Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died

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

On Wednesday Richard and I spoke to Year 4 classes at Hilltop Junior School as part of their RE lessons, where they are currently looking at the charitable and community work that churches undertake. We spoke about the Gateway Project, our collections for the Women’s Refuge, and the funds we collect for Positive Life Kenya but, through the questions the children asked, we also spoke about the ways in which the church is there for people and with people at all the key moments in life – at birth through Christenings, when people get married through wedding, and when people die through funerals. It’s sometimes, disparagingly spoken of as ‘hatch, match and dispatch’ but actually means the church ministers to people at every stage of their lives and at all the really important moments in life.

The children specifically wanted to ask about funerals, which is interesting as parents often try to protect children from the reality of death; although, as was clear to us on Wednesday, they are aware of the reality of death and can and will speak about it. That was also the case in the church at Corinth, to which St Paul wrote first and second Corinthians, as we have them recorded in the Bible.

The reality of the resurrection was the big issue or discussion that Paul addressed in the section of his letter that we heard read this morning (1 Corinthians 15.12-20). Paul makes the resurrection central to Christianity by arguing that if it did not happen, then the rest of our faith must be false.

In this section of his letter, he doesn’t give his argument for the reality of the resurrection. He simply states that belief at the end of the passage - in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. But in the section of the letter that was read last week he does set out his argument (1 Corinthians 15.1-11). So, let’s look briefly at some of the reasons for believing in the reality of the resurrection.

First, we need to be clear that those who say there is no evidence for the existence of God seek to disallow the very evidence which has helped convince us otherwise by saying that the only acceptable evidence is scientifically measurable evidence. This is the argument that science and its methods provide the only way of knowing that gives us true knowledge of the world around us. Yet, if that were to be the case then, for example, a wedding would make no real sense. Instead of being about the mutual celebration of love and affection between the couple, on the basis of measurable scientific knowledge what occurs when a wedding happens simply becomes about the survival of the fittest through the passing on of selfish genes in procreation. Our experiences of love and faith cannot be adequately captured through the language of scientific measurement. Instead, we need the languages of belief and imagination to give voice to what we truly experience of love and faith. As Richard Chartres once said, "Faith and committed relationships offer a door into the mystery of spiritual life.”

Second, we need to understand that faith is fundamental to all true knowledge and that applies to scientific knowing as much as to any other form of knowing. Scientists like Michael Polanyi have come to understand that faith is fundamental in the whole enterprise of understanding because all knowledge of reality rests upon faith commitments which cannot be demonstrated. As a result, scientists and philosophers of science are now rediscovering the vital role that the imagination has to play in their endeavours.

When there is an acceptance that other forms of knowing and other forms of evidence have validity, then two further arguments can be made. The first of these is that belief in God makes sense of our experiences of life and love in ways that give full weight to our experience of these things without contradicting the findings of science. On this basis, Christianity offers, as Lesslie Newbigin has argued, “the widest rationality, the greatest capacity to give meaning to the whole of experience.”

Second, the arguments for the resurrection made in the New Testament and also subsequently come into play. Many historians, lawyers and sceptics have testified to the convincing nature of this evidence when objectively considered. Many would, for example, agree with E. M. Blaiklock, , who said, “the evidence for the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ is better authenticated than most of the facts of ancient history . . .”

One of the earliest records of Christ's appearing after the resurrection is given by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. There, he appeals to his audience's knowledge of the fact that Christ had been seen by more than 500 people at one time. Paul reminded them that the majority of those people were still alive and could be questioned. Dr. Edwin M. Yamauchi, associate professor of history at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, emphasizes: "What gives a special authority to the list (of witnesses) as historical evidence is the reference to most of the five hundred brethren being still alive. St. Paul says in effect, 'If you do not believe me, you can ask them.' Such a statement in an admittedly genuine letter written within thirty years of the event is almost as strong evidence as one could hope to get for something that happened nearly two thousand years ago." These New Testament accounts of the resurrection were being circulated within the lifetimes of men and women alive at the time of the resurrection; people who could certainly have confirmed or denied the accuracy of such accounts.

So, there is good reason for believing that Jesus rose from the dead but what difference does it make that he did? Paul addresses that at the end of today’s reading - in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. This means that what Jesus experienced is like a template for our own experience in future when we, too, are raised from death.

The risen Jesus had a resurrection body and was recognisable to his disciples, although not always. He was able to come and go and move around in ways that had not previously been possible for him and he bore on his body the scars of his crucifixion. This means that there was a continuity between his earthly body and his resurrected body, although they were not one and the same. Later, in this chapter, Paul explains this by saying the perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

Writers and theologians have explained this in a variety of different ways. One of those that I find most helpful is that of C.S. Lewis in the last book of The Chronicles of Narnia called 'The Last Battle'. There, he describes his characters dying and entering eternity. In eternity they find themselves back in the land of Narnia but it is a Narnia that has more depth and beauty than previously. As they explore this revitalised Narnia, their cry is one of exploration, 'Come further up and further in'. When they reach the garden at the centre of Narnia, they discover that this is a gateway to another Narnia that has yet more depth and beauty than that which they had just left. Lewis' idea that we abide in eternity in the world that we know but know it in ever increasing depth.

Lewis’ idea works with what we know of Jesus’ resurrected body in order to imagine a new heaven and new earth that is deeper and more beautiful and more real than this earth. Therefore, there is continuity between this world and the next with much that we will recognise but, because it is more real and more beautiful than this world there is much that is also new and unknown that we can discover and explore. In fact, Lewis’ idea is that, because God is inifinite, there is also more of the new heaven and new earth in which we will live our resurrected lives to be explored, discovered and enjoyed. By saying that the resurrection of Jesus is the first fruits of what we will experience, St Paul opens up that possibility to us.

So, as Paul states in 1 Corinthians 15, there are good reasons for believing in the resurrection and for having hope that that we will spend eternity living lives for which Jesus’ resurrection provides the template. Amen.

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Fiction Family - God Badge.

From "I will not believe" to "My Lord and my God"

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

Thomas’ statement to the other disciples that, “Unless I see the scars of the nails in his hands and put my fingers on those scars and my hand in his side, I will not believe” is essentially one which is repeated regularly by atheists around the world. Here is a typical comment made in the discussion section of Richard Dawkins’ website, “I have never witnessed a scrap of evidence pointing to god's existence, which leads me to a total lack of belief in it.” Dawkins himself has said, "Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is the belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."

How can we, as Christians, answer such assertions; because it is not enough simply to say that we believe and leave it at that?

First, we need to be clear that those who say there is no evidence for the existence of God seek to disallow the very evidence which has helped convince us otherwise by saying that the only acceptable evidence is scientifically measurable evidence. This is the argument that science and its methods provide the only way of knowing that gives us true knowledge of the world around us.

Yet, if that were to be the case then, for example, weddings would make no real sense. Instead of being about the mutual celebration of love and affection which we see between the couple themselves and also between them, their families and friends, on the basis of measurable scientific knowledge what occurs at a wedding simply becomes about the survival of the fittest through the passing on of selfish genes in procreation. Our experiences of love and faith cannot be adequately captured through the language of scientific measurement. Instead, we need the languages of belief and imagination to give voice to what we truly experience of love and faith. As Richard Chartres once noted in a wedding sermon, "Faith and committed relationships offer a door into the mystery of spiritual life.”

Second, we need to understand that faith is fundamental to all true knowledge and that applies to scientific knowing as much as to any other form of knowing. Philip Sherrard has given forceful expression to this view:

“Every thought, every observation, every judgement, every description whether of the modern scientist or of anyone else is soaked in a priori preconceived built-in value-judgements, assumptions and dogmas at least as rigid, if not more rigid (because they are so often unconsciously embraced) than those of any explicitly religious system. The very nature of human thought is such that it cannot operate independently of value-judgements, assumptions and dogmas. Even the assertion that it can constitutes a value-judgement and implies a whole philosophy, whether we are aware of it or not.”

Scientists like Michael Polanyi have come to understand that faith is fundamental in the whole enterprise of understanding because all knowledge of reality rests upon faith commitments which cannot be demonstrated. As a result, scientists and philosophers of science are now rediscovering the vital role that the imagination has to play in their endeavours.

When there is an acceptance that other forms of knowing and other forms of evidence have validity, then two further arguments can be made. The first of these is that belief in God makes sense of our experiences of life and love in ways that give full weight to our experience of these things without contradicting the findings of science. On this basis, Christianity offers, as Lesslie Newbigin has argued, “the widest rationality, the greatest capacity to give meaning to the whole of experience.”

Second, the arguments for the resurrection made in the New Testament and also subsequently come into play. Many historians, lawyers and sceptics have testified to the convincing nature of this evidence when objectively considered. Many would, for example, agree with E. M. Blaiklock, Professor of Classics at Auckland University, who said, “the evidence for the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ is better authenticated than most of the facts of ancient history . . .”

One of the earliest records of Christ's appearing after the resurrection is by Paul. The apostle appealed to his audience's knowledge of the fact that Christ had been seen by more than 500 people at one time. Paul reminded them that the majority of those people were still alive and could be questioned. Dr. Edwin M. Yamauchi, associate professor of history at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, emphasizes: "What gives a special authority to the list (of witnesses) as historical evidence is the reference to most of the five hundred brethren being still alive. St. Paul says in effect, 'If you do not believe me, you can ask them.' Such a statement in an admittedly genuine letter written within thirty years of the event is almost as strong evidence as one could hope to get for something that happened nearly two thousand years ago." These New Testament accounts of the resurrection were being circulated within the lifetimes of men and women alive at the time of the resurrection; people who could certainly have confirmed or denied the accuracy of such accounts.

Another interesting example of evidence for the truth of Christianity and, in particular, the resurrection of Jesus, is the testimony of former skeptics, many of whom attempted to disprove Christian faith. Thomas is merely the first in a long line of such people which in more recent years have included Frank Morison, C. S. Lewis, Dr Gary Habermas, Alister McGrath, and Lee Strobel.

So, there is evidence for the existence of God and evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Such evidence helps us in holding our faith and may, as was the case for those I have just listed, be helpful in bringing people to faith. However, we should never think that such evidences prove either the existence of God or the resurrection of Jesus. Ultimately, if we believe in both it is because of faith, not proof; just as atheists cannot disprove the existence of God and, therefore, also hold their beliefs on the basis of faith. Neither positions can be proved conclusively, so can only be held by faith.

That is what Jesus emphasizes to Thomas after confronting him with the physical and tangible evidence of the resurrection that he demanded. Jesus said, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”:

Unless I see
the scars
of the nails
in his hands
and put my finger
on those scars
and my hand
in his side,
unless I can touch,
unless he is tangible,
unless I have proof,
I will not believe.

If you see
the scars
of the nails
in my hands
and put your finger
on those scars
and your hand
in my side,
if you can touch,
if I am tangible,
if you have proof,
you will not have belief.

Blessed are those
who cannot see
the scars
of the nails
in my hands
and put their fingers
on those scars
and their hands
in my side,
blessed are those who
cannot touch,
who are without
tangible proof,
for they truly believe.

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Good Charlotte - We Believe.

The life of Jesus reproduced in our lives

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

Stephen Verney begins his commentary on this passage with a great evocation of the way in which vines are grown:

“On a stony hillside above his house, where the thyme grows and the prickly pear, and a wild fig tree fights for its existence in a pocket of shallow soil, a farmer decides to plant a vine. In the autumn he clears a terrace, and brings top soil. He sets a post for the vine to climb, and fixes horizontal supports for its branches. Then in the spring he plants it and fences it against the goats; as it grows he trains it, and in the following autumn he prunes it back.

The vine depends for its life on the farmer, but equally the farmer depends on the vine. For the vine can do what the farmer cannot; it can take the rain that falls on the hillside and convert it into grapes, which the farmer can harvest and tread out in his wine-press, and pour the juice into his vat to ferment and bubble. The farmer and the vine are dependent on each other, and the purpose for which they work together is that water should be turned into wine.”

Jesus is the vine, his Father is the farmer (John 15. 1-8). They are dependent one on the other although their roles are different. Their shared purpose is that water is turned into wine; that the vine is fruitful and that its fruit becomes wine shared with others as the sign and symbol of Jesus’ blood. The process for achieving this can itself be painful; involving pruning and crushing.

We are part of this picture because there is one vine but many branches. Each one of us as we become Christians is grafted into the vine to become part of the vine itself. Verney writes:

“I AM the vine, and you are the branches. Dwell in me, and I in you. Here is teaching both simple and profound, to move the human heart. If the branch dwells in the vine, then the life of the vine dwells in the branch. If the branch grows out of the stem, and out of the roots which are drawing up the goodness of the soil and the rain, then the sap of the vine flows into the branch, and the pattern of the vine’s life unfolds itself through each branch to produce bunches of grapes. So it will be, says Jesus, between you and me. If you do not dwell in me you cannot bear fruit …”

How do we dwell in Jesus? To keep our life dwelling in Christ’s, we must continually renew our decision that “what has been done once for all on the cross by Jesus shall the basis, the starting point, the context of all my thinking and deciding and doing,” writes Lesslie Newbigin. We feed this decision by protecting time for prayer, bible study and worship in our busy lives and schedules.

As we do so, the sap of the vine, the life of Christ, flows into us and we produce fruit. The fruit of the vine is, as Newbigin again writes, “the life of Jesus reproduced in the midst of the life of the world, the pure love and obedience by which people will recognise the disciples of Jesus, the branches of the real vine.”

This fruit, the life of Jesus reproduced in our lives, is the real test of whether or not we are actually dwelling in the vine, in Jesus. In recent years, we have come to know much more about the spiritual life of Mother Teresa, someone whose face shone with the all-encompassing joy of one for whom “to live is Christ.” Everyone who knew her assumed that she was supported in her ministry through a deep and abiding sense of Christ’s presence with her.

Yet the opposite was true. Mother Teresa lived feeling as if she did not believe: “I have no faith” – “They say people in hell suffer eternal pain because of the loss of God … in my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss – of God not being God – of God not really existing.”

Her sense of feeling that there was no God has been revealed in letters that she wrote to her spiritual confidantes. Yet, as Sister Wendy Beckett has written, “this woman who felt that there was no God and lived in emotional anguish was also profoundly aware, intellectually, that God was her total life and that she lived only to love him.” This was what was apparent in her life and ministry and this fruit showed that whatever she felt about the absence of God in her life, she was still a live branch in the vine.

Ultimately, the fruit of our lives - the life of Jesus reproduced in our lives – is the sign of whether we are healthy branches dwelling in the vine. Prayer, bible study and worship are channels for the life of Christ to flow into our lives rather than the sign than his life is flowing into our own.

As we are grafted into the vine, into Jesus, we receive his life flowing through us and take on his characteristics – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. These characteristics result in acts of love because love must act, as we saw in the life of Mother Teresa. While hate could be indifference or inaction, love is always active and must respond practically to the needs we see around us.

We can choose active love over inactive indifference and create a powerful force for change which derives from the life of Christ flowing into us as we dwell in him and where our active love is the fruit of the vine - the life of Jesus reproduced in our lives. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Strawbs - Benedictus.

Testimony in the courtroom of life

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

Saint Stephen was the first Christian martyr, and was stoned to death (Acts 7. 54-60). Saul (the future Saint Paul) guards the clothes of those who stone Saint Stephen outside the city. In the Acts of the Apostles, Stephen is described as one of the seven deacons whose job it is to care for the widows in the early Church in Jerusalem. His eloquent speech before the Sanhedrin, in which he shows the great sweep of Jewish history as leading to the birth of Jesus, the long-expected Messiah, and his impassioned plea that all might hear the good news of Jesus, leads to his inevitable martyrdom by being stoned to death. 

As the author of Acts, Luke's description of Stephen bears direct parallels to that of Christ: for example, being filled with the Holy Spirit; seeing the Son of God as the right hand of God, as Jesus promised he would be; commending his spirit to Jesus, as Jesus commended his to the Father; kneeling as Jesus did in Gethsemane and asking forgiveness for his persecutors. Witnessing to Jesus by acting like Jesus in every way is thus seen by Luke as of the essence of the Christian life.

The Greek word "martus" signifies a "witness". It is in this sense that the term first appears in Christian literature; the Apostles were "witnesses" of all that they had observed in the public life of Christ. The Apostles, from the beginning as the story of St Stephen makes clear, faced grave dangers, until eventually almost all suffered death for their convictions. Thus, within the lifetime of the Apostles, the term martus came to be used in the sense of a witness who at any time might be called upon to deny what he testified to, under penalty of death. From this stage the transition was easy to the ordinary meaning of the term, as used ever since in Christian literature: a martyr, or witness of Christ, as a person who suffers death rather than deny his faith.

There continue to be Christians who experience persecution or martyrdom today and we must pray for and support our brothers and sisters in the persecuted Church. It is, probably, unlikely that we will share with St Stephen in this experience, even so, we can still share with St Stephen in the other meaning of martus; that of being a witness who gives testimony. The missiologist Lesslie Newbigin has explained that testimony is what is given by a witness in a trial. A witness makes his or her statement as part of a trial in which the truth is at stake and where the question, ‘What is the truth?’ is what is being argued. Newbigin has argued that this is what is “at the heart of the biblical vision of the human situation that the believer is a witness who gives his testimony in a trial.”

Where is the trial? It is all around us, it is life itself? In all situations we encounter, there is challenge to our faith and there is a need for us to testify in words and actions to our belief in Christ. Whenever people act as though human beings are entirely self-relient, there is a challenge to our faith. Whenever people argue that suffering and disasters mean that there cannot be a good God, we are on the witness stand. Whenever people claim that scientific advances or psychological insights can explain away belief in God, we are in the courtroom. Whenever a response of love is called for, our witness is at stake.

What is the content of our testimony? Witnesses are those who have seen or experienced a particular event or sign or happening and who then tell the story of what they have seen or heard as testimony to others. That is what Jesus called us to do before he ascended to the Father; to tell our stories of encountering him to others. So, we don’t have to understand or be able to explain the key doctrines of the Christian faith. We don’t have to be able to tell people the two ways to live or to have memorized the sinner’s prayer or to have tracts to be able to hand out in order to be witnesses to Jesus. All we need to do is to tell our story; to say this is how Jesus made himself real to me and this is the difference that it has made.

Malcolm Guite sums up these thoughts as follows:

Witness for Jesus, man of fruitful blood,
Your martyrdom begins and stands for all.
They saw the stones, you saw the face of God,
And sowed a seed that blossomed in St. Paul.
When Saul departed breathing threats and slaughter
He had to pass through that Damascus gate
Where he had held the coats and heard the laughter
As Christ, alive in you, forgave his hate,
And showed him the same light you saw from heaven
And taught him, through his blindness, how to see;
Christ did not ask ‘Why were you stoning Stephen?’
But ‘Saul, why are you persecuting me?’
Each martyr after you adds to his story,
As clouds of witness shine through clouds of glory. ()

Prayer: Gracious Father, who gave the first martyr Stephen grace to pray for those who took up stones against him: grant that in all our sufferings for the truth we may learn to love even our enemies and to seek forgiveness for those who desire our hurt, looking up to heaven to him who was crucified for us, Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Advocate, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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Malcolm Guite and Rob Groves - Angels Unawares.

The only true leadership

Here's the sermon I shared at St Mary Magdalene Great Burstead this morning:

“In a pastoral society like ancient Israel, sheep and shepherds were used to describe the relationship of God with his people: ‘the Lord is my shepherd’ and ‘we are his people, the sheep of his pasture’ (Pss 23:1; 100:3)” (Richard A. Burridge, John).

In Jesus’ time, sheep were very important as they provided both food and clothing. Shepherd’s had to have a nomadic lifestyle because of the available pasture. They had to travel with their sheep from one region to another as the seasons changed. This created the close relationship between sheep and shepherd that we hear Jesus describing and using in this reading: “The Shepherd cares for his sheep, calls them by name, leads them to pasture and water, finds shelter for them in inclement weather, defends them against bandits and wolves, and willingly lays down his life for them. The sheep have great confidence in the shepherd. They recognize his voice, obey his commands, and they follow wherever he leads them” (http://www.frksj.org/homily_the_good_shepherd.htm).

“The word “good” (kalos …) means first and foremost beautiful – the good shepherd is attractive. At the same time he is good at his work. So this attractive and very skilled shepherd draws us to himself and is able to provide accurately for our needs” (Stephen Verney, Water into Wine)

The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep (John 10. 11 – 18): “The word “life” (psychē …) is impossible to translate by any one English word. The psychē means the self, or the ego, or the soul. It can be the centre of our earthly life, or the centre of our supernatural life. If the shepherd lays down his psychē for the sheep he is offering them this centre of his inner life, in all its varied aspects …” (Verney).

Lesslie Newbigin writes that: “Here is the unmistakable criterion by which true leadership is to be distinguished from false. We are familiar with the kind of leadership which is simply a vast overextension of the ego. The ultimate goal – whether openly acknowledged or not – is the glory of the leader. The rest are instrumental to this end. He does not love them but makes use of them for his own ends. He is a hireling – in the business of leadership for what he can get out it. By contrast the mark of the true leader is that of the cross” (The Light Has Come).

“Jesus …is the good shepherd, who knows his own sheep as they know him (10:14). Shepherds called their sheep out of the fold by their names and the flock followed their voice (10:3-4). The Greek word for church literally means ‘called out’, ec-clesia, from which all our ‘ecclesiastical’ words are derived. Jesus’ knowledge of his sheep is rooted in his knowledge of his Father and his Father knowing him as his Son.” (Burridge) Stephen Verney writes that “… the Son can do nothing of himself, but he simply looks at the Father and whatever he sees the Father doing so he does too … the Father holds back nothing for himself but gives everything to the Son. So it is, says Jesus, between the Good Shepherd and his sheep – between me and mine, and mine and me. They are in my heart, and there I see them in all their human ambiguity. I see what they are and what they can be, and I give myself to them. And I am in their hearts … That is how the Good Shepherd knows his sheep, and how they know him. They do not simply know about him, or pass examinations in theology, or even read books about John’s gospel. They know him in their personal experience.” (Verney).

“What is more, God’s love is universal, so the shepherd must also be concerned for ‘other sheep … not of this fold’, who will also hear his voice and be brought together into one flock (10:16)” (Burridge). What Jesus says here is that what he offers is not simply for a little exclusive group but is for the whole human race.

This is a challenge then to all involved in the pastoral care of God’s people. It takes time and effort to know everyone individually, even as God knows us, and caring for them as Christ laid down his life for us may demand the ultimate sacrifice. The ordination charge for priests in the Church of England says ‘as servant and shepherd … set the Good Shepherd always before you as the pattern of your calling … to search for his children in the wilderness of this world’s temptations … the treasure now to be entrusted to you is Christ’s own flock’. This is true whether we are an Archbishop or a bible study group leader, a minister or just visiting an elderly person around the corner – we love others as the good shepherd loves us.” As Lesslie Newbigin writes, “This is the way for all humankind, and to follow this way is to learn the only true leadership.” May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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11.59 - Psalm 23 - The Shepherd.

Who are you?

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

Who are you? That was the question that the priests and Levites asked John the Baptist in today’s Gospel reading (John 1. 6-8, 19-28). Think for a moment about the way in which you answer that question when someone asks it of you.

Often when we are asked who we are, we answer by saying what we do and tell the person asking about the job that we do. For many of us, our work seems to be the thing that we think is the most significant thing about us. If we don’t talk about our job, then we might talk about a role we have, perhaps being a parent, or we might talk about our family; so, I might say to someone who knows my family that I’m Phil and Pauline’s son or Rachel’s brother. Another tack might be to talk about our interests, so I might say that I’m a painter or a writer or an Oxford United fan. Whatever we say in answer to the question ‘Who are you?’ the answer usually involves saying something about ourselves.

So, it is surprising that when John the Baptist is asked who he is, he doesn’t say anything about himself at all. Firstly, he is asked whether he is one of the great figures of the Jewish religion; the Messiah, Elijah or Moses. We’ve probably all at some time pretended that we are one of our heroes, whether we’ve played at being our favourite pop star looking into our bedroom mirror and singing into our hair brush or have wanted to be Pele or Bobby Moore or Kevin Keegan or Ronaldo when we have been playing football with our mates. We all have delusions of grandeur! Even as Vicars, maybe wanting to be the next Billy Graham or Justin Welby or Tom Wright!

The temptation for John the Baptist to claim his place in the pantheon of Jewish heroes must have been strong but what he actually says is just ‘No, I am not.’ Nothing about who he is, just statements of what he is not. And yet these denials have huge significance.

On one level they are a way of saying that what he is part of, what he is pointing towards can’t be explained by the usual ways of understanding things. The priests and Levites were looking for a category that they could use to understand John, perhaps so that they could label him and file him away and forget about him. If we can fit someone into a neat category – he’s a Hammers fan, she’s single mother, he’s Irish or she’s a computer programmer - then we feel as though we’ve got them sussed and we know all about them. John doesn’t allow that to happen and by doing so says that what is going on here does fit any of your categories; it’s ‘outside the box’ and, if you’re going to understand then you’ve got to have your way of thinking about God expanded and changed.

On another level, his denials are also a subtle way of pointing to Jesus as God. Throughout John’s Gospel Jesus makes a series of I AM statements about himself. He says, ‘I AM the living water, the bread of life’ and so on. In doing so, Jesus is using the very name of God who responded to Moses by saying ‘I AM who I AM.’ John by contrast says, ‘I AM NOT.’ By framing his denial using the ‘I AM’ statement he is pointing his listeners to the one who will come after him who will be able to say ‘I AM,’ who will be God himself.

This is John the Baptist’s sole mission and purpose; not to point people to himself by saying look at me aren’t I wonderful? Instead, it is to point away from himself in order to point to Jesus. That is what the writer of this Gospel says in verses 6-9: “There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.”

We see this also in what John the Baptist does say about himself. When he is asked, “What do you say about yourself?", his reply is to say ‘I’m not the significant person here, I’m actually only a voice calling out to prepare the way for the one who is to come. Don’t pay attention to who I am instead listen to my message and look for the coming of the Lord.

The same thing is there in what he says about baptism. John is asked why he baptizes but he doesn’t answer the question. Instead, he again points beyond what he is doing to the one who comes after him, the one who is so much greater that John feels unworthy even to untie the thongs of his sandals.

In his commentary of this passage Lesslie Newbigin says that this is the mark of a true witness; “the function of a witness is not to develop conclusions out of already known data, but simply to point to, report, affirm” the new reality that the witness has seen and heard. This is also what John’s Gospel sets out to do and what it wants those who read it, like us, to become. Newbigin writes:

“[John] points his hearers to Jesus (e.g., 1:29ff., 36ff.; 3:27ff.); Jesus draws his hearers to himself. But these hearers will in turn become witnesses through whom others may believe (15:27; 17:20; 20:31), for the purpose is that not some but all … may come to faith. This book in its final form is based upon the testimony of one of these witnesses (21:24), and its purpose is that it readers may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing may have life in his name.”

So, we are to be witnesses like John, this is our calling as Christians. And this is essentially a simple task. We are not asked to become fluent in all the doctrines of the Christian faith or to have an answer for every question that people ask about Christianity. Instead, like John we are to be witnesses to what we have seen and heard about Jesus. The focus is not on us and our lives but on him and what we know of him and have experienced of him in our lives. So instead of needing to memorize a Gospel presentation like ‘2 Ways to Live’, all we need to do to be a witness is to tell our story; this is how I came to know Jesus and this is what he has come to mean to me.

Christmas is a time for preparation and then for sharing. The example that John the Baptist sets is one of preparing people for the real Christmas gift; the coming of Jesus. Can we do the same this Christmas by sharing the best news of all, the good news, with those around us – our family, friends, neighbours, and work colleagues – simply by being witnesses and pointing others to Jesus by telling our story of knowing him ourselves? 

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Hail to the Lord's anointed!

Look how they love one another

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

“They love every one, but are persecuted by all … Their names are blackened and yet they are cleared. They are mocked and bless in return. They are treated outrageously and behave respectfully to others. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if being given new life.”

That is how Christians were described in the Letter to Diognetus which may have been written in the second century. Tertullian, one of the leaders in the early Church, in his 2nd century defense of Christians remarks how Christian love attracted pagan notice: "What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. 'Only look' they say, 'look how they love one another'" (Apology 39).

This is what Jesus anticipated when he prayed that his disciples would be completely one in order that the world may know that he was sent by God the Father and they are loved by the Father just as Jesus is loved by the Father (John 17.18-23). As Lesslie Newbigin has written “this manifest unity in the one name will challenge the world to recognise that the name of Jesus is not the name of “one of the prophets” but the name of the one sent by the Father to whom all that belongs to the Father has been given.” The sign to the world that Jesus is who he claimed to be is to be, and has actually been at times in the past, the love and unity of the Church.

Therefore, whenever there is a lack of unity in the Church it deeply grieves God and has a profound effect on the Church’s ability to witness to the truth of Jesus. It also reveals the extent to which we have not fully understood or received the love of the Father and the Son. Jesus’ prayer is that the love which the Father has for the Son will also be in his disciples. It is as we know that love in our lives that we are able to love and be united with the wider Church. The Church is based not on our natural liking of each other instead the Church is based on our being caught up into the love relationship that exists between Father and Son and knowing both ourselves and each other to be loved in precisely the same way.

Richard Burridge has written that, “such unity is rooted in the life of God: ‘as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.’ Jesus answered Philip’s desire to see the Father with ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me.’ This unity between the Father and the Son is to be shared through the indwelling of the Spirit with all who love him. Thus the command to ‘love one another’ is ‘new’, because it is no mere moral exhortation, but a sharing in the life of God, ‘as I have loved you’.

Stephen Verney has called this love relationship between the Father and the Son, the dance of love. He describes it like this: “The Son can do nothing of himself”, [Jesus] says, “but only what he sees the Father doing” … He looks, and what he sees the Father doing, that he does; he listens, and what he hears the Father saying, that he says. The other side of the equation – of the choreography – is the generosity of the Father. “The Father loves the Son, and reveals to him everything which he is doing”, and furthermore, he gives him authority to do “out of himself” all that the Father does, and can never cease to do because it flows “out of himself”. In that dance of love between them, says Jesus, “I and the Father are one.” The Son cries “Abba! Father!” and the Father cries “my beloved Son”, and the love which leaps between them is Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God, God himself, for God is Spirit and God is Love.”

We become part of the love relationship when we become Christians as Burridge reminded us; to love one another is no mere moral exhortation but a sharing in the life of God. So today we need to ask ourselves to what extent are we participating in the love that exists between God the Father and God the Son? If we are, then both our words and actions towards our fellow Christians will be words and actions of love leading to unity? If we are not, then the reverse will be true.

“Jesus brings together the unity he has with the Father and the love of the disciples for one another – but it is not just to generate warm feelings of togetherness. The purpose is for the continuing mission, ‘that the world may believe that you have sent me’.” The world, Burridge writes, does not naturally ponder the internal relationships of the Holy Trinity, but when it sees Christians living this self-sacrificial love then it is challenged to think again. As were the writer of the Letter to Diognetus and those of whom Tertullian wrote:

“They love every one, but are persecuted by all … Their names are blackened and yet they are cleared. They are mocked and bless in return. They are treated outrageously and behave respectfully to others. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if being given new life.”

"What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. 'Only look' they say, 'look how they love one another'".

May it be so for us. Amen.

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Blessid Union of Souls - I Believe.

Witnesses in the trial of life

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

“I have been used for many years to studying the histories of other times, and to examining and weighing the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.” Professor Thomas Arnold

The teachings of Jesus “are read more, quoted more, loved more, believed more, and translated more because they are the greatest words ever spoken … No other man’s words have the appeal of Jesus’ words because no other man can answer these fundamental human questions as Jesus answered them. They are the kind of words and the kind of answers we would expect God to give.” Professor Bernard Ramm

“Is not the nature of Christ, in the words of the New Testament, enough to pierce to the soul anyone with a soul to be pierced? … he still looms over the world, his message still clear, his pity still infinite, his consolation still effective, his words still full of glory, wisdom and love.” Bernard Levin

“Jesus was irresistibly attractive as a man … What they crucified was a young man, full of life and the joy of it, the Lord of life itself, and even more the Lord of laughter, someone so utterly attractive that people followed him for the sheer fun of it.” Lord Hailsham

“I believe there is no one lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic and more perfect than Jesus. I say to myself, with jealous love, that not only is there no one else like him but there never could be anyone like him.” Fyodor Dostoevsky

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God … however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God.” C. S. Lewis

“Brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand … For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” Saint Paul

“Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” Saint Peter

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Saint Peter

All those testimonies to Jesus that you have just heard stem from the one testimony in today's Gospel reading (Matthew 16: 13-20), the moment when Peter speaks out his belief that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus calls Peter ‘the rock’ and he is the rock because he was the first to testify to Jesus and all the millions of people that have followed him in testifying to Jesus have built on the foundation of the testimony that Peter originally gave.

Testimony is what is given by a witness in a trial. A witness makes his or her statement as part of a trial in which the truth is at stake and where the question, ‘What is the truth?’ is what is being argued. Lesslie Newbigin has argued that this is what is “at the heart of the biblical vision of the human situation that the believer is a witness who gives his testimony in a trial.”

Where is the trial? It is all around us, it is life itself? In all situations we encounter, there is challenge to our faith and there is a need for us to testify in words and actions to our belief in Christ. Whenever people act as though human beings are entirely self-relient, there is a challenge to our faith. Whenever people argue that suffering and disasters mean that there cannot be a good God, we are on the witness stand. Whenever people claim that scientific advances or psychological insights can explain away belief in God, we are in the courtroom. Whenever a response of love is called for, our witness is at stake.

Witnesses are those who have seen or experienced a particular event or sign or happening and who then tell the story of what they have seen or heard as testimony to others. That is what Jesus called us to do before he ascended to the Father; to tell our stories of encountering him to others. No more, no less.

We don’t have to understand or be able to explain the key doctrines of the Christian faith. We don’t have to be able to tell people the two ways to live or to have memorized the sinner’s prayer or to have tracts to be able to hand out in order to be witnesses to Jesus. All we need to do is to tell our story; to say this is how Jesus made himself real to me and this is the difference that it has made.

I want to encourage us today that this is something which each of us can do. The best description I have heard of it is to gossip the Gospel. Just simply in everyday conversation with others to talk about the difference that knowing Jesus has on our lives.

It is also important to remember that we are not alone in being witnesses. We are one with millions of others who have testified to the reality and presence of Jesus Christ in their lives. No courtroom on earth could cope with the number of witnesses to Christ who could be called by the defence. That is why the writer of Hebrews says, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”

This is what Peter began by saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” We are part of the witness that has been built on that rock. So let us be encouraged today by the incredible numbers of others testifying to Christ and let us be challenged to add our own testimony in words and actions to those of our brothers and sisters in Christ because every day in every situation we face, we and our faith are ‘on trial’.

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The Mercy Seat - Let The Church Roll On/I Won't Be Back.

The rock on which all testimonies are built

Here's the reflection I shared in today's Midweek Communion at St Andrew's Wickford:

“I have been used for many years to studying the histories of other times, and to examining and weighing the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.” Professor Thomas Arnold

The teachings of Jesus “are read more, quoted more, loved more, believed more, and translated more because they are the greatest words ever spoken … No other man’s words have the appeal of Jesus’ words because no other man can answer these fundamental human questions as Jesus answered them. They are the kind of words and the kind of answers we would expect God to give.” Professor Bernard Ramm

“Is not the nature of Christ, in the words of the New Testament, enough to pierce to the soul anyone with a soul to be pierced? … he still looms over the world, his message still clear, his pity still infinite, his consolation still effective, his words still full of glory, wisdom and love.” Bernard Levin

“Jesus was irresistibly attractive as a man … What they crucified was a young man, full of life and the joy of it, the Lord of life itself, and even more the Lord of laughter, someone so utterly attractive that people followed him for the sheer fun of it.” Lord Hailsham

“I believe there is no one lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic and more perfect than Jesus. I say to myself, with jealous love, that not only is there no one else like him but there never could be anyone like him.” Fyodor Dostoevsky

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God … however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God.” C. S. Lewis

“Brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand … For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” Saint Paul

“Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” Saint Peter

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Saint Peter

All those testimonies to Jesus that you have just heard stem from the one testimony that we have just listened to, the moment when Peter speaks out his belief that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16: 13-20). Jesus calls Peter ‘the rock’ and he is the rock because he was the first to testify to Jesus and all the millions of people that have followed him in testifying to Jesus have built on the foundation of the testimony that Peter originally gave.

Testimony is what is given by a witness in a trial. A witness makes his or her statement as part of a trial in which the truth is at stake and where the question, ‘What is the truth?’ is what is being argued. Lesslie Newbigin has argued that this is what is “at the heart of the biblical vision of the human situation that the believer is a witness who gives his testimony in a trial.”

Where is the trial? It is all around us, it is life itself? In all situations we encounter, there is challenge to our faith and there is a need for us to testify in words and actions to our belief in Christ. Whenever people act as though human beings are entirely self-relient, there is a challenge to our faith. Whenever people argue that suffering and disasters mean that there cannot be a good God, we are on the witness stand. Whenever people claim that scientific advances or psychological insights can explain away belief in God, we are in the courtroom. Whenever a response of love is called for, our witness is at stake.

But we are not alone in being witnesses. We are one with millions of others who have testified to the reality and presence of Jesus Christ in their lives. No courtroom on earth could cope with the number of witnesses to Christ who could be called by the defence. That is why the writer of Hebrews says, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”

This is what Peter began by saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” We are part of the witness that has been built on that rock. So let us be encouraged today by the incredible numbers of others testifying to Christ and let us be challenged to add our own testimony in words and actions to those of our brothers and sisters in Christ because every day in every situation we face, we and our faith are ‘on trial’. Amen.

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Hurtsmile - Just War Theory.

Witnesses who give testimony in a trial

Here's the reflection I shared in today's lunchtime Eucharist for St Martin-in-the-Fields:

“I have been used for many years to studying the histories of other times, and to examining and weighing the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.” Professor Thomas Arnold

“Is not the nature of Christ, in the words of the New Testament, enough to pierce to the soul anyone with a soul to be pierced? … he still looms over the world, his message still clear, his pity still infinite, his consolation still effective, his words still full of glory, wisdom and love.” Bernard Levin

“I believe there is no one lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic and more perfect than Jesus. I say to myself, with jealous love, that not only is there no one else like him but there never could be anyone like him.” Fyodor Dostoevsky

“In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three men were crucified. All three were crucified for the same crime - the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.” Martin Luther King Jr

"Where was Mother Teresa's Jesus? He was in the Bible, in the church, in her prayer, in the Eucharist, in her sisters, in the heart of everyone she met, and especially in the poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low. Jesus was in disguise in each one of them. Jesus was behind the foundation of her order. Jesus was behind all that she did.” Mother Teresa

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God … however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God.” C. S. Lewis

“Brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand … For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” Saint Paul

“Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” Saint Peter

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Saint Peter

All those testimonies to Jesus that you have just heard stem from the one testimony that we have just listened to, the moment when Peter speaks out his belief that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16: 13-20). Jesus calls Peter ‘the rock’ and he is the rock because he was the first to testify to Jesus and all the millions of people that have followed him in testifying to Jesus have built on the foundation of the testimony that Peter originally gave.

Testimony is what is given by a witness in a trial. A witness makes his or her statement as part of a trial in which the truth is at stake and where the question, ‘What is the truth?’ is what is being argued. Lesslie Newbigin has argued that this is what is “at the heart of the biblical vision of the human situation that the believer is a witness who gives his testimony in a trial.”

Where is the trial? It is all around us, it is life itself? In all situations we encounter, there is challenge to our faith and there is a need for us to testify in words and actions to our belief in Christ. Whenever people act as though human beings are entirely self-reliant, there is a challenge to our faith. Whenever people argue that suffering and disasters mean that there cannot be a good God, we are on the witness stand. Whenever people claim that scientific advances or psychological insights can explain away belief in God, we are in the courtroom. Whenever a response of love is called for, our witness is at stake.

But we are not alone in being witnesses. We are one with millions of others who have testified to the reality and presence of Jesus Christ in their lives. No courtroom on earth could cope with the number of witnesses to Christ who could be called by the defence. That is why the writer of Hebrews says, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”

This is what Peter began by saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” We are part of the witness that has been built on that rock. So let us be encouraged today by the incredible numbers of others testifying to Christ and let us be challenged to add our own testimony in words and actions to those of our brothers and sisters in Christ because every day in every situation we face, we and our faith are ‘on trial’.

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We Have A Gospel To Proclaim.

The life of Jesus reproduced in the midst of the life of the world

Here's the reflection I shared today in the lunchtime Eucharist for St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Stephen Verney begins his commentary on this passage (John 15. 1- 8) with a great evocation of the way in which vines are grown: “On a stony hillside above his house, where the thyme grows and the prickly pear, and a wild fig tree fights for its existence in a pocket of shallow soil, a farmer decides to plant a vine. In the autumn he clears a terrace, and brings top soil. He sets a post for the vine to climb, and fixes horizontal supports for its branches. Then in the spring he plants it and fences it against the goats; as it grows he trains it, and in the following autumn he prunes it back.

The vine depends for its life on the farmer, but equally the farmer depends on the vine. For the vine can do what the farmer cannot; it can take the rain that falls on the hillside and convert it into grapes, which the farmer can harvest and tread out in his wine-press, and pour the juice into his vat to ferment and bubble. The farmer and the vine are dependent on each other, and the purpose for which they work together is that water should be turned into wine.” Jesus is the vine, his Father is the farmer. They are dependent one on the other although their roles are different. Their shared purpose is that water is turned into wine; that the vine is fruitful and that its fruit becomes wine shared with others as the sign and symbol of Jesus’ blood. The process for achieving this can itself be painful; involving pruning and crushing.

We are part of this picture because there is one vine but many branches. Each one of us as we become Christians is grafted into the vine to become part of the vine itself. Verney writes: “I AM the vine, and you are the branches. Dwell in me, and I in you. Here is teaching both simple and profound, to move the human heart. If the branch dwells in the vine, then the life of the vine dwells in the branch. If the branch grows out of the stem, and out of the roots which are drawing up the goodness of the soil and the rain, then the sap of the vine flows into the branch, and the pattern of the vine’s life unfolds itself through each branch to produce bunches of grapes. So it will be, says Jesus, between you and me. If you do not dwell in me you cannot bear fruit …”

How do we dwell in Jesus? To keep our life dwelling in Christ’s, we must continually renew our decision that “what has been done once for all on the cross by Jesus shall the basis, the starting point, the context of all my thinking and deciding and doing,” writes Lesslie Newbigin. We feed this decision by protecting time for prayer, bible study and worship in our busy lives and schedules. As we do so, the sap of the vine, the life of Christ, flows into us and we produce fruit. The fruit of the vine is, as Newbigin again writes, “the life of Jesus reproduced in the midst of the life of the world, the pure love and obedience by which people will recognise the disciples of Jesus, the branches of the real vine.”

This fruit, the life of Jesus reproduced in our lives, is the real test of whether or not we are actually dwelling in the vine, in Jesus. In recent years, we have come to know much more about the spiritual life of Mother Teresa, someone whose face shone with the all-encompassing joy of one for whom “to live is Christ.” Everyone who knew her assumed that she was supported in her ministry through a deep and abiding sense of Christ’s presence with her.

Yet the opposite was true. Mother Teresa lived feeling as if she did not believe: “I have no faith” – “They say people in hell suffer eternal pain because of the loss of God … in my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss – of God not being God – of God not really existing.” Her sense of feeling that there was no God has been revealed in letters that she wrote to her spiritual confidantes. Yet, as Sister Wendy Beckett has written, “this woman who felt that there was no God and lived in emotional anguish was also profoundly aware, intellectually, that God was her total life and that she lived only to love him.” This was what was apparent in her life and ministry and this fruit showed that whatever she felt about the absence of God in her life, she was still a live branch in the vine.

Ultimately, the fruit of our lives - the life of Jesus reproduced in our lives – is the sign of whether we are healthy branches dwelling in the vine. Prayer, bible study and worship are channels for the life of Christ to flow into our lives rather than the sign than his life is flowing into our own. As we are grafted into the vine, into Jesus, we receive his life flowing through us and take on his characteristics – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. These characteristics result in acts of love because love must act, as we saw in the life of Mother Teresa. While hate could be indifference or inaction, love is always active and must respond practically to the needs we see around us.

This Christian Aid week we can use our spheres of influence to give, act and pray, and in this way support the loving, sacrificial selflessness of Christian Aid partners who support and empower those they serve. We can choose active love over inactive indifference and, together with Christian Aid and others like them, create a powerful force for change which derives from the life of Christ flowing into us as we dwell in him and where our active love is the fruit of the vine - the life of Jesus reproduced in our lives.

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Belle and Sebastian - If You Find Yourself Caught In Love.

Come and see

Here's my sermon from last Sunday for the Chinese congregations at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Seeing is believing, they say. When Thomas was told that Jesus had risen from the dead, he famously said unless I see … I will not believe.

In today’s Gospel reading (John 1.29-42) we hear Jesus saying to those who would become his first disciples, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw … and … remained with him that day. Then they said what they saw, telling Simon Peter, Andrew’s brother, ‘We have found the Messiah.’

The two disciples initially speak to Jesus because John the Baptist has told them to look at Jesus. John does so because of what he has seen: ‘John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’’

At the beginning of his story, the writer of John’s Gospel is telling us to come and see Jesus for ourselves. That is his purpose in writing. What is it that we see when we come and see?

James Allan Francis gives us one understanding when he writes in ‘One Solitary Life’: ‘Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty, and then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of His divine manhood. While still a young man, the tide of public opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth while He was dying—and that was his coat. When he was dead He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today He is the centrepiece of the human race and the leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that One Solitary Life.

Allan Francis is saying that when we look at Jesus we see an amazing story of incredible influence deriving from one obscure life; a story so amazing that it must be of God, a life so amazing that it must be of God.

But if the story and its influence are amazing, the person that we see is equally so. St Paul describes the character of Jesus in Philippians 2: ‘Christ Jesus … / though he was in the form of God, / did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, / but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, / being born in human likeness. / And being found in human form, / he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — / even death on a cross.’

In Christ’s actions and character we see the most exceptional love expressed in self-sacrifice. Jesus was, as Lord Hailsham once said, ‘irresistibly attractive.’ That is why Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote: ‘I believe there is no one lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic and more perfect than Jesus. I say to myself, with jealous love, that not only is there no one else like him but there never could be anyone like him.’ It is why Bernard Levin poses the question: ‘Is not the nature of Christ, in the words of the New Testament, enough to pierce to the soul anyone with a soul to be pierced? … he still looms over the world, his message still clear, his pity still infinite, his consolation still effective, his words still full of glory, wisdom and love.’ Jesus was ‘Love all lovely, Love Divine,’ as Christina Rossetti noted.

If we say what we see when we come and see Jesus, then we are likely to say with the writer of John’s Gospel: ‘the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth … From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace … No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.’

When we come and see Jesus, we also see God himself. As the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says: ‘God has spoken to us by a Son … He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.’

The next day one of the disciples to whom Jesus said, ‘Come and see,’ repeated those same words to a friend. We read in John 1. 43 – 52 that: ‘Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”’

Philip was giving testimony by saying what he had seen and by encouraging Nathanael to come and see for himself. That is what we are called to do ourselves, once we have seen Jesus ourselves. We don’t need to have theological training. We don’t need to be able to answer every question that others have about the meaning of life or the existence of God. We simply say, ‘Come and see Jesus,’ trusting that when people genuinely see Jesus for who he is, like us, they will fall in love with him and wish to follow him too.

By inviting others to ‘Come and see Jesus,’ we are giving our testimony that he is the most important person in our life and in the lives of all people. We are saying, ‘I could invite you to see all sorts of things and all sorts of people, but I want you to see Jesus because he is the one that is most important to me.

Testimony is what is given by a witness in a trial. A witness makes his or her statement as part of a trial in which the truth is at stake and where the question, ‘What is the truth?’ is what is being argued. The missiologist Lesslie Newbigin argued that this is what is ‘at the heart of the biblical vision of the human situation that the believer is a witness who gives his testimony in a trial.’

Where is the trial? It is all around us, it is life itself? In all situations we encounter, there is challenge to our faith and there is a need for us to testify in words and actions to our belief in Christ. Whenever people act as though human beings are entirely self-reliant, there is a challenge to our faith. Whenever people argue that suffering and disasters mean that there cannot be a good God, we are on the witness stand. Whenever people claim that scientific advances or psychological insights can explain away belief in God, we are in the courtroom. Whenever a response of love is called for, our witness is at stake.

But we are not alone in being witnesses. We are one with millions of others who have testified to the reality and presence of Jesus Christ in their lives. No courtroom on earth could cope with the number of witnesses to Christ who could be called by the defence. That is why the writer of Hebrews says, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”

This is what Andrew began by saying to Peter, ‘We have found the Messiah.’ Later, when Jesus asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ Peter gave the answer, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ He had come to see Jesus at the invitation of his brother. By coming to see for himself, he had realised that Jesus was the Son of God and could therefore tell others to come and see and then say what they saw.

We are part of the witness that has been built on that same rock. So let us be encouraged today by the incredible numbers of others testifying to Christ and let us be challenged to add our own testimony in words and actions to those of our brothers and sisters in Christ because every day in every situation we face, we and our faith are ‘on trial.’

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Tell Out My Soul The Greatness Of The Lord.

Laying down our lives

Here is the sermon that I preached this morning at St Martin-in-the-Fields (based on John 10. 11-18):

‘The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.’ Jesus repeats the phrase ‘lay down my life’ five times during his discourse about being the Good Shepherd. Clearly, that makes it of particular significance in this context and, while it has rightly been interpreted as being part of Jesus’ preparation of his disciples for his imminent death, it is a phrase with multi-layered meanings that have significance for us in terms of laying down our lives and taking them up again. For the Good Shepherd to lay down his life for the sheep has a daytime significance, a night-time significance and an end of lifetime significance.

The Greek word translated as ‘Good’ in our translations is the word ‘kalos’, which has the double meaning of attractive and skilled. This shepherd is good because he is both good-looking and effective in his role. His role was one that required a whole life commitment. Sheep, and therefore shepherds, were central to the economy in Jesus’ day. Sheep provided food, milk, meat and wool, and were essential to the Old Testament sacrificial system. Both men and women could be shepherds and among the Biblical examples are Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David and Amos.

However, caring for sheep involved a nomadic lifestyle because of the available pasture. Although sheep could survive in the arid Mediterranean environment with minimum water and could be left to fend for themselves rather than being fenced in, they had to be regularly moved on to find new pasture. This meant that shepherding was a 24-7 job where the shepherd lived, worked and travelled with the sheep.

One implication was that shepherds could not fulfil their religious duties and thus were religious outcasts. ‘So it was a radical, even appalling, idea that shepherds were the first to hear, directly from angels, about the birth of Jesus, the saviour of the world. Everything about that went against religious propriety.’[https://www.durhamcathedral.co.uk/worshipandmusic/sermon-archive/following-the-good-shepherd] ‘Sheep are the most frequently mentioned animals in the bible and shepherds get about 100 mentions because, in a pastoral society like ancient Israel, both were used to describe the relationship of God with his people: ‘the Lord is my shepherd’ (Psalm 23)’.[Richard A. Burridge, John]

So, the good shepherd, this attractive and skilful shepherd, ‘puts the whole of his mind and heart at the disposal of the sheep, through lambing time and shearing time, through summer days in the high mountains and through the cold winter days when food is scarce’.[Stephen Verney, Water into Wine] To do so keeps the economy functioning and enables the role to be used as a key metaphor for God, while turning those who worked as shepherd into religious outcasts. If ever there was a case of being ‘At the heart. On the edge.’, this was it!

Like the Good Shepherd, we are encouraged by scripture to lay down our lives through our daily work (whether paid or unpaid). So, Jesus encouraged us to work while it is daylight, because night is coming on, when no one can work (John 9.4). Similarly, St Paul encouraged us to work hard and cheerfully at all we do, just as though we were working for God and not merely for our employers (Colossians 3. 23). That is the daytime significance of the phrase ‘lay down your life’.

During the day, sheep could wander within the area of that day’s pasture and the flocks of different shepherds could mingle but, at the end of the day, the shepherd would call his sheep by name and lead them to a sheepfold for the night, counting them to ensure none had been lost, and would then lie across the entrance to the fold; hence Jesus’ reference earlier in this discourse to himself as the door of the sheepfold. So, the night-time significance of the phrase ‘lay down your life’ is that the Good Shepherd lay down to sleep across the entrance to the sheepfold, thereby forming a protective gate for the sheep through the physical barrier of his or her body.

Who might we be called to protect or shelter in a similar way? One example could be that of the Irish poet John F. Deane, whose faith and poetry memoir I have recently read. He chose to leave his work in order to be the sole carer for his two young daughters following the tragically early death of his first wife, Barbara. Through this decision, in addition to caring for his daughters, he found his vocation as a poet by contributing to an Arts Council programme that funded writers in schools. He is, therefore, an illustration of Christ’s words that laying down our lives for others is paradoxically the way to find life and come alive ourselves.

A second example of someone laying down their life for others brings us to the third understanding of this phrase, which is to do with its end of lifetime significance. On 24th March this year, French police officer Lieutenant Colonel Arnaud Beltrame walked into a supermarket having swapped places with a hostage to secure their release. Later, responding to the sound of shots inside, his police colleagues stormed the supermarket and the terrorist shot Beltrame through the throat. Originally from a secular background, Beltrame had found faith in his thirties. The National Chaplain of the French Police force said of him: ‘He did not hide his faith, he radiated it. We can say that his act of self-offering is consistent with what he believed. He bore witness to his faith to the very end.’ As Giles Fraser stated in a recent Thought for the Day ‘Beltrame was indeed a Christian martyr, a hero of selfless commitment to other people and a witness to the courage and love that is exemplified by the cross.’

Jesus said that the Good Shepherd would lay down his earthly life to protect the sheep if they were attacked by wolves or other predators. King David is perhaps the most famous example given of this in the scriptures. In order to convince King Saul to let him fight Goliath he said, ‘Your servant used to keep sheep for his father; and whenever a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after it and struck it down, rescuing the lamb from its mouth; and if it turned against me, I would catch it by the jaw, strike it down, and kill it.’ David risked his life for the sake of the sheep and that was the basis of his rise up the political and religious hierarchy in Israel to become the shepherd King. His story suggests that the last came become first, that the least can aspire to become the greatest.

Jesus, however, reversed that journey; as God, he gave up all power and prestige to become a human being, to be with us through his incarnation, like shepherds, generally, to become a religious outcast and, ultimately, to lay down his earthly life in order to save others. In Jesus, we see that divine leadership (being a shepherd King) is not about personal aspiration and achievement but, instead, about service and sacrifice.

So, we see that laying down our lives for others, when we’re not called to make the ultimate sacrifice, involves commitment to our daily work, protection and support of others on an ongoing basis, and the turning upside down of the usual hierarchies that we find in business, politics and religion.

At St Martin’s, we have a particular opportunity to explore what that means in practice through our business. From the point that Geoffrey Brown established the Enterprise here at St Martin’s, he engaged the church with the world of work. Our Vicar Sam Wells explained in the Memorial Service for Geoffrey that his understanding of the incarnation ‘meant taking human existence seriously.’ ‘It required particularly taking seriously some things the more pious and world-wary church ignores or scorns – things like wages, work and wealth-creation. Geoffrey earned people’s respect because he didn’t see faith as an escape from life: he saw it as a deep attention to, and trust in, the details of making a living, doing good and doing well.’

We are continuing to work out what that vision means in practice through our approach to mission which integrates all we do commercially, with our congregational, cultural and compassionate activities. It is why in this year’s Annual Report we say that,through the St Martin’s Action Plan, we are seeking to become an exemplary organisation. ‘Exemplary organisations have an admirable and inspiring ethos and embody it in everything they do. They monitor their performance through good governance. They cherish their people, communicate their purpose, embrace a range of partners, and share their wisdom. They thus attract engagement, participation, commitment, support, and imitation. We seek to become widely and rightly recognised as such an exemplary organisation.’

Doing so, in the light of the incarnation and the example of Jesus as Good Shepherd, means inverting the traditional hierarchical structures of business, politics and religion in order to ensure that everyone’s voices are heard wherever they are within the organisation and providing all with the right training, resources and tools to succeed, so everyone can feel prepared and comfortable about making appropriate decisions on their own. In such organisations, ‘Me’ commands turn into ‘We’ control and the focus is on collaborative success, not on individual glory.

The Good Shepherd gave his own life so that the sheep could receive the superabundant life of God. The ordination charge for priests in the Church of England says ‘as servant and shepherd … set the Good Shepherd always before you as the pattern of your calling … to search for his children in the wilderness of this world’s temptations … the treasure now to be entrusted to you is Christ’s own flock’. As we have seen, however, this is true for us whether we are an Archbishop or a lay person, a minister or a manager, a volunteer or an employee. As Lesslie Newbigin wrote, ‘This is the way for all humankind, and to follow this way is to learn the only true leadership’.[Lesslie Newbigin, The Light Has Come]

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Gordon Jacob - Brother James' Air.

The life of Jesus reproduced in our lives

Here is my sermon for today's Choral Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Stephen Verney begins his commentary on this passage (John 15. 1 - 8) with a great evocation of the way in which vines are grown: “On a stony hillside above his house, where the thyme grows and the prickly pear, and a wild fig tree fights for its existence in a pocket of shallow soil, a farmer decides to plant a vine. In the autumn he clears a terrace, and brings top soil. He sets a post for the vine to climb, and fixes horizontal supports for its branches. Then in the spring he plants it and fences it against the goats; as it grows he trains it, and in the following autumn he prunes it back.

The vine depends for its life on the farmer, but equally the farmer depends on the vine. For the vine can do what the farmer cannot; it can take the rain that falls on the hillside and convert it into grapes, which the farmer can harvest and tread out in his wine-press, and pour the juice into his vat to ferment and bubble. The farmer and the vine are dependent on each other, and the purpose for which they work together is that water should be turned into wine.” Jesus is the vine, his Father is the farmer. They are dependent one on the other although their roles are different. Their shared purpose is that water is turned into wine; that the vine is fruitful and that its fruit becomes wine shared with others as the sign and symbol of Jesus’ blood. The process for achieving this can itself be painful; involving pruning and crushing.

We are part of this picture because there is one vine but many branches. Each one of us as we become Christians is grafted into the vine to become part of the vine itself. Verney writes: “I AM the vine, and you are the branches. Dwell in me, and I in you. Here is teaching both simple and profound, to move the human heart. If the branch dwells in the vine, then the life of the vine dwells in the branch. If the branch grows out of the stem, and out of the roots which are drawing up the goodness of the soil and the rain, then the sap of the vine flows into the branch, and the pattern of the vine’s life unfolds itself through each branch to produce bunches of grapes. So it will be, says Jesus, between you and me. If you do not dwell in me you cannot bear fruit …”

How do we dwell in Jesus? To keep our life dwelling in Christ’s, we must continually renew our decision that “what has been done once for all on the cross by Jesus shall the basis, the starting point, the context of all my thinking and deciding and doing,” writes Lesslie Newbigin. We feed this decision by protecting time for prayer, bible study and worship in our busy lives and schedules. As we do so, the sap of the vine, the life of Christ, flows into us and we produce fruit. The fruit of the vine is, as Newbigin again writes, “the life of Jesus reproduced in the midst of the life of the world, the pure love and obedience by which people will recognise the disciples of Jesus, the branches of the real vine.”

This fruit, the life of Jesus reproduced in our lives, is the real test of whether or not we are actually dwelling in the vine, in Jesus. In recent years, we have come to know much more about the spiritual life of Mother Teresa, someone whose face shone with the all-encompassing joy of one for whom “to live is Christ.” Everyone who knew her assumed that she was supported in her ministry through a deep and abiding sense of Christ’s presence with her.

Yet the opposite was true. Mother Teresa lived feeling as if she did not believe: “I have no faith” – “They say people in hell suffer eternal pain because of the loss of God … in my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss – of God not being God – of God not really existing.” Her sense of feeling that there was no God has been revealed in letters that she wrote to her spiritual confidantes. Yet, as Sister Wendy Beckett has written, “this woman who felt that there was no God and lived in emotional anguish was also profoundly aware, intellectually, that God was her total life and that she lived only to love him.” This was what was apparent in her life and ministry and this fruit showed that whatever she felt about the absence of God in her life, she was still a live branch in the vine.

Ultimately, the fruit of our lives - the life of Jesus reproduced in our lives – is the sign of whether we are healthy branches dwelling in the vine. Prayer, bible study and worship are channels for the life of Christ to flow into our lives rather than the sign than his life is flowing into our own. As we are grafted into the vine, into Jesus, we receive his life flowing through us and take on his characteristics – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. These characteristics result in acts of love because love must act, as we saw in the life of Mother Teresa. While hate could be indifference or inaction, love is always active and must respond practically to the needs we see around us.

This Christian Aid week we can use our spheres of influence to give, act and pray, and in this way support the loving, sacrificial selflessness of Christian Aid partners who support and empower those they serve. We can choose active love over inactive indifference and, together with Christian Aid and others like them, create a powerful force for change which derives from the life of Christ flowing into us as we dwell in him and where our active love is the fruit of the vine - the life of Jesus reproduced in our lives.

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Gregory Porter & Beverley Knight - Mary Did You Know.