Making Jesus our Foundation

 1 Corinthians 3.10-11

"By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ."  (NIV)

 “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord” – as the hymn goes.  When writing to the Corinthians, St Paul was very keen to ensure that Jesus remained the focus of that new church’s life.  This is an important issue for us, too.  Without a constant and deliberate effort to re-focus our church life, and our personal lives, on Jesus, we can find ourselves heading down rabbit holes of well-intentioned, but ultimately fruitless endeavours

So, what does it mean to make Jesus the foundation of our personal lives?  A common mistake is to imagine that by asking Jesus to be our foundation, or to come into our lives (as an evangelical might say) he will help us with all our problems.  In other words, some folks come to church to ask for God’s help, with their suffering, or their finances, or the health of a loved one.  This, my friends, is a common mistake.  It is the same mistake made by everyone who thinks of God as some sort of Father Christmas figure; someone who will grant favours in return for the right prayers.  It’s the same mistake that the Israelites made in the wilderness when they started to worship a golden calf.  It’s the same mistake that all religions make when they erect statues of gods and then ply those statues with gifts of food or riches, in an attempt to receive a blessing.

When we make Jesus our foundation, or ask him into our lives, we are actually saying that we want to become more like Jesus.  He is the model, the pattern, for the perfect human life.  He is the image that we need to copy, or to emulate, in order to attain the promise of a fully lived life, in sickness and in health, in poverty or in plenty.   From the life of Jesus we learn how to live simply, to love extravagantly, to forgive constantly and to rest frequently.  From his death, we learn the value of sacrifice.  From his resurrection, we learn that all deaths and disasters can be overcome, transformed and reshaped by God’s power.  By making Jesus our foundation and focus, we learn how to live life to the full. 

When I was a young Christian, I used to wear with woven hippy-bracelet with the letters WWJD on it.  ‘What would Jesus do?’.  It’s a really good question to ask ourselves in every circumstance of life.  If I’m feeling angry, or afraid, what would Jesus do?  If I’m feeling greedy or lazy…what would Jesus do?  If I’m suffering, or if I’m celebrating, what would Jesus do?

But there is a danger to navigate when we ask this question.  The danger is that, unless we KNOW Jesus, there is always the danger that we will create him in our OWN image.  That’s what happens when people who claim the name of Christian say or do hateful things.  Nationalism, for example, is not a Christian idea.  Hatred of foreigners, is not Christian.  Trolling people we disagree with, on social media or in person, is not Christian.  Refusing to forgive someone who has wronged us is not Christian.  Oppressing women, causing the poverty of others, exploiting the planet’s resources for our own pleasure and convenience, is not what Jesus would do.  The accumulation of vast personal wealth is not what Jesus would do.

But how shall we know?  How shall we tell which attitudes and decisions we make are really Christian, and which are not?  Only, my friends, by spending time with Jesus.  The main way we have been given to do that is through the pages of the Gospels.  Only by soaking ourselves in the attitudes, teachings and life of Jesus in the Gospels can we ever hope to be wise enough to know what Jesus would do.  So, let me ask you this:  when did you last open a Gospel and read it – and really soak yourself in it?  I suspect that for many of us, the answer to that question might be a bit challenging.

I’d like to suggest a tiny change in the language we Christians use.  The work ‘Christian’ gets banded about a lot in our society.  We are told that we live in a ‘Christian’ country (though some argue that actually we live in a post-Christian one).  The word Christian is, to our shame, associated with all sorts of horrible things.  At best, Christians are perceived as naïve fools who think that prayers to an invisible deity will be answered.  Or we are associated with gluttonous levels of spending on fine buildings, gold and silver ornaments, and the wasteful refurbishment of crumbling ruins, while millions starve.  At worst, the word Christian is associated in the public mind with hateful anti-gay rhetoric, or the oppression of women, or at the very worst, awful cases of sexual abuse within the church.

But I want us to reclaim the word.  So, whenever the topic comes up, I choose to use the phrase ‘CHRIST-ian’ (with the emphasis on Christ).  I won’t say that I’m a ‘Kristjen’ – no, I’m trying to be a CHRIST-ian – someone who is deliberately and diligently aiming to base my life on the teachings of Jesus Christ.  That takes work.  It takes a willingness to continually renew my knowledge about Christ, through the Gospels, so that the question of what Jesus would do becomes easier and easier to answer.  It takes effort to build a strong foundation for my faith, and for my life.  Will you join me in that effort?  Amen.

The Kingdom of Heaven IS advancing!

 Acts 5.27-33

“We must obey God rather than any human authority”.  So says Peter and the apostles, when they are dragged before the ruling council of the Jewish Temple in Acts Chapter 5.  Obeying God, rather than human authority, has been a constant theme of religious struggle over the centuries.  Jesus himself was challenged on this point.  You might remember the occasion when someone asked him whether it was lawful, under Jewish law, to pay taxes to the occupying Romans.  We might ask the same question today if we were living in the Donbas region of Ukraine.  Would it be lawful, or morally right, to pay taxes to the occupying forces of Vladimir Putin?

Jesus’ answer, when he was asked the question, was typically enigmatic.  He said that we should pay to Caesar what was Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.  He seems to imply, with this statement, that it is normal for religious people to live in two worlds, simultaneously. We live on earth (or ‘in earth’ as the Book of Common Prayer so poetically puts it, implying that earth is a state of mind, as much as a physical place).  We are subject to the society in which we live.  We have to conform, to at least some extent, to the rules of that society; or chaos and anarchy would ensue.  But, says Scripture, we are also citizens of heaven – an altogether different way of being, with its own rules and norms.  It is when these two states of being collide – earth and heaven, that religious people have the hardest task of all.  Shall I obey God, or the human authorities?   It is a question (for example) with which conscientious objectors have to wrestle at times of war.  It’s a question that Christians opposed to abortion have to wrestle, when they realise that at least part of their taxes pay for abortion clinics.  It’s a question that Christians who disagree with the socially divisive policies of any government must wrestle.  With the Coronation of our new King coming up soon, with all its pomp and inevitable appeals to our sense of UK citizenship, this is a pertinent question for us too. 

Shall we obey God, or human authority?  It’s a particularly sharp point to contemplate at times of great changes in church doctrine and teaching.  It was something with which the proponents and opponents of slavery had to wrestle, for example.  For centuries, slavery was considered a perfectly normal and natural human condition.  The Bible even gives rules on how slaves are to be treated humanely.  The only time that the Bible seems to reject slavery was in the context of the Israelite’s Exodus from Egypt, and their return from Exile in Babylon.  In other words, a strict reading of the Bible suggests that slavery is perfectly normal, except for the God’s chosen people!  For centuries, Christian companies and nations exercised slavery in the honest belief that God had decreed it to be a normal way of structuring human affairs – albeit with some tight rules about how slaves should be treated, humanely. 

However, among the leading Christians of their day, certain minds began to change.  The likes of John Newton, a former slave-ship Captain, began to see slavery for the evil it was.  His own conversion led to his remarkable hymn, Amazing Grace.  “I was blind, but now I see”, he wrote, in testament to his change of heart and mind over slavery.  Senior Christian politicians, like William Wilberforce, began to lobby the church and the government of the day.  Eventually, the human authorities of the day were persuaded to see slavery for what it was, and to change the law of earth to reflect the laws of heaven.

Today, a similar battle is underway, especially in the Anglican Communion around the world.  This time, it’s a battle for the Bible’s view of issues around human sexuality.  We are in the middle of that battle – with both sides claiming that they are the ones following God and not human authority.  Those who oppose gay marriages, for example, claim that the Bible is explicit about the wrongs of any union outside the conventional one between one man and one woman.  Those, like me, who have perhaps a more historical perspective, look back into history and note the many times in the past when the Bible’s apparently clear and unambiguous teaching has been overturned and transformed into something new.  For example, the Bible teaches that slavery is normal, as we’ve already seen.  It also teaches that if your child blasphemes the Lord, you shall take him to the City gates and have him stoned to death.  The Bible teaches that you should not wear cloth made of two types of material – so woe betide anyone who is wearing polyester-cotton today!  It prohibits the eating of pork and shellfish, which if still in place today would be a great barrier to success for the farmers and fisher-folk of Chichester Harbour.  With regard to marriage, the Bible explicitly supports polygamous marriage – many of the Fathers of the faith had more than one wife.  But we, today, would never countenance such a thing.

You see my point, I’m sure.  The Bible’s teaching, straight off the page from thousands of years ago, can seem unambiguous.  But wrong, for today.  Context is everything, as I always teach.  The context of a small middle-eastern tribe, struggling to define themselves against the world which repeatedly conquered them in battle, is a very different context to ours.  We live in a world which, step by painful step, is becoming just a little bit more like heaven on earth.  For two thousand years, Christians have prayed in obedience to Jesus, ‘thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven’.  Have those prayers been in vain, or are we at last beginning to glimpse what that heaven on earth might look like?

We have many challenges, not least the climate catastrophe, the collapse of nature, and the horror of continuing wars around the globe.  But, we also have systems of justice in which you are innocent until proven guilty.  We have individual human rights; slavery (though still practiced) is universally illegal.  In this country, for all its many faults and challenges, we have education and healthcare that are generally free at the point of delivery.  For all its problems and challenges, we have a universal welfare system, to offer succour to the least fortunate among us.  Most of us have flush toilets, easy access to food and a miracle of technology in our pockets that connects us to the whole world.  The average human lifespan has almost doubled in a century.  And as far as the issues of human sexuality are concerned, we have an increasing openness to loving and accepting people as they are, rather than forcing them to conform to ideas, from a previous context, about what God might require of them.

The Jewish ruling council gave strict orders to Peter and the other apostles not to teach in the name of Jesus.  But Peter and his friends felt that they had no choice but to proclaim the incoming of the kingdom of heaven on earth.  I pray that we might have the courage to do the same.  For we, like Peter, are ‘witnesses to these things,' (these advances of the kingdom of heaven) 'and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him’.  Amen.

Easter Sunday - It matters what what we believe

 Easter means many different things to many different people.  A sign of new life.  The defeat of darkness.  I like to help our school visitors to remember that the word Easter contains the word East.  We look to the East, to the rising Sun, to remember the  Son who rises.   Or perhaps the word Easter is based on the pagan goddess Eostre (that’s what the 7^th century historian Bede believed – although later scholars have debunked him).   It is therefore, perhaps, a celebration of the return of the sun, with all the fecundity of new life, celebrated through bunny rabbits and eggs.  What do you believe, I wonder?

It turns out that what we believe is a rather subjective thing.  And when beliefs clash, things can get pretty dicey, as we’ve seen horrifically this week in Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. What we believe about the death and resurrection of Jesus matters.  But in our incredible shrinking world, we are bombarded with competing truth claims. 

On Good Friday, during the reading of the St John Passion, we heard how Pilate asked Jesus, philosophically, “what IS truth?”.  Even then, 2000 years ago, there were many different truth claims in the world.  How shall we peel away the layers of history, myth, belief and story, to arrive at a truth that matters; a truth we can live by?

There are of course a whole range of views about the actual truth of the Resurrection.  Frankly, we cannot tackle the sceptics’ questions with anything other than the answer of faith.  We were not there, and all we have is the somewhat variable accounts of those who wrote about these events some decades later.  What matters most, to all followers of The Way, is not whether or not something happened, but that it happens, still, today (as theologian Rob Bell has memorably said).   In others words, all of the stories of Scripture have the power to speak into our lives, right here and right now.  There is truth within every story, whether or not it can be scientifically or historically proved.

There is one historical fact on which we can rely – and that’s that the ancients who wrote our Scriptures were much less concerned about literal, historical truth than we tend to be.  They were much more concerned with the power of story – its inner power, its deeper truth, its potential to shape and direct our lives.  So when the Gospel writers tell us of the death of Jesus, they are pointing to a deeper truth…which is that God died.  This is a way of saying there is no situation which God cannot inhabit and embrace.  Even in death, God holds us, walks with us, along our human road.

The resurrection story, on the other hand, points us to the rejuvenating potential of all life, in and through God.  St Paul used the example of a seed, pointing out that just as Jesus died and then rose, so a seed has to die in the soil before it is transformed into a mighty tree.  In doing so, Paul points us to an even deeper reality than the miracle of raising Jesus from the dead. 

Paul teaches us a truth that science has since proved to us: the fundamental truth that all matter in God’s universe is constantly in flux, constantly being reshaped and reformed and given new life.  Dust from the Big Bang coalesces into stars, from which new elements are then blasted out into space.  Those elements get formed into planets, and new suns, from which we and all life finally emerge.  Our own bodies, when we’ve finished with them, are absorbed back into the earth, and become nutrients for the creation of new life.  One day, science teaches us, our world will be consumed by our Sun, which will then explode into space, and our dust will be gathered by the forces of gravity into a new existence, from which new life can once more emerge.

The even deeper truth of the Resurrection is that as the divine presence behind all the universe, God also transcends creation.  He is able to call us beyond creation, into a realm as yet undiscovered by science; the realm we call heaven.  Let us not forget, in our quest for truth, that there is a lot that science doesn’t yet know about the Universe.  There are hints of particles that can exist in two places at once.  There are mysterious theories about multiple universes, or different planes of existence.  Did you know that the biggest brains in science believe that 85% of the Universe is filled with something called ‘dark matter’.  They call it that, because they have no idea what it is, and they cannot detect it, or see it.  They just know dark matter must be there, from their calculations and observations.  The deep truth of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus is that people of faith have always sensed, always known deep down, that there is more to life than the dust we can see, even dust which can be regenerated into new life.

The resurrection then, as the infamous David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham once said, is more than a ‘conjuring trick with bones’.  It points us to a deeper and more profound reality – the reality that the life God gives to the Universe never stops being created and recreated anew.  Out of all deaths comes new life.  Life goes on, constantly being reshaped and reborn, and even drawn into new realities, new realms, whatever Death tries to do.  And so with St Paul, we can indeed stick out tongues out at death, and cry ‘Where, O Death, is thy sting?  Where, O grave is thy victory?’. 

This then is the deeper truth of the Resurrection – a truth that goes beyond the sceptical questions we might have about the competing biblical stories.  The resurrection shows us Creation, and re-creation, through God’s eternal eyes.  Indeed, the whole trajectory of Scripture is that all life, all creation, all re-creation and re-birth finds its culmination in the Divine energy at Creation’s heart, and in the person of Jesus Christ. 

For it is before him, as the closing chapters of the Bible declare, that one day every knee will bow.  Every tongue will confess that Jesus, the divine man, the God made human who finds his way back to eternity, and draws us with him into the as yet unseen realm of heaven: HE is LORD, and rightly the source of our joy, when we declare….Alleluia...Christ is Risen!  He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday is one of those feast days that cram a lot of meaning in a single day.   And that’s because there’s a lot of story wrapped up in the day, for us to get our heads around.

The name, ‘Maundy’, is generally believed to derive from the Latin ‘mandate’ – or command.  It is said to refer to verse 34 of tonight’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus gives his command that we should love on another, just as he has loved us. 

Another suggestion that ‘maundy’ derives from the French, ‘mendier’ (pronounced ‘maundy-ay’) – meaning ‘to beg’.  It remembers a time when Monarchs and Lords would distribute charity to beggars, on their way to the celebration of the institution of the Last Supper – just as our King does today, as an act of charity. 

Another grand tradition of Maundy Thursday is that Bishops perform the Chrism Mass – during which Holy Oils are blessed and distributed to parish churches for use in baptism, confirmation and healing ceremonies throughout the year.  The oils, blessed by the Bishop, are a sign of that our little parish church is part of a much larger family – the Diocesan family, under the headship of our Diocesan Bishop, Jonathan. 

But Maundy Money, and the Chrism Mass are really just peripheral issues to the main purpose of Maundy Thursday.  The proper title for the day is ‘The Feast of the Institution of the Lord’s Supper’ – or the Holy Communion – or the Mass – or the Eucharist.  Whatever your preference is!  Together, we are invited to reflect more deeply on the deep significance of the service that stands at the heart of our worship, week by week.  It’s a good opportunity because, whilst we celebrate the Lord’s Supper at least twice a week at St Faith’s, its deep meaning can sometimes be lost among other theological ideas which are being expressed or explored during those services. 

Maundy Thursday is our chance to strip away such distractions, and focus on what Jesus was trying to convey to his disciples on that “last night, before he was betrayed”.   The readings we’ve just heard convey to us that there are many layers of meaning, depending upon on whose account of the event we focus.  

According to Paul’s account, the significance of the Last Supper was undoubtedly the symbolic offering of bread and wine, by Jesus, as symbols and signs of his body and blood. Jesus said ‘do this in remembrance of me’ – and perhaps we should focus for a moment on that word ‘remember’.  Our ‘members’ are our limbs, our organs; the parts of our body.  When we talk about being ‘members’ of a club or a church, we’re talking about individual people.  To ‘re-member’ something, then, is to bring together, in our minds eye, separate body parts, or people, into one collective whole.  

In remembering Jesus, we are invited to draw together all that we know about him…all that we love about him.  We remember the totality of his life, teaching and example.  We draw hope and inspiration from his death on the cross, where his life was ‘poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’, whatever that phrase may mean, theologically.  We bring these and many other remembrances together in our minds, prompted by the beautifully simple words, ‘this is my body’.  ‘This is my blood’. ‘Do this in remembrance of me’.

And there’s more!  We don’t just bring Christ together in our minds, we also come together to do this act of obedience and worship.  The church has long-since taught that if I were to celebrate the Eucharist on my own, in splendid isolation, it would not be a valid Eucharist.  We believe that Jesus intended the Lord’s Supper to be an essentially communal act.  This is something we do together.  We literally ‘re-member’, bring together, the living members of the body of Christ, every time we enact this service.

I referred to Paul’s account of the Lord’s Supper just now, the words of which will be very familiar to us all, from the Communion service.  But today, we are also offered John’s account.  John reports this occasion very differently.  Intriguingly, John (the most theological writer of the Gospels) makes no mention of the words of Institution at all.   Instead, John re-members how Jesus started the whole evening off, by washing his disciples’ feet.

In doing so, John shifts our focus.  He wants us to perhaps focus a little less on what we might personally receive from the Eucharist. I think John might not have approved of those Christians who even today talk about ‘making MY communion’.  Instead, John invites us think about what we might give as a result of the Eucharist.  John tells us the story of Jesus washing his disciples feet.  He prompts us to ask what service WE can offer to the world that Jesus calls us to transform in his name.

What if John’s Gospel was the only one we had?  How different would the church be if our primary ceremony was not the receiving of bread and wine, but rather the washing of each other’s feet.   What if our most prized possessions, as a church, were not a silver chalice and patten, or even a cross, but a jug of water and a towel?  What message might that communicate to the wider world about our mission to Love God, and love our neighbours?

So, Maundy Thursday comes at us with a blizzard of meanings.  I hope these last few minutes have opened up some of them.  Maundy Thursday hasn’t quite finished with us yet, though!  At the end of this service, we will strip the Altar bare, and carry off the consecrated body of Christ into the lonely seclusion of the Lady Chapel.  By doing so, we will remember how Jesus was himself carried away from his disciples.  How bereft must they have felt?  How lost, how frightened they must have been!  Perhaps this loneliness might remind us of those we know who are feeling lonely and lost tonight.  Perhaps we might reach out to them, wash their feet, metaphorically, and offer them a touch of God, and sense of communion too?  Amen.

Father Almighty?

Preached at Cathedral Evensong on Sunday 19th March 2023 (Mothering Sunday evening)

In the opening line of the Nicene Creed, Christians declare, “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty”.  On Mothering Sunday, it would be perfectly appropriate to query the adjective ‘Father’ – and I did enjoy this morning’s Radio 4 service, during which the Canon Vicar of Guildford Cathedral referred to God as our ‘parent’, rather than Father.  But my primary focus is on the word Almighty.  What do we mean by this word?  It implies that there is nothing which God cannot do, and nothing he does not know.  The all-seeing God can do whatever God wants.  He is omnipotent and omniscient.  Our magnificent Cathedral Choir will recognise the Latin form of Almighty God, which is Deus Omnipotens.

For those who are interested in the origin of words, it might be useful to know that the word most usually translated in English bibles as ‘almighty’ actually means nothing of the sort.  The Hebrew words most often translated as ‘Almighty God’ are ‘El Shaddai’. which has a range of disputed meanings, from ‘the God of the Mountain’ to the ‘God of Two Breasts’ - which is a lovely image for Mothering Sunday.   

While it is generally agreed (by all theistic religions) that God has this ability to simply do whatever God wants, it is also generally agreed that there are limits on what God will, or won’t, interfere with, not least because of the divine principle of free will.  It’s important to note that this agreement does not apply to Islam. Muslims believe that everything that happens is the will of God.  The word ‘Islam’ means ‘surrender’, specifically to God’s active will and activity in the world. 

We have inherited, through church tradition, this core belief in an Almighty God, which, I suggest, is more Islamic than many of us would care to admit.  As a result, I posit, much of our relationship with God can often reduced to a rather desperate pleading for a bending of the self-imposed rules of non-interference.  Our prayers of ‘intercession’ are a prime example of this.  We implore God to act in the world – to make it a better place, to solve the problems of hunger, the climate, corruption, sickness, or any other great evil.  We amend and re-craft our prayers in the hope that they will fall favourably on God’s ears. “If only,” we think, “we can find the right turn of phrase, or the right praying position, or the right amount of diligence to persuade God to act.”  It’s as though we are trying to select the right coin to get a gift from a heavenly vending machine.  But, our own experience is that Almighty God appears to be largely deaf to our pleas.  The great evils persist, Putin still marches on the Ukraine, and God appears to be either (at best) silent and waiting or (at worst) uncaring.  The middle ground between these two positions are those oft-repeated (and awful) phrases, such as ‘God always answers, but sometimes he says no’, or (the even more guilt-inducing) ‘you need to have more faith’.

Of course there is much about the nature of free will involved in this dilemma.  If I pray that God will stay Putin’s hand, for example, I’m actually asking God to ignore the divine principle of free will.  Let us note, then, that the adjective ‘almighty’ is used rather more out of hope than out of experience.   

Rather, and I think more correctly, we more often associate God’s actions with other human beings.  When we give thanks for the healing of a friend, most of us, in truth, are often more grateful for the skill of the medical professionals who tended to them.  I recently had a triple heart bypass, and I must confess, I was rather more relieved to know that my surgeon was a professor of cardiology than I was to know that people were praying for me – as grateful as I was for their love and care.

It is perfectly proper to say that God has acted through the hands of the surgeon, or through the hands of the rescue team in that collapsed building.  In Paul Tillich’s phrase, God is the ground of our being, the inspiring and motivating force behind all good deeds.  In that sense, God’s action in the world is expressed through our hands, and our free-will actions.  God does not act alone, smiting or healing with almighty power.  Rather, God acts in co-operation with humanity, upholding the law of free will, and inspiring us to be agents of God’s will in the world. 

The word ‘almighty’ also carries with it the language of battle.  Mightiness is essential for the winning of wars.   In the eyes of the religious warrior, victory is only achieved by having an almighty God on your side.  Let’s stop talking about God as if he is going into battle for us.  Countless defeated armies (from all sides of the religious wars) know that this cannot be true, as both the Ukrainian and Russian armies could attest today.  So let’s stop describing God as if God is an almighty warrior, fighting for us.

I propose, therefore, that it is time for us to stop throwing around such a fundamentally unhelpful description of God, in our worship and in our prayers.  From our actual experience of God at work, it would be much more accurate to speak of a ‘loving God’ or ‘co-operating God’ or ‘inspiring God’.  Any of those adjectives speak more truthfully of our experience of the God who is, after all, the two breasted God (as one translation of El Shaddai suggests).  I propose, therefore, that it is time to jettison the adjective Almighty, and to re-write the opening line of the Creed.  “We believe in the loving, inspiring, co-operating God” would be a start.  Then, perhaps, our theology would better reflect our experience.

And, on this Mothering Sunday, what about the adjective ’Father’ for El Shaddai, the two-breasted God? Well, you’ll have noticed that I’ve jettisoned ‘Father’ from the first line of my Creed, because I’m profoundly uncomfortable with the God who created both male and female (and all those caught between such poles) being described with such a confined and patriarchal term as ‘Father’.  But that, my friends, is a topic for another sermon altogether.  Amen.

The Violence of Christmas

There’s a lot of violence in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 11.11–15).  Jesus talks about how the Kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, since the time of John the Baptiser…and now, he says (with John in prison) the violent take it by force.

I wonder if you’ve ever contemplated how much violence surrounds the Christmas story.  I’d like to take a few moments to ponder that with you.  But first of all, it might be helpful to define what the word ‘violence’ means.  It is essentially the forcing of one person’s will on another, by the threat or actual use of physical coercion.  It can also mean the forcing of the will of a group of people on another group of people, by physical means.  Terrorism is an obvious type of violence.  Blowing people up, to force your view of the world onto them, is about the most violent thing you can do.  As is military conquest of one nation over another.  But there are other forms of violence too – verbal violence, emotional violence, even intellectual violence – which means the forcing of a particular idea onto others.

Ultimately, violence is about the use of power.  Violence is the way that power relationships go wrong.  When one person (or one group of people) use violence to impose their power onto another, we can usually judge – pretty clearly – that the power-relationship has gone sour.

So what did I mean, just now, when I said that violence surrounds the Christmas story?

Well, first, there is the violence of the state of occupation into which Jesus was born.  The Roman Empire was in control – through violent military conquest.  Their powerful control of the land of Israel was so complete, their threat of violence was so great, that Joseph of Nazareth had no choice but to force his heavily pregnant wife onto the back of donkey, to trek for many days across barren lands, and to have her baby in a barn.  I’m sure that there were countless times along that road that Mary cried out “Why couldn’t we just stay in Nazareth?!”  But the political violence of Rome drove them in another direction altogether.  Violence surrounds the Christmas story.

Then, there is the awful violence of King Herod.  Fearful of losing his power as vassal King over Judea, he plots and schemes to find out where the new ‘King of the Jews’ will be born.  He attempts to manipulate the visiting wise men into being his spies – and when that scheme fails, he slaughters all the male babies in Bethlehem.  Joseph and Mary are forced to flee for their lives into Eqypt to escape the rampant violence of Herod’s henchmen. Violence surrounds the Christmas story.

Those are the obvious examples – but there is other, more subtle, violence too.  Take the Shepherds for example.  Now when I say the word ‘shepherds’, I imagine that most of us have a lovely pastoral picture in our heads.  We imagine a bunch of hearty old men with tea-towels on their heads.  We hear the west-country tones of countless Nativity plays.  “Ohh – let’s go to Bethlehem to see this thing which ‘as come to paaaass!”.  

But this is to miss one of the central themes of the Nativity story. 

Why Shepherds?  Why are Shepherds the group of people specially selected by God to be told the news of the arrival of Jesus.  God could have sent his Angels out to knock on the doors of the ordinary people of Bethlehem -  “bang bang bang!  Wake up – and go down the street to the barn!”.  The Angels could have sung glory in the highest heaven in the local taverns, or over the palace or temple in Jerusalem.  But they didn’t.  

God chose the Shepherds precisely because they were outcasts of their society.  They lived on the edge of towns – they weren’t citizens like everyone else.  They were rough and ready, and they probably stank from all those sheep, their overnight bonfires, and a lack of running water.  Worse still, they didn’t obey all the religious laws – not least the law about not working on the Sabbath…because sheep still need looking after, even on a Sabbath.  So, in religious terms, they were considered unclean and unholy.  Society in general had done violence to them, by essentially excluding them.  They were shut out.  They were deemed ‘unclean’ – which is a kind of religious violence done to them.

You see? Violence surrounds the Christmas story.

So what is God’s response to this violence?  How does he seek to intervene in the violence that humanity does to itself – or in ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ as the old Book of Common Prayer has it? 

If I was God, I think I would have been very tempted to use my almighty power to just sort them out!  But I am not God.  God knows that the answer to violence is not more violence.  No.  God’s answer to the violence of human beings is to send his Son into the world in the most fragile, dependent, UN-powerful form possible…a new born baby.  And not just a baby – completely dependent on his parents for everything – but a baby born in the most humble of circumstances imaginable.  Not a palace.  Not even a house.  A barn.  A stable.  An animal’s food trough.

The answer to violence is not more violence.  To quote the great Mahatma Ghandi – “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”.  The answer to violence in the world today is not more violence – it should be bridge-building, understanding, mutual respect and tolerance.  The answer to the violence of terrorism all across the world is not more violence in return – it should be the seeking of understanding, and the addressing of the kinds of basic injustice which drives terrorists to do terrible things.  Education, social justice, the fair and equitable sharing of the wealth of our planet – these are the things that will overcome the violence.  If only we would give them a chance.

The babe of Bethlehem teaches us by his gentle presence in the midst of the violence of his time that there is another way.  And for that simple, profound lesson, we should surely say with all the angels of Heaven, “Glory to God in the Highest, and peace to his people on earth!”.   Amen.

Advent 2 - Prepare the Way of the Lord

 Readings: Isaiah 11.1–10 & Matthew 3.1–12

Today – and indeed next week too, the Lectionary invites us to consider the place and role of John the Baptiser.  We call him that, these days, because the word ‘Baptist’ has become linked to a particular theological viewpoint.  At the grave risk of slightly offending our Welsh Baptist viewers on the InterWeb, today’s ‘Baptists’ believe that adult baptism is the only legitimate kind.  Most Anglicans disagree….but there isn’t time to go into that now!

So let’s focus down on John the Baptiser – the man.  Matthew, probably based on Mark is convinced that John is the messenger of the Messiah prophesied in Isaiah.  He starts his account, saying “John the Baptiser appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near’.  

It’s worth pausing for a moment to contemplate that word, ‘repent’.  Most of you have heard me talk about it before, but it’s always worth revisiting, I find.  I know that, for me, the word conjures up images of crazed street preachers – pointing at a crowd of drunks and crying ‘repent ye sinners!’.  That image implies that the preacher thinks he’s superior to the crowd.  It has a note of condemnation about it.  But, it’s worth considering the original Greek word – which is metanoia.  It means ‘turn around’.  A call for repentance, then, is less about condemnation, and more like an invitation.  ‘Metanoia’ invites us to stop heading in one direction, and choose to take a new path.  It invites us to stop following the world’s promises about what will fill us, save us, and give our lives meaning.  It invites us to turn instead to the straight and narrow way of the Lord.

John is the last of the Hebrew prophets. He follows the tradition of living apart from civilisation, and of calling people to repent of their evil ways.  Picture the scene:  Imagine a rather dirty fellow, with mad scruffy hair, dressed in camel-skins, and covered in bee-stings. He’s probably got blobs of honey stuck to his shirt, and he’s munching on a locust...and declaring at the top of his voice “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven has come near”.

I wonder what our reaction would be if we met someone like that in the streets of Havant – or even here inside the church. I think we’d try to get him some serious mental health support!  

But there was something about John that attracted people to him. There was something about his message which, according to both Mark and Matthew’s Gospels, attracted people out into the desert from “Jerusalem, all of Judea, and all of the region along the River Jordan” (Mt 3:5)

According to Matthew’s account, John was not a man to mince his words either. He taunted the religious leaders of the day with phrases like “You viper’s brood” (Mt 3:7).  He warned them against the complacency of their religion: saying “Just because you are Abraham’s children, don’t go thinking that gives you an automatic right to heaven” (Mt 7:8 - paraphrased)

There are, in fact, a number of puzzling questions about John. First there is the fact that he didn’t join up with Jesus. Why, after Jesus appeared, didn’t he set aside his baptising, and become a follower of the Lord? And then there’s the fact that when he was in prison he sent word to Jesus to ask him if he really was the Messiah – as we’ll hear next week.

I think that John had a different vision of what the Messiah would be like.  John’s Messiah would be full of swift judgment against the evil people of the day.  See what he says about Jesus in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 3:  “...he will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire”. (Mt 3: 12).  

John’s expectations of the Messiah are rooted in the language and concepts of Hebrew Bible.  In some ways, he was a bit like that street preacher I imagine jabbing his finger at a crowd of drunks.  And, uncomfortably, Jesus simply doesn’t match up to John’s expectations of what the Messiah would be like... should be like.  And he was Jesus’ cousin!  

I wonder how many of us sometimes do that?  How often do we simply assume that God will be as we expect him to be…rather than how God actually is?  How often do we assume that God must surely agree with our beliefs?  

How many Conservative-voters assume God is a Tory?  How many people on the left blithely assume Jesus was a socialist?   How many racists or homophobes automatically assume that God agrees with them?  It’s painfully ironic to observe Vladimir Putin cosying up to the Russian church for approval of his evil plans.  He must think that God is like him.  But, the truth is, we all have a tendency to make God in our own image.  We often imagine God to be a bigger and more powerful version of ourselves – rather than seeking the truth of God in whose image we are made.

John’s language is the language of criticism and warning.  “You’d better do what I say, or God Almighty is going to smite you!”   John’s kind of repentance is a rather mechanistic thing.  “Repent, and be baptised, and you will be forgiven of your sins – you’ll be saved from the wrath that is to come”.  It’s a promise of life, but tinged with the threat of death.

Jesus’ language, on the other hand, is of forgiveness, acceptance, and love.  He speaks of journeys, and the Narrow Way of faith.  John is the apocalyptic doom-sayer.  Jesus offers life, hope and an exciting journey.

Mind you, Jesus is not immune from the apocalyptic tradition.  Certainly, he also gives plenty of warnings, and he even appropriates John’s use of the phrase ‘viper’s brood’ – to describe the religious leaders of the day. (Mt 12.34).  But, on balance, Jesus’ tone is rather different to John’s.  Instead of calling us out to a desert of repentance, he invites us to commune with each other and with him around a meal.  John offers locusts and wild honey.  Jesus offers bread, wine, and a banquet in heaven.  He even includes Samaritans, Zealots, tax collectors and even his future betrayer into that community.  He includes women – which in his time was an incredible thing to do.  

Jesus speaks the language of radical inclusion, whereas John speaks of unquenchable fire and winnowing forks.  Jesus invites all of us on a journey of faith, community-life and growth into beings with the capacity to be like gods.  He calls it the Narrow Way, and the Kingdom.   Jesus calls us to turn away from making up our own ideas about how things should be.  He calls us instead to tune-in to God’s loving, merciful, ultimately positive view of the universe.  The baptism of John saves us from wrath.  The baptism of Jesus invites us on journey of growth and faith.

In this season of Advent, we are invited to take stock of our own journey, and the extent to which we have fully ‘turned around’.  Have we utterly forsaken the false promises of the world, and progressed a little further along the straight and narrow Way of the Lord.  If the answer is ‘yes’, we can give thanks to God, and renew our commitment today.  

If, on the other hand, the answer is ‘well, perhaps not quite yet’ – then we are invited, today, to make a new commitment.  A commitment to forsake the false promises of politicians, of consumerism, of selfish-ambition.  And a commitment to the straight and narrow way of love, generosity, self-sacrifice and deep, deep meaning. 

“Prepare ye the way of the Lord.  Make his paths straight”. Amen.