Christ the King

Have you ever had the privilege of meeting our Queen?

I have to say I haven’t but I did sing to Princess Ann once when I was at school.

She was visiting the school I was at and we put on a great show for her, from the Army group putting on a display to the music school showing off with the madrigal choir – which I was in – to a sumptuous lunch with all the great and good of the school.

Royalty in this country is something which many people are still terribly proud of and it comes with it a sense of awe and wonder, putting on our best for them.

Why start with this – well today is the day in the Church's year when we celebrate Christ the King.

And it seems that we have a lot of expectations about earthly kingship which we bring into our understanding of Heavenly Kingship.

And earthly Royalty or Kingship holds with it a pattern of behaviour and expectations, we are not really worthy to be part of it so we put on our best show, royalty is far away from US as normal people or subjects of their realm.

And yet when we think about Christ as King we need to think beyond our understanding of earthly monarchy to think of Kingship in a different way and of our responsibilities of being part of a heavenly Kingdom.

Christ as King urges us to see our King Jesus beyond our human understanding,

A King who although perfectly God was also perfectly able to relate to humanity.

Who made his home not with the high and mighty, not with the powerful but with the poor and outcast of society.

Who surrounded himself not with great scholars and educated leaders and statesmen but with fishermen and tax collectors.

Who was educated not in the great schools of the day but at the bench of his earthly father the carpenter.

And yet we see Jesus, – this Jesus as King- having all power and authority that have been given him by God.

So it is not surprising therefore that when we look at his Kingdom – the priorities and guiding principles,  will be vastly different from those of the world.

And todays gospel reading speaks clearly to us as we celebrate Christ the King today and as we think about what it means to us to live as part of his Kingdom.

So I want to look at this briefly this morning to see what it can teach us about priorities in the Kingdom of God and living under the rule of Christ as King.

Well firstly when we look at this reading we need to see clearly how it follows on from the previous parables in Matthews gospel – the parable of the talents and before this the parable of the ten virgins waiting with their lamps for the bridegroom.

These perhaps are unsettling parables which speak to us about being ready for when the Lord returns but also of ensuring that we work diligently for the Kingdom in using the gifts and talents that we have been given.

And in culmination of these parables now Matthew gives us some teaching of Jesus on judgement and this wonderful story about the King.

So I want to look at it firstly in terms of judgement – which is something not many of us like thinking about.

Then secondly in terms of what we will be judged against and how this may help us think about our priorities in living as part of the Kingdom.

Firstly, then judgement.

The idea of judgement day was a common feature of first- century Judaism, and it was also an expectation amongst the early Christians.

We now a days don’t emphasise it too much in mainstream churches- and often the idea of judgement is parodied by those who we probably see as not quite normal wondering around Oxford st with sandwich boards declaring the end of the world and judgement on the world.

So what relevance is judgement today.

In this story Jesus uses the idea of judgement and the story of the sheep and the goats to bring home the fact that we are all being judged all the time by the response to our fellow human beings especially when they are in need.

According to John 3: 17 God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Then he goes on to describe judgement in terms of light and darkness: “This is judgement that the light has come into the world……..read John 3: 19-21

When we read this we realise that God’s light exposes all the darkness of our lives.

It’s a bit like the sun shining through your windows.
If they haven’t been cleaned the bright light will show up all the dirt and grime/

So we see from John’s gospel that when Christ came into the world he didn’t intend to condemn the world, but that the light of his goodness and truth actually had the effect of showing up all the sin and darkness in the world.

And the effect of seeing this light leads us then to repentance to a realisation that our lives are not as God intended.

To repent, to ask forgiveness for the bits our lives which are shown up as grimy and unclean by the bright light of God’s presence.

In this way we see judgement clearly as not something which we wait until the end of time for- though of course in some way we know there will be a final judgement as we are told elsewhere in the bible.

But this sort of judgement happens even daily as we continually assess our lives in the light of God’s light.

This is a continuous kind of self- assessment of our lives and we assess ourselves against the rule of Christ the King, the King who brought light into a dark world.

So what in this passage does Jesus teach us when he tells us what we will all be judged against.

And here we see clearly how we will be judged against the ways that we show love to others.

Jesus said: For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

And they said – well when did this happen – we didn’t do that for you King,

But Jesus continued- the King will reply “Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine you did for me”

I think these are very challenging words of Jesus to us in a culture which is out for self and all one can get for oneself.

It’s easy to help those who we want to help isn’t it.

It’s easy to help those who look like they need our help- who are responsive, who might even say thank you,

It’s easy to help those who are like ourselves, who are part of our congregation, who we generally are comfortable with.

But Jesus here is not saying that - he is saying that we will be judged not against  how we are with our friends and our neighbours, those who are like us,

But Jesus is here saying that we will be judged against how we are with the “least”,

Those who we are not comfortable with, the person on the street, the homeless, the single mum struggling to bring up her  children in a small flat, those who are in prison, the jobless, all those who society somehow condemns as irresponsibly getting themselves into a situation of poverty.

The modern day outcasts – the equivalents of the leper, the tax collectors, the sinners who we saw Jesus regularly meeting and caring for.

And when we look at this story like this it is indeed a challenge not only for us as individuals but as a Church.

Because how Jesus says this happens is something that is completely natural.

It should be our norm to offer help and care for the least of people.

Example of seaside parish – the priest who made himself up as a drunk and then walked into the church and got up to preach.

I wonder what our reaction would be – it’s quite a challenge for us to think about that question I think.

The marks of the Kingdom of Christ the King is a genuine concern for all in our society.

It’s not difficult to look back through history and find so many examples of Christians who have had this and therefore changed the world in their own way: Wilberforce with his work on slavery, countless saints who have been recognised for their self giving to those in need.
They are useful stories to look at but perhaps more useful is to hear the challenge for us as Christians here in Poole.

To look at Jesus life and in the light of this judge ourselves as to our willingness to help and care for those who are the poor needy and outcasts in our society and world:

          Do we as individuals and as a church show a concern for those who are not like ourselves and support us.

          If the answer to that question is maybe or no or sort of then we need to pray for this in our lives to grow.

          What is our reaction to those who are different from us – how do we respond to them and show God’s love and care.

          Who are the people in our communities who represent Jesus’ hungry, thirsty, sick or in prison – the least of God’s people and how can our lives make a difference to them.

When we come today to celebrate Christ as King, at one level it brings to praise and worship to think about him as King over the world.

But at the same time his kingship of light and life shows up our lives – it’s a bit like the sun shining in to our French windows – and what does it do it exposes all the dirty spots.

And then being part of his Kingdom puts play to the earthly measures of greatness and values of prosperity.

Because being part of his Kingdom requires us to draw alongside all people to show his love and care and concern for the world.

So this Sunday as we celebrate Christ the King let us be drawn back to our knees in prayer:

Giving thanks for his greatness,

Repenting of our unworthiness,

And committing our lives to serve him by having a genuine concern for others and putting our faith in to practise.

Amen.

Who are we following? Sermon Epiphany 3 2014

I love those movies where you see someone getting into a taxi and shouting to the driver- follow that cab!

And then there is the frustration as the cab gets stuck at lights or in a mound of other yellow cabs and the one who is following has to get out and run down a row of other cabs looking for the right one.

Following someone isn’t always an easy thing to do.

Those of us who drive know how hard it is to follow another vehicle especially at night.

No matter how hard you try other vehicles always get in the way of the one you are following.

And then you are also bound to get stuck at lights or at a cross road and you only hope that the one who you are following has had the sense to stop for and wait for you.

When you follow someone you have to work hard at it, you have to really concentrate and you have to have your eyes peeled to make sure that you are following the right car.

Following someone relies on keeping your eyes fixed on them.

And in our gospel reading today we have seen how Jesus called his first disciples to follow him.

“Follow me he said and I will make you into different fishermen, not fishers of fish, but fishers of men. Your life will be turned around and given a new focus if you but follow me.”

I often love to think of the unwritten parts of the bible, the bits that we are told just happen.

This is one of them, we are told simply that Peter and Andrew simply left their nets and followed Jesus.

But I wonder how they felt, what they thought was going to happen, what was it in Jesus that made them take this drastic action.

Why did Jesus chose these two fishermen to be his disciples?

Of course we can only speculate but we know that Jesus’ presence must have offered to them something amazing for them to take this action.

And we know that in these fishermen Jesus saw qualities which were going to be useful in the times that were ahead.

These fishermen would have been strong men, they would have been courageous, fishing in the Sea of Galilee was no easy feat

A fisherman needs to be patient, to be able to persevere, all these were qualities that they were to use as they followed Jesus in his life and as they worked after his resurrection and ascension to establish the first churches.

Now we don’t know what was in their minds when they did it, but we do know that they looked away from themselves and had their eyes fixed on Jesus and followed him.

So in many ways that’s my simple message for today- in our Christian lives we need to have our eyes fixed on Jesus.

But I don’t want to leave it there- but I want to reflect this back to the passage we had read from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church.

And in this short passage we see here where a Church was going wrong.

Where within the Church there is bickering and arguing,  where within the church individuals have formed themselves into cliques arguing over the authority of their leaders.

We see here that there are at least four different groups within the Corinthian church.

Some say they follow Paul, some Apollos, some Peter, and some Christ.

These divisions were about several things but probably they were to do with who in some way had most influenced each group.

So for those who said they were in Paul’s party they had probably come into contact with Paul when he had visited Corinth.

They might very well have found faith through the teaching of Paul.

And then there were those who were following Apollos.
Now we know from Acts that he was from Alexandria which was famed for producing great orators so it could be that people were following him because he was a clever and powerful teacher.

And then there were those who followed Peter, possibly because Peter had visited Corinth and because Peter unlike Paul had been present with Jesus in his earthly ministry.

There is a suggestion that those who followed Peter were trying to introduce more Jewish practises back into the Christian Church.

And then there were those who followed Christ.

Quite a strange grouping as surely they all followed Christ.

But it is likely that this group felt they didn’t need a leader at all – after all they had Christ and they were quite anti-authoritarian.

So it seems from this passage that the church in Corinth had got hooked on the earthly leaders of the time and were far from united in following Christ.

In many ways it is quite reassuring to read this passage as it can remind us of elements of our own church not only locally but nationally.

The press would have us believe that our church is torn apart by big issues such as homosexuality and whether or not now women are priests they ought to be bishops.

So nationally and internationally we see division in our church.

And then at a local level we can see the danger of cliques developing.

Now of course we develop preferences for styles of worship and for those who lead us- whether or not you are a happy clappy or a traditionalist.

And I hope and pray we do not become divided over who is the best leader.

But we can be influenced by personality, like the Apollos party.

We can also like the Peter party become hooked on some of the must do things of our faith.

We must have services in this way or that.

And then there is also a danger of thinking we have a monopoly on the truth like the Paul party because we have read the right books, or had the right training.

And then like the Christ party we can also slip into the danger in our churches of not accepting the authority and leadership that has been placed over us.

So there is a danger that even at a local level we too can become like the church at Corinth.

And if we become like that what do those outside the church see and say.

Normally it’s I don’t want to join the church because it’s full of hypocrites.

So what advice from Paul do we get to guard against this.

And it is here that it links back to our gospel reading and the response of the two disciples –

The advice seems to be simple- keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.

What is important in the church is not who is your leader, or what training you have had, or how clever and impressive your church seems to be, but whether or not your church is fundamentally fixed on our Saviour Jesus Christ.

It is he that holds the whole thing together.

And it is when we let our eyes slip from Jesus and our focus becomes on other things that we begin to be disunited and division arises.

So how do we fix our eyes on Jesus.

Firstly, we need to accept the wholeness of Jesus.

As Paul writes: “is Christ divided?”

We cannot parcel Christ out into little bits- By this I mean we have to accept all of him.

We have to accept all his teaching, all he came to do for us.

We cannot say I like his teaching on love, but his challenge to us regarding money and possessions is a bit steep so I won’t bother with that.

We have to let all his teaching pervade our lives.

We can’t have half of him, saying “Please come in but leave your legs outside for the moment because I don’t like that bit of you.”

We need to accept the wholeness of Christ and his teaching.

Secondly, we need to have our eyes fixed on the cross of Christ.

It is the cross of Christ that makes us all equals.

It is only through the cross of Christ that any of us can come to God.

This is what is so amazing about the communion service that in that we all come to God as equals.

We all kneel together at the rail to receive from him, to celebrate all he did at Calvary as equals.

This is the power of the cross of Christ that Paul talks about, the power of the cross to save us all no matter who we are or what we have done.

And thirdly, we need to accept that Christ is our Lord.

It would be crazy to suggest that all the children I have baptised in the past 18 months have suddenly become my own children.

But this is sort of what the Corinthians were doing, and Paul points them back to the fact that in baptism we have not become the possession of the person who has baptised us but we have become Christ’s.

In baptism we have become a child of God.

We have accepted that we are now under the authority and Lord ship of Christ.

He is the one who must be in control of our lives in that we should follow him in all that we do.

So when Jesus says to us Follow me what do we do.

Do we look to what makes us feel good in terms of our worship or friends within the church.
Do we hark back to those who have taught us or introduced us to the Christian faith.

Or do we follow him with our eyes fixed firmly ahead- fixed on the whole of Jesus, fixed on his cross and fixed on the fact that he wants to be Lord of all our lives.

Following isn’t easy- we may get it wrong sometimes, but if we hold on to these three things we may prevent being torn apart and be able to be a more successful witness to him in our world. 

What are we called to be? Sermon Epiphany 2 2014

Over the next few weeks we will be looking together at the beginning of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  Now when we think of 1 Corinthians I wonder what you first think about? For most people I bet chapter 13 the great hymn of love comes to mind.

But actually when we look at what Paul is saying to the Corinthian church it was far from a church that was very loving – it had made big mistakes, their were petty arguments going on over leadership.

Someone once said to me if you find the perfect church leave it because you will only mess it up. In other words no church is perfect we all get things wrong = and so I think we can learn a great deal from what Paul is saying here to the Corinthian church – because like that church in our church surprise surprise we don’t always get it right too.

So I want us to look at the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 1 in terms of how we see God’s calling to us as his people.

Let’s think about what we mean about calling for a moment or two to start with.

In Christian terms we talk a lot about calling,  our gospel reading this morning we see Jesus calling the first disciples to follow him.

When someone is involved in vocational work whether it be in the religious sense or in education, in health or social work we talk about it as that person having a calling to do that. So the language we use of calling is all about our vocation.

But are we actually right to do this?

Being ordained, or being a missionary or a monk or something like that, is quite secondary to the real, the central call we all have from God. Those two followers of John the Baptist who Jesus asked to “come and see” were called exactly as we are called. They were called to be disciples – just as we are called to be disciples. They were called to be disciples in their place and in their time, for the sake of their generation.

One of the things this means is that we don’t have to imitate Andrew’s, or John’s, or Peter’s actions in order to see, with some clarity, how their call is like the call of Christ to each of us, and to all of us.

The first thing to notice is that Jesus does not first, or primarily, call them to do a particular task or to fill a particular role. Indeed, he didn’t ask them to do anything. Our call as Christians is not initially for us – as it was not, initially, for his first disciples – a call to tasks.

It is, instead, an invitation to relationship. Jesus does not say, “Do this”; he says, “Come and see.” Only later does he give specific content and direction to where that might lead. There’s a big difference between a call to a task and an invitation to relationship.

To respond to a call for relationship, for intimacy, is a very different thing from signing up to do a piece of work – in the same way that falling in love is very different from getting hired. To set out to do a job requires some clarity about what is involved, it’s negotiable, it has its limits, you know what it looks like when the job is over, and so on. To be called into relationship – to be called in love – this is an invitation to enter a mystery; it’s to move out, blindly, into uncharted waters.

When Jesus says, “Follow me,” he is calling us first to himself – to a personal intimacy and a shared life. That’s what matters, that’s what is primary. Everything else is left behind; everything else becomes secondary.

Now, if we look at Jesus’ call from the perspective of what’s left behind, it’s a call to repent. But if we see that same call from the perspective of what comes next, then it’s a call to seek him first, to know him better and to move toward making that relationship the central focus of our lives.

So when we see calling in that way – we can see that each of us have been called by God to be in relationship with him.

Each of us have been called by God to grow in that relationship with him.

That is our primary calling in life – over our call to be in my case a vicar, or in someone elses case a teacher, or an it person or a housewife.

Our primary call – our primary focus in life is our calling to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

So seeing our calling in this way – how does Paul at the beginning of Corinthians help us to unpack this a bit.

What does that call mean to us?  and here Paul begins to give us some ideas.

Firstly it is a call to be holy.  We live lives as Christians in holiness.

When I type my name in on a computer keyboard often I end up making mistakes because the t is next to the y, and if you do this what do you end up with Lucy Holy.

Very apt some may say to do with my job – but I have to say most of the time I feel far from Holy – in how I live my life and the constant mistakes I make.

But Paul here says that we are called to holiness. Now this isn’t having a go at them telling them they are not living holy enough lives here.

But Paul is saying that actually because of what God has done for us through Jesus we live in holiness.

By God’s grace no matter what we do or say, or think, no matter how we act – if we come to him in forgiveness he will wipe the slate clean and enable us to come in holiness.

So because of God’s grace shown to us on the cross of Christ when all our sin was forgiven, taken away, washed clean we can come to  God now in holiness.

We have been called by God and made holy by him. What we must never forget is that this is not about what we do, how hard we try but it is all about the fact that God initiated this and gave us this gift through his own grace.

And then in response to this grace we are told elsewhere that we should try to live lives that are worthy of this calling – but this is in response.

So firstly we are called to be Holy.

And then Paul says we are called to be his church.

Paul addresses the church in Corinth as the Church of God in Corinth and reminds then that they are linked together with other churches too. Read verse 2.

In other words Paul might be saying here that they shouldn’t think they have the monopoly of God’s attention. He is urging them to see that they are part of a bigger picture.

We know that this Church is a church with problems. We can see that from just reading on into the verse 10 of chapter 1 when we see the divisions of the Church. Paul is writing to them to address these problems.

We all know that when we have issues in the life of our church or with other Christians  they can become all consuming. Somehow they can seem worse than issues you have in secular life, probably because we expect better of each other.

But what Paul is saying here is that your issues and concerns might seem as if they are that matters. But in reality, not only is God much bigger than your problems but the church of Jesus Christ also extends far beyond the border of Corinth's city limits.

Keeping the bigger picture in mind does not mean Corinth's issues are minor. Paul's passion to address the conflicts in church is evident throughout the letter.  However, severe conflict has the tendency to reduce our field of vision to a narrow tunnel. Paul seems to be declaring to the Christians at Corinth: You really are not that important! And...you are part of much bigger body.

We are called to be not only Holy says Paul but we are called to be part of the worldwide church of God.

And then I think thirdly Paul is saying that we are called to use the gifts for his purpose that he has given us.

For most of us involved in church life we hear ourselves say things like  - well if we could only have someone who would lead the childrens work then things would be Ok, or if we only had someone who could do this or that then we could really turn the church around.

But Paul here seems to be turning this idea on the head. Because here he is saying that God has given us all the gifts we need within our church… Paul tells us that we have all the spiritual gifts we need.

We have them here, and now, yes we could have more people but all the gifts we need are within the church already.

Eugene Peterson in the Message a paraphrase of the bible translates these verses like this:

Just think—you don’t need a thing, you’ve got it all! All God’s gifts are right in front of you as you wait expectantly for our Master Jesus to arrive on the scene for the Finale. And not only that, but God himself is right alongside to keep you steady and on track until things are all wrapped up by Jesus. God, who got you started in this spiritual adventure, shares with us the life of his Son and our Master Jesus. He will never give up on you. Never forget that.

We are called into a relationship with God and with that calling God urges each to play their part in building up His Church. He has equipped us with all the things we need, and he reminds us that he is with us all times.

Being in relationship with God – our first calling as Christians- means that God not only gives us the gifts we need but also that we can depend upon that relationship.

So if God has equipped us with the gifts we need to build up the church then it is our responsibility to use those gifts to do just that.

So today as we think about our calling as Christians perhaps we need to ask ourselves whether or not we are honestly using the gifts that God has equipped us with.

Today we have seen the call of the first disciples and we have been reminded that that call was not to tasks but to a relationship with the living God.

In that sense we are all have a calling from God too.

And that calling is to be holy – not because of anything we have done but because of what God has done for us.

That calling is to be part of the world wide church of Christ, and that calling is to use our gifts to build up others and our life as a Church.

How do you see your calling today and what difference is it going to make to you tomorrow?

Amen

John the Baptist - Advent 2

Imagine if you will you were nicely asleep, comfortably snuggled down under the duvet,

When suddenly someone comes rushing shines a bright light in your face and throws water over you.

I wonder what you would say – feel, do!

A brutal wake up call.
 Wake up calls- I’m sure we all have examples of not very nice ones possibly not as bad as that. .

In our gospel reading this morning we see a bit of a wake up call.

It’s a great wake up call though because what Matthew is telling us is that that’s what John the Baptist’s was like to the Jewish people of his day.

John’s ministry burst in upon the surprised Jewish world.

Many had been looking for a sign from God, but they hadn’t expected it to look like this.

Many had wanted a Messsiah to lead them against the Romans, but they weren’t anticipating a prophet telling them to repent.

John was a voice shouting across their dreams,

Their dreams of freedom- freedom that had been promised such a long time ago and freedom which seemed such a long way away with the situation of Roman occupation.

Some must have thought that he was mad- coming along telling them to wake up to the greatest moment in Jewish history

Within the Jewish history they were well used to prophets coming to give them messages from God.

Their history was full of situations where they had been called back to God,

They were told by the prophets of times when they would be taken over by other nations, where they would be in exile and yet how a remnant would return to their own land.

And through their history these prophets had spoken of a future time when the Messiah would come.

But these prophecies had apparently ended with Malachi and now some 400 years later there was a new prophet on the block.

This man John was telling them to wake up, to get ready, because something amazing was just about to happen.

And this strange man comes along and all he does seems to be full of significance.

He comes along wearing strange clothes – camels hair, with a leather belt.

Eating honey and locusts.

All these things reminding the people of the Old Testament prophets.- Elijah is referred to in 2 Kings as a hairy man with a leather belt around his waist.

So he looks like a prophet.

And the location that he finds himself in is also deeply significant.

The Jordan – full of significance for the Jewish people.

We had seen Jacob cross the Jordan to meet Esau.

Joshua led the people of Israel across the Jordan into the promised land.

The ministries of the prophets Elijah and Elisha had focused on the Jordan.

In preaching and baptising here, John was calling up many sacred memories.

And it wasn’t only the Jordan that had significance but also the dessert.

The people had wandered there fore 40 years, sustained by God’s goodness.

There was some idea that the Messiah would appear in the dessert.

This significance would not have been lost on the Jewish people who were still waiting with anticipation the promised messiah.

Who would have known the words that we had read of Isaiah which pointed to someone coming before to prepare the way.

The challenge that John brought had a sharp edge to it.

They were being told to get ready that someone was coming very soon.

At assemblies once as we thought about Advent I’ve asked the children to think what they would need to get ready if the queen was coming to visit.

They all came out with such things as making sure the school was clean, that their uniforms were pristine, that they had food and drink ready for a party.

Apparently it is a bit of a joke that everywhere the queen goes she smells fresh paint.

We would smarten things up if we were expecting royalty.

In the same way John is telling Israel that they need to smarten up to receive the messiah who is coming.

So what can we learn from this meeting of John the Baptist and his wake up call to the people to get ready for Jesus.

Well I think this can help us to think of our faith in three distinct ways or three things that matter.

Firstly our context matters

Secondly our whole matters- both body and soul

And thirdly we all matter

Firstly our context matters.

We see from this passage that Christian truth and experience are not found separate from the other bits of life of the day.

We see from John the Baptist that he was so geared in to the history of the Jewish people.

We see this also when we look at the old testament prophets.

They were not only looking forward but they too related to the day.

They challenged the society from which they came, they spoke out about aspects of contemporary life which were against God’s kingdom principles.

The experience of both John and also the prophets was that their faith impinged on all aspects of life, of the history of the nation, of the social life of the day, of the political life of the day.

And this is true not only for then but also for now.

Our faith can not be independent of other aspects of our lives.

It is only as religious belief and practise truly engages with the affairs of everyday life that it can be seen as authentically from God

John’s role, location, manner and message interlocked Jewish history, contemporary life, future hope and God’s presence in them all.

This has to be a key to our mission and ministry.

So is our faith separate from the context that we find ourselves in.

From this passage it can’t be.

We need to engage our faith within our context.

We have some wonderful examples of this with the campaign against poverty spearheaded by Christian organisations, and then recently the stop the traffic – working to alleviate the modern day slave trade.

True faith and mission engages with the context with which we find ourselves in.

So the question we need to ask ourselves is what is the context for our mission as a church – what are the key issues that surround us here and now in Poole and how can we get involved.

Secondly our whole matters both body and soul.

John the Baptist came preaching a baptism of repentance.

Repentance relates to every part of our lives.

We cannot separate our faith out and see it as something we do privately and on a Sunday without letting it influence the rest of our lives.

There is not room in Christianity for something which thinks just of the soul and not of the body, just of our time with God but not of our time at work, which separates our church life from our home life.

The call to repentance cuts across all of this – it cuts across our whole lives.

And the fact of forgiveness also cuts across this.

So our whole matters- both body and soul and God will forgive and redeem our whole when we repent.

And thirdly our faith is not something that we do individually but is intrinsically linked with other people and with God’s whole plan for salvation.

So in our faith we all matter.

We all have a specific place and role in God’s kingdom.

When we look at John we are able to see God’s plan for him in God’s wider plan for the world.

We have seen how even in the days of Isaiah there was a plan for John the Baptist.

John’s place in God’s larger plans is a lesson with broad implications for us all.

The Christian gospel makes us broad minded as we look at God’s eternal plan.

As we come to worship week by week we are reminded of this perspective, we see ourselves within God’s wider plan for salvation.

We see the wide sweep of God’s purposes,

And as we see this we begin to see that our own part within this.

And yet this is not something that we do on our own.

But we are linked clearly with other people.

In God’s purpose and plan we belong together with other people.

The message of the prophets would have been purposeless if John had not been raised up to preach repentance.

John’s words would have been meaningless had the prophets not stood up and said what they did hundreds of years before.

Jesus’ own ministry was aided by the fact that John was willing to baptise not only others but Jesus himself.

We see within this the way that our faith is not just something we do as individuals but is so linked with other people.

We see this clearly when we come to Paul’s teaching on the body of Christ – words which we echo regularly at our communion service= though we are many we are one body.

So our faith is not just individual but belongs with others.

So we see within this message how our faith is not individual but relates not only to our context, to our whole but to each other.

This advent as we come to prepare for God’s coming let’s begin to see how God may be calling us to share our faith in the context we find ourselves in and take our part in his plan for the world.

Amen

Living life full of faith and grace - Sermon 27th October 2013

2 Timothy 4: 6-8, Luke 18; 9-14

I think a lot about what I would like said at my funeral.

I think it is an occupational hazard as I end up talking regularly with families about eulogies and people’s lives.

I often think I will write my own eulogy to let people know what I think I want them to know about me – but I guess that is just pandering to my control freak nature!
It is always interesting to hear what people do say about people at their funerals – what is remembered are often little things – memories of fun and love and then they might talk about the big thing that they achieved in their career, but the sense of relationship is more important than anything else.

Today in our two readings we see both Jesus and Paul talking about how we live in relationship with God and Paul particularly is thinking in the sense of what he wants to be remembered for when he came to the end of his life.

We see Paul here in prison in Rome and knowing that his life was ending – he talks about being poured out like a drink offering- these were very much done at a transition point of ending and beginning so Paul is telling us that he is at that transition from this life to the next.

And in that position Paul is really telling us what he feels he has achieved in his life – what he wants to be remembered for.

Paul says  - I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith, and now is reserved for me the crown of righteousness.

Paul is confident of his place in eternity but more than that he is confident that his life on earth had had meaning and purpose.

We spoke a few weeks ago now about running the race and I talked about running a marathon not a sprint.

And in this passage again we see this clearly as Paul is confident that he had finished the race- he had kept going to the end.

To be a successful runner you need not only to focus on the beginning of the race and the middle of the race but also the end.

If you don’t you wear yourself out and don’t leave yourselves enough resources to complete the race.

Paul knew that he had come to the end of his life and that he had managed to come to the end of the race too.

So how did he do this?

Well we can get a good idea from elsewhere in his writings how he had kept going – he had kept going despite all the things he had been put through for his faith and like most of us I am sure he had doubts siting on his shoulder telling him it would be much more easy to give up than keep going.

And I am sure one key to him keeping going was his determination to do things not in his own strength but in God’s.

Time and time again we get this message throughout Paul’s writings- whether he be talking about being rooted in Christ, or seeing yourself as part of Christ’s body or in deed talking specifically words such as: for his strength is made perfect in my weakness

Paul has a clear sense of keeping going not because of what he does as an individual but doing it all in God’s strength.  So Paul was faithful to this and he kept going.

So Paul had come to the end of the race – trusting in God’s strength.

But how would Paul be remembered – and in turn how will we be remembered – what would be a fitting epitaph for both Paul and us as Christians.

And I think in looking at this passage from Timothy and also at Jesus’ parable from Luke 18 we could suggest two words which I think would be a very fitting epitaph – he or she was full of faith and full of grace  -  faithful and graceful

Let’s look at being faithful first:

Paul was faithful because he had given his life in the discipleship of Jesus Christ. His faith had governed everything he had done and he had followed Jesus and been faithful in that.

But he was also faithful in the sense that he had never compromised on God’s word.

Earlier in chapter 4 of 2 Timothy we get these words: verse 3-4 for the  time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires and will turn away from the truth and wander away to myths.

I think these couple of verses are interesting because in many ways they speak very clearly to our own culture - people wanting to have teaching that justified their own actions, because the teaching of God and God’s ways were too demanding for them.

And Paul is urging Timothy in this passage to stay focused on God’s word and to teach and preach God’s word.  Paul was uncompromising in his faith despite living in a pluralistic culture.

When Paul in Acts 17  is seen at the place of the Aeropagus he speaks to the men – I see that you have an altar to an Unknown God – well let me tell you about the God who has made himself known in the person of Jesus.

He uses all opportunities to point uncompromising to the one true God.

So Paul kept the faith – he was faithful.

But he was also graceful – in a sense of he was dependent upon God’s grace to him.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 9:

⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

Paul was humble in accepting that it was only through God’s grace working through his life that he was able to stay faithful and to finish the race.

In our reading from luke and the parable we see clearly another man who humbled himself to God’s grace too.  He knew his place before God he was aware of the grace that had been poured out to him. He knew that God’s grace was bigger than him.

But the man in the parable is in contrast to another man who got things so wrong and who wasn’t at all graceful so let’s look at him first.

Firstly – he stood in the middle of everyone.  The reason he stood there was because it was where he could be heard the clearest and seen the best. He let everybody know just how wonderful he was.  We read that he fasted twice a week. Now the Old Testament only required a Jew to fast once a year on the Day of Atonement. But this man fasted a 103 times a year more than he was required.

Then we read that he tithed everything that he possessed. Now the Old Testament only required that you tithe your income. But this man tithed everything that he earned and everything that he bought. In other words, he was a double thither. Now there is nothing wrong with fasting more than once a week, and there certainly is nothing wrong with giving more than a tithe.

But the problem was, this man thought back then what a lot of people keep thinking today--he thought his goodness gained him brownie points with God. He thought God accepts a person based on what they do for Him, or in other words, he thought he could get to heaven by his good works. He was religious and proud of it.

If you put your trust in anything--church membership, church attendance, baptism, religion, good works—anything at all other than Jesus Christ, to make God accept you, you are fooling yourself. The Pharisee thought that God would be impressed with all that he was doing. So now we learn the first clue on what impresses God.

What impresses God is when you don’t try to impress God.

There is a story about a little girl  that came home very excited from school one day. She had been voted "prettiest girl in the class." The next day she was even more excited when she came home, for the class had voted her "the most likely to succeed." The next day she came home and told her mother she had won a third contest, being voted "the most popular."

But the next day she came home extremely upset. The mother said, "What happened, did you lose this time?" She said, "Oh no, I won the vote again." The mother said, "What were you voted this time?" She said, "most stuck up."

Well this Pharisee would have won that contest hands down. He had an "I" problem. Five times you will read the little pronoun "I" in these two verses. He was completely selfish and self centred and thought he could impress God with his action.
C. S. Lewis once said, "A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and of course, as long as you are looking down, you can’t see something that’s above you."

This Pharisee had fooled himself about himself. He says, "God, I thank You that I am not like other men."  But he was like other men, because "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." 

VERSE 13 tells us, 
"And the tax collector, standing afar off,"

The Pharisee went to the center of the court and stood in the sunshine where he would be noticed by the most people; the tax collector stood on the outer edges of the court of the Gentiles in the shadows, not carrying to let people see him pray. He just wanted to have a dialogue with the Lord God.

You could see his humility in his eyes. The passage goes on to say that he "would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven."

The Pharisee was too proud to look up; the tax collector was too ashamed to look up.

You could hear the sincerity in his voice. For he says, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"

Well, God heard his prayer, for in VERSE 14, Jesus said, "I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other."
The tax collector recognised his place before God – humble himself and recognised that it was all about God’s grace and not about himself.

He was full of grace and as such was close to God.
PSALM 34:18 says,
"The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit."

So the question to us then is are we full of God’s grace too – do we puff ourselves up before God or are we dependent upon him.- is his grace sufficient for us. And in turn then are we living by God’s grace.

And if we live by God’s grace how does that impact on our lives in sense of our own priorities – our time spent in a relationship with God, our use of our time, our money our possessions.
So what do you want your epitaph to be?  I would like mine to be similar to Paul because I would love to get to the end of my life knowing like Paul that I have kept the faith and lived by God’s grace.

And my prayer for us all is that we can do the same. Amen

Looking forward 6 - Investing in God's work

2 Corinthians 9: 6-15, Luke 12: 13-21

I have to say that one thing that really winds me up when I go to my parents house is their fridge.

When you look into it you will always see little pots with things like a tablespoon of peas in it.

Why? Because my mother having grown up in the war is very good at making sure she doesn’t chuck anything out – the problem is she is also not very good at making sure she uses up all these leftovers.

Now I have to say I am not very good at keeping left overs because I have grown up with apparent plenty.

This shows my differing attitude to things to my own mother.

Why start with this because today we are yet again looking at money as we come to the end of our looking forward series and we will be looking at our attitudes to our possessions and money and how we see giving as giving God our leftovers or our first fruits.

So let’s look at the passage from 2 Corinthians 9 and see what we can see from it to help us on this difficult subject today.

Firstly I want to look at what our attitude to giving should be and then move on to see how we should give.

So firstly our attitude to giving. And very starkly I want to say that our attitude to giving is directly related to our attitude towards God and our trust in him.

We saw that last week when we looked at priorities but I want to stress that again- we show the importance of God in our lives by how we see giving to his work.

We spend time and spend money on those things that are important to us – and we do that with God too.
But often unfortunately for a variety of reasons our attitude to God can be a bit like the leftovers in the fridge.

We save a little bit and then we give that away – because we can’t make any better use of it.

If a close friend was coming to dinner would you give them the leftovers or would you cook a new meal – most of us would cook something new and if food was a bit short it would be family hold back – hospitality dictates this doesn’t it.

So why   should our reaction to God be in this category of leftovers.

A story is told of a family that arrived at church and the father was obviously not having a good time.
The seats were too uncomfortable, the service was boring, the sermon well – you should have heard the comments he made over Sunday lunch. He was brought up short though by his son who had observed his reaction when the collection plate came round.” Dad I don’t know why you are complaining about it” he said –“ it only cost you a pound!”

Then this passage from 2 Corinthians 9 shows us clearly how we should see giving as sowing.

Now I think most of us don’t see it in this way.

Most of us think of giving as somehow loosing – we give away and so we can’t spend that money on what we want to – so we loose out.

But Paul here clearly says that this is not the right attitude at all, because he sees giving in terms of something much more positive.

He sees giving as sowing.

We all know the farming terms. What happens when you sow? You reap. You take a whole ear of corn and strip all the kernels off it, put each of them into the ground, and what happens? From one ear of corn, how many rows of corn can you plant? Each of those kernels will grow a stalk, and how many ears of corn are on each stalk? This concept of sowing is amazing. It is not something that is lost and gone forever. It actually multiplies.

This is what God says about giving. Giving is like sowing seed or planting a tomato plant.  One tomato plant can grow an amazing number of tomatoes. That’s like giving. Every time you give, you need to remember that you are sowing seeds and a harvest is coming. This whole concept of sowing and reaping is built into the very fabric of life.

By sowing through giving you are investing in God’s work and that has a tremendous harvest as we see changed lives, changed attitudes, peace and wholeness, community development.

So we need to think about our attitude to giving – how does it relate to the priority of God in our lives and do we see it as sowing or are we still thinking about what we loose out by giving.

So that’s the first challenge today.

Then I want to move on from our attitude to think about the practicalities of giving and how we should give.

In the old testament it is very clear that we should give a tithe or a tenth of our income to God.

It was expected that this would be the case, and it wasn’t just a tithe of the income but also the first fruits the best would be given to God.

Proverbs 3:9-10,
Honor the Lord with your wealth,
    with the firstfruits of all your crops;
¹⁰ then your barns will be filled to overflowing,
    and your vats will brim over with new wine.

What are those “firstfruits”? Just imagine that you went out to pick strawberries and you wanted to pick a basket full of berries. If you were to take the best berries in the row and put only those into a single basket and then when that basket is full, that is the tithe that you owe to the Lord.

This is what was expected in the Old testament.

What does the New Testament say about giving? The New Testament doesn’t mention a percentage. The reason is that because they felt ten percent was too limiting. People wanted to give more than ten percent, and they gave what God placed upon their heart.

But the New testament rather than giving us a legalistic view of 10% gives us clear guidance to giving: We are to give freely, we are to give generously, we are to give regularly, and we are to give cheerfully.

But I want us to look today at what this passage says about giving in terms of how we should give.

And firstly – clearly it says we should be conscious in our giving.

Verse 7 each should give what you have decided in your heart to give.
This isn’t about putting your hand in your pocket and pulling out what comes out and putting in the plate but this is about consciously planning what your giving is to be.

Bearing in mind our attitude to giving we should sit down in the cold light of day and prayerfully consider what we are going to give.

This will obviously be very different for each one of us because we all come here in different financial situations with different demands upon us. But God calls us to consider this prayerfully and consciously.

In the light of this it is good then to pledge to the church what you decide you can give – and if you are able to give by standing order then this makes the process so much easier for the church in terms of planning our ability to carry out mission and ministry here.

But even here in verse 7 it challenges us to think about how we give in terms of our attitudes—because we should give what we have decided but we do this not reluctantly or under compulsion – so we do this as a free decision.

Secondly we should give cheerfully- God loves a cheerful giver it says in 2 Corinthians 9.

So how do we give cheerfully – well basically we give with a smile on our face – not a grimace! – Again it’s about our attitudes but this comes deep from the heart.

We give cheerfully not expecting anything in return but knowing and trusting that God will bless us in return. We don’t do it because we are expecting God to somehow bless us but we do it in response to the blessings we have received and will continue to receive.

When you love someone you want to give of your best to that person because you know what you have received from them. And the same is with giving.

The cheerful heart doesn’t look at the five pound note going into the collection plate and want to hold on to it – or squeeze the pound coin until the queen’s face is almost obliterated – a cheerful heart gives freely and thankfully for what they have received from God and in trust of how God is going to continue to bless them.

So we are to give consciously we are to give cheerfully and then thirdly we are called to give in faith.

Our attitude to giving is a good indication of where are faith is. On a practical level if we consider giving cheerfully in faith then we can ask ourselves the question - how much can I give and still be grinning?

Then it pushes you and causes you to consider if you can be happy giving more.

Can we trust God enough to know that he will sustain us and provide for us or we still reliant on ourselves and our possessions.

 Can trust him at a level to give a little bit more? This standard meets me where I am and what I can give at this point in my life. It also challenges me to go one step farther and to trust God for this. 

So giving isn’t easy when we see it in these terms because it challenges us at very deep levels in our relationship with God and our relationship with our money and possessions.

But in the same way giving can challenge us to deepen that relationship with God as we use it to help us to step out in faith.

So to recap this morning – we give in response to God and our relationship with him.  

We give because we are sowing = we are investing in God’s work for the future and for others to receive the blessings that we have of a relationship with God and we give to invest in the mission of reaching out with God’s love into our community and the world.

But we are to give consciously – not just our leftovers but the first fruits – consciously planning what we can give thoughtfully and prayerfully.

We are give to cheerfully – not begrudgingly but with a heartfelt smile on our faces.

And we give because it is linked in with our faith journey and helps us to develop and deepen our faith, trust and dependence upon God.

May God help us all to take these steps of faith and move on in our thinking about money and possessions for the future.

Amen