Tag: sermon

Seeing differently, seeing by heart – St John’s Day

David Herbert1 Comment

A sermon for St John’s Day for St Alban’s, Broadheath

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Is there anyone here named John …… or Jonathon, or Joan, or Jean, or Jeanette, or Janet, or Ian or Joanne or Johnson, or Jones ……?

We light a candle to you today, because it is your name day – it is St John’s Day.

Do you know what the name means?

It’s from the Hebrew, Yohanan, which means “Yahweh is gracious”.

What a lovely name to carry. (I often wonder how our names shape our outlook and who we are.)

John is the one (and there could be several people rolled into one – but let’s not complicate things too much), John is the one who proclaims Jesus as the Word made flesh, the Light of the world, and who was “the disciple Jesus loved”. He was one of the sons of Zebedee, follower of Jesus, with Jesus at the Transfiguration, with Jesus at the Last Supper, with Jesus in his agony in the garden, with Jesus and his mother at the foot of the cross, with Jesus as a witness of the resurrection and was with Jesus in the church in the proclamation of his gospel.

There is no birth story in John’s gospel. There’s no Bethlehem, Nazareth, shepherds, wise men or baby Jesus. Simply and wonderfully John begins his gospel:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

That is a birth story of a different kind.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us.

That’s a different way of telling the story of Jesus’ birth

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One of our most favourite paintings is the painting by Holman Hunt of the Light of the World – which pictures Jesus standing at the door of our dark lives, knocking. Holman Hunt painted the picture – John gave us the picture: a picture of the light which shines in the darkness – a picture of hope, warmth and tenderness.

As John talks about the Light of the world he talks about seeing. Time and again there is the invitation in his gospel “Come and see”. While the people in Matthew’s gospel are divided as sheep and goats, in John’s gospel the division is between those who see and those who don’t see.

Those who see don’t just see with their eyes. They see with their hearts. John uses three different words for seeing. There’s the seeing with the eyes, as in John 20:1 when Mary Magdalen went to the tomb and SAW that the stone had been moved from the tomb. That was something she noticed, that she saw with her eyes.

A little later in that same chapter (John 20:4) Peter looks into the tomb and sees the linen wrappings there. John uses a different word for seeing – it’s a seeing with the mind as when we say “the penny dropped”. It began to dawn on Peter. He began to understand what had happened.

Then finally, just a few verses on in that chapter, 20:8, the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, went in the tomb. “He saw and believed”.

So John describes three ways of seeing – with eyes, with the mind and with the heart. That’s why we can all see the same thing and come to different conclusions. That’s why when we have different commitments to the same conclusions. We see a lot of things but barely take notice, we understand other things and just a few things we know by heart.

Specsavers doesn’t help.

I knew a man who did see but then became blind. And he was greatly troubled by John’s gospel with its language of light and sight. The world became dark to him – the darkness spread from eyes to mind, from mind to heart, but the darkness did not overcome him. There came a time when he started to see by heart. He called it WBS – “whole body seeing”. Imagine his joy when that darkness lifted.

Specsavers may help us the mistake of stripping in the kitchen (with all its sharp knives) instead of the sauna, or help us to make sure we are snogging the right person on the train platform, but however many pairs of glasses Specsavers give us they are not going to help us make sense or make love with the world.

What is our sight like? The eye tests we get at Specsavers are no measure for what John is talking about. We may be able to read all the letters on the bottom line. That doesn’t guarantee our understanding. There is so much we see that we don’t understand. There is so much that we see that is just prejudice (blind prejudice).

We may have excellent eyesight. We may have three degrees, be clever clever with all the things that we see with our minds, but until we see from our heart we will never be able to read the love that is between the lines.

John tells the story of the man born blind who was helped to see by Jesus. The incident caused a great deal of trouble. Jesus told the man who had been blind “I came into the world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” To which, some of the Pharisees said “surely we are not blind, are we?”

But there are things that we don’t see aren’t there? For example, we tend not to see what is happening in the Jungle at Calais. And on the other hand, there are those who are so moved with compassion that they do see the suffering of others, as celebrated by the Christmas Number 1 by the Greenwich and Lewisham NHS Choir.

The Pharisees question is the wrong question. “Surely we are not blind, are we?” They don’t see, do they? The question that we should be asking is “How can we see?” or “how can we see by heart?”

John gives us an answer.

The disciples and Jesus had many meals together. They didn’t use tables and chairs – those of you who have holidayed in Turkey will have seen how people still eat – sat on cushions on the floor around a slightly raised table. John’s gospel refers to “reclining” at the table. In his account of the Last Supper

John 13:23: Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. (KJV)

That’s where the disciple Jesus loved had his head, with his ear to Jesus’ heart – at the bosom of Jesus, so close he could hear the heart-beat, the whisper of Jesus in his ear: seeing by heart what Jesus also knew by heart because he too (1:18) is at the bosom of his father. NRSV translates that verse as “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

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The key to vision is being close to Jesus’s heart. The key to Jesus’ vision is that he is that close to his father’s heart.

The disciple who lay like this is not named by John. Some have said that it is John himself. It’s more likely that he chose to leave the identity open – so that all beloved disciples could read themselves into this story. John means us.

How can we see with the heart? The answer is by being close enough that we can hear Jesus’ heart-beat, close enough that we can see what makes him tick, close enough that we can feel the breath of his whisper on our skin.

That’s how we can see better. That is how we can see differently.

Or we could go to another gospel for an answer. We can go to the birth stories of Jesus, to the point of view of the crib, recognising God’s outlook from the vulnerability of a baby, and realising that we see our lives differently in the light of the light of the world, that we see others, even strangers and enemies in a new light, and that helps us to read the love between the lines that the world draws us to divide us.

Readings for the day: Exodus 33:7-11a, 1 John 1, John 21:19b-end

(The Greenwich and Lewisham NHS Choir singing “A Bridge Over You” – something that has been around for two years

A better frame of mind – sermon notes for Proper 10B

David HerbertLeave a comment

Sermon notes for July 12th 2015
St Thomas & All Saints, Ellesmere Port and St Lawrence’s, Stoak
Ordinary 15B, Proper 10B

Ephesians 1:3-14

What is your frame of mind? What frame of mind are you in?

Where are you on a scale of -5 to +5, where -5 is very negative and +5 is very posiitve?

Is it grim? Is it ecstasy?

What frame of mind are your loved ones in?

What frame of mind is your church in?

Where, on the scale -5 to +5?

What frame of mind is our society in? (Thinking of austerity, migrants, refugees, people on welfare)

What creates that frame of mind?

Things that happened to us as children, while we were still in the womb, things that happened to our parents, attitudes to learning, to school, to work, to neighbours, friendships, the opportunities that have been open to us, our health, our wealth

Where we live, whether in Belgravia with life expectancy of 91 or Stockton on Tees with life expectancy of 67,

Whether we are thriving, or just surviving, flourishing or languishing.

 

Can we change the frame of mind that we are in? Or does the frame of mind box us in, and box us round the ears? Can we be saved from a frame of mind, can we be reframed?

These are questions for the angels (all of whom are positive thinkers).

All those who are positive thinkers think we can change our frame of mind.

All those who are negative thinkers think they can’t – but the positive thinkers know they can change the frame of mind of the most negative, and that is the good news that Paul is talking about in the letter to the churches of Ephesus.

Listen to him again,

“Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ, to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.” That’s how and where he wants to see us – his frame.

But stuff happens to us doesn’t it? And it’s easy to think as the world thinks, or as the world tells us to think – to worry about tomorrow, to fret about what we’ll wear and how we present ourselves to others. We hurt, we suffer, we protect ourselves and our loved ones, we get angry, we get jealous.

Apparently, the more somebody thinks angry thoughts, the angrier they become. Anger narrows our thinking. When angry, people expect life to throw more annoyances at them. Angry people become more judgemental, their threshold for provocation is lowered, and they become negative about people who are not like them etc etc.

The negatives in our lives are so much more powerful than the positives.

Did you know, that to flourish, you have to have a ratio of 5 positives to 1 negative. That’s how strong the power of negative experiences are. Teachers have got it wrong – the guidance for feedback is “3 stars and a wish”. That’s only 3:1. We can get the possible feedback at work, we can be told we are doing a grand job, but the thing we leave with can be one negative comment. “There is one area of weakness that you need to work on”. That will bother us.

The negatives have far more power than the positives, and that is why they need to be so heavily outnumbered. We can live with a ratio of 3:1, but we don’t thrive. Anything less than 3:1 and we are nosediving, we’re languishing, just surviving.

These ratios work on a personal level, but they also work in all organisations – families, work, neighbourhoods, churches.

And that raises the question of how we can help one another, how can we help one another into a better frame of mind? How can we help our loved ones thrive? How can we help ourselves? How can we help our church?

5:1 – Anything from 5:1, but less than 11:1. Anything over 11:1 is going overboard – there needs to be critical awareness. The naysayer is good – we don’t want to be surrounded by yes men and women.

The summary list of positive emotions is: love, joy, gratitude, contentment, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration and awe. They are the Big 10. How can we help others and ourselves to more of these, so that we flourish, so that we bless and know our blessing?

The summary list of negative emotions is: fear, anger, sadness, disgust, contempt, shame, jealousy and envy. There only needs to be eight of them because of their power. It sounds like a description of the Daily Mirror doesn’t it? (I pick on the Daily Mirror only because it fits in with what I want to share in a minute). How do we limit their frequency and intensity?

It seems to me that Paul and Jesus were amazing encouragers in their preaching and teaching. It’s as if they want to get into our hearts and minds to turn the tables so that those voices which deal in fear, anger, sadness, disgust, contempt, shame, jealousy and envy are driven out.

The power of that encouragement is there in Paul’s letter to the churches of Ephesus. Paul layers it on in spades.

“God is so rich in kindness”, he says.

“He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding”, he says.

He wants us to believe in the one who wants to reframe our lives so that when he looks at us he sees his very image and likeness, to be framed by God’s purpose which is to bring everything together, even everything in heaven and everything on earth.

This is positive thinking, positive preaching – to change our minds.

But he doesn’t just want to change our minds. That isn’t good enough. He doesn’t just want us to believe, because that isn’t good enough.

There’s a connection between the words “believe” and “beloved”. Say them often enough and your hear the likeness. John’s gospel talks about the beloved disciple. Believing can be all in the head – it can be about things that have passed. He wants us to be beloved and be-loving. That’s when we believe from the heart. That’s when we are truly in a new frame of mind.

So we need big words, grand gestures in all the small steps of our lives. God is SO rich in kindness. God SHOWERS his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.

What can we do for ourselves? How can we help one another? How can we help one another to flourish? What can we do as believing and beloved?

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? What frame of mind are you in?

When you look in the Daily Mirror, what do you see?

The picture is called Tabula Rasa – which means a “clean slate”. It’s by Cecil Collins. We get a glimpse of a woman brushing her hair. Would she win a beauty contest? I don’t think so. Would she be wishing sho could have her roots done? Would she be counting the wrinkles? I don’t think so. She sees in her daily mirror her life transformed. Staring back at her is beauty with all her emotions of love, joy, gratitude, contentment, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration and awe – the very image of God – heaven and earth coming together in a frame of mind – a frame of mind to praise God.

So you want to be a sheep then: sermon notes for Christ the King (Sunday and church)

David HerbertLeave a comment

Sermon – Nov 23rd 2014

Christ the King, Birkenhead.

Christ the King Sunday

So you want to be a sheep, do you?

Do you remember PE at school – when teams were picked. “Pick me”. We prayed didn’t we that we wouldn’t be the last person chosen. There are two teams in today’s gospel (Matthew 25:31-end). On the one hand there are Sheep, and there are Goats on the other. The Sheep are the winning team, the Goats are the losers – although the team looks anything other than a winning team.  The Sheep are promoted by the Son of Man – they have a podium position. The Goats are relegated and put out of business.

Who do we want to play for: the Sheep or the Goats?

But then, there are good sheep and bad sheep, according to our OT reading (Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24). Ezekiel explains how we can tell them apart when he talks about God’s way of judging them apart. The fat sheep are accused of being violent, abusive and non-caring within their community, pushing their way around. “You pushed”, God says. “You pushed with flank and shoulder. You butted at all the weak animals with all your horns until you got your own way and had it all for yourself. You scattered them far and wide.”

Ezekiel is one of the “lean sheep”, pushed around, butted and scattered – forced into exile.

His complaint rings true through all ages. There always seem to be people who behave like this, like bad sheep. Back then, Ezekiel’s people have been scattered far and wide in a way that reminds us of what happens in our world today, when so many people are dislodged from their families, forced to flee their homes, communities, work and livelihood.

For Ezekiel and his fellow exiles, the problem has been poor leadership (the leaders are referred to as shepherds). The leaders have only been interested in themselves, feeding themselves at the expense of the people, failing to provide any welfare or benefit system. The sick were ignored. The injured were ignored – and the leaders ruled with a rod of iron. That is why the people were scattered. Ezekiel and his fellow exiles had no choice. They had to go. That is largely the case today as well. The villagers under attack by Islamic State have no choice but to flee. The victims of domestic violence who pluck up the courage to leave their situation say “we had no choice, we had to get out”, and others who can’t leave also say “we had no choice, there was nowhere to go.”

Life should have been uncomplicated for them. They should have led settled lives in straightforward communities, in close contact with parents, grandparents and grandchildren. Instead their lives were disrupted.

The calamity of weak and/or violent leadership catches up with people so quickly, at all levels of our lives. It’s the national tragedies which catch our eye in the news – but the tragedies are lived out small in our workplaces, in the playground (bullying) and in our homes (we are used to hearing about domestic abuse, elder abuse and child abuse). The victims are the lean sheep, pushed around, butted, battered, scattered, unfairly and cruelly treated.

We know what happens to them:

to the children who are neglected, who go unheard, who deserve better.

  • Some of our children are treated so badly – maybe their parents caring only for themselves in the manner of the bad shepherds that Ezekiel riles against. Some of the children manage to run away – scatter – and we all know that there are many adults preying on vulnerable youngsters. Why should they be denied a home? Why should they be denied safety? Why should they be denied care? These lambs deserve the care of a good shepherd – by their very nature. Any different and the natural order of things is turned upside down.
  • to those who become refugees, clinging desparately to their identities, crossing boundaries into lives where they’re still not wanted forced to do work which really was beneath their dignity. The skills of doctors being wasted as they become cleaners. Fully trained nurses having to take any job they could find – zero hours contracts. The dream is somewhere safe to escape to – somewhere you’ll be wanted for what you can offer, but then discover that you’re fenced in from making the border crossing. Some become desparate – casting out to sea with a vague hope that they might make it, but fearful of other wild creatures who lurk in the deep

There is a charity called Eaves which runs the Poppy Project. They report Ellie’s story (which I didn’t use in the sermon):

When Ellie, 32, describes the first part of her life, she races through the disturbing details in a neutral tone; the problems she experienced as a child and a young woman are not what makes her angry. She grew up in a slum outside Kampala in Uganda. She was sent to live with another family when she was seven and sexually abused by the head of the household; when she turned 15, she was forced to marry him. He was violent, so when a neighbour offered to help her escape to a new life abroad, she agreed.

She was taken by plane to the UK with a group of six other women. Ellie thought that she was going to work as a cleaner, but on the day she arrived, she was driven to the home of a white man who told her she would have to work as a prostitute to pay back her debts for the passport and air travel. For two years she was locked in a house with the other women, and periodically driven to customers’ homes.

She only escaped when a sympathetic client gave her £60 and explained how to get to London. In London, she met a man who allowed her to stay with him, but who quickly began to ask for sex in exchange for shelter. One night when he was violently abusive, she called the police.

This is the moment, in a life story of unmitigated misfortune, when you might expect that things would begin to improve. However, it marked the beginning of a new wave of difficulty, and this is where she begins to get angry. She was taken to hospital, but not treated; later the police took her to a police station, where she was fingerprinted and told she had no visa. Since she had only been given a passport to hold for a few seconds when she passed border control at the airport, she knew nothing about visas.

“They were asking each other: ‘Did she come here legally or illegally?’ The way they were talking was very intimidating. They didn’t ask about the attack. They were more interested in why I was staying in the country without a visa.” The man who hit her was not arrested, but she was taken to Yarl’s Wood detention centre. “I’d never been in detention before. It felt like a prison: being locked up, eating your food at certain times, sleeping at certain times. Most of the time you can’t go outside; you can barely see daylight.”

The other inmates laughed at her when they found out she had called the police, and told her she was stupid to have expected them to help her. She was quickly put on suicide watch because she told staff that she would kill herself rather than be deported back to a country where she would be in danger from her husband and her traffickers. “They wouldn’t let me buy tinned food in case I took the tin and cut myself; they watched me while I showered in case I hanged myself,” she says. For a while she regretted having escaped from her trafficker, and thought returning to her existence as a sex slave might be preferable.

It was only when she was in Yarl’s Wood that she realised she had been trafficked. “So many of the women I met in detention had been trafficked. I don’t think the police who interviewed me knew about trafficking. They were more interested in catching someone for being an illegal migrant than in helping someone who has called for help. All they were talking about was deporting me,” she says.

It was only when a sympathetic guard suggested that she put her name down for legal aid that she was put in touch with Eaves. Her asylum claim on the grounds of trafficking was rejected initially, but with Eaves’ help, this was overturned.

She wishes there was greater awareness of trafficking throughout the system. If border staff had been on the lookout for people-trafficking when she arrived in the UK, she would have been prevented from coming into the country. “If they had stopped me on the border, I would have been so much happier; I wouldn’t have done all the bad things that I was made to do. But I came here and I was turned into a prostitute.”

She is calm when we speak; very articulate and very angry about what has happened to her. “Putting trafficked people in prison – that is the worst part of it. You have gone through bad times, and then you find yourself in detention, told you are going to be deported back to the traffickers. That man is still there and he is still bringing in women. That’s why I’m so upset.”

Pushed around, butted, battered and scattered. In exile with a longing for the care of something like a good shepherd.

Tuesday is White Ribbon Day – a day for men to pledge to “never commit, condone or remain silent or remain silent about men’s violence against women” – tantamount to a commitment to playing a proper part in home, family and community.

Good sheep don’t push their way round. Good sheep aren’t selfish. Good sheep aren’t frightening.

Good sheep have good shepherds who they follow. The people of God have had many shepherds. Some have been good, many of them have been bad (Ezekiel is speaking from experience). Ezekiel looks forward to the time when the bad shepherd has had his day, looking forward to the time of good shepherding when the scattered sheep will be gathered in good grazing land.

Jesus shows himself as the good shepherd. It is how he describes himself as the good shepherd, and that is why he is interested in the sheep. His place is with them, not with the goats. At times, at the worst of times, his sheep look awful – and no wonder, because they are the ones pushed around, butted and scattered. They are hungry, thirsty, naked and sick. They are strangers and prisoners. Good sheep who have responded to the shepherd’s call.

If we are sheep, how do we play our part amongst them? Do we act big or play gentle? Are we one of them, or are we acting the goat?

Acknowledgements:

Leaving us for good – a sermon for Ascension Day

David HerbertLeave a comment

Notes for a sermon preached at Holy Trinity, Gee Cross.

Introduction

Our two readings come from the end of Luke’s Gospel and the beginning of the Book of Acts. (Acts 1:1-11 and Luke 24:44-53)

Luke ends his Part One and begins his Part Two with a celebration of Jesus’ Ascension.

At first glance it looks like these two volumes are addressed to a particular person called Theophilus.  But Theophilus is a strange name. Translated, it means “God lover” – which leaves us with a question. Are these two books addressed to one person called Theophilus, or to all “God lovers”, including ourselves?

And the story of the Ascension is one that causes us all sorts of difficulties. It’s a story that stretches the dimensions of our lives, where earth and heaven connect – a tall story that is difficult to fathom.

40 days and nights have passed since Easter Day (40 days and nights!). Those 40 days were packed with Jesus’s appearances and his talk of the kingdom of God. The 40 days  end with this – a blessing, a promise and a withdrawal as Jesus was carried into heaven, carried out of the sight of the disciples on a cloud.

So what?

Flight paths

It seems like only yesterday that we were landing at Heathrow after visiting our son and his girlfriend in the Philippines. It is actually 40 days and nights – we landed on Easter Day, having been on a plane for 17 hours. The flight path reads like a where’s where of the world’s trouble spots.

Bosnia, Beirut, Bangkok, Iraq, Pakistan, Vietnam, Cambodia etc etc – flying into Manila, regarded as the second most dangerous city in the world.

How weird was it? Flying 38000 feet in the airspace above those trouble spots, with all their tensions, sufferings, betrayals, poverty and uncertainty, as if they weren’t there. We were flying over deep divides and no go areas as if they didn’t exist. We were like birds flying over reality and missing all that counts in human life. It was as if we were travelling in a totally different dimension.

(Another example would be our city’s flyovers)

For the last 40 days and nights it has been back to earth with a bang!

Which, I suspect is where we belong. We are, after all, Adam – humans made from the earth, to walk the earth, with our feet of clay. And for that, we believe that God loves us – and we may believe that is where God wants us to be – down to earth, earthy and earthed.  That seems to be the message that Luke is leaving us “God lovers” as he describes Jesus’s goodbye to his disciples, as he leaves them us to be “witnesses … to the ends of the earth”.

Grounded as birds without wings

I don’t know whether any of you have read Birds without Wings by Louis de Bernieres. I’ll try to describe the story without giving anything away for any of you who want to read it.

The story is set in innocence at the turn of the 20th century in a town called Eskibahce in south-western modern-day Turkey, then a part of the waning Ottoman Empire. The village potter, Iskander, a Muslim, makes clay bird whistles for his son, Abdul, and his Christian friend, Nico. Their whistles make different bird song. One is a blackbird, and the other is a robin. They take on the nicknames of their birdsong – Blackbird and Robin.

They are birds who fly over the hills overlooking their town. They play at flying, but, of course they can only fly in their imagination.

Reality soon becomes quite different, as the population of the town gets caught in events. They find themselves caught in the tensions between Greek nationalism and Turkish nationalism which destroyed the fabric of the town. The boys are of course, birds without wings, and they are caught up in the violence of the conflict. There is no way that they can fly over their divisions. They are earthy and they are earthed – and they suffer the consequences of down to earth historical realities. Such realities can only be overcome by living through them.

We all have flights of fancy, don’t we? But at the end of the day there is no escaping the day to day challenges of our lives. We cannot rise above them, but have to engage with them. We can’t ignore them, because that would be irresponsible and careless.  We have to live with our circumstances, and through the events of our lives.

That is what Jesus leaves us to do. That is what Jesus leaves us for.

Left behind for good

The picture that Luke paints for us is a farewell scene, which might remind of us other partings, and snapshots of farewell greetings with the waving of hands, the dabbing of tears, the heartache and the parting words.

Jesus is saying goodbye to his friends, but this goodbye scene is so different. It is not tinged in sadness, but explodes with joy, because Jesus’ parting words are full of promise. The promise is that the disciples, the God lovers, would receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them. That promise must have helped them to look forward with hope instead of looking backwards with sadness. The gift of the Holy Spirit transforms all our partings and farewells since that good bye described by Luke and celebrated by us today on this Ascension Day. The gift of the Holy Spirit is a blessing for all those who mourn. It is the help we need to live through what seems to be the dead ends of our lives. It is the comfort to ….. It is the strength to overcome.

The disciples were indeed left behind, but left with joy “continually in the temple blessing God”. They were left behind for good.

The good they were left behind for was surely to live through their lives as witnesses, in a way that God’s blessing shone through. Their lives weren’t easy. They faced hardships, imprisonment, persecution and death. They were hard pressed on every side, but they lived through those times.

The good they were left behind for was to convey the spirit of Jesus, to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to prisoners, to help the blind to see and to let the oppressed go free. (Luke 4:18f)

The good they were left behind for was to live through all of this, to keep their feet to the ground, to take the long walk through difficulties to freedom, down to earth, with feet of clay.

Like those God lovers, we have the same blessing – treasure in clay, earthenware pots. Is the challenge that Luke addressing to his dear readers just this: to be down to earth witnesses for all the earth by living through the tensions and challenges of our lives.

Have we been left behind for good? Has the church been left behind for good?

But this isn’t saddening. There is no reason to lose heart because of it.

This is the great farewell. This is the goodbye that gives all goodbyes hope and joy. This is the goodbye which spells out its meaning. “God be with you”, his spirit is with us.

Therefore, we go. We go in peace to love and serve the Lord, realising that it is now up to us.

Adapting a prayer of St Teresa of Avila:

Christ has no body but us,
no hands, no feet on earth but ours.
Ours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world,
ours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
ours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Ours are the hands, ours are the feet,
ours are the eyes, we are his body.
Christ has no body now but us,
no hands, no feet on earth but us,
Ours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but us.

We are left behind for good, with his blessing and spirit.

Cerezo Barredo’s weekly gospel illustration

Thomas’s Twin – a sermon for Easter 2A

David HerbertLeave a comment

Sermon notes for Easter 2A for St Alban’s, Broadheath. Again, it could be said better, and I hope it will be. I share it anyway. The Gospel reading is John 20:19-31

Who likes ants?

We are told to learn from the ants. Proverbs 6:6 – “Go to the ant, you sluggard: consider its ways and be wise.”

It’s true. We can learn a lot about community and industry from ants. We can also learn that if they get lost they die. When ants get lost, they follow a simple rule. The rule is to follow the ant in front. But they don’t know that the ant in front of them is only following the ant in front of him. They finish up going round and round in circles, blindly following the one in front until …. They die.

There is a famous example of this deathmill from the Guyana jungle. The ants were just going round in circles – it was a trail of ants which just kept marching in a column 400 yards long (the length of a running track). It took them 2 days to complete a circuit. On and on till they died from exhaustion.

Consider its ways, and be wise. What do we learn from the ant? We learn the importance of thinking for ourselves. We learn the importance of seeing for ourselves.

“Seeing is believing.” That’s what we say, isn’t it?

“We have seen the Lord” is what the disciples say in today’s gospel reading. “We believe”. “We have seen the Lord” is what the disciples say to Thomas, who wasn’t there to see and believe. He is the odd one out.

He was in the wrong place at the wrong time and missed seeing Jesus.

Seeing is believing is the theme of John’s gospel. Time and again John refers to the disciples “coming to see”. The frequency increases as we move to the end of John’s gospel.

  • Mary Magdalen came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed,
  • Peter and the beloved disciple ran to the tomb and saw the linen wrappings lying there. They went into the tomb, and saw and believed.
  • Mary Magdalen told the disciples that she had seen the Lord.
  • Mary Magdalen, Peter, the beloved disciples come to see the Lord.
  • And then, that same evening of the day of resurrection, the disciples “see the Lord” – apart from Thomas. Where was he? What was he doing?

Seeing is believing.

But if seeing is believing, what about those who are not there to see, like Thomas?

And what about those who can’t see? What about those who not even Specsavers can save?

This was a problem for a friend of mine who became blind. He was troubled about all that the Gospels say about “seeing” and “believing”, and about “light” (good) and “darkness” (bad). How could he believe when he couldn’t see? How could he be saved when he had been cast into outer darkness?

Do you see his problem?

He worked it out in the end, eventually realising that there are other ways of seeing. He called it “whole body seeing” and wrote the story of his blindness and his later whole body seeing in a book called Touching the Rock.

This is how he discovered his “whole body seeing” (WBS for short). He was staying at Iona. He had been told about the altar there by people who had described it to him. Then he saw it for himself. This is what he wrote:

 “After several nights, I discovered the main altar.

I had been told about this, and I easily recognised it from the description. It was a single block of marble.

Finding one corner, I ran my fingers along the edge, only to find that I could not reach the other.

I worked my way along the front and was amazed at its size.

The front was carved with hard, cold letters. They stood out baldly, but I could not be bothered reading.

The top was as smooth as silk, but how far back did it go?

I stretched my arms out over it but could not reach the back. This was incredible.

It must have a back somewhere. Pushing myself upon to it, my feet hanging out over the front, I could reach the back. I did this again and again, measuring it with my body, till at last I began to have some idea of its proportions. It was bigger than me and much older.

There were several places on the polished surface which were marked with a long, rather irregular indentations, not cracks, but imperfections of some kind.

Could it have been dropped? These marks felt like the result of impact. The contrast between the rough depressions and the huge polished areas was extra ordinary.

Here was the work of people, grinding this thing, smoothing it to an almost greasy, slightly dusty finish which went slippery when I licked it. Here were these abrasions, something more primitive, the naked heart of the rock.”

When I read that I just went WOW. He had seen things which would not have been noticed by the casual observer with her naked eye. With his whole body seeing he had found things there which I am sure he’d be telling others about over breakfast the next day. “Come and see” he’d have been telling everyone.

I mention this because I think there is something in today’s gospel about the importance of seeing things for ourselves. When we see things for ourselves we are not seeing through other people’s eyes. We are not conforming to their vision, and we are seeing things that nobody else sees.

This brings us to the beauty of Thomas who is the focus of our gospel reading.

Thomas is a disciple who captures our imagination, isn’t he? That’s shown in the number of Thomases there are. (How many here are called Thomas, or have a Thomas in their family?)

Two of our children have Thomas in their names, after their grandfather.

We often talk about “doubting Thomas” and then refer to him as typical of us, who are often “doubters” like him.

I’m not sure that this is helpful. Thomas is actually someone who sees and believes, but in a different way. Isn’t that a more helpful way to remember Thomas?

Thomas sees things differently. This is brought out in the gospel. He wants to see through his hands and fingers. He uses his body. He doesn’t just see with his eyes. He inspects. He uses his senses and his sense. He sees with feeling. He sees from the heart.

That is the way that Thomas comes to see.

He puts his hand into Jesus’ wounds. He reaches beyond first impressions. And then he sees. He feels the love in those scars and jumps to his joyful conclusion that he is seeing our Lord and our God. This is the staggering realisation which comes from seeing from the heart, which comes from seeing with feeling, which comes from his insistence that he should see things for himself.

Thomas is not the doubter. He is one who was willing to see.

 

Thomas is a twin. That is how he is introduced in the gospel. “Thomas the twin”. We don’t know whether Thomas had a twin brother or sister. IT’s more likely that “twin” was Thomas’s nickname because the meaning of the name Thomas is “twin”. But if Thomas had a twin, who might it be?

That  might have been a question that entertained John’s community. “If Thomas is the twin, who is his twin brother or sister?”

They could have played with that question and wondered “is that me?”

We can play with the same question. If Thomas is like us in his doubting, can we be like him in his seeing and believing? How much like him can we be? Can we be his twin brother or sister in the way that we are so much like him in wanting to see Jesus from the heart?

 

Jesus made many “resurrection” appearances – or should I say that Jesus makes many “resurrection” appearances. John admits that there are so many ways that Jesus showed himself and supposed that “if every one of them were written down the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” Jesus wants us to see him for ourselves. He wants us to be witnesses.

Mary Magdalen, Peter, the disciple (disciples?) Jesus loves/loved, Thomas and ourselves come to see in their different ways. Together we are a body of believers who through our whole body seeing see things differently.

It is in such company that Jesus shows himself so that we might see life differently – with compassion that is able to feel for scars and wounds, and with the hope that love is stronger than death.

It is in such company that Jesus shows himself to us so that we might follow him in a way of life that is life giving, instead of blindly following others till, like the ants, we drop from exhaustion.

the quote is from Touching the Rock by John Hull
I found the picture of Still Doubting at Mattseyeshaveseen – with some interesting reflection.

Christ the King – some sermon notes

David Herbert1 Comment

Here are some notes for a sermon for the Feast of Christ the King, for the people of Christ the King, Birkenhead, for Sunday 24th November 2013

Christ the King

Today is the Festival of Christ the King.

The feast of Christ the King was announced by Pope Pius XI in 1925 at the time when fascism was growing across Europe, including here in England. It was thought that there should be special emphasis and celebration that Christ is King. It was a political choice. It was intended as a political opposition and challenge to those who were imposing themselves and their grand designs – the Mussolinis and Hitlers.

The Festival of Christ the King comes on the last Sunday of the liturgical year – and next Sunday is the start of a new one.

The Christian year culminates in this assertion that Christ is King, as if  through our worship, our reflections, our prayers and our readings we have come to the realization afresh that Jesus Christ is, for us, the King, and as if we want to be subject to his just and gentle rule, and that we prefer to be part of his kingdom than any other Kingdom, “United” or not.

Of course, this day has a particular significance for you. Your church has the lovely dedication of “Christ the King”. You are the church of Christ the King. You stand, sit and kneel realizing that Christ is King, subverting the tyranny of tyrants and representing the hope of those who are their victims – that they will be delivered – that there is another horizon of freedom as opposed to their awful and fearful horizons.

The introduction of the festival of Christ the King was a political act to oppose the growing power of the fascists in Europe. As the Church of Christ the King we are all called to be a political act. The church is political – we must never overlook that, and you, whose focus is on Christ the King, have a particular vocation to live that.

We have a king who rides a donkey. Have you ever sung that?

Our king, who rides into town on a donkey, contrasts and contradicts the power of the Roman emperor who arrives in town with all the cavalry and military trimmings. The Roman Emperor arrives in power to impress his power and to keep people down. Our king comes into town dishevelled and on a donkey. It’s a joke and a mockery of the superpowers who parade their strengths in their great squares. For Jesus, power is not for parading. Jesus has no need to impress, he is not like the leaders who ask “do I look big in this?”. The donkey was political act and political choice. He could have, as the story of the temptations show us, exercised his power very differently.

When it comes to horsepower God chooses the donkey. His intent was not to keep people down, but to bring them together as a kingdom of heaven, as a kingdom of God.

God and his people have always challenged the unjust rulers. That opposition goes back as far as to the times of Pharoah, from whose unjust rule God liberated his people through Moses. The opposition includes opposition to fascist tyranny and reaching to today, to the warlords, the drug barons, the local tyrant and the playground bully.

In the Old Testament we hear the voice of the prophets opposing the kings when they mislead Israel, and when their rule becomes unjust and corrupt.  For example, Amos denounces those who have built “stone houses” off the backs of the poor. He says “there are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts”.

Similarly, in our reading from Jeremiah (23:1-6), the prophet condemns the misleading leaders of his day, the shepherds who lead the people astray, who have scattered the flock and driven them apart, who have not attended to their needs and have only looked after Number One. He reports “The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety.”

There are leaders and kings in the Old Testament who were more interested in themselves than their subjects. The prophets rail against them. That is politics. And it is compassion for those who are neglected by the rulers.

This is what we stand and kneel for. We stand to welcome Christ as our king, to assent to the rule of heaven. We kneel to pray for the coming of the kingdom, on earth as in heaven. This is a political act.

Christ_the_King,_Birkenhead_(4)

I don’t know how well people of Birkenhead know this building, and that it is named “Christ the King”.  That dedication is relatively recent, isn’t it? Until 1990 the church was dedicated to St Anne. Why choose “Christ the King” for the dedication? It is a choice with political connotations. The naming was a political act that favours the poor and challenges the tyrannies of the community.

Christ the King as a building isn’t obvious. There is no spire dominating the landscape. You have been saddled with a spire, but as spires go it is quite unassuming. You have to look to find it. It’s not on the main drag. It is tucked into its community.

That seems quite appropriate to me. You don’t have to look big and impressive. You are a people tucked into your communities to share in the just and gentle rule of Christ, to exercise the responsibility we all share as the subjects of the kingdom of God – the responsibility to bring people together on the side of justice – to be trusted not to put people down, or let people down.

Christ as King isn’t obvious either, is he? He doesn’t force himself on us. He doesn’t stamp his authority everywhere. Our gospel reading reminds us of his rejection by crucifixion. He is the love that was promised by Jeremiah and longed for by so many. He is tucked into community, as the good shepherd, for bringing scattered and opposed people together, not for putting people down or letting people down as self-serving leaders do.

Other references include the painting Cast our Crowns by Jim Janknegt, the book God and Empire by John Dominic Crossan and Matthew 20:25

The words that wake us – a sermon on Isaiah 50:4

David Herbert2 Comments

Words that wake us

A sermon preached at Mattins at Chester Cathedral on October 13th 2013.

The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher (or, of one who is taught), that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.

Morning by morning he wakens – wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. Isaiah 50:4f

What are the words that waken us?

What are the words that weaken us?

To what extent do the words that waken us make us?

To what extent do the words that wake us break us?

 

What are the words that wake us?

I asked some Fb friends, and got loads of replies:

They ranged from the relatively mundane (but still wonderful)

“Do you want a cup of tea?”

to the “This is the day that the Lord has made”

there were those who said that they woke to the sound of silence.

Anna says that it isn’t really words that wake us so much as noises, events, images, light etc. To which jenny replied that it isn’t so much the words, as the tone of voice that wakes us

My friends didn’t think anyone used Rise and Shine any more. A bit old fashioned they thought. Though it strikes me as a good Christian wake up call with its associations with the Lazarus story. Perhaps it’s too upbeat and cheerful when waking from slumber.

The words that wake us have the power to make us or break us. The words pounded through the bedroom door – “you’ve got 10 minutes to get dressed and be on that bus”. What effect do they have on the day and family relationships?

Those who are haunted by fear and those who are anxious about the future have other words that wake them up – not just at the crack of dawn, but repeatedly through the night.

Words spring to mind when we are anxious, excited or depressed.

The words that wake the mother struggling to make ends meet are words of panic. What are the words that wake the child who is being bullied.

Words have power.

Words weigh heavy.They shape the way in which we see ourselves and others. Dismissive put downs can affect us for decades. Careless labeling of others mean that we misjudge others.

Many of the words we pick up from a world that is indifferent or hostile to us are so powerful that we come to believe them.

Be careful how you speak to your children. One day it will be their inner voice . Peggy O’Mara

We have to take care about what we say. Particularly with our first words of the day, or the first words of a conversation. An email reply comes across well with an opening response of “it’s good to hear from you”. Macdonalds aren’t far off the mark when their “servers” bless those they have served with “have a good day” – to which the correct response (probably not often said) is “and also with you”.

Malcolm Guite, a priest-poet, asks the questions in his poem “what if …..” Some lines:

“What if every word we say,
never ends or fades away?

What if not a word is lost,
what if every word we cast
cruel, cunning, cold accurst,
every word we cut and paste
echoes to us from the past,
fares and finds us
first and last
haunts and hunts us down?

What if each polite evasion,
every word of defamation,
insults made by implication,
querulous prevarication,
compromise in convocation,
propaganda for the nation
false or flattering persuasion,
blackmail and manipulation,
simulated desperation
grows to such reverberation
that it shakes our own foundation,
shakes and brings us down?

We must weigh our words carefully. The words that wake us are the words that make us and the words that break us.

The prophet, in our first reading, has the tongue of one who is taught. I suggest that it is not the “tongue of a teacher” as translated in our reading, but the “tongue of one who is taught” … by God – given by God so that he would know how to sustain the weary with a word. (Isaiah 50:4)

The words that wake the prophet are the words that make him. The words that wake him are the words of God.It is because God speaks and the prophet listens that the prophet becomes as one who is taught, as one who can sustain the weary with a word. The prophet says, “Morning by morning he wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.”

The Bible often refers to the voice of God not being heard. There are various reasons for God’s word not being heard. They include God’s own silence, but also there are times when God’s word is not heard because it is not listened to.

Here we meet with the prophet whose ears woke every morning to the word of God.  We can perhaps feel the intimacy between God and the prophet as the prophet feels the breath of God on his ear as he whispers him awake morning by morning.

What are the words that wake us?

There is no shortage to the words that wake us. Newspaper headlines, breakfast TV, advertising – these are the hidden persuaders who know that the words that wake us are the words that shape us, and they want to shape us to their own ends.

The prophet shows us an alternative. His ears are awakened by the whispered word of God, a word which brings blessing to him and the weary.

There are many people who have this discipline of listening to God before first light. It is a discipline shared by very many faith communities.

But our prayer, whether it be morning or evening, can be full of our own words, with God not being able to get a word in edgeways. We can say our prayers without hearing a word from God.

Hearing the word of God requires discipline and attentiveness.

We can choose the words. The words of God can be words of Jesus, words of the angels, words of scripture inspired by the Holy Spirit, words spoken through the prophets. God has spoken many words. They have been repeated down the ages and brought many to life. They have wakened many morning by morning, and hearing them has signified the end of night and the break of day. We can choose the words and we can let the words choose us.

All the words of God are summed up in the one Word, Jesus. All the words of God can be translated as love. “Love is his word” is how hymnwriter Luke Connaughton puts it. All the words of God are for the weary, the lost, the last and the least. They are timed for the dead of night, the ending of darkness and the first light of day.

If it is true that the words that wake us, make us, then is it true that if we allow the words of God to waken our ears morning by morning, we too will have the tongue of one who is taught?

Do the words by which God wakes us make us a blessing to those around us who are weary and those who are oppressed and abused by words and deeds that break them?

Fruit for all seasons

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January

Why would anyone come to Kelsall?
I know they come for the steam fair and the folk festival. But most come to Kelsall for the fruit, from Windsors Fruit Farm at Willington and Eddisbury Fruit Farm on the Yeld.
One of the greatest pleasures of my childhood was picking fruit – picking our own strawberries from the field, scrumping apples and gathering conkers. What added to the pleasure was the sight of the fruit – the colour of the apples, the texture and coating of the conker and the size and softness of the strawberry the ones that were just ripe enough.
No home is complete without its basket of fruit. Albert Einstein said: A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?
Well times have changed. Now it’s an ipad, an iphone and anything else apple!
But for the sick, one of the go to gifts is a basket of fruit. It is healthy, it is cheerful, it is thoughtful and it is tempting.
Paul (Galatians 5) presents us with two baskets of fruit this morning. One basket is full of rotten fruit: strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissension, factions, envy … and things like these. This is an everyday diet – many people only have bitter fruits which leave a nasty taste in the mouth.
The other basket is filled with good fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
 
These are of course metaphorical fruits. They are the fruits of people’s lives – what people have to offer through their seasonal cycle of being planted, born, growing, fruiting and going to seed.
The two baskets represent the harvest of two very different people – a good basket which anyone who is sick, or who needs encouragement would welcome. The one is the harvest of lifestyles which are self seeking: the other is a range of gifts to enrich relationships with real human quality that affects reactions and responses. They are the fruits of the very Spirit of God.
The Bible begins with fruit trees and ends with fruit trees.
There will be a time when the fruitfulness of God’s creation will sustain people in all the seasons of their lives. Revelation 22, the last chapter of the Bible, refers to the fullness of time with the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river, as at the beginning, so at the end, is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its each month, for all the seasons of life. And the leaves of the trees will be for the healing of the nations.
 
A sculpture was offered as consolation to the grieving, shell shocked people of Warrington after the IRA bombings that killed two young boys. It is by Stephen Broadbent and is at the scene of the litter bin outside Boots where the bomb was placed. It is the retelling of this vision of the work of God’s Spirit. The river flows through the middle of the street of the city, and on either side there are bronze plaques planted wither side of the river – twelve in all, each with their fruit to sustain people through all the seasons of their life, including the times when they even walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The one shown is for January, for a cold, dark, depressing and lonely time. The fruit offered for the season is JOY – and underneath the month Stephen has written the words “and the leaves of the trees will be healing of the nations” – every month, for all the seasons of our lives.
The Warrington sculpture, the hope and consolation that it represents, is the there and then of the promise found in Revelation in the here and now of violence, enmity and strife. It is a basket of spiritual fruit offered to a world that is feeling very sick.
Another basket of fruit was offered to a world of bitterness and anxiety by a mosque in York recently. Well it wasn’t so much a basket of fruit so much as the offer of a cup of tea and a game of football.
 
Apparently members of the Mosque heard that the English Defence League were gathering for a protest outside their Mosque – members of the mosque retaliated by putting the kettle on, invited the protesters inside, drank tea together and played football together.

But how does such fruit grow? How are some people able to offer such good fruit when everyone else seems only able to respond with anger, cynicism and despair?
The Bible is full of talk about fruitfulness. It begins at a fruit tree in the garden of Eden, and it ends with a fruit tree
Psalm 1 describes the process:
Blessed are they that have not walked in the way of the wicked,
Nor lingered in the way of sinners,
Nor sat in the assembly of the scornful.

Their delight is in the law of the Lord
And they meditate on this day and night.
Like a tree planted by streams of water
Bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither,
Whatever they do, it shall prosper.

Similarly Psalm 92. There the Psalmist suggests that
It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord
and to sing praises to your name, O Most High.
To tell of your love early in the morning
and of your faithfulness in the night-time.
…… The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree,
and shall spread abroad like a cedar of Lebanon.
Such as are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be vigorous and in full leaf.

For the writer of John’s Gospel it is about being born again
The fruit of our lives can be the work and creation of the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit of God which helps us respond, react and hope with love. It is the Spirit of God which helps us to bear fruit in all the seasons of life, when faced with sorrow, disappointment, betrayal, enmity, jealousy. It is the Spirit of God which helps us to speak, act and think with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. It is through the Spirit of God we have a basket of fruit for a world that craves fruit – five a day – our neighbours, family, community and enemies.
Isn’t that a healthy lifestyle? Isn’t that a winning way?
How many pray for more strife, more jealousy, more quarrels, more factions? Haven’t we got enough of them?
How many pray for more patience, more kindness, more generosity, more gentleness and more self-control in their homes, workplace and community? My guess is that we may have an answer to their prayer: a basket of fruit for all tastes.

A sermon preached at St Philip’s Kelsall on June 30th 2013

Which way all the way

David Herbert1 Comment

a sermon for Easter 3C for St John’s, Weston in Runcorn.

Hallo.

‘Allo, ‘allo.

One of the running gags of TV sitcom ‘Allo, ‘Allo! was the line, delivered in a French accent, “I will say this only once …….”, which was said over and over again, in a comedy called “Allo, allo”.

And we can perhaps imagine the market trader saying, “I’m not going to give you this once, I’m not even going to give you this twice, I’m going to give you this three times.”

That is what we get in today’s readings. We get it three times.

In the gospel, Jesus gives it to Peter three times. “Do you love me?” “You know I do.”

Three times, to correspond with the number of times Peter denied Christ before the cock crew.

Three times to emphasise that Jesus had got over that, that Peter was forgiven.

Three times to underline Peter’s particular pastoral responsibility

I wonder what he says to each of us, this Jesus risen from the dead. What his call is. “Mary, do you love me?” “You know I do.” “Then feed my lambs, teach my people, help them find their freedom.”

It’s not just once that Luke gives us the story of Saul’s conversion. It’s not just twice. It’s three times.

Why?

First of all, I presume it was because he thought this is a story worth telling.

And I presume that it was Luke’s intention that this story should capture the imagination of the church, and help us in our own journeys and our own transformations and conversions.

It’s worth remembering also that it’s not just one, it’s not just twice, but it’s three times that Luke tells us how brutal and callous Saul was towards the followers of the Way.

  1. In chapter 7, Luke tells us how Saul was involved in stoning of Stephen to death. He may only have been holding the coats, but Luke does say that Saul “approved of their killing him.” He was not a nice man.
  2. In chapter 8, Luke reports that “Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.” What was wrong with the man?
  3. Here in chapter 9, he goes and gets letters from the high priest to authorise him to arrest those who followed Jesus’ Way, and imprison them in Jerusalem. This is a truly frightening man.

What on earth was Jesus doing with Saul?

This is a story of conversion told three times, intended to capture our imagination.

I want to look at this in not just one way, not even just in two ways, but in three.

I want to look at the idea of “going out of our way” (in the sense of waywardness), “mending our ways” and “finding our way”.

And I want to refer not just to one person, Saul, nor even to just two people, but three. I refer to Saul, to the prodigal and to ourselves as the people this story is intended to inspire and transform.

Firstly, Saul.

Saul went out of his way to find the followers of the Way.

It comes across as an obsession.

There are two places named. There’s Jerusalem and there’s Damascus. It’s hardly Runcorn to Liverpool in 20 minutes, so long as there are no lane closures on the bridge. This is 135 miles away, across rivers and mountains, on horseback – perhaps 4 or 5 days away.

Then, lo, Jesus meets him, risen from the tomb.

Lovingly he greets him.

“Who are you?” Saul asks.

“I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”

And he said to Saul, “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what to do.”

And Saul had to be led the rest of the way by hand, and then he was told his way forward.

And what a long way he went.

Luke emphasises all the places Paul went, by road, overseas, through storms carrying Jesus’ to all the nations.

The way was found for Saul, and the way was followed by the convert all the way, all the miles, through trial, suffering, all the way to his death.

Saul’s way, Paul’s way, reminds us of the ways of the prodigal son.

His way was to get his inheritance and run for the time of his life.

Until his luck runs out, and he sees the error of his ways.

The father’s way is to tuck his skirt into his belt and run out to embrace the son he thought he had lost.

Lovingly he greets him, in such an outrageous way that the elder brother protests.

“This isn’t the way.

This isn’t the way to deal with someone who stripped you of half of your money, and who let down the family business.”

And the father says “This is the only way.

The only way to share your father’s pleasure is to forgive your brother. That is the only way. That is my way.” 

What about ourselves?

What are our ways? Are they his ways?

Our waywardness may not be as dramatic as Saul’s, or the murderer who becomes a preacher, or the prodigal’s.

Or as awful as Peter’s, who when he realised what he had done just broke down and wept.

Waywardness is part of our reality which is realised in our worship. We confess the ways in which, whether in thought or in deed, we have sinned against our brothers and sisters, and sinned against God.

We ask for God to help us to mend our ways.

We let Jesus lovingly greet us, lead us, his way, so that we may “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with you our God.”

That is the way God wants us.

He wants us to walk with him. He wants us to be yoked to him, on the way and all the way.  This is the way of life.

Before Jesus’s followers became known as Christians, they were known as followers of the WAY.  The followers of the WAY were known because they had a way of life.

And that way of life is spelled out not just once, not just twice, but three times, by both Jesus and Luke in today’s readings.

Through both Peter and Saul Jesus experienced betrayal and persecution.

To both he showed forgiveness.

For both he gave them a way to go, a direction.

For both there is the prediction of suffering, but for them that was another aspect of walking with Jesus and following his way.

Ourselves, we help each other on our way at the end of our liturgy.

Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord. “In the peace of Christ, we go”.

We don’t simply get on our way.

We commit ourselves to his way, to keep in step with Jesus, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God as we meet other Sauls, Peters, Sharons and Janets.

What is our way with them?

Francis reports: a Maundy Thursday sermon

David Herbert3 Comments

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Today, Pope Francis has been celebrating Mass at Casal de Marmo, a juvenile detention center on the outskirts of Rome, and washing the feet of the prisoners there.

This is one of the many gestures that has captured the imagination of people around the world, along with his willingness to get out of his car to shake hands with people without the fear of getting shot, wanting to pay off his hotel bill, and choosing to live in a simpler apartment. I don’t know about you, but I find all of this very exciting. In recent years the Roman Catholic Church has had problems with its PR (rightly so, because of the ways in which it has covered up abuse scandals). But with the white smoke has come a whiff of excitement. Maybe, the church in its impoverished state, can become the church of the poor, for the poor. And, without doubt, what the world needs is, according to Pope Francis, a wounded church that goes out onto the streets, rather than a sick church that is withdrawn into its own world.

There has been far too much inspiration and charity from within the Roman Catholic Church for it to be hidden behind a smokescreen of scandal.

The juvenile detention centre has 48 prisoners. The majority of them are Muslims. Pope Francis will wash the feet of 12 of the prisoners.

I wonder how they will feel. I wonder what will go through their minds. I wonder what sensations will travel from their feet and from the ground of their being. Will they know, through this action, that God loves them? Will they know that they are dear to him? Will they know that they are forgiven for the wrong paths those feet have taken them?

I wonder what Pope Francis will feel through his hands, in his mind and at his heart. Will he feel the journey those feet have made? Those feet of young people. Will he feel inside their shoes, their trainers, their boots, their bootees to the life they have led? Will he understand their running away from their homes, rival gangs, the police? Will he feel the cramping of life in those shoes and why they have kicked off?

This is what Maundy Thursday is about, that we love one another. It is a new commandment which is fleshed out in Jesus example of foot washing, and which is reenacted across the world this evening, including prisons and a detention centre in Rome. This is a love which is prepared to lovingly tend the other, whatever the state of the other’s feet may be, wherever those feet have been. This is a love which feels for the other, and which forms the foundation for a community of vulnerability, compassion and love with the least, the last and the lost.

It is a transformative act. The two parties will never feel the same about each other again. He felt for me. He understood me. He held me dear. He loved me.

Another Francis has hit the news this week. The Francis Report is the independent inquiry into what has gone wrong with the NHS in the light of the Mid Staffs Hospital. The important thing highlighted is the question of how to restore compassion to the National Health Service, and how safe care can be given to every patient every time. The publication of the report had nurses ringing in to Radio 5’s phone in, frustrated that they are unable to provide the level of care that they should be providing. Their hearts were going out to those who have been neglected, but their hands were tied up in so much other work.

I looked for a response to the Francis Report on Twitter from nurses. Mara Carlyle, now singer, but was a NHS nursing assistant for 7/8 years, mostly on wards so understaffed, tweeted:

If you give nurses enough resources and time to do their jobs properly, guess what? They will and they do. Because there weren’t enough staff for everyone’s basic needs to be attended to which inevitably led to some poor standards of care, that we often had to choose between attending to patients who were (variously) crying, dying, hungry, thristy, dirty, fallen out of bed …

Alison Leary, a registered nurse and macmillan lecturer in oncology writes of the work of a nurse (work described by Florence Nightingale as “women’s work which should be done quietly and in private”) and she asks:

How would you feel about dealing with a stranger in such an intimate way? A stranger who is so humiliated at his or her inability to control their own bodily functions that they weep? Then imagine having to care for him or her and 29 other patients with only two colleagues to help you.

So we have the juxtaposition of the Francis Report and its admissions about compassion, and Pope Francis and his expression of compassion, feeling for the other, loving the other.

Nurses want to alleviate suffering – physical, psychological, social and spiritual.

The dilemma for nurses is how they can show compassion in a system which expects so much from them.

If that is the dilemma of the nursing profession, it is perhaps the dilemma of our society. Don’t we want to be the answer to the problem of suffering, however that is experienced?

But how?

How does the NHS recover its capacity for compassion? How do we become compassionate? How do we feel for one another? How do we love one another?

The answer is repeated in story after story – from the story of the care of the Good Samaritan, to the story of the nurse most likely referred to as an angel. All of them are touching stories.

The answer is hinted at in tonight’s liturgy, and in Jesus own example of footwashing and his encouragement (“should”- is that command or encouragement?) for us to do just the same. This is the practice of loving one another, just as Jesus loves us.

It is taking one step at a time, one gesture at a time.

If the time has come for you to be asking where compassion has gone from our dealings with one another, if society has become so complicated that you don’t know where to start, I can tell you the place to start is HERE. It always has been. The first step is in the here and now, in truly local initiatives like Jesus washing the feet of his dearest friends, like Francis washing the feet of the prisoners in a Rome detention centre, like the nurse holding the hand of a patient who is afraid – who through that touch reaches beyond the physical condition of the patient to her heart of hearts.