tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2425216074351480422024-03-16T11:28:26.145+00:00Tom's SermonsTo watch these sermons on YouTube please <a href="https://www.youtube.com/tomkennar">click here</a>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.comBlogger423125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-58208974129325614582024-03-16T11:27:00.003+00:002024-03-16T11:27:31.743+00:00A Sermon for St Patrick<p> <span style="font-size: 13pt; text-align: justify;">A sermon for St
Patrick's Day</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">(St Patrick's Day is
17 March.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is believed to have died on
that day in the year 461 C.E.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Kennar
is supposedly an Irish name. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although as
Rex likes to remind me – it is also Welsh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It might also interest you to know that the name Kenner has possible German/Jewish
roots, coming from the root word ‘to know’ – to ‘ken’. Perhaps you remember the
old song ‘Do ye ken John Peel’? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Apparently
the name ‘Kenner’ was sometimes used as an insult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A ‘ken-ner’ was a ‘know-er’ – or as we might
say, a ‘know-it-all’!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since that
description couldn’t possibly apply to me, I’m going to stick with the idea
that Kennar has Irish roots – especially on St Patrick’s day.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As
with so many ancient saints, and like my own misty ancestry, it is difficult to
get to the actual truth about Patrick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One thing we can say, with some certainty, is that he was not born an
Irishman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which is fun to point out to
Irishmen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As much fun as pointing out to
Englishmen that St George was Turkish, and to Scotsmen that St Andrew was
Jewish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, the only Patron Saint
of the British Isles who was actually born in the land they represent was St
David.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Rex surely knows.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">All
the ancient writings about St Patrick agree that he was a Roman-Briton born in
about the year 390 of Christian parents in the latter years of the Roman Empire
in Britain. The exact place of his birth has never been identified. Claims from
places in West Britain as far apart as Dumbarton and Cornwall have been made;
but present day opinion favours the neighbourhood of Carlisle.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It
is said that he was captured by Irish raiders when he was sixteen years old and
taken to Ireland as a slave. After six years of caring for animals, he escaped
and seems to have gone to continental Europe. He eventually found his way back
to his own family, where his nominal Christian faith grew and matured. He
returned to Gaul and was there trained as a priest and much influenced by the
form of monasticism evolving under Martin of Tours. When he was in his early
forties, he returned to Ireland as a bishop, ministering first at Saul near
Downpatrick, and later making his base at Armagh, which became the centre of
his See. He evangelized the people of the land by walking all over the island,
gently bringing men and women to a knowledge of Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although he faced fierce opposition and
possible persecution, he continued his missionary journeys.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Patrick
left two pieces of writing which are accepted as genuine, his Confession and a
Letter to Coroticus. These are of immense value as they reveal Patrick the man,
humble and aware that all he achieved was by the grace of Christ. Irish
Christians today, of all traditions, equally identify with this holy man and
draw inspiration from his life and writings.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There
are many legends of Patrick – but the most famous are probably the two about
the snakes and the shamrock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the
legend of Patrick ridding Ireland of snakes, a degree of scepticism is probably
in order.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to natural historians
and fossil hunters, Ireland had been devoid of snakes ever since the last
ice-age, 10,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly, no
fossils of snakes since the ice retreated have ever been found.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like many such legends, the power of the
story is encompassed in its myth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
snake has always been seen as a symbol of evil, ever since the serpent in the
Garden of Eden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Patrick certainly
succeeded in pushing pagan worship from Ireland in his time, and many would
have regarded paganism as evil, in those days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Perhaps the chasing of snakes from Ireland was always intended as a
metaphor for Patrick chasing the dark forces of paganism.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As
for the shamrock – that is rather a more believable story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is said that Patrick was trying to explain
the dogma of the Trinity, during his evangelistic tour of Ireland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He seized upon the shamrock, with its single
leaf with three ‘bumps’ as a useful way of illustrating how one God could exist
simultaneously in three persons:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Father,
Son and Holy Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s no reason
to be sceptical of such a story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
what good evangelists do: they use what is around them to draw their listeners
into the life of faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus talked
about boats, and fishing for men, and Samaritans, and sowing seeds – because
those images meant something to the people of his day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Patrick used the shamrock, because it was a
familiar plant to all the Irish.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Traditionally,
Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But, recent scholarship has uncovered documents which refute that
claim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time of Patrick’s arrival,
there were already a small number of Churches in the land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Patrick’s extraordinary mission certainly
fanned the flames of that early faith – and he is responsible, without doubt,
for the spread of Christianity all over Ireland.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By
the way, the obligatory drinking of Guinness on St Patrick’s day has no
historical, legendary, or even metaphorical link!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s just a clever marketing ploy!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So
what might St Patrick have to teach us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He’s undoubtedly one of the great Saints of the British Isles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, I think there a few strands worth
pulling out from his story…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">First,
Patrick appears to be someone who didn’t let nationality get in the way of his
ministry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Born a Roman-Britain,
travelling extensively in Europe, and then adopting Ireland as his home,
Patrick didn’t let national borders stop him telling the good news.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">He
was fearless in his proclamation of God’s love, even to the warlike, pagan,
Irish tribes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you or I feel fearful
of letting our friends know that we go to church, let alone that God loves
them, perhaps we could all do with a little of Patrick’s courage?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">His
use of the shamrock was inspired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
a great example of using something culturally relevant to engage people with
the reality of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whilst I love our
ancient traditions here at St Faith’s, we must never forget that our
communication of God’s love needs to be culturally relevant too, especially if
modern people are to hear the good news. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And
finally, there’s this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to our
best scholars, Patrick arrived in Ireland at a time when Christianity was weak,
and small.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only a tiny proportion of the
population were Christians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It sounds
rather like our own times, when you think about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only around 2% of the population can be found
in English churches on a Sunday – which is quite startling, especially to those
of us for whom our entire lives are centred around the church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Patrick saw that the need for God was very
real, and very present, in the society he went to serve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We too need to grasp the importance, and the
urgency of that task.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-70413511804941846512024-03-01T15:58:00.000+00:002024-03-01T15:58:11.410+00:00The laws of an angry God<p> Texts: Exodus 20.1-17 & John 2.13-22</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">There are two vitally important bits of social
theology before us in today’s readings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
first is the Gospel story of Jesus chasing out the money changers in the temple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That story has inspired an internet meme in recent
years, which goes:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When people ask ‘what
would Jesus do?’, remember that the answer includes making a whip out of ropes,
turning over tables and hounding people out of temples!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The question at stake is whether anger can ever be
justified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the answer seems to be that
yes, anger at injustice or exploitation by powerful elites over ordinary people
very certainly can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s what the
money changers represented, you see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There was a law, in Jesus’ time, that the offerings people made to the
temple, or the money they used to buy animals for sacrifices, had to be Jewish
money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Roman coins were a symbol of
occupation, and therefore only the Jewish shekel would do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the money changers offered people a way to
change their roman coins – but they did so by charging a fee – and making a nice
profit for themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of the
people who used the temple were, of course, poor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This Temple Law therefore penalised every one
of them, to the profit of the money changers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The same practice goes on today, by our banks and
our exchange bureaus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to the
Bank for International Settlements, trading in foreign exchange markets
averaged US$7.5 trillion per day in April 2022.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is challenging to find out how much profit is made from these
transactions – but you can be sure that the total runs into billions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every time that a migrant worker in the UK (probably
working on minimum wages) wants to send money home to their family for
essential items like food or rent, the money-changers make a profit for
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every time a UK charity or
church wants to send money for famine relief, or to build water-towers, the
money-changers still make a profit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
wealthy make a living off the backs of the poor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Is it any wonder that Jesus was angry?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The second item of social theology before us is the
10 commandments. In older times, we would have recited the commandments
together on all the Sundays throughout Lent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And in Tudor times, the law of the land required that the 10
Commandments should be inscribed upon wooden tablets – and placed at the East
End of the church for everyone to be constantly reminded of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But, what can I say about them in just a few
minutes, here on a Sunday?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure that
none of you would thank me for a 10 point sermon!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Well, let me be concise: the plain fact is that
today’s society couldn’t care less about the 10 Commandments!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you ask the typical man or woman in the
street what the basic rules of society should be, they will often say things
like ‘bring back the 10 Commandments’ – and then they will merrily go about
their lives in complete ignorance of what the commandments actually teach.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">What do I mean?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Well let’s look at them in two groups – for we can split the 10
Commandments into two headings – just as Jesus did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">First, there’s the group of Commandments which are
about God, and our relationship to God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worship
God only, don’t make graven images and idols, don’t take his name in vain, and
set aside a Sabbath day to rest and commune with God.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Secondly, there’s the group of Commandments which
are about how we live with each other – or, in Jesus words, how we can ‘love
our neighbour as ourselves’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So let’s look at those two groups – and
examine whether my statement, just now, that today’s society couldn’t care less
about them actually holds water.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">First – the commandments about loving and
worshipping God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The word ‘worship’ is a
contraction of ‘worth-ship’ – in other words, giving something its worth, or
expressing the worth that we assign to a given thing, or person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So when some random oil paints, carefully
applied to some canvass, sell for millions of pounds, society is assigning a
worth to that painting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(It’s tragic,
isn’t it, that we assign much more worth to the scribblings of a dead artist
than we do to the life of living, but homeless person?) When a society revels
in celebrities, or expensive fashion, or the lastest car, it is giving
worth-ship to those things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Ultimately, the thing we choose to make our personal
god, is the thing that we invest most of our spare time, resources and energy
into.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each of us must judge for
ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I guarantee that each of
us has, at some time in our lives, made something or someone else into a kind
of god.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something that commands all our
love, energy, devotion and spare time.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">To any of us who have developed such a god (with a
small ‘g’), the Lord God Almighty, creator of the Universe, says to us,
“Oi!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You there!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look over here!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 10 Commandments invite us to put our
primary focus back towards the source of all things, towards the energy,
creativity, power and beauty that is actually at the root of everything which
we choose to make into a god.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The facial
perfection of a film-star?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It comes from
God, the ground of all beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
wisdom of a great philosopher?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It comes
from God, the ground of all wisdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
power of that twin-turbo super-charged car you love to polish?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It comes from God, the ground of all power
and the author of physics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mischievous
laugh of the grandchild or the pet you are obsessing over?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It comes from God, the ground of all family
and love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The 10 Commandments call us back to the source – and
to a right focus on God, who is the ground of all being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then they encourage us to act in God-like
ways towards our neighbours.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The second group of Commandments are all about the
way we live together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Murder, adultery,
lying, stealing, and covetousness are all bundled together, along with the
command that we should respect and honour our parents – the older generation
who have much to teach the young. But murder, adultery, lying, stealing and
covetousness are so normal in our society, that we don’t even blink anymore
when we see them in our national life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No,
no-one cares anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We just accept our
leaders’ disregard of the 10 commandments without a second thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have lost the passion of the one we call
Lord who chased the thieving leaders of his day out of the Temple.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">No, my friends, the hard and irresistible conclusion
has to be, as I said 10 minutes ago, today’s society couldn’t care less about
the 10 Commandments.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What are we to do about
this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have a choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have always had a choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have the same choice that inspired Moses
to bring these commands down from the mountain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We have the same choice that Jesus gave to his followers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can choose to roll over, let the lies, the
murder, theft, adultery and covetousness consume us, as it consumes our
neighbours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can carry on shifting
our focus away from the source of all gods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or we can repent….turn around…and focus our lives, our attention, our
time and our devotion back to the centre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To God, to author and perfecter of all things, and the ground of all
being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that, my friends, is what
Lent is all about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-59606607224397505342024-02-28T10:59:00.010+00:002024-02-28T10:59:55.218+00:00The problem with miracles...<p><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify;">The Rich Man and Lazurus</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Text: Luke 16.19-end<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 49.65pt;">If you or I wanted to persuade the world that God is
real, what is the most persuasive thing we could do?</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 49.65pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 49.65pt;">Perhaps a great miracle will do it?</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 49.65pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 49.65pt;">Like feeding five thousand families with a
couple of small fish and a few loaves of bread?</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 49.65pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 49.65pt;">Perhaps a dramatic healing or two…like giving sight to the blind, or
healing a fatal skin disease?</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 49.65pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 49.65pt;">Perhaps we
could walk on the water, from Langstone to Hayling.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 49.65pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 49.65pt;">Or, with a word of command, still the next
storm to rage over Havant.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Or how about raising someone from the dead?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps if we could achieve that, surely the
whole world would realise that God is real?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Well, apparently not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus did all these things, according to the
stories we have inherited about him through the lens of the Gospels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet, they were not enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, some of the stories in the Gospels
go even further than raising only Jesus from the dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matthew’s Gospel, for example, claims that
upon the death of Jesus, the ‘tombs of the saints’ were opened, and the dead
rose up and entered the City, appearing to many – a story which pre-figures the
great Resurrection promised to all believers at the end of time.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But, how is it that despite so many miracles, and the
demonstration of so much power, by the time that Jesus was crucified, his
followers had shrunk in number down to single digits?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How is it that after great demonstrations of
power, whether at Lourdes or during the healing crusades of so many Pentecostals,
the world has not yet turned to God?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Scepticism, coupled with scientific rationalism both
have a role to play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as when we
watch a great magician on stage, we instinctively suppose that even the great
miracles of Jesus are a trick of some kind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We reason to ourselves that perhaps he didn’t walk on water, but on a
sand-bank just beneath the waves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Perhaps the calming of the storm was a lucky co-incidence between Jesus
waking up and the storm naturally blowing over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps he wasn’t actually dead, after three
hours on the cross, but just severely wounded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And, we reason to ourselves, after three days he had recovered enough to
step out of his tomb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are of
course many ways to refute all these rationalist explanations – and theologians
have been ably refuting them for two millennia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But, still, the world is not convinced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Miracles alone won’t persuade the people of the reality of God.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This fact is at the heart of the parable of the Rich
Man and Lazarus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From his place of
torment, the Rich Man begs Abraham to send a miraculous sign to earth, to
persuade the Rich Man’s brothers to repent and avoid the same fate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Abraham responds that the brothers will
not be convinced ‘even if someone rises from the dead’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a perceptive and accurate assessment
of the value of miracles in the overall cause of the Kingdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus knew that miracles would not persuade
the people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That didn’t stop him from
performing miracles – they seemed to flow out of him, sometimes almost in spite
of his personal preferences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Miracles
were, for Jesus, what happens when an Almighty God gets incarnated into the
world of flesh and blood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He just can’t
help himself. Miraculous powers, defying the laws of physics, just flow from
the God who set those laws in place, and who exists beyond and above any such
limitations.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But we humans can’t accept them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are naturally suspicious – not least
because miracles of any kind defy those physical laws which govern the rest of
our lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even when miracles happen to
us, personally, we have a tendency to rationalise and explain them away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We put them down to a fortuitous accident of
co-incidence, or we wonder about the hidden healing powers of the brain, or we
simply don’t trust our eyes, or the reports of others.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Jesus understood this fact at a profound level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During his 40 days in the wilderness,
according to Luke and Matthew, he was tempted by the Devil to base his entire
ministry on the performing of miracles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s what the Devil suggested when he took Jesus to the top of the
temple, and challenged Jesus to throw himself off, certain that angels would
appear and carry him safely to the ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But Jesus knew that putting God to the test, and requiring miraculous
signs from him, would do nothing to advance the cause of the Kingdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">And he had good evidence for knowing this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Miracles didn’t work for Moses, either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the plagues of Egypt, the parting of
the ocean, manna in the desert, and the pouring of water from solid rock, the
people still rebelled, and still refused to truly believe in the reality of
God.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Miracles, then, are signs of God’s presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are glimpses of the power of the God who
created the Universe to act outside the Universal laws.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they are not attempts to persuade people
to worship and trust in God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Instead, the path of Jesus was the path of the
teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He took the time to explain, in
parables and sayings, what following the Way of God is really about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not about how many miracles can be
performed, but about how many lives can be changed…. beginning with my life and
yours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A miracle may, perhaps, inspire
us to love the Lord our God, with all our hearts; but the daily task of taking
up our cross, denying ourselves and following our Master is what will lead us
to love our neighbour as ourselves, and ultimately will lead to the healing and
salvation of our souls.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Most of us, this week, will not be called upon to
heal the sick, or raise the dead, or to walk upon the waters of Langstone
harbour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More likely, the week will
present no more than a chance to give a cup of sugar to a neighbour, or make a
telephone call to a lonely person, or send money to feed a starving child or
help with the mission costs of this parish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But in those small acts of love, in those outpourings of humanity, in
the little, daily sacrifices – true miracles are found.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-251892642797775952024-02-25T16:42:00.002+00:002024-02-29T11:58:05.611+00:00Did God promise Israel to the Jews?<p> Texts: Genesis 12.1-9 & Hebrews 11. 2nd Sunday of Lent (Second Service Readings)</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Tonight, as the bombs continue to fall over the Gaza
strip, we’ve heard one of those passages of the book of Genesis which has caused
a lot of trouble in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We heard
God apparently tell Abraham that he and his descendents would be given the land
of Canaan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a promise, often
repeated by those Zionist Jews who claim a divine right to the Land called
Holy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have faith in this apparent
promise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">put </i>their faith in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
believe that it gives them license and permission to claim all the land in that
region as theirs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The problem – for anyone who wants to treat such an
ancient promise literally – is that the Arab nations <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">also</i> claim that Abraham is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">their</i>
ancestor, through Abraham’s son Ishmael. The Jews claim their heritage through
Isaac, and the Arabs through Ishmael – who was Abraham’s first born son via
Hagar, Sarah’s maid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Jewish claim is
given added strength by the fact that Isaac was born of Sarah – so, in our
modern understanding of marriage, he was Abraham’s legitimate heir.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Ishmael was born of Hagar by Sarah’s own
suggestion (believing herself to be barren) – and Ishmael was Abraham’s first
born son, therefore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Sarah’s maid,
Hagar was essentially a slave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her body
belonged to Sarah (according to the ancient ways).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is why Sarah felt that she could
essentially use Hagar as a surrogate.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Do you see the complexity of the issue?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a legitimate argument, from both the
Jews and the Arabs, that they are descendants of Abraham.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, we refer to the Jewish and Muslim
faiths as ‘the Abrahamic religons’ – because they both count Abraham as their
fore-father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So which one has the most
legitimate right to claim the promise of the Land of Canaan, that God made to
their ancestor?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">If an International Court was ever asked to decide
this question, once and for all, they would have their work cut out for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, they would need to rule on the issue
of legitimacy at the time of Abraham – when concepts such as ‘wife’ or ‘concubine’
were rather fluid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Secondly, they might
be asked to rule on the textual origin of the story itself – and especially of
God’s promise to Abraham.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they were
to call mainstream scholars to the stand, such scholars would tell them the
facts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Facts such as that since the 19<sup>th</sup>
century (that is the 1800s) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">most </i>scholars
believe from close study of language, mythology, textual clues and the like,
that Genesis was written about five or six hundred years before Christ – and not
by Moses himself, half a millennia earlier, as tradition has claimed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They would say that it is largely a
mythological document – written at a time when many civilizations were creating
myths and stories to explain their origins, and give weight to their claims of
ownership of land, or to give authority to the priestly class. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Greeks, for example, were revelling in the
legends of Homer at around the same time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Egyptians had their own mythological stories and gods.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So, an international court, asked to adjudicate on
the claim that God gave the land of Canaan to the Jews, would be forced to conclude
that such a claim can only be substantiated through faith – and not from either
the text, or the known history of that period.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">And so, we come to the question of faith – meaning faith
in the sense that the Jews mean it, when they claim the promise of God to
Abraham.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is one kind of faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the kind of faith which gives
intellectual assent to a set of ideas or theological statements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the kind of faith which decides to
accept that one unevidenced statement is true, while another is not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is by such faith that we might believe (or
not) that Jesus was born of a virgin, or that the world was created in six
days, or that Noah built an ark to carry all the animals of the world (but
somehow forgot the dinosaurs!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This is also the kind of faith that has caused wars
and conflict between people of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">different</i>
faith throughout the millennia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is by
faith that Muslims believe Mohammed to be the last and greatest prophet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is by such faith that some Christians
assert the divine right of the Bishop of Rome to govern the church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is by such faith that crusades were led to
recapture Jerusalem. It is by such faith that Christians have burned one
another at the stake over what seem to us to be very minor differences of
theology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, that kind of faith is
tearing portions of the church apart over what each side believes that God
does, or does not, approve about the state of marriage.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Such faith – the willingness to accept, or reject,
various different religious ideas – is a dangerous thing, therefore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There can be no objective proof for any
statement of faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no way to
know, objectively, whether or not to intellectually assent to any given
religious proposition. And therefore, I would argue, no cause whatsoever for
killing each other over such ideas.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But is there <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">another</i>
kind of faith – one that we could wholeheartedly accept, without any reservations?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to argue that there is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The kind of faith I’m talking about is the
faith which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">trusts</i> in a way of life,
and which sets out to live, with integrity, according to that way of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did you know that Jesus’ first followers were
not called Christians?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, they
were called ‘followers of The Way’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So when I say that I have faith in Jesus, I don’t
mean that I am willing to die for a belief in his virgin birth, or even his bodily
resurrection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I mean by calling
myself a Christian, is that I put my trust in the teachings, the life and The
Way of Jesus, the Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He showed us,
by his generous, self-sacrificing, healing and reconciling life that
generosity, sacrifice, healing and reconciling are the means by which human
beings <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">may yet </i>be able to dig ourselves
out of the mire. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If only we could truly grasp
the immense power of lives poured out in sacrifice to one another, the awesome
potential of the simple command to love our neighbour, the incredible possibility
of human happiness if we could only learn to share! Then all the religious
propositions which divide us into factions and creeds and denominations and
religions could just fade away into the obscurity they deserve.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">That’s a faith worth having.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a faith worth living for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a faith worth even dying for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-34286280479268202342024-02-14T11:57:00.006+00:002024-02-14T11:57:54.028+00:00Ash Wednesday<p> Readings: <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Baskerville Old Face", serif; font-size: 16px;">Joel 2: 1- 2, 12-17 & John 8: 1 – 11.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Do you remember the dustmen's strike of the late
1970s? I do – because of one very memorable event, which happened soon after we
had moved into a new house. My Dad decided to deal with the overflowing rubbish
bin via a bonfire in the garden. However, he accidentally consigned an aerosol
can to the flames. Sure enough, the can exploded – sending a missile over the
fence at the bottom of our garden, to land in the open kitchen door of a new
neighbour.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Our neighbour, who turned out to be the headmaster
of our local school, came screaming out of the house. "What on earth to
you think you are doing?!" My Dad was, of course, very apologetic – but
thought that this rather bossy man was over-reacting a bit. It was only an
accident after all. He was then rather puzzled by the neighbour's next
question: "What would have happened if a net had been there?".
"Well," replied my puzzled father, "I suppose a net would have
caught it!". What Dad didn't realise, was that 'Annette' was the
headmaster's daughter!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Ashes were part of all our lives, not so long
ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess most of us have had the
experience of raking ashes out of the grate, in the days before central
heating. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ashes are just rubbish, aren't
they? The product of burning something away. Just carbon. Waste, after the heat
and light are gone.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So why, tonight, are we going to put this rubbish,
this ash, on our heads? I want to suggest three reasons why we maintain this
tradition - though I am sure there are more.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">First of all</span></u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> these ashes are a reminder of who we are. The Bible
tells us that we came from the dust and to the dust we shall return. Are bodies
are about 50% water, and 22% carbon – which is what ash also is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The beautiful mythological imagery of Genesis
tells us that the first human was formed out of the dust of the earth by God
and then God breathed life into that dust. That is a powerful image. God is the
source of our life – and the ashes we will use later on remind us of our utter
dependence on him. Without the breath or Spirit of God moving in us, we are
just ashes – dust: lifeless - worthless.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Secondly ashes are also a sign of repentance. As
well as being a time of preparation for Good Friday and Easter, Lent is a time
of mourning for our sins. It is a time when we are called to repent, turn away
from our sin – which why, throughout Lent, we do not sing the Gloria, but focus
instead on the Kyrie. "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have
mercy". <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Traditional Christians also
say that we have to give up using the word ‘Alleluia’ in Lent too – so that it
has all the more power and meaning on Easter Sunday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For many of Lent will involve giving up
something which we enjoy, as a personal discipline, and as a sign of our
repentance.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Repentance is of course a key biblical theme. Time
and time again the Old Testament prophets called people to turn away from their
way of doing things, and to turn towards God's way. Sometimes, as Isaiah said,
that even meant repenting about the way that repenting was done! In Isaiah's
day, fasting had become sort of fashionable, and as a result, hollow. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Isaiah, speaking for God, says "Is this the
fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a
bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes. Do you call this a fast - a day
acceptable to God?"<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Isaiah goes on to outline what true fasting, true
repentance will look like. True repentance means becoming like the God whose
heart is for the poor, and the hungry, and the homeless, and the weak, and the
stranger. It means being practical, outward looking, loving our neighbour as we
love ourselves. It means expressing God’s love for other people, through our
actions, through our prayers, through our giving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It means, as Jesus said to the woman caught
in adultery, going from here and sinning no more.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Thirdly, and finally…people in the Bible put the
ashes on top of their heads - so why do we put them in the sign of the cross on
our foreheads? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We make the sign of the
cross because it is a reminder of how we are marked for Christ. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is in one sense a reminder of our baptism,
when we were signed with the sign of the cross. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">And the cross of ashes also reminds of the mark of
the Lamb as it is described in the Book of Revelation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Revelation tells of an angel marking the
faithful before the tribulation. These faithful would then be protected – kept safe
from the terrible Day of the Lord that the prophet Joel warned us about – “the day
is close at hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A day of darkness and
gloom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A day of clouds and blackness.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A day when the forces of evil that stalk our world
will gain the power to ruin lives, full the pockets of the rich, bring war and
famine and pestilence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A day, I think
you’ll find, that is not unlike the awful things happening in our world right
now!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">These ashes tonight remind us that whatever comes, we
are belong to Christ; he has marked us with the ever-lasting sign of Love, the
mark of the cross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are his people,
and the sheep of his pasture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need
have no fear.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">These may be just a few ashes, but they mean a lot. Let
me just summarise:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">First, they are a symbol of our need for God, for
His breath of life. We are nothing but dust and ashes apart from Him.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Secondly, they are also a symbol of our repentance
and mourning. We've allowed ourselves to be seduced by the wealth and comfort
of the world, while our neighbours are starving. The ashes are a sign of our
deliberate repentance, our turning away - from our way of being, to God's.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Finally, in the midst of our repentance, these ashes
are a sign that however often we have failed to live God’s way, and whatever
evil befalls the world, we are marked as Christ's own, and we belong to him. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are stamped and certified as children of
God through the cross of ash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-70795678697580869822024-02-06T09:42:00.002+00:002024-02-06T09:42:32.758+00:00Was Jesus a racist?<span id="en-NRSVUE-9120"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Text: Mark 7.24–30<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">From there
he (that is, Jesus) set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not
want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman
whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and
she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of
Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He
said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the
children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the
children’s crumbs.’</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Then he said to her,
‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So she went home, found the child lying on
the bed, and the demon gone.</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p> _________________________________________________________________</o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">I like a good insult. I confess it. Take, for example,
the anecdotal tale about Sir Winston Churchill. Once, at a party, he is said to
have been approached by one Elizabeth Braddock, who exclaimed "Mr
Churchill, you are drunk!" Churchill is said to have replied, "Yes,
Madam, and you are ugly. But in the morning, I will be sober." Priceless,
isn't it?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">We all know, though, don't we, that even playful
insults can easily cross the line into hurt and offence. Which is why it is quite surprising that in
today's Gospel we should hear Jesus describing the non-Jewish races around him
as 'dogs'. In the Middle East, calling someone a dog has always been a gross
insult. And yet, when a Syro-Phoenician
woman comes to Jesus to ask for healing for her daughter, Jesus' response is
'it’s not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs'. The clear implication of his words is that he
considers his ministry to be first and foremost for Jewish people.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> The Jews are
the children. Other nations are ‘dogs’. What a shock! What an insult! To the woman in
question, it would have been like me saying that only white English people can
be Christians. But when we read the Bible, we have to be very careful. Only a
few pages earlier, especially in chapters 3 and 5, we find that Jesus quite
happily and regularly preached his message to non-Jews, all around Tyre and
Sidon, casting out demons into a herd of very non-Jewish pigs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So - we've got ample scriptural evidence that Jesus
was anything but a racist. Then, we've
also got scriptural and historical evidence that the people all around Jesus
pretty much hated each other – Jews against Samaritans, Canaanites against
Philistines. And the Romans against
everyone! So...with that evidence before us...what are we to make of Jesus
statement about children and dogs?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Mark tells us that after some intense theological
arguments with Jewish religious leaders, Jesus went off to the city of Tyre -
some distance from Galilee. And,
according to Mark, he "did not want anyone to know it". Mark presents
us with a Jesus in retreat...trying to get away from the pressures of his
ministry for a while...I know how that feels.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Then along comes this woman - a Gentile - who asks
Jesus for another miracle`. Weighed down by the difficulties of his mission, worn-out,
it seems to me that Jesus actually appears to snap. We can imagine him, frustrated that he is not
getting through to his own people, saying to himself "I need to get the Jews to understand my
message, before we can take it any farther". He gropes for a metaphor.
Tired, he turns to the woman and sighs "First let the children eat all
they want...".<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Notice the use of the word "first". Jesus'
reply doesn't exclude the Gentiles...he simply states that as a Jew, from a
nation of Jews, through whom God has chosen to bring salvation to the world -
Jesus feels the need, strategically, to focus on the Jews first. But was he right? Does it mean that if he came to Britain,
Jesus would have joined ‘Britain First’?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 42.55pt;">The next line is even more troubling, potentially:
"for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the
dogs". It's a metaphor. Jesus is trying to soften his automatic
response.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 42.55pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 42.55pt;">In fact, although we translate
the word here as 'dogs', scholars tell us that Jesus used a word which referred
to household pets. It was a diminutive form of the word for dogs. A playful word.
More like a puppy than a fully grown Rottweiler!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But the woman is more than a match for the tired,
worn-out Jesus. And she's desperate to
get Jesus to change his mind. She
persists - she spars with him. "Yes Lord", she replies...accepting
for a moment the idea of the Gentiles as being his second priority. "Yes
Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs".<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">You can almost see Jesus laughing at this point. You
can see him acknowledging that he was wrong to not give his help
immediately...and smiling that the woman had so cleverly turned his own
metaphor against him. Mark tells us that
then he told her "For such a reply, you may go: the demon has left your
daughter". Jesus praises the woman
for her faith, and he rewards her persistence by healing her daughter.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So what do we learned from this story - and from this
bit of bible-study we've been doing together?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">First, we've seen something of Jesus' humanity. We
sometimes forget that Jesus was human, as much as he was God. He felt cold,
hunger and fatigue just like we do. For
those of us who are struggling with what feels like a never-ending cost of
living crisis, we can be sure that Jesus feels our tiredness, and our
frustration.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">And, just like us, when he was tired and stressed, he
was capable of getting things a little out of balance. The same goes for us. It is not sinful in
itself to hold a wrong opinion. But when strong science, or the Holy Spirit,
reveal to us that an opinion we hold is simply wrong (a fake truth, perhaps!)
we sin when we refuse to change our mind – to repent, to turn around, to face
in the new direction of truth.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Secondly, I think this story reminds us to have some
patience with each other when we sometimes get things wrong. We know that Jesus could frequently get
exhausted by his ministry. He took
frequent naps in boats just to keep going.
It’s good to recognise that we are all human… that we can all mis-speak
from time to time. We need to be always
ready to forgive and move on in our relationships with one another. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Thirdly, we need to recognise that it was the woman’s
faith and persistence which ultimately gained her what she sought form
Jesus. That doesn’t mean, of course,
that if I keep on pleading with Jesus to give me a Rolls Royce that my
persistence will pay off. Persistence
and faith need to be aligned with God’s purposes for my life, and the life of
my community. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">And finally, we learn that we follow a Lord who know
what it is like to be us – to be tired, fed-up, and in need of getting away
from it all. He stands with us,
alongside us, sustaining us and encouraging us – knowing completely what we are
going through. He is with us today, just
as he was with the Syro-Phoenician woman.
Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p></span>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-20501691857363084702024-02-03T16:40:00.000+00:002024-02-03T16:40:01.026+00:00Being Light in the Darkness<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 42.55pt;">Text: John
1.1-14</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 42.55pt;">According to Navy legend, once upon a time, in the
early days of naval radar, a United States aircraft carrier called the USS
Constitution was making its way into British waters. The Radar operator spotted
a blip on his screen, directly in the path of the mighty carrier. So the Captain
radioed ahead and said "Unknown Vessel, please change your course by 20
degrees to avoid a collision".</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The radio crackled, and a reply came back.
"Unable to comply. You change your course." The captain picked up the
radio again. "Listen, this is a naval vessel - heading straight for your
co-ordinates. Now change your course, or risk being sent to the bottom of the
ocean".<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The radio crackled again, and the reply came back,
"We were here first. You change your course!" By now, the captain of
the mighty war machine was incandescent with rage. "Listen, you little
British pip-squeek. This is the USS Constitution - the largest air-craft
carrier in the world. We won't even feel you when we run over you. Now
move!"<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The radio crackled for a third time. "This is
the Eddystone Lighthouse. Your move."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Here, on the second Sunday before Lent, almost at
the centre point of Winter, among the darkest days of the year, the Lectionary
invites us once again to contemplate Light.
Just as it did last week at Candlemas. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But this time, by pointing us to St John’s Prologue,
the Lectionary lays it on with a trowel.
Not content, as St Luke was last week, to merely describe Jesus as Light
to the Gentiles, St John adds contrast to the picture. He places Jesus, the wisdom and voice of God,
the Word Incarnate, in direct contrast and opposition to THE DARKNESS. The
Light (of Christ) shines in the darkness, he says, and the darkness did not
overcome it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">These were words of hope and encouragement to the
first people who received John’s Gospel.
They would have been a frightened, anxious community of early believers,
hiding from Roman and Jewish authorities in private houses with the windows
tightly shut, or digging out the catacombs under the streets of Rome. They would have been whispering the hope of
Jesus to one another, and recognising each other with furtive drawings of a
fish in the sand of the market place. (That’s where the Christian fish-sign
originated – a secret symbol between early Christians, scratched in the
sand). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The first Christians to have heard John’s Gospel,
perhaps 60 or 70 years after the death of Jesus, would have known what it meant
to live in darkness. They would know
what it meant to be a minority who longed for the light of God’s wisdom to
shine into their society.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">That was their context – and it echoes with ours,
does it not? The Christian Church of
today also stands in opposition to the darkness – the darkness which gathers
around us today. In recent weeks, we’ve
become aware that churches all over the world are facing real financial difficulties
(and dwindling followers) accelerated by the cost of living crisis. We’ve had to confront the uncomfortable fact
that Christianity is presently dying in the West. It’s wonderful to gather together, as we do,
in what feels like a large number – but never forget we are a TINY minority of
the roughly 10,000 people who live in this parish. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">And this should not surprise us. The church in the West stands in complete
opposition to so much that the West holds dear.
We stand against greed, and the amassing of wealth by tiny elites. We stand against hedonism and
pleasure-seeking for its own sake. We
stand against the prevailing drug culture and intemperance of excess
alcohol. We stand against consumerism,
and the exploitation of workers in slavery conditions, making cheap goods and
clothes for us to hoard. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">These are dark times indeed. But they are no less dark than for the church
of the first century which stood against the military dictatorship of Rome, and
its hedonistic system of market-led consumerism, also under-pinned by
slavery. Sometimes, the darkness feels
overwhelming for us too. It feels too
high a mountain to climb. Too deep a
darkness to overcome.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Yet “the Light shines in the darkness, and the
darkness did not overcome it”. The
message of Jesus Christ is that however desperate things feel, however deep the
darkness surrounds us, it will not overwhelm us. The Light of Christ will continue to shine. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The question then for us, we tiny few, we remnant of
humanity who cling to the Light, is not so much what we stand against – for we
know how dark the darkness is. The
question is, as people of Light, what we stand FOR.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">We stand, in the name of Jesus Christ, for a Kingdom
of LOVE. That love, focused first on
God, and then on loving our neighbours, shines out from this building and every
church community like a beacon from a lighthouse. It probes and prods at the darkness, which
will never overcome it. It offers us a
completely NEW way of living. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Starting from the day when each of us knows, truly
knows, that our past trespasses are forgotten and forgiven by God, we, the
people of the Light, learn how to stand up for love. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Love which shares its wealth; it does not hoard it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Love which reaches out to those in need, and offers the hand of help. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Love which delights in communities coming together – whether in person
or online. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Love which frees the slaves of Eastern sweat-shops, by refusing to
collude with consumerism and by offering
aid and micro-loans instead.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Love which offers an alternative to drug addiction and drunkenness –
life in all its fullness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Love which brings healing to the sinner, and balm to the sick. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Love which picks up the phone and bears the anguish of its neighbour. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Love which even has the power to overcome death – though that is a
topic for Easter<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So, my dear friends, when you hear that the church
is in financial and numerical crisis, do not be afraid. We’ve been in crisis before, many times…and
we will be once again. The darkness
always tries to overwhelm the light of the church….but darkness, and the very
gates of hell, shall not prevail against it (Mt 16.18).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;">For the true church is the church of Christ the
Light-bringer.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;">And the light shines in
the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it!</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;">Amen.</span> </p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-83671012183749121782024-01-23T12:11:00.000+00:002024-01-23T12:11:12.280+00:00 Reading the Bible Literally?<p>Text: Acts 9 & Acts 22 & Acts 26</p><p>The Conversion of Saul - Fact or Fiction?</p><p>This story - of the conversion of St Paul - is a bit of a puzzler, isn't it? It makes us wonder why Jesus doesn't call everyone with a bright light, and a voice from heaven. I mean - when you first began to accept the notion that Jesus was worth following, were you struck down by a bright light in the middle of Waitrose? No...neither was I.</p><p>What you may not realise is that there are in fact three accounts of this story - all within the book of Acts. And on each occasion, the facts of the story are reported slightly differently. The first time we hear it, Luke tells the story. Then the next two times, Luke records Paul's own version of events - but each version is slightly different. (If you want to check out the different stories for yourself, then read chapters 9, 22 and 26 of Acts).</p><p>Why so many different version of the same story? I suggest that it is because we are not meant to take the story absolutely literally. Who exactly heard it the voice? What exactly did it say? Did the light flash, or shine? It is difficult to get exact answers from the three accounts. This has the feeling of a story which has changed since the original event...one that has been embellished along with the telling, over the years.</p><p>You know what it's like. It's like a fisherman's tale of the one that got away. The fisherman isn't telling a lie, as such. There really was a big fish. There really was a struggle. But by embellishing the story, the fisherman makes it memorable...it becomes a story that a whole community can enter into with their imaginations.</p><p>I tend to think that the story of Saul's conversion is a bit like that. I might be entirely wrong. Though I would love you to tell me how the different versions of the story in Acts can all be true. I rather prefer a more human-scale version of the story. Saul's conversion happened while he was in the middle of a journey. He had just finished persecuting Christians in Jerusalem. He had just been standing in the crowd, holding the coats of those who were stoning the first martyr, Stephen. Now he was on his way to Damascus to persecute more followers of the Way. Saul was a highly religious man, a teacher who knew his Hebrew Scriptures back to front and inside out.</p><p>So there he is...walking the 120 miles from Jerusalem to Damascus. He has got a lot of time for thinking - and for musing on the horror of what he has just witnessed. Watching a man being stoned to death - just for believing something different - it must have been a sobering, thought-provoking thing to have seen. As the miles ticked by, at walking pace, perhaps Paul found himself revisiting all the Hebrew Scriptures that he knew so well in his mind. Perhaps he was searching for proof that this Jesus that the 'followers of the Way' were on about could not possibly be the Messiah, the Christ. But the more he thinks about it - the more he realises what the character of God is like...as described in the Hebrew Scriptures...the more he comes to see that Jesus was exactly that...the Messiah, the Christ.</p><p>It is as if a light is switched on in Paul's mind. The light is not on the road - flashing or shining. The light comes on in Paul's head. Now he sees himself very differently...as someone who has just participated in the stoning of an innocent man. He begins to ask himself..."why did I persecute that man? What was I doing? The scriptures actually do point to a Messiah who will be humble, riding on a donkey - one who would be 'wounded for our transgressions'. So why am I persecuting Jesus and his followers. I've been such a fool!"</p><p>Later, when Paul tells people about his dramatic change of mind...he dresses it up a bit. He's a preacher...a communicator. He knows how to spin a good yarn. You can imagine him saying "It was amazing! It was like this light came on...this blinding light...and it was like Jesus himself was saying to me 'Saul, why are you persecuting me'"</p><p>A few more tellings...a few years later...by a few more people...and no longer is this a story about what it was like...but now its a story of actual lights coming on...super-trooper spot-lights from heaven. No longer is it a story of Jesus speaking to Saul through his imagination...no, it’s a more dramatic story of Jesus actually speaking real words.</p><p>Why am I telling you this? Why am I taking the trouble to break down the dramatic story of Saul's conversion that we all love - deconstructing it to something more ordinary...more life-like?</p><p>Quite simply because I want you to see that Saul's story can be our story too. I don't know anyone who has experienced the kind of dramatic conversion - the full-blown theophany of lights and sound and action - that the story of Saul suggests. Perhaps such people exist. Perhaps God does act in that way, from time to time, for some people. I don't discount the possibility...God can do whatever God wants.</p><p>But for most of us, God works in a much gentler way. Most of us come to a realisation, at some point on life's journey; that the essential underlying truth of God is worth pursuing. For some of us that realisation is gradual...week by week, month by month, we find ourselves caught up in the dance of God. For others it’s a more dramatic moment - like a light being switched on - when all that we've heard about God suddenly, somehow, makes sense.</p><p>And it is healthy, I believe, for us to think in these terms - and for us to talk in these terms to our families, friends and neighbours. Too many Followers of the Way go around promising their friends that if they become Christians they will see dramatic, miraculous intervention in their lives by God. I believe that God does indeed intervene...through the miracles of love, compassion, charity, hope, friendship, family, community, healing, wholeness and purpose. But he doesn't very often shine bright lights out of the sky, nor talk with an audible voice.</p><p>I suggest that the story of Saul's conversion is just that...a story - rooted in a real event - a life-transforming, paradigm-changing encounter with Truth, and with God. The exciting thing is to realise that this story, and this life-transforming event is available to all of us...every single one of us is invited to embrace the Truth, and to have our lives totally transformed by that knowledge.</p><p>May you know the power of Truth in your life. May you encounter God again and again along the road of your own life's journey. And may you, like Saul, become transformed by that knowledge - and like Paul, find yourself led into the fullness of life that Jesus offers to all who follow his Way. Amen</p><div><br /></div>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-9582241064002883382024-01-16T17:02:00.000+00:002024-01-16T17:02:05.213+00:00Learning from other faiths and cultures...<p><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;">Today marks the start of the Week of Prayer for
Christian Unity, which we will commence by meeting with our friends from other
churches at the United Reformed Church, at 1200.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;">So for today’s sermon, I’m going to draw
heavily on the texts of the booklet of resources for the week of prayer, which
has been prepared by Christians from Burkina Faso.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Burkina Faso is in the Sahel region of West Africa,
which extends into the neighbouring countries of Mali and Niger. It has 21
million inhabitants, of about 60 ethnicities. Approximately 64% of the
population is Muslim, 9% adheres to traditional African religions, and 26% is
Christian (20% Catholic, 6% Protestant). These three religious groups are
represented in every region of the country, and in virtually every family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Burkina Faso is currently experiencing a serious
security crisis, which affects all faith communities. After a major jihadist
attack was mounted from outside the country in 2016, the security situation in
Burkina Faso, and consequently its social cohesion, deteriorated dramatically.
The country has endured a proliferation of terrorist attacks, lawlessness and
human trafficking. This has left over 3,000 people dead and almost two million
internally displaced. Thousands of schools, health centres and town halls have
been closed, and much of the socio-economic and transport infrastructure has
been destroyed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Social cohesion, peace
and national unity are being dramatically undermined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christian churches have been specifically
targeted by armed attacks. Priests, pastors and catechists have been killed
during worship and the fate of others who were kidnapped remains unknown. Christians
can no longer openly practise their faith in many areas of the country.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The materials for this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian
Unity were prepared by an ecumenical team from Burkina Faso. The chosen theme
is “You shall love the Lord your God ... and your neighbour as yourself” (Lk
10:27) – which, coincidentally is mirrored by our parish strapline:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Loving God, Serving Neighbour”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The fact is that many of us will not have heard about
the challenges being faced in Burkina Faso before encountering the material
from the Week of Prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is a
powerful reminder of the many neglected conflicts that continue to destroy
lives and devastate communities around the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly, many fail to capture, and fewer still manage
to hold, the attention of the world’s media. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Church is called to be an advocate for
those caught in these forgotten conflicts, and to amplify the voices of those
who feel, and often are, entirely forsaken.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity the Church
is being challenged to stop and tend to the wounded and, in so doing, to recognise
our own wounds as churches and as communities. As the General Secretary of
Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, Dr Nicola Brady, has written: ‘Facing
the reality of our own brokenness helps to connect us to the suffering of
others from a place of humility and deep empathy, creating a sacred space of
encounter inspired by Christ’s healing love.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The parable of the Good Samaritan was chosen as the
centre piece of this year’s Week of Prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is one of the best known passages of Scripture, yet one that never
seems to lose its power to challenge indifference to suffering and to inspire
solidarity. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a story about crossing
boundaries that calls our attention to the bonds that unite the whole human
family. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I’m sure you know, the core
of the story is that of a foreigner (to Jewish eyes) turning out to be the one
person who can help the Jewish man beaten up in the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His own people, even his own priest, was
unable to help him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the foreigner,
the Samaritan, was able to set aside his own prejudice, and to be a good neighbour.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In choosing this passage of Scripture for the Week of
Prayer for Christian Unity, the churches of Burkina Faso have invited us to
join with them in a process of self-reflection as they consider what it means to
love our neighbour in the midst of a world-wide security crisis. Communities in
the British-Irish context may be less vulnerable to acts of mass violence than
in Burkina Faso, but there are still many living with the memory and/or the
threat of serious violence, centered on issues of identity and belonging. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are also groups within communities,
including people from ethnic minority backgrounds and people seeking asylum,
who feel particularly vulnerable to violence or to being displaced by the
threat of violence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Our neighbours in Burkina Faso call us to reconnect to
God’s dream for us – a dream of a unity formed of ties of love and compassion.
This challenges us not only to reflect on the learning from our ecumenical journey
so far, but to widen our vision. What can we learn from people of other faiths?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What can we learn from those whose
backgrounds are most different from our own? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what do we need from each other?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In recent weeks, as you know, we’ve had the joy of
getting to know a family of Christians from Pakistan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have been learning a lot from us – especially
about how to worship in the rather traditional way we do things here at St
Faith’s!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we’ve been learning from
them too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have helped me to see St
Faith’s as others see us – especially newcomers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve also had some terrific discussions
about the differences in our cultures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">One example worth relating is a chat we had about how
families function in Pakistan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There,
unlike here in England, different generations tend to live together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grandparents, parents, grandchildren – all living
together in the same house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Children are
brought up to respect their elders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
routinely attend church and learn to worship as their elders do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The faith, and its traditions are thus handed
down from generation to generation. All this is very different to the English
practice of creating ever more novel ways of worshipping, to meet the
consumerist choices of the next generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We also tend to separate and stratify our different age groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In schools, for example, we stratify children
by the year of their birth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In churches,
young people routinely leave the worship of the adults, and are sent out to
Sunday School.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are, therefore,
only rare opportunities, in England, for young people to grow up in the company
of their elders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike Pakistan.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This is just one example of an answer to the questions
posed by the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those questions bear repeating, as I
conclude:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What can we learn from people of
other faiths?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What can we learn from
those whose backgrounds are most different from our own? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what do we need from each other?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-86505266054770694852023-12-30T12:18:00.000+00:002023-12-30T12:18:19.131+00:00It's all meaningless! <p>A sermon at the turn of the year - 2023/2024. Based on the Book of Ecclesiastes.</p><p>We mark the turning of the calendar year together – here in prayer and, in a short while, in covenant to the future….to God’s future, for ourselves, and for our churches. Others will ignore the turn of the calendar, entirely, preferring to sleep their way into the next orbit round the sun. Still others will be partying hard, drinking their regrets away, and drunkenly singing ‘auld lang syne’. Few will, of course, understand what that phrase, auld lang syne, actually means. Directly translated from old Scots, it can be rendered as ‘old times since’, meaning ‘times long ago’ or times past. It is, I suppose, a way of honouring the past as we move forward into the future. It is a call to remember, and cherish, the good things of the past – like ‘old acquaintances’ – friendships which have sustained us on our journey; or perhaps those we have lost through the cycle of the years.</p><p>But as the Teacher of Ecclesiastes grimly reminds us, nothing actually changes in reality. There is a time for everything under the sun, and just as the earth orbits the Sun for another year, so the time for all things will come again. Time to sow, time to reap, time to live and time to die. </p><p>The Book of Ecclesiastes is a puzzling inclusion in the canon of Scripture. But it is well worth considering at the turn of a year. It starts with those strident lines, ‘Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!’ and the startling statement, by a biblical text, that ‘there is nothing new under the Sun’. The translation of the Hebrew word hevel as vanity is somewhat disputed. It literally translates as “breath” or "vapour". Figuratively, it can be translated to mean “vain”, but also "insubstantial", "futile", or "meaningless". </p><p>So much of Scripture has a trajectory through time. Its grand narrative is of a Universe created from nothing, then the coming of life, the arrival of sin, then its redemption and ultimately the completion of all things in a new heaven and a new earth. There is a direction of travel, through the pages of Scripture. We are encouraged to hold on to the coat-tails of history as we traverse a part of that great road to the future. But the writer of Ecclesiastes, who may have been King Solomon, has an entirely different view of history. For him, history repeats itself. It goes round and round. And none of it really matters. It’s all meaningless, futile; vanity. He underlines his view with some really dark comments. Like these, (from chapter 1):</p><p>“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun” (verse 9).</p><p>“Is there a thing of which it is said ‘See, this is new’? It has already been, in the ages before us” (verse 10)</p><p>And then, even more bleakly, “The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them” (verse 11).</p><p>Even more bleakly, the writer of Ecclesiastes notices the reality of oppression in our world. In chapter 4, he says this:</p><p>“I saw all the oppressions that are practiced under the sun. Look, the tears of the oppressed – with no-one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power – with no-one to comfort them. And I thought of the dead, who have already died, more fortunate than the living, who are still alive; but better than both is the one who has not yet been, and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun”!</p><p>As we look back over the awful events of the last year, especially in Ukraine, in Israel and Palestine, in the Yemen, and in many other places – we can see exactly what The Teacher means, can’t we? He is right that power often leads to oppression. He is right that the most fortunate person is perhaps the one not yet born – the one who has not had to witness the evil deeds that are done under the sun. He is also right about the circularity of these things – the present wars and conflicts are but the latest examples of such battles in, quite often, the self-same lands. The quest for power – to have it, to exercise it, to use it for one’s own benefit is at the heart of all such conflict. It is all futile. All vanity. For every tyrant will die. Every state will crumble. Every political movement will founder on the rocks of time and reality.</p><p>So what is there for us to cling to, amid such a bleak assessment of the passing of time. Only God. At the very end of his book, the Teacher offers us this thought:</p><p>“[This is] the end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone. For God will bring every deed into judgement, including every secret thing, whether good or ill”.</p><p>In the end, God. God is the author of all, the perfector of all, the judge of all. God is the yardstick against which every human action is measured – however often that action is repeated in the cycle of history. God may be a real, living entity, the source of all things, the ground of all being. Or God may be an idea, an insistence upon the human condition, a constant story against which all human action can be weighed, measured and judged. But what history demands of you and I, what the ceaseless round of orbits round the Sun teaches us, is that only that there is only one constant presence, one constant idea, one constant Word worth our attention, our commitment, our effort and our life. It is God. In the end, it is God.</p><p>Amen</p><div><br /></div>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-86266481228074419632023-12-27T12:30:00.000+00:002023-12-27T12:30:16.958+00:00 Murdering Children - The Holy Innocents<p>Texts: Deuteronomy 11: 26-28, 31-32 & Matthew 2: 13-16</p><p>In the midst of the joy of the Christmas season, today’s Lectionary Scripture can feel rather perverse. While we celebrate the coming of our Lord, as a baby, Matthew describes a horrific irony of the story…that Jesus’ birth inadvertently caused the murder of every male child under two years old in Bethlehem. The church refers to these children as ‘the Holy Innocents’.</p><p>That mass slaughter was, of course, ordered by Herod the Great, who wanted to defend his throne from the threat of Jesus, the King of Kings. Tragically, Herod did not realise that Jesus had no interest in earthly thrones. As he later said to Pilate, his Kingdom was not of this world. But Herod did not know this. Like so many men of power, he saw a potential threat, and reached out to crush it. He killed defenceless children, in order to defend his own throne.</p><p>Suffering is one of the greatest obstacles to people who search for faith. Stephen Fry, a committed atheist, once said that if he was wrong, and if one day he found himself in front of God, his first question would be ‘what about childhood leukaemia?’ How could a ‘good God’ permit such awful suffering? </p><p>That question is especially sharp, perhaps, for those who have lost a child. Perhaps there were mothers and fathers in Bethlehem who had seen the star, and then the shepherds and the wise men arrive. Perhaps they understood that this child born in their stable was indeed a special, holy child. I wonder what they thought of God when the soldiers arrived and murdered their sons. </p><p>And I wonder what the parents of Palestinian and Jewish children think of God, as they continue to mourn their children slain by conflicts of recent weeks. I wonder what the parents of Holy Innocents of the war in Ukraine think of God. Suffering from disease. Suffering from wars. Suffering from natural disasters. Where is God in all this suffering? If he is a good God at all, how could he stand by and let all this suffering go on? </p><p>The Archbishop of Canterbury was confronted with this same question some years ago, when he was interviewed on ‘Desert Island Discs’ on Radio 4. The interviewer asked him to talk about the time when he lost his 7 month-old daughter in a tragic car accident. He was asked whether that gave him a point of connection with other people who have lost loved ones in unexplained suffering. His response was fascinating. He said (and I paraphrase from memory) that he didn’t claim to understand the reasons why such suffering is permitted by God. But instead he tends to point people to the young man who was nailed unjustly to a Cross. </p><p>There’s a parallel story, about a Jew in a Nazi death camp. The Nazi soldiers taunted him, saying ‘where is your God now?’ The old Jew pointed to a line of dead bodies, hung on gibbets, and then said: ‘there he is’. For the Archbishop, and for the old Jew it seems, God enters our world with all its messiness and ugliness. He shares in our suffering. He identifies with it. He takes it on. In the Christian story, he ultimately defeats it.</p><p>Is that then the purpose of suffering? Does God allow suffering in order to use it? Is it a way of demonstrating his power over even death? Perhaps that is part of the picture. But the issue of suffering is like one of those jigsaws that many of us received on Christmas day. We’ve already begun to put the pieces together…we might have already found the edge pieces and stuck them in place…but the main picture itself is only just beginning to become clear.</p><p>But there is a danger that we must guard against in any discussion about suffering. It’s the danger of believing, as some in Christianity and other religions sometimes do, that everything which happens is ‘the will of God’. Was it God’s will that Herod should order the murder of the Holy Innocents? No. That was Herod’s will. Was it God’s will that Hamas would attack Israel, and that Israel would retaliate with such overwhelming force? No. That is the will of the politicians and war-lords of the Middle East, as they compete for power with their guns. </p><p>It is our will, not God’s, that causes so much of the suffering in the world. God gave humanity a simple choice at the time of the 10 commandments, between a blessing and a curse. We either choose to live God’s way, and to be blessed beyond measure. Or we choose to live our own way, and up cursing ourselves. Why does he give us this choice? Quite simply because, like any parent, our Father wants us to choose to love him. Any other kind of love would be unreal, and pointless – we’d be no more than puppets or pets if we didn’t have free will. But the gift of free will is risky – as any parent knows. It always carries the risk of things going horribly in the wrong direction.</p><p>The doctrine of free will is perfectly adequate to explain evils like the murder of the Holy Innocents. Evil King Herod murdered them because he had the free will to do it. But does the doctrine of free will it explain the suffering of disease, or of natural disasters like the Boxing Day Tsunami of 20 years ago? I think it can – or at least it can begin to. You see, it is not natural disasters themselves which cause suffering…it is the human response to them. The Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 killed so many people because the affected nations lacked early warning systems, or the wealth required to defend their homes and cities against a known threat, or the wisdom to build settlements away from the ocean’s edge. People die in earthquakes for much the same reason., We now know how to build earth-quake-proof buildings. But most nations lack the wealth and the wisdom required to do so.</p><p>Holy Innocents across the world are dying today, of disease and malnutrition, caused by their immense poverty. That poverty is not the fault of those children or of their parents…it is the fault of all human beings who refuse to share the world’s resources. What about Stephen Fry’s child with leukaemia? The doctrine of free will says they are dying because human beings have spent their entire history fighting each other, instead of working together to find cures for common diseases. </p><p>Natural disasters, disease and malnutrition continue to make Holy Innocents today because of the failure of human-kind to follow the call of God. We have brought a curse upon ourselves, instead of the blessing which God offers. If only we would learn how to love, how to share and how to act wisely!</p><p> The choice which God has always given his people remains our choice today. It’s the choice of all human beings everywhere…on the international stage, as well as in the local parish. It’s the choice which you and I face every moment of every day. Will we live God’s way? Or will we choose our own? And how many more ‘Holy Innocents’ do there need to be before we make up our minds? Amen.</p><div><br /></div>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-16856017923422000562023-12-15T16:32:00.002+00:002023-12-15T16:32:44.687+00:00 John the Baptiser - Prophet and Sceptic<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This is certainly the week for thinking about John the
Baptiser – he’s the focus of readings all through this week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, I’d like to home in on one particular
facet of John’s character – a facet which speaks directly to us today…and it’s
this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John was a sceptic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After being thrown into prison, by King
Herod, John sent a message to Jesus asking ‘Are you the Messiah?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or are we to expect another?’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the same John who didn’t become one
of Jesus’ own disciples.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After having so
enthusiastically announced Jesus’ coming, after formally recognising him by
pointing at Jesus and declaring ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ – John, weirdly, carried
on ploughing his own furrow…doing things his own way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of John’s own disciples left John, and
joined up with Jesus: but John himself, carried on angrily calling people to
repentance with dire warnings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He became
such an annoyance, to the likes of the King, (over the King’s incestuous
marriage) that he ended up locked up, and then beheaded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Jesus, on the other hand, preferred the tactic of
Love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John was all about winnowing forks
and the baptism of fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus was all
about loving your neighbour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John lived
on the margins of society, shouting his warnings from the desert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus entered into the day to day lives of
those he came to save.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, John, it seems,
was sceptical about Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Scepticism is all around us, isn’t it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are – perhaps justifiably - sceptical
about the Government’s promises to ‘stop the boats’ or ‘rebuild the NHS’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are sceptical even about the great
national organs of balance and truth that we’ve trusted for generations, like
the BBC or the great newspapers of our nation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Scepticism doesn’t just pervade our national life
though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also pervades our thinking
about God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just like John the Baptiser,
we wonder whether Jesus’ claims to be God’s Son, indeed God himself, can really
be true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, if we are not careful, our
scepticism can drive us to throw aside everything we believe, and on which we
have based our lives.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But scepticism is not, in itself, a bad thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Scepticism is part of a process of
growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s part of ‘putting away
childish things’ (as St Paul so memorably said – see 1 Cor.13).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a sceptical mind is ultimately a
questioning mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the kind of mind
which asks ‘where does this information come from?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it trustworthy?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Philosophers and theologians have a long name
for this kind of enquiring thought – they call it ‘epistemology’ – which
essentially asks the question ‘how do we know what we think we know?’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a question that intelligent sceptics ask
about the Bible, for example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are
taught, by some parts of the church, that the Bible is the inerrant word of
God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But is it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Really?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or is it, rather, a collection of writings, by ancient ancestors, who
were wrestling with the reality of God, just as we do?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Sceptical thought should lead us to deeper thought,
and to greater understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When John
asked, via messengers, whether Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus said this to the
messengers:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"Go your way, and tell
John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk,
the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the
gospel is preached". (Lk 7.22).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Notice how Jesus doesn’t get angry at John for his
sceptical, doubting question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead,
he answers the question with a powerful illustration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And invites John to arrive at a new
understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly we don’t know what
the results of Jesus’ answer to John’s question were….not least because the
poor fellow literally lost his head a short time later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we can see that expressions of doubt, and
scepticism, were not rejected by Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Instead, he confronted the sceptic head-on, and gave him new facts to consider.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is how the healthy work of
scepticism should work for all religious people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should never be afraid of doubt, because
doubt is part of the process of digging for truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Scepticism, used wisely, is the shovel we use
to unearth the gold nuggets of real truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Of course, like any human characteristic, it’s
possible to take scepticism too far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
the far end of religious scepticism, for example, we find the ultra-atheists,
like every preacher’s ‘boogie-man’, Richard Dawkins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I genuinely feel sorry for such atheists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They become SO sceptical of religions, and of
religious thought, that they lose all objectivity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They fail to understand the simple truth that
atheism is a faith position, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To
state, categorically that God does not exist takes just as much faith as
stating that God is real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both are faith
positions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither can be proved
objectively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly, for the most
prominent atheists, scepticism is no longer a shovel with which to dig for
truth, but a bulldozer to cover over any view which is not his own.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">When I was a child, I thought like a child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But now I am a man, I have put away childish
things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even now, I still can only
see through a glass darkly…and therefore I need to embrace the grown-up,
adult-brained task of being sceptical about my faith, and about my own
political and world views.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the
adult thing to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the Christmas
story unfolds around us again, perhaps you might find yourself sceptical about
any number of things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does it matter
whether Jesus was born of a virgin?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
is an angel, anyway?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why on earth would
the civil authorities tell people to go back to the town of their birth to be
counted in a census?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why was the
astrology of the Wise Men rewarded when the Bible commands us to ignore
astrology? These (and many more) are all good questions to ask.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">And if you honestly seek answers to honest sceptical
questions, I promise you that those answers will lead you into a much more
profound, much more meaningful understanding of the truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You too can unearth – with your sceptical
shovel - new understandings of the depth of the story about when God came to
town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A little town. Called
Bethlehem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-44548525688953478042023-12-13T17:18:00.000+00:002023-12-13T17:18:21.502+00:00The mess and the madness of Christmas<p> Text: <b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Matthew
11.2-15</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent
word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are
we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear
and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin
disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have
good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about
John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the
wind? What, then, did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look,
those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What, then, did you go out to
see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about
whom it is written,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>who will prepare
your way before you.’<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has
arisen greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is
greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of
heaven has suffered violence, and violent people take it by force. For all the
Prophets and the Law prophesied until John came, and if you are willing to
accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. Let anyone with ears listen!<br /><br />___________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So here we are, in the middle of Advent – the time of
waiting, and preparing for the coming of the Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not that you’d know it from the Christmas
displays all over the place!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yesterday,
as I drove our new friends from Pakistan back from the airport, they were
amazed at all the Christmas decorations festooning shop windows throughout the
town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coming, as they do, from a strict
Islamic society, such displays of Christmas are really unusual to them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Of course, I explained to Naveen and his family that I really
don’t approve of all this pre-Christmas celebration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to the church calendar, Christmas
doesn’t start until the 25<sup>th</sup> of December.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christmas trees and Christmas decorations absolutely
should not be taken out of the boxes until Christmas Eve!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, of course, they should all come down
again on the 12<sup>th</sup> night after Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But such traditions mean nothing to the world
around us, do they?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The merchants of the
world can’t wait to start selling all the presents and Christmas tat we want to
buy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This year, adverts in our local
pubs, inviting us to book our Christmas dinners, were displayed in August!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But, woe betide the grumpy Vicar who tries to push against
this tide of commercialism and profit-making!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There’s a story about a predecessor of mine, here at St Faith’s, who once
made the grave error – or so it is said – of banning the playing of Christmas
carols in the church until Christmas Eve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This, I’m told, was not a popular decision with the members of the
Mothers Union, who wanted to put on a Christmas market in early December.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I confess to having some sympathy with my
predecessor’s instincts.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">History tells us, that both I and my predecessor are by no
means the first Christian leaders to be suspicious of it all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During the brief years of the English
Republic, under Oliver Cromwell, Parliament passed a law, in 1647, which banned
the celebration of Christmas altogether.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Puritans, who were in a period of brief control, thoroughly
disapproved of all the drunkenness and frivolity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They disliked the waste and the racking up of
debt for the purchase of Christmas presents which poor people could barely afford.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Special services and feasting were banned,
and fines were imposed on anyone who ignored it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was not a popular measure with the
general populace, though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Riots took
place in Kent and elsewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1652,
the Government re-inforced the ban with even tighter rules.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But ultimately, the Puritans lost the battle,
and after the restoration of the Monarchy, the full excess of Christmas
returned with a bang.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Commercialized Christmas has become a millstone around many
families’ necks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is even more the
case at a time of the steeply rising cost of living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are families all over this country who
seriously worry about how they can afford to give their children the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mountain</i> of plastic toys that children
expect today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some will go into
considerable debt, so that their little darlings won’t think that Santa loves
them less than the child next door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worse
still, at time of environmental crisis, Christmas requires the cutting down of
millions of trees, for wrapping paper and cards, crackers and party hats, let
alone actual trees to display in our churches and homes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No doubt huge quantities of oil are used in
the manufacture and shipping of all those plastic toys, wrapped in yet more
cardboard, to be played with once on Christmas day, and then donated to charity
shops and rubbish tips a few weeks later.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But there is little I can do to shift the public mood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like John the Baptiser, I feel like a voice
crying in the wilderness: “Make straight the highway for the coming of the Lord!”.
In other words, “make your path towards Christmas one of increasing holiness,
increasing charity, increasing reflection on the deep truths of the earth-shattering,
paradigm-shifting Nativity of our Lord.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I know that I am wasting my breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So, like many who feel like me, I shrug my shoulders, switch
on the Christmas lights, and attend the rolling carousel of pre-Christmas school
concerts, turkey dinners, and festive concerts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Until, with everyone else, I slump exhausted in my chair on Christmas day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People are rarely ready to hear the radical
message of Christmas – the uncomfortable truth that Christmas doesn’t arrive
with Santa, and stockings, and mince pies, and turkey and plastic toys, and
mulled wine and Christmas trees, and concerts and greetings cards and crackers
and lights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It arrives in the depths of
darkness, with the cry of a baby, utterly dependent on the love of his parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Born in poverty. Born to die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Born to raise the sons of earth, boprn to
give them second birth”; the birth of the Spirit of God within every human
soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christmas arrives with the attempt
of a King – Herod - to kill God’s revolution in its cradle – just as
Palestinian children are being killed right now in the same streets, in the
land called Holy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christmas arrives with
a radical message of peace on earth, sung by angels, calling humanity to a new
way, a better way, the way of radical forgiveness and the constant quest for
peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Oh hush the noise, ye men of
strife, and hear the Angels sing!”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Perhaps this is why Jesus later said of John the Baptiser
that he was greater than any other person of woman born.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By his choice to live apart from the world,
eating locust and honey in the desert, calling the people to radical change, to
repentance, to baptism, John was planting his radical ‘no’ to the customs and
the waste of his own time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, as we
heard in this morning’s gospel, as great as he was, John is less than the least
in the Kingdom of Heaven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John’s
response to the waste, and the violence, and the greed of his time was to stand
apart from it all – to disappear into the desert, and to live off the meagre
offerings of the land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Jesus brought
the Kingdom of Heaven into reality…and he didn’t do it in the desert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus arrived in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">midst</i> of humanity, in a town so crowded that he had to be born in a
stable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He lived alongside people,
feasting with them, celebrating with them, being one of them, but also apart
from them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This then, is the trick that we inheritors and progenitors of
the Kingdom need to learn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being a
grumpy old moaner about the waste and frivolity of Christmas actually gets us
nowhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Running away screaming from the
silly season may be very appealing, just as it was for John the Baptiser in the
desert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But joining in, embracing the
madness, and finding ways to turn eyes away from the darkness, and towards the
light of the world….that is the way of Jesus, and the way of the kingdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being born into the muck and the chaos of
humanity – that’s the way of Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Being present for the poor shepherd, the misguided wise man, the
homeless drunk, the struggling parent: that is the way of the Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that, my friends, is the true message of
Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Amen<o:p></o:p></span></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-41768663889292770282023-12-06T11:05:00.000+00:002023-12-06T11:05:31.346+00:00Schism in the Church of England - Part 2<p>Two weeks ago, as some of you may remember, I preached about the impending schism in the Anglican church, over same-sex blessings. I won’t repeat what I said then – you can look it up for yourselves online. But just for a little context, let me repeat my main points.</p><p>I talked about how the recent decision of the General Synod had led to a stern response from the Church of England Evangelical Council – and some actions on their part which are likely to lead to a permanent schism. The core issue, I suggested, is the view that different Christians hold about the authority of Scripture. I said that there are some who hold the Bible in very high regard, and call it ‘the Word of God’. There are others, like me, who believe the Bible to be an important collection of Scriptures, inspired by God and the story of God, useful for teaching and instruction, but ultimately pointing towards the true Word of God, Jesus. I went on to suggest that Jesus is our ultimate authority on all matters of doctrine – and that if Jesus was silent on a particular, specific issues (like permanent, faithful, same-sex unions) we would be wise to turn to his more general principles of love, forgiveness, and tolerance – ‘charity’ in other words.</p><p>So far so good. No-one who heard that sermon here in church seemed to have any difficulty with it. At least no-one tackled me at the door, afterwards, and told me that I was mistaken. But the same could not be said of when that sermon hit the internet, a few hours later. Since then, the sermon has been viewed about 3,000 times, and I have been pilloried by a very vocal and angry sub-section of the Christian church. I have been called a heretic, and godless. I have been repeatedly commanded to repent of my apostate views. Multiple single phrases of Scripture have been posted on my YouTube page, intended to imply that I am a wolf in sheep’s clothing, an unworthy teacher, and an enemy of Christ. It’s been quite a challenging fortnight – I can tell you!</p><p>It is clear that I have touched a raw nerve among a certain section of the wider church who cling persistently to the idea that the Bible is the sovereign, immutable, inerrant Word of God. Why this may be, I’m not certain. No doubt there are a number of reasons – and each person who has so pointedly struck out at me will have their own reasons for doing so. For some, it may be a semi-autistic need for certainty – and an inability to live in the grey theological world of mystery, between black and white immoveable statements about the things of God. Others may be hiding a unconscious belief in patriarchy, or they perhaps have misogynistic tendancies – since the Bible clearly defines the superiority of men over women (for all practical purposes). If we no longer consider the Bible to be the Word of God, this means radically re-evaluating our views about male headship of churches and the family – and that’s a challenge to some people. Some, no doubt, hold their firm views as a result of the teaching they have received from loved and respected pastors – without ever having tested such teaching against the wider wisdom of the church, through the discipline of theology. Some people are intellectually lazy, and are quite happy to have others do their thinking for them.</p><p>The saddest part of the debate for me is that lack of historical knowledge among my detractors. They do not seem to realise, for example, that the status of Scripture has been a real and live debate in the Christian church throughout its history. The early church councils and synods wrestled with it, constantly – including centuries-long debates about which books should be considered ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the Bible. Those debates have continued right through the church’s history – and even today, different version of the Bible, with different books included or excluded, are published by different sections of the church. </p><p>With regard to same-sex unions, my detractors are ignorant of something called ‘adelphopoesis’ – or ‘brothering’. That was a formal liturgical ceremony in which two people of the same sex could be legally and formally joined together as ‘brothers’ (nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more). It was a common ceremony up until the Reformation, and shows that historically, the church was rather more tolerant of same-sex unions than many, today, suppose. </p><p>Today, we are invited by the Lectionary to consider St Ambrose. He was a Bishop of Milan, in the 4th century, who was prominent in the battle against a heresy known as Arianism. Arianism was a theological view held by many clergy and bishops of the time. It was centered on a discussion about the divinity of Christ. Essentially, Arians believed that Jesus was the son of God, begotten by God, but not God himself. He was not, in other words, a member of the Trinity – but rather, a created being, through whom God then brought the world into being. Arianism is strongly reflected in Islam, in which Jesus is highly venerated, but not treated as God. Muslims reject the concept of the Trinity.</p><p>It was – and remains - an important distinction – especially in discussions around the exact purpose of the Crucifixion. If one believes that God himself went to the Cross to redeem us, that’s a rather different picture from the idea of God sending his son to the Cross. If it is God who hung on the cross, taking upon himself the sins of the world, then we know that we have a God who loves us literally to death. But if God only sends his son, as a ransom for sin, then God is open to the accusation of being some kind of distant deity, and angry judge who needs appeasing, and at worst a cosmic child-abuser. </p><p>These were vital issues for the early church. They argued about it constantly. Various edicts were issued by Bishops and Emperors for the burning of books on Arianism, and even the execution of anyone found in possession of such materials. And it is a debate which still rumbles on in theology today – especially (as I’ve already mentioned) in the treatment of the divinity of Christ by Islam, but also by Unitarian Christians. </p><p>Doing theology seriously, you see, requires us to live in the grey world of mystery. As I’ve often stated, our tiny brains are simply not up to fully comprehending the mystery and majesty of God. Any of us, at any time, might consider that we’ve reached firm and unassailable knowledge about God. We may be utterly certain that we are right about, for example, the authority of the Bible. Or we might imagine that we have completely comprehended God’s opinion about same-sex unions, or the divinity of Christ, or the efficacy of prayer. But serious students of God, who’ve read the history of the church, and thought hard about the theological questions of the ages, soon come to the conclusion that all our supposed knowledge is provisional. At any moment, the Holy Spirit is likely to shake us out of our certainty, rattle our complacency, and knock down the ivory towers of certainty that we love to battle over. </p><p>We can never stop peeling back the layers of knowledge about God. That’s part of the great beauty, and also the deep frustration of theology – once called the Queen of the Sciences. And its why, despite the slings and arrows hurled at me by people lucky enough to be completely certain they are right, I will continue to call myself an honest and continual seeker after Truth. And I hope you will continue to seek that Truth with me. Amen.</p><div><br /></div>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-33738793886445228902023-11-22T18:15:00.000+00:002023-11-22T18:15:56.957+00:00Schisms in the Church of England - on the Feast of St Clement of Rome<p>Texts:</p><p>A reading from the 49th chapter of the First Letter of Clement, Bishop of Rome, on the nature and character of Love.</p><p><i>Who can explain the bond of God’s love? Who is able to recount the greatness of its beauty? The height to which love leads is beyond description. Love binds us to God; love hides a multitude of sins; love bears all things and endures all things. There is nothing vulgar in love, nothing haughty. Love has no schism, love creates no faction, love does all things in harmony. Everyone chosen by God has been perfected in love; apart from love nothing is pleasing to God. </i></p><p>(1 Clem 49.2-5)</p><p>Luke 14.7–11 – on practicing humility.</p><p><i>When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honour, he told them a parable. ‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honour, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, “Give this person your place”, and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher”; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’ </i></p><p>__________________________________________________________________</p><p>On Sunday last, I invited us (among other matters) to think about where authority lies, in the Christian Church. There is, you see, a great divide in the church. On the one hand, there are those who believe the Bible to be the Word of God (to be treated as authoritative, straight off the page, in all matters). On the other hand, there are those like me who consider the Bible to be an important collection of Scriptures, inspired by God and the story of God, useful for teaching and instruction, but ultimately pointing towards the true Word of God, Jesus. On Sunday, I argued that all matters that divide Christians today should be held up to the light of Jesus. His views are the most authoritative, and only when He speaks on a given matter should we assume that God is speaking.</p><p>So, on matters about which Jesus is silent, – we are wise if we keep largely silent too. I’m thinking about such matters as same-sex marriage, female priests, transgender politics, capitalism versus socialism and a great deal more besides. But, if we are compelled by events to offer an opinion, we are wise if point people to matters on which Jesus was anything but silent – such as the principles of love, faithfulness, tolerance, judging-not, welcoming all, forgiving all, loving our neighbour, caring for the downtrodden, and the breaking down of barriers between people of different opinions on religious matters.</p><p>Where we think authority comes from really matters. It is hugely disappointing, therefore, to hear that some of our brothers and sisters in the Anglican church are taking authority into their own hands, at the present time – based on their own understanding of the Bible as the Word of God. Last week, as you may have heard, the General Synod voted, by a very slim majority, to trial services which could be offered to same-sex couples after a civil marriage. Despite the careful, prayerful thinking of Synod on this matter, people in the church who think of the Bible as the Word of God are not happy. Some spoke at the Synod, and called the proposed trial ‘blasphemous’ – because, in their view, it contradicted the ‘clear teaching of Scripture’. </p><p>The Church of England Evangelical Council has seen fit to establish alternative arrangements for oversight by bishops (for those clergy who are unhappy about Synod’s decision). They are also establishing a fund into which evangelical churches are being encouraged to pay their parish share – instead of to the Dioceses in which they live and work. These actions will create a fracture in the church. This is not the Anglican Way. The Church of England has always been a place where Christians of different traditions and quite marked differences in theology have nevertheless been able to remain together under one roof – sharing our resources, to enable the weakest churches to survive, and the Kingdom of God to thrive. </p><p>The question of where authority lies has been a running sore in the life of the church, throughout its history. Today is the feast-day of Clement of Rome, an early Bishop or Rome who is believed to have been, effectively, one of the first Popes. We don’t know much about Clement, really – but we do know that he had occasion, in the closing years of the first century, to write a stern (and very lengthy!) letter to the church in Corinth. The church leaders in Corinth had been deposed by their congregation. We don’t know why, but Clement ascribes the sin of jealousy to the troublemakers. We can only guess at what the actual issues were. Clement’s letter to the Corinthians reminds the congregation that their leaders were in fact appointed by the Apostles of Jesus, and he demanded that they should be re-instated. In other words, Clement appeals to the authority of Jesus – not the Scriptures. </p><p>In his letter, Clement cries out in frustration, using words that resonate in the present disputes of Anglicanism. He says: Why do we tear and rend asunder the members of Christ, and stir up factions against our own body, and reach such a pitch of folly, as to forget that we are members one of another? (1 Clem 46.7). Instead, in the words of our first reading today, Clement appeals to his readers to mark the characteristics of Christian love for one another: “Love has no schism, love creates no faction, love does all things in harmony.” (1 Clem 49.4)</p><p>In our Gospel reading, Christ himself gives a passionate and graphic plea for humility. He uses the illustration of a banqueting table – but what he is pointing to is the necessity of humility in all things. I passionately disagree with my brothers and sisters who would place the stricter teachings of the Scriptures over the loving and generous teachings of Jesus. But, in humility, I have to acknowledge that I may be wrong, and they may be right. For we only see through a glass darkly (as St Paul said), and none of us really knows the mind of God. So the last thing I would seek to do is to separate from those with whom I disagree. Rather, with St Paul and St Clement, I would prefer to exercise the kind of love that bears all things, hopes all things and endures all things, for the sake of fulfilling Jesus’ prayer, in John 17, ‘that they may all be one’.</p><p>God preserve us from those who would allow honest, prayer-soaked disagreement over matters of human sexuality to further divide the church. God forbid it. Please. Amen.</p><div><br /></div>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-44206708064897519232023-11-18T12:01:00.000+00:002023-11-18T12:01:00.402+00:00Be Prepared - Part 2<p> Readings: 1 Thessalonians 5.1-11 & Matthew 25.14-30</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A week is a long time in politics, they say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’s also a surprisingly long period
between sermons, I find!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wonder how
many of you remember what I said last week?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even I had to go to my blog and look it up!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, for those whose memories are as short as
mine, let me just remind you of the main points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Last week, I asked you to think about the promised
return of Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suggested to you that
rather than him returning on some future date (on a cloud with lots of angels
and trumpets) that in fact Jesus has already returned, that he is returning all
the time, and that he will continue to return in the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suggested that much of the end-times
narrative of the Bible is, in fact metaphorical – and that what the Bible is
really saying is ‘Be Prepared’!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(You
might recall the picture of me in my Cub Scout uniform).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be prepared, that is, at all times and in all
places, to join in with Jesus’ activity in the world today, here and now.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">I had a wonderful example of such preparedness, this
week. I am currently supporting a Christian family in Pakistan, who reached out
to us, to St Faith’s, through the internet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They are moving to Havant, to take up work in the care sector – because,
God knows we need more care workers in the UK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There are lots of political issues that their decision raises – about the
funding of our health service, stripping other nations of their health-care
workers, and all the rest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that’s
for another day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reality, for this particular
family, is that right now they need help to acquire some accommodation, and all
the furnishings they will need to set up home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I have been praying for guidance as to how to help them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Yesterday, I wandered into church and came across
someone (who will remain nameless for now) who is in the process of clearing
out the house of her recently deceased mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The kind woman asked me whether I knew of anyone who could make use of
some of her mother’s things – such as bedding and the like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I told her about the family from Pakistan,
and how they were due to arrive in Havant in a month’s time, and that they will
have only the clothes in their suitcase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The kind woman then said that she would start sorting out things that
the family will be able to use in their new home (whenever we can find one for
them!) – like kitchen equipment, bedding and towels and all such things.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">What a brilliant example, of being prepared to respond
in situations when Jesus is working!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Kindness and generosity, in the face of worry and anxiety on the part of
the Family, is a brilliant example of God at work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel privileged to be in the nexus of God
at work in their lives, and honoured to have ‘been prepared’ to take the leap
of faith to support people I’ve never met.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A week is a long time in the Church of England
too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Especially, I suggest, for members
of the General Synod who met this week in London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Synod was grappling with the vexed
question of issues around the marriage, or blessing, of same-sex couples.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A compromise has been reached, which (as is
the nature of most compromises) has left both sides in the debate
unsatisfied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I won’t go into the details
here – you can read all about it in your own time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I would like to make a couple of
observations, which I hope will be generally informative.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The first relates to this morning’s gospel
reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ll know, of course, that a
talent was a coin, at the time of Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Today’s gospel is therefore, on one level, about how we invest our money
in the work of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, by serendipity,
the fact that coins were called talents means we also have the opportunity to
think about the talents, abilities, and innate human qualities that each
Christian brings to the task of building the Kingdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In ‘being prepared’ to join in with the
action of Jesus, each of us brings the person we are, the person that God has
made us to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether we are English,
or Pakistani (for example).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether we
are rich or poor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether we are
differently-abled, or typically healthy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And, for the purposes of discussions about same-sex marriage, whether we
are straight, gay, or any of the spectrum of genders and preferences in-between,
we come as we ARE.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We come as God made
us, and how life has shaped us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we
bring ourselves, and the talents we have been given by the master, to the task
of building God’s kingdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus receives
us as we are, and welcomes ALL to his table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jesus welcomes EVERYONE to the feast, and to the holy task of Kingdom
building.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">And finally, to those who want to hold on tenaciously to
the Bible’s so-called ‘traditional’ views of marriage, even to the point of
driving a split in the Church of England, I want to say this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>please be very careful about the weight of
authority you assign to the ancient Scriptures of a middle Eastern tribe of
between two and three thousand years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As I’ve said before from this pulpit, shockingly, the Bible is NOT the
word of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather, it is a collection
of writings, from a wide variety of authors, written across a number of
centuries which all point to the true Word of God, the Logos himself,
Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus, in the words of the letter
to the Hebrews, is the ‘author and perfecter’ of our faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is the light of wisdom in the darkness of
human ignorance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">On the topic of homosexuality, Jesus said not one
word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he did speak of the Kingdom
principles of love, faithfulness, and preparedness to move where the Spirit is
leading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He specifically did not want us
to be shackled to ancient Scriptures, but rather to him – the God who fulfils the
Scriptures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What does it mean to fulfil the
Scriptures?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think it means that all
Scriptures need to be held up to the Light of Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Jesus said to act this way, or that, even
when such action appears to contradict the Scriptures, then we follow Jesus’
lead, not the dead letter of an ancient text.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Take for example his teaching on revenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Hebrew Bible specifically teaches ‘an eye
for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But Jesus quotes that Scripture, and then says ‘But I say, forgive your
brother, constantly’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So to any who would invite me to place religious dogma
over Jesus clear instruction to love and serve one another, I say no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To anyone who would invite me to join a
schism in the Church of England, over the single issue of whether two faithful,
loving people can have the blessing of the church I say; “I’m prepared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m equipped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With the talents he has given me, I’m following Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will bless such faithful, committed, love”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I
hope you would say the same too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-20155627329554432172023-11-11T09:34:00.000+00:002023-11-11T09:34:08.100+00:00Be Prepared!<p>Readings: Matthew 25.1-13 and Thessalonians 4.13-18</p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;">For a few brief years, when I was very young, I had the pleasure of being a cub
scout.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;">I loved it.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;">We got to go camping, and to learn
woodcraft.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;">We had fun evenings of games
and enjoyed working for our various badges.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;">In my day, we had to wear what is now considered a rather old fashioned
uniform, complete with garters to hold our socks up, a scarf in the colour of
our troop, and of course a woggle.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;">We
even used to use the chant ‘dib dib dib’, ‘dob dob dob’!</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;">Once a year we would go out and terrorise our
neighbours with the offer of ‘bob-a-job’ – when we would inexpertly clean cars
or sweep driveways in return for a few miserable pennies.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;">But I loved it.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;">I even became a ‘sixer’ – which meant that I
was put in charge of a group of six younger boys – which taught me, at a very
early age, something about leadership.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">All those activities were designed with one
over-arching premise in mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the
motto of the Scout movement: ‘Be Prepared’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Lord Baden-Powell, when he founded the Scouts, wanted boys to be as prepared
as possible for whatever life would throw at them. Through the badge system,
boys like me were encouraged to learn skills like cooking, or how to make a
camp fire, or how to build a shelter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
were also encouraged to open our minds to the wider world, with badges about
first aid, or even astronomy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In many
ways, the cub scouts prepared me for many of the situations of life, in which I’ve
needed to get stuck in, work out how something works, or exercise some
leadership skills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Scouting is a brilliant
movement – it taught me to ‘be prepared’.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Being prepared is, of course, at the heart of Jesus’ parable
about the Bridesmaids and their oil lamps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jesus encourages all of us to be prepared for his coming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’ve heard me speak about the second
coming of Jesus in the past, you’ll know that I’m a little bit suspicious of
those Scriptures which appear to foretell the arrival of Jesus on a cloud, like
some sort of Greek god coming down from Mount Olympus, flying through the skies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thinking about our first reading of today, I
think the Apostle Paul was being rather more poetic than literal, with all his vivid
descriptions of Christians rising up to meet the Lord in the air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">We need, as always, to think about the context of Paul’s
words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was writing at a time when
many Christians thought that Jesus would literally return from heaven. A lot of
the New Testament contains rather fanciful promises of that happening, imminently,
and while many who were then alive were still living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was, I believe, a view and a hope that was
grounded in fear; fear of persecution, fear of being abandoned by Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In particular, Paul was addressing the fear
that the Thessalonians had – a fear that those among them who had died would
miss the return of Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Greeks, the
Thessalonians quite probably had the rather dark Greek notion of a world of the
dead, which was separated for ever from the world of the living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul’s rather poetic writing was a way of
offering hope to a fledgling church that their efforts to build God’s Kingdom
on earth were not in vain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he was
assuring them that the promises of God, through Jesus, were as real for the
dead as they are for the living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span> </span><span> </span>History has proved, time and again, that belief in a literal second coming is a
mistaken belief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Countless prophets over the centuries have
announced that Jesus will return.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
they’ve all been wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a resurgence
in such prophecies at the moment, because of the establishment of the state of
Israel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some are even hoping, in a
rather macabre way, that the present conflicts between Israel and Palestine are
the early salvos in the war of Armageddon, which (they hope) will be a
pre-cursor to the bodily return of Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Such prophets have, I think, a rather weak understanding of both
Scripture, and of history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So what are we to think of Jesus’ reported promise to
return?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hold the view that the return
of Jesus is not a one-time event.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather,
it is something which has happened, and is happening, and will happen, all the
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It happened when the Holy Spirit
was poured out on the disciples at Pentecost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It happens whenever his teachings are obeyed, and when world is made a
better place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whenever a warrior acts
out of mercy, and withholds from bombing hospitals and schools, Jesus
returns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whenever an armistice – a ‘ceasefire’
is declared between warring nations, Jesus returns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whenever a soldier, or a doctor, or an ambulance
driver lays down their life out of love for humanity, Jesus returns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whenever a homeless person is supported on
the road to housing and security, Jesus returns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whenever a lonely person is offered
companionship, Jesus returns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whenever a
wealthy person gives from their wealth to help another human being, Jesus
returns.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 49.65pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">What then does it mean for us to be prepared, as Jesus
teaches in the parable of the Bridesmaids?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It means being constantly alert for the ongoing activity of Jesus in the
world – and it means being prepared to get on board with what Jesus has been doing,
is doing and will be doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It means
being prepared never to turn down an opportunity to bless another person, or to
sacrifice for the well-being of all humanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It means being prepared to put our shoulders to the wheel in the task of
building God’s Kingdom on earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you
prepared?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you prepared to join in
with Jesus?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-44561731190087663312023-11-08T17:34:00.001+00:002023-11-08T17:34:42.365+00:00Anxiety, panic and fretting...on the Feast of Margery Kempe<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>Readings: </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i><b>Philippians 3.3–8a</b></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><i>For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in
the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the
flesh— even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><i>If anyone else has reason to be confident in the
flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a
Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the
law, blameless.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><i>Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard
as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because
of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have
suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I
may gain Christ</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><i><b>Luke 15.1–10</b></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><i>Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming
near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and
saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><i>So he told them this parable: ‘Which one of you,
having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine
in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he
has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home,
he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, “Rejoice with me,
for I have found my sheep that was lost.” Just so, I tell you, there will be
more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous
people who need no repentance.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><i>‘Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses
one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until
she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and
neighbours, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had
lost.” Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God
over one sinner who repents.’</i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;">___________________________________________________</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;">Today is the feast of Margery Kemp.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 35.45pt;">She was born in King’s Lynn in Norfolk in the
late 1300s, a contemporary of Julian of Norwich. She received many visions,
several of them of the holy family, one of the most regular being of the
crucifixion. She also claimed to have conversations with the saints.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">She was much sought after as a visionary, but she was
also endlessly in trouble with the Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She was a bit of a campaigner, to be honest – who thought she knew
better than the rest of her society about the things of God, and didn’t always
know when to keep silent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was rebuked
by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and was more than once imprisoned. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nevertheless, Margery seems have experienced long
periods of close communion with Christ, and developed a strong compassion for
the sins of the world. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her
autobiography, The Book of Margery Kempe, recounts her remarkable life. She
died towards the middle of the 1400s.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">On the one hand, we might like to rejoice in Margery’s
amazing and miraculous visions – which clearly sustained a great faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, on the other hand, in our
post-miraculous age we may prefer other explanations for Margery’s
visions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks to modern medicine, and
especially our increasing understanding of the mind, we know that
hallucinations are often the result of some sort of stress or anxiety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We also know that people who experience
hallucinations <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tend</i> to see those
things on which they are most fixated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So, people who live on a diet of horror movies will hallucinate horrible
visions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But those, like Margery, who
focus on holy and beautiful ideas are most likely to hallucinate those
things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">These days, we might say that Margery was clearly a
holy woman, who had spent much time in prayer and study, but who, when anxiety
about the world overwhelmed her, tended to hallucinate visions of Godly things
and people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not uncommon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are even people who visit this church
who claim to have visions or voices from God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Even in the non-scientific age of the Bible, wise
teachers knew that it was important to treat such visions and prophecies with
care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>St Paul taught that anyone with
such apparent messages from God should bring them to the leaders of the church,
for testing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps Paul, too, was
suspicious that not all visions come directly from God, but rather from the
creative depths of the human mind – especially in times of great anxiety.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Anxiety is, of course, a normal human reaction to the
changing circumstances of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
part of our natural protection mechanism – our ‘fight or flight’ instinct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We cast around for threats to our security,
or comfort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are on our guard…and that
makes us anxious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We become more
alert…less likely to sleep…and therefore more anxious. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some, the reaction to anxiety is to shut
out the world, turn off the news, and bury our heads. For others, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">action</i> is the name of the game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We might try to allay our anxiety by joining
marches to Parliament (which parliament rarely notices), or we might gain some
relief by ranting about whatever worries us on social media.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some, though, anxiety about the future
manifests as hallucinations, either visual or auditory – stemming from a deep
hope that God has the world under control.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In our first reading, St Paul describes the kind of
anxiety that he has lived with, all his adult life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s an almost Trumpian level of boasting
on display as he talks about all the ways that he tried to work himself up into
being acceptable to God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was
‘circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, a Hebrew born
of Hebrews, a Pharisee, a persecutor of the church; righteous under the law and
blameless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(You can just hear Donald
Trump at this end of that list can’t you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>‘No-one has ever been more righteous-er than me!’).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">There’s a lot of anxiety on display in today’s Gospel
reading, too. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, there’s the anxiety
of the Pharisees and scribes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were
anxious about this new charismatic preacher in their midst, who appeared to be
leading people away from their way of doing religion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were anxious about losing their
authority – losing their power base.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">And then, in Jesus’ parables about the lost sheep and
the lost coin, his main characters display anxiety too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The shepherd is anxious about his lost
sheep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So is the woman who has lost her coin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both the shepherd and the woman are offered
to us as pictures of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">We need to be careful about making God in our image –
but there is a sense in which Jesus sees God as being anxious about the
spiritual fate of his children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Scriptures offer us a picture of a God whose whole being is anxiously focussed
on the salvation of humanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Ultimately, it’s God’s sheer passion – anxiety if you
will – for his children which saves us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Paul ultimately discovers that all anxiety about faith, all his chasing
after righteousness was ‘rubbish’ compared to the experience of finding out
that God loves us, anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You may be
interested to know that this passage of Philippians contains one of the rather
more fruity uses of language, hidden away in the Bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The word translated as ‘rubbish’ in our
Bibles is really much closer to a strong word for manure, beginning with shshsh!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul says that all his achievements, all the
things he was anxious to please God about, they are all ‘muck and manure’
compared to the surpassing joy of knowing Christ – and knowing that Christ has
done all that is necessary to save us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
have no need to try anxiously to earn God’s favour – because he is already favourable
towards us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.45pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So, to my anxiety, and to yours, I say this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>let us use the coming days to rest in the
Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s take time to rest in the
loving gaze of our heavenly father, to contemplate his teachings, and receive
the power of his love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, perhaps,
freed from anxiety, we too might be given visions, or at least nudges from the
Holy Spirit, about how we can play our part in building God’s Kingdom of Justice
on earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not anxiously. Not expending
our energy on fruitless frustration and worry. But, calmly, trustingly,
stepping out each day to play our part, in the place God has put us, in
building the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-58691144265293168122023-11-02T12:28:00.001+00:002023-11-02T12:28:53.442+00:00All Saints 2023<p> Readings: </p><p><b><i>Revelation 7.9–17</i></b></p><p><i>After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,</i></p><p><i>‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’</i></p><p><i>And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, singing, </i><i>‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom </i><i>and thanksgiving and honour </i><i>and power and might </i><i>be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’</i></p><p><i>Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?’ I said to him, ‘Sir, you are the one that knows.’ Then he said to me, ‘These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. </i><i>For this reason they are before the throne of God, </i><i>and worship him day and night within his temple, </i><i>and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. </i><i>They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; </i><i>the sun will not strike them, </i><i>nor any scorching heat; </i><i>for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd, </i><i>and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, </i><i>and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’</i></p><p><i><b>Matthew 5.1–12</b></i></p><p><i>When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:</i></p><p><i>‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.</i></p><p><i>‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.</i></p><p><i>‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.</i></p><p><i>‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.</i></p><p><i>‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.</i></p><p><i>‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.</i></p><p><i>‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.</i></p><p><i>‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.</i></p><p><i>‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.</i></p><p>________________________________________________</p><p>I always look forward to All Saint’s Day. It gives me an opportunity to remind you of my list of funny and quirky saints – most of which I have culled from a book by the priest and broadcaster, Richard Coles, called ‘Lives of the Improbable Saints’.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For example, have you ever heard of St Ronald of Buckingham? Apparently, he was born into the world like any normal baby, and immediately preached an amazing sermon.... before promptly dying. Then there's St Theophilus the Myrrh-Gusher. It’s a great name isn't it? It refers to the belief that the bodies of certain martyred saints secrete a sweet smelling liquid from their wounds. Apparently, St Theophilus’ body did just that, in copious amounts!</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then there's St Isodore, who in the 1980s was designated the patron saint of the Internet –because he was a scholar and compiler of information. I like to imagine the scene in Heaven when God told Isodore that the Church has just designated him as the patron of the internet? "I'm the Patron Saint of WHAT?!"</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And then there's the number one weird saint of all time...the Patron Saint of finding a parking place - Saint Mother Cabrini. Apparently, in New York, car drivers circling a block can be heard muttering this prayer: "Mother Cabrini, Mother Cabrini - find me a space for my driving machiny."</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All these Saints are jolly good fun, but there is more than grain of truth in many of them. Sometimes, saints become patron saints because of the terrible things they were made to suffer for their faith in Christ. So, for example, St Apollonia is the patron saint of dentists, because she had all her teeth extracted as a punishment for believing in Jesus. And let’s not forget our own St Faith... roasted alive on a griddle-iron, for refusing to give up her Lord. I could tell you a lot more horror stories...but it’s a bit early in the morning for that!</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So, All Saints is a good time to be reminded of extraordinary lives of the Saints who now ’from their labours rest’ - as we sang at the beginning of our service today. But are there saints among us now? </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Bible refers to all true believers as ‘saints’. So the answer to my question must be ‘yes…there are saints among us today’. There are, and must be, those who yearn and hope for the final revelation of Christ, just as John envisioned in our first reading of today. They are those who constantly seek to purify themselves, to make their robes white, because of Christ.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Or, if you prefer, from Jesus’ lips in the Sermon on the Mount, the saints – the blessed ones - are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They are the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers, the pure in heart.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But is that me? Is that you?</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our brothers and sisters in the Orthodox church have an insight to offer. They teach that all Christians have the potential to become so like Christ that they can become kinds of gods themselves. Orthodox theology calls that process ‘deification’ – and it’s a goal for which all of us are encouraged to strive. </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But what does it look like, in practice? Much has been made recently of the secular sainthood of the medical profession, tirelessly exerting themselves on behalf of the population, still grappling with Covid and historic levels of under-funding. Other secular saints will be recognised recognised by name in the King's new year honours list. </p><p><span> </span><span> </span>Locally, we have our own saints - like St Margaret of Tait, who has been championing the Langstone Millpond. We have St Graham of the Organ, who has been developing not one but <i>two</i> junior choirs. We have St Sandra of the Servery, always willing to whip up a brew and a slice of homemade cake for the weary visitor to the church. And there are plenty more too. St Bill of the Monday Club, the <i>other </i>St Bill ...of the Bells. St Bruce of the Servers, St Alan of the Stewards, St Shelley of the Pallant - and of course, I have to mention St Clare of the Shop! SO many of you act and live in saintly ways - you make me feel quite inadequate, and decidedly proud of you all! </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But are saints measured by what they do? Yes, of course…to an extent. The true nature of our heart is often demonstrated by our actions. But what about those who cannot do anything? Is it possible to be a saint who is tied by illness to the hospital bed, or trapped at home by infirmity? Well, I want to say ‘yes’ to them too. Being a living saint is not just about what we do. It’s about who we are. To be a saint is to become more and more like God. Being a modern saint is about cultivating an attitude toward the world which mirrors the attitude of Jesus himself. </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But how?</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Well, here’s a way of thinking about an answer to that question. There’s been a thought winging its way around social media recently. It’s one of those ‘feel good’ sayings that we all encounter from time to time, which gets lots of people clicking ‘Like’. This particular one goes something like…</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I don’t care if you are black or white, gay or straight, rich or poor. If you are good to me, I’ll be good to you”. On the face of it, it’s a nice thing to have said – essentially ‘all that matters is how we treat each other’. </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But it’s not a particularly Christian thing to have said. Being <i>nice</i> is not an exclusively Christian virtue. Jesus calls his followers beyond human nice-ness. He calls us to extraordinary love, in the pursuit of holiness. If Jesus had written that ’meme’, he might have added – “It doesn’t even matter how you treat me. Even when you insult me, or beat me, or kill me...I will still love you”. </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Christian love is the kind that says ‘Father forgive them’, even when ‘they’ are nailing you to a cross. Christian love is unconditional – like the love of Jesus, who we strive to be like. It is a love which does not stop even when, like St Faith, we are being tied to a roasting griddle iron. Or as Christians in Palestine have been discovering this month, being bombed by an apparently war-mongering neighbour. It’s a love which sees beyond the poor behaviour and poor choices of failing human beings, and which begins to see all humanity as God sees us – children - who often fall down, and constantly need picking up and hugging from time to time. </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now of course, I realise what a challenge it would be to continue to offer love to a bomb-slinging madman or, say, an abuser of children, or a corrupt politician. Simple common sense says that, of course, society needs protecting from this kind of behaviour. But hate is never the right response. Hate only produces more hate. The ONLY possible remedy against hate, is love. It won’t always work – but it’s the only path worth even trying. And it’s the path of Jesus. It’s the path of holiness. It’s the path of saint-hood.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Of course, that kind of holiness is beyond human norms. It’s super-human, in fact. It’s not something I would find easy to do, on my own. But, with God’s help, and by God’s grace, maybe I could love someone that much. Maybe I too could be considered a saint. Hmm...St Thomas of Havant....has a bit of ring to it….</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And if we are open to it, we can all take up the challenge to become Holy ones, deified ones, Saints, ourselves. </p><p>Amen.</p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-86758785364552500072023-10-21T10:26:00.004+01:002023-10-21T11:50:04.629+01:00What to do about Palestine?<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 2cm;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">I have, so far, rather avoided commenting on the Israeli / Palestinian conflict. This is partly out of a concern that more or less anything I say is likely to cause offence to someone. It’s also out of the sense of powerlessness that many of us feel about the situation. After all, what can you or I, in here Havant, do to affect the outcome of such a major international problem? But today’s Gospel reading, with its reference to the occupation of Palestine (as the Romans knew it), really doesn’t give me the chance of avoiding comment. So, I plan to offer you, this morning, a bare-bones history of the land of Palestine, which also now includes the legally-constituted State of Israel. It might feel a little bit like a lecture – but I hope you will find it helpful and useful.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 2cm;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">But first, a personal story…35 years ago, at the tender age of 22, I had the honour to sing in Jerusalem. It was the 40th anniversary of the founding of the modern state of Israel – and I sang at the performance of an oratorio called ‘Hear, O Israel’, by Irish composer, Cormac O-Duffy, who was an old college chum of mine. The concert took place in an open-air amphitheatre belonging to the University of Jerusalem, with a back-drop of the Jordan Valley. It was attended by the then Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzak Shamir. It was accompanied by a mixed choir of Christians and Jews, and led by the Israel Symphony Orchestra. It’s something I hope I’ll never forget!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 2cm;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">A few months later, we repeated the concert in Westminster Central Hall, for the benefit of London-based Christians and Jews. And there is a recording of that! So here I am, looking young and gorgeous, singing the song of Theodore Herzl. Herzl was the leader of the Zionist Movement – and he predicted in 1897, at a Zionist Conference, that within 50 years, a State of Israel would be formed in Palestine – and he turned out to be correct. There’s a lot to think about, but first, let me play you this clip: <a href="https://youtu.be/QFL5UPtf3LE">https://youtu.be/QFL5UPtf3LE</a> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 2cm;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Theodore Herzl undoubtedly didn’t sing in such a rock and roll style! But he was the most prominent leader of the Zionist movement of the late 19th century. It is important to understand the roots of Zionism. First of all – the name. Zionism refers to Mount Zion – a large hill just outside the Old City of Jerusalem, but a name also synonymous with the Temple Mount. Zionism is therefore essentially about the Jewish people regaining political control of Mount Zion, and the land around it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 2cm;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">But before we get too deep into modern Zionism, let’s take a brief tour of ancient history. Around 1000 BC the Hebrews (as they were then known) had conquered the land of Palestine by force, taking it from the tribes such as the Canaanites, and the Philistines (from which the word Palestine originates). According to the ancient Scriptures, God had promised this land to Abraham, and so the descendants of Abraham through Isaac believed they had the God-given right to claim it, through force if necessary. The trouble is that Abraham had three lines of descendants, through three different women. The Jews were descended from Abraham’s wife Sarah, through Isaac. But Abraham had two other lines of descendents, through Hagar (Sarah’s concubine) and Keturah (who Abraham married after Sarah’s death). The peoples of the region trace their line back through Hagar and Keturah and therefore also claim God’s promise to Abraham for themselves.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 2cm;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Unfortunately for both Jews and Palestinians, the land lay in a strategic corridor between Africa and the Middle East – it was a narrow part of the so-called fertile crescent – a swathe of land, amid a lot of desert, in which food can be grown. And so, throughout history, everyone fancied a piece of it – from the Assyrians, the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Babylonians (Iraqis), the Persians (Iranians), the Macedonians, and then the Romans. Palestine had only actually been one unified Jewish State for about 80 years, from the time of King David, a thousand years before Christ up until the Exile around 500 years later. As this set of key dates shows, Israel split into two kingdoms about 80 years after David – and both kingdoms were then subsequently conquered. Various overlords then had control of Palestine, right up to the time of Jesus.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 2cm;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">The Romans finally gained control a few decades before Jesus came on the scene. But even their fragile control came to an end within about a hundred and fifty years. Notably in the year 70AD, the Temple in Jerusalem was razed to the ground, during one particularly bloody uprising of Jewish nationalists. Without their Temple, the Jews became scattered all around the world, into what is known as the diaspora. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 2cm;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">After the Roman occupation, with the Jews now scattered, Jerusalem and Palestine continued to change hands – it remained an important and valuable property – overflowing with milk and honey (as the Scriptures say). Palestine was controlled by various political entities, including the Church, through the Crusader armies of the West, and of course the Ottoman Empire, who were largely in control for about 400 years, up until the end of the First World War, when Britain invaded and expelled the Ottoman Empire. Between the first and second world wars, Britain was in charge, under a mandate from the League of Nations. The mandate was intended to lead the native population to self-government and independence. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 2cm;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">But, under the influence of the growing Zionist movement who had gained a strong foothold in world politics, the Mandate was also committed to providing for a Jewish Homeland. Another influence was a strain of mainly American Christianity which believed that the legal establishment of a state of Israel was a necessary pre-cursor to the return of Jesus. But creating a new state of Israel was at significant variance with desire of the native Arabs of Palestine, who feared displacement. After a turbulent period of conflict during the 1940s, the State of Israel was formally established in 1948. Around 500 Palestinian towns were forcibly absorbed into the new State, and something close to a million Palestinians were pushed out into Gaza and the West Bank – an area to the East of Jerusalem, but on the West Bank of the River Jordan.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 2cm;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">And the rest, as they say, is modern history. The State of Israel insists – not unreasonably - on its legal right to self-governance and security, not least because of the Holocaust and many other past injustices. That view is reinforced by those religious Jews who draw on Scripture for the promise made to Abraham. Some Israelis, supported by their Government, are systematically occupying Palestinian land to strengthen their claim. Palestinians, who are mainly Muslim but also containing a significant minority of Christians, state – not unreasonably - that they were there first – as Philistines and Canaanites before Kind David’s military success, as well as being also legitimate descendants of Abraham. They – rather naturally - perceive the Jews as invaders, both historically through King David, and in modern times under the British Mandate. These are therefore deeply rooted enmities – coloured by the fact that over the last 3,000 years, many other nations have also had administrative control of the land of Palestine. History matters, you see – it shapes ideas and attitudes that are still being played out in Palestine and Israel today.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 2cm;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">I now regret my 22 year old decision to sing about the founding of Israel, at its 40th anniversary, and by appearing to take such an uncritical view about the founding of Israel. I was ignorant of the real history of the land at that time – except for the fact that I knew something of the horror of the Holocaust, and I was glad that Jews now had a place of relative safety and security. What I hadn’t realised is the significant claim of the Palestinian people on the land which has borne their name for most of the last 3,000 years. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 2cm;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">The question that confronts each of us today, is what to do with that complicated, highly-contested history. How shall we respond to the horror of Hamas terrorism, and the resultant Israeli rage? How can we play our part in establishing justice, mercy and peace for all the inhabitants of the land called Holy?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 2cm;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Truthfully, there is not much we can do – except that through our relative wealth, we can bless those agencies who work on the front-line of caring for everyone affected by the political and historical forces at play. In Jesus’ words, we can render to Caesar through the honest payment of our own taxes. And we can render to God through our gifts to agencies like the Red Cross and the Anglican Church in Jerusalem (provider of the Gazan hospital that was bombed this week) who work impartially for the good of all. We can also play our part in voting for those British politicians who demonstrate the fairest and most just understanding of all the complex forces in play. And of course we can pray – for justice and peace: for a Kingdom of righteousness to be established on earth as it is in heaven. Amen. </span></p><div style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 75.5906px;"><br /></div><p></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-61777135843734082942023-10-17T16:51:00.003+01:002023-10-17T16:51:33.639+01:00Henry Martyn - a short but astounding life<p>Texts: Isaiah 55.6–11 & Mark 16.15–end</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 2.0cm;">Do you ever wonder what on earth you can do, personally, about the
troubles in the world?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m an anxious consumer of news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I listen to the Today programme every
day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t have my lunch without the 1 o’clock news, and I check the headlines again when I go to bed!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 2.0cm;">The recent news of events in Palestine and Israel has drawn the world’s
attention away from the horror of Russian’s attempted conquest of the
Ukraine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Largely unnoticed has also gone
the recent earthquake in Afghanistan, and other natural disasters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A man shot three people in Brussels this week
– but the event barely got a mention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The world is going to hell in a handcart, but you and I are largely powerless
to do anything about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aren’t we?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 2.0cm;">That could have been the attitude of Henry Martyn, who the Anglican
church commemorates today as one of our outstanding Christians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Born in Truro in 1781, Henry Martyn went up
to Cambridge at the age of sixteen. He became an avowed evangelical and his
friendship with Charles Simeon led to his interest in missionary work. In 1805,
he left for Calcutta as a chaplain to the East India Company. The expectation
was that he would minister to the British expatriate community, not to the
indigenous peoples.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, in fact, he
found that there was a constant fear of insurrection among the ex-pat
community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They lived, somewhat as Israelis
live today, under constant fear of violent uprising by those whose lands had
been taken over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the recitation of
Magnificat at Evensong was forbidden, lest ‘putting down the mighty from their
seat’ should incite the natives. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 2.0cm;">Henry’s response to this situation was notable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He could have kept his head down, and quietly
carried on ministering to his ex-patriate community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, instead, Henry – being a gifted scholar
- set about learning the local languages so that he could share the Gospel with
them, following Jesus command at The Great Commission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One assumes that his motivation was a belief
that converting the natives of India to Christianity would be a means of
bringing the British and the Indians into a new fellowship with each
other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 2.0cm;">Having learned their tongues, Henry then supervised the translation of
the New Testament first into Hindustani and then into Persian and Arabic, as
well as preaching and teaching in mission schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of those schools, and also some
hospitals, were built out of his own funds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He went to Persia to continue the
work, where his translation of the New Testament was warmly welcomed by the
enlightened Shah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, unfortunately suffering
from tuberculosis, he died in the Turkish mountains, in modern day Armenia, on
this day in 1812 – having only spent seven years in his task of translating the
Scriptures. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 2.0cm;">In just seven years of his missionary life, Henry Martyn succeeded in
spreading the Gospel among millions of people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He was a famous and noted preacher, who engaged in public debate with
scholars from other religions, and who gained their respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was at a time when tensions between
religions were rather less than they are today…a time when religious leaders
didn’t claim, by and large, to have the monopoly on truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 2.0cm;">What, I wonder, does Henry Martyn’s life have to say to us today?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Few of us, I suspect, have the intellectual
skills to become bible translators…I know I don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world today is a far more fractured place
than it was for Henry – and missionary work is no longer carried out (in the
main) by British people going out to convert people of other nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much has changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Henry had some very particular skills and
opportunities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 2.0cm;">Nevertheless, his short but brightly lit life teaches us that even in
seven years, a great deal can be achieved, by those who have the faith and the
courage to serve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Henry’s life, of course,
mirrors the life of Jesus who, as far as we can tell, only had a ministry of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">three</i> years, and yet managed to set in
motion a world-changing movement.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 2.0cm;">So the question that Henry Martyn leaves for each of us to ponder is
this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in the life that each of us has
left (whether we have years or just months ahead of us) how are we going to be
salt and light to the world in which we are placed?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Henry Martyn sought to make his corners of
the world into a better place, by the light, the teaching and the example of
Christ. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He brought the Gospel to those
who hadn’t heard Jesus’ teaching of love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He provided schools and hospitals for thousands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He worked to break down barriers between
religions and national identities. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 2.0cm;">How are you and I going to do the same and perhaps even more, in the
time that each of us has left on earth? You
and I are not likely to be able to do very much about the global conflicts
currently shaking our world – except perhaps to direct our charity towards
those who are suffering. Henry Martin tackled the issues before him in Calcutta. How are
you and I going to bring the good news of Jesus’ life, teaching and example, to
the people of Havant, Bedhampton, Emsworth and Hayling? They are <i>our</i>
mission field. And it is first of all to
them that we are called. Amen.<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-81366212036590292542023-10-11T22:54:00.006+01:002023-10-11T22:54:58.331+01:00Wilfred, Elizabeth and Edith...<p>Today, the church marks the death of three prominent Christians, Wilfred of Ripon, Elizabeth Fry and Edith Cavell. As you know, I quite like using these Thursday sermons to learn something about those who have believed before us. So with three famous names in our view, let’s hear their stories.</p><p>Wilfrid, or Wilfrith, was born in Northumbria in about the year 633. He was educated at the monastery of Lindisfarne, but disapproved of what he judged to be their Celtic insularity. Remember that at this time, the Celtic church had been thriving in the years since Rome retreated from the British Aisles. But from 597, when Augustine of Canterbury was sent on a mission from Rome by Pope Gregory the Great, Rome had been steadily re-asserting its influence.</p><p>Wilfred’s sympathies lay with Rome. He believed that Rome was the mother church, even though she had left her daughter-church in the British Isles to it’s own devices for a couple of centuries. Wilfred journeyed to Canterbury and then to Rome. He spent three years at Lyons where he was admitted as a monk. He then was appointed Abbot of Ripon and took with him the Roman monastic system and Benedictine Rule, which he immediately introduced. </p><p>Wilfred played an influential role at the Synod of Whitby, in around 663. The Synod was called, essentially to decide whether the Anglo-Saxon church of Northumbria would follow Celtic or Roman church traditions. Wilfred’s dominance of the debate was largely responsible for the victory of the Roman party over the Celts. Later, when he was elected Bishop of York, he went to Compiègne to be consecrated by twelve Frankish bishops rather than risk any doubt of schism by being ordained by Celtic bishops. </p><p>There were upsets first with Chad and then with Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, but the Roman authorities took his side and he was eventually restored to his See. After further disputes, he resigned the See of York and became Bishop of Hexham, spending his remaining years at Ripon. His gift to the English church was to make it more clearly a part of the Church universal. But it has to be said, his manner and methods were not such as to draw people close to him at a personal level. He died on this day in the year 709 and was buried in Ripon.</p><p>I find this period of British church history really interesting. It shows that spark of independence from other nations which still dogs the British mindset today. We are an island nation, and we don’t take kindly to being told what to do by other nations in Europe. We never have done. Henry the Eighth’s split with Rome was another example, and of course Brexit is the latest occasion when we have pulled up the drawbridge to Europe.</p><p>Wilfred also serves as a reminder that even the Church Universal, with its headquarters in Rome, has rarely managed to maintain a unified stance on anything. The British Schism of the 600s, the Reformation, and the Great Schism with the Orthodox church at the turn of the first millennium – all these historical events remind us that unanimity on all matters theological and ecclesiological is a rare thing indeed. The Catholic Cardinals are currently having another Synod, in Rome – and there are many issues up for debate there, too.</p><p>In the last week or so, the Bishops of the Church of England have voted to approve prayers which may be used at the blessing of same sex marriages. This is a major shift in policy by the church, and it is warmly welcomed by so-called progressive and liberal clergy, like me. On the other hand, those of a more conservative view are incensed by this move. Many are calling the present House of Bishops a bunch of ungodly heretics! The battle over same-sex blessings, and perhaps one day marriages, is but the latest ‘big issue’ to get in the way of Unity – and dire predictions of schism in the Church of England are rife once again. In the past we’ve argued over where Authority lies, slavery, the rights of women, the ordination of women, and the authority of Scripture. And no doubt we’ll find things to argue about in the future – just as Wilfred and others did in the past. But through all these debates, the godly men and women of the past have continued to witness to God’s love in the world – whatever the theologians and bishops were arguing about!</p><p>I’m thinking, for example, of Elizabeth Fry. She was born at Earlham in Norfolk in 1780. At the age of twenty, she married Joseph Fry, a London merchant and a strict Quaker. She was admitted as a minister in the Society of Friends and became a noted preacher. The appalling state of the prisons came to her notice and she devoted much of her time to the welfare of female prisoners in Newgate. In 1820 she took part in the formation of a night shelter for the homeless in London. She travelled all over Europe in the cause of prison reform. She was a woman of a strong Christian and evangelistic impulse and this inspired all her work. She died on this day in 1845.</p><p>For another example of someone whose faith drove them on to great works, today we also remember Edith Cavell. was born into a clergy family at Swardeston, also in Norfolk, in 1865. After life as a governess, she trained as a nurse, ending up working with the Red Cross in Belgium in 1907. On the outbreak of the First World War, she became involved in caring for the wounded on both sides. She refused repatriation and then began smuggling British soldiers from Belgium into Holland. In 1915 she was arrested and brought to trial. Protecting those who worked with her, she was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad on this day in the year 1915. She went to her death calmly, forgiving her executioners, convinced she had been doing her duty as a Christian. </p><p>A quick comparison of the lives of St Wilfred, Elizabeth Fry and Edith Cavell leads one to conclude that although Wifred is the only canonised Saint, of the three, he was perhaps the least ‘saintly’ of them. By all accounts he was a miserable and argumentative so-and-so, who nobody really liked, and who spent most of his life arguing about which branch of the church was the most authentic. In comparison, Fry and Cavell poured out their lives in the service of others – caring for the prisoner, the homeless and the sick. I wonder which of these three each of us would rather emulate? In the spirit of today’s Gospel reading, I wonder whose dogged persistence we would most like to copy?</p><div><br /></div>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-69005548717040823792023-10-07T16:11:00.002+01:002023-10-07T16:11:53.067+01:00Patronal Festival Sermon<p style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><span style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;">A</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"> sermon on the Patronal Festival, commemorating St
Faith of Agen (our 'patron saint).</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;">Texts: 1 Kings 8.22-30 & Matthew 21.12-16</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">There are many so called holy places in the
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are those places where,
somehow, the veil between our mortal world and the spiritual world seems more
fragile. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">According to the Hebrew scriptures (or the Old
Testament as Christians call it), Bethel was one such place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After his prophetic dream, Jacob called the
place ‘House of God’ (which is what Beth-el means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(El was one of the early names for God).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For many generations, it was one of Israel’s
holiest shrines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Ark of the Covenant
was kept there, until it was transferred to Jerusalem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>History and time did their work, and now that
holiest of places is gone – just like so many abbeys and great churches in our
own land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Buildings are temporary – no matter
how much they are loved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is
immortal, and God’s immortal spirit lives in us, not in these stones and tiles.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">We humans have a fondness for place, don’t we – and especially
for ‘thin places’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stonehenge still
attracts millions of pilgrims, even though they have no idea what actual
ceremonies were practices there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
modern-day druids who gather there at the Solstice are really only making
educated guesses about what their ancestors did there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
devotees of our patron Saint, Faith of Agen, the abbey-church of Conques,
France is another such place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There, the
bones of the young martyr are laid – cruelly murdered under the rule of the
Roman emperor Diocletian, because she refused to renounce her faith in Jesus
Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ask Bishop John and Janet Hind
for their account of the place – for they visited it only a few years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In this morning’s reading from the book of Kings, we
note that King Solomon himself, at the grand opening of the first Temple acknowledged
that God didn’t live in the building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But
will God indeed dwell on the earth?” he asks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this
house that I have built!”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather,
Solomon prays that God’s eyes may be open night and day <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">towards </i>the Temple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
essentially asks God to make the Temple a ‘thin place’, a ‘touching place’
where God may especially hear the prayers of his people.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Where is your ‘thin place’?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where is that you find that the veil between
the physical and spiritual worlds is somehow made thinner?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some, it may be a beautiful natural
landscape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For others, it will often be
a building, in which hundreds of years of prayer and worship have somehow
soaked into the stones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this</i> is your thin place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or maybe it’s St Albans, for those who live and
work in West Leigh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps these are
the places where God feels especially present – to which God’s eyes are open,
day and night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No doubt Jesus felt the
same about the Temple in Jerusalem – which is why he was so incensed by the way
it was being used to cheat and defraud pilgrims.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The crooks were charging extortionate prices for
pilgrims to convert Roman money into Jewish coin (the only tender that the
Jewish authorities would accept).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
were also selling doves at inflated prices for sacrifices.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In fact, as Jesus found, holy buildings can sometimes
get in the way, and they can certainly be abused by unscrupulous men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Jerusalem, despite Solomon’s prayer, human
priests created a holy of holies – a place in which God was said to actually
dwell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The New Testament tells
us that the curtain of that ‘holy of holies’ was torn down at the death of
Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was not a helpful picture of
God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Even our own beautiful building has some challenges – it’s
High Altar can make God appear distant and aloof.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s stained glass windows of a decidedly romantic,
English-looking Jesus are not particularly helpful either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, as we shall sing in our Offertory Hymn,
here are symbols to remind us of our lifelong need of God, and of God’s
grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Fred Pratt Green’s words go
on: “Here are table, font and pulpit, here the cross has central place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here in honesty of preaching (I love that
line!) here in silence as in speech, here in newness and renewal, God the
Spirit comes to each.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is why, for all its
theological confusion, I think that our continuing efforts to refurbish this
place are worthwhile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its very age and
architectural idiosyncrasies are precisely what draw in those seekers of a thin
place, a touching place.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But at the same time, we must not forget that this
building is not ‘the Church’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is only
a shell…at the end of the day, a shelter from the rain in which the actual
church can gather.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fundamentally it is
no different from the church of St Nicholas in the parish of Nswam, Ghana –
which I visited in 2015.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few palm
branches, spread over a bamboo frame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Just a shelter from the elements.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify; text-indent: 42.55pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">For, as St Peter says, we are “living stones…built
into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are the church – not these stones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could – if the Diocese would let us! –
tear this whole place down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That would
not mean that the church was gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
people who make up the church would still be here (if a little damp, when it
rains!). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The church is the 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. Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-51772269910951473572023-10-04T22:45:00.002+01:002023-10-05T15:13:32.825+01:00The Politics of Jesus<p>Texts: Nehemiah 8.1–12 and Luke 10.1-12</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Picture the scene. The leaders of the people have returned from Exile in Babylon, led by their new Governor, Nehemiah. For the 70 years that the leaders have been away, the ordinary people have gone about their lives, under the watchful and influential eyes of the Babylonians. Three or four generations have come and gone. The people have become disconnected from their past, and from the Law of Moses which their ancestors knew. They have intermarried with other tribes. They have taken on Babylonian ways and laws. No doubt, many have started to worship Babylonian gods as well. </p><p class="MsoNormal">But now, the leaders are back. Nehemiah, the Governor is there. And so are the Levites – the religious leaders, and their High Priest Ezra. They are all scrubbed and polished and standing on a great platform in front of the crowd. And they have brought with them the five books of the Law – the Torah. These books are precious relics. They tell the story of the first Jews, of Abraham, and Moses and Judah (from whom the Jews for their name). They also contain the very laws of God, which Moses brought down from the mountain during the long march to freedom. These books have been edited and polished by the Scribes, during the Exile. Toiling away during the dark nights in Babylon, they have argued and debated which stories to include, and which to leave out. They have blended different and sometimes competing narratives into one seemless story, which also contains all that the leaders wanted their newly formed people in Jerusalem to hear. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Ezra, the High Priest, stands up before the people. This is his big moment. Like Rishi Sunak at the Conservative Party conference, this is Ezra’s chance to put his stamp on the future. If he gets this right – he will re-ignite the almost lost Jewish faith, for centuries to come. He will give back to the people their common story, and their laws for living well as the chosen people of God. How will the people receive this message – a message which pulls at their ancestral roots, reminds them of their national identity, and puts the former leaders back in power?</p><p class="MsoNormal">Thankfully, for Nehemiah and Ezra, the exercise succeeds. So much so that when the people hear the laws of Moses being read to them, and interpreted by the Levites, they break into tears. The account in Nehemiah’s book doesn’t tell us why they cried. Perhaps it was from joy, at hearing their national story being told to them again. Perhaps it was for sorrow, for all the ways that they had, often unknowingly, broken the laws of Moses? Perhaps it was for terror, that their law-breaking would bring God’s wrath down on them again?</p><p class="MsoNormal">The laws of Moses were political laws – they set systems of justice and redress in motion, they legislated for how complaints would be settled, how foreigners and strangers would be received, how land and possessions should be shared – all subject to the heavenly rule that Jesus called ‘the Kingdom of God’. Jesus sent his followers, 70 of them according to Luke, out into the villages and towns, to declare the advance of the Kingdom – a Kingdom which contained all the holy principles of the Law of Moses, but with a new emphasis on issues such as loving God and neighbour, caring for the poor, forgiving the sinner, refusing to use violence to settle scores. There was a huge amount of political commentary in Jesus’ teaching, just as there was in Moses’ laws.</p><p class="MsoNormal">People react differently to political speeches, don’t they? The crowd who heard Nehemiah and Ezra’s passionate, well-prepared speech began to weep, perhaps for sorrow at the political system and spiritual culture they had lost. For the people who heard from Jesus’ canvassers – those 70 disciples sent out with his message – there was a range of reactions. Some welcomed the canvassers warmly. Some hated their message, no doubt because it threatened some aspect of the way they lived. Those people drove Jesus’ canvassers out of their towns, so that the disciples had to shake the dust from their feet as they left.</p><p class="MsoNormal">You see, political messages, whether specifically linked to a religion or not, often provoke a mixture of reactions. But first come the questions. What does this policy or idea mean for me? Will have more or less money, more or less freedom? Secondly, we might ask what this or that policy means for those closest to me. Will my relative get the care they need? Will my children get the best education? Then wider questions of society creep in. Will my local library stay open? What about the rivers, the environment, the very future for my descendants on the earth? All these – and many more – complex questions are weighed in our minds, often in just an instant or two. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Then, the politician seeking to persuade us throws us some motivation to trust their policy. Ezra did exactly that, by reminding the people of their history, and effectively claiming that his new Government was built on the glories of the past. Some politicians will blame immigrants, or other foreign governments – just as Ezra did (a little later). He did it by demanding that all the pure Jews in Jerusalem should divorce any foreign wives and cast them out of the city. Such politicians make a play for our emotional support, by reminding us of our history, by flying flags and other patriotic tokens behind them as they speak. Even Jesus wasn’t immune from calling his people to remember the past. It’s the way politics is done.</p><p class="MsoNormal">So, in this Political Party season, how are we to judge wisely, among the political choices we are offered? When we begin to understand that all our reactions are variable, and related to some very basic, instinctive survival instincts, how shall we sort the wheat from the chaff being thrown our way from the podiums? They only answer a Christian can give, I would argue, is to only support those policies which can be seen directly reflected in the political manifesto of Jesus Christ. That means acknowledging, as we must, that Jesus had a spiritual message, but also a profoundly political one too. G.K. Chesterson once observed that the great pity about the Christian Kingdom was that it has never actually been tried. And as I've observed before, anyone who doesn't think that Jesus had a political (as well as spiritual) message has clearly not read the same Bible that I read! </p><p class="MsoNormal">To the politicians who jostle for our vote, the Christian asks, ‘what would society be like if the meek truly inherited the earth?’. At present, about 90% of the land of the United Kingdom is owned by private landowners, the government, the military, the churches, agriculture and the national parks. Only about 10% of the nation’s land is available for you and me to build a house upon. What would it really look like if the meek were to inherit this earth, and if the mighty were cast down from their seats (and yachts, and castles, and private airplanes)? </p><p class="MsoNormal">To the politicians who jostle for our vote, the Christian asks, ‘what would the world look like if we took seriously the command of God to Adam and Eve, that they should ‘take care of the garden’.</p><p class="MsoNormal">To the politicians who jostle for our vote, the Christian asks, ‘what would our society be like if the poor were truly blessed, if peacemakers were properly honoured, and if the wealth of the nations were equitably shared?’</p><p class="MsoNormal">These are all idealisms of course. But so is all politics. The trick is to discern the patterns, to be aware of the mind-games being played on us, and to test all political manifestos against the teaching and experience of the Scriptures. For as Ezra and his people discovered, there is wisdom there, available to all. If we would only have ears to hear. Amen</p><div><br /></div>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-242521607435148042.post-54882960407826102422023-09-29T13:12:00.003+01:002023-10-01T11:37:36.216+01:00Walking the Walk - using our money wisely<p><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Texts: </span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Philippians</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> 2.1-13 and Matthew 21.23-32</span></span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">There’s a saying, among preachers,
that all the letters of St Paul can be summarised with three sentences:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Greetings
in the name of Jesus.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Stop
messing about.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Blessings
on you.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">That’s because, when you start to
examine them, it’s obvious that Paul was writing, usually, to correct some
abhorrent behaviour on the part of new Christians in the churches he had
planted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His letter to the church in Philippi
is no exception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Imagine, if you will, that I went
away on an extended break, but that while I was gone, you receive an open
letter, from me to the whole congregation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Imagine that letter said things like “Do nothing from selfish ambition
or conceit, but in humility, regard others as better than yourselves.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You would soon conclude that I had heard that
some people were acting up in my absence! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is exactly what Paul is doing, when he
writes these letters. He’s trying to steer his distant congregations along a
straight course – along the Way of Christ, we might say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he knows that is a tough ask, so he
tactfully dresses up his criticisms with greetings and blessings.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This tells us something important
about the early church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s easy for us
to imagine that the early church was somehow purer, or more holy than us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But following the Way of Jesus has always
been hard work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>10% inspiration, and 90%
perspiration, as the old saying goes. Jesus himself called it ‘the Narrow Way’
– a path that is easy to fall from, or to stray from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let no-one tell you that the Way of Jesus is
a path to glory, or to riches, or to guaranteed good health.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Way of Jesus requires us to surrender
selfish ambition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the path of the
servant, the Way of the Lord who washes his own disciples’ feet.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">It is also a path that is easy to
begin, but not always easy to follow through – which is the point of this
morning’s Gospel reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s part of a
clever debate between Jesus and some of the chief priests of his day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are wealthy men of great status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they like to think they are clever
too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But after neatly shutting them up
over a question about John the Baptiser, Jesus tells them one of his fabulous
stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Imagine’, he says, ‘that a man
has two sons – and he asks them to go to work in the fields.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first son says he won't go, but then does so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The second says he will go
(initially), but then does not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which of these two sons did the will of their
Father?’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In other words, Jesus says, we are
judged not by what we say, but by how we live and the choices we make.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can sing all the hymns, read all the prayers,
receive the holy food for our journey – but unless we walk the walk of the
Christian, we are like the son who said ‘I’ll go’, but then failed to do
so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For Jesus, the prostitutes and tax
collectors (who actively and purposefully followed The Way) were much
preferred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly they were preferred
to the chief priests who wore the right clothes, said the right prayers, even
taught the right theology, but whose way of actually living fell far short of
the Way of Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which is a cause of
some reflection for those of us who wear the fine robes!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Some of us might be confused, at
this moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can see a question
burning in some of your eyes!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But I
come to church!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I say my prayers!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I give to charity and the church!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I even study the Bible sometimes! Are you
saying that I am not walking the walk on the Way of Christ?!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As uncomfortable as that challenge may be, it
is a challenge that Jesus himself lays down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel (chapter 7, to be precise)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus says ‘Not everyone who says Lord, Lord,
will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my
father in heaven.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In chapter 25, Jesus
describes the separation of sheep from goats – two groups of people who look
remarkably similar from the outside (especially considering the similarity of
Middle Eastern sheep and goats).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the
life-choices of those two groups, and especially their decisions about how to
love their neighbour, mark them out as either true or false followers of The
Way.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">How shall we know?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do we know whether we are sheep or
goats?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or the first or second son?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or whether St Paul would write to us to tell
us to ‘stop messing about’?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most
persistent and easily-grasped indicator, according to Scripture, is the way we
use our money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The Church of England has
designated this as ‘Generosity Sunday’ – a none-too-subtle plea for generosity,
after the contemplation of God’s generosity to us during last week’s Harvest
Festival!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m a bit cynical about such
national church initiatives, and I hate talking about money – especially in the
middle of a cost of living crisis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
today, I’m going to conclude this sermon by doing precisely that, because my
friends, you may not know that, at present, only 27% of the costs of running
this parish – this branch of the kingdom - comes from me and you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rest comes from the generosity, the
grants, and the generous legacies of past generations.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">There are essentially two attitudes
we can have to money.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The first – and
most common – attitude is to think of it as </span><i style="font-size: 14pt;">our</i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">
money.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">We have earned it.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">We saved it.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">We deserve it.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">We have a right to
it, and a right to use it as we see fit.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">
</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The second, and rather more </span><i style="font-size: 14pt;">Christian</i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">
attitude is to think of it as </span><i style="font-size: 14pt;">God’s
money, </i><span style="font-size: 14pt;">of which we are merely stewards, and for which God gives </span><i style="font-size: 14pt;">us</i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> the responsibility of how it should
be spent wisely, in the business of the kingdom.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“But I earned my money,
Rector!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did you?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">You see, if you have earned your
money through a well paid job, or a family inheritance, it is because you were
blessed to be born in a certain class of society, in a certain country, to a
certain family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You were probably given
an education which you didn’t pay for, and the opportunity to earn, or receive the
money you now possess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your wealth is
directly related to where, and in what circumstances you were born – it is a
gift from God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you honestly believe
that if you had been born in a desert, or a jungle, a thousand miles from the
nearest city, that you would be as wealthy as you are?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything you have has been given to
you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if you live on nothing but a
state pension and housing benefit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
not yours to play with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is yours to
steward. It is for the sacred, holy task of building God’s kingdom here on
earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take what you need, for the
essentials of life, and the awful costs of living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is God’s gift to you too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But give what you can, for the work of the
kingdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In this week’s Fortnightly News,
you will find two articles about how to give money, tax-efficiently and
regularly, to the work of the kingdom through this church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d like to encourage you to read them
carefully, please.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Read them with the
Christian attitude to money in mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Read
them while hearing St Paul say, ‘stop messing about!’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Read them while inwardly acknowledging that
everything you have, whether large or small, comes to you as a gift from God,
or at least from the accident of your birth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For to those to whom much has been given, shall much be required.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Tom Kennarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09059361977886521239noreply@blogger.com0