The time is now

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Catherine's Wickford this evening:

The famous passage from Ecclesiastes that we have just heard read (Ecclesiastes 3. 1 - 15) is often understood as meaning that God orders our time and allots particular events to particular times and seasons. However, it can also be understood in terms of one of those phrases like ‘stuff happens’, ‘life happens’ which mean simply that what happens happens. The reality it says is that all our lives will contain enough time for births and deaths, tears and laughter, mourning and dancing, conflict and peace to occur. There is time enough in each of our lifetimes for all these things and it is inevitable that we will experience them.

While it is inevitable that the highs and lows of life will occur over the course of our lives, we don’t know when these things will occur or how long our lives themselves will be, and so inevitability is combined with uncertainty. We often respond to this by trying to impose order either by detailed planning on our own part or by asking that God will order our days. When we do so, we can end up preoccupied with the future, instead of experiencing the present.

As we don’t know how much time we have, it is imperative that we must use the time we currently have wisely. We do so by savouring and appreciating the time we have whether that is: time at home - growing together as a family; time at work – completing tasks and supporting colleagues; time at church - in worship, fellowship and prayer; or time alone with God - praying and reading the Bible.

Van Morrison sings that ‘These are the days, the time is now … There's only here, there's only now.’ Similarly, Simon Small has written, ‘There is always only now. It is the only place that God can be found.’ Each moment we are alive is unique and unrepeatable. As singer-songwriter, Victoria Williams, has put it, ‘This moment will never come again / I know it because it has never been before.’ We live in the present and can only encounter God in this moment, in the here and now, today.

We can only live in the here and now. In Deuteronomy 30. 11 - 20 we read of Moses saying to the Israelites, “today … I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses” and exhorting them to “choose life.” Similarly, in Hebrews 3. 7 - 19, the writer of that letter says, ‘Today, if you hear his [God’s] voice, do not harden your hearts …’ The emphasis of these passages is that now is the moment to encounter God, now is the moment to live.

Ecclesiastes 3.1-11 tells us that there is time, if we use the time that is available to us. All too often we do not take the time we have to be with those that are important to us. All too often we distract ourselves with unimportant tasks and fail to do the things that are truly of importance to us. Ecclesiastes 3.1-11 encourages us to use the time that we have. So, as we often pray during funerals, grant us, Lord, the wisdom and the grace to use aright the time that is left to us on earth. Let us use that time to know others more completely, appreciate them more fully, love them more deeply, and, in that knowing, know ourselves more intimately. For to know and appreciate and love and enjoy each other in that way is heaven.

How much time have we got? We don’t know, so we must use it all wisely. The past is behind us, the future is yet to come, so now is the only moment in which we can live and move and have our being. This means that now is always the moment in which to encounter God, now is always the moment in which to truly come alive and truly live, now is always the moment in which we can give of ourselves in thanks for all that God has given to us. There's only here, there's only now. This moment is unique and unrepeatable. It will never come again because it has never been before. So, these are the days for encounter, for living and loving and for giving. The time is now.

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Van Morrison - These Are The Days.

The teachable moment that follows interruptions

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Catherine’s Wickford this morning:

Interruptions; don’t we just hate them? Often, they seem wholly negative and irritating. As when a Minister stepped to the communion table after his sermon only to be met there by a woman who immediately shoved all of the communion elements onto the floor. Or a writer who lost two chapters of the new book she was writing when her computer crashed. Or a father, praying with his young children, being distracted by their giggles, the dog barking and the phone ringing. Or a healer on a vital mission to a sick child being held up by the crowd including an old woman who insisted on touching him (Mark 5: 21 – 43).

Jesus may have had two reasons for going to heal Jairus’ daughter. First, the girl was seriously ill, close to death, and he had compassion for her. Second, he was generally at loggerheads with the Synagogue leaders and yet here was one of them asking, pleading for his help. Ministering to Jairus’ daughter was potentially a breakthrough with the religious leaders. So, it was imperative to get to Jairus’ home quickly. That was what Jairus wanted and what the situation demanded.

But the crowd were in the way. So many people were going along with Jesus that they were crowding him on every side. Then he was touched by a woman who had suffered terribly from severe bleeding for twelve years and who had lost everything on cures that didn’t work.

To us this would seem like an irritating interruption. We’re on important business; someone’s life is at stake; we already being delayed and we can’t stop for someone else. This interruption though is worse than just the time delay. According to the Jewish Law this woman is perpetually unclean because of her constant bleeding. As a result of being touched by her Jesus is also made unclean. The consequence of that for Jairus is that Jesus should no longer enter his home without undergoing purification rites.

Poor Jairus must have been despairing at this interruption because he knew how close his daughter was to death and he is faced with a dilemma that goes to the very heart of his faith.

But Jesus’ response to this interruption is very different. He doesn’t view the woman’s touch as an annoying interruption instead he stops, searches for her and affirms her in what she has done. Jesus had confidence that there was time in God’s grace for both the woman and the girl.

There is something very reassuring for us in the woman’s touch. Jesus was being touched and jostled by all sorts of people in this crowd who were there just out of interest or curiosity; just wanting to see what miracle he might work next. But when someone in genuine need touches him, Jesus knows immediately and turns to find the woman. Maybe you are here today in great need yourself but feeling as though you are just an anonymous person in the crowd who is never noticed. Just as with this woman, Jesus knows that there is time for you and your need and will turn to you and meet you at your point of need.

In the story, this is true both for this woman and for Jairus’ daughter. Although the daughter dies as a result of the delay, that is just an opportunity for Jesus to demonstrate the breadth of God’s of grace and power by raising her back to life again. In God’s grace there is time both for the woman and the girl, just as there is time for each one of us.

Jesus also uses the woman’s interruption to demonstrate to Jairus what is really important in life. As a Synagogue leader, Jairus’ life would have been governed by the Law and obedience to it. But for his daughter to be raised to life, his literal understanding of the Law has to be broken as Jesus, an unclean man, enters his house and touches his daughter. What he must surely have come to realise is that the heart of the Law is about love; love for God, for ourselves and for our neighbour. Often, though, when we focus on the Law for its own sake, we make the keeping of rules and regulations more important than the purpose of those rules which is love. What is important is to love and sometimes in order to love others it is necessary to break rules that others hold dear. Jesus uses this interruption to challenge Jairus’ thinking on what is really important and what the purpose of the Law really is.

In the same way, interruptions can be part of God’s purpose for our lives. The real opportunity interruptions provide is the teachable moment that follows. After the communion elements were scattered on the floor and the ushers had led the woman away, the Minister turned to the congregation and said, "Well, Jesus told us to love our enemies. We have an opportunity to do just that right now. This woman is obviously not well. As the ushers reset the table, let us pray for her." Because the writer had to start with a clean slate when she began writing again a few days later, she decided to try a different approach to the book. She found that this new direction worked better, and she wasn’t struggling for ideas as greatly. In the end, she never rewrote the chapters she lost and is convinced that her book is all the stronger for leaving them out. The father who was distracted while praying with his children began to incorporate the distractions into his prayers. When his children giggled, he asked God to bless their high spirits; when the dog barked, he thanked God for the dog and asked him to keep the dog healthy; when the phone rang for his eldest daughter, he thanked God for her popularity and asked for a little more peace and quiet around the house.

Instead of cursing interruptions and trying to ignore them maybe we too could benefit from asking what it is that God is trying to teach us through them and how we are being called to minister in them. Ecclesiastes teaches us that there is a time for everything under the sun. A time for the woman, a time for the girl, a time for each one of us, and a time for the person who interrupts our busy schedule. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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King's X - Shot Of Love.

There is time

Here's the sermon I shared during Evensong at St Catherine’s Wickford this evening:

Last year, I led a Memorial Service for a friend from St Martin-in-the-Fields who died an untimely death. For those of us who gathered for the Memorial, there was no getting away from that fact, and lockdown had also meant that for many of us our contact with our friend had been less than it might otherwise have been. Those were tough truths and caused us real sadness as we gathered to remember her and give thanks for her life.

Nevertheless, the reading from Ecclesiastes (Ecclesiastes 3.1-11) that she had chosen for that reminded us that, although the time she had had with us was shorter than we would have liked, there had been time for her life to impact us and others, while there was also time for her to live through the whole gamut of life's experiences from great joys to great sorrows.

At her Memorial we heard of childhood friendships enduring into adulthood and later friendships built on lived experience of discrimination, leading to advocacy on behalf of others. There was time to reflect on places that, at points, provided safe space and community space to her and also places like the Wards of the Hospitals in which she stayed that were restrictive and conflicted spaces in which to be. There was time too, to also hear the voice, as through her writings, she had articulated her experiences and advocated on behalf of others whilst acknowledging the many ways in which hers was a voice insufficiently heard, sharing experiences that are insufficiently understood and appreciated. In her life there had been time for travel to places like Palestine that impacted her deeply and which gave lifelong commitments and also times in which she was confined to one place, whether on a ward or in her flat during lockdown. There had also been time for talking - conversation, prayer, presentations, advocacy - and time for silence - whether of reflection or of discrimination when her voice went unheard.

Her Memorial Service provided time in which we could say that ‘This was the woman I knew’ and time to hear others saying, ‘This was the woman I knew’. There was time to gather up the richness, the fullness, the diversity of her personality and experiences in order we all experienced a greater depth in our understanding of her, all that we appreciated about her, all that we had shared with her, could share of her with others and could learn of her from others. There was time for anger at the discrimination and lack of understanding that she and others face. There was time for inspiration from the experiences she articulated, the statements she left and the example she provided. There was time in which the extremes, the contradictions, the confusions, the paradoxes of life and experience could be held and where the limits of our own understandings could be acknowledged in a time and space where we each one valued and affirmed her for the dear, special, unique and gifted person that she was and came to know that we can now hold and appreciate in our hearts forever the time that each of us shared with her and had now shared with one another.

Ecclesiastes 3.1-11 tells us that there is time, even when lives are cut short, if we use the time that is available to us. All too often we do not take the time we have to be with those that are important to us. All too often we distract ourselves with unimportant tasks and fail to do the things that are truly of importance to us. Ecclesiastes 3.1-11 encourages us to use the time that we have. So, as we often pray during funerals, grant us, Lord, the wisdom and the grace to use aright the time that is left to us on earth. Let us use that time to know others more completely, appreciate them more fully, love them more deeply, and, in that knowing, know ourselves more intimately. For to know and appreciate and love and enjoy each other in that way is heaven. 

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U2 - 13 (There Is A Light).

Youth and Age

I've taken two funerals in the last two weeks. One for someone who died tragically young and the other for someone who lived a long life. This post combines my reflections on age from both services:

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’ Those are words first spoken by one who was in his thirties and who would die aged 33. He lived a short life as an obscure itinerant preacher in an obscure part of the Roman Empire, yet his words are remembered today, millions have followed in his footsteps, and his actions have opened relationship with God to all who do so.

Lives don’t need to be long to have impact when those who die young have been those that have loved family, friends and life itself deeply in the time that they have been with us.

X is one of those whose life has been short yet whose impact on our lives has been deep and wide and therefore will be long lasting. That is because of three reasons. The first of those was character. He was central to his group of friends and to his family because of the love that was apparent in his character. We have all experienced that and have heard examples of it in the tributes and eulogy given today. The Beatitudes is a reading about character; about those who practice meekness, righteousness, mercy, purity, peacemaking, and endurance in the face of suffering. Those who do so practice love and live love because their focus is on others, rather than themselves.

The second reason was his endurance in the face of suffering. Like all those with sickle cell he experienced periods of excruciating pain; pain of which those of us who are not sicklers do not know. He rode out the periods of pain that he suffered just like those who endure persecution for righteousness’ sake. They could do so because they knew that there was a better future – the kingdom of heaven – ahead. He knew that he could look forward to pain-free periods in which to enjoy and appreciate life to the full if he could ride out the periods of pain.

The third reason was his appreciation of life’s changes and his determination to live life deeply and fully in the periods when he was free of pain. That is the attitude that we see set out in the passage read from Ecclesiastes. Life is bittersweet in its mix of joys and traumas. We need to accept and understand that that is so in order to appreciate the times of laughter, dancing, embracing, healing, planting and keeping.

We can honour his memory best by following in his footsteps, adopting his attitudes, and mirroring his character. Lives don’t need to be long to have impact when those who die young have been those that have loved family, friends and life itself deeply in the time that they have been with us. We will have honoured X’s memory best if those things are what is said about us after we have died, however long or short our lives.

What does it mean to live well? Life can’t be measured in years alone, although X lived a long life, but perhaps life is measured by the legacy we leave for others; primarily the love we have shown and shared.

St Paul’s classic description of love is often shared at weddings and therefore serves often as a foundation to the forming of family life which is the principal forum in which love is learnt, shared, tested and developed. This description of love is one that it is very appropriate to use as we look back on a long life well lived. It's often only as we look back that we appreciate with fresh insight the love we received at an earlier stage in our lives as at that earlier stage such love was simply what normal life felt like. So, children can now say that they appreciate just how lucky they were to grow up with their parents.

St Paul’s description of love is somewhat generic but we have heard today stories of love expressed in specific ways. We can therefore rewrite 1 Corinthians 13 for your actual experience of family life together. Love is the sharing of interests and enthusiasms - of cycling, ballet and opera, love is the memory of a first kiss, love is dawn bike rides as a family to time trials, love is being taught to swim, pitch a tent and play chess, love is gifts of sticky buds, catkins and pussy willow, love is whole house renovations, love is unblocking drains, maintaining boilers, cleaning and repairing a local church, love is leading the project to redevelop and renovate that church building. Love is also the devotion and care shown by one partner to the other that meant they were able to spend their remaining years of marriage at home together.

There are many stories about X because of his caring character and because he had a long life in which to express that care. Methuselah is a well-known Bible character because of the length of his life. Interestingly those, like Methuselah, who are listed in Genesis as having lived long lives are listed there because their lives were shorter than those supposed to have been lived by kings of the tribes surrounding them. Long lives were claimed for those kings as a signs of their supposed divinity. So the lists included in Genesis were to demonstrate that Israel’s ancestors were ordinary working people like shepherds and not semi-divine kings. From what I know of X he would have been happy to stand with the likes of Methuselah on that basis.

Memories and stories are what we need to tell today because they remind us of all the ways in which X impacted our lives. As we do so, we realize that our lives have been richer for knowing him and that it is only because he was part of our lives and brought so much into our lives that we mourn him as much as we do today. And so it is that, as we remember all the good that we received from him, we focus on giving thanks that he was a part of our lives.

Our Bible reading also speaks of another way in which X lives today, as it speaks of the Christian hope for the future. Life is like looking through a grubby pane of glass. That’s essentially what St Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13. When we look out through a dirty window we can see but we can’t see clearly. That, he says, is our experience in this life.

Why? Because none of us are perfect and therefore we don’t love others as we should. We don’t fully love in the way that he describes in this passage. Are we always long-suffering, kind, unenvying, unself-seeking, not puffed up and not easily provoked? Do we always think no evil, bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things? The short and honest answer is no. We do not experience perfection in this world and therefore do not see love perfected.

But, as we have reflected, we do see love in part; particularly in our close family relationships. As we reflect on X’s life today, we are remembering the ways in which he loved and in which we received love from him. He knew love and gave love in his life. But whatever he knew and gave of love in this life has now been exceeded in the next. Now he sees love perfected because he sees Jesus face to face. What was partial has been left behind and what is perfect is now his experience.

More than this, Paul says that faith, hope and love abide or remain. He seems to be saying that we can take something with us when we die. That all our acts of faith, hope and love from this life continue and are perfected in our future life. And this means that funerals are important times for us to reflect on our own lives. Are we modelling our lives on what we know of Jesus? Are our lives characterised by acts that are full of faith, hope and love? If not, then we will enter eternity with very little. But what a joy there is when someone can take much that was of love into their future life together with God.

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Sufjan Stevens - Mystery Of Love.

Remember your Creator

“When most people think of young people they see us as a horizontal line. One end screams, "Violent! Asbos! Hoodies!" and the other end whispers, "A* student; passes; friendly".
We are lumped into one group or the other. More often than not the only group that is ever reported on is the former. Well what about the rest of us? …

Why aren't we reported on, or our lives documented and televised? It seems that we can only be interesting if we are smoking, snorting or stabbing.”

That’s what Dominique Mitchell, 18, from Leicester, said when he was interviewed by the Guardian about stereotypes of young people in 2009.

King Solomon was a young man and a young King, yet we see him acting with real wisdom in today’s Bible reading (1 Kings 3. 3 - 14). God asks him an entirely open question - What would you like me to give you? It’s a question to which it would be very easy to give an entirely selfish answer. Solomon could have asked for long life for himself or riches or the death of his enemies but he didn’t.

Instead, we see him make a wise request based on a wise assessment of his situation. He recognises that he is facing a huge task – ruling a people who are so many that they cannot be counted – and that he doesn’t have the life experience or knowledge to carry out the task – “I am very young and don't know how to rule.” Wisdom starts with a realistic assessment of the situation we find ourselves in. It is only once we have a realistic understanding of where our starting point is that we can begin to find ways forward. So, Solomon shows wisdom before he asks for and is given wisdom.

That makes him an example of a wise young person. In fact if you look at the way his life pans out, he actually turns the stereotype completely on its head because he is wiser as a young person than he is as an older person. In his youth he listens to God and follows God’s instructions while in his old age he listens to other human beings and worships other gods.

Jesus confronted his disciples with the same challenge when they asked him, ‘Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?’ He called a child to come and stand in front of them, and said, ‘I assure you that unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven.’ (Matthew 18. 1 – 3)

What is the wisdom of those who are greatest in the kingdom of God? What is the wisdom of youth? Well, the young King says, the task is huge and I am young and inexperienced, therefore I need the leading, guidance and wisdom of God. As we are told King Solomon was later to say, ‘Remember your Creator while you are still young.’ (Ecclesiastes 12. 1)

Going for Growth, a Church of England report considering how we engage with and express God’s love to this generation of children and young people, whoever and wherever they may be, responds to these challenges by saying that the Church needs to listen to children and young people themselves and take seriously what it hears.

The report recognises the sadness that churches rarely have the confidence which enables them to face the devastating directness which theological questions may take on in the mouth of a child (or young person). Churches lack the humility (that we saw in the young King Solomon) to face the truth about the quality of their life and worship and to set about addressing the needs which are then identified. Instead, we want to seem wise in our own eyes instead of recognising the wisdom of youth.

The report suggests that if, instead of trying to teach good news to children (and young people), the Church tries to become good news, it will need fresh eyes to see itself. Such a church would need the confidence to deal with questions rather than always having to find the answers. It would be prepared to surrender its life and lets its institutions be transformed. A church which genuinely welcomes children (and young people), accepts their gifts and ministries, meets their needs, advocates justice, seeks new life, challenges evil with love and truth, continues to learn the values of the Kingdom by living them, so is going to be a Church which is good news not only for young people but also for all its members and for the world.

This leads us towards the second thing for us to note, which is that wisdom is not an end in itself. Solomon doesn’t ask for wisdom simply in order to be wise or knowledgeable instead he asks for wisdom in order to rule with justice. Wisdom is not an end in itself instead it is needed in order to do justice.

We see this also later on in the pages of scripture because, after Solomon, the majority of Israel’s Kings are not wise. Instead, unlike Solomon, they use their position and power to exploit others for their own personal gain. They oppress and exploit their people in a way that is unjust and when they are then criticised by the prophets which God sends to denounce them it is this lack of justice that they highlight.

Amos speaks to the great leaders of the great nation Israel to say:

“You people hate anyone who challenges injustice and speaks the whole truth in court. You have oppressed the poor and robbed them of their grain. And so you will not live in the fine stone houses you build or drink wine from the beautiful vineyards you plant. I know how terrible your sins are and how many crimes you have committed. You persecute good people, take bribes, and prevent the poor from getting justice in the courts.” (Amos 5. 10 – 12)

“How terrible it will be for you that stretch out on your luxurious couches, feasting on veal and lamb! You like to compose songs, as David did, and play them on harps. You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest perfumes, but you do not mourn over the ruin of Israel. So you will be the first to go into exile.” (Amos 6. 4 – 8)

What should they have been doing? What would have made them wise, not foolish? Amos says, “Make it your aim to do what is right, not what is evil, so that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty really will be with you, as you claim he is. Hate what is evil, love what is right, and see that justice prevails in the courts.”

Wisdom is not an end in itself instead it is needed in order to do justice. At the end of wisdom there is the achievement of justice.

King Solomon is credited with summing all this up in the words of Proverbs 8:

Listen! Wisdom is calling out.
      Reason is making herself heard.
 On the hilltops near the road
      and at the crossroads she stands.
 At the entrance to the city,
      beside the gates, she calls:
 
         I appeal to all of you;
      I call to everyone on earth.
 Are you immature? Learn to be mature.
      Are you foolish? Learn to have sense.
 Listen to my excellent words;
      all I tell you is right …

Choose my instruction instead of silver;
      choose knowledge rather than the finest gold.

I am Wisdom, I am better than jewels;
      nothing you want can compare with me.
 I am Wisdom, and I have insight;
      I have knowledge and sound judgment.
 To honour the Lord is to hate evil;
      I hate pride and arrogance,
      evil ways and false words …

I walk the way of righteousness;
      I follow the paths of justice …

Those who find me find life,
      and the Lord will be pleased with them.

Let us learn from one who was wise when he was young. He says:

So remember your Creator while you are still young, before those dismal days and years come when you will say, I don't enjoy life. That is when the light of the sun, the moon, and the stars will grow dim for you, and the rain clouds will never pass away. Then your arms, that have protected you, will tremble, and your legs, now strong, will grow weak. Your teeth will be too few to chew your food, and your eyes too dim to see clearly. Your ears will be deaf to the noise of the street. You will barely be able to hear the mill as it grinds or music as it plays, but even the song of a bird will wake you from sleep. You will be afraid of high places, and walking will be dangerous. Your hair will turn white; you will hardly be able to drag yourself along, and all desire will be gone.

We are going to our final resting place, and then there will be mourning in the streets. The silver chain will snap, and the golden lamp will fall and break; the rope at the well will break, and the water jar will be shattered. Our bodies will return to the dust of the earth, and the breath of life will go back to God, who gave it to us. (Ecclesiastes 12. 1 – 7)

So remember your Creator while you are still young.

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The Bluebells - Young At Heart.