Advent Waiting

A short introduction to a joint Advent Carol Service - held on Sunday 30 November at the Church of the Ascension (our neighbouring parish).

The season of Advent marks the beginning of the Church's new year...the date from which our lectionary starts. (A lectionary is a list of readings which are set for the whole church). So I should wish you a Happy New Year really. It's a strange choice, on the church's part. Logic, as Mr Spock would say, would dicate another weekend for the start of the Church's year - perhaps Christmas, Easter, or Pentecost (thought of as the birthday of the Church).

But when the Church first agreed that Advent was the start of the year - they knew what they were doing. God's spirit was, I think, leading them to quite a profound view of the rhythm of life, and the rhythm of the church's year.

Waiting is something we all have to do from time to time. We wait for the dinner to be cooked, we wait for that new job to start, we wait for that wedding, that birthday, that major event in our family's life...or for the arrival of Christmas once again.

Waiting does us good. It teaches us to live in the moment...to be aware of what is to come, even to anticipate it with joy. But we learn, too, that life goes on, and that God is at work in us even on the darkest of winter days. By waiting we learn to curb our desires, to be content with what we have...to look for God and for happiness among the day to day - and not to invest all our hope in some future event.

All of us know what it is like to say 'if only such and such would happen...then everything would be alright'. And all of us know that hollow feeling of disappointment when what we have yearned for doesn't actually satisfy us. If you are fortunate enough never to have experienced that, then ask the millionaire lottery winner...who yearned to win their millions...and then found that having them did nothing to alter their bad relationships, or their addictions, or their general dissafisfaction with life. Ask the child who strained towards Christmas, looking forward to it with every fibre of their being, and then found that Mum and Dad still argued, and there were no batteries for the toy. Ask the compulsive shopaholic who imagines, from time to time, that just one more dress, or one more pair of shoes, or one more computer game will bring them them happiness they crave.

The present Archbishop of Canterbury describes the Christian faith as having a 'now and not yet' quality about it. We live our faith in the day to day, seeing the Kingdom begin established all around us through the every day actions of love which take place between all people of good will. But we also see the places where the Kingdom is not yet... and with the prophets and apostles of old, we yearn and we wait for 'thy kingdom come, thy will be done'.

Tonight (website note: at the Advent Carol Service with our friends at the neighbouring parish of the Ascension) we will be hearing the stories of waiting once again. We will be reminded of Abraham who had been promised much by God, but who had to go on with the day to day job of living obediently while he waited for God's promises to be fulfilled. We will be reminded of the prophets, and their Jewish followers...who looked forward with longing to the coming of the Messiah. We will think about the Mother of our Lord, who had to wait through the nine months of her pregnancy, and then the early years of her Son's life to see what the Angel had told her come to pass.

As we listen again to these stories, we shall be alert to the 'now'... to this holy moment of coming together, as people of God from two different traditions but united in love. We shall be alert to the activity of God in our lives, in our parishes, and in our world. We shall be alert to the dance of God, dancing the beat of the rhythm of life. We shall be alert to the voice of God - announcing and assuring us of his coming among us with grace and with power. "I am coming." "I am coming".

Amen! Maranatha. Come Lord Jesus!

The Last, the Least and the Lost

Matthew 25:31-46: The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. For Sunday November 23rd (the Feast of Christ the King)

Here's a video I made of this reading some time ago. Some of the images in it - especially scenes of The Judgment - will help understanding of the sermon!

If I was Dr Who, and if I had a Tardis, I could take you back in time ...about 700 years...into the darkness of the Middle Ages.

In most churches of that time was something which would have made you gasp...if you were not used to such things. There, suspended above your head - usually painted on the wall - was often found a depiction of the Day of Judgment. Such pictures usually followed the same pattern. They showed Jesus, sitting on a throne, - the King of Kings - with all of humanity divided on either side of him.

On his right were the righteous...pictures of saints and good people who would be welcomed into heaven...the sheep of today's gospel reading. But on his left would be the 'goats' - those evil-doers who would be condemned to eternal punishment.

These pictures of the Last Judgment were a pretty unsubtle message to the great mass of churchgoers. Many of them, of course, could not read - and grand murals of the Last Judgment were designed to get a clear message across: watch out, or you might find yourself on the wrong side of the throne!

Some of the artists who painted these last judgments, all over the world, were a pretty cheeky lot. There are still some famous ones which, for example, portray well known politicians of the time as being among the goats. And there are even some which showed bishops and priests as being among those who were condemned to hell! Cheeky so-and-so's! Thankfully, especially for us priests, the majority of these Last Judgment paintings were covered over during the Reformation!

But there are still enough of them around, in medieval churches across the land, to remind us that when the Scriptures refer to Jesus as our King - the King of Kings, in fact - they mean business.

Let's just think, for a moment, about what it means to live under the reign of the King of Kings. Perhaps it might help if we were to shift our language a little. Very few people in this modern world know what it is like to live under the real power and authority of an actual Monarch. Perhaps it might help us to say that we live under the 'government' of God. We who call ourselves followers of Jesus choose to place ourselves under his rule. We choose to follow his government...his laws and ways of doing things. That's what it means to be a citizen of heaven.

But Scripture has a way of challenging us - even we who have signed up to the 'God-party'...to living under the Government of Jesus. Passages like today's gospel - and those medieval church paintings which were drawn from it - they give us cause to wonder whether we've truly grasped the full implications of what we have signed up for. This passages drives us to ask how fully we have grasped the reality of living under the Government of God. It asks us to think about how we have behaved towards the weakest members of our society - the sick, the hungry, the stranger and those in prison. Or what we might call the 'last, the least, and the lost of our society'.

I generated a little controversy last week, when I publicly questioned the City Council's attitude towards Travellers (or Gypsies as we sometimes call them). I got really angry to see a quote in the local newspaper from our City Council Leader, in which he was reported as saying "We don't want Travellers here". And that was after the Government has asked local authorities to look for sites where Traveller communities can put down roots, and become members of local communities.

You see, I think that a society is judged by how it treats the weakest of its members. And Travellers are treated, by us, like Samaritans were treated by the Jews. And how the Jews were ultimately treated by the Nazis. They are the scapegoats...the ones we blame for litter and crime...as though if we got rid of Gypsies from our City, then all the crime and litter would disappear as well! So I wrote a letter to the newspaper...in the vain hope that I might persuade our politicians to think again.(To see what I wrote, click here)

You see, according to the Gospel, Jesus is to be found precisely among those people who are the last, the least and the lost of our society. When we shun those who are not like us...those whose way of life we disapprove of...are we not in danger of shunning Jesus himself?

It can be a little overwhelming to read the story of the Sheep and the Goats. It can make us wonder whether we are ever doing enough to help the last, the least and the lost. Especially when we see poverty, sickness, loneliness all around us in our own City...and on our TVs.

It is right, of course, that we should each ask ourselves the question, all the time. Am I doing enough? Could I do more to feed the hungry, visit the sick, and welcome the stranger? But we must not go overboard with worry. Jesus himself, in the story, says "just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me". One of the least of these...

We are members of the body of Christ. As we work together, each one of us doing what we can to touch the lives of even one of the last, the least and the lost - then we are doing what we have been commanded to do. Working together, each of us making our own contribution, however small, we CAN change the world. We can, by God's grace, establish the Government of God in our own city streets.

This is our vocation. This is what we are called to do - we who are the citizens of heaven. The word 'vocation' has the same root as the word 'vocalise'... it means a call... a cry from our King of Kings that we are invited to respond to. It is for each of us to pray and to explore with God and with one another what it is he is calling us to do - as part of his Holy Government Policy of bringing peace and justice to the least, the last and the lost.

Every one of us has a vocation...a calling. For most of us, that calling will be one that is lived out through our daily lives, in our workplaces, schools, and families. But for some there is a different calling... a vocation to become a priest, or a deacon, or a reader; someone who is set apart for a particular task within the church... the task of leading, encouraging and where necessary challenging the church and its people.

The Church of England is currently experiencing a shortage of such people. There is a need to set apart more people who can take on that role of preaching, teaching and leading. So I'm going to finish with one last challenge for you to contemplate...

Could it be that God might be calling you...yes you...to be set apart for the task of being a priest or a deacon or a reader in the Church? Is that something that you have been wondering... something that perhaps God has been prompting you to think about? If it is, then let me encourage you to get in touch. Let's think and pray together about how God might be calling you - whether he is calling you towards the priest-hood, the diaconate, or towards any other form of vocation. All of us have a vocation...a calling. But sometimes we need the help of others to crystallise that calling into something definite... something we can act upon.

But something we can all be certain of is that all of us - all of us who live as citizens of the Government of God - are called, all the time, to keep on loving and reaching out, to the last, the least and the lost.

Amen

Vicar Tom Battles Evil

Just to keep alerting you to The Thoughts of Tom (my secondary, fun, not-so-serious-as-a sermon website)...go there now to see an 18 second animation by our church's resident animator, Steve Bodle. Apparently, a super-fat Vicar can even fight evil with the power of his tummy!

The Good Samaritan

The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10): Preached at a baptism service for five of our church's young people on 16 November 2008

In a few minutes we will be baptising these five children into the Church. But why are we doing it? What's it all about? I mean, its a bit of an odd thing to do isn't it...to pour some water over someone's head in the name of God?

Well, perhaps the first thing to say about baptism is that it is a very ancient practice. We know that for at least 2000 years, Christians have been doing this simple thing to each other. It stems out of a command that Jesus gave his disciples before he left them to carry on his work: "Go into all the world and make disciples - baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." (Matthew 28:18) Jesus himself was baptised, in the River Jordan. So baptism is something that we do out of obedience to Jesus. We do it because he told us to...even though we might not understand it very well.

The second thing we can say about baptism is that it is a sign, a symbol - of something much deeper than what we shall see on the surface. (Note for website only: The technical term for this, within the church, is the word "sacrament" - which, according to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, means something that is an 'outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace".)

We see signs all around us, don't we? In the last couple of weeks, many of us have been wearing poppies - as a sign that we are grateful to those who have given their lives for our freedom, and a sign that we care for those who have been injured, or left without a family member because of war. Do you see what I mean? The flower, on its own, means nothing. A poppy is a poppy - a pretty red flower...nothing more. But because we understand that it symbolises something more, something deeper - then the poppy takes on a whole new meaning.

So what is it that baptism is symbolising? Well, pretty clearly, it's a symbol of washing and cleansing. Christians believe that baptism is an essential part of the process of having our sins washed away.

But what is sin?

Sin is anything that gets in the way of us truly becoming the people that God created us to be. It's the bad stuff, the general rubbish and clutter of our lives, that comes between us and God. It's a difficult word, isn't it? We have somehow got used to thinking of sinners as being those people who do the very worst things. Murderers, thieves, rapists, and so on. But that's only partly true.

Scripture tells us that 'all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God' (Rom.3:23). We've all 'fallen short'. I'm a sinner...and I hope that you'll forgive me for saying this... we are all 'sinners'. I'm not insulting you...honestly! I'm just using the word in the way it was meant to be used! None of us, if we examine ourselves honestly could ever claim to be perfect. And that's the dividing line. We are either perfect, like God. Or imperfect...and therefore sinners.

But God never gives up on us. God is always reaching out to us, and offering us the chance to become more and more like him. He offers to take away our sin, and helps us to become more and more God-like. More like the people, created in God's image, that God intended us to be.

Baptism is a part of that process. It's an outward sign that God is at work in us. It's a sign of our saying 'yes' to the process of becoming more like God, and less of a sinner. For the children here who are old enough to understand what is going on, its a sign that they are saying 'yes' to becoming more like God...and that they are willing to let God touch them, and draw them deeper into himself. For little Sarah - who will probably scream when I pour water on her head - it's a sign that her parents, on her behalf, are saying 'yes' to God as well.

But why would we want to do that at all? Why would we want to become more like God? The story of the Good Samaritan, that we just saw on the screen, is a pretty good example.

In that story - which Jesus told - a man was going on a journey. While he was walking along, minding his own business, he was set upon by a group of thugs. It's rather uncomfortably similar to the murder of Brett Carpenter on our own City streets in this last week, isn't it? (Website readers: see this link for more details.) The story of the Good Samaritan has all sorts of things to teach us.

For example, it teaches us about the need to stop judging other people because of their race, or their background. Samaritans were hated by the Jewish people that Jesus was talking to. But Jesus showed them that such hatred was pointless. A Samaritan was just as capable of being a good neighbour as anyone else.

The story of the Good Samaritan shows us a different way. It shows us that it is possible to live a life that is based on giving, instead of getting. The Samaritan in the story simply gave...of his time, his money, his medicine, his bandages... without looking for any reward. Except the satisfaction of simply doing good. I wonder what our society would look like if all of us lived that way. It's just possible that if more people embraced Jesus' way of living, that this world would be a far happier, far more sharing, far less destructive place for us all to live in.Ultimately, that's what these children and their parents and God-parents are signing up to today. It takes courage to stand up at the front of a church in the way they are going to do in a few moments. And it takes courage to say "yes" to God's way of living...and "no" to doing things the old way. It takes courage to embrace God, and reject sin. It takes courage to step out on a journey of faith...and that is courage that I welcome and applaud.

Now - let's do some baptising!

No Room at the Inn for Travellers

Click on 'The Thoughts of Tom' (to your left on this page) to see a letter I have written today to my local Newspaper.

Laugh? I nearly died!

You've got to see the latest entry on 'The Thoughts of Tom'. Get ready to laugh your trousers off! Go to The Thoughts of Tom.

Remembrance Sunday

This Sunday I will not be preaching a sermon. (Comments expressing relief from any parishioners will be deleted!) Instead, we will be watching a video I've put together, as part of our Remembrance Ceremony.

The video I shall be using is below. Please note that this page will only be available for a short while, as I do not hold the copyright for some of the material I have used. It is offered in respectful memory of those who gave (or were forced, by conscription to give) their lives in war. If anyone who owns the copyright to these images, or soundtrack, wishes me to remove this video, please email me - and I will immediately comply.



If I had delivered a sermon, it would have been one which suggested that Jesus' solution to the problems of the world (i.e. love one another) is still, after 2000 years, very far from being implemented. A topic for continued prayer - and action - by all people of good will, I suggest.

Re-Membering

A Sermon for the All Souls Service of Memories; to be held at St Mark's Church, Derby Road, Portsmouth at 3pm on Sunday 2nd November.For Sunday Morning's Sermon, see the posting below this one!

Readings: Psalm 130 & 1 Corinthians 15:20-22 &51-58

“Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary we all carry about with us”. So, says Miss Prism in Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”. And we know what she means, don’t we? We are who we are, to a greater or lesser extent, because of the memories that we carry about with us - especially the memories of those we have loved, those whose lives have touched us in some way.

The word “remember” has its root in the old word for body parts - members. To “re-member” someone is therefore, essentially, to put that someone back together in our mind.

And that, I hope, that is what this service will help to accomplish for many of us here today.But the effect that this act of remembrance will have on each of us will be different. Some of us will remember our loved ones with affection and pleasure, quietly celebrating their effect on our lives, thanking God for all they meant to us. They will be, to some extent, a fulfilment of the old adage that “God gave us memories so that we can have roses in winter”. Some of us will be content to rest in the certain, Christian, hope that God, the Lord of the living and the dead, offers eternal life through Jesus Christ.

But for some of us, the act of re-membering will bring unexpected emotions to the surface. Natural, completely understandable, but nonetheless difficult emotions. Feelings, perhaps of anger towards a God who apparently took away our loved one before what we thought was their time. Perhaps there might be unresolved grief which bubbles to the surface. Perhaps there are old wounds relating to our loved one - wounds which have not yet healed. Perhaps we worry about what comes next? What about life after death?

What might our response to such feelings be? - the warm and appreciative ones, as well as the more complex, difficult ones?

Psalm 130, which we heard just now, starts with words that many of us may recognise as our own:

“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy”.

As many of you will be well aware, the Bible is a collection of writings assembled over many generations - it contains stories, metaphors, history, myth, song and poetry...all of which combine to offer us, if we will but grapple with it, a clear understanding of the God that Christians serve.

Ours is a God who listens to, and understands, our most heartfelt cries - the cries which, as Psalm 130 says, come from the depths of our innermost being - and from the depths of depressions and sadness too. Ours is a God who wants to be with us through all that life throws our way - so much so that he came, as a man, to live among us. Through that time he spent on earth, he experienced all that we experience. Not because he somehow had to do that in order to understand us...but rather that he wanted us to know that he understands...and to be able to trust him completely.

The shortest verse in the Bible, and perhaps one of the most eloquent, is the two words “Jesus wept” - recorded of an event in which Jesus himself was bereaved at the death of his friend, Lazarus. But as that story, and the story of his own resurrection powerfully demonstrated, Jesus had within him the power of God - the power to transform death into life...the power to raise first Lazarus, and then himself, from death itself.

The Christian God is the God who transforms death into life. “Listen”, says the Apostle Paul in the second of our readings, “Listen, I will tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye”. And so, he goes on, exclaiming “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

How are we to respond to that exclamation? Especially, perhaps, when we feel bereft - depressed - lost - because of the death of our own loved one? We don’t feel much like making that kind of exclamation ourselves do we?

Well, I want to suggest to you, that’s where the Christian hope, offered to us in the pages of the Bible, really comes into play. The message of the Bible is absolutely clear...it couldn’t be more clear. We all have a clear choice...to live alone with our grief, mourning the end of life with no hope...OR...we can hold on to the promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ offered to us in the Bible, written by people who have experienced God for themselves, rejoicing in the plain truth that this life is just the starting point. Eternal life waits for us, through Jesus Christ... if we will but respond to his amazingly graceful, loving, call.

That’s what the Christians who gather here each Sunday are doing. Some of our practices may seem a little odd, some of our prayers and songs - a little old fashioned. None of us is perfect, and every one of us is grappling with life, death, memories, experiences. But each of us is expressing our ‘yes’ to the call of Christ...our ‘yes’ to his offer of life. When we gather around the Lord’s table we “re-member” the historical event of the Cross, and the resurrection to new life of our God.

And we say, with our lives and by our actions - “Where, O death, is thy victory? Where, O death is thy sting?”

So, today, we re-member our loved ones. We thank our loving heavenly Father for all that they meant to us, all the ways that their own life and love affected us. But we are also open to the call of God that we should, in the Apostle Paul’s final words “give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord”. We live as people who re-member those who have gone before, but also as people who look forward to the eternal life which is ours to share with them in Christ.

Amen

The End is Nigh?

Matthew 24:1-14: For St Mark's Church, Northend, Portsmouth: on 2nd November (All Souls)

I was watching a movie the other day. I honestly forget which movie - it was one of those many disaster epics, where the world is about to end thanks to a meteorite, or aliens, or the raising of the water levels, or some such thing. What I remember most about the movie was a tiny little scene - just a bit a humour to lighten the apocalyptic mood. The camera showed us one of those slightly barmy folks with a sandwich-board...the kind that normally says "The End of the World is Nigh!". But instead of that message, in the middle of all the panic and chaos, his sign had its normal slogan crossed out - and instead he had written: "Told you so!"

We find such people amusing because people have been predicting the end of the world practically since the world began. Every few years we hear of another religious sect which has walled itself into a cave, or climbed to the top of a mountain, to await the end of the world...as confidently predicted by their leaders. The internet, and certain types of bookshops, are full of the writings of people who claim to be able to interpret the numerology of the Bible...and who reckon that God has shown them that the End is nearly upon us.

A lot of this apocalyptic doom-saying comes, of course, from the example of the Bible. It was clearly something that was exercising the minds of those around the writer of Matthew's Gospel - as we've just heard. According to most scholars, Matthew's Gospel was written after the year AD70 - when the Romans had destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, after yet another uprising against their rule by those 'troublesome Jews'. Life for the early Christians was proving to be very hard. They were being persecuted for their faith, thrown out of the synagogues and the Temple, as well as coming up against the might of Roman Emperor-worship. Now, after the Temple has been destroyed, Matthew records a tradition, handed on through the years, that Jesus himself had predicted the Temple's destruction.

What else had Jesus predicted? Well according to Matthew, he had predicted the very persecution that people found themselves going through. It must have been comforting for them to know that their persecution was predicted, and somehow accounted for, in God's plan. Of still more comfort was the promise (in verse 14) that once the Gospel had been preached to the four corners of the Earth, then the end would come, and all the persecution would stop.

These were messages of hope - messages designed to help the newly established 'followers of The Way' (as early Christians were called) to hold onto their faith, and to keep on persevering. Matthew wanted to offer comfort and encouragement to people who were doubting that Jesus was ever going to return as he had promised.

But of course the problem with Jesus words, as Matthew recorded them, is that they are deliberately ambiguous...and they relate to all of human history. Famines, earthquakes and wars are a repeated phenomenon, throughout history. Did you know that according to one recent historical survey, there have only been seven years, in the last 2000, that a war has not been going on somewhere in the world? Seven years, out of 2000. Persecution and suffering by Christians is a common theme of the last 2000 years as well. Even now, as we meet in safety and peace here in England, our brothers and sisters in certain parts of India and Afghanistan are in fear of their very lives. One of the worst effects of the War in Iraq has been that Christians are now fleeing the country - whereas under Saddam, they at least had the freedom to worship.

Perhaps the end is coming soon. Many Christians talk about these as the 'Last Days' - but then that is a phrase that was used by St Paul as well - nearly 2000 years ago. We would be wise not to imagine that the world is going to end tomorrow. The lesson of history is that we should be very suspicious of anyone who tells us that the end is nigh.

On the other hand, we are encouraged to live as though the end was nigh. Jesus told many stories which encourage us to live as if the end was upon us. We can boil all those stories down into one question: "If Jesus came today, what would you like him to find you doing?" (I have a rather facetious fridge magnet at home which captures that thought rather comically. It says: 'Jesus is coming...look busy!'). Would we want to be caught gambling, or giving to charity? Would we want to be caught fighting, or reconciling? Would we want to be caught praising or cursing? Would we want to be caught shopping, or sharing?

So there is a challenge for us in Jesus words - but there is also promise. There is promise that history is His Story. There is promise that God holds all of human history in the palm of his hands. Famine, war, earthquake, persecution, false Messiahs, God is big enough to cope with them all. Jesus' words, recorded by Matthew, help us to understand that God is so much bigger than human history and human events. He stands outside of history, and yet he contains it. He is before human history, and after it. Whether and when the world will be transformed by God into 'heaven on earth' is not really the issue. The issue is whether or not we trust God when he says that he loves us - and how we respond to that love. That's all that ultimately matters: how much do we let the love of God overwhelm us. How much are we willing to let his love flow through us - transforming the world into a new heaven and a new earth? How much are we willing to let the Son of Man rule in our hearts?

A final thought - on a related theme. Today is All Souls Day - and we shall be remembering those we have loved later on, at our 3o'clock Service of Memories. Some people get rather anxious when they think about their loved ones who have died - especially those who died without obviously expressing a Christian belief. It is a question - sometimes an unspoken one - which often hovers between a priest and a grieving family: "where do you think our loved one is now?". The easy thing for any priest to do would be to offer meaningless words of comfort...to go along easily with statements which assume the loved one is now in heaven. But that would, I think, be dishonest.

The truth is, we cannot know the ultimate destination of any human being. When the end is nigh for us as individuals, no-one else is able to judge the state of the human heart...no-one other than God alone. But we can have confidence in one thing - and perhaps one thing alone. We can have confidence that God is good...and God holds all of human history in his hands. We can have confidence that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son...so that the world, through him might be saved. (John 3:16-17)

In other words, we know that every fibre of God's being is bent on our salvation, not on our destruction. God wants 'the world' to be saved...and that surely means everyone in it, or who has ever lived in it. God never stops reaching out for us, loving us, drawing us to the Divine Life. None of us can judge to what extent that process has been sucessful in the life of any individual. We can only trust that God will have done, and has done, and continues to do all that God can do to save everyone.

And so we celebrate All Souls Day with real hope. Whatever the life of the people we pray for today, we hope and trust in God. "All our hope on God is founded"...and we trust that he who holds all of human history in his hands will hold our loved ones too.

Amen

Is This the Real Life? Is This Just Fantasy?

Matthew 24:30-35 - For St Mark's Church on Sunday 26th October

"Is this is real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide; no escape from reality". With those words, Freddie Mercury began one of the most famous Rock anthems of all time - the Bohemian Rhapsody. He asks a question which haunts most of us from time to time. Is this it? Is this 'landslide' how it was supposed to be?

Let me ask you. How do you feel about the world? Is it getting better, or worse? For all our technology, and all our wisdom, and all our invention...how does the world seem to you? How is it that there can be so much beauty, so much good, and yet also so much pain, and so much hurt?

According to book of Genesis, when God created the earth, he planted a garden. The story goes that in that garden, God planted a tree...the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God said to human beings, 'I'm giving you a choice. Either you can live as I created you to live, or you can live how you want. You can live 'in the garden' for ever, with me; or you can do your own thing, and die. That tree...the one over there...is the symbol of what you'll choose. Eat of the tree...and you'll choose your way, not mine. Good or evil. Life or death. It's your choice.

Lots of people get very steamed up about whether or not the Genesis story is true - whether it's actual history, or whether its a fable, like Aesop's fables; a story which points to a greater truth.

I think perhaps I had better pause there for a moment - just to let that idea sink in. It might come as a bit of a shock for some of you.

I believe, you see, that we have to be very careful how we treat the Scriptures. If we read them literally - believing that every image, every picture, every story literally happened - then we can quickly find ourselves in very difficult water. We have to use our minds, apply our knowledge and our common sense, and learn to discern what is factual history in the Bible; and what is story, myth, and fable. Now - please understand me. Just because a story is a fable doesn't mean that it isn't true. There is always truth underlying fables - just as there was truth underlying the fables - the parables - that Jesus himself taught. No-one believes that there really was a Good Samaritan. That story is obviously a fable - a parable - designed to help us understand who our neighbour is. Why then should we get hung up on questions about Adam and Eve. Instead of trying to do battle against Science - and arguing that the world is only 6,000 years old - why not look for the truth which underlies the story...the essential truth at the heart of it?

Perhaps the truest thing that can be said about the Genesis story is not whether or not it actually happened...but that it still happens. It is still happening. Just like our ancestors, we are still faced with the same choice...good or evil. Life or death.

At the other end of the Bible, in the book of Revelation, there is another tree. That tree is depicted on the sculpture at the back our church - thanks to the vision of one of my predecessors here, Bill Sargeant.

Let me invite you to stand up, or turn around now in your seats...and have a look at it. It's called the Tree of Life - and it has 12 kinds of fruit, so that it produces fruit all through the year. The writer of Revelation, in characteristic fable-talk, says that the leaves of the tree will be for the healing of the nations.

So there's a tree at the beginning of human history, and a tree at the end. And we live between the trees. The trees act like markers. Before the first tree, God went on for ever, back into eternity. After the second tree, God will go on for ever, into eterntity. But for a brief, momentary blip in eterntity...we live between the trees.

In today's Gospel reading, we hear part of a much longer description, by Jesus, of the end of time - when the sign of Son of Man (maybe the Cross?) will appear in the sky, and history will be brought to its dramatic end. Now, again, we must be careful not to put too much faith in the precise images he uses. Jesus quite normally spoke in riddles and parables - again the language of fable... challenging us to go beyond the words, deep into the inner meaning of the text. In verse 35, Jesus says, 'Heaven and Earth will pass away - but my words will not pass away'. This period we are living in - here between the trees - this will end. But is that it? Is that what Christianity is ultimately about - waiting for the world to end? To meet some people of faith, you would indeed think that is all it is about.

Some Jehovah's Witnesses knocked on my door a few weeks ago. I leave you to imagine the shock on their faces when the door was opened by someone wearing a clerical collar. "Oh," they said, pointing to the sign on my door, "this really is a Rectory then!". I invited them in - because I always enjoy a good theological debate. And at the end of our time together, I concluded regretfully, that life for a Jehovah's Witness must be a very sad one. They are so focused on the end of the story, so caught up with the details about who will be saved, and when the end will come, that they forget the life that is now. They seem not to understand the real truth of the Genesis story - that we can choose life now, instead of death. They don't see the underlying truth of all the stories and fables about the end of history...the promise that God is Good...and that God will keep on inviting us to choose life, not death.

And that for now, we live between the trees.

I don't know about you, but I want a God who is interested in The Now. I want a God who helps me to choose life now. I want a God who inspires me to help others choose life now. I want a God who gives me a garden of eden to live in, and look after, now. And fortunately, I believe, the real God is precisely like that. Jesus - the man whose connection with God was undoubtedly stronger, deeper, more real than anyone else who has ever lived - Jesus points us to that God. When Jesus says that 'the Kingdom of God is among you' he shows us that eternal life is not something that happens after we die...eternal life starts now! We, his brothers and sisters, are 'inheritors of that promise'. We can choose life now, and begin to never, ever, ever, stop living. We can choose life now. Here, between the trees, is the promise of life. In Jesus words, "life to the full" is available to us now.

May you trust Jesus when he says that death has been taken care of; that you can live forever with God, and that you are never, ever, going to stop living. May you believe that you can be a partner with God in taking care of the world - in redeeming and restoring what has been broken in the world - in bringing healing and life to the places of darkness. May you believe that God calls you to join forces with God - to help make this earth the kind of place is was always meant to be...a garden of life.

Too many people live our their lives in deserts - deserts of arid consumerism, deserts of hatred and enmity, deserts of shattered relationships, war and poverty. May you be the kind of person who plants trees of life...trees of paradise...in the desert.

(I wish to gratefully acknowledge the work of Rob Bell, upon whose thinking much of this sermon is based - especially his DVD called 'Trees'. Go to www.nooma.com for more details.)