Janet’s Blog

31st May was a family service with baptism for Pentecost, I’m not going to try to describe it, you had to be there…

7th June Morning Worship - Phil preached which will pop up on the church webpage…

I can’t remember when it happened, but sometime between my childhood and when I first started catering for cub parties a shift in British cooking and eating tradition occurred.

 

When I was a child sausage rolls were a real, treat, home made with much fuss from shortcrust pastry and sausage meat, the sausage meat may possibly have been purchased from that great 1970s institution of Bejam.

 

These treats would then arrive at a particular party or event, without much thought for refrigeration on the way.

 

However the shift has occurred and now it is easy to buy, perfectly acceptable sausage rolls which are pre-cooked. In fact they are ready to serve, all that is required is opening the packet placing the sausage rolls on the plate and putting out on the table.

 

The connoisseur may complain but I tell in the past ten years not one cub or brownie has noticed the difference between these offerings and home-made.

 

A line does have to be drawn somewhere, but where? Personally I have always baulked at ready to serve custard (although careful examination of my cupboards may find instant custard?) and ready to serve porridge (again how is that necessary when ready brek exists). In our instant world the whole concept of ready to serve has come a long way since my childhood of carefully rubbed in lard and margarine to make the pastry for the sausage rolls.

 

The gospel passage find’s Jesus praying for his disciples? It’s quite a long and complicated prayer, worthy of a sermon per sentence, but towards the end of the reading today Jesus asks ‘ Make them ready for your service.’ In other words, make them ready to serve.

Jesus says ‘For their sake, I am making myself ready to serve so that they can be ready for their service of the truth.’

 

Jesus knows that the disciples have been serving, but they need to be ready to do a whole lot more serving before their time is done here on earth. So what is it that makes the disciples ready to serve?

 

Today we listened to the NIV version, the Revised standard version translate these verses differently. It uses one word, Sanctify, instead of the ready to serve phrase so instead of

 

17.Make them ready for your service through your truth; your teaching is truth.

 

We have

 

17 Sanctify them in the truth ; your word is truth.

 

So Sanctify and being made ready for service appear to be the same thing. If I asked you to define sanctify as a word, thing s like, being made holy, might come up in the explanations. And so it seems there is something inextricably linked between the being made holy and being made ready to serve. If being holy is to do with being like God and being like Jesus, the great servant King, then yes of course Sanctify means being made ready to serve.

 

In the Acts passage we are looking for someone to replace Judas in the twelve. Why do they need to replace Judas, why not run with eleven? Well partly to do with the idea that they are to be witnessing to the twelve tribes of Israel, and partly to do with their innate Jewish sense of twelve being complete and eleven being incomplete.

 

So they look for someone to be one of the twelve, one of the apostles, they realise that some things are necessary in the person whom they are choosing after all they really do need someone who is ready to serve.

 

So what is it that makes the shortlisted candidates Matthias and Barsabbas ready to serve?

 

They realise they need people who have seen everything.

 

21 Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,

22.beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.”

 

They need to be eyewitnesses, the disciples realise the continuity of eyewitness testimony will be the church’s foundation.

 

Then after they look for the qualifications they let God choose by lot the person it should be.

 

God is in one way not about to send the disciples on a leadership course, but in another real way he already has and he is about to take them on a huge learning journey.

 

The disciples realise the importance of having been a witness to Jesus’ time on earth, their training has been their experience of living in a relationship with Jesus, this has sanctified the, this has made them ready to serve.

 

So what makes us ‘ready to serve’? Is it to have lived in relationship with Jesus –Yes.

 

Is it to have been witness to God’s amazing acts? – Yes

 

Is it to have been sanctified and set apart holy by God, - Yes.

 

Maybe it’s easier to think about sanctification as something into which one grows, we are sometimes zapped, we are sometimes immediately changed with one thing or another in our lives. But often the process of sanctification is one which is characterised by slow growth.

 

The disciples had been being trained by their experience, and part of that experience was through serving.

 

The become more ready to serve by their experience of having already been serving. This is in one way a circle, or spiral, every time we do anything we are changed,. We serve God in one way, the service, the experience the reliance of God we see in that service, sanctifies us, changes us and makes us even more ready to serve.

 

So I guess the question for today is are we ready to serve?

 

Maybe we feel the answer is no, then we should do what it is we feel necessary to makes us ready to serve, because to be a disciple of Christ is to be ready to serve. If we feel we need more experience, then let’s get it. If we feel we need to spend more time with Jesus, then do it. But the disciples knew that serving led to sanctification which led to more serving, which led to more sanctification.

 

So today’s big question is, are we prepared to be ready to serve.?

Sheep, what’s the first thing that comes into your mind when I mention sheep.

Maybe I hesitate to say that, but if you have young children, or a passion for animation you may think of Shaun the sheep that creation of Aardman animations. If you’re really on the ball with children’s TV you’ll know that there is a new kid on the block. Timmy, star of Timmy time, apparently ‘he’s a little lamb with a lot to learn..’

Being a shepherd has a mixed history in the story of Israel. David, usually considered the greatest King of Israel, who was succeeded by his son Solomon. David started off his life as a shepherd, and then went on to be a King. Often Israelite Kings didn’t have much to reign but David’s Kingdom was huge, running through most of today’s Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories, bits of Jordan and bits of Egypt. This guy had started off life as a shepherd.

David’s skill as a shepherd was what got him noticed in the first place, he took out the Philistine giant Goliath with the tools of his shepherd trade, a sling shot and some pebbles and whilst Goliath was still bragging, ‘come and have a go if you think you are hard enough’, he found himself struck with a stone from the slingshot, sprawled on the floor and his head cut off in double quick time.

So while David was around, people didn’t say bad things about shepherds, my guess is that they didn’t really want to make Goliath’s mistake, because David had proved that yes he really was hard enough, and so when David, who was also in his spare time fond of singing the occasional song wrote this Psalm.

This song actually in terms of total air time in the three thousand or so years since it was written has been even more popular than Robbie Williams Millennium, or Angels, or well anything much really.

David knew that he needed to be safe and he knew that it was God who kept him safe, God kept him safe like a Good Shepherd. Of course God had kept David safe in some pretty difficult situations, lots of difficult and horrible battles and also the notorious occasion when the then King Saul threw a spear at him at quite close quarters and managed to miss.

When David was writing about God being his shepherd it wasn’t some lovely dovey idea of fluffy little cartoon sheep,like Shaun or even Timmy. David knew about the harsh realities not only of his own life, but of shepherding in general, he knew that however tough his life had been God had been his shepherd. So David confidently writes that God cares for his needs, gives him green pastures, quiet waters and leads him in the right way.

David writes at the end of the Psalm, ‘Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.’

Somehow a thousand years before the arrival of Jesus it’s as if David already knows what will happen in the end game, what will be the outcome of this shepherding that God has been doing for his people Israel.

If we press the fast forward button roughly a thousand years to a hillside above Bethlehem, known as David’s city, about seven miles from Jerusalem. This one night when the whole town is full of people going, “I really do have better things to do with my time than waste it travelling for some idle paper pushing exercise”. And one young woman was giving birth after having discovered that travelling 70 miles on a donkey is actually a really good way of inducing labour.

So on the hillside above the town there are some shepherds. To say that the shepherd has had a bad press in the past thousand years would be an understatement of huge proportions. Shepherds have gone from being a profession fit for the apprentice king to the lowest of the low. Bad hours, bad pay, bad reputation. These shepherds would not have been washing their socks by night because I bet however cold it was they couldn’t afford any. When the angels appear to them explaining this good news I’m sure there was a lot of, what us, telling us the shepherds, what’s that about then. Nobody tells us anything because we are the lowest of the low. God has a long memory and he’d not listened to the press rumours of the previous thousand years, he knew that shepherds were good important people, not people to be despised, and the little baby, the one induced by the ride on the donkey, he was going to have something to say about shepherds soon enough in the time scale of a thousand years not being that long a time.

So in the context of shepherds having once been kingly but now being despised Jesus comes right out and says it, he says it.

“I am the good shepherd”

“I am the good shepherd”

What makes a good shepherd?

I am a child of my generation and if you ask me what makes a good shepherd I have to refer back to one man and his dog, which Wikipedia reckons ran from 1979 until 1999, I’m sure only coincidentally roughly equivalent to the time of the Conservative government.

So to win one man and his dog you have points scored on how well you cast, i.e. send you dog away to the sheep, then you are marked as you bring the sheep around the course and in to the pen, You start off with full marks and marks are deducted for each fault, if the dog bites the sheep, you can be disqualified!

You get no extra points for being quick, but if you do run out of time you can lose loads of points.

This I think is not what Jesus was talking about when he was talking about being a Good Shepherd.

Jesus says, I know my sheep and my sheep know me.

All good farmers know their stock, they know their foibles and peculiarities, they know where they are likely to wander off to if they are not around, they know what is going to frighten them and they know what is going to make them ill.

This is much more of the good shepherd scenario that Jesus is talking about.

Jesus says that the shepherd will not abandon the sheep, and he didn’t abandon us. He did die, he is the good shepherd that lays down his life for his sheep. But since as we remember death could not hold him in its grasp so he still cares for his sheep.

Jesus is talking about being the shepherd that David was talking about. God leads us in green pastures, quiet waters and leads us into the paths of righteousness. And that is our hope our prayer for the baby being baptised this morning, that, that will be her experience, that  she will have green pastures, quiet waters and paths of righteousness.

But David and Jesus know that it will not always be like that, David talks about how the good shepherd comforts even in the bad times, your rod and staff they comfort me, even when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, even in the darkest of times, God is still the good shepherd. And that is also our prayer for baby being baptised that in the tough times she will discover that God is right there beside her, comforting her, leading her through it, defending her with his staff.

What does it mean for us to be a sheep of God?

God cares for us, he wants the best for us, he looks out for us when we are lost, he looks for good places for us to be, places where we can grow and flourish. God knows that our life will not always be like that, but he is not distant from us in that time, no he is right there with us, ready to lift us up if we fall in the ditch, or drive of wolves with his staff.

We believe that Jesus’ death and resurrection has made this possible for us in the way which David knew partly in his own life and prophesised for us all. When Jesus says there shall be one flock and one shepherd he reminds us that this care and grace is available to us all. All we have to do is come when he calls.

The shepherds, David and Jesus knew didn’t use dogs to herd, they called the sheep, and the sheep came because they knew the sound of the shepherds voice. Today we celebrate that God has called Bay to himself but God doesn’t stop calling as we get older, he still calls to us, he calls us still to bring us to our green pastures, quiet waters and paths of righteousness. He calls to reassure us when we are stuck in a ditch, he is coming with his staff to get us out, he calls us when we are in dark places so that we can stay walking beside him, he calls us when we have wandered away, he calls us. As God’s sheep we listen to him call, we can hear the good shepherd calling us by name…

 

I have a friend…yes don’t laugh, I do have one.  I have a friend who doesn’t like to eat fish, she cannot even bring herself to let a morsel of the stuff past her lips.

She also doesn’t like blue cheese or mango.

So imagine how we felt when at a dinner, longer ago than I care to remember, we started with avocado with a blue cheese sauce, to be followed by knot of sole. I can remember to this day, how she carefully put her fork through the fish, splatted it, gently spread it around the plate and put the fork down without once ever raising it to her mouth.

 Then just to clear our palettes we were served with mango sorbet, to give her, her due, she did try with the sorbet.

 

Why do I mention this today, today’s gospel passage is a curious one and we know that Jesus ate a piece of fish. A piece of broiled fish.

It was all they had. One must assume that it was the best thing that they had, and Jesus eats it. Jesus eats it to show that he isn’t a ghost. He eats it to show that he is really alive, he eats it to show that he has really beaten the power of death and this new life is a real, live physical life.

And we know that unlike my friend, Jesus likes fish…

This is part of the transition for the disciples, part of the journey from grief to happiness that Jesus is alive, to the next bit, Jesus is really alive so what does that mean.

Jesus says ‘Peace be with you’ when he stands among them, then he says “Why are you troubled?”

It’s a really good question.

Why are you troubled?

I wonder what it is that troubles us?

Often there are small things that annoy us.

If I gave you all a minute to rant about something which really annoyed you I’m sure most of you would have no problem in finding something to say. Whether it’s a particular thing to do with language, or punctuation or when people drop litter, or are inconsiderate or when it says on the safety card on the aeroplane, if you can’t see well enough to read this card please don’t sit in the emergency exit row. Or something else.

These then are things which annoy us are these the things which trouble us?

One of the passages we often have read at funerals is from John 14 and Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me…”

All sorts of things trouble us, our health, our family, supporting our families being able to clothe and feed and see them grow up. All these things trouble us. Other things trouble us, what’s really going to happen when we die, am I going to make a mess of my life, is God really going forgive me when it really matters.

Jesus says why are you troubled and why do doubts rise in your minds?

It’s a good question, why are we troubled and why do doubts rise in our minds?

Dr Pepper for some time have been running  a series of ads on the TV and in the cinema trying to encourage people to try Dr Pepper.

They say, Dr Pepper, what’s the worst thing that can happen?

They are trying to imply that actually if you try Dr Pepper the worst thing that could happen is that you might not like it.

I am not a very decisive person, and often I have to find myself asking that question. So what is the worst thing that could happen in that particular situation. If you think that however unlikely it may actually happen you could actually cope with the worst case scenario you are more likely to move forward.

And partly that’s what experience teaches us. If we think about the worst thing that could happen, and we realise that actually we’ve coped with something similar to that before, then it makes us braver to act.

I guess a lot of us are frightened of dying, it’s the ultimate leveller, it’s often not very dignified, and as Benjamin Franklin said it’s the only thing certain in life apart from taxation.

Jesus has of course returned from the dead, but in a different way to Lazarus, and the disciples were just trying to work out what that meant for them.

Jesus was sharing his experience that death does not have the power everyone thought it had, it is universal, true but look Jesus can even come back and eat fish.

We have hugely varying opinions of heaven even within different traditions of the church. There are a few certain things revealed to us in the bible, and lots of things which we don’t know. I’m sure my friend will be pleased if the resurrection life of heaven didn’t involve compulsory fish eating, but I kind of think that if it did, she would find she liked fish in her resurrection body.

Jesus comes back to tell his disciples they don’t need to be afraid of death, but as part of this package they do need to repent.

The psalm asks us to consider ourselves, ‘when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.’ What would you find if you searched your heart in quiet. We were talking at Little lights on Friday about prayer and how important it is to find a quiet place to pray. One of the little girls thought it was hilarious that mummys sometimes only found peace and quiet in the toilet with the door locked. But honest reflection in peace and quiet will reveal things about us, make us appreciate our need for repentance.

Jesus talks about repentance and forgiveness of sins being preached. Peter in Acts is found doing just that,

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,

We have repentance, forgiveness and security in God’s love. God’s love which is not limited by anything even death. If we’re not scared of death, what then is there left to be afraid of?

Today’s Psalm, Psalm 4 is used at Compline, the traditional monastic bedtime service which used to be said in the big dormitories.

Can you remember how it ends?

I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

We don’t need to be troubled, we don’t need to be afraid. If we live our lives showing that we believe that it will be transforming, not just for us, but those around us.

 

I wanted to end with some words of an old spiritual song..

 

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen

Nobody knows but Jesus

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen

Glory Hallelujah

 

Sometimes I’m up and sometimes I’m down

Yes lord, you know sometimes I’m almost to the ground

O yes, Lord, still

 

You got here before I do

O yes Lord, don’t forget to tell all my friends I’m coming too

 

O yes Lord, still

Nitezche apparently said “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.

The women who approached the tomb on that first Easter morning were strong women, women with a history of being made stronger.

Mary Magdalene, was a strong woman, a woman who had many experiences in her life which made her strong, not least that when she met Jesus he is described as casting seven demons from her.

These are the women who have watched the crucifixion, they have watched Jesus die. This watching someone the love and hoped in die, didn’t kill then, maybe it made them stronger.

These strong women know what they need to do, at the earliest opportunity they go and buy spices and go to do the things they know they have to do.

I wonder how they felt as they went that morning?

What mixture of grief and despair filled their hearts?

They were mourning for their beloved friend and the person they thought would be the hope of their nation, their people.

They knew that what didn’t kill them would make them stronger, but Jesus’ he had died.

And so they got on with coping in the practical way that strong people do.

Earlier this year someone I know had to break some tragic news to a series of different people.

She described how she realised on each visit what she had to do, she would go in, turn the heating up and put the kettle on.

This was part of the whole scenario of practical things she had to do around breaking the bad news that she had to tell.

The women on the way to the tomb thought had a practical problem, they were strong women, but they knew that they couldn’t roll the stone away, they would need to find someone to do that for them.

Sometimes grief focuses on a small practical point, in amongst the whole haze and disorientation of grief sometimes there is a practical aspect which becomes the focus.

For these women that morning their concern was the stone, they needed to find a practical human solution to the problem of the stone, so that they could do what needed to be done.

 When they arrived at the tomb they realise how wrong they’d been, No that’s not the right phrase, they don’t realise instantly that Jesus has been raised from the dead with all the implications that holds for them and the whole of humanity, the first thing they think about is the stone.

They looked up and saw that the stone had been rolled away.

They had been walking with their heads down, then they looked up and saw that the stone had been rolled away.

Their main practical human problem had been solved. They had worried about the stone, and now the stone was not a problem.

Since the stone is not a problem so they go in to the tomb. Probably thinking to themselves, well at least we can get on with properly attending the body.

When they get into the tomb then they realise that this has been no helpful human hand moving the stone. This was God’s hand at work and the angel says to them.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.

But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ “

I love the way Angels always have to begin with don’t be alarmed…don’t be alarmed, our dead friend’s body should be here, and the stone is rolled away and his body is gone and you say “don’t be alarmed”. Don’t be alarmed, of course we are alarmed, you are turning our world upside down, we are strong women but this is almost more than we can bear.

I wonder what of the angel’s words went in as they flee from the tomb. They are afraid, they are trembling and bewildered and run away from the tomb.

They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. Their strength was gone.

They said nothing until after Mary Magdalene meets Jesus and then has to tell the others.

A few weeks later Peter understands enough about what has happened to say this.

“All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

It begins to dawn on the disciples what has happened, all the things which Jesus said which appeared to be nonsense, now begin to make sense.  Like when Jesus said this.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

All the pieces begin to fit into place and the events around Jesus’ death and resurrection become much clearer. Peter, Peter who was singled out in the angel’s message, Peter even preaches that this love of God is for everyone, not just the Jews, but for all.

Maybe Nietzche is right, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

But meeting the angel made these strong women weak, at least at first.

These women knew that Jesus really had died.

They knew, they had watched him die, they knew death, they knew that when blood and water poured from a body then death has happened some time ago.

Jesus had died, but death had made him stronger.

Jesus had died but he was stronger than death.

Jesus died so that we could all be made stronger.

Jesus died, and was resurrected, so that we could all be stronger than death.

I am about to say something which may be a little controversial. Yesterday morning I realised that this is the only church I ever remember going to where we don’t exchange a sign of peace in the modern language communion service. By this I mean when the priest says, peace be with you and you all reply, and also with you. Then we don’t turn around and great each other and say peace be with you. I don’t mean this to be a criticism, it is merely an observation, and I suppose I’ve been to communion in about 30 different churches I can think of.

In mediaeval times it was all much easier, the priest kissed a peace of wood with a handle called the pax board, and it was passed around the entire congregation and everybody kissed it. Kind of nice and symbolic, and also a good way to share all sorts of contagious mediaeval diseases.

 

In the gospel reading Jesus comes into the room and says, Peace be with you. Peace be with you…

I wonder what that peace means to us?

How does that peace of Christ affect our lives, it was about to radically change the lives of the disciples, but what does that peace mean to us.

Jesus knows that they need reassurance to go with that peace and so he says touch me and know that I am real, touch me and know that I am real.

This peace that Jesus brings this peace which affects our lives, this peace should affect us profoundly.

Jesus give Thomas what he needs to have this peace, Jesus appears to him, and says touch me and believe. Thomas got this title of doubting Thomas but I think that’s just not fair, he wasn’t their when Jesus appeared to the others, why should he believe them why should he trust that it wasn’t just some mass hysteria and wishful thinking. Why should he believe and live in the peace that Jesus gives until he encounters Jesus for himself, until he knows in his heart that it is true.

When Jesus comes and brings Thomas his Peace, Thomas believes.

I wonder when you have felt closest to Jesus? Some people have incredible visions of Jesus, real senses that he is with them in a room or a vision in a place or on a particular occasion. Some people don’t have visions in this way, maybe you feel close to Jesus when the gospel is being read, or when you come up to communion, or maybe when you are praying quietly on your own.

For myself one of the times that I felt close to Jesus was actually in the holy land. We were in a place called Gadara, one of the cities of the Decapolis which overlooks the Sea of Galilee, possibly the place of the Gadarene swine, but maybe not. Even if not, we know that Jesus went there. They had excavated the road back to its first century level, built from black volcanic rock, and we walked on the road, the main street which ran from the harbour and into the city gates, Jesus walked on that road, Jesus walked there. That for me was where I felt close to Jesus, strangely closer than at the Baptism site, possibly because no-one had managed to build a big church there, it was just an ordinary pavement, but Jesus had walked along it.

 

So how did Jesus’ peace affect the first believers?

We hear in Acts that all the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.

This peace had affected everything, even their view of possessions, and remember this is in the time where there was no state support, if you gave it all away the chances were that you could really end up with nothing. But still they did it.

But perhaps I am more intrigued by this idea that the believers were one in heart and mind. There is this phrase I like to use, unity without uniformity. We don’t all have to be identical, we don’t have to be clones to be united. Christ’s peace should give us this ability to be as one in heart and mind, whilst we are still different.

Part of this peace which comes from Jesus is to do with not having to be afraid. We  don’t have to be scared, any more. I was at a talk last week and the speaker said, “you can’t kill a Christian, you can only transfer them.” It’s a bit trite to say it like that, but it’s true. When we have this Peace of Christ which is available to us we can be confident, and we don’t need to be afraid.

Christ still offers us this peace, and my question today is how does that peace affect us, ourselves and how we interact with other people.

Looking peaceful is a thing which I think church leaders must have to learn, sitting still I think it was probably called in the old days. Or as is sometimes called out in our house, ‘Can you not sit at peace’. A few years ago when I was a curate we had a visiting priest come and celebrate communion on Ash Wednesday and Ian said to me afterwards, did you see how still he sat, he was really peaceful.

But this peace is about more than just sitting still, something deep, deep down in us makes us assured, this is Christ’s peace.

So back to the beginning and the sharing of the peace in communion.

How do I feel as the priest in charge that we don’t exchange a sign of Christ’s peace in the service. To me it’s just strange, it’s odd, because it’s all I’ve ever known I feel it’s missing, but I’m not about to impose it.

What’s important is that you have Christ’s peace with you and in you all the time, that is what I want to encourage. I want to encourage you to be   like Thomas and the disciples, living your lives transformed by the peace which comes to you from the risen Christ. And that by living this transformed life of peace, the lives of those around you will also be transformed.