What do people really need to hear

They say that the person who should listen most closely to a sermon is the preacher themselves. They also say that a preacher really has only one message and that they dress it up in different ways. I became all too conscious of this some years ago when preaching for about four consecutive Sundays after Easter, and even I got bored of hearing myself say, in yet another way, "What difference is knowing Jesus going to make in your life?" Of whom was I really asking that question?

In fact, the only message I believe I really have for people when I preach is that God loves them. I preach it a lot from the pulpit but it is always interesting to note that, even though I may have said it thirty or forty times, there is regularly someone who will have heard it those thirty or forty times who, on that particular thirty-first/forty-first time will hear it as if it had never been said before in their hearing. God moves in a mysterious way, thus we may all need to hear something more than once before it finds its place in our mind or our heart. Praise be to the preacher who keeps on 'banging on' about God's love to me (even if it is me, because, as I said at the start... 'They say that the person who should listen most closely to a sermon is the preacher themselves.')

I'm writing this on Christmas Eve, having only set to writing my Christmas Sermon yesterday evening. Christmas Sermons are possibly the hardest ones to write as it is to an 'audience' of people who have come a) because if they come at Midnight they won't need to go on Christmas Day and it means it will be easier to fit everything into the day, or b) because it's what they do, it's tradition and they want to keep the tradition alive, or c) because the church is on the way home from the pub and the lights are on and they remember going to church once when they were at school and it seemed like a nice thing to do back then, so why not have a look and see what they are up to now, or d) because they've seen the notices up on the board outside the church and decided this is the year to brave going inside, even if they haven't got a clue what they are meant to say or do once they get inside the door or e) they are lonely, sad, depressed and want some company or... a whole multitude of other reasons... but it is an audience of people, many of whom who will not be regular at church (more than once a year regular, that is) and who want to hear something that is warm and affirming and, perhaps, not too challenging - but that is not always the case and, to assume it is, would be to be patronising and incorrect. Regulars, irregular regulars, regular irregulars - and preachers too - we all need to hear a clear message that Christmas is about God's love for the world and that this love makes a difference. It made a difference 2,000 years ago and it continues to make a difference today.

There are those who are able to preach much more erudite sermons that me, gifted intellectuals and spirit-filled individuals whose gift when speaking from the pulpit (or other preaching point) will raise the spirits and cheer the souls of those who hear them. They will also deliver a challenge, pack a punch, or deliver a clarion call that galvanises people into action, into prayer, into a place of recognising all that God has done in their lives and that God can do through them in the lives of others. If you are somewhere where you hear such a preacher, be blessed in the words you hear and the good action you are propelled towards taking. If you are somewhere where the preaching does not move or inspire you, pray that God will lead you beyond the foibles and failings of the preacher (who will know the message they want to give - that they need to give - but will not have quite found the words to express it). Pray that God will guide you (and the preacher too) to what God wants you to hear - what God needs to you hear - and may this message be one of love, a love that leads you to life, light and holiness in whatever form of response and action it may take.

Being in the right place at the right time

Some of you will know the saying, the devil is in the detail: possibly not the most appropriate saying with which to open a sermon in a church… but you know me!

The detail on which my eye has settled when reading the passages for this evening is on the question: “Why do you stand looking up towards heaven?” It takes me back to Easter Day, when we heard the men in dazzling white addressing the women who had come to anoint Jesus’ body, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Now those of you who know your bible inside out, or at least the relationship between writers and particular books, may already be ahead of me when recalling that scholars hold it to be that the same author wrote the Gospel of Luke from which the account of the resurrection I have quoted comes, as well as book of Acts. No wonder then there is similarity of sentence construction: Why do you… stand looking… Why do you… look for the living… continuing on to say what has either happened or what will happen.

If we conflate these two questions for the moment into Why are you looking… I find that the asking of this question is quite fascinating. Personally, I don’t find it unreasonable that the women would be at the graveside on the third morning, having come to anoint the body of Jesus. It would have been the first day after the Sabbath that they would have been able to come and so, in love, they came. Not only in love though, but also in service, dedication – and grief too. On finding that the body of Jesus was not there, we read that they were perplexed – and this is not unreasonable either. Neither do I find it unreasonable that that the disciples, on seeing Jesus ascend into heaven just moments before, would be looking upwards towards the sky! Recall another, more child-like saying, no-one likes a smarty-pants: in the detail of clever men in white robes appearing at gravesides and on mountain tops – there is more than just a slight feeling of a pair of smarty-pants being in the building! To this I shall return!

This ‘Why are you ‘looking is not the most important part of the questioning though – it is about where and when they are looking. Neither of these places is the place to look because Jesus is no longer there. The women by the grave and the disciples on the hill top are challenged to remember and to respond.

The women are reminded to think about Jesus’ prophecy, his promise that he would rise again after three days. They do indeed remember, and go to tell the disciples that what Jesus said would happen has indeed taken place. Alas, the men did not believe them – but that’s another story! The women see, the women look, the women remember, the women respond.

As we have heard in Gospel reading this evening, just moments before the men in white robes appear, the disciples have been told what is to happen and what they are to do. Rather than standing looking up to the heavens, they are urged to remember, and to respond with alacrity. They are challenged not to just stand there and wait, but to get on and go to the city and wait there for the Spirit to come. The disciples see, the disciples look, the disciples remember, the disciples respond – just as the women at the grave did.

The women and the disciples are being told, this is not the most important part of the proceedings because Jesus told you what would happen. Believe it to be so, and move to where he will be because you know what he says is true. ‘Why do you stand looking here when…’ really means, ‘You’re in the wrong place at the wrong time’.

As we will know, this theme runs persistently through the Gospels, of the disciples seeking to understand, seeking to do the right thing, seeking to be in the right place – but often getting it ever so slightly wrong. It’s not for want of trying though – and they do learn and they do succeed – they must have done or we wouldn’t be here today. The women at the graveside, the disciples at the top of the mountain needed someone to assist them as Jesus is no longer here to do it. The smarty-pants in white robes are, in fact, angels – doing what angels do – giving a message, reminding, prompting – sharing the words, works and purposes of God. Jesus is no longer there to remind these people, the angels cannot stay to do this either – and so they remind these people of what Jesus foretold and encourage them to move to be in the right place at the right time. The women are to be the apostles to the apostles and the disciples are to be in Jerusalem to receive the Holy Spirit.

People who can ask us – kindly – why are you looking here when you have already heard, or you already know, are useful people to find. Sometimes we may be stuck; we may be pausing and waiting in familiar territory, fearful of what is to come, or forgetting what we already know. In these situations, God will often send someone with the right word, a reminder that will set us on the right track that will give us courage to walk towards what is to come to us. The promises of God are many and generous and are there for us to step into.

So what of the next events – for what are we waiting? What might be for us in this period in which we, like the disciples, wait for Jesus to descend in the way he ascended? What might we be hoping for as we prepare to celebrate again the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost?

Well, to begin with, what have we been promised? What has Jesus revealed to us that will change our world – even now, these two thousand or so years on? For you as an individual, what already that ‘fits’ with what you know to be God’s purposes for you, and for those around you? What has been offered to the people of God that you know could be in accord with your ‘skill set’ and therefore could be the task that is assigned for you to do? Who are the people around you in metaphorical white robes who are reminding you of what you already know and what Jesus has promised and therefore where you should be going to next.

This time from Ascension Day to Pentecost is set aside by the church as a time for praying in the Holy Spirit into our loves again. Perhaps these questions that we might ask are ones you might spend these next days praying with and pondering – thus moving yourself spiritually to the right place so that you are prepared for what is to come for you and those around you. Not using them just as questions, but rather as an invitation to God to make you ready to respond to what God wants you to do with him to change your life and the life of the world.

A prayer for these days towards Pentecost:

Lord God,

show me where you want me to be
and give me courage to go there;

show me what you want me to do
and give me strength to fulfil the task you have assigned;

show me who will help me
and give me grace to receive your guidance through them;

show me your will
and give me humility to accept the gifts you give to me.

Amen.

The way of faith - Lent 3 2013

We capture today, across all the readings, the reality of some people being in and some people being out. Some are caught up into heaven and eternity whilst other are left far behind – having been found wanting and somehow irredeemable. These are hard things to hear – unless, of course, one is in the business of judging and condemning and living with a sense of being ‘holier than thou’. Righteous condemnation masquerading as righteous indignation, perhaps – and all on God’s behalf because, of course, we can do it so much better than him – all things considered.

If we begin at the beginning, with the reading from Isaiah, the earliest of the texts written, we see that there is an invitation. There is an invitation to drink of the water that money cannot buy. There is a call to change from the current way of living to seek that which is on offer for just a while: Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts;

            Whether or not the love of God is on offer for just while only is a matter for debate – for God’s time is beyond our own – the call throughout our readings – and through time – is to change the focus from that which is immediately attainable around us every day to that which is also immediately attainable but from which we so often turn our gaze. Let the wicked forsake their way and the unrighteous their thoughts. Who are these wicked? Who are these unrighteous? I guess we might say the members of al-Qaeda who seem so intent on killing those who are not of the Muslim faith. We might also say those who are members of gangs in South London, who carry knives and guns so that they can get ahead of any who stand in their way. We might say the ‘fact cats’ of the financial world who cream of the profits to award themselves fat bonuses.

These may appear to be caricatures, and we may prefer the ways in which Isaiah speaks into the human condition in all the varying ways with which we seek to fill our lives with meaning: work, food, money. However, how ever nicely we dress these things up – the fear that we will never have enough, that others will have more than us, that we will not be good enough in whoever’s sight is held to be the most powerful on that given day – how ever we dress these things up, they are as nothing compared to the hope that we may have in God.

Alas, the apparently meaningful preoccupations and self-preoccupations that are preferred by so many are, ultimately, meaningless. This is something that the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes knew all too well. If we read the opening of his Book: “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” The only thing that has meaning is God’s love and God’s supreme power. We may look for other things, we may gain other things, but it is the love of God that is over and above them all.

So what difference does knowing this make then? You are here, I am here, and we get it already – right? Perhaps so, but the reading we heard from Corinthians makes salutary reading if we think we have it all sown up. As we read: I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud… all passed through the sea… all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, ³and all ate the same spiritual food, ⁴and all drank the same spiritual drink… they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. ⁵Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness. They did things right, it seemed… and yet, God was not pleased with most of them. It’s like saying to a child after Parent’s Evening: Your teacher said you are doing really well, but you could try harder. Well, almost like it, I imagine!

We catch some glimpse of what has gone wrong: ⁶Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. ⁷Do not become idolaters… ⁸We must not indulge in sexual immorality… ⁹We must not put Christ to the test… ¹⁰And do not complain…” What sad examples for humanity, for so many of us walk so close to these very things as well.

The reason for recording them though: ‘¹¹These things happened to them to serve as an example…’ There are things that will come to try us, there are things that will lure us away for a while, there are things that we may prefer sometimes. If this is so, we are warned fully here:  ‘¹²So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.’

I preached a fortnight ago about observing Lent. For the first time in a long time, I have given up something for Lent – and it is proving to be hard work. I have taken things on too – and these are proving just as hard. Lent is nothing though compared to the whole Christian life – a way of being that is actually about giving up many things. It is about refining ourselves with the grace and power and love of God so that we will not be like those who followed but fell, like those who believed but whose faith was not enough. Lent, as with the whole of life of faith, is a time of testing, though Lent may be more about proving to ourselves that we can do it than to God: we test ourselves in a simpler fashion – or not – to remind ourselves of the greater, longer, test upon which we are all embarked: the test of being found fit for heaven. Do we carry knives or guns? Probably not. Are we members of al-Qaeda, intent on killing those who do not follow the faith we follow? Probably not, but the history of Christianity is pretty bloody, when we face it. Do we take vast Bonuses on top of our Salary or Pension. This one might sit rather closer to home for some who worship here or in other churches near here.

‘Judge not less ye be judged’ is a good maxim to live by – but sometimes we fail to judge just ourselves. These are hard words to hear, and I know colleagues who are preaching today who have also found this message to be unpalatable. Judgement is not just about condemnation though – it is about being honest. It is about discovering where we fall short and letting ourselves be honed and made pure and lovely for God. Paul writes: ‘¹³No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.’ The question is always, do we believe this? Do we believe that God is not only our judge but also our great reward? If we do, then we are blessed beyond belief – and the challenge and the test is to remain close to God’s ways. If we do not believe – or we fear the judgement more than we hope – then the promise Isaiah heard is the first thing to reach and out grasp to ourselves: ‘I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.’ Let God love you fully, with abandonment and without reserve, so that you might do the same to him.