1 Corinthians 1:18-25

John 2:13-22

Activity 1

Making a boy bishop….

Today’s first reading is about wisdom and foolishness.

In the olden days not very long after this church building was first built they had a tradition called the feast of fools.

On that day in the cathedral a boy would be made bishop for a day and everyone would have to do what the boy said.

What would they do well first of all they needed a boy.

He would be dressed up in robes and with the Bishops hat, and he would have the special Bishop’s staff we don’t have one of those to hand so this churchwarden’s wand will have to do.

The boy Bishop would have lots of helpers who would have to do whatever he said.

What would you choose to do if you were the boy Bishop in charge of the church today?

It seems a very funny thing to do but the reason they did it was to remember that the things which the world and even the teachers might think are big and clever are not necessarily the things which God thinks are big and clever. In the reading it says that for Christians Christ has become the wisdom we need to understand God, however old or young we are we can still be that wise as Christians.

So having a boy bishop used to remind church leaders not to be wise like the world is wise but to reply on the wisdom that comes from God himself.

Activity 2 Mr Topsy Turvy

Reading Mr Topsy Turvy from the projector…

Today in the talk we are supposed to be remembering the words from the Lord’s prayer which say Your Kingdom come your will be done.

I think that fits very well with the readings and story that we have had today

Mr. Topsy-turvy is about more than having his legs, nose and hat in the wrong places. Where he lives is different, his clock is different, the way he reads and thinks are different, the way he communicates and appreciates the world is different.

God’s kingdom is like that. Jesus goes into the temple and says you have got it all wrong. Jesus literally turns things over in the temple because the humans have got it completely wrong about what God would like his temple to be like.

The humans had got it all wrong and the other bible reading reminds us that while the world thinks power and might and human knowledge are good that’s not what God’s kingdom is about.

There is another famous bit of the Bible which is the song which Mary sings when she is told that Jesus will be born.

In Mary’s song she sings about God’s kingdom. God has put the world topsy turvy, the rich are not important, they are brought down form their thrones. All our worldy expectations no longer apply because God is bringing about his kingdom. Mary saw how this was shown in God choosing her to be Jesus’ Mum, and we see this again and again throughout the whole bible and the Gospels, how God’s way and kingdom is not a human kingdom.

The question is of course are we prepared to live in God’s topsy-turvy kingdom, which is not like the kingdom of the world. If we have thrones will we swap them and give the lowly their place. If we have no thrones will be let God build us up and lift us up to our throne. The message translation has a very good paraphrase of verses 51-53. ‘He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud. The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold.’

Are we prepared for the culture shock that the move to God’s kingdom will bring about. Culture shock occurs when you move form one place to another place where things are so different that you psychologically find it very hard to cope with the differences. Although on reflection the move into God’s kingdom is more like Future Shock, where you open your front door and discover the world you thought you knew isn’t the same place anymore, for example imagine if you’d fallen asleep in the 1950’s in the village and then woken up this morning, on the surface things look similar but everything has changed. From cars to modern mobile technology and the global political situation it is completely different.

Mary had not only grasped that this huge kingdom shock was happening, but she was willing to live in God’s new kingdom and take her part in it, despite the huge personal cost it would entail for her. Mary knew that the Kingdom of God was where she belonged and we as Christian’s belong there too, we should follow her example to live in this topsy-turvy world of the kingdom of God.

Some of the adults will be thinking about Your Kingdom come your

will be done later in the week and I wanted to ask them to think about some things during the week. I wonder what human power or position of respect you have that you would be most reluctant to give up for God’s kingdom. Who would you least like to let sit in your seat of power once you’ve given it up. As a Christian how does God’s topsy turvy kingdom affect your money, your possessions and your personal relationships?

When we baptise T in a few minutes we will be praying for him to learn what it means to grow up in God’s kingdom. That these values of God’s kingdom will be the values that he learns to love and use to guide his life. We will be remembering that wherever he is God will always be there beside him  and he can live in God’s kingdom not only now while he is alive here on earth but forever.

Psalm 24:1-6, Hebrews 2:14-end, Luke 2:22-40

Waiting for consolation

Waiting for consolation.

Sometimes in newspapers or on the television we see press photos of people who are waiting for consolation.

Usually sitting alone with their head in their hands or staring blankly ahead of them. These photos often involve the person sitting on a pile of rubble which was once their home which has bee overcome by violence, earthquake or some other natural disaster. These pictures poignantly display the magnitude of their loss, and are both extreme but entirely pertinent examples of people waiting for consolation. Even across thousands of miles and whatever cultural gulfs that divide us we know and can almost feel this person’s harsh reality, they need consolation, they wait and we never know if any consolation is found for them.

Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel. Did Israel need consoling? Apparently it did and Simeon was waiting for the consolation. Israel was an occupied nation. They weren’t sitting on a pile of rubble in fact the temple in which the action for today’s story from Luke takes place has not long been rebuilt. But the temple had been rebuilt by a puppet king who wasn’t even a real Jew, although he pretended to be, who ruled the people of Israel with a cruelty which even the Romans found shocking. Israel stands in need of consolation and Simeon is waiting.

What did the consolation mean for Simeon?

We hear in the Psalm, one of those songs of hope, which would have been sung in the temple, we hear that those who seek God’s face will receive blessing. Simeon is seeking God, and he knows that he has been blessed.

Simeon knows that this little baby, this is the consolation he has been waiting for. He knows that the salvation Jesus brings will be “a glory to your people Israel”.

A glory to your people Israel.

The psalm though also has more to say, how does it begin?

The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.

The earth is the Lord’s and so is this consolation only for Israel? No Simeon goes on to say that Jesus will be a light for revelation to the Gentiles, that’s everybody who isn’t Jewish. Simeon knows that God’s consolation isn’t only for the Jews but for everybody.

I wonder if today some of us here feel that we are waiting for consolation, or that we have waited for consolation, for ourselves, for a place or a situation.

Sometimes it’s hard to be human. Jesus knows this. The reading from Hebrews reminds us how hard it is to be human. It says how Jesus had to be made like his brothers in every way so that he might become merciful and faithful and so that he could achieve the freedom for us all which he has achieved.

It is only because Jesus has experienced the darkness and difficulty that lies in being human that he could pave the way for us all to be children of light.

We have all just lived through our annual blue Monday, apparently in Britain the third Monday in January is the unhappiest day in the year, it’s supposed to be a combination of the post-Christmas darkness, breaking our New Year’s resolutions, and having no money after Christmas etc. etc.

I don’t suppose Blue Monday applied in the same way in Jesus’ time but people carried their own burdens of sadness, grief and disappointment. They did feel that they lived in darkness, and Jesus was the light.

There are so many images of Light and Dark in the Bible and if sometimes they do seem a bit obscure we do know what they mean really, Jesus said ‘I am the light of the world’. He as an adult recognised what Simeon had said about him as a baby.

The reality that Jesus can turn our darkness into light is an important reality for us each as individuals. Sometimes it doesn’t feel that can be the case, that the darkness is overwhelming, maybe our faith seems just the dimmest flicker of light. God promises to be our light in dark times and dark places, and when we are struggling we need to hold on to that promise that the God who created the heavens and earth by saying ‘Let there be Light’, has promised that he will always light the way for us.

So we live in the light, the light to lighten the Gentiles and we rejoice that as it says in Isaiah “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light…”

What do we do with the light that we have?

Handily Jesus has something to say about this.

14.”You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

15.Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.

16.In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

It is our duty and our joy that we take this light with us. In a very real way we bear the Christ-light for others, those who are not strong enough to hold their own, those whose own light has been blown out, or shines dimly in the buffeting of illness, or grief, or tragedy.

As one hymn says

I will hold the Christ-light for you

 in the night-time of your fear;

 I will hold my hand out to you,

 speak the peace you long to hear.

Today we are commissioning our Pastoral Care Team, we will hear a bit more about how this will work in few minutes. These are people who have volunteered and undergone training so that they can do this Christ-light bearing officially on behalf of the church.

This doesn’t take away the responsibility of all of us to undertake this role for those around us, but for these we pray for shortly there will be distinct tasks, caring and taking the light on behalf of us all. They will bear with them the light of Christ.

Jesus Christ, Simeon’s consolation, Our consolation, and the consolation of the world.

Everything was created through him;

      nothing—not one thing!—

      came into being without him.

   What came into existence was Life,

      and the Life was Light to live by.

   The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;

      the darkness couldn’t put it out.

Genesis 14:17-20, Rev 19:6-10, John 2:1-11

I wonder what was the best party that you ever went to?

We had a party in church and Box House last night as a launch, a beginning of something, and it was a very good party.

But I’m not sure if it was the best I’ve ever been to.

I think I really enjoyed Iona’s 6th birthday party, There are parties which I went to as a student which I really enjoyed. And there have been other times, times when a cup of tea and a piece of cake soon escalated into a party.

So what makes a good party?

Food is important, company is important, a sense of being able to relax and sometimes a sense of marking something important as was the case with Flo’s birthday party earlier in the year.

Today’s readings in effect tell the story of three parties, they each in their own way reflect the common themes of parties, food, company, peace and a sense of marking a transition.

Abram had to go to war. I don’t think it was what he particularly wanted to do but his nephew Lot had been taken captive and the only way to obtain freedom for his family members was for Abram to fight. He fought and he won. That sounds like a good old fashioned excuse for a party. This was however a party with a difference.

The king of Sodom came out to meet him. Then comes the mysterious Melchizedek. We don’t know much about Melchizedek and at this point in the story of Israel we are hearing mainly about Abram and his journey into montheism.

 So it does come as a bit of a surprise to hear that Melchizedek was a priest of God most high. They are having a meeting a celebratory party and what does Melchizedek bring?

Not what we might consider as particularly good party food. No sausage rolls, no cake, not even any canapes or some of Diana Northey’s famous asparagus pinwheels.

He brings bread and wine. Bread and wine, this is ringing lots of familiar bells for us.

We know about bread and wine, we know about the meal which will become the passover, we know that these will also be offerings in the temple, we know that when Jesus celebrates the passover feast with his friends they also will share bread and wine, the meaning of this sharing will grow and grow for them following the death and resurrection of Christ, and the formation of the church.

 But we know that because we have snuck ahead and read the last chapter of the book. But here we are right at the beginning of the story of the Israelites. Abram isn’t even Abraham yet but still we find Melchizedek  bringing bread and wine. And with the meal, with the party comes the blessing. Melchizedek  blesses Abram and blesses and remembers God’s role in all this, and Abraham responds by giving from his booty to Melchizedek sharing the gifts from God with his fellow believer in God.

And so on to our second party of blessing, right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus and his disciples had been invited to the wedding.

There’s the terrible disaster that they have run out of wine, now I know I need to be careful about what I say here in the Methodist church. They have run out of wine and Jesus miraculously makes them more.

Jesus loved parties, he was always going to parties, and if there wasn’t one already then he would start one.  I wonder which of the parties Jesus’ goes to in the Gospels is your favourite. Maybe it’s this wedding feast, maybe it’s the big picnic with thousands of people, maybe it’s the beach barbecue after the resurrection, maybe it’s the Last supper itself or maybe you like the bit where he says to Zaccheus, You get down from that tree, the party is at yours tonight.

Each of these parties show the common theme of parties, food, company, peace and a sense of marking a transition.

This passage in John is one of the passages in which you can enter into many theological debates. You can ask “Why did Jesus say to his mum, My time has not yet come.

Did Jesus insult Mary when he called her woman?

Why does Jesus make so much wine?

Why does Jesus make it in the jars which were used for ceremonial washing?

Why were there six jars and not a good Jewish story number like seven.

How did he do it?

Why was the wine so good when it could have been just OK wine?

We could spend the next twenty minutes discussing any one of these  but what happens at this party.

Is there company? Yes there is Jesus’ Mum and Jesus’ disciples, there must have been other people too. Cana is about six miles from Nazareth, not too far away, we never find out who is marrying whom, because this party has other bigger consequences.

This is the first of Jesus’ recorded miracles. Why did Mary ask him to do it? Was she just beign a good pushy Jewish Mum or did she realise after what had happened in the Jordan that his time had actually come after all?

The disciples were there, these were very new disciples, the reading suggests that this was the first or second day that they had been disciples of Jesus. They were at the wedding too, we don’t know if it was a mutual friend or relation or if they came because they were with Jesus.

So we have the company, so what about the food. Well actually it’s quite hard to talk about the food without beginning to speak about transition.

Jesus came to bring about change and transition, transition from the old to the new. To show everyone that God wants the best for us. So Jesus makes the best wine. The absolutely best wine, and in such abundance. This is a transition for everyone there who had been at the party of an unprepared host, and suddenly they find themselves with the best wine.

Some commentators make a lot of the number of jars. They say it’s six, a traditionally incomplete number which is then turned into completeness by the presence of Jesus.

Some commentators make a lot of the fact that these were ceremonial washing jars. Jesus is taking the duties of ceremonies, and sweeping them away instead filling the space with blessing.

Whatever we may think about those thoughts we do actually know what it was about. The transition of this party is that Jesus revealed his glory and his disciples put their faith in him.

This was part of us realising that God was for us and not against us, and an important journey for the disciples, and for Jesus as he makes his first steps into this public ministry.

So what about the party in Revelation, The angel said, Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.

That seems an odd phrase but remember Jesus is called the Lamb of God as he goes to be baptised by John.

Behold the lamb of God.

Lamb strangely enough is not a traditional sin offering, a ram or sheep or goat but not a lamb. A lamb indicates Passover, where the curse of death is removed or taken away but he presence of the lamb.

So company in heaven, John’s revelation has plenty of company, what sounded like a great multitude, and shouting. The sort of exceptionally loud party to which in other circumstances one might call the Police.

However the company of multitudes, and food, well not specified but we do know there will be food because it is described as a feast or a supper. The transition, the transition in the vision is that John is moved to a new desire to worship.

So what of today how can we be transformed by our parties.

When we come together we meet and we share the company of one another, we are commanded and expected to come together in worship. We come together us humans, but secure in the promise that God is also with us, and so for our company we have us and God.

As for food, we have in some services, communion and eating and drinking together later brings us together, we also have spiritual food of the scriptures, prayers and hymns and songs.

So what about the transition, I guess that will be different for all of us. When you leave here today you won’t be the same as when you came in.

For one of the confirmation classes last year the homework was, read the whole of Mark’s gospel by next week.

One of the results of this homework was a revelation for me in the understanding of this passage.

Why?

Because apparently ‘God is a chav…’

And why is God a chav?

Because he says “You are my son, whom I love, with you I am WELL pleased”

I was mainly impressed by the fact that they had all conscientiously done their homework, but it does show that however familiar you are with a passage sometimes it takes someone else’s point of view for it to give you a new insight.

So today, as they say, we begin at the beginning.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Simple, we are so used to this statement we forget to see how radical it is.

It is quite different from the other Ancient Near Eastern Creation stories which often contain a lot of violence, where the world was believed to be created for example by one deity being cut in half by another deity. Instead of this creation from violence we have this simple statement, ‘God did it.’

So the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

The Spirit of God, there, right at the beginning, however you try to understand the Spirit of God, your understanding will only be an approximation, some way of trying to understand how God acts in his Spirit in the world.

So the Spirit is hovering over the waters, and God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

God saw that the light was good, and separated the light from the darkness.

The Spirit with the water involved in the creation right at the beginning of time, and the result was good.

Good is an interesting concept, how do we know that something is good, or beautiful. In the classic book Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance this is the concern of the main character. He calls this a philosophical ‘quality’,  somehow we seem to know that something is good,  somehow we know that something is beautiful. This is a very difficult question for an atheist, how can we know that something is good, or beautiful, especially something of which we don’t have previous experience yet still we seem to know.

This is not such a difficult question for a Christian because if we believe that we are made in the image of God then something of God’s appreciation of good will be inherent in us. Just like God saw that the light was good, so we will have some idea of good.

There are many different ways to understand the symbolism of Baptism, and because it’s a symbol it can of course have a multi layered meaning.

John was preaching a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Jesus comes to be baptised.

We know that Jesus is sinless, so why is he being baptised?

In Genesis we hear how the combination of water and the Spirit of God is the beginning of creation, the beginning of new life, the good beginning of life.

For those people who come in repentance for their sins, this is what they are hoping for, for the beginning of a new creation for them, for a new life, a good new beginning.

Jesus comes at the beginning of his ministry he is in need of support in his new beginning , he may not be in need of repentance from sins, but he is in need of re-creation at the beginning of his ministry. God gives this amazing sign, the Spirit of God descends on Jesus like a dove, and the voice comes from heaven, “You are my Son, whom I love, with whom I am well pleased.”

The water and the Spirit have come together to build up Jesus at the beginning of his earthly ministry. This time of new creation which in one real sense begins at day one here, as the light at the beginning of the creation story and this story will culminate with the death and resurrection, and with the resurrection we will have life in all its fullness and then again God will see that it is good.

Baptism is the beginning of new life, a new creation, Jesus didn’t need repentance washing, but we do.

I am reminded of the chorus of the Liverpool lullaby

Oh you are a mucky kid

Dirty as a dustbin lid

When he hears the things that you did

Youll get a belt from your dad

We know that we do need washing, we get a chance to be clean.

In a way this goes back to the inherent understanding of good, if we know what it is to be good we will also know what it is to be not good. We call this conscience, and you could argue that it is inherently cultural, but there is also something else, something inside us, something which knows what’s good and what’s not good.

The phrase “you scrub up well” annoys me, I think because I like to think people shouldn’t be judged on their outward appearances, although, of course often they are. God knows that we will scrub up well, but we will scrub up well when we come to repentance. God washes us clean, he doesn’t give us a belt when he hears the things we did, he gives us the opportunity to be clean, to have a new beginning, to be washed.

Where does that leave us then?

Many of us here were baptised, for some of us we remember it well, for others it was an event for us before we remember. We are a church community of the baptised. In our church rituals we don’t come to be baptised every week. But we do come to repentance, we come to that place where we acknowledge things have gone wrong in our lives, and we rely on God’s grace as he promised to bring us new life, a new beginning. Sometimes we are all dried up and we seem to have lost this new life of the spirit and the water. So we need to come to God again asking for his grace, asking to be touched by his Spirit, we need to come back to the river.

To end, some lyrics from a Delirious song.

Find me in the river

Find me there

Find me on my knees with my soul laid bare

Even though you’re gone and I’m cracked and dry

Find me in the river, I’m waiting here

Isaiah 60:1-6,

Psalm 72:10-15

Matthew 2:1-12

I wonder what is your favourite song from the spice girl stable?

Maybe it’s the original “wannabe”, or perhaps the classic “who do you think you are?”

My favourite is not a spice girl group song but one which Mel C sang called “Never be the same again”.

Why do I like it?

Well musically it’s quite catchy, helped of course by the fact that Mel C is one of the girls who really can sing, also it has that catchy rap interlude in the middle, by Lisa what’s her name, but I think I like it because it is SO true we all have moments, times when something changes, something shifts and we know that life will never be the same again. Sometimes it might take only the touch of a button or the utterance of one word, or sometimes it is the culmination of a great effort and sometimes it is something which is done to us, rather than something which is instigated by us but all these things mean that life will never be the same again.

Looking up Epiphany in the dictionary first of all you get the church festival celebrated on 6^th January in commemoration of the manifestation of Christ to the wise men of the East. Useful, so today is the 4^th and not the 6^th but it is perfectly OK for us to transfer this to the Sunday. So that is what we celebrate today, the manifestation of Christ to these wise men.

Good, then the definition carries on and includes a sudden revelation or insight into the nature, essence or meaning of something.

An Epiphanic moment, the epi means to in greek and phainein means to show. The epiphanic moment is when it is shown to you.

So when was the last time you had an epiphanic moment? When was something shown to you which gave you a sudden revelation or insight into the nature, essence or meaning of something?

It could have been the moment you suddenly realised, why am I doing something this way when if I did it that way it would be so much better?

One sunny November day in 2001 I was driving up the A46 to Cirencester when I had an Epiphanic moment and realised that we should sell our house near Bristol and move to Cirencester. This may at first sound complete madness but it was absolutely the right thing to do, and we did it, Ian was a little surprised when after the meeting we’d been at I told him we had to move house, but since it actually made perfect sense he got used to it.

Epiphanic moments are often associated with journeys and I guess that brings us back to these wise men.

First of all God had shown then the star, I wonder how epiphanic that had been for them. It seems that it would have been a sudden revelation, this is the New King’s star we must go.

The Old testament passages today talk about the tribute journeys which were made in Old testament times, how people would travel distances brining fine gifts in tribute to a wise or special King or person.

So the Kings come, they come to bring gifts to this new king, their journey is not perhaps what they expected.  Like those in the old testament passages they bring gold and incense to pay tribute. They get to the palace in Jerusalem and he’s not there. They thought that they understood God’s plan, they thought they had it mapped out, New King he is in that direction, let’s get to the palace and there he will be the new King.

Sometimes we think we know what God has God planned we think we know how something is going to turn out, we think we will do this and God will do that and so this will result, we will arrive in a place and then this will happen.

This is often not the case.

There is at least one liturgical writer in the Church of England who admits that he had false hopes about the impact of the new language services that were introduced into the Church of England in 1980. He says there was such an air of expectation that this would b the trigger that would have people flooding into church, where actually it was all a lot more complicated than that. It’s not that is was a bad thing, just that it didn’t bring about the mass influx of common folk into the church buildings that some people thought was God’s plan, God had other plans.

God has plans for the Magi, they do not get what they were expecting but they will not be disappointed. God will not disappoint their vision, he will not betray their Epiphany. 

Herod sends them to the child, he sends them to search for Jesus, to a small town. Where Herod sends them the star goes too. This is not just a human message, God is revealing the way to them, he is showing them every step of the way even when it doesn’t lead them to where they thought they were going originally.

They see God’s hand in the sky guiding them, when they saw the star they were overjoyed,

When they get to the house, they see Jesus and they bowed down and worshipped him, they gave him their treasures. Then they go on their way.

But they do not go on their way back via Herod, God says No.

The wise men go home, they go home maybe a little wiser, maybe a little sadder when they hear what Herod has done, they go home knowing that they had done what God what God had called them to do, and knowing that even if things hadn’t been exactly as they had expected all had come to pass, they had seen the child and worshipped him.

For the wise men things, as Mel C so wisely sang, will never be the same again.

There is a joke which goes something like this, someone asks a fellow in the country for directions, the fellow says, well if I was going there I wouldn’t start from here…

This joke is only funny in a tragic way because we can all only start from where we are. There is nothing we can do about that. We start from where we are.

The wise men started from where they were, actually the moment that they took that first step on the way, things would never be the same for them, and by the time they returned I wonder how they had changed, the journey they had taken had not been exactly what they had expected, but all the same God had not disappointed them.

And so where are we this Epiphany?

Ha s God revealed something new to us this Christmas season, was something shown to you  which gave you a sudden revelation or insight into the nature, essence or meaning of something?

Maybe we are about to take that step that step which will begin the things which will make us never the same again?

Maybe we have arrived a the palace and what we thought was happening is not exactly what we were expecting and we feel we are waiting for the advisors of a dubious king to come back and give us directions, and we have lost sight of the star momentarily.

Maybe we are there, maybe we are there at the stable worshipping, but knowing that God will soon send us on an unfamiliar road…

That which God shows us is true, he will not disappoint us, things may not be quite what we were expecting, we may have our vision clouded, our star may be hidden by cloud momentarily.

Let us follow diligently the Epiphany journey of the wise men.

We follow the way that God shows us,

we travel knowing that with each step we will never be the same again,

and we travel and God will not disappoint us.

White clothes are just impractical.

Anyone who has tried to get grass stains from cricket whites will tell you that.

Anyone who has ever been at a wedding where the bride has spilled a glass of red wine can tell you that.

Anyone who has to fight, chocolate fingers away from white robes can say they just don’t work.

And we won’t mention the wedding where the eight year old in the white bridesmaid dress was trying to eat chocolate fondue for dessert…

These days we have more ways than ever before to make our white clothes white. We can use vanish in wash stain remover, we have plentiful supplies of hot water, bleach, even enzyme filled detergent which can digest 99.9 % of stains known to human kind.

So we find ourselves in Revelation marvelling at a great multitude of people, a multitude so large that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the lamb.

Who are these people? These people so numerous that no one could count.

In one very real sense these people are the descendents that Abraham was promised. These people who are God’s family, those gathered by God. What are they doing these people? What makes them distinctive? They are wearing white robes…

White robes?

We all know that white clothes are just impractical.

These people are wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands and they are praising God.

Who are these people? John hears from one of the elders in heaven, who these white clad people are, the elder says “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

Washed in blood. Washed in blood?

We know that washed in blood does not equal white.

Washed in blood equals red and then brown. A long time ago, longer than I care to remember, I used to be able to draw the electron path of the iron ion in the haemoglobin molecule in blood and explain about why that made blood red. Then when blood ages in contact with air, essentially the iron rusts and goes brown.

Washing in blood doesn’t make white, blood is one of the top stains that biological washing detergent makers are always trying to dissolve.

This doesn’t make sense. But this is John’s revelation of heaven and we give it no justice if what we require of it is that it makes sense. This is John’s glimpse of heaven. He tries to explain it as best he can, we bring that understanding to it.

The phrase “New World order” has been used to describe different things, originally it seems to have been coined to describe the period after the first world war with the formation of the league of nations. Then again after world war two in retrospect  to describe the hope surrounding the united nations and the bretton woods system. The again after the cold war, new world order was used to describe the new start. These were all to big hopes, too big aspirations, and the new world order each time seemed quickly to sour.

But what John is describing, in revelation really is the new world order. White is not impractical in the new world order, washing in blood brings sparkling whiteness, in the new world order where what we know and understand from our experience of brokenness has been turned on its head.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the new world is different, Jesus’ words in the beatitudes, tell us that this will happen.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek…

The people who are despised in the old world order, are blessed in the new world order. Those who have no power, no position, no dignity, who are otherwise demeaned, these are the people who have come out of the great tribulation, they have washed their robes and put them on sparkly white.

John I fell is struggling for words to describe the new things going on, and so he describes in the most human terms what heaven is like, no more hunger, or thirst, or scorching sun. God will wipe every tear from their eyes.

When I take funerals sometimes people are brave enough to ask me what heaven is like.

Which would be a sensible thing to do, if I knew.

There’s no map, there’s no signpost, when the Russian cosmonauts came back from space and reported that God wasn’t there, I do think they were missing the point. But if heaven isn’t up there, even if for a long time that was how people found it helpful to understand it, we must know that heaven is somewhere else.

I am reminded of that old brownie song..O you’ll never get to heaven, in brown owls’s car, because brown owl’s car won’t get that far…

So what does Jesus teach us about heaven in the beatitudes, if we look at the second half of each saying it goes like this… theirs is the kingdom of heaven, they will be comforted, they will inherit the earth, they will be shown mercy, they will see God, they will be called children of God, theirs is the kingdom of heaven, great is your reward in heaven,..

There is not much more comforting than having your tears wiped away, and that is what John sees in heaven, people see God, people are not hungry or thirsty they are freed from their physical concerns…

I am reminded of the words in the baptism prayer which we sometimes use.

Remember your baptism…

Through which you became a part,

A member of the body of Christ.

You stand in a great company

Of saints living and dead –

Of people from every continent, race

And skin colour; Christians everywhere.

You belong to them,

They belong to you;

All belong to Jesus.

Remember your baptism…

For in it you are bonded to Christ

Who died and was buried

And who rose again.

You are baptised into Jesus’ death,

So that at death, like him you will rise again.

Remember your baptism…

The sign and seal and kiss of God

In the name of the Father,

And of the Son

And of the Holy Spirit.

On all saints day what is it that we can remember?

We remember that heaven is full of people, more that anyone can count… we know some of these people. Some of these people sat in these pews, some of these people taught us Sunday school, some of these people prayed for us before we were born. Some of these  people are our relatives and our friends.

We know that they no longer live constrained by the old world order, that the fruition of the new world order has become the reality for them.

One of the most impenetrable mysteries for me is that God made us as eternal beings, but our time here is important.

But when our time here is gone, we remain with eternity. But eternity not like the world we know, eternity like Jesus hints at in the beatitudes, eternity like John has his vision of.

U2 sum something of this up in their lyric,

We’re packing a suitcase, for a place we’ve never been, a place that has to be believed, to be seen.

What should we pack?

Maybe a white robe, ready to be washed sparkly white by blood, in God’s new world order.

It was family service last week on Sunday, and Wednesday’s sermon was not written out, so here we are with Sunday monring’s, I remembered my notes this time, not sure it flowed quite as well to be honest.

Chew your food,

That’s what we were all told,

Chew your food,

Eat it carefully, chewing properly will aid your digestion, your will enjoy your food more and you will find it a general aid to health.

Chew your food. Relax, there’s no rush, food is important, relish it and it will be more nutritious.

Maybe your mother would be astounded at the fact that people would eat on the street, that is just not done, it’s just not right. For mothers like this the current fad for walking along a town high street eating a pasty, drinking water from a bottle whilst speaking on a mobile phone would probably have given them palpatations.

God says to the Israelites, ‘eat in haste’, ‘eat in haste’ whilst you wait to see what God will do.

Eat in haste, no mention of careful chewing here.

Eat dressed in you outdoor clothes, ready and prepared to go out of the door, eat with your waterproof coat on, your backpack packed and your walking pole in your hand.

I wonder when you last ate dressed in your coat?

Was it a good time or a bad time?

Was it part of a long journey, a walk, a time when your heating was broken?  If I ask you to picture someone eating in their coat, who is it that comes into your mind?

In Egypt all those years ago it is a wakeful night, a night of roasted meat, quick cooked bread and bitter herbs, a night which thousands of years later the people will still remember with that food on the table.

This is history being written, time will be counted again from this time, the time when God moved powerfully in the lives of many people.

God says this is to be the first month, the first month of your year count your time from then.

It’s difficult to tell how the people would have been feeling. In times of extreme stress some people find it difficult to eat, the familiar knotting of the stomach, the trouble with actually trying to get the food down, no matter how well it might have been chewed. Others will have perhaps been ravenous, thrilled excited, knowing that at last God is going to act. Some will have been sitting thinking about the cost of the act which God was about to perform, the extremes to which God has been pushed, to provide salvation for his people.

Others will have only been keen for justice, for the new order to begin. Some maybe won’t even have thought that it was going to come to anything, although these people have just witnessed all the plagues, the frogs, the river of bloos, the boils, and so on. God had done all these things, but this time, this time would Pharoah let them go, could they run. Would this really be it, would they really get away this time.

If I asked you to think of the events which have happened which have changed to world what would you say? Maybe 11^th September 2001? Maybe the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Maybe the fall of the Berlin Wall?

We all have turning points in our lives, times from when we count things. The times which for us were the times when the month becomes the first month. The moment when time begins again. We count time from when we left school, from when we married, from when we divorced, from when someone died. The time, the moment, from which our life was never the same again.

What does God do for these Israelites for whom their lives will never be the same again?

Well firstly he feeds them, he builds them up in preparation for their trauma and their journey.

They may be eating in haste, but they are eating, eating good food which will sustain them on the first part of their flight from Egypt.

God reassures them that although this will be a difficult and terrible time for them, he will be with them, and the time will pass and they will remember it for the generations to come.

Maybe if we think back to a difficult time in our life, preferably some time ago, how do we feel about it now, in comparison to how we felt about it then?  Can we see God at action in that time? Even if perhaps we felt like he had deserted us at the time?

The gospel passage for today doesn’t promise us an easy life, it talks about conflicts and troubles which will be encountered by the church in the days, years and millennia to come.

Jesus promises to be with us,

For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.

There will be times when we don’t have time to chew our food, there will be times for all of us where we have to eat standing up with our coats and boots on. Times when we are fearful of what tomorrow may hold. Times when we feel called by God to do something difficult. There will be times like that for us, when we need to be ready, when we need to receive whatever God will give to sustain us, then we need to be ready to act, however painful or difficult or scary that might actually be.

And so in those times when we need to eat in haste, we need to remember that as he always has been, God is with us and like the Israelites, brings us to deliverance and salvation.

If you put the word reasonable into the internet search tool google and hit the I’m feeling lucky button, it links you to the Austhink home page.

Austhink is a critical thinking research, training and consulting group specializing in complex reasoning and argumentation. Essentially trying to train Australia to be truly reasonable.

From the renaissance and gathering pace with the enlightenment reason became the god of Western society, everything was deemed to be reasonable, being reasonable was the most important thing, everything needed to make sense. Experiments needed to be undertaken, hypotheses proved. Things need to be measured, answers sought out, reasoned and held accountable.

On the GEC building in New York built in the 1930s it says over the door, Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times…

With hindsight it is easy for us to say, well maybe not.

I wonder what might be the most unreasonable thing that you have done. I find myself unwilling to share even any thoughts I might have about this.

Ezekiel was often called by God to do unreasonable things. In today’s OT passage he is called to pack his things, all that he can carry, as if he is going into exile…but to do this in the street so that everyone can see him. The unreasonableness does not stop there, when he is packed, at night he is to break out, to dig through the city walls, all this is prophetic action, this is unreasonableness, to dig through the city walls to pretend that you’re going into exile when you don’t have to all this unreasonableness was what God asked of Ezekiel.

What about the gospel passage, well is Jesus asking us to be unreasonable? How can we go on forgiving, if someone hurts you seven times seems indeed a generous amount for forgiveness, but Jesus says no, seventy seven times. How can Jesus be asking us to forgive so unreasonably?

Jesus tells this parable, the king who in all reasonableness expected the debt to be paid, when it became obvious it wouldn’t be he not unreasonably took the appropriate action. When the debtor begged for forgiveness he very unreasonably forgave him. The debtor did not behave so unreasonably towards the person who owed him money. What did the king think?

Then his lord summoned him and said to him, “You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’

I want to try and take you back to a moment in my past, so we need to imagine it’s 1990 and we’re all sitting in a large kind of boring modern room, and the Christian union drama group are standing before us, wearing denim dungarees and checked shirts and humming the theme tune to the Waltons, that classic TV show about family life. In the sketch John Boy has left home squandered the family’s money and is now returning having just realised the terrible mistake he has made. John Boy is running in slow motion back towards his father, he gets to the point where they could touch each other, the humming stops. The Father goes to slap him firmly around the face, John Boy says, “But Father?”

But the father says “Well isn’t that not even half what you deserve…”

How can Jesus call us to be so unreasonable?

How can he call us to love so much?

What is the most unreasonable thing that we have ever done?

What is the most unreasonable thing, that God has ever done?

An acknowledgement to Jerome Berryman

The first part of this sermon is part of the “godly play” story for Abraham… it’s just fab. Buy the book, tell the stories, it will change your life.

To begin, a story, a story which is almost the beginning.

The desert is a dangerous place. It is always moving, so it is hard to know where you are. There is little water, so you get thirsty and you can die if no water is found. Almost nothing grows there, so there is almost nothing to eat. In the daytime it is hot and the sun scorches your skin. In the night it is cold. When the wind blows, the sand stings when it hits you. People wear many clothes to protect them from the sun and blowing sand.  The desert is a dangerous place. People do not go into the desert unless they have to.

When the flood was over, the creatures went out in all the four directions of the earth to fill it up with life again. They often gathered along the rivers. The people lived in small villages and then cities. One of the most ancient and greatest of these cities was called Ur.

In the city of Ur, the people believed that there were many gods. There was a god for every tree, every rock, every flower. There was a god of the sky, the clouds, the water and the land. The world was alive with gods.

But there was one family that believed that all of God was in every place. They did not yet know that, but that is what they thought.

Abram and Sarai were part of that family.

When it came time to move to a new place, they were not sure that God would be there. So they wondered what the new place would be like.

They walked toward Haran with their sheep and their donkeys. Even the old people and all the children went too. They slept in their tents at night, and during the day they walked along the great river called the Euphrates. It showed them the way and gave them and all their animals water to drink.

It took a long, long time. Finally they met people coming out from Haran. They knew the journey was almost over. Then they were there.

Sometimes Abram would go out to the edge of the desert and look out across the sand into the sky. Then God came so close to Abram, and Abram came so close to God, that he knew what God wanted him to do. God wanted Abram and Sarai to move on again to another new place.

Abram and Sarai did what God said. They went into the desert to the west of Haran and walked towards Caanan. They went with all their sheep, their tents and many helpers. Abram’s brother’s son Lot, also went with them. This time there was no river to show the way or to give them water to drink.

They finally came to a place called Shechem. Abram climbed up a hill and prayed to God, and God was there, so Abram built an altar to mark the place. Then they went on.

Next they came to place near Bethel. Abram prayed again and God was there, also. Abram built an altar to mark this place, too. God was not just here or there. All of God was everywhere.

All of God was everywhere.

All of God is everywhere.

No no-go areas.

No God forsaken places.

And so no God forsaken people.

Matthew, the tax collector, gathers with a collection of others commonly regarded as God forsaken. God sits at their table and eats with them.

Abram’s descendents, who should have known by now that no-one is God forsaken, struggle to believe that all of God is everywhere, even there.

We mustn’t forget though, that Jesus was sitting with the collaborators with the enemy, those who have been viewed as siding with evil. But all of God is everywhere, so Jesus sits and eats.

The woman in the crowd, as God forsaken as you could get, she has been unclean for 12 years, the rules say that she cannot have been near God in that time. 12 years, it’s a long time to believe that God has abandoned you. She who has been denied access to the temple discovers that God is there, on the streets, she reaches out for him, desperate reaching out for God. God turns to her and says ‘Take heart’ and he heals her.

A house where a child has died, surely there can be no more God forsaken place, God enters, and heals the child.

But if the child hadn’t been healed, God would still have been there.

Where are the places we are tempted to feel are God forsaken?

Burma

Darfur

Baghdad

St Paul’s in Bristol

Who are the people we are tempted to feel are God forsaken?

Those watching a loved one die?

The drug addict overdosing in a public toilet?

The mother who doesn’t know where the next meal for her child is coming from?

When are the times we feel God forsaken?

When we stand in the supermarket suddenly overwhelmed by the grief we are trying to suppress.

When we don’t understand why God is allowing yet another terrible thing to happen.

When we long for healing for ourselves or someone else, and God says wait and see how I will heal.

All of God is everywhere.

Abram’s great breakthrough, he is the first great monotheist. His is the first family to break away from the polytheistic culture of the ancient near east which promoted a city state religion of local gods.

All of God is everywhere.

The psalmist says the earth is full of his unfailing love.

All of God is everywhere.

God is here with us now.

He is with us at home.

He is here in Box.

He is with us when we are crying,

He is with us when we are standing in the pouring rain trying to pitch a recalcitrant tent on the rec,

He is with us in the Co-op,

He is with us in the Bear, or the Queen’s head,

He is with us at work, he is with us in school,

He is there beside us when we can’t stop laughing at the funniest joke in the world.

He’s with us when we are driving on the motorway,

 in that meeting that we were dreading,

in the doctor’s appointment that we had been putting off…

All of God is everywhere.

What a relief, and what a challenge?

Activity 1

In our reading we heard how we are like living stones being built into a spiritual house.
So I thought we’d try to build a house out of people to try and remember this.

First of all we need someone tall and strong to be the pillar which holds everything up.
Then we need two people to be structural walls, and two people to be the roof.
So now we need some more people to be the other walls.

I need somebody to be the window.

And two people to be the door.
And I’d like somebody noisy to be the doorbell.
We have two doorbells at the Vicarage. One is a really, really, really loud bell and the other one makes a loud raspberry noise, so is there anyone brave enough to be a raspberry noise doorbell?
So now we have our house build of people.

Why does God want us to think about being built like a spiritual house?

When Christians come together in to the church we are all different things, like a wall or a roof or a doorbell. Being all together makes us strong. So that when bad or difficult things happen we can help hold each other up.

Some of you will know the story of the three little pigs where the wolf huffs and puffs but he can’t blow down the last house because it is built very strongly.
All the Christians being built together into a spiritual house make it strong, but in the bible reading it remind us that we are only strong because there is an important special stone which holds up the whole building. And that stone is Jesus.

Because Christians believe in Jesus they can be built together in a strong way and so be a strong group of people, like a strong house.
When we baptise the baby later this morning we will welcome her to the church and we will need to remind her that as she grows up she is part of this strong spiritual house of people all being built together, and being strong because we rely on Jesus.
 

Activity 2

Today’s second reading we heard Jesus talk about buildings, but in a bit of a different way to the first reading.

I wonder what your favourite room would be like, if you could have your bedroom in any way you liked it what would it be?

To start with what colour would it be?

When we moved to the vicarage lots of very, very kind people painted lots of the walls, and they painted my bedroom a special white colour which was just what I wanted which was fabulous.

What things would you have in your bedroom?

I’ve brought along some of the things from my bedroom?

Something cuddly to keep me company.

A cup, one of my most favourite things to do in the whole world is to drink tea in bed.

A book, I like to read and drink tea.

And a blanket because I like to be cosy, drink tea and read books…

Jesus is talking to his disciples about what it is like when the time comes for us to go to heaven.
Jesus says that there are many rooms in his Father’s house and he is going to prepare a place for us.

We don’t know what heaven is really going to be like, but we know it is going to be like going to a room, which Jesus, has got ready.
Jesus knows all about us, so going to heaven will be like going to our special room our best room.

Thomas says to Jesus “but Jesus we don’t know how to get there!”
Jesus says” I am the way.” Jesus means that he is going to sort it all out for us. And he did sort it out, and he does sort it out for us.

When the baby is baptised we remember that God promises to be with her not only now on earth, but forever in heaven as well. God promises that not just for the baby today but for every Christian.