Many are Called...Few are Chosen

Many are called...few are chosen: Matthew 21:1-14. Preached at St Nicholas' Church, Battenburg Ave, on Sunday 12th October.

When I was at school, my P.E. teacher seemed to take pleasure in appointing captains for football teams, and then getting the captains to pick their own players from the rest of the class. He was a sadist. The result, as far as I was concerned was that I was always the last to be chosen. Sad really. But then, despite the achievements of Peter Crouch down at Fratton Park, great tall lanky individuals like me are rarely good football players. In my case, I was such a useless football player, that the captain of the team who was forced to have me would inevitably turn to our sadistic PE teacher and complain "Do we have to have Kennar? It's not fair. He's rubbish!" If there were more than 22 of us boys available to play a match, you could guarantee that I would spend the whole time sitting on the bench.

We had all been called out onto the football pitch. But we were not all chosen to play. Or in Jesus' rather pithy statement..."many are called...but few are chosen".

But of course, Jesus wasn't talking about football matches. Jesus makes his rather strange statement at the end of the parable we've just heard. It's a parable about a wedding feast - in which lots of different people are invited to attend, but only some get to actually stay for the meal...either because they refuse the invitation, or because they get themselves thrown out.

With this particular parable, Jesus is compressing the story of salvation history into just a few short sentences. The Wedding Feast is an allegory for the salvation of the world - right from the initial sending of the prophets to Israel, through the renewed invitation by Christian missionaries, concluding at the last judgment, when the good are separated from the bad.

But this is not just a simple historical survey. This is not a story designed to make Christians feel nice and smug about being invited to the Wedding Feast, while the poor old Jews, or other older religions are consigned to some sort of hell. No, its actually a much more troubling story than that. Consider the last part of the story...from verse 11:

"...when the King came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, 'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?' And he was speechless. Then the King said to his attendants, 'Bind him hand and foot, and throw him in the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth'. For many are called but few are chosen."

In early Christianity, the new life of a Christian was often pictured as being like putting on a new set of clothes. It's like changing a dirty shirt for a clean one. We are encouraged to change our old ways of life, and to put on our new Christian identity. (Blog readers might like to compare this idea with Rom 13:12-14; Gal 3:27; Eph 6:11; Col 3:12;) But this man, whom the King discovers sitting at the feast, has not put on his 'wedding robe'. He is among the guests at the wedding...but he has not actually changed his clothes. And so, he finds himself excluded from the party.

This rather troubling man is held up for all of us to consider. He represents the kind of church-goer, the kind of believer, who attends the ceremonies, and sings the songs, and stands up and sits down in all the right places...but who never lets the words of Jesus take root in his life. He is the person who never takes up the invitation to put on the wedding robes.

"Many are called...but few are chosen." It might help us if we dig a little deeper in the meaning of those words. The word that is translated for us as 'chosen' is the Greek word ekletos (in anglicised Greek!). It's the word from which we get the english word 'elected' - and in biblical terms, in means, essentially, 'those who are accepted at the last judgment'. Those who have elected to follow God. Those who have been elected by God to spend eternity with him.

The point of this statement is to say that many many people - in fact, the whole earth - is called by God to put on the new clothes of the wedding feast. But only some will respond to the call. Only some will be elected, or will elect themselves, to respond to the call.

And crucially, as far as Jesus is concerned, some of those who will and do refuse the offer of new life are among us now...in the church...sitting alongside us in the pews.

How are we to respond to this startling idea? Should we start a witch-hunt perhaps...a new Spanish Inquisition...to root out the unelected in our midst? Perhaps I should conduct interviews with everyone in the parish to determine who is in, and who is out?(!).

Perhaps not! This statement of Jesus' is not intended as some kind of invitation for the church to start making decisions about who is and who is not 'in'. It's important to note from the story that it is not the other guests who throw out the intruder. Only the King himself has that authority. But sadly, that is not always the case within the church. Unfortunately, there are some people in the church who think that they have got a monopoly on the truth. They are SO certain that their understanding of Truth is the only one. 

So how are we to discern? How are we to tell whether even we ourselves are those whom the King will invite to the wedding feast, or those whom the King will throw out? Well, fortunately, the King has already given us just the information we need to discern whether or not we are wearing the right wedding robes. But to understand what the King has taught us, we need to switch metaphor for a moment...

In chapter seven of Matthew, Jesus is recorded as saying that it is 'by their fruit' that we will be able to tell false believers from true ones. "A good tree bears good fruit, and a bad tree bears bad fruit", says Jesus in Matthew 7:17. St. Paul picks up the same metaphor when he talks about the Fruit of the Spirit, in his letter to the Christians in Galatia. "The fruit of the Spirit" he says, "is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control".

This parable is a challenge to us, just as it was a challenge to Jesus' hearers, and Matthew's readers. It's a challenge for us to re-examine the very heart of what it means to be a follower of God - a guest at the wedding feast. The follower of God is the one in whom the fruit of the spirit is displayed. The follower of God is the one in whom love conquers hate, in whom generosity conquers greed, in whom justice for the poor and the oppressed burns as it burns in the heart of God. Consider, if you will, the words of God through the prophet Micah...the clearest, most unambiguous test of the follower of God that there has ever been..."And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.". That's it. That's the challenge. Understand that central calling to justice, mercy, and the humbling of oneself before the Creator - and you've understood the heart of the Christian faith.

And as we consider that challenge, we could do far worse than contemplate the last lines of this morning's New Testament reading. Let's hear again Paul's words to the Philippians (4:8-9):

"Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you."

Amen

God the Coach Driver (Philippians 3)

God the Coach Driver (Philippians 3.4b-14). Preached at St Mark's on Sunday 5th October

I'm going to depart from my normal practice of focusing on the Gospel reading this morning - because the set New Testament reading for today, from Philippians, is just bang-on to where I think we are heading as a congregation. In that reading, we heard Paul, writing to the Christians in Philippi, saying that he is pressing on towards the goal...for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Paul uses the metaphor of a journey to talk about his ongoing faith and trust in God.

In another existence, (while I was training to be a minister) I used to be a part-time Coach Driver. And I know that when my passengers put themselves in my hands, they were are content to leave the journey entirely up to me. They trusted that the coach driver knew where he was going – and that I wouldn’t get them stuck up some country lane! They trusted that my entire purpose, while they were on my coach, was to make the journey as enjoyable as possible for them.

Following God is a bit like that. When we say 'yes' to having faith in God, we give over control of the journey to God. We trust that God knows where he is going, and that the journey will be the most thrilling, the most fulfilling, the most meaningful journey that it can be...simply because it is God's journey, not ours.

And I think that we can look at our own life together, here in St Mark's as, somewhat of a journey too. But let's look at Paul's description of his own journey, first - and see how it might compare to ours...

Paul starts by reflecting on where he has come from. In the early verses of the reading, (verses 4 to 6) he describes how, in his younger days, he was the most religious Jew of his time. He had been circumcised on the correct day, he was a member of the people of Israel, a 'Hebrew born of Hebrews'. On top of that, he had become a Pharisee - a religious teacher - so he understood the Law of God in great detail, and as far as the law was concerned, considered himself blameless. And as for his commitment, well, he claimed, no-one had more religious zeal than him. He was a persecutor of the Church, who went around seeking out those he considered heretics, and having them stoned.

But let's see what happens next on Paul's journey of life. Paul describes how he encountered Christ - how he found that all his achievements as a religious leader counted for nothing compared to knowing Jesus. In verse 8, he describes all his previous achievements as 'rubbish'. At least, that’s what it says in our translation...although actually, the Greek word he used here was much fruitier than simple 'rubbish'. A direct translation would be something closer to dung...or a certain word beginning with 'sh' and ending in 't'!!

In other words, along his life's journey, Paul discovered that all his rules, regulations, assumptions, laws and religious practices didn't matter at all. All that religious stuff was just muck, dung, sshhhh…. Compared to the “surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus as Lord” (verse 8)

Here's something that must give us pause...something to make us wonder.

I'm sure that all of you, by now, have worked out that I do things a little differently than some of my priestly colleagues - especially up here in the Sanctuary. You might have noticed that I don't kiss the altar at the start of the service, like some people do. I don't wear a Cotta, or a cope - and I'm even happy to celebrate communion dressed only in a jacket and clerical collar, as I did during last month's baptism service. I'm sure that there are lots of little religious details that I don't do 'correctly'...and which, perhaps, some of you might have been a little perturbed by. Partly, that's because I come from a different tradition of the church...for many years I worshipped in churches where even wearing a cassock was highly suspect! So sometimes I do things differently simply because I don't know any better!

But the other reason that I don't do many of these things, is that I want to send a message...a clear message...that whether or not I bow at the right time, or kiss the altar, or wear the right clothes...all these things are just traditions, religious practices. They have nothing to do with the heart of what it means to be a Christian. Nothing at all.

They may, of course, be helpful for some people. For some people - perhaps some of you - the drama of worship is very important. It helps people to move beyond the day-to-day ordinariness of life, and to gain a glimpse of a different reality...the reality of heaven. And that's great. If it helps you for me to do some of these things from time to time...then I'm delighted to do them. We will, for example, probably use incense during major festivals of the church's year. I don't mind wearing robes during most services - if it helps you to put aside questions of fashion, and to be able to focus instead on worshipping God.

But I do ask you to remember, that none of these religious practices are what Christianity is ultimately about.

I honestly believe that Jesus doesn't care one jot about whether we bow, or raise our hands at the right places. Jesus doesn't care whether we are wearing the right colour for the season, or whether we light candles, ring bells, or swing incense - or whether we don't. Jesus doesn't care whether we stand or sit at the right places.

No, what Jesus cares about is whether, like Paul, we are journeying towards his heart. Jesus cares about whether we are discovering more and more of what it means to live 'in Him' (as Paul says in verse 9) - letting his love and compassion, his mercy and forgiveness, his heart for the poor and the oppressed flow through us, and into our neighbours and friends. Jesus cares about whether we are willing to engage with his radical message of love and generosity. Jesus cares about whether we are willing to die to self, and be raised to the new life - the resurrection life - that God offers to all of humanity.

What does that mean in practice? Well, for a start, as we sang in our opening hymn, it means counting our richest earthly gains as loss – or rubbish, or dung (in St Paul’s words!) It means surrendering our human perspective on life to the Divine perspective. And that's a radical idea...

It means ceasing to regard ourselves as consumers, whose only purpose in life is to get up, work, make money, spend money, and go back to bed. It means ceasing to regard ourselves as individuals who have the right to exploit others just so that we can pursue our own narrow definition of happiness. It means instead learning to see ourselves as God sees us - as members of a community...as people who are inextricably linked to one another...as people whose actions have consequences for all those around us. It means seeing ourselves as people who are called to love our neighbour, and to let the love of Jesus flow through us. It means seeing ourselves as those who are called to be salt and light to the community around us...calling others into our common life with God, inviting them, with us, to learn to live life to the full. (John 10:10)

I'm sure that all of you are ready, in theory, to embrace this radical call. But, I imagine, many of you are wondering what that means in practice. And do you know what...? I don't know! I can't answer that for you.

Perhaps God will call you to do more within the life of the church...to serve in the community cafe, or the monthly table top sale, or to get involved with flower rotas, or singing in the choir, or serving on the PCC, or writing for the parish magazine, or wielding a paint-brush - all activities that help us all to be effective in reaching out the community. Perhaps, if you are already horribly busy with work and family it might mean God calling you to give more money to sustain our work...to oil the wheels so that we can truly tell God's story beyond these walls. Perhaps God might call you to radically change the path of your life...to embrace a change in career, or perhaps even a calling to a new vocation within the church. Perhaps God will call you to a renewed commitment to prayer and study - like those he has called to take part in the Journey of Life group starting in November.

I don't know. I can't tell you - because God will call each of us to something that is unique, and yet which is vital for the life of the whole community.

What I encourage you to do, however, is precisely what St Paul did. Never give up “straining forward to what lies ahead” (verse 13). Let God be your coach-driver…let him safely steer you on as you learn to rely on his driving skills. God is the blueprint from which we were all made - in his image. God knows how we as human beings were built. He knows how to help us to suck the very marrow out of life…to ‘live life to the full’ (John 10:10). All we have to do is let him take the wheel!

Amen

Walking the Talk

Matt 21:23-32. Preached on Sunday 28th September - at the Harvest Festival at St Mark's Church

Sometimes, you just have to say “Thank you!” Because we have got so much to be thankful for haven’t we? Come Ye Thankful people come! Thank you Lord for this new day! God is just SO very good to us...isn’t he?

I mean - think about it. God is the all powerful source of all being and life. He did not have to create the Universe like this. He could have created a Universe any way that he wanted to. He could have made one that was entirely black and white - devoid of any colour. He could have made one in which food had no taste - or in which his people had no taste buds. He could have made a world that didn’t have sunlight, and mountains, and rivers, and oceans. He could have just made one which was all flat desert.

But he didn’t. God created a world which is teeming with life, and variety, and colour and sound. He gave us delicious food. He gave us every kind of resource that we could need. He gave us families and friends - and communities in which we can live together.

And so, we come together on a Harvest Sunday to thank Him for all his amazing gifts to us. We come to say, “thank the Lord, O thank the Lord, for all his love!”

But...but...but...we would be blind beyond belief if we didn't acknowledge that there are some people, in some parts of the world, who won't be so joyful in their celebrations today. There are places where crops have failed. There are places where floods have washed crops away. There are places where people won't have been able to enjoy a 'bring and share' harvest supper - like we did last night. What are we to make of such a topsy-turvey situation?

But you know, it doesn't have to be like this. It should be possible for people who have had their entire fields washed away to still be able to praise God this morning...just as we are doing. It should still be possible for those whose crops have dried up because of a lack of rain to celebrate the gathering in of another year's harvest. What am I talking about? How could such a thing be possible?

It would be possible if just one simple, world-changing command of Jesus was actually followed by the people of the world. It’s a simple command. But a radical one. A command which, if we only took it seriously, would entirely change the world as we know it. What is that command? You know. You know it only too well...Love your neighbour as you love yourself.

It doesn't come much more simply than that does it? After all, if we love our neighbours as we love ourselves, we have to ask ourselves some tough questions. Questions like..."under what circumstances would I willingly starve myself?". And the answer to that question is uncomfortable. The only people who willingly starve themselves are those who are suffering from an sickness... perhaps a mental, or nervous illness like anorexia. So, I think we can conclude that when a society - or a planet - willingly allows its own people to starve...especially when there is plenty of food to go round...the only conclusion we can draw is that it is a sick society.

The people in India who have recently lost all their crops because of flood waters...and the people in sub-Saharan Africa whose crops have failed...should be still singing God's praises this morning. They should be singing his praise because the rest of the world, the brothers and sisters...the neighbours...of those Indians and Africans should have reached out, and shared the Harvest.

Loving my neighbour as I love myself surely means wishing for my neighbour all the good things I enjoy?

Loving my neighbour as I love myself surely means reaching out and giving my neighbour exactly what I would hope he would give me...if he were in my shoes?

Today's Gospel reading was yet another of Jesus' agricultural parables: two sons have two different reactions to their father's request that they should go to work in the vineyard. One of them says "I will not"...but then later changes his mind and goes to work. The other says "Yes sir, I will" but actually doesn't go at all.

Like all of Jesus stories, this one has many layers of meaning. It was spoken originally to a bunch of religious leaders...and was designed to show them that what they confessed with their lips, they failed to do with their lives. They taught the principle of loving your neighbour...after all it was a principle that was utterly enshrined in Jewish law. But, Jesus accused them of saying the words, without living the action. They talked the talk. But they didn't walk the walk.

And like all Jesus' stories, there's a challenge for us too in these words.

Don't get me wrong. It is not my intention to pile the guilt on...especially on you who have chosen not to do the 100 things you could have chosen to do instead of praising God this morning. Many of you give extremely generously, in time and money, both to the church, and to the wider work of the Kingdom through charities like Christian Aid. You are people who are walking the walk, as well as talking the talk. You are showing the power of the whole idea of loving our neighbour as we love ourselves.

But a challenge remains.

It's up to each of us to listen to God's still small voice in our own hearts...prompting us...pushing us onwards...discovering even more of the joy that comes from living the way he calls us to live.

Let me tell you a secret. God doesn't need your money! God is not interested in your money. God doesn't ask us to open our wallets...he asks us to open our hearts. God doesn't want us to give more, of our time or our money, because he somehow needs it! He's the Lord of the Universe! He can do anything he wants. He doesn't need that £1 coin I found on the dresser this morning and thought would do for the collection.

No...God wants nothing more from us than our love. And he wants to give us nothing less than his Love. Love which might (and indeed should) be expressed through our money – and our time, and our prayer, and our practical help for our neighbours.

But at the root of it all - He only calls us to love, and to be caught up by love, and to experience love.

There are two ways - and two ways only - that love can be experienced. It is either received, or it is given. "As you sow, so shall you reap" says Jesus. He shows us that by giving love, we learn to receive it as well.

Sowing with generosity, means reaping the rewards of knowing, deep down, in our very souls, that we are living in the heart of God.

Sowing with generosity means being part of the cure for a society which is so sick that it lets its own members starve.

Sowing with generosity means opening the doors of our hearts (and perhaps the zips of our wallets too) and letting the love, the generosity, the overflowing abundance of God flow through us...touching the lives of our neighbours with the good things we would want for ourselves.

Sowing with generosity means learning, day by day, to walk the talk.

Amen.

Not for the righteous...

John 3. 13:17: Not for the Righteous...

Preached at a Parish Communion service, at St Mark's, on Sunday 21st September - just before a Parish Conference on the future of our Parish life.

"It is those who are sick that need a doctor...not those who are well."

That's how Jesus responded when the religious establishment around him started to complain that he was spending rather too much time with the scum of the earth (as they thought). There was Jesus, this prominent Rabbi, whom people were flocking from all around to meet - choosing to spend his time in the company of tax-collectors, prostitutes, manual labours and the like.

"What are you doing?" asked the Religious leaders. "Why don't you come and meet with us instead?"

"Because you don't need me." Jesus answered - meaning of course that they themselves didn't acknowledge him - they didn't think they needed him. "But these folks, these 'scum of the earth' as you think of them - they are hungry for me. I have come to call not the righteous...but sinners"

The word 'sinner' is a word that can easily get us tangled in knots. One way of understanding it is to go back to the ancient Greek word that is usually translated as 'sin'. The word is 'hamartia' (ἁμαρτία) - and the nearest way of translating it is to talk about 'missing the mark', or 'not quite getting it'. When Jesus says that he came for sinners, we hear him saying, instead, "I have come for those who have missed the mark - who haven't got it yet".

Jesus' words echo across the centuries. He challenges us. He makes us wonder whether sometimes we too can be a bit like the Pharisees. Jesus prompts us to ask, whether we can sometimes be just a bit too comfortable with our religion, and a little too unconcerned about those who are not part of our circle of friends; our circle of believers. Crucially, Jesus, I think, asks us to think about whether the way we act, here in our churches, is a way that will help others to 'get it'...or whether we are quite happy to carry on secure in the knowledge that we've got it...and that it doesn't matter about the rest.

Last week - as the regular St Mark's folks will tell you - we tried a bit of an experiment here. We had a baptism service - and we were very conscious that many of the people who would come with the baby would not be every-day church-goers. In fact, many of them had possibly never even been in a church before. So, instead of the normal Sunday Eucharist, we introduced a number of new and slightly risky elements to the service – video, upbeat songs, and a dressed-down Vicar.

The result, I think, was very interesting. Our baptism guests seemed much more engaged with what was going on . It was an experiment - and a successful one, I think. There was at least a chance that those who had never quite 'got' the idea of church before, at least had the chance to encounter God in ways that were contemporary and familiar. Maybe, just maybe, some of those who have so far missed the target - failed to 'get it', as far as Jesus is concerned - maybe they just began to scratch the surface of possibility.

Later today, at our Parish Conference, we are going to be thinking about what other changes we might need to make - if indeed we are serious about helping other people to 'get it'. How, for example, can we improve our parish publicity? How can we help the elderly, or the sick, to join in with our community life? How can we get better at sharing the love of Jesus - that we have experienced - with children and young families. And what changes might we need to make to our buildings; changes that will help people to 'get' what we are about?

These, and many more, are the kind of questions that I'm hoping you'll begin to answer for yourselves during our discussions later on. And out of it, I hope that we will begin to truly grasp what it means to be a church which exists not for itself, and not even for its members. We are a church that is called to be salt and light to our community. We are a church which is called to reach out to those who haven't 'got it' yet, not only to those (like us) who are just beginning to get it. We are a church which is called to be a beacon - no, a Lighthouse - of Love, in streets that often know pain, despair, and loneliness. We are a church which is called to minister to the sick, not only to the healthy.

One last thought, before we move on. We are also a church that is called to show the rest of the world that living as Jesus called us to live really is a viable alternative. In so many parts of the world, the solution to all conflicts is to take up arms against a perceived oppressor...to use violence and hatred as a means of settling disputes. But Jesus offers us a very different way of being – a way of forgiveness, and reconciliation. A way of dealing with the hurt and pain that human beings inevitably inflict on each other…and then of moving on. Not because we are clever….but because God is gracious.

Today, we have a new Choir here at St Mark’s…and today, I think, we have a good story to tell. Its a story of having grappled with difficulties – of facing up to issues - and having used love and forgiveness as a way of going forward. I'm really optimistic that today marks a new start for everyone who was hurt by the events of the past - and that is something we should celebrate... something we should be able to tell people outside the church about. Its a story of growing reconciliation, of learning through suffering, a story of hope. Ultimately its a story of resurrection - of new life springing out of death...and that's a story worth sharing.

In a little while, after we've taken communion together, the choir is going to sing "God be in my head" - a song which they have chosen, to reflect their wish that God will be at the centre of all they do and sing together over the coming years. Let us all make that our prayer as well.

So let us be glad. Glad that God is in our midst - and glad that God has invited us to share Divine Love with our neighbours... all those who haven't yet 'got it' out there in our community. Whether it is through a reconciled choir, through our new community cafe, through a creative think about the way our churches feel, or through the new chance to explore faith together on the Journey of Faith course, through the Welcome service at St Faiths, or the Alternative Worship at St Nicholas - we have reasons to be glad. Reason to celebrate. Reason to give thanks to our Father in heaven.

Amen

The Serpent and the Cross...

Sunday 14th September

According to my Catholic friends, today is the Sunday of the Holy Cross - in which the readings and prayers are designed to help us focus on the meaning of the Cross.  

There are some who find the whole idea of focusing on a Roman instrument of torture rather a strange thing to do.  If Jesus had been executed by some of the world's other (and more modern) means, perhaps we wouldn't have a cross as a symbol of hope at all.  Perhaps we would be wearing little silver electric chairs round our necks, or little nooses, or little hyperdermic needles?  It sounds really rather macbre when you put it like that, doesn't it?

So why has this instrument of death become such a symbol of hope for so many people?

In John's gospel we read "just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up" (Jn 3:14).  Sounds all rather weird, doesn't it?  Until we dig a little deeper into the story of Moses and the serpent that was lifted up...

The story goes that the people of Israel, while wandering in the wilderness, were being attacked by snakes.  (According to the story in the Book of Numbers, this was a punishment from God because they wouldn't stop complaining.  A note of caution may be needed here: like many, many, stories in the Bible, we would do well to think of this as a story, laden with meaning, rather than a historical fact!).  When the people complain to Moses, God tells him (for reasons that are not abundantly clear) to fashion a serpent out of bronze; and then to attach it to a pole.  The people are then told that anyone who has been bitten by a live snake simply has to look at the bronze one, and they will be healed.  

So, by trusting what God has said - however bizzare it may have appeared to them - the people find that by looking at the serpent, they find the promised healing.

Now, jump forward about 1000 years, to the time of Jesus.  He draws upon this famous story, and tells his followers that, just like the bronze serpent on a pole, he too has to be 'lifted up'.  He explains that this is so 'that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life'. (Jn 3:15)

There is a fundamental issue of trust at stake here.  The Israelites were asked to trust that just by looking at a metal snake they would be healed of real-snake-bite.  And in the same way, Jesus asks his followers to trust that by fixing their eyes on him - and especially on him on a cross - they will find eternal life.

What is going on here?  What is so significant about the Cross (and especially about Jesus' death upon it)?   That's a question that followers of Jesus have debated all through the centuries.  There are many, many, different theories about what is going on - some of which are specifically debated through the pages of the Bible, and others which the Bible points us towards.  Here are just some of the theological terms which get used when these debates really get going (if you are interested in understanding any of them, try googling them!):  redemption, penal substition, ransom, sacrifice, atonement, (and vicarious atonement!), moral influence theory, governmental theory and propitiation.  It's enough to make your head swim!  Isn't it?

The truth is, no two groups of Christians will be able to tell you that they agree precisely what actually happening on the cross.  (If anyone tells you that their interpretation is the only one, be suspicious!).  It is, to use another word employed by the church, a 'mystery'.  (Which is a technical term that doesn't simply mean 'I haven't got a clue'.  Its more like saying 'I've got a fairly good sense of what's going on, but I'm happy to leave the details up to God'.  It's about trust, again.)

Let me take you back to the quote I used earlier.  Jesus said that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. (Jn 3:15).  So what does it mean to 'believe in' Jesus.  After all, there are lots of people who believe that Jesus existed - but they don't go as far as to 'believe in him'.  In other words, what is the difference between someone who believes that Jesus existed (and was a jolly nice bloke) and those who trust in him for their very eternal future?

Well partly, it means trusting that Jesus - and through him God - knew what he was doing on the Cross.  It was, somehow, essential for him to go through that pain and suffering for us.  The veneration of the cross - which many of my Catholic friends will be doing today - is precisely about that.  Its about focusing on the moment of Jesus' death as something that was essential, life changing and pivotal for humanity.  It remains a 'mystery'...but a 'mystery' that points to a deeper reality.

But believing in Jesus means something else as well.

It means trusting that Jesus was the truest, most perfect, reflection of what God is like.  It means trusting - in the face of all the alternatives that this World can offer - that his way leads to life.  It means trusting that giving and sharing is a better way of life than getting and keeping. It means trusting that giving up ones life for others is a better way than keeping one's life for oneself.  It means trusting that love really is a viable alternative to hate.  It means trusting that being part of a company of believers is better than trying to do it on your own. 

In other words, finding 'salvation' is much more than simply trusting that Jesus knew what he was doing on the Cross.  It means being completely transformed, 'by the renewing of your mind' as St Paul said.  It means trusting that the Way of the Cross - the Way that Jesus walked - is a Way that leads to life. 

 

 

Where two or three are gathered...

When two or three are gathered...

Matthew 18:15-20

(For Wednesday 10th August 2008)

Have you ever found yourself at a church meeting with only a couple of other people?  You know what its like - you have organised a venue, booked the room, bought the coffee and biscuits, planned an agenda...and only two other people turn up.

At that point, in most churches I've ever known, someone will usually say "Oh well...when two are three are gathered....".  The rest of the group will smile, weakly, and draw some comfort from the fact that Jesus did promise to be with even the smallest of gatherings!

But is that really the point?  Did Jesus make that promise because he knew that there would be many times that small groups of Christians would gather in dimly lit, scruffy rooms on plastic chairs?  Well perhaps he did.  But I think there was something rather larger going on...

Jesus' statement raises a question.  If it takes two or three of us to gather together in order for him to be present, does that mean that he is not present when we are on our own?  It raises the question of 'where is God?'  

There is a tendency among certain missionaries Christians to talk about 'taking God' to a certain place.  They talk about 'taking God out into the community' or 'taking Jesus into Africa' - or India or wherever.  In other words, there are some Christians who seem to believe that until God has been taken into a given situation, he is not there.    

But isn't that a bit wrong-headed?  After all, as the old saying goes, 'if Jesus isn't Lord of all, then Jesus isn't Lord at all'.  Jesus, and therefore God, is present in all the Universe.  There is no-where that God is not.  There is a Psalm - an ancient Hebrew poem or song lyric - which sums this up rather beautifully:

Where can I go from your Spirit? 

       Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; 

       if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, 

       if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me, 

       your right hand will hold me fast.  (from Psalm 139)

Our task, as people who have encountered God already, is simply - no more and no less - to help other people to encounter him too.  Not by 'bringing God to them' but by helping them to recognise that God is already among them.   We are the window-cleaners...the people who remove the accretions of the years, polishing the glass so that others too may glimpse the Infinite.  It is our task to point out to people that the creative, life-giving God is already among them.

That is just what the Apostle Paul did - as we've been reading in our mid-week readings recently.  He went to Athens, and there he saw that the Athenians had built many altars, to all sorts of Gods.  But he spied one altar which was labelled simply 'to the Unknown God'.  It was probably the Athenians way of making sure that if they had not yet learned about a certain God, he wouldn't get miffed at them!  But Paul saw an opportunity here.  He told the learned philosophers and teachers of Athens that he had come to tell them about this 'unknown God' - the God whom they already recognised was among them, but whom they didn't yet know.

Many people that I meet already have a clear sense that God is among them.  They have recognised the hand of God in the beauty of nature, or the smile of a friend, or the laughter of a child.  They are unable to concieve of a world of such complexity and beauty as ours which could simply exist by chance.  In those circumstances, my task is often to simply act as a guide...

Have you ever been on a guided tour?  My family and I were in Rome recently - and we rather reluctantly paid an awful lot of Euros for a guide to take us round the Collesium.  We were jolly glad that we did.  That guide was able to tell us all sorts of things that we would never have worked out for ourselves.  They had learned all these facts and figures about the Collesium - just be living and working there day after day.  And we were able to tap their knowledge...and begin to grasp something of the story of the place.

Christians are called to be a bit like that Collesium guide.  We are people who have absorbed something about the reality of God.  We've lived with God - through the good times and the bad. And we have gained some insights into what God is like, and how God operates; insights that some other people haven't yet got.  It is our task, our duty, our joy and privilege, to share our knowledge with those others...to be their guides...to help them find their way along the paths of God. 

But there's another dimmension to this statement of Jesus' as well - this idea that when two or three are gathered together he is in the midst of us.  I think Jesus is pointing us to another vitally important principle...and that's the idea that Jesus, and therefore God, is most easily found in community.  

It is when we discover God together that we discover God most fully.  It is by listening to the stories of other people's encounters with God, that we begin to see where our own encounters have been.  Whether we listen to those stories by reading the Bible (which is packed full of such encounters) or by listening to our brothers and sisters of today - it is vital that we do listen.  We can only be guides, or indeed be guided, if we open ourselves to the possibility of encountering God through, and in, other people.  

That, ultimately, is what the church is all about.  Its the gathering of people who have all had experiences of God, and who want to deepen that experience by sharing it with others. 

Have you ever thought what it might take to become a footballer (or a soccer player if you are an American!)?  You could learn to play with a football in your backgarden.  You could practice scoring goals against the garden wall.  You could learn to do 1000 'keepy-uppies' without dropping the ball.  But you will never, ever, be a footballer until one vital thing has happened.  You will never be a footballer until you have played in a team with other players. 

Christianity is a bit like that.  You can read all the books you like.  You could pray for 18 hours a day.  But until you have shared in the experience of God with other people, you will have missed out on the central point of being a follower of God.  God calls us to live in community with one another...as members of what Jesus called his 'body'.  It is when two, or three, or 50,000 of his followers are together that Jesus can truly be encountered.

A final thought...

That's also what the service of Holy Communion is all about.  Did you know that, according to the church's laws, I cannot celebrate communion on my own?  The church believes that the transformation of the elements - the transformation of the bread and wine into the spiritual body and blood of Jesus - can only take place when there is more than one person present.  Communion is all about coming together, in community - in communion with one another and with God.  

So - let us never stop meeting together (as St Paul said).  Let us never stop looking for the signs of God around us, and in us, and through us.  Let us never stop acting as guides for one another - showing each other the places we have found God.  And let us never stop coming together for this vitally important task of being in community - in communion - with one another and with God.  

Amen

Faith on a Trampoline

Faith on a Trampoline: Matthew 15:21-28

Preached at St Nicholas (8am) and St Mark (10am) on Sunday 17 Aug 2008

One of the more disturbing things about getting older, is that I'm discovering that I just don't bend like I used to. That was brought home to me recently - with special pain - when I had a go on my nieces' trampoline. "Come on Uncle Tom", they said, "you have a go!". "Oh," thought I, "that looks fun!". So I heaved myself up onto the trampoline, and started to bounce. Everything was going well, until I decided to do a little trick I learned when I was ten. It was just one of those simple trampoline tricks when you sit down for one bounce, and then stand for the next one.

So, at the apex of a bounce, I tucked my legs under me, and went for the sit-down bounce. What can I say? The pain! The pain! And I even think I might have said a word or two that should not normally pass from a Vicar's lips!

While I was recovering, later that day, I remembered something I had read in a book by an American theologian and pastor, called Rob Bell. Bell says that we should think of the Christian faith as being a bit like a trampoline. And, he says, it is when we begin to jump on the trampoline of faith, that we realise where the springs come in. He says, "When we jump, we begin to see the need for springs... The springs aren't God. The springs aren't Jesus. The springs are statements and beliefs about our faith that help give words to the depth that we are experiencing in our jumping. I would call these [springs] the doctrines of the Christian faith."

Bell goes on to describe what he means about the trampoline springs being the doctrines of the Christian faith. He points out that many of the doctrines - the beliefs - that we hold dear are in fact ideas which have been developed over the centuries since Jesus. For example, the Doctrine of the Trinity.

We have come to understand God as being three persons in one. For, he says, "while there is only one God, God is somehow present everywhere. People began to call this presence, this power of God, his 'Spirit'. So there is God, and there is God's Spirit. And then Jesus comes among us and has this oneness with God that has people saying things like 'God has visited us in the flesh'. So God is one, but God has also revealed himself to us as Spirit, and as Jesus. One and yet three. This three-in-oneness understanding of God emerged in the several hundred years after Jesus' resurrection. People began to call this concept 'the Trinity'. But the word trinity is not found anywhere in the Bible. Jesus didn't use the word, and the writers of the rest of the Bible didn't use the word. But over time this belief, this understanding, this doctrine has become central to how followers of Jesus have understood who God is. It is a spring, and people jumped for thousands of years without it [in the times before Jesus]. It is a spring, and it was added [to the trampoline of faith] later. We can take it out and examine it. Discuss it, probe it, question it. It flexes, and it stretches." (Bell, R. 2005, Velvet Elvis, Zondervan, pages 22-23)

Now I'm sure that by now, some of you will be wondering what any of this has to do with this morning's Gospel reading. Well, let's look at the reading now - in the light of this idea that the trampoline of faith is held up by flexible springs.

What we have in this morning's reading is a strange glimpse into Jesus' mindset. We see a non-Jewish woman arguing with him - arguing that even though she is a Gentile, her daughter should be entitled to receive a blessing from Jesus...and especially a healing from him. The strange part of the story is that Jesus appears to resist this idea. He says that he was called first to the children of Israel, and (in language that we find quite shocking), it would be wrong to give what was meant for the children to the dogs (refering, in this context, to Gentiles.) The woman, however, doesn't give up at this rebuff...she argues that even dogs get to eat the scraps from the children's table. Jesus then grants the argument to her...she has won the debate. He credits her with great faith, and heals her daughter.

Theologians have wrestled with this passage for generations. Could it be that the part of Jesus which was decidedly human was a bit racist? Did he really think of non-Jewish people as 'dogs' - until this debate with this particular Gentile opened his mind to the possibility that his mission should include non-Jews as well.

No, I think the purpose of this story is to show that Jesus himself understood that doctrines and beliefs had to be flexible...that there are springs on the trampoline of faith. He knew that those around him viewed him as essentially a Jewish Messiah. By using wholly uncharacteristic language - that of children and dogs - I think he was in fact 'playing to the crowd'. He was using the language that they would have used to talk about non-Jews...Jesus was encouraging the crowd around him to change their dogma, and their doctrine. They believed that the Messiah would liberate the Jews alone. But Jesus came to liberate the whole world. Jesus wanted his followers to understand that dogmas and doctrines have to be flexible. We cannot hope to contain God by our words - for God is, and always will be, greater, bigger, more magnificent than anything we can say about him, or assume we know about him.

So where does this leave us? Let me ask you - how flexible are the springs of your trampoline of faith? Are we ready to hold up some of those springs, examine them, let them flex a little, as we seek to discover more of what God has in store for us, for this community, and for the world? I wonder how much more God might have to show us...if we are willing to flex the springs of our trampoline a little.

In the autumn, after the summer holidays, we are planning to start a new home-group for the parish. Initially, we'll meet at the Rectory - because I've been given a great big lounge we can meet in! The purpose of the group will be to let our springs start to flex. It will give us the space to take out some of the key Christian doctrines and dogmas, and then hold them up to the light. We will stretch them, and oil them, and then reattach them to the trampoline - believing that the trampoline will bounce even higher, even better, for having done so.

So, what I'm asking you to do today is to start thinking about whether you might enjoy that process. If you know immediately that you could embrace such a house-group...then let me know after the service. It would also be helpful for me to get a sense of what evening of the week - or which day-time, you would find most convenient. If you have a computer (or are reading this on the website) by all means email me with these details.

But most of all...let me encourage you all to keep bouncing on the trampoline of faith. It really can be a most exhilarating ride!

Amen

The Feeding of the Five Thousand

Preached at St Mark's Church, Derby Rd, Portsmouth, on 3rd Aug 2008

Reading: Matthew 14:13-21

The Feeding of the Five Thousand

Last week, in our gospel reading, we were given a series of metaphors...pictures which help us to get an idea of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. I'm sure you remember - the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, like yeast, like treasure, like a pearl of great price - and so on. In other words, we were being asked to think about just what a precious, valuable, life-changing idea the Kingdom is. And we were also being invited, through the metaphors of the yeast and the mustard seed, to be aware that God is the one who is bringing his Kingdom about, day by day, year by year, as more and more people turn to him. If you want to read my sermon on that topic, then let me invite you to look it up on my website - the address is in the pew news.

This week - the focus changes. In the story of the Feeding of Five Thousand, we are being invited to move beyond mere words, mere allegories and metaphors, into an actual demonstration of Kingdom principles at work. What we have before is essentially a simple story. Jesus has been pursued by a great crowd. The text tells us that in fact there were far more than five thousand people - because in typical patriarchal fashion, all the gospel writers only bother to count the men in the crowd! There were also women and children...so, we might surmise that there may have been as many as 15 or 20 thousand people in the crowd that day. When evening falls, the disciples come up to Jesus and say "Don't you think we ought to send these folks away to buy some food". But Jesus has other ideas. Taking a few loaves and fishes, he blesses them, and starts to distribute them among the crowd. The food somehow multiplies - so much so that there are 12 baskets left over.

How that happened exactly is a subject on which scholars have debated for centuries. Was it an actual miracle of multiplication? Or could it be that people had, in fact, brought food with them? After all, there are not many people who would go out to a deserted place - miles from home - without at least packing a few sandwiches for the kids. The people of that time are not all that different from us. Children still squinnied when they were hungry. So perhaps, when Jesus started to distribute the five loaves and two fish, many other people started to open their picnics up - and began to share with each other. After all, if people of those days were anything like us, you can be sure that most people packed far more in their picnic than they would need!

Whether or not this story was about an actual multiplication miracle, or whether something much more ordinary took place, we can be sure that what took place was significant. So significant, in fact, that it is the only miracle (other than the resurrection) that is recorded in all four Gospels. Perhaps, like with the story of the calming of the sea, Jesus' power over matter, his divine power, was once again being demonstrated. We could, if we wish, quite legitimately read this story as a demonstration of Jesus' status as the Son of God - Lord of the Universe.

Or, if we choose, we can learn that by a simple act of example, he encouraged others to open their hearts, and share what they had, with their neighbours.

There are two lines in this story that I would particularly like to draw your attention to. In verse 16, after the disciples had suggested sending the people away to buy food, Jesus replies, "They need not go away...you give them something to eat". Then, a few lines later, after he has blessed the food, in verse 19, Jesus gives the food to the disciples, for them to pass it on to the crowd.

There's a real challenge to us in these few words. God is the source of all life, and the provider of all the food in the world. But he gives the task of distributing that food to us, his friends and followers. The disciples could quite easily have decided amongst themselves that five loaves and two fish was not nearly enough food to go round. They could have taken the blessed food, and just eaten it themselves. But no, Jesus commands them to share what they have. Here we see a really important Kingdom principle at work. The Kingdom of Heaven is not about getting and keeping, its about giving and sharing.

How very different this is than the world in which we live today. We live in a time when getting and keeping have become such a normal pattern of life, that very few people question it. We live in the time of 'consumerism' - when consuming as much of the worlds resources as we can has become the norm. In fact, we might almost describe consumerism as the new religion. Temples, mosques and churches have been replaced by shopping arcades. The priests of this new religion are the marketing managers, who tell us what we should believe, and more importantly, what will make us happy. "Buy more stuff!" they cry, and find fulfilment. How different that is from Jesus' idea of "Give stuff away, and find fulfilment!". Icons and religious imagery have been replaced by advertising posters. Hymns and spiritual songs have been replaced by jingles and advertisements.

But Jesus still calls to us across the centuries. "You fool!" he says, to the man who has stored up great wealth for himself. "Do not store up for yourself treasure on earth, where is will only rot and decay. Instead, store up treasure in heaven, where it will last for eternity". "Don't try to get - learn to give!"

There's one last thought I want to share about this command of Jesus to his friends, in verse 16: "You give them something to eat..." Here at St Mark's we find ourselves in the middle of a relatively poor community. I know many of you do not have spare cash - and that is also the case for many of the people who live around here. The other problem that I know is very real in this area is the problem of loneliness. House after house contains people who live alone, and who have very few opportunities to find and make new friends - to feel a connection with the wider humanity around them.

That is why some of us have a vision of establishing a community cafe, in the downstairs hall of this building. What we want to provide is a really low-cost option for people who have little money; the chance for them to buy a cheap cup of tea, or a hot snack in the middle of the day. We want to provide a place where our neighbours who live around this building can gather together, in a warm, friendly environment - to find and make new friends...and to learn, at a deep-down level, that even if they are widowed, poor, and in bad health - they are still loved...by us, and by God, and that there is still purpose to their lives. We want to introduce them to the God who says 'give', not 'get', - give of your time to one another, share each others burdens, belong to the family of God.

But to do that, we need volunteers who will be prepared to take up Jesus' command to his disciples..."You give them something to eat". We need people who will commit to just one, or two days per month, to do precisely that...to serve their brothers and sisters of this community.

So let me, in conclusion, ask you to ask yourself...could it be that God is calling me to take up the call to give something to eat to the crowd who are gathered around this church? Could it be that God is asking me to unpack my picnic basket of time and talent, and to share it with my neighbours? If you think that may be so, then please speak to Christine Watkins after the service. Christine has kindly offered to give some of her picnic basket of time and talent to co-ordinate our new Community Cafe...but she needs many other people to open up their baskets too. (Website note: Christine can be contacted on 023 9266 5753 on Mondays and Thursdays between 9.30am and 2pm, or via email to stmarkchurch@portseaparish.freeserve.co.uk )

Think about it...please. We have the space, we have the tables, we have the chairs and the kitchen. We can buy the food. We just need the people who will love and care for their neighbours – and who will “give them something to eat”.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like....

Preached at St Francis' Church, Hilsea.

We have before us this morning a series of short parables about the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom is like a mustard seed, it is like yeast, it is like treasure, it is like a fine pearl, it is like a net.

Before we can begin to unpick some of these metaphors, it might help if we put ourselves in the position of Jesus' first audience, for a moment. We live in the United Kingdom...but really, this is not a kingdom in the sense that Jesus' disciples would have understood the word. We, in fact, live in a liberal democracy, in which the will of the people, expressed through the ballot box, is ultimately what drives our country. Of course - nothing is quite that simple. We are also driven by economic factors, by the prevailing wind of national desires and interests, and by the forces of the media, international companies, and perceived outside threats. But ultimately, our system is about people-power...and it is people, collectively, who decide how we are governed, and in what direction we move. Our Queen - and one day, our King - has no real power to speak of. She - or he - is little more than a ceremonial figurehead.

But in Jesus' day, things were very different. Kings had real power in those days. Kings - and even more so, Emperors - ruled with total power...what the King said, went. If a King declared war...then off to war the nation went. If a king decreed that every child in a town like Bethlehem should be slaughtered (as Herod the Great did after Jesus' birth) then, with no questions asked, innocents were slaughtered. The King decided how much tax should be paid by his subjects. He decided what new buildings could be built. He decided everything of significance in the entire kingdom.

So, kingship, and the idea of a kingdom, was a very real idea for the people of Jesus' time. At the time of Jesus, the Hebrew nation had Kings once again - from the family of Herod. But Herod the Great, and his Sons, only ruled as subsidiary Kings...under the Romans. They didn't have the power of the kings of old. They were rather more like our own Queen...somewhat ceremonial monarchs.

Many Jews longed for the day when a new Kingdom would be established...and a new powerful King set on the throne of Israel. And into this melting pot, comes Jesus, proclaiming that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

But the Kingdom of Heaven was a rather different notion than the Kingdoms of ancient Israel. When Jesus declared that the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Kingdom of God - which is the same thing - was at hand...he was not suggesting a mere replacement for the Kingdom of Herod, or the Kingdom of the Romans. He had something rather more radical in mind.

The kingdom of heaven was, for Jesus, a kingdom in which mighty arrogant rulers would be thrown down from their thrones, and humble and meek people would be raised up. His was a kingdom in which the poor would be blessed, and in which justice and mercy would supersede violence and war. Jesus spoke of a kingdom in which the hungry would be fed, the sick would be healed, and even the dead would be raised to new life.

And this, according to Jesus, would truly be the Kingdom of God...a Kingdom in which God himself would take the initiative to establish his just and merciful rule. Jesus draws attention to this in two of the metaphors that we just heard - those of the mustard seed, and the measure of yeast.

The thing about both of these images is that they speak of something very small, very embrionic, which has the capacity to grow. A tiny mustard seed will grow into a large plant - large enough for birds to roost in its branches. The tiny grain of yeast will grow, and cause the dough to grow, until it makes a full loaf of bread. In both cases, it is part of the essential property of the mustard seed, or the yeast grain, to grow. And that is what Jesus promises will happen to the Kingdom of God.

For Jesus' first hearers - and for us too - this idea is pregnant with hope. Jesus' first disciples could never have dreamed that as a result of just 12 of them choosing to follow Jesus, that billions of people would also do the same. But now, here we are, in a world where well over a billion people willingly declare that Jesus is Lord.

So for us too - there is hope. A modern way of rendering these parables would be to say something like..."the Kingdom of Heaven is like a group of 30 or 40 Christians who gather together week by week in a city of 150,000...until the whole city comes to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord."

We might well ask ourselves what God's Kingdom will look like once it is fully established. Well, perhaps it might be easier to say what it won't be like. The Kingdom of Heaven won't be a place in which 20% of the world's population owns 80% of its resources. It won't be a place where bad management of finite resources will lead to rising sea levels, the loss of millions of acres of land, and the wars that will inevitably flow from that. The Kingdom of Heaven won't be a place where countries like the USA and UK make many times more money from selling weapons than they then give in aid to the countries who have had wars with those weapons. The Kingdom of Heaven won't be a place in which children die from curable diseases because nations would rather kill one another than heal one another. The Kingdom of Heaven won't be a place where people kill one another over the question of what God might be like.

No - the Kingdom of Heaven will, and is already becoming, a place where peace matters more than war, where sharing is more important than having, where consumerism is replaced with charity, where hatred gives way to love.

And we have real hope that God can bring about such a transformation. After all, he is the God who was born in a stable, the Lord of the Universe, who became a refugee. He is the King, who rides on a donkey. He is the dead man, who came to life. Jesus has a track record of turning the world, and its expectations, upside down. We do have reason for hope. There is a God, the King of the Kingdom of Heaven, whose purposes will not be denied, even though we live in a time of rebellion against the King right now.

Our task, then, is to remain faithful to the promise of Jesus...the promise that mustard seeds do grow, and yeast does multiply, and that the Kingdom itself is like a precious pearl, or a hoarde of treasure...something worth giving up everything to embrace, to follow, to pray for, and to help to usher in. Sometimes we might feel like small, weak, mustard seeds as we meet here week by week...but Jesus calls us to a greater vision...and enlarged perspective...of a Kingdom in which God is in control, working his purpose out, as year suceeds to year.

Amen

Hell-fire and Damnation?

Matthew 13.24-30, 36-43: Hell

(Comic monologue to start - adapted from one performed by Rowan Atkinson in the 1980s)

Good morning, and welcome. As the more perceptive of you have probably realised by now….this is Hell. And I am the Devil. Though you can call me Toby if you like – we try to keep things informal here…as well as infernal.

Now you’re all here for eternity… which I hardly need tell you is a very long time. So you’ll have plenty of time to get to know one another. But for now I’m going to split you up into groups. Are there any questions? Yes? No - I’m afraid we don’t have any toilets. If you had read your Bible you would have known that this is damnation without relief.

Now then, let’s get on with it. Can you all hear me? Can you hear me at the rack?

Right then – murderers – over here. Thieves and pillagers if you could join them. With the estate agents.

Atheists? Are you here? Just move over there would you. I bet you’re feeling a right bunch of charlies.

Now then – everyone who ever saw Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Could you come over here please? I’m sorry but you see, it seems that God couldn’t take a joke after all.

Arsonists, Axe-murderers, Agitators, - could you move over there to the left please? With the Anglicans. Thanks.

Right, well that will do for now. I’m going to leave you with Beelzebub here – who will finish sorting you, and then he’ll show you the ropes….and the chains…and the electrodes. I’ll just leave you with a little joke I heard last week. How many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb? One to change the bulb, and all the rest to say how much they liked the old one!

Good bye!
----------------------------------------------------

After all the wailing and gnashing of teeth in this morning's Bible reading, I'm going to focus my talk on subject of hell. Its one of the more disturbing ideas in the Bible - isn't it? Put simply, the question that arises is 'Why would a God who created us and loves us want to consign some of us to hell? And what is hell like anyway? What's it all about?

There is a great deal of mythological imagery in the Bible which attempts to describe hell. Some of it is rooted in examples that Jesus' hearers would have known only too well. For example, one of the words that Jesus uses to describe hell is 'Gehenna' - which was actually the name of the steaming, continually smouldering rubbish tip outside Jerusalem - where all sorts of waste was taken, to burn and to rot. That kind of imagery is supported by other images of worms never dying and fires never being quenched. Then there’s the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in which heaven and hell are very close - separated only by a chasm over which Lazarus and God can converse; and there’s the image of hell being beneath our feet, while heaven is somehow above us.

From these disparate images - we get a sense that hell – whatever else it is - is about destruction, and its about total separation from God.

The idea of hell flows from two important Christian doctrines. Heaven, and free will. For heaven to be something real – something to be obtained – simple logic dictates that there has to be a non-heaven. A place for those who reject God’s offer of heaven. And if there is free will – it is possible for us to abuse it.

Maybe you, like me, have struggled with the idea of a loving God who could condemn some of his own children to hell. After all, this is a God who sent his Son into the world specifically not to condemn the world, but to save it (John 3:16). This is a God who said 'Love your enemies'. Why on earth (or rather, why in heaven!) would God then throw his enemies into hell. Isn't his whole being bent on our salvation - not our destruction. Well, C.S. Lewis suggests that nothing could be further from the truth. Hell is a state of mind, a place that we put ourselves when we fail to respond to the love that God is freely offering us. He says:

“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God ‘Thy will be done’, and those to whom God says in the end ‘Thy will be done’. All that are in hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it...“I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.”

So..let me be clear about this. Hell is not somewhere that God sends us to. It is a place where we chose to be, by turning our backs on God. Hell is where God is not – whether in this life or the next. God’s offer to us to total, unconditional, sacrificial love. He loves us so much that he is prepared to die for us! Every fibre of his being is bent on our salvation, not our destruction.

We know, don't we, that it is possible for two people to experience the same thing in entirely different ways. I am a fan of a 1970s progressive Jazz/Rock band called 'Blood Sweat and Tears'. I absolutely love their music - it sends me into moments of ecstacy. However, whenever I play it at home, Clare and Emily will always shout over the wonderful jazz-funk trumpet solos.."Turn it off! It's horrible". Well perhaps hell is a bit like that. Hell is, I suggest, God's love as experienced by two completely different people. Those who have honestly sought to love God will run to his arms with a cry of 'Abba! Daddy'. But those who have spent their lives so wrapped up in hate, in violence, and in deliberate evil will, I suggest, find the whole concept of God's love too painful to bear. They will turn from God, when they meet him, and turn away from the source of life.

Perhaps we might imagine hell like this - imagine a person before the throne of the Almighty, whose soul is so dirtied by their life of hatred and evil, that their response to the love of God is - just as they did in life - to turn away. Hell would be that person - turned with their face to the wall, with their fingers jammed into their ears...while God stands behind them, eternally, saying 'I love you. I love you. I love you'.

The destruction that takes place in Hell is not, therefore, a punishment. It is simply the end product of a chosen path. Let me put it this way. If I starve myself of food – I will eventually die, physically. In the same way, if I chose to starve myself of God, I will eventually die spiritually as well.

Taking the right path, the road to life, implies a deliberate, daily engagement with what it means to be truly human – to become day by day more like the source of life. Passion about the world, passion for other human beings, a longing to see the Kingdom established. These are the qualities of the Christian – and the qualities of all people who turn away from self, and turn towards God. Such a person, because of their real, actual, choice to follow God, is picked up by God, held in his arms, and welcomed into heaven. That’s what it means to repent…to turn away from self. An eternity in the presence of the love and creative power of God is the free gift that is offered to all who truly repent. As the gospel-writer John said…’whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

A popular myth has been allowed to surface that heaven is the place for goody-goodies who will sit on clouds stroking harps, whereas hell is the place for everyone who wants to have a good time. The rock group ACDC sang ‘I’m on a highway to hell’ – ‘living easy, living free’. No! Hell is not a party of the damned, with Satan as host. Satan is not the king of hell…he is simply its first arrival. And he too will be annihilated by his selfish desires. There is no king in hell, no demonic servants with pitchforks…just weeping, and wailing, selfish agony….and no God.

I know that the doctrine of hell will invite mocking. Those who preach it will be labelled as vindictive, manipulative and ‘fundamentalist’. Satan has done too good a job of promulgating the hell myth – so that it is very difficult to break through the imagery of hot, exciting eternal booze-ups and describe the reality of empty, Godless, destruction. I don't want anyone to think that we preach hell out of any gleeful sense of retribution, but rather a real and genuine hope that some at least can be saved from destruction and brought to new life in Christ. Being mocked is surely a small price to pay for the salvation of a small infinitely precious soul. And that is the business we are supposed to be in.

So perhaps my little drama at the beginning of this talk was wrong. I was naughty to do it – but I chose to do it in order to illustrate just how easily we settle into the cartoon image of hell. I hope that you’ll join me in praying for Rowan Atkinson – whose sketch it was based on, and every other exponent of the Disney version of hell – that they may find the path to life. Before it is too late.

Amen.