andygoodliff

Announcements: A Christmas Sermon

I wonder if you’ve announced anything this year? An engagement, a wedding, a birth, a new job, a graduation? Politicians are announcing things all the time. It's one announcement after another in Luke’s gospel. Angels pop up everywhere – in the temple in Jerusalem, in the town of Nazareth in Galilee, on a hillside outside Bethlehem. Each time the angel has news to announce. Angels after all are messengers. They have a message to announce. If Christmas is anything it's a time of announcement. The wait of Advent is over, there is news now to proclaim.

The announcement on each occasion, to Zechariah, to Mary and to the shepherds is first ‘Do not be afraid.’ In a world, in which announcements can often be ones which fill us with fear, that leave us ‘greatly troubled’ or simply terrified, the announcement of the angels is ‘Fear not.’ In Luke’s telling of the story he names some reasons why Zechariah, Mary and the shepherds might be afraid. Yes an angel has appeared, but at the same time, and a source of more on-going fear are the names of Herod and Caesar. Herod and Caesar ruled by making sure they were feared. They traded on fear to keep the people under control. I wonder what names make you afraid? God comes to us to say do not be afraid, do not let your lives be marked by constant fear. Christmas is the announcement, that God has come to make us less afraid. God has come to cast out fear, by causing us to overwhelmed by the opposite of fear: joy. Do not be afraid. I bring you news of great joy!

The second part of the announcement is that this is a message of good news, joy-bringing news. Why should we not be afraid, because God has good news. Into the world, a world of kings and kingdoms, emperors and empires, comes news that will bring rulers down from their thrones, and see  the humbled lifted up: a Saviour has been born. Where the announcements to Zechariah and Mary, were of good news coming, the shepherds receive good news for today. No waiting – the good news of great joy is alive and kicking! The good news is lying in a manger. When a baby is born, nearly always, the announcement is one of joy, life has come into the world, with all the promise and potential that they bring. Hardly ever though do we claim that a new child is a saviour, but this is the astonishing announcement of the angels. God’s gift of salvation to the world, begins not at the resurrection, not at the cross, but in the birth of Jesus. God’s joy bursts forth in a bundle of arms and legs. God’s love pours out in glorious song. Here in Jesus, is the marriage of heaven and earth, and that is something to celebrate.

The final piece of the announcement is something happens to us. Zechariah is silenced, Mary’s womb is filled with growing life, the shepherds are unable to sit still, they have to go and see. There is a definite place for silence at Christmas, amongst all the noise and singing, all the feasting and laughing, there is space for being silent before the manger, allowing the wonder of this birth to fill our hearts once again. Like Mary to treasure and ponder the gift of Christ Jesus the Lord. There is a definite place for life at Christmas, to open ourselves to God to grow his life in us, to become impregnated with the promise: the truth, the grace, the love, the joy, the faith, the hope that is God with us. To let fear go from our hearts and allow the Holy Spirit to overshadow us that we become children of God. Like Mary to say, ‘May your word to me be fulfilled.’ And there is definite place to go and see at Christmas, to go and find the manger, to hurry from where you are and to see this thing that has happened. The angel announces, and it’s an invitation, God’s invitation, to see that the good news is for you today. A Saviour is born.

O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come ye, o come ye to Bethlehem; come and behold him, born the king of angels: O come let us adore him, O come let us adore him, O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord. Amen.

Paul Fiddes Has Written a Novel

Paul Fiddes, Baptist Theology and Professor of Systematic Theology, University of Oxford has published his first novel. Fiddes' first degree was a double first in English Language Literature and Theology. His theology has retained an interest in the novel as his books Freedom and Limit and The Promised End demonstrate. 

Advent 3: Slow or Fast - A Sermon

Increase or decrease?

Wide or narrow?

And this week slow or fast?

This week we measure our lives as disciples

with regard to speed.

Each week we have seen that to measure our lives as disciples of Jesus,

Is a counter-cultural way of life.

The world says increase yourself, promote, sell, grow

And the disciple seeks to become less, that Jesus might become greater.

The world says take the easiest road, the widest gate, cut corners

And the disciples seeks the narrow way, the small gate.

Advent has a lot to do with time and speed.

We look back in time,

we look forward in time,

we’re asked to wait patiently,

in a world that rushes headlong into Christmas.

I acknowledge I am one of those ministers,

who makes their church suffer Advent without Christmas,

who seeks valiantly, and yes, I know, without much success,

to hold their congregation in anticipation and expectation.

I am a firm believer, like the writer of Ecclesiastes,

that there is a time for everything,

and a season for everything under heaven:

a time for Advent and a time for Christmas,

a time for waiting and a time for feasting,

a time for getting ready and a time for celebrating.

I wonder how fast you live your life?

There’s the famous line from the film Top Gun,

when the pilot Maverick, played by Tom Cruise,

says ‘I feel the need, the need for speed.’

Is that you?

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very very slow

and 10 being very very fast,

what number would you give your life?

I’m conscious that for some of us life is lived at an incredibly fast pace,

and its as if we’re always trying to catch up with ourselves;

but there are others, perhaps those who are older,

whose lives can at times, or even all the time, feel incredibly slow,

and we’re always waiting for the next reason to leave the house.

Life has a speed,

sometimes we feel in control of it, other times, its as if it controls us.

Sometimes we cry ‘Hurry up!’ (especially those with young children!)

and at other times we cry ‘Slow down!’ (actually often those again with young children!)

I wonder how fast you think God goes,

what kind of speed is God’s speed,

is God one who is always pulling us to move faster,

or is God one who is always pulling us to move more slowly?

Our reading today says ‘God is not slow’

to which is then added ‘as some understand slowness’,

but ‘God is patient.’

God is slow, but not in the way we normally take about being slow.

God takes his time to do things.

The arrival of Jesus was a long time coming.

As Paul puts it in his letter to the Galatians,

‘when the right time had fully come,

God sent his Son.’ (Gal. 4.4)

The second coming of Jesus has been one expected at various points,

but still we wait.

God is slow.

One thinker has described God as the three-mile-an-hour God. [i]

Three miles being the average speed a human walks,

the average speed Jesus would have walked.

God is a three-mile-an-hour God

because God is love.

Love has a speed, love takes time,

it cannot be hurried.

As one poet expressed it

            ‘Nothing can be loved at speed.’ [ii]

Advent is the church’s set time to learn, or relearn, the habit

of moving at God’s speed,

which is patient, but not inactive.

Good things take time.

We are made to think that being slow is negative,

it can be used as a derogatory term,

but if God is perfect,

then we begin to see that being slow

is be much closer to God’s speed.

We should not think of being slow

as another way of saying being lazy,

of time-wasting.

Being slow has a speed, there is activity,

there is movement, a participation in time,

just not one that is forever rushing.

Living more slowly, or attempting to,

gives an opportunity to pay attention to the things that matter,

which most often will be the things that matter to God,

which is also to find our lives woken up to God’s desires

and as such a means of Christ becoming greater –

what Peter names as ‘holy and godly lives.’

Part of how we know God takes time,

is on the seventh day of creation he rested,

and he commanded the people of Israel to follow the same pattern.

We should think of Sabbath – days of rest –

as slow days.

Being slow is made holy.

Holy and godly lives build in rest,

of time for the soul, of space for just being and stillness

over the need to always be doing and constantly active.

If in God’s kingdom, the last become first,

we might also say, slow is the new fast.

I love the season of Advent,

because it returns me every year

to living in God’s time.

Advent says to us wake up,

its not a time for sleep

and at the same time, Advent says it is not time for endless activity.

It's a time for readiness,

or discovering patterns of life that enter into God’s time,

which embraces being slow,

and resists an endless need for speed.

The Advent person, unlike Top Gun’s Maverick, prays,

‘I feel the need, the need for slowness.’

I wonder who in your life helps you learn to be slow?

Maybe it's a child, or grandchild, maybe a neighbour or friend,

Maybe it's a parent or work colleague.

I wonder if you appreciate them for that gift

or find yourself forever frustrated.

What would it take to thank God for the slower people in your life,

and to see them as means of living in the way of God?

I want to offer a final reflection on v.12,

which can be translated as either:

            ‘as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming’

                        or

            ‘waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God.’

Peter here joins waiting with speed.

On the face of it the phrase sounds absurd. [iii]

How can you wait for something you’re at the same time hastening?

It sounds like an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. 

The hastening that waits.

I wonder if that’s a description of your life.

We live between wanting things to happen faster,

            but knowing that time is often needed:

                        whether it be a healing of body,

a job to appear,

an acceptance of forgiveness                      

a birth to arrive,

                        sometimes even a death.

The hastening that waits.

I wonder if that’s an apt definition of love.

We live between wanting a person to change

            But knowing that time is often need:

                        Whether it be a child’s behaviour,

                                                a spouse’s habits,

                                                a friend’s self-confidence or worth.

The hastening that waits.

I wonder if that’s a suitable self-understanding for the church

It’s what we’re doing together right now:

pausing to wait on God in the midst of all our urgency.

We want to speed the future of our buildings,

            And we are learning to wait.

We want to speed journeys of coming to faith,

            And we are learning to wait.

It’s certainly a phrase that sums up the season of Advent:

the hastening that waits,

what we might call the slow speed of God.

Let me invert the famous mission statement of Star Trek,

‘Go slowly, where Jesus has gone before.’

Amen.

 

[i] Much of this sermon has be helped by reading John Swinton, Becoming Friends of Time (Baylor/ SCM, 2017).

[ii] Michael Leunig, ‘Another Way of Being’ cited in Stephen Pickard, Seeking the Church (SCM, 2012), 213n.

[iii] This final section borrows heavily from Sam Wells’ Advent sermon, ‘The Hastening the Waits’, 10 Dec 2017, St Martin in the Fields.

Best Books I've Read in 2017

Here's the best books (in no particular order) I've read in 2017. 

Beginnings by Stanley Hauerwas & Brian Brock

Protestants: A History by Alex Ryrie 

Undomesticated Dissent by Curtis Freeman

Jox Cox: More in Common by Brendan Cox

The Book of Mary by Nicola Slee

Look Back in Hope by Keith Clements

Still by Lauren Winner

Speaking Out - Ed Balls

Golden Hill - Francis Spufford

When in Romans by Beverly Gaventa

Dissenting Spirit by Anthony Clarke and Paul Fiddes

Dementia by John Swinton

Things Can Only Get Worse by John O'Farrell

 

Advent 1: Increase & Decrease - A Sermon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Increase and Decrease
John 3.30

  

We make measurements all the time.

How much water do I need to add?

How long does this shelf need to be?

How far is it to the post office?

How long will it take to get to my holiday destination?

Is this dress or pair of trousers the right size?

Can I squeeze my car into that gap?

Everyday life is a set of calculations and measurements.

We all need a bit of basic maths.

How’s yours?

I want for these four Sundays of Advent

to try and measure our being disciples.

The gospel requires us to measure our lives.

This is what I’ve discovered.

The gospels talk about increase and decrease,

wide and narrow,

slow and fast,

light and heavy.

See it as an opportunity to look at your life and see if you measure up,

and if not, to do something about it.

Advent reminds us that Jesus could come at any moment,

So we need to be awake and ready.

John the Baptist’s disciples are concerned

that the flow of traffic going to Jesus is getting bigger,

and the interest in John is getting less.

John’s agent thinks its time John thought about releasing a new album,

or writing his memoir,

or dating some eligible beauty from Jerusalem.

He needs to get back in the limelight.

Celebrity is fickle,

you constantly have to be making the news,

otherwise you risk becoming old hat, discarded,

yesterday’s news,

a footnote to bigger stories.

And what does John say.

He says he is yesterday’s news,

he is old hat,

he is just a footnote in the story.

It’s time for him to take his bow.

‘I am not the Messiah’ he says.

‘I’m just a friend of the bridegroom,

and I’m full of joy that he is here

and I have heard his voice.

He must now become greater – he must increase,

and I must become less – I must decrease.

Where John could have seen Jesus as a rival,

a competitor,

someone who was squeezing onto his patch,

he takes a different path,

and steps aside.

He’s been the warm-up act,

now comes the performance that really matters.

John knows he is in light of knowing who Jesus is.

The world for a moment had been centred around John,

He was pulling the crowds,

even the authorities were taking an interest,

but at the arrival of Jesus,

he says that his joy

is a life now re-centred around Jesus.

The astonishing truth of Christianity

is that we believe that there is one human being

who is greater than the rest.

We might be tempted to play this down,

to emphasis not Jesus himelf, but his teaching.

But here’s the thing you can’t have Christianity without Jesus.

John was one who understood that.

He understood his whole life in the light of Jesus.

In the world’s eyes John was a failure,

he didn’t find a way to keep the spotlight on him,

he refused to keep standing,

and instead sat down,

and said

‘Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world’

            ‘I have seen and I testify that this is God’s chosen one’

            ‘He must become greater, I must become less.’

I wonder what it means for us to live like that?

What does it mean for Jesus to increase

and we to decrease,

I think it means, who is the centre of your life,

around what does your life find it’s meaning?

It’s purpose?

It’s energy?

When Jesus is the centre,

he becomes greater and we become less.

It is to learn the gospel truth,

that there is a Saviour and it isn’t me.

To say Jesus is greater,

is to lift him up,

and of course that is what happens.

Jesus is lifted up,

he is lifted up on a cross.

Jesus is the greater because

he lays down his life,

he washes his follower’s feet.

This is what it looks like to be full of grace and truth.

Jesus is the greatest in the kingdom,

And he is the servant of all.

He is the model of what being human look likes,

without the disease of sin.

The paradox at the heart of gospel

is the one who is greater comes to be less,

the who is rich comes to be poor,

the who is stronger comes to be weak.

We rightly lift Jesus up,

we seat him on the throne,

and he just keeps getting off to be with us,

he keeps kneeling at our feet,

he keeps giving himself away

for the sake of the world,

for the sake of each one of us.

John learns what it is to be like Jesus:

He must increase, I must decrease.

This is the first way to measure being a disciple:

Does your life allow Jesus to increase?

Does it allow the grace and truth of Jesus to be seen more and more?

Does your life limit Jesus, control Jesus?

Or is Jesus bursting out into the way you

talk, act, think, eat, work, play, relate, love?

John’s words are perhaps repeated in the form of a daily prayer.

The new world that Advent announces,

the new hope that Advent reveals,

is both a universal and local.

God is at work in the whole world

and God is at work in us.

The new world, new hope

finds it sign of visibility in a people

that pray

‘Lord Jesus may you increase as I decrease.’

Advent 1: Increase & Decrease - A Sermon

Increase and Decrease
John 3.30

  

We make measurements all the time.

How much water do I need to add?

How long does this shelf need to be?

How far is it to the post office?

How long will it take to get to my holiday destination?

Is this dress or pair of trousers the right size?

Can I squeeze my car into that gap?

Everyday life is a set of calculations and measurements.

We all need a bit of basic maths.

How’s yours?

I want for these four Sundays of Advent

to try and measure our being disciples.

The gospel requires us to measure our lives.

This is what I’ve discovered.

The gospels talk about increase and decrease,

wide and narrow,

slow and fast,

light and heavy.

See it as an opportunity to look at your life and see if you measure up,

and if not, to do something about it.

Advent reminds us that Jesus could come at any moment,

So we need to be awake and ready.

John the Baptist’s disciples are concerned

that the flow of traffic going to Jesus is getting bigger,

and the interest in John is getting less.

John’s agent thinks its time John thought about releasing a new album,

or writing his memoir,

or dating some eligible beauty from Jerusalem.

He needs to get back in the limelight.

Celebrity is fickle,

you constantly have to be making the news,

otherwise you risk becoming old hat, discarded,

yesterday’s news,

a footnote to bigger stories.

And what does John say.

He says he is yesterday’s news,

he is old hat,

he is just a footnote in the story.

It’s time for him to take his bow.

‘I am not the Messiah’ he says.

‘I’m just a friend of the bridegroom,

and I’m full of joy that he is here

and I have heard his voice.

He must now become greater – he must increase,

and I must become less – I must decrease.

Where John could have seen Jesus as a rival,

a competitor,

someone who was squeezing onto his patch,

he takes a different path,

and steps aside.

He’s been the warm-up act,

now comes the performance that really matters.

John knows he is in light of knowing who Jesus is.

The world for a moment had been centred around John,

He was pulling the crowds,

even the authorities were taking an interest,

but at the arrival of Jesus,

he says that his joy

is a life now re-centred around Jesus.

The astonishing truth of Christianity

is that we believe that there is one human being

who is greater than the rest.

We might be tempted to play this down,

to emphasis not Jesus himelf, but his teaching.

But here’s the thing you can’t have Christianity without Jesus.

John was one who understood that.

He understood his whole life in the light of Jesus.

In the world’s eyes John was a failure,

he didn’t find a way to keep the spotlight on him,

he refused to keep standing,

and instead sat down,

and said

‘Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world’

            ‘I have seen and I testify that this is God’s chosen one’

            ‘He must become greater, I must become less.’

I wonder what it means for us to live like that?

What does it mean for Jesus to increase

and we to decrease,

I think it means, who is the centre of your life,

around what does your life find it’s meaning?

It’s purpose?

It’s energy?

When Jesus is the centre,

he becomes greater and we become less.

It is to learn the gospel truth,

that there is a Saviour and it isn’t me.

To say Jesus is greater,

is to lift him up,

and of course that is what happens.

Jesus is lifted up,

he is lifted up on a cross.

Jesus is the greater because

he lays down his life,

he washes his follower’s feet.

This is what it looks like to be full of grace and truth.

Jesus is the greatest in the kingdom,

And he is the servant of all.

He is the model of what being human look likes,

without the disease of sin.

The paradox at the heart of gospel

is the one who is greater comes to be less,

the who is rich comes to be poor,

the who is stronger comes to be weak.

We rightly lift Jesus up,

we seat him on the throne,

and he just keeps getting off to be with us,

he keeps kneeling at our feet,

he keeps giving himself away

for the sake of the world,

for the sake of each one of us.

John learns what it is to be like Jesus:

He must increase, I must decrease.

This is the first way to measure being a disciple:

Does your life allow Jesus to increase?

Does it allow the grace and truth of Jesus to be seen more and more?

Does your life limit Jesus, control Jesus?

Or is Jesus bursting out into the way you

talk, act, think, eat, work, play, relate, love?

John’s words are perhaps repeated in the form of a daily prayer.

The new world that Advent announces,

the new hope that Advent reveals,

is both a universal and local.

God is at work in the whole world

and God is at work in us.

The new world, new hope

finds it sign of visibility in a people

that pray

‘Lord Jesus may you increase as I decrease.’