Sons of Thunder - Mark 10. 35-45 Retold

Mark 10. 35-45 - retold.

         It was a lovely sunny afternoon, that day.  But the Disciples were in shock.  Jesus had just dropped a bomb on them, by telling them what was about to happen to him, when he got to Jerusalem.  About how he would be beaten, and tortured and killed – but then how he would rise again from the dead.  Then, as he often did, Jesus just wandered off, into the shadows, to let his disciples digest the news.

       Simon was the first to speak.  "Well, I believe him," he stated boldly.  "Everything else he has ever told us has been completely trustworthy, hasn't it.”  He turned to James and John, the so called 'Sons of Thunder'.  "Guys, do you remember how Jesus met with Moses and Elijah on that mountain the other day?  When only the three of us with were him?  If he can do that, I can certainly believe that he could rise from the dead."

       "Yes," replied James.  "But what happens then?  Once he's been raised from the dead.  What is he going to do after that?"

       Matthew, the former civil servant, piped up.  "Well, I reckon he'll start a new Government.  I reckon he'll sort out the Romans, and then set up a new, holy Kingdom...you know, that 'Kingdom of God' that he's always been talking about.  I wonder who he'll ask to be Chancellor?"  Matthew suddenly had a far-way look in his eye.

       "And who will he make Prime Minister?" said Andrew.  "Simon...that's going to be you!"  Simon shook his head modestly - but he smiled as well.  Everyone knew that Simon was Jesus' right hand man.

       The Disciples continued to banter among themselves.  Who would be minister in charge of the drains? they laughed.  Who would command the army?  But James and John, the Sons of Thunder, went silent.  They didn't like the way that their friends were talking.  They were not at all happy about having posts in the new Kingdom of God being carved up by the other Disciples like this.  James decided he'd had enough.

       "See you later, guys."  he said.  "I'm off to bed.  Come on John."  John got up off the ground, and followed James down the slope towards the crowd.  When they were a little way from the others, James stopped John with a hand on his arm.  “Listen”, he said.  “Why don’t we go and see Jesus and ask him for jobs in the new government ourselves?  If he says it, the others won’t be able to stop us getting the best jobs”

        “Do you think he won’t mind?” asked John

         James pondered for a moment.  “Maybe”, he concluded.  But if you don’t ask, you don’t get!

         John looked thoughtfully at James.  There was a chance here.  Perhaps they might just make it, and become Jesus' right hand men.  John nodded at James, and together they looked at over at where Jesus was sitting, on a rock, alone on the edge of the camp.  They walked carefully over to him, picking their way between sleeping bodies.  They approached the Master.

         “Um” said James, “Um…Rabbi?  Can we bother you for a minute?”

          Jesus looked up from his prayers, with a knowing look in his eyes.  “Yes, boys.  What is it?”

         “Rabbi,” said James, “We want you to do for us whatever you ask.  Ok?”

          Jesus wasn’t going to make any promises.  He was more canny than that – and quite used to people trying to trap him into saying something he might later regret.

         “What is it?” he said cautiously.

         James got ready to make a well-considered plea , backed up with lots and lots of good reasons as to why they should be important officials in the new Government.  But John couldn’t contain himself.  He was so nervous, that it all came tumbling out! 

         “We want you to grant for us to sit on your left and on your right when you come into your kingdom!   Um…please….”

         Jesus looked disappointed.  He had hoped for better from these two.  He had hoped that perhaps they had begun to understand that his Kingdom was not like that at all.  He shook his head, and said, “You don’t know what you’re asking.  Do you think you’ll be able to drink from the same cup as me?” 

            “Yes” said the Sons of Thunder together.  “Yes, we can do that”

Jesus replied, "You will indeed drink from my cup.  But to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant.  These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father." 

            James and John were a bit puzzled, but they were wise enough to know when to back down.  What did Jesus mean?  We will drink from his cup, but the places of honour are decided by God?  That was typical of Jesus.  He always talked in riddles.

         Unbeknown to James and John, however, they had been followed.  Judas, who had never quite trusted the Sons of Thunder, had trailed them from a distance, and had heard the whole conversation from behind a tree.  As James and John turned away from Jesus, Judas slipped back through the darkness to the other Disciples.  “You’ll never guess what James and John are up to!” he hissed, when he got back…and then proceeded to tell the whole story.

        "That's not right!"  "Who do they think they are?"  The Disciples were livid! After a quick discussion together, they decided that this would just not do, and they all strutted over to where James and John were settling down dejectedly for the night. 

        Simon, ever the spokesperson, spoke first.  "What's this we hear?  Have you been up to Jesus to ask for a place on his right and on his left?"

        James looked at the ground, and shuffled his feet nervously.  "Well,  erm…", he mumbled.  "We did just have a chat…".

        "That's not good enough" replied Simon.  "Who do you think you are?  Do you think you are better than the rest of us?  Do you think Jesus is going to choose either of you over us?"

        Jesus, in the meantime, had been sitting on his rock, looking over the camp.  He wasn't surprised.  Disappointed, but not surprised.  He had smiled to himself as he saw Simon stride across the camp over to James and John with the other nine disciples in his wake.  Jesus made a decision.  It's time for me to intervene here, he thought. 

        Jesus climbed down from his rock, and wandered down the slope to where the ten disciples were gathered around the other two.  As he approached, one of the Disciples, Philip, looked up from the argument, and saw Jesus approaching.  He nudged Bartholomew in the ribs and pointed at the approaching Rabbi.  Bartholomew nudged Matthew, Matthew nudged Andrew and in a few seconds, the little group of angry men had ceased shouting, and waited for Jesus to approach.

       Jesus walked up to them and stopped.  He looked around at them with love, but also a little disappointment in his eyes.  Into the anger in the air around him, Jesus spoke gently.

      "You know how the Gentiles do things, don't you?  You know how their rulers lord it over the rest of the people, and how their high officials dominate everyone else?"  A few of the Disciples grunted.  They knew what Jesus meant - they had seen how the Romans bossed everyone else around.  "Well", Jesus went on, "That is not how it shall be with you. 

“Instead, whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant - not your Prime Minister," he said, looking knowingly at Peter, "and not your Chancellor", he said, smiling at Matthew.  "And whoever wants to be first among you must be a slave to everyone else. 

“This should not surprise you.  The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.  The Son of Man came to give his life away, not to go lording it up over anyone."

     And then, the Disciples noticed that Jesus' eyes seemed to become distant.  He seemed to be staring off into the distance, over vast miles, and even through time itself.  And then, Jesus' voice was heard in a little church on the coast of Hampshire.  There was a congregation gathered that morning.  A congregation of ordinary people - people just like the Disciples and the other followers of Jesus.  These were ordinary people - but people who had heard the call of Jesus, across the millennia - the call to live in ways that were life-giving; the call to live in love with God, and with each other.  These were people who longed to hear Jesus speak to them, and longed to hear from him how life could be richer, deeper, more meaningful.  And across time, and through the walls of the church that morning, the people of Faith, no SAINT Faith, heard Jesus speaking to them.

     "In my service, there is perfect freedom.  By serving me, in your homes, in your jobs, in your schools, in your church, in your community - you will find me.  By serving me with your time, and with your talents and with your money, you will know me. When you serve others, you serve me.  When you reach out to others, you reach out to me."

     And all the people, in that little church in Havant, said, "Amen".

Not a building, but living stones...

A sermon on the Patronal Festival, commemorating St Faith of Agen (our 'patron saint)

There are many so called holy places in the world.  They are those places where, somehow, the veil between our mortal world and the spiritual world seems more fragile.  Some people call then ‘touching places’, or ‘thin places’ – places, that is, where one seems to be able to reach out and almost touch the out-stretched hand of God.

According to the Hebrew scriptures (or the Old Testament as Christians call it), Bethel was one such place.  After his prophetic dream, Jacob called the place ‘House of God’ (which is what Beth-el means.  (El was one of the early names for God).  For many generations, it was one of Israel’s holiest shrines.  The Ark of the Covenant was kept there, until it was transferred to Jerusalem.  Prophets and leaders would go to Bethel, to seek God’s wisdom and instruction. 

Ironically, though, for such a holy place, no-one can say with certainty today where Bethel actually was. 

Attributions of holiness have been given to many places over the millennia.  Stonehenge was once considered holy by its builders – as far as we know.  Great cathedrals and churches were considered holy, thin places, because they often contained the bones of great saints.  For devotees of our patron Saint, Faith of Agen, the abbey-church of Conques, France is one such place.  There are laid the bones of the young martyr – cruelly murdered under the rule of the Roman emperor Diocletian, because she refused to renounce her faith in Jesus Christ.  Ask Bishop John and Janet Hind for their account of the place – for they visited it only a few months ago.

Where is your ‘thin place’?  Where is that you find that the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds is somehow made thinner?  For some, it may be a beautiful landscape – the top of a great hill, perhaps.  For others, it will often be a place, like this building, in which hundreds of years of prayer and worship have somehow soaked into the stones.

Holy places, then, are integral to human faith.  Ask a Muslim how he or she feels about Mecca.  Ask a Catholic how they feel about St Peter’s in Rome.  And yet there is a danger, isn’t there, in investing all our energy into buildings.  Anyone who has toured the ruins of great abbey churches around the UK, or sought in vain for the actual site of Bethel, or who has seen the ruins of the Jerusalem Temple should know that faith is not kept alive by holy places alone.  They, like all physical things, must pass. 

Instead, Jesus points us towards a much greater permanence – towards himself.  He is, in St Peter’s words – quoting from Psalm 118 – ‘the stone that the builders rejected, who has yet become the cornerstone’.  He who existed before all time, through whom all things were made, and through whom all things will find their conclusion – he, Jesus, is the ultimate ‘touching place’.  By studying Jesus, getting to know him, we can begin to touch that outstretched hand of God.  In the Sistine Chapel ceiling , we see Michelangelo’s take on that idea.  God reaches out to Man…but Man himself doesn’t seem bothered to make the effort.  Michelangelo asks us – “are you more interested in the beauty of this place, in the artistry of my picture, or in the honest hard work of searching for God?” 

In fact, if we are honest, holy buildings can sometimes get in the way.  In the temple of Jerusalem, for example, human priests created a holy of holies – a place in which God was said to actually dwell.  It was a place so holy, that the High Priest could only go into it on one day of the year, after elaborate rites of purification.  The New Testament tells us that the curtain of that ‘holy of holies’ was torn down at the death of Jesus.  It was not a helpful picture of God.  It had to go.  Now (as the book of Revelation has it), God’s dwelling place was with people – not locked up in a back corner of a temple. In fact, you and I are now where God dwells…not in buildings of stone, but in living flesh and blood.

Even our own beautiful building has some challenges – in terms of the story it tells about God. For example, the way that the whole focus of the church is fixed on the High Altar, could suggest that God is distant from us….that he is far away, and only to be approached on bended knee, in front of a Sanctuary that ordinary people dare not enter.  That is not, I think, the picture of God that Jesus offers us.  He wanted us to understand God as our heavenly parent – the father who cares for his children and who walks alongside us.  Jesus taught us to expect to find God’s spirit along us, leading us into all truth, dwelling within us.  These are not images of a distant God.  A church which has its altar in the centre of the people might well be a much more accurate picture.

Some of our images of Jesus – in this beautiful building – are rather problematic. The blond, bearded man on the cross in our East Window looks nothing like the probably clean-shaven, dark-haired Jewish man who died for us.  What picture of God does this building convey?  It’s a picture of God as an Englishman – a blond one at that!  That kind of image undermines all that Jesus and his followers taught us about being one family of humankind, in which there is neither Jew nor Greek, black nor white.

And yet, as those who steward and care-for this church throughout the week will testify, the building has immense value to all those who enter its doors throughout the week, seeking solace, peace, or a place to seek God.  That is why, for all its theological confusion, I think that our continuing efforts to refurbish this place are worthwhile.    Its very age and architectural idiosyncrasies are precisely what draw in those seekers of a thin place, a touching place.

But at the same time, we must not forget that this building is not ‘the Church’.  It is only a shell…at the end of the day, a shelter from the rain in which the actual church can gather.  Fundamentally it is now difference from the church of St Nicholas in the parish of Nswam, Ghana – which I visited in 2015.  A few palm branches, spread over a frame.  Just a shelter from the elements.

For, as St Peter says, we are “living stones…built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood”.  We are the church – not these stones.  We could – if the Diocese would let us! – tear this whole place down – leaving a pile of rubble in the middle of Havant.  That would not mean that the church was gone.  The people who make up the church would still be here (if a little damp, when it rains!).

And that is why we are now beginning to turn our eyes towards the vital question of our Spiritual  health as a congregation.  For if we are to be strong living stones, capable of being built into the true house of God – a living house of holy priests of God – then we must focus on our own spiritual development.  In just over a week’s time, I will be presenting to the PCC a draft Spiritual Development Plan – a plan for ensuring that every one of the living stones of this church has the chance to grow in confidence and faith. 

So please pray for your PCC, as they ponder the work of the various groups who developed our plan over the last six months.  Pray for them as they seek to hear God’s voice, calling us on beyond restoration of paint and plaster (as necessary as that has been) and into the building-up of a holy house of spiritual people, with heaven in their hearts, and the needs of the world on their mind. 

People with so much faith, that they too, if ever called upon, might also demonstrate the certainty of purpose and belief of our own patron, St Faith of Agen.

Amen.