In God, 'You are Enough'

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning and will be sharing at St Peter's Nevendon this afternoon:

Sermon:  (10.00am, St Andrew’s, 22/02/26)

Standing proud in the heart of Manchester’s university district on the exterior of St Peter’s House a 22 x 13 foot billboard towered above the streets below giving a refreshingly affirming message to passing students and commuters. It said, ‘You are enough’. It would be easy to assume this is an affirmation of the kind of individualism that says ‘I’m alright, Jack’ as ‘I’m looking after No.1.’ However, as St Peter’s House is the base for the Christian chaplaincy team for the Manchester Universities and the Royal Northern College of Music, that’s unlikely to be the intended message.

The artist who created the piece, Micah Purnell, notes that, ‘Capitalist ideology aims to impart the notion that we are worthy of love and belonging - once we have bought into the product or service. Consumerism wraps things up in neat little packages and sells them as idealised gifts of perfection. Advertising props up this notion with the assumption that we are inadequate - stealing our love of ourselves, and selling it back at a price.’

He goes on to say that Brené Brown, a research Professor at Houston University, has found through extensive quantitative research that the one thing that keeps us from love and belonging is the fear that we are not worthy of love and belonging. She found that those who fully experience joy and live wholeheartedly have four characteristics in common: the courage to accept their imperfection; compassion towards themselves first; the ability to let go of who they should be in order to be who they really are, and to embrace vulnerability and unknowing. His installation, therefore, says, ‘You’re not perfect, you’re never going to be, and that’s the good news.’ You are enough, as you are.

The temptations faced by Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4.1-11) were all temptations to see his situation and his trust in God as being insufficient, or ‘not enough.’ His temptations began with the reality of his situation, the fact that he was hungry because of fasting for 40 days. He had not had enough food and the temptation was to say that there was not enough and use his power to create food from nowhere. Jesus responded by saying that the words of God were enough for him. The second temptation was in regard to his mission and his then obscurity. Jesus was on his own in the wilderness and was offered celebrity and fame because his obscurity was clearly not enough to achieve his mission. Jesus’ response was essentially saying that the path he was following was enough. The final temptation was linked but, instead of being focused on fame, was focused on power. Jesus’ mission was to save all humanity and he was offered power over all humanity as a shortcut to success and as recognition of the lack of power he possessed as an insignificant carpenter in a backwater of the mighty Roman Empire. Jesus responded by saying that God’s way was enough for him.

Jesus was tempted on the basis that who he was and what he had were not enough to achieve the mission he had been given. He was tempted to think of himself, his situation and God, in terms of scarcity and deficit. But deficit is not our modus operandi as Christians. We don’t have to look far for a mission statement for the church. Jesus said, ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly’ (John 10.10). Living abundant life; that’s what the Father intends, the Son embodies, the Spirit facilitates. 

Sam Wells, the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields says that, as Christians, we are called to live in such a way that gratefully receives the abundance God is giving us, evidences the transformation from scarcity to abundance to which God is calling us, dwells with God in that abundant life, and shares that abundance far and wide.

Jesus is our model of abundant life; his life, death and resurrection chart the transformation from the scarcity of sin and death to the abundance of healing and resurrection; he longs to bring all humankind into reconciled and flourishing relationship with God, one another, ourselves and all creation.

In the middle of the wilderness where he literally had nothing, Jesus received God’s abundance, the abundant life that would sustain him throughout his journey to the cross, and beyond. Also, his time in the wilderness came immediately after his baptism where God had spoken to him saying ‘You are my own dear Son. With you I am well pleased’. God had essentially said to him then, ‘You are Enough’.

As such, we can defend ourselves against temptation as Jesus did. “As God’s children,” Tom Wright says, “we are entitled to use the same defence” as Jesus himself. “Store scripture in your heart,” he writes, “and know how to use it.” When we do, we are able to see through the temptation to think of all that we have as inadequate and, instead, to view our lives and all that we have as a gift from God knowing that, in him, we are enough.

Lent is commonly thought of as being about those things we give up but Lent is ultimately about our opening up. Opening up our lives to receive more of the abundance and the gifts that God is giving to us. In Lent, we give up some of our usual practices in order to have more time for God and to be with God. More time to open up to him and deepen our relationship with him. That was what Jesus was doing in the wilderness and, like him, we too can discover that, as we receive all that God is giving to us, God is enough, God's abundance is enough, our churches and communities are enough, and we are enough. Amen.

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Mumford and Sons - Begin Again.

PARISH STUDY DAY - THE BIG STORY - THE BIBLE IN FIVE ACTS

Today, in this year's Parish Study Day at St Andrew's Wickford, we explored the amazing story told through the Bible from Creation to Jesus and the early Church and looked into the future and what it means for us.

Our ministry team each spoke on one of the five acts. I had Act 5, the Future, and this is what I shared:

Act 5 is the final act in the play and is based on the hints we receive in the Bible about the future and the end of time. These revolve around three key ideas: Jesus’ vindication; resurrection; and the coming in full of the kingdom of God.

Jesus’ vindication

In Mark 13: 1-8, we read of Jesus and his disciples going to the Temple in Jerusalem. As they were leaving, one of the disciples remarked on what a magnificent building the Temple was. Jesus’ response was to predict that it would shortly be completely and utterly destroyed. The Temple, at that time, was central to the whole Jewish faith. What Jesus was saying was that the whole way in which Judaism was practised at that time was going to be destroyed. A whole way of life wiped out. It was a shocking claim about a major crisis.

Mark records this for us because what Jesus predicted actually happened. In AD70 Titus, the adopted son of the Roman emperor Vespasian, “entered Jerusalem, burnt the Temple, destroyed the city and crucified thousands of Jews” (Wright). For Mark the fulfilment of Jesus’ prophecy, although a disaster for all those caught up in it, was the final vindication of all that Jesus had said and been and done. In that day, he says in verse 26 of this same chapter, men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. In other words, people will realise that Jesus was who he claimed to be, the Messiah. The destruction of the Temple was proof that Jesus had spoken and acted truly; that he was a true prophet.

Christians over the centuries have often interpreted what Jesus said about the Temple and his vindication as a true prophet in terms of his second coming but New Testament scholar Tom Wright has comprehensively and, in my view, conclusively demonstrated that these passages are best understood in relation to the destruction of the Temple in AD70. Because Jesus is vindicated through these prophecies as being a true prophet, we then know that what he does say about the future can be trusted implicitly.

Resurrection

In John’s Gospel, we explicitly hear Jesus speaking about himself as the resurrection - “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25). In John 6:40, Jesus says, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” and, in John 14:19, Jesus says to his disciples, “Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.”

He is able to make these promises because he knows that God will raise him from death on Easter Day. That truth is what his followers come to understand after his resurrection. St Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:20, “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” What happened to Christ will also happen to use. He is the firstborn from the dead and we are those who will follow him by also rising from death. In Romans 6:5, Paul writes, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” and, in Romans 8:11, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” Back in 1 Corinthians, we read in 15:21-22, “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” In 1 Thessalonians 4:14, we are told that, “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.”

Jesus’s death and resurrection provide the template for our future eternal life, along with the assurance that we will be raised as he was raised. Jesus’ resurrected body differs in some ways from his body prior to death, in that he is not always recognised by those who knew him and he is able to appear and disappear at will. However, there is much continuity too between his resurrected body and his pre-resurrected body. This leads St Paul to state in 1 Corinthians 15.40-44, that:

“There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.”
He concludes that we will “bear the image of the one of heaven”, meaning the image of Jesus.
So, the promise that Jesus gives us is of a resurrected future together with him in eternity. But what will that look like?

The kingdom of God

The kingdom of God was the main topic of Jesus’ teaching during his time on earth. Most of his Parables begin, the kingdom of God is like … buried treasure, a pearl of great price, a lost coin, sheep or Son that are found, and so on. Bringing the news that the kingdom of God was coming was the reason for his travels and preaching across Israel during the three years of his ministry. In doing so, he took on the task that God had originally given to the people of Israel, that of being a light to the nations, which is why he proclaimed himself to be the light of the world.

Through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, the kingdom of God is established in our world for the first time as, for the first time, a human being lives out God’s intent for humanity in full. In Jesus, we see the rule and reign of God in practice, because Jesus is the fullest expression of God that can be revealed in a human being.

As Christians, we are called to follow in Jesus’ footsteps by living under the rule and reign of God. We do this imperfectly, so can, at best, create temporary signs of what the kingdom of God looks like in practice but when we feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, welcome strangers, clothe the naked, take care of those who are sick, and visit prisoners, we come as close as we possibly can.

However, at an unknown time in the future, God’s kingdom will come in full – as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer – “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven”. St Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15.20-28:

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human, for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in its own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.”

The prophets, including Isaiah and John, the writer of Revelation, give us glimpses of what this peaceable kingdom will look like.

Isaiah speaks, in 9.2,6&7, of a people who walked in darkness seeing a great light:

“For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders,
and he is named
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Great will be his authority,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onward and forevermore.”

Then, in 11.6-9, he gives a vision of the peaceable kingdom of God, in which as he prophesies in 2.4 this child “shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more”:

“The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.”

Building on visions like these, John, in Revelation 21, sees earth and heaven united when the kingdom of God comes in full on earth:

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

This is the culmination of the story that is told in and through the Bible. It is the vision towards which everything points. It is a vision of heaven come on earth, of eternal peace in the presence of God, where evil is eradicated and God’s rule encompassing all things, and where we are resurrected to be with God, with each other and with creation for ever.

Living God’s future now

Our calling in the present is to creating signs of this coming kingdom by living as fully as we can in anticipation of the coming kingdom. That is why we emphasise Being With as a key theme or idea for our Parish and our lives. In the coming kingdom, there will be nothing for us to fix, there will simply be being with God, with each other and with creation. Each of these will involve endless exploration because, in God, there is always more to discover.

Wonderings

I wonder what excites you about this vision of the future.
I wonder what questions it raises for you about the future.
I wonder how you think we can best live God’s future now.

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Leonard Cohen - Going Home. 

A radical challenge bringing healing love

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

This passage (Mark 3.1-6) focuses on a conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees concerning behaviour that is acceptable on the Sabbath. Tom Wright says that Jesus brings a radical challenge to the religious leaders by breaking Sabbath rules to show God's kingdom - bringing healing love. This highlights Jesus as the true Israel, a new temple, and a powerful King whose actions expose the blindness of those who prioritize law over people, setting the stage for conflict and revealing the core purpose of his mission to establish God's reign.

The whole point of the commandment - celebrating God's creation and redemption, past, present and future - had been lost sight of. The rule mattered more than the reality. Jesus' verdict on that was that it constituted 'hard-heartedness' - one of the regular charges that the prophets levelled against law-breaking Israelites in days gone by. Like the wilderness generation under Moses, his contemporaries were unable to see and celebrate what God was actually doing in front of their noses. So he puts the question in its starkest terms, in words dripping with irony: is it legal to do good on the sabbath, or only to do evil? Is it legal to make people alive, or only to kill them? If the sabbath speaks of creation and redemption, the answer is obvious - and if the current interpretation of the rules says otherwise, so much the worse for the current interpretation of the rules.

I think we have an example of a similar hardheartedness before us this week as US President Donald Trump has said he no longer feels obliged to think only of peace after he was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year. In a message to Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Trump blamed the country for not giving him the prize. Trump wrote: "Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper' for the US."

However, we should never simply point the finger at others without remembering that there are also fingers pointing back at us. So, also need to ask whether there are ways in which the church today can get so blinded by its commitment to what appear necessary rules that it fails to see God's healing and restorative work breaking through?

Thankfully, we continue to have marvellous examples around us of those who give and give again to others regardless of cost and time. The stories told in the Call the Midwife books and TV series are based on selfless and sacrificial real-life experiences of nuns and nurses in the East End from the 1950’s through the 1960’s.

Series 9 and Episode 5 begins with the following opening diary monologue: There are moments when the world seems to pause in its perpetual spinning: when the minutes hang suspended as life begins, or ends. The Sisters of Nonnatus House were guardians of the threshold. A wise word, a gentle glance, the first or last murmur of blessing - they brought wisdom, they brought comfort, they brought love. They were witnesses to all that mattered: struggle, loss, triumph, ties of blood. Other people's lives were their life, and in their service, they gave all they had... all that they were. They did not stop to count the cost, for this was their mission, their calling, their joy.

Then, at the end, we hear: The wise will always learn, the generous will always find they have more to give. Thus, we cross the threshold into freedom, and to progress, and to embracing all that's new. The world shifts around us and we shape ourselves to fit: imperfect and beautiful, wounded and thriving, delicate, invincible, forever moving on. Time is not the tide, it moves in only one direction. Go forth with courage and in hope. Change is not lost - we must run with it, dance with it, give it all we have.

Other people's lives were their life, and in their service, they gave all they had... all that they were. They did not stop to count the cost, for this was their mission, their calling, their joy. This is what people like Trump do not understand and cannot experience as a result. Rather than his transactional rules-based approach which says if I do X then I will receive Y and, if not, I will no longer do X, the sisters of Nonnatus House did not stop to count the cost because, like Jesus, compassion and peace was their overarching goal, not something that was transactional or something to be earnt.

As a result, in Series 8 and Episode 4, we hear these words, which are based on what we learn from Jesus’ words and actions:

"Love is never the only answer. But it is always the best, the simplest, the one most likely to withstand the test of time. Love is the beginning. It should be the final word."

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Call The Midwife - Full Length Theme.

Immersed in the story

Here's the sermon I shared at St Mary’s Runwell this morning:

The favourite Christmas story of the Archbishop of York concerns a two-year-old called Miriam at a church on the edge of Chichester where he was then parish priest.

The red brick rectangular church seated about 80 and was full to overflowing for the Christmas Day service. As every space was taken, the crib scene had been placed under the altar. During the service Miriam wandered into the sanctuary and stood for a while observing the nativity scene. It was a large nativity set and so the characters in the scene were about the same size as the two-year-old. After observing the scene for a while, Miriam carefully climbed in under the altar making her way around the characters to sit in a space within the crib scene where she then remained for the rest of the service.

What she did was essentially an acted parable to the congregation because she became part of the story. That is what happens – it is what we are doing – when we become Christians. In other words, for many of us, it is what is going on when we are baptised.

Baptism is our immersion in the Christian story; a story which begins with God’s creation of the universe and life on earth. It continues with our rebellion as human beings. Our saying to God that we know who we are and what we need to do and, therefore, will go ahead and do our own thing. We all live with the consequences of that right now.

But in the story which the Bible tells, God does not leave us simply to do our own thing. First, he chooses the people of Israel and through his special relationship with them seeks to call all people back to their true identity and purpose and then he sends his own Son, Jesus, to reach out in rescue and return us to him. He does this so that each one of us can find our identity and purpose in God and play our part in bringing the kingdom of God in full on earth as it is in heaven.

When Jesus was baptised, he was saying that he would immerse himself in this story and play his special, unique part within it (Luke 3. 15 – 17, 21 – 22). As he made that commitment, God the Father affirmed him in his identity and purpose by saying, “You are my own dear Son. I am pleased with you.”

As we do what Miriam did and enter the story, then we are also affirmed by God in just the same way. St Paul writes in Romans 8. 14 – 17 that:

“Those who are led by God's Spirit are God's children. For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God's children, and by the Spirit's power we cry out to God, “Father! my Father!” God's Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God's children. Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings he keeps for his people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him; for if we share Christ's suffering, we will also share his glory.”

What he is saying is that as we enter the story we are adopted by God as his children and become brothers and sisters of Jesus, co-heirs with him of all he possesses.

You may remember the wonderful words of Philippians 2. 6 – 11 which say that Jesus gave up the equality he had with God the Father in heaven in order to be born as a human being, living and dying as our servant in order to save us:

“For this reason God raised him to the highest place above
and gave him the name that is greater than any other name.
And so, in honour of the name of Jesus
all beings in heaven, on earth, and in the world below
will fall on their knees,
and all will openly proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.”

That same glory, St Paul says, is shared with us as we enter the story, join the family of God and play our part with the story. The incredible message of Christianity is that our rightful identity as human beings is that of being God’s own dear children with whom he is greatly pleased.

How do we play our part? That all depends on our coming to know the story and what happens within it. New Testament scholar Tom Wright has described Holy Scripture as being like a five-act play containing the first four acts in full (i.e. 1. Creation, 2. Fall, 3. Israel, 4. Jesus). “The writing of the New Testament,” he says, “would then form the first scene in the fifth act, and would simultaneously give hints (Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15, parts of the Apocalypse) of how the play is supposed to end ... The church would then live under the 'authority' of the extant story, being required to offer an improvisatory performance of the final act as it leads up to and anticipates the intended conclusion ... the task of Act 5 ... is to reflect on, draw out, and implement the significance of the first four Acts, more specifically, of Act 4 in the light of Acts 1-3 ... Faithful improvisation in the present time requires patient and careful puzzling over what has gone before, including the attempt to understand what the nature of the claims made in, and for, the fourth Act really amount to.”

So, we start by looking at what we know of the story to date – the things God has done in and through Israel, Jesus and the Church – and we also look at the hints we have about the way the story will end with the coming in full of the kingdom of God on earth as in heaven. Then we say to ourselves, ‘What is it that people do in this story? How do they act and behave? And then we start to do and say similar things, as we have the opportunity. As Christians we are never given a script which has all our lines and actions printed on it. Instead, we have to improvise our part on the basis of what we know of the story so far, on the basis of the example provided by those who have lived in the story before, and on the basis of the opportunities provided in the places where we are and among the people that we know.

Living in the Christian story, therefore, is a challenge – something we should know anyway from looking at the life and death of Jesus – but it comes with the affirmation that we are part of God’s family; his dearly loved children, brothers and sisters of and co-heirs with Jesus himself. When we know this, we can relax because whatever happens to us we are accepted, forgiven, loved and gifted by the God who created all things and who will bring all things to their rightful end.

When we do that, we are like Miriam climbing in under the altar to become part of the crib scene. When we do that, we become part of God’s story which makes us his children and gives us identity, purpose and meaning. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Iona - Edge Of The World.

God's transformation of our small offerings

Here's the sermon that I shared in the 8.00 am service at St Mary Magdalene Great Burstead:

They '... brought barley loaves and fish to Jesus ... Barley loaves ... were one third of the price of the wheat variety; it was the bread of the poor. And then there were the two small fish. The Greek word used for these fish in John’s gospel is “osparion”, which meant they were certainly not fresh fish from the Sea of Galilee. “Osparion” were either small dried or pickled fish ... [They] may have generously offered all he had but that offering was meagre in the extreme. Little wonder that Andrew should say despairingly to Jesus: “But, what are they among so many”?

Yet, Jesus willingly took what was offered and, far from commenting on the poor offering set before him, he gave thanks over the loaves and fish. And, as Jesus gave thanks a transformation took place and there was enough for all to be fed and ... to be satisfied. With the transforming grace of Jesus even our poorest offerings can become something extraordinary.' (Mark 8.1-9)

'Tom Wright … says ... that all God calls us to do is to bring what we have to Jesus in prayer. We tell Him what we need. We then let Jesus bring the two together and make it enough for all! As that marvellous prayer puts it, the Lord Jesus truly can ‘transform the poverty of our riches by the fullness of his Grace’.'

It is easy for us to think that big is best and that what we have and are is too little to make an impact but this story says otherwise. Jesus takes and uses the little that is offered. Small is beautiful, as E. F. Schumacher once reminded us, and our small actions or contribution, when combined with those of others, can then have a big effect. The butterfly effect which is found in Chaos Theory and the multiplier effect in economics both show, on the basis of research, that small changes and small contributions can have significant effects.

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

Jesus’ Parable of the Mustard Seed is another illustration of this truth. In this brief parable a small action, the sowing of a small seed, leads to the growth of a large plant. Jesus says that, in a similar way, the kingdom of God has small beginnings but grows to become something much larger.

We also see this illustrated in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. Long centuries have come and gone but all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings and queens that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of human beings upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is the ultimate expression of a small action with a big impact.

What this means is that the contribution you can make to St Mary Magdalene is needed, however small it may seem to you, and in whatever way you can make that contribution. The mission and ministry of this church is the combined effect of the contributions that each of us make. God has given you resources, time and talents, so I encourage you to reflect prayerfully on all that you can and do give back to him in order that together you can combine your individual offerings to make a bigger impact for him here.

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Robert Randolph and the Family Band - Have Mercy.

A life of significance in God's kingdom work

Here's the sermon that I shared in the 8.00 am BCP Eucharist at St Mary Magdalene, Great Burstead this morning (The Sunday called Septuagesima):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Supertramp - Lord Is It Mine.

God's naturally overflowingly generous nature

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sufjan Stevens - So You Are Tired.

Together for the Common Good

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Linda Perhacs - When Things Are True Again.

Being a blessing

Here's my sermon for Schools Sunday at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Instead of starting at the very beginning, a very good place to start this sermon is with the ending of our service. The prayer of blessing at the end of this service aims to ‘crystallize all that has gone before’ in this service and ‘focus it into a commissioning for all we shall set our hand to once we depart.’ It sends us out to be a blessing to others by making ‘the whole world a Eucharist.’ Being a blessing, that’s what I’d like to explore with you today; first in worship, second in one person who expresses it well today and finally in what it might mean for ourselves, including those of those at school.

In this service God takes us and our offerings – the food, drink and others gifts we bring - and places them in a far larger story than we ever could have imagined by giving them a sacred story and making them sacred actions. As we retell and re-enact what Jesus did at the Last Supper, we also recall what God did to Israel in ‘taking one special people, blessing them, then breaking them in the Exile before giving them as a light to the nations to bring the Gentiles to God.’ ‘In the telling of those stories and the performance of those actions we are transformed into God’s holy people.’ ‘That’s what the regular celebration of the Eucharist is about: God taking an ordinary people and through this story and these actions turning us into the body of Christ.’ When the Eucharist is served, each of us offers all that we uniquely are at the altar and we receive from God everything we need to follow him by being a blessing to others in our daily lives.

St Augustine said: 'You are the Body of Christ. In you and through you the work of the incarnation must go forward. You are to be taken. You are to be blessed, broken and distributed, that you may be the means of grace and vehicles of eternal love.' Based on these thoughts, Sam Wells has explained that: ‘The elements of bread and wine are taken, blessed, broken and shared just as Jesus was taken, blessed, broken and shared. In a similar way the congregation as a whole is taken out of its ordinary pursuits; blessed with the grace and truth of forgiveness and scripture; broken in the disciplines of intercession, peacemaking and food-sharing; and shared with the world in love and service. As the bread and wine are offered, transformed and received, the congregation, and through it the whole creation, is offered, transformed and received.’

We come to be blessed in order that we become a blessing to others. That is the pattern also in today’s Old Testament reading (Genesis 12.1-4a) where we read of God saying to Abraham, ‘I will bless you … so that you will be a blessing … and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’

We might wonder how one person can become a blessing to all the families of the earth? The answer is, in the same way as Jesus did through the Last Supper. Abraham set out on a journey to the Promised Land which formed the people of God, who were called into being to be a blessing to other nations. In so doing, he gave all who follow after him a path to follow, a story to inhabit, a people to which to belong and a mission to which they are called. The people of Israel followed that path and inhabited that story when they left slavery in Egypt to journey through the wilderness to enter the Promised Land and established themselves there so that, when Solomon was on the throne, other nations came to learn the wisdom of God. Jesus followed that path and inhabited that story when he walked through the valley of the shadow of death to set a banqueting table for all peoples in the mansions of heaven. We become a blessing to others when we take that same story and experience of belonging out with us from church into our daily lives by seeking to make the whole world a Eucharist.

Sam has said that: ‘The mission statement of the church is to make the world a Eucharist. So faithful service means practices that look like worship—those that gather people and form them as one body, that reconcile and open lives to repentance and forgiveness, that proclaim truth and reveal God’s story, that embrace need and unleash gifts, that express thanks and are open to the Holy Spirit, that share food and wash feet.’ ‘It means extending God’s invitation to all, bringing all to repentance and joining in creation’s praise. It means proclaiming the truth of God through the history of the world and the dynamics of the universe and sharing discernment within the silence of God. It means articulating human need and enabling reconciliation. It means restoring a good relationship between humanity and its ecological home, stirring the heart, setting about work in a spirit of thanksgiving, discovering power under the authority of the Spirit, confronting evil with confidence in the sovereignty of God and sharing in the generous economy of God so that nothing is wasted. Thus all the practices of worship become the habits of discipleship.’

That’s the theory and that was the experience of Abraham, Israel and Jesus. Let’s come up-to-date and think for a moment about a similar experience for someone who is proving inspirational to many today. Greta Thunberg was the subject of a giant portrait unveiled on the playing field of a school in West Yorkshire to mark International Women's Day. The 60m long artwork took four days to create and was titled ‘A girl inspiring the world.’ Pupils Hebden Royd Primary School chose the 17-year-old as the woman who had most inspired them saying, ‘We've chosen Greta because she stands up for what she believes.’ She has ‘pioneered a global movement which is so relevant to the area.’

Tabitha Whiting has recounted how Greta Thunberg first learnt about global warming at the age of 8, when her class was shown documentaries about climate change at school. She remembers being more affected than the other students and puts this down to having aspergers and selective mutism. After learning about global warming she couldn’t simply go back to normal, continue with her studies, and think about something else. It profoundly affected her. It affected her so much, that three years later, at the age of 11, she experienced a period of depression. Climate change wasn’t the sole reason for this, but it definitely played a part. She was so deep in her depression that she stopped attending school. Naturally, her parents were incredibly concerned. When they spoke to her about the depression, Greta opened up to them about her climate crisis worries. She gained a sense of release from talking about it. Greta realised that by talking about her worries, she could influence others make a difference. This marked the beginnings of the movement that she has created. Out of her struggle with depression came the spark of activism.

On August 20th 2018 Greta conducted her first school strike. She did not go to school that day, and instead sat down outside the Swedish Parliament. She stayed there for the full length of the school day, posting photos on Twitter and Instagram, and she started to gain traction with a couple of journalists and newspapers coming to see her. The next day, she was back in the same place, striking again. But this time she wasn’t alone. People started joining her on her strike, which took place until the Swedish National Elections on 9 September 2018. She was then asked to make a speech at a People’s Climate March rally, in front of thousands of people. She was determined to speak out about the climate crisis, and that her selective mutism wouldn’t prevent that. She delivered the speech brilliantly, in fluent English. Now, she speaks regularly in front of crowds, politicians, and journalists.

Her school strikes started to go global, with children across the world joining in to make their stand against climate change. On Friday 15 March 2019 a global school strike was called. 1.6 million people took part in the strike globally, from 2,233 cities in 128 countries. It was the biggest single day of climate action that has been seen in history. What started with a single girl sitting outside of the Swedish parliament with a hand-made wooden sign, had become an international movement.

In Greta Thunberg we see one young person following a call that has transformed her life and who is blessing others by addressing a critical social issue and forming an international community. As with Abraham and Jesus, Greta has become a blessing to others by undertaking a journey, creating a story, and forming a community. Our impact may not be as great and may not happen within such a short space of time, yet we too are called to be blessed, broken and distributed, that we may also be the means of grace and vehicles of eternal love.

Although school strikes have been the catalyst for the movement Greta Thunberg has begun, school was the catalyst for her awareness of the climate emergency and schools can be communities that are catalysts for blessing. A Guardian article from the past week explored ways to equip young people to face the challenges of the 21st century saying ‘that the key skills they need to survive and thrive in the 21st century will be emotional intelligence … and the ability to deal with change’. It argued that these ‘are best fostered by an education system that prioritises not traditional academic learning but rather “the four Cs”: critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity.’ What is needed the article suggested is ‘a commitment to putting mental and physical wellbeing at the very heart of education’, prioritising mental and physical health, and promoting resilience. That means ‘teaching children to understand their minds and bodies, encouraging them to have contact with nature, helping them to negotiate relationships with others, fostering excellent communication skills, and nurturing creativity.’ Schools, like churches, can be catalysts for communion and creativity. In these ways, they bless that others may be blessed.

Tom Wright says that, ‘Blessing is not primarily about what God promises to do to someone. It is primarily about what God is going to do through someone ... Blessed are the meek, [Jesus says,] for they will inherit the earth: in other words, when God wants to sort out the world, to put it to rights once and for all, he doesn’t send in the tanks, as people often think he should. He sends in the meek; and by the time the high and mighty realise what’s happening, the meek, because they are thinking about people other than themselves, have built hospitals, founded leper colonies, looked after the orphans and widows, and, not least, founded schools, colleges and universities, to supply the world with wise leaders.

What is God going to do through you? How might you be a blessing to others? It’s not a done deal! The people of Israel had to be exiled from the Promised Land before they returned to their vocation to bless others. God came into the world as a human being because humanity was oppressing, rather than blessing, others. Around our world too many nations are building walls and creating hostile environments instead of blessing others. We desperately need churches and schools that will be the catalysts preparing us to be a blessing to others; and worship is the crucible in which such change begins. As St Augustine wrote: 'You are the Body of Christ. In you and through you the work of the incarnation must go forward. You are to be taken. You are to be blessed, broken and distributed, that you may be the means of grace and vehicles of eternal love'; that you may be a blessing.

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Arvo Pärt - The Beatitudes.

The Christ that has come and the kingdom yet to come

Last week I changed my sermon for Advent Sunday at St Martin-in-the-Fields at the last minute in order to make connections with the theme of the Radio 4 Christmas Appeal for St Martin-in-the-Fields. This is the sermon that I would have preached had I not made that last minute change:

As a teenager I listened repeatedly to a haunting song by Larry Norman based on today’s Gospel reading. It is called ‘I wish we’d all been ready’ and the second verse includes these lines:

‘A man and wife asleep in bed
She hears a noise and turns her head he's gone
I wish we’d all been ready
Two men walking up a hill
One disappears and ones left standing still
I wish we’d all been ready
There's no time to change your mind
The son has come and you've been left behind’

These images, from our Gospel reading (Matthew 24.36-44), of people being suddenly separated are taken from a block of teaching given by Jesus during his final week in Jerusalem that have become known as his eschatological sermon. This sermon, when combined with the Book of Revelation, has generated a huge amount of speculation about the where, when and how of Jesus’ second coming.

Norman’s song was first released in 1969 and was followed in 1970 by the best-selling book ‘The Late Great Planet Earth’ by Hal Lindsey. Both were based on the understanding that Jesus’ second coming was imminent and would involve a rapture with Christians being caught up to meet the coming Christ in the sky and non-Christians left behind. Lindsey’s book was influential – a best-seller – and, for a rock fan like me, was encountered again in 1979 when Bob Dylan released ‘Slow Train Coming,’ his first album after his conversion to Christianity. Dylan studied Lindsey’s book in the Bible classes he attended at the Vineyard Church. The slow train coming of his title was Christ’s second coming and the final song on the album was called ‘When He Returns’. 1979 was also the year in which a film of ‘The Late Great Planet Earth’ was released.

These ideas appealed as a way of understanding current events, as Lindsey tried to fit political decisions and actions to biblical prophecies, and also as a way of emphasising the urgency of making decisions about salvation. If Christ’s second coming and the end of time were just around the corner then decisions about our eternal future should not be postponed. These were appealing ideas to a newly fired up Christian teenager like me.

I now see these dispensationalist approaches to the second coming as constituting an instrumental understanding of salvation. In the same way as the fires of hell have been used as a scare tactic to frighten us into the kingdom of God, so too with the threat of being left behind in the rapture. These understandings of the second coming lead us to view salvation as a transaction that is about our own survival and not about knowing God for God's own sake. They also promise to lift us up out of this world in order that we leave it and those who are unsaved behind. In other words, as Larry Norman expressed it in the title of one album on which ‘I wish we’d all been ready’ appeared, we’re only visiting this planet.

Yet Jesus was most probably talking in this passage, and in the rest of his eschatological sermon, about this-world events that were actually in the near future for the disciples. While the disciples themselves, on the basis of what they understood Jesus to have said, expected his second coming within their lifetime, not at some point in the far distant future.

In my view, as N.T. Wright has argued, Jesus’ eschatological sermon was not actually about the end of the world but rather about the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem which occurred in AD70. The destruction of the Temple by the Romans was a time of sudden exile and separation, persecution and loss, as graphically described in today's Gospel reading and as it affected the majority of Jesus’ disciples. There was a sudden attack that resulted in some who were in Jerusalem at the time dying and others separating and fleeing the city; just the kind of events which are described in today’s Gospel reading.

The ultimate proof that a person was a prophet was understood, at the time, as being found in the extent to which their prophecies came about. So, when the destruction of the Temple occurred in AD70, it was proof to Jesus’ disciples that Jesus was a true prophet. This was, for them, the vindication of Christ; he was not a failed Messiah that had been killed on a cross, instead events had proved him to be a true prophet. That meant all he had said about being God’s Son could also be trusted and believed. The destruction of the Temple was, therefore, also a sudden sign of Jesus vindicated, revealed and come again as the Son of Man, the Messiah, God’s Son.

In addition, we heard last Sunday in the reading from Ephesians 1.15-23 and in Sally Hitchiner’s sermon that Jesus is the head or source of the Church and we are also told, particularly in Paul’s letters, that the Church is the Body of Christ. On that basis, I think, we can then understand Christ to have returned within the lifetime of his disciples when his Spirit filled them on the Day of Pentecost and the Church was born. The Spirit brings Christ to the Church and the Church becomes Christ for the world. So, as Christ’s renewed Body on earth, the Church became, in the words of Teresa of Avila, the hands and feet of Christ, with which he walks to do good and through which he blesses all the world.

These understandings would then seem to give us two ways in which Christ returned to the disciples within their own lifetime. First, when he filled them with his Spirit giving birth to the Church as the Body of Christ in the world, and, second, when he, and his teachings, were vindicated and proved to be true by the destruction of the Temple in AD70.

The word ‘Advent’ is derived from the Latin word adventus, meaning ‘coming’. Advent has traditionally been observed as a time of preparation for both the celebration of the first coming of Jesus at Christmas and as a time of prayer for the return of Jesus at the Second Coming. It is this second aspect to Advent which results in Jesus’ eschatological sermon featuring heavily in the readings during this season. Advent asks us to reflect on the nature of Jesus’ first and second comings and on how we are to live in the time in between. But, if Christ has already returned, as I am suggesting, what is still to come?

The answer I would give is that the kingdom of heaven is still to come. The Church, although it is the Body of Christ, is not the kingdom of God. The Church only creates signs of the coming kingdom. It was the kingdom of God that was at the heart of Jesus’ teaching. It was the kingdom of God that was demonstrated to us through his birth, life, death and resurrection. Jesus’ incarnation, his first coming, introduced the kingdom of God into the world. Christ's Spirit now teaches us about him, so we can live like him and thereby show others what the kingdom of God looks like. As his Body animated by the Spirit, Jesus is with us enabling the Church to continue to create signs of the kingdom that is to come. However, as it is still to come, it is the kingdom, not Christ, for which we now wait. This is why we are taught to pray for the kingdom to come on earth as in heaven. Rather than looking for ways to escape this world through a second coming and rapture at the end of time, instead we look to see how we can bless the world as Christ’s Body in the here and now.

With this understanding of the second coming we can then see Christianity as an alternative society, overlapping and sharing space with regular society, but living in a different time – that’s to say, modelling God’s future in our present. As Sam Wells has said: ‘It’s not enough to cherish the scriptures, embody the sacraments, set time aside for prayer, and shape disciples’ character in the ways of truth, if such practices simply withdraw disciples for select periods, uncritically then to return them after a brief pause to a world struggling with inequality, identity, and purpose. The church must also model what the kingdom of God (its term for the alternative society, its language of God’s future now) means and entails in visible and tangible form.’

I want to suggest, then, that these are the comings we remember and on which we reflect in Advent. As a result, to reflect in Advent is to reflect on the whole of salvation history from Christ's first coming to be God with us to the coming of his Spirit at Pentecost that we might become his Body to our future with God in a kingdom where there is no fear and no transactions, only love. Our Advent reflections here this year enable us to focus on both these comings. Inspired to Follow focuses on Christ's first coming, his incarnation, by looking at significant characters in the story of his conception and birth. Our Advent booklet then focuses our thoughts more on the coming kingdom through our prayer for light to come in our present darkness.

Our waiting for the coming kingdom means that there is always more to come where God is concerned. Another singer-songwriter, Carolyn Ahrends, uses a memory of herself as a three feet tall four year old trying to touch the stars and the cookie jar with both being out of reach, as an image of heaven. She writes of a yearning deep within telling us there's more to come:

‘So when we taste of the divine
It leaves us hungry every time
For one more taste of what awaits
When heaven's gates are reached.’

As we reach for the future this Advent, reaching for what is yet to come and therefore just beyond our grasp, may we realise that the something more which is yet to come is what Christ has already revealed, what we, as the Body of Christ, can sign, and what the coming kingdom of heaven is for.

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Carolyn Ahrends - Reaching.