Some Tim Carter Sermons

This Blog has Moved

2010-11-12T10:47:00.001-08:00

I have now moved this blog to a new WordPress site here:

http://carterclan.me.uk/sermons/

God works everything out?

2010-11-09T04:21:00.000-08:00

Our reading from Ephesians this morning jumps right into the middle of this letter’s opening paragraph, a hymn of praise to God. In this praise we find an important truth about God. “He works everything out in conformity with the purpose of his will.” I find this to be quite a difficult thing to understand. How can God work everything out so that it lines up with God’s intentions? What about the five year olds sitting on the streets of Kampala, begging, that I saw a few weeks ago? What about the illnesses and struggles of life that we experience, that those around us experience? What about our families, friends, and neighbours losing their jobs and their homes? There is such a lot going on around us that, to be honest, doesn’t look much like it is being worked out in line with God’s will.

But, life was no easier in Paul’s day. He himself had suffered all kinds of things in the course of ministry. This very letter was probably written at a time when Paul was in prison. He had seen Christians killed for their faith. He was a Jew, someone whose country had been invaded and was ruled by foreigners. He also lived in a world where it didn’t look much like things were being worked out in line with God’s will. Yet still he could write that he was certain that they are.

How is this possible? Where does this depth of faith come from? Well, I think that we get the answer in the next verses. Paul talks about the Holy Spirit as the deposit that guarantees an inheritance.

Continued here...

Lost and Found

2010-09-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

I wonder what it feels like to be totally lost. As I was thinking about what I was going to say this morning, I was trying to remember a time when I have been lost, and I couldn’t. Of course there have been times when I’ve had difficulty finding the way to the place that I was meant to be going, and there have been times when I’ve not been sure exactly where the bit of ground I’m stood on is on the map that I’m looking at. But I don’t recall a time when I’ve ever felt that I didn’t have a single clue how to get home.

I think that is how I would know that I was properly lost. If I had no idea how I was going to get home, then I would be lost.

Maybe you have been in that position; you have known what it feels like to be entirely lost. If not, perhaps that idea might help you to begin to imagine what it would be like to be lost. How would you feel if somebody took you from here in a blacked out car and dropped you in the middle of a wood, in the middle of the night, in a country where you didn’t speak the language, with no money. If you wandered around that wood until you couldn’t walk another step, and you’re just curled up in a ball, at the end of your resources, knowing for certain that you are never going to see your home again. You are truly lost. Despair, fear, deep sorrow.

What then if you see a light swaying through the trees. Are you imaging it? You think you hear a voice calling your name. Your throat is so dry you can’t call out. You feel warm arms cradling you, gentle hands lifting you. You smell the familiar scent of home on the clothes of your finder. The taste of reviving drink is sweet on your tongue. What then? You have been truly found. Hope, faith, vaulting joy. And not just joy for you, but joy for the one who has found you. Joy for those who have missed you, those who have been praying for your finding. Joy and rejoicing and a party.

Continued here...

See that you fo not refuse Him.

2010-09-07T06:30:00.000-07:00

I would like to tell you a story this morning about two ways of living.

One way of living is one in which people are bent over, infirm, bound up, afraid, under law, in fear of punishment, surrounded by darkness.

The other way of living is one in which there is freedom, release, healing, life, joy, assurance that we are loved.

I wonder which way you would prefer to live?

Our two readings this morning tell the story of these two ways of life and their relation to each other, and leave us with this choice: which way will you live?

The first reading that we heard was from the book of Hebrews, and the writer of that book begins this section of the book with a description of something that had happened many years ago to the people of God.

They had been led out of slavery in Egypt, had crossed the Red Sea and had travelled across the desert to a mountain, a mountain that was holy to them, a mountain called Mount Sinai. When they got there they discovered that it was a place of darkness and fire. God came and spoke to Moses in the clouds of the mountain, but the people were afraid that they would die, so they drew back from hearing God’s voice and instead kept at a distance.

It was at Sinai that God gave the law to the people, through Moses. This law was to be life giving and life enhancing. It was given to allow the people to live in harmony with each other and with God. However, it was powerless to do this because the people continued to keep their distance from God. At first this meant that they were disobedient and unfaithful. While Moses was on this very mountain, being given the law by God, only months after the rescue from slavery in Egypt, they make an idol to worship, a golden calf.

The remainder of the Old Testament tells the story of the people of God keeping their distance from God, of them being wooed back by God, and of them going off again and again. Eventually their land is over run and they are scattered into exile. They insisted on keeping their distance from God, and in the end God allowed them to have what they wanted.

Continued here...

Dancing to the music of the future

2010-08-08T10:03:00.000-07:00

Someone once said that hope is hearing the music of the future and faith is dancing to it.

Both our readings this morning are about Christian faith. There are three things that I’d like to draw out from them that I believe we need to get our heads round if we are to follow Jesus fruitfully.

The first thing I’d like to suggest is that Christian faith is faith in God’s promises. Jesus was talking about God’s promises to provide for the physical and material needs of God’s people. He was also talking about his own promise to return to bring in the government of God in all its fullness and glory. The writer to the Hebrews was talking about God’s promise to provide a home for God’s people for all eternity.

There are many other promises that God makes to us. God promises that if we repent and accept Jesus as our Lord then we will live forever in God’s household. God promises that we aren’t slaves in that household, but beloved children. God promises to speak to us. God promises to give us the Holy Spirit to strengthen and guide us as we follow Jesus. God promises that our lives will be fruitful.

All these promises are guaranteed by who God is. God is the creator of everything. God made the earth and the sky, the sea and the stars, every living creature and plant. God made you and me. God is the source of all life and love. God is the one who spoke, and creation came into being. God speaks and it happens. There is no gap. God’s words shape reality. More than that, all that is, everything that exists comes from God speaking. God’s words are reality. So God’s promises are completely real and trustworthy.

Continued here...

Their mission, our mission.

2010-07-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

In May we had the opportunity to meet together and explore ways of “sharing good news”. A couple of weeks ago we had the Canals Festival. In this next week we are visiting homes in Etruria, surveying people’s thoughts about the community that they live in, about God, and about the church. Tomorrow night we have a church council meeting where we will be talking about the progress we are making with our Mission Action Plan. It seems to me that there is a lot of mission activity going on around St Mark’s at the moment, which is really encouraging. And so I think that it is really appropriate that this reading from Luke’s account of Jesus’ life has come up for this morning, as I believe that it holds some important insights for us as we think about what mission God has for us, and as we get on with it.

Before we dive into having a detailed look at it, though, I would just like to take a step back a bit and do some groundwork. You see, it is quite clear that Jesus was sending out this group of people, to do this task, in a certain way. The temptation for me then, is to say that it doesn’t have to apply to me. What Jesus says is for them, at that time, not for me at this time. So I don’t have to take notice, particularly of the difficult bits that might mean that I have to do something that I find uncomfortable or challenging.

But, there are two reasons that I believe that this teaching does apply to us, and that Jesus is calling us to live like this now.

Continued here...

Telling the Wonders of God

2010-06-08T04:30:00.001-07:00

I wonder if you ever watch those TV programmes or films where they have messed around with the timeline? You know the kind of thing, the film starts with a wedding and then the rest of the film is flashbacks to things that have happened in the lead up to the wedding. Through all the ups and downs of the relationship you know that there’s a happy ending, because you’ve already seen it.

Well, there is a sense in which we heard our readings in the wrong order today. In the reading from Acts we see and hear the sights and sounds of the Day of Pentecost, and then we had a flash back to an earlier scene, where we hear some of the things that happened in the lead up to that astonishing day.

In the reading we heard from John’s account of the good news, we hear Jesus making a promise and telling us something about the person who is going to be the fulfilment of that promise.

We hear Jesus as he speaks to his followers for one of the last times. They are meeting together in the days before Jesus is going to be crucified, and then raised to life. Jesus’ followers are afraid and confused. Jesus has been with them for three years, and now he is talking about leaving them.

Before he goes, he tells his followers about some of the things that are going to happen in the future. He tells them that those who have faith will do even greater things than he himself had done. (given that what Jesus has done included walking on water, raising people from the dead, healing the sick, and feeding several thousand people with a few loaves and fishes, this was a pretty big promise).

He then goes on to promise that he will not leave his followers alone. When he has returned to the Father, he will ask the Father to send someone else, the Holy Spirit.

And what does Jesus promise that the Holy Spirit will be like?

Continued here...

A Place of Prayer

2010-05-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

I’d like to take you on a journey this morning. As we travel we will stop off at various places, meet different people and hear what is being said. As we travel, I’d like to encourage you to think about similar journeys that you have taken, or maybe that you are on at the moment.

As in Doctor Who, the first stage of the journey is the one that will take us the furthest through time and space, but it’s the one that I am going to spend the least time talking about. Will you come with me back about 2,000 years and 1,500 miles south east of here, to city called Philippi? We land in this Roman colony in Greece, in the street. It’s dusty and hot, there are people everywhere, going about their daily business.

We spot a little group of people, obviously walking somewhere together. Paul and Silas are part of the group, going to the place of prayer. The place of prayer wasn’t a Temple or a synagogue; it wasn’t a special building, but a spot on the riverbank, outside the city, where people gathered to talk together and to pray. They had gone there when they first arrived in Philippi, and had met Lydia, who had believed the message that they had bought, and decided to follow Jesus. Now they were staying at her house and had got into the practice of going back to that spot, to pray and to share the good news further.

But, there is opposition to them going to the place of prayer. Every time they head off to the place of prayer, they are harassed by this girl, shouting after them, trying to distract them.

Continued here...

Love and Obey

2010-05-09T04:53:00.000-07:00

I’ve just finished reading a novel which took the form of a parable of a man’s journey to faith. This guy is a technology whizz kid, and at one stage he decides that the best way for him to help people follow Jesus is to go through the Bible and draw together all Jesus’ teaching into a computer programme so that anybody facing a difficult decision can load it up, input the details, and the software would tell them what to do, based on all the information from Jesus’ teaching. The angel who is guiding the man doesn’t think that this is such a good idea. He explains that following Jesus isn’t about following a whole series of complicated rules, and much more about knowing and being known, loving and being loved, fighting and dying alongside Jesus so that we can also live in his triumph.

When I was preparing for this sermon, it struck me that if we were going to demonstrate our love for Jesus by obeying his commands, then it would be good to know what they were. So I did a bit of a search on the internet and found lists that people had very helpfully prepared by going through the gospels, and every time Jesus says “I tell you” noting down what he said. Most of the lists had around 50 commands on them.

But as I read them the points that the angel in the book made came back to me. Surely following Jesus isn’t about pinning up a list of rules in church, or on your fridge at home and making sure you stick to them. We know from the whole of the story of the people of God through the Old Testament that maintaining a relationship with God on the basis of rules doesn’t work. People can’t do it. We know that the only way that we can walk with God is by the gift of Jesus, it is only by grace, God’s riches at Christ’s expense, and not by works, not by the things that we do, that we are rescued from the darkness of our own selfishness.

Continued here...

Heights of love

2010-05-04T05:28:00.000-07:00

I was up at Northwood Stadium the other day, and I saw some young people being coached in high jump. The coach had laid out some cones in a half circle, and was asking the athletes to run up to, and past, the high jump bar in a kind of “c” shape, without actually jumping. Then, when they’d got the hang of that, he started to get them jumping over the bar by flinging themselves backwards over it, arching their backs and legs. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I’d never seen the high jump on the TV, I don’t know that I would have worked out that this is the best way to jump over a high jump bar. In fact, people had been jumping over bars for a long time before anybody did try this way of doing it.

In 1968 Dick Fosbury won the Olympic High Jump Gold Medal. As he did so he changed the sport of High Jumping forever, because he did so using the Fosbury Flop.

It was a game changing innovation. For centuries people had been jumping over bars to see who could go highest, but Fosbury, without changing the rules of sport, changed the heights that could be achieved. You had to be willing to take off and jump backwards, and land on your shoulders or head, but if you were up for it, athletes who changed their technique found that they could jump higher than they could previously.

What was it that allowed this to happen, this radical change in this sport? Firstly, there was a trail blazer who proved that it could be done, and showed people how to do it, there was a new champion. Secondly, it took advantage of new circumstances (the introduction of softer landing mats), and thirdly it required the athletes to step up to the new challenge of a different way of doing things.

In our reading from John’s telling of the good news of Jesus, we heard about something new that Jesus gave to his followers. Jesus gave them a new commandment. He told them to love one another as he had loved them.

But hold on a minute, how is this a new commandment?

Continued here...

Yearning

2010-03-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

Have you ever watched a dog on a lead? Of course, just like people, every dog is different but it seems to me that in the main they fall into four different categories. Firstly are those who you see going for a walk who just amble alongside their owners, maybe a bit lazy, maybe a bit on the elderly side, often a bit podgy, amble, amble, amble, not taking much interest in anything.

Then there are those who lull you into a false sense of security. They seem to be like the first type, but then they’ll catch a scent or see something that interests them, and suddenly they’ll pull at the lead, eager to be off after that squirrel. If the owner’s not particularly aware they’ll find the lead pulled from their hand and a dog disappearing into the bushes.

Then there are those who can’t go more than a step without their attention being caught by something new. They’re always pulling, straining, at the lead, but never in the same direction for more than 30 seconds. They have the attention span of a goldfish. They want to be off the lead and off exploring the world, but they’re not sure about where they’d go first if they were let off.

Then there are the fourth type. They are the ones that if you had roller skates, or a skateboard would probably pull you along the route. They pull and strain and yearn with every ounce of their being against the lead. But in one direction. They pull you on every step of the way. They have a fixed idea in their head and they are going to go for it. The blood hound is on the scent and will not relent until she has found the quarry.

In our reading from Paul’s letter to the Christians in the city of Philippi we hear about how Paul is like our fourth type of dog. He is straining towards a goal. There is a prize, that he hasn’t fully got hold off, but he desires with all his being. He is pulling towards it, utterly focussed. And, it seems to me, that he encourages his readers to do the same.

Continued here...

Who's your hero?

2010-02-28T08:51:00.000-08:00

Thirty-eight thousand, four hundred pounds. What could you buy with that amount of money? You could buy a very nice car. You could buy 102,000 pints of milk. Or you could buy a pair of football boots, which is exactly what somebody did this week. What was it about these boots that made them so valuable to somebody? Are they made of some exotic material? No. Do they guarantee the wearer superhuman footballing skills? No. Are they made to a special, futuristic design? No. Somebody paid thirty-eight thousand, four hundred pounds for a pair of football boots because they were said to have been worn by Sir Stanley Matthews in the 1953 FA Cup Final, in which he inspired Blackpool’s victory over Bolton.

You don’t need me to tell you that Sir Stan is a hero around here and around the country. We still encourage young players to look up to him, to aspire to his example. His hard work coupled with sublime skill. His discipline and self control, so great that he was never booked. The way in which he looked after his body so that it could keep playing far beyond those of his contemporaries. All of these are praiseworthy and worthy of emulation.

I wonder who your heroes are? Who do you look up to, whose example do you want to follow. It might be a parent, or another member of the family. It might be a work colleague, or a friend from school, maybe even a teacher. Or is it someone famous, a celebrity, a singer or actor? Who do you want to be like? Have you deliberately chosen your role models or do they affect you without you noticing it?

I wonder who looks to you for an example? Who watches what you do and copies it? Who notices what you’re saying or doing, and follows along after. Who notices your attitude to other people and takes up those attitudes? As I was sitting in a cafe in Hanley thinking about what I would say this morning, an advert came on the radio looking for people who would act as positive role models to children in our local schools. It struck me that we are all role models in some way, we don’t have a choice about that, what we have a choice about is what kind of role model we are.

This reality is recognised by Paul in his letter to the Christians in and around Philippi. Paul knew that people are wired so that they are affected by the people around them.

Continued here...

How are you doing with your Smarties?

2010-02-24T08:12:00.000-08:00

Apparently in America, Smarties are not like the Smarties that you and I know. In America, Smarties, are a roll of multicolored, chalklike, bite-size candies wrapped in clear plastic, about ten to twelve pieces in a pack. A bit like our Refreshers or Lovehearts. Can you imagine what I mean? They are perfect for sharing.

An American pastor called Kevin was not a huge fan of Smarties, but when he saw little Dustin come into church with a fresh roll, he just had to ask for one. Dustin peeled out a piece and handed it over with a smile. From that day on, for the next two years, every time Dustin got a pack of Smarties, he took out the first one and set it aside for Kevin. Every Sunday morning before the worship Service, Dustin would track Kevin down at church and offer him a Smarty.

Sometimes Dustin would open a pack of Smarties during the week, but he would still save Kevin the first piece. By the time Sunday came, the Smarty was a little mangy and furry with lint, but he never forgot to bring it for Kevin, who would thank him and put the candy in his pocket so he could “enjoy it later.”

Out of ten pieces in a pack, Dustin gave the first part to his pastor. What Kevin saw was a little boy who loved to share and who understood the power of generosity. Since that time, he has asked himself many times, “How am I doing with my Smarties?”

This morning, I’d like to give us an opportunity to think about how we are doing with our Smarties.

Continued here...

Glow, grow, and go.

2010-02-15T08:53:00.000-08:00

What is this? It's a box of Ready brek. Will anybody here admit to liking Ready brek? Does anybody remember the Ready brek ads on the telly?

In those ads, what happens to the boys and girls when they eat Ready brek? They start glowing with this wierd orange glow, like a lightbulb has been switched on inside them.

Now how would you feel if one morning you ate some Ready brek and you actually starting glowing? How do you think that the rest of your family would react? I think that I’d be pretty freaked out, I’d probably call the doctor.

So, you can imagine how freaked out the people in the bits of the Bible that we’ve just heard read were when people started glowing.

God’s people, the Israelites, were camped in the desert between Egypt and Palestine, at the bottom of a mountain. Moses, whom God had sent to rescue them from slavery in Egypt, had disappeared up the mountain. They had seen thunder and lightening and all sorts, and now Moses reappears, carrying two big bits of stone and he’s glowing. They are completely freaked out and run away. He didn’t know why, he didn’t have a mirror with him on the mountain, and didn’t know that his face has glowing.

But eventually they sort out what is going on. Moses face wasn’t glowing because he’d had Ready brek for breakfast, it was because he had been close to God, speaking with God.

Continued here...

Obedience, worship, and faith

2010-02-08T04:42:00.000-08:00

Have you ever seen one of those films in which some of the characters find their way into a treasure hoard? They run from side to side, not knowing where to start looking at things. They pick one thing up and then dash over to the other side of the room as another jewel catches their eye. Suddenly a gleaming nugget drags their attention away again. They are so overwhelmed with the enormity of the find that they dash round like headless chickens unable to focus properly on any single item.

I felt a bit like that this week, as I wrestled with the readings that we have heard. Three readings from three very different types of writing, yet all three are to be found, bound together in our Bibles. One from the very beginning of time, one from the very end of time and one from the turning point of time, the life of Jesus here on earth with us. Each reading is full of images and emotions and meaning. I could pick any verse from any of these readings and preach for an hour. If I did, we’d be here until this time on Tuesday. And we still wouldn’t have scratched the surface of the depth of richness that God has given us in these portions of the Bible.

So, I have picked a few things that I’d like us to look at this morning, if I can stay focused for a little while and not get distracted. But, there are many other things here to enjoy, so I’d encourage you to spend some time this week reading over these passages and seeing what catches your eye, and what else God might be saying to you through them.

But, for now, back to this morning. I’d like us to think about three responses to God that these passages provoke. Obedience, worship, and faith.

Continued here...

Mission and Unity

2010-01-24T04:25:00.000-08:00

Something very important happened in 1910 in Scotland. An event happened that was the birthplace of one of the most important movements in the modern international church.

In 1910, in Edinburgh, there was a World Missionary Conference. Christians from around the world met to think and talk and pray about how God was calling them to share the good news of Jesus around the world.

One of the most important results of that conference was the realisation that Christian mission was, and is, profoundly disrupted by the scandal of Christian disunity.

Christian mission is profoundly disrupted by the scandal of Christian disunity.

As people were following God’s call to tell people about Jesus, they found that they were sharing about Jesus who came to earth, lived among us, died for us, was raised to life and glory so that people could live at peace with each other and with God. They were then having to explain that for some reason Jesus’ representatives on earth, who were meant to live like him, were divided amongst themselves.

I experience this quite often when I go and talk to families who are thinking of bringing their children to baptism. Maybe one of the parents was bought up in a Roman Catholic household, and the other in a Church of England household. They want to know what the difference is, and how come there are two churches when there’s only one Jesus. To be honest, it is embarrassing to have to explain and it saddens me that over the centuries Jesus’ followers have failed so spectacularly to love each other as Christ loves us.

From this realisation, the modern ecumenical movement was born. People devoting time to listening to each other, hearing each others stories, and determining that unity between Christians and churches should be built up so that the voice of the church could speak of Christ without compromise.

Continued here...

Renewing

2009-12-22T03:59:00.000-08:00

This morning we come to the third in our Advent mini-series on refining, reviving and renewing.

A couple of weeks ago Marg helped us to think about God’s refining work in our lives. We heard about the real live example of a silver refiner, and what that can show us about how God works in our lives. We looked at how God is waiting with us and watching with us in all the heat and fire, and that through the refining process we are made more able to reflect God’s image.

Then, last week, we thought about God’s reviving work in our lives. Using the real life example of the process of reviving someone who has got too cold, we discovered that God’s reviving wakes us up, moves us out of the place of death and gives us life in the Holy Spirit.

Now this week are going to think about God’s renewing work. Given the pattern so far, it might not surprise you to hear that I have a real life example of renewal to think about as well. And it won’t take much imagination to think what it might be either. You can’t wander more than about 50 yards in this city without seeing some kind of sign with the word “Renew” on it.

According to their website:

“RENEW North Staffordshire is helping to create better places to live across areas of Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Staffordshire Moorlands.”

That sounds great, and I’m sure that there will be different views around the room as to how well Renew is doing, but what I’d like us to think about first is HOW they are going about renewing areas.

Continued here...

Reviving?

2009-12-13T05:41:00.000-08:00

I really struggled this week to work out what I was to say this morning. I really wanted to talk about a particular subject, but the bit of the Bible that we are looking at this morning didn’t seem to say much about it.

Let me explain. Last week, Marg spoke about one of the ways that God works in our lives, with us. We explored the idea that God refines us. She shared with us the story of the lady who went to see a silver smith to find out how silver is refined, and discovered that the silver worker has to stay and watch the silver as it is refined, and that the refiner knows when the silver is ready because she can see her reflection in the silver. And so, we know when it feels like we are going through fire that God is not absent, but is there, with us, closely attentive, and we know that we are being made more able to bear God’s image.

During the week, Keith Harding shared with me that he felt that God was saying that God refines, revives and renews. And so, with Marg having helped us to think about God’s refining last week, I thought that this week we might look at God’s reviving, and then, next week, look at God’s renewing.

But, then I looked at the Gospel for this week, the story we heard this morning of John the Baptist’s teaching to the people in the desert outside Jerusalem. And it didn’t seem to have much to do with God’s reviving. It seemed to have a lot to do with judgement and fire. In some ways, they seemed to be the opposite of reviving, they seemed to be to do with putting to death.

Continued here...

What King do you see?

2009-11-22T04:43:00.000-08:00

Today is the feast day of Christ the King. I wonder what kind of picture comes into our heads when we hear the word, “King”. I wonder how we react to the idea of someone being King over us? What does it mean to have a King? These questions are difficult enough when we’re thinking about a King here on earth, but I think that sometimes they seem even more difficult to answer when we are talking about Jesus as King. But that is what I’d like to do this morning. We’re going to have a look at the three readings, at the things that they show us about Jesus as King, and think about what that means for our lives now.

The first reading we heard is part of the book of Daniel. You probably know him best from the story of Daniel and the Lion’s Den. Daniel was an Israelite, probably from one of the ruling families in Jerusalem, who had been carried off into exile in Babylon when Jerusalem had been defeated about 600 years before Jesus was born. He was a faithful worshipper of God, who, throughout his exile proved the practical wisdom of following God faithfully.

A few years before the incident with the lions, Daniel had a series of dreams or visions, in which he was shown things that were to come about in the future. The descriptions of the things that he was shown sound foreign and strange, even when they’ve been translated into English. What is it with all these beasts and horns, and wheels on a throne?

Continued here...

A Call to Action

2009-11-12T04:55:00.000-08:00

On the 13th of May, 1940, a new Prime Minister stood up to speak in the Palace of Westminster. It was his first speech to the House of Commons, having replaced the previous leader of the government three days earlier. As the United Kingdom prepared to enter perhaps the most dangerous period of the war, this is part of what he said:

“I would say to the House as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs — Victory in spite of all terror — Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.”

The response to this call to action, and others like it, is part of what we remember today. The response by ordinary people, a response of strength and courage. A response that took the call to action seriously, and did something about it. People responded by shedding blood, tears and sweat. And in the end that response did lead to victory.

There was a call to action. There was a response. There was a victory.

In our readings today we heard about other calls to action and the responses that they provoked.

Continued here...

How much is enough?

2009-10-12T07:12:00.000-07:00

He ran up to Jesus.

He knelt. He must have thought a lot of Jesus. He knelt in the road. He must have heard and been impressed by Jesus’ teaching. He knelt in the road, in the dust. How highly must he have rated Jesus.

Have you ever run up to someone and knelt in front of them? Can you imagine doing so? How highly would you have to think of someone before you did that?

Have you ever been asked to do something that was just impossible? Have you ever felt like you couldn’t live up to the expectations of someone you loved? Has someone you respected said that all your hard work was OK, but wasn’t enough?

His face fell. He couldn’t do what was asked of him. He was heart broken. He couldn’t learn the thing that the teacher he rated so highly wanted to teach him. He was shocked. He’d been told that he lacked something, that he wasn’t perfect.

He went away.

Continued here...

A hot favourite?

2009-09-06T06:17:00.000-07:00

Imagine a meeting. With all the words about courts and judges, James is probably picturing a kind of court room, a place where disputes are sorted out, maybe even between fellow Christians. So, picture the scene, the church has gathered to sort out a disagreement between two of its members. The first one arrives, looking very fine. He is wearing his best suit, and his heavy jewellery shows that this is someone to be reckoned with. He is given one of the best seats, so that everyone can see him and he can command the room. The second arrives, he’s not washed for a couple of days. His clothes are tatty and he needs a hair cut. He’s made to sit on the floor at the edge of the room. What do you think the chances of a fair hearing are? How confident would you feel if you were the rich man sat, with everyone admiring you? How much despair would you feel as the poor man, crouching in the corner, overhearing the muttering of rude comments? What are the chances of a fair hearing? They don’t seem to be great, do they?

James then goes on to give three reasons why favouritism is wrong, why it is not to be practiced by those who believe in Jesus and follow him.
1) God has chosen the people you are discriminating against for special blessing. So you’re setting yourself up against the will of God.
2) The ones you are fawning to are the very ones who are attacking you and blaspheming against Jesus.
3) It breaks the law that has been acknowledged as the heart of the law, a status that was reaffirmed by Jesus – love your neighbour as yourself.

Continued here...

It's the Law

2009-08-30T07:23:00.000-07:00

What is happening to this ball? What happens when I let go of it ? Why does that happen? Does it make any difference who drops it? Will it always fall?

Dropping this ball illustrates the law of Gravity. This morning I’d like us to think about some different kinds of law that crop up in our readings, but also in our lives.

The first question is, “What is a law”. I came across a great definition this week from a Chinese Christian teacher called Watchman Nee:
“A law is a generalization examined until it is proved that there is no exception. We might define it more simply as something that happens over and over again. Each time the thing happens it happens in the same way.”

Does this definition work with my ball? Does it happen over and over again? Does the same thing happen the same way each time? Yes, it does.

The three kinds of law that I would like us to look at this morning are; God’s moral law, Laws made by people and the Perfect Law of Freedom.

We start with God’s moral law. These are the laws that God has given people so that they can know how they should live. If we follow these laws then we can live well with each other and with God. They are referred to in both our readings. Jesus is talking about God’s moral law when he talks about , “evil thoughts, vulgar deeds, stealing, murder, unfaithfulness in marriage, greed, meanness, deceit, indecency, envy, insults, pride, and foolishness” all being forbidden. Why are they forbidden? They are forbidden because they prevent us from being fit to worship God. If we do these things then we damage each other, our relationships with each other, and our relationship with God.

Continued here...

Memories

2009-07-19T03:47:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent a fair amount of time this week talking to people about what things used to be like. I’ve been with families preparing for the funerals of their loved ones, who remember what family life used to be like when they were growing up. I’ve had conversations with people living in Cavour Street in Etruria who have lived there through all the changes of the last fifty years. Through the closure of industries, the demolition of one lot of houses and the building of another lot. I heard about how close knit that community used to be. To be honest, I suspect that in these conversations there were, in some cases, rose tinted glasses being worn, but, mostly, the memories of the things being recalled were good memories, that make life today seem a bit flat, disjointed, with communities that aren’t as strong and more people that are lonely and lost.

Most of the people that I spoke to seemed to have lost something that they remember having, and they aren’t sure if they are ever going to find it again.

In contrast, our first reading this morning encourages those who hear it to remember in a different way. Rather than looking back, remembering that things were better then and worse now, they are told to look back and remember that things were worse then and are so much better now.

You see, this letter was aimed at Gentile Christians. It was written to those who knew that in the past they had been completely excluded from God’s people. They were without hope, they didn’t know God. They were in darkness. They had no promise from God for their earthly lives, or for what would happen when their earthly life ended. They were all at sea.

But not anymore. Something had changed. There was a shift from the way that they used to live, and now they lived in a different way.

Continued here...

Say no to cynicism.

2009-07-09T01:20:00.000-07:00

Cynicism. Ezekiel faced cynics, Jesus faced cynics, and Paul faced cynics.

Those of little faith. Those who could not see past the ordinary. Past the slightly odd priest who was prone to have visions and dreams that were hard to understand. Past the man who we grew up with, whose brothers and sisters we know. Past the man who built our house. Past the funny little ugly tent maker. There is a lack of imagination, a lack of openness to something new, a lack of vision to see what is here now and what is coming soon, because of the limited experience of the past.

It seems to me that cynicism is one of the hall marks of our culture in this country right now. Throughout public debate and news stories is a deep current of mistrust. There appears to be an underlying assumption and idea that most people lie most of the time, and that we are being misled.

I believe that this is so corrosive to the human soul that it is heart breaking. How can we live in community if we don’t trust people? It seems to me that down this road lies isolation and loneliness. Cut off from each other, with no common ground on which to meet, we end up alone.

And this is not to say that there is not, in some cases, grounds for mistrust and dismay. It is almost as if over the last fifteen years there has been a vicious circle in place in our society. Repeated episodes of deceit and lack of openness by public figures in authority, political and church leaders, have led to a reduction in trust in our leaders, and this in turn has led to a reluctance on the part of leaders to be open about failings and mistakes.

It is one huge mess that is characterised by a lack of truth, a lack of forgiveness, a lack of openness, a lack of generosity and a lack of trust. Our country is in a mess.

Continued here...

Speaking into Silence

2009-06-30T06:01:00.000-07:00

I wonder how you feel about silence. What your story of silence is.

Last week, when I went on retreat before my ordination, we spent a fair amount of time in what we called silence. But it wasn’t really. Although we weren’t speaking to each other, there was still the sound of the pipes rattling as someone got a glass of water, the birds singing and squabbling in the gardens, and the irregular rattling of a train on the neighbouring tracks. And that was just on the outside. On the inside, I was chuntering away to myself. God wasn’t quiet either. God was there, showing me more, teaching me more, loving me more.

Behind the story of the birth of John the Baptist there are two stories of silence.

Continued here...

Children of God

2009-06-09T05:23:00.000-07:00

I’m really pleased to be here, with the opportunity to preach this morning. Of course, I’m always enjoy preaching, especially to such a fine bunch of folks as you lot, but today I’m especially excited. That is because today is Trinity Sunday, and I love the Trinity. I think that it is one of the most exciting and exhilarating aspects of God that there is, and I love talking about it. One of the dangers of this is that I might get a bit carried away. Trinity Sunday only comes round once a year, and there is more to be said about the Trinity than can be said in quarter of an hour once a year. But that is what we have, so hopefully this morning, even if I don’t say everything that can be said about the Trinity, I will say enough to help us to experience one God in three persons in a way that is deeper and more real to our hearts.

One of the reasons that I find the Trinity to be so attractive, is that it seems to me that the idea of relationship being at the heart of God’s identity, who God is, helps us to understand our own relationship with God, and our identity, who we really are.

It seems to me that questions of identity are really important, particularly at the moment. Who am I? I might define myself by my family relationships: I am a husband, a son, a father. I might define myself by my job: I am a curate. I might define myself by my nationality: I am British. But, it seems to me that these ways of working out who we are can leave us very vulnerable. Over the last few decades, as the people have become more able to move around the country, families have become less physically close, marriages have broken up, and people close to us die. If I have defined myself as my grandchild’s grandparent, what happens to my identity when that young family has to move to find work? If my identity and self worth are all tied up with my work, with my job, what happens to that when I lose my job? What does it mean to be British? As we see the disaster area of our national political scene at the moment, is being British something that we want to be?

It seems to me that we all need something more stable, more trustworthy to show us our identity, who we really are, how valuable we are.

I believe that God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, can give us that.

Continued here...

Chosen?

2009-06-02T03:32:00.000-07:00

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last."

Jesus spoke these words to his friends and followers nearly two thousand years ago, and I believe that he continues to speak them to us today. Maybe it will help us to hear them more clearly , and to understand what they mean for us, if we spend a few moments thinking about what they might have meant for some of the people who heard them when they were first spoken.

Mary, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. When you were a young woman, just betrothed to Dad, and that angel appeared to you to tell you that I would be born to you, even though you had never been with a man. You did not choose me. Nobody can ever choose who their child will be, but you had even less control over it than most people. You did not choose me, but I chose you. In some ways I was the fruit that you bore. I am the fruit of your body, but also the fruit of your love and care as I grew and became a man. That fruit will last forever. I will die, but I will defeat death and be raised to live again forever.

But there is more fruit that you will bear. You did not choose me, but the way in which you humbly accepted and obeyed my Father, is an example that will inspire countless women and men forever more. Your witness to my life, death and resurrection will bring life and hope to people across time and places that are beyond your imagination.

Continued here...

F's for Fruitfulness

2009-05-10T09:25:00.000-07:00

As some of you may know, I have a vegetable plot. It’s not a very big vegetable plot, but it has produced its first crop this year. Some spinach. Not very much spinach so far, but enough for a couple of salads and a meal for Liz and me. The rest of the plants divide up into two different kinds. For some of them I can see the process of the produce developing. The blossom has been on the apples and the cherries, and the fruit has set. It doesn’t guarantee a crop, but at least I know we’re on target. The peas are flowering, a promising sign that there might be pods containing sweet, fresh, peas later in the year. But, for others I can’t see what is going on because it’s underground. I can see the tops of the potatoes and the carrots, but I’ve no idea whether or not the roots and tubers are forming in the right way, or if they’re being eaten by bugs, or other nasties. And it’s no good prodding around, digging them up to have a look. That would be completely counter productive. I’ve just got to wait and see. It’s the same with the tomato and pepper seeds sitting in little pots on the bathroom window sill (I know, I started them a bit late). Are they germinating? I have no idea, and I mustn’t go digging to try and find out.

This morning I’d like to invite us to think about fruitfulness. But not really about the fruit and crops that might be growing (or not) in our gardens, but about the fruit of our lives. Some of this is growing out in the open, we can see it coming. Some of it is growing deep in our souls, hidden from general view.

This is also going to be a world first. This is the first time, I think, that I am going to preach a three point sermon, with each point starting with the same letter as the over all theme. Are you ready for it?

Our main theme is fruitfulness, and my first point is, “Forlorn."

Continued here...

What do you see?

2009-05-06T03:53:00.000-07:00

May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face shine upon us,
that your ways may be known on earth,
your salvation among all nations.

The first verse of this couplet is often used in our services, words of blessing, even greetings cards. It has a lovely ring to it:

May God be gracious to us and bless us, and make his face shine upon us.

There is no question that it is a great blessing, with a warmth to it. But, if we cut it off there, it is incomplete.

Why does the Psalmist ask for Gods’ grace and blessing? Is the request made so that the Psalmist and God’s people can enjoy life having made the most of their divine contacts? No. The blessing of God is sought after, so that God’s ways may be known on earth and God’s salvation to everybody.

I do want to be a bit careful here. I believe that we have a generous God, who loves to give us good things because we are loved. I don’t believe that God blesses us to make God look good. God blesses us because God loves us, and we are encouraged to bring all our needs to God and trust God with them.

Having said that, I also believe that we seek the giver, not the gift. We seek the giver, not the gift. We see beyond the gift to the giver. Having experienced the love of the Giver, expressed in the value of the gift, we want others to appreciate the Giver’s generosity and to receive the gift as well.

Continued here...

I am Thomas

2009-04-19T11:03:00.000-07:00

Good morning, my name is Thomas. You might have heard of me. I was one of Jesus’ disciples, been with him from when he first started going around the Jewish countryside, teaching, telling stories, healing people. Most people call me doubting Thomas because of something that happened to me at the end of Jesus’ time on earth. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. I do want to tell you the story of that day, but I’d like to build up to it, it that’s OK with you. Fill in some of the background. It might help to make a bit more sense of it for you.

I’d like to take you back to a few months before the end of Jesus’ time on earth, to a remote wilderness on the other side of the river Jordan from Jerusalem. Jesus had got it into his head that he ought to go back to Bethany, just down the road from Jerusalem. To be fair, we had just had some really bad news. Word had reached us that our mate, Lazarus, was really ill. What was really odd though was that when the message reached us Jesus didn’t seem to be in any hurry at all. We hung around for a couple of days and then, just as we were finishing breakfast on the third day Jesus announces that we ought to go and visit Lazarus.

This went down like a lead balloon. Last time we had been to the area, we had barely escaped with our lives, because the religious leaders had been plotting to kill Jesus. The others tried to talk Jesus out of it, but he was determined. Then, it all got even more bizarre. Jesus said that Lazarus was dead, but how he knew this was a complete mystery, it wasn’t like we’d had any more messages. We maybe could have understood it if he had wanted to go and see Lazarus when we was sick. We’d seen him heal plenty of people, he could have healed Lazarus as well, but no, he waited until Lazarus was dead, and then was in a big hurry to walk into danger. Really bizarre.

In the end I said to the others, “Let’s go with him, at least we can all die together”. But, as we were to find out later, death wasn’t where this story would end.

Continued here...

Welcome, Travel, Message

2009-04-09T06:54:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you have noticed but we have had a special visitor to the UK during the last week. In fact there have been lots of special visitors. The leaders of the G20 nations, the 20 richest, most influential countries on earth have been in London, with their ministers and advisors. But the one that everybody talked about most was the new President of the United States, Barack Obama.

Everybody wanted to welcome this man who has been hailed as a breath of fresh air, a new hope for the western world.

Even Radio Stoke got in on the act. Stuart George on the Breakfast Show yesterday said this about him, “Everybody loves him and he's going to solve the world's ills.” Now, I think that his tongue was in his cheek, but there is that kind of slant to a lot of the coverage of Barack Obama, expectations of what he can achieve are very high. Anyway, in order to mark the occasion of his visit to the UK, Radio Stoke are planning to send him a hamper of things to let him know about Staffordshire and South Cheshire, because he never really made it out of London. They invited people to ring and text in with suggestions of what could go in this hamper. They decided that they couldn't send food because that wouldn't get through customs. But in the end this was the list of things that they decided to send: a recipe for Oatcakes, a piece of pottery, a calendar with views of the Staffs moorlands, postcards showing views of the area, a model train, and two t-shirts for his daughters with a Staffordshire knot design on them. That is the list of things that it was decided represent this region and would be our welcome to Barack Obama to mark his first visit to the UK as President.

Continued here...

Bending the Knee

2009-04-02T07:06:00.000-07:00

I was at the Potteries Museum on Saturday with the rest of the family. Tabitha has been learning about the Tudors in histroy at school, and they had a Tudor day at the museum, so we all headed along to see what was going on. Well, there were a dozen or so people in Tudor costume, talking with lots of thees and thous, and generally being Tudorish. Including, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

They had some Tudor musical instruments, they had a drum, and some pipes and they might even have had a trigon, but I'm not sure what one of those is, so I couldn't swear to it. Having played the gathered company a couple of tunes, they asked for volunteers to teach a Tudor dance to. As part of this, the victims / eager volunteers where taught the correct way to bow and curtsy. The dancing master insisted that gathered crowd ought to learn as well because we all needed to bow to the King. So he showed us all how to do this, and then instructed us to reverence the King. Which about half of us did, the rest being distracted or bored or just indifferent. At which point the King barked, “Those who do not bend to the King will break”. We had another go, and far more people made some attempt at the correct bow.

Nebuchadnezzar did more than bark a pointed comment, he threatened execution, and quickly to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. If they didn't get down on their knees, and pronto they would be toast.

Continued here...

Disciplined Worship

2009-03-16T08:04:00.000-07:00

I wonder if you have house rules? And if you do, I wonder how they came to be decided. Let me give you some examples. In our house it's my job to load the dishwasher and put it on before I go to bed. We didn't need this rule before we had a dishwasher, and after we got one it soon became clear that it was going to be my job, because when Liz did it, I get cross about it not being loaded correctly, and I was informed in no uncertain terms that if it mattered that much, then I could do it. So I do.

We also have house rules about bedtime for the kids, and I expect that as they get older, we will have to negotiate curfew times that we expect them to be home by. I guess the first set of house rules we ever had as a family were the ones that Liz and I agreed to when we got married. The love, honour, cherish, be faithful vows that underpin our marriage and which sum up the values that form the basis for our whole family life together.

The thing that all these house rules have in common is that they all, in some way, are in place to enable us to live together happily and in a way which allows our our relationships within the household to flourish. Not all of them were there to start with, and some of the ones that we will need in the future are not yet in place. As family life goes on, the details of our house rules might change, but the underlying principles of love, faithfulness, and integrity will remain.

In our reading from Exodus, God is laying out some house rules for the family of the people of God God has sent Moses to Egypt, to rescue the people of God from captivity, and they are now three months out from Egypt, and they have reached the base of the mountain of God, Mount Sinai. Previously God had spoken to the ancestors of the people of God, people like Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, and made promises that their children would become a nation.

Now God has bought those children to the place in which God will start to forge them into a nation. That nation needed some house rules to enable the people that were part of it to live together with flourishing relationships, with each other and with God.

Continued here...

The Top of the Hill

2009-03-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

During the summer Tabitha and I went on an expedition. We set out at around 9:30 in the morning and caught two buses from the place we were staying to reach the place where we would start walking. The cloud base was quite low and we started walking in the cloud, with grey all around, and droplets of water forming on our clothes. After about half an hour the cloud lifted a bit, and we could see the path, and some of the surrounding scenery, but we still couldn't see where we were going to end up. We continued to climb, back up into the cloud, and the visibility worsened again.

Finally we got onto the home straight, heading to our destination. We still couldn't see where we wanted to get to, but we had met the railway track and knew that that would lead us there. We didn't actually see where we had been heading all that time until we were about 50 yards away, and there it was, the top of .... any guesses.....Snowdon. Even at the top, we couldn't see much, so we sat down and had our lunch and headed home again. Even though we hadn't been able to see it, reaching the peak of Snowdon had been the reason for everything that we had done since we left home, it had overshadowed our climbing, even though it wasn't visible to us.

Jesus and his disciples had been on a three year expedition around Judea. Throughout that expedition, there was also a destination, one thing that overshadowed all that Jesus did, and said. He was also going to the top of a hill, but he was going to the cross on the top of the hill. For most of the journey the disciples didn't know that this was where Jesus was headed, but lately he had begun to tell them, to let them know. Clear glimpses of the destination were breaking through the cloud. In this passage, for the first time, Jesus tells his disciples that he is to be crucified. For the first time on the journey the exact destination is made crystal clear to the disciples. The cross on the top of the hill.

Continued here...

Fasting

2009-03-02T09:21:00.000-08:00

Jesus was sent by the Holy Spirit into the desert for forty days.

Jesus is right at the beginning of his public ministry. He had just had one of the most awesome spiritual experiences that anybody could ever have: he had been baptised, the Holy Spirit had descended into him to empower and equip him for the work ahead, and his Father had reaffirmed, in front of everybody, how much he was loved. Surely it's time to crack on, to get out there, he's on a high, time to start flying.

No. Jesus was sent by the Holy Spirit into the desert for forty days.

There were a few things that happened in the desert. We know that Jesus was tempted, that he experienced attacks by Satan that aimed to stop him starting his ministry. Now I'm not planning to talk about these temptations particularly this morning, but I want to ask where Jesus got his strength from whilst he was going through this difficult time? Now, it's a bit of a puzzle because we're not told by Mark directly, and neither are we told by the other writers of the accounts of Jesus' life.

Well, it might help if we think about the places where we might look for strength. We might look to friends or family. But Jesus was in a desert, so he didn't get his strength from there. We might look for strength in favourite books or pieces of music – like the castaways on Desert Island discs. But Jesus didn't have those things either, so he didn't get his strength from there. On a physical level we might think that the best way to keep our strength up is by eating healthy food. But Jesus didn't eat, he fasted. So he didn't get his strength from food.

In fact, we could go on like this all morning, but we would run out of ideas before we hit the truth if we stick to looking for physical answers. In one of the toughest times of his life, Jesus strength came direct from God by the Holy Spirit. And it seems to me that it is no coincidence that Jesus was sent by the Holy Spirit into the desert for these forty days. It seems to me that it is when we are in the place where the worldly things we sometimes look to for strength aren't there, that we can experience the strengthening power of the Holy Spirit most.

Continued here...

What's the choice?

2009-02-10T03:42:00.000-08:00

I don't have any choice. You don't have a choice. He doesn't have a choice. These are some of the hardest words that can be spoken or heard in today's culture. In our country it's all about choice. Having the right to choose. The right to choose where our kids go to school, the ability to choose where we live, were we work, who we are friends with, who are doctor is, which hospital to go to. The power of people choosing to buy some things and not others is what drives free market economies around the world.

So, how do we feel when we are told that we can't choose. That we have to continue to live in that house because we can't sell it. That our kids can't go to that school because it is full. It seems to me that more and more people are coming to believe that they have a right to choose in every aspect of their lives, and that if they can't choose then something is badly wrong.

And they'd be right. There is something badly wrong. Actually I think that there are three things that restrict our choice: Illusions, Barriers, and Compulsions.

Continued here...

What's Missing?

2009-01-12T03:49:00.000-08:00

Marmalade. This is the marmalade that I made from some of the left over Christingle oranges. I know that I was warned that they were the wrong type of oranges, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway. As you can see, this marmalade is a bit on the runny side. There is something missing, in this case, it's probably not got enough pectin in it.

I wonder if you've ever had the experience of thinking that there is something missing. Sometimes things just don't add up, and sometimes it's difficult to tell what it is that's missing. If you didn't know anything about making marmalade then you might not have been able to tell what was missing from this jar. Just that something wasn't quite right.

Paul had got a strong feeling that there is something missing. He'd been travelling around what is now Turkey and Greece, telling anybody who would listen about Jesus. He has now ended up in Ephesus. Whilst he was there he met up with a group of disciples. Now, in today's reading we only have a snapshot of their conversation, but I think that there must have been more to it than this. It doesn't really sound like the first line in a conversation, does it?, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”

Continued here...

Glory to the New Born King

2008-12-27T07:52:00.000-08:00

Hark the Herald Angels sing.

While mortals sleep the angels keep their watch of wondering love.

The Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell.

The angel of the Lord came down and glory shone around.

A shining throng of angels praising God.

A few weeks ago I spent a Friday night in Hanley at Nightchurch. At about 1'o clock on the Saturday morning I was sat chatting with a couple of clubbers who had come in to get out of the cold, have a cup of tea and a chat. They started talking about angels. One of them had been advising the others about asking their angels to help them out when they were going through tough times. These girls were absolutely convinced that they have guardian angels watching over them, who answer their prayers and who leave white feathers as signs of encouragement and hope.

Continued here ...

Joy to the world?

2008-12-15T05:04:00.000-08:00

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

Now, in common with a lot of people, Paul was in the habit of putting the things that he thought were most important at the beginning of his lists. In this case, the emphasis is on the instruction to “Rejoice always”. One of the reasons that I think that this is the case, is that joy seems to have been a particularly important idea to Paul, and one that he valued very highly in the church at Thessalonica. In the very first paragraph of the letter, he wrote, “... you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers... ”1:6-7.

Now, I have to say that this is an instruction that I struggle with. How can I rejoice always when the world is in such a mess? How can I rejoice always when people that I love are ill or in pain? How can I rejoice always when people are losing their jobs and are afraid that they will lose their homes? Isn't it just insensitive and unrealistic?

Continued here...

Weary at Christmas?

2008-12-10T04:18:00.000-08:00

I wonder if you are feeling weary today? I know that I am, a little.

I think it might be worth naming some of those things that might be making us feel weary.

They might be health problems, either our own or those of people we are close to. Worry about finances, and how we're going to pay the bills this winter. Concern for children or grandchildren who don't know Jesus. The many ongoing tasks of keeping home and family fed, clothed, clean. The expectation of the Christmas season: presents to be bought, people to be entertained, church services to go to. Grief that won't leave us alone.

It seems to me that the things that make us weary are things that go on for a long time. They wear us out, wear us down, wear through us.

It is with these things in mind that we come to the promises of God we have heard read today.

Continued here...

Where is God?

2008-11-18T11:50:00.000-08:00

On the third of August, 2007, a seventeen month old child was taken to a London hospital, where the child was pronounced dead. The child had very severe injuries. Now three people await sentencing for, “causing or allowing the death of a child”. During the course of the last week there has been extensive news coverage of the case, and angry exchanges in parliament. We don't even know the child's name, just “Child P”.

Over the last two months, around 250,000 people have fled from their homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo. That's the about the same number people who live in the whole of Stoke on Trent. They are homeless and starving, their children are being stolen to fight in child armies. All this is mainly because of the great mineral riches that exist under the ground that they live on, and the fighting over the control of those riches.

Continued here...

Whose Image?

2008-10-20T13:08:00.000-07:00

Put yourself in the sandals of those who had been following Jesus and learning from him. Three years ago you had a proper job. Who were you back then? Were you an outdoors type, maybe a fisherman? Were you more of an office worker, with pens, paper and calculations everywhere? Were you a widow, catching up with friends for a natter and sitting in the sun, looking after the grandchildren?

Whoever you used to be, you're someone different now. Spending three years with Jesus changes you. There was something about him that you'd found irresistible, and you'd left everything to follow him. You'd travelled round the country as he'd taught and done things that had left you breathless, confused and sometimes scared witless.

Now there's a funny feeling in the air. Recently Jesus has started going on about his having to die and some really far out stuff about coming back to life again. We've all come to Jerusalem for the passover festival but things are definitely a bit odd. A few days ago Jesus sent a couple of the lads to fetch a donkey which he'd ridden into the city. The crowds gathering for the festival had gone nuts, cutting branches off the trees, throwing clothes on the path, shouting out songs of the Messiah, of God's rescuer. The powers that be hadn't liked that one little bit.

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The Lord's Prayer

2008-10-09T13:37:00.000-07:00

I'm really glad this morning to be talking about this prayer. Over my life I've had a bit of a strange relationship with it. I remember an assembly I sat in when I was ten. The headmaster was defending the fact that we didn't have much in the way of prayers in our school assemblies. He asked those of us who knew the Lord's prayer to put up our hands. I have to say that I didn't know it off by heart then, but there were a few who did. The Head went on to argue that this was the reason we didn't pray it in school assemblies. Looking back, I wonder if he was even aware of the irony that he was arguing that a school shouldn't do something because it would involve children having to learn something.

Continued here...

Are you coming or going?

2008-09-23T04:30:00.000-07:00

This is a bar of Divine Chocolate. If anybody can work out the link between what I say this morning and Boy George then they can have it. You have until I leave the building this morning to work it out. The answer will be on next week's notice sheet.

As I was mulling over the gospel passage for this morning, I was struck by the contrast between the two commands that Jesus gives in the course of the story. There are some similarities between the two orders: they both involve movement, they both require the hearer to do something, and they will both result in a changed life. But there is also a big difference between the two directions.

Can anyone hazard a guess as to what I'm talking about? What are the two commands?

The first is “Follow me” and the second is “Go and learn”.

In this story the first command is given to Matthew. Jesus is wandering around his home town, and he comes across one of the local tax collectors. The fact that he is a tax collector is very important.
We know that it is very important because it is the only detail we are given about Matthew. Here we have the story of the most important encounter in Matthew's life, and he tells it in about thirty words. We don't know his history, what he looks like, about his family, about his faith journey up to this point, anything. The only thing we know about Matthew is that he is a tax collector.

It's a bit difficult for us to really get why this is so important because we don't live in an occupied country. In Jesus' time, Judea was occupied by the Romans. The tax collectors were native Jews who collected taxes on behalf of the Romans, and took a fair bit for themselves as well. The two closest things I can think of are the collaborators in France during World War 2, and Guy of Gisbourne in the Robin Hood stories. This man extorted money from his countrymen, was hated by them, despised by the Romans and was barred from the Temple, prevented from going to worship God.

It was this person that Jesus invited to follow him. Come follow so that I can show you a better way to live and heal you.

Continued here...

Dance or Weep?

2008-09-18T06:19:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or is that gospel reading a bit odd. What on earth is going on?

Jesus is teaching and some of John's disciples come and see him to find out if he is the one that John had been waiting for and pointing to. Jesus points out all the signs of the kingdom, people bring healed and released from captivity and says, “look what's going on, these things show that I am bringing the Kingdom that John announced was coming”

After the disciples go back to John, Jesus starts talking to the crowd about John and his message. The bit we just read was his summary of this discussion.

He quotes a children's rhyme. Now, the great thing is, nobody now really knows exactly what this rhyme meant.

Continued here...

Motivation

2008-09-07T11:10:00.001-07:00

What makes people do the things that they do? What is it that motivates people? What makes you get out of bed in the morning? As I was watching the Olympics a couple of weeks ago these questions were going through my mind a bit. What really struck me was the respect that interviewers and commentators had for the athletes who had devoted so much of their lives to the goal of competing at the Olympics, and perhaps to winning a medal. Now the Paralympics have started and we hear even more amazing stories of people overcoming huge obstacles to achieve their ambitions and dreams. These guys are seriously motivated.

In the reading we had from Romans, Paul is writing about what motivates people who follow Jesus. It seems to me that that there are two themes, or big ideas, that Paul wants to get across. He uses examples of the kinds of behaviour that Christians aspire to or should avoid, but he uses these examples not for their own sake, but in order to tell his readers something about our motivations, about the underlying reasons that we live the way that we live. There are two big ideas that Paul wants to get across. The first is to do with love and the second is to do with recognising the time that we are living in.

Continued here...

Rock and Salvation

2008-09-03T08:35:00.000-07:00

I thought that this morning we might have a look at the Psalm that is set for today. To help with this, I have printed out copies for you, so that you can take it away and perhaps reflect back on it.

It might feel a bit odd to be engaging with a Psalm like this. They were originally written as songs and poems, resources for the spiritual life of the people of God. They are a bit like our hymns and liturgical prayers today, and we don't often spend time examining the meanings and stuff in these. However it seems to me that we might find them more nourishing if we spent a bit of time chewing them over and savouring them.

I'd like to suggest that this Psalm can be thought about as a series of contrasts between what God is like and what the world is like. Coming out of this contrast is a challenge for how we live and go about our business.

The Psalmist starts by looking at what God is like.

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Included

2008-08-17T09:29:00.000-07:00

Misha is desperate. She came to the UK from the Czech Republic because she had heard that there was work. She's been here six months and is still paying back the loan she took out to fund her ticket. Four days ago she got a letter from home. Her little sister, Anya, has taken ill and her parents can't get hold of the medicine she needs in Prague. Misha goes to the local health centre and asks if they can provide the medicine Anya needs. At first she can't even make an appointment, but she makes such a nuisance of herself that eventually the receptionist persuades the doctor to see her. The doctor explains the situation to Misha. Anya isn't even in the UK, and the NHS has a definite rules about the limits of where it can work. It wouldn't be fair to UK tax payers to pay for medicines for people all over the world.

Sean is desperate. He's just completed a five year sentence in prison. Because one of the things that got him into trouble were the lads he used to hang out with, part of his bail conditions are that he's had to move away from his home town. He's got a little bedsit, but no friends and no family to support him. Sean missed his daughter growing up. She's seven now. He wants to be able to keep in touch with her, and his ex is OK for him to visit, but he can't afford to pay the train fare.

Continued here...

What do you see in the world around you?

2008-08-14T02:56:00.000-07:00

Preached on August 13th 2008.

Almost one hundred years ago two women died. On this day, in 1910, Florence Nightingale's life ended. On this day, in 1912, Octavia Hill gave up the ghost.

Both of these women had looked at the world as it was in their day, found it lacking, and set about changing things.

Florence had seen suffering people, and had taken to nursing. As her career progressed she saw more and more people suffering and dying. Famously, she went to the Crimea and worked tirelessly in some real hell holes. She spent time and effort investigating why these people were dying. When she could show that over crowding and insanitary conditions were causing more soldiers to die in hospitals than wounds inflicted by enemy action, she invested her efforts into getting hospitals designed differently and introduced professional training for nurses.

Octavia saw poor people with inadequate housing and no green spaces to enjoy. She campaigned about these issues and set up schemes for leasing good quality housing to those who had been living in slums. She was one of the founder members of what became the National Trust, with the aim of securing green spaces for everybody to be able to enjoy, regardless of whether or not they could pay for the privilege.

Continued here...

God is a Womble

2008-05-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

Today is Trinity Sunday, when the church takes a deep breath and engages with one of its most exciting ideas, that of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This falls at a really good time for me, coming as it does at following the week when I have been studying the way in which the idea of the Trinity has developed over the years and centuries.

There is no hiding from the fact that this idea is one that is difficult to get our heads round, but I think that it's really exciting because it gives us language for talking about God that allows us to say things in ways that cannot be said otherwise.

My plan for the next quarter of an hour or so is for us to explore this idea together, and by together, I mean that I am going to ask some questions, and you guys are going to chip in with some answers. I want to start with a contribution that one of my fellow students made in class when we were discussing the Trinity.

God is Womble.

Can anybody think of any attributes of Wombles that might tell us something about God?

Continued here...

Pentecost Water

2008-05-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

What is it about kids and water? My four year old, Nathaniel, came home from nursery this week one day and told me that they'd had something really special that day. They'd had the water guns out. But there was one rule. No squirting people. They'd cleaned the garden furniture, sprayed the walls of the shed and watered the plants. As summer comes the plea for the paddling pool is heard once again, on every possible occasion. Kids seem to instinctively know something, that water is one of the most exciting things in the whole of the world.

Water is essential to life as we know it. It has a starring role in the first chapter of the Bible, central to the Creation of all that is, and it is also important in the last chapter, part of the description of the way in which the new creation will be. In between we find it again and again and again. It is one of the most potent images that we have for life and the life giving nature of God.

When God had called the people of God out of captivity and oppression in Egypt, they were led by Moses out in to the desert. As they travelled the horrors of the slavery, the murder of their sons, the forced labour began to fade in their memories and they began to focus on the difficulties of the journey and their fears overtook them. They missed the pomegranates and figs. They were thirsty and saw no source of water. In their lack of faith they rebelled against Moses.

Continued here...

Changing Stories

2008-03-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

Tonight we pick up the story leading up to Easter. This is Palm Sunday, named after the palm branches that the people in the crowds waved as they greeted Jesus, as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. We read and thought about that episode in this morning's service. By the time we get to the account that Matthew tells us about tonight, we have skipped forward a day. To help us get into the picture, I'd like to fill in a few of the things that have happened in the meantime.

Immediately after Jesus had come into Jerusalem he'd parked his donkey and headed for the Temple. He'd seen desks taking over the place that was meant to be available for Gentiles to come and pray. These money changers were there so that you could change your Roman money, which you had to use in the market, for special “Temple” money that had to be used to buy the sacrificial animals so that people could fulfil their religious duties. Of course, the exchange rate was pretty lousy, and the money changers took a fair creaming off the top, but the system had the dual benefit of making sure that no unholy money got into the Temple treasury and also reduced the risk of those undesirable Gentiles coming anywhere near the Temple.

Jesus saw all this, and thought it was great. He changed some money, bought a couple of doves, as his parents had done all those years before, and took them to be sacrificed.

Continued here...

Suspended

2008-03-23T10:12:00.000-07:00

Tom is very excited. His dad has been away from home for what seems like forever. But, he is coming home today. All week Tom has been counting down the number of sleeps left before it will be the day that Dad is coming home. At school Tom has been telling his friends about how great his Dad is, taller than their Dads, the best Dad in the whole world, and he's coming home. In show and tell on Friday morning Tom stood up and told the whole class about how he was going with his mum to the station to meet his Dad, his Dad who is coming home.

He woke up at five o'clock this morning and has been asking every ten minutes if it's time to go and catch the bus yet. On the bus he chatters on excitedly to his mum about all the things that he and his dad are going to do now that he's coming home. The other passengers overhear and smile to themselves.

Tom is sitting on a bench, on the platform, holding his mum's hand, his feet swinging. Suddenly the train swishes alongside the platform and it's all hustle and bustle, lots of people getting on and off. Where's Tom's dad?

There's a man coming towards them, it looks a bit like his dad, but he's shorter than Tom remembers, and he's limping a bit. Tom's mum stands up, but Tom ducks behind her legs, unsure, of the man and of himself. The man comes up to his mum and kisses her, softly and so tenderly, a kiss that Tom has not seen for a long time. His Dad is home.

Continued here...

Hezekiah

2008-03-23T10:02:00.000-07:00

Last week we met Hannah, a woman who was desperate for a child. A woman who, in some senses, was a symbol of the fruitless life that the people of God were living. A woman who came to the place of worship, poured out her distress to God, and received the promise of God with faith.

We left Hannah as she departed the temple, trusting God for a son that she had earnestly prayed for. That son, Samuel, was born, and dedicated to the service of the Lord. That son was a prophet of God. Through him God answered the cry of the people for a King, and after the first King, Saul, came David, the touchstone example for all Kings of the people of God.

David died, and Solomon came to reign, building a temple for God in Jerusalem, a focus of worship for the nation. The nation seemed set on the road to greatness, but....

Continued here...

Tabernacles

2008-03-23T09:55:00.000-07:00

I don't know if this ever happens to you, sometimes I get home from an evening meeting and my wife will be sat watching the TV. Now, if it's Casualty, then it's fairly straightforward. I know basically who everybody is, the plot is fairly predictable and so, if I wanted to, I could pick up what's happening and sit and watch it. If, however, it's an adaptation of a Jane Austin novel that I haven't read then it might take me a bit longer, and a few questions, to work out what's going on and who everybody is.

Sitting down to read this passage made me feel a bit like I was walking into the middle of a story, and quite a complex one at that. There's lots of characters, there's a whole cultural, historical, and religious context that I'm not that familiar with, and there's obviously some more immediate stuff that's been going on that I'm not aware of.

So, what I'd like to do tonight is to go through this passage and fill in some of the background, identify the actors and work out what's going on and what themes we can take and use to shed light on our own lives.

The setting is the Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the feast of the Tabernacles. This is a major, 8 day, festival in the Jewish calendar when the people remembered the tabernacles, or tents, that they lived in the desert following the flight from Israel. What is important for us is that this was a feast of pilgrimage. Lots of Jews from all over the known world had come to Jerusalem for the festival.

Continued here...

Community in Kindness

2008-03-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

This week we continue our series of services on the theme of building community. Each week we have been looking at the ways in which the work of God, the Holy Spirit, can be seen in the building up of our community. We have looked at love, joy, peace, and now we come to kindness.

When I was preparing for this morning, I did what all good sermon writers do when preparing sermons and went on the Internet. I can tell you now that if you Google, “kindness” you get lots of stuff, especially quoteable quotes from famous writers. I am also pleased to report that kindness is widely seen as a good thing.

This, however, is not the most important thing that I want to say today. The most important thing that I think that we need to get hold of this morning is that God is kind. Everything else that I say this morning flows out of that one, key, fact. God is kind.

Is it just me, or does that sound like a bit of an odd thing to say? I was thinking about what I was going to say this morning, and why it was that this sounds like a bit of an odd thing to say.

Continued here...

Unchanging:Prayer:Mouths:Jesus

2008-03-23T09:41:00.000-07:00

Unchanging

Daniel's enemies thought that they knew what couldn't be changed. They thought that they knew what was permanent. They thought that rules and regulations and laws couldn't be changed.

They wanted to destroy Daniel, so they watched him. They couldn't find anything wrong with the way he went about his business or how he did his work. There were no brown envelopes stuffed with cash, no dodgy expenses claims, no shoddy materials used in the buildings he managed, no hidden affairs, he was as clean as a whistle.

But they did see something. They saw him go three times a day and kneel down at a window and pray. They saw this, but they did not understand it. They thought that this must be some kind of law of Daniel's God, some kind of religious rule that Daniel had to keep.

So, they came up with a plan. They would set up a new law, an unchangeable law, a law of the Medes and Persians. They would persuade the King to make a law that would outlaw Daniel.

Continued here...

Slavery and Freedom

2008-03-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

This sermon was put together with the help of "Keystone", the youth group at St Peter's Church, Littleover. I really enjoyed spending some time with them over a couple of weeks, thinking about what it is to be Christlike, and particularly about this teaching from Jesus.

This passage is about freedom and slavery, truth and deception, and life and death. Jesus has been teaching in the Temple in Jerusalem for a week or so, going in every day, sitting there and holding forth to those around, engaging the religious experts in debate. In that time he's said some pretty controversial things about himself, and about the way that the people of God are living out their faith.

These things have provoked different reactions among those who have been listening. Some have decided that he is a dangerous rabble rouser, who threatens their power, someone who needs to be silenced. Others have had faith in him, have believed him, have wanted to follow him.

But Jesus is always clear about a couple of things. He's not very interested in head knowledge alone. He is interested in our whole beings and lives. He's an all or nothing type of guy. Throughout the gospels he makes it clear that choosing to follow him is a costly choice, it is a choice that must be made whole heartedly. It changes our whole lives. But the other thing is that Jesus offers freedom, life in all its fullness, depth. As good as it can be. Jesus is an all or nothing type of guy.

Continued here...

Exiled

2008-03-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year. You might think that this is a bit of an odd thing to say, but we're in church, and the church can be a bit odd. One of the ways that it is odd, is that the church year begins about four weeks before Christmas, on the first Sunday of Advent, which is today. During this four weeks we do two things. Firstly we begin to remember the time when Jesus first came to live with us as a man. Secondly, we look forward to, and prepare for, Jesus' return.

To help us think about these things, I'd like to explore the idea of exile a little bit.

I wonder what makes you feel at home. When I say, “home”, what is it that comes to mind. It might be a place, a house you grew up in, or a room in a house that fits you and you fit it. It might be the city or neighbourhood where you know the people and the people know you. It might be the country that your ancestors lived in, a country where you can buy the food you grew up with, easily. It might be particular people, friends and family. Whichever of these apply to you, home is the place where you can be yourself and know yourself to be valued and loved.

Exile is the opposite of home. Living in exile means being in a place that is unfamiliar, where you feel isolated, threatened, and lonely. Exile is being far from home.

Continued here...

Shield of Faith

2008-03-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

What is it that is distinctive about the shield as a piece of armour that might say something important to us about the nature of faith.

Imagine a Roman battle field. In the middle of the fight you see a person, isolated, sheltering behind a shield. It's a fairly big shield, about as tall and wide as a person, the leather face is dripping wet. As you watch you see that they are trying to protect someone who is on the floor, injured. But you're not the only one who has noticed them.

The enemy archers on the opposite hill have also caught sight of them and are preparing their arrows, wrapping the tips in cotton material, dipping them in tar and lighting them. The arrows rain down on the stranded pair. The one with the shield is catching the arrows, fending them off but the shield is slowly being chipped away. There are gashes on it, and the edges are all notched and broken. There are arrows stuck in the face of it and it is becoming heavier and heavier.

Out of the corner of your eye you see a movement. You see what looks at first glance like a huge, square turtle trundling over the field. You look again and see that it is a gang of soldiers who have grouped together, linking their shields in front, down the sides, above the heads of the group. They make their way across to the besieged pair, they surround them and bring them into the middle of protective structure and escort them to safety.

Having done so the turtle returns to the fight, storms the hill where the archers are and drives them from the battle field.

The shield is distinctive as a piece of armour, because it is most effective when used together with other shields. When it is used like this it also becomes a mechanism for attack on the strongholds of the enemy.

I reckon that faith is like that.

Why Pray?

2008-03-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

As natural as breathing. That's how people describe something that just happens, something you don't have to think about it, something your body looks after for you. Nobody asks Why breathe? It's obvious. If you don't breathe you're going to die. And we don't ask, "Why breathe?" because, generally, that's not much chance of us deciding not to.

The thing is, that prayer is as vital for our spiritual life as breathing is for our physical life. In the same way that breathing brings in the oxygen that allows our bodies to function, and gets rid of the poisons that our bodies produce, so prayer brings in the power of God to our spirit and allows God to take away the poisons that build up in our spirit.

There is, however, one big problem. Prayer is not as natural as breathing. It does not come easy and we do have to think about it and make an act of will to meet with God and communicate. And, even worse, it's not enough to know in our heads, we have to allow our spiritual gasping for breath to change the way we act and do things.

We need the conviction and inspiration of the Holy Spirit to enable us to do the thing we want to do, to meet with our Father, our friend, our comforter, our lover, day by day and communicate about life and living. Until it does become as natural as breathing. What we're going to do this morning is look at three modifications of the question, "Why pray", the answers to which might help us to move a little more of our head knowledge to our hearts and help us breathe a little easier.

Continued here...

Persecuted for Righteousness?

2008-03-22T14:18:00.000-07:00

Summer's finally here, so we've been told all this week. The thermometer's hit the roof, and pallid knees are being exposed across the nation. Summer's here so are we in shape for it?

It's been a tough week this week. Lots going on, and to top it off, preparing something to say this morning. And the more I read this verse and thought about it, and read about it, the less I could think about what to say.

I've been doing an extension studies theology course recently. It's very good, I'd recommend it, if you want details ask me later. One of things we've looked at is about how we can read the Bible and understand the teaching so that we can apply it to our lives. To do this, we've been using a 6 step process.

As I said, I've been really struggling thinking about what I was going to say this morning. This verse bought up for me a load of questions and issues and not many answers. It didn't seem to me that it fitted nicely into the pattern of the other beatitudes. So I thought that we would explore it together this morning, using the step by step approach and I'd encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit to speak what He wants to this morning.

Continued here...

Encountering God in Work

2008-03-22T14:11:00.000-07:00

Last week, Charlie talked about the various amounts of time that he’d calculated he would be spending in various activities in his life. Now, I reckon that I’m going to spend about 83,200 hours of my life working, about 20% of my waking hours. That’s quite a big chunk and if I’m not Encountering God in my work that’s quite a big chunk of life God will be missing from.

And I don’t believe that God wants to be missing from 20% of our lives, I believe that God loves us and is interested and involved in everything we do, including our work and therefore we can Encounter God in our work.

For some of us that is a new idea
For some of us it is an idea we have heard before but we’ve forgotten it
For others it will be something we do experience but hunger to experience even more

As I speak I am aware that I don’t put all this into practice and that I fall well short of the vision that I hope to communicate, of how it could be. I’m also aware that my experience of work is limited, both in time and variety. So the challenge to me and to us all, is to take the principles from this sermon and ask God if and how they could be applied to our working lives.

Continued here...

Advent 4 - Mary

2008-03-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

During Advent, this time of waiting and preparation before Christmas, our services have been themed around, “The Return of the King”. We started by thinking about the quality of our wait for the return of our King, Jesus. Are we fearful, unsure what to expect, or expectant and focussed. We went on to start thinking about our level of activity during the wait. The story of John the Baptist showed us that we are to be waiting actively, preparing the way, in our own hearts and in the world. Last week, in the context of the Christingle service, we saw that part of that preparation is for us to be Christ’s light in the world.

Today is the last Sunday of Advent, and we’re going to look at another aspect of the preparation of the way, in our hearts and in the world.

As we heard in the reading we are taking our example from Mary, the mother of Jesus. Although we are reading this story on the Sunday before Christmas Day, she would have had this experience 9 months ago. She has been waiting and preparing for the birth of her son since then, and probably is by now even more impatient for Christmas Day than we are.

The brief dialogue we have heard started Mary’s time of waiting and helped to sustain her through that wait and preparation for Jesus’ birth, and I believe that it can help to sustain us through our wait and preparation for Jesus’ return.

Continued here...

Advent 4 - Joseph

2008-03-22T13:59:00.000-07:00

They say that you wait ages for a bus to come along, and then two come along together. Well, here I am again for the second time in a month and, not only that, it’s the same Sunday as I talked on last year, The last Sunday of Advent, the last Sunday before Christmas. Last year, the reading focussed on Mary, and I felt fairly out of my depth trying to identify with a 15 year old, unmarried, newly pregnant, woman. This year, the reading focuses on Joseph, which, on the face of it puts me in a better starting position. If it weren’t for the fact that Joseph was in a fairly unusual situation.

Let’s walk this through. Joseph was a righteous man, a just man. So why didn’t he have Mary stoned? How would you feel? Your fiancé comes to you and says she’s pregnant, but you know you haven’t slept with her, and not only that but she says and angel told her it was from God.

I’d be devastated, angry, lashing out, vindictive. And the law says, in Deuteronomy that Joseph would have been well within his rights to have her stoned. But he didn’t. Not because he was merciful, but because he was just.

Continued here...

Helmet of Salvation

2008-03-22T13:44:00.000-07:00

Equipment lists. I’m sure you’re all familiar with them. You’re starting a new school and it consists of the correct number of sweatshirts, socks, football shirts, all with name tags. You’re going to camp and it’s all sleeping bags, knives and forks and warm clothing. Name tags again. You’re off to college and it’s mostly books, books which seem to cost more than you’ve ever spent on books before. And you’d better put your name in these or you’ll never see them again.

Now we’ve spent the last few weeks working our way through a spiritual equipment list, the Armour of God. We’ve gathered together our belt, our breastplate, our footware and last week we got our shield, the shield of faith. Nick shared with us a key reason for making sure we have our shield of faith, for without it, “arrows ignited in the flames of hell can pierce us and inflame our hearts against God”.

So, this week, we’re moving on to look at the next item on our equipment list, the Helmet of Salvation. Last week it was our hearts. This week it’s our heads. And part of what this is about is learning to use what’s in our heads, our minds, for Christ. So there’s some practice for us in this sermon. There are loads of questions in this sermon and the answers I suggest are my answers. They’re answers that I’ve come to after looking at the Bible, reading what other Christians have written and praying. But they’re still my answers. Are they yours?

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The Bible

2008-03-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

We went to New Wine, a great big Christian conference/holiday a couple of weeks ago. One of the things about that type of event is that you have the opportunity to get some in depth Bible teaching. Every morning we'd take the kids to their groups and head along to the Big Top for worship and word.

One of the elements of this that made an impact on me was how the guy who taught that week held his Bible as he taught. He'd stand there, holding his Bible like this, like something wonderfully precious, like something he didn't want to let fall, like something he wanted to devour. His posture reminded me of how Tabitha, my nearly 5 year old daughter, looks when she's discovered something wonderful to her that she wants not to lose but to examine and wonder over.

But it wasn't the physical book that was inspiring this reaction, it was the content. Here was someone whose very posture communicated his love for the word of God, someone for whom this book clearly contained honey for his lips. When I started thinking about what I was going to say tonight, I remembered this bloke and thought it would be good to share some of the things about the Bible that stir up those reactions in me, and to make an opportunity for us to discover or rediscover a love for God's words.

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Grace - Come Thirsty

2008-03-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

Last week we started off on our journey through Lent, a journey that will explore some of the ideas of spiritual refreshment that are presented in the “Come Thirsty” course. Charlie invited us to come and drink at a well, the well of God’s refreshment for us.

We were introduced to the idea that the word “Well” can remind us of four of the key actions that make up the process of receiving God’s refreshment for the spiritual thirst we feel. We can think of the letters that make up the word WELL standing for Work, Energy, Lordship and Love.

For us to fully receive God’s refreshment, we need to receive Christ’s work on the cross, receive the energy of the Holy Spirit, receive God’s Lordship over our lives and receive God’s unending, unfailing love.

Over the next few weeks, leading up to Easter we will be thinking about each of these in turn, and this week we are focussing on the first of these: receiving Christ’s work on the cross.

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The Vision for the Finances of St Mary’s

2008-03-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

Over the last weeks we’ve been looking in our Sermon Series at the development of the Vision for St Mary’s.

We have a Big Vision: to see God’s Kingdom extended out of the centre of Luton. We have a Big Aim: to build a strong church of disciples of Jesus Christ, reaching out to others. And we have a Big Challenge: to resource and nurture the growth of a healthy, Anglican, cell-based church.

Taking us towards this Vision is the River of the Life of this church. Giving us a framework to achieve our Aim are the streams of Worship, Prayer, Social Action, Discipleship, Relationships and Evangelism. Giving us the means to meet our Challenge are the banks of the river: the church’s Relational and Physical resources. This morning, we are going to look at the financial resourcing of the vision.

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Christmas 2 - Epiphany

2008-03-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

Tonight, getting towards the end of the Christmas season, we’re thinking about Epiphany. On Christmas day we celebrated what is called the Incarnation, that is when God became human. But in some senses today’s celebration is more important . That’s because it’s only through Epiphany that we know what God is up to.

A baby in a manger is all very well, but so what? Now, with the benefit of hindsight we know something about the, “so what”, because of what Jesus did and said, because of what he showed us about himself. And this is what Epiphany means. It means a revelation of something, usually something spiritual, to someone. Celebrating Epiphany is about celebrating the fact that God is a God of revelation and about considering what our response to that revelation will be.

In the reading we’ve just had we had an example of an Epiphany. This was when the Magi, or Wise Ones, from the east came to worship Jesus.

From this story I’d like to concentrate on two things. Firstly how does God make revelations, that is, from where will epiphanies come to us? Secondly, what are possible reactions to these revelations?

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Shape Up For Summer

2008-03-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

Shaping up for summer. Is it just me, or has the frequency of the Weight Watchers ads on the TV increased recently? It’s that time of year, isn’t? Christmas came and it was great and we tucked in to turkey and all the trimmings. New Year came and we made resolutions and took out Gym memberships, but then it was Easter and all those Easter Eggs. Now, it’s April, the summer is looming and we really do want to get into shape.

Which is great, but as Paul wrote to Timothy, “Physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”

I’ve been given the task of introducing what, as far as I can make out, is a 4 month sermon series, leading into the summer and giving us plenty of time to work on getting into a much more important shape, a Godly shape. I am, in effect, the text scrolling up the screen at the beginning of a Star Wars movie. I’m going to do the same job as that text. We’ll have a look at a bit of the background to the story, introduce ourselves to some of the language, and set ourselves up to make the most of the next 16 weeks.

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In Prison

2008-03-16T08:18:00.000-07:00

Paul is in prison. He had come to this city in response to a vision he had experienced of a man of the area asking him to come over and help. On arrival in the city he had gone to the local place of worship, as was his normal practice and engaged in conversation with those who were there. Some of them were convinced by what he had to say, and invited him, and his companions to stay with them. But Paul is one of those blokes who just can't seem to stay out of trouble. He ends up getting into conflict with some of the worthies of the town and thrown into this prison.

Paul is in prison, but as he repeats again and again in his letters, rejoice in all circumstances. And he walks the walk, or in this case sings the songs. As he and his companions praise God, there is an earthquake, the prison doors burst open and they are free to go. The Jailer rushes in, ready to kill himself because he thinks that the prisoners will have escaped, but Paul stops him, “Do not harm yourself, we are all here.” The grateful Jailer brings Paul out and asks what he must do to be saved. He comes to believe in Jesus, and he and his household are baptised that night.

The next day the city authorities release Paul and his companions, but ask them to leave the city, which after a few encouraging words to the fledgling believers, they do.

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It's Just so Rich

2008-03-16T07:54:00.000-07:00

There is something fantastic about fudge shops. When you go to your local Tesco's you know that you can buy fudge, but it's likely to be own brand, mass produced, only one or two flavours available. We went to the Lake District for our holidays and we stayed in Ambleside. In that town there are a couple of fudge shops. All they sell is fudge. You go in and there are wall to wall, ceiling to ceiling shelves, all stacked with locally produced fudge. Every flavour you can imagine. The choice and the richness of the food is paralysing. You know that you can't try every flavour quickly, it would be self-defeating, you'll be sick. You have to have a little at a time, trying different types on different days.

As we come to this next chunk of Paul's letter to the church in Philippi, I think that this is a good image to have in our minds. This poem is scripture at its richest, with layers of meaning and depth. All I can hope to do tonight is invite you to taste some of the flavours that have struck me as I have chewed over it during the last week, and encourage you to keep on soaking in it over the coming week.

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