If you have a copy precede this by reading the Charlie and Lola book “Whoops but it wasn’t me!”

 

Genesis 50:15-21

Matthew 18:21-35

 

 

So what is it that you should be drawing at the moment?

 

 

What is it the thing which you have in your house which you would least like to get broken. It may like Charlie be your favourite homemade rocket. I’d be really upset if someone broke our piano, despite the years of neglect it suffered now it is being played regularly again I think I would really not want to see it broken. That would be a whole lot of sorry needed.

 

Forgiveness is a difficult thing to talk about. It’s hard when you are little to talk about forgiveness to most children, a snatched book, a broken space rocket, of course they are important to children at the time, little lessons in being sorry and forgiveness. Perhaps that is what adulthood is all about, every adult knows in one way or another what it is to be betrayed.

 

Joseph had been betrayed in perhaps the most spectacular way, but what would have happened to him if he had not forgiven his brothers. On a practical level when they first came to him he could have simply forbidden their food request and that would have killed then. Would that have been a just response from Joseph, yes maybe it would, it would also have killed his beloved Father and his beloved brother Benjamin. So in one way he was doing what he really wanted to do, but after his Father had died his brothers were worried that their punishment is on its way. Joseph says this most remarkable thing to them, “what you have intended for evil God has used for good”.

 

God has turned things around for Joseph, but it was only Joseph’s choice to forgive which meant that God could make this possible.

 

One of my yearly theological thoughts was about forgiveness, not last year but the year before. There is usually something I spend a year or so wrestling with and then something else appears and I ponder on that for a while.

 

So where did I get to with forgiveness?

 

I got as far as this.

 

Forgiveness is not about saying that something which happened was right, when it was wrong.

 

Forgiveness is not about saying that something didn’t hurt, when it did.

 

Forgiveness is about not letting it hurt you any longer.

 

Forgiveness is not about saying that something which happened was right, when it was wrong.

 

Forgiveness is not about saying that something didn’t hurt, when it did.

 

Forgiveness is about not letting it hurt you any longer.

 

That’s as far as I got, but I still think it stands well, because the more I think on it the more I feel it reflects the way that God forgive us and so should reflect the way that we forgive each other.

 

I make no apologies for the songs today being about God’s mercy, the height, the depth, the breadth, the overawing length of God’s mercy.

 

How many times should we forgive?

 

We should forgive that magic number of times which actually means that we should go on and on forgiving forever.

 

How many times does God forgive us?

 

God forgives us that magic number of times that means that really he goes on forgiving us for ever.

 

As Christians we become more like God, we gain some of his characteristics, we become holy, little by little, and we are encouraged to forgive as God forgives us.

 

God is merciful, God’s mercy has no height or depth or breadth or length.

 

We pray to become like God,

 

When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray he assumes this will happen,

 

Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

 

Joseph forgave, and in that forgiveness God worked good for Joseph, his whole family and those around him. When we forgive, God works for good in us, our family and those around us.

 

Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

 

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.