Janet’s Blog

On 29th June, we had family service in the methodist church, which I led, but not really in the way to put on the blog… 6th July Phil Daniels preached an excellent sermon on our Patronal Festival about Thomas Becket and all that stuff, hopefully he will post it somewhere…then on 13th July Alice Kemp preached about the parable of the sower, asking the question “What kind of soil are we?”…maybe she might post it too…

Oh yes, and on top of that the joint choir sang the opening movement of Vivaldi’s Gloria during the Patronal festival, and we sang part of the St Bride’s settign for communion and it was all great…thanks everyone.

 

Mark 6:7-29

These are not exactly the lectionary passages for the day but are closely related so this is what we had.

 

Usually when I preach on Mark chapter 6 I reach about luggage, not having too much luggage, not taking all that stuff with us we don’t need, giving it over to God and relying on him.

 

But  this morning I want to talk about rollercoasters.

 

The roller coaster is a popular amusement ride developed for amusement parks and modern theme parks. LaMarcus Adna Thompson patented the first roller coaster on January 20, 1885. In essence a specialised railroad system, a coaster consists of a track that rises designed patterns, sometimes with one or more inversions (the most common being loops) that turn the rider briefly upside down. The track does not necessarily have to be a complete circuit, though some purists insist that it must to be a true coaster. Most coasters have cars for two, four, or six passengers each, in which the passengers sit to travel around the circuit.

 

Jesus had just sent out his disciples with nothing, well just about nothing, just a friend and a meagre resource of a staff. And what had happened, they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

 

It’s the sort of result that snow boarders and other such testosterone filled young men would make a yoo-hoo, noise about.

 

Herod of course had a different response to it, Herod was scared. He has lived his life on a roller coaster, he had married once for political reasons, and then divorced and married Herodias, when John’s execution followed he had thought the thorn in his side was gone, but all this took place before Jesus’ ministry began, now Jesus’ disciples who had wept at the news of John’s death were shouting woo-hoo. And Herod was scared because when he heard of the miracles he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”

 

We have a snapshot here, Jesus and the disciples who had been distraught wit the news of John’s death, are riding high. And Herod who had thought all his troubles with John the Baptist were over, is now very scared because he believes that John has been raised form the dead with whatever consequences that has for him.

 

So two different groups of people, swept on a rollercoaster of emotion.

 

It’s so corny, but at the same time very ,very true to say that life is a roller coaster.

 

My favourite quote about this is by Daivd Schmaltz

 

Life is a roller-coaster. Try to eat a light lunch.

 

Roller coasters are thrilling and exciting, but actually very very safe.

Jesus came and his life was a roller coaster and affected the whole of everyone else’s life around him. Jesus didn’t stop people’s life being scary or feel frightening sometimes, but he did mean that however scared or thrilled we are by the roller coaster ride of life that we have, it is just that a roller coaster, something which in eternal terms God has made safe.

 

I only have one theological thought per year, last year’s was  about forgiveness…some of you will have heard my work in progress on that one.

 

The year before’s was about life, and was never properly resolved. God has made us as eternal beings, that is what we believe. Our time here on earth is therefore very short, but must be important otherwise God wouldn’t have bothered, so what are we doing here? We are perhaps learning things about heights and depths of love and emotion and drawing understanding that we cannot solely learn in eternity.

 

Life is a roller-coaster. Try to eat a light lunch.

 

As Jesus. His followers, and Herod knew life is a rollercoaster, how we ride it is up to us, we feel scared one moment, we feel thrilled another, but in the end, it is a safe ride because God has made it eternally secure for us.

 

 

 

The new vicar, having insisted that we spend time in the Old Testament by following the track 1 readings now finds herself facing one of the most difficult passages of the Old testament.

But today I am less worried than I would have been say five years ago with this passage because I think I have found a way to understand this one of the least understandable passages in the bible.

God is asking Abraham to kill his Son in a ritual sacrifice. This Son whom God has promised is going to fulfil the promise of the nations. God has already made Abraham send his other Son Ishmael away, God now seems to be asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.

We have almost no cultural access to this passage, because we do not live in a place where child sacrifice for religious reasons is a part of our cultural life.

In the Ancient Near East, where Abraham was living, child sacrifice for religious reasons was something that happened. It was part of Abraham’s culture, God was not asking something culturally unusual from Abraham, however harsh or disturbing that seems to us, or however distressing that would be to Abraham.

As we have been following through these Old Testament readings , we have been learning how Abraham’s religion was becoming more and more different to the religions of those around him. Abraham had been the first great monotheist, and he understood that all of God was everywhere. God asks Abraham to be obedient, and then says to Abraham, actually I don’t want you to do this, I am not like all those other gods, I don’t  want violent human sacrifices to please me. This is another way in which God reveals the difference between himself, Yahweh, and all the other Ancient Near Eastern Gods.

How does this tie in with the gospel passage? To which it seems at first glance completely unrelated.

Jesus in the gospel is talking about welcome, how we welcome Christians who are sent to us, and this sits theologically in the whole picture of hospitality and generosity of God.

Ancient Near Eastern gods, and by New Testament times, Graeco-Roman gods were violent greedy creatures, they wanted sacrifice, more sacrifice and some more sacrifice. Now in Jewish culture there is a strong tradition of sacrifice, another time we can go into this more deeply, but most commentators agree that Jewish sacrifice contains a big theology about Yahweh, God dwelling in quite a domestic way amongst the Jews.

But the imagery of the psalms in particular contains image after image of God being hospitable towards us. God does not demand in a greedy, grabbing way like some pagan gods. Instead God provides from his generosity for us, he provides the ram fro Abraham. He spreads a feast before us in Psalm 23 and when Jesus wants an image to show how much God loves us, he uses a meal. God doesn’t demand ungraciously an inappropriate sacrifice, God gives to us generously, and the gospel passage is one of the many places where he asks us to share in that generosity by being generous to others.

Readings

Luke 15:11-24 and Col 3:12-17 the Message translation (see www.crosswalk.com)

God’s wardrobe

I wonder what is the worst thing in your wardrobe?

Which is the item of clothing that you are most ashamed of?

If Trinny and Susannah were ringing your doorbell ready to do wardrobe inspection what would you run upstairs grab from your wardrobe and fling out of the window?

We probably all have something, a favourite T shirt we can’t bear to part with, or a jumper which is all out of shape, but we wore to this party or this other event and so it stays with us.

I guess that we are probably not wearing any of these items today. Weddings bring out in us the desire to preen,  put on our party shoes and have a generally good time. We also are prone to judge people according to the clothes they wear, we can’t help it.

And that is one of the very important reasons for wearing something like this as a vicar (i.e. robes) so that you aren’t all trying to work out if it’s Marks and Spencer’s or Primark that I’m wearing.

The reading from Luke talks about the person who is commonly referred to as the prodigal son. He had been rebellious and turned away from his father.  He had said effectively, I wish you were dead, give me the money now. He’d gone off and squandered his wealth in wild living. I wonder what the first century equivalent of a designer suit was, whatever it was, I bet he had one. The Gucci or Armani of the country in which he ended up.

 

Well he found out that when the money was gone, his friends were gone too. However smart and well-dressed he once was, I don’t suppose that he looked too neat and tidy, after weeks of pig herding, and days and days of walking home barefoot form a distant country.

I wonder what he looked like as he trudged up that path towards his father’s house?

He was looking, hoping, for a job as a servant, not expecting a welcome as a child.

Jesus told this story to describe God’s love for us. We turned away from God, we have always turned away from God throughout history. The first story in the bible talks about when this happened. When they disobeyed God, one of the first consequences was  that Adam and Eve knew they were naked, and so they tried to make themselves clothes out of leaves.  In the story God has to send them away from the garden, despite the fact that his first plan had been to hang around in a garden with some naked vegetarians. When Adam and Eve about to leave the bounteous garden because of their disobedience. God takes pity on them, they need clothes now, although they didn’t before, God makes them clothes before he sends them from the garden.

Back to the prodigal son, he is walking up the path dressed in rags, expecting to beg his father for a place with the servants. The Father, as soon as he sees him, runs to him. Then the Father has brought out the best robe,  and sandals. These are the clothes that God has prepared for anyone who will just think, it’s time for me to go home to God, my heavenly Father. God brings out the clothes of celebration, the party frocks and suits, and the ring to mark the returning child as an heir in the Father’s house.

The other reading was from a letter Paul wrote to the church in Collosae. The Christians there were people who had turned back to God, God had given them their robe and their ring of inheritance and Paul was describing the other things which God places in the wardrobe of the Christian.

So chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

These are the clothes which God gives to all Christians to wear, and this wardrobe of God is what needs to be packed into Rosie and Peter’s suitcase today. I remember packing for my honeymoon, for which task I had approximately 30 seconds, I opened my suitcase, took a drawer and literally tipped the contents of the drawer into the case.

So today our prayer is that Peter and Rosie will empty God’s wardrobe into their suitcase and take it with them into their married life together. The wardrobe contents are compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you.

Forgiveness features hugely in this passage, ask me later why Forgiveness features so strongly in the letter to the Colossians…but for now we need to think about forgiveness…forgiveness as one of the items of clothing which Rosie and Peter need to take with them.

Forgiveness as we hear about in the story of the prodigal son is God’s prerogative, he forgives, and clothes the person who is forgiven with garments of love and assurance. In marriage, and all Christian relationships, we are asked to model this aspect of God’s love. So the times when we fail perhaps, with the other things, like kindness, compassion or even-temper, then we need to forgive.

And so as Christians we are commanded to have love as our basic all-purpose garment. If we love then  the rest, compassion, kindness, humility etc. will flow from this love… we try to love each other in the church family, but today Peter and Rosie have promised to love each other.  Our prayer for them is that they live out this promise, in easy times and hard, and that as they do this they will keep the items in God’s wardrobe close at hand, and wear them with pride.

This is an adaptation of my Christ the King Sermon from some time ago.

Ther readings were 2 Sam 2:1-11; 3:1 and Luke 18:31-19:10

I presided at St Peter’s Chippenham. John Tucker led evensong at Chapel Plaister and read my sermon there.

The first part is from CS Lewis’ The Lion the witch and the wardrobe’

In the Narnia books the children are waiting to meet Aslan for the first time and they are asking their friend Mr. Beaver about him.

 

“Is-is he a man?” asked Lucy.

 

“Aslan a man!” said Mr Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion - the Lion, the great Lion.”

 

 

“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he - quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

 

 

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

 

 

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

 

 

“Safe?” said Mr Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the Old Testament passage today we hear that David is Anointed as king of Judah, David is the archetypal King for the Israelites, reminiscent of the time when they “never had it so good”. The Messiah  the Jews believe will be a King like David, of David’s line, as we remember if we cast our minds back to Christmas.

 

In a truly important piece of prophetic rhetoric the Blind man sees that Jesus is this King that everyone has been waiting for. The blind see, and so he shouts out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

This blind man has recognised that Jesus is the King, but what concept of Kingship do we have today?

 

I wonder what the first word is that springs into your mind when you hear the word King?

 

King, crown, coronation.

 

Burger King

 

The King, (Elvis of course)

 

 

The concept of King of course has varied with time and culture. In our own society we have a wide variety of opinions of Monarchy. Some of course who don’t believe we should have a monarch at all, there are also many who think the monarchy should drive themselves around in their own family saloon cars and turn up to events where useful for attracting tourists. Others still believe that the Royal family are specially chosen by God and we should humbly submit ourselves in allegiance to them.

 

If you happen one day to be driving past the Royal Palace in Amman in Jordan a strange sight will greet you. Hundreds of people will be waiting in the courtyard, what are these people doing? Well they are waiting to see the king. Not just in a tourist catch a glimpse of the king way, no they have come to see the king himself, and the king or one of his advisors will see them all and settle their land dispute or whatever their problem is.

 

We don’t expect this of monarchs in the UK today, that is after all what the queen has a government for. But this role of justice and arbitrator was one of the key aspects in the people of Israel wanting a King.

 

One of the other reasons of course why the Jews wanted a king in the Old Testament was to defend their territory against invaders. The Jews wanted a king who would be powerful and mighty so that the people need not be afraid.

 

God said to Israel, you don’t need a king you have me,

but Israel were insistent,

we do need a king

and even though God warned them it would only lead to trouble they insisted.

 

It did lead to trouble the passage we had today from Samuel was a snapshot in the story, which you can read all about it in the books of Samuel, as Saul and then David became King.

 

The problems with the Kings was that they kept forgetting about God in their troubles.

 

Israel got into a terrible mess and by the time we get to the arrival of Jesus on the scene the Jewish nation are an oppressed and awkward part of the Roman Empire, who worried the Romans because they would not worship the Roman gods, thus risking their anger.

 

The blind man saw that Jesus had come to be King. The contemporary Jewish leaders and people wanted a new radical Israelite King, but not one who would eat with people like Zacchaeus.

 

The plan for Jesus’ Kingdom was bigger, bigger than giving a blind man his sight, bigger than turning around the life of an odd sinner or two.

 

Jesus kingdom is not like those we think of as worldly kingdoms, Jesus is not just interested in a tiny nation of raggedy oppressed monotheists.

 

Instead Jesus is King of everything. In ancient times the Jewish people wanted a human King, but in the end God once and for all had to come and be human, to sort them out.

 

Perhaps he had to be the sort of King God would have been for the Israelites all that time.

 

Jesus came to show the truth about God’s kingship.

 

 

Jesus’ showed God’s kingship in his power and authority,

but he also showed compassion and humility,

he showed God’s kingship through speaking of God’s love,

and teaching about God’s kingdom,

a kingdom not ruled by human values but God’s values.

 

Jesus’ showed God’s kingship by demonstrating that God’s love for us humans cannot be defeated by anything, even death.

 

So do we need a King?

 

We certainly need the kingdom of God.

 

Acknowledgement to Wikipedia for much of the stuff about the flat earth society…

There are still some people who do not believe that the earth is a globe.

 

Contemporary theory supporting a flat Earth originated with an English inventor, Samuel Rowbotham who was born in 1816.

 

Based on his interpretation of certain biblical passages, Rowbotham published a 16-page pamphlet, which he later expanded into a 430-page book, Earth Not a Globe, which expounded his views.

 

 According to Rowbotham’s system, which he called “Zetetic Astronomy”, the earth is a flat disk centered at the North Pole and bounded along its southern edge by a wall of ice, with the sun and moon 3000 miles (4800 km) and the “cosmos” 3100 miles (5000 km) above earth.

 

Rowbotham and his followers gained notice by engaging in public debates with leading scientists of the day.

 

After Rowbotham’s death, his followers established the Universal Zetetic Society, published a magazine entitled The Earth Not a Globe Review, and remained active well into the early part of the 20th century. After World War I, the movement underwent a slow decline.

 

In the United States, Rowbotham’s ideas were taken up by the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church. Founded by a Scottish faith healer, John Alexander Dowie, in 1895, the church established the theocratic community of Zion, Illinois on the shore of Lake Michigan forty miles (seventy kilometers) north of Chicago.

 

In 1906, Dowie was deposed as leader of the sect by his lieutenant, Wilbur Glenn Voliva. The flat earth doctrine was exclusively taught in community schools. Voliva was a pioneer in religious radio broadcasting and described his views in broadcasts on a 100,000-watt (100 kW) radio station. Voliva died in 1942 and the church declined. A few flat earth supporters persisted in Zion into the 1950s.

 

The flat Earth believers faced challenges posed by photographs of the earth from space and later the moon.

 

Member Samuel Shenton remarked: “It’s easy to see how a photograph like that could fool the untrained eye.”

 

The society took the position that the Apollo Moon landings were a hoax, staged by Hollywood and based on a script by the late Arthur C. Clarke, a position also held by some others not connected to the Flat Earth Society.

 

In a March 2001 message to a friend, Clarke facetiously responded to the society’s claims as follows:

 

“I’ve written to [former NASA director] Dan Goldin saying I was never paid for this work and unless he does something quickly he’ll be hearing from my killer lawyers, Geldsnatch, Geldsnatch & Blubberclutch.”

 

Denial is a common human response when one is faced with something one doesn’t want to admit has happened.

 

So some people don’t want to believe is that the earth is round, or that the moon landings have happened.

 

There is contemporary controversy about people denying the holocaust during the second world war, or in Russia there are people who deny the severity of Stalin’s death camps.

 

If you deny something then it becomes possible to fool yourself into thinking that maybe it didn’t happen at all.

 

Jesus had enemies, people who didn’t like him.

 

People who were prepared to say that he came from the devil.

 

They say in Christian ministry you can tell when you are really doing something good when there is someone who believes that you are evil.

 

Jesus is the prime example of that happening in  ministry.

 

Sometimes what is unsaid in the bible, is as important as that which is spoken.

 

In the enlightenment and scientific age there have been many sceptics who have said that Jesus’ miracles just didn’t happen. They are the miracle deniers. Usually men of reason, who would have held great stock in what did and didn’t happen at the time of Jesus’ ministry.

 

Which makes one thing even more important, Jesus’ enemies were there, eyewitnesses to everything that happened. These men who hated Jesus and what they thought he stood for they never said it didn’t happen. However much they wanted not to believe it somehow they just couldn’t become miracle deniers. They could not bring themselves to say ‘Jesus didn’t heal’ it’s just not true, that man was going to get better anyway.

 

These people who didn’t like Jesus so much they accused his power of coming from the devil, they never said this is a hoax.

 

Why?

 

For us if people can still seriously question that the earth is a globe and that the moon landings never happened, surely these enemies of Jesus could have said this never happened Jesus’ miracles weren’t  ‘real’ miracles.

 

But they couldn’t, they couldn’t do it. These people who had met Jesus, but were trying so hard not to believe in him. These people couldn’t deny Jesus his power, their only defence was to say that this power was not good.

 

Jesus said ‘look you know your arguments don’t make sense.’

 

The NRSV translates verse 17 as Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert.

 

Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert.

 

Isn’t that just such the case, we see places which have been fruitful happy lands become riven with civil war and quite often they literally do become a desert. A dry parched land where the war means people can’t care for their land properly. In the fragile water scarce environment like the Near East where Jesus walked desert was a place where survival was hard. A kingdom divided against itself self-destructs. Jesus knew that, and really Jesus’ opponents knew that.

 

Because they can’t bring themselves to resort to denial of the miracles actually occurring, and they know their argument doesn’t really  make sense,  they are left with the terrifying possibility that Jesus is actually sent by God.

 

What does that mean?

 

Jesus says “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you”.

 

This is an allusion to the Exodus story where Pharoah’s magicians recognised God’s true power, the finger of God, at work in Moses and Aaron.

 

The finger of God at work through Jesus, these miracles which even Jesus’ enemies can’t deny happened. Then we see that the kingdom of God has come to them. The question for them and for us is how to respond to that.

 

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?