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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

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Easter Sunday, when the thief became Jesus family (and yours).

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So Mary Magdalene visits the tomb, and finds him gone. She goes to Peter and tells him, we learn that the other disciple the one whom Jesus loved run faster, Not sure what he believed because we are also told they haven’t figured out whats going on yet. That doesn’t happen till Emmaus. However, presumably after a bit they are a bit shocked, and then the men, they go home. Rather typically leaving the women to it.

This encounter from here on it is between Mary and Jesus.

Mary doesn’t go home, and presumably after a while, peeks into the tomb.

She sees angels, the Angels who are in on the whole gig, rather cattily if you ask me say to her.

Woman, why are you weeping?’

and then turning around she sees Jesus.
They have that conversation where her brain doesn’t recognise the person in front of her for a bit. We all have that, people you don’t expect to see turn up at work, or in the supermarket, and because our brain has filed them as footy chums, or people we meet in church our brain doesn’t go “oh its Sarah” from church turned up at my office! How much more if they are dead!

Until they go Hello mike….

Jesus does exactly this and says “ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!” it’s got an exclamation mark.

Which means it was said emphatically!

In the same way as we say oh no look at this mess!

So Jesus has twigged whats happened with Marys poor distraught brain and gone MARY!

He could have added come on, get with the schedule it’s me 😊

Then he says
Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.
Then he says what we are going to talk about today….

Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘
I am ascending to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God.’”

This is a massive statement
Up until now Jesus has called his disciples , followers, servants, friends, people who he loves.

Now he calls them by a new name, Brothers, and by the way he said this to a sister first.

How does this change things?

. A seismic change in relationship as understood by Jesus.

Think, we can have followers, people who admire us, the world is full of celebs and acquaintances.

Instagram accounts can have millions

I once had 25000 followers on a west ham fansite

Never knew any of them, cared about the number as it related to hits, and created more followers.

Brother, Father

Brother is family, blood relative, family comes first.

We like to think we would die for our family, jump under a bus, suffer for them, support them, they are truly part of us. To bring up a child includes a massive commitment from the day they are born. Family is a great way of looking at us, who of us doesn’t have a family member we find hard work and yet love and would do anything for?

what wouldn’t you do for family.

You forgive family, even as imperfect people we forgive family.

And in a similar way that your family is in you and you are in your family, so Christ is in us and we are in Christ. I would say at levels beyond cells and Genes like family, how much more embedded and intertwined is us is our lord.

I think it would be harder than to try and take the milk out of your tea.

So we forgive family as imperfect as we are

Imagine if you are love embodied, how fast would you forgive, how perfectly would you forgive.

This forgiveness opens the gates of eternity to us because we are now God’s family.

We live in relationship with God, and nobody can affect that. God has claimed us as family, he made us, he is in us as we are in him.

When you walk out of here today remember as Paul said in romans 8
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That’s whats happened today, your worth your value, your inherent preciousness is now defined solely and singularly by God. Nothing can alter that, when you see things that try and shape you to a size 10, ir to some trend, or to look younger, or to match up to others value system, or measuring stick, when your boss thinks your lesser than someone else in his team, when life tries to tell you that you are lesser, through abuse, through addiction whatever, through sin, or lust, or anger, or being poor, or when others leave you, or when people put you down..

From the moment Christ calls you brother,

Your value is steadfast, unchanging, unchangeable eternal, perfect. Your inherent worth can no longer be affected, why
Because you have the greatest power in the history if everything ever on your side,
That same someone who is willing to die for you is on your side,
you have the prince of peace working for you,
the king of kings ruling over everything justly on your behalf ,
the bread of life being given to you,
the redeemer saving your very soul, the wonderful counsellor to ask for guidance.
The lamb of god, taking away your sin by being willing to go to slaughter for you.
The everlasting father, your father, your brother waiting for you when your time comes.

What is this world compared to that, what is this faith that we share other than a faith imbued by hope every single day no matter what happens to us.

In Nordic countries they have an expression when things go wrong, when the bus doesn’t turn up, or the train is late whatever they say…

hope dies last.
Hope dies last

We however are different

As Christ’s family hope never dies.

Hope never dies and that means we are people of hope.

Hope for today, hope for tomorrow, hope for whatever calls us just over the horizon, that which we could never hope to achieve by ourselves.

That hope is the hope we share as Christians

remember that whatever happens now or in the future.

you have hope, because Jesus calls you brother.
The thief on the cross shows us how we get to be he brother, he never went to church, was never baptised, never confirmed, wasn’t ordained of licenced, he was a thief, a sinner, a man we would think twice about entering our homes. And yet he was first into paradise alongside Jesus.

Bu knowing who he was, by calling him his true name.
And for that, all that

He asks for one thing in return
tell people about him.
For me that’s my lifes aim, the goal he has set me, the thing I try to engineer as best I can, in sermons like this with the street and rail pastors etc.

For you, you decide, and remember, if you have worries or doubts, or think it’s a commitment, or hard to do. remember its family that’s asking you? Jesus is family now.

What has family done for you?
What wouldn’t you do for family.

And he wants you to tell he people he is risen!

Alleluia
He is risen indeed!

Amen

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Faith and hope during advent

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Romans 8  1-4 14 to finish

Three sayings on faith and hope.

Christ is both the object hoped for and the hope inspired by it, said Moltmann.   

The faith we have takes its stand on hope and hastens beyond this world, said Calvin.

 “Faith is about what is beyond the horizon of the humanly possible. Faith is exploring what people could never achieve by themselves. Faith is the mysterious need in us to get to where we could surely never go. Faith, in fact, is about what we call God. Faith is the inkling that we are meant to be divine, that our journey will go beyond any horizon at all into the limitlessness of the Godhead. Said mccabe

These ideas are all based on our reading today. They are more easily summed up by saying Christian’s  are people of hope.  We have been chosen since before we were born to know this hope, and we were led by the spirit to bring it into our daily lives such that we are here today.

  Our faith knows as McCabe said that we are destined beyond the horizon, like the sun,  just before it comes into sight, lights up the sky from something that is hidden from us for a short while just before it comes into view.

Knowing these things should, as Paul says , mean that “our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us”.   

This does  not mean suffering is meaningless nor without value to god and we know  this because of what’s about to happen in advent.


Jesus  is coming to join us,  as a vulnerable child born into poverty destined to suffer. So  while his promise puts everything into perspective, we should see the, way he chose and chooses  to join us in our suffering to prove that he isn’t asking for anything he isn’t willing to endure or doesn’t care about, Both then and now  the Christ then and the Christ in us suffers with us present tense.

The fact that Jesus came and lived In Galilee are facts  indisputable such that even atheists would not argue with them,   we know however this is based on the narrow lens of science. 

However, Christians have a wider lens, and our facts are based on more than the things we can prod or measure with a ruler.

Our facts reflect the true nature of the human condition and true nature of reality.  Our facts also  rely on the knowledge the holy spirit imbues us with that lets us know the dawn is just below the mountaintops.  

This is why Jesus  calls himself the way, the truth, and the life. 

He shows us the way , we live the life  , because we know the truth 

Our faith  our hope is built on the implications of these facts , and goes forward  always in hope , on its promise.   

The promise of being made whole and  liberated from bondage and  decay by being brought into the freedom and glory  of wholeness by being the children of God. People who call god father and friend 

This is why ours is a joyous faith, not one obsessed by misery or one endured in sackcloth and ashes, but one that lives in joyous celebration of the journey our faith has set us upon.   

The perspective that gives to our lives. 

This is the joy our lord asks us to share with others and is something we can do much more easily at Christmas a time when gifts of all types are shared.

The greatest gift of all we share  is hope, because we are children of hope, and we bring all this world’s suffering into perspective for us and for those around us.   

As we come into a season where the light of the world is joining us, our job is to share that light and the hope it brings.

Amen 

The parable of the shrewd manager and our late queen

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Luke 16 1-13 The Parable of the Shrewd Manager

Question 

Who in this last week of thinking about our queen has really thought about or been jealous of her money?

How many  of all the eulogies we have heard have been centred on that fact?

They have been about her service, her faith, humour, but money

When her funeral happens in the morning how much will be about that.

Not any I have heard, a few republicans have mentioned it in regards to her role, but not her.

She got the subject of money correct among many things.

On the subject of money, we do need money…..

On the other end of the scale Ive been poor and having enough is nicer, it solves many issues. I recall one time needing to do some overtime to pay a utility bill, and I had an MOT, and that failed, and then I couldn’t use the car to do the overtime to pay the bill, and of course now I had two bills to pay.  Ive seen the shanty towns in Colombo, and in Johannesburg and my problems shrink further still compared to that.

 Having enough relieves that sort of stress, and in our story its that sort of stress all the people that owed the money were no doubt u under owing so much money.

Because all the people spoken about today who were owed money were rich?

All those that owed it were tenant farmers, and my uncle bob was one of those and he didn’t have much money I can tell you. Life was hard, hand to mouth, making their own food on an allotment to fill the gaps.

There are various interpretations of this parable, and I am comforted that Paula Gooder in places found it as confusing as me?  But here’s where I landed, the word used for squander is actually closer to spreading around, so a sort of wasteful sharing if you like.

I think its about recognising that which we sow on earth is reverberated in heaven, part of that which is reverberated is what we do with what we own, are owed, that make cake a difference. that is to say the manager is rewarded for spreading about the money and alleviating the stress that the tenant farmers were under by the landlord.    

Why? Because as he said you cannot serve two masters, your eyes are either on gathering in as much money as you can, or transversely while owed a lot, you can gather in as much as is fair, or as much as people can give when the bill is owed and the MOT’s due.  

The idea in this story is in not being a slave to money means you tend to be a little more generous and therefore spread a little more happiness around. The reverse leads to the reverse, you gather in every penny, are not generous, and you spread sadness.

I think also that a message comes across, that the landowner was less worried about the squandering of money, of that spreading around but that it had to have a purpose, to make his tenants lives happier, and less stressful.


So essentially this parable is saying, our lives can tell a different story than the money we have, or the wealth we accumulate if that isn’t the sole lord and master of our lives.  

This is why I think the queen albeit immeasurably wealthy, her life told a different story.  Her legacy isn’t all about that, it’s a fact but to most not the most important one. In fact I am not sure I or many  would swap my average  life of comfort, for her wealthy life of service to all.

As in this story its not not having money that’s the problem its allowing it to take over our lives, our society, our government etc. When we measure the treasures, we store up in heaven none of them will have pound signs attached, of that I am sure.  When we measure all those things that detract from them, how we treated others as a result of measuring the world as profit and loss will be part of it.

That idea extends into so many things, into our health system, social security, refugees, how we help those that are homeless and all those in need. Its why I always wince when we measure those things solely by money and not by real need.  Because as Jesus is showing us here, that is the real sin, not squandering the money, but where its squandered and how and why. 

We have a god of outrageous love and grace, and by any terms when love is given like that it could be measured to be squandered, but its not really. Because we get it back when we are in the phase of existence our dear queen is, where shis is inheriting all the rewards of her grace and kindness as we speak I am sure.

Money and how we treat people as a result of how we spend , share or withhold it , has ramifications far beyond our earthly debt. Jesus did just clear the debt because the landowner was owed it, but he also didn’t squash the people that owed it.  The landowner was owed money but not obsessed by it.

So much of our society is obsessed by things, and has lost the idea that sharing those things stores up treasures in heaven used well.

  How empty does celebrity or fame, or bling become when we see what we can really be given in return.  I used to get ever more guilty as I progressed in my career thinking its about giving everything away and living like a hermit.  But its not about that so when 

in Luke 6 Jesus says 

 anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.

Todays passage shows it doesn’t matter if you have another 2 coats indoors, if you give to whoever needs,


So our goal isn’t to necessarily become poor, but to not be defined or to define ourselves by what we have, rather by what money enables us to do for others,  how we can use that wealth to store up treasures in heaven.  

Our legacy is really when we are gone and people speak about us and we face his judgment, that the measure isn’t what we had, but whether it obsessed us, owned us , defined us.    Listening to the stories of the queen this week, I think she got that right, and made our world, our country our commonwealth a better place and that’s whats going to define her.

On a smaller scale perhaps  that what the goal of our lives should be

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Jesus and come dine with me

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Luke 14

In amongst the TV that my daughter sometimes watches, there’s one that truly boggles my brain. People go round people’s houses for dinner, and then the people who have been fed and watered clearly to the best of the host or hostesses’ ability are then rude about it! I watched one part of this, and I was like, bad manners are now a TV program?

But that isn’t a million miles from what Jesus was up to today!

Imagine being invited for dinner and then really lecturing them on how they decide to seat people. Especially when they have seated you at the seat of the most honour.

As much as that program riles me, it’s fair to Jesus is quite rude to his host today, and my sermon today is to maybe look at why.

In Jesus’s time, the Pharisees held dinners for visiting itinerant preachers that moved from town to town. This was just such an occasion that Jesus was invited to. The seating for said dinners was very much ordered by your standing in the community; the higher honour, the better seat, however quite often, people used to try and move up the social ladder or be seen too by moving themselves up in the order of seating.

In an Honour based society, the more honour you could have been seen to accrue, the better for you.

Loss of honour meant shame, and the word shame entomology can be directly routed back to being forced into a lower place around the table.

This jostling for position is probably what Jesus was watching going on when he spoke up


So we have to ask ourselves what’s got Jesus upset enough to be so forthright and blimmin rude really.

 how we work that out really goes to the heart of how we use the bible as a guide for our lives. What’s a rule, what’s a paradigm, what’s an ethic, what is moral? It’s work we should do because Confusing those leads to all sorts of trouble. Treating a paradigm or a metaphor as a rule leads to literalism, and that’s a path to madness.

In simple terms,

Jesus isn’t after you changing where you sit.

Physical seating only matters, in this case, if certain seats are seen as having more honour. So if the seats at the front of the church are seen as more honourable then the seats at the back are the place to be. But if it doesn’t matter to you, then it doesn’t matter.

I say this as someone standing at the top of the church has moved from a special seat. I’ll be honest with you, it bothers me greatly until I came to the realization that people do have to hear what we say up here and be able to follow the service and that’s best done in a place where people can see us.

Today’s story has many layers, and seating really disguises

what Jesus is actually on about today.

The story is  about who we invite to the table, and who  indeed invited by Jesus and  whom we should invite to whatever we consider as places of honour, the best seats, the greatest places, those who we show off as worthy or merit and honour

The occasion in the story is a feast, and soon we are all to be invited up here to Jesus’s feast, and as a church in this story, we have been shown here as to whom should be invited.   

Because The most crucial thing Jesus is asking  us here today is this question, the question we should go away from today with


Who  does Jesus want us to ask “Friend, move up to a better place.'”


It’s kind of the story of Luke, really, Luke is the gospel where Gentiles are invited to the feast. Gentiles were considered by Jesus’s audience to be unclean, beyond redemption, sinful and breaking rules that God cannot forgive. 

They were withheld from religious rites that religious law stated god does not want at his table, and those who’s sin debars them due to their breaking of certain theological or religious norms that meant they cannot be accommodated.

When Peter questioned the inclusion of gentiles god said to him do not declare anything unclean that I have called clean.

This brings us to the central point

Who is beyond Jesus’s grace is the central question being asked here.

Todays story shows us that , nobody is beyond grace, nobody is beyond his love. Everyone is invited to the table indeed to the places of honour, because of Grace, which is why  god has declared us clean.

Grace is why Jesus came, Grace is the central idea of every word in the bible. It’s the drop that encapsulates the meaning of the ocean . The roots of the word Grace mean  Rejoice I am Glad.

Grace is for those that are declared beyond the pale! 

So to drill right down to it the story today is actually becomes about us.

Those whom that are considered unclean by us, lower than us untouchable, aberrant, who are so far from what we consider acceptable that we don’t want them in that door.

What I would really love from today is if you go out of here and think about who and why you might choose to stop from some religious rite, baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, marriage whatever.

Think about  that and then realise. whoever you think of as beyond grace, Jesus is today saying these are  whom you should invite to the places of honour, and whom Jesus calls friend as well as you.

I’ll try and illuminate that story by a couple of stories


I read a story recently, and a lady of the night was asked to come to church and her response was “why would I go there it would only make me feel worse!. That’s the reverse of Grace.

A bishop and a curate once were going to see a man who’s wife had left him  after he had cheated on her. The Bishop asked the curate, could you ever imagine doing something so awful?
The curate said no of course not.
The Bishop said, you better stay behind then.

Nobody is beyond grace, nobody is more or less broken than one another and all are called friend, and invited to his table.

That is what Jesus is saying today,  nobody is beyond his grace.

That’s it.
Amen

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The How, When, Where and Why of prayer

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Luke 11- 1-13

Nobody really knows why Luke’s Lord’s prayer is shorter than Matthews. It’s just one of those things, but what both versions show us is persistence is vital. Each one a vital petition that we say on numerous occasions, I think the Lord’s prayer is mainly for us, it’s about keeping us on track and giving us a prayer to say keeps us persistent. That makes sense because prayer as someone said
Prayer IS God, it is the movement of God to man and man to God, the rhythm of encounter and response. The more we move back in focus toward God the more he responds.


The mistake we can fall into is to call prayer that moment we bow our heads and clasp our hands.
Why because even a passing thought as to what God might be is that he is always, has been and always will be, is that he doesn’t wander off. He is always present. That means there’s nothing we do that we cant give to God, do as if Gods with us, because he is.
Something that really reached me when I heard about it is Benedictine spirituality. The Benedictine monks lived lives of prayer and hard work. However, St benedict said that we never need to separate the two. Because we can bring God into all our mundane activities. This teaches that everything we do can be done to the glory of God, everything we do can be a sacramental object where God is made present. We don’t have to wait for a eucharist, we can turn the washing up into a eucharist. A thin moment where God is with us. I recall doing the washing up once and really making sure it was perfect, because this was an act that God was present in. Because its self evident God is always present, Paul knew the separation or lack of awareness of God was artificial.

Paul uses the phrase to be “In Christ”, and Christ tells us he is in us and we are in him. Christ can no more be separated from anything we do that to say our Leg isn’t with us on a walk. It’s us that sort of lose sight of him and forget he’s around. To say hes always watching, makes it sound creepy, but he cant not be around, hes every where at all times, in us and with us and around us. Ive been married 30 years this year and Mrs T has seen me at my best and at my worst, and that process deepens our relationship and bonds. Its no more intrusive having God around while I do the washing up and having Mrs T around. In fact that chatter while the mundane acts of life continue is truly relationship.
So This means if I do the washing up, and give that act to God, I should do it to the best of my ability because he is in that act. He’s there anyway, but we can make everything we do an act of prayer that we bring God into, share that moment with God. As st Benedict said we can make the Hoe and the scythe as holy as any sacramental object on our altar today.

To look at that point in a different way, The liturgy of a service is different between our three churches, and liturgy is the act by which we cultivate the feeling of a presence of God, the differences reflect not God but us, how we relate to him. Christ is in all our churches, but fair to say he is in the checkout at Aldi’s, and the car wash, and in dinner making, and the hoovering. It’s us who lose awareness. Our churches and our services simply heighten that awareness.
That’s why Jesus wants us to knock, not because God needs a wakeup call, hes not asleep, we are.

The process of knocking helps us to wait for an answer, to expect or hope for his presence.
God does not sleep, if he does, hes not God. Its about practicing his presence, the more we practice the greater we become at being aware and guided by him. Prayer brings us into contact with the greatest force in all creation, a force that loves us enough to die for that wants to be with us, and for us to be close to him. Really, however, we do that is fine by God, because the formulaic prayer we say in church, or the whispered prayer at work, or the practice of awareness of him is really all he wants, he wants us to knock.
This continuous prayer, that we bring into all the nooks and crannies of our life, may bring God into places we would rather he not be. Bit we are a little ashamed of, that we wouldn’t look at too much because we don’t like what it shows us. So this in turn demands we need to lose our scruples when praying, As alain fenelon said Just as water quenches fire so do scruples act on prayer. Without going into the full quote, basically what he means is that if we are so eaten up with how to pray, and our own self loathing or guilt we become self-obsessed, or obsessed with detail. The object of prayer is then lost, and the well spring of grace emanating from prayer because we are put off prayer. The lack of prayer is far more crass than any sin we will not bring before him, because we cut ourselves off from him. The word sin means moving away from God, and lack of prayer does indeed move us away.

This isn’t news by the way St Benedict knew it, and St Ingatious as well. The examen from st Ignatius takes all those parts of the day and lays them at the foot of God, we give thanks for everything we get, we petition that ourprayer be fruitful (so pray our prayer is good and helpful, , we review our day and bring all of it too him , the we ask for and receive forgiveness taking on board we have been forgiven, and we try to move on with all those things supported by grace doing our lives a little better than before.
Hopefully what you can see is what Jesus is asking for here, persistence, practice, and praxis, the doing of a thing.

That point is essentially what today’s reading is all about, God wants us to pray. Pray in church, pray with out hands clasped, eyes shut or dancing, or driving, of fishing, or golfing, or watching our footy team (as a west ham fan they need a lot of prayer) , playing with our children, mowing the lawn.
God wants is to come as we are, lose our scruples and bring whatever we are to him, whatever we have become, whatever he made us to be, to the greatest power in creation.
So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

The thing that will be given to us is the wellspring of Grace waiting with just a small change in focus on him. The Lords prayer is an excellent tool for doing so and it’s a way of pestering God for these things, and as in the way of prayer those things get turned back on us as we enable others to have their prayer answered with daily bread and sins forgiven, with a sincere desire to make his kingdom come a little closer with each deed we do guide by him. This idea in Benedictine spirituality of being present in every little thing we ensures this is a constant ebb and flow throughout the day. We never need to leave him.

Its why our Christian life is so blessed with mindful meditative forms of prayer, such as the jesus prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living god have mercy on me – a sinner, said repeatedly out loud or to ourselves and like all good meditation we focus back on those words alone. The aim is to practice the presence of God. The journey this takes us on is described in one of my favourite mystics Terese of Avilla , we journey from conversion to companionship and ever deeper into a relationship with God, into every more interior castles, were we open ourselves ever more to God, removing those scruples that Fenelon so despised.

But hopefully, what today was is a few thoughts about what prayer is or. Its certainly about more than clasping our hands and bowing our heads, that as well, but its more about bringing him into every little thing we do. Imagine this for a moment, when you next speak to whoever your significant other is you say to them, in this relationship I am only going to really be with you for 2 hours on a Sunday, and when I want to speak to you or feel drawn too during the week. I think they may think you had just lost your noodles.

We all know that’s not how relationships work, not how they survive, not how we learn who the other person is. Relationships happen over a thing that just is, all the time, day on day out. Over the small things of life, and the big things. Sometimes we need that chat over the dining table, but mostly its just about being there.

That’s where he has asked to be, simply with him as much as we can. Like the child that asks for attention, knocking , asking, so he can share his love and his wisdom. We don’t give our children or loved ones, windows where they have to ask for our time, we want them around us and in a free and easy relationship where we are simply with each other the whole time.

Like any good relationship really. That’s it, all there is to it.

Amen

Who are we responsible for in the good samaritan?

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I’ve been fortunate in my life and met many good men (and women too by the way) that have for some reason gone out their way to help me, show me love and been there for me. Their blessings go on through many lifetimes, and I hope I share a little of what I have been given.

I hope if you think for a moment, you can think of a few.
and In simple terms

Today’s story at first glance is simply about a good man, doing what a good man does. Nothing more complicated than that really. A bloke needed help, and someone found someone like that and helped them.

Its also about a lawyer wanting to clarify what he was legalistically supposed to comply with to work out where his responsibility ended.
He was trying to understand what he needed to comply with to get the payoff!
The software I work with these days helps people understand what they sign up for in a contract. What are the clauses that might cause us pain if we sign on the dotted line and we don’t like what happens as a result? I’ve seen companies go under because a company discovered a loophole in the contract and we didn’t get the payoff.

But contracts that we don’t like are hideous if we sign them and that’s a fact.

Is it any wonder this is what the lawyer, the expert in the law, who would have looked at the world in a very similar way was looking, or trying to understand if he knew all clauses in the contract? Its basically what he says.

So what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? I love the lord god with all my heart etc and my neighbour as myself. Jesus affirms this as correct. But to make sure that this is enough to fulfil the law, and get him into heaven the lawyer checks.

29 so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”
What’s the contract regards who is my neighbour. What do I have to do to fulfil said contract and get the payoff of eternal life? Who am I responsible for?
Lets look at the story in jesus used in reply and then lets at the answer?

First off….
He could have just said “everyone” and left it at that.
Why didn’t he do that?

A man is stripped naked and beaten by robbers. So at this moment, he is an anonymous, vulnerable bloody mess. A man without tribe, country, or creed. Vulnerable and needing a neighbour he has no identity apart from human and male.. Like the tomb of the unknown soldier, his anonymity means this man represents us all, he could be any one or any one of us.

Then a levite priest, , passes by. Levites are those chosen by God to serve in his temple, so chosen in amongst Gods chosen people. Hes a levite, those who set and ensure others abide by the law. His law declares this man unclean, and anyone who touched him would be ritually unclean. This Levite priest hurried by the poor man leaving him lying naked in a bloody heap on the floor.

Then a Samaritan arrived . A Samaritan
The context of Samaritan mustn’t be lost on us.

Samaritans to Jesus audience did not belong on the land they occupied. They were of a strange culture, they dressed differently, probably sounded differently. They had occupied the land while the jews were in exile, and now they weren’t going back, in fact they had no back, they were 2nd, 3rd, 4th , generation. They practiced a strange version of the religion of the jews.
For all these reasons they were despised looked down on and considered unclean by the jews. They seen as taking resources, and land, and were disliked simply for being Samaritans . In another story the woman at the well who was a Samaritan was shocked that Jesus even spoke to her, both because she was a woman and a Samaritan.

So we have gone from one end of the scale to the other. From the lauded to the dregs. Those people we rather look down on and would rather not be around, those whom we blame when it goes wrong by default, those with less privilege and standing in our community, those we find very few of on a day-to-day basis, and don’t know how to talk with them when we do, where the culture gap is hard to bridge, the religion strange. The disliked, distrusted , unwanted, bottom of the pile. Mostly they are anonymous to us, invisible, when we think of them, very few kind thoughts might arise.

But this Samaritan He stops on the road from Jericho when he found the injured man.

and he stops on the road to Jericho….

The road to Jerusalem from Jericho was known as the way of Blood, because so much blood was shed by robbers. It’s a winding road with steep sided and lots of twisting turns as it drops a 1100 foot from above to below sea level.

In certain respects I can sort of relate to this. Like those estates in the 80’s that had so many perfect hiding places for muggers that the council like to give them in the 80’s.These were places that you had your ears and eyes open, you certainly never stopped and moved as fast as you could. When I used to catch the late train home in forest gate I always breathed a sigh of relief when I got past certain known mugger hotspots. I avoided the steel bridge at all costs., Rushed past places that had deep shadows where people could come from all of a sudden. So I sort of know that feeling.

But the Samaritan

He stops and shows real –

and the word I am going to use is Altruism,

The word Altruism is defined as when we act to promote someone else’s welfare, even at a risk or cost to ourselves.

He definitely shows more than pity, the priest showed him that but , pity demands no action. The Samaritan, journeys between pity and altruism and he acts, taking one more step into dangerous altruism on this fearful road.

Jesus making the man naked and anonymous means he has to show universal altruism. Altruism of a sort that goes beyond the boundaries of his own tribe.

Then he gets him safe at the inn, and pays his bills to get better. 2 denarii, about £50, at that time about 2 weeks wages on average, so costly in every way.

There’s no law here forcing this man to take a risk, no law forcing him to do this, indeed the priest who knew the law rushed by, not wanting to be made unclean, not wanting to be next, let alone give up 2 weeks wages.
This is Jesus defining who is our neighbour and who is worthy of altruism.

In this story Jesus has told us there is no clause in the contract t, no boundary to love, no end date to the contract, in fact don’t seek a contract.
Its just outrageous love we are asked for. Jesus tells us that example can be set by anyone from any culture, and also that can be asked from anyone from any culture.

By making the injured man vulnerable and stripping him of all associations with creed, tribe religion etc . Jesus makes him every and anyone in need, We are simply one race, the human race. Whether the refugee comes over on a dangerous boat ride, or from a war-torn place. We have to show altruism that may put us at risk. How can there be an illegal immigrant, if Jesus just threw away the contract ? When in Jesus example where this man came from , why etc is deemed unimportant, in fact its actually deliberately stripped from him. this story shows we are simply asked to stand up for, stand in for whatever human happens to be around.

They were going down that road…. That’s all we are shown. Then we are shown what love is. Its more than altruism, or dangerous altruism, its excessive, it costs us, to risk out lives, to travel more slowly with an injured man on our horse while we work, it costs. It takes time and trouble. Its excessive well beyond anything that could reasonably be asked of us and it’s given without question to whomever we meet that needs our love.

The joy of this story is that whoever we are and from whatever standing in our or any community, we can still shine and be lauded and laudable in Jesus’ eyes.

Also to answer my earlier question.
That’s why when he was asked who is my neighbour, Jesus didn’t just say everyone. Because Jesus wants active, not passive love, he certainly doesn’t want sympathy, but active dangerous outrageous altruism.

Bonhoeffer said the biggest mistake we make is to try and work out who we are responsible for.
This parable shows we are all responsible for each other, in the human race.

it was that realisation was one of the key moments for me, this is why it’s the only way the world works.

In simple terms, Jesus asks us to obey the unenforceable clause, go beyond reason, beyond risk, beyond culture creed and religion actively not passively.
To stand up for and stand-in for whoever needs our love, out active love.
That is what the kingdom of God is like. We have been given the task of showing what that sort of love is like, in our lives as Christians. That’s what we are asked to witness to others by our behaviour. It’s when we bear witness to the kind of love Jesus asks us to show when we see our neighbour as Jesus asks us to as simply human and nothing else? When we stop asking who are we responsible for. That our faith becomes powerful and stands out.

I really wish the Lawyer hadn’t asked that question, because now we can’t say we don’t know, But he did and now we know, all of us do, and now as Jesus’s followers of the way, we know the way. All of us.

Amen

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Easter – The birth of the good news.

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Easter
From this moment on we know these five things.
Jesus has a past
Jesus Died (past tense)
Jesus Lives (present tense)
and Jesus has a future. (Future tense)
and if we give him his proper place of Lord – so do we.

These Five things should colour every aspect of our lives.
Because on Friday we remembered Jesus’ death and the seeming hopelessness of that moment.
From today we can never be without hope because we share in his future.

We must always remember that Christ always had a future, but he wanted us his creation to also have a future.
So, for us also he did something else even more wonderful, he broke the sin of Adam that was laid on us all.

Our broken nature remains, But it is forgiven. As Paul says “for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.”
We are made alive, given new life, and propelled into the future certainty of a new world free from sin and death and illness and decay through him.

So we live in the now of God’s kingdom, with the assurance and a way to share in the not yet, the future of God’s kingdom to come. When Christ will rise again.

He had every single one of us in his mind on that cross, he has every single one of us in his mind right now. He knew you before you were born, he knows you now and he will know you when you rise again in a new bodily form with him on the blast of the horn.

These facts, for they are facts, in the truest sense of the word mean that we can never be without hope. We live the assurance of a present forgiven from sin, and a future free from its presence.

We live forgiven our compromised present nature, and a know we have a future made whole and perfect without compromise.

But what do we do with those things, these facts have to affect us
Those things have to affect us right now don’t they?

If you knew you had a future free from every worry, concern, disappointment ailment and negative thing this world has to offer. If you spend a moment and think about all the things you have had happen in your life that you wish hadn’t gone All the things you wish weren’t happening right now. Fixed,all the broken or tense family relationships, all the illnesses all the stress, and concern gone.

If you knew all that was to come, it would affect the way you behave now, wouldn’t it? Well, here’s the deal. It is to come, it is happening to you and to me, on the moment he rises again. We are but a short sleep away from such things.
That hope affects and colours everything we do, it’s like the certainty of winning the lottery.
This is why we are people of hope. Hope like that shouldn’t be parked until you are lying on your death bed waiting for your eyes to close. Hope like that should imbue our lives. We know we share in a perfect future, we know our present is embued with the perfect love of God. We have that past present and future love shared, and to share.

When we leave here today we should have a little spring in our step, because we are forgiven. Death is no more than a sleep, and all the worries of the world are transient, and small compared to eternity with our lord.

God has made us his friend today, friends never to be parted, friends love dearly enough to die for. The resurrection of jesus is the start of a new creation, we are part of that new creation free from the wounding, decaying, perverting outcome of sin. Free to be made whole, free to love knowing we are loved. Given value because the creator of all things values us enough to die for, and wants us with him forever.

Nobody ever, no matter who isn’t loved enough by god to die for, loved enough to die for right now, and nobody ever doesn’t have the choice to share in his future. We share God’s future.
Whoever you lay eyes on today and forever is precious enough to die for

That’s special isn’t it, there’s hope in that, that’s good news, isn’t it?

Why?

The world so needs that news, if they knew all the things they were fighting for would be Judged and set right regardless of whatever they do, why would they fight.

If they knew everyone was loved enough to die for, who would they kill, hurt, or call names? Because you are calling God precious things names.

If we all knew nothing can affect our inherent value, because they are gods special thing, how much anger and resentment, and sadness would that resolve, because nothing could ever make us feel worthless, do demean, or devalued. How differently would we behave if we really knew every soul was precious.

How much of the corrosive effects of shame would be lost, If we knew they were forgiven, how much could we forgive. If we knew in fact the object that needs forgiving in our eyes is forgiven. Why not forgive as well. You on your own

These are the changes gods love brings to our past present and future

This is the good news og Gods love for us, our friend,, our father,

This is the good news. It’s happened, happening today, and is yet to happen. We share in it.

So go out there and tell people, they don’t understand, they have forgotten. But they aren’t forgotten, they are loved. Its our job to remind them.

Because Christ is risen
He is risen indeed 😊

Alleluia

What is the reason for hope?

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What is God?
Can we imagine God, can we relate to God?
Is he an old white man on a cloud?
Is he everything, all realities, all substance, everything, everywhere, ever?
look around and at the stars, God, look at the ground, see an ant. Look in a microscope and see God, look at a mountain, see God, look at the stars and infinity, see God.

that’s the physical realm in every realm God is present, God is in every thought we have, in every prayer, in every breath.
God knew you before you were born. The list is endless, where God is, and I mean that literally.
The problem is, anything big enough to be God, that I could imagine would not be God.  

If infinity is real god is in  and of the infinite, if its not God is the boundless holder of a defined reality
In short

God is unimaginable.  Too big too vast. We cant get our heads around him.
How do we fixed in time and space love a thing not fixed, that’s in all time and all space? Whenever you imagine a fixed point he runs away, in infinity


 
How do we love that God, when we try and put our arms around him, try and enclose him with love and make him ours, he slips away somehow? We know we don’t know him, we know our tiny part? How can we love something that is so far removed from us, how can we love a thing that in almost every way is incomprehensible, too perfect for us, a thing that cannot be less than perfect,  that our imperfection cannot meaty with, how can that love our imperfection?

in so many ways something that we can’t even begin to know to comprehend? The answer to so many questions we don’t even know to ask. The bible talks about a fearing God, that is an entirely appropriate response for a thing so big, so vast so powerful.  But how do we bring that close, into our mundane lives? How do we make that God part of everything we do?

Today, God gave us a way to do so , as of today we can, today he has made himself a newborn baby, even  more? a small defenceless refugee baby
On the run from a despot, in meagre surroundings a long way from home.
Mary is a long way away from her mum, and support system, and as clueless as any new parent might be. Truly as defenceless and threatened as any baby might be, truly exposed to the mess of it all.


Any mother knows that regardless of what mess we are in babies need protection  and love and care.
He lays wrapped in swaddling and just like any other baby and needs all the things a newborn needs.

We can all love a baby, we can relate to those needs, we can put our arms around a baby. We want to protect a baby, we don’t fear babies.



But this baby, this one is different
Promised, and prophesied by all scripture, like our reading by Isaiah today 500 years before and more recently promised to mary by an angel
This baby they look down on is God.

All babies are gifts, all are known to God.
But this baby is God. He is God, everything that God is, is now enclosed in the diameter, in the physical space that is taken up by the object the size of a small baby.
From the unimaginable to the most helpless object in the world. A new-born baby.

So God has gone from so vast we cannot imagine, to a thing we can all relate to, either has been one, or have had one, or met one. A baby. That’s how small and defenceless God has made himself.

From something that holds everything ever in itself, to a thing holding our finger as the first thing it can focus on and grasp as an object in space.

But why, why has God decided to do this? God doesn’t do accidents or mistakes?
So why has he done this?

Be assured, Everything about this scene is deliberate, the deliberate action of God. To decide to become fully human while remaining fully God. In God maths are his, so there’s not two halves but two wholes. Fully God and Fully Human. But make no mistake there’s no mistake in this scene.  This tiny baby is God, from everything everywhere to a thing as limited to time and space as a baby.


But why God, why this way, and why at all.

Why, the answer is because everything in this scene screams hope.
Hope for everyone, he has done this, in this way to bring hope in your lives.


Why hope?  because here is the greatest thing ever, in this place, and it shows wherever you are God not only can be here but is liable to place himself there. Hope because however bad it gets, you know God isn’t worried about getting his hands dirty, he’s been in bad places himself and knows what it’s like.


Hope because this proves that God loves you enough to come here to know you in whatever mess our lives are and call you a friend.
This god isn’t going to write a book, give you a set of instructions and wander off. He’s going to join you where it’s messiest. In amongst the dung, literally and figuratively. This child is the flickering candle in the darkness that has not been overcome by darkness. Proof that darkness can never overcome his light, proof that nothing that happens in this life is beyond his experience.

This baby knows you, every single one of you, and when he reaches thirty is going to say and do things that will shake the world and turn every power structure on its head. He’s already started doing that just by being born like this.  Every king of this world has just been put into perspective, every power in this life the same. They got usurped in their power by a defenceless baby, and that shows what power in our lives amounts too. They have limits, this baby does not.  This baby breaks the shackles any power may have over us, and that’s why we call him lord and nothing else.

This child is both the object hoped for and hope itself, this child goes on with us forever as he sleeps, and looks up with eyes that cannot yet focus on the eyes of his mother. All ending events are no longer endings, but steps on a journey of love with the source of love.

We as Christians are people of Hope because we know we go on over the horizon, nothing is permanent, every pain is transitory and a briefest second of eternity. Everything will be made whole by a baby in an animals water trough. This fact changes everything, so we are loved by God enough to die for, and his dying opens up a place where we know nothing in this life is more than a scratch on our journey into an eternal relationship with God. Nothing can ever affect your value again because this baby which is God, has decided to die for you, so you can never die again. That’s how long he wants to love you for, forever.


Simply by being an object in time and space, God had broken the shackles of time and space for all of us. Our lives are forever imbued with hope, by this child’s arrival, this, moment was the moment hope became a reality, where hope became more than a wistful pipe dream, or a wishful idea based on nothing more than a sunny outlook. Our lives are not shackled by sin and our brief struggle with little or no point to our tiny spark. Our lives are now predicted, made, valued, and cared for enough to die for by a God that joined us. He proved all that today.

God made himself real in our reality,  and in doing so he made hope a reality, for all that follow this child in this life and the next.

He is here to be our salvation, and salvation simply means being made whole, all our brokenness is gone from this moment. One day we will all be without all the things that hold us back, pain, anger, illness, cruelty, and even death is defeated by a baby.  Despair is gone, we can never despair or be without hope, because this morning Mary can pick him up and show him, love.

This morning hope is a reality, and therefore so much more than just a hope. Hope is a dream, god made that hope real. The difference between a dream and a reality is a and his plan is now ours.

We can never be lonely ever again. As we pray today, we know that this child is still with us every step of the way, and we can talk to this child through prayer. Ending loneliness forever, because

We can never be alone because he is with us every step of the way and we can share in this so easily? He can talk to us, and direct us, the sure and certain hope, as Paul says

All we have to do, is follow him, today, and this morning 2000 years ago,

 he came to show us how.
Amen

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Bible Sunday Sermon 2021

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Bible Sunday, the word of the lord is praised today

I laid on the floor a large stack of bibles, and explained their translation and the reasoning, GNB, NRSV, ESV, NKJV, etc explained the misogyny of the KJV (male verbs are used either where no gender was said or even when the female was used) , Each had different roles, different translations. The GNB is easier to read, NRSV is the official translation of the church of England.

Explained my story about when I was lonely in a small flat outside of Bournemouth and asked for help,. I came from an large noisy atheistic family, but this little red bible had followed me around from the day it was given to me at School.. I was from a busy family where everyone did shift work, so the house never slept, to a tiny village in Corfe Mullen. This Beautiful, remote and very very lonely for the first time from him. One day I sat on my bed and was at a very low ebb. Held that little bible and prayed.

I asked him for help , said ,I am really lonely , and I need help, please help me and the room was filled with love.
Unalloyed, perfect, real, almost filling the space of the air, love. Also I have never felt lonely or alone since that day.

He came into my heart that day, and been ever present ever since then.

I have had a relationship with him since that very day and then showed the little red Gideons Bible I held in my hand that day. Explained that my leader was Matthew

What do we have in the Bible, 66 books, of poetry, history, biography, law and prophecy, Apocalyptic, Wisdom and Gospels that were first spoken and then written down?

 Such human books, in the bible we find love. Anger, greed, hatred, sex, and sin etc etc, The list is endless. The entire human condition is discussed, check out Song of Songs if you think anything’s missing.


Its clearly written by people, real people, living lives, and facing the tasks and challenges of the human experience.  Paul prefaces a lot of his letters with things like, I’ve got timothy with me, complains about his eyes, he sends his regards to and from various people,  asks the receiver of to look after onesimus his slave, and asks for a guest room to be prepped as he hopes to see you soon.  Calls something complete scoobilon which is left untranslated from the Latin for dung.

All very human things that show us these are humans just like us writing these things, not aliens that get turned into typewriters by God.

Also, we work with a translated text that was from the very first time Jesus spoke. Jesus words were Spoken in Aramaic, heard remembered and eventually written by Greeks, Hebrews?

So from the moment, Jesus spoke his words were translated from Aramaic into the native language of the apostles many of whose mother tongue was something else.

We worship using a translated book. That was written, Some by authors we know, some lost in the mists of time.  Then some of the words and grammar and meaning of the oldest translations we have left written in Greek say don’t have direct translations to English. Hence that pile over there.

However let me be 100% crystal clear, let me not be misunderstood.

The Bible is undoubtedly the word of God with every word inspired by him and through scripture and prayer, we can peer through a glass darkly at the plan God has for all humanity and for the minutiae of our lives.  If for one second, I doubted that I would never dare to stand in front of you today or any day.

  Some might ask how given all the variables I spoke of before I can have such certainty.  Because how else would a God who made himself human talk to us except through humans in a human way, he so wanted to do that he became human.  Through his creati

 I was called by the God who wrote that book, who works with that book to mould us into all he wants us to be, the book of Common prayer says there’s no health in us, but today we are going to look at how god’s love works through the bible and makes us whole.
Takes us on the journey to being made whole.

So how do we work with God to learn from scripture, how do we learn from our master through this wonderful thing?   Jesus tackles this very thing today.   When he says….

If you believed Moses, (addendum in scripture ) you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47 But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say


That is it in a nutshell!!, That’s it,, The Bible brings us to him , but we have to let him take over. when I first read the bible, Jesus was alive for me, and remains alive. Jesus came alive through that book (Matthew was the first passage I read in a little Gideons Bible). So for the Jews it would be Moses because that’s what they had, for me it was Matthew but whatever scripture resonates for you, you have to believe him p, you have to let him in.

 That is the secret to the Bible, Once Jesus is alive in your life then all those things that I spoke about earlier become Nuance and the fabric that Jesus can use to work with us.   Jesus speaks through the spirit, through that book, and through us.


The spirit is in us, and as soon as we plug into that and its awoken by the book, the three of us work together, Jesus, the spirit and us, who he made us to be.

However please don’t think I am asking you switch off your intellect

He doesn’t want us to park our brains at the door marked “scripture” he wants us to bring all that we are to the process.  There he meets us, and works with us, as he always did. 

What then the typewriter theory, the idea the apostles were turned into Dictaphones. Lost in the idea these words are divinely inspired, and work for all of us regardless of where our little spark of life happens in the millennia to bring us closer to God.  The church of England has as one of its 39 articles that “HOLY Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation:”  and it indeed it does, everything you need is here, but you need to bring everything you are to them, let god take them, always always pray before reading , to learn from them, your heart, your prayer, prayer, your thought. Richard Hooker one of the founding fathers of Anglicanism used the idea of the three legged stool, Scripture, tradition and reason.

 I would argue that isn’t enough. The stool needs many legs, it needs prayer, it needs learning, it needs robust and repeated action to bring his words to life.  Most of all it needs the real knowledge of a living god brought alive in our lives.  Then because all scripture is breathed by god. As the hymn goes, we will be filled with life anew.

Then we can bring scripture to life in our lives because it is breathed on by a living God.  What then all those things of a translated faith? The universal truths of the bible, are from God are never ever diluted. The multiplicity of the various methods used in the bible are just the tools God uses to bring his words to life.

This is why a legalistic view of scripture alone is never enough, and what got Jesus so excised today. His living word alive in our lives is greater than Moses,. As Jesus said today

 If you don’t for if you do not believe the one he sent. 39 Even if you study[a] the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. .  If however after this , 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life. 

You missed the point, the bible is the word of God. This is the word of the way the truth and the life.  But letting him into the story, letting him into the story of our lives is the only way to God. The bible is a special precious thing and truly the word of God, but its as useless as a hammer lying on the floor when a nail needs used, because without him being alive in our lives, it becomes something  else, a book, a set of laws, an antiquated thing. 

With him in our lives it’s a living word, that doesn’t just overcome its translation, its million authors, its genesis.  It becomes his living word,  and all those things become things he uses to come to life in our lives.  Through poetry, prophecy, biography etc and yes a all the translations. He uses them to find you, and share universal truths

Through scripture.

As Paul told Timothy

16 All scripture is inspired by God and is [9] useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

On bible Sunday that’s what all we need to know,

Amen