Contrasting a scarcity mindset with a mindset of abundance

Here's the sermon that I shared this morning during the Harvest Festival at St Mary’s Runwell:

The cost-of-living crisis has, in recent years, seen inflation rise above normal levels because of a combination of global issues including the Ukraine and Iran conflicts. This comes after years of austerity where our governments implemented a series of sustained reductions in public spending all intended to reduce the budget deficit. As a result, we live in a time of relative scarcity compared with years of a booming economy prior to the time of austerity. When we are in a scarcity mindset we focus on all the deficits in our situation, all that is wrong, all we have lost and all that we don’t have.

When St Paul contrasts one who sows sparingly and also reaps sparingly with one who sows bountifully and also reaps bountifully, he is contrasting a scarcity mindset with a mindset of abundance (2 Corinthians 9.6-15). Harvest Festivals are times to remember the abundance of God’s provision in our world and to reflect on the difference between a scarcity mindset and an abundance mindset.

Today, we often experience a sense of scarcity in the Church as well. In our generation God has given his Church a financial crisis, and this can only be for one reason: to teach us that abundance does not lie in financial security, and to show us that only in relationships of mutual interdependence, relationships that money obscures as often as it enables, does abundant life lie.

Sam Wells, the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, says that, as Christians, we are called to live in such a way that gratefully receives the abundance God is giving us, evidences the transformation from scarcity to abundance to which God is calling us, dwells with God in that abundant life, and shares that abundance far and wide. That is what we celebrate annually in our Harvest Festivals and is what Paul commends to the Christians in Corinth when he calls us to be cheerful givers recognising that God provides us with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, we may share abundantly in every good work.

As Christians, we don’t have to look far for a mission statement for the church. ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’ (John 10.10) Living abundant life. That’s what the Father intends, the Son embodies, the Spirit facilitates. God is a God of abundance who is continually giving us all we need even in the midst of scarcity and trouble; perhaps, especially, in the midst of scarcity and trouble. Jesus is our model of abundant life; his life, death and resurrection chart the transformation from the scarcity of sin and death to the abundance of healing and resurrection; he longs to bring all humankind into reconciled and flourishing relationship with God, one another, ourselves and all creation. The Church of today needs to rediscover his teaching because God gives us the abundance of the kingdom to renew the poverty of the church.

Why then do we often live with a scarcity mindset instead of an abundance mindset? Firstly, we often overlook what we already have. John McKnight and Peter Block are pioneers of asset-based community development. In their book The Abundant Community’ they talk about our consumer society as an economy of scarcity because it ‘constantly tells us that we are insufficient and that we must purchase what we need from specialists and systems outside of our immediate community.’ Instead, they argue that ‘we can do unbelievable things by starting with our assets, not our deficits. We all have gifts to offer, even the most seemingly marginal among us. Using our particular assets (our skills, experience, insights and ideas) we have the God-given power to create a hope-filled life and can be the architects of the future where we want to live.’

This is true too for churches, which thrive when the gifts of all their members are released and they build on one another’s assets. The currency of the kingdom of God is of things that never run out. ‘The secret of happiness is learning to love the things God gives us in plenty. There’s no global shortage of friendship, kindness, generosity, sympathy, creativity, faithfulness, laughter, love. These are the currency of abundance.

Our problem, though, is not just that we don’t always recognise the gifts that God is giving, it is also that we sometimes reject and do not receive the gifts he is giving. A key temptation we face as God's people is to a scarcity mindset in which we reject or fail to recognise the gifts that God is continually sending to us.

Jesus is described as the stone that the builders rejected. Sam Wells notes that 'the rejected stone became the cornerstone, the keystone – the stone that held up all the others, the crucial link, the vital connection. The rejected stone is Jesus. In his crucifixion he was rejected by the builders – yet in his resurrection he became the cornerstone of forgiveness and eternal life. That’s what ministry and mission are all about – not condescendingly making welcome alienated strangers, but seeking out the rejected precisely because they are the energy and the life-force that will transform us all. Every minister, every missionary, every evangelist, every disciple should have these words over their desk, their windscreen, on their screensaver, in the photo section of their wallet, wherever they see it all the time – the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The life of the church is about constantly recognising the sin of how much we have rejected, and celebrating the grace that God gives us back what we once rejected to become the cornerstone of our lives.'

Then, when we do recognise that God provides us with every blessing in abundance, we need to become cheerful givers so that, by always having enough of everything, we may share abundantly in every good work. We can become cheerful givers because Jesus has first given extravagantly and generously to us.

In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection God gave everything he had for us. Philippians 2 tells us that, of his own free will, Jesus “gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death – his death on the cross.” This is the extravagant nature of Jesus’ love for us, that he would give up all he had in order to walk the path of obedience all the way to his death on the cross. This is the pattern that we see repeated in God’s dealings with human beings throughout scripture and which we see summed up in the most famous verse of scripture, John 3: 16: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son …” God so loved that he gave.

Oliver O'Donovan writes that, “Generosity means: not staying within the limits which public rationality sets on its approval of benevolence. An extravagant, unmeasured goodness, corresponding to God’s own providential care, defies the logic of public expectation.”

So, the challenge for us as a church and as individuals is this, are we going to live in the economy of scarcity, ‘the economy that is fine as far as it goes, but turns out not to go very far – the economy that only includes certain people, only buys certain things, only lasts a limited length of time – the economy of anxiety and scarcity?’ Or are we going to live in the economy of abundance, ‘the economy where the only use of wealth is to make friends and set people free, the economy in which you are never homeless and you cannot be destitute because you have spent your time and money making friends who will always welcome you into their homes – the economy of abundance, where generosity is the best investment? Which is it to be?’

If we live in the economy of scarcity, we will spend our lives fearing for our jobs, our livelihoods, our reputations, our health, our families, our lives themselves. If we live in the economy of abundance we won’t fear anything. We’ll have the things that money can’t buy and we’ll know the things that hardship and even death can’t take away from us. We’ll have learned to love the things God gives us in plenty. We will be living truly abundant life. We will experience Harvest all year round.

But, in order to see what God is truly giving us, our mindset needs to change from a scarcity or deficit mindset which sees problems to an asset, abundance or Harvest mindset which looks for resources around us where we are. Then, as St Paul writes, each of us will be able to give as we have made up our minds, not regretfully or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver as we recognise that God is able to provide us with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, we may share abundantly in every good work. May that blessing of God be true for each one of us in abundance this Harvest. Amen.

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Corinne Bailey Rae - Before The Throne Of The Invisible God. 

Equality and the generosity of God

Here's the sermon that I shared today at St John's Langdon Hills and St Andrew's Wickford: 

Chichele Road in Cricklewood is known as Job Street, where economic migrants line up to be hired from the back of a van, no questions asked. Dozens of men in jeans and anoraks hang around from 6.30am to discover whether they will be working that day. A car will stop, a negotiation will take place, a deal may be struck. Typically, the men will be whisked off to a building site or a house in the process of renovation. They will be paid £20 to £40 for a long, arduous day's work: no tax, no national insurance, no questions asked.

That’s essentially the scenario for today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 20. 1 - 16). The social situation in Jesus’ day was that many small farmers were being forced off their land because of debt they incurred to pay Roman taxes. Consequently, large pools of unemployed men gathered each morning, hoping to be hired for the day. They were the displaced, unemployed, and underemployed workers of their day. Those still waiting at five o'clock would have had little chance of earning enough to buy food for their families that day. Yet the vineyard owner pays even them a full day’s wage. The owner in the parable ensures that all the workers are paid enough to support their families, as a denarius was a full day’s pay for a skilled worker.

So, unlike those exploited illegal workers or gig economy workers earning less than the minimum wage, the employer in this story is concerned that those he employs are paid a living wage. The standard thing for an employer in Jesus’ day to do would be to send one of his employees to the marketplace to pick up a few extra workers for the day. But this employer goes to the marketplace himself. In fact, he goes repeatedly to seek workers and clearly cares about their predicament seeking to lift them out of their despair by providing work that meets their needs and the needs of those who depend on them. If God is like the owner of the vineyard then he cares about our hopeless situation as human beings. He comes looking for us. He goes on an all-out search to find workers for his vineyard. He longs to provide us with a life of significance in his kingdom work.

As N. T. Wright has said, God’s grace, in short, is not the sort of thing you can bargain with or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot of and someone else only a little. The point of the story is that what people get from having served God and his kingdom is not, actually, a ‘wage’ at all. It’s not, strictly, a reward for work done. God doesn’t make contracts with us, as if we could bargain or negotiate for a better deal. He makes covenants, in which he promises us everything and asks of us everything in return. When he keeps his promises, he is not rewarding us for effort, but doing what comes naturally to his overflowingly generous nature.

Michael Green says of this story: Length of service and long hours of toil in the heat of the day constitute no claim on God and provide no reason why he should not be generous to those who have done less. All human merit shrivels before his burning, self-giving love. Grace, amazing grace, is the burden of this story. All are equally undeserving of so large a sum as a denarius a day. All are given it by the generosity of the employer. All are on the same level. The poor disciples, fishermen and tax collectors as they are, are welcomed by God along with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There are no rankings in the kingdom of God. Nobody can claim deserved membership of the kingdom. There is no place for personal pride, for contempt or jealousy, for there is no ground for any to question how this generous God handles the utterly undeserving. He is good. He sees that the one-hour workers would have no money for supper if they got paid for only one hour. In generosity he gives them what they need. Who is to complain at that?

Yet there is always a danger that we do get cross with God over this. People who work or move in church circles can easily assume that they are the special ones, God’s inner circle. In reality, as we have seen, God is out in the marketplace, looking for the people everybody else tried to ignore, welcoming them on the same terms, surprising them (and everybody else) with his generous grace. In Ephesians 2:8-10 Paul says, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Is there anywhere in today’s church, I wonder, that doesn’t need to be reminded of that message?

The parable is also a message of hope to everyone struggling to find adequate employment. In God’s kingdom, it suggests, we will all find work that meets our needs. The parable is, therefore, also a challenge to all those who have a hand in shaping the structures of work in today’s society. What can we do, as Christians, to advance this aspect of God’s kingdom right now?

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R.E.M. - Finest Worksong.

The way of greed or the way of generosity

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

The story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16. 19 – 31) is one of the best known in the New Testament. Its powerful imagery makes it difficult to ignore. This parable, more than perhaps any other of the parables told by Jesus, is a story of contrasts. Contrasts between rich and poor, hell and heaven, and, perhaps most significant of all, between the way of greed and the way of generosity.

As in the parable of the Rich Fool, where a farmer stores up what he has for himself and then dies when he had expected to eat, drink and be merry, this parable is about the dangers of gaining wealth solely for oneself. Here, the focus isn’t on the inevitability of death but instead the impact of greed in the afterlife.

The selfishness of the rich man in this life results in separation from God in the next. When he realises his predicament, the rich man wants to warn his siblings who are still alive so that they will follow the path of generosity rather than the path of greed, but is told that they have all the warning they need in the scripture – Moses and the prophets. If they don’t pay heed to their sacred writings then they are unlikely to pay heed to anything else.

So, the contrast between the way of greed and the way of generosity is the central contrast within this parable. The parable is told to encourage its hearers to take the path of generosity in their lives.

The story of the rich man and Lazarus is chiefly aimed at the Pharisees who, we are told in an earlier verse, were lovers of money. It was not only the Pharisees’ love of wealth that set them apart but, more importantly, their hardness of heart. While we might feel revulsion at the lavish lifestyle of the rich man, the horror lies in the fact that he ignores the needs of his neighbour.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus draws the rich as well as the poor into fellowship. He eats with the rich and teaches them about the kingdom of God in their own terms (Luke 14: 16 - 24, 28 - 30). Jesus does not prejudge people on the basis of what they own. We see in Mark 10 that he loves a rich man who is overwhelmed by the command to sell all he owns and give the money to the poor. What is significant is people’s attitudes towards wealth and what they do with it.

Most of us are not wealthy in the sense that the rich man in Jesus’ parable was wealthy, so we may think the parable has little to say to us. One way in which the contrasts made in this parable continue to play out in our society today is in attitudes to payment of tax.

Christian Aid has in the past estimated that developing countries have lost at least $160bn of tax every year because of tax dodging by unscrupulous businesses. Tax dodging hurts us all, especially when global companies and large sums of money are involved. It robs countries of the taxes they're owed – money that could be spent on essential services. Christian Aid has shown that in poor countries tax dodging results in a lack of clean water, sanitation, roads, schools and hospitals; and in people going hungry. Their tax justice campaign has highlighted how developing countries lose $160bn every year - one-and-a-half-times what they receive in international aid. Church Action on Poverty has shown that in the UK tax dodging contributes to cuts in benefits for families, children and disabled people, reduced care for the elderly, less childcare and fewer libraries, youth services and other vital community facilities.

Financial secrecy is at the heart of these problems – especially the secrecy offered by tax havens. Thanks to loopholes in the global financial system, money that could provide vital services like schools and hospitals, is being pocketed by unscrupulous companies. In addition, the wealthy are also often funding others to make the political argument that our problems in our society are to do with levels of immigration rather than levels of tax compliance. This is a deliberate distraction away from the reality that, if those with wealth were to pay their due instead of engaging in tax avoidance, our problems of debt and poverty could actually be eradicated overnight.

Christian Aid’s campaigning arguing that wealthy people and companies pay the tax they owe and that developing countries obtain the revenue that is rightfully theirs is not one that is biased against the rich. Instead, it asks us all to consider the following questions:

• Who is our neighbour?
• Are we so wrapped up in our own fulfilment that we forget our neighbours whose potential is denied?
• Are we ready to share our resources so that we can all become the people God would have us be?

These questions are as pertinent now as they were in Jesus’ day. And now as then, they are not questions to be put off for another day, so supporting such campaigns is one way to respond to Jesus' teaching in this parable.

Our lives in a world of 6.5 billion people mean that the question of ‘who is my neighbour’ is many times more apposite and complex today than when it was first put to Jesus by a lawyer (Luke 10). The story of the rich man and Lazarus does not call us to condemn wealth, but to notice the needs of our neighbours – both on our doorsteps and further afield – and to examine our own lives in the light of this. Next year, in Lent, our reflections will be on precisely this question – ‘Who is my neighbour? – so, it is very helpful to reflect on this passage now, in advance of that course.

Jesus teaches that our resources are for the benefit of everyone. He continually considers those who are poor and those who are on the margins of society first. Interestingly, this is seen in this parable by the fact that it is the only one of Jesus’ parables where someone is given a name. And the named person is Lazarus, not the rich man.

In our society, the rich and powerful are constantly named to us, giving the message that these people are of more value than others. Who is it that we name and value? Is it the people society gives value to, or is it the people of the poor countries who are eating the scraps from our table? The answer to that question will reveal whether we are walking the way of greed or the way of generous love.

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Methuselah - Luke.

God so loved that he gave

Here's the Stewardship sermon based on John 3. 16 – 21 that I shared this morning at St Andrew’s Wickford:

God so loved - love is from God because God is love; pure love, the essence of all that love is and can be. Love that is patient, kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Love that does not insist on its own way; is not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love that never ends.

God so loved the world - the heavens and the earth that God created in the beginning, the heavens which declare the glory of God and the sky that displays what his hands have made, humankind that God created in his own image. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. God so loved he world that he created in the beginning.

God so loved the world that he gave – true love involves giving; in fact, true love is giving. Our love is often less than this. We speak of those we love as being everything we need or as soul mates who complete us, but rarely talk in terms of giving all we have to others. Yet that is the nature of God’s love, he gives all he has to us.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son – the Father gives us his Son and the Son gives his life, his whole life, even unto death. Yet, because Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God, this is a way of saying that what God gives to us is himself, everything he has and is. 

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life – God gives himself to us in order that we can become part of him and enter the very life of God himself. Jesus said he came that we might have life and have it to the full. Eternal life is the life of love that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit share within the Godhead and in to which we are called to come and share by the ever-giving love that God the Father shows to us through God the Son.

God’s love has been revealed among us in this way, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. We live in the light of this love which reveals all that we can potentially be and become as human beings. As his love resulted in his giving himself to us and for us, so our response to him should be the same.

Stewardship month is an annual reminder to us that that is so when it comes to the contribution we make as Christian disciples; when it comes to the money we give back to God, the talents we use in his service, the community contribution we make and the environmentally-friendly actions we take.

Our Parish needs a whole series of small contributions at present as we need new volunteers across the whole range of our ministry. We are looking for a new PCC Treasurer, members of our District Church Councils (the DCCs) and Parochial Church Council (our PCC). We would value new members of our choir and people who could work with children when they come to our services. We always value help with administration, pastoral visiting, prayer ministry and with our publicity (website, social media etc). The packs that you have been given include more information about Stewardship and response forms to help you think more about the ways you give currently and what might be possible in the future. The packs include a form you can fill in to offer your help.

When it comes to our financial giving, we have faced significant challenges as for a long time we haven’t been able to give the Diocese the Parish Share that is needed to cover the cost of clergy and the other support that the Diocese provides. We are gradually increasing the amount we give to the Diocese for our support year-on—year. However, we need to maintain and improve that situation this year, so ask that you reconsider your giving at this time and use Stewardship Month to decide what you can contribute to St Andrew’s and our Parish in future. There are forms in the Pack which can be used if you want to start giving or if you are able to change what you are giving.

God so loved the world that he gave – true love involves giving; in fact, true love is giving. As his love resulted in his giving himself to us and for us, so our response to him should be the same. May we use the opportunity that Stewardship month provides to reflect together on the contribution we make as Christian disciples; through the money we give back to God, the talents we use in his service, the community contribution we make and the environmentally-friendly actions we take. Amen.

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Extreme - Everything Under The Sun: Rise 'N Shine / Am I Ever Gonna Change / Who Cares?

Give what you can

Here's the sermon I preached this morning at St Catherine's for the beginning of Stewardship Month: 

I wonder how many of us here today think that we have a lot to give to God. My guess is that most of us actually think we have very little we can give to God.

We may think that we have nothing special in terms of our talents. We may think that we have little by way of time because of the many pressures that we face in life. We may think that we have little spare cash because of the significant costs of living. As a result, we often think we have very little to offer and may hold back from offering at all as result.

This is a particular issue when it comes to the suffering and distress that we see on our TV screens around the world, whether through conflict or lack of resources and relief. Global issues seem so huge that the contribution we could make pales into insignificance and we think there is no point doing anything ourselves as our contribution will simply be a drop in an ocean.

It is easy for us to think that big is best and that what we have and are is too little to make an impact but today’s Gospel reading says otherwise (Luke 21. 1 – 4). Jesus sees and values the contribution which the widow makes. Everyone else gave from their surplus wealth, but the widow, from her poverty, contributed all she had, her whole livelihood. So Jesus uses her example as a challenge to the wealthy and well resourced who often give less proportionately while the less well off give more of what they have.

A New York Times Magazine article in 2010 highlighted the myth of philanthropy and the “benefits to the poor” of having the super wealthy. What this well-researched article revealed was that the super wealthy, the wealthy and ostentatious “scribes” of today, as a percentage of their income actually give less than those who have middle and lower incomes. Most absurdly, what Jesus observed in his day remains true today — those with the least continue to give more, by percentage of their resources, than the wealthy! (http://datinggod.org/2010/08/22/today%E2%80%99s-parable-of-the-widow%E2%80%99s-mite/) So this is a message that needs to be heard in these times of austerity where budget cuts are often focused on the poor rather than the wealthy.

Small is beautiful, as E. F. Schumacher once reminded us, and our small actions or contribution, combined with those of others, can then have a big effect. The butterfly effect which is found in Chaos Theory and the Multiplier Effect in economics both show, on the basis of research, that small changes and small contributions can have significant effects.

Here's one story that demonstrates that truth. Hattie May Wiatt was a young girl in Philadelphia in the 1880s who began saving towards the building of a church which could accommodate the large number of children going to Sunday School in those days. Hattie May died young and after her death the pastor of the church, Rev. Russell Conwell was given the 57 cents that she had saved. He used these to begin a fundraising campaign which resulted in the building of a church, a University and a Hospital.

Stewardship month is an annual reminder to us that that is so when it comes to the contribution we make as Christian disciples; when it comes to the money we give back to God, the talents we use in his service, the community contribution we make and the environmentally-friendly actions we take.

Our Parish needs a whole series of small contributions at present as we need new volunteers across the whole range of our ministry. We are looking for a new PCC Treasurer, members of our District Church Councils (the DCCs) and Parochial Church Council (our PCC). We would value new members of our choir and people who could work with children when they come to our services. We always value help with administration, pastoral visiting, prayer ministry and with our publicity (website, social media etc). The packs that you have been given include more information about Stewardship and response forms to help you think more about the ways you give currently and what might be possible in the future. The packs include a form you can fill in to offer your help.

When it comes to our financial giving, we have faced significant challenges as for a long time we haven’t been able to give the Diocese the Parish Share that is needed to cover the cost of clergy and the other support that the Diocese provides. We also face a significant financial challenge here because of the underpinning work needed to secure the long-term future of this building. We are gradually increasing the amount we give to the Diocese for our support year-on—year and have raised funds for the first two Phases of our repair project. However, we need to maintain and improve that situation this year, so ask that you reconsider your giving at this time and use Stewardship Month to decide what you can contribute to St Catherine’s and our Parish in future. There are forms in the Pack which can be used if you want to start giving or if you are able to change what you are giving.

For those who are tax payers there has for some time been a way of increasing the value of the gifts you give. Gift Aid enables us to reclaim the basic rate tax from HMRC for those who are taxpayers, so for every £1 that you give we can claim an extra 25p. That means that, if you are a tax payer, we need you to fill out a Gift Aid declaration form in order to reclaim that money. There’s a copy in the Pack for you to fill out. There are three ways you can give using Gift Aid. The Parish Giving Scheme provides simple and secure ways to give regularly to this church; online, by phone, or by posting a giving form. Joining PGS means they claim the Gift Aid and send it direct to our Bank Account. You can also use our yellow envelopes for cash donations or fill in the Gift Aid declaration on the Card Reader where giving using your bank card.

Jesus commended the widow for giving the small amount that she had. Rev. Conwell took Hattie May’s 57 cents and used in to build a church, a University and a Hospital. We need the contribution that you can make to our Parish, however small it may seem to you, and in whatever way you can make that contribution. Thank you so much for all the ways you give currently and the different contributions you make. They are vital to the mission and ministry of our Parish and we are very grateful for them. The mission and ministry of this church is the combined effect of the contributions that each of us make. We need you now, more than ever. God has given you resources, time and talents, so this Stewardship Month I encourage you to reflect prayerfully on all that you can and do give back to him in order that together we can combine our individual offerings to make a bigger impact for him. Amen.

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Natalie Bergman - You've Got A Friend in Jesus.

Gratutious, extravagent generosity

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

As a child my faith was impacted by a musical drama of the life of Christ using scripture drawn from Genesis to Revelation which was called Yesterday Today Forever and was staged in Oxford in the mid-1970s. It was an ambitious production with three complete stage sets, a complicated lighting system, quadraphonic sound, a 50-piece choir, a 12-piece band, dance, narration, a great variety in music, and a back projected film. I was impressed by the integration of the Arts and scripture in a way that I had not seen prior to that point.

Included in the show was a beautiful ballad based on this story of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair (John 12. 1 - 8). Called ‘Remember Mary’, the song imagines Mary’s thoughts as she carries out this extravagant gesture:

“I cannot look at your face - I dare not - for I have sinned so much and you know my heart. I want to look at you Jesus, but I have not the power to lift my eyes for I am guilty - oh so guilty. What can I do? For I am lost and yet you care - even for me. So I will pour this ointment upon your feet, dear Lord. The ointment smells so sweet; smells so. sweet; and yet I am a broken creature, I'm only but dust, only dust …”

Jesus responds: “You have done a beautiful thing to me Mary, in pouring this ointment on my body, you have prepared me for burial. Your sins are forgiven, for you have loved much.”

The way in which Mary gives to Jesus in this story could perhaps be summed up in a verse from 2 Corinthians 9: “You should each give, then, as you have decided, not with regret or out of a sense of duty; for God loves the one who gives gladly.” (2 Corinthians 9. 7)

It was her decision to pour ointment over Jesus’ feet and to dry her feet with her hair. No one expected her action – it was not done out of duty - and at least one person criticised her severely for it. It was her entirely her decision, her personal way of giving to Jesus.

Giving in this way involved giving generously from her possessions because the ointment that she used was expensive (imported from countries such as India) and extravagant (half a litre was an enormous amount to use in this way). It also involved giving generously of herself, as Jewish women traditionally kept their hair tied up in public and only unloosened their hair in the presence of their husbands. What Mary did in wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair was the ultimate sign of her love for and commitment to Jesus. She did all this, not with regret or out of a sense of duty, but gladly and generously.

In fact, her gift to Jesus is a response to the love that Jesus has shown towards her. She gives because Jesus has first given extravagantly and generously to her. This is the pattern that we see repeated in God’s dealings with human beings throughout scripture and which we see summed up in the most famous verse of scripture, John 3: 16: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son …” God so loved that he gave.

Love is the reason for giving, not duty, not regret, but love. In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection God gave everything he had for us. Philippians 2 tells us that, of his own free will, Jesus “gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death – his death on the cross.” This is the extravagant nature of Jesus’ love for us, that he would give up all he had in order to walk the path of obedience all the way to his death on the cross.

‘This is what Mary saw in Jesus and why she responded by giving extravagantly and generously to him. God does not need us; yet he created us out of his gratuitous love. Jesus astonished the disciples by giving Mary the highest commendation anyone receives in the pages of the Gospels:

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” (Mark 14:6 -9)’

In reflecting on this story the artist Makoto Fujimura has said that he prays that, ‘there will be a new aroma in the air: an aroma of Mary of Bethany, who in response to Jesus’ tears in John 11 and 12 brought her most precious belonging, her most gratuitous, expensive nard. I pray that in the days to come, this aroma will fill the air whenever the words of Gospel are spoken, that outsiders to faith will sense this extravagant air and feel it, particularly for them. I pray that when our children speak of faith, this gratuitous, intuitive aroma of the love of Christ will be made manifest in their lives.’

Fujimura sees an analogy between the extravagance of Mary’s gesture and the extravagance of art. He prays ‘that artists will no longer have to be on the defensive as was Mary in that aroma-filled room while disciples grumbled that her perfume could have been sold to feed the poor. “What a waste,” they said. What a waste. Is our art wasteful, too?

Art is gratuitous. Art is extravagant. But so is our God.’ And we need to learn a similar extravagance in our response to Jesus.

Oliver O'Donovan writes that, “Generosity means: not staying within the limits which public rationality sets on its approval of benevolence. An extravagant, unmeasured goodness, corresponding to God’s own providential care, defies the logic of public expectation.”

David Dark writes that, “Extravagant kindness of action … amounts to apocalyptic disruption of whatever norms currently crown themselves as “realistic,” “prudent,” or “appropriate.” “These confrontations bring onto the scene an indiscriminate generosity that will often appear supernatural and scandalous as they necessarily go beyond what has appeared previously available or reasonable.” In this way, such actions expand “the sphere of what’s considered historically possible” and “testify to a transcendence in everyday activity with an earth-bound agility that interpenetrates all that appears mundane and insignificant.”

Perhaps, most incredibly of all, what Mary gave was a blessing and help to Jesus. Jesus had been explaining for some time that he was shortly to die but no one believed him or accepted what he was saying. Famously, Peter had told Jesus that he would try to stop that from happening and Jesus rebuked him by saying, “Get behind me, Satan.”

But here, Mary anoints Jesus for burial. She understands. She accepts what is going to happen and she prepares Jesus for it. What a blessing that must have been to Jesus that someone understood and supported him in what he was about to do. And, in just the same way, we bless and encourage God when we give generously of our time, talents and treasure to God.

Judas didn’t understand the love and generosity in Mary’s gifts and this seems to have been because his motives were selfish, not loving. In criticising Mary’s gift, he purported to be concerned about the poor but actually wanted to help himself to some of the money. Today it is still easy for us to find reasons not to give. We will all have heard people give a whole string of reasons for not giving – excuses like the money is spent on administration or wasted through corruption rather than going to those that it is meant to benefit. While these are valid issues that need to be addressed, the end result of people’s reasoning is that their money stays in their bank accounts and pockets to be spent on themselves rather than others. As a result, their motivations for not giving can be viewed as selfish, as was the case for Judas too.

Giving to God does not mean ignoring the poor. Jesus said that we show our love for God by loving our neighbours as we love ourselves. He calls us to commit our lives, our time, our talents, our treasure to God for the transforming of our communities and the treasuring of our environment.

So, together with Makoto Fujimura, let us offer a ‘prayer and invitation to encounter the mystery of the Gospel, one which is still filled with the aroma of Mary of Bethany.’ Let us ‘pray that this aroma will invade us too with love and hope.’ May our lives and work ‘witness in some way to this extravagance of the Gospel’; ‘without reduction, in the grace of this encounter, let us continue our work in the extravagance’ of God’s love.

As we do so, out of love rather than duty, we will be following in the footsteps of Mary as she anointed the feet of Jesus and dried his feet with her hair.

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John and Ross Harding - Yesterday Today Forever.

Love Life Live Lent

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

It's a funny thing about humility
as soon as you know you're being humble,
you're no longer humble
it's a funny thing about life
you've got to give up your life to be alive
you've got to suffer to know compassion
you can't want nothing if you want satisfaction

it's a funny thing about love
the harder you try to be loved,
the less lovable you are
it's a funny thing about pride,
when you're being proud
you should be ashamed
you find only pain if you seek after pleasure
you work like a slave if you seek after leisure

Some wise words there from the singer-songwriter, T. Bone Burnett, which quote one of the things that Jesus said in today’s Gospel reading (Mark 8: 31-end). Whoever loses his life will find it or you’ve got to give up your life to be alive.

Much of what we do in life is actually about saving our own lives – all the time that we spend thinking about our comfort, security and pleasure and all the time we spend accumulating money and possessions for ourselves. We all do it because it is our normal way of life – scientists such as Richard Dawkins explain that we are born with selfish genes that get us ready to live in a world that is about the survival of the fittest while the Bible speaks about being slaves to sin and doing the things we hate. In different ways, the same thing is being said; that our gut instinct is to look out for ourselves, to look after No. 1.

Jesus turns that way of thinking on its head by saying those who want to save their lives will lose them and that those who lose their lives will save them. He fleshes out that thought by asking does a person gain anything if he wins the whole world but loses his life. We think immediately of the story Jesus told about a farmer with a bumper harvest which he immediately stored so that he could live off it in plenty for the rest of his life and who then died that same night without enjoying any of it. That story was told again in our newspapers a few years ago in the story of a man who had a special coffin built so that he could be buried together with his collection of pornographic magazines. What use they will be to him as both the magazines and his body decay is anyone’s guess!

So, seeking to save your own life doesn’t help you when you are faced with death and it doesn’t deliver what it promises in life either. Since the Second World War, economists tell us that in this country our GDP (or Gross Domestic Product) has shot up by leaps and bounds while the happiness of the population has stagnated. Despite economic growth, happiness in the West has not grown in the last 50+ years. All that seeking after material pleasures and possessions, all that looking after No. 1, is not actually making any of us any happier. As Jesus said, whoever wants to save his own life will lose it.

If Jesus is right about that half of the equation, then maybe he’s also right about the other; you've got to give up your life to be alive. After all, that is what he did for each one of us by going to the cross. He gave up his own life in order that we could get out of slavery to sin and really live. This is what he began to teach his disciples at the beginning of today’s Gospel reading; “The Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected … He will be put to death but three days later he will rise to life.”

Peter was like us he couldn’t see it. It sounded like Jesus had got things all the wrong way round. Peter didn’t want Jesus to die and so he rebuked him. But it was Jesus who actually understood the right way of living life – that we come alive when we give ourselves away – and so he rejected Peter’s arguments as coming from the Devil himself.

What is life like when we give ourselves away? What is life like when we lose our life for Jesus and the Gospel? One way of thinking about those questions might be to look online for the Church of England’s 'Love Life Live Lent' booklets. These are a past Lent initiative but the booklets are still available. The initiative was based on the idea of Lent as a time to step back from daily life and think about bigger things. The Live Lent Booklets help us turn towards God's love and kingdom. The booklets help us change the world for the better during Lent one small action at a time!

They do so by giving fifty suggestions for actions people can take during Lent, including ideas for environmental conservation and improving personal relationships. They encourage us to reject consumerism and materialism and instead embrace generosity and kindness, for example by leaving money in shopping trolleys, giving people hugs, giving up a place to someone who is in rush in traffic or a queue and doing chores for others.

The booklet was originally produced by the Diocese of Birmingham where 70,000 copies were given out. Commending the booklets Archbishop John Sentamu said; “I would urge as many people as possible to join in with the proposed programme of generous actions that encourage kindness to ourselves, our neighbours and our planet. Recent research has shown that generosity is a key ingredient in making neighbourhoods flourish and I think this Lent programme could help us become a more generous church – individually and as the body of Christ. The programme will not be easy but it will be fun and I am sure it will start to change our lives as God calls us onward in a corporate pilgrimage of faith, transforming us and building his kingdom of love, peace and justice.”

Living life by giving yourself away, by losing your life, is a wonderful thing. There is nothing to be ashamed of in a lifestyle like that. It makes sense in a world where the problems caused by a ‘me first’ attitude are becoming all too apparent. It is about really loving life and living it to the full by overflowing with generosity and kindness. It is to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, to live out his new way of being human, and to make an evolution against evolution. “If anyone wants to come with me,” Jesus said, “he must forget self, carry his cross, and follow me.” We have often thought about that in terms of self-denial but what ‘Love Life Live Lent’ helps us see is that it is actually about generosity, giving ourselves away. If you are not sure whether you can make that change wholesale, why not look at the booklet, try out some of the suggestions for a day at a time and see if they don’t seriously affect you and the world we live in.

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T. Bone Burnett - Trap Door.

How a generous God handles the utterly undeserving

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Catherine's Wickford on Sunday morning:

Chichele Road in Cricklewood has been known as Job Street, where economic migrants line up to be hired from the back of a van, no questions asked. Dozens of men in jeans and anoraks would be found hanging around from 6.30am to discover whether they will be working that day. A car would stop, a negotiation would take place, a deal might be struck. Typically, the men would be whisked off to a building site or a house in the process of renovation. They would be paid £20 to £40 for a long, arduous day's work: no tax, no national insurance, no questions asked.

That’s essentially the scenario for today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 20. 1 - 16). The social situation in Jesus’ day was that many small farmers were being forced off their land because of debt they incurred to pay Roman taxes. Consequently, large pools of unemployed men gathered each morning, hoping to be hired for the day. They were the displaced, unemployed, and underemployed workers of their day. Those still waiting at five o'clock would have had little chance of earning enough to buy food for their families that day. Yet the vineyard owner pays even them a full day’s wage. The owner in the parable ensures that all the workers are paid enough to support their families, as a denarius was a full day’s pay for a skilled worker.

So, unlike those exploited illegal workers or gig economy workers earning less than the minimum wage, the employer in this story is concerned that those he employs are paid a living wage. The standard thing for an employer in Jesus’ day to do would be to send one of his employees to the marketplace to pick up a few extra workers for the day. But this employer goes to the marketplace himself. In fact, he goes repeatedly to seek workers and clearly cares about their predicament seeking to lift them out of their despair by providing work that meets their needs and the needs of those who depend on them. If God is like the owner of the vineyard then he cares about our hopeless situation as human beings. He comes looking for us. He goes on an all-out search to find workers for his vineyard. He longs to provide us with a life of significance in his kingdom work.

As N. T. Wright has said, God’s grace, in short, is not the sort of thing you can bargain with or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot of and someone else only a little. The point of the story is that what people get from having served God and his kingdom is not, actually, a ‘wage’ at all. It’s not, strictly, a reward for work done. God doesn’t make contracts with us, as if we could bargain or negotiate for a better deal. He makes covenants, in which he promises us everything and asks of us everything in return. When he keeps his promises, he is not rewarding us for effort, but doing what comes naturally to his overflowingly generous nature.

Michael Green says of this story: Length of service and long hours of toil in the heat of the day constitute no claim on God and provide no reason why he should not be generous to those who have done less. All human merit shrivels before his burning, self-giving love. Grace, amazing grace, is the burden of this story. All are equally undeserving of so large a sum as a denarius a day. All are given it by the generosity of the employer. All are on the same level. The poor disciples, fishermen and tax collectors as they are, are welcomed by God along with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There are no rankings in the kingdom of God. Nobody can claim deserved membership of the kingdom. There is no place for personal pride, for contempt or jealousy, for there is no ground for any to question how this generous God handles the utterly undeserving. He is good. He sees that the one-hour workers would have no money for supper if they got paid for only one hour. In generosity he gives them what they need. Who is to complain at that?

Yet there is always a danger that we do get cross with God over this. People who work or move in church circles can easily assume that they are the special ones, God’s inner circle. In reality, as we have seen, God is out in the marketplace, looking for the people everybody else tried to ignore, welcoming them on the same terms, surprising them (and everybody else) with his generous grace. In Ephesians 2:8-10 Paul says, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Is there anywhere in today’s church, I wonder, that doesn’t need to be reminded of that message?

The parable is also a message of hope to everyone struggling to find adequate employment. In God’s kingdom, it suggests, we will all find work that meets our needs. The parable is, therefore, also a challenge to all those who have a hand in shaping the structures of work in today’s society. What can we do, as Christians, to advance this aspect of God’s kingdom right now?

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Mark Heard - Strong Hand Of Love.

Together for the Common Good

Here's the sermon that I preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields today. 

Readings of address: 1 Samuel 8.4-20, Mark 3.20-35.

Yves Klein was a French artist and an important figure in post-war European art. From 1956 onwards, he sold ‘zones’ of empty space – ‘Zones of Immaterial Sensibility’ - in exchange for gold ingots. He gave his buyers receipts, which they then solemnly burnt. In turn, Klein would ritually dispose of half the gold he had earned, by throwing it into rivers or oceans and thereby returning it to its source in creation, or, by creating an ex voto – a devotional offering. He made just such a devotional offering in 1961 presenting it to the Convent of Santa Rita in Cascia, Italy; St Rita being the patron of lost causes. This ex voto is a small plexiglass box containing five compartments: one filled with blue pigment, one with pink pigment, one with gold leaf, and the other two with a handwritten prayer to St Rita and three gold bars from his sale of the sensibility zones. The prayer proclaimed Klein’s gratitude to St Rita, and his desire to secure her continued protection.

Klein’s art enables a reflection on what can and cannot be owned. His work opens up the possibility that intangible and invisible qualities such as love are of more importance than tangible assets that can be held or owned. The purchasers of his zones owned nothing tangible that could be shown to another person, yet the experience in which they participated was profound. Michael Blankfort, a collector who purchased one of the Zones shortly before Klein’s death, said that he would cherish and remember forever this intangible artwork that he had bought but did not physically possess. He said that he carried the memory of it with him, always thinking about it, accompanying him all over the world, all the time. In the prayer Klein wrote to St Rita, he asked that he might live in his works and that they might become ever more beautiful. In other words that, when his physical body was gone, the intangible essence of the person he was might live in intangible works such as his ‘Zones of Immaterial Sensibility.’

Klein’s work is relevant to our Old Testament reading today because at the heart of this reading is the understanding that life is gift and not possession. The land in which the Israelites lived was given them by God in fulfilment of promises made to Abraham and his descendants. Although the Israelites lived in the land, the land was not theirs as, ‘The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it’ (Psalm 24.1). Because the land was both promise and gift, the whole of Israel’s socio-economic life and practice was based on this covenant relationship with God and its tradition of redemption and land gift.

Walter Brueggemann writes that, ‘As an alternative to pretentious, oppressive political authority, represented early in Israel’s imagination, by pharoah, Israel [ordered] its public life under the direct rule of [God], in a sort of theocracy.’[i] The Israelites were led by groups of Judges so that power was not concentrated in the hands of one person and the Law that had been given them by God at Mount Sinai set out a way of life based on redemption and gift that was a genuine alternative to the surrounding nations. One example of this is the Year of Jubilee which required the compulsory return of all property to its original owners or their heirs. That essentially prevented the centralisation of land and wealth in the hands of a few. As a light to the nations, Israel’s task in the world was to draw those nations into a similar relationship to creation and to God. The visions of the prophet Isaiah describe just such a relationship. He showed us the wolf living with the lamb, the leopard lying down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child leading them while nations stream to the mountain of the Lord that they might walk in his paths.

So, when the Israelites asked for a king, this was a betrayal of their entire way of life and purpose under God. Why did they do it? Three reasons have been identified. First, imitation of other nations. They looked at the surrounding nations and were envious of the sustained forms of political power they saw there which contributed to security and prosperity. Second, they faced imminent military threats and saw the establishment of a monarchy as a reasonable response to concrete threats. Third, those who had, despite the laws of redemption and land gift, monopolised wealth for themselves wanted a strong central government to protect and legitimate their already considerable economic and political advantages. In this way external threats were used by those with position and wealth to create greater advantage for themselves. We still see similar approaches to power and advantage used within our own political and socio-economic systems today. They, too, are based on: first, envy; second, fear; and third, greed.

As Sam Wells, our Vicar, has said, ‘In a community of fear we begin with our hurts and our stereotypes, and find a hundred reasons why we can’t do things or certain kinds of people don’t belong.’ Yet, if land is understood as a gift from God, then God becomes the principle for egalitarian distribution and a gift economy that stands in contrast to the centralisation of power, land and access found in a monarchy. Instead of that centralisation of power which can easily become, as was to be the case in Israel, an engine for preference, privilege, monopoly, and self-indulgence, the gifts of all can be released and we can build one another’s assets.

What might that approach to ownership and wealth mean for our society? I want to suggest three areas for reflection. First, the idea of the “common good” which refers to those facilities—whether material, cultural or institutional—that the members of a community provide to all in order to fulfil a relational obligation all have to care for those interests that we have in common. Examples in a modern liberal democracy include: the road system; public parks; police protection and public safety; courts and the judicial system; public schools; museums and cultural institutions; public transportation; civil liberties, such as the freedom of speech and the freedom of association; the system of property; clean air and clean water; and national defence. So, in the words of Together for the Common Good, a charity helping people play their part to strengthen the bonds of social trust, the Common Good is ‘the shared life of a society in which everyone can flourish - as we act together in different ways that all contribute towards that goal, enabled by social conditions that mean every single person can participate.’

Our society today is more polarised and fragmented than it has been for many years. Decades of individualism have infected our life together. In the fallout, we see a weakening of our local institutions, with whole communities marginalised, and an identity politics which is driving people apart. There is an urgent need to strengthen the bonds of social trust, at all levels and in all sectors. People are yearning for a sense of meaning and belonging. We need a vision of a world being transformed as more and more people take responsibility for the flourishing of all with everyone having a part to play, from the grassroots to the boardroom.[ii]

Second, is Creation Care. Based on the themes we are exploring of promise and gift Operation Noah’s call to the Church on ‘Climate change and the purposes of God’ says that: ‘According to the witness of our Scriptures, everything that we have, life and the means of life, comes to us as gift. This is the ground of our worship. The beauty and harmony of God’s creation is for all cultures a source of human wellbeing, spiritual nourishment and joy.’ As humans, made in God’s image, we have unique responsibility for the wellbeing of creation. We are to care for the earth because it is gift, the product of God’s love. No sparrow falls without God knowing. Humanity has always had the capacity to destroy our environment, but today we have this to an unprecedented extent. Whereas previous generations did not know the damage they were causing, we do. We must use our power wisely to promote the flourishing of future generations and the diversity of life on earth.

This is also an issue of justice; justice that applies to poor communities already suffering the devastating consequences of climate change, to future generations, and to all other creatures. The prophets put economic behaviour at the forefront of their call to justice. The primary driver of human induced climate change is the belief that prosperity depends on limitless consumption of the earth’s resources. Today, our challenge is to seek a different, sustainable economy, based on the values of human flourishing and the wellbeing of all creation, not on the assumption of unlimited economic growth, on overconsumption, exploitative interest and debt.[iii]

Third, generosity. Sam has said that ‘Christians don’t have to look far for a mission statement for the church.’ He was referring to John 10.10 where Jesus says, ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’ Living abundant life. That’s what the Father intends, the Son embodies, the Spirit facilitates. Christians are called to live in such a way that gratefully receives the abundance God is giving them, evidences the transformation from scarcity to abundance to which God is calling them, dwells with God in that abundant life, and shares that abundance far and wide. Tom Wright has said, 'God’s grace … is not the sort of thing you can bargain with or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot of and someone else only a little … God doesn’t make contracts with us, as if we could bargain or negotiate for a better deal.’ God makes covenants, in which we are promised everything but where everything is asked of us in return. When God keeps promises, we are not being rewarded for effort, but instead receiving what comes naturally to God’s overflowingly generous nature.[iv] To operate in that spirit of generosity involves being ecumenical, empowering, encouraging and relational, and to commit to resourcing others.

Although by living in a capitalist society we are all participants in systems that contribute to the centralisation of wealth and power in the hands of a few, we need to be mindful of the proverb that Jesus quoted in our Gospel reading, ‘A house divided against itself must fall.’ Taking action in relation to the common good, creation care and generosity can help us reduce the sense of division in our lives and community. Sam has encouraged us to see that ‘Christianity must take the present opportunity to be what it was always called to be: an alternative society, overlapping and sharing space with regular society, but living in a different time – that’s to say, modelling God’s future in our present.’

Yves Klein’s ex voto or devotional offering was formed of three sections; the colours, the prayer, and the gold ingots. There were also three colours – blue, pink and gold – and three gold ingots, making the work a thoroughly Trinitarian offering. The significance of this ex voto was, however, overlooked for many years and was only rediscovered in 1980 when a restorer working at the Convent needed gold leaf and Klein’s box was brought to him. The restorer recognised its significance and the ex voto has subsequently been displayed in several significant exhibitions of Klein’s work. This private offering, which was nearly lost by being used to restore another work of art, has now been shared with all who value what we see of the artist in his work. What was lost has been found; perhaps an indication that in God’s economy nothing is lost or wasted. Certainly not the urgent task of modelling God’s future in our present by creating the example of an alternative society; one that has a Trinitarian basis by moving beyond envy, fear and greed through the valuing of first, the common good, second, creation care, and third, generosity.

[i] Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy by Walter Brueggemann
[ii] https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/
[iii] http://operationnoah.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Final-ON_Declaration_web.pdf
[iv] Matthew for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 16-28, by N. T. Wright

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Linda Perhacs - When Things Are True Again.

Grace & work: The workers in the vineyard

Here is my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook (drawing on material from The Lampost and Theology of Work Project):

Chichele Road in Cricklewood is known as Job Street, where economic migrants line up to be hired from the back of a van, no questions asked. Dozens of men in jeans and anoraks hang around from 6.30am to discover whether they will be working that day. A car will stop, a negotiation will take place, a deal may be struck. Typically, the men will be whisked off to a building site or a house in the process of renovation. They will be paid £20 to £40 for a long, arduous day's work: no tax, no national insurance, no questions asked.

That’s essentially the scenario for today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 20. 1 - 16). The social situation in Jesus’ day was that many small farmers were being forced off their land because of debt they incurred to pay Roman taxes. Consequently, large pools of unemployed men gathered each morning, hoping to be hired for the day. They were the displaced, unemployed, and underemployed workers of their day. Those still waiting at five o'clock would have had little chance of earning enough to buy food for their families that day. Yet the vineyard owner pays even them a full day’s wage. The owner in the parable ensures that all the workers are paid enough to support their families, as a denarius was a full day’s pay for a skilled worker.

So, unlike those exploited illegal workers or gig economy workers earning less than the minimum wage, the employer in this story is concerned that those he employs are paid a living wage. The standard thing for an employer in Jesus’ day to do would be to send one of his employees to the marketplace to pick up a few extra workers for the day. But this employer goes to the marketplace himself. In fact, he goes repeatedly to seek workers and clearly cares about their predicament seeking to lift them out of their despair by providing work that meets their needs and the needs of those who depend on them. If God is like the owner of the vineyard then he cares about our hopeless situation as human beings. He comes looking for us. He goes on an all-out search to find workers for his vineyard. He longs to provide us with a life of significance in his kingdom work.

As N. T. Wright has said, 'God’s grace, in short, is not the sort of thing you can bargain with or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot of and someone else only a little. The point of the story is that what people get from having served God and his kingdom is not, actually, a ‘wage’ at all. It’s not, strictly, a reward for work done. God doesn’t make contracts with us, as if we could bargain or negotiate for a better deal. He makes covenants, in which he promises us everything and asks of us everything in return. When he keeps his promises, he is not rewarding us for effort, but doing what comes naturally to his overflowingly generous nature.'

Michael Green says of this story: 'Length of service and long hours of toil in the heat of the day constitute no claim on God and provide no reason why he should not be generous to those who have done less. All human merit shrivels before his burning, self-giving love. Grace, amazing grace, is the burden of this story. All are equally undeserving of so large a sum as a denarius a day. All are given it by the generosity of the employer. All are on the same level. The poor disciples, fishermen and tax collectors as they are, are welcomed by God along with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There are no rankings in the kingdom of God. Nobody can claim deserved membership of the kingdom. There is no place for personal pride, for contempt or jealousy, for there is no ground for any to question how this generous God handles the utterly undeserving. He is good. He sees that the one-hour workers would have no money for supper if they got paid for only one hour. In generosity he gives them what they need. Who is to complain at that?'

Yet there is always a danger that we do get cross with God over this. People who work or move in church circles can easily assume that they are the special ones, God’s inner circle. In reality, as we have seen, God is out in the marketplace, looking for the people everybody else tried to ignore, welcoming them on the same terms, surprising them (and everybody else) with his generous grace. In Ephesians 2:8-10 Paul says, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Is there anywhere in today’s church, I wonder, that doesn’t need to be reminded of that message?

The parable is also a message of hope to everyone struggling to find adequate employment. In God’s kingdom, it suggests, we will all find work that meets our needs. The parable is, therefore, also a challenge to all those who have a hand in shaping the structures of work in today’s society. What can we do, as Christians, to advance this aspect of God’s kingdom right now?

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Deacon Blue - Wages Day.

HeartEdge

‘At the Heart – on the Edge’ is a day exploring mission by sharing ideas, uncovering solutions and finding support. Starting at 10.30am (coffee from 10am) on 8 February 2017 at St Stephen, Walbrook, London we’ll finish at 3.30pm. The conference will launch HeartEdge, a new network for churches growing practices and patterns of sustainable mission, initiated by St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Hosted by Revd Dr Sam Wells, our focus on 8 February is on:

• Congregation – approaches to liturgy, worship and day-to-day communal life
• Commerce – activities generating finance and developing social enterprise
• Charity – addressing social needs while retaining congregational participation
• Culture – art, music and ideas to re-imagine the Christian narrative for the present moment

Interested? Sign up for this launch event and attend what we plan to be an inspiring and practical first conference here >> https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/at-the-heart-on-the-edge-heartedge-conference-2017-tickets-29792821130.

On the high street or in the market place, churches these days make for unusual spaces. Often busy – from community projects and the arts, to hospitality and social enterprise – they frequently engage a wide mix of people including those more used to feeling marginalised and excluded. And if the church hasn't got there yet, it’s probably an aspiration the congregation are working towards.

We think this unusual blend of creative, commercial and community activity that works to include all kinds of people makes many churches essential places in a neighbourhood. It means being at the heart of a community while encountering God among those on the edge.

HeartEdge:

• A network of churches initiated by St Martin-in-the-Fields
• For those working at the heart of culture, community and commerce
• With those at the margins and on the edge
• Building association, learning, development and resource

HeartEdge supports churches in blending their mission around four key areas:

1. Congregation – Inclusive approaches to liturgy, worship and day-to-day communal life
2. Community – models of outreach serving local need and addressing social justice
3. Culture – art, music and ideas to re-imagine the Christian narrative for the present moment
4. Commerce – Commercial activities that generate finance, creatively extending and enhancing mission and ministry through social enterprise

HeartEdge supports its members in finding their stories, sharing resources and connecting effectively with others developing their church and community.

We create spaces where members give from their experience and take from others – an exchange that's often inspiring, always compelling, and mutually useful for all participants.

We want HeartEdge to be an essential resource and a valuable community, as you develop your church and neighbourhood.

When you join HeartEdge you and your church get:

1. Connections: Access to all kinds of useful contacts and connections to help your church develop cultural, commercial and community activity
2. Information: Grow your knowledge and insight to help you in your work via the lived experience of others
3. Visits: Opportunity to meet those most relevant to you in situ, gaining understanding of their work and experience, live
4. Mentors: Via phone calls & meetings, appropriate learning and support from others
5. Events: Programmed with bespoke content useful for your context
6. Publications: An emerging range of resources based on approaches to ministry used by HeartEdge members
7. Projects: Support and resources to begin specific social justice initiatives
8. Emails and Online: We’ll keep in touch with you via a monthly email with links to useful resources via our website

HeartEdge is fuelled by its members. Members are people and churches who are makers and takers – people and churches that both give to the network and take from it.

When you join HeartEdge you give us:

1. Information – about your story and journey as a church. This includes information about what is working well and what isn’t
2. Money – via payment of a membership fee. We want to resource HeartEdge and this needs paying for. We tell you how we spend the money elsewhere in this pack
3. Time – to meet other members and participate in a useful and resourcing network
4. Resource – We think you will have one or more of the following that we think will be useful to others members: ideas, stories, experience, approaches, knowledge, relationships, tactics, strategies and resources. By joining the network you agree, where possible, to share these with others

Generosity is central to HeartEdge – it helps the network to become a useful resource. Your generosity enables members to generate new stories across other communities.

HeartEdge was initiated by the congregation at St Martin-in-the-Fields and will be formally launched early in 2017, but we are seeking founder members now. Join HeartEdge now and you become part of the network as we start out, developing relationships and growing this new resource.

For more information and a membership pack contact Revd Jonathan Evens, Associate Vicar for Partnerships on 02077661127 or jonathan.evens@smitf.org.

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Great Sacred Music - A Hymn for St Cecilia.

Start:Stop - God has given you unique talents

Bible reading

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. (1 Corinthians 12: 4 – 7)

Meditation

‘God has given you unique abilities, talents, and gifts … If you think your talents are simply for you to make a lot of money, retire, and die, you’ve missed the point of your life. God gave you talents to benefit others, not yourself. And God gave other people talents that benefit you … We’re all a part of the body of Christ, and each part matters. There are no insignificant people in the family of God. You are shaped to serve God, and he is testing you to see how you are going to use the talents he gave you. Whether you are a musician or an accountant, a teacher or a cook, God gave you those abilities to serve others … You are a manager of the gifts God has given to you.’ (http://pastorrick.com/devotional/english/make-the-most-of-your-talents)

We see this worked out in the Parable of the Talents where, ‘people are given assignments, they have responsibilities, and they have to report back to the boss, who then assesses them and rewards them with further work responsibility – or punishes them with demotion (or the sack). The ‘parable of the talents is about whether we try to be the best we can be, working with God to build His kingdom, heal His creation, including the workplace – which, like everything else, will be perfected at the end of time. It’s about being ourselves, not trying to be people we’re not. It’s about doing only what we are capable of doing, but doing it very well. It’s about a God who entrusts us with things of enormous worth – the possibilities of being His co-workers – and who will love us for what we have done unless (... unless we hide the gift, don’t ask Him for help using it, and then turn around and tell Him it was all His own fault anyway).' (Will Morris, ‘Where is God at Work?’)

This autumn we are encouraging all those who come to St Stephen Walbrook to reflect on the various ways in which we can use their time, talents and treasure in God’s service. Each of us has special qualities, skills and talents. Could your talents be used for the work of St Stephen Walbrook? Each of us has time, talents and treasure which could be given out of gratitude and to help this church. Will you help in some way? Can you use your gifts to share in God’s plan for his kingdom and for the work of St Stephen Walbrook?

Our Stewardship leaflet explains how your talents could be used here at St Stephen. Could you offer your time and talents for tasks such as administration (including data entry, Discover & explore rotas, Parish Rate, publicity), bell ringing, cleaning, counting collections, hospitality (special events and/or Thursday Eucharists), IT, leading prayers, London Internet Church, marketing, PCC membership, preparing invitations, publicity, reading the Bible in services, sidesperson (welcoming others to services), Start:Stop advertising, among other tasks? I encourage you to reflect on how you use your your talents currently and whether you could give your talents out of gratitude and to help this church.

Prayer

Loving Father, you alone are the source of every good gift. We praise you for all your gifts to us, and we thank you for your generosity. Everything we have, and all that we are, comes from you. Help us to be grateful and responsible. We commit ourselves to being good stewards. Help us to be grateful, accountable, generous, and willing to give back with increase. Help us to make stewardship a way of life.

Show us how to share our gifts with others, and inspire us always to follow your example of generous self-giving.

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. All I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me.

Show us how to share our gifts with others, and inspire us always to follow your example of generous self-giving.

Jesus, our saviour and brother, you teach us that to serve others is to act in your name. Send your Spirit to guide us; give us your wisdom and strength as we reach out to those who need your care. Fill us with compassion, and give us your peace so that we may be faithful witnesses of your love.

Show us how to share our gifts with others, and inspire us always to follow your example of generous self-giving.

Blessing

Gracious and loving God, you call us to be the stewards of your abundance, the caretakers of all you have entrusted to us. Help us to use your gifts wisely and to share them generously. May our stewardship be a genuine reflection of our discipleship, a tangible sign of our commitment to Christ. May those blessings of almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and remain with you always. Amen.

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Sister Rosetta Tharpe - That's All.

Discover & explore - Treasure/Gold

Today the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields led our Discover & explore service at St Stephen Walbrook on the theme of Treasure/Gold using the following: O radiant dawn - MacMillan; All I once held dear - Kendrick/Larson; Beati quorum via - Stanford; and Ubi caritas - Durufle.

The next Discover & explore service in the series is on Monday 24 October at 1.10pm. The theme will be Guidance and the service will be led by Revd Sally Muggeridge.

Here is the reflection that I shared today:

The love of money is the root of all evil. We have probably all heard that biblical assertion, although many think the statement is actually that money is the root of all evil. That isn't what is asserted in scripture, however, as a very important distinction is being made when it is said that the love of money is the root of all evil.

Money itself is neutral. It is a means of exchange that can be used for good or evil but which is not inherently evil in and of itself. One key element in the positive use of money is its circulation. It is designed to be exchanged and therefore it moves from one person to another, one account to another. This is one reason why the Bank of England has introduced plastic bank notes, because significant levels of exchange cause significant wear and tear for the notes that are being exchanged.

There is a blockage to this healthy exchange process when greed comes into play and particular people begin accumulating great wealth which is not being exchanged as freely or with as many people. This is one of the reasons why the love of money is the root of all evil, as it interrupts and blocks the healthy free flowing exchange which shares money with the many. Lewis Hyde suggests in his book entitled ‘The Gift’ that "we think of the gift as a constantly flowing river" and allow ourselves "to become a channel for its current." When we try to "dam the river", "thinking what counts is ownership and size," "one of two things will happen: either it will stagnate or it will fill the person up until he bursts."

The antidote to such greed and accumulation is the generosity on which we have focused with our readings in this service. Generosity, the giving away of money, gives additional impetus to the free flow of money and is usually focused on those most deeply in poverty or in need.

The City of London is a place where London’s spirit of enterprise is distilled to the maximum. It was in the City that many forms of charitable activity originated or evolved into business models for others to follow. Making money and giving money are both features of life in the City. What does the Bible say about the way we should use the money we make?

Instead of giving grudgingly, the Bible encourages generosity and cheerfulness in giving. In his second letter to the Corinthians Paul writes, ‘Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.’ Gratitude is the first fruit of humility and is a response to the forgiveness, freedom, healing and restoration which we find in God. We are precious to him, honoured and loved by him, so give out of thankfulness for this acceptance and love.

That is the prayer for our Stewardship campaign this year; that God will give us a grateful heart. Giving to our church is a tangible, faithful, and accountable way in which we demonstrate our gratitude to God. Of course our lives haven’t in every way turned out how we wanted them to; but God has given us life. Of course the church isn’t perfect; but God has given us Jesus, and forgiveness, and the life everlasting. Of course there are lots of other good causes; but giving to the church is about investing in forever, in striving to live now the companionship God has promised us always.

As a result, this autumn we are encouraging all those who come to St Stephen Walbrook to reflect on the various ways in which we can use their time, talents and treasure in God’s service. Each of us can give from our treasure in ways that benefit others and our Stewardship leaflet explains how to give regularly and consistently to St Stephen Walbrook, so I encourage you to reflect on whether you could give regularly out of gratitude and to help this church.

The Elizabethan poet George Herbert was aware of our natural tendency to think what God has given to us as being ours and to retain as much of it for ourselves as possible. His prayer, therefore, was that he might be given a grateful heart. One that rejoices in all that God has given, recognising it all as a gift, rather than something earnt, and, therefore, generous in the way it is used and given back to God. May our prayer be that of George Herbert:

Thou that hast given so much to me,
Give one thing more, a grateful heart …
Not thankful, when it pleaseth me;
As if thy blessings had spare days:
But such a heart, whose pulse may be
Thy praise.

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George Herbert - Redemption.