the Christian faith that underpins everything else.

Identity is a truly hot topic in modern society. And in society our identities are based in things like class, gender and sexuality.

But Christianity beat society to the punch 2000 years ago. When we became Christians We assumed a new identity. I am a child of God.

I am clear about my identity that cuts through all of society’s transient efforts to classify me.

I am first and foremost a child of God. That is who I am and that is who we all are when we accept and believe.

Make his path straight.

Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-end (page 620 in our pew Bibles)The piece of scripture that Jesus read from in the synagogue and proclaimed "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" -Luke 4:21

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 (page 988 in our pew Bibles) Rejoice always! Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances. A template of the Christian demeanour towards life itself

John 1:6-8, 19-28 (page 886 in our pew Bibles) John prepares the way. He says he is not Elijah, but Jesus says differently!(Matthew 11:13-14)

Two men – cousins – and both are the fulfilment of prophesies in Isaiah that pre-eminent Prince of the prophets.

This piece from Isaiah we heard today is exactly the same extract that Jesus read in the Synagogue in Luke 4 and said.

“What you have just heard is being fulfilled before you”. Jesus affirmed that he was that person that Isaiah foretold. 

And in our readings from John’s gospel we have Jesus’s cousin, slightly older than Jesus, saying that he too is the fulfilment of the prophesy in Isaiah 40 that says;

“I am the voice crying out in the wilderness “Prepare the way of the Lord””

The Jews were expecting Elijah to return to prepare the way of the Lord because that is what Malachi said would happen in the last words of the Old Testament but John himself denied being Elijah. But Jesus saw deeper and truer and saw accurately that John was indeed fulfilling that role;

In Matthew 11:14-15 Jesus says “And if you are willing to accept it, John is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let them hear”.

John’s role was to lead people to Christ so notwithstanding acknowledging his pivotal role that we celebrate today we do concentrate on Christ and the difference he makes to our lives, just as John would have wanted. 

So we turn to Paul’s first letter he ever wrote – the earliest Christian writing in the New Testament pre-dating all the gospels.

Christians are called to a life of worship. But Rejoicing, prayer and thanksgiving are not activities designated as "Sunday" activities. The adverbs are “always”, “without ceasing” and “in all circumstances”

We are to orientate our whole lives towards God. We are not to divide our lives into God-related and non God-related spheres.

God is to be glorified (given his due worth) when we are writing cheques, voting in elections, relating to husband, wife and children, making business decisions – as well as public and private worship.

We are also called to a life of discernment of God’s will. The Spirit is the divine activity in life and while the Spirit’s activity is mysterious and often ambiguous we are commanded not to quench the Spirit.

Prophets need to be tested to see if they reveal God’s will.

This extract from Thessalonians is a call to a life orientated towards God.

And here we can get a strong lead from John the Baptist himself.

Here was a man devoted to the way of God and wanted nothing more than to prepare the way for Jesus. Christians in our culture need to do that afresh ourselves - prepare the ground for Jesus.

John believed in Jesus even though he hadn’t experienced Jesus’ ministry. He had a solid faith that we should seek to emulate.

John was fearless and recognised the supreme importance of repentance – the Metanoia that Bishop Mark talked about last Sunday – the radical conversion of one’s life.

John also shows us how to stand firm in our faith no matter what the circumstances. John stood firm against the king and the religious establishment, standing up for what he believed was right. He had guts and the church needs guts now more than ever.

As Christians we will all have our faith put to the test, and we can and probably will falter, but when we do, we can try and emulate John, and cling to Christ and stand firm to the end.

The Shepherd King

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 (page 722 in our pew Bibles) God is the good shepherd and will stop at nothing to find and gather his people.

Ephesians 1: 15-end (page 976 in our pew Bibles) A glorious piece in its entirety but within it Paul prays that we may find Wisdom and revelation

Matthew 25: 31-end (page 831 in our pew Bibles) In the story of the sheep and the goats at the final judgement we may find it surprising that faith is not mentioned once, only the outworking of faith resulting in good works.  

The feast of Christ the King is a modern 20^th century festival instituted by Pope Pius 11^th in 1925 possibly as a counter blast to the rise of fascism in Europe at that time.

That being the context, we see that the raison d’etre for instituting such a festival was to remind people that the Kings and shepherds of this world are as clumsy, exploitative and corrupt as any of the Shepherds lambasted in Ezekiel’s book and so nothing that is happening is new or unexpected.

Then as now the festival warns us against false hope and false prophets and declares that God himself is our shepherd king.

Drawing a similarity or correlation between kingship and shepherding is a perennial feature of middle eastern culture and is found across ancient cultures including ancient Egypt, but within the fiercely monotheistic culture of the Israelites these attributes of the “Good shepherd” and the “Good and righteous king” are given to God alone.

For thus says the Lord God: Behold I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. And in verse 16…

“ I will seek the lost, and bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice”

That verse includes a warning to those who have abused their strength and power to use their power for wrong ends – something that God expands in the second half of that piece.

The Jewish people need to remember that they have one Lord and God, and that they have one servant that is David or the "Davidic line."

  

And in the Christian era there is a fusion between the servant King of the Royal line of David and God himself in Jesus Christ and the piece from Ephesians is mesmerising in its rhetorical and actual power.

In the risen Jesus we see Christ the king when God “raised Him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but in the age to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all”

Inspiring, Poetic, and mesmerising words that set Christ the king in his rightful place far above all leaders and political movements here on earth.

Which brings us to Matthew’s story of the sheep and the goats at the final judgement. There are many problems that present themselves in terms of interpreting this passage but there is one thing we can say with confidence.

The first and main thing is that Christ the King identifies himself with those who suffer, and love for them is service to Him.

The only inherent danger in all this is that it could lead to a certain Christian arrogance and triumphalism towards those we judge outside the sheepfold.

The answer to this problem lies within the narrative itself of course, because this king is fully revealed in the hunger and thirst, nakedness, loneliness, imprisonment, and death of the King of the Jews who reigns from a cross.

Walk the walk!

Amos 5: 18-24 (page 768 in our pew Bibles) Amos points out that "The day of the Lord" that everybody was looking forward to would actually be a day of judgement for those Jews who worshiped God with their lips only and not in deed. Amos denounces all their religious feasts as rubbish because of their lack of integrity and authenticity.

1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18 (page 987 in our pew Bibles) Many Christians in the first century thought the end of the world was imminent and were perturbed by the deaths of Christians before Jesus returned. Paul was assuring them that whether alive or already deceased Christ leaves no-one behind. We are with Him forever. 

Matthew 25: 1-13 (page 830 in our pew Bibles). The oil in our lamps are the good deeds that flow from the Spirit, received when we put our faith in Christ. We mustn't lose hope or concentration waiting for Jesus to return as He could do so at any time.  

Amos cannot stand the religious ceremonies of the Israelites -  people who purport to love and follow God, and all the while they condone massive injustice in the land.

“I hate, I despise your feasts and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies” he famously writes and their noise and singing of praise to God just upsets him.

This extract ends today with the words….

“Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”

There has to be a correlation between worship of God and personal and corporate morality and ethics. 

Be as devoted to Justice and righteousness as you are to robes and religious rituals and sacrifices and God might just take you seriously.

He starts by telling them that “The day of the Lord” that everyone is looking forward to is actually going to be a very uncomfortable day of judgement for the religious establishment because of this inherent incongruity.

Their faith needs to be reflected in their deeds.

This is the strand that runs through the day and especially the parable that Jesus tells about the ten virgins.

Oil, in this parable is the oil of good works, of deeds. The bridegroom is the return of Jesus and you must have good works as a result of your faith or you have nothing to show the world.

In Matthew 5: 16 Jesus says “Let your light so shine before men, so they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven”.

That light shines because of the oil of good deeds and righteous living – exactly the thing that Amos said was missing from the Jewish people in his much older document.

In the parable the girls who didn’t have any oil couldn’t borrow any from the ones that did – a second hand faith is not valid – and they tried to get some but it was too late. The door was shut when they returned and they were locked out of the marriage feast, which is the same event known as the “Day of the Lord” in Amos’ earlier work.

Those girls were judged just as the religious establishment in Amos was judged because for all their worship and praise, they didn’t really know God for that was evident by their actions.

In Paul’s message to the Thessalonians, we see just how pressing and imminent people thought the return of Christ was to be – For that return read  “The day of the Lord” in Amos or the Marriage feast  in Jesus’ parable.

But the main thrust of this piece is not that, but is given in Paul’s opening sentence about the certainty of Christ’s death and resurrection and how our hope is invested in that fact. We are not to grieve like others who have no hope – we have a certain hope vested in a God who never forgets us and whose presence transcends life and death.

Our task is not to second guess who or how many are saved but to rejoice in the fact of that offer and offer it to others.

Remembrance offers the chance to remember the sacrifice of millions in war and in the act of remembrance we meditate on the enormity and waste of war to the end that we never underestimate the consequences of warfare making it less likely to be considered as a first option or response to provocation. This is the reason for the state occasion

Christianity offers another window to look through that talks about the ultimate destination of all those people that died.

All our readings today are underpinned not only by a belief in eternal life but also by being prepared for that prospect in this life through living a life that reflects the values of God.

Render to God what is God's

Isaiah 45: 1-7 (page 605 in our pew Bibles). The message of this piece is that God works through history, people and circumstances to create the conditions needed for His glory to be known. The people themselves, from Cyrus to Pontius Pilate don't have to know God at all - but they can still be used. 

1 Thessalonians 1: 1-10 (page 986 in our pew Bibles) The earliest Christian words recorded in the New Testament. Paul commends the lively faith of this young church that he planted. 

Matthew 22: 15-22 (page 827 in our pew Bibles) A very clever parable indeed, often misunderstood, that ascribes all things to Almighty God.

Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s”

The Pharisees sent a few of their young guns and a few followers of Herod to first flatter Jesus and then to try and trap him.

Should we pay taxes to Caesar or not? Is meant to trap him.

If he says yes, then he would lose favour with the crowd, some of whom thought it even blasphemous to handle a coin with the Emperor’s head on it, let alone pay tribute to an occupying power.

If he says no, then he is guilty of treason.

Jesus sidesteps the trap and comes up with the enigmatic phrase I started with – pay to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.

Generations of people have tried to use this as a formula to try and work out what the proper relationship should be between church and state – but misses a deeper central point.

Jesus asks whose image (icon) is on the coin and whose inscription and of course it is Caesar’s.

But fundamental to monotheism is that human beings bear the image of God

They might have to pay the tax but they do not belong to Caesar they belong to God. In fact all things ultimately belong to God – and that includes Caesar – even though he doesn’t know it.

Cyrus too in the Old Testament did not know that he belonged to God – he was a worshipper of the pagan god Marduk – but that didn’t stop him being used as a vessel through whom the one true God could act. It was ultimately through King Cyrus that the Jews were set free from their captivity. Without him, that would never have happened.

God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perfom and what the Bible reveals to us this morning, that ultimately, at the last, God is in ultimate control and he will use who he uses in order to bring about his will.

From Cyrus to Pontius Pilate and beyond, to unseen and unheralded people acting in your own lives, through people and through circumstances God can and will act.

The unseen hand of God was recognised by Isaiah in regard to King Cyrus, and interestingly Pontius Pilate is recognised as Saint Pontius Pilate in the Egyptian Cristian church for his role, unsought and unacknowledged, in the death and resurrection and salvation wrought by Jesus.

We shall baptise today a child whose parents have recognised in some form or other that she bears the divine image.

She belongs to God and more specifically she shares the divine image with her brother Jesus and she will have that status confirmed today when she is baptised in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

She joins all the baptised in this new holy family, where she is born again and becomes not just the daughter of her biological parents but becomes also a child of God  with a Father in heaven.

This same belief is the same belief that energised the young church in Thessalonika. 1 Thessalonians is the very first Christian writing we have in the whole new testament, pre-dating all the gospels so is the earliest written evidence of Christianity.

It starts with an extended Thanksgiving for a faith that changed them and in turn led them to become evangelists themselves.

Fundamentally they recognised what Jesus was pointing out in his altercation with the Pharisees, that Paul recognised in the Thessalonians and what we are all collectively acknowledging in Grace. That we all belong to God, that we bear His image and we are children of the same heavenly Father.

Governments and nations and all manor of human agencies will ask for our allegiance and we will have to give it as part of living in a community, just as the Jews had to pay taxes to Caesar but ultimately we don’t belong to any of them. Our home, and our true allegiance lie elsewhere. 

Rejoice in the Lord always

Isaiah 25: 1-9 (page 586 in our pew Bibles) God is praised for his surpassing glory and then a prophesy is made that this will all be crowned by the swallowing up of death itself 

Philippians 4: 1-9 (page 982 in our pew Bibles) Paul prays that the surpassing peace of God will guard our hearts and minds and transcend the petty squabbles that divide people

Matthew 22: 1-14 (page 827 in our pew Bibles) Many are called and many respond to the invitation to the feast but the guests included a man "without a wedding garment". We must be clothed with genuine repentance to partake of the feast.

Isaiah prophesies a wonderful day, a feast day, a day of rejoicing where the veil that shields our faces from God will be removed and we shall see God face to face, when God will wipe away all our tears, and remove death for ever and the celebration that ensues will be a feast of rich food and aged fine wine.

The day of the Lord will be a day of celebration ushering in a new created order. This is the day when all things will be put right.

We are the heirs of this promise, a people bound together by this hope.

This day of the Lord would be ushered in by a Messiah, an anointed one, and the people ushered in will be drawn from all peoples and all nations.

This then is the background context for Jesus’ parable. The original guests invited to the wedding feast, the Jewish people, by and large refused to come. Some couldn’t care less and were more concerned with their daily business and others were positively malicious.

So God had to gather a new set of guests and welcome them to the feast from every land and people.

That is us the church – the newly invited guests to this feast of the Kingdom of God.

Brilliant. But before anyone gets too complacent there is a sting in the tail.

One of the invited guests isn’t wearing the appropriate wedding clothes and is thrown out of the party – so what can this mean?

The wedding clothes are symbolic of several warnings given in Matthew’s gospel at various points about being genuine. “Doing the will of my Father in heaven” (7:21) not just paying lip service to the commandments of God or “Having a righteousness that exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees”  (5:20) or “producing the fruits of the kingdom” (21:43)

These are all expressions that point out the consistency between words and deeds that is appropriate for anyone who calls Jesus “Lord”.

The wedding garment represents authentic discipleship.

That doesn’t mean we have to be perfect but we must have our heart and mind attuned to the demands of the kingdom and to sincerely want to put those commandments into action in our lives.

What that means in practice is written about by St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians. He starts by exhorting two women who have obviously fallen out over something to “agree in the Lord”.

Whatever divides them at the moment, that is nothing compared to what they agree on as fellow workers with Paul and Clement for the surpassing glory of the gospel.

Rejoice in the Lord always.

Be reasonable.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Take everything to God and trust Him to deal with it and your reward will be peace.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding. Not peace as in a temporary absence of conflict as in “North and South Korea are currently at peace” but a much deeper sense of wholeness, contentment represented by the Hebrew word shalom.

Glory glory Hallelujah!

Isaiah 5: 1-7 (page 569 in our pew Bible) Israel is God's vineyard but because Israel has forsaken God, God will remove his protection from his people and abandon them to their fate.

Philippians 3:4-14 (page 981 in our pew Bibles) Paul views his Jewish heritage as worthless when compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ.

Matthew 21: 33-end (page 827 in our pew Bibles). Jesus prophesies in this parable that the tenants of God's vineyard (the Israelites) will be replaced by a people gathered around Himself ("the stone that the builders rejected")

I went to a conference recently called the “Glory of God in the church” and how to communicate it, and the only way it seems to me to communicate God’s glory is to embody it – to put flesh on the bones.

Paul’s enthusiasm for the gospel, his joy, where everything he had known before he counts as rubbish, in the face of the surpassing glory of Jesus Christ filled his life.

Paul says “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”

Glory is a very difficult concept to embody or explain – brightness, magnificence, splendour, majesty – but as a shorthand I use the word “worth” the worth or weight of something. What is God worth?

We give glory to God by giving adoring praise and thanksgiving. In doing so we reflect God’s glory back to him. 

Without ever mentioning his conversion experience Paul nevertheless now rests fair square on that revelation where he was captured by Christ.

What is truly significant it seems to me is that Paul wasn’t in any kind of spiritual crisis or doubted what he was doing according to this passage, in persecuting the church, and he doesn’t seem to having any problems keeping the law either as he calls himself “blameless” according to righteousness.

In other words, Jesus Christ was not an answer to any kind of problem, spiritual or physical, that Paul might have been happening, and that is quite a difference to the premise underlying a lot of Christian evangelism, that Jesus is the answer to your problems.

According to the text, Paul didn’t have any particular problems. He was just blown away by the surpassing glory of God who confronted, challenged and changed him so much that everything he had known before he could dismiss as “dung”

He discovered the glory of God’s Grace and a righteousness that depended on faith.

Grace and faith are the two cornerstones of the Christian faith. It is God’s grace that saves us, that heals us, that sets us free, that bestows fullness of life.

We appropriate those glorious gifts through faith in the actions of his son Jesus who revealed God’s love on the cross by dying for us.

This reveals the multi-faceted glory of God where the ultimate symbol of Love is a man willingly dying on the cross to set us free.

The revelation of the glory of God to Paul, was not any answer to unanswered questions, it was a revelation of the glory of God through the revelation of and encounter with a raised and living man, Jesus Christ. He was blown away by the resurrection of Jesus.

Far from being an answer to anyone’s questions or offering the gospel as an answer to anyone’s problems, in fact this proved to be just the start of a whole host of new questions and set him on the road to try to comprehend the new vision which “upset” his previous answers which leads us to the next part of Paul’s writing, that he now wants to get to know this Christ and the power of his resurrection.

This is a task that will stretch to the end of our physical lives and beyond.

The Westminster catechism states “that man’s chief aim is to glorify God and enjoy him for ever”

Our scripture set for today ends with Paul saying that he is not perfect by any means and hasn’t fully grasped the glory of God but he presses on to make that his goal.

The Christian church is conjoined with this mission – so that each of us in our own way and at our own speed progressively discovers – unwraps – the gift of life bestowed on each of us as Christians. We pray that our enthusiasm for this gospel will consume us and will make it easier to communicate to others.