Abraham's journey. Kids Address

Follow that Law. Sermon preached 15/04/2010

FOLLOW THAT LAW.

We are now in the midst of Election fever, the papers, the television and the radio are full of it…..apart from the volcanic ash fiasco of last week…..all the parties are gearing up for a “free for all”, the key phrase “we will do it better if you vote for us, trust us” those beaming smiles, the shirt sleeves, the hand in the pocket, the body language, it’s all being analysed by experts, we’ve already had two debates on TV, and I’m sure you can’t wait for the third, but it is all about , in the end, persuasion and trust.

Now there doesn’t seem a lot of trust around in politics at the moment, but the political parties see their goal, power, and they are going to do everything to get back that trust, whether it’s through advertising campaigns, television debates, or radio interviews, they have their strategies, their key phrases, which they slip in everywhere they can! their spin doctor’s, and even their hairdressers!!

The danger for politicians today are that they are too swayed by populism, rather than with principle and social conscience, Michael foot who died recently is a good example of all those politicians whose politics are from the heart, many commentators’s are telling us that this election campaign is becoming more and more dominated by marketing, strategy, and personality ….They all seem to be constrained , jumping through the right hoops, saying the right things, smiling at the right times, denegrating the other parties, holding babies, all this to get the Country’s approval, all this to win favour and gain power.

How often are WE trapped into following sets of rules and protocol because we think we will gain favour, look good in the eyes of our peers, we often think we are right, and start judging others if they don’t do it?…how often is this seen in our Church today? Christians following a do’s and don’ts list of being the perfect Christian!!

The Galatians wanted to be better Christians, they wanted to look good in the eyes of God, they wanted to gain God’s favour, they wanted more… In came the Juda-izers, these oddly named people were a group of Jewish zealots, that were pretending to be teachers and trying to get the Gentile Christians of Galatia to conform to the Law of Moses…one train of thought was that they were from Jerusalem, and possibly Pharisees, but they captivated the Galatians (Paul said bewitched) with a promise of an even richer life with God if they followed their three step plan…how many times do we hear that phrase today, whether it’s diets, health regimes or work success, but for the Judaizers this included not eating unclean foods, getting circumcised, basically following the original laws as handed down by Moses over a thousand years previously, THEN, according to the Juda-izers the Holy Spirit would descend upon them with renewed power, and they would become BETTER Christians.

In other words the Judaizers were trying to subvert Paul’s original message to the Galatians, that Salvation was gained by faith, and faith alone, and not by following rules and regulations.

Paul was not a happy man when he heard that the Galatians were being captivated by these infiltrators, manipulating the word of God and creating a legalistic structure to the then new Christian faith.

Paul wanted to emphasize to the Galatians that God didn’t give his Holy Spirit based on what they did, and what laws they followed, but through their FAITH in the Gospel of the Crucified Christ, and their trust in God.

Paul looked towards Abraham as an example of salvation through Faith, many times throughout his Letters Paul uses Abraham as an example of Faith, he described the faith of Abraham in these terms “In hope he believed against hope……He was fully convinced that God was able to do what he promised”

He obeyed God’s comands, and “it was credited to him as righteousness, which simply means enjoying a good relationship with God.

Now Paul didn’t just write these words in his letter on his own, he took his teaching straight from Jesus christ, when we serve God’s rules that’s true worship, when we serve men’s rules it is legalism…Jesus called this false worship.

Jesus said a lot about the law and the teacher’s of law …in Luke 11:49….”And you experts of law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them”..

Jesus wanted to set people free from the legalism the pharisees and the scribes had established, they had taken the original law of Moses and had twisted , and added, and manipulated it to suit their purposes. It was this “establishment religion” and it’s stranglehold on the people that put him to death on the cross.

Legalism in Religion is so prevalent today, not only in the Christian faith, we see it in other faiths as well, legalism and fundamentalism are happy bed fellows, the freedom of faith has been submerged under a blanket of man made boundaries and rules…causing oppression and in some instances as with the Taliban, hatred and destruction …….In our own Christian church, fundamentalism is rearing it’s ugly face, in the United States there are fundamentalists who deny the insights of modern science preferring instead to peddle something called creationism, a weird and wonderful twisting of scripture to suit their own purposes.

In the church of England at the moment and (not only in the Church of England) there are fierce and devisive debates about such subjects as homosexuality, abortion and the role of women in the Church.

A powerful and vocal group of very conservative believers are seeking to pressurize the church to conform to a legalistic stance on all these subjects and many more besides. They are even ready to call the present Archbishop of Canterbury, ‘Arch-heretic’ because he believes in inclusivity.

The way they spell out their understanding creates a feeling that there is no freedom of interpretation as far as these questions are concerned. The Holy Spirit often seems lost amid the legalism, and the prejudice.

What would Jesus do and say about this if he came back today?

I feel that it wouldn’t be far from what he said and warned about the pharisees.

How would Paul address this….a letter to the fundamentalists?

And would they take any notice?

The teaching of Jesus Christ and his apostle Paul highlights one major thing, freedom of the spirit…Paul said the gift of the Holy Spirit is by it’s nature FREE FOR ALL, there are no boxes to tick, no hoops to jump through, no certain buttons to push, no dogma, no doctrine, or three step plans to follow, it’s FREE, the Holy spirit is free to be preached and ministered to outcasts, sinners, the undesirables, people from different backgrounds and gender……it’s inclusive of all.

This is the good news of the gospel, and it’s a direct appeal from God through his son Jesus Christ to all who believe.

To believe is to trust, to receive god’s spirit; you need to trust in him, as Abraham did, and as Paul did…..we have to trust that god will guide our steps through this tough journey of life

Your journey may not be as eventful as Abraham’s, but you can be sure there will be tests and trials along the way, one does not learn faith immediately , a Christian life is all about learning, learning to trust what the spirit can do in us and through us.

The General election will soon be a thing of the past, and maybe some of us will breathe a sign of relief, but there will be 650 newly elected or re-elected Members of Parliament gathering in Westminster to begin their work as Law makers. They will need all the wisdom in the World as they go about their work, and they’ll need to learn the difference between laws that are heavy for people to bear, legislation for the sake of it, more useless words that will never change anything, all that on one hand and on the other , Laws that address people’s needs and improve their lives, and speak to their hearts.

Laws are important but when it comes down to it, there’s only one law for Christians to remember. And that’s the Law that asks us to love God by believing in the salvation he gave us through his son Jesus Christ, from which everything good, holy and righteous comes.

When we believe and trust in Jesus and his teachings we have his power to do what he does, we have the gift of the spirit from him within our hearts…..

Let’s learn to find it, use it and share it.

AMEN

A MEDITATION ON GOD (unit 6)

Is there a God?

Then if so, is he a personal God that has an interest in us, both now and after we die?

Or does he just let us live and then go out like a light?….to most of us God is a very personal God, we see him as our friend, our loyal companion, our voice in the wilderness, our strength and our guide, but how often do we think about how he created this world, this universe.

So many scientists are quite sure that the energy and matter that constitute this universe we live in could not have popped into existence from absolute nothingness. Therefore, they argue, there had to be a greater entity/power outside our material universe that caused it to come into existence. This entity/power is what we call God.

Could this universe have come into existence all by itself?

Go outside on a starry night, look up, look in wonder at the billions and billions of stars, some of them , we’re told, are not even visible with a telescope.

What created this? Did they just create themselves?

Bend down and pick up a leaf, perfection in symmetry, perfection in it’s design……all this points to a master designer, the ultimate director, the Creator God.

From a scientific perspective belief in a Creator God, however that complex notion is understood, offers a powerful incentive to the investigation and appreciation of the natural World, one well known Scientist Alister McGrath put’s it like this “to study nature, is to study God indirectly”

In a way God speaks through his creation, the beauty and the constancy of it all.

He shows his power in many different ways , in forces of nature, the rolling seas, the snow capped mountains, and even a tiny marigold, we also see his power in the strength and skill of humans, in machines of every kind. He reveals his goodness and beauty in all that is lovely and desirable. Through people, through touch , through love and affection…through this we can glimpse something of God’s GLORY.

C.S Lewis puts it like this…

“I believe in God as I believe that the sun is risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else”

God illuminates the great riddles and enigmas of life, including how and why it is that we make sense of the universe at all, above all it sustains one’s sense of awe at the wonders of nature and the wonders of goodness truth and love all around us.

God’s power is limitless, we will never fully understand it all, we only see a small part of God, the rest is mysterious and frightening, fascinating and full of awe…this is God, a HOLY GOD, God’s holiness is encompassing, he has infinite love for all his people, his Majesty and Soveriegnty surrounds the universe, and he cares for each and everyone one of us.

Love belongs to God, God is love, and the true divine embodiment of that love, walked this Earth 2,000 years ago, who revealed God’s love to us all. Every word of Jesus comes to us with the authority of God himself.

We find God’s love and Glory in everyone we meet, everyone is God’s child, we are commissioned by God to treat them as we would treat him. We are to love them as much as we love ourselves.

When you do these things, you will not have to find God, God will find you!

It’s envitable there will times when we will have doubts throughout our life, it’s as if a cloud of unknowing hovers between us and God, then from time to time that cloud is pierced by a shaft of light, so bright, showing us something about God’s love, it maybe a moment of happiness, an experience of real love, or a moment of despair and sadness when we feel his presence, when we feel something lifting us, something so strong it’s far beyond our understanding, but we know it’s there, we know he’s there!

We will never be able to picture fully what God is like, we have to accept that any image we have in our tiny minds is totally inadequate, it will always be too small.

God is more than the sum of all the universe , an immense complexity of all that has been, is and will be.

The Kingdom of God...5th October 2009

Our world today desperately needs Good News, today’s headline’s are filled with bad news, the brutal dictatorship of Mugabe, the religious hatred in Israel, terrorism, natural disasters, grinding poverty throughout the world made worse by the rising price of oil, even nearer at home, knife crime, alcoholism in young people, and the credit crunch causing petrol and food to rocket, causing anxiety and unease…..Where is it all heading?….Why is the World in such a precarious state? With all this bad news, is there really any hope for the future of humanity?

Remember, this is not new, Jesus came into the world 2,000 years ago preaching a wonderful future for humanity after an intense period of earthshaking calamities. His message called “the Gospel” means “Good News”….the very Good News that the world desperately needs now, yes there is hope.

So what exactly is the Good News, this Gospel, Jesus Christ preached…it’s not just a message about his life and death leading to our salvation, it’s also a message about the meaning of Salvation, and how he intends to save us, so we do have something positive to hold onto we do have hope. Jesus is our hope.

This message is at the heart and core of Christ’s teaching, the Kingdom of God will be established on Earth, it’s referred to many times throughout the Gospels, 86 times to be precise!

So why is the Kingdom of God such a difficult concept to grasp?

It’s not a Kingdom as we know, it doesn’t have borders, it doesn’t have walls or barbed wire, it doesn’t have border controls!

Jesus says in JOHN 18:36.”My Kingdom is not of this world”

So, it’s a Kingdom without limits and boundaries, OK that’s a difficult one to fathom out, any more information?

Well, I know a great place to start, let’s go to the Gospels…………..in today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus brings us four quick parables all of similar nature, all on the topic of the Kingdom of God. These stories about mustard seeds, yeast, hidden treasure and pearls are Jesus’ way of illustrating for us what god’s Kingdom is like. Jesus is insistent, determined to communicate this important message to us. Through the parables Jesus gives us an insight into what God’s Kingdom is , how we can see it more clearly, and what importance God’s Kingdom has in our day to day lives. Let’s look at these parables a little closer, the two about the mustard seed and the yeast have similarities, important similarities, Jesus is emphasising the immensity and greatness of the Kingdom, the mustard seed, small as a pin head, growing into a tree with branches, an obvious exaggeration, but showing us how something very small can turn out with incredible and abundant results….remember from small things; great things can happen!!

Then we go onto the yeast parable, Jesus exaggerates again, the woman goes through a normal yeast and flour procedure, then ‘eureka’ there’s enough bread for 100 people!

The third and the fourth parable are a different take on the theme, the hidden treasure and the pearl, someone coming across something valuable and precious, selling all they have to acquire it…….these show us that the kingdom of God is a treasure, but it does have a cost, one does have to give up things to acquire it, but it’s worth it.

What we see here is; that where the Kingdom of God is concerned, we get more than we expect, it’s bigger and better and more present than we realise….the power of the Kingdom’s presence is immeasurable and immense, it can transform whatever it touches, even though it seems like a tiny mustard seed

….Appearences are Deceptive!

When I think of this phrase it always reminds me of DR WHO, the TARDIS to be precise, no I’m not one of those obsessive fans, apparently they are called Whovians!……it brings back memories of hiding behind the sofa dreading the sound of the Daleks, and wishing I was in the Tardis, I was fascinated, when I was a little girl ,of the blue police box that became something else when you opened the door, that huge console in the middle, where Dr Who would press buttons and it would make perculiar noises like moving a piano! And they would shoot off to strange far away places, I always wanted to be Dr Who’s assistant, I’m talking about Jon Pertwee’s time, if anybody remembers, though I wouldn’t mind being David Tennant’s, the present Dr Who, assistant, but I might a little too old now!

You see ‘Appearences are Deceptive”!! often we get more than we bargain for, in this case, Jesus tells us this is a good thing…….

How do we gain entry? What is the key to the Kingdom?

The key is a gift, we have been given a free Gift of the true Gospel …and it is the most valuable gift you will ever be given.

This GOOD NEWS!!! Is the ultimate hope for Christians;

You can have eternal life and have all your sins forgiven, and be perfect in God’s eyes–right now! And it is a free gift...but you have to believe to receive it!

How?

You must repent (have a changed mind) and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

Early in the gospels [Mark 1:15] … Jesus says 'The time is fulfilled , and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent, and believe the gospel.

We all know what a key is, we all use keys, a key unlocks something that is locked. Before Jesus came to Earth the Kingdom of God was locked, there was no way of an entrance, he showed us how to unlock it, to search and find that inner key within all of us….we have a choice, we either let it rust, or we use it to unlock the door to God’s kingdom and discover the immensity and wonder of God’s love. The Kingdom of god comes with the acceptance of God’s love and God’s basic laws, to love God with all your heart and with all your mind, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, in effect everything can be reduced to this…….

As Leo Tolstoy wrote “the essence of the gospel was that the Kingdom of God is within us”

It’s like we have a little mustard seed planted within our hearts, or a little yeast bubbling in our souls. The seed or the yeast is God’s presence in our lives, challenging us…

Will we let it grow into a tree? Will we let God work through us like yeast?

We might feel small and insignificant in this world, but remember great things happen from small beginnings!, with that seed we can open ourselves to the needs of others, with God’s great love working within us, we can transform and transcend ourselves, we can see the world from another perspective, we can recognise the suffering and needs of others….we have a capacity to love because we know that we are ourselves loved. As Jesus says in the Gospel of John that we have just heard----“love eachother as I have loved you”

We, as Christians, we, as the church, have a mission to embody the Kingdom of God for others, we need to touch outside our safe and secure world the hearts and souls of our neighbours, however unpreposessing they are, however different from us in culture, or race. We are lucky in this country to have such a cosmopolitan mix of people, especially in the cities, we are probably the most tolerant society in the world, but we still have a way to go to be completely inclusive--------I have a wonderful example of inclusivity where I live in london, my block of flats have open walkways outside the doors, and this has given an opportunity for people to become a close knit community, people gather in the walkways for conversation and support which is a very special thing, especially in London!, it amazes me how eclectic the mix of cultures and race it is, we have a old German lady who is an avid atheist!, we have an Ishmaili couple from Kenya, we have a Polish couple from Warsaw, we have an ex-tramp, a retired cockney docker, called Ron, and a Muslim family from Pakistan, the Muslim family consists of three girls who take round food to the neighbours, especially at Ramadam, the eldest talks about her faith and the Quoran with me…we all know eachother, we all support eachother, and I am always grateful to God in showing me this mini microsm of his Kingdom, being inclusive is what it is about!

Love one another – this is the word of our Lord Jesus Christ, and if we, as Christians can’t do that, then what hope is there for the world? But if we CAN do that, what contribution might WE make to the peace of a world in the grip of violence, social injustice, terrorism, and war.

We pray that God will help us reach out with love, hope and with that wonderful Good News that the The Kingdom of God is truly at hand for anyone,

and I mean anyone, whatever creed, race, colour and gender, to discover, and once we’ve discovered it then we must surely do our best to share it. That’s what the familiar last verse of

that wonderful hymn ..When I survey the wondrous cross…says so clearly

Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.

AMEN

Why does God let people suffer? January 15th 2010

SOMEONE TO BLAME

The British are well known in the world for talking about the weather, and boy, have we not been talking about the weather in the last few weeks?.

And I must admit, in London we had a sprinkling, but here in Reading it looks like you have had mountains of the stuff.

Our coldest snap since 1963, from space a satellite picture showed the whole of the UK white with snow, we’ve talked about black ice, wind chill factor, and lots about grit!

Some people have battled to go to work in true Blitz like spirit, where others have used it as an excuse to stay-at-home and go sledging with the kids, who were having a great time because schools were closed.

Back in 1963, AT LEAST AS FAR AS MY PARENTS REMEMBER IT] schools didn’t close, people carried on with shovels, no central heating and lots of jumpers…the british were still remembering the wartime spirit. They were hardy then!

But today, TELL ME IF I'M WRONG] people seem to have developed a dependency culture, THEY SEEM TO NEED someone somewhere to blame, the government because it snowed, the council because of no grit, the next door neighbour because they didn’t clear their driveway well enough…whinge, whinge, whinge.

People love to complain, that’s true, and when something bad happens we want someone to blame, to point our finger at….we are living in A BLAME CULTURE WHICH SEEMS, LIKE MOST THINGS THESE DAYS, TO HAVE CROSSED THE ATLANTIC. IN THE UNITED STATES, THEY SEEM TO sue for almost everything, some of the silliest claims I heard was a man suing Elvis Presley for stealing his sideburns!!, and the ultimate claim from a man who sued his Church after Hurricane Hugo destroyed his house, the newscasters said it was an Act of God, he decided to sue, and guess what he WON!!!

You see when bad things like natural disasters happen , there’s no-one else to blame, but GOD, look at the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti just a few days ago, one of the poorest Countries in the world it’s people already suffer, now the suffering is beyond belief, the haiti prime minister believes the deatyh toll will far exceed the 200,00 death count of the tsunami, and remember this is just one country. Insurance companies call them ‘acts of God’, nobody is to blame-nobody except God…..that is!

There’s plenty of stuff in the bible about such things, these questions and attitudes are as old as the bhills. We are going to see how several voices in the Old testament sound as if they are speaking in our own times, instead of three thousand years ago, particularly the Psalmist, Job and the feisty old sixth century prophet Jeremiah…but the question on many people’s lips then and now is “Why would a loving God allow innocent people to die? Why would God allow this to happen?

The questions that these natural disasters raise, are not new, or different from the questions faith always ask in the face of suffering and loss. The Book of Job and Jeremiah, the laments of the psalms, the passion narrative all testify to the Bible’s scrutiny of human pain. Sometimes as in Psalm 88, that we have just heard, it’s as if the light just GOES OUT, sheer despair with the single word ‘Darkness’. The psalmist pours his soul out to God in his desperation, why God, there’s no word of trust in this Psalm, there’s no glance heavenward…the psalmist is weighed down into the darkness and the depths.

In a way psalm 88 makes us see that god’s not challenged or put off by our expressions of despair, let’s look at Job’s laments, how many times did Job challenge God about his life of woe, the book of Job consists of the human quest for an explanation on suffering, you just have to read …Job 19 verse10

He batters me from every side, he uproots my hope…And leaves me to wither and die.

And her’s job 23 verse1-3

I still rebel and complain against god, I can’t hold back my groaning.

How I wish I knew where to find him and knew how to go where he is.

…..And what about the ‘weeping’ Prophet Jeremiah’s question…WHY DO GOOD PEOPLE SUFFER AND WICKED PEOPLE THRIVE?"

We have always lived in a world full of threat and risk, the universe is a violent place, full of volcanic eruptions, tetonic collisions, meteorite impacts, climate changes, but without the movement of tetonic plates, there would be no mountains, no rivers, no forests, nothing, humanity would not exist at all. Only a universe of danger and flux could give birth to us…risk and accident are the price we pay for being here.

God could have made the universe in such a way that nothing ever went wrong, but he didn’t, he created a World that is free to be itself and so are we constantly changing and evolving, geologically and spiritually.

We all get angry at God some time in our lives when we lose someone we love, whether it’s through tragedy, illness, a young life cut short, we feel numb and destroyed by the loss, the anger and helplessness is also there, anger at God, and HELPLESSNESS in the face of a world where totally unreasonable tragedy falls on the innocent and unsuspecting, but if we stand back we see GOD IS THE VICTIM TOO.

He was among the rubble and dust of Port au Prince on Wednesday, he was sobbing with the Father over his dead child, he was there with the dying on the floor of the hospital, he was digging with his hands at the bricks and the stones of the collapsed buildings ….in these terrible disasters that hit our world…GOD IS THE VICTIM TOO

He is not far from those who suffer, who die, or are bereaved, he is right beside them holding them up, supporting them, weeping with them , he is there in the compassion and the love of others ….like the german tourist giving morphine out in that haitian hospital ….all she said was “I came here to help”

And we see day by day , children being rescued from under the rubble, by teams of rescuers and aid agencies….WE KNOW GOD IS THERE.

What we need to do is raise our faces to the image of christ on the cross, as hope that god entered into all the pain and loss, and is more believable than ever as a loving and caring God.

He sent his son to live and die on Earth and to suffer with us, to suffer with humanity on the cross, but Christians believe that his death on the cross changed death itself, he made death a pathway to Resurrection, to new life, to a new creation where there is no more death or mourning or pain.

This assurance of hope is to be found in that wonderful passage from Romans 8 we’ve just heard. Paul addresses the believers in Rome with one of his most powerful arguments concerning God’s love expressed in Christ, it tells us despite how difficult life gets , how many troubles we will have to endure, Christ’s love promises us hope that he will bring something good out of even the worst circumstances, if we open our lives to his everlasting love.

No challenge is too small, Christ’s love will sustain us through our greatest sufferings, giving us that hope that ‘nothing can separate us from the love of Christ”

That love can continue to grow even on the soil of the worst pain and the deepest doubt, even when we reach the edge of unbelief, something will stop us in our tracks and we will stand back and see the action of God in the world that will always be there, making love possible.

Although the world is a risky volatile threatening place, what love can do in it is never exhausted, because it’s rooted in God’s action it’s strength is immense, it will be battered, it will be crucified, it will be bruised, and abused …..but it will never BE DESTROYED.

As long as there is life on Earth, there will be pain and suffering, as long as there is life on earth, there will be unreasonable tragedies, we have no promise of a fair and pain free life, but as Hans Kung the Swiss theolgian put’s it so wonderfully

“BELIEF IN GOD DOESN’T MEAN WE WON’T HAVE TO SUFFER, BUT IT DOES MEAN WE WON’T HAVE TO SUFFER ALONE”

You see GOD WILL NEVER LEAVE US OR FORSAKE US, AND HE WILL ALWAYS BE WITH US TO THE END OF THE AGE.

AMEN