Living God's future now

Here's the sermon that I preached today at St Catherine's Wickford:

Often working people (usually rightly) say that work barely gets a mention in Church yet when you look at the stories Jesus told large numbers of them are to do with work.

Luke 16. 1 - 13 is one of those stories and it may well be the one that it is most difficult to understand. The story and the teaching based on it seem contradictory and it doesn’t seem to fit with other things that Jesus said and taught.

A manager is wasting his employer’s money. He is found out and fired. The beginning of the story makes sense to us. It’s what happens next that causes a problem. The manager then reduces the debts that various people owe to his employer in order to get on good terms with them before he leaves his master’s employment. Although he is again wasting his master’s money, this time the master praises what he has done.

Jesus goes on to say that we should use our money to make friends and that this will help us to be welcomed into eternity. That seems almost the reverse of his saying store up treasures in heaven rather than treasures on earth. Then to compound all the complications he commends faithfulness after having told a story in which the dishonest manager is praised for his dishonesty.

How can we find a way in to a set of teaching that seems contradictory and confused? It may be that the key is Jesus’ statement that we should make friends for ourselves. Although the dishonest manager remains dishonest there is a change that occurs in the story. And we can see that change most clearly if we think about the manager’s work-life balance.

At the beginning of the story, friendships and responsibility seem low on his list of priorities. He is managing his employer’s property but wasting his employer’s money. It is likely then that his life is focused around work and money. However, when his job comes under threat, he suddenly realises that relationships – friendships – are actually more important than work and money and figures out a quick way of building friendships. At the end of the story, if we return to his work-life balance, work will have decreased in importance to him while friendship and responsibility for his own future will have increased.

The teaching that follows the story makes it clear that Jesus does not condone dishonesty; if this manager is dishonest in small matters then he will also be dishonest in large ones. The manager’s fundamental dishonesty does not change but the priority he places on relationships does. In other teaching Jesus sometimes uses the formula; if someone who is bad can do X then how much more should you or how much more will God do X. He uses it, for example, when he talks about God giving the Holy Spirit: if fathers who are bad, he says, know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

What Jesus does in this story is similar. He is saying that if shrewd, worldly people, like the dishonest manager, can come to see the importance of relationships, then how much more should we do the same. Not following the example of the manager in using dishonesty to build relationships but following his example of learning to prioritise relationships in life and in work.

Why is this so important? Jesus throws out a hint when he says “make friends for yourself … so that … you will be welcomed in the eternal home.” Jesus seems to be hinting that the relationships we form now in some way continue into eternity. Paul says something similar in 1 Corinthians 13 when he writes that faith, hope and love remain using a word for ‘remain’ which suggests that acts of faith, hope and love continue into eternity. Building relationships Jesus and Paul suggest may not just be good for the here and now but may also have eternal implications. All the more reason then for us to learn from this story and, whether we are at home, at work, or in our community, to prioritise the building of good relationships with those around us.

So, prioritising relationships, Jesus says, is about preparing for eternity and he specifically tells us this story that we might be welcomed into the eternal homes. Why is this so? Well, the answer is very simple. In heaven there will be nothing to fix, nothing to solve, and therefore no work to be done. In heaven there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away. In heaven there will be nothing we can do for others, because God will have done everything for us. So, what will there be to do? Heaven is all about our relationships; being with God, with ourselves, with others, and with creation. Heaven is all about enjoying our relationships to the full for what they are.

In Philippians 3 we are told to imitate those who set their minds on heavenly things because our citizenship is in heaven. Citizenship is all about belonging to a particular community together with all the other members of that community. In relation to heaven, it is about being in relationship with God’s people. So, if heaven is about anything at all, it is about relationship.

Jesus wants us to prepare for heaven. The writer to the Philippians wants us to set our minds on our citizenship in heaven. They are calling us to live God’s future now, to anticipate what heaven will be like in the here and now, in the present. We do that by doing what Jesus told this parable to encourage; prioritising relationships – prioritising our being with God, being with ourselves, being with others and being with creation now.

That is what incarnational mission and ministry is all about. After all, Jesus spent 90% of his incarnation in Nazareth being with his friends and family. He prioritised relationships in his life and wants us to do the same in ours.

Queen Elizabeth provides us with an example of one who did this. Throughout her 70-year reign, the Queen met and spoke to thousands of ordinary people up and down the country. She shared a unique relationship with her subjects and worked tirelessly to serve us to the best of her ability. Those sharing their memories of the Queen at this time have consistently noted this aspect of her life saying things like: “I expected her to be aloof, but she was the opposite – compassionate and understanding” or “She was incredibly easy to talk to and the twinkle in her eye when she smiled is a sight I’ll never forget” or “She was genuinely interested in what everybody doing.” 

When we prioritise relationships in life, we anticipate heaven and live God’s future now.

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Delerious? - Now Is The Time.

Everyone in

Here's the sermon that I preached in this morning's Eucharist at St Mary's Runwell:

When the Covid-19 pandemic began, the government set up an initiative called Everyone In. This aimed to provide a hotel room plus support to everyone sleeping rough on the streets. This new national homelessness strategy proved extremely effective and resulted in a large number of formerly homeless people moving into longer-term accommodation and therefore leaving the streets.

The policy demonstrated that with the right levels of funding and support, homelessness can be almost eradicated. The government's motivation for this approach was not so much concern for homeless people, as concern that Covid-19 would circulate more rapidly and aggressively if homeless people remained on the streets.

Without that imperative driving government policy, approaches to tackling homelessness have now returned to what they were pre-pandemic and the numbers living rough on our streets have risen significantly once again, and will rise further due to the cost of living crisis.

In our Gospel reading today (Luke 14.1, 7-14), Jesus talks about the limitations of charitable activity that is based on calculations of benefit for ourselves but also uses self-interest as a motivation to move towards a greater degree of selflessness.

Jesus lived a life of self-sacrifice without benefit for himself in order to bring love to others. Through the incarnation he gave up equality with God the Father to become the servant of humanity, as the teacher of his disciples he gave them an example of service by washing their feet, and, on the cross, he laid down his own life for the sake of all.

His ultimate challenge to us is to live life for the benefit of others or, as he explains here, to invite and welcome all those unable to repay us for our hospitality precisely because they cannot repay. True love is only true when we gain no personal benefit from it. When we benefit from our relationships with others, even with God, it means that we are not loving simply for the sake of the other but for a range of other reasons.

Jesus recognises, however, the challenge that this poses to people like us - each and every human being – as those for whom self-interest and survival are hard-wired into our being. Therefore, he teaches us by means of the Parable of the Dishonest Steward, a story of a shrewd manager who learns the benefits of relationships through self-interest after losing his job or challenges us to go further towards self-sacrifice by saying in the Parable of the Persistent Widow that, if hard-hearted people, like the Judge in that story, can do kind things for selfish reasons, should we not go further.

On this occasion, he challenges those who are self-interestedly taking the places of honour at a meal by using the logic of their self-interest to argue for greater humility on their part. He says it's actually of greater benefit to you to take the lower place initially and be called up, than to take the higher place and be demoted. He makes this argument, however, to try to start them on a journey towards greater humility and awareness of others, not to simply maintain them in a mindset of self-interest.

So, where, I wonder, are we on this journey towards selflessness? Are we at the beginning, like the guests at the meal, competing for the places of honour but open to the idea that there may be a different way to achieve their goals? Or are we further down the road of selflessness finding ways to be with others that don't involve personal benefit for ourselves? The important thing is to begin and to recognise that it's a lifelong journey.

Like any journey, though, it is one with a destination. The destination towards which we are heading is heaven, a place where we enjoy God, others, and ourselves for who and what we are, rather than for the benefit we can receive from others.

In heaven there is nothing to fix and nothing we need – no more death, mourning, crying or pain - instead there is just the experience of being with others and growing in appreciation for who they are as themselves. That is the reality Jesus is looking towards here with his talk of relationships that don't involve repayments for us. Once we go beyond relationships from which we get personal benefit and move into relationships which are simply about enjoying others for who they are, then we are approaching heaven.

With that mindset, the name of the government's pandemic homelessness strategy takes on additional significance. Everyone in. That's what Jesus is talking about when he says we should invite to our meals those who are normally excluded and cannot repay us. Everyone in. That's what our churches should be like, because they should be providing a taste of heaven. Everyone in.

But note that what Jesus commends here is also just a stage on the journey. Inviting those who cannot repay because they cannot repay is a way of creating in us a mindset of seeing God in others by appreciating others for who they are, rather than what they can do for us. When we have that mindset, then we are in heaven by being with others and enjoying them for who they are. That is when inclusion becomes reality, with others and ourselves accepted and appreciated and understood and loved as we are. Everyone in. A real taste of heaven. That's the destination towards which Jesus wants us to travel. Have we begun?

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Ho Wai-On - You Are Not Alone.

Preparing for heaven

In his teaching Jesus sometimes uses the formula; if someone who is bad can do X then how much more should you or how much more will God do X. He uses it, for example, when he talks about God giving the Holy Spirit: if father’s who are bad know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

What Jesus does in this parable from Luke’s Gospel is similar (Luke 16. 1-9). Here he says that if shrewd, worldly people, like this dishonest manager or steward, can come to see the importance of relationships, then how much more should we do the same. Not following the example of the manager in using dishonesty to build relationships but following his example of learning to prioritise relationships in life and in work.

Thinking about the work-life balance of the Manager helps us to see what is really going on in this story. At the beginning of the story, friendships and responsibility seem low on the Manager’s list of priorities. He is managing his employer’s property but he’s also wasting his employer’s money. It seems likely that his life is focused primarily around his work and money. However, when his job comes under threat, he suddenly realises that relationships – friendships – are actually more important than work and money and then figures out a quick way of building friendships. At the end of the story, if we return to his work-life balance, work will have decreased in importance to him while friendships and responsibility for his own future will have increased.

Prioritising relationships, Jesus says, is about preparing for eternity. He specifically tells us this story that we might be welcomed into the eternal homes. Why is this so? Well, the answer is very simple. In heaven there will be nothing to fix, nothing to solve, and therefore no work to be done. In heaven there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away. In heaven there will be nothing we can do for others, because God will have done everything for us. So, what will there be to do? Heaven is all about our relationships; being with God, with ourselves, with others, and with creation. Heaven is all about enjoying our relationships to the full for what they are.

In Philippians 3 we are told to imitate those who set their minds on heavenly things because our citizenship is in heaven. Citizenship is all about belonging to a particular community together with all the other members of that community. In relation to heaven, it is about being in relationship with God’s people. So, if heaven is about anything at all, it is about relationship.

Jesus wants us to prepare for heaven. The writer to the Philippians wants us to set our minds on our citizenship in heaven. They are calling us to live God’s future now, to anticipate what heaven will be like in the here and now, in the present. We do that by doing what Jesus told this parable to encourage; prioritising relationships – prioritising our being with God, being with ourselves, being with others and being with creation now.

That is what incarnational mission and ministry is all about. Jesus spent 90% of his incarnation in Nazareth being with his friends and family. Just as he prioritised relationships in his life, so he wants us to do the same because that is how we anticipate heaven and live God’s future now.

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Nickel Creek - Reason's Why.

Start:Stop - God has given you unique talents

Bible reading

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

Meditation

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

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

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

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

Prayer

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blessing

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

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Sister Rosetta Tharpe - That's All.

1 cafe, 2 exhibitions & a coincidence

We've been into London today sampling the Visual Art exhibitions in the Pentecost Festival. We started with the Social Issues & Our Response photographic display at the Cafe Eterno in Covent Garden where the above photos were taken.

This is a modest but varied exhibition including scenes from SOULINTHECITY, a Compassion project, Hertford stns (my contribution) and a Miss Pole Dancing competition. Active response is contrasted with the enduring challenge of sin and the efficacy of our responses questioned.

While enjoying a healthy and appetising lunch at the Cafe, we opened up a leaflet about a performance at the Cafe from the previous night only to find a photo and write up of our good friend Mandy Stone. Mandy had given her testimony at the Cafe following a performance of Does The Shoe Fit? What a coincidence that we had both had a link with the Cafe over the same weekend!

From there I went to Westminster Central Hall for the Gifts exhibition that was a part of Pentecost People. Here I found a much more varied exhibition than I had anticipated including installations, ceramics, photographics and both abstract and representational paintings. The exhibition had been curated by Alison Lilley Berrett using artists linked to the Ark T Centre in Cowley, Oxford. The Art T Centre is a creative arts project opened in 1997 at the initiative of a church and a group of artists committed to creating space for the arts. It believes that creativity through the arts can allow people to discover new things about themselves and others and so unlock the potential for change. The Centre has six resident artists who, as well as developing their own work, provide workshops enabling others to discover their creativity sometimes for the first time.

Sue-Jane Mott's ceramic installations instantly attracted the eye. 130 ceramic bottle forms were shaped to form a pathway symbolising our life journeys while 24 Golden Bowls drew on the image from Revelation of 24 elders offering golden bowls symbolising prayers to God. From their exterior Mott's bowls looked like fragile papier-mache constructions composed of written prayers but, with their shining metallic interiors, were solid constructions, that gleamed in the light of the room.

Clay Sinclair paints backwards in acrylics onto perspex and the results are vibrant, primal images laced with humour and questioning what we see. Alison Lilley Berrett also works in an abstract expressionist style creating meditative images reflective of core Christian themes of love, life, breath. Tim Steward's work, while popular and ubiquitous at Christian festivals, is only pleasantly decorative in its weaving of enlongated charismatic figures into abstract backdrops. Finally, Kate Cunningham had created a photographic series of still lifes that used contrasts of light and dark to explore communion and crucifixion.

Gifts revealed a diversity and energy that I had not expected to find in an exhibition at what is at base an evangelical Christian festival. This is, therefore, an exhibition of encouragement for the future and a sign of the value of artists grouping together for mutual support, critique and development.

For posts on other aspects of the Pentecost Festival see Dave Walker's Church Times blog by clicking here and here.

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onehundredhours - King Of Every Heart.