Sunday Sermon: Luke 8.26-39 Jesus and the Demon-Possessed Man

Luke 8:26-39

 

Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”— for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

It’s not every day in Cleckheaton that we come across a naked demon-possessed man living in the graveyard or in the crypt.  It might be interesting to speculate what our reactions would be, but Jesus does not seem to be disturbed or afraid of this man, with or without clothes. Actually, he attracts these kinds of people to himself—not the people who seem to have it together, but those whose lives may be torn apart.

I’m sure of told you before that as a general principle I try to imagine my way into Gospel stories. I try to see myself as an anonymous member of the crowd as I try to walk through the story. Who do I most identify with? Who do I sympathise with? Who irritates me? What if I stood here or over by him? What if I couldn’t hear properly because of the crowd? What if I didn’t actually trust this man Jesus? What if I was a disciple? What if I was a woman? What if I was a Pharisee?

I have to do this because I am almost always disappointed by the brevity of the gospel stories and their lack of background detail: they seem so clinical and succinct. I’d like to know some of the extraneous detail that brings the story alive more: what was the weather like? Were there children playing nearby? Were there cooking smells? And so on. I have this fantasy that there should be a runaway donkey somewhere in the mix.

Anyway, on this occasion I’m an ordinary bloke who just happens to see Jesus’ boat put into shore and, knowing that they’ve just survived a particularly bad storm, I go to investigate and to see if I can offer some help, but I’m not the first to arrive: a “local character” has beaten me to it and, as another local, I feel huge sympathy for these strangers that they’ve gone through this traumatic experience and now have to contend with the local scary-man.

Of course, to what extent can someone like me, a product of my own times truly enter into the experience, the sights, the sounds, the smells and, most importantly, the theological and social conventions of the first century? And this incident in the life of Jesus is a case in point. This is a difficult passage: what am I to make of this? Demon possession? Really? 

Demon possession: I don’t know about you but the rational me struggles with the idea. I remember hearing a sermon on “Powers and Principalities” from Ephesians and the preacher spoke with a real conviction of the realities of spiritual warfare. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms he quoted. There was a lot of shuffling in the congregation as he developed his sermon: a congregation who were not only unused to this line of theological thinking but were made deeply uncomfortable by hearing it. Spiritual warfare?

I don’t often think about spiritual forces of evil. Evil, yes, absolutely but I don’t tend to tie that in with a concept of war in the spiritual realm. My understanding of evil sits fairly and squarely within the doctrine of free will. Evil is what we do to each other and we don’t need any help with that from outside forces. Demons? It’s the stuff of Hammer Horror. I’m not prepared to dismiss it out of hand but it’s outside my experience and I need to look into it more - but the Jews of that day believed, without reservation, that human beings could be possessed by demons.

There is, of course, a body of thought which argues that there was no medical understanding of mental illness in the first century: no understanding of epilepsy, autism or a range of psychological disorders and I find that a very compelling argument. What modern medicine diagnoses fairly easily, the first century could only account for as demon possession and I don’t doubt that that’s true to a greater extent. But the point is: healing is healing. The man was healed. Does it really matter what his condition was? We know that it was acute and we know that Jesus healed him and maybe that’s the key element of this incident in the life of Jesus. However we understand exorcisms, those reported from the ancient world or from present day cultures unlike our own, something real is happening. People are being set free. Physical contortions and hugely dramatic moments will occur in many different therapies, whether the frame of thought is demonology or psychotherapy.

 Fortunately it doesn’t happen very often but most of us have been in situations where the demonic in its broadest sense has manifested itself in some outburst or disagreement within the church family and that can be very disturbing and distressing as people we have known and loved seem to act suddenly completely out of character - to say nothing of the stranger who may invade our space and cause mayhem because of their personal demons: we may not count alcoholism, drug addiction or appalling outbursts of violence, for instance, as demon possession in the first century sense but such people are just as surely bound by their addictions – as is Mick, the crack addict in “Rev”.

You may remember the TV series Rev. – a wonderfully affirming series about the struggles of an inner city vicar dealing with the rough end of ministry and a sometimes seemingly less than helpful diocesan structure.

I’ve thought a lot about Rev. this week and the poignant episode where Adam - and his rather more reluctant wife, Alex - almost succeed in getting Mick clean before he is overwhelmed again. Once again Adam, against all the advice of others tries to do the “right” thing by Mick and offer that unconditional love and support that might eventually lead Mick to healing, and those of us watching are rooting for Adam while probably secretly agreeing with the Archdeacon that Adam’s actions are probably not that wise. We want Adam to succeed because Adam is our Jesus in that situation dealing with his own domestic demoniac.

It was Jesus’s choice to go to the other side in the boat and by doing so he knows that he’s crossing boundaries—geographical, ethnic, and religious. He was entering foreign territory, the borderlands, the other side of the religious tracks; yet the scene is familiar to him because it is another storm and he knows how to handle those. 

So, the first person Jesus meets when he reaches “the other side of the lake,” is the demoniac. What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.

Well, as I stand there I now know who the leader of the group is: Jesus – and I’ve heard of him, even here in the middle of this Greek-speaking, Gentile area, news of this man has spread and now I am really interested in what’s going on.

The reaction to Jesus’ visit is swift and intense. The demons - and it turns out there are many, not one - realize immediately that they are in the presence of a power greater than their own.  A storm rages in this man’s life. He lives in the tombs; he’s a dead man walking, possessed by demons that drive him into the wilds. He’s a wild, howling thing who breaks physical chains, yet in a moment of clarity, this man recognises about Jesus what the disciples on the boat had not yet recognised: You are “Jesus, Son of the Most High God.” This naked, homeless, deeply troubled, foreign, outsider sees clearly who Jesus is. Yet, he’s unable to recognize his own sickness. Ironically, he begs Jesus not to torment him, when in fact he’s already tormented! He knew no other reality but tragedy. His demonic storm was his norm so much so that he didn’t want to be free or know what freedom is.

 I find this really interesting. How many people do we know today who live lives of chaos and trauma who really seem not to want to change? However dreadful the reality of their lives it is nevertheless their reality: they know it, it is familiar and change is threatening. The fear is real: can they cope with a changed life or will they, like Mick in Rev. slip back to old ways? Is it fear of failure or lack of self-esteem? “Can I do it? Am I strong enough? Will I let people down?” What we know often seems “safer” than the unknown.

So the healing, the calm, comes with a cost—a fear of a new reality. In Jesus’ presence we may see ourselves for who we really are which is why we want him to leave us alone. Without his calm healing, we can still hide behind the chaos which is our norm.  Maybe that’s why the others who witnessed this healing were afraid and asked Jesus to leave: the people can’t handle this new reality, this new creation - and the changes that have been made to the man - because it also impacts them. Healing has made them lose their sense of order while God is in the process of re-ordering it. In the presence of Christ, we may recognize the ways in which we are not well. The truth is costly.  Some don’t want God in their lives because that means they will have to change. We don’t want the way we live to be disrupted. Healing and salvation are scary because they mean a different way of life, a new order, a new reality, a new creation has arrived. Healing will cost us the way life is, so there are those who prefer for things to stay the same: not everyone wants to change or to be changed. Not everyone wants to be healed. It’s too costly.

But, of course, it isn’t just about healing of individuals: it’s about healing of societies too. Just in the last week we’ve seen dreadful acts at home and abroad. We saw the homophobic killing of fifty people in Orlando: in terms of healing and wholeness, a radical rethink is needed both in relation to gun laws and homophobia. Does that society wish to be healed? It remains to be seen whether this incident leads to radical change or business as usual.

And at home our own MP, Jo Cox, was brutally murdered in the street as she went about her constituency business. What are the issues we need to address here in order to show a desire for the healing of this community and wider British society? Do we need to consider the rhetoric of our referendum campaign? The public perception that MPs are a bunch of out-of-touch freeloaders? The paucity of our mental health provision? The fractured and divided nature of a society not at ease with itself? The echo-chamber of vitriol which characterises much of our tabloid newspapers and social media? The belief that if I disagree with someone it’s within my right to do what I like to diminish and dismiss them – even to the point of violence?

As with America, only time will tell.

I like the end of the healing story today. The man who was severely sick was healed and at the conclusion of the story, he was sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.

As Jesus was getting into the boat and was about to leave, the healed man approached him. The healed man wanted to get into the boat and go with Jesus, his healer. But Jesus said, “Go back to your home and tell others how God has healed you.” And the man did. Luke’s Gospel tells us that he went home to family and friends, proclaiming the good news of his inner healing to all.

There is still power today when we go back home to our family and friends and tell how Jesus has been the source of healing in our lives. We share our story of God’s healing powers in our own lives, healing our anxieties, healing our depressions, healing our relationships, healing our inner despair, healing our low self-esteem, healing our addictions. There is power when we tell the story of God’s healing in our own lives or the lives of our families.

At the heart of the story for today is its conclusion: a healed man shared with his friends and neighbours that Jesus had healed him. I don’t believe that the healed man knew how Jesus healed him – or cared much. That was not the issue. The issue is that a man believed that the Lord had been the source of his healing and he shared his deeply held conviction with others.

The witness of the Church is most powerful when people personally share with their family, friends and neighbours their deeply held conviction that God is the source of their inner healing.

So, as someone who placed himself in the centre of the action to better understand the story, I must do that too. It seems to me that this is a responsibility that we all share, particularly at this time in our traumatised community.

 

Sunday Sermon: John 5.1-9 Angels and Miracles

John 5:1-9

After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Bethezda, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a Sabbath.

May the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord.

Jesus is in Jerusalem and he goes to the Pool of Bethesda. Imagine for a moment that you are there: maybe close your eyes and try to imagine the heat of Palestine; the smell of food; the sound of a dog barking or of children playing; the murmur of a group of people nearby. You are at a pool, surrounded by arches offering shade and shelter and the area has become a gathering place for anyone with some sort of sickness: they are watching the surface of the water for the smallest sign of the rippling of the waves. A bubbling from the underground spring or even a breeze could cause a stampede of invalids trying to be the first into the water. You hear Jesus talk to one invalid and offer to heal him - an offer which is accepted - and your curiosity takes over and you move closer.

Now what’s this business of getting into the water all about? Religious commentators explain that when the waters of the pool moved – that movement which triggered the rush of the hopeful to be first into the water for divine healing – the belief was that an Angel had touched the water. I have no doubts that the people of Jesus’ time had a stronger belief in Angels than we have today: or is it that the distance in time and knowledge between then and now has left us question some of these more awkward bits of religious belief? I’ve heard it said that most British Christians are "functional atheists". While we believe in God, we function as if God were still resting after the creation. We don't expect God to break into our lives. Our God tends to be seen as a very passive God.

I certainly grew up questioning much of the traditional elements of the Bible and I suppose like many I simply decided to concentrate on what was clear to me: the person, the teaching and the sacrifice of Jesus. Some of the other stuff, I reasoned, was fringe, a bit too fantastical or not relevant to where I was in my faith at that time. After all, these people didn’t have the scientific and medical knowledge that we take for granted today but had to find some explanation for what they didn’t understand.

In the end, I suspect it comes down to definitions and I’d like to illustrate that with a little scenario from the classroom because the parallel with today’s Gospel is very strong: angels and miracles.

I used to be a High School teacher of RE. My Yr. 8 students - aged 12/13 - had been studying Miracles and it had been a struggle from the outset, if for no other reason than spelling. You see “miracles” on the board, look down to your book and write “miricals.” How does that happen? Every. Single. Time?

Of course, the first problem was that of definition: what are we talking about when we talk of miracles? Blank looks. It took some time, and with heavy guidance from me, to decide on “A dramatic and unusual event which goes against the laws of nature and is caused by God or one of his agents.” This is where it all started to unravel as we were taken down an unexpected line of discussion in relation to what constitutes an agent of God. Predictably angels came in for some considerable forensic examination and I found myself explaining the mind-set of the medieval artist.

“O.K.” I say, “I’m a Medieval Pope.” They look less than convinced.

“Chris, you’re Michelangelo.” Chris looks pleased.

“Chris, I need a nice painting on the ceiling of my new chapel - a Biblical story. How about the Christmas story?”

“Right you are Guv.”

Later Michelangelo gets out his Bible. “What’s in the story that I need to include? Stable, check. Mary and Joseph, check. Infant, check. Cattle, check. Shepherds, check. Wise men, Check. Innkeeper, check. Angels, ch … Angels? Oooh, Angels.”

“What does an angel look like?” I ask.

How about you guys? Any ideas?

Surprisingly for a group of avowed Atheists they soon build up a picture: M & S floaty nighty, pigeon’s wings and a tinsel halo.

“Musical Instrument of choice?” I ask.

“Harp.” They chorus happily, entering into the spirit of the occasion.

“Trumpet.” Someone else offers.

(I ponder, briefly, how far we have moved in five minutes from my carefully crafted lesson plan on miracles – sorry: miricals.)

I draw said angel on the board. It takes about six pen strokes but they pronounce themselves happy with the result.

So I ask them, “How did we get to this?”

“Well, it’s in pictures.”

“And adverts. Sir, Sir, Have you seen that advert for cream cheese where …..?”

And so it goes on. Having established that this image is firmly established in the international imagination, I try to point out that medieval artists were faced with a no-win situation in attempting to represent something visually where there’s not much in the way of description to go on.

I explain, “They needed to get over the idea of something spiritual rather than human otherwise we’d be looking at these paintings asking “Who’s that man in the background?” or “Why are those ladies falling out of the sky?” The angel as we know it is an artistic compromise.”

“Are you saying they don’t look like that then?”

“Well, I’m saying they might not.”

“What do they look like then?”

“O.K.” I take a deep breath.  “What does “angel” mean?”

There is no response.

I ask again.

“Mernerner”

(That’s teen-speak for “I don’t know”)

I offer them a clue, “It’s a Greek word.” Why did I tell them that? This is bottom set of 12 year olds. What are the chances they know New Testament Greek? What is the matter with you man?

Still no ideas.

How about you? Any ideas?

“It simply means messenger of God. What does God’s messenger look like?” Perplexed looks. This is marginally encouraging as it indicates some level of mental activity above and beyond maintaining a heartbeat.

“Do you remember when Mrs. Stanley sent a pupil down with a message last lesson?”

“Are you saying Emily was an angel?”

I’m saying Emily was a messenger. What does a messenger look like?

“Could be anybody.”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t get it.”

I sigh. I do that a lot with Yr 8. “Why does God’s messenger have to look picturesque?”

“Coz it’s an angel.”

Now, you will recognise that this is a circular argument.

“And angel means messenger.” I persevere. “Why couldn’t anyone be God’s messenger? Please don’t say “because we don’t have wings.””

“So, right? Are you saying Sir that anyone could be an angel because they’d be being God’s messenger?

“I’m just saying that the images of medieval artists might not always be helpful, that’s all. What was an aid to faith in the middle ages seems to be quite the opposite today: "Who'd believe in one of those winged things?"

There is a glimmer of hope that we might, at last, move on to talk about miricals.

“Any questions on anything we’ve looked at so far?” I ask.  “Yes Chris?”

“Sir, who’s Michelangelo?”

And yes, much like my lesson, we are moving on to talk about miracles. “A dramatic and unusual event that goes against the laws of nature and is caused by God or one of his agents.” The agent of the Godhead here, being Jesus the Son.

By the way: any ideas why it the passage mentions that it was the Sabbath? It’s important because Jesus has cured on the Sabbath when nothing that could be understood as work might be done.

Surely healing is a necessary, compassionate act which the Sabbath law allows for? Well, yes – in an emergency but this man had been suffering for 38 years so his condition hardly counts as an emergency so his healing could surely wait until the Sabbath was over.

So what? Interesting enough – or maybe not. Why are we considering this passage today?  Well, I think there are two possible approaches: I think the challenge for us today is to consider whether Jesus’ words as spoken to this man and the Pharisees are also words for us today? What am I going to do with this passage? What are you going to do with it?

Let’s try this approach: And Jesus asked the man, “Do you want to be made whole?”

Do we fear the cure more than the illness? When we cease being a victim – “I can’t get to the water Jesus; there’s always someone else who gets there first” – and start being responsible then we begin to become strong enough to walk beside others who are in pain and need help. We are more able to accept our enemies and the outcasts no one else wants to know. We no longer make excuses; instead we walk forward to new life in Jesus and go to work serving, healing, hoping, and living a life which involves helping others.

But we know that to get up and follow Jesus will involve us in people’s lives in ways we’re not sure we really want, because to be whole means to be re-connected with God and with God’s people and God’s creation. No more isolation. No more living my own private life where no one bothers me. To be whole means to get off of our backsides and get involved. It means working hard, often doing behind the scenes work that is tedious and overlooked: talking quietly to people; offering a shoulder to cry on; a listening ear; moral and practical support as far as we are able and praying for each other and others – even the ones we don’t much like. We know that to say, “Here, am I Jesus! Send me!” is something that in our heart of hearts we really don’t want to say because it may require us to do something.

But there is another way of looking at this passage: If we are really the modern audience of today’s passage, then are we being invited to examine how the knowledge of God brought by Jesus is rejected because it is too challenging to the way we’ve always done things?  “You can’t do that! It’s the Sabbath!” When do the safe and comfortable ways of doing things help to keep people "sick" or "stuck in their condition" rather than offering new life through the power of God? I think that was the situation in today’s Gospel: the man had the opportunity for a new life, a fresh start but the religious rules of his day would have kept him where he was. The rejection of Jesus later in this story, then, is a rejection of the possibility of new ways of knowing God and living the life of faith. Jesus could have avoided the controversy of this healing by waiting until after the Sabbath; or not commanding him to take up his mat.

 Jesus did both as a deliberate act.

So what might those things be today?

I remember a lady once complaining about teenagers coming to church in jeans. She was especially upset when they went up for communion in trainers: so disrespectful! Would she rather have had them in church in jeans and trainers, or have her idea of the proper way of doing things keep them away?

Many years ago I was a member of a congregation where the morning service was broadcast live on the Radio. A few days later the vicar received a letter of complaint from a member of the public because the Lord’s Prayer, which had been set to music, had been accompanied … by a guitar! Does obedience to these unwritten “rules” help or hinder the spread of the gospel? Perhaps we should be asking ourselves: "What are we willing to do differently so that more people might hear the Gospel?"

So, look around you. Think about what we do here and what you do afterwards as a result of being here. Is there anything in our practice that keeps people away from the message of Christ?

So, at the start I asked you to try to imagine that you were there. Who in the story did you most identify with: those who stood for the old ways of doing things or those who stood for the new? Your answer to that question may well influence the way you think and act from now on.

Well, there was a miracle by the pool of Bethezda. Why? Not just because Jesus performed a healing but because in that healing the people glimpsed new possibilities. I think that our prayer should be for Jesus to touch many more people so that they, too, can see new possibilities.

Amen

 

 

 

 

Sunday Sermon. John 13.1-35

 

 

 

 

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.” After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But it is to fulfill the scripture, ‘The one who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’ I tell you this now, before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am he. Very truly, I tell you, whoever receives one whom I send receives me; and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.” After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night. When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

So, we’re clearly still in the Easter season: we have here the well-known Maundy Thursday story of Jesus washing his disciple’s feet, but in John’s version there is so much more than we are used to hearing.

So, if you’ll excuse me – and if you want to get home in good time to put the veg on – I’ll just take a couple of the themes for us to consider this morning but, as Eric Morecambe once said, “Not necessarily in the right order.”

I’d like to start at the bottom and work back and the first theme is found in verses 31-35: The glorification of God comes through us, as latter-day disciples reflecting in our lives the love that God has shown to us, By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

The second theme is found in verse 15 when Jesus, having washed his disciples’ feet talks about the nature of his servanthood and expects his followers to imitate that, For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

Personally, I see the application of these ideas in our lives as signs of authentic religion. That’s not to say that we’re looking for perfection: that’s not realistic or achievable. It is the honest striving, rather than the expectation of succeeding that is the key here. We believe that we are saved through the grace of God – a good Lutheran principle that perhaps we don’t stress enough, but the knowledge of our salvation still requires that we show obedient discipleship. Or as my mother once said, “Religion’s all right, but you shouldn’t let it rule your life." She was, of course, both right and wrong at the same time: right that inauthentic religion shouldn’t rule our lives and wrong because authentic religion absolutely should! Well, St. Paul tells us in Philippians that it is our responsibility to Work out your (our) own salvation in fear and trembling. Similarly James tells us that …  faith without works is dead.

So, where does that leave us as people of faith?

We are saved by the grace of God through faith alone and we are required to reflect the positives of that in our lives. Then we can glorify God through our love towards others, by being a servant of others and recognising that God sends us and many others as his voice, his hands and his feet in this world. For those of us who claim to be Christian, we should also acknowledge that the practice of the Christian religion throughout the world often appears to have little in common with the mind and the spirit and the character of Jesus. I recall that Mahatma Gandhi once said. "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." That’s painful. It’s also true.

One of the things that has really struck me recently is the mismatch between the ideal of Christian discipleship and what we often see in practice.

How many of you have INTERNET access? Have any of you ever looked at some of the religious discussion forums that can be found on the web?

Don’t - unless you have a strong stomach. As Mr. Spock might have said to Captain Kirk, “Its Christianity Jim, but not as we know it.” Much of what is out there in the ether is a complete subversion of those themes of love for others and servanthood. What is all too evident on these discussion threads is a petty argumentativeness built around the need to be right by rubbishing alternative theological and spiritual viewpoints. There is a strong streak of the judgemental. There is a strong streak of superiority; of arrogance; of triumphalism and, very often, a determination to question the spiritual credentials of others. “You disagree with me. I’m right, therefore you are not a Christian.” It is not edifying and it is not the Gospel.

Now, perhaps there is a certain type of person who is attracted to these discussion forums – keyboard warriors perhaps, but it does strike me that there is a tendency, albeit a more subtle tendency amongst many people of faith to hold, while playing down, similar views. “I wouldn’t ever go on the INTERNET and express such views. I keep my prejudices to myself.”

Remarkably, some believers cannot seem to trust their own faith unless they can be sure that everybody else is wrong. The truth of our tradition does not depend upon the untruth of another. Roman Catholics/Methodists/Baptists/Pentecostalists are not wrong because we are Anglicans.

If you were born in Saudi Arabia, Israel or India, how are you ever going to hear, let alone understand the message of Christ? Rather than assume that they are condemned out of hand for not being Christian - surely an unchristian belief in itself, is it not possible for such people to be unknowing disciples when they allow the light of Christ into their lives through their love of God and their neighbours?  When the Jewish Democrat, Bernie Sanders is lauded for having more Christian principles that his Christian Republican competitors for the American presidency, we see that the light of Christ is, indeed, made manifest in the lives of those who do not confess him as Lord: as the Prophet Micah said, He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

We may believe other faiths have an incomplete revelation of God but we simply have no right to make a judgment on behalf of God on the authenticity of the light by which others live. You and I are neither wise enough not good enough to judge the faith of another. We should rightly leave such matters to the grace and judgement of God alone. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, “We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.”

Religion has been a source of great good, a huge source of hope and grace but we should face up to the dark side as well. Inauthentic religion is making our world more dangerous--from Brussels to Baghdad to Gaza to Paris to Damascus and if we feel self-congratulatory because that isn’t Christianity think of the American election, and the appalling recent comments of Trump and Cruz.

Let’s not fool ourselves: while we are largely sheltered from the worst excesses of this in the U.K.  it is out there: scratch the surface and it’s there for all to see. Only recently someone, a committed churchgoer, asked me why we have to have a black Archbishop. “Aren’t there enough of our own?” Look at the right-wing press. The language says it all: “let’s look after our own first” say people who had never previously shown any concern for “our own” while asserting the Christian character of this country. “What about our own homeless?” say people who walked past our own homeless without a backward glance only the day before. Look at the English Defence League who picket mosques while holding crosses and claiming to be Christian warriors. What about people who get Muslims thrown off buses because they “look shifty” and made them “feel uncomfortable” as happened in Bristol this week? They may not reflect our Christianity but that distinction is lost on others.  Christianity is being brought into disrepute by Christians – or alleged Christians - and we’re all tarred with the same brush.

Inauthentic religion is alive and not only well but flourishing. People who believe themselves to be true believers are fanning the flames of hatred, bigotry and anger.  So the question is this: how can we redeem Christianity from this path, where faith is being used to ignite the fires of bigotry and conflict? Surely it’s down to those of us who take Jesus at his word to challenge that inauthentic expression of faith that perverts his message. It’s down to us who believe him when he says, as he does in today’s Gospel, that people will know we are Christians by the love we express towards each other – and I don’t believe that’s limited to other Christians. It’s down to us to take Jesus at his word when he says we should be servants of one another – and again that’s not to be limited to Christians - because that’s the example he has set us.

There are two powerful forces at work that we need to take more seriously: fear and ignorance.

When religion is hijacked by fear, the result is some brand of fundamentalism, which spews out absolutism and exclusivity and hostility toward people of other faiths and Christianity has its fair share of those fundamentalists who are usually convinced that they alone possess God's truth and they possess it absolutely. Virtually all of the world's major religions today have fallen victim to this self-righteous and uncompromising belief system. For us Christians, I believe that such anger and hostility is contrary to the spirit, to the character, and to the word embodied by Jesus.

A religion of fear inevitably leads us toward a religion of prejudice which often leads to violence. Throughout the world people are overwhelmed by fear. It is fear, not faith that lies at the root of prejudice and discrimination. It is fear, not faith that acts with arrogance and bitterness toward other believers. It is fear, not faith that proclaims doctrinal absolutes and moral certainty. It is fear, not faith that trusts violence and hatred more than compassion and grace.

It is ignorance, not faith that teaches creationism as legitimate science. It is ignorance, not faith that wants us to believe that the Bible is infallible. It is ignorance, not faith that claims that God is the exclusive possession of one religion to the exclusion of others. It is ignorance, not faith that spreads appalling misinformation about others: “They’re all terrorists you know.” As if I should be frightened of that Muslim family I buy my newspaper from every morning.

Jesus set out, I believe, to enable people to see the light of God that had been lost to the doctrines and complex rules of his day. Jesus' faith was closer to the street, and on those streets he bumped into the learned, the blind, the beggars,  the rich and powerful, with outcasts and adulterers. He socialized with every social stratum. The fact is that Jesus was not very discriminating. He embraced tax collectors, Samaritans and thieves. The word from God which Jesus taught and lived on the streets of Nazareth and Jerusalem was this: we are called to relate to others as God relates to us; to forgive; to become makers of peace; to be instruments of grace - in short, to embrace a new way of living together in the world, including living with those who are committed to diverse religious traditions: to show love and servanthood as a way that lifts people up instead of putting people down. It is a way that forgives instead of condemns. It is a way that sits alongside the dispirited and that loves with no expectation of being loved in return. The question we all need to ask ourselves is whether we have truly bought into that ethic.

So, we can do this: you and I can become a vigilant voice for a better way. We can show that we are Christians by the love we show to others and by our willingness to serve others as Jesus did, without prejudice.

I believe Jesus would say to us that God's grace is not conditional.  If there is any hope at all, it is that God who is not a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, believes in us all and lifts us up above our partisan divisions and embraces us without condition. I believe God yearns to set us free from our addiction to division, so that one day, we can embrace one another as children of God and leave the rest to God’s grace because God's grace finds us where we are but doesn't leave us there.

In the meantime it is down to us to show that love and servanthood to others.

 

A Mothers' Day sermon from prison: John 19 25-27

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. (John 19.25-27)

We have a short Gospel passages today dealing with Mary the mother of Jesus, taking us back to the time where Jesus shows his concern for her even at the moment of his death. Traditionally we see Mary as the obedient young woman accepting the Angel’s message that she will have a son, and that has led to all sorts of religious ideas of Mary as the ideal mother. In this passage we see the responsibility of a child towards his mother. It's not a passage which sits very comfortably with the modern celebration of Mothers’ Day.

Mothers’ Day: in the church it is usually called Mothering Sunday. What’s the difference? Most people use the terms interchangeably but they are different.

Mothering Sunday started off as a religious celebration when Christians went to worship at the mother church – generally the local cathedral. That practice had fallen by the wayside by the twentieth century. Across the Atlantic in America and Canada, however, the Mothers’ Day celebration had become very popular and British organisations began to see the business opportunities in it and promoted it so well that by the 1950s it was well established in the U.K. to the extent that the two celebrations have become totally confused with each other. Mothering Sunday has become Mothers’ Day and in churches up and down the country children will be giving their mothers bunches of daffodils and prayers are said to celebrate motherhood.

I actively dislike Mothers’ Day. There, I’ve said it: hate me!

I’ve sat through plenty of Mothers’ Day services where there were women in the congregation who had never had children or who had lost children or had struggled with infertility or had suffered miscarriage after miscarriage or who never wanted children. How are these women meant to feel today?

My mother died a couple of years ago so as it currently stands Mothers’ Day is rather meaningless to me, and trying to get my own children to talk to each other about what to do for my wife today has been a bit like flogging a dead horse! As a family we are in danger of bickering the day away – which seems to defeat the object of a special day of celebrating, affirming and making a fuss of my wife, while she sits there with a long suffering look as if to say, “One day a year; one day and this is the best you can do!”

Of course the modern Mothers’ Day is a triumph of consumerism with its roses and chocolates and it's built around the principle that we do actually want to celebrate our relationships with our mothers. What if we don’t? What if it wasn’t a happy relationship? I’m really not sure that the idea that’s being sold to us about Mothers’ Day rings true for everyone.

Of course we must also acknowledge that for many here today this is a difficult day because we would like to spend time with our mothers, or watch our children with their mothers, and can’t.

No. I don’t like Mothers’ Day at all.

I think we need to acknowledge those feelings. Imagine the seat beside you is occupied by your mother, or by the mother of your children and that you could say just one thing, one sentence to her. What would it be?

On your seat is a post-it note and a pencil. Take a moment to think and write that sentence: the one thing you’d want to say. You won’t have to share it with anyone. I won’t read it out - I won't even read it. You can be completely honest. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar or handwriting. If a picture or a symbol makes more sense, go with that.

But before you do, consider: is it about saying thanks? Is it about your sense of having been let down or is it about your sense of being the one who did the letting down? Is it in some way about you forgiving or asking for forgiveness?

We can’t change the past, but we can change the way we think about it: we can stop those feelings messing with our present by choosing to deal with them now – or at least by choosing to begin to deal with them now.

I’m going to collect those slips of paper in this basket and place them on the altar: in doing so, we’re symbolically leaving our hurt, pain and bad memories or our positive and happy memories with God.

Let’s do that now.

My wife’s church has struggled with these ideas, with the fall-out of brokenness from difficult upbringings and bad relationships. They have made a deliberate choice to change the wording of the Lord’s Prayer to begin, “God in Heaven, you who are Mother and Father of us all.” Then it continues in the traditional way.

They have acknowledged that the only perfect model of parental love is found in God’s love. If our own experience of being parented or of being a parent is painful – too painful to contemplate even, they have found comfort in pushing those experiences to one side and focusing on the love of God as the true expression of parental love.

I’ll be honest: it hasn’t always been easy but it has helped some people to recognise, in ways they hadn’t before that they are truly loved and have always been truly loved, sometimes in-spite of what they are or what they have been. The comfort here is that no one is beyond the love, the compassion, the understanding and the forgiveness of God. No one.

There is a prayer that I’d like to share with you:

God with a mother’s heart,

You gather us as your children.

You comfort us and hold us in your warm embrace.

When we hurt, your arms enfold us.

When we are afraid your wings protect us.

When we are hungry you feed us with the bread of life.

God with a mother’s heart,

Your love surrounds and supports us,

In good times and tough,

In the midst of joy and pain,

Always and everywhere.

You will never leave nor abandon us.

God eternal and loving,

God with a mother’s heart

We thank you this day

For being part of your family.

Amen

For later in the service

A time of prayer:


We take a stem and place it in the vase as we pray and remember…  

Mothers who are at the beginning of the adventure - either expecting or have recently had a child. In those early days may they have courage in the changes and hearts full of love. 

God of care, God of nurture, hear our prayer

We take another stem and remember mothers who struggle with the task, those who feel overwhelmed by the responsibility, perhaps very young, perhaps with a child who is difficult to care for. 

God of care, God of nurture, hear our prayer

We take another stem and place it in the vase and pray for those mothers who are ill or frail; who struggle that they cannot do for those they love the things they once could. 

God of care, God of nurture, hear our prayer 

We take another stem and remember children in the world especially those who have lost their mothers or who have mothers that do not care as they should. 

God of care, God of nurture, hear our prayer 

Finally, we pray for ourselves - asking that the things of God would be born in us and that we would know the nurture and compassion of the God who created us and loves us as passionately, tenderly and completely as a mother. 

God of care, God of nurture, hear our prayer Amen

Baptism

I’d like to concentrate on today’s passage from Psalm 27: what a wonderful passage for a baptism! The Lord is my light and my salvation, the passage begins. This is a passage about the love and support of God even when things look bleak: The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? He will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble. Well, we are here today to claim those promises for Charlotte, Lilly-Mae, Kirsty and Chloe as they are baptised in front of family and friends and this community of faith.

So are any of you having a celebration after the baptism? Well, you can’t have a celebration without a party bag! This party bag will help us to understand what’s going on in this service. So, let’s have a look. What’s in the bag?

1)  Water and soap. What do we use water for? Drinking, cooking and cleaning: are we going to use water this morning? How? So, is it cooking? Drinking? No, it’s a symbol - a sign if you like - of cleansing. The water of baptism is a symbol of a fresh start, of washing away the past and all that goes with it. A spring-clean of the soul if you like so although we aren’t really going to scrub down Chloe, Libby-Mae, Kirsty and Charlotte with soap, that also stands for our fresh start as we come symbolically clean from our baptisms.

2) A bus. What’s that for? Well this is another symbol: a symbol of setting out on a journey. What journey? Well, today marks the start of a journey for Kirsty, Chloe, Lilly Mae and Charlotte, a journey of faith; the start of a journey in the Christian life. And I chose a bus because it’s not a journey we undertake on our own. We start this journey today with one another, with family, Godparent, friends and this community to support us. So how do we know where we are going?

3)  A Sat-Nav. What’s this for? It guides us in the right direction. Now any drivers here this morning will know that we can set off on a journey confident that we know the way – and then we get lost. My trusty sat-nav makes sure I get to my destination safely by the best route. It also makes sure I stay out of trouble and don’t drive faster than I should. In life’s journey we can go with or without a sat nav but Christians believe that through baptism we have the extra resource of God’s Holy Spirit to show us the way, to guide us, to lead us and to help us to stay out of trouble. Of course we can still decide we want to follow our own route, but without relying on the Holy Spirit’s guidance we run the risk of going in the wrong direction and making mistakes.

4)  A bottle of perfumed oil. Where have we already used oil this morning? What did we do with it? It’s called anointing and it’s quite an ancient tradition: kings and queens are anointed at their coronation so it’s something we do for special people on a special occasion. Jesus was called “The Anointed One” and we use anointing to show that someone has been consecrated. That’s a fancy word and it simply means that the person who has been anointed has been given to God. Today we anointed Charlotte, Chloe, Libby Mae and Kirsty with the sign of the cross, the symbol of Jesus.

5)  A heart. Well, last Sunday was Valentine’s Day, so what does the heart stand for? It’s a symbol of love, but not just our love for one another: it’s also a sign of God’s love for us. We believe that God loves each of us dearly and although He has that love for us all the time we can be sure that that love is very real today as we come for baptism. Today we join God in celebrating and rejoicing.

Amen

Prayers for the Broken Hearted on Valentine's Day

Prayers for the Broken-Hearted on Valentine’s Day

Heavenly Father we come before you now on this celebration of love and give thanks for those who experience the unique and exclusive love of another; those who have known that love for many years and those on its threshold; those whose love has grown and matured and those whose love still holds that future promise, and we celebrate such love. We give thanks, too, for those whose love has flourished despite difficulties or disapproval and has been strengthened by it.

Lord in your mercy …..

But we think too of those who have never known that love; those who have been disappointed; those whose hopes have been dashed by bereavement or abandonment; those who have suffered abuse; those whose love has been condemned by others and could not survive. We pray for those who, on this day, as on every other, are broken-hearted.

Lord in your mercy ……

We pray for those who are broken-hearted today because they have been torn from loved ones because of social pressure, war, political upheaval or injustice and who live with fear and uncertainty, not knowing the fate of those they love and who have loved them.

Lord in your mercy ……

We pray for the broken-hearted who have been disappointed in life through physical or mental illness; those who regret opportunities not taken or bad choices made; those who hurt because of the treatment of others; those who are desperate to go back to the way things once were; those who have been denied happiness and those who live in desolation and feel crushed and empty because their broken-heartedness has overwhelmed them; those whose love of life has grown weary.

Lord in your mercy ……

We pray for your forgiveness, Lord, for any part, active or passive, we have played in the broken-heartedness of others.

Lord in your mercy ……

The Psalms tell us, “The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. ”The book of Revelation tells us that you “will wipe away every tear from their eyes and that there will be no more mourning or crying or pain.” We pray that you will renew them and give them strength in their suffering and confusion and ask that through your love and forgiveness, they will receive restoration and a new dawn for their hearts and lives. Help them not to give up on themselves. Bring beauty from brokenness and give them your peace.

Merciful Father ……