Month May 2023

Jesus Longest Prayer on Jesus Longest Night

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John  17 1-11

Todays readings are perfectly set   at a pivotal, moment in the story,


It’s Midnight just before he is arrested, he knows what’s coming, he knows the symbolism of this happening at this moment.. It’s the Jewish day of atonement,.Every year on this day (Leviticus 16), the high priest of Israel would enter the holiest part of the temple and offer three prayers: for himself, his fellow priests and all the people of God.

 Then  would bring out  the sacrificial lamb and declare it the object that carried all their sin. Then the lamb would be killed be killed, making them right with god.    

As the high priest jesus says three prayer

By praying these three prayers today, Jesus has become the priest that’s entering the holiest place, and by his sacrifice he has also made  himself the sacrificial lamb on atonement day, for all of us.

In The first prayer. He asks for glory,  so he can glorify god.

Stating the gift his sacrifice brings, confirming his role in that gift, and how long the world had waited for this moment.

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

This is Jesus saying, he knows he has the power to do what he needs to, and he is determined to finish the task God gave him, long before the world began

Then he does something akin to what we may have done in his place if we had to leave our children in another’s care. He prays  for his  them , and then Asks the person that’s caring for them, to do certain things.

I remember once my mother was really ill, and my dad had to work as we didn’t have much money in those days. We knew how many dinners were left that week in those days, so dad had to work.   I was around  9 , my younger, brother was 6, and my elder brother 12, too young to look after us both, feed us, get us to school etc while dad did long hours to feed us.

So aunties and grandparents stepped in and looked after us until she returned.

My mum left them a  note asking them to do certain things for us while she was away,.

This is Jesus asking God to do the same, praying for the people  he is about to leave. His disciples

He  is praying  for his disciples, which means US.

Asking God to look after us.

All of us.
We here today, all the disciples before and all those that come after us.

This and what

He asks for tells us a lot  about us, and how we got here today.


6 “I have revealed you[a] to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 

I love that so much don’t you?

God gave all of  to jesus, each of us today are gifts to jesus from god.

We got here today, by being given to jesus by god. And then in turn Jesus revealed the glory of god to us.

I think that’s lovely don’t you, we didn’t happen into this, we were gifts  by god and given, to jesus , we are chosen , wanted, loved, children of God.

This process this deliberate act of god I think imbues us with knowledge programmed into our dna, and that gives us the next thing he says about us

something I think we all know here today


7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.

So god chose us, gave us to jesus and Jesus revealed god to us and we know where the love that Jesus shows comes from.

Then he really  makes it clear this prayer is  for us

Saying  

. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. 

Then he comes to the ask.

Then he prays a prayer often prayed by priests for their flock and it’s a powerful prayer.

Holy Father, protect them by the power of[b] your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.

So now we know…

So we are gifts to jesus, which gave us the knowledge of who he is, and where his words and actions come from, and he know then that he has the power to become our sacrificial lamb and take our sin.

This makes us one, with Jesus , Jesus

He wants god to look after us, and he wants us to stick together to be one

Then just after our lectionary today, he prays something so lovely I just wanted to share it with you.

Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

So that’s where we are headed ,and what Jesus wants ,the thing he desired just before his arrest,  that one day we are  with him , to see his glory

I hope and pray that comes to pass for all of us

Lastly

I thought it might be nice to finish on that prayer t hat Jesus prayed, and if I may pray for us all.

Just with the tense changes from third to first person so that I can pray for us  all

Jesus you are longer in the world, but we are in the world, and we know that you are alive and with God who gave us to you.

Holy Father,     ,  please protect in your name those that you gave to jesus your son, so that we  may be one with you , and with each other

Forever and ever

In Jesus name

Amen

The best way to explain the holy spirit?

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Is it to experience it?

Ask yourselves these questions

1/ Has anyone felt guided?

2/ Has anyone felt enabled by the holy spirit

3/ Has anyone had something happen just at the right time and thought – I know who did that

4/ Does anyone have any story they would like to share about how the Hs has worked in their lives?

Have a little think about these please – I’ll have a couple as well??

Today I wanted to talk about the experience of the holy spirit, how we experience it.  Next week is Trinity Sunday, where pastors all over the world will try and explain a mystery.  A dynamic relationship.  Luckily today I am only doing that with one part of the trinity and that is the gift we were given in Pentecost.

Albeit I think explaining a mystery a bit of a zero-sum game.  How do you try and logically explain something that defies logic, and every metaphor comes up short. Possibly another way is to talk about how we experience it? What do the limitations of our senses and intellect make of how we experience it

I think the best way to know the holy spirit is to look at the results of its actions.  The church is well versed in that as you would expect.  It uses its ability to spot the spirit in action to direct people to their calling.  Oh Mick sits in Costa, wanting to talk about Jesus, that makes him an evangelist and a spin off of that desire is the desire to preach.  Both of them are desire to tell people about him.

Also, we give names to the things  stuff we do, naturally  

I found out that my constant chatter with Jesus and bringing him to mundane stuff and being aware of him was like very  Benedictine practice. 


This evidence is used by the church a lot, to find out what God is wanting you to do and what you will fit naturally into. No good calling a guy called to the fringes, into a church for his main duties.  The spirit is persistent, and fighting it chafes until we follow.

I tried to listen and the church showed me ways I could find an outlet for this calling.

In our prayer of Jesus last week, Jesus quite clearly says that us disciples were chosen by God and given to Jesus.   Chosen and Given, how do those that have been chosen know how to act, what our calling is ? Well, here we all are today for one. Evidence of the agent of the holy spirit, directing people given to Jesus to follow him.


Then you find stuff out like this. A study that happens every few years and takes in a large number of people showed this

  • There’s been a 40% increase in an awareness of God,
  • A 90% increase in people attributing things to God
  • An 80% increase in the awareness of a sacred presence. (These stats are from a large study done by the CofE).

you would expect these numbers to come from people of the church or some faith or another?

You would be wrong, they come from unchurched people of no faith, or even atheists.

So Gods chattering away through the holy spirit to all sorts its seems!

So the holy spirit is not just for the saved, its talking to everyone.  However, the world lacks a name for it, even a direction of where to find out, just as I did before I came in through that door

As Christians, Scripture and our readings today give us a name for what the world calls  “an awareness of a sacred presence”.

The holy spirit –  we have seen its evidence and influence


The holy spirit

We seek it through prayer, we hopefully find it in here.

Without doing Trinity Sunday before next Sunday, the agent in the trinity.

Its hard to overestimate the importance the holy spirt in scripture its everywhere, 18 times in 8 chapter in romans alone!



It’s referred to in the bible as a he, in scripture its always referred to in male terms, make of that what you will,  it’s never seen as lesser, it is seen as  a deity a god, so an equal partner. Not less than the father and the Son, in fact in some ways more.


More fully personal integrated into us, more aware of itself and the person, an agent of Christ that enables and gives gifts,

Like us the holy spirit has its own gifts, and it gives gifts

In our stories today, it acted as a global translator, In other stories of the bible It gives gifts of teaching, prophecy, faith, strength, being able to tell true and false spirits, healing, of doing powerful works (see a bloke who got unclassified in maths passing a theology diploma for details)

It’s the thing that binds us into a church, Christ being in us happens through the spirit.

And as our study showed it’s chattering away with all of humanity, and not just us in here today.

However, We know who’s chattering, we know to listen, and we try and listen, we are hopefully more aware?

here’s the ask for todays sermon, here’s the thing. Maybe having had a few thoughts on it, seen how powerful and important and unique the holy spirit is, equal partners, with and in dynamic relationship with God and Jesus,
here’s the ask

We can also , maybe we could and perhaps should try and get better at being with and aware of the holy spirit.

With all that it can do? Who wouldn’t want the gifts it can bestow?

How? Can we tell that?
well it can just happen , in our lives, in ways we don’t expect of course, like it does in the rest of the world, where God works through the spirit. Before we name it in hindsight


But to get better at it, how can we do that?

Its really simple, how we get better at it…

How we practically increase our awareness, our ability to react to its proddings

We can pray for it
We can ask it into our quiet moments.

Because

What we ask for in prayer if it happens , happens through the holy spirit

Remember it doesn’t have to be a posh prayer, or a formal one, lord knows I prayed to Jesus enough times in a sort of hello mate sort of way, in my normal speech for a long time. You can too. It works… Maybe not in the way we expect, like wind and tongues of flame in our stories today, it has a will of its own.

But with all the gifts it can bestow, I think we should learn to call and listen to the holy spirit.

Give it a go… the spirit

The agent in the trinity.

Amen

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Why I am the way the truth the life – is not plural

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Yesterday King Charles became defender of the faith.   Today’s reading asks us important questions about how we might do that.  What does it mean and how do we defend the truth of the bible?

For some these passages we are reading today are seen as akin to theological colonialism, passages that belong to a less enlightened view of the world.  One that we have progressed from.   The very idea that in a post-modern world there is a truth, a single truth, is anathema.  Every truth is up for debate, even science is debated with, and every fact is countered on social media.    Post modernism is seen as the new enlightenment.

However , this truth, that Jesus talks about today isn’t a group of truths, he doesn’t say a truth he says the truth.

He didn’t make a mistake when he said that.
To back that assertion up, I will state the case clearly as I can.   Everything in the bible points to Jesus, from in the beginning was the word, through all the Old Testament, through to all the gospels that tell his story, through to acts and the letters, which explain more about how the world changed as a result. Jesus never says he is the son of a god, but the god.

So all of us who stand in up the front here on a Sunday, were taught systematic theology.  The way that works is if you hold a certain belief about the bible, the next phase is to check what that does to the rest of your theology and what dissonance that causes.  What in the bible either reaffirms or contradicts this view that I have. What else do I have to revise or revisit, what else in scripture reinforces my view or makes that perspective more difficult. Not just direct scripture, but the narrative of the story and other stories that may have nothing to do with this one apart from perhaps the underlying narrative of the story.

The bible overlaps, interlocks, repeats itself, characters pop up, they appear  in sequence,   they repeat things, say things that mean the same, things that happen are explained later etc so when we remove one part or change the meaning of one part , then we have to look to see if that works everywhere.

Think of is like a jenga board.

So let’s work on three things, Jesus is god, Jesus is alive, Jesus is the only path we have been given, the only mediator between us and God.


So let us be plain,  Jesus was both fully God and Fully human, he was not a teacher on a par with Bhudda or Confucius, he repeatedly alludes to that fact.

As it says in Romans  Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  There’s no a lord, in among other lords implied here as well.

So Jesus knew he was God, and human, he ratified that by what he did on the cross, he ratified that by the hundreds of prophecies his deeds fulfilled.

What do we have to say really didn’t apply to Jesus because if we disagree with that, then all the prophecies aren’t really about him, they were never fulfilled, they were a coincidence and Elijah and Isaiah really get battered.

So if he isn’t God we have to pull out vast tracts of the old testament, which then ruin the narrative of that?



if we accept that idea what does that do to our world view.  At the very least it means we have to take the things he said and did seriously and the words of his book seriously, because we just accepted these are the words of God.

So we can say that the new testament confirms jesus is god.  There are various passages where is shows that Jesus is alive past his death,  there are many, but one of the clearest is Stephen when he saw him just before he was stoned to death. He explained what he saw…
So if Jesus isn’t God and he isn’t alive, Stephen has to go
Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

Then we have to answer post modernism.
I don’t think anyone here has a problem with that,
Then we come to the single truth bit
we have todays , where he states he is god, and the single path

john 14

5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.[d] From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

So that’s one tract that says it, but if we disagree with that where else do we have to take the eraser too?

There are numerous places where our god is stated as a sole mediator

1 Timothy 2:5 

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Peter and John as they stood in front of the Sanhedrin in fear of their lives, where it would have been much easier to cave into well, he wasn’t really the messiah, and not a messiah.

what do you have to do with this scripture when they said ?  in acts 4:12

12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. 

And Paul speaking to Corinth when he said.
1 Corinthians 8:6 ESV / 76 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.


Or Jesus when he calls himself a singular door…

John 10:9 ESV / 223 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

  • I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

So Everything leads to Jesus, and Jesus and the rest of scripture see’s him as a sole path to redemption.   If you have jesus as a river among many rivers to the ocean, then as with all systematic theology, you have then to see what else has to go out the bath with the baby?

We if we aren’t happy with John 14:6 acts and Corinthians we have to deal with Jesus I am statements (not we are)

I am the bread of life. 6:35, 48, 51.

  • I am the door of the sheep. 10:7, 9..
  • I am the resurrection and the life. 11:25.
  • I am the way, the truth, and the life. 14:6.
  • I am the true vine

    In fact there are at least a 100 verses that say Jesus us god and the sole path to salvation

    or https://www.openbible.info/topics/jesus_being_the_only_way

There are at least a 100 pieces have to come out of your Jenga stack and it still has to stand.

So by deduction and pulling the jenga pieces away we then have to see what we are left with

A clearly mistaken God and Paul, and peter.

There are many places in the bible where he is stated as a sole mediator, path, door, gate, vine, means to the resurrection and the life

To look for the reverse, in no way is he referred in any sense in the plural, in role, in purpose, in how we should view him.

In our culture that is uncomfortable.

Lets do one very important thing to this view,  it is not unmerciful, its not judgmental, its not unkind,

 its not saying everyone who doesn’t go this path is damned.

Jesus showed love to everyone, the woman at the well, people of other religions were held up as examples in the good Samaritan.

the centurion, the thief on the cross all ascended into heaven. 

There is a difference
But us, us Christians we know differently so we have a different standard

Luke 23 answers us these questions

47 That slave who knew what his master wanted, but did not prepare himself or do what was wanted, will receive a severe beating. 48 But one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.

we get away with that much less lightly because we know, we know who he is.

Lastly I will let an Islamic scholar answer my final position, when asked by an audience member what do we do about the unbelievers?


His answer and mine is that its not mine to judge?

because as the bishop said if I get to heaven three things will surprise me

1/ I am there

2/ The people I expected to be that aren’t

3/ The people I never expected to see that I have.



lastly Charles didn’t do defender of the faiths ,  Charles is odefender of the faith and supreme governor of the Church of England.

That is right , its every Christians job to defend our faith, but we must also remember

This isn’t the same as not defending the rights of all faiths, their disciples have the same rights that our lord gave all of us to be loved by him, to flourish without harm.

Our lord defended the rights of all faiths and so must we,


Justin welby is going prefaced this vow with

making clear that “the church will seek to foster an environment in which people of all faiths and beliefs may live freely”.

That’s the goal, for us, to liberate as many people from financial and spiritual poverty as possible, and let the lord do the rest.

Because , as Father Joe said, when I get to face our lords judgment, all I want him is to look at me and say “nice try”.

Amen