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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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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 

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

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Sabbath, what is it, why, and how?

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I stand here today giving the first sermon on the subject of Sabbath, being as it’s the first I thought I would spend a little time looking  Sabbath, what is it, how can we do it, what is it not and why? And reflect on what Sabbath is and how we might observe Sabbath in our modern context. What does God want?


The first thing many of us learn about the sabbath was, that when  God made everything, he rested, on the seventh day he had a rest.   Did he go have a lie down? Did he sort of let creation do its own thing for a bit? Like when we leave our kids with the iPad for an hour and go put a wet flannel on our head?

Here’s the thing, as much as we try, humanity is not going to stress out God to the point of needing a lie down and neither is making everything. God is omnipotent, all powerful inexhaustible and does not need a rest. God did not need to rest, so why is this in scripture?

This is God setting an example to us, showing us what we should do moving forward.  He’s saying 6 days of toil and then we stop, he loves us and only wants whats best for us, and so he’s setting the cycle by which we should live, for many more reasons than just rest.

There have been many versions of what doing nothing on the Sabbath means in the bible, the Hebrew noun for Sabbath, “Shabat” simply means stop or cease. The first time Sabbath is mentioned by name is in exodus verse 20 chapter 9-11 in the ten commandments, where God makes it a holy day, and says everyone including the foreigner has to stop work.

Making a thing Holy really means setting it apart as special. The dictionary really points us in the right direction when it defines holy as “dedicated or consecrated to God or a religious purpose; sacred.”.  Hence the reason why Ezekiel criticised people for continuing to buy and sell sheep in the sabbath, basically keep the works of industry moving, but Isaiah was more interesting, he wants us to celebrate the sabbath as more than just as an exhibition of piety, but to do so properly meant to ‘learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow’.

That’s not really stopping as such is it, so what is it? Isaiah also foresaw when the Sabbath was for more than just gods chosen people but for all humanity and included us here today. 

But if it isn’t as simple as just stopping and watching Netflix, or a good book whats it  all about?

 Jesus often ran into the Pharisee’s legalistic view of the Sabbath when he healed people and walked through fields of wheat eating corn, this  was seen as breaking the   strict laws of Sabbath, His response was that the sabbath was made for humankind not humankind for the sabbath.  

Essentially God made the sabbath for us to be released from bondage not to be interned by another sort of bondage of legalism. So for Jesus Sabbath had a greater meaning than just doing nothing on a Sunday.

Also it hasn’t always been on a Sunday, for early Christians it followed the Jewish tradition of starting on a Friday to a Saturday evening.  It then moved again to the “lords day” on the first day of the week in acts.

 The Sabbath was a day of rest, but the Lords day was a day to gather in community and worship God and concentrate on his word. As our faith moved to the Gentiles community Paul said that they don’t need to follow this Jewish rite but encouraged them to set aside a special day to worship the lord if they decide to do so, but they are free of the legalistic duty.

Essentially as Christianity separated from Judaism to create its own identity they moved from a legalistic sabbath to a “lords day” where the emphasis was on worship.

So what did our lord want us to do with this day? Old testament law was not abandoned in the new testament but fulfilled, properly fulfilled. Take Jesus pronouncement that where the OT says do not commit adultery, anyone who looks lustfully wishfully at another woman has done so.

The  law is about the betterment of society, Jesus is concerned about whats going on in our heart. So it is with the Sabbath, as we move from the legalistic rite of Sabbath bound up in laws and a burden to all, so as we as modern day Christians work out what to do with old testament ideas of sabbath we must overlay the idea’s that Jesus came to fulfil that law, to bring it to its proper purpose.   This is in part what the Jews listening to Jesus saying in matthew

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”.

would have heard, their yoke was twofold, the burden of an occupied society, but also burdened by a legalistic faith that used the Old Testament law as a tool to keep their culture intact but also to make a straitjacket that all had to be bound by.

So Jesus yoke is easy, and his burden is light. But there is a yoke and a burden, he wants us to follow the law by having a day of rest, but the yoke is he wants us to spend that time concentrating on him, pondering him. Closer to the lords day of the early Christians.

 As the old testament scholar mark scarlata said “Sabbath is God’s way of drawing us into a place of rest where we might begin to tap into the divine imagination and wisdom that brought the entire universe into being.”  Being still and knowing he is God as it says in the psalm, only by being still and turning ourselves to him can we access the true meaning of Sabbath.  I recently gave another sermon about Jesus being the bread of life, and someone asked him how they can access that bread.  Jesus response was  “Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”.

By taking ourselves away from the pursuit of the bread that spoils, in our ever more commercialised world we can stop and meet the bread that never spoils in our lord Jesus Christ.  By being in his world for a day or so, we are driven by what Boenhoffer called costly grace, the grace that costs something in our lives and drives us to sacrifice ourselves for others , that drives us as Isaiah said “‘learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow’” or whatever our society needs us for, by letting him into our lives we become his body on earth, make a rebellious statement about what we think is of real importance by turning of and tuning into him. We make a statement that we believe life is more than the frenetic gathering of wealth.

This ethic takes us right back to the time of god and his  overthrowing the Pharaoh and exile.


Each time God sent a plague Moses demanded god free his people  Pharaoh had   his people making more  bricks and with every twist he removed the means to make bricks but increased the demand, he wanted Israelites firmly focussed on mammon,

Whereas as soon as God got them, he asked them to stop on the seventh day, eat the bread they had already collected, but focus on him. Focus on him and leave mammon behind

This is what our Sabbath should be, its why I was happy to work on my studies on Sundays as I trained to become an LLM, because that wasn’t about mammon it was about God, its why we should gather here each Sunday and focus on him.  Because ultimately this is fulfilling the law of the sabbath, not meeting it legalistically but truly in our hearts.  Making time, real time each week to focus on him,  our Sabbath.

Which by the way in our busy lives doesn’t have to be on a Sunday because it has moved around,  in the past both through our Jewish heritage and as a means of setting our faith apart from Judaism  and sometimes it has too, wherever it settled it was always encouraged. Because wherever it is ,  the idea is we must set aside time to be with our lord each week. Proper time that we regard as sacrosanct, not of mammon and to state openly to the world this time is his.

What a statement, my life is yours, I think your more important than everything else I might be doing. That’s rest and witness all at once!

So to sort of cover off what is this sabbath and what isn’t it…

Well some of that is informed by the fact

God doesn’t need a Sabbath, but he knows we do, that’s why he models and commands it for us

Also Jesus railed against a legalistic sabbath and

It’s easy to be legalistic about observing the Sabbath, but that doesn’t get to the heart

It’s easy to be blasé about the Sabbath, but then we miss the rest we need that helps us refocus on God

Properly observed, Sabbath is a light yoke and an easy burden


Because ours is the lord of the Sabbath, and we should give our Sabbath time to him.


Because that’s what he wants,  that’s sabbath our time focussed on him and being his body here on earth, acting for him, in ways that please him, and bring his wholeness to the world.

When we reflect on sabbath that is  what we should reflect on both on defining it, and doing it.


Our Lord Jesus Christ 

Because it’s his

Amen

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The sign of the Manger

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When I give directions, I often point out landmarks, when people come to my house, I tell them 10th house down with a Blue Audi outside. When you get down my road, count roughly to ten and look out for a Blue Audi. There’s enough information in that direction to think this is about ten houses and the chances of there being another Blue Audi are slim, especially in the next 3-4- houses and the fact it was given to you as a signpost makes it very likely you have found my house…
The Audi signifies that this is my house.

That was the thing about the manger. A roughly carved stone drinking trough with a Baby inside was unusual enough that when the Angels said they would find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in and there he was, they must have been sure this was the child Angel Gabriel had said to go see.
The other thing about the oddness of it, is that it sorts of proves they hadn’t lost their marbles, or the cold had not given them a funny turn, and an Angel really had directed them this way.

Even more importantly if we have seen an angel and he was right about this strange location for a Baby, and they had found them to prove they hadn’t imagined it. The angels were right about one other thing, and this was the messiah. What with the census going on it might be expected a few mothers and children might run away? But the manger was a signpost, this particular baby, in this location, in a rough drinking trough.

The manger was a sign.
This sign of the manger was given to Shepherds. Shepherds at this time were considered as very lowly people in society. They could not give testimony or be a witness, as they were not considered reliable. In a rigid honour based society, they were among the lowest..
So not only was the sign of the manger one of poverty, but it was given to the poorest and those regarded as the most unreliable.
These low born people were also his first heralds. They were the first ones to go and explain what had happened.

God’s and Messiah’s do not in our worlds view enter into the world like that. Our royalty leaves the king Edward hospital in the west end with the worlds press and world leaders as heralds and the woman looks very smart has her coiffured hair styled perfectly with. Dad in a very expensive suit, both smiling, holding the perfect baby as the cameras flash, and enter into a life of conspicuous privilege to lead a life detached from the day-to-day reality of all of us.
This view of royalty is one of detached, entitled perfection. It’s given to us as an aspirational thing. However, as Christians we recognise it is the precise polar and exact opposite of Jesus. But with that in mind we have to come to terms with the fact this place, this location, this poverty, displacement, and helplessness was a deliberate choice of God .God made that choice.

So we have to ask? this way God?
Why hasn’t Jesus been zapped out of the sky, been heralded by trumpets, prime ministers and princes, had roses thrown at his feet. Why hasn’t he turned up on a Gold chariot, with hangers on, mothers hair coiffured with Joseph in a Saville row suit in front of the worlds eager press .
Why has he not been led into glorious wealth, and led a detached life, while issuing ethical advice from said detachment about how we should all live? Why has god decided this way?

This is not an accident, God is complete, in every facet, in every part of his nature and being, he lacks nothing and is in everything. Omnipresent across space and time, knowing everything. However, not content with reducing himself from a thing with no boundaries in time or space, to an object, a creature with form and shape and limitations “the word” the ultimate, the alpha and omega etc. he joins us as a homeless baby

This is a god that instead of standing back and pointing the finger at everything bad. Joins us in it, born into poverty, on the run, placed in a drinking trough , literally in the mess made by animals, scared, met by and announced by societies outcasts. Totally reliant on parents, who themselves are exposed to danger, a refugee, essentially homeless,
That reason for that choice is the same reason I am a Christian, the reason for all the faiths for me this marks out our faith as unique.
Why Lord why? What should we make of this choice?
Because the only God I could ever worship, is one who met me at my lowest, who knows me at my worst, joins me in my suffering, loves me enough to die for, one who isn’t big ,scary and detached. But a baby who you could pick up and smile at, and who needs the care of a scared mother to survive. Who chose angels , a mum and the lowest of the low to announce him?

That’s the perspective the manger gives us, Christianity does not start with “Jesus saves you from your sins.” It starts with “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” This means we cannot reduce Christianity to a method of being saved. It is a way of viewing reality and the narrative of scripture should influence our view of reality, how it was made, what are we, where we fit, what are we to God, what are others, etc. This view of reality in today’s shows us a lot about our lord, who he is ,who he chooses, where he is.

I don’t think he ever left the manger really; I personally feel closest to him among the homeless in southend. We often feel him most strongly when we are lost or alone, or scared or vulnerable. This is because this God knows what that is like to be vulnerable, and reaches out. This is where he is today in our story a helpless babe among the helpless, hapless and unreliable

The other person of course who shared this story is his mother. This is a mother’s story. Scholars think by the way that it was Mary that gave Luke this story. Unusually Mary’s name comes before Josephs in the text, and the fact that her reflection is mentioned in this is Luke making it as clear as he could where he got this story from . This is a mother recalling a night no mother would forget a detail about. “ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart”. The other thing that indicates this is Luke making it clear she did these things.

This is a God for 2020 isnt it? When our lives meet the real mess of life. A mother remembering giving birth in a smelly place with animals, and placing your child in the animals trough, on the run, sore, scared, worried, with a fresh burden of a new mouth to feed.

Mary’s prince is probably clearing the dung in the stable, emptying the trough, staying with her despite his young wife having given birth in a very odd way and not really understanding whats happening. His vulnerability is a sign to us , same way the manger is a sign to us, that where we should be, not pointing a finger but with others, helping saving making whole, clearing up the dung. So when we and so many are at our lowest point, I have no doubt that’s where he is, right there with us. Not pointing a finger, but with us, helping ,saving, making whole, loving us.
That’s where our lord put himself. Not by accident, not by mistake, but because that’s where he chose to be. He hasn’t locked himself up on a private island to rule us from the internet. He’s in our pain, in our loss, emptying his completeness into our loss. The angels made sure the shepherds knew him by the very fact of his poverty. The manger marked him out. The mother passed on the story, The outcasts announced him.
Also
The shepherds show us we don’t need to be among the worlds elite to announce him, and that’s such a comfort to me personally. This story helps show that those who may feel themselves or may have been made to feel unworthy can be his heralds, and announce who he is. He doesn’t need the worlds press and the paparazzi, he can have a shepherd, an ordinary mum, or a slightly sweary east end boy.

This story is shared by the angels, the shepherds, Mary when she told luke, and me, and hopefully you.
All quite different beings but all given the same job.
Inthis story we are also shown how we must announce him, where we are to begin when we speak about him.
The manger marks our God out as one who’s selfless love meets us at the lowest point imaginable.
When we speak about him, we must begin at the manger, when the shepherds in our story did as was told in out scripture “spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child” , they were said to be amazed, almost certainly like us, amazed that God had chosen this way to enter the world. With the lost, placed in a drinking trough, with lowly scared parents, heralded by outcasts.
That gives us all hope , and shows us where to begin when we explain him, not from a lofty perch handing out great advice from above but from the perspective of fellowship of those who may not always feel worthy, but are worthy of being Christ’s heralds. We should be where the worlds at its messiest, and meet it with love, and see the world as inhabited by Gods precious creation worth enough to die foe

When we meet the outcast, the lost, the sad, the refugee, the desperate we have to meet them as if they were precious, parts of Gods creation , worthy of being heralds of Christ, because they are . So wherever you reach out to the lost, dispossessed, helpless angry, and bring peace through love that’s being Christ. Meet them at the manger, from the perspective of the manger, this is a God who met the world from the manger, used it as his sign. Share it from the perspective of the Shepherds,as someone who may be unreliable witness to some but chosen by God to share his good news, or the mother remembering her beloveds first day,
Oh and we share a helpless babe, that shows us that when we are at our wits end, when we are lost, clueless, worried, feeling unloved, scared by the future that’s being helpless is Christlike as well.
We have all had our days in 2020 when it all got on top of us, not known the right thing to do. Grappled with seemingly contradictory demands and tried to work out the least worst option. Felt pretty hopeless doing so, 2020 has reduced all of us to the vulnerability of a baby in a manger. Been made feel less than worthy.

Christ shows us its Ok to be vulnerable, to not be able to do everything. To not know whats going on, to just ad-lib our way through strange days. That’s the sign of the way he chose to enter, today he needs his mum, wants simply to be warm, and loved. He is vulnerable, helpless, reliant on selfless love . This is what our lord chose to be like on the day of his birth, reliant on love helped by people who don’t really know whats happening. Not even Christ can sort it out today, not until the time is right.

That’s the sign of the manger as well. Our lord the servant king, who came to love us enough to die , who today needs to be served by Mary and Joseph and has the both the angels and the low born of society as the messengers of his good news .

The only God that fits 2020, and every year
Amen

Sermon Matthew 16:21-end

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In certain respects, our weekly readings can be like watching a film in segments, ten minutes here, then minutes there. Like any film if you watched it that way you would either not understand whats going on, or, perhaps get the wrong end of the stick, or it may be because you have seen the film before you know roughly where we are.

I think this week reading requires a long view, see why people have reacted this way. Essentially to get under the skin of todays reading I think we have to work on a little context. 

Imagine it, a chap comes wandering past you while you’re at a steady job fishing, collecting taxes.

He asks you to follow him

You sense something, drop everything, follow him every day for three years.

Eat, Sleep, talk, pray, wander with him as he preaches in town after town.

You learn to love him with all your heart, and all your soul.

You learn that in fact he is the son of God, the Messiah.  

That means different things to different people. The saviour of your people, or the one that is going to bring back the land from brutal oppression.

Messiahs were expected to bring power back to Jerusalem,  deliver political and military victory over the current occupying force.  . You totally believe in this one. Previous claimants had ended up with
with roman justice, roman empire , roman peace celebrated because the Jewish leader had been killed 

Various Prophets all died, having had their say, tried to get the word of God to be listened too.

But this one , this one was different. He performs miracles, feeds 4000 people , heals people, comes out with stuff that makes the world make sense.

He asks you, one of the chaps that’s dropped your steady job, left your family, followed him for three years.

He ask you Who do YOU think I am – you tell him – you’re the Messiah, and you KNOW he knows what that means, what each and every one of you has invested in that word.  You’re going to put it all back, get rid of the romans, put Israel back on top! You’re going to be all that those very dead prophets promised.

He tells you a simple fisherman, the impetuous one, the one that always gets it a little wrong, that you are the rock he is going to build his church around. Hows that going to make you feel, promised that by the Messiah.  That’s trust way beyond anything a fisherman ever expected.

Then he says – don’t tell anyone I am the Messiah.  Which isn’t denying it at the very least, and confirms it in most peoples  way of thinking about that, and you know in your heart that he is, you dropped everything for him, got more than you ever imagined, saw things that will stay with you forever. This is the son of God.

THAT’S where we step into today’s segment of the story, that’s where we restart the DVD, or pressed play on the Netflix movie.

So with this context we move on to todays reading

From that time on he starts telling you he has to go to Jerusalem, the seat of power that hates him, the most dangerous place any of you could go. Then he says and here’s the kicker.

When I get there I am going to suffer and die!

Because your Peter, the rash one , You sort of grab him by the arm and say “God Forbid it lord this must never happen”!!

So many things would elicit that response, Love for the man in front of you, the fact the man you left your home for just calmly said “I am going to suffer and die” 

The man you believe is the messiah, who said your going to be the rock! Is going to die, messiahs don’t do that! They don’t die!

His reaction is a rebuke, Get behind me satan! Then he calls you the stumbling block to him, (the very opposite of a rock your going to build on).

Then he says, the thing that we still struggle to get because we are human.

The only way to follow me is to deny yourself.

(which sort of works, because you denied yourself a LOT to get here)

Then he says the real mad strange thing

The only way to save your life is to lose it.

Save your life is to lose it,

I don’t know about you, I like to win at things. Scrabble, Monopoly, win at work, win arguments with the wife (albeit that never happens).  I like my football team to win , albeit I support west ham and winning happens only slightly more often than I win arguments at home…

On one level Jesus just said, the only way you win is by losing.  In Alice through the looking glass, Alice finds out the only way forward is to step back, the only way up to go, is to go down. This is like that isn’t it? It makes no sense, sometimes even to us who have the fact of the resurrection, who are post Emmaus.

 For The disciples following Jesus logic meant he just stepped through the looking glass.

Actually what Jesus did was explain the actual only way Christianity makes an ounce of sense. Without this idea when you boil it down none of it works. Get this idea and everything fits, miss the point and it whooshes past in a whirl of confusion.  Things contradict, and jar with the world and his message. Get it and everything sort of works, what he said , and what we are supposed to do.

My mission today is to try and work towards that point, that Jesus was making.

Don’t get me wrong  I dont think we can relax after we get this; but what Jesus was talking about today we have to grasp to make the rest make sense.

It’s a bit like when I was a kid and I missed a lot of maths classes through being ill.  You cant do Algebra if you don’t know how to add up, subtract and divide.

There’s still algebra to come here, but the essence of this story, the principle is right at the core of our faith

Jesus is the ultimate example of self-sacrifice. Why;  because he is an immortal, eternal God , complete in every way, needing nothing, that made  himself small enough to be a man through love. Dying and resurrecting opens the way to salvation for us all, and he has to do that for us all.  Gave us victory over sin, defeated death. 

The mysteries and models of atonement are another day’s conversation.

But there’s also the question of what do we, here today do with this story;
And that’s the other thing  also he’s showing us the only way the world works; and that’s where I want to spend the rest of my time.

He knows that when everyone gives everything to everyone,  then nobody wants. If we give everything to each other regardless of whether we like them or not, nobody wants for anything.   The only way to reach that point is when enough people break the chain of taking from each other, and share love from the limitlessness of God.

We as Christians are taught the only way to make it work is to give to each other, the only way that we make his kingdom come is when give to each other because then we receive from each other as well; to give when we don’t want to, to give when we would rather hold on to what we have.

Fortunately, Paul takes Jesus point and explains it long hand for us,  what does this giving achieve. That is exactly what Paul is explaining today, what Jesus was doing times a million and what we have to do to replicate that in our small way.



Marks of the True Christian (Romans 12:9 – end)

9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.[a] 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly;[b] do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God;[c] for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

 
So when Jesus said “get away from me Satan” its because in protecting life, protecting what we have, we take life, protecting Jesus from Giving was being overcome by evil, and he wanted to overcome evil with good.

The limitless giving of our god,  has as Paul explained to be replicated by limitless giving,  giving to each other?

Limitless giving is how our lord saved us, and gave us salvation and

Salvation most academics think is better translated as making whole or healing

Our lord gave everything to make us whole,heal us to be who he wanted us to be

When we give to each other we make each other whole and he wants us to give without limits

That’s the way the world works, do I think we can do that?

I know I can’t, but I have faith my lord will help me try, and that faith gives me access to grace.

Grace overcomes the shortfall, in my efforts  and Ill rely on that.

Jesus knows we can’t, we aren’t able the worlds too broken but he wants us to try. To try and give as much love as we can to each other to try and lift each other up and make the other whole.

So, to conclude
Peter had Grace when he missed the point, and grabbed Jesus arm and said “no that’s not happening” 

We all have grace when we miss the point, that’s why we need grace so much. We as Christians must keep trying, we try because we have been shown how to make it work, how to make each other whole by giving..

Thy Kingdom come is Jesus asking us to do that, make each other whole.

Grace is for the times we miss the point

Father Jo once said to me if I get to heaven I want our lord to say nice try.

I say
Amen to that.