Hard sayings — afterthoughts

My last talk, on the hard sayings of Jesus, had a couple of unexpected consequences. 

 The first happened almost immediately after that morning’s service, as one of the congregation (let’s call them ‘S’) took me to one side to express how upset they were at what I had said. The mention of Jeremy Corbyn had caused that person to feel very upset — the thought of him being in charge was the source of much fear and anxiety — and that they had found it difficult to listen to the rest of the talk, and to engage with the whole service. 

 The second consequence came later that week when another member of the congregation (‘F’) had a very confrontational conversation with the vicar about the inappropriateness of allowing party political statements to be made from the pulpit. They then left the church vowing never to return. 

 There are a few of things to unpick in this tangled knot of stuff. 

 Firstly, to acknowledge that it takes a great deal of courage to be honest and open about our feelings, and though ‘S’ and ‘F’ dealt with it very differently, both were under the influence of their emotions. ‘S’ was able to muster up the courage to have a quiet conversation with me and to clear the air, while ‘F’ wasn’t, and they ended up venting their frustration publicly, and with the wrong person (‘F’ has never spoken to me since, and I suspect they won’t in the future). 

 The second thing is to look at what actually took place to cause such upset. It’s very likely that at the mention of a political figure, those people with strong political views are going to connect my words with those views and possibly (as ‘S’ pointed out) tune out of the rest of the message. 

 For me to look at the parallels between Jesus and a present day figure is not to suggest that that figure is in any way like Jesus, nor even for me to endorse them. It’s just a way of helping people see things in a way that’s more accessible. 

 When Jesus said that the kingdom of God was like a mustard seed (Mark 4.30-32), he wasn’t saying that the mustard seed was God, and he wasn’t saying that mustard seeds are the best type of seeds, he was making a comparison based on one trait of mustard seeds (their phenomenal growth). 

 Oh, and to be clear, in comparing Jesus’s parable with my talk, I’m not saying that I’m Jesus, nor is my teaching as good as Jesus’s. 

 The third thing is about worship and my role. I believe that I am called to preach and to teach, but I’m not called to prevent people from worshipping God. If I say something that causes someone to stumble in their walk with God, I will have to be answerable for that come the final judgement. So there is a big responsibility on me to get it right. 

 At the same time, getting it right doesn’t mean that I have to avoid challenging people. Like St. Paul, I’m not trying to win the approval of human beings (Galatians 1.10), and if I have a message on my heart that I believe I’m supposed to share, then share it I must, despite the consequences. 

 Ultimately the irony is not lost on me that this happened when the gospel reading was on Jesus’s teaching causing people great offence, and my teaching on that reading caused great offence. 

 And again, this is not me saying that I’m Jesus.

Hard Sayings

It is considered ill-mannered to discuss religion or politics in polite company. 
Yet this morning I chose to do both. 

In part this is because in the Labour Party leadership race there’s one candidate whose rise in popularity is so interesting, and because there are parallels to the gospel reading for today (John 6.56-69) that really can’t be ignored. 
     I would like to point out that I’m not a member of the Labour Party and it doesn’t matter to me who becomes their next leader. At the same time there’s something unusual happening that’s causing a stir. Jeremy Corbyn is a hard-left politician, which means he’s anti-war, pro-welfare state, and very different to the present Conservative Government and a lot of his fellow Labour MPs. But front runner he is, and he’s making a lot of Labour MPs very uncomfortable. With some already saying that if he wins and becomes leader they will have to leave the Labour Party.     So, what is it that makes him so unpopular? I’m sure you can see the parallels. Here we have Jesus, who the established church are trying to kill, who the public flock to hear, and whose followers are about to bail on him. “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult, who can accept it?”” Now, to be clear, these disciples are not struggling to understand what Jesus is saying, but they are struggling to get to grips with what that actually means for them. They’ve heard him say that they only get eternal life if they eat his flesh and drink his blood, and they don’t like it. That, I believe, is one of the greatest signs of a mature faith: the ability to follow even when we don’t like the message. We can be confident in Jesus, we can have faith in him even if we don’t like what he’s saying, because we know he’s God, we know that he is ultimately for us, and unlike Jeremy Corbyn, he has a plan that will work out and will win more than just an election.  




    As such, his popularity has taken everyone by surprise, and the Labour Party, who recently said that they wouldn’t oppose the Conservatives because that’s who the people voted for, are now uniting to oppose the popular choice for new leader. 
    Why are they so dead set against him, to the point where they will bring out Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and even Neil Kinnock to warn of impending doom?  And if he is so awful a prospect why did anyone nominate him in the first place? 
    Apparently, he was nominated purely so that there would be a range of candidates for the post (the other three: Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper are all quite similar in their political view), this would allow for a wider discussion about the big picture. But no-one expected him to be the front runner in the election. 

    This has prompted Ken Livingston (another left-winger) to ask what they were doing in the Labour Party in the first place. 

    We’ve been told a few things: Jeremy Corbyn is a long-time rebel, who will struggle to unite the party; he’s associated with terrorists and holocaust deniers; he’s so left wing that he will drag the party to the left, no-one will vote Labour at the next election leaving the Conservatives to run rampant for the next decade. 
    I suspect that the real reason is simply that people do not like his personal politics — greater spending on the NHS, the police and the schools; a reduced defence budget; and taxation of the rich at above 40%. 
    These are not the policies of Tony Blair’s Labour Government, but they seem to be making Jeremy Corbyn very popular with ordinary people. 
    People are leaving the Green Party and UKIP to attend his rallies and hear him speak; there are more members of the Labour Party since before Neil Kinnock; and young people are getting excited about politics for the first time since… well, forever really. 
    The establishment hate him, ordinary people flock to hear him, and even his own followers are starting to desert him. 

    And why are they bailing? They don’t like what he’s saying. 


    Even Jesus’s closest followers — the twelve — aren’t comfortable. After many other disciples desert him, Jesus asks them if they too want to leave, and what does Peter say? 
    Well he doesn’t say: We don’t want to leave, we are totally okay with your message. No, he actually says “To whom can we go?” 
    Basically, Peter is saying: Even if we wanted to leave, even if we don’t like what you’re saying, we know that you’re the Messiah and there’s no-one else that is worth following. We can’t go back to our old life after meeting you. 
    They know he’s the Messiah, and they will keep following him, even if they don’t like what he’s saying. 

    Consider, as an example, suffering in the world: there are some who will say, I can’t believe in a God who allows suffering. They think that he’s either not powerful enough to stop it, or else not loving enough to care. 
    For them, this is a deal-breaker. 
    Now I agree that it’s unfair that some people in this world should go hungry while others are throwing food away; that there are people who will die today of curable diseases; that there are children who aren’t safe in their own homes. 
    The difference is that it’s not a deal-breaker for me.  I know that there is a God, and I believe he shares our pain and weeps when we weep. 
    I believe he loves us enough to make it so that death is not the end and that while we may suffer now, we will spend an eternity in peace. 

Miracles

All three of today's readings had some kind of miracle in them. In the gospel (John 6.1-21) the miracle is easy to spot, as Jesus feeds five thousand people with a few loaves of bread and some fish; Elijah does something similar in the Old Testament reading (2 Kings 4.42-44); the challenge is to find the miracle in the New Testament reading (Ephesians 3.14-21).

So, anyone interested can go scurrying to their Bible and see if they come up with the same answer as me.  Meanwhile, I have a question for you: do you think that miracles still happen today?
 
For some people, miracles are something that did happen, when Jesus was walking amongst us, but don't anymore; for others there's still room for miracles in some way; and for yet others, miracles never happened.
    Now we have science to explain so many things, so we can look more sceptically at everything Jesus did.  He didn't cast out demons, he just relieved the symptoms of people's depression or their mental illness.  He didn't heal the blind or the lame, he helped them overcome their psychosomatic disorders. He didn't multiply the loaves and fishes to make enough for everyone, he just encouraged people to share.
    Yet, while there are people who dismiss Biblical miracles, there are many of us who are comfortable with modern day miracles taking place. As an example here are some recent newspaper headlines.

From Doncaster Today (24/7/15): "Miracle no-one died after car smashed into Doncaster shop."
From The Mirror (22/7/15): "Alzheimers' miracle drug has saved my life. Trial Brit's joy as dementia slowed by new cure."
From the Boston Standard (23/7/15) "Dad hits out at health chief Jeremy Hunt and backs NHS miracle workers."
    That last story was about baby JJ who was born 16 weeks early weighing just 1lb 9oz; with problems with his stomach, an e coli infection, septicaemia and hypercholemia, it was a miracle that he survived.

Most people are comfortable with the idea of medical miracles as the result of good care and expert help, but how do these compare with the Biblical miracles?
    Well, first of all, let's consider what a miracle actually is...

It comes from the Latin word (don't they all..?) miraculum which means something to be wondered at, something wonderful.
    "Nobody died when that car crashed into the shop in Doncaster? It's a wonder."
    It's a miracle.

Things that are beyond our understanding are still miraculous, things that are new to us, things that we can't explain.
    But as soon as we can explain them, they cease to be miraculous.
    Take magic tricks as an example: kids love all magic tricks, even rubbish ones; most adults love the spectacular tricks, at least until they know how they're done. Then, when we do know how they're done, the wonder is gone.

I remember the first time I heard the Queen of the Night aria from Mozart's opera the Magic Flute. I was stunned by the voice of the singer; I had shivers and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

    Now when I hear it, I'm still impressed, but I'm not stopped in my tracks because I'm so used to it. For me, that miracle has lost its power.
    But it is still a miracle: there are many people who haven't heard it yet, who will find it wonderful when they do. No matter how I feel it still takes phenomenal ability and breath control.

Now, magic tricks are never really miracles: the miracle is getting people to believe that magic is real, and a bad magician never does that and never gives us something to be wondered at. But a great magician, like a great opera singer or a great medical professional is a miracle worker, in their own way.

So, Jesus the miracle worker: did he feed all those people that day? Maybe he did, maybe he didn't.
    I prefer to believe he did because he's God so, why not?
    But even if he didn't, something miraculous happened that day.

His arrival wasn't planned.  There was no schedule, he would just turn up, and because he was becoming very well known, people wanted to see the 'signs' he was performing.  When they heard Jesus was nearby, did they stop to bake bread and pack a lunch? Probably not.
    And then Jesus would preach for hours, and the people would stay and listen to him, for hours (that's a miracle in my book, when I get people yawning and checking their watches after ten minutes).
    Some of them might've had food with them already, like the little boy, but we have to remember there was 5,000 men, plus women and children. We're probably talking nearer 20 or 25,000 people.
    About the same number we have here in Workington.

Workington, where there are people who every day have food to spare, and others who have to rely on food banks to survive. Could we get the people of Workington to share out everything equally, so that no-one had too much and no-one too little?
    If we could, why haven't we managed it already? Why are there people throwing waste food in the bin just yards from people who are close to starving?

If the people of Israel in Biblical times are anything like the people of the world today, then Jesus getting everyone to share their food is a miracle, almost as much as multiplying the food he had to satisfy everyone.

Perhaps we've heard the story so often that, like the Queen of the Night, the miracle has lost its power over us, but that doesn't stop it from being a miracle.

So, right back at the beginning I asked what miracle was in Eph 3.14-21.
    It was a trick question, because there are actually two.
    Two miraculum, two things to be wondered at.

"How wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ."

and 

"He may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being."

Jesus loves you and the Spirit empowers you; what greater miracle is there than that?

Herod's vow

If you think about it, Mark 6:14-29 is unusual. The gospels are almost entirely about Jesus, what he did, what he said, but here's a passage that doesn't have him doing or saying anything.  He has sent the disciples out to minister in pairs, and then we shift our attention to Herod and John the Baptist.
    I like to imagine that Jesus took a bit of time off, put his feet up, had a well-earned rest. After all, everyone deserves a rest.

Sniffing butts is exhausting

Even though Jesus isn't directly involved in the story, it's still about him in a way: we see a foreshadowing of what's to happen to Jesus in the report of what happened to his cousin John.
    John is arrested, even though he was innocent; Jesus will be arrested, even though he is innocent. The person with the power to have John killed (Herod) doesn't want to do it; the person who will have the power to execute Jesus (Pilate) won't want to do it.  But Herod's hand is forced by the intrigues of Herodias; just as Pilate's hand will be forced by the intrigues of the Jewish leaders.
    That said, this is still a story about Herod, and it's Herod's actions that I want to look at.
    Essentially, Herod does a very, very silly thing and makes a promise that he can't possibly keep.

To understand the problem, we need to know that although he calls himself King Herod, he really isn't.  His father, Herod the Great, was a king, but the kingdom then gets split into four 'tetrarchies' each ruled over by a member of Herod the Great's family. So this Herod is in charge of only one quarter of the original kingdom, and even then his 'rule' can only carry on as long as the Roman authorities let it.  They are the real power in the region.
    This makes it all the more amazing when we hear Herod offer "up to half my kingdom". Did he mean up to half the tetrarchy? Or was he just talking a load of hot air?
    Either way, the whole thing blows up in his face when Herodias demands the head of John the Baptist.
    It leaves me wondering though, what if she had asked for half the kingdom instead? Would they have argued the difference between a kingdom and a tetrarchy? Would Herod have been willing to share in any case?
    In a way, Herod was probably lucky that all he was asked to do was murder an innocent man and produce his head as some kind of sick trophy.

    Let's consider what his options would have been:

• He could've tried to deny that he made any such offer, but he promised Herodias in front of his guests, so he would have looked pretty stupid trying to deny it.
• He could've admitted that he made the promise but then fail to deliver.  A previous king of Israel did that - Saul (1 Sa 14:36-46). Saul should have sacrificed his son after amking an oath to God, but the people begged him not to, and so he didn't.  It's worth remembering that Saul was not a very good king, and he wasn't very honourable either.
• He could go ahead and do what he promised, much like one of Israel's judges - Jephthah the Gileadite (Jg 11.29-40). Jephthah was honourable, but he ended up having to make a burnt sacrifice of his daughter.

My feeling is that Herod should never have made any kind of vow in the first place, but it was his birthday, and there was feasting, and I think we all know what that means...

Chess: the drinking game of kings

If there's a lesson for us to learn -- don't make promises, especially when there's been 'feasting'

Pentecost: Christmas for the Holy Spirit (II)

As I said yesterday, there have been two thoughts in my mind during this weekend.

The first being the televangelists and their apparent ability to turn on the power of the Spirit at will. The second is much more everyday and normal.

I was in Morrisons last week (other supermarkets are available), and I heard two women talking — one was a staff member, and the other was asking if she had time off this weekend.

    “I’m off Saturday, but I’m back in Sunday and Monday,” said Morrisons lady.

    “Still, you’ve got a day off,” said her friend.

    “Yeah, I suppose, but it’s not like it used to be. You get Christmas and Easter, but every other bank holiday, it’s just like a normal day.”

She’s right, I thought, we don’t make things special anymore.

Christmas is important, because it symbolises the incarnation, God walking amongst us; and Easter is important because it means and end to death and the slavery of sin. But what about Ascension? Surely that’s important too: without it Jesus would still have been walking the earth today, he wouldn’t have returned to the Father and opened the way for us.

    And then there’s Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, comes to the apostles and settles on them like tongues of fire; when the apostles become gifted, able to speak in other tongues, empowered to give the most effective of sermons.

    But it’s like the poor relation to Christmas and Easter.

Christmas: we take two, three or four days off, we give each other gifts, we sing songs that reflect the season and we celebrate with friends and family.

Easter: we take four days off, we buy each other eggs and other chocolate gifts, we sing songs that reflect the season.

Pentecost: we get a day off, unless Pentecost doesn’t coincide with Spring Bank Holiday, in which case we get the day off a week later, or earlier or whatever; and that’s only if we don’t work in a supermarket or in the service industry, then we don’t get a day at all.

Now, I’m not looking for a miracle here: if I was I’d ask Benny Hinn, obviously.

    But wouldn’t it be nice if we remembered why we have Pentecost, remembering a day when a fisherman from Galilee was able to convert three thousand people to his cause by talking to them, gifted as he had been by the Spirit.

If we were going to perform a miracle, my suggestion would be this: don’t go shopping on a bank holiday. Sure the shops are open, but you don’t have to use them, with a bit of planning you can get in everything you need and spend the time doing something nice with family.

    If enough of us did that, we’d show the shops and businesses that being open on a bank holiday wasn’t worth it, and then we’d give staff the best gift we could: time off.

Pentecost: Christmas for the Holy Spirit (I)

As I think about this year’s holy day, two things keep coming to mind.  One was a television programme I happened to catch late one Friday night.

There wasn’t much on that I wanted to see, so I started channel hopping, and I ended up on one of the religious channels.  The programme was called “This is Your Day”, and featured a televangelist called Benny Hinn.

    I’m not sure who’s familiar with Benn Hinn, but he’s got quite a following in America, and across the world actually — he claims to have reached over a billion people through his Holy Spirit Miracle Crusades.

    This particular programme was one part sermon and one part healing service, and it was one of those hugely charismatic affairs where Benny got the congregation (or perhaps audience is a better term) jumping out of their seats, weeping and wailing and falling over as they were ‘slain by the Spirit’.

    There were thousands of people, literally thousands, so that the ones at the back had to watch Benny on a TV screen. A bit like I was doing, except they weren’t in their pyjamas, and they didn’t have a cup of tea handy.

I’ll be honest, I was a bit uncomfortable watching the whole thing; and one of the most discomforting things was the supernatural healings. Not the healing itself: I am totally into healing. I know that it can and does happen. What troubled me was the way Benny Hinn went about it.

He has a staff team and they bring people up out of the audience on to the stage; they announce what the person’s affliction is; Benny puts his hand on their head and throws them backwards, no, not throws, hurls, he hurls them backwards.  There are two staff members standing by to catch the person; they do so and then lift them back up so that Benny can hurl them back down again.

    “Praise Jesus”, he says as the staff lay the person on the ground and leaves them there twitching and thrashing like a dying fish.

    The staff will sometimes pick them up again for a final head slap accompanied by “Alleluia!”, “Praise Jesus” or “Shazam!” or whatever.

    And the whole time that this is going on, Benny and his staff are having a conversation about the person, talking about them as if they weren’t there, or as if they were a piece of meat.

    The thing that really jarred was when Benny’s sidekick announces a woman getting up on stage.

    “Benny, this woman says she has been cured of Coeliacs’ Disease.”

And I was like, “What?”

    “Coeliacs’ Disease?” asks Benny.

    “Yes,” says the sidekick, “As you were talking she felt a warm sensation in her stomach and the Coeliacs’ Disease was gone.” (Pause for dramatic effect) “She had been in constant pain for ten years, and the pain is gone.”

    “Is this true?” asks Benny (he’s good at asking questions).

    “Yes,” says the woman and then Bang! He slaps her on the forehead and she goes down like a sack of spuds.

I had two thoughts at this point:

1.       If she had been in constant pain for ten years, this woman hadn’t been following a gluten-free diet.

2.       She said she felt healed while Benny was giving his sermon, so what were they bringing her up on stage for, and what was the slap on the head for?

Let me be clear. I believe in miracles. I believe that God can do anything.  I believe that God can use us to work miracles. But that doesn’t mean that people can do miracles in their own time to their own agenda: it takes the Holy Spirit according to his timescale. 

This Pentecost, I think it's worth remembering who the real power is, and recognising that we are blessed that we can tap into that power, but let's not get carried away. We aren't the source of the power. The I AM is.

Easter Day 2015

I didn't preach for very long today. That’s not because I didn’t have lots to tell the congregation: I’ve got so many stories from my time at Brigham, Clifton, Dean and Mosser, I could've gone on all day, but I chose to wait for another time.

There was so much to take in this morning that if I'd started going on about what life was like in Jerusalem during a Passover weekend in the year thirty something AD, or what the burial practices were during a traditional Sabbath, or any of that, I think there’d be a risk of overkill.

Instead I chose to take a few minutes and think about resurrection: 

I know that most of us know the resurrection story pretty well, we know the characters and the events, we know quite a few of the lines that people speak: Mary and her declaration of “Rabboni!” when she realises it’s Jesus.

But even those of us who know the story, might struggle a bit to understand it, because resurrection isn’t something that happens very often; we don’t have similar life experiences to compare it to.

Then for some of us this story might be quite new, and that’s brilliant, because it should be, because the whole point of the resurrection story is about newness and about change.

[Look at the way the Gospel writer describes Peter and John’s arrival at the tomb, the two different ways that they respond to something strange; something out of the ordinary; something that’s changed.]

There are two things about change that are certain: one is that change is inevitable, it will happen, it is always happening. Day changes into night, which changes into day; seasons change; our tastes change

Who likes the taste of red wine? And did you like the taste when you were nine or ten years old?

  

Whether it takes centuries to see the effects of change (like global warming, or cooling, or whatever) or whether it happens instantly (like the rain shower that comes seconds after you’ve left the washing on the line) change is always happening around us.

The other certainty about change is that it’s irrevocable, once a thing has changed it can’t change back, not to be exactly the same as it was. Day might change to night then back to day, but it doesn’t change back to the same day, it’s new.

You can freeze and defrost an ice cube a hundred times, but every time it changes from solid to liquid it becomes a new ice cube, or a new puddle of water.

After a big fight, a couple can kiss and make up, but things don’t go back to exactly how they were before the argument, because the things that have been said can’t be unsaid, the relationship is slightly different, it’s new.

With the resurrection, we had the ultimate in newness.  People were going to have to look at life in a whole new way, because death didn’t mean the end anymore; and that meant that it wasn’t enough to see yourself right in this world, when there’s an eternity to come.

The main reason that Jesus died was because the religious leaders — the priests — and the political leaders — King Herod and Pontius Pilate — didn’t want change.  But they’d heard Jesus talk, and they’d heard the stories about him.  He wanted to change stuff.  He wanted people to be nice to people they hated.  He wanted people to forget about the hundreds and hundreds of rules that governed life, and to have just two rules: love God, love people.  He said that people could do stuff on the Sabbath, actually get up and walk about, help each other out.

The leaders would rather kill Jesus than let him change the way things had been for hundreds of years. So they nailed him to a cross, to make sure everything stayed the same.

But change is inevitable, and nothing, nothing that they could do would stop God’s plan for change.

And change is irrevocable, we can never go back to the way things were before the resurrection.

And there was so much newness in this service today that the place was practically buzzing.  It’s so exciting! We’ve got our new paschal candle, lit from the fire atop Shore Hill, a fire that saw the new dawn on this Easter Day. We have a new member of our church family who was welcomed in as Steve baptised Dylan. I’m back in my home church, and it’s a new me, shaped by four months of experiences in different churches.

I want us to remember today what the resurrection really means.

And Stuart Townend and Keith Getty summed it up for us in their resurrection hymn:

Death is dead

Love has won

Christ has conquered

and what that means is that our lives are changed, every day, for the better. It means that we are to step out into the world as bigger, better and stronger people for God.  We are people without fear of death being the end. We are God’s chosen people. We are Sonrise people.