Love and Obey

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.

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Who's your hero?

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.

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Obedience, worship, and faith

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.

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A Call to Action

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.

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How much is enough?

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.

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Bending the Knee

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.

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The Top of the Hill

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.

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Where is God?

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.

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Whose Image?

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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Are you coming or going?

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.

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What do you see in the world around you?

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.

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Slavery and Freedom

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.

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Advent 4 - Mary

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.

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Helmet of Salvation

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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Shape Up For Summer

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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