andygoodliff

A Sermon for Good Friday

This week I was reading an article. Robert Colls writes about Westoe Methodist church in South Shields where he went as a child and young adult in the 1960s, and which closed in 2022.[1] He reflects on the ‘world within a world’, where a vibrant community life centred around the worship of Jesus took place. He reflects on Sunday mornings for worship and Saturday evenings, his parents dancing, 'where in the break you got a home-made supper that proved the parable of the loaves and the fishes.' He reflects on being part of the Boys Brigade company — 'Silver pips, stripes and badges came and went for all these things, but the cadences of the Bible stayed. They come easy to me now. Best of all, there was lots of football and cricket, although the kit was something else.' Older, he joined the Young People’s Fellowship. 'If you wanted to meet the girls, you had to go church.' He says 'The YPF was important in ways I’m still trying to figure out . . .  Sundays provided the venue. Bible and hymnbook provided the wonder. Local preaching provided the ‘oracy.’ The minister provided leadership, and the books.' He says, ‘Clubs’ and ‘squashes’, ‘fellowships’ and ‘sisterhoods’, ‘Packs’ and ‘leagues’, choirs and Sunday schools, Communion and ‘contact’ groups — the names said it all in a common round that brought people into regular and informal union.' He says, 'we talked about Jesus Christ almost as if he was a member away at university (long hair, at Oxford, probably).' The article is called The Death of the Church. He says the closing of churches ‘leaves a gap in who we are . . . Scanning a screen is not the same as belonging to anything as complex as a church.'

Last Friday, I took the train to Streatham in South London. This is where I group up. We lived in Thornton Heath, but church was Streatham Baptist Church, known by everyone who went as Lewin Road. The church was a second home. Being back in the building — which had a big redevelopment after we moved as a family to Stevenage in 1992 — I could still remember places I sat in a service; where a door and steps down into a small garden area had been; where an outside staircase that went up to the room I went into for Sunday school. The hall was still the same where I attended playgroup as a toddler, and 7ups as a junior aged child. Being in the building also brought to my mind a community of faces, who had been part of the congregation, who had been part of my life, a community of generations, from 0 to 90 — so many names. My life, my faith, owes a lot to that church, in ways I can only recognise now. I could tell a similar story about the church I joined in Stevenage, Bunyan Baptist, in which I spent my teenage years, and early adulthood. There again was a community that loved me, encouraged me, took an interest in me, prayed for me. I can tell another story of the last thirteen years being here, at Belle Vue.

Today is Good Friday, why am I sharing this? Partly because it has been on mind this week, but more importantly it reminds me of the power of the cross. The cross of Jesus is the beginning of the church. From the death of Jesus comes something new. And we see it in the words of Jesus to his mother and the beloved disciple. The last time we met Jesus’ mother was in Cana. Jesus said then ‘My hour has not yet come.’ On the cross his hour has come. If the water into wine was the first sign of Jesus, the cross is the supreme sign [2], to be equalled only by what happens on Sunday morning. The supreme sign of God’s love for the world and for his only Son being given for the salvation of the world.

Ahead of his arrest, Jesus had said, ‘when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.’ Here at the cross he is drawing a new community together. Here on the cross, Jesus is the vine, and he is creating branches which will bear fruit. A new family is born at the cross who share the same blood, the blood of the cross [3] The impact of Jesus’ words, are that the beloved disciple receives this woman as his own. This has been the good news from the beginning. Jesus comes to his own, and to all who receive him, they become children of God, born not of natural descent, but born of God. The community of Jesus — the church is where we are thrown together by Jesus and freed to call these people whom we have no natural affinity, nothing in common, ‘brother’ and ‘sister.’[4]

This is the work of Jesus, the work the Father gave him. This is what Jesus says is now finished, It is the creation of a community of love, a new family of grace and truth, a fellowship centred on abiding, receiving, living. Its source is Jesus, and its power is the cross. Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground a dies, says Jesus, It remains only a single seed, but if it dies, it produces many seeds.

I was speaking to someone from Lewin Road this week. Someone I’ve not seen in over thirty years. She told me how her family came to the church. A few years later, when she was not even ten years old, her mum died. Afterwards her father struggled to cope. One day she came home from school, to find the police there, her father was having to be committed, and they asked her did she have anywhere to go? (This was the 1960s!) She ended up going to the home of a woman called Lois, by then in her sixties. And later she was fostered by a couple in the church. This young girl was loved, as a daughter, as a sister: from that hour she was received into a home. This was salvation in its fullest sense, a kind of heaven on earth. She went on being welcomed at Lois’ home, and later when she was older, married, and had a child of her own, she would visit Lois with her own daughter. Lois then much frailer, then in her eighties.

That’s the gospel. That’s the power of the cross. That’s why we call Good Friday ‘Good.’ The Good Shepherd lays down his life for us. The Good Shepherd who knows our name. The Good Shepherd who says, ‘here is your son’, ‘here is your mother’, ‘here is your brother’, ‘here is your sister.’

 

[1] Robert Colls, 'The Death of a Church', New Statesman 22-March - 4 April 2024

[2] David Ford, Gospel of John (Baker Academic, 2021)

[3] Timothy Radcliffe, Seven Last Words (Burnes and Oates, 2006)

[4] William Willimon, Thank God's Friday (Abingdon, 2004)

X Marks the Spot: A Christmas Sermon

Earlier this year Tim and I read Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. You might have read it too or seen the Muppet version. I remember as a child having it on cassette tape. A young boy called Jim ends up with a map that identifies an island where a pirate’s treasure is buried. It’s a great story, and so for those who don’t know it, I won’t say anything more which might spoil it. Treasure Island was one of the first stories written where there is a map with an ‘X’ that marks the spot. Treasure maps always now have an X that marks the spot.

There’s something in our imagination that likes the idea of a map leading to hidden treasure. I wonder how you’d feel if someone this morning gave you a map and said you need to follow this to find your presents? But more than presents, I wonder what is, or who is, the treasure you are searching for? What is it in life that you most want? What promised treasure would make you go to any length to find it?

The Christmas story is a story of treasure being found.

We might think of the Old Testament as like a map, a map with an X that marks the spot. The story of Israel is a map of promises: a child will be born — a prince of peace (Isa 9.6); a new king from the line of king David (Jer 33.15); a new shepherd of God’s people (Ezek 34.23); a new prophet like Moses (Deut 18.18); a ruler who will come from Bethlehem (Micah 5.2); a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven (Dan 7.13); a king riding a donkey (Zec 9.9); a servant who will bring God’s justice (Is 42.1); and a baby born to a virgin, and given the name Immanuel (Isa 7:14). God leaves clues to this treasure. It’s a map that wasn’t a straightforward to follow, but makes more sense after the treasure is found.

The Christmas story includes magi or wise men, who make a long journey from the east following a star — this is their map — they cross deserts and rivers, they travel through cold nights and scorching days, seeking the ‘x’ — the final destination of the star, believing it will lead them to someone to be treasured, to be worshipped. ‘Go and search carefully’ for the treasure they are told by one person they meet on their journey. They wonder where the star will stop. The ‘x’ ends up being in Bethlehem.

The Christmas story also includes shepherds who aren’t looking for anything, just going about their business, watching their sheep, perhaps warming themselves by a fire on a cold hillside. But angels appear and give them a map, a destination, and a sign to know when they’ve found the treasure. ‘You will find’ the angels say talking about the treasure. And off the shepherds hurry with their map.

God brings his greatest treasure, from heaven all the way to tiny Bethlehem. This most wondrous gift, full of grace and glory and truth, wrapped in cloth and laid in a manger. X marks the spot. Angels longed to see, prophets searched to find and after all the waiting, following, and searching God’s treasure is now revealed.

God’s treasure is nothing less than God himself. All this following and searching leads to God in human flesh. This is the great joy for all people including you and me. This is God’s gift of peace to the earth. This is Immanuel. This is the X on the map. Jesus Christ, or in Greek Xristos — the first letter being a ‘X’. Some people like to shorten Christmas to ‘Xmas’ and for other people this gets them really cross, and they say ‘its Christmas not Xmas.’ But in the letter X we are reminded that in what we are celebrating today is the greatest treasure the world has ever and will ever know. This is where it all leads, to this place, to this day, to this moment: a child lying in a manger in Bethlehem. This child who is the ‘Christ’ — the promised Saviour, the glory of God among us. The birth of Jesus marks the spot 'where God determines to be with us for ever, come what may. This is the heart of it all.' This is mystery of it all. This is wonder of it all.

What do you do with this treasure? Finding the X on the map, finding the treasure buried, is not the end, it’s a new beginning. The journey doesn’t end with Christmas, it goes on, in a new way. In his famous poem about the Magi, T. S. Eliot ends with the magi returning home, but no longer at ease, because finding Jesus had changed them. They were different people. This treasure has the ability to change our lives. In finding Jesus, we have been made rich beyond measure; rich not in terms of money, but rich in love, rich in mercy, rich in a different way of living. X marks the spot. The spot where God says here is my greatest treasure, now what?

May you know the riches of Jesus. May you find the treasure of God. And of course let me wish you a very happy Xmas!

Three Welcomes: A Christmas Sermon

(Sing) ‘Welcome everybody, it’s good to see you here.’ Let me say I hope you feel a warm welcome this morning. It is very true today that it’s good to see you here. I wonder if you’ve welcomed anyone recently? Perhaps someone to your home to visit in the last few days, perhaps someone new at work or at school in the last few months, perhaps you have welcomed someone to Belle Vue, perhaps even this morning. I wonder what you said and what you did to make the person feel welcome.

The word welcome means ‘desired guest’? It’s made up of two Old English words — wella meaning desire and cuma meaning guest. I’m talking about welcome because I want to suggest that it is a good way to look at the Christmas story. At the heart of this story is welcome.

At the beginning of the Nativity story, there is the visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary. Gabriel brings news of great joy — of blessing, salvation, of conception. The news though is dependent upon Mary’s welcome: is the son announced, one that she can welcome as a desired guest? It is not altogether clear that the angel’s words are welcome ones. She is young, betrothed, but not yet married, she is a virgin. To accept the angel’s words will have consequences and quite possibly dangerous ones. There is also no sign that Mary is longing for a child, at least at this moment, there is no sign that Mary is ready for a child, if one can ever be ready. And yet Mary determines to be one who welcomes, who welcomes God into her very life, to give her body over as a host of the divine, and carry God within her womb. (Sing) How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given, and welcomed. Mary’s welcome is joined with her relative’s Elizabeth’s welcome: Blessed are you, she says to Mary and blessed is your child. This child Mary carries is a desired guest.

Every year Bethlehem gets bad report. We create a story of innkeepers saying there is no room. We create a story of unwelcome. ‘Because there was no room for them in the inn’ is the way these words have often been translated, but the better wording is ‘because there was no room for them in the guest room.’ Joseph and Mary were travelling to Bethlehem because Joseph was from the house of David, He was returning to family — how often would Joseph have travelled to Bethlehem, whenever he made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem? There was no room in the family guest room, because Joseph wasn’t the only one coming to Bethlehem. The whole of Bethlehem was 'surg[ing] with the influx of relatives coming to register, and every corner of every house hosted someone.' The whole town worked to make room for everyone. Luke describes a full house — all the rooms have someone staying in them and the only space left by the time Mary and Joseph arrive is the open stall area among the livestock, where a manger stood. The house was 'bursting at the seams', but Joseph and Mary would have been there for meals around the table, part of the family, welcomed as desired guests. When Mary’s labour began, she would not have been alone, but the other women in the home would have been on hands to help, to be with her as she welcomed her child into the world.* The arrival of Jesus, is welcomed by Mary, by Joseph, by those they were staying with, by all of Bethlehem in the form of shepherds, by all of heaven in the form of angels. Jesus is the desired guest who arrives. He is welcomed as a royal guest, He is welcomed as a promised saviour.

We have explored how Jesus was welcomed, but I want to step back and turn the welcome around, for Christmas is not first how we welcome God, but instead it is the story of God’s welcome of us. God taking human flesh, God being born a baby is the desire of God to welcome us, to see us as a desired guest in creation, in heaven and earth, in the life of God. What we celebrate at Christmas is God reaching out to welcome us. We live in God’s world, we live in God’s story, and the gift of Christmas, the incarnation of Jesus, is to announce God’s welcome: Jesus is God’s welcome in flesh and blood.

Christmas is a lesson in welcome: may we learn from Mary and Bethlehem what it means to welcome God and to welcome one another into our lives. But its more than a lesson it a message to broadcast everywhere: that God welcomes us, welcome is part of the very nature of God and God calls, summons, invites, longs, for us to welcome him. ‘Come and let me be born in you’, Jesus says to each one of you. ‘Come and let me be born among you’, Jesus says to this community.

(Sing) O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin, and enter in;  be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels  the great glad tidings tell; O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Immanuel.

 

* This section has borrowed from Kelly Nikondeha, The First Advent in Palestine (Broadleaf, 2022), 83-85.

A Christmas Congregation: A Sermon

In the early hours a congregation gathers.
Some are just arriving; others have already found somewhere to sit.
There is the usual whispered conversation.
This is the first time this particular congregation has come together.
Present are:
a husband and wife;
a bunch of shepherds;
and some mysterious travellers from the east.
They are joined by animals: a cow, a donkey, a sheep, and a camel.
It’s an unusual bunch.
All have gathered to worship the Christ-child.
This is the first Christmas.

Footwear is removed, for like Moses before the burning bush,
to everyone it feels like a holy place.
All are on their knees;
all eyes gazing on the tiny flesh.
This is a sacred moment.
Words of scripture are shared:
‘For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.’
‘But you Bethlehem, though you are small,
out of you will come for me, one who will be ruler over Israel.’
‘And he will be called Immanuel.’
Praises are sung, ‘Glory to God in the highest’
and gifts are given.
This is the first Christmas.

Someone has some bread, its broken and shared.
One of the travellers passes round a flask of wine.
A small meal, gratefully received by all.
It feels like manna from heaven,
in the early hours of a new day.
Everything feels strange. It is as if something new is beginning,
but its hard to put into words.
The child cries in the manger,
wrapped up tight to keep out the cold.
All eyes remained fixed on his face,
overjoyed in his presence,
hearts wondering at what this birth means.
This is the first Christmas.

In to the silence one by one the congregation
speaks a testimony,
a story of how they came to be here.
A star rising drew the eastern travellers to make their journey;
angels, say the shepherds, in the sky singing of good news in David’s city;
a messenger from God says Mary; a heavenly dream says Joseph,
and of course also Caesar’s census — otherwise they’d be back in Galilee.
They all sense the mysterious ways of God
that has led them to share in this moment of grace,
to join in the welcome of this baby:
a Saviour, a Messiah, the Son of God, the Lord of lords.
Nothing is said. Silence falls on the congregation.
The only sound is the murmur of the child,
sleeping in the manger.
This is the first Christmas.

The congregation gathers.
Some are still slipping in at the back as the first carol is sung,
Others have been greeting one another with a merry Christmas.
There are children holding presents,
and parents bleary-eyed, stifling a yawn.
Old and young, all have made their way,
some have walked, some have come by other means,
but there are no donkeys or camels.
This is Christmas.

What connects today with that first Christmas?
What is it that draws a congregation to gather on December the 25th?
What’s the meaning of it all?
It’s the story and promise of God with us.
Jesus is God with us.
And as they gathered at that first Christmas,
to worship the Christ-child,
so we gather still.
Every year this day is broken up by our coming to worship,
every week our lives are broken up by worship because of this day.
The worship of Jesus begins at Christmas.
We keep celebrating Christmas, we keep gathering as a congregation,
because we believe that the one who is born
‘bears within himself the whole truth and nothing but the truth
about us and about all that exists.’ *
What was true of that child in the manger is still true today:
Jesus is Saviour and Lord.
It is that simple and that astonishing.
The Jesus born of Mary
is the same Jesus who we say is alive today.
The old, old story of angels and shepherds, wise men and stars
and a baby born in Bethlehem
is an always new, new story because it speaks of God become flesh.
In Jesus we see the Creator become a creature.
In Jesus we see the One who conceived all things be conceived in a womb
and born in a stable.
In our singing of carols,
in our bringing of gifts,
in our telling the story,
in our lighting of candles,
in our breaking of bread,
Jesus is as close to us
as he was to those present on that first Christmas day.

To be near Jesus,
to know Jesus
is to know and receive joy.
One of my favourite descriptions in the first Christmas story is
where it says the magi ‘were overjoyed.’
They were overwhelmed with joy.
There was an abundance of joy.
Too much joy.
Joy is the gift that comes with the Christ-child.
Jesus is our joy. His presence is the gift of joy.
Joy comes on Christmas morning
and we leave going with joy,
because we go with Christ.
We are overjoyed because we live in a world in which Christ is present.
Joy is not the same as happiness.
Happiness is a feeling, an emotion, that comes and goes.
Joy stays with us, because Christ stays with us,
even through unhappy days.
So I hope you have a happy Christmas,
but more importantly I pray you have a joyful Christmas.
As that first congregation experienced the joy of Jesus,
lying in a manger,
the fullness of God’s love,
so we all these later still experience that same joy of Jesus,
as he fills our hearts
with his love, beauty and truth and presence.
Joy to the world, the Lord has come.
Joy to the earth, the Saviour reigns.
He comes to make his blessings flow.
Joy to you, for Jesus is here.

 

* Chris Green, All Things Beautiful: An Aesthetic Christology (Baylor, 2021)

An Interrupted Christmas: A Sermon

I wonder when was the last time you were interrupted? It might have been someone cutting across you as you were speaking. It might have been a happening that interrupted the way you thought your day was going to go. It was almost definitely the way you thought your Christmas was going to go. The emergence of the virus has interrupted nearly the whole of this year.

The Christmas story is a story of interruptions. We begin with Mary. Mary’s busy at home, and is interrupted by an angel, to tell her that her life is going to be interrupted by God and a pregnancy. We turn to Joseph. He’s excited to be getting married, then everything gets interrupted by news that Mary is pregnant, but before he can end things, his dreams get interrupted by an angel again, telling him to hold fast to the marriage. Having barely got to grips with the pregnancy and the marriage, both Mary and Joseph lives get interrupted by Caesar and his census, and a journey they now have to make to Bethlehem. Once at Bethlehem, the baby is born, and then as they are dealing with these first few hours, they get interrupted by uninvited visitors in the shape of some shepherds — these shepherds have themselves been interrupted on their cold night by angels (again!) who have turned up to tell them the news of this birth. Some time later another interruption comes in the form of a visit of magi, whose lives had been interrupted by a star, and then by Herod. Following the visit of these eastern travellers, Mary and Joseph and the baby find their stay in Bethlehem comes to an abrupt end through the violent intentions of Herod, and they have to flee all the way to Egypt to kept the child safe.

God is one who likes to interrupt, to interrupt the world, to interrupt our lives, with his grace, with his unrelenting love. And at the same time the world — in the nativity story represented by Casear and Herod — like to make their own interruptions, interruptions of power and violence, interruptions of demand and dominance. In the middle of all of this are Mary and Joseph, and a baby. In the middle of this are you and me.

And this baby is the greatest interrupter of them all, not just because that is what the arrival of children does to adults lives (!), but in this baby is the arrival of God himself. God chooses to interrupt our time, our history, our humanity, out of a desire, a love, a commitment to be with us for ever. This baby is the definitive interruption and revelation of God ever to be seen.

And Mary and Joseph, and you and me, are confronted by the question of whether we welcome the interruption of this baby in our lives, to allow who we are to be re-directed, re-ordered, re-newed in ways that mirror the God-child. This interruption of Jesus can be sudden and dramatic, but it can also be slow, hidden, giving way to a surprise. Christmas says be ready to have your lives interrupted, God is coming to unsettle the powers, to disturb our stories with the glory of heaven, with his wondrous mercy. This Christmas, the hardest perhaps we’ve ever had to face, will we be like Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and magi, and become part of Christ’s interrupting people? Announcing in word and song and action the justice and joy, the peace and presence, the love and life that is Jesus and the kingdom.

This Christmas as we continue to live within the interruption of this virus, with the interruption of growing poverty, on-going racism, and an inert response to the climate emergency, Jesus comes to us, the ever new hope for a world that turns every interruption whether from God or not, into an opportunity for truth and grace to be sown into the fabric of the world, and the beating of hearts. May our interrupted Christmas give way to the newness of God.

Glory to the God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.

Making Connections: A Pentecost Sermon

I once read that ‘Christianity is connections’ [i] and it's a sentence that has lingered in my mind ever since. I’ve found it helpful to talk about the church as a people and a place centred on making connections. There’s always something more to discover, another connection to be made. This way of seeing the church is founded on abundance. That can be a surprising way of describing the church, because more often than not what we can see in church is what we lack, where we’re short, what we don’t have. And so to say the church is founded on abundance is to learn to see the church differently, to look what we have been given, what are the gifts among us and that is to make connections again, to draw every person into the picture, to stop suggesting that some of us are givers and others of us are receivers, but instead all are of us are giving and receiving sharing in the cascade of grace from God through Jesus and the joy of the church is the work of making connections.

Why am I talking about making connections on Pentecost Sunday? Because I believe making connections is another way of talking about the work of the Holy Spirit. The joyful, wonderful work of the Holy Spirit is to make the most surprising, astonishing connections in our lives. At its heart is the connection the Spirit makes between us and Jesus. We know Jesus through the connecting work of Holy Spirit, through baptism and communion, through prayer and scripture, through other people and creation.

Acts 2 is a description of the Spirit’s connecting work. The gift of the Spirit causes the international crowd to find a connection with the disciples — ‘each one heard their own language being spoken.’ The gift of the Spirit causes Peter to make a connection with the prophetic word of Joel and see it as a word for the present. The gift of the Spirit is to enable the connection to be made that God was in Jesus and God is now in this moment pouring out his Spirit on all people. The gift of the Spirit is hearts open, of repentance, baptism, forgiveness, and so a new connection with God through Jesus. The gift of the Spirit is a growing church, of new people being added, new connections created. The rest of the book of Acts goes on to give an account of the Spirit’s connecting work, of lives being threaded together, of prison doors being opened, of powerful words being spoken, of lives healed, of new revelation.

What we celebrate today is how the Holy Spirit works to connect us with God, with each other, and with creation in ways that cannot be predicted or always anticipated, in ways that often just happen and we find ourselves lost in wonder, love and praise. I wonder how the Holy Spirit has been showing up in your life recently?

I think the Holy Spirit has shown up in the telephone. I’m thinking of the commitment of some of you to making connections through the telephone. Making connections is better understood here as befriending, keeping alive the opportunity of conversation, of connection, of community that pushes against feelings of loneliness, isolation and separation.

For some of you this has become a new ministry, and I believe it is a ministry of the Holy Spirit, a ministry that receives as much as it gives. It is characterised by kindness which originally has its origins in the word kin meaning family. [ii] Kindness is about treating one another as family, as our kin, as our brothers and sisters. This is what God does in Jesus: Jesus is the kindness of God with us, He becomes our kin, that we might become his kin and the Holy Spirit continues to grow in us kindness that we might recognise each other in Jesus as our kin, our family. In this time we’ve been separated from one another, the Holy Spirit has been teaching us how to show kindness to one another, how to see one another as kin.

I think the Holy Spirit has also shown up in a renewed sense of solidarity, the Spirit brought us together, not just as church, but as local communities, in the simple activities of making rainbows and stopping to clap. And these were not ideas of the state, but local ideas that spread like wildfire, they were Spirit-inspired. They have been a form of hopeful imagination,a concern for the neighbour working on our behalf, a desire for a more just society. The divisions that have separated us from one another politically in the last few have been put away as we have found ourselves separated physically. We have found new connection to an idea of being a united kingdom, its fragile, and is already fraying, but I am suggesting that perhaps the Spirit has been stirring again within us, between us, a new connection to one another and to the virtue of justice shaped by love. If the Spirit is teaching us about kindness as a form of kinship, I think the Spirit might also be teaching us about solidarity that calls us to see that which is unjust — I name just one example, the treatment of care workers. The Spirit’s connecting work is not just spiritual, but political and economic.

And I wonder if the Spirit has been turning up in our zoom gatherings, enabling us to here different voices, and seeing each other’s faces, joining us together in prayer, and in sharing communion. This is a connection with faith, encouraging one another to trust in God, to be patient, to laugh together and share in sorrow. The Spirit has been showing us that we are not abandoned by God, but God has been more present in this adversity and challenge. This time has been, I suggest again, a strange gift for our faith, not one we choose, or I think is God ordained, yet nevertheless one God has been with us in.

The Holy Spirit who showed up at Pentecost, is the same Spirit showing up yesterday, today and tomorrow in our lives, resting his power and presence on us, calling us to kindness, solidarity and faith. The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was like the coming of a virus that spread from person to person, not with death but Life, it overcame social distance, making new connections across race, gender, class creating a patient community of hope and faith and blessing.

The same Spirit is still changing the world. The same Spirit is still breathing the name of Jesus into hearts. The same Spirit is still enlivening and enlisting us into God’s kingdom companions, believing that ‘the future is bigger than the past.’ [iii]

Come, Holy Spirit, come.

 

[i] Stanley Hauerwas, In Good Company (1995), xiii

[ii] Drawing on Janet Martin Soskice, The Kindness of God (2007)

[iii] This phrase originated with Sam Wells. See now his book with that title.

Together: a sermon for 4th Sunday of Easter

If we read Acts 2.43–47 I wonder what word is most important after God. This is a short description of the church or perhaps we might say this is a short prescription for the church. It’s full of important words. Here are some potential ones: devoted, teaching, fellowship, bread, prayer, awe, signs, believers, give, home, praising, added.

We might say what’s most important is being devoted, its about being committed, being dedicated, being faithful. Your heart’s got to be in it, your body’s got to turn up.

We might say what’s most important is teaching. The most important thing is the Bible, reading and understanding it. This is the source of our faith, this is where we find truth and wisdom.

We might say what's most important is fellowship, lives being shared, supported, friendships being made and strengthened. We pray for the fellowship found, received and shared in the Holy Spirit.

We might say what’s most important is bread, the bread of Communion, the receiving of the bread broken for us. Jesus is the living bread who feeds our faith and nourishes our hope.

We might say what’s most important is prayer, the most important thing is a people who pray with energy, expectation, and enthusiasm. Nothing happens without prayer, it’s like breathing, we wither without it.

We might say what’s most important is awe, being taken beyond this plane into a higher plane, into an experience of the deep presence of God. We want the Transfiguration, Jesus in glory and us being there. We want to experience a vision of the throne of God like John of Patmos.

We might say what’s most important is signs, miracles, wonders, tangibles acts that point to the existence, the power, the heart of God to save, heal and transform. It's about evidence to a disbelieving world, it’s about the kingdom of God now.

We might say what’s most important is believers, it’s about people with faith, belief, trust, who can declare that Jesus is my Lord and Saviour. What changed the disciples, what changed the church was its faith, a faith worth dying for, a faith that trusted through fire and storm.

We might say what’s most important is the word ‘give’, it’s about sharing what we have received. Its about generosity, its about taking what we have and making sure no one goes without, its about fairness and justice.

We might say what’s most important is ‘home’, that place of living, eating, resting, playing, that place of warmth and safety, where we are surrounded by memories, and people we love.

We might say what’s most important is praising, its about worship and song, its about giving thanks to God for his mercies, its about being ‘lost in wonder, love and praise.’

We might say what’s most important is the word added. It’s about growth, about seeing people saved, lives changed, higher attendance, regular baptisms.

All those words are important, they all tell us something about being church. They are perhaps a checklist, a set of ingredients. In the church of your imagination is there somewhere for each of these words? If this is our checklist, our set of ingredients, I wonder how we are doing in lockdown, are any missing? Are we struggling anywhere? Are we doing better on any? I wonder how we were doing before lockdown? I wonder how we might do after lockdown?

There’s one other word I think might be important, it’s the word ‘together’, it crops up twice: 'All the believers were together' and 'Everyday they continued to meet together.' It's the word that connects — teaching, fellowship, bread, prayer, awe, signs, belief, giving, home, praise, growth is the result of this new community that is together; a community that is a response to the resurrection, a community that is being gathered by the Holy Spirit.

The whole story of the Bible can be summed up in the word together. The story begins with God, humanity and creation together, there is life and joy and friendship, and then they come apart, they become separated, when humanity turns away, we refuse the togetherness. We seek a togetherness without God, a togetherness without creation. We see only competition, power, scarcity and that threatens the possibility of togetherness, it creates the concept of the other as stranger and enemy, rather than friend or neighbour.

The rest of the story is how God acts to bring us back together again with Him and with creation. At the right moment God comes Himself in Jesus, to be with us, to be joined together to our life, our condition, in order to heal, liberate and transform us into those who know what it is to be together with each other, together with creation, together with God. The gospel is God’s togetherness plan, Jesus is God’s togetherness plan. In Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection we are invited by God to be with Him as God comes to be with us:we are adopted into God’s family, we are befriended into the Spirit’s community, we are made citizens of the kingdom, we are given a place in the body of Christ.

What is the church? It is a people who have been grafted into togetherness with God, with one another, with creation. God did not create us for isolation, separation, individualism, nationalism, but created us and creation in a story of gift and grace. At the heart of the story is God’s gift of grace Himself that creates a community of gift and grace, where we see we need one another, that we are given to one another for our shared health and flourishing, where we receive grace, but we don’t hold it tightly, but share it, we pass it on, knowing that it is abundant, that we are together in worship and prayer, in fellowship and mutual support, in faith and growth. This community of resurrected people described in Acts is a vision of a community together not just in worship, but in all of life, economic, domestic, social, cultural. This is what happens when Easter is joined to Pentecost, a community of hope and faith and love is born.

We are at the moment rediscovering what togetherness means. We are not together as we knew it, and we long to be again, but we are together in new ways and I don't mean just on zoom. I don’t want to idolise this current time, we’re too in it to see it properly; though I do think let’s be open to how God might be using this time to reveal, to renew, to resurrect something new or something lost about togetherness.

I am finding myself caught between two moods. The first is a longing to get back to being church like it was now eight weeks ago. The second is a wondering if this is a time to ask the question about what being church is. We are in this place where we are being church but not as we have known it. We are being church through zoom, through the telephone, through social media, through helping with shopping, through a brief conversation at a window or front door. Something has definitely been lost, we are grieving from being able to gather. But in that we are perhaps discovering (or might discover) being church as something more church than it ever has been. The first Sunday we can be back, will it be back to what was before or will it be forward to something new?

For Israel exile was the biggest low point, it was a deep trauma, an open wound, the promise to land, to monarchy, to temple, to people was unravelled as Jerusalem was destroyed and many were carted off to a foreign land. But it was also a renewal of its faith and life that never would have happened otherwise: dry bones lives again; a new covenant is promised, a new understanding of the uniqueness of God, the Creator and Redeemer, a new vision of social justice. For the disciples the cross and the resurrection was loss and gift mingled together, was pain and hope joined anew, it was a renewal of everything they thought they knew from Jesus, into something in which the future now was even bigger than the past.

Is this an opportunity to dream church again, to say in what does the church consist and how do we live that together? At the moment we are having to improvise, but is this all temporary? Or could it be a renewal? Is this time a catalyst to birth a new vision, a new understanding, a new conviction about what matters and what matters to God? Today is an invitation to lift our eyes up, to look around, to start imagining what we might learn in this time that we can carry forward into whatever will be after this. Israel was in Exile for 70 years, I don’t think we have that long (I hope not!), so lets not hang about. The God of Easter, the God of resurrection is into resurrection, into giving new life.

6 Words: A message from Emmaus

We had hoped. We had hoped that we would be married next month. We had hoped that she would rally and get better. We had hoped that I wouldn’t lose my job. We had hoped that there might have been a way to forgive. We had hoped that the move meant a fresh start. We had hoped that it would be all over by now. We had hope that he was the one to redeem Israel. We had hoped.

Three words that capture a truthfulness about our lives at some point, perhaps today. There’s an honesty in these words, there’s no pretence; there’s a facing up to the reality that we are people who invest hope in things, in each other, in God. We invest hope that everything will come together, that we will find a way to overcome a problem, and when it doesn’t, we know the bitterness of hope lost, dashed. We had hoped. When hope gets lost, we head home. Two sad companions are heading home to Emmaus.

Stay with us. Stay with us for lunch, for dinner, or for a few days. Stay with us, let’s enjoy time together. Stay with us or in the language of the King’s James: abide with us. In other words don’t go just yet. Those moments you don’t want to be over, you want them to linger on for just a little bit longer. Stay with us. When there’s a shared moment of joy or discovery or intimacy, something tangible which transcends the usual, and you want to hang on to it. Stay with us. This is an invitation, but perhaps also an invocation. There’s a longing here. Hearts are burning in the presence of the one with them, although the two companions are perhaps not yet fully aware of it.

The whole gospel is found in the word ‘with.’ The mystery of God with us. We long to be with God and with each other. Its why this virus is so devastating, not just in death, but in isolation and at its worst isolation in death. The gospel is the promise of God to stay with us, even in death. Stay with us.

I was reflecting on these six words. We had hoped. Stay with us. Something happens in the space between these two sets of words. We might call it a conversion or the beginnings of one. Outside the day is almost over, but a new day is beginning for these two companions. We live between ‘We had hoped’ and ‘stay with us.’ And the difference from the first to the second is Jesus. The two companions, downcast, without hope, tell their story and then Jesus tells them their story again.

Into our lives comes Jesus, not always recognisably, and we lay out our story, with its hurts and disappointments, with its confusion and tragedy. We had hoped we say, naming the silences. And then carefully, patiently, Jesus begins to tell our story again, in a way that it is now not just our story, but our story in a bigger story, a bigger story that begins, ‘In the beginning God created…’; a bigger story that speaks of Abraham and a promise, Moses and deliverance, Ruth and faithfulness, Hannah and prayer, David and a throne, Isaiah and a suffering servant, Jeremiah and a new covenant, and more; a bigger story of a baby born in Bethlehem, who grows up and is anointed by the Spirit, who ministers healing, and announces good news, and this same man enters Jerusalem on a donkey, is arrested in the night, is crucified, and is buried in a tomb, and is now risen; into this story our story gets re–written. Its still our story but its told from another perspective, its woven together in a different way that doesn’t overlooked our disappointment, our tragedy, our hurt, but embraces them, heals them, transforms them.

For at the heart of the bigger story is the tragedy of the Jesus the crucified one, but Jesus embraces the cross, the cross is transformed from a means of death into a source of healing. This is what these two Emmaus road disciples do not get, (and we probably struggle to get too.) When Jesus tells the story, the cross becomes God’s strange gift that is revealed through the resurrection. And what this means is that if the cross can become a gift, the brokenness, the hurts, the disappointments, the tragedies of our lives can also become gifts in the beautiful, surprising, grace-filled purposes of God for the salvation, the healing, of all creation. A story of the blessedness of brokenness.

When the gospel meets our story our response, our prayer, is ‘stay with us.’ Our hearts are burning, our eyes are opening, our ears are hearing. Here is a new beginning. To be with Jesus a moment is to want to be with Jesus forever. We discover what it means for Paul to say ‘I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.’ (Phil 3.8) We are recipients of a new ‘living hope’ and its ‘inexpressible and glorious joy’ (1 Peter 1.3, 8) What we hang on to is that Jesus does stay with us, by the Holy Spirit,by the living Word that is the scriptures, by the sharing of bread and wine, by the friendship and fellowship of the church, by the entertaining of angels unaware. When the eyes of these two companions are opened, they don’t stay in Emmaus, but rush back to Jerusalem, and the church doesn’t stay in Jerusalem, but continues to makes journeys. Conversion is an on–going thing, We are Christians, but we never stop discovering the truth of that. We still say ‘we had hoped’ and we still say ‘stay with us’ and Jesus continues to meet us in the middle, helping us see and understand, and keeping a fire burning in our hearts.

Later perhaps we will look back on this time, this time that perhaps has shaken our hope, that is troubling and testing, and be able to say ‘were not our hearts burning within us while Jesus us meet us in our homes, in our daily walk, in our workplace?’ That we might be able to see that this time was a strange gift of God to us. This is my prayer for you, And I ask you to pray the same for me. Amen.

A Short Word for Easter Sunday 2

I wonder what kind of week you have had. I wonder how quickly the songs of Easter joy died away in your household. I wonder if Easter itself has felt like no more than a brief interlude in the present difficulty. Easter is a season and yet we often treat it as if it was only a day. The shops start selling off their Easter Eggs and we go back to whatever is normal and carry on as if nothing remarkable happened. Except this year of course for lots of us we don't. In the Easter narrative there are 50 days during which the risen Jesus appears to his followers. And 50 days are only the beginning for these disciples working out how the world has changed and their lives have changed. But we can tick it off in a day.

In the church the Sunday after Easter is traditionally called Low Sunday. The exact reason for this is unclear but it seems in part to be a recognition that the highs of Easter celebration couldn't last. It probably fits very well with where we are at the moment. We are still in Easter, we are still a people who believe that Christ is risen, but after all the drama that began with Palm Sunday and ended with Easter Sunday, this Sunday we are struggling to keep it all going. Every year I find myself asking what difference does Easter make, even more so this year. What does it mean to proclaim the Easter news that Jesus lives?

At no point in the resurrection narratives is anyone looking for the risen Jesus. They expect him to be dead. Mary and the women going to find the body. The rest of the disciples are in a locked room. Cleopas and friend is skipping town for Emmaus. Later Peter and friends are off fishing on the Sea of Galilee. There is never a point where anyone says, ‘ah, I’ve been expecting you Jesus.’ When Jesus dies everyone thinks, ‘that’s it.’ And so when Jesus turns up there is shock, fear, disbelief, and joy.

I read something this week that said the resurrection of Jesus is like a wound,[i] a wound than never quite heals, its something we live with, and we might say also we live from. It’s like Jacob got his limp after wrestling with the angel of God. If wounds can be ever considered good, this is a wound of the best kind, but it is a wound. We live with this reality that Jesus is risen; it accompanies us, comforts us, challenges us, astonishes us. One poet speaks of seeing Jesus’ body as the ‘wound of knowledge.’[ii] Easter is a reminded that Jesus is both the crucified and the risen one, we know Christ in both the cross and the empty tomb: a wound of knowledge. We know and we don’t know, we understand and we don’t understand. The resurrection of Jesus stands as the marker in which all hope and joy is found, but we never grasp the fullness of its implications, we never embrace the totality of its newness, we never comprehend wholly what it is say ‘I have seen the Lord.’ Easter is a wound that marks our lives, the world is not the same, we are not the same, but we live in what feels too often like an untransformed world; we might say we are an Easter people living in a Good Friday world.

We receive this wondrous wound that Christ is risen amidst the wounds of our current time, which we are living with and we want to be over. These wounds which are a continuing source of pain and anxiety. Life is always carrying its wounds, its pain and suffering, but where we can perhaps overlook them, they are more visible this year jarring with the Easter alleluias that we are meant to be singing and feeling. As I said this is Low Sunday.

‘You, Lord, keep my lamp burning, my God turns my darkness into light.’ (Ps 18.28) That perhaps is a verse for now. The God of Easter, the Risen Jesus, keeps our lamps burning, keeps our hoping living, keeps our faith breathing, keeps our alleluias ringing. The shadows are near, but they do not totally envelop, because God shines his light, the light of Christ. ‘Easter is the promise that the absence of God has been penetrated with light, and the silence of the early morning is no longer hollow, but hopeful.’[iii] As we wrestle with the glorious wound of Easter and the wounds of our current lives we hold on to the Light, the light that filled the tomb, the light that filled the world, the light that God has shone on us: the light we name Jesus; Jesus wounded, crucified and risen One. The light shone in the darkness and the darkness could not put it out.

The good news about the risen Jesus, is he can come to us. Today light a candle, say a prayer, share bread, give thanks, read the gospel, make a phone call, be patient, take courageand trust in God, and then repeat it again tomorrow. Let this be your Easter routine.

 

[i] Benjamin Myers, Christ the Stranger: The Theology of Rowan Williams (T & T Clark, 2012).

[ii] R. L. Thomas. It was the title of Rowan Williams first book (1979).

[iii] Maggi Dawn, Giving it Up (BRF, 2009), 211.

Seeing the Other Side: A message for Easter

I wonder if you can remember a time when you were not tall enough to see. In front of you is a wall, and perhaps a parent or an older sibling is able to see over it, they can see what’s on the other side, they can tell you about it, but you want of course to see for yourself, so you say, hey can you lift me up, I’d like to see too?

Our lives might be thought of as a series of walls that at one point or another we can’t see over, and either we need someone to help lift us up, or we just have to be patient, never easy, and wait until we grow tall enough. Some of us perhaps feel like we’re still waiting! As we get to see over each wall, we find we can get to a point that we can climb over, and then at some point there is another wall and we’re back needing help or having to wait. Some of us find some walls impossible, some of us will always need help, and so sometimes we have to find another way round.

Eventually we all meet a very big wall. This wall is bigger than all of us. None of us can see over it. None of us, even when lifted up can see the other side. This wall feels permanent, fixed, solid, but we know, we feel, that there is something over it. We might call this wall Death. We know about Death, some of us learn about it fairly early on but most of the time the wall is in the distance far off, and we don’t have to think about it, and there are lots of other walls to try and see over, climb over, cross over, to distract us.

Right now the wall called Death feels close, it feels very near. For some of us it feels like it’s surrounding us on every side and it’s all we can see. We are overwhelmed by Death, to the extent that we are trying to find ways to protect our children from the news, and perhaps also ourselves, because its all too much to take in. We are confronted by Death, standing over us, casting a shadow over our days. We don’t want to die. We don’t want those we love to die. The shadow of Death though is not shifting. I don’t say this to add to our overwhelmed–ness, but to name the reality, the usually half-whispered reality, which is currently becoming a louder reality. We cannot get away from this wall.

And yet. And yet. And yet there is Jesus. I want to tell you about Jesus. Jesus was probably no taller than you or me, and he knows this wall named Death. He met death in a horrible horrific way. Death was a sentence given to him. Jesus has faced the wall we call Death. He has stared Death down, He has felt its terrible blow, He has experienced taking a final breath. Death put him in the ground, sealed up tight, locked down. Jesus’ story is like every other story, but — the good news hinges on a but — but the thing about Jesus is that God has shown him the other side, God has lifted him up, raised him up, to see the joy and life beyond the wall, beyond Death. Jesus has climbed over, gone ahead, and walked in the light, and grace and beauty of the other side, and he comes back to tell us about it, to say to us he has seen future, he is living the new creation.

He is the older sibling who says, I can see, its ok, I know what there is on the other side. Jesus, is the Brother who says: I am the Living Hope, I am the Good News, I am the Way and the Truth. I am the Resurrection and the Life. What we celebrate today is the wonderful joyful glorious news that this wall surrounding us is no longer something to fear. We are now confronted by Grace. Jesus has made us a window, and he lifts us up, raises us up that we might glimpse through, that we might have Hope, that we might have Life, even now.

This is Easter. This is the news I share with you, I proclaim to you. It’s my charge today, to help announce the joy that is the risen Jesus so that hear it, feel it, grasp it, so that your pulse quickens, your hearts beat a little faster, your hands clap, your feet even dance, your voices sing alleluia. We are asking God to Easter us.

Today once again we are invited into Hope, we are invited into Life, we are invited into Faith that Jesus is already on the other side, and has made us a way to join him. Do not be afraid says Jesus. See the new horizon. See the new reality. See the new creation, the promised land. Death will meet all us, but we see the glory, we feel the joy, we taste the freedom of Death undone and we know, we believe, we have faith that the death and resurrection of Jesus, means Life for us, that nothing can separate us from Jesus, nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even Death. Christ is risen! Alleluia! He is risen indeed. Happy Easter!